BluShark Digital 0:00
Welcome to the conference connection. Your go-to place to get the scoop on what conferences are coming up that you need to know about. Here are your hosts, Paul Faust, President of RingBoost, and Seth Price, founder of BluShark Digital and managing partner of Price Benowitz.
Paul Faust 0:16
How you doing folks? Paul Faust, here. conference connection, Paul from RingBoost, along with my co-host, as always, Seth Price from Price Benowitz, and I would say BluShark, but there’s lots of things going on there. And we have a very special guest today, Tim McKey from VISTA, but I want Seth to jump in and give a little intro too, as to where he’s at.
Seth Price 0:35
Well, look, Tim, the world has changed. And every month it feels like, you know, if you asked me six months ago, I thought we were, like, years away, and apparently we’re not. You know, I thought this was just for mass tort players and some guys in Arizona, but the PE world has taken us by storm. We have seen several deals publicly announced with many more under LOI. And of all the people in the world that know about this, Tim has been at the forefront. He’s been; he helped put together the first big deal out of New Orleans. And has, you know, been, you know, behind the scenes for a lot of firms’ financials. But as those of us who’ve been through the PE, you know, gauntlet, know that dealing with the PE world is not for the faint of heart. So we wanted Tim on to talk about this world, and more importantly, that he’s putting an event together for those people out there that want to learn about what is happening and what people need to do if they want to prepare for themselves at some point, or just want to figure out what is the state of the legal industry and private equity. So Tim, talk to us, what is going on?
Tim McKey 1:47
Gosh, that, I mean, you’re right that. I think you give me a little too much credit for some things. But you know, the private equity has found a new industry. And has, along with a lot of very smart people, constructed a structure where they can enter this space. And I’ve been lucky enough to be involved at least in one transaction that actually closed. I’m working on several now. The ground has shifted a little bit. It’s a new option, or a new structure that provides practitioners exit strategy. It provides them growth strategies that we’re really here to for, not in the picture. And I think done correctly, this could be really, really good for this industry. And I couch it that way, because I think the general public would say that when private equity invested in the medical community, it caused a decrease in the quality of service, and I think that at least the folks that I’ve been involved with so far in this are very much determined to not let that happen here, and to do this right and provide more people with access to legal help, and to do it in such a way that the quality of service will even rise so well, so.
Seth Price 3:26
But Tim, everybody wants to know you’re going to put on this, this shindig in Baltimore, the world is going to come to Charm City. What are they going to learn there? What? Why should people be getting on a plane to come and and, and see you in Baltimore?
Tim McKey 3:43
I think both law firms and private equity firms will be coming, and we’ve got had a very good response up into this to this point. What this event is about is about education. It’s really about what practitioners should consider. What private equity firms should consider in their investment? It’s also about the technicalities of the structure. We’ve got my good friend Chad Dudley and their investment partner, Uplift Investors, are going to be there and going to talk about their transaction and their considerations, and peel back the curtain a little bit on actually a transaction that did happen. We’re going to have the merger and acquisition attorneys there to talk about the technicalities of getting a deal done. We’re going to have an investment banker there to talk about their potential role in this. We’re going to have ethics attorneys. Everybody’s concerned about ethics. We’re going to talk about how to do this right to make sure you don’t cross any lines there. Even digging deep enough to some details of how the transactions get done, bringing in quality of earnings specialists, if that’s a new term. For those out there, it’s professionals that help verify financials. It’s not an audit, but it’s similar, to help them, give the investors comfort. But also, you know, look at this, just the internal functions of the firms. And again, VISTA has been lucky enough to be been, you know, behind the curtain of over 300 law firms in the last 15 years, basically prepping them for this very moment, which is putting them in a position to be a target. And we’re going to talk about what that means, and get it dig into the details and really try to peel back this onion of what can happen, how it can happen, what can be in it for you. And by the way, if this is not something you’re interested in, I think you should still be there, because your competitors, you’re going to have a whole different set of competitors in this marketplace, and knowing what they’re thinking and how they’re working puts you in a better position. So there’s something here for everyone, and really, so you should be there.
Paul Faust 6:01
Yeah, Tim, that’s a great point. So I have two comments to make. One is, yes, this is for you. if you’re in a position to take on a partner or to sell this the position this is, this is something for you, if you’re interested, maybe down the road, because you’re going to learn how your books have to look what they’re looking for, what they’re not looking for. And this is for you If you completely hate it. At the end of the day, we can’t it here. We don’t have to like it. It’s here. And it’s for you, because you need to know the playing field that you’ll be in. Or, as Mike talks about the jumbotron, like, what’s a scoreboard? This is going to be the entry. you are going to play in it. You’d better understand it. Now, the biggest point that I hear when I talk to firms is look all of my friends, or let’s say, most of my friends who got into personal injury specifically did it because they care about fighting for the little guy. They care about the injured party. they care about the family. They care about someone who might have been killed. Or they care about this. How do we reconcile that with private equity? That says I care about a return. I understand that case might be worth a million, but I put up five grand, and they’re offering 100 that’s a good that’s a good enough return. Take my money off the table. How does the industry get around or how do people get around that? Know that we’re still going to fight for the most, and people still care. And this is not just another investment, and we’re okay with the return. How do you? How do you? How do you answer them?
Tim McKey 7:26
I reconcile that, because the owners of the law firm Paul want that very same return as well. And you know, you and I probably, well, you and I both know that there can be bad actors out there that want to be a churn and burn type firm. You know, what we preach at VISTA is how to truly help the little guy, and to do that, you have to maintain a profitable business. Private Equity has just seen that some firms, a lot of firms, are very profitable, and through a mechanism, they’ve been now allowed to invest in those which does a couple of things. It provides more money for better management of these firms, for hiring, and potentially hiring better attorneys. And again, some people want to just take this money put in their pocket and run I don’t think that’s what the general outlook about this is. It’s about, you know, using the investment to better service their clients, more efficiently and effectively, in having more capital to do it. Everybody wants a return. The owner, before private equity got here, wants a return. So that puts us on the same side of the table.
Paul Faust 8:42
So, without giving away all of the sauce, because we don’t want to do it, we want them to come to the event. Where do they register? How do they register? If they’ve got an extra question about it, if it’s for them, who should they bring? Is it me? Is it my COO? is it my CFO? Tell us about how they go about registering this event. Where the, when, the who.
Tim McKey 9:00
The easiest way is to go to the VISTA website, which is Vista v i, s, t, A, C, t.com, and it’s plastered all over the how to register there. Law firm owners should be there. And if the owners have stakeholders that in their firms, the COO, the CFO, maybe even some of their top attorneys to make the entire team aware of that there’s just another option. I can tell you, what won’t happen at that event is that people trying to convince you this is the way for you. This is all about education. It’s about just, this is what’s here. You know, my friend Chad Dudley said, this like gravity, you know the laws of physics. It’s not going to change these. This is here now, so we have to adapt to it. And we’re going to be talking about different options. What could be best for you, whether you want to play in this area or not, and how to benefit.
Paul Faust 10:00
So if you’re a great firm, if you’re a great firm, you should be there because you’re going to want this money so you could continue to grow your great firm and not let the bad actors into this space. And now, are we, are we taking up? Are we taking any action on whether transactions are going to get done at the event? Are we going to have a is this going to be like Shark Tank, where we have people making offers right in the room or at the bar.
Tim McKey 10:22
I can’t tell you what may happen in the room or at the bar. It will not be pushed from the stage. It’s about education. I do think you know one thing that that would be good for people to be there is to meet the other players in the game, the attorneys that have done it, the quality of earnings people, the investment bankers. You know the ethics attorneys, you know people you may need when and if you decide to go this direction. But again, this is 100% an educational event. Nobody’s really selling anything there. It may happen in the room, but that’s not what, what our intent here, here is, it’s education.
Seth Price 11:02
So, yeah, no, I think this is great. You know, it’s exciting. I’ve been through this process. a lot of information that would be helpful to have years before. You know, as far as making sure that you’re, you know, we talk, everybody talks about profitability, but when you start talking to private equity guys, it’s, a very finite/ruthless game of, you know, you talk quality of earnings, but the question is, what are you really making? Is what they’re saying. So, you know, very often you think you’re doing this, but starting to have real conversations with yourself and your team about what is true profit.
Tim McKey 11:38
And that’s the peel back the onion that we hope to get to at this event, into those details, hopefully you lead with action steps. Action Steps to be a competitor. There’s action steps to consider. That’s what it’s about. Nobody’s selling. This is education.
Paul Faust 11:54
So look, everybody knows. Everybody knows we’ve got more events in the space than we’ve ever had before. But sometimes, you know, an event comes up like we had one that was strictly about AI, and we know that’s a revolutionary space. You can’t hide from the fact that private equity money is here. It’s here. It’s going to do its thing, whether you like it or not. This is the first event that I know of that’s going to educate you on it, educate the industry on it, and at least you know if you don’t like it, at least know what you don’t like, and at least prepare the battlefield it’s going to be your future. So we thank Tim being able to come on and tell us about it. We hope that you consider going Tim’s of everybody knows where to find. Tim typically could tell you if you have questions, he gave you the website where you could learn about the event. And I think it’s important that people in this industry don’t just put on conferences to sell things, but there are conferences that just educate on the landscape and then let firms make their own decisions.
Tim McKey 12:54
That’s our whole Mo is to give that education so people can make well-informed decisions. We believe that the more information someone has, the better decisions they make, and that’s what this is all about.
Seth Price 13:07
Thank you so much, Tim.
Paul Faust 13:08
Tim, thank you. It’s great to see you as always.
Tim McKey 13:10
See you there.
BluShark Digital 13:12
Thank you for tuning in to the Conference Connection. Make sure to hit subscribe if you haven’t already, and we will see you for our next episode.
