14 Tips for Young Lawyers with Tyson Mutrux

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In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, co-hosts Tyson Mutrux offer invaluable advice for young lawyers. Tyson shares 14 essential tips he has learned throughout his career, emphasizing the importance of building genuine relationships, giving grace, and understanding one's worth. 

Even though these are rapid-fire tips, we hope that you feel encouraged and take something away that you can apply to your law firm and life today. The overarching theme in this episode, is to guide young lawyers in effectively navigating their careers and embracing the challenges of the legal profession. Listen in and be encouraged.

Episode Highlights:

• 02:51 - Tip 1: Give Grace 
• 03:50 - Tip 2: Build Relationships 
• 04:57 - Tip 3: Have Difficult Discussions 
• 05:57 - Tip 4: Make Yourself Indispensable 
• 06:45 - Tip 5: Find Your Passion 
• 07:42 - Tip 6: It's Okay to Start Over 
• 08:42 - Tip 7: It's Okay to Leave the Profession 
• 09:36 - Tip 8: Being a Lawyer Isn't Your Identity 
• 10:27 - Tip 9: Avoid Being a Bulldog 
• 11:22 - Tip 10: Embrace the Difficulty 
• 12:11 - Tip 11: Let Them Doubt You 
• 12:49 - Tip 12: Don't Give Free Advice 
• 14:08 - Tip 13: Don't Discount Your Fees 
• 15:37 - Tip 14: Know Your Worth 

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Transcripts: 14 Tips for Young Lawyers with Tyson Mutrux

Tyson (00:01.932)
Welcome back to another Saturday episode of the Maximum Lawyer podcast. My name is Tyson Uetrix. Many of you already know that by now as you're actually, I don't want to say

Tyson (00:13.454)
Welcome back to another episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast. This is Tyson Mutrix and today I've got a fun one for you especially if you're a young lawyer. I'm going to talk about the 14 tips that I have for young lawyers.

Tyson (00:32.246)
scratch my nose. I'll just do the full intro over again. Hope you cut it a little bit more. Yeah, edit it a little easier.

Tyson (00:47.192)
Welcome back to another episode of the Saturday podcast. My name is Tyson Mutrix and today I've got a really good one. It's for young lawyers. This is advice for young lawyers, but I will tell you much of this will apply to the majority of attorneys, maybe all attorneys. But this one, I do want to speak directly to young lawyers because sometimes we get misguided advice. Sometimes we get bad advice, but.

These are 14 tips that I've learned over the years. There's probably more things I could talk about. I'm gonna go through it fairly quickly. I may do separate episodes on each of these just so you know I can expand on them, but I'm gonna go through these fairly quickly because I think it's important. Before I do get into this though, I wanna remind everyone that I would love to hear from you. This is another episode that I'm recording from Charlotte for the Quarterly Mastermind and it's one of these things where I'm recording these because they're on my mind.

That's why I'm doing it right now. They're on my mind. I had a few extra minutes I wanted to talk about them. But I've had several people come up to me and mention a Saturday episode. Or even in the actual, some of the hot seats, they said, hey, well, you said this on the Saturday episode. So then they apply it to the situation, which I think is really, really cool. Same thing comes with, you text me. I love to hear those comments. It's so cool to hear.

And so it just shows me that I wanna make sure we're providing value and that you're getting a lot from this. And by you letting me know that, it lets me know if I'm on the right track. And if I'm not on the right track, tell me, text me, say, I don't agree with you on this one. And here's why. And if you convince me, guess what? I'll record another one saying, I got this text message from such and such and they said these things to me and it's changed my

And even, you know what, I might even do an episode if I disagree with you, but I just love to hear from you and I wanna make sure we're providing the absolute best material for you that helps you with your practice. That being said, I wanna jump into this episode. That way we can spend a little bit of time on it. Like I said, this is gonna be, it's gonna be kinda rapid pace, cause these are short episodes and there's 14 of these, so let's go through them as quickly as possible. Number one.

Tyson (03:10.1)
is maybe one of the hardest ones you'll do. It's give grace. I was a hard charging lawyer at the beginning and I really wanted to just go, go, go and be aggressive. That is not the right approach. Give grace. You're gonna appreciate it when you need it. And luckily, luckily, I once had a really good mentor in Eli Hedowski at the firm I worked for.

at the very beginning. And then the other thing is I also luckily encountered some attorneys on the other side very early that gave me grace. And so giving grace is one of those things where it's an investment, okay? Giving grace is an investment, trust me, because someday you'll need it and when they return the favor, you're gonna appreciate it. The next one is don't network, build relationships.

You'll get this idea, I'm just gonna go around and I'm meet with all these different people and I'm gonna have coffee with this person and drinks with that person or I'm gonna go to these networking events. I have a pretty big problem with networking events. I don't want you to network. I want you to build relationships. Building relationships is the way that you build a firm that you want. If you want a bunch of referrals, you build relationships. You do not

network. Okay? Now, you want a network of relationships, not a network of people, because that's not going to do a lot for you. You can know a lot of people. I wouldn't even call it a network. That's just a bunch of people that you have their names in your phone. You want to be able to have relationships with these people. So build relationships. Focus on that. And there was this once, I heard this quote or this saying,

And it's, don't ask if you want to grab coffee or have coffee, something like that. like, do you want to sit down and talk? I can't remember what a phrase, but the phrase was, it was essentially like, hey, let's just go do this thing and we're just gonna sit there. It was, gosh, I think I want to talk about this thing. Let's just cut that part out, the coffee part of it, because I can't remember the phrase. So we're just gonna cut that part

Tyson (05:40.726)
I think that there's an easy transition in there, so I'm just trying to think about

The next one I want to get to is have the difficult discussions as quickly as you can. There will be times where you had the really difficult conversations, whether that's with a client or an opposing attorney or your spouse or a really good friend. It doesn't really matter. Those things will eat at you and they'll eat at you and they'll eat at you. And what you'll find is the vast majority of the

It's not gonna be nearly as bad as what you are playing out in your mind. It's probably like 95 % of the time. It is far better for you, far less painful for you, by the way. Because you think about the pain, the reality is it's gonna be far less painful for you instead of you losing sleep for months and months. You just get it out of the way this week, get it out of this week today, okay? Make those difficult decisions

have those difficult discussions very very quickly. You want to make difficult decisions quickly too if you can but it's another topic. Number the next one number four make yourself indispensable so if you're working for a firm you provide them as much value as you can okay as much value as you can you make yourself indispensable but or and okay so and get as many as client clients as possible okay bring in as many clients as possible.

If you don't do that, you are dispensable. So providing a lot of value to your employer, really, and you might think, well, this is your bias because you're a law firm owner. No, no, no, no, no. I did this whenever I worked for a firm. Whenever I applied, I wrote my cover letter and my resume was all targeted towards that firm showing how I would provide value to them. I viewed them almost as if they were a customer. That's how I viewed it.

Tyson (07:40.546)
I think employees should do the same thing. If you really want to make yourself indispensable, that's how you do it. If you want to be able to make it where they can't fire you, they can fire you, but you want to make it where it's going to be really painful if they do. So you provide them a ton of value and you bring as many clients as possible. And you do that, they're not going fire you. It's going to give you a lot of power because you have leverage. If you want leverage as an employee, that's how you get

Make yourself indispensable, provide a ton of value, and get as many clients as possible. Number five, find what you're passionate about and do that. This one I'm wavering a little bit over the last couple years after hearing from people like Eric Weinstein. I think he's a professor at Harvard. I know he's a professor. He was on the Chris Williamson podcast.

He was talking about, because we've, you know, as Americans, we talk about follow your passion. But something he has talked about is do what you're really, really good at and learn to become passionate about it, right? And so when I say follow your passion, I kind of mean that, okay? I kind of mean that. either way, either way, this is gonna leave me in number

if you can't, if you don't find that passion or if you find that the thing that you thought you were passionate about, you're not passionate about, or you're not good at it. Because if you think you're passionate about something, or if you are passionate about something and you start it and then you're not good at it, you will lose your passion for it. And that's part of why Eric Weinstein talks about this, is that find something you're good at and learn to become passionate about it. And so if we go on to the next one.

If you don't do that and you're not passionate about it, it's okay to start over. Whether you start a law firm or you work for a firm or whatever or as a lawyer, it's okay to start over again. It's okay. No one will judge you for it. And actually, you know what? Most people will praise you for it. congratulations. You know what? Good for you. That's fantastic. Good for you for moving on or figuring something else.

Tyson (10:06.496)
or finding what you want to do, or finding what you want that you love, whatever it is. But you will be praised for doing it. You will not be criticized. So just know that. The next one. It's okay to leave the profession. All right? There are a lot of people

Tyson (10:29.422)
How do I say this? There are a lot of people that have ended their lives because they're lawyers and they hated it. This is a profession that just isn't for everybody. And that's not a bad thing. It's just not a bad thing. It's just not for everybody. And so if you find that this is not what you want to be doing, who cares? Go do something else.

It's okay. This is easy for me to say at this point, but honestly, I wouldn't care myself. Who cares what your parents think? Who cares what your friends think? If they truly love you and care about you, they don't want you to be miserable. They want you to be happy, right? And we can talk about happiness in another podcast, it's not really a destination, but we'll talk about it in another podcast. But they want you to be happier.

and they want you to be able to seek happiness, at least if they care about you and they love you that they do, and if they don't, then don't care about them. Who cares what they think? And so it's okay. It's okay to start over, and it's okay to leave the profession. Number eight, being a lawyer isn't who you are. It's what you do. It's not who you are. And sometimes we wrap ourselves too much in it. Starting at Christopher Nicholson the other day,

and we were talking about how a friend of his kind of puts it on almost as a cloak of armor. That's a really dangerous thing. If you do it, if you say, I'm going into court and I got my suit on, it's sort of this armor that I've got on, I'm okay with that, but if you wrap yourself in it every moment of your life, that's a dangerous thing. So be very careful about

Number 10, you don't want to be a bulldog as a lawyer, okay? I'm just telling you right now, guess what? People hate bulldogs and they're not effective. okay, so think about this. If someone's a jerk to you, are you gonna give them what they want? No, not necessarily. Do you think a judge is gonna want to give you what you want if you're a jerk? Nope, not at all. And they'll find every reason that they can.

Tyson (12:51.384)
to not rule in your favor. It's a human nature thing. This isn't something, may not even be conscious, okay? So I'm not saying that, I don't like you, so I'm gonna automatically rule against you. No, no, no, it's a human nature thing. Subconsciously, they're gonna be like, they're probably gonna try to find a way to really screw you over, is what's gonna be. Same thing works with clients.

You know don't be a bulldog to your client and don't make them think you're a bulldog because this is not an effective technique But other opposing counsel was talking about giving grace, right? Just wait you become a bulldog. I know bulldogs and guess what they're on a list of mine and They will never get a favor from me. You need that discovery extension. No, sorry not happening. Yeah, we'll follow motion compel That's it. We'll send golden rule letter and we're gonna send out we're gonna follow motion

We're gonna make you work for it. Your client's gonna be pissed off at you. So instead be a fox. You want to be a fox. You don't want to be a bulldog. A fox is smart. A fox is clever. A fox is, in my mind, it's someone that will give you grace. That's what you want to be. You want to play the long game. Bulldogs is short game. There's lots of games.

You play the short game, you're going to have a short profession. Or not a very successful one. Be a fox.

Tyson (14:30.37)
The next one is this profession is hard. It's supposed to be. Embrace it. The sooner you can embrace it, embrace it being hard, the better. Enjoy it being hard. You don't want it to be easy. You don't. You want this to be hard. There's a reason why you're a professional. You're a professional. There's a reason for that. It's a hard thing. Not everybody can do it. Embrace

Number 11, let them doubt you. This is a great one for me. Let them doubt you. Get that chip on your shoulder, okay? That is their weakness. Okay, let them doubt you. That's their weakness. Let them think that you're not gonna be successful and then lean in and dominate, okay? Let them doubt you. Who gives a shit if they do? Go do your thing and go dominate. Don't give free advice.

Don't give free advice. You'll be abused for it. They will, your family members, your friends, they will just eat at you and eat at you and eat at you. I understand the occasional, hey, what if I get a traffic ticket? What should I do? Go hire a traffic lawyer. They're gonna help you out with that. But don't give free legal advice. It diminishes your value, okay? Which leads to the next

Don't discount your fees either. Again, diminishes your value. well, I want a discount. We don't discount our fees. We have a very, very firm rule in our firm. We don't lower our fees. But there are two exceptions to that. Or I guess there's really one exception to that. We will lower our fee if we

have a settlement and just not enough insurance money available but there's a lot of bills and maybe there's issues with liability. So with a lien statute there's a formula and everything but if we're going to get more based on all this settlement distribution than our client we don't do that, we don't take more than our client. So we have one rule about lowering fees, we will lower it so that we don't get more than our client. There's an exception to that, that's why I was getting to it with exception. There's one exception to that and that's this.

Tyson (16:54.998)
If the client doesn't take our advice and settles a case for less than what we think they should, and they kind of are rushing the process, I will not lower my fee. That's how much we believe in this. And there's a lot of attorneys that will, they just cut their fee, cut their fee, cut their fee. I had a defense attorney the other day, and this is part of the reason why. She says, well, you can just cut your fee. And I said, we don't cut our fee. And an attorney a couple months ago, well, you can just cut your I don't cut my fee. That's not something I do. And I just told both of them, you don't cut your fee?

You're not going to cut your fee. I'm not cutting my fee. It diminishes my value. It diminishes the value that we provide. So don't cut your fee. Just because they ask for it doesn't mean you should give it to them. Don't cut your fee. It diminishes your value, and it'll just keep happening to you. And especially if you're an injury firm, if they know that you're just going to cut your fee, just keep lowballing you. And guess what? Your settlement values will keep going lower and lower and lower, and that means your fees keep going lower and lower.

Okay, these are algorithms too. So they'll be tracking all this data. The last one I want to get to is know your worth. And this is related to what we just talking about. If you're working for a firm and they're abusing you, what I mean by that is, I don't want to overuse that word. If they are taking advantage of you, leave. Go start your own firm. Go to another firm. Someone that's gonna pay you what you're worth. Now that doesn't mean that,

you should overestimate your worth because we've had plenty of associates or applicants that they want an outrageous amount of money for not knowing jack shit. And that is to me, that shows me your naivete that you are not very realistic. And if you're not very realistic about your expectations,

we're going have a difficult working relationship. And I understand some inexperience and things like that. And I also understand that there may have been some job candidates over the last few years have been getting some really terrible advice about salaries. But there is a ridiculousness element to it. That being said, if you have the skill set, if you know that you can add a lot of value to the firm, or if you're a law firm owner,

Tyson (19:19.414)
If you know as a law firm owner, you're going to do a really good job on a case, know your worth, and this goes back to, there's no low on your fees, okay? You're going to do a great job. You know you're going to do better than the other firm out there that you're competing against. Know your worth, stick to your guns, and charge what you need to charge, okay? Whether you're an employee or a law firm owner. Get paid what you need to get paid.

Alright, that's the last one I have for you. That's all we have for today. I want to remind everyone to give me a text, shoot me a text, I'd love to hear from you. I love hearing all the texts I get all the time. Get them all the, basically every day at this point. So make sure you keep shooting me a text, I'd love to hear from you. Even if you're just calling, texting to say hi, I'd love to hear from you. 314 -501 -9260 is the texting line. So I would love to hear from you.

Until next week though, remember that consistent action is the blueprint that turns your goals into reality. Take care, see you everybody.