In this episode of Legally Bond honoring Giving Tuesday and the holiday season, Kim speaks with Bond litigation attorney Liza Magley. Liza talks about how her commitment to community service has become an integral part of her career and her family legacy of board service with the Loretto Foundation.
In this episode of Legally Bond honoring Giving Tuesday and the holiday season, Kim speaks with Bond litigation attorney Liza Magley. Liza talks about how her commitment to community service has become an integral part of her career and her family legacy of board service with the Loretto Foundation.
Hello and welcome to Legally Bond, a podcast presented by the law firm Bond, seneca and King. I'm your host, kim Wulf. Price Giving Tuesday, but Tuesday after Thanksgiving started as a hashtag really in 2012 and has grown into one of the biggest fundraising dates on the calendar. It's often called a global generosity movement. I guess it helps people focus on making a difference in their communities and giving back.
Speaker 1:Since we are in the holiday season, producer Kate had the excellent idea to focus on the spirit of giving and talk to a bond lawyer who lives those values. So I'm really happy that on today's episode we'll be talking with Liza Magley, a member in our Syracuse office whose law practice focuses on litigation, and Liza is also someone who gives back and works to make her community a better place. Hey, liza, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much, kim. I'm excited to talk to you today, as always. So this is another special edition, sort of the first time you were on for a full episode. We talked about law students applying for jobs, and today I want to talk to you about your work in the community and that focus on giving back in the midst of a busy law career. So does that work for you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so I'm going to get the fun episodes where I'm not talking about my work. This is great.
Speaker 1:We will definitely have you back to talk about trademark litigation sometime soon. I'll wait with baited breath Okay. All right, well, before we get into our conversation today, I hope maybe you'll refresh the recollection of our listeners and take a few minutes to talk about your background, where you went to law school, undergrad, how you got the bond, something like that, sure.
Speaker 2:So I went to law school at Georgetown. Before that I went to Xavier University for my undergraduate, which is in Cincinnati, ohio. It actually ties in a little bit how I landed in at Xavier into our conversation today and then getting to bond. I summered here between my second and third year while I was at Georgetown and got the offer and came back and been here ever since One of the few millennials who stuck in the same place for almost a decade.
Speaker 1:We're very glad that you are, because you grew up around the Syracuse area. You're in the Syracuse office, right I?
Speaker 2:did Yep, I went away for undergrad in law school, like I said, and I knew I always wanted to come back and part of that is because I love the community here and being part of it and giving back to it.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, thank you. And so I did also mention that you're a litigator and do, and I mentioned something about trademark litigation here, so do you want to give a quick summary of some of the work you do?
Speaker 2:Sure, so I work in generally commercial litigation and intellectual property litigation, which means if there's cases involving breach of contract, an employer having a conflict with their employee, you know that would fall under general commercial and then under the IP side. I'm doing trademark and commercial. I would never pretend to be smart enough to do the patent stuff but dealing with people who want to protect their IP rights. You know, if you're a company like Coke and someone steals your recipe, you need to make sure you protect it by litigating over that trade secret.
Speaker 1:That's great and I do know that there are patent lawyers right down the hall from you who call on you to say, hey, can you help me with this litigation thing.
Speaker 2:It's true, it's true, they do it, and I'm always a little bit intimidated because my science skills are not always up to snuff. But I'm happy to help.
Speaker 1:You have the litigation, they have the science. It's a perfect mix, I think, exactly Well, thank you for that background. I really appreciate it and I think it's good for people to have that sort of context, because you have a busy practice and there's a lot going on. Litigation is not your schedule, it's the court schedule a lot of the time. So I think it's even more important to have that context as we talk about giving back. So you were raised in a Syracuse area and, as you mentioned, came back here to establish your legal career. Was it growing up here in central New York? That sort of that desire to work for your community became important to you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and, to be honest, I didn't even know it was happening because it was just a given in my family. The way I grew up, we were giving back from the get-go. I volunteer now at the Samaritan Center, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But I started volunteering at the Samaritan Center when I was still in grammar school at Immaculate Conception here in Syracuse, so the giving experience goes way back. My family's always been very involved in the community and that's always been a pillar of how we were raised and what we grew up on. And so, yeah, it just made it easy. I knew I had to do it. It wasn't even an extra step.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It was just sort of part of the drill, exactly, and so that must have been how you began. Volunteering was through the Samaritan Center and things with your families. Then was there time when you started doing it a bit on your own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were things I took on by myself, including once I got to Christian Brothers Academy. I took a lot more of a role, not only in organizations there, but I got involved in a program with Catholic Charities that partners high school students from suburban areas around CNY with schools in the city to work at a summer camp with the kids there and then at the end of the summer you do a drive so that the kids you were working with all summer can have the school supplies that they might not necessarily be able to afford on their own. So I did that. In my summers I went to Camp Sunshine, which is up in Maine, and for kids with cancer, during that week we went through school.
Speaker 2:I've been involved in a number of different things in that regard. And then when I went on to Xavier University, I was actually a service fellow there. One of the things that brought me to Xavier was if you were someone who did a lot of service growing up, you could apply for a full ride to college. I was required to perform 15 hours of service a week for all four years that I was there and that enabled me to go to college for free but also to continue giving back and make it an easy part of my life when in college things can be a little harder to get involved in. So maintained that tradition straight through.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. I mean that's a great program that Xavier has, and smart of you on a variety of fronts to get involved with it. I just think that you should know that our Melville office will be doing a fundraiser for Camp Sunshine in May. They do a program called Sips for Sunshine which is a fundraiser.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of nice, yeah, yeah, exactly Perfect tie in and nice to see our sort of newest office right in line with the things that we believe in at the firm. Absolutely so. As lawyers, you know there are many ways we can give back. Pro bono, of course, is one of the first newer part of our special pro bono episode for pro bono week. Will you just talk a bit about your pro bono work and why giving back that way is important for lawyers?
Speaker 2:Sure, as I mentioned in that pro bono episode, I think part of being a professional is giving back and using the skills you've gained in your profession to better your community. At the beginning of the office, jim Halpert says something about how this is just a job. If it were my career, I'd do something completely different, and I think the difference between having a job and having a career is sometimes what's the extra thing that you're doing to better the community around you, as opposed to going in day to day. And that's what pro bono is for lawyers and that's what makes it a really important part of our practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a way to sort of bridge that access to justice gap. And for us to use this law license, we have to better the communities around us. I think that's a great way to put it and pro bono work. It has values for the lawyers too, obviously. Hopefully we're doing good for any of the clients, but there's a value for the lawyers in there.
Speaker 2:The outside of the intangible value of just you know, feeling good when you get to help other people and work with other people on their situations.
Speaker 2:It helps you build your skills. You know I practiced, for instance, with the volunteer lawyers project in the landlord tenant proceedings and when I first started at Bond that was some of the scariest work I did, simply because I had to get up on my feet and think on my feet in front of a judge and you're not giving a lot of information. You have to work quickly and you know when you have the benefit of a long time in a case to dig in and think and practice before you go up before a judge. That's also a value. But knowing you can do it in you know, in an instant and positively advocate for someone is is a really helpful skill. So it provides you those opportunities. We have folks in our office who have done entire trials for people dealing with prisoner rights, litigation and things like of that nature. So it's a great way to build your skill set and help someone else you know with whatever situation they find themselves in.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it also exposes our lawyers who are business lawyers right, that's what we do at the firm to different areas of law. You mentioned landlord tenant, civil rights case for a prisoner. I think you're even doing some work on an immigration case, which is not something that you typically do, so that's another way to sort of expand your own scope while doing good, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it gives you a chance to work with other attorneys. For instance, the immigration case you brought up, I'm getting to work with a colleague out in our Albany office who doesn't do the same work as me and we don't often get to work together. So it's also a way to kind of get to know your colleagues and their skill sets. And from a business perspective that's of course helpful because you know if a client comes in and says they have an issue, you know who can work on it or who to at least ask.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you do get that moment where this is a client who might not otherwise be able to access these services and you really can make an impact.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So probably I'll work. The first thing I think people think of is like how lawyers give back, but it's certainly not the only way that people can be involved throughout bonds. Many of us you know this. There's members of the bond team that participate in a lot of community activities, whether it's the United Way programs, cleanups, things like the Samaritan Center, reading in schools and many other activities. So you also help out at the Samaritan Center through a bond program. Will you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So the Samaritan Center is an organization here in Syracuse that feeds individuals who are experiencing poverty, homelessness, whatever the case may be, and they serve breakfasts. And they serve what's called dinner, but it's kind of more of a between lunch and dinner time and the attorneys at bond and our staff and really anyone at bond who wants to get involved, which is part of what makes it really fun. We go and at least once a month we serve breakfast. So we arrive on site around 6 am. We do whatever's needed.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's actually serving, sometimes it's doing the dishes in the back, sometimes it's cleaning the bathrooms. Whatever work needs to be done, we do it and assist. And it's really a great opportunity to work with other people in our community who also want to give back, but also to work with the people coming in. Sometimes you know just being there and being an ear for someone to talk to is just as valuable as you know the apple or whatever it is they're taking for their day. So that's a really rewarding experience and, like I said, it's great to do it with all of our any colleague, as opposed to just lawyers or just staff. It's really a group effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a really important part, and you know you're a new partner at the firm. There are so many benefits of getting our people out in the communities together, working together to help our neighbors, and I think that that's a really important part about the culture, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Oh, it for sure is, and I think that's true across all of our offices. At Bond we really like you just said, melville, one of our newest offices is already engaged. I think if you called on anyone in any office across Bond like, our culture is to be part of the communities in which we're working. So we're not just people who are coming in and working at our desks and then driving out to wherever we live. We're people who want to work with our communities and, you know, no task is too big or too small for us to take on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the United Way in Syracuse. I know other offices do that as well. You know you might be cleaning whiteboards, decorating a daycare center, weeding painting, cleaning bathrooms, whatever. It is right Because for that day we take on a project and really want to help that organization that not for profit, get up to speed and be able to serve the people that they need to serve.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So, ok, we have pro bono work and volunteering to work for organizations and not for profits, but that is board service, and I'm not sure this is as clear for people. So, if you wouldn't mind, we talk a little bit about what board services, because a lot of people may have heard the term but don't fully understand what that means.
Speaker 2:Sure. So board service usually means that you sit on a board for a not-for-profit entity and what that means is you're kind of stewards or fiduciaries of that entity. And when you think of the word steward it's shepherding, it's guiding. So you're not, you know, the president making the decisions on a day-to-day basis, but you're the folks that they come to for advice. You approve certain things. You, you know, determine what the best outcomes are, maybe the mission and vision of the organization, and you work together.
Speaker 2:And if you're, for instance, on a fundraising board, you deal with, you know, getting out in the community, making connections, bringing money in for the organization. If you're on the management side of a board, you are helping those folks in the C-suite make the decisions that align with the mission of the organization. And then, of course, in addition to board service, there's committee work. So you might not be specifically on that board, you might just be on a committee, whether it's a nominating committee, which would be a group that helps find new people for the board, or a finance committee, which would deal with just the dollars and the numbers and help the board in that way. That's kind of a good way in a lot of situations to get involved if you want to be on a board in the future but they don't have openings. You join a committee, you get to know it and you see what you can do to join the board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would think that you know lawyers are problem solvers, right. That's sort of in that, if we really want to get to it, that's what we try to do and that perspective is probably helpful sitting on a board.
Speaker 2:It makes a big difference and any board can use someone who's a problem solver. And what's fun about a lot of boards, honestly, is you're getting all the people who are interested in doing problem solving from a lot of different industries and areas. So you're meeting like minded individuals who are excited about helping their communities that might think about things in a way a lawyer doesn't think. You know, sometimes we think in kind of a linear fashion, whereas an entrepreneur is kind of thinking in a web fashion and going in a million directions at once. So it's kind of refreshing to get different problem solvers in the same room that way.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's got to be really a rewarding way to build professional relationships and skills as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So I have to say, one of the coolest things that I know you're involved with and some of your work is with Little Redo Foundation and that's because you are a third generation board member and I just really think that's so important for Central New York. You know, whatever community someone lives in, right Like a third generation member of a family, is like I want to give back. So will you talk a little bit about the Little Redo Foundation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely an organization I'm proud to be affiliated with. So the Little Redo Foundation supports the Little Redo Corporation, which is an entity in Central New York that serves mostly elderly but anyone who really needs that continuum of care assistance. And what I mean by continuum of care is that Little Redo wants you to start using their PACE program, which is kind of an aging in place in your home. They'll help you drive places it's a day program all the way up, you know, to your independent living and into your assisted living. And Little Redo is doing a lot with memory care too, which is where we bring in folks who aren't necessarily within that elder population as you know it. And in addition to assisting the Little Redo Corporation with performing that work, the Foundation also serves the individuals who work for Little Redo. And it's one of the things I think is really cool and sets the Little Redo Foundation apart is that, in addition to empowering our elders to live life with purpose and dignity, we're empowering the people who serve them, whether it's through a diaper bank, which provides diapers to any parent or grandparent every single month who works for Little Redo that needs it for their kids, whether it's supporting people in their CNA training programs.
Speaker 2:We have a we Care Fund, which Little Redo's employees actually give grants to their fellow employees when they experience an emergency or hardship. So instead of those off, you know, oh, raise 10 bucks here and there because someone experienced a you know surprising life event and need help, you can apply for a grant up to $1,000. So, for instance, we've had an employee who had unexpected death in her family. She was able to apply and pay for part of the funeral costs which she wouldn't otherwise have been able to do. So it's nice because in an area like CNY where we have people who are experiencing poverty but want to work and get jobs you know those training programs, the we Care Fund there are ways to help people want to stay at a job and it makes them happy to be there, it makes the people they're serving happy and it's just, it's a virtuous cycle.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's one of the things that often stops people from getting out of a cycle. And if someone's experiencing poverty and then one setback can really just pummel everything right, like, well, I have to quit the job now and I can't, but having those types of supports is a great way to help people stay in it, advance maybe, do additional training and keep going like to wherever goal they have.
Speaker 2:Loretto's been kind of on the cutting edge for some time and I can say that confidently because my grandpa was the first chair of the foundation in 1974. And then my mom was on the foundation and then the management corporation after that. Now I'm on the foundation, so it definitely has its roots in our community and it's really a great organization that lives out the mission that I just discussed, but also, you know, being in a room with a lot of problem solvers, people in our community like supporting Loretto and Loretto Foundation, so it's also a great opportunity for me to work with a lot of folks from different areas and industries in our community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing and I really do love that. You know your grandfather was the he found. Did he was one of the people who found it, or was he the first president?
Speaker 2:So what? Loretto was founded before the foundation corporation to be. So the Loretto was actually founded in 1926. And when it's first opening of the heritage and it was run completely by nuns. So it was the first diocesan run sort of elder care situation. And over time it just grew and grew and Monsignor Fahey, who recently passed away, helped grow it. He's from CNY and he sat on three presidents Council of On Aging and my grandpa and other people in the community knew the good Loretto was doing and Monsignor Fahey, and so they formed the Not For Profit Corporation in order to continue advancing the needs of Loretto, Because obviously the diocese in the 20s probably wasn't making enough money to form to perform medical procedures and take care of people and do things like that. So Loretto existed before that but the Corp, the management corporation, the Not For Profit Corporation, came to be in the 70s. So my grandpa assisted with that and then became the first chair of that.
Speaker 1:That's great. And then your mom was part of that and the management corporation. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you mentioned that Big shoes to fill for on both parts. But that's just an example of what I was saying at the beginning that serving and giving back is in our family's DNA. It's an expectation. It's not anything you have to try very hard to do. You just do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's fantastic, and you did just get to appear on our Central New York area morning show talking about your work in that third generation time on a board right.
Speaker 2:I did yeah In honor of Giving Tuesday. I went on Bridge Street on Monday and gave a spiel about Loretto and why people should consider giving to the foundation, and appeared alongside Jennifer Janes, the director of the foundation.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's really great. So, with a variety of community work you do, you said it's in your DNA. Is that what motivates you to volunteer?
Speaker 2:I think something that's in your DNA can't necessarily motivate you to do something, because you're just doing it automatically. So I don't want to give myself too much of a pass. But what motivates me is that that tradition has demonstrated that giving back and being engaged in your community is so important. You know, I think there's a book I can't remember the name of the book the word bowling is in the title. I can look it up, but it's about how communities are starting to lose touch because people don't belong to bowling leagues anymore. And while I think there's probably a lot of other issues for why people aren't in touch and not bowling, the idea is there.
Speaker 2:I think in our increasingly virtual world, especially after COVID, it's easy to lose touch with, like the physical community and what you live, and when you do that you lose your connections to the community. So giving back is a way to maintain that connection, because without them you're not growing the community, you're not making it a better place, and working with others, regardless of where they're at in their lives, to make the place you live the place you want it to be, not to just stay the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really like that. That's great. That's a great way to think about it. So that hashtag giving Tuesday should be something that people think about all year and all the time, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I think so and I think that if people get caught up in the giving aspect, being of treasure, there's always time and talent. As we've discussed on this call, no amount is too big or small if you can give financially. But giving back you can do in myriad ways Volunteering at the Samaritan Center, being on a board those aren't things I have to financially give to and those are things I get to provide my time and my talent. So people shouldn't be intimidated by that money aspect of giving. Certainly it's important, but it shouldn't be a reason someone doesn't get involved in staying engaged in their community.
Speaker 1:That's an excellent point and a really important one, because that's how you can start really young too.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, Liza. Thanks for taking the time to join us on the podcast today. I think you're one of the great examples of how Bond gives back, and we appreciate you talking to us about how lawyers and law firm professionals can make a difference in the communities we serve, and this isn't about getting credit or being a savior. It's about truly sort of seeing the need around you, the people around you, using your time, your talent or your treasure to help however you can. So thanks, liza.
Speaker 2:No, thank you Kim.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into this episode of Legally Bond. If you are listening and have any questions for me, want to hear from someone at the firm who have a suggestion for a future topic, please email us at LegallyBond at bskcom. Also, don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to Legally Bond wherever podcasts are downloaded. Until our next talk, be well.
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