Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

What happens when you realize you did not build a law firm, you built a job for yourself? Tyson Mutrux sits down with Justin Tash, CEO of BTL Family Law and founder of Growth Pilot OS, to talk about what it actually takes to move from doing everything yourself to building a firm that can operate without you at the center of every decision. Justin shares how BTL grew from four people working in a co-working space into a seven-figure firm, the systems that made that growth possible, and the mistakes that created founder dependence along the way.

Tyson and Justin also dig into what AI means for the future of legal services. If knowledge and drafting become cheaper and easier to access, what are clients really paying attorneys for? They discuss attorney judgment, client experience, changing billing models, mastermind accountability, and why law firm owners need to rethink where their real value lives. This episode is a practical look at building a firm around systems, people, and outcomes instead of building everything around the founder.

What You’ll Learn

• How to recognize when you have created a job for yourself instead of a scalable law firm
• The warning signs that you have become the bottleneck inside your business
• Why Justin stopped trying to systemize attorney judgment and focused on removing friction instead
• How building a firm around individual attorneys can create long-term growth problems
• Why mastermind groups and peer accountability can accelerate growth
• How AI may change the value attorneys provide, client expectations, and law firm billing models

Timestamps

00:00 Justin Tash and the journey from a co-working space to a seven-figure firm
04:26 The difference between creating jobs and building a real business
08:51 Building systems when everything lives inside the founder’s head
10:11 Why attorney judgment should not always be replaced by processes
16:12 The mistake of designing a law firm around individual people
17:55 How to know when the founder has become the bottleneck
20:05 Growth Pilot OS, mastermind groups, and founder accountability
29:04 AI, legal experience, client value, and the future of law firms

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Full Transcript: 

Tyson Mutrux (00:00)
Today's guest is Justin Tash, CEO of BTL Family Law. Justin helped build BTL from four people working out of a co-working space into a seven-figure law firm. But I really like the way he describes those early days, which is kind of interesting to me. He says, at first we created jobs for all of us, then we started building a firm. And that's a huge difference between those two things, as many of you probably know. So today we're talking about.

Tyson Mutrux (00:28)
What had to change to turn BTL into a business, the systems they had to build, the things that Justin had to stop doing himself, and some of the uncomfortable parts of growth that we don't talk about enough. And now he gets to do it all over again because Justin recently started a second company, Growth Pilot OS. So we're going to find out what he's doing differently the second time around, what mistakes he's refusing to repeat, and whether building another company has exposed anything he still needed to fix in the first one.

Tyson Mutrux (00:58)
Justin, welcome to the show.

Justin Tash (01:01)
Thank you for having me.

Tyson Mutrux (01:03)
So let's start with this. When someone finishes listening to this episode, what is it that you hope they'll immediately do differently in their law firm?

Justin Tash (01:14)
No.

Justin Tash (01:15)
Well I hope pr immediately they'll they'll decide what they want out of this law firm. Think about what when you started this this practice and you thought this is the way I wanna go. I don't want to work for for somebody else, I wanna run my own practice. Why? W what is what's the end goal ultimately? Do you wanna be the practitioner or do you wanna build a law firm and manage that? 'Cause they're really kind of two different skill sets. luckily my my partners and I

Justin Tash (01:45)
I have more an affin of affinity to business development and I enjoy it more than the practice of family law. and my partners liked practicing more than running the firm itself. So immediately after this episode think about what do you want and then map out what your current firm looks like and then map out a way to get you where you want. But i you can't really do anything until you decide w where you want this practice to go.

Tyson Mutrux (02:16)
So I want to go back to the beginning of BTL. There were four of you, you were working out of a co-working space. What did the quote unquote firm actually look like back then?

Justin Tash (02:29)
Yeah. whoa, we started our firm with

Justin Tash (02:33)
We had like ten grand in cash and a credit card. And and we all had laptops. And we we started in a co-working space. There were four of us in a don't know, twelve by twelve room, and we just each took a wall. And except for one of the the people that was w working with us, they didn't have enough desks in the co working space, so he he was just sitting on the floor. And he we had a brief that we were working on at the time and so he

Justin Tash (03:03)
Was writing the brief in his lap on his laptop. we also didn't have a printer that could really keep up with the demands of then that was a heavy paper exhibits were still in paper really. So we were printing out exhibits in a little box

Justin Tash (03:26)
Laser printer all night long because that's how long it took to print out a hundred exhibits for the trial the next day or that we needed for the trial and stuff like that. So we were there all night, often. And but we quickly realized that it wasn't really sustainable. Yeah we were we didn't qu we were married but we didn't have you know kids and things like that yet. So

Justin Tash (03:53)
While we could stay there all night, it wasn't really sustainable and that's not really the practice we wanted to build to build. Ultimately we knew that we wanted to build something that allowed us the flexibility to still have a life, but also of course provided a stable income.

Tyson Mutrux (04:11)
So I mentioned that line in the intro and it's again, I'll say it again. At first we created jobs for all of us, then we started building a firm. When did you realize that there was a difference between the two?

Justin Tash (04:26)
Well so I I went down the path of business development for the practice and i in many of the books it talks about look at what you're doing. Are you just running around putting out fires all the time or are you and you're you're responsible for everything in the day to day?

Justin Tash (04:47)
Or can you step back? Can you take a break? Can you take a vacation? Are things being handled without you? And then I realized that the firm doesn't exist if we're not keeping our finger on the pulse of it all of the time. And so it doesn't it wasn't really a self sustaining entity. It was a place that we showed up every day and we worked at.

Justin Tash (05:17)
Go a little crazy if they didn't do something all day. but I don't think most people want to be tied to a desk all of the time. They want to be able to live their lives. So we're really it was my continued education in the business development that really highlighted what we had done and where we were headed. And I saw it sort of the

Justin Tash (05:45)
The ramifications of continuing that down that path by the solopreneurs that are you know had longer practices and the solo practicing attorneys and kind of what their lives looked like.

Justin Tash (06:00)
That you know they've been practicing for twenty years and been running their firm for twenty years or so and what their lives look like. And a lot of them tend to look like they're kinda flying by their seat of their pants all of the time. And their offices seem chaotic and stressful. And we thought, you know, if we there's obviously a better way.

Tyson Mutrux (06:24)
I wonder early on, was there something you were personally doing at that point that became just painfully obvious you just couldn't keep doing anymore?

Justin Tash (06:33)
Yeah. it and but it's funny because I've I've come back to doing it now. intake. Intake for our office we we we struggle with all of the time and for a long time I didn't like doing the intake because I was trying to build other th things aspects of the firm and it's such a demanding

Justin Tash (06:59)
Piece of the practice. but I've come back to doing it. and you know, technology has actually allowed me come back to doing it and make it

Justin Tash (07:09)
Make it fit better in my my schedule. Where I like doing the intake for our firm now. It really helps me evaluate the cases prior to coming in to who are the lead attorneys in the office now. making sure that they're a right fit for our firm. We're we're the we're fortunate enough to not have to take everyone that that comes to us and we really have an ideal client that we want to work with. that leads to better reviews, happier customers,

Justin Tash (07:39)
We're making sure that people are kind of aligned with our practice style prior to having them come in. so I distanced myself from intake and then we'd hire people to do it. And now I've come back to doing it, but I've come back in a way where people schedule on my calendar to do the pre console call and then I kind of bet them from there. it's not a I'm stuck to the desk all of the time.

Justin Tash (08:06)
It's just calendared on my schedule and I then I can address it from there. we built our practice to work with mainly professionals in whatever industry they're in. So they're pretty accustomed to to scheduling on people's calendars too. And it also avoids the the phone tag problem and also the problem of

Justin Tash (08:30)
You know, these virtual assistants on phones, you can't get all you can't get in through anybody anyways, so it's easier just to schedule on the calendars.

Tyson Mutrux (08:40)
Can you think back to like what was the first real system that you built that made BTL feel less dependent on the individuals inside the firm?

Justin Tash (08:51)
Yeah. again that probably goes back to to the intake flow. where

Justin Tash (09:02)
Everything used to live in my head and this is how this is how this is done. We do it like this because of X, Y, and Z, right? So I built out a pretty good pipeline of how people progress through the each stage and then what gets it to the the elite attorney. And I can also talk talk to you about what didn't work for us.

Justin Tash (09:26)
I started out trying to really standardize what the leads do. And I built out some pretty good policies and procedures and and for us it just didn't work out. because family law is how I describe it as kind of squirrely. And I can my you know, I can put together a best laid plan of what

Justin Tash (09:51)
Should be done but ultimately it is each case is so specific and while they're all s very similar and they all work through the stages of litigation and you know the petition and ultimately there's some kind of final resolution, whether that be by settlement or trial, but

Justin Tash (10:11)
In between there is where I tried to make it more formulaic and it didn't work out. And all it did was create stress in the office. And so what we did is we backed off that and we started designing around what's most important, right? We designed and that's the attorney's judgment. And so what we now we have is we have

Justin Tash (10:36)
More guidelines for the attorneys. We trust the attorneys and their their judgment and experience more than we trust X, Y, and Z processes, right? So we say this is the goal for the client's experience in our office. How they get there, that's up to you.

Justin Tash (10:55)
And then then we turn around and remove all the friction that we can surrounding that. So we leave the attorney in their judgment, but whatever friction the attorney or the client might be feeling, we've rem re remove that wherever we can. Kind of like the the classic engineering problem where you look at what's required to solve

Justin Tash (11:21)
This problem or what's required to make this piece of machinery work and then leave that and then see what all of this other stuff see if you can remove it and it still work.

Tyson Mutrux (11:34)
So you've been able to actually build this thing to a seven figure law firm and and and you're still growing. I I do wonder, d do you feel like even though on paper you're doing better that things have gotten harder or are they easier? How when when it comes to that, how how are you feeling about the firm now?

Justin Tash (11:51)
So I think it's new new challenges all of the time. so we've we've grown, we've added people, we've removed people, you know, we've scaled past seven figures, which depending on the size of your firm and your practice area is or isn't all that impressive, you know. but I can say that we've also done it with maintaining our s our our core standards. We don't require

Justin Tash (12:18)
High billables for our attorneys. We do it on our our minimum billables are about eighty a month. And so we designed this firm so that attorneys can continue to live lives and not be here all of the time. You know, it it still happens where people are here late at night sometimes. but we designed it with the attorney's longevity in mind and

Justin Tash (12:47)
That makes for better representation in my opinion, and it also tends to

Justin Tash (12:55)
Lead to happier clients in in my opinion. and another thing is is we we keep a close eye on how many active cases the attorneys have and it's lower and higher than some other firms. It's all kind of dependent on what we see historically is needed to get to that 80 hours and the 80 hours for the attorney and then of course provide enough work for the support staff as well.

Justin Tash (13:21)
Want our clients to feel like they have a really hands-on representation and that's been important to us for building that so we have

Justin Tash (13:33)
Rome, we've had 11 people, we're down to six now, and we're con we're thinking about where we want this firm to go now. we are building out our estate planning practice. we're putting a lot more effort into that, and I'm excited about it because it really gives me an opportunity to build in

Justin Tash (13:56)
Real systems in in something that isn't so litigation focused because we were only doing the drafting, but it's not so litigation focused, so it really is system system system system system. But again I've designed it around what's most important is the attorney's judgment.

Justin Tash (14:12)
I know and I I know you've had guests recently too that talk about how AI is going to, you know, impact our industry. And I take the approach of in the building out this new system of again, I wanna leave what's most important is the attorney's judgment and knowledge, right, and their experience. I wanna leave that untouched. but I wanna utilize tools where they're available. So this new system, it's not

Justin Tash (14:40)
Actually all that AI dependent except for scheduling and automated like follow-ups and things like that and then a quality control system that I'm building. But it's not drafting anything if we're still using the same documents that attorneys have been using for decades. And what I've been able to reduce is the friction surrounding the access to the attorney. and how those costs bloat

Justin Tash (15:10)
What is the end to cost for these products and and things like that. So

Justin Tash (15:16)
I left my partner Brian. He does our estate planning in the office. we left him untouched. His workflow is the same as it's always been. it's the same consultation he's always done. It's the same advice and issue spotting and looking for you know issues of capacity under rush. It's the same thing he's always done. It's everything surrounding the process is just easier for everybody and cost me far less. So we're we think that we can offer these these documents at a at a more

Justin Tash (15:46)
Affordable rate for a lot of people.

Tyson Mutrux (15:49)
So you've said in the past that one of the biggest mistakes that owners make is designing the business around themselves as opposed to designing a system. And I I'm very curious about a story that maybe where you designed the firm in certain certain parts around yourself, that you eventually had to completely redesign. Can you think of a time where that maybe that happened?

Justin Tash (16:12)
Yeah, absolutely. we can't so and I I can think about it really in me or any of my partners aspects, right? And some of it is the problem of we put a lot of effort in marketing and advertising into building up everybody specifically, right? and then I had a problem with

Justin Tash (16:40)
Everyone only wanting to meet well let's use my partner Randy for example, right? We put a lot of effort into building her as as an expert in the community's eyes. and then everybody only wanted to meet with Randy. When I had all these other attorneys in the office, they're fantastic attorneys and they do great c casework and

Justin Tash (17:01)
But we built the firm around specific partners. and then it was harder t to get people to go into the other p the other attorneys when you if Randy's caseload was full or something like that. So I think that's an easy example what people do a lot of times at first. And I would if I was completely starting over, I would

Justin Tash (17:24)
I would build up the brand more than I would the specific attorneys. and have the brand no be known for that that specific legal you know, expertise.

Tyson Mutrux (17:38)
Do you how do you recognize founder dependence when you're the founder? Because I think sometimes the owner feels productive and they feel important while everyone else is viewing them as a bottleneck. So how do they recognize it when they're in the

Justin Tash (17:55)
Yeah. I think it's how many times are you interrupted in what you're doing that day? how many problems are brought to you all of the time? How many how many things completely if you if you're constantly feeling like people are knocking on your door or you're getting emails and you're trying to constantly put out fires or or

Justin Tash (18:20)
Things keep constantly stop because it's waiting on your approval. If you look at your inbox and and think and get stressed out about how many things you have to do today, I think those are good signs that your your processes or your firm is founder dependent. and they take it's really hard to let that go sometimes. you know, we've we put a lot of effort into building these practices and you know there are are there are practices they're very important to us.

Justin Tash (18:51)
Kind of accepting that other people do a f are gonna do just fine. It it can be while it's easy to say, no, I trust my team, they're gonna do terrific, it's easy to say that it's another thing to actually let go and do it. So if you are

Justin Tash (19:07)
Constantly being asked questions, or people are constantly needing your input to resolve something, that's that's a clear sign that your your whole practice is dependent on everything you say and that's why you can't you know, you're answering emails in the middle of the night and people are calling you and you're at your kids soccer game and trying to put out fires and and things like that. because you probably haven't given you enough team your team enough latitude to solve these problems for you.

Tyson Mutrux (19:39)
Let's shift gears a little bit because you've done something interesting. I've I'm in a similar boat. I've started a separate company. We've had Maximum Lawyer for several years. And so I've I've been in your s your your shoes before. But instead of just reaching seven figures and saying, Great, we're done, let's just keep growing the firm, you went and you started Growth Pilot OS. And I so

Justin Tash (20:01)
Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux (20:01)
I wonder why become a startup founder again.

Justin Tash (20:05)
I as I mentioned, I really enjoy the pract I really enjoy business development and it's it's all based on personal experience. So I've been very fortunate to have obtained, you know, formal education and I've I've gotten to participate in very high end level mastermind groups and I've done a lot of individual, you know r

Justin Tash (20:33)
Education and I've been able to engage high end executive coaches and I've I'm very fortunate in what I was able to access to build my business. Okay. But I remember sitting in that co-working suite trying to have a business coach come in and say, I I need help. What what do we do? And them sitting across the table from me and them wanting more money per month than I even made in the the firm at all. And you

Justin Tash (21:03)
I I think that lawyers have a w the the wedding ticket problem where as soon as you tell someone that

Justin Tash (21:16)
You're you know, it's a law firm or you're an attorney, the price just tripled on whatever service that they're trying to offer you. And I found that in law firm business development books. I found that anything that I would read that's firm specific seemed to cost more than something that was geared towards a CPA or something like that. when in the end it's all just professional the it's just professional service in the end. but

Justin Tash (21:43)
So that pain of knowing what education I needed to obtain and the barrier price point to not being able to obtain it. Or these mastermind groups, they're they're really great and they don't re they can't be replaced. If you if you can get access to one, go for it. The th but

Justin Tash (22:05)
I also know that they all have revenue requirements. Most of them have revenue requirements. Some are lower, some are like $350 a year in annual revenue, and then some are higher, some are a million a year in annual revenue, and so on and so forth, right? I've learned some of the best things that I've that I can in those. But again, it's all gated behind success that you haven't earned yet to get there. So that's my inspiration. I took everything that I've learned through all this and through my nine years of running and building.

Justin Tash (22:35)
Building BTL our ups, our downs, and I've put it into this system for people to be able to learn. and it's not really geared towards attorney specifically, it's really just geared towards that startup founder, more service-based, but it teaches you the concepts and the foundation that you need to build a business and that will carry you through every stage of building a business.

Justin Tash (23:00)
As you move up, you'll realize that we all have the same problems at different at these different revenue stages. I think it's it's kind of amazing that you hit a million dollars in revenue and then everything stalls or something breaks or you've broken all your systems because now you have too much stress on them. and but these foundational principles of executing the mundane, you know, tracking your KPIs and learning what moves the

Justin Tash (23:30)
Needle throughout. that's all foundational stuff. The changes throughout throughout each layer, right? Each each level of business, but what you're watching changes, but it's all foundational and it's what you need to learn at first. So it's it's all based on a gamification of everything I've learned over the last nine years and brought to people in a way that I think they want to absorb information. I think that people aren't

Justin Tash (24:00)
Getting really used to information really quickly and I wonder how that's gonna carry through through the generations. Are people gonna sit down and and read these these books on business development again or are they just gonna get on chat and say, give me the summary, you know? I don't know. I think that the dedicated will r will read, but I think we have a tendency to want the imate information as quickly as as we can. I know I do.

Justin Tash (24:27)
You know, I'd I'd much rather get a a a summary probably, than than than work through a whole n new course of material. But y so anyways the b it's delivered to a peop to people through a web based app, so that they're learning these foundational skills as they're building and working on their own business. that's I I I'm pretty excited about it, I know.

Tyson Mutrux (24:52)
Yeah, that's that's right. I I agree with you about the masterminds too. That's why that's why we have with Maxim Lawyer, 'cause they're they're super important. more importantly, the is that people take action. That's the thing that's most frustrating. Sometimes you'll see someone can give you the path and you just have to you have to take the path. That's that's that's the most important part of it. But

Justin Tash (25:10)
Did you

Tyson Mutrux (25:10)
Tell Yeah, go ahead.

Justin Tash (25:11)
I'm sorry, there's

Justin Tash (25:12)
There's been nothing more powerful for me as a as a founder than these regularly meeting mastermind groups. people similarly situated in in in business, they're they're ex their experiences the same problems you are, but also more importantly, they remember what you said last month when you when you met, right? They remember that you said I need to call the CPA and get this done. And then you come back the next month and say, I need to call the

Justin Tash (25:41)
CPA and get this done. And then people throw up their hands and say, Wait a minute, you said that last month. It's been thirty days. How long does it take to make this phone call? You know, why are you delaying on this? You know? and that that accountability from who are your peers, not your friends, that's I mean they're you're friendly with your mastermind group, of course. but that accountability from people who are willing and unafraid to push you, that's

Justin Tash (26:11)
Invaluable.

Tyson Mutrux (26:13)
I'm curious, what's something that you thought you had figured out because you'd successfully built the company already, only to have growth pilot humble you all over again?

Justin Tash (26:24)
Yeah, I feel like I'm starting from day one. and it i it's it's really, really humbling.

Justin Tash (26:35)
It's I have my marketing nailed down for, you know, my family law practice here. And now I feel like I'm starting all over with marketing. How do I align with my with my client? am I relying too much on other people's input and not trusting my gut enough? Another thing growth pilot teaches you is to trust your gut. for example, I built out a whole marketing campaign for Growth Pilot, but I relied heavily on what

Justin Tash (27:04)
Said how to market it. Well I ran it and it was completely misaligned. And the more I thought about it and the feedback I was getting and my own results of the search engine like what was being shown so shown on the SERPs and stuff I was being included on

Justin Tash (27:25)
Things that were nothing like my product and nothing like what my c what my customer intent was. And it's all because there was a a a a misalignment of what I'm offering versus what Claude thought I was offering or or chat or whatever, I don't remember which one. But what what thought I was offering. So relying too much on what someone else who seems like they know more

Justin Tash (27:53)
Said and not just tr kind of trusting my gut, but yeah, I feel like I'm completely starting over. I am, but it's a completely completely different industry. And then also that that sort of what is it? It's the imposter syndrome, right? so I'm comfy I'm comfortable and confident here at the firm and what I've built, I know what I'm talking about, right?

Justin Tash (28:20)
But now I've come out and I'm trying to tell other people how to build what they need to build based on these tools. And then it's kind of that, well, who are you to, you know, tell people about this kind of stuff, you know? And then I have to remind myself, well, I've built this firm and I I have marketing nailed down and I also look at growth pilot as a test to see is it does it work?

Justin Tash (28:44)
You know, do do my pr do my processes and and my philosophies do they work? If I c if I can't make growth pilot work, then does what I you know, what I'm w does what I'm saying work. And but, you know, it's just a slower start up and a build and I need to rebuild my credibility in a different area. I'll get there.

Tyson Mutrux (29:04)
So you'd mentioned AI earlier, so let's let's talk about that a little bit. I so I created a Claude skill that i does a phenomenal job of drafting pleadings for us. And I it's something where I previously was a little hesitant. I would have I would have Chad or Claude redraft sections, but I had it do a response to a motion to dismiss the other day and it was phenomenal. So we had I mean we gave it all of our rules for our pleadings, right? And we've plugged in

Tyson Mutrux (29:34)
Like like local rule. Like there's we have all the stuff, all the stuff that it needs to to and and it's got it's got I don't know if you use I think it's ding duff, it's got access to case law, it's got all this stuff, right? It's it's phenomenal. Did a phenomenal job. So if AI can research, it can draft, it can summarize and really handle more of the work that typically junior attorneys traditionally learn from.

Tyson Mutrux (30:01)
Because like that's how they learned. That's how we learned as traditionally as like drafting these documents and all that. I wonder how how do we train great lawyers five near years from now when they're not getting that training anymore?

Justin Tash (30:14)
Yeah. I'm not sure. I think if I was a a new attorney i in school right now, I that's what I'd be most concerned about. That's I t I see AI really impacting two things. I see it impacting billing structures and pricing models. and I see it impacting how people get experience.

Justin Tash (30:37)
Because again it these things they can and will get better at research and drafting. they still have their limitations. If you if you use them in your in whatever your legal research tool is, I think all of them have some kind of AI component to it now. whatever it is, you know that you can manipulate the result, right? depending on how you ask the question or push back on it and and that kind of stuff.

Justin Tash (31:07)
But you could do the same thing with a first year attorney who drafted you know, a memo depending on how you phrase the question and how what responses you gave them, right? 'Cause it's it's this influence kind of a concept, right? but that's how I learned. I learned by drafting memos. I learned by redrafting memos, I learned by you know, getting a page of

Justin Tash (31:31)
Red line doc paper back that was looks like I it's been murdered, you know.

Justin Tash (31:38)
I I learned my I learned a ton from sitting in on consultations with other more experienced attorneys. And but as some of those tools go away, I'm not exactly sure how the newer attorneys or or sub or paralegals too are going to get that experience except for if what they're focusing on is how to use these tools most efficiently. So instead

Justin Tash (32:08)
Of it taking them what I mean if something was supposed to take an hour I it took me three or four. I I'm not sure. but usually you learning how to use these tools themselves so they bring a a a quick a better product.

Justin Tash (32:23)
At first. So that's kind of my thought where that's gonna go is focusing on this is the new technology. I I kind of attr equate it to what if we all just sent physical mail still? You know, that would be ridiculous. I have no idea. I talked to my my partner Brian who's in his sixties and I s I talked to him all the time, like how slow was this practice when you had to mail someone a letter?

Justin Tash (32:50)
And in ways it was probably better, but but maybe

Tyson Mutrux (32:54)
You know, it's funny 'cause I mean I I started

Tyson Mutrux (32:56)
Practicing sixteen years ago and there was it was I I feel like Missouri was pretty quick to to adopt e-filing 'cause in twenty eleven was whenever they started adopting it and they did it in a couple pilot counties. But I remember as a law student walking to the courthouse filing documents and hearing that clunk sound whenever you you s stamp something and

Justin Tash (33:17)
Mm-hmm.

Tyson Mutrux (33:18)
I remember filing lawsuits by mailing them sometimes to different counties.

Tyson Mutrux (33:23)
I don't know. I I is there's something about I did enjoy that time a little bit, but like now it's funny because if you piss me off as an insurance adjuster, I can draft a lawsuit and get it filed in about twenty minutes. So there's something about that too that that I like too. I think there's pros and cons of both. I really do.

Justin Tash (33:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux (33:40)
I think it's it here's the thing. It doesn't matter what it was like sixteen years ago or ten years ago or yesterday. It's changing and has changed already, so it's we have to be ready for it. And so it doesn't really matter.

Tyson Mutrux (33:53)
What it was, right? We can reminisce about those times, but that's it it was what it was. So I I do wonder bec that's it's a good segue to my l next question because I wonder if there's anything changing inside of BTL right now because of where you think AI is headed rather than where it is right now.

Justin Tash (34:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so we are changing a couple things. I am doubling down on making the leads in the firm known for experience in very specific and high level like high I asset so we do family law for predominantly, right?

Justin Tash (34:28)
High asset cases, working with a lot of cases where business interests are at at issue and doubling down as the go-to firm for that expertise, right? Because it's not and I'm I'm putting out the message of what is what do you pay an attorney for? Okay. What AI has done is it's removed the barrier to this

Justin Tash (34:54)
Database of knowledge, right? Eventually the the the the public will have access to what the database of knowledge is, is statutes, case law and and and stuff like that. So before attorneys were the gatekeepers of this knowledge. They knew how to when it was in books at the courthouse, the we the only people knew how to look it up, you know.

Justin Tash (35:16)
But now that barrier is gonna be completely removed. I think it's gonna be gone. And it's also drafting pleadings. And as you mentioned, it's drafting pleadings for you. And you say yours looks great. Well I'm sure that anything that an L LM kicks out for the consumer, especially in the a practice like family law, they're gonna think it looks fantastic. They're gonna think that, man, this is the best thing ever. there's no way they're gonna tell that I'm you know

Justin Tash (35:50)
So it's removed this, what we what we kind of held the information for, right? But what's gonna be left? What's gonna be left is the attorney's specific experience in these cases. And that's what you pay attorneys for. You don't pay us because you know we know the law and we have read the case law, right? You pay us because of our experience throughout our litigation. How are these c how did these cases actually go? You know, Arizona has an attorney's fees statute for family law. well, everyone that calls my office says.

Justin Tash (36:20)
I want him to pay my attorney's fees, or I want her to pay for my attorney's fees. This is their fault. It's not really how it works, you know. but you know, it's our experience, it's what that judge said on a similar case, what that judge ruled on a similar case. That's what you pay the attorneys for. Is so really honing in and doubling down on why do you pay attorneys? It's not to draft pleadings, it's not to look up case law for you, it's to help you navigate this case as best as we think we.

Justin Tash (36:50)
Can to get you to your end goal based on our experience. So doubling down on that, right? and then taking our estate planning side of it and really just seeing where we can remove all friction for the client and just leave that attorney's experience and hopefully r looks like we're gonna be able to reduce costs for the estate planning pretty significantly for people.

Tyson Mutrux (37:12)
So I disagree a little bit with you. not a

Justin Tash (37:14)
Sure.

Tyson Mutrux (37:15)
Whole lot. I disagree with a little bit. I I where I agree with you is like they do sort of pay for experience. Sort of. I I think that they used to pay for knowledge, but the the knowledge is at their fingertips now. Like they can get the knowledge. Like that's the thing. Like knowledge is free, knowledge is very accessible. That's that's fantastic. They are still sort of paying for experience, soaring sort of, but really what they're looking for, they're looking for results.

Tyson Mutrux (37:41)
There's also another part of this that I don't think attorneys like to admit, but here's the other part of it. We're a lot like a lawn mowing company in a in a way, where it's it's a service that they, it's an inconvenience that they don't want to do because they have access to the knowledge now. So they don't want to do a lot of these things. now I I'm gonna take I'm gonna set litigation aside for a second. I'm gonna set because there's a because of the rules of evidence and all that, yes, experience, knowledge, that is a big part of it. So let's just set litigation apart.

Tyson Mutrux (38:11)
But I do think a person could legitimately go and draft estate planning documents fairly simply. do I recommend they do this? No, I think they should still hire hire an attorney to do it. But I just like they hire someone to mow their lawn, I also think they hire an attorney for the just the mere inconvenience of drafting the documents. I do that I do think that that's a big part of it that we don't necessarily like to admit.

Tyson Mutrux (38:38)
But I did I think the reason why I'm bringing it up is I think it's a selling point that we don't use enough when we're talking to clients. Like we this is a this is one of the selling points. Like whenever we're talking to injury clients, they're talking to us, and sometimes they'll just flat out ask, Well, what do I need an attorney for? Because we can't guarantee results, but we'll tell them, like, listen, we feel like we get better results than other attorneys. We feel like we get better results than you would get yourself, but we're not allowed to guarantee that to you.

Tyson Mutrux (39:04)
But one of the main things that what we allow you to do is you focus on getting the treatment you need and we take care of everything else. You just focus on getting better. You focus on getting better, we take care of every everything else. So we're we're handling the inconvenience as a selling point. So although I agree with a lot of what you said, I do I I think the thing that we don't give enough service to is the service part of it, where we can use that as a selling point. And it's not just that you're getting experience. Cause the reason why this is problem is if we keep selling experience and knowledge.

Tyson Mutrux (39:34)
Gonna say, well, then I don't need you because I have Chat GPT and I Claude and I can get this information. So that's where I would say because it is a right now, knowledge is that it's it's cheap, right? It's like drinking water out of a faucet.

Justin Tash (39:46)
Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux (39:46)
It's it's super, super cheap to get. So that's where I I don't I don't have a massive disagreement. I just more my bigger thing is with the industry as a whole, is we we if we get stuck in this whole idea that we are just selling knowledge and experience, we will lose. We will lose and we've got to change the sh we have to shift it quite a bit.

Justin Tash (40:00)
Yeah.

Justin Tash (40:03)
Sure. I don't I don't disagree with you and I think it's just the maybe a a a couple points to to to refine and I can take estate planning because I think it's most on point for it. But so I've stripped away the costs of this to just what is Brian's time. Now why did I do that? Because I what is it what is Brian doing that that ChatGPT can't do yet, right? one, I'm not having chat draft. I'm not having it put in

Justin Tash (40:33)
Together. we're using the same language that ha is tried and true, you know, used all over the place. It's simply it's it's technically the document trap drafting part of it isn't even AI. It's simply just a a a decision tree based on conditional logic, right?

Tyson Mutrux (40:52)
Like f their forms

Tyson Mutrux (40:53)
Basically. Yeah, yeah.

Justin Tash (40:54)
Basically, right. So

Justin Tash (40:55)
We're not really charging we're not really charging for the documents. I'm charging for the two hours that it takes Brian to meet with them, gauge their capacity, make sure that these documents are doing what they need them to do, asking the right questions, you know, looking for undue influence, you know, and then ensuring that they know are all their questions are are thoroughly.

Justin Tash (41:24)
Answered based on their background and information. Can chat do that? Parts of it, right? for now. And so I'm not really charging for documents. I'm charging just what is the his his two hours basically. That's my that's my goal with doing this. and

Justin Tash (41:46)
That's that's pr that's pretty much w I think where everything's gonna go. And then it gets into the conversation of how our attorneys gonna charge too, because these documents, i if this were and so we're launching this pilot in next month, right? and I'm gonna do a a a significant promotion because I wanna see what's the client's experience with it and do they like it, do they like this workflow, are they willing to use it, right? but back to your point too of

Justin Tash (42:14)
Paying for the inconvenience of doing it. I absolutely think people are gonna pay for the inconvenience of doing it. I do that thing I do that all the the time. And sometimes my wife has

Tyson Mutrux (42:23)
We all do. Absolutely. Yeah.

Justin Tash (42:25)
Sometimes my wife has to yell at me too to let tell someone else to do this because I don't know. It's it I just have this opinion that if I spend enough time learning something I can do anything, you know? And it's kind of a downfall of mine maybe. I don't know, but sh she'll wake up and I'll have half the kitchen removed because I watched a YouTube video.

Tyson Mutrux (42:44)
Ha ha.

Justin Tash (42:44)
I could do this. I got this.

Tyson Mutrux (42:46)
You and I have the same affliction. That the the the exact same problem. Absolutely.

Justin Tash (42:52)
But it's also the

Justin Tash (42:57)
Like use the state planning for a an example, you're not gonna know if what you what chat drafted based on is is good for thirty years maybe. Twenty years. You know, you're you're you're looking to have something that important as making sure your family's okay, making sure they avoid all the pains that you intended them to avoid twenty hopefully thirty years from now, you know, or longer or whatever.

Justin Tash (43:25)
But you're you're trusting it to a a new technology at this point, right? where attorneys we should absolutely be using this technology to remove friction and see how we can make products and services cheaper for clients or more accessible. but we shouldn't be you completely removing the attorneys

Justin Tash (43:49)
I an experience. you know, there's a reason that br I mean I guess as of now, chat doesn't have a JD and hasn't you know, obtained one from somewhere that I'm aware of. I mean I don't know that it's not not coming, but document prep has been around for

Justin Tash (44:10)
I as long as I can remember, you know, different programs have you can get a a will in a minute and a half. but what does that will do? I don't know, you know. and I think that so that nothing none of this stuff is truly all that new. It's just more streamlined and easier more accessible to to to the public. but I I do think billing is gonna change a lot. on the litigation side, I'm not sure where that's gonna go.

Justin Tash (44:38)
I look at different business models on how are we gonna progress through like l let's s shift back to family law. well let's say the administrative work or the paralegal work or the first year attorney work, the drafting work is completely taken over

Justin Tash (45:00)
By chat or or some claude or or something like that, a Claude skill. Well, that's used to how we get that used to be how we got paid, right? to draft these documents. Well you can't really charge for them anymore because it took you s a second to draft them. you can charge to read you know. but so there's all that billable time is gone. Now what about what about when

Justin Tash (45:30)
Yeah, so i I have an issue with in family law this this concept of paying for results. It sounds or or paying for y case outcomes and stuff like that. It sounds kind of dangerously close to what is the contingency fee b model. It's not all that dissimilar to me. I think it's just different words. And also family law,

Justin Tash (45:58)
What is a win? That's hard to define, you know. We've got we get plenty of decrees that come in that you should be stoked that we got this, you know, but there's this one sentence in there that makes them feel like the whole world is is lost, you know. Yeah, I don't know.

Tyson Mutrux (46:13)
Yeah, doesn't everybody lose in family law? Isn't that the thing? Yeah.

Justin Tash (46:18)
So what is that? And so what's the answer is okay, we can offer

Justin Tash (46:25)
Can offer services quicker and faster, right? Okay, so what does that mean to keep our revenue up? Well that means we need to offer more services quicker and faster, right? so that means we need more clients. Well I think that you can only remember so many things. I think that there's only so many people's stories in that can live inside your head efficiently and to the detail and degree that you need to be able to help them navigate their their their cases.

Justin Tash (46:55)
And the and so I just honestly I think that family law attorneys hourly rates are gonna go up, up, up, up and because now we now we do everything faster, more efficiently. so whereas I mean that's already kind of a component to it. where the experience the experienced attorney does something in an hour that would take a a lower billing attorney,

Justin Tash (47:23)
Something maybe three hours to do it, right? So that's already kinda built into the a determination on what a a reasonableness of the fee is, right? I think that's what you're gonna see. I think you're gonna see these experienced attorneys billing more than you ever thought.

Justin Tash (47:39)
Attorney in that practice area would be billing. and then I think you're gonna see and that's to account for the loss of billable hours and and on maybe the paralegal side or the first year attorney side or something like that.

Justin Tash (47:55)
Because in the end, I think that we can only take on so many clients. You can't

Tyson Mutrux (48:00)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Tash (48:01)
Adequately represent. and I won't throw numbers out there because I know that other firms have different philosophies than I do. and their their their bandwidth is higher than I think but our firm tries to protect. but

Justin Tash (48:16)
Y y I wouldn't think you you could do I guess six hundred family law ca person caseload, right? I wouldn't think that that's doable, but I don't know. I could be wrong I guess. But that's where that's where I see things going.

Tyson Mutrux (48:31)
I I think that that's right. I think and I hopefully you're right, especially for family attorneys. I hopefully hopefully you're right about that. But we do need to wrap things up. I do wanna mention if anybody's interested in grow growth pilot grow growth pilotos AI, check it out there. Justin, thank you for coming on the show and doing this. Really, really appreciate