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What is your law firm actually worth? And would someone want to buy it? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson Mutrux sits down with Victoria Collier, founder of Quid Pro Quo, to uncover what really determines a law firm's value. After building a seven-figure estate planning practice and realizing she couldn't simply walk away, Victoria transformed her business into something she could sell. Now she helps other law firm owners navigate valuations, acquisitions, and successful exits.

Victoria shares why a firm generating $6 million in revenue was valued at less than $500,000, how owner dependence can dramatically reduce a firm's value, and what buyers are actually looking for. Tyson and Victoria also explore the growing influence of private equity, why recurring revenue matters, and the steps lawyers should take today to build a firm they can eventually leave. Whether you're planning to sell or simply want to build a stronger business, this conversation will change how you think about your firm's value.

What You'll Learn

  • Why revenue and profitability tell very different stories about your firm's value.
  • How owner dependence can make a profitable law firm difficult to sell.
  • What buyers look for beyond financial statements.
  • Why clean financial records and succession planning matter.
  • How private equity and law firm acquisitions are changing the legal industry.
  • Different ways to purchase or sell a law firm, including seller financing and earnouts.

Timestamps

  • 00:00 – Meet Victoria Collier and discover what makes a law firm valuable.
  • 04:53 – Why Victoria realized she couldn't simply walk away from her firm.
  • 14:28 – How law firms are actually valued.
  • 17:42 – The $6 million law firm valued at less than $500,000.
  • 24:41 – Cleaning up your financials before selling.
  • 30:02 – The biggest factor affecting your firm's value.
  • 35:06 – Private equity, legal technology, and the future of law firm ownership.
  • 1:05:27 – Creative ways to buy a law firm, including seller financing and earnouts.

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Full Transcript: 

00:00  |  Tyson Mutrux  Today's guest is Victoria Collier, founder of Quid Pro Quo. Victoria spent 18 years running her own estate planning firm before reaching a point where she knew she wanted out. I'm sure there's lots of people that are in that same experience. That's probably why they're listening to this episode today. There was just one problem. She hadn't built the firm, thinking about eventually selling it, and she couldn't afford to simply close the doors and walk away. So she had to figure out how to get the business into shape, make it valuable to somebody other than herself, and ultimately sell it. Which I'm sure a lot of people are thinking about these days. Today, that's what Victoria does for other law firm owners. She values and sells law firms, which means she gets to see exactly what makes one firm worth buying and another one really difficult to sell. So we're going to get into the numbers today, how law firms are actually valued, what buyers care about, what makes your firm worth less than you probably think it is, and what you should do, be doing. And now, now even if selling your firm isn't remotely on your radar yet. Victoria, welcome to the show.

00:59  |  Victoria Collier  Tyson.

01:00  |  Tyson Mutrux  All right, so Victoria, what are people going to learn by listening to the episode today?

01:06  |  Victoria Collier  I hope if there's one thing that they can take away is that there's a big difference in mindset between bringing home a certain amount of money called income versus cashing out at the end of the day for two or three times that income. And what does that mean when they're ready to walk away or they think they're ready to walk away?

01:32  |  Tyson Mutrux  Excellent. That's that's if they listen to that and that's what the takeaway, then I think it's worth listening to the episode, so perfect. You owned your estate planning firm for eighteen years, which is not a short amount of time. But you said you didn't really think about selling until you hit an emotional wall. Right. Take me back there. What was happening in your life at that time?

01:54  |  Victoria Collier  So what was happening was that I had built my firm up to seven figures. I'd been there for a few year a couple years, and I didn't feel like I could go further. I had tried to get like someone else to come in and manage the firm so I could be the visionary. And a person who I thought would be great at that just kind of ghosted. Not me, but the entire legal industry got out of it. And I was kind of disheartened and I was like, okay, well just roll your sleeves up like you always have and just keep doing it. And that was fine. But then I stepped on stage to give a presentation on Veterans Day, and I'm a veteran, and what I'm known for nationally at the time was incorporating veterans' benefits into estate planning law firms. And so here I am on our big day. About to give a presentation to an assisted living facility. And even before it started, this woman on the front row started heckling me. And I was like, you know, what is up? Although that's the cleaned up version that as to what went through my head. And it was very clear to me that if that's my initial response in front of my perfect type of clients. That I just didn't need to be there anymore. And so and I don't mean on stage. I definitely need to be on stage. Sure. But practicing law in that same way and trying to build a practice. I just wasn't in me anymore to do that, to serve the clients in the way they needed to be served.

03:36  |  Tyson Mutrux  What did she say that hits hit home so hard?

03:40  |  Victoria Collier  gosh, this was back in two thousand and like seventeen or eighteen. And I think essentially she was just upset that she thought that the veterans and the widows were just gonna be honored on that day and not have to sit through a presentation on VA benefits. And so I think she was just saying, We don't wanna hear from her. We just want, you know, our, you know, our medals and our cake. And so I just like, you know, you know. That's what she was wanting.

04:10  |  Tyson Mutrux  Yeah. And you p you probably at this point you've you spent eighteen years of your career sort of dedicated to these people and then you're kinda I don't know. It probably kinda felt like, like this hurts a little bit, stings a little bit.

04:21  |  Victoria Collier  I was actually more upset with the facility who brought me in to do it because they did not position me properly and they did not set it up. And I thought, you know, when you do presentations like this, you're not in control of the room. You're not in control of the message. And really that should have been my takeaway. But when you're an elder law attorney, oftentimes you are not in control of that when you are trying to get in front of your perfect client. So I was just done with all of it.

04:53  |  Tyson Mutrux  So you're like, okay, I'm done. I want to get out. At what point did you realize, oh shit, I can't just close this thing and take the money out of it?

05:01  |  Victoria Collier  Well, that moment, that night, I went home and talked to my spouse and I was just like, you know, I need to be out. And she's like, well, we don't have the money for that. So she was a stay at home mom. I was, you know, providing for the family. My kids at that time were seven, eight years old. And I ended up selling it when they were ten. And so I had to figure out a plan of how can I still make money and Not do this to do it.

05:33  |  Tyson Mutrux  It's a pretty it's a pretty tough situation to be in where you're like, I want out, but I can't get out. And so you gotta start looking at it through the lens of someone that actually wants to buy it. So what were you looking at that point? What did you figure out? You're like, Okay, this is what makes it valuable, this w this is what it makes it makes it n worth nothing.

05:49  |  Victoria Collier  Well, at the time, I mean, people just weren't buying law firms back in two thousand twenty in the way that we see and hear it happening now. And you certainly didn't have private equity coming in or anything like that. And so I didn't even know you could sell it necessarily. I just knew that was the only option I had to figure out. And certainly there wasn't education like this back then either. And so First thing I did was I knew that my books just weren't as good as they needed to be. Sure. As clean as they needed to be. My profit margin wasn't where it needed to be. I had a great team. I had great reputation. We had good cat we had good revenues, let's say. But all the other stuff behind the scenes was messy. And so I hired a professional legal administrator to come in who also had a law degree. So I didn't initially think this is my succession plan. But when I did the personality test for that person, it came back and said basically, she's gonna want to take over your firm. And, you know, the personality tester essentially said it like it was a negative thing. And my first question was, Oh, like you mean Yeah, exactly. Three months from now or three years from now. And he's like, yeah, that's the thing, I don't know. And I said, Okay.

07:14  |  Tyson Mutrux  How'd you find the professional legal administrator? How did you know to hire that person too?

07:19  |  Victoria Collier  So I had been in other legal groups and once you hit a certain revenue level, it's recommended that you start looking at office managers and that's one classification of employee. And then there's professional legal administrators, which is another type. And so, so you know, in the community you just hear things. And so I started looking for that type of professional. And I actually hired a community, a legal organization to help me find somebody.

07:48  |  Tyson Mutrux  Now that you've been doing this a while, do you do you agree with those thresholds, whatever those are?

07:52  |  Victoria Collier  I do agree with the thresholds, but not at the revenue levels that I was at. Got it. I don't know that you necessarily need a C suite professional legal administrator at the one point five million level, which is where I was at. I think an outstanding office manager would do. But it worked out for me because I literally was able to walk away from the business a year and a half before I sold the business, meaning You know, there's l lots of different exits, right? I exit this task where I delegated it to someone else. I don't do that anymore. I exit this role. I no longer do the consultations, for example. I've now put that on somebody else. I exit being the lawyer. Now this other person's being the lawyer. And then ultimately you exit your firm. You don't even own it anymore. So hiring that person, she definitely came in and cleaned up the books. She definitely came in and saved us money and profit went up. And because she was a lawyer. I was able to sell to her. So for me it worked out. But if your question is, would you go out and hire a professional legal administrator if you're planning on keeping the firm at that revenue level? No, I would not have. I would have hired a an outstanding office manager.

09:07  |  Tyson Mutrux  At what level do you think people need to get to hire that whenever it comes to revenue, le that legal prof or professional legal administrator?

09:15  |  Victoria Collier  for me it's about three million dollars. Yeah. I think a great office manager is should be when you're, you know, on the cusp of that million because prior to that, you're still wearing a lot of hats. You might have one or two other staff members that are you're all doing everything, you know, to include, you know, we need a new copy machine or, you know, what phone system and maybe all that's irrelevant now. I mean, I haven't owned my firm in six years. I don't even know that people use those kind of things anymore. But that's the kind of thing that one central person should be doing and I shouldn't be looking at that as the owner of the firm anymore. I shouldn't be, you know, and neither should my parlegal. No. You know? But yet that's what firms do.

09:56  |  Tyson Mutrux  They hire paralegal and they w they want them to do everything.

09:59  |  Victoria Collier  Yeah. Right, right, right. So I think once you're in the seven fifty to a million dollars, it's time to start really looking at office manager. Three million PLA.

10:09  |  Tyson Mutrux  Was there anything that you spent those eighteen years like really focusing on with your firm that you thought was gonna add a bunch of value that didn't really mean anything?

10:18  |  Victoria Collier  Yes, there's one thing in particular that there was at one point I hired an outside marketing person to go out in the community and do a lot of marketing, which I had been doing. I also had another internal marketing person. She went in and out. But I hired him specifically to just go out and generate business in the elder care world and He brought in essentially what his salary was and nothing else. And he was a great guy. He was good, you know, at what he did. What I realized in my market was that there were other lawyers who were doing things that I would never do and that I think, you know, let's just say I hired an ethics lawyer to determine you know, if that's workable. But what I determined too is that sometimes you know, it's not about spending more money on getting out there and bringing it in. It's it's it's servicing your intake and your sales and then your follow-up from there that's gonna actually bring in the most revenue.

11:34  |  Tyson Mutrux  Did you not realize the numbers until after the fact? Until you after you'd kinda hit this breaking point where you're starting to analyze the business more?

11:45  |  Victoria Collier  It's

11:49  |  Tyson Mutrux  More like the marketing, like the marketing or ROI. Yeah.

11:53  |  Victoria Collier  Right. I mean, I wasn't tracking that. When I first started my business in two thousand and three, I had a mentor, Bill Hammond, who is now deceased, but he was incredible. And the first thing I did before I even really had any real clients is I was charting how many calls was I getting, how many of those turned into, you know, consultations, how many of those turned into sales from the beginning. And I was doing it on, you know, a yellow pad of paper like we all did back then. But somewhere along the way you get busy. And somewhere along the way, I did not have like a CRM. I had Microsoft and all my clients were just little folders with their own little names, you know. And so then you get busy and then you're like, hey, things are great. I don't need to chart this anymore. And then I was into it for probably 10 years and I realized other people were systematizing things. Like in my world, Dave Zampano had Medicaid practice systems. And we, you know, I wanted those kind of same systems as he had, but in the VA world, the veterans benefits world. And so he and I actually teamed up together, along with a third partner, Molly, to create Lawyers with Purpose, where we systematized the whole VA stuff. That's when I really started learning. Look, Victoria. You need more than just a system. You need a CRM. You need to s actually start tracking all this stuff again, the way you used to. And so yeah, I was like midway into more than midway into my practice before I really started what I would say, getting my shit back together, you know? Absolutely. I had it together, then I saw success and then I lost it.

13:42  |  Tyson Mutrux  Such a common story. Everyone does it. I remember like starting out it was it was Google Sheets. I had a bunch of Google Sheets and tracking everything. You're just yeah, every single thing you're you're tracking, then you get busy. That's what

13:52  |  Victoria Collier  And now I do law firm valuations and I see all the various things from nothing to the best of the best. And when I say nothing, I mean people that don't even have like an accounting system like QuickBooks where they're literally sending me their bank registry. I'm like, You still write in that? What

14:10  |  Tyson Mutrux  What?

14:12  |  Victoria Collier  I'm like, d and you think you're gonna be able to sell your law firm with that? But anyway, I see the gamut now and the beautiful thing about being in this position is I can see the opportunity for the firms that aren't there yet. So and that's that's positive.

14:28  |  Tyson Mutrux  I like I like the way you're looking at that. Very good. All right. So let's put some actual numbers around this. I'm gonna try to give some people to conceptual have them conceptualize this. So let's say you've got a firm that's doing a million dollars in revenue. And I come to you, I say, hey, listen, I want you to take a look at this firm. Like what's this firm worth? Like what are you actually looking at? What numbers are you gonna be looking at? And that way you can look at your and come to some sort of eventual valuation of it.

14:56  |  Victoria Collier  So it's interesting and not at all surprising that you would say what numbers are you looking at?

15:01  |  Tyson Mutrux  I intentionally asked that question.

15:03  |  Victoria Collier  Yeah, because that's what everybody thinks. It's just a number, right? What's confusing is well which number, first of all. Yeah. And that's the question we get is which number? Is it the gross revenue? Is it the net profit? Is it the EBITDA? Is it the SDE? What is all that? And most people don't even know that there's a difference between any of them. Right. And so and I would say it's all of them. We look at every single one of those. And also we look at your reviews online. We look at your team. And not only do you have one, but how long have they been with you and what do they do for you? We look at the owner. How many hours are you still working? And What are you still doing in those hours? Are you working as lawyer? Are you what are you doing? I'm literally looking at a firm right now. And the owner who's looking to sell, everything looks great on paper as far as profit, as far as team, as far as all the things. And then I get to the question of what do you do? And the owner still works sixty hours a week. Sixty hours a week. That's not full time. That's like one and a half lawyers. So that makes it go down in value, right? Because who wants to step in and be that person? No. Nobody. Nobody. So we look at that. We look at we also look at comparables. This is the real number. It's the comparables of law firms who have actually sold and what was their SDE, what was their EBITDA, what was their gross, and what did they sell it for so we can get the multiples. And so that's the number at the end of the day is the multiple of all of these things. The financials gives you the base number. And then all those other things I list it off either bump you up or bump you down from that. So your multiple goes up or your multiple goes down. So it's both art and science, but it's never just one number.

17:11  |  Tyson Mutrux  No. That's and I'm glad you I'm glad you mentioned that because I knew it wasn't gonna be just one number. I've I've known you long enough and I've seen you've presented at MaxLaw for you've done some trainings before. And there's some other things you're gonna get into as well, I think. But we'll we'll talk about that in a little bit. What do you can you think of the time where like there was the biggest gap? I w I'm I'm asking for a story here, right? Yes. Without revealing any confidences, but who like Give me the story of like the biggest gap between what someone thought their firm was worth and what it was actually worth.

17:42  |  Victoria Collier  So I did a valuation on a great solid estate planning firm and lots of lawyers, lots of paralegal staff, outstanding use of marketing, multiple locations, already using AI. And so we did the valuation and it was in the low eight figures. Okay. But they thought it should be, you know, like at least eight figures more than what we had. Let's say let's say we were around, just to keep it simple, ten million, and they thought it should be closer to twenty, twenty five million. Okay. So double. And primarily because of IP that they had created, but was only using in one area. Right. When you like their own firm. And so, you know, it wasn't tested anywhere else and things like that. And so that's a pretty big gap. Yeah. But I also have, you know, smaller firms that we have valued where so there was this firm and it shocked me. People ask me all the time, Well, can you just tell me off the cuff what you think it is? Well, you would think based on my experience, yes, I could and would. And maybe I could in that range of whatever people call the rule of thumb. But it's dangerous to do so. You know, that's just kinda like going That's

19:13  |  Tyson Mutrux  gonna hold you to it. Yeah.

19:14  |  Victoria Collier  right. And then, you know, it's like going to the doctor saying, Can you just look at me and tell me what I have? You know? So well, I probably could, but no. And so anyway, this firm was making about six million dollars gross revenue. The profit margin was like literally three percent. Wow. And this is with the SDE included. Whoa. Okay. Yeah. And so We came back and the value was less than five hundred thousand dollars. And they were like shocked and I was shocked when I got to the end of it. I'm like, Really? This is not gonna be a great phone call that I have to make

19:55  |  Tyson Mutrux  Were they mad at you? So I wonder.

19:59  |  Victoria Collier  I think they did not trust the result. I can't say they were mad. I don't think they trusted the result. And so.

20:08  |  Tyson Mutrux  What'd they think it was worth, do you know?

20:10  |  Victoria Collier  I think that people get in their head, and I see this very commonly, is it's worth what the gross revenue is coming in the door. But why would a buyer buy something of gross revenue when there's nothing that's gonna be put in their pocket at the end of the day? You know?

20:29  |  Tyson Mutrux  If you think about that example, let's use let's stay with that one. What would you have done and maybe you gave them this advice, I don't know, but what advice would you give them to help fix the numbers so that the valuation was more in their favor?

20:41  |  Victoria Collier  So in that particular firm it was a litigation firm. Mm-hmm. And so they needed to fix their compensation plan to their attorneys. It was just never sustainable to where they would ever profit based on their compensation to their lawyers.

20:57  |  Tyson Mutrux  Now that's interesting. I'm assuming I'm gonna make some assumptions about this firm. This is the type of firm that they like to pride themselves in paying their attorneys well. So they kind of say, hey, we're gonna give we're gonna pay them a bunch of money or they're gonna have they're gonna get some sort of k a portion of every single case kind of a thing. And so they kind of pride themselves in that way. So breaking them away from that model is probably pretty tough.

21:18  |  Victoria Collier  Is extremely tough because then they think that, well, first of all, everyone's gonna leave if we change the model. And we need those people. So they are handcuffed to the people, which makes them handcuffed to the erroneous figure that makes them not profitable. So, you know, so the only people they can sell it to then are the people who work for them.

21:43  |  Tyson Mutrux  True, that's a good point.

21:44  |  Victoria Collier  Right. And Even then it's a challenge. You've got to be able to show that people that work for you, if they're going to buy it, is that not only will you continue to make what you currently make, but that there's something here that you're going to make on top of that. So whatever might be going in the owner's pocket. And in a situation like that, let's just assume there's still the 3% profit, right? They are not going to be able to get a conventional or an SBA loan. So the owner's gonna have to be holding the note for a period of time, generally five to ten years, so that the buyers, the associates, can continue to make what they're making, make a little bit of profit, and service the note to the seller. Mm-hmm. Otherwise it's never gonna work. And so then the seller either stays or just walks away, you know.

22:36  |  Tyson Mutrux  With a note like that though, wouldn't it just be at some point the associates that are the buyers, couldn't they just be like, We're not paying you? Like could like because at that point they've already been running the firm, right? So couldn't they just go like we're taking the clients with us and just not pay the note? I mean, le from a legal standpoint, sure they could probably sue them, but like there's not gonna I mean, they could just take the clients with them, right? Like it's it'd be pretty har hard to enforce a note like that, right? From a practical standpoint.

23:02  |  Victoria Collier  It is if they have the note, then I think that it's certainly legally binding and enforceable and all of the things. And not worth not paying and s and being sued over. I think the answer to your question comes before the actual sale and that is why go through the sale at all? Why don't you just take the clients? Yeah.

23:31  |  Tyson Mutrux  That's right.

23:32  |  Victoria Collier  aah And then the logistics of, well, the seller hasn't sold yet. There may be still some reputation that needs to be maintained. And there's a whole staff, are they coming with you or not? Because they don't know what's going on behind the scenes. So now you've got all your children trying to decide between which parents, because if that happens, the seller probably isn't gonna just close the doors and walk away. They're gonna try to keep at least one or two. Two of the lawyers and maintain what's going on, and then paint the other people as bad people, and then get them blacklisted in the community. You know what I'm saying? So there's a whole lot of can of worms right there that I just wouldn't want people to ever walk into from either. I think what associates generally see, and I'm hopeful that this is what they see, is there's a whole lot of value, if not that profit margin. There's still a whole lot of value to maintaining a firm that is well known, operating, has the referral sources, has the good team. All of that in itself is valuable. It's just what price do you put on it?

24:41  |  Tyson Mutrux  Yeah. Interesting. You just you mentioned the profit margins. I wanted to ask you about that too. So you tell owners to clean up their PNLs and maximize the profit before selling. What does a dirty, quote unquote, dirty law firm P&L actually look like, roughly?

24:59  |  Victoria Collier  So dirty law firm. So P&Ls will have a lot of personal expenses running through. And things that, I mean, we all know the phones, the cars. Sometimes when we go on vis business trips, we take the whole family and we extend it, and yet somehow it's all on the PL. And that's all expected to some extent. But then you've got housekeepers, you've got Airplanes, you've got you know, coaching expenses like I had, like 150,000 in one year, you know. Whoa. Another business owner is not gonna come in and do that. And so all those are ad backs, which all makes sense. But when you start having a lot of ad backs like that, it puts into question the SBA lenders and the conventional loan lenders. Can we trust anything in here? Yeah. You know, I mean, is there really a separation between you and the business? So there's things like that. And then I'm literally, you know, was meeting with a client who wanted to sell the business. And, you know, you hear this where it's like, you know, well, there's so much more except that it came in cash. So it's not on the P&Ls. So now we're not just talking messy. Now we're talking, you know, like bigger problem. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, that's between you and the IRS. What I can tell you is this, the valuation is going to be based off of what's in the P and L's period the end. And when it's positioned to sell, that's what it's going to be positioned as. And people don't buy opportunity. People don't buy cash under the mattress. They buy what they can verify.

26:41  |  Tyson Mutrux  Mm-hmm. So let's say you've got a firm that's running, let's say the coaching, $150,000 in coaching through all the other things you mentioned. To me, the cleanup job is fairly simple in that situation then. So you let's say you give a couple more years of not running those things through. And now you got a clean looking business. So it's a it's an easy fix. It's just like quote unquote easy fix, but it's just so it's just you're gonna have to give it some time, I guess.

27:08  |  Victoria Collier  Well, and that's the issue is people it's almost as if people do wake up one morning and say, I'm ready to sell yesterday. And so they don't want to put in that time. You know? Or they hear messages out there that say it's gonna take ten years. Well, nobody can see ten years from now. I mean, it's hard pressed to get anyone to do one, three, five year goals. Right. Right

27:31  |  Tyson Mutrux  Especially nowadays.

27:32  |  Victoria Collier  Right. So yes, it is a timing thing. And so that's one of the things that I tell people all the time is, you know, have clean books for three years, if and when possible. Now some buyers are gonna want to go back five years, but here recently, and when I say recently in the last three years, I've just seen them going back three years. But when I started this, people were asking for five years worth of stuff. But since COVID, people aren't going back that far.

28:01  |  Tyson Mutrux  What's what's easier to sell a partnership or like a sole proprietorship?

28:08  |  Victoria Collier  that's a hard question. I don't think th that it's easy to answer that. I can say that when there are more than one chiefs in the kitchen, is that I'm like mixing up

28:26  |  Tyson Mutrux  Totally mixing them up, but I get everyone knows what you're talking about, yeah.

28:29  |  Victoria Collier  It's harder to sell when you've got to get two people on the same page to sell at the same time than it is a solo person. And they don't even have to be both lawyers. Oftentimes you've got a lawyer and their spouse who's been a big part of the business for a long time. And often it's the non attorney spouse that is the problem. Interesting. As far as selling it. 'cause the lawyer's ready to go. The spouse is like, but we should get more. We should get more. Because they've been monitoring the books the whole, you know, and so they really feel like it's valued more than what they might be able to get. And people forget that also what goes into not just the value, but what you're able to get, those are two different things. And part of what you're able to get is how burned out are you? How ready are you? And I mean psychologically, financially, emotionally. And, you know, how long are you willing to stay? And not like a transition to hand off referral sources in cases, but are you still willing to stay and do any kind of work? You know? Those things, while if I'm willing to stay for a year or two or three and work, I'm gonna be compensated for that. But also the value that someone's willing to pay for the actual firm is more too than somebody who's not willing to stay at all. Not only are you not getting compensation, but the value goes down to not the value, but what they're willing to pay. Okay.

30:02  |  Tyson Mutrux  Is there one like any like one thing you can see like is there like a common thread among all these sales where doing one thing will increase the value of a firm more than others?

30:21  |  Victoria Collier  I'm going to say yes. And the reason I hesitate, is because I want to say one thing, and it should be the one thing. It's not yet. Yes. Yes

30:31  |  Tyson Mutrux  I love this answer. Oh

30:33  |  Victoria Collier  but it's not yet. So I'll give you the answer you asked, and that is what's the one thing? The one thing is the lawyer cannot be everything. We do have to. Have the firm not so dependent on the lawyer. Period, the end. The owner is what I should say. Not so dependent on the owner, where everyone is still coming to the owner to ask questions about this and that and the other. People are still calling and making referrals to the owner and not the law firm. That really is the number one thing. But I don't want that to be the number one thing. I think as you start getting into ah you know, law firms acting as businesses, actually being businesses, being pursued by private equity. The things that are going to matter the most is your leads. Where are they coming from? How many of them convert into clients? Well, into consultations and then into clients. So what's the conversion rate? It's all about the numbers at that point, which is where it should be. But We can't even get there if all the numbers depend on the owner.

31:49  |  Tyson Mutrux  Okay, so the for the firm that is like the lawyer that is the firm, right? So like what would you recommend that they start transferring away first? Like what can they start offloading off their plate first if they're gonna start this process?

32:06  |  Victoria Collier  Stop answering your own phone. That'd be a good start. Yeah.

32:10  |  Tyson Mutrux  Yeah, that's that definitely is a good stuff.

32:14  |  Victoria Collier  Secondarily bookkeeping. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I still talk to so many law firm owners that still do the books on Sundays, you know, or their spouse does. Because they don't trust anyone else. I get not having someone in your firm do it, but hire a company out there to do it. I'm literally working with a firm right now, solo practitioner, has some staff, but I asked about some of the financial records or something. And she gave me a response and what my response to her response was is, Well, aren't they doing a reconciliation every month? And she's like, Well, I don't know what you mean by that. No. Right. And so someone who does their own books and just gives the person a stack of stuff for tax time, right? And so if your books aren't being reconciled, Conciliated, is that a word? Close enough. Reconciled. You know, have somebody else do your books. So that's number two. So stop answering the phone for yourself and have somebody else do your books. That's number two. Number three, I would say, you know, we can talk about things like answering the emails and all the administrative things, really the administrative things, because you're looking at what's the lowest value of what takes my time, right? And so, and now if you train AI well enough, they can actually do your emails for you as well, if you train them well enough. And so I'd say admin stuff. And then after that, I would say for me personally, it's the lawyer stuff. I would keep the owner still doing the sales if we're building from little to bigger, right? I would then have at least one other person who comes in and does the lawyer stuff, but they don't learn how to do sales.

34:17  |  Tyson Mutrux  Mm-hmm.

34:19  |  Victoria Collier  they're a small piece in the pie. So someone else would be doing sales, someone else I always the way I built my practice anyway, was that the paralegal had the relationship with the clients, not the lawyer. So when you said earlier, or can't they just take all the clients and run away? Not in the way I would be able to firm because they wouldn't have the relationship with the clients. So

34:41  |  Tyson Mutrux  So our case managers are specifically there to build a rapport with the clients. That's they their entire job is calling clients and talking to clients and emailing and texting clients. That's yeah. I that is so true. And you also have a d need to have some ironclad agreements too. But

34:57  |  Victoria Collier  Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah

34:59  |  Tyson Mutrux  Topic for another day.

35:00  |  Victoria Collier  yeah. So then after that then I would say sales, but not the lawyers doing it, but non lawyers doing Love it.

35:06  |  Tyson Mutrux  All right, I'm gonna be very unfair to private equity for a second. Sure. I kind of picture private equity right now as like all these lawyers were in this big castle, right? And we're like, We've we're ready to w go to battle, right? We're we've got our bow and arrows ready to shoot out everything and they're at the gates. They're at the gates. They've already breached in Utah and Arizona, they've sort breached a couple of the walls. But we're like fighting Okay, Puerto Rico down too, right? So they've They've ki breached a little bit. We're like holding, we're we're kind of holding back, ready to fight. But at some point they're gonna get over those walls, right? Like how far, how many years away are we from private equity just flooding into all the markets? Because we've gotta be getting close.

35:51  |  Victoria Collier  I think that they would already be flooding the markets if we had law firms that were ready for them. Meaning it's the law firms that aren't prepared. The private equity's here and they are knocking on everybody's doors. I mean, you can't talk to a lawyer without saying that they've gotten twenty emails just today from private equity. Now let's keep in mind, just like all law firms are not the same, n all private equity is not the same either. There's a lot of resistance from lawyers. As you can well imagine. And that's the one thing that's keeping the water from coming in is still the uncertainty from lawyers, the non-trust from lawyers, all of that. However, I am doing a thirteen series educational webinar starting tomorrow, actually, all the way through the end of the year. And when I put out the topics on my private Facebook group, at least I think three or four people said, talk to me about MSOs. Will you be talking about MSOs, managed service organizations? So I know it's on the mind of lawyers. They're starting to think, hey, what does this look like for me? Not in a bad way, meaning that was not the concept. And so to answer your question directly, I think that it's gonna be three years where it is completely flooded. It's been happening for a long time. It's just been happening at the mega firms. Sure. And now it's happening on the, you know, middle to low market firms.

37:28  |  Tyson Mutrux  I so I've I've I've got a theory. Okay. So let's see what you think about those. I think they're already here. And I'll tell you how I think that they're already here in a way that most people aren't thinking about. So I've been wondering for a couple of years now, why is so much money flooded into legal tech? Like there's still to this day a ton of now they back there's been some backing off a little bit, but there's been a lot of money flooding into legal tech. Yeah. I think the play has been the whole time you flood into legal tech. Legal tech is integrated into the entire system. Then once the walls come down when it comes to private equity, they're already here. So they're already into the system. They've got all the data. They have all they have all the data. The data is here. They've got it. They're they own the data, right? They don't really own the data, I guess, but they're controlling the data at least. So they're already here. So it's just gonna be a really easy transition. They're already in all the case management systems. They're all in all the legal tech. They're just going to easily just transition over and it's going to be, I think it might be kind of bad for us. I don't know. But

38:27  |  Victoria Collier  Let me ask you, am I and what I'm hearing is are you saying that it's the private equity that is getting in through the legal tech? Exactly. And so it's the same companies that are doing the legal tech that you think are then going to be buying the firm.

38:42  |  Tyson Mutrux  I think that was the Trojan horse.

38:43  |  Victoria Collier  Yeah. I think that's a great philosophy, especially, you know, with the movie outfits right now. Putting that on the one with what's it called? The one with Matt Damon in it, that

39:02  |  Tyson Mutrux  Archie, what movie is it? With Matt Damon. You know?

39:06  |  Victoria Collier  I just took my son to see it. I just took my son to see it. It's about the Greek gods and the Trojan horrors.

39:11  |  Tyson Mutrux  I did show my

39:13  |  Victoria Collier  Yes, yes, yes. I mean, it's resurfacing. But I think that your mind is actually more advanced than what private equity is doing right now. I think. Not that you're wrong, I think it's brilliant. They should be thinking of that. But I think that it's the legal tech companies coming in to do this that then they want to sell their legal tech companies for twenty, thirty time Ibita, which you can't get from a law firm. Right. Okay. So I think they're wanting to sell their own companies after they get in and do this. I think it'd be brilliant if they did both. What I'm seeing are private equity firms that want to come in. They're entering the legal space from the beginning. They're used to doing HVAC and, you know, all your blue collar stuff, medical, maybe. And they're testing the waters and they're bringing in their own tech and that's how they think they're gonna slim it down to the law firms. I have not seen the ones I've been involved with yet that are the way you've described it, but I think it's brilliant.

40:20  |  Tyson Mutrux  I saw what made me think about the 'cause I've been thinking about this a long time. I was like, it didn't make sense why so much money was flooding in into legal tech because of AI. I was like, this doesn't make sense because AI is going to gobble up most of these different software companies that have come out with new things. Cause like a company would come up with something like a week later it's gobbled up by another company. So it just didn't make any sense. But like I saw this it was this morning or yesterday. It was like Alpha something CRM or Alpha Something. Giving their CRM away for free, or it was a case management system, not a CRM. So they were like, you can have this for free. And I was like, wait a second. And I didn't have chance to like, I'm gonna look into this and see like what it is. There's gotta be a catch. Right. Like because we've like, so we built our the reason why I know there's a catch, we built our own case management system for our own firm. And I've I've talked about this in the show before. It is the if it were on the market, it'd be the best case management system on the market. I have zero, zero doubt about that because it is really good. There are costs associated with that though. And I couldn't give that away for pe because we here's like we Beck and I talked about with Maxim Lawyer. Should we give this away to members for free? But there's a c there's a cost associated with it, which each new account, there's a cost associated with that. And it wouldn't make sense financially to do that. So why would these why would some company give away their case management system for free? There's gotta be a catch.

41:41  |  Victoria Collier  Of course, somewhere. You know, it's just like when apps first came out and apps were free and then eventually you had to start paying for something. Exactly. From somewhere. But then you're tied to it and you don't want to move all your stuff to something else, so then you start paying for it. You know, I mean I feel beholden to Zoom, you know, and they can raise my rate as the high as they want to, and I still feel like I'm tied to them. Absolutely. So

42:04  |  Tyson Mutrux  We just swit we just switched to phone the you're talking about the phone system. We just switched to Zoom phone.

42:08  |  Victoria Collier  Yeah, I'm on.

42:10  |  Tyson Mutrux  But we really like That's we've s we've we think they're better than Ring Central. I think that they're pretty good.

42:15  |  Victoria Collier  Yeah. Yeah, that's what we've been using for like four years. So

42:18  |  Tyson Mutrux  all right. So you had talked about, not today, but you've talked about before about a lawyer in her seventies who wanted to sell two areas of her practice. You know what I'm talking about? I'll give you some more details in a second.

42:28  |  Victoria Collier  More details.

42:30  |  Tyson Mutrux  it's where she had waited too long, couldn't find the right

42:32  |  Victoria Collier  Yes. I remember.

42:33  |  Tyson Mutrux  and then ultimately she closed the doors. I guess what could she have done five or ten years earlier that would have prevented that from happening?

42:42  |  Victoria Collier  Well, she could have started five to ten years earlier because she contacted me and literally six months was her runway. And I was like, you one area of practice was like estate planning, but not sophisticated estate planning, like the lowest level meaning wills and revocable living trust. Period, the end. And these were for young families that really needed them based on her other type of law, which was like adoption and pretty much adoption. Yeah. So very, very niche, right? And so she in her case, would have done best to hire an associate to then become her successor, which she tried to do. So I wanna give her credit where credit is due. She did try to do that. But it didn't work out, for various reasons. And so then it was like, well, I'll just, you know, I don't want to hire another associate and have this same experience. People spend too much mental energy, I feel, believing that any decision they make for the future is going to turn out exactly the way actions occurred in the past. And I think they limit themselves because of that a lot. And but we do it. And so she's like, Well, I don't wanna hire another associate because you know, it's just not gonna work out. So then she waited until she was six months of I'm ready to leave. The other thing too was that the only other staff member was part-time and it was a family member. So they're gonna leave at the same time. And so what are you actually buying? You know, and so when I approached people in the area that did similar stuff, on you know, pretty much on the adoption side, they're like, Why would we buy that? You know, they gotta go somewhere, they'll just come to us. You know, and that's a philosophy that people hear. I found somebody on the estate planning side that said, I'm willing to learn the adoption side, I want the estate planning side. But then just it didn't happen. Let's let's just say it didn't happen. And then when we're talking, you know, about the options and bringing people in. Tyson, it's emotional for a seller. And, you know, they get all excited when there's a person who could be interested. And then if the interest wanes or they can't qualify for financing because the seller, and I'm not saying the seller required this, but if the seller requires all money up front, you know, then, you know, it's like a roller coaster. Yeah. And they can only take so much of that. And once you've brought in two or three or four that fizzle out for whatever reason, buyer reason, seller reason, then they're like, I'm done. I can't do it. I'd rather just it's not I've heard these terms. It is not worth it to me. I'll just take my last case and close the doors. Yeah. And so what she could have done was insulate herself from having the only other employee being a family member. Could have maybe stopped one practice area beforehand and just maintained the other and then sold that but built it into something that somebody would want to buy. And I would say the estate planning side would have been the stronger one because there's recurring revenue opportunities there and stuff like that. But having a plan, you know, as we talked about before, you know, we create something at Quid Pro Quo for clients that's the one, three, five year strategic plan, you know. Create the plan, execute the plan. So, but don't do it six months before you want to get out.

46:32  |  Tyson Mutrux  So I wonder, I just went through my dad just went through this process. So he sold his he's a mechanic, right? He owned his he'd owned a garage for two decades, right? And but he's I mean, he was a mechanic for fifty years, right? Like he's he's still working. He just had a double lung transplant. So he's not currently working, but like a week before he had his transplant, he was still working. But He went this, and I was, I was surprised by how much he was able to sell his garage for. And like he, because he had there was land associated with it. He had the business, but the buyers seemed to put a lot of value in their customer list. And I it's interesting because my dad didn't actually shut down shut down his garage. He just couldn't operate within the city limits based on their agreement. So he could still do the work in the county at his house, which he still did. It seemed like the buyer was putting too much value on the actual. Customer list. Cause like my client list is really valuable to me. I don't know how valuable it would be to you. So I wonder what your thoughts are on that.

47:34  |  Victoria Collier  Would say that, you know, from a car mechanic place, the multiples are different. And the reason for that is that a mark a car mechanic, you know, they can offer maintenance, you know, like every three months or five thousand miles, you need to be in here doing that. So we can give specials around that. So it's recurring ish, or at least, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? They come back. And it's predictable for the most part. If you're any good at what you do and you stay in front of your client list, right? Lawyers are different. Especially let's say, for example, personal injury, right? Sure. And you know, I mean you get hurt once. You hope you don't get hurt again.

48:25  |  Tyson Mutrux  Never called back.

48:26  |  Victoria Collier  Exactly. You're not out there saying, Hey, go get hurt so I can help you again, you know. Same with, you know, I mean, same with criminal law. Now we know the recidivism rate, so they're likely to come back if you did any.

48:39  |  Tyson Mutrux  Yeah, the you definitely I when I had criminal I definitely had returning customers.

48:42  |  Victoria Collier  Same with family law, you know I mean, divorce. You hope you're not gonna see him again. You might.

48:47  |  Tyson Mutrux  You know, okay, so real quick, the odds I want you people to Google the odds of you having a second divorce if you get a first divorce, it is insane.

48:54  |  Victoria Collier  It is insane. It is insane. But these are these are repeat clients, if at all, right? Whereas you do have firms like IP, Trademark, Estate Planning, maybe immigration, where it is where you can Do the recurring business. Repeat and recurring are two different things, right? And so businesses that have recurring, like client maintenance programs, they're gonna sell for higher multiples than those that have no repeat and/or maybe some repeat. And so that's where the client list becomes important. And how warm are they? So are you contacting the list regularly? Are you in front of them somehow, you know, well, how do they know you versus somehow they went to some seminar and now out there on somebody else's newsletter. You don't have a newsletter, you're not sending it to them. You did the work, but they're getting someone else's newsletter. True. You know? And so that's one thing is we've got to see it's not about just getting the clients. It is about continuing to nurture them after you've completed the services, even if you don't have a client managed program. Back in 2014, I think it was I was looking to buy an estate planning firm in Atlanta and she'd been in business 30 years and all she could say is I don't do any marketing. Everybody is that comes in is basically a client that came in before, but I don't even reach out to them. So they call me because I did services and they love me. Well, I'm not you. And you haven't touched them, you know, in forever. So w how valuable is that list to me? Sure. Not very. It was very dependent on her. You know, and her not even having a relationship, just having done something good. So you know, just like we classify clients, A, B, C, D, E, F, we classify our employees, maybe A, B, C, D, F. We classify the list the same way. A, B, C, D, F. Meaning, how warm is it? How hot is it? How often have I touched it? Do people respond? Like, for example, with my business quid pro quo, we send out a newsletter. How what's our open rate? That's gonna tell you how hot it is, you know.

51:15  |  Tyson Mutrux  Mm-hmm. Excellent. Okay, so I brought up that seventy year old attorney with the two practice areas. Give me the opposite story. Give me the situation where they like the story of the most sellable firm that's ever come to you.

51:29  |  Victoria Collier  Yeah. Well, I mean, they look very different. B and the very first firm I sold was a small firm, but it was very sellable. It was an owner who still worked, but only about twenty-five hours a week doing just lawyer stuff. Had an associate attorney who never wanted to be an owner, so just a great grinder. Had a part time marketing person. Had an office manager and a part-time intake person. So it had all the core members you needed in the firm. Solid every single year was making about the same money, right around $500,000. Every single year the net profit was exactly the same, about $120,000, $130,000. So predictable does not change. Ah

52:24  |  Tyson Mutrux  Love it, yeah.

52:26  |  Victoria Collier  Very easy to sell. And in a practice area which was estate planning, very easy to sell. So I'd say that because it had everything. It was an easy bite to chew for someone buying a firm for the first time. You know, that just wanted to tack onto their own.

52:39  |  Tyson Mutrux  Not ten million dollars yet.

52:41  |  Victoria Collier  No, no. The other, let me think of a different kind that I've had that was very easy to sell. So I had sorry that so many of my examples that are easier actually estate planning, because they are one of the easier practice areas to sell. Although we have sold n a number of immigration firms, we've sold a PI firm, helped a client acquire a PI firm, and also have done family law but and employment. I've sold several employment law firms, but this one's estate planning as well. And this one, you know, I mean, it didn't have so is a the owner, been working for a long time, still put a lot of hours in. And The spouse worked as the office manager, but only coming in to do project to clean things up for like two years, two or three years. Was extremely skilled at doing that and did that, put lots of policies, procedures, everything in place. Right. And then they hired a really seasoned lawyer from another state that came in like within the last year before we sold it, you know, but very seasoned, very well known in the in the United States. And so and lots of, you know, staff that could do some stuff. Great reputation, great profit margin, all of the things. Except that this, you know, the lawyer was kind of new. But the reason why it was so easy to sell is not because the firm looks beautiful. It's because we found the perfect buyer. And sometimes we focus too much on the firm itself, but we have to find the perfect buyer sometimes. And this buyer was a like did a lot of real estate title work and it blended well with the estate planning that they were doing. And so it was a strategic purchase for crossover clients. And they really wanted that client base. So I'd say that one was easy to sell.

54:45  |  Tyson Mutrux  I've mentioned your core four a lot on the show. What are the core four?

54:50  |  Victoria Collier  So you've got to ha have somebody's the face of the firm that brings in so that'd be like marketing. You've got to have somebody that can do the work, that's production. You've gotta have the lawyer legal work. So legal and then I would say sales. You can't yeah, I mean you bring in, but somebody has to sell them. So intake, so marketing, sales, production, and lawyer.

55:15  |  Tyson Mutrux  So it doesn't matter what you call those things as long as they fit in those categories.

55:18  |  Victoria Collier  Correct. Doesn't matter who does those things unless they fit in that category, except for the lawyer. Always has to be the lawyer. Always has to be the lawyer.

55:26  |  Tyson Mutrux  Yeah. For now. We'll see what we'll see what that changes. You I think you're predicting more mergers and roll ups, is that right?

55:34  |  Victoria Collier  I am. I mean I'm seeing it every day. Yeah.

55:38  |  Tyson Mutrux  So that means more we mentioned private equity, that means more money's coming in this space. What are sophisticated buyers seeing in law firms that law firm owners themselves are not seeing?

55:51  |  Victoria Collier  So let me first start if I can and say that the acquisitions and roll-ups are not just gonna be from private equity. You've got lawyers who on a small scale are doing the exact same thing, but they're buying solo practitioners. Except they're not bringing money to the table. They're basically just now having you work for them. I think it's servitude or something. Until you decide you don't want to. And you know, and there's a great model around that. But ultimately, these lawyers are now getting practices in all these states with varying goals. But one of those goals is so that they can then sell their practice that has lawyers in all these states to larger law firms or private equity. Okay. So I don't always want it to feel like it's private equity coming in because small ones are doing it too. But The private equity, what are they seeing in firms that we don't see for ourselves? So you have to understand the private equity space to actually, I think, answer this question. And that is they see that when you can get your business to what they call a platform business, which is making 21, sorry, 25 million EBITDA, which isn't gross, everybody. It's not the revenue, it's the EBITDA. Then they can sell it and they can get out. So what they see is that we can buy a really solid firm that's already solid. We're gonna pay you more multiple than we should based on what other people would buy a law firm for, to get the first one. And then we can tack on smaller ones and pay them more traditional

57:34  |  Tyson Mutrux  Mm-hmm.

57:35  |  Victoria Collier  rates, build quickly, streamline using AI and our systems and everything, get everybody on one platform. Which is where all the cost individually comes from, right? Sure. And then we can sell that. And then that's where they cash out. So they have the resources to be able to scale quickly, whereas we don't. And it's not that we don't all see that. It's just we're not capable of implementing that. And they are.

58:02  |  Tyson Mutrux  Are there specific practice areas that you think they're gonna be targeting?

58:06  |  Victoria Collier  number one right now, they are hot and heavy in the P I space. Hot and heavy. I don't know why, but they are. And if I have anything to do with it, they'll start looking at estate planning next. Yeah. So

58:19  |  Tyson Mutrux  I think that's the one that you could systemize the most. Like it's just like estate planning is. I it's interesting about the litigation w with litigation and PI, because i understand why private equity could come in, but I think that I think California just had a rule where if private e private equity comes in, they cannot make any decision making c having any influence on the decision making of whether to take a case or what decisions to make during litigation, which I think is actually the smart move. It is the smart move. I don't know how you do that though.

58:48  |  Victoria Collier  I think it number one, I think it's the smart move and I think it's essential. I think if we're gonna keep as intended, then they run the business side and we run the law side, they cannot have any decisions on what kind of cases we take and stuff like that. Now I think that's gonna maybe sound contradictory to that is I think we as a firm, like I as a firm, whether I have private equity or not, I can always decide what is the type of case will take. Sure. And what won't I? Let's say I'm a criminal defense lawyer. I personally will never take a child abuse case. Period, the end. Okay. Well, I think that if private equity comes in and buys my firm, I think we can agree that I'm still never going to take sure that case. Now, I think the gray area is if private equity comes in and says, you cannot accept a case that's going to be worth less than $25 million.

59:44  |  Tyson Mutrux  And they're gonna do it. You know they're gonna do that.

59:45  |  Victoria Collier  But I as a lawyer could independently decide that's what I want to as well, right? And so where do you have that line?

59:54  |  Tyson Mutrux  I think the bigger problem is gonna be actually a little deeper in the case. I think the early in the case, it's easier to decide. I think you're gonna have your same rules, whatever. It's harder in the case whenever a c a case turns, right? Sometimes a case turns in litigation. It just does for a variety of reasons. It's that spot where I think we're gonna have a really hard problem with private equity trying to put their thumb on things and the attorney's trying to push back. That's where the issue's gonna be.

1:00:21  |  Victoria Collier  Well, and this is how I see it is at least with the private equity firms that I've had the ability to speak with, is I don't think they're ever going to know what's going on in any one case. I think that they have KPIs, which all firms should have and most firms don't. Yeah, that's right. And I think that's the benefit of bringing them in is actually we get KPIs which we've always should have. But they're gonna look at the KPIs and then decisions are going to be made based on KPIs. So the lawyer is gonna have to start thinking, how am I gonna make those numbers? How am I gonna make those numbers? Now I'm gonna be making a decision, do I take this case or not so I can hit my numbers? Right. But I don't think private equity is gonna come in and say, you need to take this case so you can hit your numbers. It's the lawyer who's gonna have to make that decision.

1:01:11  |  Tyson Mutrux  Interesting. Okay. Last question. So you 'cause I want to bring this back to you. Like you hit that emotional wall, right? And you went back, you said, okay, I gotta get the firm ready and then you end up selling it. And then you went back and you bought a farm and you sold hemp for two years, which I think is we didn't even get to that, but we could that some other day we'll talk about that. Everything that you know today about building something that you could eventually leave. What are you building in your life around today that eighteen year old law firm owner Victoria wasn't thinking about?

1:01:46  |  Victoria Collier  So I'll give you a great example. And that is I actually own, I co-own an ABS law firm in Arizona. Didn't know that. Which just, you know, was approved in 2025. And from the beginning, I have not been the lawyer and I have not been the salesperson. We have two people that operate it. It makes over five hundred thousand dollars in its first year. And you know, so what I learned. From my experience, is start out how you intend to go on. You know, people say all the time, start with the end in mind. And I believe it, I profess it. I can't say I'm great at it because I can't really see the end so much. But I do know that I can begin how I want it to continue, and that is without me being the lawyer. And so I am looking at, you know, where do I want this to be? And where am I now in figuring out what is the gap? Who do I need to be so that I get that result? Who what am I afraid of, you know, that's preventing me from getting there as well. And I'll give you an example. I mean, I personally am looking at buying law firms right now, me personally, not just on behalf of my clients. And so I have to have my very strong buy box. I have to know what is it I want and what is it I don't want. So that I can start in the place I want it to continue, which is never stepping in and being that lawyer. Now all these lawyers, they're already in it. So how do you step out of that if your goal is to sell someday, right?

1:03:25  |  Tyson Mutrux  Your answer is too good, so I gotta ask some follow-ups. It wasn't my last question, I lied to you. All right, couple things. How much should someone be willing to invest in an ABS to make it worth it?

1:03:38  |  Victoria Collier  Well, I mean our costs were not more than fifteen thousand dollars for lawyers fees for the application, I believe.

1:03:48  |  Tyson Mutrux  Why am I investing in the firm itself?

1:03:50  |  Victoria Collier  In the firm itself, well, the beautiful thing for us, Is that we knew we had a client base from the beginning. So we knew we'd profit from the beginning. And so I was willing to invest in the salaries of the two people that had to run it and knew that we would get it. But I think with any business, I don't think it has to do with an ABS. I think with any business, whether you're starting one or buying one, and whether it's traditional or ABS or an MSO, is what are you willing to invest? Enough to get profit off of it. But the question really is, but when? When are you going to get that profit? When you're going to get your return on investment, right? And so, and not just money investment, but time investment. How much time am I willing to put into this? Right. So I had set up for the ABS. I'm willing to work, you know, 20 hours a week for three months to train up the people and make sure we had everything in writing and all that kind of stuff. That's my goal, because I have partners in that, you know, and so I had to make a commitment. They had to make commitments. I am not a tech person. I am not a systems person. So they had to commit to doing the systems. I had to commit to train the people, right? And so that's a very individualized question, I think, answer. Because I also own other businesses, you know. I mean, I can't commit 247 to one business when I've got these three others over here. So I think that's all uniquely individualized.

1:05:27  |  Tyson Mutrux  Sure. Yeah. All right. This really is my last question. Cause I want to ask about you're talking about mm, buying up smaller firms. You know, it could be smaller, smaller, it could be solo firms. Most I think people think of when I buy something, I give X dollars to it. And that's not really how it works with buying businesses. There's a variety of different ways of buying a business. Can you give some of the ways of buying a business that a lot of people wouldn't think about that actually could be pretty favorable to someone wanting to buy a firm?

1:05:53  |  Victoria Collier  Yes. So I'm looking at it from the buyer's perspective here. The traditional way in the past was always I'm not gonna give you any money up front and I'm just going to pay you a certain percentage of revenues that come in based on your list, your phone number and your website. Or, you know, somebody that just calls because they know your name. All right. So that generally has held to be between ten and thirty-five percent of that revenue stream. Now, then there's the, and that revenue stream would be either forever or for over two to three years. Okay. Then there was the, well, I'll pay you a certain amount for your website, your phone number, your brand, you know, your goodwill, and then a percentage of what comes in off your cases. Okay. So these are really solo practitioners for the most part that we're buying into there. And then there's always question, do they need to stay and do anything for any of that to get paid? So then there's well I'm just gonna buy you outright, use conventional loan, SBA. I'm a big fan of the SBA loan, or just money that I have. I'm never a big fan of that. And because, you know, why would you use your own money when there's so many other options? So they pay all or some of it, you know, and that could be you know, you hear out there all the time, share the risk, share the risk. I don't want all the risk. You know, if I pay a hundred percent using an SBA loan, then I'm taking on all the risk and you can just walk away. Where's the goodwill in that? Right. Whereas the seller is like, look, you come in and you know, you want a hundred percent seller financing. So let's say it's a set price. So this is another option, asset price, but it's 100% seller financing on a promissory note. Well, the seller's gonna be like, I don't know you. How do you know? How do I know that you're not gonna tank the whole thing? Sure. You know? Yeah. And so

1:07:59  |  Tyson Mutrux  See my biggest concern, yes.

1:08:00  |  Victoria Collier  right. And so somewhere they're trying to find that balance. And so it's like, okay, well, maybe 50% SBA and 50% seller note, right? And so, but the key there is it's a asset price versus just a percentage off revenues. Then we have the other model which buyers tend to like. I don't like it for buyers or sellers, and that's the earnout model, which is okay, well, I'll sell it for a set price, for example, and I'm gonna get, and let's say it's two million dollars. I'll give you a million dollars cash up front, but I'm only gonna pay you the other million if we hit certain matrix. Okay. Again, I don't know that you're gonna hit those matrix. So from a seller standpoint, we have to make sure that you're still spending the same amount of marketing that we spent. And that your sales closure percentage stays about the same as our sales closure perfect.

1:08:51  |  Tyson Mutrux  The buyer could come in and tank it. Ah

1:08:54  |  Victoria Collier  So the buyer's the one who wants the earnout because they don't want to pay unless they hit certain matrix, but you don't know if they're any good at any of those things when you're agreeing to that. True. But there but that's so the buyouts, sorry, yeah, the earnout is what that is. And then also there's you don't always have to buy a hundred percent. You can just buy in. Like twenty percent or eighty percent, a controlling share. And especially when you're buying out of state and you're not licensed in that state, that can be a creative way, to buy into another state and not be licensed there. It can also be a creative way so that you don't have to give the disclosures to the clients that, hey, we just sold the firm. Instead, you're announcing partnership, which is a better way to transfer goodwill. When you do that. So those are different ways. Love it.

1:09:49  |  Tyson Mutrux  Victoria. I know I asked a lot of you on that question, but I appreciate it. Thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it.

1:09:54  |  Victoria Collier  You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Every law firm has problems that keep coming back. The question is whether you're willing to deal with them now or whether you'll keep paying for them later. In this episode of Maximum Lawyer, Tyson Mutrux shares a surprisingly powerful leadership lesson that came out of a conversation about conference swag bags: You can choose the pain now or the pain later.

Tyson explores how avoiding uncomfortable conversations, overlooking broken processes, and constantly stepping in to rescue your team can quietly hold your firm back. From recurring performance issues to delegation challenges, he explains why solving today's emergency isn't the same as building a business that runs better tomorrow.

What You'll Learn

  • Why delaying difficult decisions often creates bigger problems
  • How to distinguish temporary relief from actual resolution
  • Why avoiding discomfort can shift the burden onto your team
  • How to spot unreliable processes being rescued by reliable employees
  • Why stepping in to fix everything can undermine delegation
  • How to take the next responsible step instead of waiting for perfect conditions

Timestamps

  • 00:30  What conference swag bags reveal about leadership
  • 05:30  Choosing discomfort now versus a last-minute scramble later
  • 07:30  Relief is not the same as resolution
  • 10:35  When waiting is a plan, and when it is avoidance
  • 13:00  Who pays for the discomfort leaders avoid?
  • 13:55  How employees quietly compensate for broken processes
  • 16:20  Setting realistic client expectations earlier
  • 20:00  Fixing a demand backlog versus becoming the process

🎟️ Get your MaxLawCon 2027 tickets: maxlawcon.com

🔍 Vet your vendors: beccaslist.co

Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

[00:30] Tyson Mutrux: Welcome back to Maximum Lawyer. I have a fun one today. So I was in a meeting the other day with Hannah and Becca. We're doing some planning for MaxLawCon.com. Just as a little plug, get your tickets to MaxLawCon.com. That's not what we're talking about today. Um, but we were talking about swag and specifically like the stuff that goes in the attendee bags and how we can make those bags better. Cause we want to, we want to make those way, way better than what they were. And. It's not really where you'd expect there to be a big leadership decision made or have some sort of big leadership lesson.

[01:13] Tyson Mutrux: But in the middle of that conversation, Hannah said something to Beckett, kind of stuck with me. And it really has had me thinking a lot over the last week or so. Because it really, it applies to every, just about every part about running a law firm, which is really kind of interesting. And so let me give you a little bit of context about it. So traditionally, we've allowed vendors to choose their own swag. And they get to pick what they want to give attendees. Some give things, cool things. Some give nothing. Some people put flyers in there. Um, and what happens is they ship, they either ship it to the venue, which is usually what they do, or they bring it with them.

[02:02] Tyson Mutrux: And most of them don't bring it with them. Cause that's, it's a lot of boxes, right? You have a lot of attendees, you have lots of boxes. It's, it's a lot. So you have them shipped. And usually what we're doing is we will actually rent a facility and a lot of times we'll have things shipped to that facility. And then in the days before the event, we'll bring it over to the hotel. And there's a lot of appeal to that approach where the vendors bring the swag. They choose their own merchandise. They handle getting it there. We don't have to select every item ourselves, but like that's that's part of what we're talking about is like changing up completely how we're doing things.

[02:50] Tyson Mutrux: But there's also the other side of the arrangement where things can and do always show up at the last second. And whenever things show up at the last second, what happens? So someone's got to put those things in the bags. And it was funny because The day one of the conference, I went downstairs, I get on there early and I was just I was just kind of kind of go down there and chill. We have a war room and I open the door. I should really knock on the door. Becca opens it and they are frantically like stuffing bags. So because things have arrived late and it's that's a big deal, right?

[03:35] Tyson Mutrux: A lot of it happens. A lot of that happens at the last seconds, especially as someone like as they're trying to get ready for the conference. So. The whole point is the work doesn't disappear just because the conference is about to start. It still has to be done. And so you're trying to finish the bags while you're also trying to finish everything else that needs to happen before the event. It's a lot of stress. And so what we're doing is we're discussing a different approach during the meeting. And so what would happen if we selected the swag ourselves?

[04:14] Tyson Mutrux: We could choose the items that we want. So we want to intentionally upgrade these bags anyways so we choose them ourselves we'd be more intentional with what the attendees receive and offer the vendors some sort of like sponsorship upgrades that include those items as well the way we can deal with it and that's the only way we could do it is if we did it this way um we'd have to we'd have to pass that cost onto this the vendors because it's the the margins are so so thin anyways so it would have to be done that way um and so The whole the whole goal is to give the attendees a better experience and then also more control over the process.

[05:03] Tyson Mutrux: But it would also create a lot more work up front. We'd have to develop the packages. We had to figure out the costs, explain the options to sponsors, really have like those salesy types of conversations. And some sponsors might love it. Others might, might not. Others may hate it. And we'd also be taking on more responsibility for getting the merchandise ordered and then delivered correctly and on time. So we're talking about these trade offs and Hannah says something to back all along the lines of, well, it depends on whether you want the pain now or you want the pain later.

[05:43] Tyson Mutrux: I was like, Oh my gosh. And it was so funny. I was like, that's a really good way to frame this. But what was funny about is as, as Hannah was finishing her, her thought, I waited for her to say something and then Becca to respond. And I was like, I'm talking about this on the show. That was beautiful. That was awesome. Um, so that's why I'm talking about it because, uh, it was really good. It depends on whether you want the pain now or the pain later. Uh, that was really good. Um, Because what we're doing, we were comparing something that required work with something that required no work.

[06:27] Tyson Mutrux: Right. I'm sorry, we weren't we weren't comparing something that required work with something that required no work. We were comparing two different kinds of work is what we were doing. One that involved planning. selling and making decisions earlier. The other involved dealing with uncertainty and assembling bags at the last minute. The work was going to land somewhere. It's going to land somewhere. The question was when it would land, essentially, and what else would be happening when it landed and who would have to handle it. Those are the other things. So that's what I want to talk about today. That's the context as to what I'm talking about.

[07:09] Tyson Mutrux: Because I bet that your law firm probably has its own version of those swag bags. Something you know is going to be a problem, something you've dealt with before, something that keeps coming back. And every time it comes back, there's another opportunity to ask, are we going to address this while we have some room to think? Or are we going to wait until we have to scramble?

[07:36] Tyson Mutrux: Think about that conversation you've been putting off. And relief is not the same as like resolution, right? I want you to think about that. So maybe an employee isn't meeting expectations. Maybe a business relationship isn't working for you. Maybe your team needs a decision from you. And really neither option is especially comfortable for you. And you look at your counter and you think, yeah, You know what?

[08:03] Tyson Mutrux: I'm busy today. I'm not going to deal with it today. And there may be a perfectly legitimate reason for that. You might have a trial coming up. You may have a conference that you had to go to. You might need more information. There might be something genuinely more important that needs your attention. But sometimes the reason is simpler. You just don't want to deal with it. That's usually what it is, is you just don't want to deal with it. And as a master procrastinator, I will tell you, I get that. I feel you wholeheartedly. But the reality is you probably don't want that awkward conversation.

[08:45] Tyson Mutrux: You don't want to disappoint somebody. I don't want to make a decision that creates more work before it makes anything better. Like, that's the big one, right? So the decision happens and you're really creating a lot more work for a lot of people and that it'll get better. That's the decision. That's that sucks. So sometimes you're like dealing with an overflow or something that that's one of those things where you make this decision You know it's the right decision, but your employees are going to have to go through some pain for it. So what do you do?

[09:24] Tyson Mutrux: A lot of us do. We push it off. And for a little while, that works. It feels good, right? Oh, I don't have to think about that for a while. And you've taken an uncomfortable thing out of today, right? You don't have to worry about it anymore. In reality, if you think about have you improved that situation, the answer is no. Or have you really just improved how you feel about your afternoon?

[09:54] Tyson Mutrux: That is yes, right? And those are two different things, right? You didn't improve the situation. You just made your afternoon better. That's all you did. So, again, relief is not the same as resolution. So like in the swag conversation, like keep the old approach might spare us the work of selling a new package right now. But that doesn't answer the operational question. Like how are we going to get the items into the bags without creating the last minute problem?

[10:26] Tyson Mutrux: Like we still have to answer that. But like we also want to upgrade, right? Like that's the other part of it too. We really want to have the swag upgraded substantially. And that's also important. Do we have those difficult conversations now or do we have those difficult conversations later? So I think that's a useful distinction for law firm owners, right? When you postpone something, what actually changes?

[10:52] Tyson Mutrux: What actually changes? Does waiting give you information you don't have already? Or does it create a better opportunity? Because that could be the truth. Or does it allow you to address something more important first? Those are all valid things that could be. Or does it just mean you don't have to feel uncomfortable today? apologize my dogs are barking but that's the glory of uh sometimes but i do think we need to be honest about the reason we're waiting right um because like let's revisit this after we get the numbers is a plan, right?

[11:30] Tyson Mutrux: Or I don't want to think about this right now as something else because those are two different things. Like there are times where like I'll be in a leadership meeting. I was like, oh, I need to I want I need to see the numbers before I make a decision on this. Like you show me because I'll ask the numbers. I don't have those right now. Well, give me the numbers and then I'll make a decision like that is legitimate. Like that is completely and I'm not saying it's legitimate just because it happened to me. I think making decisions based on numbers is really important.

[12:12] Tyson Mutrux: So that is an important distinction. But what's not OK is I just don't really want to think about this right now. Like, I'm just overwhelmed. That's not a that's not a good decision, in my opinion. And so sometimes what we do is we dress up that second one to make it sound more important than what it really is. We say something, we say we need to be strategic or we say the timing isn't right or we say we need to think about it, which thinking about it is actually sometimes important. What information are we actually waiting for?

[12:51] Tyson Mutrux: What would make the timing right? What's the questions or what are the questions that we still need to have answered? Those are fair questions to ask. Because if you already have enough information to take the next responsible step, more time may not be what you need. You may need to be willing to experience the discomfort of taking that next step. All right, let's talk about who pays for the pain later. There's another part of Hannah's observation that I think is probably even more important. The person who avoids the pain now may not be the person who experiences it later. So go back to those swag bags.

[13:33] Tyson Mutrux: Let's suppose we decide we don't want to deal with the work of changing the sponsorship options. Who handles the consequences when the merchandise shows up at the last minute? Who has to stop what they're doing? Who has to rearrange the priorities? Who ends up stuffing the bags? Right. And so there's a different way to evaluate that decision. Like, it's not just like which option is easier for me. It's like it's actually what does this change require from everybody else?

[14:05] Tyson Mutrux: So now in this instance, it would be Becca and Hanna and now and Becca and Hanna later. It doesn't change for this scenario, but like picture a law firm with like recurring performance issues. I think many of you can relate. Every firm at some point has an employee. No firm has a hundred percent track record of hiring. They just don't. We make decisions in hiring sometimes. So picture a law firm with some sort of recurring performance issue and an employee keeps handing off work that isn't complete. Another person catches it, they fix it, and then it moves along. the the owner, you, you know, it's happening, but you keep putting off the conversation.

[14:50] Tyson Mutrux: OK, now, to be clear, the conversation shouldn't necessarily start with blame. OK, we know that we talked about that in other episodes, but maybe the expectations were never clear. Maybe the employee needs training. Maybe the work workload is unrealistic. Maybe the handoff itself is just poorly designed, right? It could be all these different situations. You don't need to understand the problem before you decide what to do about it, though. So avoiding the conversation doesn't help you understand any of those things. It just leaves the next person fixing the work. And from the owner's perspective, everything might look okay. The work got finished.

[15:31] Tyson Mutrux: Client got what they needed. Nothing blew up. It's fantastic, right? But somebody absorbed the problem. That's what you're ignoring. Somebody stayed with it longer than what they should have had to. Somebody stopped doing their own work. Somebody made an extra call or corrected something that should have been handled earlier, okay? So before you conclude that a process is working, find out whether somebody is quietly compensating for the parts that aren't. Because there might be parts that are not working that your people are patching. And there's a big difference between a reliable process and a reliable person constantly rescuing an unreliable process.

[16:11] Tyson Mutrux: Because that part is happening all the time. People are patching things all the time for you if you're ignoring them. And the person might be you. That's the thing. The person, it could very well be you. You may be the one that's staying late, rechecking everything, answering the same questions over and over for clients. Either way, it's worth asking what would happen if... If the rescue stopped. Okay. All right. So let me give you another example. So imagine a client has expectations about their case that aren't supported by the information you currently have, which raise your hand if you've got to have had an unreasonable client.

[16:54] Tyson Mutrux: Yeah. I think we all have. You can have a candid conversation with them earlier. And this is a really important one. That's why I'm bringing this one up. So you can have that candid conversation now. And you can risk losing that client. You can explain what you know, what you don't know, and why you're concerned about their expectations. And that may be very uncomfortable. The client might be pissed off at you, and they may have some questions for you that you probably don't want to answer. You can do all that, or you can avoid the subject and hope it gets better. and you can hope it gets easier, but consider what it could look like later when you're preparing for mediation and the gap between, or trial, and the gap between the client's expectations and your assessment is still there. uh now you're not just discussing the case okay you may also also be answering like why didn't you tell me this before right that's not a fun question to have to answer the early conversation doesn't guarantee some sort of agreement It doesn't guarantee that it's going to be worked out earlier, but it doesn't make the uncertainty disappear.

[18:11] Tyson Mutrux: It gives both of you an opportunity to deal with the issue before you're under the additional pressure. Because if you are now in the middle of prepping for a trial or a mediation or something, or something big, now you're under that additional pressure. Before, you could have... had more time to deal with it now, you are risking maybe losing a client because you're giving them the advice that you need to give them. But you don't have that pressure, right?

[18:43] Tyson Mutrux: You don't have that pressure that you do now. So here's more of the leadership question I want you to sit with. Who is paying for the discomfort I'm avoiding? Is it your team? Is it your clients? Is it you at a worse time? That question belongs in the decision. So you need to choose the work that leaves you better off. That's really, really important here. There's another distinction I want to make with this. So some work gets you through today. OK, other work changes what tomorrow requires. All right. So I'm going to get to what more about what I mean by that in a second.

[19:25] Tyson Mutrux: I do want to let you all know we have the Max Law survey. The twenty twenty six state of the firm survey is out. OK. Make sure it's out for a month. We will run it for a month. Make sure you fill that out now. Take fifteen minutes or less. We've shortened it. We shortened it last year compared to the year before that. So it should take you fifteen minutes or less. We share all the data. We do a live show with all the data. We make it available to everybody. So make sure you fill that out. MaxLawSurvey.com. MaxLawSurvey.com. Really, really important that we can all share this data together and learn about our industry together.

[20:11] Tyson Mutrux: MaxLawSurvey.com. All right, back to it. Back to choosing the work that leaves you better off. So as I was saying, some work gets you through today, and other work changes what tomorrow requires. And both can be necessary, but they're not interchangeable. So let's say demand preparation keeps getting delayed in your firm. So you have this stockpile. I remember back whenever I worked for my first law firm job out of law school. And when we started, there were, I think, fifty. that were just sitting waiting. They were waiting for demands to go out on these files. They actually had physical files that were stacked up.

[20:53] Tyson Mutrux: And me and another attorney just cranked them out in a weekend. It was crazy. But let's say you're at that, right? So demand prep keeps getting delayed. Things are stacking up. So one response might be for you to personally jump in. You go through the files, you send reminders, you ask where things stand, you take over whatever needs to happen to get the demands out. And sometimes that intervention is absolutely necessary. The work still needs to get done. But after you get through that immediate problem, what happens next?

[21:28] Tyson Mutrux: Right. Did you figure out where the process was breaking down? Did you establish who owns each step? Did you identify what information needs to be available before the next person can do their part? Or did you just become the person who makes sure it happens? Because the those lead to very different outcomes and very different businesses. And I talked a little bit about this at the conference. Well, when it comes to when you step in and you override the process, you become the process is what ends up happening. If instead we knew when you you realize, OK, we have a back backlog, we need to fix the process, you fix the process and that situation, you're building a process people can execute on.

[22:17] Tyson Mutrux: In the other where you just step in and do nothing else, you're building a process that includes you checking on everybody. So you are now the process. And that second process may feel effective because things move when you got involved, but your involvement is now part of the requirement. That's the trade-off with delegation too. It's faster to just do it myself. And for this particular task today, that might be true, but going forward, that is not at all true. Make sure when this comes up, you are looking at the big picture, big picture process and looking forward. All right. That is the last thing I really want to talk about.

[23:01] Tyson Mutrux: There's a couple other items that I consider talking about, but I can hold those for another day. That's all I have. Remember to survey maxlawsurvey.com. Also, maxlawcon.com for the conference, June in Las Vegas. Hope to see you there. Have a wonderful week, everybody. We will be seeing you.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

What does it take to turn a traditional legal practice into a scalable business? Tyson Mutrux sits down with Aaron Thomas, founder of Prenups.com, to discuss how he went from handling more than a thousand family law cases to building a specialized legal service operating in 31 states. Aaron shares what he learned about pricing, building systems, working with attorneys across jurisdictions, and making the decision to leave his traditional practice behind.

They also dig into the marketing strategy that helped Aaron generate tens of millions of social media views without relying on venture capital. From podcast appearances and celebrity-focused content to costly Google Ads lessons, Aaron explains why understanding your clients, creating content consistently, and improving conversions should come before spending more money on advertising. It's a conversation about building a firm that can grow without depending entirely on its founder.

What You'll Learn

  • How Aaron built Prenups.com into a business serving 31 states.
  • Why clear branding beats clever business names.
  • How to develop profitable flat-fee legal services.
  • Why Google Ads shouldn't be your first marketing investment.
  • How niche content can generate millions of views and attract clients.
  • How systems can help a law firm grow beyond its founder.

Timestamps

  • 00:00 – Meet Aaron Thomas, founder of Prenups.com
  • 02:41 – Why clear branding matters more than clever names
  • 09:07 – Building a legal business across multiple states
  • 14:40 – Flat-fee pricing and the systems behind scaling
  • 23:37 – Moving from practicing lawyer to business owner
  • 29:31 – How podcast appearances helped grow the business
  • 38:24 – The biggest mistake law firms make with Google Ads
  • 49:09 – Building systems that allow firms to scale

Connect with Aaron Thomas

Instagram

LinkedIn

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Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

Tyson Mutrux (00:00)  Today's guest is Aaron Thomas, founder of Prenups.com. Aaron spent more than a decade building a traditional family law practice, representing over a thousand clients along the way. God help you, buddy. Then he made a pretty big shift. He took something lawyers have traditionally treated as highly customized, one-off legal work, and built Prenups.com, run a flat fee model designed to scale. I think that's a smart idea. We'll get into that in a second. He's also figured out how to market it.

Tyson Mutrux (00:27)  Aaron's content has generated tens of millions of views online, and he's built a brand around a topic most people probably wouldn't expect to go viral. So today we're getting into what we what he learned running a traditional firm, why he decided to build something completely different, what actually had to change to make a legal service scalable, and the numbers and systems behind what he's built. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Aaron Thomas (00:47)  Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

Tyson Mutrux (00:49)  All right, so what are people gonna learn by listening to the episode today?

Aaron Thomas (00:55)  You're going to learn how to market a niche legal practice without VC money.

Tyson Mutrux (01:03)  I like that, I think 'cause there's a lot of VC money flooding into the market right now. So before we get into that, you spent as I mentioned in the intro, you spent more than a decade in a traditional family law firm and you represented over a thousand clients. So that's it's not like you dabbled in it, right? You actually you were in the business, right? You were 'cause there's a lot of people that say, I did personal injury, they handled like a couple of cases. No, you handled family law cases and you did all that before building Prenups.com. So

Tyson Mutrux (01:32)  Take me to the point where you looked at the traditional model and you said, you know what, I I don't want to keep building this business this way. Like what what specifically wasn't working for?

Aaron Thomas (01:44)  Yeah, good question. You know, I wanted to have a specialty in prenuptial agreements for a very long time. There were a couple failed beginnings of that that we can go into if you'd like. But you know, I was always geared towards doing things in like a more modern way. I began my legal career, my family law legal career working for an attorney who was as old school as you could get. Like literally.

Aaron Thomas (02:12)  dictated his letters into, a tape recorder and handed them off to the secretary to type up. We had paper files for everything. Nothing was in the cloud. If I had to do work on the weekend, I had to get in my car and drive to the office to work. And so when I opened up my own practice in 2015, I wanted to do everything basically the polar opposite of that. I wanted everything to be modern. I wanted us to be in the cloud. I wanted to be able to represent modern clients, meet people where they were, and

Aaron Thomas (02:41)  And so I started off wanting to build a prenuptial agreement practice kind of on the side or a specialty to my family law firm. And that first attempt, we called it we nuptial.com. And that's probably the first most important lesson that I learned. Like, don't be cute, don't be clever, just be clear, right? And I knew that that particular version of the prenup practice was not gonna work out.

Aaron Thomas (03:11)  When one of my good friends who was an attorney, he referred me a bunch of work. He was introducing me to somebody else over email and was trying to explain what I did and said, no, no, they're not, they're not prenups at all. They're weanups. They're even better. I thought, I've got a problem. Like somebody who knows me well, who refers work to me, can't explain what I do clearly to somebody else. I've got to build it a different way. And so the second version was Georgiaprenups.com.

Tyson Mutrux (03:39)  Okay. Alright. It's better.

Aaron Thomas (03:41)  Yeah, I went all the way in the other direction. Nobody asked where what I did or where I did it. And then obviously that was the genesis for prenups dot com.

Tyson Mutrux (03:51)  Okay, so we're and so let's talk about prenups.com. I the c I was gonna ask you w something off the air and I said, but let's hold it. I'm very curious. So I'm assuming by the time you got to it, prenups dot com was not available, you probably had to go buy it, right? I had to go.

Aaron Thomas (04:03)  Go buy it.

Tyson Mutrux (04:04)  Okay. What are we talking? I'm very curious 'cause back in that, like twenty eighteen you said? Is that was that

Aaron Thomas (04:10)  It was around twenty twenty one I think that I actually completed the perk.

Tyson Mutrux (04:15)  So URLs the price in URLs went down by twenty twenty one roughly. 'cause I know twenty the the teens URL costs were astronomical. They were getting were ridiculous. Did you get it for a decent price?

Aaron Thomas (04:28)  In retrospect, yes. I got it for I got it for a good price. It took me a year from the time that I reached out through a broker to the owner who was just, you know, sitting on it. Yeah. Until I bought it and they quoted me a price and I thought, that's too much.

Tyson Mutrux (04:42)  What was the initial quote that they gave?

Aaron Thomas (04:44)  Do do you want to guess?

Tyson Mutrux (04:46)  I w I wanna gu yeah, I do wanna guess. I wanna guess that the first one was fifty thousand bucks.

Aaron Thomas (04:52)  That makes me feel good. Really? Yes. I got the I got it for significantly less than fifty thousand. And in retrospect, now I think it's a steep. Yeah. Right. But I at that point I didn't have proof of the model yet. And so, you know, tens of thousands of dollars coming out of your personal pocket is still real money, you know, to spend on a URL with no platform behind it, no audience. But I spent a year.

Aaron Thomas (05:20)  building Georgia prenups and buying up other related domain names. And I finally went back and said, okay, are you willing to give me the same price? And and they were. So I was able to acquire that yeah.

Tyson Mutrux (05:30)  Very nice. And did you use a GoDaddy broker or did you use a another broker? That's exactly what I did. Nice. Yeah. I've gotten some pretty good URLs for pretty cheap using their brokers. It's not, it's not a junk service.

Aaron Thomas (05:43)  Yeah, no, no. They're they're motivated to make a deal happen.

Tyson Mutrux (05:46)  Yeah. I was so I wanted to buy because we're we're doing we're playing with a AI sister firm that we're we're kind of testing out. And call the fox.com is what we got. And it was this this realtor was sitting on it for years, was not doing anything with it, like was not branding or anything. We we've we've got this whole thing that we're we want to brand a fox and things like that. That's where that all ties in. But it

Tyson Mutrux (06:12)  I finally just reached back out through you went through GoDaddy. I think I got it. I I think I ended up paying fifteen hundred bucks for it. And I think that's a steal for call the fox.com. That's a fantastic.

Aaron Thomas (06:22)  A short URL, you don't have to spell it over and over for people.

Tyson Mutrux (06:25)  That's

Tyson Mutrux (06:25)  great. So if anyone's considering using the GoDaddy, you think it's a junk service? It's not. It's I think it was eighty-nine dollars or something like that. Is that what it is? It

Aaron Thomas (06:33)  No, mine was a percentage.

Tyson Mutrux (06:35)  was a it was a percentage. It's like ten percent or fifteen percent or something like that. You're right. Yeah, it was a percentage. Yeah. So not bad. Anyways, back to back to prenups.com. Okay. Why prenups? Why why what is it about prenups? You're like, I want to I want to build a firm around or a a service around this.

Aaron Thomas (06:52)  It was my experience as a divorce lawyer. I got into family law kind of on accident. I stumbled into it. I was a public defender. I enjoyed that work. I was in the courtroom. I felt like a quote unquote real lawyer and a family law firm in town, needed somebody with litigation experience. I got recruited into it. I didn't know the first thing about it. And then I get in and I'm representing, I'm doing, you know, high stakes, high net worth litigation. And

Aaron Thomas (07:22)  Seeing how many divorces spiraled into a two-year six figures in legal fees, sometimes seven figures in legal fees battle that could have been like a conversation at the beginning of the relationship, I think gave me this aha moment that, you know, so many of the problems that broke apart the divor, you know, the couples who I did their divorce could have been resolved.

Aaron Thomas (07:50)  With some smart planning, some conversations, not necessarily I keep everything that's mine, you keep everything that's yours, but just, you know, what's mine, what's yours, what's ours. Right. And at a basic level, I like, I wanted to help couples answer that question fairly at a time when people still love each other rather than on the back end when it's expensive and painful to do.

Tyson Mutrux (08:11)  do

Tyson Mutrux (08:12)  stuff. I I love it. I I think it's I think it's great thinking. You're actually thinking ahead, which I think is I think it's beautiful. I think the the risk resistance I'm assuming is just that, we're never gonna get a divorce. So I they they don't want to think about it. I'm guessing is that's probably the the number one objection you get.

Aaron Thomas (08:27)  Definitely the stigma, about prenups, are we planning the divorce before we even get started? Exactly what you said. But I think that, you know, things are kind of changing in this modern era. People get married later in life, they're a little more established, they've got their, you know, kind of financial life defined to a certain extent. And I think a lot of people today are looking at it more like smart financial planning.

Aaron Thomas (08:54)  let's get clear on the front end so that things move smoothly. And hopefully I'm trying to be a part of of, you know, changing the public perception around prenups doesn't have to mean right you know, you're literally just planning for your divorce.

Tyson Mutrux (09:07)  All right. So you go from this traditional law firm, right? It's you're wearing suits, you're going to court, everything. And then you start prenups dot com, which it's its own company, right? So what does the company look like when you first start it? Like where like how many people you got? Like is it just you? What's what's that look like?

Aaron Thomas (09:27)  It was me and a laptop and a marketer and a marketing assistant. Really, I was trying to figure out how do we turn this into like not a national model, but at least a multi-state model and still obey the rules. And so there were a lot of meetings with lawyers, ethics attorneys, you know, bringing in

Aaron Thomas (09:54)  That help and then seeking out one by one attorneys in the jurisdictions where I wanted to be able to write agreements and selling them on the vision of prenups.com, you know, what this could potentially become. You know, in a world where I think a lot of legal services are gearing towards eliminating the attorney from the process, I wanted to do it where we involve the attorney in the process.

Aaron Thomas (10:20)  I still think that lawyers are of value and have something to offer, you know, especially when going into something that is as consequential and one of those you only get one time to do it right type agreements like a prenup. And so yeah, I mean beginning days it was it was just me and a laptop and and an idea. But obviously it's it's grown a bit over thought.

Tyson Mutrux (10:42)  How did clients find you?

Aaron Thomas (10:44)  so it has changed over years. In the beginning, probably 40% of our clients found us from podcast. I did the kind of the podcast tour. Yeah. I wrote a book and I used that book to get introductions and to get on podcasts and went around and started honing my message. And so a lot of people would find us from YouTube, podcast referrals. Over the years, that has now shifted more towards

Aaron Thomas (11:14)  Searches, Google searches and and more recently AI searches is where a lot of people find us. So

Tyson Mutrux (11:19)  Do you pr do you advertise in every single state?

Aaron Thomas (11:23)  Not in every single state.

Tyson Mutrux (11:24)  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux (11:25)  Which ones do you not? I'm just curious because like that is there are a lot of people that are like, I want a national brand. And then because like we we have slowly our B HAG is to be in every state by 2032. And so we've had to slowly go from because we do personal injury, state to state to state. It's not as simple as I'm just gonna advertise in every state. It's not how that's not how it works. So I'm curious how like how many states are you in? You don't have to tell me every state you're in and you're w which ones you're not, but how many are you in and how many are you not in? I'm just curious.

Aaron Thomas (11:54)  We are in thirty one states.

Tyson Mutrux (11:55)  Thirty

Tyson Mutrux (11:55)  one states. Okay. That's why those thirty one versus the ones that you're not in.

Aaron Thomas (12:02)  Really size of market. Yeah. Yeah. So because we are a limited partnership, we have a partner literally in every place and it makes things a little bit easier, the way that we have things set up. But yeah, we're in the we're in the markets where we think that we can, you know, serve people.

Aaron Thomas (12:23)  sometimes it happened to be where I happened to know a lawyer that wanted to partner up with us. Sometimes we would get phone calls, say, Hey, do do you represent people in this state? And we'd say, Okay, we have a little bit of demand, let's go and find an attorney to partner with us in that location. But yeah, that's how we came.

Tyson Mutrux (12:38)  Yeah, it's a smart idea. I wonder how much the laws in that state affect your decisions too. Cause like whenever we are going into a state, like the order of the states we're going into are based upon their bad faith laws. And so we wanna the best bad faith laws, we're going into those states first. And then the ones that have bad bad faith laws, we those are the last, right? So I wonder how much of the decision making is based on the current landscape of the of the legal landscape.

Aaron Thomas (13:02)  Yeah, that is a consideration for sure. There are certainly states that are, you know, less prenup friendly than others. Ohio didn't even allow postnups until a couple of years ago. So you know, you want to draft agreements that are going to be, you know, upheld and want to have some predictability in the court system. And the good thing is now prenups are available in all 50 states. And whether you're in an equitable division state.

Aaron Thomas (13:31)  Or you're in a community property state. There are certainly advantages to kind of, you know, writing your own rules for your marriage than just us adopting the state default, which a lot of people couldn't even tell you what their state rules are when it comes to their marital finances.

Tyson Mutrux (13:48)  Yeah.

Aaron Thomas (13:49)  And hopefully you never need to know.

Tyson Mutrux (13:52)  That's right.

Aaron Thomas (13:52)  But yeah, I mean, that is certainly something that has, you know, a lot of what we

Aaron Thomas (13:59)  have realized has been after we've gone into the state and we start drafting agreements, we start working across across from opposing counsels. We have our attorney in the state, advising us on, you know, what is customary. And it's one thing to get, you know, words on the paper that seem enforceable. It's another thing to kind of understand the different jurisdictions and like how judges actually treat these agreements on the ground, whether people are favorable to them or not, what kinds of extra steps, you know, does having a prenup mean that you

Aaron Thomas (14:26)  circumvent the entire divorce process altogether, in which case we can communicate that as, as a selling point to people, or is it you're gonna have to go through basically the same litigation and this is just going to be your backstop. So

Tyson Mutrux (14:40)  I'm I noticed on your website you've got like the three tiers I think for pricing, which I think is cool. Back in the beginning, is is that how you had it or what were you charging back in the beginning? Like

Aaron Thomas (14:49)  Way too little.

Tyson Mutrux (14:51)  anyway, two thousand bucks or a thousand dollars.

Aaron Thomas (14:53)  Yeah, yeah. Way back in the wee nuptial days, I think we were charging a thousand bucks for an agreement. As we moved up the sophistication.

Tyson Mutrux (15:02)  By the way, that was awful.

Aaron Thomas (15:05)  Yeah. And and then, you know, obviously you get pulled into, you know, some pretty hairy agreement.

Tyson Mutrux (15:13)  And you're stuck at a thousand dollars.

Aaron Thomas (15:16)  And you're

Aaron Thomas (15:16)  stuck at a thousand dollars and you realize the person on the other side of this negotiation has been paid, twenty-five times since you've been paid for that same negotiation. So yes, it made sense to split out into different tiers. And some jurisdictions require there to be two attorneys on the agreement, like California. Other places don't. So we have kind of tiered pricing for is this gonna be a negotiation? Are you basically just

Aaron Thomas (15:43)  You've already agreed and it's like the prenuptial version of an uncontested divorce where we're just drawing up paperwork that matches what you've envisioned in your mind, or is this gonna be like a true negotiation we're starting from scratch?

Tyson Mutrux (15:55)  So and then the pricing now I it's I if I remember correctly, I looked at last night, was it five, ten and fifteen? Is that what the pricing is or tell me if I'm I'm wrong probably but what

Aaron Thomas (16:05)  So

Aaron Thomas (16:05)  we're we're a deal compared to what you had in mind. We're thirty five hundred flat fee for our standard okay agreement. The negotiated tier, there's an attorney on the other side, goes to five thousand and then platinum, which is defined by income and net worth figures, is ten thousand and up. And so we'll we'll meet with people who have you know, kind of like very bespoke, very specific needs, high net worth, and quote them something, but that tier starts at ten.

Tyson Mutrux (16:29)  Gotcha. I knew it was a ten and a five. I couldn't remember what the other was. So very good. All right. So you you took prenups.com and you were like, okay, we're gonna make this a flat fee service. And I wonder what what you had to do when it comes to systems and processes to make something like that work at the beginning. So d walk me through that part of it.

Aaron Thomas (16:49)  Yeah. So the the flat fee was important to us because I had a traditional billable hour family law firm. When you're doing family law litigation, you kind of have to well, I won't say that because there are people who have successfully split up the pieces of the case and, you know, kind of do it like you know, a la carte style. But

Aaron Thomas (17:15)  I knew that that was one thing that was annoying for clients and also annoying for us as lawyers to keep track of. So I knew I wanted to have a flat fee model and to be able to bring people in by advertising. We wanted this to be something that was going to scale. And so having flat fee makes it easier both for our attorneys and it makes it easier, I think, for the clients to have, a set amount going in, especially our clientele who are paying money for, a wedding very often and have a lot of other expenses associated with this period of their life.

Tyson Mutrux (17:44)  How much of it were you able to streamline? 'Cause I know that you were you wanted to have an attorney involved. You have that 'cause having that attorney's judgment part of it, 'cause do think if you're gonna spend that much money, they're gonna wanna talk to an attorney and involve the attorney. So what percentage of the process would you say you were able to streamline where it's like automated and things like that?

Aaron Thomas (18:03)  Everything that we can. Yeah. We try we try to automate. We have become very good friends with we have our booking with Calendly. You know, the kind of the tech stack is we've got Calendly in there. We use the Google Suite, we use document automation software, we use Zapier, we're big we're a big Slack family as well. So everything kind of, you know, automates to give an alert so that we're not guessing on the back end in terms of

Aaron Thomas (18:32)  what what needs to happen next, bringing in the state partners, you know, allowing them to review, work with the clients. Everything we have systems for, you know, everything all the way to, you know, the thank you gift being sent out at the end of the process. So nice. Yeah. We want to have as little guesswork as possible.

Tyson Mutrux (18:51)  Was there anything going in you're like, Okay, we're gonna standard standardized this across the practice and then it just didn't end up working?

Aaron Thomas (18:59)  Yeah, yes. I think the drafting of the agreements, you know, when you think about a preenup, you might be thinking, how different can they be from state to state? And that I think is where having attorneys on the ground in each location was super valuable to us because you can have words on the paper that by the law, by the statute of whatever state you're going into, this looks like it should be enforceable. It checks all of the boxes, you know, like.

Aaron Thomas (19:27)  We check whether the state is signatory to the Uniform Prenuptial Agreement Act. So there is a Uniform Prenuptial Agreement Act that

Tyson Mutrux (19:35)  Did

Tyson Mutrux (19:35)  not that's surprising. That may be the most s surprising thing to me in this episode so far.

Aaron Thomas (19:39)  Yeah, that that most states have adopted or adopted a piece of. So even, the enforceability triggers are pretty standardized across states. But when you get to working with the attorneys in these states, the family law community is relatively small. People are used to agreements looking a certain way. So trying to keep the ethos and you know the idea of our model, but also make it flexible enough to match what attorneys are used to seeing in that state.

Aaron Thomas (20:08)  You want to match what judges are used to seeing in that state. So that, when an opposing counsel looks at the agreement for the first time, they're like, they're not like, what am I, what am I looking at here? And so that is something where, you know, at the beginning, I think we underestimated how difficult it would be to, you know, go across jurisdictions. But now our philosophy is every time we go into a new state, we're gonna build up kind of our our model in terms of even how the agreements look in in terms of

Aaron Thomas (20:36)  how the clauses are ordered to match what the customs are for that particular state.

Tyson Mutrux (20:42)  It's so funny. I think that's probably the most overlooked thing. It's gotta be because we didn't realize how much like the different terminology people use from state to state change. Like for example, like with bad faith stuff, some states say extra contractual, some say extra pol or excess policy. Like it's just different terminology that you have from state to state and every state has got their own little bit of tweaks, you know, which I think is i in it kind of interesting.

Aaron Thomas (21:06)  Totally, totally. So some places call it alimony, some people call it spousal support, some people call it spousal maintenance, right? And then same thing, some people will call it visitation time with kids. And if you go to the places, they'll be offended that you're not calling it parenting time. Visitation, you don't visit your own children, you know, and you can you can actually offend somebody, you know, in the middle of a negotiation just using the terminology that is, you know, kind of the default for your location.

Tyson Mutrux (21:32)  And ex it like it screams written by Google or by AI, you know, so you don't wanna you don't wanna have that look. So that's really good. All right, let's talk about some numbers again. You you started with, you know, pricing terrible, right? And you finally figured it out to a certain point. So I wonder, I guess what went into the calculations when it comes to the actual pricing?

Aaron Thomas (21:55)  working backwards from what it would cost to deliver the service while paying the attorneys that work with us top of market rates. So we didn't want to, you know, certainly, and I don't think any law practice, hopefully, wants to just be the cheapest, right? That can't be the only selling point. And so we kind of reverse engineered our pricing from

Aaron Thomas (22:22)  obviously you wanna be able to keep it fair, you wanna be accessible, especially if you're trying to reach a large market. But you also wanna be able to say that your attorneys are being paid well, that they're motivated, that you can go out and recruit the best talent for it. So yeah, really the cost to deliver.

Tyson Mutrux (22:37)  I do wonder, did you all sit down and actually do the calculations? It's gonna take this much time roughly on average. It's gonna did you do all that work, I wonder?

Aaron Thomas (22:44)  Yes, and it was probably worthless in the end. Because, you know, like what battle plan, you know, survives encounter with the enemy, kind of thing. You can come up with all of the numbers. It's it's also why I'm I'm like very skeptical of extensive business plans. You know, more than like a couple pages written down on paper, you're probably fooling yourself.

Tyson Mutrux (23:08)  Completely. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of the the people that teach business plans, they teach two pages. That's all it needs to be. And if it's more than two pages, it's not, it's not right. So I think you nailed it. I think you're a hundred percent. Like that's why like the whole napkin business plan. Yeah, like it you want to make it simple, right? You don't want to make it overly complicated. I think that makes complete sense. Yeah. So you started, it started with Aaron Thomas and a laptop and a marketing team, right? And I wonder what at what point

Tyson Mutrux (23:37)  Did prenups.com stop being dependent on Aaron Thomas exclusively?

Aaron Thomas (23:42)  good question. I mean, it is it has evolved. So twenty twenty one is when I got the URL and we started it. So it's been about five years now. Twenty twenty two is when I closed down my traditional family law firm. So went full time into prenups. And I would say it has really been in the last two years that we have expanded in a way where I'm not the person who is, you know, being involved in the drafting of the agreements.

Aaron Thomas (24:13)  the meeting with the clients, except for, some like will make myself available for, you know, some cases people know me individually or have been referred to me by somebody I have a good relationship with. But otherwise, I am now, you know, in in terms of my duties in the business, probably 10% lawyer and 90% business owner, with a heavy portion of that 90% being on the marketing of the business.

Tyson Mutrux (24:39)  When you close down the traditional firm, how did that feel?

Aaron Thomas (24:46)  I mean, it was logistically not as difficult as you would think, but psychologically and emotionally, a huge, huge move. You know, you get into this career and you really start to identify yourself as a lawyer, you know. And in fact, not only was I a lawyer, you know, in my mind, but the part of the law that I thought I was best at.

Aaron Thomas (25:14)  was being in the courtroom, thinking on my feet and, arguing in front of a judge or a jury. And so there was definitely a bit of, you know, I'm taking away the thing that like I actually do the best to pursue something that is never even going to put me in the courtroom. So that was difficult. The you know, transitioning all of my team, the lawyers and paralegals and other staff people who work for my firm. Luckily they we had a great reputation.

Aaron Thomas (25:44)  in the community and everybody had multiple offers of people looking to recruit them on board. But it was it was a big deal. It was definitely a burning of the boats moment for me.

Tyson Mutrux (25:57)  That terminology. We I did an entire episode on about burning the boats. But you got a ring, you're married, okay, you've got a young child, seven. Yep. And I wonder you did this at a time whenever that child was very young. You're it's she's already she, right? Yes. Yeah, she's already young. Now she's seven. So back then she would have been what five, six two, two, three, right? So

Tyson Mutrux (26:24)  What'd your what'd your spouse think whenever you did this?

Aaron Thomas (26:29)  Yes. None of this would be possible without a very supportive spouse. She's also a lawyer. She does different type of work. And when I approached her with the idea of, hey, I think I might, you know, I might shut down the practice, I might wind it down by the end of the year, and her response to me was, How about by the end of the month? Whoa. And exactly what I said. I said, Whoa, wait, where did that come from?

Aaron Thomas (26:57)  And her response was every time I've heard you talk about this this prenups idea, you're excited, you're on fire for it, you're lit up about it. And you know, the divorce practice, it was good, it's been good to my family. I, you know, am happy for the work that I was able to do for people. But like you mentioned in the intro, you participate in a thousand divorce cases, and that might be enough for a lifetime. Yes. You know,

Tyson Mutrux (27:23)  Thank you.

Aaron Thomas (27:24)  no one ever says

Aaron Thomas (27:25)  Why didn't you keep doing that? Everyone's like, so I guess I assume that was plenty. Yeah,

Tyson Mutrux (27:30)  Yeah.

Aaron Thomas (27:32)  yeah. So she has been amazing and supportive throughout it, and I think is, you know, now the beneficiary of the lifestyle that it affords us because I'm no longer on the courtroom calendar. I came here straight from, you know, a parent-teacher conference and I'll be picking my daughter up from school this afternoon and

Aaron Thomas (27:52)  building a practice around the life that we've built, rather than, you know, fitting my personal life into what's left over after running a stressful litigation practice is, you know, is a trade on make again.

Tyson Mutrux (28:06)  You don't look like some you someone's been litigating, so it's good. That's that's a compliment because you know how people that have been litigating for years, they got the look, right? They got the look. You don't have that look. You got out beforehand. So that's that's fantastic. I I do wonder, was there ever a time where you're like, This isn't gonna work? I got I'm gonna have to go back.

Aaron Thomas (28:27)  yes to the first part. Yeah. There's definitely been times when I thought, you know, this isn't gonna work. The the whole Google ads experiment, you know, dropping tens of thousands of dollars into Google Ads only to find out that it might not work for your model is tough. You know, going through different outside marketing companies before I brought basically all of our marketing in-house. And

Aaron Thomas (28:57)  working with people that maybe aren't on the same page or aren't qualified to do the kind of work that you're doing. I mean, the entire thing has been a real learning journey for me. You know, and a lot of what we were doing was, you know, we didn't have a huge budget to just flood the market with ads everywhere. We're not buying TV spots and that kind of thing. So we really had to do grassroots, you know, going around.

Aaron Thomas (29:27)  Doing talks, giving speeches, doing podcasts,

Tyson Mutrux (29:31)  You did podcast early on. I was wondering why you did podcasting early on, because the podcasting doesn't seem like it'd be a great model to do, but I understand now it makes sense. You were trying to get free media for because prenups.com is it's a branding play, right? That's that's part of a like that's why you go and get prenups.com. You don't get georgiaprenups.com, you get prenups.com. You got to get that it's a branding play. So you were you're getting some free media, which is brilliant.

Aaron Thomas (29:59)  Yes, and and on top of that, I think because it's this topic prenups that has a lot of stigma to it, are you going to change somebody's mind about some about something that they have these like deep, you know, misconceptions about in like a 30 minute a 30-second spot, a 60-second spot? But having a podcast where I could sit down and talk for 30, 45, 60 minutes with someone and lay out, you know, my journey about like how I saw.

Aaron Thomas (30:27)  People wasting all this money on divorces and how, preventable it is and how it can actually be a good thing because it forces you to have these important financial conversations. That's a journey that you take people over over the course of a half an hour, 45 minutes. And so when people are done with that, they feel like they've been educated. We've we've helped them, get past the stigma and understand, how a prenup can be a vital, you know, an actual help to their relationship. And so, and on top of that.

Aaron Thomas (30:56)  You can repurpose the clips from the video, as I'm sure you know. You can have an hour-long conversation and that becomes five, ten clips for social media. So you can take kind of your best spots and drop them here on social media: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn.

Tyson Mutrux (31:13)  we're not even recording this. I'm just no, absolutely. I think that's a brilliant model. I'm curious what markets did you choose to go into? And then how did you get in? How did you do the outreach when it comes to because getting on an episode on a on a podcast is not what it used to be. I remember because we did we've been doing this for 10 years, right? At the beginning, you could get on anybody's podcast. It was easy, right? It is not easy.

Tyson Mutrux (31:40)  It's like we we get people pitching us every single day and it's like, no, it's because they're always trying to come on a pitch something. 2021 was probably near the end of when you could probably start to do that. So I'm wondering, how were you able to get onto these onto these podcasts and how did you choose the market?

Aaron Thomas (31:58)  so I did a lot of work to try to make myself an interesting guest. I got a couple podcasts early where I just lucked into them and kind of stumbled into them. A friend was having a pod, you know, was doing a lawyer podcast, wanted me to come on there. And and I actually went out and I worked with a a branding company. I'm a big fan of coaching, of recognizing that I don't know everything and go and find people to specialize.

Aaron Thomas (32:27)  I hired a publicist to help me when my book came out so that they could make introductions, got a lot of podcasts from that. And then once you get kind of a few under your belt, then it's a lot easier to go and say, Hey, I'll make a good guess, I'll show up early, I'll give some good points, I'll try to be engaging. And one thing leads to another. And you know, what started off as me just trying to get

Aaron Thomas (32:55)  a podcast placement here there, all of a sudden, six months in, all of the offers started coming to me. And I didn't have to keep doing the outbound outreach to the podcast. People hear you on another podcast, they invite you on, and one thing builds on another. And then, you know, Entertainment Tonight is reaching out and said, Hey, come, come, come talk to us. And then once you have some of those brand names under your name, I think you're more of a proven quantity and you know

Tyson Mutrux (33:25)  Just a snowball. I wonder how many how many podcasts have you been on up the up to this point, do you think?

Aaron Thomas (33:31)  I think about eighty. I'm somewhere in the eighties. Good.

Tyson Mutrux (33:33)  Yeah. It's pretty good.

Aaron Thomas (33:34)  Over over about three years.

Tyson Mutrux (33:35)  It's interesting. I can I can tell that you've been on podcasts before because you it you wait for the question. You have good responses. You got long responses. So you anyone that's taking notes on how to do a podcast, that's you're doing a great job. So really good. All right. So you we we've talked about the beginning of this thing. We've talked about you know, a little bit of the struggles and everything. I I wonder how how do you feel it's going now? Is has it met your expectations?

Aaron Thomas (34:04)  Yeah, it's exceeded my expectations. And I don't know that I had a lot of expectations. But I am super excited for where the business is going. I think that you know, the podcast circuit was a great way to launch it or for someone who has a niche practice to go out and find audiences that may be receptive to what they have to say. But for the scale that we're trying to reach, it's not gonna be enough. So

Aaron Thomas (34:34)  moving into, a lot of people finding us from Google, a lot of people saying that they found us from Claude or ChatGPT. It's pretty cool. Is cool. And I think that's the direction where a lot of people are gonna be seeking out their legal services. And so that is also the roadmap for our future as a company.

Tyson Mutrux (34:51)  How are you doing content now? Are you doing any any of your own content?

Aaron Thomas (34:55)  Yes, yeah. So probably the most successful content that we do is came from an idea I got from this branding program, which the advice I got was find something that people are already interested in and then find the overlap with what it is that you are trying to trying to market to people, right? So prenups wouldn't seem like the easiest thing in the world.

Tyson Mutrux (35:19)  I don't out the top of my head, as soon as you said that, you explained it perfectly. I was thinking football players, anytime there's an NFL season on, I could talk about prenups and why it's important if you're an NFL player. I I know the mo the moment you said it, I bet you could do a bunch with it. Absolutely. Yeah.

Aaron Thomas (35:32)  So every Friday we have my celebrity divorce or celebrity marriage or celebrity prenup reaction video. And there's no shortage of celebrity marriages or divorces to talk about. And I think it is relatable to people because the characters are people that they recognize, people that they know. And some people do things correctly, some people, you know, make some pretty big mistakes in these areas. And so

Aaron Thomas (36:00)  being able to explain that to people and and of course people love the, the celebrity gossip stuff. And it gives us an angle to educate a bunch of people who otherwise are not gonna stop and pause on an Instagram reel of a family law.

Tyson Mutrux (36:17)  Sure. So here's what's interesting about your content versus other content. There's a lot of what I would call like TikTok lawyers, right? Where like they talk about all types of lawyering, right? It could be it could be criminal stuff, could be prenups, it could be divorces, could be personal injury, criminal, you name it, right? But yours is a specific niche and which I think is perfect for like you go out and you do a bunch of videos about prenups and you tie it into, you know, such and such is divorce. I think that's

Tyson Mutrux (36:45)  Brilliant because then you can refer them back to prenups.com if they have more questions or if they've got an issue. I think that's perfect. So but I wonder if if my thinking is correct though, if because yours is perfect for that. Are you able to tie your your content back to specific leads and conversions and all that?

Aaron Thomas (37:04)  Yeah, absolutely. And I think because my model is I'm not trying to get sponsorships on on Instagram. I'm not trying to, you know, monetize the actual content itself. I can make it all geared towards, you know, and you know, if you're interested in this, come back to Prenups.com, click the link in the bio. And we ask every client who signs up with us where they heard us and

Aaron Thomas (37:31)  Social media is a big part of that. A lot of people have found us from LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok. So

Tyson Mutrux (37:39)  I think it's great because you usually don't you don't see that. Usually you have people they just blast a bunch of marketing and they're just not able to tie it down. But you're able to sp specifically do that. I think it's I think it's great. You talked about the Google ads thing, right? And we we had a one of our marketing guys, he's not with us anymore for one this is one of the major reasons. He spent on one day it was like 10 grand. It was known it was 11,000 bucks, not a lead. He just blew money. It was overnight. It was like

Tyson Mutrux (38:07)  We're like, what did you do? Right. Eleven grand, trying to get our money back, nothing, right? You can spend Google AdWords money real quick. And I don't think people realize it. So what lessons did you learn from that? Cause that's I think it's a big lesson. People think they can just put up some ads and make some money. It doesn't usually work that way.

Aaron Thomas (38:24)  Yeah. I'm glad you asked that. I think that the biggest lesson that I have learned throughout this, and there's a few, is the marketing companies who make money when you spend ads, and there are plenty of ethical marketing companies out there. And there's, and I'm not saying the ones that I came across were unethical. They may just not know what they're doing that well. Most of the most of my experience is these people are not going to come and tell you that.

Aaron Thomas (38:52)  The page that you're sending all these Google ad clicks to is never going to convert a client. And so you can spend all kinds of money, and the campaign itself may be technically structured correctly with the right keywords and the right limiters and the negative keywords that you don't want to bid on, and you're bidding the right price in the right zip codes in the right location. And if the page that you're sending those people to doesn't convert, you're never.

Aaron Thomas (39:20)  Going to see a return on that investment. And I think that there are too many lawyers that are outsourcing all of the marketing decisions to people who are never going to have the holistic picture of what needs to happen for that person to actually find you and then convert to become a consultation and later a client. And so I think that.

Aaron Thomas (39:45)  The Google Ads layer is probably the absolute last thing that most law firms should be doing when it comes to marketing and work on, the conversion of your page generally, how many people that land on it that are looking for your type of lawyer, convert into a client. And then see, all right, now that I've got a good rate and I've got a good sense of like people land on this page and it drives them to make a call or schedule a consultation, then you can try to see, all right, can I replicate that with paid traffic?

Aaron Thomas (40:15)  But there's so many other things that you can do that are free, the social media, the YouTube, the ebooks, the working on your copy, the going and giving talks, doing podcasts that don't cost actual dollars and will give you a lot more information about what makes somebody hire your firm.

Tyson Mutrux (40:33)  Such a bad I think that's a great lesson. We can clip that right there. And that's worth that's worth watching the episode. All right. So you've generated tens of millions of views over social media channels. And it it's talking about prenups, which it's interesting because it is such a specific topic. We it can be juicy at times, but it's like I think it could get old, you know, like it's one of the things that I think could get old. It's but you've done a really good job at just marketing that and getting lots of views. And it's it's

Tyson Mutrux (41:00)  'Cause it's not the easiest thing to just talk about all the time, but you've done a really good job of it. I I wonder take me back to the time whenever the it the actual content started working. 'Cause there had to been a point, right? So what was that moment?

Aaron Thomas (41:13)  Yes. So before I ever and we've only been doing content for about three and a half years. And before I posted that first reel on Instagram, I had probably four or five months of planning to post video online. And I think that I had a lot of the reservations that a lot of people do, a lot of lawyers do, and you know, and and what I'm saying is it gonna be taken as legal advice, is it ethical? Are other lawyers that are smarter than me gonna come in here and correct me in the comments?

Tyson Mutrux (41:43)  Yes, they will. Yeah. That's fine. It's okay.

Aaron Thomas (41:45)  Right. And someone, a friend of mine who I was explaining this grand plan of what I was gonna do on social media, but also knew that I hadn't posted anything yet, was like, Look, Aaron, ten people are gonna see your first post. If you're lucky, literally no one's looking at it. And boy was she correct. It took eight months to get a hundred followers. And that was with me calling up friends and family and begging people to just

Aaron Thomas (42:13)  Follow the pay. I'm sending you the link again to the Prenup Guy account. If you could just give me a follow. And so, but we posted every single week. We were consistent throughout that time and just kind of trusted the process. And luckily, I had some coaches around me that were like, expect six to 12 months of tumbleweeds.

Tyson Mutrux (42:33)  So was it the content early on that wasn't working or is it just that you had to just build up some momentum?

Aaron Thomas (42:38)  I think we had to build up some momentum. I think that I had to find my voice. I think that I started doing longer content. I tried to be everywhere. I tried to do a five-minute video and then clip it up in 12 different places. Instead of just focusing on doing one thing really well, go to a lot of people say, you know, pick one channel, really focus it on that channel, which I think is good advice. But I think you also kind of need to.

Aaron Thomas (43:04)  Flood the zone a little bit at the beginning to see, something that works on TikTok may not work on LinkedIn, and vice versa. And so I think it's good to have an experimentation phase where you try different things on different platforms and see, where people connect with you, what actually works. So some of it was finding my audience, some of it was getting momentum, and then you know, it was like little tipping points, a podcast host with a big audience,

Aaron Thomas (43:32)  Just mention my name in one of the comments and boom, we got 800 followers overnight. And I was like, whoa, what happened? What happened there? Literally, just, an at from somebody with an audience, and that discoverability rose up a little bit. And then I think our first viral video was Chloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom's divorce case and talking about their previous. That's juicy. And that was juicy. And we went from, you know, a few thousand views per video to.

Aaron Thomas (44:00)  A few hundred thousand views on that video and then, you know, just started adding, you know, a thousand followers a month after that.

Tyson Mutrux (44:08)  What was different about that video compared to your other videos?

Aaron Thomas (44:13)  We have tried to look and see how have we captured lightning in a bottle from the videos that go viral. And I think it is tough. I think that it's a combination of somebody that people know well, some kind of controversy in the story. And I think there is this desire to see the celebrity class as like just like us, and they make the same mistakes and you know, they're human.

Aaron Thomas (44:41)  And there was definitely a lot of very, mistakes and human elements in that prenup and divorce case to where it starts to get shared around. And you know, if I had the perfect formula for virality on social media, I'd bottle it up and sell it. But and sometimes something works on TikTok and it doesn't on Instagram, sometimes vice versa. So it really is, I think, just kind of experimenting.

Aaron Thomas (45:08)  With different voices, different ways to tell the same story, different ways to analyze and provide value to the audience.

Tyson Mutrux (45:16)  I heard something recently. I wonder if you're doing anything on Facebook because apparently Facebook does not have enough content for their videos. And so they are really, really desperate. Like you can do really well on Facebook because they're like there's just not enough content creators. Have you heard that before?

Aaron Thomas (45:37)  I haven't, but we've seen a big surge in Facebook views this year. So I'm wondering if that might be connected.

Tyson Mutrux (45:44)  It's like everyone was on TikTok and Instagram and everyone ignored Facebook when it comes to the videos. And then so they've but Facebook still has a massive they have a massive audience, right? But you just don't have any of the any of the content creators. So I think it's it's one of those things where we've been thinking about like, maybe this is an opportun a massive opportunity. I think it really is. So I'm curious to see how your I bet your content would kill on Facebook. Yeah. Kill. Like

Tyson Mutrux (46:09)  I feel like that's where people go for the juice, Facebook. They're going to Facebook for the gossip and things like that. People posting on their timeline. That it seems seems like it feeds perfectly into prenups.

Aaron Thomas (46:19)  Yeah, I think you're right. I think I think we're gonna see some some lift there in in Facebook. But you know, I mean the whole thing is just is just having that presence in different places so that when fire hits, you're there to catch it.

Tyson Mutrux (46:33)  Yeah, you should take all your old content and just repo

Aaron Thomas (46:37)  Start from the beginning.

Tyson Mutrux (46:39)  Probably just fine. It probably works. Right.

Tyson Mutrux (46:42)  All right. So you've represented everyone from probably small couples that are just probably don't even need a prenup to like to to Grammy winning artists, which I think is pretty cool. You represented professional athletes. And so and you've represented over a thousand clients, right? I don't know how many with prenups.com, but you've overall you've you've definitely represented over a thousand clients. So what's something that you believed specific to prenups? So what's something that you believed

Tyson Mutrux (47:09)  early on that clients valued that you end up learning that they really don't.

Aaron Thomas (47:14)  I wanted my name on a fancy office door so bad. I thought that it would make, you know, all the difference. I thought having the view from my little office suite would be such a big deal. And so I finally got the money up and saved up and I signed that lease in January of 2020.

Aaron Thomas (47:40)  and a couple of months after that, that lease went unused for the rest of the year. And and business was great. Business was absolutely fine. And I used to think that, you know, is even though I left the traditional law firm and I was trying to do things modern, there were still some things that were stuck unquestioned in my head. Having that office, the suit every day, the high rise in Midtown Atlanta.

Aaron Thomas (48:10)  for the office address.

Tyson Mutrux (48:12)  Sounds great.

Aaron Thomas (48:13)  It sounds great. Yeah. Clients don't care at all. No. My experience is they didn't they didn't even, they were relieved not to have to fight Atlanta traffic to drive down and meet in my office and loved being able to get up on Zoom and meet there. And I just thought that, you know, the lawyer profession, there's something magical about us that people are gonna want to still drive and meet with us in person. And that just has not.

Aaron Thomas (48:37)  turned out to be the case, and especially the fancy office part of it.

Tyson Mutrux (48:41)  You know what beats that is being able to go have a parent teacher conference with your daughter at 8 a.m. And then come over to a podcast right after and not have to worry about a thing. Yes. That beats that every any day of the

Aaron Thomas (48:52)  Ten out of ten.

Tyson Mutrux (48:53)  All right. So you've now seen both models, right? You've seen, you've seen from the inside, the traditional firm, like the true traditional firm, and then the productized flat fee business, right? Completely different, right? Completely different worlds.

Tyson Mutrux (49:09)  if I gave you a traditional law firm doing let's say a million dollars a year and told you to make it significantly more scalable, all right. So that's the challenge, without adding more attorneys. That's a key. So you you gotta add it you gotta make it more scalable without adding more attorneys, where would you look first?

Aaron Thomas (49:30)  That's a very good question. I would have to say, systems making things done the same way over and over in a predictable fashion, even though they're done by different attorneys. I think part of my journey as managing people in a law firm was learning that not everybody is just like me. I wanted when I was the associate.

Aaron Thomas (49:59)  I want you to give me the assignment and leave me alone. Don't give me any direction. I can figure it out. And one, not everybody is like that. Some people want clear direction so they can give the work exactly how you want it. They're not looking to reinvent their own system to do the work. And two, is then the people that were working for me weren't getting the benefit of the way that I learned how to do something from beginning to end. And at the end of the day, you want your clients to have.

Aaron Thomas (50:28)  The best representation, a predictable process and outcome. And that is how you're going to scale. There are so many people who I think hit, so many law firms hit that 250,000 revenue, 300,000 barrier, and it depends on the practice area, because they their identity is too tied up in being the savior to the client. Instead of building a system that can produce predictable results.

Aaron Thomas (50:56)  For the client. They want to feel like there's magic in like coming up with a brand new creative way to handle every engagement. And your clients are going to be better off, your business is going to scale better. Your associates are actually going to be happier because they have a predictable path that they can follow every day. If you figure out how to turn all that genius that you have in your legal practice area into a predictable system that can be replicated by other people whose name is not on the not on the front door.

Tyson Mutrux (51:25)  Couldn't have said it better myself. Absolutely. Is there anything anything that you'd cut from the traditional firm that that you see?

Aaron Thomas (51:35)  I think

Aaron Thomas (51:37)  I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this. I think I think the billable hour is going to demand alternatives in a day of AI. We're already starting to see it. Especially those practice areas where your clients are savvy and they can look things up and they can they can double check your research with Chat GPT or Claude. I think that

Aaron Thomas (52:05)  I think that we need to move up the level of sophistication in how we deliver legal services and focus on the advising, the telling people what they're not thinking about, the helping them steer away from things that, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. And really delivering value in a way that is not tied to the number of hours you're putting into the case.

Tyson Mutrux (52:33)  How nice is it to not have to bill hours anymore?

Aaron Thomas (52:35)  It is that's the that's the thing I think a lot of people don't realize is how great it is for the lawyers to not have to keep track of the point twos and the point threes. And you know, I've always prided myself on working smarter, not harder. And now I feel like not having the bill of hour frees me up to pursue ways to do things more efficiently, deliver more value without having to always watch the clock.

Tyson Mutrux (52:58)  for sure. All right. So you you wrote the prenup prescription and it's around the idea that a prenup can actually strengthen a marriage instead of predicting its failure, which I think is I think it's a pretty cool concept. And that's basically taking the biggest objection. It's so brilliant. You're taking the biggest objection to the entire product, entire service, and you're flipping it, which is so brilliant.

Tyson Mutrux (53:24)  How much of building prenups.com has actually been about changing what people believe about prenups before you ever try to sell them one?

Aaron Thomas (53:33)  Think that I think it's the whole ticket. Because if you could sell prenups to just one spouse, then you probably sell a whole bunch more of them. Usually it's one person that brings it up and not the other. And I think just like in any negotiation, to have a successful agreement, both people have to be getting something out of it. I mean, that's that legal term consideration that we all learned in law school for contracts. But it also means

Aaron Thomas (54:03)  purposely drafting agreements that do more than just protect the wealthier spouse. I have always, you know, when marketing something like this that we all acknowledge has a stigma, I hate when I hear people talk about prenups and they're like, it's, you know, it's distasteful and unromantic, but it's just something that you gotta do, the smart thing, and sign it and put it away in a drawer and never look at it again. What? Like

Aaron Thomas (54:32)  You're gonna draft something, you're gonna you're gonna sell something to people that they should be ashamed of, that they should put in a drawer and never think about again. Or, or how about we teach people how to create a financial relationship with their spouse that they're not ashamed of, that that is in line with their values and

Aaron Thomas (54:53)  Actually helps them stay together as a couple. How many divorces happen because of money arguments? Can we reverse engineer what caused those on money arguments and then go back to the beginning? And a lot of it isn't like nefarious protectionist type stuff. You know, these the people that get prenups are not trying to leave their spouse penniless. They love them. They want things to work. Sure. And so it's really just more about getting clear about how things are going to work when

Aaron Thomas (55:21)  You're coming in with different incomes. And, one of you has a house. And, this is not the 1960s when people got married at 21 with one bank account and a and a car. People get married at 35 with, two retirement accounts and four or five credit cards and yeah, a a condo and a small business and shares in a in a large business. And, you know, if the 1960s marriage was a startup in your garage, then the 2020s marriage is a corporate merger. And it just requires another level of

Aaron Thomas (55:50)  of of care. Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux (55:51)  like an operating agreement. Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux (55:53)  Yeah. So I think that I think it's I've heard of of certain prenups where it's, you know, this is the religion that we will have whenever whenever it comes to our kids. This is the, you know, we will have a joint bank account. We're not gonna have separate like all of those things. I I think that makes sense. Those aren't the conversations people usually have before they get married. They think those are things, those are the may the questions that they should probably be answering before they get married. But

Tyson Mutrux (56:16)  I think that having it done that way, even if 'cause it doesn't ha like you said, it doesn't have to be about the money part of it. It doesn't have to be about who gets what at the very end. It can be like just how we're doing things, right? Here's how we're gonna manage our family. I think that's I think it's smart.

Aaron Thomas (56:29)  Yeah. And just like you said, with an operating agreement, no one accuses two business partners who sign an operating agreement at the beginning of their business together of planning for the business to fail. No, they want things to move smoothly during the dependency of the business. And if there's a wind down, yes, let's decide how that's gonna happen up front. And I think it's the same thing with a prenup. Most of it should be about exactly what you said. Are we gonna put all of our money in a joint bank account?

Aaron Thomas (56:54)  Or are we gonna have separate accounts and then we both contribute our share to a joint bank account? How is that actually going to work? You're moving into my house, my name's on it, I've already got equity in it. Are we just 50-50 owners on day one? The it doesn't have to be super contentious, but being able to walk people through this is what other people have done. This is a a way to think about it fairly, and you're still protecting what you had coming in and you're still getting, you know, equity in whatever you build together is a real service that

Aaron Thomas (57:23)  a lot of couples can benefit from in the same way that business partners benefit from having an agreement on paper.

Tyson Mutrux (57:30)  I love how excited about this you still are. I think that's really cool. It shows that you have a massive passion for what you do. I think that's awesome. I think it's really cool. So you probably lot brought a lot of passion into the project. You still have some passion. When you look at what you've built, and you've done a really good job so far. So when you look at what you built up to this point, what are you trying to get better at in this next chapter?

Aaron Thomas (57:57)  Hmm. There is there is plenty. I think that I want to become a better manager. I'm still working on myself and my ability to be able to, you know, communicate with my team and move this project as it gets bigger and bigger, to continue moving it forward. And I'm a big believer in trying to get

Aaron Thomas (58:27)  Even better at your strengths. Find people who can fill the gaps of your weaknesses. But for me, a lot of that is going to be marketing, SEO, AEO, copy. So much of my day to day life now is, you know, is marketer more than it is lawyer because that is what the business demands of me in this stage along the journey.

Tyson Mutrux (58:55)  Love it. Aaron Thomas, thank you so much for doing this pro

Aaron Thomas (58:57)  Appreciate

Aaron Thomas (58:57)  Thanks so much for having me.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Why can the same brain that generates incredible ideas struggle to follow through on them? Tyson Mutrux sits down with Andrew for a candid conversation about ADHD, running a law firm, and the challenges that come with thinking several steps ahead. After reflecting on MaxLawCon, they share their experiences with late ADHD diagnoses, medication, focus, inner dialogue, and the surprising ways distraction can affect work and relationships.

The conversation moves beyond productivity hacks to the practical realities of leadership: recognizing where your strengths lie, building a team that can execute, and communicating a vision others can actually follow. Tyson and Andrew also discuss unfinished projects, the pull of new ideas, and how understanding your own patterns can change the way you lead your firm and live your life.

What You'll Learn

  • How Tyson and Andrew describe their experiences with ADHD and focus
  • Why fresh ideas can be easier to start than to finish
  • How an active inner monologue can affect attention and self-talk
  • What happens when your vision moves faster than your explanation
  • Why assigning execution to the right team members matters
  • One listening technique Tyson wants to try

Timestamps

  • 00:00 | A hectic start and a familiar MaxLawCon connection
  • 01:29 | Andrew’s late ADHD diagnosis and biggest conference takeaway
  • 02:39 | Tyson opens up about his own diagnosis and medication experience
  • 05:20 | What a quieter, more focused mind can feel like
  • 06:26 | Inner dialogue, distraction, ADHD and VAST
  • 07:41 | Procrastination, self-understanding and unfinished projects
  • 09:44 | Creativity, idea generation and building an execution team
  • 11:28 | Communicating a vision when your brain is five steps ahead

🎟️ Get your MaxLawCon 2027 tickets: maxlawcon.com

🔍 Vet your vendors: beccaslist.co

Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

[00:00] Tyson: Hey man, I've had a crazy morning so that's it's it's it's just part of it.

[00:06] Andrew: You're in your car. That seems like it's a good start.

[00:09] Tyson: Yeah,

[00:10] Tyson: it's kinda with accidents and traffic it's been a fun venture this morning, but it's all it's all good. I thought I would have been at the office by now but didn't didn't quite make it there. But it's okay. So I was thinking about you the other day, I'm thinking like I thought about bringing the chocolate bar with me just to the appearance. It's funny, like d you're known for many things in my mind. You're a good dresser, you have you w wear good shoes. but like the chocolate bar.

[00:40] Tyson: Yeah.

[00:41] Andrew: It's become a thing.

[00:43] Tyson: Like so for anyone that doesn't know Andrew, like he when he goes to these events, he always has these stack of Cincinnati what's the name of the company? Is it Cincinnati Chocolate Company?

[00:53] Andrew: Readers,

[00:53] Andrew: ice cream is the company.

[00:56] Tyson: But it says Cincinnati on the labor.

[00:57] Andrew: They yeah. They their chocolate bars, which is really they're really known for their ice cream, but their chocolate bars, some of have the Cincinnati skyline on some of have art from the art museum, so kinda cool.

[01:11] Tyson: What's on your mind these days?

[01:13] Andrew: All kinds of stuff, man. I feel I feel privileged to be talking to you right after the conference 'cause it's a it was it's a crazy time.

[01:22] Tyson: You see the black eyes almost gone? It's

[01:23] Andrew: It looks like it yeah.

[01:25] Tyson: L I'm gonna I'm very curious, you mentioned so what's the book you're reading? What's what

[01:29] Andrew: So that this was my big takeaway, honestly, from the conference. I am reading, rereading the book. it's called ADHD 2.0. that's the other thing about me is I am a late diagnosed ADHD er. and my middle son is also, that's really how I found out. and so I'm reading it for him and for me. But you know, I know that my

[01:59] Andrew: ADHD is getting in the way of not just me, but my team. And so kind of my commitment coming out of the conference is really to spend, you know, the time between this conference. I was gonna say a year, but it's not quite a year, but the time between this conference and next, I really want to take a deep dive into the ADHD part of things and find the things that really work for me and that make things better for my team, my clients. and

[02:29] Andrew: And my wife and my kids, like all the above, right? And I think it starts with a little bit more self discovery on it and you know, getting the answers.

[02:39] Tyson: Can I ask you some more questions about it? Of course. Okay, so I'll I will admit something. I actually don't think I've talked about this. I've I've intentionally not talked about it. I probably won't talk about it on the real show. so I did the same thing. So about four, three, four years ago, I got diagnosed. I did the same thing. I went through the whole medication thing, got off the medication thing, because I was like, I thought it was just sort of like it was really killing my creativity. I just so I'm wondering, I wanted to ask you about that stuff. Have you done the medication?

[03:09] Tyson: Thoughts on the medication? Have you been on the medication? What about that?

[03:13] Andrew: I am. I think I'm on a relatively low dose of essentially Adderall ver a version of Adderall.

[03:23] Andrew: That's a great question. I don't recall. I so a couple things that I've I've learned with it, right? So this is I started maybe a year or two ago. I can't remember now. I had to look back.

[03:40] Andrew: I don't take it, so I don't take it on the weekends. if I cause you know ADHD meds for the most part, they're not like other kind of like medicines for like mental health or even some physical things where it has to like build up a therapeutic level in your body. It's kind of there or it's not. so don't take it on the weekends. if I look at my calendar and I have a meeting heavy day, I won't take it.

[04:06] Andrew: because what I find is it creates anxiety of like I feel like I need to be doing stuff and I feel like meetings aren't doing stuff. so I've kind of had some observations on that. I don't feel like it's hurt creativity. but you know, I think it affects everybody differently too. Yeah. it definitely has helped me with focus for sure. it was you know, there's there's no day like the first day that you take it, you're just like, my gosh, this is what the world's supposed to be like.

[04:35] Tyson: Okay, so I d I think he's been public about this. I'm not sure, so I'm not gonna say who it was. a member of the association. He and I have talked about it before, and I the first day I took it, I instantly texted him. 'Cause I was like, it was I the it was the it was such a interesting thing because everything became so clear and

[05:05] Tyson: For me, the ang I don't know about you, like for like the anxiety went away. It was like the first time I took it, it was like I had like I was so anxious and then whoop it just like suppressed it. I know that's probably not the right way of putting it, but that's the way it felt to me is like

[05:19] Andrew: That's interesting.

[05:20] Tyson: Yeah, the anxiety went away and then it was like everything was very clear. And I guess the only way I could think about like describing it would be like imagine you're like you have you're having a like you and I are having a conversation like we are now, but

[05:33] Tyson: We're in a really busy cafeteria and everyone's talking and having these massive conversations. Not that I hear voices in my head, that's a thing. But everything's just really crowded and noisy and it just then it just becomes me and you. And it's quiet. And you're like, mm-hmm. whoa. So what was your I'm curious, like how was your experience?

[05:57] Andrew: Yeah, I mean I think somewhat the same kind of thing. now I will say that I saw a spike in anxiety. but again, I do kind of think part it was balancing, right? If I knew I was I figured that meeting part out, right? and I cut basically cut caffeine out when I started on it, or as shortly after I started on it. I will drink some here and there now, but I've noticed that the two will combine and cause some extra anxiety. but yeah, I think you're exactly right. I mean I

[06:26] Andrew: there's a lot that people don't understand about the ADHD brain. And one of the things is it's a very, very noisy place. I forget this book has some really good descriptions. but it yeah, it's it's there's constant noise. There's ideas that are just bouncing around all the time. you know, and a strong inner monologue. again, not hearing voices in your head, but you know, and that inner monologue.

[06:54] Andrew: inner monologue can be a real jerk sometimes. it's something that really has to I have found myself trying to be more intentional about this year recently because I've noticed it getting increasingly mean. so yeah it's there's there's I think the good news is right now there's I think there's a lot more research that's going on into ADHD in recent years. It's it's much more understood now.

[07:21] Andrew: This book that identifies they're separating out two different things, ADHD, which is more biological, physiological, whatever, and then something they call vast, which is more just how there's so much technology in our lives these days that a lot of people are distracted and there but there's a difference. There's there are differences and similarities between the two things.

[07:41] Tyson: Mm-hmm. Interesting. yeah, so it's int I'm gonna have to read this book 'cause I can tell just by the way you're talking about it, you've it's it definitely educates you on things. Like the main thing was like knowing like almost forgiving myself for some of the things that I do. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's

[08:01] Tyson: It's like that unfinished project, that unfinished project and understanding why it wasn't finished and then understanding procrastination on things. I get it. It's it's it's almost like and I've never felt b like I'm broken, but it's almost like but it's almost like sort of wondering if you are a little bit. Yeah. And then yeah, it's fine. It's complete there's a lot of other people that are just like this. It's no big deal.

[08:27] Andrew: But spoiler alert, this is this was my idea that I had on the plane of talk for next year, so

[08:34] Tyson: Love it. it I it affects I think it affects a lot of lawyers too for some reason. I don't I don't know why, but I think it does.

[08:41] Andrew: I think it's entrepreneurs. I think it's I think we probably in this group are more exposed to ADHD attorneys than others because it's a growth-minded, idea focused group. And that's, you know, I you're for the most part, well, this is very overgeneralizing, but you're like you know, lawyer that opens up their throws up their shingle and you know kind of does the bare minimum, probably isn't.

[09:10] Andrew: An AD they might be. They might be an ADHD or who just is distracted all the time and proc can't get stuff done. But yeah, I think I think this kind of group probably has a higher percentage.

[09:21] Tyson: Yeah, but there's the we had someone on and I you may remember th this guy or know this guy, but like he w I can't remember what he wrote a book, it was like A D A D H J D or J D I don't r I can't remember what it was. A maybe it was J D A D H D J D H D or something like that. It was called C

[09:42] Andrew: Got

[09:42] Andrew: my book list here, I'm gonna write it down. Find it.

[09:44] Tyson: Yeah, that's i both of those are probably incorrect, but I remember him talking about how it really is kinda a superpower. It really is. I feel like it's a massive advantage, which is why I ultimately decided to get rid of the medication. But it and like there's other ways of controlling it by making sure we work out and all that and eat healthy and l less caffeine, although I do drink caffeine. but like it's I do feel like it's I can

[10:12] Tyson: I can generate a massive amount of ideas. executing that's why having th both with Maximum Lawyer and with the firm, like having a good team that can execute is so important. Like the I have the idea that have someone else go execute on is so important.

[10:30] Andrew: It so that it's interesting how a conversation kind of naturally goes where you think it's gonna go on stuff, right? But that like that's the next part of it for me is like my work chart and how do I look at what am I doing bad like what should I be doing and what should other people be doing? And the reality is if it's if it's deadline based or like, you know, work needs to get done, I'm not always the right person for that. Sometimes I have to be that person, right? And I gotta get it done. But

[10:59] Andrew: I am more of the let's come up with this concept and idea and I need it I need people to support me in getting it through. because the other thing with ADHD is there's a novelty piece of it, right? And so sometimes you get this idea and that's why we have so many unfinished projects. There's the novelty of do this thing, and then you know, it drags on longer than you expected, the novelty wears off and you're like, okay. Time to move on.

[11:28] Tyson: Do you have when your comes to your ideas, I have a crystallized vision of what I want, right? And then the thing I struggle with is communicating that to the person to get it done the way I want it. 'Cause like I'm very particular about things. Like do you have that problem too?

[11:48] Andrew: Yes and no. I the vision thing, absolutely. I mean s simple examples, right? My we toured some new office space yesterday and the space is was used as a dance studio, so it's basically just a box. And Emily, my wife, who is working in the firm as well, we toured this space and I was like, Okay, like you could do this, you could put the conference room here, you could put the, you know, and I kind of instantly could see this box.

[12:17] Andrew: laid out as an office that could work for us, right? And she's like, I don't know what you're seeing. I, so yeah, I there's a little bit of that. And I think what tends to happen is our sometimes our brain is about five steps ahead of our voice. And so we think we're fully explaining things to people or we just kind of gloss over that they're on the same page with us. And I think that's where that piece comes through is

[12:46] Andrew: It seems so clear in our head and we explain it in what way we think is clear, but we've probably left out half of the details.

[12:53] Tyson: So I'm gonna go back to the medication for a second. Whenever I would take the medication, so I could be in the middle of an argument with a judge, I could be whatever. I could be in the middle of a phone call, I could be in the middle of a whatever. And it was so weird because my brain was so far ahead, the medication would kick in and I would almost I would fumble with my words because it was like the mind and the mouth were trying to match each other.

[13:23] Tyson: And they I was on two different wavelengths until but and it was take it took probably I don't know, five seconds for those two to connect with each other. I wonder, did you ever have that same issue?

[13:33] Andrew: A little bit of that, a little bit of what you described at the conference where you're having a conversation with someone, you go like, my gosh, was I just totally checked out? Because either we're thinking where they're going with their conversation and we're already there. we've we've beat them to where they're headed, which is really annoying for other people. or we've started drift, you know, drifting off into whatever that other idea is that just you know, f flew by.

[14:02] Andrew: And the other the other thing that's really annoying for people is pattern recognition. Yeah. there's some research on this too. we can be horrible people to watch a movie with because we will we'll pick up on the little signals and solve it. And I don't want to give it away, but a very popular TV show, their second to last episode of this season, was there was a noticeably different focus and feel around a certain character and about

[14:30] Andrew: I don't know, four minutes in, I was like, no, now where this is going.

[14:35] Tyson: I saw gosh, I'm gonna draw a blink on this guy. I that's something else. Becca makes fun of me 'cause I like I can't remember names. It's crazy. but I saw this guy, he's a major Hollywood producer and he spoke and I can't remember where I saw him speak, but it was really good 'cause he actually breaks down the formula for a movie. And i it's interesting because what they do it if

[15:01] Tyson: I'm gonna this is gonna be a spoiler alert for every movie that you ever watch. Basically and th he's like, This is it. This is the formula. And the one the movies that bomb are the ones that don't follow this formula. So however the major premise of the movie starts, and it could be in the first scene or could be like in the first ten minutes, right? It may it doesn't mean it doesn't mean the movie starts this way. But let's say that the main premise starts with like the main characters broke. Okay? They have no money.

[15:30] Tyson: At the end of the movie, it'll be the opposite of that. They'll be rich. So whatever j just w now you'll watch every single movie and be like, it's the o whatever the beginning is, the beginning the beginning premise, whatever the main character is, the it's they will end the reverse of whatever they started. It is so it you'll see it in every movie now, you'll be like, damn. Like so you'll know how the movie ends every single time. But I know what you're talking about though, 'cause like I do it's like my need to solve a problem.

[15:59] Tyson: I like every time whatever it's whether it's a movie or talk a show or a conversation, I wanna solve the problem, sometimes I just gotta learn to shut up. just let it roll. Just let it go. Let it let so do you have the issue where you're talking to somebody and it's just words, words, words, words, words and you're not really taking much in 'cause your mind's going elsewhere? yeah. I learned a really trick o a good trick over the weekend. I was I th I think I was on a flight the flight home and I think it was an ad actually.

[16:29] Tyson: For something, but the guy was talking about how when he's listening to somebody, he repeats every single word that they're saying back to himself. so he's just listening. So there is it's impossible for him to be thinking about any something else, which I thought was a really interesting trick.

[16:43] Andrew: I'll try it.

[16:44] Tyson: Not easy to do.

[16:45] Andrew: No. I mean my TikTok algorithm's full of like ADHD advice and so that's that's gonna be part of this journey is kind of sifting through some of it and seeing, you know, what works, what doesn't, is there science behind some of it, you know?

[16:59] Tyson: In the book again, what's it again? What's it called?

[17:01] Andrew: ADHD two point So it's two researchers that both have ADHD. I think it's good. I like again, it's probably an ADHD trait a bit, but I like the details behind stuff, right? Like I want I like it when my doctor explains something, right? I don't just want like, you've got ADHD. Here you go, here's some medicine. Right, I like the

[17:22] Tyson: Yeah. explanation. I do like that, but I like to deliver information in bullet points. So that's I want the detail but I wanna I w I wanna deliver it in bullet points which is

[17:31] Tyson: All right, we're out of time, man. Thanks for doing this. I can't believe how quick this f this went. This was fast. anytime else you want, come on, just let me know.

[17:40] Andrew: Okay. Sounds good. Hope your day gets a little less hectic.

[17:43] Tyson: It I think it's it's already gotten ten times better. So talking to you. anybody wants to go to MaxLawCon twenty seven, maxlawcon dot com. I gotta make sure I remember the to pitch that. And also Beckerslist dot co. so Andrew, thank you so much. Good scene, Ray. Get that ticket.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Tyson Mutrux sits down with immigration attorney Audra Doyle to discuss what happens when the practice area you've built your law firm around starts changing beneath you. From purchasing her first firm to building an unconventional partnership, Audra shares the decisions that shaped her business and why she's now considering another major shift as immigration law becomes increasingly unpredictable.

They explore the financial and personal pressures of running a highly specialized practice, the risks of expanding into new areas, and how Audra plans to use international estate planning to serve her existing clients. The conversation also covers hiring, partnership structures, marketing through TikTok, and what it takes to build a firm that supports the life you actually want to live.

What You'll Learn

  • Why niching down can make a law firm both successful and vulnerable.
  • What to consider before purchasing an established law firm.
  • How to structure a partnership around different practice areas.
  • When adding a new practice area makes business sense.
  • How to expand your marketing without losing your existing audience.
  • Why building a firm around your future lifestyle matters.

Timestamps

  • 00:00 - From Music Teacher to Law Firm Owner
  • 03:34 - Buying an Established Law Firm
  • 11:36 - Building an Unconventional Law Firm Partnership
  • 19:05 - Hiring the First Associate and Planning for Growth
  • 25:43 - When Immigration Law Becomes Financially Unpredictable
  • 34:31 - Deciding Whether to Pivot Into Estate Planning
  • 40:15 - Finding an Opportunity in International Estate Planning
  • 45:43 - Marketing, Rebranding, and Building a Location-Independent Firm

Connect with Audra

TikTok

Facebook

YouTube

🎟️ Get your MaxLawCon 2027 tickets: maxlawcon.com

🔍 Vet your vendors: beccaslist.co

Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:03 Today's guest is Audra Doyle, partner at Drew and Doyle right here in Atlanta. And Audra is in the middle of making a pretty significant change in her firm, or at least some decisions about whether she's going to make some changes. She started her career as a music teacher, which is interesting. We talk about that and eventually went to law school, found immigration law and built a practice around it. But immigration in 2026 has become a very different business. I'm sure many people have been watching the news. It definitely has been new. New case intake for you is down. Clients are more hesitant to file. The cases themselves have become increasingly stressful, and Audra has started asking whether the firm needs another practice area, which is interesting. I'm looking forward to talking about that. So today we're going to talk about what happens when the niche you've built for business around starts changing underneath you. Audra, welcome to the show.

Audra Doyle 00:01:16  Thank you so much. Glad to be here this morning.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:18  So what are people going to learn by listening to this episode today?

Audra Doyle 00:01:23  I hope they're going to learn, you know, from what I struggle with, which is the ability to be adaptable and to be able to change.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:34  I think that's a really good lesson. I can't wait to talk a little bit about that. before we get into the change that you're considering or that you're making right now, I want to go back because, this definitely isn't your first pivot in life, which are things kind of interesting.

Audra Doyle 00:01:49  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:50  You started as a music teacher, which I've mentioned in the intro. then you went to law school and you found immigration. and you definitely seem like you have a passion for immigration.

Audra Doyle 00:02:00  I do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:02  You started your own firm. Okay. How did you go from somewhere? Someone who never planned own a law firm, which is really kind of interesting to actually opening the doors by yourself.

Audra Doyle 00:02:16  That is, as I was filling in my questionnaire, I really started to reflect on all the changes that I never expected to happen.

Audra Doyle 00:02:24  You know, when you're going to undergrad, you know, I was going to be a music teacher and I was dedicated to to music. And we realized my husband and I realized that one of us needed to do something different because he's also a teacher. And so it just so happened that I ended up in law school and ended up loving immigration. And I was happy working for another immigration lawyer. But one day she said, I'm planning to retire. And would you be interested in taking over this business? So when the you know, and it had already happened several times, the opportunity came knocking. And the first thing you need to do is be able to see the opportunity for what it is and to not reject it because it's not what you planned on doing. And I have, you know, very reluctantly, I don't like change. I like everything to stay the same. But I've learned, you know, as I've gotten older, that it's going to happen and how you react to it and how you pivot, could be a wonderful thing in disguise.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:34  So did you buy an intact firm?

Audra Doyle 00:03:36  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:37  Okay. Yes. Can you talk about how that transaction, like what was the what were the terms of that? Because I'm very interested as to was like a cash by digit pair over time. Yeah. That's that's interesting.

Audra Doyle 00:03:48  It was a cash buy. and I had been working for her for years, actually. Was an intern for her left and came back and I was an attorney for her, so we had an excellent working relationship. I knew a lot of the clients already, and it seemed very natural to take over. and deciding on the terms was very difficult. So we yes, we went through a lot of iterations. You know, we we talked about whether we should get a valuation of the firm, whether we should have an outside company negotiate for us. And after all that, we knew each other so well that we just decided to handle it on our own. So we didn't need to do all those higher level things that I think other law firm owners may want to consider.

Audra Doyle 00:04:37  if it were someone whose firm I didn't know very well, a person I didn't know very well, I probably would go through a more formal route, but we agreed on the terms. she stayed on as sort of an attorney emeritus and wrapped up her cases. Because in the world of immigration law, you can't just close the doors one day. Cases last for years. so it was very smooth, a nice, smooth process. And to this day I'm still getting. And that was one of the things, the goodwill of the firm that I wanted to purchase. To this day, I'm still getting some of her old clients that reach out and say, hey, I worked with her. I heard that you took over, and that was 6 or 7 years ago now, so it's been worth it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:22  Is there anything you would have done differently in that purchase now that you've thought about it a little bit?

Audra Doyle 00:05:28  Probably not. I think it went very well and I like how it turned out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:33  Okay.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:34  Did when it comes to the purchase itself? Yes. Did you have to finance that? Because, I mean, you came up as a teacher.

Audra Doyle 00:05:41  I did.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:41  So did you have the finance?

Audra Doyle 00:05:43  I did have to finance it. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:45  How hard was it to get bank financing for them?

Audra Doyle 00:05:48  Not very hard at all.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:49  Really?

Audra Doyle 00:05:50  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:50  Okay. Was it? Did you go through a local bank National challenge?

Audra Doyle 00:05:53  I did went through a local bank, and it was not a large fee because she was looking to get out. And also, she wanted me to take over cases that just wouldn't be finished. So I was taking on some of her unfinished work, and that was part of the agreement.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:11  Oh. Very nice. So when you say by not a large fee, what we're talking is. I'm very curious.

Audra Doyle 00:06:17  Okay. it was less than 100,000.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:21  Wow. So you got a steal? I did, I'm assuming it seems like a steal.

Audra Doyle 00:06:25  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:25  Okay.

Audra Doyle 00:06:26  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:27  Do you think that there are still opportunities in the market for situations like that, that that that people could go and buy smaller firms?

Audra Doyle 00:06:35  Yes.

Audra Doyle 00:06:36  We, my partner and I, Nirmal Thiru, actually looked at buying another firm last year. the deal fell through. But lawyers are always retiring and I think the opportunities are there for a young lawyer to take over a more established firm. the reason that deal didn't go through is because that lawyer, wanted us to take over and take over all the liability, and it was the balance didn't work. So you have to be really careful about that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:06  Can you? Can you even get insurance, I wonder? Malpractice insurance. Whenever you take over a firm like that and take on the liability.

Audra Doyle 00:07:13  Exactly. Yeah. I haven't looked into it in years, so that may be an issue.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:19  I wonder why that attorney was so, so eager to try to pass on the liability just because to me that screams there's some grenades in there.

Audra Doyle 00:07:29  Oh, there were, there absolutely were. So the the deal that I thought I was taking was that, you know, he had all these active cases. We were going to go through them and, you know, make sure that I agreed with the legal strategy on the case.

Audra Doyle 00:07:43  And turns out I didn't agree on many of the legal strategies. and, you know, the more we got into it, the more he still wanted to be very involved instead of allowing me to be the lead on these cases. And so it was too many cooks in the kitchen kind of situation, you know, it was too much.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:06  I want to go back before normal. Okay. Whenever you took that firm. Yeah. Was it just you or did you take out her staff too?

Audra Doyle 00:08:12  It was just me and her staff had just retired. They all retired.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:19  So you were pretty much a true solo. I know that she was on as the emeritus.

Audra Doyle 00:08:23  Yes. Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:25  You were. You were true. So? So what was.

Audra Doyle 00:08:27  I.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:28  Was doing? You go from. You're a teacher, you go to law school, and now you take it on a practice. What was that like in those early days?

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:36  Like running a classroom where you're the only one?

Audra Doyle 00:08:41  It's interesting.

Audra Doyle 00:08:43  you know, you you get used to being in charge as a teacher, so that felt very natural to be a leader of the firm.

Audra Doyle 00:08:50  And I had been in charge of hiring for her firm for a long time. So I felt very comfortable and I was able to easily hire on some new people. I got a law intern from a local university right away. I found some very sharp case managers, and I got an awesome, an awesome executive assistant. And here's a tip for everyone. Now, when I am hiring, I want to know what the employees experience in customer service is. So my current executive assistant used to work in a call center answering angry phone calls all day long. He is unflappable, and so I look for that personality as much as I look for the skills, because I can always build those.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:42  That's really good. I used to really think about whenever I work in a state farm. and every once in a while that you have, like, a storm or a hurricane or whatever, like some big thing. Right, right. And you'd, some people have to work the cat team. And so like the catastrophic loss team.

Audra Doyle 00:09:57  Oh okay. Yeah. But you so you had to take some people flew out to wherever there was other people. Like I had to like sit and do calls. And these are people that have lost their lives and like their entire like livelihood, like their, their houses are gone. Their, their, their jobs are gone because the building is gone. Right. Yeah. And they're calling. It's the worst.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:19  It is.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:19  Their life.

Audra Doyle 00:10:20  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:20  Have to, like, put on a good face and, like, try to walk them through this. And so I think you're so right. Because it it it it almost forces you to learn these things. Like how to communicate with people.

Audra Doyle 00:10:32  Absolutely.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:33  And I'm sure that like, Self Harm had a great training program. So that's part of it too. If you if you have someone with customer service background, yeah, they're hopefully going to have some sort of training too, which is just phenomenal. Yeah. Great advice. I used to love hiring bartenders.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:47  Bartenders are great. I see a great deal of people.

Audra Doyle 00:10:49  Yeah, they know how to manage the room. They know how to spot, you know, different things. And those those innate skills really help.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:56  Absolutely.

Audra Doyle 00:10:57  Especially a front facing person.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:59  Absolutely. Well, at some point, I'm curious because how quickly did you start to hire people?

Audra Doyle 00:11:05  Right away.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:06  Okay. Like what? What how did you know to do that? Because I was in law school.

Audra Doyle 00:11:11  Yeah, I knew that I could. I had basically been the senior attorney for my partner, my old attorneys, law firm, so I was basically running things for her. she was the owner, but I was doing the hiring. I was managing the paralegals and things like that. So I knew what my caseload was. It's very large, and I definitely knew I needed help right away or else I would sink.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:36  Gotcha. Right. So at some point you pivoted again though. Yes, partner. Yes. What was it? What made you think that you needed a partner?

Audra Doyle 00:11:45  Another unexpected change.

Audra Doyle 00:11:46  I didn't know I needed a partner, but I was looking for more business. And he is Indian. And he came to. I was giving a talk about immigration down at the Georgia bar, and he was there. And I noticed this funny story. I noticed this guy in the audience, you know, watching very intently. And then when I was finished with my talk, he kept turning around and looking, and I was like, what's going on? And he came up later and said, I, I'm very interested in going into immigration law. I would love for you to be my mentor. So I said, of course, you know, it sounds interesting. and after he talked to me one time, he said, I don't want to do immigration law, but I've got all these clients, you know, they're. I'm Indian, I speak the language, and, they need help with their immigration cases. So what can we do to make this work for us? So we agreed to become partners.

Audra Doyle 00:12:42  And it's sort of like running two different law firms right now, which works for us. he's in a different location. He's handling, different practice areas than me. And, when his clients need assistance with immigration, I'm the referral.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:58  Interesting.

Audra Doyle 00:12:59  Yes. And vice versa, because he does family law, he does personal injury. And so when my clients need those services, I send them to him.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:08  Okay. That leads to a lot of other questions I have. Then from a marketing standpoint, yes. How do you market?

Audra Doyle 00:13:16  Thank you. He does not market his practice areas but I market mine. So that's something that I'm really thinking about right now that we'll talk about when we get to the next change that's coming. Yeah. How do I market for two practice areas? Because I feel like I've been very successful marketing for the one for immigration. So how do I add on another one without diluting the strength of my marketing?

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:44  Sure. Which is really, really tough. Yeah, with one brand.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:47  And I've got questions I want to ask you about that too, when it comes to that partnership. Is it. Is it 5050? How do you split the money? I like because these are like the things, like the young ones. You're going to want to know.

Audra Doyle 00:14:00  Absolutely.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:01  Like, how do you extend whatever I had? My partnership was 5050. Like it didn't matter. Expenses or revenues, like. Yeah, we split everything 5050. So how do you do things? Because you have different practice areas.

Audra Doyle 00:14:12  We do. And, you know, whole different office. He doesn't have any employees. So I had an established firm and he was a solo. And I you know, we went through all of these discussions and I said, let me keep my team, let me keep my law firm, Doyle Law, and I'll keep the payroll the same. And my team works for me. I pay them, you know, handle all the taxes and everything. He is not involved with that at all.

Audra Doyle 00:14:38  So it's basically like I'm running two law firms right now. Yes. And the overarching firm theory and Doyle, we simply refer to each other. And we agreed on a referral percentage. So whenever we send each other cases, we note, you know, what the other person's percentage is supposed to be. And we have a joint bank account and we take our fees that way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:02  That's really interesting. I don't know if I've heard anybody else do it.

Audra Doyle 00:15:05  That works for us. Yeah, it it was a lot of negotiation, but we we knew that we would work well together. Our personalities are very similar. And it was an opportunity, you know, I wasn't looking for, but it came to me and I thought, this is great. And I have gotten a lot more business and a lot more recognition in his community as being part of his firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:30  So you said something a secondary you said works for us And I love that because there's so many people out there. You must do it this way.

Audra Doyle 00:15:39  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:40  You've got to do it this way. And that's just not the reality.

Audra Doyle 00:15:43  It's true.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:44  There's a lot of different ways of doing things, but you wonder if you would change anything, the way you shape the partnership. Now that you've done it a while.

Audra Doyle 00:15:54  Probably not. I, I can't think of anything that desperately needs changing at this point, but I am facing big changes next year. you know, one of them. I think we can go into this. one of them is that I think I need to add another practice area, because immigration has become so difficult. Like, I love being an immigration lawyer, and I don't want to do anything different, but for my mental health, peace and stability, steady income. I want to add something else that's less contentious. So that's one thing. Second thing is I'm coming up on my lease ending at my office, and my partner just bought a building. So I'm thinking about moving to a different location, and that is going to change our dynamic, because we're going to be in the same building now, and we're going to have to lay down some rules about how things work.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:52  So this is a great segue into the question I was about to ask you.

Audra Doyle 00:16:55  Okay, so.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:57  Before you all partnered up and everything, I'm sure you all had to have some really serious conversations.

Audra Doyle 00:17:02  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:03  What were some of those those those things that you all talked about in those early conversations? And then what do you think are some of the things you're going to have to talk about now as you're pivoting?

Audra Doyle 00:17:12  Exactly. One thing. Especially we're both strong personalities. And I wanted to make sure that I was still the boss in my cases. So that's very important to me. I am the expert on immigration. I want to be the one that's in charge of the case structure and things like that. I did not want a second guesser as a partner. or who would question me in my decisions and vice versa. He doesn't either. so we talked about that carefully because these are his referrals. They're from his community, so he feels a little extra. what's the word I'm looking for? Not entitled, like concern.

Audra Doyle 00:17:58  A little extra concern to make sure that they're served well and their cases go well and everything. but that's something that I'm glad we agreed on. And we need. We try to make sure we're not encroaching on the other other person. as we're referring people to each other. So that's that's a very important consideration for me. also, when you have the two different practice areas, I think it's better that way than two people running the same firm is going to bleed over a lot more. So if you are just doing, let's say, estate planning and you have two lawyers in the firm, all the same clients, all the same employees doing the same work, the division of work, and making sure that both attorneys are served equally needs to be looked at carefully.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:46  Did you have those conversations before?

Audra Doyle 00:18:47  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:48  What were those conversations like? Did you all disagree at any point?

Audra Doyle 00:18:52  Not really. we were both eager to make this work. and it wasn't contentious. It wasn't a big disagreement. You know, I was very curious how he wanted to use my employees.

Audra Doyle 00:19:05  You know, like, if I'm paying the employees 100%, then I should get them 100%, that sort of thing. And, he was very understanding and agreeable. And another change we're looking at is we're looking to hire our first lawyer.

Audra Doyle 00:19:21  Yes, yes.

Audra Doyle 00:19:23  And we would love for this person to be able to handle both practice areas.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:31  Do you think?

Audra Doyle 00:19:32  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:34  Do you think that that's reasonable?

Audra Doyle 00:19:37  That is what we're talking about right now. Because I'm working it over in my head. You know, immigration is a very in-depth subject. It's not something you can just gloss over. And do, you know, as a dabbler, he is doing family law, so we really want someone to help him in court, you know, deal with depositions and things like that. So we're looking for someone who's wanting to be more of a general practitioner and not niche down into one specific area, and I am open minded enough and wise enough, hopefully by now to know that, you know, it's going to be hard to find somebody willing to do that.

Audra Doyle 00:20:17  And as they grow in our firm, they may lean towards one area or another.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:24  Do you think there's someone out there that exists That is, that can be proficient in both of those practice areas.

Audra Doyle 00:20:31  For me, they don't have to be as knowledgeable as me to be an immigration lawyer. I you know, it comes from my teaching background. I am very used to training people, teaching them about immigration. You know, I have had so many law interns that are now immigration lawyers, so I feel confident that I could get them to a place where I feel comfortable. They can do cases, and then they can come to me for questions.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:00  I'll tell you what this sounds like.

Audra Doyle 00:21:01  Go ahead.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:01  And I could be completely wrong about this. I'm not I'm not poo pooing on.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:05  This at all.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:06  It sounds like that whenever people they want to hire their first employee.

Audra Doyle 00:21:09  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:09  And they want that employee to do everything.

Audra Doyle 00:21:11  I.

Audra Doyle 00:21:12  Agree.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:12  To do billing and answering the phone to be a paralegal and everything.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:16  And it sounds a bit like that, which I hope I'm wrong and hopefully you can find that person. But it does make me wonder if that's maybe where your mind is a little bit too much. I don't I don't know if that person exists. Maybe they do exist. I'm sure they probably do somewhere. But yeah, I guess. How do you hire for a job like that?

Audra Doyle 00:21:33  Exactly. So we're about to meet and we've already written our job description.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:38  Oh, I guess.

Audra Doyle 00:21:41  Yeah. Well, we're going to meet we're going to go over it, you know, it's it's not set in stone yet, but we've already written it. and we're going to talk about these issues because like you, you know, I have some qualms about it. I'm not sure if it's going to work, but, on paper, it looks like what we need, like, we would love to have someone help us with the caseload in both practice areas, and they don't have to be 100% expert when they come in the door.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:09  Yeah, sure. That's fair.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:12  What happens when the two of you disagree on something in this process?

Audra Doyle 00:22:21  we rarely disagree, you know, I think that could definitely be coming with the move to his office with hiring an associate. And I'm just aware of his personality, and I think vice versa for me. I don't like that I deal with such a contentious practice area. There's conflict all day long. I don't want a business partner where I also have to have these disagreements and conflict. So I have somebody like that. Thank goodness we're both looking to find a way to solve the problem. We'll have lunch, we'll hash it out. We'll go back and think about it. We meet every Friday virtually and talk about any issues that we're going over. You know, any client issues, that sort of thing. so we're always looking for a solution. And I think the mindset between the two of us is why it works.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:12  It's maybe a bit of a dark question. It's not meant to be that way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:14  I promise that whenever I've had my partner, we look, it's really good. Advice I got was plan for the end in mind. And I think he and I both had the same mindset. Like, let's have this thing all written out so we know what happens if we do break up.

Audra Doyle 00:23:27  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:27  Did you all do the same?

Audra Doyle 00:23:28  We did.

Audra Doyle 00:23:29  Yeah. We wrote everything out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:31  Was that a difficult conversation or negotiation?

Audra Doyle 00:23:35  It wasn't very difficult. And that's why I felt like, you know, this was the right thing because everything went into place so well. You know, when when you're looking at big changes and you keep trying to force something and it's not working and it's not working and it's not working, you need to step back and say, why is this not working? You know, is this the right thing for me to be doing? Like, you really need to be able to reflect and make sure that that is the right move if nothing is working.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:06  What what do you wish you had talked about before signing anything?

Audra Doyle 00:24:12  Oh.

Audra Doyle 00:24:14  Let's see with him.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:16  Correct.

Audra Doyle 00:24:17  Okay. It would have been nice to go ahead and have our decision for a future attorney nailed down. I feel like we're a little bit behind the eight ball right now because we need them now, and we haven't even started to recruit. It's going to take a long time. We're going to have to train them up. So I wish that we had talked a little more about expansion. and the fact that we would be wanting to expand and grow our practices.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:48  Do you think part of that is just because there are kind of like two separate firms within one?

Audra Doyle 00:24:52  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:52  So like the vision is not aligned completely.

Audra Doyle 00:24:56  Yeah I think so.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:58  How do you how do you sort of solidify that vision going forward do you think.

Audra Doyle 00:25:02  I think that that's going to be part of our conversation with this new person, whoever we hire. because I want them to be. I don't want them to feel pulled between two different lawyers, two different locations, two different practice areas.

Audra Doyle 00:25:17  You know, just pulled back and forth and different requirements from each attorney. So I think our vision of how we want that to go, and overall how we want the firm to move forward, is going to be part of this conversation.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:32  I like it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:33  Okay. So we've talked a lot about pivots. You had lots of pivots in here.

Audra Doyle 00:25:35  I did, yes. Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:38  So, you're at another one of those decision points.

Audra Doyle 00:25:43  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:44  That you will have to make some decisions. So you said that immigration has been hammered in 2026. Can you. Can you give us some numbers to help you kind of figure out what you're talking about?

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:54  Because, yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:55  I've actually given Jimmy.

Audra Doyle 00:25:57  You know. Oh, yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:59  You're really good buddies. he and I, like we're always texting. It's funny. I'm not asking him about this because, it usually gets into politics, and I always. I try to avoid.

Audra Doyle 00:26:08  Politics and.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:08  Everything.

Audra Doyle 00:26:09  So we're not doing that today.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:12  Sometimes.

Audra Doyle 00:26:14  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:14  So I, I always kind of steer with away from it. I am very curious about like, what do the numbers look like in 2026 for immigrants?

Audra Doyle 00:26:22  Yeah.

Audra Doyle 00:26:24  the worst thing for me this year is the fact that it's a yo yo. Month to month. If there is some sort of policy change. Big announcement. The numbers go up. Then when things settle down again or, you know, something negative happens, the numbers go down. so the that effect is not good for business. And I want more stability. another thing that has really hammered me is, you know, I had my fees built in as first fee to file second fee after approval. We're not getting as many approvals and the cases are the same. The work is the same. Everything's the same. We're getting more denials. I would say for EB one cases At least I would say 30%, maybe more.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:20  They've decreased by.

Audra Doyle 00:27:21  30%. Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:23  Wow.

Audra Doyle 00:27:23  Approvals.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:24  So that's interesting.

Audra Doyle 00:27:25  Yeah. Nationwide it was at probably 90% before 2025.

Audra Doyle 00:27:31  And now I think we're at 60% nationwide. So I'm still getting some cases approved. But I have to do every case twice. So my contract is constantly being edited right now to try and anticipate all these new things that we're dealing with. but it it's just getting to be too much.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:50  So do you get paid multiple times if there's a if there's a denial.

Audra Doyle 00:27:55  No.

Audra Doyle 00:27:56  If there's a denial, I don't make my second legal fee payment.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:00  So I, I actually didn't know that was a possibility. So it's it's technically contingent then.

Audra Doyle 00:28:05  Yeah.

Audra Doyle 00:28:06  Part of it's contingent. So the first legal fee is, you know, set you're not getting a refund for that. If the work is done I get paid. but I like to build in a little risk for the clients and they love that. I will never some law firms give 100% guarantee money back guarantee. I feel sorry for them right now because I don't know how they're still in business with that business model. so I, I'm making at least half of my fee, and I've started to build in some pretty robust.

Audra Doyle 00:28:36  We call them RFE fees requests for evidence. So, for these cases, I'm having to write them twice. Yeah. So I'm getting robust RFE fees, but that is less than my second legal fee payment was. So the numbers are going down.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:53  So is revenue for the year down.

Audra Doyle 00:28:55  A little bit? Not horribly. but I see which way it's going and I have to be prepared for that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:03  So I'd say what would be like catastrophic to me with like a 20% loss, like, like lower.

Audra Doyle 00:29:10  Than.

Audra Doyle 00:29:11  I'm not at a 20% loss, however. We have two more years of this administration and things are getting tougher and tougher and tougher. so I don't want to be caught when, you know, all cases are denied that sort of thing. You know, a business just totally dries up. I've got to be nimble, and I've got to think about a change.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:34  So there's a and there's a roller coaster of new case sign ups.

Audra Doyle 00:29:37  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:38  But overall, are they this. Are they the same year over year or are those down as well?

Audra Doyle 00:29:43  I'm a little bit down this year and we'll see how I end up.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:46  So it seems like the bulk of the the dip is in the revenue is from the, the actual denials.

Audra Doyle 00:29:52  Yes. Wow. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:55  That's interesting.

Audra Doyle 00:29:55  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:57  Is there a way of fixing that on the front end with only taking certain cases?

Audra Doyle 00:30:02  Exactly. So I have definitely turned down a lot more cases. also, I have raised my fees to where the first legal fee payment is higher than it used to be.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:14  It's a good idea.

Audra Doyle 00:30:15  Yeah, it's a great idea.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:17  Can you talk about raising rates overall?

Audra Doyle 00:30:19  Yes, and I have.

Audra Doyle 00:30:21  Okay.

Audra Doyle 00:30:23  I would say I'm not good at percentages Tyson. yeah I would say probably 10 to 20%. Yeah. Trying to make up.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:33  Because my, the reason I'm asking more specific is to, because like some of them might be wanting to get into immigration. No idea what they're getting into.

Audra Doyle 00:30:42  I would say the money right now. Like if you don't get into immigration to be a millionaire, you know, I drive a Honda, as my immigration professor used to say, I drive a Honda, not a BMW.

Audra Doyle 00:30:54  but the money was very steady for many years, and now it's just really contentious. I think the best place to go. People are looking. There's a need is removal defense, which is the most difficult area of immigration law. I mean, the the denials are sky high, so you have to go in there realizing you're going to lose most of the time these days.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:20  Which is an odd thing, right? Because like, you lose your clients going.

Audra Doyle 00:31:24  Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Audra Doyle 00:31:25  And, you know, their family's still here. They could be in danger when they're going back to their home country. So it is a horrible feeling.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:33  So again, this is not a political question. I'm just very curious because whenever like when I was talking to to Jim, it seemed like his, his best years he's ever had was under the first Trump administration. And then it wasn't as good under Biden. And now is it? What's the difference between this administration, Trump administration, and the last one when it comes to revenue?

Audra Doyle 00:31:55  My best years owning my firm were under Biden because he opened up more opportunities for people.

Audra Doyle 00:32:03  So they would, you know, there was something called the stem. you know, they would really look at at clients who had us degrees. They were working in Stem fields. They were improving the US economy or industry or that sort of thing. Those things have gone away. So I think if you're in removal defense, it's booming right now. But if you're in affirmative immigration, which is what I do, it's gone down.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:26  Interesting.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:27  Okay. So it has to do with some of those things.

Audra Doyle 00:32:29  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:29  That wasn't done in the first administration.

Audra Doyle 00:32:31  Not as much.

Audra Doyle 00:32:32  Gotcha. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:33  Because I'm trying to understand why and I it's just.

Audra Doyle 00:32:37  Oh, I.

Audra Doyle 00:32:38  Will tell you, my perception is that the first administration, they tried a lot of things and they were slower to implement. But if you remember, back in January 2025, how many executive orders did he sign in the first week? Well, tons, tons and tons.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:57  Right.

Audra Doyle 00:32:58  But the idea was they were ready to go the first day with all of these immigration changes much faster than the last time around.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:06  So how long? How long does it take to hit you all? Because that's a question I've always had about policy in general, because it's interesting how much murals practice areas affected by the federal government and specifically the president. How long does it take? So an executive order signed in January of 2025. How long does it take to hit your practice area?

Audra Doyle 00:33:30  It's an immediate impact for clients money wise. It depends on if it sticks or not, because I think a lot of people in the immigrant community, they they all talk to each other, they watch the news, they get scared. They say, I hear this all the time, and it's so interesting to me. They are like, should I go ahead and file or should I wait? That's a question I get asked a lot. And my philosophy is things don't get better under this president. You know, things get tougher and tougher. So if you wait, you're definitely going to have a tougher time. but it does take a little time to trickle down.

Audra Doyle 00:34:08  Sometimes it's immediate. Such as we had the executive order about the H-1b $100,000 fee. My H-1b is, you know, I'm a small firm. I had 21 year. I had ten the next year, and I think I had 2 in 2026. So that was a huge hit.

Audra Doyle 00:34:25  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Audra Doyle 00:34:28  Just because of that one policy.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:30  Interesting.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:31  Okay. We're going to pivot because we're gonna talk about pivoting anyways. So it's interesting because what got you going from thinking oh this is just a rough stretch. We're going to write it out, to actually thinking, okay. No, actually what we need to do is we need to add a new practice area and, and maybe even pivot out of immigration completely.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:52  So, yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:53  What got you thinking.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:54  That I.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:55  Don't want to completely leave immigration? I am cognizant that if you don't do it all day, every day, you might miss some things, so I have to be really careful about that as a lawyer. But I have always loved estate planning.

Audra Doyle 00:35:08  I've always had my my toe in that world a little bit. and I have, you know, I feel like it's something where I would be able to help people once again. I think that's one of my core values. I love helping people. and I love working with people. I love working with families and helping them reach their goals. So estate planning would also do all those things. I found it an interesting practice area. I have experience, you know, I've written several wills and trusts and things myself, so it's not completely foreign to me. seem natural to move over to that. And I don't want to go to court.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:49  So was there a specific conversation you all had, or like some sort of monetary like the numbers were down, I guess. What made you what was the trigger for you? They were like, okay, we gotta I gotta make another, I gotta, we.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:59  Gotta put it.

Audra Doyle 00:36:00  Yeah, it was in the spring. when I just it I was completely overwhelmed.

Audra Doyle 00:36:06  It this it's been very tough. you know, not trying to maintain my mental health. Physical health, is. And I'm just hunkered down. I feel like I'm weathering a hurricane, you know? And I'm in the bunker. so this has been very, very difficult. And I know that I don't want to live the rest of my life and career with this sort of atmosphere of contention, change, political whim. You know, what's the next president going to do? That sort of thing. So I thought something more stable. and estate planning does not change all the time. it's pretty stable. It's also state law. instead of federal law, you know, we deal with some tax issues and that sort of thing. But, that also interested me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:55  So you mentioned mental health a couple of times.

Audra Doyle 00:36:58  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:58  I wonder, is this more of a mental health, not mental health? Is this more of a the mental stress thing, or is this more a financial part of it?

Audra Doyle 00:37:06  It is mental just as much as financial.

Audra Doyle 00:37:09  I think I could squeak through this administration, but what am I going to be at the end, you know? Am I going to be an angry lady who, you know, just gets out of bed and and goes to fight every day? And, it's I it's hard to explain how rough it is in this field.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:28  yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:29  I wonder if this has led to any tough conversations with your partner about whether or not you should abandon immigration, period.

Audra Doyle 00:37:37  We've talked about it, but I know I don't want to abandon it completely. I know that I still can do good. but just I need some peaceful cases.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:49  As he as he leaned on Udall to to abandon.

Audra Doyle 00:37:51  It. No.

Audra Doyle 00:37:52  Not at all. Yeah. And he wants to expand, too. So he's doing two practice areas. I would add another one. you know, we're interested in doing different things, and it's so interesting to me. I wondered what you would think about this. We're always talking about niching down, you know, and that has been very successful for me.

Audra Doyle 00:38:11  But it's not working right now. And so that's when I have to be, realize that if it's not working for me, this niche is causing me a lot of stress. What can I do different? And this seemed like a good choice for me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:29  It is one of those odd things that a niche is really. It's one of those things where you will make the most money. but it's also it's the most susceptible.

Audra Doyle 00:38:39  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:41  Then. But I think.

Audra Doyle 00:38:43  Like, let's say this, what if there's tort reform.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:47  Which that was, that was going to be my only comparison. Yeah, right. And I think you've seen that in Florida. That's what you've seen. Morgan and Morgan sort of spread across.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:55  The country.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:56  Their, their bread and butter has been taken away from them to a certain extent. They still make.

Audra Doyle 00:39:01  Money. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:02  You know, but so I do think that that is, that's been tried in Missouri. Luckily what we've seen in most states where there's been reform, people have woken up to realize that it's just their rights.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:14  They're voting their rights away.

Audra Doyle 00:39:15  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:16  Doing.

Audra Doyle 00:39:16  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:17  Most people have woken up to that. I think with it being a state to state issue, it's easier to fight. Whereas we've got some federal government, you've got immigration, federal. It can be done with an executive order that can be taken away with the stroke of a pen.

Audra Doyle 00:39:30  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:30  That I think it makes it a little more susceptible. So I, I'm still a firm believer in niching down.

Audra Doyle 00:39:37  Yeah. It worked for years for me.

Audra Doyle 00:39:39  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:39  And I still think that's the right business strategy. Yes, but it is. There is the there is the risk. And what's the hard part too is like you were getting paid based upon part of your payments are being paid that they're based upon whether or not it's denied or approved.

Audra Doyle 00:39:55  Right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:55  Which you have, you have very little control over it.

Audra Doyle 00:39:59  That's. Yeah.

Audra Doyle 00:40:00  It's not like I'm taking terrible cases all of a sudden, there's still wonderful cases, excellent cases, and, you know, just getting hammered left and right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:10  My bigger concern about the issue picked to maybe add on.

Audra Doyle 00:40:15  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:15  So not immigration to the estate planning is I feel like that is the most susceptible out of any practice area to be just replaced by AI.

Audra Doyle 00:40:22  That's the biggest.

Audra Doyle 00:40:23  I was thinking about that, but I thought about what's my angle. And all of my clients are immigrants and many of them own property in other countries. So how can and my partner is a lawyer in India. Yes he is. So he practiced for ten years in India before he came to the US. So that is our little angle that we have something extra for our clients. International estate planning. when you have us citizen children, oftentimes they're not Indian citizens, but the parents are the parents own property in two different countries quite often. And how are we going to arrange all of that to fit their needs for future estate planning? So I thought about the same thing. Tyson, how am I going to distinguish myself? There's 1,000,001 estate planning law firms in Georgia.

Audra Doyle 00:41:17  but my clients have different needs.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:21  Okay. So question. I've never thought about this. I understand how you can take care of the estate planning for the US and India.

Audra Doyle 00:41:29  Yep.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:30  How can you? Let's say it was the UK, I guess. How exactly do you do the estate planning for the UK property?

Audra Doyle 00:41:35  Yeah, so I've been thinking about that. I have a client who owns property in Rio, in Brazil. yeah. So I thought, you know, maybe I'm going to. I actually, have a paralegal who is a lawyer in Brazil, so I'm going to use my connections with all these different countries. You know, when I have property in other countries, if we need to do something legally in those countries, I will reach out and get that assistance in that country.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:04  I think what I would do, I would look for where do the where do Americans buy the most land in like other in other countries?

Audra Doyle 00:42:11  That's a great question. I would say Mexico. Yeah, it's my guess.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:15  Oh yeah, that's a great guess. Canada and Mexico.

Audra Doyle 00:42:17  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:18  Yes, I probably figured that out and I'd probably focus on those specific peoples. But the target. And then I would probably have to hire an attorney in each of those countries.

Audra Doyle 00:42:28  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:29  Just as a detective matter. Or you can even hire a contract. Attorneys.

Audra Doyle 00:42:33  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:35  although I believe Canada probably has some stricter employment laws. And so that would something you have to look at. Yeah, but that's probably where I would go if I were going to do it. And because it's interesting because it now I, I'm liking your idea more because now it's got the more blend of you've got the immigration stuff. Yeah, maybe tied into it as well. I think that part would be pretty cool. So now you can you can really market that.

Audra Doyle 00:43:00  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:01  Now you got something you can market. Whereas before I'm adding estate planning and now you've got the firm that's been marketing immigration forever.

Audra Doyle 00:43:09  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:09  Now you're. I wouldn't even say that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:11  I mean, you're definitely adding on a practice area, but you're you're extending your services to your current client.

Audra Doyle 00:43:17  Exactly. That was the idea.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:20  I like that. Okay. Where'd you come up with that idea. That's a cool idea.

Audra Doyle 00:43:24  I see it I just kept seeing it you know. Well fun story. I have a client that needed this type of work and I wasn't doing the work. We had just applied for her citizenship, and she had to stop her citizenship application because she was an heiress of a famous grocery store chain in her home country. And the laws in that country said that if you become a citizen of another country, you're not going to get your inheritance. Yes. And so they have us citizen children, and she had to give up her application for citizenship. So she just has a green card. And I thought, you know, these issues are going to keep coming up. I often hear of clients that say, well, my home property so-and-so, I'm renting it out.

Audra Doyle 00:44:12  a lot of immigrants have rental income, which means they own property. In other countries they have kids. What's going to happen if something happens to them?

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:21  Yeah. Let's see. I see that's a pretty big problem. I would probably look in China, too. I think it would seem like there'd be like some, like the population so heavily heavy. It's a large. And then you have so many Chinese moving to the United States, probably also owning land back in the, in China and becoming US, U.S. citizens. I think that's another one I'd probably focus on, too.

Audra Doyle 00:44:44  Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, you know. Are they? What are the land ownership rights of China? Yeah, I don't know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:52  You need a Chinese attorney, right?

Audra Doyle 00:44:54  Like, are they allowed to own land like an American system or. I don't know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:00  I also like the idea that you can, I think, see to to me, you and your partner and everyone else listening. It may not mean a whole lot to us to understand that it's just a title, but I think to clients, you're now an international law firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:14  I think that that does say something to some clients, especially immigration to clients. Yes. Like or I mean, and honestly to people that have properties in both in both countries having international law firm to to me makes the most sense. Right. If you're if you're an actual potential client. Yeah. It could be a selling point to just adding one attorney, another country, you know. Right. International law firm. I think there's some branding juice to that for sure.

Audra Doyle 00:45:41  Love it. I will keep that in mind.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:43  You're doing a lot of marketing though.

Audra Doyle 00:45:45  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:45  So how do you change your messaging?

Audra Doyle 00:45:48  That is my big worry right now. So I have been and shout out to TikTok. I have been very successful on TikTok. if you're not in that, you know, space right now. I think that there still is opportunity. So my strategy for TikTok is that I post one video a day and I go live five days a week, and I rapid fire answer questions about immigration.

Audra Doyle 00:46:15  you know, why is my case so slow? How long is it going to take? you know, should I file this case, this and that? just to point people in the right direction. So it's not legal advice, but I tell my team, I say I'm going live on TikTok. I'm going to make the phone ring. Yeah, it really works. So at minimum 30 minute live, five days a week. And I'm trying to think how where would be a good space to talk to people about estate planning because number one, it doesn't change as much. So there's always something new to talk about with immigration. Is state planning. Not so much. The second thing that is might be difficult is people don't want to face their more mortality. You know, a lot of times their head is in the sand and they don't want to face, end of life decisions even though they know they should. so I thought about maybe going back to Facebook because the group of people I'm looking at are probably more on Facebook than the younger crowd on TikTok.

Audra Doyle 00:47:17  Yep. YouTube. It has also been very successful for me. So my question is, you know, I have all these platforms already. Do I start over with my platforms or do I just start adding in and mixing it up? And will that dilute my messaging for my first practice area? So that's something I'm debating right now.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:40  I don't think it deleted it if he knew what we were talking about. And you're now extending your services and it comes to your client base with Facebook, if you're not doing anything on Facebook, you can do whatever you want. I can just tell you the way the right, like Ryan Webber did his training in the association. So you should check that out. Okay. He is he is making. They're making a ton of money. so Tiffany Webber's firm, he's doing the marketing for them. Yeah. And they're doing they're doing webinars, and they're just. He posts his numbers in the association. He says, here's our numbers. He sends me text messages about every other day.

Audra Doyle 00:48:16  Good for him.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:17  They they they can connect all the dots. It's easy to see okay, here's the ads. These are the conversions. All you're the lead. Like everything. Everything. He goes, all the numbers. And it's all Facebook. It's run from ads. So ads and then into the into their whole webinar funnel. And they do a phenomenal job. So you can do that from scratch right with Facebook. Yeah, but I still think you can. You can still do the same videos that you're doing on TikTok. Just with the just that added little message. I think you also need to probably hammer down some core values.

Audra Doyle 00:48:50  Exactly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:51  You can mark it. Yeah, right. Like you got to figure out what that what is that message to to that client base because there is that definite overlap. Yeah. Now if it's if you're thinking I'm just going to do a state planning, that's gonna be the marketing, that's a different message, right? Which you can run those ads.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:08  Here's the thing. That's what's cool about Facebook. And anywhere that you can run ads, you can just run those ads and you can run it to a certain market. It can be a different market from your typical client market. Right. Or the people that you're currently serving. So you can still do that with a state running ads. So you can you could do both of those. So what you might be doing is doing a TikTok live and then an hour later might be doing a webinar like what you're doing.

Audra Doyle 00:49:34  Exactly. So yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:36  It's the what's interesting is we're calling them webinars. That's essentially what you've been doing on TikTok, right? You're doing a form of a webinar.

Audra Doyle 00:49:44  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:45  So I mean, do you would you feel comfortable doing that if that's.

Audra Doyle 00:49:49  Yes, I like it. Surprisingly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:54  I wonder how do you do, you know, estate planning not.

Audra Doyle 00:49:59  You know, took the class in law school, written a few wills and trust, but.

Audra Doyle 00:50:04  And I've also done a pretty serious cle on it. So next step is to get a mentor. but I'm just about ready to take on cases.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:14  To me, that would be the harder part, right? The marketing side, you can get the cases. Oh, it's just marketing, right? It's it's the the other part of it is like, okay, actually handling the matter.

Audra Doyle 00:50:25  Oh, yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:27  I'm ready getting the malpractice insurance lined up. Yeah. And, you know, screening the screening up in case you if you do screw something up, it's covered, you know. that's that's the bigger part of it. It's bigger in that part of it. And then how does that interfere with your immigration practice?

Audra Doyle 00:50:41  Right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:42  So is how much are you? How much of the immigration practice is like transactional versus like, you know, appearing in court or going to interviews?

Audra Doyle 00:50:51  100% transactional.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:53  So you don't have to you have to go like interviews, right?

Audra Doyle 00:50:55  No, no, I do interviews.

Audra Doyle 00:50:57  That's it. And just took on my first mandamus case. Yep. So I will be going to court. Another change I didn't think I would have. but yeah, right now it's 100% transactional.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:10  When it comes to the this pivot, though. Are you thinking about, you know, have you been thinking about changing the brand and like the name of the firm, have you thought about doing any of that?

Audra Doyle 00:51:20  Not at this time. We just changed to Thiru and Doyle got everything rebranded. And we we debated. You know, I debated because I've been in this, this world about firm development, you know, thinking about what the name is, how the name reflects what we do. so if we were to decide to change our name, it would be something like international firm or show that there's different practice areas under the umbrella of the firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:50  I think if you're going to pivot, I would do something like that. Yeah. Because now you're you're saying to everybody here's what we're doing now.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:58  it makes it tough though is the fact that it is. You can't say you know dual immigration firm right. Right. It does make it more difficult because you're you're in the tagline has to be consistent. I do think that there's a lot of creative people in this world. You're very creative. You'll be able to figure out something that fits.

Audra Doyle 00:52:17  Yeah, I've already got a few ideas. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:20  Let's not do it. I do, in case someone else. I don't want them to get the trademark. Okay, so let's not.

Audra Doyle 00:52:25  Yeah. Do you have some ideas?

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:28  I'm very curious because I think that rebranding it makes sense because then it screams to people, hey, this is what we're doing now. Well, you can even do on your on your live videos. You can talk about that.

Audra Doyle 00:52:38  Yeah. I was thinking, you know, keep the name, but the tagline would explain what we do, just like Morgan and Morgan, like you said for the people. So something like that where you say the firm and immediately the tagline goes in your head.

Audra Doyle 00:52:50  Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:51  So perfect. Okay. Okay. I'm very curious to see what you got. All right. I think you got something. All right, so you're still in the middle of the story?

Multiple Speakers 00:53:00  Yes.

Audra Doyle 00:53:01  And so I don't you don't get to really wrap this thing up neatly with the bow.

Audra Doyle 00:53:06  No.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:07  This is how it started.

Audra Doyle 00:53:09  It's like an evolution. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:12  but what would have to. Let's say you came back in two years and we talked about everything that you're doing, and. Wow. The pivot. You make this big move, right? What would need to happen for you to say changing the firm was absolutely the right decision?

Audra Doyle 00:53:31  When I'm settled in the new location because I haven't mentioned this, but we're having life changes in my family too. So my daughter is about to graduate high school and my husband is about to retire. And that loosens my ties to Atlanta. So in two years I've already got it set out. I've got my vision board. I know where I want to be in two years, and I want to hold that close to my chest, but I definitely have a plan.

Audra Doyle 00:54:02  and I'm moving towards that plan step by step.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:07  Okay. So for everything to have, it had to have gone right?

Audra Doyle 00:54:11  Yes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:12  You've you've met all your targets. Yeah. Made the pivot. And then you're able to live where you're wanting to live.

Audra Doyle 00:54:17  Yes. And not have to work 12 to 14 hours a day. Be a little more hands off.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:27  Okay, I like it. It's a lot more concrete than just being able to be in the new spot.

Audra Doyle 00:54:32  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the other thing is to be able to not be tied down to the location. So I did a test run this summer. I left the office for two weeks, and my husband put the printer in the back of his car, and we went on vacation, and I used that printer. I used a laptop, but I was able to run the firm successfully, make money. All the wheels stayed on the bus, while I was away from the office. Traveling? Yes. So that was my test to see if this really could work.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:08  Phenomenal. Well, on that note, that's all I have for you. Thank you for doing this.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

MaxLawCon 2026 might have been the best one yet. Tyson Mutrux is back from Atlanta with the conversations and lessons that made this year’s conference memorable. From Ben Glass explaining why law firms waste money on marketing to Gary Falkowitz challenging how firms handle intake, Tyson shares practical takeaways owners can apply long after the conference ends.

But some of the biggest lessons had nothing to do with marketing. Tyson reflects on honest mastermind conversations, the value of getting the right people in a room, and a speaker whose authentic message earned a standing ovation. He also celebrates the speakers, the first MaxLawCon awards, and what’s next in Las Vegas in June 2027.

What You'll Learn

  • Five ways attorneys sabotage their marketing
  • Why chasing new digital platforms can scatter your efforts
  • How follow-up, clear messaging, and former clients affect results
  • Two common intake mistakes that create friction for potential clients
  • Why an authentic message can beat a polished delivery
  • What happens when firm owners work openly through challenges together

Timestamps

  • 00:33  Was this the best MaxLawCon yet?
  • 02:34  What made this year’s mastermind different
  • 05:41  Ben Glass and old-school marketing in an AI world
  • 09:37  Five ways lawyers sabotage their marketing
  • 11:13  Why memorable messages matter more than polish
  • 15:08  Other standout speakers and sessions
  • 16:43  Gary Falkowitz on fixing law firm intake
  • 17:30  First-ever MaxLawCon awards and video lessons

🎟️ Get your MaxLawCon 2027 tickets: maxlawcon.com

🔍 Vet your vendors: beccaslist.co

Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

Tyson Mutrux [00:00]  Welcome back to Maximum Lawyer. I'm Tyson Mutrux. I am like just in awe of what happened last week. It was really just incredible. got back from MaxLawCon. I got back late Friday night. I end up coming back a little earlier than what I normally do. Amy wasn't able to come with me this time, but it was it may have been the best one yet. I it's one of those things I want to give it a little bit of time. In the moment, I was like, this was the best one yet. Right, right. This was absolutely the best one yet.

Tyson Mutrux [00:31]  But I it is one of things like I wanna give it a little bit time so I can think about it. That you kind of think back to it and in a year I'll gauge, you know, hopefully, you know, the next one in June, MaxLawCon.com. If you don't have your tickets, we've already sold a bunch of tickets, so make sure you get your tickets because we've already sold a third of the mastermind tickets and we've sold a bunch of the MaxLawCon tickets. So we are definitely headed to a sellout, so make sure you get your tickets. But

Tyson Mutrux [01:02]  In when in 2027 at that one in June of 2027, I'll I'm gonna look back and say, okay, where does this one rank and all that? So I it's one of the things like each one, it's like which one's your favorite kid? Like you can't really pick a favorite because they're all just so different. We try to design these things so that they're not like the cookie cutter same every single time, right? We just try to make them a little bit different. But I do wanna, I mean, I kind of go through I guess a couple things. for me

Tyson Mutrux [01:33]  For me, the week looks way different than what it does from like an attendee because we've got there's a lot of prep going into it that Becca, I mean, Becca does the vast majority of the work getting the conference ready, but there's some prep that I've got to do both from a presentation standpoint. I was also the co-MC with Jane Muir. Thank you so much, Jane. She's been the MC for the last two years. That was amazing. but for like the attendee, like so we have like for me, I've got this, we have the recording day.

Tyson Mutrux [02:03]  So we always do a recording day, then a mastermind day, then the actual two conference days. So my week is a little different from the attendee. If you're an attendee, if you just come to the conference, you got two days of conference. if you also do the mastermind, then you've got the mastermind too. So it's kind of like two different things, right? For an attendee, from an attendee standpoint. And really fun group that it was interesting. A lot of times you have tears in a mastermind. Sometimes you have laughs, sometimes you have a mix. This one was a really upbeat.

Tyson Mutrux [02:35]  Positive group. Real really a very interesting group, as as positive as it was. It was a really cool group to be a part of. And there's some people that came in with like very they were very vulnerable about things and came out with some really good solutions to some of their really big problems. And I thought that was really awesome. That was one of the things I heard from people is like the especially new attendees like I can't believe that like how open you can be and

Tyson Mutrux [03:02]  And feel comfortable talking about these things because like everything's confidential in the masterminds. And so it and in the conference, whether it's the mastermind of the conference, everyone's there to help each other out. It's the rising tides, right? We take that very seriously. Rising tides, raise all boats. So it's a r we take that very seriously, right? That's a that's why we did tables in the round this time, right? As opposed to doing just you know, tables, conference style tables, right? We did we did things a little bit different. We wanted it to

Tyson Mutrux [03:32]  Have people be able to communicate directly with each other as opposed to looking just at the stage. So we we tried to mix it up and test that out at that share this year. But yeah, so like the the mastermind part of it, it can be a long day, right? It's one of those things where it can be a really long day, but you have, you know, 12, depending on on the mastermind, depending on the year, you know, 12 to 15 people in a room, and you're you're grinding through some issues.

Tyson Mutrux [04:01]  This was an interesting one year this year too, because not everyone had a lot of times you have like these themes, and there wasn't a lot of repeat of themes during at least during our mastermind, which I thought was also something very interesting. but it was I was very impressed by how how solution focused people were in this, where there was an issue that was presented, people on this one got

Tyson Mutrux [04:23]  Quickly to the to the issue for the most part. And then we got right into solution mode. And that was awesome to see. Really cool. People really taking it seriously and, you know, going to work, right? Rolling their sleeves up and trying to solve some issues for people. That was that was really cool. And then we got to the conference and really kind of a dream come true for me having Ben Glass come and speak. And they're putting on their last conference, I think this week or next week.

Tyson Mutrux [04:51]  And just to have him come and speak before they even have their last conference and the generosity of Ben Glass. Thank you so much, Ben, for doing it. Thank you, Ben, for the years of doing this. I know you're not retiring. That's not what it's not what you're doing. I'm d I don't want it to sound like that. I'm just thank you so much for everything you've done for the legal world. so I'm so thankful for you. I r I was telling I was I just gotta tell you all

Tyson Mutrux [05:19]  Sort of an inside story. I was, I was, we were at this rooftop. It was the night before the conference. We usually do like a dinner the night before, and it was outdoor and the Braves playoff game was going on, which was really cool. And we could actually see into the stadium. And I was it was funny. It was the first time I talked to Ben in person, like it was I other like we had done a podcast with him, but like I'm talking about in person, in person. And it was so surreal to me because

Tyson Mutrux [05:49]  I

Tyson Mutrux [05:50]  Remember getting his CDs back early 2010, 2011. And I remember listening to him because he used to do these like phone calls and he'd record them and then send them out to people. And it's just so crazy to be like listening to hearing his voice and then thinking about those discs. And it was it was such a surreal moment for me. It was really cool. So I really enjoyed that. And his topic was so cool. It was old school marketing to survive and thrive in an AI world. It was so good. It was on point, phenomenal.

Tyson Mutrux [06:20]  You couldn't ask for a better presentation. You really couldn't. And he was our keynote. Thank you again, Ben. Just an amazing, amazing experience. and I want to make sure that this is an episode that you all get something from. I really do. So I'll I'm gonna give some of the takeaways from these. And it's w one of the things when it comes to Ben’s is that how how a lot of law firms, most small firms, they waste money on marketing because they

Tyson Mutrux [06:46]  They don't own the media, right? And there's a lot of noise by companies that are selling you digital marketing, right? And it really he's talking about how that leads you into the trap. He talks about the digital marketing maze, like you have the social media platforms and you got paid advertising. you've got, you know, content marketing, and then then he's he's talking about like the emerging and specialized when it comes to like AI chat bot marketing and things like that and voice search.

Tyson Mutrux [07:12]  And how it really can get just scattered all over the place. And he talked about the hidden cost of keeping up with digital marketers. and that's how it can be really, really dangerous. And then the main takeaway I'll give for for that this isn't the main takeaway. I'll say this is one of them. He talked about the five ways attorneys like they sabotage their sabotage their own marketing. so chasing every new trend, that's that shiny ball syndrome. you know, no like

Tyson Mutrux [07:38]  There's like no follow-up system. That was a big thing that Gary Falkowitz talked about too. in a different way, put it a different a different way. Hiring agencies before you're ready was another one, right? and that's before your message is clear. And he really broke down how to make sure your message is clear, like really got into the basics, what which I thought was awesome. ignoring past clients, which is also really true, like not harvesting what you already have. And then also inconsistent messaging where like your website says one thing.

Tyson Mutrux [08:06]  Your LinkedIn says another, your other marketing says another thing. And that was a really I thought that was a really, really good point too. some other kind of like the fun, like fun times. there was there were lots of like during the conference, I wouldn't say lots of there were there were a couple times where there were definitely tears shed during some presentations. Mar Marnie Pearson. So Marnie, Marnie is someone that you would not

Tyson Mutrux [08:30]  Like I don't think that she would expect to be on stage where Marnie, and I this is not a critique, by the way, at all. Marnie is not the most polished speaker. And she would tell you this, right? But she is the most memorable, she had the most memorable presentation of the entire conference. And the reason why I'm telling you that, and the reason why I said it the like I didn't just start with the good part of it is because there's a lot of people that are sitting in the audience or that are listening to this podcast that think, I don't belong on that stage.

Tyson Mutrux [09:03]  And that is not true. And Marnie proved that, where you don't have to be the greatest speaker in the world to have a very, very powerful message. And there was she got she was the only one that got a standing ovation. And it was not to say the other presentations weren't fantastic, they were, but her her message was that powerful. Okay. So if you think that maybe you have something people would want to hear, you do. And every one of you do. So whenever we put the call to speakers out, please.

Tyson Mutrux [09:32]  Please, please, please. I said this on stage. I'm saying it again. Please apply to speak. Just because you do like, I want you to even even if you don't think you have something, do it anyways, right? Do it anyways. Because a lot of you have a more powerful message than what you think. Marty's was so great. It was so good. Steven Lefkoff was really fun too, because he talked about referrals from unusual sources. That was awesome. Marco Brown, I'm not gonna give away the goods on that one. Marco's was

Tyson Mutrux [10:00]  Whoa my gosh, that was amazing. Adam Williams, it was really cool watching Adam Williams, how like he has like grown into such an amazing speaker. And he talked about how April shock is optional and how you know working with the right accountant can make a really big difference. That was awesome. Travis Howard, so talked about hard and soft machines. That was phenomenal. He's got a book coming out, so I'll make sure we have him on to talk about that too.

Tyson Mutrux [10:25]  We ended day one with Gary Falkowitz. And if you've not heard Gary speak before, here's here's how here's how Ben Glass put it. Okay. And Ben Glass knows. Ben Glass knows this stuff. And I saw him, and I'm gonna paraphrase, he posted on Facebook. It was the best presentation on intake and conversion he has ever seen. And that is saying a lot. Okay. That alone is saying so much, so much.

Tyson Mutrux [10:47]  So I if you did not see Gary, if you've never seen Gary speak, you really are missing a lot. he was talking about he talked about the intake non-negotiables. really good. He also has he also has a voice AI that I I recommend. I just full disclosure, I don't use the his voice AI, but I know he does have it. So you might want to check it out. he's

Tyson Mutrux [11:09]  He's a pr he's the pro, right? He's it's called capture now.com and he really knows. He really knows what he's talking about. So let me let me pull up. I'm actually pulling up some of the slides. I'm not gonna show them here, but he it's one of those things where I'm gonna go through some of the things. So two ways firms screw up intake. So entitlement. that's one of So sounds like a headache, not worth my time. let's take the weekend to think about it, right?

Tyson Mutrux [11:36]  That's

Tyson Mutrux [11:36]  One way. And then failing to understand the claimant mindset. So the whole idea of instant gratification, the lack of friction, like kind of like Amazon, like different roadmaps, give reasons for your ask, like give them reasons for like why you ask for things, and then you want to educate them. and they only want to work with experts, like understanding that part of the mindset. and they also want to be truly understood. Like that was those are two of the the things he talked about when it comes to

Tyson Mutrux [12:04]  The way firms screw up intake. I'm not gonna give everything because he went through a lot. He covered up a bunch during his present his presentation. He and Ben had more time than than most when it comes to the presentations. Cause we do make these, we make it really difficult on on the presenters. We give them 20 minutes. That's what we give them. We don't give them anything else. And that really forces them to tailor their presentations to really give you the only the good stuff, which is really good.

Tyson Mutrux [12:32]  There was something else. I guess before I get into some of the other presentations, I also say when it comes to presenters, so I'm gonna talk about presenters in a second, but we also did for the first time, we did our awards, the Max Law Con awards, which was awesome, really good. Like one of my favorite parts was just doing that part of it. we did at the very end, and it was just it was cool, man. It was just s giving people like we gave legit

Tyson Mutrux [13:00]  Awards, right? They weren't, they weren't like these like a ribbon. Yeah, we gave like legit awards and it was so cool. Maximum Lawyer of the Year went to Tiffany Weber, which was so cool. very, very, very much deserved. Bill Umansky, man. This was one of the ones where he his title was about essentially choosing between his COO and his wife. That was that was one that was really, really powerful.

Tyson Mutrux [13:22]  You missed out. I'll tell you if you did not hear Jeff Hampton, if you weren't there and didn't get Jeff Hampton and then Ryan Weber, Tiffany's husband. so Ryan Weber and Jeff Hampton, the combination of those two when it comes to comes to YouTube, YouTube and how to present your videos in the right way were just masterful. And it was really cool because Ryan brought on an attendee.

Tyson Mutrux [13:43]  And he at the very beginning had her record a video on the spot. Okay. Put her back in the audience, taught taught us all some things. He said, make you pay attention to this because I'm gonna pull you back on the on the stage. She comes back on stage, she delivers it again, and it sounded great. It sounded really, really good. So it was how it was showed like how quickly, if you just adopt some of these things, pay attention just a little bit to a 20-minute presentation, get back up on stage. And what she probably had 10 minutes between.

Tyson Mutrux [14:14]  When she got on stage the first time and the second time, and then she delivered them just a banger of a video. So cool. And then he played them back to back. That was absolutely awesome. one of my favorite ones, and one I've I don't know if I've ever seen anything like this, Adam Rawson. And he was talking about restructuring their firm and how the firm went through a lot of different things over the last year or two. But he played music to it. And when I say he nailed the feel of each.

Tyson Mutrux [14:44]  Of each one of those scenes. So each each slide kind of had a scene with a background and it had music to it. And there were like dramatic pauses and dramatic music and then upbeat music. It was he nailed it. It was one of the coolest presentations I've ever seen. It was just so freaking neat to see someone deliver that. That was it was so cool. And it's one of those ones where like I had some things I had to do.

Tyson Mutrux [15:09]  In the middle. And I didn't want to leave the room. So like I just like s hovered at the back because I did I had to deal with a couple of logistics issues. And I was like, I just had to wait. I was like, okay, I gotta wait. And then I will I'll deal with that afterwards because it was that good. It kept me engaged the entire time. So that was so freaking cool. So that was one that you missed out on. But the next one's gonna be in Vegas in June.

Tyson Mutrux [15:38]  So if I really hope you'll go, maxlawcon.com. MaxLawCon.com, you'll get your tickets to June, the June 2027. You the mastermind or the conference and/or both. You can go to both, absolutely. And if you're interested in being a guest in Vegas, the last time we were in Vegas, we had a really great studio. It was awesome. the studio there is fantastic. The one in Atlanta is really good too. But the one in Vegas, this would be the second time we've been to Vegas to record.

Tyson Mutrux [16:05]  That was the second time we'd been to Atlanta to record. Both have really good studios. So if you are interested, make sure you let me know. But definitely get on you, you're gonna want to get these tickets now, maxlawcon.com. They are they are the cheapest you're gonna f find them. And they will only go up from here. It also helps us plan a lot. So make sure you make sure you get those now because the more the earlier you get your tickets, the earlier we know how many people they're gonna be, so that we can plan accordingly. So and we can.

Tyson Mutrux [16:36]  Plan we can do a lot better when it comes to planning and making things better for you if you get your tickets now and it's gonna be cheaper for you. So it's a it's it's a it's a win win, right? So win win. MaxLawCon.com and we will see you in Vegas. Thanks everybody.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Your law firm might not need another piece of software. It might need to start using the technology it already pays for. Tyson Mutrux sits down with Smart Advocate’s Nataliya Blidy to explore the hidden workflows, disconnected client communications, and incomplete case data that keep firms from operating efficiently. They discuss why treating a case management system like a digital file cabinet creates bigger problems than most owners realize.

From AI-assisted document processing to automated client follow-ups and smoother software rollouts, Nataliya shares practical lessons from working with law firms over the past decade. The conversation is a reminder that better systems are not just about buying the right tools. They are about consistent use, staff training, and solving one operational bottleneck at a time.

What You'll Learn

  • Why buying more software may not solve your operational problems
  • How missing notes, texts, and calls undermine reporting and AI
  • Where AI-assisted document intake can reduce repetitive work
  • Why a case management system should do more than store files
  • How team adoption makes or breaks software implementation
  • Why small, consistent workflow improvements lead to better firm operations

Timestamps

  • 00:33  Why firms keep buying tools they barely use
  • 02:34  AI-assisted mail scanning and document routing
  • 05:41  The hidden cost of incomplete case records
  • 09:37  Your case management system is not a file cabinet
  • 11:13  AI document extraction and suggested replies
  • 23:08  When ordinary automation beats AI
  • 25:43  When to replace software and why rollouts fail
  • 35:30  Building a more self-sufficient, data-driven firm

🎟️ Get your MaxLawCon tickets: maxlawcon.com

🔍 Vet your vendors: beccaslist.co

Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

[00:33] Tyson Mutrux: Today's guest is Natalyia Blidy from Smart Advocate. Natalyia has spent the last 10 years working in legal tech. And although she, I'm gonna go off my script a little bit, she is classically trained pianist, which is pretty cool. We can get into that too. But she has gotten but a behind the scenes look at how hundreds of law firms actually operate. And she's seen something I think a lot of us are guilty of, and We definitely are. We keep buying more technology while barely scratching the surface of the technology we already have. And she does work for a company that is a very robust system. We'll get to that in a second. But so today we're talking about the bottlenecks hiding inside your firm, the manual processes your team probably doesn't need to be doing anymore, and how to actually use technology to make the business run better instead of just adding another tool to the stack. Smart Advocate is also one of our sponsors at MaxLawCon this year. And you'll get a chance to meet the Smart Advocate team in Atlanta in October. Natalyia, welcome to the show. You and I, we were talking before. We've I don't know if we've first met in 2018, but we last spoke in twenty eighteen, I think. So it's great to see you again.

[01:45] Natalyia Blidy: Great to see you again. We definitely met in twenty eighteen and I think I've we've we've saw seen each other sometime throughout the years. So thank you for having me.

[01:54] Tyson Mutrux: Yeah, absolutely. It's a pleasure having you. And so here's what I'm asking about. This is not even on my list of questions, but for years I've thought about this thing, this feature you all have. And this is we try not to make these shows about the actual service. We would we want to make them interesting, but I find this really interesting. So you had this thing, and I'm I don't know if you still have it, where when you request medical records or something with a barcode, and this has always just stuck with me. I've never I've never understood how you did it. I've never needed seen another service do it. But when the records came back in, the barcode would get scanned and they would go straight into your file. Do you I do you still have that? That was amazing to me.

[02:34] Natalyia Blidy: Thank you, Tyson. Yes, I'm happy to explain. So we still have it, although AI, of course, made some changes and I think some good changes into this whole equation. So the process prior to AI for scanning medical records, not only medical records, any income in mail to busy law firms was a s by using barcode. There's also several other ways, but if you have if you have a lot of mail, right, a batch scan in it using barcode is pretty much a very effective way. So the way it was, it would be a file room clerk, let's say me, opening the mail, identifying what this document is, telling the system, well, this is a medical records from XYZ hospital. Then I put a barcode on on top of that, I don't know, 20 page medical record, and I do the same thing with the next document. So then I will have this stack of documents, I will just feed it in the scanner and I'm done at this point. Right, because what what the barcode will do, it will separate the attachments, it will route the attachments to correct files, it will notify the people, hey, you got medical records to go to the next step, right? So that was the process. Now, with AI, of course, a few steps can be bypassed. So what we've done, we still have the barcode. However The way the way it operates, and actually we're making some changes prior to our new release right now coming up in the next two weeks. So now the firm could have one generic barcode. So now I could be also Natalia, file room clerk. I could have bunch of pre-printed barcode pages, right? It could be it could be generic barcode pages. So now what I need to do is open the document. I don't need to read it because AI is going to read it. And it's AI is kind of a low-hanging fruit. It capable of identifying where this document needs to go, what case does this document belong to? So all I need to do is open the document, put a barcode on top of it, and just do that. So now it's gonna take me a lot less of processing time because now I don't have to read it and analyze it. AI will do that for me. So now I just opened all of this, put the barcode on top of it, scanned it, and result is really the same. there is an approval process. We don't want AI to just blindly do this. We want you to look at this big dashboard and see, well, this looks like a medical record for so and so file. And then you could just batch and prove it. That's quite amazing.

[05:04] Tyson Mutrux: That's awesome. That's really cool. I've for years I've always just thought that was just an amazing thing. I don't and I don't know I don't know any of the others that are doing that. So anyways, I just I wanted to talk about that. But let's talk about so you've been doing this for a while, right? So you've the last 10 years have been kind of crazy in legal tech, and you've you've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of law firms over the years. And I

[05:26] Natalyia Blidy: Get in there.

[05:26] Tyson Mutrux: let's talk a little bit about what you see behind the scenes. And so when you first look at a law firm's systems. Wha what makes you think like you guys are just making this way harder than it needs to be?

[05:41] Natalyia Blidy: wow, that's a that's a very, very good question. very often the operational challenges, right? I'm not a operations person, I'm a legal tech person, but I see the operational challenges as they come about. Very often they come to the surface during the conversion or post conversion. because now you decided to let's say switch the systems. You decided to adapt this awesome new piece of technology. So these old operational bottlenecks or whatever comes to the surface because now you have to figure out how to do things a lot more efficiently. I could probably give you a lot of examples from you know even even clients that don't realize that they're you could adapt your system better or you know, potential clients that do unnecessary steps that just makes the process a lot harder. you know, first of all, not a lot of still a lot of people don't make their case file sort of like a memory for for case file. So then data becomes not reliable. That's everybody knows that, right? If the information doesn't live in a case, you don't know anything about it. How can you do it? How how can you report on that? And that will also come into play when AI will be kind of sitting on top of any systems. Because think of it this way. If you have a case in the system and the attorney were is working on the case, if there are no notes recorded, if there's no phone calls that are recorded in that file. If the attorney is texting from his cell phone and not using the system, if you go into that file, how could you reliably tell when was that communication? What was done on that file, you cannot. And AI is not gonna be able to tell beside, you know, aside from just analyzing the documents that are in the file. So you know, that's what I see. Just a little bit of that. so I would say there are tools in many of the systems. Use them. There's a way to record phone calls, there's a way to drop voicemails, and now with AI they can be transcribed, translated. Make sure that data somehow goes in into the file. Make sure that this is always recorded because that kind of an inc inconsistency leads to you know, a lot of bottlenecks and unreliable reporting and you know that.

[08:19] Tyson Mutrux: Absolutely. So one of the things that one of my biggest pet peeves is one of with one of our attorneys is texting a client from their own cell phone. Like, you can do it from the file. Why are you not doing it? Just drives me crazy because someone will do something on a file and then they'll they'll be, well, why'd you do that? I was I was texting the client. Well, you didn't tell us you're texting about the client. You didn't put it in the file. So why didn't you put it in the file? So it just drives me crazy. So I'm glad you mentioned that.

[08:45] Natalyia Blidy: Absolutely. And my answer to this is if some of my clients call me, sometimes they and then again it goes to education. Some of them don't realize it. I have a mobile app. Use it. You can go and find that file on the mobile app. Make sure find that file and text it from from the app. Don't text it from yourself. It's going to be recorded. Or even automated texting. There's no reason to spend times time to do even like say the for the outreach like that I have to call the client every thirty days. I will do that. However I could set up also a procedure in our system. I know we have automated procedure where there's different triggers that will automatically engage, you know, texting. Hey if the client is treating make sure to send this client a message every thirty days. That should be a standard and it's good it's good for client communication.

[09:37] Tyson Mutrux: You know, something that drives me crazy. I think it drives you crazy too, is where they'll just treat their case management system as like just like a place to store data and documents, like a really pricey file cabinet. d do we does that drive you crazy?

[09:53] Natalyia Blidy: It drives me nuts because it's the worst thing you can do is just to treat your system as a Rolodex. It's sort of like I don't know if this is a good analogy, it just kinda c comes to be it's like I like to cook, so you know, I have a nice kitchen. So you would not get a like a nice custom gourmet kitchen if you're all you're doing is making, I don't know, o eggs and toasts. It defeats the whole purpose. You get a nice kitchen, use it. You make that gourmet meal, you can do it. so it's and it's also a lot of people get complacent. You learn about the tools that you have, right? The systems and AI too. It's not magic. You have to adapt it to the processes, you have to learn, you have to constantly update and the most of our successful clients, they look at the what we have on on the update and they look how that could adapt into their process, how they could make the process better, more automated.

[10:54] Tyson Mutrux: So okay, so I'm pretty familiar with the old smart advocate, the old system. I am very curio you mentioned the thing coming out in two weeks. I'm very very, very you've caught my attention. So I since you said it, I've not been able to get it out of my mind. So I am curious like what what's coming in a couple of weeks, 'cause this is that sounds pretty exciting.

[11:13] Natalyia Blidy: Okay. So this update that we have is I would have to say it's mostly about AI. and AI is just rapidly developing that we are doing what we call a roll in updates. It's as we as we used to do every six months or every year update, it's no longer feasible if you have AI. because there's always some some new things. So some of the features that we are adding are related to processing, you know that processing of the documents. We're also kind of adding a piece that will also process the emails too. That makes it a lot easier for clients, right? So I don't know if you have it, but there's an usually a lot of clients use the Outlook plugin. Well I have the email, I'll tag it back to the file. You can still and you will still be able to do that. However AI can kind of lift On top of that and ape is able to process all of your mail. So what happens as a result? So we add in this component as well. we are also adding several dashboards. So one of the exciting ones is kind of a draft replies. So now since we have all of the incoming texts, we assume we all we have all of the incoming text. So if the client texted you, it goes back into the system. If client email you emailed you it goes back into the system. So now you have this dashboard that automatically puts every income and email and text in order and then you could look through it and it also gives you kind of like this AI response, which is fantastic because then you could obviously this is where I would say you probably want to take a look at some of this AI generated response. I those this is one of those ways you can can you want to review it before you hit send. But however You can do that, you could make any changes, hit reply, you could do it one by one, you could do it in batches. That's really good, just kind of keep you accountable. This is what we have. we also have another really, I think, really cool piece, which is what I call data extraction. So in a database system like ours, you have a lot of documents. Now they're scanned into the system and AI helps process it. What you can do is reduce the data entry. So now these documents are properly labeled because AI labeled it properly. I can go ahead and go into the document tab and extract the data from the documents. So this way I don't have to do manual work. I know because I worked at the law firm and you have to read it read the document, add injuries, add critical deadlines from you know, add any tasks. So what we can do is read the document, right click. Extract data and then AI kinda reads The entity of this document and it suggests what what data can be s added to the case file from this document, which is fantastic because it reduces the whole time that I have to now do data entry. I really like that. templates, a little bit of an admin work. So anybody that created templates, I really like created templates the old-fashioned way. I find it very easy. I know where all of my labels are. That's what one of the things that I did in Smart Advocate when I joined in 2017. So now AI can read the whole library of the merge codes. So what I what I have is, well now I can click open example document. Let's say I have summons, open this example document and let AI run it. It will run it through the whole library of our merge fields and it will replace those fields, let's say incident date, client information, you know, vehicle information with those merge codes. You have to review it. For accuracy, but it's actually pretty good. We tested it. So now that becomes a lot easier. And there's several other things. We of course have advanced AI that we added to the you know, a conversation assistant, what we call I think it's wonderful. it will let you will kind of you can have this conversation assistant, listen to your conversation, and you could turn different modes, for example settlement negotiation or maybe deposition assistance. So if you're sitting in deposition you could turn on the microphone and see the live transcript, have the analysis on the right side telling you highlighting any inconsistencies from the file and you know kind of acting like an assistant. So and there's several other things so I could keep talking about it but I would love for you to you know anyone anybody that wants to take a look at it happy to show. We also have our yearly conference. That's gonna be all a lot about a lot about our release. So we're gonna be talking about that then.

[16:06] Tyson Mutrux: Yeah. And I pulled up the website, smart advocate dot com. It's you explain a lot of the features. I'm curious, are you still going to a lot of conferences?

[16:14] Natalyia Blidy: I am although

[21:26] Tyson Mutrux: Cool. All I'm gonna ask you a question about that. Here we go. here we go. All right, so I want to ask you about the conferences because I know you go to a few conferences each year. And I wonder when it comes to legal tech, what what excites you right now? Because there's a lot going on right now.

[21:44] Natalyia Blidy: changes that are taking place. I am I am really excited about obviously AI because if it's implemented right it's going to help a lot. And I know and I'm not the first person that said it. but implementing well implementing it well it's just going to do it's going to help processing. so again Since twenty eighteen I've been doing the automation, automate, automate a lot of different things. So kind of layering AI is also just the next level of automation. It's not going to it's not going to do everything. There's a lot of people that have this misconception also like that, well a case management system will do everything. But AI is gonna do everything. No, you have to you have to implement it will and it's going to help and it's going to reduce you know a need for a lot of data entry it's going to reduce a lot of bottlenecks in in the firm if implemented well.

[22:44] Tyson Mutrux: So there is a lot of talk of like AI native firms, and I don't I don't think that there are any really doing it well right now. But do you think I mean have you all had internal discussions about making smart advocate built for AI native firms where like the majority, like ninety percent of the work is done by AI? Have you all had those types of conversations?

[23:08] Natalyia Blidy: We do. I don't believe that the industry as a whole is ready for it yet and as of right now not everything should be driven by AI. at this point it's You have to use it and adapt it. Maybe ten years from now it's going to be completely AI driven. We don't know. We don't have a crystal ball. But not everything should be used you know driven by AI. I'll I'll I'll give you examples like just good old workflows. I've had some firms that use and now trying to use AI agents to send things like welcome emails. And I ask myself why? Why AI is expensive? This this kind of a and it's just one little example. There could be a few more. You know, it's a standard welcome letter. It's a standard template. You don't need AI to think of a language, to think of a welcome letter every single time. You can use AI to create this nice template. Yes, you can do that. But that should d these are some of the examples that shouldn't be done by AI, at least at least in this in this point of time. There's examples where AI is very helpful. So I think we'll we will see a lot of that for the next five years. I don't think fully full AI is an option right now. Use what you have and add as as it becomes available. It's probably the best approach.

[24:42] Tyson Mutrux: It reminds me of those memes that you see where like you've someone using AI that's like a massive piece of machinery just to like n like tapping a nail. You know, like it's not necessary for for lot of stuff. I yeah, we're where usually people will automate, you're totally right. People are using AI when it's not even necessary. It's just a waste of credit. So completely, completely agree.

[25:03] Natalyia Blidy: And it's a wasted opportunity to actually use the tools that you already have. And sometimes I look at some some of the operational issues and I'm thinking like, well, if you don't know how to use exactly the tools that you have right now, what makes you think that AI is just gonna make it better? It's not.

[25:23] Tyson Mutrux: Yeah, that's a good point too. I do also wonder how often do you see a customer or a firm where they're buying another piece of software to solve a problem where like their existing whether it's smart advocate or somewhere else, like the their existing software already does it? Like d do you see that a lot?

[25:43] Natalyia Blidy: I see that. I there's there's several wrong reasons to buy a system. And you know, I could think up of a few. but i would say the right reason to buy a system is just to solve s some problems at hand. some issues. Here's my problem, I need to solve it. Is my existing system able to tackle it? Yes, great. It's not. Okay, let's move on. Right. So a good reason would be, of course, if your system is outdated, it cannot do any of the ABCs that you want to achieve. Obviously, it's time for a switch. That's I always say it. but for to have a successful implementation, you have to you have to have the problems to solve. And very often I when I get on that very first call, I can see s the clients, the potential clients that will embrace the change. very well. Over the years it became more apparent because they ask tough questions. They ask they ask for problems to be solved. they don't simply look on just for the functionality. You have to, definitely you have to, but you also have to solve some of the issues that you have. You have to make your process better. And that's probably a good way to for you to change systems. And then remember the changing system is not Also you know, go live is not an end. It's kind of like a midpoint.

[27:18] Tyson Mutrux: Yes.

[27:19] Natalyia Blidy: A lot of times and I and I try my best to prepare the clients. It's go live, it's sort of not like an IT project, right? So it's we do map out the initial conversations and go live. For us, it's the project. For you, project doesn't end there. Well go live starts. It just kind of like a midway point because after Go Live, this is where actually a lot of these things surface. You know, poor adoption b by some team members. You will always have them. So you'll have to figure out who those people are and how to kind of bring them together. actually training it and making sure that everybody's using the data consistently. So you don't end up with this nice piece of software but now again using twenty percent of it then why would swi why wh why would you switch? So that's what I usually see. you know the conversion itself I always tell the clients, believe it or not, you know, when clients would call me would say, Well it's so hard to move the data. Data moving is not hard. It is not hard. I

[28:32] Tyson Mutrux: Some companies make it really hard. I won't mention names, but it would not it

[28:36] Natalyia Blidy: No, we won't.

[28:37] Tyson Mutrux: it's not smart advocate, I will tell you that. But anyways, keep going.

[28:40] Natalyia Blidy: Yes. Yes. So thank you. I didn't want to say that, but yes, moving data is not hard. It's just mapping, it's having the right fields, this is how it goes. And with now with AI it's able to we can do process a lot faster. Believe me, I can move your data a lot faster than you can learn. Here's this new system. I am not recreating my old system. Another big issue. What's next? very not often, but sometimes people will kind of default to their basic settings. Well, we used to do it this way. But why? You are not recreating your old system. Why did you move to this new system? Right? It could be solved. It could be a lot faster. I'll give you a few examples. Like we've had you know And it's maybe maybe very silly example. We had a I had a client called me saying, Well, we need to I need to be able to E facts from the system, I need to be able to print the document. So it they ordinary medical records. And for some reason they need to have an attorney signature on the re record request itself. I don't know why. But okay. Fine, weird, but okay. That's what I said. Okay, fine, if that's your process, you make it ten times more complicated because what happens now is this clerk prints the document, puts it for attorney to sign. Now she has to scan it back, right? And then put it together with plaintiff authorization and fax it. So well we're used to doing it this way, but why are you continuing into a new system this way? And I'm telling telling her, well First of all, there's an attorney merge code signature. It doesn't need to have a wet signature, I'm assuming we are to even begin to have this signature. But generate the document with this signature on it. You can do that. So you don't have to do all this printing, putting it back. It takes a lot of time. And then second of all, why aren't you doing the batch faxing? It save will save you a lot of times. If you if you well my attorney just wants to sell me, tell me verbally or to send me a task. There's a specific way to do this in smart advocates. So I will now go to the attorney. If you request medical record and this through this medical records page, assign it to this person, they'll have it on the to do list specifically. So now I could generate it as a batch record request, attach the authorization, and fax it right from that screen. So I don't have to go one by one and spend an ordinate amount of time. But yet they used to doing it this way. So they're kind of bringing it into a new system. And that's doesn't make me happy when I hear things like that. So

[31:41] Tyson Mutrux: No, not speaking of some things that don't make me happy either and probably don't make you happy is so I've heard this and it's I'm gonna give you all some credit. I don't think I've ever heard a story about this happening to smart advocates, so I'll give you all some credit. But the I here's what I hear. Law firm switches to do case management system. The technology itself seems to work perfectly. It's perfectly capable. but for some reason the rollout fails. like what is it that typically goes wrong in those situations? Cause it's kind of crazy to me, because like a lot of these like I mean, I know all the major systems at this point, and I know that they're all mostly capable, right? So what is it that even though the product is capable, like what is it in the rollout that makes it fail?

[32:29] Natalyia Blidy: Ugh, thank goodness we don't have that.

[32:31] Tyson Mutrux: Ha ha.

[32:34] Natalyia Blidy: I would imagine that it's as you write, it's not a technology. It's and both of the I would identify staff resistance. Because if you have a revolt on your hands that will make the product launch fail. so and that's what I'm that's what I mentioned, you know, data conversion itself is not a not a hard part. It's making sure that whole project kind of fits together and you know what what everybody's doing on day one. That's important. You know, for for let's say Mary who's doing medical records, she doesn't need this huge training. She needs to know I come on Monday, I need to know what what do I do specifically, how how my job is gonna get easier. So I think very often that's where the product would fail, a launch, I mean hi Because of the very poor adaption and not getting your staff ready and not getting them prepared for the changes to come. I would think that's the main reason for that. There's probably a few others. again, if the product is capable and that means the adoption issue that would be.

[33:52] Tyson Mutrux: Yeah. I wonder, do you

[33:52] Natalyia Blidy: The gas in the room.

[33:53] Tyson Mutrux: have an opinion as to who in the firm should own like the implementation of a new software? Do you think that there's one person that's better situated than than others?

[34:04] Natalyia Blidy: Well yes, so if I if I understand you correctly, usually for our project to go live, I usually ask for the firm, depending on their size, to bring in several key people into this implementation phase. If you have several departments, I would say, well I want the somebody from that department to be part of admin training, to be part of the whole rollout, to be part of our meetings that we have, so that they know what is about to come. so on day one, they could be that person that everybody else could go to. Right. So but I would say, you know Going forward, actually, I see a lot of need for even like a technology type of a consultant, like even outside consultant that could help you with the processes, who knows the system. And I've seen some of the firms implement it and even like kind of like a fractional type of a consultant could be helpful for some time post live implementation.

[35:12] Tyson Mutrux: So let me ask you this, because you've worked with hundreds at least of law firms, maybe more than that. And so what have you learned about running a successful law firm that you wish you had known when you first got into legal tech?

[35:30] Natalyia Blidy: Good question. The operations really. I would say for running the law firm, make sure that kind of you always know what what's on your file. So if somebody walks out of the door, there should be no reason for you to lose that file. So for the law firm owner kind of having the from my perspective, from the seat that I'm sitting, having the case management work for you so you are not stuck with everyday decisions that could be delegated or can be automated otherwise will free up your time for actual for actual management. It's kind of you know, yes, so having having smart a smart advocate or another system kind of to be a memory of the whole file so you can run the firm not by your kind of gut feeling, but by the real data and by the real metrics. And how you achieve that, it's really just making little decisions every single day. And I know it could be difficult and it could be a daunting task, especially if you used to do do certain things, and if you used to kind of running things the way you do. But I would say i successful owners always learn something. you know, make a little goal, right? For so from my perspective, learn a little bit. more about the system and go and implement something. Even like s some some identify one little bottleneck and then figure out, okay, this is my system. Can it can it do something to make it better? Or or or or or or make this go away or or you know make this bottleneck go away or or make things run smoother. That's the successful firms. I usually see also owners of successful firms. They Learn a lot about Smart Advocate. They have, you know, they have their own training protocols. They had they actually have had a few firms that have set up their own training manuals, not relying on our training manuals. They actually have somebody new that comes into the firm. There's a blueprint which obviously includes their operations, plus plus how you how you use the system. So obviously to create that you have to have a greater knowledge of what your system does. And that's constant learning. Don't be complacent. Figure out one little thing and it's consistency, right? One little thing at a time. very often I'll get on the call and it's like, I didn't know you guys added it. Well we did and we added it six months ago. Use it. Now go ahead and implement this. So i this always this this this helps and people law firm owners that adapt it Could be a little bit more hands off, so to speak.

[38:29] Tyson Mutrux: right, so Smart Advocate is gonna be with us in Atlanta for Max LawCon this year. And you have probably spoken to thousands of attorneys at these conferences. And so I wonder when you, when you're actually face to face with these law firm owners at these types of events, what kinds of problems are they usually bringing to you that maybe they wouldn't maybe they wouldn't think to ask it like a demo call? Like, but what are like what are they like what are they bringing to you? Like what are the problems that they're bringing to you?

[39:01] Natalyia Blidy: I'm usually I think I got a lot better during demos to try to identify and ask the correct questions. So typically you know at the at the events obviously it's a lot more personal, so usually somebody will share how they use the current system and you know I could tell only tell them how what you've what some of the issues that I could solve, right? Smart Advocate, for example, could s could solve and I could tell them to look into their system and how how to make this a little bit better. not always it's a switch in systems situation. but to kinda give you an example, really it's all the same. It's repetitive. It's I know I'm beating a dead horse. It's r it's having the data in and having the consistent data in. That's all I see all of the time. It's in one way or or shape or form kind of come comes out. so it all boils down to, well, make sure that everybody have this consistent training. I make sure that attorney A and attorney B enter the data or or somehow it gets into the system. well a lot of issues are re regarding intake of course. That's actually interesting topic, right? So you know a lot of people will ask well especially s smaller firms well i you don't treat your intake as a as a salespeople. I was a salesperson even before I s switched to smart advocate. Intake should be sales. It always is it's not just a receptionist that sits there. So very often I will I will hear things like that. Well I have a receptionist that will take the call. Well, why? You know, that kind of stuff. So I'm sure there's a lot of examples like that, but very v everything everything kind of points into inconsistencies and not not entering the data. So then in turn you can't run the reports, you can't you can't use AI effectively because now I have another issue. Somebody's calling me, well I want AI to do You know, medical chronology is demands and this and that. Good. Do you have all the documents in the system? No. I sometimes I don't bring them in. So how do you think AI is gonna do this? You know. So

[41:35] Tyson Mutrux: All right, I've got one more question, but I before I get to that, I just want to remind everyone Smart African will be with us at MaxLawCon on October eighth and ninth at the Omni at the Battery in Atlanta. They're one of our sponsors this year. So if you've got a workflow in your firm that's driving you crazy, make sure you go find them. Natalia might be there, she may not be there, but someone from the team will be there for sure. You can go demo the new product potentially, so that'd be pretty cool. So If you've not gotten your ticket, make sure you go to maxlawcon.com to get your ticket. so my question is this: I have seen many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many people come and go from companies like Smart Advocate, not Smart Advocate itself, but from others. I'm you name the legal tech company, and I've seen many people, I've met them and then they're gone, and I've never seen them again. You have stayed with Smart Advocate. I'm just curious,

[42:28] Natalyia Blidy: Mm-hmm.

[42:29] Tyson Mutrux: what is it about Smart Advocate that has made you stay for so long?

[42:35] Natalyia Blidy: well first we have a very, very good retention policy in Smart Advocate. So it's not only me. There's a lot of people that have a very long tenure in Smart Advocate. I approved like Smart Advocate because it actually kind of corresponds with all the values that I have. We you know, there's no perfect system there, of course, and we could talk about it. we s listen to our clients and I like that. you know we you know we strive to provide a good support. We also will actually listen to client feedback and we will implement that those ideas you know most of them at least I know personally like sometimes the client would tell me why this would be a good idea add add one Two three, like some of the successful firms I know reached out to me. Now they're driving the data. They want to set standards and goal goals for their attorneys. They want to have this kind of a report implemented, right? So we do that. We added it, so now you can go ahead and run this report. So I think that's one of the reasons. it's a great place to be, it's a great place to work. Co-workers, of course, people, people what makes you stay. you know. Nobody will stay at the company if if if you've you're miserable and that there's the you know the good people will make you stay. So that's that and the product, we actually I think we I believe we making a good change. We are implementing the changes that clients are requesting. And it's very exciting because i there's always this forward momentum. I'm super excited about this new release and I'm genuinely am if the client calls me, I'm excited to tell them about it and I'm excited to help them. And of course they'll have to do the other due diligence to implement all those wonderful changes on their end. But that's the reason why I stayed and so many people in Smart Advocates stayed. So that also is great advantage because then, you know, over the years you learn a lot about this what we do and you become an expert as opposed to going from one place to another. So you're that's why

[44:59] Tyson Mutrux: Very good. Natalia, thank you so much. For anyone interested in Smart Advocate, go to smart advocate.com or if you want to see them at the conference, check them out at the conference. But Natalia, thank you for doing this. Appreciate it.

[45:10] Natalyia Blidy: Thank you for having me and we're excited to see you at the conference.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Tyson Mutrux recently had to fire someone he genuinely liked. In this solo episode of Maximum Lawyer Live, he explains why personal affection and professional fit are two different questions, and why putting off a difficult employment decision can hurt more than the person you are trying to protect. Tyson walks through the internal debate, the questions law firm owners should ask themselves before deciding, and the importance of being direct about expectations long before a termination conversation.

He also shares how he handled the actual termination call, why he avoided turning the conversation into a trial, and the hidden cost of leaving a struggling employee in a role that is not working. From clients waiting for mistakes to be corrected to coworkers carrying extra work, Tyson makes the case that compassion requires honesty, accountability, and consideration for the entire firm. This is a candid conversation about making a hard decision without making it personal.

What You'll Learn

  • Why liking someone is different from determining whether they belong in a particular role.
  • The questions Tyson recommends asking before concluding an employee is the problem.
  • How unclear expectations and inconsistent feedback create unfair surprises.
  • Why empathy can become avoidance disguised as kindness.
  • How poor performance affects coworkers, clients, managers, and firm profitability.
  • Why a termination meeting should be clear, respectful, and prepared rather than an argument.

Timestamps

  • 00:00  Tyson explains the recent termination and why it was difficult
  • 02:30  Separate liking an employee from assessing fit
  • 05:30  Questions to ask before deciding to terminate
  • 09:00  Clear expectations and honest feedback
  • 12:10  When empathy becomes avoidance
  • 15:30  The cost of delay for the team and clients
  • 18:45  How Tyson handled the actual termination call
  • 21:00  Closing lessons on kindness and accountability

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Maximum Lawyer helps law firm owners build businesses, not jobs.

Resources:

Full Transcript: 

[00:00]  Welcome back to max law live i'm tyson mutrix and today i'm talking about how i had to fire someone last week i don't like doing it it's one of the worst things you can do as a business owner but I had to do it. It was an attorney, so it was someone that I had to fire. Typically, non-attorneys, I don't take care of that. That's something that is done by Kristen and Amy, and so I typically don't have to deal with that. But I did have to on this one. It was an attorney. And what I want to talk about is... How to fire someone you like, because I really like this guy. I thought this person, I think this person's a good person, but doesn't mean that the person is a good fit for the firm.

[00:59]  And I'm going to obviously keep the details pretty scant. I'm not going to go and talk about the specifics of it. I'm not even going to talk about why, but I don't think that that's really the point of this episode. But I guess I've got five different points I want to talk about when it comes to this, because I think it's something that a lot of us hold off on because we like the person. And the thing is, is like, we can like someone that isn't a right fit for the job. it is, it's one of those things where like, that's a normal thing. And what we tend to do is we tend to collapse several things into like, Oh, they're a good person. I like working with them.

[01:54]  Maybe even they work hard because you can work hard and just not be a good fit. Right. They really care. Like you can, you can collapse all those into one thing. And then you say, Oh, they should keep their job then. because of these things, you, you list off all these things that are relevant to the job. Okay. yes, we want all of our people to be good people. So I guess that is, that is relevant to the job. we want you to be a good person, but whether you like working with them, it doesn't mean that the job is going to get done better or not. Okay. Really, whether they work hard, many of you all know the employee that worked really hard that just could not figure it out, right?

[02:51]  You can care a lot. You can care all you want, but it doesn't mean you're going to do a very good job. But what we do is we collapse all those and we say, oh, they deserve the job. They deserve to keep the job. But that's not a logical response if we're being truly, truly honest with ourselves. Because a person can be smart. They can be loyal. They can be hardworking. They can be funny. They can be kind. They can be all these things that are great as a friend or as a person that you like to hang out with. But does it mean that it is... right they're not it doesn't necessarily mean that they're right for that seat that you have assigned to them okay so what you have to do is you have to separate the person from the performance you have to and that is really hard to do You had to separate the person from the performance.

[04:00]  And so one of the things that I had to remind myself last week was that I wasn't deciding whether I liked this person. It's not what I was doing. I already knew the answer to that question. What I was deciding was whether keeping this person in this role was the right decision for the firm. That was the decision I had to make. and when you make a distinction like that it makes the decision from a leadership standpoint a little bit easier not a lot it does it's not like it's still easy but it makes it a lot easier than if you're just oh my gosh i have to fire this person that i like and your job as the law firm owner It's not merely employing good people.

[04:55]  Okay. That's not your job. It's to put the right people in the right positions where they can succeed and where the firm can succeed. Okay. Cause your, your, your, your ultimate, your ultimate obligation is to the firm and to your family and to take care of your people. Right. that's, that's what your ultimate obligation is. And if you've got someone that's not in the right seat, then they've got to go. And sometimes the question that we ask ourselves is like, Oh, do, do I really want to fire this person? And instead, I don't think that's the question. I think you can ask a few different questions, but if you were to say, knowing everything I know today, would I enthusiastically, that's, that's the key part of this.

[05:50]  Would I enthusiastically hire this person into this role again? And that is a completely different question and it changes the dynamic of it completely. And if the answer is no, then you've uncovered, uncovered something pretty important. and something else you want to ask is if this, some, if this were someone I didn't personally like as much, okay, would I have already made the decision? That's another pretty revealing question. Because, as you probably know, especially people that try cases, when it comes to bias and everything else, when you like someone, it really affects your decision-making. It really affects it. There's a really good quote.

[06:34]  When we're talking about good versus great and all that kind of stuff, because they could be an okay fit, but you... You really, sometimes you want to step things up when it comes to your firm. So there's this John Rockefeller quote that I have, and it's, don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. Because sometimes what we do is we hold on to their good employees and I'm not saying you should go out and fire a bunch of your good employees. That's all I'm saying. But sometimes you want to, you do want to upgrade, you want to level up. So maybe you've got a B player. I don't know if you considered, I think I had considered a B player, a good, a good employee.

[07:36]  So let's say you want to, you want to go a player, right? You want to go great. Sometimes it can be hard to give up those good players to go for the great players. And, but it's just something to think about something to consider that, sometimes you have to do that. If you really want to level up, you've got to give up the good to go for the great. So, so here's another thing I want to talk about is, Sometimes we jump to firing. And I see this a lot in masterminds, right? Someone starts talking about an employee that things maybe are not going well. And a lot of times the initial jump is fire the person. People all the time want to jump straight to firing someone.

[08:31]  However, before you do that, I still want to just remind everyone, and we did this with this employee, before concluding that the person failed, and they may not have failed either. It may have been that they're not the right fit. Instead, ask, did I actually give this person everything necessary to succeed? Did I give this person everything necessary to succeed? Now that is something that is a harder question that you have to look at yourself. because it may not be an employee problem. It may be a you problem. And so there is, there is a, a little five question thing I want to go through where before termination, cause I want to, this may be helpful to you, but before firing someone, you like ask yourself these five questions.

[09:26]  Did they know exactly what winning looked like? And by the way, these are all job scorecard type of questions. So hint, hint, get your job scorecards together if you don't have them yet. But number one, did I know exactly what winning looked like? Or did they know exactly what winning looked like? Number two, did I clearly tell them where they were falling short? Number three, did I give them reasonable time, coaching, tools, and support to fix it? Number four, did I document and follow up on those conversations? Number five, should this decision actually surprise them? So the fifth question is the huge one because this person should not necessarily be surprised.

[10:14]  Now, if they're completely oblivious to what's going on around them, Then they'll be surprised. We've had that before where we fired an employee and they had no idea. And it's mind boggling because we've had all the conversations. They knew what their expectations were. They weren't meeting the expectations. This is a different employee and they were oblivious. So make sure you go through those questions because it is one of those things where it could be a you problem. okay here's something else this is just an important thing and this none of this stuff that i'm getting into is like the legal side of stuff right so consult your employment attorney for your estate yada yada all the disclaimers but don't here's something like don't manufacture some sort of performance problem at the end I've heard and I've talked to a lot of people about things like this and it's almost like they, there is a desire.

[11:20]  And I will, I will say, I almost like kind of, and there was a performance problem with this particular employee. that was, there was a problem, but I did almost find myself falling into this, like, us versus him kind of a thing and i did i was like wait a hold on that's not what this is about this is not what it is this is this is one of those things where like we i really like the guy it was just there is no no point in coming up with all these other reasons and and stacking on piling on right it there is none of those and so a big part of this like what we will you you you may have this desire to manufacture but You may have also, I'm trying to connect the dots here for you because what we will sometimes do is at the end, we will try to manufacture an issue, right?

[12:28]  When just a few months earlier, you were saying you're doing a great job, right? And then next thing you know, they're being told, you know, we're letting you go. So don't, there's two parts to this. If they're not doing well, don't telling them, don't tell them they're doing a great job all the time. Okay. Don't tell them that if they're not doing a great job all the time. And then at the, at the, the flip of that is at the end of the, of the road, don't manufacture reasons for why they're getting fired. None of that makes sense. Okay. Just be honest with them. Tell the truth about things. That's all you got to do. Be honest with them, be upfront with them throughout the entire process and it'll be fine.

[13:24]  Be very, very careful. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about why... What we sometimes do, some of the things we do, and why making... Why firing somebody you like is hard is, a lot of times what we'll start to do is we'll start to make these excuses for people. Like, oh, you know, they've just had a rough month or they've been trying really hard or such and such. They're really good friends with such and such or I just want to give them one more chance, right? And I do at times, I think some of these are legitimate, but eventually empathy can turn into like just avoidance disguises kindness. So what you're doing is you're telling yourself, I'm a kind person.

[14:16]  I'm a kind person. And all you're really doing is you're avoiding it. You're avoiding what needs to be done. And that is a problem. really big problem because the thing is like waiting too long. Isn't kind waiting too long is actually kind of a cruel thing to do because what's happening is, is that everyone around this person is getting pissed off because everyone knows this person's not performing. And so everyone's getting mad. And so now you're creating a really, really terrible environment for not only your other employees, but you're, you're, you're creating a bad environment for this person. That is not kind. And what happens, a lot of times people will delay firing someone precisely because they care about them.

[15:08]  But if you do care about that person, the right thing to do is to fire them, help them find another position if you want, give them a letter of recommendation, whatever it may be. But if you really do want to be kind, Keeping them on the payroll is not the kind thing. Getting them off the payroll is the kind thing. And that's hard to grasp for some people, but you're creating a really terrible environment. Okay. Because you have to remember, every employment decision affects the employee, the team, the clients, and the firm. It affects all those people. So you need to not only just think about yourself or the employee, but you got to think about the team as well and the clients.

[16:01]  Okay. cause you, what you're into, you're doing is there's a cost to waiting and you're reallocating that cost to everyone else is what you're doing. So, the coworker that has the fix, the, the mistakes, the client that's waiting for something to get right, whoever's managing this person spending hours a week several hours a week manage managing them around different issues that they're creating the firm's profitability pays a price and eventually what happens is the employee is going to pay anyway right they're going to end up getting terminated anyways so make the decision just make the decision now Because you can become so focused on protecting someone's feelings that you stop protecting everyone else's working environment.

[16:50]  And that's a problem. It's not compassion. It's just avoidance is all it is. So that's a big one. Don't wait. Don't wait. All right. Another one, and this is one where it's – I'm going to toe the line a little bit when it comes to the legal side of things. So remember, consult your employment attorneys for your estate. But when the decision is made, don't turn the firing into a trial. The call we had – because he was remote – we did a google meet call it lasted less than two minutes it was very quick and we you know we'll let him know all of these details will be i and i had a script i didn't read the script but i i had my script that i'd sort of sort of memorized that i'd went through and I did it where it sounded natural and everything.

[17:52]  But went through all the, I had all the details, all the specific details we needed him to have and let him know that everything else would be, sent in an email, everything else you need. But it was quick. Like it, it was nothing. There were no accusations made. There was nothing where, we told him how terrible of a job he did. We didn't do any of that stuff. let him know the decision we made, determine his employment was effective immediately, yada, yada, yada, went through all the details that we needed to cover. And then, you know, let him know that, I mean, it made it very clear, you know, at the end, Hey, really wish, things didn't end this way, but I truly hope you understand that we, we wish you the best of luck.

[18:50]  And I really, I really wish the best for you. And he said, you know, likewise. And so it was, it was very quick to the point, but don't turn this into some, some trial because there is, there is a part of this that, there is this relationship, right? Now the employment, and that's all employment is, it's a relationship. And that part of the relationship will end. However, how people look at things and view things, it's usually through like the most intense parts of whatever that relationship is. And this was a really intense relationship. And also part of that, Danny Kahneman has done a bunch of research about the most intense moments of a relationship and then the end of that relationship are the things that people remember the most.

[19:46]  So this is one of the most intense plus it's also the end of the relationship. So this is one of the things that they're going to remember the most. And what I'm hoping is this employee will remember, you know, know they were very kind to me at the end they were very kind to me at this at this part of it you know there was no they didn't you know come at me with a bunch of accusations about things nothing like that because there was no point doing any of that there's no point in kicking someone while they're down all is to say is like you all that you have in this world is your reputation. And so you don't wanna create an enemy for life by doing this, you really don't.

[20:42]  We still have employees that have left our firm and they refer us cases all the time, right? we there's a an attorney she moved to kansas city she refers us cases on a regular basis and we refer her cases on a regular basis we are technically competitors but we still refer each other cases and stuff so you don't just because you end the relationship doesn't mean that it's got to be everything's terrible it doesn't have to be so don't turn in a trial but Remember that at the end of the day, this is a relationship, and so it doesn't have to be some terrible ending at the end. You want to make this as pleasant as you possibly can. I know it's not going to be pleasant, but make it as pleasant as you possibly can.

[21:41]  Okay. That's all I have. Just remember, liking someone is not a job qualification. If you leave from this, take anything from this, it's that liking someone is not a job qualification. So you don't keep someone on just because you like them. All right. Have a great week, everybody. Next week is Max Law Con. So if you're listening to this as a recording, then you probably have you're either at max or con and you've already been to it or you missed it, but either way, hopefully you did attend. And for those of you watching live, I look forward to seeing you next week in Atlanta. See everybody have a wonderful week. Bye.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Networking is not about collecting the most business cards, LinkedIn connections, or phone numbers. In this episode, Tyson Mutrux challenges law firm owners to stop measuring success by how many people they meet and start paying attention to the relationships they actually build. He shares how curiosity, better questions, genuine listening, and thoughtful introductions can make you far more memorable than another polished elevator pitch.

With MaxLawCon week here, Tyson breaks down a simple approach you can use at any conference, mastermind, bar event, or chance conversation. You will learn how to enter a room with intention without becoming transactional, find uncommon commonalities, follow up in a way that continues the relationship, and use the 3-3-3 Challenge to create three real conversations, remember three meaningful details, and make three useful introductions.

What You'll Learn

  • Why meeting people and building relationships are not the same thing
  • How to enter a conference with intention without treating people like transactions
  • Why follow-up questions make conversations stronger and more memorable
  • How warmth and competence can work together in professional networking
  • How to make useful introductions that create value for other people
  • How to use Tyson’s 3-3-3 Challenge at your next event

Timestamps 

  • 00:00  Why meeting people is not the same as building relationships
  • 03:18  Walk into the room with intention, not a transaction
  • 08:03  Stop proving you are smart and start showing interest
  • 12:18  Ask better questions and stay with the answer
  • 20:50  Find uncommon commonalities that people remember
  • 23:38  Become a connector and make useful introductions
  • 26:55  Follow up in a way that continues the relationship
  • 31:57  The 3-3-3 Networking Challenge

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Resources:

Full Transcript: 

Tyson Mutrux (00:00)

You go to a conference, you shake 50 people's hands and you exchange their contact information. You add a bunch of people on LinkedIn and then you get home and somebody says, hey, how was the conference? And you're like, you know what? Great. I met a ton of people. But really, who did you actually connect with? Who did you learn something meaningful about? Who would you feel comfortable reaching out to next week that you just met at that conference?

Tyson Mutrux (00:30)

And who has a reason to remember you because meeting people and building relationships, they're not the same thing. Think about that meeting people and building relationships are not the same thing. So welcome back to another episode of maximum lawyer podcast. That's what we're going to talk about today. And.

Tyson Mutrux (00:53)

As this episode comes out, it's MaxLawCon week in Atlanta. And I want to talk about something you can put into practice before you even walk into the room at MaxLawCon. And you can really use this at every, any conference, cause it's not just for MaxLawCon. This applies to your next bar event, your next mastermind that you go to, or the next time you sit down beside somebody, you don't know could be at a soccer game, whatever. But I want to challenge the way that we measure.

Tyson Mutrux (01:23)

networking, which I think networking can kind of have a dirty common connotation to it sometimes or a negative connotation. but you can be incredibly busy at an event without starting a single relationship worth continuing, which is I think a big shame. sometimes you move from conversation to conversation and you tell everyone what you do. You collect everybody's information and you still leave without really knowing any of the people that you just met.

Tyson Mutrux (01:53)

And I would rather you have three conversations you want to continue the next, over the next several years, then have 30 introductions that you barely even remember where next time you actually see that person at the conference, you're like, my gosh, what was that person's name again? my God. And you're kind of jogging your memory. my gosh. What is their name? You're, you're trying to look at their name tag. I think that's Jim or maybe it's John. don't know. and there's really, there's nothing wrong with exchanging contact information. That's not what I'm saying here.

Tyson Mutrux (02:23)

You should have a way to reach out to each other. That's completely fine. But don't confuse having someone's number or their Twitter handle with having a relationship with them. That's not at all what it is. A contact in your phone is not automatically a relationship in your life. So today I want to talk about how to approach the room, how to have better conversations and

Tyson Mutrux (02:49)

Maybe what to do afterwards. And then maybe at the end, I'm going to give you a simple challenge for your next event. but here's the idea I want you to hold onto throughout the entire episode. Your goal isn't to be the most impressive person in the room. Although I know it's, easy to want to try to be that it's to be the person people are glad they met. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to reread that for you. Okay. Your goal isn't to be the most impressive person in the room.

Tyson Mutrux (03:18)

It's to be the person people are glad they met. So let's start there. Have an intention. Okay. Not just don't have a plan for a transaction before you walk into the room, decide what you're curious about. Not who you need to impress, not who looks like the best referral source. What are you genuinely interested in learning while you're in that?

Tyson Mutrux (03:45)

Vanessa van Edwards, I love Vanessa van Edwards. If I can get her on the show, I'm going to, because she's just amazing. But she recommends going into conversations with an intention rather than just wandering into them without direction. She's got something, the science of people. should really check it out. Vanessa van Edwards is just, when it comes to like relationships and people, she's A plus, amazing. But here's how I'd apply that at a conference for law firm owners.

Tyson Mutrux (04:14)

Think of one thing you're trying to figure out and one thing you could help somebody else understand. Okay, so really you have two things there. So one is you're receiving, one's you're giving. And maybe you're trying to improve intake or maybe you're considering hiring an operations leader. Maybe you want to take a vacation without spending half of it answering questions from your team. And I talk about that in my book, Founder Optional. So you might want to pick that up if you don't have it already.

Tyson Mutrux (04:41)

but I talked about how you can maybe do that. So you're not worrying about, the work whenever you should be working out, thinking about your vacation. Anyways, I digress. but those are some, maybe some useful starting points, improving intake or, hiring and operations later. Those are, those are, those are our starting points here, but there's a difference between having a purpose and turning every person you meet into a potential transaction. Cause that's how a lot of times it turns out.

Tyson Mutrux (05:09)

One of my least favorite parts about going to a conference is that interaction where the person wants to talk to me just to say hello and get my contact information. it's like, but like you have no real intention to want to know anything about me. You have no real intention to like, build a relationship. You're just there just to meet the next person. I think it's kind of, those people are pretty obvious. You might be one of those people listening. Hopefully you're not, but if you're not, you know the people that I'm talking about. But like,

Tyson Mutrux (05:39)

I'd love to learn how another handle this problem, insert problem. That's, that's an intention. I need to figure out whether this person is worth my time is something completely else. Okay. don't walk around sorting everyone into, that's a potential referral source. That's a vendor. that, that person might help me with this. No, that's not really useful. Talk to somebody outside your practice area. Sit beside an owner whose firm looks like nothing like yours.

Tyson Mutrux (06:08)

Leave room for a conversation that has no obvious business value. You can have professional goals without reducing people to their ability to help you achieve them. Okay. And that applies to helping people too. We hear help first all the time, right? Don't be a taker, be a giver kind of a thing. And I like that idea, but helping first shouldn't secretly mean helping so somebody owes you. Okay.

Tyson Mutrux (06:36)

the whole reciprocity principle, it's a very powerful principle, but don't go with that intention. Okay. send the resource because it might help them, right? When you're talking to them, Hey, I'll send you this, send that to them because it might help them, make the introduction that they might need because it makes sense, or maybe because it feels good. Sometimes doing that. remember back whenever I did big brothers, big sisters, and I told, I told the, the, director of it, she was, she interviews every person. She was asking.

Tyson Mutrux (07:05)

Well, what, are the reasons you want to do this? And one of the, was just one of the honest answers was I kind of part of this, I want to be able to make it, it makes me feel good to help. And she's like, yeah, that's completely fine. And so if that's one of the intentions, fine, if it helps you, if he makes you feel good helping someone great, do it. That's nothing wrong with that, but don't attach an invisible invoice to it. Okay. Don't don't intend to collect on that at some other point, right? Do it because it feels good or do it because they need the help. Okay.

Tyson Mutrux (07:34)

You can be intentional without being transactional. Know what you're curious about, but don't decide in advance what everybody is worth. Okay. That's not, that's not helpful at all. Now, once you're in that conversation, there's another temptation to watch for, and that's the urge to prove yourself. Okay. Stop proving you're smart because you've shown you're interested. Okay. That's a big, big problem. It is also, there's a lot of sites around this that it actually doesn't help.

Tyson Mutrux (08:03)

It actually, it actually makes you look bad. So don't try to prove yourself. You want to really ask a lot of questions, but you might be proving you're smart before you're given people, giving people a reason to start talking to you. Okay. Just remember that. So they may already think that you're smart. Okay. And I'm not, I'm not part of this too, is like, there's this view that lawyers are inherently unlikeable and I hate that because I actually don't think that's true.

Tyson Mutrux (08:31)

But I think sometimes that we can fall into that trap that we kind of think that's with like prove ourselves. And especially when we're in a room of a bunch of other attorneys where we're like trying to, my gosh, I settled this big case or my systems are amazing over here. And it's really easy to turn a conversation to some sort of like resume recital, which is so boring. No one wants to hear that. You're talking about how long you've practiced.

Tyson Mutrux (08:57)

how many people work at your firm, the results you have, your revenues, your credentials, your awards, all that, right? There's nothing wrong with being proud of those things. That's not at all what I'm saying. There's nothing wrong with discussing them when they're relevant. But pay attention to what you're doing with the conversation. They mentioned their firm and you explain how much bigger is this. Okay. They share a challenge and you tell them you saw that years ago.

Tyson Mutrux (09:25)

They share a win and then you share a bigger one. You're just one upping them at every, at every opportunity. And at some point you're not really getting to know each other. You're just taking turns trying to establish your position, which is just blah, you know, blah, no one likes those conversations. No one leaves that conversation with a good taste in their mouth. And, back to Vanessa Van Edwards, she talks about how warmth and competence.

Tyson Mutrux (09:53)

She talks about those in her book, Hughes, and those are also like central dimensions. She talks about in research on how people form impressions of each other. Okay. Warmth, okay. Warmth and competence. And so here's how I think about that in a conversation. Warmth says, I'm interested in you. I mean, well, competence says, I know what I'm doing. Okay. You don't need to choose between those two as you're having the conversation.

Tyson Mutrux (10:21)

you can be capable and approachable at the exact same time. So let me give you an example. So imagine somebody tells you they're really struggling with intake. And one response would be, we figured that out a long time ago. Our intake system is incredible. Another response could be, we worked on that too. The handoff was the difficult part for us. Where is it breaking down for you? So the second response.

Tyson Mutrux (10:49)

It's, still communicates experience to them. Right? So it shows that you're competent. You're not hiding what you know, but you're making your experience relevant to the person in front of you. Okay. And you're leaving room for them to talk. Okay. Before you offer advice, understand the problem before you tell your story, finish listening to theirs. Cause just because they gave you that little simp, it doesn't mean you know everything about their situation and.

Tyson Mutrux (11:18)

Here's another thing too. this bothers me to no end. Please put your phone away, put your phone away. Don't make somebody compete with your notifications as they're popping up. And even if you're not looking at your notifications, if there's notifications popping up on their phone, they might see those too. It's so distracting. So don't spend their answer looking over their shoulder. Okay. Don't, for someone more important. Okay. So as you're talking to each other, so you put your phone away, but also like, don't be like looking over their shoulder and be like,

Tyson Mutrux (11:48)

who else is out here? I just, why even be engaged in that conversation? So don't make people compete with the room for your attention. Okay. Which brings us to the questions you ask. Okay. Because you don't need an amazing opening line. You need to care about the answer. Okay. Ask better questions and then stay with the answer. Okay. You've probably heard people say, stop asking. What do you do? Okay. I'm hopefully you've heard that by that.

Tyson Mutrux (12:18)

I know I've heard that lot. all over. It's all over when it comes to any sort of social media platform. All these tips about having conversations and what you should and shouldn't ask when comes to small talk. least maybe that's just my feed. But what do you do is a common one you should not be asking. And I understand the point, but we don't need to make people nervous about introducing themselves either. What do you do is completely fine.

Tyson Mutrux (12:48)

What kind of law do you practice is completely fine. Okay. but, but, so if you have to start with that, that's fine. The problem is stopping at the job title. Okay. or hearing the answer and immediately using it as your opportunity to talk about yourself, try given giving the person a little more room. So something like, Hey, Hey, so what brought you here to the conference or what brought you here to this mastermind?

Tyson Mutrux (13:15)

that can lead to a conversation about something that they're trying to learn, a problem they're walking through or trying to work through or somebody they wanted to see. Okay. What are you excited about right now? I like that question a lot. I really do like that question about like what, or what are you working on right now that really excites you? I like that one. That's a alternate version of that. And that leaves room for work, but it also gives room for life outside of work. So, or

Tyson Mutrux (13:44)

What are you trying to figure out at your firm? What are you trying to figure out at your firm? That's a hard one to say, but that gives permission to talk about something that's maybe unfinished. They don't have to deliver a polished success story. that's sometimes one of those things that we have this desire, I want to, at least I do, I know I do. I like to put up these walls around me and everything's got to look perfect. that's tough, right? That's one of the things that's not life, that's not realistic and not everything's perfect.

Tyson Mutrux (14:13)

So you do give them an opportunity. What are you trying to figure out at your firm or what's what's not working at your firm right now that you need some help with those types of questions. So but but pick one. You don't need to run through all three of these like it's an intake questionnaire. You don't. When once you've done that do the part that matters most. OK. Stay with the answer. Stay in there. There's this 2017 study led by a person named.

Tyson Mutrux (14:40)

Karen Huang that found the people who asked more questions, particularly follow-up questions were better liked by their conversation partners. Remember earlier how I talked about how, you know, the more like you try to recite your resume and prove yourself, the less people like, tend to like you. So this is how you people like you. Okay. You ask questions, you ask more questions. And what they did is the researchers, connected that with the responsiveness.

Tyson Mutrux (15:07)

So whether the other person felt listened to and understood, it's really what it comes down to. And like these were get acquainted conversations and speed dating interactions, which I think is really kind of interesting. And it wasn't really necessarily a study of lawyer referrals and things like that, but yeah, or lawyer introductions. But I do think it's interesting because it's like these, these very quick interactions and the more people ask them questions, the more the people like them. I joined those kind of interesting. So.

Tyson Mutrux (15:36)

I'm not asking you to, three questions. It's going to produce you a new case. It's not going to get you all the answers, but like my takeaway is simpler. It's your next question should show that you heard the last answer. Okay. It's that simple. Just show that your last, that your next question that you heard the last answer, you stay in there, you stay in there with that answer and you ask a question that was relevant to whatever they told you. So, so imagine this another owner, say.

Tyson Mutrux (16:05)

We finally hired an operations manager. you could say, nice. How many employees do you have? Okay. Nothing. There's nothing terrible about that, but essentially what you've done is you've moved past the interesting part in my opinion, in my opinion. try this a little, a little bit, a little bit different. Okay. What finally convinced you it was time. Right. So you're, you stayed in there with you. So you're, how many employees do you have? It's related. Cause I know what you're, I know where you're going with that. Okay.

Tyson Mutrux (16:35)

Operations manager, so you're you've gotten big enough. So you must have enough employees. That's kind of where you're going. That's where you're going It's not necessarily where they were going if you go where they were going you want to stay with okay Well, what convinced you to it was time to hire an operations manager. Okay, and they might say well, you know I was tired of every decision really coming through me and Now you really have somewhere to go with the conversation What have you actually been able to let go of which is I think that's a great thing. So you just hired the operations manager

Tyson Mutrux (17:04)

What's something, what's some instant results that you've already gotten from this? think that's an interesting way to take the conversation. And that's a conversation about leadership or it's about control or it's about trust or what that person wants their life to look like, right? That's something completely different than where you were taking it when it comes to number of employees, which that's a conversation kind of going towards a dead end.

Tyson Mutrux (17:31)

You got there by following something that they offered rather than moving to the next question on your list. And so this is, this can be described as looking for conversation sparks and, threading a conversation by, picking up details. Someone mentions and explores and exploring them further. And I do this when it comes to like depositions. love, I love taking depositions. love cross-examining people because I love, I call them.

Tyson Mutrux (18:00)

you know, put, they put lures in the water, right? So every time they drop something that's not necessarily what I asked them. So they're giving you additional information. It's just another lure in the water that I get to go attack, right? It's, I love it. I absolutely love it. Same thing. It's just threading. It's all, it's all it is threading or conversation sparks. It's the same thing when it comes to conversation, you get to explore all these different things. I, and I think if you take the conversation that way, I think you'll enjoy it a lot more too. It gives you sort of a challenge.

Tyson Mutrux (18:28)

And so, and then what do you do is you're essentially watching for the topic that they want to elaborate on, which I think is, I think it's a lot of fun. You're kind of discovering what they're looking for. And so maybe you're talking about their firm and they mentioned that the new hire means that they finally get to coach their daughter's team. That's awesome. That's incredible. Or you could even ask about, coaching, right? Cause you could keep asking about the hire or you could, you could start asking them about coaching. So now you can go into the personal stuff. It doesn't have to stay in the professional side.

Tyson Mutrux (18:58)

but the person just gave you another lure, another door that you can, you can walk through into their life and you don't have to ignore it because it's, just, you know, it's, it isn't on the conference agenda. Right. and don't be in such a hurry to contribute your own story that you miss theirs. Okay. If they're into this conversation too, then they're probably going to be exploring yours as well. Right. I'm not saying this should be a one-sided conversation. That's not what I'm saying at all, but.

Tyson Mutrux (19:25)

If you are interested in their story and they're interested in your story, this will naturally sort of go back and forth and the conversation will evolve. and so just not like there's a difference between listening and waiting your turn. Okay. If you're listening, then you are engaging your sort of a tennis match back and forth and back and forth. And you're actually engaged with each other. Okay. you're not just waiting your turn. And this doesn't mean that you should just sit there asking questions forever. Okay. Without sharing anything about yourself.

Tyson Mutrux (19:53)

it's not, it's not a deposition, even though I use that as an example, it's not a deposition. you don't need to control the witness. let the conversation go back and forth and let it be a mutual conversation. like share something relevant when it's relevant. Okay. So if something comes up and is relevant, share it, give them something to ask you about too. Okay. Put your lures in the water as well. and, and the goal isn't always to talk the least, although I do try to go into a challenge with some of these conversations where.

Tyson Mutrux (20:22)

I'll try to talk the least. I just find these things fun. think, I think it's interesting to try to have these little challenges, but the goal is to stop making every exchange about you. Okay. When you do that, you start finding connections that are more interesting than the fact that you both have law degrees. Which the vast majority of people at Max LawCon will have law degrees. Shocker, right? Big shocker. But what you want to really do is you want to find the connection.

Tyson Mutrux (20:50)

Like we're both lawyers can get a conversation started. That can happen. I was at a soccer, my son's soccer game and one of the players, grandpa's was at the game and he's a lawyer. He's a retired lawyer and his daughter introduced us and we started chatting and that led to like a 50 minute conversation. That does happen. Okay. That does happen. But it doesn't have to be the most interesting thing that you have in common. Cause we were talking about a lot of things. Really interesting.

Tyson Mutrux (21:17)

conversations came from that conversation. You want to look for those uncommon commonalities. That's something that Van Edwards talks about. And that's those shared interests or experiences that are more distinctive than the obvious things that you share. So think about that difference. We both have kids. Okay, great. That's something a lot of people will have in common at MaxLawCon.

Tyson Mutrux (21:44)

We both coach youth soccer and are trying not to run our firms from the sideline, right? Now there's something that's something you can talk about, right? That's a little bit more interesting. We both own law firms, right? Great. Okay. That's very similar. We're both lawyers. We both hired someone to run operations and we're struggling not to step in and override that person. That's a conversation. That's more interesting. And for me, that connection might be aviation.

Tyson Mutrux (22:14)

It might be jujitsu. It might be coaching soccer or talking about how to build a law firm that doesn't require the owner to make every decision. Those are all parts of my life. There's small, small parts of my life. I don't have to invent some interesting personality for a conference. don't. And neither do you. That's what's great about this. You have your own life. You have your own interest. share a piece of yourself when it fits, but the other person do the same thing, but don't turn this into a hunt for someone.

Tyson Mutrux (22:43)

who is exactly like you, because that person doesn't exist. Shocker, sorry, they don't exist. You don't need matching hobbies to connect. You don't need matching practice areas to connect. You can be genuinely curious in something that you've never done before. And someone can tell you about their interests and you can say, I don't know anything about that. How did you get into that? That's perfectly good conversation. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.

Tyson Mutrux (23:11)

You don't have to be alike. You don't have to, you know, have the same labels. You can get past the labels. Okay. And once you start learning the details about them, you can do something useful with those details. You can help find, you can help people find each other as well. You can help each other out when it comes to their problems. You can help solve problems for each other. Maybe you can refer each other cases. You can get all to all those things once you know some of the details, but make

Tyson Mutrux (23:38)

Here's another part of this too, is make introductions that actually help. You don't have to be the expert on everything to be valuable in a room. And that applies especially to masterminds. A lot of times people, they're afraid to go to a mastermind just because they feel like they're not an expert. And that's just, you don't have to be an expert on anything really to be valuable in a room. Sometimes you just need to notice who should be having a conversation.

Tyson Mutrux (24:07)

You can be connector. Connectors are really powerful. The most powerful people in the world are connectors. And, so maybe one law firm owner tells you about a problem with intake later. Another owner explains how they rebuilt that exact process. Wow. We'll talk about an opportunity, right? and you can connect those people and, don't just put them beside each other and say, you two should meet. Okay. I actually talked to them and tell them why, Hey, Sarah, this is John, John, he just.

Tyson Mutrux (24:36)

rebuilt that handoff between intake and the legal team. And, John, Sarah's working through that exact same transition right now. You had both mentioned that handoff, not generating more leads and how that was the difficult part. Right. So now, now they have names, they have context and they have something to discuss. So you didn't solve the problem. You helped start a conversation that can be extremely useful.

Tyson Mutrux (25:03)

and do this and do this and do it respectfully, right? Check that people are open to the connection. Don't, don't just volunteer somebody for free consulting. I've seen that. That's not the greatest thing. don't share private information that you don't think they want you to know, or them to know. Don't promise expertise that you haven't verified. Okay. That, can get you in trouble. Okay. as someone that I've recommended people on the show before, and maybe I shouldn't have, so I've gotten better over the years about.

Tyson Mutrux (25:33)

about doing that. so same goes for you, right? You don't want to recommend someone that you have not verified that they have that expertise. But like an introduction can start with, hey, I met another owner working on the same issue. you be open to meeting with that person? So really something simple. And it doesn't only apply to business problems. So I know we go to these conferences and we think it's all about business and it mostly is, but.

Tyson Mutrux (25:59)

Maybe someone is attending for the first time and doesn't really know anyone. Introduce them to a few different people and invite them into the conversation. Take them out to dinner. Give them a place to start. And for those of you who already know a lot of people at MaxLawCon, this is something I especially want you to think about. Enjoy seeing your friends. Absolutely. I can't wait to see lots and lots of my friends, but don't spend, please don't spend the entire event.

Tyson Mutrux (26:27)

inside the same circle, help somebody else stop feeling like the new person if you can. Help welcome people into the tent. It's a big tent. You don't need to turn that into a performance or make sure somebody notices you being helpful. Just make room for it if you don't mind. And then when the conference is over, the event is over, follow through, okay? Because a good introduction or a good conversation, it's the beginning, right?

Tyson Mutrux (26:55)

It's not the whole relationship. You want to build a relationship out of this. So make the follow-up a continuation, not a reset. So, Hey, great meeting you. Let's stay in touch. That's very polite, but it doesn't give the person much to work with. What are they supposed to say? Right. great meeting you too. now you've both agreed that was great. Where does the conversation actually go from there? So try making the follow-up very specific. So.

Tyson Mutrux (27:25)

Reference something that you actually discussed. Deliver what you promised. Give them an easy opening to respond without making them do all the work. Okay, so something like, hey, Sarah, I enjoyed our conversation about the gap between intake and the legal team. Here's the checklist I mentioned. The section on ownership is the part we were discussing. Or, hey, John, you mentioned walking, wanting to talk with someone who recently hired an operations leader.

Tyson Mutrux (27:52)

I checked with Sarah and she's open to connecting. Would that still be useful? Or maybe the conversation wasn't about work. Hey, good talking with you about coaching. Hope the tournament this weekend goes well. Those messages have a reason to exist. Okay. They connect to something that happened between you. Okay. And here's a useful test for you. Could you send that exact message to anyone at the event? When the answer is yes, make it more specific. Okay. So.

Tyson Mutrux (28:21)

Could you send that exact message to anyone at the event? If the answer is yes, make it more specific. My suggestion is to, send that first message within a day or two. Okay. And while that conversation is still fresh and you don't have to elaborate on it. Okay. And before you leave the event, make a brief note about what you discussed and anything you promised to do. So I liked it in my notes. keep notes on a lot of people.

Tyson Mutrux (28:47)

And so I like to keep notes on them. can put in your CRM, you can put it in your Apple notes, you can put it in the contact on your phone, whatever it may be, but keep it simple, be nice. Remember, you're remembering a conversation, not building a dossier. Although I've got a lot of information, a lot of you, just as a reminder. So then do what you said you'd do. So send the article if you said you're going to make that introduction. If you said you were going to share the resource, remembering a detail shows attention that you paid attention. So

Tyson Mutrux (29:16)

Keeping a promise shows that you're reliable, shows reliability. So neither replaces being good at your work, but both give the relationship somewhere to go. And the next conversation doesn't have to be a request. You can actually ask about the hire that was starting, the project that they were launching. You can ask about the thing that they were looking forward to. You don't need a drip campaign disguised as a friendship. All you need is a genuine reason to reconnect.

Tyson Mutrux (29:45)

This makes me think about something from my own life. I took some time away from jiu-jitsu and when I wasn't going, Fabio, our professor, and the people there, actually check in with me. I actually got a text message from them yesterday. And when they saw me, they encouraged me to keep coming back, right? What stood out to me was that they noticed, right? They remembered me. They made it clear that I was welcome there, that I was welcome back. And that's the part I want us to bring into our relationship.

Tyson Mutrux (30:14)

Okay. Not making people feel obligated, not trying to create guilt, but just paying enough attention that they know they matter beyond the moment that they're standing in front of you. And sometimes the thing that gets in the way of following up isn't a lack of attention. It's that you're second guessing the conversation. And so maybe you're replaying one awkward sentence or maybe you think you talk too much. Maybe you're assuming the other person was just being polite.

Tyson Mutrux (30:43)

and there's research on this. love talking about research and there's, and it's something called the, liking gap. And it's, it's where they found that people often underestimated how much their conversation partners like them and enjoyed their company. So they observed that across several different types of settings, right. including people getting acquainted in a lab, right. and a workshop and among, different college dorm mates. Right. and so that, think it's.

Tyson Mutrux (31:12)

really interesting how they really underestimate how much they're there. There are other people on the other side of the conversation like them, which is wild to me. and it doesn't mean that every conversation went perfectly. It doesn't mean that everyone wants to become your best friend. but it, but don't treat your own harshest interpretation as an established fact. So just go ahead and send that thoughtful message that you were going to send, give the person room to respond.

Tyson Mutrux (31:39)

and respect it when the interest isn't mutual. If it's not, okay, whatever. And don't expect some sort of immediate return on the interaction. So the first conversation introduces you, the second one, it gives you a chance to know each other a little bit better. And then you build from there. And then you let the relationship develop.

Tyson Mutrux (31:57)

Okay, so let's make this a little bit more practical. At MaxLawCon or the next event you attend, I want you to try the 333 Challenge. Have three real conversations, learn three memorable things about people, and make three useful introductions. That's it. So first, the three real conversations. Stay long enough to get beyond the introduction.

Tyson Mutrux (32:26)

ask your follow-up questions, share something genuine and find a topic that you both want to explore. You don't need to turn each other in this into an hour long conversation. Just give it enough attention to become something more than just an exchange of job titles. And then second, learn three memorable things about these people. One meaningful detail about each of those three people is enough. That's it. So something that they care about.

Tyson Mutrux (32:55)

something that they're building, something they're trying to figure out, not something you can use against them later, not something you need to force them to disclose, something they choose to share that helps you know them just a little bit better. And then three, make three useful introductions. So connect people for a clear reason, okay? And explain that reason to them. Give them a place to start. So don't force a bad introduction just to hit the number.

Tyson Mutrux (33:24)

Okay, don't do that. This challenge, a three, three, three challenge is supposed to help you pay attention. It's not some new way to collect contacts. It's not what this is. If you have two great conversations instead of three, you haven't failed. Okay. You, if you make three introductions, nobody wanted, you haven't, you haven't succeeded. Okay. And if you're showing up alone and three conversations, feel intimidating, start with just one. Okay.

Tyson Mutrux (33:53)

You don't need to become the loudest person in the room to do this. Okay. just do these three things, three, three, three, very easy, three introductions with the people. I those three meaningful conversations, learn three facts, right? Make three introductions, really simple. And then afterward, make sure you follow up. Okay. Remember send that resource. If you promise, promise something, make that introduction you all you offered, and then continue that conversation. So here's what I hope you take away from this.

Tyson Mutrux (34:22)

Be curious, okay? Be curious instead of performative. You don't need to spend the entire event proving that you belong there. Be useful without keeping score. So help because the help makes sense, not because you're building a list of people who owe you. And follow through. Don't let a conversation you enjoy disappear because neither person took the next small step. When you talk, when you walk into your next event,

Tyson Mutrux (34:50)

You don't need a perfect elevator pitch. Hopefully this is MaxLawCon that you're walking into. You don't need to meet everybody. You don't need to turn every conversation into a business opportunity. Pay attention to the person that is directly in front of you. Ask the next question. And when you say you'll do something afterwards, do it. And when you need to introduce someone, introduce those people to each other for the right reasons. So.

Tyson Mutrux (35:17)

Three real conversations, three memorable things, three useful introductions. Remember, your goal isn't to be the most impressive person in the room, it's to be the person people are glad they met.

Tyson Mutrux (35:30)

Enjoy MaxLawCon. can't wait to see those of you that are coming out. Enjoy your next event and make sure you check out MaximumLawyer.com. Becca's List. And make sure you check out our next events. Go to maxlawevents.com. Thanks everybody.

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