In this podcast, we explore the background and history of our attorney, William Taylor Stone, at Voyant Legal.
Lance: Hello, hello, hello, hello, everybody. I am Lance Drallinger. I am not Michael Haslam, nor am I Nathan Croxford. And with me today is Taylor Stone. Neither is he
Taylor: Michael Haslam or Nathan
Lance: We are part of this crazy team, this buoyant legal team. And if you're watching on video, you can see the cool logo behind a very shiny bald head, of one Taylor Stone, William [00:01:00] Taylor Stone to be exact.
Yeah. Right. Yep. What is this William go by Taylor thing, Taylor? What's that all about?
Taylor: Um, so it's actually William Taylor Stone the third. No big deal. Time is the man. So had a grandfather went by William and Taylor. My father strictly goes by Bill. So I go by Taylor and our son, my son, who's William Taylor Stone the fourth.
He goes by Liam. So just what to do.
Lance: Wow. Where does Liam come from? From William from William. Yeah. Okay. William. What's up? You're being real clever. No, that is clever. I actually like it. I mean, yeah, that works out. So all four generations of name, but all used differently. I'm curious as to how the fifth generation will be called.
Are we going to go back to wild bill or what are we going to do?
Taylor: You know, I think that's really how my son, I think he's back and forth on what he'd like to do, but he's 11. So, you know, he's got some [00:02:00] planning ahead of him.
Lance: Oh, that's good. That'll be interesting. We'll stick around. Stay tuned for that one, folks.
so listen, Michael Haslam and Nathan Croxford are just a wee bit busy nowadays. And so they haven't been able to get around to the podcast as much as they would like. So they have asked us to do it. I, Lance Stralinger, have been around for a few years in this crazy madness. I've self proclaimed Dubbed myself the business director of the law firm.
Fancy title, right? Yeah, yeah. You should try to make me education director or something lame. And I'm like, what is that? That's not even a cool title. So I made up my own title because that's what we do, because I can, because I don't need a bar and I don't need schooling to. Well, I guess I have schooling, so that should go that far.
But yeah, right. To be a business director, you just don't have those requirements so I could do whatever I want. you, Taylor, are a member of the Utah Bar. What other bars are you a part of?
Taylor: The Idaho State Bar. In fact, I am [00:03:00] a, I was a former Idaho native between Utah and Idaho. In fact, graduated from Boise state.
Woo woo. University of Idaho, uh, college of law. College of law. And that was in what city? So that was in Boise. Uh, they had a satellite campus down there in Boise. And so that's,
Lance: but they're out of like Moscow or something. Moscow.
Taylor: Yep. Up in the panhandle, just right off the Canadian border. Beautiful country up there.
If you get a chance to go.
Lance: Sounds like a bunch of communists. Just kidding. Um, that's awesome. Well, Taylor, we need you. We're we're, we've been asked, we've been assigned. There is an assignment here. We have been asked to do a bio of, Mr. William Taylor stone, the third, and that's what we're going to do today.
So what I would like to know, my good man is. kind of you. Tell us about you. Tell us about your family. Let's hear about [00:04:00] you. Let's hear about William Taylor.
Taylor: So, um, yeah, I can't really talk about myself without talking about my just amazing family. I have an incredible wife, Kara. She probably won't listen to this.
So, There you go, right? So, she's amazing. She and I have been married for, at this point, 14 years. And, um, we have six, count them, six little kids. Our oldest is 13, will be 13 this November, and our youngest is four.
Lance: That's like one kid every two and a half years. If anybody else is doing the math. Yeah, exactly.
It's just a
Taylor: lot. It's just
Lance: so many kids. That's awesome.
Taylor: Yeah. And they're, they're awesome. We, we just love our kids. It keeps us really busy. Keeps her really busy. Let's not, let's be honest and keeps me working at a law firm.
Lance: And that's true. There's a lot of support that goes into that gig. Isn't there?
Yeah. Um, so what? [00:05:00] What people may not know about you is you're a double agent of sorts. You have two really special titles. Not only are you a JD, a man of law, but what else are you, sir?
Taylor: So I'm also a Sergeant First Class in the Army National Guard. Wow. Have been in for 17 and a half years. So for everybody doing the math on that, uh, if it was before I, I met Karen before we got married.
And in fact, my, uh, my one full actual deployment was, um, three months after we got married.
Lance: Oh, awesome. I'm sure she appreciated that. What did you specialize anything in the army? Like, do you have a special?
Taylor: Yeah, I have, I have various jobs that I do in the military. Uh, one in particular is that, um, I'm a linguist, I'm a French linguist.
And so I've done some pretty cool things, um, being a French linguist and spent a lot of time in the field doing that.
Lance: Alez vous français?
Taylor: Oui, je le parle.
Lance: Wow, I don't know what, I [00:06:00] only understood oui. That's fantastic. Ooh, so you've been with the service, so thank you for your good service, my good man. We just had a memorial day, not too long.
Yeah. Right? That's cool. And you were weren't you on some, you did some vacation of sorts, if you will, Morocco. Can you tell us about that vacation?
Taylor: Um, not a lot. There's a regular rotation. I didn't hear
Lance: about any assassinations. You're not Jason Bourne. Let's just be honest.
Taylor: There's actually Utah has a state partnership program.
That's incredible, um, with Morocco itself. And so, um, there's a lot that we're doing with, um, in fact, both of our nations, trying to work together continually to try and, you know, strengthen and rich kind of. Each other as, as a state and also as a nation. And so it's been cool. I've been having, uh, I've had several opportunities to go over there and support some of the operations that they do, but a lot of joint training exercises and, you [00:07:00] know, seeing some of that incredible country.
Lance: That's
Taylor: awesome. Yeah. I would love to see myself.
Lance: Yeah, it was quick though, man. You're only gone like 10 days. Like that's fast. Yeah. Yeah, so tell me, um, If you're a sergeant first class, why did we get into law? What was, what's the gravity? Why, why go, you know, into the legal field?
Taylor: I had always, especially since I joined the service had been trying to.
Try to get my degree, uh, with being on, uh, depending on the operational tempo, the op tempo with the units that I'm part of really difficult as I'm sure any prior servicemen or service individuals who are listening to this, they would understand a real difficult to do that. My wife, she's, like I said, an incredible woman.
She encouraged me to leave our active duty position that we were in to go back to school to have just to try and take time full time to go back and go to school. And while I was with a unit up in [00:08:00] Idaho, we were living in Utah, we decided to move to Idaho while we were in Idaho. I happen to be in a military unit that, two of the other members that were already in law school.
Oh, and so kind of, you know, it felt like the right thing to do. I'd always felt like I was supposed to go to law school. I didn't know why. then found myself in a unit with people going there. And so it was just, you know, kind of followed that momentum, you know, followed that inspiration, decided to do it.
How many kids deep were you when you started law school? Five. And so we, uh, yeah. So Carol was really, yeah, exactly. Definitely a change there. Lived a lot off of savings. I mean. We, we became really close here at their law school and it, you know, law school is hard, so might as well throw a baby in there.
Lance: Why not? Yeah. Okay. Five babies in there.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. But we had our, we had our last, there during my second year of law school.
Lance: Wow. Wow. Yeah. Cool. Well, good for you. That's really excellent. [00:09:00] So why do you feel like you should have gone to law school? What, what about the legal world, has, is, is attractive to you?
Taylor: So, you know, I was, I know kind of listening to, uh, Michael Haslam's as well. I know that for me, I had always felt like I was supposed to go to law school. I don't know, something about, Trying to be able to work inside the system, a system that I was just really unfamiliar with, as a young man and wanting to be able to understand it better to be able to, to use that system to help other people.
Uh, that really was kind of the drive for me. I know that that was something I was able to do with the military, in like these, this kind of this operation that we did in Morocco and other places that I've been really trying to work with people and to just help them to live better lives. I love that.
I love having that opportunity. And I knew that going to going into a law profession, more research that I did about going to law school, that was kind of the drive that I had. you know, I wanted to leave all of the fun courtroom experience to a lot of the younger, you know, more excited guys doing that.
[00:10:00] And, uh, and as I was in law school, was really kind of interested in property law and some of these other types of law. And then when I took a class in, uh, wills and trusts, That sold it for me, man. The idea of being able to really help people be protected and the things that they had, I loved it, loved every bit of it, wanted to be able to just, you know, set out right, then start working and trying to help other people in this specific regard.
Lance: Wow. That's excellent. So you've been with Voiently go how long? Uh, just over two years. Two years. And when? And why did you choose buoyant legal? What, what was enticing or what was inviting about buoyant legal?
Taylor: So, um, I, I was looking for a place. I passed the bar in the early spring of 22.
And. And was just, you know, putting my application around was looking at specific places really want to go into a state planning. Like I said, and all of a sudden saw an ad for buoyant legal. And as I kind of. [00:11:00] As I start to do a little bit more research on kind of what Voyant Legal does, the idea that our firm really being focused on not only helping to write estate planning, estate planning is really kind of our focus, but also that we have this, uh, kind of this policy of being able to try and help people for the long term.
You know, it's not like we're just a will mill or a trust mill, just trying to generate these products for people and then just kick them back out the door. Right. But we're here for the relationship. I love that. And I saw that from our first day working with clients. Um, as I sat in with Michael and I sat in with Nathan, uh, that I saw that that's really what the intention was, that these were people that we cared about and that we wanted to, we wanted to make sure that, Hey, when we reached out in three to five years just to see how things were going, that there was genuine interest in the lives of these individuals.
It wasn't trying to turn an extra buck or anything like that. And I've seen so many times that attorneys at this firm have gone above and beyond what would be, you know, [00:12:00] regular billable rate or any of that for a flat fee to be able to help other people and to be able to, you know, step in, talk to a bank when, you know, they're, they're rejecting a valid power of attorney and us attorneys just stepping in and saying, we'll help you with that.
Don't worry. We'll, we'll call the guy. We'll talk to the branch manager. We'll see what we can do to help out in those situations. I love that. And it's this extra, extra desire to help others. That's, you know, that's really kind of something that drew me to VoientLegal.
Lance: Yeah. It's a, it's kind of a fresh approach.
Aside from just the robotic. I don't know how many times I've had on the phone. You guys are attorneys. Like, well, I'm not, but yeah, I don't, I mean, I think I forget who it was. Somebody called me once and they're like, are you sure Nathan's an attorney? He's too nice. He cares anyway, yeah, right They're like, oh, yeah, he's an attorney.
He loves his job and And they just couldn't believe that somebody could be so nice and so willing to help and yeah And these were people that have obviously seen [00:13:00] Uh had other relationships with attorneys that weren't weren't the best and so every now and again we get some sour people soured People that come in and then they're just, you know, it's, it's can be a refreshing approach and it is, it's, it's, it's a, a nice approach to be somebody's, um, trusted advisor as we, as we like to say, so
Taylor: to that, to that same note, I remember a client that I was helping, Who's in the medical profession.
And I remember sitting down to get into his signing, which is, uh, for the, all these, all of you who don't know, uh, we'll design your product. We'll sit down, talk to you. We'll design what it is, your entire estate plan. And then we have a scheduled meeting where we sit down, we sign everything. We talk through all your documents.
It's about two hours long, but it's a great opportunity to talk through and discuss the law and to make sure. You really feel comfortable with these things. So I had done a, what we call a remote signing. It was in this individual's home and he was this doctor as I was, I was helping him with these documents.
He took a pause, he and his wife, and he steps back and he says, every other experience that I [00:14:00] have with an attorney is usually pretty adversarial. You make it seem like I can trust you in the things that we're doing. Yeah, it's a paradigm shift, right? And he said, it is. And I like it.
Lance: That's good. He was a doctor, huh?
Taylor: He was. Well,
Lance: when people are up against malpractice all the time, they're going to have their guard up, right? So, right.
Taylor: And I mean, people, anybody who comes in, who come and approach us, you find that we're, We're kind of breaking through that barrier. Very at the very beginning, as anybody who's watching on the video, you can see this, right?
No shirts and ties. Yeah. Well, I mean, we are wearing shirts, but you know, no ties, no ties. You know, we try and make it a little bit more of a relaxed, inviting atmosphere to help you understand that. We're, we're practicing attorneys and we love our profession and we try and keep our profession professional.
But we also want you to understand that we're here to help you. We're not here to fight you with, about things. We're, we're not the enemy here for sure. [00:15:00] And we are help, we're here to help guide you through when there are some definite enemies out there.
Lance: Right. Yeah, I think of, a story with my brother in law when he was, he's an accountant and he was like, he was always in polos and I had a shirt and tie on once for something.
He's like, dude, only attorneys have to wear ties. Why are you wearing a tie? Well, we don't, that's interesting. No, we definitely want to make it, you know, a good, a good place for people to feel comfortable and come in. Um, so circling back to Boynton legal, what in your tenure, I'll be at a couple of years.
What's been for you the most refreshing and or impressive outside of relationships, of course, but, aspect of, of the firm.
Taylor: Wow. The most refreshing aspect of the firm. Um, I think it's that commitment to go above and beyond for clients. That real dedication to try and dig in into different places in the law and to try [00:16:00] and find them ways to be able to help accomplish the things that they're trying to accomplish.
And, uh, have seen that one of the things that's been so refreshing to me is, is coming in contact with clients who the law is definitely not on their side. And in circumstances specifically with probate and the way that assets are just divided by the states governing them. And all of that right by statute, being able to see individuals who aren't supposed to receive specific assets because of the way that the law is written and to see the person who is the recipient of those assets, say that, uh, you know, to be as ambiguous as possible, say that it was somebody who'd passed away and all these assets ended up going to a sister as opposed to the children,
Lance: right?
Taylor: And by law, sister is supposed to receive it all right, because that's the way that the law works and the way that things are structured and to see that same sister reach out to those children and say, absolutely, you get it all. Yeah, I've, I've loved that. I thought in law, I would only see [00:17:00] the most ugly parts of the human condition and to get to actually witness some of those, you know, sweet, Mercy sweet, you know visions of humanity, you know, and those those little slices that you think this is this is why yes There are great people still out there, you know who are willing to provide for others I had another specific case and again to try and be as ambiguous as possible.
It was uh, um Couple had passed away or excuse me an individual had passed away leaving a stepdad two children, right? and uh And these children then were supposed to be the recipients of these specific things and had no biological link to stepdad at all and decided to make sure that stepdad, no matter what, was going to be provided for and wrote things in particular, you know, looking at their own assets, could have done anything that they wanted with those, but instead decided to take care of that person who had take care of taking care of them.
Amazing. You know, that's just so contrary to what you think. And when you say media or [00:18:00] any of that, and just to think, no, people really do still take care of each other. And I love that.
Lance: Yeah, no, it's good. I think sometimes we're called upon on the ugly, of course, right? We see a lot of the ugly, but what we can't, you know, forget is we don't hear about a ton of the good.
And then when we do hear about the good man, we hear about some good. And I do remember that story specifically. And what, uh, What an inspiration. that person ended up being like just at her age and at her level of responsibility. It was just inspirational. So inspirational.
Taylor: I think we're going to do a, maybe a podcast about that story.
It's just a great feel good story. We have
Lance: to, we have
Taylor: to,
Lance: well, so stay tuned. That one won't be in a long time. we'll have to get her permission because that would be an incredible story to share. We'll have to do that for sure. Well, let's see, we got through that. So we're going to wrap up. I mean, it's pretty long.
We want to do an intro, but I've got a couple of things I want to ask before we go. Yeah. Um, where do you see yourself in five to 10 years from now? Five years, [00:19:00] then 10 years,
Taylor: five years for sure. Um, well, I have to think how young's my youngest five years for her. Yep. Um, I honestly would love to be right here.
Talk to my wife and kids about it. Um, I'm, if any of you aren't aware, I'm actually the attorney that's. Um, kind of the lead attorney down in utah county. Well, i'm the only attorney for our firm down in utah county I would love to see our firm expand continue to expand down there get to meet a lot more of you Be able to provide kind of this great level of care that I know that we provide for others Um, so five years and five years actually looks a lot like 10.
I would love to be where i'm at I love the position that i'm at in the Really the sense of belonging here at the firm, but also the opportunity to just contribute and to give back. I love that. The, you know, the fact that we're having in the community, you know, good estate planning is good estate planning.
That means that people are able to have greater peace as they're moving forward their lives. And I love providing that to other people. So if I could 5, 10, 20, let's, let's [00:20:00] stay right here.
Lance: Right. That's awesome. Okay. Your last question. Of the day is what is the biggest life lesson today because you're a young buck What that you can share with the audience, what do you feel like and you're I mean you've been just a first class sergeant sergeant first class I can say it right
Taylor: Sergeant
Lance: first class sergeants way better, I guess All of you
Taylor: all of you who know me on that side know that that's not true
Lance: But what is it? What's I mean, between that, between law school, between, you know, six kids in two and a half years, a kid. what, uh, you know, what's the biggest life lesson?
Taylor: I would honestly have to say that the time you're given, you don't get it back. So you just, you enjoy it. You work hard. You, um, I've had great times, great opportunities to talk to my kids about that.
Right. What [00:21:00] I mean, should life just be about having fun, right? Is it, you know, or should it be just, you know, kind of this dragging and work and all that. And to be able to tell them that, no, you guys, there's, there's so much good that comes from working hard in a certain level of peace by using the, uh, the abilities that you've been given the opportunity to just take care of others.
Yeah, 100%. Be present in
Lance: the
Taylor: present, right? Present in the present. I mean, I got six kids. That is a lot of being present, my man.
Lance: It's a lot. What's the quote from, Shifu from, uh, from Kung Fu Panda, and he said that the What is it? The past is gone and the future is unknowing, that it's something with the present.
I just ruined it. I just slaughtered it. Hopefully we can edit that part. It was beautiful said I it, but look it up. That's why called. Yes. But he said it so well and I just slaughtered it. [00:22:00] This is Taylor, William Taylor stone. The third, uh, who goes by Taylor, not to be confused by bill or to be confused with Liam, as we learned it is just him.
Um, and we're grateful that he's part of the crew. I'm grateful to be part of this crew. Our team is what makes us really, really special. I think we all have that same spirit of. of service and wanting to, uh, wanting to take care of our clients and those that call us the best way possible. and so we will be more present.
You will be seeing us. You'll probably seen other attorneys as we continue to expand and grow this podcast. we look forward to having you guys back. Once again, [00:23:00] and we hope to be somewhat entertaining. We have both been maybe judged or not judged or labeled. Maybe label is the word I'm looking for as possible distractions.
My favorite story is when one of our clients, not to be named, said, Taylor, you're so great, but you are a distraction. You're a great asset. What'd she say? You're a great asset, but you're a distraction. She said, no, no,
Taylor: no. It was the way that she said it. She said, Taylor is a distraction, but he's an asset. I would like
Lance: to take it the way that it was meant at the very least.
If you want to come have some comedy, we're here for you. The very,
Taylor: there you go. For sure.
Lance: Please please come and see us and uh, we will be we will be in touch as we continue to do these things and spreading the love And uh, don't worry. Mike and nathan are going nowhere They'll be on some of these episodes too, and we'll just start [00:24:00] sharing the load a little bit But until next time people, all right, I don't know if they do they have a tagline sign off I don't know.
We'll make one up buoyant out Thanks. See you guys [00:25:00]