Join Seth and Jay as they dive deep with Andrew Finkelstein- legendary NY based injury lawyer- about culture, communication and systems for managing growth.
Hello, hello and welcome to yet another edition of Maximum Growth Live. I am your host Jay Ruane Ruane Attorneys in Connecticut as well as a Firm Flex the Social Media Marketing Agency for lawyers. With me next door. I’ve got Seth Price set from DC, Maryland, Virginia Price Benowitz, a juggernaut firm down there as well as BluShark Digital. Seth, how are you doing this week?
You know, it’s, again, we got Labor Day, you know, behind us, and we are now just basically focused on kicking ass.
Yeah, it’s the last part of the year, kids are back at school for the most part. And now it is nose to the grindstone get through the end of the year. And we have an amazing guest today. Tell us tell tell the audience who we have for our interview today. Because this is this is something that I’m really excited about.
Exactly. Andrew Finkelstein, and I connected years ago on a project and he has been one of those guys a beacon. I mean, he’s runs a multi generational shop that he has done so much with, he took his dad’s, you know, partnership and basically scaled it into a regional powerhouse in the New York area. Somewhere between 80 and 100 lawyers in house, IT staff that’s more than a dozen now created his own software, this guy has built something that is just extraordinary. And every time I speak to him, I learned new nuances of what he’s doing or what he’s starting to do next. And it’s just, it blows my mind. So for me every opportunity to sort of listen to Andrew, and extract, you know, if you had the benefit of time, and resources and scale, this guy is as great a blueprint, as you’re gonna see as far as where you want to be. It does hurt your head a bit, because so much of what he talks about, you know, you need to be doing it’s so basic and fundamental. But to see somebody who has done it and walks the walk and talks, the talk is just extraordinary. So without further ado, let’s bring him in Jay.
Yeah, let me we’ll pause for a quick moment get our sponsors taken care of. And when we come back, he’ll be up we’ll be ready to go we’ll knock it out of the park with him. I’m I’m so excited, this is going to be great.
In this world today, if you want to grow your business, you want to grow your firm, you want to take on more cases and make a bigger impact. You have to have a digital blueprint. Statistically, throughout the time that we’ve been working with BluShark Digital, our law firm, the Atlanta divorce law group grew over 1400% they truly understand where we’re headed and how we want to get there. I have a team in BluShark Digital that I feel like have my back.
Andrew, it’s great to have you here. Thank you for making the time. Andrew, for those of you don’t know, is the managing partner of Finkelstein and partners multi generational law firm covering New York state, as well as Jacoby and Meyers and several other associated brands that really have dominated the New York metropolitan area. Andrews, you know, with whether it’s TV, whether it’s technology, or whether it’s customer service has really been a leader and somebody in the forefront of bringing these things together. So thank you for being here, Andrew.
Yes, thanks, it’s my pleasure; anything for you, Seth.
No, I appreciate that. You know, I’m gonna start right today with what is sort of been breaking news. If we talk two months ago, you’ve been focused on the issue of non lawyer ownership of law firms for quite a while. And two months ago, it was crickets and since then we have Utah we have Arizona, sort of raising their hands and making a move. Tell us from your perspective, a guy has followed this for a while. What does what we’ve what we’re seeing now mean, in general and how you see affecting the lawyers who might be listening to our podcast in general?
Well, I think what Arizona did is they declared a 5.4, which prohibits ownership of law firms by non law firm owners, I actually commenced litigation. It might be eight years ago or more against all of the presiding judges in the state of New York, declaring that that’s unconstitutional. I brought it in federal court in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, the those-I won’t go through the whole litany of the litigation. But basically, I went up to the Court of Appeals two times and could have gone to the US Supreme Court and realize that the court system, they weren’t going to voluntarily in New York or New Jersey, would say that 5.4 was unconstitutional. Had I known that the courts of Arizona were so much more open minded, I probably would have brought my action there. But what is 5.4 say? 5.4, in substance says, You non non lawyer cannot own a law firm. And by doing away with that, the obvious non lawyers can own a law firm. So I looked at Arizona, they haven’t promulgated exactly what their rules are, I’m very familiar with what the rules are, and in Australia, and in the UK, and they are a bit different, but the substance of them really puts into a silo the legal work, and that the non lawyer owner cannot be engaged in the non in the legal work or oversee the legal work. There have to be clear Chinese walls with respect to confidentiality. But what it does is it allows a non lawyer to invest in law firms to at the end of the day, it’s the intent is to benefit clients. So without seeing what Arizona’s structure really is going to be. It’s hard to comment on it. But I will say the this is just a prediction that there’ll be tremendous reluctance from other courts to recognize that type of work. And I think the work will be restricted in Arizona, initially, but I think that’s the first domino to fall, then Utah, I think California will be next and I don’t know, timeframe, whether it’s 10 years or so, I think ultimately, every every state will do away with 5.4 and have a clear guidelines as to what the structure can be. That’s called an ABS alternative business structure.
You know, in DC, we’ve had non lawyer ownership for a while that 25% rule. Why, you know, that sat there sort of by itself for a very long time has not spread. You explain to people sort of what your take is for that. Obviously, we’ve done for lobbyist, it was not meant for other things, but it’s been used for all sorts of different vehicles. Is that sort of what where things will end up or do you think it’s closer to what we’re seeing whether it’s Utah or Arizona?
I think it used to be close to the Utah Arizona because it’s the difference is that in DC, it’s not a BS and alternative business structure. It’s literally a law firm that they allow non lawyer to have a 25% interest because of all the lobbying and they’re bringing in that and they basically they can then commingle the legal fees from the lobbying fees. And it’s very hard to distinguish what is actually lobbying and what is legal fees. So they just blended them together. But almost every state that I looked at, has said that if you are have a DC based firm that has a non lawyer partner, you cannot engage in the practice of law in that foreign state. So that’s why it really hasn’t taken off that way. And I think the same thing will happen with the ABS but the structure the difference will be that the abs of sure will have structures with these Chinese walls restricting access to confidential information or it’s all protecting the clients interest. But what the reason why I’m excited about it and why. What I think will happen is now some Significant businesses will start to invest in the practice of law, and really be able to make all of our practices that much more efficient. Because if you have major corporations that don’t have a financial interest in investing in technologies for law firms, then because they want, they they’re not looking just for I’m talking about the major corporations. They’re not looking just to sell some software, it’s, they’d like to participate on the legal fees. And the ones who are, who are probably going to come in the strongest are the big four accounting firms.
Well, and then that’s on the big law side, you know, you run what, you know, consumer facing law about as efficiently as anybody I’ve ever met, you know, the operations to technology, your commitment to investing in infrastructure is incredible. And you could compete with any business that came in, you know, you know, the legal landscape, and many of the smaller players out there, one of the sort of the fears is that if real efficiencies came in with people with business savvy that these lawyers would get marginalized, because we see and Jay and I see this every day, people who aren’t, you know, short of that if if somebody with real business acumen was competing against them, they would be in a lot of trouble. What are your thoughts as far as the how this will affect the landscape of the smaller one to three lawyer firms over time.
I think you’re gonna see a continued consolidation, and the smaller 1, 2, 3 and law firm, person law firm is going to go by way of the dinosaur, if they don’t have a really sub specialty of bespoke practice that individualized is something that’s unique that these bigger firms and it’s not commoditized. The drill, if you take a look at the the over a course of time, the commoditization of the Legal Services is happened, which what I specifically mean by that is the generation of, of online documents, and people can do their own wills, and that will continue to grow. And it’s a good thing for consumers, because consumers are afraid of reaching out to lawyers, because of the complexity and the cost associated with it. Well, as practicing attorneys, we really want to work on the higher valued individualized work anyway. So what it will do is if you’re a practice that kind of focuses on transactional, now, I’m not talking about transactions, but transactional commodity type work, power of attorney, and I don’t think anybody’s making a living on power of attorneys. But just using that as an illustration that I think you ought to invest in yourself and start thinking of, of elevating what your practice should be.
Sure. Before going to Jay, I got one final question, which is something that I’ve seen as many as come into different markets, you look at like the for profit college space, right? A lot of these things may start off strong, they have people like Colin Powell or Bill Clinton involved. And then over time, what you see is when the when the director of admissions at admissions officers are essentially salespeople, and there’s shareholders that need to be satisfied that decisions change, that the acceptance of people to college, the acceptance of cases, how a case is handled, will a case get tried or not tried? You know, that seems to be a historically the fear, but seems like something that we’ve seen in other industries that when the market forces come, where non barred people are now participating, that you’ll have forces that could not be in the best interest of consumers, understanding that there are certain areas that underserved people would be able to get more service.
I don’t foresee that as a problem in law, if it’s structured the proper way. They had they have had none of those issues in Australia or in England, because of the clear Chinese wall. And ultimately, the client still controls their own case, depends on the type of work that’s being performed, whether it’s on a contingency or a for fee type activity. But I don’t for see they can’t wholesale invite in people who want Legal Services who who are get legal services who don’t really want them. And I just don’t see that as a problem.
Jay?
So, thanks. You know, one of the things that It has that’s been really on the forefront of my mind about this whole process is that a lot of these, a lot of the talk in Arizona, and in Utah was about access to justice. And it’s something that’s come up a lot in our legal communities that there are certain demographics of people who simply don’t have the financial resources to access the justice system. And one of the things about allowing outside money into a law firm is that it could provide for scale and technology and resources to allow those doors to open for access to justice. But on the other hand, we’re seeing in the medical field, the consolidation of medical practice, small medical practices are being bought up by these hospital groups. And you’re not seeing the same access to medicine that you would hope to see in access to legal. Do you think there’s some risk there, that the that the pronouncement that this is going to actually expand legal services to people might backfire? Or do you think that because of the nature of law, and legal work, it actually may fulfill that destiny of being able to provide access to justice that people don’t have right now.
I think the comparison to the medical community is a false comparison, because of the complexity of medical insurance, and everything associated with people be not being covered at all. And the what is the insurance that various medical providers will take, as well as the people don’t recognize necessarily or go for annual physicals. I don’t see that as a fair comparison, as relates to legal, I do think that it would expand access, because people are in disputes all the time, and they can avoid disputes if they get the proper legal guidance and have, frankly, the right legal documentation. And during a lease agreement, you know, just as simple housing issues, right now, all of that is being if, if you can’t afford it, you’re going to the Legal Services of your respective community. But there is a middle ground where the hire what I call gray hair services, where you’re hiring a lawyer to actually evaluate it, it’s somewhat repetitive, and it could be the cost can be sucked right out of it through artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence can be deployed anywhere it need not be in person. So especially during this pandemic, there will be in my estimation, really powerful, legal, artificial intelligence tools that people will be able to get access to. And what it does is it eliminates, I’ll use Amazon, Amazon being brought up on charges for practicing law without a license. Right? Or Facebook.
So you know-
That’s why that’s why I just don’t see the same corollary with medicine.
So let’s, you know, as a final question on this topic, looking if we’re gonna put this question in a time capsule, we look 10 years in the future, you know, 10 years ago, medallions in New York, we’re going for seven figures. Plus, today is less than a quarter of that, you know, what, if you look forward 10 years, and you see the chipping away of two states and more to come? Where do you see, you know, the the practice of law for most consumer facing lawyers? How will this change what you think of today as the small to medium sized law firm?
So I’m going to break that down into two different pads. One is the practice of law, which is really what you asked me, but the practice of law doesn’t happen if you don’t have clients. So what I really think is going to happen, and I hope happens is that when these bigger organizations get involved in the prac, quote, unquote, the practice of law, they will raise the awareness of people in the community about why it’s important to access the legal system, and they will be a Great Attractor of potential business. Now that commoditized legal services they’ll handle but there’s going to be a tremendous amount that requires lawyers and I think they’re gonna have to distribute those cases to affiliated lawyers. So what do I think is ultimately going to happen? That a They will align themselves with the appropriate firms or lawyers. And I don’t know what that will look like whether the lawyer will be an independent of counsel or a lawyer within the organization. But I think there will be some Goliath consumer law firms that will handle things from birth to death.
That’s it. So-
And the entity that’s way ahead on that is LegalZoom.
Right. Right. So, Jay, anything further-
As it relates to Legal Zoom, What that what do they do they have affiliated lawyers, that they just refer the cases out whether or not they’re going to now bring lawyers in house and start delivering the work themselves?
They’re probably too smart for that they’ll use the Uber model and take, you know, to have fee take points on each matter done.
There you go, right, because that’s the model, right? The overhead and you’re delivering the business and you get a portion of it. And what’s happening, you’re sharing the legal fees, and it no longer has to be camouflaged as some marketing expense or however they would conceptually do it.
So I have a follow up question on this topic. And it goes back to my question about access to justice. One of the things that’s a challenge, I’m sure that you can speak to is in the constant in the area of mass torts or significant personal injury cases where the cost to bring such a case might be overwhelming on a small segment of clients, the ability for outside money to come in and expand the ability to finance those cases has to seem appealing, and which is probably why the insurance companies are going to fight this because they don’t want to have an opponent who now has the resources that they have. Do you see the ability for some people with other types of cases that need significant financing, being able to get that now in a situation where outside ownership is able to fund those types of cases. And you see that as something that could benefit the consumer.
It’s going on already. Everything you just outlined is going on already. There are no shortage of hedge funds that have created investment pools into plaintiffs litigation. What is mass tort to a IP case? You know, there’s there’s, there are a lot of them. And that does level the playing field. Now you have a a, what’s happening in some of those cases is is the consumer who’s looking to hold somebody accountable for stealing something or doing something to them, may have their selected counsel, but then their attorney may not be well funded and now have to go to one of those hedge funds, that hedge fund may say that they will take over the cost associated with the litigation, but require them to change attorneys. Oftentimes, they will I’m not talking about just like plaintiffs funding where there are these law cash as an example giving money to a personal injury plaintiff I’m talking about like a IP case where, you know, it’s it could be 10s, if not hundreds of million dollars, millions of dollars at stake, that a hedge fund may evaluate that case. And they determine it’s a $50 million claim and they’ll buy out the plaintiff for $10 million of attorney in and prosecute the case and fund the case. Now the attorney no longer takes it on a contingency they do. They’re all different types of arrangements that they’ll have, they may do it on an hourly with a with a kicker, or, you know, they’re just lots of different-
That exists today.
My point of saying all that it’s in place already so I don’t see doing away with 5.4 as leveling the playing field. I I do think that it helps consumers because they it’s on the what I just talked about is that I’ll just define it as the higher end what I define is the gray hair you need a experienced skilled lawyer who’s been in the business for a long period of time and understands and has litigated right? As compared to five points doing away of what 5.4 and attracting businesses. That’s where the artificial intelligence will kick in. And they will be able to, to access legal services when they haven’t in the past.
You know, changing topics for a moment. And there’s a lot of things having visited your firm in Newberg that you do extremely well. And you’ve scaled a remarkable firm. One of the things I’d like to talk about today was something that struck me is your ability to stay attuned to how clients are doing throughout a case similar to Amazon, when you get immediate email, you know, how is how is your product or hotels that are figuring out? How is it how’s your stay going? How is this because they afterwards, you’ve really been at the forefront I feel of keeping in touch with that. Because as you scale a firm, like it’s one thing, if it’s you and a couple people, you’ve done this with 80 to 100. Lawyers, you know, at scale across geographies, can you talk to us a little bit about how you’ve gone about making sure that you can stay in tune with what’s going on to keep that quality up at scale.
I’m gonna talk about it—two different ways. One is the communications out. And the other is information in. So starting with the communication out, we I’ve just got done and we have a whole series with as with the pandemic and and people being much more comfortable with email now standing that it’s 2020 that this pandemic really has comforted consumers to get their information from us via email or other types of communication. So knowing that I’m very focused on consistency of messaging in my office and just assume there are 90 lawyers, I firmly believe that anybody who hires my firm should get the same level of service, as well as the same communication, regardless if they have lawyer, five or lawyer 10. Right. And I’m not prioritizing them just different individuals. Well, the only way to do that is if we provide a menu of consistent information that’s delivered to the client. So we I’ve gone ahead and I’ve I have filmed, I don’t know how many dozen but a lot of many messages that relate to the every aspect of a different types of cases. And they get emailed to the client, there’s two ways either automatically when a certain event happens in a file, and a, for example, simplest one is whenever we open up a new file, the client gets an automatic email message with my video welcoming them to the firm, and explaining what the process will be, and who to hear from and so on. That consistency of messaging is really important, because that is what creates the image of your firm. If you delegate that messaging without saying what that messaging should be, you’re leaving it to the whim of the wind, whichever way it is that that communication happens. So I’ve really tried to that’s not to say that we handcuff the attorneys in the office or anybody else in the office, because they have to go on and use their independent judgment and evaluate the facts and communicate on that individual fact of the individual facts of that case. But what I do want consistent is explaining the process explaining what a lien is explaining, you know, I go right, what a prime aphasia case is, what’s a deposition and all of those, and go on and on as to all the different core explanations, and if they hear it all from one source, then I know there’s consistency across all of my clients. And the the quality is at the level that I want. So that’s the messaging going out. So there’s a lot of form letters that can be modified, but now it’s really video. And and it’s not hard to do, it’s I would, I would say it’s not hard to do you the ability to To create a an iPhone 11, and a little software, you can create videos, you can edit them, and you can embed them right into emails that what’s a little more challenging is doing it network wide within your firm, to make sure everybody has access to the same love, I go down to the language of the email and the embedded video associated with it. But it can all be done. It’s not overly complex. So that’s messaging going out.
And quick follow up on that do you find one of the things that I find consistent is you can have the staff message, but it doesn’t always get through to the to the clients. liens in particular are one of those sort of frustrating areas, particularly during the pandemic? Do you find that the video interface helps, you know, further the sort of clicking within the mind so that the expectations are set better than the traditional phone or email messages?
Without a doubt, because what everybody in the office does is it sets the table. Right, so the video in and of itself doesn’t provide all of the information, but it sets the table for the conversation so that the client feels informed about that. I’ll give a perfect example of our offers. Whenever an offer comes in and we want to talk to a client about an offer, the first thing we do is we send an email to the client where I have a video and explain the negotiating process and explain the value of the case. And I don’t care what the individual cases, but it’s basically explaining the core concept of what’s the coverage. What’s the liability? What are the injuries? Does it exceed the policy? Is it less than I mean, I go through a whole process to that, again, I’ll just use the term it sets the table for that conversation with the attorney. Now that allow the attorney can say okay, now we have an offer on your case. And the client understands that because the way I explain it is black, white, or shades of gray. Right a black offer is if there’s $100,000 policy, and they’re offering 100,000, there’s really not much to talk about a white offer is $100,000 policy, the injury is worth 5 million and they’re offering $2,000. That’s a wide offer, they there’s nothing to talk about. Everything else is a shade of gray. And our objective is to get it to the darkest shade of gray as possible. And I spent a little time explaining that. So now the lawyers use that same language when they’re communicating offers to the client. And the client already has a good flavor for what they’re talking about, frankly, and and it’s it’s a win win on both sides, it makes the conversation with the attorney far more efficient. And more importantly, the client understands because at the end of the day, it’s the client’s case, not our case. And the client needs to understand the ramifications of the decisions that they make. And really what is our job, our job is to put the client in a position to make an educated and informed decision. But you can’t do that unless you educate them. So we spent a good amount of time educating them now on the opposite information coming in, I solicit a lot of information as to how we’re doing if you if like so these videos, we started sending them out. I follow up not me personally, but we follow up with a with a survey and say was this information? Helpful? What did you like about it? What didn’t you like about it? And and if you get criticism because it wasn’t helpful, and you ask why then you just reshoot it and do it until you know it’s helpful. But if you don’t ask, and you just assume that you did a great job, you’re kind of living in a fantasy world.
And you’ve also done if sounds like over time, created touch points throughout the case, something that, you know, keeping quality control, especially during the pandemic, where the people, you know, you used to be able to walk around the office and see people that all been there for 25 plus years, they’re now you know, remote, they have good days, bad days, kids playing at home, you know, making sure that you keep that quality control. I assume that the surveys, the outbound surveys are now as important as ever.
Absolutely. So our outbound surveys are triggered at different stages in the litigation, or in our representation, I should say. So that first one goes out within 30 days or maybe even less, I don’t know the exact timing of of when they first contacted us and everybody knows that survey goes out. And when you ask questions specifically were you treated with compassion, caring and concern? And that comes Back, basically saying no. And they’re given an opportunity say why I can go right to the person say like, what are you doing? And I don’t get those comments back. I was, everybody was very nervous when I started doing. I’ve been doing it for years. I don’t even know how many years. But everybody was very nervous starting it as I was, because I really, until you ask, you don’t know. And to my pleasant surprise, I shocked out rare, I get a negative review. And and you have to be able to distinguish between, are they upset about the process or the people? And I get plenty of of negative reviews, but they make it clear. It’s not about the people because I get afforded the opportunity. Why is this taking so long? You know, my deposition was adjourned a second time and that, you know, why? Why is the insurance company not treating me fairly things like that. That’s not? I don’t, I’m not upset about that, because it’s part of the process. People have different unrealistic expectations. However, my expectation is that should diminish because I explained up front, if I said that in New York, specifically, a judge isn’t involved in your case until they adjourn the deposition two times. So I’m going to tell you now, be prepared that deposition is going to get adjourn. So sometimes they go, but we’re expected to be adjourn. So when they’re prepared for it, I expect that we won’t get those complaints. But I, I strongly encourage everybody if you’re not doing it now. And there are these, there are a lot of simple survey systems out there client and make them short scale of one to five, what we have found because we’ve tinkered with it a bit what we found the most successful ones, at one time, that was one to 10, we narrowed that down to one to five, people found that much easier. And secondly, if you find a survey system that says how long they are in the process, right, you’re 20% Done 30% Done, or whatever it may be, and those are the ones that get completed.
Jay?
That’s great stuff. And I think it’s wonderful that you’re using some of these things that maybe even retail, you know, Amazon, you could track your package, you’re almost able to track your case, through the system. And that’s what the consumer wants. And historically, it seems a lot of the problems that lawyers had was this lack of communication. That’s where most of the complaint bar complaints came from. And it seems like you’ve really found a way to make it not a lecture to the client, here’s what we’re doing for you. But to make it an ongoing relationship. And that further just helps your brand long term because they feel they have somebody fighting in their corner. So it’s really fascinating how you’ve been able to do that and take it to the next level. I want to ask you quickly about
Before you move on, let me let me just comment on that. Jay, what do you make, I just want to share this with you. We are 100% paperless and have been since probably 95, and put in in I think 99, maybe 2000 the ability for the client to come online and see their file. And what we do is we set up a timeline. So as the doc it’s document driven as the documents come in, for example, the computer recognizes the summons a complaint then moves the timeline, down to a summons a complaint, then the next documents along the line. And we’ve always exposed the process you you the more educated and informed your client is, the easier it is to represent them. Because they’re not they’re not skeptical or concerned about what you’re doing.
You know, it’s interesting when I was going through this process to get my PPP loan months ago, I basically filled out an application, sends it to my bank and then heard nothing. And I was so frustrated. It was really the first time that I was in a situation where I needed answers. And I would call the banker and he would say, I’ll see where it is in the process. I’m like there’s gotta be a better way. And so as lawyers, I’m learning that things that I experienced during Coronavirus times I can make my business better. What have you learned as your practice has changed a little bit? Did everybody start working from home? Did everybody stay in their offices and just you know have better practices? What What have you learned during Coronavirus time that you think is going to help your practice grow in the next in the next five years?
My hesitation is to To help my practice grow in the next five years, so what I learned, I don’t know if it directly correlates to the firm growing in the next five years. So I’ll talk about what I believe I’ve learned. So the first part of your question was did did people work from home? Yes, we were. We’re fortunate that our technology allowed us to the next day after the the shutter in place order to be up and running from home, everybody was running from home and working from home. And we were also fortunate enough to have previously set up a cloud based phone system. So everybody had their phone at their house. And what did I learn, I learned how committed people are to our clients and the organization. And not withstanding the scary times everybody showed up and did what they needed to do, and made the adjustments and have learned that. But I’ve always operated where I presume positive intent from pretty much everybody. So I always presume positive intent from the people in my office that if they’re working from home, they’re working from home, and they’re doing what they’re asked to do. And I have a a document that everybody has to read when they first come on to the office, it says exactly that, that our law firm way is that we presume positive intent and that you will be doing the right thing until you prove us wrong. Whereas I think a lot of organizations presume the opposite. And they presume people are just not doing the right thing. And I think that foundational attitude, really reaped tremendous benefits during the pandemic. Because I’m really proud of how everybody reacted and went above and beyond to help our clients and felt that it was really important to to give back to our clients as much as we could because we are very lucky that were they we didn’t shut anything down didn’t have to let anybody go. And I told everybody from day one, that’s my, my commitment. We’re not going to let anybody go because of not I mean, if you don’t do your job, and you don’t do what’s necessary, then of course we will. But if you put in the time, energy and effort, then you’re secure. And knowing that people responded and reacted. So I would say what I learned is that fundamental approach of how to manage people was reaffirmed, and it was nice frankly.
Yeah, it sounds like you’ve really developed a culture that everyone every law firm should aspire to as a model. And I certainly I certainly will bring that back to my firm. Seth, what do you have?
No, yeah, look, when I when I every time I speak with you, I always walk away saying, Hey, I my head starts to hurt, because I know there’s so much. And it’s fundamentals that needs to be executed on and you know, the things you’re talking about where I speak of clients who get confused about the liens, even if it’s a authoritative branded voice, giving them information so that by the time they’re told about it, it’s a second time, it’ll have a better chance of sinking in expectations. Most of our listeners are law firms, one to five lawyers, looking to figure out how to build and scale, you’ve had an incredible journey. What advice do you have to people who are sort of at the beginning of that journey, trying to figure out when to hire the next lawyer or when to bring on the next staff? Bring yourself back towards the beginning of practice? And how you know, what are your words of wisdom for people at the beginning of their careers?
Not-I can’t be specific as to when to bring somebody on, but who to bring on is what’s important. And in I don’t feel as old as I am. But at the experiences that I’ve had, I think I’m happy to share, which is I it really is about culture. And that’s really the defining factor of Who do you truly trust to be at your side and I’m not limiting it to attorneys. So my staff set you mentioned it. First of all, it’s second generation. It was started by my dad. When I joined his practice, it was just one office one location and since after I joined, we went through a whole strategy and it’s grown. But in order for that to happen, there was no shot that I could do that on My own. And I counted and relied upon the people in my office to be able to execute on a shared vision. And why do I say it that way, because if they didn’t agree with the vision that we had, it was doomed for failure. So it is sitting down, and the people in my office, I have people in my office who are there 45 years, 40 years, it is not uncommon for people to have a 30 year anniversary, I have probably 125 people who were in my office more than 20 years, right. 20 years is nothing. So and I’m talking professionals down to people in the mailroom, and I’m not saying that in a derogatory way, I’m just in people, lawyers minds, that the person in the mailroom is as important as the, the, in my opinion, the highest paid lawyer in the office, because they are the machinery that helps that lawyer do what they need to do in an efficient way. If that, if that file isn’t where it should be with the documents in it, then you have a lawyer who’s wasting their time and getting angry. And it everybody has to understand their respective roles and how important it is for us to effectively do what we’re asked to do, which is represent human beings. These are people that that our neighbors, there we see them, they’re part of our community, and you want to be proud when you see them in the grocery store somewhere else. And you want them to say, hey, there’s my lawyer, or there’s somebody in my, my, who works for the lawyer that I work for, and how do you do it, you got to treat people with dignity and respect. And if somebody is in your office, I don’t care how good of a lawyer or paralegal they are, if they don’t treat the colleagues in their office with dignity and respect, there’s no shot, they’re doing that with your clients, I’m sorry, if they’re just not doing it. And there’s only so much that we can do. And I always say, look, I didn’t raise them, I’m not their mother or father. And these are things that have to have been instilled in them when they were young. Because you’re not going to change people that’s I, I lived through that where I thought I could, it’s just not going to happen. So the for those who are kind of just starting your practice, I would simply say, pick your partners, and I’m not talking about law partners, your non legal partners very carefully. And be firm. Don’t you know, there’s no compromising on the things I’m talking about. And if they don’t rise to that level, everybody else is watching you and expecting you to take action. And if you choose not to take action, then you don’t really live. You don’t mean what you say. Right? Actions speak louder than words. So I’m just, as you can see, I get passionate about being firm on these core ideals of what you want to be and what you want your organization the big, and then get people who will agree with that. Not everybody’s gonna agree with it. I’ll tell you that right now. Not everybody’s gonna agree, that’s fine. This is America go find somewhere else to work, right. But if you’re gonna work in my office, you’re gonna live by these norms.
It is a sight to behold to see what you’ve accomplished there. And when you see people 25, 30, 30 plus years is just incredible. Let me ask you this, because-
Can I Can I just follow up on one comment? Yes, what I just said. If you think you say one time and that’s the end of it, you forget about it. I repeat what I just said regularly to people in my office, I have meetings and people have to be reminded, I as I said, I presume positive intent. So somebody who I know has embraced how we operate and they have a bad day. I’m okay with that. Right? But I have to remind them hey, look, that’s not what we’re all about. That’s not how we treat people. And they come around but if you don’t remind people, it’s just not gonna happen.
But what I want to know is you know, because I something I asked a lot on this podcast is, you know, if you look back, you know, right now, it looks amazing. What you have is is incredible. Any mistakes along the way that you’ve learned from that might be helpful for our audience to sort of as threshold points where you like you wish you knew, then what you know now
From mistakes is like, the real mistakes that would come to mind relate to it, it’s going to be inconsistent with what I said earlier, but it’s giving people the benefit of the doubt that I shouldn’t have. Right, recognizing that people, once they show their stripes, they really don’t change, and allowing people to thinking that I could rehabilitate when I should have known that there was no shot. And I didn’t take action sooner.
Well, I think that comes from your power of positive, right, you’re, you’re always thinking the positive, and somebody might show you, you know, that that negative and you’re like, No, no, we can get there. But I think what you’ve said is really true is that there comes a point where the most positive thing for you to do for your, for your firm is to move on and-
Right. And when you say for my firm, it’s uplifting when everybody else says you did the right thing. They just weren’t met. They weren’t matching, they weren’t meshing.
Yeah, that’s amazing. I-
That’s not to say, yeah, that’s not to say that everybody kind of just follows automatically, we have independent thought, and we have independent processes throughout this whole process, but the fundamentals of how you treat one another, those those have to be consistent.
Jay, I’ll give you the last question.
So, I just want to I just want to know, you know, one of the things that we talk about a lot is, is systems and how systems can make a firm operate at a level that you know, you cannot keep up with, How important has it been in your growth from when you started, you know, one office operation till now to to implement systemized practices? Because I, you know, I’d like to think that our viewers need to really sort of embrace the systems if they’re going to want to grow. So I’m sure you have intake systems and case processing systems, and the like, and how important is it for all your team members to be following those systems to you?
It is non negotiable. We are a system, every aspect of everything we do falls within a defined system. And if you don’t follow our system, you’re going to not last at all. i We’re everything that we do is systematized I can’t say it any more basic, I’m talking, you name it. It systematized we are a smooth running machine that there is and if somebody doesn’t know what to do, we have a system that will show them what to do and how to do it.
That’s really the most important-
And we’re talking say we’re talking 62 years, and the system isn’t locked in stone, it continuously improves. But these systems that we put in place are so here’s, look I could, the system, the system of communicating with clients, we have it scheduled when those communications must happen. We have an automatic email that goes out. If somebody doesn’t do it, we say Well, look, here’s the system of communication. I kind of tried to keep things as simple as possible, as a lawyer, and as a law firm, and I don’t care what area that you practice in, you really only do two things. You gather information and you deliver information. Now you may gather from different sources, and you may deliver to different sources, but that’s what you do. So i i Break it down. What’s our gathering systems? Well, what information are we gathering? And how can we do it the most efficient way? And so that the people who need that information, get it delivered? And then the person who receives the information that we’ve gathered, what do they then have to do with it? And and what’s the timeframe associated with it if you don’t put timeframes on things, it just doesn’t get done. So we have with that everything is systematized and you will be do yourself a huge favor if you spend the time to start systema-systematizing your practice and it may be A daunting undertaking, but it’s well worth it. Because it’s not likely that the people who are with you, notwithstanding the history of my firm that the people are with you are going to be with you in three years, five years, 10 years. So you need a system to replace that knowledge. Okay, it’s your firm knowledge has to be reduced to writing and everybody has to be aware of it.
Love it.
We could go on for hours. Thank you so much, Andrew, every time we speak, I, I feel humbled and realize how much I have to accomplish. So thank you for taking the time. I can’t wait till we talk again.
Hey, all I could tell you it’s one day at a time. Seriously, that sounds trite. But you can’t compare a 62 year law firm that’s been that’s that had its own IT staff is starting in 1987 that built a computer system to systematize our practice to somebody who’s out three years, but the the great advantage is the systems are out there. Now you don’t have to create them. There’s software systems that you can you can set up all these timeframes and and don’t ignore them. Definitely exploit that to your benefit.
Love it.
Thanks again.
Andrew, thank you so much for being with us.
No problem. Thanks, Jay.
Cool, thanks Andrew.
Well, you know, Seth, Every week we do an interview, and I say My mind is blown, I got stuff I got to do. And this week, I’m thinking like, not only is my mind blown, my whole world is blown. Because, you know, I’m looking at this guy who has done so much. And I you know, as a young lawyer, I knew who he was, I knew what they did. And it was aspirational, to get them on a call and talk to him is is such a treat. But that whole almost hour right, of course going long. It’s so many takeaways, so many takeaways. So what jumped out at you?
Look, I have known that I had to hit surveys hard, and I’ve been putting those in place. But the idea of the video messages people have talked about that for a while. And I feel like in one sense, they would Oh, I don’t say poo pooed it but the consumer didn’t seem as interested in it. And I think now with the pandemic and the fact that we have people used to watching video, that the ability to have a consistent brand and a consistent message of what comes next, I had an experience with a family friend who retained us on a plaintiff’s case. And I got all sorts of calls about like, Hey, why is this taking so long? And our team, I went back and looked at the notes, our team did everything they were supposed to do. But I think what Andrew points out is a consistent message. And then to me, he even said, but it’s the repeating of it. So you’re you’re basically as the brand ambassador saying something, and that having your team reinforced it gives you that much better of a chance of having realistic expectations, which is so much of the battle that we play with every day
Yeah, I mean, my point being, you know, we talked a little bit about it in the call was, you know, when I had filed my PPP application and then do nothing, it was driving me crazy. I mean, I was stressed out, I couldn’t sleep, I was waking up in the middle of the night and then I look at An-
I remember.
And then I look at Yeah, I mean, I think I was texting you at four o’clock in the morning one day saying, I don’t know what’s you know what’s going on. And then I looked at I ordered, you know, I ordered tissues from Amazon. And I was able to track where it got from here to here to here to here. And I’m thinking as a consumer, it didn’t get into me any faster. It didn’t change the quality of the product. But I was able to see where it was going and how it was going to get to me. And I felt okay, I didn’t have a negative. And so I think that’s what the consumers are looking for. Now they want to be more informed. And Andrew really, has got it.
Yes, yes. Yes, Jay, but I’ll take it one step further. And something that I seen in our community, there was a help local restaurants out, and people could say, Hey, we’re gonna get Thai food, everybody would chime in with a place and it was you’ve got literally more answers to this than any other thing for them. I’ve seen 150 places of where the best Italian sub is, and what a part of the reason is, people love to give their opinion and feedback. And I feel that what he has figured out is that not only is informing people as you’re talking about, you know, as far as what is going on, but then he gives them the opportunity as he reflected on the second part of this to give their feedback. Who doesn’t like to have their opinion heard. And so to me, that is sort of the best of both worlds, right? So you know what’s happening, you know where, where your loan application is. But also, when there’s frustration, it gives a venting place where there’s certain stuff, they can’t do anything about, you know, the the depositions being canceled, and yes, there’s nothing they can do. But it gives them a sense as to where those pain points are, which then lets them go back to the first part, which is the communication to try to anticipate those problems, to try to ameliorate them. So that’s why he’s the genius that he is.
It really, really, really is great. I mean, it’s just what I want everybody to do here. I know, a lot of people are watching it live. But you’re gonna be able to get this interview as part of our podcast as part of the Maximum Lawyer podcast. And what you need to do is you need to download this podcast, and really listen to it a couple of times, or go back, watch the video a couple of times, because there are some significant things that Andrew talked about that will make monumental changes in your firm, monumental changes in your ability to grow and get to where he is. I mean, there’s, I don’t think he can grow much more. Because he’s, you know, because he’s so big, right? I mean, I’m sure he could, you know, open up in multiple more states and keep going. And he may not necessarily have the desire to do that, or you may decide to do that. But, you know, if you’re that small shop, if you’re two lawyers, four lawyers, some of the things he’s talking about the like the system stuff at the very end. I mean, we’re talking about how his whole firm is a system. And it’s something that we hear over and over. And we talked to John Fisher a couple of weeks ago, I mean, systems, you know, how important they are to me. You know, it’s it’s the you keep hearing the same things from all these successful people. Boy, maybe you should start applying them. And I think that’s the takeaway from today.
Yeah absolutely. I’ll conclude with this. You know, one of the things I’ve always thought of as a conference junkie, law firm, conference junkie, and I would go to these things, and that’s even before I had BluShark, I would just go and speak because they’d let me go for free. And I love the interactions, I love learning. And the thing that I always thought about was, you know, I always professed making a top 10 list of action items. When you go to a conference, and on the plane ride home, you sort of like, take that list, and you circle the top three, that you’re gonna do immediately the four that you’re going to wait a little while, but you know, you need to do and three that are going to be tabled. But part of it was usually those ideas generally, especially as you’re practicing more, and you go to more conferences and speak to more people, that those ideas are not new ideas. Should I do a book? Should I do a podcast, whatever they are, but that over time, and I feel like whenever I hear Andrew, I those are those top things that I know need to be done. They’re not sexy. But if done right, can really revolutionize and raise the practice.
Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of top 10 things a couple of weeks from now, we’re going to be giving our top 10 growth hacks for 2021. And it’s something that we’ve been working on. And I think everyone can look forward to that one, because it’s going to be something you can play over and over again, couple months and I want to re-listen to it. Grab another nugget and then go with that one. So I want everyone here to subscribe, or come on over to the Maximum Growth Live page, follow the page. That way you can be alerted every time we’re going to have one of these shows. So with that said, let’s leave it let’s end it. What a phenomenal show. I you know, I feel like I’m just coming off a basketball court or something. I’m exhausted, but it feels good. And I can’t wait to get back at this next week because I think there’s some great stuff going on. But before then I got tomorrow in my office on rejuvenated and we’re gonna we’re gonna hit it. So thank you so much for being with us today. Seth. We’ll leave it with that. I am Jay Ruane. He is Seth Price we are Maximum Growth Live. Thank you so much for being with us. And we’ll see you again next Thursday on another edition of Maximum Growth Live. Bye for now.
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