Mickey (00:02.274)
Hello everyone, welcome to Beyond Page One podcast, where we dive deep behind the cover of entrepreneurship and try to uncover the what’s and why’s behind a business’s success story and the people in the business. I’d like to welcome James to the podcast today. James has an extensive background in law with decades of experience and he’s also a published author. Super excited to have you today, James. Welcome to the podcast.
James V. Irving (00:26.206)
Thanks, Mickey. Glad to be here.
Mickey (00:28.414)
So tell me a little bit about James and who he was growing up as a kid.
James V. Irving (00:34.73)
Well, I grew up in Massachusetts, Northeastern Massachusetts, on the water. And a great place to grow up, by the way, and I still spend a lot of time up there. I went to college at the University of Virginia, which got me down to Virginia. I majored in English, which got me involved in writing, which has always been, since that time, my principal passion and the thing I’m most interested in doing. I got out of college and didn’t want to have a desk job. Never really wanted to have a desk job so I was a private detective for two years, and that was a very interesting and rewarding experience, although not without its downsides. So I went to law school and have been a lawyer since then, did trial work for the first half of my career, and then did business work. And over the last five years, I started writing novels.
Mickey (01:24.982)
Awesome, very cool. Well, we’re gonna dive into a lot of those things. But beyond the legal world, what experiences or were there any individuals that significantly shaped your early interests kind of in the entrepreneurship world and led you down the career path that you’re currently on?
James V. Irving (01:42.874)
My father was self-employed. He was a small-town doctor. But I don’t know that you know, his example, although I loved and respected him in every way, I didn’t want to emulate that. I didn’t want to be a doctor, certainly. As I said, I think the biggest thing for me getting out of college was I just didn’t want to have a nine-to-five job and do the same thing every day for the rest of my life. And of course, I ended up doing it, but practicing law is not the same thing every day for the rest of your life. But I did end up having a desk job for a vast majority of my professional life and I was very satisfied with it but I think I just found more contentment in the other two ends of my career the writing and the detective work just as such freeform things.
Mickey (02:25.482)
Yeah, I could imagine. I’m sitting at a desk job every single day.
James V. Irving (02:31.653)
Some of them are more valuable.
Mickey (02:33.234)
Yeah. Your pre-law experience involves the private detective work that you mentioned. Did the uniqueness of that job bring a perspective that was and did it help you? Were there any transferable skills from private detective work that have helped you with your legal career?
James V. Irving (02:54.858)
Absolutely. Private detect, we did criminal work, chased skips, did domestic relations, did insurance defense. I guess that’s about it. And I’ve done some of that in my career as a lawyer. The difference between a lawyer and a private detective is lawyers are governed by rules. Procedural rules, or ethical rules, are the rules of evidence. And you have to do your case within the rules or you don’t practice law much longer. As a professional detective, there aren’t any rules. The only rule is how far are you willing to go, what are you willing to do and I like this about the job, you’ve got a problem at three o’clock in the afternoon and they tell you to be at this place at five and you had to figure out how to solve the problem, make the case. And you know I didn’t always go well or successfully but I liked that freeform aspect of it. Right? It’s creative.
Mickey (03:56.142)
Yeah, 100%. I’m sure that there are some pretty cool stories that you could talk about maybe, maybe not on today’s podcast, but maybe off the air. So obviously there was, what drew you to writing these legal thrillers is probably the path that you’ve taken in your you know, the book.
James V. Irving (04:03.286)
Next time we’ll do it. Yep. Well, I’ve written, I’ve been writing off and on in my, it’s gonna be a principal hobby, or one of my principal hobbies since I was in college. And I didn’t have much success with it. And, you know, four or five years ago, five or six years ago, I decided that the time had come to take a full-time crack at it. And I realized that the thing I knew best was this sort of law, private detective combination, which Joth sort of fits in. He’s a lawyer but he’s a lawyer who gets quirky problems that he has to figure out from both ends, both legally and investigative at the same time. And I thought that I had a wealth of knowledge that would allow me to develop those stories. And the story of Joth Proctor, you sort of have to start with a basic person that you sort of know. So he’s from Massachusetts, he went to the University of Virginia, and he did some things that I’ve done.
So that allowed me to build a fictional character from a starting point that I was familiar with. And that’s what I did. I mean, Joth Proctor certainly isn’t me, thank God. But, you know, he starts with me, a nugget of me.
Mickey (05:43.074)
Cool. I haven’t read it, but it’s something that I want to pick up.
James V. Irving (05:47.194)
There are five of them. There are four of them right now and a fifth coming out in June, so take a long weekend.
Mickey (05:50.702)
I’m not that big of a reader. That will take me a month or two. So what do you hope the readers gain from these novels beyond the entertainment value of a thrilling story, right?
James V. Irving (06:04.242)
Yeah, that’s a very good question. You know, I wrote these, these aren’t, this isn’t literature, you know, these are beach reads or, you know, Saturdays, in front of a fireplace read in the wintertime. But I do think they’re true. They tell true stories of true people and they reflect problems, relationship problems, problems of who I am, who I wanna be, how I get there, how to work my way through dilemmas, and romantic problems. So I think that I’ve tried real hard to make these things, make these characters people you can get your hands around and say, yeah I know that person, maybe even that person relates to me. And I hope you can take away some lessons in living from these stories.
Mickey (06:45.415)
It’s very interesting. How was your family’s reaction to when you started writing these stories you know somewhat related to maybe some personal aspects of your life? What was their take on it?
James V. Irving (07:00.134)
Well, my wife’s been very supportive of it. My daughter’s been very supportive of it. My mother’s probably rolling over in her grave. She always wanted me to be a lawyer and that’s probably why I became a lawyer. Now, I don’t think that’s true. I mean, I think everybody I know, number one, is happy that I was able to fulfill what’s been a lifetime desire to do this. And everybody wants to, most people have something that they really would like to have done or do and most of us don’t get a chance to fulfill that. And I think most of my friends are happy for me that I did. And I think most of them are getting some enjoyment from the stories as well.
Mickey (07:39.534)
That’s cool. I’ve never really spoken to somebody who’s written a book. It’s awesome. Good for you. Going back to the business landscape of things, having witnessed the evolution of the business landscape for over 25 years, what are some of the most significant changes that you’ve observed in how businesses operate and navigate legal challenges?
James V. Irving (08:06.554)
It’s all got to do with technology and electronics. And that’s particularly true in the private detective realm. When I was doing this stuff, you did most things by shoe leather or driving around, going to the courthouse, looking in records, digging through crisscrosses, calling people up, and asking them questions that weren’t maybe done. It wasn’t tied to what you wanted to know to get people to tell you things. And that was fun. It was very challenging to figure out how to approach a problem and get the information you wanted. Now, because I have friends who are still in the business, it’s a matter of technology and electronics. We want to find somebody, locate somebody. There was a real art to that when I was coming up. Now there’s still an art to it, but now it’s all online. You get the right search engines, you get the right databases, and you work with that.
Mickey (08:57.102)
It’s all digital.
James V. Irving (09:02.53)
Similarly in law, you know, the law is the law and the law changes a lot, but your research is much more streamlined as opposed to what it was.
Mickey (09:15.63)
Interesting. Within the diverse legal practices that you’ve served in, is there a specific domain that you find particularly stimulating or rewarding, and why?
James V. Irving (09:29.222)
Are you talking about the practice of law now?
Mickey (09:31.504)
Law, yeah.
James V. Irving (09:54.77)
Yeah, well, you know, when I first started, like a lot of people start now, I did trial work. And I think that’s informed my writing. I did personal injury, I did criminal stuff, and I did business law. But I would try, you know, whenever I came in the office, I would go down to the courthouse and, you know, develop a case, do the research, do the discovery, and try the cases and that’s very challenging work in the sense that it’s always competitive and it’s always kind of rough, it’s a rough game it’s always a zero-sum game, you’re winning or lose that’s okay, I mean I’ve played sports all my life, I’m used to that, but you know when I got into the business stuff which was an intentional transition, the reason I got into it was I realized you’re a trial lawyer If you try a criminal case or a personal injury case, you never see your client again, win or lose, even if you win. But if you’re a business lawyer and you do a good job, you have a client for life. And that means repeating business, it makes it much easier to have a career.
So I got into business law for that reason but found that I liked the idea of developing long-term relationships with people, getting to know their business, getting to know what their needs were, and helping them decide how to handle things. And then the transactions that you did are usually everybody wins to some extent. Yeah, you want your guy to get the better end of the deal, but if you don’t have a deal that works for both parties you don’t have a deal, you know. So you have to be able to figure out what your guy or your woman can give up to the other side that’s important to them that’s not as important to you so that you get a deal that you want that the other side can be contended with.
Mickey (11:24.75)
Great answer. Reflecting on the trajectory of your career, would there be, what would be some advice that you’d give to your younger self? Especially concerning juggling the demands of the legal work that you do, plus having this creative passion for writing.
James V. Irving (11:47.902)
You know, life’s an adventure. And you know, all you have, everything that’s in the past is a memory. And everything in the future is just an aspiration or a hope. You only have what’s right now. And so, you know, for that reason, you have to make today the best day it can be, or the best moment it can be. But I think taking a longer perspective of that, you know, you only go around once. And I don’t think anybody wants to go to their grave thinking, geez, I wish, or I don’t think it would do go to the grave saying, geez, I wish I worked harder. You know, you probably think I wish I had more adventure or more fun. And I’ve taken that perspective, I had that perspective when I went to college. And I’ve been pretty true to that. I’ve tempered that with the realization that you’ve got to make a living in this world, you know, and I’ve done that. But I’ve never lost sight of the fact that, beyond making a decent living and raising a family, what matters is the quality of the life that you put together over a short time on Earth. And that’s what I’ve tried to do.
Mickey (13:01.358)
Fantastic answer.
James V. Irving (13:03.314)
It’s an answer anyway.
Mickey (13:05.054)
It’s an answer, but it’s, I mean, you often hear from people, you know, oh, they go to the grave and it’s, you can’t be buried with all the money. You can’t, you know what I mean? It’s spending time with the people that you love. Do the things that you enjoy. Bills need to be paid. Food needs to be on the table, but outside of that, none of it matters.
Mickey (13:30.902)
Beyond the legal expertise, what do you believe are some soft skills that are crucial for success in the field of business law?
James V. Irving (13:40.382)
There are a lot of people who I’ve known ever since law school who focus on what I’ll call the nerdy elements of the law, really knowing the law, the nitty-gritty of it, memorizing principles and cases. And they are often very good lawyers. But whether you’re standing in front of a jury or whether you’re trying to convince a client that you have an idea of how he should pursue a fork in the road, it comes down to people’s skills. You know, you have to understand yourself, first of all, but you also have to understand the person that you’re working with, what their motivations are, and what they need. You can’t browbeat your client into things. Well, whether you can, even if you can, it doesn’t do any good, because it doesn’t get them where they wanna be. But I think learning to communicate with people, learning to understand their needs and their interests, and focusing on building relationships. And you can’t fake that. You know, you gotta be able to do that. That’s really, that’s how I’ve made my living.
Mickey (14:50.714)
I find that there’s, you know, the word sales often gets thrown around and people think that there’s a negative connotation to it. And there might be to some extent, you know, the used car salesman who’s trying to sell you a crappy car that’s, you know, he knows it’s crappy, but he’s just trying to make money. But within each profession, you know, sales is relationship building and understanding the person’s needs, understanding their pains, and if you have the solution presenting that, right? And I find that that’s common in every sort of business. You can’t get away from it.
James V. Irving (15:24.714)
Well, you got to have a business, you know, otherwise, you don’t in any line of work, you have to have a business and you have to attract business and you have to do a good job to keep the business. Yeah, that is not true. So it sort of relates, but I don’t think people who simply are in it for the sale, you know, for the score are going to have a long career because that becomes apparent after a while, you know, what’s your, what’s your goal and motivation is.
Mickey (15:46.754)
100%. Do you have a favorite client story?
James V. Irving (15:54.445)
Sure, I have a lot of client stories. I hadn’t teed that one up in my mind. You know, I’ll tell you this story, because it’s probably one that’s pivotal in my career. Although it isn’t certainly the best story, I got kidnapped one night by a guy with a gun when I was a private detective. And that may be too strong a word, but I was forced into a trailer in a trailer park at two o’clock in the morning by a guy with a gun. I guess that counts. And, you know, it sort of caused me to realize that if you pursue this sort of life of having, you know, a wide-ranging, adventurous, free-form life and doing things that you can get yourself in positions of risk sometimes. So you have to have a certain level of prudence. You know, when you’re young, you’re sort of a little bit of a buccaneer sort of a personality and you act accordingly. But I think, you know, as time goes by, you have to be a little bit more careful as well. So, you know, that night I was, it was a case in which, well, it’s a little bit of a long story. Do you have time for this?
Mickey (17:10.794)
Yeah, we got time. I’m excited.
James V. Irving (17:16.403)
This was before they had the Uniform Child Custody Act, by which different states would honor the rulings of the other states on child custody. So if you got divorced and got custody of your kid in Maryland, and your spouse got a hold of that kid and brought that kid to Virginia, Virginia courts would not enforce the custody decree of the Maryland courts which is exactly what happened in my case. A woman, actually was a man who came to us because he had gotten custody from the court in Maryland and his wife and her boyfriend stole the kid and went to Virginia. And Virginia authorities or courts would not help them get the kid back. And it’s a tragic story.
So they were, they hired a lawyer in Virginia and the lawyer said, you’ve got to find the kid and you have to get him back by self-help without causing a breach of peace using two magic legal words. So they hired us, and we were told to find this kid. And so we knew who the boyfriend was, and we knew where he lived, and so I was on the shift where I was watching this trailer in this trailer park. And you know, they kinda got wise in the fact that they were the same cars, pretending to follow him all day long for weeks on end. And you know, late at night, it was dark, and I got taken into this trailer. And the purpose of intimidating me, which I think they probably did a decent job of doing. But, you know, so that’s when I thought, Ed, I’ve got to get out of this business. But we did get the kid back, or help the father get the kid back, although it took about six months to do it. And I don’t know what lessons you learn from that. One is that the law is always advancing and always has holes in it, right? But, you know, as I said, it tells you that there’s a line between being proven and being reckless. That’s a pretty broad line.
Mickey (19:14.201)
Yeah. Was that the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, for you to say, OK, I’m out? I’m changing career paths?
James V. Irving (19:23.206)
You know, I think it was. Private detective business, it’s like, it’s boring, it’s sometimes dangerous, and it’s a grind. But you have these periods of adventure. Once a week in the two years I was in that job, I did something extraordinary. I ended up doing some case which was like, my friends would just have their jaws on the floor when I told them the story. So you had this wonderful elation. I’ve always said, a good case as a private detective is more satisfying than a good case as a lawyer. It’s just much more of a high that is involved for me. But it is a grim business for the most part. So I was ready to think about a more mainstream job at that point. And that did change my life.
Mickey (20:12.427)
Yeah. Did you have kids and a family at the time that you were a private detective?
James V. Irving (20:16.318)
I wasn’t even married at that time. Yeah. It took me a long time to get married.
Mickey (20:23.054)
Probably scary to marry, I couldn’t imagine marrying a private detective, right? As a seasoned lawyer, however, how do you mentor and inspire, you know, inspire aspiring legal professionals and what legacy do you hope to leave behind for them?
James V. Irving (20:43.526)
In my firm, over the years since I’ve been a partner there, I have taken on the role of being a mentor to several lawyers. And I don’t know that I’m very good at it. I try to be. But I mean, mentorship is really important. As I said, I’m not sure that I have these skills, but I recognize how important they are. You have to spend a lot of time understanding what the younger lawyer’s skills and weaknesses are and help them enhance their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. So I guess it takes a lot of time, which I don’t mind the time, but maybe I’m just not as much of a I don’t do that much talking at that level with people. I’m not somebody who, I think this has been a very comfortable conversation, but I’m not the kind of person who’s going to spend a lot of time talking about how you should change your life to be a better lawyer.
Mickey (21:54.366)
No, that makes sense. So how long have you been? So you’re, you’re no longer practicing law.
James V. Irving (22:01.222)
Well, I’m retiring at the end of this year. I’ve been practicing on a part-time basis since the first book I published, which was five years ago.
Mickey (22:03.959)
Yeah, that’s it.
Mickey (22:10.33)
Oh, awesome. Awesome. And are you planning, so basically, when’s like final date, and then you’re out?
James V. Irving (22:17.598)
December 31st, year ends and I’m done. I’m gonna resign from the bar and you know, I won’t be able to give legal advice anymore. Which you know, well you do think about that because you never know when you’re gonna, someone’s gonna say to you, hey you can help me out with something. And I kinda wanted to preserve that, but it doesn’t make any sense. So I’m gonna just hang up the spurs and just write books and do all the stuff that I wanna do.
Mickey (22:20.91)
It’s awesome. Do you like to, is there travel in mind with retiring, you know, spending time with the kids, and grandkids?
James V. Irving (22:47.774)
My wife and I have been over the years, we have been trying to see every Major League baseball park and see a game in every Major League baseball park. And we’ve been doing that for a long time. I’ve only got two left. We’ve only got two left, Seattle and the Yankees. And so, you know, we will see those probably this year. So once we check that off, we’ll probably be looking for, you know, sort of a new kind of a playful goal, something that is not, you know, we’re not going to sell our lives out to do it gives us a focus of how to organize our vacations, I guess you might say. So, you probably think of something along those lines to do.
Mickey (23:28.599)
Very cool. Any other stories that you wanna share? Sorry, like I’m still blown away by that story. I was like, I want more. Any other favorite client stories from the law side, even or even from the private detective side?
James V. Irving (23:42.382)
When I was a younger lawyer trying cases, not that long, maybe 15 years ago, if you read the Joth Proctor books, you’ll see that there is a tapas bar in these books. And one of the principal characters, you know, these stories have the same circle of five or six characters that repeat in each book. And one of them is, I understand Crowley, who runs the local tapas bar in Arlington, Virginia. When I was trying cases, I represented the local tapas bar in Arlington, Virginia. And I did a lot of work for them. Mostly it was drunk driving, drunk in public, petty drug offenses, things like that, getting people out of trouble who were associated with the place. But there was a case in which a dancer was involved in a bar fight, actually was at another bar. People from my client’s bar went to another bar where they got into one of these pool cue swinging, beer bottle swinging bar fights. And somebody from my client’s team kicked a guy from the other bar in I think the medical term is nuts. And the guy lost a testicle. It’s a terrible story. And so criminal charges were brought against a girl from my client’s bar and I tried that case to a jury in Fairfax County, Virginia. And that was a circus. Because first of all, it’s a civius story. Second of all, most of the witnesses were these dancers who came in these skirts that were so short. They were hardly skirts. And the jurors were all hanging over the jury railing, looking at them, walking in and out. So people’s focus wasn’t as where it should be. I remember sitting there at the table thinking to myself, boy, this is going to be a good story someday.
And indeed it was. So I tried that case and the woman was found not guilty. And I think she was not guilty. I think it was a dark place. People were drunk. And the poor guy mistook who kicked them for somebody else. But I used that story, changed to protect the innocent and the guilty in, I think in my second or third novel, it’s not a focal point of the story, but I, what I have done is in these stories, I’ve often taken little vignettes from my life as either a detective or a lawyer. And I’ve weaved them into the story where they fit and made sense. And I think it worked out as a good little sideline story in that novel. And I’ll keep doing it. I’ve got a lot of tales to tell.
Mickey (26:30.079)
Very cool. I’ll have to have you back when we have more time and just solely focus on the history of your stories. That’s cool. Well, from my side of things, I kind of went through all of my questions here. James, do you have anything else that you want to share with the listeners?
James V. Irving (26:49.702)
I don’t think so I mean I’m not here to ask questions I’m here to answer them. I’ve enjoyed talking to you. You’ve asked great questions and it’s been fun. I look forward to seeing the final result. You know I’m going to keep writing these books. I think they’re interesting books. You know they sort of have their continuation that you can read them independently one at a time but they do follow along. I would just say that I’m having a hell of a good time writing them.
Mickey (26:56.662)
Yeah. Thank you. Awesome. Well, for our listeners, where can we find the books?
James V. Irving (27:22.59)
Well, they’re on Amazon.com, principal, but you can find them in a lot of places. My website is www.jamesvirving.com You can get them there as well, and you can also see other information about me and the stories. And yeah, I hope people will pick them up and give them a read and give a good review on Amazon.
Mickey (27:46.146)
Awesome for our listeners. I’ll make sure that the Amazon store and James’s website is gonna be linked below as well So that you guys can pick them up And yeah, James. Thank you so much for your time.
