TrustCast Show

Zane Myers
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Marketing

The TrustCast Show features in-depth conversations with successful business leaders who are shaping their industries. Host Zane Myers sits down with top attorneys, physicians, plastic surgeons, and private practice professionals to uncover the real stories behind their success — what worked, what didn't, and the advice they'd give others building a practice. Each episode is 30 to 40 minutes of unfiltered conversation: backgrounds, unique approaches, and hard-won lessons from professionals at the top of their fields. New episodes published regularly across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, and 20+ platforms. Produced by TrustCasting — done-for-you video marketing that helps professionals grow their practices through short-form video distributed across 10+ platforms.

  1. 1d ago

    Ryan Hancey on the Nine-Year Fight to Hold a Utah Jail Accountable for a Twenty-One-Year

    What happens when a trial lawyer picks up the phone in his living room on a December evening in 2016 and hears a father sobbing on the other end, who has just learned that his twenty-one-year-old daughter was brought to a Utah jail while withdrawing from opioids, began vomiting the same night a guard saw her, spent five days deteriorating without receiving medical care, and died of dehydration in her cell — and the lawyer immediately says yes, formalizes the relationship the next morning, and then spends nearly nine years fighting through summary judgment rulings that wiped out the county and every jail guard in the case, an interlocutory government immunity appeal to the 10th Circuit specifically designed to buy two years of delay and take the wind out of his sails, a circuit court ruling that let the doctor out but sent the nurse back, the retirement of the original judge mid-appeal and the assignment of a new one who agreed on reconsideration that the county should never have been dismissed, a cert petition all the way to the United States Supreme Court over qualified immunity, and finally in April of 2025 stands before ten jurors who deliberate for six hours and return a verdict of more than fifteen million dollars for the family of Madison Jensen? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Ryan Hancey, a shareholder and trial lawyer at Kesler & Rust in Salt Lake City, Utah, about a case he took on a phone call from a grieving father in his living room and did not let go of for the better part of a decade — and what it took in legal strategy, case law research, judicial persuasion, and sheer stubbornness to see it through to a verdict. Ryan explains the government defendant's unique right to file an interlocutory appeal before any final judgment has been entered — a procedural tool no private defendant has, that can pause a case for years, that the government uses specifically because it knows it will drain the momentum and resources of the other side — and how the motion for reconsideration that brought Duchesne County back into the case on the eve of trial changed everything, including what a jury would feel when they looked across the courtroom. He also walks through the Tenth Circuit case law he found that established the systemic failure standard — that liability in a civil rights case does not require pointing to a single bad actor, that a collective environment so obviously broken that harm was virtually inevitable can be enough — and how Judge Barlow's willingness to apply that standard reset the entire trajectory of the case. They also discuss the breach of franchise agreement defendant who claimed to be a mind reader and what the jury did with that answer, the 2018 case Ryan lost because his clients were a dumpster fire on the witness stand despite a dozen rounds of preparation in his conference room — and the juror who called afterward to say they would have hired him personally but couldn't stand his clients — why he refuses to give anyone a percentage chance of winning because no honest lawyer can know that, and why a bottom line number that is not actually your bottom line number destroys the credibility and the leverage you need when the case goes sideways. Ryan also covers why his expertise is in litigation itself and not in any subject matter area, how a strong litigation system is essentially plug and play across construction, products liability, civil rights, and franchising disputes, and why by the time he took a mink ranching products liability case to a federal jury he could have opened his own mink ranch from everything he had to learn in preparation. Ryan Hancey is a shareholder and trial lawyer at Kesler & Rust in Salt Lake City, a firm established in 1980, admitted to the Utah Bar in 2001 and to the U.S. District Court District of Utah, the 10th Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a graduate of Utah State University and the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, has litigated cases in Utah, Delaware, Idaho, Colorado, Wisconsin, and other states, and has built his entire client base on referrals without a single billboard. Connect with Ryan Hancey: keslerrust.com Email: rhancey@keslerrust.com Phone: 801-532-8000 McIntyre Building, 2nd Floor, 68 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84101 Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Ryan Hancey 00:23 December 2016 — a father sobbing on the phone and the case that would take nearly nine years 01:24 How a twenty-one-year-old dies of dehydration in a jail cell over five days 02:40 From 2016 to a 2025 verdict — the full arc of the Madison Jensen case 03:28 Three defendant groups: Duchesne County and the sheriff, the medical staff, and the jail guards #RyanHancey #KeslerRust #TrustcastShow #MadisonJensen #UtahTrialLawyer #CivilRightsLawyer #JailDeathLawsuit #QualifiedImmunity #SaltLakeCityAttorney #TrialLawyer

  2. 2d ago

    Jeffrey Liggio on Twenty-Five Years of Military Helicopter Rescues,

    What happens when a Navy helicopter pilot who spent his early career hauling people out of impossible situations — stroke victims on cruise ships, lost families at sea, a person with a heart attack on a mountainside with nowhere else to turn — decides to go to night school and get his law degree, walks into his first plaintiffs job announcing he wants to be a plane crash lawyer or a maritime disaster attorney, gets force-fed insurance policy after insurance policy every single evening by a boss who docks his pay if he doesn't come in the next morning with the right answer, and slowly — against every instinct he had — discovers that the thing he was being made to learn against his will was actually the rarest and most valuable specialty in the entire plaintiffs bar, that very few lawyers who fight for people actually understand insurance law from the inside out, and ends up building a forty-four-year career doing exactly what he did in the helicopter — getting to people who have nowhere else to turn and bringing them to safety? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Jeffrey Liggio of Liggio Law in West Palm Beach, Florida, a decorated retired U.S. Air Force Major, a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer, a Super Lawyers selectee, and a recipient of the Florida Justice Association's Al J. Cone Lifetime Achievement Award, about what it actually takes to fight an insurance company that has unlimited lawyers, unlimited money, and institutional muscle behind every single denial. Jeffrey explains why the very first question after a health insurance denial is not what happened but where the insurance came from — because ERISA law, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, state government plans, and individual policies each carry a completely different set of rights, procedures, and traps, and confusing them before the appeal is filed can cost you your case permanently. He walks through the ERISA trap in detail — the federal law that applies when insurance is a benefit of private employment, that requires you to exhaust every internal administrative remedy before you can set foot in a courthouse, that limits your venue to federal court with no jury trial, and that restricts the judge to reviewing only the internal appeal record you created — which means the paperwork you file on your own, without a lawyer, may be the only evidence a judge ever sees. He also covers why a quick settlement check at your front door the day after an accident is almost always a sign that someone on the other side found something you have not found yet, and why the answer to a fast offer is almost always slow down and call someone first. They also discuss what Florida's gutted attorney's fee law actually left intact — the declaratory action statute, the HMO statute, the group health statute — and the proposal-for-settlement maneuver Jeffrey has used to generate court-awarded fees even where the statute no longer reaches, including a thirty-year story involving the same judge, the same opposing counsel, a $125,000 case, and a fee that ended up above $300,000. Jeffrey explains step therapy — the practice of forcing patients to try cheaper drugs that their doctors already know won't work before approving the medication actually prescribed — and why there is a Florida statute that most insurance companies simply ignore, the watchman device case where a man's insurer called an FDA-approved and Medicare-approved cardiac device experimental, which by federal law it legally cannot be, and the sixteen-year-old girl who now has a five-million-dollar judgment hanging over her entire adult life because her insurance company refused for two and a half years to pay the policy limits on a medium rear-end collision that her own insurer controlled the litigation on. He also covers what third-party administrators claiming no responsibility actually mean under agency law, what independent review doctors moonlighting for a couple hundred dollars and fed a conclusion actually produce, and why institutional fraud is not too strong a phrase for what happens when those reports get altered before they go back to the insurance company. Jeffrey Liggio is the founding partner of Liggio Law in West Palm Beach, Florida, a Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer by both the Florida Bar and the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a decorated retired U.S. Air Force Major and former Naval Aviator, a Super Lawyers selectee from 2006 through 2023, and the recipient of the Florida Justice Association's Al J. Cone Lifetime Achievement Award. He has practiced for forty-four years, works exclusively in Florida state and federal courts, and is supported by a team that has been with him collectively for over fifty years. #JeffreyLiggio #LiggioLaw #TrustcastShow #FloridaInsuranceLawyer #HealthInsuranceDenial #BadFaithInsurance #ERISALaw #InsuranceLitigation #WestPalmBeachAttorney #MilitaryVeteranLawyer

  3. 3d ago

    Melissa Hansel on Helping Grow a Law Firm's IP Practice to 27 Offices

    What happens when a girl who grew up in Atlanta goes to MIT planning to be an architect, takes an office job doing technology transfer to fund her way through school and discovers for the first time what it feels like to sit at the intersection of law and business, builds a career in Boston for fifteen years, takes a detour to live in Madrid and work entirely in Spanish at a European law firm, returns to the United States and joins Nelson Mullins as a specialist, raises her hand for a document management system conversion that nobody else wanted and turns that visibility into a regional management role, spends years traveling office to office building teams and trust and structure inside a growing intellectual property practice — watching law firm founders grind through 70 and 80 hour weeks because they were the only person they trusted to do anything right — eventually walks away from all of it, and starts telling managing partners that the answer to their problem is not to take whoever has been loyal the longest and push them past what they are actually capable of, not to hire a mediocre COO on a limited budget and hope it works out, but to rent a great one — and realizes that twenty years of watching it go wrong from the inside was exactly the preparation she needed to finally fix it? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Melissa Hansel of Outlook Advisory Group in Charlotte, North Carolina, about helping law firms grow and scale by delivering the kind of executive-level operational guidance that most small-to-midsize firms cannot afford to keep in a full-time seat — and what it costs them when they try anyway with the wrong person or the wrong budget. Melissa explains why the first instinct every founder has when they hit their capacity ceiling — go hire somebody — is often precisely the wrong move, how a fractional COO gets firms farther faster at a price point that actually makes sense for where they are, and why the staff member who has been with the firm the longest and is most deeply trusted is almost never the right person to drop into a COO role even when they want to be. She also walks through what the Peter Principle looks like inside a growing law firm, how leadership development is part of the fractional engagement and not separate from it, and what it actually takes to overcome the "who is this interloper" resistance that surfaces in every firm when someone new arrives with seniority — the short answer being that titles and credentials do not do it, early wins do. They also discuss what Melissa does in the first 90 days of an engagement to lift the COO burden off the founder so they can be visionary again rather than operational by default, why firms trying to run 47 initiatives simultaneously never finish any of them and how prioritization alone can feel like a breakthrough to a team that has been stalled for years, why the question "when is the last time you truly took a vacation and actually unplugged" is one of the most revealing diagnostics she runs on any managing partner, and why the discovery audit she conducts at the start of every engagement — diving deep into accounting systems, intake flow, processes, and team dynamics and mapping all of it into a written plan — almost always changes what a founder thinks they need before they have spent a dollar implementing anything. Melissa also walks through the 40-hours-of-work test she uses to help firms figure out whether they genuinely need a full-time COO or a fractional one or simply a better-structured office manager, and why the biggest mistake she sees growing firms make is getting so reactive to week-to-week cash flow that they lose the thousand-foot view entirely and start making hiring and investment decisions off a single signal instead of the full picture. Melissa Hansel is the founder of Outlook Advisory Group in Charlotte, North Carolina, an MIT Sloan School of Management alumna, Lean Six Sigma and Legal Project Management certified, bilingual in Spanish and English, and a former regional operations leader at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. She runs a monthly roundtable for law firm owners and managing partners and serves clients virtually nationwide. Connect with Melissa Hansel: outlookadvisorygroup.com Email: melissa@outlookadvisorygroup.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/melissahansel Instagram: @outlookadvisorygroup Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Melissa Hansel 00:12 Growing Nelson Mullins' IP practice from 13 offices to 27 and into the top 70 highest-grossing firms — and why she walked away to go fractional 01:15 The diluted COO problem — why small and midsize law firms keep getting this hire wrong #MelissaHansel #OutlookAdvisoryGroup #TrustcastShow #FractionalCOO #LawFirmGrowth #LawFirmOperations #LegalManagement #LawFirmConsultant #MITSloan #LawFirmLeadership

  4. 4d ago

    Erik Heninger on the $110 Million Alabama Record,

    What happens when a kid who grew up watching his father leave before dawn and come home just before dinner, decided there had to be an easier way to make a living, went to college planning to be an English teacher, figured out that wasn't going to work financially, went to law school because what else does a philosophy and English major do, fell completely in love with it, and then found himself carrying a check to create a trial advocacy chair at his law school — and realized on that walk over that one case had touched a family, changed Alabama law about how commercial vehicles operate on public roads, and given something lasting back to the community — and thought, that is exactly what I want to do? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Erik Heninger of HGD Law Firm, about the day the firm secured the $110 million settlement that remains the largest personal injury recovery in Alabama history — a knife fight in a phone booth involving multiple law firms, new technology, and an insurance company that got tight when there was real money on the table — and what it actually takes to build a career that generates more than three billion dollars in client recoveries. Erik explains why the insurance company for the truck that hit you already has a team working on your case that night, why the answer to the insurance adjuster who calls is yes but not right now, and why Alabama's contributory negligence law — which technically bars recovery if you are even one percent at fault — sounds devastating but almost never plays out that way because juries will not hold that someone sitting still at a red light contributed to their own accident. They also discuss the sexual abuse case where no money changed hands at all but the client and her parents still refer friends to the firm years later, the cheerleading coach who was caught at the border with recordings of minors on his laptop and now has a $1.5 million default judgment sitting against whatever he ever earns, the open heart surgery malpractice case where two doctors pointed fingers at each other the entire trial and the jury got so confused they ruled for neither — and what Erik would do differently now — why depositions are far more critical than closing arguments even though closing arguments are more enjoyable, and what his firm's private AI focus group tool is doing for jury research in Alabama. Erik Heninger is a partner at HGD Law Firm in Birmingham, Alabama, three-time Medical Malpractice Lawyer of the Year, and one half of a rare father-son pair who have each won Alabama's Lawyer of the Year Award. Connect with Erik Heninger: hgdlawfirm.com Email: erik@hgdlawfirm.com Phone: 205-326-3336 Social: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok @hgdlawfirm Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Erik Heninger 00:38 Growing up watching his father work before dawn and after dark — and why that was intimidating not inspiring 01:44 English teacher to law school — and the moment something clicked 02:41 Carrying a check to the law school to create a trial advocacy chair and having the lightbulb moment 04:12 About five cases in a career that really fill you up 05:00 Smaller cases that matter just as much — the sexual abuse case where no money changed hands but the family still refers friends 07:09 Just got hit by a semi — the first thing to do and why the lawyer can wait but not too long 08:00 Why you should never wave off the ambulance even when adrenaline says you are fine 08:45 The insurance company for the truck already has a team out that night preparing their defense 09:38 Does the insurance company ever lead with their best offer — no, never, bolded and italicized 10:30 Do not talk to the insurance company because those conversations are always recorded 11:24 Your own insurance company — a different risk, same principle — yes but not right now 13:14 Alabama's contributory negligence law — one percent at fault means zero recovery — and why it almost never actually works that way 14:39 The woman sitting still at a red light that the insurance company tried to say contributed by leaving home that day 15:45 How do you prove fault when it is his word versus mine — technology, black boxes, in-cab cameras, apps 17:53 How do you figure out what my case is worth — the million-dollar question answered five times a day 18:45 Severity of conduct, severity of injuries, available insurance, identity of defendant, and venue all factor in 20:12 Rapid fire — soccer dad turning volleyball dad, clean desk, depositions versus closing arguments, jury consultants 21:43 The private AI focus group tool built specifically for Alabama and their case types 22:26 One word that makes a great trial lawyer — authenticity #ErikHeninger #HGDLawFirm #TrustcastShow #AlabamaTruckAccidentLawyer #MedicalMalpracticeAlabama #PersonalInjuryAlabama #TrialLawyer #LawyerOfTheYear #AlabamaCivilRights #SexualAbuseLawsuit

  5. 4d ago

    John Surma on Why the First Statement to the Press Became the Roadmap for Plaintiff Attorneys,

    What happens when the person on the other end of the phone is frantic, emotional, angry, and hurt all at once — because somebody died on their watch — and the attorney they are calling has personally investigated over 400 workplace deaths, refinery explosions, pipeline blasts, and construction collapses, and has learned from every single one of them that the first 24 hours will either protect the company or haunt it for the next two and a half years of litigation? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with John Surma, partner at Fisher Phillips, about what a company needs to do in the first hour before a lawyer even arrives — call 911, preserve the scene, document everything, and get grief counselors moving before anyone starts talking — and why the three biggest mistakes in the first 24 hours are failing to preserve the scene, failing to notify the right authorities, and releasing a hastily drafted press statement that becomes the plaintiff attorney's roadmap. John explains the difference between a serious citation, a willful citation, and a criminal referral, why the criminal path almost never happens unless you lie to OSHA or destroy evidence, and why invoking your Fifth Amendment right is available but has to be used sparingly because doing it excessively looks like obstruction. They also discuss the case where a press release about process instability handed plaintiff attorneys a two-and-a-half-year lawsuit against a company that didn't need to be there, how John got six heat-related citations thrown out against a security company by challenging the multi-employer citation policy and drilling the opposing OSHA attorney until he agreed to vacate them, the maritime case where OSHA cited the wrong standard entirely and vacated once the error was pointed out to the solicitor of labor, the constitutional challenge to OSHA's in-house judges using the logic from the Jarkesy Supreme Court decision — and why OSHA keeps withdrawing citations rather than risk losing in district court — the $4.95 million recovery from an EPC firm that delivered a boiler project that failed to achieve its promised efficiencies or emissions controls, and why cooperating fully with OSHA is one of the most dangerous myths in workplace safety law. John Surma is a partner at Fisher Phillips, representing employers in OSHA investigations, workplace fatalities, regulatory compliance, and related litigation nationwide. Connect with John Surma: Email: jsurma@fisherphillips.com Phone/Text: 409-351-5824 fisherphillips.com Chapters 00:00 Introduction to John Surma 00:44 What the person on the other end of the phone sounds like when someone just died at their facility 01:44 How companies find John — word of mouth in the worst moments 02:49 Nine years as a trial lawyer in Beaumont and the slow shift to 100% workplace safety 03:41 How do you stay emotionally grounded when you are around death five hundred times 05:16 How you grieve differently after that much exposure to other people's loss 06:09 Counseling CEOs through survivor guilt while also protecting shareholder interests 07:05 Why John advocates strongly for grief counselors even at the highest levels of management 07:16 What to do in the first hour before you have even called a lawyer 08:46 How fast does OSHA usually show up after a fatality — and what that Sunday afternoon call looked like 09:48 Do employees have to allow OSHA interviews without representation — the nuance 10:56 The single biggest mistake a company makes in the first 24 hours — actually it is the big three 12:19 How to handle the press when you are also trying to preserve a legal position 12:53 Why you need a crisis management firm before anything ever goes wrong 13:54 The case where a press release provided the roadmap for plaintiff attorneys for two and a half years 15:53 The difference between a serious citation, a willful citation, and a criminal case 18:40 Can you just shut up with OSHA the way you can with police — the Fifth Amendment answer 19:54 Why cooperating fully with OSHA is a myth that gets companies in trouble 20:50 What OSHA is really looking for when they ask for your safety records 22:27 If you get cited is fighting it realistic or are you just negotiating the penalty 23:30 Everything is negotiable — the alleged violation description, the classification, the penalty, the abatement, and the payment plan 24:03 Does the playbook change by industry — and what is actually the same across all of them 25:54 General counsel hat versus pure litigator — how that changes the emotional and strategic relationship 27:29 Six heat-related citations thrown out at a tire manufacturing plant — what happened 29:36 Did throwing out the citations affect the personal injury liability — yes and how #JohnSurma #FisherPhillips #TrustcastShow #OSHADefense #WorkplaceSafety #WorkplaceFatality #OSHACitation #EmployerDefense #WorkplaceSafetyLaw #OSHAInvestigation

  6. 4d ago

    Charein Faraj on Why Startups Skip Their Lawyer Until It's Too Late,

    What happens when an attorney who minored in computer science, started her career in traditional commercial litigation watching founders bleed money in disputes that should never have reached a courtroom, jumped to a legal tech startup where she helped build AI-powered contract review tools, reviewed over 40 legal AI products and kept finding the same problem — brilliant engineers building things that didn't solve the actual problem practitioners face — and then decided to build an AI-first law firm from scratch specifically for the founders who know they need a lawyer but can't justify the hourly meter every time they pick up the phone? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Charein Faraj, founder of Innovation Attorney, about why growth-stage startups consistently make the same contract mistakes — using boilerplate warranties and limitation of liability clauses that don't match the actual transaction, sending non-attorneys to execute agreements, skipping data processing addendums because they assume the privacy policy covers everything — and why those decisions tend to show up years later as the exact litigation she used to handle on the commercial side. Charein explains the difference between a privacy policy and a data processing agreement, why SaaS agreements need to be customized depending on whether you're using a large language model, what third parties are touching your data, and what kind of information is being processed, and why Delaware incorporation is almost always the right call if you're planning to go through funding rounds. They also discuss the physician client who was about to sign a non-compete that would have blocked her from practicing within fifty miles of any location of a startup with practices everywhere — and how Charein negotiated her out of it and built in termination protections that held up when the client inevitably needed to leave — what she found when she reviewed 40-plus legal AI tools and kept telling the same founders their ICP did not match their product, how she builds custom AI agents for contract review and motion drafting that output fully formatted Word documents with captions and signature blocks rather than just text, and why she believes the flat fee model for transactional work and the monthly subscription for ongoing work are both better for clients than hourly billing that creates friction every time someone considers picking up the phone. Charein Faraj is the founder of Innovation Attorney, an AI-first law firm for technology startups and growth-stage companies, based in Michigan and serving clients nationwide for transactional work. Connect with Charein Faraj: innovation-attorney.com LinkedIn: Charein Faraj Free 15-minute consultation available on the website Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Charein Faraj 00:52 Starting in commercial litigation, watching outdated processes, and making the jump to legal tech 01:30 Working at LexCheck — building AI contract review tools and seeing firsthand what startups skip 02:00 Founders who avoid calling their attorney until they are already in litigation 02:56 The AI objection — how she addresses concerns about quality and hallucination 03:42 What the firm actually is — not a product, a law firm that uses custom AI agents for contract review and drafting 04:12 Why SaaS agreements, NDAs, and MSAs are all different depending on the product and what data is being processed 04:54 Early stage startup counseling — Delaware incorporation, shareholder agreements, governing documents, privacy policy, terms of service 06:55 Growth stage mistakes — salespeople executing agreements, promises being made that fall apart, slow hourly turnaround killing deals 08:30 What clean documentation means for due diligence when you want to get acquired or raise a round 09:17 What kinds of tech companies she works with in Michigan — cybersecurity services, custom software, MSAs and IP protection 10:20 The difference between a privacy policy and a data processing agreement — and when you need both 11:10 What happens when founders think the privacy policy covers everything and skip the DPA 12:26 The trap founders fall into with data processing — they do not even know they need it 13:18 If you are a SaaS founder what should be in your contracts that most templates leave out 13:42 Warranties and limitations of liability that make no sense to the actual transaction — why boilerplate does not exist 14:55 The firm uses AI more extensively than traditional firms — custom agents built for specific transaction types 15:33 How building her own agents with no overhead translates to lower cost for clients 16:09 A deal where she helped a client walk away before it became a disaster #ChareinFaraj #InnovationAttorney #TrustcastShow #StartupLawyer #AIFirstLawFirm #ContractReviewAI #TechStartupLegal #FractionalGC #SaaSContracts #LegalTechFounder

  7. Jun 25

    Joseph Scolavino on Why You Should Never Answer the Officer's Question,

    What happens when a son of an NYPD homicide detective who worked on Capitol Hill and always felt pulled toward public service goes to law school specifically to be a prosecutor, picks up and moves right around the corner from Yankee Stadium to be in the thick of it in the Bronx DA's office, spends five and a half years trying violent felonies — felony assaults, robberies, burglaries, attempted murders — then spends nearly a decade defending New York State as an Assistant Attorney General in White Plains, and then one day looks around at the layers of bureaucracy and the pace of AI adoption inside government and decides the now-or-never moment has finally arrived? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Joseph Scolavino, founder of Scolavino Law in Westchester, about what to say — and more importantly what not to say — when an officer asks if you've been drinking tonight, why your instinct as a human being to answer that question is exactly what the training is designed to exploit, and why saying officer I'd like to speak with an attorney is enough to shut down a line of questioning immediately. Joseph also explains what insurance adjusters are trying to accomplish when they call right after an accident sounding friendly, why you need to keep your answers about your injuries vague until you actually know what the injuries are, and what to do the moment surprise divorce papers arrive — which is get an attorney immediately and touch nothing, because the spouse who filed has already been through the entire emotional arc and is planning while you are still processing. They also discuss why family and matrimonial law has a financial structure unlike any other area of practice — flat fee criminal work pays out on day one, personal injury contingency aligns the attorney's incentive with the outcome, but hourly divorce billing means attorneys are actually disincentivized to resolve things early — how to probe a potential divorce attorney for whether their business model is mediation and resolution or churning hours, why the first six months of a solo practice are the hardest financially and what the cash flow logic is behind building criminal and family work alongside a personal injury pipeline, and what a lifetime on the basketball court taught him about thinking on your feet in a trial when you know your case cold but the courtroom stays predictably unpredictable. Joseph Scolavino is the founder of Scolavino Law in Westchester, New York, practicing personal injury, criminal defense, and family and matrimonial law. Connect with Joseph Scolavino: skolavinolaw.com Westchester, New York Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Joseph Scolavino 00:56 Almost twenty years inside government — what finally pushed him to open his own firm 02:00 AI adoption in government versus the private sector — and why timing felt right 03:30 Filing incorporation papers before Christmas 2025 and launching on his fifteen-year bar admission anniversary 04:37 Starting with zero clients — reaching out through the Rolodex of every attorney he had ever settled with 05:21 The attorney who wanted to pay it forward — how a big case and a wave of introductions followed 06:37 BNI networking chapter and reconnecting with an opposing counsel who became a referral source 09:37 Coming from a law enforcement family and going to the Bronx DA's office straight out of law school 10:47 Day one in the courtroom — arraignments, misdemeanors, felonies, grand jury, and the Rackets Bureau 12:40 The jump from the Bronx DA to the Attorney General's office in White Plains — staying in government but switching to civil 14:54 Three core practice areas — personal injury, criminal defense, and family matrimonial law 15:45 Crash course in family law through a three-year litigious divorce that went all the way to appeal 17:00 How the 18B public defender panel provides steady criminal volume while PI cases mature 18:43 The cash flow logic of building a new practice — flat fee criminal work and retainer family work supporting the contingency pipeline 19:03 Have you been drinking tonight — what you should actually say 19:50 You are not obligated to answer any question beyond pedigree information — and why that is hard for humans 21:40 Officer I'd like to speak with an attorney — how four words shut down the questioning 23:22 The insurance adjuster who calls right after an accident sounding friendly — what they are actually trying to do 24:46 Just got served surprise divorce papers — what is the first thing to do 26:00 Why acting on emotion after being served is how people dig holes 27:40 Why the spouse who filed is already way ahead — they have been through the emotional arc and are planning #JosephScolavino #ScolavinoLaw #TrustcastShow #WestchesterAttorney #CriminalDefenseNY #DivorceAttorneyNY #PersonalInjuryNY #DWIDefense #FamilyLawNY #NewFirmLaunch

  8. Jun 16

    Ken Himmler on Why Your IRA Has a Tax Lien on It, the Silent Campaign Against Roth Conversions

    What happens when someone who built one of the country's first home inspection companies in the 1980s, flipped over 70 real estate deals, spent nine years in boot camp under a mentor with a photographic memory who taught him everything from tax planning to financial structuring, sold his first firm to a private equity fund in 2014, and now co-leads a practice with $840 million under advisement decides that the most important thing he can do with four decades of knowledge is make sure business owners and physicians stop handing over to the IRS money they were never required to give? In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Ken Himmler, co-founder of One Wealth Map, about the silent campaign that major financial institutions run against Roth conversions — not because Roth conversions are bad for clients, but because when a client converts a million-dollar IRA and pays 25% in taxes, the advisor's fee base just dropped by $250,000 — and why the online Roth calculators at Schwab, Fidelity, and Vanguard are built with a fundamental flaw that will give you the wrong answer every time. Ken explains why your IRA is not worth what it says on the statement because there is a tax lien on it, what a 664 trust did for a client with charitable intent that allowed him to convert a million-dollar IRA completely tax free, and why running a Roth analysis for just husband and wife misses two of the three scenarios that actually matter — what happens when the first spouse dies and files single, and what happens when the kids inherit an IRA under Secure Act 2.0 and face a ten-year distribution window that can push them into a 65% combined federal and state bracket. They also discuss why the C Corp is systematically ignored by CPAs despite never having produced double taxation in 42 years of use when structured correctly, why Apple sits on $900 billion in retained earnings without paying the 20% surcharge that CPAs warn about, why most business owners are working with the equivalent of a little league coach when they need a pro-level team, what multi-tiered structuring actually looks like and why it requires both a C Corp and an S Corp working together, how the Monte Carlo simulation that every major financial institution relies on is programmed with a conflict of interest baked in to keep you spending less and leaving assets under management longer, and what Fitnomic — launching in late 2026 — is designed to do that Mint, Monarch Money, and every other financial aggregator has failed to accomplish. Ken Himmler is the co-founder of One Wealth Map, a financial planning and tax strategy firm with $840 million under advisement, serving business owners, physicians, and high-income professionals nationwide. Connect with Ken Himmler: onewealthmap.com One Wealth Map — contact form for Fitnomic AFM waitlist Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Ken Himmler 00:42 The Rothinator — why major financial institutions run a silent campaign against Roth conversions 01:30 The fee math — why an advisor loses 25% of their fee base the moment a client converts 02:30 The IRA as a house with a mortgage — why you don't actually own the number on your statement 03:13 The 664 charitable trust that allowed a million-dollar IRA conversion at zero tax 04:08 Why does converting a Roth mean losing assets under management for the advisor 05:29 Devil's advocate — when does a Roth actually not make sense and who are the 30% 06:31 The financial propaganda campaign — why money stays in IRAs 79% longer than anywhere else 07:41 A profitable business owner who never has any money — what is actually going wrong 08:45 My CPA files my return and says I'm fine — why that is not enough 09:30 Tax planning versus tax preparation — what Joe the CPA told Ken about his monthly process 10:41 The biggest expense of your life is not your house — it is income tax 11:01 Structure first — why the S Corp default is costing business owners 13% in FICA taxes 12:15 The C Corp objection — double taxation and retained earnings — and why both are wrong 13:30 Apple's $900 billion in retained earnings and the annual projection that prevents the 20% surcharge 14:30 Multi-tiered structuring — C Corp holding company plus S Corp operating company 15:15 KPIs, measurement, and Peter Drucker — the second problem after structure 15:45 Upgrading your coaching as your revenue grows — little league to the pros 16:40 The $10 million business still using the same CPA from day one — what they are missing 17:03 What the first meeting with a new client actually looks like — culture fit before financials 18:00 The cost benefit analysis — charging $25,000 to save $100,000 as the basis for a relationship 18:58 The Rothinator versus a standard Roth calculator — why the online tools give you the wrong answer #KenHimmler #OneWealthMap #TrustcastShow #RothConversion #Rothinator #TaxPlanning #BusinessOwnerTaxStrategy #PhysicianFinancialPlanning #Fitnomic #TaxFreeRetirement

See All (168)

About

The TrustCast Show features in-depth conversations with successful business leaders who are shaping their industries. Host Zane Myers sits down with top attorneys, physicians, plastic surgeons, and private practice professionals to uncover the real stories behind their success — what worked, what didn't, and the advice they'd give others building a practice. Each episode is 30 to 40 minutes of unfiltered conversation: backgrounds, unique approaches, and hard-won lessons from professionals at the top of their fields. New episodes published regularly across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, and 20+ platforms. Produced by TrustCasting — done-for-you video marketing that helps professionals grow their practices through short-form video distributed across 10+ platforms.

Information

  • Creator
    Zane Myers
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    168
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025 Trustcasting Podcast
  • Show Website
    TrustCast Show