Todd Burnham 0:00
Hi, this is Todd Burnham. I am a licensed practicing attorney. But just because you're listening to me doesn't mean that I represent you. This is for informational purposes only if you're good with that, then let's roll.

Chris Braden 0:20
Season One was about how Todd Burnham started Burnham Law in his basement and built it to one of the most prestigious law firms in Colorado by thinking outside of the box and surrounding himself with the best lawyers and staff in the industry. Now during a pandemic Burnham Law is still growing, how you ask walk toward the storm and face it head on and you have power the people that help get you there. It's time to execute. It's time to make some lemonade. It's time to burn the ships. This is deep bench with Todd burn. Hey, welcome to Deep Bench with Todd Burnham. I'm Chris Braden. You know what? This is the very first time I've ever introduced myself on this show. Never done it before. But Todd's not here today. So I'm going to kind of take the reins. And with me today is Donna Bystricky. I've known Donna for a while. She's the firm manager here at Burnham Law. And she's a hoot. Let me tell you. So Donna, how're you doing today?

Donna Bystricky 1:24
I'm doing good, Chris, how are you?

Chris Braden 1:26
I'm good. So, Donna, first of all, when I met you, you were like, head of paralegals or something. Am I saying that? Right? You were like in charge of all the paralegals when I first met you a few years ago.

Donna Bystricky 1:37
Right.

Chris Braden 1:37
Is that right?

Donna Bystricky 1:38
That's right.

Chris Braden 1:38
Okay. So what do you do now? Because I know your jobs really expanded?

Donna Bystricky 1:43
Well, I do the same thing is still oversee all the paralegals and all the legal administrative assistants.

Chris Braden 1:48
Okay.

Donna Bystricky 1:48
My job is kind of morphed into whatever needs to be done in the firm. I've stepped in for HR Payroll, you know, train all of the new employees. So anything, anything and everything that anybody needs help on, I'm there.

Chris Braden 2:03
That's a huge job.

Donna Bystricky 2:04
It is huge.

Chris Braden 2:05
It is. So does it take you a lot of time you spending like, 80 hours in this office? And it's a beautiful office, by the way.

Donna Bystricky 2:10
It is great, isn't it? No, I think I'm really learning how to find a little more balance in my life where it's my biggest struggle. I you know, I used to work evenings, weekends, just to keep up with stuff. Because I have a hard time saying no.

Chris Braden 2:25
My wife does that too. And it drives me frickin insane.

Donna Bystricky 2:27
Yeah. Yeah. Stephanie would say to me, okay, when somebody asked you to do this, and we're like, overwhelmed, say no. And I'm like, okay, she's like, No, really say it. No, what's your answer? No. calls you and ask if you can take this case? What's your answer? No. So learning how to delegate is really difficult. But I'm getting better at that as well.

Chris Braden 2:49
Are you one of those people? Because that's kind of the way I am. If I think I can fit it in. I do my best to make sure it gets done.

Donna Bystricky 2:56
Yes.

Chris Braden 2:57
And sometimes that is to the detriment of me sleeping, or regular stuff in my life. And like I told you, my wife does it all the time. And I do it a lot. And it's hard to say no, when you think you can actually do a job and you want to do a good job for somebody.

Donna Bystricky 3:14
Yeah, for example, I was up this morning, probably from about 10 to three till maybe 430. Just like my brain is just constantly going, you know, what do I have to do today? I have to do that. Well, who can I give this to what what else can I do? You know,

Chris Braden 3:30
Do you take notes when you're laying there or is it just mental?

Donna Bystricky 3:33
Mental, you know? And I like try not to look at my phone to see what time it is and trying to set some boundaries. But it still happens. My brain just is constantly going.

Chris Braden 3:43
So where are you from? You said you're from the Midwest. What's that mean? I'm a Colorado boy. Anything east of the front ranges east coast for us.

Donna Bystricky 3:52
Northwest Indiana. Okay, small little town. Basically the region. You know, everybody's heard of Gary, right outside of Gary. Okay, just on the tip. About 30 minutes from Chicago.

Chris Braden 4:03
So what about Notre Dame? How close is that?

Donna Bystricky 4:06
About an hour from where I grew up.

Chris Braden 4:07
Did ever go to any Notre Dame games?

Donna Bystricky 4:07
I did not. I did not go to Notre Dame.

Chris Braden 4:07
You didn't go to any football games or nothing like?

Donna Bystricky 4:15
I went Purdue. My son went to Purdue so we went to Purdue for a couple of games. IU, my dad was a huge

Chris Braden 4:23
who's your?

Donna Bystricky 4:23
Bobby Knight

Chris Braden 4:26
Bobby Knight was was cool. He's a bit old school.

Donna Bystricky 4:28
Yeah, yeah, he is probably like, probably like the old Todd throwing chairs around.

Chris Braden 4:34
It's funny because I complain about I don't like being cold anymore. Even though I was born here and I love skin. I love the outdoors. I just cannot stand being cold anymore. I just don't like it. And anytime I go to like Kansas, Nebraska Indiana, man that is like super cold. Do you miss being freezing?

Donna Bystricky 4:54
No, no it's not so much the cold. It's lack of sunshine. They're like I think the year I moved here before I moved, I probably went two whole weeks. There was maybe 10 minutes of sunshine during that whole Oh, lord duration. So that's the part that sucks like in. You know, I worked in Chicago so you know, it is the Windy City.

Chris Braden 5:16
I heard off that lake is just bone chilling.

Donna Bystricky 5:18
Crazy.

Chris Braden 5:19
Hell no, no, I'm a West. So when I go places like if people asked me to go to these coasts, I rarely say yes. Not even Florida. I don't like Florida that much. I'm more of a West Coast guy to Phoenix. I'll go down to LA and San Diego and stuff, man but the East Coast for me. It's just like, a different vibe. I don't know if my brain works that way. You know what I'm saying?

Donna Bystricky 5:41
Well the weather all around with the exception of fall you've got in the summer, the humidity is just insane. So it's that's why we're here. You know, we just decided one year after my kids are out of high school just like you know what, let's sell everything pack up the house and and move.

Chris Braden 5:58
So Iwant to ask you so have you listened to any of the Deep Bench podcast shows?

Donna Bystricky 6:02
I have. But I haven't listened to the most recent ones. You dropped like seven in a day. So

Chris Braden 6:07
Yeah, it's funny, because that's how Todd likes to do it.

Donna Bystricky 6:09
Right.

Chris Braden 6:10
Yeah. And it's funny because typically we do a one week thing. So Todd had this idea. And I think it was really innovative. Because nobody in the podcasting space really thinks about it as seasons. Because when you're talking about podcasts, we're going to do a weekly podcast and talk about the State of the Union and what's going on and stuff like that. Whereas I like to do daily stuff. Todd's idea about doing the seasons with the Netflix, man, it was it was brilliant. And it was kind of a peek inside of his brain a little bit. And I like to tap into that a little bit. So what were your thoughts on the first season or the ones you listened to?

Donna Bystricky 6:46
I thought they were great. I listened to the ones from maybe a couple weeks ago, maybe last week. Okay, I haven't. I'm excited actually to listen, I actually pulled it up on my Spotify this morning to start listening to some of them.

Chris Braden 6:57
Yeah.

Donna Bystricky 6:57
And I couldn't get it to sync to my car. But I'm excited to listen to Aaron and Sarah and Kristin and Ashlee. So the different ones.

Chris Braden 7:05
And it's funny, because when I first met you guys, it was you Stephanie, and Jessica Lasky.

Donna Bystricky 7:11
Right.

Chris Braden 7:11
And when I first met you guys, I was like, this is a really cool firm. I just like the people there. It was really interesting. You guys are all like big characters. And then and then I go up to Boulder and I meet all those people I get to interview a ton of them. Calling it Deep Bench was so apropos because you have such professionals here and experts and, and fun and dynamic people here, which you guys don't take it for granted, but like I've been around and you don't see that everywhere.r

Donna Bystricky 7:41
Right.

Chris Braden 7:41
Usually people like to mail it in. Right. And so, you know, as far as the culture goes, we were doing the first season when COVID kindness kind of hit. And I watched kind of how Stephanie and Todd and everybody set up just in case and that it actually happened. So with your job kind of managing the firm and a lot of paralegal work and stuff. How has that changed your job? Has it changed it at all? It? Can you easily do your job from home? Rather than coming into the office?

Donna Bystricky 8:13
Me personally? No, I hate working from home.

Chris Braden 8:17
Is it your headspace? Like you want to get into that the box at work?

Donna Bystricky 8:21
It is and if you know even when I'm at home, I'm the type of person that I even on a weekend if I've got nothing going on, I'm like, still up at like six. I'm like, dressed by seven. Like I just, you know, like, I don't own sweat pants. I can't like just hang out, you know, that's just not me. You know, it's difficult too because I do go to the different offices. And Stephanie and I you know, are the attorney paralegal team. And that's difficult as well. Like not being in the office, you know, I'm a face to face person, but I've adapted pretty well, I think with training and providing training by, you know, learning how, you know, teaching the paralegals and legal assistants, if you need me, like just call me or we screenshare you know, and I'll if they don't know how to do something, I'll be like, Hey, let's just like pop on a little quick G chat and screen share. And that's been pretty effective.

Chris Braden 9:12
Do you think it's harder for people to learn that way? Because really, with a lot of the kids in fact, I have a couple of nephews that are in high school are actually one. It doesn't work for him. Yeah, like, and it's funny. I don't I don't know if he's listening. He barely likes school. The fact that he can be on a zoom call and play Xbox at the same time. Dude I wouldn't have survived.

Donna Bystricky 9:32
Yeah.

Chris Braden 9:33
There's no way.

Donna Bystricky 9:34
Yeah.

Chris Braden 9:34
Zero.

Donna Bystricky 9:35
Yeah, the screenshare thing is, is pretty cool. Because, you know, I can just basically say, share my screen with them, and just talk them through it on the phone too. And just step by step, okay. And this is what you do. And this is where you go here. And it's it's actually been really effective because the old me is like, Oh, I have to go train, you know, Sabrina, who's a legal assistant on something in the DC office. Like I have to go to that office, right and I'm just like driving all over the place making myself crazy. And just driving home from Boulder takes like two hours.

Chris Braden 10:05
I know, especially with that gap work they have.

Donna Bystricky 10:07
Yeah.

Chris Braden 10:07
Oh my god.

Donna Bystricky 10:08
Yeah.

Chris Braden 10:09
Crazy here.

Donna Bystricky 10:10
So sometimes I'm just my own worst enemy and I have to figure out the better, more efficient ways to do things. And that's, that's my motto you work smarter not harder.

Chris Braden 10:19
Right. No. And that's the thing. So we used to get you on the Braden and Bass show. We'd have you Jess and Stephanie on there. And we had you guys do some recordings. And I'd have to say you guys were like naturals. In fact, our producer at IHeart was like, it was like one takes I mean.

Donna Bystricky 10:37
Not for me!

Chris Braden 10:38
Yeah after he yelled at me. I remember that. That was funny. That was actually a big deal.

Donna Bystricky 10:43
Stephanie and Jess are great. I felt like I you know.

Chris Braden 10:45
Yeah, but we're sitting there. And the interaction you guys had with us the way you guys brought things to the table. And I remember you sitting there and I don't know if you wrote it there in your head, or when it all came out when you said, divorce sucks, but your lawyer shouldn't.

Donna Bystricky 11:03
Now it was

Chris Braden 11:03
It was so good.

Donna Bystricky 11:04
It was because that first recording and, Jess and Stephanie can attest to it. It was brutal. I went home that night, and again, wake up in the middle of night, and I'm like, Oh, my God, that totally sucked. Like it was so bad. And what else could I say? And it was just kind of like went through this whole process. Like divorce sucks. We don't know. It just kind of rolled from there and

Chris Braden 11:27
COVID sucks and your lawyer shouldn't. Like it's now a thing.

Donna Bystricky 11:30
Yeah, that was well that, you know, Stephanie took that in made that for the golf outing. So that was pretty cool, too. I love that. Yeah.

Chris Braden 11:37
Did the golf outing happen this year?

Donna Bystricky 11:39
It did. It was really fun.

Chris Braden 11:41
I think. I think my daughter was getting married because I got went to it last year. And it was a blast. And I didn't get to...

Donna Bystricky 11:46
It was Labor Day weekend. So

Chris Braden 11:47
Oh, yeah.

Donna Bystricky 11:48
It was it was a smaller event this year, just because of COVID.

Chris Braden 11:51
Yeah this soul sucks. And I talked to Stephanie last week. And you know, as far as your culture, you guys have cool events and like, you're not able to do any of that stuff right now.

Donna Bystricky 12:01
I know. I know.

Chris Braden 12:02
We're so bored.

Donna Bystricky 12:03
I know. We can't it's like, you know, everybody is missing out that we're not having a Christmas party this year.

Chris Braden 12:10
Right. Just you guys do it up big time.

Donna Bystricky 12:12
Oh, it's it's it's a great party.

Chris Braden 12:14
Yeah.

Donna Bystricky 12:14
Stephanie does such an amazing job at planning events, you know, and

Chris Braden 12:18
Like a speakeasy. What was the theme last year? It was like speakeasy?

Donna Bystricky 12:21
It was the 20s.

Chris Braden 12:22
Yeah, exactly.

Donna Bystricky 12:23
Yeah, it was fun. So I mean, I tried to do my part, like, just about a month ago, I planned an outing for the paralegals.

Chris Braden 12:30
Okay.

Donna Bystricky 12:31
And we went to a really cool wine bar in Lo Hi.

Chris Braden 12:34
Oh, yeah. Denver?

Donna Bystricky 12:35
Yeah. And we just like hung out, you know, when we hung out and had some food. And, you know, we talked a little bit about work stuff and like, what they think is work in what isn't and what can be better. But just having that personal like, because we're all in different offices. We never even get to see some of these people. Some of the paralegals in Fort Collins haven't even met a paralegal from the Boulder office yet.

Chris Braden 12:56
Right.

Donna Bystricky 12:57
We haven't had a party where they were all there. So that's something that I'm gonna, you know, we're gonna start doing quarterly. I think just to get us all together.

Chris Braden 13:04
I think talking to the attorneys, they talked about the paralegals. How many attorneys, does an attorney have his own paralegal? Are there two paralegals per attorney? Like how does that work? Because they talked about how much they lean on them and how much work they do for them.

Donna Bystricky 13:20
Generally, it's one paralegal to attorney. Okay. Sometimes we'll have a one paralegal that manages to attorneys. Sometimes that gets to be a little difficult, but it does happen.

Chris Braden 13:33
Is that because of case loads and stuff like that, maybe?

Donna Bystricky 13:35
Sure caseload, sometimes you just you know, a lot of the attorneys do a lot of hands on stuff themselves. But I think there's a lot more work that the paralegals could do.

Chris Braden 13:45
Yeah.

Donna Bystricky 13:46
And one of my goals is, you know, I would say it's like, instead of crap jobs rolling downhill, you know, I started to tell the legal assistants like it's not menial stuff, it's all important. Like for me to be able to give a legal assistant something that might they might think as menial and non important, that frees me up to do more substantial paralegal work.

Chris Braden 14:07
Right.

Donna Bystricky 14:07
Dig into the cases and, and talk with the clients and do all these other things, which then allows the attorneys to do focus on just all of their casework and attorney work. So it's kind of like, it's the foundation up like the legal assistants are truly our foundation and it like builds upwards.

Chris Braden 14:26
And that's funny because me not knowing how a law firm works. I just go with what the movies say. And I think of a paralegal I'm like, Hey, go pull me Johnson versus the State of Massachusetts.

Yeah.

Stuff like that. Does that happen?

Donna Bystricky 14:38
No, not for me anyway. But you know, it's it's kind of funny, Stephanie actually, like printed out I think it was a year and a half ago or whatever, like a fake law degree because I do you know, I worked for sole practitioner for 15 years in Indiana and I like did everything, manage the firm...

Chris Braden 14:57
It was just like My Cousin Vinny. It was his, his fiancee remember?

Donna Bystricky 15:02
Oh, yeah.

Chris Braden 15:02
She did all the work, right? And then he got all the credit.

Donna Bystricky 15:05
Right.

Chris Braden 15:05
Yeah.

Donna Bystricky 15:05
So I think that's where I developed most of, you know, my skill, everything like most aspects of the business. And so when I come in, it's like I take these cases, I probably take them home more than some of the attorneys do.

Chris Braden 15:18
Right.

Donna Bystricky 15:18
Just think about him all the time. And so, you know, just handling stuff. And it's like, before Stephanie even asks, you know, and we'll talk about a case and I'll say, Okay, I did this and that was alright. And she's like, What am I even here for like, but that's

Chris Braden 15:32
That that makes you feel good.

Donna Bystricky 15:33
In my opinion, that's a good paralegal like that's a great paralegal is to be able to handle all of that stuff, you know, and have the client contact and just let the attorneys focus on on the more

Chris Braden 15:45
See a need before they know they need it.

Donna Bystricky 15:47
Yep, exactly.

Chris Braden 15:49
Cool. That's pretty cool. Well, last thing I kind of want to talk to you about, you know, Todd's been a pivotal figure, obviously, he's founder of the company kind of started everything and got it going in the right direction. Stephanie is now the managing partner. So she's been doing a lot of that work herself now. And so Todd sends the email out the changes email, he's gonna step back a little bit, kind of be more hands off. What was your first reaction when you read the email? Did you feel that coming? Because I know you and Stephanie are close, you guys probably knew. Maybe not the day. I know, Aaron was like, Yeah, I knew was coming. But I didn't know he's gonna send the email that day. Right? What was your reaction when you read it?

Donna Bystricky 16:30
Gosh, I have to think I don't really know that I had any type of reaction, I kind of expected it, you know, it has been talking about it for a while, like, you know, I'm gonna be stepping back and doing more different things that he's focused on.

Chris Braden 16:45
Sure.

Donna Bystricky 16:46
But it was weird to have to say, like, didn't really sink in. And then like, that weekend, it was like, wow, that's really weird. Like, I couldn't really miss him. Like, I'm not gonna be able to talk to him. Like, don't talk to him every day anyway. But, and then like, well, that's ridiculous. He's still gonna be around.

Chris Braden 17:00
Yeah.

Donna Bystricky 17:00
He's gonna be involved. You know, it's never, I don't know how you could not be totally uninvolved.

Chris Braden 17:06
Sure.

Donna Bystricky 17:06
You know?

Chris Braden 17:07
Todd adds a little spice to this poll. Yeah. I can't imagine him not being around. Right. Right. Right. And so that kind of empowered a lot of the partners in a way to grow their practice and grow their division and just grow the company talking about moving to other states and things. How's that gonna change your job? And how do you see the growth of the firm?

Donna Bystricky 17:29
I think the firm is going to just take off even more than it has. I mean, you know, I've been here five years, almost, it'll be five in February. And it's grown so much, just in that timeframe. Coming down here and opening this office, it's, we've only been here a little over two years.

Chris Braden 17:45
Right.

Donna Bystricky 17:45
Going into the other states. I think I'm excited. Like, that's super exciting. My job, I don't know, it's still, it's all new.

Chris Braden 17:53
Right.

Donna Bystricky 17:54
And I'm asked all the time, like, what do you want to do, which that's one of my tasks right now that I have to do is like, what are you doing? Like, what are all like, basically write up my job description. And there's like, I can't even do it. Like, it's I'm like, having total paralysis by analysis right now. Because it's like to write down everything that I'm doing. Like, it's like, wow, I, I just

Chris Braden 18:14
I'll tell you, so I'm working with this guy on strategy. And I had him, just look at me from the outside. Tell me what I do. And he nailed it. And his words were so much better than mine. Right. And it's funny. Maybe you have someone tell you what they think you do.

Donna Bystricky 18:30
Right?

Chris Braden 18:31
That might help. You know, that's a good starting point.

Donna Bystricky 18:33
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's funny. I'm like, ask the question, like, Can you handle this? Can you do this? And I'm like, well, the firm manager title, it's, it's, it's an acknowledgement, in my opinion, because it's things that I've already been doing for quite some time. Sure. So it's like, okay, well, now you've like, I don't know what other things that they have in mind for me or plan for me to do? Yeah, and maybe it's nothing more than what I'm already doing, you know?

Chris Braden 18:59
It could be more. Well, I would be remiss if I didn't mention this. You are extremely fit. You are always a good shape. I love talking to you about working out and diet and stuff. So what's the crazy thing you've been doing during COVID? Have you been like riding a peloton for like, three hours a day? Are you just eating like green beans? Like, what's going on with you? How do you stay so fit? Because it's pretty cool. Because, you know, my wife, she's, she's like, Man, I just wish I had Donna's mental fortitude when it comes to those things.

Donna Bystricky 19:35
Well, like every decade, I kind of do a self analysis of like, Man, I do not want to look like that when I'm 30 I don't want to look like that when I'm 40. And it gets harder, right?

Chris Braden 19:45
So difficult.

Donna Bystricky 19:46
Right.

Chris Braden 19:47
Your body changes as you get older.

Donna Bystricky 19:48
Exactly. And you know, it's like that's kind of my goal with everything is not even fitness. It's like I have like this huge fear of getting old, right? So I'm the one like jumping on the trampoline with kids and Yeah, like doing just stupid stuff to stay mentally young too, right?

Chris Braden 20:04
Yeah sure that's important.

Donna Bystricky 20:05
Right!

I mean, the minute I'm like...

Chris Braden 20:07
I just drink Jaeger and jello shots.

Donna Bystricky 20:08
Oh gosh!!

Chris Braden 20:09
Just kidding.

Donna Bystricky 20:12
Yeah, I mean, it's, I have a hard time finding balance because I'm I can be pretty straight.

Chris Braden 20:16
Sure.

Donna Bystricky 20:17
And nothing's really changed. I've been doing the same thing for a really long time I used to. Same thing is to tell myself working out every day. Now I just like hit it hard with heavy weights a couple times a week.

Chris Braden 20:27
Right.

Donna Bystricky 20:28
Every once in a while I'll get up and go, you know, the park across the street from my house and I'll do sprints. Okay, but basically strength training and I don't do a ton of aerobic activity because I just don't like it.

Chris Braden 20:40
I wish I loved running. These people that say I love running, I know they're lying.

Donna Bystricky 20:43
Yeah, well, I like doing sprints because they're like, you know, you just kind of go out and kind of go at it hard. And then you're done.

Chris Braden 20:50
Yeah, exactly.

Donna Bystricky 20:51
Yoga. I've been coming home every night that you know, there's a there's an app. I think I told you about it called ROMWAD. Yeah, you know, it's like range of motion workout of the day. And it's, they can go anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes, but it just it just keeps my mind in the right spot. And you know, I feel good. I'm like getting older.

Chris Braden 21:11
Maybe if you weren't so fit you couldn't do your job so well.

Donna Bystricky 21:14
I don't know? Maybe.

Chris Braden 21:14
Honestly you know what I mean?

Because I mean, that's a lot a lot to it. Well, hey, Donna, man, it's been awesome talking to you. I always love talking to you. And I said the fitness thing, man. That's, that's legit, man. Yeah, your inspiration to me notice. I didn't say anything about your age. You did.

Donna Bystricky 21:31
I didn't say how old I was though.

Chris Braden 21:33
Exactly. Why would we do that? I'm a guy. My wife taught me.

Donna Bystricky 21:38
Right.

Chris Braden 21:38
Exactly. Well, cool. Nice talking to you.

Donna Bystricky 21:40
You too, Chris!

Todd Burnham 21:43
Hey, thanks for listening. Make sure you subscribe and until next time, keep getting better.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai