Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Should You Hire That Attorney or Paralegal?

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Should You Hire That Attorney or Paralegal? · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

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Hi and welcome. I'm Davina Frederick, hosts of the wealthy
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woman lawyer podcast, and the founder of wealthy woman lawyer.
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We help women law firm owners scale to and through a million
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dollars in gross annual revenue in their law firm businesses.
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And we are here today talking with Holly Draper of the Draper
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law firm in McKinney, Texas. I'm so excited. You're here a lot.
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Holly, how are you today? I'm doing great. Thanks for having
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me. Great. So tell me about the Draper firm. And how you serve
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your clients. What what do you do? What is your area of
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practice? So the Draper law firm is a almost fully Virtual Family
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Law Firm. We do divorce child custody, child support
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adoptions, anything under the Family Law umbrella, and we also
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do family law appeals. How long have you been in practice? How
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long have you hell have you had the business? I started farm
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2008. I've been practicing since 2004. So I had a brief stint in
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a midsize civil defense firm before getting out on my own and
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starting the firm. Yeah, so what made you decide that it was
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finally time to start your own law firm? Was it somebody you'd
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always had a goal? Or was it something that just kind of
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evolved? It had? Well, it didn't happen the way that I would have
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intended it to happen. But it worked out for the best. I
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always wanted to have my own business. My dad had his own
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business, I've been very entrepreneurial my whole life.
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But I started out and other sediments, I civil defense firm,
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and I thought, Okay, I need to be done having children, I need
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to have X dollars in the bank, I need to have Y number of plants
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I'm already going to be taking with me. So I felt like I was a
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very long way away from actually being ready to start my own
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firm. And I had my daughter in my first child, my daughter in
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November of 2007, go out on maternity leave for three months
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come back. November's also in new attorneys are licensed in
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Texas. So all the new attorneys came in, took over my turf came
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back, never got another big case. And it was 2008. At that
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point, Terracon economy was terrible lawyers were losing
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their jobs all over the place. And I ended up being a casualty
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of that recession. And some, you know, I was looking for other
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jobs and panicking because I have this little baby. And I had
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none of those things on my list that I thought I needed in order
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to start my own firm. But I had a little bit of business just so
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happen to fall into my lap, it wasn't family long something
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else. And I thought you know what, what better way to start
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being pushed into it. So I started in 2008. And took me
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about five years to feel like I was not worried constantly about
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where the next client was gonna come from. But in the end, it
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was probably the best thing that ever happened to me was losing
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that job. That's so interesting that you say that I have had
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many experiences in my life where I thought something really
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bad had just happened. And it turned out to be the best thing
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because sometimes we get locked into a comfort zone, where we
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are, where we are, even if it's not satisfactory, we get locked
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into that and then work. So we're nestled down, and we're
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not going to move from it because it's just comfortable
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enough to deal with the headache of it. So oftentimes, I really
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view it as a gift, when something doesn't turn out maybe
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the way that I just paid well, because usually it's the
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universe sort of holding a mirror to me and showing me
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there's something else that I meant to do that's better for
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me. Did you have a moment like that? Where you felt that? Or
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did it take you many years to sort of reflect on that and go,
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Okay, that was a good thing. didn't take that long to realize
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it was a good thing. I ended up having my second and last child,
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you know, two years later. And by having my own practice, it
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allowed me to be there a lot more and have full control over
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what I was doing, where I was going, how much I was working.
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So it didn't take long. There was a lot of stress early on
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about how am I going to get business? How am I going to
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support my family because I was really the primary breadwinner,
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but just kept going and made a lot of mistakes along the way,
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but got there. So how, how did you get business when you
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started out?
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So when I started, I thought I have to take whatever walks
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through the door and was very general practice. I had never
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done family law. I didn't take family law in law school, no
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intent of specializing in family law at that point in time. So
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one of the business that had fallen into my lap was some
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collections type work, working with a company that did debt
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stuff for consumers. So that was not full time work, but it was
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enough to pay the bills and work on building up other businesses.
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You know, I have a huge Facebook fan. And I've long gotten a lot
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of business by just talking about what I do on Facebook and
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sharing with my network about what I'm doing. If I had known
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then what I know now I would have done different things to
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get business. But one thing kind of led to another. And as I
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started having family law cases trickle in, I realized, I
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actually really liked family law, I feel like I'm helping
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people. I wanted to be a litigator, and in family law,
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was a much faster pace of litigation than big firm
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litigation. We're representing big companies, cases that, you
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know, fill up your room with documents, like the piece of
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family law a lot better. So over time, I gradually funnel down
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and specialize more and more to get to the point where our
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family law was all that I did. I have it has always been said to
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me from various mentors and other attorney colleagues that
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family law is a love it or hate it situation that people either
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really gravitate toward it, or they're like, I never want to do
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family law again, what is it about family law that you find?
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Besides the fast paced litigation that you find
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appealing, does it you know, it doesn't stress you out? People
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with their relationship problems and things like that? How do you
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deal with that, it can stress you out, we try really hard to
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catch the red flags early and not represent the people who are
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gonna cause us an undue amount of stress. Some of them get
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through, and there's not a lot to do about that. But you know,
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when I was representing major corporations, there was just no
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personal satisfaction in that I didn't, you know, I'm
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representing against the brain injured child, I'm representing
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against the person who lost their spouse. So it was just so
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much more personally rewarding to see these people who were in
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one of the, usually one of the worst times in their life, and
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to help go through it and get them out on the other side in a
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much better place. Right, right. I had kind of a similar start in
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my career where, where I started out doing, representing lenders
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in foreclosure. And it wasn't something that I love doing. But
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it was provided enough bread and butter money for me to then
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become a better family law attorney, which is really what
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the main, my main focus was that the state planning. So I
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understand, you know, I think everybody, I think everybody has
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a unique opportunity at a certain time. And a lot of times
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we don't see them as opportunities. We, we look at
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them say, Well, I really don't want to do this thing. But it
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sounds like you had a really good approach and sort of taking
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whatever came through the door to begin with, until you sort of
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figure out what it was that was appealing to you. Now, the
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question is, how did you grow from there? Because you have a
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very unique business model, I think. And I really want to dig
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into that. Because, because I think it's unique for a number
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of reasons. One is, you don't see a lot of other attorneys
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taking this approach, a law firm saying this approach to growth,
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and I want to know what your thought process was behind it.
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So you started out by hiring attorneys instead of staff. Tell
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me tell me what that what was behind that decision.
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So the very first person that I hired was staff. She was you
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know, the answer the phone person and she wore many hats,
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legal assistant calendaring, things of that nature. But when
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I really wanted to start to grow, the next people that are
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hired were attorneys. I was so super, super scared of hiring an
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attorney because I thought how am I going to pay this person?
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I'm worried about there being enough money coming into pay
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myself. And I started out having her just do some contract work.
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And over time, you know, realize she really did a good job. And I
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was getting busier and busier. So finally pulled the trigger
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and hired her. And after that, as we got busier and grew, we
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ultimately added more attorneys until we got to a max of five so
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far. And we didn't add our first paralegal until June of 2021. So
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we were operating with five attorneys and one staff and the
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attorneys were handling a lot of the work that many firms have
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paralegals doing. But we took an approach. A couple of reasons.
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We thought clients liked working with us and don't want to get
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pawned off on an attorney. And they liked that they can call us
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and this was when we weren't quite so busy and we couldn't
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have a more attorney personal touch with them. But I
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personally wanted to hire attorneys because they're the
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best at higher rates. And they can do everything that I can do.
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So they can go to court, they can go to mediation, they can
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help case and I can take a vacation and come back and all
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the work is done. And they the firm can still be operating the
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firm can still make money. And I don't have to be there all the
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time to make that happen. Whereas if I had hired a bunch
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of paralegals, and I was the only attorney, nothing's really
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going to be happening, unless I'm there. I can't go to trial.
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I can't go to mediation. Paralegals only have so much
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they can do on their own without an attorney touching it. Yeah.
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Yeah. I mean, that's, I think that is super, super smart. And,
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but it's really interesting, because, you know, I've been
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coaching for about eight years now. And I, I, I see a lot in
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conversation, not just with clients, but just in the
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community and on Facebook, and in conversations in different
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groups, about attorneys going for years hiring paralegals, and
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then they just struggled, struggled to hire an attorney
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and I, and I think there's some fear, like he sat around, how am
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I going to, you know, pay this person, because there's this
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idea that there's so much more expensive, and most people don't
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think about, this person's making you money, right, you
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should be covering their cost as well as making you profit.
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Right. But also, the I think there's fear around pay. And
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then I also think, on some level, there's a little imposter
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syndrome that goes on with people where they think if I
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bring this attorney in, what if they're smarter than me? What if
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they are going to judge me and go? Well, she's not here, at
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least given an attorney, as I am, you know, or maybe people
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haven't feared they're going to come in, and you're going to
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train them, and then they're going to turn around and start
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their own business or whatever. How would you sort of did you
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have any of those thoughts? And if so, how did you overcome
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that? Was it just the fear around being able to pay them?
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Or was there something else to it? There was certainly a fear,
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once I got past the fear of being able to pay that as I'm
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adding more people and I need more people, because I'm busy,
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was a fear of what if they don't do it the way I would do it? And
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what if they're not going to be as good in court as I am? And is
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that fair to the client, that they're hiring our firm because
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of me, and maybe they're getting an attorney, that isn't going to
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be as good as me. And eventually, I had to get over
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that and realize that if I want to build the type of business
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that I want to have, I have to trust other people, I have to
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trust that you make good hiring decisions, I have to trust that
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I'm making a good choice when I'm assigning a particular
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associate to handle a certain case, and that I will have the
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judgment to know I need to step in and handle a particular
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issue, or this hearing is going to require me, but I don't do
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that too much anymore. I really like to let everybody else on my
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team handle almost everything on the case. So your hiring
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process. I'm sure it's improved over time, probably from when
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you first started out. But what do you think has been your kind
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of secret, if you will, to hiring good attorneys right from
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the beginning.
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A lot of it was luck. The person the attorney has been with me
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the longest, he's now a partner with my firm. Another colleague
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just happened to introduce us because she was starting her own
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practice. And they knew that I maybe would have helpful
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information as kind of a mentor to this attorney. So I got to
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know her that way and ultimately decided to hire her. The first
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attorneys I hired at least two after that were people that I
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already knew they had been opposing counsel, or I knew them
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from borrower organizations, things like that. But all the
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attorneys that have hired since then were people I did not know.
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And so we've learned things along the way of oh, we better
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ask this question next time or we better, you know, make sure
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we put this in the contract. So this problem doesn't happen
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again. But we've found most of all of them. I think all of our
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attorneys through Texas has a lot of really great attorney
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Facebook groups. And so we share in the attorney, mom's group or
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the Texas family members group, and have always gotten a lot of
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great candidates that way. Yeah, let's talk about that for a
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minute because I think this is something that really sets you
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apart too in that so you've taken the Clifton Strengths
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analysis and your top like five or six characteristics were
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categorized under influence her and that's really rare and all
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of the times that I felt attorneys go through the Clifton
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Strengths and evaluate. Most of the time you see things like
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strategic and maybe a little executing, stuff like that, but
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yours was heavy on the influencing part which I which
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is really a superpower for you and I find that to be so
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interesting. because you're you, I've always used Facebook groups
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for a lot of it with a lot of good outcomes as well. But
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you've really taken it to the next level and that you sort of
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go there for that's where you've connected with a lot of people,
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not only people working for you, but also people who work for
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your business. And you've had a lot of success of that, can you
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share some insight and some sort of tips or for people who really
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don't know how to do that they don't know how to leverage
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Facebook groups.
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Sure. So my biggest source of business through Facebook is
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definitely my personal page, not my business page, I do have a
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business page. But that is, it's much easier to be Facebook
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friends with people than it is to get them following your page
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or interacting with your page. So I make I'm not one of those
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people who is really locked down on Facebook. And you know, if I
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don't know you personally, and we haven't known each other
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forever, you're not my friend. You know, I'm faced I'm
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basically friends with a lot of people who, if I meet somebody,
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I will go find them, find them on Facebook and friend them. If
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I go to an attorney events, and I sit at a table with seven
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other people that I didn't know before, I will go friend them
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all. But I also friend, everybody I knew in high school,
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everybody I knew in college already from law school, have a
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very, very large network on Facebook. A lot of people who
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are professionals will send me friend requests, and I can tell
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their lawyer or their they live in the same town as me or you
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can tell a lot just from what's public on their page. And so
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even though I don't know them, I will accept their friend
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request. There's a lot of people who could walk in the door right
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now. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't know that we're Facebook
16:45
friends, I wouldn't recognize who they were. But so I, you
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also don't want to be one of those salesy obnoxious people on
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Facebook, nobody likes the person who is constantly
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advertising their multi level marketing products. And that's
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all they talk about. So you have to be careful about what you're
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posting from a business perspective. Now, I'll share a
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lot about oh, you know, I had a great hearing today, you know,
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we got everything we wanted. And I won't give out details that
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are confidential, but I'll put enough information so that
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everyone knows where I might snap a picture of myself in
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front of the courthouse, you know, to have a temporary orders
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hearing or whatever. I also I do appellate work. And if I have a
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things are happening on Zoom for oral arguments, so I'll post
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Hey, I'm having this oral argument if anybody wants to
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watch. A lot of people don't care about watching. But that's
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just a reminder to them, oh, hey, she does, this is what she
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does. I also make a ton of connections through usually
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Facebook moms groups, I have found them to be I make hundreds
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of 1000s of dollars a year from Facebook moms groups, there is a
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certain level of trust there that maybe shouldn't be but is
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for all these, you know, 10,000 Strangers in this group. But
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people feel like they know each other. They trust the
18:10
recommendations they get. And some of the best groups I mean,
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you can't advertise and you can't, you know, if somebody
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asks, Hey, I need a recommendation for divorce
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lawyer, you can't post yourself and say I can help. So you have
18:25
to be careful on what you say and how you say it. But people
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are asked all the time for Hey, you know, here's an example that
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I just saw yesterday, somebody posted a Facebook group that
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they've been a stay at home mom, and marriage isn't going well.
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And she just got offered a job and what should she do? And I
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say, parentheses, family lawyer here. And then I chime in with
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my advice that, you know, I would 100% recommend taking the
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job. And you know, I see so many stay at home moms get destroyed
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through marriage or get stuck in a bad marriage because of the
19:03
dynamics of that and all that. So I will you know people ask
19:07
legal questions all the time. Well, how do we know how child
19:10
support works? Or whatever the question may be, and I will
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chime in with generic legal information, letting people know
19:19
that I'm an attorney, and hey, maybe you should get your advice
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from all the moms in Facebook about this legal issue.
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Especially it's complicated, but over time, you become the expert
19:29
in the group and everybody knows that. Either you can help or you
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know somebody who can help and so when somebody does ask for
19:36
that, where the divorce where 10 Other people are going to tag
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me. So I don't have to raise my hand and say I can help because
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all these other people know that I
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can. Right, right, right. It I think it's it's super smart. And
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the one thing about the one thing about social media is is
19:58
that it's a long game. It doesn't start out immediately
20:02
like that it's the gate, it's engaging. It's just like any
20:06
other social network. Even if you were networking in person,
20:09
it's getting to know people over time. And having them be
20:13
familiar with you and get to know you, I know that some of
20:15
my, some people, I feel nope, probably more about me than
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people IRL in real life, or people that I've been in
20:24
copywriter Facebook groups, or, you know, attorney, Facebook
20:28
groups or whatever for a long time. And they just over time,
20:32
you get to know a lot about people that way, because we
20:35
share the daily life, diary sort of thing that if you engage
20:39
regularly in that, and I see it, now, I'm on it. I'm on
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Instagram, more now, as I've made my event last year, to
20:46
Instagram and I, I've started to see kind of what the patterns
20:49
are emerging on Instagram, it's a different platform doesn't
20:52
have the same level of conversation. But it but people
20:58
notice people who show up regularly and consistently on
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it. So it's it's fascinating to me how what an impact that is a
21:05
game changer. It's a game changer for small firms. Just
21:09
like the internet was a game changer for small firms, because
21:11
leveled the playing field, you go create a website. And people,
21:17
you know, would know that the lay person doesn't know the
21:19
difference between your website and large firms website, because
21:22
you could get a professional looking website back when that
21:25
was a new thing. And it's the same thing with social media, I
21:28
think it really levels the playing field because it
21:30
provides an opportunity for small firms to get out there and
21:34
get known without having to spend a lot of money. Let's talk
21:39
about where you are now. Because you've reached a point with
21:44
your, with your team, with your attorney team, where you started
21:48
saying, Okay, I need to I need to prepare for the next level,
21:53
maybe build an infrastructure under this team. And start
21:57
thinking about your marketing in a different way. As opposed to
22:01
marketing Holly Draper. Right? What was that transition? Like
22:06
for you? What has it been like for you to learn how to
22:10
communicate differently about your firm? So it's not people
22:14
coming and just want to hire Polly? Maybe they come with that
22:19
intention? But how do you handle that transition them to your
22:22
other attorney since I know a lot of law firm under struggled
22:25
with that as they're growing? Yeah, I think we've really
22:29
shifted, we've tried to shift the focus or the style of our
22:36
firm from what we were originally, which was more of a
22:39
value, you know, you just work directly with the attorney, the
22:43
billable rates are lower, you can get great service without
22:46
having to pay big, prestigious firm prices. And now we're
22:51
trying we've kind of rebranded ourselves to try and compete
22:55
more with the bigger names, or prices.
23:01
So it does surprise me when I hear some of the named partners,
23:07
even at these bigger procedures firm saying, Well, how do you
23:09
get people to agree to work with the associate. And I always tell
23:14
potential clients during the console that this is the way it
23:17
works, you're going to have a partner and an associate and a
23:20
paralegal on your case, and the associate paralegal handle most
23:23
of the day to day of the case, because it is a lot more cost
23:27
effective. You know, they're half my billable rate. But I'm
23:30
always overseeing them handling strategy, big picture, and
23:35
anything particularly complicated or contested that
23:39
comes in. And, you know, I had somebody who consulted recently
23:44
who he's like, he said, Are you going to be the one that's going
23:47
to handle this, or you're going to be the one that goes to
23:49
court. And I'm at a point now where I say, I can't guarantee
23:53
you that the odds are that one of my associates will be
23:57
handling it. And he said, Well, can I ask, can I ask that you be
24:01
the one to do it? And I said, No, that's not the way our firm
24:04
operates, I always maintain the discretion to determine who is
24:07
doing what on any particular case. And at first, he said he
24:11
wasn't gonna hire us. And then he came back and changed his
24:13
mind, and he hired us anyway. But right now, we do have a lot
24:18
more business, you know, a lot more potential clients calling
24:20
than we could possibly handle. So we can I make the rules. This
24:25
is the way it operates. You're hiring me because I have a good
24:28
track record, as a firm, and you want to hire me, this is the way
24:33
it's going to be and this is the way my cases work. And really,
24:37
it's along those same lines. You know, I set the rule that we're
24:41
not meeting clients in person anymore unless we think we need
24:44
to meet clients in person. That's another thing that a lot
24:47
of attorneys Think well. How do you How are you virtual? Don't
24:50
clients insist upon meeting in person as well? If they insist
24:54
upon an in person console, we just say we're sorry, we don't
24:56
do that. You know, you can consult with us via zoom or
25:00
There are plenty of other law firms who will meet with you in
25:02
person. And I'm sure some of them go to those other law
25:05
firms. And that's fine, because we have plenty of business
25:07
coming in. But you know, we'll push back whenever a client
25:11
says, we meet in person say, Well, why. And I'll give the
25:16
reason we can meet by zoom, because we're going to
25:18
accomplish that. And occasionally, you get a little
25:21
bit of pushback. But for the most part, we've set the tone of
25:25
this is the way our firm operates. And you hired us for a
25:28
reason. So you're going to do things the way that we say we're
25:31
going to do things. And let's discuss that you have your your
25:36
firm is a, it's distributed, it's virtual, it's distributed.
25:43
So there, there's no there's a meeting spot if you need a
25:46
meeting spot, but you don't really and everybody you hire
25:51
works from works remotely, mostly from their homes. And
25:56
that's really been a feature of the benefit of working with your
26:01
firm in when you were hiring. And you've been doing this since
26:04
the beginning. This isn't something that is that you just
26:07
started in the pandemic. So what what made you decide to do it
26:14
that way, at the beginning, way before we ever were all on
26:19
lockdown? Well, in the beginning, it was strictly a
26:24
budget thing. And it was just me, there was no need to be in
26:28
an office, I always had a virtual office used to meet
26:31
people in person a lot more than four COVID. But you know, I
26:34
could use how many conference room hours at the executive
26:37
suites place where I had a virtual office. And when I
26:40
started hiring people, the reason why I hired people I knew
26:43
to begin with was because I was afraid of hiring people I didn't
26:46
know to work remotely. But over time, I got over that,
26:51
especially with COVID people got used to working remotely. And I
26:56
love working from home. It is not for everyone, you know, we
26:59
had, we've had somebody work with us in the past, who felt it
27:03
was not good for her mental health to be working from home
27:06
and she needed to be in office. And so that's one of the things
27:08
we ask people now, have you ever worked from home? Are you
27:10
concerned about working from home and most people, we have a
27:15
lot of people that come looking for jobs from us because they
27:18
tasted what working from home look like during COVID. And they
27:21
didn't like having to go back to the office. But you know, we do
27:26
everything, keep everything in Dropbox, we have our case
27:29
management system will have zoom meetings with each other doctor
27:34
meetings with each other, we communicate with each other
27:37
through slack. I personally think people are more efficient
27:41
at home than they are in an office because you don't have
27:44
somebody walking by walking in the door sitting down and chit
27:47
chat for 15 minutes every time you turn around.
27:51
And I think I used to think in order to compete with the
27:54
prestigious big name family law firms that we had to have a
27:58
prestigious brick and mortar office. And I don't think that's
28:02
the case anymore. Especially with COVID. Everyone is so used
28:06
to zooming now. And there are a lot of high income earners who
28:13
work from home. So they are not scared away by the fact that
28:17
high income earning attorneys do the same thing. Right, right.
28:21
How do you sort of keep this the firm culture? I think that's one
28:27
of the challenges that people who have distributed remote
28:29
workers is keeping is creating those bonds between people
28:35
because the 15 Minute chats around the water cooler and the
28:39
Oh, it's so and so's birthday. Let's bring a cake is where it's
28:43
how a lot of people bond and get loyalty to the firm and all this
28:48
kind of thing. So how have you created that by doing it with
28:53
virtual workers, virtual team even though our work our team is
28:58
all virtual, we do try and keep it local, so that we can meet in
29:03
person for happy hour or go to lunch or, you know, do some
29:07
things in person on a regular basis. Last year, we took all
29:12
the attorneys, we went up to our cabin in Oklahoma and did you
29:17
know we played that? It's a game called I've sent you know, we
29:20
played games or we worked on our goals for the year of for the
29:26
firm and worked on how are we going to establish this new
29:30
program that we want to do and things like that have really
29:34
helped with team building. I think we right now we're super
29:38
busy and we have had some turnover. So we have new people
29:41
and COVID is raging and it's like we have got to get together
29:45
in person because I have got to start building with these new
29:50
team members and get the camaraderie going get people to
29:55
gel together. You and I was actually going to improve Then
30:00
next time that you mentioned that you've had some turnover,
30:02
because like many of women, law firm owners, you've had, you've
30:08
experienced the great resignation, or the great
30:11
reshuffle or whatever it is, people are falling these days,
30:13
but where people are being recruited away. I know certainly
30:20
a lot of larger law firms are reaching in smaller law firms
30:23
and making offers to people than poaching them. And also people
30:28
are thinking grass is greener and moving around and wanting to
30:32
make changes. And I think COVID is impacted a lot of people in
30:35
that the things that they may have changed their view on life,
30:39
or they may have to take care of a family member. So they wind up
30:43
moving away, and that changes things. But you've experienced
30:48
some of that some coming and going within your firm. How have
30:52
you dealt with that sort of emotionally, because I think
30:56
that's a fear that a lot of women law firm owners have is
30:58
that I'm going to hire these people. And then they're going
31:01
to turn around and leave and, and I go to train them. And
31:05
that's a loss, I want to do that. So how have you dealt with
31:08
that? It has been a really difficult past four months,
31:14
leading up until then we were just chugging along, things were
31:18
so smooth, everybody got along great. I was going on vacation
31:24
for a couple of weeks, and not even thinking about work and
31:27
coming back and everything was done. It was awesome. And it was
31:30
not on my radar at all, that any of these people would ever be
31:34
thinking about leaving. And once the first domino fell, it was
31:41
incredibly stressful for everyone, because now we have to
31:44
pick up the pieces that are left by somebody leaving and you
31:48
know, of course, you haven't happy clients, because we're
31:50
tired of this a train that was working with me leave, and
31:53
you're trying to have a smaller number of people doing this
31:56
covering the same amount of cases you had before trying to
31:59
quickly hire somebody else to fill in. It was very stressful.
32:03
And there was a time where I thought I this is Is this worth
32:07
it? You know, do I just scale back down and just make it me
32:11
and, you know, or me and my partner and our original
32:16
assistant and say, Screw it, I just want to deal with this. But
32:20
then I realized now it's part of being at the loss is turnover.
32:25
And we learned a lot from that first person leaving and kind of
32:30
worked on. Okay, these are the things that we need to do so
32:33
that the next time somebody leaves, it goes more smoothly,
32:36
and coming up with a transition plan of how do we transfer cases
32:40
of someone who's leaving to someone who's either coming in
32:42
new or already here. And, you know, we ultimately had a couple
32:46
more leaves. So there was, and that was devastating to have at
32:51
you know, all three of our associates leave within a very
32:53
short period of time. But we brought in new people, and
32:56
they're great. And now we need to get them gelling and, you
33:00
know, help they all say forever. I know they won't. So hopefully,
33:06
at the same time again, but I think between my partner and I,
33:10
we've talked about where's the sweet spot? How big do we need
33:13
to get so that when one person leaves, it's not a huge problem
33:18
to cover those cases and fan them out amongst the other
33:22
associates. So think we've said probably four to five associates
33:25
might be the sweet spot for that. Right now we're at three,
33:29
I can see adding one or two in 2022.
33:36
The business keeps coming in. So I got to have Yeah, that's a
33:39
good, that's a good problem to have. Be. I think there's a
33:42
couple of things. One is that it shows you it shows you where
33:47
your systems are weak. Like, we have the first one leave, you're
33:53
looking at it going, oh gosh, like we need to we need a better
33:58
system for this or that because we didn't realize it you know,
34:00
everything sitting in her inbox like that can't be right. Right.
34:03
So looking, having it sort of highlight I think that often
34:06
happens when people leave it's it highlights kind of where
34:09
we've gotten comfortable and maybe a little lacks in our in
34:12
our systems or whatever, but are just haven't really thought
34:15
about it hadn't really thought about what would happen. Um, and
34:19
to be clear, have you had people leave for reasons that have
34:23
really had nothing to do with your firm? Just for anybody
34:27
who's listening and thinks that oh my gosh, she only thinks
34:30
like, everything has had a specific reason outside of the
34:36
firm that kind of happened that way. And how do you how do you
34:43
sort of not lose the trust when you hire what is that? What is
34:48
that like for you? You have to turn around and hire and you're
34:50
kind of coming from this place of honor if I trust people,
34:53
because you know, I trust these people and then they left you
34:56
know, did you have to sort of process or deal with that at
34:59
all? that even cross your mind? Yeah, we would have my partners
35:05
in on hiring decisions with me. And we would have discussions
35:08
about, what about this person makes us think they're either
35:12
going to, they're looking for a place to grow and stay long
35:15
term, or you can look at resumes and seeing this person is hopped
35:20
around a lot. And they're probably not going to be here
35:23
very long. But even when there is longevity, I've found that
35:27
doesn't necessarily mean they're going to stay for a long time.
35:30
So at the end of the day, we just had to look at everything,
35:35
look at the factors, talk to the references, and take that leap
35:39
of faith that this is going to be a good fit. And hopefully,
35:42
this person is going to stick around for a long time. I have
35:47
this philosophy that I share a lot with my clients, which is
35:52
that you can't expect to have a business that lasts for 1020 30
35:56
years, and not have people come and go, like life just doesn't
36:00
work that way. This is not the 50s You know, where people got a
36:03
job and stayed in that job for 30 years, 40 years, and then got
36:07
a gold watch and retired. It's not really how it works these
36:10
days. So I think we have to shore ourselves up and know that
36:15
this is not a perfect person, you know, go back to the Four
36:18
Agreements, you haven't read that book, read that book, but
36:21
it's, you know, don't take anything personally. And it's
36:24
hard. It's hard to do, because it can feel so personal. When
36:28
it's your business. And you're a small firm, and there aren't
36:30
that many of you and you think everybody's getting along great.
36:32
It's all going right. And somebody up leaves, you know,
36:36
and you're like, wait a minute, I contributed to you and your
36:39
success, and then you're leaving, it can feel disloyal.
36:42
But mainly it's now it's never about, you know, it's usually
36:45
never about the law firm or the employer, it's usually about
36:49
something going on with the other person. So what kinds of
36:56
big shifts, because you really scaled significantly this past
37:01
year? What kinds of shifts Do you think you made that helped
37:07
you scale to that level? So part of being able to scale to that
37:14
level was luck, because I had a case in the Texas Supreme Court
37:19
that I won, that really put me on the map for referrals from
37:24
other lawyers and all that luck, by the way, I would call that a
37:30
lot of hard work. And it was an intentional thing. And, you
37:35
know,
37:36
getting the case to begin with was kind of luck. But you know,
37:39
obviously, I feel pretty proud of the work that we did to get
37:43
our big victory in that case. But you know, we I got I hired a
37:49
coach to start working last the beginning tail end of 2020.
37:55
Because I knew at that time, I had hired a couple of associates
38:00
because of my big Supreme Court case, I knew there was going to
38:03
be a lot of business coming in. But I didn't feel like I had
38:06
quite enough business to keep them all busy at that time. So I
38:11
had plenty of money to spend on marketing, but I wanted to make
38:13
smart choices. I didn't know where to spend it. So I started
38:16
working with a coach and I started we I ended up starting a
38:22
podcast, which was completely out of my comfort zone, never in
38:26
a million years would have considered it. But it has turned
38:30
out to be an incredible marketing venue for me. My guess
38:36
is Texas family law insiders. And the goal was to target other
38:40
family lawyers in Texas to help build up my appellate practice.
38:44
But it has had a lot of other unforeseen benefits. And it has
38:50
brought in regular clients and it has gotten me a lot of
38:56
respect. And everybody knows who I am now in Texas family law. I
39:02
also started, you know, running Google ads and doing other
39:06
things marketing wise and redid my website, kind of that was
39:10
when I decided we needed to rebrand, you know, I have this
39:14
big victory and I don't need to be the poor man's low cost
39:19
attorney anymore. So we did a lot of that last year. And now
39:24
we're at we have added we went from zero paralegals to three
39:29
paralegals we have five lawyers, three paralegals, and we are
39:33
swamped so we're having like do we need to add another lawyer
39:36
now? We were thinking summer you know, do we need another
39:39
paralegal who can float between the between everybody to get
39:43
overflow? Do we need to stop taking cases for a while because
39:47
it's just been so I lean towards it's better to hire somebody
39:54
else and bring them in and keep taking all the work so well and
39:58
I also think I'd love for you to share with people, your sort of
40:04
travel schedule this last year and everything because you love
40:09
to travel. And it's one of the things that because you've added
40:15
so many people to your team, and are a lot and come to trust and
40:19
rely on them to do their jobs, it's really freed you up to
40:23
spend more time with your kids who both have a lot of
40:25
activities that they are involved in. And also travel
40:29
more you want to talk about some of that.
40:32
Yeah, so a few years ago, my husband and I made the decision
40:35
that we wanted to travel the world with our kids, and my
40:39
business was good enough that we could afford to do that. So we
40:43
started before COVID, we were really taking four big
40:47
international trips a year we'd go Thanksgiving, Christmas,
40:49
Spring Break summer, we did Egypt, we did Australia, we did.
40:55
We've done several places in Europe, Mediterranean cruise,
40:58
we've done a lot of traveling COVID kind of shut us down a
41:00
little bit. But in 2021, we went to Hawaii for I think we were
41:05
gone for 10 days. For Thanksgiving, we went to
41:08
Iceland, and we have a lot of travel on the books, that's
41:12
hopefully going to happen in 2022. I'm not super optimistic
41:15
right now. But it was one of my big goals, or my vision for my
41:20
life was to have my business at a place where I could do that.
41:25
And not have to be working when we're traveling not have to be
41:29
constantly making sure everything is getting done. When
41:33
I was a kid, my I mentioned my dad was an entrepreneur, he had
41:36
his own business, he did not believe in hiring people. So we
41:39
never traveled, we went road trips, only pre cell phones that
41:44
he could pull over every three hours at a gas station on the
41:47
payphone. And check in and make sure everything was going okay
41:51
with work. And, you know, he always used to say my mom really
41:56
wanted to travel and my dad would say when I retire when I
41:58
retire. Well, he never made it. So I kind of made the decision.
42:02
And then I saw my mom who was, you know, as she was in our 60s
42:08
and 70s, wanting to travel and not being able to do the things
42:12
that I would like to be able to do when I travel because when
42:14
you're older, sometimes you can't do those things. So we
42:18
decided we wanted to take advantage of our youth middle
42:21
age, not so much anymore. But we want to see the world where we
42:24
can we want to show up show the world to our kids. And it's been
42:29
amazing and hopefully, hopefully COVID gonna go away or get a lot
42:33
better soon. So we can really get back to it. But it's been
42:36
great having the business I do to a be able to fund really
42:42
pretty extravagant trips, and be able to keep having it go
42:45
without me. You had any I know that some people live in LA for
42:53
voters have expressed sort of concern about living their best
42:59
life and having employees resent them. Have you had any issues
43:05
like that? Or thoughts like that? Or? Or what do you what do
43:08
you do? Kind of make that where it's not an issue. So, I mean,
43:16
as far as our attorneys go, they have a our policy is very
43:21
flexible with PTO, and if they want to take vacation, just
43:23
don't take vacation when I'm taking vacation. You know, they
43:25
can go take their vacations and and we offer a bonus structure
43:29
where the more they work, the more they make. And so I really
43:33
haven't found it to be a problem. I've heard a snarky
43:36
comment, joking comment or two about about things, but I don't
43:42
think anyone is anyone resents me for being able to do that.
43:46
And if they do, yeah, yeah, I mean, I think I think one of the
43:51
things that you've done, though, is that you you offer that
43:55
opportunity, you don't limit them in the amount of money they
43:58
can make, or in the or in the flexibility for them to take
44:04
time off if they want to take a trip or whatever, you actually
44:07
encourage that. So before we wrap up, I do want to talk about
44:11
your other sort of side hustle. And because I think it's always
44:16
it's always fun when people have businesses that have a side
44:18
hustle, that's the entrepreneur in me, you always have side
44:20
hustles and that is your real estate investments, and
44:25
particularly broken bones to tell you I had never heard a
44:28
Broken Bow, because I know nothing about Oklahoma. So tell
44:33
me about that. And about your you know what led you to invest
44:39
in real estate I kind of got started in that. So I've always
44:43
known that investing in real estate is wealthy people usually
44:47
invest in real estate, and that's usually there's lots of
44:49
tax advantages, and there's lots of reasons why that is a great
44:53
way to invest. So we originally figured we'd have some long long
45:00
Long term rentals and we had a few. And you know, you might
45:03
make $500 a month over your expenses. So ultimately we sold
45:08
those and broken bow. It's kind of far south eastern and
45:13
southeastern Oklahoma, right by Arkansas. And it's very popular
45:18
in the DFW area for vacationing about two to two hours, 45
45:23
minutes away from where we live. And Fort Worth Dallas
45:27
Fort Worth. For those who don't know what DFW is? Yes, yes. So
45:32
we start I started seeing in these Facebook groups that I'm
45:34
in, there are a lot of realtors who live in the Dallas Fort
45:38
Worth area, who sell cabins in Broken Bow. And so I would watch
45:44
what they would say about it. And I knew a handful of people
45:46
who started investing there. And we went on vacation there one
45:49
spring break, and had a lot of fun. And I thought, you know, it
45:54
was kind of expensive to stay in this cabin. And I guarantee you
45:57
are one week of spring break more than covered the mortgage.
46:00
So I started looking into it as investment opportunities. And we
46:05
invested in our first cabin in June of 2020. We found back we
46:10
found, like working with a realtor who knows builders is a
46:15
golden is the way to make strike gold. Because the builders have
46:19
broken bow. It's not like builders in Dallas, it's very,
46:22
very different. They're small, they you can't contract like him
46:27
file under dream. These are these other big builders. And so
46:31
you find a spec where they've just cleared the law, or they've
46:35
started building it and our first one closed due to 2020. It
46:41
appreciated so much over the course of a year, and we netted
46:45
80 grand in the first year with that cabin. And when the prices
46:50
started to go up, I'm sure COVID had a lot to do with that. But
46:53
people were just getting into investing in short term rentals
46:57
a lot too. And we started asking, When do you sell. And
47:03
somebody had said, Well, when you can net on the sale, at
47:08
least four times what you can net in a year you should sell.
47:11
So it hit that number. And so we ended up flipping that we met I
47:18
think 300 and about $350,000 on the sale. And then we flip that
47:25
into two other properties. So because you don't pay taxes on
47:32
that $350,000 game. So by doing a 1031 and two other properties,
47:37
we didn't have to pay any taxes on that we deferred it, and then
47:40
we own two cabinets. And we would we project that those will
47:44
net us 120 $250,000 a year. And we are under contract to build
47:51
two more there now, Broken Bow is growing very rapidly. It
47:57
started out as just this tiny little town. But there's a lot a
48:00
lot to do there. The Choctaw just announced that they're
48:03
going to build a big casino in the area. They're working on
48:09
bringing more entertainment venues and everything. So we
48:11
think it's even though the prices have gone up
48:13
dramatically, we still think it's well worth the investment
48:17
because of how much you know, even when COVID goes away,
48:21
people from the Dallas Fort Worth area and other places that
48:24
aren't that far away from Broken Bow, they still want to get
48:27
away. And so we can't relate to the numbers. Just keep, keep
48:33
going. And we have a property manager who charges 18% And does
48:38
pretty much everything. So it's very passive for us. And it's
48:42
been, you know, I want to get to the point where I don't have to
48:47
have my law firm gig anymore. And we can just travel wherever
48:51
we want. Enjoy law or you know, I can work as little as I want
48:55
in my law firm and not have to worry about financing my life
48:59
quite so much. Right? It is the wealthy woman lawyer dream right
49:02
there, where you're where you're creating so much income for
49:06
yourself, your wealth generating law firm that functions without
49:09
you. And you are able to invest in other things that generate
49:13
passive income for you, or semi passive income depending on how
49:17
much you want to be involved in something right. So that's
49:20
wonderful. It's wonderful. Before we wrap up, why don't you
49:24
tell them tell us just one sort of piece of advice or gold
49:30
nugget or lesson that you've learned that you think would
49:33
benefit other women law firm owners who may be kind of a
49:36
little bit behind you on the journey coming out? Would you
49:39
vote you recommend to them to do so especially if you're just
49:43
getting started in your own firm or if you feel like you're
49:45
floundering even though you're not flattering and you just want
49:48
to grow I think Hi either hiring a private coach or joining a
49:53
type of mastermind group is huge because I made everything up as
49:58
I went along and I made it A lot of mistakes along the way. And
50:01
now, having worked with you for over a year and having, you
50:06
know, been involved in mastermind groups,
50:09
you just streamline the process of learning those things so much
50:13
and you don't know what you don't know. So I kind of worried
50:17
before I hired a coach, am I going to have to work a lot
50:21
more? Am I going to have to do this cookie cutter plan to build
50:25
the stereotypical law firm, which I didn't want? But that's
50:29
not how it's been at all. It's been how do I get to do what I
50:33
want to do? And how do I build what I want to build. And I've
50:37
been pushed out of my comfort zone and done things I never
50:40
thought I would do. But it has paid off. What I mean
50:47
hundredfold of what I put in financially. That's awesome.
50:52
That makes me so happy to hear. Yay. And you and I met on
50:58
through Facebook, that we became Facebook friends, just by
51:01
accepting each other's from friend requests, when we didn't
51:03
even know each other. And just, you know, followed each other
51:08
for a while, that kind of thing. And, and then I think you
51:10
probably heard about podcasts. And that sort of got you got to
51:14
know a little bit better and stuff, which is great. So I
51:17
started working for you to have your podcast out there and
51:20
people getting to know you. It's not for everybody. But I do
51:24
think it's a terrific way to expand your network and as an
51:28
influencer. You know, that's something that you do really,
51:31
really well. And I'm excited to see what the future holds for
51:35
you. In 2022, who's got big plans, big plans. I'm excited.
51:42
We get some good stability going, then we'll exactly Oh.
51:49
Well, thanks so much, Molly, for being here. And I think you've
51:52
shared some really terrific ideas for other women, law firm
51:56
owners. I love the uniqueness of your approach. And you also
52:01
challenged me as well because you have a different
52:03
perspective. And I always enjoy hearing your perspective and
52:07
where you're coming from and and you've certainly been very
52:09
successful as a business owner, and so I thank you for being
52:16
here and sharing because I think a lot of people are really going
52:18
to benefit from this podcast. Thanks for having me.