Announcer 0:00
From Los Angeles. This is the Echelon Radio Network.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:09
Good afternoon, everybody. This is Jerri Hemsworth, and today I’m sitting with Todd Gillman. How you doing?

Todd Gillman 0:17
I’m doing great, Jerri. It’s really fun to meet with you today. Oh,

Jerri Hemsworth 0:21
Oh, ‘m so excited, because I want to get into your east coastian ways,

Todd Gillman 0:25
East Coast

Jerri Hemsworth 0:26
no. Todd, you’re you’re with Gillman strategic group. What is Gillman strategic group?

Todd Gillman 0:32
So Gillman Strategic Group is a candidate facing legal recruiting company, and what we do is we focus on lateral partner placement. So that’s our real niche area, so partners who have their own books of business and their own clients.

Jerri Hemsworth 0:50
So lateral placement means where they’re about the same level, going from one firm to another,

Todd Gillman 0:56
correct, but later on in their careers, so they have their own clients and the either the start of a book of business, up to the rainmakers that really have big books.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:06
How did you get into that? Because you’re an attorney.

Todd Gillman 1:09
I’m an attorney. I’ve been an attorney my whole career, since 1999. Believe it or not, I know you think I look like I’m 20, but you know, I’m turning 50 this month, so it’s really exciting.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:21
Welcome to the club.

Todd Gillman 1:21
That’s very exciting. Yeah. So, yeah. So I have a really interesting background in starting off in the law and just I started with Gillman Strategic Group, which I work with my sister, who’s on the East Coast, and I’ll tell you more

Jerri Hemsworth 1:40
Oh so she’s East Coast.

Todd Gillman 1:41
Yeah, we’re east coast, west coast.

Jerri Hemsworth 1:42
Gotcha

Todd Gillman 1:42
Which is exciting. So I’ve been working with her for it’s been over two years now, but I’ve, you know, done a lot of different things in the practice of law before that. So it’s, yeah,

Jerri Hemsworth 1:56
Where did you grow up? Because I know we were talking east coast, but.

Todd Gillman 2:00
East coast. So I was born in Brooklyn, New York, so I still, you know, I feel like I have a allegiance to that city. That’s where my my parents met. They met in Brooklyn College. But as soon as I was born, as a baby, we moved out to the suburbs. So I didn’t, you know, so I grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey, which is right near, if you know, Rutgers University, it’s about 10 minutes from there,

Jerri Hemsworth 2:23
sure, yeah, sure. And how was your childhood? Was it, Was it super fun, super cool, kind of weird, kind of interesting?

Todd Gillman 2:32
Oh, I had a great childhood. I did. Unfortunately, my dad is no longer with us now, like it’s been, he actually passed away right before, when my wife was still pregnant with my son. And I have a 15 year old. So it’s been about 15 years now. But like, we grew up your normal, you know, happy family, my played, you know, soccer in the rec league, growing up in different sports, we went to, I started getting into music. And I’ll tell you a little bit later. I’m really, really into music now. And started playing guitar when I was in high school. Yeah. So I had my own band, a dad band, called Dads of Distortion,

Jerri Hemsworth 3:16
Dads of Distortion, oh my gosh.

Todd Gillman 3:18
yes, oh, yes. So, yeah. So we’re trying to play around, you know, locally in the valley here we’ve, you know, we’re trying to get some more gigs right now. So we’re,

Jerri Hemsworth 3:27
yeah, we’re gonna dig into that. Yes, yeah. Now, I read, you come from a family of attorneys. Is that true?

Todd Gillman 3:35
I do, I do. So my sister, who I work with is a former practicing attorney herself, and she moved into the recruiting space when my niece was born, so she’s been in that space for about 17 years, but with Gillman Strategic Group has been around for five years, and I’ve been working with her, but for two and change in that in that period. My father was an attorney, my grandfather, my uncle, so, yeah, so there’s a lot of attorneys in the family. We weren’t that great at math and science, so not too many doctors in my immediate, you know, in the further further out in the family, there’s some doctors and some, you know, people on that side of, you know, the realm

Jerri Hemsworth 4:21
That’s pretty funny. Were the dinners, family dinners and get togethers kind of thick legal speak?

Todd Gillman 4:29
yes and no. I mean, my dad was always a more corporate leaning attorney for various banks he worked for. I don’t know if you know PNC Bank. It’s a big regional bank on the East Coast, and so he did a lot of their, you know, heavy analysis of, like, their loan operations. It was my dad was so, so smart. I mean, he would be reading stuff on the weekends before we even woke up when we were kids. And, you know, he. He’s like, I read 250 pages of this document that I needed to tell and we’re just getting up for, you know, hoping for pancakes, yeah, you know, as kids so, so he was obviously a huge influence in my life for in terms of, you know, going into the legal field, my grandfather as well. My mom’s dad was an attorney, and he was just really, really, also big influence for me. So yeah, and my my uncle, my mom’s brother, so sure. And then my sister, what, who is about three and a half years older than me, she went in, in that route to go to law school, and I just kind of, I was not sure, when I was in undergrad, I to be honest with you, I was looking at, I went to Emory University for undergrad, and I was a history major, and very, very interested in history. But like to when you’re a history major, in terms of the practicality of jobs, are you going to be a professor?

Jerri Hemsworth 6:01
Yeah

Todd Gillman 6:02
Are you gonna go to law school? Are you gonna go to business school from there? And sure, I just had the influence in the background, so law school just seemed to make sense. I went to University of Miami.

Jerri Hemsworth 6:11
Yeah, you ended up down in Florida.

Todd Gillman 6:14
I ended up down in Florida. And my wife, who is originally from here in SoCal, ended up going to undergrad at University of Miami. That’s where we met.

Jerri Hemsworth 6:23
That’s where you met.

Todd Gillman 6:24
Okay,

Jerri Hemsworth 6:25
yeah,got it. And then when you got out of Miami, what type of practice did you go into?

Todd Gillman 6:32
So I was at I started off practicing in New Jersey. I had my New Jersey and New York admissions. Okay, so I went back up to New Jersey, where I was living, right outside of New York City, started at a firm, like a small firm in New Jersey, and then ended up going into the New York market. Ended up doing, you know, I reached out to an alumni from Miami, which was a I was able to get an interview to get a job in New York, which was great. And it happened to be in the corporate insurance coverage field,

Jerri Hemsworth 7:07
oh heck,

Todd Gillman 7:07
which was very dense and very unlike my interest. I had sort of the sort of the entertainment interest that I was interested in, but it was, you know, it was a good job.

Jerri Hemsworth 7:23
You know, I haven’t known you that long, but it doesn’t seem like your personality would fit in that type of arena for insurance. Like, long.

Todd Gillman 7:32
it’s very dry. Oh yes. And I am anything but dry, if you’ve met me, yeah. So, yeah,

Jerri Hemsworth 7:37
wow, yeah. And then, how did you get out here to California?

Todd Gillman 7:41
That’s a great story. So I actually was in downtown New York when I was working during 911 Believe it or not. So we could, if you have any questions, we could delve into that.

Jerri Hemsworth 7:54
How close were you to?

Todd Gillman 7:56
Very, very close. We ended up. My wife and I were, for whatever reason, we were going into work from New Jersey. We lived in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Jerri Hemsworth 8:05
sure.

Todd Gillman 8:05
So we’re taking the train right over to New York. She was going to work Midtown at Oxford University Press at the time,

Jerri Hemsworth 8:14
okay.

Todd Gillman 8:14
And I was going downtown to my law firm there, and we were a little bit late that day, which the first plane had hit already, but people were still coming in and out. They didn’t they thought was accidents. They didn’t know what was going on. So I ended up taking the the PATH train to to go downtown. It ended up getting rerouted Midtown. I ended up taking the subway back downtown because I thought,

Jerri Hemsworth 8:43
I need to get to work.

Todd Gillman 8:44
I needed to get there. I got out there, and immediately people were running where I was to go to the South Street Seaport. And we ended up evacuating out of there, and I was probably, you know, I would say, seven to 10 minute walk from where the Trade Center was.

wow, yeah.

So it was pretty crazy.

Jerri Hemsworth 9:02
That had to been kind of traumatic?

Todd Gillman 9:04
Yeah. I actually, I saw one of the towers fall when we were coming around, yeah, you know, by there, which was, like, it just surreal. I mean.

Jerri Hemsworth 9:13
I can’t even imagine seeing that in person, yeah.

Todd Gillman 9:15
yeah. So it was, it was tough. And so I had an opportunity at that point, my father in law, so my, my wife’s family, is out here in in Southern California, and that was what brought us over back back here, had an opportunity to work with him in our we have A real estate business which is mainly self storage facilities. So like,

Jerri Hemsworth 9:15
Oh, interesting,

Todd Gillman 9:17
you know, your public storage and, sure, very, very interesting stories, like, about things that are found in units and all that stuff leftovers. And believe it or not, I was working with him for, it was about 15 years, and it was. Wow, a little bit of a roller coaster relationship. It’s a father in law. It’s a dynamic is a little tough, yes, and he’s not, you know, he’s not an easy guy to work with in general. Okay, so hence that I made my exit out. I need a change. And that was but that was, but that was what brought us initially to the West Coast.

Jerri Hemsworth 10:24
Gotcha.

Todd Gillman 10:24
And, you know, I don’t have any regrets. I mean, I picked up all you know, it was our, basically our in our general counsel for the company, and also helping to run the day to day operation. So it had legal component, but also a business component, okay, so, yeah, and we have properties in Southern California, and we eventually bought some in Colorado as well. And so we, I was flying out there a lot just to, you know, take care of business and, you know, oversee the auctions that we had and different things, yeah. So it was a, it was a position.

Jerri Hemsworth 11:00
So you really had to deal deal with stuff that’s left over, like taking things to auction, right? And some legal ramifications with some of that stuff.

Todd Gillman 11:08
There is a, well, there’s a statutes for each state that ought that pretty much govern the sale of goods and and what you could do as an owner when it’s unpaid rent, so those procedures that you have to follow, yeah. So it’s a lot of legal issues that were, you know, were involved.

Jerri Hemsworth 11:24
More than I think I would have realized. But when you talk about it, was like, Oh, wait Hang on, yeah, yeah. So, and then you, then you picked up doing recruiting with your sister at Gillman. y

Todd Gillman 11:37
Yes and you, and you would be surprised that I would jump into another family business position.

Jerri Hemsworth 11:44
Because it’s hard. I understand what you’re saying.

Todd Gillman 11:46
It can be hard but the difference is that my sister and I just, you know, we are, we’ve always been very close. And the age, it’s only about three and a half years. Yes. So the dynamic is completely different, even though she, she was the owner and the president of the company, sure, but I you know, we have enough space between us where I was setting up basically all are doing a lot of business development out here, which is what one of the things I do to set up operations here on the West Coast. We have a national presence. We have a couple people on our team, and it’s been great so far.

Jerri Hemsworth 12:21
And you’re managing director of the firm.

Todd Gillman 12:23
I am, yeah. So, yeah.

Jerri Hemsworth 12:25
So how often do you get to talk with your sister, or do pow wow? Or is it pretty much you’re each doing your own thing on each coast.

Todd Gillman 12:32
No, we, we set it up where we have a team, regular team meeting on Mondays. Yes, so which is great because it’s the rest of our team, a couple junior people sure, that are involved with us. And then I, I make an effort to at least if, if not having, like, a one on one zoom session with her once a week. Yes, probably every two weeks. Like it, and we connect a lot via text and via slack throughout the week, if I have questions, if she has questions, you know, we email each other. So I know she’s just very, very busy in the operations over there on the East Coast and what she’s doing. Yeah. So.

Jerri Hemsworth 13:13
How often do you have a client that wants to transplant from one coast to another? Does that happen very often, or pretty much everybody stays?

Todd Gillman 13:22
That has probably happened once where, you know, in my I don’t think that happens as much as people may be making more of a regional, shorter move.

Jerri Hemsworth 13:34
Right.

Todd Gillman 13:35
Yeah, you’ll have, you know, in in California, maybe someone’s in San Francisco and they’re coming to Los Angeles. Okay, that’s a little bit more common. I mean, you there’s, you know, one off situations where people are completely relocating for, you know, different reasons. Maybe their family, they’re maybe they have older parents that they’re taking care of and need to make a move, but, you know, so, but what we basically do, and I don’t know if you give you a little overview, so we’re very much of a candidate facing type of firm. So I’m out there doing a lot of business development in all my networking groups, including Echelon and other networking outlets where I’m looking to find those higher level attorneys, yes, and kind of listen for the chatter. It’s whether or not they feel happy and satisfied at their positions, because there are so many, there’s a lot of mental health issues, obviously, with attorneys, as with, you know, other high level businesses, doctors and financial people, high pressure, exactly these, these people, these attorneys, that sometimes they feel like they’ll the the work life balance would have been better once they got to a certain level, but they find themselves working. Either just as hard or, you know, butting heads with their other partners, or not having the right support staff or the attorneys underneath them, and that’s one of the issues, why people will be very, you know, disenchanted and want to move

Jerri Hemsworth 15:15
well, I can imagine that that’s stress, and I’ve had, I’ve known a number of attorneys over the last 30 years, yeah, where they have to change for health reasons, because it just eats away at them, physically and mentally. And I know that there are some of the larger law firms that actually have wings at some of the hospitals, yes, for their, you know, their partners and their associates, and that’s just, I mean, no company should have a wing at a hospital to deal with those cases.

Todd Gillman 15:48
That’s just crazy. But it’s interesting how at least law firms of all sizes now are really seeing mental health as a priority. Yeah, because I don’t know if you’re familiar with there was a very, very famous article by a wife of a law partner who who committed suicide. And it was like, big law killed my husband. And that was like the concept that this guy was working non stop, non stop. And like you hear about these things, or people will have heart attacks or tragic, just health problems.

Jerri Hemsworth 16:26
Absolutley, absolutely tragic. So they you, as you said, you’re, you are your candidate facing. So basically, you’re really working for the individual attorney to find a new home?

Todd Gillman 16:38
Yes, yes. Well, there will be some times where we have placed attorneys at certain firms, and we develop good relationships with those firms, where they’ll come back to us, but that’s a little bit not as much of our our area of expertise, where the firm will come back And they’ll say, Hey, we’re looking to expand our trust and estates group in Miami. Can you help us?

Jerri Hemsworth 17:05
Yes.

Todd Gillman 17:06
And the problem is, you still, we could have 100 different firms come to us and say, we’d like to do this. The problem is, you have to find the candidate. You have to so we’re kind of taking it the other approach, find the candidate. Yes, what I do like what we consider ourselves, we’re sort of talent agents for those attorneys. So we’ll create a position based on their book of business, based on what they are looking for in a firm, and then bring them to the firms. So we’re kind of the brokers, the intermediaries, working for the candidate, but also doing all the legwork. And really, you know, getting things done.

Jerri Hemsworth 17:46
Yeah, really, you really have to know the firms and the personalities, yes. And you really have to know both, so that you get a good home for somebody that is looking for a change.

Todd Gillman 17:59
Definitely.

Jerri Hemsworth 18:00
wow, it’s a that’s a twist from what I would imagine.

Todd Gillman 18:04
Right! ecause other recruiting, it’s basically, oh, we have this opening, and you’re going for that opening. Find me someone, right? But, like, we’re not trying to just fill spots. We want to have, you know, these are higher level partners that we want to really make some sort of impact, that they will land at a firm and really stay there and want to be happy with them. Well, so yeah, we invest the time in that.

Jerri Hemsworth 18:26
That’s fabulous. Yeah. So talk to me about this, dad band.

Todd Gillman 18:32
The Dad band.

Jerri Hemsworth 18:34
So you were in high school learning the guitar, and you’ve been did you start a band back then, or were you just futzing around?

Todd Gillman 18:42
No, I, I was. I did the really when I moved to LA was when I really got more serious with things. So I started first with a School of Rock adult program. So they have, like an a, you know, they match up with adults, yes. So we performed out. That was really my first live performance out, you know, in time. And it was, it was great. And then from there, it just was the I’ve done a rock and roll fantasy camp, which is amazing. It was a Beatles themed camp, because I’m a like the Beatles are a huge, huge fan.

Jerri Hemsworth 18:46
You and Fishman are gonna get

Todd Gillman 19:24
Yeah Mark, we talk about it already, yeah, rock and roll stuff. And so I had the opportunity. I played at the Whiskey a Go, Go next to Cheap Trick they played because they had recorded a live Sergeant Pepper album.

Jerri Hemsworth 19:39
Yes, yes, yes.

Todd Gillman 19:40
And they were doing, so it was a Sergeant Pepper theme with Cheap Trickand, yeah, it was, it was incredible. It was like, just that opportunity.

Jerri Hemsworth 19:49
Oh, my God.Sso the dads. How did you rope in dads and the

Todd Gillman 19:54
dads, the dads, some of them were from my local synagogue, I guess, so you kind of knew. So that they one person was like, Yeah, I play bass. And it just kind of sort of created organically. We had to actually drop one of our original players. Oh, so there was Dad band drama, you know, it was like, it could have been a, you know, VH1 special. So, yeah,

Jerri Hemsworth 20:19
Was it the drummer that you had to drop?

Todd Gillman 20:21
No, we dropped our other guitar player, and then we’ve added, we didn’t have a singer right in the beginning, so we were doing a lot of just kind of jamming, sort of loose instrumentals. Now we have a singer. We added my music teacher for my kids wanted to be in the band, and he’s a recent dad, and he’s exceptional. He plays saxophone and guitar in the band, so he’ll switch off. Yeah, yeah. So, so that’s been really exciting. And so we had the opportunity to play out I created, I don’t know if I if you’re aware of this, so I am on the board of the foundation, so it’s a parent volunteer group for my kids school district for the Las Virgenes

Jerri Hemsworth 21:06
for Las Virgenes

Todd Gillman 21:07
district. So what we do is we raise money for through, you know, raising money through people will donate money, and we do events throughout the years. One of the things I started, and we’re, we’re going for our third year, in February is a battle of the bands. So we, we played at Canyon Club. So my band was there, we and then we have student bands also, who are in the district. The second time we did it, it was just student bands, because we had so much like, you know, people were wanted to get on the, on the on the bill for that and this organization, Jerri, is so impactful. We just for the second time that I’ve been on the board now for two and a half years. Just this last week, we donated $100,000 over to the school district for mental health initiatives, for STEM programs, which are the science programs, yeah, yeah. And for, like, the arts performance thing, so

Jerri Hemsworth 22:07
100,000 that’s amazing.

Todd Gillman 22:08
Yeah, that’s and we did it last year too. So there’s been two opportunities where we had, you know, submitting, presenting the big check to the district.

Jerri Hemsworth 22:17
That’s just gotta feel really good.

Todd Gillman 22:19
It’s great. It’s a, it’s a really impactful thing to do in my spare time, where, you know, to make a difference. And I know it’s, you know, there’s a lot of gap in funding, believe it or not, between the school district you you think it’s a

Jerri Hemsworth 22:35
Especially for the arts.

Todd Gillman 22:36
Yeah, and you think it’s a very, you know, well, to do area, but there’s a lot, you know, we get less money than LA unified which, yes, you know, it’s a little bit of a misnomer. I

Jerri Hemsworth 22:46
I believe it. 100% So where do you guys play? Where are you billing and stuff?

Todd Gillman 22:52
Where we playing with the band?

Jerri Hemsworth 22:55
Yeah, with the band?

Todd Gillman 22:56
well, we’re trying to get some gigs right now, so we’re sort of just rehearsing, yeah, so we rehearse that. I love this place across from the Northridge Mall. It’s called Pop Studios.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:06
okay.

Todd Gillman 23:07
Pop Rehearsal Studios. It’s awesome. They have, you know, all the back line equipment, not so much recording, like you can’t sessions

Jerri Hemsworth 23:16
Is that Guitar Center?

Todd Gillman 23:17
Exactly in that, yeah, it’s in the back of that. It’s a great place.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:19
Yeah, I saw that, and I’m wondering what that was.

Todd Gillman 23:22
It’s amazing. It’s amazing. So it’s very reasonable rates. I mean, it’s very, I think it’s $60 for two hours, something like that, something crazy.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:31
Oh, cool.

Todd Gillman 23:32
yeah, it’s very cheap.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:33
Okay, so you’re just gonna have to keep us all posted when you get a gig so we can all come out.

Todd Gillman 23:38
I will make sure that you guys are there. You know, I’m gonna be forcing you over there. So we have a good crowd.

Jerri Hemsworth 23:44
I love it. Todd, thank you so much for being with me today. This is so cool. I just absolutely love that you’ve got this dad band, but your story of coming from the East Coast out here is very cool. So thank you.

Todd Gillman 23:57
This has been great. Jerri, I really, really appreciate you having me

Jerri Hemsworth 24:00
My pleasure, take care,

Announcer 24:09
Presented by Echelon Business Development. More than just networking. Way more.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai