“Don’t get me wrong. If someone would pay me to ride my bike and drink beer, and I never had to come to the office, I would take that in a heartbeat! But that’s probably not gonna happen for anybody.”
Luckily, for the majority of us, there are very few jobs that carry with it an assumption of who you are. Values, ethics, personality type, all there wrapped up neatly with your job title. Can you imagine if every time you mentioned what you did for a living people made an immediate judgement about you? Not too fun. Today’s guest, Eric Hobbs, carries around one such title with him. Eric is a lawyer, and he is well aware of the snap judgements people like us make about “people like him”. In Eric’s email to me detailing what he does for a living he even went so far as to say “Wait! Wait! Hear me out; yes, lawyers kind of suck (I’ll be the first to admit that), but I’m not one of those sucky lawyers”. First of all, that is really funny and shows what an honest and humorous perspective Eric has. Second, what is this non-sucky type of lawyer that Eric is referring to? Why a corporate lawyer that is, working for a company that makes outdoor recreation equipment, a huge passion of Eric’s. He’ll tell us all about what it is like to work in an industry that is related to your hobby, and what sorts of crazy things people try to sue his company for.
“I dealt with one case where an individual had kicked himself with a snowshoe…and gotten an infection [and wanted us to pay for it]. We asked him “why’d you kick yourself?”, and he said “because you didn’t tell me not to”.”
“I dealt with one case where an individual had kicked himself with a snowshoe…and gotten an infection [and wanted us to pay for it]. We asked him “why’d you kick yourself?”, and he said “because you didn’t tell me not to”.”
Interview Contents
5:30 - Eric’s first memories camping.
7:20 - Eric’s path to becoming a lawyer.
10:15 - Getting a job at a camping company.
13:30 - The variety of roles a corporate attorney plays.
19:30 - Are companies insulated from liability by putting warnings on products?
24:00 - The landscape of suing and getting sued.
27:00 - The strangest thing they have been sued for.
32:30 - The cool things Eric gets to do thanks to the company he works for.
34:20 - Why do new products have to come to Eric before the company is going to make it?
36:30 - Patents.
39:00 - The pros and cons of being a general counsel lawyer vs a lawyer at a firm.
46:10 - The path for the introvert.
48:00 - Advice.
Links
THIS EPISODE WAS MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Roxanna
Michelle & Jim Wortner
Janelle Swanson
Jimmy Seymour
