Transcript

SPEAKER_02
0:04

Hey, how are you doing today? We have already done mid line.

SPEAKER_01
0:10

Yeah, we didn't need our done what makes it seven, right? Right, right, right. Pretty exciting. And our our followers are growing. More people are finding us at us.

SPEAKER_02
0:27

Yeah. Thanks, everyone. Thanks for listening and thanks for subscribing. Definitely. Definitely. Keep us coming. Keep making it possible.

SPEAKER_01
0:35

Yeah. So our our routine listeners know that we always start with new news, which is a very popular uh topic with a lot of people. And this is this is a blend of old news but rapidly growing new news. I knew you'd come up with something. It fits in really well with today's topic, which is going to focus on contracts. And, you know, contracts are sort of the voice around how folks are paid and how much they work. And there's a lot of anger going on on those two topics right now in the midwife workforce. Yes. So with that. Money talks, right? Mm-hmm talks. And so shy of individual negotiation, which we're going to focus on today, is this thing called unionizing. Oh, bring it. Bring it. I've been reading a lot about it. Oh my gosh, it's dropping everywhere. And in the last, in the last month, but definitely in the last week, the Kaiser Permanente midwives and nurses resolved their issues in California after quite a long strike. The New York State Nurses Association and Bronx with Midwives, even the Education Program Midwives, University of Michigan at Sparrow are beginning union negotiations now. We know that the University of Illinois, Midwifery, and Midwives are in negotiations for the first time ever. We know that Oregon Health Sciences just completed union negotiations for the first time. It is rolling out everywhere.

SPEAKER_02
2:18

Well, it's doing something then.

SPEAKER_01
2:22

And you know, we get a lot of questions from people like, is this good or bad for being a healthcare provider? You know, what does this mean to your patients if you go on strike? Do you ever get to really speak out in your own voice? Um, does it does it really make a difference? And are you losing rights versus gaining rights? I don't I don't have a lot of answers, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02
2:47

Okay. All right. Well, I I've wondered some of those same things. So, you know, at some point we'll have to do an assessment with all the groups that have been unionized and kind of come up with some answers.

SPEAKER_01
2:59

I I think it's another topic similar to what we've talked with another uh guest before with the team migrants and all the midwives sort of reaching out on state, state team migrant issues is this issue of state, it tends to be state nursing associations picking up the APPs and the midwives for bringing them into the union fold. And it is rapidly evolving. There's a there's a sociologist at UCSF who's doing a formal research project on this topic. And I looked today before we joined to see if, you know, nothing's published yet. She's probably still in data analysis, but she was interviewing, she talked to me a little bit and was interviewing as many midwives as she could around the country on this issue. Wow.

SPEAKER_02
3:52

Well, that is my alma mater for midwiving school.

SPEAKER_01
3:54

So I mean, it has a lot of sociological implications.

SPEAKER_02
3:59

I I believe that this would be interesting research to hear them.

SPEAKER_01
4:02

Yeah. So that's the new news without a great answer. Uh, other than if folks are starting that journey, um, we can connect you. I mean, we we know a lot of folks who are engaged in the negotiation process that we're happy to just sort of be the network funnel without the answers.

SPEAKER_02
4:24

It would be good to have a toolkit for that.

SPEAKER_01
4:26

Yeah, definitely. So that's gonna move us into uh introducing our guest, which I'm gonna try to figure out how much I want to say and how much I want to leave out because as I as I left the teaser, I think in this morning's podcast, we're we're honored to have someone uh who's a lawyer who's known who's known about midwifery since the moment he was born in the hands of a midwife. Uh and so Isaac Booth, who also has a middle name of Breedlove, um, happens to be my fourth son. And we're very, very proud of Isaac's academic accomplishments and his interests over his lifetime, and really has stepped into the Grow Midwives team to help our clients who are seeking help understanding sort of the scholastic and and um kind of the the issues involved in employment contracts. Denise, do you mind anything you want? Do you have anything you want to say about him?

SPEAKER_02
5:32

You know what? I think uh well, I'll just say this. Um, I will never forget the day I applied for midwifery school, um, because it was the day that Isaac was born. So on March and 25. Um, so that that will always stick in my mind. It's a it's a lovely long story, but that's my connection to, yeah, who remembers when they apply to midwifery school? I do.

unknown
5:58

There you go.

SPEAKER_02
5:59

So welcome, Isaac. It's very nice to have you here and to have watched you grown up and you know become who you are today.

SPEAKER_01
6:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02
6:08

I like that you're a midwifery advocate.

SPEAKER_01
6:11

I know. Comes with a household.

SPEAKER_02
6:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01
6:17

So, Isaac, what might help folks understand is sort of your journey, uh, your educational journey and sort of your journey into helping grow midwives um as we get into some of the topics on contracts.

SPEAKER_00
6:31

Um I I think my story is pretty simple. Um I grew up hearing the conversation. I then got more context for the conversation. I marched for the conversation and then I analyzed for the conversation, um, talking for the conversation. Uh I've sort of been in the background of the conversation uh forever. Um, I've done the recording of the videos for all the organizations, I've helped produce them, I've helped ads, I've helped try to communicate with people at a different age range. Um I think it's just I'm doing the same thing I've always done, and it's just in a slightly more impactful way.

SPEAKER_01
7:16

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I I think what you're going to bring to this conversation, Isaac, is maybe an age-relatable um conversation in in terms of um younger people entering the profession, some of the issues going on in society today, job stability. Um and and how you blend that with sort of what you believe in and how you how you make it all sort of fit. Um so why don't we start with Denise and I um on the last podcast talked about um I can't remember the exact title, but it had to do with sort of evaluating the job offer. Right.

SPEAKER_02
8:04

Elements of the job offer and yeah.

SPEAKER_01
8:07

And so we wanted to sort of naturally flow into okay, you've you've saw the offer, you went through the interviews, and wow, Denise now has a job offer in front of her. And I just talked to somebody today before we did the podcast who told me she used Chat GPT to analyze her contract, which was pretty simple. It was a two-page offer letter. That was all she was gonna get. And it came back basically saying it was a horrible agreement and didn't tell her anything else. To which she decided to reach out and we had a coaching session because it was there was really no contract. But you know, why don't you talk to people about the range of things they see between an offer letter and a contract at a at a at a high level?

SPEAKER_00
8:57

I'd say the the first thing I want to say is that um I'm not anybody here's lawyer uh or anybody's listening's lawyer. Uh it's not legal advice, it's more legal education that we're going for here. And in any review, that's the that's the same thing. We don't give specific, or at least I don't give specific go for this number, here's how I would get it. I give I would negotiate this, and here's some things I've seen from other people, maybe, but uh that that's sort of the lane we'll keep to. And I can spend hypotheticals all day long, don't worry about that. But if I give specific advice, I just don't want to have a hundred or five hundred clients tomorrow. That would be really awkward. Um, the difference between um a full contract, if you want to think of it that way, and it's just a contract, or an offer letter, um I think the the easiest way to think about it is the offer letter is not the full agreement. The offer letter is typically whatever terms that the generally the employer um finds the most important um or the the biggest deal breakers uh is sort of a flawed but different way to think about it. Um but the goal there is to basically you were talking about how to value your contract in different parts of the contract, and I'd really encourage people to see every single section in the contract as its own little part, and it really every word, but it's easier to think in sections as its own part with its own due consideration. So the fact that you allow them to take over your billing is something of value to them, that's why it's in the contract.

SPEAKER_03
10:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00
10:46

If you allow them to pay or not pay for your insurance, that's consideration that goes either way. And consideration is the legal term for value in a contract. Um so when you have an offer letter and it takes care of the most um baseline, the most important terms, what you're really doing is you're negotiating most of the consideration away before you've gotten to a lot of the employee forward looking clauses or opportunities. So it's gonna be really hard to negotiate later when you have less of a quiver of arrows to hold hostage against the other person.

SPEAKER_01
11:28

Uh one of the things, Isaac, before you go on, is like in the case of this this person today, all she was getting was the offer letter.

SPEAKER_00
11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01
11:39

Two pages.

SPEAKER_00
11:40

Yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_01
11:42

And is that a contract?

SPEAKER_00
11:44

Well, um, as with every answer uh for any legal question, the answer is it depends. I hear Arden's been picking up the the standard. Um it the answer is it depends. The the shortest version really it depends because you have to look at every time uh one of these happens, but the shortest version is if they paid money in, or if you paid money or they paid money in return for you signing it, or if you signed it in return for something else, then it is at that point binding. So, for instance, let's say they give you an offer letter and it's got all the basic terms, it's got like, you know, term salary, we won't do this, we might do that, that type of whatever, very vague. Um you sign it, and then you get the full agreement, and the full agreement's got a bunch of things that you don't like, you can't change any of those previous terms so long as you're bound to whatever was in that offer letter. And it once again it depends on how that offer letter is formatted, whether or not you're already going to the job, but you can only negotiate a limited amount of things now, or if you can then still decline or but there are people, Isaac, that don't get another piece of paper.

SPEAKER_01
13:01

They don't get a contract. And that's that's that could be good. There's typically not a non-compete, there's not a non-disparagement, there's no confidentiality, there's not there's not a lot in those. Yeah, and they they reference handbooks and policy manuals.

SPEAKER_00
13:18

It's a step away from order to chaos, and that's better for some and worse for some. It's a it really depends on who and where and what you're wanting to do. If you're like a researcher who wants absolutely no control from the place that you're working at because you've got a bigger thing going on, that might be better for you.

SPEAKER_02
13:35

Yeah. Right. I do have a question, Isaac. So if you sign an offer letter and then there's different components, um, you know, disparities between the offer letter and a and a follow-up contract, which one is the one that will be held up?

SPEAKER_00
13:56

So that's a really specific question. The answer, of course, depends. But the way it the the way it shakes out generally is if you've got consideration for that original offer letter. So let's say um let's just like change the example to something more easier to understand. Let's say they paid you like as a result of this offer letter, we're giving you a $10,000 sign-on bonus. So that's payment for signing the offer letter. That means there's consideration both ways. It's an agreement, you both signed it with you know, full cognizance, whole thing. That means at that point it's binding on both parties. So generally, the way that works is that means whatever terms are in the offer letter can no longer be negotiated by either side. Now, the contract could, of course, say, hey, we can change it to whatever we want when we want, but if it doesn't, generally that means that those terms specifically and only those terms are already set. So when you go and get your full contract, you can still negotiate anything else that wasn't in the offer letter. Um, it's just harder because you have less things to bark on.

SPEAKER_01
15:02

But what if they haven't they don't pay you until one year after you've worked for them? They haven't given you any money. Here's the deal.

SPEAKER_00
15:11

I really don't even know what that means.

SPEAKER_01
15:13

Well, we a lot of people don't get a sign-on bonus when they get there, it's deferred.

SPEAKER_00
15:18

Yeah, no, but um it's there is no money exchange. Right. It doesn't the commitment to give money so long as it is legally binding, is still a consideration.

SPEAKER_01
15:28

So one of the things we've been telling people, Isaac, is thank the person for the offer letter that you're very excited to discuss with them terms of the agreement, and you will uh be willing to go forward once you see the contract, but not to negotiate with them with an offer letter.

SPEAKER_00
15:51

Yeah, it it's um it's each person's personal choice. There, I mean, there are I'm sure some people who would be able to argue quite eloquently the benefits of using an offer letter. They'll say things like um it gets rid of the clutter, it makes everything faster, it's the things you really care about. And it really well, yeah, exactly. It really depends on what you care about, right?

SPEAKER_01
16:21

But when you don't know what to care about, you think that you're trapped in signing an offer letter, and you haven't seen the four corners of a contract to know what all you can leverage.

SPEAKER_00
16:32

Oh, yeah, I personally would very much not like to sign an offer letter that removes almost all my negotiating power when going into things that I care about.

SPEAKER_02
16:41

Okay, but there's there any um is there any like weight with a verbal acceptance of an offer um moving into then a written contract? Um, you know, because I you know, I think a lot of people might affirm that they're going to take the offer but haven't signed anything. So what does what does that look like? Uh we're Theoretically, hypothetically.

SPEAKER_00
17:09

We're in we're in very vague, it depends land. There's a there's a bunch of tests going on there to try and figure out if like a vocal, a vocal acceptance of a contract has some rules around it, like you can't do over a certain time, you can't do over a certain amount of money, um, there's certain agreements you just can't make vocally, but there are lots more than people would expect that you can do vocally or on a napkin at a bar. I mean, it it really the the world is your oyster. Uh unless you're accepting something, you shouldn't say I accept. The general the general rule for vocal acceptance is if there is like a third party person watching this conversation and they're a reasonable person and they watch the conversation happen, would they think you accepted? If the answer is yes, then you probably accept it. If the answer is no, then you probably didn't. And that's what the court's gonna do, and everybody's just gonna yell at each other trying to see what that third person would have seen.

SPEAKER_01
18:13

Well, that's very helpful. Yeah, thank you. So, Isaac, you've seen a lot of contracts now.

SPEAKER_03
18:19

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01
18:19

If you could pick out the top three things that have concerned you as a reader that just sort of make you go, oh my God, what are they doing to these midwives? Does could you come up with some?

SPEAKER_00
18:35

That's a really hard question. Um do you mean in terms of the legal writing or the content or the effect like the effect of what they what could happen to them.

SPEAKER_01
18:49

I'll give you an example. And this actually happened in this contract with this offer today. Uh the payback clause. If you do not stay X amount of time, we're gonna take your salary and charge you.

SPEAKER_00
19:01

Yeah, those are pretty weird.

SPEAKER_01
19:04

Harsh.

SPEAKER_00
19:06

Well, I I say weird because I'm trying not to give a personal hint. I'm trying not to give like a value opinion. Okay, but well, I'll say the worst things I've seen are things similar to that, like uh liquidated damages clauses, meaning that um whenever you break a restrictive covenant, I'm sure we'll talk about them more later. But if you break a non-compete, you break a non-solicitation, you break a non-disparagement, one of or some of those, then you have to pay X amount. And that X amount exists for a really actually good reason in reality, which is that it is basically impossible to calculate the value of a non-compete because it depends on how important you are, what access you had, where you could go, who you're competing against, the amount of things happening in that area, like the general economic trends. It's just impossible. So liquidated damages are there to allow ideally both parties, but really the um the employer to put a hard number down that a judge can say, yeah, that's reasonable, or yeah, that could have been reasonable, or no, it's unreasonable in the lower it. But liquidated damages of like three years' salary, I've seen.

SPEAKER_01
20:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00
20:20

Right, right. Like antithetical to everything.

SPEAKER_01
20:24

The one I saw today was $200 per day that they did not fulfill the term of the agreement.

SPEAKER_00
20:31

Well, that's an interesting one. That that's a lot more reasonable than three years salary for a potential breach. That's that's another thing, is they'll they'll start using words like instead of actually having the breach happen, yeah, they'll say a a thing we thought could have happened.

SPEAKER_01
20:48

Well, just decided. We decided.

SPEAKER_00
20:51

Well, it's not you if you say they just decided that intuits some level of fraud, which is a legal conclusion, which I can't do. But you know, but when the contract says that we can just guess, and if we're wrong, you still in combination with things like yeah, attorney's costs and fees agreements, yes, where they say um, you know, the the general baseline is the prevailing party, meaning whoever wins gets their side bankrolled for whatever it costs, basically. That's the short version, yeah, which already is weird because the employer has a lot more money to play around with and their risk is dispersed. Um, so already it's a it's a weird thing to agree to, but it's sort of like common in America. But there are agreements that have that the provider, the employee, has to pay no matter what to enforce the agreement, the employer's costs and fees. And the the real worry there is that could cost conceivably more than that three year salary liquidated damages I just said.

SPEAKER_02
21:53

Correct.

SPEAKER_00
22:00

Amount of expert opinions. Like if a judge sees you going crazy, they might get mad on your behalf on an employee's behalf and say, no, that's just insane. But also they might not. Because there are certain portions of the country where the term said before, the four corners of the agreement is taken a lot more seriously than in others. There are some places in the country that if it is in the four corners, unless it is absolutely unconscionable, if it the literal term is shocks the conscious. Unless it is not shockingly bad, then they will not change anything. And even if they do change anything, there are clauses that say you can't remove this whole part. You only limit it to what is not shocking, not what's reasonable, not what's good, to what is not shocking.

SPEAKER_01
22:51

So let's move to another one. And all of these have monetary implications that can be sizable. Midwives who don't understand medical liability protection and clauses that are vague at best, some specific but few, that could could mean you pay tail, but you don't really have any clarity on understanding much about the policy at all.

SPEAKER_00
23:18

Yeah, I don't really get that either.

SPEAKER_01
23:21

Um but a physician would never agree to those kinds of vague statements.

SPEAKER_00
23:27

Yeah, I don't really get it either. Uh I would say if you're being generous, uh what they're doing is they're saying um insurance is hard and we don't really know what we're planning to do. So trust me, bro will take care of you. Is sort of what those are saying. Um, you know, I don't really take trust me, bros too seriously as a lawyer. Um that's why I mean my my recommendation every time is ask for whatever policy they have now, because that gives you a pretty good idea of you know, you should get the same thing. They're all basically group negotiating these things. There's no way to do it. Um and if they're planning on changing a policy, tell ask them what they're thinking about getting in the future. And if they're not including any details in your contract about what the policy currently is, that's probably because of what I was just saying. They're ready and willing to move their policy to another vendor or for another amount or to change things, and what they don't want to do is have to rewrite all their midwifery contracts changing anything.

SPEAKER_01
24:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00
24:37

So it can be vague in the contract, and that can be bad because it can be taken advantage of, but it can also be good because it gives the employer a little bit more flexibility, and you can just ask. So I I would recommend before signing an agreement, if it says we will provide you insurance, just ask. Just be like, hey, what's your policy? Thank you. And they'll probably hand it to you. There's nothing really devastating about doing that.

SPEAKER_01
25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02
25:06

Yeah. That's a good idea. That's a great idea, actually.

SPEAKER_01
25:10

The next one is non-competes. And let's say Denise is, you know, moving halfway across the country back to California. She rented an apartment or bought a home. Aren't you rich? And uh and wants to stay there. You know, she's got a house payment she's making and blah, blah, blah. And uh leaves, and there's a two-year non-compete for a 30-mile radius of any hospital or practice that she worked at, practicing in any role, a clinical role she's currently in. That could be a really financial challenge for people. San Francisco is a very kind, very condensed city for healthcare services.

SPEAKER_00
25:57

Yeah. Um, I agree.

SPEAKER_01
26:01

Any thoughts on how to any thoughts on how to negotiate those?

SPEAKER_00
26:05

Oh, yeah. Um, I would say my my number one little tip for these uh non-competes is um there's not an awful lot of hospitals in any given area. So if you read your contract and it says it's an X mile radius, I would go to Google Maps and I would say, how many miles away are the next hospitals?

SPEAKER_03
26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
26:30

And see, does it cover it? Does it cover one? Does it cover, you know, let's say there are three? Does it cover all three?

SPEAKER_03
26:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
26:37

Um, that would be the first thing I would do is see what what am I actually prevented from doing in reality, not what is spooky.

SPEAKER_03
26:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
26:46

Um, the the next thing is does it cover all the hospitals? Most of the hospitals, some of the hospitals is a really big difference because then you may or may not have to move.

SPEAKER_03
26:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
26:56

Um, in negotiating them, they're very aware of this. They they wrote it with that in mind, right?

SPEAKER_03
27:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00
27:04

They went, who's our biggest competitor? Right, how many miles away is it? Let's do at least that, guys. That sounds like a good idea.

SPEAKER_03
27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
27:12

So they're very aware. So that might be harder to negotiate. Um, something I think people really uh to their own detriment don't even contemplate negotiating are what is the what are you not competing in?

SPEAKER_01
27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
27:28

So more and more of these contracts are starting to say like any services provided for the employer. That's pretty easy to understand, but it's also really broad. Um, if you taught a day for your employer, can you no longer teach in that 30-mile area?

SPEAKER_01
27:45

Yeah, good point.

SPEAKER_00
27:46

But if you know, if you did general medical things, like you attended a their free clinic that doesn't have to deal with OPGYN stuff, are you then barred from doing regular clinical medical duties? Um, you can negotiate all that. Every every part of that, every duty that you're giving away is due consideration.

SPEAKER_01
28:07

Yeah. Um so there was a post in the last week on a discussion board, and non-competes came up, and someone said, to which I qualified, non-competes are non-enforceable. Wow, I read that one.

SPEAKER_00
28:26

Well, it it depends. Um, there's there's been a big uh I I say it playfully, but it is always the answer. Um, there have been successive administrations, there have been presidents, there have been, you know, union leaders, employment leaders, people really dislike non-competes, especially for professional activities. Uh lawyers generally not people really don't like doing non-competes for that. Uh doctors, it's generally like um, at least legally, ethically seen as a really bad thing to have non-competes because you want there's not a lot of those people, and there are not a lot of places where those people can do their thing, and it costs a lot of societal money and time to get those people to be able to do those things. And if you're already at a shortage of all of those things, yeah, it's really not great. So there have been successive administrations, uh, political parties pushes to get rid of or at least limit non-competes pretty drastically, and they have been. There's states that say that you can't do non-competes.

SPEAKER_01
29:33

There's about three to five from what we've looked at.

SPEAKER_00
29:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01
29:37

But Biden, Biden's bill for eliminating all of them was was ferociously fought by the American Hospital Association because the hospitals own about 70% of the physician workforce.

SPEAKER_00
29:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01
29:52

And they don't want their docs going across the street to the competing hospitals.

SPEAKER_00
29:57

Right. Um, yeah, I mean, that's that's where the like expansion. So the the shrinking of the non-compete has resulted in the expansion of the non-solicit.

SPEAKER_03
30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
30:09

Is sort of how it's gone. And so it's gone from you cannot go and compete against me to you can't leave and then undercut me in some way, which is, if we're being honest, what they're really worried about in the first place.

SPEAKER_03
30:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
30:23

Uh what they're really worried about is, you know, Dr. Jim is beloved in hospital Green Ridge, and then he leaves Green Ridge to go to Blackridge, and Jim goes, hey, all my 50 patient, 100-patient roster, I'm over here now. Come with me because it's better over here. That's what they're really worried about. Sure. They're not as much worried about Jim's excellent medical skills going to another place. They'll get another doctor.

SPEAKER_01
30:48

What I can't understand is why are they worried about midwives? Come on, we don't make the same salary, not even close. We don't have the same scope of practice for all the things that people need. It's a very small, it's a very small window of connections.

SPEAKER_00
31:09

There, there's a lot of ways to interpret that. I mean, and I'm not in those meetings, I'm not shaking hands with those people much. I can't tell you how they're personally feeling, but I can tell you from a strategic point of view, uh, if there aren't a lot of you, it sounds like something, it sounds like an ecosystem ripe for control.

unknown
31:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03
31:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
31:29

Um, the the second thing I would think of is if there aren't a lot of you, there aren't that many competitors. So if in a 20 mile radius I can knock out 80% of my competitors, that sounds like free money.

SPEAKER_03
31:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
31:41

Um another way to think about it would be uh, are you a nurse or are you a doctor? What a great question. You're something I mean neither. Yeah, right. You're something in between, right? So so if we're do we care about nurse non-competes? Not as much. Do we care about doctors competes? Like, so what's in the between?

SPEAKER_03
32:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
32:02

Uh I think that that results in a lot of the things that midwives deal with is well, they're bit like higher in the chain than your standard nurse, but they're lower in the chain than your standard physician. So shrug will just give them something in between on everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01
32:18

Or they'll just copy, they'll just copy the physician contract like one we did a few days ago and say you're part of the AMA, their standards, their code of ethics. You have to get a medical license from the state. They just copy paste, man.

SPEAKER_00
32:32

Yeah, flashbacks are there's not a lot.

SPEAKER_02
32:35

Denise, do you have any questions from from things that you can recall or um I I you know, I I'm you caught me off guard there because I've been just so so like listening to all this. Um go ahead. I think, you know, in addition to like the restrictive covenants, um I think the thing that always throws me a little bit is um, you know, the things that are not in the contract that they then are able to enforce or the things that are not written as addendums or appendices. Are there things that you have commonly seen um or that people come across that they then have to address later because they didn't receive the full package?

SPEAKER_00
33:33

I think uh you're the the general words for those are like policies and practices. That's generally what it gets called in the agreement. Um I I don't get a lot of the feedback two years later portion of uh the advising part. So I I can't give you the best answer, but I mean it it's pretty easy to predict in some like they're not part of a contract.

SPEAKER_02
34:03

I mean, if they don't reference it in the contract, but it's part of their system, their policies and procedures.

SPEAKER_00
34:10

Right, you're agreeing to follow their policies and procedures, right? And so what you're in the contract, what it'll say is something like you agree to follow the policies and procedures of Green Ridge, and Green Ridge's policies and procedures may be changed at will by the whoever whoever Green Ridge, and for so long as you are here, you will do that, otherwise, this will happen. Or it will be connected to the termination part. So, what they've done is they've made it a condition of the job. You have to follow whatever these things are, whatever they may be, otherwise, we can fire you. Um, that's part of what makes a binding. Uh, the other part about what makes up binding is uh almost all these agreements are at will anyway. So you even if even if like uh it wasn't binding in like some magical world like that, um they could still just you know get rid of you in you know 30, 60, 90, 120 days, 180 I've seen, which was which blew my mind.

SPEAKER_02
35:09

Yeah. Um so then would you recommend similar to the like the malpractice insurance policy to request those at the same time the contract is given?

SPEAKER_00
35:18

Yeah, just request. I mean well frankly, having not read a hundred 300 of those, like I've read contracts, I can't tell you what like the average thing is in there, and I can't guarantee you what it says, but most of what it says is mostly normal things and policies and procedures, and sometimes there's just not, sometimes there's random things that are not normal. You have to abide by X or Y religious important thing, right? And maybe that's deal breaker for you, maybe it's not, but you gotta go find out if it's in there. And the only way to do that is to ask. And it's one email, and you basically go, Hey, I would like to see any documents that would be binding to me, relevant to this agreement. For instance, I would like to see my insurance, I would like to see uh your policies and practices you reference here, I would like to see your you know, employee handbook. These are the SOPs for your job, it's what you're gonna be doing. In a lot of ways, those things are more what job you're gonna get than the contract itself.

SPEAKER_02
36:23

Correct. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, I that's it's really those things that people don't see or ask for because they assume they're just really basic. But getting those surprises, I think, are you know can be quite horrible.

SPEAKER_00
36:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02
36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
36:41

I mean, if you uh to take it an example, if you move to a you know far-off island, you know, a couple thousand miles away for religious, and then you get there and you find out it's not your speed of religious thing, that's that's a lot more concerning thing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01
37:02

That is a good example.

SPEAKER_00
37:04

That's an email to solve.

SPEAKER_01
37:06

We we we saw one, we saw one of those recently.

SPEAKER_00
37:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01
37:11

Yeah. Yeah. If you if you had some advice for a logical way to take your contract and evaluate it. Probably asking you a question that we have some bias about. But is it is look, it's like buying a car, buying a home, reading contracts, you know. Most people don't read the fine print when we purchase things. This is a job that you're agreeing to. And a lot of people don't necessarily see the value in legal review because they need the job. We know from Denise and I talking to so many, they need the job. They they they need the money. They're they're sitting on an average of $125,000, $150,000 in combined student loan debt with a very short window of making some money.

SPEAKER_02
38:21

Um often with a sense of urgency to just take because this is the only thing in their area.

SPEAKER_01
38:29

And they're getting pressured by the recruiter, sign quickly, you know, when we know the leverage is on their side, take your time here. Yeah. What what thoughts do you have about the value of legal um assistance?

SPEAKER_00
38:49

Well, as a lawyer, yeah, always, yes. But uh I think the the easiest way to think about it is how much would it cost for you to go hand or you don't even probably have to go to a lawyer's office to email a lawyer and say, Hey, I just got this employment agreement or this potential employment agreement, and I would like to understand what it means and take 30 minutes of your time. How much would that cost?

SPEAKER_01
39:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_00
39:19

And what they will tell you most commonly is either nothing, near nothing, or you know, if you're if it's a particularly expensive one, you know, $300. But that would be uh like that would be rarer.

SPEAKER_01
39:39

What what kind of what kind of lawyer would they even reach out to? What type?

SPEAKER_00
39:44

Well, the thing I was gonna say is you'll get more than that $400 in value anyway, just because you should be able to understand if if you think about contracts the way the lawyers do, which is this this covenant is worth this amount of money to you, so you're paying me this amount. Like part of your salary is allocated to the non-compete, part of your salary is allocated to the non-solicitation, the moonlighting provision, the insurance, things like that. These are all exchanges of this thing. I um I'm sorry, I missed your question.

SPEAKER_01
40:15

That's okay. The value of the value of legal review for these job offers.

SPEAKER_00
40:21

Uh you know, yeah, I would I would keep my answer. I would do it um pretty much every time I would be seriously considering it because I I truly believe you will save more money by getting it reviewed than you would potentially lose not doing it. If you can't get a legal review, basically what you're left with is reading it and guessing, or reading it and doing research and being right, or putting it through AI, and that's basically just reading it and guessing. Um the Here's an example.

SPEAKER_01
40:52

Here's an example, Isaac. Um, Isaac and I presented to about 30 residents at Flint, Michigan in late November or December of last year. And in the audience was an MFM faculty member. They were OB residents. Um and we gave a two-hour presentation. It's very similar to the talk I give to a lot of programs around the country to their graduating senior or final semester midlife students. We did slant it towards physicians, but the MFM doctor spoke up, Isaac, when you were talking about professional malpractice insurance. And one of her colleagues, a friend of hers, who's an MFM, highly trained obstetrician, was going to take another job, just move across the country, did not realize that her contract was claims made and had to come up with a $65,000 tail in 30 days, in one lump sum, and had to take a second mortgage out on her house. Wow. She had no idea.

SPEAKER_00
42:03

I that would be one of those things that uh that meeting could help with. I think liter the the greatest value of the meeting if you went and had a meeting with an attorney is going to be them finding the things that you just don't think about.

SPEAKER_03
42:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
42:19

That are important in because it's not the things that are imminently important, it's the things that are important when you leave or when you're done.

SPEAKER_01
42:27

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00
42:28

Five years after.

SPEAKER_01
42:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00
42:31

But uh here a small ver a more playful version, but something I personally, as an attorney that's highly educated intellectual properly, find important is these name, image, and likeness agreements.

SPEAKER_01
42:45

I was gonna ask you to go there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
42:48

That that for some reason the midwifery culture has allowed to be infinite, which scares everything out of me because that makes no sense ever. Um say more about that.

SPEAKER_01
43:02

Say more about that.

SPEAKER_00
43:03

So be the short version of those clauses is they want to use your name, image, and likeness. I mean, and what they'll say is on our website, right? But what does that even mean? Is is the first part. Are you plastered on the front page? Are you on every page? Are you just on the staff page? Those are some questions. And if I'm just on the staff page, why do you want my name, image, and likeness forever? There's a question. Um, another is if you can use my name, image, and likeness, can you use me as like a TV promotional person? Uh the answer is yes, because they own your name, image, and likeness. Can they then use it 40 years later? The answer is yes, because you've perpetually given them a license to your name, image, and likeness. And do they have to pay you? The answer is no, because in the agreement you gave them for free and unlimited forever with no Payment back because when they read the contract, they'll say due consideration was given. Because they'll say some slice of your salary is worth that. Um, yeah, you've given away the right to your image and your name.

SPEAKER_01
44:14

We uh we have a family member whose image is posted on a rural highway, and when we ask her if she was getting any money for using her uh, she said no. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00
44:27

Why why are they using your image? Because it's a good one, because it has value, right? So get value from it. So uh generally, what I would recommend is if there with a lot of places you won't be able to give them this just never. I would say put a time limit on it. You can't use my name and likeness after I leave, or one year after I leave, or if you want to do a systemic ad campaign, if you want to do a greater ad campaign than general advertising, these words are fine, then you have to negotiate with me terms for that ad deal. Yeah, and these are you know, five seconds to add provide a lot of value to you, and if they're being truthful and they really only want to put your name on the website, it doesn't change anything.

SPEAKER_03
45:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
45:12

So a lot, a lot, a lot of these clauses. If you think about it in terms of if you're believe what it says, not what they say it says, believe what the agreement says and take what the agreement says seriously. And if you believe what the agreement says and you don't think you want that possibility, change what it says. The whole point of negotiation is to change things you're uncomfortable with. There's a huge cultural problem in America that contract attorneys are absolutely it breaks brains constantly. It's the thing we most complain about. The whole point of the negotiation term is to negotiate. Things will change. Things will change for the better of both sides or the worse for both sides. And let me tell you, these contracts are sometimes written so badly, I'm not sure they know what they're saying.

SPEAKER_01
46:12

There you go. We say that a lot.

SPEAKER_00
46:14

So when they come in and they've got, you know, the headers are wrong and the section that's wrong because they're copying it from a 15-year-old physician agreement. And what they really want is they want a physician's name, image, and likeness because that's what they're really advertising for, things like that. They don't, they might not even know it's there.

SPEAKER_01
46:31

That's right.

SPEAKER_00
46:32

It's worth asking because it has value to you. Every single clause has value to either in both party, either plus or minus or something in the middle.

SPEAKER_03
46:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
46:44

And if you don't like it, don't sign it.

SPEAKER_02
46:47

So I think you don't understand it, right? If you don't understand it, clarify it.

SPEAKER_01
46:52

There was a time there was a time when you were in your negotiation class in law school, and you know that that I took the Harvard negotiation course, and we were talking a lot about similar videos, like Chris Voss and the guy behind me, William Murray. Do you have some negotiation strategies and techniques that you could impart some wisdom on very terrified midwives who don't negotiate often?

SPEAKER_00
47:17

Um I better resources for that would be the people and things you just mentioned. Um, but my some takeaways that I would give to people is your negotiation style is personal to you. Are you conflict averse or not? Is a really big question.

SPEAKER_03
47:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
47:34

If if your brain can handle disagreement in person and still analytically go through all your various options, that's a way to do it. If you can't, send emails back and forth for a month. Maybe that's the way that you best negotiate. Um advice generally um don't agree too early one. Allow yourself to sit on things after you've said them or after they've been agreed to. Another thing would be um try and tell where people's focus is. What's important to you, what's important to them, and try to keep the negotiation um calm and kind are words that come to mind. But really, cooperative is the the best word because when negotiation devolves into arguing or to accusing people of abuse, like um that's why I really push back. Um, anytime somebody says, oh, this non-compete is horrendous, or this you know, non-solicitation is unacceptable. It could legally be that, maybe, but when you sign it, what you're saying is I agree that this is reasonable, and really take a look at it and really before you sign it, say, I believe that this is reasonable. And if you don't, don't sign it and tell them why. Yes, because oftentimes if you tell somebody why you don't like it and you're reasonable in your why, like the NIL deals, you want them to have your likeness forever and they'll go, Oh, but we want you on the website. Oh, you can have it while I'm here. Done. And most oftentimes that'll work when you find things that people really care about, like the employer cares about, find the things that you really care about and say, Oh, you want this, I want this.

SPEAKER_01
49:44

One of the best examples I can give about about bringing these things up is often they're old offers recycled. The people who are offering them, the recruiters, don't even understand them. And there was a case that happened a couple years ago now where a new graduate had been in one clinical site with a seasoned midwife that the community loved in a small town. And we found that it was the claims made and they had to pay tail. This is a hospital who you think would be a self-insured trust, but whatever. And we suggested to her that she highlight that this could be a concern and why. They took it back to risk management who had no idea that that was going on, and they changed the policy for every APP in their hospital system. Ah, very good.

SPEAKER_00
50:39

The wonders of communication.

SPEAKER_01
50:41

Exactly. I mean, don't be afraid to talk about what you, as we say, want them to verify, clarify, and modify.

SPEAKER_00
50:51

The I think half the conversations I have about midwifery and the advocacy of maternal health come down to communication problems.

SPEAKER_03
51:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
51:01

What is a midwife? Yes, that's a communication problem.

SPEAKER_03
51:05

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00
51:07

If if I, having been involved in this conversation my whole life, cannot tell you by rote an exact definition legally of a midwife as a lawyer, that's crazy. That's a communication problem, a systemic communication problem. But yeah, but I see it all the time. It especially in health industries or service industries, there's this communication problem where you go, I would like to help people, and that's what you're offering. And and whoever you're going to is supposed to be assisting you and helping people. No, as a business that's making money off of you helping people, right? You're still helping people, and they're trying to make money off of that whole scenario, right? Right. So for this moment, you know, you may for the rest of your career with that hospital, you know, be working as a team to promote the general health and welfare of the surrounding area in our constituency. But at that moment, you are a business person making a deal with a much more prioritized business system that is not aware of you personally.

SPEAKER_01
52:14

There you go.

SPEAKER_00
52:16

They they don't know you exist either if they've offered you a job. They don't that's it's crazy. They don't they you don't exist until you've signed, then you're part of the organism, then they care. So maybe if they care, maybe, maybe hopefully at any point. You would think that uh if you know entities are people that the aspects of those people would you know be careful, but you know that real life too. Yeah, um, yeah. But before you are part of them, you are not part of them, and they just don't, they're not looking out for your best interest, you're there to look out for your best interest. Yeah, and so if you ask questions, like you said, these recruiters may not know what they're offering. Now, part of what they may not know what they're offering is ignorance of literally what they're offering. Like you said, they don't know what's in the agreement, they're just sending it out because they were told by somebody else to send it out, right? But that's one way to you know shake everything up. Another is they don't know what they're sending because they're not a lawyer, yeah, because they're not, they're an HR person, yeah, they're a compliance person, they're not there to interpret rules, they're there to execute them, right? Really, yeah, like that's not their gig. Yeah, so they may not know exactly what they're offering, and the the bar to figure out what it is is is generally kind of low. If you if you go back to AI, if an AI an AI can tell you what a non-compete is, yeah, an AI can take apart a non-compete and say how many miles, yeah, what it's stopping, and how many years if it's a half-decent AI. I mean, AI is way better than enough to do that. But the the determination of whether something is good or not, the AI has absolutely no cognizance of what good or bad is, yeah, but also what good or bad would be for you in your particular or general scenario. Yeah, keeping in mind that most of the AI that people, the general populace is using is from data that's from years ago anyway.

SPEAKER_03
54:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
54:28

So even if it could do this thing, it wouldn't do a good job.

SPEAKER_01
54:33

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the person this morning sure learned that. I mean, it was eye-opening, and I'm telling you, Denise, she was so well prepared. Wow. Like I I was I was blown away by her analysis of the offer, and I went first because she asked me to, and she's like, Yeah. It was it was interesting. Well, we're getting close. We're getting close, Isaac, to how we wrap things up with a with a call to action, unless Denise, a question's popped up in your mind. Or Isaac, you have another area you want to make sure you you highlight.

SPEAKER_00
55:10

I just wanted to slip into the AI conversation that um I have found you know at least 20 agreements with invisible white letters in the background that you can't see as a person. And if you're going through it and highlighting, you can't see. But if you put it in AI, it completely changes how the AI reads it because the AI can read those invisible background white letters. So just know that there are some.

SPEAKER_02
55:40

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00
55:41

Okay, so when you type on a Word document, the color of the letters is, you know, depending on if you're in dark mode or not, but it let's just say you're in normal mode, it's black letters. You can then change it to whatever color you want. That's the magic of word. Imagine you write a non-disparagement agreement. You cannot talk about X, Y, Z for X amount of years, yada, yada, yada. And then you highlight that whole thing and you turn it white. And then you right-click it and you say send it back. Okay, now that's in the background of your Word document. Then you take the actual agreement, you know, all 20 whatever pages of it, and then you go control V, and then that whole agreement's in there. But the non-disparagement in white letters is still in the background, hiding.

SPEAKER_02
56:24

What the heck? Mind alone. I I don't even still I don't think I can grasp it, but that sounds like weird magic demon stuff.

SPEAKER_00
56:33

Well, it's just uh it's just so you can't see it, but the AI can see it. So when the AI is analyzing it, the AI will go, Oh, there's a non-disparagement here. But there's not because you can't agree to something you can't see.

SPEAKER_01
56:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00
56:50

There's there's exceptions to that, which are called click reps. And we we already discussed um, which is the like uh end user license agreements when you go into a website and they say click this to accept, and we could have a five-hour discussion about contractual implications and how many people in the world have ever read those, which I guarantee you is less than a hundred. Because I know somebody who's read 24 of these as a contracts professor, and she went, I never want to read any of these again.

SPEAKER_01
57:22

Right. So what you're saying is beware of AI messing with the contracts.

SPEAKER_00
57:30

No, beware of people messing with AI because that's not the AI messing up. The AI is reading the thing you give it. That's all it's doing. Is it you you've given it a thing and it just understands more than what you can see, it doesn't under many layers deep. Right. It doesn't read the document that you see, got it, it reads the document. Got it, got it, got it. It includes the non-disparagement section in white, it doesn't care what color it is. Yeah, it doesn't care if you can see it, it just reads it and says it.

SPEAKER_01
58:01

So we would have these understanding.

SPEAKER_00
58:04

Yeah, but it would have every keyword, right?

SPEAKER_01
58:06

Yeah, yeah, I'm following.

SPEAKER_00
58:15

We just have all these keywords spanned everywhere to influence how the AI would understand or articulate the agreement.

SPEAKER_01
58:26

You just said one more, one more clause, Denise, that a lot of people get confused on. Can you kind of concisely talk about hold harmless clauses?

SPEAKER_00
58:36

Indemnification?

SPEAKER_01
58:37

Yeah. Indemnification, I'm just gonna look up the actual for sure definition to make sure that I can get it in simple terms because it's a little hard to because it's this is events that happen beyond your professional malpractice insurance. It it is one of the concepts that took me forever to understand.

SPEAKER_00
58:59

So part of part of the problem is I personally don't think in all of the contracts I've read, more than like five of these contracts actually understand indemnification anyway. They just say some words. Yeah, and those words are generally you agree to hold you know, green ridge. Once again, I'm just saying green ridge is a token. Um you agree to hold green ridge harmless for X, Y, and Z. And that X, Y, and Z is generally uh prior X, um, anything you've done maliciously, and that's what they're trying to protect themselves from. But identification generally, to go back to the original question, means um you agree to not go after them for compensation uh for damages or losses they've incurred related to a specific accident, incident, event, occurrence, however you want to say it. But you're basically taking a category of occurrence and saying you can't go out. The the employer is saying you cannot cross to or otherwise try and hold me liable for this specific thing.

SPEAKER_01
1:00:10

Let me give an example. Let me give an example. I'm seeing Denise in the exam room, and I have a fresh hot cup of steaming coffee on the countertop, and I knock it over with my elbow and it spills all over her and burns her skin.

SPEAKER_00
1:00:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01
1:00:29

And then she slips and falls getting off the exam table.

SPEAKER_00
1:00:36

That's a very complicated hypothetical very bad day. I would I would say, um, and I'm not meaning to make it a thing, but it depends is so real here.

SPEAKER_01
1:00:46

Yeah. But it's in that line, it's in that lane of are they responsible?

SPEAKER_00
1:00:54

Well, uh, welcome to the land of it depends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02
1:00:57

So like Jacob would say don't bring your coffee in there.

SPEAKER_00
1:01:03

Probably that that is probably an acceptable answer in some place. That would matter of fact, that may be how they would decide liability. Is is it the custom uh, but this is a serious answer. Is it the custom of the profession to never have hot liquids in whatever room? And if that is true, if that's a generally accepted custom, then you could be held to be seen as more negligent than maybe you otherwise would think you would be. Um, but indemnity is they have to say specifically what they're indemnifying, yeah.

SPEAKER_01
1:01:39

Which they don't know.

SPEAKER_00
1:01:40

Well, they do, they're just bad at it, right? So they give like vague categories, right? Right, which is not great for the employee and it's fine for the employer. So they say intentional malicious acts, right? What does that mean? Well, intentional is is pretty intuitive. You wanted or decided or should have known not to do this thing. Malicious.

SPEAKER_02
1:02:08

He threw coffee on me.

SPEAKER_00
1:02:10

Well, yeah, that's different than your your but that's a very good example. If your elbow accidentally hit it, that's not intentional. So already it's not counting, but let's say intentional isn't there. Let's just say it's malicious sex. Okay, so malicious. What's the definition of that? Malicious would mean does that mean malice or forethought? Does that mean you had to think beforehand, oh, this would hurt them, bam? Or does that mean you were fine with them being hurt? Does that mean you were so negligent that you should have thought they would have been hurt? These are you have to find the definition. And one way to find the definition is to, once again, simply ask. And another is to get an attorney. And the third way is to look it up on things like Wexlaw or some sort of legal dictionary that will help you contemplate and understand, or to find examples on free legal websites of what that means. And that really is the only way when you go through like five, 10 examples of what do these words mean, then you will actually understand what it says. And it's worth taking the 10, 20 minutes to go, yeah, what does this indemnity clause mean? There are websites that will help you for free.

SPEAKER_01
1:03:23

It's not secret information, but maybe Isaac, you can give us some of your top recommended like like um dictionary and those that we can put not today, but we'll put up on the Buzz Sprout website link to this episode. Uh, because I think Denise, that's a resource we have not suggested before, and it's a great, it's a great idea. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
1:03:45

I I can tell you right now, the one I would generally, once again, everything is it depends because in every state things change. And that's a really important thing to remember, especially for the medical profession. In every single state, things can change.

SPEAKER_03
1:04:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
1:04:01

So any answer you get about California law is more than likely not applicable to Kansas or Missouri or Nebraska. Um, so you really need to find if you're looking for interpretations of what words mean or like how it plays out, you need to find more state-specific examples. But if you want general ones, yeah, it's law.cornell.edu, it's called Wexlaw, it's free, and basically they have all of their little uh mini attorneys contribute when it's a legal dictionary.

SPEAKER_01
1:04:36

Cool. That's great. Thank you, Isaac. Yeah, thank you. Okay, we're gonna go to the call to action. And Isaac, we usually asked our guests to give the listeners something you really hope they would consider, maybe walk away with or seek out um seek out more information on around the topic.

SPEAKER_00
1:05:04

I I think the thing to keep in mind is all all of it sort of points back to you're making an agreement with another entity. Um, you are yourself a business person during this time, and they are a business, and they're trying to acquire something from you, and you're trying to acquire something from them. That is a very unemotional time in terms of what's practically happening, but it is the most emotional time in terms of the person, yeah. So getting another person to read it, whether they're legally educated or not, is generally not a bad thing ever. Maybe they'll find things you do or don't like, maybe they'll be mad about things that you're not mad about. About and you learn something. But having a ready going in ready and willing and with things written out to negotiate on and finding what your bottom line is. If they're not paying your insurance, maybe don't take the job. If they if the insurance clause says we can decide later that we won't pay for your insurance, maybe not take the job. If there's an NIL and you feel uncomfortable with them having your name forever, ask for it to be changed. That is the time. There is no personal. And even later, if you've worked there for 10 years, there is no personal relationship with the entity. Green Ridge is more than the individual people in it. And Green Ridge is not there to make the best deal for you. That's what you're there for. So go in with those things in mind. If you have questions, ask them. Don't be embarrassed because that's the whole point. Otherwise, they wouldn't do these things. Otherwise, they would just send them by email and say you accept or not. We'll see you in 10 days if you do.

SPEAKER_01
1:07:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
1:07:15

The whole point of the negotiation process is you find the things you care about, you find the things they care about, and then you argue over finding a middle ground to where everybody's the least unhappy. But everybody's kind of unhappy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01
1:07:31

Great. Thank you. Denise, do you want to go next or do you want me to? Um go for it, Ginger. Okay. I would say to really first of all, listen to this more than once. And secondly, we have a lot of people who ask, how fast can you get this done? Or I have to sign in two days. And our response is this is not a pot and pan sales deal at the front door. Here today, deal here today, gone tomorrow. This is an opportunity for you to buy yourself some time and understand that it will take time to think about it, maybe have somebody else reviewing it, as Isaac's saying, to think about the points that you want to bring up, to talk to them about, to rehearse this before you actually do it. And um to feel rushed is a rapid sale that is a big red flag to me.

SPEAKER_02
1:08:33

I should have gone before you, Ginger, because um that's very similar to what I was gonna say. So I'm gonna make mine short. And um two things that really kind of came out of just listening to Isaac was um asking, like asking yourself um or telling yourself, I believe this is reasonable. And if it doesn't seem reasonable, be fair to yourself. Like if it if it smells like poop, it's probably poop. Um, and the other thing is um, you know, be the same advocate for yourself as you would be for your patients. Like it's okay to ask, it's it's a it's it's frightening at times. Um, but if you don't, if you don't ask, you know, you won't know maybe how to understand what they're writing or how it will affect you. So be your own advocate.

SPEAKER_00
1:09:24

Yeah, that's my if I could glue those together and put a gold star on it, I would say you are willingly signing away some of your oftentimes constitutional rights for years. That sounds pretty serious. Yep, yeah, yeah, and oftentimes there is no one but you advocating for you.

SPEAKER_02
1:09:48

Yep, yep. So you are your own best advocate.

SPEAKER_00
1:09:53

You're your only advocate. So many of these agreements, you're signing away your right to a jury trial.

SPEAKER_03
1:10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00
1:10:01

Many wars have been fought over the right to a jury trial. You're signing away your First Amendment freedom of speech. Wars have been fought over your freedom of speech. Right. So it's just keep in mind what you're signing away when you're doing it and take it seriously.

SPEAKER_02
1:10:16

Yeah. I feel like I was a good student, Isaac. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01
1:10:19

I I will I will also add we have a lot of uh free webinars on our YouTube channel about many of the issues in isolation that Isaac's talked about and others as well, that you can find by searching around the Grow Midwives YouTube channel. I think we're gonna wrap it up, Denise, by talking about our next uh podcast after Isaac, which will be visiting with Dr. Liz Minos, a midwife in the state of Alabama, who has been involved with um Tima, a federal grant that came to uh 15 states to the tune of $17 million, now in year two, and how Liz has sort of woven her way into those conversations as a midwife. And you and I and many other midwives in the other states can't get anybody to answer us at all. So it'll be a fun conversation about the value and importance of advocating for midwifery and being at the table and being at the table. Yeah. It's nobody's gonna speak for us except ourselves. So, Isaac, thank you so much for coming to Isaac. It was great. Um we enjoyed having you and we look forward to our next podcast, Nate.

SPEAKER_02
1:11:37

Yes, thank you so much, everybody, for listening, taking the time to learn and be your own advocate.

SPEAKER_01
1:11:44

See you later.

SPEAKER_02
1:11:45

Bye now.

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