Welcome to the Nobody Knowz podcast with Callie Zamzow. Join us for conversations with local changemakers and hear the stories that don't always get told. It'll be honest, messy and beautiful. Touching and humorous. Slow down for a glass and pull up a chair. This is the nobody knows podcast. Welcome to Nobody Knowz I'm your host Callie Zamzow. And we are firmly in the February people so want to as my zam zo tip of the week talk to you a little bit about Valentine's Day. And Jody, I want to ask you a couple questions about this. Are you, I know you. How are you? How are you on Valentine's Day? Are you the go all out guy or are you, I, like, manage expectations. No, no, I'll. I'll do sweet things, but I'm I'm I'm not very good one. I don't know that it's not very good. I do. I think it depends on how your partner feels about that. Because, you know, if they're like, I'm. I'll do sweet things like scavenger hunt, post-its. I'll do stuff like that. Okay. Yeah, I do nice things. I think that's 100% more than my husband and I do. We we have this thing before him. Or like Valentine's Day. We're still not doing anything yet. We're still doing it and manage expectations. You guys got it down. It's too much like we're like, we love each other every day. Let's just not worry about Valentine's Day. I like that I'm going to try and adopt that this year. Now, that being said, for those of you who think that I'm bah humbug and you do do things for your loved one, at Zamzows, we recommend that you consider getting a houseplant as a gift. So, you know, obviously flowers are a lovely gift, but they're gone. And then, if you're lucky, in a week. Right. And so. And maybe that's your thing and that's wonderful. But if you want some that'll last a little bit longer. You can come into Zamzows and we have a huge selection. All of our stores have houseplants. Some of them have larger houseplant sections and others. So if you're a really wanted to find something exotic and interesting, you might choose one of the larger stores, a Venus flytrap. Do you guys have those? I don't know if we do it right, this might very moment, but that would be cool. And I think says I love you like the devouring of houseflies. That's fair. Right? I think, yes. In fact, there you go. There's your tip of the week. You're welcome. So there you go. And we appreciate Zamzows for sponsoring this podcast. So now don't think a little bit about as part our guest in the studio today I was preparing for all of this. And really it's like a dual preparation because as we move into February, Zamzows gets ready to do our giant hiring fair. And it's when our company, almost doubles in size of employees because during our busiest season, that's when we have our most employees. And so we're just about to do all of our hiring fairs and bringing people in. And I what I think about who is with these things is, I don't know if anybody else does this, but I go back to when I was newly in the business and, and how I perceived employees and hiring versus how I do now. It almost makes me shudder because I was so clueless. Now I get it that bringing in these people is literally the most important thing, the most important thing. You might think it's the inventory. You might think, and all of these things are really, really important. But the people are the absolute most important thing. And when we get ready to hire and bring them in, it is nerve wracking for the whole crew because we're we're about to bring in people to our culture. We want them to have a good experience. We want to make sure that they're a good fit and all these wonderful things that go along with it. And, and so I was thinking about all of that. And, and then I get to have this wonderful guest today to to dig a little bit deeper. And I'm very excited about it. So please welcome into the studio, Pam Howland. She is the owner, litigator and investigator of Idaho Employment Lawyers. I say all that right. You got it. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Yes, it's great to have you here. I, you just to kind of in researching a little bit, you've had an interesting, path to where to where you've landed now. And so I'm wondering if you might just start there. Could you kind of tell everybody just a high level about you and how you ended up where you are now? Sure. Yeah, I would love to. So I was a marketing major OU in undergrad, had no idea that I wanted to be a lawyer or really what employment law was about. I graduated from college and got a job selling signs in Spokane, Washington, the kind that have the time and the temperature. And a message did that for a few years. And while I was doing it, I was dating someone, actually, who was going to law school, and I kind of followed them through school going, wow, that's really interesting. And why didn't I do that? Because I'm kind of burned out on sales. It's hard work. It's exhausting. Relationship blew up. But when it was all said and done, I was 27 and I found myself going, I need a bit of a reinvention of my career path here. So I applied, went to Gonzaga Law School, and when I graduated, I came down here to Boise, which was kind of a bit of a full circle because I was born in Boise, okay. Yeah, but went to work at the Supreme Court, did that for a year, and then went to work for one of the big regional firms here where I spent the next 16 years. Really focusing on litigation. I was one of those law and order junkies watch Jack McCoy and was like, oh, I want to do that. I want to go to court. And so that's really where I started, was just getting as much experience as I could in the courts, kind of learning, you know, what it's like to be a litigator. And then so fast forward, I think, you know, as a 55 year old now, like, I can look back and your career takes a lot of turns depending on what's going on in your personal life. And, you know, as I had kids, the billable legal scene is tough to juggle everything. One of my kids had a health issue that required a lot of time and attention, and as the years ticked by, I found myself wanting something different. As far as a practice area and as far as flexibility goes. So in the 2016 time period, I had somewhat seen a need for Idaho employers wanting more employment law help, more employment law focus. And I decided to like, take the plunge, hang my shingle. And I started in 2016 working out of my home office. Just me, just kind of trying to help employers here with what they needed. Was there a moment that you, like you said, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go solo. I'm going to make a change. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I can really tie it to one specific moment, but I had kind of always envisioned myself as a partner at this firm. I made partner, and one of the requirements was to bring in business, of course, and that that's tough to do as a litigator, because you're kind of always waiting for somebody to get sued. Right? But I had worked on a couple of big cases defending employers and really started tracking employment law concepts and watching how employment law is kind of a fun practice area because it's constantly changing. And I would say someone say it's not fun because it's great. Employers probably would not agree with that. But if you're an attorney, it's not like, you know, contracts, right? Where you're just using these principles that have been around for hundreds of years. Right. And so I just kind of kept watching that, and I started looping myself in more and more with the HR industry, with human resource professionals here in Boise and really all over the country. There's a lot of really active HR groups. I love HR professionals. They're fun to work with, fun people to hang out with. I found myself doing that more and more, and when I would talk to them about what they needed, they would say, you know, we need a local person who really just does employment. Not really, because the big firms have a different audience. You know, they're looking for multi practice complex, a little bit of a different market than what a lot of local employers are looking for. They just wanted someone who was an expert in things like wage and hour law or all the different things that cross through the paths of the H.R professionals. And at the big firm, I just couldn't really give them what they wanted. And I started to feel really frustrated by that. And I started to somewhat see an opening for something that no one else was doing. And we really are as Idaho employment lawyers, we're about to have our ten year anniversary. We are the only boutique defense employment law firm in Idaho. Wow. Yeah. Interesting I realize that. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, it is cool. And so there really was a need. And it's been really fun to fill that and to grow and kind of see what employers want need and to to offer it up to them. Yeah, I'm just thinking about like from the, from the Zamzows end of things... I think about what are human resources. Sometimes I will go to her and I will say, you have all the fun. And I say it tongue in cheek because I don't know how she does it. It is it at what? You have to have almost two brains as an HR person because you obviously we are a company, we are in care of these people and we have to make sure that we're doing things a certain way. And then you have the company who's trying to get things done. That balance is so challenging is I mean, is it just is is that how all employers feel, or am I just is this just. No, I think that's 100% true. I think HR professionals what I you know, I'm not an H. I don't have any HR degree, I have a law degree, but I'm working with them. I've really just come to appreciate that role and have come to realize, like all the different types of specialties there are within that role and the valuable, you know, service they provide for companies really being, you know, the advocate for the employees, but also the advocate for the company and for leadership trying to strike the right balance so they're trusted, you know, the trusted expert for all those issues. And again, they're changing all the time. As your company grows, those issues change. Now we're living in a world. And I mean I don't know that it's that different. But if you have multi states where you've got offices, those HR professionals are juggling, you know, how many different laws because a lot of states have different laws and different areas and all the complex things that come with that. Yeah. So do you find that this is how I think how we do it at Zamzows It's like there's a lot of like there's a here's a situation that we're in and, and understanding because a lot of times we can't we don't know necessarily the puts and takes of all the full like so a lot of times that would where would be where we would reach out is obviously to avoid a situation where you would end up in court. You would don't want that to happen. We want to do the right thing and and do do right by the employee and also by the company. And so we can that's where we generally would come and ask questions to say, okay, here's the situation. What would you do. And that's that is that kind of what people do with you. They we love that. Like that's the proactive part. Oh okay. You know, those are the people who call who have enough training to spot the issues, who go, oh, there's like some risk here. We better like, take a pause, get some help, make sure we don't do something that can be undone. That's a big part of our practice. We love that because we love to help employers stay out of the court system all together. Not everybody does that, though, and not everybody's able to spot the issues until something's happened that you can and do, and they get a claim or they get a lawsuit. And then here comes years of expensive, protracted litigation, right? Yeah. That's fun. Yeah, I know, I know. And that is like that's something we're pretty passionate about because I'm now rolling into my 26th year practice and having just seen the same issues over and over that result in claims and lawsuits and having seen how awful it is for employers once you're in it. And having seen how we because we do defend lawsuits, we can't just magically make it go away once you have a problem. And that creates a lot of frustration and a lot of stress and a lot of tension for employers and a lot of money. Right? So we really we've developed a training branch of our company in 2023 called law for leaders. That's all about just that proactive piece you were talking about. Get the training. Here are the issues that cause the most problems. Get the training in that so you don't end up as one of those employers who were pulled into court and all your time and resources are going to that. Yeah. It's interesting how just as a business, especially if you're a newer business, you're you're you're just trying to get the job done right. You're trying to get you're trying to get sales up or you're trying it, whatever it is, and you're in that mode and you've got all these people that are helping you. And a lot of sense when it's smaller, you're kind of grows with everybody, so to speak. And then as you begin to grow, then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I guess maybe we're not doing that quite right. Or, do you so do you work with brand new companies? Okay, yeah we do. We love to work with brand new companies. And we have a couple of, like, flat fee bundles. Like, if you don't have any infrastructure in place on the employment law side, let us help you get the handbook. Let us help you get a little training. Let us help you do that. Unfortunately, we get a fair amount of calls with exactly what you just described, which is, well, we're pretty small, so we don't really have any policies like that, but that's okay, right? Because we're small, it's like, no, no, I mean, in Idaho, if you have five or more employees, all of the anti-discrimination laws really kick in. If you're under five, it's a little more forgiving, but it's game on if you have five or more. So there is no argument to make it. We're small. We didn't know we're small. We didn't have enough money. We haven't had enough time. Those arguments don't fly. Wage an hour. You know, thinking about how you classify your employees. Are they, exempt from overtime or are they nonexempt? Those are the types of issues that really trip small businesses up, because they don't even know they're a thing until there's a problem and until they've got, like the Department of Labor calling, saying, hey, we think you owed somebody overtime and you didn't pay. And those are really tough to untangle once they start. So it's just so much better if you're starting to kind of carve out some time and resources to get the right process, policy, protocol in place. So you're not throwing the money at the administrative agency or the court or the. Yeah. To defend. Yeah. Just to be clear, if somebody hasn't been through something like this, it's so much less money to get an advisor to help you beforehand and do it the right way. Aside from that, you're also developing a better relationship with your with the these people that are in your care. Yeah. As a, as a company, you're, you know, you are it is your job to take care of them and to do things the right way. And I think a lot of times it's inadvertent. We don't mean to be doing something the incorrect way, but, but you have to think about the whole picture when you're doing that. It's so much, so much cheaper to do it ahead of time than to end up in a courtroom later. It's just better to not have that happen. Absolutely. For you. We got some new statistics, about a year ago of the average judgment against employers in Idaho. If you end up in an employment law claim or lawsuit, it's around the $1 million. Oh, yeah, I believe it. So that's big money. That's not even counting the fees, the time, the stress, the reputational hit. Yeah. We can't say enough about proactive. It's got to be proactive. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's yeah I wonder sometimes. And this is one of the things that hit before I was in leadership I didn't I didn't even think about it. And then you get into leadership and and all of a sudden these are the types of things like, well, I didn't think this was my job was going to be, but it is it's a big part of as being a leader and you have people in your care to to know these things and if you don't know them, get somebody who does, who can put a mirror in front of you every once in a while to say, hey, let's take a look at this, let's review your manual, let's, you know, that sort of thing. And, yeah, it's I can't speak enough about people who do what you do. And I appreciate that you're here in the community doing it. Can we talk just briefly about, it's just shifting gears just a little bit. So the moment that you decided to leave what you knew and to start something all on your own. Yeah. So I think there's a lot of our listeners who either have just done that or are doing that or are in that realm or really, really would love to, but they just the leap is too scary and their second guessing themselves. So if somebody is listening right now who is thinking of making a change like you did, what advice would you give them? Oh, I you know, I look back in those early years were so exciting. I mean, it takes a little preparation, you know, you got to think it through like, what is my plan? You know, when I take that leap, how am I going to get clients and do I have enough money saved and what is that going to look like? But I, I can't say enough about how for me, it was 100% the right move. And it is scary. Uncertainty, change, all of that is scary. But I will tell you, like the I can still remember, you know, some of my first clients I can still remember, like going to the U.P.S. store where I had my post office, and that first check that came in and being like, someone's paying me, this is this is coming right to me. This is mine, you know? And so satisfying, so exciting. And what I've learned about myself over the years is I do I love the whole entrepreneurial adventure. And, you know, it's always changing, always morphing. You know, more now, like I said, ten years. So you know, our our issues and our challenges now are different. But there are some great support groups out there like I'm a member of EO Idaho Entrepreneurs Organization. There's other groups out there that support entrepreneurs. And, you know, the types of resources like the, BSU has the Small Business Counseling Center that's free for people looking to start their own business and get a plan in place. There's a lot of great resources, and life's just too short to be to be unhappy. Yeah. You know, if you don't find satisfaction and what you're doing, I think you just too short. You got to make a change. So you enjoy getting out of bed every day and what you're doing and how you're spending the bulk of your time... absolutely. Yeah. Well, I think in your situation to me that the community needed you. We needed you to make that decision. And it's amazing how we can I see these things in retrospect. But we did we we clearly your you're you're valued part of this community. What you've decided to do and this change that you bravely made and ten years. Congratulations. Well thank you. Yeah. No. Thank you. And we love our clients. I mean, it is really satisfying work, really fun. We love to see good outcomes and companies growing and getting all the right stuff in place. So it has been very fun and very rewarding. So when you look back on when you started versus now, had there been a lot of changes or have you, have you been able to kind of keep your core and, and you're now still doing the same thing you were doing the beginning, but you've just added a few things, like what was the trajectory of the last ten years? Yeah. Well, it's very different. I mean, you know, again, when I was just trying to get traction going, really starting out, I left, you know, my firm and I really did fresh started. So I didn't bring anyone with me. It was just fresh start. How am I going to get clients kind of took off with the grass roots marketing working, local industry connections, local contacts. And that first year I did a lot of counseling, like what you were talking about. Hey, you know, someone's requested an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act. How do we go about doing that? Or, hey, we got a Idaho Human Rights Commission complaint in. How do we respond to that? So that really was the first year. And then I had a really fortuitous lucky break where I was at one of those HR events. So here locally, we have the Society of Human Resource Managers, SHERM and we have HRA, ETB, which is the human resource association of the Treasure Valley. And they partner a lot. And every other year they have an employment law conference here locally that's pretty well attended. And I had a table at that conference and, gentleman walked up to me and said, hey, I think you might be suing my clients. And and I said, no, because I'm on the employer side, so I wouldn't be suing your clients. And he's like, oh, well, tell me more about your firm. And I was telling him about it. And as it turns out, he was with a local insurance panel here and they were looking for new panel members. And so he said, we're looking for firms who will defend the people who have policies through us when they have employment law claims. Is that something you'd be interested in doing? And that totally changed the trajectory in my firm, because that brought in more litigation type, bigger matters, more of a quantity, and really put us on a growth trajectory that you wouldn't really achieve if you were just doing counseling. Right. And so that has remained a really good partner for us. And we do a lot of work with public entity defense. So, it's kind of fun too, because not just private entity work, but also public entities, counties, cities, you know, like highway districts, library districts, mosquito abatement, you name it. Idaho has a lot of really interesting quasi governmental entities. So that kind of created a need for us to bring more people in, because once you're doing litigation, you can get it's all deadline driven, document driven, you know, a lot of writing, and one person can't really do all that. So that kind of created this growth. And then over the years really just started doing, you know, more work locally in our investigation practice. So like say you've got a high level leader who gets accused of harassment or discrimination and you need to bring in a third party. So, you know, you've got a neutral person coming in to chase that down. We started getting retained by some of the bigger companies here in Boise to do that. That caused growth. And, yeah, we just kind of kept on that path. And the longer we were there, the more I think word got out there. We were good, competent people, you know, trained by the big firm. But now offering this niche employment law, you know, legal service at, at an affordable rate. So it really created growth. And then and like I said, the last couple of years, what we realized is the litigation stuff's kind of exhausting. Yeah. And it's it's come conflict. You know, it's very contentious. Our local Idaho State bar is very contentious. I would say, and a lot of the litigation areas and we realize what really like energizes us and makes us happy is the training piece to help people just avoid it altogether. So we've put a lot more time and resources into that, including a podcast, a book and, just really getting out there talking to people like, hey, don't make this mistake, you know? Yeah, just learn this, spend a little bit of time and you won't have a claim or a lawsuit, but you can't just rely on H.R to carry it. All right. Leaders have to know some basics. Can we go back for just a second? And will you help me and other people who maybe don't completely understand, partner? Because when people say that they. I became. I'm. I made partner. Right. So how are you made partner? And then you left that behind the I there's a couple of people in my life who have said that to me, and they say it like, dramatically. And I don't think I fully grasp what, what making partner is to understand, because apparently that's a real big deal to walk away from that. Oh yeah. Well, it depends on where you're at, of course. You know, again, I was at a really large regional firm. And so the partnership track for me was about ten years. So it was like ten years of showing you had different, skills and qualifications and achievements and success. And it was a long path to, to get there to show that, I mean, that firm had at the time, like 500 attorneys. Oh, wow. And so you have a lot of partner level people, and a whole bunch of people have to agree that, yeah, this is someone we want who's going to be here to help build the firm. So it's a really long progress now here locally. Like there's a lot of firms that have shorter tracks than that. The smaller you are you might have a shorter track. But for me, I had always strived to achieve that partnership title, and I always thought I would retire there. And that would be kind of like the crux of my career as you make it, and that's where you're at. But when I got there, I really start again. Things were changing in my personal life, with my kids and demands at home and just kind of needing more flexibility and seeing, just feeling like, I think I want something else. Yeah, yeah. Now that calling that we have sometimes and we ignore a lot, but then, yeah, then eventually we say yes. Or if you're just really brave, you, you go for it. Yeah. So partner, like, it's like, do you actually have partial inertia of ownership and ownership? Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot to walk away from. Yeah. That's scary. It was scary. I, you know, convincing my husband, you know it is scary because you think oh my gosh, why would you do that. You know, like I think for people looking on the outside, it seemed like something everyone would want. But what I was doing day to day and what I was feeling was just dissatisfaction and really craving to do something else in a different, in a different way, in a different space. This is sounds metaphysical, but, do you ever feel like and in this particular case, a nudging from somewhere else, something outside of you that is, is maybe a little metaphysical or it's like, I, I need to do this, and I'm not sure exactly. I don't have maybe all the answers yet, but something's urging me and I can't necessarily put my finger on it. But because I've talked to quite a few people that yeah, when they make a change like that, part of it is there was an unknown entity there that was like, okay, I think I, I think I need to do this and I'm not even sure entirely if. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think there were, you know, that decision wasn't made overnight, obviously. And there were things that maybe could have happened along the way that maybe would have convinced me to stay or things that did happen. That is, they occurred. I was like, oh, yeah, the universe is telling me I am on the right track and I need to go. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do think so. Okay. Listener or talking to you. Yeah. Don't don't be miserable. I don't think you should be. Don't stay in your profession or where you're at if you're miserable, it's not worth it. Absolutely. All right. So, what are some of and I think we can talk about this. What are some of the mistakes that are sort of common, that you see that employers make? Yeah. Well, one is not training your supervisors because again, I think a lot of businesses think, well, we've got HR. This is an HR issue. Our HR person is knowledgeable. But the supervisors, they're the boots on the ground. They're the ones who are having the day to day conversations with their employees and the workforce. HR can't be everywhere all the time. Supervisors have to know enough to know when to flag an issue to H.R., and employers who don't do that are making a huge mistake. A lot of time, you know, we hear from our HR partners, you know, a lot of times by the time it's brought to them, it's too late, right? So your supervisors, they don't need to know the same level as HR, but they have to spot the issues. That's one. Another is we're in Idaho where it's at will employment. So at will means generally that an employer can fire someone for any reason or no reason, as long as it's a lawful reason out. Will employers get sued all the time for discrimination? Because you still have to show it was for a legal reason, right? So some employers are like, well, I fired him because it's at will. I can do whatever I want. It's like, well, not quite. I mean, you still need to be able to prove that you were doing it for a legal reason. So this misconception of what at will employment is can trip up employers. Sometimes employers will say, well, Joe wasn't performing. He's been a bad performer. And so I fired him yesterday. And I just, you know, I don't feel like since since we're at will. I just told him you're at will. I'm not going to tell you why I'm firing you. I'm just going to let you go today. And when you don't give employees that respect in that info so that they know there was a legitimate reason that triggers claims and lawsuits to documentation, is also a huge pitfall. You know, employers who maybe have great supervisors, they're busy, though. They're they're they're experts in their industry. But when they have a performance problem or an attitude problem or a policy violation, they don't document it. And then a year later they go to fire someone and here comes the discrimination claim. The defense to that is, oh, they weren't performing well. But if nobody documented it, it looks like it's, pretext, like it's a fake excuse for terminating someone. And supervisors, employers, they have to know when to document, what to document, how to document. And if you do that, it's you're going to be able to show you had a legit reason for doing it. But when employers don't understand why or how or when, that creates huge problems, it's so interesting to me that, like, there's just this humanity portion of that as leaders. Because what if you think about your kids like, we can't fire our kids, but then let's but you would not. And I'm going to say, if you're a decent human being, a decent parent, you're not going to just, you know, let your kid continue to make mistakes that you're super frustrated by, not tell them something and then kick them out of the house. Right. So there's a humanity portion to this where you're you're yes, the documentation that you need to have that, but you got to have the conversation so that the other human being on the other side of this understands that they're not meeting expectations. And if you're not having those conversations that I mean, that's that's the baseline is that you're not respecting another human being. Yeah. Like there's kind of a yeah, absolutely. It's uncomfortable though. It isn't a lot of people, a lot of supervisors will say, you know, like, I just I don't get paid enough to do that. Like, it's it's uncomfortable. I don't want to have this conflict with this person I have to see every day. So then they don't have the difficult coaching conversation. Here comes the termination. It's a surprise. And then the emotional backlash from that sometimes spirals into a claim. But absolutely. I mean, good coaching is good supervision, right? You're building your people. You're giving them every opportunity. Notice fairness, all those concepts. If employers do those, they typically avoid claims. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know if I can ask this question, but is it how how often do you see that an employee, an employee went into a situation trying to create a lawsuit that they could? Because I think sometimes I think sometimes there's just I laugh about it because, I mean, as a business, you're trying to run things, but sometimes you can villain-ize people pretty quickly. And I'm just wondering, do you think that when does that even happen that people do that? Okay, well, again, I'm a defense attorney, right? Right. If you had a plaintiff's side attorney here, they would probably give an entirely different answer. Sure. But representing employers, I certainly know that employers feel that way sometimes. So when you're defending an employer, how do you personally navigate, situations where you feel like something is legally defensible, but maybe morally a little complicated? Yeah, we've had a handful of those where someone has come to us, an employer, and they have said, I screwed up, and I now have this lawsuit and I need someone to help me defend it. And those are hard. But we have taken the position that everybody's entitled to a defense, and we're not going to defend those claims by denying that it happened or that we were wrong. But the problem is, once you're in a lawsuit like that, you need someone to help you, like get it settled, right? Right. So we still frequently and I wouldn't say that it's certainly not like the majority of our clients or anything, but when those come in, we've taken the approach of, okay, we're going to help them come up with the best resolution we can get. And it certainly is done above board, honestly accepting that there was liability. But let's just talk about the damages. Maybe, we've had a few cases we've rejected where it felt like maybe there was criminal, like we don't do criminal law at all. And sometimes if you have something really extreme or egregious happened, there might be some type of criminal implications. That's not going to be something we handle. That's not our area. Do you ever have clients that you don't take on? We've had some clients who are more difficult to work with than others, but I can't say we've had clients who have done something that clearly was wrong and like, no one's ever asked us to lie or say that it didn't happen when clearly it did. I mean, we haven't, but that might be a reason why you'd say I don't think we can work together. Yeah. I mean, you know, we we take our rules of professional conduct very seriously. We're not going to lie. If ever there was something like that, that's not going to be us. Yeah. Representing. Yeah, I can tell that about you. It's kind of like it's been a frustration over the years because in the last I would say five years or so, we've had several cases where we have felt like that went on with parties opposite of us. And you can't win a lawsuit if the other party isn't following the rules that have been put in place that govern everyone, and it is a thing. It's maybe people looking at the world around them and seeing high level leaders get away with things have felt empowered to ignore our local rules or laws. But that that's just not going to be us. Yeah. Well, I like that. I think you, the Valley has grown a lot in the last ten years. Five years, ten years. Does that changed things for you. Like has that, has that shifted maybe like some of the cases that you've taken on in that. Have you seen a difference there. Okay. Yeah, definitely. You know, with Covid and the labor market flux. Right. Like suddenly more people were coming into Idaho from out of state. And I think people coming from maybe California or other states that have a lot more employee friendly laws, that has brought a lot of people into our workforce who have higher expectations of what employers are going to do. Yeah. So that has been interesting. That is interesting. And also just that labor market flux, you know, things like, people moving from employer to employer, you know, that maybe an increase in things like non-compete issues and on solicitation issues, confidentiality breach issues, that is not something I would have predicted would have been a big part of our practice. But it is a pretty sizable part of our practice. Issues related to those type of things of business feeling like it's competitive edge is jeopardized. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. Shifting gears entirely, I am curious and maybe I'm wrong about this, but it feels like your the realm that you're in is male dominated. Is that fair to say that there are more males and females, I think would litigation. Yeah. Sure sure. Yeah. Employment law. You know again, I think I see a fair amount of women I mean not really here locally. There's not that many people who do it on the defense side. All the big firms have a practice group that does employment. So there are a handful of attorneys. But for sure, litigation is male dominated. Yeah. So what's that like? Tricky. Yeah, I think it's tricky. And again, if you would have asked me that question ten years ago, I would have said I didn't really feel the difference that much at the firm I was at. I had a lot of great male and female role models, but I never really felt that there. But the Idaho bar has changed, and the litigation that I feel like we're involved with you see a lot of kind of bad conduct, kind of, again, contentious, very contentious. I do see it there, and I do see more and more women not doing it because of the stress, because of how unpleasant it is to, you know, it's just exhausting to be just battling, battling, battling. And for women, I mean, women with kids in particular and not limited to that by any means, but it's a billable field, probably no different than accounting, engineering and any time it's billable hour driven the hours are tough. Right. If that's how you make money and litigation you know frequently is going to fall into that camp. Tough to balance it with your personal life. You know the need to get your kids to appointments to go to school stuff. So I see a lot of women drop out of it for all those reasons. So when I first came into the family business, I and I've said this before on the podcast, but I, I have all all of my leader mentors, male, they're all male. And when I first came in, I had some great stories about me trying to be a man. Because I thought that's what was required. If you're a leader, you have to have this sort of an edge to you, and you had to have this sort of a, you know, bullish way of being thing, you know, whatever. And I and I still laugh and I still have, you know, ex employees who are friends of mine who tease me about how has I've completely shifted. I've done a lot of coaching. And I figured out, oh, wait, I my feminine quality lends itself nicely to leadership in a completely different way. I'm not I'm not what I thought I needed to be. Do you find that? Do you find that there are elements of what you do that you feel like the job requires you to be a certain way, but as a female, you've chosen to do it just a little bit different way. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I'm always struggling with litigation for things like depositions, for example, where you need to be tough, you need to be firm, but you got to be likable and trust building as well. And I think that is an area that I know I struggle to like, be true to myself because I don't like that side of me. Yeah, I really don't. Once in a while I see it and I'm like, oh yeah, well, I had the problem with me was I got kind of good at it. And then I was like, well, I this is successful, this works. But then I'm like, except for is it really working? Because in the end I've totally lost that relationship. This person thinks I'm, you know, so yeah, it's, it's an interesting balance there. Yeah. And I think, you know, as you progress through your professional career again, it's kind of phases. You kind of see what works, what doesn't work, what you want to be, what you don't want to be. All of those things kind of come together. But I do, you know, I do struggle with it in some aspects of litigation because I it's also tough when you feel like it's the only way you can get people to respond honestly is with a lot of pressure. Yeah. And I don't know that nice Pam gets the answers. I get that the firmer Pam gets, I get that, yeah, it's tricky. Yeah. Well, so as you look out under the horizon for for your company and your dreams and your hopes, what are you excited about in the future? Yeah, well, even 2026, we have a lot of really fun stuff planned again, really building that side of the business with training and speaking and helping leaders get the tools they need to stay out of court. So our Ground Rules podcast, we're going to keep doing that every week. Just you know, on Spotify free, you know, take take a half hour and learn this concept and avoid the problem. We've got some speaking lined up that we're trying to do around the country. Different HR groups. That's really fun. We're talking about writing another book. That was a collaborative effort in my office, and when we first thought about it, we were like, oh, it sounds like it's going to be so hard. But I think what everyone realized was it was really fun and exciting. And when that was done and we had it to share, it was just so satisfying. And we have a lot more to say. So that's really fun. And this is the newest one. This one's really juicy. So what HR people have told us for years is give us something with training that's interactive and that we can use to get the conversation going about some of these employment law concepts. Because the reality is, a lot of leaders think employment law is boring and people don't want to talk about it. So we came up with this card game. Oh, now we're getting ready to launch. That's kind of like a way to get the conversation going on these key issues. There's different ways that HR professionals can use it. Leaders can use it in meetings. Maybe you kick off your meeting by passing out a card to every leader and have them talk about what's on it and kind of see, like what people are thinking about, talking about, you know, their level of comfort with those issues. But that's kind of our new theme for 2026, I love that. Yeah. We're excited. That's very creative and intriguing. Yeah, yeah, I'm super excited. I love that. And you have so much energy right now. It just makes me excited for you. We're very excited about it. I know this is a really new like we had this epiphany in December. We were at a meeting and, we we had a facilitator who had cards that they were using as an icebreaker. And it kind of led us into this snowballed. Like, what if, you know, we had cards like that to kind of train. And so it was really fun. That's great. Yeah. Love it. I'm gonna take a quick moment to thank our sponsor, Zamzows This episode of Nobody Knowz is brought to you by Zamzows, your local source for garden, pet and planet friendly products. At Zamzows, we believe healthy environments matter, whether it's in your backyard, your home, or the places where we work together every day. Visit Zamzows.com or stop by one of our 12 Treasure Valley locations. Nobody knows like Zamzows. This is the part we call sharing is caring. It's a rapid fire questions, okay? Or just sort of quicker than the other questions. All right. So here's the first one. You ready? Okay. A book, a podcast or a resource that you often recommend to other leaders. It's going to be my law for leaders book. I love it because really, if every leader took and it's a quick read, it's like it's meant to be storytelling. Quick, basic. If leaders had that as a desk side resource, they just would never have claims or lawsuits. It's an easy read. Every leader needs to know those things to stay out of court. How do they get their hands on it? If somebody wanted that book, it's on Amazon. Awesome. Yeah, they can Google law for leaders Pam Howland and it'll pop up great. That's awesome. All right. How about what's something that helps you reset after a heavy day? I have a hound, Josie. Oh, she's like my comfort pet. So if it's nice out hiking, like we live in the foothills, we spend a lot of time on those trails. Have a lot of fun out there. If it's weather like this, or maybe we can, it might just be sitting on the couch chilling out, but, yeah. Yeah, I love my pet. Oh. That's awesome. They make such a difference in our lives. Yes. Right. How about a leader? Either inside or outside the law that you admire and why? You know, we were talking a little bit about women in the law, women litigators. And we had a trial not long ago where, we collaborated with a woman here in town. Her name is Trudy Fowler, and she is probably the best female trial attorney in Idaho. And I had the privilege of working. And she's just the nicest person and just an amazing skill set. And to watch her in action was just amazing. So I really admire her. I admire how she's built her career and the skills she's developed. She was telling me she's got over 70 civil trials, and that's really unusual because a lot of civil lawsuits don't go right to trial. It's too expensive, takes too much time. So 70 trials is what? Yes. It's 70 of anything is a lot. Yeah. No kidding. Wow. That's a that's a very good answer of that. Okay. This is our final question. So the question we ask everybody on our show, there are no rules okay. And it can pertain to anything inside. No somebody probably does. Now the question is what is something that nobody knows I know I don't know if Haley knows this. Yeah. So I grew up in Montana. I grew up in a little town called Shepherd, Montana. And the highlight of my summer is a little kid in Shepherd, Montana was showing cows and forage at the fair. Oh that's awesome. Yeah, I, I admire that. I think there's so many lessons learned in that process. And probably the biggest one is spending all that time and effort to then have to let go of the animal. That's I sometimes will go to the, you know, we'll go to the Western or fair and beat up the animals and that sort of thing. And I always just feel so badly for the little kids, because I know that their hearts are breaking because they spent all summer. Yeah. And, so but I admire that. And I think it teaches incredible lessons. And so I love that answer. So wonderful. And I love this conversation. This has been, very eye opening for me. Good, good information for me. And I hope for our listeners as well. If people want to find you, how would they find you? Yeah. So you can just Google Idaho employment lawyers. And I'm on LinkedIn again. Pam Howland, law for leaders. You could Google that too. And it'll show our training website. Yeah, we're out and about. We've got a, Facebook. So yeah, our Ground Rules podcast. All of those things will connect you with us. Wonderful. Thank you for being on the show today. Really appreciate it. And thank you for being in the community and making such a big difference. Oh, thanks for having me. I greatly, greatly enjoyed being here. Wonderful. All right. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow the podcast and leave a review. Next week we'll hear from another incredible voice shaping the Treasure Valley. And until then, thanks for listening.