Love thy Lawyer
Love thy Lawyer
David Parnall (ACBA) - Probate Litigator/Musician
A transcript of this podcast is available at lovethylawyer.com.
Go to https://www.lovethylawyer.com/blog for transcripts.
In collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association, Love Thy Lawyer presents an interview with:
David Parnall
David Parnall is a trust and estates attorney based in Oakland, California. His practice focuses on litigation and administration within the field, including cases related to elder abuse and probate matters. Before pursuing law, David spent a decade as a professional musician, touring with bands and exploring various styles of guitar music. His career path took a turn when he sought a meaningful and impactful way to contribute, eventually leading him to law school and his current legal focus. Today, he values the intellectual and interpersonal challenges his work provides, along with the opportunity to help his clients navigate complex legal situations. In this episode, David shares insights from his unique career journey, his approach to balancing personal and professional life, and his views on the importance of empathy and professionalism in legal practice. Tune in to this episode to learn about David’s journey from musician to lawyer, his advice for new attorneys, and his perspective on staying grounded in a challenging profession.
Parnall Trust & Estate Law
https://davidparnall.com/
Alameda County Bar Association
The Alameda County Bar Association (ACBA) is a professional membership association for lawyers and other members of the legal profession. The ACBA provides access to ongoing legal education; and promotes diversity and civil rights in the Alameda County legal community. Our mission is to promote excellence in the legal profession and to facilitate equal access to justice.
Louis Goodman
www.louisgoodman.com
louisgoodman2010@gmail.com
510.582.9090
Special thanks to ACBA staff and members: (https://www.acbanet.org/)
Musical theme by Joel Katz, Seaside Recording, Maui
Technical support: Bryan Matheson, Skyline Studios, Oakland
Audiograms & Transcripts: Paul Roberts
We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email at louisgoodman2010@gmail.com.
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Louis Goodman
www.louisgoodman.com
https://www.lovethylawyer.com/
510.582.9090
Music: Joel Katz, Seaside Recording, Maui
Tech: Bryan Matheson, Skyline Studios, Oakland
Audiograms: Paul Robert
Louis Goodman / David Parnall - Transcript
[00:00:03] Louis Goodman: Welcome to the Love Thy Lawyer and the Alameda County Bar Association podcast, where we talk with attorneys about their lives and careers. I'm your host, Louis Goodman. Today we welcome David Parnall to the podcast. Mr. Parnall's practice emphasizes trust and estate litigation, administration, and mediation.
While at UC Davis, he edited The Law Review, and he has been selected as a Northern California Super Lawyer. And perhaps most impressively, he is a musician and one of the original music analysts for Pandora Radio. He has also composed his own guitar theme that mimics the theme of this podcast's musical intro.
David Parnall, welcome to the Love Thy Lawyer and the Alameda County Bar Association podcast.
[00:01:01] David Parnall: Hi Louis, and thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:05] Louis Goodman: It's a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for joining us. Where are you speaking to us from right now?
[00:01:11] David Parnall: So I'm speaking to you from Temescal, which is where my office is.
[00:01:16] Louis Goodman: And that's in the city of Oakland, correct?
[00:01:18] David Parnall: That's in the city of Oakland. Yes.
[00:01:20] Louis Goodman: Can you tell us what kind of practice you have?
[00:01:25] David Parnall: Yeah, so I do exclusively trust and estates related work. So I don't do estate planning. I do trust and estates litigation and some administration. There are kind of three lanes in terms of trust and estates, you know, planning, administration, litigation, and 95 percent of my practice is the latter.
And so, you know, it encompasses matters under the probate code and tangential stuff like partition actions, actions for elder abuse, restraining orders, that kind of thing.
[00:01:59] Louis Goodman: Well, I understand the drafting of estate plans and that's the planning thing that you mentioned. And I understand litigation, that's going to court and fighting about it.
Can you tell me a little bit more about what administration is?
[00:02:14] David Parnall: Sure. Yeah, like it's, you know, I liken it to a map or a recipe, right? So the estate planner will come up with the recipe and write it down. The person who's doing the administration, which is, you know, usually estate planners will do that.
You know, they follow the recipe, they cook the food. So they go into court to put the plan into effect, the estate plan. So a probate action or a trust administration, seeing that the assets go where they're meant to go, that kind of thing. And then the litigator, I guess, you know, if it's a recipe is, you know, comes in when the house is on fire because you've burned the souffle.
[00:02:54] Louis Goodman: Or could you be the one burning the souffle?
[00:02:56] David Parnall: Yes. Anything can happen.
[00:03:01] Louis Goodman: Where are you from originally?
[00:03:03] David Parnall: So originally, I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
[00:03:07] Louis Goodman: Is that where you went to high school?
[00:03:08] David Parnall: Yes. Yeah, I was born and mostly raised in Albuquerque, although, you know, I had kind of a different childhood where we did a lot of traveling and lived overseas a lot. But starting in high school, I went to high school in Albuquerque and then I moved out to California for college, et cetera.
[00:03:26] Louis Goodman: How is it that you lived overseas a lot and traveled a lot when you were younger?
[00:03:30] David Parnall: Well, so my dad had an interest in traveling. He loved the thrill of it all, but also he was able to marry that to his job. So he was a lawyer and a law professor and then would take leaves of absence to go do legal development projects overseas.
And so we were able to, you know, he would go somewhere like when I was six, we lived in Egypt for a year. And he worked on a legal development project there. And then when I was 12, we lived in Tunisia for a year and, you know, doing the same kind of thing.
[00:04:08] Louis Goodman: So did you learn any Arabic while you were over there?
[00:04:10] David Parnall: Some Arabic, mostly French though. Cause the French was, you know, I, I think still is, but at least at the time was spoken there as well. I wish that I had learned more Arabic.
[00:04:21] Louis Goodman: When you graduated from high school in Albuquerque, you ultimately went to college. Where'd you go?
[00:04:27] David Parnall: I went to UC San Diego. That started my career as a Californian. Although when I was growing up, my mom lived in Berkeley. And so I'd come out here as well. And eventually after college migrated up here.
[00:04:40] Louis Goodman: Eventually you went to law school. Did you take any time off between college and law school?
[00:04:47] David Parnall: Yeah. You know, I would actually phrase it differently.
[00:04:49] Louis Goodman: Please.
[00:04:50] David Parnall: Yeah. So I didn't take any time off because the last thing I wanted to do was be a lawyer or to have any kind of a career. My first love is music. And so from the time I was 13, all I wanted to do was be a guitar player. And so after college, I went straight into that, you know, living the life of a musician.
And so I did that for about 10 years. And then when I was done, you know, I got to a point where I thought like, okay, I need to kind of move on to something else. And that was the point that I decided that I would, you know, after thinking through various things, I decided that I'd go to law school.
[00:05:32] Louis Goodman: Well, let's talk about the music for a minute. What sort of music did you play and did you travel? Did you go on the road? Did you mainly in the studio? Did you record?
[00:05:41] David Parnall: Yeah. So let's see. So it was all about, you know, I'd kind of tangentially play other instruments, but really it was all about the guitar. And so I studied guitar. I studied music in college, studied with a lot of different teachers and I kind of started off playing rock music and then went on this journey and learned about all this other music and lived in Spain and I studied some flamenco, played in a an awesome jazz big band down in San Diego and played and studied classical down there and had some great teachers along the way, and then eventually kind of came back to, well, I mean, playing a lot of kind of Spanish classical guitar, but also playing and writing my own music, rock music, and then played in different groups around the Bay Area. The most famous or the most notable of them was this Celtic rock band.
And so we would tour around the country and up in Canada, two, three times a year, you know, go out for three weeks and then play, you know, every weekend down, you know, up and down the West coast, that kind of thing.
[00:06:49] Louis Goodman: So what was it that got you to say, well, I don't want to be a professional musician anymore, I want to go to law school. And when did you first start really thinking about being a lawyer and what prompted it?
[00:07:02] David Parnall: Yeah. So it was always kind of the path not taken. Growing up at the dinner table, having a law professor in the role of dad, you know, it was this kind of, you know, always this like engaging argument, discussion, debate, policy stuff, you know. There was always something interesting about it to me, but, you know, I had this thing that I wanted to do with music and, you know, but in retrospect, I think there are two things. One, I knew I always wanted to have a family. I always wanted to have kids and was fortunate enough to meet people along the way who had played at the highest level of the game and given it up because they didn't want to be away from their kids 300 days out of the year.
So from early on that kind of framed my perspective on music that even if you achieve the success that so few people achieve, it's not the end all be all.
[00:08:06] Louis Goodman: Yeah. That life on the road is brutal. Isn't it?
[00:08:09] David Parnall: It is. Yeah.
[00:08:10] Louis Goodman: I've done it.
[00:08:11] David Parnall: Especially like for introverts.
[00:08:12] Louis Goodman: Yeah.
[00:08:13] David Parnall: It's hell. But then I also, I always felt like there was something kind of missing even when I was playing in my prime, that there was this kind of seriousness that I needed like something more substantial that I needed to do, like I'm not the type to just, you know, just go out and have a good time and that kind of thing, like I need to be doing something a little more meaningful and always in the back of my mind, that was kind of a possibility that I would take this path and become a lawyer.
[00:08:46] Louis Goodman: So when did you decide, I'm really going to fill out the applications and take the LSAT, send in the money, you know, where you really make that commitment to go?
[00:08:55] David Parnall: Well, I spent maybe 10 years or so, nine, 10 years after college doing the music thing, playing, that kind of thing. But then I hit that point where I felt like, you know, maybe it's time to do something else and thought about various different things and then decided that, you know, what best suited me was to try out this law thing and go to law school. And I have a very funny specific moment where I was on the phone with my dad and I was saying, you know, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about doing this. And it was like I could hear someone becoming rabid on the other end of the phone.
You could hear like the foam coming out of his mouth, but he was, he was trying to play it cool. He was like, oh yeah. Okay. You know, whatever. That's cool. Whatever. Do, do what
you want.
[00:09:49] Louis Goodman: But he was happy about it. He was very happy about it. Oh, that's great. Yeah.
So what law school did you go to?
[00:09:56] David Parnall: I went to UC Davis, King Hall.
[00:09:59] Louis Goodman: How was that experience? Especially being a little older than probably most of the students.
[00:10:04] David Parnall: Yeah. Being older, you know, it was different. I think in ways it was really good. In ways it was challenging because I was out of the school mode and getting back into the school mode.
And then, you know, I had other like life considerations that I was kind of holding together. One of the moments that I remember in law school is, you know, we're in class and I'm sitting next to this guy and we're both 1Ls or whatever and he was just like this brilliant guy and it was just kind of personally offensive to me that, you know, I thought it through and I was like, well, wait a minute.
This guy was watching like Scooby Doo when I was his age. And here he is giving this awesome answer. Like, you know, the world is not a just place. This is not how it's supposed to work, but I made it through.
[00:10:51] Louis Goodman: Can you give us like a brief history of your career? You got out of law school, then what did you do? And how did you end up in the practice that you're in right now?
[00:11:02] David Parnall: Yeah. Well, so that, that was an interesting experience too, coming out of law school because I had always felt like I had this thing that was inherently meaningful, and I remember, I think Herbie Hancock, he was giving a commencement speech somewhere, and he was talking about how, like, if you're doing this music thing, it's just kind of inherently a good, meaningful, cool thing, but you get out of, you know, law school and you're, you know, interviewing with these people, lawyers at big firms or whatever, and they're like, yeah, what? We don't care about the fact that you can play a Jimi Hendrix song. And so for the longest time, I felt like I kind of had to, you know, shut off that side of me. And so I got out of school and I got a job doing asbestos defense, which was. actually a very good kind of training ground for the first couple of years.
And so, you know, I did that, but then 2008 hit, 2009. So I did it for a couple more years than I thought I would. Then I went in and I did a real estate litigation and did that for a couple of years. But all the way, like throughout all of this, I kind of felt like, you know, what I was doing, I was just satisfying like numbers on the spreadsheet of a corporate representative.
And I wanted to do something that had more meaning for individual people. And so, you know, both of my brothers do personal injury. So I kind of considered getting into doing that, but I had always had this interest in trust and estates. And so I, you know, started really reading up and seeing how fascinating it was, this whole world, and then moved into doing that, and I've been doing that now for the past ten years or so.
[00:13:02] Louis Goodman: What is it that you really like about practicing law? I mean, you have skills in a number of areas, you can do what you want, you can practice any type of law, you can go back to music. What is it about practicing law that you like that keeps you as an attorney?
[00:13:18] David Parnall: So, especially in trust and estates, for me, I get to have this feeling that I'm doing something that is helping someone. And I think that I'm not just punching a clock and I'm not just looking for a paycheck, but instead there are real people with real problems who I get to use what I know to help.
And then I think on a personal level too, I mean, trust and estates is like, I never really felt like I got to be a lawyer, like I pictured in law school, where you're thinking and analyzing and writing, until I got into trusts and estates. It's just a really rich area of the law with also not only a huge logical component, but also a huge interpersonal dynamic component.
And so to kind of bring all these threads together in service of your clients, I think is fascinating. I feel like I get to live my life as a professional writer for the most part, which is a real privilege.
[00:14:35] Louis Goodman: Can you talk a little bit about the business of practicing law? How's that gone for you?
And can you just kind of comment about that?
[00:14:43] David Parnall: Well, so I had an, maybe an atypical, well, I think certainly an atypical trajectory to my career, but also an atypical trajectory to starting my own firm where I started out my own firm just, I don't know, two and a half years ago, something like that. Maybe a little more now. But I started, you know, with the goal of purposefully just working by myself, not expanding, because, you know, I have this example of my older brother who built this now very large personal injury firm in New Mexico. And so every year he'd send out a Christmas card. And, you know, at first there were like, you know, five people in the Christmas card, and then it got bigger and bigger and bigger.
And he's always there in the middle, but this group of people for whom he is responsible, you know, is now at like, you know, over a hundred people. And so I felt like, you know, I don't want that, you know, I don't want to be responsible for all these people. But, in terms of the business part of all of this, my thinking has actually changed a lot where, you know, you have these people around you and you can kind of coordinate this bigger ship to help more people and in doing so not only help the people, your clients, but also create an environment for the people who work there too.
And so I, that's actually the point that I'm at now is starting to really expand. Not to 100 people, to be clear, but you know, to more than two, which is what I have now.
[00:16:24] Louis Goodman: You're very involved with the Alameda County Bar Association, and this is the Bar Association's podcast. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about your involvement with the Alameda County Bar and what that's been like for you.
[00:16:39] David Parnall: Well, it's been great. I'm new on the board of the Alameda County Bar Association, and so I'm just, you know, over the past few months I've been getting my bearings doing that. I've been the chair of the trust and estate section for the past couple of years, and that's been really rewarding too, because I'm kind of a, I've kind of been a double agent where there's another group in Alameda County for trust and estates attorneys, the East Bay trust and estates lawyers, ABTEL, and I've been the chair of the litigation section there for the past three years.
And so what I'm trying to do is, is kind of build out the ACBA Trust and Estates section, which has gone well over the past couple of years, and to kind of, you know, coordinate and, and, you know, synchronize the communications between those two groups. But, so that's been, been really rewarding as well.
But actually, this is my last year on ABTEL and I'm going to train my focus on ACBA for the next year or two or more.
[00:17:44] Louis Goodman: Well, thank you. What do you think is the best advice you've ever received and or what advice would you give to a new attorney kind of just starting out?
[00:17:56] David Parnall: So, the best advice that I've ever received, there have been so many moments that I've gotten from people who are kind of further along than me, and, but there's this one moment that sticks out often, which is this. I was in court one day. And I can't remember what it was for, but I was, you know, court wasn't in session.
I was in the hall and I came across this guy who I didn't really know very well, but we were just talking and he does this guy, he does like, I think it was criminal defense down in Hayward or San Leandro or something. And we were talking and he was talking about his approach to the law. I might be kind of misremembering parts of this story, but this is what it meant to me.
He was saying to me, you just have to appreciate what you have when you have it. You have to set up your life so that you can enjoy whatever you have. And he gave this example. He was saying, you know, I had a case, a trial, it was going to last a whole week. And so I had to think to myself, you know, this is great.
This is what I do. This is going to be exhilarating. I'm going to help my client, you know, it's going to be awesome. Life is good. But then on a Friday, the Friday before that trial was going to happen. He said, you know, then the case pled out. So all of a sudden the next week was completely vacant.
There was nothing going on the next week. And so he said, I get a vacation and life is good. This is awesome. So my thought was either outcome in that situation was great. And so it was a real moment for me that captured something and it also illustrated the benefit of just having your ears open to hear what people have to say whenever they have to say it.
But, you know, I wonder if that story might sound at all familiar to you.
[00:20:01] Louis Goodman: Well, I wasn't the Hayward San Leandro criminal defense attorney who said that to you. I don't think.
[00:20:09] David Parnall: Yes, you were.
[00:20:10] Louis Goodman: I was. Oh, well, brilliant guy.
[00:20:17] David Parnall: Does that, am I getting that right though, or has my mind switched that up to serve my, my own perspective that much better?
[00:20:24] Louis Goodman: No, I don't know. I definitely take the position that looking at things in a positive way and appreciating what you have and having a lot of gratitude for the life that I think probably, certainly myself, but I think probably almost anyone who's listening to this podcast gets to lead is, is really important.
And I, you know, I've said it before on the podcast, I'll say it again, that I consciously every day have gratitude about how great my life is. But thank you for remembering.
[00:21:00] David Parnall: Yeah, I don't think I'd be able to do the same thing and not that, that you did that, took a vacation. I think for me it would be like, okay, so I don't have this trial next week.
So now I have to spend the next week catching up on all the other things that I had to do now. So, I'm still working on the, the vacation notion.
[00:21:19] Louis Goodman: Well, let's talk about that a little bit in terms of your family life, and I know you have some kids. I know they're very important to you. I know your family is very important to you.
How is practicing law and your family life fit into each other?
[00:21:34] David Parnall: Well, I think that it's certainly challenging because practicing law is a challenging thing. And, you know, it can be very stressful, and sometimes I'm always apologizing to my kids for being grumpy or stressed out or something like that.
And they get it, you know, we're close. We're tight. I mean, the balance is still not there. I think I'll probably finally get that balance when my younger kid leaves the house. So that'll be a little bit bittersweet, but otherwise it's been very good.
[00:22:08] Louis Goodman: Let's say you came into some real money, 3 or 4 billion dollars. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life?
[00:22:16] David Parnall: So I would probably be further along in my career if I weren't so self-deprecating, or further along as an attorney, if I weren't so sarcastic, but the facetious sarcastic side of me says that I would go from kind of not stressing about having enough money to stressing about having too much money.
You know, I feel like I have developed a skill, and some knowledge and the ability to do something that helps people. I wouldn't give that up because now that I'm finally kind of starting to get good at it, what then you stop? No. I think about this a lot, just in terms of like retirement, like why would I retire?
Because, you know, by then maybe I'll actually, so, you know, if I had a lot of money I would do more of the same, but expand it so that I were, I would be able to help more people, I think is the short of it.
[00:23:18] Louis Goodman: Let's say you had a magic wand that was one thing in the world, the legal world, or otherwise that you could change, what would that be?
[00:23:24] David Parnall: I would create more empathy. I think that's something that is definitely lacking in legal society, but also in overall society. More of an ability to understand other people's perspectives and honor the fact that even though they might be different from yours or mine, that doesn't mean they're invalid.
[00:23:50] Louis Goodman: Dave, I will have a few more questions for you a little later. But right now we have a couple of other people on the podcast. I'd like to get their input if you have a question or a comment for Dave. So why don't we start with Ocean Motley. Ocean, you're a veteran of the podcast.
[00:24:09] Ocean Motley: Thanks Louis and David, great to hear from you today. Yeah. A lot of us thought of thoughts coming for me when I was hearing you talk. I'll try to narrow it down to two questions. The first is you seem to have a very great vision. Like you don't let life get you off track or like what you're supposed to do. Like you kind of have a vision for yourself.
And I'm curious, If you are religious or have some kind of spiritual center, like what keeps you focused on something outside of all the craziness that's going around and being a lawyer? That's the first question. And the second is, how do you deal with particularly difficult opposing counsel? Like you seem very leveled, but sometimes people can really be provocative or push you particularly in court.
I'm curious how you navigate that.
[00:24:51] David Parnall: Yeah, that's interesting actually. I mean, and I think I can take both of those at once. So I, I'm not religious, you know, I don't adhere to any particular religion. I do kind of feel like there's something greater that kind of binds us. And, you know, my own personal philosophy is that all religions try to speak to that one thing and they just view it from different perspectives.
And so, you know, in that sense, I try to live my life as a lawyer. how I would live my life just as a person. And so I think, you know, a lot of times I have to dial back the sarcasm or the humor or the obnoxiousness as a lawyer, but fundamentally it's more important to me to be a good kind person. And if I lose sight of that while I'm arguing a case, then I've kind of lost the whole game right there.
And so, you know, and that carries forward to dealing with opposing attorneys who might be obnoxious. Like I kind of see it as this ongoing kind of Zen practice where we're dealing with conflict, but we don't have to be consumed by that conflict. And so even if, you know, our clients are fighting each other. You know, that doesn't mean that we're fighting each other. And if someone is particularly aggressive to me, I mean, I was always the kind of the person to try to tone down the fights when I was younger. And so it kind of is an opportunity to continually practice at not being taken over by whatever negative state is surrounding you.
So in that sense, it's like, even though it's a very negative thing, you can turn it into a positive thing by seeing it as an opportunity to practice. That's the Northern California side of me coming out. And actually, and I'll say, I do have Italian blood too. So when the knives come out, sometimes I'm all for it. We can, we can appreciate that.
[00:27:10] Louis Goodman: Thank you, Ocean. Thank you for your answer there, David. Teresa Green, thank you for joining us. Do you have a question or a comment for David?
[00:27:18] Teresa Green: I don't. I just wanted to say hello. I'm also a trust and estates Attorney, so I've appreciated the opportunity to get to know Dave a little more.
I think we're quite friendly, practicing in the same area of law. I've enjoyed the podcast
[00:27:31] Louis Goodman: And Teresa, where is your practice?
[00:27:34] Teresa Green: 20th and Broadway in downtown Oakland.
[00:27:36] Louis Goodman: Great Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
[00:27:40] Teresa Green: Thank you.
[00:27:41] David Parnall: You know, actually Teresa Green is a good person to have on this program right here because she and I have been friendly for a long time and then we got a case where we were against each other and it was a pretty, you know, it was a pretty heated situation.
And so it was really, I think, one of the first times where I had to oppose someone who I was as friendly with as I was with Teresa, and it went well. And actually, to your question, too, Motley Ocean, I had a recent case also where with Teresa it went really well, but in this other case, a very good, not friend, but close professional acquaintance with whom I had worked for a long time on a separate case, we got a case where we were suddenly opposing each other and it was like Jekyll and Hyde where he couldn't see that, you know, I was still the same person, but rather I became, you know, kind of this evil person who was attributing all these bad things, you know, to him and everything. And it was such an interesting study in how those two kinds of things can unfold where, you know, it can either be easier, it can be rough.
[00:29:03] Louis Goodman: Teresa, would you like to comment on your litigation with David?
[00:29:08] David (pretending to be Teresa): David was so, so, such a good attorney. He was so smart, and I lost horribly to him.
[00:29:18] David Parnall: Oh, Teresa, it wasn't that bad. Sorry, go ahead.
[00:29:22] Teresa Green: I do think that we were able to capitalize on our friendly relationship. I was glad that we did not lose perspective of that during our interaction, and ultimately, I'll say the matter fizzled out and so we weren't able to really see how it concluded, but I did appreciate the professionalism and humanity that Dave showed during that exchange.
[00:29:47] Louis Goodman: Very well.
[00:29:47] David Parnall: I want everybody to hear her say that word, professionalism. After I just tried to imitate her. I'm a very professional, professional person.
[00:29:57] Teresa Green: You did say several times how sarcastic you are, so I just, I just let that speak for itself.
[00:30:05] Louis Goodman: Alright, well thank you Ocean, thank you Teresa. I have a couple other questions here for you Dave. What is the best way for someone to get in touch with you? If an attorney has a case that they wanted to refer you for trust and estates litigation matters, or if they had a question that they wanted to ask you about it, what's the best way to get in contact with David Parnall?
[00:30:29] David Parnall: You can contact me and my excellent paralegal operations person, through my website, which is at www.davidparnall.com. One word.
[00:30:45] Louis Goodman: And I assume that if we were to Google David Parnall in Oakland as an attorney, we'd come up with you and your website.
[00:30:56] David Parnall: Yes, most likely. I think so.
[00:30:58] Louis Goodman: David, is there anything else that you wanted to discuss that we haven't brought up that anything at all that you'd like to mention or say?
[00:31:08] David Parnall: I've heard on your podcast where you ask people, you know, what's the most important thing that an attorney can do? And I often hear the answer to that as, you know, listen. And so, you know, I'm developing and will be developing a career aside, you know, part of my job as a mediator. And I think I was trained to do that, not just by my law professor dad, who raised the arguments or my two personal injury attorney brothers and my stepmom who at the dinner table would argue all of them under the table, but also by my Berkeley therapist mom who taught me what it means to actually listen. And so, I think, you know, the, I've been fortunate enough to kind of have that input coming from those various sources throughout my whole life. And so it's been a great balance, I think.
[00:32:11] Louis Goodman: David Parnall, thank you so much for joining us today on the Love Thy Lawyer podcast and the Alameda County Bar Association. I appreciate your being here. And I thank the other people who've been on the call, Ocean and Teresa, you've made it a lot of fun.
[00:32:30] David Parnall: Well, thank you so much for having me, Louis. I really, really appreciate it.
[00:32:34] Louis Goodman: That's it for today's edition of Love Thy Lawyer in collaboration with the Alameda County Bar Association. Please visit the lovethylawyer.com website where you can find links to all of our episodes. Also, please visit the Alameda County Bar Association website at ACBAnet.org, where you can find more information about our support of the legal profession, promoting excellence in the legal profession and facilitating equal access to justice.
Thanks to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.
[00:33:29] David Parnall: So, you know, it's all about perspective. But I think the more serious answer, though, is that…