Are you looking for growth in your business? Did the pandemic cause a slow down? In this episode, Adam Rossen shared his experience in growing a law firm. He speaks to how the pandemic caused a decrease in business, but how adopting a few new habits and new ways of working, turned his business into a success again.

In order to get his business back to how it was pre-pandemic, Adam double downed on marketing his business. He focused on internet marketing projects and revamping his website.

When you run your own business, wearing too many hats can be an issue. It can even lead to you becoming overwhelmed and burnt out. Adam mentions how during his quest to make his business successful again, he was doing all the bookkeeping and office management for the business. This took him away from the real work. From this, Adam speaks on learning how to delegate tasks, hire the right people and hold yourself accountable.

When searching for new people to join a business, it is crucial to develop a streamlined hiring process. It's important to be smart in your hiring. Don't overanalyze everything but focus on those who are the right fit for your company.

Forecasting can be a helpful way to predict what your business will look like in a few months or years. If your business is set to grow, it could be an indicator you will need to hire people to support that growth. Being proactive is a great way to get ahead.

A mix of the right team and hard work will lead to increased success and revenue.

Every challenge is a new opportunity to grow and learn!

Listen in.

Episode Highlights:

  • 2:11 Significant law firm growth 
  • 9:17 The experience with the hiring process and how they streamline it
  • 10:09 The importance of taking action in business decisions, but also being smart and not getting caught up in chasing new ideas without careful consideration
  • 13:09 The process of letting go of control in various aspects of their business, such as bookkeeping and office management, in order to grow and scale their firm
  • 19:34 The goal of becoming a data-driven firm and the need for another lawyer


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Connect with Adam:

Resources:

Transcripts: You're Just a Highly Paid Bookkeeper with Adam Rossen

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - In today's episode, we're sharing a presentation from Max Con 2022. Keep listening to hear Adam Rossen as we share his talk. You're just a highly paid bookkeeper. What I learned at Max Law Guild and what I've done about it. You can also head to the maximum lawyer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Now to the episode.

Speaker 2 (00:00:19) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum layer podcast layer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:00:42) - Hi, everybody. Thank you, Jane. So, you know, I thought about this topic or when when Jim and Tyson asked for speakers. I'm like, what could I speak about? Right? And I was really thinking about it. And I had such a transformational time at last year's Guild Day that I wanted to bring that experience to everybody here because it really was. So let me give you a little bit of background about me in the firm so that way you can know kind of where I was at.

Speaker 3 (00:01:09) - The mindset that I was at in October of 2021. And of course, we're going to talk about what happened there, what I've done since, and we'll talk about what some of you guys can do and should do when we leave here. Right. Because this everybody can anybody can come here, have a great time, get all this great information. But what happens when you leave? So for me, we do criminal and DUI defense in South Florida. Our main office is located in Fort Lauderdale. And right at the beginning of the pandemic, we had grown from 4 to 6 total people, which was a big jump in employees to go from that 4 to 6 range. And we had three employees at the time who were with us less than 90 days. And especially in criminal defense, if people aren't out partying, having a good time, doing messed up things, we're not really in business. So we went from about 12, 13 new clients a month pre-COVID to April 20th 20 to 3, and I believe May we had five, right? So everything for us shut down.

Speaker 3 (00:02:11) - Luckily, we live in Florida and we opened up pretty quickly. But what I did was and I talked about this on my Max Law podcast a few months ago, so I won't go into so much detail. But what we did is we doubled down on all of our marketing. We did all of these Internet marketing projects, all of these referral projects. We revamped our whole website, we had all of these marketing initiatives. So and what that did is that led to 2021 being a year of tremendous growth. I didn't lay anybody off or do anything. You know, I like the core and I like the newbies that we had. So we just double and triple down. And 2021 was a huge year of growth. So we went from six employees January 20th, 21 to 12. By October, we went from two lawyers to five. We hired three lawyers from January to August of 2021. And, you know, for a small firm, I mean, I really I think for any firm, but especially for people like us, that's huge, massive growth.

Speaker 3 (00:03:09) - We two and a half X Star business in revenue, you know literally like snap of the fingers few months it was crazy. So in my mind I'm on the plane in October coming here and I don't know if I'm like if you guys are like me, but I love being alone in some in a metal tube with shawl over just being in my thoughts, writing things down. I have the remarkable and I love keeping everything there. Or it could be a notepad and just being left alone to my thoughts and being energized that I'm going to a conference or I'm coming back from a conference and I'm there and my whole remarkable is all filled up. 12 to 20. That's the next step of growth. How do I go from 12 to 20? What does that look like in people? What does that look like in revenue? Blah, blah, blah. Right? And I'm like, That's going to be my guild day. I'm going to come in and that's going to be my issue. Growth, growth, growth, growth, growth.

Speaker 3 (00:04:03) - So we get there and I have this guy as our leader. Okay, raise your hand if you were here last year at the conference, do you remember the Nerds or Weirdos speech? Right. Well, who's this? This. This is a weirdo. This is King weirdo. Okay. And he was there with us, and he was our group leader. And it was the Guild Day. Last year was amazing for me. I went second and I get up there and I'm roaring and ready to go. But in the few days before I came here, I was stressed. I was frustrated, and that frustration immediately came out instead of the plans for growth. Well, part of the plans for growth. But it was really that frustration. And I'm sitting there like, yeah, you know, I had to write all these damn checks before I got here and I had to do this with HR and this with management, and I had to create a new ad and, you know, all this stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:04:57) - And everybody kind of looked at me and especially Jim, but everybody in the group was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, who's doing your books? It's like me. And they're like, What? You're talking about going from 12 to 20 employees and you're doing your own books. Who's your office manager? I'm like, I'm a shitty office manager. That's me, right? And they're like, What's wrong with you? You're crazy. You're completely focused in the wrong things. Right? And it was great because the entire time everybody was piling on, but in a good way, in a very good way, in a place of trying to help. And what we came up with. Right. You know, Jim basically said for the next two days, every time I see you and occasionally on stage, I'm just going to say, hey, Adam, you hire a bookkeeper yet? I'm going to hold you a. All right. That's the most important thing that that happened is that I had a group that was there.

Speaker 3 (00:05:48) - Not to say, Adam, you're great. We love you. You're my friend. You're this. Right? But to say, Whoa, dude, I barely know you. I know you a little bit. Some people are like, I just met you today, but I can see outside that you're a little misguided, right? I can see from outside that situation. And I'm sure all of us have had that, you know, with our friends and family when we're able to step outside of it. And I really thought about it long and hard and I was just like, okay, well, like, you guys are right. You know, you guys are right. And so anybody heard of Pearson's law here? No. Yes, maybe so. Pearson. I forget his first name. You can look it up on Google. I think he was a mathematician. But one of the things that he did is Pearson's law, which is when performance is measured, it improves, but when it's measured and reported, performance improves exponentially.

Speaker 3 (00:06:38) - And this is something that my team now knows the whole firm knows Pearson's law because I tell it to him twice a month. We talk about that and being at that group and having the accountability right of, Hey, Adam, you know, I'm going to see you in January in Phoenix. You better have a bookkeeper and an office manager by then. And me going, Oh, crap, I don't want to be that guy. Right. Who's bringing up the same issues or who didn't take action. And for me, that was a huge motivator. Well, let alone the motivator of I want to build a better firm, not just a bigger firm, but a better firm. Right? That that makes my life happier, that makes my employees lives happier. But just sometimes you need that external kick in the butt. That's what that did for me. That was really the power of of the mastermind, the guild, and being in a room full of like, really smart people, you know, it really helps.

Speaker 3 (00:07:34) - So what did I do about it? So I left. I went home and I'm on the plane and I'm planning all these things out. So there's two things I did immediately. The bookkeeper was really important, but I didn't think that was my number one big issue. I thought the office manager, especially at our level, right. 12 people. It was unwieldy, right? So but I started on both. So I went to who did I go to? Right? You know, you guys know what kinetic energy is, right? Okay. It's very hard to get started from scratch. So I went to the Max Law Group when I was in with my guild members in our guild group. I got information and referrals from them. So I interviewed bookkeepers and I wrote the ad for an office manager. I didn't write it from scratch. I got it from one of the people in the guild. They said, Hey, Adam, I'll give it to you now, make it your own. And I did.

Speaker 3 (00:08:24) - So I took it. I tweaked it. I made it my own right. So I had help writing the job. AD one of the people in the group that had them, I have these great 25 pre screening questionnaire that really helped me weed out the fakers from the good candidates. And I said, Amazing. I've never even thought about that. That's going to save me a ton of time. So I got that from the Guild, right. And I got again, bookkeeper referrals as well. And the platforms, you know, before I had only used really. Indeed, sometimes I'd mess around on LinkedIn and when I was there they mentioned wise hire. Wise hire was fantastic. You get a free disk profile. So not only did we get disk profiles for people who were interviewing, but I put my entire team through the free disk profiles and I think if you buy it on your own, they're like 30 or 40 bucks a pop. So I looked at Wisehart and I was like, All right, 200 a month.

Speaker 3 (00:09:17) - This is a no brainer. They had a cool Kanban board view which just helped me organize everything. So that's the way I did it. We had 100 applicants, right? So part of the reason that I hated the hiring process and I was like, this is the last position that I will ever directly be 100% involved in hiring, right? That was also part of this hit, 100 applicants. So, you know, some of us can know what we need to do, but there's that mental block of, oh my God, there's so much work involved, How can I do this? And then you're just sinking in quicksand, right? So because I have this help and because I have this plan and because I was so motivated to fix it and have this be my forever last employee hire that I am 100% involved in, you know, we did it the right way. We went we had our top 60. You know, I whittled it down to a top 60. I gave the 25 questionnaire.

Speaker 3 (00:10:09) - Only 15 people answered and I was like, dancing in the streets. I'm like, fantastic. I only have to really deeply look at 15 people. So my managing partner and I, because at this point I'm pretty much out of being a lawyer, continuing to get out and. We went through all the 15 and we put them into categories and we had our top three and we go, the interview process starts there with three. And if we are having trouble, then we'll go to the next three, right? Luckily it went very well. We had our top three went very well and we hired our top candidate and Malene is now our firm administrator and she's doing an amazing job with the firm and we hired her in November. So I went quick, but I also went smart. And if you remember yesterday morning, Tyson talked about kind of taking action. Right. But then Jim before that, I think talked a little bit about like, whoa, slow your roll a little bit, right? Because we come here and we get some sometimes like shiny object syndrome and we get so excited because there's so many cool technology out there from all the vendors and this plan and that plan.

Speaker 3 (00:11:14) - Right. I think what they said works together. It's kind of a combination. You want to take action, you want to move you, but you want to be smart about it. Too many of us, the people that go to these conferences, we just were like and especially myself, sometimes my brain, I'm just like a squirrel or a hamster running on that wheel and just chasing the new thing. So we can't do that, right? We have to take action. We can't just always be thinking and conceptualizing, but it has to be smart. And luckily I screw it up all the time. But this time I got it right. Then we moved on to Bookkeeper. It was a mix of some referrals. Some people I found online, the Max law community, but I didn't want to overanalyze it. It's a bookkeeper, right? But it was important for me because we were going to try to revamp some of our processes and procedures with bookkeeping, criminal defense when we're running. Now, we're at about 32 to 35 new clients a month.

Speaker 3 (00:12:09) - You know, that's 400 a year with plans to double. So and most of our clients are on payment plans, so we needed it to be done right. But we interviewed three. We picked the best one. Now we have a bookkeeper. And you know what? Now my bookkeeper is Jim's bookkeeper. She was the best one. Not because of Jim, but because we interviewed three and we loved her. And she was the exact person I was looking for, the person that dreams about Kubo and about SKUs and about all those things. So we and based on last year's presentation, for those of you who are here about Jim's presentation about SKUs was kind of mind boggling to me. It was just like, wow, like, wait a minute, your lower revenue cases are actually your higher profit cases. That gives you clear direction on marketing, on sales, on what may be the legal product, the legal operations team that you need to service more of the high profit rather than the high fee, Right.

Speaker 3 (00:13:09) - So now we're starting we're not done with it, but we've begun that process because for me, you know, big sex cases and DUI manslaughter cases could be great, but the price has to be the fee has to be right when we're doing our flat fee versus churn them and burn them. Domestic violence cases, that could be over and done very quickly. Right. So we're trying to figure that now for us. Where are we now? Right Where am I now? You know, it's about letting go. Some of us, most of us, especially myself, it's all about wanting control. Not from a bad way, but from just a way of, hey, I can do this, I know this, I can do this better than myself, especially even with the bookkeeping. I've heard a million of horror stories about people getting ripped off embezzled. I can't let that go. Well, because, you know, if I want to grow to where I say I want to grow, then we have to let go.

Speaker 3 (00:14:07) - Luckily for me, which might be different from you guys, I was actually pretty good at letting go of the legal work because my lawyers are amazing. I'm a good lawyer too, but they're amazing and I trust them. But for me, it's I've let go of bookkeeping. I've let go of the office management and the HR and the hiring. I'm still involved in the final stages of hiring. Right. But I'm not doing any of the beginning stuff and I have more to let go intake, right? And some of those other things. And we run on iOS and traction. So having that accountability chart has been fantastic. So where do you all of us, where do we go from here? We've taken the time to purchase the flight to tell everybody we're away If we're a litigator, to tell the judges I'm unavailable, right? To be away from our team, to learn to meet people, network, build our businesses. But what do we do? So we have five core values at our firm.

Speaker 3 (00:15:05) - We have animals with each one. I think it's pretty cool. And so core value number three for us is take action, right? And the animal is the frog from the book. Eat that frog if you're familiar with it or read it. It's a very good book. Basically, you wake up and if you got ten tasks, don't do the nine easy ones do the one hardest. One Don't confuse activity with accomplishment. And that's what we tell our team all the time. Don't confuse activity with accomplishment. Right? It's about leaving here and saying, All right, this is the one thing. The two things no more that are going to make a difference in my firm and my business in my life, in my family's life, because all of those things trickle down. And it's about accountability, right? Who really in your life is going to hold you accountable? You know, that's why. Right? I went to Phoenix. I was here on whatever day it was Wednesday. I flew in Tuesday came Wednesday for the Guild Day.

Speaker 3 (00:16:03) - And we had a whole host of other issues. And luckily there were people in my group on Wednesday that remembered my talk from October. So now they can see some of the transitions and some of the things. So that's what it's about. So I strongly urge each and every person here when you're in that zone, leaving, right, drinking from a fire hose, coming to this conference, pick those 1 or 2 things, commit to it smartly. Right. Okay. Let everything else go and then get someone to hold you accountable. Because for me, like I said before, I was not showing up to Phoenix and going to be that guy. Right. There were some. People without talking about what happens in the master mind, right? Because it's all confidential. But as I'm sitting there, there were some people on Wednesday that I said to myself, I go, he or she, they'll be back at the next one and they're not going to do a damn thing. They're not going to take any action because the issue is mindset, not the strategy or the tactic.

Speaker 3 (00:17:06) - Right. And I have those those thoughts, at least with a few people on Wednesday. And I have those thoughts sometimes with myself. So my big urge, my big ask, my big takeaway for you guys is make sure you're in the right mindset. Pick one thing and take action and have somebody there to hold you accountable because you wouldn't be here, right, Unless you wanted to grow your firm. Personal and professional development. Right? To build a better firm for you, your employees, your family and your clients. Right. Clients are part of the team as well. That's all I have. This is my version of what Alexis is. Cool little thing. We're doing those now too, and it has all our YouTube, social media, all that stuff. I love talking to people. I love helping. If there's any questions, I think we have two minutes. I wanted to go kind of slow and just tell you guys my journey from there till now.

Speaker 1 (00:18:00) - Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential, both professionally and personally? The Guild Maximum Lawyers Exclusive Community of Legal Entrepreneurs invites you to our upcoming in-person mastermind event in Miami, Florida.

Speaker 1 (00:18:12) - There's something truly extraordinary about the breakthroughs that occur when you're physically present, working through your business and mindset challenges in real time. By attending our Mastermind, you'll engage in deep discussions, share experiences, and receive expert guidance from our coaches and fellow law firm owners who understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the legal industry. This collaborative atmosphere fuels creativity, accelerates problem solving, and stimulates innovative thinking. Investing in your personal and professional development through attending an in-person mastermind is an investment in yourself and in your future. The breakthroughs, knowledge and strategies you'll acquire are priceless assets that can transform your practice and propel you towards your goals. Visit Maxwell events.com today to join the guild, reserve your spot and secure your ticket at the best possible price.

Speaker 3 (00:19:06) - We had, it just it skyrocketed. So because we were in Florida. So by June, July, we were kind of back to normal with our 13 ish clients a month. August, I think we had 18, September we had 22, October we had 25. And I was just and the firm at the time, it was two lawyers, right? And I was like, shit, Like the stuff that we're doing is kind of working when everybody else put their head in the sand.

Speaker 3 (00:19:34) - When we had criminal lawyers, you know, bought an RV, drove around the country, which is super cool and fun. And I was jealous of that in some ways. But they weren't. They just put their head in their sand and gave up. We were working, grinding. So before you knew it, it was just skyrocketing. And then I'm like, we need we need one more. So and I'm not One of the things I'm committing to getting better at is the numbers, the metrics. We want to have a data driven firm. Okay? That's that's our goal. We're not there yet, but knowing we need another lawyer. So we hired another lawyer in January and we're before we knew it, more cases, more cases. Once we hit January, for whatever reason, we bumped up another revenue level. It just jumped, skyrocketed again. And we're like, all right, if we're on by by May, we're going to another one. May I reached out to the number two candidate from for the January hire.

Speaker 3 (00:20:21) - She was ready to come on board. Boom. She started in June. And then what happened with us is we had a unicorn come available, one of the best criminal defense lawyers in South Florida, lifelong public defender, career PD. She got disenfranchised. And I said, you know what? I don't even care if we can afford it or need it. I will take that out of my own take home because she's going to be the one to get me out of law. And you don't get a unicorn like this ever. And I said, screw it. And then we just kept going. So, you know, not the best way, Right? But it was it was carefully considered and thought and looked at numbers and everything. You know, just we're trying to get better at that. That at least help and a lot of it trial and error and using EOS. Now we're trying to forecast. So now in our EOS scorecard, we're looking at every week cases in, cases out. And it's like if we're averaging three new cases per week, well then you know what? That's 39.

Speaker 3 (00:21:14) - At the next quarter, that's going to be 80. If we're plus 80 and six months, that means we're going to need another lawyer in six months. So now we're trying to look at it like that, you know, but in forecast. But back then, we had no idea. With all my lawyers. I mean, look, the good news, the criminal lawyer, especially if you've been a ten year PD, you're not making a ton of money. You're a great lawyer usually, and you're not making a ton of money. So we made sure to give them, you know, a big bump. But then we also the way we do it, because our intake is just the way we do it, we're trying to make it better. We have attorneys on call nights and weekends every week that we rotate so they get 10% of what they sign up nights and weekends only. And we did that purposely so we can build in. So maybe the next level would be to give them 10% of everything they sign up.

Speaker 3 (00:21:55) - But we didn't want to give them that right away. And I can tell you we've had lawyers make a lot of money with our signups. We incentivize them on referrals that they bring in as well, you know. But yeah, but but we give them a nice base too, because I wanted people, especially the lawyers, if they're leaving the safety and security of the government, I want them to be invested and have the safety and security of us. So we've also now we do a guaranteed 7.5% to to 10.5% with a pension plan, a 401 K and A and a profit plan two. So they're pretty good. I think that's it. So thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (00:22:33) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

With court data difficult to access, Nicole Clark created Trellis. In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview Nicole, the CEO and co-founder of Trellis Research, an innovative legal analytics platform. 

Nicole shares her background as a business litigation and labor and employment attorney, who after dealing with the challenging task of accessing state court data, created Trellis. The best thing about Trellis is that it leverages technology that helps lawyers gain a competitive advantage in the courtroom and help win their cases. 

Law firms who use this platform use it for a variety of things, such as judge and opposing counsel research, writing motions and learning about other cases.

As CEO, Nicole speaks to the importance of evolving in any industry, especially one as complex as the legal field. Building something new is full of ups and downs and trying to figure out how to do something is challenging. Most people do not tackle an issue simply because it’s too hard. But, Nicole speaks to thinking strategically and working with others to push through challenges.

In a world where AI has become so popular, Trellis has a data set that can assist lawyers when they are stumped and don’t know where to start. Are you writing a motion on an unfamiliar topic? Trellis can pull up a few similar motions so you can use them as a template to begin writing. With this, the platform fills in the legal gaps and gives lawyers the confidence to practice!

Attorneys can decide for themselves if Trellis is right for their firm.

With Trellis Research, you never have to go to a confusing county court website again for legal support!

Take a listen.

Jim’s Hack: Book revisiting: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey — so many great lessons in there, especially for law firm owners.

Nicole Tip: Podcast listen: It's called “the Knowledge Project” with Shane Parish.

Tyson’s Tip: Do a 1:1 check ins with leadership team members for 15 mins a month.

Episode Highlights:

  • 3:22 Nicole explains how her frustration with the lack of access to state court data led her to create Trellis Research, a legal analytics platform that provides litigators with strategic legal intelligence and judicial analytics.
  • 8:49 Nicole talks about the monumental task of collecting and structuring data from different counties, including the antiquated system in Cook County, and how Trellis Research tackles this challenge.
  • 18:13 Exploration of how Trellis Research's unique data set can be incorporated into AI technology and improve legal research and writing.
  • 21:06 Discussion about the analytics available on Trellis Research, including active cases, average case length, motion granted rate, verdict plaintiff versus defendant, and the potential impact of other companies buying similar platforms.
  • 25:05 Discussion about how Trellis Research provides value to attorneys, particularly small firms, by offering access to court of appeals case law, helping with research, and providing a platform for efficient and fast work.


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Connect with Nicole at Trellis:

Resources:

Transcripts: Streamline Your Legal Research with Nicole Clark

Jim Hacking:
Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson:
And I'm Tyson Mutrix. What's up, Jimmy?

Jim Hacking:
Well, Tyson, we have a guest on this episode. We haven't had a guest in a while. We've been doing a lot of solo episodes, so I'm really excited. And she has a really interesting product that she's gonna talk to us about and a website and a whole approach to making lawyers better. So I'm excited. You wanna go ahead and introduce her?

Tyson:
Yeah, I'm really excited because it's a really cool product. So it's a really exciting thing. But Nicole Clark is our guest. She is a business litigation and labor and employment attorney who has handled litigation in both state and federal courts. She's worked, I wanted to say yuck when you said federal courts because

Nicole Clark:
I'm

Tyson:
they're just

Nicole Clark:
going to go to bed.

Tyson:
dealing with federal courts. But anyways, we have several cases in federal courts. But she's worked at a variety of law firms ranging from midsize litigation boutiques large firms and is licensed to practice law in three different states. She has defended corporations and employers in complex class action and wage and hour disputes as well as individual employment matters ranging from sexual harassment to wrongful termination. Additionally, Nicole is the CEO and co-founder of Trellis Research. And that's what we're really excited to talk about. A legal analytics platform that uses AI and machine learning to provide litigators with strategic legal intelligence. and judicial analytics. I mean, it's cool. It's very cool. Nicole has an intuitive understanding of technology and is deeply committed to helping lawyers leveraging technology to gain a competitive advantage and achieve more favorable outcomes for their clients. Nicole, welcome.

Nicole Clark:
Thanks so much, great to be here.

Jim Hacking:
Nicole, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit, Tyson gave us a little bit of your background, but I love to hear about lawyers that end up doing something other than

Nicole Clark:
Hehehe

Jim Hacking:
like being full-time lawyers. So why don't you walk us through a little bit how you got to where you are right now.

Nicole Clark:
Yeah, absolutely. So as Tyson mentioned, I did a lot of employment litigation. I was in state court constantly. And I think for years, I just couldn't believe how difficult it was to access state court data, that here we were sending around emails asking for intel on judges that we were appearing before, and trying to find out as simple as pulling up the docket of your case and going through a county court website to try to do so and all the hurdles there. And I couldn't believe that there wasn't a single source of truth for the U S state trial court system. And so born out of that frustration, uh, was me complaining to, you know, the only engineers that I knew. And we started coming up with a solution that really I used in practice for a number of years, uh, just mining data from the courts that I was appearing in, and then it dramatically changed my practice. saw that this was just a huge opportunity that other attorneys needed to have access to as well. And so that's really what we do now. Trellis is a research platform for the state trial court system. So I kind of like to think of us as the way you might think of PACER for the federal trial courts, a single system, except far more intuitive with a lot of analytics as well, but you never have to go to a county court website again, and you can search across. the states and across file documents by the body and text of the documents rather than only by, you know, a case number.

Tyson:
I wonder what was like the guiding factor that you were like, I've got to create this product. What was it that triggered, like was there some trigger that

Nicole Clark:
There

Tyson:
said,

Nicole Clark:
was.

Tyson:
I've got to do this? Yeah, what was it?

Nicole Clark:
So in California, judges release a thing called tentative rulings, which is before they rule on the record, the day before the hearing, they release basically a why for why they're going to grant or deny your motion. The policy reason is let's see attorneys go in, and with their couple minutes before the judge the next day, the attorneys know what the judge is going to do, but it gives them what they should focus on in their time. two or three minutes when they get to talk to the judge. No one is collecting this data, no one was collecting it historically, and this was like wild insights into the way judges think about all kinds of issues. And so this isn't something that's ultimately kept on the public record in California, it's released for that 24 hours and then taken down. and I was writing a big summary judgment motion one night and I was complaining to one of my colleagues. It was a complicated issue. I wasn't sure how to structure the motion. I didn't know the judge. And he said that he thought he had appeared before my same judge previously on a similar issue. And we went back and we checked the internal file and there was a PDF in that file, which was a ruling on my exact issue, same motion. And I could see exactly the way the judge thought about it. I could see the case law you preferred, how to organize the motion. I wrote it quarter of the time. I won. And for me, that was the light bulb of, how is it possible that I didn't have access to this from the start? That there was all this data that was out there that wasn't being collected, that we have an industry with great resources and huge amounts of data. and we're not utilizing that data in the largest court system in the entire world. So really that for me sort of became this compulsion of this doesn't exist yet and it needs to and sort of will it exist? Will we have a unified access to state trial court data who can have strategic insights within five, ten years? Yes. So let's do it.

Jim Hacking:
So I'm a little bit in awe of the monumental nature of this task. I mean, luckily in Missouri, we have a pretty good court system, the case net

Nicole Clark:
you.

Jim Hacking:
system. It's really good. And I've spent some time on the Cook County, Illinois website.

Nicole Clark:
Oh, one of our favorites, yep.

Jim Hacking:
It's got to be one of the worst. I mean, I love that expression, how do you get an elephant one bite at a time? But this seems like a herd of 50 elephants all

Nicole Clark:
It is.

Jim Hacking:
with different predilections and I would imagine, aren't there some states where it's even county by county?

Nicole Clark:
It's almost entirely county by county across

Jim Hacking:
Oh

Nicole Clark:
the

Jim Hacking:
god.

Nicole Clark:
nation. It is a county by county effort for us and it always has been. We are lucky enough to early on and continue to be venture backed. So we've had the resources to go after this, but it is a county by county effort. You are entirely right. And every way you can imagine it being different and difficult and separate formats and. You know, there's no unification, no structure to the data. So we do all of that County by County and map it back to our structured system so that we can make it searchable so that we can service analytics on top of it. And yes, monumental task is the right way to put it. Absolutely.

Tyson:
So as someone that has actually built, we had built a scraper years

Nicole Clark:
Mm-hmm.

Tyson:
ago that scraped multiple counties

Nicole Clark:
Love it.

Tyson:
in Missouri. And it was, but it was,

Jim Hacking:
I forgot about that.

Tyson:
yeah, it was interesting that cause we had built a whole, it was a whole process where it scraped the data and then it sent out postcards to people. And it

Nicole Clark:
Oh,

Tyson:
was,

Nicole Clark:
genius,

Tyson:
but it was.

Nicole Clark:
I love it.

Tyson:
But it was a monumental task. It was just an absolutely monumental task. So I can't imagine what you're going through. But I wonder with the attorneys that you've rolled it out to, what has been their reaction to it?

Nicole Clark:
I mean, at this point we have thousands of law firms that are customers and folks. The thing that we find is the four sort of main use cases are, I've judged research from the start, opposing counsel research from the start, writing motions, basically using the entire state trial court system as a brief bank. because we have the searchable filed motions and someone has written something similar. And not only something similar, something's been granted by your judge that you can utilize. And then we're also an alerting platform. So if you wanna get alerted on your own cases, if you wanna get alerted on clients or interesting cases in your practice area that you wanna sort of stay up to date on, then we're an alerting platform as well.

Jim Hacking:
I'm really interested. So you're looking at Cook County

Nicole Clark:
Yep.

Jim Hacking:
and it says antiquated. I mean, if it doesn't use frames from the old days, I don't know, it's as basic as can be.

Nicole Clark:
Yes.

Jim Hacking:
Do you say to them, hey, this is what we're gonna do? Or do you just attack it yourself like hackers? Or like walk us through

Nicole Clark:
Yeah.

Jim Hacking:
how you approach a county, especially a county as big as Chicago.

Nicole Clark:
Yeah, I mean we generally approach it ourselves. There's not a lot of tech resources at the county level to be able to help us anyway. There's no API, there's no way to really get the data in a clean format from them. So yes, we attack it ourselves county by county. Quick shout out to for Cook. We provide the Cook County documents free on our website. So if you need to pull Chicago documents, filed documents, please get them on our website. We do that also for those for Los Angeles County, which is another really expensive county and a few others. And we already have 170 million searchable filed documents. So largest brief bank of filed documents that's out there and the body and text is searchable, which is really big deal. But Cook County, what do you do? You go in and you start. from sort of most recent and you start pulling those cases and then we pull them in. What is a, they say it's a general civil case. What does that actually mean? Well, we use our ML and we say, actually this is a personal injury case. What type of personal injury case? Well, it looks like it's a intentional tort or whatever the case may be. And then, okay, well now we have the docket. We classify every single docket entry. So this is a motion. What type of motion? What judge was it before? What was the outcome? Who was the party that brought it? What are the other attorneys in the case? So every case, not only at the entire case level, but also at the individual docket entry level is classified by our system. And then that allows you to sort of slice and dice the data to say, I only wanna find these cases in the last year before this judge where there was a summary judgment motion brought on a negligence issue or whatever you're searching for. But for us, getting the data in the first place, which is not easy, these court websites are, as you probably know from trying, they are not ideal, isn't necessarily the hard part, although it's not the easy part, but the hard part is structuring the data. It's normalizing, structuring, cleaning the data so that you have something that you can make sense of in the end.

Tyson:
So I've got so many questions that I'm trying to figure out where I want to go. I want to go more on the business side, I guess. So

Nicole Clark:
Okay.

Tyson:
this has got to be, I mean, this is a massive shift from where, from what you did before, right?

Nicole Clark:
Oh for sure.

Tyson:
Yeah, massive shift. So I imagine like from a business standpoint, you've got to build this thing before you can even start getting clients, right? Like before you can start targeting attorneys, but then that also requires, it's not just building software, it's actually having to reach out to all these different venues. So I guess my question is like, what has been the most difficult part in building this company?

Nicole Clark:
You know, the difficult parts just change. So what was the most difficult in starting the company is different than sort of what's the most difficult part of it now. That's an evolution. And it doesn't actually get any easier. It just gets different. It's kind of like raising a child, right? There's like great parts and difficult parts throughout the entire lifespan and they're wildly great and wildly difficult, but they just slightly change on what those things are.

Tyson:
Jim made that exact same comment earlier today.

Nicole Clark:
Really?

Tyson:
So I think it's funny that you made that comment. Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole Clark:
Yeah, I think early on was collecting the data and really early on with lawyers, it was the how. No one could understand like how that was possible. And so getting people to even sort of be educated that this was something they couldn't do now was an early hurdle. And then… Now it's scaling, right? It's scaling team, it's scaling business, it's moving faster. All difficult, all very different.

Jim Hacking:
There's a certain company that has had the market of Southwest Second Reporters and F-Third Reporters and all

Nicole Clark:
Yeah,

Jim Hacking:
that stuff.

Nicole Clark:
yeah,

Jim Hacking:
I'm

Nicole Clark:
yeah.

Jim Hacking:
wondering,

Nicole Clark:
I've heard of them.

Jim Hacking:
yeah, I'm wondering if they've come into play at all, if they've approached you or maybe you might not want to talk about this stuff. But I'm just wondering, it seemed like that company had such a lockdown on things for so long. I mean, I just, I love how disruptive this is. Like, I just love it. I really do. And so

Nicole Clark:
Yep.

Jim Hacking:
I'm just wondering, like, what are the… the old stodgy saying about what you're trying to do.

Nicole Clark:
You know, they don't say it directly to us. I think they're watching. The nice thing is we're not a rip and replace for them, right? The way we're thinking about it is let them continue to own court of appeals and above. That's great. And that information is valuable. But it's 0.3% of the data that's out there when you really look at the legal data, which is wild when we think about it, right? So the court system where everyone's practicing. And where almost every court or every case goes to die, you know, 99.7% of cases get settled before they make it all the way to trial. So somewhere in that one to three year journey, never make it to trial, let alone to court of appeals. So we're the court system where everything actually happens and we're happy to tackle that. And the truth is they haven't tackled it because, you know, there was a lot of reasons when I started the company for why I thought they hadn't done it yet. Turns out it's just incredibly hard. wildly difficult. They're making money for their shareholders, they've got a lock on something already and will they eventually consider buying someone who's done the hard work? Probably. But right now, let us do the hard work and I think that's the way they're looking at it and we're happy with that. Really owning the trial court system is where we want to be, whether that is for individual, looking up individual cases, pulling documents, whether it is trends and analysis across the court, whether it's data via API, we wanna own the trial court system. And that's really the goal. And I think we're doing a phenomenal job of marching towards that goal.

Tyson:
That, you say 0.3%, is that what you said?

Nicole Clark:
Isn't

Tyson:
0.3%?

Nicole Clark:
that wild?

Tyson:
I mean, that is a, that's a, I mean, like, honestly, our minds can't even comprehend that number. Like

Nicole Clark:
I'm sorry.

Tyson:
that is, that's fascinating. So I think we know the obvious ways of using the product, like,

Nicole Clark:
Okay.

Tyson:
you know, looking at motions and things like that. Are there some

Nicole Clark:
Yep.

Tyson:
non-obvious ways of using it that we might not be thinking of?

Nicole Clark:
Oh, there's tons. Sometimes the way I think about it is you're only limited by how strategic you can think about doing your research. So whether it be, opposing counsel is a great one. Let's talk about that for a second. So you can look up your opposing counsel's other cases. You can see how busy they are. You can see how often they actually take cases to trial. You can dig in and actually look at their… their dockets? When do they settle cases? Is it before MSJ? Is it after MSJ? Are they particularly busy right now? There's so many strategic ways to look at the data. You can look up expert witnesses and find usually because we have the filed documents, a lot of times their testimony is attached as exhibits. You can actually see the way they've testified in the past. You can look up cases that have gone to verdict where they've testified. Were those high stakes cases? Were they low stakes cases? So there's so many different ways to sort of dig into this data in a strategic fashion. You can see attorney's fees. You can see some hourly rates for some of these firms. I mean, it's wild when you think about it. Think about almost any motion you can bring and the ability to get insights, not only from a high level, but on your opposing counsel and that particular motion. On the way that they've drafted. motions related to this exact issue. Well, you know, Newsflash, they're likely using the same motion as a template. Now you know what they're gonna bring. And so you can be proactive in the way you think about the case. So there's so many different ways to drill in and be super strategic with this data when you go in a granular way. I think of it as like… Not any different than the way you'd search on Lexus or Westlab, but the data set that you're searching and the strategic information that you can find. That's the difference.

Jim Hacking:
You're listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Our guest today, Nicole Clark, she's on a mission to democratize all the data from all the state courts across the country. We're excited to have her. I think we all heard the story about the little chat BT chat GPT fellow, the lawyer that got into trouble

Nicole Clark:
Yup.

Jim Hacking:
with, you know, um, having the computer do is brief. What, what do you think your data will be able to How do you think your data will be able to be incorporated into AI and sort of the future of legal advocacy?

Nicole Clark:
Absolutely. So one, just to start with, that's just bad lawyering, right? It's like we can blame it on technology, but lawyers have been doing a bad job inciting cases that don't say what they say for lots of years. And so it's not that much different than what lawyers have been doing for a long time when they're not great lawyers, or there are a lot of excuses for why that may happen, but it happens. What we're really excited for is you have AI, this incredible technology in general of AI, right? And right now folks are utilizing it based on the large language models that are out there. So open AI or basically think of it as pulling from the entire internet or sort of what the general folks know, which isn't the legal system. And so you're going to be so much more prone to get hallucinations when it doesn't have the answers. What's awesome about the possibility for generative AI with our data set is that we're not just, you know, a chat on top of what you could get on GBT. We actually have a data set and we have a data set that nobody else has.

Jim Hacking:
Mm-hmm.

Nicole Clark:
And this data set, and one of the things I'm really proud of with us is that one, we're just positioned to be able to help more because we have the underlying data, because it doesn't have to guess. because you can look and it can pull. You need help with writing this motion. Well, let's pull from four other motions dealing with similar issues, except let's make sure they were before the judge that you're going before in the county that you're in. But not only that, let's pull from motions that were granted to give you a sort of outline to start with. So we're able to do that when other folks can't. And even folks that have court of appeals data, If you're practicing in trial court, those are great structured, organized motions, but that's not exactly the way it works in trial court. And so having those trial court documents is huge to be able to provide real value to folks. And not only that, we ultimately won't be, and this gets into future and some of the stuff that we're building, but it's not just ask a question and you have to sort of trust the answer. With us, because we have this underlying data, we can give lawyers the confidence to say, well, Charles, I wanna see how you came up with this. And then we can source to the documents that were used in pulling some of this information or making some of these recommendations and folks can dig in. So we get to sort of build trust with our customers instead of just asking for it and giving answers and they don't really know where those answers came from. And it might even take more work to check if those answers are correct. So I'm really excited because at our core, we were a data company and we have the data to give folks confidence.

Tyson:
So I've got the sample analytics report pulled up here that I downloaded from the website. And by the way, our buddy Judge Bourbonis is on here, Jimbo. I've got him pulled up. But

Nicole Clark:
Hello, nice.

Tyson:
yeah, you can pull up active cases, average case length, the motion granted rate,

Nicole Clark:
Mm-hmm.

Tyson:
plain out versus defendant. I mean, the analytics that is in here. It's incredible. It's got a breakdown by case. It's, this is such a cool thing.

Nicole Clark:
Thank you.

Tyson:
Really, really cool. I guess we're running short on time, but I will ask you like, what's on the horizon though, cause like there's companies like that, cause what Jim was talking about too, with like, like the companies that shall not be named, like they do like to swoop in and buy like buy these other companies, like they, like one of them just bought case text with which has co-counsel.

Nicole Clark:
Yeah.

Tyson:
Which I was

Jim Hacking:
Thank

Tyson:
actually

Jim Hacking:
you.

Tyson:
very disappointed by. I was hoping that,

Nicole Clark:
for

Tyson:
I

Nicole Clark:
you.

Tyson:
was happy for the case text people, but I was disappointed that they are now under their umbrella. But I wonder

Nicole Clark:
Yeah,

Tyson:
what's

Nicole Clark:
I agree.

Tyson:
under, yeah, I wonder what's on the horizon for Trellis.

Nicole Clark:
Yeah, I think that, so certainly that, you know, we've seen that and that is interesting. I do think that you're right that sometimes, and I think this actually can happen very often if a large incumbent buys a fast moving startup that it can sort of grind things to a halt. And I hope that doesn't happen and they were doing some really great stuff. And sometimes… big players will continue to let folks operate independently and keep moving. And so we'll see what ends up happening there. But it is something that, you know, we in the legal industry, the technology is moving now and folks are starting to adopt or at least be open in ways that, you know, certainly we got primed, we got primed with COVID and we sort of were forced to embrace technology. And then now AI has come and we're being told that, you know, our jobs are gonna be replaced. And at the very least, folks are looking into this and saying, is this helpful in a way that they haven't before? Or should I feel risk in a way that they haven't before? And I think that's actually great for the industry because there are ways that it's going to massively benefit us to embrace some of this technology. And yeah, there are some parts of the job which should be automated at the end of the day. And we can reposition some of the work that we do to bringing in more clients and other things that will actually help with the lifestyle and growing the business. But for us, we're focused on building an incredible product. And there's something, that is the North Star for us right now. And so exit opportunities will… we'll see in the future, but right now, the focus is continuing to build a great product and we're not even close to done yet. We currently cover 44, or no, we will be at 44 states by the end of this year, thousands of counties, but we're going big. And the truth is we also enhance our data with a lot of additional data as well, verdict data and other pieces, and that's just going to continue as we grow, even once we've got all 50. We'll then go. federal bring in that data, which is a nice structured data set, but let's own the entire trial court system. We're focused on the messy state courts right now, but ultimately we'll be going after federal data as well and just continuing to grow and then build on our products for more and more providing more and more value to attorneys. And I'll tell you for some attorneys, particularly small firms, we are the primary research platform that they use. It also, because you see some of the, you know, you'll see the motions and you'll see the Court of Appeals case law that's cited for your particular issues, you quickly know sort of what to get to. There's a lot of free Court of Appeals website data out there if you know what you're looking for. So there's all kinds of opportunities to benefit, especially SMBs that have a lot of, they have different needs than some of the large players. And certainly we work with a lot of AM100 firms as well. But we've got this incredible SMB base that is hungry and wants to work fast and wants to be efficient. And we're just excited to keep building for them.

Jim Hacking:
I mean, I really think that at the end of the day, you're really gonna be helping the profession itself because if you go to someone and say, Judge Verbonis ruled against the position you've taken the last three times somebody made that, that's just gonna make things easier and the whole thing's gonna work better. Can you talk to us sort of on a granular level? Most of our listeners are solos or smaller firms. How does it mechanically work as far as the pricing and all

Nicole Clark:
Yep.

Jim Hacking:
that stuff?

Nicole Clark:
Yeah. So we, you know, we really built for SMBs and they can sign up without ever even talking to a human. But of course we're here if you want to talk to us. Basically, you can go to our website, trellis.law slash search and start searching yourselves. What we find is when we give smart attorneys access to the data, they decide for themselves. whether it's valuable for their firm. And that's gonna be the best way to determine if we're the right product for you. So go on trellis.law slash search, you know, start searching for your cases or an opposing counsel, or sometimes I like to do fun searches, celebrities, Trump, like you'll find so much, you know, crazy information on there that even reporters don't usually have access to because it's locked in this court system that's been a black box for so long. And then once you're there, our pricing system at the SMB level, you can sign up for basically $100 a month and have access to the platform. Um, we really try and stay, um, where we're not cost prohibitive for SMBs. Um, so we work on that. And if your firm is a little bit different and has different needs, um, maybe you're a three person firm. Just reach out to us. We also don't charge by the seat. So if you have support staff that you want to have, you want them to pull your judge analytics report every time you have a new complaint, we can get your whole team up and running. It's not by user seat. So definitely reach out to us. You can always request info at sales at trellis.law. We're happy to set up a demo, talk to your team and get you set up with a trial to jump into the data yourself. And then… make sure it's the right fit for you.

Tyson:
That's excellent. For anyone that is interested, go to trellis.law and go through the tour. There's a really cool tour that will show you how to use it. It's great. So highly recommend it. We are going to wrap things up. Before I do, I want to remind everyone to join us in the Facebook group. Just search Maximal Lawyer on Facebook and you'll find us. And then if you want a more high level conversation, join us in the Guild, go to maxlawguild.com. And while you're listening to our tips and hacks of the week, if you don't mind leaving us a five star review, we would greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

Jim Hacking:
So my hack of the week is this great platform. It's called Trellis, and it lets you

Nicole Clark:
Okay.

Jim Hacking:
search for it. No, I'm teasing. Although it

Nicole Clark:
I

Jim Hacking:
certainly

Nicole Clark:
loved

Jim Hacking:
does

Nicole Clark:
it!

Jim Hacking:
sound great. I'm very excited. I'm very, very excited. I'm going to play around with it for sure. Nicole, I'm going to ask you, from a selfish point of view, everything I do is in federal court. So the sooner you guys get into federal court, the better. Because

Nicole Clark:
Great.

Jim Hacking:
Pacer is literally the same that it was

Nicole Clark:
I know.

Jim Hacking:
as when I was in law school in 1997. So it's

Nicole Clark:
I

Jim Hacking:
literally

Nicole Clark:
know.

Jim Hacking:
the same. I used Pacer before I went to law school. It's the same. So.

Nicole Clark:
It's funny because the pacer for the trial court system has been told to me by other attorneys and every time I win it's a little bit like, come on.

Jim Hacking:
Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, so my hack of the week is I've been revisiting the seven habits of highly effective people. It's a book that I haven't read since back then when I first became a lawyer. So many great lessons in there, especially for law firm owners. And just one that I'm sort of focused on right now is the emotional bank account that for every interaction we have with clients, with customers, with team members. you're either adding to the emotional bank account or you're subtracting from it. And we really need to spend some time building up that emotional bank account for when those tough times come and there are the invariable withdrawals. But the book overall, you can't ever go wrong. It's one of those books that you should read every year or so. And I'll be adding that to my list.

Tyson:
I like it. That's a good one Jimbo. All right, Nicole So we always ask our guests to give a tip or hack of the week could be a podcast could be a pet It could be a book could be a quote. Whatever. So do you have a tip or a hack for us?

Nicole Clark:
I do. So I love this podcast. It's called the knowledge project with Shane parish and it is phenomenal. There are coaches, huge business leaders. I mean, the folks that he has on are absolutely incredible. And I learned something new every single episode. Can't recommend it highly enough.

Tyson:
I just typed it in, so I will check it out. I have not heard

Nicole Clark:
awesome.

Tyson:
of that one, so I will check it out. My tip of the week is there's something that we started doing with our leadership team and it's monthly check-ins. And so for those of you that are running companies like Nicole or running law firms like our listeners, sometimes you can kind of start to feel a little disconnected with your leadership team and with your employees. And this is something we started doing. So I meet with each one of our… leadership team members once a month for 15 minutes. And I just, I go through, meet up with them really quickly, see it, check in with them, see how things are going. And it's, it seems to be very, very effective. And I, it's, it's allowing me to reconnect with them quite a bit. And then it, it's, it's really all about them. So it's

Nicole Clark:
Thank

Tyson:
not

Nicole Clark:
you.

Tyson:
about, you know, me and them, it's about just them. And so I think that they, they seem to really, really appreciate it. So I highly recommend anyone that is running a company that, that you do, do those check-ins. with your leaders. Nicole, thank you so much for coming on. Really cool product. Awesome. Enjoyed just talking to you about the product. It's really cool.

Nicole Clark:
Absolutely. Thanks for having me guys.

Jim Hacking:
Thanks, Nicole. Good stuff. Bye, guys.

Nicole Clark:
See ya.

Tyson:
See ya. Thanks, Nicole.

Nicole Clark:
Bye.

Tyson:
See ya. Bye.

Ever stop to consider the inward and outward motivation it takes to run a law firm? Tyson shares his insights on the importance of enjoying the journey and not just the destination, which helped him become successful in owning a law firm.

It is important to shift the perspective towards achieving pleasure from the effort you put into your work, especially living in a world that focuses on rewards. Sometimes these external rewards (like money) can take the joy out of an activity.

In the legal field, the effort you put into the work - whether it be the research or crafting the argument is just as valuable as winning the case. Ultimately, you want to grow in your career and unlock your full potential.

Look beyond rewards and embrace the joy because life is all about balance!

Definitely a must listen!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:25 The concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the context of running a law firm
  • 02:23 The idea of finding pleasure in the effort and journey of practicing law, rather than solely focusing on external rewards
  • 04:57 Tyson challenges listeners to look beyond external rewards and embrace the intrinsic joys of the legal profession to unlock their true potential


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Resources:

Transcripts: Unlocking Your Inner Drive: Unraveling the Dynamics of Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:00:25) - Hey, it's Tyson. And in today's quick episode, we're exploring the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which I actually think is a crucial topic that is absolutely essential to understanding how we approach our work as law firm owners. Before I get into this topic, just as a reminder, if you have something you want me to cover on the Saturday show, just shoot me a text and I'll try to cover it. Just text me at (314) 501-9260. We had a lot of great suggestions after last week's show, and if I can get to all of them, I certainly will. But just the other day, Mark Carlin, he's an attorney in California. He's in the Guild, and he made a post in the guild that essentially said, you know, owning a law firm is hard.

Speaker 2 (00:01:10) - And it is so true. We have so many things on our plate, especially the attorneys that are not just managing the firm, but also practicing law at the same time. It can be extremely difficult. And if it's just you running the firm, then that's also really, really hard. It's very, very stressful. You have a lot of mouths to feed. But I was reminded of this when listening to Inner Human. He's a neuroscientist at Stanford University who said, You can tell yourself the effort part is the good part. And he emphasized that deriving pleasure from the effort is a powerful aspect of dopamine. And conversely, though, working hard at something solely for a reward can make the effort more challenging, which I found to be very, very interesting. How and where such a reward based system that it was sort of a really surprising thing. But the topic of finding pleasure and effort over external rewards, it's not a new topic. You know, psychologists have studied this for several years and how external rewards can sometimes diminish our intrinsic joy.

Speaker 2 (00:02:23) - And there's this study where they took children and they had them do these drawings and then they started to reward these children's for drawing. And what they found was, is that they found less intrinsic pleasure from doing the drawings, from doing this activity after they were being rewarded. And they gave them things like a star or things like that or a piece of candy to have them draw. And it's really interesting thing. It's a good lesson for me in parenting where you don't want to reward your children for doing certain things like they like to do, just let them do it because they enjoy to do it. But the lesson here is that external rewards can sometimes overshadow that innate joy of doing the task. So what is it that we can learn from this in the legal field? Well, if we solely focus on the outcomes like winning a case and trust me, we all see these other firms, sometimes they have these great successes and comparing ourselves to others. Another thing that we shouldn't do, but but by focusing just on, you know, getting these great outcomes, we actually may miss the pleasure in the journey, you know, the intellectual challenges that you have, the collaboration that you have, the growth that you have, and, you know, the growth mindset that Jim and I encourage quite often that growth mindset, which is that it's a term coined by Carol Dweck, this encourages us to find satisfaction in the actual effort, not just in the achievement.

Speaker 2 (00:03:50) - And by focusing on this continuous improvement, we can actually enhance performance and enjoy the process. And I try this sometimes where if I'm doing something difficult, I just say I enjoy doing this. Even if I may not, I'll tell myself and it does change my mindset on it. And for those of you that are David Goggins fans as an example, his dedication to finding this fulfillment and challenges it really does illustrate how effort itself can be a reward. He talks about it on a regular basis. So really, what's the takeaway here? Well, focus on the activity itself. Enjoy the research, enjoy the crafting of the arguments, enjoy the late nights, enjoy the teamwork that you have. This shift in the perspective can lead to personal growth, firm growth, and really just a more fulfilling legal career and a life, you know, as lawyers, as law firm owners or really anyone in the legal field. I think changing the way we view things can really change the work that we do. And by embracing the intrinsic joys of our profession, we can really unlock our true potential.

Speaker 2 (00:04:57) - And that's really the challenge that we face. We need to challenge ourselves to look beyond these external rewards and find that joy in the process, the pleasure and the effort and approach our work with really renewed purpose. So but that's all I have for us today. Just as a reminder, I want you to check out next week's episode. Text me if you have any other topics you want me to cover. Next week I'm going to talk about mastering the top three How to set and execute your most Impactful. For goals. Until then, remember, imperfect action will always be perfect in action. Take care.

Speaker 3 (00:05:31) - Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential, both professionally and personally? The Guild Maximum Lawyers Exclusive Community of Legal Entrepreneurs invites you to our upcoming in-person mastermind event in Miami, Florida. There's something truly extraordinary about the breakthroughs that occur when you're physically present, working through your business and mindset challenges in real time. By attending our Mastermind, you'll engage in deep discussions, share experiences, and receive expert guidance from our coaches and fellow law firm owners who understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the legal industry.

Speaker 3 (00:06:05) - This collaborative atmosphere fuels creativity, accelerates problem solving, and stimulates innovative thinking. Investing in your personal and professional development through attending an in-person mastermind is an investment in yourself and in your future. The breakthroughs, knowledge and strategies you'll acquire are priceless assets that can transform your practice and propel you towards your goals. Visit max law events today to join the Guild, reserve your spot and secure your ticket at the best possible price.

Speaker 1 (00:06:35) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

In this podcast episode, guest speaker Darcel Lobo shares her insights on how to effectively run a law firm in under 25 hours per week. She stresses the importance of gaining control over one's time and shares her own strategies for achieving work-life balance. 

Darcel discusses the importance of delegating tasks that are not the best use of your time and setting boundaries with staff, clients, and family. She also suggests easy wins like managing email notifications and sticking to a set schedule. 

Overall, Darcel's approach offers valuable tips for lawyers to become more efficient and reclaim control over their time.

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:40 Darcel strategies for running a law firm in under 25 hours per week 
  • 03:03 How she plans her workweek, including non-negotiable time off on Fridays 
  • 07:47 The benefits of transitioning her practice to flat fees
  • 10:46 The importance of setting boundaries with staff, clients, and family 
  • 12:50 The need to respect the boundaries you set for yourself, such as work hours and client selection, to maintain work-life balance
  • 14:34 Provides tips on managing email and phone calls to minimize distractions 


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Connect with Darcel:

Resources:

Transcripts: How To Run Your Law Firm Under 25 Hours Per Week with Darcel Lobo

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - So in today's episode, we're sharing a presentation from Max Khan 2022. Keep listening to hear Darcel Lobo as we share her talk. How to Run Your Law Firm in under 25 hours per week. You can also head to the maximum lawyer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Now to the episode.

Speaker 2 (00:00:18) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum lawyer podcast podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:00:40) - What I'm talking about is how to run your law firm under 25 hours per week. That is what I do at about 23 hours per week currently at my firm. My number one priority when I open my own law firm was to get control of my time. That was my number one priority. I had two small kids there currently 12 to 9, Lucy and Max, I'm married. And so that was why I decided to go out on my own, my team, from my law firm to kind of give you a perspective.

Speaker 3 (00:01:10) - There's three of us. So is me, my full time paralegal, the My VA. And then we outsource support with virtual receptionist and bookkeeping and things like that. And so if for you if 25 hours a week sounds like there's no way I could do that, that's not practical for me. I think that there's still going to be some tips here that you can take away to at least shave some time off your workweek and to become more efficient, even if we're taking just 5 or 10% of your workweek, if you're working 50, 60 hours a week, we can knock five hours off of that. We can start there to kind of help you be more efficient in your law firm and regain some control over your time. So why does it matter? Again, I wouldn't sell though, so I can be more my own priority in my own life before going out my own, I really felt like I was being stretched in a million different directions. I was an attorney to my clients. I was someone's employee.

Speaker 3 (00:02:04) - As a mom, I was a spouse. I was doing all these things. And before going out on my own, I really kind of felt like I wasn't doing any of it very well. I really felt like I was just being stretched in a million different directions and I was trying to fill everyone else's glass with my own empty cup. And so going out on my own will allow me to kind of get control over my schedule and to put myself on my own list of priorities. So not every week is perfect. Not every week is exactly 23 hours, but that's what we plan for at my office. My team knows what my calendar looks like and how to plan things, how to schedule things. And I can plan things for myself and my family around that schedule, knowing what my work week is going to look like. There's some things that we have that are non-negotiables for me, such as for Fridays. I don't work past 12. Today's an exception, but generally speaking, in my firm, 12:00 laptop shut down.

Speaker 3 (00:03:03) - I'm not texting, I'm not emailing, I'm not doing phone calls. I'm done at 12:00. That's a non-negotiable for me. I'm also my schedule. I have by my house. It's like a four mile trail that's been really important to me to be able to go out and do that. I go do that three mornings a week. So before I even gotten to work, before I opened my computer and answered emails, I'm able to do things like that for myself, to take care of myself so I can in turn take care of those around me, my clients, my staff, my family, things like that. So you want to make sure that you're fitting yourself into your own schedule, which before I went out on my own, I wasn't doing. So are you on your own list of priorities when I talked about the last slide and why it's important to me, I was talking about the things that I do for myself. But had you asked me that question 5 or 6 years ago, I wasn't on my own list of priorities.

Speaker 3 (00:04:00) - I wasn't in my top five, I wasn't in my top ten. I was just very focused on taking care of everyone else. And again, I think I really realized since going out on my own how important it is to take care of myself so I can take care of others. So I want to make sure that you are doing that for yourself as well, so that you can be the best attorney. You can be the best parent, you can be the best spouse for those around you by focusing on yourself also. So instead of just talking kind of abstractly in big picture, I want to kind of walk you through what my typical workweek actually looks like. This is how we plan my work week. It's not always perfect. Sometimes things come up, sometimes as a court hearing that, you know, I can't control that schedule. But when we're planning my work week, my staff are scheduling appointments for me, this is what we're looking at. So Monday, I'm about 10 to 4. You'll notice I don't start till ten.

Speaker 3 (00:04:55) - Most days I take my kids to school in the morning. That's a priority for me. So I start a little bit. Later again. Sometimes I'll have a court hearing at 9:00, but not too often. So Monday, 10 to 4 is when I'm doing my in-person appointments, my consultations, getting legal work done. Tuesday, we're about 10 to 3. I'm doing legal work and our team meeting is every Tuesday. That's a non-negotiable. If you're not doing team meetings weekly, you certainly should be doing so. Even if you're a true solo and it's just yourself, you should be walking through your case list and keeping track of what's going on with all of your cases. So that's done every Tuesday at my office. Wednesday is a half day. I kind of need a break on Mondays because I stacked my appointments back to back. It's pretty exhausting. So by Wednesday, I need a little bit of a break. So Wednesday we're doing 10 to 1 From me, I'm doing legal work and then content creation, like creating videos for the firm's YouTube page and things like that.

Speaker 3 (00:05:47) - Wednesdays are My Day is also to make those Costco runs, do grocery shopping, things like that, because I hate doing it on the weekends. So that's a Wednesday for me. Thursdays are staff client signings with my practice. I do estate planning and so we have to do a lot of things with what signings? I can't do everything through DocuSign, and so me and my paralegal are in the office together, witnessing documents, doing wills, doing trusts, things like that. And so that's a pretty full day for me as well as far as being stacked with my client appointments. And then Fridays I keep like I'm not doing legal work on Fridays. I'm cutting out my email inbox, making sure I'm getting caught up on those emails, handling things, handling housekeeping matters. So this is kind of a run through of what my work week looks like and how I schedule things for my work week and how we plan for my work week. And this allows me to know when planning my schedule and my kids have activities and they have field trips for sports, knowing that I have this to, generally speaking, to rely on and to fall back on.

Speaker 3 (00:06:51) - As far as my schedule, again, aside from those things that I can't control, like sometimes court hearings that are assigned to me, but generally speaking, I can control those as well and schedule those to fit inside my work week. I think a big one is this notion that working more will equal more money, and I strongly disagree with that. I don't think working more makes you a better lawyer. I don't think working more makes you more successful. I don't think that those things are equal. I think it does lead to burnout and dissatisfaction and just being unhappy with your practice. And so this is my quick pitch for flat fees. If you're not doing flat fees, if you're doing hourly work, for me to be able to have this schedule that I just went over with you, it was so important that I moved my practice areas all over the flat fee. Previously I was probably about 5050, flat fee and hourly. And so there was a few things that I felt like there's no way I can make this flat fee.

Speaker 3 (00:07:47) - It has to be hourly. But I really sat down my team and we went through the practice areas and for me, my probate practice was the one that I felt like, I don't know how to make this flat fee. It has to be hourly because there's so many variables sometimes in these cases. But we really sat down and went through it and worked through different stages of the probate process and what things can happen. And we actually have a flat fee for our probate that we actually have broken down by stages in the probate process. And so that's been a big one to allow me to have the flexibility while still having the income coming into the office, but being able to reduce my work week. And so getting control of my schedule aside from just giving me my time back and making myself a priority in my own firm, has also allowed me to get away from that billable hour, which has been a big one for me and for the firm.

Speaker 1 (00:08:36) - Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential, both professionally and personally? The Guild Maximum Lawyers Exclusive Community of Legal Entrepreneurs invites you to our upcoming in-person mastermind event in Miami, Florida.

Speaker 1 (00:08:49) - There's something truly extraordinary about the breakthroughs that occur when you're physically present, working through your business and mindset challenges in real time. By attending our Mastermind, you'll engage in deep discussions, share experiences, and receive expert guidance from our coaches and fellow law firm owners who understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the legal industry. This collaborative atmosphere fuels creativity, accelerates problem solving, and stimulates innovative thinking. Investing in your personal and professional development through attending an in-person mastermind is an investment in yourself and in your future. The breakthroughs, knowledge and strategies you'll acquire are priceless assets that can transform your practice and propel you towards your goals. Visit Maxwell events.com today to join the guild, reserve your spot and secure your ticket at the best possible price.

Speaker 3 (00:09:37) - So we all have things that we're doing as the attorney, as the owner of the law firm that we should not be doing some of these things. Could be your billings. You're going to move the flat fee. We can get away from billing. But even like your bookkeeping, your payroll, answering the phones, these are all things that are not the highest and best use of your time.

Speaker 3 (00:09:57) - And so when looking at your time and looking at. Your team. You want to look at the things that you're doing that you can get off your plate and delegate to someone else because it's not the best use of your time. And it's time you to your office for more hours than may be necessary. And so for me, I'm always working on this. I'm always trying to figure out what can be done to become more efficient. And I'd just say you're the one thing that I'm working on is my email inbox and handing that off to my VA. I haven't been able to do that yet or commit to that yet, but I know that that's a big one to forget for me to free up my time because it's not the highest or best use of my time to be going through my email, filtering out spam and responding to things that don't actually need my response or forwarding them to someone else to respond. And so that's a big one for me that I need to work on and I'm trying to implement at my firm.

Speaker 3 (00:10:46) - But there's always something that we can be working on in the firm. And so the first step is to sit down and identify kind of what's going on, what changes need to be made and what can you do to help you and to help your team as well. So I can't really talk about making yourself a priority and reducing your work week without talking about setting boundaries for yourself and for those around you. So let's start with your staff. I think the biggest one is the constant interruptions, especially if you are working in person with staff in your office. I fully support having an open door policy, but there needs to be some boundaries. There needs to be some limitations. There cannot be a continuous barrage of emails and questions and topping their head and understanding the few quick minutes. That's not an effective use of your time. You can't focus on what you need to do if you're constantly being interrupted by staff. So you should set aside certain times on whether that's daily or however whatever the frequency that you think that you need for your team.

Speaker 3 (00:11:47) - But eliminating those constant interruptions to your work, then your productivity will help you to focus and get work done a lot sooner with your clients. It's really the biggest one to me is the communication as a setting that up in the very beginning when you're talking to them, when they're hiring you. As far as the expectations, as far as response time to phone calls, to emails, to having documents back to them, letting them know up front what that time frame can look like and what to expect so that they don't have any expectations that you're going to do something quicker than what you can actually commit to with your family. I work hybrid. My team works hybrid where we're in office a few days and working from home a few days at home. I have a full home office with the door on it, but mommy's home and they don't always respect that while Mommy is home. I'm working and I need to focus on work. And so that's been a big one for my kids who are nine and 12 now and through the past two years is, yes, mommy's home, but mommy's working.

Speaker 3 (00:12:50) - And so setting those boundaries with your family so that when I'm done with work, I can be done with work and focus on them and not be at family dinner, on my phone, checking emails or responding to text. You want to be able to shut that down and focus on your family. But it needs to work both ways, between with your family and then with work. And then I think the biggest one I put it on here last, but I think it's the most important one is yourself. I think we can be the biggest offenders of breaking our own boundaries. You have to respect your own boundaries, whatever those are that you put in place. So if you decide that you want to start working half day on Friday at 12 or 1:00, you need to shut that computer down and respect that your own time. If you decided what clients are red flags when they contact your office, you can't and then break your own boundary and take them on because of what the fee may be or who referred them.

Speaker 3 (00:13:41) - If they're a red flag and you've decided these are red flags, I'm not taking these kinds of clients. You need to respect that boundary that you set for yourself and not take that client on. So I think there's a lot of areas where we can set boundaries and make sure that we're respecting our own boundaries and that those around us respect our boundaries so we can then in turn be more efficient and be more productive in our firms and so what are we working towards? For me, my list is, you know, becoming your own priority, doing the things that you want to do, having happier clients, because I think being a happier lawyer makes for happier clients and also doing the things that you want to do and enjoying the work that you do. You know, so many times with burnout and with not having control of your schedule, working too many hours or not really having a good grasp or handle on things, things can kind of spiral and you don't enjoy the work anymore. You don't have the same passion and maybe that you once did.

Speaker 3 (00:14:34) - And so having your schedule under control, having your calendar under control, I think really helps allow you to make yourself a priority so that you can still continue to enjoy the work that you do and the clients that you serve. So I want to take away with some easy wins. I think the first one is your email in managing your email and deciding when you're going to check your email on my laptop, I turned off the little notification bar. That comes up in the bottom right hand corner is too much of a distraction for me to see like, oh, what this person sent me, What's going on Now everybody can wait until you decided to check your email if that's going to be, you know, twice a day or once an hour, whatever those guidelines you're going to put in place for yourself as far as when you're going to check your email. But you don't need your email going off 24 over seven and alerting you because people can wait a few hours for a response from you. And again, it allows you to get whatever you're working on and get that done so much more quicker because you're not being interrupted by that distraction.

Speaker 3 (00:15:33) - Same with phone calls. When someone calls the office, they should not expect to get you on the phone immediately. You should set aside time for when you're going to return phone calls. For me, that's in the afternoon. And so if someone calls the office, hopefully my team can just handle it and I don't actually need to return the phone call. But if I do need to return a phone call, it's going to be in the afternoon probably around 2 or 3:00, somewhere in that time frame. I cannot be constantly interrupted by phone calls because the distraction, if I'm working on, you know, a motion for someone and I've got to take a phone call and then get back into the groove that I was in and working on that motion, I lost a lot of time there. And so I think it's much more efficient to handle phone calls in a block at a time. You know, again, setting aside, you know, a certain hour of the day or half hour of the day to return phone calls and not be constantly interrupted by the phones.

Speaker 3 (00:16:23) - And then along the same line is blocking out time for getting legal work done. If you've got an eight hour workday and you're trying to get some legal work done, but you're constantly interrupted by the phones, by the emails, by staff, by whatever's going on, it's going to take you so much more time to get that work done versus if you had a three hour block of time that you cut out and just committed to getting that legal work done. You could have it done so much faster and so much more efficient. I find that that works great for me. And so that's how I handle getting my legal work done or having client appointments is blocking out that time and sticking to that time block that I have set out for myself. So that's about it for me, that's kind of my work week, what it looks like, what my 25 hour workweek looks like again, is not always perfect, but this is how we plan for it. This is how I schedule it and my team knows my calendar looks like as well when they're planning things for me also.

Speaker 3 (00:17:15) - So thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:17:21) - Thanks. Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Going from shiny object to support and success, guild member and lawyer specializing in nursing home litigation Rob Schenk's journey is a testament to the power of resilience and determination. 

In this episode, Rob shares his career journey, from working at an international business firm to starting his own firm and eventually focusing solely on nursing home cases. 

Rob has navigated the legal field with a relentless solution-focused mindset that hasn’t always been there. His decision to specialize in nursing home litigation was driven by a desire to work on a meaningful cause, and he's been making a difference ever since.

There are the challenges he faced and how he overcame — including specializing in a niche area of law.

Listen in to hear: 

➡️ The Power of Specialization

➡️ Overcoming Challenges

➡️ The Importance of Mindset

➡️ Efficient Systems

➡️ The Power of Networking

I invite you to listen to the full episode to dive deeper into these topics and gain more insights from our conversation with Rob.

Jim's Hack: Take a  gratitude tour, for reconnecting with people in the past and expressing appreciation for their guidance. "Be Quick But Don't Hurry" 

Rob's Hack: Have a commonplace book, a small book to jot down notes and synthesize learnings from books.  

Tyson's Tip: Implementing office hours to reduce stress and improve communication within the firm. Taken from the book "The World of That Email" by Cal Newport and you don’t get messages all day. 

Episode Highlights:

  • 01:05 Meet Rob, as he shares his decision to focus on nursing home litigation only
  • 02:47 From working at an international business firm to starting his own firm, and the eventual dissolution of his partnership
  • 07:18 Starting over after the dissolution of his partnership and the challenges and opportunities that come with it
  • 09:23 The initial struggles with negative mindset, anxiety, and financial difficulties
  • 10:52 Managing cases and tasks efficiently without automated processes
  • 14:31 Overcoming self-doubt and the importance of perseverance 


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Connect with Rob:

Resources:

Transcripts: Resilience in the Face of Challenges with Rob Schenk

Jimmy:
Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson:
and I'll tell you some new tricks. What's up, Jimmy?

Jimmy:
I'm reporting live from Des Moines, Iowa. I think Becca used to live here in Des Moines. I actually was somewhere in Iowa. And I am two games in on a long tournament for the Nornator. They are 0 and 2 so far. They've got their brains beat in the first game. In the second game, they played pretty well. Then they had that notorious one bad inning.

Tyson:
It'll get you up, you know, it may not be that long of a tournament if they keep losing so that might be a good thing for you

Jimmy:
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's fun when they win, but we've been out of the house a lot lately, so there's that too.

Tyson:
Absolutely. Well, let's jump right in Jimbo and our guest today is guild member Rob Shank. What's going on Rob?

Rob Schenk:
There we go. Let me unmute myself. It's going very well. Thank you, gentlemen. How are you guys?

Tyson:
Fantastic.

Jimmy:
Great, great. Let me go ahead and give a quick bio for you for all of our listeners. Rob

Tyson:
Well,

Jimmy:
Schenker,

Tyson:
Jay,

Jimmy:
yeah, no, it's fine.

Tyson:
do you want me to do it, Jim? It would be easier if you want. OK, OK. Cool. Go.

Jimmy:
Rob Schenck represents families of those injured or killed in nursing homes all across Georgia since 2017. Rob has been the host of the Nursing Home Abuse Podcast, a video podcast dedicated to educating residents of long-term care facilities. Rob, thanks for joining us.

Rob Schenk:
Thank you so much again. Looking forward, been looking forward to this for a while.

Tyson:
I actually have too as well, Rob, but I want to hear, you know this, I always ask people to, talk about their journey and how they got to where they are, but give us the details, give us the dirty, what led you, because I really want to hear, what led you to joining the guild, right? What was it that led you to join the guild? What in your journey led you to that?

Rob Schenk:
I think that it's probably the same journey as a lot of the Guild members. I was and still continue to be spinning many plates. And, you know, every time I hear a podcast, I go to the next shiny thing and wasn't accomplishing anything. And and I just needed a place where I could I could hear fresh ideas, get good ideas and have people that would be a sounding board. So just people that. kind of in my situation and just get feedback from them and learn from them. That's kind of, that was what precipitated it. And I knew a few people, I think Ryan Locke was the one that was like, hey, you should check it out. But I'd been a long time listener of the podcast itself for a long time, so.

Jimmy:
Well, let's go all the way back. Talk to us about when you graduated law school, what happened career-wise up until you sort of started your own firm.

Rob Schenk:
I graduated from Georgia State in Atlanta in 08. Went to work. at a international business firm that's kind of based in Paris, did kind of cool business transactional business litigation stuff for a couple years, but realized that I wanted to be my own boss. I wanted to be able to be the one that picks what the printer is going to be, you know, that makes all the say so of what the website's going to look like, what I want to do, that kind of thing. But originally, because of the experience that I had at that firm, I started off as business litigation. So bridge of contract stuff. But it was too difficult for me because I might have a case in which I have to learn about how companies sell debt to one another because I'm suing somebody about a breach of contract and debt selling. And then the next day, I'm trying to figure out why somebody is being sued in Florida for failure to build, you know, a metal staircase correctly with whatever welding materials he had. I was I was taking on too many things. And so after a little bit, I. I started doing personal injury because I wanted to get court time and I felt like that would allow me to focus on kind of just injury work as opposed to having to come to work every day and learn a new industry. And then at some point I paired up where I was sharing expenses but not profit with another individual. We finally ended up partnering together and then doing all types of injury work and then home work and that partnership and which it continued to and then at the end of 2021, beginning of 2022, that partnership dissolved. We separated and I've been solo still just doing nursing home work since then. I've been really doing nursing home work only since about 2017.

Tyson:
All right, so there's a lot of good juicy nuggets in there that I want to ask you about, but I want to start though with the decision to get rid of the injury stuff except for the nursing home, which for many firms is a very difficult thing to do. It can be painful even. What was that decision like?

Rob Schenk:
I, to me, it was not a decision. It had to be done for the exact same reason that I had so much stress at, at the beginning of my career with the business litigation. It was difficult one day to figure out how uninsured motorist coverage would stack on liability coverage one day. And the next day, try to figure out how to get surveillance camera footage from the Kroger for a slip and fall case the next day, et cetera. So I knew that we had to do something. It just so happened that my partner was a CNA in nursing homes for 10 years. So he had kind of inside knowledge of how that industry worked. We got a couple of cases just fortuitously at the beginning of that injury career. We did well on them. So it was kind of like, if we're going to pick something trucking, slip and falls, negligent security. I think nursing home is as good as any. It's a great cause. Like it makes you feel good at night to having done that as opposed to some other areas. So we knew we had a niche down. It just so happened that the kind of the force has aligned us to the nursing home industry.

Jimmy:
So how did that partnership go and then what was sort of, I don't know how much you want to get into it, but what was sort of the decision making to go out solo solo?

Rob Schenk:
Sure, I mean he's still like my brother. I mean like we're great friends. We have a great friendship. We had a great partnership. I think that the issue for us was that… were so similar that it seems to me that when two people that are so similar to are together, the strengths are exponentially increased and the weaknesses are exponentially increased. And our weaknesses just it seemed as though we were never able to get to a next level and we were spinning our wheels in certain areas. And so with my own issue like with my wife, It just seemed to me that it would be better to see if we could do it ourselves. And so that was kind of the impetus in a lot of ways for the dissolution of the company. But we're still on great terms. The Atlanta legal community, to the extent that we're known at all, still kind of associates us together. We're still great friends. There was no animus. It was completely amicable.

Jimmy:
Are you both still doing the same practice area? Are you both still doing nursing home litigation or did he take something else?

Rob Schenk:
He continues to do nursing home, but he also is bringing on other, to my knowledge, he's bringing on other injury practice as well, so he kind of broadened back out.

Tyson:
All right, so in 2020, you have this reset. I think you said 2020-ish right around there. What was it like going out on your own and being able to reset everything? Because you had gone through this process. Jim's had a partnership before. I've had a partnership before. You kind of go through this process where you try to kind of meld together and then next thing you know, you're separating. But it is a really good opportunity for a reset. So what was that like and how has it gone so far?

Rob Schenk:
I feel like this time you're a little bit more. Road wise, I don't know if you've messed up word, road weary plus wise, I don't know. But

Jimmy:
Mm-hmm.

Rob Schenk:
so that the problems weren't as shiny. Like when you're when you do it the first time, it's like, oh, awesome. Let's go get a printer like or hey, this is awesome. Like let's get a laptop and, you know, blah, blah. And it's fresh and new. And it's fun, even though it's sometimes can be tedious. This time it's like, OK, I got to do all this again. And it was kind of a bummer. But I know that. there's still light at the end of the tunnel for me. So that's kind of what got me through the initial process of like, all right, now I gotta do this thing again or start this thing over, start this thing over. There's still an objective to move towards. So it was an okay process. It wasn't too bad. That's kind of how I approached it. I think I myself, and I'm not sure like, you know, but. I was also already going through issues anyway, which thankfully to you two, I can plug the Maxim Law Guild that helped me through a lot of issues as well to get to get through that hump.

Jimmy:
I think a lot of people like the idea of a second chance of sort of resetting things. I think they get sort of excited about looking at something in a new way. And I'm wondering, Rob, if you remember any of the things that you were like, hell yes, I'm keeping this and hell no, I'm getting rid of that.

Rob Schenk:
So I think for me, there was a mindset of when I was with a person, you're thinking in the idea of we need to have a system because if we have an assistant or a paralegal or whatever, they have to understand that it's one process even though there's two people. And we'd never achieve that in reality with our processes. So with this, with, with being out of my own, now I have more than one person. So even though it's not another attorney, I still have to have processes that everybody understands no matter who's got the assignment or where it's going. There's one way to do things. And so that's got me breathing a sigh of relief that there's one, I'm developing one process for all these tasks. So that's kind of a, that's kind of something that I'm that I'm happy about with the transition.

Tyson:
So what are the

Rob Schenk:
That answered

Tyson:
things

Rob Schenk:
the question.

Tyson:
that you…

Rob Schenk:
I don't know. I think I forgot the question towards the end of it anyway. I'm sorry.

Tyson:
You got it, you got it. So what are the things that you feel that you're struggling with these days?

Rob Schenk:
Initially, I and initially I was struggling with the mindset. I was doing a lot of negative talk, a lot of toxic talk, a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot. And so with the help of the guild, I watched a lot of the Jason Selk talk, did a lot of the, you know, the relentless solution focus, got through that hurdle. got through the initial crunch because I was in a money crunch as well. So it was the mindset and money crunch were my two greatest hurdles at the time, which was interesting because at the time I joined the guild, I didn't know that mindset was a problem. Like I was one of those people that's like, whatever, I'll just crush it. The anxiety with my mind vice, which was, which was not working for me. And it was causing me to, you know, not be as productive as I should have been. So the, the money crunch mindset I worked on and after about eight or nine months, almost a year, I think I'm in a better place in both of those. I have, the finances are working out for me. So it's allowed me to kind of not necessarily let off the gas, but it's allowed me to focus a little bit more on these other things. And so what I'm seeing now, at least, I don't know what I don't know, but I feel like my problem now is systems and how I feel like I'm what I'm saying when a case comes in, I have all the operations. I have all the processes. How you take from the case from one stage one to stage five. But there's no set person. There's no there's it doesn't auto populate in terms of like these are the due dates for everything. So I have to literally check every case periodically to move things to move different tasks forward. So I don't know what that's called, but that's what I feel like is a huge drain on me that would could easily be solved, but I just don't know how to do it.

Jimmy:
You're listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Our guest today, Rob Schenck, he's a nursing home warrior down in the ATL, we're glad to have him with us. Rob, talk to us about that mindset shift, and I'm interested, did the mindset shift come before the finance shift or vice versa, but what was your mindset before you had the breakthrough and then what sort of turned you around?

Rob Schenk:
The mindset that I had was that I'm a failure that if I could get a settlement check in, but instead of being like this is great for the client, this is great for my business, I'm saying to myself this is not going to take me to the next level. This is not going to be enough to do this. Just a lot of being extremely hard on myself. That was the mindset. What got me through to the other side is… I did a lot of journaling thanks to Mr. Hacking giving me that advice, doing a lot of journaling, a lot of reading, coming to realize that, you know… It's not the outcome that matters. It's the process. It's the it's the work that you put in every day. That's where you draw, at least for me, what I've learned is that that's where I draw the happiness from. So even if I were to have to shut my doors down, even if the firm were to close, which obviously I don't want that to happen, but if the firm were to close and I would have to go and be an employee somewhere else or, you know, somebody quits, one of my employees quits or whatever the case is. That's going to happen. It's it's how I react to that and the things that I do on a day to day basis that I draw the satisfaction from. So that's kind of. And again, like I'm not like I haven't been to the Hill and back. I'm still I'm still getting angry and mad and stuff. But I'm not in the place that I was. And so that's kind of what got me to the other side. And what makes me happy about that is that it's not a huge settlement check coming in and I get happy because of that. I'm trying to get beyond that, whether it's something good that happens or something bad that happens, I slow down and allow myself to have the rational reaction and work through the things and then express that.

Tyson:
So Rob, I just looked this up. When your hot seat was, it was October 25th of last year.

Rob Schenk:
25th,

Tyson:
And

Rob Schenk:
October 25th

Tyson:
you.

Rob Schenk:
and the six the six month deadline was April 25th.

Tyson:
You were really hard on yourself. It was, to see the transformation between then and today is quite amazing. So kudos to you for putting in that work. Like you put in the work, that's amazing. There's a line in your pre-show questionnaire that I want to say, I want to read out. And the question is this, if listeners only learn one thing from your interview, what would you want it to be? And you write simply, don't give up. Where does that come from? Because that's powerful. Where does that come from?

Rob Schenk:
I think it comes from Winston Churchill, isn't that right? Like, well, that's the, isn't that the,

Tyson:
Well,

Rob Schenk:
he,

Tyson:
I'm talking about internally

Rob Schenk:
no,

Tyson:
from you.

Rob Schenk:
I get you, I get you, no. No, I mean, so from October 25th of 2022 to April 25th of 2023, that was a crunch time for me. I had to do a lot of soul searching. And so there were times in which I would, just I would say to myself, I'm just going to refer out all my cases. I'm going to get out of this. I can't handle this. And I would journal that and then I would sit on it for a few days and then, you know, this too shall pass. And so, um, That happened a couple of times. And if I would have gone with that automatic reaction to an obstacle, to bad news, I wouldn't have a firm. I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. So that's where the don't give up comes from. So there were times where that's about as close in the 15 years that I've almost been out of my own that I've come to just taking the shingle down and going to work for somebody.

Jimmy:
In the seven years or so that Tyson and I have been putting out our podcast, we have not met too many attorneys who have their own podcast. I would say it's very, very few. Out of the 350 people we interviewed, I'd say it's less than 15. So talk to us about how you use your podcast in your overall marketing scheme and sort of how it has worked for you.

Rob Schenk:
So I started with the idea of who was the podcast for. So I wanted to make the podcast for the actual person who has a loved one in a nursing home, as opposed to making it for other attorneys or whatever. I wanted it to be, if somebody needed to know how to order a private autopsy, for example, after their loved one had died from a nursing home. they could search that on Google, find that there's a podcast about that and listen to it. And so that's kind of how I approach it. So it's, it's not episodic. Like, it's not like I'm trying to build an audience. I don't care about an audience. I only want each episode to stand alone for a specific instance of that one of my clients is going through. Whether or not they want to know what to say at a care plan meeting or why pressure injuries keep coming back. There's an episode for that. And so that's kind of how I've approached it from a content standpoint and from a marketing standpoint. So you Google a question and that podcast is gonna come up and you're gonna see my website, the transcript is on there. It's got links to everything that we've talked about, the whole shebang. And it's been very beneficial for me. I've learned a lot. Because I mean, I don't know anything. So you have professionals on. We were weekly. That got to be too much. Then we were twice a month. We've been on hiatus for a while because of the dissolution of the firm, but I'm about to start it up again. But it's been very helpful to me in learning my industry better.

Tyson:
Let me ask you for my last question. Let me ask you about your remote and you've worked in person before, but you're remote now and I have noticed sort of a trend where people seem to be going back towards getting into the office. And I wonder if you think you'll stay remote into the future or if you think you'll return.

Rob Schenk:
I hope to stay remote forever. Unless a client wants to see me, which is fair. Unless I mean, obviously I got to show up for court appearances, but I don't know. There's something about me that work is work and your life is your life. And so like I want to give the benefit of my employees that like, hey, as long as you're getting your work done. get it done and you can spend that time with you however you want to do it. I don't know, like go to the tracks, spend time with your family, whatever you want to do. So it's kind of, that's kind of how I approach it. Like I don't, I see the benefits of having people all around a water cooler and talking and doing those types of things, but I don't know. I like the freedom to be able to do what you want and I think that you get that from remote. That's just me though. I could see both sides of that.

Jimmy:
You talked earlier about the discomfort that you felt having to learn new things every other day and being in completely different fields of inquiry and lawsuit types and all that stuff. Talk to us about what the benefit has been for you to be focused solely on nursing home litigation, not so much from a referability but more from a developing an expertise standpoint.

Rob Schenk:
I love it. I wouldn't change it for the world. So, I mean, you could imagine like in any area of law, you could go down the rabbit hole as long as you wanted to. So with nursing home, it's no different. So from one day, I might be spending time trying to understand the difference between choking to death and aspirating to death. And then the next day, I'm trying to figure out how long it takes to develop a pressure injury. But these are all things that are kind of just more closely related than two disparate areas of law. On top of the fact that nursing homes are regulated both from the federal level and the state level. So you have sometimes competing regulations. So you're keeping abreast of those things on top of the legal skills as well. So… The fact that I can just spend my time learning that one area, I mean, it just makes me feel much better and I feel like I'm a better attorney for it.

Tyson:
I love the fact that you've niched down so much. David Terry, another Guild member, he's niched down to completely nursing out. I think it's just fantastic. It makes it so you're so much more referral-able. I think it's just great. But we do need to wrap things up. Before I do, I want to remind everyone to join us in the Guild with great people like Rob. Go to maxlawguild.com. If you're not ready for the Guild, join us in the big Facebook group. Just search Maximum Lawyer in the group and you'll find us in Facebook and you'll find us. A lot of great information being shared there every day. Just to help spread the love, if you don't mind giving us a five-star review if you're getting something from this podcast, we would greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

Jimmy:
I read this great book, it's called Be Quick, But Don't Hurry, it's by somebody who was a student athlete for John Wooden and in there he talked about time he spent with Coach Wooden much after his playing career had ended. And I have been on sort of a gratitude tour of going to former mentors and taking them out to lunch. I had lunch with my favorite English teacher who was also my advisor during high school. I had lunch with my old student activities board advisor from St. Louis University. I'm going to take out some old lawyer mentor friends. And it's really powerful. Each time I've gotten into the car after those lunches, I've said to myself, man, that was good for my soul. That just, having that reconnection to who I was and to see where I am now, it was just really, really powerful. And the other thing is, it was really appreciated by the people that I reached out to just say thanks. And they were all a little bit nervous. They're all like, something wrong. My English teacher said, Jim, usually when I have a lunch like this, it's because somebody has cancer. So I'm glad you don't have cancer. So highly recommend a gratitude tour for the people in your past who've helped elevate you.

Tyson:
Oh my gosh, that's great. That's a wonderful idea. I really like that. That's good. All right, Rob, we always ask our guests to give a tip or hack of the week. What you got for us?

Rob Schenk:
My hack of the week is probably something that's been mentioned on this podcast before, but I've been reading a lot of books lately. And the thing that's really helped me is having a, I think what's called a commonplace book. So as I'm reading, I'll jot down the notes or I'll start something that I like, underline it, but it gets captured in a book. Just a small book that I keep with me all the time. And then even through that process, I synthesize it and it goes into one kind of hardback book, that I've got with me that it's basically a hard drive for my brain because I've found that even through journaling that I'm forgetting things like I'll think of something for the first time 10 times even in a six month period. So having that commonplace book as a repository of what I've learned in these books is has been very beneficial for me.

Tyson:
I like it. Jim, I don't think we've had that tip before, so I think you might be the first.

Rob Schenk:
Okay,

Tyson:
So, very

Rob Schenk:
okay,

Tyson:
good.

Rob Schenk:
very good.

Tyson:
Awesome. Well, for my tip of the week, it's something that I guarantee that Jimbo's probably going to be skeptical of, but many people are going to be skeptical of because we're all lawyers. We implemented something from the book, The World Without Email by Cal Noport. And it's been going on for about a month or so. I think we're right around a month and it's office hours. And so you're not, you don't send any messages throughout the day. Like, so a lot of people use Slack, right? We used Click, which is equivalent to Slack. And before we, like people were messaging all day and it was just a flood of messages and things get kind of lost in the shuffle. But now if you need to send a message, wait until the person's office hours, like minor, Monday through, Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 2 45. So 2 45 to 3. So just 15 minutes. And if you want, the default is you want to actually not send a message, you actually want to make a phone call or you do a video message to them or video call. And that way you can get the context of what's going on instead of just sending a message. So you want to, you want to, you want to prioritize, That's what we've been doing. So everyone in the firm has office hours. And if you need to speak to someone, you go to them during their office hours. And it is reduced, at least I'll tell you, my stress has gone on quite a bit. The number of messages I get is hardly, it's basically nonexistent for the most part. It seems to be working pretty well. So tip is office hours. It's, I think it's a great, it's actually really great for stress, I can tell you that. Because instead of getting messages all day, at your time, you handle those things at that time. and you really don't get many because usually what happens is people, whatever the question is or whatever the issue is, it resolves itself because they kind of figure it out. So it's actually a really cool thing. So highly recommend it. Rob, thank you again for coming on. And like I said before, amazing work that you've done just to change your mindset, awesome stuff and just love having you in the Guild and love having you on the show.

Rob Schenk:
Thank you so much, guys.

Jimmy:
Thanks buddy. Keep it up.

Rob Schenk:
All right.

Tyson:
See you, Rob.

An executive assistant is not just someone who handles scheduling or fielding calls, but they are a right-hand person who helps manage tasks, time, and the overall business for the law firm owner. In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, host Tyson Mutrux discusses the role and value of an executive assistant for law firm owners. 

Tyson believes that having the right executive assistant can enhance a law firm owner's effectiveness by delegating higher-level tasks and operational efficiency. In this episode Tyson gives his best advice on hiring someone with a proven track record of taking action, empowering the assistant to manage the owner's schedule, and utilizing them as a filter and gatekeeper for questions and issues. 

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:25 The importance of an executive assistant for law firm owners and how they can enhance productivity and focus on strategic tasks
  • 02:31 Hiring advice for an executive assistant 
  • 07:29 Shares success stories of law firm owners who have seen significant improvements in their effectiveness by having an executive assistant


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Resources:

Transcripts: The Executive Assistant Advantage: Amplifying Your Effectiveness and Efficiency

Speaker 1 (00:00:03) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum lawyer podcast. Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:25) - Hey there. It's Tyson again. And today I've got an exciting topic to discuss with you, so let's jump right in. Today's focus is a critical one for any law firm owners seeking to maximize their productivity. And what I'm talking about, if you've not noticed from the title of the episode, is The Role and the Value of an executive Assistant. And I want to make sure I clarify what we mean by an executive assistant, because I think sometimes this can be confused. But an executive assistant is not just someone who handles your scheduling or fields calls. This is someone that for a law firm owner, an executive assistant is your right hand person. They're helping you manage not just your tasks, but your time and by extension, your business. That's a really, really important role. And so let's discuss how an executive assistant can directly enhance your effectiveness as a law firm owner with the right executive assistant, you're not just delegating tasks to that person.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:29) - You're adding a layer of operational efficiency. And this is going to allow you to focus more on strategy and growth and less on the day to day minutia. Or let's say that you're someone that you've got a partner that runs a business or managing partner. This is going to free up your time to try cases or whatever else your role in the firm might be. So you might be thinking, well, how can you, as a law firm owner, you know, maximize this executive assistant advantage? Because I hear that quite a bit. What do they do? And it's it's really think of it as you're taking what's on your plate. Many of these higher level tasks and you're pushing them onto onto that person's plate as many of the things as you can. Okay. That's why, again, this is a very important role. So let me go through some of just a little bit of advice that I have. And if you're wondering. Yes, Elizabeth, my executive assistant, she's the one that created the majority of these tips that I'm going to give you.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:31) - But again, she she's she's got that skill set that she can actually do that. So first, I'm going to go over is you're going to make sure you're hiring someone that has a proven track record of taking action. This is not a good position for someone that likes to be told what to do over and over again. It's just that's not the type of person you want that role. You want someone that's going to take action. Okay? The next thing is you're going to want to make sure that you're turning over your calendar. You're turning over your day to the executive assistant. Okay? Empower them to manage your schedule. This is this is not only going to ensure that smooth day to day operations, but it's also going to help you maintain a focus on what's truly important. And I'm not going to tell you what's important. Whatever you know what's important, you know what you need to be focusing on, and it's going to free up your time to do that. Okay. Another another key role is using them as a filter.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:25) - So using that executive system as a filter and they can act as that gatekeeper where they can handle questions and issues from your team. And this is going to free up your time to focus on that strategic decision making or anything else. Whatever your key role is in the firm, it's going to allow you to do that. It's a it's a really big benefit. You're going to also want to make sure that you keep them engaged with background projects. Okay? So you're going to make sure that you're always there are always strategic or operational projects that they can work on and that they can help you out with because you're going to want to make sure you're integrating them into the things you're working on. That way they can they can help you along the way because there's some things that only you can do, but there are some things like some of the smaller items that that you can assign to them. Okay, make sure you keep a great culture of open communication. So you're going to want to make sure you're ensuring that they understand your thought process and your priorities by encouraging questions.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:22) - And you want to make sure you're promoting that culture of transparency, encourage questions. It's really, really important because especially when you're first getting started, you got to get to know each other. It's an important part of it. You got to get to know each other and trust each other, which is another one of the one of my tips is make sure that you you hire someone you can trust because they're going to know many things about you right there. They're going to have access to your email. They're going to have access to many things that many other people in the firm don't have. So you're going to have you're going to make sure you can trust this person. And this one this one might be a little controversial, but I'd say you might want to I would hire someone that is in person. Okay. I've used executive assistants that are virtual. And I'd say if you can make it work, having someone physically present in the office is really important. It's it's helpful. Yes, you can make it work when it comes to a virtual executive assistant, but having someone in seat can greatly enhance your communication and the task coordination.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:25) - Um, another one is make sure you hire someone that has legal experience. A former paralegal is fantastic because that way you're not having to get them up to speed on how a law firm typically operates, and that way they understand the ins and outs of legal work and they can give you valuable insights that you're looking for. And that's going to that's going to contribute to your your firm's effectiveness, your efficiency. It's going to go a long way. Okay. This is one where the next one is I want to talk about is continued education. So continued growth of your executive assistant. Make sure you encourage that. You're going to you're going to promote their executive or sorry, their professional growth in areas like design and spreadsheet management and or presentation software. These are all things that I know Elizabeth has taken courses on and gotten better at because these are skills that can that can be a great asset to your firm. So encourage those types of things. It's really important. Hold daily meetings. All right. So regular check ins with your executive assistant.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:30) - They help you stay on top of tasks and provide a valuable opportunity for strategic brainstorming. This is something that I talked about in one of the previous episodes where she'll go through and she'll we'll go through the previous day and see what things were done and what things were not done. And she she's able to base upon those meetings, reorganize my calendar and see if things need to be fit in. Or maybe I got more things done yesterday than what I had on my calendar. And she's able to remove other items from my schedule. So having those daily check ins are really, really valuable. And this last one I want to go over is just making sure that because I want to make sure I can talk about this for a long time, but I want to make sure these are these episodes continue to be short, but make sure that your executive assistant is focused on you. They should not be tied up with unrelated matters, Other tasks. They shouldn't be on the phones. They shouldn't be doing tasks for other people in the firm.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:29) - Their focus should be on assisting you. Okay, so it's freeing up your time. That way you can do the things that are important to you and your role in the firm. I can tell you over the years I've heard countless success stories from law firm owners who've seen just a dramatic improvement in their effectiveness thanks to having an executive assistant. I'm hoping that these tips will really help you out because I think it can be a really huge success for your firm. So but remember to make sure you check out next week's episode. I'm going to be discussing Mastering Your Schedule, The Power of Time Blocking. So I'm going to get into the nitty gritty when it comes to time blocking next week. I talked about getting things on your calendar previously, but this is actually let me get into some more of the some more of the nuts and bolts. I think you'll really get a lot out of it. But until then, remember, imperfect action beats perfect in action every time. Take care.

Speaker 1 (00:08:24) - Thanks for listening to the maximum Lawyer podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:08:28) - Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content, go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Looking for a powerful tool to enhance your lawyering skills? Join us as we explore the concept of mindfulness with Gwin Stewart in this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast! 🎙️In this episode, Gwin delivers her MaxLawCon22 presentation on mindfulness as a lawyer's greatest tool. Gwin introduces the concept of mindfulness, leaning into the importance of being present, accepting reality, and maintaining focus. 

Gwin discusses the three aspects of the mind: 

✨ activity

✨ stillness

✨ awareness — but don’t forget the need for balance!

Gwin also deep dives into the drawbacks of mindlessness as well as practical tips on how to keep incorporating mindfulness into daily life. Including an impromptu test and see how to practice mindfulness through an exercise that you can do right now! 

Episode Highlights:

  • 02:31 The three aspects of the mind: activity, stillness, and awareness, and how they contribute to our overall well-being
  • 06:26 The negative effects of mindlessness
  • 11:58 Learn how to practice mindfulness by focusing on your breath and noticing your thoughts and feelings, which can lead to relaxation, calmness, and improved focus.
  • 16:14 What to expect at first
  • 21:47 10 minutes a day
  • 25:05 Benefits: Mindfulness practice requires courage to face and accept the things we don't like, broadens our perspective, and provides correct data points


🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Resources:

Transcripts: Mindfulness: A Lawyer's Greatest Tool with Gwin Stewart  

*Gwin Stewart * (00:00:00) - But in today's episode we're sharing a presentation from Khan 2022. Keep listening to hear Gwen Stewart as we share her talk. Mindfulness A Lawyer's Greatest tool. You can also head to the maximum Lawyer YouTube channel to watch the full video. Now to the episode.

Speaker 2 (00:00:17) - Run your law firm the right Way. The right way. This is the Maximum lawyer podcast podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:00:39) - It sounds like I have more than 168 hours in my week, and I'm going to share with each and every one of you how I do that. So you too can do that. But before we get started, I want to take a moment to thank all the people who got us here Tyson, Jim, Becca, the AV folks, the people on the back side that we don't even know about. This has been an enormous project that takes forever to get it off the ground. And it has happened. It has materialized. They, in Tyson's words, have just done it.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:01:11) - Also, I want to take a moment to recognize that you all got here. I know that's a big deal. You have firms and families and clients and stuff going on in your lives that is difficult for you to take some time and get yourselves here. So congratulations. You made it. Okay, so I'm going to talk today about mindfulness. That's been a big word in our country. The last, I don't know, a couple decades. Who has heard the word mindfulness? Let me see. Maybe who has not heard the word mindfulness. All right. So even though in America we have been talking about mindfulness for only, I don't know, 20 ish years. Let me express that it has been around for thousands of years. It is a tried and true method. Once you know how to practice mindfulness, you too can garner the wisdom of what's been around for thousands of years. It's a little confusing mindfulness, at least whenever I go looking at the books or I don't go to a bookstore anymore, I go to Amazon or I go to whatever my thing is and I look in mindfulness, there is mindfulness of all mindfulness of eating, mindfulness of parenting.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:02:31) - There's a mindfulness for everything. But I'm going to teach you and talk today about the quintessential mindfulness, and that is mindfulness of mind. So in order to do that, let's talk first about what is the mind, which, by the way, it is not the brain. The brain is a pure the mind. Well, we can't talk about that today. The mind is not the brain, but the mind has three aspects. It's there is activity. There is stillness and then there is awareness of activity and stillness. Now I'm going to suggest that every single one of us, and I know every one of you I talked to many, many, many attorneys. You are well skilled, well versed, well tooled in the activity of mind. This is where we do all the things like thinking and planning and organizing and researching and considering and remembering. This is the stuff that we do. And when we do it all well, at the end of the day, we tick off all the boxes, we get little dopamine hits, we feel good about what we've done and also our clients feel good about what we've done and we get things moving forward.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:03:54) - This is activity, but it's only one area of the brain, my friends. And because most of us don't know that the other two areas exist. We're kind of like. You know, a little lopsided. So stillness is a very natural, innate part of what our mind can do. But we the words that describe stillness are things like samadhi, nirvana, luminous emptiness. Anybody heard any of those words? Yes. Okay. And does anybody know what they mean? Because I have been searching for quite a while. What does this feel like to be in luminous emptiness? It feels like peace. Yes, it feels like peace. But the tricky thing is we can't get to peace by activity. But we don't know that. So we keep being active to try to get to peace. So. I think we know what activity is. We know what stillness is. Let's talk a little bit about what awareness is. This is where mindfulness hangs out. It means that we are in the present. So I can't be mindful of what I'm going to eat for dinner because that's later.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:05:15) - I can be mindful right now of standing on this stage, seeing all of your faces talking to you. That's my current mindfulness, so it has to be present. It also needs to be accepting. Now, that's a tough one because most of us have preferences. We like certain things. We don't like certain things. I'll get back to that in a minute. So it needs to be accepting of whatever is happening at the moment in reality. And the third item is that it needs to if we're going to practice mindfulness, we need to have a kind of a focus. We could say an object and when our mind goes somewhere else, because it will, we just recognize and come back. And I'm going to say more about that, so don't worry. Three items be what presence, be what accepting and be what focused. Don't drift. Okay, So let me talk a minute about mindlessness, because that's what we've all been doing for eons. In fact, we're born into a very odd situation.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:06:26) - We are the most dependent mammals on the planet, and we know this right? Like little birds can be in a nest and they go fly within days or weeks or something. All the other mammals can sort of get up and get themselves out. But we have to hang around with caregivers for years. And so what that creates in our nervous systems, in our DNA, is a process by which we look outside of ourselves all the time for information. You know, I'm hungry. I need a nap. I need to be picked up, cared for. We can see how that works. Now, the problem with that you can probably recognize is that if we are looking outside of ourselves to figure out what's going on in here, we're actually looking at the effect to determine the cause that's backwards. That is an inaccurate data point, because if I look out and I am looking at all of you, I look out and I see some people looking at me. I see some people on your phones. I see some people writing.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:07:36) - I could say I could interpret that to be their not liking what I'm saying. I must be saying something wrong. Is that true? No. Maybe it means you're studying for the bar. Maybe it means you have an emergency. Maybe it means your knee hurts. But if I look at you and I try to gather information about me, I've begun a trend in my data point that is inaccurate. And that, of course, wastes a lot of time. We only have who knows how many hours we have each week. 168. That is my favorite number. 168. No more, no less. I have been trying forever to create more time. I can't do that. So I decided to practice mindfulness instead. All right. So I want to say another couple of things about mindlessness, and then we're going to move on. Mindlessness can feel like a lot of activity because we have preferences. We have things that we hold close, we have things that we push away. And the problem with that system is it's not sustainable.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:08:43) - And in fact, when we push away all the things we don't like over and over and over and over and over and over for months and years and decades, then it becomes overwhelming. And guess what we do at that point? Anybody have a theory? Shut down? What else? Escape. I know you've done other things. I will say them for you because I can appreciate you might be embarrassed. So this is when we get overwhelmed and we do things like drink and shop and eat and exercise and look at porn and did I say exercise? And we do all the things for a little reprieve. Now, the consequences later might really suck. We get the credit card bill. We have a partner that finds out about infidelity. We wake up hungover. Our ability to manifest in our job decreases, but we're willing to kick that can down the road because we want a little break. Right. And we all do this. This is not a moral deficit. This is not an issue about your character.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:09:55) - This is because, my friends, you don't know that you actually have access to peace. You already have it. You just don't know how to do it. So back to mindlessness. It can sometimes feel like a lot of activity. Like we're checking the boxes, we're getting stuff done. It can feel like a lot of I'm floating on top of things and they're all going to fall apart. It can feel like disconnection from self. It can feel like something isn't quite working. It can also feel like this is great. I'm a rock star. So, for example, right now, how many of you today have recognized that you're walking around in air? Probably none. And why is that? Because we don't have that contrast. If I would flood this room right now with water and we wouldn't have air, we would recognize immediately. Right. It's the contrast. So let's talk about the contrast to this sort of lifestyle of mindlessness. Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential, both professionally and personally? The Guild Maximum Lawyers Exclusive Community of Legal Entrepreneurs invites you to our upcoming.

Speaker 3 (00:11:07) - In-person mastermind event in Miami, Florida. There's something truly extraordinary about the breakthroughs that occur when you're physically present, working through your business and mindset challenges in real time. By attending our Mastermind, you'll engage in deep discussions, share experiences, and receive expert guidance from our coaches and fellow law firm owners who understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the legal industry. This collaborative atmosphere fuels creativity, accelerates problem solving, and stimulates innovative thinking. Investing in your personal and professional development through attending an in-person mastermind is an investment in yourself and in your future. The breakthroughs, knowledge and strategies you'll acquire are priceless assets that can transform your practice and propel you towards your goals. Visit Max law events today to join the Guild, reserve your spot and secure your ticket at the best possible price.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:11:58) - I'm going to teach you right now how to practice mindfulness, and then we're going to come back and talk about it a little bit longer. So take maybe a good posture. And by that, I mean, if I were sitting down right now, I would sit with my feet flat on the ground.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:12:15) - And you don't have to be super rigid about this. There's nothing I ever talk about that is super rigid. But you can sit with your feet flat on the ground so your body can be comfortable, kind of put your hands on your thighs. You can do this with your eyes open or closed. It doesn't really matter. Whatever you're comfortable with. And I'm going to actually do this with you. I'm going to kind of lean on this for a moment. See, I can already feel the peace in my system because I practice this every day. So eyes open or closed. Take a moment right now and notice inside of your body what you might be. Thinking about good thoughts. Bad thoughts. It doesn't matter. Just notice what they are, because we're kind of working at the top of that triangle. We're not we don't really care what the activity is. What we're doing is noticing it. So notice your thoughts. Allow them to be present. Allow yourself to accept them. Now notice feelings that can include emotions, sensations in the physical body.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:13:25) - Again, noticing, accepting. You could be bored. Totally fine. You could be ecstatic. Totally fine. And now with precision, let's place our attention on our breath. This can be at the nostrils, maybe the chest expanding and collapsing. The diaphragm doesn't matter. Just pick a place and stay right there. And the mind will go away. It will drift. It will be snagged by something. When that happens, no biggie. We notice. We bring our mind back to the breath. Sit like this for a moment. Things inside your system might change. Totally fine. We just noticed. Something comes up that you like, don't hold on to it. Something arises that you don't like. No need to push it away. We can even imagine that we're at the bottom of a big body of water, maybe a lake or an ocean or a pond. And we can see all the weather up above. We can see the sun or the rain, but we're not really affected by it down below.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:14:56) - Be in that peaceful, calm state of stillness. Okay, let's come back now into the activity of mind and let's do a quick. Anybody want to share a word or two about what you might have experienced or what you did experience? Actually, anything that you want to express. In that short snippet of stillness and not really stillness, but mindfulness of potential stillness, Calm. Relaxed. Nice. Who could use a little more relaxation in this world? Who could use a little more calm in this world? Okay. What else? Focused. Anybody need a little more focus in your life, in your practice, in your law practice and your family life? What else? Slowed down. Now we only have 168 actual hours. And yet if we can have the experience of those 168 slowing down, might that be worth it? I know for me, a lot of times it is. What else? I'm not hearing anything on the sort of negative side. Like, did anybody wonder if you were doing it right? Yes.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:16:14) - Perfect. I'm so glad you said that. So that is often what happens when we start to quiet our mind. And that's why people say things like, Oh, my business practice doesn't work. It made me worse. All right. So who here has ever had a puppy that you've tried to train? Yes. Now, when I had puppies, they were as big as me. And so when they didn't do the right thing, there was no ability for me to, like, pick them up and move them. I had to train them. And when I tried to make them sit and stay, what did they do? They got up and left. And then I'd say, sit and stay. They'd get up and leave. It goes on and on and on and on. And so exactly what you expressed is kind of like we have to train our minds to sit and stay kind of like a puppy. And in the beginning, it gets a little rebellious because remember, it has been doing activity 24 seven.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:17:15) - Oh, by the way, our mind doesn't quit being active walrus sleep. It keeps going, which is why we're completely depleted and exhausted because we are 24 seven on overload all the time. So in the beginning, when we try to shape or train our mind to not be active, it will rebel. It will say, Oh, I've been gone for three days and my clients and my this and my that, and it will say, Let's don't do this mindfulness practice. Let's just go do the things. And we also get a great dopamine hit when we do the things. So. That's why a lot of us don't practice mindfulness. It's hard. It's actually quite a rebellious type of experience. To say I'm not going to do the things now. I mean, we all do the things, but we can't do them all the time. And I can assure you that if we take a few minutes and practice this kind of thing, all the things will be much better for it. We'll be better for it.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:18:24) - We'll have moments of calm, of peace, of relaxation, a realizing that we're not just a machine trying to churn out more stuff. So the other thing that this does, this mindfulness business is when we learn how to look internally at ourselves and we realized, hey, so here's an example. Every day in my office at about 330 or 4, I work all day. I meet with people around 330 or 4. I decide it's the perfect time to have a piece of chocolate. And, you know, I didn't really think about it. I just eat the chocolate. And then one day I thought, Huh, I wonder why I do that. What's that about? Let me bring some mindfulness to that. Let me be curious about what I'm doing. Now, the reality is it's probably not that big of a deal, except that my chocolate budget is, you know, outrageous. And if I want to try to lose weight, that doesn't help. So I have to be sort of conscious of what I'm doing.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:19:25) - So I started examining what happens at 330 or 4, why am I reaching for this? And I realized it's because I'm kind of tired and I'm also kind of feeling like I need a break and I deserve a treat. Anybody else ever had those experiences I deserve? I think living in our consumer, materialistic driven society, we all get told a gazillion times every day that we deserve this or that or whatever. And then guess what? They brainwash us and we go buy it. You deserve those shoes. You deserve that trip. You deserve this. Whatever. Fill in the blank. Well, for me, at 330 or 4, I thought I deserved a piece of chocolate. So then when I realized actually what I need is, I don't know, a little pep of energy and maybe to recognize that I've been working really hard, then I can give myself those in a different way. So a way that doesn't, you know, increase my calories or increase my chocolate budget. I mean, this is a pretty silly example because it's not that big of a deal.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:20:37) - But there are other examples that we all have. And if you look in your lives, you can find them. So practicing mindfulness gives us accurate data points. Now, I know that as attorneys, you all value accuracy, you value time and providing services for your clients in the way That's correct for them. You don't want to go down a trail of something that's not right because you didn't get the right data point. If you practice mindfulness, you can understand your internal landscape. You can know when you're off and when you're on. You can know when you are correct. So just like everything this is, they call it a practice because you have to practice. So who knows how to do bicep curls? Yep. Okay. And who does? Right. And I know how to do bicep curls. If I want big biceps, I can't just know how to do it. I also can't just, you know, on like, Saturday, do 20 bicep curls and think that's going to work. So the solution is what I'm going to propose, what I'm going to suggest for you.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:21:47) - If you think this is interesting, worth investigating for yourselves is that you practice this on your own. You could pick a time, morning or evening. It doesn't really matter. Whatever works in your life, maybe ten minutes a day. Set your phone to be a timer so that you don't have to look at it. What happens when we look at our phone is we activate the activity part of our mind and then the mindfulness part and the stillness part is nowhere to be found. So put your phone away. Set the timer. Bring yourself into a posture. Check in with thoughts. Check in with feelings. Bring your attention to the breath and just sit there. You'll get bored. Your knee will hurt. You'll think of all the things you need to be doing. No big deal. When that happens, you go. You could label it. You could say, Oh, this is thinking and just come back to the breath. And over time, you will become more and more confident in your own data points, the correctness of your life.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:22:54) - You won't be pushed and pulled by the things you like and don't like your blindspots. We all have them. Your blind spots will fade away. Because you're actually dealing with reality. See, this is the thing. When we have these this push and pull. We have gotten really smart. Like, look at the world we live in. If I'm cold, I just put on a jacket. If I'm hot, I take it off. If I'm hungry, I get food right. We know how to accommodate our lack of comfort so we never have to engage with realizing actually what's going on. When we know what's going on, we have a bigger view of reality and we can manage that better. So a couple other things. You can practice this ten minutes a day. I'd say make a commitment. Everybody here is pretty disciplined. Otherwise you would not have gotten through what you've gotten through undergrad law school. Having a law practice starting your own was thinking about starting your own firms, being part of the guild, all the things that you do.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:24:06) - You couldn't do that without discipline. So apply that tool here ten minutes a day. After a couple of weeks. If you feel interested, you could increase that to 15 minutes a day. So in the 12 step community, like an Alcoholics Anonymous, they say, when do you need a meeting? When do you need to go to an AA meeting? Does anybody know the answer to this? Okay, I'll say it so you don't have to when you plan to go to a meeting, when you didn't plan to go to a meeting and when all hell breaks loose. So when do you practice mindfulness? When you plan to practice mindfulness? When you plan to practice mindfulness. But something got in the way and is really, really busy. And when all hell is breaking loose, it will be the best ten minutes you will spend in your day. All right. So a couple cautionary statements. This is not for the faint of heart. It requires an incredible amount of bravery to have this sort of a practice.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:25:05) - Why? Because we have to meet all the crap that we don't like in our lives. We meet it about ourselves. We meet it about our partners. We meet it about the world we meet about our kids. We needed about everything. All this stuff we don't like. We meet it and we accept it. So it requires some courage. It will broaden your world. It will take out your blind spots. It will give you correct data points, all of those. That's why I call it the most valuable tool. You're here learning all kinds of tools this few days. And those are all incredibly great tools, but they're in the realm of activity. You also need to understand that there's two other aspects of your mind, and I think you deserve to be able to access and utilize all three parts of your mind. So I wish you well. If anybody has a question about this or you get into it and something goes awry or whatever happens, you just get yourself in a pickle. Please reach out to me and ask.

*Gwin Stewart * (00:26:11) - And if you do that, let me know that you were here. So I'll have the context of what we talked about. Thank you very much. Have a great rest of your conference. I appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (00:26:22) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content, go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

In this podcast episode, Jim Hacking and Tyson Mutrux are joined by John Day, a successful plaintiff's attorney from Nashville, Tennessee. John share’s his journey in building his firm and shares best advice on starting and growing his own law firm. It's intriguing to see how much the landscape has changed over the past few decades. 

John also talks about his experience practicing law remotely while spending time in Madrid, emphasizing the importance of trust and communication offering tips and tricks for lawyers to succeed.

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:40 Meet John Day 
  • 02:01 Mindset and reasons for starting a firm 
  • 05:30 Advice on growing a law firm
  • 12:35 Running a law firm remotely from Madrid, Spain
  • 19:15 Remote work and international collaboration
  • 21:08 The process of moving to Madrid

🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Resources:

Transcripts: Sharing Knowledge and Building a Strong Legal Community with John Day

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum lawyer Podcast. Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Jim Hacking (00:00:22) - Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim Hacking. And I'm Tyson Matrix. Actually, Tyson is going to join us just a little bit late. So it's me by myself for the first couple of minutes of the pod. And our guest today is John Day. He's a very successful plaintiff's attorney down in the Nashville, Tennessee area. John, welcome to the show.

John Day (00:00:40) - Oh, thank you very much, Jim, for having me.

Jim Hacking (00:00:42) - Oh, John, we're really excited to have you. And you and I were just talking before we went on air. Your office, one of your colleagues, your partners kindly helped sponsor me to the Middle District of Tennessee. So we appreciate that. But more importantly, we're excited to hear sort of your story and sort of how you grew your firm into the big firm that it is.

Jim Hacking (00:01:01) - Why don't you tell us a little bit about your story? John Well, thank you.

John Day (00:01:04) - I grew up in northern Wisconsin, went to a state undergraduate school in Wisconsin, went to the University of North Carolina Law School, finishing in 1981, and came to practice law with what was then a big firm in Nashville. 20 lawyers. And I started with that firm in May of 1981 and stayed there for 11 years, basically having a 11 year residency with a very excellent plaintiff's lawyer named John T Connors Jr. He allowed me to work with him and learn from him. I left that firm effective January 1st, 1993, and started my own firm with another very excellent lawyer here in Nashville. And we are now in our 31st year of practicing law. He is no longer with the firm, but there's seven lawyers and a total of 23 people, I guess, working here now.

Jim Hacking (00:02:01) - So many of our members are maybe on the fence about starting their own firm or they're getting ready to start their own firm. Walk us through, if you can remember back that far sort of what your mindset was when you decided to go out on your own in 1991.

John Day (00:02:14) - You know, this may sound untrue, but it's not. It had nothing to do with money. I was treated very fairly by my old firm. They were great lawyers. They helped me build whatever reputation it is I have. And as I said, I had a great mentor who stayed behind. I started my own firm because of conflicts. Our firm was growing. As I mentioned, it was 20 when I started. There was 80. When I left, there were more and more conflicts or what I called country club conflicts, which are, you know, not real conflicts. But John, you can't sue people that we would like to represent type of conflicts, which I totally understood. I mean, there was no hard feelings by me, but I could just see that as time went on, it was going to be harder and harder for me to do what I love to do. So I just jumped in and I had a wife and a baby and a mortgage and I could not get a line of credit, not even 50,000 bucks, but I did have $75,000 saved and I had 15 or 16 cases.

John Day (00:03:15) - And, you know, with the benefit of hindsight, it was probably a little crazy. But I'm glad I did it when I did at the age of 36, because I don't think I would have done it at 45. You know, it's scary.

Jim Hacking (00:03:29) - So one thing that happened to the guys that I used to be partners with and I've heard it happen a lot, is that, you know, you have those cases that you bring with you when you start, but then you sort of work those off and there's sort of a dip there. Did you have that dip? And then how did you start bringing in cases once you had set up your own firm?

John Day (00:03:46) - I did not have the the business continued to come to me after I left the firm. And it's because I worked very, very hard from day one big in Nashville, Tennessee, getting to know people at the time I've moved here, the only people I knew were people in the firm. That was it. I had no connection to Tennessee, no connection to Nashville.

John Day (00:04:06) - And I worked very, very hard to be active in the state trial lawyers organization. I was president of it when I was, I think, 36, but worked very hard in legislative efforts and continuing legal education efforts. I was active in the Nashville Bar Association, so I got to know lawyers across the state who were kind enough to think I was competent and would send me work. So I never really had the dip. I just had the pipeline effect. That is, I had to wait for the cases to mature before I could make money. But quite frankly, I did not have to struggle as much as many people had to. I was scared every single day, but the work continued to come and I continued to turn it over and provide for my family and pay everybody. I'm very proud saying that I've never had to lay anybody off.

Jim Hacking (00:04:55) - Oh, that's great.

John Day (00:04:56) - Even when, you know, there were times when I went without a paycheck. But there were. Never times when I've had to lay anybody off.

Jim Hacking (00:05:02) - Tyson and I just spent the weekend, John, with 30 law firm owners out in Denver. And a lot of them are sort of in that stage where they've gotten started, their firms sort of growing. They're getting busy. They find themselves doing too many things and they want to grow. What advice do you have for people? Obviously, you've grown your firm from when you went out on your own in 91. What advice do you have for people when it comes to the mindset of hiring and growing?

John Day (00:05:30) - Well, my belief is we're in a service profession and if you serve the clients, things tend to work out. And I also have worked very hard, as I mentioned, in the state trial organization and the national trial organization, and now with yet another organization working to keep my name out there and getting to know people. Last year we had over 800 lawyers referrals, business. We've continued to work at that very, very hard and then give good service to the clients we represented. They've been kind enough to send other people to us.

John Day (00:06:02) - So I guess the only thing I would say is treat your clients like you would like to be treated in that situation and keep giving things away to your fellow lawyers. I've given over 500 speeches in 17 or 18 states. I've written six books and over 100 published articles. And some people say, John, you're crazy. Look at all that you're giving away. And I say, Look what it's given me in return. I mean, it's all worked out pretty well. So. John That's a lot of referral partners.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:32) - So how are you able to foster all of those relationships? Because that is a lot. You obviously cannot speak to every single one of them all the time. So how are you able to foster that many referral partners? That's really impressive.

John Day (00:06:44) - Well, it's not the partnership that I read that so many other people have where they have 15 or 20 or 30 in, they are constantly working to stay in touch with them. Many of these people are seeing repeated referrals. Other people do not get lots of referrals from big firm lawyers and non personal injury lawyers.

John Day (00:07:05) - Many of them are one shot referrals. And the way they think of me, I think, is because I write a lot and speak a lot and make myself known in the legal community. And I think people think I'm competent and we care about what we do. So if one of their corporate clients has an issue involving personal injury, wrongful death, they think us. It's not the kind of relationship that John Fisher may have with 15, 20, 30, 40 lawyers in New York, it's a much different thing and I couldn't possibly take care of 800 lawyers. So, you know, I mean, there's just no way you could have that kind of relationship with that kind of people and still practice law.

Jim Hacking (00:07:44) - What has changed in the last 30 years when it comes to the practice of law? What have you noticed maybe trends in the way cases go, how your team works together? What are some of the things that you've seen really change over these last three decades?

John Day (00:08:01) - The pace is much faster. Know I remember when I started practice.

John Day (00:08:06) - Geez, I'm starting to sound like the old man being interviewed.

Jim Hacking (00:08:08) - Sorry, John.

John Day (00:08:09) - Is there an obituary in my near future? No, we did not have fax machines right when I started practicing law. When I opened my firm 193, we bought a fax machine. It cost $4,000. The technology was still that new that to have a fax machine that would handle the work of two lawyers cost $4,000. So the pace of things is much, much faster. I think the elbows are a little sharper in litigation than they used to be. I've said for years it's a whole lot easier to attempt to take advantage of people you don't know than people you do and you have to see every single day. So now the Nashville Bar is over 5000 people. Many of us deal with the same people all the time, but there's more and more people coming in from other parts of the state, from out of state. And sometimes those elbows tend to be a little sharper in health care liability area, Med Malaya than I've worked in for over 40 years.

John Day (00:09:07) - Those lawyers are excellent. They're the best trial lawyers, I think, in the bar, med ball, defense lawyers, very, very competent people, but they're under a whole lot of economic pressure. So there tends to be more depositions, more squabbles than there used to be. So those are the major changes, I think. And of course, just from the plaintiff's competition is changed a great deal. It used to be that the small town lawyers or the suburban lawyers would have plaintiffs cases come into them, and that's how they would say their kids to private school or that's how they would do go on vacation. And those lawyers aren't getting those cases like they used to. Many of my friends who were small town or suburban lawyers make less money now than they did 20 years ago. Advertising is swept up on those cases, so that affects referral relationships. The income and wellbeing of those lawyers and its that's been a sad thing for to observe over the years.

Tyson Mutrux (00:10:07) - It's an interesting point because I actually wanted to talk a little bit about this because it's a good segway into what I wanted to ask you about.

Tyson Mutrux (00:10:14) - Morgan and Morgan has been in your yard. They're in your backyard. They just came into our backyard in Missouri pretty aggressively. So what is your advice to some of the smaller injury law firm owners to help combat that? It is an issue. It's something we've got to know about. So how do you combat that?

John Day (00:10:31) - Well, Morgan and Morgan came into our market, I think it was seven years ago, and they had no name recognition. I mean, zero Now they have 16 lawyers. They're taking 4 or 5000 cases a year out of the market. So now the good news is the Nashville market is growing. Last year, we added 98 people a day as residents in Nashville, the year before was a little bit higher than that. So there's the market is growing, but how do you combat it? I think the way you combat it is just continue to do good service and pay attention to it. And hopefully your clients can be your ambassadors out there and to continue to work with other lawyers to hopefully send you work.

John Day (00:11:18) - We have not seen our business decline. In fact, this year we're having the best years in terms of new case signups than we've ever had. So you can compete in that marketplace. You just have to make a more conscientious effort to do it. But it is a little scary.

Speaker 5 (00:11:34) - Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential, both professionally and personally? The Guild Maximum Lawyers Exclusive Community of Legal Entrepreneurs invites you to our upcoming in-person mastermind event in Miami, Florida. There's something truly extraordinary about the breakthroughs that occur when you're physically present, working through your business and mindset challenges in real time. By attending our Mastermind, you'll engage in deep discussions, share experiences and receive expert guidance from our coaches and fellow law firm owners who understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the legal industry. This collaborative atmosphere fuels creativity, accelerates problem solving, and stimulates innovative thinking. Investing in your personal and professional development through attending an in-person mastermind is an investment in yourself and in your future. The breakthroughs, knowledge and strategies you'll acquire are priceless assets that can transform your practice and propel you towards your goals.

Speaker 5 (00:12:28) - Visit max law events today to join the Guild. Reserve your spot and secure your ticket at the best possible price.

Jim Hacking (00:12:35) - You're listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Our guest today, John Day, a very successful plaintiff's personal injury attorney down in Nashville, Tennessee. And we're going to change topics here for a little bit. One of the reasons we wanted to have you on the show, John, other than to hear of all your experience, is the fact that you have been able to practice and run your firm while spending significant time in Madrid, Spain. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

John Day (00:13:00) - I'd love to. Yes. My family decided that we would move to Madrid for the spring of 2022, so we left December 20th, 2021, and stayed until July 1st, 2022, and lived in Madrid in the neighborhood called Salamanca, or in a neighbor called Recoleta and had a wonderful, wonderful time. We still have at that time a 14 year old daughter. We pulled her out of school, moved to Madrid with six suitcases and three carry ons, and the three of us rented an apartment, enrolled her in an international school in Madrid and live the dream.

John Day (00:13:40) - It was fantastic.

Tyson Mutrux (00:13:42) - So talk to us a little bit about how you interacted with clients. How did you manage that part of the work? Were any clients or attorneys sort of demanding that you meet them at the office? How did you deal with things like that?

John Day (00:13:55) - Well, a couple of things. Number one, remember, this was still when Covid was hot and heavy. And people in Spain really paid attention to call the Tennessee a large number of Tennesseans who didn't think it was real. Right. So but in Spain, it was real. We were still wearing masks in public places. Some people were wearing masks on the street. You certainly were wearing masks on the metro. So I say all that to say nobody expected to see me in the office at that time. I mean, you could get away with not being present. Number two, I didn't tell anybody I was leaving. When you are at that time, I was, I guess, 65. Would you were 65. If you tell somebody you're going to be gone for six months, they think you're either retiring, you're in rehab or you're very sick.

John Day (00:14:46) - Right. So I didn't tell anybody. I didn't even tell my partners until three months before we left. We did not tell a soul. In fact, I had one friend in Nashville that I told and I told him. The week before I left. So and I didn't tell the people at my office until the firm Christmas party one week before we left. We just decided to do it and make it work. So it was a little scary. But we we found a way to make it work. I'd be happy to provide more details if you'd like them.

Jim Hacking (00:15:18) - Let's get into that. What surprised you about what was easy? What was hard, What tools you used to maintain know? Obviously you're still involved in your cases and running the firm. What can you tell us?

John Day (00:15:28) - Well, I've been an active blogger for 15, 17 years, so I continued to blog. I've got almost 3000 posts up on my main blog, so I continued to do that. I continue to write I write a column for the State Bar Journal.

John Day (00:15:45) - I continued to do that. I continue to interact on the trial lawyers listserv as necessary. So all those things made it look as if I was still in town. And then I set aside between 10:00 and noon every day in Nashville, which was 5 to 7 in Madrid for phone calls I had to take. So somebody called the office and they could not be diverted to some other lawyer. Then the receptionist would say, John, is it available right now? But he can be available at ten or he could be available at 1015 tomorrow, whatever it was. And I would have then I could look at my calendar in Madrid and know that I needed to be in my apartment between 5 and 7, and I needed to be able to take phone calls during that period. And some days there were no calls. Some days there were several calls, but I was available and most people are perfectly happy if they can talk to you within 24 hours. So we were able to accommodate people with no problem. But to get to that point, I need to emphasize that there's been at least a 5 or 10 year process of getting me out of the day to day work on lots and lots of cases.

John Day (00:17:00) - We have an excellent team here. I've got one lawyer who's been with me 20 years and another one's been with me 17. They are fully capable of doing what I do, and so I work on relatively few cases at any one time, very few, quite frankly. What I largely do on case work is answer questions for which there is no answer. In other words, if my folks have a tough question or a strategy question, I try to give them the benefit of my experience and we work through it together. And that occupies a large portion of my day. But that can be done from anywhere.

Tyson Mutrux (00:17:42) - So, John, let me ask you about your relationships with your leadership team and your employees. How do you maintain that? Because that can't be the easiest thing whenever you're not around them on a regular basis.

John Day (00:17:52) - You know, there's just a whole lot of trust there going both ways mean I trust them implicitly and I think they trust me and it just works. I'm just a very fortunate person to have that kind of relationship with my coworkers and it just works.

John Day (00:18:10) - They know I'm there if they need me. It sounds a little crazy, but it just happens to work and it's been built over, As I said, with one lawyer 20 years. My nurse has been with me for 30 years. My assistant's been with me for 17 or 18 years. My intake manager has been with me for 12. Our paralegal has been with me 17 or 18 years. So we have a real solid long standing team and everybody knows what everybody else can do.

Jim Hacking (00:18:38) - One of the great things about having this podcast is I get to ask questions about things that are happening over here at Hacking Immigration Law. And one of those things is our first remote employee was a guy who started with us as an intern from WashU, then worked with us here in Saint Louis, and then his wife got a tenure track position at the University of Wisconsin. So they were going to move to Madison. And so we set up everything for him to work in Wisconsin, and that's worked out well. And now he's floated the idea his wife has a one year sabbatical from the university about him living in France for a year and helping us as an immigration attorney from France.

Jim Hacking (00:19:15) - I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that or any suggestions on how we could make that work Best.

John Day (00:19:19) - Well, the hardest part about accomplishing that is the time zone difference. You know, depending on where you are in France is either 6 or 7 hours. I believe there's part of France that is on London's time zone, if my memory serves me correctly, that can be a problem. I mean, I did have some telephone calls at 11 p.m. in Madrid because in a professional organization I'm very active in had 4:00 meetings once a month. So I was taking those at 11 p.m. you would face some of those same difficulties. But if you trust the person, there's no reason why it can't work. It may require him to accommodate his normal work schedule to work later to. The needs of clients, but it just works. Just a matter of communication. I bet you would agree with me. Most of the world's problems are related to lack of communication. Either someone's that speaking clearly or somebody's not listening.

John Day (00:20:11) - It's responsible for most of the wars and all of the problems and open, honest and direct communication solves a lot of problems.

Tyson Mutrux (00:20:19) - It's a very good point. I wonder what advice you would have given yourself before you started this, Maybe some mistakes that you would have made, maybe some things you would have done a little bit differently. What would you told yourself when you started this to do a little bit differently?

John Day (00:20:31) - You know, I would have remarried my wife because she's the one who did all the logistics. I must tell you, I still as I tell people, I work half time, only 12 hours a day. So somebody else has to take care of everything else for me. And my wife is the one that got the visa. My wife is the one that found the apartment. My wife is the one who identified the school and set up the interview so that my daughter could get admitted to this school. My wife is the one who got permission from our local school to pull our daughter out, which is no small feat.

John Day (00:21:08) - So, you know, my wife did an excellent job doing all the things that needed to be done to get this to go smoothly. Now, there quite frankly, there wasn't anything that went wrong. The only thing that went wrong. The only thing I would do differently, number one, I wouldn't have been as scared as I was because I was very, very nervous about it that last week. I mean, my wife and I would be in bed at night and and we would say, this is getting real. I mean, we're packing up a three foot Christmas tree. My wife wanted to have a Christmas tree in Madrid, you know, and we're putting it in a suitcase and everything that we think we're going to need for six months is going to go in six bags. And I'm walking away from a law firm where we got a lot of people who depend in part upon what I do, and we're just going to go. So I was scared and I was scared unnecessarily. But number two, I wish I would have spent more time learning Spanish.

John Day (00:22:03) - I did my wife speak Spanish. She's taught herself, my daughter speak Spanish and advanced significantly. We were there, but I did not take the time to learn Spanish. I did learn Dos proper force so I can get two more drinks at any bar in Madrid. But other than that and a few other things around restaurants and casual conversation, there's not much Spanish. And I didn't take the time to do that. Everything else was worked as smooth as it possibly could.

Jim Hacking (00:22:31) - Awesome. Well, I think we're going to wrap here in just a second. Tyson will wrap. But I did want to mention John had said, Tyson, before you got on and I wanted to thank him that he's referred 50 people to the podcast. So we're very appreciative of the support, John, that you've shown us. And then, of course, that you showed me helping me get admitted to the Middle District of Tennessee.

Tyson Mutrux (00:22:48) - Yes, Thank you so much, John. That's awesome.

John Day (00:22:51) - You guys have done so much for the profession.

John Day (00:22:53) - I mean, I joined Maximum Blogger think when there was around a thousand lawyers, maybe 1200 and you've grown substantially. And this is the type of thing I'm talking about what you two have done in terms of giving back to the profession and fellow lawyers. This is exactly what we need to do to help one another. And I'm proud of you and thankful for both of you.

Jim Hacking (00:23:14) - Well, thanks, John.

Tyson Mutrux (00:23:14) - Thank you so much, John. All right. So we are going to wrap things up. We do want to be respectful of your time. And I'm getting looks from a couple police officers because I'm at the courthouse and they're about to start a murder trial and they need the room. So but we are going to ask everyone, if you will give us a five star review, if you like this podcast. Hopefully you are you listening to this? You prove that you've gotten something from it. And if you want to join us in the Guild, go to Max Law guild.com. We'd really appreciate it.

Tyson Mutrux (00:23:42) - Jimmy what's your.

Jim Hacking (00:23:43) - So I was talking to Jason Silk the other day and he was talking to me as he often does about not respecting channel capacity both in myself and with the team thrown too much at them, asked them to do too much. And so in doing so, he also mentioned that we don't manage expectations well, and he quoted Stephen Covey on that for me. And it reminded me that I hadn't read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People since I first started Practicing Law. So I remember listening to it on a Walkman on cassette tape. So now I'm re-engaging with the material and it's just so solid. It's just so solid. It's all principle based stuff. I'm really enjoying getting into it again.

Tyson Mutrux (00:24:22) - Love it. That's great advice from Jason for sure. John As you know, we always ask our guests to give a tip or hack of the week, so you've got several years of wisdom. So which got for us.

John Day (00:24:31) - Well, I would suggest that people consider doing a lot of speaking and writing to fellow lawyers.

John Day (00:24:37) - You know, you could take that knowledge that you've developed for a particular motion or a brief or whatever it was, and convert that into an article or to a speech and share it with other people. It helps you. It forces you to do a little bit more than you might otherwise do because you don't want to embarrass yourself in the community. It helps other lawyers. And I really believe a rising tide. It's all boats. It's a great way to accomplish lots of other things. So share what you know.

Tyson Mutrux (00:25:03) - I love that 100%. Nick Reilly wrote an article two years ago, and it's about trying cases and helping other lawyers try case. And I just thought it was a great article that actually I take that article and I mail it to attorneys every once in a while that are younger to you got to stay in the courtroom. But it's things like that that definitely help the profession. So I think that's great advice. My tip of the week is I've got my own success log that I fill out.

Tyson Mutrux (00:25:24) - It's something that Jason helps me fill out. It's an electronic version. I wanted something to write down in gratitude, and so I found this on Amazon. It's really cool. It's called it's by the Productivity Store. It's called the Daily Gratitude Journal. And you write in some things that you're grateful for, but it's got a few other things too, that are pretty cool about it. When it comes to your affirmation, the positivity and things you did for the day. So it's pretty cool. So if you're into journaling, I recommend it's cool. I'm about a weekend now. I've really enjoyed it to this point, so really good stuff. John, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and thank you for everything you've done for the profession.

Jim Hacking (00:25:59) - Thanks, John. Appreciate it.

John Day (00:26:00) - Very much. See you later. Have fun, gentlemen.

Jim Hacking (00:26:02) - Bye, buddy.

Speaker 1 (00:26:04) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to maximum lawyer.com.

Speaker 1 (00:26:16) - Have a great week and catch you next time.

Have a question for Tyson?! Text Calendar to+1 (314) 501-9260

What about a simple but essential asset that can skyrocket your firm's growth?! In this podcast episode, Tyson discusses the concept of the daily huddle and its benefits for law firms. 

He shares the three main components of an effective daily huddle: "What's up," "Daily metrics," and "Roadblocks." Emphasizing the importance of keeping the huddles brief, consistent, and action-oriented. Daily huddles can have a transformative impact on firms, regardless of their size. 

Try this quick connection point meeting idea, to save your firm a bunch of time. 

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:22 Implementing a daily huddle in law firms for effective communication and alignment
  • 02:50 The three main components of an effective huddle: what's up, daily metrics, and roadblocks
  • 04:29 Tips for making daily huddles efficient and productive, emphasizing the importance of keeping it brief, consistent, and action-oriented

🎥 Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Resources:

Transcripts: Huddle Up: Mastering Effective Team Meetings

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum lawyer Podcast. Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:22) - Hey, everybody, It's Tyson again. And in today's quick episode, I'm going to be discussing an essential aspect that can skyrocket your firm's growth. Today, we're going to zero in on a powerful tool that's compact yet mighty. And we're talking about the daily huddle. Before I do get into that, if you do have any questions on anything that you want me to cover, if you have a topic you want me to cover, shoot me a text and I'll try to cover it on the Saturday show if I can get to it. Text me at (314) 501-9260. And if it's something I can cover, I'll do it. But what exactly is a daily huddle? Well, it's a concept from Vernon. Really good book. If you have not read it, definitely read it. Scaling up.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:07) - And it's all about fast focused communication. You can think of it as a quick check in a touchpoint to align the team for the day's work. Some people call them stand up meetings, I think is a phrase that I've heard, but it's a really effective tool. You know, it was kind of funny because just the other day a friend of mine, Vernon Pacelli, he's an attorney that's been practicing law for, I think, four decades at this point. He's of counsel with our firm. And since he's of counsel, he doesn't participate in our huddles on a daily basis. But he was in the office the other day and he overheard the huddle. It was really kind of funny. He's like, Man, Tyson, this is just amazing. It's just so cool how you all work together and how you'll communicate. It was kind of funny because like, you know, back in the day, like we just never did things like that. And he's worked in big firms, he's worked in small firms.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:55) - But it was a really cool perspective to hear him talking about it. But it is something that I will tell you. We didn't do early on, but it is something that is really, really important to our firm that can really be a game changer for many law firms. I highly recommend them. They enhance communication. They keep everyone aligned with with the vision of the firm, the goals of the firm, and they keep nudging you forward every single day so that your daily and your weekly and your quarterly and your yearly goals are all aligned and you keep moving them forward so that you're accomplishing those goals. So let's start a little bit about what an effective huddle would look like in Vernon's book and scaling up. He does talk about that. There's really three main components and I'm gonna talk about what we do. We do it slightly different, but there's three main components in there. They talk about what's up daily metrics and roadblocks and you know what's up is a quick overview of each team members main focus for the day.

Tyson Mutrux (00:02:50) - Daily metrics. Most people know what that is. That allows you to keep a pulse on your firm's key numbers. And we focus more on the quarterly KPI as opposed to like that one key number as opposed to everyone's metrics. We don't go into everyone's metrics, but we do focus on the one big one. And then the last part is roadblocks, and that's where team members, they fly any potential issues or bottlenecks. The way we do it is we keep it pretty simple. A win from yesterday. Okay. So it's similar to what they do because he talks about celebrating your wins. We do a win from yesterday, focus for the day and then at the end of after everyone's shared their win for the day from yesterday and then the focus for the day, we then get into stocks, which is a really powerful part where and this is for people that are resistant to doing the daily huddles or the stand up meetings. This is the part where it'll probably change your mind because those stocks, that's what's going to save you a bunch of time.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:44) - It's going to save you a bunch of pain too, because you're able to very quickly identify things that need to be addressed fairly quickly. And you can do it right. Then you don't have to do, you know, phone calls back and forth, you know, do messages back and forth. It's addressed right there in the meeting, done over with. It's a really effective tool. Now, what are some ways that we can make sure that these daily huddles are efficient and productive? Because I think that's a complaint I get a lot from a lot of people is, well, they're concerned with, oh, you know, this is time out of my day, you know, and this is I don't have time to do it. You can do these in 10 to 15 minutes. That's what they're designed to be. You want to make sure you keep this thing brief. So I'll give you some tips that we use that I think are really gonna help you out. So keep it brief. The idea is to keep this thing 10 to 15 minutes.

Tyson Mutrux (00:04:29) - If you go over that, you're doing it probably wrong. These things should be boom, boom, boom. There should not be a lot of side discussion. You need to get it knocked out and that way people can get on with their days. But any longer, if you do go longer, you risk turning it into a full blown meeting, which is not the point, right? You want this to be a huddle and that's it. Consistency is another part of this. You're going to make sure that you're doing this at the exact same time every single day. Okay. That is really, really important. You got to create that rhythm. Bern. Harnish talks a lot about creating rhythms and you got to have a meeting rhythm, so you got to create that rhythm. You have that routine so that your team can count on it and they know when to show up and they know that you're going to show up every single day. The next thing is participation. These are not huddles where you just show up, little meetings where you show up and one person talks.

Tyson Mutrux (00:05:18) - This is something where everyone participates. It's absolutely crucial. Every single team member needs to have the opportunity, not only the opportunity they need to participate and they need to share. It's not something where they just have the opportunity they need to actually share. That's why going through those wins from the day before. And then also what your focus is for the day really important because they not only have the opportunity to talk, but they actually they do talk. They're forced to talk in a way in a good way, though. The next thing is keep it action oriented. All right. So the goal of a huddle is to understand what needs to be done and identify any obstacles. Okay. It's not the place for any lengthy conversations or discussions. If a conversation veers off, it's really important that you or whoever is running the meeting steps in, guides it back on, on track, and then says, Hey, this sounds like this is going to be something that takes a little bit longer once you discuss it after the meeting.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06:11) - Okay. Very, very easy, which leads to the next part. You want to make sure you have a strong leader that is running the huddles and it doesn't have to be you. Okay? It's just got to be someone that is a strong leader. And this is going to go a really long way of making sure that you're keeping the conversation moving and that you're keeping it on track. All right. So the next thing is focus on today. Okay. You're going to want to make sure you're focusing on today or at most that week. But the huddle is for discussing what's happening today. You're going to want to make sure that you're saving those discussions about long term projects or strategic goals for longer weekly or monthly meetings. Okay. Because again, you're creating those rhythms, so your team should be having other meetings as well. That way they're on track. So each of your firms are going to have separate teams or if you're a smaller one, maybe it's just you and someone else. These are still extremely effective for smaller teams.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:01) - And when you implement these daily huddles, when they're implemented effectively, they can work wonders on your firm. I've seen firms become more connected, more responsive and more proactive by integrating these daily huddles in their routine. And as a result, what happens is they see massive, massive growth. I can't overstate this probably because this is how powerful it is. These are extremely powerful at growing your firm and really managing cases anyway. So if it's just you and an assistant and you've got five cases. Okay, great. Talk about those cases. That's fine. If you want to stay at a small firm, these are still going to be effective even if you're a smaller firm. But they're going to be really, really powerful as you start to scale your firm. All right. So hopefully you're going to embrace the power of the daily huddle. It's a very small investment of time that will pay big dividends in communication and aligning your team and making sure that everyone's productive. As always, though, I want to remember that it's about taking that first step.

Tyson Mutrux (00:08:01) - It may not be perfect. When you first started out, you might go along. That's okay, you might go short. It's fine, but it's better than standing still. So make sure that you give daily huddles a try even if you're resistant to it. And watch how they can transform your team's day. I promise you it's going to be effective. Here's to creating a powerful daily rhythm and unlocking the full potential of your law firm. Remember to check out next week's episode where I'm going to be discussing executive assistance. It's the executive assistant advantage amplifying your effectiveness and efficiency. Till then, remember, imperfect action will always beat perfect inaction. Take care.

Speaker 3 (00:08:42) - Are you ready to unlock your full growth potential, both professionally and personally? The Guild Maximum Lawyers Exclusive Community of Legal Entrepreneurs invites you to our upcoming in-person mastermind event in Miami, Florida. There's something truly extraordinary about the breakthroughs that occur when you're physically present working through your business and mindset challenges in real time. By attending our Mastermind, you'll engage in deep discussions, share experiences, and receive expert guidance from our coaches and fellow law firm owners who understand the unique challenges and opportunities within the legal industry.

Speaker 3 (00:09:16) - This collaborative atmosphere fuels creativity, accelerates problem solving, and stimulates innovative thinking. Investing in your personal and professional development through attending an in-person mastermind is an investment in yourself and in your future. The breakthroughs, knowledge and strategies you'll acquire are priceless assets that can transform your practice and propel you towards your goals. Visit max law events.com today to join the guild. Reserve your spot and secure your ticket at the best possible price.

Speaker 1 (00:09:45) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.


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