Bobadilla v. They Said
There's a phrase that shows up in almost every early conversation I have with a small business owner. It comes in different forms but it's always the same thing underneath.
I have to sign this lease as presented. I have to accept their payment terms. I have to give them 90 days notice. I have to use their contract. I have to do it this way because that's how it's done.
My first question is almost always the same one: who says?
Not to be difficult. Because the answer is usually nobody, and the assumption that something is fixed when it's actually negotiable is one of the most consistently expensive habits in small business. It doesn't feel like a habit. It feels like reality. That's what makes it expensive.
The Rent Abatement Conversation
A business owner was working through a commercial lease. They'd found a space they liked, the landlord had sent over a draft, and they were getting ready to sign. The rent looked reasonable. The term was manageable. They were excited.
They mentioned it in passing and I asked a few questions. Had they asked about rent abatement? Did they know what a delayed effective date was? Had they pushed back on the personal guarantee?
They hadn't. Not because they were inexperienced or careless. Because nobody had told them those things were on the table. The landlord's first draft was the only draft they'd seen and it hadn't occurred to them that a different version was possible. They were about to commit to full rent from day one of a buildout that was going to take months, because the document in front of them didn't mention that business owners negotiate this all the time and landlords expect it.
Five minutes changed the shape of that deal. Not because the law required it. Because someone asked ‘who says?’.
The Meter Problem
The billable hour does something to how business owners think about lawyers that mostly doesn't get named directly. It trains them not to call.
Every question has a cost attached to it. So people pre-filter. Before they pick up the phone they run a mental calculation: is this question worth starting a meter? Is my problem real enough, specific enough, urgent enough to justify the invoice that comes after? And a lot of questions that should get asked don't, because the person on the other end decided in advance that they probably didn't warrant the cost.
The problem with that filter is that it operates without information. They're making a judgment about whether something matters before they know whether it matters. And the questions that get filtered out are often the ones that would have changed something. Not dramatic things. Small things. The clause they didn't know to push back on. The assumption they didn't know was wrong. The option they didn't know existed.
I built the practice on flat fees specifically because I wanted to remove that filter. When the clock isn't running, the questions can be whatever they actually are. But the filter is a habit and habits don't disappear just because the pricing structure changed. The thirty-minute call exists partly to address that directly.
You Don't Need a Polished Problem
The page says it plainly and I mean it: you don't need a specific problem or a document in hand. You don't need a clean agenda or a fully formed question. You don't need to have done research first or know the right terminology or be certain that what you're dealing with is a legal issue.
You can show up with a list of thirty things on your plate and we can spend the time talking through what I'm actually useful for and what I'm not. That conversation has real value. Knowing which problems in your stack are legal problems and which ones aren't, knowing which ones warrant a lawyer and which ones just need a decision, knowing what the options are before you assume there aren't any, that's not a small thing for someone trying to figure out where to put their attention.
Some people come to the call with a specific contract they've been handed. Some come with a hiring situation they're not sure how to handle. Some come with a vague sense that something in their business isn't set up right and they can't quite name what. All of those are fine. What's on your mind is a complete agenda.
And if you want to send something over before we talk, you're welcome to. A contract, a document, a situation you've been turning over. It helps me run a quick conflicts check, which is just me making sure I'm not already working with someone on the other side of your situation. It also means there's a decent chance I've already started thinking about your question before you arrive. I'm a curious person and I have a hard time not reading things that get sent to me.
Sending something ahead doesn't create an attorney-client relationship. It just makes the conversation better.
What Thirty Minutes Actually Does
It's not a legal opinion. It's not a formal engagement. Nothing gets billed. No representation begins. It's a conversation where the right questions get to be asked and where you leave knowing more than you came in with.
Sometimes that's enough on its own. You needed to know whether something was worth worrying about and now you do. You needed to know whether a document was standard or unusual and now you have a read on it. You needed to know whether the thing you thought you had to do was actually required and now you know it wasn't.
Sometimes it's the beginning of something more. You figure out that what you're dealing with is something I can help with and we talk about what that looks like. Either way the call ends with you having more options than you walked in with, which is the point.
My brain and I will show up. That's the promise.
The door is open.
https://www.understoryadvising.com/prospective-client-call
- m
