00:01.500 --> 00:04.170 Sean Murray: Welcome back to deBanked TV. I'm here today with 00:04.170 --> 00:06.900 another special guest. I have Chris Dryden, who is the 00:06.960 --> 00:10.200 managing partner of Global Legal Law Firm. Thank you for being 00:10.200 --> 00:10.740 here, Chris. 00:10.740 --> 00:12.120 Chris Dryden: Thanks a lot, Sean. Thanks for having me. 00:12.150 --> 00:14.790 Sean Murray: No problem. So what's it like being back at a 00:14.790 --> 00:15.870 show in person? 00:16.079 --> 00:17.999 Chris Dryden: I have to say being here, is you know, 00:17.999 --> 00:21.899 normally, it's a labor of love trying to mix work with coming 00:21.899 --> 00:24.569 to a show staying focused with what you're doing, and then 00:24.809 --> 00:28.349 manage all the marketing aspect of things. But then, you know, 00:28.379 --> 00:30.569 being off for a year, it's been really nice to come and 00:30.569 --> 00:32.969 reconnect, see what's going on in the industry, especially 00:32.969 --> 00:35.669 after the pandemic and. Yeah. See if things have changed, or 00:35.669 --> 00:37.889 if they, you know, kind of the same, but it's been, it's been 00:37.889 --> 00:40.349 enjoyable just to see face to face with some of these folks. 00:40.380 --> 00:42.030 Sean Murray: Now, it's my understanding that you came here 00:42.030 --> 00:43.020 from California. 00:43.080 --> 00:43.530 Chris Dryden: I did. 00:43.560 --> 00:45.810 Sean Murray: Okay. And you're a San Diego native. Is that right? 00:45.840 --> 00:46.350 Okay. 00:46.380 --> 00:49.410 Chris Dryden: Yeah, I moved there when I was one, but I've 00:49.410 --> 00:50.190 been there ever since. 00:50.220 --> 00:50.700 Sean Murray: Okay. 00:50.970 --> 00:53.730 Chris Dryden: Pretty nice place except for school, but get to 00:53.730 --> 00:57.090 enjoy some sunshine and I live close to the ocean. But, you 00:57.090 --> 00:58.770 know, coming to Florida is not half bad either. 00:59.190 --> 01:01.650 Sean Murray: Yeah. Well, yeah. No, and not for me either, you 01:01.650 --> 01:03.900 know, coming from New Jersey and New York area. 01:03.930 --> 01:04.380 Chris Dryden: Yeah. 01:04.680 --> 01:07.230 Sean Murray: So tell me a little bit about Global Legal Law Firm. 01:07.260 --> 01:08.760 What type of law do you do? 01:09.000 --> 01:11.040 Chris Dryden: So primarily, we're in the payment space. 01:11.700 --> 01:15.720 We've been in the industry kind of backed into it about 2008, I 01:16.260 --> 01:20.910 had an ISO client approach me to do some work for him, I ended up 01:20.940 --> 01:24.360 able to start the firm from it. And as I learned the industry, 01:24.360 --> 01:27.780 we we're able to kind of branch out, find more areas where we 01:27.780 --> 01:31.590 could service, you know, whether it's ISOs, agents, third party 01:31.710 --> 01:36.030 processors, wholesale ISOs. And eventually all the way through 01:36.030 --> 01:37.560 this last year, a lot of merchant work. 01:37.650 --> 01:40.560 Sean Murray: Sure, when you say service them, what kind of 01:40.560 --> 01:41.910 service are you providing? 01:41.940 --> 01:44.370 Chris Dryden: So that's a good question. I initially, you know, 01:44.370 --> 01:47.100 did a lot of contract work, we're kind of like an outside 01:47.100 --> 01:49.830 general counsel for just regular things that a business would 01:49.830 --> 01:53.130 experience, but then got very much more payments specific. So 01:53.130 --> 01:58.410 we do contract review, contract drafting, negotiations with your 01:58.410 --> 02:03.000 processor, either upstream, or agent downstream, do a lot of 02:03.000 --> 02:05.940 M&A work. So that type of transaction, and then we're one 02:05.940 --> 02:09.060 of the few firms that really specialize in litigation. So if 02:09.060 --> 02:12.510 litigation arises somewhere, we're fully equipped to handle 02:12.510 --> 02:15.120 it. So my partner and I, James Huber, we're really 02:15.120 --> 02:17.490 knowledgeable on payments. And then we have four other 02:17.490 --> 02:20.970 litigators in our office that work on litigation related 02:20.970 --> 02:23.880 items, whether it be something very simple to a breach of 02:23.880 --> 02:27.420 contract dispute to regulatory enforcement defense it really 02:27.420 --> 02:30.300 is, you know, whatever kind of comes through, but anything that 02:30.300 --> 02:32.700 touches the payment processing world and the merchant world. 02:33.450 --> 02:36.330 Sean Murray: Did you see more of any of that type of work during 02:36.330 --> 02:39.510 the pandemic? Did any any one area of work increase or any 02:39.510 --> 02:41.370 area of work kind of decrease? 02:41.460 --> 02:43.170 Chris Dryden: Yeah, so it was interesting. Like, initially, 02:43.170 --> 02:46.200 everybody went into like, just stress mode, right? I mean, 02:46.440 --> 02:50.310 there were a lot of people not knowing what was going to 02:50.310 --> 02:53.640 happen, because we were on a lockdown for so long, brick and 02:53.640 --> 02:56.370 mortar dried up, even with more money coming through from the 02:56.370 --> 02:58.530 government, it didn't necessarily mean that things 02:58.530 --> 03:02.130 were going to be okay, going forward. But what we really saw 03:02.130 --> 03:06.030 was that as things started to just kind of gradually ramp back 03:06.030 --> 03:09.090 up, what happened more than anything else was the shift of 03:09.090 --> 03:11.370 the merchants having to go online to maintain their 03:11.370 --> 03:14.280 existing business. And so now you have people that never had 03:14.280 --> 03:17.880 really a e-commerce presence or an online presence, where that 03:17.880 --> 03:21.240 became a large portion of their business. And in doing that, the 03:21.240 --> 03:24.180 processors weren't necessarily ready to underwrite that type of 03:24.180 --> 03:27.840 business. And so when you have merchants that are unfamiliar 03:27.840 --> 03:31.770 with how to actually process or accept payment, at a remote, you 03:31.770 --> 03:35.070 know, distance, it caused some problems, you know, so we've 03:35.070 --> 03:37.260 done a lot of merchant work where you've had match 03:37.260 --> 03:39.600 placement, or just termination of agreements. And then 03:39.600 --> 03:42.990 residuals being held, but not really good reasons for these 03:42.990 --> 03:45.540 things happening. And so we've been representing a lot more 03:45.540 --> 03:48.870 merchants over the last six to 12 months just to remedy issues 03:48.870 --> 03:51.780 that have come from having to go online to actually run their 03:51.780 --> 03:52.230 business. 03:52.230 --> 03:53.640 Sean Murray: Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I've 03:53.640 --> 03:58.230 talked about some risk earlier on the street here. And I was 03:58.260 --> 04:01.800 talking about how processors have to underwrite risk, just 04:01.800 --> 04:04.980 like a lender would have to underwrite a loan. But I, you 04:04.980 --> 04:07.740 know, I hadn't thought of how that might affect a merchant 04:07.770 --> 04:11.610 during the pandemic, because the processor is shifting the type 04:11.610 --> 04:14.610 of, you know, transactions that they originally underwrote that 04:14.610 --> 04:15.390 merchant for. 04:15.420 --> 04:17.910 Chris Dryden: Yeah, well, it's not even necessarily that the 04:17.910 --> 04:21.060 transactions are shifting, but it's the fact that the way that 04:21.060 --> 04:23.220 they're doing things is shifting, for instance, you 04:23.220 --> 04:25.320 know, a lot, a lot of home improvement happened during the 04:25.320 --> 04:27.420 pandemic, people started putting a lot more money into their 04:27.420 --> 04:31.260 house. We had a guy that came to us, he's a pool supplies guy, 04:31.590 --> 04:34.950 but all of his business where he had a storefront before had gone 04:34.950 --> 04:37.770 to remote. And so he was doing this here, I'm ordering from my 04:37.770 --> 04:40.830 distributor, I'm getting things in I'm, I'm having him go out 04:41.430 --> 04:44.850 and invoicing. He was having to adjust to how he was doing 04:44.850 --> 04:48.630 things. But all of a sudden, his online card not present volume 04:48.630 --> 04:52.320 went from 10% of his business to 90%. And then you have a 04:52.320 --> 04:56.730 processor. It's not necessarily looking at oh okay, well, what 04:56.730 --> 05:00.720 is really going on? And so in that regard, you know, you have 05:00.720 --> 05:04.020 that aspect of, well, now we have to re underwrite this guy 05:04.020 --> 05:05.730 for a different type of business. 05:05.880 --> 05:08.880 Sean Murray: Sure. Yeah, I can, I can only, you know, I had not 05:08.880 --> 05:12.090 even thought of that, that aspect of it of the processor 05:12.090 --> 05:14.490 having underwritten the merchant for one way, and then they go 05:14.490 --> 05:17.760 from like, you know, 10% key entered to like, you know, 90% 05:18.000 --> 05:22.320 90% Yeah. 100% Yeah. Right, I guess, especially in the case of 05:22.320 --> 05:25.110 the pandemic, where they they couldn't do any sales in person, 05:25.110 --> 05:28.380 that's certainly a big part of it. Earlier today, you were on a 05:28.380 --> 05:31.440 panel. And there there was a lot of different topics of 05:31.440 --> 05:35.220 discussion and one of them was like, CB, CB. CBD? Yeah, like 05:35.220 --> 05:36.810 what's happening in like that area of the world? 05:38.910 --> 05:41.400 Chris Dryden: That's a tough, that's a tough answer. Yeah. So 05:41.400 --> 05:43.650 you got a lot of agencies that are looking at this space, you 05:43.650 --> 05:46.440 know, CBD is gonna happen, it's gonna happen in some way, shape, 05:46.440 --> 05:50.220 or form. But, you know, there's the aspect of, you know, is it a 05:50.220 --> 05:54.120 medicinal item. So you've got, you know, it being proffered out 05:54.120 --> 05:58.110 as a medicinal thing. So now you got the FDA looking at it, used 05:58.110 --> 06:01.200 to be, you know, marijuana is illegal, you know, schedule one 06:01.200 --> 06:04.890 drugs, the DEA looks at it. Then you have CBD, where they're the 06:04.890 --> 06:07.470 farm bill comes out from the FDA, and it says, oh, well, you 06:07.470 --> 06:10.470 can extract certain things, you know, so now you can have CBD 06:10.470 --> 06:13.140 products, but then that's being treated differently from states 06:13.140 --> 06:17.400 from marijuana laws. And so in commerce, it's gonna happen, 06:17.430 --> 06:20.670 there's no way to stop the force of what's gonna take place. And 06:20.670 --> 06:22.530 so the fact that they're gonna have to figure out how to 06:22.530 --> 06:25.050 standardize it. And until that happens, you're gonna have all 06:25.050 --> 06:26.790 these competing factions, whether it be the federal 06:26.790 --> 06:31.290 government versus the states, or what's legal, what's not legal, 06:31.830 --> 06:34.650 you know, you know, people trying to find a way into the 06:34.650 --> 06:39.510 marketplace by, you know, extracting a different type of 06:39.690 --> 06:42.870 the marijuana plant or the cannabis plant to be able to 06:42.870 --> 06:46.620 like actually sell that off as whatever it's gonna be. So it's 06:46.620 --> 06:50.610 been very interesting to see how there's this discord between 06:50.610 --> 06:54.450 these things. So until they find some standardization. So for us, 06:54.450 --> 06:59.010 what we see is just a really hard product to place. You know, 06:59.010 --> 07:01.410 you have people that are out there, and then you have bad 07:01.410 --> 07:03.510 actors that are out there that are, you know, potentially 07:03.510 --> 07:07.140 calling it magic or a miracle. And so it's hard for the 07:07.140 --> 07:09.840 processors and the underwriters, in addition to the regulatory 07:09.840 --> 07:12.780 work to look at it and go oh, okay, is are they really selling 07:12.780 --> 07:14.790 something that they're supposed to be selling? You know, things 07:14.790 --> 07:18.150 along that that line. So CBD is just one of these things that 07:18.150 --> 07:20.820 has a really high margin because it has a high risk aspect. 07:20.820 --> 07:22.980 Sean Murray: Yeah, you were talking to me off camera about 07:23.310 --> 07:26.910 about, you know, high risk like, like what's what's happening 07:26.910 --> 07:30.090 within like the high risk space of payments, is there any any 07:30.090 --> 07:30.840 particular? 07:31.140 --> 07:32.850 Chris Dryden: It's it's so there's hard to place. 07:33.330 --> 07:35.460 Traditionally, there has been hard to place merchants, whether 07:35.460 --> 07:41.460 it's gaming, or it's adult, or nutraceuticals, even anything, 07:41.460 --> 07:44.940 where there's a higher possibility of a chargeback, 07:44.940 --> 07:47.850 just because it's at a distance, you know, people are making, you 07:47.850 --> 07:50.700 know, certain claims or representations about the 07:50.700 --> 07:55.290 efficacy of a product or this or that. I think a lot of things 07:55.290 --> 07:58.410 that are happening in that space is just because it's a high 07:58.410 --> 08:01.260 margin for high risk when you have a hard to place product, 08:01.260 --> 08:03.540 like we were talking about earlier, if you don't have 08:03.540 --> 08:05.670 processing, you really don't have business. Right. So if you 08:05.670 --> 08:09.000 don't have processing, then, you know, essentially, do you even 08:09.000 --> 08:11.820 have property or an opportunity to succeed under the American 08:11.820 --> 08:14.460 dream, as we so call it. And so when people are looking for 08:14.460 --> 08:16.860 processing, they're looking to pay more, which means that the 08:16.860 --> 08:19.380 processors can charge more, they're gonna be more of a 08:19.380 --> 08:21.930 markup for the agents. So anything that's in high risk, 08:21.930 --> 08:24.420 where people are having an issue, trying to find a home for 08:24.420 --> 08:26.790 it, you're just automatically gonna see more interest in it. 08:26.940 --> 08:29.820 Sean Murray: Okay, I can understand that. I think you 08:29.850 --> 08:33.750 mentioned that you also do some collections work in the working 08:33.750 --> 08:35.520 capital space, as well. 08:35.549 --> 08:37.499 Chris Dryden: We do. We have a couple of partners in working 08:37.499 --> 08:41.519 capital, we're, whether it's an MCA or a traditional commercial 08:41.519 --> 08:44.129 loan, sometimes a factoring agreement, but they're a little 08:44.129 --> 08:48.059 bit more complex. You know, if there's a default, and they 08:48.059 --> 08:51.059 can't do something pre litigation, in certain states, 08:51.059 --> 08:53.879 they farm it out to us. And we go ahead and do collections 08:53.879 --> 08:56.489 litigation, getting the judgments, is the easy part, 08:56.489 --> 08:58.529 getting the money's the more difficult part, but we have a 08:58.529 --> 09:02.879 very systematic process that we follow with a really experienced 09:02.879 --> 09:06.089 staff. And so we're in California, Oregon, Washington, 09:06.089 --> 09:08.789 traditionally, we do a couple of other states. But, you know, 09:08.789 --> 09:10.769 we've been doing that for about five, six years. And it's just 09:10.769 --> 09:13.829 part of what we do. It's just got my own little unit or team 09:13.829 --> 09:17.129 within the law firm that handles it. So you know, we just try to 09:17.129 --> 09:18.179 collect money for you guys. 09:18.270 --> 09:18.810 Sean Murray: Nice. 09:18.810 --> 09:19.170 Chris Dryden: Yeah. 09:19.230 --> 09:20.670 Sean Murray: I'm sure everyone's happy about that. 09:20.700 --> 09:23.010 Chris Dryden: Most of the time, most the time, you know, a lot 09:23.010 --> 09:25.050 of times it's something that happens down the road, like I 09:25.050 --> 09:28.410 was discussing with you where we we get a judgment lien and you 09:28.410 --> 09:30.390 know, we place it down, and then somebody wants to actually 09:30.390 --> 09:33.060 refinance a property that they're still holding on to and 09:33.300 --> 09:36.090 it's appreciated. But. Yeah. Ultimately, you know, sometimes 09:36.090 --> 09:38.670 it takes a little while, but we just try to remain consistent in 09:38.670 --> 09:41.730 our efforts. You know, try to find any property that we can 09:41.730 --> 09:45.600 attach to and keep pushing the paper as much as possible once 09:45.600 --> 09:46.140 we get it. 09:46.290 --> 09:48.990 Sean Murray: Yeah, I think that gets lost on some companies that 09:49.020 --> 09:52.440 they want to collect on what's outstanding immediately. Right. 09:52.440 --> 09:56.400 And they don't realize that it could be a waiting game, but it 09:56.400 --> 09:57.300 will happen eventually. 09:57.300 --> 09:59.850 Chris Dryden: It's a long game. Yeah, and there is a short term 09:59.850 --> 10:02.580 aspect to it, I think if you can hit it while it's hot, you have 10:02.580 --> 10:05.160 a better chance at least in the immediate. Yeah. But once it 10:05.160 --> 10:09.000 gets past like, what, 60, 90 days? Yeah. I'm just in it for 10:09.000 --> 10:12.030 the long haul. And maybe I got a vacation later on because we hit 10:12.030 --> 10:12.630 something big. 10:12.630 --> 10:15.420 Sean Murray: Yeah. Where would you go on vacation? You're from 10:15.420 --> 10:17.010 San Diego, what's vacation for you? 10:17.760 --> 10:19.470 Chris Dryden: Next place I want to go is Colombia. 10:19.560 --> 10:20.070 Sean Murray: Okay. 10:20.100 --> 10:22.080 Chris Dryden: I've been there once before. And it's a 10:22.080 --> 10:25.230 beautiful country and it's 310 roundtrip right now from LAX. 10:25.650 --> 10:26.220 Sean Murray: Can't go wrong. 10:26.220 --> 10:28.380 Chris Dryden: I figure maybe there, or always wanted to go to 10:28.380 --> 10:31.440 New Zealand and Australia. So those are on my bucket list. 10:31.470 --> 10:33.480 Sean Murray: Okay. Well, I think you know, they're gonna open 10:33.480 --> 10:35.940 back up soon, if they're not open already. 10:35.970 --> 10:36.540 Chris Dryden: I hope so. 10:36.540 --> 10:36.900 Sean Murray: Yeah. 10:36.960 --> 10:38.670 Chris Dryden: I hope just like us, I hope that we're open as 10:38.670 --> 10:39.930 soon as we can possibly can be. 10:40.950 --> 10:43.110 Sean Murray: My last question for you is, how has the show 10:43.110 --> 10:46.290 been for you? It's the end of the second day, it's almost it's 10:46.290 --> 10:48.840 almost over, you know, what's been the takeaway for you here? 10:49.860 --> 10:51.900 Chris Dryden: I think the take away, the biggest takeaways is 10:51.900 --> 10:54.540 that, even though we've gone through quite a bit of an 10:54.540 --> 10:57.780 adjustment, it's still the same thing. But I think if there's 10:57.780 --> 11:00.270 one thing that I would focus on, and that I would talk to the 11:00.270 --> 11:04.800 people in payments about, is just that when I first got into 11:04.800 --> 11:07.590 payments, it was sort of like, here, it's one size fits all. 11:08.070 --> 11:11.310 And as things get more dynamic in the payment space, what I've 11:11.310 --> 11:14.310 noticed more and more is that you really have to look at your 11:14.310 --> 11:18.180 merchant and figure out, what's their value add? How can I 11:18.180 --> 11:21.000 really help them like and it might not be one solution, it 11:21.000 --> 11:24.840 might be two or three solutions where you know, I have a client, 11:24.870 --> 11:27.900 I can't really say who they are, but they do surcharging. And 11:27.900 --> 11:30.480 they've gotten a lot of institutional players that are 11:30.480 --> 11:33.720 now doing surcharging for credit cards where they have a program 11:33.960 --> 11:37.620 where they're able to service them. And now we've gotten away 11:37.620 --> 11:40.830 from the traditional check, and they're actually having no cost 11:40.830 --> 11:43.830 associated with it, because the surcharge eats up the 11:43.830 --> 11:46.440 interchange fee. And then there's still profit for our 11:46.440 --> 11:50.700 clients. And so they went out and they developed a technology 11:50.700 --> 11:54.090 that really focused on a certain industry or sector. And now 11:54.090 --> 11:56.760 they've, you know, the sky's the limit if they can get all these 11:56.760 --> 12:00.150 institutions because it's super high volume. And so I think if 12:00.150 --> 12:02.490 you can look at the merchant base that you're, you know, 12:02.490 --> 12:06.900 trying to service or sign. I think if you can see where their 12:06.900 --> 12:10.080 value ads are, there's so many payment processing options out 12:10.080 --> 12:13.290 there. You can offer them a segmented like solution that's 12:13.290 --> 12:14.790 not just you know, singular. 12:14.910 --> 12:17.400 Sean Murray: Okay. Well, I appreciate your time. Thank you 12:17.400 --> 12:18.270 so much for being here. 12:18.270 --> 12:19.050 Chris Dryden: Appreciate your's. 12:19.290 --> 12:22.290 Sean Murray: That was that was Chris Dryden from Global Legal 12:22.320 --> 12:23.910 Law Firm. Thank you very much. 12:23.940 --> 12:24.600 Chris Dryden: Have a good day.