Ep. 552 - Melone Hatley P.C. COO Dan Cuneo - How Smart Ops Leaders Really Dominate New Markets

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold

Episode: Ep. 552 - Melone Hatley P.C. COO Dan Cuneo – How Smart Ops Leaders Really Dominate New Markets
Date: February 10, 2026
Guest: Dan Cuneo, COO of Melone Hatley, P.C.
Host: Cameron Herold

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Dan Cuneo, Chief Operating Officer of Melone Hatley, a rapidly growing family law and estate planning firm operating across eight U.S. markets. Host Cameron Herold explores the intersection of business operations and law, highlighting Dan’s strategies for dominating new markets, leveraging AI, marketing effectively, fostering strong office culture, and his personal growth as a leader. The discussion pulls back the curtain on smart operations leadership in a historically slow-to-change industry, offering actionable insights for COOs in any field.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Melone Hatley: Firm Overview and Market Expansion

[02:55–03:46]

• Firm Profile: Family law and estate planning, headquartered in Virginia with offices in Florida, Texas, and South Carolina.
• Mission-Driven Growth: “Growth is great, but it’s really about helping individuals who come to us in family law when they're at their worst, and protecting their family, their future, and their finances on the estate planning side.” (Dan Cuneo, 03:30)
• Expansion Approach: All growth is currently “greenfield”—opening new offices rather than acquiring existing firms.
  • Markets are chosen based on data analysis (demographics, divorce rates, estate planning needs) and fit with firm values.
  • Medium-sized, less saturated markets are prioritized over large metros due to lower entry costs and higher brand visibility opportunities.

2. Talent and Attorney Recruitment

[07:32–10:15]

• Hiring Smarter: “Do we just have a butt in the seat, or do we want the right person? That impacts culture and revenue long-term.” (Dan Cuneo, 08:13)
• Process Used: Implementation of “Topgrading” hiring methodology (Brad & Jeff Smart)—in-depth cultural and performance vetting, references, and value alignment checks.
• Entrepreneurial Spirit:
  • Routine hires: Passion for client advocacy and team fit are key.
  • New market leads: Must possess entrepreneurial drive to build brand presence, contribute to content creation, and spearhead local reputation.

3. COO Role in Law Firms – Legal Background or Pure Operations?

[12:33–13:10]

• Dan’s path: Law school graduate, fell into leadership through process improvements and business-minded “little projects.”
• Legal Experience: Nice But Not Essential:
  • “I think what separates a law firm that’s successful versus a traditional law firm is treating it like a business. And attorneys are bad business people... having someone that’s at least litigated is probably a little bit beneficial.” (Dan Cuneo, 12:33)
  • Cameron adds that lawyers’ lack of business training and reluctance to be “the dumb person in the room” often hinders firm growth.

4. Operating System and Managing Multi-Location Growth

[15:07–16:57]

• Systems Used: Adopts “Scaling Up” as guiding operational framework. Recently returned to structured coaching to fine-tune processes amid rapid expansion.
• Challenges:
  • Communication: Ongoing focus on frequency, clarity, and alignment at leadership and team levels.
  • Alignment: Regular leadership meetings scrutinize misalignment, treating it as “death by a thousand slashes.”
• Remote/Silo Risks: Silos exist due to team structures, but overt office politics have not surfaced yet.

5. Internal Communication and Daily Huddles

[18:18–20:18]

• Alignment Tactics: Daily huddles by team (5–15 minutes): start with wins (work or personal), review daily priorities, identify coverage needs, troubleshoot obstacles.
• Avoiding Death by Meeting: Goal is efficient collaboration, not endless check-ins.
  • “We want to get out of the weeds and work on the firm, not just in the firm.” (Dan Cuneo)

6. AI in Law – Risks, Use Cases, and Strategy

[21:18–23:18]

• Cautious Adoption: AI is a guide, not a replacement, given risks like “hallucinations” (incorrect or fabricated references).
  • “For lawyers, we need to make sure we’re checking the case law is still good... AI can save a lot of time, but you don’t want to just file that.” (Dan Cuneo, 22:11)
  • Emphasis on using closed/internal AI models to maintain confidentiality and control data provenance.
• Cameron and Dan agree: Law will always require skilled practitioners.

7. Marketing That Works (And What Doesn’t) in Law

[25:39–28:33]

• New Markets:
  • Initial focus: PPC (pay-per-click) and SEO, intense competitor and keyword research.
  • Unique edge: Translating website and campaigns to target Spanish-speaking clients in Texas markets, a largely untapped demographic.
  • Experimentation: Retargeting, geofencing around events for localized ad delivery.
• Mature Markets:
  • Brand reinforcement, word-of-mouth, and strategic reallocation of marketing budgets based on channel effectiveness.
• Traditional Channels: Billboards return dubious ROI; less effective than digital for tracking and targeting.

8. Future Marketing: AI/LLM Search Optimization

[28:21–28:39]

• Early discussions on optimizing content for AI search tools like Grok, Perplexity, Gemini, and OpenAI, but still exploratory.

9. People Over Profits – TEDx Talk Highlights

[29:47–33:37]

• Central message: “Your people are your greatest asset. If you invest in your people, you are profitable.”
• Implementation: Quarterly, anonymous employee surveys with transparent feedback loops—action items are shared and progress reported company-wide.
• "I want our team to be excited for that survey to come out because...if I put a concern there, it’s going to be addressed." (Dan Cuneo, 32:20)
• Destination Careers: Intentionally develops a “destination” workplace, not just a stepping stone.

10. Leading High-Achieving Legal Talent

[34:32–37:00]

• Leadership vs. Management:
  • “Leadership is not management. You're a leader—servant leadership...just listen. Active listening.” (Dan Cuneo, 34:58)
  • Opens meetings with genuine “How are you?”—and goes “off script” for those in need of personal support.
• Challenging High Performers:
  • Keep top talent challenged, creative, and innovate for clients as well as internal process.

11. Personal Leadership Growth & Wisdom

[37:19–38:19]

• Biggest growth driver: “Learning from my past failures and being able to actually use that as success.”
• Advice to younger self: “Listen, be patient, and failing is okay.” (Dan Cuneo, 38:19)

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Notable Quotes

• On Law Firm Success:
  “What separates a law firm that’s successful versus a traditional law firm is treating it like a business. And attorneys are bad business people…”
  —Dan Cuneo, [12:33]

• On People Over Profits:
  “Your people are your greatest asset. So you are profitable if you invest in your people.”
  —Dan Cuneo, [31:55]

• On Communication & Leadership:
  “We want to work together as a team...it’s the misalignment. If that continues on, I think in any company it’s kind of death by a thousand slashes.”
  —Dan Cuneo, [16:01]

• On AI in Law:
  “AI can save a lot of time...but you don’t want to just file that. You need to make sure you’re proofing it and that it makes sense for your client.”
  —Dan Cuneo, [22:08]

• On Authentic Leadership:
  “I start off every one on one...with ‘How are you?’ Right. I just want to be as altruistic as possible because I do care.”
  —Dan Cuneo, [34:58]

• On Failure:
  “I’m a very competitive person by nature and so I don't like to lose, but I have to take a step back and learn that losses aren’t always a bad thing if you learn from them.”
  —Dan Cuneo, [37:19]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction and Firm Background: [02:55–03:46]
• Market Selection & Expansion Process: [04:02–06:30]
• Attorney Recruitment & Culture Fit: [07:32–10:15]
• Operational Frameworks and Challenges: [15:07–16:57]
• Daily Huddle Structure: [19:31–20:18]
• AI in Law – Realities and Cautions: [21:18–23:18]
• What Works in Legal Marketing: [25:39–28:21]
• SEO for AI/LLMs: [28:21–28:39]
• TEDx Talk—People Over Profits: [29:47–33:37]
• Leading Smart, High-Performing Lawyers: [34:32–37:00]
• Personal Growth and Leadership Lessons: [37:19–38:19]

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Episode Tone & Language

• Tone: Open, candid, practical, and grounded.
• Language: Blends legal, business, and leadership jargon with personal anecdotes and humility. Dan is practical, people-focused, and attentive to continuous improvement; Cameron is direct, supportive, and adds colorful commentary.

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Recommended For

• COOs growing multi-location businesses (legal and beyond)
• Leaders facing rapid industry or technology shifts
• Anyone eager for best-in-class people strategies and practical operational frameworks

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This summary delivers a comprehensive and engaging synthesis of the episode, preserving the conversational flow and wisdom from both Dan Cuneo and Cameron Herold while offering practical timestamps and attributions for quick reference.

Transcript

[A]

No, you don't really need that to, to be a good COO at a law firm, because I think what separates a law firm that's successful versus a traditional law firm is treating it like a business and attorneys are bad business people, which is very surprising to me. But I think having that litigation mindset and experience is helpful, but it's also helpful in relating to the team and to the firm and be able to help shepherd things through and implement and really get that, that buy in. So I think having someone that at least litigated before and wasn't or is an attorney and is probably a little bit beneficial. Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold. In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now here's your host, Cameron Herald.

[B]

All right, you're going to love this podcast. Today we've got a COO alliance member and he's the chief operating officer of a large law firm based in the United States. They operate in eight different markets. The company is called Malone Hatley and Dan Cuneo is the COO at chief operating officer of Malone Hatley. It's a family law practice. They have operators operating again in eight offices, about 100 employees, 30 attorneys. He's going to talk about AI and what's that doing to the industry, what marketing works and does not work inside of the industry. He's going to talk about some of the content that he covered in his TEDx talk in Tampa around people over profits, what it's like leading smart lawyers and experts and actually his growth as a leader over the years in running an organization. You'll love this episode. You can listen to all of our podcast episodes all the way back to episode number one. We've done about 520 anywhere that you listen to podcasts like Apple and Spotify. You can also watch all of our podcasts on our Second in Command podcast channel. Remember to like and subscribe and share these episodes. We'll see you on the inside. So, Dan, welcome to the Second in Command podcast.

[A]

Thanks for having me.

[B]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this for a couple reasons. One, I did my undergraduate degree in law, so that was kind of a fun space. I have one of the only undergrad degrees in Canada. It was a bachelor's degree with a law major and one of my very first coaching clients when I left 1-800-got-JUNK 18 years ago, was running a family law practice up in Canada called Fairway Divorce. So she was one of the very first three companies that I ever coached. So I have a bit of an affinity for the space that you're in. So. Welcome.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Yeah, so why don't you. Let's actually start us off with that. You are the CEO of a company called Mellon Hatley. Why don't you tell us what the company does and kind of give us kind of that brief overview and then we'll get into some of the nitty gritty because you guys are doing some cool stuff.

[A]

Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Yeah. I'm the CEO of Malone Hatley. We're a family law and estate planning law firm. We're headquartered in Virginia, which is where we have four offices. But we've also been fortunate enough to help out other families across the country. So we've expanded into Florida, Tampa, Florida, Columbia, South Carolina, Fort Worth, Texas, San Antonio, Texas, and Laredo, Texas. And we have approximately 30 plus attorneys and a team of 100 team members who really are just phenomenal individuals to work with that allow us to be able to grow and to help. And that's really where I look at it. The growth is great, and it's phenomenal, but it's really being able to help individuals who come to us in family law, which is, you know, divorce custody, child support, things like that, kind of at their worst, and we can help them. And then also on the estate planning side, that allows us really to protect their family, their future, and their finances.

[B]

All right, love it. So in the law space, I'm curious how you're scaling. Are you growing organically? Are you going through some acquisition now, going into some of these new states? Is that Greenfield? Are you opening up new offices? Are you acquiring firms that are there?

[A]

It's all green right now. Not into the acquisitions just yet. We're really more focused on where we think is a great market for our brand, so we can be able to help out those individuals and families. And once we identify the market, then I identify the candidate that would be able to really not just support the brand, but our values. And that's really what's kind of been our guiding principle and is we always go back to our values. We hire, we separate, and all our decisions are guided by our values.

[B]

How do you pick the areas to expand into? I mean, I like the fact that you're at least in only two time zones. You're kind of north, south a little bit. You're not doing San Diego and Iowa and like Scattered all around the United States. How do you pick the territories to go into?

[A]

Well, we're not yet scattered, but I hear you. It's really, it's an analysis that we team up with our marketing department to allow us to really look at what areas are growing, what has, you know, if it's on the family side, divorce rates, where are some of the newer areas that maybe larger companies are expanding to that we want to try to stay ahead? Where some areas that are prime for estate planning for us. Florida's a really good market for us in this state planning. Virginia has done really well for us. We just want to be able to be that firm that individuals can come to, not just for help, but guidance. We may not help them, but we can at least guide them along the way and set them up for success.

[B]

Well, okay, setting them up for success. But again, how do you. Is there a strategic thing that you look for? Is there a pain in the ass factor? Is there states that are a little bit easier to break into? Is it access to lawyers? Is it, is it. You know, I know when Walmart started it was all going after the secondary and tertiary markets because it was easier to advertise. It was easier to get really well known in the secondary market versus the big markets. Now they happen to be everywhere. But do you think about it that way?

[A]

We right now we've kind of been eliminating the larger markets and focusing more on, on the, the medium size. Because in the larger markets there's a lot of factors that, you know, we need to take into consideration. One, how saturated is it? But then also what is the cost to actually get in there? Yeah, you can plant flag anywhere and say, okay, I'm going to go into, you know, Los Angeles or New York City for example. But what, what's that cost going to be? I mean, I'm not even talking about salaries or anything like that.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's the market. Know what's it going to cost us to run ads or ppc and what are the key words there and what are the keywords that are being searched for and how much are individual companies paying for those? So we want to look at that as well.

[B]

Yeah, that was my expansion experience. I've done three multi unit location brands. One was 1-800-got junk. Another was called Gerber Auto Collision and the third was College Pro Painters. And I loved the secondary and tertiary markets. You could go into a Eugene, Oregon and literally have every man, woman and child know the brand College Pro Painters in two weeks just by putting signs everywhere and Standing on the main streets and waving at traffic people. But you try to do that in an Atlanta, you just, you know, a Dallas, a Houston, you just, you just kind of vaporize. So that makes sense. So the other thing I've always wanted to know in your space is recruiting attorneys is tough. I mean, you're going after some extraordinarily smart people who often want to go out and build their own business as well. How do you identify which attorneys are the right ones to hire that want to be maybe more intrapreneurial and work inside of an entrepreneurial brand, or just want to come in and focus on law versus wanting to go out and become an entrepreneur? How do you find those different people?

[A]

Well, I'll answer it two ways because that's a great question. The first one is when we already are established in a market, the entrepreneurial mindset isn't as important to me as someone who has drive or gumption that is really wanting to represent clients because that's their passion. They want to be able to come in and do good for somebody. They want to be able to say, okay, I have this client, I'm going to help them as opposed to someone who's just coming in and collecting a paycheck. We want them to be part of a team. And we've kind of switched around our or interviewing process and I'm sure you're very well familiar with the top grading process. So we've implemented that. And that was just from hard lessons learned at my prior firm I was with and then at the current one. Sometimes, you know, as you grow and especially if your company has grown so fast, it's do we just have a butt in the seat essentially and you know, in our field, a heartbeat and a bar license, or do we want to find the right person? Because yeah, you could find somebody and get them in like that, but that's really just a band aid. And you know, some companies, I think, overlook the fact that they may not be the right fit. Maybe temporarily, but long term that's going to impact your culture, that is going to impact your revenue. And so we want to, we dialed it back and really just took our time and read through that book and implemented that policy, went through the process and so it's a little bit more in depth interview. But we're finding the right candidate and we're making sure that our interview process is following our values and we're doing our due diligence as well in making sure that they're a good fit.

[B]

Great.

[A]

They're interested in our company, but what were some of their struggles and how did they overcome them and what would some of their prior supervisors say about them and maybe other references that we want to do. Because everyone's going to put their best foot forward in an interview and I've been burned one too many times that I care to admit. So that side of the hiring, I think is we've really honed in and done much better. The team that we have now is just. It's phenomenal.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

But on the other side that you're asking about, on the entrepreneurial spirit, that is actually important to me when I'm going into a new market. Of course we want to find somebody that is qualified by having licensure and experience in our field. But we also make sure they have that entrepreneurial spirit because we are a growing firm and once we establish ourselves, it's not just all sudden the floodgates open. Here's a whole host of clients. It's we want you to have that mindset. Okay? I'm with Malone Hatley and I'm going to help this brand grow and I'm going to put our best foot forward. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to talk to people. I'm going to sell myself, essentially, and I'm going to help with our SEO. I'm going to help with writing articles. Just someone that goes above and beyond outside of someone who wants to come in and just practice law. Because you're not going to just practice law when you're helping us open up an office. There's a lot more that that's to that.

[B]

So you are looking for a bit of those entrepreneurial people then, it sounds like as well. Yes. Okay, so you mentioned the book Top Grading, which was written by Brad Smart and then his son Jeff Smart also wrote a book called who. Both are really specializing in the interviewing hiring space. Both of them are past speakers for the COO alliance as well. I think I had Brad Smart speak about seven years ago and Jeff spoke about five years ago. And by the way, if you haven't seen their videos, they're really good talks that are inside of our member community and circle. So we'll get you those links later because you'll like those when you're going into the COO role in the law space. Were you a lawyer before or were you always in operations and did you come into law as just another product and service?

[A]

I was graduating college and I was like, what the heck am I going to do no, college for me definitely was educational, but it was more finding myself and just having fun. I'm like, well, heck, I don't know what I'm going to do. So I went to law school and I got my first experience of actually going to class and studying and I ended up really liking it. And then I didn't want to do family law. I avoided that like the plague in law school. I wasn't even tested on the bar. And I was with a firm, a general practice firm, had a case against another firm, family law, and after the trial they asked me to come on board. And that's kind of been my experience in law. All but my path to kind of leadership and the C level and the COO specifically wasn't anything that I planned, quite frankly. It just happened to become available through my ability to not only identify processes that we needed to do better with or change, but really having that business entrepreneurial mindset that frankly I didn't know I had until I was given little projects and being part of different meetings and really enjoying that side of the business, not just practicing law, although I do really like litigating. But it's fun to be able to take something and scale it and grow it, but do it in a smart and so that's kind of been my.

[B]

I've worked behind the scenes with about seven different law firms and coaching their CEO and their CEO over the years. Some of them for two or three years, they were always in the personal injury law space. And I don't think it really matters on which area of law. It's still running a business. But I'm curious what your thought is. Could a law firm ever hire a COO who's never practiced law? Do you think it matters that you understand the law space?

[A]

You know, here's the attorney answer. It depends. And what I mean by that is no, you don't really need that to, to be a good COO at a law firm because I think what separates a law firm that's successful versus a traditional law firm is treating it like a business. And attorneys are bad business people, which is very surprising to me. But I think having that litigation mindset and experience is helpful, but it's also helpful in relating to, to the team and to the firm and be able to help shepherd things through and implement and really get that buy in. So I think having someone that at least litigated before and wasn't or is an attorney is probably a little bit beneficial.

[B]

Can be helpful for sure. I'll tell you my perspective as to why lawyers are bad at business and why it's not surprising to me. First off, in law school, they get about one hour's training on how to run a business. Like, they don't get any business training. So they spend all of their years in law school. And even in a lot in undergrad, there's no requirement. Same with dentists and same with doctors. I mean, it scares me that a doctor goes to medical school for seven years and then they go, okay, go run your own medical practice. They don't. They don't know anything about business. Like, that would be as dangerous as telling a business graduate who's been in business school, okay, go open a dental firm and be a dentist. Like, no, that's malpractice. So that's number one. Number two is, I think lawyers are so smart that they are typically the top 1% in their class, that they feel they do know everything, and it's hard for them to admit that they don't know and go and learn from others. So they tend to kind of plow through based on their education and their, their problem solving skills and their analytical skills. I think they try to do stuff on their own instead of going, I don't know how to fucking do this, and being okay to be this the dumb person in the room. Because they're not used to being the dumb person in the room. Does that make sense? It does.

[A]

And I've kind of switched my mindset. I'm okay being the dumb person.

[B]

Yeah. Now I think it's a strength. Right? But that's why I think most lawyers aren't that great at business, is because once they get there, then I think it's their superpower once they decide to, okay, I can be an expert in law, but I don't know anything about this stuff. How can I plug myself into some coaching, some masterminds, some operating systems? And with Malone Hatley, do you run an operating system? Are you guys using something like EOS or Next Level growth or scaling up, or do you operate kind of outside of those operating system worlds?

[A]

Mainly scaling up. Before I got there, the firm started with scaling up, and then we took some of their courses and went to some of their seminars. And then we kind of started doing things on our own for a little while. And now we're going back to scaling up just for some coaching and, and getting a little bit better advice. Because right now we are in a really big growth phase, and so we want to do it smart, and we just need to kind of zero in and really identify where some of our weaknesses are. And getting back into scaling up is going to help us do that. And it's really just fine tuning some of our processes.

[B]

Where is the growth been challenging in terms of operating over these multiple markets? I think you said you're in eight markets, a bunch of different offices. You're actually in a city with only a few of the employees out of the hundred that are scattered. Where are some of those growth challenges of being in multiple locations and even having a leadership team spread over multiple cities? Can you speak to some of those?

[A]

Yeah, sure. One of the things we're working on is communication. I feel like that's never going to be perfect, but it's just making sure we're clear on what we're communicating and communicating in often. And then the other one just being spread out is alignment, making sure that we're all aligned. We all have the same goal in mind. But it's are we aligned to get there? We want to work together as a team and I always want to be depolarized as much as we can, other pillars along the way. But it's how are we as you know, we'll start at the top kind of a leadership team. Are we aligned? That's really been our focus in a lot of our leadership meetings is where are we misaligned at? Because certain things can happen and we can get over them. But it's the misalignment. If that continues on, I think in any company it's kind of death by a thousand slashes, right? It's going to catch up.

[B]

Hey, it's Cameron Herold, your COO whisperer and guide to scaling businesses. Check out my YouTube channel at YouTube.com amronherald and that's H E R O L D where I share tons of raw tips and insider secrets to have you level up as a leader and grow your company from leadership hacks to growth strategies. It's all there. No fluff. Subscribe now. Hit that bell for notifications and comment on a few of the hundred videos that I've uploaded so far. And let's build your empire together. Let's go. Do you struggle with any of the politics and turf wars that tends to start happening in around the 100 employee to 300 employee zone? Does that creep into your business at all? And if it does, how do you work with the team on kind of breaking through some of those politics and the silos, the turf wars that are normal at a stage like yours?

[A]

It may be happening, but honestly, I'm not aware of it. So I don't think that, at least not yet, it's happening. We do have silos in the sense that people are on a team, but they're working separately and we're trying to get them back into the team. Yeah, but as far as like the politics, we've been lucky, I guess, right now because that, that is not happening.

[B]

And then how do you keep people on the same page when you are in remote offices? What systems do you have for, for that? Is it like the one page plan? Is it a series of proper meetings to, to keep people aligned? Is it just over communicating like Jim Collins talks about?

[A]

We're trying to get to the Jim Collins. I feel like we communicate but not enough. So we're trying to over communicate in the sense that we want to make sure that everyone's all on the same page. But we have daily huddles. We've implemented those and we have teams meetings, we have one on ones, but we don't want to do death by meeting either. So we're trying to be as efficient as we can so we can all work together and work not just in the firm, but on the firm too, as leaders. I feel it's important that we want to try to get out of the weeds and work on the firm and not as much as in the firm, because that's why we have our teams.

[B]

When I wrote my book Meetings Suck about eight years ago, I read the book Death by Meetings and talked to Pat Lencione about that to get some ide. And clearly Vern and I, Vern who had started scaling up, we spoke a lot about the daily huddle concept that we'd used in the 1-800-got junk days. When Vern created the daily Huddle, he said everybody who shows up has to speak. That's impossible. If you now have 100 people, you can't, you know, time for everybody to speak. What's your daily huddle system look like? Can you walk us through a daily huddle? When does it happen? How long is it? What's your rough kind of agenda?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. So we don't do one firm wide huddle. It's broken up by teams and they're in different, usually maybe 5 to 15 minutes depending upon the size of that huddle. And it's just, you know, we always want to start off with good news like wins. And it doesn't always have to be professional. It's personal. And then what's going on for the day? Does anybody have any obstacles or struggles or for us as a law firm, does anybody need coverage, going to court or filing something or if someone's going to be out for the day, hey, I'm going to be out tomorrow, just to let you know, so we can plan for it. And then does anybody have any roadblocks that they need help with? And, and really we just kind of go around and, and that's it. It's just, it's kind of quick hits. But it's also a good time to collaborate because we are spread across the country so not always in the same office. And you know, we want to get that FaceTime and just really develop those relationships too.

[B]

Yeah, I like that. I was working with a firm out of the UK years ago and coaching them and he said, our daily huddles taking forever. I'm like, well, when do you run it? He goes, nine in the morning. I'm like, no, run it mid morning. I go describe it. And he goes, well, we all get together in the boardroom and we sit down and we pour tea. I'm like, dude, this is not a fucking tea party. This is like, this is a stand up. This is like a seven minute standup, right? It's like, of course it's going sideways if you pour tea for everybody. All right. Your industry, the industry of law is going through some pretty rapid changes, or at least the word from the outside is that it's going through some rapid changes with AI starting to come into the space. There's talk that a lawyer practicing law without leveraging AI should be malpractice. That lawyers are going to be out of a job because of AI coming. I don't see that. I see that lawyers are always going to have a role because I think the layman using a tool is dangerous, right? I think like the average human, it's like, it's like diagnosing yourself on, on Google with your, we're not a doctor.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So what changes do you see coming in AI? How are you bringing those into your firm? What are you guys thinking about from a threat perspective? Can you walk us through that whole landscape?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. For lawyers in general, we are slow to change, but this AI thing is really catching fire, which pretty cool to see, but it's also scary at the same time because I'm sure you're aware of, I forget what state it was, but it was anyway. Someone tried to appear virtually as, as AI and the Court of Appeals caught it. But you know that that's kind of the bad side of it. And then you have these attorneys you're going to have, you know, bad apples in any industry. Right. But just relying on AI to write the briefs and to write the motions because AI is just, you know, just pulling things. Right. So for lawyers, we need to make sure that we're checking that the case law is still good. Case law, Right. You don't want to cite anything that's been turned over or for whatever reason. So I think AI is good in the sense that a guide. Right. Because it can save a lot of time if you type in write me a motion for XYZ in this state. Great. Now you have a guide that you can use, but you don't want to just file that. You need to make sure that you're proofing it and that it makes sense for your client. So I think in that aspect it's good. I don't think I'll ever replace an attorney. I agree with you. I feel that you're always going to need someone to actually articulate what is needed because I don't think AI is going to ever be able to fully replace the skill set of a lawyer. But using AI Smart is definitely good. I like using AI to help me when I have meetings. It'll help me structure an agenda or if I'm stuck on an idea, I'll type it in there and get me over that thought hump. So I think those are the benefits of it as far as inside. I think it's tricky for any company, especially law firms, because you have such sensitive confidential information and material that is just blanketly using AI because it's just gathering information. So you really want to do more of a closed AI and that's something that we're trying to work on internally, what that looks like from a Lone Hatley perspective.

[B]

I'm glad you mentioned some of the kind of the hallucinations that AI is still having too. It is, it is still pretty early to really rely on everything as truth and as precedent and as, you know, the real facts that I did a really random search the other day showing my son here in Toronto, where some of the older private schools were, and I got two totally different search results, both on grok. And I'm like, wait. It was just. I changed the way I asked the question and the results are slightly different. Even though the data set I was looking for is the same. I was looking for like the oldest private schools in Canada sorted by when they opened and that data can't change in three minutes. So what was the hallucination that happened there? And I think that does scare me a little bit in trying to quote precedent or, you know, solve an issue. But then at the same time, if. If robots are doing surgery, you know, I think we're moving in that direction pretty quickly.

[A]

Yeah, I know. I think on the medical side, it might be a little bit better because you still have someone on the other end controlling.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You're not. You're not just. You don't just send the robot into the room by itself in a vacuum. I saw, Funny, I was in Austin, Texas, and I saw a Waymo, one of the driverless vehicles. You know when you get to a red light at a construction area, or the traffic lights are just a flashing red light from all directions. And as humans, we don't know what to do. We're like, do I go? Who goes first when there's four people? This Waymo was literally like stuttering because there were all these cars at this busy both. Everybody had flashing reds for seven minutes. It had no idea what to do. And then finally it started going backwards down the road, and you could tell that somebody in a call center was having to take the Waymo and take it off the grid and send it off in a different direction. So we're close to autonomous, but we're not there yet.

[A]

Well, you just remind me of something from one of your podcasts. I think you're talking about a pilotless helicopter in Abu Dhabi.

[B]

Yeah. It's coming next quarter. Starting in January, they're going to start testing the autonomous electric helicopters. Very similar to Uber. Yeah, I don't. I don't want to be the first one.

[A]

Yeah. I'll let others volunteer.

[B]

Yes. So I'd love to know about marketing in the. In the law space. I'm curious what you're seeing that is. Is not working in marketing anymore. Anymore. And what is really working well for you? Let's talk about two markets. The new market that you're going into, and then more of a mature market that you've been in for a while.

[A]

Sure. Do you have a preference on where to start?

[B]

Start with the new markets first.

[A]

Okay, sure. So our newest market would be Texas. So it's Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Laredo. And it's a little bit more time invested in there because the brand isn't there. And so it's more investing on the PPC side for us and identifying who our competitors, too, and seeing what keywords they're. They're bidding. So we can determine does that work for us or do we need to go a different route. One of the things that we're switching up, which I think is pretty cool to kind of separate us, get us into Blue Ocean esque type territory is on the Spanish speaking side because you know, especially down in San Antonio and Laredo, that that market is huge, but there's not a lot of firms that really kind of market to that, that type of client. And so we're having our website being translated into Spanish, doing a lot of our PPC for Spanish and trying to figure out the key words so we can really identify how can we get a better edge to really help out those families that are Spanish speaking, that are looking for a lawyer. But a lot of firms out there just don't cater to that type of clientele for whatever reason. And so that's kind of been our newest project. And it's exciting, it's different for sure, but I think that's going to give us an edge as far as our brand name out there. And then on the marketing side, you know, like a PI firm, I see a lot of billboard for them and that may work for us. It's hard really to determine the ROI on a billboard because you can't, you know, you're going past it, you just see our name on there or is it from word of mouth? So for us, it's really been, our strength has been SEO and ppc. And so we've been dialing up as far as on the spend, but then also tweaking it to really identify the market that we want to try to bring in as a client that we think we would be able to better serve. And it's interesting that you can really target certain areas of a city. Yeah, I mean you can expand it north, south, east, west, but you can really zone in on areas that would be better suited for your type of clientele, whether high net worth or whether it's certain companies that you're trying to target. You can do that. There's geofencing that's pretty cool that you can do. I've done that at a different firm where when there's a sporting event happening, we can geofence around the stadium. So our ads are, are popping up on their phones, retargeting. That's, that's something that's a little bit different that I think a lot of firms don't really get into and probably don't really understand. For our established markets, it's consistently making sure that the brand name is out there and focusing more on how are our clients coming in and where are they getting our information from. Because in an established market you might be able to reallocate some of that spend because you're established. There's.

[B]

Are you starting to think about SEO for the LLMs, like SEO for Grok and for Perplexity and Chat and for Gemini and OpenAI. Are you looking at how to. Or is that still on the back burner?

[A]

I'd say it's in discussions as far as what would that look like, but nothing on the forefront right now.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's a bit of an unknown too. I'm talking to a bunch of people that are in this space, actually. One is a client COO alliance member. They run a group called Hennessy Digital. They tend to do SEO for law firms. They're starting to get really, really deep into that space right now as some domain experts and looking for what's working. I'm pretty intrigued to see what's going to happen in that space, but I also think that. So, yeah, I don't know. I'm not entirely sure where to go on that one. You did a TEDx talk in Tampa. And by the way, whenever I talk About TED or TEDx, I attended the main TED conference for 11 years, so I always talk about TED as being the main stage because there's only 120 of those a year. And then there's the TEDxS, which I've done a couple. You've done. I've done three. You've done one now in Tampa. You did one about people over profits. Can you speak about what that TEDx was about, what your, you know, your 18 minutes was. Was really covering? Because there's a lot that like sounds like 18 minutes is small, but then you're on the stage, it feels like forever. And you do get a lot of content delivery. What did you cover?

[A]

Yeah, so thanks for bringing that up. You know, it was interesting. I was asked to do it. I post videos on my LinkedIn and the professor that was running the TEDx reached out and said, hey, we would like you to fill in for, I guess, someone that they recruited before didn't make the cut for whatever reason. And so there's a lot of training that goes into presenting a ted or a TedX. And so I was already kind of behind the eight ball, but I thought it was exciting and wanted to do it. And so it'd be to your point on the 18 minutes at first, like, man, what the heck am I going to talk about for 18 minutes? But then I would submit videos and, you know, kind of practice rounds and cut and Add and cut and add. And so we finally zeroed in on the exact length and the substance. And I wanted to talk people over profits because there's all these great leadership books out there. Right. I mean, you mentioned Patrick Lencioni. I mean, there's information on what that needs to be said, but like how do you implement and execute it? And that's really been the struggle I feel for a lot of companies. And it was interesting because I led off and I said, raise your hands if you think companies value profit over people. And of course I probably think 100%, but we'll say 90 plus percent, raise their hand. Then I was like, okay, so how many of you, by a show of hands, think that companies value people over profits? I don't even know. There was one hand raised. And it's interesting, right, because that's just been the mindset. A lot of companies say the right things, but are they afraid to really execute it? And at the end of the day, your people are your greatest asset. So you are profitable if you invest in your people that you have that course, invest in your leaders. I mean, it makes sense, which I belong to. So it's a wonderful tool. But then the people are profits. Now I'm trying to think of something that's different. And so that's why we came up with that topic, because it's great to have these books and these resources, but how the heck do you do it? And so I just use my own personal experiences. And I just remember being back at a prior firm before this one where it really was profit over people and it hurt them. I mean, it really stunted growth. And it doesn't really get your team to be creative and get that buy in and that energy, which really does allow that innovation and your company will scale and grow.

[B]

Yeah, I've always said that the number one metric in every company has to be your employee net promoter score. Your number two is your customer net promoter score. We have to obsess about really happy employees. And if we do, they'll take care of our customers and then we can charge whatever we want. We can have more profit. But if you're only focusing on customer success, your employees feel burned out if you're always chasing dollars. So give us a specific thing that you do to focus on people over profits.

[A]

Sure. So we've implemented quarterly surveys, which I know a lot of companies do, but we really take a look at them to find out, okay, where are, what are we missing? Where can we grow? What are our strengths? Which is always Nice. But where are our weaknesses? And we, we've been doing this now consistently. I think this is our third one we just did. And our percentage has been increasing. I know we're never going to get 100%, but I think we had almost 80% of our firm participate, which was phenomenal. And then we like to point out we share the results. It's anonymous, but we share the results with everybody and we talk about it and say, okay, these are our top three things that we're going to work on from the survey. And then we give updates in progress. Because at the end of the day, you don't want to do a survey and then there's no follow through because then people aren't going to want to take them. As silly as this may sound, I want our team to be excited for that survey to come out because like, okay, I know if I put a concern there, it's going to be addressed because these prior surveys, the concerns have been addressed and that's how you get that, that buy in and you get people excited, not just for the survey, but they know that change is coming. And you want to, I always say for when I do recruiting, you know, I want this to be your destination career. You know, not everybody's always going to be a partner. Not everybody's going to be a C level. But I just want you to come in and grow and learn and be happy. Because if you have a happy employee who's consistently growing and learning, they're going to do wonders for your company.

[B]

Totally. The other part is just caring about them as humans. I did a video this morning on my way to go get coffee and I said that leaders need to remember that everybody's struggling. Right. Everyone's struggling with a marriage or a divorce or parent or a child issue or a health issue or budgeting issue or their dog is sick. Like, we're all struggling with the human condition. And if as leaders, we actually care about those employees and what their life is really going through, the employee will realize they're cared for and then they'll go through brick walls for us to build the company. But it's caring about them just as a human that I think we often miss on as well. Right, Right.

[A]

And that's what I mentioned in the talk too, is there are people, there are people outside of your company. There are people who have spouses, things. They're so focused. Just isn't your, your company or, or your firm.

[B]

They're also all 15 year olds trapped in adult bodies.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So we're all struggling with our 15 year old stuff and if we can be there to support that 15 year old, they're going to care more. So when you're leading an organization like you are 100 employees and 30 of them are lawyers, what's it like leading those super smart people? Any lessons on how to lead people that are, you know, really smart, really intelligent experts in their space and leading is different from managing. So how do you lead them?

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you said that because that was part of the talk too is leadership is not management. You're a leader, you know, servant leadership. And honestly I think this, this should apply to all forms of team members. Just listen. Active listening. I start off every one on one or meeting or whatever the case may be is how are you? Right. I just want to be as altruistic as possible because I do care. Because if they're struggling, well, let's talk about that. The business can wait. Let's figure out what's going on because I want you at your best. But when you're dealing with high performers, you definitely want to listen, but you want to make sure that you're consistently challenging them. I don't want anybody to get complacent. I don't want anybody just to feel that they're checking boxes. I want people to be creative. And I don't even like the term think outside the box thing. That's overused and probably misused. But I want them to be innovative for not just our clients, but for our firm as well. And so when you have these high performers, they're going at the a thousand miles per hour. So it's sometimes the challenge is having just take a step back and maybe reshift their focus and just start talking about what some of their challenges are. Because I perform when to talk about.

[B]

Challenges, we all do. Right. And I'm glad you actually even opened up your meetings with them on saying how are you? But what was really cool was you also said because I care. I remember about 30 years ago I had a VP who in our one on one said, you know, how was your weekend? And I'm like, you know what, cut to the chase because you don't give a shit. All you ever want to talk about is a business anyway, so don't pretend that you actually care because you don't. So fucking let's just talk work. And it kind of floored them. But it was true, right? And I think the key is if you're going to ask somebody how they are, you better be Ready to drop in and listen. And I actually had a coaching client, this was a CEO that I was coaching one day and he said, how are you doing? I'm like, you know what? I'm fucking struggling right now. And he said, let's cancel our call this week so you can decompress and let's do our call next week. That's someone who actually cares.

[A]

Right.

[B]

If you're doing a one on one with a direct report and they're really struggling, let's not talk about work at all. Let's go for a walk and take our shoes off and walk barefoot in the park and cry together. We can talk next week.

[A]

I mean, you're building that relationship, right? It doesn't always have to be transactional.

[B]

No. So your growth, I mean, in your role, you've clearly grown as a leader. You weren't as skilled 10 years ago as you are today. What have you worked on to grow as a leader, as a coo? What parts of being a have you had to work on?

[A]

Learning from my past failures and be able to actually use that as a success. Because how I've been growing up is I'm a very competitive person by nature and so I don't like to lose, but I have to take a step back and learn that losses aren't always a bad thing if you learn from them. And what are you going to do to be better? I put on one of my videos on LinkedIn. You know, my best today isn't going to be my best tomorrow. And I like that mindset because I always want to challenge myself, but it's just, it's always learning. I love learning new things. I love being able to learn. What can I do better to be able to serve my team in the firm.

[B]

Yeah. I talked to a CEO alliance member about that a couple years ago and we said the best way to get your employees to learn is hire employees who like to learn. Right. Because then it's easy for them. You just kind of put stuff in front of them and they're kind of devouring it. All right, I want you to go Back to the 21 year old Dan and give yourself some advice. Advice? What advice would you give the younger you that you know to be true today?

[A]

Oh, man, that, that 21 year old, I don't know if that 20 year old would be looking in the future like, wow, you're really going to be in this, this role. I would say, listen, be patient and failing is okay.

[B]

I like it. Dan Cuneo, the COO for Malone Hatley, thanks so much for sharing with us on the Second in Command podcast.

[A]

Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

[B]

Appreciate it. That was amazing.

[A]

You've been listening to Second in Command, brought to you by COO alliance founder Cameron Herold. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs, visit COOAlliance.com SAM.