Loading summary
Transcript460 lines
- [00:01]
A
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, 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. If you decide to work with them, their contracts are month to month. That's right. No long term commitments tying you down.
- [01:01]
B
So what are you waiting for?
- [01:02]
A
To learn more about how Rise Up Media can transform your firms, visit riseup media.com max law and rise is spelled with a Z. Riseupmedia.com max law
- [01:20]
B
this is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix. All right, Billy, so I am going to start the interview. I got to pull my phone out and read this text to you. And I don't think he'll mind at all that I am at. I'm reading his text message, it's from Kelsey Bradshaw and he sends me this text and I won't use the exact language he used. He says, you effing around with AI coding on all your stuff, yet it's wild. SaaS is dead, which I think is interesting. And you, you and I are both really into AI. We love AI. What are your thoughts on this?
- [02:00]
C
Well, I, we're using it pretty aggressively everywhere we can. I'm worried I might be breaking my people with maybe too much all at once, but they're fine. I think it's fine. It's making a huge impact right now in our bottom line and I think there are opportunities to invest in more and more tools and I think it's the tools that can eliminate busy work or make you more money. So for instance, the two that I'm most excited about, I've already been talking about AI intake and did an analysis from January of last year to January of this year. And the ROI is massive, just massive. Because if you can increase sales, you will. You Will make more money, like it's a no brainer. The other one that I'm excited to implement is AI Billing time capture.
- [02:51]
B
All right, so that, does that mean you have not done that part yet?
- [02:53]
C
I have not.
- [02:54]
B
Okay, tell me about, what's the plan?
- [02:57]
C
Well, there's software that I've heard about for about a year and a half and a group of lawyers that I meet with. Several of them use it. They have talked highly of it. Its name is Ajax. I'm sure there's others, but I know Ajax from others who've used them. And I did a demo and it's just pretty great. You can put in your billing guidelines, how you want your bills to look, what you want to capture, what it doesn't. And then it screen records and pops up for you suggested time entries. And it integrates with Clio. So it finds the client, it suggests the client. And so if we can capture 20% lost time, which easily happens in my firm, it's 20% revenue.
- [03:41]
B
Yeah. That's massive.
- [03:42]
C
So small tools, I think, can make huge impacts.
- [03:47]
B
Does it do something like. Let's say that I'm just gonna make up a scenario. Let's say you're a law firm, you're a lawyer, you're working on an answer to the divorce proceed, the lawsuit. What do you, do you call it petition or complaint? What do you call it?
- [04:00]
C
It's a petition to start.
- [04:01]
B
So we call it petition in Missouri as well. So you're, listen, you're filing, you're drafting an answer. Does it read the computer the. Like the. And, and say like, okay, this is what this person was doing, this is how long it took. And then automatically, automatically add that to the bill. Does it do anything like that?
- [04:16]
C
Sort of. It reads what you're doing, matches it to the client, and pulls up a suggested time entry with the time that you spent based on its time tracker. And you can adjust the time and you can adjust the entry and then you click a button and it pushes to Clio.
- [04:30]
B
That's incredible.
- [04:30]
C
I don't know why I haven't done this yet. Honestly.
- [04:33]
B
That is really, really incredible.
- [04:35]
C
I know. And it's using AI so you can tell it do this different. I don't like the way you wrote this. Use different language.
- [04:42]
B
Yeah. All right. You, you said something at the beginning that really caught my attention. You said you're worried about breaking your people.
- [04:50]
C
Yeah.
- [04:51]
B
What do you mean? I'm curious what you mean by that.
- [04:55]
C
So our team is probably 50 people now, and everybody has their own capacity for change. And one of our biggest jobs as a leader is change management. And I have historically not been great at understanding how much time, attention, reminders, instructions, directions people need in order to feel comfortable. And I've had people quit before who were like, you change things too much too fast. I don't want to do that. I want to be sensitive to their needs. I also want adoption. I'm not going to get adoption or buy in unless I intentional enough not to push too much too fast.
- [05:42]
B
Okay, so with the adoption and then maybe some things to avoid. What are some things? Some tips you have for lawyers when it comes to AI adoption and then some things they should avoid.
- [05:52]
C
I think it depends on what you're doing. So we've gone through several transformations. The first was our intake team got completely revamped with AI intake. And that's a small team, you know, compared to the 50, that's a group of five people. But I needed to meet with them every day, every day to get feedback, to make tweaks, to reassure them that their job wasn't going anywhere and their job hasn't gone anywhere and their job has gotten easier and better. And I did need higher quality people, which I think we talked about before. And I think that that's going to continue. Like the people who are not interested in doing the higher value work. You're not going to have a use for them because I can do that job.
- [06:35]
B
Okay, let me. I'm not going to push back. I just, I am, I am. Chad Burton and I were just talking and we were talking about how the firm, the people that are at most risk are probably the non lawyers, like the legal assistants and all that, which is a little bit contradictory to what you just said.
- [06:52]
C
Sure.
- [06:52]
B
What are your thoughts? I mean, do you agree with that or I wonder what you think.
- [06:56]
C
Well, yes, I agree with it. But also, let's just take intake for an example. I still need intake people. I just need better salespeople.
- [07:06]
B
Yeah.
- [07:07]
C
I need people with better judgment. They're still valuable. So I bet the lowest level lawyers who re who are not exceptional, I bet they get replaced.
- [07:18]
B
Yeah.
- [07:18]
C
And I bet the low level paralegals gone. But those high level paralegals that really invest in the client relationship, that take their skills to the next level, that use AI to make themselves better, I don't think they're going anywhere.
- [07:34]
B
So in some of our previous conversations you had, you talked about a little bit about the struggle with hiring specifically lawyers. And I wonder if that's still an issue.
- [07:42]
C
It has gotten A lot easier. But that has been a year's investment. So we have to really start thinking about how we were marketing to lawyers. And we have a legal clinic that starts marketing to law students. We really try to make our lawyers absolute rock stars and brag about them and put them online and show them visibly. Like, I think it's like the whole thing. If you want to attract great lawyers, you have to level up your own lawyering and then make it a place they want to work. So currently we are attracting lawyers. It's just great.
- [08:24]
B
Brag about the legal clinic. That's really interesting. I don't think I knew about the legal clinic. That's really cool. Talk about that.
- [08:29]
C
It is cool. I stole it from another lawyer with. I mean, cooperatively. Oh, sure, you know, But Brian King, I don't know if you know him. He. He has a firm with 60 lawyers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and they have a model where they expand into rural areas. And they're kind of like the dollar store of law firms a little bit interesting. I don't think I came up with that somebody. So they, they're like Main street lawyers in. In small towns. It's very cool, Very cool concept, but getting lawyers, impossible. So they started a intern program and they recruit heavily for law students who might be from these small town areas so that they can raise up their lawyer. So our version's a little different. Here in Arizona, you're allowed to have law students become Rule 39 certified even if they're working for private companies. So usually that's only for government or nonprofit, but we can do it. So I can get Rule 39 certified law students. And then we have a legal clinic where we offer lower cost services to the public under the supervision of a legal clinic director. And the goal is really to get lawyers who become great lawyers for the firm.
- [09:43]
B
Any affiliations with local law schools?
- [09:46]
C
No, but there's only two law schools here in Arizona, U of A and asu. And ASU does not have a legal clinic for family law. So in Phoenix, there is no student legal clinic for family law. So we definitely have a real advantage by creating that program for those students at ASU who want to practice family law and want to be local.
- [10:10]
B
Is there any special certification that the firm needs to do this?
- [10:13]
C
No, the student and their supervisor have to fill out affidavits and forms.
- [10:20]
B
Okay, that solves. Because I know that this will probably work in other states. I don't, I don't know if it would work in Missouri. Only because I Think it does have to be through one of the law schools. I might be completely wrong about that. This is something I'm going to look into after this, because this is an interesting idea. Who funds it? Is it the law firm or is it. Is it set up as like a 501C, whatever? C3?
- [10:41]
C
Oh, no, it's the law firm. So these are just. These are just hired law students who are allowed to work directly with clients. Everything they do is still supervised. So even if we didn't have the Rule 39 certification and we have had the legal clinic at times where we don't have Rule 39 certified law students, it doesn't matter. You can still offer their services to the public. You can give them an opportunity to engage with the public. You just have to spend money on the supervision. So that's what I've found is like, I really. If you want to grow, you have to invest in management supervision.
- [11:14]
B
You know, this makes me think of, like a marketing idea that you could do with like. Like a PI firm where you've got law students that want to work. You can call it a clinic. And you. They want to work in the PI space. And you say, all right, we'll bring you down. We'll pay you, and then you can lower it. You actually charge a lower percentage contingency for. For higher risk cases.
- [11:34]
C
Right.
- [11:34]
B
Listen, we're going to take on your case, but just know you're going to be working directly with a law student under our supervision. I think that that could. I actually think that really work.
- [11:44]
C
Yeah.
- [11:45]
B
And you're developing.
- [11:46]
C
Right.
- [11:46]
B
The talent.
- [11:47]
C
Yeah.
- [11:48]
B
Hopefully they will come and work for you.
- [11:49]
C
Right. And it's much cheaper to figure out if a law student is going to be a great fit than it is to hire a lawyer.
- [11:57]
B
Yeah. And they're working on the most difficult cases, too. So they're not working on the cookie cutter ones that are easy. They're working on the tougher ones that are hard to prove. Interesting. I really like this. This is fantastic. I really. Because I know Adam Ross and he's got his down in Orlando. I think it's Orlando. It's either Orlando or Miami. He's down in Florida. And his is more of like a structured. Seems like a structured intern program. I like yours. And Adam, kill me. You can shoot me a message if I'm wrong about this. Shoot me a text and tell me if I'm wrong. Cause his is more like educational based. It seems like yours is more clinic based, which is, I think, really cool.
- [12:35]
C
I think it's really cool. I think it's cool to offer to the public. I'll tell you the downside is it's difficult to brand yourself as experts and high level and the most professional and, and also the law firm that's accessible to everyone. So that's the, that's the branding struggle.
- [12:55]
B
Talk more, more about that. Why is it such a struggle?
- [12:58]
C
Well, your best cases are the highest value cases. I don't care what area of law you're in, what city you're in. That's the bottom line. The bigger the case, the more valuable. So you want to attract those types of cases. You're not attracting those types of cases by touting your legal clinic.
- [13:22]
B
Then why wouldn't you just create like
- [13:24]
C
a separate entity for it that has been proposed. I mean, and it might be the way to go. Other marketing companies have said have a separate brand. We just haven't done it yet. I almost think about each lawyer though as their own separate brand. So I don't know. I don't know if you can be all things to all people. But we're trying.
- [13:46]
B
Yeah. And I don't necessarily think that it's true. I think the public perception might be different than what you think it is. Because if I think of, and I'm a lawyer, I think of like, okay, if they're doing well enough where they can, they could actually fund this separate clinic. That is, that means that they're doing really well. I mean they're, they're doing really, really good things. And I think you can make it part of your marketing that you can even say a portion of each one of each case is going to fund this clinic where like the branding, it does fit in it. Like if you're like, think about this like you are, if you have the money, you're usually the ones that are able to donate to charities and all that kind of stuff. But poor people generally are not, you know, donating to charities. Law firms like you are, you're, you're creating this special service for people that have, you know, don't have the needs to pay for, for an attorney. So I actually think that might work out really well with the branding.
- [14:39]
C
I like that a lot. I do think there's nuance and messaging matters. So it's worth thinking about.
- [14:45]
B
Yeah. All right. Since last time we talked, we talked a little bit about the, the AI conversion with like the phone service and all that kind of stuff. You probably have more data now since we talked less. So what's going on with that?
- [14:58]
C
So I Use Lexidesk AI, which I stumbled upon and found in September and was like, yeah, let's turn it on. Not a lot of thought. I was like, this is bomb. And then I went to Clio Con at the end of October and, and their announcements convinced me that I needed to get all of my stuff into Clio and work. I was fragmented. Like, get, get my documents in, get all the communications in, go here. Because they're building in AI. And so if we want AI to start doing work on behalf of our cases, all of the context for those cases must be in the same place. Okay, so I kind of broke my system.
- [15:41]
B
Sure.
- [15:41]
C
And said we have to get everything into Clio, that includes Clio grow. And that means my data for my intake got broken there. So just this last weekend, a friend of mine was like, you know, we're looking at using Lexi Desk, they have a big firm, they're like, listen, if, if our intake performance goes down by 1%, we're gonna lose $50,000 a month. So tell me that this works. Show me that this works.
- [16:06]
B
And I'm like, whoa.
- [16:08]
C
Okay, so Claude and I, I'm a big fan of Claude. Have you moved to Claude yet?
- [16:14]
B
I have. I've been using Claude way more than what I used to.
- [16:17]
C
Right.
- [16:17]
B
Yeah.
- [16:18]
C
Okay, so Claude plus that legal plugin, we should talk about that too. But I was working with Claude to say, like, how do we figure out this roi? So I exported all the data from Zoom Phone systems from Clio Manage, which has all of our new client data from the contact form versus the chat, and was able to get a beautiful report showing what, what the impact is. The first of all, our missed call rate went from 23% to 1%.
- [16:50]
B
Wow.
- [16:51]
C
Yeah. So immediately we're capturing more leads because nobody hangs up. Nobody hangs up. Everybody who calls gets their information captured. So that's a huge, huge factor. The other huge factor is that the number of self scheduled appointments has gone through the roof because the system does follow up and tells you to book an appointment and pitches specific lawyers. So hey, based on your case, based on your case, this is going to be the best lawyer for you. And here's why. Here's a link to book, then if they don't, it just keeps following up. So our self scheduled appointments have gone from 30 on average, because we offered that before, to 90. And so the number of clients that I am getting has doubled. Doubled. It is now 69 last month and it was 24 last January. So like that's, that's the amount and then not all of that is Lexi Desk. It's also hiring, it's also marketing. But Lexi Desk is without a doubt, or some type of voice sales system. You have to do it. If you're, if you're not doing it right now, you are leaving money on the table.
- [18:00]
B
This seems to me like the, if you go back 10 years ago, maybe a little bit longer than that, 12 years ago, the chat on the website, this seems like the current version of that.
- [18:10]
C
Yeah. Like you have to do it.
- [18:12]
B
Yeah. Interesting. And I'm guessing the price wise, is it cheap, is expensive? Like how would you. The reason why I'm asking this question because to me it doesn't, it doesn't matter if it's expensive because you doubled. But there's gonna be, people say, well, if it's super expensive, I don't want to do it.
- [18:29]
C
Right.
- [18:29]
B
I am wondering, like, where does it fall? Like on price range. Is it super expensive? Is it cheap?
- [18:33]
C
They're trying to figure that out.
- [18:35]
B
Yeah.
- [18:36]
C
Because the real question is not if it's worth it. It is undeniably worth it. They could charge a lot more, but is it then cheaper to build?
- [18:46]
B
Oh, okay. So this is, this goes back to the text I got right. Where like I don't. We talked a little bit about this before and I don't want to talk too much about it because we've talked about in the past and I talked about Chad too about like legal tech, how they're in trouble. Yeah, but how much of this are you going and trying to build yourself?
- [19:04]
C
Right. So the value is not. You can go turn on voice AI through call rail or zoom.
- [19:15]
B
Yeah.
- [19:16]
C
The value is in all of the add ons, the text follow ups, the integrations with your practice management software, the plugging it into your intake workflow. So then you, you have to look at am I willing to hire a developer? Do I want to maintain that developer for ongoing changes? Do I want to build out all the integrations myself? So it's, it's kind of a difficult. I think it's too early to determine whether or not people will decide and at what price point people will decide. It's cheaper for me to, to build it at this point. It is inexpensive. Like most law firms are paying about a thousand dollars a month and you're making a lot of money.
- [19:59]
B
How are you dealing with the waves of changes in AI right now?
- [20:02]
C
I don't know that I'm doing that. Well, I think we are. So we signed up for ChatGPT teams maybe a year ago, and I think I'm going to get rid of it because Gemini is built into our Google workspace.
- [20:19]
B
There's no need for it.
- [20:20]
C
And a year ago, I don't think Gemini was where ChatGPT teams was, but now it is. So I think I need to get rid of ChatGPT teams.
- [20:30]
B
I think Gemini might be ahead of ChatGPT at this point.
- [20:33]
C
ChatGPT.
- [20:35]
B
I was. This may be TMI for people listening, but I was in the shower just this morning thinking, is chatgpt. Are they on their. They're not gonna be on their way out, but, like, they're sliding. It seems very. Unless you've had massive announcements. The big last big announcements have been from Gemini and from Claude or not Claude. Anthropic and not necessarily from, like, Perplexity and chatgpt have both seem to slit a little bit. And the last big update from ChatGPT was kind of a flop. So it makes me kind of wonder about that.
- [21:11]
C
Yeah, I'm using it a lot less and, you know, everybody's starting to sound like ChatGPT, which is. That can't happen. So you have to stop using it for that reason alone.
- [21:21]
B
Absolutely. Do you ever use Perplexity?
- [21:23]
C
No, I have not.
- [21:24]
B
So I've got the paid version, like the Max. It's. I think it's Max Pro or whatever they call it. I think it's funny. It's like Perplexity Pro. Perplexity Max Pro. You know, it's kind of like iPhones, how they do things. I think people sleep on Perplexity a little too much. It is. It does. It's got these advanced capabilities where it goes. It goes like, give a. Give me a. Give me a prompt that you might put into to Claude. Like, something that is like anything. Like, what would you do?
- [21:52]
C
Well, it depends on the problem I'm working on.
- [21:53]
B
But, like, let's say you would go, you want to find a good restaurant. Oh, what would you put in there?
- [21:58]
C
I am looking for a restaurant. I live in this area. This is the type of food I like. Find me the best.
- [22:03]
B
Okay. And what, like, what kind of result would Claude give you?
- [22:06]
C
List of options.
- [22:07]
B
Okay, Perplexity. What's kind of cool about that? I was hoping you were gonna say that. Yeah, because I'm not used Claude for that. But Perplexity will go like. And actually give you a list of options, but it'll go, like a step further. Like, here are pictures of food items. Here's. Here's specific reviews from, like. It goes a step further. In what it does. And that's what's. It's kind of interesting to me. I think the problem is that maybe Perplexity uses the other models and that's why counter people sleep on it. I think that that's. And I may be wrong about the answer to that question. But. But I do. I do think Claude's in the lead at this point.
- [22:38]
C
So Claude has blown my mind. So. And I've been comparing it to Clio Work. So Clio Work is an AI legal research tool, and I really like it.
- [22:51]
B
That's one where they bought. That was a big acquisition last year.
- [22:54]
C
They bought Fast Case and. Which had already merged with Velex. And so you've got a closed database of actual legal documents and treatises, which we need. So I had to do an oral argument and I got the case law and the output from Clio Work and then I bought Claude and turned on their Legal AI plugin, which, like, crashed the stock market. You know, like all of these, all of these values of legal tech went way down when Claude brought out this legal plugin. So it was better than Clio work.
- [23:31]
B
Really?
- [23:32]
C
Yes, way better. Way better. Now, it doesn't have the database, but it. It did tell me I can verify these cases. I can't verify these cases. You need to look elsewhere for these cases. Its reasoning was better. It. It's an easier interface. It's better to interact with. The output is really good.
- [23:54]
B
All right, so we will go and we will have every case checked manually. Just because we're so paranoid.
- [24:03]
C
And you should.
- [24:04]
B
Is Claude good enough to just upload the pleading and have it double check the pleading, the actual, the source, the citations?
- [24:12]
C
No, because it doesn't have a database.
- [24:14]
B
Okay.
- [24:14]
C
So it is looking for, you know, Justia and other, like, public sources to say, can I verify this exists? But it flagged for me. I can't verify these cases. And they were unpublished memorandum decisions, so they were real decisions. But it can't replace Westlaw or Nexus Lexis. But I think if I just get the information and then move, that's the better way to go.
- [24:42]
B
I have a dumb question. Maybe. Why can't they just replicate the database? It doesn't seem like it'd be that hard to replicate the database.
- [24:49]
C
There's all these lawsuits about that. And somehow companies like, I mean, Fastcase just won one where somebody had used their model, they had a license, and they used their model to train using that data. And it was. It was copyright infringement.
- [25:04]
B
Yeah.
- [25:04]
C
Because they had purchased the materials.
- [25:08]
B
So. And this is something I just don't know about how this works. Do these companies like Westlaw, Lexus and Fastcase, they go to the states and buy the cases from them?
- [25:17]
C
I don't know. I don't know why they have a monopoly on the law that is public. I don't know.
- [25:23]
B
Yeah. Cause that doesn't make any sense to me. Like, it's. These are published opinions. A lot of times you can just get them online. Like you can go and pull them from the actual. I mean, the, the online court databases. You can. A lot, like State of Missouri, a lot of the Supreme Court decisions are published like via PDF. So like, why couldn't they just pull from that? That doesn't make any sense to me.
- [25:42]
C
I think it's only a matter of time. Right. And probably like a year.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah. Because like there, there's gotta be a way. I'm sure they're already probably trying to do this. Maybe going backwards. The databases are harder, harder to get, but going forward, they probably have AIs just scraping things and just putting it into a database right now.
- [26:00]
C
Right. And the Claude plugin was real good. Was it, you know, can I count on it the same way as the legal research tools? No, but it was really good.
- [26:11]
B
Yeah. The. We've already seen this with these, these legal tech companies. The, the, the research ones, like Westlawn, Lexus, they will buy a product and then kill it. They will. They did that with. I can't. What was that? Case text. They did it with case text. They had that awesome AI that helped you. It was like one of the early ones and then they bought it and killed it. They will. They'll eat their own.
- [26:33]
C
They're the worst.
- [26:34]
B
They really are. They. They're. Listen, we. We have to be very careful because they might come after us. They might try.
- [26:39]
C
Like, this is just our opinion.
- [26:42]
B
All right, so what are you working on right now that you're like really excited about? Non AI related. I'll push you outside of AI world. Like, what's that you're working on? Whether it's the firm or modern law or whatever.
- [26:52]
C
Yeah. So. Well, we started buying buildings and remodeling them and opening locations. And that's happened.
- [27:01]
B
Is that related to the law firm at all?
- [27:03]
C
Well, they're modern law buildings, so.
- [27:07]
B
Okay, how does this fit into your strategy? This is very interesting.
- [27:09]
C
Well, locations matter. Even though we are mostly remote. Locations matter. I'm gonna pay rent anyway. The tax code is written in a way that buying is almost free.
- [27:25]
B
Sure.
- [27:26]
C
So, you know, if you put 10 or 20% down, you get enough deduction from bonus depreciation to wipe out that payment. You're either gonna pay the money down on a building or to the irs.
- [27:41]
B
Yeah.
- [27:42]
C
So I've been doing that every year for the last three years and it seems to be working.
- [27:48]
B
All right, so give me advice on this. I'm very interested and I would love to be able to. I hope. No, I'm sure my landlord doesn't listen to this, but I would love to buy the building that we are in for the Columbia office. I don't know if it'll ever come available. It's owned by a couple. Couple doctors and a couple lawyers. But I'd love to buy it. And if not, I mean, it's. I think it's not going to go on the market. It's a nicer building, all that kind of stuff. So are you. Give me some advice. Are you looking for nicer buildings? Are you looking for buildings that aren't as nice and you fix them up? Like what is. Like what's the strategy here?
- [28:19]
C
We are mostly in office parks and condos. So office condos. And have to remodel every one of them. But we have this contracting firm that we're working with and they know, you know, we're using all the same materials. We're just rinse and repeating nice.
- [28:33]
B
The remodel like McDonald's or chicken a little bit.
- [28:37]
C
And we've done three in the last year. And I have a. I have one in Scottsdale, but it's too small, so we might buy a different one. And we're looking at that now. So the location game is an interesting one. You have to be able. Another thing that I have done is a lot of data analysis on where. Which counties have the most money and the fewest lawyers.
- [29:03]
B
Okay.
- [29:04]
C
Because that's a real thing here in Arizona. I don't know if that's a thing where you're.
- [29:07]
B
It's in Missouri. Yeah, it's a. It's a. I think it's. It's probably a problem in every state.
- [29:11]
C
It's probably a problem everywhere. And that's an opportunity, especially post Covid when most things are done online. So we're expanding geographically based on that data. And part of the analysis has to be, do we get a building or not? Do we get a physical location or not?
- [29:30]
B
How do you make that decision?
- [29:32]
C
How many clients are we getting from that area? And do I have lawyers who live there? If I don't have lawyers who live there, it doesn't really make sense to get like for instance, Yuma. Really? We have a lot of work in Yuma. We don't have a lawyer in Yuma. I haven't found a lawyer in Yuma. We have a lot of calls from Yuma. We have a Google my business and a virtual space. So I think I've proven Yuma as a concept and if the right like factors came together, I would buy a building there.
- [30:02]
B
Okay, so here's an interesting problem. How far is Yuma from like the biggest city center? Like what's the biggest city it's closest to?
- [30:09]
C
It's, it's right, it's between here and San Diego. So I think it's okay. Three hours.
- [30:17]
B
Okay. So it's a ways away.
- [30:19]
C
Three hours to San Diego and maybe two hours from Tucson.
- [30:21]
B
Okay, so that's okay. Here's what's interesting about that and I'm glad that it's where it is because Missouri has got a problem. No, it's not a problem. But where, where you'll see the areas around the city centers. So that's Kansas City, that's Columbia, that's St. Louis and that's Springfield. Those areas, those counties around there, they want to hire the big city lawyer. Okay. And even in Columbia want to hire the St. Louis lawyer. Right. So it's, it's, that's an issue. So for marketing, like we want to make sure we're marketing the right way to attract those people. But if you go up north, there's no major cities in northern Missouri at all. Like and so they're hiring the local lawyers. So I wonder if you've done any research on how far out you have to go to have to be able to put an office before they'll start to hire you.
- [31:06]
C
Well, I think it's a cheap and I think you should set up as many locations on Google my business using co working spaces as you possibly can even is.
- [31:19]
B
Are you worried at all with like the Google juice being stolen because you got multiple law firms in one office? It used to be a problem. I don't know if it's an issue anymore.
- [31:27]
C
I don't want to be in a co working space with another family law attorney.
- [31:32]
B
Gotcha. Okay.
- [31:33]
C
But that hasn't been a problem so far because most people are not doing this. Most people are not expanding everywhere they possibly can.
- [31:39]
B
Right.
- [31:39]
C
And setting up as many Google my businesses they possibly can. But each one of those is free clients. Every month Google is going to send you clients.
- [31:47]
B
Right.
- [31:48]
C
Based on your Google my business. So you should probably have as many as you possibly can.
- [31:51]
B
Sure.
- [31:52]
C
And then you have to manage that and you have to manage reviews. But once you're getting a certain number of clients, they'll tell you whether or not they're willing to hire you. You know, so they're going to call you. Let's say. Let's say I've got to Google my business up in Flagstaff, which is, you know, Coconino county and two hours north, and they have lawyers up there. So are they willing to hire lawyers that don't live there? The only way to find out is take the consultation, see if they want to pay for it. See if they want to hire.
- [32:14]
B
Well, think about Yuma. It's like. It's. If you compare it to like the Missouri called. The Missouri problem. You got. Yuma's not. You said you don't need anybody in Yuma, Is that right?
- [32:23]
C
I think I do.
- [32:24]
B
You think you do need.
- [32:25]
C
Before I. Before I buy a building?
- [32:27]
B
Yeah. Well, are you getting clients from Yuma?
- [32:29]
C
Yes.
- [32:30]
B
Okay. I wonder why they're. They're so far away from any city center. Makes me wonder why they're calling you all.
- [32:37]
C
They don't have lawyers there. There's no lawyers.
- [32:40]
B
Is there a database to track?
- [32:42]
C
Yes.
- [32:42]
B
How do you know? I mean, how. Like. So, like, like you want to do this? Yeah, I do. I definitely do.
- [32:48]
C
So the ABA put out a legal desert report, I think 20, 21 maybe.
- [32:56]
B
Interesting.
- [32:56]
C
Yeah. The data's not going to be that old. It gives you lawyer per county.
- [33:01]
B
Okay.
- [33:02]
C
And then you can do the cross research and figure out population and income.
- [33:08]
B
AI, I can do this a lot easier.
- [33:09]
C
Exactly.
- [33:10]
B
Research.
- [33:10]
C
Yeah, exactly. And you can figure out who's not served.
- [33:14]
B
And then you can run. You could serve a series of like, tailored Google Ads.
- [33:18]
C
Right, Right.
- [33:19]
B
Specifically, I mean, you could. You do some Facebook stuff too, but it's. I'm not having as much luck with Facebook as some people are, but that's an interesting idea. And I do. I noticed that some PI firms are doing this. But what about LSAs? I mean, LSAs will work in those areas, too.
- [33:35]
C
Yeah, they will. And they're going to be a lot more effective than competing for LSAs in the. In the main areas.
- [33:42]
B
You know, I don't know the answer to this. Does. Do LSAs, do you get priority if you have an office in that area?
- [33:48]
C
I don't know.
- [33:49]
B
I bet you do, because I know that there are. We'll. We'll run ads in certain areas, and we don't have an office there, but it seems like it's like us just rotating with other St. Louis firms, but I bet if we had a local office there, we would take precedent. This is. This is. This is smart. Really? Really? That's really cool. Any. No nos you should like. Any things we should know. I should know, but that I shouldn't be doing with it.
- [34:14]
C
I think each one needs attention. So you need to have a strategy for maintaining your Google my businesses. How do you make sure you're getting reviews? Have to do that. And it's not easy, you know, and if you have 10 Google My Businesses, which I think we do, making sure that each one of those is getting enough reviews and posts and, you know, products and.
- [34:39]
B
Yeah. You have like, at least, like I say, probably 30 thing. That's like the, like the bare minimum. Probably 10 or something like that. But you could have something, but you
- [34:46]
C
have to get them on an ongoing basis. Like every month. You need to be getting some if you want, you know, to be the best and if you want Google, if you don't want to fall behind others.
- [34:57]
B
Right. I have noticed. I. Because we keep track of other law firms, I have noticed that it seems to be like all firms have not put as much effort into the reviews as much as they used to.
- [35:08]
C
I agree.
- [35:08]
B
It's like I've all kind of stagnated.
- [35:10]
C
I agree. And I think it's because it's hard. It's really hard.
- [35:14]
B
People have stopped giving reviews as much.
- [35:16]
C
Yeah. Because they're asked too often, too much from everyone. And there's MPS fatigue. That's real.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah. And we. We're guilty of that. It's one of those things where we do. We do all that and.
- [35:28]
C
Yeah. Because you need the data.
- [35:30]
B
We need the data. We got to know. Right. I don't know if something's going off the client.
- [35:33]
C
Right.
- [35:34]
B
And. And so we can address the issue.
- [35:35]
C
Yeah. It's. This is taking some creativity. So I'm. I'm thinking about, like, how do I redo my system? How do I. And I think I got to involve gifting. And if AI could help me do gifting, that's a lot more personal and strategic and automated, then I know I can get more reviews.
- [35:53]
B
Sure. The gifting, have you tried that yet?
- [35:55]
C
Yeah. And it works.
- [35:57]
B
Okay, tell me more. Like, what's. What's something?
- [35:59]
C
Like if you ask a client to give you a review, it's a good idea to send them a gift.
- [36:05]
B
Yeah.
- [36:05]
C
Not like tit for tat.
- [36:07]
B
Sure.
- [36:07]
C
But sort of after the fact.
- [36:10]
B
You're not saying I'LL give you this
- [36:11]
C
gift before they might actually write it because you ask. And then they may not get around to writing it. And then they get a gift, say, I loved working with you so much.
- [36:19]
B
Interesting.
- [36:20]
C
And then when you remind them that they were going to give you a review, they're a lot more likely to do.
- [36:23]
B
Are these personalized gifts?
- [36:25]
C
I think they should be.
- [36:26]
B
Okay. How do you make them like you're using AI to make them personal?
- [36:28]
C
No, I'm just trying. That's just something I'm working on. I haven't, I haven't figured it out.
- [36:33]
B
I bet. Well, I guess the problem would be, well, you know, you could do this because you can get with your, have you ever used Atlas, the browser atlas? Okay. You can log into all your stuff and then you can even give it access to your log logged in websites. You could give it access to that and say, go and find these people and go research them. I bet.
- [36:52]
C
Yeah. Well, I, I, I mean one of the best parts about using Clio is all the integrations.
- [36:57]
B
Yeah.
- [36:58]
C
They have gifting companies that integrate and some of those gifting companies are saying we're now using AI and so if they can read what's going on with my client and maybe suggest for me some good gifts so that I can just press a button now I think I can win the review game.
- [37:13]
B
That major gifting company went out of business. I can't remember the name of it. Send Send or I can't remember what it's called. But what are like, what are the good gifting companies now? There's like Givenly, I think is one of them.
- [37:22]
C
You know, I was just, I was just researching last night because this has just kind of been on my mind recently. But there are a few, I don't know what their names are, but like
- [37:29]
B
do they all integrate? I just wonder like do they actually integrate with other things? That's the other problem because that was the one that I wish I could remember the name of it because. Integrated with infusionsoft back in the day. That's like early on stuff where like you would buy things and then send out cards. Send out cards. That's what it was. They had gifts and stuff.
- [37:44]
C
Old school. Infusionsoft user as well.
- [37:46]
B
Yeah. But it was a, it was really, it was awesome.
- [37:49]
C
Yeah.
- [37:49]
B
It was sending brownies. It would send like yes, name the gift.
- [37:52]
C
Right.
- [37:53]
B
It would send it. Although it wasn't super customized. It wasn't, you couldn't be like, sally Jo likes, you know, sewing, so send her a sewing Kit. You couldn't do anything like that. But you could, you could pick your select things and it would send those things. Surely there's other products that do this. Yeah, we send out. We still send cards through handwritten. What. And those are automated. So like, they're like, you know, thank you cards or whatever.
- [38:16]
C
Nice.
- [38:17]
B
Have you, have you seen those? They're like, they're written with a computer.
- [38:21]
C
It's an actual pen. Yeah.
- [38:22]
B
It's kind of cool.
- [38:23]
C
Oh, that is cool.
- [38:24]
B
Yeah, it looks. It looks real. Yeah, it's real. Ish.
- [38:26]
C
I like that.
- [38:27]
B
But I got, I get one every year because we have. I get our firm stuff. So, like, I get like, I get a text message for my birthday. Got a, you know, got a card in the mail, you know.
- [38:36]
C
Did you like it? Were you like, this is good?
- [38:38]
B
I was like, oh, this is cool. Yeah.
- [38:39]
C
Nice.
- [38:40]
B
That was kind of fun. Yeah, that felt good.
- [38:41]
C
Yeah, I like that.
- [38:42]
B
Yeah. So what else are you working on? I'm very excited about, like, because you seem like you have a lot of things going on. You and I are very similar in that we're. We run multiple companies, and so it's. It can be kind of difficult at times. So how do you, how do you manage your time?
- [38:58]
C
Well, currently we're in a busy season, you know, where everybody's kind of got a level up. I need more managers, I need more oversight. Like, the tech changes have sort of necessitated looking at the whole system and looking at the structure. And so I kind of, I think. And I am a little bit in the weeds on every department.
- [39:26]
B
Okay.
- [39:26]
C
Because in my firm, I may have screwed this up. I don't know how you, you know, I don't know if there's a better way to develop leaders within your firm. I have been able to develop managers who can maintain, who can follow the playbook.
- [39:42]
B
Sure.
- [39:42]
C
But I have not been able to develop people who can go into a department and blow it up and make it better.
- [39:50]
B
Interesting.
- [39:51]
C
Yeah.
- [39:52]
B
How often do they have to come back to you to get, to get their questions answered?
- [39:57]
C
Well, it depends on if we're maintaining a system or building a system. And if we're building a system, I have to be involved.
- [40:05]
B
Yeah.
- [40:06]
C
And I wish that that wasn't the case, but I don't know a way around it.
- [40:11]
B
Okay, interesting. What if, like, what if you're maintaining
- [40:14]
C
the system, then they can do it.
- [40:15]
B
And what does that mean? Tell me. Explain what it means between building and maintaining the system.
- [40:21]
C
So if we're changing softwares, we're blowing up the system and building a new one, and we have to decide the workflow, and it doesn't necessarily make sense to take the old workflow and just continue it. It makes sense to take a look at the old workflow and challenge it and say, can this be done better? That's not something that I've been able to find anybody else's willing to do.
- [40:45]
B
It is hard to find people that are, especially the tech space, that know your practice area and then can actually go and implement the tech. That's really difficult.
- [40:54]
C
So developers. Absolutely. Like, you can't. They can't. They don't have any context.
- [40:59]
B
Right? Yeah.
- [41:00]
C
But even, like, you know, if I'm looking at my. We're, you know, looking at redoing operations and I've specifically been spending a lot of time with my paralegals and we did a paralegal retreat and I really, really think that their mindset has to change because their jobs are changing. And getting that group within my firm to understand and see it that way and want to adapt and implement things new ways and has been very hard.
- [41:33]
B
What's their pushback that they give?
- [41:36]
C
I just don't think they want to. Like, they don't, you know, they're process people and routine people and they don't want to, they don't want to use the new cool templates that we built or the, you know, they don't want to systematize and make things necessarily more efficient or easier. And, you know, we have new billing guidelines. And I'm like, you cannot bill for clerical things. That's always been the case.
- [42:02]
B
Sure.
- [42:02]
C
But people still do. And you, you can't. You're not supposed to do that.
- [42:08]
B
It's funny, I didn't know this. I like. Because I don't bill. But you like, there are certain things that have to be done on a case, like clerical wise.
- [42:15]
C
Right.
- [42:15]
B
But you can't bill for that.
- [42:17]
C
Correct.
- [42:18]
B
That seems kind of, I guess you just bake that into the, the, the, the hourly rate, I guess. Is that how you.
- [42:24]
C
Yeah, you bake it into the hourly rate or you build that, automate that task, which is kind of what I'm trying to do and. Or you delegate it down to somebody with less skills. Because if we're charging paralegals out between 180 to $220, no client should have to pay that hourly rate for sending a order, a court order to the other side or to the client.
- [42:53]
B
It's true.
- [42:54]
C
So you could push that down to an hourly employee who's not billing who or. Or is billing at, like, a hundred dollars an hour, but you shouldn't bill your clients out at that higher amount. And that is also, like, one of the things that really makes people dissatisfied with legal services and can lead to bad reviews. And all of this is related. Like, if we want our clients to love us and have a great client experience and lead to the best reviews, these are all things we have to keep in mind.
- [43:21]
B
What are your views on billable hours versus, like, flat rate?
- [43:24]
C
I would love to be flat rate.
- [43:27]
B
Yeah.
- [43:27]
C
And we are experimenting with it, but that's one of the things that almost broke my people. They're like, what do you want to do? What?
- [43:33]
B
Really? Yeah. They don't. They don't want to go flat rate. Why?
- [43:37]
C
Because they feel like their time won't be valued or they'll be taken advantage of, which is crazy because they're making the same amount of money. Right. I would be the person. But they. They feel very t to, you know, this is how much I build today or whatnot. And I also think we've gotten to a place. So this happened in my firm. We got to a place where I hadn't spent a lot of time with the paralegals for years. This was not something I had spent time on and post Covid. I think everybody got really comfortable not meeting clients in person, not talking on the phone, maybe not even liking our clients, maybe failing to bond with our clients.
- [44:18]
B
Yes, yes.
- [44:19]
C
And this whole paralegal retreat and this whole concept that I've been working on that is very difficult currently has been about trying to convince them that, like, as we move forward, the only thing that matters is your client relationship. It is your only differentiator.
- [44:38]
B
So this is a problem in the legal industry. And we, I. I noticed something similar a couple weeks ago, and I, We. It was during our huddle, I noticed it, and there was a couple people that were kind of super negative about a particular client. And I said. And I just kind of piped in. I said, and they're generally very good. And that's why it caught my attention. Something I'm like, well, that's. I don't, like, I don't want this to be a thing. We're not going to make this a thing. So I said, you know, it was an issue with a client who had actually fallen off the wagon recently where, like, he started drinking. He was. He's an alcoholic. He had been sober for, like, 12 years. Okay. And I've had a previous case with him, so. A previous car crash. He came back to us and I said, hey, like, he's going through something right now. He's a human being. He's going through a lot of issues. The. The person you're talking to is actually not the person. He's. He's. He's probably intoxicated when he's talking to you. So let's give him a little bit of grace. And so I said more things, but it was like. And people like, okay. Like, they kind of like brought it back to okay, we're dealing with humans here. Because I do think that happens. But I think part of that problem, I come back to like, blame it on the legal industry a little bit. It's like, we are told how amazing we are as lawyers. You know, we pat each other on the backs, we send each other awards and all these kinds of things, and we think it's about us. And what was funny, whenever I was like, when I went to Mizzou for like, marketing, it was like, it's all about the customer. It's all about. And I was like, so shocked whenever I became a lawyer. Like, oh, like, it's all about you. It's. It's all completely about you. It's a bunch of chest beating. And I like, when we went through like, we. We kind of had this issue, I'd say back 2015, where we, like, I was noticing everything was like an. Everyone was a number. It was like, it wasn't. This wasn't like client based. And so we, we revamped everything. And one of the things we talked about is like, we are not going to be. We're gonna be the, The. The firm that doesn't beat our chest. We're. That's why we don't. You don't see us post a bunch of like, settlements and versus we just don't do that. It's not. We make it about the client. So that, that part, I mean, it frustrates the hell out of me. So I like the fact that you had a retreat on it. How do you get.
- [46:49]
C
I mean, it wasn't successful, but how
- [46:53]
B
then how do you. How do you solve the problem? That's a big problem.
- [46:56]
C
It's a big, big problem. So what I found out when I did this retreat with 15 paralegals is essentially, you know, we went around and had everybody talk about, like, why they do family law and what, what they love about it. And I had seen this done in another firm with lawyers, and it was super powerful. And people were talking about, like, the impact they made on people's lives. And the consensus from the table of 15 paralegals was like, I love that I have flexibility. I love my co workers. This is the best place I've ever worked. It's not toxic. Nobody liked the clients, and that was the thing they were not liking. And I. I left this retreat, you know, because I. I went in thinking, like, we need to talk about how AI is going to change your job and you really gotta level up. And I left thinking, like, seeing, like, I have a culture problem I didn't even know about.
- [47:55]
B
Yeah. I wonder if it's like a hiring problem where, like, you are. You're attracting that type of a person.
- [48:03]
C
Well, that's what happens. What happens is, like, it when you step out, when you're not paying attention and you hand over things to other people, understand they're not doing it the way that you would necessarily want them to do it. And then. So the other thing that happens is people who gravitate towards management want to work with people in the firm. And they're great at that. They're great at training. They're. But when they do the hiring, they're hiring more people like that.
- [48:31]
B
Yeah.
- [48:31]
C
Not people who want to engage in the messy, you know, client work or level up their legal skills. This always happens. Like, we hire people like us. So whoever's in charge of hiring, they're going to hire more people like them. And if that's not the position that needs to be filled. Right. If they're in a different role a little bit, like, eventually you're gonna have a problem.
- [48:52]
B
Okay. So I do wonder. I. I'm curious, like, what the profile looks like whenever you're hiring a person. Because we're looking for. I've mentioned this, I don't know, hundreds of times right at this point on the show. Like, we hire peeps. So they've got passion, they've got energy, they energize other people, they've got edge, they execute. Like, so there's the last piece of just lowercase P. It doesn't mean anything. But the whole idea is, I didn't want to call them peas. I want to call them peeps. Right. So. But we have, like, this profile where it doesn't matter what your position is. Like, this is what we're looking for in the person. So you have a passion for what we do. Like, usually those people come with, like, a story. Like, I had a family member that was injured in a car crash, or I was injured, or my, my husband or my wife. They're like, they have. They usually have, like, a story. And I wonder if, like, you are missing maybe an element like that where, like, you are. You don't. You have, like, the scorecards and the. This is what the job looks like. I wonder if you're missing, like, that, like, that profile.
- [49:47]
C
For sure. You know, it's. You know, I probably need to take a step back, and. Culture's hard, and it's really hard. You. We have a great culture. Everybody loves working here.
- [49:59]
B
Yeah. That's what's wild about this.
- [50:01]
C
Everybody loves working here. We have a great culture. There's no toxicity, but we still miss something. And I don't have this figured out yet.
- [50:09]
B
Maybe, like, it's almost like what you said. Maybe you just hired too many managers and not enough.
- [50:13]
C
I think so.
- [50:14]
B
That's interesting.
- [50:15]
C
I know.
- [50:15]
B
How often have you heard great culture, they hate the clients? Never. Never.
- [50:22]
C
I didn't know what to do with this. I kind of still don't. So I'm now going to every paralegal meeting, and I'm really kind of like, trying to just be really present and learn because I don't have this figured out.
- [50:36]
B
You know, there was this orthodontist is another. This is another infusionsoft story. Actually, no, he wasn't. He wasn't an infusionsoft guy. He may have been, but I don't know. But.
- [50:43]
C
Did you work at infusionsoft?
- [50:44]
B
No, no, but I. I loved it as a product whenever it was good. Not anymore, but it was great at one point, but I was at a Dan Kennedy event. Jim. Jim and I were at a Dan Kennedy event. And there's this orthodontist that. He had this thing where every morning, the. All of his. His entire team would get a. A. It was a review from a past patient. I guess he was an orthodontist, so. And it was, like, talking about how the. The. Their practice had changed the person's life, basically. Like, you know, I really. Your team was amazing. Like, I can now look in the mirror and, like, see. See my smile and not be ashamed. That kind of a thing. Right. And I wonder if something like just little bitty things where you're not. You're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, little bitty tweaks. Like, okay, let's tweak this. Let's just slowly shift the culture, because
- [51:33]
C
these are good people.
- [51:34]
B
Yeah. Especially because you have the culture. Right.
- [51:37]
C
Right.
- [51:37]
B
You don't want to really shake that up.
- [51:39]
C
Right.
- [51:40]
B
Especially if they're doing a good job.
- [51:41]
C
Are Doing a job kinda right? Exactly. Like a little.
- [51:47]
B
Hey. It's weird. Like they're doing the work. I wonder have you. Have you been tracking the NPS to see if like if that has been trending in one direction or not.
- [51:55]
C
Another MPS is good. Although I'm going to change up the way I'm doing it. So for years and years and years we've asked every closed client at the end.
- [52:06]
B
Interesting.
- [52:06]
C
And what's nice about that is you get. They're going to give you more true feedback.
- [52:11]
B
True.
- [52:12]
C
Because they don't have to worry about offending anybody at this point. And also you have consistency. So I'm going to change it up and ask for more frequently. Different question. I'm done asking. Would you refer us to your family and friends? People are just getting asked that too much, right?
- [52:29]
B
Yep.
- [52:30]
C
But different questions at different stages that go out and then if they, if they fill that out I'm going to give them like a 50 invoice credit because I want it. I want the feedback.
- [52:40]
B
Nice.
- [52:40]
C
Yeah.
- [52:41]
B
Do you have. Who asked the question like whenever they call is it a phone call or is it a text?
- [52:46]
C
It was or is under the old system. We're still under the old system. A client advocate which is an intake team member calls and asks. We will change it to being automated and written and explain. You know you responding to this will result in a 50 credit and we would love your honest feedback so that we can improve our products and systems for you.
- [53:09]
B
The person that calls, are they like a paralegal? Are they.
- [53:12]
C
They're an intake team member.
- [53:14]
B
Okay. That's. That's exactly what we do. We actually have. But we actually call throughout the case. We have their schedule throughout and it changes based on the case. The phase of the case where like if they are. Let's say they're. We're just waiting on a trial. The frequency is far less sure like at the beginning of the case when there's a lot more handholding and all that. So. But we've noticed that because that's where we get head off issues. But we ask. We ask. I think it's six questions. We. One of them is how likely are you to refer us to a family or friend. But the another one is like are you ready to give us a Google review at this point? Basically. Basically what is what it is. They've got the. The cares team has the ability to not ask that question. But it doesn't feel right because so it doesn't feel forced if they. But if they're like oh my gosh. Stacy is absolutely amazing. It's like then, then that's the time you say, you know what, Stacy would really love it if you gave a Google review and mentioned her name. That would really brighten her name. So you wait for like the opportunity.
- [54:11]
C
Oh yeah.
- [54:11]
B
But we ask like, how well have we communicated with you? What's the professional, how would you rate the professionalism of the firm? And then like there's like five others that we ask, but those really get it kind of get to the heart of the issue. It allows them to ask the question enough to then like ask follow up questions and then make notes on it. Because you're not going to get that with like an automated text.
- [54:33]
C
No, no. Yeah. We're really going to have to look at how we do this. And everything's experimental.
- [54:39]
B
Yeah. I wonder if part of it is like with family law, it's like everyone's like fighting each other. I wonder if that's part of it for sure.
- [54:47]
C
And it's also part of why my people are burned out on our clients. You know, you were talking about your client who's not the best version of himself, who's not showing up like himself. He's diminished capacity. Every single one of our clients is experiencing that.
- [55:02]
B
Everyone.
- [55:02]
C
Yeah, everyone. And that burns. How are people supposed to have unlimited empathy, unlimited patience?
- [55:11]
B
I mean they can't have unlimited.
- [55:12]
C
So what. How do I, I have to figure out how to support them.
- [55:16]
B
Yep.
- [55:17]
C
I don't have this figured out. So you have suggestions I'm open to.
- [55:20]
B
Well, I do have, I do have another suggestion where it's, I think it's just small. These are small things. Like, so we did a training last year, maybe two years ago now. One of our case managers at the time, she's now in law school. She. But her mom is a, she's a professor at Clemson and her, her whole thing is like on trauma. So which is perfect for what we have like what we do. And she, she actually came and talked about how some of the, like how some of the things people do might re. Traumatize someone. And the reason why I bring this up is it was actually very effective in like showing our people like reminding our people like what our clients are going through sometimes. And it allowed us to notice like change how we're doing some things. Cause I, we were re. Traumatizing our clients over and over and over again with some of the things we were doing like asking questions which we just decided to scrap. We thought we were just getting more information so. And we're trying to keep it fresh in their mind, which is not a good idea. Whenever you're like, someone's gone through massive trauma. So like, but like we're, we put them through what we call like a fact finding call and then an injury impact call where, which like during those, they are usually bawling because we're asking these very detailed questions. We asked about like, are you religious? Okay, what, what church do you go to? Has this affect, have your injuries affect your ability to go to church? Has it affected your religion? Like, that's just one small sec. Subset of what we ask them. And so by the end of it, they're, it's like some of the calls have been like three hours. Like, so we're like, we're.
- [56:53]
C
Who does these?
- [56:54]
B
We, we have attorneys that do them. And so because we want to know for, for us, it's really powerful stuff because we can use this when negotiating to drive the value of the case up, but we're forcing them through all this trauma again. So we, we've, we've pulled back on a lot of that. All this to say, is it maybe doing some, some sort of training like that and more without calling it empathy training.
- [57:21]
C
Right.
- [57:21]
B
You, you call it something else and maybe, maybe that would help.
- [57:26]
C
Will you pass that?
- [57:27]
B
Of course.
- [57:27]
C
Okay, thank you.
- [57:28]
B
She, she. It was fantastic.
- [57:30]
C
We will do it.
- [57:30]
B
And she probably would do the same. Use the same slides as my guests. Just tailor them to your friend.
- [57:34]
C
Right.
- [57:35]
B
She was really good. Really, really good. So this is maybe one of the most interesting problems that I've heard on the show because you don't, you rarely see a situation where you've got like just the, the great culture and then the other stuff not working. It's, it's usually starts with like, bad culture. How has this forced you to like, reassess leadership?
- [57:57]
C
You know, I am reassessing leadership big time. You know, and there's somebody on my leadership team who was recently removed. She's gotten in trouble with the bar and she was with me a long, long, long, long time. And most of the time we find ourselves promoting based on seniority and not really based on what does it, what does it take to be a good leadership team member? You know, judgment standards, maybe people who think differently than you, who have different strengths than you do, who are willing to like and want to put in the time to. So I think I really am rethinking what does it mean to be on a leadership team and who should be my leaders. And also, I don't have anybody right now in that paralegal world who is ready to be on leadership, but they need representation. So how am I going to handle that? You know, it's important that every group in your firm has representation on that leadership team. So developing leaders, I think, is something that I really need to work on.
- [59:05]
B
What is your role in hiring?
- [59:08]
C
It depends on the position and the timing. So I'll tell you, 2024 was like a perfect year. Everything went perfect. We crushed our budget. Nobody left. We hired great people. It was like this perfect year. And so I became pretty hands off. And I don't even think, like, we had lawyers that got hired that I didn't meet. We had lots of paralegals. I never met them. That happened at every level. And I think it was a mistake.
- [59:35]
B
True. Okay, say more.
- [59:37]
C
Well, I think until I figure out, how do I make sure the people who are hiring are seeing things the way I'm seeing them or looking at things. And I haven't given them any criteria because I don't know what it is. So I have to rethink. Like, what are we looking for when hiring? It can't just be. I get along with the managers who are hiring, and we're better at it with lawyers because we've had a lot of bad lawyers and good lawyers. So we. We've got that part down. But, you know, my intake team before Lexidesk was probably not personable enough. Probably more technical than personal. Interesting, because the person who was hiring the manager was very technical, and so she hired people like her. And so that didn't really work. And I needed extroverts. I want people who babble and talk on the phone. And honestly, I don't really care if you make a ton of mistakes because the job is to book consoles. It's not to make sure that every T is crossed and I is dotted. But that wasn't what the hiring person was looking for. So how do we make sure that we're aligning what's important at any given moment with the people who are hiring so that you don't have to be involved?
- [60:47]
B
I'll share this in case it might help you. The best thing. I don't know if we've talked about this, the two of us, but we went through the whole top grading thing several years back.
- [60:56]
C
Did you like it?
- [60:57]
B
And it was fantastic. Really hard. The probably the most difficult thing I've gone through, because you see people that you truly, you think are fantastic people, and they. They're either getting. You're either Having to get rid of them or they're, you know, opting to leave because they. It's the whole. It was the whole thing. The people that get you here are not the ones that get you there.
- [61:20]
C
Right.
- [61:20]
B
That was really, really difficult.
- [61:21]
C
Right.
- [61:22]
B
But the best thing I did during that, I kind of got lucky. So you gotta. I knew. I knew the exact kind of person I wanted to hire. I. I had the. I had that person completely locked in. That's the hardest part. You know, who that person is, what that person looks like. Then you can go out and try to find them. And I. What I did for that. That one time, I took over hiring completely.
- [61:43]
C
Yeah.
- [61:43]
B
And I went and I found that person.
- [61:45]
C
Right.
- [61:45]
B
And I. I did all the interviews and we. We used Talagy to do the, you know, assessments to see if she was gon. And then during the hiring process, I told all the candidates and I told her, her name's Kristen. I said, here's what we're doing. We're about to do something that's very difficult, and we're hiring only a players. And this is the whole. Here's what we're doing. Like, are you. This is something you can handle. Okay. Yes. Great. She was right. Then she. We did the next hire together. And then I turned then her and Amy took it over. And I've not done it since. And that's how we were able to put, like, kind of backfill, really, is what we're having to do, backfill people. Because part of that process is so painful is you are getting rid of people that are. Had been there for a while. They're very integrated into the firm, and it's. It creates a pretty big gap whenever you're. You're kind of escorting them out, so.
- [62:38]
C
Right.
- [62:39]
B
But having that person, like, really. Having that right person do that hiring going forward made a massive difference.
- [62:47]
C
What was that role that you hired for?
- [62:49]
B
That was the. We called it. We made it up. It was an office administrator. So I didn't want to. I don't want to call it office manager.
- [62:55]
C
Yeah.
- [62:56]
B
I think the. The word manager is misused.
- [62:58]
C
Yeah.
- [62:59]
B
Too many times. So we used office administrator. If I'm being honest, I got. I stole it from the office. Pam was the office administrator. And I used. I was like, we're gonna use that. We're gonna use. That is what we're gonna use. So office administrator. Although the way we use our office administrator is way different than what they did in the office. But so people are not confused. But that's the role. So office administrator. So it. And it's. She's great because she doesn't have the term manager in her name. Right. The title. So she is like a liaison between us. She's on the leadership team, but she's like a liaison between employees and leadership team where people truly trust her and they go to her. I think if she had the title manager it would not be the same.
- [63:40]
C
What were the characteristics that were most important?
- [63:44]
B
Oh, let's see. I'm trying to think back then as to what it was. So she had to meet the whole, the whole peep profile. She had to be in a position to actually make really, really difficult decisions when it comes to like, because she's responsible for firing people too. She had to stick to our very specific scorecards. When it comes to hiring, which we were not doing before. It was, it was very strict. Like you had to do this, this, this, you have to follow our game plan. And that's where I kind of got lucky because I think a lot of candidates would tell you that yes, they would do these things and they won't do it. The other, another thing that I really liked about her in particular is, is that we, we've been scaling for several years at this point. She was, that's something that really caught our attention. She was leaving a chiropractic practice that the, the main guy had wanted to scale and then he kind of like has plateaued and kind of like, you know, like scaling's hard. Right. So he had kind of gotten, I wouldn't say bored with it but he had kind of gotten tired and she would become bored. So part of her, what she really wanted was she wanted to continue to scale and continue to grow. She had that growth mindset. And then the other thing was is that she's very task oriented where. What I mean by that is she is driven. We got this from Talaji where it was. She is driven by accomplishing that goal. Right. She's also very empathetic too. But she. So you have the task. So the task is one thing, but her. What drives her is actually getting the task done, which I think is really kind of interesting. So she's driven. She's like an engine that's a little bit different than I, that I think that are. Than most. So those are some of the things. Yeah, it is, it's. There's, it's one of those companies that will actually assess a person, assess an employee and then they give you a report and then they meet with you and talk to you about it. We haven't used them since, though. It's funny. We used them the one time and then that was it. She also helped us re. Revamp the hiring process, which we already had. We've had a hiring process for years, but we have completely revamped the whole thing when it comes to assessments and when we do things. Things and all that. So, yeah, she's. She's great.
- [65:57]
C
Nice.
- [65:58]
B
Yeah, very good. All right, so I feel like you were interviewing me for a second. Let's, let's shift gears a little bit. And I wonder, how do you, like, how do you divide your time between the companies?
- [66:10]
C
Well, I think we talked previously about Win Without Law School. Did we? Maybe not.
- [66:19]
B
I don't remember.
- [66:19]
C
Remember?
- [66:20]
B
Okay, so you say win with that law school.
- [66:22]
C
Yeah.
- [66:22]
B
So I don't think we have talked about that.
- [66:24]
C
Okay. All right. So one of the companies that I recently kind of stopped running is called Win Without Law School.
- [66:33]
B
Okay.
- [66:34]
C
And this concept was help people all over the country who need help representing themselves, which is something that I've always been super passionate about. So it was an online support group, online courses. We had office hours with lawyers where you could get coaching.
- [66:53]
B
Wow.
- [66:53]
C
Yeah. Super, super cool concept. We actually offered office hours like four or five days a week where you could, come on, if you remember, you could come get, you know, talk through whatever your current issue is. Because a lot of family law, I don't. You don't really need legal advice. You need brainstorming. You need, hey, check this out. Or you could even flag an issue for them and be like, you might want to find a lawyer in your area to talk about this. That would be an issue here. You know, you could, you could do that. But it didn't. It was something that I was very, very committed to and passionate about. And it didn't grow and it didn't have an roi and it was taking a lot of time and resources.
- [67:30]
B
More of a passion project.
- [67:32]
C
Yes, definitely a passion project. And my team really believed in it and we spent a lot of time on it. And then it got to the end of last year and I think I'd read a book, the book on Scaling. I don't remember the name of what it is, but it's essentially like the whole concept is, okay, if you took your goal and you shrunk your 10 year goal into a one year goal, what would you need to stop doing to get there? And it's quite clearly like this passion project that isn't making any money, that has all this potential that's not like working has got to go.
- [68:02]
B
That's a really interesting exercise. I did something similar a couple years ago, and it was. I wrote at the top of this. It was in one of my black books, and I wrote, if you wanted to accomplish all of your dreams by doing these things in the next six months, what would they be? And it was, like, really hard coming up with the things. Do you remember, like, what some of
- [68:25]
C
the things were that I needed to stop doing?
- [68:27]
B
Yeah.
- [68:28]
C
Well, I mean, that was. That was a big one. I think there were also. Oh, yeah, we had a bunch of. So I told you 2024 was amazing. And then I kind of, like, you know, was a slacker in 2025 a little bit, because that's kind of what happens. It's the same as parenting where, like, you're on it and you're like, you've got your routines and you're really coaching your kids, and then they're. They're doing amazing, and you're like, ah, I can breathe. And then if you don't keep doing that, you get back to where so 25 was. I didn't do enough. We let people hang on too long. We allowed people, like, we have. We have requirements, and we were just meh. And so got to the end of 2025, and we hadn't met our goals, which is not something that is really okay. And it's. It's really about failing to make the right decisions, and it really falls on me. So I didn't hire soon enough. We had all these lawyers that were, like, almost licensed. Like, they're gonna get there in, like, a second. You know, these are out of state people who are waiting and a couple of people who are taking the bar. And so I didn't hire because I had this bench.
- [69:36]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [69:37]
C
But it didn't. The bench, it didn't work. And there were too many people on my team who were not hitting their numbers, who were not doing a great job, who are not a players. And it was time to take a look at that and be like, what are we doing? So that's. That was kind of a big deal.
- [69:52]
B
What do you think is a reasonable amount of time between the point that the attorney starts and when they're fully up and running? How long do you think that takes?
- [70:00]
C
This is interesting because our probation period, or I don't even know what we call it, but, like, onboarding is 90 days or it was. And I don't think that's the right timeline. Why I think some people are onboarded in 30 days. They are crushing it. They brought in a caseload, they're part of your culture, they're going in your meetings like you're 45 days in and you know that this was an amazing decision. And then there's other people who can get by for 90 days and are crappy and if you don't look hard, okay, they got by, they met the metrics, but they're not crushing it. Or as soon as you stop like looking really hard, they stop working really hard.
- [70:47]
B
I've noticed like one of the red flags for us is if they get through the, the training modules too fast, they usually end up not working out well. Cause I, they're not taking it seriously.
- [70:58]
C
Right. And that's a hard one because who wants to watch training modules, right?
- [71:02]
B
We try to, we try to mix it up too where it's like, okay, you have some in person, you have some via video, you have some that are like reading, some you're watching, some you're listening to. So we try to mix it up where like it's different mediums, but I know the ones that are, they, they're just clicking buttons because we know we can see, because we can see the progress. How the, how did they get all that done that quickly? That doesn't make any sense.
- [71:25]
C
Right?
- [71:25]
B
You're skipping things totally that or you are like such a phenomenal reader that you can, or like you can't watch that 30 minute video in 10 minutes. No, I'm sorry, you can't do it.
- [71:36]
C
Right.
- [71:36]
B
It's just not possible.
- [71:37]
C
Right.
- [71:38]
B
That's kind of an interesting thing. So the, the hiring or the, the training part of things. Yeah, so you said like sometimes it's 30 days, sometimes it could be like 90 days or whatever. Like the onboarding part of it, like what is, like what is the onboarding? What does that entail?
- [71:56]
C
I mean your first three days are pretty intensive in office. You're being trained hands on for each of those three days by different people on different things. After that it's more, you're getting projects, you're working under your managing attorney, you might start taking consultations, you're going to be going to trial with other people, you're going to be watching and shadowing and given projects and, and then it goes from there. I think we may have a tendency to ramp people up too quickly, but that's just a hard line, you know, like you gotta allow people to be successful and get a caseload and go do their thing. But also supervision is real.
- [72:37]
B
So when you say 90 days to onboard. Let's say you go through the full 90 days. Are you fully expecting them to do their job at that point?
- [72:43]
C
Yeah.
- [72:44]
B
Wow. That, that to me, that's way too soon.
- [72:45]
C
Really?
- [72:46]
B
Yeah, I think it's like six months.
- [72:48]
C
Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely. And, and also, are we talking about a brand new lawyer or a lateral.
- [72:53]
B
Oh, good, good, good point. I. Let's talk about new lawyers.
- [72:57]
C
Sure. A new lawyer is going to need 18 months. Right. To be fully self sufficient. But can, should they be, you know, and they. Should they be mostly. Should they mostly have a caseload, maybe 10, 12 clients? Yeah, they should.
- [73:11]
B
Yeah. Like, so like we have a, we have a lateral hire that we just hired and I told him six months like that. So I think, I think 18 months for a new. From a newbie is. I think that's more.
- [73:21]
C
Yeah.
- [73:22]
B
You can give us some pretty big, some pretty hefty things at like a year or like some are like just super competent. Like they, maybe they had some really good internships. Like there are those that, really competent that like the firm that I worked for in law school and then right after law school, I thought that their training program was pretty damn good where I would hire a lawyer. Right. If they were, if they would work for them in their internship, I'd hire them, let them like start doing things almost immediately.
- [73:48]
C
Yeah. If I can hire from Big law, which we've done recently, I would do that all day, every day. They are high achievers. They are disciplined. They didn't get in without meeting criteria. It's a good idea.
- [74:04]
B
Yeah, I, I think that's a, I think it's a good idea idea too. Like where you're picking from. Like where are you, where are you fishing? Which fishing holes are you going?
- [74:13]
C
Yeah. When you hire solo attorneys who've been out on their own, like it's almost always a disaster.
- [74:19]
B
Right. That is such a good point. Not to. And a lot of the people listening probably are solos. But let's be honest. I'll just say I, I would be an awful employee. Well.
- [74:29]
C
Right.
- [74:29]
B
And so, so would, so would all of you.
- [74:31]
C
Right.
- [74:31]
B
You'd be a terrible employee, most likely. Right Is my guess. We. Because we've done that and there was. I'll tell this story. I don't know if I've told this on the show before, but we had, there was this guy we loved. He was a solo and he, he had the experience. He'd worked for another, another big PI firm and like a good one. And we're like okay. He's me. Great. And I just happened to call a buddy of mine who. There was some crossover. I can't remember what the crossover was, but I thought he might know him. And he's like, it's so odd that you called me and asked me about this guy, because I just spoke to a clerk yesterday who called me and asked me the same thing, would I. Because he. His pleadings were so awful and want to know if they knew if I knew him. And I was like. And I guess the guy was, like, crazy. Like, it was so nuts. So, like, sometimes you'll have these people that look really, really, really good, but I think solo, you should look really hard. I'm not saying all solos are not gonna be good hires, but I think it's one of those things where it's. It's gonna be a red flag, at
- [75:32]
C
least more often than not. I mean, I don't know if that's ever worked out for me.
- [75:38]
B
Yeah.
- [75:38]
C
Like, if I look at my current team, I don't know that anybody came over as a solo. They came from other firms or they came up out of law school.
- [75:48]
B
Yeah. Because I think part of that is, like, the. The. The ones. If they come from solo, they're so used to that extra freedom, they don't want to be told what to do. Like, the ones that are, like, really hard chargers, they're. They're going in, they're scaling their firm. They're doing, you know, way more than what. Than what the. The solo firm that's been there, you know, doing it for 10, 15 years is going to be doing.
- [76:06]
C
Yeah. I mean, I. I might be absolutely open to, like, a merger with another firm or some consolidation. Like, if. If the goals were similar and the firm was similar, I think that's a different story.
- [76:17]
B
Yeah, I totally agree. Are there any. You. You mentioned big law. Are there any other areas that people should be looking or, like, have you done headhunting or anything like that?
- [76:25]
C
I have not. It's kind of like the same way we've treated marketing, where. I don't know, we've. We've wanted our messaging to be specific to us.
- [76:35]
B
Right.
- [76:36]
C
But I'm not opposed. You know, sometimes you just need lawyers, and last year's problem was not hiring lawyers. And sometimes maybe you use adhunter.
- [76:44]
B
Sure.
- [76:45]
C
But I haven't had great success with that.
- [76:47]
B
Yeah. All right, before we start to wrap things up. Cause we're getting close to time. If people want to reach out to you to ask you questions, pick your brain on things, what What? How. How do they get in touch with you?
- [76:54]
C
I'm super easy to find. I'm on all platforms. Nobody else has my name. You can just DM me.
- [77:01]
B
It is a very, very unique name. Are you still on TikTok? Are you still doing all that? How's that going?
- [77:07]
C
It's going great. I actually have two accounts now, so I started a business of Law one because I really wanted to talk about this stuff. I like this stuff.
- [77:16]
B
Yeah.
- [77:17]
C
So I've got that account and then I've got the Modern Law account, which has, I think, like 140,000 followers.
- [77:24]
B
That's incredible.
- [77:24]
C
And that's been really good. Like, I've pivoted a little to talking about local issues, and I fell into that. It wasn't my intention, but it's so well received by my local community and it turns into clients. So I would highly recommend you think about that. Not just the Q and A, but also, like, what's going on in your community, especially drama.
- [77:49]
B
Yeah. All right, last question. All right, let's say you were to start the firm today. So. And you're just. Just starting the firm, nothing else. I limit you to one company. How do you start? What's the. What's the first thing you do to make sure that. And the whole idea here is like, this is the number one thing you should start with to really set yourself up for success.
- [78:11]
C
Yeah. You need clients. Start with marketing. I don't care where you're at. I don't care if you're huge. Marketing and hiring. This, the systems and the tech are easy. It's marketing and hiring. My opinion. What do you think?
- [78:26]
B
I agree. You can't do the great work unless you got clients.
- [78:29]
C
Yeah.
- [78:29]
B
Well, thanks, Billy. Appreciate. Appreciate doing this. This is our third time in the last three months we've been hanging out.
- [78:35]
C
I love it.
- [78:35]
B
I love it. It's great. Thank you for doing this. Really appreciate it. Foreign.
- [78:52]
C
If you're like most law firm owners,
- [78:54]
D
you don't struggle with hitting record. You struggle with everything that comes after. What to talk about next, how to stay consistent, whether any of it's actually working, how it fits into the business. Business, not just your week. That's the one part no one really teaches. That's what we're focused on at the YouTube Accelerator in Chicago this June. Not how to make one good video, but how to actually run a YouTube channel for your law firm. The strategy behind it, the systems that keep it going, the decisions that make it worth your time. If YouTube has felt scattered or stalled, this is the room for you. Come spend a couple of days with us in Chicago. Check out the event details@maxlawevents.com.