Legal Compass: Navigating Personal Injury and Criminal Law

Get ready for an intriguing episode on the Legal Authority podcast as we sit down with Sam Rawls, a distinctive legal practitioner hailing from Des Moines, Iowa! Discover the fascinating nuances of Sam's unique legal practice, which aligns with our soulful approach to the legal profession.

Join us as we delve into the captivating details of Sam's practice – a journey that's as unique as his soulful perspective. We're keeping some surprises under wraps, so you won't want to miss out on the insightful revelations.

 Tune in to uncover the extraordinary way Sam Rawls manages his practice and navigate the legal landscape with a soulful touch. This episode promises to be an enlightening experience for legal professionals and enthusiasts alike.

👉 Don't miss the upcoming episode featuring Sam Rawls! Hit play and subscribe for more exclusive interviews and SEO insights tailored for law firms. 

Visit Their Website: https://rouselaw.us/

#LegalPractitioner #UniqueLegalPractice #SoulfulLawyer #DesMoinesAttorney #LegalAuthorityPodcast #LegalSEOInsights #LawFirmMarketing #YouTubeEpisode

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;22;05

Unknown

Once again, it is the Legal Authority podcast with Judy Goldberg and Jay Rassmann. Good to see everybody and thanks for tuning in. If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you get our new episodes every couple of weeks. You can go to the Legal Authority podcast with the legal authorities dot com slash podcast, and you can subscribe there too, so that every two weeks you get emailed the new episodes.

00;00;22;05 - 00;00;40;11

Unknown

And this is a great opportunity for young lawyers thinking about going out on their own or if you've recently gone out on your own. We have guests on every week that have done the same thing and they give you their perspectives and advice and things that they did well and pitfalls maybe to try to avoid. So today's guest is another perfect example of that.

00;00;40;16 - 00;01;01;26

Unknown

Judy, tell us who we're talking to today. We're talking to Sam. He's out in Des Moines, Iowa. He has a unique practice. I found it fascinating. Soul practitioner like I. Yeah, but the way he manages, I'll let it go. So I don't want to go give it all the way. All right. Well, Sam Rawls is coming up on this episode of the Legal Authority podcast.

00;01;01;26 - 00;01;04;19

Unknown

So let's take it away. Fire it up.

00;01;04;19 - 00;01;23;26

Unknown

Welcome to another edition of the Legal Authority podcast. My name is Jay Rothman with my beautiful esteemed co-host, Judy Goldberg. Good morning. How are you doing? Okay. The only good, good, good to get what a nice day it is in Boca. I ready to go to the beach. I am. There you go. She's actually wearing, like, shorts and a bathing suit under her hair.

00;01;23;28 - 00;01;51;00

Unknown

I came dressed for the interview. Yeah. So today we have an awesome guest today. He's been a longtime client of ours. A digital horsepower. One of my favorite people, Sam Rouse, is joining us. How are you doing, Sam? Hi. Doing great. Awesome. Awesome. So he practices mostly personal injury and criminal attorney criminal law in West Des Moines, Iowa.

00;01;51;02 - 00;02;09;28

Unknown

And we were just talking about Brock Purdy. We're like the second best thing to come out of Iowa behind him, of course, and been with us for, I guess, about six years. And we've really kind of developed a good friendship. We texted all the time, you know, just about life and and so forth, and, you know, making sure our families are good and whatnot.

00;02;09;28 - 00;02;34;04

Unknown

So it's just a really cool relationship. But what I want to do is I want to kind of go back to the beginning. When did you know you wanted to become a lawyer? Tell us a little bit about that and what kind of go forward from there. You know, I don't know that there was a specific time. It really I, I when I was a kid, I had a good opinion of lawyers.

00;02;34;04 - 00;02;54;04

Unknown

I kind of thought of them as the the guy who sticks up for the underdog and right of wrongs and that sort of thing. So I was I liked the concept. And then, you know, when I went to college, I majored in philosophy and politics. And so with those two majors, the law school was kind of the logical next step, right?

00;02;54;07 - 00;03;14;16

Unknown

So then you go to law school. You graduated from from law school. Did you work in a prosecutor's office or did you go to work for a firm? Like how did you get your start actually practicing law on a daily basis? Yeah, actually, when I got out of law school, I my initial intention was to try to start my own office.

00;03;14;16 - 00;03;35;01

Unknown

And I realized pretty quickly that you really need some practical experience in order to make it work. And so I worked as a prosecutor for a while, and then I went to work for a defense firm. And then eventually I started a firm with some other lawyers. And as things progressed, I became the sole practitioner that I am today.

00;03;35;03 - 00;04;02;13

Unknown

That's awesome. So you got a few years of experience working for a firm. Did you learn much or anything when you were working for that firm about, you know, how do I word this? Were you able to take some things from that that actually taught you how to manage your own firm, whether that's, you know, getting clients, how to hire the right staff, how to assign tasks the right way, manage your team, things of that nature.

00;04;02;15 - 00;04;33;00

Unknown

I did. The lawyer that I work for was also a sole practitioner. He had well, he had four or five of us that worked under him. But no partners. He was very, very involved in all aspects. He worked closely with all of us. You know, I really learned a lot from the guy. In fact, one thing I remember is that he was a big believer in advertising.

00;04;33;02 - 00;04;52;04

Unknown

And at the time he was the first guy in Des Moines to take out a full page ad on the back of the phonebook. Oh, well, that was expensive back then to think, Oh, yeah, at the time it was it was very expensive. And no one had thought of doing that before. And he did it and it turned out to be really, really a successful move.

00;04;52;04 - 00;05;12;25

Unknown

And he always kept that back page ad as long as he was in practice. And yeah, so that's just an example, but very a very I don't think I could have done that on my own without having worked for that guy first. That's awesome. But times have changed and nobody reads the Yellow Pages anymore. In fact, I don't know if they even publish it anymore.

00;05;12;27 - 00;05;36;12

Unknown

I don't think they do. Yeah, I don't know. I just a completely off topic. I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and that's my love for the Buffalo Bills. That's where that comes from. And there was a company there called White Directory, and I had a lot of friends that worked there, like salespeople and whatnot. They ended up getting bought out, like in the early 2000s by Hearst Media for like $450 million.

00;05;36;12 - 00;05;57;23

Unknown

I think the number was. And literally like four years later, there were there were done like what a colossal waste of money. And nobody saw it coming. And Google just took the world by storm. And now it's like, you know, Google's everything. I don't care what anybody says, they're everything. You know, you have Microsoft, they have Bing and MSN and whatnot, and you have Yahoo!

00;05;57;23 - 00;06;19;20

Unknown

Which most people don't realize. Bing actually powers the search results for Yahoo! So the two of them combined make up for like ten or 12% of the search volume. That's how big Google is. Google's the other 88 to 90% of searches in the U.S. are done by Google. It's crazy, but there's good reason for it, right? How did they grow to be so big?

00;06;19;20 - 00;06;56;05

Unknown

They grew to be so big because everybody continues to use them because Google gives you amazing search results, like when you Google search something, you never go to page two because Google knows what to serve up as an exact match of what you're looking for. It's remarkable. But how they do it is even more interesting. If Sam, if you and Judy and I were in the same room and we all had our laptops open and we all searched the exact same thing, we're going to get a variance of results because Google every search that you do, every search, Judy does, every search that I do, they learn us as people.

00;06;56;08 - 00;07;26;23

Unknown

Like what do I search for? What results do I collect? So what are the most common types of results I'm looking for? What is my intent? Am I trying to research? Am I trying to buy? And for that reason, Google serves up different results based on your search history. And so it's pretty amazing. They're all about their user experience and they are so complex that if you can't figure out how they work it, that's problematic, you know, when you understand it, Like we're ingrained in this stuff, you know, every day I have a full time team of 11 people.

00;07;26;23 - 00;07;43;28

Unknown

This is all we do. And, you know, we stay on top of it enough to to be able to to to keep up with it. But it can be a real challenge to talk about continuing education. You guys got to do every couple of years. You got to do something every day. I got to do something. Well, that's why we get the results with you, you know?

00;07;43;28 - 00;08;03;11

Unknown

Really true. You know, the the ever changing you're right on top of everything new. We try to be. We try to be. And it really is amazing. It's even noticeable to me that if I try to use a different search engine than Google, I don't get the same quality results. Right. But that's why Google's the juggernaut. Everybody uses Google because they're so consistent.

00;08;03;13 - 00;08;21;05

Unknown

It's really amazing and and they are I don't want to say that they're strict, but like some of the things that are ranking factors that people never think of are like, you know how fast your website loads, right? I mean, anybody in our industry knows that load speed is a big deal. But as an attorney, you would never think that, right?

00;08;21;05 - 00;08;41;09

Unknown

Well, how fast your your site loads is a ranking factor. When somebody goes to your website, do they bounce right off or are they on your website for a little bit or are they looking at multiple pages? What's their average time on site? What's their average time looking at each page? The longer that is, Google says, well, okay, if you're on a page for 3 minutes, you might be reading an article.

00;08;41;09 - 00;08;58;27

Unknown

It must be a pretty good article. So maybe we'll push you a little domain authority. Whereas if they bounce right off your site, then that doesn't help you. That can hurt you. Right? So there's just so many things. You know, we were just talking to another attorney recently, Joe Larsen. We were talking about Google reviews and how Google reviews are so important.

00;08;58;27 - 00;09;21;02

Unknown

They are the number one ranking factor. I'll say I'm for local search. It's crazy. There's there's just so many things. But anyway, enough about the technical stuff. Get back to the fun stuff. So when you opened your practice, were you nervous? Scared? Kind of like, what do I do if I don't get clients as fast as I need to get them?

00;09;21;02 - 00;09;45;10

Unknown

How am I going to pay my bills? You know what was that like? Yeah, What was your feeling and how did you get through it? Yeah, paying the bills is is a little nerve wracking sometimes. And, and, you know, you just but you have to do it. It's one of those things that I don't think, you know, at least most people are never going to be in a position where it's not going to be nerve racking to quit your job and start something new.

00;09;45;13 - 00;10;04;07

Unknown

And so you just have to kind of pull the plug and do it. But I was fortunate to meet some people, some clients that I established a good rapport with. And you know, back then word of mouth was practically everything. You couldn't if you couldn't afford a back page, I don't know. But, you know, word of mouth was everything.

00;10;04;10 - 00;10;24;07

Unknown

And that's how everybody got their clients. And so I met some people who knew that I was young. I knew that I was starting. I did a good job. And they I felt like they they really went out and looked for opportunities to tell people that I was a hard worker and do a good job. That's great. I think it was due to them that I was able to make it.

00;10;24;09 - 00;11;02;26

Unknown

That's awesome. That's awesome. So what were some of the pitfalls that if you could do it over again, you would have avoided or done differently trying to trying to take every case that comes in the door. You know, you need the money. And so it's tempting when somebody comes in that has something they need done that isn't really something you do to to think, okay, well, I'll just go to the library and learn how to do it and you take the case or you take every traffic ticket that comes in and you know, if there's a slip and fall with questionable reliability, you take it and you just think you'll just work your butt off.

00;11;02;28 - 00;11;21;29

Unknown

And you you you don't want to see any money walk out the door. And so you spread yourself a little too thin. And you have to make yourself be selective even when it feels scary to do that. Yeah. No, I got it. I got it. But, you know, without the volume of the calls, it's very hard to be selective right?

00;11;22;00 - 00;11;43;09

Unknown

These are the people that are walking in the door and then you have to close it, Right. Do the counsel. Yeah, close it. So I found and I was with a as an employee right out of law school, went to a small firm who interestingly, he was more of an advertising marketing guy than a lawyer. And he put me on TV.

00;11;43;09 - 00;12;03;22

Unknown

So I was new in town, didn't even live in Danbury, Connecticut. Lived over York. I mean, see, I'm look at the red hair. I would go and and that and that started the brand. But beyond that it's waiting for those phone calls. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a chicken and egg, right? You have to have the phone calls to to to be able to have the opportunities.

00;12;03;22 - 00;12;22;10

Unknown

Right. And so that like one of the things that that I learned from you, Judy and Sam, you may have an opinion on this, too, is when we started working together and this was like 15 years ago, and all of a sudden the calls were coming in, you were like, well, your closing rate went up because you were already so busy, you didn't need any of those cases.

00;12;22;13 - 00;12;44;15

Unknown

And so when they would come in, it was almost like they needed to convince you on why you should take their case. I started I was prior to you, I was so grateful someone came in. I was giving no charge. Consulting was taking an hour. My paralegal, who's fabulous with me for 25 years, she begged me to stop doing it, and I found that it wasn't productive.

00;12;44;15 - 00;13;13;09

Unknown

You can. You can get to the bottom line. You can listen, impress. Do what you need to do. Find out about the case, Determine if you want to take it much, much easier. Yeah. 20 minutes. It's done. And I think they there's a sense that. That they know what you're doing right. Yeah. Once they know that that that they once it's in their mind that you're a great lawyer and can help them know it's them convincing you to take the case more than you convincing them to give it to you.

00;13;13;09 - 00;13;32;10

Unknown

Would you agree with that, Sam? Oh, yeah, I do. And I you know, I, I agree. I still do initial counsel that free initial consultations, too, but I do them now over the phone. Right. Because I can always find five or 10 minutes to talk to somebody and get an idea of whether or not I want to move forward and then set up an in-person meeting.

00;13;32;16 - 00;14;06;11

Unknown

So I don't schedule in-person consultations for free with new clients. Right. How much of your business now is interfacing remotely? Not well, we use about we use my case, which is a platform that use for keeping clients updated with what's going on in their cases. So a lot of yeah, so a lot of that, but I don't do much in the way of video conferencing with clients unless it's a hearing or a deposition or something or, you know, somebody who's in another state possibly.

00;14;06;12 - 00;14;30;13

Unknown

So you like to meet with your clients face to face as often as possible? If I'm going to if I'm going to take the case, I like to meet face to face, if possible, at least one time, right? No, that's that's cool. One of the things that that I also learned from you, Judy, and this is funny, you may have a thought on this year so jury would get a pretty good volume of calls, like 70 or 80 calls a month sometimes.

00;14;30;15 - 00;14;48;03

Unknown

And so she had a lot of people coming through the door and she would ask them, well, what made you choose me? What made you want to talk to me? And one of the common answers was, I still think this is funny. One of the common answers was, well, you were ranked number one. So Google thinks that you're the best lawyer.

00;14;48;06 - 00;15;05;23

Unknown

Google doesn't know any of this stuff. She's ranked number one because of the marketing that she does to get there. But literally, they thought that so many people thought that, well, she was ranked number one. So Google thought she was the best lawyer. So they want the best. They do. They think if you're on page one, the sooner they can.

00;15;05;23 - 00;15;20;23

Unknown

If you're on the top there, there's a reason. And it has to be that you're the best. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, there's the old saying you can lead a horse to the water. Can't make them drink. I mean, that that leads the horse to the water and you just let them take their own drink. I guess whatever works, right?

00;15;20;26 - 00;15;42;02

Unknown

But at the end of the day, things have obviously changed over the last five or six years for you where, you know, you're getting a pretty consistent lead flow, You're getting cases coming in, you have options of, you know, if you don't take this case, it's not going to change your lifestyle. You know, obviously everybody needs money, but, you know, it's it's a different feeling now.

00;15;42;03 - 00;16;03;00

Unknown

Right? Since we started to work together, we've had a lot of success and we've we've been able to to drive case leads to you you know with some of the stuff that we're doing, you know, on your site and off of your site driving to it. Talk about that a little bit. How is that kind of changed, knowing that when you wake up in the morning, there's there's cases that are waiting to talk to you?

00;16;03;03 - 00;16;23;27

Unknown

Well, it's it's a good feeling. And, you know, you don't even you don't have to take every case yourself. If you collaborate with the lawyers, you can spread it around, handle more stuff that gives you a more consistent stream so that you don't have periods of time where you're waiting for a case to be resolved and get paid it.

00;16;23;29 - 00;16;45;04

Unknown

It takes a lot of stress off. Yeah, no, that's great. And you have a kind of a different approach than some of our other guests where, like we were talking with another lawyer recently, he's got a staff of like eight or nine people and he's a solo, but his case intake volume is so insane that they are all extremely busy.

00;16;45;06 - 00;17;05;23

Unknown

You kind of like to do everything yourself. You don't really have a staff. You're you're really the true definition of a solo and that works for you and your lifestyle and what you want to be able to do. Talk a little bit about why you did that instead of, you know, building this big, monstrous, you know, law firm.

00;17;05;26 - 00;17;43;14

Unknown

Well, it was it it was unfortunate. My I was a firm and we had a lot of employees and my father got sick and I was having him to take him at the Mayo every other week for four days at a time. And so I was just going to step back for a while and I had my partners buy me out of the practice and I decided I would open a small office and I was either going to have to pay to have it fully staffed or I wasn't going to be there a lot of the time or invest some money and technology which, you know, at the time a you know, a phone that

00;17;43;14 - 00;18;04;09

Unknown

I could take with me and plug in at the hotel. It was all very cutting edge at the time, sure. But I decided to go that way and what I found out was making myself do some of those things myself right down to even using the court's electronic data management system, learning how to log in, file my own stuff.

00;18;04;12 - 00;18;27;09

Unknown

I got a really good handle on how much time it takes to do different things that I was paying other people to do before. Right? And so now what I do is I have independent contractors, I have paralegals that I work with, some out of state on a case by case basis, an assignment by assignment basis. A couple of them I really enjoy working with.

00;18;27;11 - 00;18;47;16

Unknown

I collaborate with other lawyers. So if I have a case that comes up, an example is I work with a lawyer who's a really knowledgeable brain injury attorney. If I get a case that involves a potential brain injury, I collaborate with him depending on the type of case it is we work out of. You know, it's not just send it to him and take the referral fee.

00;18;47;23 - 00;19;11;13

Unknown

Right? We actually work the case together. Right. And that allows me to leverage his staff and his overhead and on cases I need to. That's so and it's so great for me because not only is it worked out for me financially, but it gives me so much flexibility and freedom. Yup, I can work from home. I can work from my office, I can work on the road.

00;19;11;13 - 00;19;44;25

Unknown

If I feel like it, I can leave and go get my kid and take her to do something fun when I feel like it, it's, you know, the reason I did it was it was unfortunate, but I'm so glad I did because I like this form of practice so much. Yeah. So the take away there for the young lawyers that are listening that either want to go start their own practice or have started to investigate it or have recently done so, is that you don't always have to have staff, you don't always have to to think, well, gee, I need a paralegal, I need a legal assistant.

00;19;44;28 - 00;20;00;03

Unknown

I got to pay the rent, you know? Now, am I nuts? Ten grand a month before I even, you know, take a dollar for myself, you know? Holy shit. What happens if I don't bring in $10,000 worth of fees? Right? It can get really scary. And take your focus off the ball. You don't have to do it that way.

00;20;00;05 - 00;20;18;29

Unknown

You absolutely can do it. You know, the way you're doing it. Like Joe Lawson, another guest that we had on recently, this guy was a New York City police officer. NYPD went to law school while he was a cop, started practicing law while he was a cop, you know, taking on clients and started literally all on his own.

00;20;19;02 - 00;20;36;11

Unknown

And now he's built into this huge firm. But perfect example. I mean, Sam did the same thing. Still does it. I mean, Sam, if you if you knew that you could get 50 cases a month right now, would you? But you needed a big staff to be able to run, it would you do it or would you just like now, I just want to stay doing what I'm doing.

00;20;36;13 - 00;20;56;26

Unknown

I would not change it. I like it this way. I would just take those cases and collaborate with other lawyers, just divide them up, decide what I'm going to do, which case with depending on different people's skill sets. One of my good friends has the type. His business model is the opposite of mine. He, like you were describing, has a huge number of staff he spends.

00;20;56;26 - 00;21;19;28

Unknown

You know, I don't know how many tens of thousands of dollars a month on the advertising. He is got tons of support, but yet he's always busy with, if nothing else, personnel issues, that sort of thing. Yeah, that's true. He likes it. Yeah, he likes it. It works for him. I do a lot of cases with him, but I like, I like this.

00;21;19;28 - 00;21;46;15

Unknown

This works for me. But at the end of the day, you probably in him aren't that off. And your personal confrontation potentially. We, we, we haven't compared tax returns, but neither one of us, neither one of us is going hungry. Well, hey, listen, if you can drink that Johnnie Walker Blue Man, then. Then you're doing all right. Well, you know, the constant here, but the constant here is bringing in the business.

00;21;46;17 - 00;22;13;12

Unknown

Yeah, How we choose to manage it, how large a firm we want, how many cases a month, how much we want to charge. But we have to be smart business people, usually lawyers on my in my experience. But the best, the best thing I ever did, fortunately for me was, you know, to meet you, J And, and I had a lot of experience before with and fortunately, you learned all the wrong all the wrong things.

00;22;13;14 - 00;22;38;03

Unknown

Sam had that too. But all we need is the opportunity. We need the clients to come in. Then we can choose how we facilitate, how we manage, and how we are as lawyers. Yeah, what we like in life. So, Sam, let's talk a little bit about once you and I started working together, I believe it was 2000, 16, 2017, something like I mean, it's been six years, probably seven years.

00;22;38;06 - 00;22;57;04

Unknown

What has it been like working with an agency that kind of knows what they're doing right, to to be able to help you with your your online presence and and turning, you know, your website into kind of a case intake machine, you know, a way to to generate consistent cash flow and so forth. It's it's really been great.

00;22;57;04 - 00;23;37;09

Unknown

And as you know, our main recall before you I worked with a very large company and here's here's kind of what I tell people today is that it just as lawyers typically are not, you know, always great businessmen, we're also not typically great marketing and IP guys. Right. And so when we're talking to somebody about online advertising and CEOs and clicks and that sort of thing, you know, unless you're going to hire somebody full time to be on your staff to try to track down where every call comes from and that sort of thing, we are as lawyers, kind of vulnerable to hope we're getting a good deal or while we get right.

00;23;37;13 - 00;24;07;15

Unknown

It's a very good point. But even though we're not always great businessmen or marketing people or IP people, litigators tend to be good people. People. You know, reading people is a lot of what we do. We try to be jurors, we try to read witnesses. You know, that's kind of our skill set. And so what I like about working with you and what I like initially about working with you and Steven and the others that I worked with at your at your agency is that I feel like you guys really do care.

00;24;07;15 - 00;24;46;05

Unknown

We do about whether I do well and you really do want me to do well. And so I figure I'm not an expert in that. You are. But if I if I have a good feeling about the people, then that's the that's the way that I can make a good judgment. I mean, of course, the phone has to ring to don't get me wrong, if I have a good feel and good judgment about the people that I'm working with, I'm more likely to trust my opinion about that than I am to trust my opinion about whether I think my bad whatever is generating clicks or culture.

00;24;46;11 - 00;25;00;27

Unknown

But at the end of the day, I mean, you do have to get results. It doesn't matter how nice we are, we have to get your results in order for this to work long term. And it's been six, seven years. I mean, that kind of speaks for itself. Absolutely. You know, absolutely. And I've and I'm very happy with the results I've got.

00;25;00;27 - 00;25;24;26

Unknown

As you know, because I would tell you if I was. Yeah, well, we've become really good friends, right? I mean, we talk to each other on the weekends and, you know, we've each had some some issues in our lives recently that have come up. And, you know, I think I mentioned to you what I just went through a month ago, and and obviously, I know what you went through and, you know, there's there's been I don't want to get too specific, but we're really friends.

00;25;24;26 - 00;25;40;26

Unknown

Like, there's been some situations where you you weren't sure what you were going to do to navigate your practice for a little bit. So, you know, initially you would put things on hold with us for a little bit. And then a couple of months later when we had another conversation, you had learned that we just never stopped doing the work.

00;25;40;26 - 00;25;57;17

Unknown

I just didn't build you for a couple of months because we're friends and, you know, I wanted to have your back no matter what. And and I kind of saw the writing on the wall that, you know, once things settle down and you realize that you're, you know, in a good situation with your personal health stuff, that you're you're not going to stop practicing law.

00;25;57;17 - 00;26;16;15

Unknown

So I'm not going to stop helping you. And that's kind of, Yeah, well, that meant a lot. It really did. That's a that's a meaningful gesture. And you and I have become friends and I feel like maybe I could I'd be comfortable just getting personal issues with you. And we do, like, work, and we and we and we do that.

00;26;16;17 - 00;26;31;24

Unknown

So, yeah, I mean, I look, I'm a sap. I like to be friends with my clients. And when you work for somebody or work with someone for six, seven years, I mean, Judy, you and I were together for like 15 years, and now we're like, yeah, both parties. We hang out all the time down here in South Florida because you live here now.

00;26;31;27 - 00;26;57;27

Unknown

This is this is what I really enjoy about the business. All right? The X's and O's and the ones in the zeros, you know, that's technical stuff. I'm a math guy. Great. So, like, I get into that. You're not going to like that. You're not going to like that. But that's that's what, you know, makes me go. But well, you know, you've been my go to guy and very you know, Sam, I was having an issue with I was a sap when it came to collecting my bills.

00;26;57;29 - 00;27;33;07

Unknown

Her billing. So how many how many retainers can they give and how fast do we go through it? I mean, it's. It's insane. Insane. Yeah. And and I would always feel comfortable in calling Jay, you know? Listen, I have a problem. What do you think? And I mean, he came up with an idea here in Florida in mediation, in billing, a lump sum of upfront lump sum, non returnable and without billing hours because nobody said, no, I'm going to, you know, I'm cutting immediately, cutting my fee by by two thirds.

00;27;33;07 - 00;27;54;22

Unknown

How can I do that? But it works. It absolutely works. So he's my marketing maven as well. So it's just great. Yeah. Well, I mean, we know your business, right? We only work with law firms to this point. I mean, we may open up to contractors at some point in the future. We're thinking about, you know, putting up a whole nother division of the company with another set of staff to be able to do that.

00;27;54;25 - 00;28;11;26

Unknown

But to this point, I've only worked with law firms, so I have to know your business, right, Because I have to know how you you need things to work. Like I you know, I understand how you guys get paid, whether you're doing a case and it takes a while or you're you're doing a billable case, you're getting paid upfront.

00;28;11;28 - 00;28;29;20

Unknown

You know what your what your cash flows are like, what your problems are like, what your challenges are like. Because if I can help you solve some of that stuff, I become even more valuable, right? And my company becomes more valuable. And so we've really tried to do that, especially like in your case. And I think early on we had talked about, you know, maybe how to dial in some processes.

00;28;29;20 - 00;28;48;03

Unknown

And I actually have a couple other things that I want to talk to you about offline that we've recently started to do that I think can help you with some automation. And, you know, we can literally tie into my case with an integration that's something new to us, but it's awesome. So, you know, really onward and upward for for, for your firm as far as we're concerned.

00;28;48;03 - 00;29;16;04

Unknown

So. Well, I have a I have a question, Sam, can you speak to branding? What did you do in that area for yourself, your firm And you know well I logo primarily and then and then J so that it sounds self-serving really, but when we started with Sam, he didn't really have much of a brand because he had just never put a lot of focus on it, right?

00;29;16;06 - 00;29;37;24

Unknown

And then we started to build and build. And, you know, now it's working. I mean, he's all over the Internet and, you know, things are great. And obviously he's an expert in his field. He anybody that wants to be a true solo just doing their own thing, he's you two are the best to learn from, right? I mean, you had Sarah for a long time, but Sam's kind of on his own, so, I mean, you guys do everything on your own, and.

00;29;37;26 - 00;29;57;24

Unknown

And I mean, you're both super successful in your own right, so, I mean, financially, you're both happy, you know, and so forth. You don't need a big staff to make a lot of money. Right. But in that, as we as we wrap up, Sam, what would you say if you were talking to a roomful of young attorneys that are thinking about going out on their own?

00;29;57;24 - 00;30;17;22

Unknown

They're currently working for someone or they just hung out their shingle and maybe they're struggling a little bit. What what is the message from the Sam Routh's podium about, you know, what to avoid? You know what to excel with? You know, here's what worked for me. Here's what didn't work for me and here's how you should zero in on on becoming successful.

00;30;17;22 - 00;30;41;04

Unknown

What would be your advice to them? You know, I'm kind of already mentioned that, you know, make relationships with your clients, you know, become friends with your clients to a certain degree, like, like you and I have. Yeah. Those people, if they trust you and they know that you mean the best for them, they will call you up to ask you advice on things other than needing you on a case.

00;30;41;06 - 00;31;03;03

Unknown

They'll tell their friends who have a problem. We'll call Sam. You know he'll give you good advice, what they what he thinks. And so that it just starts to grow. That network starts to grow. And the other thing I would go back to is don't be afraid to be selective. Even though you feel like you need all the business you can get when those questionable cases come in.

00;31;03;05 - 00;31;35;24

Unknown

Don't be afraid to tell yourself I can make it. I need to focus on the people that I've made an obligation to and inspired me and I need to work for that and don't make the mistake of taking every case. And last I would just say stick with it, because you often see lawyers leave employment to hang out, hang their own shingle, you know, very seldom see lawyers who have started a firm change their mind and go back to working for someone else.

00;31;35;26 - 00;31;59;24

Unknown

So there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's worth the initial effort. That's what I would tell people. And and obviously you're a believer in doing something online. Get your presence out there to online. How critical that is, especially in the early stages. Right. Because you need something that's going to bring case intake. And Google doesn't care if you're a brand new lawyer or you've been doing it for 25 years.

00;31;59;26 - 00;32;20;13

Unknown

If you have the right agency working with you that's an expert in their field that that knows how to brand you and knows how to get intake for you, that solves a lot of problems. But you have to be able to make that investment, too. I mean, it's not the cheapest thing in the world, but it isn't what I should have said that to me because starting a firm now is different than starting a firm when I did.

00;32;20;15 - 00;32;41;10

Unknown

Because you can't ride now on word of mouth. Everybody goes to Google to decide who they're going to hire. And so you have to do it. And I would also tell people, don't make the mistake of spending just enough to have it not matter. Then it's just wasted money and some people, I think, make that. I agree. Yeah, I totally agree.

00;32;41;13 - 00;33;02;21

Unknown

So with that, Sam, what a great day. I appreciate you coming on. I know we've we've worked hard. You're so busy between, you know, balancing enjoying your life and and working hard that sometimes it's hard to nail you down and and I appreciate that you took the time for us this morning. I know it was great information for the people listening.

00;33;02;23 - 00;33;23;03

Unknown

Always great advice. And, you know, Sam Rouse is a fantastic attorney. Des Moines, Iowa. If anybody needs any help or or co-counsel or, you know, if you if you want to just shoot him an email, you know, his emails are available on his website. Terrific guy. And again, thank you so much for your friendship and the relationship that we've had with you for so many years.

00;33;23;03 - 00;33;49;09

Unknown

And and for attorneys that are listening, if you want further information about what we do on the marketing side, you want to have a conversation with Judy or myself about that we both work together on on helping law firms become successful. The legal authority dot com slash podcast. There's a form right on there where you can make an appointment to speak right to Judy and you know whatever we could do to help a conversation sorry we don't bill by the hour for those thank you.

00;33;49;11 - 00;34;05;26

Unknown

Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right, Sam, thank you so much for joining us today. Man, I will talk to you soon. Enjoy some of that blue label we sent you. This is. I'm ready. I thought the bottle would be next to you on the camera. Thank you. Seven and seven and talking. Not a good role model, Jay.

00;34;05;29 - 00;34;15;26

Unknown

Well, you know, it's only noon where he is, right? So. But awesome, man. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you, guys. All right. Bye bye. Take care.