How a Young Woman Built a Law Firm

And my mom said, you know, one day you really just, you like to argue a lot and you like to read. So I think that you'd be better suited as a lawyer. I'm just the kind of person who once I decide something, I set my mind to it and I'm going to achieve it.

Bethany Schneider is a personal injury attorney and the founder of Schneider, injury law. Through her work, she advocates for individuals and families facing life-changing injuries, helping them navigate difficult circumstances

with confidence, compassion, and strong legal representation. Young female coming up in a male-dominated industry where, you know, you can't rely on other people to help you along.

“You have to perform better than everybody else.”

What's the importance of mentorship for you? It is very important for me, especially with young females, to provide mentorship because the sad thing for me was I really didn't have any good female mentors. So I had to kind of figure out--

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Today, Apple is going to reinvent the globe. It's not over. I'm telling how we're-- the living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host today, Jason Tyler, and I am joined by Bethany Schneider.

Welcome to the show.

Now, first and foremost, you haven't recorded your episode yet.

How are we feeling on the before? Great, really excited to do it. So what kind of things can we expect to learn about you in your episode of Women in Power?

“I think my background is high-graph and what motivated me”

throughout my life to get me to the point where I am, which is opening my own firm, building it over the last eight years, and being to the point where I can actually say that I am a woman in power. I'm excited to be able to tell that story

and be able to, you know, truthfully say that today. Did you have any of the night before jitters? We're like, oh my god, I'm going to be on TV tomorrow. Not I'm going to be on TV tomorrow. People are like, how do you feel about being on TV?

I was a broadcast news major in college. So I'm like, well, now this is a little extra pressure, because I've been trained to do this, right? So and I'm a trial lawyer. So I'm used to talking front of people.

But jitters about just making sure that I say things eloquently enough to be captured on those snippets that I've seen, putting the pressure on myself, like looking at the Instagram and all those clips or the trailer.

And I'm like, I don't know if I can speak so well and embrace your fantastic job of it so far. I'll tell you that. Oh, thank you. And so starting your own firm is, especially in injury law,

is no small task. So what, first of all, what got you into law in and of itself, because like I come from a background, my whole family's lawyers, right? Like my grandfather was, you know,

one of the top of attorneys in Jamaica for 50 years. That's so cool. He was part of the Queen's Council, the whole thing. So my whole family's lawyers. So what got you into it in the first place?

Well, I have no family lawyers. Nobody in my family was a lawyer.

I never knew any lawyers really before I decided

I wanted to be a lawyer. And so it was very random where mothers know best.

“And so I think, you know, I was in maybe middle school”

or high school. And I wanted to be a doctor of veterinarian. I think just because kids, they just, that's the medical field, they just know more. And my mom said, you know, one day,

you really just, you like to argue a lot. And you like to read. So I think that you'd be better so it is a lawyer. And I'm just the kind of person who once I decide something, I set my mind to it and I'm going to achieve it.

So I just set my mind to be an lawyer back then. And that's just what came about. - This is how it happened. - It did, yeah. - Funny enough, like my sister had the opposite trajectory

where like, we always would tell her like,

we told her the same thing like you're graded arguing. You should be a lawyer. And then she was like, no, maybe a veterinarian, actually. So she did like the opposite thing. - And now she just argues with the dogs that, you know.

- Well, funny enough, she never ended up going down the full path for being a veterinarian. Now she works in tech. It's a long story. But law in and of itself, like, that's a, it's a tall order.

Like, it's not, it's no small task to go out and study. Especially here in the States where we have,

across different spectrums of the law. So you ended up specializing in injury law, specifically. So where was kind of that moment for you where like the light bulb clicked?

“- I mean, you never know where you're gonna end up, right?”

I could never have predicted that.

I always knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer because I've always been a performer like to, you know, stand up in front of people. But I don't think you even know before you start practicing, you know, how, what, what is that trial layer?

- You just know about like criminal law. And so it took a long time to figure out, you know, how to get into injury law. I started off practicing big law, when I first got out of law school,

and I started on the business litigation team. Because I thought, oh, well, that has a lot of different types of practice. Well, corporate law, not fun. You know, it's a lot of document.

- Yeah, yeah. - And since it was before like E discovery, so I had to come home every night with these huge boxes of paper.

So one day on the elevator,

the head of the tort litigation team said to me, Bethany, you don't like doing that. Do you? - You should join the tort team. And I said, okay, I will,

but the one thing I do not want to do is to back a litigation because I'm very against smoking. And what do you know?

“I spent the next eight years doing to back a litigation.”

And so I spent a ton of time down here in Miami, which wasn't so bad, but trying cases for RJ Burnell's SPACO company in the SPACO litigation that was going on here at the Engel Project in the litigation.

And that's where I was lucky enough to get my training from some of the best lawyers in the country doing the SPACO litigation. And so--

- And you were so adamant about not doing it,

and then look at what God is funny that way. - And he is. Yeah. And so that, you know, when they told me, well, you can actually get trial experience doing this.

You know, I threw my morals out of the window and said, oh, yeah, okay. - That's usually how it goes. Now, what's something that, everybody that thinks about life as a lawyer,

we have this sensationalized view of it. You know, you have shows like suits, law and order. All of these different shows that like sensationalize it, they make it really sexy to be a lawyer. What's something that somebody out there

who knows nothing about the law, what's like a hidden industry secret that they might not know? - That sexy or not sexy, I guess. - Either one, either one.

Well, the biggest interesting thing in Georgia, when I did this series on social media like behind the curtain, is that when we're trying cases, injury cases in Georgia,

you cannot tell the jury that there's an insurance company involved. So we have to sue the person, so say in a car accident, you sue the driver. And their insurance company is actually the one

that is defending them, but you're not allowed because the insurance law may be has a lot of money. And so they went to the legislature and made sure there were laws in place

to protect against the jury, knowing that there's an insurance company there. So it looks like we're suing Miss Mary Smith and not that we're suing reality or suing that day. - Yeah, our guy, huh, right?

And so in some of the cases, the jury's have been smart enough to know that there is an insurance company. And in some of the cases, they think we've already gotten the insurance money

and we're just now going after poor Miss Mary Smith, you know, at her money. So that's an interesting thing. But sometimes it is like sues. I have an intern right now who's doing her gap year

and we read a deposition the other day where there's a video deposition. So there's a videographer and the court reporter and we're sitting there and, you know, she's sitting in the corner.

I'm like, this is exactly like sues, right? She's like, oh, just about say that. - That must be such a fun moment for you, like, especially, you know, I'm big on and everything we do here inside success,

we're super big on mentorship, right? And so like having that intern that's there with you and being able to kind of walk through that process with them and then having the moment of like, this is just like sues, on the guy.

“But he's fun, like, I think of moments like that,”

you know, with mentors that I've had in videography and things like that, like, what's the importance of mentorship for you? - Well, you know, it is very important for me especially with young females to provide mentorship

because the sad thing for me was, I really didn't have any good female mentors. So I had to kind of figure out the female lawyer that I wanted to be myself. So I'm very dedicated to providing that female mentorship

to others. So I tried to have interns in my office

And so it's very fun to provide not only mentorship in, like, law, but also in business because you know, right in the business and just how to be, you know, young female coming up in a, you know, male-dominate industry

where, you know, you can't, you know, rely on other people to help you along, you know,

“you have to perform better than everybody else, you know,”

you can't expect to be seen equal. - You can't be, you can't expect to be seen just based on the merits of your character. You have to be able to perform like head and shoulders above anybody else, right?

- Exactly. - That's like one of the toughest things. Now, I want to kind of take a moment here to pivot a little bit off of law and into just being a business owner in and of itself.

What are some tips that you would have for somebody that's watching out there for being a business owner? What are some tips and tricks to kind of help somebody along the way?

- Well, never stop hustling.

You know, you really can't ever rest on, you know, what you did yesterday because somebody's always gonna be out thinking you. So, you kind of have to keep innovating. You can't, you know, you can't stop, you know,

being an entrepreneur and being an innovator. One important lesson I learned in business this year, at the end of the year is creating boundaries with employees. I spent a lot of last year being really involved

kind of in just and distracted by personnel issues, just trying to make my employees happy. And then I ended up kind of an employee left that I had spent a lot of time just betting over backwards with flexibility

and accommodations and kind of took time away from my business doing that. And so, just kind of building those boundaries

“to remember that, like you can't always make them happy.”

So, just kind of having those boundaries with your employees, I think that this is a business and that they're gonna be, you know, they have their own families and they're gonna make business decisions too.

I think because staffing has been always such a huge distraction

for me because it's just a hard thing to do with as a business owner. - You kind of want to, the thing about staffing is you kind of want to be super involved with it, but I think a big lesson in leadership is that,

as a leader, especially when you're leading people and business, leadership requires separation. Like, it's almost a prerequisite. Like, I need to be seen as separate. Even though, like, I'm in it with you guys,

like, I want to make sure that everybody knows, like, I'm in the trenches with y'all, but at the same time, I need for everybody to know, like, hey, I'm leading the ship here. Like, I can get us to where we want to go.

I say this, I had a business partner a couple of years ago and he and I started a business together

and we, one of the things that I used to always say

when we would go up and speak was, you know, he and I both had the same end goal in mind. We wanted to go to the same destination, so we were like, we might as well, carpool. Like, it just makes sense in that way.

So as a leader, you need to be able to convince people, like, hey, I'm going to get you guys to where you want to go,

“but just remember that you're following me, right?”

- Right. - Just follow behind me, everybody keep in lockstep. And we're going to get where we want to go. - And I do think that there is more pressure on a female lawyer or female leader and female boss,

especially when I have an all female team to be even more compassionate and flexible and to understand where female employees are coming. - So balancing act to be had there 'cause you don't want to lose that compassion, right?

- Exactly, exactly. - You also don't want to be, you know, too mixed into things, right? - Right. - So, you know, that thing that's an important lesson as well.

That's great, that's great. Now for anybody that's watching at this point, where can we find you on socials, on the internet, where can people find you to learn more about what you have going on?

- Sure, well, I have a website, Schneideringere attorney.com. And my Instagram Schneideringere attorney. So Facebook, same thing, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, you're on all the platforms.

Listen, I've had people come in here and they're like, just my website, and I'm like, you don't got no other social media platforms? Are you sure? Are you sure?

But guys, if you're watching at this point, make sure that you're gonna go ahead and check out Bethany's episode of Women in Power. Now, there's gonna be a lot more in-depth knowledge about her story about what's going on in her business,

So make sure you guys check that out,

check her out on all her socials.

We'll make sure that we have links

“at the bottom of the video for you guys.”

And for me, I'll see you guys in the next one.

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