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Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney. Alongside my co host Matt Miller.
Every business day we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moven News.
I'm the Bloomberg Markets podcast called Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot com Slash podcast times for New York get the latest thinking on boys. What's been just at work day in the House of Representatives, you know, congress Woman, thank you so much for joining us here. Can you help put in context what happened on the House floor today.
Yeah, so we got the two thirds vote to remove George Santos. We've expelled him, and it was Look, it was a solemn day. I mean, he deserved it. He deserved to be removed. I voted for the expulsion. But the end of the day is it is a sad stain on the institution and it was important that we had to remove him so his constituents can elect somebody new, somebody they can trust and have a relationship with. The reality is George Santos had lost the trust of his colleagues,
his constituents. And the bottom line here is we asked the Ethics Committee at the beginning of this year to do a thorough investigation, and they had issued thirty eight different subpoenas, interviewed forty individual witnesses, They reviewed one hundred and seventy thousand pages of documents, and they were able to produce use the evidence to the members that warrants his expulsion. I mean, he used campaign money on everything
from luxury items to botox. He even created fictitious loans and then he used campaign donors money to reimburse himself to those fictitious loans. We even had a colleague, Max Miller, one of our colleagues here in Congress, who said that he even used his and his mother's credit card to make unapproved purchases or donations. And so it is really troubling and disturbing that we had this con artist sitting in Congress with us, and quite frankly, it's been a
distraction this entire year. So I'm relieved to see that he will no longer be in this institution. And I'm hopeful that we will have a special election very soon. As you know, the governor does need to call a special election within ten days, and the people of the third Congressional District in New York, which is a piece of Queens and Nassau County, will be able to elect someone that they can trust.
Yeah, Congressman, maybe if you can just elaborate there, tell us, you know, what is a special election, How does that play out from here? What kind of timeline, who would you know elect that kind of a person. Just give us a little bit of the lay of the land, how we proceed from here.
But following expulsion, there will be a formal notification to the Governor of the State of New York. The governor then has ten days to call a set special election, and then it would most likely be in February, and at that point the people of New York's third district will be able to elect someone new and that's how the process will play out. So we will that seat will be vacant for a couple of months.
So Congresswoman, will this help or hinder the GOP in terms of keeping the House?
Well, I don't think that we could have based our decision on that. We have to do what is right in this case to be removed. But what I do believe is that the Nasau County organization, led by Chairman Joe Cairo, is one of the best in the country, and they have flipped because, by the way, not just because they're the best in the country, but because the Democrats policies in New York are just so ridiculous. Right, They've created a crisis, whether it's public safety, migrant crisis,
the Democrats policies have done that. And because of that messaging that Republicans are right they write on policy, they've been able to flip not just these congressional seats, but they've been able to flip the county executive. You have Bruce Blakeman there is doing a great job. You also
have a Republican district attorney now county legislature. They were able to flip all of that because not only are they a strong organization, but because the Democrats in New York have done such a bad job and are driving the city in the state into the ground. So with that said, I still believe that Republicans can hold onto that seat in a special election. But at the end of the day, it's up to the voters. The voters
get to choose who they want. The bigger challenge for Republicans is that our governor is trying to redraw congressional maps again. She is trying to tilt the scale once again after we had an independent master last year draw our maps and we won these four seats. So that that corrupt activity that we're seeing from the Democrats trying to tilt the scale with and redraw these maps to give themselves an advantage is more what jeopardizes the Republican majority in Washington.
Does do you have a candidate that you would like to see run.
I do not have a candidate that is for the county organizations to determine. Hopefully they're going to be doing their due diligence now, and I know that they will. They'll be making sure that they have background checks and that they're going.
Well, well, they don't have the greatest track record, let's be honest.
Well that's why I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying. We've gotten their word now that they will be doing that, and so we could prevent this in the future. But look, I think it is it is important for people to understand that whether it's a Republican or Democrat, we needed to move to do this. The last five expulsions. By the way, we're all Democrats in our history. The first time a Republican has been expelled from the House of Representatives in the history of the United States.
Equal opportunity.
I guess so, congress Woman. You did list a whole bit of evidence that the Ethics Committee had compiled in supporting the expulsion of George Santos, But a lot of what the House members who elected to not expel him, what they were hung up upon, was that he wasn't
actually convicted of anything yet. That is But I mean, do you think that this potentially could set a dangerous president here that if people's you know, skeletons come out of the closet and you know, maybe you just don't like how somebody's voted, that their seat could be in jeopardy.
Well, first of all, he will have his day in court as it relates to responding to those twenty three criminal charges, and that will determine whether he goes to jail, okay, But as it relates to remaining in this is we referred it to the Ethics Committee and they did their they did their investigation where was able to produce the evidence that showed that he took from his campaign donations and used them for personal gain and enrichment and that
was just inappropriate and warrants his removal from the institution.
Congress Woman, as I understand that the Republicans have a four seat majority in the House, so that will go to three practically, what does that mean for getting legislation through?
From your perspective, Look, whether it was four or three, it was still difficult, right, I mean, it is not easy when you have such a slim majority. We're trying to, you know, reconcile the differences and see where we can find that common ground to move things forward. Despite having the slim majority, we've been able to pass a good number of these appropriation bills to fund the government. The Senate has done zero, by the way, so they have a slim majority there too. I think it's by margin
of one. So it makes governing difficult, which which really actually begs for more bipartisanship. I mean, at the end of the day, you know, sometimes the extremes try to upset the apple card. We see more bipartisanship, more common ground and common sense policy moving forward. And so we have to work with what we have and we continue to push for the things that we believe in, which is, we want secure borders, we want to support our law enforcement.
We want to address this crisis of energy independence. We need more energy production, not less, like the president it says. And we need to make sure that we are addressing our fiscal issues, and that means we need to spend less money and be more responsible. And so that's what we're going to continue to push with that agenda, and we help some Democrats do join us, because those are the right things that the American people want to see.
They want to see you inflation reduced, energy, affordable borders being secured, the migroant crisis ending in New York City. It would be great if Senator Schumer passes our legislation that would do these things, because we've passed them already out of the House.
Right all right, Congresswoman, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciated. Nicole malliotakas Congresswoman Representatives of the US House of Representatives representing New York.
You're listening to the team. Ken's our live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Look at the lay of the land on the markets as well as Washington, DC news coming from both places. Billy Lipshealty covers of markets for US for Bloomberg News. And Joe Matthew, the host of all kinds of stuff on radio TV. He's our political go to guy down and Washington will tie in with that. George Santos News coming out of the House of Representatives. Bailey, let's start with you. We've had a little bit of a rally here in stocks in the last hour. What's pushing that.
Yeah, market's picking up the two year yield hitting a low of four point five seven percent, lowest since mid June. This coming is Powell speaks. The big thing, guys, that stands out. Powell a couple of a few weeks ago said policy is restrictive. Today he's saying it's well into
restrictive territory. Investors that I've been talking to, reading between the lines, taking that a bit more dubvish than he has been, so not completely going full of molly, but does seem like he's indicating more that maybe we are going to see rates peter out and maybe not see the master.
I can't help sometimes but just have to roll my eyes as people's like the traders interpretation of the Fed speak it's it's mad libs. Well, I we're literally hanging on the removal or edition of one word.
But I will say that Powell has been very clear and he's delivered. That's why I think it's interesting that the market's right now pricing in five cuts this year, when Powell has continued to beat the drum that higher for longer is here and they're not considering cuts anytime soon.
So Joe, We've had an hour here plus to kind of digest the news coming out of Washington, DC. Representative Santos from New York expelled from the House of Representatives. What are you kind of hearing from your sources down in DC, you know, in the last hour.
So well, I find it compelling that a majority of Republicans voted to keep him. Yeah, when we spoke earlier, I hadn't seen the breakdowns yet, but a majority of the Republican conference voted not to expel George Santos. I'm not sure what that means for the narrative of this is the principled party that did what needed to be done. The entire leadership voted to keep him. And look, we got through this before a little bit. Lawmakers see a
precedent being set here. He's not been convicted of anything. While the Ethics Committee did recommend this action and the chairman himself brought the resolution, he's not been convicted of anything technically, and that makes other lawmakers a little uncomfortable knowing they could maybe be in the same position someday.
I mean, we did kid before that. Perhaps George Santos's next big appearance could be dancing with the stars, but it's very likely that he probably prison is probably the next up.
Who knows that he's got He's got to go through his trial here. But there are a lot of folks speculating on what corner of the entertainment world might be a home in the meantime for George Sands, because look, he's not going to go quietly. He's already, by the way on his way out, put up a resolution to expel Jamal Bowman, and he says he's going to take as many other lawmakers down with him as he can. So we'll be hearing from George stands Joe.
I mean, the Republicans in the House only had a four seat majority as it was thin as it was now it's even thinner. Does that practically day to day going to impact their ability to drive their agenda?
Not going to help?
To hear Speaker Johnson say, the whole number of the House is now four to thirty four. We just, by the way, got to four thirty five for the first time in quite a while. Last week a Republican won a seat in Utah that brought us back to quorum. So now that this has happened, we're just kind of back to where we were a couple of weeks ago. The fact is, I mean, four seats is nothing, and this technically doesn't make much of a difference between it's really it's barely a majority.
Just to come back to the mad libs discussion aka interpreting Fed speak, Bailey, So you know, we had Vince Agnerella on before on our chief macro strategist here at Bloomberg, and he was saying to us that what traders were also really hanging on to was this word if in the Powell statement. So the full sentence, to take the full context here is that Powl said we are prepared to tighten policy further if it becomes appropriate to do so. That another word that your traders getting hut.
Up on that is one. But I will say it's been well kind of expected that the FED is done, and we've seen rates implying that. So I think to your point and kind of Vince calling it out that if we're not a big if, but they're they're.
Done, condicate the optionality exactly. And that's the big thing.
And that's what Powell's messaging from the start has been is keeping all doors open and not really trying to cheer on the market and just calling out right now a two year on pace four its largest drop since on a weekly basis since mid March.
So he just remind us, Joe, kind of how the next steps are going to work here in terms of I guess calling for special election and all that. It happens pretty quickly, right.
Yeah, this is going to be up to Kathy Hokel. There will be a special election. She's got if I remember correctly here, it's ten days after the ouster to announce the election, and then it'll have to be held within seventy to eighty days. So we'll go through this, but then we have to go through it all over again with the real election. And you know Democrats are determined to flip this seat. They think they have the
votes to do it. You know, you're going to see a Swazi campaign that could do very well in that area. But Kathy Hockle will make the first move here and I suspect we'll hear from her in the coming days.
All right, Very good, Joe Matthew, thanks for joining us here. A host of sound on that is one p M. Wall Street Time.
Check it out.
He'll have the latest reporting on what's happening in historic day in Washington, DC. And Billy Lipschutz, he covers all the markets for Bloomberg News, doing a little roundtable there on a very unique.
Day here in both the jeh you know, hand in hand.
Go figure. You're listening to the tape. Catch a live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa, playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
George Hampton Georges. He's the president and CEO of cure Ax Pharmaceuticals. He joined us via zoom. George, your company, your cure X Pharmaceuticals. You have I Guess, a prescription medicine for overweight and abast patients. What is that and how is it playing in this market?
Sure, we have Contrave. Contreve has been on the market in the United States is twenty fifteen. It's very different from the other products that you just mentioned. It's not a GLP one. It's the only oral non DEA control medication approved by the FDA for obese and overweight patients.
And so it's it's been a pretty exciting year. As you mentioned, We've got you surges in our business across not just the United States, but across Europe and in all forty eight markets that we're currently operating.
So something Georgia, Paul and I were wondering just as you were coming on here, is the obesity crisis in America getting any worse?
Right now?
Like? Why this year has it been such a breakout year for weight loss drugs? And you know, this really seemed to be something that was so top of mind in the news a couple of years ago. You know, is it getting any worse? Is it stabilizing? Like why now all this attention on weight loss drugs?
Well, I think a few things when it was getting in a lot of attention a number of years ago, and then you know, the pandemic took over as a top healthcare news story over the number one epidemic, which.
Is obesity in the United States. Right And so now.
We've kind of be able to turn ourselves back to you know this this particular situation, obesity is not getting better. We are progressing as a society. We have over forty three percent of our adult population that's obese, projected to be almost fifty percent in the next decade. Our children coming behind us are even more obese than we are as adults. And so this is we have to intervene. And ABC is a you know, kind of a special situation.
Is it's really the only chronic disease that's reached this level without any type of you know, pharmaceutical device or service intervention that's that's paid for.
So but like, hasn't no zempic been in the marketplace for a while for and there's been other diabetes pharmaceutical solutions in the marketplace. Why are we now saying, hey, this can be for weight loss. Wasn't that known for a while.
But I think it was known for a while. Sure, you know zepic. Importantly, it doesn't have the indication for weight loss.
It's a sister product, which is.
The same product at a higher dose, is called wa Gobe see commercials for that. Mon Journal from lily Is is another another diabete type two diabetes product that will also be under zep bound a new name that is uh that will be used for for weight loss. But they are essentially identical, identical products. We these tools are great tools, the g LP ones, you know, with goby and and and zep bound they are they're going to be great tools that a lot of people will be
able to lose a significant amount of weight on. And they you know, when you get big companies like Novo and Lily in the marketplace, they tend to do the right thing, right. They tend to bring a great product to market and put all the products and services behind it to to help help that disease journey.
So tell us more about what cure Ax offers in this space, the drug that you guys have for obesity, how somebody can take it, what they should be maybe reasonably expecting in terms of the weight loss goals, and what the drug can accomplish.
Sure, so we know the product's been growing, you know, significantly over the last decade since it's been launched in the United States. We acquired the product in twenty nineteen, and we acquired it with a different lens of how to grow the product and how to make it available to patients. So the first thing we did knowing that it was a cash only market, right, so these are not covered by private insurance and they're not covered by the government yet, although we're I think we're.
Starting to make some good progress.
We create a program called Cure Access where any patient who's prescribed the product can actually access the product for ninety nine dollars and have.
It shipped directly to their home.
We put that in place as a bridge to, you know, help people start to fight this disease for themselves, until such time that that insurance and the government, you know, start start covering these products as they as they typically would.
For all of the chronic diseases.
We'll do well over five hundred thousand prescriptions this year just in the United States, over a million worldwide, and as I mentioned, we've got and we've got we're now in forty eight countries approved.
It seems like that could be a huge opportunity for you if insurance would cover this kind of a drug. I mean, is that something that's likely to happen anytime soon?
I think so. You know, the tro act, which is the treatment reduced O BCD ACTSS, has never had more support inside of both both both chambers in Washington, d C. We've we've spent a lot of time up there educating the different the different groups on exactly what this disease is are The biggest barrier really is that for the longest time, Americans and Europeans in all First world countries that view obesity as a lifestyle and you just can't. You just can't tell someone to put the pork down
and go for a walk. It doesn't it doesn't work. They truly have an underlying disease that's driving their obesity. And you can see this and in families, you can see families who have a beast members and other family members who are coming from the same eating habits and lifestyles are not obese. And so you know, we finally have start, you know, start to have enough medications to make a dent in uh and we're striving this.
George, your company cure Ex Pharmaceuticals. It says here in Mike Bloomberg terminal based in Marstown, New Jersey.
We we were prior to the epidemic, and the epidemic we moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
Okay, all right, question, why do you get if you guys are in this space which people are going crazy for, why are you still at private company? Why aren't you public or why hasn't somebody bigger acquired you?
Well, our first our first goal was to establish the product in a better in a better marketplace, in a in a better position than it was in the previous hands. Right, So the company that had it before us went went bankrupt and yeah, right, and so we we established cure acts really to go after two different disease dates, you know, obesity and smoking cessation. And so we're doing a great job, I think with now the number one Oral branded product
in the United States. Uh, and we have a nice we have a great product in that's phase three ready, we're negotiating with the FDA for smoking cessation. So we continue to achieve our goals. I think we're you know, we're getting we're getting a fair amount of attention now now for the obste the epidemics taken off and and we've we've yeah.
All right, Well, I would say, I mean, I like Nashville. It's a great town. But there's no Jersey shore down there, dude, So I don't know.
You have to excuse me because we are Jersey people in the studio.
I lived in Philly for a long time. I spent a lot of time in Avalon.
There you go. There's my man.
All right.
George Hampton, thank you so much for joining us. George is the president and see of cure Ax Pharmaceuticals, giving us some more information on these some obesity drugs, the weight loss drugs, and kind of where we are in that pipeline. A lot of options out there, and it seems like it's going to become even more pronounced going forward as these companies continue to invest.
You're listening to the tape cans Are Live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Let's talk AI.
Why not because that was a big driver of this market performance of this year. I couldn't tell you. I wouldn't know AI if I tripped over. But people tell me it's going to revolutionize the world. And we've got one of those folks here, Charlie Hernandez. He's to see of my pocket lawyer who joins us live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. So let's start, really thirty thousand foot Charlie, what is MyPocket lawyer dot AI?
Well, let me start by saying the entire legal profession is about to fundamentally change, and wait going to be without a little bit of heartburn. Okay, the world doesn't like to change, but luckily Silicon Valley is in the business of changing world.
So I hear.
We've got something very exciting, which is the first time AI technology is in the position where it can give reliable, high quality, and most importantly affordable legal advice online and that's going to change the landscape fundamentally.
Tell us a little bit about your background, Charlie, and how you got into this.
Absolutely.
So I started a fintech company about four years ago after doing a JDMBA out of Harvard, So my backgrounds in business and law.
But I think the important thing.
Is that when we were at this fintech company, we realize that consumers who are underserved from a financial perspective also don't have access to legal resources. And this is a huge problem in the US right now, especially when you get to low income communities. Almost one hundred percent
of civil legal issues go completely unaddressed. And so that's what this technology is designed to solve for, is that we really have a big problem with people not getting the legal help that they need in the US, and for the first time, we have an ability to use technology to get them that legal help.
How does it work?
If a beta product out right now which takes a contract that you have any sort of legal document, we will simplify it, we will summarize it, we will explain it for you.
But that's really just the teaser.
The real product we're launching a month from now, and that's what's going to fundamentally change everything because that is a place where you can go. Any legal question you have, you can go, you can get it answered in a reliable way. But the challenges are there are a lot of people who are afraid of this technology. Right you can imagine how lawyers would react to this. Most lawyers are anywhere between concerned too panicked.
At the idea of AI.
And so there are really three reasons why people have opposition to this type of technology. The first one is people are concerned that if you use AI to give legal advice online, it will cause consumer harm if it gives the wrong legal advice. Now, the answer to that, and it's a really easy one, is that there is real consumer harm happening right now every day by people who.
Do not have access to legal help.
The second piece of opposition is that people are concerned that this will create a two tiered system where some people will have access to lawyers wealthy people, and other people will only have access to technology. Now that is wrong, because there is already a two tiered system. Wealthy people have access to lawyers, everybody else doesn't have access to anything. And now the third piece of opposition for why people are afraid of this technology is lawyers are afraid it
will take their jobs. And why I'm here to say that we've built this technology in a way that all it is going to do is get lawyers more work, more clients, access to people that never would have had access to lawyers before, and more revenue streams.
So it's really a win for everything.
How do you see that playing out? How does that scenario work?
So there are millions of people across the country right now who don't have access to lawyers at all, and these are some of the most entrepreneurial people in our workforce right These are immigrancies or people starting businesses and they can't afford lawyers, and so in the short term, these are people who can go to a lawyer and for the first time they will have access to legal help in a much more efficient way because by the time we send people through our technology to an attorney,
to our network of attorneys, it is packaged in a really efficient way that we have a memo, we have a brief put together. They know exactly what the case issue is, what the context is. We have a recommendation for the course of action. So if it used to take them three hours to bring on a new client, they can now do it in thirty minutes.
So give us an example of this, Charlie. Let's say maybe I mean you're in a car accident or something and you're seeking you know, maybe you're like, oh, could I sue? Could I get damages? And so is this going to be like a smartphone app? Like what do you do?
It is so easy.
All you have to do is go to MyPocket Lawyer dot AI and you ask your question. It'll guide you through a series of prompts that'll say, Okay, where did this accident happen?
Was it in California. Was it in New York? Do you have a driver's insurance policy? If so, upload it. We'll take a look.
We'll get I guess of what your damages might be, what your liability might be. And if this is something that we can solve with the technology alone, we will. And that's it, and it's easy. If it's something that we need to escalate to a lawyer, we will look
for you in your local area. We will find a lawyer that is specifically focusing on this practice area, and we will put you in touch with that person and we'll send all that information obviously with your consent to that lawyer to put you in the position to get your help you need.
And you have attorneys that are like signed onto the network already that this is I mean, I guess do they see this as good for their business?
So the funny thing is most attorneys are really really excited about this. There's a movement in the legal profession called the Access to Justice movement, which essentially recognizes the massive need for this type of help across the US right now and by the way, beyond the US too. And so we've had tons of attorneys tell us not only that they are really excited about this, but that
they want to invest. And this is everyday attorneys, small and medium sized law firm attorneys all the way up to massive law firm partners and even some celebrity lawyers.
Also, how are you funding this thing?
This is where it gets really exciting.
So I mentioned earlier that Silicon Valley is in the business of changing worlds. This is an eight hundred billion dollar industry and Silicon Valley is just dying to disrupt this industry. There is no more antiquated industry out there than the legal profession right now.
It is so inefficient.
There are so many places where we can make changes, and Silicon Valley investors are Let me ask you a question, when is the do you.
Remember the first time you took an uber? Sure? Yeah, really you do? Sure?
Tell me a marketing trip in La Okay?
Wow, I couldn't tell you. Okay, keep going?
And how much of a better experience for that is the experience that we are promising people.
With my pot It's a big promise, dude, it is.
And there it's all of the same challenges, right. I mean, you have this highly regulated industry. There is not a free market open and you have this embedded industry group that has access to lobbyists. There's regulatory capture at play, and they don't want to give up the revenue stream of basically what was the taxi industry group back then. That's what the legal profession is right now. That's the fight that we're waging, and I'm telling you it is going to be a war.
What kind of competition? Who do you think your competition is out there? Is there any technological competition to you out there?
In terms of this, we are the most technologically advanced from an AI perspective in the consumer legal tech space. Now that said, our competition really isn't other legal tech competitors or even incumbents. What the competition is is people not seeking out the help that they need. So people who don't recognize that they have a legal problem, people who don't think that they can afford a.
Lawyer, people who are scared to go to a lawyer.
So that can be you know, we have a lot of folks who are immigrants who need this type of help and they're scared because they're undocumented, they don't want to go to a lawyer.
It can be startups who think they can afford a lawyer. It can be.
Anybody who doesn't get the legal help that they need. That is the challenge is that they don't realize yet that this type of access is out there.
How does this make money?
It's a really good question. So it is a two process system.
Basically. The first one is a subscription model.
So if you think about how much it costs for somebody to go to a lawyer right now, the average hourly cost is about three hundred and fifty dollars an hour to year.
It sounds low. Maybe that's my New York mind.
That's because we're in New York.
Okay, I'm jaded.
Yeah, I mean you go in New York market and you're talking one thousand dollars twelve hundred dollars an hour, especially when you start to get into the areas of startup law, real estate law people who are trying to close on homes. But when you go to even rural areas where people don't really have access to lawyers, it's
still extremely expensive to get an attorney. And so we can charge a small amounts subscription model that really is a phenomenal alternative to having to go directly to a lawyer.
Now that's the first piece.
The second piece is lawyers spend a ton of money every year on trying to acquire new clients, and we can make this job so much easier for them. They are huge, untapped pool of pools of consumers out there that need access to legal help and we can send all of those people to lawyers, and lawyers are willing to pay us big bucks.
To do that.
So where are you in terms of the rollout of this product and service.
So this is where it gets really exciting. A month from now, we've got the technology built already. We are going to roll it out in about a month, and it's going to cause a It's going to ruffle a lot of feathers.
I'll tell you.
We've already gotten lawsuit threats, We've gotten a cease and assist from a competitor. People are not going to be happy about this, and it is going to be a big, big fight. I mean to use the Uber example again. You remember all of the challenges that they had when they came into these new cities, and the taxi industry groups, taxi and livery, the departments of transportation. They didn't want
to let their golden goose go. And that is the fundamental sea change that has happened in the legal profession right now.
Are there particular areas of law you think that this is going to be more successful in than others?
Absolutely, So let me just give you an example. In landlord tenant law, we have an eviction filing happening every fifteen seconds here in the US. In those eviction cases, ninety percent of the landlords have access to council, only ten percent of the tenants due. And you can imagine what happens there when you're an unrepresented tenant going up against the landlord who has an expensive lawyer, You're not
going to prevail. So things like landlord tenant law, things like family law, employment law, wage garnishment issues, startups who don't have access to this, small businesses who don't have access to this, debt, consumer debt, bankruptcy. Really, I mean, I hate to be so expansive, but that is really the scalability of this technology that we're talking about. It's phenomenally applicable and it really is going to change the game day one.
How do you start awareness of the build awareness of this out there for your target market.
So we are being as loud as we can be about the fact that there is a potential for a new world's approach here. The world could look very differently when this technology is available, and so we're trying to basically communicate it to consumers. We're saying, hey, this could be very different. You don't have to take a taxi anymore, you can take an uber. You don't have to go to an expensive lawyer right away anymore. You can go
to my pocket lawyer. That's the communication process that we're doing. That's why it's really important to talk to folks like you, and I think the interesting thing that's been happening is that for probably over a decade, lawyers have recognized the challenges that the access to justice crisis represents. That lawyers are embedded. They don't want to give up the revenue streams that they have, and they think they have to.
We're telling them that you don't. We're telling them that we can actually make you more money by serving more clients. And the challenge always has been the legal community doesn't communicate with the business community. Right I was a JDMBA, so I was on both the law side and the business side, and there is very little communication. I go to these law conferences, I am the only person from the business side there, and I'm especially the only person
from Silicon Valley there. Silicon Valley they didn't used to invest in legal tech. That is something new for them and it is very exciting.
Interesting, fascinating story. Charlie, thanks for coming in and sharing it with us. Charlee and Hernandez CEO of My Pocket Lawyer. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
And I'm fall Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.