What happens when a prosecutor realizes the criminal justice system is failing the very people it claims to serve? Mark Astor discovered this harsh reality after seeing the same faces cycle through courtrooms over and over-all struggling with untreated mental health and addiction issues. His journey from "lock them all up" prosecutor to founding the only law firm in America dedicated exclusively to mental health and addiction law reveals a broken system and the innovative legal tools that can actually save lives. Mark's unique approach combines three powerful legal mechanisms-the Baker Act, Marchman Act, and guardianships-often simultaneously, to help families navigate crisis situations when traditional treatment approaches have failed.
Through candid stories of his own rock bottom moments, including studying for the California bar exam three times while broke, and the family crisis that opened his eyes to Florida's "draconian" mental health system, Mark shares how personal growth must precede financial growth. His firm now helps hundreds of families annually using legal strategies most attorneys never touch, supported by their own investigation team and clinical experts. You'll discover why he believes addiction and mental health issues are diseases, not choices, and how the right legal intervention can mean the difference between life and death for families in crisis.
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Website: Achieving-Success.com
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Instagram: @_achievingsuccess
Connect with Mark Astor:
Website: mentalhealthaddictionlawfirm.com
Email: mark@astorsimovitchlaw.com
Phone: 561-517-9405
Podcast: The Journey with Mark Astor
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/achieving-success-with-olivia-atkin--5743662/support.
Through candid stories of his own rock bottom moments, including studying for the California bar exam three times while broke, and the family crisis that opened his eyes to Florida's "draconian" mental health system, Mark shares how personal growth must precede financial growth. His firm now helps hundreds of families annually using legal strategies most attorneys never touch, supported by their own investigation team and clinical experts. You'll discover why he believes addiction and mental health issues are diseases, not choices, and how the right legal intervention can mean the difference between life and death for families in crisis.
Want to grow your podcast, land more guest appearances, and save hours every week? The Podcast Growth Partner helps podcasters, guests, and podcast teams create stronger content, prepare smarter, and grow strategically.
Start your free 3-day trial: PodcastGrowthPartner.com
Want personalized podcast strategy support? Book a free clarity call: MeetwithOlivia.me
Connect with Olivia Atkin & Achieving Success:
Website: Achieving-Success.com
Facebook Community: The Podcaster’s Powerhouse Community For Business Owners
Facebook: Olivia Atkin | Achieving Success
LinkedIn: Olivia Atkin | Achieving Success
Instagram: @_achievingsuccess
Connect with Mark Astor:
Website: mentalhealthaddictionlawfirm.com
Email: mark@astorsimovitchlaw.com
Phone: 561-517-9405
Podcast: The Journey with Mark Astor
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/achieving-success-with-olivia-atkin--5743662/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, everyone, Welcome to Achieving Success with Olivia Achin.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm your host, Olivia Akin.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Each week we a will to discuss the road map
of achieving your personal and professional success. We give you
real life stories on growing personally and professionally to achieve
your life and.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Career goals with the help of some top notch guests.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Today we are speaking with Mark aster Mark is a
trailblazing attorney and the founder of Drug and Alcohol Attorneys
and Baker Act Attorneys, the only law firm in the
United States solely dedicated to mental health and addiction law.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
For more than twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Mark has helped families navigate life saving legal processes such
as the Baker Act, the Marchmen Act, and the Guardianships,
often during some of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Through his work, Mark has developed a unique approach that
combines legal expertise with compassion, helping families turn complex legal
(01:04):
systems into the pathways towards recovery and healing. He's also
the host of the podcast The Journey with Mark Astor,
a podcast that explores the real stories behind leadership, recovery,
personal growth, and the setbacks that often shape.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Who we become.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Today, we'll explore Mark's journey, discuss the important role the
legal system can play in mental health and addiction.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Recovery, and talk about how law.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Can be used not just for justice, but as a
powerful tool for hope and change. You can find Mark
by going to his website Mental Health Addiction Law Firm
dot com, or by emailing him at Mark.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
At Astor's in let mean pause there and set this
back up.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You can find Mark by going to his website Mental
Health Addiction Law Firm dot com, or by emailing him
at Mark at Astors I am ov Itchlaw dot com
or by phone at five six one five one seven
nine of four oh five. And you can follow his
(02:15):
podcast at their Journey with Mark Astor.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Hello, Mark, it's fantastic having you on the.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Show today, Olivia is so good to see you. Always
enjoy your company. Thank you for having me as a guest.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I am really excited to have you as a guest
and dive into your journey. What drives you, How how
you've shaped and built what you have built in all
the good things. And I want to start off with
can you tell me what its success means and looks
like to Mark Astor.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
You know, I am so glad you started with this
question because my wife and I were actually having this
very conversation this morning with our chief operating offs from
what does the future look like? And for me at
fifteen nine years of age, and I feel like I'm
on the downside of whatever time you know, the good
amount above has left for me. I think for us
setting goals you know what I really want? And I
(03:06):
think in terms of success, it's being able to design
my life so I can live it the way I
need to live it and want to live it, and
what goals I need? You know I want, and how
do I am really creating a roadmap to get there?
So I think that's what success is about.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And I think that's.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So important too, because I talk quite frequently about identifying
what success looks like to you, but also understanding the
one constant we have in life is change, and it
can be an awesome tool and sometimes it can be scary,
but identifying where we are today and what we want
that roadmap to look like, like you said, not only
(03:48):
what the destination is, but identifying those pillars along the
way and saying this.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Would be successful. We got here, this would be great.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And then celebrating this moments as well, because it's not
just about the end goalpost, but it's about all the
things that shape us along the way too.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, it's so true. But you know it took me
a little while. It took me a while. It took
me getting a little bit older to really, you know,
sit down and think about what I wanted out of life. Otherwise,
if you don't set goals and you don't define what
success looks for you, because it looks different for everybody,
then you know, you're like a ship, you know that's
just sort of drifting around the ocean with no port
(04:29):
to go to. Right, you can't move in any direction.
You don't know where you're going.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and I love how you used a sailing annow
you with that.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, it's appropriate for you. I didn't think about it,
but yourself. It's irrelevant for you.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
It's like sitting here and I'm like, wow, he's probably
not even realizing that.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I need I did, but I thought about it off
and I'm like, if anybody understands that, it's definitely Olivia.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Mark, I want to dive into word all began for
you because you've also seen law from both sides of things,
being a prosecutor and then starting your own law firm.
So in you and with your career in the area
of law that most attorneys also never touched. They never
(05:15):
touched mental health, they never touched addiction. What first led
you down this path and what made you decide to
dedicate your entire practice to helping families navigate these deeply
personal crisises.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, so I think we're going to go back a
little in time. I was. I was a prosecutor from
nineteen ninety four to nineteen ninety nine, and you know,
it was my first job out of law school. I'd
interned in ninety three, and I was, you know, when
they hired me, I was really young. Ho you know,
lock them all up, lock all the bad people up, right,
And that was fine because the mandate, you know, in
(05:50):
our criminal justice system, and it is even today, is
to punish first and rehibertate second. And it's been that
It's been that way as long as I've been around,
and it's my thirty second year of practice. You know,
pretty early on I realized that there was something off
with our criminal justice system, which was because we were
seeing I was seeing the same faces over and over again,
(06:12):
and all these people had behavior health issues and they
didn't have access to treatment. Now, back then, we didn't
have some of what I call diversary courts that we
have now. So here in Florida, we have mental health court,
we have drug court, we have Veterans Court. Right, we
take certain crimes, certain individuals and we put them into
a treatment program. They go through it and then the
(06:33):
charges get dropped. Well, back in the nineties, we didn't
have any of that, and if you kept coming back,
I mean eventually we just said no choice but to
lock you up for as long as we could, right,
I mean punished first, rehibirth eight second. So I left
in nineteen ninety nine and I did some defense work.
I'll be honestly, I really lost my passion for practicing
law after that because as a government lawyer, I didn't
(06:53):
make any money. I know, I was barely made some
money the first two years at a law schouy Id
lived to home my parents. But I really I got
a lot of personal satisfaction out of what I did,
you know, especially the last year and a half hour.
I was a prosecutor, and I was prosecuting violent felony offenders,
or if it was a murder case, I had the
family of a decedent, and giving those people some closure
(07:15):
some justice gave me tremendous personal satisfaction. But I did
two hundred jury trials in five years, which is an
insane amount of jury trials in five years. That's a
lot of I was in trial all the time, and
it's exhausting, right You're preparing at night, you're working on
the weekends. And I was just fried after five years.
And like I said, I did defense work. I made
a lot more money. I was completely miserable. I got
(07:38):
married at thirty four, I was divorced at thirty five,
and my life went on quite a bit of a
tail spin. I took a year off in o four.
After I got divorced, I spent a year in DC.
I went back to school, got my master's in law.
Also worked on a presidential campaign, which was an amazing experience,
but my candidate didn't win, so I had to come
(07:58):
back home ten. It took what little I had left
off the away crash. Ran off to California for three
years and basically spent three years taking in failing the
count of California Bar, working out and enjoying the things
that the material man enjoys when it comes to the
(08:21):
single life. And I'll leave that to your imagination without
getting into the sort of details. But after three years,
when I was tapped out, I had to come home
and I actually studied for the California Bar one more time.
I actually studied at a local library here where, ironically
is where I opened up the law firm. So I
took the bar one more time. I failed it, and
(08:42):
then I met somebody that basically changed the direction of
my life. So I got invited to a breakfast meeting
that was and there was a presenter there. His name
is R. John Robbins. And think of AR John Robins
as the Tony Robbins of the legal profession. And what
he has a company that teachers lawyers the business side
(09:02):
of being a lawyer, which is the one thing they
don't teach any law student at any law school anywhere
in the country. I mean, they barely teach us enough
law to be able to get through the bar exam. Right.
So I listened to him speak and he talked all
about the business side of practicing law, and that really
resonated with me because I came from an entrepreneurial background.
My dad left school at fourteen, my mother left school
(09:24):
at sixteen, so going to law school was a really
big deal in my family because it had never happened before.
But my dad built businesses, some worked, some didn't, some
made money, and some you know, towards the end of
his life left him, you know, without any and I
was very hard to see. But basically I saw the
guy speak for an hour and a half and I
begged him for a job, and he hired me, and
(09:45):
I spent a year there. I spent a year there
learning all about the business side of practics and law.
But what I didn't realize when I wentn't to work
for him was that his company is a personal growth
company for lawyers, and they believe that postal growth has
to proceede financial growth. And I realized two very important
things when I was there. Number One, that the reason
(10:08):
I was broke and had nobody specially in my life
was because I had failed to take one hundred percent
responsibility for my decisions. And number two, I didn't have
anybody that I was really trying to help. And so
after a year there, I decided to open up my
own law firm. I sat down in the very same
library that I had when I studied for the Bar
exam for the third time. I had no money, but
(10:30):
they had free WiFi at the library, and they had
a little coffee shop that's a pretty decent coffee and
I got really cheap business cards made at Vesta Print.
And I just started calling people, smiling and dilling, and
I called anybody and everybody that I knew. And you
got to remember, I hadn't lived in Florida for three years,
I hadn't practiced law, and close to five or six.
(10:51):
And I just started calling people and running around to
treatment centers, introducing myself, telling people I had this idea
to build a law firm, helping you know, families, you
know with adult children who had, you know, substance use
and mental health disorders. And it took fourteen months before
anybody sent me the kind of case is, you know,
the kind of case that we take on a daily
basis now. So in the meantime, I took criminal cases,
(11:12):
I took family law cases. I represented a student athlete
here in Florida who got himself in a bit of
hot water with a with a female student. Eleven months in,
I lost my dad and just trying to get enough
money together to pay for a funeral was a real struggle.
And because my mom's in a live I had to
buy a plot for her so my dad's I paid
(11:33):
for my mother's I financed for five years, and every
month for five years, I paid off her where she's
going to be late to rest. Two days after I
buried him, I had a family member that completely fell
off the wagon and ended up getting sucked into Florida's
mental health system. And I just, you know, I just
put my nose down and I was able to get
a really small office towards the end of the first year,
(11:54):
and I met my wife in twenty seventeen, and really
for the next six years, we justustled and everything, you know,
sales marketing medium with clients, drafting pleadings, running to courthouses.
I mean, I was driving twenty five thousand miles a year.
But that part of my life, Olivia took me a
little bit longer to take responsibility for, because when I
met her at seventeen, I said, l Liisla, I'm letting
(12:15):
you know if you're looking to get married again, because
she'd already been married and had her children. I said,
you got the wrong guy. I will never get married again.
We are coming up. We just had our second wedding anniversary,
and I'm going to tell you, Olivia, marrying my wife
is the single best decision I've ever made, without question. There,
there's not even a close second. I could not have
built this business with that. And this morning I had
(12:38):
a whole discussion about success and goals and I had
one idea and she had and she had another idea,
and as is typical, she was right and I was wrong.
So we're going to follow her plan. Because whenever we've
done things my way, for the most part, it's turned
out I wouldn't sound always wrong, but when there's a
competing interest between my wife and I, she's nearly always right.
(12:59):
And reminds me too. Yes, you know, we now have
a team of about fifteen people. We helped more people
than ever lost year, and we're on track to help
even more people this year. And because I have people
that answer the phones and do the legal work and
run the court, I can actually sit here without the
phone blowing up, because five years ago I couldn't have
(13:19):
done a podcast that the phone would have been runing
off the book. I wouldn't have been able to sit
here and have a conversation with you well.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And it's also about that you brought up right, there's
the business of law. There's an impact you can make
by leveraging the law and being there as a helping hand.
There's so many aspects of it. So I want to
dive more into what you do with your work. But
before I do that, I think a really important thing
(13:48):
that you brought up is the business side of law
that really, as you mentioned, does not get talked about
when you talk about going to law school when you
graduate with your law degree.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I mean, my sister and brother in law are both lawyers.
They went through.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Law schourt law school and completed during COVID, and I
could tell you because I was there listening to all
the stress of my going to law school, especially when
COVID hit and then taking the bar. They don't talk
about the business of having a practice, running your practice
all that. So for you, as you have started this
(14:29):
practice and have been growing it, what aspect do you
think for any attorney out there is really important to
take in consideration of the concept of the business side
of law.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Well, I think unless you're somebody who has a business background,
you have to appreciate the fact that you do not
know how to run a business. And from a quote
business perspective, there's no difference between my law firm, a restaurant,
a hotel, and a call dealership. We're all selling something
I might be selling. You know, I'm selling legal services.
And obviously a restaurant is selling food, a car is
(15:05):
selling cars. But the point is from a business perspective,
they are all the same. And you know, as lawyers,
I mean if you ask ten lawyers what does your
business do or what is the business running a law firm,
I guarantee that nine of them won't know. They just
won't know. Right, the business of a law firm is
to sell legal services. My practice gets the work done.
(15:26):
But my business sells legal services, which means obviously I
have to have marketing, and I have to be able
to track with that marketing, and I might have a
team that candles incoming sales calls. But you know, so
I spent a year, ironically, I spent a year working
for you know, ar John Robins, and two years ago
I went back as a client. So I had enough
knowledge to get me through the first eight years, and
(15:48):
I needed somebody else to help me get over the hump.
So I mean we went through their program. We have
We have a fractional CEO and a fractional CFO. About
three months ago we hire a full time chief operating
officer and she's been building systems and policies and procedures
so the business can start to run without us, and
(16:08):
I just focus on, for the most part, sales and marketing,
which is a bit of the business. I enjoy it.
Every once in a while, I get sucked back into
handling a case. Maybe it's a VIP. Maybe you know,
we have a conflict and somebody has to go cover
a hearing, and I don't mind doing it, but you know,
I don't have the desire to go running to court anymore.
It's not something I enjoy anymore. I love the business
(16:30):
side of what we do that I find exciting because
even though it's a business, the way we've grown the
business is figuring out how to help more people. If
we help more people will make more money, versus we
want to try and make more money. So, you know,
like I said, postal growth proceeds financial growth, focus on
helping more people, and as a result, you will make
(16:52):
more money.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So that being said as well, you just said focusing
on helping more people will bring you more money. Right now,
how are you focusing on helping the most amount of
people in the most impactful way possible.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Well, I think a couple of things, Olivia. I mean, obviously,
our mission is very very clear. We're very focused on
what we do. Right, people ask you what I do.
I don't tell them. I'm a lawyer saying I own
a business, you know, with a mission to say families,
these loved ones are suffering from substance use, mental health
disorders and failed attempts at recovery. And it's right on
the front of the website. And I've said it one
I've said it a thousand times. And of course the
(17:30):
natural folloup questions, well, how do you do that? Well,
I'm a lawyer. I have a business, you know, a
law ful business, and then I explained how it works.
So having the mission and being focused on that I
think is important. I think also, you know, setting goals
is so important. You know, many years ago I listened
to an audiobook called The Strangest Secret by a guy
(17:51):
called Earl Nightingale. I think it that's his name, Earl Nightingale.
The Strangest Secret. It's literally a forty five minute audiobook
and it was made in the sixties. I mean, when
it plays, you can hear that, you know, And I'm
going to age myself. But when I was when I
was a kid, I used to these music. I had
a record player, right that had these like plastic discs
that are now worth an absolute small fortune, right, something
(18:13):
else I should have kept. But you can hear it
crackly in the background, right, it's so old. But he
talks about The Strangest Secret, and what he discovered through
his research was that the really the key, one of
the major keys to success is setting goals. Right. So
if it's like anything, if you know, if you know
how many people that you want to help, then you
(18:34):
have then, right, and then you can build your marketing
and your sales team around helping those people. Right now,
I know what I need to spend to make the
phone ring. I know roughly what my conversion you know, percentages.
So if I you know, if I have if I
want to help thirty people in the conversionary thirty percent,
I need one hundred phonecals. Okay, how much does it
cost me to make the phone ring one hundred times?
So all of that is built around the fact that
(18:54):
I have certain goals. And so in September of twenty
twenty five, I sat down with our c suite and
we said, Okay, this is what we look like. We'll
finish up in twenty five. What do we want to
do in twenty six? What looks like what looks like
reasonable goals? Okay, right, And we sat down and we
wrote those goals out. And this morning, ironically, when I
(19:15):
was sitting down with my wife and my chief operating officer,
we started to you know, we looked at the trends.
How have things been going since January one? Are we
on target to reach the you know, the goal that
we set and we're, you know, within half a percentage
point of where we need to be, So we're right there,
we're trending in the right direction. But unless you know
those things and it all, you know, it all goes
(19:36):
back to setting goals, then how do you get anywhere?
I mean, you have to set goals, but most lawyers
don't do that. They're like, well, if I make more
money than last year I had a good year. Well, yeah,
but how much more do you want to make because
that'll tell you how many more people you need to help.
And my experience, if you don't, if you don't set
a goal, chance saw, you won't help any more than
(19:57):
you did last year. You might help less. And I've
had that conversation with a couple of my colleagues and
it becomes an adversarial conversation because most lawyers to be
perfectly blunt with you, Olivia. I mean, they're just ossholes.
That's why people don't like lawyers, because we know everything,
even the stuff that we don't know, we know it.
In fact, we're so small we even know what we
(20:19):
don't know. And that's the problem with the legal profession.
That's why people don't like lawyers.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And I will say, as you say that, I'm also
laughing because I'm thinking of people I know who are lawyers.
But I'm also thinking about you because we've worked together
now for about a year, and you are very humble.
You're not trying to you know, there's people out there
who try to tell you how it is or tell
you how to do business. I actually had a call
(20:48):
this morning and I got off the call and I
was laughing. I'm like, Wow, that person was really trying
to give me podcast advice and they don't have a podcast,
they don't do they've never been on a podcast, And
I like laughed it off, but I was like, it
was a pure example of like people try to tell
you what to do, and it's who you listen to,
(21:10):
and it's understanding what you know and what you don't
and how how to bridge that gap sometimes as well.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, I mean that that is a problem, right, I mean,
you know I came to you because I mean you're
now building my podcasts too, because I don't know. I mean,
could I figured it out? I probably could have done.
But I mean even during our initial conversation, I'm like,
holy spokes, I would have never have known any of
that stuff, right, I mean's just not in my wheelhouse.
And there's a really good book out that it's titled
(21:37):
who Not How They try to figure it out yourself?
Hire somebody who already knows how to do it? Why
try to figure out how to build a podcast when
I can hire a Livia because she already figured that
shit out and pay her to do it.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I love that book. I refer to that A lot
of times. I'm like, do you want to be a who?
Or do you want to be the how? Understand what
you want where your time is. And even that even
gave me clarity as I was building my business of Okay,
there there are moments you have to be like, especially
in growth, you can't just keep doing it all yourself.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You need to bring it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
You count in fact, you know, we're at the point
where I mean, I still work at least six days
a week, if not seven, and I can tell you
just you know, it has taken as told me, I
was just you know, the last month, I spent two
of the weeks sick and I went to see my
doctor sent me for chest X rays, maybe take blood,
you know what it is. There's nothing physically wrong, only
I'm just wiped. I'm exhausted. But I have these goals
(22:38):
that I want to achieve and I want and I'm
trying to write I'm trying to get there. So you know,
one of the things we're working on is hiring somebody
who can take sales cools on a weekend, because we
get those caols and we get business. I signed up
two cases myself on Sunday. So but I can't keep
doing that, right, It's just not physically possible fifty nine
to continue to work seven days away week, right. It
(23:01):
is starting to take a toll on me. And you know,
sometimes I say to myself, what's more important getting rest
or getting the goals? Getting the goals is more important.
I'll sleep, I'll sleep later. But my wife's like, yeah,
but you may not get there if you keep this up. Right,
So again it's who, not how, Let's get somebody to
replace me who can handle sales calls on a Sunday
and on a Saturday, so I can try to shut
(23:24):
it down. I'll tell you I'm good at that, but
I will try.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And I hear you. There's times we'll talk or I'll
be thinking.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I'm like, I'll stop myself sometimes, Mark, I'll be honest.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
There's times I think of something.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
For you and I'll like, go to text on a
Saturday and I'm like, Nope, nope, pause this Monday or Tuesday,
like read like.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
For you know, presence and being intentional with that. But
I want to I want to move on to really how.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You not only the business aspect, but the law because
what you do is So that's truly unique, and there's
so many people out there that need.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Your help and understand they're not alone. So many people
hear terms.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And I want to go off the acts right now,
because those can be so confusing. Many people hear terms
like the Baker Act or the Marchmen Act, but don't
really understand what they are and how they work. From
your perspective, what do most people often misunderstand about those
(24:32):
legal tools and a lot of legal tools and resources
that are out there for people going through mental health
and addiction and their families.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, so I'll talk about the laws. Let me if
I could just take two seconds to talk to you
about how I learned about these laws. So, the first
law I read about was the Marchmen Act, and that
is a statue that's unique to Flora, and it allows
us to put people into treatment for periods of up
to ninety days and you can repeat that process as
many times as you want. It also has a part
of the section that allows me to get an emergency
(25:02):
court order without a hearing and basically have law enforcement
grab somebody and get him to a place of safety.
But when I started, when I decided who I wanted
to help who my target orders was going to be.
And I started reading about the Marchman Act. There are
only two lawyers who were using it. One was a
divorce lawyer north for me, and the other guy was
a lawyer that sues nursing homes south of me. And
(25:23):
the guy that was north didn't go south. The guy
that was south didn't go north. And don't tell anybody
about the Marchman Act because we're making too much money
off of it, right, we don't want all these families
that might need our help to know about it. And
if another lawyer he is about it, he might start
using it too. Well. I read about it, and I did.
I started to. I started using it, or I tried
to because it remember it took me fourteen months to
(25:44):
get that first case, but I started putting out video
content and any the guy down south that really rubbed
his rubarb the wrong way. So he went and registered
the fictitious name to my website, which originally, as you
pointed out, was Drug and Alcohol Attorneys, and he sent
he's threatening emails shut it down or I'm going to
sue you, blah blah blah blah blah. So I'm just
not the kind of guy that walks away from a fight.
(26:06):
So I went and rested the fictitious name to his
website and said bring it, show me what you got
that got him to shut his mouth. But needless to say,
over the years him and I have done battle in
the courtroom. He doesn't like me because I ruined it.
And now there's four or five of the lawyers who
are dabbling in the marchmen Act. So the marchal At
was my first tool. When I met my wife, she
(26:27):
had a background in guardianship work, which was traditionally used
for elderly people. She practiced up in Massachusetts for about
a dozen years before she got divorced and came back
down here. And what we figured out was we could
use the guardianship statue not for elderly people, but for
younger people who had these behavioral health issues. So as
of seventeen we started to do gardenship work too. Then,
(26:50):
as I told you, my father passed away eleven months
in so that would have been twenty seventeen. It was
January the fifteenth of twenty seventeen, and two days off
that I had a found But have we got sucked
into Florida's mental health system, and that statue is called
the Baker Act, and that is a statue that basically
allows the state to grab somebody, take custody of them,
make them a ward to the state when there's a
(27:12):
mental health crisis. Now, I didn't realize how important that
experience would become to me until during COVID, when other
lawyers started to call me about their clients getting bakr acted,
and there was nobody out there who knew how to
handle these cases. And I frankly just read the statue
and said, I think I could win these cases. And
you know, these days, I filed to my team files
(27:32):
two hundred and fifty cases every year to get people
out of the Baker Act. And I have pretty much
become the state's leading expert on on that statue because
it happened to me, and I know what happens to
people when they get sucked into a Florida's mental health system,
which is draconian and broken. Again, there are other lawyers
coming along now because they figured they could make money
off it. So those are the three statues we operate under,
(27:55):
and depending on the case, maybe all three at the
same time. Because it's not a usual for us to
file a Marchmen Act which is fast, and the Guardianship
which gives us more control together. And then in the
middle of all this, somebody has a mental health break
and they end up getting Baker Acted sucked into flowda's
mental health system. So things can get crazy pretty quickly. Right,
(28:16):
we have three courts, three judges, but understanding how they
work together is the key to it, right, That's the
key to getting somebody where they need to be. Or
by the way, people with behavioral health issues also get arrested.
So understand how the criminal system works in tandem with
the behavior health system is also important. I mean, I
don't take those cases anymore, I refer them out, but
(28:38):
I understand how it all works together. And I think
that gives us a very unique perspective on helping people
because there's even the people that at the lawyers out
there who are copying is do not have that skill set.
They come from civil backgrounds, car acts and the backgrounds,
divorce backgrounds, you name it, they've done it. And so
that is one thing that makes us very unique and special.
(28:58):
Even my two associates as a public defender and one
work for the Department of Children and Family Services. Again,
their skill set is unique, but it gives us the
ability to handle these cases and deal and take control
of an out of control situation. But you know, when
somebody's really sick, they're unpredictable. They might walk out of treatment,
(29:19):
they might relapse, they might stop taking their medications, they
might have some type of psychotic break, and we have
to be able to respond to that accordingly. But our
parents are are emotional and it's you know, it's stressful.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well, and that's what I was like hearing you say
that as well.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I was thinking, and you just gave the perfect leeway
into it as well. Is how do you decide in
such a fast pace, so many things can be going on,
Like you mentioned, sometimes you're dealing with all three pieces
at the same time. What needs the attention right now?
(29:58):
What is that first step when someone comes to you.
I'll ask it this way. When someone comes to you
and they're in that crisis, right whether it's a family member,
whether it's someone realizing it themselves, how do you hear
the story and are able to identify where the real
support needs to be in that moment and what then
(30:21):
needs to come after.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
It and build the plan.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah. So you know, obviously we have we have the
legal component, we have what clinical, and then we have
what we call lawenforce when I can explain those in
a second. But the first part of what we do
is what I call triaging the case. Right, So you
go to the doctor's office and they ask you, you know,
what's going on? How long has it been going, what
have you tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked. It's about
(30:44):
getting a history. Right, Okay, great, now we have this history.
What are your goals here? What are you actually looking
to achieve here? Right? For some families it might be
just enough to send somebody to treatment. But other families say,
I want to send them to treatment, and I want
to have access to their medical records, and I want
to control their finances, and I want to stop them
from you know, traveling and leaving. You know, I want
(31:06):
to restrict her I want to decide who they live with,
where they spend who they spend time with. I want
to take away the driver's license. Right. It depends what
their goals are. How much control do you want? How
out of control is the situation, because then we can
tailor the relief for a lot of families, you know,
just getting somebody into treatment is enough, but you know,
you get families that come, you know, that want more control. Okay,
(31:28):
then we need to look about a guardianship. But it
all starts with really figuring out what's been going on here.
And even though they're going through sort of a sales cycle,
we still have to in our minds, we still have
to say, Okay, this case could well get litigated. What
can we actually prove? So now I got to put
my lawyer hat on and say, okay, I got to
worry about the rules of evidence, procedural law, substantive law.
(31:51):
Can we actually win this case? Because if I can't
win it, then we're not taking it. I'm not going
to take a case where I don't think that's a
very high likelihood of success. That's not fair to the
family and frankly, it's downright unethical, and I won't take
that case. So once we know that we have enough
evidence and we can move forward the case, here's the options, right,
(32:14):
let's talk about you know, what are the costs associated
with hiring a lawyer? Now, obviously the second part of
all of this, of the recovery process, is clinical getting
somebody into a clinically appropriate facility. Now, a lot of
the time, Olivia, those the clients are already working with maybe
a clinician or an interventionist or a treatment center. Okay,
(32:35):
if we've got that bit done, great, If not, we
have two clinicians that are part of our team. There's
sort of an aliquote option and you could hire them
to come up with the right program. One's a forensic psychologist,
the other's a licensed clindical social worker, and they can
help us to find the right facility that's clinically appropriate.
So we have that down because obviously we go to
courtland justice. Okay, Mistratry, I'm going to give you a
(32:57):
court order. I'm going to mandate treatment. Where are they going?
I don't know. Well, then what's the point of me
signing this core order. Here's where they're going, your honor.
Here's the name, the address, the phone umber, and the
email address of the clinical director. Banger. He puts it
on the order. We're all clear on the same page.
And so you know, having the clinical pieces key and critical,
(33:18):
So I mean those are the two of the three
components that we work with.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, you also mentioned law and I remember when we
first met over a year ago. Now you brought that up,
and I thought it was also so interesting because I
don't really hear of law firms, and I talk to
a lot of people doing what I do. That also
really has a lot a police team, right as I
(33:49):
may call it myself.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
But can you dive into that some more as well.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, So you know, when I was prosecutor, we had
our own internal police force. We used to investigations, but
they were I mean, they were law enforcements. So in
addition to be able to find witnesses, which I use
them a lot for if you know, if we needed
if a judge gave in a restaurant, they can go
actually arrest the person. And I thought, if I had
a law firm, that'd be really cool to have inside
a law firm, right, have your own little police force.
(34:15):
So that's all we have. So John is a retired
federal agent and he's got a team of investigators. So
I told you about these baker At cases that we
handle all over the state. So the facilities have to
be served, and he does it for me all over
the state, and he normally does it within about two
hours of me filing the case, which is great because
that's how you get people out quickly, is letting the
facility know, hey, your ass has just been dragged into court.
(34:37):
You know, give me the client back or I'll see
you in front of a judge. But you know, we
also use them because you know, if we're executing a
pickup order, the issues that authorizes lawa force to take
somebody into a facility. I want my guy there to
make sure I goes smoothly. But sometimes people aren't where
they're supposed to be. He's going to go find him.
I've also had people that run out of treatment. Rather
(34:58):
than waiting for the police to go find him, if
we need I'll have Jonah, one of his team members,
go find the person. So having that extra sort of
reach has been really important to us and it helps
us to get good results. He's an important piece of
the puzzle. He really helped big time. So I got
my own little law enforcement agency and so that can help.
(35:19):
And when I had somebody that hit and round my
car and I had a license plate, he went and
found them for me. Don't mess with my guy.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, don't mess with them.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
And that's the thing too, is it's all about having
the right team in place and having different tools and
resources to have the best outcome possible.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
And as you were talking about that as well.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
I kept hearing, Okay, this will help create a smoother outcome,
a more positive outcome, a less stressful outcome, then the
other potential aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And that being.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Said, you're not just dealing, as we've talked about so far,
the legal cases. You're dealing with human lives, families and
incredibly emotional situations. Nine times out of ten, probably ten
times out of ten, do you personally navigate the emotional
weight that comes with doing this kind of work every
(36:15):
single day, because, as you said, you works most times
seven days a week.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think you have to understand
where people are coming from. You know, for the most part,
when somebody calls, they're going to go through our intake department,
and you know Brittain and Leanna who run it right now,
I mean they understand, you know, where our clients are
coming from. And so again it's really part of the
core values of the FuMB is understanding what we're really
(36:41):
trying to do here, and you know that we're here
to serve. But I think It's also about having a
very honest conversation with people. And you know, I still
do consults every once in a while, and I will
tell the family, can we have an open and on
this conversation about what's really going on here? Because sometimes
it's not just the air loved ones in denial. The
(37:01):
family's in denial too, right. It's hard for them to
accept the fact, probably because they've been playing the blame
game as to whose fault it is, and really ironic,
the irony is it's no one's fault. It just is
what it is because sometimes things happen in families. It's
about having a conversation saying, look, there's a long history here.
Here's what I think we need to do. It's also
(37:23):
being honest enough to say, listen, I don't you know
you haven't seen this person in three months or six months.
I don't think we have enough evidence for us to
file anything. Here's an alternative that doesn't involve the legal system.
Why don't I connect you with this person and see
if we can use this modality to get this person
into treatment and still achieve the goal that you're trying
to achieve. So, I mean, you've got to have empathy.
(37:46):
But it's about, you know, having a difficult conversation with
somebody and coming from a place of love and being
honest with them and saying, listen, if you don't do this,
causes have effects, and effects have consequences. And if you don't,
for whatever reason, you're willing to move forward, that's okay.
It's a no judgment zone here. But I'm letting you
know what the consequences of not doing this. It's going
(38:07):
to get worse. It's a disease, and any disease is
untreated typically gets worse. What does that look like? I
don't know. Let's look, you know, let's talk about what
it looks like in a year or two years. What
could be the tragic consequences of not taking action? Are
you willing to go down that road? If you all,
that's fine. I'm not here to tell you what to do.
I'm here to give you options and then you tell
(38:28):
me what works for you, and if nothing works for you,
that's okay.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
We pot as friends, and I think that's really important
as well as giving all the options and letting everything
on the table.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I think so many of us are scared of what
might be said in.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Moments of we're struggling, we're emotional, that we don't want
to be honest about it. So putting that level of
transparency and no judgment zone is key in having difficult conversations,
whether it is in situations like this or just personal
life as well admitting we're wrong sometimes and walking through.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
That as well.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So, Mark, I want to end with this question because
I can't believe our time is coming to an end.
But after working with families and crisis for more than
twenty five years, what is one truth about addiction and
mental health that you wish society understood differently?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
That it is a disease, it's not a conscious choice, right,
And again, sometimes you just don't have to have that
conversation with families because there's a certain stigma attached to it,
and you know, sometimes you'll get one parent says, well,
why don't they just stop? Well, their brain was hijacked
about five years ago. They don't even they're in they
don't even think there's a problem here. So asking someone
(39:50):
to solve a problem that they don't think exists, it's
just not simply going to happen. And when you understand
that it's a disease, and like any disease, it progresses, right,
then you can have an honest conversation about what treating
the disease looks like. But if you're going to play
play the blame game, right, Oh, it's your fault, it's
your fault, it's his fault, it's her fault. That doesn't
(40:11):
that doesn't help, you know. And sometimes one parent will say, well,
you know, just you know, throw them out of the house,
get him out of the house, right, And the other
parent will say, no, no, no, we just need to keep
them here, we need to support them. And I don't
think either one of those two goals well one of those,
either of those two directions really achieves the goal, which
is to get somebody into recovery. Recovery means going into
(40:32):
treatment and working the program, probably for close to a year,
if it's been going on for a long time, right,
and saying to the family, let's look about let's look
a year down the road, right, and how things could
be right. But it all starts with the commitment, right,
getting rid of the blame, getting rid of the judgment,
and saying, Okay, there's a problem here, let's address it.
(40:55):
And then once you can make that commitment, then good
things can happen. Work.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
How could people get in touch with you if they
want to connect with you?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So our main website, I knew website is mental Health
Addiction Law Firm dot com. That's Mental Health Addiction Lawfirm
dot com. Or they could just google me and thanks
to you, they can probably find me all over the internet.
So if you just google Mark Astor and go to
a YouTube channel where there's a bad eight hundred videos,
some of them are with the podcast that Olivia is
done an amazing job helping me put together and remember
(41:26):
who not how don't try to do your own podcast? Hi,
Olivia silly?
Speaker 2 (41:31):
And I didn't pay for any of that promotion, so.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
I'm telling you that's a freebait.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
And I've truly.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Enjoyed working with you, so I have been waiting for
the time we can have this impactful conversation. And there's
so much I want to dive deeper in. So I
think at some point you're gonna probably end up coming back.
But thank you Mark for all of your insights today
and a key few, very key takeaways from today's conversation
(42:03):
include do not punish first and rehabilitate later. That is
what Mark is here, why he does what he does
is understand the importance that if you want change, it
isn't about punishing someone first and then figuring out rehabilitation later.
It's about what is their success goals? Was your success
(42:26):
goals as a family, as someone who's supporting them and
getting them to the right rehabilitation situation and plan right,
Having that plan in place in life is so important
as well as I love how Mark brought up the
business of law because so many times I hear so
(42:48):
many people say, oh, well, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Doctor, I'm a lawyer, I do this, and so I'm
not in the business space.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
But as Mark brought up, there's always business, especially when
you own a law firm, when you're in a law practice, right,
if you own a doctor's office. It could be across
the board. But we have to put that business hat on.
And so I think it was really important in his
story as well as understanding what in the sense of law,
(43:19):
what the business of law looks like, and understanding those
different pieces.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And understanding we are all selling something.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
So stop telling yourself you're not a salesperson, right, because
we all put that lie on ourselves. Sometimes we don't sell.
I'm not good at sales. We all sell something as well.
And to go a level deeper on that, the business
is to sell law services. So when you're a lawyer,
(43:46):
and what Mark talks about the business he is in
is to sell law services. And one challenge I want
to give everyone today based on our conversation is how
much do you actually understand about mental health and addiction
services within your own states? The resources that you have,
(44:09):
because you might not be someone who is struggling, but
you probably know someone who has struggled or is struggling
currently and having the right resources and the right tools
can make the world of difference for someone. This was
a great episode with our top notch guest, Mark Astor.
Thank you for listening and have a successful day.
Hello, everyone, Welcome to Achieving Success with Olivia Achin.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm your host, Olivia Akin.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Each week we a will to discuss the road map
of achieving your personal and professional success. We give you
real life stories on growing personally and professionally to achieve
your life and.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Career goals with the help of some top notch guests.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Today we are speaking with Mark aster Mark is a
trailblazing attorney and the founder of Drug and Alcohol Attorneys
and Baker Act Attorneys, the only law firm in the
United States solely dedicated to mental health and addiction law.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
For more than twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Mark has helped families navigate life saving legal processes such
as the Baker Act, the Marchmen Act, and the Guardianships,
often during some of the most difficult moments in their lives.
Through his work, Mark has developed a unique approach that
combines legal expertise with compassion, helping families turn complex legal
(01:04):
systems into the pathways towards recovery and healing. He's also
the host of the podcast The Journey with Mark Astor,
a podcast that explores the real stories behind leadership, recovery,
personal growth, and the setbacks that often shape.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Who we become.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Today, we'll explore Mark's journey, discuss the important role the
legal system can play in mental health and addiction.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Recovery, and talk about how law.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Can be used not just for justice, but as a
powerful tool for hope and change. You can find Mark
by going to his website Mental Health Addiction Law Firm
dot com, or by emailing him at Mark.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
At Astor's in let mean pause there and set this
back up.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
You can find Mark by going to his website Mental
Health Addiction Law Firm dot com, or by emailing him
at Mark at Astors I am ov Itchlaw dot com
or by phone at five six one five one seven
nine of four oh five. And you can follow his
(02:15):
podcast at their Journey with Mark Astor.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Hello, Mark, it's fantastic having you on the.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Show today, Olivia is so good to see you. Always
enjoy your company. Thank you for having me as a guest.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I am really excited to have you as a guest
and dive into your journey. What drives you, How how
you've shaped and built what you have built in all
the good things. And I want to start off with
can you tell me what its success means and looks
like to Mark Astor.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
You know, I am so glad you started with this
question because my wife and I were actually having this
very conversation this morning with our chief operating offs from
what does the future look like? And for me at
fifteen nine years of age, and I feel like I'm
on the downside of whatever time you know, the good
amount above has left for me. I think for us
setting goals you know what I really want? And I
(03:06):
think in terms of success, it's being able to design
my life so I can live it the way I
need to live it and want to live it, and
what goals I need? You know I want, and how
do I am really creating a roadmap to get there?
So I think that's what success is about.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And I think that's.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So important too, because I talk quite frequently about identifying
what success looks like to you, but also understanding the
one constant we have in life is change, and it
can be an awesome tool and sometimes it can be scary,
but identifying where we are today and what we want
that roadmap to look like, like you said, not only
(03:48):
what the destination is, but identifying those pillars along the
way and saying this.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Would be successful. We got here, this would be great.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And then celebrating this moments as well, because it's not
just about the end goalpost, but it's about all the
things that shape us along the way too.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Yeah, it's so true. But you know it took me
a little while. It took me a while. It took
me getting a little bit older to really, you know,
sit down and think about what I wanted out of life. Otherwise,
if you don't set goals and you don't define what
success looks for you, because it looks different for everybody,
then you know, you're like a ship, you know that's
just sort of drifting around the ocean with no port
(04:29):
to go to. Right, you can't move in any direction.
You don't know where you're going.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Yeah, and I love how you used a sailing annow
you with that.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, it's appropriate for you. I didn't think about it,
but yourself. It's irrelevant for you.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
It's like sitting here and I'm like, wow, he's probably
not even realizing that.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I need I did, but I thought about it off
and I'm like, if anybody understands that, it's definitely Olivia.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Mark, I want to dive into word all began for
you because you've also seen law from both sides of things,
being a prosecutor and then starting your own law firm.
So in you and with your career in the area
of law that most attorneys also never touched. They never
(05:15):
touched mental health, they never touched addiction. What first led
you down this path and what made you decide to
dedicate your entire practice to helping families navigate these deeply
personal crisises.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Yeah, so I think we're going to go back a
little in time. I was. I was a prosecutor from
nineteen ninety four to nineteen ninety nine, and you know,
it was my first job out of law school. I'd
interned in ninety three, and I was, you know, when
they hired me, I was really young. Ho you know,
lock them all up, lock all the bad people up, right,
And that was fine because the mandate, you know, in
(05:50):
our criminal justice system, and it is even today, is
to punish first and rehibertate second. And it's been that
It's been that way as long as I've been around,
and it's my thirty second year of practice. You know,
pretty early on I realized that there was something off
with our criminal justice system, which was because we were
seeing I was seeing the same faces over and over again,
(06:12):
and all these people had behavior health issues and they
didn't have access to treatment. Now, back then, we didn't
have some of what I call diversary courts that we
have now. So here in Florida, we have mental health court,
we have drug court, we have Veterans Court. Right, we
take certain crimes, certain individuals and we put them into
a treatment program. They go through it and then the
(06:33):
charges get dropped. Well, back in the nineties, we didn't
have any of that, and if you kept coming back,
I mean eventually we just said no choice but to
lock you up for as long as we could, right,
I mean punished first, rehibirth eight second. So I left
in nineteen ninety nine and I did some defense work.
I'll be honestly, I really lost my passion for practicing
law after that because as a government lawyer, I didn't
(06:53):
make any money. I know, I was barely made some
money the first two years at a law schouy Id
lived to home my parents. But I really I got
a lot of personal satisfaction out of what I did,
you know, especially the last year and a half hour.
I was a prosecutor, and I was prosecuting violent felony offenders,
or if it was a murder case, I had the
family of a decedent, and giving those people some closure
(07:15):
some justice gave me tremendous personal satisfaction. But I did
two hundred jury trials in five years, which is an
insane amount of jury trials in five years. That's a
lot of I was in trial all the time, and
it's exhausting, right You're preparing at night, you're working on
the weekends. And I was just fried after five years.
And like I said, I did defense work. I made
a lot more money. I was completely miserable. I got
(07:38):
married at thirty four, I was divorced at thirty five,
and my life went on quite a bit of a
tail spin. I took a year off in o four.
After I got divorced, I spent a year in DC.
I went back to school, got my master's in law.
Also worked on a presidential campaign, which was an amazing experience,
but my candidate didn't win, so I had to come
(07:58):
back home ten. It took what little I had left
off the away crash. Ran off to California for three
years and basically spent three years taking in failing the
count of California Bar, working out and enjoying the things
that the material man enjoys when it comes to the
(08:21):
single life. And I'll leave that to your imagination without
getting into the sort of details. But after three years,
when I was tapped out, I had to come home
and I actually studied for the California Bar one more time.
I actually studied at a local library here where, ironically
is where I opened up the law firm. So I
took the bar one more time. I failed it, and
(08:42):
then I met somebody that basically changed the direction of
my life. So I got invited to a breakfast meeting
that was and there was a presenter there. His name
is R. John Robbins. And think of AR John Robins
as the Tony Robbins of the legal profession. And what
he has a company that teachers lawyers the business side
(09:02):
of being a lawyer, which is the one thing they
don't teach any law student at any law school anywhere
in the country. I mean, they barely teach us enough
law to be able to get through the bar exam. Right.
So I listened to him speak and he talked all
about the business side of practicing law, and that really
resonated with me because I came from an entrepreneurial background.
My dad left school at fourteen, my mother left school
(09:24):
at sixteen, so going to law school was a really
big deal in my family because it had never happened before.
But my dad built businesses, some worked, some didn't, some
made money, and some you know, towards the end of
his life left him, you know, without any and I
was very hard to see. But basically I saw the
guy speak for an hour and a half and I
begged him for a job, and he hired me, and
(09:45):
I spent a year there. I spent a year there
learning all about the business side of practics and law.
But what I didn't realize when I wentn't to work
for him was that his company is a personal growth
company for lawyers, and they believe that postal growth has
to proceede financial growth. And I realized two very important
things when I was there. Number One, that the reason
(10:08):
I was broke and had nobody specially in my life
was because I had failed to take one hundred percent
responsibility for my decisions. And number two, I didn't have
anybody that I was really trying to help. And so
after a year there, I decided to open up my
own law firm. I sat down in the very same
library that I had when I studied for the Bar
exam for the third time. I had no money, but
(10:30):
they had free WiFi at the library, and they had
a little coffee shop that's a pretty decent coffee and
I got really cheap business cards made at Vesta Print.
And I just started calling people, smiling and dilling, and
I called anybody and everybody that I knew. And you
got to remember, I hadn't lived in Florida for three years,
I hadn't practiced law, and close to five or six.
(10:51):
And I just started calling people and running around to
treatment centers, introducing myself, telling people I had this idea
to build a law firm, helping you know, families, you
know with adult children who had, you know, substance use
and mental health disorders. And it took fourteen months before
anybody sent me the kind of case is, you know,
the kind of case that we take on a daily
basis now. So in the meantime, I took criminal cases,
(11:12):
I took family law cases. I represented a student athlete
here in Florida who got himself in a bit of
hot water with a with a female student. Eleven months in,
I lost my dad and just trying to get enough
money together to pay for a funeral was a real struggle.
And because my mom's in a live I had to
buy a plot for her so my dad's I paid
(11:33):
for my mother's I financed for five years, and every
month for five years, I paid off her where she's
going to be late to rest. Two days after I
buried him, I had a family member that completely fell
off the wagon and ended up getting sucked into Florida's
mental health system. And I just, you know, I just
put my nose down and I was able to get
a really small office towards the end of the first year,
(11:54):
and I met my wife in twenty seventeen, and really
for the next six years, we justustled and everything, you know,
sales marketing medium with clients, drafting pleadings, running to courthouses.
I mean, I was driving twenty five thousand miles a year.
But that part of my life, Olivia took me a
little bit longer to take responsibility for, because when I
met her at seventeen, I said, l Liisla, I'm letting
(12:15):
you know if you're looking to get married again, because
she'd already been married and had her children. I said,
you got the wrong guy. I will never get married again.
We are coming up. We just had our second wedding anniversary,
and I'm going to tell you, Olivia, marrying my wife
is the single best decision I've ever made, without question. There,
there's not even a close second. I could not have
built this business with that. And this morning I had
(12:38):
a whole discussion about success and goals and I had
one idea and she had and she had another idea,
and as is typical, she was right and I was wrong.
So we're going to follow her plan. Because whenever we've
done things my way, for the most part, it's turned
out I wouldn't sound always wrong, but when there's a
competing interest between my wife and I, she's nearly always right.
(12:59):
And reminds me too. Yes, you know, we now have
a team of about fifteen people. We helped more people
than ever lost year, and we're on track to help
even more people this year. And because I have people
that answer the phones and do the legal work and
run the court, I can actually sit here without the
phone blowing up, because five years ago I couldn't have
(13:19):
done a podcast that the phone would have been runing
off the book. I wouldn't have been able to sit
here and have a conversation with you well.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And it's also about that you brought up right, there's
the business of law. There's an impact you can make
by leveraging the law and being there as a helping hand.
There's so many aspects of it. So I want to
dive more into what you do with your work. But
before I do that, I think a really important thing
(13:48):
that you brought up is the business side of law
that really, as you mentioned, does not get talked about
when you talk about going to law school when you
graduate with your law degree.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I mean, my sister and brother in law are both lawyers.
They went through.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Law schourt law school and completed during COVID, and I
could tell you because I was there listening to all
the stress of my going to law school, especially when
COVID hit and then taking the bar. They don't talk
about the business of having a practice, running your practice
all that. So for you, as you have started this
(14:29):
practice and have been growing it, what aspect do you
think for any attorney out there is really important to
take in consideration of the concept of the business side
of law.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Well, I think unless you're somebody who has a business background,
you have to appreciate the fact that you do not
know how to run a business. And from a quote
business perspective, there's no difference between my law firm, a restaurant,
a hotel, and a call dealership. We're all selling something
I might be selling. You know, I'm selling legal services.
And obviously a restaurant is selling food, a car is
(15:05):
selling cars. But the point is from a business perspective,
they are all the same. And you know, as lawyers,
I mean if you ask ten lawyers what does your
business do or what is the business running a law firm,
I guarantee that nine of them won't know. They just
won't know. Right, the business of a law firm is
to sell legal services. My practice gets the work done.
(15:26):
But my business sells legal services, which means obviously I
have to have marketing, and I have to be able
to track with that marketing, and I might have a
team that candles incoming sales calls. But you know, so
I spent a year, ironically, I spent a year working
for you know, ar John Robins, and two years ago
I went back as a client. So I had enough
knowledge to get me through the first eight years, and
(15:48):
I needed somebody else to help me get over the hump.
So I mean we went through their program. We have
We have a fractional CEO and a fractional CFO. About
three months ago we hire a full time chief operating
officer and she's been building systems and policies and procedures
so the business can start to run without us, and
(16:08):
I just focus on, for the most part, sales and marketing,
which is a bit of the business. I enjoy it.
Every once in a while, I get sucked back into
handling a case. Maybe it's a VIP. Maybe you know,
we have a conflict and somebody has to go cover
a hearing, and I don't mind doing it, but you know,
I don't have the desire to go running to court anymore.
It's not something I enjoy anymore. I love the business
(16:30):
side of what we do that I find exciting because
even though it's a business, the way we've grown the
business is figuring out how to help more people. If
we help more people will make more money, versus we
want to try and make more money. So, you know,
like I said, postal growth proceeds financial growth, focus on
helping more people, and as a result, you will make
(16:52):
more money.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
So that being said as well, you just said focusing
on helping more people will bring you more money. Right now,
how are you focusing on helping the most amount of
people in the most impactful way possible.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Well, I think a couple of things, Olivia. I mean, obviously,
our mission is very very clear. We're very focused on
what we do. Right, people ask you what I do.
I don't tell them. I'm a lawyer saying I own
a business, you know, with a mission to say families,
these loved ones are suffering from substance use, mental health
disorders and failed attempts at recovery. And it's right on
the front of the website. And I've said it one
I've said it a thousand times. And of course the
(17:30):
natural folloup questions, well, how do you do that? Well,
I'm a lawyer. I have a business, you know, a
law ful business, and then I explained how it works.
So having the mission and being focused on that I
think is important. I think also, you know, setting goals
is so important. You know, many years ago I listened
to an audiobook called The Strangest Secret by a guy
(17:51):
called Earl Nightingale. I think it that's his name, Earl Nightingale.
The Strangest Secret. It's literally a forty five minute audiobook
and it was made in the sixties. I mean, when
it plays, you can hear that, you know, And I'm
going to age myself. But when I was when I
was a kid, I used to these music. I had
a record player, right that had these like plastic discs
that are now worth an absolute small fortune, right, something
(18:13):
else I should have kept. But you can hear it
crackly in the background, right, it's so old. But he
talks about The Strangest Secret, and what he discovered through
his research was that the really the key, one of
the major keys to success is setting goals. Right. So
if it's like anything, if you know, if you know
how many people that you want to help, then you
(18:34):
have then, right, and then you can build your marketing
and your sales team around helping those people. Right now,
I know what I need to spend to make the
phone ring. I know roughly what my conversion you know, percentages.
So if I you know, if I have if I
want to help thirty people in the conversionary thirty percent,
I need one hundred phonecals. Okay, how much does it
cost me to make the phone ring one hundred times?
So all of that is built around the fact that
(18:54):
I have certain goals. And so in September of twenty
twenty five, I sat down with our c suite and
we said, Okay, this is what we look like. We'll
finish up in twenty five. What do we want to
do in twenty six? What looks like what looks like
reasonable goals? Okay, right, And we sat down and we
wrote those goals out. And this morning, ironically, when I
(19:15):
was sitting down with my wife and my chief operating officer,
we started to you know, we looked at the trends.
How have things been going since January one? Are we
on target to reach the you know, the goal that
we set and we're, you know, within half a percentage
point of where we need to be, So we're right there,
we're trending in the right direction. But unless you know
those things and it all, you know, it all goes
(19:36):
back to setting goals, then how do you get anywhere?
I mean, you have to set goals, but most lawyers
don't do that. They're like, well, if I make more
money than last year I had a good year. Well, yeah,
but how much more do you want to make because
that'll tell you how many more people you need to help.
And my experience, if you don't, if you don't set
a goal, chance saw, you won't help any more than
(19:57):
you did last year. You might help less. And I've
had that conversation with a couple of my colleagues and
it becomes an adversarial conversation because most lawyers to be
perfectly blunt with you, Olivia. I mean, they're just ossholes.
That's why people don't like lawyers, because we know everything,
even the stuff that we don't know, we know it.
In fact, we're so small we even know what we
(20:19):
don't know. And that's the problem with the legal profession.
That's why people don't like lawyers.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And I will say, as you say that, I'm also
laughing because I'm thinking of people I know who are lawyers.
But I'm also thinking about you because we've worked together
now for about a year, and you are very humble.
You're not trying to you know, there's people out there
who try to tell you how it is or tell
you how to do business. I actually had a call
(20:48):
this morning and I got off the call and I
was laughing. I'm like, Wow, that person was really trying
to give me podcast advice and they don't have a podcast,
they don't do they've never been on a podcast, And
I like laughed it off, but I was like, it
was a pure example of like people try to tell
you what to do, and it's who you listen to,
(21:10):
and it's understanding what you know and what you don't
and how how to bridge that gap sometimes as well.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
Yeah, I mean that that is a problem, right, I mean,
you know I came to you because I mean you're
now building my podcasts too, because I don't know. I mean,
could I figured it out? I probably could have done.
But I mean even during our initial conversation, I'm like,
holy spokes, I would have never have known any of
that stuff, right, I mean's just not in my wheelhouse.
And there's a really good book out that it's titled
(21:37):
who Not How They try to figure it out yourself?
Hire somebody who already knows how to do it? Why
try to figure out how to build a podcast when
I can hire a Livia because she already figured that
shit out and pay her to do it.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I love that book. I refer to that A lot
of times. I'm like, do you want to be a who?
Or do you want to be the how? Understand what
you want where your time is. And even that even
gave me clarity as I was building my business of Okay,
there there are moments you have to be like, especially
in growth, you can't just keep doing it all yourself.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You need to bring it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
You count in fact, you know, we're at the point
where I mean, I still work at least six days
a week, if not seven, and I can tell you
just you know, it has taken as told me, I
was just you know, the last month, I spent two
of the weeks sick and I went to see my
doctor sent me for chest X rays, maybe take blood,
you know what it is. There's nothing physically wrong, only
I'm just wiped. I'm exhausted. But I have these goals
(22:38):
that I want to achieve and I want and I'm
trying to write I'm trying to get there. So you know,
one of the things we're working on is hiring somebody
who can take sales cools on a weekend, because we
get those caols and we get business. I signed up
two cases myself on Sunday. So but I can't keep
doing that, right, It's just not physically possible fifty nine
to continue to work seven days away week, right. It
(23:01):
is starting to take a toll on me. And you know,
sometimes I say to myself, what's more important getting rest
or getting the goals? Getting the goals is more important.
I'll sleep, I'll sleep later. But my wife's like, yeah,
but you may not get there if you keep this up. Right,
So again it's who, not how, Let's get somebody to
replace me who can handle sales calls on a Sunday
and on a Saturday, so I can try to shut
(23:24):
it down. I'll tell you I'm good at that, but
I will try.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
And I hear you. There's times we'll talk or I'll
be thinking.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I'm like, I'll stop myself sometimes, Mark, I'll be honest.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
There's times I think of something.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
For you and I'll like, go to text on a
Saturday and I'm like, Nope, nope, pause this Monday or Tuesday,
like read like.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
For you know, presence and being intentional with that. But
I want to I want to move on to really how.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You not only the business aspect, but the law because
what you do is So that's truly unique, and there's
so many people out there that need.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Your help and understand they're not alone. So many people
hear terms.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And I want to go off the acts right now,
because those can be so confusing. Many people hear terms
like the Baker Act or the Marchmen Act, but don't
really understand what they are and how they work. From
your perspective, what do most people often misunderstand about those
(24:32):
legal tools and a lot of legal tools and resources
that are out there for people going through mental health
and addiction and their families.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
Yeah, so I'll talk about the laws. Let me if
I could just take two seconds to talk to you
about how I learned about these laws. So, the first
law I read about was the Marchmen Act, and that
is a statue that's unique to Flora, and it allows
us to put people into treatment for periods of up
to ninety days and you can repeat that process as
many times as you want. It also has a part
of the section that allows me to get an emergency
(25:02):
court order without a hearing and basically have law enforcement
grab somebody and get him to a place of safety.
But when I started, when I decided who I wanted
to help who my target orders was going to be.
And I started reading about the Marchman Act. There are
only two lawyers who were using it. One was a
divorce lawyer north for me, and the other guy was
a lawyer that sues nursing homes south of me. And
(25:23):
the guy that was north didn't go south. The guy
that was south didn't go north. And don't tell anybody
about the Marchman Act because we're making too much money
off of it, right, we don't want all these families
that might need our help to know about it. And
if another lawyer he is about it, he might start
using it too. Well. I read about it, and I did.
I started to. I started using it, or I tried
to because it remember it took me fourteen months to
(25:44):
get that first case, but I started putting out video
content and any the guy down south that really rubbed
his rubarb the wrong way. So he went and registered
the fictitious name to my website, which originally, as you
pointed out, was Drug and Alcohol Attorneys, and he sent
he's threatening emails shut it down or I'm going to
sue you, blah blah blah blah blah. So I'm just
not the kind of guy that walks away from a fight.
(26:06):
So I went and rested the fictitious name to his
website and said bring it, show me what you got
that got him to shut his mouth. But needless to say,
over the years him and I have done battle in
the courtroom. He doesn't like me because I ruined it.
And now there's four or five of the lawyers who
are dabbling in the marchmen Act. So the marchal At
was my first tool. When I met my wife, she
(26:27):
had a background in guardianship work, which was traditionally used
for elderly people. She practiced up in Massachusetts for about
a dozen years before she got divorced and came back
down here. And what we figured out was we could
use the guardianship statue not for elderly people, but for
younger people who had these behavioral health issues. So as
of seventeen we started to do gardenship work too. Then,
(26:50):
as I told you, my father passed away eleven months
in so that would have been twenty seventeen. It was
January the fifteenth of twenty seventeen, and two days off
that I had a found But have we got sucked
into Florida's mental health system, and that statue is called
the Baker Act, and that is a statue that basically
allows the state to grab somebody, take custody of them,
make them a ward to the state when there's a
(27:12):
mental health crisis. Now, I didn't realize how important that
experience would become to me until during COVID, when other
lawyers started to call me about their clients getting bakr acted,
and there was nobody out there who knew how to
handle these cases. And I frankly just read the statue
and said, I think I could win these cases. And
you know, these days, I filed to my team files
(27:32):
two hundred and fifty cases every year to get people
out of the Baker Act. And I have pretty much
become the state's leading expert on on that statue because
it happened to me, and I know what happens to
people when they get sucked into a Florida's mental health system,
which is draconian and broken. Again, there are other lawyers
coming along now because they figured they could make money
off it. So those are the three statues we operate under,
(27:55):
and depending on the case, maybe all three at the
same time. Because it's not a usual for us to
file a Marchmen Act which is fast, and the Guardianship
which gives us more control together. And then in the
middle of all this, somebody has a mental health break
and they end up getting Baker Acted sucked into flowda's
mental health system. So things can get crazy pretty quickly. Right,
(28:16):
we have three courts, three judges, but understanding how they
work together is the key to it, right, That's the
key to getting somebody where they need to be. Or
by the way, people with behavioral health issues also get arrested.
So understand how the criminal system works in tandem with
the behavior health system is also important. I mean, I
don't take those cases anymore, I refer them out, but
(28:38):
I understand how it all works together. And I think
that gives us a very unique perspective on helping people
because there's even the people that at the lawyers out
there who are copying is do not have that skill set.
They come from civil backgrounds, car acts and the backgrounds,
divorce backgrounds, you name it, they've done it. And so
that is one thing that makes us very unique and special.
(28:58):
Even my two associates as a public defender and one
work for the Department of Children and Family Services. Again,
their skill set is unique, but it gives us the
ability to handle these cases and deal and take control
of an out of control situation. But you know, when
somebody's really sick, they're unpredictable. They might walk out of treatment,
(29:19):
they might relapse, they might stop taking their medications, they
might have some type of psychotic break, and we have
to be able to respond to that accordingly. But our
parents are are emotional and it's you know, it's stressful.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
Well, and that's what I was like hearing you say
that as well.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I was thinking, and you just gave the perfect leeway
into it as well. Is how do you decide in
such a fast pace, so many things can be going on,
Like you mentioned, sometimes you're dealing with all three pieces
at the same time. What needs the attention right now?
(29:58):
What is that first step when someone comes to you.
I'll ask it this way. When someone comes to you
and they're in that crisis, right whether it's a family member,
whether it's someone realizing it themselves, how do you hear
the story and are able to identify where the real
support needs to be in that moment and what then
(30:21):
needs to come after.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
It and build the plan.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Yeah. So you know, obviously we have we have the
legal component, we have what clinical, and then we have
what we call lawenforce when I can explain those in
a second. But the first part of what we do
is what I call triaging the case. Right, So you
go to the doctor's office and they ask you, you know,
what's going on? How long has it been going, what
have you tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked. It's about
(30:44):
getting a history. Right, Okay, great, now we have this history.
What are your goals here? What are you actually looking
to achieve here? Right? For some families it might be
just enough to send somebody to treatment. But other families say,
I want to send them to treatment, and I want
to have access to their medical records, and I want
to control their finances, and I want to stop them
from you know, traveling and leaving. You know, I want
(31:06):
to restrict her I want to decide who they live with,
where they spend who they spend time with. I want
to take away the driver's license. Right. It depends what
their goals are. How much control do you want? How
out of control is the situation, because then we can
tailor the relief for a lot of families, you know,
just getting somebody into treatment is enough, but you know,
you get families that come, you know, that want more control. Okay,
(31:28):
then we need to look about a guardianship. But it
all starts with really figuring out what's been going on here.
And even though they're going through sort of a sales cycle,
we still have to in our minds, we still have
to say, Okay, this case could well get litigated. What
can we actually prove? So now I got to put
my lawyer hat on and say, okay, I got to
worry about the rules of evidence, procedural law, substantive law.
(31:51):
Can we actually win this case? Because if I can't
win it, then we're not taking it. I'm not going
to take a case where I don't think that's a
very high likelihood of success. That's not fair to the
family and frankly, it's downright unethical, and I won't take
that case. So once we know that we have enough
evidence and we can move forward the case, here's the options, right,
(32:14):
let's talk about you know, what are the costs associated
with hiring a lawyer? Now, obviously the second part of
all of this, of the recovery process, is clinical getting
somebody into a clinically appropriate facility. Now, a lot of
the time, Olivia, those the clients are already working with maybe
a clinician or an interventionist or a treatment center. Okay,
(32:35):
if we've got that bit done, great, If not, we
have two clinicians that are part of our team. There's
sort of an aliquote option and you could hire them
to come up with the right program. One's a forensic psychologist,
the other's a licensed clindical social worker, and they can
help us to find the right facility that's clinically appropriate.
So we have that down because obviously we go to
courtland justice. Okay, Mistratry, I'm going to give you a
(32:57):
court order. I'm going to mandate treatment. Where are they going?
I don't know. Well, then what's the point of me
signing this core order. Here's where they're going, your honor.
Here's the name, the address, the phone umber, and the
email address of the clinical director. Banger. He puts it
on the order. We're all clear on the same page.
And so you know, having the clinical pieces key and critical,
(33:18):
So I mean those are the two of the three
components that we work with.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, you also mentioned law and I remember when we
first met over a year ago. Now you brought that up,
and I thought it was also so interesting because I
don't really hear of law firms, and I talk to
a lot of people doing what I do. That also
really has a lot a police team, right as I
(33:49):
may call it myself.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
But can you dive into that some more as well.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Yeah, So you know, when I was prosecutor, we had
our own internal police force. We used to investigations, but
they were I mean, they were law enforcements. So in
addition to be able to find witnesses, which I use
them a lot for if you know, if we needed
if a judge gave in a restaurant, they can go
actually arrest the person. And I thought, if I had
a law firm, that'd be really cool to have inside
a law firm, right, have your own little police force.
(34:15):
So that's all we have. So John is a retired
federal agent and he's got a team of investigators. So
I told you about these baker At cases that we
handle all over the state. So the facilities have to
be served, and he does it for me all over
the state, and he normally does it within about two
hours of me filing the case, which is great because
that's how you get people out quickly, is letting the
facility know, hey, your ass has just been dragged into court.
(34:37):
You know, give me the client back or I'll see
you in front of a judge. But you know, we
also use them because you know, if we're executing a
pickup order, the issues that authorizes lawa force to take
somebody into a facility. I want my guy there to
make sure I goes smoothly. But sometimes people aren't where
they're supposed to be. He's going to go find him.
I've also had people that run out of treatment. Rather
(34:58):
than waiting for the police to go find him, if
we need I'll have Jonah, one of his team members,
go find the person. So having that extra sort of
reach has been really important to us and it helps
us to get good results. He's an important piece of
the puzzle. He really helped big time. So I got
my own little law enforcement agency and so that can help.
(35:19):
And when I had somebody that hit and round my
car and I had a license plate, he went and
found them for me. Don't mess with my guy.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Yeah, don't mess with them.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
And that's the thing too, is it's all about having
the right team in place and having different tools and
resources to have the best outcome possible.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
And as you were talking about that as well.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
I kept hearing, Okay, this will help create a smoother outcome,
a more positive outcome, a less stressful outcome, then the
other potential aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
And that being.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Said, you're not just dealing, as we've talked about so far,
the legal cases. You're dealing with human lives, families and
incredibly emotional situations. Nine times out of ten, probably ten
times out of ten, do you personally navigate the emotional
weight that comes with doing this kind of work every
(36:15):
single day, because, as you said, you works most times
seven days a week.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Yeah, I mean, look, I think you have to understand
where people are coming from. You know, for the most part,
when somebody calls, they're going to go through our intake department,
and you know Brittain and Leanna who run it right now,
I mean they understand, you know, where our clients are
coming from. And so again it's really part of the
core values of the FuMB is understanding what we're really
(36:41):
trying to do here, and you know that we're here
to serve. But I think It's also about having a
very honest conversation with people. And you know, I still
do consults every once in a while, and I will
tell the family, can we have an open and on
this conversation about what's really going on here? Because sometimes
it's not just the air loved ones in denial. The
(37:01):
family's in denial too, right. It's hard for them to
accept the fact, probably because they've been playing the blame
game as to whose fault it is, and really ironic,
the irony is it's no one's fault. It just is
what it is because sometimes things happen in families. It's
about having a conversation saying, look, there's a long history here.
Here's what I think we need to do. It's also
(37:23):
being honest enough to say, listen, I don't you know
you haven't seen this person in three months or six months.
I don't think we have enough evidence for us to
file anything. Here's an alternative that doesn't involve the legal system.
Why don't I connect you with this person and see
if we can use this modality to get this person
into treatment and still achieve the goal that you're trying
to achieve. So, I mean, you've got to have empathy.
(37:46):
But it's about, you know, having a difficult conversation with
somebody and coming from a place of love and being
honest with them and saying, listen, if you don't do this,
causes have effects, and effects have consequences. And if you don't,
for whatever reason, you're willing to move forward, that's okay.
It's a no judgment zone here. But I'm letting you
know what the consequences of not doing this. It's going
(38:07):
to get worse. It's a disease, and any disease is
untreated typically gets worse. What does that look like? I
don't know. Let's look, you know, let's talk about what
it looks like in a year or two years. What
could be the tragic consequences of not taking action? Are
you willing to go down that road? If you all,
that's fine. I'm not here to tell you what to do.
I'm here to give you options and then you tell
(38:28):
me what works for you, and if nothing works for you,
that's okay.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
We pot as friends, and I think that's really important
as well as giving all the options and letting everything
on the table.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
I think so many of us are scared of what
might be said in.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Moments of we're struggling, we're emotional, that we don't want
to be honest about it. So putting that level of
transparency and no judgment zone is key in having difficult conversations,
whether it is in situations like this or just personal
life as well admitting we're wrong sometimes and walking through.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
That as well.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So, Mark, I want to end with this question because
I can't believe our time is coming to an end.
But after working with families and crisis for more than
twenty five years, what is one truth about addiction and
mental health that you wish society understood differently?
Speaker 3 (39:29):
That it is a disease, it's not a conscious choice, right,
And again, sometimes you just don't have to have that
conversation with families because there's a certain stigma attached to it,
and you know, sometimes you'll get one parent says, well,
why don't they just stop? Well, their brain was hijacked
about five years ago. They don't even they're in they
don't even think there's a problem here. So asking someone
(39:50):
to solve a problem that they don't think exists, it's
just not simply going to happen. And when you understand
that it's a disease, and like any disease, it progresses, right,
then you can have an honest conversation about what treating
the disease looks like. But if you're going to play
play the blame game, right, Oh, it's your fault, it's
your fault, it's his fault, it's her fault. That doesn't
(40:11):
that doesn't help, you know. And sometimes one parent will say, well,
you know, just you know, throw them out of the house,
get him out of the house, right, And the other
parent will say, no, no, no, we just need to keep
them here, we need to support them. And I don't
think either one of those two goals well one of those,
either of those two directions really achieves the goal, which
is to get somebody into recovery. Recovery means going into
(40:32):
treatment and working the program, probably for close to a year,
if it's been going on for a long time, right,
and saying to the family, let's look about let's look
a year down the road, right, and how things could
be right. But it all starts with the commitment, right,
getting rid of the blame, getting rid of the judgment,
and saying, Okay, there's a problem here, let's address it.
(40:55):
And then once you can make that commitment, then good
things can happen. Work.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
How could people get in touch with you if they
want to connect with you?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
So our main website, I knew website is mental Health
Addiction Law Firm dot com. That's Mental Health Addiction Lawfirm
dot com. Or they could just google me and thanks
to you, they can probably find me all over the internet.
So if you just google Mark Astor and go to
a YouTube channel where there's a bad eight hundred videos,
some of them are with the podcast that Olivia is
done an amazing job helping me put together and remember
(41:26):
who not how don't try to do your own podcast? Hi,
Olivia silly?
Speaker 2 (41:31):
And I didn't pay for any of that promotion, so.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
I'm telling you that's a freebait.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
And I've truly.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Enjoyed working with you, so I have been waiting for
the time we can have this impactful conversation. And there's
so much I want to dive deeper in. So I
think at some point you're gonna probably end up coming back.
But thank you Mark for all of your insights today
and a key few, very key takeaways from today's conversation
(42:03):
include do not punish first and rehabilitate later. That is
what Mark is here, why he does what he does
is understand the importance that if you want change, it
isn't about punishing someone first and then figuring out rehabilitation later.
It's about what is their success goals? Was your success
(42:26):
goals as a family, as someone who's supporting them and
getting them to the right rehabilitation situation and plan right,
Having that plan in place in life is so important
as well as I love how Mark brought up the
business of law because so many times I hear so
(42:48):
many people say, oh, well, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Doctor, I'm a lawyer, I do this, and so I'm
not in the business space.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
But as Mark brought up, there's always business, especially when
you own a law firm, when you're in a law practice, right,
if you own a doctor's office. It could be across
the board. But we have to put that business hat on.
And so I think it was really important in his
story as well as understanding what in the sense of law,
(43:19):
what the business of law looks like, and understanding those
different pieces.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And understanding we are all selling something.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
So stop telling yourself you're not a salesperson, right, because
we all put that lie on ourselves. Sometimes we don't sell.
I'm not good at sales. We all sell something as well.
And to go a level deeper on that, the business
is to sell law services. So when you're a lawyer,
(43:46):
and what Mark talks about the business he is in
is to sell law services. And one challenge I want
to give everyone today based on our conversation is how
much do you actually understand about mental health and addiction
services within your own states? The resources that you have,
(44:09):
because you might not be someone who is struggling, but
you probably know someone who has struggled or is struggling
currently and having the right resources and the right tools
can make the world of difference for someone. This was
a great episode with our top notch guest, Mark Astor.
Thank you for listening and have a successful day.
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