Hey Accelerators! 🚀 This week, we’re diving into the legal essentials for business owners with David Seidman, a top corporate and real estate attorney who’s represented Fortune 500 companies, C-suite executives, and even taken cases to the Supreme Court! David shares actionable advice on avoiding costly mistakes, managing contracts effectively, and understanding how to optimize your legal team for success.
What’s on the Menu:
💼 Why “boilerplate contracts” can cost you big time.
🔍 The importance of aligning trust and estate documents with corporate agreements.
💡 How AI and paralegals can reduce legal costs while improving efficiency.
Why Tune In?
David’s 20+ years of experience make this episode a masterclass in navigating the legal landscape for entrepreneurs and business owners. Learn how to save money, avoid legal headaches, and build a solid foundation for your business.
💬 Gem from David:
“You don’t hire a generalist to solve a specific problem—your business deserves a specialist.”
Get in Touch with David:
📧 Visit SeidmanLawGroup.com to connect with David and explore his legal services.
Don’t miss out—hit that subscribe button and let’s take your business from zero to a hundred! 💥
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Watch the episode here
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Essential Legal Strategies For Business Owners With David Seidman
David Seidman, thank you for joining us.
It’s my pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Before we dive in, I’ve started by asking a fun question. You gave me this prompt and I love it. What is your saying that you find yourself coaching your clients with or a mantra or motto that you have about your business consistently?
First of all, thank you. I do find it very interesting to hear what other people say to their clients. Lord only knows how many times I have adopted what someone else has said without footnoting them. Feel free to not footnote me if you use this. What I like to say is you can’t fight the river. If things are heading in a certain direction, there are many times that’s what’s happening. You could either go with it or automatically fight a losing battle. The second part of that is my wife and I enjoyed what many people think was a pretty awful movie, which is The Saint with Elisabeth Shue and Val Kilmer.
You can't fight the river. Share on XAdmit Everything
There’s a scene in the movie where Val Kilmer advises this guy to admit everything. I use it professionally as well. There are bad facts often and you can’t get around them. What is the best thing to do? Admit that it’s a bad fact. Do what you can to use it to your advantage. In all walks of life, whether it be dealing with my wife every once in a while, I say, “That’s right. I said I’d be home at 9:00 and now, it’s 10:30.” What am I going to do? Lie? No. I admit that’s the situation and then I explain why.
Let’s put that in a business context. A bad fact, how can a business owner in a negotiation use that to their benefit?
I’ll use intellectual property as a great example. You may have realized, “I never got a trademark but I’ve been using this logo for twelve years.” You’re asked, “Why, in God’s name, did you never trademark this?” The answer to that is, “You’re right. I probably should have registered this with the Feds but you know what though, I still have common law rights.” It’s not too late because it goes back to the first date of use versus saying, “You’re right. I screwed up.”
You start acting apologetically about something of that nature. If there are certain say refunds, whether it be a consumer or some manufacturing supply agreement that you have to explain what happened, it’s like, “They overordered. They are responsible for getting it back to me. Our contract says that they are responsible for the shipping.” There’s all this extra inventory but it’s not as bad as it looks.
Let’s stay on that topic a bit. You are a seasoned business attorney. What I would like for you to talk about for our audience of business owners and entrepreneurs is some of the pitfalls that you consistently see business owners putting themselves in and how to avoid them.
The Importance Of The Boilerplate
One phrase that I hear all the time is, “It’s just the boilerplate,” when they are talking about contracts. “It’s the boilerplate” is how I make money. “I draft the boilerplate. I analyze it and tell you this is what’s going to get you in the boilerplate.” It drives me crazy when I hear business owners say, “Don’t worry about it. I signed it. The price and quantity were right. I didn’t even bother looking or worry about the boilerplate.” I don’t understand why very smart business people make that mistake on a regular basis.
Another mistake that is often made that you would think is common sense at times but is not is, “My brother is a divorce attorney but I had him look at my lease.” Intuitively, it makes sense. I have a medical problem. My elbow hurts. I don’t call my eye doctor. Even if my eye doctor is my brother, I don’t call him. That’s how it is. Sometimes they’re very elemental things where you shake your head. You do your best not to chuckle when you’re in a situation. It’s already hit the fan and you’re trying to figure out why you’re in that situation already. I wish you called me at the beginning versus when it’s going to cost you a lot.
What you’re saying is as a business owner, you need to make sure that you have the right attorney who has expertise in the field or the need that you have. I have a contract attorney, land use attorney, regular real estate attorney, trademark attorney, and attorneys out the wazoo. Everyone has a specialty. As a business owner, a generalist is not the best thing for you.
It’s not necessarily that a generalist is not good for you. You need to know what that person does. I’m a business attorney. I understand real estate and corporate law, whether it be drafting and negotiating contracts, M&A-related work, or certain issues between vendors. I do all of that. I certainly understand commercial real estate, to go back to that, very well but I would never do land use work or state and local tax work. I don’t do that.
If you had a pension question, all I could do is commit malpractice by trying to answer an ERISA question. That would be the dumbest thing I could do. My malpractice carrier would drop me. If I tried answering any question about any pension, that would be a big old mistake. You need to somehow manage the two and someone who’s going to be honest with you in terms of what they do and sometimes what it would take to figure out what’s going on.
Sometimes having someone look into it for 1 hour or 2 might be better versus someone who’s going to give you an off-the-cuff answer for 5 minutes. Other times, if you want me to read the property tax code for ten hours to try to think of something, that’s not going to happen. I was once hired to do that. I once had a banker say to me, “David, you’re a smart guy. You’re going to come up with some arguments to reduce the value of this building. I’m going to hire you to read The Illinois property tax code.”
I came up with nothing new whatsoever. It was money down the toilet. It was a wonderful compliment. I felt great being told, “You read it and see what you come up with.” How was I going to use these skills that I obtained playing Monopoly growing up to come out with some property exemption, easement, or abatement? That wasn’t going to happen.
You’ve referred to it as door law. When you’re a business owner, how do you avoid a knock-on-a-door law?
I remember one example from early in my career. It’s common sense. I once heard a story about a business owner who wanted to save money on the cost of an immigration attorney. He hired an associate within the firm for free and had the associate look into what it was going to take to keep his girlfriend in the country.
Lo and behold, the associate who had never done anything in immigration law before messed up. He had to wind up marrying his girlfriend. As the story goes, I was told he ultimately said to the associate after this happened, “I can’t marry the client every time you screw up.” I mean it when I say use common sense. If someone says they can do everything, do not trust them.
These are great allegories that you’re giving. What’s important for the audience is to understand how to approach an attorney when they have a need, whether it is a partnership negotiation, a contract negotiation, negotiating terms for services with one of your third-party vendors, how to set the right expectations for your client, and how to approach the attorneys so you’re extrapolating the most value and making sure you’re controlling your cost at the same time.
You have to be upfront and honest with what your concerns are. You need to say, “This is not IBM and Exxon negotiating this billion-dollar deal. Tell me, what’s it going to take? Give me a rough estimate. I’m not even going to hold you to it initially.” Feel free to say, “How many hours do you think this is going to take?” It’s no different than any other business agreement or negotiation. The first thing you have to do is ask. Much of this is common sense.
In many ways, that’s the lesson I want business owners to have and I share all the time. They say, “The law doesn’t always make sense.” You have enough sense because you’re a smart person to ask the right questions and tell me honestly what is bothering you. Tell me the problems that you’ve had before or you’ve heard others in the industry have had that concern you. Be forthright and use common sense. It’s a lot of stuff your parents told you growing up or any other business relationship. There’s no magic or secret.
You have enough sense because you're a smart person to ask the right questions. Share on XIt’s also a safe space when you’re talking to an attorney. You can cut to the chase. You don’t have to do the small talk. You can say, “This is what I need. These are what my concerns are.” Come up with a plan to solve that problem.
“This is what I need. This is a contract I use all the time. I want you to look at this.” What I think is best is to say, “You read this. Tell me what’s in it. If there’s a thought that enters your mind while reading it, share it with me. It doesn’t mean I need it done or I want it done. I’m going to pay you to do something else but share your thoughts. That helps.”
How important is it for your attorney to review the contracts that you have in place, whether it’s between you and partners or between you and vendors? How frequently should it be done? Some people are working with contracts that could be ten years old. They keep recycling the same contract.
When it’s your contract that you’re sending to others, it’s good to have them reviewed periodically, probably every 2 to 3 years. Technology changes. There are many people, for example, who probably have nothing in their contracts about AI. If you’re using a ten-year-old contract, there’s nothing about the use of AI in the performance that you’re engaging in or the other side might be engaging in. At other times, and I’m going to use IBM or Exxon as an example, they’re going to give you a contract. Do you know what you say? “Thank you very much. I’m going to sign it.” You can’t fight the river.
AI And Contracts
It’s interesting that you brought up AI and contracts. Let’s lean into that a bit. Tell me more about how business owners should be looking at incorporating language around AI in their contracts. What does it mean? A lot of business owners, myself included, don’t even know where to start when it comes to the conversation around contracts, obligations, and AI.
The first thing is to ask, “Are you using AI in your performance,” especially in a services contract and vice versa? If you know that you’re using it, you should be ready to tell the other side, “I’m using it.” Each state is coming up with different laws. Departments within each state are coming up with their regulations. You need to know what the heck is going on. The second thing is when someone says that they’re using AI to determine whether they’re using AI.
You might be creating a situation where you’re creating a headache for yourself that isn’t necessary. While I am certainly not an expert in AI itself or AI versus machine learning and all these other things, find out what the heck it is. You might realize, “I don’t need to worry about this in any way, shape, or form.” When it comes to AI and contracts, a lot of times, you want to know whether someone else used AI to create their contract. I’ve wound up asking others, “Did you ask ChatGPT to create your license agreement?” Lo and behold, that’s what they did.
Can you tell the difference between an AI-generated contract and a contract generated by a seasoned attorney?
Yeah. That’s a great question because in light of AI and so many of the free agreements that one can find online, about 95% of the work is already done if you pick the right form of agreement. What you’re hiring me and so many other people who know what the heck we’re doing as attorneys is that additional 5%, “Where am I going to get sued?” It’s the definition of a force majeure.
During pre-COVID, people probably didn’t have health epidemics, pandemics, or things like that. Someone who read it and then added something like that in there was in much better shape than someone who did not have that in there. That’s the 5%. Another one is indemnification. Let’s say you’re a very IP-heavy company. You need to make sure that your IP is always protected. If they disclose something, you won’t be sued because they screwed up or whatever it might be. That’s another example of a clause where that extra 5% could save you a lot of headaches.
Hourly Vs. Flat Rate Attorney Fees
I’m hiring you to do the 5%. There are various ways that you can approach hiring a business attorney or whatever type of attorney that you hire. Can you give me the difference between hourly versus flat rate and how to make the decision as a business owner to how you should be engaging your attorney?
The first question you have to ask yourself is how concerned are you about cost. For some people, the difference between $2,000 and $3,000 in hiring an attorney is a very big deal. For other people, they say, “That’s another two hours. Get it right. I’m not going to sweat it.” That time permeates the entirety of a relationship. Something you and I have talked about is when you’re the client or a business owner, every time you call, you feel a little bit of pain, as they would say in behavioral economics. You know that you’re paying for that phone call every time you pick up the phone. If you have a monthly retainer, that even may be trued up at the end of a month or a quarter. You know you’ve already paid for that phone call or you’re going to pay for that phone call as part of your agreement.
As a result, you don’t feel that pain. You’re more likely to call and either ask a question about something that’s troubling you, something that you heard, or maybe someone else in the industry had heard. It’s maybe something you read in the news. Whatever it might be, you’re more likely to call. You might likely call for 5 or 10 minutes. That could save you from a world of hurt. You didn’t say, “I can’t believe I spent 10 minutes with this guy and he’s costing me $90,” or whatever it might be. That makes sense as a business person. We’re attorneys. We own our firms as well. We’re business people, too. We’re sympathetic.
Since we’re on the topic of cost for your legal team. When you’re a business that does a lot of contract volume, when does it make sense to potentially bring a paralegal on to handle some of the more routine tasks?
I’m going to circle back to something that we talked about. In many ways, there are times when if AI might solve something, that’s probably something for a paralegal to do. You need someone smart, dedicated, knows how to manage a schedule very well, and will make sure things get done on time. Paralegals are great at that. With their paralegal training, they still have a sense of what some of the legal issues might be.
I also think that paralegals are good for scheduling when you are in certain industries as well with a very heavy IP portfolio. While your IP attorney is maintaining the schedule and you have to renew things or a patent might expire, managing that well internally is worth it. It’s not going to cost you a whole hell of a lot. The difference between having it and not having it could be extraordinarily costly.
What size do you need to be as a company for it to make financial sense?
I would read my legal bill. Not necessarily for the amount but what the tasks are. It’s not necessarily about size. If certain things are repetitive and filed with the government, whether it’s real estate, where you have your deeds, assignments, and so on, that may be a time when you need one, regardless of how big your business is. You can hire a fractional paralegal as well. You don’t need to have one full-time.
I didn’t even know that that was an option to hire a fractional paralegal. What is the process to even go out and find one? What does something like that look like in terms of cost?
It’s funny. For starters, you should have faith in your attorney that he or she will put you in the right direction to find one and trust that person. If you’re going to do it yourself, quite frankly, spend ten minutes on Google and see what’s out there. Get a feel for what there is. If you’re a real estate company, feel free to add a real estate paralegal to your search. Get a sense of what it is and then maybe ask me, “David, what are you thinking? What do you think would be a fair hourly rate?” Say you’re buying 10 hours, what would be a fair rate for 10 hours’ worth of work? If you can’t trust me to answer that question, I don’t think you should trust me with most of anything.
It’s funny because I thought a paralegal had to work at a law firm. I didn’t realize that a paralegal could be an independent contractor that you can hire.
I didn’t know that for a long time either. Don’t feel so bad. It turned out someone I know who happens to be a divorce attorney said, “I have all these documents. I need to get to the other side about all these financial statements and whatnot. I brought in somebody for 5 or 10 hours to help me.” I said, “I didn’t know you could do that.” That’s how I learned.
Cost-Saving Strategies: Cost Segregation And Energy Procurement
Let’s switch gears a little bit. Thank you for that because those are some knowledge bombs that our audience will love, such as being able to hire a paralegal. Make sure you have the proper disclosures around AI and your contracts because that is happening. If you’re not using AI in your business, look out. You’re going to run into some trouble because I use it in my business all the time. It is helping us grow. Let’s talk a little bit more about some cost-saving strategies from a legal standpoint that you have helped business owners implement into their businesses. It’s things such as cost segregation or energy procurement to save them money.
Your client expects you to know a lot beyond the law. It doesn’t mean you need to know the entire history of the Roman Empire. It means that you should understand basic things about real estate. Let’s say you have a manufacturer who owns a building. Talk to your accountant. “Have you thought about cost segregation?” This might save you a lot of money and you can have someone report for nothing. If your accountant says, “It’s a good idea. Your building has been fully depreciated,” or whatever it might be, then it turns out to be nothing.
Lo and behold, if on the other hand, this person can spend $15,000 on a report and save $150,000 on their taxes, they will love you. In every business, there’s nothing better than the person you pay returning money to you somehow, whether it be taking 10% off a bill. “You sell pencils. My friend Bill buys pencils. You should talk to Bill.” You expected to know things. It’s common sense.
I was reading an article and was on my phone in bed. I can’t even take credit for anything other than I couldn’t fall asleep. It was about how energy prices for part of the grid are going to go up 6 to 9 fold. I said to myself, “That’s a lot of money.” I read which part of the grid it is. It’s thirteen States and DC, including Illinois. I said, “My clients need to know this.” Especially because Illinois is a deregulated state, you ought to have people competing for your business. What the hell is going to happen?
It’s better for you to know this and plan for it. I can’t save you any money. I’m not going to negotiate your energy bill. I don’t know squat about FERC and energy law but what I do know is you need to call somebody. People appreciate that because many attorneys can do a great job negotiating a contract. Buying or selling a building makes you different or someone who people want to hire. You’re like a var. Think of it that way. You’re a value-added seller, not necessarily reselling.
I’m going to come back to energy. Funnily enough, I read something and it might have been in Bloomberg about energy costs going up in specific States tenfold. It’ll be sometime in 2025 when that happens.
That’s the article that I read. You and I are in the same boat on that.
Let’s talk about cost segregation. How do we capitalize on it? What is the process for those who are property owners and business owners?
Facetiously, the way you capitalize on it is calling my friend Kevin and then him take care of it. With that being said, it is a matter of talking to your accountant and finding out how much you have depreciated from your building already. Find out whether you have segregated the real property from the personal property on your taxes and know when a property was acquired. This is not necessarily a legal term but there is super duper depreciation for buildings that were acquired between 2018 and 2022. In 2023, it’s 80%. In 2024, it’s 60%.
I’m sure our audience can figure out what’s going on in the next couple of years with those tidbits of information. It’s knowing that you have to ask the question. A sophisticated real estate person like you already knows what it is. In many ways, it is talking to your manufacturing client or even your property management clients, whether it be in hotel or multifamily, “Have you talked to your clients about this? It won’t even necessarily be to my benefit but here’s a chance for you to look good to your clients.” To me, that’s the right way to introduce the conversation in a couple of different ways.
Cost segregation is accelerated depreciation on the real estate assets that you own that are commercial real estate assets. Everything has a life from the carpet to the doors and lighting. There’s a government calculation for the lifeline of each one of those items in your building. You cannot depreciate land as we all know but you can accelerate the depreciation of the physical structure and all the elements of the physical structure, which would create a very substantial tax write-off that you can use to offset your income. If you don’t use all of it, you can carry it forward. David, is there a limit to how long you can carry it forward?
I do not know. That’s another Kevin question.
We’re going to have to get Kevin on here and talk about cost segregation.
We can make that happen. Kevin is a great guy. You’ll love him.
Let’s talk about energy procurement. It was frightening to read it. How do businesses position themselves to deal with potential issues like that coming up? If energy costs go up 6 to 10X in some markets, that will kill businesses. That’s more than their profit margins.
We are not going to talk about politics but there’s a very interesting dichotomy going on. Surprisingly, more blue States have deregulated energy than red States. I don’t know why. Be that as it may, if you’re in a blue state, assume that you can have energy companies compete for your business. This is true for energy but many other things. Reverse auctions have become very popular for procurement.
In a normal auction, it is whatever goes to the highest bidder like $10 or $12. In a reverse auction, you say, “I need to buy pencils.” The first pencil seller comes in and says, “I will do it for $0.20 a pencil.” A second company will come in and say, “I will do it for $0.18 a pencil.” It drives the price down because those companies want to get the business. They will compete downward, which is therefore the reverse.
As a general proposition, companies ought to consider reverse auctions for a wide variety of things in their business, not exclusively energy. It’s a good business idea. It may not help you at all or it may. Who knows? It’s smart to check. From there, you hand over your energy bills for the last year or two to the energy broker. They analyze it and tell you what’s going on. They’ll tell you the same scary stuff, “Prices are going up no matter what. We’re helping you mitigate it.”
A lot of them will say, “You’re not paying for it.” In reality, you are not paying out of pocket upfront but you’ll pay for the energy and then a little piece will be added on every month to pay for the energy broker. You don’t necessarily feel it. A good energy broker will make sure you’re saving money versus having you not save money and then pay them for providing the service that did nothing for you.
To our audience, take a look at what is happening with your energy rates. An energy broker is someone who could potentially add value to you in the next coming year to make sure that you’re getting the best rate you possibly can on your energy cost.
Only because I plug in my friend, Kevin, I will plug in my friend Eric as well. His company is Transparent Edge. I learned quite a bit from them because they engage in the reverse auction process. There are many other companies who do it just as good of a job as they do but it makes sense. With 5 to 10 minutes on Google, you can see what’s out there and then decide if that’s what you want to do.
Asset Protection And Estate Planning
Let’s talk a little bit about strategies that you have for our audience of business owners and entrepreneurs from the asset protection standpoint and legal strategies that can help them improve their operations.
Before we talk about operations, I want to talk about the most important thing in people’s lives, and that’s family. A giant mistake that I see all the time is that people’s trust and estate documents are not consistent with their corporate documents.
You’re saying that your trust and estate documents need to be consistent with your corporate documents. Why?
Your corporate document might say, “Ownership of this company will transfer to X,” whereas your estate documents might say, “When I die, X, Y, and Z each get 1/3.” That’s a real problem. Your company may be run by person X so that person has a fiduciary duty to the company. If you name that person as trustee of the stock over the company, then the fiduciary duty you have as a trustee is very different.
One is to maximize return to the shareholder and one is to maximize what each beneficiary can get. They’re two very different hats. I encourage people to take fifteen minutes to check. I prefer you pay me but you don’t have to pay me to do that. Just check. Get peace of mind on that. That’s first and foremost. Your family is the most important asset in life. You love your family. I want to start with that.
Let’s stay with that because what if we’re talking to one of our audience members who doesn’t have anything in place if something were to happen with their company? What do they need to put in place to protect their family?
Trust and estate planning is something that everybody should have, especially with kids under the age of eighteen. I work with trust and estate planners because I don’t specialize in it. I give that to someone else to do. My best advice is to talk to somebody who knows what they’re doing, not me, or ask me who knows what the hell they’re doing and get to the right person.
From there, they need a good corporate attorney to understand what’s in their operating agreement, shareholder agreement, or bylaws, whatever it might be, to make sure of what’s going to happen if you are dead, disabled, or divorced. One of the rules I get to say to people, and I don’t get to say it in all context, mind you, is, “You don’t go into business with your business partner’s spouse.” You need to know what happens if, heaven forbid, something happens to your business partner.
It’s intuitive but it’s death, divorce, and disability. Nobody wants to think about the three Ds. They’re very bad. You pay me more than just to protect you. You pay me to bring up these things that you don’t want to think about. That’s part of what a good consultant does. I am a legal consultant but I’m sure a business process consultant needs to ask, “What happens if that machine blows up? Everything runs through Jenny. What happens if Jenny gets hit by a truck? What are you going to do then?” It’s what a good consultant does in their area.
If we’re talking about putting together the perfect legal team, are there specific legal duties in the segments of the legal business that you as the owner need to have at least in your Rolodex that you can call them if you have an issue?
It’s good to have someone who is a business attorney and outside general counsel like myself. I can handle the core issues and I know how to spot the other issues. I will wind up having a very good relationship with the business owner. You don’t have to be buddy-buddy but that personal level of trust, I have found to be very effective. Let’s say someone has a situation with immigration and I’m able to send them to an immigration attorney.
What I will also say is there are certain payroll-type services or other services that have an outsourced HR component where they know how to do it. Since you’re getting your payroll done already, maybe you ought to consider this type of service so they can help with an immigration attorney or many labor and employment issues. You don’t even need an attorney. Your legal team is unfortunately more than just your attorneys but when it comes to the attorneys themselves, you need someone who’s a quarterback. That’s most important.
Talk to me about protecting your assets.
Some things are elemental. You own a building and a business. Put the building in an LLC and put the business in a separate LLC. When someone slips and falls in front of the building, they can’t take your business. That’s a very simple thing that any corporate attorney should tell you that you need to do. Likewise, if you own 5 properties, you may want to have 5 LLCs and each has a property or you may have 2 in one and 3 in the other but at least there’s no cross-contamination.
Protect your assets! Simple steps like separate LLCs for your business and property can make a big difference. Share on XIf you are making a lot of money, my advice to you is to talk with an accountant about asset protection and then an attorney who they work with who specializes in asset protection. There are certain things that happen in the law all the time in a couple of states. Not surprisingly, Delaware has some asset protection trusts to try to protect you. Talk with someone who knows what they’re doing and have a team. You trust your accountant for a reason. Ask them for advice in addition to asking me if I know someone. Getting two names is even better than getting one name. You’ll feel who you feel most comfortable with making sure you don’t lose $10 million because you did the wrong thing.
Post-Pandemic Legal Trends
You’ve given us some good takeaways and little snippets on the things that we can do to improve our legal structure as business owners. Give me some insights into some post-pandemic trends that you’ve seen in the legal field that we need to be aware of as business owners.
During post-pandemic, everybody has been rereading their leases and seeing when their leases come up to figure out what the heck they can do if something happens. We’ve all heard stories about people who couldn’t pay their lease, who tried to get out of their lease, and so on. That trend continued since 2020. More people are hiring the right attorneys to negotiate their leases in a way they didn’t years ago.
One of the major trends that’s also a real estate trend is many loans are coming due in 2025 and 2026. There’s this talk about all these big office properties that have their loans coming due. Everybody is reading all of their loan documents, everything from the loan and security agreement to the inter-creditor agreement, whether there’s mez debt or PIK interest in something. “Three years later, after that PIK, I owe $160 million on this $100 million loan.” That’s a trend that I’m seeing and those are in the real estate world.
In the intellectual property world, I am seeing more people realize that they have intellectual property. They’re also worried about what people are scraping for free off of their website. There’s nothing you can do about it. If something’s out there publicly and free, they can get it. No matter what your terms of use are on your website, you’re making it free. Whether it be LinkedIn or whoever trying to figure out about your company, they’re going to use it.
There’s another trend that I’m seeing in the corporate world. The price of debt is going up so I’m seeing more seller notes than I did years ago, where the owner, to sell his or her business, is saying, “You can’t go to the bank and get a loan out of this $1 million purchase price if you can give me a little bit more upfront. I will take more debt that will be paid over the next couple of years. I want to be out.” That is a trend that people need to pay attention to who are interested in selling their businesses. They may have to do that, especially if they’re not selling to a private equity firm who has better access to bank debt.
Those are some things that are on my radar that were not on my radar. It’s incredibly helpful for our audience. We’re going to do the lightning round or the rapid-fire section.
I feel like I’m on a game show.
I’ll tell you the prize that you win at the end.
I can’t wait.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee.
It is a zombie apocalypse. You have to get out of your home and protect your family. What is your weapon of choice?
The pen. It is mightier than the sword. I can get help somehow with it.
You can make a big poster saying, “Help me.” What is one of your favorites or a book that you would recommend for business owners that is a must-read?
The book I’m reading, which I recommend, is Optimum Illusions. It’s about how the optimal answer or solution may not be the optimal solution when you look at all the factors. Sometimes with seeking optimization, you lose quite a bit in the process. Don’t be so crazy about optimizing. The very good Ken should not be the enemy of the perfect.
Dead or alive, if you had the opportunity to have dinner with anyone, who would it be and why?
It’s my daughter who is living in Israel. I miss her. I’m not going to lie. She has me in the palm of her hand.
Give us three money-saving tactics for 2025.
On a personal note, pick something that you hate about yourself and you may curse a lot. Have the F jar or whatever it might be. Secondly is similar to that. Whenever you have an idea, and it may not necessarily be about cost saving, write it down. My wife has a not-so-nice way of talking about the pad that I should carry around. For you, we’ll call it the cost-saving pad. The third thing is about saving. Credit card processing continues to go down. It is warm to your heart as I say that but payment processing has become so extraordinarily competitive. Ask.
Audience, you know that that was not a plug that I asked him to make either. It’s from the horse’s mouth, as they say. The last question for you is what is the biggest obstacle that you have had to overcome to build the success that you have in your business?
Time management. It is very easy to go down the rabbit hole for an idea. I’m a huge Notre Dame football fan so it’s easy to take half an hour a day seeing what’s going on with recruiting and who’s injured for the next game. It’s very easy to do that. What’s going to happen is it’s going to hurt your business because, at the end of the day, I’m going to want to be with my family. I don’t want to carve into that time. I’ve had to figure out how to still enjoy my family, read a book when I have a couple of minutes, get all my work done, and then spend time with my son and my wonderful wife. If I don’t pay attention to her, then I have much bigger problems than what’s going on with my law firm.
Time management is crucial for success. Don't let distractions derail your business and personal life. Share on XThere we go. David, thank you so much. Tell the audience where they can connect with you if they want to reach out.
First, I want to thank you because this was great. I’ll give you Kevin’s information or whatever it might be. I’d be very happy to do this again. You can reach me at SeidmanLawGroup.com. If you want to read more insights that I have about whatever floats my interest at that moment in time, there’s a blog there. Reach me on my cell phone because like you and every other business owner, the cell phone is everything. My number is (312) 399-7390. I only share it with people who I like. I trust you, Jarrod. That means I trust the people who are reading this. You have to give it whether you like it or not. I can’t fight the river. I’m just handing it out.
David Seidman, thank you for joining us.
It’s my pleasure.
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About David Seidman
David represents a range of corporate, C-level executive, and sports-related clients as their outside general counsel and trusted advisor. As an investor multiple companies, he is particularly attuned to pursuing business-focused solutions to legal issues.
His primary areas of practice are corporate and real estate law. Clients rely on his advice regarding financing, contract drafting and negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, and risk mitigation. At times, his advice is tailored to a particular transaction or agreement. Other times, his advice assists clients foresee legal risks stemming from legal and business transformative events. Current engagements include multiple hotel developments, a hotel management company, a boxing management company, and a mental health software company.
His secondary area of practice is dispute prevention and resolution. His corporate and real estate experience enables him to advise clients and negotiate agreements with the goal of resolving commonly litigated issues before they arise. This experience also helps him work with clients, judges, and opposing counsel to resolve disputes after they arise. When litigation or arbitration is necessary, he fights to win.
Before he moved to Chicago with his family in 2003, David clerked for the Honorable William D. Stiehl of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois from 1998-99. He then moved to Washington, DC where he focused on international transportation law, which included his significant participation in a case from the trial level all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where his client’s position was affirmed. Federal Maritime Commission v. South Carolina State Ports Authority, 535 U.S. 743 (2002).
