James Pittman: Welcome to Immigration Uncovered, the Docketwise video podcast where we dive deep into the dynamic world of immigration law, shedding light on the latest developments, cutting edge practice management strategies, and the transformative impact of legal technology, empowering immigration practitioners with insights and exploring the intricate intersection of law and society. Today, our special guest is attorney Ruby Powers. She is a well known immigration attorney located in Houston, Texas. Ruby is the founder and owner of Powers Law Group. She's also an adjunct professor at the South Texas College of Law. She also is an attorney at the alliance and a founder of Power Strategy Group, a law practice management company. Ruby, welcome and thanks for joining us.

Ruby Powers: Thank you so much, James. It's an honor to be here.

James Pittman: Well, Ruby, you're really a dynamo, and you're a well known practitioner whose immigration law knowledge and also your level of activity in the field is very respected. Let's just start off by getting a synopsis of your journey. What inspired you to become an immigration attorney, and how has your journey evolved over the 14 years or so that you've been in this field?

Ruby Powers: Yeah. Thank you. My mom was born to American missionaries in Mexico, and so growing up, she thought she was Mexican. And renounced her us. Citizenship for almost all of my life, created a very interesting just culture and living in Mexico and Missouri and with different sets of grandparents at different times. I later was able to go to Israel with one grandma, and then I was exchange student to Belgium. So all of that international experience. I think a lot of immigration attorneys have some type of a story where they're either a child of an immigrant, an immigrant themselves, married to an immigrant, or had extensive travel abroad or expat experience. So I think that's what also bonds us all. And having a commonality, that all brought to the table that eventually, when I met my husband at University of Texas, he wanted to stay in the US. And I wanted to be like Secretary of State or go abroad a lot. But what I realized is I can still be abroad in a way and interact with a lot of different cultures and understanding of countries while in the comfort of the United States. And that wasn't really what I intended because I have lived in lots of countries, but that was a way that I could help those who needed a voice, help those navigate the process. Just like my family, not just my mom, but I have a lot of other relatives that are from other countries as well. So I'd say a personal background because of my mother and then the continued living abroad, experiences abroad and just being so intrigued and that cultural understanding, the languages just constantly, it's never boring, right? You're always learning about some culture or country or part of the world, and I just love that.

James Pittman: I second that, ruby, I do think that's a common thread with a lot of us is that we went to law school, but we really want to have an international environment. We just enjoy operating in that milieu. So I'm right there with you on that point. That's very similar.

James Pittman: And you are one of around 180 or so attorneys who are board certified in immigration and nationality law in Texas. So could you share for anyone who doesn't know the significance of that certification? And how does that offer you an edge in your practice?

Ruby Powers: Yeah, so I don't know how many states in the country have a board certification for immigration. I think it's California, Texas, north Carolina and maybe some others. But the way it works in Texas, because they have lots of different areas that you can get board certified, you have to practice at least five years in that space, like majority of that practice area, and then you have to submit an application asking for your peers to okay you to sit for the test. And that application also shows that you have significant experience in let's just break it down to removal, family and employment. And then if you're accepted, then you get to go take a six hour test of multiple choice and essay. And so I took the test the earliest I could after five years out of graduation. And what I loved about it, even though I don't love tests necessarily, is that it was actually what I really love doing, as opposed to when you take the bar, there's nothing on immigration on the bar, so you had to study all this other stuff which you might not use that much in your daily practice. So the board certification made me a better attorney by going through the process because there's no study guide, there's just a long list of topics, and it made me build my network with other people that I could call on as experts. And then, of course, once you get approved, you also have to that's a nice badge of honor. You have to pay a little more, I think, in dues, but it's okay. But you can let people know about that and then that just knows that you've gone through those extra steps and you're certified by the state. But you also have to get recertified every five years. And so that keeps you on your toes as well, because you have to get approval by a judge or an officer, ta somebody, a few people to sort of just that you're still in good. I mean, I'm honored to be a part of that small group, and I highly suggest anybody who's eligible to that in whatever states that you're practicing in to go through that process.

James Pittman: Yeah, I did not know about the requirement to recertify every five years, but it makes a lot of sense.

James Pittman: So, Ruby, what's the current composition of your practice? Like, in terms of caseload? Are you pretty much spread out family based, employment based, or are you concentrating in a few areas?

Ruby Powers: Well, we are full service, so I would say that our removal has really grown this last year and a half or so that the courts reopened. I feel like it was just a few months ago, but now I guess it's been a couple of years and just the need there. We have a significant amount of affirmative asylum because I especially a lot in asylum early on in my career. And we're actually only 15 minutes away from the Houston Asylum Office, which has a jurisdiction of multiple states that are funneled through there. We also do a lot of family. My first attorney position was doing a lot of I 601 waivers before I 601 A was created. And so we have a consular processing family, but we also have employment investment visas. So I would say family removal are bigger ones, but we do have a significant amount of employment and investment visas as well. So we're pretty well rounded and as well as those other humanitarian like use and Bawa, it definitely keeps us all on our toes over here.

James Pittman: Good to know. And I enjoy hearing from people who have sort of like a full service practice as well. I mean, some people prefer to get very specific in terms of subspecific sort of niche. Other people maintain a full service practice. It just depends on what your objectives are as a business and what kind of market you're operating in. But Ruby, you're the author of a very important book for immigration practice management, and the title of the book is build and Manage Your Successful Immigration Law Practice without Losing Your Mind in parentheses. It's a nice title. In that book, you emphasize goal setting and having a vision for one's firm. So first of all, how did you come to write the book and how do these practices, how do these principles of goal setting and vision shape your own legal practice?

Ruby Powers: Well, you have to know where you're going. You have to have a roadmap. I often say, and maybe people have heard me say this before, you don't normally get in a car and just start driving, right? And nowadays, which our children don't ever imagine us not having a cell phone to give us the maps or ways, but you put it in your GPS and you know how much time it's going to take, where you're going to go, how long, how fast you'll get there, if there's any traffic or something like that. But we rarely just go off and drive off into without a plan. Right? And if we do go off without a plan, then it's going to take us a long time to get wherever we want to go. And so if you want to be there, the most direct route, you need to laser focus. You have to have those important goals. And the mission vision are all related to that. So let me go back. Let's see I'm a child of a lot of different entrepreneurs and I was just sort of inquisitive a lot about how best to do things. And sometimes my family would show me how not to do things, not really on purpose, but what I realized by reading a lot of business books and talking a lot of other fellow business owners and entrepreneurs is how important it is to the goal setting. I really love this book called Success Principles by Jack Cainfield and he's got several chapters about goal setting and mission vision and all that. So I just felt like that was really important. So I know it's like one of the first couple of chapters in the book because you really need to know where you want to go before you chart out your pathway to getting there. And what I've also seen a lot of times with individuals, especially attorneys, is like, okay, I want to go be a lawyer. Okay, great. So you get into a good college and you go get into a good law school, then you pass the bar and then you get your job and then maybe you have to go do some other stuff like, I don't know, get married, have kids, buy a house, whatever. But then after what happens after a while is you get complacent and you just sort of like go on autopilot.

Ruby Powers: Why I wanted to bring this up as well is that you have to reevaluate your goals on a regular basis and reval your mission and vision and make sure that you're aligned. Because also, everything you do with your firm, like how you treat your clients when they come in to how you do your marketing, are all related to your mission and vision for the practice.

James Pittman: I think it's a really important point to emphasize. I think we all see people who have been doing sort of the same things for years and years the same way, and haven't grown beyond a certain sort of routine that they're in. And I think part of that is that in a lot of industries they really are constantly reevaluating what they're doing. You have a process and it is reevaluated regularly to optimize it. So this ethic of optimization, I think it's the word the Japanese call kaizen, which is continuous improvement, I think that that has started to come into law. It's in law now, but it hasn't reached everybody. I mean, a lot of people just sort of get into a routine. So I think what you're saying is very important that you have to constantly be reassessing your business plan and optimizing your processes.

James Pittman: Can you tell us about the importance of managerial focus so striking a balance between managing your firm and also, like we said, keeping up with your legal skills and changes in the law and other professional activities. I mean, as I'd mentioned, you've got quite a handful here how do you juggle being an adjunct at South Texas College of Law together know, doing the consulting work that you're doing and also stay on top of all of your cases and run your firm?

Ruby Powers: Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I've learned to delegate. That's one of my keys. So I really like the book EMED through Visited or EMED whatever the series, Michael Gerber and he really talks. Probably a lot of you read that book. Reed Trouts is the first one who told me about it many years ago and that we are the technician, the manager, and the entrepreneur when we're running a business. And a lot of us think that, oh, we're a lawyer, we're the technician, we've got this and that's when you hang out your shingle and you start your practice. But that only gets you so far. If you don't know how to manage and you don't know how to delegate and follow up and keep that going, you're never going to be able to grow. And I find that a lot of people say they don't want to grow. That's fine, but I want it to be because they don't want to. It's not because they don't know how to, because sometimes I think they say that as an excuse, but they really just don't know how to. And a lot of it has to do with delegation and management. When you do a deep dive into that, you have to analyze. Many of us, none of us are taught how to delegate and manage. And we learn a lot from trial and error, good bosses, bad bosses, and supervisors, as well as role models. And you can go to courses as much as you want to, but the day to day is where you have to put it into practice. So over time, I've had my ups and downs. My firm is 14 years old this week, and so I've had my share of mistakes. But being able to analyze myself and to know what holds me back from delegating more is there a fear of failure, is there fear of control or something? And a lot of people have that when I talk to them through my consulting and courses. So being able to assess what is the best use of my time and delegating to competent and capable people that you communicate with on a regular basis, that's how I do it. And the thing is, it's not like a set it and forget it. You have to constantly be doing it. And like right before this podcast, I was talking to my senior associate and we're considering a little bit of a change in our flow because we've gotten to a size that our previous way of structure is just not really going to handle our potential future growth. But that being not just setting and forgetting. It is so critical because that's more of abdication. And I'm guilty of that a lot. But you have to go back and reevaluate and keep tabs on things and having really experienced people you can trust.

James Pittman: So your management experience is that you mentioned you were a child of entrepreneurs. Did you also study, did you take some business courses as you were going through school or did you take management courses later? How did you acquire the know how and the where?

Ruby Powers: I think that because I was a leader in high school, in college and I also had to manage I worked at the Princeton Review, one of my first jobs out of college. I had to manage the contract and part time, full time teachers. And so I sort of had this unprecedented experience of getting to manage people at such a young age. And so between all the different leadership roles in high school and college and law school, I also started organization law school and then that Prince Review management job. I mean, it wasn't really a lot from watching my parents, my dad's position, company, but I think it was a lot of that practical experience and then asking, reading, talking and in reality I only had two attorney jobs before I started my law firm. So I've been my own boss for 14 years. Which also makes me have to ask, I absorb a lot of information because I'm like, hey, what are they doing over there? And what are they doing over there? Let's take those. Good. So I was a business minor and I was at business school at UT under Austin. I was a minor and then I also did the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Businesses program in 2015. And I just read a lot and talk to a lot of people and try to absorb as much as I can.

James Pittman: Yeah, I mean, you've got to get it from somewhere, right? Either on the job or from courts.

James Pittman: So can you elaborate on the best practices you recommend when you're doing hiring and firing of employees and contractors in the context of an immigration law firm, what's your hiring process like?

Ruby Powers: Well, I think it's good to have a lot of this written down because when you are really short staffed, excuse the farm reference, but it's like you're like a chicken with your head cut off, you're running around and you're freaked out. And so I think it's best. That's why I put in my book about how it's important to have your job description, your questions, your posts, your procedure written out so that you don't let fear take in, take a hold of the process and you're diligently following. I also if someone were to leave, I evaluate do we need to replace that person, one person for another or could we shift duties around or delegate automate, things like that. So don't just automatically think if one person leaves, we have to replace them, one person for a person. Things with technology and automation have been changing a lot. The other thing is that they say that hire slow and fire fast. I think with the labor shortage, it's been a little harder to trust that, but the fire fast is definitely still true. But you have to document things where all of us listening and talking about this are in different states, we have different employment laws. But in Texas, where I've been running the law firm for all that know, it's an at will state. But you owe it to the employee and staff to be fair and consistent and document your processes. So if it's two strikes you're out, then be consistent and you will have to defend that with the Texas Workforce Commission or wherever you're so and whatever the rules are at that time. So just knowing your rules, having the resources, having things written out. But then I think the hiring part is so critical. I've talked with consultants about hiring and they say that if an unskilled hire process is like 50 50 chance of getting the right person, people will tell you what they want to hear, you want to hear. And if you don't know the cues of checking references, asking behavioral questions, noticing the small, little subtle things about are they on time? Do they have a typo on their resume? Things like that, then you and if you just gloss over that or you don't know the significance of those things, or if somebody you delegate too much to someone who doesn't know what they're doing in the hiring, then who you accept into the fold of your team can be very dangerous if they're the wrong fit. If you don't get them out quickly. So I think that I spent probably the first five to six years really learning a lot of this the hard way and then have gotten a lot better since then.

James Pittman: Is your staff mostly or all full time? Do you have part time people and do you use outsourced contractors?

Ruby Powers: I think we have about 26 Ish people in some capacity. Of that we have about 14 to 15 full time people. And of those we have about seven full time virtual staff. So the people that are not 100% virtual, we have on a hybrid schedule. So we have a nice little house office that we moved to a year ago, and we can only have about ten people in office at one time. So it sort of makes for a good way to create a hybrid schedule. That's sort of how we work.

James Pittman: And are you one office in Houston or do you have multiple locations?

Ruby Powers: We're creating a satellite in Woodlands, which is not very far from Houston, but there's a lot of immigrant growth over there. And the other thing is also with my virtual assistants, I have them with staffy. And so we've been for about a year and a half or so, and we've had a lot of success and consistency there. But yeah, it's sort of funny because you think that having multiple offices would be good, but sometimes you could just have an address for the presence. But then having an address is not the same thing as having staff and a real presence there. But if you can run all your operations for a federal practice through one office and all the people working wherever they're working, I don't know, it sort of makes you wonder why you need to have multiple offices. But even though I know it's still good to have that presence there.

James Pittman: And how much of your I mean, in terms of client meetings, are the bulk of your meetings still in person? Do you do a lot of virtual meetings?

Ruby Powers: A lot of virtual and phone. We stopped the in person for, I think, almost a whole year during the pandemic. And then in my experience, I find that the in person consults are mostly for either the traumatized asylum seeker, humanitarian, or low tech client. Usually there might be a language barrier too. That's what I've noticed. I know some firms have just said, I'm virtual all the way. We still let them come in, but they're not a majority of the consults. It's sort of like a few each week. The rest of them are pretty much over phone and know that's actually something I did back when I ran the law firm from Dubai. I did things over. I just that was really normal for like, before. I guess it became really common for most.

James Pittman: Let's talk about your technology stack. How did you go about determining which technology you were going to use in the office and what does your current sort of technology stack look like?

Ruby Powers: So back when I started the firm in November 2009, the Internet was pretty strong, but it's gotten better and there weren't let's see, I pretty much used Dropbox and Skype and Serenade and some other stuff like that. And for the most part, I didn't change it that much because it was like, if it's not broke, why fix it? But I also don't think technology was changing as fast necessarily for many years, even though it seems weird to say that. But as much as it's changing right now, it's so insane. But when I built it, I built it for it to be very like a remote practice. And so I wasn't wanting to have to have clients come in and I didn't really have a lot of staff coming into the office as I progressed. I have this story about why I went to Ada Tech show in 2019, and I looked around and I like, wait, I need to throw everything out and do everything all again. But it was too much of a shock to the system. So for the most part, I'm using a lot of I'm transitioning, but I have Lawmatics for a CRM. We use the G suite for chat and email calendaring. We really like that more than Outlook. That works for us. And then we're actually transitioning to another case management software this next week or two with Filevine, actually. And we still have Dropbox, but we're going to be able to get rid of Dropbox, Adobe and some other tools. We do a lot of, you know, we've done that about five or six years or so. That really was a big game changer. And just the more that you can do everything in one space and that whatever space you're in connects to other programs that you like and use, I think that's really where you've got to go. And I know Docketwise has that a lot as well. So that's really good, having the management, the forms and CRM aspects in one. And I think that's where I think what the other thing about tech stacks, because I actually just spoke at the Tech Summit, a La Tech Summit a couple of weeks ago and showed my tech stack. But you have to reevaluate your audit your tech on a regular basis. I think you could have said maybe once a year back in the day, but I think now you should say almost every quarter at a minimum, because there's a lot of overlap between the different programs you're paying for. And just like, I'm probably not the only one. During the pandemic when we went remote, I looked at all my tech stack at that time and I realized I had a lot of redundancies. And that's really what a lot of the programs, too, are adding more features. And so then they're just sort of like, well, I don't need ten ways to text my clients. I don't even pay for ten ways to text my clients. I just need one. And just as an example, and I think where we're spending more money now is on software than we were on maybe office space and maybe even sometimes labor as costs are reduced. But that's why we need to be really smart about integration and reducing redundancy and evaluating on a regular basis, especially as you grow your team and all the different licenses you have.

James Pittman: I mean, there are a couple of these overarching themes that are really driving the whole legal tech space. The integrations is, one, having things be as seamless as possible from intake through production, and that's all the products are trying to maximize the ability with which they can integrate with others. The AI revolution being another major driver. Have you investigated some of the newer AI products and have you started implementing any AI technology in your firm?

Ruby Powers: Yeah, that's why we're going over to filebine is their AI reading and creation of documents and motions and letters. And I have been looking at that really closely. I've also seen demos of and I was on a panel with co founder Nadine Navarro of Draftly AI. And that seems promising. Lots of cool things there. And also with Jen or Visa AI with Greg Siskin, and he's got a lot of cool stuff going on there too that's going to be coming out soon. But yeah, I mean going attending Aba tech show very regularly, talking to the vendors, being in this law practice management space, helping organize and speak at the tech summit for ayla just a couple weeks ago and stayed in. Touch with what's going on out there and then have done a few speeches on AI in general to attorneys and business owners and yeah. I mean, honestly, I really believe and I don't know if people want to hear. This if you're not spending a lot of time evaluating your tech and integrating AI. Now, if you're in your last third of your career, maybe that's okay. You just sort of do that. But if you're in your first and your second third of your career, you better be paying attention to this. And you don't put your head in the sand and you don't just ignore it. Because I look at that innovators curve, and I think you want to be in those first two groups, like either the innovators or the early adopters, and you don't want to be behind this revolution. This is a big one and that's also what I've been teaching my law students who are about to go off and be lawyers at a really scary and exciting time. In a way, there's a lot of opportunity for innovation.

James Pittman: Yeah, I mean it's kind of cliche, but it's true that technology kind of takes these quantum leaps where there's sort of a huge development that revolutionizes things and then there's all these further iterations and modifications and sort of enhancements of that innovation. So I mean we're at the quantum leap with the AI and then we're going to see how it just filters into everything and becomes just more and more sort of adopted and ramified into all sort of fields.

James Pittman: Ruby, about Power Strategy Group so you're trying to take your insights and assist other attorneys in optimizing their management. Tell us how you work within Power strategy group. What services do you provide and how is it done?

Ruby Powers: Well, I started this in December 2020 because I just felt like that yearning to want to talk with other business owners and help support them and compare notes because we were going through such scary times and uncertain times with the Pandemic. And having written my first book with Ayla in 2019, I had a lot of material that I had sort of put in one place. So we're sort of reevaluating at this moment like what our new programs we're going to be coming out with, but I can give a little sneak peek about that. We're going to have a podcast starting in just a couple of weeks, so I'll have to have you on and we're going to be talking with experts in different areas within law practice management. They don't necessarily have to be lawyers, but from exit strategy to. Tech to hiring and staffing agents, things like that. I'm working on a second book that's going to be targeted to all lawyers about law practice management, taking things I've learned these whole 15 years, but also definitely the last five years since writing the last book and reorganizing that material, but updating it as well. So that's going to be coming out in 2024 and Courses, Consulting Masterminds and Retreats. So we've done a little bit of all those things, but in different ways. But we've been building up the team with Power Strategy Group. So we've got a lot of exciting things that we're going to be unveiling towards the end of the year and definitely into 2024. But people can reach me. We have Powerstragygroup.com, but we do monthly webinars right now on different topics that are really relevant to small business owners and small mid sized law firm owners. And so just creating that community as well. We have a Facebook group. Power up your practice. It's sort of like a resource center with lots of different services and availability for those who just want to improve. And I think that whole it can be lonely at the top or running a business, just want to sort of take that away from the demystifying how to run a practice and know that there's a lot of people doing the exact same thing for us to get out of that silo and to seek help.

James Pittman: Absolutely. I'm really interested to see how it evolves and I would love to be your guest on one of your episodes.

James Pittman: But Ruby, let's talk about financial controls within the law firm and managing a budget and budgeting your finances is absolutely critical. So can you share some of your insights on budgeting for law firms and avoiding the pitfalls of doing something like bank balance accounting?

Ruby Powers: So, first of all, I find that a lot of lawyers that finances and money is sort of like their weakest area. So one thing I would suggest is figure out what's your weakest area and really beef up that area with courses, mentors or maybe fractional CFO or somebody you can trust. When we were building out our systems, I didn't have a lot of formal training in that space and so the way I was building things, it was just the best I could do at the time. Later on we hired experts. What I'm getting at is the data is so important and trusting that data is so important and having the right tools to know that that information is correct. And so if you sort of had some Excel sheet and sort of like a duct tape I use that expression a lot of different systems, but it's not being able to give you reports on a regular basis. Then you're going to get into trouble later on when you're preparing for growth because you want to be able to have accurate reports. So we've moved over to QuickBooks Online for financial reporting that allows us to be able to do everything remotely. So we have a CPA that supports us with some bookkeeping and organization and also for taxes as well. I've had hired fractional CFOs in the past to help support us and give us guidance. But you have to have the right people touching the money, working on the money, the right trained individuals, the right systems. I've sort of done things wrong at different points. But now we're in a good place. And so now that we're in a good place, just watching your numbers on a regular basis, knowing trends, knowing when your peak time is, knowing what keeping your fixed cost low, evaluating your budget on a regular basis as to do you really need this many users for this account? Or do you need this other software? Or could it be encapsulated in this other software? So you can't ignore this because money is like the lifeline of the business. So I review the PNL weekly and I'm watching how we're doing. I look to see, having done this so many years. I know when we're generally busy, things got a little funky during the pandemic and some of the things that happened afterwards. But for the most part, I know right now we need to little squirrels collect our little acorns so we can get through till the holiday season, until January. And usually it was tax return season that people would come out with a vengeance. But that sort of hasn't been as strong with the tax code changes or something like that. But people do come out and hire for the things that don't have a deadline, but the things that have a deadline, like annoyed, a denial, our fee getting put in, removal proceedings, deportation proceedings, or I mean, you're detained that's like the asyclical stuff that keeps you going. So you have to be able to know how to market for that as well. But yeah, no, I've learned a lot the hard way and I think the Goldman Sachs program really helped as well and that's why I like to add a lot of these different things in my courses and program.

James Pittman: Everyone has things that if they went back, they would have liked to do it in a better way without saying anything embarrassing.

James Pittman: Can you share some of your particular challenges or maybe if you want mistakes from your early days, are there any sort of challenges like that?

Ruby Powers: I probably would have tried harder to get good reviews earlier on, so I'd have a lot more no, I think I probably would have put a bigger focus on management and hiring in culture earlier on because I think I wasted a lot of time learning it the hard way in terms of building a good team, because I would get a group and then it would sort of fall apart if I couldn't manage everybody. And I learned a lot about myself too and then also I think finance, I think we should all have a better understanding of it in the beginning and how an ideal law firm should run. A lot of times we get our experience from working somewhere else, but we're not given the insight of the finance because that's usually held guarded, really deep close, and that we're also not given a lot of insight about hiring because if we're not in a leadership role. So I think those were two areas that if I could rewind time, I probably would have taken either extra courses or had more consulting, so I probably wouldn't have wasted as much time in the beginning learning the hard way. But overall, I'm pretty glad I did what I did. Keeping the practice as paperless as possible has made us very nimble. And I'm proud that we've closed and shredded most of our files. And we don't really have any money paper files in our office. We don't make files anymore, physical files. So that's something I'm actually really proud of us for and just keeping everything in a case management software and organized. Another happy thing I'm glad for is that we've had a regular newsletter every other week in English and Spanish for many years. And that's a nice way to keep our existing and former clients coming back and knowledgeable about what's going on.

James Pittman: Good to hear. I mean, it's very important in immigration law to communicate with the clients on an ongoing basis and have a way for you to reach out to them effectively should there be a change in law or policy that might affect them. And oftentimes the clients enjoy also hearing about changes in the law because it might be applicable to them or to a family member, to someone that they know. So really glad to hear that your newsletter is going strong, Ruby.

James Pittman: I always ask people who do any of the humanitarian types of cases like asylum or all of book. In your book you mentioned building awareness of compassion fatigue. And for any immigration lawyer who's taking humanitarian cases, I think you have to be careful of burnout. In your opinion, how can immigration attorneys foster a compassionate immigration practice while not becoming burned out with clients who do have those needs?

Ruby Powers: So I've been doing this a long time because even before I was an attorney, all my three years of law school, I interned or clerked at nonprofits or law firms. So I remember the very first internship I had was at Catholic Charities where I got to work with they let me talk to clients regularly and it was humanitarian stuff. And I just remember it being a huge shock. I just was like, this is too much like the emotional everything I was learning and taking it. And I was like, wait, why do we get some training here about how to deal with this? So over time, I've definitely gotten better. And in fact, I remember a conversation I had with a mentor friend a few years ago, and I was talking about how much asylum I was doing, and she's like, Ruby, I do only one asylum consult a week or something like that. You are doing way too much. And I was just like, no, I'm like swimming in this. There was a lot during the our firm helped out a lot on the family separation time in 2018, which is super hard, super hard times on top of the stories of what our federal government did to those families. So I think my tricks and advice are be aware of how you're feeling and know when you're exhibiting signs of burnout and fatigue and you're suffering vicarious PTSD. I write about that in my first book in the self care chapter. And there's a lot of other tricks about well, I remember Lori Rosenberg told me about tapping and sort of wiping away sort of the energy sort of to wipe clean. I know some people might not believe in that. And then there's other things that you can do to sort of walk around from one consult to the next, move around and sort of transition yourself, but you could also just take a balance of not doing too much of one type of case. But the other thing, I don't know if this is too fruit for some people, but I'm exploring more in Reiki right now because I'm trying to sort of figure out how I can continue to do this on a regular basis, but not internalize the energy of all the traumatized clients that I'm working. Know some people might think I just manage a law firm. I actually still hardcore. A we won a detained asylum case. I went to El Paso twice, new Mexico, and we won that case. I think it was like a week ago, actually. And I feel like when I'm working on these cases, I get to know their life more than probably anybody else but them. Sometimes I feel like I know more about them than they do sometimes because they forget things when they're on the stand. But just in general, being cognizant of how you're feeling, what's the toll it's having on you, and how to take care of yourself. But having a routine of self care from therapy, talking with friends, spiritual walking, self care has like a lot of different prongs from psychological, spiritual, physical, emotional, and so making sure you're maximizing all of those areas.

Ruby Powers: And one thing I'll say before we finish on that topic, just make sure you're also aware about your staff. Because if those staff that help you on you have like the asylum unit or the removal unit, and if they do a ton of Bawa or UVSA and you're not helping giving them tips on how to protect themselves, then they're going to get burnt out and you're going to lose really good staff. Finding a way to sort of not make them just do that. And finding ways to make it less stressful is really important, Ruby.

James Pittman: That's so important. And I think that doesn't get said enough, first of all, for I mean, let me just comment a wellness routine that does incorporate your psychological, whether it's talking things out, counseling your physical, you have to take some time for yourself. You mentioned walking or exercise, getting away from it for a while and making sure that you are taking care of your own self. The spiritual dimension, however, that manifests itself in your life. But making sure, as you said, that your staff is also because the paralegal staff, legal assistants, they're not going to necessarily be plugged into all the resources that attorneys could be plugged in for wellness. I mean, we have different resources available to us. They may not be aware of them. And so you have to don't take your staff and make someone do only heavy trauma VAWA on asylum cases. You're going to get them burned out and the quality of the service will suffer in addition to which your staff is going to suffer. It's so important. So I just wanted to underline that and that is really an important thing.

James Pittman: Let's talk about current events because there's so much going on both in Texas where you are, and then nationally as we head into the 2024 election. Let's start with Texas Senate Bill Four, a highly controversial piece of state legislation passed through the Texas Senate. Tell us what you know about it and why is it significant? It could be a game changer or a very impactful piece of legislation.

Ruby Powers: Let's see, where do we start? I was just living my best life and then looked up and realized we've got some really bad bills going through. And before I knew it, they were passed this week on Tuesday night and we're anticipating Governor Greg Abbot to sign any minute now. So there's a three bill, three and four. And number three is giving money to help local police and governments to enforce basically the way it works in number four as well is that it will now be a crime instead of just a civil action to enter illegally. And local law enforcement, pretty much anybody in that space who suspects has probable cause that somebody entered illegally could then go take that person and put them before a state magistrate judge to be evaluated for their alienate. And there's a lot going on here. So the Texas legislature, which is interesting because I actually ran for state rep a handful of years ago, they only meet every other year in the OD years and it's usually from about January to about May and they have to get the whole state's business done in that amount of time. Now occasionally when there's something that doesn't get done, they'll have a special session, but usually it's very laser focused. Well, Governor Abbot has called four special sessions and these bills have been talked about in all of the sessions this year. And this last session was brought about, if I understand correctly, just very recently, around the election time, just a few weeks ago, like maybe a week or two ago. And they really just sort of rammed these bills through the process really quickly using the excuse that these things had already been discussed prior and it didn't really give a lot of opportunity for opposition and the normal process that could help keep bad bills from going forward. And so what I know is that as soon as it gets signed, which it will get signed in, because this is a pet project of Governor Abbot, is that then it will go into supposed to go into law on the 91st day after the end of the session. So my estimate is around maybe March 7, 2024. Let me preface everything with saying that us as immigration attorneys and having spoke about this recently at the Mexican consulate, I think our job is to communicate the facts and try to minimize the fear mongering and minimize the uncertainty with this. All because we all were attorneys, most of us were attorneys during the Trump era. And we know that a lot of that misinformation and fear mongering, it gets people to watch the news and read the headlines, but it really just causes a lot of loss and fear and unfortunate events for our clientele. And so what do we know? Well, there's going to be a lawsuit as soon as possible, whether it can be enjoined right away or we have to wait until it goes into effect. But we already know that people are talking about that. The other thing is that the inconsistency, this is a deja vu to SB Four of 2017, when I testified against that and decided to run for state rep because that really just bothered me of how much the state ledge was getting involved in federal immigration matters and making things worse. What we don't know is a lot of things, how are they going to determine probable cause? What does A-U-S. Citizen look like? What does an illegal interest look like? And really the way they worded this, the way they did, is because they're trying to differentiate themselves from the Arizona 1077 that came out in 2010 and went all the way up to the Supreme Court and was struck down in 2012. But what I think was sort of smart in a way on this SB Four is that they talk about illegal entry because problem with Arizona was that the Supreme Court ruled the local police didn't have the authority to arrest someone solely based on their immigration status. And that resolves on federal government. But the way they word this SB Four, is it's going to be about making it a crime to enter illegally. So then that whole interaction of, excuse me, did you enter illegally? How do you find out that conversation, and it's anywhere in Texas, we're not just talking at the border. And then the other thing I'm confused about is like the interplay with expedited removal, which also and then I was talking about this in my speech yesterday, this contradicts a lot of what the Biden is doing right now. Where the prosecutorial discretion? They do not have the bandwidth, nor do they want they have reevaluated their enforcement priorities and they don't want we're getting cases dismissed who've been in court for ten years, twelve years, five years, because it's not a priority. They don't have a crime. They don't have a prior deportation order or whatever they're like, let's just dismiss these cases. So what's going to happen? We're going to go round up people that appear to enter it illegally. Of course there's going to be major racial profiling, and then we're going to detain them somewhere, I don't know, put them before a state magistrate who hasn't been trained about what alienage is. And many people don't carry their documents on a regular basis. People don't have proof of some things. Things are pending. And then a state magistrate could, in fact, quote, quote, deport the individual. And then if there's even more things they find out about the person, it can be escalated to a felony. But no matter whatever actually comes about this, the damage is going to be there. With all the fear and just we saw in Florida, and we've seen Arizona and a lot during the Trump era where individuals, mixed households are going to be afraid to go out, drive their kids, go to work, go to the grocery store, do things like that because they're going to be afraid. Like, what does this really mean to them? And I was in a dialogue with other sheriffs and constables and exactly what we were talking about, SB Four of 2017, and all the things that had that impact, because that was a show me your papers Bill, is that there's going to be the inconsistency of training, interpretation and application. And so I'll probably have to just tell my clients, well, you just stay in the little Houston blue bubble here, and you don't go anywhere outside. But that's just ridiculous.

James Pittman: It's not feasible to do that. They may have to for work or for family obligations and whatever. They can't just be but I mean, some of this, Ruby, is just mind blowing to me, and I really don't see how it can work at a practical level. For one thing, if a police officer, in order to stop someone, they would have to have probable cause to stop them. What is going to amount to probable cause that someone entered illegally? I don't really understand how they are going to go about determining that the person entered illegally. In my mind, that's even more murky than showing papers and trying to assess alienates because it's even less documented. I mean, if you have someone either has proof that they're in the US. Legally or not, but to try to determine that they entered illegally other than that person's own admission, how is a police officer, your average police officer, going to even do that? And secondly, I thought that there was something in here. First of all, if a state magistrate judge is determining that a person is entered illegally and can therefore be removed under order of state law, but how does that not short circuit your federal due process when there are specifically enumerated provisions by Congress giving people the right to apply for certain forms of relief from removal? How is that not just being short circuited wholesale by the mechanism of state law enforcement? And how can that possibly be constitutional? If you look at the immigration law as a whole, would you not argue that it is field preemption by Congress? The fact that we have the entire body of immigration law? How can there be a state law which is short circuiting and denying people the opportunity to apply for forms of relief that have been duly written into federal law by Congress? How can that possibly exist under our mean?

Ruby Powers: I agree. I think this is going to waste a lot of our dear know money that we need to be spending on education, on Medicaid, Medicare, and a whole bunch of other health care and transportation and our grid as opposed to paying for lawyers to deal with the constitutionality of a non constitutional bill. And you're right. I mean this literally was passed less than two days ago and it's going to be signed any day now. And the iterations have changed so much. I just need to sit down and really hash it out of all the different craziness it has in here. But even in it, it talks about what an affirmative defense to prosecution is. Yada, yada, like asylum and legal permanent residency or something. But then it says these things are not affirmative defense and there's just so many people who have like, asylum pending and don't have documentation on know, I don't know if people know this, but Texas is really big. If you go from Houston to it's about nine hour drive, I think, and there's a lot of parts. We have a huge border with Mexico and you could be going to Big Bend National Park and you might be asked. A fellow immigration attorney told me they were in Marfa, which is cute little town in the middle. Of nowhere, and they were stopped by law enforcement three times for some quote unquote probable cause they didn't know what was. And asking about his Hispanic husband's identity and document racial profiling is huge. And this is such a horrible aspect because just like, people don't even know they're a citizen, people don't have status on them all the time. And it's already complicated for immigration attorneys to figure out somebody's situation. And we're going to put that upon local law enforcement. And part of the conversation that we had in that dialogue recently was that they don't have the bandwidth for that. They're going to focus on the real criminals and what they really have to do. They're not going to be trying to be deputized federal law enforcement agents on top of their normal jobs. It's just ridiculous. I'm just adding major deja vu to SB Four 2017. Can't believe we have to be here again.

James Pittman: Well, Ruby, we're definitely going to have you back once the governor signs this law. And we're going to see no doubt there'll be tons of litigation over it. But as that starts to play out, I'm definitely going to have you back and we can reevaluate and assess what is actually really happening on the ground with that and what the net net of this bill passing would be.

James Pittman: Let's try to at least comment on 2024. Trump released his campaign, released his immigration plan that they would plan to enact in the new presidential term. 2025. And do you want to comment? I mean, he mentions ideological screening, expansion of the Muslim ban, end of birthright citizenship. It's really a maximalist approach. Not surprising, right? But do you have any comment on anything you've heard regarding Trump's proposals for his new term?

Ruby Powers: I don't know. It's hard, right? You don't want to give him any more free airtime than necessary. I did see Ben Johnson, Ayla's executive director's, comment on Trump's proposals, and it was along the lines just recently about also the House trying to impeach Senator Secretary Majorca's. Come on. This is just so can't I can't imagine this is so against everything that us as a nation of immigrants is all about. And I feel like we've only gotten a little bit of a sense of resemblance last few years under biden to try to wash away a lot of the damage that Trump did in the immigration space. And it just makes me cringe to even see this because I'm just like, really? Do we have to even think about this? Is there even a minute possibility that he could be in power and try? Most of all, that is legal, unconstitutional, ridiculous, but for the most part, just those who practiced under his administration, having gone through all the trying to calm our clients through all of the fear and knowing he reduced legal immigration by 50%, we didn't have options. We were doing the best we could, trying to keep families together and people here. And he's really hurt our economy by reducing the pipeline of really capable, smart immigrants coming in through student visas and through employment investment options and just scared a lot of people who didn't have due process to apply for asylum. So I don't know, I feel like I'm so done with that. I don't want to imagine that even could be possible, but I just hope that we can all do our part in making sure that doesn't happen, and then if in some weird universe it did, we would be prepared to litigate right and left, like had to be done before.

James Pittman: Well, no doubt it's going to be a roller coaster of a year 2024, that is for sure. And again, we'll have you back to further discuss these developments as they shake out. But Ruby, it's been great having you, and I've really enjoyed hearing about the book and hearing about all the different ways in which you're enriching the practice of immigration law.

James Pittman: Jeb, any final comments for our audience before we close today's episode?

Ruby Powers: No? Thanks, James. I appreciate just I think it's always, as a business owner, it's important to know when to get help for a higher help and when to try to do something yourself. But I do believe in the Kaizen mentality of constantly improving, and I think we do that by listening to podcasts, reading articles, taking courses, having consultants and coaches doing retreats, all of these things. And that's why I really strongly believe in what we're doing with Power Strategy Group. And I just want to be a resource for other law firm owners and business owners. And so I just really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. We covered a lot of detail, a lot of different topics in depth, and I think that's such a great venue, you provide such a great venue for that conversation. So if anybody wants to reach out to me, stay in touch for anything we talked about or question, I definitely want to be a resource for them.

James Pittman: Awesome. Great to hear, Ruby. Thanks again and we will talk to you.

Ruby Powers: Bye.

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