Visit MaximumLawyer.com for complete show notes of each podcast episode, tips, hacks and more resources!
Today on the show we have Steven Hernandez, owner of the Hernandez Law Firm, a DWI and Criminal Defense firm based in New Jersey.
On today’s show we’ll talk about training yourself to be on the same level as the police officer in a DWI, how donuts can be an effective marketing tool, the software he uses, and how to know when to work on your practice and not in your practice.
Hacking’s Hack: I’ve set up my email so that certain emails get summarized and sent to my Slack automatically. This keeps me from having to leave Slack to go read a court pleading or something like that.
Steven’s Hack: You’ve got some great apps available to you, don’t feel like you need to spend money on expensive software to run your firm.
Tyson’s Tip: Chip Munn sent Jim and I Facebook portals which was very generous of him. My tip is to either 1) get one or 2) if you have one call mr or Jim on it for a quick chat.
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Transcripts: Soloing Up, Training Up, and Intentional Marketing with Steven Hernandez
Steven Hernandez
When I first was introduced to you and to you guys, I started with podcast number one. And the thing that just opened my eyes was this working on my practice, not in my practice, which I had done for the last 12 years. I remember actually listening to I think I listened to the first 20 podcast within the first week that how much time I spent in my car, and it was just such a great thing. And so that’s what I’ve been working on is, is I at least have spent a couple hours a week on marketing. And I’m hoping to do more of that.
Unknown Speaker
Run your law firm the right way. This is the maximum liar podcast, liar podcast, your hosts, Jim hacking and Tyson metrics. Let’s partner up and maximize your firm. Welcome to the show.
Jim Hacking
Welcome back to the maximum lawyer Podcast. I’m Jim hacking.
Tyson Mutrux
And Music. What’s Up, Jimmy?
Jim Hacking
Oh, it’s Friday. Tyson. We don’t often record on Fridays, but I’m feeling pretty chill. And I’m excited. Last episode, we’ll record before the conference. So things are looking good.
Tyson Mutrux
Hey, sounds good. A bathroom. So what I hopefully you’re hopefully you’re not in some bomb shelter somewhere.
Jim Hacking
I’m just in my office at my mic like usual. Oh, cool. So
Tyson Mutrux
yeah, we had a we had a cool little presentation on Wednesday. We’ve had a nice little warm up for the week, Gary burgers feeling on Wednesday, we presented there. So that’s sort of warm up for next week versus next week for me extremely awesome.
Jim Hacking
Well, I’m excited about one of our new members of the group has decided to join us for today’s podcast. And he’s been a real active member in the group since he joined a few months ago. His name Steve Hernandez. He’s a DUI lawyer. And Steve, welcome to the show.
Steven Hernandez
Thank you, Jim. Thank
Tyson Mutrux
you, Tyson. So you you like joined the group a month or two ago and you’ve been really frickin action. So it’s really kind of awesome to see you jump in and get involved. But you’ve been you. You other day you called my answering service and give me some feedback is really cool. And I’d do the same for you. I really appreciate it. Talk a little bit about who you are, what you love about your firm and how you got there. Well,
Steven Hernandez
I’m Steven Hernandez. I graduated Rutgers University in 2004, at the age of 33. I originally grew up in Southern California, but moved out to New Jersey in my early 20s. To go to community college, my dad moved to New Jersey, and got into Rutgers undergrad graduate at Rutgers Law School. Worked for a local attorney for a few years, then went off on my own in 2007, with $2,000 in my bank account, and a 5000, our credit card limit and a new baby at home and a new mortgage. And so I began a general practice law firm. In 2011. I just felt that wasn’t working for me general practice. I wasn’t making a lot of money. I wasn’t getting good personal injury cases. But I really enjoyed the DWI work. So I decided to double down on that and I stopped doing everything else in 2011.
Tyson Mutrux
But DWI.
Jim Hacking
Talk to us a little bit about that decision to go out on your own seat. What was your mind?
Steven Hernandez
Your life? It was it was financial. I was working for a local attorney who gave me a lot of good advice, but I wasn’t making a lot of money. And I as I as I indicated I had a baby at home who was 10 months old and, and a new mortgage and I want to start living a better life. So I talked to a friend he said, Hey, go it’s only about money. Ask your ask your boss for a raise. He says no, well, that’s your answer. So I did exactly that. And I opened my office two weeks later, here in Toms River got a great deal on rent for an apartment, I mean, an apartment, an office space. I didn’t have to sign a lease. I’ve been on them once and for 10 years. 12 years now and I haven’t even had a rent increase. So and that’s the that was my decision was purely financial. And as I said, I did everything. I could
Tyson Mutrux
just even what tell me like what is like what’s been the most challenging part about this whole process for you like what is it? That’s a big change for you. So what’s been the most most challenging part of it?
Steven Hernandez
Well, you know, getting clients is always challenging. You know, I started doing direct mailing immediately. And, and some internet I really didn’t get active in the internet and marketing until right around 2011 2012 But I didn’t do anything else and that was my fault. I didn’t network socially. I didn’t participate in bar functions. I didn’t do anything to try to Increase my, my leads other than the direct mailing and general generic SEO, and I got very comfortable. And that created a problem because when when business gets slow and we do have slow downs, I would be freaking out. And that’s always been my problem. You know, and another problem I’ve always had is internet marketing. You know, you sign on with the company, they promise you the stars, and they usually fail to deliver that. And it’s just been one bad decision after another for for almost six years, I’d say. Every, every company got a little better, except for one. I remember in 2016, I had a company and I got no internet business for one year.
Tyson Mutrux
And that really killed me. That is crazy. Yeah, it was insane.
Steven Hernandez
And I’m stuck with a contract. And the worst part is a Tyson was. I had talked to a few other attorneys in this drunk driving organization called the National College for DUI defense, by the way, a great organization for those who who practice DWI defense. And I looked to see who they were using for SEO, I looked on their websites. And without really talking to them about their their service, I signed on for the same company. And two months later, once the website was launched, and going, I felt there’s something wrong. So I called them all up and every single one of them was leaving this company. And I was the only one stuck with a contract and I had 10 more months to go.
Tyson Mutrux
It was horrible.
Jim Hacking
Even Have you come up with any unique approaches to obtaining DUI clients? Have you done any sort of
Steven Hernandez
Absolutely. And I can’t take credit for this. Honestly, I gotta give a I gotta give props to Brendan Ruane JIRA wins brother. Earlier at the end of the year, Brendan and I were sitting down, trying to come up with ways to do marketing, where we’re not based on the internet, referral based marketing. So what an idea we came up with was tow truck companies, no drug companies are going to be the first person anybody pulled over with a DWI, sees. And so every Monday, I go to all the tow truck companies around, and I deliver a dozen donuts. And soon they start to ask me for my cards, and my brochures and my booklets. And I’ve been doing that now for about since February. And I’ve had a couple calls from that. And I figured out how to spend $1,000 on doughnuts and one case will will easily make up for that. I’ve started advertising and taking family law attorneys out to lunch. Because divorce does have a relationship with DWI. In that one one spouse will often try to use the fact that the other had a DOI against them for custody or, or other issues. So that’s my, that’s my legal networking route. And then I’m trying to get personal injury attorneys. So I look for recent settlements. And they send those attorneys who settled cases or bat jury awards a bottle of wine every week. And usually I’m sending about two or three bottles of wine once a week to these personal injury attorneys.
Tyson Mutrux
Interesting so what What’s your thinking with a personal injury attorney?
Steven Hernandez
Well, you know, it’s just a congratulations, oh, I should qualify something. I’m in New Jersey, we have certifications. And I’m a I’m a certified Municipal Court trial attorney. So I can ethically pay a referral fee. If someone sends me a case, and I give 1/3 of my DUI fee, which is extremely high for for DUI attorneys. And so if these personal injury attorneys hey, if I can refer you a case at least I can send you money. More importantly in New Jersey, we have a horrible law that says if you’re involved in an accident, even if you’re the victim and you are charged with DWI and convicted
Tyson Mutrux
you can’t sue
Steven Hernandez
for your injuries even if you’re not at fault. So that’s another avenue I tried to get them to send me their their clients who they would love to take but unfortunately were charged with drunk driving. And maybe I can beat the case for making that pie case more lucrative.
Jim Hacking
Steve, I have a question. Do criminal defense lawyers, do all criminal defense lawyers do DUI? Or do they view it sort of as a pain in the butt or its own separate sub specialty? I
Steven Hernandez
think I think most common lawyers do it. However, I truly believe it is a sub specialty. And up until last year, I was not taking any criminal cases other than DWI.
Tyson Mutrux
Because of that, I think you’re right. I think that that’s the right way of doing it is specializing to that level, there are some really good attorneys in St. Louis, do the same thing. And I think that’s the way to go. If you’re if you’re saying I’m the only one in town that does DUIs and only DUI, I mean, that’s a really effective marketing tactic. What’s the right way and going? Do
Steven Hernandez
I and to do that ties, and I made sure back in 2010, I started doing advanced training courses, for example, I figured the best way to be a good DUI attorney, is to make sure you have all the same training as a police officer that’s going to arrest you. So I went and got training and field sobriety testing. A year later, I became an instructor 2012, I became certified on the breath test machine, we use your New Jersey, I was trained by the manufacturer. And so throughout the years, I’ve been obtaining this training to be on par with any witness or even expert witness I may encounter.
Tyson Mutrux
So if you’re still working for someone else, do you think you would have invested in yourself the way you are now?
Steven Hernandez
No, I know I wouldn’t have known to. It was through these different organizations that I joined before I got the training that I learned about this training. And because I don’t think they would have invested the 40 or $50,000, I’ve spent
Tyson Mutrux
to do this. Do you think that’s really
Jim Hacking
cool that you went out and got certified and basically can teach the teach the test and teach all the machinery? Have you used that in your marketing? Yes,
Steven Hernandez
I have. It’s on my website. It’s in my marketing, it’s in my mailers, my brochures, it’s in everything I do. In fact, when I got done with the course, the first thing I did was bump my prices up and figure out how I’m going to use it in my advertising.
Tyson Mutrux
Speaking of pricing, I think pricing is really interesting when it comes to DUI, DWI. Because here’s something I’ve found whenever I was doing these a long time ago, I doubled my prices. And then I tripled my original prices. And I saw that it didn’t make much of a difference, honestly, because most of the cases came in by referral. And you’ve seen anything like that.
Steven Hernandez
It’s funny, because when I was when I didn’t have all this training, I was probably getting maybe four cases a month, you know, back in 2009 2010. I started 1500 I’m on the flight back, so I’m gonna increase it by 500 bucks. And I think I had eight that month. And after the national show, I think I’m gonna bump it up another 500 bucks, and the numbers started going up. And suddenly, you know, I’m I was at $5,000. And I am I’m still getting lots of clients a month.
Jim Hacking
Talk to us about your tech stack. Tell us about the software that you’re using to run your firm what kind of staffing you have what what kind of backup?
Steven Hernandez
Yeah, so I have one, one secretary. And myself, I do have a per a of counsel attorney. I actually worked for him in law school, he was a prosecutor. And when he retired, he came to work for me as my appellate guy. But other than that is my secretary Haley and myself. She’s full time. We use after hours and on weekends, we use a map communications to take to handle our calls. They immediately call me and we’ll photocall immediately if I’m not able to pick up I get an email or an text message. And they usually call back. You know shortly thereafter, hopefully. Software wise I run a Mac for my for my personal computer. My my secretary uses a PC. We just adopted Clio grow, to keep track of leads because I realized I had a real lead problem maintaining leads. And following up I was really bad with that. Other than that, we don’t have any other programs that we use other than the Microsoft suite exchange in the
Jim Hacking
Microsoft Office.
Steven Hernandez
I have an exchange account for my email. And that’s it. You know,
Jim Hacking
we do use QuickBooks
Tyson Mutrux
Mike Campbell just started using Clio grow a few months ago, he seems really like it seems like there’s some really good tools. And I get a little sneak peek of it yesterday. And it seems like a pretty good tool. So here’s my question for you. So what is what’s your goal? And what is your endgame on this? Where are you looking in five years, 10 years? What do you want to do with it?
Steven Hernandez
Well, I’m 49. So my end game, I would first I’d like to retire when I’m 65. So that 16 years from now, I would like to wind down and enjoy what time I have left, and not work till the day I die. So to do that, I’m going to have to increase the number of clients that I have, because unfortunately, Tyson DUI has taken a big hit with Uber over the last couple of years. So I’ve got to increase the number of clients or, if I don’t, I’m going to add that attracts Jerry to, to to, to increase the number of clients. So I need to almost, I need to bring in about 30% more clients a month.
Tyson Mutrux
And
Steven Hernandez
I would like people to hire an Associates, I could spend more time at home with my family. I have a lot of nighthorse tastes, and I’ve started trials DUI trials at 10 o’clock at night. So I’d love to be able to stop doing that and have an Associates handle that for me. And I have $1 amount I like to have in my bank account, by the time I retire. What’s holding you back on hiring the associate business, the number of clients I I’ve had too many breakeven months. So I really need to increase the number of clients that I get every month in order to justify
Unknown Speaker
paying someone
Jim Hacking
I take them, I think that maybe I might suggest, I mean, if you could figure out a way for you to do a little bit less of the timely court stuff and a little more time on marketing that might help you speed that process along.
Steven Hernandez
It’s funny to say in that gym, because when I first was introduced to you and to you guys, I started with podcast number one. And the thing that just opened my eyes was this working on my practice, not in my practice, which I had done for the last 12 years. I remember actually listened to I think I listened to the first 20 podcast within the first week. That’s how much time I spent in my car. And it was just such a great thing. And so that’s what I’ve been working on is, is I at least have to spend a couple hours a week on marketing. And I’m hoping to do more of that.
Tyson Mutrux
What’s one thing that you’ll commit to over the next 120 days, okay, which is what we’re gonna like to recommend that over the next 120 days, what’s something you’ll commit to doing that will move that forward for you
Steven Hernandez
to take, that’s, that’s now that I’ve got my web issues solved. I’ve hired a new internet company to handle my marketing. I’m focusing on my intake because I have a horrible intake problem, I was finding that I was not following up with people who didn’t hire me. And I was missing, I was failing to return probably 25 to 30% of the phone calls. So intake is my next focus over the next, I’d say 30 days, I plan to turn that all around and be returning 100% of all phone calls that I don’t immediately connect with and following up with everybody until they say please don’t call me back or I’ve hired somebody.
Jim Hacking
Alright, couple of things. Number one is I’m crying Hearing you say that that kills me that there are people that you didn’t reply to. But and I understand, I understand. But I know that you can’t come to the conference because it’s your son’s birthday. But we’re going to figure out a way for you to be able to see Gary Falco with his presentation once Ken gets a video updated. I’ll send it to you because he’s the master of intake. And we’re excited about have you know, we’ve had him on the show before. And I think that the changes that I’ve made to my practice, just this year by adopting the docket and having a 30 hour week person working on nothing but following up with leads has led to about a 40% growth this year over last year. Sure.
Steven Hernandez
By the way, Jim, I didn’t know I had this problem until I did a self audit in anticipation of hiring a new internet company. I went back to eight months and started looking at the business why it wasn’t where it was at and I was horrified when I saw how many calls I’d like
Jim Hacking
to buy. Say thanks for thanks for being honest about that. And one thing is if you if you capture their email addresses, the one thing you might do is send them that amazing nine word email that revives instead leads and says, this says, Hey, Joe, are you still looking for help with your DUI? Just send it off and see what happens. I bet you get a few cases out of it.
Steven Hernandez
It’s funny to say that, Jim, because General Wayne, who I’ve known since 2012, he gave me an example of his drip campaign. And that’s exactly, I think, when the first messages I got from him, and I just thought it was
Tyson Mutrux
very interesting. So I love the idea of itself audit, I think that’s a really cool idea. I’m gonna have to do something that I don’t really want to do. But I’ve got a hard stop and a few minutes, I’ll get a kick to wrap things up. Before I do, I want to remind everyone to go to the Facebook group, get involved there. People like Steven are there and just jump right in like he did. I mean, you jump in, you got involved. And it’s great for everybody. Everyone’s everyone’s sharing. And that’s wonderful. Then also, you don’t mind I was doing some searching on iTunes yesterday been trying to like figure out kind of where we ranked and stuff when it comes to finding us in search. And I honestly couldn’t find us that easily, even though we’ve got more reviews than a lot of other podcasts. So if you don’t mind giving us some more reviews. Maybe that’ll bump us up in the rankings. But honestly, I can’t quite figure out what I do and what their algorithm is, but maybe some reviews will help. So if you don’t mind go in there. Giving us a review. That would be really, really great. Jimmy, what is your hack of the week?
Jim Hacking
One thing that I did lately is I’ve been working with Zapier a lot to try to get things, sort of my programs working together, and I’ve set up a label to come in, then alert me on Slack. So for instance, I got tired of having to look at all my Federal Court pleadings and all the baser notifications that I get. So I set up a label in Google, Google Mail, and then once that comes in, then I get the little summary of what the the filing is in Slack. I don’t have to jump back into email every time.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s really cool. So can you think maybe you could give us use of a short video for the Facebook group gives an idea on how to set that up? Is that possible? Super easy. Yeah, I’ll do that for sure. All right. All right. Steven, you’ve listened to that another routine. So what is your tip or hack of the week?
Steven Hernandez
Well, you know, the main thing is if you’re if you’re a young solo, or, or a beginner, and I’ve heard some recently on the on the podcast, I would say don’t focus on on shiny baubles don’t go out and try to buy every expensive gadget or, or app or program that everybody else uses. You’ve got some good ones on your phone, and on your computer, Google Calendar, or I use the Mac calendar, emails, etc. That will all sync with each other and your computer. And that’s a great thing to use.
Tyson Mutrux
That’s really good stuff. Steve. It’s so the my tip of the week is I think I’ve mentioned this before, but Chip months at me and Jim, Facebook portals and it was very generous of him. It was awesome. And I honestly wasn’t quite sure how I was going to use it. It’s, it’s basically it was one that fits on your desk or wherever you have it and you can get a screen and it’s kind of like the Alexa the video, Alexa. But Jim and I lead. We did a chat a couple of weeks ago and the video is freaking amazing. And it follows you around the room. And so my tip is to either one, get one or two. If you’ve got one, call me on it on Facebook and just have a chat with me. That’s freaking awesome. It’s really cool. You get to see just everything’s super clear. Right, Jimmy?
