How To Make All Systems Go, with Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright
The law firm that runs on systems runs better — but you have to actually follow them. Ben Gideon reflects on a "best practice breakfast" that exposed that hard truth. In this episode, he and Gideon Asen COO Jeff Wright break down why a systems-based approach is the engine behind law firm growth. They share candid lessons about what makes systems fail, including lack of buy-in, absent accountability, and leadership that doesn't model the behavior it demands.
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Great lawyers don't always know
how to build great law firms.
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Let's change that.
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Join Ben Gideon as he shares hard won
lessons from building his own financially
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successful law firm and practical
insights from top law firm entrepreneurs,
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business consultants, and more.
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This is a podcast for lawyers by lawyers.
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Welcome to Elawvate:
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Build and Grow Your Law Firm.
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Produced and powered by LawPods.
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Today's episode of the Elawvate:
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Build and Grow Your Law Firm
podcast is brought to you by Supio.
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I just spent an hour doing a webinar
with the Supio folks. It was great.
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We had the head of business development
and also one of the lawyers from
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Texas who's been an early adopter of
Supio and walked through some case
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models of how you use Supio to
put a case together. It was very,
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very impressive.
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I would encourage everyone who doesn't
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medical malpractice type of law firm,
check out Supio and get the demo.
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VisionSpark is the company that
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find seconds in command. You know
any seconds in command, Jeff?
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That would be me.
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Now-.
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It's exactly where I want to be.
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Yeah. When I think of number
two, I always think of Jeff.
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Thank you, Ben. I appreciate that.
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We have VisionSpark to credit for the
search process that led us to Jeff
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and that Jeff has led
us to the holy grail of,
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it appears to doubling our revenues
in less than a year of your
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Anybody who needs a second
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I would encourage you
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Our firm has done that.
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Hello, everyone,
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and welcome to the Elevate Build
and Grow Your Law Firm podcast.
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I'm Jeff Wright, Chief Operating
Officer at Gideon Asen,
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and as always joined by
Ben Gideon, partner, owner,
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attorney extraordinaire. Welcome, Ben.
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Hey, Jeff. The last episode,
you were not joined by me.
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You were joined by my
partner, Taylor Asen.
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It was fantastic.
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I know it was a big improvement.
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I think it might be our
highest rated episode yet,
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which I'm sure you feel good about.
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Yeah. It makes me worry.
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Maybe I should transition responsibilities
to Taylor for this podcast.
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No, no, no.
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I think having him as a special
guest will excite the listeners.
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So I know it's been a little while
since you and I have been together.
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And I think today what
we wanted to transition
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into is you've done a really good job
of covering when you first started the
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firm, how you, Taylor,
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and really one paralegal were jack of
all trades and had to wear every hat.
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And it was a little bit of a shotgun
approach as opposed to having really
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defined systems on how to do things.
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And I think one of your biggest
realizations are as we've scaled,
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as we've continued to grow,
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how important implementing
and adhering to systems are.
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Yeah. I mean,
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this all came to a head again in my mind
from things we've been discussing over
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the last few days.
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One of the things our firm has
implemented is we call it a best practice
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breakfast, but once every
month we depart from our normal
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Monday meeting agenda and
we do somebody presents on
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a deep dive on an issue of best practices.
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I did the meeting this Monday and we were
talking about some of the systems that
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we had developed and policies regarding
expert witness preparation and
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use and medical malpractice case reviews,
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how we review cases and how we
triage them and intake them.
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And one of the things I recognized in
doing that is that we had systems and
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policies on the books regarding those
things and they weren't really being
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implemented and followed.
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And that kind of reminded me of
how important systems can be and
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what are the challenges,
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the benefits of the systems and the
pitfalls and problems you run into in
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trying to actually execute and
implement systems within the
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practice.
So I thought today,
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and it's something I wanted to cover
because I think it's one of the
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foundational things that's really
helped us grow and succeed has been our
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approach to a systems approach.
And it applies universally,
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I think to any firm and
particularly any firm that's
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attempting to implement a
growth model and to scale.
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So I thought today we would
cover that topic of systems.
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No, I think it's great.
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I think the other realization was
not only were we not following them
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consistently,
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but that we hadn't revisited those
in a while and they required some
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significant upgrades due
to the growth of the firm,
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due to the availability of different
technology and AI that we were using.
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I don't want to say the
procedures were obsolete,
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but they definitely needed to be updated,
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which is something we haven't
been good consistently either.
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Yeah. When you go back
and look at a system,
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you see that its policy date
drafted was five years ago
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and it has things in there that haven't
really been true for several years.
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You realize, well, no one
is following that system.
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No one has looked at it in a while and
it's obviously not working. So yeah,
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I mean,
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there's not been perfection in our
implementation of a systems approach.
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There's a lot we've done right and we've
done really well and there's a lot we
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still need to work on,
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which is probably true of any institution
at whatever stage of growth they're
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at.
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But I wanted to back up and talk about
the concept of systems and why they're
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important.
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I came from a firm where
probably there were more
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systems than I appreciated
because it wasn't my job to manage
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all of the back office functions of the
firm. We had professional administrative
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staff that did a lot of that
from office management to finance
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and comptroller and human resources.
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But I was on the executive management
committee of the firm for a long time.
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I can say that we really did not
overall have a systems approach.
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We never used the word systems.
We didn't talk about systems.
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There were no firm-wide
manuals or policy sets of
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policies. There was no training
that I was aware of on any of that.
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And we kind of had a, which I think
is very true for a lot of law firms,
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a kind of balconized
approach where each lawyer or
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team was kind of their own
city, state, if you will,
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that had their own fiefdom
of king and vassals and
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own rules and laws that applied
within their city, state.
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So if you were to eavesdrop on
any of the different law teams or
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practice groups,
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how they would be doing things
would be very different from another
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team within the same firm.
And sometimes we'd have paralegals
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that would transfer from one team
to another or cases that would move
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from one team to another.
And the new team would say,
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"They're not following any of the
practices we follow on our team.
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They're doing everything completely
differently." And sometimes that might be
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for the better and sometimes
it might be for the worst,
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but there was really no expectation
of uniformity or consistency
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across the firm.
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And that never really registered in my
mind that there was any problem or issue
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with that during my
time at my former firm.
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I wasn't focused on firm management
at that level because I was focused on
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moving and managing my own practice
group, my own cases. Within my team,
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we did things the way I wanted to do it.
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We had great systems
within our own little team,
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but when I decided to start my own firm,
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my mindset about the importance of
systems really started to change.
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Now, Ben,
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I know one of the things you've struggled
with and you've verbalized to the
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senior management team is systems
work extremely well for your legal
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services support staff. And I don't
want to put words in your mouth,
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but it's much easier to get
legal assistants and admin
assistants and paralegals
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kind of working in a
structured environment,
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but trying to put so much structure
or systems around attorneys,
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the concern about maybe stifling
their ability to do their work in
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the way they want to do it and that
they're comfortable with seems like
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something that you've struggled
with a little. Is that accurate?
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I think it's definitely the case.
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It doesn't necessarily
just apply to attorneys,
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but I think as you move up the
hierarchy of starting with rote
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administrative tasks and you
move up to more knowledge-based
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work,
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the systems become more difficult
because there has to be more flexibility.
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You don't want to stifle creativity
in a role where there's a
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premium and value to
that creativity, right?
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So where people are doing
tasks that you don't want
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there to be creativity,
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the primary goal is simply
consistency, uniformity,
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predictability. Systems work
extremely well for that.
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When you get up to a level of ... I mean,
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you could imagine if you had a group
of painters or sculptors and you
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said, "Well, you're going
to have to Picasso here.
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I want you to make sure you do every
painting like this and you're going to
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start in this way and you're going to
use this many breaststrokes or these
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different colors." Of course,
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that's going to stifle creativity and
that would never work. And lawyers aren't
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painters,
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but they're also not
purely number crunching
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bureaucrats either.
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They are supposed to be
using their own ingenuity and
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creativity and you want that
and you want to encourage it.
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So it does become more difficult.
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But the question is a good one and it
goes back to something we try to do
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with anything we're doing as part
of our building out of the firm,
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which is to go to the why.
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It's very fashionable if you're reading
business books or you're listening to
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podcasts, everybody talks about systems
and we do a lot of malpractice cases.
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The systems concept is
very big in medicine too,
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but I think it's important to
take that step back and ask,
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you're not building systems
just for the sake of it.
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We as a law firm are not selling
our internal systems for profit or
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there's got to be a reason why you want
to have these systems and that helps to
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guide what type of systems you have and
where you should use them and where you
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don't use them. So I kind of made a list
of things that I thought answer that
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question. Why do we want or need systems?
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And part of it was thinking, well,
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why do systems seem so important
to me now that I own the firm?
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Whereas I didn't care that much about
them when I was just practicing law.
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And part of it is because in order
to have a functioning, profitable,
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financially successful law firm,
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I recognized that it was very
important to have systems.
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So one reason for systems
is that they enhance
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efficiency,
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meaning that once you've figured
out how to solve a problem,
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you don't want to have to continually
figure out and resolve the same problem
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ever again.
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You want to get it right and then you
want to follow the solution you've come to
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and you want everyone to understand
what that solution is. Otherwise,
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you just continue to have to recreate
the wheel every time you hire a new
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person, every time you train a new
person, or a couple years down the road,
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like we just found out when you forget
that you already had a solution to that
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problem. And there's just a huge
amount of efficiency gain with that.
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You figure it out, you write it down,
you train people on how to do it,
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and then you don't have to deal
with that problem ever again.
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And I'll give you some examples.
We've got many examples of that,
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which I can get to in a moment.
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Efficiency allows you to delegate with
confidence because you know, I mean,
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the systems allow you to do that
because you know that if you've trained
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somebody on a system that works,
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then you don't have to worry
about that problem anymore.
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You can offload it to somebody else
who's following a system that you've all
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bought into and developed together
and you know that it's going to work
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and you don't have to do it
yourself. So now as the owner,
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you can focus on other things
because that problem is solved,
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somebody else can do it.
Again,
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back to my old firm with the model
where everybody did it their own way,
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there's no consistency.
There's no uniformity.
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There's no expectation that everyone
is going to meet the same high
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standards that you want in your
business because they're all doing it
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differently. If you're following
a system and the system leads to
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high standards and quality, in our case,
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quality legal services,
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quality in interacting
with new potential clients,
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quality on whatever, finance,
bookkeeping, et cetera,
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if you have a system,
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you know it's going to have a uniform
and consistent level of quality to your
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expectations. If you don't,
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then it's just dependent on
the whims of the individual,
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somebody having a good day or a bad day,
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do you have a good employee in that job
or somebody that you can't count on,
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et cetera. Durability,
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which is extremely important
when you're owning a firm because
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you have to expect that you're
going to have turnover in staff
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and you want the high quality
standards and consistency to
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outlast any individual. Now you might
have a terrific paralegal who decides she
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wants to leave and go to law school.
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If your case management
depended solely on the
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abilities of a single paralegal,
then when that paralegal leaves,
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you're going to lose all that capacity.
But if you have a system for it,
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you can train the new paralegal to follow
the same system as the old paralegal
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and maintain that same level
of performance and capacity.
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And the final one is growth because
it's very hard to scale and grow
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something that is solely dependent on
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individual performance or even
individual supervision of performance.
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But if you have a system,
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now you can scale that
across many different people,
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teach them how to do that system,
and that allows you to grow.
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And I feel like, Jeff,
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this is a good segue for you to talk
about how you've worked on building out
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what we call the intake
evaluation and core case unit,
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the IECU,
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because I feel like one area of our
business where it's highly system
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dependent and the systems have been
extremely effective has been in
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that unit of the firm that you've helped
to build. Do you want to talk a little
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bit about that?
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Yeah. And I think what made that
a little easier is that division
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or that segment of our
business didn't exist before.
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So we were able to build it
from the ground up. I mean,
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it really started with open
communication. We hired the right people,
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we're very systematic, we're putting
the right people in the right places,
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and then we met and we
talked and we looked at our
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current processes because we've
always had intakes just not nearly as
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structured as we have now. We
made a list of what was working,
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what wasn't working,
what were our roadblocks,
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and then we put together a very
defined plan on how we were going to
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attack those and tweak them.
Probably the most important thing is,
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and it sounds basic,
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but we kept meeting and we kept the
communication open and we thought
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we'd make a change and
thought it would do one thing,
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but it created a problem somewhere else
and we realized we were wrong and we
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revisited it.
When you were talking,
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I was actually thinking because not
so much about us building that out,
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which we did, but going into 2026,
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the big question we have is how to
scale that and keep our systems in place
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and keep the same level of
customer service and attention to
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detail that we have when scaling.
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And that's created a whole new project
and whole new systems that we're
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implementing as we speak. So it's
not something that happens overnight,
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but it's something that
really has to be done as a
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team effort, as a group effort,
and can't just be dictated upon.
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Yeah. And I mean,
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what you're talking about is kind of
a process of how you identify what the
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right system is.
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And I think your insight that you
have to consult with the people
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that are the boots on the ground
that are actually the ones that are
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expected to follow it,
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to get their feedback and what's working
and what's not working and continually
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refine it because otherwise
it's a conceptual plan,
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but it may not be working in practice.
And if something doesn't work well,
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people won't follow it,
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going to then start improvising
and doing their own thing anyway.
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And so it does require,
you can't just have a,
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"We're going to impose this process on
you from high and then mandate that you
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follow it even if it isn't working."
That's certainly not a good approach to
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doing systems, but at the same time,
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I feel like once you have
found something that works,
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you're codifying it as a
policy or practice and the
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expectation is that it will be
followed and performed that way
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every time.
It isn't that the staff,
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they don't feel as if, "Well,
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this is how we've all decided we're
going to do this step of the practice,
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but I'm going to do it differently this
time because I just don't feel like
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doing it. " They're very literal about,
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once you've agreed upon the system,
buying into that and following it.
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It's implemented. And the beauty of
that is we have a primary intake person,
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but there are three other
people backing that person up.
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We all answer the phone the same way.
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We all do our due diligence virtually
the same way with the potential
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client.
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We all board the case into our
case management system and our CRM
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the same exact way.
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Our administrative assistant
was out last week on vacation.
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People take vacations.
Because of our systems,
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we were able to cover for her
seamlessly, and we did not skip a beat.
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Yeah, we all had a little
extra work on our plates,
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but we knew exactly what to do because
of the systems we put in place.
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And she didn't come back to a shit show.
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She came back to everything that were
her duties for that week we're done and
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that's where the systems really shine.
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Yeah.
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I want to circle back to that when we
get to talking about some of the very
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specific type systems we've implemented
and where we've had success with them
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and where we haven't.
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But I just wanted to take a step back
and I was reflecting on why does so many
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firms like my former firm,
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and I think so many law firms from just
anecdotal discussions with other lawyers
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about it, why do they not do this? I mean,
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it seems so obvious that
there's a power and strength to
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developing really good systems
and then insisting that they be
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followed.
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But I really do think that that is
the exception and not the rule for law
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firms. And reflecting on
that, I was able, I think,
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to answer that question based on
my own experience in this industry.
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And one reason people,
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law firms don't do this
and don't do it well,
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and where we've fallen down is because
it's hard because it's what you just
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described is a process and
it's a process that takes time.
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The problem is we're always busy.
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Nobody ever feels like they
have time to divert away
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from performing tasks or
doing the production work
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in order to take the step
back and work on the system.
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And it's interesting because I kind
of remembered back to this book I
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think many, many people have
read at some point in their life.
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I don't know if you read it,
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but it's called The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
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It's kind of a foundational
book and organization or
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psychological self-improvement.
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I had always remembered this
concept he discussed in that book,
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which was the need to balance
production and production
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capacity.
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He gives the example in the book of
the goose that lays the golden egg and
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the classic terrible about the farmer
who kills the goose that lays the golden
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eggs because the farmer wants to get
all the gold right away and wants to get
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inside the goose and take all the eggs
and not wait for them to be laid one at a
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time. So he kills the goose to
take the eggs. But lo and behold,
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there aren't any eggs inside and then
doesn't get any more eggs after that
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because the goose is dead. Well, the
goose is your production capacity,
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right? And the eggs are your production,
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they're the value you're
seeing out of that.
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And it's very hard to spend time
kind of nurturing the goose.
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You want to spend your
time producing the eggs,
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but if you don't nurture the goose,
if you don't build your capacity,
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you're going to lose that production
and you're going to not get as much
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production down the road.
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And so it's just an interesting thought
that that's really the battle with
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systems.
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It requires you to
intentionally take time away
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from doing the tasks on the
day-to-day basis to spend some time to
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build your production capacity,
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to have more capacity down the road.
And a lot of folks,
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just because they're stretched
thin, don't want to spend that time.
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The irony of that is
that over the long haul,
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you save so much time
because you build a system,
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you've invested the time upfront,
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and then you're forever more going to
be more efficient at doing the same
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production work down the road. It's
worth it if you're willing to do it.
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Yeah. It's the classic short-term
pain for a long-term gain. And
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so we can move on. I found in my past,
Speaker:
trying to implement systems fail
for one of three reasons. One,
Speaker:
you don't have the buy-in from the
people that are doing them. Two,
Speaker:
you don't have somebody, whether
it's a middle manager or a manager,
Speaker:
holding people accountable, and three,
Speaker:
you don't have the buy-in
from the leadership down.
Speaker:
And if the leaders, the managing partners,
whoever it happens to be, the CEO,
Speaker:
the president, if they
could care less about it,
Speaker:
then that's a problem
and it's doomed to fail.
Speaker:
Those are three reasons why I've seen
implementation of systems fail in the
Speaker:
past. We're lucky enough to not
have any of those roadblocks,
Speaker:
which is part of the reason why the
systems we have put in place thus far are
Speaker:
succeeding.
Speaker:
Yeah. And Jeff,
Speaker:
that's completely been
exactly my experience too,
Speaker:
that there's the problem of spending
time on the front end doing the systems.
Speaker:
But once you've developed
a policy or systems,
Speaker:
the other place where I
think it classically falls
down is the policy goes into
Speaker:
the manual or it goes into the
drawer and then nobody follows it.
Speaker:
People forget about it. I mean,
Speaker:
that's the experience we just had when
we were looking back at our expert
Speaker:
preparation systems and realizing,
look, we already had this written down,
Speaker:
no one's doing it, no one's been doing
it for a while now. And why not? Well,
Speaker:
because there hasn't been follow through,
there hasn't been accountability,
Speaker:
there's been no expectation that
those systems be followed. In fact,
Speaker:
I think many of our current employees
didn't even know they existed because we
Speaker:
hadn't trained people that they were
there and made that a priority. And that
Speaker:
also takes time, right?
Speaker:
You have to have the time to
train people on your systems.
Speaker:
You have to have a system
of accountability and an
expectation that they be
Speaker:
followed.
Speaker:
I know you were just complimentary
in our current state of we don't have
Speaker:
those impediments, but the reality is for
a lot of our firm's existence, we did.
Speaker:
And that's why in certain
parts of our practice,
Speaker:
the systems have not worked as
well as they have in others.
Speaker:
All of the problems that can
exist in our practice did exist.
Speaker:
We had individual employees at
various points in our development that
Speaker:
resisted the systems. Now,
Speaker:
we had various paralegals who were
trained on a different system.
Speaker:
They didn't want to
follow our new systems.
Speaker:
We had people that when systems were
developed that they didn't agree with,
Speaker:
developed intraoffice
conflict where individual
Speaker:
personalities came in and
people wouldn't follow a system
Speaker:
because somebody else had come up with
it and they didn't like it. We had people
Speaker:
creating their own systems that they
thought were better than the other one,
Speaker:
and then on their own,
Speaker:
kind of insisting that people follow
that approach as opposed to the other one
Speaker:
that we had generally as a firm agreed to.
Speaker:
And to be completely frank and honest,
Speaker:
because that's what we're
supposed to be doing here,
Speaker:
my law partner was not a systems person,
Speaker:
not on any level when we
started this business.
Speaker:
I don't think he recognized
the importance of systems,
Speaker:
and he's the kind of diametric opposite
personality of a systems person.
Speaker:
He is a kind of a one-off
individual guy who likes to
Speaker:
improvise, who would take
the bull by the horns,
Speaker:
and he could be extremely
effective in that.
Speaker:
Just calling somebody,
doing something one-off,
Speaker:
not telling anybody he's doing it,
Speaker:
but the net effect of that over
time for a period of time in our
Speaker:
firm was that I bought into
and saw a value in systems.
Speaker:
The other owner and founder of
our firm didn't. And I would say,
Speaker:
and he would probably agree,
Speaker:
exhibited behaviors that undermined the
concept of having systems because he
Speaker:
didn't follow them and sort
of thumbed his nose at them,
Speaker:
not intentionally, but just because
of that's a personality trait of his.
Speaker:
I think he's now seen as we've grown and
developed and the power of having them
Speaker:
and the way that that has taken
burdens off of his shoulders
Speaker:
and allowed him to have a force
multiplier effect for himself,
Speaker:
I think he now recognizes,
Speaker:
and I think he's been quite upfront and
candid about that with you and with me,
Speaker:
but he's come to see the
value of having systems.
Speaker:
But until he bought in,
Speaker:
when there's two founders and a small
firm that's growing and one of the two
Speaker:
doesn't follow and doesn't buy into it,
Speaker:
it was pretty hard to have a
systems-based approach to our practice.
Speaker:
So a lot of those problems
I think are now behind us,
Speaker:
but those are all the growing pains that
we went through in trying to build out
Speaker:
a systems-based approach.
Speaker:
You can have a system-based
approach without establishing a
Speaker:
dictorial regime. I mean, I think
some people listen to this like, "God,
Speaker:
if I put all these policies in place and
if I'm holding everyone accountable and
Speaker:
if they're not adhering to these exactly,
Speaker:
it's going to be very regimented and very
dictatorship." That's not the case at
Speaker:
all. That's a fallacy.
And if it's done right,
Speaker:
you're not going to develop
anything close to that.
Speaker:
It's an excuse to not do it.
Speaker:
Right.
Speaker:
And what I've found with it is
that your best staff and best
Speaker:
employees love the systems because-.
Speaker:
They'll appreciate them.
Speaker:
Yeah. It gives them a roadmap to
how to do their job at a high level.
Speaker:
They want that, number one. Number two,
Speaker:
it ensures that other people in the
office are also doing their jobs at a high
Speaker:
level and really good people don't
want to be doing high level work and
Speaker:
look across the office and see somebody
else flouting the system and not doing
Speaker:
it the right way. It just
Just is anathema to them.
Speaker:
Number three, it means that,
like you were just saying,
Speaker:
if somebody goes out or somebody has to
rely on somebody else's work product,
Speaker:
it's consistent and predictable
and they can rely on it. Otherwise,
Speaker:
somebody then has to clean up the
mess that somebody else is creating.
Speaker:
People hate that in the office. You
know who loves not having systems?
Speaker:
Your worst employees.
Speaker:
Because they could get away with that
behavior. They can get away with doing
Speaker:
substandard work and putting burdens
on the other people in the office
Speaker:
that are going to compensate
for their failure.
Speaker:
And so that's what we found and the people
that didn't buy into our systems are
Speaker:
no longer with us.
Speaker:
But it was always that person who
wasn't buying in that was dragging down
Speaker:
the rest of the office and
other people would be ...
Speaker:
And creating a bad culture
because if you accept that lower
Speaker:
performance, then people wonder, well,
Speaker:
why am I expected to follow these
systems and meet these high standards,
Speaker:
but other people can get
away with not doing it?
Speaker:
And if you don't have systems,
Speaker:
you have nothing to hold
those people accountable to.
Speaker:
So it takes the accountability
out of the equation,
Speaker:
which is one of the most important pieces.
Speaker:
So people that maybe have a law
firm that haven't really developed a
Speaker:
systems-based approach, they may
be thinking, how do I even begin?
Speaker:
How do I start a process of
transitioning to a more systems-based
Speaker:
approach? And I'll give you
my intake, my insight on that.
Speaker:
Start with the easy stuff. I
mean, when we opened our business,
Speaker:
our first systems were things like what
time are people expected to show up for
Speaker:
work?
Speaker:
We had a policy on when we should arrive
at the beginning of the day and when
Speaker:
different people would
leave at the end of the day.
Speaker:
That was everything we had like
that got written down as a policy.
Speaker:
Some of them were just very simple
like that. But if you don't have that,
Speaker:
people show up whenever they feel like
it or 15 or 20 minutes after they're
Speaker:
supposed to be there,
Speaker:
people are calling the office and there's
nobody there to answer the phone. So
Speaker:
having a system on when people show up.
Speaker:
We had a system where what we noticed is
our attorneys are working or staff are
Speaker:
working in a conference
room. They're making a mess.
Speaker:
They're leaving potato chip bags
or other things around the office.
Speaker:
Clients are coming in. We're having
meetings. It doesn't look presentable.
Speaker:
We had a system where the first staff
person in the office would walk around the
Speaker:
office every morning and make
sure everything was picked up,
Speaker:
everything was neat and everything
looked presentable. Again,
Speaker:
it creates a culture of you're going
to have a professionalized office.
Speaker:
You're going to expect ...
Speaker:
Now you hope people are going
to clean up after themselves,
Speaker:
but that doesn't always happen
and you want to have that.
Speaker:
So that's a very simple ...
This is all very basic stuff.
Speaker:
Who's going to get the mail every day?
Speaker:
Who's going to open the mail every day?
What do they do with the mail after they
Speaker:
open it?
Speaker:
So all of this falls under a category
of office and administrative systems.
Speaker:
And I should say that kind of the
backbone of all of this for us is
Speaker:
something we call the operations manual.
Speaker:
And it's a digital set of
our policies and systems that
Speaker:
everyone in the office has access to.
We keep it in Microsoft SharePoint.
Speaker:
There's an index of all of our
policies that hyperlinks to the
Speaker:
individual policies
that are in SharePoint.
Speaker:
And then the operations
manual is organized into
Speaker:
folders where the policies are
segregated out by categories.
Speaker:
So we have a folder for our firm structure
and organization that includes our
Speaker:
current business plan, our
current organizational chart.
Speaker:
We have a folder for
Monday morning meetings,
Speaker:
which is kind of our core meeting
pulse where we discuss our
Speaker:
KPIs and have a system for accountability.
We have office and administrative
Speaker:
systems, we have intake systems, a
system for how we handle client files,
Speaker:
case management systems,
trial preparation systems,
Speaker:
finance and accounting
systems, HR systems,
Speaker:
information technology,
marketing, business development,
Speaker:
physical plans and operations,
training and resources.
Speaker:
So those are our different
general systems categories.
Speaker:
And as in each of those areas,
Speaker:
so for office and administration,
if you were to click on the folder,
Speaker:
you would see all of our office
and administrative systems,
Speaker:
hours and timekeeping,
office environment, mail,
Speaker:
correspondence, attorney calendars,
office security, et cetera.
Speaker:
I'm not going to walk through all of
them. So starting out, how do you start?
Speaker:
Build yourself an operations
manual. In some platform,
Speaker:
there's proprietary platforms that
are designed just to have policies.
Speaker:
You can build it like we did simply
in Microsoft SharePoint or in Dropbox,
Speaker:
but something that everybody can
open and have access to. And then
Speaker:
gradually,
Speaker:
as you develop best practices
for an individual topic,
Speaker:
codify it as a system and then
train people where they exist and
Speaker:
develop an expectation that
they understand what they
are and that they follow.
Speaker:
One thing we've found to be very ...
Speaker:
That we didn't actually set out to do,
Speaker:
but as a happenstance, it
happened in our office.
Speaker:
And you know who this person is.
Speaker:
We have somebody in our office
who is just an enormous champion
Speaker:
for systems. She lives and
breathes systems, loves systems.
Speaker:
And it's honestly just phenomenal
to have somebody like that.
Speaker:
I mean, it's like part of her DNA. If
somebody isn't following a system, I mean,
Speaker:
it affects her physically and
she holds all of us accountable,
Speaker:
including me and my partner and
everybody else. We have a system,
Speaker:
you're not following it.
Speaker:
And it's just been phenomenal to have
somebody like that who cares so much about
Speaker:
it. And I call her kind of
was the systems champion,
Speaker:
but any firm,
Speaker:
if you have somebody who really buys
into that and you can kind of find a
Speaker:
systems champion in your
firm who can be kind of the
Speaker:
overarching person responsible for keeping
Speaker:
the systems, ensuring people
know about them, drafting,
Speaker:
putting them down in writing and all that,
Speaker:
it's just an enormous asset to have that.
Speaker:
If you have that person or
if you develop that person,
Speaker:
you need to protect that person
because that person is going to get a
Speaker:
lot of pushback from
everybody at your firm because
Speaker:
they're the one holding
people accountable.
Speaker:
You need to empower that person
to hold everyone from the managing
Speaker:
partners and the owners all
the way down the food chain.
Speaker:
It's their job to hold them accountable.
I mean, our particular individual
Speaker:
sent it out this morning trying to find
out what credit card charges are and
Speaker:
she's going to hammer Ben and
Taylor until they get back to her.
Speaker:
Or if they send her an
email to do something,
Speaker:
she's going to let them know if there's
a form or a request for that and to
Speaker:
please fill that out and forward it along.
Speaker:
And she's not doing it to be a pain
in the ass. She's doing it to keep
Speaker:
structure, but you have to protect that
person and empower them. It's important.
Speaker:
You're so right about that.
I mean, so this individual,
Speaker:
and we can call her by name, Christine,
Speaker:
she started with us very
early on in our practice.
Speaker:
She was maybe our fourth
employee or fifth employee.
Speaker:
She has done almost all of the different
administrative jobs at our firm at one
Speaker:
point. Her first job was
as a medical records clerk,
Speaker:
and her job was ...
Speaker:
We were floundering at that point
because we had outsourced our
Speaker:
medical records function,
Speaker:
and we do a lot of medical malpractice
cases and personal injury and so forth.
Speaker:
And if you can't get the client's
medical records in a timely fashion,
Speaker:
everything grinds to a halt. You
can't review malpractice cases.
Speaker:
That means you can't move them forward
into litigation. And ultimately,
Speaker:
that means you can't make money and you
can't service your clients well because
Speaker:
you're just getting bogged down at the
very first stage. And anybody who's had
Speaker:
to deal with trying to get medical
records from a dozen medical providers in
Speaker:
every single different
case, it's a real challenge.
Speaker:
It can be expensive and time consuming.
Speaker:
And Christine just came in and
overnight revolutionized that practice,
Speaker:
developed a system for how it
would work, perfected the system,
Speaker:
and then handed that off to
another person who we hired to
Speaker:
come in and replace Christine
in that job because honestly,
Speaker:
she had outgrown that job and we
moved her up to a higher function.
Speaker:
The person who came in refused to
follow the system Christine created and
Speaker:
created a huge problem for us
and set us back enormously.
Speaker:
And we've had that experience
repeatedly over and over again. Now,
Speaker:
Christine then went into
dealing with intakes.
Speaker:
She helped develop our entire
intake system. At a time,
Speaker:
she's developed different elements of ...
Speaker:
And now she's basically our finance
manager and she's developed all of our
Speaker:
finance and accounting systems.
So if you look across the administrative
Speaker:
systems, she's developed a lion's
share of them. But as you say,
Speaker:
over time,
Speaker:
we have had people that wouldn't follow
the systems where it became a personal
Speaker:
thing because Christine is very
rigid. She wants the system.
Speaker:
If we have a system that works,
she wants it followed, rightly so.
Speaker:
And we tell everybody, look, if
you have a better way of doing it,
Speaker:
we're open-minded to that. Tell us what
the better way is. If we agree with you,
Speaker:
we'll change the system. But
until we have the new system,
Speaker:
you're following the old system.
And when people didn't do it,
Speaker:
Christine would hold them
accountable. And rightly, again,
Speaker:
that's what we wanted her to do,
Speaker:
but it would create conflict with
people who did not want to follow those
Speaker:
systems.
Speaker:
And Christine would take the
flack for that because honestly,
Speaker:
Taylor and I, being the owners and being
somewhat detached from, at some point,
Speaker:
becoming detached from administrative
systems were neither in the position to
Speaker:
know about the non-compliance or really
in a position to hold people accountable
Speaker:
for it. And so that fell to Christine.
And as you say, as a consequence of that,
Speaker:
that could create internal conflict.
Speaker:
And you have to protect that person
if you want to have systems that are
Speaker:
followed, because if you undermine that
person who is trying to uphold systems,
Speaker:
then you've just killed all your adherence
to systems. And we've had that issue,
Speaker:
unfortunately, and we had to learn.
Speaker:
We've had to learn that lesson several
times over the life of our firm.
Speaker:
The good thing is now you're in
the position of both protecting,
Speaker:
taking the shots and
being a person who can
Speaker:
enforce the ... Protect
our systems champion.
Speaker:
It doesn't fall on Taylor
and I now anymore to do that,
Speaker:
which I actually really appreciate
that you do that for us.
Speaker:
Yeah, it's been working well and her
contributions on a daily basis we know are
Speaker:
invaluable.
Speaker:
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Speaker:
The other part about the systems
that causes them to fail,
Speaker:
we've already touched on is
if they're not reinforced.
Speaker:
And as I was preparing for this podcast,
Speaker:
it reminded me that because we
really wanted to build a culture
Speaker:
where there was adherence to systems
and everybody saw the value in it,
Speaker:
in our early years, the first
couple years at our Monday meetings,
Speaker:
one of the regular agenda
items on the agenda,
Speaker:
every meeting was systems,
Speaker:
and it was an opportunity for
anybody to talk about a system
Speaker:
that was not working as well
as it could so that we could
Speaker:
improve and perfect it.
Speaker:
But by putting it on the agenda
and making it front and center,
Speaker:
I think it elevated the importance
of the systems and following it.
Speaker:
Now we've moved away from that.
Speaker:
My thinking is maybe we
should revisit that again.
Speaker:
I mean, my thing is, Ben,
Speaker:
we may have moved away from it
from Monday morning meetings,
Speaker:
but we're having it in our smaller
group meetings consistently. I mean,
Speaker:
we have a legal services meeting
every Monday with all paralegals,
Speaker:
all legal assistants, and really
since the beginning of this year,
Speaker:
it's all system-based. What's
working? What's not working?
Speaker:
How do we streamline this? Why do
we have six Excel spreadsheets?
Speaker:
Can it be one or none?
Speaker:
And we're asking people to
bring their ideas about where
Speaker:
they have roadblocks and where
the system is not working,
Speaker:
where there is not a system and we're
developing it. So we are adhering to that,
Speaker:
maybe not at Monday's meeting,
Speaker:
but we've adopted that for those meetings
with the legal services team every
Speaker:
week.
Speaker:
Because I do sit in occasionally on
the administrative team meetings.
Speaker:
I know that that's also a regular topic
for your administrative operations
Speaker:
meetings. So yeah,
Speaker:
I guess what we've done now that I'm
thinking about it is we've pushed that
Speaker:
topic down to the
individual department level,
Speaker:
which probably makes more sense because
why would the administrative staff need
Speaker:
to be spending time
discussing the attorney
Speaker:
policies or paralegal policies?
Speaker:
And it wouldn't be a good
use of everybody's time.
Speaker:
So that does make sense to me.
Speaker:
Right. One thing I do
want to touch on, Ben,
Speaker:
and we probably have about 10 more minutes
and whether you touch on it now or at
Speaker:
the end, we set rocks every
quarter, which we've talked about.
Speaker:
And one of your big rocks that's
been assigned to you for this quarter
Speaker:
is to create a system of
attorney proficiencies,
Speaker:
which is something that we have
not had that's really going to be
Speaker:
a roadmap for what our expectations
are for our existing attorneys and any
Speaker:
new attorneys that we bring on.
Speaker:
I don't know if you want to talk about
that a little and kind of how you see the
Speaker:
importance of that.
Speaker:
Yeah, no, so thanks for
suggesting that, Jeff. I mean,
Speaker:
I think that one of the
insights that I came to,
Speaker:
and I think many lawyer owners or
managers of law firms recognizes that
Speaker:
the discussion of systems, and if
you do have them in a law practice,
Speaker:
tends to focus more on administrative
and staff type systems and
Speaker:
less on the lawyers. We talked
about this at the outset,
Speaker:
there is a greater challenge in
implementing and developing systems
Speaker:
as you move up to the more knowledge
and creative based disciplines
Speaker:
within any business or practice.
And so I would say overall,
Speaker:
if I was going to give us
a scorecard on systems,
Speaker:
we get a B+ to an A on our
administrative and our intake
Speaker:
systems,
Speaker:
but when it comes to our case
management systems and our litigation
Speaker:
attorney systems,
Speaker:
I give us more about a C at this point.
One of the things that
Speaker:
drove this idea of having
to do more on that front
Speaker:
was the recognition that as we have grown,
Speaker:
we have an enormous
demand for our services.
Speaker:
We have a lot of great work, a
lot of highly valuable cases,
Speaker:
and we have to build out
the capacity to handle those
Speaker:
cases at the level that our clients
deserve and expect them to be
Speaker:
handled. Historically,
Speaker:
the way we did that was that
either me or my partner, Taylor,
Speaker:
had a lot of personal involvement
in every single case, in many cases,
Speaker:
doing virtually all of the high
leveraged work in every case,
Speaker:
the important depositions, briefing,
Speaker:
the motion hearings and the trials,
but that if we want to grow,
Speaker:
there comes a point where we
grow beyond our capability to
Speaker:
do that individually in every case.
Speaker:
And the way that you solve that problem,
Speaker:
there's only two possible solutions
to that. Either have to hire
Speaker:
attorneys that have the same
skillsets and experience,
Speaker:
and that's very difficult to find because
I have 20 plus years of experience
Speaker:
and lawyers that have that kind of
experience don't grow on trees and are not
Speaker:
necessarily looking for jobs
out there in the marketplace.
Speaker:
If you don't hire a superstar
lawyer to come in and with
Speaker:
all of the skillsets needed to
do the work that you need done,
Speaker:
the other approach is to build out
teams of lawyers that have within the
Speaker:
team have all of the skillsets and
competencies needed to manage the work
Speaker:
at the very highest levels. And in fact,
Speaker:
my belief is that teams can do it better
because if you're leveraging multiple
Speaker:
lawyers across a team with
really high quality staff,
Speaker:
and as long as they have strategic
direction and supervision,
Speaker:
which is something Taylor and I can
continue to provide and are continuing to
Speaker:
provide,
Speaker:
they can accomplish the goals even
better than one single individual
Speaker:
superstar lawyer can do without
the potential ego downsides,
Speaker:
without the potential need for high
level compensation downsides and other
Speaker:
problems that come in with that other
type of model. The problem is if you want
Speaker:
to have that system,
Speaker:
you have to devote time to building
out proficiencies and capabilities
Speaker:
on the individual lawyer side.
You can't just hire people,
Speaker:
throw them into the deep end of the
pool and walk away and hope that they're
Speaker:
going to swim. That's
a formula for failure.
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And what we realized is that we
haven't been particularly good
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at training newer lawyers to make
sure they have all of the different
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competencies and proficiencies
they need to fulfill that function.
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And if we're going to move
and scale the way we want to,
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we have to be deliberate
and build that out.
Speaker:
And that was kind of the genesis
of what you're talking about,
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the idea of identifying what are
the core proficiencies all the
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lawyers need to have.
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And we've thought about different
ways to kind of describe it.
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I personally like the
martial arts analogy,
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you've got the white belt or yellow
belt, maybe the, I don't know, blue belt,
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and then you've got the black belt.
And so every lawyer can ...
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And what idea is that each of our lawyers
is going to have a scorecard and each
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of the scorecards is going to
have the different capabilities.
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So one example would be
the ability to review and
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build a medical malpractice case
from scratch with identifying
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the theory of the case,
finding the right experts,
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developing a strategy for litigation,
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and then moving forward,
moving that case forward,
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essentially getting the airplane
off the ground for that case,
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getting it into flight, right?
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There's a number of skills and
different capabilities required to
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do that. It's not easy.
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We're making sure that each of our
lawyers gets the training and gets the
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opportunities so that they can build
out each of these capacities. Now,
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if one of them is taking a high level
expert witness deposition, well,
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they're not going to achieve
that capability if they
don't get opportunities and
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reps to take those depositions.
And at the one hand,
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we want our senior lawyers to be focused
on the things our junior lawyers need
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to get better at and to
work with them to improve.
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But we also want our junior lawyers
to be able to say, "Look, Ben,
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I'm not getting those opportunities
that I need to enhance my own career,
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to grow and to build and to become
a black belt in expert witness
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depositions." I needed to
have more opportunities to
stand up and make arguments
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in a courtroom. I need more
opportunities to fill in the blank.
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And so it's not intended
to be a top down thing.
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It's intended to empower our junior
lawyers to ensure they get those
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opportunities for growth, but also to
remind our senior lawyers that, look,
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if you don't want to take
every important deposition,
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you better well train somebody else on
how to do that. And I'm really excited
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about that.
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One of the things that I find has
been most rewarding to me has been
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seeing the growth of some of our junior
lawyers. I really take great pride.
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I mean,
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today we were just talking to one of the
lawyers who is a terrific lawyer in our
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firm. We just made her a partner.
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She's the first non-owner
that we made a partner.
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We were talking this morning about a
case she just filed where there's been a
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lot of media attention. And now
the local newspaper reached out,
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they want to do a story, the
local TV stations reached out,
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they want to do a story.
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They're reaching out to me because I'm
listed as the lead attorney on the case.
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But whenever they reach out to me,
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I send them off to Meryl
to handle those media
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engagements.
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And I love that. I love the idea that
Meryl is going to get the recognition.
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She's going to be the one out front.
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She's going to be the
public face of the case.
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I completely trust her to do that role.
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I think there's stature and
recognition that comes with her
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earning the right to be that person, the
point person in the case that I really,
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I like for her to have that.
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So it's just so nice to see that
and know that the reason she's in
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that position is not because we just
want to throw her a bone or something.
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It's because she's earned it. She
deserves to be in that position.
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She's worked hard. She's
built out her skillset.
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She projects the right
public image for the case.
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We know if she's making a statement,
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it's going to be completely
appropriate and hit the tone just
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right for what the case needs.
And just so gratifying to see
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that and to know that we've had some
role in helping her get to that point in
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her career and just wanting to
do that with other lawyers is,
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I'm really excited about that opportunity.
Speaker:
Yeah. And that goes back to one
of the first things you said.
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Systems and moving people along
gives you the confidence to
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delegate. Two years ago, you probably
would've done those interviews,
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but now you have the confidence to
delegate that to somebody else because of
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their development and the
firm taking an interest in
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developing these attorneys
and everyone else here.
Speaker:
And I think that's where the attorney
proficiency is going to come into play as
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well.
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Yeah. And that's, I mean,
going back to the question,
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how do we build out systems for lawyers?
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We're building them now and the balance
we're going to be drawing between the
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systems, there's going to be sort
of a minimum set of expectations,
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but we are not going to be paternalistic.
Speaker:
We are not going to be
overly prescriptive.
Speaker:
The systems are going to allow wide
latitude for individual judgment,
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individual creativity,
improvisation. We want all of that,
Speaker:
but there then are going
to be some minimal things
such as what we were talking
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about the other day, and this is kind
of a nice way to end the discussion.
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One of our systems we've discussed is
the use of AI that we discussed how ...
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I mean, it's just amazing to me
how fast this is progressing,
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but AI is a force multiplier.
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AI is not going to substitute for
human judgment. AI can be used in the
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right way or the wrong way.
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It can be a crutch that makes you
lazy and causes you to make mistakes,
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but it can be an enormous
enhancement of one's individual
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capabilities by testing your assumptions,
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by identifying weaknesses,
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by allowing you to organize
information in a valuable way,
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to have access to knowledge
and information that you
wouldn't have otherwise had
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potentially without paying experts,
but even with those experts sometimes.
Speaker:
And we said to our attorneys in
this best practice breakfast,
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the day where AI collaboration
as a full force multiplier in a
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case is optional, is over. It's mandatory.
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And we are going to have,
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and we do have systems where
how that's going to work,
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at what junctures in the case are
you required to use it and how is it
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going to be used?
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So that's an example of a lawyer system
where we're not going to tell the lawyer
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what are all the individual prompts
you have to give to our different AI
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platforms where you're going to be
evaluating case testing assumptions,
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stress testing your theory, et cetera.
But are you going to have to do that?
Speaker:
Do you have to stress test your theory?
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Do you have to have the AI play the role
of the defense lawyer and point out all
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the weaknesses and then identify
systematically how you're going to address
Speaker:
them? How do you overcome
them? Yes, you have to do that.
Speaker:
And you have to do it in every
single case from now on, period.
Speaker:
And we're going to be holding people
accountable to that because it's a huge
Speaker:
missed opportunity if you don't do that.
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And you could be darn sure our
competitors and the opposition
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eventually when they figure out how
valuable that is, they will be doing that.
Speaker:
So we need to be doing it.
Speaker:
And there's a whole range of
things like that that will
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guide the way we expect lawyers
to practice and will be systems,
Speaker:
but still allow for freedom
and flexibility. So Jeff,
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I've done the line share of the talking,
Speaker:
but I would like you to give us sort
of parting thoughts and where do
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you think we need to go from here?
Speaker:
Where in your view do we stand
and what can we do better? And
Speaker:
what are your high point
recommendations for other law firms
Speaker:
that are trying to build
out effective systems?
Speaker:
That's a lot of questions.
Speaker:
And you get 30 seconds. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker:
I'll handle our internal
ones first. I mean,
Speaker:
I think our systems are going to
be tested as we scale and we're
Speaker:
going to have to continually revisit
them, but without appropriate systems,
Speaker:
our ability to scale is
not going to be possible.
Speaker:
I am excited and agree with you that
we have relatively good systems in
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place for our intake team,
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relatively good systems in place
from an admin and a finance
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standpoint,
Speaker:
and we're lacking in
systems for the litigation
Speaker:
team.
Speaker:
I think the attorney proficiency
is going to be a game
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changer in terms of getting
our team's acumen and their
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ability to do everything independent
and not have to pull you and tailor
Speaker:
into virtually every high
level area is going to
Speaker:
be a game changer as that develops.
Speaker:
In terms of people listening,
we hit on a lot of it,
Speaker:
but just to kind of recap,
Speaker:
don't be scared of systems.
Don't think that
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setting up something is going to
be too regimented for your people.
Speaker:
And Ben had said it correctly,
Speaker:
your best employees are going
to appreciate the systems
and your worst employees
Speaker:
are going to be the ones that
buck them and start small.
Speaker:
And Ben had touched on that, and
don't try and do everything at once.
Speaker:
Get input from your team, talk about it.
Speaker:
Identify areas that
are of concern to them,
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areas that are roadblocks to
them, areas that put you at risk.
Speaker:
And that could be risk of
an IT risk all the way up to
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risk of missing something in a case.
Speaker:
And if you're at risk of
missing something in a case,
Speaker:
is there a system you can put into place
to close that gap and identify those,
Speaker:
prioritize them, and
start working on them.
Speaker:
Identify a systems champion in
your office that will embrace this.
Speaker:
And if you don't have that person and
you can't develop somebody into that,
Speaker:
find that person and look for that
in your next hire as that's their
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part of their job. There's probably
a million other things, Ben,
Speaker:
but I know we're getting low on time,
if not out of time right now. Yeah.
Speaker:
And I should say, I mean,
we have done this before,
Speaker:
but if any listener wants more detailed
Speaker:
information about our own systems,
Speaker:
we've shared our operations manuals or
our index with people and we're more
Speaker:
than happy to do that. So just
reach out. You can reach out to me,
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Ben@elevate.net or jright,
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W-R-I-G-H-T at gideonasinlaw.com.
Speaker:
And we're happy to share more
with you to help you on your way.
Speaker:
Absolutely. Appreciate the
time, Ben. Well, thanks, Joe.
Speaker:
Jeff, I'll see you in a bit.
Speaker:
Thanks for listening to Elawvate:
Build and Grow Your Law Firm.
Speaker:
Share with colleagues if you
found it valuable. Remember,
Speaker:
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