Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Lawyer On Her Own Terms

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Lawyer On Her Own Terms · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

0:03
Hi, welcome to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. I'm your host,
0:07
Frederick. And I am here today with Kaylee Jack Ma. I say that
0:12
right? You did. Great. Thank you who is the founder of the
0:17
lifestyle law firm. And I'm super excited to talk with her
0:20
because what Kaylee's done, is really very special. And I know
0:25
a lot of you will benefit from hearing about it. She wanted to
0:29
create a law firm on her own terms, because her primary focus
0:33
right now this time in her life, is to be the mom of her two
0:37
kids. And but she also wanted to have a successful business that
0:41
provided a good healthy income for her family. And she has done
0:45
that. And now she mentors, other lawyers, as well as running a
0:49
successful IP business, IP law firm. And being a mom to her
0:53
kids primarily. She now mentors, other attorneys. So I'm super
0:58
excited to have you here. Kaylee. Welcome.
1:00
Thank you so much for having me, Divina.
1:03
Great, great. Alright, so why don't we start out by just
1:06
telling us I'd like to go way back to your your first idea of
1:12
being a lawyer where that came from? I know, some attorneys
1:16
just know from a very early age that that's what they want to
1:19
do. And then others of us kind of grow into that path. And it
1:23
comes to us by in other ways, how about you what did what
1:27
inspired you to be an attorney, something you always knew you
1:29
wanted to do?
1:31
Yeah, that's a great place to start. Because it didn't just
1:35
inform my choice to become a lawyer, but even the business
1:38
that I have today. So I was raised by a lawyer, mom. But she
1:42
did things in a slightly different order than I did. So
1:45
my mom went to law school. She started when I was in preschool.
1:49
And then she started working when I was in elementary school.
1:53
So I grew up with a lawyer, mom, but I also had the experience of
1:57
when I was a baby. And when I was little, having my mom at
2:00
home with me. And so when I looked at my own childhood, and
2:03
then also, you know, the example of my mom, I think I did know,
2:07
from an early age that I wanted to be a lawyer, and people would
2:10
tell me, you know, you, you would be a really good lawyer.
2:13
And then I also felt like, it was something that you can apply
2:17
the law to any passion you have. So if you're passionate about
2:20
saving the whales, you can go be an environmental lawyer, if you
2:23
are, if you love business, you can work in IP or business law
2:28
contracts. So you can really apply it to a lot of different
2:32
interests. And that's at least what I thought when I was
2:34
starting out. And then I found that actually, what happens is
2:37
you you work in whatever job you get, um, but just going back to
2:42
that experience of growing up, and having my mom at home with
2:45
me, when I was little to me, that is what I wanted motherhood
2:50
to look like, for me. So even selfishly, I wanted that
2:53
experience. So I wanted the experience of, you know, being
2:57
able to go to the library in the morning on a Tuesday, and just
3:02
having that, having that concentrated time with them. So
3:07
but as you know, as many people do, I didn't necessarily say,
3:11
really have this grand scheme of how my life was gonna go. So I
3:15
went to law school and started practicing, before I had a
3:19
child. And then when I did have my daughter, I thought, wow,
3:24
what am I going to do? Did I by choosing to go this route by
3:27
choosing to become an attorney? Did I opt out of this vision of
3:32
motherhood that I wanted, so that was quite quite a long
3:36
journey. To bring it back a bit though. Before I went to law
3:40
school, I was actually I studied for the LSAT and I took the LSAT
3:45
in China. My husband, then boyfriend and I were living
3:48
there. And so I would go to Chinese class in the morning and
3:54
it was a very international community. I think I was one of
3:57
two students from the US and all of my other classmates were from
4:00
Pakistan and Korea and Senegal and Nigeria. And so I would go
4:05
to trainees class and then I would go study for the LSAT at
4:08
this little French bakery in Changchun, China. It's up in
4:12
this province of China that borders North Korea and Russia.
4:16
It was absolutely freezing there. But a very interesting
4:20
experience. And then in the evening, I would go teach
4:24
English to students that range from my youngest students were
4:28
three all the way to 17 seniors in high school, so a very
4:33
eclectic mix there. So while I was doing that, I was studying
4:38
for the LSAT and I then took the LSAT in Shanghai that was
4:43
another unique experience doing that. And then I came back to
4:48
the United States to go to law school. I came back to New
4:51
Jersey where I'm from originally and left my then fiancee back in
4:56
China. So I tell that story because It really began the
5:02
foundation of doing things differently. When it came to my
5:05
legal career. I, you know, even my experience of taking the LSAT
5:09
was unusual. And I carry that through all throughout law
5:13
school. So my first year, around the time that everyone is
5:17
starting to look at internships, you know, January, February
5:20
applying for internships for the summer, really, my focus was,
5:24
how can I get back to Asia, I want to spend time with my
5:28
fiance, who's still living over there. I also wasn't done
5:32
adventuring. I wasn't satisfied with the idea that I started law
5:37
school. So now I'm going down this path, and I'm going to be
5:40
doing my summer internships in New Jersey in New York, and
5:43
then, you know, inevitably get a job there. And my life is
5:47
decided for me now. So I started looking at internships in Asia
5:52
to get closer to him and also to do something that was a little
5:55
more fun. And one night, I'm applying to all these
5:58
internships in China law firms there, some NGOs, and then also
6:04
different US agencies at the US Embassy there. And somehow One
6:09
thing led to another, and I got derailed from my train
6:13
applications and ended up applying to an internship at the
6:17
US Embassy in Bangkok and Thailand, which checked the box
6:21
of adventure, but not necessarily getting back to my
6:24
fiancee. But so um, I must have applied for a lot of internships
6:29
that evening, because the next day, I wake up and I have an
6:32
email from the US Patent and Trademark offices IP attache to
6:37
Southeast Asia. And I hadn't, I had no memory of applying to
6:41
that I didn't think I hadn't even heard that there was an IP
6:44
LJ. And what had happened was I had applied to the US Commercial
6:49
Service, which is an agency under Department of Commerce
6:52
that helps us companies export their goods across the world.
6:57
And so I had applied to that. And they forwarded my resume to
7:02
their IP attache, who asked if I was available to talk with him
7:06
that day, and I said, of course, sure. So I jumped on a call. And
7:09
he told me, they didn't have an internship program, but he was
7:12
forwarded my resume. And he's been advocating for one and what
7:17
I like to come to Bangkok that summer, and be his first intern
7:21
actually be the first intern for the USPTO, his IP attache
7:25
program. So I said, of course, and that experience was going to
7:31
a lot of UN conferences and WIPO conferences and helping him
7:36
prepare these presentations on USIP law. So that was that was a
7:40
great experience. And then that led to that really, I think, you
7:45
know, made a light bulb go off that, oh, a legal career can
7:50
look so different. I had no idea that his job existed. And it
7:56
also set the bar very high for my summer internships. So I kind
8:01
of went through this process every January and February
8:05
thinking, Okay, is it am I back to New Jersey now? Like is, Am I
8:11
done adventuring? Again? How I think?
8:14
Yes, yes, somehow I, I managed to keep that going all also
8:19
rules of law school. So I went back to an international IP firm
8:24
in Bangkok and interned there. And finally, when I graduated, I
8:29
had an internship during the school year at the at Homeland
8:34
Security in New York. So I was offered a job through that
8:38
internship. And when I graduated, I became a federal
8:42
prosecutor for Department of Homeland Security. So fast
8:46
forward, I still didn't have any children, I moved to the
8:49
Attorney General's Office. And then I found myself pregnant
8:54
with my first child. And I knew that just for me, I didn't want
8:59
the routine of dropping her off at daycare in the morning, you
9:04
know, and picking her up at six, six or seven in the evening. And
9:08
even though I was a government lawyer, and that's kind of
9:11
hailed as, you know, the most flexible job in the legal
9:14
industry, it wasn't, it wasn't good enough for me. That's not
9:18
what I wanted for myself. So when I left my job at the Ag
9:23
office, I intended to spend at least her first year at home
9:28
with her. And at that time, I didn't know that what I was
9:32
doing what you're doing was possible. I didn't know it was
9:35
an option. So I really thought I had a limited amount of time
9:40
with her before I would either go back to the Ag office or
9:43
figure something out. And I just assumed that whenever, you know,
9:48
subsequent children came that I wouldn't have the luxury of
9:52
having the same experience with them as I had with her. And it
9:56
was actually what changed this for me and really was another
10:00
light bulb moment was the platform Upwork, which I'm sure
10:05
you're familiar with. I was researching, I just got on
10:09
Google. And I was like, What can I do? That's part time from home
10:13
that's flexible. And so I'm googling part time lawyer jobs,
10:17
you know, work from home we're about and there really was
10:19
nothing. I mean, that in 2017, which, you know, isn't the Stone
10:23
Age, but it was a long time ago, you're talking about
10:27
changed everything. I mean, our whole culture has changed in the
10:30
last few years of the pandemic, so, yeah, 2017 was it it was pre
10:35
pandemic. So it was a whole different world back then, you
10:39
know, this time, you know, say, No, you Googled lawyer jobs, and
10:44
then what happened?
10:46
Yeah, and I didn't find anything, I didn't find anything
10:49
that was really meeting the bill. And somehow, I found my
10:53
way over to Upwork. And I just started writing legal blogs for
10:57
other law firms. And this wasn't, you know, this wasn't a
11:00
career plan, it was just something I was doing that, you
11:03
know, my baby wasn't even crawling. And it was something
11:07
that I could do to earn some extra money and, you know, keep
11:11
my brain active. And I thought it was wonderful. But then it
11:16
introduced me to this whole world of online work, and I
11:20
wasn't really, you know, dialed into the online business world,
11:24
or, you know, all these service based businesses that were
11:27
popping up online. But that was the introduction. And so I
11:31
rather than looking at what other lawyers were doing,
11:34
because most of the lawyers that I knew were miserable, I started
11:38
looking at what other service providers were doing, and asking
11:42
the question, can I apply that to the law? So one of the first
11:47
examples that sticks out in my mind is there was a couple, a
11:51
husband and wife that were both CPAs. And they spent like, six
11:55
months of the year in Bali, and they you know, they would file
11:58
tax returns, and this was their life. And to me, I thought, wow,
12:03
I really chose the wrong career, I should have become a CPA. And
12:08
it was an evolution.
12:10
Every bear is going, No, no, you should not have become a CPA. I
12:17
can
12:17
imagine my friends who are who I work with that are CPAs, you
12:20
know, we realize that we are the boring, the boring what you need
12:24
in your business professionals in this world. But, um, so yeah,
12:29
and I, but it started, it made me ask those questions of, Is
12:35
this possible? What would it look like? And as you know, at
12:39
that time, there were people who had virtual law firms, but I
12:43
think in some ways, it was people felt like they needed to
12:46
keep it secret, you know, I would try to search for people
12:50
who were practicing law in this model, which by that I mean,
12:54
more flexible, more part time remote, virtual, maybe you don't
12:58
have a brick and mortar, you have systems of automation. And
13:01
there weren't a lot of people that were, you know, holding it
13:04
out as an option presenting it. This is what I do. Rachel
13:08
Rodgers, you know, if you're familiar with her, she had some
13:10
articles about that. Um, and you know, there were other people,
13:14
but it was really, I would come to someone's website, and I
13:18
would kind of just discern that I thought they were a virtual
13:22
firm, and look at what they were doing on social media and look
13:26
at their website and things like that. But it wasn't talked about
13:29
as much. And there certainly weren't as many virtual law
13:32
firms. So I, you know, as I mentioned, I had that background
13:37
in IP. And around that time, I met a trademark attorney in the
13:42
city I was living in in St. Louis. And he also was not
13:46
necessarily holding out that he had a virtual law firm, I just
13:50
kind of was guessing that he did based on on my stalking
13:54
currently of his business. And I asked him to meet me for coffee.
13:58
And, and, you know, yeah, he did have a virtual firm, and he
14:02
didn't have a brick and mortar, and he worked from home. And he
14:05
did have, you know, a Regis mailing address or something
14:09
like that. And then it was my third lightbulb moment of this
14:14
is I have a background in this. I didn't have a background in
14:16
practicing, of course, it was an internship was, which is also
14:19
always different. But this was something that I could do
14:24
virtually, that was transactional. And you can take
14:28
clients nationwide because you're as long as someone is
14:31
registering their trademark with the USPTO you can represent them
14:35
so a lot of lightbulb moments there and then I got to the
14:39
business of starting to set up my firm and starting to you
14:43
know, set up all those different pieces. And at that time there
14:48
was there wasn't a coach or a program or anything that I found
14:54
that was inviting me, you know, to hold my hand and walk down
14:58
this road of me rode with me I was really figuring it out as I
15:02
went along. And what I did, again, was look at the model of
15:06
other service providers, not necessarily other lawyers, if
15:10
you're familiar with Dave Ramsey, the radio show host, you
15:13
know, he has yet he has a quote something to the effect of, you
15:19
know, don't take financial advice from your broke friends,
15:23
just like you wouldn't take, you know, relationship advice from
15:26
your single miserable friends or whatever it is. And I realized,
15:32
well, I shouldn't be looking at the example of the traditional
15:36
law firm and the way maybe that they have their website set up,
15:40
or maybe the way they do their marketing. If I do that, I'm
15:45
going to get similar results, you're going to get similar
15:48
results to the people that you that you look up to that you
15:51
model your business. And so I was looking at service
15:55
providers, like coaches, even website designers, graphic
16:00
designers, online business managers, all these different
16:03
service providers that were doing business online on the, in
16:07
the online world, leveraging social media to market, and then
16:11
really started putting the pieces together by looking at
16:15
the results of people whose lives you know, I wanted, I
16:19
wanted the same kind of flexibility that they had to be
16:22
at home with my kids to travel, and to be my own boss, and
16:26
really designed something that was different than what I saw
16:31
elsewhere in the legal industry.
16:33
Well, it's interesting, as I'm listening to tell this story,
16:36
what's so interesting is that how much we've similar
16:40
experience in that I had the brick and mortar law firm. And
16:46
but then it wasn't working for me. And I had several things
16:49
happen that just said, this is not working for me. Even though
16:53
I don't have children. It wasn't for the purpose of you know, I
16:56
didn't leave it for the purpose of being home with kids. I just
16:59
had some other things that really caused me to look at it
17:02
more closely and say this lifestyle is not for me. And I
17:05
started my own virtual firm in 2013. And had it from 2013. No,
17:10
I'm sorry, 2011, and had it from 2011 to 2017. And, but, but
17:18
virtual was very different than virtual was phone, email. That
17:25
was how you ran a virtual firm, you didn't run it, you know, we
17:28
didn't have the tools. People weren't comfortable video
17:31
conferencing, although there, there were those tools out
17:33
there. They were really more for corporate world and environment,
17:37
people in work environments, doing legal services that way
17:41
was really unique and new. And in fact, I had somebody leave me
17:46
a review on one of the attorneys sites, I won't mean which one
17:50
but one of the attorney directories and I got a four
17:52
star instead of a five star, because he said he was great,
17:56
everything's wonderful, except he never met me in person. And
17:59
he was the only person that did that everybody else gave five
18:02
star reviews. But it was so new that people weren't sure how to
18:06
feel about it. Right? Because you know, and we didn't have the
18:11
face to face model like we have today. So I could see, you know,
18:16
it was the same kind of for me, I started looking around at
18:18
other I got, I got coaches, I hire coaches. And that's how I
18:22
got exposed to the coaching world. And sort of saw this
18:25
model out there. Here's a different sort of model out
18:29
there that can work. And that's where he started seeing. I think
18:32
a lot of people nowadays having virtual firms, it's, you know,
18:39
everybody goes, Oh, well, of course, of course, it's gonna
18:42
set it up. But it really wasn't that long ago, where that just
18:45
wasn't a thing. And anytime you talked about I have a virtual
18:49
firm, you would have naysayers, you know, say, Well, that'll
18:52
never work at an attorney said to me, that was work. Your
18:56
clients don't like that. Because he wanted me to rent various
18:59
sorts of space in his office building. And I was like, Well,
19:04
I'm gonna give it a try. So it's very interesting that you
19:08
started out that way. Now. You're and I think IP, I love
19:13
your whole China's story and Bangkok, how wonderful that you
19:18
have those opportunities. And I just think to myself, What
19:21
courage it took to sort of just, you know, yeah, I'm gonna go to
19:25
a whole other country and work there. And live there. You know,
19:30
how it's an adventure, but it's also got to be a little bit
19:33
intimidating. You know, doing that. What, how, how did you did
19:39
you have experienced that those feelings or?
19:42
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I absolutely. And, you know, I
19:46
think it really prepared me for a lot of the challenges of
19:50
entrepreneurship because you're flexing that muscle of doing
19:54
something that's scary and walking into the unknown. So the
19:57
first time that I will I had been abroad before, but really
20:02
went far, far away from home and lived abroad was when I was in
20:06
college. I did a semester in China. And so that was that was
20:09
before the period of time I was discussing earlier. Yeah. Yeah.
20:15
And it was, you know, the first time I got on a plane and went
20:18
to China, I felt like I was going to another planet. And it
20:21
wasn't as much of another planet once once I landed, as I
20:24
anticipated, but absolutely, in my first summer in, in Thailand,
20:29
when I got to the law firm, in subsequent summers, they put us
20:33
up in a really nice service department. But at the US
20:36
Embassy, you were responsible for your own housing, and they
20:39
didn't even provide suggestions. So I was I didn't, I didn't know
20:45
anyone in Thailand. And I had like some ideas of service
20:50
departments that might work. And when I say service, there are
20:53
all kinds of service departments in Thailand. So I'm, and I kind
20:57
of had some addresses and ideas together. But when I got on the
21:01
plane, I just had a hotel room booked. And then my plan for
21:05
that first weekend was just to go around the city looking at
21:09
these blocks, sorry, looking at these apartments, by myself. And
21:13
so that was, yeah, that was scary.
21:18
Yeah, I imagine, because, you know, we hear you, you move
21:23
away, and you do that, at least you everybody speaks the same
21:25
language. And, you know, there's, there are some cultural
21:28
differences, too, that you have to be aware of when you do
21:31
something like that. So I imagine it was just fascinating
21:34
time for your life and your education. So let's move forward
21:39
to your IP firm, and talk about that. So you decided to kind of
21:43
go back to the, the IP, because you had spent time as an intern,
21:49
helping to teach it and all of that. What, so what did you do
21:53
to launch your law firm business, your virtual law firm?
21:57
What are some of the things that you did to to make it a virtual
22:01
firm? Yeah,
22:03
you know, if I could go back, I would implement so many of the
22:06
things that I've learned along the years early on, but in the
22:09
beginning, you know, I set up, you know, the legal and
22:13
financial end of my business, and got my malpractice insurance
22:16
and the bank accounts and whatnot. And then I built, I
22:21
built my own website, which, which I've since evolved from,
22:25
but I just started a website on Wix. And if you know nothing
22:30
about website development, and you have absolutely no budget to
22:35
invest in someone else, designing your website, which
22:38
would be like the first second and third choice would be to
22:41
have somebody else who knows what they're doing, do it, I
22:44
would say that Wix is the most user friendly platform that I've
22:48
seen. On the other end, it does definitely result in a very DIY
22:54
feel, which is not ideal, but really, the beginnings of my
22:59
firm were very bootstrapped. It was very DIY. So there, I was,
23:03
with my Wix website, and I started joining entrepreneur
23:08
groups in Facebook groups, connecting with people on
23:11
Instagram, reaching out to people's podcasts and things
23:15
like that. And then slowly, you know, building relationships and
23:19
getting my name out there. And one thing that I did, which has
23:23
really, I think, made my business so much more enjoyable
23:28
for me, but I joined the kind of entrepreneur groups that I would
23:32
want to be a member of. And what happened was, my clients tend to
23:36
be a lot of women, they tend to be, you know, solopreneurs, or
23:40
small teams, that they're building their business. And
23:43
usually, when I get on a discovery call with someone I
23:47
end, you know, with a client and a friend, it's, it's a enjoyable
23:52
conversation, we have a lot in common. And they also like to do
23:57
business in a similar way to how I like to do business. So I
24:01
don't have a phone number published on my website, I do
24:05
have a phone number in my signature line, but I don't have
24:09
a phone answering service. And a lot of the entrepreneurs that I
24:12
work with, they don't either, you know, it's, it's a, you can
24:16
contact me by my inquiry form, send me an email, and there's no
24:20
expectation of I'm going to be able to reach you at a random
24:25
time. You know, between nine to five, we'll set up an
24:28
appointment and we'll speak you know, when we plan to speak. So
24:32
that's really been wonderful because, like I said, the
24:36
clients that I work with, I really enjoy those
24:39
relationships. And they are usually building businesses that
24:43
are really interesting to me that I can also relate to and I
24:45
get to be a small part of
24:47
that. Yeah. And do you have? Do you find that most of your
24:52
clients are mothers of young children as well? Or do you have
24:59
kind of a mix? It's a
25:01
mix. Yeah, it's a mix. Um, there are there are mothers and and
25:05
non mothers, but I would say, probably 95% of my clients are
25:10
women. Of course I don't discriminate, that just tends to
25:14
be who you know who I'm connected with, through
25:16
referrals through the groups that I'm participating in. And
25:20
so, so yeah, but you know, there's just so much as women,
25:25
whether you have children or not, we juggle so many balls.
25:28
And I think that there's just a unique difficulties that come
25:34
with being a female business owner, and just the way that you
25:38
see the world and relate to the world, that it really, you know,
25:42
lens for a deeper relationship with your clients than if I was,
25:48
you know, that if I was at some big law firm doing trademark
25:51
work with whatever business came along.
25:55
You have, what do you find to be sort of the biggest challenge
26:01
for you in sort of balancing this? Stay at stay at home, mom,
26:08
you know, being being present with your kids, and work? And do
26:13
you find, I'm assuming you work out of your house? Do you find
26:18
any sort of challenges with regard to overlapping, you know,
26:25
obligations and things like that, like, you know, kids have
26:28
certain nap times and certain eating times they have routines,
26:31
you want to keep them in? Do you ever sort of run up against that
26:35
in terms of servicing your clients?
26:38
Yeah, yes. And no, I would say, because of the model I've built.
26:43
And that's why it's so important to me, to not have, you know, a
26:48
phone number that people can reach at anytime soon, because I
26:51
need to know that when I'm here, when I'm in front of my
26:55
computer, when I had an appointment to speak with
26:57
someone, you know, then I'm speaking to them. And also in my
27:01
practice area, there generally aren't emergencies. So there
27:05
aren't 24 hour emergencies, you know, so if I get an email on a
27:09
Monday evening, and my next work day is Wednesday morning, they I
27:13
had to have an auto reply, but they can wait until Wednesday
27:16
morning, generally,
27:18
I'm always telling my clients that, that, you know, this idea,
27:27
I mean, how many true emergencies are there and, and
27:30
even, even in, even in a practice areas where there are
27:34
urgent needs, or, you know, clients think, or an emergency
27:38
or whatever, generally, you still have to deal with a court
27:42
and filing things, you know, it's not like a true emergency,
27:46
like EMTs are having to deal with, you know, and so
27:51
oftentimes, we put that pressure on ourselves to be uber
27:55
responsive. And email is a big isn't, you know, people getting
28:02
up first thing in the morning they do is check their emails.
28:05
And I'm like, the minute you do that, you're letting other
28:07
people hijack your priorities. So doing that, I imagine you
28:11
have some really strong time blocking mechanisms for your for
28:16
yourself.
28:18
I do and I just color coded it recently, which has made it very
28:22
exciting to look at. But yes, there are a couple of things I
28:26
do. So one thing, I don't know, if you're familiar with the app
28:30
boxer, it's kind of a walkie talkie app. So I use boxer a lot
28:37
with my assistant, so she'll help me, you know, triage and
28:41
organize emails. And she'll send me a message because for
28:46
whatever reason, I've learned that the the time and mental
28:50
energy that it would take me to read an email, and then, you
28:54
know, email her back, can you respond saying this coordinate,
28:58
it's way more streamlined for her to send me a message and
29:03
say, Hey, Susie needs X, Y, and Z. And for me to say, Can you
29:07
please respond to Susie that, you know, A, B, and C, and that
29:12
has been really liberating. It's a small thing, but it's just
29:16
really helped me so much because what would happen is, like you
29:21
said, the overlap so maybe it's a period of time where I didn't
29:26
block out work time but I'm with my kids. And we are you know,
29:31
I'm picking them up from something and I'm in the car and
29:34
I look at my email and I see something but I can't respond to
29:38
it, you know, texting on my phone right now it's not the
29:40
right time. So I'll start and come back to it and it just adds
29:43
to the mental load of here's another thing on my to do list.
29:46
Here's another thing on my to do list. And having her help just
29:50
in that small way has been so liberating, because that's a way
29:54
where my let my personal life and business life do inevitably
29:59
cross over. but it makes it, it makes the overlap a lot easier.
30:04
And way more aligned with what I'm doing in that moment to be
30:09
able to quickly communicate with her like that. Another thing is
30:13
to be perfectly honest, you know, when your whatever age
30:16
your kids or whatever is going on with your life, I think it's
30:19
important to recognize the season you're in, and the season
30:23
you're in does not necessarily dictate the future of your
30:26
business or what is going to be happening next year. And the
30:30
beauty of a flexible law firm is that it can flex to the changing
30:35
needs of your life. And that's something again, this was not a
30:39
grand scheme that I came up with, when I when I went on
30:42
maternity leave. It's something that I've learned over time that
30:45
you know, the way my daughter needed me as a baby was
30:48
different than when she started going to a mommy's morning out
30:52
some hours per week. And then that changed when she was in
30:55
preschool three days a week. So this year, I had another baby,
31:00
my son who just turned one in January. And originally, I
31:05
thought that when he turned three months old, I would get a
31:08
part time nanny to come over to the house and be with him while
31:12
I worked from my home office. But then that, that three month
31:16
mark came, and I just was completely unmotivated to get in
31:21
any I just I didn't want a nanny, and it was, you know,
31:24
kind of getting back to designing your life. And I felt
31:28
like I'm supposed to get a nanny, you know, like, now I'm a
31:31
business owner. And even if it's part time, I at least need a
31:34
part time nanny. That's what I see all these other women doing
31:37
who maybe they're lawyers, but maybe they're just another kind
31:40
of service provider with a six figure business. And, and I
31:45
just, it just didn't feel right. And so then he turned four
31:48
months, five months, the months went by, I still don't have a
31:51
nanny. And so it's still William and I five days a week while my
31:57
husband's at work, and my daughter, that helps a
32:00
tremendous amount because she's for going on 16 And she's a
32:03
chatty Cathy. So she needs to go to school for sure. And William
32:09
so far. I mean, what when that season will change. He's just
32:13
barely starting to work. To work. Sorry, walk, I will look
32:17
forward to the day early. Yeah, we're putting them to work as
32:23
soon as they learn how to read for sure. Um, so he's just just
32:29
starting to learn how to walk and he sleeps a lot. You'll take
32:32
a three and a half hour nap from like, usually from like, 1030
32:38
until almost two he's asleep. So it's fine, right?
32:42
Like smile. That's like salad. Yes. Yeah, I think a couple
32:46
things. One is, I want to make sure we go back and tell people
32:49
what Voxer is because I know what it is. You know what it is
32:51
we need to tell people. But the other thing is, we were saying?
32:57
Oh, gosh, it's sucked up. You tell me what boxer as well. I
32:59
tried to remember what is the second culture? Yeah,
33:01
so Voxer is a walkie talkie app. And you can download it on your
33:06
phone. And basically, it's just you can hold down a button and
33:09
send a voice message or voice memo to someone. And they can
33:14
hear it in live time. So instead of you know leaving a voice
33:18
message like you would on an answering machine, and then they
33:21
listen to it when they're done. They could if they were also on
33:25
their app, listen to it while you're speaking. Or they can
33:29
listen to it later. And then you can also text them. So it's just
33:33
you can do similar things depending on what type of phone
33:36
service you have in your regular text messages. It's just nice to
33:40
have the conversations really organized. And at least on my
33:45
iPhone, those Voice Memos will disappear unless you choose to
33:49
keep it and these voice or memo box or voice memos just live
33:54
there. So it's a really nice tool.
33:56
Yeah, I had a I had somebody brands who helped me do some
34:00
branding a few years ago and she used boxer and we use that as
34:05
our tool communication. And I am not a listen to voice recording
34:10
kind of person. I am a a texter. And so I, I would text but she
34:16
would leave voice messages for me. What was so cool about it is
34:20
is real time comm stuff, you know, and we didn't have to, you
34:24
know, we weren't on the same team. So we didn't have slack or
34:27
whatever. We had two different businesses, but it was a way for
34:30
us to communicate and it does give you that immediacy, you
34:34
know, which is so helpful when you're trying to work on a
34:37
project together to get it where you want it to go. The second
34:41
part, what I was gonna say is, I think you hit on something
34:44
that's so critical that I want to stay with for a minute, and
34:47
that is you really were very clear on what you wanted. And I
34:53
think so many times, what gets us derailed, whatever it is
35:00
trying to create is when we start comparing ourselves to
35:03
others. They're doing this, I need to do this. I mean, I don't
35:09
know how many times people have said to me, should I have a
35:12
podcast? Because I have a podcast? They say, Should I have
35:16
a podcast? Well, it depends. It's my lawyer answer. It
35:19
depends, right? We don't have to do things just because other
35:23
people are doing them, we're not missing out. Our ship is not
35:28
gonna, we're not gonna miss her ship, when it comes in. When
35:31
we're there, the ship's gonna, he felt like the ship will be
35:34
there for us. And there's many different ways that we can get
35:36
where you want to go. So being very clear on what it is that
35:40
you want for you, in your case, you were thinking, Well, you
35:43
know, like, I have any any, and then you're like, No, suddenly
35:45
what I want, and being honest with yourself about that and
35:48
making that decision. You didn't lack anything as a result of
35:52
that is you? I mean, you. You, you're living allowance,
35:55
actually.
35:57
Yeah, it's the thing that I'm most proud of this year, you
36:00
know, I didn't I it happened all accidentally, really well,
36:03
intentionally, but I just, you know, never pulled the gun. And
36:07
it was really when he was approaching a year mark that I
36:11
reflect reflected back. I haven't done this because I
36:14
don't want to and, you know, just kind of owning that
36:18
decision. Yeah, was was the thing that I was most proud of
36:23
my business, despite that grew not tremendously, but it was my
36:28
best year in business, as I believe, you know, every year of
36:32
business should be better than the previous. And it was,
36:35
despite, you know, being despite giving birth at the end of last
36:39
January, having a newborn and having him home here the whole
36:42
time. My husband does. He gets home, he goes to work very
36:46
early, so he'll get home at around 430. So that helps. And
36:50
then I typically work on Saturday mornings to early
36:55
Saturday afternoon. And again, in the especially when you're
36:59
setting out to create a freedom lifestyle business. There can be
37:03
this pressure, like, Oh, I'm not going to work weekends, because
37:06
I'm supposed to not even work Fridays. But I take Tuesday and
37:10
Thursday off, you know, and my Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for
37:14
me, is really a four and a half hour work workday. So I do work
37:18
Saturday mornings, but because I love the business I've built to
37:22
me that is like, Okay, I'm leaving, and I'm going to a
37:26
coffee shop to get some work done. See you all later. And I
37:30
enjoy joy. Oh, yeah,
37:33
I think you and you use an interesting term I want to talk
37:37
about, I often ask my clients, when we start working together,
37:41
do you want to create a business that is a million dollar, multi
37:48
million dollar business, that you have a team and it's running
37:52
itself? And you have freedom that comes over time? As you
37:56
build that up? And more and more people? Or do you want a
37:58
lifestyle business where you have flexibility now, money now.
38:04
But there may be limits on how much money you can bring in? If
38:09
you there's only so much we can do, right? But that may be okay.
38:16
If you're if you're living a life you love, and you're making
38:20
sufficient income. And you're getting to go to Costco on
38:26
Tuesday, you know, when else is date, right? That's the thing
38:30
that I remember when I first married my husband, and he was
38:34
an entrepreneur. And so he really inspired me to live this
38:37
kind of life. And he used to just be out sort of running
38:43
errands during the middle of Workday when I was at work. And
38:47
I was like, what? Costco and I remember wanting to like go run
38:53
errands with him. And then I ran errands with multiple times. I'm
38:55
like, Okay, well, that was great. I'm done. I'm like, I was
38:58
thrilling. I'm done with that now. And so you go run those
39:02
moments.
39:03
And you probably have I mean, you just describe that moment. I
39:05
think everyone who is an employee working full time, you
39:09
know, outside of the home, and they have a random day off for
39:13
whatever reason. And you know, and then they find themselves,
39:16
you know, grocery shopping at 1pm. We're like getting a break
39:19
at a coffee shop. And I don't know if it's just me, I feel
39:22
like everyone probably has those thoughts of what if this was my
39:25
life all the time? Like, what if I lived in this world with these
39:28
people that do errands at 1pm?
39:32
We don't want everybody to catch on to our secret, but I think a
39:35
lot more and more people have. And of course, the pandemic has
39:38
changed with so many people working from home now and also,
39:42
so many things, delivery services have been available to
39:45
us. So our whole way of thinking about how we can move through
39:49
the world has changed from you know, even just five years ago,
39:54
right? What people were thinking were their options. So what What
40:00
kind of if you were to share perhaps one of the biggest
40:06
lessons you've learned? As you've kind of gone through this
40:09
journey and figuring things out on your own? What would you say?
40:15
What would you say to somebody else who kind of wants to follow
40:17
a similar path and thinking about starting their family,
40:20
they want to still keep their law firm business. But do it in
40:23
a way that blends well with that other priority? What would you
40:28
give? What advice would you give them? I think twofold.
40:31
First, that there doesn't need to be such a finality to the
40:36
decisions that you make. You are mentioning, you know, do you
40:39
want to build a freedom lifestyle kind of law firm? Or
40:42
do you want to really scale a business and build a seven
40:46
figure business, you in your lifetime, you don't need to
40:49
choose between those, if right now in the season of life you're
40:53
in, it fits your desires in your family to build that freedom,
40:57
lifestyle business, you will be perfectly situated to pivot and
41:03
grow that business, that seven figure business when you're
41:06
ready, when it fits your life and your desires. And so I think
41:11
the other another key is getting quiet, if you will, going, you
41:17
know, getting out of the noise in your life, wherever that is
41:22
for you, by a lake, in the mountains, in your car, or
41:25
wherever. And trying to just as much as you can imagine a
41:31
completely blank white piece of paper that you can design this
41:37
future of your own on, because we're so inundated with the
41:41
shoulds in the must and this is what it looks like to be a
41:43
lawyer, that there's so much work involved before you even
41:47
start dreaming, you have to start scrubbing that away, like
41:50
get out the Mr. Clean Eraser and start scrubbing away all of the,
41:55
you know, these preconceived notions of what it means what it
41:59
must mean to be a lawyer and what your career has to look
42:02
like. And the work of you know, clearing that out. So you have a
42:07
blank slate that you can really start imagining if I could make
42:11
up my own rules, and I was doing this just the way that I wanted
42:16
to maybe in the short term, but also, you know, looking into the
42:20
long term, what would that look like for me, and each step of
42:24
the way, both in the planning process of that early dreaming
42:27
stage, but also throughout your business journey, questioning
42:32
your assumptions, because one thing I've really learned is,
42:36
you need to continually revisit that vision. Because business
42:42
changes the tools that we use change the methods of marketing
42:47
that work change. Yah, yah, yah, yah, we change, not just your
42:52
family's demands, like not just the kids, the partner, whatever,
42:56
but what you want will change you might see someone doing
42:59
something that you're so inspired by, and you feel like
43:02
yourself. Yeah, yeah. And you haven't, you haven't put your so
43:07
you, you just keep yourself in a box, you don't have to stay in
43:11
that box, for you may have started out with an idea that
43:15
you thought was going to be great. And it's just a reckoning
43:18
of, you know, realizing that it doesn't fit anymore. So as a
43:22
perfect example of that, it was in the beginning or the end of
43:27
2019. So yeah, ended 2019 I started and so I didn't want to,
43:46
to bore them to death. So I would interject other fun
43:49
business topics. And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed making the
43:53
podcast, I enjoyed having podcast guests. But, um, it was
43:58
probably right after the Yeah, it was right after the lockdown
44:02
began. And I was pregnant, and I was having like severe morning
44:06
sickness, I already had the other things that I was
44:08
juggling. And I just had to, you know, make a decision that this
44:13
isn't the right time to do this. It's not the right time to do
44:16
this. And honestly, I don't even know if it was the most
44:19
effective marketing strategy for me. At that time. It was much
44:24
more, you know, it was much more strategic to go on the podcast
44:29
of business coaches, or someone else who already had an
44:32
audience, rather than building this audience. And, again, it
44:37
just wasn't aligned with what I needed in my life at that time.
44:40
So also, you know, recognizing the things that aren't working
44:44
and being open to new ideas and reinventing yourself and
44:49
pivoting. You make such a great point it, it really is. This
44:56
goes back to what you want and sometimes and you're you can try
45:00
something too, it's okay, you can try something and then
45:04
decide, I need to hold off on this right now or I need to
45:08
change it. And, and that is the beauty of owning your own
45:11
business is you get to make the decisions. And it's okay to try
45:16
things and make a decision that it's not for you, or you try
45:21
something and it doesn't work the way you think it's going to
45:24
to pick something else. That's, that's the beauty of this kind
45:27
of business. So I love that you shared that you made such a
45:30
great point with that, um, you have an event coming up in March
45:35
for those women or women who women attorneys who, maybe
45:43
considering starting their own business, maybe they're working
45:47
for somebody else, for a while, they kind of got a full twinkle
45:50
in their eye or dream in the back of their mind. Tell us
45:53
about that event, what you're going to be doing? Yes, so
45:57
that event is a three day free training. It's called lawyer on
46:01
your own terms. And it's happening from March 15 through
46:04
17th. So it's going to take place, it's going to be live
46:08
streamed into our Facebook group at 7pm. Central, that's 8pm.
46:12
Eastern, and it's really getting back to clearing clearing the
46:17
slate, creating that white canvas for you to dream on. So
46:22
taking out our Mr. Mr. Clean erasers, and really wiping away
46:27
the notions of what your legal career has to look like an
46:31
exercise is to begin dreaming of what would it look like for you?
46:36
Not for me, not for you know anybody else? But what would it
46:38
look like for you, if your legal career fit around the other
46:43
desires of your life and kind of the foundation of this is when
46:48
you're thinking about your work schedule instead of you know,
46:52
here's what I have to work and then fit your life around that?
46:56
No, we have a clear work week here. And the first things that
47:00
you schedule in are those personal, non negotiables, the
47:04
most important things to you in your life, those non negotiables
47:08
they go on the schedule first. And now how do we build a
47:11
practice that, you know that utilizes your skills and your
47:15
talents and you're passionate about and creates a thriving
47:19
income for your family that is built around those priorities,
47:22
because that's the foundation of it. So it'll be an hour training
47:26
that streamed and then attendees are invited to hop on a zoom
47:31
call for free private coaching group. And that's the part that
47:34
I love the most is meeting people hearing about their
47:37
stories, and then kind of be hiving at the end of each day.
47:42
what that could look like for each person, because it's not
47:45
just the benefit of chatting this out with me, but all the
47:48
other women who are in this place of dreaming.
47:52
Right, right. So you will give us a link for that. We're gonna
47:55
share that in the show notes. So people want to check that out.
47:58
They can, they'll also be a link to your website and your other
48:03
social media, we have those links for you. So let's go in
48:05
the show notes as well. And anything else that you want to
48:09
share today before we wrap up, cuz I know we need to end in a
48:11
minute. Any any last thoughts you want to leave people with?
48:17
Yeah, you know, I this is a little bit cliched, but, you
48:20
know, sometimes you're going to be scared when you start a new
48:23
thing. And it's really exercising those muscles. You
48:27
know, starting with a baby step after baby step. And the more
48:31
you do it, the more you're going to exercise that muscle and you
48:34
are going to be comfortable with it. And you're gonna be
48:37
comfortable getting into a space where you are really walking
48:41
down your own path when everyone else is walking the other way.
48:45
Right. I love that advice. I think that is it. The thing
48:48
about cliches is they often they're based in truth, which is
48:52
why they're so popular and we love them so much so but I
48:55
appreciate you sharing that you're absolutely on point.
48:58
Kelly, thanks so much for being here. I really enjoyed our
49:00
conversation today. You're not probably we'll have many more
49:03
conversations over time and I really appreciate you sharing
49:07
because I know a lot of people in our audience are really going
49:11
to love what you share with us today. Thank you so much.