Jay Ruane  00:00

Jay, hello, hello, and welcome to this edition of the Law Firm Blueprint. I’m your host. Jay Ruane, with me, as always, is my man, Seth Price. Seth, how’s your week going? 

Seth Price  00:15

It is going great. Great to see you. 

Jay Ruane  00:17

Good to see you as well.

Jay Ruane  00:19

So, Seth, last week, we were talking about a lot of things, talking about money, et cetera, and at the end of the show, I wanted to talk about something. We didn’t really have time to get into it, so I punted. You know, I said, You know what, we’re not getting a first down here today. Let’s punch in and reassess. And here’s the issue: can you recruit for optimism? And that’s the general big question. But what I am seeing is that as our firm grows larger, there are different personality types that we have hired, and some people are awesome at their job, yet they bring a particular pessimistic bent towards life, and that can really impact a lot of people, especially the people who are sort of, I don’t wanna call them milquetoast, but they’re in the middle. They can either be positive or negative, but if you get one negative person. What’s that?

Seth Price  01:13

Malleable. 

Jay Ruane  01:14

Yes, malleable. I like that. But you get one negative person, they can really affect a lot.

Seth Price  01:21

And know why this is interesting. It’s beyond our normal conversation over the years, you and me, we talk about toxic people. You got to get them out, because it’s going to get terrible, right? But we this is not that. This is sort of like they’re doing a good job. They’re not a culture killer, per se, but the pessimism, you know, half empty verse, half full, right? You know, eternally, a half-full guy for the most part. The quote,

Jay Ruane  01:47

I think everybody in our seats are half full people you couldn’t get out of bed, right? If you are right. I mean, if I had to look at all the problems I had, I’d be staring at the ceiling the entire day, right, right?

Seth Price  01:58

You’re not talking about the person who’s, you know, really toxic, but you’re talking about pessimism, which is, like this subtle piece. It’s like the snarky, the the snarky equivalent, which is, you’re not, you’re not a hole, but you’re just, you’re bringing up negative things all the time, not good as far as the big bubble you’ve created.

Jay Ruane  02:24

And not only that, you get two of them in a pod, or two of them in an apartment, they can be negative towards each other, and it just sort of festers and grows. And it’s really troubling to me, because how do you, I guess you could personality test for the optimism we talk about until they get in the seat. You don’t know.

Seth Price  02:48

And also, there’s the interview process where nobody’s going to be right, you know, I look it is, and that alone isn’t going to come up in a lot of stuff. So, yeah, we struggle a lot. Like the whole idea of all the testing, it’s great. But the question that you know, sort of is, is humbling, is okay, you do all this freaking testing, how often do you not pull the trigger where everything is good, but the testing is showing otherwise, and that’s you know. Are you gonna? Are you gonna, like we know, if we find, God forbid, you find a criminal lawyer who’s experienced, who knows what they’re doing? You’re holding on for dear life. You if I tell them, yeah, they’re a little pessimistic, you’ll be like, yeah, they know what they’re doing. They’re not high drama, right? And yet, that pessimism can have a real negative impact on the firm as a whole.

Jay Ruane  03:38

Yeah, and I mean, how do you recover? I mean, I’ll be a perfect example, I had a friend who was working for me, who was the older brother of my best friend who just got he when he got the job after having been out of work, he was, he was so thankful. He was so happy, and that, you know, a lot of people think are excited about a new job, and then just the negativity.

Seth Price  04:02

Well, there’s a continuum. I could think I got a guy my team. I love the guy, but he’s got that really sharp edge, and it’s tough, because there are times when you’re in certain spots, like a litigator, it’s something that comes with the territory, somewhere right inside the standard deviation. We had a guy a couple years ago, I think we talked about on the show back in the day, who was so odd and so off outside the standard deviation, where, with this this piece, that we actually had to send him away from the office. Got him a WeWork. He didn’t want to work at home. Got him a WeWorks, where he went to and brought his work to the office, brought his bio to the office every two weeks. Two weeks, and it lasted for a period of time. In fact, I do that with one person right now, where, if you there are as a larger firm, I’m able to say, You know what, you go work there. Is that the right answer? But I know that if I kept them within our walls, they’d be done. It would be the worst thing you can’t do that. So look, the good news is, with remote work, you can sort of tolerate a higher level than maybe other times, but at the same time, if it starts infecting outside of their bubble, that’s when you’re like, you know, it’s one thing if I have to take the brunt of it. But even when I don’t, my ops people and my finance people, some of them are working people, have to deal with it. And so even though it’s a nominal touch, there’s still a huge cost to it

Jay Ruane  05:24

well, and that’s the thing. Like, you know, the people who aren’t, I don’t want to say the problem, but we’re going to just use it, you know, for the people that aren’t the problem are saying, Wow, how little Am I valued here, that this a hole gets extra benefit. They get to work remotely, and I don’t they get, they get, you know, we have to jump when they say they can take our calls, versus why I’m trying to get them business. Why aren’t they working, you know, to help me, you know. And so then that starts a whisper campaign throughout the entirety of the firm, saying, Boy, maybe I need to be an a-hole to get what I deserve. And then so it became, it can really, basically, the bottom line is it can really impact your culture.

Seth Price  06:10

So a friend of the show, you know, he got, he made one of those quarter million dollar senior litigator jobs. You got me. The guy came in, yeah, and I got a phone call from this guy a couple couple weeks in, maybe months in, and that guy was raving, asshole. People were quitting all around I’m like, Dude, this is SOS, this is not gonna, like, you know, right? You made the call. He’s the he’s your litigator. He’s makes, you can expand with him. Like, it’s not gonna last, and it didn’t, you know, within short order. And so I think it’s like many things. There’s a rule of reason, a continuum. Look, toxic is toxic. And I know the line when you’re over right where, but what. But you started this thing with the pessimism that’s not toxic, that’s just a personality trait. And the question is, as you build and expand, should you be, you know, you don’t want just rah rah cheerleaders at the same time. You know, if that pessimism can spread and all I call malleable, use whatever words you want. But if there are people that are looking to be led in one direction, that can be pretty significant as you grow,

Jay Ruane  07:20

Yeah, and it’s frightening, because it’s not necessarily something that you see. You see the toxic person screaming at somebody, the pessimism, the negative, that sort of negativity. You don’t necessarily see it if you’re not interacting with them on the regular as a firm owner, right? I mean, you know, I’m a firm owner. I got a small firm, I’m off in court, doing my thing, and I got a new, you know, a new legal assistant who’s negative, right? I don’t see that negativity until it comes to a head, necessarily, and it could be six months or 12 months down the line, or just the underlying tenor and tone of the office has morphed with me being completely oblivious to it. And that’s not a good thing, because then you don’t really know the, you know, the temperature of your office, right, right? How do you, how do you weed that stuff out in the process? I mean, like, is that? Is that where you get the you know, you do the reference checks or talk to? I mean, my big thing is, I don’t like to talk to the most recent place that they’re leaving or left, because if they hate the person, they’re going to give them glowing reviews, so that they get hired and get out of their hair.

Seth Price  08:40

Right of course. And does the reference check get that far? I mean, you know, I mean, no, and it that takes a lot, because I’m just usually looking for a reason not to hire somebody, you know, you know the nuance of that. And then you have to check somebody else’s sensibility towards it,

Jay Ruane  08:59

yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s,

Seth Price  09:00

 I get up top line level, you know. And this is the other thing. Look, I just thought of something when somebody leaves an organization emerged from when I was a baby lawyer at big law, one of two things generally happens, they were the greatest ever, or they sucked and they weren’t that good. Yeah, it’s very rare. It’s in between. And so I think that sometimes stuff gets glorified, and I can think back that a lot of people that had that negative attitude that may have been on the consumer we’re talking about, very often that gets forgotten with time, because they were still the fun people have a beer with, you know? And so it’s like it. I wonder if any of those personality tests can give that, because generally, you know, is that even what we’re looking at, are we looking at sort of leadership, and, you know, is Quick Start versus non quick start. You know, is that even a, is that a lever on those pieces? You know, how is cervix? Are they?

Jay Ruane  10:02

Yeah, you know. And one of the things that you need to, I think, pay attention to when you are putting these people in, is as you are expanding, and I know a lot of people in our audience are people who have hired remote, either in the US or overseas, that type of thing, you know that sort of quips and retorts and stuff, they don’t necessarily work cross culturally. And that’s another.

Seth Price  10:28

Sure thing it may help us, and that it’s not when you are cross culturally with outside, like, if it doesn’t translate, it’s not as bad the story. Sort of like one of the benefits that we have of going remote is we were getting, I remember BluShark, we had a lot, even  Price Benowitz, a lot of in house, office drama, right? Weird stuff, something not being included on the lunch order, weird stuff, who was going out. 

Jay Ruane  10:56

That’s not when people are remote. 

Seth Price  10:58

Now you also lost the bonding. But I found if, if I were like, as you’re always thinking about, like, sort of like, AI, we’re talking about AI, usually, by analogy, AI, voice answering, you know, like, how many people are we going to gain if they’re if they’re never having a bad day, they’re always on, versus how many people are going to hang up when it’s AI? It’s sort of like with web chats, come on your on your screen. You know, it’s great because you get any get information. But in the early days, if people were annoyed by it and they got rid of your website, went on something else that you couldn’t measure the negative. And I think that that’s one of those things that we went virtual, you know, even though it’s lots back in the office. But it’s not the same. We’re not as bonded at the office. It’s less sticky. How much, how often do we lose somebody because they’re not as connected to your firm versus they’re just done with whatever the interpersonal drama that is life, whether it’s family, whether it’s friends, whether it’s coworkers that you don’t you may not have as sticky a relationship to the business, but you don’t have the person who’s, you know, who started dating the guy you like, you lose some of that stuff. There’s nobody getting snubbed at the Friday you know, of who’s going out Saturday night. There’s no birthday party. Doesn’t include somebody. So pick your poison.

Jay Ruane  12:19

Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, in some respects, I think the modern, you know, the up-and-coming generation, is a lot different when it comes to socialization than people in our generation. I mean, you know, I read something in the Atlantic, or there are times or something recently came up on my feed about the death of the, you know, the 5 pm happy hour when everyone would go out. It would work together all week, and then at five o’clock, everyone goes for a drink and hangs out, and they’re like, Well, number one, people aren’t drinkers. Number two, you know, people you know would rather get home and socialize with their true friends rather than their work friends.

Seth Price  12:55

But I guess it looks maybe to quote Breakfast Club sad that meant, yeah, social, but that was my social life. I went to Club Med with three friends, two or three friends from work, you know, people travel, wow, yeah. I mean, my 20s, that was, I was sick, because think about you the same cadence, you had, the same income level, you know, it was it, was it. We had a great, great time. But that was, that was the social life, right? And

Jay Ruane  13:24

also working more hours in big law, you know? So it was really, like, all encompassing. 

Seth Price  13:30

There was no social media. So you, when you’re talking about, hey, let’s go to Club Med, it was that, that’s who you saw, was by the water cooler, you know? It was, that was there. So, and as I, you know, as I’ve mentioned, like, you know, I just went to this, you know, reunion from, for my Swidler, which has now became big and became Morgan Lewis, technically a Morgan Lewis alum, but the Swindler people got together. These were people that were, let’s say, from 94 to the early to mid, 2000s and this was, this is a group that looks back on this time really fondly, and a part of it is exactly what you’re talking we know, Happy Hour every Friday at five. In fact, I had that for the first 15 years of my law firm. It was in the office on Fridays anymore, right? It’s a different you know, I would when I wanted a friend to work at the business. I brought it was one guy who was, you know, brought him by the happy hour, sat him in front of the right partner. He had a job the next day. You know, it was a it there was, but it was hours that people spent. And again, I didn’t have a family, you know, that was, but even people families, it was part of the socialization. The Happy Hour was a thing, not promoting and not saying it was better or worse. There was a lot of terrible stuff, right? Yeah, there was, there was a lot, you know, it was a lot of homophobia. There was a lot of, you know, in, you know,

Jay Ruane  14:51

Substance abuse.

Seth Price  14:52

Yeah, there was. There was a lot of bad, bad stuff that said there the socialization was definitely. Something, and maybe that was part of what controlled it. Is that because you’re so they would know, they knew more about you, they had more hooks into you, in some respects. But I feel like I have benefited generally, and that’s come look, let’s bring it back full circle. So as you’re trying to create that unit, and knowing that you have less touch points, right? Are we now at a point where the cynical person before, I still remember from my first job, she used to go, this one woman used to go around pessimist and grab the name plate of every person who quit or left, and took them and had them on her wall. So we had a wall of hundreds of nameplates. You know, from everybody who left the firm.

Jay Ruane  15:43

I have that.

Seth Price  15:46

And that in one sense. But you know, as we have less touch points, and that when, if is it more like before you had interpersonal positive touch points, but given that we have fewer, does the pessimism have more of an impact today? Because we have so little, and that if you have somebody who’s cutting that off, I’m trying to think of like the science experiment, you have different things connect, interconnecting. But if you have a pessimistic thing that’s a hard that stops you from that is that, is that even worse today? In some respects,

Jay Ruane  16:21

it’s a lot to think about for sure. I mean, because we all are trying to make sure that our places, that we, you know, employ people, are good places to work. Because I think a lot of us in the seat that you and I are in, Seth and our listeners are in, you know, we’ve had those crappy jobs. We’ve had the partner that yells at us. We’ve had the, you know, the one where, you know, things were dumped on us, and clients expected answers that we weren’t authorized to give, and all of those things. So we know what it’s like to suffer through the bad parts, and we want to make our place as good as it can be, if not the best, right? But it’s a difficult and it’s a difficult thing to do, and it requires some balance and some introspection, and it requires, I think, dialog. There’s a lot of moving parts to doing what we do as as legal entrepreneurs and law firm leaders, and it’s, you know, it’s, I know, I am not built to have all of these skills that I need to be where I am today. And so the question then becomes, how do you supplement yourself? How do you get the right people you know, maybe in that first level past CEO, so that they can step up and help you navigate these things right? I mean, that’s at the end of the day. It’s about the team you assemble in leadership that could really make a difference. And you need to make sure that you don’t have one of those pessimists in leadership, I guess. And do you do you need somebody to push back against the unbridled enthusiasm of a quick start, you know, ADHD, law firm CEO who’s ready to run at every new idea and everything.

Seth Price  18:02

That’s not pessimism. I don’t think. That’s sort of just balance, and it checks and balances. Pessimism, to me, is the negative comment piece of that, and it’s never going to work. You know, you’re going after your big, audacious goal. Look, in some respects, it’s something, some piece. I don’t want to go too far. I hold a bit of that myself. There are moments where if I can’t see it, it’s hard to make the leap. And that’s why, for me, I have to be able to see that next step and next leap. Because there are times when there are people that are like, Hey, we’re going to triple our revenue in the next X years. And I’m like, Yeah, great, that that never happened. Versus, we had, like, we set a big, audacious goal for price balance, and we set a number, yeah, that’s never happened. That was my reaction when we set it, as I was, still remember. And you know what? As you know, we got a little bit of traction, like, oh, okay, now I got it. And then, but you in, this is true for everything. I’ll sort of land the plane with this, which is, I think it’s a metaphor for, if you believe something’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, and it’s true for your employees. I told them that, you know, hey, you can get this contract for a piece of software, and it’s going to come in at this price, and I know that if they believed it, they would get it, and if they don’t, they won’t. And again, it’s not is that a perfect correlation? At times, you hit a brick wall, but I know that if you don’t believe it, you’re not going to get it. Yeah, true for the price of a DUI. If you have a guy who’s been a 1500 DUI guy in his own little shop for 20 years, and you bring him in and say, You got to charge 4500 on this DUI, and the guy doesn’t believe he’s worth it, because I was just charging 1500 last week. He’s not going to get it. And it’s, it’s, there’s, there is this piece that until you know, once you do that, there’s amazing things that can happen.

Jay Ruane  19:50

I love it, all right. That’s a great way to end this week, folks. That’s going to do it for this week of the Law Firm Blueprint. Of course, you can take us anywhere you want to go by subscribing to the Law Firm Blueprint podcast. Be sure to give us a five-star review on whatever podcast platform you prefer. I’m an Apple podcast guy. You’re probably a Spotify guy. Seth, yeah, yeah. You know because you got, you’re in that whole Android family. Yeah, you got your

Seth Price  20:15

The greatest thing ever my family can communicate. I sit there outside of it. It’s the best thing ever.

Jay Ruane  20:19

I hate seeing that green text when I got to send you a text message. I like the blue bubble. I hate the green text. But first that’s gonna do for us this week. Of course, you can catch us every week, live 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific, live on LinkedIn and live in our Facebook group, the law firm blueprint that’s gonna do for me. I’m Jay Ruane. He is Seth Price. Thanks for being with us. Bye for now.