Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / 214: Erin Giglia | How a Freelance Lawyer May Be Just What Your Firm Needs Now

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214: Erin Giglia | How a Freelance Lawyer May Be Just What Your Firm Needs Now · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:01
  Intro: Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What
• 0:05
  intro: if
• 0:05
  Intro: you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve, and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now here's
• 0:52
  Davina: Hi. This is Devina. And before we jump into today's show, I'd like first to introduce you to some of our sponsors. When prospective clients are looking for an attorney, they usually turn to Google first. Optimize My Firm helps law firms grow their practices and attract more right fit clients through on page and back end search engine optimization.
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• 2:23
  Visit www.gavel.io and mention the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast for a free fourteen day trial or just click on the link in the show Hi, everyone, and welcome back
• 2:35
  intro: to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And today, my guest is Erin Giglia, who is the co owner and founder of Montage Legal Group. Erin is a graduate of Wellesley College and the University of San Diego School of Law, where she was a member of San Diego Law Review. After law school, Erin practiced litigation for two prestigious law firms where she defended companies in cases of product liability, premises liability, and environmental and commercial litigation.
• 3:05
  Erin left in 2009 to cofound Montage Legal Group. Montage Legal Group is a freelance attorney company comprised of 400 plus exceptionally trained freelance lawyers who opted out of the traditional law firm model in favor of career flexibility. She's a frequent writer and speaker on legal outsourcing, work life balance and women in the law. She's a recipient of the Enterprising Women's Magazine's 2016 Enterprising Women of the Year Award and has been named one of the top 40 40 women to watch by Orange County Metro Magazine. Erin also has been featured in forbes.com article to how two stay at home moms are changing the legal industry and by the UC Hastings Work Life Center in disruptive innovation, new models for legal practice.
• 3:55
  We're so happy to have her here today on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. Welcome, Erin. It's great to see you.
• 4:01
  Erin: Thanks so much, Devina. It's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me.
• 4:04
  intro: Good. So how long has Montage Legal Group been in business? You mentioned fourteen years already. Wow.
• 4:12
  Erin: That's right. We're going on fifteen years now, so we're about to have a big birthday. We'll probably do a party of some kind. Yeah. But, yeah, it's been great.
• 4:20
  Fourteen years.
• 4:20
  intro: Yeah. I'd love to hear that. And I was really surprised that you have 400 plus freelance or contract attorneys who work for the organization. That is a significant number, a lot more than some of the other services that I've heard. So that's really impressive.
• 4:36
  Erin: Thanks. Yeah. We actually try to keep it small intentionally. So 400 sounds like a big number, but we have grown it really slowly and very carefully over the last fourteen years. We've worked with more than that over the last year as people pop in and out, but we try to keep the numbers small.
• 4:57
  So we could have a much, much bigger company if we wanted to. But this is very intentional that we keep it around this size.
• 5:04
  intro: Good. Well, I want to back up a little bit and talk about you are on track for everything what everybody thinks of when they think of lawyers, which is big law. You work for a big law firm right out of law school. You went to a prestigious university and a prestigious law school to work for a big law firm, and then you worked for another well known prestigious law firm. And then you decided to leave and start this business.
• 5:28
  What was your motivation behind it? What was the impetus for that?
• 5:32
  Erin: Oh, gosh. Our origin story is kind of cute. So my business partner, Laurie Rowan, she and I worked at the same firm. We were both associates together, and we were pregnant at the same time. So I was pregnant with my second child and Laurie was pregnant with her first.
• 5:50
  We were two weeks apart. So my youngest child is sixteen days older than her oldest. And the way we found this out was we were walking into the office one day and just for whatever reason, I said, hey, Laurie, I have a secret for you. And so we went into my office and I told her that I was seven weeks pregnant. Her jaw fell on the floor and she said, I'm five weeks pregnant.
• 6:15
  And I said, I haven't told anyone this before. I don't know why I'm telling you this. And she said, I haven't told anyone either. Like, why are we doing this? And so we just, you know, really went through that journey together.
• 6:27
  I already had a toddler at home who I was already trying to figure out how this was gonna go. Being a full time lawyer with a young baby is pretty tough, as you can probably imagine.
• 6:39
  intro: Yeah.
• 6:40
  Erin: Especially at a big firm like that. And I had been straight off maternity leave. I was billing two hundred plus hour months, which is a lot.
• 6:48
  intro: Yeah. That is a lot.
• 6:50
  Erin: Yes. So I loved loved being a lawyer at my firm. It was great. I loved everyone there. The people were fantastic.
• 7:00
  The work was excellent, but I was short on sleep. So I had slept four hours or less per night every single night for three years, including Saturday, Sunday and vacation because of the way I wanted to parent. So I wanted to be there with my kids, you know, during their waking hours at some, you know, towards the end of the day, obviously. And then every night I would turn my computer back on and I would work until midnight, one, two, 03:00 in the morning. And that was just on me because that's how I operated myself.
• 7:36
  So it wasn't like no one was forcing me to do this, but it was not a sustainable lifestyle. It wasn't great. So I was really terrified to quit. I had a lot of my identity wrapped into the fact that I was this lawyer and I really love my work and the people. But Laurie, after she had her first baby, she decided to leave to start doing contract work.
• 8:03
  And, you know, over time, she really started talking to me about why don't you I know this isn't working out for you. Maybe you should leave too and come join me and we can do contract work together. It took me a long time to warm up to this idea. It took me about a year. And then finally, I left when my youngest was a year old.
• 8:22
  So I had a three year old and a one year old, and I just decided that I needed to make a change. And so we started Montage Legal Group together at that time.
• 8:32
  intro: So a lot to unpack here. And I think your story is one that a lot of women law firm owners are gonna resonate with because as much as we talk about parenting and parenting leave and we're inclusive of men, truthfully, I think women being the ones who give birth and also just traditionally in our society, there's just that pull of if I'm at work, I'm a bad mother. And if I'm at home, I'm a bad worker. And there's this kind of pull between the two of constantly filling the need to fill both roles perfectly. High achieving women wanna fill both roles perfectly because you said nobody was making me do that.
• 9:13
  I chose to do that. I went without sleep. I slept four hours a night because I chose to do that. And that's an inner call that a lot of women have of I wanna be the perfect mother when I'm with my kids or an excellent mother. And when I but I don't want work to suffer.
• 9:26
  I wanna be that excellent employee for employers. And I do think it is a challenge for the traditional law firm model for women to do that. You did that for a long time. I could not have done that for that long because I am somebody who has to have at least eight hours of sleep at night. It's probably why I don't have kids.
• 9:44
  So it's kind of amazing you were able to do that at all. What do you think the fear was for you in sort of leaving this prestigious firm and going and starting this company?
• 9:55
  Erin: I mean, really just so much of my identity was wrapped into being a lawyer, and I didn't know what else I would do. And it wasn't until I had a clear plan, which was not to start Montage Legal Group. The clear plan was I'm going to do contract work for other law firms. Like, that was my immediate plan. So once I had that plan in mind, then it became a lot easier for me to step back and make that transition.
• 10:23
  I want to be clear that it's an incredibly important goal of mine to create a system where women can stay in law. Like, that was really important to me. And my biggest fear, I think, was I didn't want to leave the workforce. I didn't want to leave the workforce. I felt like I would be doing myself and my family a disservice if I did that, even though, you know, plenty of women leave the workforce and that is an absolutely fine choice for them.
• 10:53
  That's something that is an incredibly individual decision, just like there are plenty of amazing women who remain in big law firms and they are fantastic parents and they do everything perfectly in a way that works out for them. So I don't want it to be like I'm somehow making a judgment call at anyone else. Absolutely not. This is an extremely individual decision that is going to be different for every single family, kid, parent, you know, all of those things. And so this was just a way to make it so we could capture those folks who fell in the kind of the middle area, the people who wanted to stay in law or come back in when they didn't necessarily have a way to do that previously.
• 11:43
  intro: Yeah. Yeah. So it's not my comments as far as I go, aren't about judging people as much as it is. I think that, like, we have to get real and have a real conversation about the superhuman effort it takes to be a mom of two young babies and work what is required in a traditional law firm business. So no judgment in that as much as there is like, that's just really not realistic.
• 12:11
  It's completely unhealthy. And so how do traditional law firms move forward? Think it's a question traditional law firms need to ask themselves. If they want of childbearing age to work and bring their genius to their law firm business. And what you chose was something kind of like what I chose was stepping outside of a traditional model and saying, I'm gonna go over here and start something that works for me and my choices of my lifestyle.
• 12:40
  And that's perfectly great too. I mean, we need all of that, right? How did you guys start out? Did you have some clients pinpointed that you had had relationships with that you knew you could do work for? Did you sort of go out cold and say, oh, we're just gonna go and see what we can get?
• 12:56
  Or what was your thought process on that?
• 12:58
  Erin: Yeah. So Lori had been doing contract work on her own for a period of time before I left our firm. And then once I left, the two of us started doing contract work together, which was great. We would go and sometimes a firm might need more help than one person could give. And so the two of us would work together.
• 13:17
  It was really fantastic. So it was just us doing the contract work ourselves for a short time. And then the way we got business was, yes, our contacts in the community, sometimes former opposing counsel would come to us and they'd be very excited about getting our help. Obviously, not on the same matters that we were working on before, not on the same clients, of course, but totally different things. And so we would do some of that work.
• 13:44
  That was really fun. And then we just started going out and meeting more lawyers in the community, and it started becoming really just word-of-mouth. Once we decided to form an actual company where we would have we start adding more people, then that's when we started like really going out and we had a very early website, launched it in 2010. And so just organically, it grew that way and referrals, lot
• 14:14
  intro: of meeting people in the community. You were just getting a lot of work and you were like, okay, now it's more than we can handle, but we don't want to tell our colleagues no, we want to be able to help them. So you began to sort of create this space to bring in more contract lawyers. Is that accurate?
• 14:29
  Erin: That's exactly right. It became friends, friends of friends suddenly. And then we got some really great press right away. And that allowed other people to see what we were doing. We got a lot of resumes after that.
• 14:44
  And we just have been very carefully going through the resumes that we receive. And very slowly, we've grown it to the level that it is now.
• 14:53
  intro: Yeah. And I'd like for you to tell us a little bit more about the lawyers you have working with you because I know that you really, you know, are selective. And also to be clear, this is not a woman only thing. You've got men and women working for you who are at different stages of their life with different needs of a wannabe lawyers. So maybe you could give us some examples of different types of people that you have working with you.
• 15:19
  Because some people are gonna see themselves, you know, in these people.
• 15:22
  Erin: Sure. Absolutely. Yes. We have had all kinds of different lawyers working with us. It started out as all women, and then it very quickly transitioned to a lot of men have joined as well.
• 15:37
  As far as why people do this, I mean, we're all humans. We all have different reasons. But obviously, parenthood was a big one. Relocation was another big reason. So folks would relocate to an area outside of their jurisdiction where they're licensed and they wanted to continue doing law without getting another state license.
• 15:59
  Military spouses, that's a JD who have JD is. That's one different category. But then all kinds of other reasons, law professors, entrepreneurs, yoga teachers, authors. We have a couple of screen actors who who have been in our group, just all kinds of different folks for all kinds of different reasons have joined. But the thing that they all have in common is they all have something else in their lives that make it so a traditional law firm schedule is not going to work for them.
• 16:34
  That's their commonality.
• 16:35
  intro: And I just wanted to be clear on that because I think a lot of people think, when they hear this, the first thing they think of are moms who want to keep their identity as lawyers, but can't work a traditional, don't want to work a traditional law firm schedule or whatever. And interviewing other people who have similar sort of businesses. I know that there are a lot of people out there who do contract work who, maybe they're semi retired and they still wanna keep their foot in the pond, but they don't want the burden of running a business or something like that. So I just think it's so interesting to me, the diversity. You're able to provide this place for people to continue their career without having to set up the mechanism for that?
• 17:17
  Because I imagine when you first started, there's systems and processes and a mechanism for attracting clients and screening clients that you're doing work for and all of that, and then matching them up with people and how do we get the good people and the right people, and we're not getting people who maybe aren't that good at being a lawyer. And so this is their way of trying to do that. Tell me about your sort of screening process and some of the things you look for in freelance or contract lawyers.
• 17:46
  Erin: Sure. So everyone, the minimum criteria is five years full time experience. And that could be at a big firm or it could be at some type of equivalent. So government work, clerking, a boutique firm, you know, something of that nature. We also look for career longevity.
• 18:07
  So we want to see that someone has worked for the same legal employer for a fairly significant period of time. And then in addition to that, we want to make sure that everyone who joins our group actively wants to be doing freelance work. So if you don't want to be doing freelance work, if you're just doing this because you can't find anything else to do, then we probably wouldn't have you join our group. But we bring people in who really share our goal of helping law firms, helping especially small firm lawyers meet their client needs and provide an excellent service to their clients. The other thing that we really try to do a lot is we try to bring people back into law.
• 18:54
  So you may imagine that there's a fairly significant group of people out there who left law in the past for some reason, maybe family, maybe health, maybe some other reason. And once you have that gap in your resume, it can be really challenging to get back into legal work because employers don't often want to see someone that has a big hole in their resume for any reason, you know, and they don't really care why. And so doing freelance work has been a really wonderful on ramp and path back into legal practice for hundreds and hundreds of people through Montage. That's been really fun and exciting for us.
• 19:34
  intro: Mean, this is probably not anything you expected in the beginning. Right?
• 19:37
  Erin: It wasn't. No. But I counted somewhat, you know, maybe about a year ago, and I think I counted something like 350 lawyers that had a gap in their resume. They came back in and then they left Montage because they got a permanent position doing something legal. So we've had folks leave Montage because they went back to a firm or they went in house for a company or we had two people leave to go become USPTO judges, which is kind of interesting.
• 20:07
  Yeah. Really fun. Can't compete with that. So it's been really exciting to see the freelance lawyers come through and just really get back on track to something that really speaks to them and brings them a lot of fulfillment in their career journeys.
• 20:24
  intro: That's wonderful. And you have kind of a spectrum as far as like you have Ivy League attorneys and non Ivy League attorneys and a spectrum of attorneys as well. I know kind of your description. That's one of the things you bring out is that we have attorneys from top tier law schools who are doing freelance and contracts. I think sometimes people might think, oh, freelance lawyer, that's somebody who's just it doesn't have the cachet or the prestige or whatever attached to it that a lot of people think.
• 20:56
  It sounds like you really, through your model, are really changing that.
• 21:00
  Erin: Absolutely. People do freelance work for all kinds of reasons. People leave law firms for all kinds of reasons. When you leave a law firm, it doesn't mean that anything has happened to your brain. Your brain is the exact same.
• 21:12
  Your legal training is still the exact same. So it's such a gift to have that type of background and experience to be able to bring it to a smaller firm setting and to help those small firms, someone that they wouldn't necessarily be able to hire on their own if they were going to bring in someone full time. But to have that person's help on a limited basis, it's really an asset to a firm. So it's been great.
• 21:40
  intro: Right. So tell me about your ideal clients. Give me an idea of the law firms size and practice areas and things like that. I'm sure there's a wide variety, but as best you can kind of give me an idea of what an ideal client is for Montage.
• 21:57
  Erin: Sure. We've worked for every size law firm. And that goes from a solo practitioner up to law firms with hundreds and hundreds of associates. Most of our clients, the best fit is probably the small firm that started out, you know, from, like, I guess you can say, like, a big firm spin off as an example. Those are our great clients.
• 22:21
  They have excellent work. They have the same training and background as a lot of the attorneys that are in our group, and they have the same types of style. And so they love working with the Montage freelance attorneys. But honestly, we have worked for every single type of law firm. One of my favorite clients, I'm pretty sure he called me when he was walking out of his law school graduation.
• 22:46
  He basically said, hey, you know, I recently graduated from law school, and I'm going to be starting up a solo practice in a very small market. There are no big firms here. Do you have some freelance lawyers who are very well trained who can basically teach me how to be a lawyer? I thought that was completely brilliant. And we've been working with him for probably ten years, just all kinds of different folks.
• 23:12
  And, you know, when you work in a very small area, you get all kinds of different legal questions that come to you.
• 23:19
  intro: There's no such thing as
• 23:20
  Erin: people don't specialize as much. So I've been able to bring all kinds of expertise to him. And he has been such a joy to see grow and just really thrive in his legal practice over the last ten years. So that's a wonderful thing.
• 23:36
  intro: That's a great story. You know, a number of my clients are in rural areas or more isolated sort of areas. And one of their biggest challenges is hiring, especially in the market right now, because there's such a low unemployment rate, especially in the legal field. A lot of people start their businesses or they're employed. And so they struggle to hire people because there just aren't people there for them to hire.
• 24:01
  And it has been tremendous to be able to, for them to be able to work with contract attorneys and fulfill that need. It doesn't resolve the going to court piece. There are other services for that, but to have that, and it can provide a depth of expertise like you mentioned, that you might not otherwise be able to afford as a small firm owner. Give me an idea of some of the practice areas that you've, the roles you fulfill. Are there any that you absolutely know, we don't do that at all, or these are kind of our bread and butter.
• 24:34
  What comes to mind?
• 24:36
  Erin: We have probably done it all up to this point. The most common types of legal practice areas that people come to us with are just general business litigation projects. That's pretty common. And general commercial agreements. That's pretty common.
• 24:53
  You're absolutely right, Divina. It has been very difficult for law firms, especially the smaller firms to hire over the last few years and actually have inside knowledge of about why or some of the reasons. And one of the main reasons is declining law school enrollment. Law school enrollment numbers have been significantly down for the last
• 25:15
  intro: seven years.
• 25:16
  Erin: And because of that, law firms are really struggling to bring in those mid level laterals. And so this helps solve one of the problems that we've discussed previously, which is how do you be a parent when you're working at a big law firm? Well, the good news is a lot of those big law firms have really had to adjust, and they are now providing ways and means for reduced schedules, virtual remote working, other things that are really wonderful and attractive to parents, other folks. It's significantly more flexible than it was twenty years ago when I started practicing. So that has been a very big win.
• 26:01
  The big firms are keeping their people or they're bringing people in on a reduced schedule remotely. That's been amazing. The bad news is that means that those big firms are snatching people from the midsize firms who are then snatching people from the small firms who are then snatching people from the boutiques. And then when you get down to the very small firms, you cannot compete with those big firm salaries and the packages that they're offering now. It used to be like, join the super small firm.
• 26:34
  We're lifestyle, which is fantastic. Everybody wins. Now the big firms get those people too.
• 26:41
  intro: Yeah. It definitely has been something that I've seen a lot in the last few years is working with people with small firms is they're looking around, they're going, where did everybody go? And they and they have people recruiting their people away from them or attempting to. And you say snatching, I say poaching, but that's what they do. I think the pandemic also had a lot to do with this.
• 27:06
  Like, I think it, as a matter of fact, I think it had a lion's share to do with it because up until the pandemic, I think larger businesses, law firms included, couldn't even imagine how people would like, even the thought exercise of how do we get everybody working remotely, wasn't something they even wanted to entertain. Why would we do that? Like, why would we do that when everybody's here, it's been working for hundreds of years or whatever. I think the pandemic forced the issue. And once they saw that it could work, that we now have video conferencing, video conferencing has been around forever.
• 27:40
  I remember in the nineties working for a law firm and they were doing video conferencing, but it was for large firms or international firms or firms that could afford the technology. And now of course, it's much more affordable and everybody could do it. And I think the pandemic really opened up those floodgates. And so all types of businesses were kind of forced into thinking about how are we going to make this work? And then they saw, wait a minute, this actually provides something we didn't even realize that we needed to provide, or we could provide, right?
• 28:12
  Which is lifestyle. And then the work would still get done and it would still be high quality and you would actually have happier employees as a result of some of this flexibility, right? Absolutely. So dropping enrollment in law firms is interesting. I did not realize for the last seven years.
• 28:29
  So I haven't thought about that. But what is your thoughts about why that is?
• 28:33
  Erin: It could be all kinds of reasons. It might be just generational with a lot of the younger students now. They've started realizing that I'm really smart and I don't want to involve myself with a profession that makes money by their time. I don't want to work in a profession that incentivizes working so many, like as many hours as humanly possible. Goals tend to be a little bit different, you know, which is not like it's makes absolute logical sense why they wouldn't want to do that.
• 29:08
  Yeah.
• 29:08
  intro: So I think student loan debt also figures into that as well.
• 29:11
  Erin: Absolutely. Yes. A 100%. So college and law school is a lot more expensive than it used to be. People don't want to be saddled with a lot of debt.
• 29:20
  It's tough. So law firms, like I said, they've had to make some adjustments and they have. They do. I've actually been very, very impressed with what I've seen in law firms do over the last few years. But you're right.
• 29:33
  The technology is there to work remotely. I joke that I've been working remotely since 2009. So, you know, it definitely can be done. It can be done well. I've seen it, I mean, thousands of times over.
• 29:46
  So there's no reason why working remotely can't work in the absolute majority of circumstances.
• 29:52
  intro: Absolutely. Second, technically third law firm was a virtual law firm, and that was in 2011 when I started that. But virtual then meant email and phone calls and things like that. Like there we weren't video conferencing. My clients loved it because they were all over the state of Florida and a lot of them were elderly and they didn't have to travel to meet me.
• 30:12
  So I think we've definitely been headed down this path. And I think women really forged the way because you see so when I surveyed a lot of members of my community, the majority of them tell me the number one reason that they started their own law firm was for the flexibility because they were parents and they needed the flexibility and wanted it and needed something that would work for their lifestyle, but they wanted to be able to use their law degree that they worked so hard for. So I do think women in particular have been innovators in sort of leading this path as more and more women have gone to law school and got out and the women my generation before me were going up the ladder and there was only so far they could go in a law firm. And so you'd have a lot leaving and starting their own. And now we're starting to see women starting their own businesses.
• 31:04
  And it's gonna be very exciting in ten, twenty years to see the impact on the legal industry where you won't pick a typical law firm business and pick the partners page and see all white men over 50 lawyers, you know, which we see now still. So I'm looking forward to the day when we start to see a difference there. And I think it's come where a tsunami, I think it's coming, you know.
• 31:30
  Erin: Oh, I see it all the time. I see it all the time. So many wonderful women owned law firms that are just truly thriving. So many of my clients fall into that category. And it's such a joy to be able to help those firms grow and thrive and exceed their clients' expectations.
• 31:51
  That has been one of our biggest privileges with Montage Legal Group.
• 31:56
  intro: Wonderful. So tell me, because I know people are gonna have questions about the cost effectiveness of hiring freelance attorneys, because I know there are some people, whether it's paralegal service or legal contracting service for lawyers or attorneys, there are people who look at it and they go, well, I pay too much for somebody in a contract who's working for a company and so on and so forth. What's your response to that? What are your thoughts about that?
• 32:25
  Erin: Anytime a law firm hires a contract attorney, they can upcharge that rate to their client as long as it's reasonable. It's ethically permitted under almost every state in The US. I think there's a couple that are outliers. But if a law firm is paying, let's just say, 150 an hour for a contract attorney, that firm can turn around and charge their client double that, triple, whatever is within their market, depending on what that work is. So even if you're only up charging it by not even double, let's just pretend you're only up charging it by a $100 an hour.
• 33:04
  So now you're charging $250 an hour. Well, that's work that you would have had to do. And so maybe you would have made more per hour to do that work, but you've lost the time now. And once you lose that time, you lose the ability to develop business, do marketing, whatever else it is. Time is the most finite resource we have as humans.
• 33:28
  You can't make more of it. It's impossible. The only way to get more out of your time is to bring in more people, upcharge those rates. Even if your profit margin, quote unquote, is small, you're still making money off of that work, which is fantastic. So it's absolutely cost effective.
• 33:48
  No matter what you do, most firms are charging double or more for the contract attorney rate. Yep.
• 33:54
  intro: Have you been impacted at all or had any experiences or thoughts with people outsourcing globally instead of to people in The US? Because I know that there are attorneys in The Philippines, for instance, who work for US law firms researching, writing, drafting, and, of course, that is less anything out you know, outsourced. Have you had any experience with that or any any sort of conversations with any or your clients about anything like that?
• 34:25
  Erin: No. I don't think we've been impacted by it at all. The law firms that come to us come to us because they're looking for US licensed attorney who's been trained in US law firms. If they want something other than that, then they're certainly welcome to find whatever it is that they want or their client demands. I don't have any judgment on them for that.
• 34:48
  Everyone has to make their own decisions. So
• 34:51
  intro: Yeah. Well, I was curious about, well, you know, there are attorneys in The Philippines who are researching, drafting, and writing as of their functioning as paralegals in The US, but they had the skill of being lawyers, right? I was curious if you had had, if any of your clients had ever mentioned that to your discuss it because it's common among small firm attorneys to talk about that as an option. So, I just was giving you an opportunity to address it if it was something that you are aware of, but it doesn't sound like it's anything you really encountered with any of your clients asking you about that.
• 35:26
  Erin: No, not for substantive drafting though.
• 35:29
  intro: Yeah. Interesting. So what else do we need to know about Montage Legal Group in terms of whether we're might be interested in becoming a freelance attorney or whether as a small firm owner, we're looking for resources. What would you say to either of those audiences or both of them?
• 35:49
  Erin: Sure. Well, to become a freelance attorney, we're always very happy to get resumes. If you are interested in joining, you can send your resume to join at montagelegal.com. We're happy to take a look at it and possibly have a chat. For law firms, the main thing that I want everyone to know is that our system is really what I consider to be like a white glove system.
• 36:14
  So we very carefully curate our group. When a law firm comes to us asking for help, you talk to a human. We have a project coordination team. You get a real person that's going to help you. And then we reach out to our group.
• 36:30
  We ask them for interest, availability and rate. And then we provide the firm with a list of options. And it's the firm's decision who they would like to work with. So we do not choose for anyone. And then all of the substantive work is between the freelance attorney and the firm.
• 36:46
  So we're not involved with that part, but it's been a really excellent system that has worked well for the last fourteen years. We have a lot of experience. I'm always very happy to talk to law firms about best practices, pitfalls to avoid, you know, the different tips and tricks that firms can use to maximize the possibility that you're going to have a good experience with someone, and some of those things are somewhat common sense, but other times it isn't. Share one
• 37:16
  intro: or two tips with us right now if you could.
• 37:19
  Erin: Well, the most important thing is to communicate very clearly upfront and ideally in writing, especially about the amount of time that a law firm wants someone to spend on something. Because, I mean, we're all humans. This is an incredibly style and personality driven industry, which means that we all have different ideas about how long things should take, what things should look like. And so the more law firms and freelance attorneys communicate with each other, the better off you're going to be. Same thing with deadlines.
• 37:49
  Don't say something like, oh, take all the time you need. No, no, no. Say when you need it, say how much time you want spent on it. And if the freelance lawyer believes that that's unreasonable or physically impossible, then they should initiate a conversation about it and say, well, you know, this 20 page single space commercial lease is not going to take twenty minutes. It's going to take, you know, six hours or whatever it is, just depending on what the firm needs.
• 38:18
  A lot of times, people, especially as they get more advanced in their practice area, they forget how long things should take or their expectations get a little bit cloudy. And so just having those conversations is really important. The other thing that I always recommend is when you're working with someone new, start small. I know you're busy. I know that you're really hoping this is the magical solution that's going to solve all your problems.
• 38:47
  And maybe it is. That's great. We hope it is. But before you get someone up to speed and have them spend thirty hours like learning your whole file, maybe just make sure that you like them and their work. Yeah.
• 39:04
  Don't introduce someone to your client that you don't know. Maybe you should find out that it's a fit for you first.
• 39:11
  intro: Right, right, absolutely. You're singing my song when you're talking about deadlines because I'm constantly reinforcing with my law firm owner clients that we need to set clearer expectations, whether you're working with an in house team or you're outsourcing, those clear expectations always include a deadline. They always include an expectation of the amount of time that something will take. And yet it is common for law firm owners. I often tell them, you forget you've been doing this for fifteen years or twenty years, what is like reading to you when you're working with somebody who may be not have as much experience with you or they have different kinds of experience.
• 39:54
  You really have to communicate much more clearly. And I think that's where often relationships with contract attorneys can go off the rails is, well, they didn't do it the way that I had envisioned in my head, but failed to communicate to them. And I love your advice about testing a little bit, getting to know people. It's very relationship oriented. I think some people may take the approach of if they're a contract person or a freelance person that it's transactional, right?
• 40:23
  This is a transaction, how are gonna do this thing? I want it done and I get it back. And it really is about just like any other aspect of business, it's about relationship. If you're wanting to get somebody who can help you and be somebody who helps you on more than one thing, it's worth it to take the time and develop that relationship with them because we're all human. You know?
• 40:43
  We all wanna connect on that level.
• 40:45
  Erin: It can be transactional. Like, that's okay if it's transactional. Nobody is surprised by that. It's just that if you really truly want it to be transactional, then just be very clear and maybe give a sample. Yeah.
• 40:59
  Do you want a motion for protective order to look exactly like something that you've done before? Okay. Great. Then maybe give an example of that so the person can do it.
• 41:09
  intro: Yeah. I was gonna ask you another question about that. It was a follow-up, and I went right out of my head. So this is probably that's okay. It's probably a good time for us to oh, I am I was gonna ask is I'm assuming then if somebody's working with someone and it doesn't work out and they don't perform, that you have a backup plan for that.
• 41:28
  There's somebody probably assigned to their account or something that they can go back to and say, this person is not who they represented himself to be or not able to do what I need. I need somebody else. Well, how do you handle that?
• 41:40
  Erin: Oh, sure. Yeah. That happens all the time. Like I said, we're all humans and style and personality. And so if it's not a fit between a lawyer and a firm, then one or both of them will just come back to us and say it's not a fit.
• 41:53
  And then we go back to the group and we do another request and then we send the firm another list of options and they can choose someone else.
• 42:01
  intro: Easy enough. Good. Good. All right. Well, we do need to end.
• 42:05
  So I'd love it if you could share if you want to be a freelance attorney and apply and see about working with Montage Bluebird from that standpoint, Tell us how we can do that. And if you are a firm owner and you're looking for more resources, how can we find out more about that?
• 42:21
  Erin: Either way, you can go to montagelegal.com and there are links there. If you are wanting freelance work, you there's a button that says join, and you can click on that. It'll instruct you to send your resume to join at montagelegal.com. If you would like to hire a freelance attorney, then you can either fill out the web form right there and we will get right back to you. Or you can always email info@MontageLegal.com, and we are happy to get in touch, set up a chat and find out more about your firm and what you need and explain all the rest and happy to help.
• 42:59
  intro: If you want to join as a contract or freelance attorney, is there a fee associated with that for joining or the fees are paid by the hiring company? How's that work?
• 43:11
  Erin: Right. There is no fee to join Montage Legal. Our fee is embedded in the rate that the firm pays. The freelance attorneys set their own rates. Whenever they bid on a project, they set their own rate.
• 43:23
  And then our fee, we add on to that. And then the law firms pay Montage. That's right.
• 43:28
  intro: Do you have any social media accounts that we need to be following?
• 43:32
  Erin: We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram at Montage Legal. We're on Twitter. Same thing at Montage Legal or I'm sorry. It's not called Twitter anymore.
• 43:42
  Whatever it's called now.
• 43:43
  intro: Called X. We're not people are people are saying X formerly known as Twitter. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic.
• 43:53
  Great. Erin, I've enjoyed our conversation so much. I think a lot of people listening are really going to benefit from knowing and learning about Montage Legal. I appreciate you being here to share.
• 44:03
  Erin: Thanks so much, Devina. It's been so great chatting with you.
• 44:07
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