February 20, 2024 • 21 mins
Attorney Sasha Begum, with the Pelaez Law Firm and Crash Angels is a transactional attorney with both big law and in house counsel experience. She has a distinct educational background in that after completing her J.D. at American University, Washington College of Law, she was one of only 3 in her class selected to participate in a dual degree program where she spent 2 years studying in Spain. Begum talks about her career, her law partner and her life in this episode of The Art of Improvement. https://bp-plaw.com
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(00:00):
This week on the Art of Improvement. I'm excited to introduce you to Sasha
Begem. She has a few lawfirms. One of them is called Crash
Angels, another one she has withher best friend from high school. You're
gonna love her story and you're gonnalove her services. Get a pencil ready,
(00:20):
write her number down. I can'twait to introduce you to Sasha Begem.
Hi, and thank you so muchfor listening to the Art of Improvement.
I'm really excited and she's probably like, you're too excited, Garan,
I'm really excited to introduce you toSasha Begem. She's an attorney in San
(00:41):
Antonio, but she wears so manyhats. As a matter of fact,
she brought me a hat that saysCrash Angels. But Crash Angels is just
one part of who you are.Hi, Sasha, thank you so much
for coming today. Hi Karen,thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely so you have how many lawfirms? Can you help me? Can
you help me figure this out?So? My partner and I actually have
(01:02):
two completely separate law firms. Oneof them, so just to kind of
give you a background, one ofthem is Begon Peala's Prada and that's the
one that we started together in twentysixteen, and that one is more focused
on business law. Contracts, weform companies, we do restructurings, we
(01:26):
do wills and estates, and that'sgenerally what that one's focused on. And
then we have the second one that'sPelia's Law Firm, which is a personal
entry law firm, and that's thatwe're branded under the Crash Angel's brand name.
That is incredible. Okay, wellwhy I know, but can you
(01:47):
tell everybody else? Like why isit called crash Angels? Basically because I
don't think anybody can remember my partner'slast name. She's my partner and I've
known her for twenty years, andit wasn't up until like a couple of
weeks ago. She told me,I've been pronouncing her last name all wrong.
If I can't pronounce it, andI'm known her forever, I figured
(02:07):
we needed something that other people canremember and pronounce, and so Crash Angels.
I mean, like, I'm thinkingpersonal injury. So if someone you
got to explain that, because Ihear commercials, I see billboards personal injury
attorney, I mean, what doesthat entail? Yeah, so we actually
wanted to create a commercial. Butwhat is crash, right? It could
(02:28):
mean anything. It could mean acar accident, It could mean an accident
with an eighteen wheeler. It couldmean you slipped and fell and boom,
there's a crash and you injured yourself, you know, literally at a store
that you slipped on water work,injuries, just anything of the of that
nature that happens as a result ofan accident that's not your fault, would
(02:52):
technically be covered under the personal injurywould you say, and maybe I am
just so nicieve, but would yousay that sometimes when things like this happen,
you're in an accident, you slipin a store, something hits you.
Would you say? Most people don'tautomatically think that they can be compensated
(03:13):
for this accident or whatever happened.Do you think they just suck it up
and go to the hospital and goon with their Like, how do you
know when is it time to callyou? That's a great question. I
think you know, Well, let'sstart, when something happens to you that's
not your fault, and you're injuredand you have to go to the hospital,
(03:38):
why should you have to cover thecost. It wasn't my fault,
and I feel like most people arejust embarrassed by it or feel like,
well, I'm not going to makea big stink about it, but the
injuries are real. You know,you think that you're fine, you think
you want to brush it off,and then two weeks later, your back
is stuck and you when you bentdown to tie your shoes and then you
(03:59):
can't get up. So, youknow, hopefully you call an attorney before
the two weeks have gone by,so that we can start documenting the case
and what happened and taking pictures beforethings change and memories fade and all of
that. But that's I think youneed to know something happened to me,
it wasn't my fault. I shouldn'tbe responsible to cover all the damage that
(04:21):
I'm going to have to sustain fromnow going forward. And so if I
have something happened to me and it'snot my fault and I call you,
am I going to have to havelike a ton of money to pay you
before I even can, you know, talk to you. Because I know
a lot of people are like,I'm not going to call an attorney.
It's going to cost me ten thousanddollars just to walk into the door.
(04:41):
No. Actually, that's the beautyof a personal injury firm, like the
Crash Angels. You don't pay anythingunless we win, and so it's in
our best interest to basically be ableto get you the maximum compensation we possibly
can as a result of your injury. And the compensation is to you know,
get you the money that you're goingto need, to get you the
(05:02):
treatment that you're going to need,and to kind of kind of sort of
you know, restitute you or giveyou money to be able to just comping
back on track, right, giveback on truss. It's so funny because
if you have a car accident,you know that it takes a long time
to fix your I know you're probablygoing to think I'm crazy, but it
(05:25):
takes a long time for your carto get fixed. There's the insurance companies,
there's everything else, and it isa it's a nightmare to try and
sort through just a car accident withyour car, but when it comes to
your actual body, your personal body. I can't even imagine how much paperwork
and doctor's appointments and everything else thatyou'd have to sort through. Oh,
(05:47):
absolutely, absolutely, yes, afteran accident, everybody's focused on the car,
and if you're dealing with insurance agents, they're not working for you.
If it's the other party's fault andyou're dealing with their insurance, they're not
going to work for you. They'renot going to try to give you any
money if they can get away withthat. And then you're dealing with the
injury. But you kind of,you know, push it to the back,
(06:09):
say I'm fine, I'm fine.But then again, like I said,
a couple of weeks later, youknow your your neck is hurting.
You can't even turn it, youcan't even drive, you know. So
it's that that's that's so important forpeople to know because a lot of times,
I mean, you hear about thebad stuff or see it in the
movies or something, but in reality, if you have this situation happened to
you, man, it is it'ssmart to call. Which brings me to
(06:32):
where can people call to get intouch with you? Oh? Yeah,
our number's pretty easy, it's tooten. Bring it I love that one
zero two seven four six four foureight, or our website is bring it
law dot com. Nice, that'svery nice. So I am not trying
to split men and women here.Please don't get me wrong, but you
(06:57):
and your partner, it's it seemslike you guys are in the minority.
Is it true? I mean,are there not very many personal injury lawyers,
especially teams that are women? Andwhy is that? So? Yes,
I agree, there's not that many. They're starting to pop up here
and there, which makes me reallyproud because you know, we're making a
(07:20):
dent in the market. But Idefinitely think that there's a need. Why
is that? I don't know why. Historically, maybe because it's just a
riskier area of law, I suppose, and maybe women are more risk adverse.
I don't know. It's riskier becauseyou're taking a risk on every client
(07:40):
that you bring in the door.You're taking a risk that the insurance companies
are going to say it actually wastheir fault, and then by the time
you figure that out, you've incurreda lot of medical expenses on their behalf
that as we mentioned that, thefirm ends up covering because the client doesn't
pay anything until we get settlement amount. If we never reach a settlement amount,
(08:03):
then the law firm is stuck withall of those bills. Totally understand
that that's that is a big,big risk, and it's also a big
risk for And I'm not saying youas a beginner, but you I now
realize why there are these gigantic personalinjury firms because they can take on they
can take on that risk a hugerisk. Yes, and you need huge
(08:26):
volume in order to compensate for thatrisk. Absolutely, But I think that
as women, we're able to relateto our clients in a different way.
I was going to say that,and so I think that we have something
to offer that's very unique. Sowe talked about the Crash Angels and I'm
going to bring that up again foranybody that's interested, so we can give
(08:48):
that information. But you also haveanother part that does a business to business
or is that right? Am Isaying that correct? When I say that?
Absolutely correct. So my partner isa litigator, so she does all
of the litigation for the Crash Angelsside. I am a corporate and transactional
attorney. However, that background isabsolutely helpful when negotiating on behalf of our
(09:16):
clients with the insurance adjusters. Whenpreparing the cases. I come from a
background of working on massive deals frombig law firm, from what they call
big law from you know, multibillion dollar deals for different clients that I
worked on and I negotiated on behalfof our clients, and so I bring
that to the Crash Angels. Butthen I also offer it just in and
(09:39):
of itself through the bigam Pilized ProductFirm, which is business to business.
We help businesses draft their contracts.We help businesses if they're buying another business
or changing partnerships. We do thecompany agreements, we set up the companies.
And also it's really important that alot of the owners of those new
(10:03):
businesses, if they need wills,we can also develop their wills. And
with the background and knowledge on thebusiness side, it's incredibly helpful for the
wills. And so that's more ofa direct to consumer Sony. Any client
could come to us, but wedo represent anywhere from like small startup businesses
to you know, multi billion dollarcompanies in different ways. It I think
(10:28):
I know the answer to this,but maybe maybe it all goes together and
you can answer, So why isit as a business that you even need
an LLC or organization or a planAnd the same goes with wills and trust.
I mean, what is why isthat important. From a business perspective,
(10:50):
you need a company in order toshield you from liability because if you're
let me see, if your businessis building houses, and you don't have
a company formed, and you're justout there doing your thing building houses,
and then all of a sudden somethinghappens with this house. Anything that you
(11:11):
own personally other than one house andone car is subject to any sort of
liability. So if you've amassed alot of wealth because you're really good at
what you do, anybody that suesyou as a result of an issue with
the house that you just built cango after all of your money. And
so yeah, it's a huge risk, and so the liability is limited to
(11:31):
what's owned by the company once youform the company or once you form the
LLC or whatever entity that you chooseto form, and with the wills,
it's also incredibly important because that's essentiallyyour last time that you're ever going to
get to tell everybody in your lifewhat you want after you die. Whether
you have ten dollars in your bankaccount or one hundred thousand dollars in your
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bank account, where do you wantthat money to go and how easy do
you want to make it for thepeople that serve vibe you to have access
to those funds. Yeah, thatthat is huge. And so when you
gave a phone number earlier, isthat us the same phone number? How
can we get in touch you withyou for this? That what you're talking
about? You know the lady thetwo one zero bring it. You can
(12:18):
reach becon pilized product. But wehave a separate number. That one's not
as easy to remember. That's twoone zero seven eight zero six zero two
two okay, And we'll definitely givethat out and it'll be posted when this
actual podcast is up, and I'llput that in there. So I have
to ask you every time I seein your name Big and I'm like,
(12:41):
hey, it's only guys. Sowho is the begam guy that's in the
billboards? The big of that guythat's in the billboards is actually my brother.
Ah okay, So can you giveme a little bit about your background.
Both of you guys went to lawschool. I mean, is it
in the family, does it runin your blood? How does that happen?
Actually, we're both first generation bornin the US, first generation even
(13:05):
graduated from college from our families.I have goosebumps. So yeah, congratulations,
that's awesome. And so law school. Why that I wasn't good at
math and I wasn't good at chemistry, no doctor exactly. I think for
our father, education was pretty mucheverything and it wasn't a choice. And
(13:30):
you know, you're either a doctoror a lawyer. That's a smart dad.
And so how many years a partof y'all if you don't mind me
asking? I mean, was ita competition? Was it one after the
other? He went first? Hewas two years older than me. Uh,
he graduated from law school. Iwas. He started law school when
(13:52):
I was still in college. Andyou know, I graduated from college.
I graduated a semester early from college, and I had majored in philosophy and
psychology. Wasn't exactly sure of whatI wanted to do with my life.
I just knew I needed to continuestudying, and you know, I just
(14:13):
decided to apply to law school.And I love it. I love my
career. I love everything I getto do on a daily basis, and
I love and get so excited aboutevery single client that walks through the door,
whether on the personal injury side,because we can see how we're able
to help them recover and we couldsee, you know, how we're able
(14:35):
to even change lives, like we'vechanged lives with the amount of money that
we've been able to get to someof our clients. And seeing that is
like this happiness that I can't It'sindescribable. That's what we work for and
strive for. On the business side, I get incredibly excited also for every
client that walks through the door becauseI get to help them build their dreams.
(14:56):
So it's somebody can walk in witha dream of having company, of
doing something, and I help themget there and protect them along the way.
That's amazing. That is so amazing. Okay, stop commercial time.
You have to give the phone numberswhere people can call you again. On
the first for the Crash Angels,it's easy. It's two one zero bring
it. That's two one zero twoseven four six four four eight. And
(15:20):
on the bigam Pillaize Prades side,it's two one zero seven eight zero six
zero two to two. And sowho is Janita Pilaize Prada. So Juanita
is my partner, she's my lawpartner. We actually went to high school
together and fun fact, she wasmy brother's best friend and I was,
(15:41):
Yeah, I was the dorky littlesister and that my brother made her hang
out with me back then, andyou know, we went our separate ways.
She went off to college, Iwent off to college. We had
a very random, literal bumping intoeach other one summer in Italy. She
(16:02):
was I was doing a summer broadprogram there. She just happened to be
there as well, and we bumpedinto each other very randomly, and then
didn't see each other again for anotherten years. Long story short, Hunnitha
and I hadn't seen each other inover ten years, and we had a
playdate with our boys. I reachedout to her on Facebook and we were
on the same kind of career pathwith our lives where we were in our
(16:26):
careers, and we six months laterwe became partners. That is incredible.
I mean, it sounds like agod thing to me. He got brought
together and it was just a fewyears in between the time that the plan
was made. I guess that's prettyawesome. And so do you feel like
you have similar personality? I knowthat it shouldn't matter, but when I
(16:52):
look at law firms, I thinkthat there are so many puzzle pieces and
that each of the pieces is alittle bit different and bring something different to
the table on their strengths. Isthat the same with you guys. Absolutely,
Like I think our strengths absolutely complimenteach other. Anybody that asks me,
I always tell them that she's thespicy one. She's the litigator.
(17:12):
So she's you know, she's sheis tough, and she is great at
what she does. And what Ilove about her so much is that she
does take everything personally. Like Imean, when it's personal injury, she
sees every single client and fights forevery single client as if she were fighting
for her own kid. That's amazing. Yeah, she's She's very cool,
(17:32):
and I'm more you know, lessyou know, reactive, I guess,
and more analytical with respect to youknow, the finer details of the matter
that I'm looking at. So manytimes, and I think of law firms
as companies. I mean, theyare actual businesses companies, But so many
times I think of companies and Ithink, what are they giving back to
(17:57):
the community. What is their placein the community. Yes, you take
on clients and do their wills orhelp them with their accident, but is
there something near and dear to yourheart that you give back to the community
with absolutely We try to any opportunitythat we have to give back to the
community, we absolutely take. We'revery involved with the Battered Women and Children's
(18:22):
Shelter. Juanita's mother, Marta Pelaez, is a powerhouse of a woman.
Lent her yeah, and she's actuallythe executive director of the Battered Women and
Children's Shelter, and so we dogive back quite a bit. In fact,
when we started Beacon Pealized Prada,we have this five over five K
program that we donated five percent ofevery invoice that we sent out to our
(18:44):
clients. Over five thousand dollars wedonated to the Battered Women and Children's Shelter.
We do toy giveaways to their everyChristmas. We have done Halloween parties
for the kids there. We're justalways very involved and we serve as their
proo general counsel as well. Amazing. I knew it. I didn't know
it, but I knew it.There had to be some connection and that's
(19:06):
really great. And I think thesedays it really matters that companies get back
because there's so much detail in companiesnow and people say, oh, I
drink this, I buy this,I eat this. But I think more
these days people really do investigate thecompanies that they're doing business with, and
for women, especially to me,you know, they they want to know
(19:30):
who it is that's standing before them, right and that you know, and
the Battered Women and Children's Shelter isabsolutely near and dear to our heart because
of all of that. But that'snot it. We also, I mean,
Jana was the chairman of the boardof the CASA in San Antonio,
and I think as chairman, shesecured the largest donation for the organization.
(19:53):
I'm on the board of the AmericanHeart Association. We throw parties for our
neighborhood where our offices through Halloween partiesand we do different events just for literally
our community around our office and detailsto follow. But we're also launching a
scholarship. Each of the firms islaunching a scholarship for women that want to
(20:15):
go to law school that we're aboutto launch. So is there anything that
you haven't done? I don't thinkthat I'm going to be able to find
that. I mean, is thereanything I always look at women in the
in business and I always think toI have two daughters, and I always
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think and pray for them to havethe best of everything. And it doesn't
necessarily have to be money. Itdoesn't have to be you know, kids,
marriage, but you know, makethem feel like they've accomplished something,
and I think without giving back,sometimes it doesn't. The picture's not complete.
And so when I said that,it's like, Wow, that's good.
Is there anything that you haven't donethat you want to do? No,
(21:03):
you haven't thought of it yet.I haven't thought of it yet,
but I will. That's incredible.Well, I I've talked so much and
I just want to know. Imean, is there anything else that you'd
like to add? How can peopleagain get in touch with you, because
we want to be able to haveyour phone number right on hand. Absolutely
yes. If you're you know,the crash angels. If you need a
personal injury attorney, which again isany car accidents, slip and falls,
(21:27):
work injuries, that's two one zerobring it two seven four six four four
eight. If you need a company, if you need a will, if
you want somebody to review your contractsor anything else business related, that's two
one zero seven eight zero six zerotwo two. Well, I'm telling you
you got to call her Sasha begum. She can help you and her partner,
(21:49):
of course, but I really appreciateyour time and thank you so much
for coming today. Thank you forhaving me, Karen. This is a pleasure.
This week on the Art of Improvement. I'm excited to introduce you to Sasha
Begem. She has a few lawfirms. One of them is called Crash
Angels, another one she has withher best friend from high school. You're
gonna love her story and you're gonnalove her services. Get a pencil ready,
(00:20):
write her number down. I can'twait to introduce you to Sasha Begem.
Hi, and thank you so muchfor listening to the Art of Improvement.
I'm really excited and she's probably like, you're too excited, Garan,
I'm really excited to introduce you toSasha Begem. She's an attorney in San
(00:41):
Antonio, but she wears so manyhats. As a matter of fact,
she brought me a hat that saysCrash Angels. But Crash Angels is just
one part of who you are.Hi, Sasha, thank you so much
for coming today. Hi Karen,thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely so you have how many lawfirms? Can you help me? Can
you help me figure this out?So? My partner and I actually have
(01:02):
two completely separate law firms. Oneof them, so just to kind of
give you a background, one ofthem is Begon Peala's Prada and that's the
one that we started together in twentysixteen, and that one is more focused
on business law. Contracts, weform companies, we do restructurings, we
(01:26):
do wills and estates, and that'sgenerally what that one's focused on. And
then we have the second one that'sPelia's Law Firm, which is a personal
entry law firm, and that's thatwe're branded under the Crash Angel's brand name.
That is incredible. Okay, wellwhy I know, but can you
(01:47):
tell everybody else? Like why isit called crash Angels? Basically because I
don't think anybody can remember my partner'slast name. She's my partner and I've
known her for twenty years, andit wasn't up until like a couple of
weeks ago. She told me,I've been pronouncing her last name all wrong.
If I can't pronounce it, andI'm known her forever, I figured
(02:07):
we needed something that other people canremember and pronounce, and so Crash Angels.
I mean, like, I'm thinkingpersonal injury. So if someone you
got to explain that, because Ihear commercials, I see billboards personal injury
attorney, I mean, what doesthat entail? Yeah, so we actually
wanted to create a commercial. Butwhat is crash, right? It could
(02:28):
mean anything. It could mean acar accident, It could mean an accident
with an eighteen wheeler. It couldmean you slipped and fell and boom,
there's a crash and you injured yourself, you know, literally at a store
that you slipped on water work,injuries, just anything of the of that
nature that happens as a result ofan accident that's not your fault, would
(02:52):
technically be covered under the personal injurywould you say, and maybe I am
just so nicieve, but would yousay that sometimes when things like this happen,
you're in an accident, you slipin a store, something hits you.
Would you say? Most people don'tautomatically think that they can be compensated
(03:13):
for this accident or whatever happened.Do you think they just suck it up
and go to the hospital and goon with their Like, how do you
know when is it time to callyou? That's a great question. I
think you know, Well, let'sstart, when something happens to you that's
not your fault, and you're injuredand you have to go to the hospital,
(03:38):
why should you have to cover thecost. It wasn't my fault,
and I feel like most people arejust embarrassed by it or feel like,
well, I'm not going to makea big stink about it, but the
injuries are real. You know,you think that you're fine, you think
you want to brush it off,and then two weeks later, your back
is stuck and you when you bentdown to tie your shoes and then you
(03:59):
can't get up. So, youknow, hopefully you call an attorney before
the two weeks have gone by,so that we can start documenting the case
and what happened and taking pictures beforethings change and memories fade and all of
that. But that's I think youneed to know something happened to me,
it wasn't my fault. I shouldn'tbe responsible to cover all the damage that
(04:21):
I'm going to have to sustain fromnow going forward. And so if I
have something happened to me and it'snot my fault and I call you,
am I going to have to havelike a ton of money to pay you
before I even can, you know, talk to you. Because I know
a lot of people are like,I'm not going to call an attorney.
It's going to cost me ten thousanddollars just to walk into the door.
(04:41):
No. Actually, that's the beautyof a personal injury firm, like the
Crash Angels. You don't pay anythingunless we win, and so it's in
our best interest to basically be ableto get you the maximum compensation we possibly
can as a result of your injury. And the compensation is to you know,
get you the money that you're goingto need, to get you the
(05:02):
treatment that you're going to need,and to kind of kind of sort of
you know, restitute you or giveyou money to be able to just comping
back on track, right, giveback on truss. It's so funny because
if you have a car accident,you know that it takes a long time
to fix your I know you're probablygoing to think I'm crazy, but it
(05:25):
takes a long time for your carto get fixed. There's the insurance companies,
there's everything else, and it isa it's a nightmare to try and
sort through just a car accident withyour car, but when it comes to
your actual body, your personal body. I can't even imagine how much paperwork
and doctor's appointments and everything else thatyou'd have to sort through. Oh,
(05:47):
absolutely, absolutely, yes, afteran accident, everybody's focused on the car,
and if you're dealing with insurance agents, they're not working for you.
If it's the other party's fault andyou're dealing with their insurance, they're not
going to work for you. They'renot going to try to give you any
money if they can get away withthat. And then you're dealing with the
injury. But you kind of,you know, push it to the back,
(06:09):
say I'm fine, I'm fine.But then again, like I said,
a couple of weeks later, youknow your your neck is hurting.
You can't even turn it, youcan't even drive, you know. So
it's that that's that's so important forpeople to know because a lot of times,
I mean, you hear about thebad stuff or see it in the
movies or something, but in reality, if you have this situation happened to
you, man, it is it'ssmart to call. Which brings me to
(06:32):
where can people call to get intouch with you? Oh? Yeah,
our number's pretty easy, it's tooten. Bring it I love that one
zero two seven four six four foureight, or our website is bring it
law dot com. Nice, that'svery nice. So I am not trying
to split men and women here.Please don't get me wrong, but you
(06:57):
and your partner, it's it seemslike you guys are in the minority.
Is it true? I mean,are there not very many personal injury lawyers,
especially teams that are women? Andwhy is that? So? Yes,
I agree, there's not that many. They're starting to pop up here
and there, which makes me reallyproud because you know, we're making a
(07:20):
dent in the market. But Idefinitely think that there's a need. Why
is that? I don't know why. Historically, maybe because it's just a
riskier area of law, I suppose, and maybe women are more risk adverse.
I don't know. It's riskier becauseyou're taking a risk on every client
(07:40):
that you bring in the door.You're taking a risk that the insurance companies
are going to say it actually wastheir fault, and then by the time
you figure that out, you've incurreda lot of medical expenses on their behalf
that as we mentioned that, thefirm ends up covering because the client doesn't
pay anything until we get settlement amount. If we never reach a settlement amount,
(08:03):
then the law firm is stuck withall of those bills. Totally understand
that that's that is a big,big risk, and it's also a big
risk for And I'm not saying youas a beginner, but you I now
realize why there are these gigantic personalinjury firms because they can take on they
can take on that risk a hugerisk. Yes, and you need huge
(08:26):
volume in order to compensate for thatrisk. Absolutely, But I think that
as women, we're able to relateto our clients in a different way.
I was going to say that,and so I think that we have something
to offer that's very unique. Sowe talked about the Crash Angels and I'm
going to bring that up again foranybody that's interested, so we can give
(08:48):
that information. But you also haveanother part that does a business to business
or is that right? Am Isaying that correct? When I say that?
Absolutely correct. So my partner isa litigator, so she does all
of the litigation for the Crash Angelsside. I am a corporate and transactional
attorney. However, that background isabsolutely helpful when negotiating on behalf of our
(09:16):
clients with the insurance adjusters. Whenpreparing the cases. I come from a
background of working on massive deals frombig law firm, from what they call
big law from you know, multibillion dollar deals for different clients that I
worked on and I negotiated on behalfof our clients, and so I bring
that to the Crash Angels. Butthen I also offer it just in and
(09:39):
of itself through the bigam Pilized ProductFirm, which is business to business.
We help businesses draft their contracts.We help businesses if they're buying another business
or changing partnerships. We do thecompany agreements, we set up the companies.
And also it's really important that alot of the owners of those new
(10:03):
businesses, if they need wills,we can also develop their wills. And
with the background and knowledge on thebusiness side, it's incredibly helpful for the
wills. And so that's more ofa direct to consumer Sony. Any client
could come to us, but wedo represent anywhere from like small startup businesses
to you know, multi billion dollarcompanies in different ways. It I think
(10:28):
I know the answer to this,but maybe maybe it all goes together and
you can answer, So why isit as a business that you even need
an LLC or organization or a planAnd the same goes with wills and trust.
I mean, what is why isthat important. From a business perspective,
(10:50):
you need a company in order toshield you from liability because if you're
let me see, if your businessis building houses, and you don't have
a company formed, and you're justout there doing your thing building houses,
and then all of a sudden somethinghappens with this house. Anything that you
(11:11):
own personally other than one house andone car is subject to any sort of
liability. So if you've amassed alot of wealth because you're really good at
what you do, anybody that suesyou as a result of an issue with
the house that you just built cango after all of your money. And
so yeah, it's a huge risk, and so the liability is limited to
(11:31):
what's owned by the company once youform the company or once you form the
LLC or whatever entity that you chooseto form, and with the wills,
it's also incredibly important because that's essentiallyyour last time that you're ever going to
get to tell everybody in your lifewhat you want after you die. Whether
you have ten dollars in your bankaccount or one hundred thousand dollars in your
(11:52):
bank account, where do you wantthat money to go and how easy do
you want to make it for thepeople that serve vibe you to have access
to those funds. Yeah, thatthat is huge. And so when you
gave a phone number earlier, isthat us the same phone number? How
can we get in touch you withyou for this? That what you're talking
about? You know the lady thetwo one zero bring it. You can
(12:18):
reach becon pilized product. But wehave a separate number. That one's not
as easy to remember. That's twoone zero seven eight zero six zero two
two okay, And we'll definitely givethat out and it'll be posted when this
actual podcast is up, and I'llput that in there. So I have
to ask you every time I seein your name Big and I'm like,
(12:41):
hey, it's only guys. Sowho is the begam guy that's in the
billboards? The big of that guythat's in the billboards is actually my brother.
Ah okay, So can you giveme a little bit about your background.
Both of you guys went to lawschool. I mean, is it
in the family, does it runin your blood? How does that happen?
Actually, we're both first generation bornin the US, first generation even
(13:05):
graduated from college from our families.I have goosebumps. So yeah, congratulations,
that's awesome. And so law school. Why that I wasn't good at
math and I wasn't good at chemistry, no doctor exactly. I think for
our father, education was pretty mucheverything and it wasn't a choice. And
(13:30):
you know, you're either a doctoror a lawyer. That's a smart dad.
And so how many years a partof y'all if you don't mind me
asking? I mean, was ita competition? Was it one after the
other? He went first? Hewas two years older than me. Uh,
he graduated from law school. Iwas. He started law school when
(13:52):
I was still in college. Andyou know, I graduated from college.
I graduated a semester early from college, and I had majored in philosophy and
psychology. Wasn't exactly sure of whatI wanted to do with my life.
I just knew I needed to continuestudying, and you know, I just
(14:13):
decided to apply to law school.And I love it. I love my
career. I love everything I getto do on a daily basis, and
I love and get so excited aboutevery single client that walks through the door,
whether on the personal injury side,because we can see how we're able
to help them recover and we couldsee, you know, how we're able
(14:35):
to even change lives, like we'vechanged lives with the amount of money that
we've been able to get to someof our clients. And seeing that is
like this happiness that I can't It'sindescribable. That's what we work for and
strive for. On the business side, I get incredibly excited also for every
client that walks through the door becauseI get to help them build their dreams.
(14:56):
So it's somebody can walk in witha dream of having company, of
doing something, and I help themget there and protect them along the way.
That's amazing. That is so amazing. Okay, stop commercial time.
You have to give the phone numberswhere people can call you again. On
the first for the Crash Angels,it's easy. It's two one zero bring
it. That's two one zero twoseven four six four four eight. And
(15:20):
on the bigam Pillaize Prades side,it's two one zero seven eight zero six
zero two to two. And sowho is Janita Pilaize Prada. So Juanita
is my partner, she's my lawpartner. We actually went to high school
together and fun fact, she wasmy brother's best friend and I was,
(15:41):
Yeah, I was the dorky littlesister and that my brother made her hang
out with me back then, andyou know, we went our separate ways.
She went off to college, Iwent off to college. We had
a very random, literal bumping intoeach other one summer in Italy. She
(16:02):
was I was doing a summer broadprogram there. She just happened to be
there as well, and we bumpedinto each other very randomly, and then
didn't see each other again for anotherten years. Long story short, Hunnitha
and I hadn't seen each other inover ten years, and we had a
playdate with our boys. I reachedout to her on Facebook and we were
on the same kind of career pathwith our lives where we were in our
(16:26):
careers, and we six months laterwe became partners. That is incredible.
I mean, it sounds like agod thing to me. He got brought
together and it was just a fewyears in between the time that the plan
was made. I guess that's prettyawesome. And so do you feel like
you have similar personality? I knowthat it shouldn't matter, but when I
(16:52):
look at law firms, I thinkthat there are so many puzzle pieces and
that each of the pieces is alittle bit different and bring something different to
the table on their strengths. Isthat the same with you guys. Absolutely,
Like I think our strengths absolutely complimenteach other. Anybody that asks me,
I always tell them that she's thespicy one. She's the litigator.
(17:12):
So she's you know, she's sheis tough, and she is great at
what she does. And what Ilove about her so much is that she
does take everything personally. Like Imean, when it's personal injury, she
sees every single client and fights forevery single client as if she were fighting
for her own kid. That's amazing. Yeah, she's She's very cool,
(17:32):
and I'm more you know, lessyou know, reactive, I guess,
and more analytical with respect to youknow, the finer details of the matter
that I'm looking at. So manytimes, and I think of law firms
as companies. I mean, theyare actual businesses companies, But so many
times I think of companies and Ithink, what are they giving back to
(17:57):
the community. What is their placein the community. Yes, you take
on clients and do their wills orhelp them with their accident, but is
there something near and dear to yourheart that you give back to the community
with absolutely We try to any opportunitythat we have to give back to the
community, we absolutely take. We'revery involved with the Battered Women and Children's
(18:22):
Shelter. Juanita's mother, Marta Pelaez, is a powerhouse of a woman.
Lent her yeah, and she's actuallythe executive director of the Battered Women and
Children's Shelter, and so we dogive back quite a bit. In fact,
when we started Beacon Pealized Prada,we have this five over five K
program that we donated five percent ofevery invoice that we sent out to our
(18:44):
clients. Over five thousand dollars wedonated to the Battered Women and Children's Shelter.
We do toy giveaways to their everyChristmas. We have done Halloween parties
for the kids there. We're justalways very involved and we serve as their
proo general counsel as well. Amazing. I knew it. I didn't know
it, but I knew it.There had to be some connection and that's
(19:06):
really great. And I think thesedays it really matters that companies get back
because there's so much detail in companiesnow and people say, oh, I
drink this, I buy this,I eat this. But I think more
these days people really do investigate thecompanies that they're doing business with, and
for women, especially to me,you know, they they want to know
(19:30):
who it is that's standing before them, right and that you know, and
the Battered Women and Children's Shelter isabsolutely near and dear to our heart because
of all of that. But that'snot it. We also, I mean,
Jana was the chairman of the boardof the CASA in San Antonio,
and I think as chairman, shesecured the largest donation for the organization.
(19:53):
I'm on the board of the AmericanHeart Association. We throw parties for our
neighborhood where our offices through Halloween partiesand we do different events just for literally
our community around our office and detailsto follow. But we're also launching a
scholarship. Each of the firms islaunching a scholarship for women that want to
(20:15):
go to law school that we're aboutto launch. So is there anything that
you haven't done? I don't thinkthat I'm going to be able to find
that. I mean, is thereanything I always look at women in the
in business and I always think toI have two daughters, and I always
(20:37):
think and pray for them to havethe best of everything. And it doesn't
necessarily have to be money. Itdoesn't have to be you know, kids,
marriage, but you know, makethem feel like they've accomplished something,
and I think without giving back,sometimes it doesn't. The picture's not complete.
And so when I said that,it's like, Wow, that's good.
Is there anything that you haven't donethat you want to do? No,
(21:03):
you haven't thought of it yet.I haven't thought of it yet,
but I will. That's incredible.Well, I I've talked so much and
I just want to know. Imean, is there anything else that you'd
like to add? How can peopleagain get in touch with you, because
we want to be able to haveyour phone number right on hand. Absolutely
yes. If you're you know,the crash angels. If you need a
personal injury attorney, which again isany car accidents, slip and falls,
(21:27):
work injuries, that's two one zerobring it two seven four six four four
eight. If you need a company, if you need a will, if
you want somebody to review your contractsor anything else business related, that's two
one zero seven eight zero six zerotwo two. Well, I'm telling you
you got to call her Sasha begum. She can help you and her partner,
(21:49):
of course, but I really appreciateyour time and thank you so much
for coming today. Thank you forhaving me, Karen. This is a pleasure.
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