Mark Bassingthwaighte - Risk Management

Louis Goodman / Mark Bassingthwaighte - Transcript

[00:00:03] Louis Goodman: Welcome to Love Thy Lawyer, where we talk with attorneys about their lives and careers. I'm your host, Louis Goodman. Today we welcome Mark Bassingthwaighte to the podcast. Mark is an attorney licensed in Montana and is a member of the American Bar Association's Conference Committee for Professional Responsibility.

He's written and presented extensively on risk management, ethics, and legal technology. He's conducted over 1200 law firm risk management assessments. Mark Bassingthwaighte, welcome to Love Thy Lawyer. 

[00:00:43] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Thank you. It's absolutely a pleasure to be here. 

[00:00:46] Louis Goodman: Nice to have you. I've been really looking forward to talking to you.

Where are you speaking to us from right now? 

[00:00:52] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I am speaking to you from St. Cloud, Florida. So just a stone's throw from the house of the mouse. 

[00:01:00] Louis Goodman: Is that near Orlando? 

[00:01:03] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes. Yes. Walt Disney World is technically Orlando, and we were just right on the border, so I'm about, oh, by the crow flying maybe 15 miles, 17 miles, something like that from Disney World.

[00:01:16] Louis Goodman: Can you tell us what kind of practice you have now? How do you describe your work and your practice? 

[00:01:25] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I am very much a non-traditional lawyer. Well, I'm now the national risk manager for company called Alps Insurance. Our tagline is we're the nation's largest direct writer of legal malpractice insurance, but we also write all the other types of insurance that, but just for lawyers, that a lawyer or a law firm might need. So my role, I really describe myself as something of a lawyer's lawyer. I'm not here to defend and work through a claim. I am here to try to prevent claims. I'm very much on the proactive side, so I've done a tremendous amount of consulting over the years.

I've done a lot of lecturing and just a lot of writing and take a lot of calls, a lot of email, and someday I'm gonna write a book about all this called How Not to Practice Law in terms of all the stories I've been involved in, I guess I would say. But my job really is to help lawyers stay on the straight and narrow path. That's how I would summarize it. 

[00:02:31] Louis Goodman: That sounds like a lot of work. 

[00:02:34] Mark Bassingthwaighte: It's an interesting job and yeah, it has its busy days and it has its quiet days. I'll leave it at that. 

[00:02:40] Louis Goodman: One of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you, and one of the things that intrigued me about talking to you is just that about keeping lawyers from getting in trouble, because it's easy when you're practicing law to get in trouble, and we read about it every day.

We see lawyers who are not following the rules or not understanding the rule, getting in trouble with the way they deal with clients or the way they deal with trust accounts or the way they deal with their state bars and Right. And so I really wanted to get your input on that. But before we get there, tell me where are you from originally?

[00:03:18] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I am born and raised in central Pennsylvania. A little town called Huntington, Pennsylvania is where I spent my true youth. I went to Gettysburg College and so my entire life up through the end of college was Pennsylvania and then ended up in Montana. But I would say Central Pennsylvania's home. Yeah.

[00:03:41] Louis Goodman: So when you graduated from Gettysburg, you ultimately went to law school, but it sounds like you took some time off in between. What did you do between college and law school? 

[00:03:50] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, I did. I graduated from law, or I should say, I'm sorry, from college with a degree in religion. My background is actually New Testament criticism.

In essence, I'm a textual archeologist, for lack of a better description, trying to determine what history was in terms of what actually happened based on ancient texts. I was all set to go to Canada, to Trinity College and fell in love with a young woman that I met, and we were both working in Glacier National Park on a summer program and we ended up getting married and had a wonderful life together, but as a result of all of that, I ended up for a few years actually being a stay at home dad and really working hard. I took this side step and then I decided to go to law school and never looked back. 

[00:04:47] Louis Goodman: When you did go to law school, do you think that having taken some time off between college and law school got you focused?

[00:04:55] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yes. 

[00:04:55] Louis Goodman: More on the law than had you just gone straight through? 

[00:04:59] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah, I don't think I would change anything. I felt that I had some maturity and some just a different approach to law school and all that offered than a lot of the younger kids in my class. So yeah, it's an odd trajectory in some ways, but I do it again.

[00:05:19] Louis Goodman: Speaking of trajectories, can you take us through your graduation from law school? What sort of work you did in the law profession, and what's that progression? 

[00:05:31] Mark Bassingthwaighte: This is one of those things. The way I would describe it is listening to your life and being open and seeing opportunities when things just happen.

I graduate from law school and there was another classmate who was a good guy, and we hit it off and I'm still new to the Missoula area. We've only been out there a little over a year. And he and I decided we were going to hang out a shingle. So I hung in there for a bit and it's, again, I had some good experiences.

We had built a home in the new development in Missoula and one day I am out working in the backyard and there was a home being constructed right behind us and a gentleman came down as his home was engineering being finished and he introduced himself and the long and the short of it is he was brought in to be the first risk manager for this brand new company called Alps. And he's explaining that he was going to be the risk manager. And I said, Bob, would you, do you ever think a lawyer would be able to do this, to join you? Are you open? Is there ever an opportunity? Just threw that out there and at the end of the day, I ended up getting the position and I've been now in this role, various titles, but as a risk manager with Alps for now 27 years. It's been an awesome opportunity. 

[00:06:56] Louis Goodman: I know that you speak extensively and I'm wondering if you could give us maybe the Reader's Digest version of the presentation that you make when you go and talk to groups of lawyers about risk management, about ethics issues, about malpractice insurance, and the kinds of things that attorneys need to really be careful about.

[00:07:19] Mark Bassingthwaighte: There are two, when it comes to malpractice avoidance, looking at that topic, the two real key things, this umbrella kind of thing that we would look at. File documentation is so key because a lot of these claims really boiled down to word against word, and if there's not documentation in an attorney's file, the attorney's not gonna do well on whatever the issue is.

I can tell you that major losses have been incurred and could have been avoided with one email. One closure letter. So that's one. One of the other big issues that I talk about in, in terms of, again, my practice avoidance. The question that comes up every once in a while is, where do I get the most bang from my buck?

And you know what it is, it's taking care of yourself. When you really look, you can look at the national data. The ABA puts out a report every four years and there's a standing committee on lawyers professional liability insurance, and a lot of the insurers, both in the United States and Canada, participate in giving them data.

And it's a really interesting report to look at to every four years. There's a lot of good stuff out there to tell you what lawyers are doing wrong. They don't tell you and explore why. The report always talks about what. The why is the important piece, and insurance carriers don't track this, but I'm telling you, 50 to 70% of claims have as a component an impairment issue.

[00:08:59] Louis Goodman: Lawyers, drinking, being involved with drugs. Yes. Alcohol, that kind of thing. 

[00:09:03] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I'm gonna define that a bit broader and absolutely that's correct. I mean, there is absolutely various addictions, whether it's alcohol, drugs, caffeine. I've had some interesting stories I could tell you about with caffeine. All kinds of addictions come into play, but there's also burnout, stress, overwork, mental illness. And I'll tell you what is a huge issue right now in our profession, it's not being talked about as much as it should, is just dementia. It's mental acuity. It's a tremendous problem. So if we broadly define, there's a reason why a matter gets neglected, we can track, statute got blown, and sometimes a date just gets entered incorrectly.

That's gonna happen, but more often than not, there's this impairment issue. There's, I'm overworked, I'm burned out, I'm stressed beyond belief, and I've turned to alcohol or not. I'm very depressed. It just, it goes on and on over and over again. So those are the two key things that I would tend to focus on and have spent a lot of my life on, professional life on in terms of my time with Alps.

The other, a piece of this and an interesting thing that has happened in terms of 27 years ago to today. Initially, so much of my work was focused on these two issues that I've talked about and they remain very important. But I'll tell you what is now taking center stage. It's cyber crime and lawyers are huge targets and part of the problem is our space.

We really excel in the Sola small firm space all over the country, and these lawyers think we're too small to be on anybody's radar. It's not gonna happen to me, or I'd recognize these attacks and they just are wrong on all those counts. And so the exposure here, the claims that we're seeing and devastation that I have seen. There are more than a few firms that don't exist anymore because they didn't survive the fallout of falling prey to a cyber attack or a scam of some sort. Wire fraud, as an example, is just outta control. 

[00:11:18] Louis Goodman: It seems that insurance is something that covers a lot of, 

[00:11:23] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Yeah. 

[00:11:24] Louis Goodman: different industries. And you've decided to focus on lawyers. What is it about working with lawyers that you like and that keeps you involved with working with attorneys?

[00:11:36] Mark Bassingthwaighte: The reputation of our profession is not deserved. The vast majority of lawyers that I have worked with are good people, really trying to do the right thing, and I truly mean this when I say I have been so blessed to have had the opportunity to meet and work with thousands of attorneys over the years. That's what keeps me going. That's why I like what I do. I'm very proud to say I am a member of this truly honored profession. Yes, there are some bad eggs out there, and that's just the way it is, but overall, it's good folk.

And that truly is what keeps me going. I just, I feel honored and blessed to be able to be a person that's here to help when somebody needs me because they're good people. 

[00:12:34] Louis Goodman: Yeah. That's been my experience too. Yeah. And that's why I do this podcast and that's why the podcast. Yeah. It's got the name that it has.

It's because I, I think lawyers in general, really to use your term good folks. And, and I've really always enjoyed my interaction with attorneys, even if we're on different sides of a case or something. Yes. That doesn't matter. Yes. Let me shift gears here a little bit. Sure. And ask you what sort of things that you do recreationally to keep your self going and to do positive things for yourself.

[00:13:10] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I really am passionate about cycling. I do a lot of indoor and outdoor cycling, and if I need a little quiet place, I just, I get my bike out and that brings me peace. I just can just let everything go. The other thing that I do and, my true passion for many years prior to that, and it still remains, is I just love to cook.

Our daughter, who's our youngest child, we're a Brady family here. We have five kids, but our daughter, and she's my youngest in terms of being dad. As opposed to Step and her husband are both professional chefs and she's went in that direction in part because of her experiences, I believe with what happened in the kitchen in her home.

But just my wife and I, it turns my current wife, and we've been married now, we're coming up in 25 years, and when we first married, we did the Brady Family thing. Their kids were. More than we had five, I'm sorry, four teenage boys when we married and one daughter, not quite as pre-teen, but I'd be flying home 'cause I was traveling extensively during those years.

And she would say, let me have, what would you like for dinner? I have something free. I you don't understand. I've been traveling heavy when I get home. It'd be nice to maybe have a little white wine chilled and we could enjoy a glasses, but I'm gonna get my knives out. I'm gonna cook because that's, it's a complete jump shift for me.

Again, it's another, that's my happy place to be in the kitchen and just put a meal together. 

[00:14:52] Louis Goodman: This is a two part question, and you could answer either part or both, or maybe it's the same answer, I don't know. But what advice would you give to a young person just starting out, and what do you think is the best advice that you've ever gotten?

[00:15:10] Mark Bassingthwaighte: The answer to both questions is going to be the same. We are not defined by the circumstances we find ourselves in. We are defined by how we respond to them. That is, to me, foundational in terms of how I try to live my life. That can be just a great compass in terms of how to move forward in life. So that's what I would say to both those questions.

[00:15:40] Louis Goodman: What mistakes do you think lawyers make? 

[00:15:43] Mark Bassingthwaighte: It's prioritizing everything else above their own personal needs. If I were to say anything, and this won't speak to every lawyer hearing this, but I would say folks, self care is not selfish. It is okay to nurture your support systems. It is okay to have a life. You work to have a life. You don't have a life to work.

[00:16:13] Louis Goodman: Is there someone who you'd like to meet, someone living or someone of historical past, some person who you'd like to meet? 

[00:16:22] Mark Bassingthwaighte: This is a really interesting one, and I have an answer. May I step back and remind you of my undergraduate studies. I was trained to be a textural critic, a textural historian, and my expertise, if you will, was New Testament criticism.

If I could go back in time, I truly would love to sit down, if you will, have a glass of wine in a local place with the man that we refer to nowadays as Jesus. Just to say, how's your day? What's been going on? I would love to know what the reality of those times were. And this isn't all about, I'm not trying to, this isn't a religious kind of, it truly for me is historical.

What the heck happened during those years that created such, had this such impact. So that would be it. I'd love to go back and just sit down, have a glass of wine. I see you walking by that. Let's have a chat. How's your day? What's been happening? 

[00:17:39] Louis Goodman: Let's say you came into some real money. Several billion dollars.

Three or $4 billion. Yeah. 

[00:17:46] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Okay. I won Powerball. 

[00:17:48] Louis Goodman: Yeah. What, if anything, would you do differently in your life? 

[00:17:52] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I wouldn't retire immediately. I would wanna transition out and make my departure from Alps a very good one, and deposit, if you will, my intellectual capital, and maybe have a little fun sharing that the, the blessing that has come with fellow employees, every single one of 'em at the company.

But what I really would do is create some type of foundation. I want to focus just on charity, the importance of that and making a difference. So I, I would spend the rest of my life finding ways to give this away, but in meaningful ways. I don't wanna just toss money out there. I want to toss money in a way that continues to reap rewards for whoever receives those funds.

But how would the world could you spend that kind of money? So. Make the world a better place. 

[00:18:51] Louis Goodman: Let's say you had a magic wand. There was one thing in the world that you could change the legal world, the insurance world, the world in general. What would you wanna change if you could wave a magic wand at it?

[00:19:04] Mark Bassingthwaighte: The divisiveness that exists in our country today. No one is listening to anybody conversations if you're on the right or the left, or it's about trying to convince the other that you're wrong and there's horrible people on either side. I just, I would want to bring some sense of civility. We can disagree, but we can do so civilly, and let's do so with trying to improve the wellbeing of all of us, not trying to tear each other apart.

[00:19:34] Louis Goodman: Let's say at a Super Bowl ad, someone gave you 60 seconds on the Super Bowl, said, Hey Mark, put out there any message that you want to, a really big audience. What would you wanna say?

[00:19:47] Mark Bassingthwaighte: Shut up and listen. That would be it. Shut up and listen. 

[00:19:54] Louis Goodman: Mark, how do we get in touch with you? If someone wants to get in touch with Mark Bassingthwaighte, what's the best way to do that?

[00:20:04] Mark Bassingthwaighte: The best way to do this and I have, I'm gonna shorten my last name 'cause that's a long one. My email address at work is the letter m. BASS. So M bass at Alps Insurance, A LPS insurance, one word.com. And may I share folks? Again, I'm a risk manager here and I'm, I want to underscore I'm not a risk manager in a traditional sense.

I'm not hired by Alps to be the CRO to manage the risk of the corporation. I am hired by Alps to be a risk manager for the bar at large. You do not need to be insured. There is no fee to visit with me. If there's something I can do to help any of you in your practice, whether it's cybersecurity, ethics, risk management, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Happy to do. That's what I'm here for. 

[00:21:00] Louis Goodman: Mark, is there anything that you wanna discuss that we haven't talked about? Anything at all that you wanted to bring up? Anything that you wanted to say or discuss? That we haven't touched on? 

[00:21:10] Mark Bassingthwaighte: No, I think we've got it pretty well covered. I would underscore, again, go back and say, folks again, I get being an attorney can be exciting, crazy, hectic, on and on.

I'll just say, think about priorities here. Love what you're doing, but take care of yourself. Nurture your support systems. I've seen too many situations where it didn't go that way and it just doesn't need to be that way. Live your life. Take care. 

[00:21:38] Louis Goodman: Mark Bassingthwaighte, thank you so much for joining me today on the Love Thy Lawyer podcast. It's been a pleasure to talk to you 

[00:21:46] Mark Bassingthwaighte: And it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

[00:21:50] Louis Goodman: That's it for today's episode of Love Thy Lawyer. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a friend and follow the podcast. If you have comments or suggestions, send me an email. Take a look at our website at lovethylawyer.com, where you can find all of our episodes, transcripts, photographs and information.

Thanks to my guests, and to Joel Katz for music, Bryan Matheson for technical support, Paul Robert for social media and Tracy Harvey. I'm Louis Goodman.

[00:22:30] Mark Bassingthwaighte: I've been telecommuting for now, I don't know, 16, 17 years, so all the other tech is just shut down. We're good. That's rock and roll. I could go. Yeah. Let me just leave it at this.