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- [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. So what are you waiting for? 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]
This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.
- [01:29]
All right, Billy, we were just talking about focusing on the right things and letting things go. And you've sort of been going through that in your life recently. So talk to me a little bit about that.
- [01:40]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So things have begun changing very, very, very, very quickly. And maybe three months ago was when I first started realizing just how quickly. And a few things happened. One, I got an offer from a venture capital firm to buy Modern Law. Next, I implemented an incredible AI software that started replacing people in my intake department. And third, I went to Clio Con and they rolled out how their technology is just completely different than it was four months ago. And so my head has been swimming with what do we do? What direction do we go in, what do we. And I read a book on scaling and the most important thing that came out of that book. But really what's necessary for every single business owner right now? There's so many things that need our attention. What can we let go so that we can be paying attention to the things that are most important.
- [02:38]
A
All right, I want to ask you about Modern Divorce Navigator because of this, because this is something that you're letting go. But yeah, now I don't think a lot of law firm owners or lawyers, they know what the hell sunk costs mean or anything. But I do wonder, are you viewing it more as a sunk cost? Where this is, this is a cost. I know we put a bunch of time and effort into this thing. We're just going to let it go. I do wonder how you're viewing it because I can't imagine it's the easiest thing to let go. This isn't a small thing that you're letting go.
- [03:07]
B
No. So a huge part of my mission for the last 15 years has been access to justice. And I've been playing with access to justice projects and businesses that kind of have been alongside the law firm because a low cost access to justice law firm didn't work. And so immediately that had to pivot to we're gonna be profitable. But how can I make sure that I'm still taking care of this other portion of the population that I really care about that I think we can serve in some way? The latest version of that is so cool. And it's called the Modern Divorce Navigator and it's awesome. So it's courses, it's an online community, and it's office hours with lawyers five days a week where lawyers would be available to members who could come on and ask their questions from anywhere in the country. And it's not legal advice and it's not confidential and it's not privileged and it's just troubleshooting. And like, you're going to tell me your problem and I'm going to be like, hey, have you tried this? Or look up XYZ statute that would. In Arizona. This is how we'd handle it. Go look at it here. And it's so cool. But you know what? People did not sign up.
- [04:15]
A
So I mean, we've got the Guild and I. It is one of those things where I can take things very personally, where let's say if someone were to quit the Guild, it. I take it very personally. And it's one of those things where in any membership site of any kind, any membership group of any kind, people come, people go. If, you know, we have our core people that have been around for years and years. So you have like your base, but you do have people that sort of come and go. And I do wonder, like, how personally do you take that?
- [04:47]
B
Well, I mean, we iterate quickly. So first this was. I was approached by a different lawyer in Arizona who wanted to do this together. And I was like, yeah, I'm down. I have a huge national audience. I will point my national audience to this thing. And she did most of the courses and Most of the office hours. And about a year in, she's like, this is not making enough money. Was making like five or six thousand dollars a month. And she's like, this is just not making enough money. You know, do you want it? And I'm like, yeah, I want it. I think me and my team can take it. And I used my marketing team. And so we spent 2025 really focused on promoting the Modern Divorce Navigator. And we dropped the price way down, $29 a month where this started out. And we weren't really getting a lot of people, and people were canceling. How are you gonna cancel?
- [05:36]
But they were. And then we raised the prices, and people still kept signing up, but we were still having the same problem. So we started making more money. But I got to. And it was all my team. So because it was all my team, and I own Modern Law, and I own this, I wasn't really accounting for the true cost of this price product, which is a problem. Like, I would highly recommend that even if it's all you, even if you're sharing resources, like, figure out how much of my XYZ person's time is spent on this project and let me take the cost of that and allocate it over here. It took me a long time, but finally I did, and I was like, you know, Caitlyn, who runs my books, can you take, you know, this vendor's cost and this vendor's cost and this vendor and put it in the books over here and tell me what we're doing? And we were like, 12 grand in the hole. And that wasn't even accounting for everything. And I'm like, what are we doing? This product is taking resources away from my law firm, which pays all of us. It's not bringing in clients, and the public doesn't even want it. So here we are doing this great service, and we've got a hundred members, you know, and half of them are canceling. Like, this is not a product that people want. And that became abundantly clear to me when I started working with this other tech, and it was super, super cool. And I was like, I may want to maybe invest in that or get involved in that. And I'm like, I can't. We can't do it all. So what are we going to drop?
- [06:56]
A
Right? That's really interesting. I. How often do you think this is something that law firm owners go through? Like, is this a. Do you think this is a common thing?
- [07:03]
B
I don't think most law firms experiment as aggressively as I do.
- [07:08]
A
Interesting. So you think it's on average less likely. So people are less likely to be like you and me where we have the side company. That, that's interesting. I, I thought completely differently. I thought that you would say that there a lot of law firm owners are tinkering with other things that are distracting them and so they need to be more focused. See, like what percentage then of law firm owners do you think are tinkering with other sort of companies that are just a waste of time?
- [07:37]
B
Well, that's a good question. Every law firm owner is tinkering with something, right? It might be a certain practice area, a certain offering within their law firm, a side hustle. Right. Everybody's tinkering with something that is not a good use of your time. Employees that you know, shouldn't be there, that are not like in line with your values or your culture. Right. We all do that.
- [08:03]
A
I think it's funny because I can tell how much you really thought about this because I know we were talking about it a little bit beforehand, but you're thinking about it in ways I never really thought about that you should be cutting loose. But here's the other thing, here's the rub. Like, Max Law has grown into this thing where it's, it's much bigger than what it was. And I think early on I could have viewed it that way and said, this is probably not worth the time, we can cut it loose. But if I had done that, it never would have grown into what it's become. So do you ever view, I mean, just look at the modern Divorce Navigator. I mean, do you ever think about it? Maybe it could grow into this thing. And yeah, it's not worth your time right now, but maybe it could be. Right?
- [08:42]
B
The whole thing when you launch something is what is the potential of this? But I also think we need to be realistic with ourselves. And when I'm trying harder than the customers who want to join, like, and I've done this, I've served this population. Like first the thing I did was I built with a developer forward facing documents that I would sell to people that they could use on their own. I spent like a hundred grand, like years. And guess what? People didn't want that. You know what they wanted? They wanted a human. So then I opened up a doc prep company where I could allow people to hire a human to help them with document prep. That was very successful. People want one to one, they want humans, they want a service, they don't want a di And I. So I knew this before I did the Modern Divorce Navigator. So the Modern Divorce Navigator was a lesson I've already learned that just did that just played out the exact same way.
- [09:32]
A
This question, I don't mean it in an insulting way, I promise. Why do you think you are the way you are when it comes to the, like, tinkering with these other companies then?
- [09:41]
B
Oh, because I'm really emotionally connected. Connected to this concept of access to justice and increasing access to justice. Like, when I came out of law school, like, the first thing that was so abundantly clear to me is there's all these people with legal needs and they would pay to talk to a lawyer. They just can't pay what lawyers are charging. And so I opened up the law firm and the concept was $99 an hour, pay as you go, limited scope only. Like, let's reject the law firm business model. No retainers, no billable hours. So that's like my starting point. And I still, like somewhere believe that, but it just doesn't work.
- [10:19]
A
Well, where does that belief come from? Like, what I mean is this something where you encountered when you were younger and so now you're out there fighting for it, like, why? Why is that? Why do you have that axe to grind?
- [10:28]
B
I know it's true. Like, I know that it is true that people need lawyers because I'm a family law attorney. Like everybody, like, you know, 80% of family law petitions and people representing themselves, they want a lawyer. So there's this massive business potential there.
- [10:48]
A
Do you think AI is filling that, fulfilling that purpose?
- [10:51]
B
I think that's our next best possible place. I think that law firms have the potential to become so much more efficient that each lawyer is going to be able to help so many more people. Because why do we have this supply demand issue? It's because we don't have enough lawyers. If we had enough people who could provide services, 80% of people wouldn't be unrepresented. They would have, you know, less qualified lawyers, less valuable, less in demand lawyers that served them for cheaper. And so if AI can transform our practice and make it so that I can serve a hundred clients for flat fees, I'm going to make more money and I'm going to be able to help more people.
- [11:38]
A
Okay, so that's a good transition. Because I want to ask you about that. Do you think. Because there is currently still, still the transition is not fully happened yet when it because of AI, but you can use it, look at any niche and you have the volume people who I'm going to call some of them out a little bit. Their quality of services are not as good as they're just not. And they're charging less, so they're doing volume work. I'll just kind of think of like the criminal defense area. I know there's a lot of these attorneys that they just handled a ton of cases, charged a lot less money, so they could get those cases, but they're, they just couldn't offer as much. There's just, it's impossible to. And then you also have this other. On the very other end of the spectrum where there's the attorneys that take far less clients, but their fees are insanely high. Right. Where you've got attorneys charging like 20 grand for a DWI, you know, things like that. And so do you think because of AI, and I'll call it the leveling of justice. Right, so the playing field is getting more level. Do you think that the fees are going to go up? Do you think they're going to go down? Like, what do you think is going to happen with the actual fees? And do you think. You said that you, you think that we're all going to make more money? Like, do you. I mean, do you actually think that that's true?
- [12:54]
B
Yes.
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A
Okay. Do you think so does that mean the average fee is going to go up, go down? How. Tell me how you think that's going to happen.
- [13:01]
B
I think we can do both. I think that I will be able to sell, let's say, $10,000 flat fee divorces with parameters, and I'm going to be able to sell a ton of them and I'm going to be able to do more of them in less time.
- [13:17]
A
Okay, let me give you. I'm not going to say pushback, but I do, I think that there's another, I think there's another reality that's possible where you have the haves and the have nots, where the haves are the ones with all. Like, Like, I guarantee your firm's going to be this way. My firm's going to be this way where we have all the AI tools, we have all the agents doing these different things, and you're going to have the ones that aren't and they're, they're not going to have the, the resources. They're going to be trying to do things the old way, and they're not going to be able to do as much, and their quality of service is going to go down because they're not using those tools. And then you're going to have ours where our quality service is going to up because our costs have gone way down. And so I. What do you think about that thought?
- [13:59]
B
100% true. And we're going to end up swallowing them up. Consolidation is happening and that's part of that. You know, private equity is circling law, but whether it's outside money or whether it's lawyers, ourselves doing it, we're going to swallow our competition.
- [14:16]
A
Do you think private equity is going to be good for the legal space? Because I definitely wanted to get into this with, with you. Like what are your. Is that something that is going to help fulfill that goal? The goal that you have when it comes to giving equal access to justice to everybody?
- [14:29]
B
I don't know. I don't know. I mean, right now it seems like the best that the big money can do is to provide us tools like AI tools to make our practice work better. And they can make a lot of money doing that.
- [14:46]
A
I agree. I, I do think, I think they can contribute to the haves and the have nots, which I'm not so sure is great for the legal profession having a bunch of has and have nots, because to me that serves the opposite purpose. And I'm not against private equity, by the way, but I do think when it comes to that, I think it, they could have the opposite effect of maybe what you want.
- [15:06]
B
Well, I mean, that's where we're at now, right? I think we're at the haves and have nots right now, don't you think?
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A
I do. I do think presently we are definitely at that point. We are at the. Because you have the people that are not using AI at all. And.
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I'd say even before that, there's the haves and the have nots. You've got the big mega firms that have come in and I want to, I want to ask you about your firm being approached in a second too, but you have the big mega firms like Morgan and Morgan coming into St. Louis and absorbing injury firms like that's how they're. They're expanding their footprint is absorbing firm by firm by firm. And you were approach not by Morgan and Morgan obviously, because they don't do family law. But I do wonder what it was like whenever someone comes to you and approaches you about maybe taking on your law firm.
- [15:54]
B
Yeah. So the Morgan and Morgan model makes sense to me. Morgan and Morgan knows how to practice personal injury law. They've got systems, they've got processes, they've got trainers, they've got. They know what they're doing, they know how to process intake they, they know what they're doing. I'm sure that everybody who's listening and you and me get a ton of emails saying we want to buy your firm. Right. You get a ton of those, right?
- [16:17]
A
Oh yeah, yeah. From, from a different sources too. From a variety of different sources. Yeah.
- [16:22]
B
Right. And so I've always wanted to like, know what that means. So every once in a while I'll just respond to some of them, be like, yeah, tell me what's up. And up until this, this group that I talked to, they were all brokers. I'm an M and A, I've got my eye on the industry, like that's where we were. But then this particular group introduced themselves specifically as a venture capital firm that wanted to buy firms and that had purchased other service based businesses and wanted to get into law. So I wanted to have that conversation and it went pretty quick. You know, I gave them my financials, I talked about my business model, they gave me an offer. The offer wasn't enough like at all, and they needed me to run it because they don't know how to run it. They don't have a business model. So that's the thing with venture capital is they're not well positioned to come in and scoop up and run law firms because they don't know how to do that. They don't know that business model. So they need law firm owners to do it for them. So unless they're going to pay a lot of money, a lot of money, it's not going to be in our best interest to do that.
- [17:32]
A
I, I do think that there's a lot of firms and I agree to agree with you to a certain extent about Morgan and Morgan and their model being the right way because I, I'm convinced there's a lot of law firm owners out there that are sort of accidental. Law firm owners.
- [17:46]
B
Yeah.
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A
And from the variety of recessions that have happened over the last, you know, two decades where they sort of, they, they kind of accidentally became this law firm owner and they stayed in it and they've, they've got this drawer of files that they would much, much be, they'd be much happier if they just said, hey, become my boss, take on all these files, I need this staff. And, but they, they don't have like this exit plan and they don't, they don't really feel like they have anywhere to go. So I do think that there is a way that you would go out and you could find those types of firms and take on those firms. The Only rub would be is that they probably, those law firm owners that are. These accidental law firm owners are probably have terrible habits at this point. They're not. They don't know how to become an employee. They've got all this freedom of being a law firm, and that's where there is this, like, I think there's a market for it, but there's also, there's, There has to be very clear expectations going into a relationship like that.
- [18:40]
B
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've certainly hired those, let's call them duds. I mean, they can't fit into the system and just do the thing. And like, our expectations are real reasonable and real clear, and not everybody can do that.
- [18:53]
A
Yeah. And I don't, I mean, if I'm being really fair, like, I don't think it would be really hard for me to become an employee if, if someone were to hire me, let's say they took on my firm. I don't know if I could do it. I'd really don't know if I could become an employee. I might be able to. I might be able to do it for a little bit.
- [19:08]
B
I bet you could. I bet you could under the right circumstances, which is you have the freedom to do anything you want to do, communicate, get your job done well, take care of your clients. That's essentially our model. Like, yes, we have all the ways to do it, but you can, you make your own schedule. You, you know, we're not going to tell you how to do the job, but you have to do it well.
- [19:27]
A
Very true. And that's, I mean, kind of get back into the focus thing. That's, I mean, figuring out what the right focus is. That's, that's, that's a really important part I want to ask you about. There's a ton of money. There's hundreds of millions. If there may be billions at this point flooding into legal tech, I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense to me. I understand if it were fly, if it were flooding into, like legal AI stuff, but it's just legal tech in general. Like, do you, can you make any sense of that? Whenever you can go and create a freaking website, you can create your own case management system doing vibe coding in a matter of a couple hours. And I like. Does it make any sense to you?
- [20:02]
B
Well, what companies are you seeing the money flow into?
- [20:06]
A
Many of the. Like, I think filevine got a big round fairly recently. I mean, I'm talking. There are several of them. There was, I covered a couple stories on the Guild Live show over the last six months or so, where there's just massive amount, I'm talking hundreds of millions of dollars going into several different companies. And the amount going into the legal space, to the legal tech space keeps going up. It's not going down, it's going up. And that just doesn't make sense to me.
- [20:33]
B
Okay. So I think this is a really important conversation. So have you heard about Clio's big updates and announcements?
- [20:40]
A
No, but I wanted to ask you about it because it's a fairly recent thing and I don't, I don't, I'm not Clio user and I know that you were there, so I would love to hear about it.
- [20:47]
B
Yeah. So they got their last round, or in total, I think they have gotten about a billion dollars in venture capital over 11 rounds since their company's inception. They recently purchased Velex. And Velix had already merged with Fast Case and was a database of law.
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A
And I was aware of that because I, I, that's something I covered. It was like a month or two or maybe a few months ago. I, I'm aware of that. Yes.
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B
So what they did is they then incorporated AI into their software so that you can now go into Clio work and it will look at your file, your file on your, whatever you're looking at, and all the law that could possibly be applicable, and you can ask it to, you can say, here's the pleading, draft me a pretrial, or here's the issues, write me the deposition questions, or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Here's the, My opposing party's brief, tell me all the, everything that's wrong. And because it's a closed system, it can't hallucinate, it can't make up cases. It's only looking at the relevant legal documents. And if it can do that, and, and it can, it already started to like, it can look at a, a minute entry from a judge and pull out all the deadlines and put them on a calendar for you. If it can eliminate 80% of the time that we have to spend if we're just directing AI, it's going to.
- [22:22]
A
Be a really valuable tool, 100%. But I also think you could build that same thing with, I don't like. How much is it, how much is it for Clio? Let's say you have, give me a ballpark. Let's say you have 20 employees. Like what, like what it would cost per month.
- [22:35]
B
Couldn't get, though, is the Velex Data that is essentially owned by Westlaw. LexisNexis.
- [22:43]
A
Oh, I think, I think you could, I think you can. And you could build agents that even though you.
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It would, it would be accessed in a different way. I totally, I know you can access it in a different route. Probably you'd have to. It would require a, some sort of plan with one of those major companies. But you could still do, you could still totally do it.
- [23:07]
B
You mean sold by them like a tool sold by. Well, yeah, they're selling it too.
- [23:11]
A
Oh, no, no, no, actually, I mean like a tool you create that goes and accesses it. So you, let's say you have a legal, a subscription through one of those companies like Lexus, Nexus or Westlaw.
- [23:23]
B
I see what you're saying.
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A
So you could build your own thing that goes and accesses those, those subscriptions and then. So you have the same thing. Right? You have access to the same thing. And that's where, that's why to me, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And maybe it's just the fact that whole lot of people don't know you can go and build those things now. Like you can. I could go right now. There's a, there's multiple platforms now where you can actually vibe code.
- [23:49]
Agents and automations. And you just say, hey, here's what I want this, I want this to go Axla, access Westlaw's website. Here's the login information. I want you to build me this thing, the same thing that Clio has. And, and it could go out and build that thing. And that's where, that's where it's going to get out. Where's it going to get out? You can go do that and next thing you know, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to pay, I don't know, thousands of dollars per month paying for something like Clio. It just won't make that much sense.
- [24:20]
B
I think that your view of what agents can do right now is not the same as mine because we are building agents. We're using agents. They are not they. The potential of what you're talking about is promised. But I haven't seen anything do that. And when we build this stuff there, you know, it's clunky. You gotta go fix it. Like it's not as easy as just saying build me XYZ and do it.
- [24:50]
A
I can tell you without a doubt it can do the things I'm saying.
- [24:53]
B
You've got magical people.
- [24:56]
A
There are. But there are also, I do think the earlier versions were way worse and the earlier versions were way clunkier. They're getting way better, they're getting way easier to use.
- [25:10]
And it's something else we've been, we were talking about before we were recording too, is like how quickly things are changing. That is part of the problem too is that things are changing so quickly. Like you just go month by month and then the way things have changed within what, the last three months, you've had Atlas come out from OpenAI, you've had complexity or Comet come out, come out with perplexity. Those two are massive shifts in how people can use AI agents where if you're just chatting with it, those aren't even. Those are more like real world now today types of things. Google just released this week in their AI view. It's funny because I don't use as Chrome as much as I used to, but in there, in Chrome, when you Google something, you know, in the overview overview, it'll actually let you like book appointments and book flights and book, you know, lots of multiple other things. Let's say you want to go to a concert or a movie or whatever it would. The agent will book it for you now. So there's all these things that are changing on a regular basis, which does shift how your processes will work. But as of right now, you could, you can completely build the platform that you're wanting and it will work pretty well. There is. We built something, so we built Becca's list so people could rate vendors. That's a really big thing that we did because in the legal space, it's hard to figure out which are the good vendors, which were the bad vendors, how much are they charging, all that. So we built this, you know, a rating platform. We actually Vibe coded it, but we built it. We started about, I don't know, eight months ago. It did require humans to, to finalize it because there are many things I. There's a horror story that I saw on X a couple months ago where someone had built out a similar platform and not it wasn't a rating platform, but it was a plat. It was some sort of platform where they had user data. And when they Vibe coded it, there was something in the Vibe coding platform that they use where all the user logins and passwords were showing. If you were a developer and you went in and looked at the code, it showed all their user data. So that's, that's something that terrifies me. So we'll always have like a developer development team that comes in and looks at things but all that, all that to say is I. It can do lots and lots of things is all I can say is much, much better than it could months ago.
- [27:29]
B
Yes. No, you're. You're entirely right. And there will be some firms that say, I don't want to purchase XYZ tool. I'm going to build it. And then there'll be a large amount of firms who say, I don't want to build it, I want to use the tool because it makes me more profitable.
- [27:45]
A
Don't you think, though, we're going to get to a point where you just chat into a window and you say, hey, I want to do this thing. And it goes and does it.
- [27:53]
B
I mean, it's possible.
- [27:54]
A
Let's say you just had all your files on Google. Let's just, we'll just. I'll make up a scenario. So all your files and everything is just in Google. It's using Google Drive or whatever. I, I think we're very close to a world where I'm in like OpenAI's Atlas browser and I say, I need to draft a brief in response to this motion to dismiss. And it just does it for you. And there's. You're not do it. You're not going to 12 different platforms and you're just doing it like Elon Musk was. I don't know if you listen to Joe Rogan, but he was on Joe Rogan this week and he was talking about, he said in five years. And I, I think he's got a pretty good track record of predicting things like this. So I take, I actually take this with, with.
- [28:34]
I'm taking this pretty seriously.
- [28:37]
Yeah, he's done pretty well. You know, I think if you just. He said if you, you're just gonna be. Basically, it's gonna be in a chat window and the AI is just gonna be feeding you the things that it thinks that you're gonna want. Or you'll be doing everything in like a chat window and it's all gonna be right there. There's not gonna be, you going to, like 20 different apps to do things. It's just gonna be right there in front of you.
- [28:55]
B
Yeah.
- [28:56]
A
And I do find that very interesting. And I, I kind of think that we're pretty close to that.
- [28:59]
B
I mean, if that happens, everybody's gonna turn off their SM subscriptions. Right. They're expensive subscriptions, and just be like, bye. Right.
- [29:08]
A
Isn't that a scary world to think about, though?
- [29:11]
B
I mean, the whole thing right now is overwhelming.
- [29:16]
A
Yeah.
- [29:16]
B
Change is happening too Fast. There's too many opportunities, there's too many tools to vet. There's too many ways you can go.
- [29:26]
So I feel like you just gotta pick something and be adaptable.
- [29:30]
A
Okay, so let's. Let's kind of go full circle here then. With all of this happening, how are you able to pare things down and focus only on what's important?
- [29:40]
B
You know, you make a decision, you go with it. So after I came out of Clio Con and saw what that tech could do that nothing else at this moment can do except for that tech, I was like, we got to do that. That means a lot of changes. I gotta get all my documents out of box. I gotta get them into Clio. We gotta stop using all these other softwares that we use, because I didn't love Clio the best for whatever. And we have to. We have to do this. We have to commit to this so we can use the best tool available on the market. Now, team, you're either in or out. That's what's gotta happen. Right?
- [30:13]
A
Are they in? Are the T. Is the team in?
- [30:16]
B
I think most of them are in, certainly. Like, you know, it's only been three weeks, so. Yeah, and so we've got town halls that are happening every single week. Where we go, over here are all the updates. Nobody has to make any changes now. But here's coming. Here's how. Here's this feature, here's how this works. You know, just. And then we've got a lot of people internally who are like, I'm gonna be the boss of X. I'm gonna be the boss. So I. We've got all these leaders internally who are training and championing. So I think it's going really well. And I do want to talk about intake, because two months ago, I put this intake software in that is AI intake, and it's allowed me to reduce my intake headcount by 1 1/2 people. And so the. The intake experiment has been, I think, very instructive to what is going to happen in the other departments. So this was the first department where I actually put in tech that could actually take over people's jobs. And it changed the role of the humans because the humans don't need to do everything they were doing before because the tech can do a lot of it. So this is the first time that I've actually seen this theoretically in action. And it. It has revealed certain things. You need fewer people, but you need better people. They have to be adaptable, they have to have excellent people skills. They have to have excellent judgment because the value of execution is going down and the value of creativity and judgment way up.
- [31:47]
A
Okay, that's interesting. So how. How are you going through this, this cycle with your firm then? Because I'm guessing that all of your people fit that mold.
- [31:58]
B
No. Well, I mean, one got fired because he should have been fired. He was behaving unprofessionally and, like, vaped in the middle of a meeting and, like, you know, made it easy.
- [32:10]
A
Right.
- [32:10]
B
If we gotta get rid of people and you act like a jerk, you're gonna be gone.
- [32:13]
A
Yeah, that's an easy one.
- [32:14]
B
Right. And then one person promoted out like she had been in there a long time and she kind of didn't want to. And now we didn't have the same volume of tasks, so we could give her other work that she wanted to do. But, you know, that particular team is struggling. You know, they weren't hired for the same purpose, and they are struggling to understand, like, the new role and to use great judgment and to, you know, to maximize the value of the tech to make your job easier. But that's not true for everybody. I mean, the intake manager the other day was like, I'm having better, higher quality conversations because I now have information that I wouldn't have had going into this. We're booking more people. It's making my life easier. And that's what you want.
- [32:54]
A
What do you think of it is about AI or intake that made it so easy to replace the people you did when it comes with AI? Because to me, that seems like a really hard one to release people replace people in.
- [33:08]
B
So the software that I'm using, it's called Lexi Desk AI and they start, they started it in the UK in 2022 and they built a platform where users, they were selling leads. So they had a whole lot of people from lots of different areas of law training this AI intake bot, and then they were selling it off to different lawyers. So the software has been having these discussions for four years and has been trained on exactly what to ask, how to make sure that, you know, you validate every person's, you know, if they sell you something uncomfortable that you, you, you make sure to let them know, oh, that must be really hard. Like, it's so good. And so it collects, you know, name, email, phone, what's going on in your case, how many dollars are we talking about? Where's your county? And all the while giving it reassurance. And then it will say, the best lawyer, based on what I've Heard from you is Ann. She's in your area. She has 10 years experience. I'm going to send you a link so you can book with her right now. So I'm getting, I'm capturing all the leads that I was losing before. And the whole reason I found this software was because I had this crappy marketing company. And they're like, it's not us, it's you. You don't answer your phone. And people would be shocked to know how many phone calls get dropped. And they just, you know, people are on lunch or they're sick or they're in meetings or they're in our town hall and they're not answering, answering the phone. So just capturing everything is amazing. And then having all of that information in advance so that my intake people can call back and know exactly what this case is about is great.
- [34:39]
A
All right. So quit hiding the goods. What's the, what's the, what is this platform? What are we talking about?
- [34:44]
B
Lexidesk.AI Spell Lexi L, E X I. Lexi Desk.
- [34:50]
A
Desk AI.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah. So go to the website. They have a widget on the front and you can just talk to it. So that's how I stumbled upon it. ChatGPT told me about it. I went to the website. We can try it now. We can demo it now.
- [35:03]
A
Yeah, let's do that. Let me find it. There we go. Lexi Desk. It's interesting how many other ads there were. I just searched. I didn't, I didn't put in the. I'll actually, I'm gonna go back for a second so people can see this because this is really interesting. Let me share my screen so people that are. If you're listening, we'll try to kind of walk you through this. But it's interesting because at the very top, I just searched in lexidesk AI and I don't know if you can see it very well on your screen, so I'll zoom in a little bit, but it's interesting. So you have Eve, you have Thompson, Reuters, and you have call id usa.AI.com which I don't even know if these are. Yeah, these are sponsored results. So 1, 2, 3, 4 that are. That are running ads off of Lexi Desk. That's interesting. And then so. And it takes up a big part of the screen. So if I just kind of zoom out to regular size, you don't even see on the opening window. Lexi Desk. And then you finally get down to it, and then you click on it.
- [36:03]
B
Now we're on the UK version, but it doesn't matter. Just click on Emma right there. Yeah, click on her. Because if we want to go to the U.S. version, it's Lexidesk, AI slash us because it was originally a UK company. It just got to the U.S. yeah.
- [36:16]
A
I've got a question about a case. So she cut me off. I didn't like that. I didn't appreciate it.
- [36:22]
B
No, no, you didn't appreciate that at all.
- [36:25]
A
Okay, so this is. Oh, sure. She's still here. Yeah. Are you still there? Yeah, I need to have a will drafted. Yeah, I have lots of things, but I'm not real comfortable talking about it because there's a lot of people listening to me right now. So I'd rather not say those things. Yeah, I'd rather talk to the attorney about that. Can you tell me, is this covered by attorney client privilege? All right, so that's. I'm gonna back out of that because I. That was interesting. What was interesting to me is that. And I don't know if this is how it's going to work on, like, your site or whatever, but it disappeared. Like, I didn't know who I was talking to and. But there's, like, the screen. It had, like, the information where I'd put in my information. But does it just keep talking to you while you're on the site?
- [37:06]
B
Well, so I don't have that on my site. I only have. You can call and talk to her on the phone.
- [37:11]
A
So it's just on the phone. Okay, got it. All right.
- [37:14]
B
And then there's a. There's a chat that is the same programming.
- [37:18]
A
Is the chat audio Dino, or is it. Is it text or both?
- [37:21]
B
It's not. So the audio chat is only, I think, on their website, but I think, you know, after doing that demo, I think I might want to update it so that it says in the beginning, let's make sure we don't talk over each other. So if you could please wait until I'm done, that would really help our conversation. I think that that would be important.
- [37:40]
A
Yeah, I do. Because I was. There were times where you could tell. I. I didn't know when to talk or when. When it was going to talk. That was.
- [37:47]
B
Right.
- [37:48]
A
That's interesting.
- [37:49]
B
Yeah. I mean, this is not, like, perfect, right. But it's like an 85%, 100% of the time, and that's been a real game changer.
- [38:02]
A
What do you think a human is, on average? Not that less than 85%.
- [38:06]
B
I do.
- [38:07]
A
Huh? Do you think? Well, I mean, I guess your numbers show that it's doing better than humans. It is because I wanted to say, like, my, my thought would be that, is that people would prefer a human and not an AI.
- [38:20]
B
If they ask to talk to a human, they get transferred to human. But yeah, no, I think most people would prefer to talk to a human. The thing in family law is that intake people burn out so quickly. Like months really, maybe six months. So you have all the time to train them, which takes a lot longer than training a bot. And then you might get six months of empathy and focus. But the job takes so much empathy and focus and attention to detail that people really struggle with it.
- [38:52]
A
Do current clients call the AI and talk to the AI?
- [38:56]
B
It's not as good with current clients. So the way that we have it set up is you call and you first get to a phone tree. If you know your party's extension, enter it. If you're not sure what that is, dial by name and find it. If you're a new client, press 1.
- [39:10]
A
Because it seems to me like it could do a lot to help with, with your employees and, like, taking a lot of stress off of them if you could find a way for it to handle current clients and.
- [39:21]
B
Right.
- [39:22]
A
You know what I mean? Like, because like, like a lot of times, though, they're all, like, pissed off. You know, their ex has, you know, done something to make them mad, so they're calling in all angry and taking out on your staff. That would be a huge stress relief.
- [39:33]
B
Oh, absolutely. That's the next version, right. So if this version got chained, trained to do intake, like, the next version will be able to read client files and say, oh, well, the last thing we got said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Let me make sure I understand exactly what happened so I can tell your attorney, Heather, all about that. I'll get it over here right now. You know, it's going to happen. Paralegals may be in trouble.
- [39:53]
A
They might be. And they, they got to stop. They're going to stop BSing clients. That's something I've had a problem with in the past, where they're BSing clients about things and the AI is not going to lie to them. The AI is going to say, here's what's going on with your file. No one's looked at your file in three weeks, and I'll make sure that an attorney looks at it. Gets back to you kind of a thing. You're like, you, right? That's one of those ones where you, you. There's no, no, sorry, there's no recent activity. What do you mean there's no recent activity? I just got a bill.
- [40:22]
B
You know, that would be bad.
- [40:24]
A
That's one of those. One of those things where this goes back to the. Wouldn't say necessarily equal access to justice, but it's more the transparency injustice. I think that's a good thing.
- [40:31]
B
Me too. Clients having immediate access to their files, to correspondence, to what's going on in their case, real time, not having to wait for their lawyer to interpret it and tell them about it is a good thing.
- [40:41]
A
Yeah, I do agree with that. That's something where the proactive updates using AI. Super awesome. There's something we're building out that we're a ways away from getting it done, but it's. I. I'm kind of envisioning this thing where you have, like, we have people like humans doing manual file reviews, where they're going through, just reviewing files. And I would love for the AI to do the same thing going through and as opposed to doing like one monthly, you know, file review. It's a. You could do a daily file review if you wanted to. That way you're like. For us, like, it's speed, like injury cases. It's speed getting cases moving. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Keeping them, pushing them down the line. And if you can do like these daily file reviews, that's incredible. I mean, you're gonna be. Now, I don't know if I'm gonna do that like that often because that's a lot of tokens. You're gonna be. You're gonna be burning through, but you know what? I mean, it's one of those things where if you could do them weekly, that's a. You're talking about increasing things by 4, 4x. That's pretty awesome.
- [41:38]
B
Exactly. It can give clients updates. It can tell you, hey, I think you should set out a demand or have you thought about, blah, blah, blah, blah. You may have missed xyz.
- [41:46]
A
Yeah. And then the next.
- [41:47]
B
It's gonna be so cool.
- [41:48]
A
Well, that. That part's really cool. I like that. That part is. I think you're missing these things. You need to send an investigator out at some point. It's going to be able to send out the investigator to do things. It's going to send that demand. I think there's a lot that's going to happen, that there's just a lot of potential. Is there anything that, that you worry about? Anything that you're fearful of when it comes to the AI?
- [42:08]
B
No, no. I think if you are adaptable, if you are creative, if you are willing to work with whatever the right reality is, everything will be fine. But if you try to, like, control what's coming or what's going to happen, like, let's be clear. Nobody knows. We're just on the ride.
- [42:24]
A
Totally. All right. I do want to ask you. We talk. We started by talking about things like that you were kind of, like, letting go and all that. From a personal standpoint, like, have you. Is there anything that you've done from a personal standpoint where, like, I'm not doing this anymore. Is it, like, could be social media, it could be watching movies. I. I do wonder, like, have you gone that deep and started to jettison things from your personal life that you are no longer doing? So you could be more focused?
- [42:49]
B
That's a good question. I haven't, but I was already pretty ruthless about that. Like, I have a house manager that comes every day, every day, because I want my house to be clean and organized, and I want errands taken care of, and I never want to have to think about laundry. Like, I want to be able to work and spend time with my kids. Like, those are. Those are the two things. That's it. Like, if it's not one of those two things, I don't really want to do it. I don't have time to do it.
- [43:17]
A
I do want to say, damn you, because the whole I got in this house manager kick years ago because of you. We tried to hire people, couldn't find anybody to do it. And so tell me the way. Teach us the way. I even created a guide, a whole manual for people to use. It's like, it's all of our SOPs. And I blame you for all of this. And so how do I. How do I find someone to do this? Because I think it's a brilliant idea. It's just funny. Someone to do it. It's been really difficult.
- [43:49]
B
Yeah, it hasn't been easy. Like, we had one for four years who we really, really, really, really liked, but then she kept kind of, like, I think she might have been a hypochondriac. So she kind of always thought she was dying, and then she would leave and go to Brazil for extending periods of time. And, like, you know, it got to the point where it's like, ugh, we're losing this person who has been so essential. And it took us, like, four tries to replace her. So I think you just got to keep trying until you find somebody, the current person.
- [44:16]
A
And this is a person who doesn't live with you, right? They're just. Yeah, they show up like a job every day, right?
- [44:21]
B
Exactly. They show up like a job every day. And I hired him through the law firm and the current person, you know, used to clean houses for Airbnb. She's great. She shows up, she does what she's supposed to. Like you have to put in some time and train. But honestly like any help is great. So I also don't expect like perfection.
- [44:41]
A
So you, because, because of where you live, your like the salary ranges and I hate, I hate the salary range question because it's different based on where you live. So if you like were to classify. So instead of like asking amounts that you pay a house manager, I want to put like in categories. So you have like, let's say like C suite level, like ownership level. And then you have maybe under that maybe you have like senior managers, then maybe you have junior managers. And then you have like maybe senior, senior litigation attorneys, junior litigation attorneys, case managers, litigation assistants, you know, all the way down to like receptionists or whatever. Like what level are you paying a house manager at?
- [45:22]
B
Not a high level. This is a job where you come and you clean and you run errands and this is not a high skilled job. Yeah, I just need you to show up every day and make sure everything that is pretty basic is taken care of. So I'm not trying to get somebody who can make high level decisions.
- [45:41]
A
Do you personally personality test these people?
- [45:43]
B
I haven't.
- [45:44]
A
I'm just curious because I want. I, I was hoping you were going to say yes so I could figure out what they, what their scores are, what to look for. That's, that's what I was, that's what I was asking. So I was.
- [45:53]
B
So what didn't work out?
- [45:54]
A
We couldn't find anybody that one. The number of people that applied very low was super low. I mean we got like five people that applied and, and I said, well, maybe we just didn't, maybe didn't do a very good job of defining the role. But. Or maybe it was just too detailed because it was a very detailed job description. And I was like, well, maybe I'm just not offering enough money and increasing the salary didn't make a difference. And we were so. I was kind of taking the same view that you know, it was sort of a lower level position. So we weren't, we weren't offering a ton of money. But it wasn't nothing. Right. It was, it was actually decent. And I was like, you're showing up to our house. Like you're Basically just taking care of the house. It's like, it wasn't super complicated. Makes me think that because we've kind of given up on it. It's been a few years since I've even put up a job ad about it. So I. Maybe I should go back to it. Maybe it's something where it was. This was also during that we were coming out of COVID kind of a thing. And I do wonder if maybe the world has changed quite a bit in the last few years, and so maybe going back to it might make sense.
- [46:54]
B
Yeah. Did you. Did you post on care.com because I think you have, like, two categories. Mostly. You have a mostly child care category or a mostly cleaning category. And I think you kind of have to pick one. Like, which way are they going?
- [47:07]
A
I don't remember. I know it. At some point, we were on care.com and I do know that I. I know for a fact we were posting at one point on Indeed, but. And I think we might have on Care, but I don't remember. Maybe. So do you think Care is the way to go?
- [47:22]
B
Okay. So I'm glad we were talking about this because it jogged my memory. I was using Care.com and Striking Out. The way that this round worked was I went on a local Facebook group, Go Gilbert. And I said, here's what I want. That worked great. I got tons of people. This is perfect for me. Because these people may not even know they're looking. Right. The people with our. The skill set that we're looking for, they may not even, like, be looking for a job or know that this is a job that they could do.
- [47:47]
A
Interesting. Go Gilbert. I've never even heard of Go Gilbert.
- [47:50]
B
Well, do you have something like that? Like, do you have. Do you have a. Like, where do you live? Which city?
- [47:54]
A
So we're in Columbia. So we moved from St. Louis to Columbia a few years back.
- [47:58]
B
So is there, like, Columbia community or Colombian neighbors? Is there, like, a big Facebook group where people just talk about, like, local issues? Yeah, try that.
- [48:06]
A
Okay. You are. I did. I did see a. A video of you, like, doing something about Gilbert and I that was kind of interesting. I don't remember what the video was about. I remember thinking, why am I still watching this video? Because I was, like, sucked into it and there was some drama going on in Gilbert. I can't remember.
- [48:23]
B
Was it the Gilbert goons?
- [48:25]
A
I don't remember. I don't.
- [48:26]
B
Okay.
- [48:27]
A
It was fairly recent, and I'm like. I was several minutes into it thinking, like, why am I Still watching this. This makes no sense. I don't live in Gilbert. I. I know who Billy is, but I'm not. I don't have zero idea why I'm still watching it to the point where I said, okay, I'm done, and I turned it off. I don't even know how it ended. Nothing. But it was, it was. You were sitting outside.
- [48:47]
B
Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about.
- [48:48]
A
I don't know. I don't know what it was, but it was. It was interesting. But we are going to wrap things up. And what is your advice to people that we're in this very turbulent time where things are changing rapidly? Do you have any advice to people to kind of in the show?
- [49:03]
B
I mean, can I ask you, like, how are you staying sane with all these options and all this change?
- [49:09]
A
I don't have a good answer for it because I do feel like over the last year, things have become more chaotic for me in that I've been less. Luckily I am. I've already got my very fairly rigid schedule and I've got enough people around me to help, you know, get things done and sort of pad me from. I don't check my emails and I, you know, I rarely take a phone call, this kind of thing. But I. I do feel that my unease has. Is increased over the last year. I think that what's kept me sane, though, is the fact that I do have a lot of buffers. I have so many buffers around me that really protect my time. And so it's. I think it really just comes out of time management. But my discomfort comes now from, though, having too much time on my hands where things. This is. I had this conversation with Jason Selk a few weeks ago where I had a trial, got continued abruptly at the last minute, and I all of a sudden had a few days on my hands and I was kind of like, what do I do with this? This is a weird thing. So that. That was a very uncomfortable thing for me. So I think my issue probably is more of. Because things are changing so quickly and if I've got extra time, I am. It's the. It's the. The following. That shiny object. And I'm not normally like that, but I think it's because things are changing, changing so rapidly because of that. So I don't have a great an. Just creating a bunch of buffers like dot, checking your own email, making sure people are managing your calendar, having a good executive assistant. All the same things that you're probably doing.
- [50:41]
B
I think my Advice to people would be like, if you haven't already done, like, an annual plan for next year, where am I at today? Where do I want to be in a year? And what would I need to do to get there? Like, if you haven't already done that, maybe do that, and then maybe resist the shiny because you have a plan.
- [51:00]
A
Yeah, I would actually add on to that just like, if you don't have a coach, have a coach, too, because that's something where, like, Jason will reel me on, too, where I'm. You know, he'll ask me, like, you know. You know, on a scale 1 to 10, where are you on these things? And if I'm like, at 5, he's like, what's going on? Like, what's. What are we doing here? And then we'll kind of dissect my week and my day and. Okay, what do you. And that. Having something like that. That holds you accountable is pretty important. I don't know if you have a coach or not, but I don't. Yeah, for me, it's really important.
- [51:26]
B
Sounds like a good idea, though.
- [51:27]
A
Yeah. I highly recommend it. Yeah.
- [51:29]
B
Do you have one you like that you'll send my way?
- [51:31]
A
Yeah, I'll send you Jason's information. Because I think Jason is really. I mean, I've recommended him to so many different people. He's. He's someone that's. It's. It's. It's. Here's the thing. I'm not spending hours and hours. I spend 15 minutes a week or a month with him. It's. So it's one of those things where we jump on a call for 15 minutes, we talk about things. He does offer longer ones if you need it. But I've been working with him for so long that I went from, like, 45 minutes. I think they're 30 minutes to 15 minutes. So now we're down to 15 minutes a month. And if I need it, if I ever need something, I can always reach out to him. But it's. We get on a call for 15 minutes, we check in on, like, it's boom. It's quick. It's razor focused, and then we move on. That's. It's pretty nice.
- [52:12]
B
I like it. I like it a lot. It was so good to talk to you.
- [52:14]
A
Likewise, as usual. And so I can't. I can't wait to talk in another year.
- [52:19]
B
I know.
- [52:20]
A
Not that you and I won't talk another year, but I go actually on the show to see how things have changed so we can compare, you know? What I'm going to do. I'm going to go to the very first episode you did, compare it to this one and see how much things have changed. That'll be a very interesting comparison. I bet.
- [52:34]
B
It's a lot. But it's so good to talk to you and we'll talk again soon.
- [52:37]
A
Absolutely. Thank you, Billy. Appreciate it.
- [52:54]
B
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