The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Finding Your Legal Niche and Avoiding Law Firm Disputes with Jonathan Hawkins
Dive into a game-changing conversation on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast with host Ben Glass. Episode 35 features a standout chat with Jonathan Hawkins, the go-to attorney for legal professionals. With his unique engineer's perspective and legal prowess, Jonathan tackles the challenging world of regulatory structures, contracts, and the essence of entrepreneurial law.
Offering insights that could redefine how lawyers scale and manage their practices, this episode is a must-listen for those eager to navigate the complexities of law and business. Join us for a talk that demystifies the legal hurdles every ambitious lawyer must overcome.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
So I still do the business divorce or the law firm divorce litigation. You know, most of the time we get that resolved short of actual filing lawsuits although I did file one yesterday and so I still do that and it's seasonal. So you know, as you know, a lot of lawyers wait till they get their year-end bonus or whatever, and then they decide to leave or they announce in January. So this is the time, and in first quarters, when these sorts of disputes sort of really start bubbling up and they can last all year. But so I still do that and that's where I started. But I started to see all the issues we were litigating, so I had to become an ethics expert and if they had written agreements they usually weren't really built for the issues we were litigating.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation. Ben Glass.
Speaker 3:Hey everyone. This is Ben. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer podcast where each episode I get to interview people inside and outside of legal who are making a ding in the world. They've got a very, very important interview with my friend, jonathan Hawkins.
Speaker 3:Jonathan is a member of our Hero Mastermind Group here at Great Legal Marketing. That group largely consists, if I could generalize, of lawyers who are making that move from the lawyer who is a lawyer and does everything and now has a business, has a practice, to something bigger than that. Many of them want to scale. They have lots of questions about bringing on help and partners and of council relationships and things like that succession. What happens if I, you know, something happens to me and I can't practice?
Speaker 3:And Jonathan is always raising his hand and piping in it because Jonathan's business is really being the lawyer's lawyer. His law firm is Law Firm GC. He's out of Atlanta, georgia, and today we're going to talk about like it's almost the, it's the necessary part of entrepreneurism that most of us don't like to deal with, which is regulatory structure, I think, and contracts and things like that. Jonathan's got an interesting background, because it wasn't what you would call a typical pre-law background and undergrad. He's an engineer by birth and education. However, after going to law school, he's worked in the legislature as legal counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the Georgia House of Representatives. He's been a clerk to a federal judge in Georgia, I suspect, and we're glad to have you as part of the group, jonathan. We're glad to have you as part of this podcast today.
Speaker 1:Happy to be here and glad to be part of the group. I've gotten a lot out of it so far.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you also have your own podcast, the Founding Partners podcast. So I'd recommend everybody like go and listen to a couple of episodes and add that to your list, because most of whom we talk to on this podcast are the solo and small firm and lawyer owners across America and into Canada, so good. So, jonathan, let's just talk a little bit about that, about that background, and why aren't you an engineer someplace?
Speaker 1:You know I'm a third generation engineer. I'm a third generation Georgia Tech engineer. So I guess you know I was always good at math and science. I didn't really give much thought about it. Went to engineering school but before I graduated I knew I did not want to be an engineer. But I was far enough along. I just said, all right, I'll just finish it. I did not know what I wanted to be, so I just knew I did not want to be an engineer.
Speaker 3:So after that I took some time off and just sort of I'll call it goofed around, moved around a little bit, did a lot of different types of jobs and, as you know, I talked to a lot of young people in my life, and many of whom were in high school, thinking about going to college and things like that, right and so, and you have this heritage of engineers in your family. I'm curious now at what point in the engineering schooling journey did you say, nah, I don't think this is for me.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I'd say probably halfway through when I went, I thought I was going to go into like finance or commercial real estate, that's development. That's really sort of what I wanted to do. The engineering degree I had is, I call it, sort of a business engineering degree. At some point I decided I didn't want to do any of that. I just knew that I did not want to go be an engineer. That's just not what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:It's interesting my dad is also. He's largely retired, but he's he became. He was an engineer that became a lawyer and at the time I knew I didn't want to be a lawyer either, for sure. I was like I'm not going to be a lawyer. How did that change? You know it's funny. So you asked the question.
Speaker 1:So I was at undergrad and I did not know what I wanted to do. I went to career services and I took all these assessments and all these tests and they came back with the top 10 careers that I should pursue and I think five of them were different types of lawyers. And at the time I just did not want to do it. I wanted to do my own thing. But you know, so after school I lived in Costa Rica for a while, ran out of money, came back, did some odd jobs here and there, then went to Colorado and worked for a ski season. And when I was out there, that's when I decided I need to get serious. I was meeting, you know, it was fun but I was meeting, you know, 40 year old ski bums that had moved out there in their 18. And that's when I said all right, I can't be that. I got to get serious and so I said all right, I'll just get, I'll go practice law. How old?
Speaker 3:were you then when you entered law school?
Speaker 1:I was probably about 23, maybe.
Speaker 3:Okay, so this is pre-marriage, yes, yeah, okay. And then the journey from there. I know you and I said you know you've clerked for a federal judge, you've done some other things in the legal profession, and then we have landed on your own law practice and then a real subnich, a highly valued subnich, but a real subnich of legal. So walk us through the journey of finding your space in the legal marketplace.
Speaker 1:You know that's an interesting question and I talked to folks about this a lot too. I'm a big believer in the niche practice and it's not something that just hit me one day. It was a step by step, slow process over many years. You know I started out after the clerkship. I did MedMAL insurance defense work. I loved it in the sense that I got a lot of experience very quickly. You know depositions, trials.
Speaker 1:I was traveling all over the place but I did not like the medicine and I just did not like it. And then from there I went and started doing business litigation and got exposed to all sorts of type you know litigation there. And then I started gravitating towards business divorce litigation and that's really where I was. And then my dad, the practice I have now, which you know is largely representing lawyers, law firms and business related stuff. My dad had done some law firm breakups where I grew up down on the Gulf Coast, and he had done a good number of those in the span of a short span of years. And he said I'm doing this many down here, there's going to be tons of them in Atlanta, you should check it out. And so, because he sort of suggested it, I just started looking at it and that started the path to where I am now.
Speaker 3:I think there's a huge need for this. You know when. So I'm in law practice with my son, brian, and you know we, as we joined forces and he bought into the firm, we did sort of a back of the napkin deal and then we each went out and got around lawyers just to, and the value there, the high value there was in each of them, showing us things that we hadn't even thought about. Not that there was any, you know, antagonism or anything like that, but it's like, all right, what if this happens? What if this happens?
Speaker 3:You know, one of you is incapacitated or passes away, like how are we going to fund the buyout of the shares and all that stuff? And we're like, oh, we didn't even know to ask those questions. And then the whole deal was blessed by my wife and his mom and so that was the ultimate, the ultimate arbiter. What's it like to have lawyers as clients? Because you know you want to upset any of your current clients. But in the personal injury field, like we find that challenging to have lawyers as clients, even when they're especially when they're not personal injured lawyers.
Speaker 1:So I have had a few challenging client lawyer clients over the years, but largely they've been great and I've enjoyed representing the lawyers. And part of it is every firm is a little bit different. The personalities, surely, are different, but the business models are different, the types of law they practice, the way they charge their clients, whether it's high volume, low volume, all these different types of practices and I just really I'm really interested in it. So it's fun for me to get to know the person, the lawyer, the partners, but also just the way they do their business. And every new firm I represent I get a new little piece of information that just adds to the repertoire.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you're sitting in the middle of a lot of guys and gals with a lot of ideas most of them probably good, some of them horrible and learning, all of which, I'm sure, blends over into some decisions that you're making in your own life, in your own practice. So let's talk about that. Next, talk to us a little bit about the practice. I'm not even sure if you're doing any business, any law firm divorce litigation, or if your whole work is in preventing spending of time, energy and money on law firm divorce litigation, but how is your own work today? This is the first quarter of 2024, we're recording this. How's your own work split up?
Speaker 1:So I still do the business divorce or the law firm divorce litigation. Most of the time we get that resolve short of actual filing lawsuits although I did file one yesterday and so I still do that and it's seasonal. So, as you know, a lot of lawyers wait till they get their year-end bonus or whatever, and then they decide to leave or they announce in January. So this is the time and then the first quarter is when these sorts of disputes are really start bubbling up and they can last all year. But so I still do that and that's where I started.
Speaker 1:But I started to see all the issues we were litigating. So I had to become an ethics expert and if they had written agreements they usually weren't really built for the issues we were litigating. So then I started drafting the agreements based on all the stuff we were fighting about. So I find that continuing to litigate and do the dispute part of it really helps improve the quality of the written product of the agreements that the lawyers really need and it helps me see what's going on. So they sort of symbiotic, and the way I describe it now it's from formation to disillusion and everything in between, although there are a couple of things I don't do.
Speaker 3:But Can you walk us through, like what are the sort of the main things that lawyers dispute about or fight about when they're going through any sort of a disillusion, and then we can talk about solving or preventing issues? I always think it's money, but it might not be money at the top of the list. What is it lawyers fight about?
Speaker 1:Certainly money in a contingency practice. It's about the good cases. Sometimes it's about staff or other attorneys I want them, or whatever. And then there's some other things too. It's just the visions have changed. You want a big firm, I want a small firm. You want to work all the time, I want to be at the beach all the time. And if you don't have a mechanism to separate in that situation there's going to be resentments that build and some people feel like I'm doing all the work and you're just coasting those sorts of disagreements. And so you know, bigger picture in law, in the law practice that's different than maybe other businesses. You can't have restrictive covenants with lawyers so they can leave at any time. You can't lock down clients so they can leave at any time, and so if a lawyer wants to leave, they basically, if they have a relationship with a client, they can tell them hey, I'm leaving, you get to choose. Do you want to come with me? And that's really where the big fights are.
Speaker 3:Let's say that a couple of guys and gals come to you and they say Jonathan, we like each other, we've got sort of similar practice area ideas. We think that it would be fun to work together in a partnership or some sort of business arrangement. We've heard your horror stories, we've listened to your podcast and we want to make sure that, if this doesn't work out philosophically for us, that we are able to efficiently terminate and dissolve. Let's go down, if we can, sort of the checklist of things you would be talking to them and about and recommending that we create or do as we're forming this new law firm.
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing I always recommend I have a list of questions that really have nothing to do with the legal aspects of a firm. It's really more about vision, values, those sorts of things, workloads, responsibilities. And I say you people, you two, three, however many you need to go and have some serious discussions about these questions and you really make sure at this point you're on the same page. You want to go to the same places. If you're not on the same page now and I say, be honest with yourselves, and if you're not on the same page now, you shouldn't do it that's sort of the first thing. If they come back and say, all right, we really want to do it, then the big. There's really big things.
Speaker 1:I call them exit ramps. You know, we want to account for retirement, death, disability withdrawal, voluntary withdrawal, expulsion for cause, a bad boy type provision, and if you're big enough, maybe expulsion for not for cause. And then the other scenario would be sort of a full-on disillusion. So you can get rid of somebody and maybe continue the organization or you can officially dissolve it. So those are the big things we talked about. You know, some of the other things are long-term obligations, leases, those sorts of things personal guarantees, lines of credit. You know that could become an issue too If everybody's signed onto that as personal guarantors or just personally on those agreements. You're gonna have to deal with that if and when you go your separate ways.
Speaker 3:Do you find lawyers who come to you are relatively sophisticated and knowledgeable about things like leases and guarantees and personal guarantees, or is it more like they think they know but they don't really?
Speaker 1:That's a loaded question. You know there's some that you know there are lawyers out there that are way smarter than I am. You know they deal lawyers, that sort of thing. They come to me and they sort of know all these things that mean they really apply it to themselves, but they know some of these things. And then there's others that don't know anything about it. They are completely unsophisticated. You know, I've dealt with business people that have more knowledge about these things than the lawyers do, and just because they're lawyers doesn't mean they know about this.
Speaker 3:So so it you get a bunch of visionaries in the room and none of us might know about any of the details of things like personal guarantees. I can absolutely see that happening.
Speaker 1:And you and the visionaries. They see nothing but all the good stuff. At the end, you know, they don't see all the potential hiccups along the way. And that's sort of what I'm there for. And I'm not a dream killer, I'm a you know. Go for your dream, but let's just plan on, just in case.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so when you have this sort of conversations with the organizing group, do you have you you had instances where they come back and go yeah, hey, that was those are really great questions and we're not gonna go do this. We're just we just don't think we're actually matched philosophically. And thanks for prompting us with the right questions to ask. I have had that, yes, I have had that. What do you think that what do you think it is? It drives out. They just thought this would be kind of fun to work together and-.
Speaker 1:I think so You've probably seen this too, ben Lawyers. They say, hey, we're friends, and they have in their mind they think, our two practice areas, even though they really don't mesh, they have in their mind that, oh, we're gonna refer each other work and it's just gonna be this big thing where really it just doesn't work. I'm sure you've seen this a lot Two different practice areas that just maybe in theory might work together and refer, but when you actually get together they're just not going to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it would be important and this is likely. What you do is you're helping them model out the future. So so, hey, guys and gals, let's say this really works and you're all able to go and they get clients and to generate money. And five years down the road, you're all doing. You know 4x what you're doing right now, today. What does that look like and how is that gonna make us feel? Because we might have decisions like, oh, now we need another, more office space and need more people, and that is not dream killer. I mean, that's really what you're supposed to be doing here. It's, you know, when we do a long-term disability pre-claim consult with a doctor, like my job is to hopefully make it so you don't need me for all the messy stuff later down the road, like we're gonna get this thing right, right the first time. Do these lawyers, jonathan, then go, as Brian and I did, and get separate lawyers in the individual counsel to review things or generally not?
Speaker 1:It happens occasionally, but not as often as you think, and it's you know, and I can be engaged in different ways. Sometimes I represent one party, sometimes I represent the firm who may be owned by one party and they're bringing a new partner, for example. So after the new partners there there'll be two of them, but at the time there's only one. You know, in the non-dispute area usually they don't go get other attorneys, although you know it happens every now and then, but usually not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think in our case, like the lawyer I hired, he just recommended one of his buddies and I think it was, the end of the day, smart. It was a little frustrating for Brian and I because the list of things that they were coming back with that we hadn't thought about was maybe caused embarrassment because like, oh no, we should have thought about that stuff. Talk to me a little bit about all right. So you have a conversation or conversations, it's really good. You have them vision four and five years or more down the future, it's really good. And yet then, four and five years, it doesn't work out, even though they have had good counsel at the beginning. Theoretically, they have thought about these issues, you've papered the issues and maybe you haven't seen these. Maybe it is Like, if you talk to me early and talk to me, right, we don't have these issues, but have you seen cases where issues do develop? And then, if so, what is that all about?
Speaker 1:I mean I will say there have been firms that I've helped, partnerships that I've formed that didn't work out and then they've gone their separate ways. When they come back to me, at that point I can't really take sides and if it's going to go into litigation I'll refer them out to people. Even with the best argument I mean agreement in the world people can still breach it. They can still lie, cheat and steal. So even though you have the agreement, people may not abide by it, but hopefully they do. Another big thing I put in these agreements are mandatory sort of negotiation, mediation, arbitration provisions. I don't want people going to court and it's funny you've got all these trial lawyers out there that we got to have jury trial. I recommend this. And they're all like yeah, we want this, we don't want a jury trial for it, and I like that's a great idea. You don't want this out there. It is a mess. You just get it in a private dispute place and just be done with it.
Speaker 3:You know there are some. I have a friend in Pennsylvania and he sends me the headlines of the Pennsylvania, whatever the daily legal press is, because there is almost always some usually plaintiff contingent fee law firm that's breaking up and the pleadings are just fascinating to read. And now your stuff is spread out all over the place because they didn't have the let's mediate and negotiate in private, behind a black door, terms in their partnership agreements and a lot of those fights are about the big one that came in. It's hardly ever about the lack of money, it's always about when there is a lot of money coming in. Now, how are we going to split that up? That's awful, what do you excuse me?
Speaker 3:So again, someone who's thinking about forming a business relationship with another friend or cohort who's a lawyer. We see, Jonathan, these firms that are built and they are not really partnerships If you look at it from the inside at all. They're generally expense sharing agreements and then you have sort of true partnerships where profits are being divvied up. Could you talk for a moment to particularly maybe younger lawyers who are younger in the profession, who may be thinking it would be fun to go practice with so and so? And there's at least these two models, and there's probably more. But what are the sort of choices that lawyers have? You know, let's talk young lawyers in the profession in terms of getting together and combining with another lawyer to start a quote, unquote business or law firm.
Speaker 1:That's a great point. There are different ways to go at it. A full-on partnership is a little bit harder to break away from, and so there are alternatives, so the sort of the expense share model or office share model you sort of mentioned there. Another might be an of council type relationship, so you're sort of in the same firm but you're not.
Speaker 3:That's the other, the of council. Nobody. Everybody uses that phrase and nobody knows what it means. And Virginia is like it's even it's really hard to go find out what that actually means.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it means a couple of things. The traditional meaning was you know a retired partner. But there are a number of ethics opinions around the country. I know there's one in Georgia. There's an ABA one that basically defines what it is and under the definition you're basically in the same firm. It's you're a close, continuous relationship. You got to run conflicts by everybody. You're deemed to be in the same firm, but it's a little bit looser than a partnership or a full-blown employment, an employer employee type relationship. So it's a little bit easier to break apart, in my opinion. So that'd be something to look at.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen some lawyers here in Northern Virginia so you may have a lawyer who's a personal injury lawyer and they're in a firm and yet then they show up. I go on somebody else's website so let's just say a family lawyer website and there's my buddy, the personal injury lawyer, who I know has got an established firm over here on the right hand, showing my right hand and now he is listed as of counsel on the family law firm. That lawyer has to you brought this up several times in our meetings here is has to do conflicts checks throughout both firms.
Speaker 1:Yes, so every new potential client for both firms have to be run through the other firms, so it can become unwieldy pretty quickly.
Speaker 3:You'd have to get that right and you'd have to have a system. And if you don't think about that when you're forming this, how hard can it be to be of counsel is what I would call that relationship. Yeah, that's a real problem. I think we're talking about these different models for young lawyers who are thinking about getting together. So you've got of counsel relationship, you have true partnership. You've got sort of office sharing. Is one better than the other, or is this something that's now? Hey, talk to me, jonathan. Let me figure out what your goals are together and what your strengths and weaknesses are, and let me at least give you some advice or a prescription for how to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would not say one's better than the other. It really depends on what the individuals want and what their vision is long term. I will say sometimes we might I might suggest one of the not full partnership structures as an intermediate step. It's a way to date for a little while before you get married, and so oftentimes we will structure a sort of in between. They come to me and they say we want to be partners, say hold on, wait a second, answer these questions, are you sure? And then maybe they say well, maybe not, but we want to test it out and see if we can work well together. And then there are ways, intermediate steps you can do to sort of see do we work well together? And if you do, then we can go to the next step.
Speaker 3:Another topic that gets discussed a lot in the hero mastermind group is hey, I think it's. I own a firm. Maybe there's several lawyers here. I think it is time to bring on another lawyer and a lot of discussion about do I bring on somebody quote of counsel, do I bring on somebody part time and, if so, how do I compensate them. Do you have any strategies about the thinking about Jonathan, the thinking about bringing growth and bringing on like your first new lawyer to the firm?
Speaker 1:I do from doing it a lot and from personal experience. You know a lot of lawyers let's call it solos. Their first foray and two hiring attorney. They say I don't need somebody full time, so I'll try a contract attorney that can work. I've got a contract attorney and she's great, but she only works for me. A lot of times these contract attorneys have their own firm and they need to supplement their income, so they'll do contract gigs around, and so it might work for a little while, but as soon as that attorney gets busy with their own firm they're gone, and so it oftentimes a contract approach doesn't work. Of counsel could be a similar approach, and so the question is should you just hire a full time attorney, and what would that look like? So I can help? And then, of course, the compensation we can talk about that too, but definitely I think how they approach it depends on what they're looking for.
Speaker 3:In the contract attorney model. You've given some good ideas and questions asked. Am I your only one? Are you working for five different lawyers? Do you have your own practice? What, then, does the in best practices, jonathan, does the contract look like? If you're the one that's doing the hiring? What do you want that agreement to be? As best you can to prevent the problems you indicated, which is your work gets relegated to the bottom and then maybe doesn't get done? Now you're left wanting. What are ways to protect yourself?
Speaker 1:The contract attorney scenario is tough. You could say, look, we could have put a provision in there that says you're only going to work for me, or something close to that, or you're going to guarantee me X amount of hours per week, whatever it is. Another we talked about this earlier but conflicts if you've got a contract attorney that's working for five different firms, you really got to really pay attention to the conflicts issue because I mean, can you imagine you give an assignment to this contract attorney like wait, I've already been given an assignment on the other side of this case by this other attorney. Would be terrible and might disqualify everybody. So you really got to pay attention to that.
Speaker 3:Hey guys, this is Ben. If you like what you've been hearing on this podcast not just the marketing and practice building strategies, but the philosophy of the art of living your best life parts. You should know that my son, brian, and I have built a tribe of like-minded lawyers who are living lives of their own design and creating tremendous value for the world within the structure of a law practice. We invite you to join us at the only membership organization for entrepreneurial lawyers that is run by two full-time practicing attorneys. Check us out at greatlabelmarketingcom. Well, let's talk a little bit about compensation. Again, we talk about this a lot in our meetings at the hero mastermind level and the icon mastermind level.
Speaker 3:I'm sure you have seen any number of models. I think the biggest question that younger lawyers who are starting up a firm and bringing on someone else have are there's always kind of a fear factor of them not going to be able to afford the X salary that I think I need to pay Hard advice is always you don't need to pay it all tomorrow. There's kind of eat what you kill models. There's models that are paying a percentage of the revenue you brought in. Again, I'm always a strategic thinking guy. What are some of the things that a lawyer who's thinking about bringing on talent and wants to attract talent compensate, but not shoot himself or herself in the foot. What should they be thinking about?
Speaker 1:I'll give the lawyer answer. It depends on practice area and really geography as well. Depending on the talent pool and what's available, it may drastically change your approach. If it's a super competitive area, both in geography and practice area, you're just going to have to pay more. You're going to have to offer something that entices them to come, Because they're there, hopefully, if they're doing a great job, entice them to stay. I think the other piece too is do a lot of hybrid work environments, that sort of thing, but I think nowadays you're going to have to pay more than maybe six, seven years ago.
Speaker 1:For sure, I think incentives drive behavior. I'm a big believer in that. As you design a comp system, whether it be it for partners or for associates or whoever, think about what behaviors you want them to do, Because whatever comp system you come up with, whatever formula you come up with, they are going to work to that At exclude everything else. They're going to work to that. Another mastermind member Scott Snellings. He was on my podcast and we talked about his firm and he's big on the core values and he has a way to bonus his people on whether they adhere to the core values, which I thought was really interesting. There are other factors and things you can put into a compensation plan that are not just how many clients you brought in, how many hours you worked, how many cases you settled, that sort of thing. It's really what do you, the law firm owner, want to? What kind of behaviors do you want to drive?
Speaker 3:Do you have a recommendation? Because compensation plan that I create for you today if you're coming to my firm doesn't have to be the compensation plan that we play with for the rest of yours and my career. Are there models that say, hey, for six months or 12 months or 18 months, we're going to operate under this model. We're going to come back together in good faith and, jonathan, I want to know what's best for you. What do you want? What would be perfect for you, is the question we ask.
Speaker 1:Is this done typically in legal yes, I mean compensation plans change and I encourage people to be open to the change. Facts on the ground change, things change. I would never do it more than once a year. That's just the most often. You don't want to do it in the middle of a counter year. I mean it's like changing the rules of the soccer game in the middle of the match. You just don't want to do that. You want people to know what they're working with During that year. I suggest maybe every two years, maybe max, but they're not made to be static.
Speaker 1:The other thing I've seen from time to time this is an interesting, probably too deep to get into here, but some firms set up compensation schemes for their senior associates or even non-equity partners that work within sort of normal parameters. But if you get skewed out too far out on the long tail, they're making so much money under this system that you never even imagined that it would happen that. Then you have to sort of reel it back and that's a hard conversation to have, but I've helped people sort of have that conversation and then if you ever want to elevate them to an equity partner, you're basically you know they're going to have a worse deal if they become an equity owner than they do under this scheme. You've set up as a non-equity owner, so you got to be careful when you design these things for the now, but also for the long term and what you think this person and this role may grow into later.
Speaker 3:I think that's right. You know we've heard more than one stories of particularly plaintiff's contingent fee firms that set up a compensation plan which sounds affordable and reasonable and then, you know, in some instances it seems like the the non-equity owner or the non-equity lawyer who's in the firm sometimes making more than the owner of the firm, because the other firm has all the risks and all the expenses and it is hard to back that out the other, you know the other side of the coin is you know I've seen lawyers go it's hired Jonathan and paying him $150,000 and we have this compensation scheme. Last year made $450,000 and that's just too much. You know, our response always is well, if you made $450,000, you should have made a whole bunch more money too, and so let's look at that that way. Let me ask you this because I do want to go back to this keeping clients things in disillusion.
Speaker 3:So one of the fears that lawyer owners will have is that if I bring on an associate, for example, and train that associate up, show he or she how to try cases, settle cases, do whatever the practice area is, and they get really good at it and they watch me learn how to acquire clients that they could get so good they could leave and go compete with me.
Speaker 3:Therefore, I'm not going to train them up either in skills or I'm absolutely not going to bring them to a great little marketing master my meeting and let them see how we market and build the thing. But is there what would be your recommendation on how do I protect, how do I build a practice and still protect myself from having associate or associates leave and taking half of the clients because the clients have had all this interaction with the associates? I know that there's ethical rules involved. We all know there's ethical rules involved. The client doesn't belong to anybody, but the client is going to make a choice, okay, and so how does the owner protect himself or herself when the owner may not have a lot of client contact?
Speaker 1:if we're building a firm and scaling it, Great question, great question and there's no perfect answer. So I have seen a lot of agreements that firms have put in place with their attorneys that when I review them I'm like, yeah, that's not going to be enforced. You might as well just not even have an agreement. So the way I approach it is sort of a belt and suspenders, what I call it. So there are things you can do to slow down if someone's going to leave. Let's just talk about that first. If someone's going to leave, there are a number of things that I think are within the ethical bounds that you can put in place that slow the process down enough to give you time to, you know, make a move, to try to, you know, make sure things don't happen.
Speaker 2:So that's the first thing, slow it down.
Speaker 1:The second thing if they do leave and take things worst case scenario you've got an enforceable fee split provision in place that you know. Sometimes I see them where they say if you leave and take clients, you got to pay all the fees back to the firm. That's not going to be enforced. That's the same as a restrict governance. Courts have uniformly not allowed that, but there are ways you can structure it that would be enforceable. So you protect your down. Number one you slow it down and you protect your downside.
Speaker 1:Now let's talk about some like non legal ways. I think. Number one create a place they don't want to leave. I know you talk a lot about that. So that's one piece Another that I suggest for law firm owners. You know you've got all these attorneys that are developing relationships with these clients.
Speaker 1:You need to figure out a way as a firm to develop a relationship with the clients as an owner, and there are lots of ways. Maybe you could do that. But let's just say you send every other week the owner sends a personalized video recording of the owner talking to the client, telling them they appreciate the client, whatever. That's just an idea via text or email, but you got to figure out ways to for lack of a better word institutionalize the client where they think the firm is their lawyer and that, and so you put all of these things together and you reduce the downside and maybe the likelihood of this happening. But the last thing I'll say on this is it is a fear, but you know it's just part of doing business and if you want to grow, you're just going to have to take the risk. You just got to do it.
Speaker 3:It is part of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship and I think you're right. So you know, what we try to do here is really build out a brand that has the brand in front of clients. A lot Great eight page full color monthly newsletter, electronic newsletters, brian and I doing things that are, you know, in social media and other ways that are just not related to legal at all Like, hey, we're nice guys, I would you want to leave us. So there's, there are ways to, as you said, like to be there, even if you're not the one that's doing all of the legal work and having the phone calls with the client. Let me ask you about this, because you mentioned something about Fees. I've heard of lawyers. I'm curious what you think about this content.
Speaker 3:Planets continue to feel lawyers and part of the deal is a you know we're gonna front the costs and we don't pass a fee to the end of the case, and one of the provisions I've seen is Frigid says if you do leave the firm, like all the costs that we've incurred, or do a payable, like right now. Have you seen that? Have you thought about that? Could you use the word fees? I'm using the word the cost. I've advanced on the case and I knew one for big firm that this was a way to keep people from leaving because they were doing big cases, a lot of time fronting, you know, 50 to 300, 400 thousand dollars in costs and making it really untenable to leave.
Speaker 1:Do you mean the client would have to pay, or the?
Speaker 3:So, jonathan, you're the client and I'm gonna advance the cost of litigation and I'm in a hundred thousand and you want to leave. Fine, but you got to reimburse me the cost right now because that's in our contract. You agreed to that when you signed up and so I don't know.
Speaker 1:A case on point. I can imagine a court would say, yeah, that's enforceable. But are you really gonna get if you're advancing the cost, or is the client really gonna pay? I mean the client agency's, you know. Good luck, I don't have the money. Good luck, I'm doing where I want to go, yeah okay, so that's interesting.
Speaker 3:We've not done it that way, we don't have this issue now.
Speaker 1:Now the other piece. You know that's against the client. The other potential is to say alright to the attorney, if you're taking the, if you're taking the client, you got to pay back the expenses that that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so for that I think Again. I think if you let's say it was a hundred thousand in advance expenses, let's say it's a med mal plaintiff's case, I think some courts might say that's the same as a non-compete because you're strict in the ability of the lawyer to leave. So you might not be able to say you got to pay it all back immediately or within 30 or 90 days, but you definitely would get it back if and when there was ever recovery for sure, sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's, yeah, that's a given. You know one of the interesting things. So this lawyer here in Virginia and went through a law firm breakup years ago it's a contingent fee breakup continue to be firm and one of his things is a that firm took other cases and we're resolving cases within a year of they're coming in and they're taking five and six years to resolve cases and he's frustrated because he's got some money in those cases and he can't do anything to make those lawyers do their work any faster. And I don't know how, I don't know how you Permit that. There's so many things to think about. Just give me a guess, john. Then how many of all the lawyers who have this law firm development process going on, are most of them Seeking out guys like you? Or are most of them thinking I'm a lawyer? How hard can this be? Let's go paper the deal and see what happens.
Speaker 1:I Think most are not seeking out people like me, I think. And the tip of that you know I have seen. So I mean I've seen hundreds of law firm partnership agreements, hundreds and there are varying degrees of what I'll call quality for a law firm and some have been drafted by, you know, really Credentialed, smart corporate lawyers, but they're not built for law firms because those lawyers aren't ethics lawyers. I didn't do law firm breakup disputes and so they may have an agreement but it's really not worth much. And then there's others that you know it's a handshake, it is a pure handshake, or maybe it's a one pager on a napkin.
Speaker 1:This is how we're gonna do it, and that is okay, but not very good at all either, because it doesn't address the breakup what happens in all these scenarios and so you know a lot of lawyers, I think. If they've been through a breakup, they look for somebody like me because they've done it. They're like okay, I don't ever want to get through this again, but part of what I have to do is educate them on the value proposition, and when they oftentimes, when they learn about me, they said okay, yeah, we want help.
Speaker 3:Now let me ask you this about your own practice. So who do you serve? I think your license in more than one state are you, is your, is the type of work that you do Limited essentially geographically to where you are licensed? Or can you act as consultant advisor to, to? For anybody who might be listening to this podcast and go hey, sounds like Jonathan would be a good guy to at least talk to. Let me hire him and pay him a consulting fee or whatever, or maybe even engage him full on to help them out On to help organize my law firm in Virginia. I don't know, can you do that?
Speaker 1:Yes, short answer. Yes, so we cover with the lawyers we have here. We cover, you know, maybe five, six, seven states with licenses there. You know there are a few states. Many states have what's called multi-jurisictional practice rule that you know. I think in certain circumstances we can help there. Some states do not have that. So either we would need to associate someone who's licensed there or there are parts of what I do that are non-legal, that are really sort of almost advisory or consulting like. So we could Structure some sort of engagement where I'm just advising and not really giving legal advice.
Speaker 3:Awesome. What haven't we talked about that you think lawyers Really should know more about, or should know that they don't know, and need to really go out and hire out expertise.
Speaker 1:I think another area that I really think All lawyers should look at and really have it is you know, what do all law firms need? They need clients and what's. How do you enter in a relationship with a client? You have an engagement letter, retainer agreement, and a lot of lawyers have just pulled a form from somewhere, borrowed it from somebody, maybe gotten it from online, and they really have not given it much thought, and there are a lot of provisions that may not be enforceable. There may be a lot of provisions that would be better if they're in there. So I think looking at your client retainer agreement Would be huge for any law firm out there and I encourage folks to do that.
Speaker 3:And that's one of the services you provide. I know you have looked, as you said, hundreds of partnership agreements. I'm sure you looked at hundreds, if not a thousand, fee agreements and retainers and I've read a lot of cases about it.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'll say yeah.
Speaker 3:The biggest issue that you see in cases and fee agreements is watch it just. The various ways that a case may and may resolve or Play out just aren't covered in the agreement.
Speaker 1:Well you know, let me give you an example for a plaintiff's firm in georgia. Different states do this a different way, but if I have in a contingency fee agreement with a client and they fire me and go hire another lawyer, generally speaking I can go get quantum arrow it. I cannot get the contingent fee that I thought I had. Now in georgia there are some magic words I call it that you could put in that agreement that at least theoretically you could get the contingent fee on the last highest offer. But you have to have that in the agreement and if you don't, you're getting quantum arrow it and that's just not fun and it's not going to be much.
Speaker 1:So that's a good example for contingent fee lawyers, for hourly lawyers. There are certain things you can put in there about Collection costs and that sort of thing, and of course I mean there's all sorts of other disclosures and things that inform consent waivers and all the things you did. If you put them in your agreement, they've signed it, it's there, you don't have to worry about it. And if it's not there and then you get sideways with the client and they come back at you you don't have these protections that could have been there.
Speaker 3:One of the things that you know you're always trying to balance In a fee agreement like too much information. You know you can unsell the sale of the case If you're not careful. One of the things that surprised us when we moved to, you know, docusigned type signed fee agreements is how quickly some of these came back. So ours are pretty robust and you know People weren't reading them. I don't think they, I don't think they could have been reading Great. So, jonathan, why don't you give us the URL? So, so anyone's listening to this podcast, first of all, go and subscribe to listen to a bunch of episodes of the founding partner podcast. Jonathan's interviewing a lot of interesting guests. This is the thing that keeps him going. He loves lawyers and make helping them really have a happier life by avoiding, you know, these potential side tracking pitfalls that come just because there isn't a lot of pre-planning, even though we are lawyers. And then the website is lawfirm gccom is that it?
Speaker 1:It's your law firm gccom your law firm gccom.
Speaker 3:Maybe someone else already had law firm gccom. That's right, that's right out of Atlanta, Georgia. Jonathan, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us on the podcast today. It's been great and this I'm sure this can be very valuable to a lot of lawyers who listen to this deal.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for having me, Ben, I enjoyed it. Talk later.
Speaker 2:See you. If you like what you just heard on the renegade lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high quality legal services coupled with top-notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at great legal marketing dot com. That's great legal marketing dot com.
