In this episode of Legally Bond, Kim speaks with Bond school law attorneys Candace Gomez, Kate Reid and Sara Visingard. Candace and Kate, who co-chair the firm's school law practice group, discuss the recent expansion of the practice group which brought Sara and five of her colleagues to the Bond Buffalo and Rochester offices. Additionally, Sara explains how the collaborative nature of the firm's practice groups has made for a seamless transition to Bond.
Learn more about the recent attorney growth of the school law practice group, here.
In this episode of Legally Bond, Kim speaks with Bond school law attorneys Candace Gomez, Kate Reid and Sara Visingard. Candace and Kate, who co-chair the firm's school law practice group, discuss the recent expansion of the practice group which brought Sara and five of her colleagues to the Bond Buffalo and Rochester offices. Additionally, Sara explains how the collaborative nature of the firm's practice groups has made for a seamless transition to Bond.
Learn more about the recent attorney growth of the school law practice group, here.
Hello and welcome to Legally Bond, a podcast presented by the law firm Bond, seneca and King. I'm your host, kim Wulf Price. We have a special episode today. Not only do we have both of Bond's school law practice group leaders with us for today's episode, but we also have one of the newest members of Bond, who joined the firm honestly, sarah, just a few days ago. Right, that's right. Well, the practice group leaders are Kenneth Gomez and Kate Reed, and we also have new member, sarah Visengard, and they're all with us today. We're going to be talking a bit about each of them, about school law generally and about the expansion of the school law practice here at Bond. Welcome to you all. Thank you for joining me on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:Glad to be here.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us, kim. I love talking to all of you, so this is great. It's a pleasure for me. I'm excited to catch up with you and to talk about school law. We have a lot to get to. If it's okay with each of you, though, I do like to start the podcast episodes learning a little bit about each of our guests for the day, so that the listeners can know who's speaking with them. Candice, if it's okay with you, I'd like to start with you. Will you tell us a bit about your background, where you're from? School law school.
Speaker 2:Whatever you'd like, sure Happy to share that. I grew up on Long Island, new York, went to college at Tufts University in Massachusetts. From there I went to American University Washington College of Law in Washington DC. When I graduated from law school my first job was at Bond in the Syracuse office. I worked in the Syracuse office for about three years doing litigation work.
Speaker 2:I was in the litigation department and that is when I fell in love with school law, so started working with school law clients and practicing school law during that time period wanted to move back to Long Island to be closer to family, so from there I left Bond and went to a different firm where I was practicing school law for another six or seven years and during that time period the Bond office on Long Island in Garden City went through some really notable expansions, including making that school law practice a bigger part of the firm's focus. So I was happy to be invited back to Bond and I've been back at Bond since about 2017. I became a member of the firm, a partner at the firm, in about 2019, and just thrilled to be co-chairing a school law practice group with Kate.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic and I remember you from those days when you were first at Bond and you used to come and help out at Syracuse Law. So it's really fun to get to work with you now with your leadership roles in the firm, and we're very glad you came back home. Thank you, kim. All right, so, kate, it's so funny sometimes when I ask these questions. The listeners may know this or not, but sometimes I know these answers. But I always still learn things when people talk and introduce themselves. So I love it. I've known Kate for a year or two or 10.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kim knows all my secrets and remembers me when I was a baby, at law school, so she's certainly understating the length of the relationship.
Speaker 1:Well, and I'm very lucky that I have had this long relationship with you. So would you mind giving that same kind of background about yourself?
Speaker 3:Sure. So I was born in Canada and relocated to the United States, and when I was about 14 years old when my mother got a college teaching position at the University of Maine so I'm a proud dual citizen of both the United States and Canada. I attended undergraduate at Miami University of Ohio and then came to Syracuse Law for Law School and you know just, I guess was at that point in my life where I was ready to put down roots. So I ended up staying in Syracuse. After I left Syracuse Law and with the exception of one year where I was in house at Ithaca City School District, is their general counsel, which I like to say was my nice foray into the public sector for a year. The rest of my career has been here at Bond, serving districts in an outside council capacity, which is really my jam.
Speaker 3:Similar to Candice, I didn't start in school law.
Speaker 3:I started as a general commercial litigator in bonds litigation department, which was an outstanding training, I think, and from there I realized that my practice was becoming, you know, increasingly more proportionately the schoolwork and, frankly, more importantly, like Candice, that was the work that I was actually enjoying.
Speaker 3:That was the work that was making me want to get up and go to work every day and work hard and I just love the clients, I love the issues. I think that the work I like to joke that our practice is really a public you know, a public interest practice embedded within a corporate law firm. So we're really lucky to be able to do work that is good with the support of an amazing firm like Bond that has all the resources and infrastructure to support our school clients so well. So, like Candice, I have been co-chairing the practice now since about 2021, which was an amazing opportunity for me to assume a leadership role in the practice, and it's great. We're very happy to be growing, which we're going to hear about pretty soon, but we've had some wonderful recent growth that I think is going to position up to serve our school clients even better into 2024 and beyond.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Thanks, kate. Well, and Sarah, I think we may have met each other earlier than I've even met these two folks, since we were in law school at the same time, and I'd like to give you the chance to talk to the listeners. Tell them a little bit about you. You do school law and you have private clients in labor and employment, so, but would you give us a little bit about who Sarah is? Absolutely.
Speaker 4:Thank you. So I grew up in Newark, new York, and then I went to Nazareth College here in Rochester. From there, I ended up commuting to Syracuse University for law school. Right out of law school, I joined the labor and employment practice group at another firm in town and I was there for 20 years. While I was there, I discovered school law, and I really enjoy that. I was able to have that mix of the private sector labor and employment work as well as the education law, school law work and, as Kate and Candace said, that really is what drives me. I love being able to represent all clients with regard to labor and employment work, but also the work that we do to help best serve our school district and both these clients and ultimately do what's best for students. It's really what I'm very passionate about, so I'm glad to be here. I've been here for six days, learning a lot from everyone and just really excited to grow and learn together. It's been fantastic so far and I'm excited for the future.
Speaker 1:That's great, and you didn't come by yourself. I think there were a few of you who came over at the same time. That is true. That's great, and I think we'll be hearing from those folks at different points of time on the podcast coming up soon. So while we are glad you're bringing those 20 years of experience to us now, then we're glad to have you here, thank you. So, kanis and Kate, I mentioned that you were the leaders of the school law practice group, and sometimes when I speak I realize that's like insider-y. So the practice group is what focuses on a particular area of law, but maybe we need to know a little bit more about that. So one of you start out and tell us a little bit about the school law practice group at Bond Kanis.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to kick it off Absolutely. So when we look at the Bond law firm, we're a large firm. We have about 11 offices in New York state alone. We also have offices in some other states such as Massachusetts and Kansas, but within the entire firm structure we have about 300 attorneys at any given time. So we're a large firm with all of the resources that come along with having a large firm. We practice in every area of the law except for criminal law and family law. Everything else we do. We have people who focus on intellectual property, construction, on environmental law. Anything else that you can think about we do. And I mention that because that gives us a great advantage as a school law practice group, because we have kind of a boutique firm within a larger firm. Within that larger firm we have about 50 school attorneys that practice in the area of K through 12 education law, representing public school districts, private schools, charter schools.
Speaker 2:We do everything in the realm of K through 12 education law that you can think of, and by doing that we often face issues that may span into other practice areas.
Speaker 2:So, for example, if one of our clients has a data breach, a school district client calls us and says we were hacked yesterday and we don't know what to do about this situation because our student records have been put in jeopardy and we don't know how to handle it.
Speaker 2:You don't have to deal with a school lawyer trying to come up with an answer on this spot about a completely different area of the law. We can reach out to one of our colleagues who works in cybersecurity and say we have this problem, can you work with our client on it? And they can hit the ground running because they already have that really substantial, important experience. So we're really fortunate to have a small enough group that we have those really personal, deep connections with our clients. They're able to call us and contact us at any time. We know their children's names, we know where they went to school, have all of the types of relationships that you would expect with a smaller firm, but we also have the added advantage and support of that large number of resources that comes with any type of firm of our big size. So we have the best of both worlds in my opinion.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic and, kate, I don't know if there's anything you'd want to add there, but I guess also we probably should define what do we mean by school law?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, kim. So law firms organize practices in different ways. After at Bond, like Candace said, we have both subject matter practice groups as well as industry specific practice groups, and the school law group I think really intersects both of those. It's a group that is focused on K-12 education and really anything that falls within that umbrella, so that would be your public schools, public school districts in New York State, as well as charter schools, which are a type of public school in a lot of regards.
Speaker 3:Non-public schools, parochial schools, independent schools, schools that contract with the state to serve students with disabilities, preschools, providers of services to preschools all fall within that education umbrella and we have attorneys within our practice that really serve clients in all those categories. We do not do the higher ed. We have a separate practice group that is dedicated to that industry because it really is a lot of similarities and overlap but also different considerations and issues that come up in higher ed. But if it's K-12, it's within our practice. So we focus on that industry, but then within that also, like Candace said, we have attorneys all of the areas of law and the substantive areas of law that impact educational institutions as well as ifsachtli. Okay.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, I think that understanding just the fact that there's so much that goes in to school law, it's everything from, you know. There's unions involved, there's procurement, there's state regulations, there's hiring at high levels, there's student discipline, there's employee discipline, there's everything involved, and it really is pretty fascinating and broad, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Kim, one of the things I always share.
Speaker 3:I may have shared this the last time I was on your podcast, but one of the best examples of the point you just made, just in the terms of the breadth of areas that impact school districts. Back in the 2016 time period, many of our districts were very surprised to learn that they qualify as public operators of water under the EPA's water guidelines and, as a result, we're responsible in many instances for doing lead testing in their existing well system. You know, if you asked your average school superintendent, when they go to get an educational leadership certificate, if they thought they'd be running a public water supply, my guess is the answer for most would be I had no idea. Right, and that's just one of many, many examples of the complexity of issues that impact schools in our state. Schools are really responsible for two of the most precious things I think we have in our society our children, and they have to deal with employee issues. But it's so much more broad than that. They're also landlords, you know. They're also, like I said, public water supply operators.
Speaker 3:They're often having to be the arbiter between angry parents in custody to see you know, I think people are often surprised to learn that school law is a life's work, and it really is a life's work. There's something that I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of all of us that we all learn something new every day in this area, because the complexity of issues that intersect in this particular industry are extremely complex and far-flung.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, I think that the water supply is definitely one I would never have guessed at all. And then I think about things like school districts have radio stations, sometimes right, and then they like, as you said, they lease or they need to lease or they have an agreement to they don't have a pool, so they have to use someone else's pool. Like all of those different things that happen really is just must be, a constantly evolving area.
Speaker 3:And it's all tightly regulated, which is why there's a lot of work for all of us and the need for so many team members to support this industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Right, because, as you said, it's one of the most precious things, it's like the next generation of our communities, and so it's overseen and regulated Well. Sarah, you joined, as I mentioned recently, with a group of your colleagues was joining this group at. Bond was part of it. That sort of depth and size of this practice group, is that what drew you a little bit to the firm 100%.
Speaker 4:That statewide presence is very exciting and I know our viewers can't see the chart that I'm showing you here, but that was one of the things that I was really eager to learn about, along with my colleagues, and Kate and Candice took the time to prepare a chart by subject.
Speaker 4:Area of here are some of the go-to people throughout the office and the firm as a whole when particular issues come up, and it's been invaluable in the six short days I've been here and will continue to be in the future. You know, yesterday I had an issue come up where a school district is going through some rebranding and has a new mascot and they had some questions related to trademarks and so a couple of doors down I have Tariah Jenkins and she said that's me and I was so excited so, just to be able to make that connection, already sent some construction work to another partner colleague in this office, had a question come up in this area about the application of herbicides, so reached out to a partner colleague in the Syracuse office he was right on it and then questions about the traditional labor and employment, the workplace violence prevention, the COVID, paid leave, just getting to me and know so many people who have you know that different subject matter knowledge and practice. It's just been outstanding.
Speaker 1:That's great. That's really great to hear, and I know that you're active in a lot of organizations, both on the private client side and the school outside, including the New York State Association of School Attorneys, so you must have met a lot of bond attorneys over the years.
Speaker 4:Hopefully those relationships were part of it, as well, yeah, actually, the relationships that I established through the New York State Association of School Attorneys is what originally Inspired me to make a phone call and, ultimately, what led all of us here today.
Speaker 1:So that's also Fantastic, that's fantastic.
Speaker 3:We have the wonderful distinction now, kim, of having and I don't think there's any other firm that can claim this, but we have three either current or former sitted Nice sasa board presidents. Now with us it's awesome is our school wide association for school attorneys. So we now have three. What our active president is? Alice Matthews, who's out of our garden city office, and then obviously Sarah has been a past president as well, and one other that is escaping my mind right now, but we have had a really, you know, really great showing from nice asset leadership as well in this practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and Candice, you've been on the board, I think, in the planning committee, right.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm currently on the nice sasa board and you know the way that the board works is Each person gets an opportunity over the years to be elevated to presidents. So just learning from people like Sarah and Allison so that when I take the mantle I'll know what to do. So it's been great.
Speaker 1:That's great. I think one of the things about bond for me is always that relationship building and the connecting people. I think it's a big part of it. Allison I met her in moments later. She was volunteering me for things. But, to be fair, I also have volunteered her for things. So, and you, I think except for Sarah, it's only because it's day six I have volunteered Candice and Kate for things in the past before too. So you should just know that Sarah Sorry, well can is. There must be a lot of factors to consider when bringing a number of attorneys into a practice group. That's, you know, was working really well. Things are going great, they have great clients. So what were some of the things that you thought about when you brought in this group?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Yes, we were happy with how our practice group was functioning, but one thing that's undeniable is every organization is always enhanced when you have new talent right, and we've just been very fortunate to have the growth and expansion of new, really talented attorneys about. Let's see, early January we took on five new attorneys on Long Island that were at a previous school law firm. So that was a jump for us and we were thrilled to bring them on board. And right on the heels of that we have the attorneys that have come over from a different law firm where they were practicing in Rochester and Buffalo, including Sarah and the rest of her team members, and that's just opened a tremendous opportunity for us to bounce ideas off of Really smart, really friendly colleagues. So we're just really happy to bring them into the fold.
Speaker 2:They have many of the same Mindsets as we do in terms of how we view education, because, although we represent school districts, I think you'll find that most of us in our hearts really want to advance the mission of Public schools and really care about the educational process for students. We realize that education is a game changer for so many of our families and anything that we can do to be part of that process in a Positive way we want to do. We are kind of behind the scenes in many instances, but we certainly do what we can to make the educational process more fair, to make it more productive for our students and families, and I think that makes a big difference. Our clients know that our hearts are in it. It's not just a business venture for us. It's something that we feel devoted to and connected to on an emotional level as well as a mental level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can definitely see that from all of you that the point is to make sure that this Functions as it should for the good of our communities. Right, that's, that's what, what everyone is trying to do. Well, kate, so how is your practice group in the firm? I mean, I know it started way before six days ago, but how are you working to incorporate the new attorneys into the team?
Speaker 3:Well, it's happening really very organically, chem, which I think is kind of confirmation and Affirmation to Candice and I that this was really a great move and a great decision to move forward with, you know, getting these new team members. We took steps yesterday. We we can't as I hosted a weekly practice group meeting with our all of our core practice group members. It's usually done virtually so we can have all of the offices together, so we had the opportunity to introduce all of our new colleagues to our you know, existing Colleagues. We have Opportunities set up to also introduce all these folks during our webinar series in the coming months as well.
Speaker 3:We didn't talk about the webinar, but it's a big part of our outreach and our support for our clients. We provide professional development in the form of a monthly school law 101 webinar and that serves a number of great Functions. It's a great way to provide value add to our clients for working with us, because they're able to get professional development on various topics Impact school operation but it's also a great way for them to get our clients to get exposed to team members and to particularly our new team members. So we're going to be looking for opportunities to get them in front of our Existing client base and them the same to get in front of their existing client base. So we can all start working together and cross-collab reading. That is happening already pretty organically. I was asking and again us this morning on a consultation. Sarah called me on something yesterday, so we're all starting to figure out what everybody does and how we can all support each other and provide even greater support and more Prompt of client.
Speaker 1:I do think what it's organic like that and it just serves like there's obviously always planning that goes into things. But when you can see that happening organically it's, it's just sort of a very natural fit. And you know, I confess I try to get invited to those school law meetings all the time. I'm like hey sure.
Speaker 3:The best practice group meetings in the firm. Everybody wants to attend them. They're in high demand. The other thing, kim too, is that we're going to be doing some events too too early to give any specific dates or times or anything like that yet. But we will be looking to do some just social events and are in the big areas in which we have a large Concentration of school clients to allow our clients have that opportunity to meet all of the new team members and just to have that, that face to face I think will be really important as well.
Speaker 5:We're looking at the.
Speaker 3:NISBA conference, the New York State School Board's Association conference and, yeah, I hope there's a great kind of opportunity for that but also some local events in Rochester and Buffalo as well.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, and I know that there's already been talked by some of the other new folks that came in about how they can expose our other practice groups to A variety of people, you know, who may do something different, who are active in schools, whether they be school board members or anything else. So it seems like it's a very organic Conversation of everyone working together already, which which is fantastic. So, sarah, how is the transition been going for you? I mean it's it's been a lot of work. Right, you have to tell clients, move clients. There's so much behind the scenes. How is letting everyone know you're now at bond?
Speaker 4:It's actually been going incredibly well, to your point. There's a lot of work involved, but our clients have really been tremendous in supporting us Through the transition. They just wanted to hear that we were still going to be there Once. We assured them that we were, and now we would have an even bigger and stronger team with a statewide presence. They really just embraced this. The client this morning said it the best. He checked in a superintendent in a local district and he said so you've been there a few days, how's it going? I gave by way of example the School Law Practice Group meeting that we had yesterday. I'm a giant nerd and there were all these other people that were so excited about the same issues throughout the state. He said I can tell that you're so excited and I love that for you. That's really the reaction that we've been getting across the board and it just has been incredible. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:I shared with the School Law Group yesterday as welcome that we actually have a couple of shared clients across the firm as well, where Sarah's team had actually done work for those clients independently before they came to Bond and we also do work. That's been probably the most charming thing because those folks know all of us but just in different associated with different organizations, the feedback we're getting there has been nothing but wonderful. Saying this is a match made in heaven Dream Marriage was a text I got from a client who's worked with both of our teams. I think the feedback we're getting from clients that are familiar with everybody is that this just was inevitable and was a great idea to make this happen. That's always so reassuring when we get that feedback from clients who obviously are their opinion that matters the most.
Speaker 1:Candice mentioned earlier that we brought in other School Law Terms on Lilein, which I think earlier this year we had that same flowed and came easily, I think about it. For those of you who don't know New York Geography, you're just going to have to listen to me geek out. But from Suffolk County all the way through Long Island, new York City, up Westchester Hudson Valley into the Adirondacks and then, if you were in West Virginia, you'd have to call it the 90 across Interstate 90, all the way to Buffalo and the Southern Tier.
Speaker 1:There are bond school district clients Candice right Like that whole area.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. We span the entire state of New York and it's not just the geographic reach that is so important to us, but it's the experiences. We often talk in our School Law Practice Group about how something will start kind of percolating on Long Island Then no one in, let's say, Buffalo or Rochester had heard about it yet. But over time they say, aha, it's hit us. It works in the opposite direction. Sometimes there are things that happen in one part of the state that may not be urgent to a district, but being on the lookout for it, knowing how to approach it before it hits your particular client, has been really advantageous for us so that we don't have to recreate the wheel. We reach out to a colleague who saw that happening two weeks before it came across our desk and we've already got a game plan in place. So that's been wonderful for us to have that geographic reach and the depth and breadth of experienced attorneys.
Speaker 1:That's great, and just strengthening it six days ago, it's really pretty fantastic. So, while there, I have to come up with new topics and there are other questions and I have to plan on the podcast set to add the other new folks who've joined us, because producer Kate Femiya has a plan and my job is to execute her plan here. So I want to make sure I'm sprinkling in the conversation some things that maybe we can talk about with the other attorneys. So please tell me along the way, call me, email, text me, let me know what our other topics should be as we roll those out. But on the school front, I know school elections are coming up in about two months from when we air, I think. And, kate, there's like one change that's so different than the last time you were on when we were talking about COVID and things, but this is a little bit of a different change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our last time I was on the podcast we had a fully virtual election, basically with fully absentee ballots, which has happened once and I doubt it will happen again, hopefully, anytime soon. That was a really special election year, so the only change that we've gone back to normal voting, normal polls, normal processes. The big change for this year that we're getting lots of questions from our school clients about is early mail-in voting, which has turned out to be not as much of a big deal as everybody was concerned it would be. The state promulgated forms for the application for those early mail-in ballots and most of our clients are integrating that new information pretty seamlessly into their election processes. But it is something that all of us live in a school district and vote in a school district.
Speaker 3:Anyone that's listening to this is in that position, and this is another way that our legislature has come up with to increase civic engagement and to increase voter turnout and to make sure that people are engaged in school board elections. So school boards are at the apex of so many issues and contentious issues in our society. I really hope that anyone listening to this utilizes that early mail-in voting process if they have not voted previously in a school board election to be able to participate, yeah. And then we have some interesting COVID related developments too that maybe Sarah can talk about as well, that are kind of racking our practice the last few weeks.
Speaker 1:I know I keep thinking that we're going to stop talking about that, but, sarah, not just yet right.
Speaker 4:Not quite yet. So some people may have seen that the CDC eliminated the quarantine requirements for COVID and so there's the need to reconcile that with the New York state paid COVID leave. And our initial interpretation that we're still vetting just to make sure everybody's on the same page is that because the New York state paid COVID leave, requirements were tied to the period of quarantine or isolation, that because that's no longer a thing, then there's no more entitlement to paid leave. So we'll be. I understand the labor and employment group will be posting a blog in the near future and we're still looking for the state to update its guidance before we can say definitively that that's no longer a thing in New York state.
Speaker 1:All right. So one of these days that is going to diminish in our conversation. And here's something that I don't know, if even Candice and Kate know, but I'm actually the kid of a former small city school board president. Mom was the Utica city school district president when I was a kid, so all of these I did not know that that's fascinating.
Speaker 2:Surprised that I haven't learned that about people. Wow Okay.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I may have stood by the phone that year, often being like call school day, call school day, call snow day, call snow day, you know like when you. But so this has all been something that's always been very important to me. So I love getting the chance to talk to you about your passion for the work and all of this and, candice, you mentioned how broad everything is, but just to give people a sense, it's labor and employment attorneys. Sometimes you call on our property attorneys, our environmental attorneys, our business attorneys, our IP attorneys, as Sarah just mentioned and unfortunately, sometimes our litigators as well. So this really is like, while there's this great core group, there's this vast resource behind you, isn't?
Speaker 2:there. Absolutely we couldn't do the work that we do at the level that we do without their support. I mean just to use the last example you mentioned about litigation the Child Victims Act cases. They've been coming at districts fast and furious in some unfortunate cases. We never like to see them in any capacity, but it's a reality that our clients have to deal with and it's been a huge benefit to us to have really outstanding litigators who are able to take on those cases on behalf of our school districts and work with them through the process. So that's just one example of many.
Speaker 2:I'll give another really quick example of something that I never thought of when I was going into school. But one of our clients has a soccer field and a local business apparently didn't want to dispose of their waste properly, so they decided in the middle of the night to just dump all of it on the soccer field. Some of that waste had asbestos and other debris that was harmful. And of course I had to reach out to our environmental attorneys and say what do we do about this? And they have the contacts at the EPA, they have the contacts at all of these environmental agencies, so they're literally able to pick up the phone and speak to someone that they talk to on a daily, if not weekly, basis and figure out how we handle this properly, which is something that the average school attorney wouldn't really come across. So it's just wonderful. We never know when these instances will come about, but 99% of the time we've got someone who knows exactly what to do, so that's been great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but when you probably never thought you'd be protecting kids against waste being dumped on a soccer field.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And if I'll throw in one more thing, because I don't wanna forget this, we've talked a lot about the work, but I don't want us to lose sight of the people. That's what makes it really gratifying for us to lead this practice group. We have great, great people on our team, of course, with the introduction of Sarah and her colleagues and the ones on Long Island that I mentioned, but even before that, we just have a spectacular group.
Speaker 2:When we talk about friendly people, funny people, I mean some of these things we really have to laugh at because school law you never know what's gonna be thrown at you on any given day and we have bizarre outlandish questions that at one point we'll write a book or a movie because no one will believe that this is actually what we do as a profession. But these are people that can take it all and stride with the laugh, while also being professional and smart enough to help us get to the answer. So really happy about that. And the clients the clients are great. We have great employees, administrators, superintendents, school board members that we work with and it's so refreshing to have those experiences, which is different than maybe some of the other types of clients that our firm represents. We get to know these people in really great ways and develop those relationships that I mentioned. So the work is great, but the people that stops for me, yeah.
Speaker 3:And nobody goes into school work whether it's school board volunteer service, like your parents came, or school administrators, in my experience for self-aggrandizement or for their own private gang. People go into this work because they care about kids and they wanna make a difference and it's just so rewarding to be part of that and to be a partner and a support to them in that work.
Speaker 1:It's fantastic. Okay, sarah, day six. I'm gonna come out to Rochester soon, but so far so good.
Speaker 4:So, far so good. I can't thank everyone enough for welcoming us in just such a fantastic fashion, and everybody's just made it so much easier. A lot of work to do, but it's so much easier because everybody's just been so welcoming and helpful. And just to be able to pick up the phone or send an email and immediately receive a lot of great feedback, it's great.
Speaker 1:Well, there are so many facets of school. I hope you'll each come back and talk about more of those soon and, of course, not the least of which is how the experiences kids have in schools can really shape their entire lives and our communities. So I can't wait to talk to you each individually, but also on the podcast listeners for you as well. I thank you for joining us. Thanks for your leadership, kate and Candice, and I'll talk to you all soon. Thank you again, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Kim, thank you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Legally Bond. If you're listening and have any questions for me, want to hear from someone at the firm or have a suggestion for a future topic, please email us at legallybondbskcom. 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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