Mary Ellen O'Connor, founder of O’Connor Law, PLLC, joins us to discuss how she hires, retains, and works with remote team members.
This episode and the next several will feature PILMMA speakers in our “Spotlight on PILMMA” podcast series.
Mary Ellen also covers what she is looking forward to the most at PILMMA Super Summit 2025!
Visit Mary Ellen online here: https://www.nyworkerslaw.com/our-team/mary-ellen-oconnor/.
We’ll be at PILMMA Super Summit 2025: https://optimizemyfirm.com/pilmma-2025/.
See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world.
I'm your host, Lindsey Busfield. When it comes to SEO, we have long known that you need to hire the best of the best in order to move the needle.
As it so happens, the best of the best didn't all decide to move to Raleigh, North Carolina, so we hire remotely.
Our web developers in Texas, our Google Business Profile expert is in Ohio, and we have writers in a handful of additional states.
That way, we can source the right talent for the job. The same is true in the legal field. In order to best serve your clients, as well as your operational needs, you might
You might need to look beyond your own hometown for the right professionals. Continuing our Spotlight on PILMMA series, Mary Ellen O'Connor of O'Connor Law in New York joins us today to share some insights on remote hiring, her presentation topic at the upcoming PILMMA conference.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Mary Ellen
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Lindsey. I really appreciate it.
Lindsey
Well, tell us a bit about yourself and about your practice.
Mary Ellen
So I am the owner of O'Connor Law, and we've been in business for almost 16 years now, and we represent injured workers in the state of New York.
When they're injured on the job, we have five attorneys and a support staff of 25. So we've been growing particularly fast over the past four or five years, and it's mostly due to remote work.
Lindsey
Well, and with that sustained growth and, you know, exponential growth over the past several years, getting the right people in place to...
scaffold that growth and make sure that your operations are supported is necessary if you want to be able to build out and continue to grow long term.
And so clearly, you know, as you said, you have hired remotely. Why do you consider remote hiring to be necessary in this situation?
Mary Ellen
So I think that remote hiring provides you with not just the opportunity to open up the market to the best and the brightest, but also, from my own experience, I actually started working in 2005.
So back when remote work was sort of, you know, not a non thing. And I remember when I got hired and they told me I could work remotely, I didn't actually believe them.
So, you know, I know that when the CEO of the insurance company said to me, hey, why are you on calendar next week on September 7th?
It's the first day of school, don't you have children? And I said, yeah. Yes, I've only been here three weeks.
I don't have any time to take. And he's like, well, work from home that day. So I was like, I'm not allowed.
I'm still on the six-month probation. And he was like, I'm the CEO. I just said to work from home.
And it started a relationship with someone that had my full dedication because it provided me with an opportunity to never really have to give up being a mother and or being an attorney.
Now, you really can't have it all. But this was the best of both worlds where I could work from home, pop in for that 15-minute pumpkin story that they needed to read and then run back home and not miss work and not miss the event.
So being afforded that opportunity also then gave me a dedicati...