Elawvate: Build & Grow Your Law Firm

What would a 2,500-year-old military strategist say about growing a law firm? That's the lens Ben Gideon, founder of Gideon Asen, reaches for when he reads Sun Tzu. In this episode, Ben and Gideon Asen COO Jeff Wright distill timeless principles from the writings of Sun Tzu and apply each one directly to law firm strategy. They explore how to win clients without costly head-on competition, why attacking a rival firm's...

If you make a wrong hire, the cost to your firm is “almost immeasurable,” says Jeff Wright, Gideon Asen’s COO who is on the front lines of hiring. “It’s not just monetary. It’s the time. It’s the training. It’s everything else.” In this episode, Jeff and firm co-founder Ben Gideon share real stories from the trenches and lessons learned. Tune in to learn why...

The digital marketing landscape for law firms has never been more complex — or more full of opportunity. Conrad Saam, owner and founder of Mockingbird Marketing, joins hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright to break down what's actually working in 2026. Conrad draws on nearly two decades of legal marketing expertise to map out how firms across practice areas should think about omnichannel strategy, the r...

Lawyers drive law firms. The open secret? AI drives the office – so everybody at the office needs to know something about it. In this episode, hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright invite Berkeley Almand-Hunter and Zach Blattner to unpack a helpful AI toolbox. Both guests teach at Northeastern University’s Roux Institute. She is a data scientist who works with industry partners on data, and he tea...

If your law firm sets a budget in January and forgets about it until October, that’s a problem. John Scott, a CPA who specializes in helping lawyers with financial matters, visits with host Ben Gideon to bring financial clarity to law firm owners — whether they're growing or quietly in crisis. Drawing on decades of work with firms from $1.5M to $30M in revenue, John reveals the right cash reserve targets for diff...

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 leadersh...

Ben Gideon started his career as a lawyer. So when he charted a new path as an entrepreneur, co-founding Gideon Asen in 2020, he knew he had a learning curve. In this episode, he and Jeff Wright, Gideon Asen’s COO, run down the top 10 strategies every lawyer entrepreneur needs to know to build a financially successful law firm. “It's a distillation of my learning, both from my reading but also from ...

Entrepreneurs may think that taking an accounting class or learning leadership skills will help them manage their businesses. “I call BS on that,” says Mike Michalowicz. His “Profit First” system encourages entrepreneurs to do what they would naturally do. “Whatever your natural flow is, go with it, and you’ll travel so much further,” he explains to hosts Jeff Wright and Ta...

After serving as a federal prosecutor and as a partner in a Big Law firm, Arlo Devlin-Brown “got a little bit of a bug” to try something different. He and friend Tim Treanor co-founded Treanor Devlin Brown, a boutique white collar litigation firm in New York City. Hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright ask Arlo to reflect lessons learned so far – like how to stay top-of-mind among his network...

It was a killer operation – except the hiring misfires were killing it. "We ended up firing seven out of ten employees we hired," Alec Broadfoot recalls of a mailing and printing company he once ran. Today, Alec is the CEO of VisionSpark, an executive search firm that connected Gideon Asen with Jeff Wright, now COO. Alec visits with Jeff and Ben Gideon to pull back the curtain on how he identifies ...

Creating culture isn't about hiring people and forcing them to adopt your values—it's about finding people who already share them. Hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright discuss how Gideon Asen transformed from vague attribute lists like "integrity" and "compassion" to specific, actionable core values that drive hiring, firing, and daily operations. Tune in as they break down lessons learned including: generic traits fail ("every b...

What could a law firm entrepreneur learn from a tech incubator? Pioneer Square Labs has vetted 500-plus business ideas and launched 43 software companies. PSL’s managing director, “serial entrepreneur” T.A. McCann, visits hosts Ben Gideon and Jeff Wright to reveal his playbook for growth, from breaking down PSL’s proven strategies to leveraging AI to recognizing the essential traits of any entrepreneur &ndas...

“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, fr...

“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 crimina...

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...

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 thr...

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...

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 versu...

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 &...