Fine Print, Big Money: Making Insurers Pay Up

Katya Valasek:

We're joined today by Storm Lineberger, a lawyer who focuses on corporate insurance recovery and related complex business litigation. Lawyering is a second career for you. You were a professional actor, even played Raoul on the North American tour of Phantom of the Opera. What made you decide to pivot?

Storm Lineberger:

As you mentioned, I was Raoul in the North American tour of Phantom of the Opera, and I did that for two years. While I was on that tour, I learned a lot about the profession, and a lot of things were happening in my career that were, in a sense, in my control, but also there were a lot of people kind of joining my quote-unquote team, and that process really illuminated things about the entertainment industry that, for me, were somewhat at odds with how I envisioned my life being when I was, say, 45, and then even later in life.

And initially, I kind of pushed it aside because I thought, well, I can still have everything I want, but pretty quickly after I moved back to New York, after finishing up that tour, I realized that, well, success in this industry is not necessarily aligned with the idea of security. And I don't just mean financially, I mean in your personal life, a family, and also the people you can trust and the people you surround yourself with. When you're not in the entertainment industry, and I know it's not like this everywhere, but in most other professions, there's a certain group of people, typically smaller, that you can rely on and you can trust to be honest with you and to support you when things are tough.

I questioned whether I could ever truly have that in that industry, but more than that, there was a couple of things in my life that I saw that I wanted when I was 45 that were non-negotiable. A house with a yard and a family, and there's this kind of image in my mind that I always go back to. It's me sitting on a boat, maybe outside Austin somewhere, with my kids kind of running around in the front of the boat.

Not like a yacht or anything, but just maybe a 30-footer or something like that. I don't know. That sort of image, and I quickly realized after moving back from New York that if I wanted that, it was going to be extremely hard to attain, even if I was very successful.

Because I looked around at people who were in their 50s and 60s, some of which had won Tony Awards, still in the grind. Even if I had achieved the highest levels of success, maybe I would be sacrificing some of the security, as I described it earlier, that I just wasn't willing to give up. All that to say, I was blessed because my mother is an attorney, and I had some exposure there.

And I had always been intellectually curious, and so I thought, why not go to law school? Sure enough, it ended up being a great decision because pretty soon after that, COVID hit, and it timed out pretty darn perfectly with a lot of my colleagues in the entertainment business saying, wow, it's almost as if you could see the future, and you ended up making the right decision at the right time to pivot.

Katya Valasek:

I'm curious how you transitioned to that return to a classroom environment, especially after being away for a few years.

Storm Lineberger:

Well, it was not easy, and to be clear, I studied musical theater in college, so when you say return to a classroom environment, it's almost as if I was returning to a true classroom environment for the first time since high school. I took 101 courses that were required to get your bachelor's of fine arts, but it wasn't like I was in any rigorous course. I didn't really even know how to take a test or study for a test, really, so it was a major adjustment for me.

I struggled for a little while. I did have some good mentors that helped me out, but ultimately, I drew on from what my mom remembered about how law school works, asked a lot of questions. The first semester didn't necessarily go as well as I had hoped it would.

It didn't go bad by any stretch, but it was definitely a struggle to acclimate to that process of making sure you take the notes you need to take. Even if I knew going in I needed to do those things, understanding what that meant for me was something completely uncharted, and it was a process for sure.

Katya Valasek:

I'm just trying to imagine what your mom's experience must have been like. Did she caution you? Was she thrilled? What was her reaction?

Storm Lineberger:

Well, I would say she probably had her inner life and then what she showed me. She was definitely excited, and she definitely was concerned that I was underestimating how difficult it would be, and she cautioned me about that. But when I started figuring it out, I could tell how excited she actually was.

She was thinking, wow, how crazy life is. She's seeing me on tour and thinking about what my career is going to be. Right out of school, getting this fantastic role.

There was a lot of other stuff going on that was pointing to at least a decent career. And suddenly this pivot to something maybe she had imagined 20 years earlier as my potential career and I'm finding my way to it. She has said stuff like that before where she felt like for whatever reason, I would just find my way to the career.

I promise you, she did not push it at all. I came home for Thanksgiving one year and I just decided I want to take the LSAT and I just didn't go back to New York until I had taken it. So that's how it kind of happened and she was supportive the whole way.

But like I said, this is not going to be a cakewalk storm and it definitely wasn't.

Katya Valasek:

You mentioned financial goals as among your reasons for wanting to become a lawyer. What came first for you? Your interest in big law or an interest in the insurance industry?

Storm Lineberger:

Big law. Insurance came after with a speech given by my now boss that I saw. Big law and the financial security afforded by big law was definitely what motivated me to go that route first.

But along with that, the doors it opens up, even if you don't stick to it all the way through, it's in many ways a rite of passage. It provides a certain level of credibility and that ultimately, yes, will help financially anyway. But there was a lot of benefits I saw in it and if I could get a job in it and survive the grind, I thought I'd be setting myself up to have a pretty good 40s and 50s.

Katya Valasek:

So you mentioned just now, survive the grind. Was that something that you had in the back of your mind that you were worried about or did you feel like, I did a tour of a Broadway show, I know how to grind, I know what long days look like, I know what little sleep does to me. Where did you fall on that concern level?

Storm Lineberger:

I honestly romanticized the grind. I'd seen it in television shows and I've heard about it and honestly was excited about being in that environment and being energized by whatever it was we would be working on and feeling like we were achieving something. And I just so happened to fall into a practice group that lends itself to that kind of environment and frankly, being in a place where you are not expected to be like perfect 100% of the time was something that I was actually looking forward to.

I enjoyed the pressure of being in a lead role and being the center of something, but at the same time, I just didn't feel like I could try things and test things out. At the end of the day, the feeling of not being able to fail is the bane of success because you won't try the things that ultimately will get you ahead. And I didn't like that feeling in the theater industry.

And one more thing about that I just want to mention is the grind in theater is very different than the grind in law. For example, one of the things that I hated about the profession was that I had everything I did, every choice I made in my life was geared towards making sure and maximizing the performance for those two and a half hours, making sure it was as consistent as possible. And what that means is you can't go to loud restaurants.

You have to obviously eat very clean and maintain a physique that for me was not my normal physique. It really forces everyone around you to accommodate your job. What's great about the law is while there is a massive time requirement, and to some extent everyone in your life has to accommodate that, it is not ultimately about your job.

Your job is more about helping you achieve in your own personal life, at least that's the way I feel about it. The goals in my personal life become achievable, whereas in the theater, it's almost like the better your career is, the worse your personal life is, no matter what.

Katya Valasek:

All right, I want to dig into what it is you do at your job after that wonderful explanation of how it's helping you achieve goals in your personal life. I think insurance is really more of an industry than a practice, and people maybe take for granted or don't fully understand what insurance actually is. Can you explain the world of insurance a bit?

Storm Lineberger:

Well, there's what people initially think, at least in the legal industry, and then there's what people, I'll say, that are non-lawyers think about insurance. I'll start with that actually. There's this notion that insurance is the things that you interact with as just a normal everyday person, right?

Your homeowner's insurance, your renter's insurance, or your car insurance, or your health insurance. That is a big part of insurance law, but it is not the big part of insurance law. It's really more about what's called liability insurance.

Everyday people might understand what liability insurance is just maybe because you have that as part of your auto insurance or your homeowner's insurance, but what people sometimes don't realize is every single company pretty much has to buy what's called a general liability policy. And what that does is if someone sues the company, it provides coverage for the lawsuit to pay for the defense costs and to pay for a settlement or judgment that ultimately gets rendered against the company. That is the heart and soul of insurance law in the sense that I mean insurance law.

Now what some people in the industry, in the legal industry, think insurance law means is what's called insurance defense. Like I just mentioned in the general liability policies, but there are other types of liability policies too, but in general liability policy, like I said, they pay for defense costs. What the insurance company would do is they select an attorney to be your attorney in that case and they pay that attorney for you.

That attorney is called an insurance defense attorney and a big bucket of business in our industry is insurance defense. That is not what I do. I do what's called insurance coverage litigation and insurance coverage litigation is a niche area of contract law.

And what I mean by contract law is suing, companies suing each other over breach of contract. And it's just a specialized form of that. I am a policy holder side attorney.

So I represent the companies who purchased the policies and I sue the insurance companies. And when they don't pay the benefits that the company believes it's owed under the policy.

Katya Valasek:

Okay. So I want to make sure I understand this. Your plaintiff side in these insurance recovery cases, basically a breach of contract with bad faith claims baked in and your clients want the court to decide or declare that coverage exists.

And that supports the company that hired you. It helps them evaluate risk and certainty so that your clients know how much it'll cost to move forward with the case where they are defended. So there's a lot of parties and a lot of moving parts.

Did it take you long to get used to all that complexity?

Storm Lineberger:

Well it's interesting. I learned about insurance law in school. I mentioned earlier that I heard a speech from my now boss.

Well he's an adjunct professor at my law school and he gave it a monologue at the beginning about what insurance law was. And I was like, wow, that's exactly what I want to do. It's contract interpretation.

For me it's like playing in a sandbox. Some people may not be interested in what the word and means, but man, I can have a field day with that. And I think it's really fun.

And as a plaintiff side attorney, you get to be really creative and you get to make law because this is all questions of contract interpretation. And when you're in law school, the very first class that everyone is excited about, other than maybe criminal law, is contracts law because it's learning about the most basic types of arguments that attorneys make. And so that's what I get to do every day is interpret contracts and then make law.

Usually the courts write an opinion and suddenly your arguments are crystallized in history and that's very exciting. But yes, it's getting back to your original question about risk. It's exactly that.

Insurance is a risk. It's a way of offloading risk for a company and they need to know whether or not they're going to be able to do that for any particular case. So they bring me in at varying points in the process.

Maybe it's to help submit the claim to the insurance company or maybe it's after the insurance company is denied. In either way, I'm there to help assess what is going to be there and then fight for it if we believe it's owed. And in terms of all of the parties, it didn't take that long because you really could just think about it simply.

There's you and the insurance company. That's the dispute. The other stuff, which is maybe the lawsuit being brought by the person who was injured, like maybe it's a slip and fall case or an accident, whatever it may be, that is peripheral to your dispute.

Now, the facts in those cases matter, but really it's just your company that you represent and the insurance company. Sometimes it's a lot of insurance companies, but really it's one contract that you're looking at at a time and it can be very simple if you allow it to be.

Katya Valasek:

Yeah. So you said before that companies, all companies have this type of insurance. You also said that you love parsing through a contract and looking at the language.

So since there's insurance for everything, I would imagine that means your cases can vary dramatically from one to the other. What's the range of industries that you've seen?

Storm Lineberger:

It is very, very broad. It can be from pharmaceutical companies, like a products liability type case, some sort of medication that causes an addiction, like an opioid type case. It can be that.

Everyone's heard about Purdue Pharma and all those cases. Purdue Pharma is sort of the tip of the spear. It's a lot more than that and there's still a lot ongoing.

That can be one thing one day. The next day it's coverage for a hurricane hitting a hotel, hospitality industry. The next day it can be a telecommunications company getting sued under the Anti-Terrorism Act for providing telecommunications equipment in a region that is rife with terrorist activity, like in the Middle East.

It can be non-profits that assist in education. It can be, I mean shoot, volcano coverage. It can really be a ton of things and there are also other things that may not be appropriate to talk about here, but certainly some pretty interesting and oftentimes tragic cases, construction accidents that end up in tragic deaths, things of that nature.

It really can touch on anything and that is honestly the beauty of it. You get to a lot of times look at the same words and you have a different set of facts that you're trying to apply to those words and how can I get that story to fit in there? And that's what makes it a lot of fun.

Katya Valasek:

Okay, I want to walk through how a typical case might play out. So let's say we have an oil company that has a refinery explosion that leads to injuries or death and someone who's harmed sues the company. The company has insurance, but the insurance company denies coverage.

So the oil company now sues the insurance company because otherwise the company's on the hook. Where do you as a fourth-year associate fit into this lawsuit by the company of the insurance company?

Storm Lineberger:

Generally, the insurance coverage counsel will come in when the claim for that coverage was denied and the company calls us and says, hey, we think there's coverage here. What do you think? Typically, when that question comes in, it's because there probably should be coverage.

We say yes and where I step in there is I'm doing the initial assessment. I look at the policy, I look at the facts, and I submit a recommendation to the partner who's got the relationship with the client. And if he or she agrees, we provide a recommendation to the client, which usually I've prepared or either in a slide deck or something to that effect.

We present it to the client, tell them this is how we're going to litigate the case. These are the arguments we're going to make. We give our risk assessment and potential success rate, what we believe.

All of that really starts from the associates on the case. They come up with it. And as you get more senior, like myself, I'm more of a mid-level, almost senior level now, you are either the first or second eyes on it and you're making really kind of the decision, so to speak.

Of course, you'll get questions from the partner, but typically the partner is trying to poke holes in it and make sure that they agree. But you're really starting to take control of the case as a fourth year. Certainly nowadays in big law, some companies, or some firms rather, it's not the case.

But as a fourth year, that's really what you're doing. So that's kind of how it starts for you. And then the company decides whether they want to proceed to litigation based on that recommendation.

Katya Valasek:

And if they do proceed to litigation as a fourth year, are you involved in motion practice and trial work?

Storm Lineberger:

At Haynes & Boone, yes. I mean, it's basically you're doing all of it. Now whether or not you have a speaking role, that depends on how the case is staffed.

If it's a case that the partner feels like can be done on a leaner staff, you'll do depositions. You'll defend depositions. You will argue motions.

You'll definitely be drafting the motions. Like my first year even, I was drafting motions for summary judgment, or at least portions of them. Now I handle facilitating the motion in large part with maybe a more senior associate or the partner helping with the revision process.

But you certainly as a fourth year get a lot of substantive experience in litigation especially because it's fast moving. And once you're the person who knows the facts, this is what's beautiful about being an associate. You're the one who has to find the facts.

You look through the documents. You do all of those things. You can leverage that knowledge to do a lot of work.

And once you've demonstrated that you can be relied upon, it just blossoms from there because the partner can be like, okay, they've got it. I can just do the revising and reviewing process. Maybe I'll come in and do my celebrity cameo appearance at the hearing or whatever it may be at the trial.

But you are doing a lot of the work and often end up being the most important person on the team. So that is a really cool part.

Katya Valasek:

Does your musical theater background help you take those facts and leverage them to tell a story that's persuasive?

Storm Lineberger:

Yes. It's funny. I've had some pretty unfortunate luck with cases we've been prepping for that end up settling at the last minute.

And as insurance companies, and this is sort of an aside, but insurance companies no matter what are going to be the least liked party in a case. No matter what. And so as plaintiff's counsel, you get that big piece of leverage.

It's not just about whether or not the arguments are good enough to win at trial and persuade a jury. It's whether or not the insurer feels like it can overcome a jury's inherent bias against an insurer. And so what ends up happening, it's happened to me quite a few times now, we'll be ready to go maybe the Friday or so before the trial is set to start and there'll be a settlement.

We've done mock trials and stuff like that. And I've been given roles to do closing arguments and things like that. And what I've learned in that process is the hard arguments that require a great knowledge of the facts, but also maybe require a risky tactical maneuver are much more persuasive coming from someone that really can connect with an audience.

And at least convey a tremendous amount of earnestness and appear to be a truth teller. Now, obviously you should be telling the truth when you're standing up there, but if the jury doesn't believe you're telling the truth or doesn't think you're earnest, you could fall on your face. And so what I've learned is the things that maybe we want to try but are afraid to, I've been able to succeed in that regard.

At least in the mock trial setting and people have been like, wow, I can't, the way you did that, I didn't think you could do that, but the way you did it makes me think we can go that way. And so I attribute that entirely to that background.

Katya Valasek:

That's amazing. And I'm sort of laughing about the show you were in and the idea of there being an assumed villain in any situation and that parallel and what you're doing now just sort of, it struck me as probably not a coincidence, right? Like I feel like life leads you on a path and gives you signs along the way and you got a pretty big one.

Storm Lineberger:

Yeah, well, and it's funny, sometimes you may be, as the plaintiff, playing the villain and there's always a moment in a well-written movie or show, especially in Phantom, where the villain gives some sort of speech or monologue that makes you feel like, you know what, I empathize with that. I actually understand them. And typically the reason why those work in films is because they're portrayed by good actors.

And it's the same thing by what I mean is strategy that maybe would seem harsh like an example. Let's say you have a really sad, tragic accident where a father is driving or mother is driving their kids cross country and they get in an accident and the children die in the accident. And it's with an 18-wheeler.

And the 18-wheeler company, in this case, they're a defendant, but still is the defendant getting sued by the parent for wrongful death. Maybe the parent did something that actually put the children's safety at issue. It's going to be very hard for a defense counsel to get up there and say it's dad's fault that his children are dead.

But there's a way to do it. If the person getting up there says, I'm a father, you know, and I essentially saying I can't imagine making those choices that led to that. Like, that's awful.

And suddenly the jury's nodding their head saying, yeah, it's actually, you know, and that's an extremely risky thing to do because the last person you want, last thing you want to do is trash someone who just lost their children. But like, it can be done. And when it's done effectively, it's much more effective than any other option.

And so that's what I mean. Like, in context like that, where, I mean, you are betting the company on it. And it it requires that sort of understanding of connection.

Katya Valasek:

Yeah, absolutely. All right. We're going to pivot here.

It's it's hard to pivot from that. But I want to talk about discovery. It's a part of every lawsuit and the range of opinions on it is wide.

Some love it. Some hate it. And there's everything in between.

What's discovery like in your cases?

Storm Lineberger:

Well, in insurance law for anyone who's gotten this far and is liking what they're hearing, it's very mild in insurance. And really, a lot of the questions can just be answered by the policy. And so a lot of my cases, the only discovery is maybe the correspondence regarding the claim between the insurance company and the policyholder.

And the policy itself. So maybe 10 documents. Now, sometimes it can be hundreds and hundreds of documents.

Sometimes it can be very, very difficult stuff. Financial statements, stuff like that. In those cases, I don't love it.

I'll be honest with you, because it's a lot to carry in your head. And typically you want a lot of people to work on it. But like I said earlier, it's fun and it's not fun.

Like the process of clicking through documents, that in and of itself is not fun. But as you learn things, that can be fun. And when you learn things that maybe you didn't know, I mean, discovery can be really exciting and you can get leverage points out of it.

And who knows, the thing that you find could end up being the thing that blows the case wide open for you. And I know that's kind of a trope. And, you know, you see it on TV shows where, oh, they found this one document.

But literally it happens. And I mean, I'll put it this way. Sometimes you find things out about other parties that were doing things shady behind your client's back that aren't even in the case.

And you suddenly have this whole other claim. And you've got a client who's motivated because they're pissed off that they've been betrayed. And that's suddenly you've got two lawsuits in business.

And there's things, there's stories like that all the time that grow from discovery that you can't even anticipate.

Katya Valasek:

So you mentioned that discovery is light in the work that you do. You mentioned physically clicking through documents. And I'm curious because when we talk with other lawyers, discovery is a lot of times where they say AI is helpful in the work that they do. Do you use AI at all in your discovery practice?

Storm Lineberger:

Yes. When the client allows, we do use it. And it's become a really good tool, especially in analyzing large buckets of documents, comparing documents. It's fantastic at that. And we do utilize it. There's a lot of things that can do now.

New features that come out all the time. And I've been telling people who are coming in as new associates and anyone who's asked me, the most important thing you can learn to do is prompt, learn how to prompt AI, learn how to get the most out of it, because that is going to be the skill that separates you. Because there's going to become an expectation of speed and efficiency.

If you don't know how to use AI effectively, especially in discovery, a company is not really going to want to hire you because it's going to cost them more. Whereas you have other firms that are using it efficiently that not only do some of the work that they would have been doing that takes a long time, but also doing it better and getting better insights from that work. For instance, you're sitting in a deposition.

You can have AI listen to that deposition and then find documents instantaneously that contradict those statements that are being made or support them or anything like that. AI can do that right now. And learning how to maximize that is going to be absolutely necessary to effective advocacy.

Katya Valasek:

So you mentioned earlier that it happens often that a case will settle for you on the eve of trial. As a fourth year associate, are you involved in settlement strategy at all or does that happen around you?

Storm Lineberger:

That's a good question. So, when you say settlement strategy, what I understand you to mean is should we, should we not settle and not necessarily the communications with opposing counsel, but really sort of in-house with your client, those types of things. The answer to that question is yes, you are doing the basic risk assessment because you're the one looking at the case law.

You're the one who has the best knowledge of the facts. So you, even if you're not necessarily ready for it or comfortable with it, are going to be the one basically guiding this light. "Hey, we do have the facts here. We don't have the facts here. We have the case law on our side. We don't have the case law on our side."

You are an integral part of it. You may not necessarily be the one having the conversation with the client, although you might be present for it. And oftentimes those conversations were had and the partner threw it to me to answer like the most important question, which, you know, will catch you off guard, but you're absolutely a part of it.

There are oftentimes conversations that you're not part of. But yeah, as a, definitely as the mid-level associate, which is what I would call myself now, as you become more senior, sometimes you're the one having the conversation and you're the one leading the presentation. And now as a first year, maybe that did happen to me once, but like getting thrown to in the middle of the call, like, "Uh, you know, but, um…", but yeah, it absolutely can happen.

And I mean, that's honestly one of the reasons why I chose the firm that I work for in the group that I work in is because the staff case is pretty lean, which means a lot of substantive work.

Katya Valasek:

So you just referenced moving from mid-year associate to senior associate. So I'm curious, how do you expect your responsibilities to evolve over the next few years as you gain seniority?

Storm Lineberger:

That's a good question. And it's, it's things that I have been actually making note of myself and trying to decide how I want to approach things and manage things, because really the change here is you're going to be managing people and managing the case and making sure everything's done in the case, taking on the full responsibility of it all, where the partner is more or less relying on you to be a lieutenant and the lieutenants typically manage everything. They're a chief of staff in a sense. And that is a big shift from mid-level to senior.

And it's one that most people struggle with. I am anticipating I'm going to struggle with it, not just because of just the organization of it all, but also because you're managing people and you're trying to get the most out of people and you don't, you have to shift the way you're thinking, where at least in my opinion, you never blame anyone who's doing work for you in the hierarchy that are lower than you. That to me is just terrible management.

When you're associate, you only see maybe part of the case or part of what's going on. Maybe you're privy to it peripherally, but you're not the one making the decision. You don't necessarily concern yourself with it.

And you're really only defending your own work. But when you're defending someone else's work, that's leadership. And you know how you approach that or how you defend a mistake or how you explain a mistake.

That's all leadership. And those are the things I'm thinking about right now and making sure that I can be the best senior associate when I get there.

Katya Valasek:

Is developing a book of business something that you think about or is that not something that gets added to those additional responsibilities as you become more senior?

Storm Lineberger:

Different firms have different philosophies on this. At least I could speak for Haynes Boone. What's most important for us is the client service.

And that should not be secondary to building a book of business. So if you're super busy, yes, they expect you to start working on that, but they're not going to. Oh, they had three trials that year.

They didn't bring in any new clients. They're not going to, you know, deem you for that. Also, at least the way we talk about it here is when you become a partner, when you're a junior partner, that's really when they expect you to like really, really dive in.

You know, they do take into account how much you're starting the process as a senior associate, but they're not necessarily expecting you to have already bringing in like a book of business with a steady flow to become a partner. Because they want you to be a good attorney first, because the last thing they want you to do is bring in a client, burn that bridge, and then you're not getting that client back. We also do a lot of cross-selling here at this firm.

So we're not an "eat what you kill" type firm. So maybe one partner brings in this client and that client needs a service from different aspects. You know, maybe they've got a transaction, but they also have got an insurance issue. They'll share essentially that business, which is something I really like about our firm.

Katya Valasek:

So when you were envisioning your future and you made a switch from theater to law, you had this vision of financial security, but also this vision of your family and being on the boat with the kids running around as you assume more responsibility over the next few years. Are you starting to think about how you're going to balance that personal life with your work life? Is it something you're already putting into practice?

Storm Lineberger:

I mean, that is the most important question that I ask myself all the time. I think about it all the time. And picking my moments and deciding what's non-negotiable.

I have a really good mentor here who's now a partner. And he has given me great advice, one of which is decide what hours of the day that are non-negotiable for you and don't look at your phone. Just don't even look at it.

If it's an absolute emergency and you're the only one, they'll get in touch with you. They'll figure out a way. But if it's not an emergency, it can wait.

And that's been really good advice because, yes, as I've become more senior, my responsibilities grow and my time demand is increased. Not that it wasn't already a lot, but like the non-billable aspects increase. And it's something that I do worry about.

But then I look to some partners who I really respect, including my quote unquote boss. He has a fantastic family life and he's been very successful and is very family centric and is considered one of the preeminent attorneys in our industry and the insurance recovery industry. And if he can achieve that and have a great family life, then I can do that, too.

I just have to make sure I take advantage of his wisdom and the things that he learned and employ that as much as I can.