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This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix. Welcome back to Maximum Lawyer Live. As those of you watching, you can see, I'm working from home today. Those of you that are just listening, you can't see this, but this is on purpose for today's topic. I, this is a topic I don't really, I'm not yet comfortable with. Employees hearing the conversation. Some of them do listen to the podcast, so they, I do understand that some of them will hear this. The ones that do listen probably will understand what I'm going to talk about a little bit. But so let me go back when AI first sort of hit the scene. So we're like 2022 and I wouldn't even say it was really useful to law firms yet. It was just kind of, we were getting into it. But I think the optimistic view was pretty simple. You automate the repetitive stuff and then you just move employees into more higher value, human centered roles. I think that to me that meant more client communication, better follow up with clients, more empathy that you don't really get with AI, more quality control in some aspects when it comes to the human touch part of things, more relationship building. And really you had fewer people doing like copy and paste data, data entry kind of thing. That was, that was kind of, kind of my view on things. And I still think that's a good instinct to have. And, and like deep down that's, that's how I feel about things. Okay, that's. It's. So I want to make sure I'm going to give you my shift in perspective. But I also want to tell you like deep down I still feel that I still believe that. I really do. I really. Well, I want to believe it. I don't, I don't know. I don't know if I still do believe it, I guess is what I'm. I, I want to believe it, but I don't know if I still do believe it. And I think part of it has to do. My shift in perspective has to do with. We've had some just major advances in the firm with AI and technology over the last month. And it's, I mean, it's getting better and it's getting better and it's getting better. It's not going to get worse. Okay. The AI is not going to get worse. And it all really kind of led to this conversation was. Which I'll get to in a little. I'm not going to get, I'm not going to fully go into it, but with my conversation with Jason Selk about this and a few different, few employees that we have. But like I said, I'm gonna, I'll, I'll get to that in a little bit. But I do think that the client experience is usually where, where firms, they win or they lose. The successful worms. Successful firms usually have a very good client experience. The clients leave happy and they turn into raving fans. And the ones that don't, they. It's one that's where they don't get returning clients. And so I, I think that Clio, if you look at Clio, they like do that survey every year and they give, they've got some AI guidance notes that they pushed out. And I know that, I understand a lot of it's a marketing thing that they send out, but I do some of it's, it's, it's worth looking into. But there is this part where people, we're showing the firms are. That are using AI, they're starting to see improved work quality. Now there's been some disputes over the ladder that I've seen over the last few weeks, but what people are reporting, according to Clio, is improved work quality, better client responsiveness, increased work capacity, which it really supports that idea that automation can free people up for that high, higher value work really does. So that's kind of the lay of the land. But let's talk about the conversation I had with Jason. So we were going through and I'm just kind of stuck with this issue because we have basically three positions that have. The work has not fully been automated, but it either is very close or it will be very soon where it will be replaced with Automation and AI completely. Three positions, Three complete positions. Like we could today. I could comfortably today replace those positions. Okay. Which I don't think. I don't think I expected it to happen to this point. But three positions, right? Boom. Done. Gone right off the bat. I mean, that's. I think that's pretty significant. And that's not even including, like, all of the other work that has been reduced. The workload for people has been reduced over the last three years, four years at this point. And we have done our best to shift all of those things to more. Okay. Client communication. Client communication. Client communication, which has been effective. But. But. There's always a but, right? With this. There's a couple things with this, right? There's only so much of that client communication we can do. There's that part of it. There's the other part where not all employees that you bring on for a certain role are built for the client handholding element of things that. Outreach, the interpersonal skills that you need to build relationship. Build relationships with people. All of those things I talked about at the beginning. Now those employees are built for that. And that's where there's now this internal struggle where I'm having this conversation with Jason. It was. He just says flat out to me, he goes, is it a good decision to keep these people on if you don't need them? And the. It's one of those things where I didn't really want to answer the question. I just didn't. It really kind of forced me to confront something I didn't want to. I had to separate the whole, you know, I'd like basically being a business owner from, like, loyalty and guilt, I guess, a little bit of fear, you know, like looking them in the eyes and, you know, replacing them, like, saying, hey, you know, like, obviously I'm not gonna say that they're being replaced, but, I mean, they're being fired. I think they kind of. They kind of see the writing on the wall. But at this, I have to separate that from being a business owner. And that is a really. That's. That's. It sucks. Like this. This job, the owner part of things sucks sometimes. It really does. Because that's a really tough call that I don't want to make. And. But I. I answer the question because he asked me, is it a good business decision to keep these people on? And the. The honest answer is no. The honest answer, if we're being honest with ourselves, is that no, it's not a good business decision to keep these people on. Now, I Could make. I could make some arguments as to why it could be a good business decision to keep them on, but only if they apply to certain people. Like, if a person was really good about bringing in business, okay, well, great. I could shift that role. But if the person doesn't have those interpersonal skills, then. And if they're not bringing in clients, then, yeah, I. It's not a good business decision to. To keep them on. And for these three individuals that I'm thinking about, it's not. I'm gonna say, three positions. These three positions. It's not a good idea to have a human in those seats. It's just really not. And I don't think it's a great business decision to keep them on. And this is. Now you might be able to know. Now you can probably tell why I don't want to have this conversation in the office, because it's a really tough one. And I'm not even sure I'm comfortable with Becca releasing this stuff to the public. This may just stay in this in the association. It's just one of these frank conversations I think it's important that we have right now, because the reality is we are all going to start facing these decisions pretty quickly. And who knows? I feel like I'm ahead of the curve when it comes to AI. Maybe I'm behind. Maybe you all have already been having these conversations. But based on the conversations I've been having people. That's not what I've been hearing. I've been hearing a different conversation. I've been hearing. It's kind of the same thing as I've been saying, like, hey, let's shift these to. Let's not be ruthless, and let's shift these to people to positions that can really be helpful in the firm. But if they don't, if there's really no place for them, what's the right move? I. The right move is for you to help them find another position elsewhere. By doing that, you have to start that process by usually letting them go. And if you feel super guilty, which. That's something. I feel super guilty about it. Because part is like, we are. I. I'm not gonna say we, but I know that a lot of you are in the same position. Position where I am creating the environment that's replacing them. Like, we are being intentional about it, because. And the whole goal was not to replace people. I've said that from the beginning. It was not. It was not to replace people. But I'm also very conscious of the whole idea that I'm creating the environment that's replacing the people, which I don't like. I. I just don't like that idea. And it was really taught. It was tough talking through this with Jason, but the reality is he cut right through it, right? He. He's. That's what he's great about. He. He asked very tough questions of me, and I've got to make really tough decisions there. I guess there's a difference between being loyal to people and being trapped by sentimentality. I think loyalty means you're honest with people, right? Which I think we should be. We've got to be honest with our people. It means you have to give them clarity. You have to give them clarity. It means that you. You train them where training makes sense. It means you give them a real shot at the future of the firm. I think that that's loyalty. But loyalty does not mean creating pretend work to avoid an uncomfortable, uncomfortable conversation. I mean, that's. I think that's the reality that we've got to come to. And. And sometimes what we do is we. We use loyalty as, like, this blanket to shield us. We. When in reality, loyalty is something else. Like, we're only using that blanket, that loyalty blanket to avoid making those tough decisions. I think that's what we do sometimes. So let me just kind of ask you this. All right, so let me kind of ask you a tough conversation. Tough question. Who. Who on your team is there because the firm truly needs the role? And who is there because you have been avoiding the decision? This could be for a variety of reasons. It doesn't have to be AI it could be for other reasons, too. But I'm guessing that if you will ask yourselves that question. Who's there because the firm truly needs the role? And who's there because you've been avoiding making that decision? That is a. That's a question that's probably gonna hit a lot of you home, and you're gonna. You're gonna probably come up with a few names, I'm guessing. And I think once you admit to that part of it, the next question really becomes even harder. What's the. What's your actual obligation at that point? Okay, what is your actual obligation? And you can get into the whole what should you do, what shouldn't you do? Kind of a scenario, But I think if you do that, you're really avoiding. You're just forcing yourself to avoid that. That. That big decision, I guess, just to kind of give you a little bit of comfort. I don't think that the I don't think that the job of the owner, so the law firm owner is to preserve every job forever there is. If you look back, I mean, I talked about this at Max lawcon. There are, over the last several decades, I mean, we've seen the invention of the paralegal, We've seen the invention of the typewriter and of the computer. And there's been all these fears about how that could affect jobs. And so we're not the first ones to have to make these decisions now. We might be the first ones to have to make a lot more decisions when it comes to whether or not people are needed, because this is, I think, one of the first times we've seen entire jobs being replaced and which. So it's gonna be. I think it's gonna be maybe a little bit tougher. But I don't think our job is to preserve every job, every position forever. I've never believed that. I really don't. I really haven't. But. And I guess just because how. That's how business works, right? We. We. We've got to evolve. The firm has to evolve. Positions evolve. Positions have changed since I've owned my firm. Or there's the three iterations of my firm. It was my first firm, the partnership, and then after the partnership, right, I've had the three iterations of it. We've changed the. The roles several times because it had to shift to the way we work. And that's the same way AI is working. Right? Ultimately, your goal is you've got to be a firm that serves clients well. Period. You've got to be a firm that serves clients well. Whether that takes 20 employees or five employees doesn't matter, as long as you can serve them well. If you are broke because you have too many employees, well, that's a problem. Okay? The. The best firms are probably the ones that are highly profitable firms that are able to take care of their clients really, really well. Like, those are. Because you're going to be much happier as a profitable firm than you are as an unprofitable firm. You just are. Okay? I've had my up years and I've had my down years. The up years are way better than the down years. I think a lot of you have had that same sort of feeling. The good years are way better than the bad years, and we all have both. That's just part of business. AI has really created an opportunity for us, but part of the opportunity is we are going to have to make a lot of tough decisions over the next Several years. We just are. Okay. But I think a firm that. That keeps the unnecessary roles is eventually going to become weaker, and that weakness is going to start showing up in lower margins, slower decision making, less money for top performers, which is. You're going to start getting. You start going to start losing your top performers. Performers because you're going to have less money to pay them. You're going to have less money for marketing, less investment in systems or in buildings or whatever else you need to invest in. And so you're going to have more pressure on you without making these really tough decisions. So there is a hidden moral problem in keeping unneeded people too long. Okay. It can hurt the people who are needed. And I'm guessing most of you haven't thought about that. I hadn't until I was. Until I was forced to think about this. The high performers are the ones that carry the weight. The clients get less responsiveness because of that. The owner gets more stressed. So you, as the owner, get more stressed. And then your. Your law firm is going to lose momentum. So these are. There is a. If you want to look about it, if you're worried about this being a moral problem, letting go of people, it's also a moral problem of keeping those people. It really is profit. It's really, really important. I think we've had too much propaganda about this. Profit is not greed. It is not. Profit is oxygen for your firm. Okay, let me say that again. Profit is not greed. If you're worried about. Oh, that's greedy. No, no, no, no. Profit is oxygen for your firm. It is not great. Okay? Profit's gonna allow you. Allow the firm to hire better people, to pay. Well, right. To pay a really good salary to people who have. Who can actually live and survive and provide for their families. Okay. It's gonna allow you to invest more in your. In technology for the firm. It's gonna allow you to take better cases, withstand downturns. Downturns, and serve clients with less desperation. You're not going to have to take every single client that comes to the door. So that means you're going to be able to spend more time on the clients that you really want to work with. So ultimately, you have to decide the. You know, are you protecting your team or are you protecting your discomfort? That's what it really comes down to. All right. That's all I'm going to go into. There's more I was going to think about going to. But I think I've got enough here that I've covered. So that's all I have for this week. Make sure you get your tickets to Maxlock on go to maxlockcon.com window will be closing soon, so make sure you get those. Go to beccaslist Co to check out vendors that you are interested in to see if they are any good. So it could be AI companies, it could be, you know, an SEO company, whatever it may be. We've got them there on becklesslist.co and if you see something you don't, you don't that or there's not something on there that you want, just submit a request and we'll add them to the site. And then if you're interested in the association. If you're listening to this again, I don't know if this is going to be a, a public one. I'll have to make the decision after, after today I'm, I'm have to re listen to it and see how, how much it might piss off some of my employees. But if you are listening, if I did release this out to the public and you're interested in the association, go to maximum lawyer dot com. All right, everybody take care. Thanks for listening and go make those really tough decisions. See everybody?
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