Loading summary
Transcript3 lines
- [00:02]
A
If you're like most law firm owners, 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, 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.
- [00:46]
B
This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix. Welcome back to Maximum Lawyer Live. I am Tyson Mutrix, and today I am extremely excited about what I'm gonna talk about because I'm talking about consumers versus builders. That's what I'm talking about. This kind of stems from a conversation that I was having with Jeremy Danielson yesterday. You're kind of shooting some audio messages back and forth, and I kind of kind of got on my soapbox about something and I wanted to talk about a little bit. I told him, I was like, you know what? Maybe I'll talk about this tomorrow. So decided to. It's because there are people right now that are using AI and then there are people that are building with AI. And that is going to be a distinction that's going to matter more than anything over the next three to five years. The builders that are building with AI and then the consumers that are just consuming AI. Big, big difference. The reason why that is, is that the best way to predict the future is to create it. I've talked about that before. That's a Peter Drucker quote, but it's spot on. You gotta create your own future right now, and the power is in your hands. The default lately, and I think since the beginning, I think this has been. It's a normal default. Here's the AI that was created. Let's consume that AI. That's, that is, you know, typing into Chad GPT, you know, find me a good restaurant to go to this weekend. That's. That's what I'm talking about. Or help me rewrite this paragraph, which is something I've been, you know, sort of guilty of using it to that extent. But what I, what I really want to encourage you to do is shift from that mindset into a builder Mind building mindset. Because if you're just consuming AI at this point, you're just renting is what you're doing. Builders are going to own the future. If you're consuming, you're just renting and you'll be renting forever. You are going to rent yourself into a life of renting is what's going to happen. You really need to get out of that mindset. The biggest risk is not taking a risk. That's, that's really what it's about. And what's really cool is that these days is like you don't have to be a coder to be a builder. There are a lot of tools out there that you can use to build things for you. It. What's kind of something I've been tinkering around with lately is I'm using Claude's cowork to then communicate with Bolt to then build things, you know, vibe code it. So what's really and what's, what saves me the most time with that is there are many times there are follow up prompts that need to be done with Bolt to help complete a task. Sometimes something will be built and then it doesn't work properly. You gotta test it out. What's great is I can give a prompt to Claude and it will, it'll see it through until it's done. It could take hours. That's what's kind of crazy. Sometimes it will take hours. Like I've got one really. It's going right now on my laptop next to me. It has been going since about, I don't know, 7 o' clock this morning. And it's, it's a, I gave it a very big task to build something and it's in the middle of, middle of doing it, but when it's done, it's going to save a tremendous amount of time. It's going to be an amazing upgrade for our team. And so that's why I'm doing it. And it's. What's great about all this is that you, you're building things. This is what I'm talking about, the renting versus the building. I'm building something that I'm not having. I'm not gonna have to pay every single month to some software company, some SaaS company, you know, every single, for, for decades. You know, think about how much money you spent. I, I talked about this in the association just the other day about how much we've, we spent with different software companies. And it's a tremendous amount of money. And if you can take that money and you shift that into the profit category. Think about that like you, okay, now I've shifted that into the profit category because I don't not spending it anymore because I've built my own thing that I'm not having to pay every single month on. Now there might be some other costs that are associated with it. Feel like, you know, could be like storage costs or whatever, you name it. But it's a fraction. I'm talking a tiny, tiny fraction. You can shift that in the profit category where you can, it gives you. It's like fun money at that point where you can decide, okay, I can pocket that cash, I can get bonuses, I can, I can put the pedal to the metal when it comes to AI, or I can do that with marketing. You, it frees up a lot for you. And I, I'm, I'm very worried for the legal tech industry. I really am. I don't know how they're going to survive this. I don't, I really don't know. But who knows? Maybe they, maybe they've got a master plan, but I really don't. I don't know. But back, back on topic here. We're really in this classic first mover environment. There are, it's funny there. Hermosi shared something on social media a couple months ago and people kind of repeat it. I thought it was kind of funny because it was like, that's, that is. What are you talking about? Like, that is a model from the 70s that were created by these economists. It's not a hormone. A lot of people thought it was a hormozy thing. But a part of that is like the first mover environment and that's where we are. If you look at kind of like the lean startup model you build, measure, learn, that's now happening in a really unprecedented manner. The speed is incredible. And that's just because the AI is, it's reducing that friction dramatically. There's something that I had seen a couple weeks ago. About every seven months the capabilities are doubling, I think is what it is of AI. So every seven, seven months the capabilities are doubling. Like that is. And it's like on, like, like clockwork, like every seven months it happens every seven months, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So if you just kind of imagine where we are now and where we're gonna be in seven months, it is, it's already been an amazing writing. I think many of you that have been, have been building, you've seen the acceleration, how it's, how it's been picking up over the last several months. It seemed like there was a slow, a slowing and I, I think that was because Claude, I, I, I'm my, my whole thought is that Claude was holding a lot of this back as opposed to like open AI where seems like they have an update, they release it, they have an update, they, they've released it. So it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But Claude, it seemed like they were holding onto a bunch and then they release it and then the game changed. It was, at this point, it's almost game over. I think AI is or OpenAI is really on the ropes. They are, they've taken a beating over the last few months and Gemini and Claude are the dominant forces. But at this pace, OpenAI can rebound. I don't think there's any, it's been this neck and neck race between those three over the last few years. But a big part of what you need to be doing at this point is building, build to fail. Build, build, build. You're going to fail. But iterate, build, fail, iterate, build, build, fail, iterate, build, fail, iterate over and over and over again. And you're eventually going to build these products that are for your firm. You're going to build firms, you're, you can build your own AI firm at this point. My, my opinion about six months ago, it's whenever I spoke at hona's conference and Disrupt conference is what it was called, so may have been nine months ago or so. What I said back then was is that at that point you could build a mediocre AI firm. All AI you really could. At where we are right now, I actually think you could build a good all AI firm. I, I really do believe that you, it would take some work, but the advances have been that great that I think you actually could, I think you could do takes a massive organization and you can't just, you know, do it without a plan. But I completely think you could do it at this point. I've done enough testing that I think it's completely possible. The, the big hurdle that you have to get over is the voice AI I know people like Jeremy Danielson have used are using voice AI very effectively. I'm very hesitant with our firm to implement voice AI. It takes away some of our advantage when it comes to that customer service part of it. But he's doing it really, really well. We're just, just completely different business models. But the, the main thing is you need to be building though whatever it is, whether you try to go with a full AI law firm or not. And I think that most people at this point, most law firm owners think building means software development. And it, I mean it kind of does, but it not fully. It really means at this point, really. And this goes kind of goes back to like the AI type of law firm. It means designing systems, right? Intake automations, AI agents for a variety of different things, marketing workflows, different decision frameworks. It means all of those different things. That's really what talking about. And what's funny is like that is not much different than what running a law firm has been like traditionally. The big difference is that all the friction has been removed with AI. You can do many of these things with AI where you're not having to do it yourself. Like for example, some of the tools I'm building out, like I told you I'm doing it, I'm using AI to use an AI to build it out. Which, the reason why that's important is, is that the AI that I'm using so cowork can actually code. So I can't code. So it can go in, it can vary, verify what's happening with bolt and Bolt. If it messes something up, coworker can go in and say, look at the code. Well, here's where you screwed up. Go fix this or it'll fix it itself. I don't have that coding background, so I can't do that. But that's where this advantage and that happens all across the board from not just coding, but from. Think about how many, how many, how many of you looked up medical advice? How many of you, even though your lawyers have looked up legal advice? I'm, I, I have there just the other day, okay, I thought a law was one thing and I wanted to verify it and I searched it and I said I was right. But it was one of the things where I wasn't a hundred percent positive. I wanted to bring it to the statute. It brought the statute. It, it gave me its, its analysis of it. I read it, I verified that it was accurate. So I wasn't, wasn't worried about hallucinations. But it was one of those things where we were just having a conversation internally about something and I was like, I think the law is this, let's look this up. So I looked it up really quick and I was right. But that, I mean that is something that across all areas of our lives, that's happening. So this is what. So it removes that friction, so it allows us to move a lot faster. And one of the things I was talking to Jeremy about is that I am at this point, any free time I have on building, any free time at all, if I'm not doing that, something that's absolutely necessary at the firm I'm building, if I've got free time at home where, you know, the kids are off doing something and, you know, Amy and I aren't doing something, I'm. I'm building, okay? That's what I'm doing. I'm doing this non stop because it is that important. I. And I don't know if I've. I don't know if I've mentioned this before. This is going to sound like sort of a closed mindset, but just stick with me for a second. The way I kind of view AI right now is it's, and I hope I haven't said this before, but it's kind of like this portal. And if you, if you imagine this portal where you're. It's open right now, it's a circle, you know, like in a movie, you know, you can walk through it and you got the future on the other side. I feel like every day that, that, that portal is kind of closing just a little bit every day a little bit more and a little bit more. A little bit more. And all the people that are building right now, they're going to make their way to the other side of that portal and there's gonna be people that don't. It's gonna close at some point and they're not gonna make it through. And they're gonna be stuck on this side because there's gonna be a point where people, they're gonna start to see, oh, the, this, the portal's getting smaller. It's. It's pretty small, but I can still make it. And they'll start late, but by the time they get almost there, the portal will be closed. And so that point, there's. They're gonna be renting. The builders are gonna be, are gonna be the ones that own the future. And then the renters are gonna be on this side of the portal and they're gonna be renting forever. That is what I don't want for you. I want you to be a builder. I want you to make it through that portal on the other side. That's how big of a deal this is. I think it's. The portal is there, it's open for anyone that wants to go through it. It's. You have to do the work right now. And so kind of what I'm saying I'm kind of saying is if some of your cases take a little bit longer, okay, they take a little bit longer. Sacrifice a little bit of that short term, those short term wins for some long term wins for really long term domination. Sacrifice a little bit, little bit of that now for the long term. And this is really no different from what I normally preach because we talk about rocks and we talk about doing, you know, your product versus process goals and you want to focus on the process. This is really make part of your process building at this point, right? Kind of a hat tip to, you know, Jason Selk. Those are his terms. Process, process, process. Make building a part of your process it. Because if you don't, you're gonna get stuck on this side of the portal and I don't want that for you. So let me kind of give you a prompt here. So just think of it. If you could, as you're listening to this or as you're watching this, if you're watching it live, if you could automate just one thing in your firm by tomorrow, what would it be? And this could be, could be an automation, it could be an AI could, whatever it may be, but think about what that thing is and go do it. Stop listening to this thing right now. Becca's gonna kill me for saying that, but go do it. Go build it or do it while you are listening to this thing, because you have no excuse. If you're listening to this right now or you're watching this right now, you can do this with Cowork over on another screen. Oh, I wanna build this widget on my website. Okay, go build the widget on your website, tell Cowork to do it and go give it the credentials to do it and it'll do it for you. It's that easy. That's, that's what's crazy about it's that easy right now where you just tell it to do it. You can do your other work, you can, you can do your normal thing that you normally do and it can be working in the background. That's what's so amazing about it. And I can, I'm just going to tell you right now, kind of whisper this because we, I'm at the office during our, our meetings today. I'm going to be kind of peeking to see how things are going with, with Cowork and see what the hell the bills go. I'll probably add some more, more prompts and I'll still be building throughout the day as I'm, as I'm doing Other things, as. As I'm doing my normal Wednesday meeting day, I'll be doing those things in the background. So really nothing will change with my day. I'll still be building. It'll just be kind of in the background on the side. Okay. Really important. All right. And something else I want to talk about is the psychological bare barrier to this a little bit and why I think people really aren't building. I don't think. I don't think it's technology. I. I do think part of it is technology, but I don't think that's the main thing. I put some things in the association, some really basic documents in the association last week, and the reason why I did that is I. I think there are some people that just don't know where to start. They are a little bit scared. And, you know, with lawyers, a lot of times it's identity. Right. They're. They're trained to analyze, or we are. We are trained to analyze. Many times we're taught to reduce risk, I think a little bit less with the. In the PI sector. But. But most lawyers, I think, kind of want some certainty builders. They do the opposite. So I'm kind of asking you to step outside of most of your comfort zones and do the opposite and build. Take some risk here. Because you. Once you start it, I think once you start some of this, where you start the building, you. You're gonna get out of your comfort zone a little bit. Then you're gonna start to get comfortable, like, oh, this isn't nearly as difficult as I thought. There's this Sheryl Sandberg quote. If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat, just get on. And that is what I'm telling you. Okay? If you're offered. So you're. You have. You've been offered a seat on a rocket ship. Okay. That's what you. That's what's happened. Get the. Get the frick on it. That's what I'm saying. Get on the rocket ship. Because once you're on, it may seem scary, the fact that you're getting on a rocket ship, but once you're on here and realize, oh, my gosh, this isn't too bad. This is actually a lot of fun. And next thing you know, you're up in the atmosphere looking down at Earth, thinking, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. That's. That's what the opportunity is at this point. Because, I mean, part of this, too, is like, you gotta remember your firm is only gonna Grow to the level of the systems that you're willing to build. And if you're not willing to build those more advanced systems, your firm is gonna stay down here while everyone else is going up here. Okay? That is the reality of it. So don't stay down here. Grow up here. And that doesn't mean you have to grow to 50,000 people, right? Doesn't. That doesn't mean you have to add another seat with a lot of the stuff. It'll, it'll actually make it where you don't have to. You can hire probably less people if you want to. Like I said before, that's not our plan. Our plan is to keep our people, use them for the customer service side of things, make our clients happy. That's what I want to keep our people for. Because I think that they're by far the best at being able to, to do that. All right, let's talk a little bit about the future when it comes to this. And what I talk about snowballs a lot. And I talk about compounding and all that. You gotta remember a lot of, a lot of part of the future is gonna be builder compounding and market separation because it. Cause AI is accelerating everything. Marketing, operations, you know, delivery of your legal services. The firms that are going to build those internal systems, those external systems, those are going to create exponential advantages that compound over time. They're going to have increased efficiency, they're have increased margins, increased client experience. Think about this like the margins. Here's what the margins are going to be able to do. So the increased efficiency, which will increase, which will also improve margins. They're going to be able to take that money and dump it in other things that you're not going to be able to. So maybe spend more money in marketing the money that you don't have because you're not doing it. That is the, that's the difference, right? They're going to have that extra money because they've got, they've increased the efficiency and they're going to out compete you. That's what's going to happen. So what's going to happen is they're going to be the firms that don't build and they're the ones that are going to have, they're going to learn too late. But the thing is you gotta have to change before you have to. That's the key. You gotta change before you have to. That's an old Jack Welch code quote. So start doing that, focus on building, start to wrap things. But think about like, where do where do you want your firm to be when all this settles? Okay, where. Where do you want your firm to be when all this. When the portal closes? Where do you want your firm to be? And my guess is if you start now, you're going to overshoot that, which is fantastic, that you're going to be in a much better position than what you even expected. But even if you're, if you don't quite hit. Hit it, you're going to be still in a great spot on the other side of this portal. And so I think that's. I think that there's some very exciting, at times, exciting times ahead. But you have to take. Act. Take action. So if you take just one thing from this episode, it's this. Don't wait to understand everything. Start building now. Because the people who build today, the people that build today are the ones everyone else will be chasing tomorrow. Okay? So get there before the portal closes. Have a great week, everybody, and we will be seeing you. Make sure you check out beccaslist.co, where you can find the best vendors and the worst, but the best vendors for you that can help you in your firms. And if you want more information about the association, go to maximiliary.com and when you. If you want more information about Max Law con, go to maxlaw events.com See everybody. Take care.
- [22:19]
A
Before you go, quick shout out to Becca's list. If you've ever hired a vendor for your law firm and immediately thought, yeah, that wasn't it, this exists for you. Becaslist is a curated list of companies that work with law firm owners. No paid placements, no random recommendations. Just real reviews from law firm owners who have already learned the hard way. If you want to see what's working for other firms and help us grow becaslist to the largest place for law firms to find trusted Answers, head to BeccasList Co and leave your first review today.