Anthony Panebianco is a shareholder with Davis Malm, the ILN’s member firm for Boston, Massachusetts. In this episode, Lindsay and Anthony chat about the current market for litigation and transactional matters, why being considerate and thoughtful can lead to more clients, and one of the biggest misunderstandings people have about litigation.
You can listen to the podcast here, or we’ve provided a transcript of the highlights below.
Lindsay: Hello and welcome to the Law Firm ILN-telligence Podcast. I’m your host, Lindsay Griffiths, executive director of the International Lawyers Network. Our guest this week is Anthony Panebianco of Davis, Malm, and D’Agostine in Boston.
Anthony, welcome. We’re so glad to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining us this week.
Anthony: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Lindsay: Great. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, your practice, and your law firm.
Anthony: Sure. Our law firm is based in Boston, Massachusetts. We are a full-service law firm handling everything from business litigation to family law and everything in between. My particular practice focuses on litigation, business litigation, some commercial transactional work. And I do a pretty extensive amount of entertainment law as well. And that is what I’m very interested in, those areas and those topics, and I’ve been able to carve out my career there in those areas, which has been a blessing.
Lindsay: Fantastic. Can you tell us what your biggest challenge is at the moment and how you’re working to overcome that?
Anthony: Sure. Our biggest challenge, which has always been present throughout my career, but it has grown exponentially now with the internet and having clients all over the world, is trying to manage all those clients and all the clients’ needs in a timely fashion. We have clients that can be remote, so they’re operating their businesses out of different time zones, and we have to be ready and responsive at all times. So being able to do so in this technological world has been a challenge, but it’s been an exciting challenge. Whether it’s jumping on calls at 3:00 A.M. or going to meet them where they are, that has been fantastic. So, it has been a wonderful challenge, but it certainly is a challenge trying to understand that and address the needs of our clients all over the world.
Lindsay: I totally understand that. I have a call next week and I’m trying to decide whether I’m going to stay up and be on that call at 3:00 A.M. or whether I try to get some sleep first and power through to do that call at 3:00 because I know I have to be up until 4:00 A.M.
Anthony: Yes. I recently had a call with Paris, but I happened to be in Australia at the time, so the hour difference was wide. And I had the same decision making that you had to do go 4:00, and I decided to go to bed early and wake up at 3:00 and do it and it was great. It worked out well, but it’s things that you have to do because your clients have needs and they have them all over the world and you have to be ready for them when they arise. And you never know when they’re going to arise. It’s part of the business, and it can be an enjoyable part of the business as well. I represent a lot of restaurants and a lot of people in the entertainment industry, so their hours are not 9:00 to 5:00. They are typically in the evening hours when they have their needs pop up. So, you have to be accessible to them. And that’s okay. That works great for me.
Lindsay: Absolutely. The challenges of a global world, and as you say, a world that operates 24/7.
Anthony: Yes, absolutely.
Lindsay: Great, thank you. So, can you tell us a little bit about the market in terms of litigation and what that looks like for your clients?
Anthony: People could be more likely to say, “I have the time and energy and money to spend on litigation,” but also when there’s a tightening, people get more conservative, but they have to spend money on litigation where they wouldn’t elsewhere, things that they might let slide or things that they would be less concerned about and try to see how it would play out. They have more immediate concerns. So, in terms of litigation, that doesn’t change much with the markets. It’s really about the transactional work that we see that has its ups and downs and flows within the market.
And in my work for businesses, there has been a little bit of a slowing in terms of the transactional work, but there is more innovative transactional work now, I would say. Those parties that are still pushing to get transactions done think about them in different ways. They think of creative financing, creative holding of the assets, different kind of joint ventures that we’re doing and seeing. So, for those parties, those clients that are really innovative, it’s a wonderful time. Even though the rates are high, they can be more creative, and people want those risks because they’re the only deals out there.
Lindsay: That’s really fantastic. Are you seeing any creative financing happening on the litigation side? Because I know there was a lot of discussion about litigation financing a few years ago, and I’m wondering if that’s still happening.
Anthony: We don’t typically see it on our end in terms of the litigation. That’s usually reserved for personal injury suits or suits that have different natures than what we do. I tend to do business litigation, so it’s two businesses against each other and they’re paying for their own costs. We are approached more frequently, I will say that, in the last year than we had been in the last five years about litigation financing. Whether there are new firms popping up or it seems a more viable option right now for them, we are being approached by litigation financing, but it’s just not what we do for our clients. It’s not something that we see all that often in terms of our clients wanting to do that.
Lindsay: Sure, sure. That makes sense. What would you say is the biggest area that’s related either to the practice of law or your industry that you’re curious about at the moment?
Anthony: I think it’s relatively universal for attorneys right now to understand where AI is going and how that’s going to impact our industry. And not just from a selfish point of view of how is it going to impact my day-to-day job, but how is it going to impact my clients. What do we have to know about it to protect our clients, and also to make to enhance their business possibilities? How are they using it so we can understand it? I think that’s the biggest question that we all have. It’s a learning curve that seems everyone is on globally except for a handful of people that are ahead of the curve. But for the most part, we’re all on the same learning path now. And those firms that understand it more, understand where the technology is heading and can help utilize it and for our own benefit as law firms and for our clients, we’re going to leave some bounds ahead. And I think that’s the biggest question we all have right now.
Lindsay: I completely agree. And there are some firms that I’ve just focused on that former piece, as you say, how’s it going to impact them on a daily basis. But really that other important piece, the latter piece of how their clients are going to be using it and how it is going to impact them, especially from a legal perspective, is also very important. Whether or not you use it as a law firm is something that matters, but how it impacts your clients, and their businesses, is also essential.
Anthony: Yes. From clients writing emails to other businesses that they’re doing with or automatic responses that they might have, we deal with a lot of consumer protection laws and how does that impact everything, how does AI impact our automated responses? We have to be conscious of that and see how it’s being utilized to protect our clients from liability. So, there’s a wide range of where it’s going to be implemented and there’s a wide range of how we as attorneys can be thoughtful of it.
Lindsay: Absolutely. Absolutely. Switching gears a little bit, can you tell us something interesting about yourself that most people don’t know?
Anthony: That’s always a tough question because what we find interesting about ourselves might not be interesting to others. One thing I will say about myself is that if you Google hard enough, you could probably… I know that you can find music that I made when I was eighteen on the internet.
Lindsay: Wow.
Anthony: Yes, with some of my friends. It’s terrible. It’s not good. It is not music even my mother would love or be proud of, but it exists, and it is humorous. I work a lot with musicians and artists, that’s why I do some entertainment law. It is what my general background was growing up just as a love and a hobby, nothing more. And I still have a lot of friends in that community and so I do work with them. But it’s because I was originally wanted to be a musician, but I’m not talented enough on any stretch of the level to be one.
Lindsay: Is that something you still dabble in now?
Anthony: I do. I do. I play now, but it’s mostly confined to the four walls of my house. That’s about it right now. I do work with the Cape Symphony. I’m their chair, but that’s more of passion. I don’t play. I just go so I can experience the beauty that is music.
Lindsay: That’s fantastic. I love that.
Anthony: The only other side note, interesting part that may be entertaining, is it’s on my bio, on the firm, that I was spoofed on an episode of American Horror Story.
Lindsay: Wow.
Anthony: A very, very, very brief moment. One of my clients was really spoofed and they had their attorney representing them and they made fun of his shoes. And I have an extensive shoe collection. It’s the only thing I collect. So that is where that comes from.
Lindsay: We’ll have to have everybody that listens to this tune in and watch that episode just so they can say they know who it was based on.
Anthony: Please don’t. It’s made to be sarcastic and funnily insulting if you will, which I appreciate. It’s fine.
Lindsay: Yes, that’s good. Well, it’s good to have a sense of humor about yourself.
Anthony: You have to.
Lindsay: That’s right.
Anthony: You can’t take too much of yourself too seriously or it makes the days too long.
Lindsay: That’s absolutely true. That’s absolutely true. So, who would you say has been your biggest mentor during your career?
Anthony: I would say I have had two. Just in terms of how to approach a day, how to approach a week or a career, it would be my father. He worked at SUNY, the State University of New York, for almost 40 years. But he approached every day the same. Even though every day was different, he approached it with optimism and, “What challenges can I face today and what challenges can I help people out with today?” And he was in human resources. It was a tough, challenging job, but he loved every second of it. That makes a difference when you get home. It makes a difference when you’re on vacation that you can appreciate life because you’re just approaching the day differently to figure out who you can help that day and you wake up on the right side of the bed when you have that kind of mentality. So, in terms of life and just how to create a career, that’s always been a mentor.
In terms of the legal practice, my biggest mentor has been an attorney, Jason Morgan, that I work with. He had a similar attitude, but he would always try to think of a humorous relationship with every client or every trial that we had to keep that in the back of our heads. Mostly it was movie related or music related, but he would, instead of saying, “Where are we on the Smith case,” he would say, “Where are we on the Rolling Stones? How’s Rolling Stones doing today?” So, you would have to think, you think of the music and then you think of the client, and you’d try to make some analogy from music or a film to think about it and it makes a difference because it brings joy when you’re talking about work.
Or even if it’s a stressful case, it’s a three-week trial that you’re slogging along in and it’s a lot of pressure and you’re under a lot of demands time-wise and family-wise and everything else. You can relate it to something that you love. So, there’s always something there that reminds you of things that you love that brings you joy, even if you’re doing it just as sort of a mnemonic device of let’s push through. That has been tremendous.
He deals with that same passion. I watched him in a thousand different meetings together, my former colleague and I, where he brings that same sort of passion in every conversation. Whether we’re hiring a new filing clerk to a brand new hundred-million-dollar client, it’s the same conversation. It’s the same tone. It’s the same way you talk to everyone. Opposing counsel or a judge, it’s the same way. You treat them with respect, and you show that you’re always prepared, and you always have a sort of sense of humor about what you’re doing, people tend to agree with you more. In the long run, as a litigator, it’s a good way to go.
Lindsay: Absolutely. That is so cool. I love that.
Anthony: Yes, it certainly makes work entertaining in that way, to think about it that way.
Lindsay: Yes. What a way to make, as you say, cases go more quickly. And even though it can be a slog, that mnemonic device really is a wonderful way to remember things and bring some joy to the workday.
Anthony: Yes, truly.
Lindsay: Yeah, I really appreciate that. What is something that you think people misunderstand about your field of work?
Anthony: The time it takes to do something, particularly in litigation. Cases range. I have cases now that are eight years old. They’ve gone up and down on appeal. They have gone left and right and up and down, and they take a long time, and they can. People see on TV the litigation shows, whether it’s Suits or something, Law & Order, where an episode is wrapped up in an evening, but it really, they kind of forecast how it goes in about a week’s time or two weeks’ time. And that’s not how life works. That’s not how litigation works, unfortunately.
So, it’s trying to get people to understand that it’s not just a financial investment, it’s an emotional investment that you are going to have to live with for perhaps two years, three years or more. And that has a value to you, not just what the dollars and cents are. What makes the best business practice for you is what are the emotional stakes here of your time and living with it. And we always try to be very upfront about how we predict these things going so that people can make those calculations for themselves because it’s important. It’s an important factor that people don’t understand the first time they’re going through litigation.
Lindsay: Absolutely. Yes. So, do you spend a lot of time counseling people on what their expectations should be at the outset of a matter?
Anthony: Always. Yes, always try to do it. We’re always trying to be expedient and make things go as quickly as possible for clients. Just last week, I filed a motion for a speedy trial because my clients are elderly in this case, and they need resolution for themselves. We always try to be expedient about things, but we also have to be realistic in that. Particularly during and after Covid, courts are really bogged down and slowed. So, things are taking time. And it’s always sort of been the case, but it’s even longer now for the most part we find. So, we want to be upfront and let the clients factor that in their decision making.
Lindsay: Absolutely.
Anthony: We’ll fight for years as we’ve proven in some of our cases. We’ll fight for years, and we’ll continue to do so, but the clients need to be understanding of the realities of litigation, and it’s our job to inform them of that.
Lindsay: Of course, it’s about what their appetite for risk is and the length of the litigation and all of those factors.
Anthony: Yes.
Lindsay: So, what is the most important lesson you’ve learned over your career?
Anthony: I hate to answer this like a lawyer, but-
Lindsay: It depends.
Anthony: No, not it depends, but I don’t know if there has been a single definitive lesson, but I also wouldn’t want to limit myself because I have to learn a lesson every day for my career. It’s understanding what the needs are of the clients every day are going to create new lessons.
I think the most valuable lesson that I’ve learned so far is that as much as an adversarial position is litigation is, there is very little benefit in being an asshole. It’s hard. You’re passionate about your clients, you’re passionate about what you’re doing. Judges can get it wrong, the other side can get facts wrong, can say things that are blatantly untrue, but I can also get things wrong and make mistakes.
There is no benefit to be an asshole in this world or in this position. That doesn’t mean that we can’t fight with everything that we have and be more prepared than everyone else, be smarter than everyone else and advocate as aggressively as possible. But if you go into the position with respect, you’re going to get a lot more out of it.
I have had more clients come to me from litigation that I’ve sued them, and I’ve been against them, and they say, “You’re on the other side. But I like working with you more than I like working with my attorney.” I’ve had more clients come to me that way. It’s a wonderful feeling. I’ve had clients see me in court that aren’t my clients or the other side clients. They just happen to be witnessing it and come up to me afterwards. “I think I could work with you.” Because ultimately, it’s a relationship that you’re going to have for a long time. You spend a long time on the phone, in person. You end up being family and friends with a lot of these people that start off as clients, and it always pays to be respectful. It always pays to be considerate and thoughtful. And in the long term, that will pay off, rather than just yelling at opposing counsel for five minutes that might be satisfying. It’s not going to get you anywhere ultimately.
Lindsay: I think that’s very true. And as you pointed out earlier, litigation often is a multi-year investment. And so, when you are spending that kind of time with someone, you want them to be someone that you trust and will do a good job for you, but also is someone you will get to know and like. And if that isn’t somebody that you feel that way about, then how do you have confidence in them to trust your business with them? So, I think that is very important.
Anthony: Yes, absolutely. I might be the first person on your podcast to swear about it. That’s okay.
Lindsay: You’re not. Don’t worry.
Anthony: That’s good. I appreciate that.
Lindsay: You’re the second, but not the first. We’re not. We don’t mind putting an explicit ranking on our podcast. This is for adults, not children. Can you tell me about a client that changed your practice?
Anthony: I would say the client that changed my practice the most is a client, Frank [inaudible 00:21:09]. He is an owner of a handful of restaurants in the north end in Boston and has some properties overseas. He’s a fantastic businessperson and just an overall wonderful guy. But what changed… And I’ve helped him in everything from litigation about the labeling of Wagyu beef to land use litigation of a passageway from the 1700s in downtown Boston. Crazy, crazy things. And negotiated his life story deals, right? Crazy entertaining things.
But what he has taught me the most and why I think he’s so successful is when I go talk with him or meet with him, we’ll walk around the North end, which is the Italian section in Boston, whereas restaurants are, and walk up and down the streets. We’ll have a cup of coffee and just talk about business. And he will make a point to stop in and talk to every shop owner that sees him that they’re not affiliated with him, they’re not his business. They have nothing to do with his business except it’s a good neighborly way to do things. And it’s only 10 seconds. “Hey Paul, how’s it going? Good to see you. Hi Rosemary, love the flowers today. Keep on going,” and that’s it. But I know, and he knows that his business is better because of it. And to show how you can be as ruthless and innovative as you want to be, but if you don’t surround yourself with people that have your best interests, you could fail. So, it really does take a neighborhood to make a tremendously successful business operation.
And that’s what he’s generated and created. And that’s a great lesson to learn, is you take it in practice, you surround yourself with intelligent people. I look at the firm, I’m not the smartest person in the firm by a long shot, and I love that fact. I love that I can rely on people that will know answers to questions that I don’t know the answers to, and I can trust them to handle things or to challenge me on something where I think I’m right and they’ll challenge me on it because you surround yourself with wonderful people and that makes a huge difference in the day-to-day operations of work.
Lindsay: Yes, absolutely. That speaks to one of the most important lessons that I’ve learned over my career, is that even when you think you’re in a job that’s very independent, community is really what you need. And the people that you surround yourself with, the community that you build around you is what makes you successful in the end. And I think that’s very important.
Anthony: It is. It makes a big difference.
Lindsay: Yes. So, before we finish up, I’d like to ask one final question, and that is, is there something that you’re enjoying right now that has nothing to do with work? This is always the hardest question.
Anthony: Well, this one’s pretty easy.
Lindsay: Oh, good.
Anthony: Yes. My wife and I just bought a house in Providence, Rhode Island and are renovating it. So, to do that has been fantastic. We both love the interior design aspects of it. It’s an old Victorian. So, we spend our days and evenings putting up crazy wallpaper and tearing down walls and doing fun stuff. So that I find thoroughly enjoyable.
Lindsay: Oh, that’s wonderful. That sounds amazing. And I bet it’s going to be beautiful when it’s done.
Anthony: Well again, we think so. We’ll see whether my mother thinks so, which is the same as with my music. I might like it, but others might not, and that’s okay.
Lindsay: Yes, as long as you like it when it’s done, I think that’s the most important thing. Please yourself.
Anthony: Yes. Yes.
Lindsay: Well, thank you so much, Anthony. I really enjoyed having you on as a guest. I really appreciate it. And to all our listeners, we’ll be back next week with our next guest. And in the meantime, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. And thank you so much.
Anthony: Thank you. Thank you very much.
