Understanding Your Finances to Help Your Firm Thrive with Leah Miller

02:10 Meet Leah and her story of becoming an entrepreneur

06:20 How working for herself has allowed Leah to be more present for her children

11:56 The importance of understanding finances for law firm owners and the services provided to help them manage their finances effectively

21:17 Regularly reviewing expenses and ensuring that they are necessary and utilized efficiently

22:19 Cutting expenses without compromising efficiency

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Transcript: Understanding Your Finances to Help Your Firm Thrive with Leah Miller

(00:00:01) – Welcome to Maximum Mom with a least boy, where you’ll hear from women who are navigating the same messy journey as you lawyering, entrepreneurship and mothering. What a trifecta. We’re here to share tips, resources, wins, losses and encouragement for moms who are raising a family while building a law firm so you feel less alone in your journey toward a fulfilling career and being the best mom you can be. Welcome to the Maximum Mom podcast. This is Elise Bui and I am here with Leah Miller. Leah, thanks so much for joining me. I’m so excited to talk to you today. Oh, I am thrilled to have you on. And now that I just learned your very exciting news that you are on your own doing your business, that makes me so excited. We couldn’t have done this at a better time, which I just think it’s so fun. Yes, I’m so excited. It’s been a lot of change, but it’s so good. Well, first, tell us, what do you do? I mean, I won’t even go back into a lot of your past history right now because we’ll have a lot to talk about.

(00:01:06) – Tell us what you’re doing right now, what your business is and what you’re doing. So I have started financial services and I do fractional CFO services and bookkeeping services for small businesses focusing on law firms, because that’s my past and that’s what I know best. And so my big goal in all of this in is helping business owners really focus on their financials and go beyond the taxes because you have a CPA, CPAs are so important. They help you pay your taxes. That is like so, so important that I get it. But there’s so much more beyond what there is just to pay your taxes and really having a deep understanding of the financials and where that can get you with goal setting and moving forward with your business growing and really doing all the things with that. So that’s why I’m helping small business owners do well. It just makes me so happy and so happy that you’ve decided to go out on your own. Tell us, when did you go out on your own? So I just went out on my own.

(00:02:10) – I started my business about six months ago while working my full time job, and things started moving quicker than I originally anticipated, which was exciting. And so my last day at my previous job was May 6th. And so I am a little bit more than a month into full time working for myself, which is been it’s up and down all day, every day, but in a good way. It’s amazing. Well, I love talking to new entrepreneurs because I just think the entrepreneurial path is such a fascinating journey to be on. Well, let’s back up a little bit First, let’s go back and tell us who is in your home. Like, you know, our podcast, the Maximum. We always like to tell who’s in our home, who makes you mom? What is your family look like? So I am married to my husband, Robert. We’ve been married. We actually just celebrated our 11th anniversary last week on the third. And then we have three daughters. I have Sophia, who’s eight.

(00:03:16) – She’ll be nine in August, Savannah who is six, and Charlotte who is three. My baby will be four in October. So we are just moving past that baby stage. I feel like it’s sad because I love babies, but at the same time we are moving into this new world where like, I can leave my house with just my purse and not like all the things and we can leave for hours at a time and not have to worry about like diapers and naps and just everything. So we are moving into a different time and it’s fun and it’s been good. It is so funny you mention that. I love the different seasons of motherhood and I mean, you are in such a fun season, you know, getting out of that baby. And I have to tell you, obviously Doug and I are in that total empty nester. We have six and they’re all out of the house. And we just flew back from Alaska yesterday and we were at the airport watching this young couple. And I mean, they were baby faced, young couple like mean.

(00:04:23) – I don’t think these people were 25 and they had these two itty bitty kids. One was ten weeks old and one was probably about two. And the amount of accouterments that they had and traveling it literally, he looked like a pack animal. The daddy had this massive car seat that he was carrying on his back and then he had something on his front. And then he was carrying all this stuff. And I mean, and the mom had the baby, you know, strapped on with a baby Bjorn in the front, the backpack in the back, the fanny pack. I mean, and I was just like I looked at them and I was like, oh, my. Gosh, I remember that, but barely. And it literally I was just like, it’s so crazy. All the stuff you have to bring to keep up with your little bitty kids. And it changes so fast because we’re actually leaving tomorrow morning to go to the beach for vacation in North Florida. And I haven’t even started packing yet.

(00:05:19) – And like, there’s not a whole lot I need just closed and things like that. Whereas like 2 or 3 years ago it was like, do I have the pack in play? Do I have the bottles, do I have this? Do I that? And now it’s there. So it’s just it’s getting easy in some ways where it’s getting hard totally the other way, which is, you know why it’s good that I’m working for myself now? Because the hard way, like it’s good that I’m around more for them in certain ways. Absolutely. And that was something we mentioned before we got on. And I think it’s important to touch on. You talked about how you started working for yourself at the beginning of May and how you spent many days volunteering at your children’s school since then and how that’s been really impactful to remind you of why you are doing this on your own. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so I my background was from administrator and CFO of a law firm for ten years as a paralegal.

(00:06:20) – I loved it. I love the legal community. I love the law firm. I had amazing bosses. They were super flexible with me. But our office was it used to be 30 minutes away. And then after the hurricane that hit in September, we had to move our office. And so the office was an hour away. And because I was a firm administrator, I had to be there. And even no matter how flexible they were, I was managing people. I was managing money. I had to be in the office. And so there was just times where I could not, you know, go to the school at the drop of a hat because, you know, I couldn’t go to work for 30 minutes, drive an hour back to the school, go to, you know, go back to work. And so while I was able to do a lot, it wasn’t what I can do now where I’m ten minutes from the school. And so the last week of school was last week.

(00:07:05) – And, you know, the teachers needed help with certain things. And I was at the school almost every single day for 30 minutes, an hour here and there. And so the you know, the girls really they loved having me there. And it was really eye opening of this is what I’m working so hard for. And I love that. You know, every day they were able to stop going to aftercare for the last 3 or 4 weeks of school. So they rode the bus home every single day. And so I’m able to work until 315 when I have to go get them from the bus. And then my day is pretty much done until they go to bed. And then I love especially like the number crunching part when I’m really analyzing numbers. I love staying up till 11, 12:00 at night sometimes when I’m really getting into it and I don’t mind working like that because then I get that 3:00 to 830, 9:00 and we’re not rushing like we were before when I had an hour drive home.

(00:08:02) – And you know, I mentioned them getting older and we’re getting to a time where we’ve got gymnastics and dance and soccer and, you know, and my husband is hearing he helps us as much as he can, but he has a job. And so it got to be a lot trying to get them to all their things. And I never wanted to tell them no because I want them to do all the things. Yeah. And so now working for myself and I never thought I would be an entrepreneur, you know, I love business, I love I loved running a business. And so I never really knew what I would do in this kind of just happened and kind of, you know, because of what I was doing, it just kind of happened and I’m like, This is what I was meant to do. Like, once I started doing it, I’m like, This is it. This is what I’ve been working towards. This is what I’ve been wondering. Like, what do I want to do? This is it.

(00:08:50) – And so it’s changed our family for sure. Yeah. I mean, it’s huge. I just I mean, I can’t tell you how excited I am for you, but and I mean, as a mom of many, you know, mine are older now, though. But I mean that 3 to 9 p.m. time, that was my golden time. And I mean, that sounds silly, but those are six solid hours a day that you get to spend with your family. And those are busy time like you’re going activities, getting dinner ready, helping with homework, getting them ready for school tomorrow, like all those things. And to not have that crunch of being at work still. I mean, I don’t know how anybody does it when they’re like chained to their desk till 6:00. And I’m like, How do you get everything done? One affects the way that you act towards your kids also because you just are so stressed out and you’re, you know, in a hurry and so you’re just not able to take that time to really, you know, talk to them and listen to them.

(00:09:48) – And my oldest, she’s only eight, but I feel like kids are growing up so fast now and there’s so much that we have to talk about. But they like, you know, different issues in school and. I mean, it’s crazy. The girls in third grade are just something else. And so I love that I’m going to be able to be there for them when they get off the bus to have those conversations. And they’re you know, they’re not in the aftercare talking to who knows, you know, knows what and all of that. So. Well, exactly. I mean, and I found those conversations, too, when you can be the one driving your child to activities are the best times when you’re in the car. I mean, I used to drive my children. I mean, the craziest routes because, you know, they would start some conversation. And, you know, my youngest three were boys. And you know how, boy, you might not know. Boys don’t always want to be so vocal.

(00:10:41) – So do start talking. You really have to give them that time and not shut them down. So I’d be driving like all over Seattle, you know, I’m like, Oh, there’s a detour. It’s the craziest times when they’re finally like, Hey, mom, what is this mean? Somebody said this in school, and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I don’t even know how to explain this, But like, here it goes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it is adventure. Yes.

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(00:11:56) – Tell us a little bit about I mean, I really want to talk about the services you provide because I think for so many law firm owners, especially people who are early in their entrepreneurial journey, who they might just have a bookkeeper and a CPA. So they’re thinking they’re bookkeepers running their numbers, you know, and they give it all to the CPA kind of at the end of the year. And now I’m speaking from experience. This is what I used to do. My bookkeeper would just give the numbers to the CPA. They do the taxes, and that was the extent of my knowledge of our firm’s finances. And over the years, I mean, I’ve become kind of psychotic about it, like, whereas now, you know, I do like these 13 month rolling forecasts and I, you know, track everything.

(00:12:47) – And I played mind games like if I’m more than 2% off in my forecast, I’m like traumatized, like, my gosh, what did I do wrong? And so but I mean, I know that, you know, that’s a big extreme, you know, from the just having the bookkeeper to really understanding your numbers and really being able to dig in to figure out what levers to pull to do things. Tell us about your services and how did they come into play in that spectrum? Well, so first, I’ve been finding that a lot of lawyers, when they’re first starting out, obviously they want to save money. And I get that, especially as somebody just starting out. And so they’re trying to even do the bookkeeping themselves. And it’s a cost that you really have to build into your budget to outsource it. And it can be done at a reasonable cost because you just don’t have the time to do it the right way. And you know, right now there’s this big thing about how artificial intelligence is taking over because you can link your QuickBooks to your bank account and it brings everything in it.

(00:13:52) – Auto categorize it all and it doesn’t at all. I’m here to tell you it does not work that great at all. And so that’s step one, is making sure that you’re not trying to do it yourself because you’re a lawyer. You are so good at what you do. You’re, you know, whatever area of law you’re in, that’s what you’re there to do. So that’s step one is making sure you’re not trying to do it yourself, that you’re not trying to do it at the end of the year. QuickBooks is not a very expensive product when it’s all said and done, and so don’t try to do it with an Excel spreadsheet or anything like that. Like you really you need to invest in that so that you know that you have a good firm foundation and that, you know, talking about taxes, you can lose money or you can get in trouble or even your trust accounting, you know, that’s a whole nother story. And I know people don’t keep that all the way it’s supposed to be.

(00:14:44) – So like really invest in the firm foundation for your operations and for your trust accounting. And then the next level and what you asked about hiring somebody like me is that’s when we get into looking at first your income and your cash. Well, because most areas of law there’s it’s an up and down. I worked in personal injury for a long time and so there was a huge up and down with that. You couldn’t go out and, you know, like I work with landscapers. You can’t go out and just say, I’m going to mow 15 yards today because I need to pay the bills next week. You know, you can’t you can’t just like go out and hustle a little bit harder to get that money to come in. Some areas of law may be a little bit, but there’s an ebb and flow to it. You have to see your case through. And so you really need to keep track of that income and your cash flow and what’s coming in so that when you are in the highs, you’re ready for the lows.

(00:15:37) – And so just looking at what’s in the bank account today really isn’t going to help you in the future. And I feel like a lot of people that are just starting out, that’s what they do. They’re like, Oh, there’s money in the bank. I’m going to take that because I need it for myself personally. And that you really long term, that’s not going to help you with any growth. And then looking at your expenses and just making sure that we’re not, you know, using money, that we’re coming in, we’re using it wisely because there is a lot of technology out there where it all looks great and you can literally buy like 15, 20 pieces of technology to do all this different stuff and then not use any of it. And it’s like, oh, it’s only 15, $20 a month here, 15, $20 a month there. But you really want to make sure that it’s working for you. And so that’s where we start, is the income is the income coming in, where is it coming in? And then expenses.

(00:16:27) – And then we need to look at are we hiring people? Are we ready to hire people, you know, getting a paralegal and to help you? How much is that going to cost? Paralegals aren’t cheap. Good paralegals aren’t cheap. And so can I afford that? What do I need to do to bring in more income so that I can afford that really good at paralegal, you know, And then we can look at kind of set goals for that paralegal of what they’re going to do so that we can continue to afford that paralegal. You know, those are some of the things we can look at there and then we can build on that and continue to set goals of where do we want to go from here? Is your goal only to be and I have clients who they’re like, I don’t want to grow, I just want it to be me, my really good paralegal. I don’t want to manage people. That’s great. So you know, what we can look at next is what services are you providing and what are which services are more profitable for you.

(00:17:18) – So, you know, your family law attorney, you provide five different services. If the one over here is profitable and that’s bringing you the most money that maybe we need to talk about not doing these services over here so that you’re more efficient with these ones so that you and your paralegal, you know, maybe you don’t want to work 80 hours a week. You only want to work 40 hours a week, but you want to make the same amount of money so we can look at services and see what’s profitable, what’s not and things like that. So that’s kind of like the high level of the different goals and budgeting we can do so that you really know what how your money is working for you. And then if growth is your goal, then what do we need to do so that we can add on this? Another attorney. So, you know, we’re either in a growth phase where we’re growing in so many ways a little bit tighter because we’re trying to build up to that, you know, or we’re just kind of tweaking things and, you know, going along the way that we like it.

(00:18:13) – So. Right. That’s fascinating because I think the finances, I mean, are such a huge part of the mix in so many of us lawyers. We joke, you know, we went to law school because we didn’t have to do math. And I mean, we kind of kid ourselves if we think we don’t have to do math, but having somebody like you on the team is the key then, because you’re going to be preparing monthly reports, things like this, like you mentioned, the cash flow and, you know, the income analysis. Looking at the expenses, do you do budgeting Typekit kind that’s where I start is like looking at a budget. Where are we now? Look at last year and that’s kind of how I try to start it. Let’s look at last year. What was our income last year? And then you know, maybe we can try to we want to bump that up ten, 20%, whatever it is. And let’s look at our expenses last year. And so we’ll start with a budget and then we’ll set some goals and we’ll say, you know, these are our goals for next month for our income and then these are our goals for our expenses.

(00:19:16) – And there’s a difference. You know, some expenses are set expenses. You’re right. You’re, you know, things like that. Those are set. You can’t change those. Sometimes you have to put money out for your cases. Like in personal injury, you put a lot of money out for case costs and those are variable as well. But we want to make sure we’re recouping those, you know, in the end. And then there’s also variable expenses that maybe we can cut down on some stuff. And so then once we get those set, then we’ll set our goals. Ah, I like to set KPIs, key performance indicators, and so let’s see how that, you know, people are performing different services or performing things like that. And then we can meet monthly or quarterly and go over those goals and see where we are and what changes we can make. On those. So, you know, if we’re not bringing in the income that we wanted to bring in, our goal was what can I do to change that? Do we need to do some more marketing? Do we need to tweak our marketing? Do we need to get out there and talk to some people? You know, what do we need to do to bring our income in if we have cases that are pending? Do we need to you know, in the case of personal injury, you don’t get paid till the case is done.

(00:20:24) – Is there something that we need to do in our process with our employees to make sure those cases are actually being settled or coming to fruition? Because we can’t have a case sitting out for two years, especially if we’re putting the costs out, if we’re not bringing them to fruition and actually getting paid on those. So it’s all fine and great that we have all of these cases. But if we’re not ever getting paid or if we have money sitting in the trust account that we’re never billing against, you know, then that’s an income issue, you know? And so then we can also look at our employees and are they performing the way they need to perform or are employees billing? Are we billing by the hour? What are they doing even if we’re not billing by the hour? Do we need to look at what our employees are? You know, do they need to keep track of their hourly so that we know what they’re doing? And do we need to have them do a little bit more? Do they need to do a little bit less because there is a balance there that we need to keep.

(00:21:17) – With work life balance with employees as well to keep good employees? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting when you mention expenses and I mean, it’s funny, you know, we all talk about the shiny object syndrome, like things and we’re like, Oh, we’ll just have this $20 thing, this 39, 99, this, those things really add up. And I have found that calling my expenses quarterly has been a really powerful exercise to just see what has gotten on there. And I find, you know, as our team has gotten larger, sometimes things are getting on there that I don’t even know what it is, you know, And I’ll look at it. I’m like, What is this? And what are we paying for? You know? And maybe it’s something I need to know. Maybe it’s not really something I need to know, but I do like to know where the money is going. And so, you know, I find actually looking at expenses and people think it’s such a small amount, you know, but it’s surprising to me how much it can really add up if you don’t look at your expenses.

(00:22:19) – And I think, at least for us, was a great opportunity to really embrace this whole idea of expenses, you know, because we were all remote people are in all these different places, remote. And so it made us really look at things. So I love that idea of really looking at your expenses and making sure about what you’re doing and that you’re utilizing your software and the shiny objects you do have to the fullest. Yeah. And I also find the firm I was at was an older firm that had been around for a long time. And so there was a lot of things where it was like, Oh, that’s just the way we’ve always done it. It’s like, But there’s a way that we can do it and save money and do it more efficiently because we don’t want to cut expenses so much that we lose, you know, our efficiency and our what we’re good at. We still there’s a high level that we want to keep here, but there’s ways that we can do things differently and we can cut those expenses.

(00:23:15) – And I always think about it, you know, if you cut the expenses in, your profit is higher, then that benefits everybody. Exactly. And so I think, you know, there’s I’ve always kind of tried to talk to employees, you know, and there’s a fine line there of talking to employees about finances, but encouraging them like, hey, if we don’t like waste all this money, then there’s, you know, more profit there, there’s more money to go around and things like that that I would rather, you know, get a better bonus or a salary or something like that than waste all this paper when we don’t need to be printing something. We’re printing all day, encouraging the whole office to be aware of those things I think is a good thing as well, because then everybody is aware of what the expenses are and so everybody is on the same team when it comes to using our money wisely in the firm, because we at the end of the day, we’re all working really hard to bring in that money.

(00:24:11) – It’s not easy. And so let’s use it like in a good way, completely. Oh yeah. I think creating efficiencies and being as efficient as possible makes the most sense and getting the money back into the hands of the people who are doing the work makes the most sense to rather than, you know, paying a vendor too much or, you know, for something that you don’t even need. Well, the other thing that I have found really interesting through the years, and I’m sure you have as well as somebody who worked as an administrator, is negotiating a lot of these expenses. Like I think sometimes people have an idea that such and such is a fixed expense. And I’m like, It’s only fixed because you’re not negotiating it. Like, I would do that all the time. I’d be like, Why am I going to sign a. Five year contract for that when you want my business. So let’s talk about what I need, you know, especially when you’re talking about like Westlaw and Nexis and things like that, that those expenses can get astronomical.

(00:25:13) – When you can go back and look at them and you can negotiate some of that stuff. And so you’re not spending as much. And I think that’s where I really am helpful to my clients, is that I’ve been in it and I’ve done it. And so I don’t just know the numbers part of it. I have no desire to do stuff ever again, but I know it. And so I know how employees think and I know how to work with employees and how they tick and how to get, you know, I really prided myself in training up my employees and having really good employees that worked under me. And so I know that part of it as well as the financial part of it. And so I could kind of like, you know, marry those two together and help because it really does go together. And so having somebody that’s just spitting numbers at you when they don’t know how the office works is a little bit different because I know how an office works and and there’s a lot of dynamics that come into play.

(00:26:17) – That’s an understatement and such a nice word to dynamics. And I was always very aware of that because, you know, and I know you’re being on work life balance and having a great place to work and and that was always, you know, big on my radar is we want to have a great place to work. And so, again, we don’t want to cut expenses to the point where, like we’re not giving our employees coffee in the morning. But is there a better way to do it so that we’re not wasting money? It is a real process. Well, I really appreciate your time. Tell us, how can people get in touch with you so they could learn about your business? You know, do a discovery call with you so they can figure out how you could best help them. So my website is l n m financial. I also have Instagram. I’ve been having a lot of fun doing that. It’s financial. And then I also have Facebook Element and Financial services and you can always email me at M Financial and do a free 30 minute consultation on Zoom and then I can let you know how I can help you.

(00:27:25) – And I just I love talking business with people, especially in the legal community. And so I will talk to anybody anytime. Well, I really appreciate and we will make sure to get all your links and everything hooked with the show notes. And I really appreciate your time today and I’m so excited for your first vacation as an entrepreneur. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. And thank you for having me on. Okay. Thanks, Leah.

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