Elawvate: Build & Grow Your Law Firm

“Even if it's going to mean we're less profitable, short term, if it provides sanity, we're going to do it,” Andrew Garza says as he reflects on his entrepreneurial journey, including co-founding Claggett, Sykes & Garza Trial Lawyers. “It all comes down to a balance.” In this wide-ranging conversation with hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright, Andrew reveals how balance informs the firm’s decisions, from balancing automation and sy...

“I tell people my practice is primarily sex, drugs, and white collar crime. No rock and roll,” says defense lawyer Tim Zerillo in this conversation about building a criminal defense firm. With hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright, Tim reveals how he evolved from bartering for office space as a new lawyer to running a nationally recognized practice. He shares hard-won insights about managing the economic realities of criminal defense, m...

Building a business without a clear vision is like doing a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box. That’s the metaphor that informs Cameron Herold’s revolutionary “Vivid Vision” model. He describes it in this conversation with hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright. The founder of the COO Alliance and mastermind behind companies like 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Cameron explains how his jigsaw puzzle approach to business structure guid...

Melissa Shanahan encourages her law firm clients to envision a “three-legged stool” that supports growth. The three legs of that stool are: aim, plan, and honor. “When you don't have one of those, you don't really get the traction that you're looking for,” she explains to hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright. The founder of the consulting firm Velocity Work, Melissa discusses her work helping law firms scale through strategic planning....

Here’s what a vision is not: a pipe dream or a Christmas wish list. Here’s what it is: a big, audacious goal that’s worthy of your time and energy. Ben Gideon lays out this critical difference by unpacking his own vision for Gideon Asen. In a conversation guided by COO Jeff Wright, Ben shares how their firm's original mission statement evolved from a three-person operation to a market-leading practice. Tune in for insights about ho...

Every business succeeds or fails based on decisions: making good ones and recovering from bad ones. “Sounds like a pretty rudimentary concept,” says Gideon Asen founder Ben Gideon. To break down that concept, Ben and firm COO Jeff Wright reflect on how decision-making has informed Gideon Asen and its growth. They also dissect crucial contradictions – between the right idea at the wrong time, paid consultants versus honest mentors, ...

Jerry Zhou and childhood friend Kyle Lam had vast skills in software development by the time Covid hit and they left Microsoft. That’s when they sat down at a Starbucks and wrote “all the ideas that we had about things that we thought we could contribute to the world.” Their coffee-house brainstorming eventually turned into Supio, a developer of legal AI for personal injury firms and a sponsor of “Build & Grow Your Law Firm.” H...

"Anybody who tells you that leaving a law firm is an easy process is lying to you," says Ben Gideon. To lay out the unvarnished truth, Ben shares his experience leaving a 17-year partnership to launch Gideon Asen. In a conversation guided by Jeff Wright, the firm’s COO, Ben explains why departing from one firm to start your own can feel like a divorce. The duo discusses critical decisions around choosing business partners, financia...

Megan Piper says that her job coaching entrepreneurs “is to help them succeed and then to get out of the way.” To do this, she teaches a model called EOS, or “entrepreneurial operating system.” And while EOS is “industry agnostic,” Megan explains to hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright that law firms can use it to clarify their vision, drive accountability, and scale effectively. But they have to buy into core principles, including hea...

Building a law firm and building a law firm that’s designed for growth “are often mistaken, but very different ventures,” observes host Ben Gideon. The founder and managing partner of Gideon Asen teams up with the firm’s chief operating officer, Jeff Wright, for this conversation about starting a law firm to sell your legal services versus building a growth-oriented business designed to scale beyond the founder's individual capabil...

"I really wish when we started our practice, someone had taken me under their wing and said, 'This is how you do this.'" In the premiere of “Build & Grow Your Law Firm,” Ben Gideon takes attorneys contemplating opening their own firm under his wing. Tune in for insights from Ben and co-host Jeff Wright, Gideon Asen's Chief Operating Officer, about the differences between practicing law and building a business. And come back to ...

Everything You Really Need to Build a Law Firm

Welcome to Elawvate: Build & Grow Your Law Firm, the podcast that gives entrepreneurial attorneys the playbook for creating thriving, professionally run law practices. 

Host Ben Gideon shares lessons he’s learned building a firm from the ground up. Top experts in the business of law will join him to lend their insights.

Whether you're just getting started or scaling fast, your fi...