The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • If You Waste My Time, I’m Sending You A Bill

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    Ruth Carter

    I hate going to the dentist. I’ve lived in Phoenix for over eight years and I have yet to find a dentist that I like as a person and an office I don’t dread going to. I particularly hate dentist offices that have the open setting where each patient has their own chair and equipment but you’re in a big room or a room with only three walls and you can hear and see a lot of what’s going on with other people.

    Watch Coin Tails by SkrewTape
    Watch Coin Tails by SkrewTape

    My new dentist is no exception. I arrived about 10 minutes before my appointment time, signed in, and they ignored me for about 10 minutes before asking me to fill out the new patient paperwork.  I filled out the paperwork and waited another 15 minutes before being called back. When I made the appointment, the receptionist said each patient got a separate room – wrong! I got a bay with three walls. The dental assistant took my x-rays which aren’t fun for me and my small mouth and said it would be 5 to 7 minutes. No problem – I popped on my iPod to pass the time. Five songs later, the dentist still wasn’t there.  I took out my earbuds and chatted with the assistant for another 10 minutes.

    When the dentist finally came in, he didn’t use my name, shake my hand, or look me in the eye. I was pissed. He spent about 5 minutes with me and said they’d have to schedule my cleaning for another day. I was livid. It was at that moment I decided that I need to have mutual agreements with all my providers that state we won’t waste each other’s time and if we do, we can send the other a bill. Seriously!

    I will agree to be on-time for all my appointments, do any requested prep work, and fill out any paperwork they send me in advance. I expect to be seen by a provider within 10 minutes of my appointment time and not to be left waiting more than 5 minutes if I’m seeing multiple providers in a visit. If I’m made to wait more than this amount time, the clock starts ticking at I will bill them at $100/hour in .1-hour increments. If I’m ever late or unprepared, you can bill me at $100/hour in .1-hour increments if they have to wait for me. The invoice will need to be sent within 7 calendar days of the service and payment must be remitted within 30 days of the invoice date.

    That seems fair, right?

    For my legal eagle readers, this is a valid contract if I draft it and the provider accepts it, right? I’ll be totally upfront and send it to the provider in advance for their review. At first I just wanted to bill them for wasting my time, but I figured the billing needed to go both ways to get consideration.

    I understand that sometimes things happen and people run late. Unfortunately, that’s how some people run their lives and their businesses. If you work in a service industry, you have an obligation to respect your clients’ time. I don’t know about you, but I’m busy. And I’m not just picking on dentists – this is for all service providers. If you’re going to waste my time, I want to make it worth my while.

  • Don’t Lose Your Personality When You Get Your JD

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    Ruth Carter

    Foot tattoos Ruth Carter
    My Awesome Tattoos

    I got an interesting email from a friend over the weekend. He just graduated from law school and is studying for the bar. He’s also training for an ironman race. He’s been in fabulous shape for as long as I’ve known him and his preferred running outfit is teeny tiny running shorts and sneakers. He doesn’t put a shirt over his tattooed chest. When he was in school he lived near campus but now he lives downtown near the courthouses and a lot of the big law firms. He was concerned that his running attire could have a negative impact on his career if judges and lawyers saw him. He wrote to me asking for my thoughts.

    I told him the same thing I tell everyone: “Don’t do anything in public that you wouldn’t put on the front page of the paper.” If you’re ok with being seen shirtless and in little shorts in the newspaper, why would you have a problem with judges and lawyers seeing you? They’re just people. And who’s to say they haven’t already seen you? Most people are so oblivious that they wouldn’t figure out that you were the shirtless guy if they met you at a professional event.

    My friend’s question made me reflect on my early days as a law student. I was told that I should change my clothes, my hair, and even my sunglasses before I started law school. I took out my excess piercings and kept the tattoos on my feet covered with shoes, dark socks, and tattoo concealer. I gave all that up and was back to being 100% myself by the end of my 2L year. I was happier for it and got more professional opportunities as a result of being me instead of trying to fit the law student mold.

    Why are lawyers seemingly held to a different social standard than other people? When we graduate from law school, we don’t suddenly all become interested in golf, going to tea, or smoking cigars. Lawyers should never give up their personality or interests because they’re lawyers. I see nothing wrong with a lawyer being a shirtless runner in their free time, or even something more daring like a burlesque dancer or a nudist. It’s no more shocking than any other fringe activity like having extreme religious beliefs or seeing your favorite band live in concert 33 times. As long as you’re not hurting anyone or breaking the law, let your freak flag fly!

    I can see where my friend might be concerned because he doesn’t have a job lined up after the bar. Bug here’s something else to think about – if you have to hide who you are to get a job, is it a job you really want? I’m not saying that you should flaunt your eccentricities, but you shouldn’t have to hide them either.

    The only other advice I can offer of this topic is the wisdom that was bestowed upon me by my friend Evo Terra. He said to figure out whose opinions truly matter to you and then don’t give a shit about what anyone else thinks. It’s easier said than done, but those are definitely words to live by.

  • What’s My Picture Doing On Pinterest?

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    Ruth Carter

    Ignite Phoenix #5 Ruth Carter by Sheila Dee
    This is the photo of me that's on Pinterest — Ignite Phoenix #5 by Sheila Dee

    I’m not on Pinterest. I don’t need another internet addiction, and I think it’s a hub of unintentional copyright infringement. Pinterest provides a forum that encourages sharing, and I think it leads to people being so interested in sharing images that they don’t realize that they are violating other people’s copyright rights.

    I was recently surprised when I saw that someone got to my law firm’s website by following a link from Pinterest. I traced it back to a board for the ASU Law Solo Network. The person who created the board posted a photo of me from my site with a link to my law firm’s webpage. I know the person who created the board used the picture to promote me and my business and only had good intentions. But she also didn’t consider whether she needed permission to use the photo.

    My initial reaction was anger. I’m not on Pinterest, and I don’t want anyone posting any of my work on Pinterest without my permission. I started thinking about what I could do to get it removed, like sending a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice. That train of thought immediately stopped when I realized, “I don’t own this picture. I don’t get to decide where it’s shown online, and my rights aren’t being violated. I’m getting free publicity out of this, so shut up.”

    I went back and looked up the original photo. It was a photo Sheila Dee took of me at Ignite Phoenix #5. The photo is available on Flickr and it has a Creative Commons license that allows anyone to copy and distribute the photo as long as they don’t alter the image, use it for commercial purposes, and if they give an attribution to Sheila. There’s nothing I can do to stop someone from pinning Sheila’s work on Pinterest. I bet Sheila’s happy that someone is indirectly promoting her by showing her work to others.

    So what did I do about this photo on Pinterest? Not much – it’s not my photo and it’s free publicity for Carter Law Firm. I saw that the photo that was pinned didn’t have an attribution to Sheila Dee, so I sent the board owner an email asking her to give an attribution and a link back to the original image on Flickr.

    This has been a good reminder to me that I don’t get to control every picture of me. I have no expectation of privacy in anything I do in public and part of that is I don’t have any control over where picture of me in public end up in most cases. And just because I’m not keen on Pinterest, it doesn’t mean that it can’t benefit me.

    If you want to know more about copyright issues on Pinterest, check out this video.

    Pinterest Spawns Copyright Issues

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