Special Preview: The Entrepreneur’s Top 10, with Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright
Live from Portland, Maine, it’s Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright, the team from Gideon Asen taping a special edition of “Elawvate: Build and Grow Your Law Firm.” Ben and Jeff walk through 10 proven strategies for building a financially successful law firm, covering everything from dominating a niche and making data-driven decisions to scaling without losing your culture and building systems designed for the law firm of the future. They also take audience questions. If you’ve had a question about being a law firm entrepreneur, tune in; someone else may have wondered the same thing – and Ben and Jeff may have answered it on the air.
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☑️ Ben Gideon | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
☑️ Jeff Wright
☑️ Gideon Asen on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
☑️ Rahul Ravipudi | LinkedIn | Instagram
☑️ Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP on LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
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Sponsored by SmartAdvocate, Hype Legal, Expert Institute, Filevine, and Steno.
Speaker:
Welcome to Elawvate, the
podcast where trial lawyers,
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Ben Gideon and Rahul Ravaputi talk
about the real issues that come with the
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fight for justice. So let's
find inspiration in the wins.
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Let's learn from the
losses. But most of all,
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let's keep learning and getting better
and keep getting back in the ring.
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Are you ready to elevate your own
trial practice, law firm, and life?
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Let's get started. Produced
and powered by LawPods.
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Hey, it's Ben.
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Rahul and I started this podcast because
we love hanging out with fellow trial
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lawyers and sharing ideas
that can make us all better.
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And both of our firms also regularly
collaborate with other lawyers across the
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countries in cases where we can add value.
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If you're interested in collaboration or
even if you just have a case or an idea
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that you want to bounce
off us or brainstorm,
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Rahul and I are going to be hosting
confidential case workshops the
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first Wednesday of each
month. So here's how it works.
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If you have a case or an idea that you
want to talk about or brainstorm with us,
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just send me an email to ben@elawvate.net,
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E-L-A-W-V-A-T-E. Net,
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or go online to elevate.net and
submit a case workshop request.
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We will schedule you for a confidential
30-minute Zoom meeting where we can talk
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about your case to see if we can help.
If you feel like there would be good
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value in collaborating on the case
further, we can talk about that. If not,
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that's okay too.
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We enjoy helping other trial
lawyers because we know
someday you'd be willing to
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do the same for us if we
needed your help. So again,
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if you're interested in
workshopping your case with us,
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just send an email to ben@elawvate.net
or fill out a case workshop request at
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elawvate.net, and Rahul and I will
look forward to chatting with you soon.
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Today's episode of the Elawvate
Podcast is brought to you by Filevine.
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Filevine has a software
program called Lead Docket,
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which is the gold standard for managing
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So check them out at Filevine
and manage your leads.
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We're also brought to you by Steno.
Rahul, you guys work with Steno.
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Steno is the best in
court reporting services,
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not just in court reporting services,
but even some of their technology tools.
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We're talking about AI a little bit
on this podcast and their transcript,
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Genius, where they can summarize and
take interrogatories based on deposition
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transcripts is so useful. If you
haven't tried it, definitely try it.
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Now we're brought to you by Hype Legal.
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Hype Legal does digital marketing
web development for trial
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firms. It's owned by our good
friends, Micah and Tyler.
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They recently redeveloped our firm's
website, so you can check our website out.
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If you like it, give them a call and
they can help you out too. And finally,
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we're brought to you by Expert Institute.
Rahul, you guys work with them, right?
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We both use Expert Institute because you
always need to be cutting edge in the
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experts that we use in our cases.
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Going to the repeat experts every single
time is going to make you a lesser
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lawyer and you always want to keep up and
the best way to do that is with Expert
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Institute.
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For more than four years, you've helped
us elevate the practice of law. Now,
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we're ready to take on
the business of law.
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Say hello to the new podcast
from the Elawvate team,
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build and grow your law firm.
Enjoy this special preview episode.
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It's like Rachel was
saying, thank you very much.
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This is the first time they're doing it,
first time we're doing a live podcast,
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so keep your fingers
crossed and we're excited.
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So welcome to a live
taping of the Elawvate:
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Build and Grow Your Law Firm podcast.
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We're coming to you from the
Main State Bar Association,
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winter bar conference and the fantastic
Western Portland Harborview in
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Portland, Maine. I'm Jeff Wright,
Chief Operating Officer at Gideon Asen,
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and I'm here with Ben Gideon, owner,
partner, founder of Gideon Asen.
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How's it going today, Ben?
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It's going well, Jeff. Are you nervous?
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You were commenting that the lights are
awfully bright and I know you're now
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entering the big time here.
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Yeah, big time. It's one way to put it.
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I would like to.
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Point out-.
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Jeff has humble roots.
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Yeah. I'd like to point out that Ben
said we were dressing down today.
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And so I wore jeans and a pullover
and Ben showed up in what looks like
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a brand new suit. So
apologies for my appearance.
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I was duped.
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This is a common theme in our
business. But as I pointed out,
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since you're not a lawyer, you
don't really need to wear a suit.
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You're not expected to wear a suit. I.
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Do love how you point out how I'm not
a lawyer all the time, but that's okay.
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I consider that an advantage.
It is, but we won't go there.
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Before we get started, we've
had a busy couple weeks,
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so I don't know if you want to kind of
talk about what we've been doing as a
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firm and then we can introduce for sure.
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Yeah, sure.
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So we just got back from our leadership
retreat three days out in Denver,
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Colorado,
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where the leadership team
focuses on our goals,
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what we've achieved for the past year,
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and then what our plan is for the
future year. Very productive meeting.
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I think we identified some important
goals and keeping our progress
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moving towards our four-year
vision. What did you think?
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Yeah, I thought it was very
productive out in Denver.
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And then one of the things, and we'll
talk about it later, is at the firm,
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we try and have as much transparency
as possible with the entire team.
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So a week after we got back from our
senior management retreat in Denver,
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we had an all day offsite retreat
for all staff and covered our
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strategic plan, our goals,
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our plans for not only
first quarter of 26,
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but for the year up through our
strategic plan ended at the end of
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2028. It's nice. It's
been a busy couple weeks.
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I think you left out that you were
skiing in Austria before that.
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I was, but that doesn't have
anything to do with our business.
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No, it doesn't.
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No, we did manage to get to a rodeo
in Denver, which was interesting.
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I don't know if anyone here has
been to the rodeo in the West,
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but they have something called
Mutton Buston. Anyone aware of that?
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It's where they take little kids and
they put hockey helmets on them and put
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them on sheep, and then they go in
like ... It's like a bucking Bronco,
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but for infants and children.
It seems like child abuse to me,
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but they love it out there. We're going
to introduce that in Maine, I think.
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All right, let's move into the
substance of the program here.
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All right. So we have a
pretty truncated timeframe.
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So we have 10 topics we want to
get through in less than an hour.
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Each one of these topics would
be a full hour unto themselves.
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So we're going to be as quick and
concise as possible. As Rachel said,
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this program today is the top 10
proven strategies every lawyer,
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entrepreneur needs to know to build
a financially successful law firm.
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At the end of this,
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they have allotted us time when we're
done with the podcast to do a Q&A.
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So I would welcome anyone that
has a question or anything or
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needs more clarity on
something at the end.
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We will do a Q&A if anyone's interested.
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I know it's the last session of the day
and most people will be running for the
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Hills, but we are available.
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Yeah, you can come up and sit at the table
with a mic and you can join us on the
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podcast and introduce yourselves.
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And if you have a question or want to
take issue with anything we've said or any
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discussion point, we're happy
to do that at the end. So Jeff,
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I thought before we covered the topics,
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can you just give us maybe the 30 second
summary of where we are as a firm so
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people will understand the context from
which we're discussing the points we're
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talking about today?
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For those of you not
familiar with Gideon Asen,
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I'm going to give you kind of the Reader's
Digest version and paint a picture on
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what makes these guys think they can
get up here and give their opinions and
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advice on what makes a financially
viable, successful firm.
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So Gideon Asen, as most of you know,
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is a plaintiff firm focused on
complex medical malpractice and
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catastrophic personal injury.
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The firm was started in 2020
by Ben Gideon and Taylor Asen,
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the other founder partner. And really
it started in 2020 with three of them.
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Since 2020,
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the firm has grown not only in staffing,
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but also in revenue where
the firm from 2020 to
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2024 added more than a million dollars
in revenue every year in existence.
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At the end of 2024,
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Ben and the leadership team
met and they said, "Well, geez,
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we've met all our goals from what we
wanted to do to start the firm." And
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somebody said,
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"So what's next?" And so the team
took that to heart and wrote a very
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detailed four year strategic plan.
And one of the first things on that
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plan was to bring in a
chief operating officer,
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preferably a chief operating officer
that did not have a legal background that
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could look at a firm from a business
standpoint and not through the eyes of an
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attorney that chief operating
officer happens to be me.
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And I started in- The.
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Jury's still out. The.
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Jury's still out. I
started in January of 2025,
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so I've been there roughly, well, a
little over 12 months now. In 2025,
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which we just ended,
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we were able to increase
our revenue by 100%
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and we've increased our staffing by 50%.
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We've gone from 12 full-time employees
to 18, and our revenue doubled this year.
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Coming off of our strategic plan,
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we plan on adding two or three
more positions this year,
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and we are projected based upon our
pipeline and everything to double our
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revenue again in 2026.
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So we want to talk about some of the
strategies that we've implemented and that
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we think firms that are
looking to grow and expand
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and/or people that are looking to start
their own firms could have some benefit
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from. All.
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Right. Let's jump into it.
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All right. So number one,
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everyone should have a handout
on their tables if you don't.
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We do have more back there.
And the first one, Ben,
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I guess my first question, Ben,
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is how did you come up with these 10
things and kind of the title of this
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program?
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The 10 items here are all ...
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So my process in trying to understand
how to build and grow a law
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firm,
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I started probably like many of you
as a lawyer only. For many years,
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I had a job at a firm and I practiced
law. That was my primary work.
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And I didn't really spend a lot of time
focused on learning much about running a
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business or running a law firm.
When we started our business,
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I've invested a lot of
time and I've become very
interested in the topics of the
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business issues relating to
building and growing a firm.
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And part of that has been reading.
So I've read a lot of books.
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I listened to podcasts,
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but some of the books that were most
informative and influential for me are
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listed here under each topic.
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And my process is I'll read one
of these books and as I do it,
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I take notes and then I
consolidate those down. And then
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over time, I've moved those
into different categories.
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And so that's sort of how
the 10 categories came to be.
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It's a distillation of my learning,
I would say both from my reading,
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but also from our own experiences
that we've gone through,
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mostly learning by trial and error,
making many mistakes, fixing problems,
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and coming to understandings
about different things.
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Well, kicking into number one,
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the crux of your thing there
is being a great lawyer doesn't
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necessarily translate to being a great
owner of your own firm. And I guess,
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why do you feel that way and why
do you use the word entrepreneur
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kind of in the title of this,
which I think is important?
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Yeah. I mean, this is something that
took me a little bit of time to come to.
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I don't know. Has anyone here read
Michael Gerber's book, The E-Myth?
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The central concept of the book is that
you can either work in a business or you
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can work on a business. If
you're working in a business,
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you're doing the tasks that are necessary
to make that business successful.
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So as lawyers,
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typically what we're doing every day
is legal work and practicing law and
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serving our clients. That's
great. I did that for a long time.
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I got a lot of joy and satisfaction out
of it, and I still do to some extent.
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If you want to build a business though,
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you can't just work in your business.
You have to work on your business,
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and that's a different skillset
that involves ... In fact,
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it means you have to give up a fair
amount of the day-to-day legal work and
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focus on the business issues relating
to building and growing the business,
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which we'll get into. So it's sort of
that core insight that to some extent
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by training yourself to focus
only on doing legal work,
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you're not in a great
mindset to build a business.
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We have a whole episode just on this
topic, and it can consume an hour or more,
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but I do distinguish between ...
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There are many lawyers who
very successfully translate
their legal skills to
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a very successful practice,
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building a solo or a small practice
with a couple of lawyers and a
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few staff. That's not what I mean.
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I think that that's very doable even
if you're not really focused on the
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issues relating to business
development and scaling.
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When I'm talking about
building a business,
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and that's why the word
entrepreneurial is important to me,
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I'm talking about building
an entrepreneurial business
that's designed for
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growth, because those are
two very different things.
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Having a platform where you're
just using a business as a
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foundation to sell your
own personal services,
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that's not what I mean
by growing a business,
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because there's very limited business
related skillsets you need to do to
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accomplish that successfully.
And I don't mean to minimize that.
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I think that can be a very
successful career and practice,
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and many people do very well
like that, and that's fine.
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There's no reason you need to change.
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But the goal, if somebody wants
to build and scale a business ...
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Right. And I guess I would ask you, Jeff,
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since you've been here a year now and
you came in midstream from a different
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sector, brand new to the legal business,
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how do you see your role and
your past experience in business
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integrating into a legal setting?
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I was surprised though-.
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You should tell people what you used
to do before this, just so they know.
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Well, again, probably going
to hold it against me.
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I was a banker for 25 years.
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We like bankers.
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You like bank? You figured
that? It's the way ... Oh, geez.
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I've tried to shed the look. So
I was in banking for 25 years,
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kind of climbed the ladder on my last
role as a chief operating officer of a
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billion dollar bank. And long story short,
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I got sick of banking and wanted to
change, but thought my operational skills,
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my project management skills and
everything were translatable to another
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business. Didn't know what business
it was. Saw the opportunity.
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A recruiter reached out to me at Gideon
Asen and I was trepidatious because I'm
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like, "Okay, it's a plaintiff firm. What
does that mean?" I was literally like,
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"How does that differ from a
defendant's firm or what do they do?
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" And it's personal injury. And I'm like,
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"How is it going to translate and do they
really want to know an attorney?" And
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I think this might sound arrogant,
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but I think it's probably one of the
better decisions they made is to bring in
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somebody that knew nothing about
the legal world because I look at
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everything through a completely
different set of eyes and the
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skills are very translatable to
building and scaling a business
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and working with business owners
over the last two decades,
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it doesn't matter whether it's an
attorney or whether it's somebody
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starting a car wash business.
The scale and the
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concerns that every small business
owner has are translatable.
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And Ben had said to me during
the interview process, he said,
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"Most law firms are run by attorneys
and they run like law firms, Jeff.
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They don't run like businesses.
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We need to translate this into
running like a business.".
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Does that mean growth?
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Is that what we're talking
about here's nothing but growth?
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We're supposed to repeat the questions
because they won't pick up on the mic.
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So the question from the audience
is, does that mean growth? Jeff,
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why don't you take that?
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I don't know if it necessarily means
growth. I mean, I think first of all,
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you have to look how the business is run,
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whether your ultimate goal
is going to be growth.
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One of the first things we worked
on was the firm's mission and
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the firm's culture. What type
of firm do we want to be?
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What do we want our attorneys
and our staff to represent?
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How do we want our day-to-day to be there?
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And once we kind of solidified the
culture that we wanted and the core
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values,
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that has really translated into
virtually every decision we've made.
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Every hiring decision, yes,
we look at resumes, yes,
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we look at experience and everything
else, but it comes back to,
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do they fit the firm's culture? Do
they fit the firm's core values?
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So I think it's a lot more than
profits and scaling and growth.
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It's what do you want your
business to represent?
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And to Ben's point at the beginning,
if you want your business to be,
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you're a sole practitioner and
you're not looking to scale,
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you're looking to just provide good
services under your own umbrella,
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great. But what do you want those services
to be? What's your niche going to be?
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Are you going to try and go head to
head with a Goodwin Proctor as a sole
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practitioner? You're probably going
to lose. So what's your niche?
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What's your value that you're
going to add to those clients?
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And to be able to make those
decisions and look at them internally,
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long answer to your question, I
apologize. It's more than profits.
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It's more than scaling.
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It's developing the
business that you want.
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To be in every day. You
moved into topic eight,
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hiring for values and
reinforcing the culture.
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So I think we should cover that because
we're going to run out of time to cover
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everything. But so I would say, first of
all, we have to be practical about it.
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You have to get to a certain size and
scale and revenue before you can afford to
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hire somebody full-time as a chief
operating officer that's not available to
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everybody.
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And I don't recommend that if you're a
one or two lawyer firm with a couple of
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staff. But what happened
for us was we got to ...
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When you start an entrepreneurial
endeavor, at the beginning,
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you're doing everything, you're wearing
all the hats. And that's my partner,
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Taylor and I were doing that
initially. We were doing the finance,
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we were doing the HR, we were
doing the legal services,
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we were doing the marketing,
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all of it.
And what we found as we grew over time was
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we weren't capable of doing all of those
things and at least we're doing them
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very well.
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And so there got to be a point where
our highest and best use was no longer,
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for example, doing HR. What
happens is, and I think,
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and this goes to the core values
point in topic eight and the culture,
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we kept running into growth
problems and ceilings in our
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business because of internal
conflict and culture.
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We would have staff that were not fully
bought into our mission in certain ways.
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There was internal conflict
at times between staff.
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It made for a difficult environment.
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My partner and I would then get into
policing internal disputes where someone
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would come to me with a criticism or
complaint and then they would go to my
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partner and there would be ...
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So just got to be that navigating
the people part of the business
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became emotionally draining
and distracting and
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having us, once we got to
a certain scale of people,
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more than a dozen employees,
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that became an overwhelming problem and
one that was distracting us from our
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mission.
So hiring Jeff allowed us to offload that.
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I think the thing that Jeff brings to
our organization more than any other
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single value is that
he's extremely good at
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interpersonal relationships and
making everyone on our team feel
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100% supported and valued and
bringing out the best in everyone.
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And since Jeff has come,
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we've had some people that didn't
fit into our culture that left
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and had to leave and we've hired many
new people and we've been very careful
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about vetting people to make sure they
are a good cultural fit so we don't go
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back to a world where we
have internal conflict.
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But I think anybody who runs a business
would probably agree that the people
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part of the business is the hardest part.
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And particularly when you're
dealing with law firms,
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because lawyers tend to
have very big egos and Well,
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not present company, but ... Yeah, no,
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I mean the reality is
law firms generally ...
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And I started my career at
a big firm in New York City,
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then I was at a relatively good sized
firm in Maine and then started my own
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firm. So I've seen it
at all different levels.
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Law firms tend to have a model
where there's two sets of rules,
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one that lawyers get to play by and then
one that everybody else gets to play
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by. Of course, the staff
sees that right away,
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that they have to follow the
rules, but the lawyers don't.
Speaker:
And that already creates a toxic internal
culture, if you ask me. Secondly,
Speaker:
you then tolerate people because let's
say they're good rainmakers or they're
Speaker:
very exceptional at their
craft of practicing law,
Speaker:
but they're like frankly assholes or
they treat the staff poorly or they don't
Speaker:
represent your firm to the external
world in a positive way that you want,
Speaker:
but they're generating a lot of revenue.
And most firms tolerate that because
Speaker:
the bottom line is revenue. If you
value culture, you don't tolerate that.
Speaker:
And I should say, one of our core
values, and we talk about core values,
Speaker:
is one of our things here is making
decisions based on science and data,
Speaker:
not fear or ego.
Speaker:
And we have incorporated science
and data into our hiring process.
Speaker:
When we hired Jeff,
Speaker:
every candidate for his position
took a psychological test.
Speaker:
All of our leadership
team took that same test.
Speaker:
It was extremely valuable in identifying
characteristics of people that you
Speaker:
might want or not want.
Speaker:
And it's surprisingly difficult to
ascertain that through just like a
Speaker:
typical interview process.
Speaker:
We've now created a tailored
psychological profile
Speaker:
for a trial lawyer that we had the
company make just for us that we are
Speaker:
now able to use to get science and data
before we hire a lawyer for our firm.
Speaker:
And if anyone's looking
for a job, we're hiring,
Speaker:
but you have to pass the
psychological test first,
Speaker:
which means you can deal with Jeff mostly.
Speaker:
So you want to move on
to another topic here?
Speaker:
Yeah, we're all over
the map, but it's good.
Speaker:
Well, we covered topic eight now. All.
Speaker:
Right. So we've done one and eight,
so we only got eight more. It's good.
Speaker:
That's exactly how I knew
this would go. Number two,
Speaker:
treat business decisions with the
same rigor as legal decisions.
Speaker:
What do you mean by that?
Speaker:
This one's very simple,
Speaker:
and I think it's something that gives
me confidence in building a business
Speaker:
because as lawyers,
Speaker:
we're all really good at doing
analytical work and problem
Speaker:
solving. After all, that's what
we're there for, right? Clients,
Speaker:
whatever they're transactional,
commercial, criminal defense, whatever,
Speaker:
somebody comes to you for a problem, you
help them solve it. And fundamentally,
Speaker:
that's all running of businesses.
It's a different set of problems,
Speaker:
but the issue is that I
found is that as lawyers,
Speaker:
we employ a lot of rigor when it comes
to solving the problems for our clients
Speaker:
in the legal setting,
Speaker:
but then when it comes to running the
business part of what we're doing,
Speaker:
we don't employ the same amount of rigor.
Speaker:
So we've tried to impose those kind
of systems of rigor onto our business
Speaker:
decision part of the business in addition
to the trial part. It's been really
Speaker:
great because that's what I'm used
to anyway. For every case I do,
Speaker:
I impose that kind of rigor.
Speaker:
So it's very natural to do
it in the business setting.
Speaker:
And some examples of that are,
Speaker:
there've been a lot of really
bad decisions we've almost made.
Speaker:
Yes.
Speaker:
We've made some really bad decisions.
We've made some really bad decisions,
Speaker:
but we've also avoided making some
because we have a system for decision
Speaker:
making, which involves multiple
people that all have strong
Speaker:
personalities and points
of view that weigh in.
Speaker:
So there's a vetting process
where if Ben has an idea,
Speaker:
it doesn't within 24 hours
translate into execution.
Speaker:
There's a process that's
discussed, vetted,
Speaker:
and then decided upon by smart people
that are all willing to speak their mind.
Speaker:
Part of that is having people that
are willing to speak their mind.
Speaker:
So one of our values is truth and
communication, openness and transparency.
Speaker:
As Jeff said, I come up with a terrible
idea. Hopefully Jeff will tell me, Ben,
Speaker:
that's a really bad idea. And that has
led to a lot of near misses, I would say,
Speaker:
where we were about to buy very expensive
buildings or hire people that we
Speaker:
shouldn't have hired,
Speaker:
or you can go down the list of things
where we almost made bad decisions.
Speaker:
That more or less covers that topic.
I mean, the books that I cite there,
Speaker:
Ray Dalio Principles,
Speaker:
great book that talks a lot about this
and the need to confront reality where it
Speaker:
is, to be very honest about the reality
that you're dealing with and not
Speaker:
characterize the reality in
the way that you want it to be.
Speaker:
You have to deal with reality
as it is. Second book there,
Speaker:
the Daniel Kahneman book,
Thinking Fast and Slow,
Speaker:
that's all about cognitive bias.
And we all make so many decisions,
Speaker:
not even aware of it
based on cognitive bias,
Speaker:
whether it's group think
because everybody's thinking
the same thing and you're
Speaker:
not having a contrary position
or a bias towards a risk aversion
Speaker:
or the bias towards sunk cost fallacy
where you started down a path and you
Speaker:
continue down the path because you've
already invested in it without realizing
Speaker:
you're just putting good money after bad.
So many things like that that affect
Speaker:
decision making have to be avoided
to make the best decisions.
Speaker:
So do you want to add to a
topic two about decision making?
Speaker:
No, just, I mean,
Speaker:
there's a great quote that I try and
abide by when it comes to decision making.
Speaker:
John Wooden, the legendary
basketball coach at UCLA said,
Speaker:
"Be quick,
Speaker:
but don't hurry." There's a lot of
truth to that where you have so many
Speaker:
decisions every day,
Speaker:
whether you're trying a case or
whether you're running your business,
Speaker:
that you need to be decisive
and you need to be focused,
Speaker:
but be quick,
Speaker:
but don't hurry because hurried
decisions usually lead to bad decisions.
Speaker:
We try and avoid that wherever we
can and we put things in place,
Speaker:
like Ben said internally to avoid it,
we're going to make bad decisions,
Speaker:
but we have metrics and processes to
Speaker:
minimize those as much as possible.
Speaker:
Yeah. And that's a good segue to topic
three, design before you execute,
Speaker:
but don't over-engineer early.
Speaker:
So there's a good quote I've
heard from many sources.
Speaker:
I don't know who quoted it initially,
but something to the effect of,
Speaker:
"If you have no plan,
Speaker:
you'll certainly get there."That's
really been a driving force for us.
Speaker:
When Taylor and I started this firm
before we even began, we sat down,
Speaker:
we wrote a business plan and it's really
apocryphal because if you look back at
Speaker:
that plan, even our
year-to-year revenue goals,
Speaker:
we literally met them
within a short range of 50,
Speaker:
$100,000 year to year,
Speaker:
which just demonstrates the power of
having a goal and having a clear idea of
Speaker:
what you're setting out to accomplish,
but the concept of don't over engineer.
Speaker:
I don't know if any of you are
familiar with the lean startup concept.
Speaker:
This is sort of the stuff that is very
hot in Silicon Valley with especially
Speaker:
tech startups,
Speaker:
AI startups. There's an author named
Eric Reese who wrote that lean startup,
Speaker:
but the concept is minimal
viable product now.
Speaker:
This is how tech startups
and software companies work.
Speaker:
And the idea is that you don't
want to spend inordinate amount of
Speaker:
time early on in design
because without having
Speaker:
enough feedback to understand if your
design is really salient to your consumer,
Speaker:
to the public and the market. So
what you want to do is put out,
Speaker:
and this is the software concept,
Speaker:
you put out the minimum viable
product and then you iterate,
Speaker:
you're constantly refining, you're
constantly improving with feedback.
Speaker:
And so that's what we've tried to do in
Speaker:
our service sector type of business
Because we don't want to get paralyzed by
Speaker:
trying to design the perfect system.
Speaker:
We want to design something that
we want to have large vision and
Speaker:
goals and then just start moving
forward on that and then getting
Speaker:
feedback loops to help us iterate.
I mean,
Speaker:
one example is we recently launched
a television radio ad campaign.
Speaker:
We've never done that before.
Speaker:
I've been doing this for almost 25 years
and have never done direct to consumer
Speaker:
marketing. Now, how do we do that?
What's the perfect ad campaign?
Speaker:
You could spend years
designing a perfect campaign.
Speaker:
There probably is no
definition of perfect.
Speaker:
We used our core value of science and
data. So we designed a messaging campaign.
Speaker:
We actually did survey data where we put
that out there and compared it to other
Speaker:
competitors on the market and got
real world information for that.
Speaker:
70% of the people who took the survey
said they would hire us based on our
Speaker:
messaging compared to our competitor
commercials if they were only basing
Speaker:
their buying decision on the
commercial. So that was some data point.
Speaker:
It wasn't a ton of data,
Speaker:
but it was good enough. Then we launched
it and now we have a feedback loop.
Speaker:
So every client who contacts our office,
Speaker:
our staff takes very detailed
information about how they found us,
Speaker:
what they're looking for for lawyers,
Speaker:
what the characteristics are in a lawyer
that they want to hire, all of that.
Speaker:
Our marketing director, Matt, over there,
is shaking his head. He's fantastic,
Speaker:
by the way. So now we're iterating.
We've got a feedback loop.
Speaker:
We've got data and we can
make smart decisions on that.
Speaker:
We could have spent years designing the
perfect campaign and we still wouldn't
Speaker:
be doing anything right now. So that's
just one example of that concept.
Speaker:
So understanding the topic four,
Speaker:
understanding which risks
to take and which to avoid,
Speaker:
this is kind of risk management. I've
got a spiel on that, but I'm interested.
Speaker:
If there's one main difference,
Speaker:
I would say between banking and
trial law on the plaintiff's
Speaker:
side,
Speaker:
it's going from a highly risk averse
culture to a highly risk tolerant
Speaker:
culture.
Speaker:
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Speaker:
So what have you noticed about that, Jeff?
Speaker:
I mean, to a certain extent,
but at the end of the day,
Speaker:
there are so many parallels to banking
because you assess the risks of a case
Speaker:
and you look and you see maybe what the
Speaker:
insurance caps are. And
if you take it to trial,
Speaker:
you might get X number of
dollars. If you settle it,
Speaker:
you're going to get X number of
dollars. What's right for the client?
Speaker:
What's right for the firm?
How long is it going to take?
Speaker:
How much case costs are you going to
carry for two or three years before it
Speaker:
settles? So you're assessing your risk
virtually every day with your cases.
Speaker:
And it's the same thing
on the bank side. I mean,
Speaker:
especially on the lending side.
Speaker:
You could do a $40 million
loan for a commercial customer,
Speaker:
but what's your risk and how are you
going to hedge it? And so there's a lot of
Speaker:
parallels to it.
Speaker:
And I think every firm
has to make a decision or
Speaker:
there has to be tactical times when
you want to take risk and when it makes
Speaker:
sense.
Speaker:
And you have to be very
clear on your risk tolerance
Speaker:
as a firm, but also on
a case by case basis,
Speaker:
which I'm sure is what you're
going to lend your wisdom to.
Speaker:
I'm very interested in this concept of
risk because it permeates everything we
Speaker:
do.
Speaker:
We always have to counsel clients on
what are the risks of taking a case
Speaker:
to trial versus settlement. In the past,
Speaker:
you were always operating on very
limited data because it was largely past
Speaker:
history and intuition, which
isn't notoriously unreliable.
Speaker:
We now do big data studies
on every significant case,
Speaker:
which really in our practice
is really every case.
Speaker:
And that gives us at least
more ... It's not perfect,
Speaker:
but it gives us more data we can work
with in order to do this kind of risk
Speaker:
assessment. I've read two books recently,
Speaker:
which I think are phenomenal
on the topic of risk.
Speaker:
One is the Nate Silver
book called On the Edge.
Speaker:
I don't know if anyone here read that
book. It's Nate Silver was known for 530,
Speaker:
was it 536, 538,
Speaker:
The Political Prognostication website.
He's also a
Speaker:
quasi-professional poker player.
Speaker:
So the book is kind of like talking
about the risks involved in poker,
Speaker:
how people in Silicon Valley with the
startup culture evaluate risk and then
Speaker:
how the rest of the world looks at
risk. And it's pretty fascinating.
Speaker:
There's another book called
The Black Swan by Nasim Taleb,
Speaker:
which is also a take on
risk. Like most things,
Speaker:
there's inconsistent and
contradictory concepts involved.
Speaker:
The concept of this black swan is
that there's a lot in the world that's
Speaker:
inherently unpredictable.
Speaker:
And yet most things that we
deal with relating to risk,
Speaker:
like if you're going to invest
in the S&P 500 index, well,
Speaker:
you're told that that's low risk,
Speaker:
but it's not low risk when some
Speaker:
macroeconomic force occurs
that causes everybody to go
Speaker:
down and lose their shirts, which
happens more often than you'd expect.
Speaker:
Like once every decade, that basically
happens. The concept he came up with,
Speaker:
which made him very successful
in financial investing
was you have to identify
Speaker:
asymmetric opportunities for
asymmetric returns where the
Speaker:
unpredictability works in your
favor and not against you.
Speaker:
And there's no better world
where that exists than trial law
Speaker:
because when we tried a case recently
where the offer on the table was
Speaker:
$300,000 and our verdict was 25 million.
Speaker:
So there's an opportunity
for asymmetric returns.
Speaker:
So that's a black swan working for you.
Now, in another case we had recently,
Speaker:
there was an offer in excess
of $30 million on the table.
Speaker:
We could have taken that
case to trial, but if we did,
Speaker:
the unpredictable result
would've worked against us there.
Speaker:
So the asymmetric return probably
would have worked against us.
Speaker:
So trying to figure out
whatever your business is,
Speaker:
where are those opportunities
for asymmetric returns based on
Speaker:
unpredictability that you can
take advantage of and other people
Speaker:
aren't seeing?
And so we've really tried to do that.
Speaker:
And it's always a challenge
to identify where the
Speaker:
tipping point is there. But I
would say that back to that,
Speaker:
so many decisions that
we make are not based on
Speaker:
objective criteria or
expected value calculations of
Speaker:
actual results. They're
based on things like,
Speaker:
"I'm really worried that I won't be
able to make payroll this month," or,
Speaker:
"Somebody told me about
something that happened to them,
Speaker:
so this is probably going to
happen to me. " Or like we said,
Speaker:
"I've already invested so much money
into this. I have to keep going.
Speaker:
" Those are all the kind of cognitive
biases or individual fears that
Speaker:
cause you to make decisions that are not
objectively maximizing your ability to
Speaker:
manage risks.
Speaker:
So we really have tried to reduce
the number of decisions we make
Speaker:
on those kind of anecdotal
knee-jerk thinking. And one
Speaker:
example is we've developed a very
complex settlement matrix where,
Speaker:
like Jeff was describing
earlier, we can plug in there.
Speaker:
So we're thinking about
advising our clients about
the risk of settlement versus
Speaker:
trial
Speaker:
or continuing down the path for a while
before we settle or so other things.
Speaker:
And I think lawyers often think
about that as it's either A or B,
Speaker:
but you're forgetting about things
like, well, what's the opportunity cost?
Speaker:
Because you're employing staff and
resources to litigate this case, right?
Speaker:
They could be spending time on something
else that may have a higher upside.
Speaker:
You're also forgetting about,
Speaker:
so you think about the first
order benefit of a settlement,
Speaker:
money in the pocket of your client or
money in the pocket of your law firm,
Speaker:
but there's second order consequences.
Speaker:
What is the social value
of that public trial to
Speaker:
getting the word out about certain
conduct that your client wants to shine a
Speaker:
light on? What is the downstream value
to your law firm or the reputational
Speaker:
value of winning a big verdict and getting
the next big case because you've been
Speaker:
willing to do that?
Speaker:
If you're only looking at first order
consequences and not second and third
Speaker:
order consequences,
Speaker:
you're missing a lot of the value
in your decision making process.
Speaker:
So let's move on to the next,
Speaker:
so that's topic or we've
covered eight already.
Speaker:
So we've got 15 minutes. Let's do topic
five, financially unbreakable systems.
Speaker:
You want to talk about that, Jeff?
Speaker:
We were just ironically talking to our
accountant about those kind of things
Speaker:
this morning.
Speaker:
Financially unbreakable
systems. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker:
you kind of need money to do
everything that we're doing,
Speaker:
but along the lines of
you want to build, I mean,
Speaker:
and Ben puts it financially
unbreakable systems,
Speaker:
but you have to try and look
holistically at your firm.
Speaker:
You can't look ... Although you're
looking on a case by case basis,
Speaker:
you have to look at, again,
Speaker:
the second and third tiers of what
your decisions are going to make.
Speaker:
What's your cushion?
Speaker:
How much do you want for a cushion at
your firm and how your decisions are made
Speaker:
from that? We spend a lot of time,
we have a finance meeting every week.
Speaker:
We met with our accounting
firm an hour ago,
Speaker:
right before we came into this meeting
to already project and plan ahead for 26
Speaker:
and quarterlies and everything else
and made some decisions as a group
Speaker:
on how we're going to make the changes.
But you have to be very deliberate.
Speaker:
And I think part of that also is what
is, and Ben alluded to it before,
Speaker:
and it may deviate from this,
but I think it all goes the same.
Speaker:
But what is the best and
highest use of your time?
Speaker:
Because having Taylor Asin or
Ben Gideon opening the mail or
Speaker:
doing intake calls is not the
highest or best use of their time.
Speaker:
It's something that had to be done when
the firm was first started because they
Speaker:
didn't have the financial systems
in place to have other people
Speaker:
doing that.
Speaker:
You can't run out and hire eight people
when you first start unless maybe you're
Speaker:
a trust fund person or something
or somebody's gifted you.
Speaker:
And then your goals have
to be centered around being
Speaker:
financially viable and
understanding ... I mean,
Speaker:
case costs are perfect example, I think.
Speaker:
We fund our case costs internally
right now and we talk and it
Speaker:
revisits probably every quarter,
Speaker:
should we finance these?
Should we do this? Should we do that?
Speaker:
Should we charge interest? Should we ...
Speaker:
And we throw around
all these other things.
Speaker:
But when Ben was talking about
that matrix we put together,
Speaker:
a big part of that is the carry
costs of those case costs.
Speaker:
And you have $500,000 worth of case
costs that have been out there for three
Speaker:
years, you better factor
that into your decision.
Speaker:
And when you have a pipeline of cases
that are on your books that are getting to
Speaker:
the point where those case costs and
the experts are starting to ramp up,
Speaker:
where are those funds coming from
and how is it going to be allocated
Speaker:
appropriately?
Speaker:
And having those systems
in place to help drive your
Speaker:
decisions is critical.
Speaker:
Yeah. I mean, the core insight in
financially unbreakable systems is that
Speaker:
durability is critical.
If you can't survive,
Speaker:
you're not going to
accomplish anything else.
Speaker:
So your first order of
business has to be to build a
Speaker:
strong foundation that
allows you to survive.
Speaker:
And that includes through
weathering storms when
Speaker:
not all of your projections come to
fruition where, I mean, we have to assume,
Speaker:
everybody who knows me well knows
that I've lost a lot of trials and
Speaker:
I lost a very big trial a year ago that
we had a huge amount of money and a huge
Speaker:
offer on the table.
Speaker:
And we were able to weather that
storm and it didn't really even
Speaker:
impact our bottom line
materially because we had a
Speaker:
strong financial footing.
If we didn't have that,
Speaker:
a single case like that could have
bankrupted our firm and meant we wouldn't
Speaker:
have been around any longer to do our
further cases. So you've got to earn ...
Speaker:
I feel like you've got to earn the right
for that. If I want to go try a case,
Speaker:
I've got to earn the right to do it by
making sure I'm doing it from a position
Speaker:
of strength, not I need to win that case.
If I go into trial and I need to win,
Speaker:
it's going to be desperate.
Speaker:
It's like when you need to have a date
and you're going up to every girl in the
Speaker:
bar asking her for a number,
Speaker:
there's a smell of desperation that
everyone consents and you don't succeed in
Speaker:
that setting. You have to
be coming to it with a ...
Speaker:
And I'm not talking from
personal experience.
Speaker:
I.
Speaker:
Just.
Speaker:
Didn't know if you had firsthand.
Speaker:
Experience.
Speaker:
With.
Speaker:
That. And then anyway,
Speaker:
that doesn't apply in the modern
world with the internet anyway,
Speaker:
but I've been married for 25 years,
Speaker:
so I don't know how any
of that works these days.
Speaker:
I think the other point
there, and one thing-.
Speaker:
The other point is we
need a good HR person.
Speaker:
Which we have.
Speaker:
Right.
Speaker:
I'm the HR person as well. But
I think another point there,
Speaker:
and we talk about it a lot when it comes
back to culture and core values is you
Speaker:
can't make case decisions based on your
Speaker:
finances because they're
going to be bad decisions.
Speaker:
And what I mean by that is you
decide to settle a case maybe
Speaker:
prematurely because it'd be
nice for that firm to get that
Speaker:
$700,000 in the bank
and you can't put your
Speaker:
clients in that position and
you can't have your firm in that
Speaker:
position and building that financial
durability so you never have to
Speaker:
make that decision as critical.
Speaker:
All right. Moving on. Topic six,
Speaker:
dominate a niche instead
of fighting market leaders.
Speaker:
So one of my favorite books on that is
Seth Godin has written a lot of books on
Speaker:
marketing. The one I thought was the
best is called This Is Marketing.
Speaker:
His sort of core insight
is that your initial
Speaker:
foray when you're starting any kind of
an entrepreneurial venture is to identify
Speaker:
the smallest viable market because
by identifying the smallest
Speaker:
market for your services,
Speaker:
what you're doing is
mapping what you do best,
Speaker:
what you bring your highest and best
value to a niche that is going to benefit
Speaker:
from that service.
Speaker:
So if you were starting a small firm
going head to head with Pierce Atwood and
Speaker:
being a full service law
firm that offers M&A and
Speaker:
bankruptcy and whatever,
immigration, so forth,
Speaker:
you're not going to compete effectively
with Pierce Outwood doing that,
Speaker:
right? But if you are really
good at one niche thing and can
Speaker:
make a name for yourself in that,
Speaker:
you will grow rapidly by
reputational value and word of mouth
Speaker:
and so forth. And so we did
that when we started our firm.
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We were very deliberate about focusing
like a laser on we are the best at doing
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complex medical malpractice cases.
And for the first several years,
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I would say the lion's share of our
new cases were in the field of medical
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malpractice.
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It's a good niche because very few
lawyers want to do those cases.
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They're expensive, they're complicated,
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there isn't a lot of room for mistakes
there because you can quickly lose
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your shirt on them and so forth.
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So we did that and all of our
marketing was very targeted on
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that. We would write
articles focused on that.
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We wanted to establish kind of industry,
being industry leaders in that area,
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and I think that was very
effective for us. Since then,
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we've now expanded out into other
areas of kind of complex civil
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litigation and personal
injury cases beyond that.
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But if we had tried to
do that at the outset,
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I think we would've been
much less successful at
building our business because
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there's a million lawyers out there
who want to do garden variety personal
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injury cases. So that's just one
example. Whatever niche you're in,
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you want to simplify and narrow it to
the thing you do the very best and then
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put all of your focus and eggs
into that basket initially,
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develop those relationships,
build that business,
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and then gradually concentric
circle out from there.
Speaker:
I think you'd be great to talk about,
Jeff, building systems, metrics,
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and accountability.
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We build a lot of systems, metrics,
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and accountability.
So part of our strategic plan was we
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tried to narrow down and focus on what our
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biggest metrics and measurements
are going to be, KPIs,
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key performance indicators.
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And there are so many different things
that you could try and point to.
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And we've really narrowed it
down to less than a handful of
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things that we think are the
most important things to our
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firm. And then we back it up
with data and we track it.
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And it goes back to, again,
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one of our core tenants that we
try and do everything as data
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driven as possible, which I think
for attorneys, what I've learned is,
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especially for trial attorneys,
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a lot of it is your past experience
and your gut instinct and how you can
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react in real time and in front of a
jury or giving an opening or giving a
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closing. But those may serve
you very well in that role,
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but they may not serve you great
if you can't reel those things
Speaker:
in and have the metrics. And one
of our biggest KPIs is what we call
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qualified cases.
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And we look at it and we
decided what we felt were
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qualified cases for our
firm. What were cases that,
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to the niche part, we weren't
expanding beyond our reach.
Speaker:
We had the expertise, we have the systems,
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and we have the ability to handle
this case and add a lot of value
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to it. And we found out
that in order for us to get
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qualified cases,
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we probably have to talk to anywhere
between 500 and a thousand potential
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clients to get those qualified cases.
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So everything else that we're doing
is really trickling down from that
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KPI. If we have to talk to
that many potential clients,
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how does that impact our marketing?
How does that impact our intake team?
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How does that impact our onboarding team?
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How do we get the data so that
we are more focused from a
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marketing standpoint,
from an intake standpoint,
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to try and drive more qualified cases?
So I mean,
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Ben, I can kind of kick over to you.
Speaker:
Yeah. And the other part
of it is we try to do,
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we have a Monday meeting every meeting.
Speaker:
So anybody here run
their business or follow
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the EOS model, entrepreneurial
operating system.
Speaker:
It was kind of discussed in this
book called Traction by Gino Wickman,
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which I've listed here,
Speaker:
but there's some different
systems like that businesses,
Speaker:
entrepreneurial businesses use,
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and we use many of the
tenants of EOS in our company.
Speaker:
Part of that is having
regular meeting pulses,
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but one of those is we have a Monday
meeting every week where everyone in the
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firm is there for the
first hour of the meeting.
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We have a defined dashboard
that lists out our
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KPIs and key performance indicators that
apply to each different segment of our
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practice.
Speaker:
So every week we're looking at what
are the number of intakes that came in,
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how many phone calls were answered,
how many cases were accepted, rejected,
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how many are in this category,
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how many are in this category?
What is our settlements, revenues,
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how many case reviews were completed?
Speaker:
So the thing about that is there's
really at least one or two metrics that
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applies to every different
department in our firm.
Speaker:
So the intake department has metrics,
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the litigation teams have metrics.
Speaker:
And it's a way to kind of impose
some level of accountability,
Speaker:
public accountability
at the weekly meetings.
Speaker:
Public shaming.
Speaker:
And public shaming to some extent,
Speaker:
although we try to do it with good humor
most of the time, most of the time.
Speaker:
Yeah. So we do that and that
really drives everything we do.
Speaker:
And those KPIs are not arbitrary.
Speaker:
They were developed because they all
track to something we're trying to
Speaker:
accomplish in our
mission. So as Jeff said,
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we need a certain number of qualified
cases. For us, that's the key metric,
Speaker:
because for instance,
if we looked at revenue,
Speaker:
revenue in a plaintiff's firm goes
like this because you might have a big
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settlement in a big case, all of a sudden
your revenue looks really impressive,
Speaker:
but that's not really an indicator of
the health of your business because you
Speaker:
may not have another case like that
coming in the pipeline anytime soon.
Speaker:
And so if you were basing your decisions
only on revenue or your health of the
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business,
Speaker:
that would not be a good indicator.
So what we've come to as qualified cases,
Speaker:
because we know if we have a certain
number of qualified cases in our pipeline,
Speaker:
that will translate into a certain number
of revenue over a certain period of
Speaker:
time. And whatever kind
of practice you have,
Speaker:
I think a good first step is to identify
what are the two to three or one key
Speaker:
metrics that you really want to
track. And it's going to be different.
Speaker:
If we were an hourly rate practice, it
would be a totally different metric.
Speaker:
And then the systems part is just having
replicable systems that once you've
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figured out how to do something well,
Speaker:
you continue to do it the same way every
time and train people to do it that way
Speaker:
so you're not constantly reinventing
the wheel and you have consistent high
Speaker:
quality standards across the
board. And when we started,
Speaker:
we would have multiple paralegals and
they would all be doing things their own
Speaker:
individual ways. And one way would be
better and the other way would be worse.
Speaker:
And at some point it occurred to us, well,
Speaker:
why aren't we just taking
the best practice and having
everyone do it that way?
Speaker:
So we've really tried to do that across
the board and systems that define what
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we're doing. So we covered eight.
Speaker:
Let's move quickly onto nine in our
last three minutes and we'll cover 10.
Speaker:
Nine,
Speaker:
scale without diluting
identity or quality.
Speaker:
This is kind of the stage we're at right
now, Ben. We've laid our foundation.
Speaker:
We had a fantastic year last year,
Speaker:
and now we're in our scaling
phase. What's our next step?
Speaker:
We're filling out our litigation
team. We're increasing our marketing,
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we're increasing our intakes.
Speaker:
How do we scale without losing
all the things that we've put in
Speaker:
place that have been
successful up to this point?
Speaker:
And a lot of that is very simple things,
Speaker:
but the service you try and give
every potential client that calls in,
Speaker:
if we all of a sudden go
from 60 intakes a week to 250
Speaker:
intakes a week, are we going
to lose that personal touch?
Speaker:
Are we going to lose that ability to
be able to decipher on whether it's an
Speaker:
appropriate or qualified case or can
we refer it out to another attorney? So
Speaker:
to be able to scale and not lose your
Speaker:
culture, not lose what made
you successful to begin with,
Speaker:
I don't want to say is what
we're struggling in, but
that's this year for us.
Speaker:
That is 2026 and we're
three weeks into it.
Speaker:
Yeah. I mean, for me,
Speaker:
this is very personal to me because I'm
getting older as the days and years go
Speaker:
by and there comes a point
where I'll want to do less.
Speaker:
I want to have a firm where the
firm isn't about the individuals,
Speaker:
it's about having the firm.
Speaker:
And the firm comes first and
we have a powerhouse firm,
Speaker:
not just people that have good
reputations. And so we're now, I mean,
Speaker:
I no longer do most of the
legal work on most of the cases,
Speaker:
which I did for years.
Speaker:
I've very intentionally
taken myself out of ...
Speaker:
I'm not lead counsel on any case
in our office now, which I love.
Speaker:
It doesn't mean I'm not
intimately involved in every case.
Speaker:
I am just in a different way, but
that's been critical to scaling.
Speaker:
In order to scale, it's self-evident,
Speaker:
but you have to take yourself
out of being indispensable
Speaker:
for everything. Otherwise, you can't
scale. You have limited amount of time,
Speaker:
you have limited time horizons.
Speaker:
So there's things where I can
add value and strategy and input
Speaker:
into some of the critical
junctures in cases.
Speaker:
I'm still going to probably be first
chair in every trial we do for the
Speaker:
foreseeable future, which
I'm happy and excited to do.
Speaker:
But if I don't take another deposition
in my lifetime, I'll be very happy.
Speaker:
I'm doing two next week. But the
reality is I'll still do a few,
Speaker:
but I'm for the most part not doing
depositions, not doing the briefs.
Speaker:
I'm trying to take myself
out of most of that.
Speaker:
This is how I know we're
on the right track.
Speaker:
It's very easy for the Benzen
Taylors of the world to give
Speaker:
up things that they don't enjoy.
Speaker:
They gave up facilities and
buying office furniture.
Speaker:
They gave up dealing with our IT vendor.
Speaker:
Taylor really enjoyed the office version.
Speaker:
He did. I had to pry it away from, which
that's because he likes a good deal.
Speaker:
We hired a marketing person and brought
him in house, so they gave up marketing.
Speaker:
So all those things were the easy things
for them to give up. The hard things,
Speaker:
and I know we're on the right path because
Ben and Taylor are starting to give
Speaker:
up things that they've been doing for
the last two decades and been doing very
Speaker:
well,
Speaker:
and they have the confidence
in the team that we've
Speaker:
built to hand over those
duties that in the past,
Speaker:
"If I want it done right,
Speaker:
I got to do it myself." And so
that's the exact trajectory we want
Speaker:
to be on. And I don't know, it's good.
Speaker:
Yeah. So we sort of at the end, but let
me just comment on the very last topic.
Speaker:
One of our goals in addition to our
financial goals and client services
Speaker:
related goals is we actually
have an internal goal.
Speaker:
We call it building the law firm
of the future. And I think, I mean,
Speaker:
we all probably use AI in
different capacities currently.
Speaker:
I am a huge user of AI.
I'm probably on ChatGPT,
Speaker:
much to my wife's dismay,
like five hours a day,
Speaker:
but it has enormous power to
leverage what we currently
Speaker:
do and to make us more
efficient and productive.
Speaker:
It also has the power to
distract and be useless.
Speaker:
So we have to use it in a very
deliberate and intentional way.
Speaker:
But I think it's fair to say
that what a law firm looks
Speaker:
like even two or three years from now,
let alone five or 10 years from now,
Speaker:
is going to be totally different.
There will no longer be teams of
Speaker:
people answering phone calls that will
almost certainly all be handled by AI.
Speaker:
A lot of the things that paralegals
currently do will be done by AI,
Speaker:
a lot of things that young
associates ... I mean,
Speaker:
in our medical malpractice cases,
Speaker:
getting a lawyer competent to
review a complex medical record and
Speaker:
make decisions about even whether that
is or isn't the case would take years in
Speaker:
the past and hours and
hours or days of time.
Speaker:
It can be done for the most
part in about an hour now,
Speaker:
utilizing AI and training somebody
on how to issue spot through that
Speaker:
process.
Speaker:
So there's just so many ways in
which whatever industry you're in or
Speaker:
practice, AI is going to revolutionize it.
Speaker:
I think in terms of being a
law firm owner and a leader,
Speaker:
the goal now is to start building
your practice with that in mind,
Speaker:
not to use AI to substitute
for anything right now,
Speaker:
but to be thinking about how that might
be done in the future and creating
Speaker:
systems that will enable you to do
that as the time becomes ripe for it.
Speaker:
So we could talk a lot more about that,
but we were out of time. So with that,
Speaker:
as we said at the outset,
Speaker:
we'd love to have anybody who has a
thought or questions or wants to continue
Speaker:
the conversation. Feel free to
come up. You can use this mic.
Speaker:
You can join us on the podcast
if you want. Otherwise,
Speaker:
it was great to see everybody. I hope
you enjoyed the conference. Rachel,
Speaker:
thank you for inviting
us. Have a nice day.
Speaker:
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Speaker:
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Speaker:
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time with us today. And Remember,
Speaker:
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Speaker:
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