Will  00:00

Welcome back to another episode of the legal currents podcast built to help small firms in growing law firms scale smarter, using their time and resources more effectively. Today, I am joined by a very special guest, someone who has built a career out of guiding firms from the inside out. Jonathan Hawkins, founding attorney of law firm GC, serving as outside General Counsel, specifically for law firms, help them navigate in governance, the ethics and partners, or navigate everything from governance and ethics to partnership disputes, growth strategies. Also the host of the founding partner podcast, which is a fantastic podcast I’ve been listening to over the past couple of days. Lot of great guests, a lot of great experience, especially for listeners here, also in the process of writing a new book, which we’ll talk about. But perhaps most importantly, just checked off a bucket list item of mine when he recently stormed the field at Bobby Dodd stadium, a bucket list item for anybody who’s a sports fan. Jonathan, welcome to the Legal Currents podcast. Really excited for the conversation.

Jonathan Hawkins  01:01

Will, thanks for having me. This is gonna be fun. We spoke right before we met, I guess, about a year ago at the GLM conference. So it’s good to get catch up.

Will  01:13

Yeah, fantastic. Now, Jonathan, Ron Latz actually introduced the both of us, and shout out to Ron, you know, a previous guest on the podcast here, and someone I really, you know, like and admire in this space. And you know, upon doing a little bit of research and digging into some of the things that you’ve done in the past, I know exactly why that is, and I think you’re going to be a fantastic guest here. But I guess, why don’t we start things off and, you know, tell our audience a little bit about your background and kind of who you are, sure.

Jonathan Hawkins  01:46

Sure. So I am the founder of Law Firm GC. We are a boutique law firm that represents lawyers and law firms soup to nuts. So what does that mean? So from forming a firm to dissolving a firm and everything in between. So if you’re forming a partnership, we can help you there. If you’re breaking apart or merging or buying or selling a law firm, we even help some estates and lawyers shut down their law firms. We I guess, about a year ago, we added a legal malpractice defense capability, bar, grievance defense as well. So pretty much anything that can come up in the operation of a law firm, legally, we can help with that. We’re based in Atlanta, but we’ve got licenses throughout the country, and we’re collecting more, and we have plans eventually to open some beachhead offices in other states, but that’s a little bit down the road.

Will  02:47

Love it. And so particularly for our audience, you have seen a lot of things. You’ve had a lot of different conversations, and I know it’s a recurring topic of the founding partners podcast. And so the first question that I wanted to start with is, you know, with all these conversations that you’ve had, and even just your experience serving as that outside General Counsel, what are some of the most common blind spots that you see in smaller, growing firms when it comes to, you know, everything about that process?

Jonathan Hawkins  03:18

Yeah, come on, attorneys, of all people to not sign the partnership agreements. That’s, that is absolutely low hanging fruit. And that’s fantastic insight, right? Especially a lot of our a lot of our audience is going to be in those earlier stages and hopefully not applicable to them. But if, if it is still applicable, definitely reach out to Jonathan there. Another thing that I have found really interesting is the content and the things that you discuss on the founding partner podcast, and I’m curious to get your perspective, talking to so many firm leaders and having all those conversations. You know, what are some of the things that you’ve seen and how has have those conversations really shaped your perspective on what it takes to be successful as a law firm founder in those early stages. Are there any common traits or similarities that you see?

Speaker 1  03:18

You know, it’s interesting. There are a lot and, you know, I’m very fortunate in the space we occupy that I get to see a lot of different firms of a lot of different sizes, from, you know, brand new one attorney to, you know, 100 plus attorneys with multi state locations, etc. And so, you know, different firms have different issues that come up at different stages along the way of their growth, but there are a lot of common things that come up, but one interesting, one that, you know, I’m not surprised by it anymore, but I tell people this, and they always seem shocked that how many law firms, law firm partnerships are out there operating without a partnership agreement. It’s way more common than you think. You know, we draft those. It’s funny, sometimes we draft them for firms, and I check back two, three years later and they still haven’t signed it. So eventually, you know, effectively, they don’t have a partnership agreement. And so that’s sort of a surprising thing to a lot of people, and it’s one of the lowest hanging fruits, I think, out there, for anybody that’s got a partner, you’ve got to have a written partnership agreement, because, you know, I call them prenups for law firms. You know, you hope nothing ever goes wrong, but you just never know what might happen, and you’re going to want that in place, just in case. You know some other areas, I think, written agreements with all your attorneys and your staff are worthwhile to get. Most firms don’t do that. But I see it, more and more are doing that. That’s, that’s another, I’d say, low hanging fruit that firms can do.

Jonathan Hawkins  04:35

There are, and you know, one of the reasons I started that podcast was I wanted the ability to ask a lot of founders at different stages, along their journeys. Ask them lots of questions, figure out what things they did and maybe some mistakes they made. And really it was for me, because we’re, you know, we’re growing our firm. We’re trying to grow so I wanted to learn from them. And I figured, why not make it a podcast and put it out there and let other people learn too? And so I’ve interviewed people from, you know, again, all types of firms, plaintiff side, defense, side, family law, criminal law, you know, insurance defense, just in states, everything you can imagine. And you know, the firms that I think, the ones that grow, they’re willing to take risks, calculated risks can’t be crazy, but they also learn from their mistakes and they learn from others. A common theme is, you know, coaches, consultants, masterminds. That is a common theme. Another common theme, it’s interesting. As firms grow, you know, early on, it’s all about getting clients, then you reach a stage where it’s it’s about the operations on the inside and how you service the clients. And really the thread that runs through all of that is the culture that you build at your firm. And then really that falls back to, it’s all about the people. It’s all about your people internally is a common theme I hear a lot.

Will  07:41

It’s interesting to hear you say that, especially the idea of taking calculated risk, right, which I think is definitely been a recurring commonality in the conversations that I’ve had, you know in our episodes thus far, right? That that risk and taking calculated risk is important. It’s interesting to hear that from someone in your position, however, and so can you talk to me a little bit about the balance of taking these calculated risks and identifying these calculated risks while also maintaining the almost stability and kind of health of the firm internally to make sure that you are set up for success. If these risks don’t pan out.

Jonathan Hawkins  08:22

And so I speak a little bit from personal experience as well. You know, the thing about taking risks, you know, lawyers have it’s been beat out of us. You know, we are risk avoidant. It’s our job to point out the risks for our clients, to help them, avoid them or minimize them. And so it’s feed into us from law school. So a lot of lawyers are very risk averse, but those that want to grow their firm, I think you have to take risks, and you have to make a decision that you’re willing to take some risk. Now, don’t go out and bet the farm and all these things on some crazy new initiative. You know, I would say, you know, do a little. You’ve got to make a decision. You’ve got to put yourself out there. But if you don’t take a risk, a risk, you’re never going to grow. And so again, it’s about managing it. So if it doesn’t work out, and I don’t really think of them as failures, but learning experiences, and you’re going to make them, you’re going to make you’re going to learn a lot. So just make sure, if you’re going to do it, you’re not going to lose everything on that bet.

Will  09:37

Yeah, calculated, right, yeah. Emphasis on calculated. You know, it’s something that I draw a lot of parallels to in the digital world. And, you know, speaking with firms, one thing that I’ve become very familiar with is firms who speak with you know, if you speak to 15 different digital agencies, you’ll probably get 15 different variations of a strategy. And so if you’re sitting around waiting for that perfect dancer that everybody is in total agreement with, you know you’re not necessarily gonna gonna ever get that right. And so it’s it’s taking the risk with who you know you feel the most confident in. But you know you mentioned one thing on on the personal experiences, I’d be curious to hear a little bit from you about a risk that you took, or maybe are currently taking, you know, with your firm that has has either panned out or maybe didn’t pan out.

Jonathan Hawkins  10:31

Well, you know, I think probably the first risk that every law firm owner will take is that first hire, and it’s a struggle for a lot of people. They always view it as a cost, and they’re scared to actually do it, because they think they’re taking on some gigantic salary or whatever, and then all of a sudden, they’re responsible for two people, not just one. And so I think we’ve all gone through that. And so I’d say, you know, for me, the bigger risks so far have been, is been the hiring, and then you find out, wait a second, this person’s here. I can give them work, and now I can do more, and it usually results in higher revenue. And then again, when you think you’re biting off of 80,000-100,000, whatever, a year salary you’re really not. It’s, you know, eight, eight grand a month, or five grand a month, if you know, worst case scenario doesn’t work out. You can, you know, let the person go and go back and rebuild and come out another day if you need to. So again, it’s, I think a lot of it. The other thing I see a lot in law firm owners and lawyers, it’s the mindset shift from costs to investments and so again, you know, first hire a lot a lot of folks view that as a cost. I think if you reframe it as an investment, it can really change the trajectory of your practice and your firm.

Will  12:11

That’s a great example of, you know, just a word, right? How that word can kind of change the shift of a mindset. Something that we talk about very frequently on here is, you know, you really have two major buckets of resources, right? Everybody thinks about your money, but the one less thought about is, is the time, right? And the value of bringing on additional team members to support your ability to use your time more effectively. And that’s, that’s a great point there. Now, something I read while we’re kind of speaking on like experiences, is that between undergrad and law school, you lived in Costa Rica, and then you moved to Colorado to work and learn to snowboard. And I want to hear a little bit more about that and, you know, kind of in that sense, how those sort of in between experiences maybe led to a change or influence the way you think about risk, structure, firm culture, and maybe some of those outside of the workplace experiences shaping kind of the person that you are or the firm that you’re looking to create.

Speaker 1  13:17

Well, my trip to Costa Rica was really a turning point in my life. So I graduated college. We were on the quarter systems, and I graduated in March of, I guess, 99 and a friend of mine and I, we did. It is an engineering school. We did not have to take a foreign language undergrad, so I didn’t know any language, foreign language. And we said, hey, why don’t we go move down to Costa Rica and learn Spanish, and we’re going to go down there together. He was also going to Navy flight school, but was not supposed to report until the following January, but all of a sudden they say, You know what? We want you here in June. So he’s like, sorry, Jonathan, I can’t go with you. Sorry about that. And I, you know, took me a couple of days, and I said, Well, I’m going anyway. So I went down there by myself, not knowing how to speak Spanish. I was going to an immersion school, and I just went down there. And I remember thinking about the other day, my first night there I showed up. It was this small town near the cloud forest, Monteverde, and I showed up at like, eight o’clock that night. Got off a bus. I had two bags. It was raining, and I was expecting my host family to be there to pick me up. And the bus leaves. Everybody leaves. The town was pretty much dead, so it was like, you know, nothing going on in the town, and I was just sitting there, and no one was there to pick me up. And I was like, What the hell am I doing here? And so after a while, I finally just started walking around, and I just happened to see there was like an apartment sort of near there, and the window was a light was on the. Windows open. I knocked on it. This old lady came out. She spoke no English. I spoke no Spanish. Somehow we figured out what it was. She got on the phone and got this her granddaughter, who actually spoke English on the phone, turned out this, she had called my host family, and the daughter said, Okay, we’re coming to get you. Just hang tight. So I’m sitting there, and then this taxi cab shows up and starts grabbing my bags. And I’m like, What the hell do not take my bags. No, no, no. I’m waiting for somebody. Again, we couldn’t speak. And finally I was like, whatever. And I just got in there, and it turns out they had called a cab to come get me. And you know, that was the start of my adventure down there is just, sort of like, at some point you just had to just go with the flow. You know, I was down there for about three and a half months, learned Spanish, just met people from all over and just sort of got way out of my comfort zone, and just, you know, everything turned out okay. So it was a huge confidence builder, you know, again, back to the risk theme that we’ve been talking about. I went down there not knowing anyone, and just huge learning experience. And it’s just, if you put yourself out there, you’ll grow, and then other things just tend to be easier down the road. So that was a big thing I learned from that trip.

Will  16:21

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s, that is an absolute favorite topic of mine. And it’s, you know, essentially, that idea of putting yourself in uncomfortable situations to to, you know, almost create that that need to learn and grow, right? And someone who is also learning to ski. You know, within the past couple of years, those situations in particular, right? They’re uncomfortable. They’re very challenging, but creating that discomfort allows you to be in the right situation, and kind of have the knowledge to overcome that discomfort when it’s presented, not artificially, right? And it just kind of happens. And that’s something that I really admire in school, right? It looks like you, and I believe you studied Industrial Systems and engineering training at Georgia Tech. Did you learn anything throughout that time that, you know, you feel like you picked up and you were able to take into your your firm, that maybe law school, or even earlier legal work, you know, didn’t prepare you for?

Speaker 1  17:32

Well, I’ve forgotten a lot of that, you know, I’ll tell people my kids are taking math now, and I’ve forgotten all of it. I had to take, like, you know, six calculus classes. I mean, it just went on and on and on. But, you know, Industrial engineering is basically, it’s basically efficiency. It teaches you efficiency and systems and processes. You know, industrial engineers, they go on and design the flight pass for all the airlines, where they design the routes for FedEx drivers or Amazon drivers. They also design, you know, they set up factory floors to make the process more efficient. And so, you know, I did learn about systems and efficiencies and that sort of thing. You know? I hope that it has helped in terms of crafting processes around the law firm, although it’s funny, every time you get your process, you outgrow it, and then you’re it’s broken and you got to do it again. So it feels like I’m just constantly building new systems.

Will  18:39

always getting better, right? But that is a very challenging aspect, and something that I know you’ve talked about in the past is almost like those career crossroads, or like firm crossroads, and that balance, or the difficult decision between kind of the processes that are in place, right, that maybe work fine, but aren’t operating or maybe working as well as they could be, and kind of building those new systems that might create that discomfort, but long term might be the right solution. So, you know, are there any specific examples that you see from like, a crossroad standpoint, or, you know, things that you’ve just come across in your, you know, journey as a firm owner that that you think people could could learn from?

Jonathan Hawkins  19:26

absolutely I’ll tell you where I am right now. I am bumping into one right now. And so, so the history of my firm a little bit. So I started it about almost eight years ago now, and it was the first four years. Four and a half years, I call it a lifestyle firm. It was me. I had a contract attorney. Occasionally I would have like a VA that would help. But it was easy. You know, it sort of I was busy enough, but not too busy, and we could handle things. But then one day, I decided to. Grow, and you start adding people, and then I really started doubling, tripling, quadrupling, down on my marketing, business development, and those are working. And so fortunately, I’m getting, getting a lot of, you know, new clients and things coming in. But, you know, I am doing a lot of the consults, and the, you know, the intakes, the wrong word, but I call it consults, and I just don’t have time. I don’t have time to do that anymore. But I’m good at it. I’m really good, and I know my stuff. And so you know what got me here is not going to get me there. And so that’s a big one that I have really been struggling with. And really, over the last, I call it six weeks, it’s been a huge mindset shift. And that’s really, I think, what has to happen before any change comes for anybody. And so the mindset shift for me is, you know, I’ve been pretty good about sort of getting out of the legal work process, but this list piece of doing the consults has been hard mentally for me, but I’ve finally gotten there. And it’s the kind of thing where, you know, for any lawyer out there, you know, you hit these bottlenecks, you know, one early one that most law firm owners hit is they’re doing all the work, and they’re control freaks, and it’s hard for them to let go and get it to other people. If you can’t get that to other people, then you’re going to stall out. Then I think maybe one of the next ones is sort of where I am now, and you got to get yourself out as much as you can of the consults, because if you don’t, you’re going to stall out. You can’t, you can’t scale it beyond you. There’s only so much time. So that’s where I am now. It’s, it’s again, I think it sounds easy. I think maybe I intellectually had sort of known this, but actually going through it, it’s a little bit different. And I think I have had the mental mindset breakthrough over the last few weeks, and I think I’m there, so now I’m on the path to sort of start to transition that, delegate that piece. So that’s one example.

Will  22:18

Yeah, yeah. It’s a difficult thing, right, to almost start delegating things that you know you do very well, but are just not going to be that long term process if the goal is to continue to grow and scale, right? And it’s better to establish those systems early than continue to to well, always have to work through them, which is always going to be the case, right? But make that process a bit easier when you’re looking to scale. Now, one thing that we talked about, that I’ve seen you posting a bit about on LinkedIn, is the book that you’re writing, and so I’d be curious to hear a little bit more about that project. And you know what you’re you’re really looking to get across to people who are reading?

Jonathan Hawkins  23:01

Sure, so, you know, that’s another thing that, you know, took me two, two and a half years to actually get it done. Had been sort of starting and stopping on that, but we’re finally there. And so the book’s done. It’s in the hands of we’re getting it formatted for printing. We’re about mid September now. It should come out early to mid October 2025 so I’m really excited about that. And sort of the books called the Law Firm Life Cycle. The sort of the premise of the book is, you know, every law firm, or I’ll say law firms, go through sort of a standard evolution and a standard cycle. Not all law firms make it through all of it. But basically, you know, you start, then you grow, and there are various stages, and eventually you may shut down. And so the book, really is formatted, or takes the reader through the life cycle of a law firm and talks about the different some of the different issues that come up at different stages of growth. So you know, the issues that a freshly brand new law firm base are different than a law firm that’s been around for 30-40, years. And so the things that happen early, or the issues that come up early are not really relevant to what may come up later. So I wanted to take the reader through the whole cycle, so it would be a resource for every law firm owner, no matter where they are along their law firm journey.

Will  24:31

Particularly perfect for anybody who’s listening to this podcast. I know it’s not out yet, but when might we expect that book to come out. And you know, is there anything that people can do to stay up to date on when that launch is going to happen?

Jonathan Hawkins  24:47

Sure. So I don’t have an exact date yet, but it’s, I would say, by no later than October 15, 2025 it’s going to be out. If people want to stay up to date, follow me on LinkedIn. Come follow me there. I’m pretty active there. If you really want even better access for updates on my LinkedIn page, there’s a way to subscribe to my newsletter, email newsletter, and I’m giving a lot of updates. There probably some special offers and some things there as well. So I’d encourage anyone out there to sign up for the newsletter. So I send a weekly email. It’s short, sweet, it’s not annoying. I promise a lot of value packed into that. You know, I get a lot of I subscribe to a lot of things, and some are better than others, but I promise this one’s pretty good. It’s not annoying. So I encourage people to sign up for that.

Will  25:44

Yeah, well, that breaking news, right? I’m going to consider that breaking news. You heard it here first, no later than October 15. That’s a quote, right? Write that down no later than October 15 and LinkedIn, you’re very you are you’re very active on LinkedIn. And when we were introduced, I realized that I think we’re actually connected on LinkedIn before that official introduction was made. I view LinkedIn as a very powerful tool. You know, in previous episodes we’ve had, you know, people speak specifically on LinkedIn, Tony Albrecht episode and in particular. And kind of the power of LinkedIn as a platform, especially early on, when, when, you know, you can use that time to, you know, go above and beyond. Kind of when, outside of the cap space, right, if we want to use, like, a sports, a sports term, there talk a little, talk to us a little bit more about that experience for you. You know what? What are your goals when it comes to that platform? What have you seen work? What would be? What maybe hasn’t worked the way you thought it would?

Jonathan Hawkins  26:49

So I’m a big believer of LinkedIn. I think it’s huge. I think any professional should be on there and be active. I really it’s very powerful. I’ve been active. I lose track of time maybe three or four years now, I was an early adopter of LinkedIn, so I went back. I think I signed up within six months of it launching 20 something years ago. But I just thought it was an online resume, and I thought it was sort of a boring joke of a platform, to be honest, but someone found me there, reached out, said, Hey, let’s have a zoom. And by the end of that, he had convinced me to to get active on there. So I started playing with it, posting a few times a week, and I’ve been posting regularly ever since, and it’s been really incredible, incredible platform for me and getting to know people all over the country and and all over the world, frankly, just through the interactions there, and it’s helped me develop new relationships, deepen relationships. I’ve learned a ton just from other people posting. It is really cool place. There’s a wrong way to do it, which Tony probably talked to you about. You know, the way a lot of lawyers use it is, you know, humbled and honored to be recognized, as you know, the bestest lawyer. Blah, blah, blah. Nobody cares about that. So I would not do those kinds of posts, you know, tell stories. Everybody’s got stories that they’ve experienced in their career, lessons they’ve learned. Those are the kinds of things that resonate with people, fun to read, interesting to read, and sort of let people know about you and your experience and humanize you as a person. So for those out there that are not active, you know, I encourage you to get on there. You know, if you don’t have the time, you can still post once a week, but experiment with it. It’s you’ll be surprised at some of the opportunities that may come your way if you get active there.

Will  28:57

Couldn’t agree more. Could not agree more. A couple of final questions for you, kind of rapid fire. So if we do, like a mini case, almost right, and you either take yourself back to kind of your breakeven year for the firm, or, you know, you put yourself in the shoes of somebody who’s maybe going through their break even year, you know, what would you say is one clause or agreement that you would have put in place, or that you recommend people put in place, then that would save headaches down the line?

Jonathan Hawkins  29:30

Once you start growing. I think you need employee policies, so that would be something I’d put in place as soon as you start hiring, that would be one, right there.

Will  29:46

Can you go into a little bit more depth about some of those policies, anything in particular?

Jonathan Hawkins  29:51

Well, I mean, there’s a ton. And I can tell you just from representing firms that have gone through issues employee. Related issues. If you have written processes and policies that you can fall back on and rely on and point to, is going to it’s going to help you. Instead of saying, Hey, you should have just known you shouldn’t have done this, or you should have just known this is a way we do it, that’s not going to help you. But if you in these policies cover all sorts of things, you know, from, you know, social media policy to computer use policy to attendance to, you know, PTO, all the stuff. You put it in that handbook. Everybody sees it, they read it, they sign off on it. And so you’ve got them. And then I guess the second part of that is you need to enforce them. You can’t selectively enforce them, but that is something I think every firm needs. If it’s just you, I mean, it’s just you, you know, you know, there’s, there may be a couple things you can do. I’d say, if it’s just the attorney, without employees, the first thing I always recommend is really tighten up your client retainer agreement, because that is a major your clients are a major source of risk, and you really want to tighten up that agreement, those to both set expectations, but also to protect yourself.

Will  31:19

Yeah, absolutely something that is easy in concept, but much more difficult to do and do well and so definitely Jonathan able to help with that sort of thing. Two more rapid fire questions. I’m starting my law firm tomorrow. Will McCrieght law firm? What are three pieces of counsel that you would give to somebody about to launch a new firm off the job. Three, three easy things, or three very important things that you would would give.

Speaker 1  31:52

The first thing, form an entity. Every state allows it form an entity. Don’t act as a sole proprietor. You want that liability shield. It’s not going to protect you from a malpractice claim, but it can protect you from other creditors. You know, something goes wrong. You don’t want them to go after your house, so get the entity. The other thing is, you know, get your malpractice insurance. Just get it. I know attorneys out there. I’ve talked to them that do not get a malpractice policy in place on purpose, because they feel like it will put a target on their back. I think that is misguided. It’s not that expensive to get it. Just get that in place. You may need it. And most of these policies will cover Barker events defense. And so even if you just want it for that, so you have to, you know, because clients sometimes are crazy, they’ll come after you. And if you have insurance that’ll it’ll cover that cost, that will be, you know, well worth the spend. So those are two biggies. You know, obviously there’s a whole host of other things you need to do eventually, but if you get those two in place in the very beginning, you’re setting yourself up from a risk management perspective, on a good footing.

Will  33:20

Love it. AI, right? And I’m sure that we could probably go into hours and hours about the conversation here. But you know, how have you seen AI impact the ability to put some of this infrastructure in place, or, you know, utilize that as a tool when it comes to sort of creating some of these processes, handbooks, things like that, any tips or tricks that you’ve seen to work well, or things that people might think and might think work well in theory or in concept, but really are not going to be good enough to get the job done.

Jonathan Hawkins  33:56

I mean, the AI stuff, it’s moving so fast. I mean, every week there’s something new. I think it’s really incredible leverage tool for firms. I am not in a camp where it’s gonna replace lawyers just there’s I’ve seen too many drawbacks to it. I guess there are things that AI can do really, really well, and there are things that it just does not do well, and I’m not convinced that they’re going to be able to fix that. There’s some, you know, the hallucination issue, I think, is inherent in the design. I just don’t know if you’ll ever be able to get rid of that. Obviously, we’ve all read the stories about the fake cases, and, you know, I think every lawyer should know by now to be careful on that. So on the legal research, I think you know, it’s, it’s got a long way to go, but on all the other stuff, definitely on marketing, on workflows, on all sorts of things. It’s really, really powerful and really kind of amazing what it can do. And I think the firms that really adopt and adapt that stuff now are going to be leagues ahead of other firms that are not. So, you know, there’s huge rabbit hole, and some of the ethics pieces and confidentiality all that we won’t go into that, but I think everyone should be out there experimenting with it. And I’ll say this too, there are a lot of firms, and I help firms with AI policies. There are some that are, I’ll just call them more traditional firms, and their, you know, their approach is head in the sand. We’re going to forbid the use, or have very limited use, or just ignore it. If you have anybody in your firm under the age of 30, they’re using it every day anyway, so you better put a policy in place and train people on it.

Will  35:54

Yeah, that’s a great point, right? You know that’s that’s absolutely a very common thing, right? You know, the younger attorneys who are utilizing it, the older attorneys who maybe aren’t as familiar with it, sounds like, you know, in general, the advice there is to become, you know, familiar with it, right? Figure out where it might make sense, but don’t become overly reliant on it or ignore the potential risks, right? Ethically, you know, legally, to come alongside of that great advice. Last question for you. Tell me about your favorite memory experience when it comes to looks like Georgia Tech is, is really kind of your, you know, your big fandom from a sports standpoint, but sports in general, you know, talk to me about like, one moment that you just, you know, you remember that stands out to you is like, wow, this is just the best memory that I have with sports.

Jonathan Hawkins  36:47

Oh, man, that’s tough. I think maybe before we got on or you saw one of my recent posts, so I did so my son is 15. I don’t have much time left with him in the house. And so we are really said, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, you know, I’m gonna use as much time as I’ve got with him. So he’s become a Georgia Tech fan, football fan, and by the way, I apologize to him for that all the time, because we’ve not been very good for a long time. But this year could be a good year. We’ll see. But, you know, took him out to Colorado see the first game this season, out in Boulder. That was really, really cool and fun. And then last weekend we we beat Clemson number 12, and you know, we’re getting close. And he looked at me, said, If we win, we got to storm the field, which I’ve never done before, and we pulled it off there right at the end with a last second walk off field goal. 55 yard, by the way, career long for the guy. And so we stormed the field, and, you know, got videos and pictures. So that’s one that I will cherish. Got to, get to do that with my son.

Will  38:02

That’s a bucket list item. And, you know, look, wait, so Georgia Tech, right? Football program, it’ll start turning around when the law firm, GC and il money starts, starts pouring in, right?

Jonathan Hawkins  38:12

And they’re asking, they’re asking all the time,

Will  38:18

I love it. I love it. You know what? I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to listen to any episodes, but we like to do a fun kind of boxing themed intro here. I’ll see. Maybe we can get some Georgia Tech or college football kind of marching band style intro for this episode to tie it all together.

Jonathan Hawkins  38:35

They’ve got a hell of a fight song, man. They’ve got it, they’ve got it. They’ve got a good fight song. You get love it. You know, you gotta, you gotta find, you gotta find that.

Will  38:45

So, yeah, we’ll absolutely find it. Jonathan, I really, really appreciate you, you know, coming on and having the conversation. I want people to be able to reach out, learn more about you. You know, follow you on LinkedIn, or, you know, potentially reach out if you know, you are able to help anybody who’s listening here, you know, take a minute and kind of plug all of the things that you’re working on. Tell us where we can contact you, where we can reach out or get in touch with you. Just follow you across the board in general.

Jonathan Hawkins  39:17

Sure. So, yeah, LinkedIn, come find me there. Jonathan Hawkins, I think law firm General Counsel, if you do that search, you’ll you’ll find me very active there. Please, if we’re not connected, reach out. I’ll accept our website, www.lawfirm, gc.com, and founding partner podcast. Give that a listen if you’re interested in a follow and again, if you want updates on the book, or just want to hear some of my weekly musings, please sign up for the email newsletter.

Will  39:52

Yeah, awesome. And everybody who’s listening to this episode should absolutely go out if nothing else. Just connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn, subscribe to the newsletter. You know, there’s a lot of great information that you’re putting out there, and you have a similar mindset to me, you know, which is, you know, give all the information that you can, right? Like, be as valuable of an asset as you can. And you know whether or not somebody you know works with you at any point in time, right? Like, just share that information, help everybody, and so I really always appreciate that, admire that. Jonathan, thanks again for jumping on and really appreciate your time and all the great insights that you’ve shared with the audience.

Jonathan Hawkins  40:33

Will, thanks for having me. This has been fun. Really appreciate it.

Will  40:37

Awesome.