Diversify or Die: How One PI Lawyer Is Future-Proofing His Firm with Josh Stein

Summary

Maximum Lawyer Podcast Summary

Episode Title: Diversify or Die: How One PI Lawyer Is Future-Proofing His Firm with Josh Stein
Host: Tyson Mutrux
Guest: Josh Stein
Release Date: April 22, 2025

---

1. Introduction to Diversification in Law Firms

The episode delves into the critical necessity for personal injury (PI) law firms to diversify their practices to ensure sustainability and growth in an ever-evolving legal landscape. Host Tyson Mutrux welcomes guest Josh Stein to discuss strategies for future-proofing law firms.

---

2. Establishing a Law Firm Amidst Challenges

Josh Stein recounts his journey of founding his law firm during the tumultuous period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the unfavorable timing, he emphasizes that there is never a "perfect" moment to start a firm, highlighting resilience as a key factor for success.

Josh Stein [05:01]: “There’s never a perfect time to start a firm. If you can get through tough hurdles like launching during a pandemic, then you can handle anything.”

---

3. Emphasizing Work-Life Balance

A significant portion of the conversation centers on the importance of designing a law practice that aligns with personal and family life. Stein advocates for setting up a firm that "works for you and your family," rather than conforming to traditional or external expectations.

Josh Stein [01:29]: “You should set out to have the type of practice firm that works for you and your family, not the type you’re told you should have.”

---

4. Strategic Marketing and Community Engagement

Stein discusses his approach to marketing, emphasizing community involvement over aggressive digital campaigns. By sponsoring local sports teams and engaging directly with his community in East Cobb, Stein builds trust and a strong local presence.

Josh Stein [45:10]: “I focus 90 plus percent of my attention on my community... sponsoring local teams has been invaluable.”

He also touches upon the role of social media, noting the shift from superficial content to providing genuine value, which fosters trust and authority in the legal field.

---

5. Leveraging Podcasting as a Marketing Tool

Stein highlights his podcast, Sports and Torts, as a unique marketing and networking tool that blends legal discussions with sports commentary. This innovative approach not only attracts a diverse audience but also strengthens professional relationships.

Josh Stein [20:30]: “I wanted to marry my passion for sports with my legal expertise, and that’s how Sports and Torts was born.”

Furthermore, the podcast serves as a platform for building credibility and expanding his professional network, which in turn leads to referrals and increased case intake.

---

6. Efficient Case Management and Firm Operations

Stein outlines his streamlined approach to managing his firm with minimal overhead. By keeping the caseload manageable—between 30 to 40 cases—and maintaining close communication with clients, he ensures high-quality service without the complexity of large-scale operations.

Josh Stein [47:19]: “Keeping the number of cases finite allows me to stay connected with each client personally, ensuring satisfaction and trust.”

He relies on tools like Dropbox and Microsoft Office for case management, preferring simplicity over complicated systems, which enhances his firm's efficiency.

---

7. Future-Proofing Through Diversification

Addressing the evolving legal market, Stein emphasizes the importance of not relying solely on traditional PI cases. By diversifying into premises liability and other areas, he mitigates risks posed by industry changes such as tort reform and the advent of autonomous vehicles.

Josh Stein [39:15]: “Tort reform and technological advancements like self-driving cars are reshaping our industry. Diversification is essential to stay relevant.”

---

8. Building Trust Through Authenticity and Value

Stein stresses that building trust is paramount, achieved by providing genuine value and maintaining authenticity in all interactions. This approach not only attracts clients but also fosters long-term relationships and referrals.

Josh Stein [31:36]: “Trust is the cornerstone. When clients know, like, and trust you, they’re more likely to hire you and refer others.”

---

9. Advice for Emerging Law Firm Owners

Concluding the episode, Stein offers practical advice for new law firm owners:

• Consistency: Maintain consistent marketing efforts and client engagement.
• Simplicity: Keep systems and operations straightforward to avoid unnecessary complexities.
• Community Focus: Engage deeply with the local community to build a strong foundation.
• Diversification: Expand practice areas to safeguard against market fluctuations.

Josh Stein [43:16]: “Consistency is key. Show up every day, do the work, and stay consistent in your efforts.”

---

10. Closing Thoughts

Josh Stein reflects on his journey, emphasizing the fulfillment derived from balancing a successful legal practice with personal happiness and community involvement. He underscores that authenticity and dedication are integral to sustaining and growing a law firm in today's competitive environment.

Josh Stein [38:15]: “There’s some happiness that comes with doing things your way, staying true to yourself, and focusing on what truly matters.”

---

This episode of Maximum Lawyer offers invaluable insights into building a resilient and diversified law firm. Josh Stein's experiences and strategies provide a roadmap for legal professionals aiming to future-proof their practices while maintaining a harmonious work-life balance.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Josh Stein [05:01]: “There’s never a perfect time to start a firm. If you can get through tough hurdles like launching during a pandemic, then you can handle anything.”

• Josh Stein [01:29]: “You should set out to have the type of practice firm that works for you and your family, not the type you’re told you should have.”

• Josh Stein [20:30]: “I wanted to marry my passion for sports with my legal expertise, and that’s how Sports and Torts was born.”

• Josh Stein [43:16]: “Consistency is key. Show up every day, do the work, and stay consistent in your efforts.”

• Josh Stein [38:15]: “There’s some happiness that comes with doing things your way, staying true to yourself, and focusing on what truly matters.”

---

Timestamps:

• [05:01] Discussing the challenges of starting a firm during COVID-19.
• [01:29] Emphasizing the importance of designing a firm that suits personal and family needs.
• [20:30] Origin story of the Sports and Torts podcast.
• [43:16] Importance of consistency in law firm operations.
• [38:15] Reflecting on personal happiness and authenticity in practice.

Transcript

[Tyson Mutrix]

Are you tired of the marketing guessing game? Does your website feel more like a digital billboard than a client magnet? If you're nodding along, you're not alone. And it's time to stop the uncertainty and start getting real results. Let's talk about your marketing spend. Are you just shelling out money every month and crossing your fingers? Do you ever wonder what impact your marketing is really having on your revenue? Well, it's time to take the guesswork out of the equation with Rise Up Media. We've been working with them for over a year and the feedback from our fellow members has been fantastic. Rise Up Media is here to take your marketing to the next level. They'll even perform a full audit of your online presence, giving you the good, the bad, and even let you in on what your competition is up to that you're missing out on. And the best part, there's no obligation, no catch, no pressure.

[Josh Stein]

If you decide to work with them.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Their contracts are month to month.

[Josh Stein]

That's right.

[Tyson Mutrix]

No long term commitments tying you down. So what are you waiting for? To learn more about how Rise Up Media can transform your firms, visit riseupmedia.com max law and rise is spelled with a Z. Riseupmedia.com max law.

[Jim Hacking]

This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.

[Josh Stein]

So Josh, I'm going to read a quote of yours. I don't know if you know it's a quote of yours, but it's. You should set out to have the type of practice firm that works for you and your family, not the type of practice slash firm you're told you should have or that everyone else has.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's, I think that is one of my quotes. I steal a lot from other people. But you know, I think that we live in a very interesting time in, in the world right now. We have a very interesting profession that we have being lawyers and that gives us the flexibility to do that very thing, you know, and that's would been my goal is to figure out what is it that's best for me, for my family. I do injury work which, which you do too. And you can get overwhelmed with the billboards and social media posts and bigger, bigger, bigger. And so I think people fall into that trap of thinking that's what you have to be. My whole thing is you don't have to do what's best for you.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. How do you avoid that? Because I'll even, I mean I'll find myself sometimes and it's very rare, but I do occasionally find myself. I'll see a verdict. I'm like, what the hell? You know, it's like I almost fall in the trap. Like, when's that gonna happen to me? But I'm like, that's. That's nonsense. Quit talking. Like, but how do you. How do you stay out of that. That mindset?

[Jim Hacking]

Boy, it's hard, right? I don't know if I'm great at it. I try. What is it they say? Thief is the. Steals joy or whatever. That quote is not. That's how it is. But being jealous or something is the. Is the thief of joy. But however that quote goes, and I think about it a lot, it's like, just do what's best for you. Try to ignore the outside noise. Be happy for your friends, happy for your peers. You know, there's a quote that a lot of lawyers use here in Georgia that the rising tide lifts all boats. I don't know if y'all.

[Josh Stein]

I love that.

[Jim Hacking]

I think about that a lot, too. It's like, we're all in this together. One person does good. That's good for all of us. Don't be jealous. Be happy, and just don't try to compare yourself to everybody.

[Josh Stein]

Sure. Now, where does that come from? Is that something, you know, growing up, that your. Your parents instilled that in you?

[Jim Hacking]

Maybe? My dad's very humble. My mom's very humble. Good family, great family. Had everything we needed, but we didn't ever need more. You know, I mean, I think that you get to a certain spot where it's like, hey, we've got our basic necessities met. We've got everything we can ask for. Our kids are healthy. It's like, how much more do you need? And so at that point, you start looking at other ways you can fulfill your life. And I guess that's what I've tried to work hard on. It's like, our kids are gonna be in our house for between 18 and 20 something years, depending upon how many you have. And that's an important time in all of our lives. And I just made the decision that I'm not going to sacrifice those years.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. Why personal injury?

[Jim Hacking]

Well, I guess I can back it up to why law school. I went to Georgia, as we talked about that, and then loved Athens and wanted to stay in Athens for a few more years. Law school was pretty good, so I went to law school. And then my first job was working for an insurance company, Progressive, doing all their car wreck stuff. So I don't know if I set out to do that necessarily. That's where the job was back then. You kind of took what you could get.

[Josh Stein]

Sure.

[Jim Hacking]

Worked for great people. Was on the defense side, learned a ton, went from there to a bigger defense firm and then realized after, you know, 14, 15 years that working for. For the individual was going to be the better spot and not just defending the corporation.

[Josh Stein]

So what year was that roughly?

[Jim Hacking]

Graduated law school of four. So I did two years for Progressive, which was great. And then from 06 to 17 or so worked for a large fence firm and then switched sides, I guess. Seven, eight years now. Gets fast, doesn't it?

[Josh Stein]

That is crazy. Yeah. So you started the firm in an. Roughly. In a time whenever the. So your firm in a time where the market was not great. Right.

[Jim Hacking]

Well, 2020, I started it. Which then became Covid, like three months later.

[Josh Stein]

Okay, so you owe. So you were working for a firm before that. So you started.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, I was 2017. I joined with a buddy of mine, worked for his firm for a couple of years and of counsel role. Learned kind of how to do the plaintiff side of it. Right. Felt like I got a little more bonafide, you know, on the plaintiff side and me and him in the same office space. Great friends. 2020, I started open my own firm. And then March is when Covid happened. So there's never a perfect time to start a firm. That's what I tell people. And I felt like if, if, if I or somebody can get through those kind of hurdles, then be good with anything.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. So what was it like working for a friend or working. Were you working for or working with. How does.

[Jim Hacking]

We were working with each other. I had my own firm that was up counsel to him. It was great because he had established, you know, solid. I was on his website that way people associated me with his firm. Like, okay, well, Josh knows what he's doing based on what these firm results are. That kind of. And he just showed me the ropes.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

You know, I mean, like, I felt pretty good about. I can try case, I can take a deposition, I can do discovery. But there's so much stuff, as you know, on the plaintiff side that they don't really teach in law school. I mean.

[Josh Stein]

Right.

[Jim Hacking]

Business side of it, they're dealing with the clients, the lean stuff, things that I had no experience with. So he helped me and walked me through that for a couple of years. And then I felt good enough to do on my own. And now I've got somebody working for me. I say working for me, with me in the same kind of role I had with him so kind of doing that exact same scenario. And this guy worked with me for a few years and then he'll probably do his own thing.

[Josh Stein]

Were there ever any talks about partnering up?

[Jim Hacking]

I mean, I guess we could have done that. I always kind of wanted my own thing.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Back to my dad. He's a dentist. He was a solo business owner, small business owner. So that was kind of, I think in the back of my mind always the direction I want to go would love. I loved having partners the defense firm. But I love now just being by myself, being solo because it kind of goes back to what you let off with, which is it allows me to be beholden to only myself and the firm I want. As opposed to if you're with a partner with your friend, you're like, well, I got to do certain things to live at mind the bargain with him or her. Not that I was worried about that. But you know, as I sit here right now, I'm happy it's just me.

[Josh Stein]

So you have the power of hindsight now, but what would your advice be to people? So law students that are thinking about starting a firm right out of law school.

[Jim Hacking]

I don't think that you can do it right away. I really don't. I think that there are certain tools that have to be learned along the way. I've seen people try and they've been successful. I've seen people start to run firm, go back to working for somebody and then start their own all over again. Which that's good too. I think there's no wrong way to go about it. I just think it's important to, to have a mentor, have, you know, somebody who you can look to say this is how things are done. Because practicing law is overwhelming and being a business owner is overwhelming. And so if you start doing both right off the jump, it's a lot to. That's a lot to digest.

[Josh Stein]

If you were to do it over again, would you start on a plane on the plaintiff side? On the defense side again?

[Jim Hacking]

I would do. On the defense side, I really, I tell everybody that, you know, if you want to be a personal injury lawyer, trial lawyer, I think and maybe just because it was my path that working for the insurance companies first, if you can work for the in house counsel for them first, like what better place to start? My first day, you know, they gave me, you know, all these files and it's like they're all worth less than $25,000. They're, you know, soft tissue car wreck cases. You can't mess them up, you know, they're like, go to magistrate court, try these cases, take depositions. They'll settle for between 10 and $20,000, you know, and that's it, you know, so you do that for a couple years, get your experience, and then that next job. You know, I came in with a bunch of trials under my belt with a bunch of deposition on my belt, and then now I can. I can kind of use what I learned with the. With the insurance companies to my advantage and how I craft settlement demands, how I make arguments, how I talk to adjusters. I think people need to think long and hard about how they communicate with adjusters. I hear people yelling and screaming and calling names and all this kind of stuff.

[Josh Stein]

So silly.

[Jim Hacking]

And it's so silly. And maybe one out of a hundred adjusters deserve that. But most of them, they're just trying to do a good job. They're trying to get to the end of the claim, just like we are. So until they give me some reason not to be kind, I've just found that's the way to go about it. And I think part of that is because I used to represent them, and so I know that guy's a jerk. We ain't going to go about trying to help him resolve this case. If there's a small bridge we've got to, you know, got to pass. Like, why are we going to help him?

[Josh Stein]

Well, if you think of, like, everything. Sales, right? So if I'm trying to convince an adjuster to pay me more money, what good is it going to do for me to berate them over the phone? It just. Even if you're right. Like what? Like, think about that on the other side. Okay, They've got some lawyer yelling at them. Do you think they're really going to want to pay more money now? No, it's just human nature. It doesn't make any sense.

[Jim Hacking]

Absolutely not. I mean, what I've started to do, if I feel I'm in that situation and I want to get off my chest, because there is power in getting off your chest, right? Like, I'll tap out an email and I'll just never send it, you know, and I'll just let it sit there. And then the day goes by, the next day goes by, and that kind of anger has passed. Now we get our. Get our eye back on what the goal is, which is get the case resolved for our clients. Right. I always tell people that on the plaintiff side, I think that we underestimate the value to the insurance company of a settlement release sure. They want that too, right?

[Josh Stein]

Absolutely.

[Jim Hacking]

And so how do we kind of accomplish this mutual goal where our clients want the case settled, the insurance companies want it settled. So let's work together if we can, to get there not being so antagonistic. And I think I learned that from, you know, all my years on the defense side.

[Josh Stein]

So I'm a little surprised that you said you'd go back and work for the defense side. And the reason why is because. And maybe this is colored by my experience where I did get to work for an insurance company before I was a lawyer. So I had to understand the inner workings of State Farm, which was. Which was great. Then I guess I also got the trial experience from being a criminal defense attorney early on. So that was nice because, I mean, that being in a courtroom is just so important early on. But the problem I've seen is when we've tried to hire former insurance defense lawyers, like rewiring their brain is almost impossible sometimes where they get in that mindset where nothing is a case. And so how did you get past that?

[Jim Hacking]

We call them true believers, right? Yes. They drink the Kool Aid and there's plans for like that too, by the way. So I'm not saying just this is a billion dollar.

[Josh Stein]

You got policy limits. 25,000 is what that case is.

[Jim Hacking]

Some people can't be right. And I think that's just that person, for every reason, is just designed for that job. And that's great. I mean, the insurance industry, they need those good advocates as well. So I think you have to just identify the ones that want to get. The person who's worked for me, Derek Cooper, his background is identical to mine coming from the defense lawyer, defense lawyer world. And he just realized after a certain point, his career that he wanted to make the move and start doing plans for work. And his. It took him, he's six, nine months in. And you can just see each day is kind of the lights flickering on a little bit more thinking about it in a way. Oh yeah, that makes sense. So it's kind of cool when that moment comes. The other thing I'd say about working for the insurance companies, working for bigger firms are just the people who you're exposed to. Right. I mean, I work firm with 100 plus people. And so now I've got that many more contacts, that many more stories from back in the day. Oh, remember that case I found? At least in Georgia, most of plaintiff's offices are smaller. And so the people who you work with are just a smaller pool.

[Josh Stein]

Sure.

[Jim Hacking]

So my Network is just by definition, bigger, which is helping now with referrals and those kind of things. And again, it's like going to Braves games with folks from 15 years ago. You know, I always say, like, remember when is kind of a fun conversation. Some people say that's like, sorry, conversation. Remember when? I disagree. Yeah, I love it. Remember that case back then? It's fun. It's fun to me.

[Josh Stein]

No, I. I mean, I agree. I. So I think that. I think that's an interesting perspective. I think that's. That is important because you. You do then build those relationships where it might help you get cases done now that otherwise you might not be.

[Jim Hacking]

Able to for sure. I think it gives me a little more credibility with the defense lawyers I'm working with. I'm like, look, I did your job for a long time. I understand how you're looking at this case. I would be too, if I were you. But here's the other perspective. Okay. And then also, I think it gives me some credibility with cases. If I'm going to take the case, they know that it's. It's a case. Right. It's not. It's not frivolous. It's not, you know, something like that. It's not, you know, nothing there. So I think that, that I can kind of use that to my advantage as well. Insurance company adjuster. I tell them, look, I used to defend these cases. I know exactly how. Your evaluation letter was written from your defense lawyer. Here's what he's not considering.

[Josh Stein]

Interesting. Okay. I mean, listen, I'm. I don't know if I'm convinced yet, but I'm leaning. Yeah, I'm. I'm sort of understanding the perspective more. So I think that makes sense. But I do think I agree with you, though, about it's. Yeah, could you do it? Could you start out of law school? Yeah, but there's just so much. Just a. I mean, if we just kind of take each component, like, you got the legal side of things, you've got the business side of things. There's so much just within those components that just starting right out is. It's such a hard thing to do.

[Jim Hacking]

I have a friend who is very good at business. He's very good at marketing. He's very good at being a lawyer, probably a lot like you. Those people are hard to find. Right. Like, I call that kind of a unicorn type of ability. And so you're not going to know which of those three or all those three you're good at until you've kind of done it. And so, you know, I always thought like, give yourself a little time to figure out who you are. I have friends that love the business side. They don't want to touch a case, they don't want to touch anything else. But they will run the law from all day long. Other friends, they just want to litigate the case, they want to try the case. Don't let them look at a profit and loss statement. They won't know what they're looking at.

[Josh Stein]

No.

[Jim Hacking]

So you have to figure out like how to bring those characteristics together and if it's a partnership or whatever it might be. I think that's the key to making a successful firm.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. A lot of law firm owners that have been doing this for several decades probably don't even know what the main financial statements are.

[Jim Hacking]

That's right.

[Josh Stein]

I think that used to work. I think it used to be able. You throw out a shingle and hang your shingle and you do really, really well. But there does seem to be like this trend towards these larger firms that are coming in, throwing a bunch of money into the market. And it's, it is going to make it harder for some firms to compete.

[Jim Hacking]

I think, I think. So you got private equity that's throwing money out there. You've got just these firms, as you said, they're just, you know, combining with one another. I mean, Atlanta is one of the most competitive personal injury market in the country. You start looking at what Google charges for different keywords. How do you, how do you keep up? So, yeah, you know, my approach is like, you know, we'll use Morgan and Morgan as an example. Like there's no way I can keep up with them, so why try? And so I think as a law firm owner, you have to realize and figure out like, where do you fit? I call the ecosystem, you know, where is it that you fit? And then just kind of stay in that lane, find that sandbox, play in that one and don't say, I'm going to compete with Morgan and Morgan for keywords on Google because you're just fighting an uphill battle.

[Josh Stein]

So have they been in your market your entire career?

[Jim Hacking]

When I started doing defense work, they were just coming in from, you know, they're an Orlando firm. And so they started coming in, in Atlanta and ever since then, you know, now they're, I mean, I don't have any offices they have in Georgia, but you know, a lot.

[Josh Stein]

Sure.

[Jim Hacking]

And so, you know, we, we've seen that shift of other firms kind of following national type firms and so it just increases competition, which is. Which is good. But, you know, I'm selling my clients on something very different than what Morgan. Morgan's on. Their clients.

[Josh Stein]

Well, so does it increase competition in the market as a whole? I think, yeah, but because, like, what we've seen is we've actually noticed since Morgan and Morgan came into St. Louis is we actually. Our number of calls have decreased, but our number of cases have gone up and our conversion rate has gone up where I think they're just. They're picking off different cases that we wouldn't normally take. And so I think that that's part of it.

[Jim Hacking]

I think you're absolutely right, and I think I would agree with everything you just said. Yeah, they're going for different stuff. I mean, the volume. They're going for any call, anything that comes in the door. That's not you, that's not me. And so, yeah, you just got to figure out what is it you want.

[Josh Stein]

And I think that the way they do it is it's really brilliant. They've got one of the greatest trial lawyers ever. Right. And Keith Mitnick. And I think that that's smart. A lot of the volume firms don't have something like that, but Morgan. And Morgan has figured out that that is a really. A really important part of the puzzle. Whereas a lot of the other firms, I won't mention any of their names, but their volume firms, they don't have that trial lawyer that's going to then go and take the case into trial and beat the insurance company over the head. They just don't.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, that's right. They get good lawyers over there, no question.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. So talk about that part of the business. Trying cases and getting those results is really, really important. So how do you. How do you balance running a firm with making sure that you have that part of it, too?

[Jim Hacking]

You have to, right? I mean, like, when these insurance companies are evaluating your ability to pursue the case, they've got to see your past results.

[Josh Stein]

Right.

[Jim Hacking]

I mean, you're never going to get the reasonable amount of a settlement number if they don't think you can take it all the way. We're seeing fewer and fewer cases go to trial. There's no secret with that. But what we look at as is not necessarily how many cases are going to trial, but how many cases are we building up to where, if the case. If the number wasn't the right offer is ready. I saw a case last week, and the stack of depositions were this high, and they knew that if they didn't pay it. Like everything was ready to go. So I kind of look at it that way. Like, like they look at my background, they know I've tried cases. That's on my website. That's what's important to me, as I tell young lawyers, is you've got to just show them you can do it. Don't, you know, don't take the first offers, those kinds of things. Get the case ready for trial, take the depositions, get the witnesses. You video the depositions. That's a small thing that people overlook. I always felt that if a deposition was important enough to take, it's more enough to video. And if you're not videoing it, the other side's like, well, they're doing this just for some kind of a show. Like, they can't really play this for a jury. It's not the same effect. So, you know, if the video is important enough to take part enough to video.

[Josh Stein]

I couldn't agree more. Well, so we have. It's pretty easy in Missouri to record a depot. You can record your own. So you can, I don't know if you can do that in Georgia, but Missouri, you can record your own. You just show up a little different. Illinois, Illinois is not as easy to, to do that. It's, it's. We don't have the same rules, but, but Missouri, like, you can literally just go and set up the mic, your, your, your camera, use a phone if you wanted to, and boom. For like, for some depots, I've actually just set up a tripod with my phone and have a mic. And it does a wonderful job. It really does. And you know, the bigger ones will like, you hire a company, but you're 100% right where the insurance companies do it without the video for the most part because they, they, it doesn't matter as much to them. They really, they're just doing it to go through the motions to bill. Yeah, but we can actually use that testimony and play it to a jury and they're not prepared for it. It's, it's such a, such an advantage.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. What I found most, most helpful about that is it mediations. Right. Because you have an adjuster that that's. I don't know if they attended person for you. Like, that's less and less now since, since zoom has become so prevalent. But the adjuster is going to be there listening to you. And as much as I think defense attorneys do a good job, I don't always trust that they give the perfect information to.

[Josh Stein]

No, they don't they don't.

[Jim Hacking]

And so I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure the adjuster understands. And so what better way to do that than at mediation to play a 15 second clip? That's it, right? Like whatever the, whatever the, the evidence is from the corporate rep or from a witness that just seals the case. I can very easily just click it. I'm like, Mr. Mr. Adjuster, this is what the jury's going to hear. Don't take it from me, don't take it from the mediator. You come to your own conclusions about how this is going to play. It's pretty powerful stuff. As opposed to just reading it from a transcript or just saying, hey, look, this is. I talked to this witness is what they're going to say. So it's doing the work to get there.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, I agree. I'm going to shift gears because I'm sure that the non injury lawyers don't want to hear us talking about injury stuff all day. But from a marketing standpoint and a key market, a networking tool for you, I think that may set you apart from other people in your market is your podcast. That's. It's Sports and Torts, which is, it's such a wonderful name. And it's where you'll have a guest on. They'll talk a little bit about the legal mumble jumbo and then you'll talk about sports. So tell me about that. How'd that originate?

[Jim Hacking]

I think it came from you, actually, in some roundabout way. I mean, we can probably play the Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon separation, but Stephen Levkov, who's a mutual friend of ours, who I've known forever, he had a podcast and I'm like, that's pretty cool. And I think he might have gotten that from you. So if that's the case, thank you. Because that was a driving.

[Josh Stein]

Well, I don't, I'll take credit, but I don't know. I don't know where he got it from, but I know that he started around Covid. I know we've had our podcast since 2016, so I don't. There, there's been. He probably got the podcast from. There's been a billion podcasts.

[Jim Hacking]

Well, you're in front of me. I'm giving credit to you.

[Josh Stein]

There we go.

[Jim Hacking]

So I'm a big Braves fan, big Georgia Bulldogs fan, 2021, they both are making big runs to the World Series and now championship. And I just had this like burning desire to talk about it. Not anybody cares what I think, but like, I just needed to do it. So I'd get on, you know, get my phone and be like, game six. This person's pitch, whatever. I really enjoyed it. People seem to like it. Then that came to an end. I'm like, well, what can I talk about now? Like, there's an itch that I had scratched that I needed to continue scratching. And I'm like, how do I do it to where there's a work angle where it actually makes some business sense, right? And so I'm like, how can I marry those two? And so that's kind of how it came up with. I asked five friends, I said, look, I'm going to buy the equipment. If you can commit an hour to sit down, we're going to do like 30 minutes of your, your practice. We're going to do 30 minutes of kind of your hobbies, your sports interests. Let's see how it goes. Like, sure, man, let's do it. And so I did five and people seem to like it. And you know, four years later, here we are. And it's just a lot of fun. I mean, I just love doing exactly what we're doing right now.

[Josh Stein]

Is it like a weekly segment? Is a monthly segment? How often are you doing it weekly?

[Jim Hacking]

I'm not as smart as you to try to batch these, like, you know.

[Josh Stein]

Well, you can't with sports though, because it's so topical.

[Jim Hacking]

Topical, yeah. So. So I do. And you know, it's. It's this week, Tuesday at 3:30 in my office and whatever it is, and they come over and usually pour it, you know, pour a drink or whatever and just kind of have a conversation. And so, yeah, I take off between like end of May and August for the summer. Other than that though, I've been pretty good about, you know, every week for the last however many years getting episodes out.

[Josh Stein]

Have you, have you been able to do that? Because that's not the easiest thing. It was when, whenever it was me and Jim, it was nice because we. It was like having a running partner, you know, you both got to show up. So how are you able to do that by yourself?

[Jim Hacking]

Made it a priority. Like everything else, we can fit time in for things we want to do, period. Hard stop. Right. And so I just, I just told myself like, this is going to be a priority as long as you still enjoy it. Right. And as long as people still listen. So I haven't checked like my metrics to see, you know, who's listening or how much, but I know people are talking about it because when I see people that's always the first thing that's brought up. So it's a great conversation. It's a great break from the week. I mean, I feel like it's a. It's a good, like, hour to just hang out with somebody, strengthen relationship, meet somebody new. You know, the cool thing now is that people are reaching out to me to want to come on as a guest, which is awesome for several. On several fronts. Most importantly, I don't have to go chase people down. So it's like, hell, yes. Come on, you know, let's do it. And then I meet new people and they introduce me to people. And so it's just been. It's been a really good thing.

[Josh Stein]

I can't stress to you how easy it used to be able to get in 2016 when we started to get a guest. It was super easy. And now it is. It's just way. It's just different. I wouldn't say it's. It's. Yeah, I would say it's more difficult for a variety of reasons. One, many people think that they're being potentially scammed, you know, but, like, they're being invited onto some random. Especially if, like, they're outside the legal industry. They never heard a maximum lawyer.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

They're like, who. Who are these people? So it's. Sometimes they just will reach out in multiple channels, but they just don't. They, like, they, they just don't think that they're. That this is legit or something. Yeah, but you've got many people that want to be paid or. And I don't know if you've encountered this yet, but you've got people that are. Reach out to, want to be on. But what. Those are usually. Not always. I'm saying, make sure I'm very clear about this. Not always. Those are usually the worst episodes where they just want to come on and sell something where we've just like, not aired them. Like, just like, okay, you just, you. You came on with an angle just to try to push your own stuff as opposed to adding any value at all. So that, that, that part. But it used to be like you'd send an email, oh, yeah, sure, I'll be on your podcast.

[Jim Hacking]

You nailed it. I used to. And I still do get excited when some random company or random person reach out. Oh, we've. Yeah, they make you feel really good. We've seen your podcast. We've listened to it. You're an industry leader, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. They haven't listened to it, but whatever.

[Josh Stein]

No. So with that, what they'll do is this is just sort of inside baseball. They'll pull one sentence from one episode, and then you'll get them on the show. And it's very clear they've never listened to the show. That's it.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, that's totally it. Yeah. So I'd fall for it, right? Like, they got me in the hook. I'm like, oh, they've struck my ego, those episodes the worst, because there's no cohesion with the person. They've got their own angle. I had one where, you know, the guy, like, was late and he couldn't he cancel. I'm like, dude, you. You reached out to me, like, you know, so I've. I've kind of gone a different direction with that. And I just. It's people that can be in person, can be with me, can have the hour. I will do it over zoom. But that's like, last resort. Like, I think doing this is so much better if you can. And so most of my. Most of my guests are local Atlanta people. I mean, it's become mostly lawyers in Atlanta because that's who's there, that's who's close by, that's who can get to me, that's who's listening. It's been a lot of fun.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. I mean, what is it? Like, 70% of communication is non verbal, and that's why we went to this more like, in person. So not all of our episodes are in person now, but, I mean, I don't know, 90% of them on the Tuesday episodes are in person. You get this back and forth. We went to that more longer format where we can just. We can talk as long as we really want to. And so if we go dive into a topic, just keep going on it. But what I did find was like, we've got the. Usually when it's like a zoom sort of a setup where. Or Riverside is what we recorded. You are limited by time. You know, it's. You can only get to so much. You can't really dive deep into things. That. That. That part's challenging. I. But I like the. I love the back, and that's why I flew to Atlanta.

[Jim Hacking]

I want to say I'm super impressed with you to. To fly to Atlanta to do this, because I think it's just so. And it just. It allows such a more free flow of conversation. I mean, my hardest thing is limiting it to, I say, 45 minutes to an hour. And I want to keep going.

[Josh Stein]

Sure.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, I want to keep going. But you Know, they say, and you probably know this 44 minutes is like the optimum maximum time, because it's like the average commute to work is 22 minutes. Time home is 22 minutes. And people can knock on episodes.

[Josh Stein]

Right?

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, I always felt like 20 minutes by time you say, hey, what's up? How you doing? Like, that's gone.

[Josh Stein]

It's gone.

[Jim Hacking]

You know, it's gone. You go over an hour. People like, I don't think I'm gonna invest in myself in this podcast. Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

There's a couple of episodes where Jim and I, we asked one question and the person talked a lot. So it was like. And they. We try to keep them right around 30 to 35 minutes. At the time, it was. You couldn't go deep on anything. It was just. It was like, wow, that. That's gone in no time spot for.

[Jim Hacking]

You to be in, too. You don't want to interrupt the person. By the same token, in your mind, you're like, okay, time's ticking. Like, what? To get to something.

[Josh Stein]

Totally. So from a marketing standpoint, has it been effective? I mean, you've gotten attention from it. Has it led? Can you. Can you connect the dots between the work you've done and then the clients?

[Jim Hacking]

I think that if I were to say, where did this case come from? I could connect a dot and say, that's because this person's on my podcast. Our relationship is a little stronger now. He or she trusts me with this referral. I think I can do that.

[Josh Stein]

Right.

[Jim Hacking]

Probably several times over. Can I say some random person heard the podcast and was like, oh, I think I'm gonna hire Josh? Probably not. But what I think is. Is even more powerful is, like, people in Tennessee or South Carolina that have reached out to me. Now I've got connections in those states, which can be even more important. Like when they have a client that's driving through Georgia to the beach, you know, getting a wreck, like, they're going to call me now.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

You know, and so. So I think that is pretty good. You know, people can believe this or they can't. I don't. I can't control that. But the monetary result of the podcast is just an added bonus.

[Josh Stein]

Sure.

[Jim Hacking]

Right. Like, I don't look at it as, how can I monetize this? I look at it as, what a great way to spend an hour this week, you know?

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

And that's. That's just true.

[Josh Stein]

So I. I do believe it, because part of the reason why we changed the format is because I wanted to this this is what I wanted to do. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it wasn't because I thought we'd make more money. We actually probably lose money doing it this way. We. We could probably make more money with Maximum Lawyer, but we spend the money to do this because this. I enjoy it a lot more. So I completely get it.

[Jim Hacking]

Catch a question on that. Of course, sometimes I worry that it might actually cost me money because people, like, is all this dude doing is podcasting?

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Like, is he still focusing on doing the casework? And is he still a trial lawyer or is he just this wannabe podcaster? I. I think it's almost sometimes maybe backwards. I could be wrong about that. Do you ever worry about that?

[Josh Stein]

I do, and that's that, actually. And it may be an unfounded fear, but there's a reason why I don't post a lot on my personal Facebook page about Maximum Lawyer. And because I know that a lot. We get a lot of clients through Facebook. And so I intentionally do not want the perspective to be, oh, Tyson's just this marketing guy, you know, like. And so that's. That's why is. Because I. I am hesitant, and that's one of those things that might be unfounded. I have that fear. So I. I have zero problem posting about Maximum Lawyer on, you know, x or on YouTube, but when it comes to, like, Instagram or. Actually, I don't have any problem posting on TikTok either, because it's. I feel like it's so. TikTok is so different. And it's funny. I don't ever get on TikTok, but we post on TikTok, but I don't. I feel like it's not connected. Like, Facebook is where you can connect the dots from Max Law to Matrix Firm to, you know, my friends and all that. TikTok's like, you have these, like, silos almost.

[Jim Hacking]

And that's interesting that the. The social network platforms all speak a different language.

[Josh Stein]

Yes.

[Jim Hacking]

Right. And. And understanding that is kind of part one. I mean, everything you just said, I mean, TikTok is. You're just kind of out there and you put it out there and people see it, but they're not going to be like, oh, that's this and this and this. I don't know, man. It's wild. It's like I said, like I said in the beginning, it's a crazy time that we live in. I think people that understand and utilize the power of social media are the ones that are going to get ahead. Right. I mean, it's like, first it was a website and people were resistant to that. Well, now, can you imagine not having a website and then it was social media channels, like, oh, I'm not going to do that. Lawyers are above, you know, that kind of stuff. Can you imagine having social media channels then? Now it's probably going to be, you know, AI chat, GPT. Oh, I'm never going to let, you know, a machine do my job. So it's like you always got to kind of follow those waves.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

And do your best to not be the last one on it.

[Josh Stein]

What do you think is going to be the next thing when it comes to getting clients?

[Jim Hacking]

Getting clients. I think that this AI stuff, if people can figure out how to marry AI and SEO, which I probably won't be able to do, well, I think that's going to be the ticket. I think it's going to bring down the costs of, you know, hiring these marketing firms that are going to do all your SEO for you. I think there's going to be AI platforms that can do it way cheaper. Having said that, I, till the last day I practice law, is going to just be a community marketing lawyer. You know, have them know me, like me, trust me. So when the time comes they need someone like that. They're gonna think of me. Now, that might be the way, the dinosaur, but that's what I'm gonna continue to do.

[Josh Stein]

So there is. I was, I was watching something the other day, and I'm not gonna give credit to it, but they were talking about how you got no, like, everyone knows no like and trust at this point. So especially if you're listening to this podcast, you know, no, like and trust. But people do. The mistake they make with social media is they go, no. And that's it.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

So they get people to know them, but they don't get the likable part. And maybe get the likable part. But the most important part is the trust. Because then, okay, know, like and trust. Now I'm gonna call you because I trust you to handle my case. And they skip out on the other two, which is an interesting part of it. And have you ever thought about that?

[Jim Hacking]

I do. And I think the only way that you can do that, number one, is to be authentic in yourself for the like part. Right. If you're trying to imitate somebody else is doing their thing, some dancing TikTok video, like, that's not you, then people are gonna see that and like, yeah, that's kind of weird. And the trust thing, I've always thought you just give people kind of free information, give them the answers, their problems, without them asking you for it or with anything in return. To me, that's how you build trust with someone. And so my videos, I'm like, okay, what are problems? What are issues that my clients are facing or potentially going to face? Can I just tell them in 45 seconds, if your car's totaled, this is what's going to happen? I think that, or I hope that's how you can start building trust with people.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. So Gary Vee and Alex Hormozi, I've heard them both talk about it recently when it comes to, like, 2025 and marketing and all that, that you're gonna see less of the dancing lawyer kind of a thing, and you're gonna be more of the. And I would say almost going back to. They didn't say this, but going back to leading with value. Cause I feel like that's what it used to be. I feel like when social media started out, at first it was, you know, lawyers giving advice on certain. Certain things. And that's. That's what's gonna kind of be going forward, where people are gonna be going to these specific channels to look for information, and then they're gonna go find what they're looking for.

[Jim Hacking]

I hope so guys like me and you will be beneficial. Absolutely right. And if Gary. Gary ve that he's been pretty ahead of the curve every step of the way, so I'm glad to hear him say that. But, yeah, I mean, I think that hopefully that continues to win the day.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. So let's dig a little bit more into your career a bit. And so take me to a time or some sort of moment that you realized your career path was about to change and maybe drastically. Was there a specific spark that made you say, I need to do things this way or I need to make a change?

[Jim Hacking]

I got smoked in a trial.

[Josh Stein]

Oh, okay.

[Jim Hacking]

Smoked in a trial.

[Josh Stein]

We were on the defense side.

[Jim Hacking]

Yes. And it was a combination of. The facts were terrible. My client wasn't particularly helpful in and everything, and I didn't do a great job.

[Josh Stein]

Insurance client or actual client?

[Jim Hacking]

The actual client.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. And I didn't do a great job. Not that I didn't try, but I didn't feel like I was totally vested because I'm like, this sucks.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Right. And then we got smoked. And we should have gotten smoked, quite frankly. And I compared that with a case that we did really well at trial. And. But going back, I felt terrible when we Lost, of course.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

And then I had a case that we did really well, and I like the client, and we won the case and saved the interest on me a bunch of money. And all they cared about was, how much did you bill us? And can we start cutting your bill, you know, for this? Too much, whatever it might be. And I'm like, thank you. Would have been just fine. So I had those two experiences, kind of opposite experiences. Right. And I'm like, I don't think I can do this for the next however many years. And so I think that was the spark that was like, I want to be more in control of the case. I want to be in control of the client. I want to be able to choose my clients. Right. If I don't like the person, if I don't like their case, like, I just want to be able to tell them no. On the insurance. Insurance defense side, like, the client is a client is a client. You're gonna take the case. So all those things together led me to make the move. There's never the perfect time.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

With a thousand excuses. My kids are too young. I got private school. I got a big mortgage. That's always going to be the case, right.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. Were you married at the time?

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. I mean, I married my kids. I could do the math, but they're probably 8 and 5.

[Josh Stein]

That's a big. That's a really important time, too.

[Jim Hacking]

I was too dumb to know, I guess, right? Like, I was too dumb to know. I'm like, this is going to work out. Like, of course it's going to work out. Not that I was, like, conceited. I just think I was like, yeah, this is going to work out. If it doesn't work out, guess what? I saw this law degree. I still have all this experience on defense side. I'll come crawling back, and I still like all these people. They like me, and I'll just come back, tail to my legs, like, all right, guys, I tried it. Can you hire me back? And they probably would say yes. So if. If you can. If you can minimize your risk, which I'm always looking to do at that point, it's like, go for it.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. It's interesting how you put that, because I think some people might say, oh, you're being fearless. You're being brave. You put it a differently. You're a little harder on yourself almost. But that. It is a bit of a superpower. You call it whatever you want, but it is a bit of a superpower to be able to just say, yeah, it's risky. Oh, well. You know what I mean?

[Jim Hacking]

Oh, well. Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Buddy of mine, his quote is, so what now? What? Yeah, something doesn't go work, so what now what? And so if you look at it that way, it's like, look, I. No one can take away my ability to go try to make a living or raise my family or have a job. So try it. As opposed to 20 years down the road when you're like, I should have done it and now it's too late. Now there's no point to do it. Like, I wouldn't want to. My mentality wouldn't want to be on that side of the fence. Right.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. As, I mean, you're clearly like a very positive person. You've, like, you've got that nice. It's a great mindset to be able to kind of move on. Have you encountered any. Any struggle when it comes to your career or your firm where you're like, I don't know if I'm going to make it?

[Jim Hacking]

I think we all do, right? I mean, I think we all do. I think that every January 1st you say we, it starts at zero and let's roll again. So I think that. That anybody that doesn't is probably kidding themselves. I think owning is probably healthy. Right? I mean, I think that causes you to want to continue to succeed and have the drive and all that kind of stuff. I think goals are a funny thing. I think sometimes people feel the need to put like, numerical goals or something in place for reasons that are, I don't know, to appease a marketing coach or something. I don't know. My goal is simply January 1st of next year. I want to keep doing the same thing. So whatever it takes to get there, that's what I want to do. And then I want to keep that goal for every year until I don't need to do anymore.

[Josh Stein]

So let's talk about that a little bit more, then let's dive in. Some. Some goals. Do you. I mean, do you have any goals?

[Jim Hacking]

You heard it. I mean, it's. It's being a financial situation where next January 1, J. Stein Law firm is still open for business. And however it takes to get there, as I want to do, I don't have a goal of like, I got to have this much in revenue or this many clients. You would probably shriek at the lack of metrics that I look at or maybe or KPIs, those kinds of things. I never got good at that. And so I'm like, do I have to? And the Answer probably is I should. But at this point, it's like, you know, I don't want to invest the time to go back and do it, which I realize is wrong. At least I can understand that and own it.

[Josh Stein]

I mean, I don't know if wrong is the way I'd put it.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. So it's. It's. I've got my. My two paralegals. I've got, you know, my other folks. I've got this lawyer now. That's. That's. That's of counsel, my firm. I'm happy with this setup. And let's just keep clicking off the months.

[Josh Stein]

So I. What I love about you is how happy you are. At least you seem happy. Hopefully you are happy. I love the fact that you. It's like there's no. You're not saying, hey, there's a way, there's a right way, there's a wrong way. It's like, this is just your way. I think that that's. I think that it's quite a relief, I'll be honest with you.

[Jim Hacking]

Well, I appreciate that, and I hope that's the. That's. That's what I. That's how I feel. Right. And it's hard to try to put out the outside noise and just do it your way, but there's. There's some happiness that comes with that, right?

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

God, we're so lucky to be doing what we're doing. I mean, I look at all the jobs out there and the fact that we're fortunate enough to do this one and get paid pretty well to do it, it's like, what's there not to be happy about?

[Josh Stein]

Do you practice? I mean, you've. You've mentioned. You not said the word gratitude, but you've. You've shown gratitude several times already. Do you practice regular gratitude where you're like you. Every morning you wake up and say you're grateful for three things. Anything like that?

[Jim Hacking]

No. No, I don't do that. No. I don't know, man. I mean, I just. I. I feel like there's two ways you can go about living life. You can live it in a good way or a bad way. And that's. That's very, like, black and white. But if you look at that way, like, living in a good way.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

You know, and we have a lot to be thankful for.

[Josh Stein]

How old are you?

[Jim Hacking]

Born in 1979. So what does that make me? 45. I do the math every single time.

[Josh Stein]

You're a few years older than I am.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

Have you Thought about what you want your life to look at, like when you're like 65?

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, I think that's a lot because I don't think I want to be doing this for 20 more years.

[Josh Stein]

Oh, okay. Let's see. All right. I want to hear more about this.

[Jim Hacking]

Well, just because I think it's going to change a lot. I mean, tort reform is coming in Georgia. You have no reason to follow it, but tort reform is coming. That's going to change the landscape.

[Josh Stein]

Well, I mean, we haven't, I mean, they've been gutting trying to get us for 15 years in Missouri. So I, we follow it religiously.

[Jim Hacking]

So you live through it. I mean, Georgia's, Georgia's bringing that pretty good. And we'll find out. I don't know. This is going to air, but we're going to find out probably in April. So that's going to be changing. I think that, you know, with the, with the self driving cars, with all the other things, like, I think just our industry is going to change a little.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, I agree.

[Jim Hacking]

I want to figure out a way to do what you and me are doing right now and do that.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Like I said, my favorite hour of the week, work wise, is doing these podcasts. And so if there's a way that I could somehow do that, that sounds pretty darn good to me. My kids or my daughter is a junior in high school, my son's in eighth grade, so they'll be in college. I mean, you know.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Less than five, six years. And that kind of changed the dynamic too a little bit. So I don't know. We'll see.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. Is, is your wife or is she on board with sort of your mindset on things? I do wonder if, like, do you get pressure from home? Like, hey, get the firm structure, set goals. What's that? Like I'm gonna start a little fight here. Let's see.

[Jim Hacking]

So she works for the firm.

[Josh Stein]

Oh, okay.

[Jim Hacking]

I mean, she's, she's our office manager. She writes all the checks, she handles all the overseeing, all the marketing stuff. So I mean, I, I don't, I don't want to sound like we're aloof.

[Josh Stein]

Right.

[Jim Hacking]

You know, we, we have a very good structure in place. Yeah. I mean, she loves it. It gives her the flexibility. She works from home. She goes to the gym at 8:30 to her, you know, whatever the class is, she's home at 10, she can work till the kids get home. Like it just works for everybody.

[Josh Stein]

And the freedom that you get from owning A law firm is just, it's. It's hard to beat.

[Jim Hacking]

You can't go back, right? I mean, you can't go back. I mean, that goes back to my glory years. Like, if I had to, I'd go back and work for a big firm. But, like, I really don't want to have to do that.

[Josh Stein]

So you don't want to be doing this in 20 years? Which is. That's a. It's such an interesting thing. You know, a lot of people, they'd love to be able to keep doing this for 20 years or so. Like, do you, I mean, have really kind of sat down and thought about, like, this is what we want our life to look like, that we want to, you know, is where I want to live. Or maybe you're staying in the same house. I don't know. Like, you know, I wake up at 8:00am you know, I do this. Like, have you thought about all that?

[Jim Hacking]

I think when I said I want to be doing this 20 years, I don't want to have the pressure of every day, every month, every year to be cranking out a profitable law firm. I think that there is a dream scenario where my website, my contacts, my firm is all up and running and we're still taking on, you know, the, the good cases that we want, but you're being super more selective about it. So I think debt is a scenario, but maybe that's. I mean, I don't think in 20 years I want to be doing that, but probably 10 or 15, you know, look, I've never lived anywhere but Georgia, so I don't know what else is out there. But, you know, my family's here, all my friends are here, so I don't see myself leaving anywhere. I don't know, play more golf, be on the boat more. That sounds pretty good.

[Josh Stein]

So you don't have KPIs, right? Make sure. Okay? Because I do wonder. I'm going to try to push you. I'm going to try to convince you of some things.

[Jim Hacking]

Sure.

[Josh Stein]

I do think if you start thinking about that stuff now where, like, you start to create these stepping stones to get to that point where you've got these systems where you can spend more time, I think it's going to help you a lot more than maybe you even realize at this point.

[Jim Hacking]

You're not wrong. And I know that the question of if I get hit by a bus tomorrow or like, what happens? I understand all that. So I'm not naive. If I sat down tomorrow, you could probably help me. But if I said, what's going to be the first KPI that I do? What. Do you know where to start? Would not even know where to begin.

[Josh Stein]

Right. Yeah, I mean, that's. We could probably do an episode all by itself, but. Okay, so we can kind of walk this a little bit. Let's have a little fun, little exercise. So it would be helpful, I think, if we had a better idea as to what it looks like, you know, when you want to kind of. In 20 years or so. But let's say. Let's kind of pare it down. Let's kind of. Let's go make this a little bit easier.

[Jim Hacking]

Sure.

[Josh Stein]

In three years, what do you want things to look like for your personal life, your home life, your work life? Exact same. Okay, so what's the one thing you need to focus on every single day, every single week to make sure that you're still doing what you're doing now in three years?

[Jim Hacking]

My word is consistency. That's a big word for me. That's showing up every day and doing the job. That's showing up to do my marketing stuff. Do my. I do 3ish videos a week that I put out.

[Josh Stein]

Yep.

[Jim Hacking]

Again, I think it helps. Don't know, but people will see them. That's doing those. That is. Do my podcast regularly every week. That is doing good work with the clients. Because if that's not happening, then it all tumbles.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Right. I mean, that's the house of cards that fall. And I think when you go back. Not to change gears, I will answer your question. But you know, when you talk about the shift in, like, the dancing TikTok lawyers, because those dance TikTok lawyers aren't doing good jobs in their cases. Right. They're focusing on dancing on TikTok. And so if you're not doing a good job on the cases, the whole thing crumbles.

[Josh Stein]

Sure.

[Jim Hacking]

So I'm focusing on doing a good job because then, you know, every year my. My client base gets larger, which then expands. The people that are out there recommending me when their friends or family, you know, get. Get hurt. So I just focus on that. I don't want to hire more paralegals. I don't want to hire more lawyers. My mentality has always been that if I get too many cases to handle, I just keep increasing my threshold for size of cases, and the smaller ones, I refer out to peers and let them do it. That's always been my model. I learned that from a person who I. Who I joined up with, Andy Goldner, and so in three years, I guess my threshold will just be hopefully a little bit higher. And so the case I'm working on is that much higher and the ones I'm sending to other lawyers will be lower.

[Josh Stein]

So you're, I guess for that to happen, then what you're going to need to do is making sure that you are bringing in clients on a regular basis.

[Jim Hacking]

Right.

[Josh Stein]

So what, I guess what is that one thing you need to focus on then? To make sure that those clients are coming in on a regular basis consistently? Because I think, you know, there's like a plateau, it seems that some law firms hit or lawyers hit, like they get to a certain age and then they stagnate and then they start to see the massive decline in cases because they kind of stop marketing. So is there anything specifically when it comes to marketing that, you know, you need to be doing on a, on a weekly or daily basis?

[Jim Hacking]

Places? Yeah, I mean, so I guess I'm putting faith just in the process that continues going on. I focus 90 plus percent of my attention on my community. So I live in east Cobb, which is a Marietta, just north of Atlanta. I was born there, went to high school there. My daughter goes to high school there. My son will go there next year. So I sponsored the baseball team and the football team and the volleyball team and all that kind of stuff. So. And so I feel like if every year I'm still there and every year just by, you know, the, the law of averages, somebody in that community is going to get in a tough spot. They're going to think of me like there's, I'm not competing against anybody else for that particular group of people because I'm kind of the only one.

[Josh Stein]

What happens when they graduate? Are you going to keep.

[Jim Hacking]

I think so, yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's interesting because, you know, in the 90s, I was all about the high school and the community. And then I had like a 15 year kind of break where I was not involved. But now that I'm back in, like, I know all the kids now, when my youngest son graduates, hopefully the couple grades below him, I'll start to know them and I'll get me more engaged. But I feel good about it too. I like going to the football game. This might be narcissistic. I like seeing my logo on the scoreboard. I like when there's a batter up to bat in the baseball game and the announcer Mark Astin says, this inning is brought to you by the J. Stein Law Firm. I like that. So it just feels good to me. And even my kids aren't involved. I'll probably still do it.

[Josh Stein]

Okay. So. And we won't dive too much into the marketing because I think we could go really deep and like, okay, these are the things when it comes to marketing you need to focus on. But so we don't. We know that marketing is a key component. Right. So you can't stop doing that. When it comes to the other side of things, you got to make sure you're doing a really good job in cases, otherwise that's going to go away. So what do you have to make sure that you're doing on a regular basis to make sure that you all are doing just tip top job on cases?

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. Keep our caseload small. Right. Every client has my cell phone number. Every client has my paralegal cell phone number. And so if we have just a finite number of cases, it allows me to touch them every couple of weeks. Like it won't be three weeks go by that a client hasn't at least heard from me, like how we do and how we feel and what's going on here. I can do that because I don't have hundreds of cases.

[Josh Stein]

So the number one thing you need to focus on, I guess, is the number of cases.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. Which has always kind of been my thing. So it's like I found. And everybody's different. For me, like between 30 and 40 cases is kind of my sweet spot. If I get below that, I'm like, I need some cases. I get above that, I'm like, too much. So if I can continue to elevate that ceiling or I guess the floor of the kind of cases I'm getting without jeopardizing the number of cases I'm handling, then it should stay about the same.

[Josh Stein]

Now don't look now, but you're starting to develop some KPIs.

[Jim Hacking]

If I don't write them down, it's not a KPI. Right. What's going to be interesting though is, is as the cases get bigger, of course the time you spend on them gets more. And so 30 cases of one category is different than 30 cases of another. So that 30 probably becomes more like 20 and then it becomes more like 10. So yeah, I guess you have peeled back my onion to get to my KPI without me even knowing it. But that's kind of how I look at things.

[Josh Stein]

Do you think there might be another number or something else you can look at to make sure, other than, you know, number of cases, something else that might indicate the Health of, of the firm.

[Jim Hacking]

People say how many calls you get a month.

[Josh Stein]

Okay, right.

[Jim Hacking]

I've never tracked that because some months are just way different. What I found, and this is junk science, I found when I settled two cases, two calls come in. It's just weird that way.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, that's definitely junk science.

[Jim Hacking]

It's weird that way. I've found if I turn down a questionable case, I probably didn't want a good case follows it, junk science. But I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to keep kind of going down that path until I can't anymore.

[Josh Stein]

Better be lucky than good.

[Jim Hacking]

Maybe.

[Josh Stein]

Do you ever look at average case value?

[Jim Hacking]

No. No. And again, I know that I should, and that is because I've had a couple like massive outliers on both sides that I think would be kind of skewing it.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, you just had to throw those numbers out.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, if I did that, then I probably could. I mean, so I know, I know the sweet spot of where I think I'm best case value. Okay. I think that a case that has between a hundred thousand in value and a million in value is my sweet spot. That's where I think I really do the best job. There's people, that 5 million dollar case is like they're better than me at it. I could do it. I don't have the dozens of multimillion dollar verdicts behind me that can really pump those up. But you know, the case of the $100,000 and less like people, other people that should be doing those too. So I guess you've had another KPI for me.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. Well, I like, like to us the most important number is average case value. It really, because we can look, it gives a really good idea and indicator as to what the things we're doing. If it's, you know, if it starts to go down. Okay, why, why is it going down? Is it going up? Okay, why is it going up? We, we have a really good indicator as to, as to that. So I think it would be especially since you are, you've got a certain threshold of cases. Let's say that your average case value is in half, cut in half. Then you know you're gonna have to take on like double the cases.

[Jim Hacking]

So I could pretty easily go out to my office today and go from 2017 to 2024 and give you that exact answer. I've got. Every, every year is okay, this many cases, this is my total revenue. I could do all of that. So I'm happy to do that. That's probably pretty good exercise. So the question I have for you then is we will get, we'll get calls on cases, we'll talk to them. You know, we'll go through whatever the process is and decide it's not a case.

[Josh Stein]

Yep.

[Jim Hacking]

I still put that in the same closed file folder. Do you include that in your average case value or do you throw that out?

[Josh Stein]

Okay, so two part question. Because you know how you throw in the, Throw out the highs and lows. So track two numbers. You'll track all of them. The ones that we investigate. We said this is not a case.

[Jim Hacking]

We.

[Josh Stein]

I don't, I don't include that. But if we lose like an emotion for summary judgment, I'll include that. Yeah, right. Or if you get a verdict and a zero, I include that. So those ones, yes, I include the ones where we investigate. I, I treat that a lot like it. If we, you do a micro intake and someone on the front, front lines says it's not a case, that's how I treat it. It's not, it's just, it was never a case. But if it's something where we put time into, invested into, where we're like, you know, file, suit on it, then yeah, we end up getting zero on it. That's, that's a zero. But you, I throw, you throw those out whenever you're talking about the highs and the lows. Right. And so you have to do both, you know, two numbers.

[Jim Hacking]

Can I make your skin crawl even more?

[Josh Stein]

I'd love to. Yes. Let's hear it.

[Jim Hacking]

I don't have any sort of like case management system.

[Josh Stein]

I've always wondered, because here's what's funny. Ten years ago, I don't know how that's possible to do today with Google and the way they've got sheets set up, I could, you could build out a case management system without any issue that's connected to Zapier or in all these other automations that you could actually run it from a spreadsheet. The way Google is currently sitting, it is fascinating that the developments that they made with sheets. But I don't know how you are able to do this. Do you have paper files or how are you able to manage your cases?

[Jim Hacking]

No paper files. There's no paper in the office. Okay. So the only paper we keep are deposition transcripts, is sealed ones. Right. Everything else I get electronically sent Dropbox and all the Microsoft tools.

[Josh Stein]

Where do you take notes on cases?

[Jim Hacking]

We create a Dropbox folder. And so I can do a couple different ways I can do it on my Surface and I can type it in or draw it in. I could just do an email and put it in. I can do a handwritten note and scan it in. I have one of those plot AIs.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Which has been great. I mean, that, that's amazing.

[Josh Stein]

I want to ask you more about that.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, so that'll plug it in. So for, for me, you know, If I have 30 cases, I've got 30 individual Dropbox folders. You know, it'd be, you know, Jones, Smith, whatever. I do identify the folder by where it came from. So I know this is a case that came from this particular marketing thing or this came from a referral source. So I do do that. But yeah, then I just. Everything is in that Dropbox folder. And then my wife is really good with Excel. She's really good with all the Microsoft Office stuff. And that's how we keep up with everything.

[Josh Stein]

You know, I'd rather you do that than like have something like super complicated system that you don't use or that is too complicated.

[Jim Hacking]

Keep it somewhat stupid. Isn't that right? Keep it.

[Josh Stein]

That's. That's.

[Jim Hacking]

Keep it simple stupid. And so that's what we've done. If I had 100 cases, couldn't do it. Totally understand that. When I was a defense firm, we had pro law and it was amazing. You would type in things, would auto populate, probably your zapier stuff. You do. I totally understand the benefit of all that. I just don't want a firm that requires that.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, you don't. I. You don't have the benefit of doc gen where you're like drafting a letter. It just populates everything that you copy and paste, man. So you do use templates, so that's good. You know, it stayed farm back in the day. We had templates and it was, it was like note templates, which I thought were really great, where I didn't have to copy and paste it. But I actually did borrow some of that for like our stuff where it would pop up and it would say, I'm just gonna make up something. So because I worked in fire claims, let's say it's a, it's a, you know, there was a fire at a house and it might say if there was like a note, you know, it would have all these different categories. I had to fill out each category, you know, you know, who I spoke to, what we talked about. And they have like a bunch of yes or no questions, you know, did you do this? Did you do that? Which Are things like that are pretty helpful? Do you do anything like that?

[Jim Hacking]

You know, I think about. When you say that, I think about the Bobs and office space and TPS report.

[Josh Stein]

That's funny.

[Jim Hacking]

That's what I think about.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

It's a problem with me. I understand that. I absolutely recognize that. I think about. I'm creating something for the sake of creating something as opposed to just doing it and moving to the next thing.

[Josh Stein]

Right. How do you know if a case is on track?

[Jim Hacking]

This is going to make you upset too. In my head, because we have small amount of cases I look at every Monday. I'm like scanning my cases and saying, okay, what needs to be done here? What needs to be done there? I really do have a. Such a good grasp of each one of my cases that it's kind of like that spider sense where, you know, like, this has to happen. I mean, what I found, quite frankly, and this. I'm not pat myself on the back, but I move at a faster speed than the defense does. I get frustrated because I want to do things in my cases.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

And the defense isn't ready to do it yet. And so I'm almost being stalled on my stuff, which then, you know, leads to them being, okay, Josh, now we're ready to do this, which allows it to happen. If that makes sense.

[Josh Stein]

No, I mean, I think that it does. And I. It sounds like you have good balance. You really do. And that's. It sounds like you don't have too many cases, which is fantastic. That's something where it's a. It's a big log jam. Who's on your team? You got your wife, you got an associate.

[Jim Hacking]

And, well, he's of council, so he has his own firm. I've got a paralegal.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

And that's it.

[Josh Stein]

How does your paralegal or your wife know what's in your head?

[Jim Hacking]

I have to tell them.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. I mean, so. So Melissa is across the hall and, you know, it's. This is what we're doing.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

Here's an email. This we're doing. And she's, you know, she's to the point where she knows, you know, when you open a case, like the five things you have to do. I. I guess I have written those out. Come to think of it, like, like before we hired our first paralegal, I. I did put a book that's like, this is how we do things.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

But because I haven't hired anybody in however many years, like, I haven't had to revisit It, Right. So, so she, so she knows, like, okay, it's. This how the contract looks via DocuSign. This health authorization. This is the open records request we send out. This is the letter to the insurance company. This is the letter to the, um, carrier. Like, go down the list and then it's. This is to get the pictures. This got medical records, has got med, you know, to get medical bills. So, like, the process is there. She doesn't need me to tell her to do it. You know, the complaints we file, it's like standard car wreck complaints are pretty similar. Right? So we've done a thousand of them. So I mean, copy and paste might, might, might make you. Me kind of make you as well. But like, she copy and paste one, but the other she looks. Police report. This was September 10th. This was the county. This is the plaintiff. I tweak it for the specific facts of the case. Takes.

[Josh Stein]

What percentage of your week is, is. Are you, are you personally dealing with, like, returning client phone calls or text messages or emails?

[Jim Hacking]

I do all that.

[Josh Stein]

So, like, what, like, what percentage of your week, or would you say you do that again?

[Jim Hacking]

We don't have a ton of clients, and so we're, we're kind of reaching out to them. Like, like, like the, the calls I don't like, or the texts I don't like, or when it's, hey, Josh, what's up? My case. Haven't heard from you in a minute.

[Josh Stein]

Like, you're not doing a lot of that then, like, are you? So you're more proactive.

[Jim Hacking]

We're proactive.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, we're proactive. And, and as I, you know, I go back, read my Google reviews, you know, that's what people are. Yeah, we really appreciate Josh's being upfront with us and keeping us up to date and telling us what's going on. Our expectations, like that's what we pride ourselves on, is that you're not going to be out there for three months wondering what in the world's going on. My case, that's what we hear, is the number one complaint from all these clients. Right. So, like, I can easily control that text message. Takes no time dictate. You know, we just sent out the request. Medical records usually takes around 30 days. We'll let you know when we get them. Once they get back, we'll be up at the demand together, period. Done.

[Josh Stein]

I think what this shows is that there's no right way of doing anything. You know, there's really not. You'll have a lot of people say, well, this is the way, like, you've got to do these things. Otherwise you're not doing it the right way. And I really don't think there's any right way. There's not. I mean, I think there's. I could certainly come in. I think we could probably improve some, like, your life a little bit, you know, with some of the things. But that would require technology and all that. But you're. I mean, you're happy, your clients are happy, you're getting good results, and if. If you're on track to hit, you know, your vision for yourself and your family, then there's. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

I don't doubt you could come in and do that. Probably wouldn't take you very long. I know in real time when I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing. Yeah, I know it. Okay. It's what I want to do, you know, if I like putting a settlement saving together for my client, because I like to see exactly how it's going. I know my paralegal could do that and should be doing it, but I like doing it.

[Josh Stein]

I think you're very atypical of most. Most law firm owners, though, where they don't want to be doing some of that stuff, and they do it because they feel like they have to as opposed to because they want to. I think that's. I think that's the difference.

[Jim Hacking]

I think because they were told they couldn't do any other way, maybe you know, what they could be like, this is the way the widget's made. And. And again, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying it's. It's what has kind of morphed for me, and it's what's.

[Josh Stein]

It's. It's right for you. What. So the. The AI device that you're wearing. What's.

[Jim Hacking]

Applaud. So I'm not wearing. I should have worn it today, actually. I should have. So I wear it in my podcasts, so I don't know why I didn't wear it today. I wear it on my, you know, client meetings, and it records everything that is being said.

[Josh Stein]

So everything throughout your days that recording.

[Jim Hacking]

When I turn it on. Okay, so when I turn it on.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, that was a big question I've had, like, because I've seen these on Facebook and all over the place. So you. You have to activate it and, like.

[Jim Hacking]

You just push a button on it on your phone.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, yeah. So you can wear it as a bracelet.

[Josh Stein]

So.

[Jim Hacking]

And so I've never used it as like a sneaky thing. Like in Georgia you could, I mean, Georgia's a one person consent to record.

[Josh Stein]

Missouri's like that.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah. So if I wanted to, I could be sneaky and wear it. But I, I, that's not my purpose for it. So my purpose is I wear it, you know, either as a bracelet. You wear it on your neck. And so my podcast, it will record the whole thing, which will then summarize it for me, which will then allow me. You're gonna like this. Put it in chat GPT at the transcript, which then can make a small summary for my social media posts or my summaries in the actual podcast thing. So that's been very helpful. When I meet with a client, I'll wear it. And then the cool thing, it will give you action plan items. I don't know how it does this, but it'll, it'll read your transcript and I'll say based on this, you need to go to X, Y and Z, which is pretty cool.

[Josh Stein]

It is.

[Jim Hacking]

And so, you know, I've just kind of begun to use that as a tool and it's been very, very helpful.

[Josh Stein]

Ringcentral as a tool. Do you use Ringcentral for your phones? So they've got something where you can, it's AI transcription. I have it like set to like auto record. So I don't remember to hit the button.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

And at the end of it, it'll say like, like to do items or something like that. So it does say like, you know, Tyson said he would do this, client said he would do that. And that's really helpful.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, yeah, it's good. I mean, so the days of taking a paper note, I don't think we need to do that anymore. And it's pretty inexpensive. I mean, I think it was 160 bucks, something like that. I mean, the hardest part is just keeping it charged, but, you know, it's nothing.

[Josh Stein]

How do you have to charge it?

[Jim Hacking]

Oh, I mean, I just keep it, I keep it charged in. It's just kind of my thing at work. But I think you could probably get several hours of use out of it. I mean, I've never run it for more than an hour or two at a time. I've never had a problem. Problem. Yeah. Plot AI.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna check that out. We're. This is not sponsored by plod, but maybe we'll get that sponsored.

[Jim Hacking]

Someone gets a good use out of it.

[Josh Stein]

Maybe you get, maybe get some, some money from it. But So, I mean, you've spent a lot of time talking about, like designing sort of a practice that fits your lifestyle. I mean, have there been any sacrifices you. You've had to make to. To do that?

[Jim Hacking]

I probably could make more money.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

I probably could have more cases, I probably could hire more people and stroke my ego that I've got this big practice, all this kind of thing. So I probably missed out on, you know, certain big cases where the client was like, yeah, that firm's probably not the one that we need to hire just for the mere frontage part of it. Right. Just for the perception. So I'm sure I've missed out on some of that stuff.

[Josh Stein]

Does that not. I guess it just doesn't affect you.

[Jim Hacking]

What am I going to do?

[Josh Stein]

Right? Yeah, yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

What am I going to do?

[Josh Stein]

Have you ever been tempted to kind of like shift gears and go, oh, maybe we'll, you know, we'll get some more automations built in. We're taking more cases. Have you ever been tempted to do that?

[Jim Hacking]

No.

[Josh Stein]

Wow.

[Jim Hacking]

No.

[Josh Stein]

Good on you.

[Jim Hacking]

Sorry, man.

[Josh Stein]

No, that's. This is fantastic. I love it. I love the fact that you're happy in your skin. You're happy with what you have set up. I think that's great. What then? Does anything ever keep you up at night?

[Jim Hacking]

It used to keep you up a lot more. I mean, I feel like I'm banking on what I have done in the past that will continue to work in the future. And again, that's leap of faith. That's whatever you want to call it. But I feel like I position myself now through hard work from the beginning. Right. That should keep working. Yeah, she's going to keep working.

[Josh Stein]

So you and I are young enough that we are. There's a possibility that autonomous vehicles are definitely going to be in full force. I mean, with AI, it could be in the next 10 years. I mean, was it 10 years ago they were saying in five years they were going to be all over the place. They're not. It's not even close to what they said it was going to be. But with AI, the advances could be, I mean, much faster. I think so. I haven't quite digested how we're going to navigate that. It's a tough thing because other than pivoting to another practice area, I think there are still going to be injury cases, but there's just not going to be enough to feed all the firms that are out there.

[Jim Hacking]

You're right. So the way that I have thought about protecting myself is by Doing what I've done with my overhead in my office. And as long as I'm lean and mean and small and don't have, you know, six figure, you know, obligations coming up, every however often I can weather kind of whatever changes have to be made. Right. The Morgan mortgage world, they're gonna have a hard time. They have that kind of office space and that kind of personnel and that kind of overhead, like that would keep me up at night. And so what I've tried to do is if I, if I keep that low, one of them being my wife. Right. Then it's not going to, you know, I can, I can handle a downturn. I think our jobs as we know it in 10, 20 years be very, very different. Which is why I said in the beginning that I probably won't be doing this in every year that we keep cars out there banging into each other is another year I could click off. You know, I think that, that there'll be a wave of self driving litigation. I think that's going to, you know, be a however many year process. And then once we get through that, I think there could be some tough times.

[Josh Stein]

Right.

[Jim Hacking]

I have tried to not focus on just auto accident cases. Another KPI, I guess I talk about that's probably a third of what I do.

[Josh Stein]

Really?

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

And so wait, your car crashes are only a third of what you do?

[Jim Hacking]

Probably 30, 40. Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

Wow, that's a shocking number.

[Jim Hacking]

Wow.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, So I, so I, you know, I came from a world where I defended retail and restaurant hospitality industry. So slip and falls, those, those cases are, are probably that and dog bites and actually daycare cases are probably the, the three inequality security cases.

[Josh Stein]

I just settled a daycare case on Friday.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, so did I.

[Josh Stein]

Nice. Congrats.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah, thank you. Congrats to you too. So you know, the car wreck cases are always going to be probably the bread and butter, but it's not all that we do.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah. I've always not understood the hesitation that a lot of firms have when taking premises cases where you have to file suit on more of those in a car crash, that's for sure. But they, they are usually pretty serious injuries and you can make really good money from them.

[Jim Hacking]

You know why? Because they're harder.

[Josh Stein]

They are harder because they're harder because.

[Jim Hacking]

It requires a lawsuit, it requires taking depositions, it requires fighting a summary job judgment motion as opposed to a car wreck case. Someone runs a red light, it's done. And so they're just harder. But you know what I found is if you vet Those properly and we vet you know what out of them because you can get in a bad spot fast. They're good cases and there's always plenty of insurance coverage. The injuries, you know, if someone falls, they break their leg. Like it's a big injury case. You usually get pretty sophisticated defense lawyers. That's what I like about them as well. Like, you usually get better defense lawyers that understand how to evaluate case. And that's another thing like, like my mindset about defense lawyers has shifted completely. Like, I want the good, solid, seasoned, interesting as opposed to like fresh out of law school, like during headlights. Like, I don't want that. I want the good defense lawyer who's going to understand the cases.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah, I think that that makes sense because you have. It sounds like we're talking about legal stuff, but really not. This is a business thing too, because the. What happens is you hinted at this before where you'll have the bad, say less seasoned attorney giving bad advice to the adjuster and which then on a case that should settle, does not settle until either they get new counsel or you have to try the damn case. Whenever the more experienced attorneys like, yeah, this is a good case. Just pay. You need to pay them.

[Jim Hacking]

That's it. Yeah. And the defense lawyer has the credibility with their client that says, hey, I've been doing this for however long. Like I've seen everything. This is one you got to pay. And they're like, yeah, that guy knows he's talking about.

[Josh Stein]

Right. Yeah. So what's ahead for you then? Are you. You've got, you've got the torts and sports and torts towards. And sports and sports.

[Jim Hacking]

Sports and tours.

[Josh Stein]

Sports and towards.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

Any other. Any other.

[Jim Hacking]

Well, the first thing I'm gonna do is invite you to come on my podcast. I mean I had, you know, I.

[Josh Stein]

Had an idea when you, when you were talking about it, not to cut you off, but I want to make sure I give you this idea.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

Where you may be already doing this. It may not be a good idea, but like having a lawyer from a town for like that's the, the Georgia's play.

[Jim Hacking]

That's it.

[Josh Stein]

Is it you already doing that?

[Jim Hacking]

So. So yes and no. Okay, we try.

[Josh Stein]

Okay.

[Jim Hacking]

I have a offshoot called College Football's Last Call. Which is. Which is we do it just in the fall season.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

On, on, on. And we, we recap the Georgia game from the week before. We preview the next game. Then we talk about just the. The college football landscape. On the whole, it's like 30 minute show me and two buddies. It's so much fun. And we have started to bring on people just like you mentioned, like a Florida fan or a. I did a back and forth with some lawyers in Texas that we went back and forth, and I was on their podcast about Texas.

[Josh Stein]

That'd be so fun.

[Jim Hacking]

So. So when we play Missouri next year, I hate to put you off until next fall, but we'll do it. We'll do it. And. Yeah, then that. That's great. I mean, that way you're. You're. You're bringing someone. My whole thing is, like, if you get someone talking about what they're really passionate about.

[Josh Stein]

Yeah.

[Jim Hacking]

It becomes good content and, like, are.

[Josh Stein]

They any good at basketball this year?

[Jim Hacking]

Georgia gonna make the dance.

[Josh Stein]

So there's a chance we'll play each other in the dance. Yeah, slim chance, but there's a chance.

[Jim Hacking]

So Mike White, our coach, said yesterday that the SEC this year was the hardest conference in the history of college basketball.

[Josh Stein]

I mean, at one point, four out of the top five, I think, or five out of the top six were SEC teams. I mean, it's. It's. I mean, Mizzou. And here's the thing. Like, Mizzou. I was just talking about Mizzou a few minutes ago, where. Because the previous guest was a Vanderbilt grad and they started this skid the three game skid that Mizzou's on where we'd lost three games in a row. Should have never lost a Vanderbilt, but like Missoula, if they would have beaten Vanderbilt, they would have been a top 10 team.

[Jim Hacking]

Yeah.

[Josh Stein]

And then all of a sudden, they lose three in a row, but it's because you've got the SEC is just.

[Jim Hacking]

It's murder. Yeah. So by way of an example, again, we're recording this middle of March, not trying to give away your secrets about time, but nowhere is it. All the tournament selection committees is a Sunday. And so I'm thinking in my head, like, okay, who are two people that are going to have, you know, connections to their team? And that's what the podcast was like. One of my buddies is an Auburn guy. I text him, like, hey, man, Auburn's been number one seed. You know, we're going to do a podcast next week about this. I'm assuming Georgia gets in. If they don't, we're not doing the podcast type thing, but, like, so your. Your ideas is what I'm thinking about, too.

[Josh Stein]

I love it. Okay, so last question for you. I want you to imagine that you were able to send yourself a message for back to when you first launched your law firm. Okay. The very first day, what would you write and why?

[Jim Hacking]

I would say something about ignore as much of the outside noise as you can. Stay true to whatever type of firm you want to set up. Know that there are multiple different ways to skin the cat. Figure out the way you want to do it and keep your head down and go to work every single day and stay consistent.

[Josh Stein]

Why is that?

[Jim Hacking]

That's what I've tried to do. And that's what, that's what I've, that's what I've tried to do. And I am content and comfortable with where it has brought me to. And so if I'm happy where I am, wouldn't I want to just try to replicate what got there? Now, if I made mistakes, sure. I'm not saying, I'm not sitting here to say I've done everything right. I've done more things wrong than right. But I think if you follow those kind of core tenets that I laid out, at least for me, that's where I found success.

[Josh Stein]

Thanks for coming on the show, man.

[Jim Hacking]

Hey, man, I appreciate it. This is great. Good conversation. Thank you so much. Foreign.

[Unknown]

If you're a law firm owner who thinks like a business owner, not just a lawyer, this is for you. July 17th and 18th, we're hosting our next in person Mastermind in New York City. We're kicking off with a strategy workshop with Jessica Gonifiss of Silver Peaks Accounting. Dialing in your numbers so you can make smart CEO level moves. Then it's straight into Mastermind Hot seats. No fluff, no filters, just real strategy, real feedback and breakthroughs. Plus, we're hosting an exclusive dinner. Bring a plus one. Connect deeply and build the kind of relationships that transform businesses. If you're ready to think bigger, move faster, and scale smarter, get your mastermind [e-mail].