Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Is your firm struggling when it comes to communication? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson delves into the practice of time blocking for efficient firm communication. 

Many people who work in law firms deal with constant communication. Whether it be through slack, emails or text messages, there are multiple routes that are used to communicate. Staying connected is great, but the non-stop messages can be a problem for productivity. Tyson provides a few tips for using time blocking to help with communication. One tip is for law firms to block time for office hours. If you have one hour a day dedicated to office hours, this allows for staff to drop in and ask whatever questions they need instead of sending constant messages throughout the day.

Time blocking can be used for focused work as well and can be adjusted to fit how you work best. If you find you're more focused in the morning, block a chunk of time from 9am-12pm. That way you can reserve the afternoon for meetings or other tasks. Some people work better in smaller blocks in which blocking a few one hour blocks throughout the day is better. It is important to communicate and enforce time blocking to your team so your firm can be more efficient.

Listen in to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

  • 2:15 Designated three sets of office hours to manage communication
  • 5:11 Providing flexibility through designated office hours
  • 9:27 Scheduling structured meetings for detailed discussions 
  • 10:11 The benefits of time blocking for focused work time

Resources:

Transcripts: Time Blocking for Firm Communication

Tyson (00:01.354)
Hey, it's Tyson. I'm back with another Saturday episode and this one's going to be a good one. Not that all of them aren't good ones, but I do like this one. We're going to be talking about time blocking for firm communication. So it's another way of time blocking, a way that many of you may not have thought about, but we're going to talk in a little bit of detail about that and the inspiration about that. But before I get into that,

I want to remind everyone that if you've not yet gotten your hands on maximum lawyer and minimum time, make sure you do. Time is running out on that, but this is typically exclusive only to our Guild members and we're going to give it to you for free. We're going to give you stage one for free. If you just text the words stage one, or you can text stage and then number one, either one of those will work, but text stage one to 314501.

9 2 6 0, and you'll get that right away. All right, so the main challenge that we saw at our firm was the constant communication and those of you that have Slack or something similar, we use something called Click, it was a massive problem where you're getting inundated by information.

And it's not just, we'll use Slack as an example. It's not just the Slack message that you would get every five minutes or so, but you're also getting text messages, you're getting phone calls, the emails are coming in, people are interrupting you in your office. There's a lot of different things that are going on and it is just a constant barrage, it's like you're putting out a wildfire and they keep popping up all over the office, it can be extremely.

disruptive. And this is the same problem in any law firm. It's that constant communication. And it is really that double-edged sword where staying connected is absolutely vital. And it's great to be able to connect with each other, but it's the nonstop messages and interruptions that fragment your work and prevent you from being productive and getting the work done that needs to be…

Tyson (02:28.874)
be done. For those of you that know Cal Newport, he wrote deep work, but he also wrote the genesis for why we started implementing office hours, a world with that email. You're unable to do that essential work, that deep work, because you're so distracted all the time. You're not ever able to really get into it and get the work done. And that's why we…

went to our approach that we've taken, and that is office hours. Okay. So what we've done is we've designated three sets of office hours. We've practiced with this a little bit before we just had one block. And it's not even an hour. We have it set for 15 minutes. It's a 15 minute block. We've expanded that a little bit.

it's because we wanted to give people a little bit more flexibility. This is in addition to our huddle. We also have weekly meetings and all that. So this is in addition to that, but this is a time where we allowed everyone to communicate. We also had it where initially, and I think that this was a mistake, but we had each team had their own set of office hours. And the thinking was that, oh,

That way that team will always be available at that time and people will know to get to them. But the reality is it just didn't work because sometimes people had court and depots and they'd never be able to talk to the people they needed to. So that's why we switched over to the one set office hours. We have that because we have people all over the world. We have that at 1245 central time is the main, we call that the mandatory office hours. Then we have two sets of optional office hours, one at 845, which is right after our huddle and that's till nine o'clock. And then.

one at 3.45 PM central time. That's for another 15 minutes. And those are optional. You turn your light on and we have a little option and click that shows you're available, so you make mark yourself available. And if you're available at that time, people can reach out to you. If not, then you don't. But it's been just absolutely just a change in workflow. That's been fantastic. You tell them about bringing stress levels down substantially.

Tyson (04:50.066)
productivity has increased substantially. We have since implementing this started selling 25% more cases. So if you just use that benchmark alone, it's been a massive success. So it's pretty good. All right. So why, let's talk about into the, get into the why a little bit about this. Cause you might be wondering why would we just have the one block mandatory? Why would we even do this in the first place? Let's talk about the mandatory block. It's really simple.

It's just the one, just having the one block, right? Not multiple blocks that are mandatory. And it really is simple. It comes down to providing that flexibility for our teams that they can have that at least one guaranteed time a day where they can reach out to people that they need to. But it gives them the flexibility that also they can schedule around that. Everyone knows those times are, it's a sacred time. You can't put anything over the top of it, but it gives them flexibility to

have those other two times as options to meet if they need to as well and collaborate whenever they need to. But that is having that set time, it's crucial because then everyone knows that's a guaranteed time that they can reach out to me or someone else to get an answer on something. And you might be wondering, well, what about urgent issues? My response to that is most issues are not urgent, but sometimes there are things.

that do come up, for example, a client is looking for the office for her deposition. Things like that, you can reach out. Items like that are absolutely okay to reach out about. Most everything else, you hold onto it. And what we've found is that most of the issues that come up, so if you have something that comes up, people figure it out. So, you know, I'm thinking I need to talk to Tyson about this.

And so, oh, I can't, I'm not going to be able to talk to them until 1245, or they can schedule a message for me is what they can do. So you can click, you can schedule messages, same thing you can do in Slack, you can schedule a message. But what normally happens is people say, oh, let me see if I can figure this out now. They figure it out, the work is done. And if they can't figure it out, they put it on the list of things to bring up to me during that office hour. I usually get a couple of messages a day. It is…

Tyson (07:16.726)
It is, you have to create a little bit of friction and this is something that Cal Newport talks about in the book. You got to create a little bit of friction between the person that wants to send the communication and the person receiving the communication. And this is our little bit of friction. So it doesn't prevent them from sending it, but it makes them pause and think about it because a big part of the problem is this wasn't a problem before email came about.

And the reason why is because people would have to walk down the hall to talk to Jerry or talk to Joe. And they no longer have to get up and walk down the hall to talk to Jerry or Joe. What they can now do is they can send off an email or a message. And when it comes to Slack or Click, they can send off a message, it takes them 10 seconds, but it takes the other person an hour of work to complete. And you want to create that friction.

so that doesn't happen. It's a very, very powerful tool. It's something that has been very, very effective for us. So here's how, let's get into a little bit more about the details. We want to, we always encourage with these that you try to reach out to do either a video message and you can, there's a few different ways, but the best…

is obviously in person for the people that are in person. If you want to go talk to that person in person, that's great. Because you lose a lot of the context and you want to prevent the actual just the text. So just sending a text message where, what I mean, a text-based message via Slack. Because what happens, as many of you all know what I'm talking about once I start to explain this more, when you send that…

The other person says, well, they don't quite understand what you mean because maybe your message isn't so clear. So you then spend the next 10 minutes or more messaging back and forth and back and forth to get context. Instead, so if you kind of look at the hierarchy, you know, best is in person so you can get those context clues, but context clues. Below that, you'd say, okay, you do a video call with them. Step below that's a phone call. Step below that's a video message.

Tyson (09:34.026)
step below that's an audio message, and then step below that's an actual text-based message. There are some downsides when it comes to video messages and audio messages, the downsides are you can't search them, they're not searchable. So keep that in mind if it's something that you think that they need to have in there that they can search for, that's one of those things you're gonna wanna factor in. But during the time they reach out, if they're able to get ahold of you, maybe you're talking to somebody else, that's fine, they can call you back. But in click it tells us if we missed a call from someone

and you'll call them back when we're done. But it's great. It's a very effective tool that during the office hours, we can get what we need to, boom, that 15 minute block's done, and then you can get back to doing your work. It's really, really effective. And if it's something that takes, if we think it's gonna take longer than five minutes, you schedule a meeting with the person. That way, the person can be ready for it. It's gonna be a structured meeting, and you can get more done. They can, because if it takes more than five minutes, that means it's…

probably something that's fairly detailed that needs to be thought out a little bit. And whenever the meeting's scheduled, you put in the calendar what it's about, what they need to prepare for, and they're ready for it. It's a really handy tool. So hopefully some of you all will get something from this. There are several advantages. You got that focused work time. Outside the time blocks, everyone can really do that deep dive into the work that they need to get done without having to worry about getting interrupted all the time. You don't have to worry about those dings and the…

a little blurb showing up in their, on their icon that says that they've got a message. There's efficient communication, you know, having those specific times, making sure that you're able to reach out to someone and they're going to answer at that time really handy instead of, you know, making phone calls back and forth and just you got a lot of flexibility and the, and the availability of people. Cause you do have those designated times. I personally attend the office hours. I can tell you firsthand that they are way faster.

or they're faster at allowing us to communicate as a team. They foster a culture of respect for each other's time and the work that they're doing. And it really helps strike that balance between being accessible and maintaining that uninterrupted work time. All right, I will just tell you, just to kind of wrap things up, implementing the office hours and time blocking for communication, it's something I highly recommend. I don't always recommend everything that we tried.

Tyson (12:01.198)
There's many times things that we've tried that have not worked, but I can tell you this, we've gone through a few different iterations of this. We'll never get rid of it. It's something that we'll always keep. We may adjust it more to make things better, but it is one of the most important things you could do. I promise you that. It's really, really effective. You just have to make sure you're very ruthless about it and enforce it. You got to tell people, the ones that aren't abiding by office hours, you got to call them out for it. But.

Otherwise it is just absolutely amazing. So give it a try in your firm. Hopefully you'll get something from it. As a reminder, if you want me to cover something on the Saturday show, just shoot me a text message. I'm happy to cover it if I can. 314-501-926-0. And I would love to hear from you. Until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Join the Guild!

Are you in need of some tools to upgrade the way you work? In this podcast episode, Becca Eberhart, CEO at Maximum Lawyer, shares tips on simplifying common tasks using digital tools.

In this day and age, there are dozens of tools to use to make working better and more efficient. Becca shares 3 tips on how to use digital tools to your advantage. One tip is to use the website Unroll.me, which is a tool to tackle getting rid of spam and help unsubscribe from unwanted emails. This tool allows for you to take control of what comes into your email account. The second tip is to use Moonpig.com, which is a website that will help out with sending cards to people. For example, if you have a busy life and lose track of important dates, put that date into Moonpig, personalize the card and it will be delivered to whoever needs it. 

The last tip Becca provides is to use a free Amazon price tracker called Camel, Camel, Camel. We live in a time where the cost for everything is high, so this tool allows you to receive price drop alerts for your favourite items. This will allow you to decide when it is time to buy a product.

Listen in to learn more about these great tools!

Episode Highlights:

  • 1:25 A tool to manage email subscriptions
  • 2:30 A website for scheduling and personalizing cards for special occasions
  • 4:41 A free Amazon price tracker to monitor price history and set price drop alerts

Resources:

Transcripts: Three Game Changing Recommendations for a Simpler Life

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Matrix. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Becca Eberhart (00:00:24) - Welcome to another episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Becca Eberhardt, CEO at Maximum Lawyer, and today I'm doing a quick episode on three things that I recommend that can help you simplify a few things that a lot of us do quite often. So my first recommendation is going to be unroll dot me. So that's unroll dot me. Maybe your promotional or spam email has gotten out of control, but you don't even know where to start with tackling that daunting task. Unroll me helps cut out a lot of time and simplifies this task with Unroll Me. You can unsubscribe from unwanted emails. Keep or roll up your emails into a condensed version. It takes a couple of steps to set this up, and then the site does the hard work for you. First, you'll have to set up two step verification, then create an app password to allow enrollment to have access to your email account.

Becca Eberhart (00:01:25) - The site does walk you through these two steps, and then after that is when they will find all of your subscriptions. On my personal email account, I had 65 subscriptions, which is way more than I thought I had. I honestly thought I had a dozen, so I was really excited to unsubscribe from about 75% of them. After you go through your initial list of subscribed emails, you'll be able to come back to your account and see new subscriptions as they creep in, and then review them and unsubscribe, or roll them up every now and then. When you feel like your inbox is getting out of hand. If you decide to try this, you should share in the Facebook group how many subscriptions you had and we'll see how crazy this gets. Next up is a site called Moonpig. Yes, that's moonpig.com. This is a website. You can go in and put all of your birthdays, anniversaries and holidays that you want to send cards to, even a wedding. You're invited to but can't make it to, and it will send you an email 14 days before each event.

Becca Eberhart (00:02:30) - This gives you enough time to select a card. You can personalize them and then send it in time for an on time arrival. They also have an AI text generator. In case you're not good at thinking of what to write inside the card, you can even handwrite your message. You just write what you want in the card on the piece of paper and take a photo of it. And then you upload that photo and they apply your writing inside the card. When you set reminders for cards you want to send, you also get 20% off of your card. Cards are such a great thing to automate like this, so you can not have to carry the mental load of remembering every important birthday or anniversary or holiday that you like to send cards for by entering the dates in. Once you'll get reminders on repeat and never have to personally remember another special event, or save this errand until the last minute and hope it ships in time to make it not look like you waited until the last minute to run to the store to find a just okay card and send it out.

Becca Eberhart (00:03:34) - Moonpig will be your assistant, reminding you ahead of time and being able to personalize your cards, text, and even pictures makes you look extra thoughtful. Finally, my last recommendation is camel, camel, camel, which is a free Amazon price tracker. Here's my issue with Amazon A lot of the time, deals or discounts on Amazon are not real. This was just a theory I had until last year. During Amazon's Prime Day deals in July, I looked up a handful of items a couple of weeks prior to the prime days that I would be interested in buying if there was a great deal on them. I took screenshots of them so I would know it was the exact same item and what the price was. Two weeks earlier, one item had the read Prime Day Deal banner and was the exact same price it was listed for two weeks earlier. Another was listed as a Prime Day deal as 54% off, though two weeks earlier it was $22 and on Prime Day it was $18. They just made the listed price higher so that the sale appears to be larger than it was.

Becca Eberhart (00:04:41) - Another item actually cost slightly more than it did two weeks prior. Enter the website camel camel camel.com. You can get price drop alerts, or you can see the price history of an item. To set a price drop alert, you just enter your desired price you want to pay and once the price drops to that price or lower, they'll send you an email notification. Or if you want this information at your fingertips, you can add the Camel Riser browser extension to see the price history. As you browse in Amazon, you'll see the highest price. It's been the lowest price it's been, and the current price. This can help you determine if you don't need something right now, then you may want to wait. Until the price gets back down closer to that lowest price. That's it for this week. I hope you find these recommendations helpful and they can simplify a few things in your life.

Speaker 1 (00:05:36) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com.

Speaker 1 (00:05:48) - Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Jim and Tyson talk with personal injury attorney Kevin Cheney about his Colorado law firm's evolution. They delve into the firm's staffing changes, Kevin's shifting role, and their unique bonus system. 

The addition of Kevin's brother to oversee business operations is a highlight, along with their approach to identifying and rectifying process weaknesses. 

Kevin emphasizes the importance of industry knowledge for decision-making and the need for new hires to immerse themselves in the firm's culture. The episode also touches on the nuances of legal business management, the life of a litigator, and the concept of radical responsibility.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Jim’s Hack: Read the the book ”Limitless”, by Jim Kwik, and follow him for great free advice.

Kevin’s Tip:  Read the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”, by Mark Manson, and embrace this idea of radical responsibility, which basically just means internally telling yourself that you are responsible for how you feel and everything that happens to you. I think it's great for business, but also personal life of just really understanding that you're in control of how you feel. And so if you don't like how you're feeling, you have the power to change it.

Tyson’s Tip: Read the book, “33 Strategies of War”, by Robert Greene. It gives you little tips on how to manage day to day life, like going into a difficult situation and how to address that.

Connect with Kevin:

Episode Highlights:

  • 01:02 The transition of his role within the firm
  • 14:21 Identifying inefficiencies in the firm's processes and suggests improvements
  • 19:31 A patient approach to transitioning roles and building a lasting firm
  • 21:03 Understanding operations and identifying weaknesses

Resources:

Transcripts: Revolutionizing Law Firm Management: Strategies for Success with Kevin Cheney

Jim (00:01.182)
Welcome back to the Maximum Warrior Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson (00:05.065)
And I'm Tyson Mutrix. What's up, Jimmy?

Jim (00:08.274)
Oh, Tyson, I'm excited about today's guest. He's a good friend of ours. He's been a great member of the guild. His name is Kevin Chaney. He's a personal injury attorney from Colorado. We love Kevin. He's been lots of fun to have with us and in the Maximum Law Big Group as well. Kevin, welcome to the show.

Kevin Cheney (00:27.944)
Thank you, happy to be back and pleasure seeing you guys.

Tyson (00:33.629)
So Kevin, we've had you do your introduction, all that before, so I'm not going to do that. But tell us what's going on with you now. What's changed since you've been on the podcast and what's new in your world?

Kevin Cheney (00:45.404)
You know, that's a great question. So I think I was on about a year and a half ago. Since then, I think we've hired four new employees and probably the biggest change that's happened is my older brother who was kind of a silent partner in the firm, he had a law license but didn't really practice.

has rejoined us and is going to be handling a little more of the admin and business side, which kind of frees up my time to take up partial client load and do a little bit more litigating, which I had really missed over the last few years being focused on the business exclusively. So that's probably the biggest change that happened a few months ago. I'm really excited to see how that plays out in 2024.

Jim (01:32.814)
Kevin, we wanted to have you back on the show just because there's this energy about you and an energy about your firm. I think people are getting excited about, and I know your team members are excited about working with you. Talk to us just a little bit about that momentum that would get somebody's big brother who had a law license he wasn't using to pull back into the industry.

Kevin Cheney (01:54.676)
Sure, so I really think it's about the culture. We were really fortunate that our firm was founded by me and my best friend from law school, Tim Galuzzi. And so we really had, I think, that energy from day one. And as we grew, it was really important for us to find great cultural fits. And we're really blessed to just have a top notch team. I think the other thing that we do that's a little different than most firms is

doing kind of individual performance bonuses based on employees or any type of eat what you kill model. We only, besides bringing in cases, we only pay one type of bonus which is we do 30% of our firm profit goes into a bonus pool and then that gets divvied up on a discretionary basis to all of our employees. And I think that really has created a team based atmosphere. It's created a lot of buy in from the attorneys all the way down to the receptionist.

to really be motivated and excited about our firm. And I think that's something that attracts top talent, which is always important in this day and age.

Tyson (03:06.757)
Yeah, I find that interesting. I'm going to stay on this topic for a second, because there's some other things I want to ask you about, but specifically about that. I'd like to ask you about the

Jim and I recently we were talking about I can't remember if it was on the Saturday show or on a podcast But we were talking about you know bonuses and salaries and all that and I've been I've been sort of in this Mindset where I want to shift towards I think just higher salaries Just pay people really well salaries and almost scrap the bonus system completely just by paying people really well

What are your thoughts on that and how did you, because I think right now our bonus system is probably way too complicated. And now how we do things, it's just a bookkeeping nightmare. So I just wonder how you came to the conclusion of doing the 30% on profit, which I think is a really simple and nice solution.

Kevin Cheney (03:58.109)
Um, it really kind of developed over time. So.

With personal injury work, as you know, Tyson, revenue and profit can be very up and down month to month or even year to year. So when we were smaller, we were trying to pay pretty good salaries, but we certainly didn't have the revenue to compete and pay best in town by any means. But whenever we would settle a really big case or we had a really good month, we would give each of the staff members a bonus or a small amount of money. And so we were kind of doing that.

that is not the best way to plan a business because if you're giving out all of this extra money when things are good, you may not have any extra money when things aren't as good or you have a couple of down months. And so we had a particularly good year in 2022 and we kind of looked at what we were paying as far as bonuses go and it ended up being around 30% and so we just decided to kind of adopt that as our formal plan. But we had a lot of discussions with our team members and we

basically said, look, we're happy to pay in kind of the upper percentile for your experience and your job position, and basically make it all guaranteed and not do bonuses. But in the personal injury space, particularly, you have the ability to kind of hit home runs every now and then. And I was like, you know, what I would feel bad, and this may be just kind of my political leanings, I'm a business owner, but I definitely agree with a lot more of the leftists of the world politically.

And I was like, I would just feel uncomfortable making seven, $800,000 a year and not giving bonuses to people making 40, 45, 50, you know, that just wouldn't sit well with me. And so I was like, guys, you know what I would love to do. I can't legally make you guys owners of the firm because you're not lawyers, but I can essentially get to the closest thing I can as a, as a partially staff and employee owned business by essentially putting over, putting this percentage into a bonus pool. Now,

Kevin Cheney (06:01.046)
Now the flip side of that is you don't get the reward without the risk. So in order for this to work, we have to pay more in the 50 percentile or kind of the middle or slightly under the middle range of salaries. So you guys have a little skin in the game, a little risk, but on the flip side, you'll then have the upside of essentially getting a share of profits. And I believe in the firm. I would hope you all the employees want to bet on us.

more profitable for you in the long run. And it was essentially unanimous. A lot of people had a lot of questions. They asked, they did some math. We went through some examples. But in the end, the employees basically were like, we'll take less guaranteed money if we have a percentage of the profit. And we also really are transparent with kind of a lot of the firm finances and things like that. And I think that has created a culture of buy-in and that has really helped people

volunteer to help cover people when other people are out of town, help out people who are particularly slammed either because of trials or new clients. I just think it helps breed a team-based approach rather than an individual-based approach.

Jim (07:17.182)
I have two more questions on this topic, Kevin. The first one is, let's talk about that transparency. Do the people just receive their bonus or do they know exactly how much the profit of the firm is for the year and they get their piece of it?

Kevin Cheney (07:32.564)
So they know exactly how much revenue and expenses were and they know what the total firm profit is and then they know what the total bonus pool was. They don't know unless they share it amongst themselves and we totally allow that. They don't know exactly what every single person got as a bonus, nor do they know what every single person's salary is, just because I feel like that's their information to share and not everyone feels comfortable with it. But they know, you know, this is how much revenue we did.

how many clients we signed, how much money we sent on marketing, you know, this is how much we spent on rent. I mean, we kind of do a broad overview of all of the firm expenses because I also think that keeps people understanding that, okay, yeah, maybe we made $300,000 this month, but like running a firm is expensive. And when I was an employee, I often would see, you know, us making all the revenue because that was very visible, but there were so many

you don't know about, the cost of health insurance, rent, malpractice, case software, I just got my Filevine bill, that was lovely. You know, so I think sharing that information with employees and basically, you know, going over some basic details, helps them understand that like, you're not just hogging all of the money for yourself and that we're all kind of working together to help everyone.

Jim (08:57.226)
My second question on that topic was, didn't you tell me a story about there was a situation where you guys were thinking about expanding and taking on more rent? And because the team knew that if you saved that money, that would be included in their bonus pool, that they were then more willing to sort of share offices with each other?

Kevin Cheney (09:17.908)
100% yeah and that's the kind of a great example of something that I think happens at our firm on a pretty regular basis. We were growing and we had a really sweet office space just right outside downtown Denver and we were basically lucky, a lot of most people had an individual office or maybe two people in a really giant office and we basically were like look we can rent a few more offices, this is how much it costs. Or we can add in two or three.

more people into our existing offices and all, you know, just get a little bit closer. And they were like, wait, you know, it's going to cost us 30 some thousand dollars a year to add on these extra offices. Let's just, you know, I can scoot over. It's fine. And I think that's something that if we hadn't talked about expenses and we hadn't talked about the bonus pool, you know, because that's a, that's a real consideration comfort versus revenue and expenses. And it was an easy one when they were like, yeah, we'd much rather.

the firm make more money, we're not completely full in our current space yet. But I think that's something that kind of happens on a regular basis at our firm, which I think is one benefit of kind of doing it this way.

Tyson (10:33.593)
That's pretty cool. That's that Jeff Bezos day one thinking that we were talking about the other day, Jim. I think that that's really cool. That's startup thinking almost where everyone's kind of working together to make sure that you're maximizing profits, which I think is pretty cool. All right. So I want to pivot a little bit and I want to talk about the transition of your role because that seems like a pretty massive transition.

Talk a little bit about the mindset of that and how things are going now with it.

Kevin Cheney (11:09.028)
Sure. So I think to kind of understand the mindset now, we have to understand a little bit of kind of how we got here. So, you know, traditionally when we first started out, it was just me and my partner and we were literally doing everything, you know, every staff role, every, you know, do creating all the products, signing clients, doing all the business side stuff. And over, you know, after about four years or so, and we were big enough and we kind of had some employees, we had a discussion about what our goals were, where we wanted

five years, 10 years, and the kind of growth that we wanted, we really felt someone needed to be focused on the business full time. You know, I think this is something we talk about on this podcast, but also in Guild Masterminds quite a bit, is that fear of stopping doing client work to just focus on the business. And so we made that decision a few years ago, and I transitioned, you know, I stopped taking new cases and basically started being the CEO.

and COO kind of full-time. And over the last few years, we've had a lot of growth. I've enjoyed a lot of it. I do like running a business. But the cool thing about being a business owner is you can kind of do whatever you want. And I realized that in my heart of hearts, long-term, I love the courtroom, I love going to trial, and that is really what I want more than anything.

And so, you know, we started having conversations about, you know, are we going to hire a firm administrator? Are we going to try to hire like a COO level, you know, maybe just an executive assistant. And that was actually one of my topics, I think at one of the more recent masterminds, I think the Miami one. And, you know, then it kind of fell into my lap that my older brother who had been kind of giving us business advice behind the scenes for several years, um, and had been working in the marijuana industry, gave me a call one

and was like, hey, I'm looking at leaving, I'm looking at going and being the number two at this legal software company, do you know anything about them? And I was like, wait a second, you're leaving the industry and you're looking to make a change? I was like, if you're interested, we were about to potentially hire someone to kind of run the business side of CGH, would you be interested in coming back? And he doesn't know anything about the personal injury world, he's run a lot of small businesses, so he has a ton of business experience. So it actually worked.

Kevin Cheney (13:34.902)
worked out really well because for the first couple years, he'll work under me. I'll still handle the vision and higher level issues while he really learns the industry. But right away, he was able to take a bunch of admin work off of my plate and do all of that. And then after a couple years, I think he'll transition into a COO role. And we're hopeful in four or five years, he'll be able to become our CEO and run the firm.

And that's great because it allows me to kind of do an easy transition back into litigation. So I don't have a full caseload, I'd say I have about a half caseload. So probably for the next two years, I'll be doing half client work, half working on the business, but then I hope to slowly increase the percentage of client work until one day I have maybe like an 80-20 split I think is my overall goal.

Jim (14:29.918)
I always enjoy it when new people come into the firm and they bring their experience and their new set of eyes to the way that we do things. I'm wondering with your brother coming from business back into the law firm, what were his initial thoughts or suggestions that he had about things that you might try doing differently?

Kevin Cheney (14:50.76)
So one of the very first things that he realized, so I basically had him shadow every employee for a day or two, so he was really kinda getting a full experience and talking to a lot of people, was he felt that our…

processes while we did have a bunch especially within Filevine, he felt that we were really missing kind of a map of the typical case and kind of a map of everybody's roles. So that first month or two he spent a ton of time kind of making flow charts. His dad was in project management. We have the same mom, but his dad was in, we have different dads. His dad was a project manager for years and so that's really always been one of his focuses. So he created these really cool charts to basically

see the life of a case, you know, and in PI, the case bounces back and forth between like our paralegal and legal assistant a lot, like, so it was way more complicated, I think, than he imagined from, you know, like growing and selling marijuana was a really relatively straightforward flow chart. Whereas this was a lot more complicated, but it enabled us to really be like, okay, now that we can see it, where are our holdups? Like where are cases, you know, getting stuck? And then we can really

drill down into those processes. And we were able to identify a handful of things within the first month or two of him working here that really helped speed things up. And we were like, oh, this is a really important thing. Let's make that a KPI. You know, like this doesn't seem like it was important, but this one little factor, it was kind of related to something to do with medical records is slowing down cases by a month or two. And if we can fix that and get settlements or go file lawsuits a month or two earlier,

increase revenue and profitability. So I think it was, I think you're exactly right Jim, I think that fresh eyes approach of not having worked here for the last eight years allowed him to go in and be like I can start fresh, let's identify weaknesses and problem areas.

Tyson (16:54.045)
So this is timely for me and it's interesting so I'm gonna ask you about the, a little bit about the workflows because we just went through and remapped everything for our systems and we identified some pretty glaring gaps. I wonder what gaps that you all identified or maybe there's not gaps but maybe some areas where you all definitely needed to improve because I think maybe that might be helpful for listeners to identify gaps in their processes.

Kevin Cheney (17:23.556)
Yeah, so two of them, I mean, we identified a handful, but I'd say two of them that immediately come to mind were relating to medical records. So we essentially have three different roles that are involved to some extent in medical records. We have our case managers slash pre-lit paralegals.

that were identifying with the client, speaking to the client and identifying new treating providers and things like that, and essentially instructing our legal assistants to go order and get those records. And then the legal assistants were ordering them, but then a third person, our receptionist slash office manager, was paying the invoices and actually downloading the records. And I think that having three different people

that all couldn't do their job until somebody else did their job was really an inefficiency you know because it was so and they weren't necessarily I mean we they were talking on Filevine and you could obviously message each other but there's so many medical records as you know I'm sure Tyson in a PI practice that

even a little bit of delay magnified over all of our cases was really causing problems. And so what we did was essentially, let's remove the office manager person and just have the legal assistants pay invoices and download these records because they're the ones ordering them. That take, that's fairly time intensive. So then we had to transfer a little bit of work from the legal assistants to our office manager receptionist person to kind of keep it balanced. But that change alone has allowed us to get records.

We've only been doing it for a few months now, but I would say that we're averaging about five to seven days faster across our, just on that change, which again, magnified over hundreds of cases can be a real benefit. The other weakness we identified was when our, we have one person whose whole job is intake and that person sometimes would go on vacation or be out of town. And we did not have very good processes for like, people would cover that role.

Kevin Cheney (19:33.562)
But we did not have clear processes about how they were supposed to do it because they don't have the full training to essentially Be the intaker, but we needed them to do like 80% of it So that we could still try to sign those clients I mean that was a massive weakness and really anything related to intake is so important for any law firm Because if you're not getting clients then the rest of it doesn't really matter

Tyson (19:59.737)
Yeah, you gotta have two people. At this point, you gotta have really two people that can really do the job for vacations and things like that.

Jim (20:00.183)
Kevin wanted to-

Kevin Cheney (20:05.82)
2024 goal right there. Yeah, we'll be 2024 goals to have two full-time intakers by the end. So that's definitely something we want to do.

Jim (20:17.294)
Kevin, one of the things that I struggle with is patience. And I think it's interesting that you're taking such a slow approach with onboarding your brother and transitioning out of your current role into your future role. Talk to us a little bit about your philosophy in patience and in trying to build something to last.

Kevin Cheney (20:38.928)
That's a really great question, you know, I wouldn't necessarily say I'm the most and my wife certainly would not say that I'm not the most patient person but I do think especially at a For higher level positions, right if you're looking to hire a CEO and a CEO

You know, you want to, they need to know the industry before they are going to be the ones making a decision. So I absolutely think that like a relatively new person within a few months could…

you know, execute a lot of plans designed by somebody who's been there longer. But if you're talking about massive decisions, like the decision to switch case management softwares, for example, that would be a massive decision. I think, Jim, you've been doing that recently. It's, you know, can be really rewarding, but it also can be very difficult, and a lot of things can go wrong. And so much goes into that decision about, you know, what we really want out of our software, and what our goals are.

and what flaws we see in our current one. And I just don't think somebody stepping into the firm for a month or two or even honestly six months is going to have all of the history and knowledge about what's really important there. And so, you know, we just decided it was an easier transition. I also think it was good for learning the culture. I mean, I think my older brother shares our views and shares our culture and he would sit on the board and meet with us occasionally.

You really want someone to spend some time at your firm so that they know how the firm is currently running and what's really working well, so that they don't change that stuff. And they really can identify the weaknesses or kind of average things that the firm does and focus on improving that. So I think it was just a good transition. It also worked out well for us. My older brother had a few other side projects that he kind of wanted to finish out on and kind of see through.

Kevin Cheney (22:40.73)
And so, you know, not having him work 50 plus hours every week to get started also was a benefit to him. So it was just something that kind of worked out for us. Yeah.

Tyson (22:53.617)
Yeah, there's a lot of nuances people that have no legal experience need to learn like trust accounts, like licensing. Like there's a lot, just lots of little bitty nuances that are different than an ordinary business. I mean, there's a lot that's the same, but there's a lot like that they still have to figure out. Like you can't put money straight into the trust or into the operating account. It's got to go into the trust account. It's got to be divvied up a certain way and all that. So I think that that's important. I think it's smart the way you're doing it.

Jim (22:59.15)
Thanks for watching!

Tyson (23:19.917)
We do need to wrap things up because we're almost out of time and we want to be respectful of your time too. I'm sure it's actually really early there. So thank you for joining us so early.

Kevin Cheney (23:28.496)
Yeah, I haven't gotten up necessarily in a while, but it's good. You know, I'm getting a fresh start on the day, you know, another extra hour on my work schedule. So no complaints.

Tyson (23:37.709)
I love it. Well, I noticed what time we were doing this with you. And then it was you. I was like, wow, I wonder why we're doing this so early with him. But it's good. I'm glad we're able to. But let's.

Kevin Cheney (23:48.573)
We had, it was originally scheduled to be a few hours later, and then I had court, and then we moved it to an even later time, and you had a deposition. So I think this is the only one that works for everybody, the life of a litigator.

Tyson (24:04.265)
Nice, that's how it works out. All right, well let's wrap things up. Before I do anything, I wanna remind everyone to, if you, make sure you just join us in the big Facebook group. You'll get to hang out with really cool people like Kevin, but if you want more access to people like Kevin, join us in the guild, go to maxlawguild.com. Just so many great people in the guild just sharing, like just brilliant minds just sharing a lot of their wonderful knowledge with us. So it's fantastic to have you, Kevin, and a lot of other fantastic people in the guild. And then if you don't mind,

If you've learned something from this episode, or if you get something from the podcast, if you don't mind giving us a five-star review, we would definitely appreciate it. It helps spread the love to other attorneys across the country. All right, Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?

Jim (24:47.682)
For my Hack of the Week, I previously recommended the book Limitless by Jim Quick, and I recommend people checking that book out once a year, but he had a post today about prioritizing things in 2024, and I just wanted to… It was an Instagram post, and he just said, in 2024, prioritize mental health, prioritize mindfulness, prioritize whole food, prioritize connection, prioritize relaxation, prioritize hydration.

prioritize self-care, prioritize gratitude, prioritize outdoors, prioritize learning, prioritize exercise, prioritize reading, prioritize sleep, and prioritize you. Jim Quick gives away more good information for absolutely free if you don't have any money and you're struggling. I mean, Tyson and I try to give away all of our best stuff.

in this podcast, in the Facebook group, Jim Quick does the same thing. It's just a, a bound, a bountiful approach to life and sharing what you know. And I just think Jim is someone that everyone should, should follow because. Like I said, he gives away what a lot of people charge a ton of money for. And if you just listen to him, you'd be really, really good shape.

Tyson (26:06.969)
I love it. I don't follow Jim quick. So I'll have to give them a follow. Uh, all right. I'm going to recommend a book that I don't think I've recommended on the podcast yet. Um, if I, if, if I have, I'm sorry, but I know I've talked about it in the guild, but it's 33 strategies of war. Um, it is a, it is a really good book and it is, I mean, it's about what it sounds like it's about, but it allows you, it gives you little bitty tips on how to manage day to day life. Like going into a difficult.

you know, situation when you're having a conversation with someone, how to maybe address that. It is, it is, it gives you more, like it zooms in on like things like situations like that, like the one-on-one conversations, but it also kind of zooms out where you can, you know, big picture strategies sort of things. I highly recommend it. I've talked about it a lot recently, but I, it is, it is such a good book. If you've not read it, read it. What I did is I bought the physical book, but then I listened to it at the same time, I pulled a Jim hacking on this one.

And so this one especially, I think it's good with that because it does get some, it gets its dense in parts. And so it's nice having the physical copy to look at it and kind of revisit it, but definitely recommend it. All right, Kevin, as always, wonderful to get to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us again.

Kevin Cheney (27:26.2)
Yeah, it was a pleasure being here, guys. And my tip, I guess, for the podcast. You know, here's.

Jim (27:27.874)
You gotta ask him for his tip. You forgot to ask him for it. Hold on, Kev. He forgot to ask you.

Tyson (27:35.817)
Oh, shit. I am so sorry. I did not. I was looking at the time. Yeah, Kevin, let me, let me redo that part. Gosh, damn it. I was, I was like, I'm looking at the time to get the huddle at 8 30. So I'm sorry. I hold on a second. We'll, we'll cut this so it makes sense. Um, all right, Kevin. All right, Kevin. Uh, so you know, the routine, uh, what is your tip or hack of the week?

Kevin Cheney (28:00.296)
You know, so something that I've been really working on the last few months, and it comes from several books. Mark Manson talks about it in The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F. A lot of stoic books on stoicism or Buddhism talk about it, but I've been really enjoying this idea of kind of radical responsibility, which basically just means internally telling yourself that you are responsible for how you feel and everything that happens to you. Now that doesn't mean that you're at fault.

for what happens or at fault for what's going on, but that every emotion you feel, you're responsible for. And my wife and I had a lot of ups and downs and kind of a tragedy relatively recently, which was really, really tough. And being able to take responsibility for how we were feeling has really helped been a healing and kind of cathartic thing. And so I think it's great for business, but also personal life of just.

Really understanding that you're in control of how you feel. And so if you don't like how you're feeling, you have the power to change it.

Tyson (29:07.237)
Yeah, I like that. And thanks for sharing that. And sorry that you've had to go through that recently. But yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I think that that's a really valuable lesson.

Kevin Cheney (29:19.464)
Thanks, guys.

Tyson (29:20.79)
All right, so hopefully that clip, okay. You bet. Thank you. I gotta run. See you all later. Have a great day. Thanks, Kevin. See you, Jimmy.

Jim (29:25.654)
Thanks, Kev.

Kevin Cheney (29:27.282)
All right, see you guys.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a leader within a law firm who wants to empower their staff? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson explores the concept of high-velocity decision-making within law firms. 

Tyson shares what the concept of high-velocity decision making is and why it is so important to have within a law firm. This concept, by Steve Bezos, is about empowering staff at the lowest levels to make decisions. Most times, these decisions are big and can have an impact on a company. This is more so if companies have staff who are front facing and deal with clients or customers on a daily basis. Empowering staff to make their own decisions can come with the risk of mistakes, but as law firm owners, it is important to communicate with staff that mistakes are part of the process. Tyson shares that allowing staff to make decisions will allow for things to be done faster instead of waiting for the go ahead from those in higher positions with more power.

Empowering staff to make decisions will also allow for people to become more confident in themselves and their ability. Without this mentality, staff will become fearful to make the smallest decision or even make the smallest mistake at the risk of being fired. As law firm owners, having trust in your teams to make their own decisions, especially ones that affect their clients is key to a great work environment and makes you a good leader and decision maker.

Take a listen.

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:24 The importance of empowering team members 
  • 2:07 Encouraging a mindset that allows for mistakes
  • 6:36 The crucial role of giving team members permission to make mistakes
  • 7:29 Encouraging the nurturing of a mindset that allows for quick decision-making

Resources:

Transcripts: Nurturing High Velocity Decision Makers

Tyson (00:07.818)
Hey, it's Tyson and I'm back with another Saturday episode. I am fresh off the heels of our quarterly meeting and I want to talk about an approach that I talked about with our firm and something that will allow our team to be faster and more effective. And that's nurturing high velocity decision-making. Really, really important thing. And it's a concept that Steve Bezos talks about and I'm going to talk a little bit about Napoleon. Before I get into all that though.

I do want to remind everyone if you've not yet gotten maximum or maximum lawyer minimum time I'm gonna resay that Before we get into the episode though. I do want to remind everyone if you've not yet gotten stage one of maximum lawyer minimum time I'm not sure how much longer we're gonna offer it for free If you do want stage one just text me 3 1 4 5 0 1 9 2 6 0 text me stage one so stage one to

314-501-9260. We give this to all Guild members. We give all stages to Guild members absolutely free when you join the Guild. We're giving our listeners just for being a listener, just for being an awesome listener, stage one, absolutely free. I will also just ask, shameless plug, if you will give us a five-star review. If you enjoy something, if you get something out of these episodes, if you enjoy them, if you learn something, if you will please give us a five-star review.

It allows us to help spread the love to other law firm owners that need some help. So please do that if you will. All right. So let's get into the whole idea of high velocity decision making. And that's the term it's coined by Steve Bezos. And he wants to make sure that he talks about how he wants his people to make decisions at the lowest level as possible. And sometimes these are.

decisions that are big decisions, but if you want to be able to try to not run things up the flagpole, if at all possible. There is that question I learned from Christopher Nicolais and I've been asking it for a while about what do you want to do about it? So whenever someone asks me a question, I say, what do you want to do about it? That's one way of sort of handling an employee that continues to ask you questions about things.

Tyson (02:33.91)
You do definitely want to foster this idea that people, it's okay to make mistakes, that you're going to make these mistakes. I want you to make these decisions. It's going to allow us to move a lot faster. It's going to allow your firm to make a decision, move on, empower your people, make the decision, move on. If it's a mistake, it's a mistake. It's usually a mistake that you can fix. And I told our employees, I said, Hey, here's the deal. You're going to make a mistake. It's fine. And usually we can fix it. If not.

That's what we have malpractice insurance for. Okay. That's what I told them. That's the reality of it, but we want our people to make decisions quickly. Big decisions, make those decisions instead of letting them just sit because letting those big decisions that need to be made just sit, it actually causes, I mean, a lot of problems, a lot more work. And if you can free up just the bandwidth from multiple angles, the

you know, brain bandwidth, because you're thinking about it all the time, because it's not there. You've not, it's just sitting there. You've not made the decision, but it also just all thinking about all the followups. If you think, like I use the snowball example when it comes to discovery. Like if you don't do something on that, guess what happens? It's snowballs because next thing you know, you're getting followups about it. And then you're having to, you know, get motions to compel or file motions to compel, and then you're, you're having to, you know, go appear in court. So it just kind of snowballs. Same thing with decisions. It's snowballs if you don't make the decision.

and move on. So you want to empower your people to do that. Part of that too is the mindset. Empowering your people and making sure that they have the right mindset about it. It's not something that's optional. Having that mindset is absolutely essential. That's one of the things that we hire for is edge. And that's the ability to make those really difficult decisions. That's one of the key, that's why we call our people's peeps. One of the E's stands for edge.

We're looking for the people that can make those really high level decisions. Okay. All right. It's interesting. There is Napoleon Bonaparte. I think a lot of people know about him as this person that he led these massive campaigns, these war campaigns and was highly successful. Some people would say that he is the most successful.

Tyson (04:56.882)
war general in history, right? He's someone that was able to take these massive, massive armies and defeat larger enemies, smaller enemies, but he's able to move these massive militaries very, very quickly. And there's several examples about how his military had been essentially cornered and they thought that this was going to be his

his defeat, massive defeat, but his teams were able to move so quickly and adjust so rapidly that he wouldn't lose. And a lot of that, big part of that was that his teams were built, they were built in smaller teams that could make, they were all empowered to make these high level decisions very rapidly. They all communicated with each other, they all communicated really, really well, they all communicated with the leadership at the top, including Napoleon.

What they were able to do is because of the high level decision making, they were able to move and maneuver very, very quickly. And it made them much more nimble and effective and one of the most effective militaries in history. So this is one of those things where it applies to our teams as well. We may have multiple teams inside of our law firms, but if you empower them to make these high level decisions, they can maneuver a lot faster and make high level decisions that

I mean, are not going to, are not going to cloud you either. They're these, these are things that they're not going to be bringing to you on a daily basis. You're allowing them to make these decisions. They're not having to wait on you. And then they're able to move on and move on to the next case. So you want to be able to empower them to do that.

A big part of this, and I mentioned this before, but flat out tell them that they have permission to make mistakes. The first part of this is obviously empower them to act. You want to make sure that they know that they need to just make the decision. Instead of running up a flagpole, if they can make that decision, make it. And usually you can. The other part of it is making it very expressly telling them, you have my permission to make mistakes. You're going to do that. It's maybe the most crucial part of that. Because many times people don't act.

Tyson (07:07.458)
and they don't act because of fear. They don't act out of fear, all right? And that is one of those things where they're paralyzed from fear. So they, instead of making that decision, they come to you. But if they know that they're not gonna get fired just because they made a decision that they didn't run up the flagpole because they wanted to make sure that they were trying to help the client or they were trying to do something better for the firm, you had to be able to trust your people to do that. They're doing things in the best interest of the firm.

You got to be able to make, allow them to make those decisions. They've got permission to give them that permission to make those mistakes. That way it's, it's not something that you're getting bombarded on a daily basis, but remove that fear element. And there might be certain things that you absolutely won't run, ran up the flagpole. That's fine. Create a list of those things and tell them what those things are. But if for everything else say, here's the decision. You, you, you make the decision and.

If there's a mistake, it's a mistake, we'll fix it. Okay. You can put, I mean, let's say it's a spending decision. Okay. Anything over $50, you gotta run by me or anything over $500, you gotta run by me. You can have those different limits. So just set limits around what they can and can't do and then let them go out and act and watch how quickly your teams move and how much your workload goes down because you're allowing them to make those decisions.

I promise you, if you invest in nurturing this mindset in your people, you will see massive returns and you're gonna set yourself up for a firm that's full of leaders and not followers, which is what you want. You want a team that's absolutely full of leaders. All right, let's wrap things up. As a reminder though, if you have anything you want me to cover on one of these Saturday shows, just shoot me a text and I'll try to cover it. Text me 314-501-9260.

We've had a lot of great suggestions. Keep it up. If you have, you should shoot me a question or say hi, do that too. I'd love to hear from you. Until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Join the Guild!

Are you a lawyer who is interested in being a part of a community? In this podcast episode, Becca Eberhart, CEO of Maximum Lawyer, details the guild mastermind events, emphasizing their exclusivity for guild members and the advantages of attending. 

Becca shares details of what the Guild Mastermind event is. The Guild Mastermind are quarterly, in person events hosted in different cities around the United States. They take place over the course of a day and a half, with presentations and sessions. 

One of the key highlights is the hot seat session, which involves all members getting a turn presenting a current challenge to the group and then receiving feedback from the coaches and other members. Guild members are lawyers at different stages in their careers from different areas of the country. This brings a unique perspective to these events as other lawyers can learn from each other and network.

Listen in to learn more about the Guild Mastermind!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:24 Welcome to the Guild!
  • 1:11 Details about the quarterly in-person events
  • 3:25 The advantages of networking with ambitious law firm owners 
  • 4:34 Comparison of guild coaching and mastermind membership levels

Resources:

Transcripts: Revealing the Unmatched Dynamics of In-Person Masterminds

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Matrix. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Becca Eberhart (00:00:24) - Welcome to another episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Becca Eberhardt, CEO at Maximum Lawyer, and if you're listening to this episode on the day it airs, we are currently in Scottsdale, Arizona for our first in-person Guild Mastermind of 2024. So today I'm going to go a little more in depth into what the Guild masterminds are and what you can gain from them. Before I get started, I want to mention our in-person events are for guild members only, so I don't want you to get excited and thinking, yes, this is just what I need and I want to come to the next event. You do have to be in the Guild coaching membership to participate in our masterminds, because these events are our way to get our members better results. As we talk through this today, you'll see how these events are constructed to help guild members grow their firms.

Becca Eberhart (00:01:11) - Each Guild Mastermind is a quarterly in-person event hosted around the country in different cities. Each mastermind is a day and a half starting at noon on day one, which is always a Thursday and a full day. On day two, we typically have a presentation to kick off the masterminds. For example, today Victoria Collier is teaching us how to build law firms that have value and can be sold after the training will roll right into the hot seat sessions. Our hot seats are the core of the event. Each member takes the hot seat for 30 minutes. During your hot seat, you start by presenting your current challenge or opportunity to the group, and then receive feedback from the knowledge and experiences of your fellow attendees and coaches. Our mastermind groups are filled with lawyers from different stages, practice areas, and geographic locations. This combination of different business and life experiences exposes you to new ideas and solutions that can only come to fruition in this type of mastermind setting. In a mastermind, you're also not in control of the entire conversation like you are in a one on one coaching session.

Becca Eberhart (00:02:19) - You're just a part of it. You present the idea that you want to work on during your hot seat. But the thing is, and we hear this all the time, attendees are surprised to find that they learn the most during someone else's hot seat. Someone else will be talking about their challenge or an idea they've had, and you'll think, whoa, I've never even considered that. And all of a sudden you're going down a path that you never could have been if you hadn't put yourself in the room. We try to keep our mastermind groups intimate, but you're still surrounding yourself with 12 to 18 other lawyers growing your personal connections with other law firm leaders, something you don't often have in your local area. We also incorporate networking time into our events by including coffee and snack breaks on both days, a welcome dinner on day one, and breakfast and lunch on day two of the mastermind. Growing your network offline gives you major advantages when you're making connections with law firm owners who are as ambitious and growth oriented as you are, you'll make valuable connections where you can ask for names, referrals, and recommendations.

Becca Eberhart (00:03:25) - As you might ask them, what's your preferred software for this? Do you have a system to do this? Maybe their VA is looking for more work, or they have a fractional CFO who has positively impacted their growth strategy. These personal recommendations are far more valuable than googling products or services you're looking for, or even receiving recommendations from people you hardly know. Now, like I mentioned earlier, you must be in our Guild coaching or mastermind membership to have access to tickets to these events. In the coaching membership, you get monthly access to the maximum growth and minimum time Growth playbook a private podcast. This is perfect for listening to our monthly video trainings on the go. You also get unlimited Q&A in the private member's Facebook group, exclusive virtual events and hot seat sessions, weekly accountability meetings to set goals and celebrate wins the Morning Meeting Show, which is hosted live every Saturday by Jim and Tyson. You can think of this as comedians in a car getting coffee meets how I built this, and you have access to purchase tickets to these Guild Mastermind events.

Becca Eberhart (00:04:34) - Our next level of membership is the mastermind membership, and it's brand new. In the mastermind membership, you get your mastermind tickets included in your membership. Plus, you're invited to an exclusive morning session on day one of the mastermind. This is only for mastermind membership holders. This bonus event with Jim and Tyson is curated for high level growth and more high touch coaching atmosphere. When you join the mastermind membership, you also get a monthly virtual small group coaching session with Jim and Tyson. This is our highest level membership, giving you the most access to Jim and Tyson. You can also compare the different membership levels at Max Law Guild comm. That's it for this week. I hope to share some stories and lessons from this mastermind in Scottsdale with you in the coming weeks after we get back. And if you're ready to join us at the next mastermind tomorrow, our tickets will go on sale for our Q2 mastermind happening in Minneapolis on April 18th and 19th. You can head to Max Lott events.com for more event information and to grab your ticket.

Speaker 1 (00:05:43) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a firm owner who is struggling with layoffs? In this episode, Jim and Tyson discuss the difficult layoffs as well as the tough reality of letting people go due to a downturn in business.

Jim and Tyson delve into the reasons why layoffs occur. Jim identifies the issue with spreading yourself too thin, in which too many responsibilities are given to too many people, when it doesn't have to be that way. 

Consolidating where necessary is a good way to keep responsibilities simple and not lead to paying for more employees when less are needed. Layoffs can also occur when a firm owner is thinking too far into the future instead of thinking about what is needed in the moment. For example, many firms experience fast growth. With fast growth comes more clients and therefore more lawyers or support staff. But, firms also experience downturns in work and if this is not documented and that fluctuation is not talked about, it can lead to issues with paying for staff.

Listen in to learn more!

Jim's Hack: We aren’t creating enough content! Create more content for marketing your firm. People are not going to get tired of you! Do more! 

Tyson's Tip: You can work harder and it’s not going to hurt you. 

.

Episode Highlights:

  • 7:04 Analyzing the factors contributing to the need for layoffs
  • 18:42 Discussing the consideration of shifting employees to different roles
  • 19:10 Discussion on the considerations and movements within the firm

Resources:

Transcripts: The Most Challenging Times: Navigating Layoffs 

Jim (00:01.342)
Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer Podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Tyson (00:05.511)
And I'm Tyson Mutrix. What's up, Jimbo?

Jim (00:08.65)
Well, Tyson, if we were recording this episode yesterday, I would have called it, I'm mad or Jim's mad, but we're flipping it like a pancake. Like our buddy, Billy Mansky said at max lock con 2019. So here we are. We're turning it around. We're going for broke. We are all in on optimism. And I told my team today that I don't want to hear one complaint, one gripe.

For the next six weeks, we're going through some major transitions at old hacking immigration law, and I want everybody rowing in the same direction. I got no time for negativity, and so I'm just not even listening to it.

Tyson (00:46.027)
Hey, so you, have you seen the, hold on. Alexa turned on whenever I said, hey.

Jim (00:54.566)
That horror.

Tyson (00:59.767)
Then that thing turns on. Have you seen the show that is on Max, which was on HBO, that it's called Showtime, I think. It's about the Lakers. Have you seen that?

Jim (01:01.774)
Thank you.

Jim (01:14.03)
No, no, I would have, I was getting ready to start it and then they canceled it. So then I thought I wouldn't watch it.

Tyson (01:20.007)
It's worth a watch. They definitely take liberties with it, but there is an episode near the end where Pat Riley is, I mean, he's pissed. He's angry because the team has gotten comfortable and they're champions. All of them are champions, but they've all gotten comfortable. They've all just been bickering at each other. They'll all snipe, so they'll come up and say, hey, Riles.

you know, tell Kareem to do this. Hey Riles, you know, tell Irvin to do this. And he just, he got to this like breaking point where he called them all out in the same room. He says, you know, magic, you're saying this about such and such and Kareem, you're saying you, uh, you retired two months ago. You know, like it's like, it like really called him out and, and said, from this moment forward, we're stopping all that. You know, we, we're, we're going to get all this out right now and we're going to move forward.

There's none of this fighting each other. There's none of this bickering about each other. We're all going to get on the same page and we're going to move forward. And then it's a really cool speech. Right. And so it kind of reminds me of what you're just saying where, and maybe people aren't bickering, maybe people aren't fighting each other, but sometimes you do have to just say, you know what? We're going to do this. We're stopping this crap. We're not complaining. We're not going to do this.

Like you said, we're going to flip it like a pancake and we're going to move forward and we're going to progress. We're going to, as Jason would say, that relentless solution focus is what you're going to focus on. So yeah, so I guess what's going on with you that you were so angry yesterday that you had to change your mindset.

Jim (03:10.558)
Well, before I get to that, you remind me of a story from law school. So Amani and I both wrote onto law journals. So we didn't have the grades to like grade onto law journals. So in our class, I think they take 30 new members of law journal each year, 10 grade on by their GPA and the other 20 go through this writing competition. Well, at the end of that, that second year of law school, then everybody applied to be the editor or the managing editor of the law journal. I ended up.

Um, there were nine other people applying for the manager for the editor in chief position. And apparently they all complained about each other. Um, so I was in there and I talking about leadership and optimism and getting the thing done and, um, our friends, Pete Salsic and Amy Gunn, they were the outgoing board. So they selected me to be the editor in chief and my money to be the managing editor. Money didn't apply to be the editor in chief. Um, she always likes me to remind people. Um, but in any event, in any event, about six weeks into our gig,

Tyson (04:03.166)
I'm sorry.

Jim (04:08.11)
Um, the, the nine people who did not get editor in chief, they were all made just editors, which means they supervise the second years on editing these law journal articles and all they did was complain and all they did was gripe and moan and, and they kept telling me what they weren't going to do. So we had, I haven't seen, um, winning time yet, but we had a meeting just like that where I said, listen, I'm sick of all the bickering, I'm sick of all the bitching.

I did, and I'm sick of hearing what you're not going to do. What I, what I want to focus on today is what are you going to do? So I think that is, I think clearing the deck sometimes when there is that spirit of negativity is important. Um, as far as what's going on with us. So for the first time in the 15 years that we've had old hacking immigration law, well, I guess not technically, but, but certainly on this scale, we had layoffs this week. So we laid off four people and. Three weeks ago, we laid off two people. So in the last couple of weeks, we've laid off six people.

It was not a, they were not fun conversations to have. They, the, several of them weren't, did not see it coming. I think some of them did, but, um, we simply aren't signing up as many cases in September and October as we usually do. And there's just not enough work for everybody. So, um, I went back and listened to a podcast that I recorded with my dad before he passed away, uh, for father's day, about three years ago. And, and in there, he said, Jimmy, you just got to.

you got to cut until you're profitable again. So we're going to have to make do with less. And we're going to have to do it at a time where we are transitioning into a whole new set of software for the firm. So there's an, and our office is under construction. Our phones are under construction. Our software is under construction. There's all this stuff, none of it fatal, none of it dire.

None of it unanticipated, but there's just a whole lot of stuff going on right now. And I realized that I, as the leader, have to be better, have to be more positive, have to flip it like a pancake, like Bill said in his presentation, like Jason says about focusing on solutions. And I just, I frankly have so much to do. I don't have any time, even if I was inclined to listen to complaining, or even if I was inclined to complain about our problems, I don't have time for that. I simply don't.

Tyson (06:27.099)
Yeah. Do you remember the episode number on that? I want to look that up.

Jim (06:31.658)
Yeah, it's, I don't know the episode number, but Becca shared it with me. It's in our chat for, um, max law, but it's, if you just type in father's day, maximum lawyer, you'll get it.

Tyson (06:41.675)
Very cool. Yeah. I want to check that out. So you had texted me, we were texting back and forth a few weeks ago. So I had an idea that this was coming and you'd said, you know, we just kind of got too fat. And so why do you think, let's dissect this a little bit. Why do you think, because I honestly think that we're in that direction where we're building, we're in growth mode, growth mode, growth mode, growth mode.

And I think that there is this tendency to just keep adding when you don't really need to add. But I'm wondering what, if you've identified any trends as to how it happened where you got heavy.

Jim (07:24.322)
Um, I think we were sharing out lots of responsibilities to lots of different people and we probably shared too many responsibilities to too many people. And now we have to consolidate those responsibilities to less people, not just because of the financial. I mean, um, Monnie and I've been saying to each other.

all week that the scrutiny and the oversight that we're like looking at every department, we're looking at every person that works there, we're seeing what's working, what's not working in every department. And I think that sometimes when things are going well, you lose that edge, you lose the old eye of the tiger, right? And you just, by definition, because things are going well, you don't have to have that same level of scrutiny. But we were saying like, man,

when we turn this around and we're confident that we will, we still need to maintain this level of scrutiny and to have these same expectations of the team members that we have.

Tyson (08:16.412)
Your thing gave me the thumbs up whenever you did it. Mine still doesn't do it. It just threw me off. Yeah. What's interesting is something we're noticing when it comes to our firm is we've shifted away. I mean, we do have VA's. We still have several VA's, but we've shifted away from that. We've definitely shifted towards hiring more state-side A players, which is…

it's more expensive, especially whenever you're comparing it to B and C players that are virtual. You're talking about a substantial increase in salaries. And so I think that is another thing that people, if they do shift that, it's one of the benefits of hiring remote employees too that are overseas is that you can get them for a significant reduction. So that's something you get to consider as well. But how much do you think the-

the getting heavy just can… It happened because you had your eye on the wrong things, where you're focusing too much on the future and not necessarily internally enough.

Jim (09:26.914)
Great, great question and something I was going to bring up. So I think that there's another aspect to this. Jim likes to talk about how many employees he has. Jim likes to talk about fast growth. Jim likes to talk like he knows everything and doesn't have. Sure.

Tyson (09:38.615)
Can I say something with that really quick? Cause I want you to finish your thought. I get caught up in that too. Like I, and I, I've had to stop myself cause I hear people say, well, I have 50 employees. I have a hundred employees. I was like, oh, I want to, I gotta have that. I gotta have that. And so I get that, I get that too. I get the urge. I completely do. But continue with that.

Jim (09:57.73)
So let me just say as an aside, I remember when you and I finished recording maximum law minimum time, which focuses on the three stages of law firm growth. And we sort of looked around and said, well, we're sort of in stage four, maybe stage five, whatever, it doesn't really matter. But I remember us sort of saying, well, you know, like, do we have a message for those people? And the funny thing is, is that you and I have now experienced a lot of the things

in stage four, like I've experienced real fast growth and now I'm experiencing contraction that's necessary. Right. So, you know, Gary V told us to document the journey long ago and my confessional in today's podcast is sort of part of that of being honest and open with our listeners about, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly. So, uh, I do think there's a big ego part of it, right. And, and an ego, I would say ego plus

futuristic thinking plus eternal optimism, which is a problem of mine. And then not focusing on the right things in the here and now. I'm always drawn to the shiny object. I'm often drawn to the things that are coming down the pike more than the day to day. And so I think that we weren't looking at the right things. And Namanee was sounding the alarm much sooner than I was.

ready to listen to it. And I think that I should have done a better job listening to her. I mean, I view it as a personal failure that I had to lay these people off. And I'll tell you this. One thing is I'm going to be a whole lot slower to hire people now, cause I don't want to go through that again. Like I want to make damn sure that the people we have are at capacity before we get to a stage where, where we don't, or where we have people that we don't need anymore.

Tyson (11:46.435)
Were these in-seat employees or were they remote?

Jim (11:50.398)
Um, they were, let's see, it was a U S marketing team member. It was an, uh, it was two U S marketing team members. It was a paralegal in America and a paralegal overseas.

Tyson (12:04.951)
So are you, by like the third or fourth one, do they have an idea that, hey, this is what's coming?

Jim (12:10.626)
Well, it was all virtual and you know, we just, we, um, Amani, Adele and I sat up in the conference room and we had a Google meet open and we would just call one in at a time so nobody knew what the other one was doing. And then now we've gone and talked to each department about what happened. And we thought about doing, and my sister, Carrie, who works for Big Farmen has been through mass layoffs before suggested that we have an all hands on deck, but there were a lot of people who weren't affected by it. So we didn't think necessarily that we needed to talk to everybody. So instead we just did a department by department.

Tyson (12:41.875)
Anything that you feel like in this process that you've screwed up?

Jim (12:47.954)
Oh, lots. Yeah. You know, I'm always learning. So I mean, for sure. So, um,

Tyson (12:52.095)
And by the way, that was a bad question. I'm talking specific to the actual layoffs. Like when it comes to that, anything in that process that you think you could have done a better job of.

Jim (12:55.094)
That's fine.

Jim (13:03.062)
Well, I will say, I think it's always dangerous to lay off people from marketing because they know, they know what's important to you and they know what they know where to hit you and hurt you. So I would say the shoe hasn't dropped yet. Um, I think the particular person that we let go, one of the people isn't going to be, isn't happy about it. So I don't know what'll happen yet. Like what might show up on glass door or LinkedIn or indeed or whatever. Um, so

Tyson (13:26.807)
I didn't think about that. You know, that's, that's one of those things you got to see, you know, take into consideration these days.

Jim (13:32.274)
Mm-hmm. You know, as an aside, I was saying to Amani last night, we went on our walk and I was saying, dude, we need to set up the reverse of Glassdoor where we get to leave reviews on employee on past employees anonymously like they do to us.

Tyson (13:45.923)
I shit you not, I had that same thought this morning because I think it's unfair. I had that exact same thought this morning. I was in the sauna after the gym and I was like, I saw someone bitching about an employer thing. I'm like, this is just not right. I just, legally, I don't even think we can bitch about it, but it's like, yeah, I had the same thought about that. It's not right.

Jim (13:48.222)
I'm sorry.

Jim (14:11.826)
So lots of lessons, lots of lessons. Um, I'll say a couple of things. Number one is you got to keep a level head and going for walks with Amani has been really helpful talking to Adela often. I mean, we're in a period now where we really need to be over-communicating with everybody. Um, and as we're trying to pull out of this slump of signing up cases, I mean, I've got that intake team rocking and rolling like we haven't in a really long time. So I'm confident we're going to turn it around and the energy is real good in the departments that I run.

Um, but you do have to over communicate. You do have to try to be as transparent as possible. Um, it's, you know, for any employee, when people get laid off, I think that's a scary time. So you got to do what you can to reassure people, let them know that, you know, you remain committed to your, your goals and your, your dreams and that the need for immigrant immigrants to have lawyers that are smart and helpful is still there. So it's just a matter of recalibrating and then, and then.

you know, stabilizing people because a lot of people in our firm don't like change. And so you got to take that into account both when you're laying people off and when you're also moving into new kinds of software. So there's just, there's a lot going on right now, brother.

Tyson (15:22.623)
Yeah, so I want to look up something really quick. So Jack Welch had this thing, it's that 2070-10 rule where, and it's often misinterpreted by the way, it's not exactly what I'm about to describe. So for those of you that are familiar with it, don't beat me up too much. But essentially, he would cut the bottom 10% of employees every year. Those are the low performers. And by the way, that's not exactly what it is, but in a nutshell, it's-

kind of what it is. So given that sort of framework, and like the top 20%, like is the 80-20 rule, but would you consider, since what just happened, would you consider doing something like that going forward?

Jim (16:11.862)
Well, I don't want to characterize the people that we left as the bottom 10% because I don't want to talk about people's employment with us and that kind of thing, but I do think, right. No, that's okay. I, I understand the question and, and I've thought about that. I will say that when, when push comes to shove, you're asking yourself.

Tyson (16:18.739)
And I'm not saying they are. Okay, so that's on me. That's not on you.

Jim (16:31.626)
You know, who are the have to haves and who are the can, can live without or nice to haves, right? So I think it's just that, that it becomes sort of that simple. And sometimes you have to make tough decisions. Sometimes you have to make cuts where you might not necessarily choose to. So I think, I think. One of the values of having a firm retreat and an annual check in with everybody is sort of like when people go to the mastermind, it's a clarifying time.

You know, we always say at the mastermind, somebody's about to get hired and somebody's about to get fired. So when you have these moments set out in your calendar, where you're getting ready for your next year and you're saying to yourself, do I really want to go to battle with them for the next year with these people or without? And I think, I, I don't think you want to do anything as draconian as Jack Welch. Um, but I do think that it does. I mean, you, you did it through the top grading system. I do think there's a time and place for regular.

assessment. I mean, here's the way I think about it. The NFL spends a shitload of money every year on scouts, the NFL scouting combine. You know, they have a roster of 53, which is interestingly right around the number that we had when we went through this, right? And so every year they take a look at these, uh, high blue chip prospects. They, they go looking around for

Jim (17:56.486)
And they probably have a 30 or 40% turnover every year, right? And they're just always trying to improve. So I don't think, I don't think that the practice of law necessarily needs to be like that, but I do think you have to be open to the possibility that there might be better options for you out there. And I, and I also think, um, along those lines, I understand why you're moving to more A players and away from VA's, but I do think that there's some stuff that we just need to say.

This is a set of tasks. I need someone that can do this task that doesn't necessarily translate into a 40 hour a week W2 employee.

Tyson (18:32.483)
I totally agree with that. And that's where we still have those VAs and that's where we're replacing those with AI and automations too. But yeah, definitely agree with that. When it comes to the employees, I want to talk about the decision making a little bit. So let's say I'm going to use departments A, B, and C. So department A has three A players.

Tyson (19:04.616)
And department, not apartment, department, C has maybe an A player and a B and C.

Jim (19:06.55)
department.

Tyson (19:17.495)
How much did you think about, okay, let me just shift one of the three A players over into from, you know, department A over to department C and then just clear the house when it comes to the third department, department C. And did you consider just moving people roles because they are A players or was it no, that department's too heavy. We just have got to get rid of that person. So-

How much did you, okay, I kind of overcomplicate this question. How much did you consider just shifting people into different roles because of who they were and that you knew that they're a player versus just getting rid of them because they were just, that department was too heavy.

Jim (20:01.666)
How many people came to your wedding with you and Amy?

Tyson (20:06.211)
210, I think.

Jim (20:07.938)
Do you remember when you sat down and were trying to figure out who to sit at which table? I remember how sometimes there's the Randy randoms, but then also, you know, there's people you wanted to be together. So there was a little bit element of that as we were looking at what you call department A, department B and department C. And actually it's funny that you frame it that way because in operations we have three pods. So, um, there was definitely, um, interestingly, there was a fifth person who was sort of.

Tyson (20:12.869)
Yes.

Jim (20:37.746)
uh on the block and we decided to keep that person and once we made that decision then we started see because here's what you have to remember Tyson somebody's running department a somebody's running department b and somebody's running department c you don't want to handicap them and cut their legs out from under them so you have to make sure they're all properly staffed so there was some movement of a's a players to another department to balance things out so um and it was funny watching some of the decision makers

who would be affected by who ends up in their little departments talking. I mean, we literally went to each department head throughout the firm and said, tell us about your expenses you can cut and the people that you can cut. And so there's, there's definitely, you have to spend time thinking about how's, how's it going to work after this happens.

Tyson (21:28.223)
Yeah, what's the new makeup of the team look like? Yeah, that's gotta be a really big consideration. Yeah, totally. How much of, when it came to the decisions, were these majority of them support personnel, meaning they were not making the widgets, they weren't preparing the immigration documentation and all that versus…

Jim (21:34.87)
The biggest, I think, the biggest.

Tyson (21:56.115)
So yeah, like the people that would do that, like the attorneys, you have attorneys that are getting that stuff done, you got paralegals that are getting that stuff done versus someone that might be in operations that's admin. So were you, yeah, how was that? How was the mix up?

Jim (22:10.274)
So it was, it was, it was one marketing person, three people from intake because intake was too big. Cause intake was built for a higher number of leads that we weren't getting. It was that marketing person and then it was two, two paralegals. So it was mostly like I said, and the truth of the matter is that as much as we've tried to do marketing that doesn't involve Jim's YouTube channel, Jim's Tik TOK channel,

and repeat business, you know, we're doing all the other stuff, you know, Instagram reels and all this other stuff that, that is being done by the marketing team. It wasn't what was moving the needle. What's moving the needle marketing wise, unfortunately is still the same old stuff that Jim does. That's always worked. So until we figure that out, we probably don't need as big a marketing team. And so that that's why that became pretty obvious.

Tyson (23:04.743)
Is there, and we're going to have to wrap up in a moment, but is there a, do you think that maybe there's an optimal number for your firm that you just need to be totally, and it's not that you don't want to grow more, but is there maybe an optimal number that can be at your firm that will still allow you to grow when it comes to handling more cases and everything, but you just don't need to exceed that number? Your face is, I can't wait to hear what you're going to say.

Jim (23:32.734)
Have you been, have you been following me and Imani around? Because as you might imagine, she's pressing her advantage at this time of turmoil to hit me over the head with, see, I told you, see, I told you, we don't need to grow. We're too big. We're too big. We're not getting any bigger. No, we can't get any bigger. The reason we're having these problems is because we've gotten bigger and that's the eternal question. That's the, that's the next, that's the next, uh, science experiment, which is, is that true?

Is it true that the reason we're having these problems is because we grew or is it because we didn't have proper supervision, proper analytics and proper supervision?

Tyson (24:11.731)
Interesting. Well, Tuba continued. I think that's a nice… Yes, I like… All right. Well, let's wrap things up. I enjoy this podcast. This was a good one. It's always fun chit chatting with you, but let's wrap things up. And I'm just going to start with the Google review. I'm just going to say it. We're talking about starting with flip it like a pancake, but we got to some really

Jim (24:14.21)
There's a cliffhanger for you, huh?

Jim (24:25.77)
Yep, this is a good one.

Tyson (24:40.791)
please give us a review if you don't mind. We would really appreciate it. It helps spread the love. I don't think many people realize the importance of getting those Google reviews so we can help spread the love to other attorneys because they really do need some help. So help us do that. And then, I'm not going to talk about the Guild. You'll have heard about the Guild at this point. Just join us in the Facebook group. If you want to join us in the big Facebook group, just search Maximum Lawyer and we'll go from there. But Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?

Jim (25:15.307)
We aren't creating enough content. As much content as we're creating, it's not enough. So you gotta be more creative, you gotta be more fun, you gotta pull out that phone and just create basic content. You gotta, I typed a LinkedIn post every day this week. It took me literally under 10 minutes. So you just gotta get better and more consistent. And if you're operating under the mis-assumption that

people are gonna get tired of you or they're gonna see too much of your stuff, that is never going to happen. There's an unending stream of content, which I suppose by this exhortation I'm increasing, but at the end of the day, you cannot create enough content.

Tyson (25:57.015)
I think that that's right. And I beat myself up quite a bit about not producing enough of it, but you are 100% right. You got to put it on your counter, got to get it done. So I'm sure some people aren't going to like to hear me say this, but here's my tip of the week. You can work harder and it's not going to hurt you. I can just tell you that. I've put in more hours this week than I was 10 years ago.

And guess what? I fucking love it. And it doesn't bother me one bit. And so when you tell yourself, oh, I'm tired, I'll get to that tomorrow. I think you're doing yourself a disservice. I think you're lying to yourself. You can work harder. You can. And I'm not saying you shouldn't take time to spend time with your family and get relaxation time and all that. I do all those things too. But when the work needs to get done, the work needs to get done. Roll your sleeves up and just do it.

So just stop lying to yourself if you're saying you're too tired. Just get it done. There'll be a time to rest. But sometimes you just got to roll up your sleeves and go do the work. All right, Jimbo. Love it. Good talking to you. And I guess I'll see you at two o'clock. So I'll see you later.

Jim (27:10.07)
Yep, good stuff.

Later, homie.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner who is thinking about hiring a new staff member? In this podcast episode, Tyson shares insights on the critical role of hiring in a law firm. 

Whether you are hiring attorneys, virtual assistants or office staff, it is so important to hire the right people for a law firm. Bad hires can really disrupt the energy and success of a law firm. Tyson delves into what causes bad hires and how to avoid hiring the wrong person. A bad hire can stem from a variety of reasons. It can be from rushing into the process, ignoring red flags on resumes or during the interview process as well as the values of both sides being different. When you face a bad hire, Tyson shares that it is good to have a pipeline of candidates that you can go back to and consider if needed.

Tyson shares how assessing cultural fit is an important thing to look for in a candidate. Think about what your team values, the personalities that exist and how the team works best. Make sure to consider that when interviewing candidates. Another thing to do to avoid a bad hire is to not rush the process. Rushing the process can lead to the wrong person being hired because you have too many other things going on and just need someone. Tyson emphasizes the importance of creating a good, well thought out hiring process to avoid this.

Listen in to learn more about how to avoid a bad hire!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:23 Discussion on the significance of hiring the right people for a law firm
  • 1:09 Exploration of the various reasons behind bad hires 
  • 4:38 Emphasizing the significance of assessing cultural fit in the hiring process

Resources:

Transcripts: Lessons Learned From Bad Hires

Tyson (00:02.594)
Hey everybody, it's Tyson again. I'm back with another episode.

Tyson (00:12.906)
Hey, it's Dyson. I'm back with another Saturday episode. And today I want to talk about something that might, might sting a little bit for some of you, but it's full of learning opportunities and that's lessons learned from bad hires, regardless of how large or small your firm is. Hiring the right people is absolutely crucial. And I'm not, I mean, we're talking about teammates that are virtual assistants. We're talking about in-seat hires. We're talking about.

virtual hires, whatever it may be, we're talking about hiring is what we're talking about. So whether you're just remote and have VAs or you've got people that are in the office, those are all factors you obviously have to consider, but we're going to talk about generally hiring today. It applies to all of you. But what happens when hires go wrong? How do you deal with that? So we're going to try to prevent that by going through some of lessons that I have learned.

Before I get into that though, I want to remind you, if you want to get stage one of maximum lawyer and minimum time, I'm not sure how much longer we're going to make that available to people. If you do want stage one for free, text us stage one to 314-501-9260. You'll get that absolutely free. We give that to guild members when they join the guild. They get all stages for free when they join. We're going to give you just for being a listener stage one. So make sure you text us to them. All right. Let's…

jump into it. So let's face it, no matter how skilled we are at law, hiring is an area where even the best can falter. And I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. A bad hire, it can happen for any number of reasons. It can be a rush decision. It could be that you're overlooking red flags. It could be a misalignment in values. It could be a mismatch with workplace culture.

no matter what it does happen. So whatever the reason it does happen, there's valuable lessons that can be learned in these moments. And so there's one of these things where you have to assess it. You can do everything right in your hiring process and still get it wrong. So don't beat yourself up too much. And I'm going to talk about that now. We just had to, five days into her hire, terminate a new employee. We…

Tyson (02:33.95)
We didn't want to do it. We have gone back to try to assess everything to see where we went wrong. We have not quite figured it out yet because we put her through the exact same process that has gotten us really good culture. We have gotten a great culture at the firm. We've been using top grading, which I talk about in another episode. And it's been fantastic. Somehow though, on this one, we missed. Okay. And what's weird is that.

She was a clear number one candidate. Number two was a distant number two. And somehow we missed it and it just happens. But you've got to learn from it and you got to move on. And what's really important is you always got to be hiring. That way you've got this pipeline of candidates and you can go back and boom, keep moving. And that's what we did. We end up for our number three candidate, we went back and what we did is we put them on a…

There was other reasons why we excluded number two, which I won't get into, but number three, that candidate, we put him on a probationary period. He's been doing great so far, but we had him in the pipeline. Okay. We went back to him and said, Hey, we've reassessed. Let's see what we can do here. He's on a probationary period now. He's doing great. Much better than the first candidate. And sometimes you just get it wrong. Okay. And I talked about our hiring process in another episode. That's why I'm not going to go into detail about it.

So just, if you want that, look up one of our other episodes where we go into detail. Jim and I have an episode where we talk about where we actually interview our office administrator. She talks about it a lot. And then we also, I do it on a Saturday show too. So we can put those in the show notes. All right. So let's get into some of these lessons though. So lesson number one, and it's really about the importance of cultural fit. And that's something that.

We was clearly missing with this new hire. Okay. Um, it was, it was, it was evident on day one, it was not going to work. And somehow, you know, somehow we missed it, but we caught it. It was one of those things where we assessed, we were able to catch it very quickly and then make a decision. Just was not a good fit. And, um, you want to assess from the beginning culture fit. If they, if they're not going to work out, you got to make that decision. Cause the problem with

Tyson (05:00.274)
of someone that does not fit the culture, it can affect everything else. It can affect a lot of other employees. And if you kind of think of like that bad apple that then rots the other apples, you got to think about it from that perspective. And so make sure that whoever it is fits really well with the culture of your firm. We talk about, we hire peeps and we talk about that in another episode too, which I won't get into, but we're looking for that energy. We're looking for the people that can energize other people and have that passion.

But I mean, you got to have passion for what we do. If you don't, it's just not going to work out. But so we're assessing from the very beginning. Okay, how are they on culture? That is, you know, that's why it's lesson number one. This is maybe the most important thing. So make sure you're looking for that. Many of the technical skills we can teach, but culture is something that's just, it's going to disrupt everything else. So watch out for that. Another thing is, and I can tell you early on, whenever my…

my previous partner, whenever we split, what was interesting is that I rushed a hire very, very quickly. And just to kind of get us up to speed. And it was a great reset for the firm because I was able to kind of reset everything and then build a new firm almost from scratch. And it was great. And I was able to rebuild everything from the ground up. And it was awesome. That being said, I did rush. I made a really bad hire, maybe my worst hire I've ever made.

It was because I rushed it. I did not, we'd already at this point had a pretty, I'd put together because of my work with Jason Selk. I had put together a pretty thorough hiring process at this time. So the hiring process we had in place. I had ignored it though. And I rushed it. And what happened was that because of that, I ignored red flags, which is one of those things you don't want to do and rushed it, ignored some red flags. So there's really two lessons here. Don't ignore the red flags. If you've got them on your list, don't ignore them.

Um, the other one is just don't rush it, put them through the process that you have, do all of those interviews and, and if they don't pass around, they don't pass around and they don't move on. Okay. You have to make sure that they pass every single round test, whatever you throw at them. If they don't, they're excluded. And if you have zero candidates by the end of your process, guess what? You have zero candidates. You keep, you keep looking for people. You don't just rush it because you need someone because a bad hire is going to cost you a lot of money.

Tyson (07:26.414)
It's going to cost you a ton of money, a ton of time. It's better to put more time into hiring and finding the right person than it is to spend a few extra hours at the office for a few weeks. Okay. So it's just to make sure you do that. And one of the interesting about the bad hire that I was talking about is that she had done something and I don't know why I overlooked this, but she

It was late for her first interview. And then she had to reschedule her second interview because she said she didn't, her husband had planned something and she didn't know about it. Okay. So those are both just two massive red flags where it sounds like one, one of the red flags was that she was late to her interview, didn't even call ahead to say, hey, I'm gonna be running behind. But the other thing is like, it sounds like her personal life may be a mess. And it was.

it was an absolute mess, which caused a lot of problems with her being able to get into the office on time and a lot of other problems. And so don't ignore those red flags. Make sure you're doing those comprehensive interviews to make sure you're finding out as many of the details as you can to figure out a lot of those things. One of the things is that, I want to talk about trusting your gut. That's another lesson.

Tyson (08:51.754)
it can give us the signals that we need that something just isn't quite right. And although I'm not a huge person saying like, hey, just trust your gut. I'm not, but sometimes if you've got a feeling for whatever reason, there might be, and we say gut, but there's probably reasons. There are actual reasons that you, although you might not be able to identify them, your brain is telling you there's something that's wrong here and I shouldn't hire them.

And so if you've got that with a situation, if there's just something about a hire that you just, you know, it's just not right. It's not clicking during the interview. Then you might just want to reassess and maybe get another opinion. Okay. Get another opinion on things that way they can tell you another, another person on the team can say, Hey, you know, this, yeah, you're right. That's not going to work out. Or, you know, maybe you're, you're wrong. Let's give it another interview. Another lesson is that I've learned is that make sure you're using team interviews.

that way because sometimes you have bad days, right? Sometimes you have bad days. Sometimes the candidate has bad days, but if you're doing team interviews, and multiple team interviews, by the way, not just one team interview, you're doing multiple team interviews, even though you might be having a bad day, your teammates probably not having a bad day and they can assess it from a different situation. That way you're not bringing your biases into the interview. You're actually going in and you're…

you've had different perspectives and maybe sometimes you're just wrong. Sometimes you're missing things. Sometimes you're not picking up on it the right way. Maybe you misunderstood something that was said. So that's something else too is a lesson that I've learned. It's really valuable is making sure you're doing team interviews. Really, really important. And then, you know, the last one I want to get into, because I talked a little bit about, you know, probationary periods and that's something that I do recommend. I'm not going to go into detail about that. I do want to say that that's something you should consider if you don't do it now. But.

Really the last thing I want to get into is it's okay to admit that you made a mistake, but here's the deal. If you do acknowledge that you made a bad hire, you've got to make, it's not fair to them and it's not fair to you or your team to keep that hire in the office. And to keep them employed, you might feel really, really bad about that you hired them and maybe they quit their other job and maybe feel bad and oh, maybe we'll hold on to them.

Tyson (11:13.09)
The reality is that they're not a good fit, they're not a good fit, and they're gonna make everyone else miserable in your office. It's gonna cause a lot more problems. The best thing for you to do for that person and for you and for your team, go ahead and let them go, acknowledge the fact that you made the mistake and it's okay, it's okay. Okay, I'm gonna say it one more time. It's okay to acknowledge the fact that you've made a mistake, it happens. Okay, but the best thing for everyone is to just, you don't wanna lead that person along. Okay, they may have other job prospects, by the way. They, you just hired them.

They may have other job prospects that they have not yet turned down, that if you hold on to them, they will lose those job prospects. So it's best to let them go, explain to them, hey, it's just not working out, not a good fit and move on from it. Okay. Just move on from it, acknowledge the mistake and move on. All right. That's all I have for you. Hopefully some of these tips, some of these lessons will help you in some of your hiring and just I'll say it one more time.

It's okay if you make a mistake, you're gonna make a mistake. I think just knowing going in, you're gonna make a mistake in hiring it at some point, even if you've hit a home run on every single one of them, at some point you're gonna make a mistake, it's okay. It happens. All right, let's wrap things up. As a reminder, if you have something you want me to cover on the Saturday shows, just shoot me a text, text me 314-501-9260 and I will get to it when I can. There's lots of great episodes we've had, a lot of great suggestions and.

I'm getting to all of them as quickly as possible, but there's only one Saturday a week, and so I can't get to all of them at one time, but I definitely will. Thank you for your suggestions. I really appreciate it. And shoot me a text if you have any questions about anything too. I'd be happy to respond. Until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Are you struggling with making decisions in the new year after the holidays? In this podcast episode, Becca Eberhart, CEO at Maximum Lawyer, tackles the issue of decision fatigue and its toll on business owners. 

The end of the year is a time where many people have decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is when there is a decline in the quality of decisions after making too many decisions in a row. Becca delves into what causes this, especially during the holidays. This season is full of holiday parties, shopping, cooking, and events. Making decisions can become overwhelming when there are so many to make for different people and different things.

Becca shares how decision fatigue can affect the growth of a business. Running a business and being a leader means making a lot of decisions. Whether it be how to market your company, if you need to hire staff to help with the growth or what vendors to work with, decision fatigue can lead to feelings of overwhelm. This is more so if you want to be innovative and different in how you run your business. Becca provides some tips to use in order to avoid decision fatigue. One tip is to plan out and schedule your day according to the decisions that need to be made. For example, if you are thinking about working with some new vendors, schedule chats with those vendors in the morning. From this, you might be more inclined to be more alert and can make a decision on who to work with after all meetings are complete. Another tip Becca provides is to really think if a decision needs to be made at that moment. If not, tell yourself to come back to it at a later date so you can relieve some of that stress.

Listen in to learn more tips on decision fatigue from Becca!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:24 The impact of decision fatigue during December
  • 2:20 The impact of decision fatigue on business growth
  • 4:38 Strategies to manage decision fatigue

Resources:

Transcripts: Recognizing and Combating Decision Fatigue

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson new tricks. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Becca Eberhart (00:00:24) - Welcome to another episode of the Maximum Layer Podcast. I'm Becca Eberhardt, CEO at Maximum Layer, and right now we're a couple weeks into the new year. But I've been reflecting on the month of December. And so today I want to talk about decision fatigue. I don't know about you, but December is the month that I experienced the most decision fatigue. There's so much added into the month of December that piles up quickly. Multiple holidays, gifts, school activities, family meals, volunteering, winter activities, work parties. And that's not to mention the busyness you're running. Your alarm goes off and you're faced with your first decision of the day. Hit the snooze button. You walk into your closet. Next question what should you wear? Then you glance at your phone. You have eight new emails.

Becca Eberhart (00:01:09) - Should you respond now or wait till later? These are just your first few seconds upon waking. On average, most people make around 35,000 decisions each day, and the more decisions you make, the more difficult it is to continue making high quality decisions. This is decision fatigue. Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist, coined the term decision fatigue in reference to the decline in the quality of decisions that a person makes after making many decisions that have been made in a row, which I found interesting because in my own experience, I've always related decision fatigue to my tendency to not want to make decisions at all. Then I found that decision fatigue does affect people differently. It can cause impulse purchasing, decision avoidance, and a decline in the quality of your choices. Decision fatigue can be disruptive for anyone, but for business owners, it has a much bigger impact. Most entrepreneurs have a bias for action. You're good at getting stuff done, but a side effect of getting things done is the countless decisions it creates, increasing your chance of dealing with decision fatigue.

Becca Eberhart (00:02:20) - When the goal is business growth, there are so many decisions to be made on a daily, even hourly basis. And as you grow old, systems stop working and new opportunities are constantly popping up. It can be overwhelming. You're also keeping a finger on the pulse of everything from intake to marketing to hiring and being a leader. Calls for being innovative, adapting to changes in the market and the legal industry. Decision fatigue can inhibit your ability to embrace change and make decisions that are essential for staying ahead of your competition. This isn't just a theory. Multiple studies have been done on decision fatigue and its impact on business. In research published by Royal Society Open Finance, they looked at the financial implications of making too many decisions. Their report, Quantifying the Cost of Decision Fatigue, revealed that people making tons of decisions every day will eventually get tired and start defaulting to the easiest choice. The Washington Post also sums this up really well. When decision fatigue kicks in, you may feel like you just don't have the mental bandwidth to deal with more decisions.

Becca Eberhart (00:03:32) - This can lead you to avoid making certain choices entirely, to go with the default option, or to make ones that aren't in line with your business goals or values. And decision fatigue from the office will have negative impacts on your personal life over time, too. For example, after spending ten hours at the office, what decision are you more likely to make for dinner, ordering some takeout, or cooking at home? You'll likely take the path of least resistance. And if you're not careful, as the snowball of stress grows, you'll continue taking that path with one unhealthy decision leading to another, which eventually makes you feel as if the only choice you have is to sacrifice your mental or physical health for the sake of your ambition. One major factor is the sheer abundance of choices in our modern society. We're bombarded with options in every aspect of our lives, from the countless apps on our phones to the overwhelming variety of products on the store shelves, softwares for every aspect of our businesses, and everyone promising to have the very best way to solve all of your problems.

Becca Eberhart (00:04:38) - The paradox of choice a psychologist Barry Schwartz coined. It suggests that while having choices is generally a good thing, an excess of options can lead to decision paralysis and ultimately, fatigue. Decision fatigue may be inevitable in our complex world, but with the right tools, we can navigate it more effectively and make choices that will align with our values and goals. Here are a few of my favorite strategies. Back in 2011, a research study on parole hearings looked at more than 1100 judicial rulings over a ten month period. Researchers found that prisoners with court appearances early in the morning were granted parole about 70% of the time, while those towards the end of the day had less than a 10% chance of getting approved for parole. Why? Because every subsequent parole decision depleted judges mental energy, and by the end of the day, they were more likely to reject parole. As The New York Times puts it, researchers also found that the judges harbored no ill intent for the prisoners. They just ran out of the mental energy to make difficult decisions.

Becca Eberhart (00:05:45) - So what does this teach us? Don't take a parole hearing after lunch. No, but what you can do is you can look at your business and schedule things earlier in the day to help ensure you're making better decisions for your business. For example, you could spend your mornings taking important meetings and making decisions that move your firm forward instead of cleaning out your inbox that may be better suited for later in the afternoons. Jeff Bezos has shared that he schedules his most important high IQ meetings between 10 a.m. and noon, and anything that comes in later in the afternoon. He typically saves for the next day. Another strategy in combination with increased self-awareness is to ask yourself, is it absolutely necessary to make this decision right now? If not, put a pin in it. You can always revisit the decision at a later time. Next is the biggest player in the decision fatigue game in my opinion. I was recently listening to an episode of The Hustle Daily Show, and they were comparing two of the hosts push notification settings on their phones.

Becca Eberhart (00:06:55) - One of them had them all turned on and the other had them all turned off. I personally leave only time sensitive ones turned on on my phone like I want to know when my target pickup order is ready, but most other apps on my phone I turn off all the notifications. I don't even allow badges on many apps either. This just takes your attention away from what you're doing constantly. Even if you don't address the banners, badges, or notifications, your brain still has to make the decision to not address it every time you get one or the number increases. I would recommend scheduling some time to go through your settings and just turn it all off and then going forward, do this each time you download a new app. This way you don't slowly have notifications piling up again. It's easy to think, oh, this is just something else I need to do, but you need to recognize the return value you're getting from this is unmeasurable. Investing your time maybe 30 minutes max, depending on how many apps you have, will ultimately save you a ton of time going forward and will decrease your decision fatigue because you won't know when Starbucks releases a new flavor, or have to decide if you're going to make a quick run to go grab it during lunch.

Becca Eberhart (00:08:13) - Another great way to not let social media take any more of your time or mental bandwidth is to eradicate social media noise by replacing your entire newsfeed with an inspiring quote. Jim shared this great Chrome extension with us. If you often go to check social media and then find yourself consumed by endless scrolling, this is where the Newsfeed Eradicator Chrome extension comes in. Newsfeed Eradicator removes the most addicting part of Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks the feed, and it replaces it instead with an inspirational quote. You can still use the other functionality as usual, you just won't get sucked into the attention hole. Then there's email. One way to cut down on decisions related to checking email is to choose a time or two that you will check emails each day. For example, Tyson's autoresponder lets every sender know that he checks his emails at noon and 4:00 pm each day. Not having to ask yourself if you should check or respond to emails all day long can cut down on a lot of daily decisions. You can also check out the book A World Without Email by Cal Newport.

Becca Eberhart (00:09:24) - It explains how having a healthier relationship with emails would make the office be a much happier place. And lastly, anything you can put into your daily routine and put it on repeat will help you decrease your decision fatigue. Just like Mark Zuckerberg wears the same type of outfit every day, creating habits and fixed schedules for everyday tasks can go a really long way into saving your mental capacity. Following a morning routine that covers simple tasks such as your wake up time, brushing your teeth, what's for breakfast, etc. this way, you don't have to waste a ton of energy in deciding when to wake up. Will. Will you make coffee? Or if you want to exercise? It's all automated by your routine and routines cut down significantly on decision making. In short, with so many things vying for our attention, we have to put in the effort to simplify as much as we can. If we have any chance of cutting down on the 35,000 decisions we all make on a daily basis. Start small and build habits that will compound into less and less overwhelm and stronger decision making abilities.

Speaker 1 (00:10:39) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner who is looking to integrate more technology in your firm? In this podcast episode, Jim and Tyson discuss legal tech with Colin Levy, a lawyer and legal tech expert as they explore the role of artificial intelligence in law.

Colin provides his thoughts on practical tools that law firms can use to become more efficient. One of these tools is Clio. which is a practice management software that is accessible, easy to set up and is great when it comes to the learning curve. This means it is easy to teach first timers. Other tools like Joseph and Brighter (which are code and no code tools) are a bit more advanced and allow users to set up workflows for their teams. Time is money, so these tools are great to get things moving quickly!

Colin shares how many law firms are resistant to using technology and AI because of the misconception that it is expensive and time consuming. The biggest fear many lawyers have is using technology that will give them incorrect information and make their job harder. Most choose to stay within their comfort zone and use tools or methods of working that are not that efficient. AI and technology can help any business grow and innovate the way things are done.

Jim, Tyson and Colin talk through the ideal tech package that firms need if they are just starting out. Clio is great for administrative tasks like invoicing and billing, which is such a crucial part of any business and a good, reliable tool is needed to ensure things are kept in order. Having a tool to streamline intake forms or feedback forms is important so they are collected, received and actioned out to whoever needs to work on it. Another tool is some sort of project management tool that shows workflows, what needs to be focused on or what needs attention.

Listen in to learn more from Colin!

Jim's Hack: Read the book called “Extremely Online” by Taylor Lorenz, which talks about the history of different social media channels.

Colin’s Tip: Take time for yourself as the world moves very quickly. Take a few minutes to relax and listen to what your body is telling you.

Tyson's Tip: Experiment with building GPT’s through OpenAI.

Episode Highlights:

  • 6:10 Accessible tools like Clio
  • 16:01 The fear of technology in the legal field
  • 18:16 Recommended tools for new law firms

Connect with Colin:

Resources:

Transcripts: Unleashing the Power of Legal Tech with Colin Levy

Speaker 1 (00:00:01) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the maximum Lawyer podcast. Maximum lawyer podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson Matrix. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Jim Hacking (00:00:24) - Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:27) - Hacking. Um, Tyson Matrix. Jimmy, you've got some oomph into it. What's up Jimmy.

Jim Hacking (00:00:32) - Oh, I've been up since 4:00, so I went to the gym. I've been running around crazy. I'm hyped up on diet soda, so I am ready to rock and roll.

Tyson Mutrux (00:00:39) - I'm gonna one up. You okay? Just because I feel like it. I was up till 130 getting work done, and then I got up at 530 to hit the gym. So it's a reminder. Yeah, it's grinder baby. It's. I'm gonna I'm gonna feel it tomorrow, that's for sure. But very cool. All right. So let's get started though Jimbo and introduce our guest this week. It is Colin Levy. He's a lawyer and legal tech author and speaker.

Tyson Mutrux (00:01:01) - Throughout his career, Colin has seen technology as a key driver in improving how legal services are performed. I'm not gonna get into the rest of his bio because we're gonna get to that in a moment. I do follow him on act, so do definitely follow Colin there, because he does share a lot of cool legal insights. Colin. Her legal tech insights. Colin, welcome to the show.

Colin Levy (00:01:18) - Thanks for having.

Jim Hacking (00:01:19) - Me. Colin. Tell everybody a little bit about your journey into the law and then into the tech side of law, because Tyson's right. I love your posts on Twitter. I, I follow you often and you always have something smart to say, which is why we wanted to have you on the show.

Colin Levy (00:01:33) - Well, I appreciate that. It's very kind of you to say, yeah, you know, my journey kind of started off in somewhat a haphazard fashion, actually, because when I first kind of went to law school at that time, I thought to myself I was going to become kind of a.

Colin Levy (00:01:50) - Standard in-house lawyer, but I always had this nagging kind of bug in my ear about technology because prior to law school, I worked for a big law firm in New York making e-discovery databases. And so I got exposed to kind of the tech side of things and saw how useful technology could be in the practice and business of law. In law school, there was very little talk of that. And I thought, you know, that was a little bit weird because it was just sort of this bizarre alternative reality that didn't exactly reflect the the real world. So when I graduated from law school at that time, it was in 2010. And so it was kind of the tail end of the Great Recession. There weren't a lot of jobs available, so I kind of had to find work where I could, which meant taking on a number of different temporary roles for around a year and a half or so. But those roles gave me exposure to a lot of different areas compliance, document management, doc review, contract management and all those different areas I saw there.

Colin Levy (00:02:51) - I saw there to be potential for the use of technology to assist with all those things. In some ways saw a little bit of those technologies at play. So when I first started working, I was like, you know, I really want to learn more about this space, but I don't know who to turn to. So what I did was I just reached out to people who seemed to be doing interesting things in the space, whether they were teaching, creating things, trying to create things, had created something and failed, had created something and succeeded. And those conversations really helped inform kind of my perspective and my journey. And then I grew the nerve to start sharing a little bit about what I was doing online, and it was somewhat well received. And then I just continued to do it because I found it enjoyable for myself and got myself more and more connected with others, and it's just been a really kind of fun ride since.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:38) - Yeah, it's really cool how you're able to just kind of, I mean, do something very simple, just share your thoughts on things over time.

Tyson Mutrux (00:03:44) - And it just kind of grows and grows and grows. And you've done that with things like like Twitter, you know, now, now X or whatever. But so you, you did something that I think is very daring. You not not just writing a book, but you wrote a book, uh, recently, the legal tech ecosystem. And I think it's really daring because technology is this area that is so quickly evolving. And you, you, you did it. So walk, walk us through the thought process of writing the book and why you why you wrote the book.

Colin Levy (00:04:16) - Being completely honest, it was a bit of a messy project to begin with, because I had a whole bunch of just random writings scattered about that could possibly form the basis for a book. And back in 2020, when everything was locked down, I had not a whole lot of other things to do, really. So I decided to try to start putting together. But I also realized that if I was going to write a book, especially if it was going to be technology focused, it needed to be something that was going to be fairly timeless in that it would cover things, but not so specifically as to be naming things that were already out of date or potentially would be out of date.

Colin Levy (00:04:53) - So what I did was I thought about how I approach learning things and sharing things in general, which is sort of through an anecdotal, conversational type of way. And that's the same approach I took with the book, where I kind of share tidbits of conversations I've had with others, and my thoughts and reactions to those conversations and after to really kind of introduce people to the world of legal tech without being so specific as to, again, sort of date the book, because I think the way to look at any type of technology is the concepts underlying technology are don't change that much, really the tools themselves do. So I really focus more on the concepts and the themes and less on sort of specific tools per se, in an effort to help a kind of achieve that and also be help ensure that the book was sort of a high level, accessible introduction to this world that otherwise can be somewhat intimidating, I think to some con, I think.

Jim Hacking (00:05:45) - You know, that most of our listeners are like solo owners or law firms that might have a few attorneys in them, and, and I think sometimes there's a bit of a disconnect between sort of the ABA tech show crowd and sort of the legal futurists and the women and men running law firms sort of day to day.

Jim Hacking (00:06:03) - What are the practical things that those lawyers that our listeners need to know from your book?

Colin Levy (00:06:10) - So I think there's a couple things. One is that there's a plethora of tools out there that don't require any kind of implementation, don't require any coding. You don't require any kind of tech background at all. They're very easy to set up and just put in place. For example, Clio sort of this practice management software that is well known and been around for quite some time, easy to set up, very accessible, and really doesn't require you to engage in any kind of trouble learning curve, and also was quick and fast to get set up with. There also are other tools, low code or no code tools like Joseph or Brighter that allow you to kind of set up workflows and or potential small little apps for yourself that don't require any code. Are easy to do, low cost. And so I think that's another thing to keep in mind as well, because I to your point, Jim, I think there's a misnomer that technology is something that is expensive, clunky, intimidating, time consuming.

Colin Levy (00:07:06) - And if you're operating a small firm or a solo firm, you don't really have any time to waste at all, because literally time is money in that case. So I think these tools that are out there that I mentioned are aimed at at least a lot of them are aimed at small and solo operations because they understand that and they also understand that they want you to use it and be successful with it and not be frustrated with it. And also, they want you to be more successful financially. And these tools can help you get there by allowing you to spend your time more productively, as opposed to spending your time on things that you have to do but are time consuming, are taking you away from things that perhaps can bring more clients to the door and more revenue in.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:45) - All right. We're going to shift from that from the more simple the Clio, the very, you know, you know, out of the box, ready to go, kind of a platform. Now let's shift gears a little bit to AI because and Jim probably knew that was coming.

Tyson Mutrux (00:07:58) - I want to get your thoughts on what you think I what effects it's going to have on the legal field and whether or not you think it's going to be a net positive or a net negative.

Colin Levy (00:08:10) - Well, this probably won't come as much of a surprise either one of you. I think it can be a net positive, but I think that, as we've seen already, being sort of really early stages of AI use, at least more, more broadly speaking, there are going to be bumps in the road. You know, AI is itself is not new, it's accessibility is new. And I think people have to kind of play around and experiment with these AI solutions and understand that they're imperfect, that they are in some ways limited or biased based off of what they've been trained on. And and quite frankly, you know, that they're very data driven. So they're only as good as the data that that sort of provides the basis for these tools. That being said, I think we're going to see artificial intelligence continue to kind of replace work that otherwise will be done by humans.

Colin Levy (00:09:00) - That's routines generalizable, time consuming and data driven. You know, for example, you know, reviewing a basic NDA or contract or perhaps even drafting a basic agreement or, you know, looking for a trend out of a bunch of cases that came that you're researching for a potential litigation you may be involved in. You know, those types of things humans have been have been doing and can do well, but they take time to do. An AI can do those things much faster, more accurately. At the same time, you know, if you're looking for AI to provide you with, you know, a whole list of cases that support your position. As we've seen, that may not necessarily be the best use case for some of these solutions, because in an effort to help you, they're going to make up data because you've been asking the solution to provide you with something that it has to make up because it doesn't have access to that data. So I think you need to be careful using these tools, but really it's more a matter of just being competent when you're using them, i.e. being aware of the benefits and risks of using them, as opposed to just assuming that these tools are just going to be perfect right off the bat going forward.

Colin Levy (00:10:08) - I think AI is continuing to sort of, you know, ask the question, you know, what it means to be a lawyer, what it means to be practicing law, what it means to operate a law firm because AI is going to continue to grow in power and continue to be doing more and more tasks. So it really kind of, I think, is going to demand that lawyers be more creative and be more collaborative and be more focused on sort of creating solutions as opposed to just providing answers to legal questions.

Jim Hacking (00:10:36) - So al Gore famously said back in the 90s that the federal government was going to be paperless. And here we are, at least with USCIS, filing everything, almost everything still on paper. I'm wondering how how will industry we deal with the government if the government's not ready for all these technological changes? In other words, I would love to be able to file my clients applications completely online to have a portal where they just give us the information and it goes into the government. Like, have you given any thought or are there any thought leaders on the issue of the outpacing of commerce versus the government?

Colin Levy (00:11:17) - Yeah, I mean, I think I think there is, you know, always been this tension between business and the government when it comes, especially when it comes to technology, but plenty of other areas as well.

Colin Levy (00:11:27) - And I think when it comes to sort of regulation of technology, particularly I and others, you know, I think that the challenge for the government and the challenge for humans in general is that technology is going to continue to outpace anything that humans do or anything that the government does. And so rather than trying to keep pace with it, I think you have to always be keeping an. So you know how far ahead it is of you, as opposed to trying to sort of just keep up with it. Now, more specifically with regards to the government, I think that. The challenge really is that if you're going to be thinking about regulating technology, AI, you really need to have experts who have a sense of kind of their current capabilities and where they're going. And I think the problem for government often has been that they don't have that level of expertise easily accessible, and therefore come up with regulations or proposed regulations that tend to be. Sort of taking, you know, a hammer or something that would probably be better off using sort of a scalpel or something more specific to, to handle.

Colin Levy (00:12:34) - And so I think that's an ongoing challenge. That being said, I think the at least the U.S. government certainly, I think, is paying attention now to AI and the potential to regulate, given Biden's recent executive order on AI. That kind of lays out some basic themes and ideas around kind of how to regulate the EU. Likewise, has has come out with some regulation as well. But it's going to be a challenge because you need to develop these things that are not just sort of set in stone, but have some degree of built in flexibility because the technology is going to continue to change. So if you're going to regulate something, it has to be something that has the ability to kind of adapt to whatever comes down the pike, as opposed to just what exists in the here and now. And, you know, look, the government is not particularly good at doing that. And I think that's in part by design, because regulating, first of all, is hard. And second of all, there's a lot of competing interests around regulating anything.

Colin Levy (00:13:31) - And oftentimes, you know, different interests went out for the better or detriment of various interests. So it's definitely challenging. And I don't envy anyone in government who is trying to tackle this. But certainly I think there is a need for some form of ethical framework around the use of these technologies because, you know, if nothing else, to at least protect consumers and allow them to better understand the difference between something that's real and something that's been artificially created.

Tyson Mutrux (00:13:58) - So, Colin, whenever I think of people like you and Dennis Kennedy and our buddy Kelsey Bratcher and my CTO Kashif, I, I think like you all have like these, all these like, tricks and like all these little, like, tech tools that the rest of us don't really know about. So what would you say is like the number one piece of tech that's in your toolbox that you, that you think is like your favorite? And why?

Colin Levy (00:14:27) - It's a good question. Honestly, I, I find that, uh, since I use the Microsoft suite of tools, I find that Power Automate actually is a really great, easy way for me to just automate things.

Colin Levy (00:14:41) - Uh, whether it's automate the creation of a document or what have you. And no one knows about these tools because they're free and accessible. If you have the Microsoft Suite, but you don't really know that they exist because you just assume it can. It's just made up of word, Excel, PowerPoint, all these. So that's probably one of my favorite tools, just because of how easy to use it is and how accessible it is. And I also, you know, I would also have to mention that probably my favorite tool set of tools as well, or just, you know, I use a wide range of generative AI solutions. I kind of pretty much use them all and they're all very, very helpful. I especially like the new GPT kind of agent that you can create. It takes a little bit of time to get it right, but once you get it right, it's great because it just speeds up kind of the time that you spend doing things. So I would say those are probably some of my favorite tools right now.

Colin Levy (00:15:29) - I'm always experimenting. So I would say that, you know, my favorite tool now may not be the one that is my favorite, you know, in the next week, month, whatever. That's just the nature of, I think, my approach to technology and its use.

Jim Hacking (00:15:43) - Getting back to the book for a minute, there's a great quote in there that I, I liked and I wanted to hear you opine on. While technology continues to advance rapidly in so many areas of society, resistance to technology within the legal space remains formidable, driven in large part by fear. Let's talk about that. Yeah.

Colin Levy (00:16:01) - So I think that there is still, I think, a fair degree of fear of technology, but I don't think it's quite the same, same fear that has existed in the past, in the past, I think the fear was kind of of the unknown and of, you know, of sort of I don't know about this because I'm happy with how things are currently operating and all of that.

Colin Levy (00:16:23) - I think the fear that now exists is one of, well, if I use this technology, am I going to achieve the right result? Am I going to get what I want out of the solution? Is it going to help me, or is it going to potentially lead me astray by giving me incorrect information or what have you? So I, I think that fear, the fear has evolved, but the fear as an emotion still exists with respect to technology. And I think that lawyers in general, you know, look, they are risk averse, they remain risk averse. They don't want to be the first to do anything. They want to be kind of the second, the third, the fourth. When it comes to technology in particular, I think that they kind of they're more a little more open to experimentation, but they'd rather have someone else experiment first and fail and learn from that other person rather than them doing it. But they also, I think, acknowledge, tacitly and sometimes explicitly, the fact that technology is here to stay.

Colin Levy (00:17:16) - And it's and it's important. And I think we've seen that through the creation of a lot of subsidiaries and law firms that are focused on the creation of technology products in collaboration with clients in an effort to kind of help show that these law firms kind of get it there with it, and they understand that technology is here as a as a set of tools to help people. But nevertheless, I do think sometimes it is tinged with fear because, again, people in law often are just comfortable with being comfortable, don't want to leave their comfort zone. When I, I think that the only way you evolved, only we grow is by having some degree of comfortability being uncomfortable.

Tyson Mutrux (00:17:55) - I really do like that. So let's say that you're just starting out with, uh, as a brand new lawyer, so you're just starting your firm. So whether you're in the new lawyer or you're leaving an established firm, what do you think is the basic tech stack that someone should set up with if they're just going to launch their firm for the very first time?

Colin Levy (00:18:16) - Sure.

Colin Levy (00:18:16) - So I think that you need a few things. You need one thing to handle sort of the administration of the firm. So, you know, a tool like Clio, for example, it handled kind of billing, invoicing, all of that stuff. Second of all, probably some form of a document automation tool, whether it's gavel or some other tool to just kind of help you automate the creation of, say, intake forms for new clients and the handling of data that's created, that's created on those forms and put it in the right place so you can track correspondence and things like that. And then potentially a workflow tool like proxy, for example, in immediately I saw on the advisory board of proxy, just for full disclosure, to help sort of automate your workflow and understand kind of, you know, what's currently worked on, what needs your attention and so on. So those are, I think, some of the basic tools you probably should have in place, and they're all accessible and inexpensive, because the last thing you want to be doing when you're first starting out, a firm is having to worry about kind of, you know, some of the administration stuff.

Colin Levy (00:19:14) - You want to focus on getting clients and helping them, not on billing or like this person, pay this invoice. Did I pay that invoice and all of that stuff? All right.

Jim Hacking (00:19:22) - Since I'm going through this right now, any advice? For when you're leaving one CRM and moving to another, or when you're working on one piece of software and your team is switching over to something else, we're switching our our sales software or our CRM for cases and our phones all sort of at the same time. And I probably have some lessons for other people, but I'll share those in another episode.

Colin Levy (00:19:47) - Well, I think that I would suggest, if you're in that position, to kind of get a sense of kind of how things are currently in your existing system and how the new system will handle those things. And before you transfer anything over, really document sort of how things will shift so that that way when you're loading things in, you're not worrying, you know, you don't necessarily set yourself up for making a lot of mistakes in terms of where things end up going.

Colin Levy (00:20:18) - As you transition over, I think also it's important to, you know, I think there's a tendency for people to move quickly and shifting. And I think when you're shifting something, especially with CRM or something else, that's very, sort of very much a foundational piece of your business structure, you want to make sure that you're taking your time and moving things over and doing it in a systematic, logical fashion, because otherwise there's a tendency for data to get lost, things to get corrupted, or what have you. So I really think you want to take kind of a systematic approach in slow down to speed up. And what I mean by that is take your time initially, and that will save you time later on from having to fix things that may have gone wrong when you kind of are completely in the new system. That being said, no matter how systematically you do it, there will be a bit of a learning curve. There'll be kind of a oh, right, this is over here and it's not here anymore.

Colin Levy (00:21:11) - This is here, what have you. So that I think, you know, you just have to get used to with any kind of shift along those lines. But I again, I can't stress enough the importance, I think, of taking a systematic approach to, to shifting because you just don't want to move everything all over at the same time, because again, things can go easily astray. And you also want to understand that people move at different paces, so you don't all want to, you know, you don't want to force people to do things that aren't necessarily the best for them and how they work. You want to kind of meet people where they are and ensure that they're all moving over. They're moving over, but they're moving over in a way that works for them and allows them to still be productive and be helpful to those that they're seeking to serve and help.

Tyson Mutrux (00:21:51) - I love the whole idea of going slow to go fast. It's a common refrain at our office where we we talked about it slow down, slow things down a little bit, and then, you know, you'll be able to go faster because you're not, you know, having to correct a bunch of mistakes.

Tyson Mutrux (00:22:03) - So I really do like that. I think that's that's great advice. All right, Colin, we do need to wrap things up. Before I do. I want to remind everyone to join us in the big Facebook group. There's a lot of activity going on there. If you want to join us in the guild, there's like great people in the guild, very high level conversations going on. They're sharing a lot of great things there. Maxwell guild.com. And if you join the Guild, you can also join us for our quarterly masterminds. The next one is going to be in Scottsdale, which is my favorite place to go. So I'm really looking forward to it. And if you're while you're listening the rest of this episode, if you got something great from this episode that you really enjoyed, Colin's already shared a bunch. If you give us a five star review, we'd greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?

Jim Hacking (00:22:44) - Sometimes you have to understand the past in order to move forward, and there's a great new book out by a Washington Post reporter named Taylor Lorenz.

Jim Hacking (00:22:51) - It's called Extremely Online. It's about the history of the different social media channels. I'm learning a ton. I also find it very inspirational to make me want to go out and create good content. So real good book. Gary Vee had Taylor on his show. That's how I found out about it. And uh, highly recommend.

Tyson Mutrux (00:23:07) - Say the title again.

Jim Hacking (00:23:08) - Extremely online streaming.

Tyson Mutrux (00:23:10) - Online. I like the title. Very good. Thanks, Jimbo. All right, Colin, we always ask our guest to give a tip or a hack of the week. Could be a book, could be a podcast, could be you name it, which you got for us.

Colin Levy (00:23:21) - I would say that my probably hack of the of the week is, um, has nothing to do with tech or books at all. But really, just take time for yourself. You know, we all move at a at a quick pace. The world moves at a quick pace. Honestly, we all probably would do well to give more time to ourselves and listen to ourselves.

Colin Levy (00:23:40) - So that would be my hack of the week is listen to yourself. You know, if you need to take a few minutes to slow down, relax, whatever. Do it. You know your body is very communicative with you for a reason. It's just a matter of you listening to what it's telling you.

Tyson Mutrux (00:23:55) - I love it, that's fantastic advice. Very good. All right. I am going to. My tip of the week is something that you actually started to talk about. And that is I've been playing around with different GPT. You can build with OpenAI. And so I've built several myself. One of them I'll give you a couple of examples. One of them, it analyzes settlement releases for me to pick out certain things that I do and don't want, which is which is good. And then it'll also draft them for me, which is kind of cool. And then another one where I've got a crafts arguments for me, where I'll upload documents to it, like their pleadings, my art pleadings, and then it'll help me craft an argument for whenever I'm arguing to the judge.

Tyson Mutrux (00:24:35) - So and I've given it a specific instructions about the audience and the style and the tone. So it's kind of cool there. I always had the tweak a little bit, but I think that there's there's really some really cool advantages to it. It can identify very easily clauses that, that, I mean, it would take me, I would have to read through the whole thing to identify it. So what I it takes it seconds. So what I do is I upload it I it identifies those red flags for me. And then I go through and I'm and I read it again just so I can make sure I understand everything fully. But it, it just allows me to not miss things which, which is pretty cool. But the, the option, what you can do with it is just limitless at this point. So it's really cool. So check it out. All right. Colin, thank you so much for for joining us. For people that want to follow you, how do they follow you and how can they get in touch with you.

Tyson Mutrux (00:25:23) - Absolutely.

Colin Levy (00:25:24) - So they can follow me on x c love underscore law co v underscore law Melissa on LinkedIn can find me by my name and also go to my website called Honest love.com. Stay tuned for a refresh of the website coming out next early next year. And of course, if you haven't already gotten a copy of my book, please feel free to grab a copy. Legal tech ecosystem available on Amazon.

Tyson Mutrux (00:25:47) - Love it. Thanks, Colin. Really appreciate it.

Colin Levy (00:25:50) - Thank you.

Jim Hacking (00:25:51) - Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 (00:25:54) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. To stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content. Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

Enjoy Exclusive Access To Stage One Of The Maximum Lawyer In Minimum Time Course

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

We only send you awesome stuff =)
Privacy Policy
crosschevron-up linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram