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Mike Chastaine
Hey, I’m Mike chest and I’m a criminal defense attorney from Northern California out of the Sacramento area. I’ve been practicing law for 37 years. And I’m the author of legalese, The Ultimate Guide and how to survive a law practice. And here I am on maximum lawyer,

Speaker 2
run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum liar, podcast, podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome

Jim Hacking
to the show. Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking

Tyson Mutrux
and Tyson metrics. What’s up Jimmy?

Jim Hacking
Well, we have a great lawyer guest today and he’s an endurance athlete. And I feel like an endurance athlete myself having recorded six episodes of the maximum lawyer podcast with you and one day,

Tyson Mutrux
lucky you. This is the best day of your life, man. So yeah, we’ve you know, here’s the thing. Not to set the bar too high, Mike, but we’ve had some really amazing podcast today. So and I think that this might be the best one today. I’ve got pretty high hopes.

Mike Chastaine
We’ll do our best for sure.

Tyson Mutrux
So Jimmy, do you want to do the bio?

Jim Hacking
Yeah, for sure. So Mike chest stain is a. He’s one of the top criminal defense lawyers in the entire country. He found that working 50 hours a week wasn’t enough to become financially stable. He lacked the systems he was needed. He was constantly on the verge of going under stress of this led to a divorce and the loss of his home. He then started using some of the lessons he learned as an extreme athlete to build the right systems that his practice was needed. It was named the best criminal defense firm in Northern California, and grew to $1.2 million a year with just three lawyers working 20 hours a week. He has four books, and we’re going to talk about those he does also a radio host of a weekly show, which had close to 200 episodes. After being a lawyer for 37 years. He’s now sharing how anyone can turn their firm into an extremely profitable asset while having time for their family, friends and personal interests. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Chastaine
Well, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Tyson Mutrux
My Jim and I before you hopped on, we’re like, we’re like, do you see this guest bio, I mean, like so like, yeah, pretty legit. Pretty good, pretty good bio, but tell us about you know, there’s a lot underneath all that. So tell us about your journey and how you got to today. And then we’ll, we’ll follow up because we’re gonna dig in and pretty deep. So tell us about your journey.

Mike Chastaine
Okay, well, to go through quickly, I graduated from law school in 85, I immediately went to the Santa Clara County Public Defender’s Office, where I did everything from, you know, simple possessions all the way to death penalty cases, I stayed there for about 17 years, moved to the Sacramento area and joined a very prestigious firm, I stayed there about six years. And then in 2007, I opened my own practice. During that period of time, I had great mentors in the law, who taught me how to practice law, how to be successful in the courtroom. And I had a great deal of success there. But I didn’t have anybody teaching me how to run a business. And so I struggled for a number of years, you know, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out how to pay the rent under this illusion that just because I was good at what I did that somehow people would magically know that and come in and hire me, Well, that wasn’t the case. So then I sought out some business mentors and got involved with some programs that taught me how to actually build a business. And within a relatively short period of time, we went from being a very struggling firm to, you know, doing well in excess of seven figures on a consistent basis with just three lawyers work last made more, and had more time to actually enjoy, enjoy my practice. And then this year, or the end of 2021, I sold the practice. And so I’m at the process now where I’m of counsel. So I’m literally in Sacramento today. I’m just finishing up a few things. But I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico now. And you know, got a couple of cases left to finish. But for the most part, I’m done with the courtroom and working on other projects.

Jim Hacking
Talk to us a little bit, Mike, about the struggle, like when things were really bad. What did that look like? And then I’d love to hear what are the one or two things that had the biggest impact shifting from those dark days to the sunnier skies?

Mike Chastaine
Yeah, that’s a great question. So, you know, it was really a level of uncertainty. I didn’t know where the next client was going to come from. I had no real systems in place. Everything was how I did it. When I did it when I felt like it. I didn’t have follow up. I didn’t have anything that really could give me a level of certainty that this is the kind of revenue that I could expect on a daily basis. I wasn’t tracking anything. So the thing that really changed was one I got mentors who actually taught me to do that, too. I began to track everything you know. How many hours I worked on every case, how many leads came in what it cost per lead? How many of those set appointments, how many of them showed how many of them hired, I began to raise my rates pretty dramatically. I mean, over a course of basically three years, I raised my hourly $300 I began to work less and enjoy it more. And I think the one thing that that really changed things is I began to employ the Profit First accounting system by Mike McCalla wits I met Mike and he gave a presentation. And I was like, all in I read the book on the on the plane home. And that really did change things for me.

Tyson Mutrux
So you’re mentioning of raising your rates. It’s so timely, because I was just speaking to a guild member two days ago. And he’s a criminal defense attorney. He’s afraid of raising his rates. He wants to succeed, he knows in his heart that it’s the right thing to do. But he’s so afraid to do that. So we’ve talked about that part of the process of raising your rates and maybe give some tips to the people that are thinking about doing the same?

Mike Chastaine
Yeah, absolutely. So first, you got to know what it actually costs to get a case, I just did the calculation yesterday, it costs us $75. Every time the phone rings, our acquisition costs for our average case is over $500. So if you’re charging $1,500 for a case that cost you 500 acquisition costs, you are losing money, once I knew that, that became very important. The second thing, or maybe maybe even the most important thing is, is I stopped being afraid to say no, if you know, I note I never negotiate on price, this is what I charge and take it or leave it. People respect that. And every time I’ve raised my rates, I’ve gotten more clients, because people do want the best lawyer that they can afford. And our issue now is not how much we charge, but whether they can afford it. It’s not whether they’re willing, it’s just that you know, can they afford it or not? They want the best lawyer that they can get, especially with the kind of practice that I do. We’re most of my clients are looking at, you know, many, many years in prison,

Jim Hacking
I’d love to hear about the working less part. I’m a big believer in the Eisenhower principle, and that work feels the amount of space that you give it. And I’m working really hard. I’m taking Wednesday’s off now. So I’ve cut my time working per week, and I thereby raise my effective hourly rate. But how did you logistically do less work? And like, Did you grow your team? Did you have vas? Or what did you do mechanically to make that happen?

Mike Chastaine
So a couple of things. One, I took a lot of things off my plate. So my basic rule is if if it doesn’t require a bar card, I’m not doing it, someone else is doing it. And it is, you know, I bill $600 an hour now which probably going to raise again, but you know, to pay someone $30 an hour, you know, I only have to Bill like one hour, and I’ve paid for the whole week. So you know what, I understood that math. And then I also, you know, believe in one of the things that Tim Ferriss says is that, you know, you can only be effective for a certain number of hours a day. And so you know, I time block, you know, I have a sign on my door that says you know, unless the buildings on fire, and I’m the only person with water, do not knock on this door, this is my time it’s blocked off on my calendar. And you know, the other thing that has been very helpful is is my approach to email, I only look at email once a day, and you get an auto responder from me that tells you that. So, you know, people don’t expect me to respond immediately. And you know, from my perspective, that’s kind of a low priority thing. And in all honesty, if you’re not on my contact list, you go into junk mail. So, you know, I may not get it at all, I Do peruse that from time to time to make sure I’m not missing anything too important. But the I think the point is, is that, because I’ve been doing that for an extended period of time, everyone just knows, you know, if you want something from Mike, yet, Oh, you better given notice. I’m not willing to do a lot of last minute stuff, you know, your failure to plan is not my problem. So you know, those things have worked for me.

Tyson Mutrux
So let’s shift gears here a little bit, because that’s all great advice. So that those are things that we talked about on the podcast all the time. So I’m glad you mentioned mentioned because those are really, really good, but I want to I want to shift gears over to the legalese. The book you wrote legalese, the ultimate guide on how to survive a law practice. And I I find the wording really interesting how to survive in law practice. Talk about the genesis of the book, if you will.

Mike Chastaine
Okay, sure. So I was a public defender for almost 17 years, and I had the great fortune of being able to spend a lot of time with senior lawyers at a bar that plays San Jose cafe, listening to the worst stories. So I learned a tremendous amount, but I also watched as those guys disintegrated, you know, their health fell apart. They, they were drinking too much. And it was all about stress. These were very dedicated Hard working good lawyers, but they were letting the stress get to them. They weren’t taking care of themselves. And so, you know, I decided to start to really think about that, you know, I didn’t want to die when I was 50 years old, I wanted to, you know, have a long and healthy life. And I’ve always been an athlete. So, you know, that was a big part of it. So I began to, to study, what does it take to deal in high stress situations? And, you know, what are the key performance factors that you need sleep exercise, the willingness to say, No, you know, to not take on everybody’s, you know, task, I can’t help everybody. So, you know, once I commit to help you, I’m fooling, but you got to convince me that I should, you know, take that single resource that I have my most precious resource of all, which is time, I only have a finite amount of that. And I’m only going to give that to people that, you know, I I choose to. And so that’s kind of the genesis of the book, it kind of goes through those things, controlling your cell phone, controlling your email controlling, you know, getting enough sleep, I talk about sleep all the time. You know, as an expedition length adventure racer, I know about sleep deprivation, I know is like to try to, you know, ride a bike when you haven’t slept for 48 hours. Not good. But you know, what I’ve always been able to avoid is that chronic sleep deprivation that I think most lawyers suffer from this idea that, you know, they can work 1516 hours a day, they’re not doing a they’re not doing good work. So I really focus on my to do list is rarely more than three things, and I do them the best that I possibly can. And then, you know, I consider that a productive day.

Jim Hacking
Mike, one of the things that a lot of lawyers that we talked to struggle in giving up. And you said that if it doesn’t involve a bar license, you don’t want to be doing it is intake and talking to leads, they think that they have to be the one to sign up the case with their glorious tongue, they’re going to convince the person on the other line to hire them. I’d love to hear how your team does it, especially as you’re spending so much time in Santa Fe.

Mike Chastaine
Well, so I absolutely understand that. And I think different practice areas are going to have different situations, because what we do our niches, sex offenses. So I have toyed with having other people do the intakes, I think that my relationship with the client or the client’s family, if they’re in jail is so critical that I need to be part of that. So I never did let that go. Even from Santa Fe, if I’m doing an intake, I’ll do it by zoom. But you know, certainly for other practice areas, but having other people do the intake, or at least get them to the point where they’re ready to make a decision, I think makes a ton of sense. If I could get out of the intake room, I think that’d be good. I will say though, that I actually really enjoy the intakes. So for me, it’s a real pleasure to spend time with people. I turn a lot of clients away, I tell them what I think they should do stay with the public defender or, you know, these are the steps that you should take Don’t you know, don’t spend the money. I mean, I had a lady come in the other day, her issue was restitution. And I said, you know, instead of giving me 50 grand, which is what I was going to charge her, I said put that towards the restitution, and that will actually take care of the problem. So, you know, I feel that that’s really important. And I enjoy that process.

Tyson Mutrux
You know, I don’t know why I didn’t ask you this earlier. But we were talking about fees. And I want to I want to go back to that for a second. You’ve raised your rate, and you keep mentioning an hourly rate. And so we talk a little bit about your pricing model, because I know a lot of attorneys have switched and especially when it comes to criminal defense attorneys, they’ve gone to a flat rate model. And are you are you doing an hourly model? And if so, why are you going that way versus flat fee?

Mike Chastaine
Okay, so yes, we start on an hourly basis. And I’ll tell you the same thing that I tell all the clients is, if your car was making a funny noise, and you went to the mechanic and before he opened the hood, he quoted you a price, you would probably drive out of there right away, how can I possibly quote somebody a price for their case, without knowing really anything about it, you know, all to 45 assault with a deadly weapon are not the same. All sexual lists are not the same. I need to see the police report, I need to talk to the client, I need to do some investigation so that I know what I’m in for is this a trial cases is a settlement case is something that I’m going to work on mitigation. I need to know what my time commitment is. So our model is we start on an hourly basis, we get a deposit, we charge by the hour until we’re far enough into the case that we believe we can make a reasonable assessment of how much time it’s going to take. And then at that point, we will offer a flat rate and generally we offer flat rates for trials because if you don’t, the price goes through the roof. I mean, most trials, you know, I wanted to spend close to 300 hours on the case. So you know, that would just be cost prohibitive. And once we’re in, I don’t want to get out. So that’s how we do.

Speaker 5
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Tyson Mutrux
Maximum lawyer and minimum time is a step by step playbook that shows you how to identify what your firm needs and how to proactively get it at every stage of the game. You’re prepped and excited for the inevitable growth that will follow name the lifestyle that you want. And we’ll show you how to become a maximum lawyer and minimum time. Find out more by going to maximum lawyer.com forward slash course.

Jim Hacking
You’re listening to the maximum lawyer podcast our guest today Mike Cheston, very successful criminal defense lawyer from Northern California and extreme athlete might talk to us a little bit about your history and in athletic endeavors and how that has translated into make you a better law firm owner.

Mike Chastaine
Okay, thank you for asking that. So, you know, I ran track and cross country in high school and in college, I suffered a knee injury. So I started mountain biking. And then I moved to Northern California and I met some adventure racers and and that just fascinated me. So I started doing that which you know, for your listeners that don’t know, and adventure is basically you go into the wilderness with a team of four, co Ed team of four and you find checkpoints, you know, using only a map and compass, biking, paddling, hiking, climbing, you know, variety, but it’s all human powered. And what I really learned from that as one I learned teamwork, I learned patience. I learned strategy and planning, you know, in a 10 day race. On day two, I’m already planning, you know what day five and six are going to be like, where are we going to be? And what things are we going to need to move forward? How when are we going to sleep? Where are we going to sleep? When do we eat all of those things. That’s what I really enjoyed about it was very intellectual. I learned, obviously, tenacity and perseverance never give up. Even when things go bad. I got lost in in, in Canada and in British Columbia, we started on a track that we thought would take 17 hours and 57 hours later, we had to get rescued. That was not good. But you know, it was all part of the experience. And we survived so so all of those things, I think became really, really formative in in how I practice and recognizing one because I you know build up that kind of stabbing I’m going to outlast my opponent every single time. And what I know is that Friday afternoon in court, everyone else is asleep. Man Vantage to Mike. So I take advantage of those things.

Tyson Mutrux
So Mike, um, one of the hardest parts when it comes to criminal defense is getting cases and making me really, really difficult because people will try to undercut you when it comes to price. It’s especially in criminal defense. It’s really one of those things where people are price shopping. What’s your advice to younger lawyers that are getting into criminal defense when it comes to attracting clients and not only attracting them whenever the phone rings, but convincing them to hire them and not someone else?

Mike Chastaine
Well, so I don’t believe in convincing people to hire you. I don’t compete on price, I compete on value. And, you know, I never badmouth other lawyers. What I tell people is what I can do for them and what my track record is and how long I’ve been doing it and why it’s important that you know, when their freedoms at stake, you know that they get someone on their team that actually has won, you know, you wouldn’t want a quarterback in the Super Bowl has never won the Super Bowl, right? You want Tom Brady? Well, if you’ve got someone who’s actually never won a case, you know, is that the person that you actually want, so I give them my track record, I don’t negotiate on price, as I’ve already said, I let them know. And the other thing as a pro tip for newer lawyers is find out what their pain point is. So we don’t do DUIs anymore, but we used to, and when we did, I would bring someone in and I would say Hey, what is your big concern? Well, you know, I’m concerned about lose my driver’s license. All right. What would happen if you lost your license when I lose my job? Oh, man. Well, what would happen if you lost your job? Well, I lose my house. All right, so what we’re talking about now is we’re talking about saving their house. Now all of a sudden, my fees are pretty de minimis compared to losing their house. So you want to find the pain point what they really care about, and then attach what you can do for them. visa vie avoid meeting that particular pain point,

Jim Hacking
Mike. All right. So somebody, there’s a criminal defense lawyer, he’s three years out of law school, he just set up shop in Santa Fe, he just left the public defender’s office, he hears this podcast. And he comes and knocks on your door. And he says, Mike, can you help me build something big here in Santa Fe? I don’t want to be Saul Goodman, which is Albuquerque. But I want to be me. And I want to build my firm. And let’s say you met with him once a month for 12 months, what would be sort of your what would be your mindset as you walked through that young attorney, trying to launch something in Santa Fe?

Mike Chastaine
Yeah, great question. So the first thing is, you need to start tracking all your data, you need to have a system to track everything that you possibly can. The second thing is that you need to read every day, something you need to increase your general book of knowledge. And I don’t mean law books, I’m I mean, general things, I read copious amounts of books, you need to and here’s something that when I was a young lawyer, a friend of mine, who was very experienced lawyer told me, he said, You got to learn how to tell a story. You know, when you’re in front of a jury, you’re telling stories, when you’re in front of a judge trying to talk them out of sending your client to prison, you got to tell your client story. What how did they get in this mess? What happened to them? What’s the underlying factor? And in order to tell that story, you got to learn how to ask the right questions and not shy away from it. You know, why are you drinking so much? Why are you taking drugs? What what happened? Tell me about? Tell me about last year, you know, and then find out well, you know, Mom died and I went bankrupt. And well, no wonder you’re drinking. All right, well, then let’s start dealing with that. But if you don’t ask the questions, you’re not going to know the story. And then you’re not going to be able to relay that. So learning how to tell a story, and learning how to find out you know how to ask the questions not being embarrassed or shy about it.

Tyson Mutrux
That’s such a good bit of advice. And for those of you that have not read the book story, where they it’s really good book, I just finished it about telling a story. So it’s really, really good. But, Mike, we are near the end. So I do need to start to wrap things up. But before I do, I want to make sure I remind everyone to join us in the big Facebook group, lot of great information being shared there, almost 6000 Members, if you want a more high level conversation, join us in the guild, go to max law guild DICOM. And as we go through the end of this episode, where we give our tips or hacks, if you don’t mind giving us a five star review, we would greatly appreciate it. Jimmy, what’s your hacking week,

Jim Hacking
my parents and my sister bought a house in Michigan on the very edge of the eastern time zone, when we go up there for vacation to visit them. When I leave on Saturday morning. I get moving with everybody at four in the morning. And then we walk out of there at five. And we drive back to St. Louis. And my goal is to get back by 11am. So we pick up an hour on the way and everybody’s asleep for the first four hours. So by the time they start bitching and moaning about the trip, we’re just two hours from home. Right. And I thought of that this morning when I was on the treadmill at 5am. So I’ve been getting up at 5am reading books or audiobooks on the treadmill at five and about 525 I realized, you know, by getting up this freaking early, my mind doesn’t even register that hard drive from Michigan. It’s the same thing. It’s if you can get up and get things moving. Before your mind has the the opportunity to tell you no or that you’re crazy. It just makes everything a ton easier. So get up earlier, do the hard thing first Eat That Frog and then go on from there.

Tyson Mutrux
That’s awesome. Really good bit of advice, Jimbo. All right, Mike. So we always ask our guests to give a tip or a hack. It could be a book could be a podcast could be whatever. So what you got for us

Mike Chastaine
is my advice to the people is you should do a weekly to do list for the following week. And you should do it on Friday. And the reason that you should do it on Friday is you get a chance to see did I get last week done and have time to actually fix it. If you didn’t, you know, if you wait till Sunday, it’s too late. So I do my weekly to do list for the following week. On Friday, I have a chance to evaluate how I’ve done this week, and really plan out in a very strategic way, you know, like jail visits and all those kinds of things the following week, so that everything is in place. So Monday morning, I’m ready to rock and roll.

Tyson Mutrux
Let me tell you that might. We’ve heard a lot of time management, a lot of task management, lots of tips when it comes to all those types of things, right? Never have I heard anybody give that specific tip. That’s really good. I think that’s really good. I’ve got my own way of doing its work, but I’ve never heard anybody suggest that on any book, any podcasts that’s really unique. So that’s, that’s cool. I really liked that. I love that. That’s my tip. It’s funny because my tip is sort of related to what Mike had mentioned earlier, and you’ll know what I’m talking about in a second. My tip is a book by Seth Godin. I know Jimmy likes Seth Godin, it’s called this is marketing. It’s not a new book, it’s from 2018. But this is marketing, you can’t see until you learn to see. And it’s I really like the way he thinks, to be honest with you. I don’t like his writing style. But I do like the way his thought process on things. And he talks about whenever someone goes to the store to buy a drill bit, and he goes through the whole thought process, well, no, they’re not really looking for a drill bit. They’re looking for a hole. Well, no, what they’re looking for is a shelf. Well, no, they’re not really looking for a shelf. They’re looking to put a picture frame on a shelf, well, they’re not really looking for a picture friend, they want to make sure that their house looks nice, well, no, it’s not really that their house looks nice as they want to be comfortable in their home, right? So you kind of go through this process. And it’s kind of related to what you’re talking about when it comes to Okay, well, you’ll lose your vehicle, okay, now, you’ll lose your job, you know, then you’ll lose your house and kind of going through that. And so thinking through that with clients is really cool. So the tip is, this is marketing really, really good. But it gets you thinking about those sorts of things when it comes to thinking about your law practices. So really cool. I love how we’re able to tie those two together, Mike, really, but thank you so much for coming on been a lot of fun. I can’t wait to follow up with some of the things you’re doing. So it’s really neat.

Mike Chastaine
Well, thank you. It’s been a real pleasure. I’ve enjoyed it very much,

Jim Hacking
Mike, if our listeners want to get a hold of you or track you down or read your book, what’s the best way to contact you.

Mike Chastaine
So I have a website, Mike chasteen.com and Chasteen ch ASTAI. Any Jessica spells it wrong. So Mike or Michael Chasteen. I have both of those Urals my email is m Chasteen. At Gmail. So you can reach me directly there or through the website, the book, you can get through the website or you can get it on Amazon. It’s available there as well. If you contact me directly, I’ll send you a signed copy. Otherwise, you just get the generic copy.

Jim Hacking
That’s awesome. I’ll be reaching out and I’m gonna copy that book.

Tyson Mutrux
Very cool. Awesome.

Mike Chastaine
Thanks. All right. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2
Thanks for listening to the maximum lawyer podcast. Stay in contact with your host and to access more content. Go to maksimum lawyer.com. Have a great week and catch you next time.