The Immigrant Lawyer, Héctor E. Quiroga, Sr - Partner at Quiroga Law Office - The Dave Crenshaw Success Show

Episode Transcript
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Hector Quiroga (00:00):
I started studying on these things and

(00:02):
learning about terms like supplyand demand, things like that,
like trying to push myself toexpand my vocabulary, but it was
difficult to explain it backhome. I mean, I was my dad be
like, I'm in a liberal artsprogram. Arts. What are you an
artist now? Like you stopbecause I do not understand what
I was doing.

Dave Crenshaw (00:23):
In this episode, you'll get to know Hector
kidoga, the immigrant lawyer,and you'll hear how he overcame
adversity as a Colombianimmigrant, including failing the
LSAT several times to build oneof the fastest growing law firms
in the United States. I'm DaveCrenshaw, and this is my success
Show. Welcome back, friends, tothe Dave Crenshaw Success Show.

(00:49):
This is where I speak to some ofthe most successful people I've
met in my life's journey. AndI'm on a mission to find
universal principles of successthat will help both you and my
family succeed. If it's yourfirst time here and you're not
familiar with me, I'm a bestselling author. I speak around
the world to Fortune 500companies, and I've taught
millions of people how to besuccessful through my online

(01:11):
courses. And with this show, Iwanted to do something a little
different. I wanted to createsomething lasting to help my
family succeed, my threechildren, and I thought you'd
enjoy learning along with them.
And I seek to interview peoplewho have achieved multi faceted
success, so not just financialor career success, as wonderful
as those things are, but theyalso have time for fun, and they
spend time with those that theycare about. And by the way, if

(01:35):
you know someone who fits thatdescription and you think would
make a great guest, you canemail your suggestion to guest
at Dave crenshaw.com now as youlisten to today's episode,
please do one thing. Look forsomething you can do, an action
you can take today or this weekto make my guest success story a
part of your success story. Andtoday's guest, man has so many

(01:59):
moments of wisdom and so much tooffer. He's overcome a great
deal, and I'm really inspired byhim. Hector Quiroga is the CEO
of Quiroga law office. PLLC,with over 14 years of experience
in immigration law, he'sdedicated much of his life to

(02:19):
helping 1000s of immigrantfamilies improve their quality
of life. He also teaches lawstudents at Gonzaga University.
School of Law. Hector immigratedfrom Colombia to the United
States in January of 2000 withinnine years, he learned English
and graduated from GonzagaUniversity with honors from

(02:39):
undergraduate and law schoolprograms. Then he became a
business owner, a homeowner, ahusband, a father, a writer, and
like his clients, a UnitedStates citizen. Hector enjoys
riding his motorcycle andspending time with his family.
Hector, thank you so much forbeing here today.

Thank you for having me, Dave.

You got a beautiful law office there with
your dynamic red microphone. Ilove it. Where are you right
now? Where is your officelocated?

I'm in Spokane, Washington. That's kind of
headquarters,

okay, not too far away from me. I'm in Salt Lake
City, so just a state or twoaway. So I'm going to start the
interview Hector, where I startwith everyone, which is that age
old question that we ask kids,which is, what did you want to
be when you grew up? First ofall, where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia, and
I always say that I was born tobe a lawyer. I really love the
law, since I can't remember, butmy family, my dad, my mom are
lawyers. My sisters are lawyers.
My grandpa is a lawyer. Theinteresting piece is that
everybody would always told me,Oh, you want to be a lawyer
because your parents arelawyers. And that was not it at

(03:56):
all. I really love the law. Andin fact, there were points in my
life where my parents told meyou could try something else, do
something different. I was like,No, this is really

it. So they gave you that space to be able to
choose something else, eventhough everyone around you was
doing it. Yeah,

I think so. I mean, I think in Latino
communities there is, there isthere is an expectation that
you're going to go to college,especially if you come from a
professional family, that likeyou're going to go you can
choose. You can be an architect,or you could be an engineer, you
can be a doctor, you can be alawyer. So I had choices within
that box, right? But it wasnever even a question for me,

(04:36):
what

was life in Columbia like when you were
growing up,

this is the 90s, right? I graduated high school
in 99 and I come in January of2000 so really, 80s, 90s. In
Colombia, there was a lot ofissues with drug traffic. There
was a lot of issues withnarcotics. There was a big war
on drugs down there that that itwas pretty rough. I remember
people getting. Shot. I sawpeople getting shot next to me

(05:02):
in the bus stop. I saw, youknow, bombs. I remember the
bombings. There was a hugebombing in 1993 and you can hear
the bombs in the house.
Remember, kind of like lookingat my patents and kind of waking
up, and they were like, No,nothing happened. And so that's
kind of where I did by 99 thingswere getting a little better,
but struggling. So in 1991 theColombian constitution was

(05:25):
redrawn, and my dad was actuallyin the Senate, so he was a
senator, and there was part ofreforming some of the Colombian
laws. And in fact, this wholething with extradition came a
piece. And so what happened andit created is that it kind of
created dangerous situations formy family. And yeah, in high
school I grew up, and, you know,there's bodyguards, and there's

(05:47):
all this kind of different thissense of danger very much around
you, 100% and so it was verymuch a different way to look at
the world. And even to this day,I still lock my doors, pull my
windows up, that type of stuff,still very much in my being
Okay, so

let's talk about what led to you leaving Columbia
and going to the United States.
What happened that made youthink that is what I need to do.

I was actually going to come and study English.
I applied for a ESL class,English as a second language at
the University of Texas inAustin, and I was going to come
and do a semester, and then Iwas going to go back, and I felt
like it was important for me tolearn a second language before I
would jump into law school. Sotypically, most Latin American

(06:36):
countries, you graduate highschool, and then you go straight
into law school. It's a five orsix year program. While here,
you have to go on undergrad andthen law school. So what
happened is, while I was here,when I came to do my schooling,
it was one of the things thatthings got very dangerous, and
it was like I was told, pleasedon't do whatever you can not to

(06:57):
come back. So I didn't leaveColumbia with idea of
immigrating. I left Columbiawith the idea of going to study
and then come back and probablystart a low career working kind
of with my father.

So did you go straight to Gonzaga for that, or
was there an intermediateprogram that you were going to I

did ESL, and then I had six months to learn
English. I went from bananaApple, what is the restroom to
Hey, you got to go to college.
And so my issue was, my parentsare divorced, and so my mom was
in the States, and I just kindof got a hold of her and said,
Look, I was living with myfather. So this is how going on.

(07:36):
What do I do? And she says,Listen, I'm going to be passing
by a city called Spokane,Washington. I'm going to be
there for a couple of weeks withmy spouse. Why don't you come
over and we'll try to figuresomething out. Because I was
also running out of money, so Ihad paid the international
student tuition, and I just hadto kind of head up. So I come to

(07:57):
Spokane, and in those two weeks,I see that there is a free
Spokane Community CollegeEnglish classes. And I'm really
like, I need to really learnthis. And I felt that as six
months that I had done, I tookthe TOEFL exam and I didn't
pass. I even very close topassing, just a few points away.

(08:18):
So I said, No, I want to gohere. So I start going to the
community college. My momeventually leaves, but because
I'm hearing a free collegeeducation, I'm like, I want to
stay here. So I did spokenCommunity College, finish
English, transfer into theirliberal arts, and then once I
had an AA degree, then I went toGonzaga as an undergrad. There's

(08:40):
a question

that I want to ask, and it's a little bit more
of just my personal interest,but I think it's relevant to a
lot of people who put themselvesinto a new country, they need to
learn another language. What's amindset of success that you
learned to help you learn thatlanguage in a foreign situation?

The first thing I think I did right was I came
in and I said, I want a completeimmersion. I tried to not have
too many friends who spokeSpanish. And I was really
putting myself on listening tothe radio, listening to TV,
magazine, everything in English,English, English, English. And I
was doing everything that Icould to do that. And Spokane

(09:25):
also kind of benefited me,because there was not a lot of
diversity, so I was the only onewho spoke Spanish. At some
point, it felt like it, and soit really forced me to to learn

Boy, that is so true. I think that's true with a
lot of things where you have toput yourself in a position where
you have no choice but to learn,no choice but to succeed. And I
do think that the reason whypeople struggle sometimes with
any new thing that they'relearning is they're giving
themselves a way out. They'regiving themselves an opportunity
to quit or to make things easieron themself. I always

show you.
English as a first step tobecoming a lawyer. And once I
was sort of told, like, youcan't come back. I'm like, Well,
now I want to stop. And if Ibecome a lawyer here, then I
better master this thing. And soI look for those opportunities.
I mean, I remember I had alittle bit of cultural shock in
University of Texas, you know, Iwas walking out and I seen all
these, like, religiousdenominations. And so I come

(10:20):
from a country where 90% plus, Imean, it's Christian Catholic.
And so it was interestingbecause they were offering
classes. And so I actuallyjoined some of those classes,
just because I wanted to learnthe language. And I was
beautiful to see differentperspectives and different
things I was just not exposed

to. I'm already picking up one great theme,
which is your hunger forlearning and improvement. You
put yourself into a variety ofsituations to learn, perhaps
even in unusual ways, right?
Your willingness to get yourselfto be uncomfortable. I'm already
seeing that as a little bit of apattern,

yeah, I think so I think that getting out of that
comfort zone, which I didn'tthink it like that at the time,
it was just about like, hey,they're gonna talk to me about
God. And I don't even know howto say God or angels or
whatever, right? So I was seeingit from an English perspective,
and I was just and he was free.
So I needed that. Okay,

so talk to me then about your college
education. What was that like?
Did you have any mentors whomade an impact in your life when
you were studying well,

speaking angels?
I do think there's a few peoplein the in my career who have
touched me in a lot of in verypositive ways, and sometimes and
sometimes people who just say toyou, hey, I think you're doing a
great thing. Don't stop. Andthat's all you need, or a smile,
right? That person. So I had afriend, and I had to go, come be
my mom, and I was out of money,and I said, Look, I need, like,
$500 and he gave me the money. Isaid, pay me whenever you can.

(11:54):
And I still remember to this daythe grace, right? I was like,
wow. So I come in and, you know,I go through the community
college, I'm doing ESL, I meetwho's going to become my wife,
Casey, still kind of talking atthe community college. And then
finally, just kind of really,really get a relationship at
Gonzaga when I graduate. But Ifelt like I made a

(12:16):
discouragement fraternity veryquickly. I think that even
actually from Texas, they werelike, you want to be a lawyer.
Do you know how hard that is? Doyou know how expensive that is?
Do you know how long that takes?
So it was interesting Dave,because he was like, Wait a
minute. Like, all of my life tothis point, everybody was

(12:37):
saying, you gotta be a lawyerbecause your parents are a
lawyer. And almost overnight,everybody around me was telling
me, No, you want you don't evenspeak English. You can't even do
this. Like PhDs at the at theuniversity were

saying. So they were actually discouraging, you.

They were like, Look, you you're too stressed,
man, you're you're chill, like,this is gonna take decades. And
I'm like, I have six months,because that's how much money I
got. But I was like, no, no, no,I'll show you. I'll show you.
There was a lot of ego here,right? Like, I'll show you. How
can you make a decision about mylife in 15 minutes? That's sort
of kind of what happens. And sothe first thing to to college

(13:14):
goes, well, I need to go to lawschool. And then I go, Well, you
don't do that here. You You haveto go to an undergrad. And I was
like, What do you mean? You gotto pick up a career. And so I
said, Well, why will get me theclosest to law school? And you
know, truthfully, I could haveprobably picked Spanish, which
would have been the greatestcheat job ever. But they said,

(13:35):
No, I like, let me do well,sure, political science,
economics, that will really getyou kind of like in a pre law
sort of track. And so I pickedthat, and I started studying on
these things and learning aboutterms like supply and demand,
things like that, like try topush myself to expand my
vocabulary, but it was difficultto explain it back home. I mean,

(13:56):
I was gonna call my dad be like,I mean, I leave it on arts
program, right? Arts, arts, whatwere you an artist? Now, like
you stop because you would notunderstand what I was doing. So
that's kind of how that go. Andthen I start kind of talking to
Casey, and we both shared thatin common, we both wanted to go
to law school, and I picked onZaga because I heard that if you

(14:21):
go to the law school, if you goto the school, the university
that has a law program, iseasier to get linked to the law
school. It's kind of what myunderstanding was. So I worked
really hard to transfer toGonzaga.

So I've got a personal question here too.
There was a moment, it was avery brief moment in college
where I dipped my toes into law.
I thought, Dave, this is rightfor me. So I took like a pre law
class, and I failed miserably.
It was so and the reason why wasthe amount of reading and

(14:56):
research required isoverwhelming, and I started.
This podcast, Hector firstlooking for ways to help my kids
learn principles of success. Sowhat would you advise them, or
anyone else who's going into acareer where that much reading
and research is required? Howcan they succeed in a situation

(15:17):
like that?

There's couple of things, like the pre law
program, I found it not to bethat close to the law school at
all. It was very different. AndI don't it could have been my
teacher. It could have been Idon't understand how, but I felt
that there was a significantdifference. But once I did get
to law school and just startlearning about constitutional
law and freedom of speech, theright to bear arms. So I do

(15:42):
think that for those who want tobe a lawyer, don't let pretty
low scare you. Talk

to me a little bit about I saw here that you
spent some time as an internwith World Relief when you
started attending Gonzaga. Talkto us just a little bit about
what that internship is, or whatthat cause is about.

Right? So World Relief is a nonprofit, is a
global nonprofit that helpsrefugees from different
countries who are coming in, andthey help the resettlement
process like, you know, when youcome here, those first weeks,
those first months, what do youdo? I felt that, since I had
kind of done that, you know,what is those first months? How
does this work? I could help.
And obviously my Spanish skillwould also be helpful to them.

(16:22):
And so I got with them, and Istarted working with them, and
helped quite a bit. And so itwas a very nice internship. I
learned a lot, and I startedseeing the need for this type of
cultural training andunderstanding different cultures
and asking them to adapt to thisculture. And there's so many
things I can tell you I did thatwere so silly. I come from the

(16:44):
Caribbean, basically. And comingto a place with snow, you do
some things that you now, youlook back and you go, like, why
would you think that was the wayto do it? But for example, I had
to teach do not turn your stoveas a healing source because it's
a big fire hazard. And these arethings that we don't think on

(17:06):
daily days. We just we don'tthat's not what you do, but not
when you're showing up on yourplace. And so this type of stuff
was great for me, to humble meand to really just know that we
have different perspectives orcontexts or culture affect us
usually, and

I can tell that that's something that is a
thread running through the workthat you do, is that compassion
for people who are coming from adifferent place to a new place,
and sounds like part of it isbecause that's what you
experienced, but also it's whoyou are and who you want to
help. So let's talk then abouthow you first started going into
law practice for yourself. Whatwere those early days like?

Interesting, right? I want to be a lawyer. I
want to be a lawyer. I want tobe a lawyer. It was very
difficult for me to get into thelaw school. I failed the LSAT
every time I took it like sixtimes. I was denied entrance or
law school like seven times. AndI keep trying. I keep trying. So
Casey, my wife, she actuallygets accepted, and I'm not. And
so one of the things that thatdid for me was I see her

(18:09):
studying, and this is a she's asmart cookie, man. I mean, she
will study, take notes. Remembereverything I saw her in my
house, reading every book andsupplemental and then the grades
came out. I was like, Oh, sherocked it. I was like, I don't
know if I even want to be ableto keep my scholarship.
Actually, I don't even know if Iwant to be able to stay in law

(18:29):
school. That's how competitivewas. And so what happens is, it
is scare me. I was like, Okay,if this bride, front of the
class, individual is strugglingwith a native English skill. I'm
out of my league here. So once Iwas able to get in, I just went

(18:49):
to town. I went to study. So Iapplied that same sort of
concept of food immersion. Ilived on crackers and water
because I didn't want to work.
They tell you you can work onlaw school. You can figure can
figure it out. Like, at leastthe first year, I actually
didn't. I just focus on thebooks and library, and I obsess
over that because I want to be alawyer. So this goes back to

(19:11):
what happened to the earlyyears. Is like, you know, and
you're getting that degree, youknow, you're like, Okay, you're
a lawyer. And I'm like, now whatI've been working so hard on
this English and becoming alawyer. Now, what find somebody
to sue like it was never aquestion.

Let's pause on that for a second. So are you
saying that in the law school,they weren't doing anything to
prepare you for the businessside of things,

oh, of zero, absolutely nothing, nothing at
all. I've heard that with other

similar careers, like dentist doctors, they teach
you how to be one, but theydon't teach you how to make
money or have a career as one.
No,

nothing, nothing at all. There's no conversation
about what the paralegal shoulddo and what should the legal
assist. And do this is stuffthat I had to learn later and
see Law School focuses so muchon appellate work like, how do
you appeal? And you go to thecore and the rules of appeal and
all of that, but the practicemanagement, the day to day

(20:13):
thing, is very much somethingthat law schools should improve
quite a bit. So

you found a niche to work with. How did you
discover that this was the groupof people that you should work
with and and make a career outof?

My wife graduates couple years ahead of
me. I joined her. And so this isabout 2009 This is a complete
real estate collapse. Jobs arenot the best, and I have to sit
down for a minute. I thought,okay, how can I get a job as a
lawyer, as an associate? Andthere he goes again. The

(20:47):
discourse during fraternity,right? You cannot open a law
firm. You have to haveexperience. Insurance is
expensive. Oh, man. And here's ahere's a big, bigger issue, and
that is, once you get thatdegree, you're like, wait, I
took the bar exam. The gradesare not out, so you graduated
before grades are out. Youhaven't taken the bar yet. You

(21:07):
need to take the bar. And it'slike, if you don't pass the bar,
you have to retake it. But nowyou have no student loans, so
you're really like, you had toget the job. There's a lot of
pressure, but now there's nojobs because there's a meltdown.
So it's like, what do I do? So Isat down, I start counting
hours. I said, All right, if Ispend my time trying to find a

(21:29):
job, I would have to work ininterviews and resumes and
hunting down these law firms anddo this, or I can use the same
amount of time to open my ownlaw firm. But then the
discouragement fraternity comesback, and everybody's saying
that you can't do that. You haveto have experience. You do you?
You don't know what you'redoing. Insurance is expensive.
What are you even going to do?
And I'm like, I heard all ofthese again. I'm just going to

(21:51):
open my own law firm, and soCasey opens the firm, and I'm
like, head clerk, right? BecauseI'm still waiting for my bad
results, I build my desk, and Istudy on my own desk for the
bar, which is interesting, and Ipass on my first try, and now
I'm a licensed lawyer. But thenit goes the question, what are

(22:12):
we going to do? Well, what do weknow in that moment on time is
that there was a financialcollapse and people were
struggling, and that we alsodidn't have money to pay the
student loans. So we had to cometo the realization that we were
bankrupt. We had to file forbankruptcy. Now what is
interesting here is that, youknow, student loan debt does not
get discharged on bankruptcy.

(22:36):
You can, but it's verydifficult. So student loan debt
is not so we became bankruptcylawyers by by accident. We had
to kind of learn it. So I nevertook a class on bankruptcy. She
did. So she does here. Let meteach you what I know. And we
learn on our own bankruptcy. Welearn on our own bankruptcy to

(22:57):
go and file for this. And I kindof became a bankruptcy lawyer
the time sort of forced me, andI did this for about four years,
five years and or niche was, wekeep it civil. That was, or name
tag, we keep it civil, right? Wedon't go into criminal law, we
keep it civil. And that was waytoo wide. I didn't know it at a

(23:20):
time, but it was like, you'relike, doing everything. So it's
called door lock law, whateverwalks through that door you do,
right, okay? And I was doingbankruptcies for $400 the entire
thing, beginning to end, VideoCredits. It was like, I was the
cheapest one. I was like,advertising on Craigslist, and I
was just doing this thing andbut I was just struggling and

(23:43):
struggling and struggling. Fiveyears of struggle. I just
couldn't seem to get this toolong situation on their hand, I
was just struggling. And I just,I was about to become a Spanish
teacher. I was like, Look, Ithis is a lot isn't for me. When
people told me, you have to workharder. I was like, okay, there

(24:03):
is 168 hours in a week, and I'mworking 167 I cannot work one
more hour because there's sleep.
That whole humbleness came backto me and be like, Well, why
don't you work with an advisor?
And I was like, well, that'ssomething I haven't tried, but
I'm about to become a Spanishteacher, so sure, I'll do that.

So what does that mean? Work with an advisor, like
a

coach, like somebody who can just really
work with you, because obviouslywhat I'm doing isn't working.
And so I start working withthem, and the first thing that
comes up and go, Why are you socheap? I mean, you're the
cheapest, yeah, 400 bucks forall that. That's way crazy. Even
back in in those years, it wasjust crazy and and you need to

(24:50):
learn sales. And I'm like, Oh, Iknow how to sell. I got plenty
of clients. And so we wentthrough an exercise, and in that
exercise. Is they set up thissort of like, they call it. It's
like a Thunderdome, and it'sdark, and you walk in there and
these individual plays yourworst client, and so I'm trying

(25:13):
to sell him, trying to sell him,trying to sell him, and I just
can't sell him. And later, thelesson that I learned was I
wasn't following an agenda. Iwasn't listening. I was just
like begging, almost like, buyfrom me, buy from me, buy for
me, hire me, hire me, hire me,hire me. And to tell that I was
having sales, or I was beinghired because I was the cheapest

(25:34):
in town, not because I was anygood at it. But then they say,
like, you gotta raise yourprices, man. I mean, so obvious,
but I resisted this for a coupleof years, right? I just
resisted, resisted, and theywere really hard on me on this,
and they were like, but what isit? No, that's not it. Tell
there's gotta be somethinghyper. You're not telling us
something. So then I go, I wasabused of a child. It just came

(25:57):
out. I was abused as a child,and this was by another man. So
it was like, it was very hardfor Latino and Hispanic to even
come to terms with this. Andthey were like, there it is.
That is. What does that have todo with anything? This is back
when I was like, you know, avery young boy. Why is this even
a problem? Have you gone totherapy or that, I'm like, No.

(26:22):
And I did tell my parents, andmy parents told me at the time,
was like, Don't let this affectyou and don't ever talk about
this again. That was theinstruction. And so I was like,
No, and you know, I told himabout this story, what my
parents said? I said, Yeah,you're showing things on the rug
and you're not you need to go inand talk and so. And then there

(26:45):
was something that they said tome that just really hit me hard.
I was like, you know, you'rebeing kind of a hypocrite,
Hector, because you'recomplaining about your clients
who you tell them not to dosomething, and then they go
exactly and do what you toldthem not to do. This is in
family law and all of that,right? Like, don't do that. And
they exactly go do that. Soyou're here, hiring us, paying

(27:07):
us a good amount of money, andthen not doing what we tell you
to do. That's exact same thingyou're doing to your clients.
And I was like, Okay, I'm goingto therapy. So I came back to
Spokane. I contacted atherapist. This wasn't
necessarily a breakthrough oranything like that, but it got
me talking about this subject,and it just opened up. And I

(27:29):
tell you, once I started talkingand finding myself worth, the
sales just started to come. Itwas almost like the energy of
being authentic, of not havingthis thing. It just is, again,
describe it this light startcoming through. And so it was a
lot easier. So that was kind ofthe first thing, was trying to
start that deep introspection ofwhy I

want to highlight that Hector, especially as
someone who also has dealt withabuse from a parent, and what an
impact that has on your career,and it has on your business, and
the need to confront that. Sothank you so much for sharing
that, because that's soimportant for people to hear and

(28:12):
sometimes they don't evenrecognize that they're
perpetuating these patterns,that they're doing things at
work that are getting themselvesin trouble. They're not
recognizing that there wassomething in the past, there was
someone who influenced them, andas long as they continue to
carry that trauma, it's notgoing to get better. So I really
appreciate you saying that andsharing that with us. Yeah,

and it shows in so many ways. Give you a quick
example, one of the thingsthat's difficult for me was to
delegate. I would not allowanybody to help me with my
personal email, for example, ormy email. I just wouldn't I had
to do it was that a trust issue?
It was a trust issue. But whatis the trust issue coming from?
And so I talked to them wellthrough this process, and what

(28:54):
it comes from is that my parentsdidn't really protect me in the
way that I felt they should.
They just told me, shower underthe rock. They removed the
thread, but that was it. Therewas no police report, there was
no medical report, it was just,that's it. And so it was almost
like you start seeing that youhave trust problems. You can't
trust individuals because theylet you down. So why would you

(29:16):
give anything? And it's chosenin serious ways, like, for
example, the server thing Iwasn't worth protecting.
Therefore, I was just doingeverything basically for free,
cheap, cheap, cheap, that was mything. So that's how that piece
sort of came about to increasingauthenticity and be able to talk

(29:37):
with a lot of authority andinspiring that you could
actually advocate for somebodyelse. And

clearly, what we're talking about, it sounds
very simple. It's like, oh, yougo to therapist and then
everything's solved. But that'svery hard. That's a lot of
personal work, introspection,I'm sure, talking with your
wife, I mean, it's a lot of workto confront that and deal with
it. It

was. Hard process, and I just never even
thought it was a thing. It waslike, you've never, I mean, I
was successful, I went to lawschool, I study, I learned
English. I Why? Why do I need todo this? And, wow, that really
opened a lot of doors for me.
Thank

you for sharing that. Okay, so how did you start
getting clients who actuallypaid what you were worth so that
you didn't have to work yourselftoo hard and do everything
cheaply.

So then, Dick, you said, Okay, the next thing
is you gotta, you gotta pick upa niche. You can be everything
to everybody. You have to reallyvalue your skills. And what is
it that you have to do? And Ifought that for another couple
years because I was so afraid. Iwas so afraid that, you know, I
cannot tell you how many times afamily law case would come in or
a probate would come in, and itwould just be 5000 bucks and I

(30:50):
could make payroll. So for me togo in and say, I no longer do
this, I'm just only going to doone thing. Then I started
looking at my life, and that'swhen I said, you know, I love
this thing of being animmigrant, I had litigated. At
that point, I had gone throughlitigation, but I didn't enjoy
any other kind of law. I wantedto have a happy ending. And this

(31:11):
is why I love sort of withimmigration, I get to get
somebody a war permit or a greencard or a citizenship or it's
nice. It feels good at the endof the case. Most law you won,
you got attorneys fees, or youlost, or you're going to jail,
or you're not going to jail,it's not a good situation. So I
felt like this is something Iwant to do. I want to do good. I

(31:31):
want to be able to do that. Sothat's why I picked immigration.
But it took a period of time,and I remember it was the last
$40,000 that I had that Iactually call all my non
immigration clients, and I said,I'm giving you your full
retainer back. I'm already halfon the case, but it doesn't
matter. I'm giving you everysingle money you pay me back to

(31:52):
you so you can go get a lawyerto help you. But it was very
hard, because then is when Ireally told the world, the
universe, God, I am here to bedoing immigration, and you can
almost track it. The minutethose two things happen, the
firm exploded. You justexploded.

I love hearing that, because I've experienced
that of the willingness to giveup money for something that is
wrong, and it's terrifying to dothat, especially when you got
these bills and you got to payfor student loans and everything
like this is this isn't going towork out, but when you focus,

(32:33):
when you choose, that's actuallywhen the doors open. So it takes
courage to take that step, andI'm so glad that you share how
you were rewarded for doingthat. You mentioned

something huge to me, and I think it's on our
point is the focus part when youfocus and so I focus on this,
and then I this shows on my lifeagain. And life has something
very funny. Life will give youthe test, and then it'll give
you the lesson in school, we'regiving the lesson, and then we
get the test. But life isbackwards. Life gives you the

(33:05):
test, and if you don't pass thetest, life will keep giving you
the same test until you pass it.
And this is why we see some ofour friends and individuals are
like, they keep making the samemistake and they don't see it.
It's life giving them the sametest. And so I was giving the
test again, and the test was,Are you going to focus or no?
And it was student loans. So nowwe're about $500,000 on student

(33:29):
loan debt. When we graduated, wehad about 280 and it had grown
during the years because we wereforbearances and delaying and
the bankruptcy put this at astate for a while, and we just
so now we're here, and I decidedwith my wife that we were going
to pay them. We said we weregoing to make a decision, and

(33:52):
we're going to pay the studentloans to zero. We focus so much
as a couple. I mean, we stillcoupons. We did everything we
could understand. We're a familyof seven. I had seven children.
Okay, so I order kids with this.
So Casey had two kids when Imarried her, and I raised them.

(34:14):
They're my children now and thenwe have five together. So
through all of these, I'm goingthrough this, and I said, we're
gonna pay the student loans. Wewere paying about $20,000 a
month and leaving whatever wehad for us to eat and pay or
rent until we paid them off. Wepaid almost $500,000 and I tell
you when that happened, Ilearned to save. I learned to

(34:36):
live with very little, and sonow it just felt like we had
this cash flow to be able toinvest back into the business
and and grow it.

You've talked to us about your wife and your
children. What role have theyplayed in your success? How do
they influence the work that youdo?

Right? Well, my wife massive, right? So in some
of the decisions we made. So wedecided she was going to play
defense and I was going to playoffense. So defense would be she
would she would exit the firm,and she would focus on the on
the house and the children andmaking sure that the house we
were not going to lose or rentor anything like that.
Basically, she took care of thepoorest of the home, and I was

(35:18):
out here to bring as much incomeas I could, and we divided this
and conquer, really. And I'mvery thankful to her, because it
took a lot to say, Hey, I'm alawyer, but I want to step out
to do this. And this is what wasimportant to us, was her family
so very, very big, or faith helpus through that. And I think
that's it. And the kids reallyare your motivator, right? You
really don't. I don't want themto struggle with student loans

(35:41):
the way I did. I didn't wantthem to do not have a good
example to follow, and so that'swhy I think it just makes you go
at it right? And I do talk aboutthis on my book, prove them
wrong. There's a little bit ofthe difference. When I have my
step children with us, they'renow grown, but, you know, I
raise them, one you have yourbiological child is like, this

(36:02):
is it? I mean, this baby relies100% and Hector. So Hector,
better get his act together tomake it happen. So I think
family is just so great tomotivate you and get you to the
next level.

You mentioned previously how you were working
167 hours out of 168 hour week.
How has that changed? What areyou doing now? In terms of
balance?

So I work about 40 to 50 hours. This is what I
like. I did anything less, Ifeel a little like I'm wasting
my life. So I still have a fulltime, but it is very much
control. I get to pick thethings I'm really passionate and
I like I pick the cases that Iwant to argue before the nine
district or app course ofAppeals, and I get to work many

(36:52):
hours on those cases with awarning or billable hours, or
any of that stuff. I get to justreally enjoy what I'm doing. And
another thing that I love iscoaching my team, right? Well,
340 staff members that work forme, and I get to coach them and
develop them and grow them andask something I really love
doing that's helped the growthof the firm. Let's

talk about that coaching for just a second. So
are you still practicing law, orare you mostly developing the
business? Are you mostlymanaging the firm.

Out of those 40 hours, I would say 435. Are CEO
developing the firm. Five arejust the cases that I like to
work on. So it's very littlepractice at this point. It's
more growing and and it's great,because now I can have an impact
on my community, right? It'sjust very difficult when you're
struggling financially. You needa platform to able to say, hey,

(37:42):
help immigrants, right? Likeyou're underwater. Help
immigrants. Help immigrants. Youcan't do it, but when you have a
platform, then you can reallyimpact, I love

it. And for those who work with immigrants,
because that's a big part of anysociety, is new people are
coming in. They might be comingfrom a different background, a
different culture, and we'reworking with them. What would
you want people to know if theyhave a co worker who is an

(38:12):
immigrant, what should they knowabout that experience so that
they can help that personsucceed? I think

immigrants get, especially in political times
get a bad rap right, like theydon't really come to help. I
think most immigrants, most ofus, really want to contribute,
or we see the line ofopportunity because we want to
make those opportunities count.
We want to apply ourselves. So Ithink that sometimes that, hey,
you can do this, that you know,it was 10 people told me you

(38:38):
won't be a lawyer, or you can'topen your law for your own law
firm to that one person says,You know what? I think you got
that i You're the tiger. I thinkyou could actually do it. If
anybody can do it, it's youactually, that would just leave
your spirit in such a way thatit was, oh, somebody sees it,
the encouragement

of that, yes, yes. And what about if they're
struggling with the language,they're struggling with culture,
how could we help? Americans

are very great on this. I think they feel your
accent and they say, hey, theytry to slow down, or they try to
initiate better. That happens,but I think sometimes it's just
patience. I one thing that Ithink does tend to happen is
that if you have an accent, someindividuals equate that to a low
IQ, or maybe somebody who's notthat smart, and so that's
difficult, but you do get usedto it. And these are

(39:28):
encouragement and really fullimmersion is really what is that
I really believe on this. It'slike they just have to apply
yourself, put it yourself on allsorts of different situations,
and you dominate it at somepoint.

Last question I want to ask you, and then we'll
wrap this up. You're teachingnow, also at Gonzaga as well. I
find that as an educator, I findthat I learn the most when I'm
teaching. So what are somethings that you have learned at.
As a professor, as a teacher,that perhaps you wouldn't have

(40:03):
learned any other way.

So we're doing practice management. So when
Zach was one of the law schoolsthat said, Hey, we gotta show
them something, and they cool upon me, because my firm has been
Inc 5000 This is the fifth yearthat we achieve that growth
rates of 238% plus a year, whatis Hector doing? And so it was
great because I was able to askthem, they're younger than me,

(40:27):
hey, and they'll tell you that,hey, you know this AI thing
here, they still help you withthat. And you know this, like
website over here, they'll helpyou with that. And so they it's
almost like a feedback loop ofnew ideas that are coming that I
just probably would have missed,and it really helped me a lot on
that. I always say that I'm paidto grade exams because

(40:47):
everything else is just sogreat. It's just so great to
learn from them. That's

wonderful, too, that you're correcting something
that was missing before in youreducation. You're showing them
actually how to build abusiness, which is so important
to learn the business side ofthings, no matter what career it
is that you're pursuing. Justtalk to us briefly about the
book, and where can I find it

right? So Amazon. Prove them wrong. That's
the name of the book, and it isjust gives you that of using
that discouragement fraternityin your life, the individuals
that told you know the doubt, tofeel that power inside of you,
to go like, I'll show you. I'llshow you, and then it helps you

(41:29):
get forward. And that's whatreally inspired me to be like,
you can't get into law school.
Let me get in. You can't reallyspeak English. Oh, I'll show
you. Instead of letting it getme down, you kind of lift your
spirit. And so the book talksabout that, and it does talk
about, you know, my relationshipwith Casey, and how we came as a
couple to play offense anddefense, and kind of how all
that went, and the things that Ifound out about looking inside

(41:52):
to apply to the business world.
Is there

wonderful, and I can definitely tell that you're
passionate about everything thatyou talk about in that and that
you live, what you teach, whichI deeply respect. So Hector at
the end of every one of theseepisodes, we do a little
summary, because for me, it'svery important to take action,
and I believe that it'swonderful to learn things, but

(42:21):
more important is that you dosomething about it. So what I'm
going to do is, for thelistener, I'm going to suggest
three different actions thatthey can take today or this week
to make your success story apart of their success story. So
I'm going to suggest three, andthen, if you wouldn't mind, I'd
like you to suggest one as wellafter that, sound good. Sound

(42:42):
good. Okay, the first lessoncomes from the beginning, but
we've seen it throughout yourlife and your career. Make
yourself uncomfortable, immerseyourself, put yourself in a
situation where you can learnthings. And you did that. You
immersed yourself in English.
You took advantage of anyopportunity to learn in any way

(43:02):
that you could. And I think alot of people, they're afraid of
the discomfort. And I wouldencourage you to say, what's a
way that you can put yourself ina situation where you have to
learn something that you need? Ithink that's a great principle.
The second one, I want tohighlight a phrase and your
story really is a greatendorsement for one of my books,

(43:24):
the focus business, and one ofthat I talk about in there is
how the business is thereflection of the leader. It's
the business, it's thereflection of you. And you saw
things in your business thatwere a mirror being reflected
back at you. The reason for thatwas because there was past
trauma that you had not yetworked through. So I would ask
anyone who's listening to thisthat where they see a pattern

(43:47):
being reflected back to them toconsider therapy, to consider
going to an advisor to get helpwith it. And then that leads
back to my the last principle.
And you said something great. Iwant to repeat it. School gives
you the lesson and then thetest, but life gives you the

(44:07):
test and then the lesson. Andthen you said, if you don't pass
that test, it keeps giving it toyou over and over. And I would
invite someone listening to thisto consider, what does it seem
like there's something that lifekeeps throwing at me over and
over and over and I don't seemto get it right. Well, if you

(44:28):
don't seem to get it right, thenext time you get that test, do
the different thing. Do whateverit is that you haven't been
doing before, and test it outand see if you don't pass that
test. I loved that principle.
And what's an action that youwould suggest someone can take
today or this week?

I think one thing is it's one step at a
time. The first action is astep. I think it's very much a
very vulnerability thing, right?
Take a step. It's just an actionbecause it can be so
overwhelming, right? You justlook. At it, and call it English
law school, law firms, orwhatever your life is going and
we just give up, like lost toomuch, just one step at a time
and then another step of time.

(45:09):
So whatever actions you decide,or those three or something that
might you hear here or somewhereelse, just do it, and then
pretty soon you get into thehabit of moving forward. And
that's you'll be running beforeyou know it

so true. Put that action on your calendar and
commit to it and do it Hector.
It's been a real pleasure to getto know you today. I really
appreciate you sharing yourwisdom with us. I had had a
great time. I'm sure everyoneelse listening has had that as
well.

Thank you for having me, and I'm a fan. Follow
you all over LinkedIn and allthe content you put your book or
focus is really, really good.

Ella, thank you.
And if people want to continueto learn more from you and
follow you, what's the bestplace to go to to make that
connection? I

am at Quiroga, law office.com that is q, U, I,
R, O, G, a law office.com and wehave a lot of social media
there. Wonderful.

And also check out the book prove them wrong.
Thank you Hector, and thank youeveryone for listening.
Remember, it's not just aboutthe knowledge that you gained or
what you heard. It's about theaction that you take. So do one
thing today, and you'll makeHector's success story a part of
your success story. Thanks forlistening.

Darci Crenshaw (46:23):
You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw
Success Show, hosted by my dad,Dave Crenshaw, and produced by
invaluable incorporated researchand assistant production by
Victoria Bidez, Sound Editing byNikic Wright, voiceover by me
Darci Crenshaw, and the music isby Ryan Brady via Pon five

(46:44):
licensing, please subscribe tothe Dave Crenshaw success show
on Apple podcasts Spotify,wherever you like to get your
podcast. If you have asuggestion for someone my dad
might like to interview, pleasesend it to guests at Dave
crenshaw.com and please don'tforget to leave us a five star
review. See you next time you.

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The Immigrant Lawyer, Héctor E. Quiroga, Sr - Partner at Quiroga Law Office

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Immigrant Lawyer, Héctor E. Quiroga, Sr - Partner at Quiroga Law Office