11/9 Gray Ice Higdon

11/9 Gray Ice Higdon

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Chamber Connection on Talk Radio ten eighty,
a program designed for small business owners, aspiring entrepreneurs, and
community members who are eager to learn more about the
intricacies of running a successful business, hosted each week by
the dedicated staff of the Chamber of Saint Matthews. Now
here's your host for this week, Virginia Heart. COO.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Chamber Connection. I am
Virginia Heart, your host for today. Today in the studio
we have with us Jen with Great Ice and Higden. Welcome,
Jin Hi, thanks for having me, Thank you for being here.
So today we're going to talk a lot about the
legal and attorney backgrounds. So, like I said, you were

(00:45):
with Great iceon Higden, but we're going to start with
you personally. How did you fall into the attorney field?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
So, my grandmother used to keep me when I was
really young, toddler type stuff when my mom and dad
at work, and she every day we had to stop
for two shows. One was The Price Is Right and
the other was Perry Mason. And so at a young age,
my mom said that she would find me in my
bedroom with my stuffed animals lined up, giving opening and

(01:14):
closing arguments, and that was just kind of a passion
that I had. I can't I don't even remember doing this,
it's just what they tell me. And so, as someone
who was very interested in political science and history, what
do you do with those degrees? Law school was really
the kind of the next step for me. So that
was really, you know, the path for me was just

(01:35):
my grandmother introducing me to Perry Mason.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
And a bunch of stuffed animals. Yeah, so tell me
a little bit about great Eisen Higden. You all are
a new firm, but your seasoned attorney's correct, correct.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
So we formed in December of twenty twenty two. There's
I guess about thirty one of us. Now, we actually
had all come from a prior firm here in Louisville,
Middleton Rightlinger, one of the old or firms in Louisville
had been around since I think eighteen sixty four or
something like that, and the firm unfortunately came apart in

(02:09):
late November of twenty twenty two, and so the group
of us decided we wanted to start our own firm.
And so that's how Gray Eyes tigged In came about.
In that time period, but you know, the majority of
our attorneys have been practicing law for over a decade,
some of them for more than two decades. We do
have young associates, of course, some that are just passed

(02:31):
the bar. Congratulations, congratulations to Jason Olivia. But we you know,
we are pretty much seasoned, very well known in our community,
and have a lot of experience under our belts.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Awesome. When I was reading your Bow for the show,
I want to talk about the culture, Yeah, in your
your firm, So talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 4 (02:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
So culture was like a really big thing for me.
You know, we the fourteen of us that started Gray Eyes,
tigged in when we were meeting in people's living rooms
about what we wanted and how we envisioned this firm
that we were creating. Culture was a big part of
what I was advocating for, and I was pleasantly surprised
to be joined by a lot of other people.

Speaker 4 (03:15):
We saw a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Most of us had come from big firms, and so
we saw a lot of things in those big firm
environments that we thought created some toxic work habits. There's
a whole lot of you know, kind of competitiveness that
you see within the attorney field, and that sometimes can
lead to interpersonal problems within a firm. And so one

(03:37):
of the things that we all decided on very early
on was we wanted to create a culture where we
were team. We recognize that just because I'm the one
with a JD doesn't mean that my paralegal or my
legal assistant is not just as valuable to the team.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
So, you know, we've tried to create group meetings where
we all.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Come together, we all talk about what we're facing in
our practice and have everyone have a voice, basically to
help address concerns, things we're doing right, things we can
improve on. And then one of the other things that
we noticed too was, you know, everyone used to work
towards that big corner office, you know, that was the
prestigious thing. And Gray Ice tiged in has offices that

(04:18):
are all the exact same size. It doesn't matter if
you're a principal partner meaning you're one of the members
stockholders of the firm, or if you're an associate. Your
office is all the same size. And that's because we
don't want to have this idea that because I have
ten or fifteen years of experience under my belt that

(04:39):
somehow I'm better than you. My ideas and your ideas
are all equally valid and are equally working to row
the boat in the same direction, which is to provide
the best service for our clients.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
And so that's the culture.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
That we've really, you know, strived to make over the
last two years.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
And given the results.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Of the surveys that we've done, blind surveys of our
staff and our attorneys, it seems like we're hitting the mark.
And that's just I'm probably the most proud of that.
Out of everything we've accomplished since December of twenty twenty two,
the happiness and the sense of collegialness, sense of family
frankly that we have there a gray eyes hidden is

(05:17):
what I'm most proud of.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
When I read that, I was like, this is way
unusual for that culture because it is very competitive, like
you said, and can can't be cut throat, yes, but
to even bring somebody on that just passed the bar
and an equal space, an equal place, with an equal
voice is really cool. Yeah, you don't see that a
lot dred percent. Yeah, So kudos to you all for dinner. Right,

(05:40):
So let's talk about your focus and your all specialty
in the firm. Yeah, what is your focus?

Speaker 3 (05:46):
So that was the other thing when the couch we
call them the couch meetings, when we were all meeting
around on each other's couches, we thought about, you know,
do we want to be a full service firm or
do we want to focus where we feel like this
is where we shine. And we decided we want to
focus where we shine. So we have really kind of
three main areas. I'm in the litigation area. We do

(06:07):
primarily commercial litigation, which is you know, business disputes, that
sort of stuff. Then we have an IP group Intellectual
Properties what IP stands for. We do patent prosecution, We
do trademark copyright, and when I say we do those,
I mean all the way from the prosecution side up
to if there's an infringement claim.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
So we have IP litigators as well.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
And then corporate transactional so we have a lot of
huge real estate deals, mergers and acquisitions, a lot of
clients in the franchise space, licensing agreements, those sorts of things,
and so those are the areas where we've received awards.
Our staff and our attorneys are recognized consistently as kind

(06:50):
of being the leaders in their field.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
And so that's where we focus. We're not trying to
be something that we're not.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
And if we can't represent you, if you come to
us with the matter, we're gonna send you to someone.
We're going to do the research and find someone that
we think is a star in that field. We're not
going to try and tell you we can do it
for you. So that's another thing I think that's us
a part too. Don't be the end all be all
of everything exactly limits. Yes, so let's talk about intellectual property. Yeah,

(07:18):
this is really interesting to me. What many people won't
know is I have a patent from twenty five years ago.
So I've gone through this and it can be really
interesting to figure out what actually is intellectual property and
where it belongs. Yeah, yeah, so that that's a good question,
you know, and intellectual property, like you know, I think
what most people think about obviously is you have an invention,

(07:40):
like you've actually invented something, and it can it doesn't
have to actually come to fruition. It can be just
an idea. It can be an improvement on someone else's idea.
And so you know, that's where I think a lot
of people don't fully understand the breadth of what intellectual
property protection can give you. And on top of that,
it protects creative work, so you know, that's where we

(08:02):
get into the copyright arena.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
So you know, works of art, if you write this.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Radio broadcast, there's all sorts of things that can fall
within copyright protection.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
And then of course trademarks.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
You think about branding, but then you know logos and
you know, kind of with the onslought of how our
society has become more full of influencer, influencers and stuff,
you're seeing a lot of trademarks in that space where
people are trying to trademark catchphrases and started back when
I was a teenager with Paris Hilton.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
So there's some there's some interesting.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Ways that IP has gone that I don't think most
people are aware of.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Actually that's really cool. I will say one advertising, where's
the milk or where's the beef? Yes, Wendy, Wendy's So
from an intellectual standpoint, where is the line or is
that line like gray really wide and wavy?

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I think it's constantly changing.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
I think you know, there's obviously the traditional areas where
you can have intellectual property protections, but you're seeing you're
seeing people push the envelope as to what they're trying
to trademark, what their particular I think in the trademark arena,
you're seeing that and there's some pushback. You know, the
US Trademark Office. They don't have to accept every patent,

(09:26):
they don't have to accept every trademark, and that's one
of the things that we do. We do litigate with
in front of those regulatory boards. But that's one of
those areas that I think is constantly developing in how
we perceive what constitutes intellectual property. Just like everything in
life is in flux.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
So I think I filed three times before I actually
got my patents. Yeah, it wasn't bad at all if
you really think about all the steps you have to
go through. Yeah, and it was you know, it was
I was young, and I had this idea and I
actually had a patent attorney, and it's like, heah, we
can do this, and you can. You just got to
do this, this and this. He made it so simple,
but it was not.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
It's not simple at all.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
I have a lot of respect for our intellectual property attorneys.
One because you know, before they went to law school,
they went and got a degree and some sort of
engineering almost across the board, or some sort of applied science.
You know, one of my attorneys that I really love
working with, Megan Gibson. She's got a PhD in biology
and she wrote her thesis on Pseudomonis bacteria, which you know,

(10:32):
I can tell you all about Pseudomonus.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Bacteria from talking with Megan.

Speaker 3 (10:35):
But you know, it's so interesting to me, from someone
who came from a more liberal arts, you know, background
and training, to have these people that I'm communicating with
whose minds do think and work very differently than mine.
And so we've got computer science. We've got your you know,
structural engineers, your mechanical engineers, but computer science is where

(10:57):
we're really always constantly looking for. Obviously, everything is becoming
more and more digitized in our society, so the growth
in that area in terms of patentable ideas and products
and inventions is just astronomical.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
And the one thing that people don't really realize too
is you have US patents and international patents. Yeah, and
they are very different and they come with a very
different price.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Yes they do. And I'm always jealous of our IP people.
Because while the nicest place I've ever been for a
litigation conference was Qui, which was amazing, I'm not complaining.
They have them in Spain and they've been to Japan
and I'm like, wow, we've never been international before.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
But that's why.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
It's because the protections are if you apply for patent
in the United States, you've also need to worry about
if you need to apply for protection in other places Australia, Asia, Europe.
So yeah, it's an international place for sure. And being
able to connect on Zoom.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
Is great.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
And has made that there life much easier to be
able to communicate rather than have to constantly hop on
a plane and jet set across the world.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
It does make a huge difference. And I will tell
you when I had my patent, we were young. I
was working on selling it and took it across the
pond and changed a couple of things, and I just
couldn't do anything about it. You know, I didn't have
deep pockets at that time. Yeah, and that happens a lot.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
Yes, it does.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Yeah, I know I don't do IP infringement cases, but
we are very busy there. There's a lot of patent
trademark infringement that does go on, and that it's unfortunate.
But yeah, it does require money and time to protect
your intellectual property, but it can be very worthwhile.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yes, yes, you just have to take the time and
you have to weigh what's important to you. Correct. All right,
ladies and gentlemen, I want you to stay tuned with us.
Tune with us. We will be right back with more
from Gin with Great Ice and Higden on Talk Radio
ten eighty.

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Speaker 1 (13:32):
Thanks for listening to Real News, Real Talk Talk Radio
ten eighty.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Welcome back. We're here with Jen from Gray aisen Higdon
talking about intellectual property. We're gonna shift a little bit.
One of the things that I read in the bio
we were talking about AI and AI is a hot
topic in the community right now. How has AI affected
you all?

Speaker 3 (13:59):
So, I think one of the ways it is helped
and it's tendered the legal profession.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
You know, we hear our stories.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
It was I think an attorney in New York who'd
used chat gp'd basically to write a brief that they
submitted to court and didn't bother to double check it,
and the the AI had completely fabricated cases that did
not exist, and then they unfortunately compounded the program by
just not admitting to what they had done. We've never

(14:31):
done anything like that, and Gray, I sick didn't. But
you know where I think it does challenge us is
that because it's constantly changing, you think you learn one modality, like,
for instance, in litigation, there's one that we've used before
that's helped us to we do large document productions. In
our very complex litigation produced hundreds of thousands of pages

(14:52):
of documents, and if we were to put eyes on
every single one of those documents that would be a
very expensive piece of litigation from our client's perspective. So
one of the things that we've used AI to do
is help us kind of to cull that down and
identify documents that are very likely to be relevant or
need our attention. And it's it's been very successful, but

(15:15):
it's constantly changing. And one of the other concerns I
think that we've always had is, you know, some of
these programs actually take the information that you put in
and store it someplace. And of course, the hallmark of
the attorney client relationship is confidentiality, so you know, you
never want to inadvertently disclose something, particularly when you're dealing

(15:36):
with intellectual property. It could be very valuable to our
clients and they protect it obviously, That's why they're coming
to ESTI file applications to protect it. So we have
to be very careful of what we're using and how
we're using it and to make sure we understand it.
Which is another way that we are unique and kind
of set apart is because we have that deep IP

(15:57):
bench and people with degrees in computers science before they
decided to go to law school. When I cannot comprehend
the description of what this AI service does and the
extent to which it's going to use any data that
I am put, I've got in house experts right there
that can help me figure it out. And so we've
been very blessed in that regard that where I think

(16:17):
a lot of people are concerned about the confidentiality issues,
we feel like we have a very good in house
expert to help us understand.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
That is an aspect I didn't even think about. Yeah,
but whatever you put out in the world comes back
to you exactly. Yeah, So what's the time it has
saved you? Time and effort, Yes, and a lot of paper.
I'm assuming it does.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
And you know, I think one of the things that
we have always tried to do in our service towards
our clients is make sure that we are providing them
service that is top notch. You know, we are headquartered
in Louisville, but we routinely litigate in Chicago, New York, Delaware,

(17:00):
and we're going up against firms that are charging rates
that are three or four times while we're charging and
our clients, you know, want to make sure they're getting
that type of service, and the way that we do
that is we look for and try and stay abreast
of these things that can help provide us more efficient service,

(17:20):
and not only that, but can help keep their costs
down because litigation is a cost negative. It provides really
no benefit unless you're sueing to protect your intellectual property
and can recover damages. It almost never is something that's
a positive for company. I typically meet my clients when

(17:40):
they're at their worst. They're going through something that they
never wanted to go through, and so being able to
keep that in mind and provide them a service that's
as economical as I can is something that we always
strive to do, and AI is helping us to deliver that.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
So when the government talks about regulating a does it
scare you concern?

Speaker 4 (18:02):
Yeah, so, you know, I'm I tend to.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
I tend to be a little optimistic, I think, and
some people I know are very concerned about government regulation. Rightfully,
so I've certainly seen government regulation go awry. As a lawyer,
that's one of the things that we do is deal
with that regulation. But I do think if they take
the time and they really learn the area and listen

(18:28):
to the people in that field, that they can come
up with regulations that do make sense. And you know,
even most recently this year, the Kentucky Bar Association put
out an ethics opinion helping to guide attorneys who are
dealing with AI and have told us we have an
obligation to stay competent in it, just like you have
an obligation to be competent anything you practice, and gave

(18:51):
us some guidance about how to deploy AI and our practices.
So and those were all really great points, and they
were things that we had thought of, but other parts
that we had not necessarily thought of about, like, for instance,
you know, including in your engagement letter with your client
that hey, I might use the service and this is
what you can expect the costs to be.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
So there are just.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Aspects of it that I think regulation can help if
done right.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
Let's put it that way. If done right, it can
help for sure.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Great, I was gonna ask you something in my Chu
Chu train just went off with the AI copyright. So
AI pulls information from the world abroad. Have you come
across any copyright infringements or issues?

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yes, yeah, we one of the things that we do,
and told you about the meetings that we kind of
have where we bring everyone together.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
We you know, get a lot.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Of services that tell us about cases across the country.
And just about a month or two ago, actually we
had one of our attorneys present a case where that
very issue had come up about AI pulling what appeared
to be kind of word for word from something else
and using that and that had triggered you know, I

(20:09):
guess they have programs that basically scroll the Internet, scroll
looking for things that are copyright infringement, and it had
triggered that. So, yeah, we've we've certainly heard of it.
Have any of our clients had that happen yet? No,
not gone Wood, But yeah, it is certainly an area
where you're seeing that, and I think people have to
be very careful of that. When you're using those services

(20:29):
that help generate texts or things for you, you should
always be careful that what you're using is really reflective
of your own work product. And I think, I think, honestly,
that's what you should be doing as an attorney. Anyway,
they're paying for your brain, they're not paying for a computer.
And so I caution people and that the use of

(20:51):
those modalities for a couple of reasons. One is I
think your client is paying for you. Not that, but
then to these other issues like you're saying about potential
an advert and copyright infringement.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
And we do use it at the Chamber two because
it does make our world a whole lot easier, but
there's times that it can go awry And was like,
that was not what I was talking about it all.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yes, it's definitely not perfect yet everyone thinks we're heading
towards the terminator.

Speaker 4 (21:16):
I don't know they were there.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Yet, but I will say it learns your voice and
learns your speech. Yeah, and it's it can be kind
of scary when you sit back and look at it,
Isn't that Oh?

Speaker 4 (21:26):
I know that that is one of the other things.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
You know.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
You hear about the generative AI and how it's capable
of producing deep fakes and stuff like that, and those
are challenges I think we're gonna have to deal with.
And I don't know what the answers are, but from
what I understand so far, there's there's ways to spot those.
Let's just hope that the machines don't figure that out
and get smarter.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
Than us, and we could talk about this topic for
eons and just go down different rabbit holes on different
problems and solutions, Yes, and not make it anyway. No,
I'm gonna shift gears a little bit. I want to
talk about you. If you could go back in history
and change one thing, what would you do differently on
your path?

Speaker 4 (22:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (22:09):
I think it would be, you know, telling myself that's
okay if you're not happy to say I'm going to
go find something else and do something else, and having
the faith in yourself to do that. And I think
all of us at Gray Ice, you know, we wish
we'd had a little bit more faith in ourselves earlier,
that we could have set off and taken our skills

(22:30):
and start this firm and be as successful as we
are now two years later. And just to have faith
in myself, that's what I would go back and tell myself.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, we talked right before we came on air to
talking about middle school and now high school wants you
to know exactly what your path is going to be
for college, and you're still trying to figure out who
you are in high school. You're figuring out who you
are in college, and that path is never what you
thought it would be. No.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
Yeah, Yeah, if I could, I would definitely go back
and tell my twenty year old self, this isn't who
you are. You know, It's so funny because I you know,
my mom always told me that, you know, she's like,
you need to figure out who you are, figure out
who you are, and focus.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
On what you want and what you do.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
And you know, you're young, you're impressionable, you want to
be liked, and there are times when you lose sight
of those things. And I would certainly go back and
do it because now that I know who I am,
I feel like that when I go out, people know
that they know who I am, and they're they're more
appreciative of that. They know I'm not trying to be

(23:31):
somebody that I'm not. And so that that's a good
piece of advice to give to anybody is just know
you're figuring it out and it's okay to figure it out.
Just be true to yourself while you're doing it, and
you'll get there.

Speaker 2 (23:43):
I think my career really started in my forties, not
when I was you know, in college, I didn't know
what the law was doing, didn't have confidence in myself.
You know, you're winging it through that portion and it's
okay now we say it now we would never say
we were winging it or we didn't have confidence in
our twenties, because you try to emulate that. So yeah,

(24:03):
that's what I tell young young ones all the time.
I'm like, it's okay to be scared, it's okay to
not know the answer, and it's okay to put yourself
out there.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, one hundred percent. So we did this day about
a month ago where it was affirmations. You wrote these
kind of blind affirmations and put them in bags for
everyone in the office, just trying to let people.

Speaker 4 (24:23):
Know, like, we see who you are, we know who
you are, we appreciate you are.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
And someone put in there that they wish they had
my confidence, and they always ask themselves what would Jen
do WWJB. And I was very flattered by that because
I'm like, well, Jen makes mistakes, so you know, be
careful with that.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
But you know, I do.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
I want I want young people to know that like
I wasn't, I don't know what I'm doing. I still
sometimes don't know what I'm doing. I'm figuring it out
as they go and that's okay.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
And I think that's small business. I tell small business
owners all the time, I'm like it's okay to not know, yeah,
you know, but it's not okay not to ask for help, correct,
you know, because that's where you get your most support. Yeah,
And honestly, the Chamber, that's what we do, is we
we lift everybody else up. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
No, we've been so impressed.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
We really started getting involved when we knew we were
moving in there, and we've been going to so many
different events and trying to get involved, and the Chamber
has been there every step for us. And just met
some really great people in the Chamber and other members
of the Chamber and yeah, so one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Well, we're glad you're part of our family.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
Now.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
We're so excited. But it's been a great. Last question
for you is what piece of advice would you give
a young attorney?

Speaker 3 (25:34):
What I'd give a young attorney, the same advice I
give all of my young attorneys, which is, you're not
gonna be perfect, You're gonna make mistakes. In law school
didn't train you to be a lawyer, so give yourself
some time and you'll get there.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Great, great piece of advice. No better where you're at
in life.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
True, it's it's any field other than the law would
probably be the.

Speaker 4 (25:55):
Same, all right.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
I would like to thank our guest today, Jen with
great ice and higged and thank for joining us today.
If you're interested in information on the Chamber of Saint Matthews,
check out our website to Saint Matthews Chamber dot com,
or find us on Facebook or LinkedIn.