Diversify or Die: How One PI Lawyer Is Future-Proofing His Firm with Josh Stein

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Are you a law firm owner looking for some advice on running a successful firm? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast, Tyson engages in a conversation with Josh Stein, a personal injury lawyer, about the evolving landscape of personal injury law and the challenges of running a law firm. 

Running a law firm is a challenging task even for seasoned attorneys. Josh speaks to the benefits of working alongside a mentor to help navigate the journey of firm ownership. Law school will not teach you the business side of things, which is what Josh learned from his mentor. Whether it be learning how to work with a client, going through audits or mastering the art of tax season, a mentor is crucial to learning the ropes and running a successful law firm.

Authenticity is an important trait to have as an attorney. Being true to yourself as a person will translate in how you work with clients. When informing clients about their cases, especially if they are calling to inquire about their situation, be upfront and honest about how you can help (if you can help at all) and let them know how things will play out. This will help the client in the long run and save both of you a lot of time.

Listen in to learn more!

Episode Highlights:

• 03:36 Timing of Starting a Firm 
• 10:09 Building a Professional Network 
• 13:07 Competition in Personal Injury Law 
• 28:10 Social Media Strategies
• 36:39 Happiness in Practice 
• 50:00 Case Management Systems 

Connect with Josh:

• Website 
• Instagram
• Linkedin 

Resources:

• Join the Guild Membership
• Subscribe to the Maximum Lawyer YouTube Channel
• Follow us on Instagram
• Join the Facebook Group
• Follow the Facebook Page
• Follow us on LinkedIn

Transcripts: Diversify or Die: How One PI Lawyer Is Future-Proofing His Firm with Josh Stein

Speaker 1 00:00:02 This is maximum lawyer with your host, Tyson Matrix.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:11 So, Josh, I'm going to read a quote of yours. I don't know if you know it's a quote of yours, but it's you should set out to have the type of practice slash firm that works for you and your family, not the type of practice slash firm you're told you should have or that everyone else has.

Josh Stein 00:00:26 Yeah, yeah. That's that's I think that's one of my quotes. I steal a lot from other people. But, you know, I think that we live in a very interesting time in the world right now. We have a very interesting profession that we have being lawyers, and it gives us the flexibility to do that very thing. You know, and that's been my goal is to figure out what is it that's best for me, for my family. I do enjoy your work, which you do too. And you can get overwhelmed with the billboards and social media posts and bigger, bigger, bigger. And so I think people fall into that trap of thinking, that's what you have to be.

Josh Stein 00:00:53 My whole thing is you don't have to do what's best for you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:56 Yeah. How do you avoid that? Because I'll even I mean, I'll find myself sometimes, and it's very rare, but I do occasionally find myself. I'll see a verdict. I'm like, what the hell? You know, it's like I almost fall in the trap, like. Like, when's that going to happen to me? But I'm like, that's that's nonsense. Like, but how do you how do you stay out of that, that mindset?

Josh Stein 00:01:17 Oh it's hard right? I don't know if I'm great at it, I try. What is it they say thief is the steals joy right. That. Yeah that quote is not that's not how it is. But being jealous or something is the is the thief of joy. But how that quote goes and I think about it a lot, it's like, just do what's best for you. Try to ignore the outside noise, be happy for your friends, happy for your peers.

Josh Stein 00:01:34 You know, there's a quote that a lot of lawyers use here in Georgia that the rising tide lifts all boats. Some of y'all.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:39 I love that.

Josh Stein 00:01:39 I love I think about that a lot too. It's like we're all in this together. one person does good. That's good for all of us. Don't be jealous. Be happy. And just don't try to compare yourself to everybody.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:49 Sure. Now, where does that come from? Is that something, you know, growing up that your your parents instilled that in you?

Josh Stein 00:01:56 Maybe. My dad's very humble. My mom's very humble. Good family. Great family had everything we needed, but we didn't never need more. You know, I mean, I think that you get to a certain spot where it's like, okay, we've got our basic necessities met. We've got everything we can ask for. Our kids are healthy. It's like, how much more do you need? And so at that point, you start looking at other ways you can fulfill your life.

Josh Stein 00:02:15 And I guess that's what I've tried to work hard on. It's like our kids are going to be in our house for between 18 and 20 something years, depending upon how many you have. And that's an important time in all of our lives. And I just made the decision that I'm not going to sacrifice, you know, those years.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:30 Yeah. Why? Personal injury?

Josh Stein 00:02:32 Well, I guess I can back it up to. Why? Law school? I went to Georgia. We talked about that and then loved Athens and wanted to stay in Athens for a few more years. I'm like, hey, law school is pretty good. So I went to law school and then my first job was working for an insurance company, progressive, doing all their car wreck stuff. So I don't know if I set out to do that necessarily. That's where the job was back then. You kind of took what you could get. Sure worked for great people. Was on the defense side. Learned a ton. Went from there to a to a bigger defense firm, and then realized after 1415 years that working for for the individual was going to be the better spot and not just defending the corporation.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:11 So what year was that, roughly?

Josh Stein 00:03:13 Graduate law school at 404. I did two years for progressive, which was great, and then from oh 6 to 17 or so worked for large defense firm and then switched sides. I guess 7 or 8 years now goes by fast, doesn't it?

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:24 It is crazy. Yeah. So you started the firm in a roughly in a time whenever the. So your firm in a time where the market was not great. Right.

Josh Stein 00:03:36 Well 2020 I started it which then became Covid like three months later.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:40 Oh yeah. So you oh so you, you were working for a firm before that. So you started. Yeah. Okay.

Josh Stein 00:03:44 I was 2017. I joined with a buddy of mine, worked for his firm for a couple of years and of counsel role learned kind of how to do the plaintiff's side of it. Right. Felt like I got a little more bonafide, you know, on the plaintiff side. And me and him still were in the same office space.

Josh Stein 00:03:54 Great friends, 2020 I started to open my own firm and then March is what Covid happened, so there's never a perfect time to start a firm. That's what I tell people. And I felt like if, if, if I or somebody can get through those kind of hurdles, then be good with anything.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:07 Yeah. So what was it like working for a friend or working? Were you working for or working with?

Josh Stein 00:04:12 We were working with each other. I had my own firm that was up counsel to him. It was great because he had established, you know, solid. I was on his website that way. People associated me with his firm, like, okay, well, Josh knows what he's doing based on what these firm results or all that kind of stuff. And he just showed me the ropes. Yeah. You know, I mean, like, I felt pretty good about. I can try a case, I can take a deposition, I can do discovery. But there's so much stuff, as you know, on the plaintiff's side, that they don't really teach you in law school.

Josh Stein 00:04:36 I mean, there's there's the business side of it. They're dealing with the clients, the lean stuff, things that, you know, I had no experience with. So he helped me and walked me through that for a couple of years. And then I felt good enough to do my own. And now I've got somebody working for me. I say, working for me, with me in the same kind of role I had with him. So kind of doing that exact same scenario. And this guy worked with me for a few years, and then he'll probably do his own thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:00 Were there ever any talks about partnering up?

Josh Stein 00:05:02 I mean, I guess we could have done that. I always kind of wanted my own thing. Yeah, about my dad. He's a dentist. He was a solo business owner, a small business owner. So that was kind of, I think in the back of my mind, always the direction I wanted to go would love. I love having partners in the defense firm, but I love now just being by myself, being solo because it kind of goes back to what you let off with, which is it allows me to be beholden to only myself and the firm I want, as opposed to if you're with a partner, with your friend, you're like, well, I gotta do certain things to live at mine, to bargain with him or her.

Josh Stein 00:05:31 Not that I was worried about that. But, you know, as I sit here right now, happy, it's just me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:35 So you have the power of hindsight now, but what would your advice be to people? So law students that are thinking about starting a firm right out of law school.

Josh Stein 00:05:44 I don't think that you can do it right away, I really don't I think that there are certain tools that have to be learned along the way. I've seen people try and they've been successful. I've seen people start their own firm, go back to working for somebody and then start their own all over again, which that's good too. I think there's no wrong way to go about it. I just think it's important to to have a mentor have a, you know, somebody who you can look to to say, this is how things are done, because practicing law is overwhelming and being a business owner is overwhelming. And so if you start doing both right off the job, it's a lot to that's a lot to digest.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:14 If you were to do it over again, would you start on a on the plaintiff's side on the defense side again?

Josh Stein 00:06:19 I would do on the defense side, I really I tell everybody that, you know, if you want to be a personal injury lawyer, try a lawyer. I think maybe just because of my path that working for the insurance companies first, if you can work for the in-house counsel for them first, what better place to start my first day? You know, they gave me, you know, all these files, and it's like they're all worth less than $25,000. They're, you know, soft tissue, car wreck cases. You can't mess them up. You know, they're like, go to magistrate court, try these cases, take depositions. They'll settle for between 10 and $20,000, you know, and that's it. You know, so you do that for a couple of years, get your experience and then that next job, you know. I came in with a bunch of trials under my belt with much deposition on my belt.

Josh Stein 00:07:00 And then now I can I can kind of use what I learned with the with the insurance companies to my advantage. And how I craft settlement demands, how I make arguments, how I talk to adjusters. I think people need to think long and hard about how they communicate with the adjusters. I hear people yelling and screaming and calling names and all this kind.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:17 Of stuff that's so.

Josh Stein 00:07:18 Silly and it's so silly. And maybe one out of 100 adjusters deserve that, but most of them, they're just trying to do a good job. They're trying to get to the end of the claim just like we are. So until they give me some reason not to be kind. I've just found that's the way to go about it. And I think part of that is because I used to represent them. And so I know that that guy's a jerk. We ain't going to go about trying to help him resolve this case. If there's a small bridge we've got to, you know, got got got a pass.

Josh Stein 00:07:42 Like, why are we going to help him?

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:44 Well, if you think of like, everything sales. Right. So if I'm trying to convince an adjuster to pay me more money, what good is it going to do for me to berate them over the phone? It just. Even if you're right. Like what? Like, think about the on the other side. Okay. They've got some lawyer yelling at them. Do you think they're really going to want to pay more money now? No. They just. Human nature doesn't make any sense.

Josh Stein 00:08:04 Absolutely not. I mean, what I've started to do, if I feel I'm in that situation and I want to get off my chest because there is power in getting off your chest, right? Like, I'll tap out an email and I'll just never send it. Sure. You know, and I'll just let it sit there. And then the day goes by, the next day goes by, and that kind of anger has passed. And now we get our get our eye back on what the goal is, which is to get the case resolved for our clients.

Josh Stein 00:08:25 Right. I always tell people that on the plaintiff's side, I think that we underestimate the value to the insurance company of a settlement release. Sure. They want that, too.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:35 Absolutely.

Josh Stein 00:08:36 And so how do we kind of accomplish this mutual goal where our clients want the case settled? The insurance companies want it settled. So let's work together, if we can, to get there. Not being so antagonistic. And I think I learned that from, you know, all my years on the defense side.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:48 So I'm still surprised that you said you'd go back and work for the defense side. And the reason why is because. And maybe this is colored by my experience, where I did get to work for an insurance company before I was a lawyer. So I didn't understand the inner workings of State Farm, which was which was great. Then I guess I also got the trial experience from being a criminal defense attorney early on. So that was nice, because, I mean, that being in a courtroom is is just so important early on.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:15 But the problem I've seen is when we've tried to hire former insurance defense lawyers, like rewiring their brain is is almost impossible. Sometimes we're like, they get in that mindset where nothing is a case. And so how did you get past that?

Josh Stein 00:09:33 We call them true believers, right? Yes. They drink the Kool-Aid. I mean, there's plaintiffs lawyers like that too, by the way. So I'm not I'm not saying just this is $1 billion kickback.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:42 You got you got policy limits. 25,000 is what that case.

Josh Stein 00:09:45 Some people can't be right. And I think that's just that person, for whatever reason, is just designed for that job, and that's great. I mean, the insurance industry, they need those good advocates as well. So I think you have to just identify the ones that, the person who's worked for me, Derek Cooper, his background is identical to mine. Coming from the defense lawyer, defense lawyer world. And he just realized after a certain point in his career that he wanted to make the move and start doing his work and his it took him.

Josh Stein 00:10:09 He's six, nine months in, and you can just see each day as kind of the lights flickering on a little bit more, thinking about it in a way. Oh yeah, that makes sense. So it's kind of cool when that moment comes. the other thing I'd say about working for the insurance companies, working for bigger firms, or just the people who you're exposed to. Right. I mean, I work firm with 100 plus people. And so now I've got that many more contacts that many more stories from back in the day. Oh, remember that case I found in Georgia? Most of the plaintiff's offices are smaller, and so the people who you work with are just a smaller pool. So my network is just by definition bigger, which is helping now with referrals and those kind of things. And again, it's like going to Braves games with folks from 15 years ago. You know, I always say like, remember, when is kind of a fun conversation. Some people will say, that's like starting a conversation.

Josh Stein 00:10:53 Remember when I disagree, I love it. Remember that case back then? It's fun. It's fun to me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:57 No, I mean I agree, I so I think that I think that's an interesting perspective. I think that's, that is important because you you do then build those relationships where it might help you get cases done now that otherwise you might not be able to for sure.

Josh Stein 00:11:11 I think it gives me a little more credibility with the defense lawyers I'm working with. I'm like, look, I did your job for a long time. I understand how you're looking at this case. I would be, too, if I were you. But here's the other perspective, okay? And then it also, I think it gives me some credibility with cases if I'm going to take the case, they know that it's it's a case, right? It's not it's not frivolous. It's not, you know, something like that. It's not you know, nothing there. So I think that that I can kind of use that to my advantage as well.

Josh Stein 00:11:36 Insurance company adjuster. I tell them, look, I used to defend these cases. I know exactly how your evaluation letter was written from your defense lawyer. Here's what he's not considering.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:45 Interesting. Okay. I mean, listen, I'm not I don't know if I'm convinced yet, but I'm leaning.

Josh Stein 00:11:49 How much time we got?

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:50 Yeah. I'm, I'm sort of understanding the perspective more. So I think that makes sense. But I do think I agree with you, though, about. It's. Yeah. Could you do it? Could you start out of law school? Yeah. But there's just so much. Just a I mean, if we just kind of take each component, like, you got the legal side of things, you've got the business side of things. There's so much just within those components that just starting right out is it's such a hard thing to do.

Josh Stein 00:12:19 I have a friend who is very good at business. He's very good at marketing. He's very good at being a lawyer, probably a lot like you.

Josh Stein 00:12:25 Those people are hard to find, right? The guy called that kind of a unicorn type of an ability. And so you're not going to know which of those three or all those three you're good at until you've kind of done it. And so, you know, I always thought like give yourself a little time to figure out who you are. I have friends that love the business side. They don't want to touch the case. They don't want to touch anything else, but they will run the law firm all day long. Have other friends. They just want to litigate the case. They want to try the case. Don't let them look at a profit and loss statement. They want to know what they're looking at. So you have to figure out like how to bring those characteristics together. And if it's a partnership, whatever it might be. I think that's the key to making a successful firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:02 Yeah, a lot of law firm owners that have been doing this for several decades probably don't even know what the main financial statements are.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:07 That's right. That's that's, I think that used to work. I think it used to be you throw it out, you throw out a shingle and hang your shingle, and you do really, really well. But there does seem to be like this trend towards these larger firms that are coming in and throwing a bunch of money into the market. And it's it is going to make it harder for some firms to compete, I think.

Josh Stein 00:13:27 I think so you got private equity that's throwing money out there. You've got just these firms, as you said, they're just, you know, combining with one another. I mean, Atlanta is one of the most competitive personal injury market in the country. You start looking at what Google charges for different keywords, right? How do you how do you keep up. So yeah, you know, my approach is like, you know, we'll use Morgan and Morgan as an example. Like, there's no way I can keep up with them, so why try? And so I think as the law firm owner, you have to realize and figure out, like, where do you fit? I call the ecosystem, you know, where is it that you fit? And then just kind of stay in that lane, find that sandbox playing that one, and don't say, I'm going to compete with Morgan or Morgan for keywords on Google because you're just fighting an uphill battle.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:03 So have they been in your market your entire career?

Josh Stein 00:14:07 When I started doing defense work, they were just coming in from, you know, the Orlando firm. And so they started coming in in Atlanta. And ever since then, you know, now they're I don't know how many offices they have in Georgia, but you know, a lot. Sure. and so, you know, we've seen that shift of other firms kind of following national type firms. and so it just increases competition, which, which is good. But, you know, I'm selling my clients on something very different than what? Morgan Morgan is on there.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:32 Well, so does it increase competition in the market as a whole? I think yeah. But because like what we've seen is we've actually noticed since Morgan Morgan came into Saint Louis is we actually our number of calls have decreased, but our number of cases have gone up and our conversion rate has gone up. Where I think they're just they're picking off different cases that we wouldn't normally take.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:53 And so I think that that's part of it.

Josh Stein 00:14:55 I think you're absolutely right. And I think I would agree with everything you just said. Yeah. They're they're going for different stuff. I mean the volume they're going for any call, anything that comes in the door that's not you. That's not me. Right. and so, yeah, you just got to figure out what it is that you want.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:08 And I think that the way they do it is it's really brilliant. They've got one of the greatest trial lawyers ever. Right. And Keith Mitnick and I think that that's smart. A lot of the volume firms don't have something like that. But Morgan and Morgan has figured out that that is a really a really important part of the puzzle. Whereas a lot of the other firms don't mention that you know any of their names, but their volume firms, they don't have that trial lawyer that's going to then go and take the case into trial and, you know, beat the insurance company over the head.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:36 They just don't.

Josh Stein 00:15:37 Yeah. That's right. They got good lawyers over there. No question.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:39 Yeah. So talk about that part of the the, the, the business because trying cases and getting those results is really, really important. So how do you how do you balance running a firm with making sure that you have that part of it to.

Josh Stein 00:15:53 You have to, right. I mean, like when these insurance companies are evaluating your ability to pursue the case, they've got to see your past results, right? I mean, you're never going to get the reasonable amount of a settlement number if they don't think you can take it all the way. We're seeing fewer and fewer cases go to trial. There's no secret with that. But what we look at as is not necessarily how many cases are going to trial, but how many cases are we building up to where if the case, if the number wasn't the right offer is ready? I saw the case last week, and the stack of depositions were this high, and they knew that if they didn't pay it like everything was ready to go.

Josh Stein 00:16:23 So I kind of look at it that way, like like they look at my background. They know I've tried cases. That's on my website. That's what's important to me, as I tell young lawyers, is you've got to just show them you can do it. Don't you know, don't take the first offers, those kinds of things. Get the case ready for trial. Take the depositions, get the witnesses. You know, video, the deposition. That's the small thing that people overlook. I always felt that if a deposition was important enough to take, it's bad enough to video. Yes. And if you're not videoing it, the other side is like, well, they're doing this just for some kind of a show. Like they can't really play this for a jury. It's not going the same effect. So, you know, if the video isn't important enough to take it up to video.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:58 I couldn't agree more. So we have it's pretty easy in Missouri to record a depo. You can record your own.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:03 So you can I don't know if you can do that in Georgia, but Missouri, you can record your own. You just show up a little different. Illinois Illinois is not as easy to to do that. It's it's we don't have the same rules. But but Missouri, like you can literally just go and set up the mic your your your camera, you use a phone if you wanted to and boom, like for some depos, I've actually just set up a tripod with my phone and have a mic and it does a wonderful job. It really does. And you know, the the bigger ones will like you hire a company, but you're 100% right where the insurance companies do it without the video, for the most part, because they, they it doesn't matter as much to them. They really they're just doing it to go through the motions to build. But we can actually use that testimony and play it to a jury and they're not prepared for it. It's it's such a it's such an advantage.

Josh Stein 00:17:47 Yeah. What I found most most helpful about that is it mediations. Right. Because you have an adjuster that's I don't know if they intend in person for you. Like that's less and less now since since zoom has become so prevalent. But the adjuster is going to be there listening to you. And as much as I think defense attorneys do a good job, I don't always trust that they give the perfect information to the investor. They don't. And so I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure the adjuster understands. And so what better way to do that than at mediation to play a 15 second clip. That's it. Right. Like whatever the whatever the the evidence is from the corporate rep or from a witness that just seals the case, I can very easily just click it and I'm like, Mr.. Mr. Adjuster, this is what the jury is going to hear. Don't take it from me. Don't take it from the mediator. Don't you come to your own conclusions about how this is going to play.

Josh Stein 00:18:33 It's pretty powerful stuff, as opposed to just reading it from a transcript or just saying, hey, look, this is I talked to this witness. This is what they're going to say. So it's doing the work to get there.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:42 Yeah I agree. I'm going to shift gears because I'm sure that the non injury lawyers don't wanna hear us talking about injury stuff all day. But from a marketing standpoint, and it's a key market and a networking tool for you, I think that may set you apart from other people in your market. Is your podcast that's it's sports and Torts, which is it's such a wonderful name and it's where you you'll have a guest on. They'll talk a little bit of that, the legal mumbo jumbo, and then you'll talk about sports. So tell me about that. How did that originate?

Josh Stein 00:19:12 I think it came from you actually. It's a roundabout way. I mean, we can we can probably play the seven degrees of Kevin Bacon separation, but Stephen Love cough who's a mutual friend of ours who I've known forever.

Josh Stein 00:19:21 He had a podcast and I'm like, that's pretty cool. And I think he might have gotten that from you. So if that's the case, thank you. Because that was a drive.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:28 Well, I'll take credit, but I don't know. I, I don't know where he got it from, but I, I know that he started around Covid. I know we've had our podcast since 2016, so I don't there's been he probably got the podcast from there's been a billion podcasts.

Josh Stein 00:19:42 Well, you're in front of me. I'm giving credit to you. There we go. So I'm a big Braves fan, big Georgia Bulldogs fan, 2021. They both are making big runs to the World Series and Championship. And I just had this like burning desire to talk about it. And anybody cares what I think. But like I just needed to do it so I'd get on, you know, get my phone and be like, game six, this person's pitch, whatever. I really enjoyed it. People seem to like it.

Josh Stein 00:20:03 then that came to an end and I'm like, well, what about now? Like there's an itch that I had. Scratch that. I needed to continue scratching. And I'm like, how do I do it to where there's a work angle where it actually makes some, some business sense? Right. And so I'm like, how can I marry those two? And so that's kind of how it came up with I asked five friends, I said, look, I'm going to buy the equipment if you can commit an hour to sit down and we're going to do like 30 minutes of your, your practice, we're going to do 30 minutes of kind of your hobbies, your sports interests. Let's see how it goes. I'm like, sure, man, let's do it. And so I did five. And people seem to like it. And, you know, four years later, here we are. And it's just a lot of fun. I mean, I just love doing exactly what we're doing right now.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:40 Is it like a weekly segment is a monthly segment? How often are you doing it?

Josh Stein 00:20:44 Weekly? I'm not as smart as you to try to batch these, like, you know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:47 Well, you can't watch sports though, because it's so topical.

Josh Stein 00:20:50 Topical? Yeah. So so I do once a week and you know, it's it's this week Tuesday at 330 at my office and whatever it is. And they come over and we usually pour it, you know, pour a drink or whatever and just kind of have a conversation. And so yeah, I take off between like end of May and August for the summer. Other than that, though, I've been pretty good about, you know, every week for the last however many years getting episodes out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:13 Have you, have you been able to do that? Because that's not the easiest thing. It was when when it was me and Jim. It was nice because we it was like having a running partner. You know, you both got to show up.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:22 So how were you able to do that by yourself?

Josh Stein 00:21:24 Made it a priority. Like everything else, we can fit time in for things we want to do. Period. Hard. Stop. Right. And so I just I just told myself like, this is going to be a priority as long as you still enjoy it, right? And as long as people still listen. So I haven't checked, like, my metrics to see, you know, who's listening or how much. But I know people are talking about it because when I see people, that's always the first thing that's brought up. So it's a great conversation. It's a great break from the week. I feel like it's a it's a good like hour to just hang out with somebody, strengthen relationship, meet somebody new. You know, the cool thing now is that people are reaching out to me to want to come on as a guest, which is awesome for several on several fronts. Most importantly, I don't have to go chase people down because it's like, hell yes, come on, you know, let's do it.

Josh Stein 00:22:07 And then I meet new people and they introduce me to people. And so it's just been it's been a really good thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:11 I can't stress to you how easy it used to be able to get in 2016, when we started to get a guest, it was super easy. And now it is. It's just way it's just different. I wouldn't say it's it's yeah, I would say it's more difficult for a variety of reasons. One, many people think that they're being potentially scammed, you know, but they're being invited onto some random pot, especially if they're outside the legal industry. They've never heard of Maximum Lawyer. Yeah. They're like who? Who are these people? So sometimes they just will reach out in multiple channels, but they just don't. They like, they they just don't think that they're that this is legit or something. Yeah. But you've got many people that want to be paid or and I don't know if you've encountered this yet, but you've got people that are reach out to want to be on.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:53 But what those are usually not always. I'm saying make sure I'm very clear about this. Not always. Those are usually the worst episodes where they just want to come on and sell something where we've just like, not aired them, like, just like, okay. You just you just you came on with an angle just to try to push your own stuff as opposed to adding any value at all. So that, that, that part. But it used to be like you'd send an email and. Oh yeah, sure, I'll be on your podcast.

Josh Stein 00:23:16 You nailed it. I used to get and I still do get excited when some random company or random person reach out. Oh yeah. They make you feel really good. We've seen your podcast, we've listened to it. You're an industry leader, you know, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. They haven't listened to it, but whatever, you know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:30 So with that, what they'll do is this is just sort of inside baseball. They'll pull one sentence from one episode and then you get them on the show.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:37 And it's very clear they've never listened to the show. That's it.

Josh Stein 00:23:39 Yeah, that's totally it. Yeah. So I'd fall for it. Right? Like they got me the hook. I'm like, oh, they've struck my ego. Those episodes are the worst because there's no cohesion with the person. They've got their own angle. I had one where, you know, the guy like was late and he couldn't. He can't. So I'm like, dude, you reached out to me like, you know, so I've kind of gone a different direction with that. And I just, it's people that can be in person, can be with me, can have the hour. I will do it over zoom. But that's like last resort. Like, I think doing this is so much better if you can. And so most of my, most of my guests are local Atlanta people. I mean, it's become mostly lawyers in Atlanta because that's who's there. That's who's close by. That's who can get to me, that's who's listening.

Josh Stein 00:24:19 It's been a lot of fun.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:20 Yeah. I mean, what is it like 70% of communications nonverbal. And that's why we went to this more like in person. The so not all of our episodes are in person now, but I mean, I don't know, 90% of them on the Tuesday episodes are in person. So you get this, you get this back and forth. We went to that more, longer format where we can just we can talk as long as we really want to. And so if we go dive into a topic, we can just keep going on it. But what I did find was like we've got the usually when it's like a zoom sort of a setup where a riverside is what we recorded. You are limited by time, you know, it's you can only get to so much. You can't really dive deep into things that that part's challenging. But I like the I love the back end. That's why I flew to Atlanta.

Josh Stein 00:25:01 To say, I'm super impressed with you to fly to Atlanta to do this, because I think it's just so important.

Josh Stein 00:25:06 And it just it allows such a more free flow of conversation. I mean, my hardest thing is limiting it to, I say, 45 minutes to an hour and I want to keep going. Sure. Yeah, I want to keep going. But you know, they say and you probably know this 44 minutes is like the optimum maximum time because it's like the average commute to work is 22 minutes. Time home is 22 minutes. And people can knock out an episode, right? Yeah. I always felt like 20 minutes by the time you say, hey, what's up? How you doing? Like that's gone.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:31 It's gone.

Josh Stein 00:25:31 You know it's gone. You go over an hour. People like, I don't think I'm gonna invest myself in this pod.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:35 Yeah, there's a couple of episodes where Jim and I. We asked one question and the person talked a lot, so it was like we tried to keep him right around 30 to 35 minutes. At the time, it was. You couldn't go deep on anything.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:45 It was just it was like, wow, that that's gone in no time.

Josh Stein 00:25:48 Tough spot for you to be in two. Really don't want to interrupt the person. By the same token, in your mind, you're like, okay, time's ticking. Like we want to get to something.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:55 Totally. So from a marketing standpoint, has it been effective? I mean, you've gotten attention from it. Has it led? Can you can you connect the dots between the work you've done and then the clients?

Josh Stein 00:26:05 I think that if I were to say, where did this case come from? I could connect the dots and say, that's because this person was on my podcast. Our relationship is a little stronger now. He or she trusted me with this referral. I think I can do that right, probably several times over. Can I say some random person heard the podcast and was like, oh, I think I'm gonna hire Josh. Probably not. But what I think is, is even more powerful is like people in Tennessee or South Carolina that have reached out to me.

Josh Stein 00:26:29 Now I've got connections in those states which can be even more important, like when they have a client that's driving through Georgia to the beach, you know, getting a wreck, like they're going to call me now. You know, and so so I think that is is pretty good. You know, people can believe this or they can't I don't I can't control that. But the monetary result of the podcast is just an added bonus. Sure. Right. Like I don't look at it as how can I monetize this? I look at it as what a great way to spend an hour this week. You know. Yeah. And that's that's just true.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:59 So I, I do believe it because part of the reason why we changed the format is because I wanted to this this is what I wanted to do. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it wasn't because I thought we'd make more money. We actually probably lose money doing it this way. We we could probably make more money with Maximum Lawyer, but we spend the money to do this because it's just I enjoy it a lot more, so I completely get it.

Josh Stein 00:27:20 I ask you a question on that. Of course, sometimes I worry that it might actually cost me money because people are like, is all this dude doing is podcasting? Yeah. Like, is he still focusing on doing the case work and is he still a trial lawyer or is he just doesn't want to be podcasting? I think it's almost sometimes maybe backwards. I could be wrong about that. Do you ever worry about that?

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:37 I do, and that's that, actually. And it may be an unfounded fear, but there's a reason why I don't post a lot on my personal Facebook page about Maximum Lawyer, and because I know that a lot. We get a lot of clients through Facebook. And so I intentionally do not want the perspective to be, oh, Tyson's just this marketing guy, you know, like and so that's that's why is because I, I am hesitant. And that's one of those things that might be unfounded. I have that fear. So I have zero problem posting about maximum lawyer on, you know X or on YouTube.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:10 But when it comes to like Instagram or actually I don't have any problem posting on TikTok either because it's I feel like it's so TikTok is so different and it's funny, I don't ever get on TikTok, but we post on TikTok, but I feel like it's not connected, like Facebook, is where you can connect the dots from max law to metrics firm to, you know, my friends and all that. TikTok's like these like silos almost.

Josh Stein 00:28:34 It's so interesting that the social network platforms all speak a different language. Yes, right. And understanding that is kind of part one. I mean, everything you just said, I mean, TikTok is just kind of out there and you put it out there and people see it, but they're not going to be like, oh, that's this and this and this. I don't know. It's wild. Yeah. It's like like I said in the beginning, it's a crazy time that we live in. I think people that understand and utilize the power of social media are the ones that are going to get ahead, right? I mean, it's like first it was a website and people were resistant to that.

Josh Stein 00:29:03 Well, now, can you imagine having a website? Then it was social media channels like, oh, I'm not going to do that. Lawyers are above. You know, that kind of stuff. Can you imagine having social media channels then? It's now it's probably going to be, you know, I ChatGPT oh, I'm never going to let you know a machine do my job. So it's like you always gotta kind of follow those waves. Yeah. And do your best to not be the last one on it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:23 What do you think is going to be the next thing when it comes to getting clients, getting clients?

Josh Stein 00:29:27 I think that this AI stuff, if people can figure out how to marry AI and SEO, which I probably won't be able to do, well, I think that's going to be the ticket. I think it's going to bring down the costs of, you know, hiring these marketing firms that are going to do all your SEO for you. I think there's going to be AI platforms that can do it way cheaper.

Josh Stein 00:29:44 Having said that, I till till the last day I practiced law is going to just be a community marketing lawyer. You know, have had them know me, like me, trust me. So when the time comes, they need someone like that. They're going to think of me. Now, that might be the way the dinosaur, but that's what I'm going to continue to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:00 So there is I was I was watching something the other day and I'm not going to give credit to it, but they were talking about how you got no like everyone knows no like interest at this point. So especially if you're listening to this podcast, you know know like and trust what people do, the mistake they make with social media is they go, no, and that's it. Yeah. So they get people to know them, but they don't get the likable part and maybe get the likable part, but the most important part is the trust. Because then okay. Know, like and trust. Now I'm going to call you because I trust you to handle my case.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:31 And they skip out on the other two, which is an interesting part of it. And have you ever thought about that?

Josh Stein 00:30:36 I do, and I think the only way that you can do that, number one, is to be authentic in yourself for the like part, right? If you're trying to imitate somebody else's doing their thing, some dancing TikTok video like that's not you. Then people are gonna see that and they're like, yeah, that's kind of weird. And the trust thing, I've always thought you just give people kind of free information, give them the answers to their problems without them asking you for it or with anything in return. To me, that's how you build trust with someone, right? And so my videos, I'm like, okay, what are problems? What are issues that my clients are facing or potentially going to face? How can I just tell them in 45 seconds if your car is totaled, this is what's going to happen. I think that or I hope that's how you start building trust with people.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:15 Yeah. So Gary Vee and Alex Hermosa, I've heard them both talk about it recently when it comes to like 2025 and marketing and all that, that you're going to see less of the dancing lawyer kind of a thing, and you're going to be more of the and I would say almost going back to. They didn't say this, but going back to leading with value, because I feel like that's the way it used to be. I feel like when social media started out, at first it was, you know, lawyers giving advice on certain certain things, and that's what's going to kind of be going forward where people are going to be going to these specific channels to to look for information, and then they're going to go find what they're looking for.

Josh Stein 00:31:49 I hope so guys like me and you will be benefited. Absolutely right. Man if Gary, Gary, Vee God knows if he's been pretty ahead of the curve every step of the way. So I'm glad to hear him say that. But yeah I mean I think that that that hopefully that continues to win the day.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:00 Yeah. So let's let's dig a little bit more into your career a bit. And so take me to a time or some sort of moment that you realized your career path was about to change, and maybe drastically. Was there a specific spark that made you say, I need to do things this way, or I need to make a change.

Josh Stein 00:32:21 I got smoked in a trial. Oh, okay. Smoked in.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:24 A trial. On the defense side?

Josh Stein 00:32:25 Yes. And it was a combination of the facts were terrible. My client wasn't particularly helpful in everything. And I didn't do a great job.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:33 Insurance client or actual client? The actual client. Okay.

Josh Stein 00:32:36 Yeah, and I didn't do a great job. Not that I didn't try, but I didn't feel like I was totally vested because I'm like, this sucks. Yeah, right. And we got smoked and we should have gotten smoked, quite frankly. And I compared that with the case that we did really well at trial. And but going back, I felt terrible when we lost, of course.

Josh Stein 00:32:53 And I had a case that we did really well, and I liked the client and we won the case and say the insurance company, a bunch of money and all they cared about was, how much did you bill us? And can we start cutting your bill? You know, for this too much, whatever it might be. And I'm like, thank you would have been just fine. So I had those two experiences, kind of opposite experiences. Right. And I'm like, I don't think I can do this for the next however many years. And so I think that was the smart that was like, I want to be more in control of the case. I want to be in control of the client. I want to be able to choose my clients. Right? If I don't like the person, if I don't like their case, like I just want to be able to tell them no. On the insurance defense side, like the client is, the client is the client, you're going to take the case.

Josh Stein 00:33:30 So all those things together led me to make the move. There's never the perfect time to come up with a thousand excuses. My kids are too young. I got private school. I got a big mortgage. That's always going to be the case, right?

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:41 Yeah. Were you married at the time?

Josh Stein 00:33:42 Yeah. I mean, I'll marry my kids. I can do the math, but they're probably eight and five.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:47 That's a that's a really important time, too.

Josh Stein 00:33:50 I was too dumb to know, I guess. Right? Like, I was too dumb to know. I'm like, this is gonna work out. Like, of course it's gonna work out. Not that I was, like, conceited. I just think I was like, yeah, this is gonna work out. And if it doesn't work out, guess what? I saw this law degree. I still have all this experience on defense side. I'll come crawling back. And I still like all these people. They like me. And I'll just come back, tail between my legs, like, all right, guys, I tried it.

Josh Stein 00:34:11 Can you hire me back? And they probably would say yes. So if you can, if you can minimize your risk, which I'm always looking to do. At that point it's like, go for it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:20 Yeah, it's interesting how you put that, because I think some people might say, well, you're being fearless. You're being brave. You put it a little differently. You're a little harder on yourself almost, but that it is a bit of a superpower, what you call it whatever you want, but it is a bit of a superpower to be able to just say, yeah, it's risky. Oh, well, you know what I mean?

Josh Stein 00:34:37 Oh, well, yeah. Yeah, buddy of mine. His quote is so what?

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:40 Now what? Yeah.

Josh Stein 00:34:42 Something doesn't work. So what? Now what? And so if you look at it that way, it's like, look, no one can take away my ability to go try to make a living or raise my family or have a job.

Josh Stein 00:34:50 So try it. As opposed to 20 years down the road when you're like, I should have done it and now it's too late. Now there's no point to do it like I wouldn't want to. My mentality wouldn't want to be on that side of the fence, right?

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:01 Yeah. I mean, you're clearly like a very positive person. You've like you've got that nice. It's a great mindset to be able to kind of move on. Have you encountered any, any struggle when it comes to your career or your firm where you're like, I don't know if I'm going to make it.

Josh Stein 00:35:14 I think we all do, right? I mean, I think we all do. I think that every January 1st you say we it starts at zero and let's roll again. So I think that that anybody that doesn't is probably kidding themselves. I think owning that fear is probably healthy, right? I mean, I think that causes you to want to continue to succeed and have the drive and all that kind of stuff.

Josh Stein 00:35:30 I think goals are a funny thing. I think sometimes people feel the need to put like numerical goals or something in place for reasons that are, I don't know, to appease a marketing coach or something, I don't know. My goal is simply January 1st of next year. I want to keep doing the same thing. So whatever it takes to get there, that's what I want to do. And then I want to keep that goal for every year until I don't need to do any more.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:49 So let's talk about that a little bit more. Then let's dive in some some goals. Do you I mean do you have any goals.

Josh Stein 00:35:55 You heard it. I mean it's it's being a financial situation where next January 1st Jason law firm is still open for business. And however it takes to get there I also want to do I don't have a goal of like, I gotta have this much in revenue or this many clients. You would probably shriek at the lack of metrics that I look at, or.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:12 Maybe.

Josh Stein 00:36:13 Or KPIs, those kinds of things. I never got good at that. And so I'm like, do I have to? And the answer probably is I should. But at this point it's like, you know, I don't want to invest the time to go back and do it, which I realize is wrong, but at least I can understand that I own it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:27 I mean, I don't know if I'm wrong is the way I'd put it.

Josh Stein 00:36:29 Yeah. So it's it's I've got my, my two paralegals. I've got, you know, my other folks, I've got this lawyer. Now that's, that's, that's of counsel in my firm. I'm happy with this setup. And let's just keep clicking off the month.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:39 So I what I love about you is how happy you are. At least you seem happy. Hopefully you are happy. I love the fact that you. It's like, you know, there's no you're not saying, hey, there's a way, there's there's a right way, there's a wrong way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:52 It's like, this is just your way. I think that that's I think it's it's quite a relief. I'll be honest with you.

Josh Stein 00:36:57 I appreciate that. And I hope that's that's the, that's that's what I, that's how I feel. Right. And it's hard to to try to put out the outside noise and just do it your way. But there's a, there's some happiness that comes with that. Right. Yeah. God, we're so lucky to be doing what we're doing. I mean, I look at all the jobs out there, and the fact that we're fortunate enough to do this one and get paid pretty well to do it, it's like, what's there not to be happy about?

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:20 Do you practice? I mean, you've you've mentioned you're not said the word gratitude, but you've you've shown gratitude several times already. Do you practice regular gratitude where you're like you every morning you wake up and say you're grateful for three things. Anything like.

Josh Stein 00:37:32 That? No, no, no, I don't do that.

Josh Stein 00:37:34 No. I don't know, man. I mean, I just I feel like there's two ways you can go about living life. You can live it in a good way or a bad way. And that's that's very like black and white. But if you look at it that way, like living in a good way. Yeah. You know, I mean, we have a lot to be thankful for. How old were you born? In 1979. So what does that make me? 45. I did the math every single time.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:52 You're a few years older than I am. Yeah. Have you thought about what you want your life to look at? Like when you're, like, 65?

Josh Stein 00:37:57 Yeah, I think about it a lot because I don't think I want to be doing this for 20 more years.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:02 Oh, okay. Let's see. All right. I want to hear more about this.

Josh Stein 00:38:05 Well, just because I think it's going to change a lot. I mean, tort reform is coming in Georgia.

Josh Stein 00:38:08 You have no reason to follow it. But tort reform is coming. That's going to change the landscape.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:11 I mean, we haven't I mean, they've been trying to get us for 15 years in Missouri, so I, I, we follow it religiously.

Josh Stein 00:38:18 So you lived through it. I mean, Georgia's Georgia's bringing that pretty good and we'll find out I don't know if it's going to air, but we're going to find out probably in April. So that's going to be changing. I think that, you know, with the with the self-driving cars, with all the other things like I think just our industry is going to change a little. Yeah, I agree. I want to figure out a way to do what you and me are doing right now and do that. Yeah. Like I said, my favorite hour of the week, Workwise, is doing these podcasts. And so if there's a way that I could somehow do that, that sounds pretty darn good to me. My kids or my daughter is a junior in high school.

Josh Stein 00:38:46 My son's in eighth grade, so they'll be in college. I mean, you know, less than five, six years. And that kind of changed the dynamic to a little bit. So I don't know. We'll see.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:53 Yeah. Is your, wife or is she on board with, sort of your mindset on things? I do wonder if, like, do you get pressure from home? Like, hey, get the firm structure and set goals. What's that like? I'm just. I'm gonna start a little fight here.

Josh Stein 00:39:06 Let's see. So she works for the firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:07 Oh, okay. The firm.

Josh Stein 00:39:09 I mean, she's she's her office manager. She writes all the check. She handles all the overseeing, all the marketing stuff. So I mean, I don't I don't want to sound like we're aloof, right? Yeah. You know, we have a very good structure in place. Yeah. I mean, she loves it. It gives her the flexibility. She works from home. She goes to the gym at 830, to her, you know, whatever the class is, she's home at ten.

Josh Stein 00:39:27 She can work till the kids get home. Like, it just works for everybody.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:31 Yeah. The freedom that you get from owning a law firm is just. It's hard to beat.

Josh Stein 00:39:35 You can't go back, right? I mean, you can't go back. I mean, that goes back to my glory years. Like, if I had to, I'd go back and work for a big firm. But, like, I really don't want to have to do that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:44 So you don't want to be doing this in 20 years, which is. That's such an interesting thing. You know, a lot of people, they'd love to be able to keep doing this for 20 years or so. Like, do you I mean, have you really kind of sat down and thought about like, this is what we want our life to look like, that we want to, you know, this is where we want to live. Or maybe you're gonna stay in the same house. I don't know, like, you know, I wake up at 8 a.m., you know, I gotta do this.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:05 Like, have you thought about all that?

Josh Stein 00:40:07 I think what I said when we did this for one year, I don't want to have the pressure of every day, every month, every year to be cranking out a profitable law firm. I think that there is a dream scenario where my website, my contacts, my firm is all up and running and we're still taking on, you know, the, the good cases that we want, but just being super more selective about it. So I think that is the scenario. But maybe that's I mean, I don't think in 20 years I want to be doing that, but probably 10 or 15, you know, look, I've never lived anywhere but Georgia, so I don't know what else is out there. But, you know, my family's here, all my friends are here. So I don't see myself leaving anywhere. I don't play more golf. Being a boat more, that sounds pretty good.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:44 So you don't have KPIs, right? Make sure.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:46 Nope. Okay. Because I do wonder. I'm going to try to push you. I'm gonna try to convince you of some things. Sure. I do think if you start thinking about that stuff now where like you start to create these stepping stones to get to that point where you've got these systems where you can spend more time. I think it's going to help you a lot more than maybe you even realize at this point.

Josh Stein 00:41:04 You're not wrong. And I know that the question of if I get hit by a bus tomorrow or like what happens? Like I understand all that. So I'm not. I'm not naive. If I, if I sat down tomorrow, you could probably help me. But if I said what's gonna be the first KPI that I wouldn't even know where to start, would not even know where to begin.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:21 Right. Yeah. I mean, that's we could probably do an episode all by all by itself, but okay, so we can kind of walk this a little bit. Let's have a little fun.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:28 Larger size. Sure. So it would be helpful, I think, if we had a better idea as to what it looks like. You know, when you want to in 20 years or so, but let's say let's let's kind of pare it down. Let's go, let's go make this a little bit easier. Sure. In three years, what do you want things to look like for your for for your personal life. Your your home life. Your exact same work life. Okay. Exact same. Yeah. Okay. So what's the one thing you need to focus on every single day, every single week to make sure that you're still doing what you're doing now in three years?

Josh Stein 00:41:58 My word is consistency. Okay. That's a big word for me. That's showing up every day and doing the job that's showing up to do my marketing stuff. Do my. I do three ish videos a week that I put out again, I think it helps. I don't know, but people will see them that's doing those.

Josh Stein 00:42:12 That is do my podcast regularly every week. That is doing good work with the clients because if that's not happening, then it all tumbles. Yeah, right. And that's the House of cards that fall. And I think when you go back not to change gears, I will answer your question. But, you know, when you talk about the shift and like the dancing TikTok lawyers, because those TikTok lawyers aren't doing good jobs in their cases, right? They're focusing on dancing on TikTok. And so if you're not doing a good job on the cases, the whole thing crumbles. Sure. So I'm focusing on doing a good job because then, you know, every year my my client base gets larger, which then expands the people that are out there recommending me when they're friends or family, you know, get, get hurt. So I just focus on that. I don't want to hire more paralegals. I don't want to hire more lawyers. My mentality has always been that if I get too many cases to handle, I just keep increasing my threshold for size of cases.

Josh Stein 00:43:01 In the smaller ones, I refer out to peers and let them do it. That's always been my motto. I learned that from a person who I who I joined up with Andy Goldner. And so in three years, I guess my threshold will just be hopefully a little bit higher. And so the case I'm working on are just that much higher. And the ones I'm, you know, sending to other lawyers, you know, will be lower.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:18 So you're I guess for that to happen, then what you're going to need to do is making sure that you are bringing in clients on a regular basis. Right. So what I guess, what does that one thing you need to focus on then to make sure that those clients are coming in on a regular basis consistently, because I think, you know, there's like a plateau. It seems that some law firms hit or lawyers hit like they get to a certain age and then they stagnate, and then they start to see the massive decline in cases because they kind of stopped marketing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:47 So is there anything specifically when it comes to marketing that you know, you need to be doing on a, on a weekly or daily basis?

Josh Stein 00:43:52 Yeah, I mean, so I guess I'm putting faith just in the process that continues going on. I focus 90 plus percent of my attention on my community. So I live in East Cobb, which is a Marietta just north of Atlanta. I was born there. I went to high school there. My daughter goes to the high school there. My son will go there next year. And so I sponsored the baseball team and the football team and the volleyball team and all that kind of stuff. And so and so I feel like if every year I'm still there and every year just by, you know, the, the law of averages, somebody in that community is going to get in a tough spot. They're going to think of me like there's I'm not competing against anybody else for that particular group of people, because I'm kind of the only one.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:31 What happens when they graduate? Are you going to keep.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:33 I think so, yeah.

Josh Stein 00:44:34 Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's interesting because, you know, in the 90s I was all about the high school and the community. And then I had like a 15 year kind of break where I was not involved. But now that I'm back in, like I know all the kids now when my youngest son graduates, hopefully the couple, you know, grades below him, I'll start to know them and I'll get me more engaged. But, you know, I feel good about it too. Like, I like going to the football game. This might be narcissistic. I like seeing my logo on the scoreboard. You know, I like when you know there's a batter up to bat in the baseball game, and the announcer, Mark Ashton, says, this inning is brought to you by the Jay Stein law firm. Like, I like that. Yeah. So it just feels good to me and that even my kids aren't involved. Like, I probably still do it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:15 Okay, so we won't dive too much into the marketing because I think we could go really deep and like, okay, these are the things when it comes to marketing you need to focus on. But okay, so we know we know that marketing is a key component, right? So you can't stop doing that when it comes to the other side of things. You got to make sure you're doing a really good job in cases. Otherwise that's going to go away. So what do you have to make sure that you're doing on a regular basis to make sure that you all are doing just tip top job on on cases?

Josh Stein 00:45:38 Yeah. Keep our caseload small, right? Every client has my cell phone number. Every client has my paralegal cell phone number. And so if we have just a finite number of cases, it allows me to touch them every couple of weeks, like it won't be three weeks go by that a client hasn't at least heard from me. Like how are we doing? How are we feeling? What's going on here? I can do that because I don't have hundreds of cases.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:58 So the number one thing you need to focus on, I guess, is the number of cases.

Josh Stein 00:46:01 Yeah. Which is always kind of been my thing. So it's like I found and everybody's different. For me, like between 30 and 40 cases is kind of my sweet spot. If I get below that, I'm like, I need some cases. I get above that. I'm like too much. So if I can continue to elevate that ceiling or I guess the floor of the kind of cases I'm getting without jeopardizing them in case I'm handling, then it should stay about the same.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:24 Now. Don't look now, but you're starting to develop some KPIs that you don't realize.

Josh Stein 00:46:28 If I don't write them down, it's not a KPI, right? What's what's going to be interesting though is, is as the the the cases get bigger, of course the time you spend on them gets more. And so 30 cases of one category is different than 30 cases of another. So that 30 probably becomes more like 20 and then it becomes more like ten.

Josh Stein 00:46:45 So yeah, I guess you have peeled back my onion to get to my KPI without me even knowing it, but that's kind of how I look at things.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:51 Do you think there might be another number or something else you can look at to make sure, other than, you know, number of cases, something else that might indicate the health of of the firm.

Josh Stein 00:47:00 People say how many calls you get a month, right? I've never tracked that because some months are just way different than others. What I found, and this is junk science. I found when I settle two cases, two calls come in. It's just weird that way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:12 Yeah, that's definitely junk science.

Josh Stein 00:47:13 It's weird that way. I've found if I turned down a questionable case, I probably didn't want a good case file. Is it junk science? But I'm gonna. Like I said, I'm going to keep kind of going down that path until I can't anymore.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:25 Better be lucky than good. Maybe. Do you ever look at average case value?

Josh Stein 00:47:28 No, no.

Josh Stein 00:47:29 And I again, I know that I should, and that is because I've had a couple like, massive outliers on both sides that I think would be kind of skewing it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:39 Yeah. You had to throw those numbers out.

Josh Stein 00:47:40 Yeah. If I did that then I probably could. I mean, so I know, I know the sweet spot of where I think I'm best case value. Okay. I think that a case that has between 100,000 in value and a million in values is my sweet spot. That's where I think I really do the best job. There's people that $5 million cases like there's better than me at it. I could do it. I don't have the the dozens of multi-million dollar works behind me that can really pump those up. But you know the case that $100,000 and less like people, other people should be doing this too. So I guess you found another KPI for me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:09 Well, I like to ask the most important numbers. Average case value. It really because we can look at it gives a really good idea, an indicator as to what the things we're doing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:18 If it's, you know, if it starts to go down or why why is it going down? Is it going up okay? Why is it going up? We we have a really good indicator as to that. So I think it would be, especially since you are you've got a certain threshold of cases. Let's say that your average case value is in half cut in half. Then you know you're going to have to take on like double the cases.

Josh Stein 00:48:42 So I could pretty easily go out of my office today and go from 2017 to 2024 and give you that exact answer, because I've got every, every year is okay. This many cases, this is my total revenue. I could do all of that. So I'm happy to do that. That's probably pretty good exercise. Yeah. So the question I have for you then is we will get we'll get calls on cases, we'll talk to them, you know, we'll go through whatever the process is and decide it's not a case. I still put that in the same closed file folder.

Josh Stein 00:49:11 Do you include that in your average case value or do you throw that out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:13 Okay. So two part question because you know how you throw that throw out the highs and lows. So track two numbers. You'll track all of them. The ones that we investigate. And we say this is not a case. We I don't I don't include that. But if we lose like a motion for summary judgment I'll include that. Yeah. Right. Or if you get a verdict and A0I include that. So those ones. Yes, I include the ones where we investigate. I treat that a lot like it. If we do a micro intake and someone on the front lines says it's not a case, that's how I treat it. It's not just it was never a case, but if it's something where we put time into invested into where we're like, you know, file suit on it, then yeah, we end up getting zero and that's that's a zero. Yeah. But you I throw, you throw those out whenever you're talking about the highs and the lows.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:56 Right. And so you're You have to do both. You know, two numbers.

Josh Stein 00:50:00 Can I make your skin crawl even more?

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:01 I'd love to. Yes.

Josh Stein 00:50:02 Let's hear it. I don't have any sort of, like, case management system.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:07 I always wondered, because here's what's funny. Ten years ago. I don't know how that's possible to do today with Google and the way they've got sheets set up. I could you could build out a case management system without any issue that's connected to Zapier or in all these other automations, that you could actually run it from a spreadsheet the way Google is currently sitting. It's it is fascinating the developments that they made with sheets, but I don't know how you are able to do this. Do you have paper files or how are you able to manage your cases?

Josh Stein 00:50:39 No paper files. There's no paper in the office. Okay, so the only paper we keep our deposition transcripts is sealed ones. Right. Everything else I get electronically sent to Dropbox and all the Microsoft tools.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:51 Where do you take, like, notes on cases?

Josh Stein 00:50:53 And we create a Dropbox folder. And so I can do a couple different ways. I can do it on my surface, and I can type it in or draw it in. I can just do an email and put it in. I can do a handwritten note and scan it in. I have all those plot eyes. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:08 Yeah.

Josh Stein 00:51:08 Which has been great. I mean, that that's amazing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:11 I want to ask you more about.

Josh Stein 00:51:11 That in a second. Yeah. So that'll plug it in. So for me, if I have 30 cases, I've got 30 individual Dropbox folders. You know, it'd be, you know, Joan Smith. Whatever I do identify the folder by where it came from. So I know this is a case that came from this particular marketing thing or this came from a referral source. So I do do that. But yeah, then I just everything is in that Dropbox folder. And then my wife is really good with Excel.

Josh Stein 00:51:36 She's really good with all the Microsoft Office stuff. And that's how we keep up with everything, you know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:40 I'd rather you do that than like have something like super complicated system that you don't use or that is too complicated because.

Josh Stein 00:51:46 Sometimes we stupid in that. Right. Keep it. That's keep it simple. Stupid. And so that's what we've done. If I had 100 cases, I couldn't do it. Totally understand that when I was the defense firm, we had pro law and it was amazing. You would type in things, it would auto populate probably your Zapier stuff you do. I totally understand the benefit of all that. I just don't want a firm that requires that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:04 Yeah. You don't you don't have the benefit of doctrine where you're really drafting a letter. It just populates everything that you.

Josh Stein 00:52:09 Copy and paste, man.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:10 So you do use templates. So that's good. You know, at State Farm back in the day we had we had templates and it was like it was like note templates, which I thought were really great, where I didn't have to copy and paste it, but I actually did borrow some of that for like art or stuff, where it would pop up and it would say, I'm just going to make up something.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:31 So because I worked in fire claims, let's say it's a, it's a, you know, there was a fire at a house and it might say if there was like a note, you know, it would have all these different categories. I had to fill out each category, you know, you know who I spoke to, what we talked about. And they had like a bunch of yes or no questions, you know, did you do this? Did you do that? Which are things like that are pretty helpful? Do you do anything like that?

Josh Stein 00:52:51 You know, I think about when you say that, I think about the jobs and office space and TPS reports.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:54 Oh.

Josh Stein 00:52:54 That's funny. That's what I think about. Okay. It's a problem with me. I understand that. I absolutely recognize that. I think about I'm creating something for the sake of creating something, as opposed to just doing it and moving on to the next thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:05 Right. How do you know if a case is on track?

Josh Stein 00:53:08 This is going to make you upset too.

Josh Stein 00:53:09 In my head, because we have a small amount of cases I look at every Monday, I'm like scanning my cases and saying, okay, what needs to be done here? When he's done there, I really do have a such a good grasp of each one of my cases that it's kind of like that spider sense where, you know, like, this has to happen. I mean, what I've found, quite frankly, and this I'm not putting myself in the back, but I move at a faster speed than the defense does. I get frustrated because I want to do things in my cases, and the defense isn't ready to do it yet. And so I'm almost being stalled on my stuff, which then, you know, leads to them being like, okay, Josh, now we're ready to do this, which allows it to happen, if that makes sense.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:43 No, I mean, I think that it does. And it sounds like you have good balance. You really do. And it sounds like you don't have too many cases, which is fantastic.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:50 That's something where it's a it's a big logjam. Who's on your team? You got your wife. You got an associate?

Josh Stein 00:53:56 Well, he's up council. So he has his own firm. I've got a paralegal. Okay. And that's.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:00 It. How does your paralegal or your wife know what's in your head? I have to tell him. Yeah.

Josh Stein 00:54:06 Yeah, I mean, so so Melissa is across the hall, and, you know, it's. This is what we're doing. Yeah. Here's an email. This is what we're gonna do. And she's, you know, she's the point where she knows, you know, when when you open a case like the five things you have to do. Like, I guess I have written those out. Come to think of it like. Like before we hired our first paralegal. I did put a book that's like, this is how we do things. Yeah, but because I haven't hired anybody in however many years, like, I haven't had to revisit it, right? So, so so she so she knows like, okay, it's it's like how the contract looks via DocuSign.

Josh Stein 00:54:35 This health authorization, this is the open records request we send out. This is the letter to the insurance company. This is the letter to the, carrier. Like go down the list and then it's this is to get the pictures is you got medical records. You got you have to get medical bills. So like the process is there. She doesn't need me to tell her to do it. You know, the complaints we file, it's like standard car wreck complaints are pretty similar, right? So we've done a thousand of them. So I mean copy and paste might, might make you kind of make you as well. But like copy and paste one but the other she looks please report. This was September 10th. This was the county. This is the plaintiff. I tweak it for the specific facts of the case takes.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:09 What percentage of your week is is are you are you personally dealing with like returning client phone calls or text messages or emails?

Josh Stein 00:55:16 I do all.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:16 That. So like what? Like what percentage of your week would you say you do that?

Josh Stein 00:55:19 Again, we don't have a ton of clients.

Josh Stein 00:55:21 And so we're we're kind of reaching out to them like like the calls I don't like or the text I don't like or when it's, hey Josh, what's up in my case? Haven't heard you in a minute.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:30 Like you're not doing a lot of that then like, are you? So you're more proactive.

Josh Stein 00:55:33 We're proactive. Yeah. We're proactive and is like, you know, I go back, read my Google reviews. You know, that's what people are. We really appreciate Josh as being upfront with us and keeping us up to date and telling us what's going on. Our expectations, like that's what we pride ourselves on, is that you're not going to be out there for three months wondering what in the world is going on. My case, that's what we hear, is the number one complaint from all these clients, right? So like, I can easily control that text message takes no time dictate. You know, we just sent out the request for medical records. Usually takes around 30 days.

Josh Stein 00:56:04 We'll let you know when we get them. Once they get back, we'll put the demand together. Period. Done.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:08 I think what this shows is that there's no right way of doing anything. You know, there's really not. You'll have a lot of people say, well, this is the way you've got to do these things. Otherwise you're not doing it the right way. And I really don't think there's any right way. There's not. I mean, I think there's I could certainly come in. I think we could probably improve some like your life a little bit, you know, with some of the things. But that would require technology and all that. But your I mean, you're happy, your clients are happy, you're getting good results. And if if you're on track to hit, you know, your vision for yourself and your family, then there's there's nothing wrong with that.

Josh Stein 00:56:40 Yeah. I don't doubt you could come in and do that. Probably wouldn't take you very long. I know in real time when I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing.

Josh Stein 00:56:47 Yeah, I know it. Care. Okay. It's what I want to do. I want, you know, if I like putting a settlement together for my client. Because I'd like to see exactly how I know my paralegal could do that and should be doing it, but I like doing it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:57 I think you're very atypical of most most law firm owners, though, where they don't want to be doing some of that stuff, and they do it because they feel like they have to, as opposed to because they want to. I think that's I think that's the difference.

Josh Stein 00:57:07 I think, is they were told they couldn't do any other way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:09 Maybe you know what? They could.

Josh Stein 00:57:11 It could be like this. This is the way the widget's made. And and again, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just saying it's it's what has kind of morphed for me. And it's what's.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:20 It's right for you. Yeah. What? So the the eye device that you're wearing, what's yours?

Josh Stein 00:57:25 I'm not wearing.

Josh Stein 00:57:26 I should have worn it today. Actually, I should have. So I wear it in my podcasts, so I don't know why. Didn't wear it today. I wear it on my, you know, client meetings and it records everything that is being said.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:36 So everything throughout your day, is it recording.

Josh Stein 00:57:38 When I turn it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:39 On. Okay.

Josh Stein 00:57:39 When I turn it on.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:40 Yeah, that was a big question. I've had like because I've seen these on Facebook and all over the place. So you, you have to activate it and like you just push a button.

Josh Stein 00:57:48 On it on your phone.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:49 Okay.

Josh Stein 00:57:49 Yeah. Yeah. So you can wear it as a bracelet. So. So I've never used it as, like, a sneaky thing. Like in Georgia. You could. I mean, George is a one person consent to record.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:58 Missouri's like.

Josh Stein 00:57:58 That. Yeah. So if I wanted to, I could be sneaky and wear, but I. That's not my purpose for it.

Josh Stein 00:58:03 So my purpose is I wear it, you know, either as a bracelet you wear on your neck. And so my podcast, it will record the whole thing which will then summarize it for me, which will then allow me, you know, like this, put it in ChatGPT as a transcript, which then can make a small summary for my social media posts or my summaries in the actual podcast thing. So that's been very helpful. When I meet with a client, I wear it. And then the cool thing it will give you action plan items. I don't know how it does this, but it'll it'll read your transcript and it'll say, based on this, you need to go to X, Y, and Z, which is pretty cool. It is. And so, you know, I've just kind of begun to use that as a tool. And it's been very, very helpful.

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:40 RingCentral as a tool. Do you use RingCentral for your phones. So they've got something where you can. It's AI transcription I have a like set to like auto record, so I don't have to remember to hit the button.

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:50 Yeah. And at the end of it it'll say like like two items or something like that. So it does say like, you know, Tyson's that he would do this, clients that he would do that. And that's really helpful.

Josh Stein 00:58:59 Yeah. Yeah. It's good. I mean, so the days of taking a paper note, I don't think we need to do that anymore. And it's pretty inexpensive. I mean, I think it was 160 bucks, something like that. I mean, the hardest part is just keeping it charged, but, you know, it's it's nothing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:12 How often do you have to charge it?

Josh Stein 00:59:14 Oh, I mean, I just keep it, I keep it charged in. It's just kind of my thing at work. But I think you could probably get several hours of use out of it. I mean, I've never run it for more than an hour or two at a time. I've never had a problem. But yeah, applaud I.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:27 Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna check that out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:28 This is not sponsored by Plourde, but maybe we'll get that.

Josh Stein 00:59:31 Sponsored if someone gets a good use out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:33 Of it. Maybe you get a, maybe you get some some money from it. But so I mean, you've spent a lot of time talking about like designing sort of a practice that fits your lifestyle. I mean, have there been any sacrifices you've you've had to make. To to do that.

Josh Stein 00:59:48 I probably could make more money. Okay. I probably could have more cases. I probably could hire more people and stroke my ego that I've got this big practice, all this kind of thing. So I probably missed out on, you know, certain big cases where the client was like, yeah, that firm's probably not the one that we need to hire just for the mere frontage part of it. Right? Just for the perception. So I'm sure I missed out on some of that stuff.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:08 Does that not I guess it just doesn't affect you.

Josh Stein 01:00:10 What am I going to do?

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:11 Right.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:12 Yeah.

Josh Stein 01:00:12 Yeah. What am I.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:12 Going to do? Have you ever been tempted to kind of like, shift gears and go, oh yeah, maybe we'll, you know, get some more automations built in or take on more cases. Have you ever been tempted to do that?

Josh Stein 01:00:23 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:24 Wow. No. Good.

Josh Stein 01:00:25 I'm sorry man.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:26 I know that's that's is fantastic I love it I love the fact that you're happy in your skin. You you're happy with what you have set up. I think that's great. What then? Does anything ever keep you up at night.

Josh Stein 01:00:39 Are used to keep you up a lot more? I mean, I've, I feel like I'm banking on what I have done in the past that will continue to work in the future. And again, that's leap of faith. That's whatever you want to call it. But I feel like I positioned myself now through through hard work from the beginning. Right. That she can keep working. Yeah, she's gonna keep working.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:57 So you and I are young enough that we are.

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:00 There's a possibility that that autonomous vehicles are definitely going to be in full force. I mean, with AI, it could be in the next ten years. I mean, it was it ten years ago, they were saying in five years they were going to be all over the place. They're not it's not even close to what they said it was going to be. But with AI, the advances could be, I mean, much faster, I think. So I haven't quite digested how we're going to navigate that AI. It's a tough thing because other than pivoting to another practice area, I think there are still going to be injury cases, but there's just not going to be enough to feed all the firms that are out.

Josh Stein 01:01:32 There, right? So the way that I have thought about protecting myself is by doing what I've done with my overhead and my office, and as long as I'm lean and mean and small and don't have, you know, six figure, you know, obligations coming up every however often I can whether kind of a whatever changes have to be made right.

Josh Stein 01:01:51 The Morgan Morgan's world they're going to have a hard time. They have that kind of office space and that kind of personnel and that kind of overhead like that would keep me up at night. And so what I've tried to do is if I, if I keep that low, one of them being my wife, right then it's not going to, you know, I can I can handle a downturn. I think our jobs as we know it in ten, 20 years would be very, very different. Which is why I said at the beginning that I probably would be doing this in 20 years. Every year that we keep cars out there banging into each other is another year I could kick off. You know, I think that that there'll be a wave of self-driving litigation. I think that's going to, you know, be a 70 year process. And then once we get through that, I think we there could be some tough times, right? I have tried to not focus on just auto accident cases.

Josh Stein 01:02:32 Another KPI, I guess I talked about that's probably a third of what I do.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:36 Really.

Josh Stein 01:02:37 Yeah. And so.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:38 The way your car crashes are only a third of what you do, probably.

Josh Stein 01:02:40 30 or 40%.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:41 Yeah. Wow. That's a shocking number. Wow.

Josh Stein 01:02:44 Okay. Yeah. So I so I, you know, I came from a world where I defended retail and restaurant hospitality industry. So slip and falls, those those cases are probably that in dog bites. And actually daycare cases are probably the three in security.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:59 I just settled a daycare case on Friday.

Josh Stein 01:03:01 Yeah so did.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:02 I. Nice. Yeah. Congrats.

Josh Stein 01:03:04 Yeah. Thank you. Congrats to you too. So, you know, the car wreck cases are always going to be probably the the bread and butter, but it's not all that we do.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:11 Yeah. I've always not understood the hesitation that a lot of firms have when taking premises cases where you had to file suit on more of those than a car crash, that's for sure.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:21 But they they are usually pretty serious injuries and you can make really good money from them.

Josh Stein 01:03:27 You know why? Because they're harder.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:28 They are harder. They're harder.

Josh Stein 01:03:29 Yes. Yeah. Because it requires the lawsuit. It requires taking depositions. It requires fighting a summary judgment motion as opposed to a car wreck case. Someone runs a red light, it's done. And so they're just harder. But you know, what I found is if you vet those properly and we vet, you know what out of them because you can get in a bad spot fast. There are good cases and there's always plenty of insurance coverage. The injuries, you know, if someone falls, they break their leg like it's a big injury case. You usually get pretty sophisticated defense lawyers. That's what I like about them as well. That's true. You usually get better defense lawyers that understand how to value a case. And that's another thing like my mindset about defense lawyers has shifted completely. Like I want the good solid, seasoned.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:07 Interesting.

Josh Stein 01:04:07 As opposed to like fresh out of law school, like deer in headlights. Like, I don't want that. I want the good defense lawyer who's going to understand the cases.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:15 Yeah, I think that that makes sense because you have it sounds like we're talking about legal stuff. We're really not. This is a business thing, too, because the what happens is you hinted at this before where you'll have the bad, let's say, less seasoned attorney giving bad advice to the adjuster and which then on a case that should settle does not settle until either they get new counsel or you have to try the damn case whenever the more experienced attorneys be like, yeah, this is a good case, just pay. You need to pay them. That's it.

Josh Stein 01:04:43 Yeah. And the defense lawyer has the credibility with their client that says, hey, I've been doing this for however long, like I've seen everything. This is one you got to pay. And they're like, yeah, that guy knows what he's talking about.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:54 Right. Yeah. So what's ahead for you, though, are you. You've got you've got the torts and sports and torts. Torts and sports and sports. Sports and torts. Sports and torts. Yeah. Any other. Any other.

Josh Stein 01:05:04 Well, first thing I'm gonna do is invite you to come on my podcast. I mean.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:07 I had, you know, I had an idea when you, when you were talking about it not to cut you off, but I want to make sure I give you this idea. Yeah. Where you. Maybe you already doing this? It may not be a good idea, but like having a lawyer from a town for, like, that's the George is playing.

Josh Stein 01:05:20 It's.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:20 It is. You already doing.

Josh Stein 01:05:21 That? So. So. Yes and no. Okay. We try. Okay. I have a an offshoot called College Football's Last Call, which is, which is we do it just in the fall season. Yeah. On on on. and we, we recap the Georgia game from the week before.

Josh Stein 01:05:36 We preview the next game, and then we talk about just the the college football landscape. On the whole, it's like 30 minute show me and two buddies. It's so much fun. And we have started to bring on people just like you mentioned, like a Florida fan or a I did a back and forth with lawyers in Texas that we went back and forth and I was on their podcast, How About Texas?

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:53 That'd be so.

Josh Stein 01:05:54 Fun. So, so when we play Missouri next year, I hate to put you off until next fall, but we'll do it. We'll do it in the fall.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:59 Fair.

Josh Stein 01:06:00 Yeah. And yeah, that's great. I mean, that way you're you're you're bringing someone my, my whole thing is like, if you get someone talking about what they're really passionate about, it becomes good content. And like.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:09 Are they any good at basketball this year?

Josh Stein 01:06:10 Georgia gonna make the dance.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:12 So there's a chance we'll play each other in the dance. Yeah. Slim chance, but there's a chance.

Josh Stein 01:06:15 So Mike white, our coach, said yesterday that the SEC this year was the hardest conference in the history of college basketball.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:22 I mean, at 1.4 out of the top five, I think, or five out of the top six were SEC teams. I mean, it's it's I mean, Mizzou. And here's the thing, like Mizzou, I was just talking about Mizzou a few minutes ago where because the previous guest was a Vanderbilt grad and they started the skid, the Three-game skid that Mizzou is on where we lost three games in a row. Should have never lost to Vanderbilt. But like Mizzou, like if they would have beaten Vanderbilt, they would have been a top ten team. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they lose three in a row. But that's because you've got the SEC is just it's.

Josh Stein 01:06:53 Stacked merge row. Yeah. It's like by way of an example again we're recording this middle of March. I'm not trying to give away your secrets about time.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:00 But no.

Josh Stein 01:07:01 Worries at all.

Josh Stein 01:07:02 the tournament selection committee is is a Sunday. And so I'm thinking my head like, okay, who are two people that are going to have, you know, connections to their team? And that's what the podcast was. One of my buddies is an Auburn guy. I texted him like, hey man, Auburn be number one seed. You know, we're going to do a podcast next week about this. I'm assuming Georgia gets in. If they don't, we're not doing the podcast type thing. But like so your ideas is what I'm thinking about too.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:25 I love it. Okay, so last question for you. I want you to imagine that you were able to send yourself a message for back to when you first launched your law firm, okay. The very first day, what would you write and why?

Josh Stein 01:07:39 I would say something about. Ignore as much of the outside noise as you can. Stay true to whatever type of firm you want to set up. Know that there are multiple different ways to skin the cat.

Josh Stein 01:07:49 Figure out the way you want to do it and keep your head down. And go to work every single day and stay consistent.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:54 What is that?

Josh Stein 01:07:55 That's what I've tried to do. And that's what. That's what I've. That's what I've tried to do. And I am content and comfortable with where it has brought me to. And so if I'm happy where I am, wouldn't I want to just try to replicate what got there? And if I made a mistake? Sure. I'm not saying I'm not sitting here to say I've done everything. I've done more things wrong than right. But I think if you follow those kind of core tenets that I laid out, at least for me, that's where I've found success.

Tyson Mutrux 01:08:18 Thanks for coming on the.

Josh Stein 01:08:19 Show, man. Hey, man, I appreciate this was great conversation. Thank you so much.