Legally Bond
Legally Bond
An Interview with Daniel Pautz, Bond Elmira
In this episode of Legally Bond, Kim speaks with Bond litigation attorney Daniel Pautz. Dan talks about Bond's newest office in his hometown of Elmira, New York.
Hello and welcome to Legally Bond, a podcast presented by the law firm Bond Shannigan King. I'm your host, kim Wolf Price. On today's episode, we're speaking with Dan Pautz, a member in our litigation department. While we certainly will take some time speaking about Dan's legal work, our focus today is going to be on Bond's new office in Elm Myra, new York. Thanks for joining the podcast today, dan.
Speaker 2:Kim, thanks for having me. This is as much excitement as I've gotten in quite a while, so I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:I love the fact that we're looking at each other on this Zoom screen. We are actually like just two offices away from each other.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, we could. I suppose we could have done this in a different way, but let's roll with it. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:All right. So the first question where is Elm Myra located in New York?
Speaker 2:State Noted non-geography guy, but I'll do my best. I would say it's in the central, I guess southern middle part of New York State. It's about 15 miles north of the Pennsylvania border and I would say east to west, somewhere between Olyan to the west and Binghamton to the east.
Speaker 1:Okay, very good. So that's the southern tier, right.
Speaker 2:That is the southern tier, I would say the sort of the heart of the southern tier in terms of geography.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So this office will give Bond a presence in the southern tier. We have offices all over New York, but none down there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's part of it, kim. We have what we would call the throughway corridor, pretty covered right, coming from downstate up into white planes and then over to Buffalo, all along the throughway, the southern tier. If you think about it, it's sort of a rectangle right and it starts over in Jamestown to the west and it's probably about, I'd say, 50 or 60 miles north to south and then it goes over in a rectangle down towards, almost over to, like Delhi in Delaware County, right at the elbow of New York State, before it goes south. So that whole rectangle, that's what's considered the southern tier.
Speaker 1:That's great, and so now to have an office down there will be important. Well, before we talk more about the office in Elmira, I think we should start with our typical podcast introduction, where I ask about your family, because Elmira plays a significant role in all of this and people will see how it's connected. So would you mind telling us a bit about your background College, law school, family, maybe hometown whatever you think is important here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I don't think any of it's important, but I'll bore the listeners for a couple of minutes. So I was actually born in Fort Hood, texas. My dad was active duty in the United States Army and so my brother and I, as Irish twins, we were born about, you know, 19 months apart, both in Fort Hood. Once my dad finished his active duty requirement, we moved right here at the Syracuse believe it or not so he could attend law school.
Speaker 2:Both my folks grew up in Elmira, in the Elmira area. So following dad's graduation from law school, he took a job down in the district attorney's office in Shumong County. That was the first legal related job he had and of course moved us down and we had all of our family around us. So then I grew up actually in a town just adjacent to Elmira called Horseheads, which has its own history which is really neat, and went to school at Notre Dame High School in Elmira, graduated and then I went to Niagara University out in Western New York, followed by University of Buffalo. So spent about close, you know, seven years out in in Western New York and actually thought that that was probably going to be where I put roots now.
Speaker 2:But as luck would have it, I ended up back here in beautiful Syracuse.
Speaker 1:That's funny. So did you join Bond right after you finished law school in Buffalo? Did you join Bond right away?
Speaker 2:I did. In fact, I was a summer associate at Bond but I was in our Buffalo office the only summer associate that year, 2007, the Buffalo office. But then, at the conclusion of that summer, through the wisdom of some of the more senior members here, thought it would be a good idea to come here at the headquarters of our firm, syracuse, and joined the litigation department in the fall of 2008, which I was just thinking about. This it'd be 15 years in a couple months, which blows my mind.
Speaker 1:It's completely crazy. I still think of you as one of the new guys.
Speaker 2:I know me too.
Speaker 1:And that. So, and when you were out in Buffalo, that was before our combination with JCEL Fleischmann, so the office was smaller out in Buffalo at the time, much bigger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it was, and in fact that was part of the rationale, kim, is because at that time it was a labor and employment sort of boutique. We were connected to Bond, of course, but it was all. And knowing that we're having a really strong idea that I wanted to do litigation work, syracuse was a much better fit for that, so that's how I ended up here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and all these times I've asked you to volunteer. When I was at the law school I didn't know your dad was in the long of Syracuse law.
Speaker 2:He very much so, and actually it's funny because one of my partners here, john Elliman, was somebody who I knew as a child as he was a law school buddy of my dad, as was Bob Durr, who's the Anadaga County attorney. So they were that I knew as a kid and then I sort of re-met them later in life.
Speaker 1:That's outstanding. That's great. I love that Well. So Elmira is in many ways your hometown because it's where you spent most of your formative years correct, and where you grew up. So it seems you can't tell really the story of you without Elmira and the law too, because of your dad having been an ADA there and practice law there for so long. He started out as an ADA and then went into private practice, right.
Speaker 2:He did. Yeah, he after a few years with the DA's office he went in with a firm called Davidson and Elmira and that was sort of the premier no longer exists but that was the premier law firm down there at the time Spent a few years there and then eventually went on. He had one other partner went on his own in a small firm, general Practice in Horses, and then that's where he was until he retired a couple years ago.
Speaker 1:Good, all right. Well, so you're a litigator and you talked about that's what drove you to move to the Syracuse office back 15 or so years ago. So can you tell us a little bit about your litigation practice, maybe some of the types of matters that you handle?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in my practice has evolved over time, and I would say most recently probably, at least for the last seven or eight years, it's almost exclusively business litigation. That's probably 75 or 80% of what I do and that runs the gamut between shareholders disputes, breach of contract actions, huge companies, smaller companies, but basically any time that there's businesses involved in some type of legal dispute where you end up in court or end up in a you know some type of tribunal, arbitration or what have you. Those are the types of things that I'm involved in. I also do some tort work, mostly catastrophic torts, workplace injuries, furious injuries, things like that.
Speaker 2:And then, although I never set out to do this, I've kind of backed into a practice defending ADA website accessibility cases, which, for those folks that have been following it, it's been all the rage for the last 10 or 11 years and it's essentially what those cases are. Is their claims made against businesses that own and operate websites, claiming that those websites are inaccessible to disabled individuals, namely site-impaired individuals. There's some science involved in that in terms of the actual accessibility, and then there's some law involved in it in terms of how do you comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. So that's been a really neat, unexpected turn in my career.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think that's what's cool about litigation, and especially business litigation, because so much touches the lives of businesses you don't know, what they could be meeting right.
Speaker 2:There's no question and I always joke, but it's sincere is that I've never had the same two days here ever. And as my practice has evolved, both in litigation, I've also kind of gotten involved in the labor and employment side of things, both litigating labor and employment cases, such as Division of Human Rights cases or Title VII cases, harassment, discrimination, things like that but also just general labor and employment counseling, and this is not intended in any way to be a criticism, but a lot of times clients don't know. What they don't know and that is one of the primary tenets of our job is to educate and to make sure that our clients are able to see the angles and they're able to understand not only what's required of them now, but also try to predict and help them prepare for what's coming in the future.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and not to use the old law school example, but they make widgets. They know how to make widgets and that's why they need. Asked for the rest of it, right.
Speaker 2:Exactly right. That is exactly right.
Speaker 1:I had to bring up widgets right.
Speaker 2:No, it's a lot of widget references in law school. I thought there'd be way more in my regular life, but Did you do it?
Speaker 1:It's so strange, Like they're always talking about widgets in law school. It turns out it's not really a thing when you get out.
Speaker 2:Not yet. No, I haven't come across it yet.
Speaker 1:All right, so Bond's new Elmira presence. So I read that Elmira was awarded a downtown revitalization grant from New York State and there are a lot of thriving small businesses in the area. So is this part of why Elmira was a market where you're kind of keen to open a Bond office?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. There was a few things. One was I've always Almyra has always felt like home to me in some way. I mean, we've been my wife and I. We have two children. We've been so fortunate to make great friends here in Syracuse. We love this area. The kids have had great experiences with friends in schools.
Speaker 2:But every time I go down to Almyra which has been more frequently over the last five or so years that still feels like my home and because of that, I'm passionate about working with folks down there and, like many of the Rust Belt cities, people sleep on places like Almyra. There's this misconception that there's no, that there's a lack of sophistication or wherewithal down there, and that just it couldn't be farther from the truth. There's a lot going on in that area. There's a lot of super smart people, a lot of great businesses, a lot of multi-generational family businesses, and it's just really exciting to be a part of the revitalization which is ongoing, but also rewarding in that I'm working with some of these clients that I, you know, might have gone to school with their kids or met them growing up, and to have a personal connection to folks that you're working with and helping is incredibly rewarding professionally, much more so than I ever anticipated. So you know that part of it which is being down there in that market because of my personal connection, that was one piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 2:The other piece was my dad's generation of attorneys. A lot of them have retired and there is not a lot of folks my age that have moved back. So the attorneys that are down there, they're wonderfully talented people and they do great legal work. There's just not enough of them. The demand for competent legal services is far outpacing the supply. So that was another consideration that went into opening an office down there. And then, third I would say, would be geographically. It's an underserved market geographically because, as I said before, you have this southern tier region where you're going west to Jamestown, east to Binghamton and north to Rochester and there's no bigger for what I would define as bigger multi-hundred lawyer firms practicing there. So there was just a huge opportunity in that respect and those three things coming together really was what created the vision.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean there's even been task forces. You mentioned needing more lawyers in those areas and what we do is a different type of law than sometimes. People need the trust and states lawyers and the criminal defense lawyers and real estate and real property house closing lawyers, but those small businesses also need people who do different things and that's where we can kind of come in in that market.
Speaker 2:No question, and that's why historically can markets like Almira? They don't have larger firms because both firms and the clients it didn't make a ton of economic sense, right, it doesn't make a ton of economic sense to put a hundred lawyers in an office in a county that has 60,000 people or 50,000 people, and also in terms of hiring attorneys, if you're from Syracuse, a lot of times clients aren't crazy about having to pay for travel to go down there and there's the logistics involved. So historically it just it didn't make a lot of sense to have big firms in these smaller markets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we're changing that.
Speaker 2:We are changing that, and that was that during COVID. Really, I mean, of all the negatives, this is a tremendous positive, because what we did, what we were able to do, and what many attorneys learned, is just a completely different way of practicing. I did not, like most of us, I had no idea how we were going to do what we do, and then, through the use of technology, we were able to stay more connected than, frankly, we ever were before when we were in the same buildings, and that's when the idea came to me that this can actually happen. And really the concept, kim, and what I'm trying to educate clients on when I'm down there is it's hard to do, but you have to walk in a 700 square foot office and picture 300 lawyers sitting there, because that's 300 good lawyers. It's an opportunity that hasn't been present for folks in these smaller markets before, and I think it's something that, now that we can do it more efficiently and more effectively through the use of technology, I'm just super excited about it.
Speaker 1:And so what types of industries, clients or matters do you think will benefit from us being there or down in Elmira?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of municipal work down there. Particularly, we're doing a lot of work for the county of Shemung itself, which is just an absolutely outstanding client Wonderful people there and county government really truly public servants trying to do the right thing by the people in the county and one of the many rewarding clients that we work with down there, because you feel like you're making a difference. There's also a lot of smaller manufacturing outfits down there that you wouldn't think exists, a lot of family run businesses but really sophisticated, highly efficient operations. And then, of course, there's education down there. You have Orning Community College, you have Elmira College, you have Tompkins Community to the North Ithaca College. So there's a lot of industries and most recently there's a medical school, leecombe that just opened in Elmira that I think. I've heard rumblings that there may be an expansion of that coming up recently, so there's a lot, believe it or not, there is a tremendous amount of activity down there business wise, and that's why, again, it's exciting to be there.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic and I mean I want a great place to go to school, right, Like it's a pretty location, a great place to go to school, and those are all great developments. And I want to go back to what you said like 300 lawyers sitting in that room. Bond is a full-service business law firm. This has got to be really important to those businesses, whether they have a trademark, a labor issue, they want to merge with someone or separate and, you know, restructure their business. All those people, all those lawyers, come with you to this Bond on my relocation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and again, that's a concept that it's going to take some time to get used to because, right, well, a lot of people they sort of the attorneys down there a lot of them have a niche, a niche practice that they're really really good at, whether it's real estate or criminal law or family law or trust in estates and what we're providing, the service we're providing, is, you know, I guess the analogy would be you go to a corner store to get your bread, you go to a corner store to get your milk, you go to another one to get your ice cream. So we're the Wegmans. Right Is that you come in whatever legal problem you have or whatever legal issue you're dealing with. There's a overwhelming likelihood that within five minutes, I could get one of my colleagues on the phone that has dealt with that issue before, and so I just think it's a really it's an excellent service to be providing to clients, and then it's a one-stop shop, so to speak, with really really smart and really really effective attorneys.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and who are. And I have to say this you know Ben, here three and a half years now, but I actually like each other. Yeah, you make a really collegial like people seem to like really get along, like when when they see the phone ring they're gonna not gonna be like oh pouts.
Speaker 2:They're gonna they're gonna, they're gonna.
Speaker 1:I thought why is Dave calling?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in terms of I've had a lot of jobs and in terms of a place to be in, an environment to work which, at times, there's no way to avoid it. It's a really high stress, but fast-paced environment, but having people around you that are truly supportive of you and you can truly rely on and you truly like working with. There's no better than this place there really is. It's a wonderful place to work.
Speaker 1:There's stress because, right, people bring us their, their issues and their problems, that's what you know. And they're like hey, can you fix this for me? But it is great to work in a place where you can laugh about like the just complete comedy of raising kids or buying a house or doing your yard work or like the real people stuff, and I think that's a critical piece of it. Right, we're not standing in the holes like did you read the latest decision?
Speaker 1:Like you know, sometimes we have to and we have to talk about that and everyone knows about that. But it's very collegial. People, like you know, know each other's kids names and know each other's spouses, and it's it's a great. It's a great environment which will come with us to Elmira.
Speaker 2:That's right. I mean, it's hard to make friends later in life, right. You kind of have the friends you grew up with. But here, my some of my best friends are my colleagues here that we've come up the ranks together. So it's yeah, I count my blessings every day to be affiliated with a place like this. It's a wonderful place.
Speaker 1:It's really great. So as for the space right, you said that we have a space in Elmira. What went into sort of picking the location within Shaman County and then the office space itself?
Speaker 2:Yeah it was a truly a labor of love. You forget and fail to appreciate all of the other stuff that comes along with practicing law. We are so spoiled here and that our staff is unbelievable, the services that we have at our disposal are unbelievable, and so when I started because I just it was more efficient when I was down there to look for space and I had a real estate broker that helped me out, but it was just a lot of time, and a lot of time there was at one point thinking about sharing space with other attorneys. Then you have concerns about conflicts and things like that. So kind of an oasis, so to speak, that I didn't even know was an option.
Speaker 2:But there was a relatively new. It's been built in the last five or six years. It's a mixed use space right on Water Street, harded downtown, and in fact the owner of the building is a bond client out of our Rochester office, harp Grove Realty, who the two owners. In fact they grew up in Almyra also, so we had a ton in common and the space was in the building. It was exactly what we were looking for. It's a great building, it's a new building and the landlord is tremendous. So everything sort of came together and we were off and running once we got it approved.
Speaker 1:That's great, and I have to tell the listeners that bond is so worried about you have everything you need, that there's literally a microwave behind you as we talk and a card because they want to make sure that the office has everything you might need to.
Speaker 2:And then some. I was surprised that they did such a good job of moving everything in. I don't think there's any reason to leave the office. Maybe that's the objective.
Speaker 1:They're like Dan, just stay there, you can get a lot done, just stay right here. While you're here, you're also looking to do community things, be engaged in the legal community in Almyra and really be part of the Shimon County Bar, which I think is great. You talked about maybe a CLE program or other things, so I think I told this before, but remember, I'm willing to travel if you need me to come out there and do any of this. On the attorney professional development side.
Speaker 2:This may be one of those offers that you regret making, because I will definitely hold you to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was one of the more important things when we were talking about game planning how we were going to, whether we were going to open an office and how is that.
Speaker 2:It was really important to me that we don't just hang a shingle there and then nobody's there, it's just sort of in name only. I had no interest in doing that. I'm one of them, right? I mean, that's who I am, that's where I was raised, so I want to be part of it, I want to be part of the solution, I want to be part of the community, and so, part and parcel of that, I think what we're going to try to do is we're going to have a number of client events where we have folks come and we present topics of emerging issues on various different practices that we have here, and also some networking or CLE events for other lawyers practicing down there and, as I said to you before, kim, there's a lot of whom are my friends, but really, really smart, excellent attorneys down there, and it would be a wonderful opportunity to network with them and to get some CLE credit at the same time.
Speaker 2:So we're looking into doing that as well, but really try to ingrain ourselves into the culture down there and be a part of it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm from Utica, but I'm definitely willing to learn more about Omira.
Speaker 2:You're welcome anytime.
Speaker 1:That's supposed to be why it's so exciting for you, right, because it is a community that you were part of as a kid and it's an opportunity to go back and get to know people as adults, right, which is a different and business people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no question. And even the exciting part to me too, kim, is I mean outside of of Elmira, right? I mean there's a huge, huge area down there and a lot of it's. It's a lot rural, but there's other you know, corning is right there, which is a one of the more beautiful small towns you'll ever go in.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know, and there's a bunch of you know, the Finger Lakes region is right there, watkins Glen is right there. I mean there's a lot of areas around there that are in the same boat as Elmira, which is there's lawyers there. There's just not enough. So that's part of the excitement too. Is is sort of extending our footprint, so to speak, and being attorneys not only for Elmira but for the Southern Tier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is fantastic. I mean you're right. So many businesses, so much happens in those areas. There are things that you're like I didn't know that sort of international thing was right there, like you. Just you know we forget that New York has so much sort of packed in to it's state and its borders. Right, so but while you're quite famous here at Bond, you are not the most famous person who has lived in Elmira, are you?
Speaker 2:I am far from it. There are a number of folks that came before me that have a bit more name recognition, I would say. Well, particularly for people up here in the Syracuse area, the name that would be the most familiar, that would be Ernie Davis.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:Who is a Heisman Trophy winner and who, in fact, my grandfather, god rest his soul was a catcher for him at Elmira Free Academy, and I'm told that Ernie was just as good of a baseball player and overall athlete as he was a football player. So Ernie Davis is certainly a notable alum, so to speak, and it's also. Mark Twain spent a lot of time there writing. Yeah, there's a replica of his study over on the Elmira College campus, which is really neat. Tommy Hilfiger, the famous designer, born and raised, grew up in Elmira. Brian Williams, the NBC, former NBC, msnbc anchor.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot, you see how the dad of the actress, like you know, now that we get to him. And that's just Elmira. That's not like listing all the other places in the Southern tier and all the more they're currently doing.
Speaker 2:That's just Elmira and it's really like a lot of small towns. It's people are, and this is sort of what I love about it the most is people are really prideful of being from there. They take a ton of pride and ownership in their community and it's kind of a badge of honor to talk about the notable people that were from there and the schools they have and the businesses they have. So it's really a prideful community and I'm prideful of it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I think even the I've noticed people go to school, go to Elmira College. They get that same love of the area. They tell you all about Mark Twain's study and all the things. So I think it's fantastic. There's a really rich history in New York, in the Southern tier and in Elmira and Bonne's, a firm that's been around since 1897. So we're all about that New York history.
Speaker 1:So well, okay listeners of the podcast probably don't know, or maybe do, that I was assistant dean at Syracuse Law and I used to ask you all the time to volunteer. You are not an alum of Syracuse University College of Law Now I know your dad is About your Buffalo, but you always were so generous every time I asked and you were like, yeah, sure, I'll talk to students and they loved it when you'd come because you're a real person, you just sit down, give them advice, talk to them. It was really great. So no pressure, but do you want to close the podcast with some advice to any new lawyers, maybe trying to figure out if a small town is for them or where they might want to practice law?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. So what I would say is there's no magic formula. Particularly in my practice area litigating and really, frankly, any other area is you need to be responsive and you need to be empathetic. Those are the two things that I would say are the most important, because in litigation, let's say, for instance, a person, a client, is coming to you at probably, if not the lowest, one of the lowest points in their lives. They've either been sued, they're suing someone, they've been arrested, whatever the case may be, they're in a bad way, typically when you need them.
Speaker 2:So it is very, very important that you exercise some empathy and you put yourself in their shoes and understand why this is a hard time for them. And then, after understanding it, you need to be able to listen to what their objectives are and you need to be able to understand those objectives and set forth some type of a solution. I mean, I guess if you're a civil engineer, kim, you're looking at a river and you say how am I getting people from this side to that side With us? You have to understand a client's objectives and you have to understand okay, how am I going to get there? And while you're doing that, you have to be part counselor, part psychologist, art problem solver, because what I would imagine to be one of the worst things would be being in a really really low, tough point of my life and not feeling like somebody that's supposed to be advocating for me couldn't be interested, right, because they're not calling me back, because they're not showing exercising empathy and understanding where I'm coming from.
Speaker 2:So that's always been my formula for doing things, because we have the ability to make a really significant difference in people's lives and I've heard it years later people would come back and say, boy, I probably drove you nuts with all those telephone calls and I probably am sorry for yelling at you and all that, but it makes a difference. People need to know that you're in the foxhole with them. When they're in the foxhole, you have to be with them and luckily for me, it takes very little intelligence to be responsive and to be empathetic, because but also very lucky that you're a super smart guy.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for saying that, but that's I think, generally. It cuts across all areas, not just being an attorney. You just need to understand what makes people tick and you need to understand how you can be of help.
Speaker 1:That's perfect. Yeah, because sometimes we don't know what else they're dealing with or what else is going on on top of this big thing. When they've come to you and hand you this, they can say help and you're willing to say okay.
Speaker 2:That's right and people, the misconception a lot of folks have is and it's due to courtroom television shows and movies and stuff. It's not all yelling and screaming and pounding the table. In fact it's very little of that which was a surprise.
Speaker 1:It's disappointingly little of that really.
Speaker 2:Very little. Maybe not enough at times but, what it mostly is. It's communicating and it's trying to find solutions to problems. That's what it is. If it requires you to yell and scream and pound the table, okay then that's what the situation calls for, but it's mainly understanding where you need to get and how you're going to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and the clients are lucky to have you doing that. So thanks so much for joining the podcast, for taking the time. The Elmira Office is a great addition to the firm. I do hope you'll come back to the podcast, talk about some cases at some point and talk about how the office is developing, and so we can talk again on the podcast about what's going on at Bond and the Legation.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. This has been a blast and I will come back whenever I am invited.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. Thank you. I do know that you're really pretty generous with your time, so be careful. Thank you All right. Thanks, dan. 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 for suggestions 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 conversation, be well.
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