In this episode, Jim and Tyson interview attorney Jason Korner, a criminal defense expert. They will go over his career, his transition from government work to private practice and then going solo and building his firm, his mindset, his client base, marketing, struggles and lessons learnt along the way.
The firm:
http://kornerlaw.com/
CLIENT INTAKE.
We can talk all day long about legal reputation and skills at trial, but if somebody hears that you are a good lawyer and that your firm is a good firm and they call and that first phone call doesn’t goes well, they are not gonna hire you. (..) Earning their trust and getting them to hire you, starts with the first call.
FROM YOUR CLIENTS PERSPECTIVE
Anybody who works with clients must know the importance of put yourself where the client is! So there are times when I go around to the other side of my desk and sit down in the clients chairs… What do they se? What do they look at? It can change your perception. What’s their experience like?
Hacking’s Hack: A person to follow on Twitter: Madelyn Sklar: @madelynsklar https://twitter.com/madalynsklar
She is a Twitter guru!
Jason’s Hack: A book. McElhaney’s Trial Notebook 4th Edition
by James W. McElhaney (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/McElhaneys-Trial-Notebook-James-McElhaney/dp/1590315030
It really does a great job of looking at things from a juror’s perspective, a judge’s perspective, clients perspective and bringing attorneys back to what really matters, but doing it through the trial window which is really such an important thing to most attorneys.
Tyson’s Tip: An app. It is called RecordIT! http://recordit.co/
Record your screen! You can use it to show someone how to use something!
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Transcripts: Jason Korner: Building a Criminal Defense Practice From Clients Perspective
Jason Korner
somebody hears that you’re a good lawyer that your firm’s a good firm and they call and that first phone call doesn’t go, well, they’re not going to hire you, or they’re going to look around more, or they’re certainly not going to hire you for as much as you want them to
Unknown Speaker
run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum layer podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson nutrix. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking,
Tyson Mutrux
and I’m tasting music.
Jason Korner
Hey, Jimmy, I didn’t but Ben Tyson. Do
Jim Hacking
you have a good weekend?
Tyson Mutrux
I did. I didn’t do a whole lot. But I got some stuff done around the house. So
Jim Hacking
sometimes those are the best kind. Yeah, it was sort of nor weekend my daughter Nora had a school performance on Saturday night. And then she had friends over yesterday. So it’s sort of running around with the kids.
Tyson Mutrux
You know, you’re really lucky who you married because a mommy’s got a ton of talent. And that’s where the kids get all this from they don’t they really don’t get it from me. So you’re really, really lucky.
Jim Hacking
Well, Nora scored four goals on yesterday morning at her soccer game. And I said to everybody there I said, you know, I’m gonna go by sort of my whole life zero.
Tyson Mutrux
Because there’s not an ounce of athletic talent in your body. You got talent in other ways, legal talent, but you don’t quite have the athletic talent. But let’s get to our guest of the week Jason corner, it’s a buddy of mine. I actually had the opportunity of trying a federal case with them a month long federal case last year, and so these things were Watson’s. We don’t know which attorneys are good, which attorneys are bad. And I can I can truly say that Jason is a really, really good attorney.
Jim Hacking
Jason corner is a criminal defense attorney. And he used to be a prosecutor with the Jefferson County prosecuting Attorney’s Office in Hillsborough. And after he worked at the prosecutor’s office, he began his criminal defense career with Carl Ward, who’s sort of a famous criminal defense attorney down in Washington, Missouri. And while there, he ran the firm’s general criminal practice, where he became experienced in defending many different crimes in all parts of Missouri. He’s practicing over 25 counties, and more than 35 municipalities in the state of Missouri. He’s taught CLAS, and he helps teach attorneys how to take DWI cases to trial. So I think we’re gonna learn a lot today from Jason corner. Jason, thanks for coming on. Appreciate you
Tyson Mutrux
guys have me looking forward to this. Jason, talk a little bit just about your practice in general, how it’s comprised what kind of cases you handle.
Jason Korner
So my practice has been very, very fortunate that I’ve been always able to keep my practice 100% criminal, there are times, especially early on for a lot of practices where you have to take different things to just pay the bills, keeps the lights on my practice, kind of built it organically. So kept overhead very low initially, and was able to always just stay focused and do 100% criminal, lots of DWI work, especially early on, has certainly helped to keep those lights on. It’s a good area where you can help a lot of people. But the fees are nice also. And that’s really helped a lot of people while also growing the practice.
Jim Hacking
It’s and talk a little bit about transitioning from government work into private practice and then developing your own client base.
Jason Korner
It’s a good question. It was really interesting for me, I went into the prosecutor’s office, I think like a lot of people right out of law school did thinking that that’s what I was going to do that that’s where my career was going to be, you know, that that’s those are the good guys. And that was just the path. And it didn’t take long for me there until it became very apparent that wasn’t right for me. And it is for many people, but but for me, that wasn’t doing for me professionally, what I wanted it to do, switching over to the defense practice side, there’s so much more freedom, not just in kind of the day to day, but in the way you handle your cases and the cases you choose in the way you go about it. And then of course, defense attorneys get to live through cross examination at trial. And prosecutors really don’t you know, it’s the rare opportunity when they have a good opportunity to do a cross examination. And I love cross examination so much that it is something that I would change my practice for. Essentially it did way back when
Tyson Mutrux
Jason So you went to work for a guy that I mean, I consider sort of a DWI legend. He’s really, really good. He’s got a really good reputation. Did that help you build a business whenever you actually left his firm? Or how did that work? Did you build a business before he left his firm? Talk a little bit about that.
Jason Korner
So when I worked for for Carl Ward, it was just Carl and I there as the only two attorneys at his firm, and I gained a lot of valuable experience working for a small firm. Obviously, prior to starting my own small firm, it was a lot more valuable than if I worked at a larger firm where I really was just the lawyer and wasn’t really taking care of any any business side effects. Now. I wasn’t touching the books when I worked at Carl’s office, but I was handling almost all new client intakes. And that’s the lifeblood of any firm. We can talk all day They’re long about legal reputations, skill to trial. But if somebody hears that you’re good lawyer that your firm’s a good firm, and they call and that first phone call doesn’t go, well, they’re not going to hire you, or they’re going to look around more, or they’re certainly not going to hire you for as much as you want them to. So having that experience of working with all of the new client and take phone calls, speaking to people that I’d never talked to, before learning about them, learning about their case, learning about their situation, talking to them about CS, that really was the most invaluable experience that I had when I was working there. And it’s something that they don’t teach in law school, it’s something really that is only taught through through sales programs that have nothing to do with law. That was kind of on the job training for me. And if there’s one thing that I can point to from Carl’s office that helped me get my own firm, grow my own firm key, my own firm, it was, of course, the ability to talk to new clients, build trust with new clients quickly, bring them in, speak to them in person and have them hired. Because at the end of the day, we are private attorneys, it takes money to keep this working. And especially for criminal defense attorneys, that money has to come from the individuals. It’s not coming from insurance companies, it’s not coming from corporations, it’s coming from an individual people. So earning their trust and getting them to hire you is everything. And that all starts with the first call.
Jim Hacking
So Jason talked to us a little bit about your mindset while you were at Carlson starting to think about leaving and had that idea to sort of go out completely on your own.
Jason Korner
So I just said Carl’s office is down in Washington, Missouri, and it’s a wonderful town, I really enjoyed spending my time there. But the entire time I worked for Carl’s office, I lived in the St. Louis area and made the commute every day. And it’s it’s about 15 minutes each way. So it’s not, it’s not a killer. There’s no traffic involved, but it wears on you over a period of time. So I always knew that I was doing it for the experience, and it was well worth it. So when I went down there, just having come out of the prosecutor’s office, I needed to learn everything about the defense side of the practice. And I only handle a few DWI cases in the prosecutor’s office with any substance really. So going and learning, especially DWIs from Carl was crucial. He’s He’s a great teacher, he likes to teach all this attorneys in Missouri, as much as he can about DWI. And I really did take pride in DWI philosophy, from Carl, which is any criminal defense attorney can handle the DWI case. But if you’re going to do it, you have to do it right. Now, you can’t go halfway on these things, if you’re going to take a DWI case, challenge the driver’s license side of the case, push on that side of the case, no, they’re separate. It’s a completely separate process from the criminal side. But they’re all related out of the same set of facts. And you have to challenge all sides of it, to really maximize the benefit for your client. And for a lot of people, the driver’s license suspensions are the most important day to day factor as to how a DWI is going to affect their life. And that’s the most important thing for them. And something I’ll get to in a minute is, I really think that a lot of lawyers don’t look enough at the case, from the clients perspective, I think that they just look at it from their own perspective and make their own judgments about what’s good for the client. And they don’t take the time to sit down and think about what the world looks like from their client’s perspective, and what their clients looking for, and what they value and what their perception is about the process about you as a lawyer about the system and about whether the plea agreement that they may or may not take at the end of the day is right for them. So this,
Tyson Mutrux
let’s talk a little bit about that, then it will go a little deeper, then what are some of the things that you’ve done to alter your practice to really change your practice, from the clients perspective, so that you can help them help them in their day to day to day lives, and get them back on the road and move and move on with their life?
Jason Korner
So I want to start really basic on this one. And this is something that I mean, anybody can do, it doesn’t even have to be a lawyer, but anybody that works with clients, I said to look at it through the client’s eyes, I think it’s important sometimes to actually put yourself where the client is. So there are times where I will go around to the other side of my desk and sit down in the client chairs. What do they see? What are they looking at when they meet with me? I’m always looking at the other side, I’m looking at the wall behind them, because that’s where my desk chair looks. But if you take a minute and go and sit in that spot, it can change your perception. So it doesn’t even have to start in the office, the waiting room. What does it look like when they’re sitting there in the waiting room? What’s their experience? Like in the waiting room of your office? How’s the parking? When they get to wherever your office is? What’s that experience like for them? When they start looking for you? Let’s say they have you been given your name. They’re told you the best. Well, what’s the first thing they’re going to do anyway? They’re going to go and they’re going to Google you. Well, what are your Google results? Results look like? Not just what does your website look like? But when they Google, you know, what are the first five or the first 10 things that they see? What are pitfalls that what are the things that might draw their attention? away from you, what are the things they might like about you? before they ever step foot in their office? They’re judging you. And that’s them walking through all of this, and they’re scared. So what can you tell them briefly online that they might see that might make them feel better? before they ever stepped foot in your office? Well, might your secretary be able to say to them, and make them feel a little more comfortable when they talk to her on the phone? Or when they come into the office? You know, and then of course, yourself, you know, when you’re talking to them, you know, how can you put them at ease? My number one goal is always, how can I make this person feel better when they leave my office than they did when they came into the office? Because it’s what I do. They’re scared to death when they come into the office, sometimes they haven’t eaten in a day or two. Sometimes they haven’t told their spouse yet. It is just, they’re in a tough spot. And a lot of what’s overlooked, I think, in our industry is helping people through the tough spot, not just getting results in the courtroom six months later.
Jim Hacking
Yeah, Jason, I love the philosophy. I love the idea of thinking it all through from the clients perspective. I know that when Tyson got arrested, and he called you that you made him feel much more at ease. So that
Jason Korner
we were gonna like talk about that too much, you.
Jim Hacking
Dan Sullivan talks a lot about sort of the back of the stage and the front of the stage. And I think that all those things that you talked about, you know, how your website looks, how your parking is what it looks like, from the clients chair, I think that’s just a great idea of sitting in the clients chair. That is tremendous. So how has your firm grown? And what have you learned along the way,
Jason Korner
probably one of the most surprising things that I’ve learned along the way, is working with people that work for me, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s a law, student interns, you know, I’ve had an associate, you know, through times, in my practice, I don’t currently, I’ve had, you know, of course, different different receptionists and assistants, picking the right people, working with those people, training those people having their personality match with yours and the rest of the office. It’s so important, it takes up so much time, even if you do it, right. And if you do it wrong, it takes up even more time, it can just really take a practice sideways, in my opinion. And this is even working within such a small practice where you’re talking about two or three people. And you might say, Well, that’s easy, it’s not such a big culture, but it’s not every single person that comes in makes a huge difference, when it’s only a few people, you know, their personality can completely change everything about the firm or the way it’s run. And then every person that works for you, whether it works with you, when they deal with clients, the client, it all rolls back to you. It’s all about the culture of the firm, it’s all about how those people are going to look at the firm. And, you know, if the person that you trust, to talk to them, doesn’t treat them with respect, doesn’t treat them well doesn’t call on time, that’s all a reflection on you, you might as well have not called them on time or missed a meeting or whatever it is, because that’s how they feel about it. So the thing that I probably overlooked the most, when starting my own practice, building my own practice was how hard it was going to be to hire and manage the right people. And also that, that it’s a skill, just like anything else, I have gotten better doing it over time and through experience. And unfortunately, through experience means, you know, through making mistakes, you know, having problems, my own overlooking things, but they’ve all made me a better manager. And that’s made the law firm, run a lot more effectively. Because
Tyson Mutrux
as we talk a little bit about pricing strategy, I know that you are definitely not the cheapest in town, you’re probably in the higher end when it comes to price wise. And I think that that’s important. I think that’s the right strategy. Will you talk a little bit about how you came to that strategy and why you charge what you do?
Jason Korner
Sure, no, that’s all your DWI is just as a good standard DWI is there’s bargain basement people in town, they’ll do your DWI, for five to $800, they won’t challenge driver’s license side, they’ll walk into court one time, they’ll take the recommendation offered by the prosecutor. And that’s about that, you know, it’s really nothing that a person can do on their own outside of saying I have an attorney, and having somebody to call is probably not going to do a good job of getting back to you. That’s never the kind of thing that I was interested in. I’m far too competitive, to price myself there. And I don’t mean just from a price standpoint, I mean, I want to fight cases, I want to push cases I want to do better than other lawyers. And that takes more time. So kind of again, going back to interesting things. I’ve learned the mistakes I’ve made. There was a time in my practice with DWIs where I went to kind of the high end of the DWI pricing here in St. Louis. That’s usually about $5,000 For a first offense DWI. That’s generally regarded as the high end range. And I’ve charged that the clients before and they paid and that was all well and good. I didn’t feel like those clients were walking away feeling like they’d received the value that they wanted from that money. Even though I could get an even though they paid it, nobody complained about it, there was just a little bit of a different feel that I had, during that time period when I was charging that with my clients, I wouldn’t say hired gun, it wasn’t quite that but it was just, it was more of a kind of a sterile relationship with them. And I want my clients to feel like they get value from it. That’s how you get repeat business. That’s how you get repeat customers. So for the majority of my first defense DWI case, now, I mean, of course, there’s discretion in pricing, aggravating factors like accidents or commercial driver’s license and mitigating factors, younger people, students, you know, people that might need a little bit of a break on price. But generally, I’m in about $3,500 For a first offense DWI now. So I brought my prices down, actually, which I feel like is a rarity. For a lot of people, usually the prices just go up as they get more experienced. But the $3,500 price points worked really well for me, and the client relationship has changed back to one that I feel better about, I really do feel like my clients feel like they get a lot of value at that price, which is what I want. I want them to feel like, like they’re getting what they pay for, you know, and whether they’re getting it or not, it’s more again, about perception. It’s, you know, how do they feel about that price point that can you justify charging it, I’ve always felt like that’s, that’s extremely important. It’s not just can I get this money from them. I’ve always said, if I practice law for one year, and I wanted to maximize my profits, during one year of practicing law, I would run my firm completely differently. But I’m not. I’m here I’m in St. Louis and handling criminal defense for the long haul. I’ll be doing this for the next 30 years, day in day out. And I want my clients that I practice with now and help out to appreciate me 10 years down the line 15 years down the line, I want attorneys like you that I talked to and work with to feel the same way. So there are times when maybe you charge a little less now or maybe you act differently, or maybe you give that time to an attorney that has questions are your must pick your brain about a case and you give that willingly and freely. And that will all come back over the long haul. And just make you a better attorney in general.
Jim Hacking
We’re talking today with Jason Koerner. He’s a criminal defense attorney. He’s not a car accident, estate planning, bankruptcy and criminal defense attorney. He’s a criminal defense lawyer. He specializes in criminal defense. And Jason, my next question for you is even within criminal defense, it sounds like people like Carl, have you been niched down even further within criminal defense? Have you talked about? Or can you talk a little bit about the types of criminal cases that you like the most and the ones that you sort of have started to specialize in?
Jason Korner
It’s a great question. And it really is the way that the law has gotten these days, where it’s not just criminal laws enough of a niche anymore. And now we’re talking about niches instead of niches. Of course, the DWI practice DWI is are so specialized that that is a niche of itself. And that is where I’ve focused on to grow the practice, and it’s still about half of my practice is DWI law. But since that time, I’ve really branched out into more of the higher end defense, more of the really complex crimes. And, you know, this is where Tyson I had an opportunity to try that case together. And there’s a month long federal trial, like you said, federal court, federal defense has been an area that’s always intrigued me because it’s very formal, everybody’s very on the ball, you have to be good. And you have to be prepared to do well up there in the federal courts, and, and that’s something I’ve been working at for nine years now. And it’s taken almost the full nine years for me to get a comfort level with the federal courts and to feel good about what I do up there. And like I can really make a difference because it is difficult. You’re dealing with the federal government, you’re talking about investigating agencies like the DEA and the FBI, as opposed to something like the Charlotte Act or the Burnsville Police Department’s. Now these are, these are very different types of crimes, and it takes a good and invested lawyer to to handle federal law and to make a difference. And I’ve really enjoyed that. And federal law has become a major niche for me. That’s when I planned one that I didn’t plan on as much was handling sex crimes. The defense of sex crimes in and of itself is not exactly what some criminal defense attorneys want to do. It’s ugly, other bad allegations. But what we’ve seen a lot and what I see through my practicing and handling these cases is they’re some of the most defensible cases I’ve seen in any kind of criminal defense law. The reason for that is it’s so easy to make an allegation for somebody, it’s so easy to say this happened. And then for everybody to jump on board that that happened. The police jump on board, the prosecutor jumps on board, and the defendant sitting there saying Wait, nobody’s heard my side of the story yet. Wait, I have something to say here too. And they’re already charged and in shackles before they even get an opportunity to open their mouth about what happened. And that’s a very aggressive approach toward the He Said, She Said kind of crime. And then the punishments on these crimes are extraordinary. I handled the case in federal court in the Western District of Missouri, just two weeks ago, my client was facing a 30 year mandatory minimum, if he pled guilty and found guilty of one of the charges against him 30 years, the judge won’t even have discretion to go under that number. So when we’re talking about penalties like that, and the defenses that are available, I have found the defensive sex crimes extremely rewarding. It’s an area where I’ve done very well, simply through investigating the cases, challenging the witnesses, just going through the basics of what criminal defense attorneys are supposed to do. But if you do it, and you do it right, and you do it every time, it’s amazing the results that you can get, especially in that area of law
Tyson Mutrux
base. And I would like to ask this question, because I think it really does sort of, you know, open you up a little bit to really what you’re dealing with. So what do you struggle with the most,
Jason Korner
I still think I have worked on this a lot through my career, but I still think that it’s client communication. And it’s not so much client communication, when I have them on the phone with me, or when I have them in my office, you know that things always go well, in a situation like that. But really, it’s when you’re working on the other cases, or when you’re even working on their own case, we talked about it though, when we talked about their perception, their perception of you generally comes through your communication with them. So even if you spend five full days, 40 hours working on a client’s case, if they don’t know about that, or if you haven’t communicated what you worked on to them, or what you found out are things about that 40 hours? Did you really do that? You know, from their perspective, you did not know you were off golfing, or you know, and happy hours or whatever they think lawyers, you know, really do. But if you’re not talking to them about you know, okay, here are the things that I found, you know, here’s the law says and communicating to them, you know, that perception of from their standpoint of what you’ve done for them isn’t there. So, it used to be, you know, just having people call in and trying to get back to them. And that system didn’t work. Something that I have done in my firm that’s made a huge difference is, and I will tell clients is from the very first appointment, the way communication works at the firm is if they have an easy question, they can call in, my receptionist will get the question to me, I’ll answer it, she’ll get back to them, usually can happen in a couple of minutes or an hour. And that’s not a big deal. Anything that’s more evolved, or anytime that they just want to have a phone call with me or come into the office to meet with me in person they can call in and she’ll schedule them for a time actually scheduling for 15 minutes if it’s on the phone, which was scheduled for half an hour in the office. But to have it scheduled is such a big deal for me, because I can see it there on my calendar, it’s a to do thing, that time is blocked out just for them, I can pull their file ahead of time, I can look it over and review it, I can have it in front of me when I talk to them. It’s not a situation where I’m going to call them back. And they’re not going to be available and one of them a voicemail, and then they’re going to call me back when I’m talking to the next client. And we play this frustrating game of phone tag. So that’s come a long way. Honestly, if I could, I would meet every client all the time in person, I think it makes all the difference in the world. And especially from first meetings, I always make them comments. There are a few exceptions where I let a person hire me just on the phone, I want them to be able to look me in the eye, I want to be able to look them in the eye, I want to start building that trust from the get go. And that makes communication down the road throughout the case. Better as well. But client communication is a constant struggle. And, you know, to do it right and to do it well changes their perception of you as an attorney. And that by itself can make them think you’re a good attorney or a bad attorney, regardless of what you can do for them.
Jim Hacking
Jason, those are great suggestions. You’re just dealing out great information today. I’m really glad we had you on the call. One thing that I’ve noticed in talking to Tyson on the criminal defense side of his practice, is that it’s sort of hard to tell client stories, because a lot of times people like you said are nervous or embarrassed about what they’ve been charged with. How do you sort of go about testimonials or things like that, where you want to be able to tell your clients stories, but they might not be so interested in sort of telling their tale?
Jason Korner
Well, I it is a struggle. You’re right. You know, people don’t like to admit that they’ve that they’ve been in my office. People don’t know that’s not something they want to go really tell their friends about. And I get the same answer. A lot of times when somebody comes in my office will say how you doing? Well not really that great? Like Well, I’m used to hearing that so and that translates, translates kind of all the way down the line even when things are over with exactly that. They don’t put this behind them and pretend it never happened. Some people just regardless of the work that you do for them, you’re just not going to get a testimonial from them. And that’s that’s their choice, you know I understand the realities of the kind of law that I chose. And discretion is incredibly important part of it. So you know, if that’s their choice at the end of the day, then I’m not going to try to change their mind or convince them out of it, though I always take the approach of, you know, testimonials or reviews of any kind is kind of a cherry on top, something that they’re willing to do that for you, that’s such a wonderful thing. And they say nice things about you, which fingers crossed is while you’re asking them to do and that, that they do say the nice things about you, you know, even that much better. But you see kind of it running the gamut from people that just say, No, I’m not really interested in that two people that say, Yeah, I’ll do and then never do, you see things where people leave kind of a stars rating, just last week, and Oklahoma gave me a five star review on Google. But it didn’t say anything, you know, it didn’t add anything about, you know, what his case was, or, you know, their deal that we went through or the time that we spent together. And that’s kind of that I spent a year and a half working on his case. And, you know, we got the outcome we’re looking for at the end of the day, but it was a long road there. But still, of course, I was thrilled to just see the five stars from him. And without him taking any time to write anything up. But you know, it’s all you can do is ask it really at the end of the day, all you can do is ask usually a good time to ask because right after you get this good result for them, they feel they feel like they want to help you out or give you something or just you know, say nice things about you in general. So I think timing is probably the most important thing. If you’re talking about one factor that might move the needle a little bit. With getting testimonials from a criminal client, it would be timing and making it as easy as possible for them. You know, I’ll talk to him about it on the phone. And then I’ll send him an email and the email app, the instructions for how to leave the review for kind of where I’m looking for that, whether it’s, you know, on HAVO, whether it is a Google review, or whatever it is, or you give them multiple options, but making it as easy as possible for them and doing it at the right time. maximizes the chances that they’re actually going to leave one.
Tyson Mutrux
All right, Jason, I am gonna be a little selfish here. I worried a little bit over time, because I think you’re just dealing at a ton of information. So I’ll ask one last question, we’ll start to wrap it up unless Jimmy has to have another question. But for new attorneys, so people just coming out of law school and for people just starting their own firm. So let’s say they’re, they’re living in an established firm like you did, or leaving government office, whatever it may be, what is one piece of marketing advice, you would give those attorneys? Oh,
Jason Korner
check the ego at the door. You know, it’s, this is a contact sport, you know, your third times, you’re gonna feel on top of the world, but there’s a lot of times when you’re gonna feel, but you’re not stacking up, like you’re not doing what you want to do, especially attorneys that leave big firms, I think it’s a real struggle for them, even though that wasn’t my experience, having spoke to a lot of attorneys at big firms that were thinking about leaving, and then some that did, they live in a big firm with a lot of resources, all kinds of technology servers, all kinds of staff, and people IT departments and, you know, that’s that a lot of them feel like they kind of deserve that they did well, in law school, you know, they, they went there, and they had all those things available to them. And then they feel like they’ve done well enough that they should go out on their own. And a lot of them feel like when they go out on their own, they should have a lot of those same things, if that’s what being a lawyer, it was not what being a lawyer helping your client is what being a lawyer. And now the technology that’s available to us and Tyson I know, in particular, very into the technology aspect of of what we do. But a laptop and a cell phone can run a law firm these days, you know, it could start all right there. And that’s where my firm started. Because a laptop and a cell phone and really zero ego and zero pride. And just, you know, starting to build the blocks from there. And then slowly over time adding resources to the firm. But it’s never going to be a big firm, we’re never going to have that kind of cash flow to have all the things that a big firm has. But we have a lot more flexibility than that, too. So number one thing for young attorneys. Check the ego. When you start your own practice, you haven’t earned anything yet. Earn it day by day, through your own practice trading on your own name, not on the name of of a large firm, make your own reputation.
Jim Hacking
Jason, my last question is, Are you glad you went out on your own
Jason Korner
this decision I ever made, I can’t ever imagine working for someone else or for another company, again, the freedom that it gives to me in the day to day but especially the freedom that it gives to me in the way I want to practice law in the kinds of cases I want to take. And once I have those cases in the way that I want to handle those cases. For me, that’s everything. That’s the most valuable thing. For good or for bad. I am a stubborn man. When I think I see the path forward for a case and my client, I want to follow that path. And that’s for me is the most important thing. So having my own firm is by far the best decision I ever made. It was something I do when I started my own firm was a I had lunch with a with a city judge. And I went into the meeting thinking that I was going to ask him for a referral for working out in another law firm. And I walked out of that lunch, and he convinced me to start my own firm. And that’s essentially, how it happened was I just wanted to come back up to St. Louis. And he said, Well, if you’re gonna do it, do it on your own, and start your own firm and do it now. You’re ready, start trading on your own name. And that was it as the most important decision I’ve ever made. It was the best decision I ever made. And I think back to that launch, often, and I’m just greatly indebted to them. And
Tyson Mutrux
that is a great story to end on. Jason, before we can start tips on hacking the week. Thank you so much for coming on. This is really awesome. So I got out a lot more than I thought it would. So it’s really good. So I know from having conversations from you, or with you in the past, and that you’ve had, you’d have a lot to offer. So I’m glad you came on. So before we get to our tip of the week, I do want to remind everyone to go to iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts give us a five star review. If you do enjoy this podcast, Jimmy, what’s your week,
Jim Hacking
my hack of the week is person to follow on Twitter. Her name is Madeline Sklar. She’s a Twitter guru. I’ve heard on a couple different podcasts. She has her own podcast, you can find her on Twitter. Madalyn ma da li N. Sklar. If you’re thinking about using Twitter more often, I think she’s a great resource. And as a matter of fact, she’s going to be on our show in a couple of weeks. So I think everyone’s gonna be real excited to hear her.
Tyson Mutrux
Yeah, I don’t really understand Twitter, so she’s gonna have to be someone I check out on the listener podcast because I don’t quite get it and, uh, you love it. And so I’m happy to check it out to see really what I’m missing out on. But, Jason, we always ask our guests to give a tip of the week do you have one for us?
Jason Korner
I do. There’s a book that I always go to when I’m on trial or getting ready for trial. It’s, it’s thick, but it’s readable. And I’ve still not finished a cover to cover but anything trial related civil or criminal, I always turn my attention to make enemies trial notebook. It’s MC E. l Haney, apostrophe s. Trial notebook. It’s in its fourth edition. It’s fantastic. It really does a great job of like I talked about looking at things from a jurors perspective, a judge’s perspective, the clients perspective, bringing attorneys back to, to what really matters, but doing it through the trial window, which is really such an important thing for most attorneys.
Tyson Mutrux
Really good. Like I also recommend, I don’t know if you have this one. It’s Mahoney is relentless criminal cross examination, he gives a bunch of sample cross examination questions in there, which are pretty good. So both those together I think are mandatory on the shelf. For my tip of the week, it’s actually an app it is called recorded with an exclamation point. And it’s really cool, you can actually take it and you can record your screen on your phone on your is this for an iPhone, I don’t know if they have it for Android devices, but you actually take it and record things on your screen. I’m not really sure there’s a limit either. I think you can go as long as you want recording on your screen. So if you want to show someone how to use something on your phone, if you want to show them how to get through. You can do a training manual. For example, we use Cloud Lex with our firm, I can use training videos on how to use the phone app. So for firm training, whatever it may be, if you want to show your client something, maybe show your client on a map, how to get to the office. I don’t know it could be a variety of things you could do with it, but I think it’s pretty awesome. So check it out for recorded. Alright, so that’s the podcast. Jason, thanks for coming on. Jimmy. You have a good week. Thanks, guys.
