Latest / Sharp Strategies Sweet Success / #96 – Building a Law Firm That Fits Your Life with Jay Ruane

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#96 – Building a Law Firm That Fits Your Life with Jay Ruane · Sharp Strategies Sweet Success

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first conversation I always have is the what do you want to be
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: when you grow up conversation.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've made every mistake under the sun.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've made millions of dollars of mistakes, but every day I try to get a little bit better.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think every one star review is an opportunity to figure out where you failed and do better.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of lawyers think, well, if I just make more money, I'm going to be happier.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is, is more money isn't going to make you happier if you're not a happy person.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: You are listening to Sharp Strategies Sweet Success.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone, and welcome.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're listening to Sharp Strategies Sweet Success.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Tiffany Swedensky, and today I am here with Jay Ruane.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I met Jay,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I actually,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't know how,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was through LinkedIn,
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: we crossed paths somehow,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: and he has a criminal mastermind that he runs and very recently asked me to come
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: on and talk a little bit about SEO.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a really good time talking to his group.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really curious about the criminal mastermind space
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: because I'm pretty well embedded in the PI one.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a ton of questions for him there.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: But Jay,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'd just love to turn the interview over to you and have you fill in the gaps
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: and let everyone know who you are.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my name is Jay and I've been practicing criminal defense law for now 28 years.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was very lucky in that I started my career as a public defender
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: and one day I got passed over for a permanent job.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was making $100 a day as a public defender.
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  SPEAKER_00: I kept getting promised that I was going to get a permanent job and I got passed over.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so I quit on the spot.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I marched down to my father's office and said, hey, I just quit my job.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me, he goes, I don't know what you're going to do.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have any clients that you can take,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: but there's a broken desk at the end of the So that was really my sort of launch
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: into private practice.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I decided that I was going to focus.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the area of DUI defense,
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  SPEAKER_00: I started becoming known in that area,
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  SPEAKER_00: started building a business,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: was lucky that my brother had taken an HTML class his freshman year of college.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, hey,
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  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't get into the phone book Because it had closed a week before I quit my job
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't know where I was going to get clients from for the year.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I was going to hustle and he said, let's build you a website and see what happens.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been my plan.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's actually still my web developer and have built a practice.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, my father wound up splitting up with his partner,
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  SPEAKER_00: joining me,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: and we've invested heavily in scaling and building a good business
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: because we didn't have enough money or clients when I first joined up with my father
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  SPEAKER_00: to support two of us.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, he had I had two kids in college and I was burdened by student loans.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I just focused on the business side while he focused on the client deliverables side.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that really became my strength because I was never going to match him as a lawyer.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we've been building and building and building.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's really been an amazing journey.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And through that time,
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  SPEAKER_00: I love for the entrepreneurial side,
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  SPEAKER_00: the legal entrepreneurial side has really taken off.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's really where I spend most of my time now.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just got back from the month of June in Europe.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up with my family and I got back on Monday and they had one question for me
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  SPEAKER_00: that took five minutes to answer.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they both,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: my leadership team both turned to me and said,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: you know, we knew the answer, but we wanted to be 100% sure.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I've worked my way out of the business and now I get to just create and think
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  SPEAKER_00: of crazy ideas and mentor young lawyers.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a really fun journey and I'm where I need to be and where I belong.
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  SPEAKER_01: And that just honestly sounds so wonderful.
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  SPEAKER_01: And no wonder you weren't answering my emails last month.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually writing an article about what small law firm owners should do as
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  SPEAKER_01: the CMOs of their own practices.
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  SPEAKER_01: Because when you're just starting, you effectively are the CMO.
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  SPEAKER_01: And somebody who's,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: that's pretty much what you do for your firm is the business and marketing side.
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  SPEAKER_01: What would you say the lawyers just starting out?
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  SPEAKER_01: What are the CMO duties they should be assuming?
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  SPEAKER_01: Like what should they be doing?
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  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the first thing you need to do when you're starting out is really sort
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: of get educated.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I got into the area of law that I,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: that became my niche,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: I went the first five or six years trying to get as much education as possible.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be a firm owner,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: you need to take the Make sure that you understand what SEO is.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's not funny,
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  SPEAKER_00: but there's a colleague I know who's a criminal defense attorney,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he loves to talk about generic rankings.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, I know he means organic, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: But he constantly calls them generic rankings.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it just shows that he's trying to talk the game,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it's clear if you talk to him, he has no idea what he's talking about.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that we need to do as educated professionals is educate ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: Resources that you can trust.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's how we connected, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: I started following you and seeing the things that you were posting,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I was devouring the stuff that you were posting on LinkedIn.
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  SPEAKER_00: I said, this woman knows her stuff, and I need to connect with her.
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  SPEAKER_00: And interact because I'm learning a lot from just your LinkedIn posts
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  SPEAKER_00: and I knew I could learn a lot more.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of people in the space,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
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  SPEAKER_00: who thrive on lawyers not being knowledgeable and using fancy words and sketchbooks.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: To actually educate yourself and make sure that you are aware of what's going on in
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  SPEAKER_00: the industry,
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  SPEAKER_00: follow the thought leaders like yourself,
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  SPEAKER_00: and really make sure that you are not making massive mistakes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because I've made some massive mistakes.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Massive.
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  SPEAKER_00: I bought a $40,000 copy machine once.
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  SPEAKER_00: I still see it comes up in my Facebook feed as a memory.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I rue the day that I bought that.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I should have just gone with, like we do now, scanners and desktop printers.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I've made every mistake under the sun.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've made millions of dollars in mistakes.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: But every day I try to get a little bit better.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Those social media memories can be pretty brutal.
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  SPEAKER_01: I've had my old TikTok videos come up and I'm like, no, I'm not resharing that.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're definitely, definitely cringeworthy in some of the old stuff.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: As criminal defense attorneys, where are you guys getting most of your leads from?
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious how that lines up with personal injury attorneys and
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: where we're seeing most of our leads come from.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing about my niche is...
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  SPEAKER_00: DUI defense within general criminal defense is somewhat unique in
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  SPEAKER_00: that DUI defense lawyers over the last 20 years have really been the first to take
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  SPEAKER_00: to the web because people don't really like to talk about the fact that they got
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  SPEAKER_00: a DUI.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so putting out information back,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: in the early We get about 50% of our business digitally,
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  SPEAKER_00: either through paid resources like Google LSA or Pay Per Click.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pay Per Click is not as much anymore.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then another 50% comes organically.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'd say they're probably more like 75% referral marketing, 25% digital marketing.
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  SPEAKER_00: There is a large percentage of criminal defense lawyers who really put no effort
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  SPEAKER_00: into marketing themselves because they don't want to be a business partner.
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  SPEAKER_00: They want to fight in the courtroom.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so they live off of those referrals.
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  SPEAKER_00: And some of them do a great job,
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  SPEAKER_00: a phenomenal job of developing a referral network and tapping into it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Others sort of whatever shows up,
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  SPEAKER_00: shows up and they hope enough comes in each I had a friend years ago who says,
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  SPEAKER_00: if I can open one file every week and close one file every week,
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  SPEAKER_00: he's like, I can make $300,000 a year.
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  SPEAKER_00: No staff, and that's all I need to be happy.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I have a nice life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not killing myself.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I want.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so, hey, that worked for him, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to build something because I knew that there were going to be ups and downs
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  SPEAKER_00: and I didn't want to be in a situation where we lost everything
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  SPEAKER_00: if people stopped getting arrested in a particular town,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is what What happened with COVID really,
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  SPEAKER_00: police officers in my state were told don't arrest anybody.
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't pull them over.
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't give them tickets.
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  SPEAKER_00: Don't arrest people and bring them in.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so the numbers of arrests dropped,
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  SPEAKER_00: but we were able to survive and actually thrive in that time period
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  SPEAKER_00: because we had built systems to target different cohorts and that type of thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we were able to get through it that other lawyers were not able to do that
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  SPEAKER_00: because we had deep referral networks.
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  SPEAKER_00: We had attention to our marketing and it worked for us.
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  SPEAKER_01: When you're coaching attorneys on their marketing and like you're talking to them
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  SPEAKER_01: about how much this costs,
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  SPEAKER_01: all they have to invest in the 20 hours
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  SPEAKER_01: a week they're spending extra just doing marketing for the business.
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  SPEAKER_01: How do you talk to them about how to balance it all and how to scale reasonably?
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  SPEAKER_01: What are the conversations you're having there?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the first conversation I always have is the what do you want to be
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  SPEAKER_00: when you grow up conversation.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really something that a lot of lawyers need to do,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: because what I have seen is,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: especially on LinkedIn and especially in masterminds that I've been in other
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: than my own.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've known some PI places where I've been to things.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's exciting to scale and hire and start to see the fruits of
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  SPEAKER_00: a good digital marketing campaign that's well run.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it gets exciting.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so you get on this treadmill and next thing you know, you're running 100 miles an hour.
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  SPEAKER_00: Your profit may not have changed because with all of that, you're getting many more expenses.
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  SPEAKER_00: You could even actually wind up working more.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first conversation I have with anybody
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  SPEAKER_00: that joins my mastermind is simply, what are you looking for?
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  SPEAKER_00: What kind of life What life do you want to live now?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what life do you want to have in five years?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly enough, I don't hear a lot of, I want to scale to 100 lawyers.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have had that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple of colleagues who've been like, yeah, I want to get to 50 lawyers.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to own Texas.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's my goal.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to be ubiquitous.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, and that's great.
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  SPEAKER_00: What I hear a lot is I want to be able to do quality work,
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  SPEAKER_00: have time with my family, and not stress about where my next dollar is coming from.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And once you have established That's your goal.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it also comes with a little bit of lifetime.
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  SPEAKER_00: I talked to some of my members and they're like, well, I'm starting to have kids.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure that I'm home for dinner.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then I have other people are like, my kids have graduated.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I got 10 years and I want to really rock and roll this and Maximize my profit.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so those types of people,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think they can set a different mission and a different goal for themselves.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we really want to do.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: We want to identify what you want to be when you grow up.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that takes self-reflection.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: It takes time.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that you can just shove off an answer to and then be able
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: to attack it because you really have to be a part therapist and get focusing
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: on what really matters to them.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually not too often I'm hearing coaches say,
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: look, this is going to take some extra time.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to be working on this an extra 20 hours a week.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I can just tell with some people when you give that advice, it is absolutely true.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like I do it all the time.
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  SPEAKER_01: I work nights and weekends just for the stuff that I want to do.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a hard message.
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  SPEAKER_01: How do you, I guess, like, how do you soften the blow?
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  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you pull them along?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you just say like, look, maybe you're not cut out for this kind of marketing?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: How do you approach that?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's the hard part.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had people who I've said,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: in fact, I had somebody earlier this year that was in my mastermind.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: She'd been in it for about four months and we were following up
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: after our first initial conversation.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Stacy, I don't think you want to be a lawyer.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like you've done it and you've moved.
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  SPEAKER_00: Do you really want to be doing this?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk this through.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of it, she's like, you know what?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my pension.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't want to start a new firm.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't want to do this.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy doing the stuff that I'm doing now.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not law related.
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should just quit law.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: you don't have to give up your law license,
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: but maybe you don't want to scale a law practice.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my firm, she actually happened to be in the same state we were in.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: My firm refers her one-off cases every now and then.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she actually decided after a deep conversation, yes, scaling isn't for me.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And spending money on a coach to scale would be foolish.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, get out of here.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is not what you want.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the thing is, is you need to be true to yourself.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of lawyers think, well, if I just make more money, I'm going to be happier.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is is that more money isn't going to make you happier if you're not
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: a happy person.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to find what makes you happy and run straight for that, whatever that may be.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we're getting like deep here and stuff,
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: but that's the kind Another thing that I think isn't really said in a lot
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: of masterminds, it's all rush, rush, rush, what's the next person doing?
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  SPEAKER_00: You should be doing it too.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, do I have pay-per-click?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I got to start a TikTok campaign.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I got to go really hard on TikTok.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what if you hate doing video?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do it.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: My big thing is I say, look, if you look back on some successes of major corporations, AOL.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: AOL got its start and really got pushed through direct mail.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: They had people in their business who loved direct mail.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And went all in on that.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Groupon was a bunch of email marketers who loved email marketing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it was an email list.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they succeeded.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do everything.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can do what matters to you.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have people who love being in their community, who are extroverts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Who want to get out,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: shake hands,
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  SPEAKER_00: meet people,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: have lunches,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: speak at Bar Association events, speak at other club and association events.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, then go for that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't try to figure out how you're going to become the next TikTok superstar because
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  SPEAKER_00: that may not be who you are.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a lot of self-reflection and it takes time.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that you can just turn a switch on because next thing you turn
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: that switch and you're 18 months in and you're miserable and you've spent a ton
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: of money and you're not where you want to be anyway.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell people that often when it comes to SEO,
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: when they see the cost and what it takes, it's like, hey, you don't have to do SEO.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: There are many options for growing a firm and getting cases and then take something.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to be a TikTok star,
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: but video is still popular on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: where maybe you don't resonate on TikTok,
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: but that exact same content will resonate And so you can pick and choose
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: and ultimately figure out what works for you,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: drill down into that and then expand from there.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So many firms I talk to,
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: they're so eager to get started with marketing,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: they just immediately spread themselves very thin.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of a related question.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And also it's just me trying to get content ideas.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what are the attorneys coming to you like curious about?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: What are they asking about?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: What are their FAQs, I guess?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of them come to me and they're like,
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I really know I should be using AI, but I don't know where to start.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're worried about the ethical implications of uploading something
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: with their client's name on it.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of good bar association direct And they see people using it,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: but they're not sure how to get started themselves.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one of the big things.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have a good framework for how to use AI in your firm as
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: a criminal defense lawyer that we go over.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have a whole channel.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have quarterly meetings about that type of thing.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: But really the thing that happens the most is a lot of people start with, hey,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I have this CRM,
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: it does X, Y, and Z, but I also need something that does A, B, C. What do I use?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And don't switch just because you want X, Y, Z, A.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I actually met somebody,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: they had gone through seven CRMs in 23 months because they were just chasing.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, nothing's going to do everything unless you build it yourself.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I built mine myself.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have over a million dollars, but I built mine myself because I started...
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before Clio existed,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I started,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: the only thing that was out there when I started was Time Matters
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: and it was server based and it was based for hourly billing,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: general practice firms and it didn't work for what I needed.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my interns knew somebody who knew somebody who was a database college grad in 2001.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's how we got into building our own.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Would I do it again?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not if I knew all this stuff was out there.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing, I had somebody say, well, should I build my own CRM in Airtable?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love Airtable,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I use it for a number of different things,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: but I said, is this really the best use of your time?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Cleo can get you 90% of the way there.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lawmatics, any of those CRMs would be good.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Identify what's the best use of your time.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something else that I think a lot of people do is they go for
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: the next shiny thing and it eats up 90 days of their time.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You needed 180 days for it to be effective,
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: but at 90 days you got bored and you pivoted to the next thing.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you're never giving...
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: That solution,
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: whether it's marketing or administrative or whatever,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: the opportunity to really become what you need it to be.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the other thing I keep telling people we're in this business for 30, 40, 50 years.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need something to pay dividends next week.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're not selling a widget that's going to turn around and be commoditized by people in China.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: I guess theoretically it could be commoditized by AI at some point.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: But at least for me in the criminal space,
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think someone's going to have AI standing next to them
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: when they're staring down the barrel of 30 years in jail.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: They want a person.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I think my job is relatively more safe than maybe contracts attorney
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: or real estate closings attorney or a trust and estates attorney who people turn
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: to those things.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the other thing is just getting to know yourself.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I push back on should I do this and this because I want people
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: to actually make cognitive impact on their decision making rather
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: than just reactionary decision making.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, amen to a lot of that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm working with firms that are debating a lot of CRMs and
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: as somebody who's worked in just a ton,
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm of the standpoint, it's like, hey, they're all the same.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: But what I know...
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: is that many of you firms aren't utilizing these tools to their full capacity.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like 10%.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're barely scratching the surface.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of what I do is come in and make sure they're utilizing that other 90 or 50%.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I had somebody approach me and they were like,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need to figure out a way where I can send text messages to people.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: What service should I use?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, what CRM do you have?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Their CRM could have done it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were about to buy a standalone solving that problem
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: when they just didn't realize that if they just scrolled down, the option was there.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the kind of thing where people need to take a moment,
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: take a breath, pause,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: think about your client journey,
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: think about all these things and see how you're going to solve them.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you really do have to stop and think with the AI implementation,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: not because it's dangerous,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: but because like in my personal use cases, I'm not a fan of like some AI content.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: There are some parts of it I'm not a fan of,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: but when you're using AI and making it a part of your processes,
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: It is so custom and it is so dependent on how you use it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I go back to a concept of think of AI as not necessarily like a single tool,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: but something you could use as a personal operating system.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do this, do this, do this.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: That is where you do have to get really not personal, but I guess really introspective.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Introspect is where I'm looking for.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: You have to look into yourself and think like, what do I need?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do I want it to work?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: What do I want my life to look like?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And like really answer those questions.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not an attorney, so I can only speak to what other attorneys have said.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: There are some instances where you can more or less coast and be totally comfortable.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's where you are, that's where you are.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: But you're not going to go anywhere without that like end point and
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: that final destination in mind.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just must be the theme of our podcast today because it's just so important.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of people,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: they come out of law school, they get a job, then they decide to hang a shingle.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: They go out and then they're saying, I want it all.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't start off as a lawyer.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: You went through college and then through law school and then you studied the bar
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: and then you...
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't start climbing Mount Everest at the top.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a long slog at the bottom and in the middle part that's not glorious and not glamorous.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: You got to do that work.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So many people want to just stop at the top.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you,
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: but I've run into a lot of lawyers over a lot of years and they all say
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: at these masterminds, well,
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to run the marketing because the marketing is going out to lunches,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: getting meeting people.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know a landing page from a contact page.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know HTML.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: They want to do the marketing because they think it's sexy and it's fun,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: but they don't really know marketing.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't want to be doing what they're doing.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like, well,
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I can contribute to that,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: but they could actually hurt their practices more than they can help it by saying,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm now in charge of marketing.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: My marketing director,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: who's been with me now for 11 years,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: she started out of college as just a copywriter,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: went to get her graduate She had a grad degree at DePaul in professional writing,
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: so she's got a master's.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then all along that journey, she took Bruce Clay's class.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've sent her, we've invested a lot of time and attention to that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she pregnant with her second child,
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: We had a conversation earlier this week and she's like,
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know when I'm coming back.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that's important to my law firm is that we really want
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: to support families.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have four kids in my firm.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have like 23 kids under 10 among all the parents.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: A number of us have multiples and we have made a constant decision in my firm
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: to be very supportive of family.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I said to her, look, if you want to come back at six months, that's cool.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to come back at a year, that's cool.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep me informed and I'll say.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to slide into that role as much as I can, and we'll outsource some things.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some other people that I can tap to do some of the work that we need done
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: in the interim.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: But it's one of these things where we just need to have this conversation.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be the one who's I
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: need somebody who's got a little bit more
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: an objective viewpoint of it,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: who can look at the numbers on a regular basis and see where we're winning,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: where we're losing, where we can make ground up.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not the person who belongs in those numbers.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my skill set, my ADHD.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will not do a good job for my own law firm.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, do I want to say I run the marketing?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I could do that, but I could say I run the janitorial services at my firm.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the boss at the end of the day.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Too many lawyers,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: want to say they're in charge of marketing because they think it's the fun thing
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: to say.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's any coincidence that the good marketers,
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: the ones who stick around and make this huge impact,
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: I also happen to be good writers and have training in writing and copywriting.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I'm looking for a new marketer that's writing skills
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: and reading comprehension, that's number one on the list.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's so important.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: We tried to train AI to write the way Jen writes.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: We fed it a million of her examples and it does a pretty good job, but it's not her.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And she has been able to interview clients over the years.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Get to know the lawyers.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And she has relationships with the clients, the lawyers, the staff, and the intake team.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: She can say, hey, what are people asking about today?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we could just say, upload a spreadsheet and say, give me content on this stuff.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not going to necessarily resonate with the type of people that we have coming in.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to resonate with our clients.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe one day we'll get there.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we're there yet, but hey, who knows?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But in the meantime, I think people connect with people.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love having humans in charge of writing my content,
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: just like I like humans answering my phones.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Something that really makes you stand out in this day of technology is
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: that especially in criminal defense,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: people want to know that they're talking to somebody who can help them.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And speaking of that, because I did have some criminal defense thing.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: I often use criminal defense as an example for personal injury attorneys for a couple things.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I want to ask your take on this, but the reviews is way up on the list.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm often talking to personal injury attorneys who say,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: well, our clients may not want to review.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: They may not want to air their dirty laundry.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then I immediately say, look at family law attorneys, look at criminal defense attorneys.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think they're dealing with?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: How are they getting as many reviews as they are?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Could you help me explain that?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: How are you guys getting reviews so well?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we make getting reviews an important part Of our entire client experience.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when our intake team is talking to people who are leads,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: qualified leads that we want to sign, they'll work into the conversation.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: After you get done with us, you're going to want to leave us that five-star review.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then when they hire us,
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: they talk to their client service coordinator who's going to say,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: hey, I'm going to march you through this.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to make sure that you're taken care of.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of this process,
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to be sure that you're going to want to leave us a five-star review.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then they're talking to their paralegal.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who's going to bring up?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to see the review that you give me.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you mentioned me in the review.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we're mentioning it.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeding that throughout the entire process so that when the ask does come at
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: the very end, it's.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like, well, we've been talking about this this whole time.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm going to do that.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the whole, hey, the case is over.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give me a review?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've been talking about getting a review since before you were even a client.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that has helped us.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then we actually That's their job.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Their job is to follow the client through the entire process,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: do end runs,
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: make sure that there are no problems,
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: address them before they even happen,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: and then afterwards,
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: because they have that relationship, To be able to do that, ask for the review.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that has taken us from 170 to over 1,000 across all of our GBP locations.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I say, hey, I need 40 reviews in a new location, how quickly can you get them?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: We can get four-year reviews in four to five weeks
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: because my person has relationships with people and can say,
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: hey, we just opened up a new location.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: You happen to live in that town.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Would you mind giving us a review at that location?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we track where our clients live.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just because they live in a town doesn't mean that that's where they got arrested.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if I say, hey,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: we're opening up an office in Westport,
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: we can identify 200 clients that we've had who live in Westport over
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: the last 15 years and reach out to them directly.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And say, hey, you live in Westport, would you give us a review?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that has proven phenomenal in being able to address people.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're more likely to stick,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: at least they have for us,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: because Google is saying, well,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: they live in Westport,
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: the new office is in Westport, of course they would review it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: If I had them do something three hours away and pass four other counties,
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: it's less likely to stick, in my opinion and in my experience.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and it makes sense because when you think about Google reviews from like
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: the user's perspective,
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: like if you looked at all the businesses you've reviewed,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: if you pull out the map a little bit, you'll probably notice cluster.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be a bunch of reviews where you've lived and a handful
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: in low cases you've traveled.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're carrying your phone with you, Google Maps is with you everywhere you go.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Google knows where you're going.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you leave a review in a location you've never visited,
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: it's pretty obvious to me how the algorithms can And
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: the other thing
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: about getting reviews is a lot of people don't want to say that they were arrested
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: and what they were arrested for.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want their business out there.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't want our reviews talking about We want our reviews focusing
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: on what their relationship with us was like.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was, I always felt safe.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I felt respected.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was great communication and people give reviews.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's wild to see somebody charged with a murder, give you a review.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: But they didn't write I was charged with murder and they helped me.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like I was facing serious charges and I always felt like I had somebody
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: in my corner.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of review that like it makes a difference
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: to somebody else who's like, I'm scared.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be alone.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I going to hire?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: They see that and they say, well, it sounds like these are the right lawyers for me.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's so smart because you sprinkle it into the whole process.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: One of the common complaints,
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: not complaints,
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: one of the common objections I get is,
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: hey, we want only the people who are happy with us to see these reviews.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't sound like you guys are gatekeeping in that way because it's like baked
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: into the client experience.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, and I love getting five star reviews.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take a four star.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had people who write glowing reviews and give us four stars.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly,
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: we've had people who, yeah,
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: the case didn't work out the way we wanted and they gave us a two star review or
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: a one star review.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll respond to that.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: We have some people who've got some challenges who will just blast us for no reason.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: My go-to response is, I'm sorry that you feel this way.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you get the help that you deserve and leave it at that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so at least they're getting a response from me.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you got to stay on top of these things.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something to be said for responding to even the one stars so
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: that people know that, you know, you take people's complaints seriously.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had somebody who complained about a lawyer who didn't respond to multiple emails
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: and multiple And I checked with their staff member,
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: their paralegal, and they said, yeah, this is an issue for this lawyer.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wish you the best and I'm sorry that you got such a negative experience from us.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: How many times that's been brought up to me by my intake team when they say,
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: hey, somebody said that they read this.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a four-year-old review now.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: And people say, somebody read that review and they said they really liked how you responded.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I try to be as honest with the whole world as possible when it comes to those reviews.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a law firm come to you and say,
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: I got a one-star review,
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: should I pay for a service to have it removed or should I report it?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: What advice do you give them?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know they're out there.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think every one star review is an opportunity to figure out where you failed and do better.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: there are sometimes there are,
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: and I hate to use word,
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: but there's sometimes they're just crazy faces out there who will never be happy
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: with anything.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so you You can be a little understanding of that.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You leave a little response.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then you can go to your people and say, hey, we got a bunch of negative reviews.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who can get me?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: We got a negative one star.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I need to get 10 five-star reviews in the next 10 days.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tap your people who are primed and And say,
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: hey, you know, we got a one star review from somebody and this is what they said.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you get that same feeling from us?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Would you mind defending us in a review?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll get people who will post.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that person's saying,
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: because when I called, they always picked up the phone, that type of thing.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: We use our clients as our advocates in reviews by just asking them to address
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: the issue that other people have nagged us for.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: You need somebody paying attention.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly,
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: if I was going to scale,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: obviously besides hiring my marketing team,
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: one of the first things I would do is hire a well-qualified remote worker
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: because you can get them less expensively and make reviews their job.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you have somebody who you're paying $30,000 a year to or $40,000 a year
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: to,
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: and they're remote and they're able to spend every day on the phone calling clients,
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: getting reviews, teeing that up, that's going to translate into business.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: When was the last time you did anything without checking at least a review?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they're sticky.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: You already mentioned they live for years and years and years
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: unless they eventually get taken down.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you coach on this?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is this like,
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: or did you receive this kind of review coaching
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: or is this something you just- This is
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: all just stuff that I've learned myself
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: over time by trial and error and deep thought and being,
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: how do we make this a better operation?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: One of the benefits of the role that I am is I have a fantastic leadership team
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: that have been with me now for over 20 years.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: My COO started off She was my sister's best friend in college,
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: thought she was going to be a tax lawyer, didn't have a job.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I hired her and she started hustling for me and she runs all the lawyers in my firm.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Emily, who is my firm administrator, she came to me when she was first in college.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: She went to college and actually left college to work for me full time and decided
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: to go drop out of full time day college and take her classes at night.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: She left after a couple of years because her husband was a Green Beret and
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: then they moved back to Connecticut and she says, hey, I'm back.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we like sort of brought her up to be that firm administrator.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: So they work well with me because we have such a longstanding relationship
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: and they work well with each other.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why like I was able to get away for the month of June and not have
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: to worry that the firm was going to implode because I had people
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: who we've all worked together and they know where we're going.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's been great.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Just built up a really good team of people around you and that's impressive in and of itself.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they give me the freedom to do the crazy ideas that I want to work on,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: which is let me go down into review psychology and I'll read white papers and that's
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: That type of thing.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just brought in a speaker for my lawyers.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're here in Connecticut.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Yale.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said, who at Yale Medical School teaches doctors how to break bad news to people, right?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's got to be a psychology to that.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sure enough, there is.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Developed the relationship.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: I read some white papers.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we had an internal CLE on how to deliver bad news to our clients in
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: a respectful way so that they are not taken aback by it because it's
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: a criminal case can have a major election.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm only able to devote my time and attention to those things
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: that make us better as a firm because my operations team can run without me.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: So impressive.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is such a good idea, too.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I love that.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're coming up on time.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jay, how do you want people to look you up and learn more about you?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I post a lot of stuff there.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do much in June and the beginning of July because I'm going to get back
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: to posting more regularly on LinkedIn.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can connect with me there.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to thecriminalmastermind.com.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And connect with me there.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jay at The Criminal Mastermind or Jay at Ruane Attorneys.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot me an email.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Find me on all the social platforms.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just connect with me.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy to make new friends.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can do anything to help people, I'm happy to do that.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in being like the Johnny Appleseed.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: The more I can give away, the better I'm gonna do.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's worked for my career.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Some people think I'm crazy, but I like to be as generous as possible.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate you sharing what you knew on the podcast today.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being a guest.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for all the listeners for tuning in and we'll see everyone next time.