#91 - How Operation Peter Pan from Cuba Shaped an Attorney

Alexander Almazan almost walked away from practicing law entirely. After bouncing between three firms in five years, the first-generation Cuban-American attorney was exhausted by the billable hour grind and ready to accept a money management position at Credit Suisse in Connecticut. The only thing that stopped him: raising his young family far from Miami meant depriving his children of something his immigrant parents had sacrificed everything to give him.

In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman sits down with Almazan to explore how he transformed his frustration with traditional law firm models into a thriving 29-person Florida based law firm now leading the charge on AI integration. His father's journey, arriving in Virginia at age 13 through Operation Peter Pan, separated from family for five years as communism seized Cuba, instilled a work ethic that wouldn't let him settle for pushing paper at firms where success meant hitting arbitrary billing targets.

His approach to adoption is refreshingly practical: hire an assistant first, then an office manager, and build systems that free lawyers to practice actual law. He's candid about the billable hour's inevitable death, admitting he's scared but believes fear signals necessary change. The conversation reveals concrete strategies for small firms navigating this transformation, from using AI to turn dense articles into podcasts to training attorneys through short videos rather than hour-long sessions, proving that the right tools can make average attorneys good and good attorneys great.