(0:00 – 0:37)
Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell and I’m privileged to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch Mantel, owner and managing partner of Primus Family Law Group, a family oriented firm where experience meets results. Bonnie, your family oriented drive is reflected in your culture, your operations, the clients you help. Tell us a little bit about how you’ve created a culture of collaboration with Kimberly and Sean and so many others and this personalized approach that you bring to your clients.

(0:38 – 1:51)
You know what Michael, thank you for noticing that we’re a little different at Primus Family Law Group. What we try to do, what I’ve always tried to do, is having work for other firms where you have an HR department and A can’t speak to B and has to go through channels and that’s just never how I’ve been. I’m always pretty blunt in the way I communicate with people and I found that trying to build a firm that is honest and blunt with each other, like a family would be, it works the best for what I’m trying to do and what we’re trying to, you know, promote in the community.

I’ve had a lot of people who have come and go in my practice, you know, not everybody matches with that kind of style that I’ve got and I’ve been very lucky. The people who I now work with every day, be it in the office, and yes I miss that, to remotely are all people who seem to have the same goals. Like Kimberly, she’s a young attorney, she’s not even 30 yet and she’s been doing this long enough to understand that it takes more than just what is the law and how we’re going to apply it to get a case done.

(1:51 – 4:13)
You know, Sean, he’s been in family law because of me. He and I actually 20, 21 years ago and we were both paralegals and he was working for a civil lawyer and he was doing everything for that civil attorney and we became really, really close friends and when I left and went out on my own he was like, just let me know when you can afford me and I will come and work for you and even though I couldn’t afford him, I still found a way to get him to come all the way from Murrieta to Mission Valley and then these two together, well you can’t do your job without staff, you can’t do your job without paralegals. Kim, feel free, you can certainly tell us what it’s like to be on your own, not having staff, now at least having staff.

Yeah, it’s definitely been really nice to have staff on my side. I did have my own firm for a couple of years there and I was doing everything on my own, not even just the workload but not having that sense of family and community ship in the firm and having people that I can bounce ideas off of and that can support me in some of the smaller activities that I need to be done. Someone that can review my work and somebody that can, you know, give me suggestions as to, you know, a better way to go about doing something.

So it’s been really nice to have Sean as my paralegal and then Bonnie as you have, you know, really brought me into this firm and I feel really good about being there. I’m from Vermont so I don’t have any family out here so it’s been really nice to just come into this kind of family environment. Well, you know, Sean, what’s it like being on that end, behind the lines, having to field client questions because I know they call you first, right? Most of the time, you know, I interface with the clients before they even become clients and it gives me a chance to kind of assess their needs and who they are as people and, you know, with that I can bring kind of a human component to it which I think is very, very important in the beginning because we all know the stigma surrounding lawyers and people in family law are already coming with a chip on their shoulders so it’s my job to make them understand that we’re people first, lawyers second.

(4:14 – 5:33)
You guys seek closure, not revenge. I’ve seen that the culture of the firm is that divorce is the end of a marriage but in your mind it’s never the end of your client’s world. You’ve been described, all of you have been described as relentless and formidable and yet as Sean just said, you lead with your heart.

How do you put all that together? Well, how do we put it all together? Sean, give me an idea of how you and Kimberly work together on a, you know, not necessarily on a case but describe how the two of you work together to make sure that we are doing what we need to do for our clients, not just their cases but their whole selves. Well, I think a lot of it has to do with anticipation. As a more than 20-year paralegal, even only four that’s been in family law, you just learn how to read people and how to anticipate their needs and in doing so when you apply the knowledge that you have already from being a paralegal for so long, you just you form a bond with the attorney for whom you support and you learn to anticipate the attorney’s needs.

(5:34 – 8:53)
You learn to put your experience with procedures and things like that and how things get done so that they get done properly and completely so we don’t get kickbacks from the court and things like that which gives the attorney the ability to have not only peace of mind but to make sure that the essential legal details of a case are met and then I kind of come in as needed to talk to the client about many other concerns they have that’s outside of the law itself in an effort to just make it a more well-rounded experience, not just a bunch of lawyers, you know, charging a whole lot of money and ramming stuff down people’s throats. It’s more than that and it’s quite frankly… You guys find when you finish each other’s sentences in a way, I know it’s, you know, I know it sounds silly but in a way that you’ve got your work in says, you know, there’s times where I will be on my way to work and I see an email come in from a client with certain information or certain documents and you know I’m forwarding that email to Sean saying, you know, can you print this off, you know, whatever it may be and I come into my office and it’s already printed on my desk, you know, he’s kind of that frontline that enables me to really focus on the important, stronger, bigger issues and he supports me in that and has everything all set up for me when I come in and that’s been really nice. One other thing that we like to do in our office, Michael, is, you know, we’re able to, like Kimberly had said, you know, when you have an issue, every attorney’s seen things that other attorneys haven’t seen.

We all have different experiences. So what’s really nice is our ability to confer with each other. For example, this morning, Kimberly had some discovery that had to go out with questions that we asked the other side, we want documents, we want information and she and I sat there for an hour on the phone going through and making sure that what she wanted to put out made the most sense from a different perspective and what’s nice about it is we’re both not charging the client for that.

We try very hard to give a benefit to our clients in the sense of, you know, Kimberly’s doing the work, so she’ll do the charge, but if she has to come and talk to a senior attorney or if she needs to get help from somebody else, that’s done because we care. It’s not done because we can bill. You know, you bring focus and clarity and ingenuity and insight into everything you do.

One of the very rare things about you folks is that you do, the care is so clear. It’s behind the scenes. You listen to your clients, you hear what they’re not saying, but how many times a day do you come and say to me, who focuses on emotional well-being, hey, my client is showing this or saying this, I’m concerned, what do you think? I don’t know any other firms that have that built right into the fabric of the culture and so that’s another very big differentiator, but that insight, that focus, that caring, the ingenuity, the insight that you bring is something that I think people need to know about.

(8:54 – 9:32)
Well, thank you, Michael. Thank you very much. You know, remember, if you need us, Primus Family Law Group is here during COVID-19.

We are working from home. Kimberly’s couch looks amazing. Sean’s, you know, we’re all working from home trying to get things for you.

You can still call us 619-574-8000. Melani will answer and we’ll forward you when you need to go and you can visit us online, PrimusFamilyLawGroup.com. Dr. Michael Mantell is always an amazing part of Primus Family Law Group. He’s kind of like the rudder for the whole group.