Pankaj Raval (00:03)
Welcome to Letters of Intent, the podcast where we dive deep into the art and science of deal making. I’m Pankaj Raval and together with my cohost Sahil Chaudry today we are exploring a fascinating intersection.

How a business litigation attorney built his practice through social media while also helping entrepreneurs and larger businesses navigate the treacherous waters of partnership disputes and deal structures. Our guest today is my good friend and fantastic attorney, Parag Amin. Parag, how are you?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (00:27)
I’m doing fantastic. Great to be with you guys.

Pankaj Raval (00:30)
Yes, great to catch up again. Last time we were sitting around a table at Soho House in Malibu. So it’s connect again. Parag is a business litigation attorney who’s made a name for himself, not just in the courtroom, but online, where he shares insights about protecting businesses from legal crises, as well as a lot of fascinating hot takes on social and popular culture issues, if you go to his Instagram account, you’ll see he’s got some very

popular videos on there talking about the recent Cardi B and providing his insights as a trial lawyer and helping people understand, okay, what exactly is going on when she’s speaking on the witness stand. So it’s a lot of really interesting stuff. I’m sure we’ll dive into that. and runs the Law Offices of Parag L. Amin and you have your own podcast as well, From Crisis to Justice, as well as upcoming.

book titled The Entrepreneur’s Legal Crisis Guide. Parag, so great to see you again.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (01:22)
Yeah, great hanging out with you guys.

Pankaj Raval (01:24)
So let’s start, Parag, we’ve known each other for a long time. We started kind of our firms around the same time. Maybe I of years before you, but we both kind of cut our teeth in LA trying to grow our firms. What, know, from where you started to where you are today, what are the few biggest factors success that you’ve achieved so far?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (01:43)
Yeah, well, firstly, you know, congratulations to you and your success. You know, I’ve seen the growth of the powerhouse that it is today. And, you know, it’s interesting because we used to go to lunches together with some other friends who had started their practices at roughly the same time. And I think what we did all had somewhat different aspects of the law that we were all trying to practices from. So, you know, I think each of us have taken

somewhat different roles, but I think all of us also do leverage social media pretty frequently. And I think that that’s a big aspect in growing any practice today, that visibility, because I think people really follow people rather than following brands. Even if you think of some of the biggest brands in the world, a lot of it comes down to a person. You know, when somebody thinks of Apple, they think of Steve Jobs. For better or worse, when somebody thinks of Tesla or SpaceX, they think of

Elon Musk. And so I there’s a tremendous advantage to being willing to create content and put yourself out there and try to value to other people. I think there’s a karmic element to it too. You put out good value for free to other people. They see it and help somebody. They appreciate it and they might come back or might come to you as a client or refer somebody else as a client.

So I think that’s been a big aspect of things as well as constantly just wanting to become better, constantly being aware of blind spots and how to turn those blind spots into areas where you can see or have some visibility into and improve those. And overall, just trying to do a great job for clients and having fun while doing it.

Pankaj Raval (03:19)
Yeah, ahead, sorry.

Sahil (03:19)
Hey, Parag. I have seen you

have a lot of fun. I’ve seen you on Fox 5. I’ve seen your social media. You are remarkably comfortable on camera. Were you always so comfortable on camera? ⁓ Tell us a little bit about how you developed your personality.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (03:34)
Yeah, not at all. I’m naturally an introvert, which I think surprises some people. I’m an only child. And so there’s an aspect of being an only child that you spend a lot of time alone. when, the streetlights come on and your friends have to go home, you’ve got to go home too, but there’s nobody else there other than your parents. So a big aspect of that, that a big part of my personality tended to be introverted. But I think there’s an aspect of.

practice and it’s interesting because there’s also an evolution of being on camera that you just become more comfortable being yourself and maybe ironically you feel less self-conscious about things because a lot of times there’s so much going on and the more you’ve got going on maybe ironically less self-conscious you are because you just don’t have the mental bandwidth for it.

So for better or worse, you just blow and say things and sometimes it gets you into trouble. But most of the time, I think there’s somebody out there who appreciates it and appreciates that genuineness. I think a lot of times people feel it when somebody’s coming off as disingenuous and trying to pretend to be something that they’re not. And I think for anybody who’s listening, who’s considering doing something in media, that is so critical. Don’t try to be somebody you’re not. Don’t try to…

pick up on somebody else’s charisma or mimic it. Rizz as the kids call it, I guess these days. at the end of the day, I think you have to be genuine to who you are. Otherwise it’s just gonna create problems down the road.

Pankaj Raval (04:52)
Yeah.

Sahil (04:58)
I think that’s excellent advice. I mean, you have a really warm personality on camera. I’ve seen you even when you’re talking with your team in your firm or whether you’re on the you do seem very genuine. But as the world is evolving and the digital game is changing, I’ve also noticed that I see you everywhere. If I, you know, if I’m scrolling Instagram or if I’m looking through social media or like we were talking about on the news.

How do you keep up with just the technological aspect of all of this and the competition? mean, there seems like there’s an oversaturation of media, and yet you find a way to distinguish yourself. So does it require, let’s say you’re operating a small firm, do you need technical knowledge for how to compete in today’s digital landscape? How do you stay ahead of the curve?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (05:43)
That’s a question, I think.

You know, there used to be a day when I first started my practice where I had to deal with everything, everything from printing things to like printing postage. I remember struggling the first time to figure out how much postage should cost so things would actually not get sent back by USPS back to my office. And so there was a lot of that, but now luckily I’ve been privileged enough to have a great team that helps with things. So whether it’s editing videos or editing a podcast,

Pankaj Raval (05:58)
Yeah. ⁓

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (06:12)
or posting things, they help with that a lot. So for me, all I really have to know how to do is just some basic stuff like how to work the camera on my phone and hit record. A lot of times somebody else will do that these days as well. So I have to worry about that less and really just think about what might make sense in terms of an appearance opportunity came up. Does it really make sense?

for me spend the time to go there, is that really the target audience? And by the way, I don’t mean that in an offensive way, right? I mean, there’s an opportunity cost for time. If you spend one minute one place, you can’t spend it in another place. And so there’s a lot of competing interest for time. And it’s just a matter of, hey, does it really make sense? And can I really provide value to this person’s audience? But I think it’s also a process of starting to enjoy it. Because I think if you don’t enjoy something,

or find the things you enjoy in something, you’re not gonna stick to it. You’re not gonna wanna keep doing it. So I think doing that and finding a way to do it authentically helps tremendously.

Pankaj Raval (07:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, just on that point, like content creation obviously can be a little bit of a drag. You know, I do a lot of it or try to do a lot of it as you know, there’s some days where you just don’t feel like, recording content providing a hot take. do you find the joy in all Where do you find that joy?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (07:26)
So there’s this age-old piece of advice of post content every day, try to record every day. And I think that’s the biggest myth in social media. Rather than trying to put out content when you really don’t feel like it. I’ve done that, by the way, because that’s what I was told, is you have to shoot content. it would come across in my videos. They wouldn’t perform as well, because I didn’t even want to be there. So why would somebody want to watch a video where the person in the video doesn’t even really want to be there

recording it, and and I think people sense it so this comes back to that authenticity thing or is like if on a certain day you don’t feel like shooting or recording then I think skip it. I think do it on a day where you feel inspired to do it and your content is gonna be better and if you’re in that zone like slide out the time Shoot a few videos at one time rather than spreading it out because when you’re in the zone you’re in the zone and when you’re not you’re not and If you can’t get in the zone, I think within like 10 to 15 minutes

Pankaj Raval (07:53)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (08:22)
that’s probably not the right slot for that day. And it may make sense to move on and come back to it at another time.

Pankaj Raval (08:28)
It’s interesting, it also reminds me of creative work that we all have to do, right? In terms creativity, whether you’re an artist or musician or whatever, mean, any type of artist, this is kind of that same I read the book recently, again, called The War of Art, not read it, I highly recommend just posted actually on it on my social recently, just because…

Daniel Pink reminded me of the importance of just like, you know, fighting that resistance too, right? Sometimes like you’re saying, okay, like understand the resistance and maybe where that’s coming from. But also like, you know, if there’s too many days you’re feeling where you’re not, really wanting to do it, then there’s some, something has to change, right? Where you’re going to have to motivate yourself? So like, how do you, I mean, is there a way that you motivate yourself or you just kind of look for inspiration?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (09:12)
I used to try to look for motivation and.

I think that you have to be internally motivated. After seeking it externally, at the end of the day, it’s like, it’s got to be something worthwhile that you want to chase. Regardless of if you’re scrolling Instagram, looking for inspiration or YouTube, everybody does it, by the way. Everybody does it. And I still do it from time to time. But I think ultimately, it’s still got to come from you for something you really want to do. And, you know, to your point about the

The War of Art you know, it’s interesting because if you look at any creative medium, whether it’s songwriters or painters or sculptors, I think there’s a key element of it, of feeling free and of freedom. And that’s really where the best creative outcomes come from. It doesn’t come from bondage or feeling restricted in some way. And I think

got its dark side too, where a lot of artists will have these substance abuse problems because they get used to using those substances to feel free. And so it’s got a dark side to it too, but I think, I think it comes down to just feeling good with whatever it is you’re doing and in feeling like you’re actually making a genuine difference and wanting to do it and put that content out there. mean, regardless of how much you love what you do, there’s going to be an aspect of

some of it that’s just not enjoyable and that’s life. But certain things just have to be done, but I think creativity and shooting creative content doesn’t have to be one of those things. And if you’re not feeling it, then don’t record it. That’s okay.

Sahil (10:39)
So you balance this media personality, the content creation side, which is very creative, along with very serious litigation practice. And so I want to dive into kind of the meat and potatoes of what you do, business litigation, and specifically partnership disputes. So in your experience, when two people or

multiple partners are starting a business together with the best of intentions. What’s usually the first crack in the foundation? What are the things when you see people coming together, what is the first sign that you see that something’s not gonna go exactly right here?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (11:14)
There’s a point at which partners have an aligned vision about what they want to do. And we as all human beings tend to evolve and different things over time. And I think when somebody’s personal vision for what they want out of life or out of their own life changes from what their partner wants, then a lot of times that’s when the cracks start to form. So for example,

There’s one partner, let’s say in this example, they’re single, they’ve got nothing else other than this business that they really want to grow. And then you’ve got another partner who’s going down the family path and a different chapter of their life where work isn’t necessarily the only thing that they’re really focused on. There’s other competing things for their attention and they’re not able to put in the same amount of hours.

or that maybe they don’t want to. And I think a lot of times not having those candid conversations being able to openly communicate about what somebody wants creates a lot of tension, a lot of issues because those things don’t go away. Meaning when somebody doesn’t express whatever the discomfort or issue is, I think it just tends to compound and people look, there’s that confirmation bias. They just look for additional evidence to prove themselves right.

but then they’re secretly proving themselves right to themselves. And that creates this secret mental rift that then just suddenly blows up. But that rift has now gone from a crack to a huge canyon in between the two of them. And that then causes a lot of emotions to boil over and cause a lot of finger pointing where both sides will start blaming each other for what went wrong. And a lot of times,

Sahil (12:37)
Mm.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (12:52)
I think that can be avoided by some guidelines. Like I know that you guys do a lot of transactional work, operating agreements, partnership agreements. And I’ve seen them and I think that they help tremendously because having those guidelines in place tends to help with clarifying who’s got what role and what responsibility. And that many times when people get lost, they can come back to.

and be able to sort things out.

Pankaj Raval (13:17)
Yeah.

Sahil (13:17)
I can hear your

passion for business litigation and I think the chance to understand that your passion for business litigation comes from a deeply personal place. And was hoping you could share a little bit about what motivated you to get into litigation practice of law.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (13:37)
my parents immigrated to the United States from India. And like a lot of people who immigrate to the United States, they were in search of a better life. And my dad had this dream of being an entrepreneur. And I think the entrepreneurial spirit is one of the greatest things of America in terms of why people want to come here so badly. Entrepreneurs from all over the world want to come here. People are willing to die to come to the United States for an opportunity to be here. And I think that’s for very good reason.

And so my parents immigrated here. My dad wanted to start his own business. So I was born in New York and he moved my whole family from New York to Florida because he bought this store there, this convenience store. And then him and my mom were trying to make this thing successful, working 80, 90 hours a week. I stayed with my grandmother a lot of that time. They didn’t want me at the store because in those days you could smoke indoors and they had.

Sahil (14:27)
Hmm.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (14:28)
They had pool tables sold beer on premises and they didn’t really want me around that environment. I stayed at home a lot and I didn’t see my parents a whole lot during that time. And after a couple years of working tirelessly, like literally 80, 90 hours a week for example, my mom is a vegetarian. She had to make everything from like beef brisket to fried chicken, to hot dogs to be able to sell.

and just to try to make a living. so what happened is after a couple of years, the taxing authority of Florida came knocking and told my dad that he owed over $200,000 in unpaid sales taxes. And what my dad thought was it’s just a mistake, totally okay. I’ve paid my sales taxes. Don’t worry. I’ll show you the receipts that I paid them. And they said, look, there’s no mistake. So what my dad didn’t know, and this is what kills a lot of business owners is that the stuff

Sahil (15:04)
crazy.

Pankaj Raval (15:04)
my.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (15:21)
It’s the stuff that you don’t know and that you don’t know that you don’t know it. So he had bought the entity, the company that owned the store and the guy who owned the entity before him hadn’t paid the sales taxes. And my dad inherited all those liabilities with it, but he just didn’t know. And he didn’t have anybody to be able to turn to. We didn’t have any lawyers in our family. We didn’t have, we didn’t even know any lawyers. And so, cause I asked my dad about this. didn’t you just get a lawyer? And so he said, look,

Pankaj Raval (15:31)
Hmm

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (15:47)
I didn’t have that kind of access. So then they gave him, they gave my dad the ultimatum. They said, look, you can either pay it or shut it down. And so my dad ran the numbers and he’s like, look, really doesn’t make sense for me to pay these sales taxes that aren’t even mine. We’re not making that much money. And so he made the tough decision of shutting it down. I still remember to this day of away furniture in the dumpsters.

Sahil (15:48)
Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (16:09)
⁓ having to move. Yes. so we bounced around for a bit after Florida. We moved in with my aunt, my dad’s sister for a while trying to like, my dad was trying to get his footing, his entrepreneurial footing to try to get started somewhere. And unfortunately he just couldn’t quite get his footing. He tried a couple of things that just didn’t work out. And so after like a year and a half of kind of floating.

Sahil (16:09)
Painful.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (16:32)
He just decided, look, I can’t sustain this with a young family. So he went back and got a W2 job, a factory job. It was a hard job. Like I, I did a couple summers there helping them out and they were tough conditions, like manual labor, blue collar type stuff. so anyways, from that experience, I decided that I didn’t want that to happen to my family or ideally to other people. And so I went off to law school and then.

I had always planned on starting my own law firm eventually. I had to accelerate it because when I graduated, it was 2011 and it was like, the world was still reeling from the financial crisis of 08. And so the opportunities were pretty scarce. And I did luckily get a job doing like contract work for large law firms, but it was glorified monkey work as I call it, like document review, reviewing thousands and thousands of pages of documents. And I was like, this is

Pankaj Raval (17:21)
Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (17:25)
not why I went to law school. And it’s like these huge antitrust cases, one huge company versus another, or like pharmaceutical, alleged off-label marketing by huge pharmaceutical companies and FDA investigations. And I wanted to work with real people. My clients these days are all real people, even if it’s an entity, there’s an individual or a small handful of individuals or a family behind it. And we’ve done really well.

Pankaj Raval (17:27)
Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (17:49)
found it very, very fulfilling and very, very enjoyable because look, I think there’s an aspect of, know, everybody in their point has had traumatic experiences and we all wish and hope that we could go back and just try to erase it or make it go away, but you can’t. And so I think that the only thing you can really do is try to fix it for somebody else. And in a way that lets you kind of fix it for yourself, you know? And so that’s the best thing you can do. And that’s what I try to do.

Pankaj Raval (18:12)
Hmm.

Sahil (18:13)
Yeah.

Pankaj Raval (18:16)
was amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that story, man. I know it’s like, think hearing those stories is so valuable to a lot of our audience because, it shows that, there’s no one linear path to success you know, we can all struggle and still, it. and, know, not to forget also that it was a lot of hard work, right? It’s a lot of hard work, a lot of trial and error in that process of building a firm or a business. so

I wanted to maybe pivot a little bit to the specifics around business litigation and also deal making. Carbon Law Group tagline as the law firm for deal makers and risk takers. And you see other side of contracts when things kind of blow up, when things don’t work out. your perspective, is there a certain provision you see that oftentimes is litigated the most or is there something that

you often see is missing from contracts that you would recommend people to really focus on if anything comes to mind. I’m sure there’s several, but anything specifically that you see like kind of is the seed of lot of these ⁓ partnership disputes.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (19:12)
Yes, I think a big part of it is roles and responsibilities or the duties. So a lot of times what happens is as the business develops, what somebody starts doing or is originally doing, they may change. And a lot of times that just happens and it evolves over time without a specific discussion. And so many times what can then happen is one person feels like the other person isn’t quite pulling their weight or doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

That I think is really important. And then having regular meetings to have good communication around what are our plans, what are our respective roles if they need to change and being able to map that out for what the future looks like, especially when you’re running a growing business and you’re extremely busy. I think a lot of times when we’re stressed, we can just kind of go into work mode and not really think as much about communication.

And I think that’s really the opposite of what somebody should be doing. I think having good lines and open lines of communication are extremely important. And when it comes to dispute resolution, having dispute resolution mechanisms such as a mediation requirement, which is where I kind of compare mediation to if you’re ever in a fight in middle or high school and you go to the guidance counselor’s office and they sit you down many times separately, they ask you what’s going on. That’s kind of what mediation you’ve got a professional hired.

counselor, usually either a practicing or retired lawyer or a retired judge who sits down to try to talk to each side about their positions to try to get the dispute resolved. And if you can get it resolved, then great. But then if you can’t, ideally, maybe even considering including an arbitration provision where you’re not going through the public court system, not necessarily having all of the bad facts laid out in public court filings, which are accessible.

essentially to the end of and instead hiring a private arbitrator who acts as both the judge or jury to decide your dispute. And you can require, for example, or two or three panel, two or three arbitration and arbitrator panel to decide your case. Now, something to keep in mind is you do pay hourly for your arbitrator and typically you’re probably going to be paying hourly for your attorney. So it’s just something to keep in mind depending on how many

arbitrators you want to have in your case. But many times it can be faster than filing a public lawsuit because a lot of people don’t realize that once you file a lawsuit, for example, in Los Angeles County, it’s still going to be at least about two years until you get to trial. And that’s if everything goes smoothly and you’re lucky and don’t lose your court date for whatever reason.

But many times disputes can drag on for years before they actually get to trial. So it’s very different from what you see on TV or the movies where it makes it seem like you file a lawsuit and then you’re in trial two weeks later. Or this idea that if somebody files a lawsuit that you can just pick up the phone and tell a judge to throw it out because it’s a frivolous suit. And it sounds a little crazy as thinking that other somebody might think that, that a lot of people

Pankaj Raval (22:00)
Right. ⁓

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (22:15)
This is their first time going through a lawsuit. So they have no idea what the process is like. And the briefing they’ve had on it is really TV and movies, which makes it seem like everything is super quick and you file one day and then you’re in trial the next. And that if for some reason something’s off, you’re just in judges chambers telling the judge to throw out the case because it’s absolutely frivolous. ⁓ and that just, it doesn’t happen that way. That’s not practically how it works.

Pankaj Raval (22:30)
Yeah.

Hehehehe

You

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (22:42)
even though I’m sure we all wish to some extent that it did work that way. So I think going back provisions in the contract, I kind of thinking through not only where you are now, but also thinking about where you want to be a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, and thinking about how do you revisit this so you have good lines of communication as well as roles and responsibilities mapped out. And when things go wrong or you have disagreements, which you will, how are you going to figure those out? Because a lot of times that’s when it starts to break is

They haven’t really thought about what happens when things go wrong.

Pankaj Raval (23:11)
Absolutely. you’re so right. That’s a great that most people are not comfortable with, right? Like no one wants to, I think especially as entrepreneurs, everyone’s very excited about it. You know, this is my experience, everyone’s excited. No one wants to think about worst case scenario. And I think that’s where a lot of times lawyers come in and we have to kind of bring up those questions.

with, okay, what happens if X, Y, and Z happens? And you can never control for everything, right? I tell clients sometimes we can get a 20 page operating agreement or we can get an 80 page operating agreement. The question is, how much do you want to invest in this and how is the deal, right? So these are a lot of things in understanding that these can always be updated. a great point is have to have these conversations. You have to kind of think about these things on. Otherwise, chances are

there can be bigger issues as your better and is more successful. what I’ve seen. Like it’s those successful companies where you have the problems. companies that don’t do anything, you shut it down and there’s nothing there. But it’s when people see a lot of money. company used to work for, the partners have been in litigation for three years and they’ve spent at least probably $750,000 to $850,000 each in litigation. Partly because they, one refused to sign the operating agreement and they refused to discuss some of these issues.

early on, even though we tried as hard as we could them. I was going to say, there any kind of crazy story or anything that stands out as one of your most kind of like ridiculous cases that you could share with us that might be interesting audience?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (24:30)
Sure. So this story was about, I was a baby lawyer a few years out of law school and I had a case where a huge multinational company was getting sued and then my client got sued and a number of others got sued in the same case because what happened is the huge multinational company had hired my client to code a piece of software and my client had hired

a subcontractor to do it. And then the subcontractor had hired essentially some kid, I think he was working out of his mom’s basement to do the code. And so this kid ends up instead of doing and writing the code, he ends up downloading some software off Pirate Bay, which if you’re not familiar with Pirate Bay, Pirate Bay is a website where people would upload

Pankaj Raval (25:15)
yeah, I do remember Pirate Bay yes. man.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (25:20)
essentially illegal software or like software that people didn’t have the authority to be able to sell or would give it away for free. And so there were movies on there and software. And so this kid downloaded it and typed in the key, which was of course conveniently with the bundle, use this key to be able to install it. And so he used the key and he went ahead and converted the code into what he needed and write the code that he

it worked, what he didn’t know is the company who made that software was actually making a fortune from these lawsuits because the way it was set up is that if anybody used the cracked key, that specific key or a list of certain keys that they knew were cracked, it would automatically send them all the information. And it was buried in the terms of use that they would have the information relating to all of the information as to

Pankaj Raval (25:59)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sahil (26:04)
Wow.

Pankaj Raval (26:04)
Wow.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (26:12)
what you would use the software for, the IP address, all of it. So of course now that software company ends up suing everybody, the multinational company, my client, the subcontractor, the kid in the mom’s basement. And by the way, I don’t know that he was actually working out of his mom’s basement. It’s just my theory. So, which has not been disproven by the way. there’s that.

Pankaj Raval (26:16)
Whoa.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (26:34)
So anyways, like there’s this huge lawsuit, very contentious. And I remember this is federal court. And so federal court, everything is just nicer. So the judge sits up higher. The furniture in the courtroom is better than state court. Everything’s funded better. You’ve got, yes, bigger, ⁓ more room for people to be able to sit. The courtrooms are just grander. The security is tighter. You still got to take your shoes off to be able to get in.

Pankaj Raval (26:50)
bigger. Yeah. Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (27:02)
Shoes, belt, it’s like you’re going through TSA. ⁓ And so everything just feels much more formal. And I walk into the courtroom, the judge hasn’t taken the bench. And one of the partners at a huge international firm used to be defending a number of the people in the case, but then he had a conflict. And then, so I was representing my client. He stayed, of course, with the bigger multinational client and he is yelling at plaintiff’s counsel.

Pankaj Raval (27:05)
Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (27:29)
And not just soft yelling. I just walk in there and I’d done a little bit of research on both of these guys. And so the international law firm partner is yelling at this other guy who also happens to be a partner, but I had read on his bio that he was also a professor of philosophy. So I walk in and I get somewhat close to them and I hear him yell. He’s like, Josh, I’m going to kick your ass. He’s like, this isn’t.

Sahil (27:53)
Whoa.

Pankaj Raval (27:53)
Hmm.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (27:54)
this isn’t an effing, and he said the whole word, philosophy class, and just turning bright red, yelling at this guy. And I’m just kind of looking around, like, and there’s multiple lawyers kind of looking at this interaction. And then I I stand back just to kind of see how the rest of this plays out, you know? so I’m watching this whole thing. And then the international law firm partner must have seen me, like through the corner of his eye. And he turns with a look at me.

Pankaj Raval (28:04)
Wow.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (28:19)
And then I look at him and he and I lock eyes. I’m like, I wonder how this is going to go. And then, and then he just instantly turns it off. And he’s like, Parag He’s like, nice to meet you. And all of a sudden he goes from just super angry to just being super nice. And I was like, this guy is very interesting. And I don’t know if it was an act or not. And I was like, this guy just is probably unstable. And funny enough.

Pankaj Raval (28:36)
Wow.

Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (28:42)
Later on in the case, I had done something that created a huge problem for his client because I was representing my client’s interests. what happened is he flipped on me and had the same issue. He started yelling at me similar to Josh. just told him, like, you know, do what you got to do on this. If you got to take to the judge, take to the judge. But that’s what it is. And then he’s like, well, don’t call me anymore. I was like, OK, I won’t. And then he calls me like.

A week and a half later when I’m doing something else, like, Parag why didn’t you call me before you did this? I’m like, you told me not to call you. He’s like, no, I didn’t. No, I didn’t. And then, and then he started like freaking out about that. So, turns out this guy also, unfortunately had a heart condition and I have no doubt it started from him just yelling at people for absolutely no reason. And then forgetting about it. He shared that with me. And so for anybody who’s an aspiring lawyer, you know, I think that that’s very important.

Pankaj Raval (29:24)
Woah. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Sahil (29:25)
Wow.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (29:33)
litigation, there’s a lot of people who are like just hotheads and I don’t think it serves the client. I think it actually works in reverse is because the person who really knows what they’re doing is usually pretty calm, collected, doesn’t need to yell because their work does the yelling for them. And so that was an early lesson I think the right and wrong way to do things.

Pankaj Raval (29:48)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s a great story. It’s a great story. I mean, yeah, that’s the thing with litigation, you know, you got to be ready for all these characters. You know, I’ve dealt with opposing counsel on a few different cases and, they can be extremely aggressive. So I think, you to be ready for that. Which is actually, you know, it’s funny because you and I met at a meditation group, right? You, that’s how you and I meditation group for lawyers. So I feel like that’s probably helped us in

Sahil (29:55)
Yeah.

Pankaj Raval (30:16)
navigating some of these difficult dealt with.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (30:19)
100%.

Sahil (30:20)
Well, Parag, we’ve got some lightning round questions for you. So let’s see those litigation skills at First question is, what is the best book for entrepreneurs about legal thinking?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (30:32)
You know, I’m going to give you a kind of a…

biased response here, but the Entrepreneurs Legal Crisis Guide, which is my book coming out, it was written, by the way, for entrepreneurs who kind of want a primer on a lot of this. And it was intentionally written that way. It’s not supposed to be some sort of legal treatise or encyclopedia, but really just something that entrepreneurs can use to try to navigate their way through lawsuits problems.

Pankaj Raval (30:39)
Yeah, I was gonna say.

Sahil (30:58)
Perfect. The biggest myth about business litigation.

Pankaj Raval (30:58)
Love it. Love it.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (31:02)
That you can call the judge and just have a frivolous lawsuit thrown out.

Pankaj Raval (31:07)
Hahaha.

Sahil (31:07)
One

legal document every small business owner should have that they usually don’t.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (31:11)
An operating agreement or a shareholders agreement, some sort of basic agreement or a partnership agreement between the people who started the business.

Sahil (31:19)
Okay, you heard it here. So come to us for the operating agreement and then go to Parag when you get into a fight. Okay, if you had to choose, prevent disputes or win them.

Pankaj Raval (31:24)
Mm-hmm

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (31:28)
This is a biased answer, but I like winning disputes, but look, I mean, a big part of the book that I wrote and point to clients is try to prevent them if you can. It’s way cheaper to prevent a problem than it is to resolve a problem, particularly through litigation. Litigation really is a last measure resort. that’s why my office, also help with like pre-litigation and try get disputes resolved

before it gets to a lawsuit because lawsuits are very expensive and if you can avoid it, do that.

Sahil (31:54)
Most expensive mistake you see entrepreneurs make repeatedly.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (31:58)
Not reading their agreements and then just believing what somebody told them about what the agreement says. It’s usually the other side that told them what the agreement says and they just said, okay. And then didn’t go to a lawyer or anybody and then just signed it. And now the very thing the other side said, don’t worry about is the very thing they need to be worried about because it’s a major problem.

Pankaj Raval (32:13)
Yeah.

I think also to add to that probably is to make sure that you understand like, interest does that party have in telling you what the agreement says? Right? This is why it was always great to have your own lawyer, because oftentimes it’s maybe a company lawyer that’s telling you what this says, but they’re are not counseling you individually. They’re counseling for the company. are important things to keep in mind.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (32:35)
Yeah, I agree with that. I think with ⁓ just a quick plug on this, which is I think with anything, anybody that gives you advice, I think you got to look at the reference point as to where are they coming from and what basis of knowledge do they have? Have they been there? Have they done that? Are they just saying things? You you’ve got people giving advice on how to start businesses or run businesses and they’ve never run a business or started a business. It’s like you really shouldn’t be given advice on something you haven’t done, but you know, that’s,

today’s social media age, you you’ve got experts and everything or life coaches who haven’t actually even lived life. anyways, bit of a rant, bit of a rant. Right, right.

Sahil (33:02)
Yeah.

Pankaj Raval (33:06)
20 year old life ⁓ coach.

Sahil (33:07)
Yeah.

So here’s our final question. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to someone who’s about to sign their first major business partnership agreement?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (33:20)
Have you guys review somebody who knows what they’re doing. Look at it. Who’s been there, done that, has seen these things. Don’t have your friend’s cousin who just graduated, cousin Vinny just review it because they just graduated law school. Spend the money, spend the time if it’s going to be a real business. Look, if you’re starting something that’s like a lemonade stand on the corner, maybe you don’t necessarily need somebody the higher end.

If you’re actually starting a serious business, no offense to the lemonade stand owners, by the way, but if you’re starting a real business, a serious business, then have the willingness and foresight to get some serious lawyers to help you on it.

Pankaj Raval (33:57)
Hope you didn’t alienate our major listening demographic by talking shit about lemonade stand owners. Parag man this has super valuable. It’s always great to chat. I mean, we always have great conversations over the many years we’ve been friends and it’s always great to see your success man, I mean I truly believe have friends and to grow together has been really amazing. I know

Sahil (33:59)
Yeah, exactly. We have a major segment of lemonade stand owners.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (34:03)
Hahaha

Pankaj Raval (34:20)
You and I have chatted over the years about just marketing and always been, kind of each other’s confidants in terms of like, trusted advice and insight. and you know, people didn’t know like for awhile, Parag and I were talking about, even joining up together, but I think it’s, those are also things we considered too, but we went through the deep analysis of whether what that would look like, the pros and cons. And then we said, okay, you know what, maybe it’s just good. We kind of have a referral relationship. We work together,

We grow our own firms and I think, worked out great for each of us and we are great friends still to this day, which cannot always be said about, you know, co-founders or partners firms. So, Parag so in terms of people finding you, if they want to learn more about what you do or the services you provide, where can they find you?

Sahil (34:52)
Yeah.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (35:01)
So they can take a look. on my website. My firm’s website is www.lawpla.com. That’s www.lawpla.com. Or they could find me on Instagram, which is my first and last name. So Parag Amin ESQ. And we’ve also got a website, Parag Amin ESQ, that talks about the book, my podcast, From Crisis to Justice.

And yeah, would be happy to connect with any of your listeners or audience.

Pankaj Raval (35:28)
And when does, is there a launch date for the book?

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (35:32)
So the plan is we should be launching next month, which will be October 2025. And so the book’s already written and so it’s in the final editing stages and cover’s already been designed. So it should to go next month.

Pankaj Raval (35:45)
Very exciting, very exciting.

Sahil (35:46)
Well, thank you so much for joining us, Parag. There was something that I remember just in a casual conversation with you. You said once, I want to be the lawyer that I would have wanted. And I think anybody listening to this feels that you are very sincere about that and would be very lucky to have you representing them. I want to thank you so much for joining us on Letters of Intent. To our listeners, remember, the best deals aren’t just about getting what you want.

Today, they’re about building the legal architecture that can weather whatever storms come tomorrow. So we want you to keep in mind that when you’re going into a partnership, even though you don’t want to think about the disputes, you’ve got to think about them from a worst case scenario. And if you run into trouble, remember to reach out to Parag. Until our next episode, to all of you who have been listening to Letters of Intent, keep taking risks and keep making deals.

Parag L. Amin, Esq. (36:36)
Thanks guys.