#100: Kristen Vander-Plas LaFreniere - Teeny Law Firm Founder, Business Lawyer, and Litigator

How I Lawyer Podcast with Jonah Perlin

💯 Welcome to Episode #100 of the How I Lawyer Podcast! 💯

I started the podcast in January 2021 to help junior lawyers, law students, and the legal community learn from the stories of lawyers from across the profession about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it well. 100 episodes later the podcast has grown beyond my wildest dreams.

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In today's episode I speak with Kristen Vander-Plas LaFreniere who founded her own #TeenyLaw Firm in her hometown of Lubbock, Texas where she works with her husband David LaFreniere and their PAWclerk Copper. Kristen practices in a number of different areas including: business counseling, civil litigation, probate, and civil appeals. She is a member of the State Bar of Texas and the Lubbock Area Bar Association and is admitted to practice in all Texas courts, the Supreme Court of the United States, the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, along with various federal district courts. Kristen is a leader in her community and has held various positions of leadership throughout the Lubbock area including teaching courses in business law to college students and coaching moot court teams. After Kristen completed a summer internship with then-Justice Don Willett at the Supreme Court of Texas (now Judge Willett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit), Justice Willett asked her back to be his post-graduate law clerk and briefing attorney for the 2016-17 court term. She then practiced at a medium-sized law firm before founding her own firm. She is active on Twitter at www.twitter.com/KVPTexas.

In our conversation we discuss Kristen's path to the law from home school to completing multiple majors and minors in college, the power of learning how to learn, her experiences at the Texas Supreme Court (including participating in conference), the role of moot court in her legal education, her decision to found her own "Teeny" law firm (and how others can do the same), the balance between picking areas of practice and being an expert, how being the daughter of a Pastor taught her to be a better at client service, how to network with less stress, the counterintuitive goal of making yourself unnecessary to your clients, balancing work and life as a law firm founder working from home, and so much more.

This episode is sponsored, edited, and engineered by LawPods, a professional podcast production company for busy attorneys.

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