Jay Ruane  0:07  

Hello, hello. Welcome to a Happy New Year edition of the Law Firm Blueprint. I’m one of your hosts, Jay Ruane, and with me, as always, is Seth price. Seth Price is down in the Blushark headquarters and Seth, there are things online, people talking, so we might as well get it right from the horse’s mouth. Seth, tell us what’s going on with BluShark.

Seth Price  0:26  

Well, you know, very exciting. So I’m just in the midst of a two day BluShark Summit. Something we do semiannually, bringing everybody from around the country into the mothership. But Herringbone Digital now we are part of that platform. An acquisition which includes me staying on a board member on Herringbone. Equity in the new organization. But the piece that’s really special is that BluShark stays intact, that the brand, the team, the people Brenton and Nalini. All still there, and sort of a life moment where you’re…How do you make a transition without hurting the people that got you there, the team and the clients, right? And I think we built something really special. The leading authority for local search for law firms, didn’t want to destroy it. We’ve seen a lot of private equity firms come in and do that, and made a calculated decision that this group was amalgamating some of the best and brightest minds in the space. Jason, Hennessy, Chad Dudley, Mickey Love that they have another verticals beyond legal and the resources and depth of, I guess, not just resources, but talent to navigate these coming years as AI infiltrates seem like the right moment in the right group. And, you know, based on the reaction of 75 people from around the country, you know, the team is jazzed. And for me, that’s a huge win.

Jay Ruane  1:50  

Yeah, I mean that’s the most important thing. You’ve got people that you’ve got long standing relationships with and and to make sure that they’re protected, they have a job. It’s not just going to get sliced and diced and cut up and thrown aside. You know, they didn’t purchase you just for your client list. They purchased you for the talent that you have and the plans that you have. So I think that’s a wonderful thing, right?

Seth Price  2:10  

Yeah, and look, being on the board of something that can help shape the future of marketing, to me, was the next challenge for me. Believe it or not, it was the team here, the executive team that was looking for the next challenge, and the idea that I was sort of pushed by them to say, Hey, how can we be part of something bigger and grow something even bigger than it is. From my point of view, I think the idea that I can now, you know, continue to help, advise, curate, be the evangelist, but be part of something that’s even larger than what we built. You know, when we met in a, you know, at a mastermind in Atlanta a gazillion years ago, two schmucks sitting there, the idea that we’re sitting there saying, hey, this, this $20 million organization, isn’t big enough. I want to be part of something bigger. It’s kind of humbling to think that that’s where you’re at.

Jay Ruane  3:04  

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And it looks like, it looks like, you know, you and Hennessy and all of those are really positioning yourselves as the market leaders and, you know, as AI makes a difference as digital really things. And I think, you know, one of the good things about Herringbone is that there’s other industries. I mean law in terms of local in terms of SEO, law probably is pushing the envelope in terms of what it’s doing. And so the Herringbone then gets that brain trust to say, what about this? What about this? How about we try this, and they can take it to other industries and use that sort of synergy to help everybody that’s in the small business space.

Seth Price  3:47  

Aboslutely. Look, they have a huge play in orthodontics, right? Are they as cutting edge digital search? No, lawyers. There’s nothing better that said. What I think people have done outside the legal space is they, you know, especially with certain doctors and different providers. They know that these people are not great with appointment setting, follow up and intake. And the idea that many of these organizations outside of legal have taken a much larger role. At the BluShark summit, we had, you know, a number of different panels with our sales team, or accounts team, there’s often friction, because, you know, not every client signed by the sales team is a rational player, right? And the accounts team is like, why are you doing this is a back and forth, right? Because you people, change people that we know well can be out of their minds. They’d be a lot of fun. They could have a nice law firm, but a lot of them are

Jay Ruane  4:41  

dysfunctional businesses, 

Seth Price  4:43  

correct, dysfunctional people, businesses, relationships, internal all of those things. And when you’re an agency, some of that stuff the accounts team has to deal with. And it was sort of fascinating to see that juxtaposition. And when it comes to the knowledge of how other industries have done things, and what I was getting, you know, getting towards is that, you know, you see a number of people who actually end up starting controlling the CRM for an organization. Now illegal, that’s not happening today or tomorrow, but for smaller firms, when you see the firms that are just starting out, would they be better off? Maybe the ones that we’ve mentored that we some podcast listeners, if they could wave a magic wand and have somebody other themselves overseeing intake, how much better off would they be?

Jay Ruane  5:31  

And I mean, that’s a conversation that we have to have as lawyers, because, you know, one of the things that you often say, besides it depends is you do what you love to do. And there’s a large portion of our audience of lawyers who own shops who never wanted to be an owner. They just want to practice law. I mean, we are kind of unique, and the people that we hang out with, we’re kind of unique in that we like the being the legal entrepreneur. But I know, I know lawyers. In fact, I had one here in my office yesterday who was like, I don’t want to do anything business related. I want to be in a courtroom. And he’s three years older than me, and you know, we’ve known each other a long time, and he’s saying, like, I’m just sick of running a business. I never wanted to do this? I just want to be a lawyer. And I said, Well, what’s your intake process? He goes, they call me on my cell phone. Maybe, I don’t know how they get my number. I got an old, you know, old cell number. That’s that we keep at home, that role that’s on my website, that just rolls to my new cell number. I’m like, oh god, there’s a million things that we can do. And he’s like, I don’t want to do any of that stuff. And so I think there are people in our audience who are like, “Hey, I got shown the door because somebody said they were leaving, and I was in that in that working group, and then I got pushed out.” I never wanted to.. My father never wanted to run a law firm. He got shown the door. 

Seth Price  7:00  

What was it? John Fisher, 

Jay Ruane  7:02  

yeah. I mean, that’s that. And I think a lot of those lawyers reluctantly get into running a practice, but yeah, if they could have somebody run a bunch of their things.

Seth Price  7:14  

I’ll take it back to what we started with. Though many of these small firms are dysfunctional. So what are you now be reliant on dysfunctionality? Or do you want to control it and be the king of the dysfunction? So that’s part of it, right? I mean, it’s you, if some if you don’t control, like whether a big firm or not, if you bring in cases you control your own destiny, right? And so, you know, one of the things that we see and look even for us, how many times over the last 20 years that we’ve been at this you 20 plus, have you looked at your intake as great as it was? You could be speaking to conference about how accomplished you are, and you come back and say, there’s somebody here who is asleep at the wheel, dysfunctional, you’re malicious or incompetent. How many it’s got to be between half a dozen and a dozen, a dozen times over the last 20 years that you’ve had serious meltdowns. I could speak for myself. You know, there have been multiple times and so, and that’s for a thoughtful place where I’m always trying to improve. Imagine if you just left it out there, what where you’ve been.

Jay Ruane  8:16  

I mean, just in the terms of follow up, how many times have I talked to a law firm about intake, and they have zero follow up process? Zero like comes in, they talk to the person, okay, you want to hire me? I’ll think about it. Bye, click, nothing ever again.

Seth Price  8:37  

I mean, look. I can tell you the pre-covid era, I had a series of dysfunctional directors of intake. You know, I say directors like when it was when I elevated somebody beyond that wasn’t on the phone and, you know, look, promoting from within was the worst. So it is, you know, building a business, whether it be digital marketing or law firm, is tough. It is not easy. And I think that you know to come full circle. One of the things that I think the team is looking towards and looking forward to is seeing expertise. Private equity has a lot of negatives to it, and they’ve destroyed a lot of companies, but there are also people that know how to run a really good business very efficiently, hopefully not too efficiently, because then you can suck the soul out of it. But if you’re able to the thesis here is, everybody keeps their flag. I think it like Procter and Gamble like, where some people are gonna like BluShark, some people like Hennessey, some people are like whoever. But that we are, we are there. The team is committed to creating the partnership with law firms. But there are resources from beyond which are almost impossible to create as a independent startup.

Jay Ruane  9:45  

Well, that’s fantastic. I mean, it sounds like it’s really the best of all works for the BluShark clients, for the BluShark team. You know, it really puts you in a position. But let me ask you. I mean, what’s your work week gonna look like? Is it going to be any different? Is it going to be an added layer? I mean, are you going to be stretched too thin, or you’re going to claw back time? And it’s Seth. I know you, if you claw back time, what’s next for Seth? Because you don’t ever stop.

Seth Price  10:16  

Yes, yes and yes. I think the good news is my role doesn’t change as evangelists. You know, as I come even to the summit, I’m less and less essential. I’m on a kick off, you know, panel, but each team runs independently. My job is to some is to basically come and give gloss, for instance, today to the accounts team about, how do lawyers think? Not an easy one, no, all the different permutations from, you know, point of contact, that’s irrational. How do you get to the principle? Or do you? when somebody’s intake isn’t right, if somebody’s not looking at their? all these different pulls and tugs bringing that reality piece? So I, you know, in one sense, my day to day shouldn’t change much, but I do believe that with that extra, I don’t say supervisory, but that extra voice and business consultative piece, that I will have certain responsibilities that I probably wasn’t best in class at these these guys know how to run a business a lot better than I and can give feedback to Brenton and the daily operator and President much better than I can. So we’re gonna have to sit down and figure out which, which, what’s the next widget.

Jay Ruane  11:32  

Well, folks, you heard it here first, there’ll be another widget. And get in when you can, because that’s like, but so, So now tell me. Is now the time if you are a listener and you have a small digital marketing company, and I know there are some small digital marketing companies that are listeners to our show. I think now may be the time for you to pitch Price Benowitz and say, Hey, private equity has bought out Blushark. They’re going corporate. You’re not going to get the same attention. Now is our chance to pitch your law firm and try to steal that business, right?

Seth Price  12:09  

And you saw this when Get Noticed, Got Found, got bought by scorpion. It was a feeding frenzy because it was destroying the essence of what that guy had built here. I think the reason that I did this is that you can say that, but from everything that I have seen, touched and felt, and you know, the numbers don’t lie. It has only made us stronger. It is not a, you know, there again. Can I tell you what’s gonna happen in five years? I can’t.

Jay Ruane  12:38  

No one predicted COVID.

Seth Price  12:44  

And we couldn’t have predicted the seismic change that AI would be bringing to our industry. And frankly, that private equity is bringing to the legal space. Big Dudley debosier, news about a managed service organization, right? So the world is changing quickly. There’s risk, no matter what you do. My lawyer always says there’s risk getting out of bed in the morning. But to me, this bulletproofs us as much as possible. Now, when there’s change, I’m sure that some digital marketing agency is going to try to sell saying, Oh, it’s private equity boogeyman, because look, page one was destroyed some of the newer organizations that were purchased by private equity. I’m not loving the results I see, but I can tell you, as a guy on the inside, what I’m seeing is the quality keeps getting better and better, and so that while you can say anything you want right now, and what I’m seeing, we are in the best shape that we’ve ever been in.

Jay Ruane  13:44  

So let me ask you, then, as much as you can share, right. Private equity is coming, and it’s coming for law firms at some point in the next decade, probably sooner rather than later. So as somebody who has interacted with private equity, with a functional business, with clients, with, you know, revenue and that type of thing. What were some of the things that jumped out from their initial conversations with you that you said, Oh, I’m glad I have that in place. Or, hey, that would I need to put together those numbers? What are the things that private equity who may not know our industry as well as we think we know it, and that’s subject to debate, of course. But if private equity is coming for that PI firm in, you know, in Albuquerque and wants and says, “okay, well, you know, you’re bringing in 500,000 clients a year, and what’s private equity really looking for? Are they looking for a brand? Are they looking for the systems? Are they looking for, you know, the people? Are they looking all of the above? Is there something that jumped out? Why were you appealing? I’m curious, you know, if I’m working on my firm now, knowing that there could be an exit in the future for private equity. What are the things I should start building now or making sure that I’m tied up with?

Seth Price  15:08  

You know, I think that the idea, in one sense, it’s build your firm as profitably as possible, knowing that they’re going to come in and make it more so. So, you know, if you run a non profitable firm, it’s not going to be as desirous because they use EBITDA as their metric. I am surprised, and again, I’m surprised often that I think that as the marquee firms are gobbled up potentially or by private equity, whatever number are gotten. Tthat as we go down the food chain, I think the multiples that are going to be out there are not going to be as desirous as we think. I could be wrong, but that, yes, if you’ve created a regional brand, a dully debosier or Mike Morris, people can offer you a real multiple that is interesting, that with tax benefits and everything could be advantageous. I think the issue is that, you know the things that they’re going to want to see is a trajectory of growth, and if you figure that out and that they can add fuel to the fire, either through marketing or efficiencies to create creates profitability. Those are the things they’re going to be looking for. And so I think that, in general, the first people that are going to be taken over by private equity or have some sort of deal are people that have a platform that they can build and grow and incorporate other people in. That is that. That’s the piece. And so, you know, if, when you say systems, I think for the mothership, that’s probably the most important, but once they have a mothership, generally, depending on how they build these things, they’re going to want people to follow into a given process. So there’s also, you know, whoever is the flagship versus a follow? What I loved about this, this particular situation, is that they were not pretending to do what a lot of people in the digital space have done, which is buy people and say, This brand is gone. Here’s a new brand. Everybody you know, nothing to see here, and that they have really done a very nice job of saying, no, we want to continue to keep that we you’ve built. What you’ve built is special. You have raving fans, and we want to just make that bigger and better, rather than just, you know, bringing everything together. I think that we’ve seen too many missteps. And again, what I don’t know is the based on this thesis, is, how will the market in three to five years reflect with an amalgamation of brands rather than a single flag? To me, I think this is a I know this is better for clients and employees, how it plays out, it will be really interesting to see, but that’s why I was excited to want to be along for the ride.

Jay Ruane  18:01  

Did you get any pushback from any of the BluShark clients and say, you know, have you heard from people who say, Yeah, I don’t want a corporate I liked being able to call Seth on the phone and conference.

Seth Price  18:15  

But look, I’m still there a five, five year agreement. I’m in place. You know, nothing day to day, the world has not changed. So the great news is the results were incredible. Because if I’m there, Brenton’s there, Nalini is there, and the entire team like this is not a seismic shift internally. It’s really a question of, you know, the I think, for our team, the executive team, it was the challenge of building something even bigger than what we’ve done. Could we grow incrementally every year? Yes, but imagine if somebody came along and said, Jay, you keep brewing attorneys. You be the mothership of Connecticut, but we want to create. Look at the dysfunction, the DUI space. You’re a mastermind, the criminal space. Imagine if they took this as a mothership said, you’re here, but we’re going to go find the Jay Ruane in Texas and Florida, and we’re to bring these things here, and all of a sudden, hypothetically, I’m making these things up, but we’re going to centralize intake. We’re going to have PPC bought on a national basis, rather than that, you haven’t like, these are the pieces. If you have to hire an in house marketing person, good enough as a law firm, you can afford to pay too so much. That’s sort of why I started BluShark. I’ll circle back to that in a minute. But if you had somebody, you’re a one PPC person, could easily buy for more than Ruane attorneys, so, if you like, right there, if there was a roll up, for lack of a better term, of seven different DUI firms around the country, think about some of the things that could be centralized. Think about intake, where it’s, you know. If somebody started, hypothetically at seven AM the West Coast, people need nobody at that hour, right? But you could have phones answered hypothetically, live till 10pm which is only 7pm there. So, you know, there are all these different efficiencies. And I think that it comes down to a lot is that the law firms don’t always because they were protected by bar requirements, don’t always run as rational players. People do stupid things. Say, not that Corporate America doesn’t, but the basic fundamentals of business, running things by numbers and being disciplined don’t exist in most of our world. If you leave the giant PI firms, for the most part. There are exceptions, but not many. A lot of emotion in there, a lot of bad behavior. And that, as you start to put these different pieces in place, that you can accomplish some pretty, pretty amazing things.

Jay Ruane  20:56  

You know, it’s interesting. If you go back 20 years, this was the beginning of the amalgamation of the physicians offices. 2025, years they started doing it, the product that you get now, lot more technology, lot easier to book.

Seth Price  21:13  

It’s it’s interesting, no. And you see, you see successes and failures. Great technology. And there’s a dermatologist office, and I curse their name every time I have to go, because it’s some centralized call center that has no idea what’s going on. And it’s, you know, the least possible paid people and

Jay Ruane  21:31  

And that’s the thing that I was saying, is that, you know, we saw this over the last two decades in the medical space, but yet, a month ago, six weeks ago, you and I were talking about one medical and how it’s bespoke. You can get in when you want to get in, you can you pay a little you pay a little premium, that type of thing

Seth Price  21:51  

That’s what’s even crazier there. But that’s another story. But that’s the thing.

Jay Ruane  21:54  

Like, there’s concierge medicine, there’s all these different levels.

Seth Price  21:57  

That’s why the limit always shocks me, because it’s not concierge, and yet, it’s concierge ish, right?

Jay Ruane  22:03  

And so I’m wondering if there is going to be this just division, right? And it’s going to be the private equity, or that there’s going to be those small shops. You know, higher costs, and it’s just targeting a totally different audience, and that middle ground that that a lot of the firms we know live in is going to sort of, that’s going to go by the wayside. It’s either be acquired, or you’re going to double down and really niche and because there are physicians that are doing the niching, and then the rest of them are doing the, you know, aligning with the major medical groups.

Seth Price  22:40  

Well, does that go back to your original point. These guys were doctors, to be doctors, and all of a sudden they were expected to run a business, lawyers, at least, had some business gumption. The doctors got nothing. They did science courses. They’ve done nothing. If they did, it’s just DNA that helped them get through it

Jay Ruane  22:57  

Absolutely, absolutely. That’s my entire point is that I wonder if, 20 years from now, we’ll see, you know, a backlash, which is why we talked on the last show I wrote the book, Analog Marketing in a Digital World, because I think there’s opportunity to do personal connections. Here’s a perfect thing, pre covid. Now this is not a war story. But pre covid, right before covid, you were coming up to Connecticut to give a presentation at a conference that I was putting on March 20, 2020, and you were going to come up. Jim Hacking was coming in. A couple other people were coming in, and literally within 48 hours early that week, we pivoted to an online conference. Everyone gave their speeches, and it worked. I had not talked to the director of continuing education since that time for our Connecticut Bar Association. I wrote the new book. I reached out to him. I said, you know, Tom, we haven’t chatted in forever. We should do something again. And he’s like, I have an idea. Why don’t we do this? By the way, now he’s promoting me to give a, you know, doing a one hour webinar to, you know, 800-1500 lawyers how to teach their associates how to generate referrals. And now my name is getting back out there, and I’m just doing that because I’m re establishing one to one personal connections that I had years ago that has just fallen by the wayside. And I’m just saying like, that’s the kind of thing that, you know, we should embrace the change in the industry that we’re in, because it leads for opportunity that you can take, that other people may be blind to.

Seth Price  24:43  

Yes and no meaning. I love the fact that you’re doing the analog stuff. God bless that is not necessary. The good news is it’s probably private equity immune, because it’s not investable, right? You know? I mean, it is, if you get enough cases that they’re like, Hey, we see. The phone ringing year after year, and it’s making sense. And so, you know, it is what the good news is, if you have that much of that will prevent you from being hurt. But let’s look at the PI space. Morgan isn’t, who knows? I don’t, I don’t know how much outside money he took, if any, but presumably some along the way is all sorts of syndicates that build, you know, revenue or bring marketing co shares in different markets. But referral lawyers, they have been negatively affected by Morgan, for example, right? And use that as an outside money play, whether it’s private equity or there’s Morgan money, some big player came into the market and even refer, because referrals have to come from somewhere. And so while you’re doing your talks and everything, you need somebody to get to that lawyer to refer to you, if some guy entered your state or woman and put billboards everywhere and did advertisements to the point where there was a brand Connecticut DUI that was ubiquitous. I would proffer that would hurt your referral business significantly. And while it’s great that there isn’t somebody out there at the top level taking those cases before it gets to those people, that would be a risk factor. So I think alone the analog isn’t there, but it’s no but meaning the analog works better when there is not a sophisticated marketer going against you.

Jay Ruane  26:31  

I can agree with that. I can agree with that. I think the reality of the situation, though, is that moat that’s created by the analog would allow me to continue to live. I mean, I got another 20 years 

Seth Price  26:42  

You’re living no matter what. Stop it. 

Jay Ruane  26:45  

I’m a bit of a cockroach, but, but that’s the thing. Like, I have to think of my practice in chunks of time and what I need, and I don’t need to be Morgan and Morgan to have a very nice life here in suburban Connecticut and have my practice. And that’s the thing. Not everybody wants to have a firm the size of Morgan and Morgan. Some people want to have 100 files a year, or 25 files a year, and crush it and and do well in that respect. So it’s also you need some self reflection, right? You need to, as a lawyer, you need to, you need to think about, what is it that I actually want? Some people don’t want to scale, and they would rather just have a nice life. And that’s that’s an admirable goal to have. Don’t scale because the person in the next office wants to scale. Scale because you want to, or stay where you’re at because you want to, maybe you need some self reflection. At the end of the day, not everything is growth, right? I mean, I’m sure David Benowitz didn’t necessarily see the type of firm, the size of the firm that you guys have grown to, because he just wants to be a criminal defense lawyer,

Seth Price  28:00  

and he has his own little pod within the firm that he loves

Jay Ruane  28:03  

exactly, and he loves it. And if you extricated that pod and put him in another office building as Benowitz law, and he could get the same type of client flow to his criminal practice, he’d be just as happy. I mean, he’s happy with you as a partner and you’ve grown and the open doors and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, you got to, you got to do what’s right for you. I love that you’re doing what’s right for you with BluShark getting acquired and allowing your people to stay and because you really did invest in team and curate a team that’s extraordinary.

Seth Price  28:38  

And look, we just had this summit where we did the kickoff keynote with Brenton and my having a conversation. I could look out at the crowd and knew, know that, for all intents and purposes, have done right by them, and it’s just, it’s which is not like I know that I could have probably done 20% more and found somebody who is like, had whatever maniacal plan they had. we had somebody come and knock on our door who literally said, We’ll give you a maximum check, no earn out, no, nothing. We’ll give you maximum money if you basically we want. We’re buying this to put our nephew, who’s a Harvard MBA, in charge of the company. And every you know you guys could go do what you want. And I’m like, You know what that I built this company, our clients, our dear friends, the employees are people that we took from interns at the law firm to build this thing. You know, I would like to be part of something bigger, but I didn’t want to destroy what we had.

Jay Ruane  29:35  

So let me ask you this, and this is just maybe, maybe this is something we shouldn’t discuss on the show. What’s it like having that conversation with Brenton and saying, we’ve got an offer to be acquired, and I think we should take it because in your basement, right?

Seth Price  29:49  

Oh, I mean, look, I had a phone call the other day with a credit card company that has never liked me after a real estate deal went south with their bank, and I needed to get a credit line increase so I could put use the right insurance from the credit card for an upcoming cruise with the parents. And I was giving them numbers of what we’re doing. And I was like, oh shit to think we started in Dave’s basement with Dave saying, nobody’s gonna pick a lawyer from the internet. And David Brenton, you know what? He was the one who wanted the next challenge. We started BluShark to give him and the team more challenge. And that’s the theory here, that we’re now, that they are going to experience, you know what, and if it’s not right, they won’t. They know, when everyone’s gonna give it a six month window, and if it’s great, they’ll stay with it. And that’s so every day, just like for your clients, we have to prove to our clients every day that we’re still the best. You know, you know, you got to do that with your you know, the clients have a free more. The employees have a free market too. But it was really people.

Jay Ruane  30:49  

You have very talented people who could, who have great opportunities in front of them, and hopefully they stay with you, and you’re able to do wonderful things, because you’ve got to, you’ve got, you’ve really set them all up for success. It’s not just, you know, the founders that are getting a check and being successful, and your whole team is set up for success. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Seth Price  31:12  

And look, it is humbling when you sit there and you realize this time, you know, every time I met one of these summits, there’s 75 domestic people sitting there, best and brightest. And every year you see this with your firm, if you could have looked back six years ago and you said, Hey, some of these people are kind of rough, and now you’ve seen the level that you have curated. It is just the bar is so high and just giddy to see what they can accomplish.

Jay Ruane  31:35  

And you know, the one thing that I will say is that you’ve invested a lot in your people and their own growth. You’ve never shied from giving them the resources they need to learn more, to get better. And I think that’s there’s a message there for all the people in our audience about reinvesting in the talent that you have in your in your firm or in your business. Because when you have good people, and you invest in them and they get better, the you know, the tide lifts the ship, and that’s and that’s what it’s all about.

Seth Price  32:04  

Absolutely, when you when you have, you know, when I look at, you know, the decisions made early. Hey, Nalini, you know this, she came to me with an hour and 45 minute commute. I saw a resume, like, there’s no effing way. Why am I interviewing this person when we were like, a six, seven person organization, and I was like, and she came into interview, and she told me she lived with her in laws. I’m like, okay, maybe the long commute will work. And then it was like she was doing some nonsense and ops. And it was like, You know what? I think she’d be really good speaking at conferences. So I brought her along, brought her on stage. Next thing you know, they want her, not me, and it’s when you can make yourself dispensable. I think that’s, you know, what I’ve enjoyed most. You know, we had a very for those long time listen to the show. We had a bizarre interview during covid with the author of the E Myth. He pushed us in a lot of directions. And I think that, like, you know, neither of us bought and you were very verbal about some of the extents he went to. But I think if we take the negative away from that, that he was like, hey, creative lawyering should be mcdonaldized. Okay, let’s put that to the side. But the idea that when we start finding each spot that we can take ourselves out of and have somebody as good or better than us doing and at, you know, some of it is, you may have the gumption now, but you and I have both aged over the last 20 years where that, even though the energy may still seem high by you know, Tiktok standards, it isn’t the same when it comes to I don’t need to have myself in every one of these buckets,

Jay Ruane  33:39  

And I don’t, because I’ve recognized that there are better people at it and I and that’s that was a big struggle for me, allowing somebody else to take the reins of things that I had previously had my hands in. But that’s the right thing for the firm, and it’s allowed us to continue to growth. I mean, you know, we continue to grow 10 to 12% a year. You were not growing 40% a year like we did at the beginning. But hell, 10 to 12 to 15% last year was like 14 and a half like, so, I mean, that’s good growth. Absolutely.

Seth Price  34:11  

Look at looking at being transparent, like as BluShark was taking off Price Benoqitz said, I can’t say it was because of that. First Quarter of 25 was not great. Economically, the DC region was really hit hard by a new president that like, there’s a lot of uncertainty, and people weren’t spending money. Our numbers were not great. We had some good turnover, but that lost us some selling units, you know. And that each of these things, you know, the better answer is that, you know, I’m looking at now like recruiting, right? Can I get to the point with law firm recruiting where somebody other than myself can bring things full cycle that, you know, that’s the next challenge. Can I make myself less essential for things like that?

Jay Ruane  34:58  

All right, well, folks, you heard it. Your first green Scorpion, or whatever the next company is going to be all about law firm recruiting, led by Seth. And five years from now, you’ll have a whole industry taking off or something along. Because I know you, you’re not going to you’re not going to just stop with this. With a little extra free time, you can find five hours in a week that you’ve clawed back, you’re going to create something new. That’s for sure.

Seth Price  35:22  

I appreciate that. It’s been, it’s been a fun ride, and nobody that would rather have is that, is that, that sidekick we model this after the two old guys for the Muppets in the balcony, and 20 years later, we’re starting to sort of actually attain that grumpy old man status.

Jay Ruane  35:37  

Oh, absolutely, I’m grumpy. In fact, our new policy, our new theme of our recruiting in my HR manager’s office is, come work here. We hate people too.

Seth Price  35:50  

That’s awesome. Alright,

Jay Ruane  35:51  

Seth, that’s going to do it for us this week on the law firm blueprint. Of course, you can catch us anywhere you want to go. Take us on the road with us by subscribing to the law firm blueprint podcast. Wherever you get your podcast. Be sure to give us a five star review, and you can catch us live on LinkedIn every Thursday, 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific, and important in our Facebook group, the law firm blueprint. Join the group, catch the show. Stay with us and learn. Be here first when you’ll learn what Seth’s next project is going to be, because I’m sure there’ll be something fantastic that’s going to do it for us. Seth, anything else that’s it great, great to get back to your get back to your Summit, and I’ll get back to my work. And folks, we’ll see you next week here on the law firm blueprint. Bye for now.