From Badge to Bar: The Cop-Lawyer Chronicles

Join us in this must-watch episode as we sit down with Joe Lawson, a distinguished family attorney based in San Antonio, Texas! Discover the incredible journey of this legal powerhouse who has not only built an expansive practice but also manages to handle a staggering influx of new cases, receiving 150-200 calls monthly.

In this illuminating conversation, Joe shares his success story, offering valuable insights, especially for young attorneys contemplating venturing out on their own. Uncover the strategies and practices that have propelled Joe to the forefront of family law in San Antonio.

Whether you're an aspiring attorney or a seasoned professional, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration. Dive into the world of family law success with Joe Lawson and gain valuable takeaways for your legal journey.

👉 Hit play now to unlock the secrets behind Joe's thriving practice! Don't forget to subscribe for more exclusive interviews and SEO tips tailored for law firms. 

Visit Their Website: https://jlassenlaw.com/

#FamilyAttorney #LegalSuccessStory #SanAntonioLawyer #LawFirmGrowth #LegalMarketingInsights #SEOforLawFirms #YouTubeEpisode #LawPracticeTips

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;23

Unknown

Welcome to another episode of the Legal Authority podcast. My name is Jay Rassmann with the beautiful Judy Goldberg. Judy and I have been together for a long time as great friends work together. She's a 30 year practicing attorney, super successful, retired early, came down to South Florida, and now we get to have the real fun, right? The honor to be part of what we're doing now, which is great.

00;00;20;25 - 00;00;42;27

Unknown

Today's guest is Joe Lawson. He is a family attorney in San Antonio, Texas. This guy's awesome. He's built a huge practice churning just tons and tons of cases. He gets like 150, 200 calls a month from from new opportunities. It's insane what he's doing. His story is really cool, too, for especially for the young attorneys that are listening, that are thinking about going out on their own.

00;00;43;00 - 00;00;58;21

Unknown

He was an NYPD officer, retired in 2015 or while he was a cop, he was going to law school. So when he retired, he got his law degree and then he moved to San Antonio and started working for a couple of other law firms, then went out on his own and just blew the top off the whole fact.

00;00;58;21 - 00;01;11;15

Unknown

So it's really it's a fun interview. I'm excited to talk to him. So and I know you and you and him have a lot in common, so you guys have some good chat. Do we do both? Family law. All right, so let's get to it. Fired up.

00;01;11;16 - 00;01;29;20

Unknown

Hey, welcome to another episode of the Legal Authority podcast, also known as that legal show all over social media. My co-host, Judy Goldberg, is with us again today. How are you doing? I'm just great today. How are you? Good. You look fabulous. Like you're ready to go dancing as soon as we're done here, right? I'm retired. There you go.

00;01;29;20 - 00;01;46;05

Unknown

There you go. Well, the guy you should dance with is with us. His name's Joe Lawson. He's one of our clients, actually, a digital horsepower and just a really fun guy and a huge success. You know, since we've started working together, we're super happy to be working with him. And, you know, I think he's got some really good perspectives.

00;01;46;05 - 00;02;08;21

Unknown

He's built an incredible law practice, like multiple locations and and lots of good stuff. So how are you, Joe? You very well. How are you doing today? Good. Thank you so much. So obviously, you're based in San Antonio. You started to to grow and expand a little bit and even some additional practice areas. But let's kind of start from the beginning.

00;02;08;23 - 00;02;37;08

Unknown

You know, where were you in your life when you decided, hey, I want to be a lawyer? So I was a police officer for the NYPD when I figured out that I wanted to go to law school. So that was in 1996, and I started law school in 1998 while I was a cop, went through law school, got promoted to sergeant with the NYPD while I was in law school, and then stayed with the police department till I retired in 2015.

00;02;37;11 - 00;03;03;28

Unknown

And I practiced law in New York during the time that I was on the NYPD. That's awesome. So you were a full time cop, part time lawyer, correct? Well, you're never you're never a part time lawyer. Unfortunately, I would like to claim that I was a part time lawyer. But. Right. Law practice always takes full time. So if I understand correctly, your past was pretty unique in the fact that you never worked for another firm.

00;03;03;28 - 00;03;24;10

Unknown

You didn't work for the prosecutor's office or anything. You literally just started taking clients while you were a police officer. Correct. Well, I did do the administrative trials for the police department, so I did learn trial advocacy from the police department. But yes, you're correct. I never worked for a firm, never worked for a while. I was a cop.

00;03;24;10 - 00;03;47;09

Unknown

I never worked for somebody while I was in San Antonio. I did work for a couple of firms. Okay, cool. So you retired from the police department in 2015 and moved to San Antonio, worked for a couple of firms, and then decided it was time to hang out your shingle. Yup. Go on my own. That's awesome. Awesome. So when you went on your own, what was your plan?

00;03;47;09 - 00;04;07;08

Unknown

You know, from a 10,000 foot view to make sure that you got clients to make sure that you know you're going to be successful? I mean, obviously, you have a family you got to take care of. It's a big leap, right? Yeah. So we didn't have a plan. My my paralegal came over with me. My firm manager came over with me from from the firm that we worked at.

00;04;07;08 - 00;04;28;04

Unknown

And the reason why I worked at another firm here in San Antonio was because I knew family law in New York. I didn't know family law in Texas. Right. I didn't know the nuances. So I did go to a firm to learn the nuances. And then I brought Amanda over with me and our thousand foot 10,000 foot overview as we jumped right into it, hoping that it was word of mouth.

00;04;28;05 - 00;04;49;21

Unknown

Now, we started out with Facebook and that was not the best idea. Yeah, social media doesn't really work with law firms. A lot of our clients that that I talk to all the time, even prospective clients, they always ask, do you manage our Facebook ads? And Facebook profile is part of it. And we really don't only because we've never found it to move the needle, right?

00;04;49;21 - 00;05;08;24

Unknown

I mean, especially with family law. Here's the problem. If you're on Facebook, right? And let's say you're your wife also has access to your phone and all of a sudden she starts seeing a bunch of ads from divorce lawyers. She's going to know the only reason that she's seeing those ads is because you're being retargeted, because you were on Facebook looking for a divorce lawyer.

00;05;08;26 - 00;05;28;15

Unknown

And it just creates a lot of problems. So, yes, it's even worse because you get into an argument with your wife, you know, over nonsense. Right. And then you go to bed and then she's on Facebook, the husbands on Facebook playing. And because, you know, Facebook knows everything, they divorce lawyers start popping up. They fill out the form.

00;05;28;21 - 00;05;46;17

Unknown

Now, the attorney would pay for it. And then the next day, when it comes in, they're like, no, I don't want an attorney right? So now you just wasted a large sum of money with no return, right? Yeah. Facebook ads work for a lot of things. They don't work for lawyers, correct. And then that's when I found you, John.

00;05;46;17 - 00;06;07;00

Unknown

Oh, you found me? Yeah. No. So. Yeah, so that. That is interesting. So we found each other and, you know, started working together. And I mean, pretty quickly you started to see some success. I mean, you know, I think just three or four months into it, you were already at about 100 calls a month. I mean, it was just a dramatic difference.

00;06;07;00 - 00;06;30;02

Unknown

Right? Talk about. Absolutely. So we do two things with Google. I don't do paper clicks because that people just those are a lot of lookie loos. And you and I discuss that where paper clicks really don't work because, you know, people click on it and you pay for it, right? And even if you don't get any even if you don't get a potential new client, you just have to pay for it.

00;06;30;02 - 00;06;55;04

Unknown

So I do a lot of Elsas, which is local service ads, which is really good through Google. Yeah. And then the social media stuff that you've been doing through Google has been phenomenal. So we've been getting a lot of calls and a lot of inquiries through our website. Yeah. So just for clarity, we don't do social media. What we're well, what you're referring to is the organic stuff that we do to rank you in search engines when people are trying to find a family lawyer, right?

00;06;55;10 - 00;07;16;26

Unknown

Yes. That's why I have you. Because I don't know the terms. Yeah, no worries. No worries. But no, I'm I'm certainly happy about that. And without getting too specific, you know, since we started working together, you have greatly expanded our relationship to push into new practice areas, new locations. And that's been exciting. So it has been great. Yep.

00;07;16;27 - 00;07;43;20

Unknown

So, no, we're we enjoy working with you for sure. So don't want to forget about my beautiful co-hosts here. Judy is with us. So her story and I think I told you this when we first started talking, Joe, she was my very first client at the time. I was doing some work for the NFL, and she called me and said, Look, I don't care what you're doing, you're going to help me with this, because the guy I've been having do this just isn't moving the needle and come up with a strategy.

00;07;43;21 - 00;08;02;14

Unknown

And so I did. And we started working together and, you know, we were already friends. And then the rest is history. But her background is family law in New York. Well, and in Connecticut. Yeah. So I know this podcast can now go for an hour without me saying another thing because you guys can chew the fat on on the fun stuff.

00;08;02;16 - 00;08;32;27

Unknown

But, you know, my experience was very similar to yours. As soon as I started with, you know, with the legal authority. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exponentially. I saw my my calls, my call volume go up. And what was very interesting was that it was a market that was more inclined to sign quickly. There was a higher call rate, close rate, which was phenomenal.

00;08;33;00 - 00;08;56;14

Unknown

Yep, it's phenomenal. Yeah. So I'm delighted that you've had such a speedy and full exponential growth as well. What areas are other areas are you looking to explore and grow? So right now we're exploring into personal injury just because the nature of Texas, with all the trucks and all the roads and all the people driving, we just felt that there was a market that is saturated.

00;08;56;14 - 00;09;24;24

Unknown

But I think with John's help, we're going to move into the top three for Google and really grow the practice. I mean, truck accidents, there are six figure legal fees every single time. Motorcycles and motorcycles are big, too. Yep. So I just got a text from Stephen in our office. Joe, you had 158 calls just from your Google business profile for the month of September, not even including the call tracking we do on your website.

00;09;24;24 - 00;09;45;12

Unknown

So you're probably close to 200. I know that all in it was 168 for August, so for people listening, Joe's a solo practitioner. Now he's growing his staff to help support, you know, all the intake and helping him get the work done. But 168 calls in August and 158 just from your Google profile last month, how do you handle that?

00;09;45;15 - 00;10;09;24

Unknown

So it's a I have a really, really, really good support staff. I could not do it on my own. I do them in majority of the PNC calls, which we call potential clients. But I have trained people in my office to also do those calls because if I'm in court, I can't do it right. It's a lot of juggling, you know, because they're the staff is coming to me and asking me how to how to handle these things.

00;10;09;24 - 00;10;29;10

Unknown

And I'm still basically taking the calls, But it's a real support staff. And I see when I do a lot of the PNC calls, I see them call the potential clients all in other attorneys, and they're solo practitioners with no staff. And that's the biggest warning that I could give any attorney. You need to have a support staff.

00;10;29;17 - 00;10;45;04

Unknown

Yeah, because if you grow like I did, knock on wood, if I didn't have my support staff, I wouldn't be able to do It is not enough time in the day. Yeah, so that's kind of what I want to get into now is, you know, as you you know, we know your story, right? You moved to San Antonio in 2015, worked for a couple of firms.

00;10;45;04 - 00;11;05;25

Unknown

Then you went out on your own and obviously didn't have a plan. You're kind of like, Hey, I'm just hoping that we can do word of mouth. And in just really grasping at any way to to get new clients now. So when you when you wake up in the morning the last that correct me if I'm wrong, the last thing you're worried about is, you know, how am I going to survive and pay the bills this week?

00;11;05;25 - 00;11;22;14

Unknown

It's like, how am I going to keep up with it? Correct? How am I going to keep up with it? I'm looking a couple of days in advance to see where I am in you know, I'm looking right now at Friday. I see where I am to see what I have to do, because I've already looked at Thursday, the day before, Right.

00;11;22;16 - 00;11;45;17

Unknown

So I'm always planning ahead and you have to plan ahead. If you don't plan ahead, you'll never be able to do anything. Right. So let's talk about your staff because you just touched on it. It's obviously so important to have a support staff. And I know Judi's got a take on this as well. I know your paralegal that you had, you know, Sarah, she was with you for a long time and she was a real key to your success story.

00;11;45;17 - 00;12;10;25

Unknown

And you can talk about that, but just talk about how important it is to be really dialed in with your staff, not just the people taking the potential calls, but your paralegals that are producing a lot of the work that you need to sign off on and so on and so forth. How important is that and what are some things that you learned that can really help somebody who's either thinking about going out on their own or has gone out on their own and just needs them, efficiency and so forth?

00;12;10;28 - 00;12;33;18

Unknown

Absolutely. So I do things differently than most law firms. Normally, most law firms have. Well, they have two or three paralegals or even one paralegal. They would assign a certain number of cases to each paralegal. In that case, that paralegal with would run with it. The way we do it differently here is I have a drafting paralegal, I have a discovery paralegal.

00;12;33;18 - 00;12;55;10

Unknown

I have documents, paralegal, e-filing and help out paralegal. I have a communications paralegal and I have a scheduling paralegal, as well as the firm manager who's my head paralegal that everything runs through her to me because there's a lot of stuff that she could solve that could that doesn't need to be brought to my attention. And I'm not talking about illegal things.

00;12;55;10 - 00;13;34;14

Unknown

I'm talking about just minor clerical process. Yeah. Yes. But the key thing we did was breaking it up, compartmentalizing it. So there is not one paralegal that is overwhelmed because they have 60 cases and they're trying to do discovery. They're trying to do client communication, they're trying to make deadlines, they're trying to e-file. So by breaking it up, we felt that it was more efficient for the firm because now a client always gets a phone call from communication paralegal that drafting paralegal doesn't have to take time to stop to talk to a client for 30 minutes to find out about what's going on in their case so that person can now just efficiently just draft

00;13;34;16 - 00;13;56;22

Unknown

rather than taking the time out to do speak to a client. And then Discovery paralegal works on just complying or the discovery together and with the help of the her administrative assistant who is also apparently legal, the two of them get discovery because that's another pitfall is the discovery. When I was in New York, solo practitioner no help.

00;13;56;24 - 00;14;22;26

Unknown

Discovery was a nightmare because you just it's so much doc in so many documents that you have to bootstrap and you have to get together and compile and make sure that's done correctly and verify it and it just becomes very problematic. So you kind of have like an assembly line to a point where everybody is responsible for, for their specific set of tasks and then, you know, they push it to the next person and they push it to the next person.

00;14;22;29 - 00;14;45;02

Unknown

What I like about that is it's efficient, but but really, nothing falls through the cracks. Correct. And everybody is cross-trained. So every paralegal draft, you know, if we if we come into a bind, a paralegal can draft or a paralegal can talk to the client. But yes, you're right. We don't things don't fall through the cracks because each person is assigned a test.

00;14;45;09 - 00;15;01;23

Unknown

Now, do you use a crime or like a practice management system that helps you manage all this and help push things down the road? So we use Clio grow, but we don't have a CRM to to do that. Gotcha. Okay. No, Cleo's great. And we actually have a marketing automation platform. I'm not even sure if you're familiar with this or not.

00;15;01;23 - 00;15;18;21

Unknown

Joe We just came out with this recently. If not, I'll have Steven reach out to you, but it can help you manage a lot of this and it is a CRM and we can integrate it with Clio, so. Okay, yeah. And you don't have to pay for it. I mean, you're a client, you get it for free anyway, and we can help you set it up and integrate it.

00;15;18;21 - 00;15;36;15

Unknown

So if you want to use it, I think it can help you just kind of keep things organized and, and it can help with some marketing automation. People can text you about their case and it's got automation and how it replies and it's pretty cool. So we'll share that with you. Okay. So, Judy, your story is a little bit different than Joe's.

00;15;36;21 - 00;16;08;02

Unknown

Well, I focused only in the Family Law divorce manual. Some and mediation as well simultaneously. I started about ten years before I retired building a practice mediation in Florida. So I, I was oftentimes in Florida as well. But my support staff was incredibly important. That first phone call, that call that's made, how it's answered, how it's returned. And the customer service is crucial in building and maintaining a business.

00;16;08;04 - 00;16;33;19

Unknown

And to get the word out, building a brand that's so important. Yeah, no, I agree. Here's a funny story, Joe, because I know you're a big Giants fan and I don't want to talk about that. Well, listen, I'm a big fan. I don't want to talk about what happened. They got killed by Jacksonville on that cold. But I mean, how a team that loses to the Jets and a team that loses to the Jaguars in the same season is not a Super Bowl team.

00;16;33;21 - 00;16;51;17

Unknown

Now, I have I have already taken the wind out of my sails for this year. I am not going to the Super Bowl. I'm not buying tickets. I already know I'm saving about 20 grand in the month of February. But anyway, here's a funny story. When I was working with the NFL, one of the things that I was doing was selling ads and gameday programs.

00;16;51;20 - 00;17;12;09

Unknown

One of the ones that I was responsible for was the New York Giants GameDay Program. So I said to Judy one day, I'm like, Hey, I got this really cool idea for an ad for you. She goes, What's that? So imagine this. If you're looking at the ad, there's Judy standing there in a suit on the left and next to her is this big chained up £160 eagles bulldog.

00;17;12;11 - 00;17;29;22

Unknown

And the caption above the above the photo would just say, if you need a divorce, hire the bulldog on the. That's awesome. I thought it would have been cool and just put it right in the Giants game day program. Right? And we didn't go to Billboard, so. Yeah, yeah, we didn't do it. But I thought it was a cool idea.

00;17;29;24 - 00;17;50;25

Unknown

But you are correct. This is people don't realize that we are in a customer service business and it it still is a business. Yes, we're helping people, but at the end of the day, I can't tell you how many times when I had to eat some crow in return retainers. Even though I did nothing wrong because I needed to protect my brand.

00;17;50;27 - 00;18;12;23

Unknown

And you're 100% right about the key about customer service. And most attorneys don't realize that. Yeah, and it's the same thing in dealing with other lawyers and the court system in Danbury, Connecticut, which was my primary place of practice, it was mostly on your feet rather than New York, where it's mostly on paper and submissions. So I was always in court.

00;18;12;23 - 00;18;32;04

Unknown

So it was paramount that my staff was there at the ready and liaisons with all the clients. I mean, especially a family lawyer. They need a lot of hand-holding and repetitive direction. It's too much, too much volume is coming at them. Well, I'm part of that. Handholding is they're just going through a really difficult time. It can be complex financially.

00;18;32;04 - 00;19;02;08

Unknown

It could be complex if they've got kids involved. It's not that clients are needy. They just there's a lot of moving parts to those cases that that they need to understand. It is so it just takes a lot of extra hand-holding in that respect, I think. Would you agree with that, Joe? Yes. And that's another thing. People just they want to speak to somebody and they you know, sometimes I have to correct my staff about, you know, they try to rush a client off the phone, but sometimes they just want to talk to somebody because you're right, they're going through a very difficult time right now and they just want to speak and they just

00;19;02;08 - 00;19;20;19

Unknown

want somebody to be heard. Because if it's a divorce, they can't talk to their spouse who they would normally would talk to. So they're going to talk to their attorney. And that's you have to be patient with them. And that's another key thing for my successes when I do my potential new client calls, I don't rush them off the phone after 15 minutes, but I listen.

00;19;20;21 - 00;19;40;27

Unknown

If it takes 45 minutes, it takes 45 minutes, and then I'll catch up on the on the backend. But you have to let people talk and you have to listen to people. I agree. I think it's really interesting how you balance the personal injuries portfolio and the family. And with Pivot, I've always seen it as a volume business.

00;19;40;29 - 00;20;00;18

Unknown

You need that volume and it's very well taken care of by a paralegal in it and a tightly run, educated staff In the family side, it's very different. Do you do you agree with that? Yes, I do. And I do a little bit of criminal law just based upon my background. But it's not my that's not the majority of my practice.

00;20;00;18 - 00;20;26;10

Unknown

But yes, you're right, especially with PE, you're dealing with a lot of also people who are injured and you're getting making sure that they're following up with their doctors because you're trying to build the case and your support staff is helping them along the process. They're holding their hand throughout the whole process, 100% correct. So let me ask you a question.

00;20;26;12 - 00;20;46;13

Unknown

And I say this to a lot of lawyers when we're talking about, you know, discovery of whether or not we're a good fit for them, you know, or were the right agency for them or they're the right type of client for us. And I, I can't implore this enough because I just don't think a lot of attorneys understand this when they say, well, you know, a lot of what you do, I can do myself.

00;20;46;15 - 00;21;04;20

Unknown

Okay. So, you know, I can write content myself. Does that mean you can write optimized content? Do are you targeting the right keywords that Google tells you to target or are you guessing thinking what people are searching? Right. And the point I'm getting at is when it comes to driving consistent calls, you have to obviously be able to rank on Google.

00;21;04;20 - 00;21;22;29

Unknown

Everybody knows that. So when I tell attorneys, here's here's an analogy and why you shouldn't do this. So if I'm in from in San Antonio, I'm in a Spurs game and I have one too many beers and I get pulled over. Do you think it's a good idea that I represent myself? I mean, I know lawyers. I've been working with lawyers for 20 years.

00;21;22;29 - 00;21;39;24

Unknown

I practically know everything about lawyers in my mind and about the law. So should I, should I represent myself or am I going to get a better result if I call you? Of course so. And again, I can't tell you how many calls that I get where people just are trying to get free advice and they want to do it themselves.

00;21;39;26 - 00;22;00;15

Unknown

And what I tell them is do you know, like, for example, your DWI example, Do you know how to file a motion to suppress? Right. You know, no. And then what I the way I usually do it is I ask somebody like you, John, John, what do you do for a living? Right. Well, I own my marketing agency, you know, I know you will work and you work in something other than law.

00;22;00;18 - 00;22;24;28

Unknown

So I couldn't tell you the first thing about digital marketing. I call that social media. Do you know how to admit evidence in or suppress evidence in a court case? Of course not. Right? No. And that's my whole point is, you know, you're saying that it'd be stupid for me to represent myself, which I agree with, but it's also not very intelligent of a decision, I think, for law firms to try to do what we do themselves.

00;22;24;28 - 00;22;45;24

Unknown

Because, I mean, we're in this every day. And I mean, Joe, you're a perfect example to see the results we got. I mean, we know how to do this and that. That, to me, I think is kind of the same analogy. I should correct myself in court. You shouldn't try to do this yourself in Google. And I mean, in your case, I mean, obviously that's the case, but no, you're right.

00;22;45;24 - 00;23;08;15

Unknown

And I don't know the trending things on Google, and I can't tell you how many times how many conversations I've had with Steven from your office. I have your phone number. I just don't bother you. Steven's my go to person. And how about how he tells me about how things are changing and trends are changing and how they you have to change certain things about my for my search engine optimization and I don't know how to do that.

00;23;08;15 - 00;23;31;01

Unknown

Plus, I mean, that's not my forte. I need my goal is to bring clients in the door, give them a satisfactory, satisfactory outcome and get the case resolved. I, I don't have enough time. When when would I do that? I mean. Right. I like I'm married so I could do it at 10:00 at night and I need to get some sleep.

00;23;31;03 - 00;23;49;15

Unknown

So you're right. You're 100% right. An attorney should not be doing their SEO stuff or anything with Google because you don't. I don't have time to sit on the phone with Google for an hour. Right. You need to understand. You need to understand the basics of what's going on. And I think we do a pretty good job of educating our clients.

00;23;49;17 - 00;24;08;23

Unknown

But you really need to align yourself with somebody who is an expert who can consistently get the job done so that you don't have time to do it. You're busy, you know, taking calls from prospective new clients and pulling in five $10,000 retainers, which is more than what we got. I mean, if we get you one new client a month, we're more than paying for ourselves.

00;24;09;01 - 00;24;25;15

Unknown

But if you end up with multiple new clients a month, like you have, it's a jackpot. I mean, you know, your returns are going to be 15, 20 to 1 probably, which is great. Yes. And any advice that I give attorneys is and I have attorneys that have left, you know, working for firms and going on their own.

00;24;25;15 - 00;24;48;26

Unknown

And I still give them the advice you have to have find somebody who is a good fit, like you and I were a great fit. Yeah. I had one of the bigger companies prior to you that I'm not going to mention their name, but they're a very, very big company in the you know, who they're. Yeah. And they, they do a lot of fourth generation legal research and I'll leave it at that.

00;24;48;28 - 00;25;14;12

Unknown

But I was just another number for them. Right. So I would my website when you and I first spoke, John looked exactly like another family law attorney in the same area. Yeah. Where it was the exact same thing. So that's that particular company I know of a case in Atlanta, Georgia, they ranked five personal injury law firms in the same building.

00;25;14;14 - 00;25;30;14

Unknown

How is that not a conflict? Right? Yeah, like we won't work with we won't work with a competitive firm to you because we're going to do the same thing for them that we're doing for you. So if you're ranked number one and they're ranked number two, they're past because they're like, Well, we pay you to why can't we ranked number one instead of Joe for a little while?

00;25;30;14 - 00;25;50;21

Unknown

Like we have control of it, which we don't, and then you're pissed because we're directly responsible for the person that's on your coattails taking some of the calls that should go to you. So we can't win for winning, so we just eliminate that conflict. I don't understand why other agencies don't have that same policy. Well, it's about money, but so that was that was the thing that really sold me.

00;25;50;28 - 00;26;10;21

Unknown

One of the things that sold me to your firm was that you said no, we're only going to represent you in San Antonio Market for family Law. I said, Well, I do criminal stuff too. Sorry. We have somebody who we already have a client here. I can't help you with that. Right. And that's what really, really pushed me to your side where you were.

00;26;10;21 - 00;26;31;24

Unknown

I was your only focus in San Antonio, right? You weren't trying to get the guy next door to me, right? The same amount of balls. Which. Where's your loyalty? Right. Well, I think, you know, I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but I think because we did that, obviously you appreciated it and so forth.

00;26;31;24 - 00;26;57;04

Unknown

But our as I said earlier, our relationship has expanded tremendously because, you know, I think partly because of that, because, you know, going in that we're not going to compete with you behind your back, you know? Right. That's that that was the main thing that I why I pushed over to your son. Cole For sole practitioners, it's particularly hard to carve away the time to do the business that we have to do.

00;26;57;07 - 00;27;18;23

Unknown

And one of those is selecting the right digital marketer. And I had some bad experiences with like you, you pick the names that are known and they come in and they they have all the nice suits on. Four or five of them tell them every six months as I would complain what's happening with my phones. They're not ringing.

00;27;18;25 - 00;27;38;09

Unknown

And it was, Well, we'll do this and we'll do that. They left and that was the end of it. Nothing changed and very fortuitous for me. I met John and it was and we were together about 15 years or more. Yep. I was first page number one right there, consistently never paid for a click. It was all organic then.

00;27;38;09 - 00;27;58;00

Unknown

It was. It was just wonderful. I never had to worry after that. And then he opened the market for me in Florida. So I mean, that's why I'm here today. So my success is directly attached to that. You know what's cool? Do Now she is working with our new law firm clients as they come on the Internet. It's awesome.

00;27;58;00 - 00;28;12;22

Unknown

I mean, what a cool story to tell, right? She just talks about her particular experience and you either want to build your firm or you don't. If you want to build your firm, we can help you. Right. And she creates the plan. And, you know, I execute the strategy with my team. Stephen, as you know, and and the rest of the team.

00;28;12;22 - 00;28;37;13

Unknown

And it just works. It's keep it simple, right? Give Google exactly what they want, how they want it. They'll reward you. Yes. Another thing about a a team, the digital marketing team that you pick, they also have to be responsive. And that one prior to you, I would send an email and I wouldn't get an email back for a few days or I would get the I'm out of the office until September six.

00;28;37;17 - 00;29;04;23

Unknown

You know, if it's an emergency, call this person. Yeah, I can tell you from your firm, if I text Stephen, he immediately responds or sends me a message. I'm on a call. I'll call you back in a couple of minutes. And it never fails that I always get a phone call. Return to me very quick. Well, and you and I texted a bunch on the weekends to more about, you know, football and not but but you know you can reach me, you know, at any time.

00;29;04;23 - 00;29;23;24

Unknown

So. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I never need to because you have such an amazing staff that is so receptive to my to my needs that I don't need to call you. We can we could chit chat about football or the weather or something or not. But I know I have your number. If I need it and I can give you a perfect example of your staff.

00;29;23;27 - 00;29;50;06

Unknown

We had an issue with our website. Somebody put something on blogs. Yeah, yeah, I remember it got hacked because you had it still hosted somewhere else? Yeah, somewhere else. And we were able to fix it, clean it up, and then push it to our server and now it's fine immediately. So there was no, you know, which could affect my business when there is, when obviously on my Web site, people looking and searching, you know, who wants to hire an attorney?

00;29;50;06 - 00;30;07;27

Unknown

They can't keep this house clean. Right. So it's very it's very important to have a digital marketing team that is receptive and is is going to be accessible to the person. I don't mean calling at midnight or anything like that. I'm talking about doing business hours, but if you called me at midnight, you know, I'd answer the phone.

00;30;07;29 - 00;30;30;12

Unknown

I know. Because, you know, it can't wait till the next day of Joe Larson's calling me at midnight. I better take this. It must be exactly, you know, but into what you were saying. Just to wrap that part up is because your site was hosted on another server, we weren't able to see that. Like, unless we would know to go dig into it, which we didn't, because we didn't see any of that of that come through.

00;30;30;14 - 00;30;47;28

Unknown

Now that it's on our server, you'll never have to deal with that because we can solve those problems before you even see it, Right? So, absolutely. And that was my, my naivety of not knowing social media and posting and stuff like that to not originally bring it over to you guys again. That's why attorneys shouldn't be doing this.

00;30;48;04 - 00;31;06;04

Unknown

Yeah, you should be do Yeah. So for any attorneys that are interested in exploring and having a conversation with Jody or myself, just go to the legal authority dot com slash podcast eight. There's a form right there that you can just fill out. It'll take 30 seconds if you have questions that you want us to bring up to future guests, you can do the same thing there.

00;31;06;06 - 00;31;30;24

Unknown

You can actually make an appointment to talk to Jodi or myself or both of us. So, you know, always happy to have those discussions. And and Joe, would you recommend this to somebody that's interested? Oh, absolutely. And even then, if somebody listens to his podcast, an attorney wants to get an unbiased opinion because, you know, they they may nothing if they talk to you, You know, obviously you're trying to sell the business, but they want to speak to me.

00;31;30;24 - 00;32;03;26

Unknown

I'll give them an honest opinion, which I believe. I spoke to somebody from New York. Yeah, you've helped Richard and I gave them the good and the bad. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. No, I appreciate that. So as we close, Joe, what I want to do because I wish we had time to do more of this, you're like the perfect person, I think, to talk about two young attorneys that are thinking about going on their own or have already gone on their own and now they want to build their firm, you know, just take the floor and and talk about maybe any of the pitfalls that you wish you could do over that would

00;32;03;26 - 00;32;22;17

Unknown

have saved you time and or money. Some of the good things that you did that that really helped you propel. I mean, what is if an attorney says to you, Joe, I wanted to go on my own, you know, give me the goods, what's the best way to do this? So you have to realize, again, we talked about it before is customer service.

00;32;22;17 - 00;32;48;14

Unknown

So you have to realize that you're dealing with people and you have to really speak to people and listen to them. And, you know, sometimes their cases don't go wrong. All right. Excuse me. And they go wrong. And you really have to fix that for that client, because as you're well aware, John, Google my business. People live and die by those reviews, as do I.

00;32;48;16 - 00;33;11;28

Unknown

And that's what I tell all attorneys. I live and die by Google reviews. And if somebody puts a negative review out, I have to really call that person and try to fix it. And sometimes, if even even if you did the work and sometimes it's it's, you know, get giving back the retainer, even though, you know, you've done the work and you did your best job, you sometimes have to do that.

00;33;11;28 - 00;33;32;21

Unknown

And some attorneys think that their head I'm an attorney, my head is so big that I'm an attorney. I pass the bar that I can't stoop down and listen to somebody on the attorney. You have to listen to me. That's not the way it works, right? You have to listen to your clients. And it's really the pitfall is don't think you're better than your client.

00;33;32;23 - 00;33;50;00

Unknown

You have to listen to that client and really give them the customer service that they want. My staff sometimes talks to them and they don't. You know, they get a little snippy with the client and I have to pick up the pieces and just listen to them and talk them through it. So one of the major pitfalls is really in communication.

00;33;50;00 - 00;34;07;14

Unknown

That is the biggest pitfall that I see that attorneys don't do. And that's how I get client, because I listen to them. I mean, what's what's what's the old school joke? The biggest stigma about attorneys that people hate? I can never talk to my lawyer. I can never get a call back. I can never get on the phone with them.

00;34;07;17 - 00;34;33;02

Unknown

I agree with you. You just have to talk to them. Yeah. And my staff gets mad at me when, you know, sometimes I'll return a retainer. But for that retainer that I return and then not having a negative review is going to grow my business ten times what that initial retainer is. And they don't. They don't see the business aspect of the law firm where I do.

00;34;33;02 - 00;34;53;13

Unknown

And I'm looking for the future. I'm not looking at the moment where it maybe 20 $500 or $5,000 that I'm returning when I can, that negative review could help, could hurt me $50,000 down the road. Yeah. So here's something that a lot of attorneys don't know. And this has happened. You know, Google does these big car updates every three or four months.

00;34;53;15 - 00;35;22;09

Unknown

And in their most recent car update and really for the last year, they've been pushing and pushing. But this last one really hits it hard. Local reviews are now the number one ranking factor in Google for local search. So it's not just the number of reviews, but it's also the recency of reviews. So, for example, Joe, if you've got 50 reviews and Judy has 100 reviews, but you're getting two or three reviews every month for the last six or eight months or the last year.

00;35;22;12 - 00;35;46;17

Unknown

And Judy's most recent review was from February, you're going to outrank her nine out of ten times. If you have the same content and everything else is equal, you're going to outrank. Every time Google wants to see recent reviews, they take it really seriously. And another ranking factor is respond to the reviews, engage with your reviews. If it's a bad review publicly, state you know how you want to fix it.

00;35;46;17 - 00;36;16;02

Unknown

Can we talk offline? I'll make this right. If it's a good review, say thank you, but engage with your reviews, that helps. Jay can you address what that means? A local review? Yeah. So like Joe was talking about and when you get a Google review from somebody like we have an application that we built that actually can help put that on autopilot, we built it as local rank because we were actually going to release it as a product, But we decided it's so good, we're just not going to let anybody else use it, just our clients.

00;36;16;04 - 00;36;39;06

Unknown

And it will automate getting four and five star Google reviews for your offer. And it works like butter and it does a lot more to, but that's really the main function of it. And when you have a happy client and you ask them for a review, they're going to give it to you. Now, if you have an unhappy client, don't ask them for a review because you're begging for a 1 to 3 star review, right?

00;36;39;08 - 00;36;59;19

Unknown

You really want to average 4.7 or higher in your Google score. That's really the threshold. But for example, when you close out someone's case, Joe, if they're satisfied with it and for all the attorneys take some notes or, you know, record this or whatever, go back and listen to it, here's the pitch to the client. Listen, Joe, you know, as you know, we're a small boutique firm.

00;36;59;19 - 00;37;22;16

Unknown

We really take care of our clients individually. You don't see us on TV or in radio. The way we market our firm and the way we're successful is referrals and positive reviews from our clients. Would you be willing to leave a few words about your experience with my firm on Google? For us, if they if they're happy with your case and they're happy with you, of course they're going to do, but you got to ask them for it.

00;37;22;19 - 00;37;39;15

Unknown

I'm in this business and I rarely think about leaving a review for a business unless I have a really good or really bad experience. I need to get better about leaving reviews everywhere I go because I realize it helps local business and we're all about local business. If you were a ten location, 500 lawyer firm, we wouldn't even talk to you.

00;37;39;19 - 00;38;01;01

Unknown

That's our target. Our target is the solo, you know, small firm with a couple of associates, whatever kind of level the playing field. And that reviews are so, so big. Google reviews, Facebook reviews. And don't worry about Yelp reviews. Nobody goes on Yelp looking for lawyers. No. But does Google and Facebook, if you focus on those, that's the elephant in the room that can change your practice.

00;38;01;03 - 00;38;23;24

Unknown

That's that is the biggest ranking factor. Without a doubt. That is my biggest seller because they see and I can't tell you how many people call me because they said, Oh, I see your reviews and that's why I'm calling you. And I do that exactly like you said, John, when I leave courthouse, if I get when I'm leaving the courthouse and I have a good review, if I have a positive outcome, I ask them for the Google Review.

00;38;23;24 - 00;38;46;26

Unknown

But I'm going to have to get off this podcast. I'll get with Steve and I'll get with you because I do need something where, for example, like two days ago I had a positive case where the father was able to get custody of his daughter and he was super, super happy and walking out. Of course, you know, I gave him the spiel about how I know about can you please leave me a five star review?

00;38;46;27 - 00;39;07;07

Unknown

Absolutely. No problem. But as if I wouldn't have had something right then and there to have him click on his phone to do that. It's in the moment. And I. I didn't have that. And I don't have. But we're going to that's when we have that tool now. So when we hang up from from this interview, I will shoot Steven, a quick text to give you a call.

00;39;07;07 - 00;39;20;29

Unknown

I know you've got some other stuff to take care of with him, but we'll get you guys trained up on that all like today or tomorrow. You can actually we can train your staff however you want to do it, but it's a powerful tool. And look for the attorneys out there listening. I'm not trying to sell you our tool.

00;39;21;01 - 00;39;40;01

Unknown

Just get reviews. That's the bottom line, right? We the fact is we have tools that help with it because it is so important and it helps us do our job. You know, there's the old saying, right? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. We don't want it to be a pig. We want to we want your your your foundations to flourish.

00;39;40;01 - 00;40;03;28

Unknown

Because when you have a solid foundation, you can build on it. Right. And that's what we do. So reviews are important. You got to get on the map with that. And you got to be selective. You can't and I can't tell you how many people call John about saying, Oh, let me automate your Google reviews. Let me automate your two clients so that we send every client an email asking about their, you know, their in their satisfaction with the firm.

00;40;04;01 - 00;40;30;12

Unknown

Like, no, why would I do that if I lose a case? Why would I send somebody who's not happy with the service a review? I'm just asking for negative review. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. 100%. You have to be selective with who you ask. So that being said, Joe Larson, super successful, is an attorney in San Antonio. It's been an honor and a pleasure to have you as a client as long as we have.

00;40;30;12 - 00;40;49;00

Unknown

I appreciate that. And today has been awesome. You know, and any attorneys that are listening, you know, it's Joe at J. Larson Law, Dot coms is email. If you have a question, you want to talk to him. You know, he's he's pretty awesome, as you can see. Shoot him an email, right? There's a lot to learn from people that are successful.

00;40;49;00 - 00;41;11;07

Unknown

That's why we bring him in and and others in his situation, as successful as they are on the podcast. The whole point is to teach you how important it is to market your your practice, but also how to manage your practice, things that that you know. Joe And other attorneys have learned through trial and error so you can avoid their pitfalls and take advantage of the things that have worked well for them.

00;41;11;07 - 00;41;30;16

Unknown

And, you know, just a plethora of awesome information today, Joe, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for joining us, Joe. Thank you for having me. All right. Awesome. Steven, we'll be reaching out to you shortly. And that's a wrap. Another episode of the Legal Authority podcast. For more information, go to the legal Authority dot com slash podcast.

00;41;30;18 - 00;41;37;26

Unknown

And you know, we can be of help in any way. Feedback is always appreciated and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.