From Youthful Missteps to Elderly Client Service: Building an Unexpected Practice

Katya Valasek:

We're joined today by Asha Paulose, a sole practitioner in suburbia focused on helping her aging clients protect their assets and wishes while they're still living, though she also helps them plan for after they've passed. Your story is truly animated by persistence and characterized by its winding path. Let's start with your first year of law school. What happened?

Asha Paulose:

I failed out after two semesters. And I got right back in and did a whole 1L over again.

Katya Valasek:

So you make it sound fairly easy, but it's not typically that easy to reapply after being academically dismissed. And you are in a 3 plus 3 program. So did that complicate completing your undergraduate degree at all?

Asha Paulose:

It was a little nerve wracking. I think because I appealed and got right back in, there was no worries about my undergrad. But that summer was very hectic and tension filled. I kind of had to like face it in front of my family. And I think that support was really helpful. And I wasn't spiraling by myself.

I was working at this job in the government office in Albany and I was like, “oh, am I going to get to keep this job? How am I going to pay my rent?” I was a little nervous and my boss was all business, all professional. And I had to tell her. And when I did, she not only sympathized with me, understood, told me I could keep my job, but she went above and beyond by helping me through the appeal process. She actually knew somebody. I mean, this is all a miracle, but she knew somebody who went through the appeals process, got me in touch with this person, walked me through everything, and I went through every step with both their help. If it wasn't for them, I don't know, I might've been a little hesitant to start over again.

Katya Valasek:

So it's not uncommon that someone is surprised by the rigor of law school in their first year. How were you able to identify what you needed to change or what you were going to do differently if you got the chance to repeat your first-year classes?

Asha Paulose:

Yeah, it wasn't one of those things where I was like, “oh, I tried my hardest and I couldn't do it, but I'm going to try again.” No, I did not put the work in the first year. I knew it during, before and after. So I knew what I had to do to change my life. And I turned 21 that year. All my friends, because I was in the three and three program with RPI and Albany Law School, all my friends were graduating that year. You know, there are things that you should not have been doing your first year at law school.

And the other thing that really helped me looking back is my roommate. She went to med school at the time. Her name was Asha as well. I was Asha Law, she was Asha Med, and she was really just, by example, just an incredible person to watch because she was a great student. So she is the one that kind of showed me, hey, this is how you prepare for school. Hey, this is how you outline. This is how you study for four hours straight. You know, get your coffee, get your water, get your highlighter, be in this room for four hours and don't get distracted. So I think because of her, I kind of stepped up my game, said goodbye to the outside world and just really nerded out in law school that year.

Katya Valasek:

You know, I think that's something that people don't often think about if they're doing a three plus three program, which is a program where the first year of law school satisfies the credit requirements for your last year of your undergraduate degree. But what ends up happening is what happened to you. All your friends from college are doing these senior year activities. There you have senioritis, but you are embarking instead on what is a very difficult first year of academic rigor.

Asha Paulose:

Yeah, I don't regret it. I'm really grateful for that program. You don't have to worry about the application process. But you realize later, like, oh, I was really distracted that first year for the following reasons. I mean, at the end of the day, I didn't put my work in. I don't want to make excuses, but it was because of that. Like I wanted to be there and celebrate with friends.

Katya Valasek:

And putting up those guardrails and having those conversations with friends and family is something anyone has to do in their first year of law school. But I would imagine it's so much harder if your peers are still living that college lifestyle.

Asha Paulose:

Oh yeah, when I kind of became serious about it the second time around, there was a lot of relationships I had to say goodbye to. And it was a very difficult time because I was very much connected with so many people outside of law school. And it was hard to just say, okay, no more guys. I am focused. And that was a big transition for me as well.

Katya Valasek:

Yeah. So that was the first time that you had to switch course in the middle of your journey. And it happened in your career too. So fairly early on, you were interested in criminal law. So you interned for the public defender. But then after you earned your license, you took the first job you could get. And in some sense, you had to switch sides. So how come? What happened?

Asha Paulose:

So I was back home with my parents. And then I realized, oh no, I need to be outside of this place. I need to be an adult. And so my friend was like, “hey, I got a job at the DA's office. You want to take it?” And I was like, “yes, please. Yes, please, I'm coming.” I know it's the opposite, but I was working with the same people even though we're on opposing side. Same judges, same court clerks, and I love these individuals. They were so fun. You know, we had a good time at work. So I was ready to go back there. I don't know if you've talked to a lot of prosecutors, but I guess on TV it feels like good versus bad, them versus us. And at the end of the day, if you think of the DA's office, it's more like you're just trying to find the truth. You're not trying to beat the other person. You're not going against the defense attorney.

Katya Valasek:

Do you think it helped you when you came to the district attorney's office to have had that experience as a public defender?

Asha Paulose:

Oh, definitely. I went straight from law school to this job. It was my first full-time job. And so because of that, I felt I was very naive. And so to have at least that under my belt where I worked with defendants, understood what they were going through, understood how the criminal justice system can vary for different people, especially being so naive at the time.

Katya Valasek:

Tell me more about this transition to your first full-time job.

Asha Paulose:

I came from a very, you know, small community. We were good Christian girls and we didn't really go out and see, you know, we were not exposed to a lot. And so when you go to the DA's office and you see all the all the different crimes that are out there, all the different things that people have committed. I was part of the Special Victims Unit, I just think it was a lot of exposure for the very first time.

Katya Valasek:

Right. And sometimes a DA's job is not just nine to five.

Asha Paulose:

I didn't mind. Especially when you're young, I didn't have a lot of family around. We threw ourselves into this job. It was definitely 24-7 to work at the DA's office up in Rensselaer County. There were night courts. I loved it. I love night courts. Go from like 6:00 to 10:00, there are 30 to 50 people waiting to get their cases heard. It was a lot of fun to kind of figure things out, juggle a lot of different cases, a lot of different defense attorneys, probation officers, the judge, the clerk, everything. That was the best part of my job, I think. I don't know, because I was a little naive, because I didn't understand certain parts of the job, I wasn't really interested in the trial work and the appeals process or anything like that. I loved that courtroom aspect. A day court or a night court, give me that any day where there's a hundred cases, one judge, one DA, and we gotta crank it out. We gotta get these cases in line by the end of the night.

Katya Valasek:

So it's interesting that you say you love the court aspect of your job because after a few years you left law. What motivated you to make that change to insurance?

Asha Paulose:

After a couple of years at the DA's office, you get burnt out. You're like, okay, it's either I stay in this job, um, and become this career prosecutor or I got to leave. And I think it was time for me to leave. Again, I didn't like the trial part of it, the grand jury and all that. So I think this was the peak of what I was able to do and you had to move on. The other thing you can do is become a defense attorney and that was not something I was interested in doing. And so through a friend, I got this job at the insurance company. Back then, in 2006, 2007, jobs were a little dicey when it came to lawyers. I think there was just a huge, there was a huge amount of lawyers graduating at the time. I don't know what it was, man, but I felt like a lot of people went into the corporate world. And there was this new department called compliance. I wanted to move back home. I was getting married and it was always for a guy. I should have just said that from the beginning. It's for a guy. And I wanted to kind of live that nine-to-five life and see if I could do it.

Katya Valasek:

Was it more of a nine-to-five lifestyle?

Asha Paulose:

Oh yeah. It's nine-to-five, you leave 5:01, you're out the door and they have a lot of perks. There's gym memberships, there's free coffee, there's cookies at 4:00 p.m. It was a very nice gig that I had there. But at the end of the day, when you wanted to be a lawyer for so long and you go through all this, you know, it just felt like, oh no, this is not what I wanted to do. You know, it's a fantastic job, but it's not the lawyer that I thought I wanted to be.

Katya Valasek:

So what made you decide to then transition back to practicing law?

Asha Paulose:

Yeah, I think the community that I grew up with, we were like the small South Indian community in Queens and it was first generation and a lot of people were getting older, including my parents, and they were learning more about wills and everything that comes along with that. And I wanted to explore that. Everybody, including my family was like, you're crazy, you're getting free cookies, why are you leaving? And so it wasn't like this automatic, okay, I'm changing to estate planning. It was like a thought in my mind for a couple of years while I'm doing corporate work.

It was a hard decision. I found that I was doing more community work and volunteer work and being involved in community projects after work, and it was taking more time than my actual job. So I knew that I wasn't kind of satisfied with my job because I was trying to find things elsewhere to do.

And one of those positions was something called the Historical Society. There's one in every town probably, but in my town it was pretty amazing. I did walking tours and one gentleman there, we were emailing back and forth. He was a volunteer. And in his email, you know, the signatures on the bottom, it said elder law attorney. And so I was like, oh, I don't even know this guy, but let me just ask him.

You know, hey, what's this elder law attorney? I only knew what estate planning was or estate planning attorney or trust in the state's attorney. I was like, what's this about? And he sat me down. He talked to me and explained to me everything. And I told him, “I think this is something that I really want to explore. I'm first generation here. I think the community that I belong to really would need someone like this to educate them. Let me know if you know anybody who might be interested in me coming along.” Even though I haven't done legal work in like seven years, you know, or six, seven years. And he said, no problem. And then a week later, he called and said, why don't you come work for me? So it was a crazy opportunity that just kind of landed in my lap and I couldn't say no.

Katya Valasek:

So I'm going to ask you the same question you asked him. What exactly is elder law?

Asha Paulose:

If you think about estate planning and trust in estates, you think more about the wealthy and like the people who have these large estates that they have to protect for their kids and their legacy. But elder law is more for anybody, all of us who are aging, and all of the ways you can protect whatever assets you have and the medical decisions that you feel is necessary as you grow older. You want to protect those decisions, you want to protect those finances. And elder law puts you in that position so that you have options as you get older.

Katya Valasek:

So after all those different experiences, now you have your own firm. What's that like?

Asha Paulose:

It's not something that I thought I would do. I thought, oh, I would always just want to work for someone and be told what to do at all times and not have to have that burden of being the boss. But it is an incredible experience. I took this class three years ago. And it was an online class. It was a woman that was just like, ‘hey, you can start your own law firm. And here's how.” And I thought, let me just take the class. No way I'm gonna actually do it. But let me just take it and see. I took a pottery class. I took this how to grow a law firm class. And I think maybe the third class I took, I really was like, I think this is something I could really do. And I think it would be beneficial for my family and for my interests as I grow older. Am I the janitor and the accountant and, you know, everything? Yes. But I think you just kind of move forward knowing that you got to wear a lot of different hats.

Katya Valasek:

Yeah, so one of the, I would say, scary things about going out on your own is finding clients. How are you able to do that?

Asha Paulose:

Yeah, so again, Katya, I know it sounds like, you know, she's so lucky, but in my situation, while I was thinking about starting my own firm, the office that I worked for, they actually closed their law office. And because of that they generously included me in the client letters. So basically this client letter said, hey, the firm is closing, who do you want? You know, who do you want to continue working for? And so I had a lot of clients that came with me when I started my firm. I had to really understand that, you know, the first couple of months, I'm not going to get the clients that I had before in the firm. And I had to buckle down in terms of finances. Like got to cancel that Amazon membership and, you know, got to start being realistic about what the finances were. There's no really one right answer as to how to get clients. There was like a couple of weeks where I try to follow where everybody came from and what happened, but there is no right formula because people just find you in different ways, whether it's on Facebook or Instagram or a referral from Nextdoor. Or it could be that my brother was at the bar at 2 a.m. and started talking to his buddy and his buddy said he needed an elder law attorney and he gave him my number. I think if you just put yourself out there in ways that you're comfortable with then it will happen.

Katya Valasek:

So your practice is about 75% elder law. What kind of problems are you helping your clients work through?

Asha Paulose:

It ranges from, there's a couple that's retired and is like, “okay, we want to take the next steps. We want to make the right financial decisions. Asha, can you show us how to move forward?” We'll have something called a strategy session where I'll sit there and just go, all right, here are the things that might happen. Here are some things that you might need, some products you may need, like a power of attorney or a trust to help you through it. And then, it's also about getting the conversation going. It's not something that you and your kids can do over a weekend. Like, okay, let's plan our lives. So it is the start of a lot of different conversations that I get them going with. Another one is usually the kids that come to me. Mom just fell. She's in the hospital. The doctors want her to go back home, but we don't know if anyone can take care of her. Dad's weak too. He can't take care of her 24/7. What can we do? And so we go through the process of what homecare is, what Medicaid is, and whether the home is good for them, things like that. Another typical client is a single person that decides, hey, I really want to kind of just get my affairs in order.

Katya Valasek:

It sounds like in the conversations you have, you need to be issue spotting based on what your clients are sharing in the discussion. Is that true or are you more often presenting situations or different options to the clients and letting them respond to you?

Asha Paulose:

I try my best not to sound like a like a salesman like, “oh, act now and you can get this and you should do this!” Like I really try to be, far from aggressive and just letting them know the different options. However, there are certain situations. The biggest one is, people always call me and say, “Asha, I want to do a Medicaid trust. I want to put my home into a trust so that if I need Medicaid in the future, my home is protected.” And I'll be like, great, let's do it. But at the end of the day, we go through their finances and I see that they're, what my boss used to say, house rich, cash poor. So all of their value is in their house and nowhere else. They're in their 60s, they wanna put their house in a trust, it is protected from them even. And so when you put a home into a trust, you can't really take it out of the trust. You can't use the value, you can't sell it. And that is a difficult thing to let them know. Like, “hey, I think this is a bad idea.” When you put your home in, what if the roof collapses or what if your daughter needs, funds for medical bills or something, you can't help anybody. Are you okay with that? For the next 30 years, you won't have this house to assist you in your lifestyle. And a lot of people kind of want to keep with the Joneses and do everything that their friends are doing. And when they are told they can't do a Medicaid trust, it's kind of like it's kind of difficult for them to wrap their heads around.

Katya Valasek:

That's a really good example of one case where you're sort of walking a client through their needs. What do you do once you identify a client's needs?

Asha Paulose:

The first thing that I do is go through their financial accounts and ensure that they have beneficiaries listed on everything. That you don't need an attorney for, you don't need your kids for, you can figure that out by yourself. Make sure there's beneficiaries on everything because then your kids don't have to go through probate. That's great.

The second thing is to kind of have all of your documents organized and everybody is like hiding their stuff under mattresses or like in their pots and pans. And I'm like, no more of that, no more of that. Just have it all out, make it all organized and ready. You don't want your loved ones becoming this detective when somebody is sick and passing away. You want that information ready and available for anybody.

And then the second thing is we go through a basic estate planning documents. A will now I feel before maybe 50 years ago, it was like this. Let's raise it up on a pedestal. It's most important thing, but nowadays I would not say it's an important document. I think it's what my friend called a “fail-safe,” which I love. It's just a catch all document in case you didn't do all of the things you're supposed to do. Great. That's there. A power of attorney, I think is the most important thing because gone are the days that I could just roll up to the bank and say, but that's my husband. I want to look into his account and get the money. No, no one's going to let you do that. If you're not the owner, they will not care if you're the mother, you're the sister, the daughter, the husband, whatever. So to have this power of attorney so that if my husband is in the hospital, I can still pay the bills, do the things that are necessary in case anything is under only his name. I've seen a lot of children who don't have powers of attorney for their parents have to pay out of pocket on their own. And that might not be an option for them. Or they're taking loans out of their 401k to pay for mom's bills when mom has accounts, but they just can't access it. Another basic estate document is all the medical proxies that you go through. So it's just nice not to have kids try to figure out or loved ones try to figure out what to do in that situation. Hey, it's all written here. And then the next level would be if you want to do trusts and Medicaid planning. So it's nice to have those basic documents before rushing into something like a Medicaid trust.

Katya Valasek:

I just want to explore for a second what happens when there is someone who is able to put their house in trust. What's that process look like?

Asha Paulose:

I send them a questionnaire. I talk about who they want to be the trustee. It doesn't have to be someone who's like amazing at math or just the best real estate person. It's someone that you trust because you are losing control over that home and giving it to the trustee. The trustee is supposed to act on your behalf, but you want to be able to know that they are doing everything for your benefit. The questionnaire also talks about how to distribute that property when you pass away.

I send them a draft. I'm essentially a virtual firm, so we have a Zoom session after I send the draft and we go through it line by line if they want, just explaining everything. They'll ask me any questions. We'll go through edits and then we'll move on to signing, which is the only time I really get to see them is when we do a signing. I usually do the signing at their home, but it can be at an office nearby. We go through the documents again, and then they sign. That also includes transferring your home, which, surprisingly, a lot of people are like, “I worked hard for this home. I am not transferring this deed out.” And so it is a discussion that I have to go through before the signing date because there's been plenty of times where we get to the signing and I shove this deed in their face and they're like, “no way, I'm not transferring my deed into some trust.” And so the discussion has to be done beforehand. So they're not, they're not surprised.

Katya Valasek:

It's obvious you really care about advising your clients and helping set them up for success as they age. Is there any type of client you won't take?

Asha Paulose:

I do think elder law is a field of practice where your empathy is required. I think in other practices, it was something that I had to stifle or not really have in my life. And it was hard for me because I wanted to feel bad, you know, and that's not what you do, Asha. So it's been really a blessing to have that quality in me come out in elder law. But I don't take clients that, especially the children, when they come to me and say, “come to the hospital and make my parents sign these documents.” Or it can't be a quick turnaround. Or someone that's more focused on assets and not the individual. Those are the clients that I get really hesitant about accepting. And so maybe I'll have more conversations with them before I start, or I'll politely say, “I don't think we're a good fit.” If they have a higher asset value than I am comfortable with, and I feel like, you know what, I'm a solo firm, I don't have the capacity to learn all of that and help you, I will refer them out as well.

Katya Valasek:

I feel like it was probably stressful early on as a solo practitioner to turn people away. How did you build confidence in saying, this isn't the right client for me?

Asha Paulose:

Oh yeah, no, I'm still learning. Don't worry. It's not about sending people away because I'm part of this community. What my biggest problem was in the beginning is not charging enough or not charging at all or staying on the phone with people when these are people that have helped me throughout my life. And so to say, “oh, actually you need to pay me now.” It's like a huge… I don't know, it's going against every fiber of my being to be like, I know you've helped me throughout my whole life and supported me. And now I need you to pay me this amount of money. So that was a real problem for me. But to turn people away, the best thing that I did was get an accountability partner. She is an attorney that is also a solo practitioner. And we help each other out, so that we're a little bit more practical in our business and not wasting our time with certain situations when we have to focus on our business. So I recommend that completely. It probably also fell in my lap, I want to say, where we just started chatting. And then, like I was asking her out on a date, I was like, “would you be my accountability partner?” And we had, we tried, tested out for a few weeks and then it just became a thing. So it's been two and a half years and it's been wonderful.