New Cases From SEO In 6 Weeks

Welcome back to the latest episode of the Legal Authority podcast! I'm Jay Rothman, joined by my co-host Judy Goldberg, and we're thrilled to present another captivating show featuring a remarkable guest. Today, we're honored to have Diane Sullivan, an accomplished family attorney from Mesa, Arizona, sharing her expertise with us.

In this engaging conversation, dive into the world of legal excellence as Diane discusses her journey in building a highly successful law firm in Mesa. Gain valuable insights into her strategies for success and discover the unique qualities that set her apart in the field of family law.

Join us in exploring the dynamic career of Diane Sullivan, a practitioner who has truly excelled in her legal endeavors. From the intricacies of family law to the secrets behind her firm's success, this episode is a must-watch for legal professionals and enthusiasts alike.

👉 Hit play now to uncover the wisdom Diane brings to the table! Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and SEO tips tailored for law firms. 

Visit Her Website: https://sullivanlawaz.com/

#FamilyAttorney #LegalAuthorityPodcast #MesaLawyer #LawFirmSuccess #LegalMarketingInsights #SEOforLawFirms #YouTubeEpisode #LegalExpertInterview

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;08

Unknown

So welcome to another edition of the Legal Authority podcast. My name is Jay Rothman, my co-host Judy Goldberg. Yes. And we are bringing you another show today with an amazing guest. Her name is Diane Sullivan. She is a family attorney in Mesa, Arizona. And she does a great job. She's built a really successful firm, and I know her pretty well.

00;00;22;08 - 00;00;38;19

Unknown

And I think she's going to have a great perspective for those that are listening on the things to do and the things not to do when you're building your firm. And if you could emulate what Diane's done, you'll be successful, no doubt. So what do you say, Judy, let's get started. Yes, let's go. All right, roll it.

00;00;38;19 - 00;01;01;17

Unknown

Hey, Judy Goldberg and Jay Rothman back with another episode of the Legal Authority podcast. And it's been great. We have an awesome guest again today, too. I'm super excited about this. Oh, Diane is fabulous. Yep. Working with Diane Sullivan from Sullivan Law. She works in Arizona specifically, I believe the makes a market and of course some surrounding towns.

00;01;01;17 - 00;01;22;10

Unknown

So she's got a very unique perspective because she has built a really successful family law practice and I think she's done some really cool stuff. And for the lawyers that are listening, that are thinking about either going out on their own or you're already out on your own and your your your building, your successful law practice. Diane's got some really good perspective.

00;01;22;10 - 00;01;43;11

Unknown

And I know, Judy, you and her are going to be able to to really get into it because you obviously have done it as well. And again, you know, on this podcast, the whole point is to to really give you good solid value and give you good perspectives and help you really be successful building your law practice, because we bring guests on that have done it right.

00;01;43;11 - 00;02;07;12

Unknown

And so hopefully you like and subscribe so that you can always be notified when we have a new episode. You can simply do that at the Legal Authority Ecom slash podcast, and we're also available wherever you get your podcasts, Spotify, the Apple Podcasts store, and of course Google Podcasts. So without any further ado, let's go to our guest of honor, Diane Sullivan.

00;02;07;13 - 00;02;34;00

Unknown

Diane, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you all doing? Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. I know how busy you are because we work with you. My pleasure. Your next to impossible to get a hold of. And we really appreciate you taking the time to spend some time with us and our listeners today. And you are the perfect person to to bring on the show and help young lawyers and lawyers that are, you know, starting to build their own practices.

00;02;34;02 - 00;02;55;06

Unknown

Really just get a good perspective from you and let's just dive right in and tell us a little bit about your background, your firm. What made you decide that you wanted to practice law? You know, those sort of things? Well, I have always wanted to be an attorney, probably from when I was a small child. And I would constantly argue with my parents and my mother.

00;02;55;06 - 00;03;13;29

Unknown

I remember her telling me I would grow up and be a lawyer. Diane, That was always what she said. So I never really consider doing anything else. That's awesome. Yeah. So she's proud, obviously. But I graduated law school very young. Just because I happened to be born very late in the year. So I was an attorney with my license.

00;03;14;02 - 00;03;32;19

Unknown

I think I was 23. My first yeah, my first job I worked at the prosecutor's office wasn't the way I thought I was going to go, but I did an internship at the prosecutor's office. I was in law school and I just I always wanted to have a job of service and that that just really fit the bill.

00;03;32;19 - 00;03;59;08

Unknown

And I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed working with, you know, with people, with victims, with I love the trial work, but it just it just wasn't the government environment wasn't the right environment for me. It was very confining. So that was when I decided to leave and I was still really young, 26, started my own law firm when I was 26 and just I found really good mentors.

00;03;59;10 - 00;04;16;26

Unknown

Were you nervous going out on your own? No. Well, this sort of is a little high strung when I was younger. And, you know, if I was in a situation I didn't like them, I would just be like, All right, well, fine, I'm just going to leave and just go and do that. And I just really went in blind and headstrong.

00;04;16;26 - 00;04;44;07

Unknown

I don't really recommend that. But it worked. At the time. Were you doing Criminal law when you first started? Was that your practice? I only did criminal and I didn't start to do family until I got divorced myself. Okay? And I remember thinking, Well, A, I could do this and be I think I would it would be it would come from a really empathetic place because I had been there and I didn't get that from my attorney.

00;04;44;07 - 00;05;13;04

Unknown

She was fine, but I felt like I was just another number there and I wanted to really create something different. So let me ask you this. So when you when you switched from criminal law to family law, what were your thoughts about, you know, okay, so I'm a good lawyer. I can learn anything. I can practice anything. But switching your your practice to family law, what did you do to to start to get new clients?

00;05;13;04 - 00;05;33;07

Unknown

Because, of course, you are known for the criminal side of it and then you that's a big switch. Like they're pretty unrelated. Yeah, well, I asked a lot of questions. Like I said, I had a lot of good mentors who were really very charitable to take me under their wing, and I took all of their advice and that was my biggest concern, like, how do I get clients?

00;05;33;09 - 00;05;52;28

Unknown

Part of what really helped me is that most attorneys that practice family law only practice family law, how to do anything else. So the fact that I also knew how to do criminal, you would be surprised how often those two areas overlap. Okay, so I would get a lot of referrals when someone had a client perhaps come in who needed a family attorney.

00;05;52;28 - 00;06;23;17

Unknown

But that family, I needed to have a criminal experience, right? Like a tiara or DV Right. Yeah. Domestic violence, maybe there was an ancillary criminal proceeding, such as abuse against a child pending. So that helped. And one thing I remember an attorney mentor told me was that branding was really important. Like first you need to have a good website with good search engine optimization and you and your and make yourself a brand, you know, spend the money to get yourself a nice logo.

00;06;23;21 - 00;06;48;15

Unknown

Your website is awesome and apply it. Okay? Yes, yes. And my my website works great and that definitely helps drive in traffic. It's very successful, but the branding should apply across all the platforms. You have a business card, it's the same email, it's the same consistency. Everything should be the same. Yeah. So that that definitely helped and helped create that, that sort of brand that people would know me by.

00;06;48;15 - 00;07;11;27

Unknown

And, and I also want to make sure I reflected myself personally. I didn't want it to look like a lawyer's brand were all stuffy and no fun, and I wanted it to kind of reflect how my practice is a little bit different. And just for for, oh, sorry, just for full disclosure, you know, like digital horsepower, my company, we do work with Diane, so, you know, I mean, that's a little tongue in cheek comments about a website because we built it.

00;07;11;27 - 00;07;33;27

Unknown

So we're very proud of it. We actually show it off to a lot of new prospective clients. We're like, Well, here's a here's a site that we just put pushed live a few months ago and everybody likes it. So and I thought it looked good before, but definitely the the tweaks that were ad it definitely reflected, I think, my personality where, you know, just because I'm a I'm a woman and I'm a sole practitioner and I'm an attorney, it's like I'm a person.

00;07;33;29 - 00;07;49;08

Unknown

Yeah. First I'm a mom first, I'm a woman first and lawyer and all that other stuff. I mean, I kind of come second and that's what I try to give my clients when they when they come in. It's a holistic approach. Every time that comes in is a person. They are not just a client, they're not just somebody going through a divorce.

00;07;49;08 - 00;08;07;12

Unknown

It's like they need your help. And I have a lot of help to offer outside of just I can use put my law hat on and get you through this divorce me I make my clients go to yoga and take vacations and get them into therapy. And, you know, because when they come, when they're done. Yeah, I want to make sure that they are in better shape than when I got home in the beginning.

00;08;07;14 - 00;08;46;06

Unknown

Yeah, No, that's. That's a great way to look at it. That's a great way to look at it. You know, you exude that dynamic success. Zestful Entrepreneur It's fabulous. Diane. Just fabulous. Thank you. Yeah. And, and you really understand that the marketing, the branding and working with Jay, I had a fabulous experience with with Jay and some bad experiences with other agencies now and we all yeah, similar to you, Diane, like you and I got connected because you were working with somebody else that just wasn't moving the needle and we showed you what we would do.

00;08;46;06 - 00;09;05;18

Unknown

And you agreed that it was a good idea. And I mean, I remember what was it, five or six weeks after we pushed your site live, you had already gotten a couple of clients from it. And that's that's not always normal. But we really tried to engineer some quick wins for every client just because it's not inexpensive by any stretch to do this when you do it the right way.

00;09;05;20 - 00;09;22;29

Unknown

But if we're able to engineer some quick wins for you, you know, then it it doesn't hurt so much, right when that bill comes every month. And so you guys are getting to build the second website. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. We're building a second website for you for something that's different. She's she's doing a mediation practice as well and she wanted a separate website for that.

00;09;22;29 - 00;09;44;07

Unknown

So we're doing that. And of course Julie does, does mediation down here in Florida her websites. Judith Goldberg icon if anybody's interested in seeing it and that's a beautiful website it says Florida all over it like just the images and stuff. It's cool but yeah so I mean we love working with you. I know Steven always enjoys talking to you and Jen and, you know, I'm very glad about that.

00;09;44;07 - 00;10;08;05

Unknown

So but we did want to bring you on here just because you're one of our clients, but because you're one of our clients. We really have gotten to know you and and your team over the last few months. And it's been a really good relationship. And and I just knew that you'd have a really good perspective for the attorneys that are listening and to be able to really help them with with some thoughts, some ideas, maybe some inspiration.

00;10;08;08 - 00;10;26;08

Unknown

And you're a single mom, right? And I'm sure there's plenty of single moms that are attorneys that are listening, that are thinking about making the jump to their own firm or or have and just need some guidance and some inspiration. So who better to bring on. Right. So yeah, so yeah, and my team definitely is the secret to my success.

00;10;26;08 - 00;10;45;24

Unknown

That's one thing I cannot stress enough is you're nothing without your team. Find a good team. Make sure they are appreciated. I mean, my team to walk fire for me and Jen and Heather are great. Yeah, they really are. And I just treat them how I would treat anybody. But they've never been treated this way by any employer they've ever had.

00;10;45;26 - 00;11;08;29

Unknown

So yeah, they're there with me till I retire. I know that. Know They're terrific. They're terrific. Go ahead. Well, that has to speak to your success that you've worked on forming the team. You've had the the experience, the exuberance. It's really I can I can sense it. There's there's something very special about women in the practice of law.

00;11;09;02 - 00;11;36;22

Unknown

I think it's a fabulous background, fabulous education. And those that continue and become mothers have a have a private life and can incorporate a successful business such as law is commendable. I wanted to ask you what what advice would you give to the attorneys listening? What what could they do? What did you do to propel your firm forward?

00;11;36;25 - 00;12;00;13

Unknown

Well, I mean, if you're thinking about going out on your own, I mean, has it doesn't necessarily be that you have to work with a business coach that has a business plan, that have a good nest egg, have a plan for it, what kind of client you want and gear your marketing towards that kind of client. Like I said, mentors are lawyers are, you know, people that people we get a backdrop lawyers.

00;12;00;20 - 00;12;20;12

Unknown

And the entire time I've been in practice, if there was ever whether it was an issue, a new practice area, I would just, you know, literally ask around my friends and say, who is the best at this? Whatever it was I needed to know about? And I would get an eight and I would call that person just say, Hi, I got your name from so-and-so, and I have questions about this.

00;12;20;17 - 00;12;41;22

Unknown

I take you out to lunch. No one ever told me no. And I got I got invaluable advice from those lawyers that just, you know, I would just for the price of a lunch. And you build your network that way, too, right? Yeah. You build these referrals in their area. And I have gotten referrals that way and worth its weight in gold.

00;12;41;29 - 00;13;04;11

Unknown

But, you know, coming with that is as, as attorneys, we tend to be a little full of ourselves, even if we're unsure on an issue. But I have never been that way. I've always been very humble and grateful that I even have this job. And if I don't know about something, I have no problem admitting that I go, Let me find the smartest person in the room and go, It'll be their friend.

00;13;04;13 - 00;13;29;25

Unknown

Let me ask you this, just switching gears a little bit. If you could look back on since you started your firm, were there any pitfalls, maybe a better way to describe that? Were were there any things that you did in terms of decision on your direction or marketing or whatever that you wish you could do over that might be able to save an attorney listening, you know, some grief and some heartache?

00;13;29;27 - 00;13;47;13

Unknown

It probably would be my marketing. I can't tell you how much money I've thrown away on bad marketing as lawyers. We just don't know how to how to even find these people or what. We don't even know what to ask. We don't know. SEO is, you know, we just like, want to write somebody a check and have them do it just fine.

00;13;47;13 - 00;14;06;17

Unknown

There's nothing wrong with as long as they're doing it right. Somebody to check. Yeah. You got to. In the way we look at it, when we were working with new clients is we like to educate. Like, you know more about SEO now than you did. Yeah. Four months ago. You don't need to know how to do it, but you need to understand the fundamentals, right?

00;14;06;18 - 00;14;27;18

Unknown

Because you need to understand enough to to have your finger on the trigger, but to have somebody that really knows what they're doing, executing the work, and then you understand what they're doing right. And no one else has done that besides you guys. Just so you know, the practice in 23 years and like you said, I know more now than anyone has ever taught me.

00;14;27;18 - 00;14;43;02

Unknown

Yeah, an educated client for us is the best client, because then we can spend our time talking about strategy, not explaining why we wrote this piece of content the way we did and so on. And so forth. Yeah, and Julie has a perspective, I think, on that too, right? She you know. Well, I'll let you I'll let you describe it.

00;14;43;04 - 00;15;06;29

Unknown

Well, my experience for so many years was trusting Again, we don't know who to pick. We don't know even the questions and and it's not until you try it out. What happens is for me, I, I just wanted to practice law. I had to go to court Most days I was in court. I didn't have time for this.

00;15;07;02 - 00;15;29;11

Unknown

But there came a day. All of a sudden I finished a number of trials, sat down in my office and listened and I said, What's going on? Phone's not ringing. Oh, my God. You know, you you lose touch because we're busy. We're busy practicing law. And I received a call. My office staff, Sarah, who was with me 24 years sports staff, Fabulous.

00;15;29;14 - 00;15;50;29

Unknown

She received a call from Jay to come to my office, had this call. I think you should take. Well, I did and tried it out, but I was terrified. How can I give up the company that was that did my website? What would happen? I didn't even know what. Well, I'll tell you why you did it. Because my call to her Diane wasn't to sell her.

00;15;51;02 - 00;16;08;26

Unknown

I was in Buffalo at the time where I grew up and she was in Connecticut and she was running pay per click ads in Buffalo. I saw her pay per click ad. I mean, that's a huge problem. Like you waste your whole budget in a day when you do that because somebody in Buffalo is not going to hire a divorce attorney in Connecticut, Right?

00;16;08;27 - 00;16;22;04

Unknown

I mean, I guess it could happen, but you would never run ads for that. So my whole point was that just call her and just say, hey, look, let me show you how to change the settings so that you don't burn your budget. And so Sarah got Jody on the phone and I showed her how to do it.

00;16;22;06 - 00;16;42;12

Unknown

She fixed it, and then she asked me, Hey, run some ads for me and let's see what I can do. And I'm just happy to help her. And we did, and it worked. And then, you know, a couple of years later, she's, you know, she she called me up and said, listen, you know, you need to stop whatever you're doing and help me because this guy is working on my website and he's not moving the needle.

00;16;42;14 - 00;17;05;20

Unknown

And at the time I was working with the NFL on a couple of projects, and so I just carved out the time and showed her what I would do. And the rest is history. Here we are 15 years later, so. Well, you know, you skipped over a lot of things, but I just I just want to say that, you know, I kind of tip put my toe in in dealing with this.

00;17;05;20 - 00;17;27;24

Unknown

So I was so afraid of giving up that website. And we just did a couple hundred dollars. Yeah. All right. Little ASIO work. And within 36 hours there was an exponential change in the volume of calls. But it was also very interesting over time. And then of course I changed and then Jay took over all the digital marketing.

00;17;27;26 - 00;18;00;17

Unknown

I found that even of the the level that the client changed, level of cases changed and I was able to sit back and really choose how many cases I was going to take and which ones you were going to take. Yeah, so, you know, it was so significant. The change was for me and it's been almost, you know, 15, 20 years we worked together and then I found that I trusted him so that he had so much experience in marketing.

00;18;00;23 - 00;18;40;22

Unknown

Then then I started to discuss how can I, you know, do more, whether it was writing a book, do do different branding. So it was, you know, fabulous. And I see you have a similar experience with Jay. Yeah. What else have you done to generate cases that has been successful? You know, I mean, obviously you have networking and and so forth, but have you done other things that have been successful to to bring in cases not even in the digital world, just in general touched on networking, but going a little bit beyond that.

00;18;40;22 - 00;18;58;20

Unknown

And it's obviously good to do as an attorney. And I do it just because my my heart calls me to do it. But things like volunteer work with different organizations, I mean, you know, I've always believed that lawyers should should pay it forward. I mean, you know, we are blessed to make a very good living. There are people that can always afford our services.

00;18;58;23 - 00;19;19;21

Unknown

So I've always pay it forward out in the community doing volunteer work. But then you're a matter of where referrals come from. It's it's not even the people that you're talking to. It's sometimes the director of the organization. Hey, you were in here doing volunteer work last month and my sister needs the divorce, right kind of thing. So it's just really I enjoy being sort of the go to attorney in my community.

00;19;19;21 - 00;19;34;09

Unknown

And I tell people all the time, you need a referral, you need an attorney, just call me. It doesn't matter that this is not what I do, right? It's really important to me that I get you in touch with someone, either that I know or that I respect or that just I know is going to do a good job for you.

00;19;34;12 - 00;19;59;04

Unknown

Yeah, And that's awesome. I heard of bad lawyers. Yeah. I hate hearing those stories. Yep. No, I get it. The there's. I think somebody wrote a book 1001 bad lawyer jokes or something, Right? I have it. Yeah. I'm not going to get into it at all. So as we wrap up, because I know you're really busy and again, I really appreciate you coming on and and just providing great perspective for the lawyers that are listening.

00;19;59;06 - 00;20;24;16

Unknown

What advice would you give the attorneys that are listening, whether they're thinking about hanging out their shingle or they have and now they're just trying to build their firm. If you literally could coach them for the next couple of minutes, what would that look like? You know, I think it's really important that you find what's different about you and how you can set yourself aside from other lawyers in your in your field.

00;20;24;19 - 00;20;44;08

Unknown

You know, for me, it's a great point. My ancillary background of criminal, it was my behavioral health background. It was, you know, that I just interact different with people. And when I get them into my office, like I talked about earlier, it's a holistic approach. You know, we're not taught in law school how to communicate or how to help people in that way.

00;20;44;12 - 00;21;05;22

Unknown

And that really, really sets me apart from anybody else in family. So fine. What it is different that you could bring to the table what's going to set you apart? Why should they hire you as opposed to the firm down the hall from you? That's a great point. If you do that and do it right out of the gate and I can figure this out till about ten years in, you'll be a success right out of the gate.

00;21;05;26 - 00;21;27;25

Unknown

That's awesome. Diane, anything you'd like to add before you get on with the rest of your day? I'm just, you know, don't forget where you came from. You know, value your staff, value your clients and never get where you're so big for your britches that you stop caring about clients because that's honestly the day you should stop practicing.

00;21;28;01 - 00;21;49;12

Unknown

Good point. All right. Well, Diane Sullivan from Sullivan Law in Arizona, if you want to reach out to Diane, her website address is Sullivan Law A-Z dot com and you certainly could contact her that way. You've been an amazing guest. I really appreciate your perspective so much for spending part of your morning with me. Yeah. Hey, thank you.

00;21;49;12 - 00;22;04;19

Unknown

We appreciate it. For anybody listening, you know, if you want to learn a little bit more about some of the successes that we've had for Diane and some of our other clients, it all starts with us doing an audit, right? We have to show you what's going on with your website, how Google sees it, what your competition's like.

00;22;04;21 - 00;22;24;27

Unknown

Just go to the legal authority dot com slash podcast. You just answer a couple of questions there. We'll do the audit for you. It's no charge. If you want us to ask a question or have a question addressed by one of our guests in a future show, same thing. You'll be able to ask it right there. And you know, if you want to talk to Judy or myself, I'll be at the same place.

00;22;24;27 - 00;22;53;27

Unknown

Right. The legal authority dot com slash podcast. Diane, you're awesome. Thank you so much for joining us much success to you your firm and big thanks to Jennifer and to Heather your staff for helping us coordinate this and share the best your awesome thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Diane. All right. If you want to see future episodes of our podcast are available anywhere you get your podcast, The Apple Podcast, or of course, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud.

00;22;53;27 - 00;23;12;09

Unknown

And we have those all linked right from the legal authority dot com slash podcast. Make sure you subscribe so that you're notified of of future episodes. And I have a feeling that this won't be the last time we hear from you and your team. Diane So a look forward to it. All right, Awesome. Everybody, have a great day.

00;23;12;13 - 00;23;17;04

Unknown

Carry on with a successful week and we'll talk to you soon on the next time.