Magic Beans

Not quite, but close.  No, these beans will not help you navigate the rules of COVID, which seem to change by the day, or the hyper-volatile stock market, or illuminate the metaverse, defi, or crypto, but they will make the early morning videoconference less unbearable.  For what it’s worth, I’m an early riser (https://johnpavolotsky.com/2021/01/15/early-to-bed-early-to-rise/), although I wonder to what extent that is facilitated by the knowledge that a great cup of coffee awaits me. 

Liminal Coffee (https://liminal-coffee.com) is a small batch roaster based in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Every few weeks I buy a bag of beans, whether the Zelelu Ararso (pictured above), Chelchele, or Aramo (each from Ethiopia), Candeias (Brazil), or Bondowoso (Indonesia).  Each batch is different, meaning that the Aramo I might have one week is a little different from the one I might have a few weeks later, just because someone “messed with” (in the best possible sense) the roasting recipe.  I do not mind and even look forward to the variety. 

I buy these beans on Saturday mornings from a stand at the San Mateo Farmers’ Market, on the College of San Mateo (CSM) campus. I head to the market right after an outdoor boot camp workout, also located on the CSM campus.  One-stop shopping, almost.  I mentioned the magic beans to another member of the boot camp crew, and she is hooked; Liminal offers a complementary beverage (coffee, cappuccino, latte, nitro, etc.) to bean purchasers, and otherwise charges (reasonably) for these beverages.  The perfect elixir to flipping tires, tossing medicine balls, and maintaining the elusive perfect plank.  A super-friendly husband and wife team run Liminal, founded in 2018.  The coffee stand is my last stop, after I have picked up my usual apples, beets, carrots, almonds, and strawberries. I enjoy a cup of the latest roast (or a cappuccino) and plan my day.  The next roast, per the Liminal website, is on January 29, 2022. 

I have told others about Liminal; word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing in action. No, I do not get a discount on the beans, but I appreciate great coffee, positivity, and a good story. I know something about good coffee (or at least I’d like to think that I do), so my recommendation probably carries some weight. 

Silicon Valley (SV) is both big and small.  I have been practicing law in SV for the past 22 years, serving clients big and small.  As intimated above, SV is a bit of a fishbowl; if you stick around long enough, you end up seeing the same faces, these days usually via Zoom, but you get the picture.  Recall Milgram’s six degrees of separation experiment in the late 1960s, when a letter mailed from Omaha only needed five hops before being received by a random, pre-selected person in Boston.  In the Valley, everyone, it seems, is a second-level connection, a connection of a connection.  Do you know X?  Have you worked with Y?  It is WOM, just like my favorite local coffee stand.  Everyone wants, and usually gets, a known quantity.  Someone you can trust.  Lawyers are generally low trust (https://johnpavolotsky.com/2022/01/09/trust-in-a-low-trust-world/).  Accordingly, an introduction from someone with a good reputation and trust-positive relationship with the legal (or any) hiring manager, etc. is worth its price in gold (or at least a cappuccino from Fiero Caffe).  Trust is mental shorthand, like first year law school grades, a quick (and relatively) easy way to screen and get more comfortable with candidates.  No one would knowingly risk one’s hard-earned reputation by recommending someone who would not reflect well on them. Conversely, bad interactions stick.

For someone starting off in the Valley, this fishbowl can be both good and bad.  Good, in the sense that there is a decent chance that someone you know may know someone you’d like to know.  Bad, in the musical chairs sense; there are far fewer chairs than folks circling them, and once you’re in, you’re in (unless the trust that you have earned is lost).  Put otherwise, as in politics, the incumbent is usually heavily favored. 

So, what can you do to build trust (and develop authentic relationships with those who have built trust with others)?  Details matter, especially for a junior attorney, establishing his, her, or their reputation.  Triple check your work product.  Writing is your currency.  Do not forget to send thank you letters (or texts).  Be precise on licensor/licensee, indemnitor/indemnitee, payor/payee, and other like terms, until you have put in your 10,000 hours (Outliers), and it has become second nature.  Is this an inbound transaction, an outbound one, or are both parties licensing or purchasing the other’s technology and/or services? Context matters. Learn the technology that is the subject of the deal. Join a professional organization and, more importantly, when you’re comfortable, become active, by joining and contributing to a working group. Networking for lawyers can be an oxymoron, but do not discount it completely.  That said, playing the digital Hollywood Squares until the pandemic becomes an endemic might not be the best use of time.  I would recommend an (outdoor) coffee instead or, even better, a strenuous group hike.  More on the latter in my next post. 

Comments welcomed.