Are you looking for a way to enhance your hiring process? In this episode, Becca Eberhart, CEO at Maximum Lawyer discusses the transformative potential of video introductions in the hiring process. 

AI tools like ChatGPT are being used to craft resumes and cover letters. This means hiring managers are not able to really know if a candidate’s credentials and experience is true or accurate. Becca talks about how integrating video introductions into the recruitment process is a game changer to really get to know the candidate. You are able to hear and see them right off the bat and get to know their personality and style. Normal resumes and cover letters can be generic and it can be difficult to find the perfect candidate for a role. Video introductions act as a preliminary face to face conversation with the candidate. This can quickly cut say 30 resumes down to a select few.

Becca walks through a few things to consider when deciding to use video introductions in the recruitment process. One thing is to establish clear guidelines and instructions for candidates to follow so they create a video that will get them noticed. It is a good idea to not tell them how to 

record the video or what tool to use. This can be a great way to see how resourceful the candidate is. Another thing is to set a time limit of how long the video needs to be. This will show if candidates understand how to be concise and focused. Since it is an introduction, keep videos short and to no longer than 1 minute. 

Listen in to understand how to streamline your selection process!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:23 Video introductions provide a more personal way to evaluate candidates
  • 1:18 Text-based resumes may not effectively differentiate candidates
  • 2:30 To incorporate video introductions, set clear guidelines for candidates

Resources:

Transcripts: Pitch Perfect: How Video Introductions Enhance the Process of Hiring Contractors

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:23) - Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Becca Eberhardt, the CEO at Maximum Lawyer, and today we're talking about the role of video introductions and revolutionizing the process of hiring contractors and freelancers. This is my very favorite hiring tip. In a world where AI is increasingly used to craft cover letters and generate keyword packed resumes based on job ads, traditional text based resumes may not be the best indicator of a candidate's true value. So what's the alternative? Picture this you're in the midst of seeking the perfect contractor for your next project, instead of just sifting through resume PDFs. What if you could actually see and hear the potential candidates before making a decision? That's the power of video introductions. And in this episode, we're going to explore how they can transform the hiring landscape when it comes to resumes.

Speaker 2 (00:01:18) - What good is text, really? Most people are using AI to write cover letters and create keyword descriptions based on what was written in your job ad. Other than years of experience, there's going to be less and less that make candidates stand apart from one another. But video video is who they are as an individual. Video introductions add a personal touch to the initial evaluation phase. When you watch a candidate introduce themselves on video, you get a feel for their personality, communication skills, and even their enthusiasm for the role. It's like having a preliminary face to face interaction which can help you shortlist candidates more effectively. This also shows whether or not they can follow directions. For me, when I specifically ask someone to include a video and they still only send over a resume that says they don't find the video important. This in turn, can be a valuable insight into their ability to prioritize tasks based on their perceived importance, which may not align with your expectations. Not ideal. Now let's discuss the practical steps of incorporating video introductions into the contractor hiring process.

Speaker 2 (00:02:30) - First, we need to set clear guidelines. Provide candidates with clear instructions about what you're looking for in their video introductions. This could include a brief overview of their skills, experience, and why they're interested in the role. I personally don't tell them how to submit their video, even if you do prefer loom or a video uploaded to YouTube or Google Drive. If it's something they've never done before, I want them to figure out how to send a video. This shows me if they don't know how to do something, they can be resourceful and figure it out. Next, set a time limit again, this will show how well they follow directions and help keep their video concise and focused. I cap it at one minute. This isn't an interview, it's an introduction. You can tell how someone holds themselves, how well they communicate and see what their body language tells you all in one minute. Video introductions offer a new dimension to evaluating contractors and freelancers. They provide a glimpse into the candidate's personalities and communication styles, allowing you to make more informed decisions.

Speaker 2 (00:03:37) - They can significantly streamline your selection process by narrowing down the candidate pool early on, saving you time and effort in the long run. So don't just read about your potential hires. See and hear them in action through video introductions.

Speaker 1 (00:03:55) - 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 someone who has had to step back into a previous role? In this episode, Jim and Tyson discuss the challenges and opportunities that arise when law firm owners have to step back into roles they had previously delegated. 

If you are a law firm owner or work in a management role within the legal field, there may come a time where you will have to step into a role that was once filled by someone you delegated. This means there are a lot of learning curves and adjustments needed in order to do things right. Sometimes, being pulled back into a role is unexpected and will shift priorities because a whole team of people need you to step in and take control.

Tyson shares an example of stepping into a role when another attorney resigned. He learned about issues that existed in some cases that he never would have known if he didnt step into the role. This led to some new processes and protocols being put in place to deal with the issues. Jim says as law firm owners, they need to have a more active role in their team’s day to day operations.

Jim shares the frustration of getting pulled back into a leadership role and not feeling okay with giving the reins to the new person. It can be hard to turn things over to a new leader after doing the work for a few months and ironing out all the kinks. Jim shares his experience with finally cleaning up the intake system for his firm and feeling himself holding back in giving the responsibility to the new manager. Sometimes there is this feeling of wanting to perfect something before you give it away. This can cause you to not get back into your former routine and focus on your main tasks. It is important to trust yourself and the person who has come into the role to take over and lead.

Jim and Tyson talk about decision making and the need to make them quickly, especially if you want things to get done and cases to close at times that are appropriate. Whether the decision is right or wrong, it is important to make the decision so you are not lagging and wasting time. For example, if you need to replace a team member or hire because there is a need, do it now so that worry is dealt with.

Take a listen to learn more!

Jim’s Hack: If you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. If you are doing all the  lower level work and you are busy, you need to pass it down to other people. It is important to hire virtual assistants or other administrative staff to optimize yourself.

Tyson’s Tip: Treat every hour working out or sleeping as being worth $10,000. That way, you are more likely to focus and prioritize doing it.

Episode Highlights:

  • 3:11 Tyson and Jim share their personal experience of being pulled back into a leadership role
  • 11:00 The frustration and guilt experienced when being dragged back into tasks
  • 17:26 Highlighting the need to make decisions quickly

Resources:

Transcripts: How to Handle Being Pulled Back into Roles You've Delegated

Speaker 1 (00:00:03) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way. This is the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast. Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (00:00:27) - Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Speaker 3 (00:00:31) - And I'm Tyson Metrics.

Speaker 2 (00:00:32) - So I want everyone to think about Al Pacino in Godfather three. And Tyson has a great impersonation of him. So let's hear it.

Speaker 3 (00:00:40) - I don't know if I can pull it off again. They keep pulling me back in.

Speaker 2 (00:00:45) - Exactly. So just when I think that I'm out, they keep pulling me back in.

Speaker 3 (00:00:49) - So by the way, Jim was saying that sarcastically. We're not saying that's a really good impression just so people don't don't expect a really good impression.

Speaker 2 (00:00:59) - So what I'm talking about and what we're talking about is that situation that we find ourselves in as law firm owners, at whatever size we are, where we get used to other people doing a job or a task or filling a role on leadership or some some pretty high level role in the firm.

Speaker 2 (00:01:18) - Maybe it's your first associate, maybe it's your office manager. It can be anybody. But it's it's when you get into that nice, comfortable spot where everything's humming along and then something happens. Somebody quits, somebody leaves, and and you find yourself pulled back in to these roles that you've had in the past, and now you're seeing that maybe they weren't doing things the way you did it. You they might have made it better. You might have to learn how to do something or relearn how to do something. It's just such an interesting time that we haven't really spent a lot of time with or speaking about on this show, that I thought it would make a nice topic for today.

Speaker 3 (00:01:56) - Love the topic. I'm currently in that spot right now. I'm assuming by by you having the topic that you you're doing something similar right now. It's it is one of those things where I actually had convinced myself I was like I was I'd gotten beyond it because it's it's kind of like swimming against a tide and you're.

Speaker 3 (00:02:19) - You've gotten to the gotten to shore and you're like, okay, I'm good. I'm like walking on the sand. And I'm like, walking up towards the beach and I'm good, right? But. And then a big wave comes and drags you right back in, and I feel like I was kind of walking on the sand back up to the beach. And then we had a, you know, we had an attorney resign and we so I'm right now I'm in the I've taken over red team, which is our biggest team. It's got hundreds of cases in it. And because we're it's one of those things where we we had two weeks but we have a we have a long hiring process, you know that. And it's fine. Like everyone's rallied around it. But I think there's a lot of what you're talking about resonated quite a bit where I looked in and like she she was following the process on some things, but like there are certain things that just were not being done the way they're supposed to be being done.

Speaker 3 (00:03:11) - It's supposed to be being done. And but it's what I think is really interesting is about it is, is that I'm able to take those examples and it's actually strengthening the team. So it sucks. It's going to suck for me for the next month or two. That's fine. And I, I told the team it was like, as long as you I'll do this, as long as you'll need me to, okay? I was like, it's like I'm not afraid of work, of working hard. So whatever y'all need, I'm willing to do it. And I just told him like, it's we are sacrificing quite a bit because we're not. The expansion is going to have to take sort of a backseat. We're in the middle of a massive systems migration. Luckily, we've got a systems team that can help manage those things, but that is the that is the benefit of having a lot of, you know, a big team is having people that can kind of fill gaps, but it is what it my the point I was going to make was, was really interesting is, is that I'm able to take the examples of this is not how we do it, like things were being done the wrong way and then show the other teams and they're like, oh, and they're able to learn from it.

Speaker 3 (00:04:14) - And then the team gets strengthened as a result of it. So I think there's a lot of positives that are coming from it. But this is a very timely topic.

Speaker 2 (00:04:21) - It's going to suck for me for a couple of months. That's what you said. And I think that's really where you end up. And the question is, can we build a law firm that can sustain that? I mean, the problem is you don't want to over you don't want to have too many people and you don't want to have people sort of waiting around for someone to leave, but you want to try to build your firm in a way that it can absorb it. Certainly having extra people there and certainly having systems for getting new people up to speed help minimize that. But I think we have to just say out loud the part that you just said out loud, which is it's going to suck for you for a couple of months. And the quickest thing to do, I think, is the most important thing to do early is to say to yourself, this is not going to be like this forever.

Speaker 2 (00:05:04) - And I've I've really enjoyed the benefits of having that person be here. I'm bummed that they're leaving. We are going to make it stronger and better and having me back involved in this particular department. So for me right now, that's intake. Our intake attorney, who was running the department resigned. And so and that was very unexpected. So I find myself back in helping the intake team for a while. And when we're done with this call, I have a meeting with them about what our plan is to sort of put someone else in in that position and sort of transition. And it's I don't want to just jump to solving, solving, solving. I want to acknowledge for everybody that we all go through this and that it is hard and that it is a bummer. And you do feel sort of like someone is taking something from you and it's a loss.

Speaker 3 (00:05:53) - Well, yeah. And I think part of acknowledging this is that, I mean, I went in and and one of the things I've learned from this is that you got to go beyond the, the numbers, got to dig deeper than the KPIs.

Speaker 3 (00:06:07) - And you have to sometimes you have to sometimes be that principal that sits in the back of the classroom and actually monitors the teacher, because what I've, what what I'm realizing is, is that. I wouldn't have learned a lot of the issues with some of these cases if I had not actually gone through the cases, and I think we need to have a more active role. There needs to be another set of eyes that is going through the cases actively. And we've we're putting in we actually have got some protocols that we're going to put into place to help address some of the issues that I'm seeing here. Like, Jim, there are right now in the one team, this is one team, the other teams, they actually are doing fine in discovery. But this one team has 12 cases with discovery overdue, like 12 cases like. That's insane. That is absolutely insane. And like what's interesting is like, we've been able to chop it down. It was more than 12, by the way, but we've been able to chop it down quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (00:07:08) - And I'm happy to say by the end of this week or next week, it'll all be done. But there were like little things that were not just being. It's weird how little things then lead to big things. And I one of the major lessons that I've, I've been trying to convey to the team, and I think that they're getting it is, is that it's not it's not just that the discovery is late. And by the way, for those of you that may be concerned in states with like very strict discovery deadlines, Missouri is fairly loose when it comes to the discovery. There might be a motion compel or whatever if that does happen. But it's it's not like it's going to hurt the clients or anything other than slowing down the case, but it's not. And I think that we can we can take this discovery example, and I think many people can apply it to many other areas of their law firms. So for example, you are late on discovery because you didn't do a couple small things, like there was a set of discovery gym that was all done.

Speaker 3 (00:08:04) - It just had not been sent to the other to the other side. It was 100% done. And so, so not taking that one action. Here's what it leads to, right? Whether it's all being done or not. But you you get an email from opposing counsel that you then have to respond to. So you have to respond to that, that email, that's an additional communication that you're going to take. And then you have to ask for additional time. All right. So let's say you get 14 days 14 days goes by. They send you a golden rule letter. You have to respond to the golden rule letter. Then what happens is, is that they filed a motion to compel. Right. They're filed a motion to compel. And you have to show up to court, right? You show up to court, you get an extension again, you get the extension, and then you finally get the discovery done. But you've taken all these additional actions whenever you if you just would have done the thing at the beginning, you've saved yourself hours.

Speaker 3 (00:08:54) - But because you didn't do that one little thing, you've now cost yourself several hours, which then snowballs into other cases. And and I think that we can apply that same principle to anything, whether it's leads, whether it is, you know, payroll, whatever the whatever it is, I think we can apply that to several different principles.

Speaker 2 (00:09:11) - So that's, that's the interesting part, is that when the boss comes back or the owner comes back and looks around and they notice that things aren't the way that they are, then you have to. I mean, of course, we always say everything comes back to us. Everything's our responsibility. Things are the way they are because of us. So then you ask yourself, well, how did my systems fail that we didn't get that. I didn't know until she left. That discovery was overdue in 12 cases or in our situation, that we had certain cases that were languishing monies back in some casework and that some cases were languishing in the clients were sort of unhappy.

Speaker 2 (00:09:51) - And so then then you have to go back and attack your system. So there's always an opportunity in hardship. There's always a chance to get better. But you do sort of have to say to yourself, hey, what's my role in this? Where was I dropping the ball even before this person left? And and maybe sometimes it's a blessing that they left because it might keep you from committing malpractice.

Speaker 3 (00:10:13) - Yeah. To me, it's my like, actually, that's my favorite part of all this is that I'm saying, okay, we could we could easily shore this up here and we can easily shore this up there like it's there's most of them are actually small. Like pretty small tweaks is what they, they they are for the most part. And I actually think it's, it's actually one of those things to me it's almost refreshing actually. It's like oh okay, cool. Like I get I've got an inside look on this. We can tweak our systems and, and make them a little bit better. But I'm curious, like what you've learned from having to go back and kind of dive back into things like, what are some of the things that you've picked up from it?

Speaker 2 (00:10:49) - Well, I'll get to that in a second.

Speaker 2 (00:10:51) - But I do want to say one thing, and that is this might not surprise you, but I used to get real mad when this would happen, right? Like I used to get real mad.

Speaker 3 (00:11:00) - Really, Jimmy? Get mad, huh?

Speaker 2 (00:11:02) - I know it's hard to believe, but, yeah, you know, I would get mad that I was getting dragged back in. I thought, oh, here I am polishing the silver again. I'm a terrible boss, you know? This is this is my fate in life to have to do. I mean, for you to have to, if it was you to. Do discovery for the rest of my life, or I have to do these days, one 60s at the National Visa Center for the rest of my life, you know? And of course, that's why I loved what you said right out of the boxes. This is going to suck for me for a couple of months because, like you said, you do shored up, you do shored up, and you do, you know, figure out ways.

Speaker 2 (00:11:37) - I mean, the cool thing is, is that your new fresh set of eyes watching how people are doing things around there, and then when they realize that you're there to help, it does build the bond, and it shows that you care and there's lots of benefits to it. But what I've learned, one thing I've learned, in fact it was yesterday, is that. Sometimes I get stuck. So this intake situation. I want to give it to the new person. All fixed, cleaned up and ready to go. And because of that, I'm holding on to it for too long and not giving her the chance to help me fix it. In other words, I want it to be perfect before I hand it off. But sometimes you can't do that. And so because of that, it was sort of holding me back in moving forward because I wanted to give it to her perfectly. And I felt guilty for having to give it to somebody, not perfectly. So we sat down and figured out, you know what? What's Jim going to do? What's mojo going to do? What's Suzy going to do? And and that's sort of what we're what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (00:12:42) - I wonder how much of with what you're talking about is, is that you like I think I think the way that most firms and teams and firms are formed is like, you kind of just you form them and you sort of figure it out like it's. And I wonder if like, it's a lesson that maybe we should go back more often. And because that's the way teams are formed, that we go back and we revisit it to see like more often. Let's look at these a little bit more often to check and see how things are going. That way we can revise things a little bit quicker as opposed to waiting so long. Like we like we probably typically do.

Speaker 2 (00:13:18) - Well, I think that's a I mean, that's a really interesting point, and I think there should be something along those lines because in a different department that I'm not that there's not a sense of urgency. Everybody's still there. Everybody's doing really well. It's our lawsuit department is I've just been I started at the top. Tell me how you do your job from start to finish.

Speaker 2 (00:13:38) - And we have spotted probably between 15 and 20 substantive things that we can do in their workflow to make their life a whole lot better and to make them much more efficient. So, I mean, there's an argument to be made. I think if it's the owner or someone on the leadership team to just go from department to department on a routine basis, almost pretending like somebody left and creating that sense of urgency and that sense of Fix-It ness and let's let's make things better on a routine basis. I think that's, you know, that's probably a really good thing to do. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:14:13) - What's it it's really interesting. It's and I, I do I do have a little bit of doubt with what you just proposed and I'm, I think it's a good idea. I think it's the only doubt. You said a little bit of doubt.

Speaker 4 (00:14:25) - Doubt.

Speaker 3 (00:14:25) - Because here's what I was. One of the major things I've learned is, is like people are loving. Like they love seeing me get in and roll my sleeves up and get shit done.

Speaker 3 (00:14:36) - Like I've like, like I've had several messages from teammates, like the team members saying, hey, like, hey, like, this is awesome. Like, like they just love seeing the action like, and things getting done. But I think that it because I think that's like I'm in the trenches with them. But if you're the owner and you come in and you're, you're sitting next to them, my, my worry is a little bit that they're thinking that you are micromanaging them like that. You may hear that term and you're not really it's not what you're doing. But so my I think my advice to people would be like, make sure that it's very clear to them that you're going in there to help improve things. And it's, it's it's more of like an improvement of the firm and not necessarily an improvement of the attorney or the the team. It's to make everyone better. And then that way they don't feel like they're being micromanaged.

Speaker 2 (00:15:26) - Well, I think micromanagement is more about taking over particular cases and telling them, do this, do that.

Speaker 2 (00:15:32) - I think this is more structural. And so I do think one of the reasons people get jazzed about when we come back and sort of fix things is one is that we're the owners so we can cut through a lot of bullshit and just say, just make it. So just make it now. Make it fast, you know? And it's just otherwise they have to like, run it through a committee and talk to all these other people. But when we come back, we can just go, that's dumb. Let's not do that anymore.

Speaker 5 (00:15:56) - Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:15:57) - Like and there is something we should teach our people to be more, more quick about making decision making and decision about making decisions. Anyway, like what's interesting is like some of the things I'm saying and I wonder how much you see this on your side. It's just like it's the resistance to make a decision where like, it's kind of they're kicking the can down the down the road a little bit on a bunch of these cases, it's just the can was kicked down the road as opposed to picking up the cane and put it in the trash, you know, like like doing something with the can as opposed to kicking it down the road.

Speaker 3 (00:16:27) - So, I mean, are do you see much of that whenever you step into a team? Because that's what I'm seeing with this team.

Speaker 2 (00:16:32) - Well, my friend, this is our curse as law firm owners. Because if your law firm is like my law firm, you have a lot of high fact finders, a lot of high follow through, sort of personally conservative. In other words, they don't like a lot of change. They don't like a lot of mayhem. And so, you know, they want to explore all the possibilities. Their lawyers, their paralegals, their. Detail oriented. So yeah. So yeah, for sure. I see that a lot. And sometimes people tell me this stuff and I'm like, are you are you kidding me? You need you need ten days to do that. I mean, really. Yeah. So for sure.

Speaker 3 (00:17:09) - You know, Alex Ramsey, he was interviewed the other day really was the video was released the other day and he was he was talking about the difference between like like why there were some people that are like, like worth hundreds of millions of dollars and some people that are worth, like, you know, substantially less.

Speaker 3 (00:17:26) - And he's like, well, like a decision like that takes you a month or two to make where you say, I'll make that decision at the end of the week, or I'll make that decision next month, or we'll get this done by next month. I say we're going to do it by the end of the day. Like, and so like I'm working. I'm getting these things done substantially faster. Whenever it's taking you years to get some things done. It's taken me weeks. And I was like, that's a I think that's a really powerful lesson where like just what whether the decisions wrong or not, you'll figure it out pretty quickly. Just make the decision and then keep moving and then empowering your team to do those. And and you know, it's not just our team members either, but like us as well. Like if you need to add another team, add another team, do it now. Stop waiting. Or if you need to replace a team member, replace that team member now.

Speaker 3 (00:18:12) - So when you go in there and you look at these teams, make those decisions now as opposed to waiting a year because you're you're just delaying your success and delaying your progress.

Speaker 2 (00:18:21) - I was just looking up a quote from General Schwarzkopf when placing command, take charge, making decisions is the only way to move forward. Yes, even incorrect decisions. A person who makes a thousand wrong decisions is better off than a person who makes no decisions at all. Because once you make a decision and start action, then you can tweak it and make it better as you go. If you get stuck, you get stuck. And so yeah, I mean, that's that's that's a hard thing. It's just getting that sense of urgency and getting people to move. And every time I slow down, I make less money. Every time I go faster, I make more money.

Speaker 3 (00:18:50) - Go faster, baby. All right. We do need to wrap things up. Anything else? Any final thoughts on this?

Speaker 2 (00:18:54) - No, just other than to tell people, you know, we're all in this together.

Speaker 2 (00:18:58) - We all have this phenomenon. We all experience this sense of loss and sadness when people leave and when we find ourselves having to do things that we thought we were past doing. You know, when you're the owner, you don't want to be doing all this lower level stuff forever, but you also want to take the opportunity that you have to make your firm better. And to do it sort of in a, in an accepting and a happy place.

Speaker 3 (00:19:20) - Love it. All right. Let's wrap things up, Jimbo, before we do, before we get to our tips and our hacks of the week, which are going to be amazing, I'm sure if you don't mind living as a five star review, we would greatly appreciate it. Wherever you get your podcast, if you get something from this podcast, we would love it if you'd help us share the word by giving us a review, please do that. We would greatly appreciate it and then join us in the in the big Facebook group. There's just a lot of great information always being shared.

Speaker 3 (00:19:49) - And if you want to hang out with with us and some other guild members that are amazing, go to Max Law Guild. We just got back from Miami and that was an awesome trip. I loved it down in Miami. I got to see a lot of great guild members. So join us at Max Law guild.com. Jimmy, what's your hack of the week?

Speaker 2 (00:20:11) - My hack of the week comes straight from that guild mastermind, and that is our friend Brett Trembley came and presented on his book, 24 Months to Freedom. It's all about his theory that if you don't have an assistant, you are the assistant. And you're doing all that sort of lower level work that you need to pass down to other people, I thought he had a really great presentation on the topic of working with Vas, or working with assistants or scaling up and leverage, and I think that it's a nice quick read. You probably read in about two hours. So the next time you're on a flight, just grab the book. I'm sure Brett will send it to you, and you can figure out ways to to optimize yourself and leverage yourself.

Speaker 3 (00:20:48) - Yeah, if you just I think if you go to their website, you can get it for free. So I know you can get the the PDF for free, but I'm sure the physical version too. I know the last time he he presented at Max con, he gave away a free an actual free physical copy of a book of another one he wrote. But that is a good one. You know what? I'm going to go. I'm going to switch mine up. I was going to give it another one. But based on what you just said, I'm going to give. And I posted this in the guild, something Marco Brown said. And I think it came from a book. Someone said it came from a book, but I don't know which book it came from. But treat every hour that you work out and every hour that you sleep is worth $10,000. And he said it's probably worth substantially more than that if you really think about it, probably is. But if you do that, if you if you think about them as being worth $10,000, you're far more likely to do them.

Speaker 3 (00:21:34) - And I mean, I using that, I've actually been focusing more on my sleep. Like my my working out is scheduled, right. That is easy for me. Like that's easy because it's scheduled up. But it's the it's the part where I've got to go to bed at a certain time and forcing myself to do that and viewing it as worth $10,000, far more likely to do it. So thank you, marker for. Sharing that. I thought it was amazing and hopefully people get something from that. But Jimmy, as always super fun. Can't wait to talk to you more today.

Speaker 1 (00:22:04) - 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 an attorney who is looking to improve efficiency with your firm? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson discusses the "90/10 Principle" for improving law firm efficiency and profitability.

Tyson discusses the importance of the 90/10 principle. The principle involves clearing the 10% of cases that are either not profitable for the firm or attorneys don't want to focus on them to create a more lean practice. In order to identify these cases, you need to go through the caseload and pinpoint the bottom 10% by determining the case value. Looking at the financial side of things is a great way to determine this because you can determine how much money it costs to keep the case on the books. 

Figure out how much resources are going towards a case. If it is high, it might be time to cut ties with it. Also consider how much energy is being put towards a case. If the case is sucking a lot of energy and time from the firm, it can be put in that 10%. Once you determine the bottom 10%, look to identify the top 10% of cases for the firm. This is because once you shed the cases you don't want, all that energy will be put towards the top 10%. This could mean delegating your best attorneys to those 10% since they are high priority.

Ensure this is a recurring process. For example, put time in your calendar once a quarter or once a year to re-evaluate the cases that the firm is handling. This could be changing the bottom 10% and top 10% every 4 or 12 months.

Take a listen to find out how to ensure greater efficiency for your firm!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:24 Introducing the 90/10 principle, a variation of the Pareto principle
  • 2:25 The process of identifying the bottom 10% of cases
  • 3:20 Redirecting the effort from the bottom 10% of cases to the top 10%

Resources:

Transcripts: Clearing the Deck: Boosting Law Firm Success with the 90/10 Principle

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Welcome back everybody. It's Tyson today for another Saturday episode. And today I want to talk about something I call the 9010 principle okay. The 9010 rule. And I'm sure that a lot of you have heard of the 8020 principle, the Pareto principle, where 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. I'm taking the 9010 rule to narrow that focus even more. And what this comes from is this quarter, our theme is clear the decks. And what we mean by clearing the decks is getting rid of all of the cases that we don't need anymore, that we don't want anymore, that are not nearly as profitable for the firm, but also settling cases as well so they fit in with this theme, fits in with our our normal KPIs where we focus on settling cases, getting cases resolved.

Speaker 2 (00:01:20) - So whether that is settlement or through trial and and getting the best possible results for clients obviously. But we are we are in the middle of a pretty big firm expansion where we're we're spreading into multiple states and we're needing to clear the decks before we kind of go into battle. So that's where that comes from, is we're clearing the decks before we get into 2024. So we can we can have a lean, mean fighting machine. And so I'm going to talk to you about this this technique that you can use though that's consistent in getting rid of cases but focusing on the most important ones. So what is this 9290 ten rule that I'm talking about. And it's a really simple tool. But what you're going to do is you're going to go through your caseload and you're going to pinpoint the bottom 10% of the cases that are really bogging you down, and you're going to need to dig into these cases and determine, all right, what's the average case value of this? What is the part of this is a little subjective.

Speaker 2 (00:02:25) - So there's the financial part of it where okay how much money is this bringing into the firm. What's it costing the firm. And resources however but also in energy. Right. Is there a client that. Yeah, maybe they're paying us a bunch of money. But the overall effect, the net effect of of just them draining our energy is not good. So you're going to want to put them into that bottom 10%. So don't think about this just financially a big part of this financially. So we look at it a lot by the case value. But you need to also look at it based on okay what energy is this sucking from the firm. All right. So here's I think this is where the magic comes in. You're getting rid of those bottom 10% of cases. What you're going to do after that though is you're going to take that attention, that time, that effort, all of that in. And after you've identified your your top 10% of your cases, you're going to take that all of that effort that you were focusing on with the bottom ten and focus on the top 10% of cases.

Speaker 2 (00:03:20) - This is going to propel you. This is going to like throwing gas on a fire to get your firm to that next level. And that's why I wanted to make sure I share this with you, because you are you're going to be taking I mean, think about all that draining energy from those bottom 10% and you're going to then boom, apply that directly to the top 10%. And that is how you're going to get your firm to the next level. And there's a quote from Warren Buffett that makes me think about this 9010 rule. And he talks about the difference between successful people and really successful people. Is that really successful people say no to almost everything. And what you're doing is you're saying no to almost every other case, right? You're only focusing on the top 10% of cases. You're obviously not ignoring those other. Once you've gotten rid of the bottom 10%, you're not going to ignore the rest of the cases, but you're going to put your primary focus on those. And maybe you dedicate a team to those top 10% of cases.

Speaker 2 (00:04:16) - However, you need to do it, but you need to you need to have your main focus. You need to prioritize, prioritize those. Maybe you review those cases first. Maybe you're reviewing those cases every single week or every single day, depending on the type of cases that you handle. So all your marketing efforts should be focused on that top 10% of cases that you that you want to acquire. So take that that effort, all that wasted effort from the bottom ten and then apply it to the top ten. All right. And then something else you can do with this is just set it on your calendar to evaluate every few months. You can do it every quarter if you want. You can do it yearly. Ours is the way we the way we deal with our cases. It's a little bit more effective if we do it yearly as opposed to quarterly, but I'm not opposed to a quarterly one, one of the one of the rules in our offices that if you identify a case immediately and ours is different from someone that's doing family law or estate planning, but if it's an injury case, and if we identify that it's going to be a lower value case, we need to get rid of it immediately and move on and let the client know, hey, this is not something that we're going to build a handle for you and then let them go find another attorney because it's not fair to them and it's not fair to you.

Speaker 2 (00:05:22) - You. Got to move on and let them. Let them still have access to justice. But they can do it with a with another attorney. All right. So hopefully by adopting this approach will mean greater efficiency for your firm. Hopefully it'll improve the job satisfaction that your employees will have. It'll improve your bottom line, which would be good for you. But it's going to also avoid you from sinking a ton of resources into cases that offer very little in return. And often they take more than what they're actually going to benefit you. So make those tough calls, drop those cases out of your bottom 10%, and then open the door to redirecting that energy into that top 10% so that you can take your firm to the next level. So I want you as an action item on want you to take a look at your caseload. Do it today. Identify those cases that are really holding you back. And then. Figure out a plan for for kindly, nicely ethically moving those cases out of your office.

Speaker 2 (00:06:25) - All right, so that's a wrap for today's episode. Hopefully you will apply this 9010 principle and that you'll get something out of it. But until next time, consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Speaker 1 (00:06:42) - 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.

Do you need some tips in completing projects effectively? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Becca, the CEO of Maximum Lawyer shares essential strategies for executing projects effectively.

No matter the project, it is important to have a clear vision, roadmap and approach to reach the outcome you want. Becca emphasizes the need to start a project with the end in mind. It really helps envision the success of the project. 

It is important to create an outline to ensure you stay on track. Outline the goal and write out a list of broad steps from the start of the project to the end. After this, it is important to define the due date. It needs to be one that is realistic and attainable. If you do not set a due date, the project will simply not get done because other things will take priority or take you away from working on it. When working on a project, it is crucial to ensure you put time in your calendar to get it done. Whether it's 30 minutes a day or a few hours a week, put that block in the calendar so you are accountable to work on it.

Many projects are complex, with multiple people working on them and dozens of tasks to complete. Some tasks themselves are too big to just do and they need to be broken down into subtasks. This will take the overwhelming feeling away from yourself or your team when it comes to getting things done. Make sure to have a good project management system or tool to track all progress. 

Listen in to learn about the best way to get a project done!

Episode Highlights:

  • 00:23 Importance of having a clear vision of the desired outcome before starting any project
  • 1:16 The significance of defining goals and due dates
  • 2:20 The strategy of breaking down broader project steps into smaller subtasks

Resources:

Transcripts: Strategies for Successfully Executing Massive Project Ideas

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:23) - Hey, it's Becca, the CEO at Maximum Lawyer. And today I'm bringing you an episode about the essential strategies for effectively executing projects. No matter what your project is, having a clear roadmap and a systematic approach can make all the difference in achieving your desired outcomes. We'll cover the importance of starting with the end in mind, setting end goals and due dates, and breaking down projects into manageable steps. You should start every project. Planning with the end in mind. Seem simple. And you've heard this before, right? But before you turn this off, when was the last time you actually did it? Not just thought, oh, this is what I want to do. But when you sat down, envisioned the final point, and worked your way backward from there. It's so important to have a clear vision of your desired outcome before starting any project.

Speaker 2 (00:01:16) - By envisioning what success looks like, you set the stage for effective project planning and execution. Having a vision of the end result not only motivates you, but also serves as a guide throughout your project journey. This enables you to align your efforts towards your goal. This is where you can create the outline for your project. Start your list with the goal. Then create a list of the broad steps between the end and the beginning. We'll talk about the subtasks in just a minute. Next, we need to define the due date, whether this project is for you or for a team member, you need a due date. Due dates can be tricky, and you should try to set a due date that is both ambitious and attainable. Rushing a project can lead to sloppy work, while excessive time can result in complacency. I err on the side of something will take you as long as you give it. We can naturally fill time if we allow it, and we can magically do more in less time when we need to.

Speaker 2 (00:02:20) - Finding the balance between these extremes keeps your motivation high and ensures steady progress. In addition to setting the due date. As Tyson would ask you, if you showed up to an accountability call in the guild. Is it on your calendar? Meaning when are you working on the project? Do you find yourself thinking you'll just work on this in your spare time? That won't work. Create a meeting in your calendar for the time you plan to work on your project. Is it an hour on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or 30 minutes every day at 10 a.m. until the project is finished? And be honest with yourself. If you can't commit to a day and time on the calendar to work on the project, then you're not going to work on it. Put it on your calendar and don't stand yourself up. Next, we need to break down the project steps. This is the strategy in project planning that makes you more likely to complete the project. Many people will list out the broader steps in their project and call it good.

Speaker 2 (00:03:22) - But not breaking the steps down even further is a big mistake. We recently had one of our guild members wonder why their team was skipping some important tasks in their weekly work. The first thing I thought of was their steps were too broad. They needed to list the smaller tasks, breaking their broader tasks into bite sized chunks, and to be responsible for checking them off in a project management system as they go. I really want to highlight the need to list out every step involved in a project, and encourage you to overcome the natural instinct to assure yourself that that would take too much time. This step will ultimately save you time in the long run. The role of a comprehensive checklist is to ensure that no crucial aspect is overlooked, and to be a guide to the order your project should be completed. The creation of a detailed checklist provides a tangible sense of structure and progress, keeping you or your team organized and on track throughout the project lifecycle. If you find your avoiding a part of a project, this indicates a need for further breakdown of an overly broad or intimidating step.

Speaker 2 (00:04:32) - Breaking it down into smaller, more manageable subtasks can ease your apprehension and enable you to take decisive action. There's also the psychological benefits of incremental progress that can help maintain motivation and momentum. Smaller, achievable goals create a sense of accomplishment that propel you forward. It's like climbing a staircase where each step takes you closer to the top. This approach not only maintains your motivation, but also enhances your overall productivity. So the next time you're getting ready to turn your project ideas into reality, follow this strategic approach by starting with the end in mind, setting well defined goals and due dates, and breaking down broad steps into manageable steps. You can navigate any project to success with confidence and efficiency.

Speaker 1 (00:05:25) - 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 an attorney who needs help with delivering presentations? In this podcast episode, Jim and Tyson host Val Madama, a legal presentation coach. Val shares her journey from practicing food and drug law to coaching lawyers on improving their presentation skills.

Mastering presentations is a skill that takes practice. Val goes over a few common mistakes lawyers make when giving presentations. One mistake is assuming everyone needs the same things from the presentation when really everyone needs something different and will walk away with something different. This means the way you communicate to an audience should reflect this idea. Tailoring a presentation to each audience is key to keeping them engaged. If the presentation is about writing legal briefs, tailor your content to that. Another mistake is not presenting using plain language. Legal jargon only makes sense to lawyers. If you are giving a presentation to an audience who is not, ensure your slides and your language is clear and makes sense. Think about starting presentations off with a thesis or why you are there and what you are trying to “prove”.

Val, Jim and Tyson talk about the importance of storytelling when presenting. A lot of people are more focused on making their slides look better or using eye-catching software to create their presentation. Others are more concerned with not stumbling and making sure their entire presentation is perfect. The reality is there will be stumbling or saying “um” or “like” and that is fine. As long as the presentation flows like you are telling a story, the presentation is a success.

Ensuring there is enough time to practice for a presentation is really important to delivering it well. Val talks about developing muscle memory when practicing. The more you practice, the easier it is to remember and create that flow. One trick is to treat the presentation as if it were a conversation with colleagues or a normal Monday morning meeting discussing the week ahead. This also takes the “nervousness” out of presenting because it is being treated like any other conversation. 

Start rehearsing for presentations when you are 75% done creating it. This will allow you to flesh out any issues and go back and forth in how you will say things. This will shape your speech and also develop muscle memory. Though rehearsing is important, make sure to step away from the presentation to allow for the muscle memory to develop better. This will also not create a robotic speech to your presentation.

Take a listen!

Jim’s Hack: There is no substitute for meeting people face to face ( like your team!)

Val’s Tip: For everyone's next presentation figure out what the action you want people to take, and then identify 1 to 2 benefits of that action, and let that be your whole thesis statement. 

Tyson Tip: Change the mindset with a quote by Guy Ritchie: Love the game because you're in it. Own the game, accept the rules and move into the rules. 

Episode Highlights:

  • 3:00 Common mistakes lawyers make in presentations
  • 4:28 The importance of using plain language and avoiding legal jargon
  • 10:29 Prioritizing content, storytelling, and tailoring the presentation
  • 16:56 Regular practice and muscle memory in improving presentation skills
  • 19:39 The importance of taking a break from rehearsing to allow for passion to consolidate

Connect with Val:

Resources:

Transcripts: Unlocking The Secrets To Powerful Lawyer Presentations with Val Madamba

Speaker 1 (00:00:00) - Run your law firm the right way. The right way.

Speaker 2 (00:00:04) - This is the.

Speaker 1 (00:00:06) - Maximum Lawyer podcast. Podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:00:10) - Your hosts, Jim Hacking and Tyson metrics. Let's partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 3 (00:00:24) - Welcome back to the Maximum where podcast I'm Jim Hacking.

Speaker 4 (00:00:27) - And I'm Tyson Matrix. What's up Jimmy.

Speaker 3 (00:00:31) - Oh Tyson I'm very excited about our guest today. I think she's someone that will be in great demand and that our members and our listeners will really appreciate. It's all about lawyers making presentations and I can't wait to hear.

Speaker 4 (00:00:43) - Yeah, today we have Val Madama and if I set it wrong, I'm so, so sorry. But Val is so fantastic. Good. She is a legal presentation coach who previously practiced food and drug law, including at the US, FDA, and Am 100 law firm and in-house at several top companies. She focuses her coaching practice on keeping lawyers master the presentation skills they need to become thought leaders and grow their practices. Val, welcome to the show. We're really excited to have you.

Speaker 5 (00:01:14) - Thank you so much. Likewise. Happy to be here.

Speaker 3 (00:01:17) - So, Val, tell us what it was like in big law and in the government, and then how you transition from that into helping lawyers with their bad presentations.

Speaker 5 (00:01:26) - Yeah, I guess the common thread is that I was doing bad presentations in every setting. I was making terrible presentations for other people to give. I was never a good or natural feeling speaker at any point in my career, so I think that's what really spurred me to, you know, really work on it intentionally. And I think whether you're in-house or working in private practice or really in any setting, there's no getting around the need to eventually do a presentation. And I think, you know, we're we're presenting all the time. That's what I found. Whether it's like in a meeting that's casual and every day or at the big on a big conference stage. So I feared it all and I had to do it all. So I worked really hard on it and eventually found that it was a kind of common need among colleagues and peers.

Speaker 5 (00:02:20) - So started helping others and really went from there.

Speaker 4 (00:02:23) - Something you said reminded me of Chris Voss and never split the difference. And he talks about how like everything is a negotiation. And you're right. Like we're always we're always presenting like we're always on stage. And I do find it fascinating how many attorneys think that they're really good at acting. And so they think that they're really good at speaking. It's just got to kind of cracks me up. But will you can we start with maybe some of the basics of things that people are getting wrong, like, for example, like I was like, sometimes you see people, they'll they'll stand up and they'll say their name and you're like, no, no shit. We know who you are. Like, like, like like, are there some basic things that we're doing wrong right from the start that we can maybe start with that stuff so we can get that out of the way? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:03:00) - I mean, a lot of basic things. And you hit on a couple of them.

Speaker 5 (00:03:03) - I think one is just assuming that, yeah, we're like kind of good at communicating in some way, right. As lawyers or we think we are I mean, writing, speaking, we're supposed to do it well in practice, but it doesn't always translate right to a presentation because presentations are about what other people need. I mean, all communications is, all service is. But presentations are really specific and every audience needs something different. But, you know, I think we just get get busy and it's not really the first thing we prioritize, like planning a great presentation for every single specific audience's need. And we just kind of have these standard decks that we trot out, you know, for the next time we need to do that, click on that topic. And I think that's like the fatal flaw, because, you know, it's not that easy. You know, legal topics do not play out in the same way. They do not have the same relevance for different audiences. So I think that's the first thing, really tailoring and focusing on that.

Speaker 5 (00:04:07) - The practice and the putting aside the time to tailor a presentation to each audience. And I think that, yeah, I think time again is really the key challenge that I find. And yeah, just making the assumption that what we have to say is extremely interesting at all times to all people. I think that's another fatal assumption.

Speaker 3 (00:04:28) - How about using plain language? I think one thing that lawyers often do is we just drop into legal jargon and people's eyes glaze over and they're like, what the heck?

Speaker 5 (00:04:37) - Absolutely. And, you know, it goes again to to audience, you know, why would we assume that they would like to hear us speak in jargon? I mean, plain language. Plain English is a good bet in every setting. I would say, even if we're talking to fellow lawyers, I find. Right? Because how much time and attention do we really all have to spare? It's it's not a lot. And the clearer we can get, the better. I mean, clarity has got to be the number one goal, I think, of legal presentations.

Speaker 4 (00:05:08) - Let's stay on this just for a second, because, I mean, I think it's easy for us to say that. Right? But how do we in the writing process. Right. So we're going through we're in. Whether you speak off of an outline or actual script, everything out and I don't maybe you have advice on that too, but how do we take that, whatever that thing is that we're reading from and make it where it's it is it is simpler because whether it's whether you're speaking to a bunch of eighth graders or you're speaking to a jury, whatever it may be, how do you I don't I don't want to use the term water that down, but how do you water it down so it's simpler?

Speaker 5 (00:05:41) - Yeah, I think the first step is starting with, you know, what is the thesis like? What is it that you would like your audience to, to do differently? Because ultimately a presentation is about inspiring or motivating some kind of different action, right? Even if it's small and even if it's kind of just a change in state or a change in a way of seeing things like, what is that difference that you want to catalyze in your audience? And then just being really clear about it and having having a thesis.

Speaker 5 (00:06:16) - Right. Like, I think that is the number one thing to, to start with. So have a thesis and then be able to say why it matters. So an action. And a benefit. And we if we do that for each audience and we put that in just plain language and have that be the filter for everything that we say in a presentation. We should be clear, right? Like it's all about an advantage or a change to the audience, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (00:06:46) - Let's say that hypothetically, you were working with an estate planning attorney, and they were going to have one of these dinners where they send out postcards and they have old timers come to a steak and baked potato dinner, and they get to hear a presentation on all the reasons why it's important for them to have a solid estate plan. What would you how would you walk that attorney through preparing that presentation? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:07:10) - Other than that first step of identifying what is the what is the one action. And I would, I would I always try to have folks whittle it down to just one thing because as we know, everything is complicated.

Speaker 5 (00:07:24) - Everything plays out in many, many different ways. Right. And one presentation, you know, isn't the mechanism for getting everything done. It's kind of for creating awareness or making someone making folks aware of pathways and alternatives. Right. So decide what is that one thing you want to focus on. And then the next conversation that I try to have with speakers is to get into what that practice looks like and what are the stories, because I think for a talk like that, telling the right stories and illustrating the different ways that a concept or an estate plan or lack of estate plan could play out, that's going to be the key, because that is what resonates with people and is memorable. Right? So like lining up that thesis and then lining up the right stories to illustrate it.

Speaker 4 (00:08:18) - So I have a question about parents. I have I guess I'm sort of invested in this question, just because I do think that whenever you're presenting to a jury because like, that's that's one way of presenting, like you do need to look a certain way.

Speaker 4 (00:08:31) - I'm a strong believer that. But for example, I'm going to pick on Jim. It's not really picking on him, but the Jim like he's wearing a hoodie. Right. He's wearing a hoodie right now. And Jim would wear that on stage. He has he has no reservations about that. Right. And I mean I'll wear I'll wear jeans on stage or whatever. But there's this guy that Jim and I saw at Icon in Phoenix several years ago. It was an Infusionsoft conference. And he it seems like what he was selling his his cell was like, I will I will make you look good for camera, essentially what it was. I can't remember what his exact business was. How important is it? And I'm assuming that a big part of this is knowing your audience. Like, for example, he would he would Jim would wear that hoodie on audience at like Max Logan. Right. Like, and no one would bat an eye because it's Jim. Everyone knows Jimmy. But when it comes to like, you know, looking good, wearing clothing, all the kind of stuff like how important is that in a presentation? Well, I think you said it.

Speaker 5 (00:09:28) - It comes back to or down to knowing that audience and knowing how to read your room. But overall, yeah, you know, people are going to have different opinions about this, but I'm just I'm just not that fussed about polish, you know, like I think it's important and anything there is a big distinction between making the conference rounds and doing class and trial practice, which is not you know, I don't work on that in that area. I think it's completely different. But when you're doing, you know, talks to help someone get to a better state in a class or an educational presentation. I am not that worried about what you're wearing, or even if you say, um, or if your eye contact is super polished and, you know, there are all kinds of things we can do to elevate those aspects, and I think that's great, but it's just not what I focus on because things can go wrong. You can stutter, your slides won't work. Sometimes it's a guarantee eventually your slides will not work.

Speaker 5 (00:10:29) - And, you know, ideally they would. Everything would be perfect. But what's really important if have you crafted something that you're proud of giving to that audience that you know is is just for them and that will get you through and get you through any glitches or stumbles or stutters. And that's what I've noticed. And, you know, I focus on content first, story first and then polish. But I'm curious as to what do you think? What do you think is a speaker and and an audience member as well?

Speaker 4 (00:11:03) - I would say with what you just said, story storage should dominate. I think that you should tell stories in your presentations, whether you're doing whether you're a trial lawyer or not, and I do. I think you're 100% spot on where the trial work is way different than just doing the CLE circuit or the conference circuit. 100% agree. I would also say like delivery, how you deliver it is another part of it. But I think that if. You don't start with story. I think that you're.

Speaker 4 (00:11:29) - And if you don't have a good story, I think you're. I think you're in really bad shape.

Speaker 5 (00:11:32) - Yeah, absolutely. There's there's no way. Well, it's hard to recover and it's hard to paper over that if you start with. And I see this a lot like people want to uplevel their presentation skills and their question. The questions to me are about like slides and how they can make their slides look better. And I see a lot of firms doing this too. They're investing in like nice looking slides. And it's just not that's not going to do it like that's good. But save it and get the content right first. Get the tailoring right and then make it look great.

Speaker 3 (00:12:05) - We are recording this in 2023 and in my book. Most people these days are turned off by high polish. I think that if you come in too slick, especially younger people, they're so cynical and so worldly that they're like, forget this person. I don't trust this person at all. I think when you say the ums or when you're wearing a hoodie, or when you're doing things a little bit silly and not not traditional, I think that goes that goes a long, long way.

Speaker 5 (00:12:31) - Yeah, I totally agree. I'm seeing a lot of that in just the legal community, legal tech community in general.

Speaker 3 (00:12:38) - You're listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Our guest today is Val Miedema. She's an expert in helping lawyers do non trial presentations. And we're really glad to have you, Val. One of the things that I've been working on and I do a lot of presentations on YouTube, so I do a lot of my talking on YouTube. And one of the things that I've gotten a lot better at is being able to talk and think about the next thing I'm going to say. At the same time, I was watching the news this morning or a roundtable on the news, and I was watching the people. It's a hard thing to do to be able to know where you're headed, but still be talking at the same time. I can I can knock out a YouTube video where I talk for 5 or 6 minutes straight without necessarily having any notes. Do you have any tips on how lawyers can develop that skill, or how I could get better at doing that? Because it's tough.

Speaker 5 (00:13:23) - Yeah. It's tough. I've always struggled with it as well, especially I mean, first, you know, I was doing the traditional kind of presentations where it was just like bullet points and data points, and there's no way to remember that. So the first thing you know, I'm a broken record, but it goes back to story because it's not just for your audience, it's for you too, as a speaker. Because if you every story has an arc, and an arc is something that you can remember. And an arc is also easy to put down on a sheet of paper. So you don't have a billion notecards flying all over the place. And you know, a mistake I've made a lot is to try to bring with me into a presentation really detailed notes. So I'm feeling good. Everything's written down. Impossible to use, though in the moment. Right. So what I always suggest is to do a really spare kind of keyword diagram. And so you see the big keywords that mark each kind of point in your story and everything just kind of comes flooding back.

Speaker 5 (00:14:31) - If you have, it's easy to rehearse with, you get the muscle memory and then that'll just trigger your memory. And that's that's the way to do it. That's the way to rehearse. And I would say, you know, memorizing, at least for me, anyone I've worked with, it just doesn't work except for maybe a TEDx style talk. But even then, I think that keywords is the way to go, and keeping it really within a narrative arc and really kind of clean.

Speaker 4 (00:14:58) - I'm right there with you when it comes to the notes, because I usually whenever I stand up to speak, I'll usually have an outline, but it's like 3 or 4 bullet points. And that's just to jog my memory, because otherwise if I write too much in there, I will just get lost and I'll just go off on my own little tangent and they'll throw the time off. And so just having those, those the, the little, you know, bare bones outline is, is pretty helpful for me.

Speaker 4 (00:15:21) - But I'm sure it just depends on the person. But are there certain elements that we should be including in every single presentation? Because I can't remember the words you use, but early on you answered in. I think you mentioned a couple of things, but I wasn't sure if that's what you meant. But are there certain elements that we should be including in every single presentation? Yeah.

Speaker 5 (00:15:38) - I mean, substantively, it's hard to say, right? But I think, again, it goes back to what are those markers along the the journey of that you want to take your audience on. So again, it starts with that thesis, but also starts with thinking about what the status quo is of that audience. Everyone's starting in a place everyone has. Every audience has some particular challenge that you want to address in your in your talk and think about where is it that you want them to be. In the end, it doesn't have to be some epic shift, and usually it's not an epic shift. But I think the essentials of any presentation on any subject matter are acknowledging that status quo, usually with a story to.

Speaker 5 (00:16:25) - To begin with, and then illustrating it along the way with different stories, a range of specific stories that get the audience to that better place. You know, do you apply, you know, a couple of different kinds of compliance options or compliance tools, a checklist or something that you can illustrate in a few ways, and then what does that mean for them in the end? So an illustration of where they are and an illustration of where you want them to be in the end after your solution is applied.

Speaker 3 (00:16:56) - You mentioned an interesting phrase and that was muscle memory. And I think there's really no substitute to like practicing and just being in the regular habit of giving presentations. I think the more you get used to talking on your feet, the more natural it gets. And can you talk a little bit about that?

Speaker 5 (00:17:15) - Yeah. I 100% agree there is no substitute. And going back to the idea or no substitute for for practicing all the time and recalling that idea of presentations being things you do every day.

Speaker 5 (00:17:30) - Right. So a presentation doesn't have to be a big stage, but, you know, conversations, meetings, a 15 minute meeting, like, how can you make this meeting as efficient and effective as possible so you can respect the time of whoever is on the other side. So really thinking about every interaction, not as some sort of performance necessarily, but you know, how can you serve best that other person. So thinking about the practice in that way, and I think when it comes to actually getting ready for presentation, you know, I always I always start way earlier or suggest starting way earlier than, than you think. So if you're preparing a presentation, don't save the rehearsal, which a lot of folks do for the day before or even even a few days before, I would say, get started with rehearsing. When you're like 60% of the way done with your content, 75%, maybe, but you're going to flesh it out through a lot of back and forth. So what sounds good? What feels like it sounds right when it comes out of you, and when you are in that rehearsal process, you're going to inform the content to so that back and forth is shaping your talk and also helping form that muscle memory.

Speaker 5 (00:18:46) - So start before you're really ready.

Speaker 4 (00:18:49) - I do 100% agree with that, but I do find that the more I practice, I do lose a little bit of the passion whenever I'm doing it. And I don't know if that makes sense to you, but like I do, sometimes feel like I lose a little bit of the passion. And so it's not as strong sometimes. But do you have any thoughts on that? Because we are getting close to time, but I do I do want to ask you about that because because of what you just said. But it's it's something that I just I noticed I lose a little bit of it. So any thoughts.

Speaker 5 (00:19:14) - Yeah. And I find that happens. That definitely happens to me. And I hear that a lot. And what I find is that it's kind of like with a little bit more, almost a little bit more rehearsal because by that time you feel like you're saturated and you cannot possibly listen to yourself say those words again. But maybe with just a little bit of space and time away from it, I find that it consolidates.

Speaker 5 (00:19:39) - And then you are able to let that let that muscle memory just trigger the words coming back. And I do think that just giving yourself a little bit of space from hearing yourself has worked wonders. You know, I was just working with this one woman who was going to give a TEDx style talk, and she was heading or she was coming across that same like, oh, I just don't sound like I care at all, because she had been rehearsing for like a month, you know, but just a little bit of distance and then some couple of rehearsals at the end, and then don't rehearse at the very last minute because I find that people get flustered with that as well. So I think that distance does does make a big difference.

Speaker 3 (00:20:23) - When it comes to storytelling. Can you tell us a story about a client success?

Speaker 5 (00:20:27) - Yeah, absolutely. It was pretty recent one. It was a pretty traditional CLI that I was helping this one woman with, and she is so, so brilliant in her niche.

Speaker 5 (00:20:39) - It's transactional. And she was just having a lot of trouble finding finding the story. And you know, it wasn't an extremely, you know, epic talk. It wasn't a big stage. But what I loved about working and love about working with clients like this is that when they find those personal stories and find a way to electrify an audience just because of connection and a sort of a ha moment when she found like my my practice area is not boring. Everyone tells me that what I do is is so dry, and I've always thought that what I do could never inspire anyone. And the way she started thinking about herself as a speaker completely changed without me. Really doing much other than pulling her own experience out of her so that she could hear it, so that she could see it on paper, and that she could get it into the story of a presentation. And that kind of excitement is what I love to see and what I love to see. My clients, I love it.

Speaker 4 (00:21:42) - All right, Val, we are going to start to wrap things up.

Speaker 4 (00:21:44) - Before we do that, though, will you tell people how they can get a hold of you if they want to work with you?

Speaker 5 (00:21:50) - Absolutely. Best way to get a hold of me is finding me on LinkedIn. I'm on there all the time talking about nothing but legal presentations, so find me there or on my website. Valerie.

Speaker 4 (00:22:02) - Become very good. All right. We are going to start to wrap things up before we do, before we get to our tips and hacks of the week, join us in the big Facebook group. Go to Facebook and search Maximum Lawyer. If you want a higher level conversation, go to Max Law Guild and if you don't mind, help helping us spread the love to other attorneys out there that need it. Please give us a five star review. We would greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?

Speaker 3 (00:22:30) - We talked about this recently, you and I, Tyson, about having our team meet together in a physical space and with everybody working virtually these days, I just want to highlight how great it is to meet actual team members in real life.

Speaker 3 (00:22:43) - IRL, we have our marketing director from Venezuela is here with us this week and next week one of our the members of our after unit is coming to Saint Louis. So there's just no substitute. And then in November, we'll have all the lawyers and all the people from around the United States here in Saint Louis meeting with us. So just there's just something different and there's some super connection. I'm sure you remember Tyson when we first started having the conference, and we got to meet these people that we knew online forever to get to meet them face to face. There's just no substitute for it.

Speaker 4 (00:23:12) - I agree. It was it's it's a it was a really cool feeling then. And now that we've come out of our homes and we're out and about, it's, it's it's always nice to be around people. Val. We always ask our guest to give a tip or a hack of the week, which you got for us.

Speaker 5 (00:23:27) - Well, I'm going to stay on theme and actually repeat something that we talked about.

Speaker 5 (00:23:31) - But my ultimate tip for everyone's next presentation is going back to figuring out what is that one action that you want your audience to take that is different. Figure out what that action is, and then identify 1 to 2 benefits of that action, and let that be your whole thesis statement. And if you build your presentation solely around that and let that inform everything you do, every image you drop into your presentation, every bullet point, every story, you're going to be the best speaker in any venue that you show up and love it.

Speaker 4 (00:24:07) - Very good advice. So my my tip of the week is I actually was watching The Covenant last night by Guy Ritchie or Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. I was telling I actually tweeted or posted to to Jim about it, and then all of a sudden he started showing up on my YouTube. Hell of a coincidence there. But it was an interview. Guy Ritchie was on an interview with Joe Rogan, and I was listening to him. And he's he's a very eloquent guy, by the way.

Speaker 4 (00:24:32) - Like, he's very impressive. I didn't even I didn't know who he was, but he he was talking about how you hear the quote. And I pulled up because I actually tweeted about it. He says, like, because people say like, don't hate the player hit the game and he says, don't hate the game. Love the game because you're in it. He says, you're in it, mate. Own the game, accept the rules and move into the rules. And so I just love that change in the mindset. Like, you know what? This is the game we're playing in like play the game. And so that's my message passing it on for me because I just I thought it was just so cool. So and also it's a bonus watch that interview because he's just really he's an impressive person. That's all I know about him. Just that interview in that movie. But he has a pretty wide breadth of of movies that he's created. But anyways, Val, thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 4 (00:25:19) - Really appreciate it. I think this will be really helpful for a lot of our listeners. Appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (00:25:22) - Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (00:25:24) - Thank you Val.

Speaker 2 (00:25:27) - Thankful. Listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content 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 looking for a new tech tool to help with making quick searches? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson introduces a new app called Perplexity and how attorneys can use it to their advantage.

Perplexity is an app that simplifies and accelerates searches made on the web. It works differently from a Google search engine that will spit out dozens of websites which forces you to go through every one until you find your answer. The app makes searching for information so much faster. Tyson uses an example of asking the app “How do I speed up a website?” From here, Perplexity organizes the sources. Some responses are to optimize images, use a content delivery network and evaluate the hosting provider. The app lists the sources and websites that the options came from. At this point, you are able to click the options Perplexity gives you which takes you to the website directly.

Listen in to learn more about how the app will simplify legal research!

Episode Highlights:

  • 1:09 Tyson shares the new app called Perplexity
  • 2:05 Features of Perplexity
  • 4:02 Testing Perplexity for legal research

Resources:

Transcripts: Perplexity: The Most Efficient App for Quick and Accurate Answers

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Hey, it's Tyson and I'm back with another Max law text Tips episode. And today I'm going to be talking about something that is pretty cool. A new app that I discovered. I'll tell you how I discovered it in a moment. Before I get to that though, if you have something you want me to cover, if you have questions about some tech things you want me to talk about when it comes to automation or whatever it may be, shoot me. Text (314) 501-9260. But let's get to this app. All right. So I was on X the other day. There was this random guy. He had posted something. I couldn't even tell you what it is at this point. And then I was in the comments just looking because I was curious. And it was it was about it was some business thing or whatever.

Speaker 2 (00:01:09) - But someone mentioned perplexity and it's an app. I was like, what the hell is perplexity? I googled it, I figured it was an app and it is really cool. Okay. It is. Just imagine this. Okay? Just I want you to think about it the way you normally find things. Now you Google it, you then go search through ten websites and or you change your search term and you finally come up with the answer to the question you're looking for. It's kind of inefficient, right? I think we can agree that the Google search is fairly inefficient. We want something a little faster. Okay. That's why I think that's why a lot of people are drawn to ChatGPT bored things like that, because you get the answer right away. But the problem with GPT is the fact that it is not right a lot of the time. Okay, what's really cool about this is check this out. All right. So for those of you that are watching on YouTube, this is what it looks like okay.

Speaker 2 (00:02:05) - Perplexity. And it says where knowledge begins okay. So ask anything is what it says. And it does give you actually some, some things that are new that like suggestions that you could just push the button, it'll take you right to it. Tips to write an ATS friendly resume I don't know what ATS means. How to create a 90 yearbook photo using AI. Pretty cool, but we're not going to do that. When we're going to pick something different, we're going to pick something that is related to something that might affect you and something I covered on the podcast. So check this out and you can actually speak into it too. So it's going to be faster. I turned on copilot. I don't necessarily know what copilot does. It seems to maybe organize the data a little bit better. But here's what we're going to do. How do I speed up my website? Okay, I hit submit and what it does. And here's what's really cool. So you can see it's understanding the question. That's what it says.

Speaker 2 (00:03:03) - It's organizing the sources. And here's how it's different from ChatGPT and from Google okay. It gives you the answer okay. So here's some things. Optimize your images I talked about that in another episode, something I did not because I just didn't want to get into too much of the complexity. Use a content delivery network. I didn't cover cover that, but I did cover leverage browser caching. Evaluate your hosting provider, use a reduce Http request, use a caching plugin. So these are things I covered, right? But here's what's cool. The best part of this it gives you the sources right there. Sources are right there. I know every spot or every one of these came from. Okay, so I've got one, two, three, four, five. It gives me actually 25 sources that it pulled this information from. I have all of it right there in front of me. It took seconds to do. Okay. And I can I can easily just delete this and it gives me my history.

Speaker 2 (00:04:02) - But and let's say that I want to click on that source to check it. Guess what you can do. Boom. It does it. This one. It gives me a like a panda bear. But there's it's the image on the website. But you can click on each one of these so I can click on the different ones. It takes me to the website. I can read that article if I want to. So it actually gives me the site. And I can easily verify it. And if I if I don't think it's a good, good source, I don't I don't use it, but it gives me 25 different ones. Something I've not used it for is legal research. So what we can do is together we can test this out now and see what happens. Okay. So here we go. I'll use like a basic one. What are the statute of limitations for a car crash personal injury case in the state of Missouri. I made it fairly complicated. I'm clicking submit. Okay.

Speaker 2 (00:05:03) - And so it's understanding. The question says copilot completed five steps. I again I don't know what. Apparently it does something additional. It also said I only have two copilot searches left, so that means that they're probably gonna try to charge me for whatever that feature is, and let's see how good of a job it did in the state of Missouri and the state of Missouri. The statute of limitations for filing a personal injury claim related to a car accident is five years from the date of the accident. Very good. It got that correct. And it gives me the it gives me eight sources. Okay. What's really interesting is that these are every single one of them. This is what's interesting are law firm websites. Not one of them is the revised statutes of the state of Missouri, which I find is interesting. But it did get the correct answer. It seems like it's compiling all this data or all this information, and it's getting the answer. And I think that that is way more helpful than a standard Google search.

Speaker 2 (00:06:00) - And so it does not appear it's going to do major legal research for us, but it is something that is going to it'll simplify our lives and and do faster searches for us. And it gives you the sources too. So I hope that you will get some use out of this. I think it's I think it's a cool one. I think it's a useful one. And I think you will find the same. But let's wrap things up if you have any topics. As always, you want me to cover. If you just want to say hi, shoot me. Text (314) 501-9260. Love to hear from you until next week. Remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Speaker 1 (00:06:41) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host 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 trying to find a way to become more tech savvy? In this podcast episode, Tyson discusses the capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT, an AI assistant. He demonstrates how it can answer questions, provide suggestions, and engage in dialogue.

ChatGPT as a tool has become more advanced since its launch in 2022. The new function includes a conversational component that is very interesting. The tool can handle text based tasks, can generate emails and create drafts for legal blogs. 

Tyson talks about the voice feature of ChatGPT, which really makes interacting with the tool more like a dialogue. It is a great tool for summarizing and analyzing texts, but not particularly legal texts. Instead of sitting and reading through a text to figure out the important details, you can copy and paste it into the tool and it will provide you with the cliff notes. For the voice feature, you could just ask the tool a question and go back and forth to get the answer you need.

ChatGPT can save searches, responses and conversations as well as create meeting minutes!

Take a listen and learn how to stay ahead of the tech curve as an attorney.

Episode Highlights:

  • 2:11 ChatGPT can handle text-based tasks easily
  • 3:24 ChatGPT can analyze large chunks of text
  • 5:31 ChatGPT suggests creating FAQs, using conversational language, and writing blog posts

Resources:

Transcripts: Unleashing the Power of ChatGPT

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Hey, it's Tyson and I'm back with another bite sized episode. And I will tell you what, this one is exciting to me, and I think you're going to find it really exciting as well. And we're going to explore something that I've been playing around with personally. And it's just it's blowing my mind, to be honest with you. So let's get started with chatting with ChatGPT for. But before I get to that, if you have any topics that you want me to cover, shoot me a text. I'd love to hear from you. Just text me at (314) 501-9260. Again, I'd love to hear from you. We get a lot of texts and I love seeing them. So I've been getting a lot of great suggestions, and I'm going to try to get to what I can.

Speaker 2 (00:01:07) - All right. So what is GPT if you don't know at this point man are you missing out? But it's artificial intelligence. It was the first major one that came out in November of last year of 2022. And it is really it's I mean, right now it's getting more complex. Back then it was doing very basic operations for you. So it could do basic math. By the way, apparently it's gotten worse at math. It is. It's an AI assistant I guess is a way of putting it. So it will answer questions for you using artificial intelligence. We are doing some pretty some more advanced things with it I can cover in other episodes, but it is starting to do a more advanced things. For example, I had it find flights for me to Miami the other day. It was. It actually did a pretty decent job. It didn't book them for me. It's not gotten to that point yet, but I gave it very specific criteria and it wouldn't found me flights. It's it's getting better and better in the speed with which it's advancing is quite incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:02:11) - And what I'm going to show you, you're going to see as well, I think it's going to be pretty, pretty exciting. All right. So let's talk really in the tip today. What we're going to be covering is the conversational ability of the new chat GPT function. And it is I do have the paid version just so you know. So if any of you are going to your apps and you don't see it, that may be the reason why I do have a paid version for chat GPT it is very cool. So let's first go over some of the capabilities of it. All right. Really quick. Just give me a second. All right, so first let's go over some of its conversational capabilities. For those of you that have used ChatGPT, you know that it can handle text based tasks fairly easily, like generating emails, creating drafts for legal blogs, even. It can outline arguments for your case. I've played around with it and done that as well. The voice feature though, it adds just another layer where it makes an interaction that feels more like a dialogue rather than just typing on a screen.

Speaker 2 (00:03:24) - And you're going to hear it in a second, because I'm going to do a demo for you. It's really cool. You can speak to it just like you would a legal assistant or paralegal, asking it to draft a letter or summarize long documents. Really cool. ChatGPT is I'm gonna talk a little bit about data analysis. It's also a great tool for analyzing large chunks of text and while this isn't a substitute for in-depth legal research or other data analysis, it does a really good job of quickly giving you the gist of of some sort of complex legal document, a case data that you're looking at, and it can save you valuable time with the new voice feature, you're not having to copy and paste or type that stuff into there. You can just speak it into there and then have a have a conversation about it, which is really, really interesting. Now there are there are some limitations. I did have it give me some examples of things that could do, and then it couldn't actually do those things.

Speaker 2 (00:04:24) - For example, it can't actually set a reminder for you. It can't set a task. It's limited if you're if you're using it for legal research, I wouldn't necessarily do that. I did use that as an example just earlier, just kind of playing around. But it's it's not something you want to use for legal research. There was an attorney recently that got in trouble for citing a case that they got from ChatGPT. That was not a real case. So there are some some definite drawbacks of it. But let's let's dig into this and see what you think. By the way, this is not scripted. I've got an idea of what I want to to ask it. Okay. So this is not scripted. I'm just going to go kind of like you would normally use it. All right. So here we go. There's a little microphone. Hey so I want to create some long tail keywords because I want to focus on voice search for my website. Can you help me come up with some some questions and some ways of tailoring how people or what I might have on my website so that people can better find me with voice search.

Speaker 3 (00:05:31) - Absolutely. Mr.. Focusing on voice search is a smart move, given the increasing use of voice activated devices. For a personal injury law firm like yours, you'd want to target more natural and conversational queries. Questions to consider. What should I do after a car accident in your location? How to find the best personal injury lawyer near me. How much compensation can I expect for a slip and fall? What are my rights as an accident victim? Ways to tailor your website one. Add FAQs. Create an FAQ section using these long tail keywords to directly answer common voice queries two. Use conversational language. Make your content more conversational.

Speaker 2 (00:06:14) - So I want to show you something you actually tapped interrupt.

Speaker 3 (00:06:18) - Three blog posts.

Speaker 2 (00:06:19) - Can you give me some tips on actually how you think people might be asking questions of the voice search, whether it is Google Assistant or Siri?

Speaker 3 (00:06:30) - Certainly, Mr. Trucks. When people use voice search, they often phrase questions more naturally, as if they're speaking to a friend. This is different from typing queries, which are often more abbreviated.

Speaker 3 (00:06:45) - For example, instead of typing personal injury lawyer, someone might ask who is the best personal injury lawyer near me? Rather than.

Speaker 2 (00:06:55) - So I'm going to pause it there. So I don't know if you noticed, but she actually said um in there or it I, I said she, you can change the voices, which is kind of cool. There's some creepy ones in there, but you can actually change the tone of the voice. Male, female, different, different versions of each. But everything that we just did in this is all on my it's actually in the app. So everything that it said to me, it's saved, right. No one has to take any notes, which is pretty cool. So this is this is pretty awesome. There's another feature. It's not a feature. It's the same thing that I'm talking about. But it mentioned whenever I asked questions earlier. It told me that it could take notes during meetings. I actually thought it was a pretty cool thing. So what I'm going to do is during the rest of this, I'm going to have it record the conversation and then tell me, or I'm going to tell you at the end whether or not it did a very good job.

Speaker 2 (00:07:54) - So all right, so we're going to begin to wrap things up. If you'll take notes while I talk I would really appreciate it. Can you take notes for me.

Speaker 3 (00:08:02) - I'm sorry, Mr. Trucks, but I can't take notes for you. However, you can easily record or jot down the ideas and suggestions we're discussing for your own reference later on. Is there anything specific you'd like to go over or clarify?

Speaker 2 (00:08:17) - Yeah, actually, I'm going to wrap up this episode, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about how your voice feature is pretty cool. It's going to be opening up some pretty intriguing avenues for lawyers that are willing to stay ahead of the tech curve, which I think is pretty cool. It's it's not at this point. You're not really a one stop solution, but that's fine. I completely understand that that's expected at this point. But I think in the future you're going to provide a lot of value. And I see how this using you as a voice feature is going to be pretty amazing in the future.

Speaker 2 (00:08:51) - And I think that OpenAI, I think they're really on the cutting edge. And so I think that you all are really winning at this point in the battle. But I don't think the battles I don't think I don't think the war is over. I think Bard is going to be advancing all the all these other AIS are really going to be advancing. So it's really cool. But for any of you that have questions or any topics you want me to cover, just shoot me a text (314) 501-9260 and I'll try to cover it, but let me just tell you, I'm going to see. Even though it said they could not take notes, it told me it could take notes earlier. See, it's one of those. Here we go. But I'm trying to interrupt and stop her. But. So I'm going to stop it. And then it took, it actually took all those notes as I was talking. So even though it said I couldn't take the notes, it couldn't take it did take all of those notes.

Speaker 2 (00:09:39) - So it will do those things for you, but hopefully you'll get something out of this. I think it's a really cool feature. Have fun with it. Text me if you thought of anything cool that you can that you can use it for. But I will also say this. It's going to talk back to you. Not in a bad way. I mean, like it's going to actually conversate with you. So this isn't something that you're going to be able to just kind of put in your pocket and have a record and transcribe. It's going to be interacting with you. Just keep that in mind. But I am wrapping things up, as I told ChatGPT. And if if you are having if you're wondering how it knew I was a law firm and things like that, you can give in the paid version, at least I don't know about. In the free version you can give it instructions on. You can tell it more about you. You can give it. For example, I told it that I've got a personal injury law firm.

Speaker 2 (00:10:27) - I told it that we have a podcast and I gave it a bunch of information and I gave it a bio about me. And so it has this information on me and it's actually learning. I've got learning turned on. So the more I use it, the more it's it's able to adapt to what I need it for. So that would be that'd be pretty cool. But until next week, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care.

Speaker 1 (00:10:56) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host 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 an attorney who needs some tips on what to avoid doing? In this live podcast episode, hosts Jim and Tyson discuss 99 things that lawyers should stop doing. 

Jim and Tyson go over a long list of things attorneys should not do and provide advice on what to do instead in order to become more successful in the legal field. One of these is to not schedule hour-long meetings. Truthfully, most meetings do not need to be a full hour. Go into meetings with a defined agenda and don't waste time talking about things that are irrelevant. 

Attorneys are known to work long hours with little sleep. Tyson and Jim really emphasize the need to get enough sleep to maintain good health and to be more productive. Set boundaries on when you need to finish your work in the office and transition over to doing things that help you unwind. That could be implementing a hard stop at 5pm and putting your phone on silent until the morning. 

Many people fall victim to saying yes to everything as a way to keep the peace and avoid conflict. As attorneys, you will be busy with a lot of moving pieces throughout your day. You will not have time to take on every case or please every client. Learn how to say no and get comfortable with the feeling.

It is important to not compare yourself to others and focus on your own goals. The legal field is full of aspiring attorneys who want to be the best in the business and will try to compete against their fellow colleagues. This can really eat away at many people’s self esteem and progress. Tyson and Jim talk about the importance of focusing on your own goals and not letting other people’s progress affect your own.

Mental health is an important thing to focus on. It is important to focus on both your personal mental health and that of your team. Think about the decisions you make as a leader that affect their work and personal lives. Make it a priority to have routine conversations with your team to understand how they are feeling and how to adjust expectations.

Take a listen to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

  • 1:39 Avoid wasting time on unscheduled phone calls and hour-long meetings
  • 3:13 Prioritize getting enough sleep to maintain good health and improve productivity
  • 8:23 Discussion of the importance of saying no
  • 18:13 Focusing on your own growth and improvement
  • 26:36 Importance of considering the mental health of both yourself and your team

Resources:

Transcripts: Metrics That Matter with Tim McKey

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:23) - 99 things you should stop doing today. We want to go through these relatively quickly and again, when we're done, you can get up and talk about something that you're going to stop doing or something you're going to start doing, or some big takeaway you've had from the conference. So we have those three mics. So just be thinking about that, because we'd love to get as much feedback from you as we can. And then then that'll be it for this year's conference.

Speaker 3 (00:00:46) - You had me laughing. I was kind of smiling because I was just hearing you talk about running to the back of the room, and I wish I had something to sell to you, because you'd run to the back of the room and nobody.

Speaker 2 (00:00:53) - Runs to the back of the room faster than I.

Speaker 3 (00:00:54) - Do. That's right.

Speaker 3 (00:00:55) - So all right, we're going to start. We are going to go fairly rapid fire because we don't want there's 99 of these. So we're going to go fairly quickly. Bookkeeping. You should not be doing your own bookkeeping. If you are doing your own bookkeeping right now, what you need to be doing is getting on the internet as we speak and putting a job post out for a bookkeeper.

Speaker 2 (00:01:11) - If you missed Adam's great talk on bookkeeping, make sure to get the recordings. By the way, the recordings you should be getting in about two weeks. It takes the awesome fellows from the casino who have done the audio and visual to get that to us, so we'll have that for you in just a little bit. And don't let me forget at the end, Tyson, we got to do our thank yous. Yes. All right. So some of these suggestions of the 99 things we also got from guild members. So we give a little shout out to the guild members who did this. But many people, including our friend Greg Steel, said stop taking unscheduled phone calls.

Speaker 3 (00:01:39) - No question hour long meetings. If you're scheduling our long meetings and they actually have to be an hour long meeting, you need to go into it with an agenda. Each meeting needs to have some sort of an agenda going into it that way. There's got to be a defined time. It should not be an hour. It's very rare that you actually need an hour for a meeting. It's I mean, if you give me an hour long meeting, it drives me nuts.

Speaker 2 (00:01:59) - Yeah. I would assume they should be 15 minutes and work backwards from there. Stop freaking yourself out. Freaking yourself out does no good. It does nobody on your team any good, and it's not going to help you be clear of thought in order to get out of the problems that you're having.

Speaker 3 (00:02:13) - Is anybody from Jim's team here? If you are, raise your hand because this is there we go freaking your team out. Stop freaking your team out with all of your madness. Stop freaking your team out.

Speaker 2 (00:02:23) - Number six saying just this one time, oh, I'm just going to fix this this one time, or I'm going to go take care of this little task one last time, because it's not one last time.

Speaker 2 (00:02:32) - You'll keep doing it over and over and over until you just stop doing it, saying, just this one time, you might as well just keep doing it.

Speaker 3 (00:02:40) - Binge watching Netflix when you should be working. Work times for work time. Okay, go to go to the office with something in mind that you're you've got to have a defined schedule, well defined schedule, and get the work done. Don't spend your time on Netflix or on Facebook all day. Get the work done.

Speaker 2 (00:02:54) - There's somebody on this stage who has a tendency to send out angry tweets, and and that person is wearing a hoodie, and that's because he's been watching too much news. And Tyson will let me know that I'm rage tweeting again. Just totally wasted energy.

Speaker 3 (00:03:09) - I'll send him a screenshot of it and then he usually deletes it.

Speaker 2 (00:03:12) - That's what you really mean to say this, Jim.

Speaker 3 (00:03:13) - Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Next one is sleeping too little. I to be honest with you. I've got this problem. I do go to bed late and I get up early and I don't sleep enough.

Speaker 3 (00:03:21) - But it's extremely important to get for your health to get sleep. I acknowledge the fact that I need more sleep, but please get more sleep. It's for your health.

Speaker 2 (00:03:28) - Some people feel like they need to approve every expense. Give the people who are helping you the authority to spend a certain threshold of money, and then have a process for any expenditures over that amount. But you do not need to be involved in the approval of every expense.

Speaker 3 (00:03:43) - Set some limits. Yes. Next is updating your clients. Thank you, Heather Ford, for this. I mean, you don't need to be updating your clients every day. You've got people that can do that. Hopefully you do have people that can do that for you. If you don't hire some staff and let them update the clients, the more that they build that relationship between the clients and your case managers or paralegals, whatever you call them, the better it is for you, because then they're going to trust them more, so allow them to give those updates.

Speaker 2 (00:04:07) - Ryan Anderson falsely claimed that he was the most disorganized person in the world, because that happens to be me. I did the exact same thing he did. I didn't leave my passport. I left my cell phone in my car, so I had to borrow the baggage guy's phone to call my wife to get my phone back. But along those lines, one of the things I'm notorious for signing up for subscriptions that I don't use anymore, right? Because I just forget about them. And a great trick if you want to find your unused subscriptions is cancel a credit card, because then they'll all start bothering you to let you know that you're not there. Not being able to bill you. And you're like, oh shit, I have that subscription. I don't even need that anymore. So that's a good way to get rid of that.

Speaker 3 (00:04:43) - Yeah, you should get in touch with your bookkeeper that you're going to hire, and you're going to have them constantly monitor this to make sure that you should have a review every single year, at least about your subscription.

Speaker 3 (00:04:52) - So make sure you do that. Next thing is stuff you don't want to do. If you don't want to do it, then you should not be doing it. It's a pretty simple thing and we do it every day we find ourselves, oh my gosh, I got to do this again. And then what happens is you never do it right. No matter how good your task system is, it doesn't matter. You're just not going to do it. So stop doing the things you don't want to do. Delegate those things.

Speaker 2 (00:05:13) - You'll notice if you pay attention that some of our stop doings are contradictory. Right? And and it's because different people in this room are at different stages and are having different experiences. So. Take what you like and leave the rest always. But this is one that I think we can all agree on. Ignoring your hobbies. Ignore your hobbies at your peril. You've got to have some kind of outlet besides exercise. I think it's something that you just do to get your mind off things.

Speaker 2 (00:05:37) - I like to work on Legos, the Star Wars Legos with the kids, or go to their softball games with no more play practice with nor. So you've got to have other things to do just to stay balanced.

Speaker 3 (00:05:46) - Repetitive tasks. If you find that you're doing something over and over and over again, automate it. It's pretty simple. Stop doing repetitive task or delegated to somebody.

Speaker 2 (00:05:54) - You should not be doing the initial screening of hires. You should not be doing the initial screening of hires. You should be higher up in the food chain. You should be later on in the process. So you don't want to be the ones doing that initial screening. Let somebody else do it. Even if there's only two of you and you're hiring a third person, let somebody else do that initial screening, get their impressions of the people, and that'll cut down on the time you spend in interviews.

Speaker 3 (00:06:15) - Alex, are you still in the room? What's the name of the program you use for videos? Interviewers? I can allow you to screen a lot of those interviews.

Speaker 3 (00:06:24) - Really good, really good tip ordering supplies. You should have an office administrator for that. If you are ordering supplies, you should have an office administrator. The mail.

Speaker 2 (00:06:32) - Now, I was just talking to Cain earlier that I started in the mailroom at a law firm before I went to law school, but you don't need to be doing the mail anymore. Lets somebody else do the mail, even if it's a service.

Speaker 3 (00:06:42) - Oh, this one's big. And hopefully end of yesterday with Dr. Selke and then Gwynn this morning hopefully, you know that negative self-talk is very destructive. Stop doing it. Do some of the stuff that with the PCT and the SF. If you find yourself doing the PCT, apply the SF. If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch the video when it comes out in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (00:07:01) - Generating invoices. Now, if you're in a place in a firm where you're doing billable hours and you need to check over the invoices, that's just fine. But don't be the one to actually do the mechanical work of generating the invoices.

Speaker 2 (00:07:11) - That comes from Russ and Devin from the guild. Make sure that you let somebody else do that.

Speaker 3 (00:07:16) - Absolutely. If you have things in your firm that a VA can do, go ahead and hire a VA to do it. It's going to free up your people in the States. If if your VA's are overseas, it's going to free up their time to do more meaningful tasks. So stop doing that work that a VA can do.

Speaker 2 (00:07:33) - This one got a ton of tears in the side of the guild when we were talking about it. Too many practice areas. So this is something we talk about a lot. There have been plenty of presentations on Niching down, but when Ron told the story of how he had given up one of his practice areas, like everybody was cheering. So the sooner you can do that, the better.

Speaker 3 (00:07:49) - It's a great one. Immediately updating clients. This is from Heather Ford. A lot of the things that whenever it happens on a case, you don't have to immediately pick up the phone if you don't want.

Speaker 3 (00:07:57) - I mean, you really don't need to pick up the phone to call your clients. Let them know right away. You can have your staff do it, or it can wait till the next day. You don't have to do it immediately.

Speaker 2 (00:08:04) - I think we can say one other thing you should stop doing is using the same slide twice, because we had that one twice, apparently. So it.

Speaker 3 (00:08:10) - Was similar. It wasn't the same. They were similar.

Speaker 2 (00:08:12) - This comes from my friend's presentation two years ago. Stop the bullshit. So just stop the bullshit. Stop telling yourself all these things that aren't true. Be real. Be accurate with your thinking.

Speaker 3 (00:08:23) - I think this may be Jim's problem. Saying yes too often, saying yes to things. It's okay to say no. You're not going to hurt people's feelings. People tell me no all the time. It's completely fine.

Speaker 2 (00:08:33) - I came home with a sweatshirt that said yes on it in huge letters, and a money started yelling at me and said, no, no, you can't wear that chasing shiny object.

Speaker 2 (00:08:42) - So chasing shiny objects. This is another gym issue. I don't know if anyone else here suffers from chasing shiny objects, but I often find myself distracted by the next cool thing. I will say that I've been with File Vine longer than any other piece of software, and I've had some employees with me very long time, but generally I'm always on to the next thing.

Speaker 3 (00:09:04) - Or the next thing. Again, ignoring financials. Ignore your financials at your peril. I cannot stress this enough. If you want to scale your firm, pay attention to your financials, get a financial advisor, work with your accountant. You need to have financial experts helping you with your financials.

Speaker 2 (00:09:19) - One of my favorite presentations of the whole weekend was Bill Ferris's presentation on Setting Expectations. And I think that's so important. But along those lines, allowing clients to push you around, one of the there are many, many reasons why you should have lots of clients. But the best one is, is that it gives you the freedom to fire them when they're terrible.

Speaker 2 (00:09:37) - Right? So do not allow clients to push you around. And just like Jack Welch was saying, that he always is looking to get rid of the lowest performing employees. I think you need to think you need to regularly review who the clients are that are pushing you around, or pushing your staff around.

Speaker 3 (00:09:53) - By raising hands. Be honest. Who has an underperforming employee?

Speaker 4 (00:09:58) - Uh oh.

Speaker 3 (00:10:00) - I mean, you make some tough decisions and find another opportunity for them. You should not be keeping under-performing employees.

Speaker 2 (00:10:06) - Yeah. And to that point, I was saying to somebody today that the one thing about people that come to Max is that when the business owners go home, some people are getting promoted. Some people are getting fired, and you're usually going to the bookstore to buy a bunch of new books. But yeah, underperforming team members need to go and you can do it kindly. Like you said, skipping the gym. So this is something that I suffer from. This was actually one from Amani, my wife.

Speaker 2 (00:10:30) - Skip the gym at your peril. You got to do that. You got to take care of your body. You got to get your muscles moving and your body moving.

Speaker 3 (00:10:37) - This one's from Becca. Waiting for the time to be right. It's never going to be right. Jump on it. Act now. Get act now.

Speaker 2 (00:10:45) - We talked before about software hopping, but this is a real thing. I mean, we've been doing some analysis lately about how much it cost us when a good employee leaves or even when a bad employee leaves, we need someone to do. What's the analysis of how much productivity do you lose by jumping from one piece of software to another? We had one piece of software that we were we were on, and Amani said, I'm going to wait six months to see if you're still on it before I start to learn it. And for that particular one, we were already off it by the time, so she never had to learn it.

Speaker 3 (00:11:13) - This one's from Elise. She just doesn't know it.

Speaker 3 (00:11:16) - Letting Eloise tell you what to do. That voice in your head is lying to you. Stop listening to it, okay? Stop letting Eloise control your life.

Speaker 2 (00:11:26) - Number 34 not systematizing routine tasks. We just had a wonderful presentation on that very subject, so we'll move right on to 35. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (00:11:34) - Quit making excuses, okay? Quit making excuses. Does you? No. Good.

Speaker 2 (00:11:39) - Number 36 focusing on the problem. Dr. Silk's presentation yesterday I thought was fantastic. If you didn't catch it, definitely. Everyone has a copy of the book. Make sure you watch it when you get the recordings. But that whole mindset shift from focus on the solution versus the problem was huge.

Speaker 3 (00:11:55) - Stop putting yourself last, okay? The reality is you should be putting yourself first. We're taught to to be more modest and not do that. You've got to stop putting yourself last. You should be first and everything else will fall in line. You got to be able to take care of your family. You got to take care of your health.

Speaker 3 (00:12:09) - All that starts with you.

Speaker 2 (00:12:11) - Tyson came up with 37 and 38. When I first saw him, I thought they were the same one. But paying yourself last is actually something that a lot of you talk about, and that should be alarming. I think if you're going to do that, it should only be for a limited amount of time. You cannot do that for too long and you got to give yourself a deadline. On this date, I'm going to start paying myself, even if it's only $500 a week. You've got to make sure that you're getting paid, no question.

Speaker 3 (00:12:34) - Avoiding those tough conversations in our guild hot seat the other day, there were some tough conversations that need to be had. Once people left and they went and had those conversations, they've already reported back to me, and some really good things are happening in their firms because they had the courage to have those conversations. You should.

Speaker 2 (00:12:51) - Too. Overcompensating. I would say we don't see that this much in our community, but it is a problem where people are trying to show off or be bigger than they really are.

Speaker 2 (00:12:59) - That point that Elise was making yesterday about just being honest and honestly assessing where you are and leading with your vulnerability, it's so much more impressive and so much easier to connect to a person who's being vulnerable and honest versus pounding on their chest saying how great they are.

Speaker 3 (00:13:13) - So I hit the button. That's fine. Another one is hitting the snooze bar. This is kicking the can down the road. Quit kicking the can down the road. Quit hitting the snooze bar. Take care of the action now.

Speaker 2 (00:13:22) - Trying to be somebody else. There's a lot of comparison that can happen, especially in the guild or especially as you come to a conference like this. You see people on stage. There's only one of you, and I honestly believe that. People say, why do you give away all your systems? Why do you give away all of your approaches? Why did you tell us everything you know about email marketing? Because no one's going to send the same email as me and it's fine. No one's going to do the same marketing as me.

Speaker 2 (00:13:45) - Just be yourself and the people. Your tribe will will gather around you because they like what you have to say, and you're not going to be there for everybody.

Speaker 3 (00:13:54) - Forgetting the people that got you here. When you go home, I want you to hug your loved ones, your spouse, your significant other, your kids, and thank them for allowing you to come here and learn so much. They're the ones that are helping you get here. They've gotten you here. Thank them. Right. Your team members thank them. Remember those people who's.

Speaker 2 (00:14:12) - Been to the doctor and waited for an hour, an hour and a half to get into the doctor? Don't do that to people. Don't do that to people. Over scheduling is a real problem, and it's an outward facing client facing problem that really, really pisses people off.

Speaker 3 (00:14:26) - Blaming others. Okay, it's really easy to blame people on your team for not doing something right. You might want to look in the mirror and say, maybe that was my fault.

Speaker 3 (00:14:36) - Maybe I should have done a little bit better job of training. Quit blaming other people for other things.

Speaker 2 (00:14:41) - Getting in your own way. There are so many ways that we get in our own way. I thought Dr. Stewart's presentation this morning and Jason's presentation last night about all the chatter that goes on in our head and how there's Dr. Stewart, talked about their activity and there's quiet time and. Just you can really block yourself by getting so caught up in the activity that you're not in that quiet time at all.

Speaker 3 (00:15:03) - Next is this is from the Sandy van playbook. Making your own travel arrangements. You could hire a VA that just does this. So quit making your own travel plans when you come to Max law. Next time when you go to one of the masterminds, have a VA do it. Take care of all the travel for you. Have. Have a list of rules for your travel and have them arrange it.

Speaker 2 (00:15:22) - I think number 48 is one of the most important in the whole list, and that's putting the urgent ahead of the essential.

Speaker 2 (00:15:28) - Stephen Covey talks about the the tyranny of, of the little task that you have to do immediately and how that, that just overwhelms everything. So you might be running your firm right now, urgent matter to urgent matter. And I get that right. But if you can't outright start working on the essential long term things, carve out some time each day. And like Dr. Selke said just to, how can we make it a little bit better tomorrow? But you've got to start carving out time. 15 minutes, 15 minutes, five times a week is an hour and 15 minutes. You can get a lot done to improve your systems so that the urgent comes down.

Speaker 3 (00:16:05) - This is I'll give I'll make another Dr. Selke reference where sweating the small stuff that is that weak minded thinking. Strong minded people do not sweat the small stuff. Stop sweating the small stuff.

Speaker 2 (00:16:17) - How many people have a day go by or two days go by? Or even I've had two weeks go by where I just realized I've been operating on autopilot.

Speaker 2 (00:16:25) - I've just been going, going, going from thing to thing, thing to thing without a whole lot of awareness. Don't do that. Try to break that pattern.

Speaker 3 (00:16:32) - Forgetting gratitude. This is a really good one. We do this every day at the dinner table. I really recommend that you do something similar and encouraging your children. If you have children to do something similar, like starting out with it, because it can be really, really easy to go weeks and months without really not thinking about being appreciative for your circumstances. So at the end of this, you know, do some gratitude internally and be appreciative of where you are.

Speaker 2 (00:16:57) - This should be don't fail to celebrate your wins. I think a lot of people don't celebrate their wins in two ways. One, they don't celebrate their wins with their team. And I'm talking about on a case by case basis or a firm improvement basis. They don't celebrate it with their team enough, and they also don't celebrate their wins publicly. So for me, the greatest content that I come up with is when I talk about success stories of our clients.

Speaker 2 (00:17:23) - That's the best thing that people love to read about. The clients love it. So I would encourage you to don't forget to do that.

Speaker 3 (00:17:31) - This next one is Thinking small and it's it's a lot like that middle or middle class mindset. Right? You think that your your ceiling is down here in reality it's really up here. But you're thinking down here. So you need to stop talking to yourself that way and thinking small.

Speaker 2 (00:17:46) - This next one, 54, is also one that came from Ron. Is that, as you know, who has had that situation where somebody contacts you might you might need a little bit of money to make your nut for the month. And it's a little bit outside your practice area, or it's something you're trying to get rid of and you just say, oh, I can just take this one. That one case is going to prevent you. It's going to give you a whole lot of urgent, and it's going to prevent you from improving your systems on the things that you really want to be doing.

Speaker 2 (00:18:10) - So you've just got to actively say, no.

Speaker 3 (00:18:13) - Jimbo, we have a duplicate forgetting your hobbies. So I'll skip over to the next one. Yeah, comparing yourself to others. This is so, so terrible for you. It really is. You think, oh my gosh, that other lawyer on the other side of town, they're just killing it. They're making so much more money than I am. Stop it. Because you have no idea. You need to focus on yourself. What can you do and not focus on other people?

Speaker 2 (00:18:36) - All right, so number 57 comes from my son Yusuf, who's sitting back there with the big fro. And so when he was in Montessori, when he was five, we had a check in with his kindergarten teacher and we said, Mrs. Huisman, how's Yusuf doing? And so at Montessori, it's very kid driven activity. What do you want to do? And you get to go and do that. And so he had a lot of kindergarten activities, and we asked Mrs. Hillsman, how is Yusuf doing? And she said, oh, he's just a wonderful boy.

Speaker 2 (00:19:03) - He's a wonderful boy. She said, but you know what? Sometimes we find him down with the three year old's. Really? What's he doing down there? He's polishing the silver. That was one of the little tasks that they could do. They could actually polish old silver. And we've developed that. Yusuf doesn't know. We've developed that into a whole concept inside the guild, which is when you develop an expertise and you like to go back to do things that are easy or that were fun or comfortable that you used to do, like almost in a nostalgic way, like, like for me, sometimes, like I'm not really learning anything, going to another citizenship interview, it's not really a great use of my time, but sometimes I like to do it. Don't do that too much. Don't polish the silver too much.

Speaker 3 (00:19:43) - The next one is delaying the inevitable. If you have a tough decision that needs to be made today, make the decision today. If you've got something bad you need to tell to a client or an employee, make the decision today because mentally it's just going to eat you up.

Speaker 2 (00:19:56) - As I mentioned, one of my. Presentations was bills yesterday. And that's overpromising or under delivering two sides of the same coin. You are setting yourself up for big headaches by overpromising.

Speaker 3 (00:20:10) - Totally agree. Next one is always giving an answer right away. Sometimes it takes some time to think, right. You've got to. You've got to think about things. So when you're talking to a vendor or a client or an employee, it's okay to say, hey, let me think about it overnight and I'll get back to you. So you don't need to give an answer right away.

Speaker 2 (00:20:29) - Don't sit at your desk all day, you know, move around. You can go on walking meetings with people to two people walking together. You're not even face to face. There's a different level of clarity that comes when you're walking with a colleague. You can also get a standing desk, and you can even just move into a comfortable chair, as opposed to your desk chair.

Speaker 3 (00:20:46) - I like this one. I don't watch the news anymore.

Speaker 3 (00:20:48) - And I and Jim, I've noticed a difference from in him since he stopped watching the news. He doesn't rage tweet as much as he used to. So it's just not productive these days. It's you can get your news other way elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (00:21:00) - Things like file buying are great software that we that allows us to stay in contact with our clients or our cases is great, but now we can bring our whole law firm home in our pocket. In the old days when I wanted, if I wanted to work on a brief, I had to save it on a disk, bring it home, put it in my pocket, bring it home, plug it in, edit it, then come back, delete the old one and reinstall it. Right. But now we have our whole law firms in our pocket. Literally. Try not to do that. Try not to bring your work home. Try to have clear boundaries with your time.

Speaker 3 (00:21:27) - And this will help with that. Keeping the phone notifications turned on. Turn that off.

Speaker 3 (00:21:32) - If you're getting email alerts on your phones, turn it off because you know it's driving me nuts, right? You're trying to watch a presentation and a phone alert comes up, and then another one and another one turn them off. They're not productive. Pick a time during the day to check your email. That's how you should check your email.

Speaker 2 (00:21:46) - We got this from a couple of guild members, including Cade checking the bank account every day. That's just not good for lots of reasons. You're either going to stress out or be overreliant on it. Don't. Don't spend that time checking the bank account every day.

Speaker 3 (00:21:58) - This is one of my favorites keeping toxic people in your life. If you have people that are bringing you down on a daily basis and you're constantly thinking about those people, cut them out of your life. It sounds harsh, but it's it's what you should do.

Speaker 2 (00:22:08) - This one's for my wife, so maybe I should take a lesson from it. Just don't go to bed mad. I think it's great advice.

Speaker 2 (00:22:13) - Try to work things out beforehand. And speaking of bed, here's a bonus one. Since we have that duplicate, if you wake up in the morning thinking about the same problem person three times in a row and they're not your spouse, you need to get rid of that person out of your life.

Speaker 3 (00:22:26) - It's good advice spending money you don't have. If you're putting everything on credit cards, stop doing that, okay? That means you you've got something going on and you need to talk to your account and figure it out. Stop spending money you don't have.

Speaker 2 (00:22:36) - Glory days, glory days. Forget your glory days. Whatever you did in the past, whatever great things you've achieved doesn't mean shit. There's someone else coming. Someone younger, someone leaner, someone cooler, someone smarter, someone more technologically savvy. They're coming to get you. So whatever you did, you're 50 years of combined experience. Nobody gives a crap.

Speaker 3 (00:22:55) - And if you have employees that keep trying to drag you into the past, you might have to have some tough conversations.

Speaker 3 (00:22:59) - You know, I really I really like things the way they used to be. Well, that could you might have to have those tough conversations fighting every battle. You've got employees that work for you. Send them out to battle. Let them battle. Okay. That's why you've hired them. You don't need to fight every battle.

Speaker 2 (00:23:16) - Or you can choose not to have some battles.

Speaker 3 (00:23:18) - That's also.

Speaker 2 (00:23:19) - True. So anyone trying to please everyone and Andrew gave us this one, trying to please everyone. You're never going to please everyone, so don't even try.

Speaker 3 (00:23:26) - Manage your own email inbox. I think all of you know my opinion on email. I'm not a fan of it. You should not be handling your own emails. If you have someone answering your phones, you should have someone answering your email.

Speaker 2 (00:23:36) - I believe I've said this at every max law con that most law firms that I encounter are woefully understaffed. We're asking, and this is including my law firm. We're asking too much from our team members, and we need more help.

Speaker 2 (00:23:52) - So don't be scared to hire.

Speaker 3 (00:23:56) - Ignoring your best referral sources, you should have a list of your best referral sources and check in with them on a daily or a weekly or monthly or quarterly basis. That way you can maintain that referral relationship.

Speaker 2 (00:24:08) - Micromanaging can be a form of polishing the silver, where you're trying to get other people to do things the way you used to do them, or you want them to do them. Micromanaging will eat up all of your productivity.

Speaker 3 (00:24:17) - Stop procrastinating. I know that for those of you that have ADHD or other things, it's one of those things that can you you've got to find other ways to to get around the procrastination. I know it's really, really difficult, but procrastination is very destructive. Stop procrastinating.

Speaker 2 (00:24:32) - And Beck is like, that's coming from the two guys who finished their slides this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:24:36) - That's right. Exactly right.

Speaker 2 (00:24:38) - Trying to do everything. Don't be trying to do everything. You can't be everything to everybody, and don't try to do everything. And that's on the macro level of practice areas or everything related to your firm or just on the day to day basis.

Speaker 3 (00:24:50) - This was from Jim's great presentation yesterday, sending blow horn emails to your list. They don't care. Quit sitting those blown emails. They just don't care about you beating your chest.

Speaker 2 (00:24:59) - Stop making it all about you. When I tried my first case, I kept coming back. My my mentor was sitting next to me, and I kept. I kept asking her, how am I doing? How am I doing? It is not about you. And that's true about everything related to your firm. It's not about you. It's about the best interests of your client, fighting for your clients and building a good atmosphere for your team to work.

Speaker 3 (00:25:20) - Next one is wasting money on garbage vendors. I'm not going to ask for you to raise your hands on this one, but I know some of you are spending money on vendors that are not making you any money. You need to get rid of them.

Speaker 2 (00:25:29) - Our friend Jay Rain gets a lot of work done late at night, but most people, I think, do much better when they get up early.

Speaker 2 (00:25:34) - So I think going to bed too late is a little take on getting enough sleep. I think if you want to decrease your stress, go to bed a little bit early er and get up a little bit earlier.

Speaker 3 (00:25:45) - This one's pretty self-explanatory. Quit dropping bombs on your team, just especially if you're doing it on a on a weekly basis. You are going to push them out of your firms. Quit dropping those bombs on them.

Speaker 2 (00:25:55) - Stop taking your problems out on your team. You know, I was in this little resentful period where I was thinking some people weren't carrying their weight. And at the end of the day, as a law firm owner, every problem is our everything is our fault. Anything that's wrong with our law firm is our fault. Nobody else is.

Speaker 3 (00:26:11) - Hiring crazy people. And it might be crazy people, might be bad employees, but you need to have a filtering process to prevent you from hiring crazy employees. So stop hiring them.

Speaker 2 (00:26:21) - Stop skipping your vacations. Stop denying yourself time to rest and relax.

Speaker 2 (00:26:26) - Stop skipping your weekends. Make time for yourself and you've got to have. I'm a big believer in working really hard when you're working and relaxing really hard when you're relaxing.

Speaker 3 (00:26:36) - Totally agree. Ignoring your team's mental health. Not just your mental health, but your team's mental health. Thinking about the decisions that you're making that affect them, what's going on in their lives and stop. Ignore them. Having those those regular conversations with them is important.

Speaker 2 (00:26:49) - Overanalyzing everything. Number 87. We see so many people who just think about things, think about things, think about things. It's just an excuse. It's just a way to avoid taking action.

Speaker 3 (00:27:00) - So next one forgetting to get that Google review, you need to have a system in place for getting a Google review, especially at the end of a case. So you got to make sure you make the ask. I know it's uncomfortable for you to make the ask, maybe, but have an employee do it instead. Make the ask for that Google review.

Speaker 5 (00:27:15) - Stop cutting.

Speaker 2 (00:27:16) - Corners. It takes time to build a practice. We see a lot of people, especially after a weekend like this. They want to just jump ahead and be like the people that they see that are really kicking butt. Don't do that. Take your time, build it right, build. Build the support structure for what it is that you want to achieve.

Speaker 3 (00:27:35) - We're on the homestretch here, Jimbo. Refusing to give yourself a break. Give yourself some grace, okay? What we do is tough. It's not easy. We get you get angry clients. You got defense attorneys that are terrible. It can be a tough job. Give yourself a break.

Speaker 2 (00:27:48) - Maintain clear boundaries with your clients. Let's go. We got a minute left. Let's knock them out. So definitely maintaining clear boundaries with your clients is really important.

Speaker 3 (00:27:56) - Underpaying your team. Okay? And you know who you are. Okay? Give your team a raise. Pay them more money. They'll stick around. You'll attract more talent. Quit underpaying your team.

Speaker 2 (00:28:06) - If everything is important, nothing's important. You've got to be able to say no to most things and to prioritize.

Speaker 3 (00:28:12) - Overstimulating with caffeine or any other substances. Stop doing. It's not good for you. It's not good for your firm. It's not good for your family.

Speaker 2 (00:28:19) - Kelsey Bratcher has taught me many things, but the number one thing that he's taught me that is purely evil is duplicating your data, having to re-enter data over and over. So you've got to use Zapier or other tools to push your data all the way through your system using voicemail.

Speaker 3 (00:28:33) - I know you all may think I'm crazy about this. You can not leave a voicemail with our firm. It is amazing. So get rid of it. Find a way for it. Get an answering service. Have your team answer it. Do not have voicemail 10s left.

Speaker 2 (00:28:44) - Stop resisting change, settling and not joining the guild.

Speaker 1 (00:28:53) - 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 (00:29:05) - Have a great week and catch you next time!

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Meet Aaron Levinson, a former prosecuting attorney who recently launched his own law firm. Aaron's journey from being a prosecutor to starting his own firm is a testament to his determination and resilience. Listen into this episode where Jim and Tyson dive deep into how and what Aaron did to start his own law firm. 

Jim’s Hack: When people show you who they really are, believe them the first time. As it relates to potential new clients.

Aaron’s Tip: Say “Yes!” and be open minded and experience new opportunities.

Tyson’s Tip: Use ChatGPT upgrade where it talks back to you in a conversation

Episode Highlights:

  • 01:06 Aaron’s transition from being a prosecutor to starting his own law practice
  • 07:22 Starting his own firm 
  • 09:53 Aaron discusses his plans and observations while still working as a prosecutor, and the steps he took to prepare for starting his own law firm
  • 11:12 Aaron talks about the different mindset required for being a prosecutor versus a criminal defense attorney and how he approached the moral quandaries of each role
  • 16:57 Aaron discusses the unexpected aspects of running his own law practice, including the supportive network of attorneys and the misconceptions he had about competition. He also shares his plans for future hires

Connect with Aaron:

Resources:

Transcripts: From Prosecutor to Law Firm Owner with Aaron Levinson

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

Speaker 2 (00:00:24) - Welcome back to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. I'm Jim Hacking.

Speaker 3 (00:00:28) - And I'm Tyson Matrix. Jimmy you got some got some umph to your voice today. What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:00:33) - I've been up since 4 a.m., my friend. I've been up since 4 a.m.. I've already been to the gym. I've already journaled. I've already meditated. I am on track for a kick ass day.

Speaker 3 (00:00:43) - Nice. I've done the gym. I've not done the meditation and all the journaling and all the stuff you've done. But I'm ready for the day too. So you ready for our guest? Yes, sir. All right, so our guest today is Aaron Levenson. Aaron is someone that I've had cases with. He's a former prosecuting attorney. He's launched his own law practice, which we will get into in a little bit.

Speaker 3 (00:01:06) - Aaron, welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (00:01:08) - Thank you, gentlemen so much for having me. Delighted to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:01:11) - Before Jason got on, Aaron and I were talking about the world of criminal prosecutions and defense, and I'm really glad that I don't handle those kinds of cases. But, Aaron, I'm really glad you joined us. Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about your transition from being a prosecutor and sort of what led you to open your own firm.

Speaker 4 (00:01:29) - Absolutely. So I was a prosecutor for 11 years, and for most of that time I really loved my job and was passionate about it. But there are a lot of things about being a prosecutor that began to grind on me after a while, and I think that's a factor of working for the government. You're always kind of at someone else's behest. You have to do a lot of things you don't necessarily want to do or not super interested in, and I really started to get the itch to be my own boss. And that meant that when I felt like my time as a prosecutor was coming to an end, I wasn't looking at joining someone else's firm.

Speaker 4 (00:02:04) - I was looking at starting my own firm and really creating something for me.

Speaker 3 (00:02:07) - So, Eric, tell us a little bit about the the journey, though. So you were a prosecutor. You've moved. So talk about that. So you go from prosecutor, prosecutor then starting your own firm. So tell us about that and what that's been like.

Speaker 4 (00:02:24) - Absolutely. So I went to law school at Washington University in Saint Louis. And I like Saint Louis. And I stuck around there for six years. I was a prosecutor in the city of Saint Louis, got some great trial experience, met you. You know, I enjoyed my time there. We ended up moving to Cincinnati because my wife matched for her residency there. And so it was just a personal matter. Didn't have anything to do with my career, but I really had to start from scratch again when I moved here. And so I started working in the Kent and Commonwealth Attorney's Office that's in Northern Kentucky, right across the river from Cincinnati. And I had to rebuild a whole new network.

Speaker 4 (00:03:03) - And so that meant my reputation from Saint Louis didn't follow me, and that I had to start from scratch. And it took me a while to do. But, you know, as I was doing that, I was I was making these connections that would come back to be so helpful. As I was starting to get this idea in my mind that I wanted to have my own firm, and after a long time of doing the same thing, you kind of want something different. And so part of the reason why being a prosecutor wore on me was just because I'd been doing it for a long time, and I needed to change the scenery, I needed I needed something different. And I had the opportunity to work with and, and see how many different practitioners conducted their business, people that work for firms, people that had their own firms. And I got to to kind of decide how I wanted to move going forward, and used a lot of those people's role models and mentors and friends.

Speaker 2 (00:03:53) - Aaron, we've had a surprisingly high number of attorneys join Maximum Lawyer and go out on their own from government practice and specifically from the prosecutor's office.

Speaker 2 (00:04:02) - And it makes me think about your philosophy and what you said about building a new network when you move to Ohio, Kentucky, and in my experience, prosecutors, there's sort of tends to be two different kinds of prosecutors. One are like true believers who think the government's always right and are going to do everything they can to crush their opposition and just be very, very difficult. And then you have these other kind of prosecutors who sort of realized that they have a reputation to maintain or to build, that they get things done much more easily and efficiently. If they can act like human beings and talk to people like real people and sort of see the global picture and know that, you know, what goes around, comes around, can you talk to us a little bit about that? And then we'll sort of dive into your private practice?

Speaker 4 (00:04:50) - Absolutely, absolutely. So I think that you're absolutely right. There are different prosecutors and different approaches to it. I had some great mentors, particularly in Saint Louis when I was still young and up and coming attorney, and in Saint Louis, we were we were just so busy and that if you took every everything personally and got riled up about every issue, you would just never have time to work on the serious cases that matter.

Speaker 4 (00:05:15) - And so when you're a prosecutor, integrity is the most important thing. And I think that's true. That carries on to to any job you do. So you have to take your job seriously. But that doesn't mean every case is equally important. Or you need to pick a fight about everything. And I think the best prosecutors are people that have some perspective on what matters, what does and what's worth pursuing, what's not worth pursuing. And so I'm lucky that I learned from from some attorneys that were great about that. I had a mentor that used to say, in this life, in this, in this profession, there are there are mice and there are elephants. And you can spend all of your time chasing the mice, trying to trap the mice, or you can go after the elephants. And by the elephants he meant the big cases, the cases that matter, the cases they're high profile, the serious cases. But if you spend all your time picking fights with people over stuff, that doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 (00:06:06) - You're going to drop the ball when it comes to the stuff that does. And so I've always behaved in a way that I think was consistent with that. And I think people really appreciated that. I've always been very straight up with with people I will not necessarily give. When I was a prosecutor, I wouldn't necessarily give defense attorneys what they want, but I would give them a straight answer in one way or another. If something wasn't possible, I would tell them that. And I think people appreciate directness and and truthfulness in a way that often gets overlooked. But it is so important.

Speaker 3 (00:06:36) - I really like the idea of the mice versus the elephants. I'm going to I'm going to use that. I'm going to steal that. It's pretty good.

Speaker 4 (00:06:42) - Yeah. Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (00:06:44) - I want to ask you, because you go to law school in Saint Louis, you start your professional career in Saint Louis. So your professional network is in Saint Louis. You move to a different city. You start practicing as a prosecuting attorney in that different city.

Speaker 3 (00:07:01) - So you have no private practice experience. And so what gave you the confidence? Because, I mean, I got to say, it's impressive with what you've been able to do. What gave you the confidence to go out on your own in a fairly new city with no private practice experience? I mean, that's a pretty gutsy thing to do.

Speaker 4 (00:07:22) - Thank you, thank you. It was a combination of things. As you know, I'm a trial attorney, and trial attorneys have a little bit of arrogance and a little cocky. And, you know, I believe in my own abilities. So that was that was part of it, something that my wife and I did a couple of years ago, which has given me a lot of a lot of confidence as well, is we started investing in real estate, nothing big. But, you know, we basically have been running a business for a couple of years, and I didn't really think of it that way at the time. I was just thinking of it as, as like, you know, another form of investing.

Speaker 4 (00:07:54) - But like then I kind of stepped back and it's a different way of thinking about the world. It's a different way of, of behaving than most people do. But, you know, I thought, I've already started one business, you know, what is a second? I have these skills, I know what I'm doing. I can do it myself. And so it is a pretty big leap starting your own law firm. But I think the fact that I'd been doing a different business on my own made it slightly less scary in terms of the logistics of criminal law, there are some things that make it a little less scary being out on your own as well. So I am on two conflict panels, so I have guaranteed money coming in each month. So I take cases for the Campbell County, which is Newport, Kentucky and the surrounding areas, and Hamilton County, which is Cincinnati, Ohio. And I get assigned a certain amount of cases per month or just over a period from those jurisdictions. So there's a there's a tremendous fear when you're starting out.

Speaker 4 (00:08:53) - There's going to be nothing coming in. How will I pay the bills? And I didn't really have that as much because I was able to. I mean, a lot of this is from using my network, but to to make sure that I had a base where I could build off of. But I wasn't going to be just going from zero.

Speaker 2 (00:09:10) - So let's talk about the build up to launching the firm. And then the first six months after the firm opened, what were those days like what? How? You know, some people have a binder and have rules and everything that they're going to do from the day they open and other people just sort of shoot from the hip and get going. So how much prep time did you have and what did the first six months look like?

Speaker 4 (00:09:34) - So the prep time, I mean, in my head, psychologically, I had a couple of years because I knew this was something I wanted to do. So I was a prosecutor for 11 years, and part of the reason I stuck around as long as I did is I had a lot of student loans, and I did the public service loan forgiveness, so I always had a ticking clock in the back of my mind.

Speaker 4 (00:09:53) - And so even if I wasn't making concrete plans, I had in my mind that this was an option of something that I wanted to do, and I just pay attention when I was in court or with other attorneys and see what they did that I liked or didn't like. In terms of the actual logistics of it, there was a lot of stuff that I did, but there's always stuff that, you know, when I started out, I wish I did this, I wish I did that, but, you know, a lot of the things start happening once you get the ball rolling, like I. Am sharing office space with some attorneys that I started working with actually working against on a criminal case, and I really liked them. They're nice guys, you know, we kept up the communication when our case went away and they had an open office. And, you know, their business is separate from my business, but I'm with them. So I was able to get office space that way. I was able to use my network to start getting connections, get on the conflict panel.

Speaker 4 (00:10:47) - I was able to, you know, I created my LLC. I did all of those things getting ready. But there are just some things you really can't do. And I was always very cognizant of the fact that while I was still a prosecutor and I didn't really take a break off between being a prosecutor and starting my own firm, that there were some things that I did not feel comfortable doing. And so there's just a lot of stuff that, that I couldn't really get going on until I started my own firm.

Speaker 3 (00:11:12) - So I have a mindset question because and just to me, it's like, for example, like personal injury attorneys versus insurance defense attorneys, it just takes a different mindset to do one side or the other. And I was kind of thinking the same thing, like with prosecutors versus criminal defense attorneys, it takes a different mindset. So did you find that as the same where there's just a different mindset? And if so, how did you overcome that? Because it it's a different it's almost like a different way of viewing the world.

Speaker 4 (00:11:42) - I think I didn't have that issue really, because, you know, right now I am not taking the most serious of cases. And it's not that I wouldn't, but I, you know, I just haven't haven't gotten them yet. Those tend to be the, the high dollar cases. They're looking for defense attorneys with more proven track record. But, you know, I was handling some very serious cases as a prosecutor and some not serious cases. And it was always a lot easier to prosecute the very serious cases because you don't really have so much of a moral conundrum. Right. But there's plenty of times where I'm wondering, is this worthwhile? Is this really for the best of society? Is this a big deal? Do we need to prosecute it? And maybe that was just me as a prosecutor, but for me now is a defense attorney. It's very easy. You know, it, especially on the lower level stuff like it's very easy to work for the client. I work for the client.

Speaker 4 (00:12:31) - I'm just representing them. They have a constitutional right and they may not have done it even if they did it. Do they deserve the punishment that they might be getting? So I never really had a struggle with that. I it might be more of a moral quandary when you get to the very serious cases, but for me, it it hasn't really been an issue.

Speaker 2 (00:12:50) - You're listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Our guest today, criminal defense lawyer Aaron Levinson. Aaron talked to us a little bit about. What it was like to actually have clients for the first time. Like, you know, when when you're a prosecutor, you have to deal with the families of the victims and those kinds of things or the victims themselves, I guess. What was it like to actually have to worry about customer service or about keeping clients informed about their cases? I mean, that had to be a big shift.

Speaker 4 (00:13:18) - Yeah, that was a change. I mean, to be honest, the toughest part was the money talk, right? Because that's not something I'd ever had ever been a part of, figuring out the right way to quote, the right way to collect.

Speaker 4 (00:13:30) - I mean, that's that's an unusual thing for someone who's always been in the public sector and not something that I would ever see. I think most people could figure out pretty quick from talking to me, that I knew what I was talking about when it when it came to the, the actual practicing of law. So I felt much more comfortable when we were talking about like the merits of a case or defenses or things of that nature. But you're right. The running of a business is very different, and that's something I'm still working on. I mean, people are people. At the end of the day, as long as you kind of behave in a certain way and treat them with respect, most people are going to, you know, get along with you and or, you know, be straight with you. And so there's definitely been some changes, I think, the business side of it, more than the case law side of it, the actual practice side of it for me.

Speaker 3 (00:14:21) - I remember the first time I got a big stack of cash as a criminal defense attorney.

Speaker 3 (00:14:25) - It was just so it was so exciting to be. I remember it, and Jim talks about the first time he generated a lead through the website and how excited he was about that.

Speaker 4 (00:14:35) - Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:14:36) - It's really motivating. Did did you did you sort of experience that same thing?

Speaker 4 (00:14:41) - Oh, the first time I get handed a big stack of cash, I got so nervous and immediately drove to the bank to deposit it. I've never had that much cash in my hand before. It just didn't know what to do with it.

Speaker 3 (00:14:52) - It's really it's. Yeah, I think especially people who do criminal defense, you've experienced that, but so have you given any thought to to really what your plans are for the future. So we call it, you know, the vision or whatever. But have you, have you thought about that, about what you want for your law firm?

Speaker 4 (00:15:08) - Yes, absolutely. So I am spending an awful lot of time right now hustling between courtrooms and going here, there and everywhere. And I would definitely like to have an associate in the future, or maybe grow my firm to have potentially a partner and a few associates.

Speaker 4 (00:15:24) - I think in the criminal defense world, it never makes sense to have a really large firm, right, because there's so many benefits to having a smaller firm in that you can take conflict cases and and you're creating more conflicts if there's too many people in your firm. But there is so much there's a lot of volume in the criminal world, and there's a limit to what you can cover yourself. And there's also, like I was talking about before, the mice and the elephants. And right now I don't mind chasing the mice so much because I'm building up my reputation. Every court appearance I make, everywhere I show up, people are seeing me, seeing me in action, seeing what I can do. But I don't want that to be my firm. Five years, ten years down the line. I'd like to be a little more selective in the cases I take, and I'd like to have other people make court appearances and and do cases on behalf of my firm. So yes, I don't I don't want to grow exponentially, but I do want to grow the firm.

Speaker 2 (00:16:16) - What has surprised you the most about yourself as you stepped into this role of law firm owner defense attorney?

Speaker 4 (00:16:24) - I think how comfortable I am in the role, it's I was in government for a long time, and you get used to doing that. But I've really been inspired and motivated by working on my own, working for myself, working for my clients. And it's, you know, I get up and I'm excited to go in the morning. And that wasn't always the case as a prosecutor. And it's it's just it's kind of given me a new pep in my step. Has there been.

Speaker 3 (00:16:51) - Anything that you thought would be true, but wasn't quite true about running your own law practice?

Speaker 4 (00:16:57) - I don't know, there are so many misconceptions out there. I thought that there would be like a more of a cutthroat attitude between attorneys. Right? Like, in theory, you're all competing for the same piece of the pie. I think most attorneys are smart enough to know, you know, these are colleagues and hopefully friends that you'll work with and have an abundance mindset and help each other out.

Speaker 4 (00:17:18) - And I've certainly found that to be true. So I was initially like a little worried about sharing too many trade secrets. You know, obviously I have a lot of information about how prosecutor's offices work, how the office that I worked at specifically worked, and I wouldn't hesitate to use that for my my clients. But people have been so forthcoming and helpful to me. It's like, it's not like everyone guards their secrets and never, never share some. Everyone's got a slightly different perspective or expertise, but I've been truly amazed at how the network that I've built has just, you know, really stepped up to help me when I was building my firm. And it's been incredibly invaluable.

Speaker 2 (00:17:56) - Aaron, what's your next hire?

Speaker 3 (00:17:57) - That's a good one. I can't wait to hear this.

Speaker 4 (00:17:59) - The people I work with have a support staff person already, and I can imagine a situation where I will not have a support staff person for myself full time. But but like share paralegal, do something in that situation so I don't have to spend so many time filing motions and entries of parents and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (00:18:22) - But I think the next full time hire I would want to be would be an associate. So we can just really increase the volume of who's going to court the cases that we can take, what we can cover, that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (00:18:34) - It's funny because we had a conversation with someone in the guild just a couple of days ago about what model might make sense for, for criminal defense attorneys. And I would maybe at your level, maybe encourage maybe a different hire, maybe someone that does more of the office work while you're running around from court to court, but you're going to know better than we are just because it's your practice. But it's one of those things where it is nice having another, an associate that can can run and do things for you. That's a it's a massive benefit. But so it is a really tough one when it comes to criminal defense.

Speaker 4 (00:19:08) - Yeah. It's interesting too, because I know a lot of attorneys like share office support people, and I think that makes a lot of sense because in the civil world, often your paralegals are drafting significant motions or doing much more technical work.

Speaker 4 (00:19:22) - And the criminal world, I'm not sure how much of that I'd really outsource. There's a lot of like, filing generic motions, but it's not. I don't think it's as involved as some of the stuff I see the paralegal here working on. Yeah, it's a good point.

Speaker 3 (00:19:36) - All right. We are going to wrap things up though. We're getting close to time. Before I do wrap things up, I want to remind everyone to join us in the guild. If you want to have deep conversations and talk about marketing and running your practice. And there's been a lot of good tax advice lately, I've noticed in the guild. I don't know if you've noticed that, Jim, a lot of good tax advice in there, which is great. And then also, if you don't mind leaving us a five star review, we would really appreciate it. Help spread the love to others. Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?

Speaker 2 (00:20:08) - So I've been thinking a lot about the quote from my Angelou that many people know, which is when people show you who they are, believe them.

Speaker 2 (00:20:16) - And I went back and looked up the quote, and it actually goes a little bit further than that. And it's when people show you who they really are, believe them the first time, the first time. And that I think obviously sometimes people have a bad day and make a mistake. But I think about that quote in lots of different contexts. And the one I want to share today for my hack is when people show you who they are, believe them the first time as it relates to potential new clients. In my experience, people come in to the firm the way they're going to be. So if they're busting busting the chops of your intake people or if they're being very difficult or they're insisting on only speaking to Mr. Levinson or Mr. Matrix, then you know, you probably have a problem and it's someone who's going to be difficult all the way through. So when potential new clients show you who they are, believe them the first time.

Speaker 3 (00:21:09) - I like that one. It's funny because I think people do tend to leave that last part of it off.

Speaker 3 (00:21:15) - I have heard that quote before, but I'd forgotten that that's what the entire quote was. So that's a good it's a good reminder. All right, Aaron, we always ask our guests to give a tip or hack of the week. It could be a book. It could be a quote, it could be a podcast episode, you name it could be anything yet a tip or a hack for us.

Speaker 4 (00:21:34) - Yeah. So this is going to sound very generic, but my, my tip or hack is just to say yes. Like there's so many things that, that you stumble upon in life that you don't plan to do that you would never come across if you weren't willing to engage in new opportunities. And it's very easy to focus on, you know, your immediate world and what you're doing. But I can't tell you, in the two and a half months I've been in, in my own firm, how many opportunities I stumbled on just by agreeing to go to lunch with someone or cover a case for someone else or whatever it is.

Speaker 4 (00:22:07) - So just be open minded and say yes and experience these new opportunities and embrace them for what they are.

Speaker 3 (00:22:13) - I think that is especially true early on. I think you'll also get to a point later on where you say only say no. I would love.

Speaker 4 (00:22:21) - To get to that point, but for right now it's been wonderful.

Speaker 3 (00:22:25) - No, I do think it's important early on, especially whenever you launch your firm to do that. So that's a good one. I know I took that approach early on, so I think that's good. All right. So my tip of the week it's it's back to ChatGPT Jimmy. And there's a new feature. And I don't and I don't know if it is a if if it's exclusive to people that pay for it. But I know that we pay for it and it's on the phone app and you can have a conversation with ChatGPT. You can change the voice. It is actually very impressive and it dictates. Everything that's said during the conversation, and so even has ums like whenever it's talking to you, it'll say, um, and then it's, it's really, it's really interesting.

Speaker 3 (00:23:11) - So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Jim's face, if you saw his face, he's like, it's a it's actually it's rare to surprise Jim. And that surprises Jim. It is a it's it's a really interesting thing. So I recommend that people check it out. And it's, it's one of those things where it makes it way easier to talk because it has a conversation with you about what you're wanting because it'll, it asks follow up questions about what you're looking for. It is it's quite interesting. So I recommend that everyone check it out. All right Erin, this was take two for people that don't realize we we had a snafu with the technology before we got it done today. So thanks so much for coming on and and doing a take two with us. We really appreciate it and good luck on your journey.

Speaker 4 (00:23:53) - Thank you. And I appreciate you gentlemen having me on. Great talking to you.

Speaker 2 (00:23:56) - Thanks, guys. You bet man.

Speaker 1 (00:23:59) - Thanks for listening to the Maximum Lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your hosts and to access more content content.

Speaker 1 (00:24:07) - Go to Maximum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.

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