Jay Ruane  0:00  

Hello. Hello, and welcome to this edition of the law firm blueprint. I want your host, Jay Ruane with me, as always, is my man. Seth Price. Seth at the home office today. How are you doing this week?

Seth Price  0:15  

Doing well. Doing well. We got a little snow. You know, I feel the holiday time coming on, but tale of two cities, the i Team spinning nicely and hitting into your numbers. And as we talked about in the last episode, trying to make sure we tighten the belts as the fee for service stuff gets a little tighter than I’d like it to be. It’s you know, in the fee for service world that 20 to 25% margin is one that, if you take your eye off the ball, can disappear quickly. Yeah.

Jay Ruane  0:48  

And, and, you know, the margin on the fee for service stuff is really what’s the driver. It’s funny, I was just talking to one of my members of my criminal mastermind about goal setting. And I think, you know, for us, the conversation really went from they wanted to set numbers as their goals, and I tried to talk them out of it, saying numbers are great, but, you know, say you want to get to 5 million or 10 million. You know, what does that look like for you as a lifestyle and middle management, and are you going to be able to maintain your profit margins? And they’re like, Well, we’re on a 60% profit margin now. So getting to 5 million would be great. I’m like, you won’t be at 60% profit margin at 5 million, and you won’t have that at 10 million. It’s ridiculous. I’m not, not if they want the lifestyle that they also want. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s six, seven. It’s one of the other means, but that’s fine.

Seth Price  1:43  

I don’t know what it means. I just say it out there, just because the readings the range, maybe

Jay Ruane  1:50  

some algorithm will pick up six seven and

Seth Price  1:53  

girl demographic and below will love you for it.

Jay Ruane  1:56  

I am. I purposely am now, just like from this summer. If you remember, skibbity toilet, skibbity, like, I will just randomly throw that into conversations when I’m on carpool, just to get the, you know, the 15 year old girls that are all getting driven to high school, just they’re making fun of me as being the old man, right?

Seth Price  2:15  

And you also have to hit it right? Because, just like everything else after it’s crested, yes, like, if you were Simpson’s family, I didn’t do a kid, the 15 minutes is over,

Jay Ruane  2:25  

it is over, it is over. But speaking of things being over, I want to talk to you about something, and I think it’ll resonate with some of our members of our audience. May not, but it’s my time for some therapy, and I was thinking about this. And you know, we have worked very hard in our firm to to hire people with the personality that we like that fits in. We’re a little odd in our office. It’s kind of funny. It’s it’s, yeah, you know, one of one of my, one of my pod leaders said, you know, we’re all a little strange, but we all work well together, and I think that’s true. We don’t fit in elsewhere, but we fit in together. And so the you know, the culture that we’ve created is intentional, and I think it’s supportive and and this is a good place to work, but running into an issue with a popular employee across the board, so not just in their pod, but popular with multiple members of the firm, multiple people in the firm, who is underperforming. And I wonder how other people deal with terminating somebody who’s not performing up to standard, not living, the model, the mission, the statement that you have as a firm, but is otherwise very, very popular. And what you can say, we probably need to get a HR person or a lawyer in here to give us advice, because you know you want to, you don’t want to remove somebody from your firm who’s otherwise doing well, but if they’re not doing well, do you let them go and then explain to the people why you let them go? Because at that point, the shock of them being let go is already in them, and then it’s all an excuse. It’s all it’s Well, that’s why they did it. But, you know, they let go of our friend, you know, that type of thing. So it can really upset the apple cart. If you are getting rid of an otherwise high, you know, well regarded member of the firm, how have you dealt with that? Or if you’ve dealt with

Seth Price  4:33  

over the years, they’ve been many different iterations, and each one is unique and you know, but the issue is real, and if you haven’t dealt with it yet, you certainly will. If you’re building and growing a loft, building and growing a law firm, I think you know, the one thing I do know is that that person gets an extra Mulligan, that if there is that much positivity towards culture, that’s not to be overlooked. And so there’s a question, there’s a difference between lack. Of productivity, where you could buy yourself some time somebody’s 60 cents on the dollar, and you’re like, Look, I just I’m trying to be more efficient, which I know is not your general game. But if it’s an if it’s a lack of productivity, there are times when you sort of kick the can for a little bit because you don’t want to upset the apple cart, versus something that’s really toxic or problematic, where there times where it’s popular, yet there are problems underneath the surface. And I think that first, let’s unpack that. I mean, is there a substantive issue, or is it just not ideal?

Jay Ruane  5:35  

I think, you know, in the situation where I’m envisioning it could be anywhere, but it’s not a question of toxicity. It’s not a question of interpersonal conflict. It’s not giving us the productivity that we think that productivity

Seth Price  5:47  

should be. And how many cents $1 Are you getting? 6065 right? So, you know, look, we don’t like that, but I think that that is a, you know, when you when you look at it, let’s, I’m putting out, let’s look at it from a different perspective. Person’s a $60,000 over, under employee,

Jay Ruane  6:06  

yeah, under in this under in this

Seth Price  6:09  

situation, numbers, rounder, number. So what we’re dealing with is, if it’s a 6065, cents, what about a $17,000 a year productivity issue, right? And I’m not saying you like that, but I would say that there’s, if there is positive esprit de corps in a firm, and you can somehow get them up to 815, cents on the dollar, 20 cents on the dollar. There are times when you do that? Well, you’re not just like, hey, you talk about how you leave money on the table on a prior episode with a for in person, admin in every office. You could do that for less, but you like some of the benefit there. I think that you know, as a guy with a scaled firm that it’s rare that there is somebody who is that glue.

Jay Ruane  7:01  

And if I wouldn’t necessarily call them the glue, but just very popular.

Seth Price  7:08  

Again, you may say, hey, it’s it’s popular, but I don’t want to pay $1,500 a month for popular versus is there I’m just sort of counterbalancing. Is there a scenario where you’re like, hey, yeah, underperforming, but we can get them up. They’re different things. Very often we’re talking in euphemisms, and we’re also talking about this publicly, right? And there are things where there’s more of a negative you want to get into here, or it’s, you know, you don’t want other people who see that and want to emulate it. That’s the other issue.

Jay Ruane  7:40  

Well, yeah, I’m not worried about that, necessarily. What is has come back to me from leadership is, hey, if we excise this person, we can get two remote people, one to do the job and one to do another job. And it’s much more cost effective, and

Seth Price  7:56  

it’s more than it has been, more than cost that it can get if it’s holding back the mission, so to speak, meaning that otherwise it’s a is it a want, or is it a need? And I say that like just, you know, like we talk about these all the time, right, with a lot of different elements of life, and business life in particular. So when we go back to that, so we’re talking about this person, is there within their immediate team, is there an understanding this person is not performing it up to

Jay Ruane  8:23  

par? Well, the supervisor is the one who came to us, the

Seth Price  8:27  

rest of the team, that’s, you know, that they’re working with, they’re popular with, yes, right? And that’s where a channel, Andrew Finkelstein, who’s had conversations where there were people who are underperforming, who are family members of people within his firm, and those people understood that if that’s not, you know, if they are not doing it, that it doesn’t work. And that was working with people that was blood. So I think it also, to a certain extent, comes down to if the core team gets it. And it’s not a surprise, because they’re very often issues that you and your management see, but the team doesn’t right, pulling down the team, and they’re are they picking up slack? For her, for example, that stuff, despite the popularity, may doesn’t carry as much weight as where the person is siloed, and especially when other departments, that’s when you go to the jump that you’re jumping to which is okay? Do I call a team meeting the next morning to explain we’ve been there? I remember early blue shark when you didn’t have as much ability to hire. You know, at this point, you have a brand within the law firm you can hire and step above the when you started, I know when we started blue shark, we took who you get, and then we had some pretty rough people, and we had some people doing some pretty awful things behind the scenes that weren’t as a part of productivity, but with substance abuse or with other crazy things that are going on. We talked on the show, people holding two jobs, people, one guy passing out Adderall at the office. Now, all sorts of stuff over the years. That I’ve had to deal with. I think that if you’re, if the core team that they work with sees the underperforming, that goes a long way. We’re at some point, you’re like, we’re making the call, we’re paying the severance, we’re going to make this person as soft a landing as possible. Hopefully it’s not a walk them out the door type of thing. But, you know, that’s the ideal idea, is you cancel somebody out, right? That’s the ideal. But in today’s market, that’s a much harder thing to do.

Jay Ruane  10:27  

Your pay is severance in that situation. I mean, if they’re underperforming, well, absolutely, that’s

Seth Price  10:32  

what severance is for, right? I mean, think about it. We just, we just had somebody I, you know, who’s, I can’t say was super popular, but somebody who was intellectually, and I say that with a lower case, I did not have, you know, there’s a certain amount you put systems in place for it, but a certain number of in the job, they were a number of one off tasks, and the sort of common sense level was not there. And when that happens, no, I to me, that’s because, think about it, they’re not bad person. They’re really popular. They’re hitting your culture. This will you over, we went over the board where somebody might be entitled to a couple weeks, you know, through many more weeks of severance at them, because it’s frankly, not their fault. Meaning, if the answer is, well, the question is, if it’s correctable, have you taken that full step? Going back to you,

Jay Ruane  11:21  

we’re in the we’re in the process now of trying to get their numbers to where they should be

Seth Price  11:25  

right for a while. It’s just that, because there’s sometimes people just aren’t quick. It’s not their DNA, right? It’s not going to happen. That’s exactly what severance is for, in my opinion, where you’re like, hey, one would be, I’m just downsizing has nothing to do with you. It’s like,

Jay Ruane  11:42  

if you look, because we need somebody in this role.

Seth Price  11:44  

No, no, right? You’re saying it’s not, it’s not you, it’s me, but it really is them. But to me, that’s exactly where you pay the center. It’s because they do have a good relationship. You don’t want to, you know, you get a non disclosure and you look me personally, I got off book for much of my career in that I have often, my attitude is, I don’t want to burn a bridge any way I can. So there’s something like that where you like the person. My attitude is, I would, I would personally turn somebody into a contractor. Question, say this out loud with no pay that is allowed to keep a job, to get a job, what? I don’t want someone to explain why they lost their laptop. HR, hook doesn’t let you do that. As you get bigger, you can’t do that. But to me, that’s everything like, if you can let somebody is what states like a relationship, you break with somebody and they find a new relationship. You’re no longer the AntiChrist, but as long as you until that happens, and in this market, Christmas time, that’s another factor you have. You know, you’re almost past the point where you do it this year. Realistically, you’re gonna have to wait till next year. But to me, that’s that’s exactly just and it goes. We’ve talked about the other the pieces. If you are going to let somebody go. The whole point I want is I want somebody to know if it comes time for us not to work together, that they are going to be given as soft a landing as possible, so that if I if somebody decide when they’re going to give notice that they’re giving us as much notice as possible, we’ve both been I’ve had a streak of stuff recently with almost no notice

Jay Ruane  13:21  

well, and that, that brings me to the next so last week, I posted up on LinkedIn, how much time should an attorney give their firm if they are moving to a lateral position they’re not hanging a shingle? And it was really interesting. The poll results, I put up a couple different options, and we got, I got two weeks, four weeks or more that people can choose from. What was fascinating? What do you

Seth Price  13:45  

think my answer is going to be? But meaning I see three weeks as the over,

Jay Ruane  13:51  

under, okay, 5050, split, basically two weeks and four weeks. That’s why we go three weeks.

Seth Price  13:57  

Meaning what I say is two weeks is not enough, and four weeks is, if there’s extraordinary circumstance, long tenure, complicated cases, etc, but is, you know, to me that is, it’s a great question, and I think that your poll shows that there’s not a magic answer, yes, it depends. I love that. But to me, I have seen that three week, you go too long. It could be, you know, it’s not fair the new employer, I’ve seen that, and I’ve also turned people down. I had somebody wanted to give I forget what number of weeks, or some crazy number of weeks the new employer, two months, three months. I’m like that. I just like came out, no, right? Well, as opposed to, there’s a trial. We’ve had several trial as lawyers we have, then it’s whatever is needed, right? Like we did one that was like a 12 week wait, but it was legit. There was a trial. They committed to it. We didn’t work with it, but on anything outside of that. To me, if somebody goes both ways, somebody comes to you and wants to give five weeks notice to somebody, that’s pretty tough, even a prosecutor’s office. To me, four weeks is generally a good amount of time. At the far end, two weeks, you know, really is not, generally not enough. But it comes down to, we literally talked about this last time, I believe, which is, if you’re going to expect or wish that you damn well better offer it on the other side to make it fair, the moment you’re known for not doing that to me, that’s part of the reason I always want to make sure, because I’ve held my nose a number of times, or I’m like, this person’s an SOB or whatever, but here, here, here’s, here’s your here’s your severance. Because I want people to know that if they’re holding the nose about us for whatever reason that they’re going to, you know, try to reciprocate that back, at least the author.

Jay Ruane  15:40  

So one of my friends was recently let go from a big, big, big, big, big bank, and they get six weeks for every year that they’ve been with the so these get with a max of a year. So he’s getting a year of his salary because he’s been with them for 15 years, and they’re downsizing. They’re, you know, combining departments, and he was on the short side of the people who was in the leadership, so he doesn’t have a leadership position, so he’s off on his own. So what do you think in a small firm, in a, you know, small solo type firm, what do you think a reasonable severance is? I mean, you know, I mean, that’s what unemployment is for. Is my opinion,

Seth Price  16:22  

one step better than that. I think that, you know, I think it mirrors the terminate. I think I think it should mirror what you expect back with more for longer service. You know, you get somebody with you for longer periods of time. You know, like two to four is the delta that we deal with most of the time. Again, there are exceptions for everything in the first week, type of stuff that that nonsense, right? That same two to two to four weeks, ideal. But look, we’ve done six, 812, weeks as needed in the right situation, based around what do you how do you do? Right? By somebody easier advice to give them to take, because often you’re in the midst of turmoil. Well, turmoil or angst or somebody could have cost you a lot of money, like you’re doing under productivity. But they’re times when people you know continuously screw stuff up, despite coaching, despite processes. In those cases, you’re like, you know, goodbye, but I I listen to my HR people that I can’t believe I have HR people, but we do, and try to follow their lead as far as what’s there. And at this point, as the team is gelled together, it generally comports within reason. But you know, again, if you’re not paying this is to the audience, to yourself, but if you’re not paying severance, and people know that, why should they give notice?

Jay Ruane  17:44  

Right? Right? I mean, I think, you know, last year we had somebody leave, we were moving the position into the office. They needed a remote job, and we said, look, this needs to now. It needs to be in an office job. And I think we gave six weeks, you know,

Seth Price  17:58  

wrong with the person. It was just changing your needs. It was the right thing to do. And, you know, it’s I said they’ve talked about selling a prior show, a lot of sort of flashbacks, because these things tie together. But we’re talking these law students. It’s like what I’ve had this talk with a number of people. I had to let somebody go from a position, and they were upset, and I picked up the phone. This was a guy been with us for a period. For a period of time and had just started to do things inappropriate towards female staffers that like majorly, just creepy. You know, we’re on phone, nothing in person, or anything like that. And, you know, I after warnings and this and that, and he was upset, and I was like, Look, when I when I said to him, like, we need, like, if we’re your work’s amazing. We love your work, and I need your work done. I have to replace you with somebody else, right? Which means I have to take a time hiring and maybe a recruiter, train them up, staff them. If you’re being let go, I beg of you to look internally, because the reason you’re being let go, I’m losing money by letting you go, and I have to do it anyway. Hopefully you can gain from that. And just like I was talking to the law students, like we need people to stay with us, to work, to build the businesses we have to serve our clients, to be able to create the firm and the brand and the ethos that you have. So if somebody is being let go, it is against our economic best interest to do that. It’s not for shits and giggles. And so I very often, and some people take it decently. Some people think about it. Many people just yell at you and then want to, you know, destroy you. But the point is that if you know, if somebody is in a position where you are a rational player, and look, I’ve worked for people that are not rational player to just like be, get some sort of something off by letting people get fired. For me, every time somebody is fired, that is a major economic loss for the firm with the start scratch, etc, and that, I would hope that in the limited times that that’s happened, that. That somebody can find the positive in it, which is, if these guys are taking an economic loss to Is there something I can juice that doesn’t happen again? Yeah.

Jay Ruane  20:11  

I mean, it’s, it’s, you know, the hardest part of what we do, really, is managing the different people involved and getting getting everything, getting everything to a place where our businesses can function, because there are so many moving parts, you know, at least in a factory setting, you can, you know, you could take out this spring and this turntable and put them back in, and then it starts up again. But with us, you know, you invest two or three years into getting a person trained up in a role, and then they still underperform, and you’re thinking, wow, how much is the opportunity cost that I’ve lost and all of those things, and how much will it take to get a new person in, to get them trained up? Is it worth functioning at 60% capacity because of the other intangible

Seth Price  20:57  

you know, an eight figure firm, you know, is an extra $1,500 a month to be the esprit de corps and the glue worth it. I mean, that’s again, it can’t spend your money for you. But like, know that there are times where, you know, and I’ve certainly given one to three mulligans to try to get that popular person reincorporated, which? Look, I was that guy. I was a terrible associate.

Jay Ruane  21:24  

Did they work out? Did they work out? I think

Seth Price  21:27  

eventually it probably found their way out, but on peaceful terms, rather than non peaceful terms, like again. Look, we get, we do a whole show on moving person from one seat to another when they’re not working in one physically. What percentage is that? Very, very low? Do we still do it? Yeah, we still do it. You just talked about it the other day, yep. So you know it’s there are things that we are going to do that don’t get seen, that when somebody even watches this podcast, oh, how can you look at it? It’s not personal, whatever. It’s like the stuff that you’ve done behind the scenes to try to make things work against your economic best interest is significant. I just know that when there’s that there, they’ve also bought some goodwill, like, if they’re if they’re the ones who get everybody excited and rah, rah, those people are 3% more productive because they love coming to work because of this person. The harder question is, when there’s an when they’re popular, but there’s an underlying toxicity or negativity or something harmful, the gossip piece, the drama piece, that’s the more complicated situation that you know to me, I good and bad of some remote work is that we lost a lot of that when I look back to the day before covid At blue shark healthy business being grown. But when I look back at many of the things that were people not being included on the other after our after work, drinks, sort of snide comments, this and that water cooler nonsense, all of that stuff disappeared with covid. Now, is there less productivity issues? Sure, but I’m just saying, one of the positives is we lost a lot of that here. When you have somebody that’s that popular, to me, it’s as many you get extra chances in that. There are huge benefits. Because Jay sitting up here in the visionary seat, if there are people out there who are culture warriors, even though they’re less productive, you really don’t want to let those people go. If there’s any way to get them 85 cents on the dollar, you probably make peace with it.

Jay Ruane  23:25  

Yeah. So listen, it’s now one week to go until Christmas. We’re in the middle of Hanukkah, and everyone’s celebrating. A week after that, it’s it’s the new year. So we’re running to the end of this season of the law firm, and I want to ask you, what does Seth have in mind for his you know, rock for 2026 what’s the big theme? What’s something that you want to do better with in 2026 maybe it’s your resolution, but something that I think, that you think is going to help move the needle for your firm next year that really didn’t get the attention as much as it should have in years past. That you can say, You know what? We can now focus on this. I have where I’m going with it, but I’m curious where you’re what you’re thinking.

Seth Price  24:14  

I mean, my personal situation, I think, in my own head, is, you know, on the Eos org chart, I set the visionary seat both organizations. But look at the law firm, and I joined a networking group that I like very much. I love people going out of talking to them exactly. Gotta get some cases, some cases come in. There’s no doubt. And the question is, is that the best use of my time should I be looked should I be bringing in my wish is I could bring in a high level consiglieri at a sea level that could take on certain responsibilities that allowed me sort of think and move at a higher level, you know, truly a mythic. Am I still, I’m no longer a tactician, but I’m still in the manager role, more than in an ideal world. So for me, personally, I know a lot of our audience is not thinking the same way. I mean, everybody should try to elevate themselves. I think for me, it’s what is my normal, day to day, week to week, month to month, and try to push myself into, hey, maybe I’m that evangelist that’s going out there and figuring out what the AI integrations are at a macro level of bringing those in, how can, what can I do, short of being on the phone with our recruiter, saying, Hey, we should, we need to do things this way rather than other way. Can drive you crazy. If things aren’t you know, if a department isn’t moving as fast as you want, you want to be there to help them, but there’s a point where I, for myself, would love to see myself move up to a strict, more strategic, less managerial.

Jay Ruane  25:53  

And what about the firm is there, is there something that you think your firm can really sort of focus on and do better?

Seth Price  26:01  

I think the family law division is ripe for expansion. We have the marketing down. We have some core rock stars, and that if we can find the right talent, not which is not nothing as we both know that we have real potential to go from a five person practice to a 15 lawyer practice. Wow, next 18 months, meaning we know it’s a huge,

Jay Ruane  26:24  

huge scale. I

Seth Price  26:25  

understand it’s possible. Let’s say we’re not going to do that. If I the talent want that thing. But there is a path just add talent, as opposed to, I could have all the talent I want. Pi, I need to get the cases in there. So there, I want to squeeze as much juice out of the orange as I can here, I’m out marketing my ability to find talent somewhat the criminal side, as well, as we talked about those, those things. And so my answer is, if mission critical is labor, making sure that I figure out and sometimes going outside the box, what am I going to do that makes that desire is to get that talent in inbound. And again, you go with this. But the piece that we have now struggled with at the other end, as we want to fill seats, is, again, if my avatar, we’ve talked about many times, 33 eight years, and I know Jay has been trying to get people right out of school, and we’re actually following the Jay theorem. There am I? Am I hitting my head against a brick wall? Or do I just have to realize that the jurymen 25 years out, whether it be solo government, pivoting in, am I by, am I buying a program, or every two years, people, if I’m lucky, 18 months to two years, people will circle and am I putting myself on a if I want to scale and grow over time and take a step out. Do you need to create the training ground with young attorneys? Because are the journeyman. Is the journeyman model, one that gets tired quickly. Yeah.

Jay Ruane  27:55  

I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really sort of interesting as as we go to scale and grow our firms, I know, for me, you know, we have spent a lot of time and attention in digital marketing. Obviously, you know it’s near and dear to your heart, but I, I think there’s an opportunity, really, to focus on analog marketing, just making connections with people. And so I’ve taken,

Seth Price  28:18  

I’m literally saying the opposite, which is, I’m done with people, which is right, and just say, Look, I get it. It works. And look, this not advice. If I was a solo, I might be doubling down on Jay’s piece. But to me, if a new office can bring you 12 new cases a month, all the running around the courthouse is likely not to get you that right? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And so the question is, what is the better to answer the original question, what is the best use of your time? And I’ve had a few moments recently where I feel that the old school, the networking with purpose. What room are you in? Who can do you some good in a place that you can share back? This shouldn’t be a one way street, but you know, if you’re surrounding yourself with real estate agents and investment advisors, while they may be connected people,

Jay Ruane  29:18  

they ain’t helping me with people I mean drug dealers,

Seth Price  29:21  

well, right? Or DUI people, or what have you. And so, you know, it is a, I think it’s being more purposeful about how you’re doing it. It’s not just Jay’s advice, which is, get out there. Great. You want to get out there more you like it gets you some energy.

Jay Ruane  29:38  

Oh, no. I think, I think you need to be intentional about it, and

Seth Price  29:42  

really determine the honor. And like, if you reflect who has anybody in your greater circle referred more than one case to you in the last two years, and then focusing on who those people are, and doubling down and saying, what’s that avatar? And that’s

Jay Ruane  29:58  

and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re, you know. We’re we, over the years, I’ve done a lot of me paying attention to where the referrals are coming from, and and sending referral gifts. You know, I tend to be on the generous side, and sending note cards and that type of thing. And what we’re doing is we’re actually going to play somebody in that role to pay attention to it, make sure that stuff gets out the door, make sure we’re paying attention to those human interactions, setting up the lunches, the calls, even, you know, that type of thing, because it’s I’m getting distracted by things like AI and other stuff that I want to do. So I need somebody to basically hold me on a leash and make sure that things get done, and my lawyers on a leash to make sure that they’re ready. Because I liked, I was big on every time we saw somebody have a good win at the courthouse, we would send them a bottle of wine or a bottle of olive oil, that type of thing. And boy, you know, I still get people mentioning that you’re the only person who remembered I won that case, and I love that bottle of wine. So I’m trying to get back to those things. I want to, I want to, I want to reinvest in the things that I know have worked for me in the past, but because it’s not the new shiny thing, I tend to forget about it. Because I like a meth addicted squirrel, I jump around all over the place. I need to, if it works, I should be, I should be hitting it. That’s at least, that’s my philosophy. So what do you got lined up for the new year?

Seth Price  31:16  

Anything we got to head to Costa Rica with the family?

Jay Ruane  31:19  

Oh, fantastic. I’m back. And one thing

Seth Price  31:21  

that we did, it might be of interest to the audience, we we try something new, rather than the end of your holiday party, departments are doing their own whatever’s and we’re doing as a firm a January summit with a dinner that night,

Jay Ruane  31:36  

just mixing it up. Are you gonna bring in, like a speaker for that summit, or a

Seth Price  31:40  

couple sentence, couple speakers, some breakout sessions, some, you know, top level culture slash customer service, and some granular sales and substance for the different departments.

Jay Ruane  31:55  

I love that. That sounds fantastic. Yeah, we we were supposed to do a lunch this week, and all of my lawyers wound up scheduling themselves in court so, so that got pushed, and we’ll do something in January. But you know, it is what it is. Sometimes, you know, people get arrested at the last minute. You really can’t, you can’t predict when people are going to get arrested. That’s the nature of a criminal defense lawyer and our firm, but it’s good, but folks, that’s going to do it for us this week on the law firm blueprint. Thank you for joining us. Of course, you can take us on the go anywhere you want to go by subscribing to our podcast, which you can find on Spotify, on Apple, podcasts on Google, podcasts on YouTube. Basically anywhere you get your podcast, you will find us and you can catch us live, everyone every Thursday, 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific, live on LinkedIn, and, most importantly, live in our Facebook group, the law firm blueprint. Please be sure to join our group and follow us and give us a five star review everywhere you see us online, but that’s gonna do it for me. Doing it for you. Do it

Seth Price  32:58  

for me. I throw something out even though you’ve concluded we got to get out. Just made me think. You know, if you see some tickets to a team I have, like the caps, they do a year a day, once a year, usually on a weekday night. Could be a weekend, whatever it is where you go meet the players. And presumably, this is in their contracts, right? This is they don’t do this out of goodness at heart. Every contract has this. In hindsight, kick this to the next show. Would we have been better off if we had planned for not just your management team, but for the entire team to have a one day planning on a Saturday, let’s say in January, where we take everybody, and it’s no when you’re hired, you sign on for this, that you put something like that is completely outside of the office, because criminals very hard to do it during the week. Would that have been a smart move when we started the firm?

Jay Ruane  33:49  

So as people join the firm, they know that this is a commitment that they’re making.

Seth Price  33:54  

We talk about this. We do a day. We have a great meal. We sit there outside the office. It’s going to be one Saturday, you know, one Saturday morning, one Saturday afternoon per year that we’re going to ask you pay. Can be paid. It’s not like it should be paid, but where you’re outside of the confines of it. I feel like, anyway, just kick the can on this till next week.

Jay Ruane  34:17  

But I’m loving the idea of it. Could you do it now, if you haven’t give people and say, hey, look, you’re going to get comp time for it. So you work on a Saturday, we’re going to give you two. Two.

Seth Price  34:29  

Everything with scale becomes more complicated and resented. It’s not the way it used to this and that, but the idea, look, and we’re doing this one day Summit. We had to wait for the PI Department not to do it December, when they’re closing out their year. Do it, we’re basically doing it on a Friday. So maybe that’s the answer. But you know, the idea is, I think there’s something powerful when it’s outside of the week at the same time it’s against family time. But if it was your thing, how cool would that be? Yeah, I mean,

Jay Ruane  34:56  

you know, for us, we’re already planning my 25th anniversary of my firm. Is this year, on September 1, 2026 I’ll be 25 years.

Seth Price  35:04  

Pick a 20th date. So if anybody’s an idea, meaning we started with a slow roll. And so we can do 20th at any point. We so choose. We haven’t.

Jay Ruane  35:14  

I’m just going with my LLC date. That’s, and the date my least start when I moved in to my space, that’s that’s how I did it.

Seth Price  35:22  

We started without an LLC, then we’ve got an LLC. That was the loss. David Benowitz, then we eventually got Price Benowitz, so it was a slow roll, depending on where we actually decided to put the…

Jay Ruane  35:32  

Well, September 1 is a good day if you want to join a very good day.

So we’re gonna do something on July 24 which is my birthday, we’re going to bring in a bunch of our pod leaders that work remotely from Argentina and from Mexico, etc. They’re going to fly

Seth Price  35:49  

them all. We save that. Let’s do that next time, because a lot of us have international labor How do you do it? When do you do it? Who do you bring? Who do you not bring? Can’t do it every year. Presumably, can’t

Jay Ruane  35:59  

do it every year. You can’t do everybody. So that’s why we’re doing it in a particular fashion. So I’ll talk about that on the next show some

Seth Price  36:05  

last year we get, we get a maybe 30 cents the dollar because of immigration issues. Cool.

Jay Ruane  36:11  

All right, folks, that’s gonna do it for us. Happy New Year. We’ll see you next time on the law firm blueprint bye for now you