May 20, 2025 • 19 mins
After 18 years at a major firm, discover how Scott Ashby, owner of Pacific Northwest Family Law, took the leap to build a thriving family law practice from scratch.
In this episode of Revenue Roadmap, learn the practical steps he took to transition from corporate clientele to a consumer-focused approach, including hiring the right people and mastering local marketing.
Finally, see how Scott continues to expand across Washington with a mission-driven mindset, transforming the lives of families for generations to come.
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https://youtu.be/vpUxFW0oJPQ
---
🕒 CHAPTERS
00:00 - Leaving the Biggest Firm in Phoenix: A Surprising Origin Story
02:02 - The Trigger That Sparked Going Solo
09:27 - Scaling Up: Hiring & Delegation Secrets for Family Law Firms
14:46 - Seizing Your Family Law Potential
18:09 - The Mission That Drives Future Growth
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You have to hear the story of how a lawyerwho spent 18 years
at a big firm left and started their ownfully focused family firm
that has grown to over six attorneys.
An incredible story to come.
(00:21):
Hi, my name is Stallard Off.
I am the CEO of Rocket Clinicsand welcome back to the Revenue Roadmap.
We are continuing our interview seriestoday where we talk to family
law firm owners and hear their story.
Today we talked to Scott Ashby,who is an incredible attorney.
He spent a number of yearsat a big corporate law firm
(00:43):
working with large companiesand and just decided it wasn't for him.
After a long timeand want to do something new.
And so he built the Pacific Northwestfamily law firm, did it from scratch.
He has a great origin story onhow he came to this conclusion
and what he's done since.
Make sure to check it out.
(01:03):
Scott, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Absolutely.
Give us a little backgroundon, your story, The Firm,
how things got started.
We love, the origin stories around here.
Oh, sure. Well, I'll.
I'll try to make it quick.
I grew up on a farm in north centralWashington,
and, thought I would be a farmer and,at some point,
(01:25):
I really became attracted to the, like,a cousin who was, an attorney.
And, so, I studied,I did not do well in high school.
I did very poorly in high school.
Near the bottom of the class.
I'm afraid to admit Classic entrepreneur.
Yeah, but when I got to the university,that got exciting, and I did very well
there and, ended up at, a good law school,a really good law school,
(01:47):
and, got recruited to a very large firmin, Phoenix, Arizona.
And I was there in Phoenix for,I think, 18 years doing
commercial litigation for, mostly fortune100 companies
and, had a successful career.
But, I don't know.
You know, the term burned outis not really very accurate,
(02:08):
and it's so broad,and I think it's over you.
So I'm notI don't want to put that label on it, but
I thought there must be more and startedlooking around.
I, you know, I was, you know, maybeit was a midlife crisis, but, whatever.
I started looking around and I thought,there must be something more.
And, about that time, I, found outthat there was a, an attorney
(02:29):
who was getting ready to retireand had a small practice and,
and about 3 or 4 people working for himand, just decided, you know what?
I'm going to resign my partnership,and I'm going to go, go start
doing some more consumer oriented stuffand see if I like that better.
And so, literally, like, on a whim, said.
I'm going to get out of the.
Well, it was it was it wasn't a whim.
(02:52):
I mean, I, you know, I'll be very candid.
I was going to counselingand trying to figure out
what I want to do with my lifeand talking with my wife.
We've been married 45 yearsnow, so, you know, she's every bit of,
she she's very much a life partnerthat, I talk things over with
and, you know, Phoenix was expandingand continues to expand.
(03:12):
Don't get me wrong, we love Phoenix.
But, boy, growing up on a farm and,you know, when I first moved to Phoenix,
my commute was 20 minutes,and we bought a house.
And by the time I moved away,it was an hour and 20 minutes one way.
And so that starts eating into your day.
You know, when you're spendingnearly three hours a day in the car, and,
and with, with a, 2000, you know,trying to build 2000 hours a year
(03:35):
and then spend it three hoursa day in a car, started be a little rough.
And so, moved, back to Washingtonwhere, where I grew up
and, joined this very small, largelyconsumer oriented firm.
And it was,for about the first couple of months,
I felt I was, Felt,how do you want to say it?
I was always, like,almost like being a new attorney
(03:57):
or new attorney all over again.
But but having said that, I had very,very good courtroom skills
that thanks to the big firmand the training programs
and all of those things I developed.
And so I caught on pretty quicklyand started, having a lot of clients
come to me.
And after about two years,at working for somebody else,
(04:19):
and that I'd been a partnerat the big firm in, Arizona.
And so I was,I guess I was champing at the bit
a little bitand regretting working for somebody else
because, This other personwas not entrepreneurial in the same way
that I was and didn't want to.
Didn't want to grow,didn't want to, market very much.
Didn't want to, look for betterand bigger clients.
(04:40):
Mostly just had a big sign outfront on a, on a busy street,
and people would just drop inwith all kinds of problems
and the lack of focusand the lack of I mean,
it just just started drive me nuts.
And so, so I left that and, and thought,well, here I go.
And, and, open my own firm and,I hired a paralegal who also helped me
(05:02):
keep the books.
And, you know,the one thing you, when you're moving
from a large, firm into, you decide,hey, I'm going to start my own firm,
or you move to a smaller firm.
The big thing.
And maybe you guyshave found that out too.
Probably is.
What do you mean?
I got to keep books.
And how do you do? Trust accounting.
You know, I'm a 20 year attorney,and, like, oh, crap.
(05:23):
If I get this wrong,I should get disbarred.
I got to be really carefulwith my trust account.
And so I actually went and took.
I don't if you call in remedial courses,but, courses from the bar on
how do you do trust accountingand, in Washington
most bar associationsI think have those available lots. It
now they didn'tthey didn't then 15 years ago.
(05:45):
But now they have those available,on demand, streaming
and so they're easy to get.
But back then I had to, traveland stay overnight and go take a course
on, you know, my undergraduate degreewas economics, and so I'd had a couple
of semesters of accounting,but by then that was a long time ago.
And, I had to figure outa trust accounting.
Had to look at all of the differentofferings.
(06:09):
There's a plethora of,practice management software offerings
and figure out what I wanted to do there.
And, there were there was a lotmore than I had anticipated.
At the same time,I must say, it was hugely enjoyable.
You got to make all the decisions.
It's so funny.
Scott.
Your story is is not a unique one, right?
You go from working at a large firmwhere everything's kind of done,
(06:31):
and you get to just be a great attorney,which is awesome, and it's amazing.
And kind of.
That's the damage I'm sure you hadwhen you were in law school
and then just transition to,I now have to pay rent,
I have to make payroll.
I have to understand accountingand excel and business management
and all these things that are not, Yeah.
And my wife isn't going to be happywith me if I can't pay the mortgage right?
(06:55):
And so.
And so, you know,if I can't, if I can't get a new car
every few years, and if I can't,you know, go on vacation, you know,
my wife isn't going to be happy.
And so I guess the next stage was is,I became very busy.
I mean, I'm a good courtroom attorney,and so I became very busy.
I got good referrals.
(07:15):
I'd set up a network,and I think that's important.
And I wasn't spending a lot of money.
I mean, the most money I spent wasI had a website hired somebody to develop
that, and, it wasn't a great website,but it was just it was a website.
And, You know, I was really busy,and I was making pretty good money.
Just, me and I had, two paralegalsand an office manager
(07:37):
who also did some paralegal work. Right.
And we were busy.
We were really busy.
And after a while, I started feeling tiredand a little exhausted.
It it is exhausting being a true solo.
I don't know how people do it.
That that is, you know,I tried going on vacation
and of course, they took my cell phoneand, you know, you get calls from clients
(07:58):
that need something, and,hey, you got to file this motion
and you got to do this, you know,while I'm on vacation.
Well, who's going to help me?
Oh, my goodness, I don't know.
You know, I can I can get to it next week.
It's just me.
And so, that that became really stressfuland I couldn't be gone
for more than just a few days.
It seemed like.
I mean, one time,my daughter was graduating high school.
(08:20):
We decided to take a trip to London for,I think we went for ten days,
and, we go to London and,the whole time was stressful.
And I still have good memories from it,don't get me wrong.
But I did not expect the stressand the number
of phone calls and emails from my officestaff saying, what do we do?
This happened,or what do we do that happened?
(08:41):
And when I came backfrom that trip to London, I said,
I've got to do some marketingand I've got to hire another attorney.
And so that was thethat was really the beginning.
That was the coming tothat realization was really set the stage.
And it's like, and I look backand there's some turning points,
but that was the big one when I decided,I don't like not being able
(09:03):
to take a vacation.
I don't like not being ableto set my own schedule.
I don't like, I likeI like being in business for myself.
I like making the strategic decisions.
But, more and more,the firm is running me,
and I felt like I was working for my staffrather than the other way around.
Right. And, I can see some heads nodding.
(09:25):
So I think, you all probably experiencedthe same thing a few years ago.
And, so I, took a deep breathand, rented a larger space
and, hired an attorney and,started to do some marketing.
And so that's the origination.
It just, at some pointnot too far into it.
I had never done a lot of family law.
(09:45):
I mean, being a big firm litigatorfor large companies,
I mean, you know,I was used to having maybe two cases
and, as a, as a partner at a big firmrunning a trial team and,
you know, it's different when you startdoing consumer oriented work.
You know,you have a lot more than two cases
or you're or, you can't pay the rent.
(10:05):
And, so I had to learn how to jugglea lot of cases.
That's one thing.
Skill I did not have coming for biglike a juggle two, three, 4 or 5 cases.
But, you know, I think at one pointwhen I find deciding to hire
another attorney,I think I had 75 active cases.
And, you know, I,I installed a big whiteboard in my office
and I had them all listed,and I was doing it that way
(10:27):
because I couldn't even keep track of themwith my computer system.
And, you know, to make sureI didn't fall through the cracks.
And I wake up in the middle of the nightand think,
oh, man, with all these cases,did I forget anything?
You know that I forget somebody?
Yeah, I mean, it,it started to take its toll.
And so hired another attorney and got halfthose cases over to over to her.
And, started to see that.
(10:48):
Okay.
You know, maybe this isn't too bad,but I ran into some roadblocks, you know,
having 1 or 2 attorneys working with you,you know, inflation changes everything.
Or just rough back of hand.
When I got close to $1 million in revenuefor the firm,
I started running intoall kinds of issues. And,
actuallyhired, a business coach,
somebody who's in the coaching industry.
(11:10):
I joined a coaching group, andthat turned out actually very, very good.
Up until about $3 million.
And at that point, we started runningand just we started running
to some different roadblocks.
Right.
And it was, we started to have to addsome middle managers.
And so, I joined a differentcoaching group because, I needed
(11:33):
somebody who was not orientedtowards the coaching group.
I was first and was oriented towardsgetting you to seven figures,
and it workedreally well up into about 3 million.
And then it didn't.
And so I got into a groupthat was oriented in further growth.
And, that's where we are now.
And yeah,we've, we've made the Inc 5004 times,
(11:54):
which as you know, it gets harder andharder every time because it's multiples.
It's a progression.
And so, yeah, we've been it'sit's been a lot of fun.
Scott.
Congratulationson. On all the success I can.
Really.
It was so much of of what you said.
I want to talk through a little bitabout the power of focus.
You know,we talked to a lot of firm owners
and a lot of firms become very successfuldoing a lot of different things.
(12:16):
Our personal experience at Sterlingwas that we were going to do
one thing really welland, and create a factory,
almost of repeatable workthat that we can do at a very high level.
And it feels like you went through thatsame kind of inflection
point of being hyper focused on family.
Give us a little perspective on,that learning experience and the benefit.
(12:37):
Well, when I came out of Big Lot, I'd donea lot of courtroom.
I was very comfortable in the courtroom.
And, family law is has some differencesto, commercial litigation.
I found out very quickly.
It's a it's a court of forfor all the lawyers.
It's a court of equity,not a court of law.
And so, it felt very,what's the right word?
It felt very squishy,you know, it was hard.
(12:59):
You know, you don't go in and get summaryjudgment motions and you don't make,
very few things or decidedas a matter of law.
They're, you know, thethe standards are squishy.
It's the best interests of the children.
It's equitable division of property.
It's those kinds of things,especially with no fault divorce.
You know, itnot very much matters except, what's
in the best interests of the children?
(13:22):
What's in the,What what's fair and equitable? And.
Yeah, there arethere's a, along statute in Washington,
but some of it is, pretty legal.
But, child support is fairly wooden, buta lot of it is, I would say guidelines
kind of squishy.
There's caselaw that instructs the courts
how to, to deal with those and attorneys.
But, you know,one of the things that I tell our
(13:42):
attorneys is, we have offices now clearacross Washington state,
and it's very clear, all,and I'm sure you all experienced it, too,
which is that all family law is local.
And it depends on the judgeor commissioner.
And that can vary even within a locality.
And you really have to know.
(14:03):
How things are handled locally.
So you have to know the local rules.
But beyond that,you have to know the local people.
I mean, it's localin almost every aspect, right?
Even on the marketing side,when we work with firms, you know,
we've realized that over 40% of leadscome from the maps.
If you think aboutjust from internet only.
And that is all based aroundyour location.
(14:24):
It's based on the the map algorithmand the drive time, from your office to,
to other places in that town and city.
And so All all marketing for family law.
You know,when we started doing only family law,
that's one of the things that I learned.
Just what you saidthat, all marketing is local.
You local.
(14:44):
You can't have a statewide website.
I mean, our website is statewide,but it's very geared towards, localities
and and even people, you know,people are when you start drilling down,
people are different from city to city,especially, you know, in, in the west.
I mean, this side of the stateis politically fairly conservative
(15:05):
and the other side of the stateor the majority of the, you know, the
the west side of the state,CL King County,
where the majority of,our population is, is, quite liberal.
If you watch the news, quiet, very blue.
And so, you know, all of that playsinto, into, marketing,
some marketing that worksvery well over on this side of the state
(15:25):
when we first wentinto the other side of the state,
it's like, well, we spent all this moneyand not very good response.
What's going on?
And then, you know, as we work through it,we realized that we were, the values
that people have overhere are different than the values
that people have over there.
And no judgment people can have.
I'm I'm very libertarian.
People can have whatever,whatever values they want.
(15:47):
But we had to shift our marketing to geta good response on that side of the state.
Very locally focused. That's.
That's so, True.
And something that we see every day.
Scott, I love your story.
I love the the path it took for youto get to where you are today.
As we close up here,give us a little preview of what
the future of your firm looks like.
(16:10):
Are you going to continueto expand across the state?
Yeah. Okay.
We'll continue to expand across the state.
We are right now, looking at,looking at expanding into Idaho.
And, at some point, probably southwardinto Oregon along the I-5 corridor.
We are, you know, I would say our biggest,block, the
we really have our marketing dialed in.
(16:32):
My my son, who's about,you know, what is he,
a ten, 12 year attorney now?
Is is, full partner with meand owner in the firm, and, has really,
got the marketing dialedin, so we're we're very,
I'm I'm he's, I'm I'm fairly tech savvyfor someone of my, age, as he would say.
(16:55):
But, but not like he is.
And he, he really gets how the,how the marketing works and has worked
with some good peopleand really understands it.
But but yeah,the future is continued growth.
And and also filling in,I mean, we believe that we have a mission
to, our, our tagline,to use a marketing term, is that we help,
we help people becomewe help our clients become family heroes.
(17:18):
And so what we want is towhen people come in for a divorce,
which is our bread and butter, it'sbread and butter of any family law firm.
They come in for a divorce.
Most of our clients are worriedabout what happened to my family
would have my kids,and our goal is to take a long term view.
Our objective, we take a long term view.
We help them.
A lot of them are in the fight mode still,you know, with their ex,
(17:41):
significant other.
And we say,where do you want to be in five years?
A lot of them haven't thought of that.
And that helps us calm things down,get the case together, find out a way
for them to co-parent and, and move onand have a really have a better life.
And so,we really feel like we have a mission
to help peoplegoing through that in Washington.
(18:03):
And, so if we really believethat, my feeling is,
is that if we really believethat we have a mission
and we can make a difference,we should expand
so that we can help more people.
And that's what we're trying to do.
That's incredible.
And, having a mission and a focuswhere you're really able to change
people's lives for the better.
Why wouldn't you expand?
(18:24):
Why wouldn't you want to continue to helpWell, you know, I,
I loved for the first part of my career,working for, Billion
trillion dollar companiesand flying all over the United States.
And, you know, and it having a big officeand a tall building with a great view
and all of that.
I mean, it was pretty cool,but this is better.
This is because because I'm making,we are making intergenerational
(18:47):
differences in the lives of our clientsand that that's pretty cool.
Scott, I so appreciate you and your story.
I appreciate your time.
Listeners, I hope you're able to getsomething truly valuable out of this.
And we will see younext time on the revenue roadmap.
If you enjoyed Scott's story,you will love our continuation
(19:07):
of our interview serieswhere we interview the,
attorney and brother in law.
Make sure to check it out right over here.
You have to hear the story of how a lawyerwho spent 18 years
at a big firm left and started their ownfully focused family firm
that has grown to over six attorneys.
An incredible story to come.
(00:21):
Hi, my name is Stallard Off.
I am the CEO of Rocket Clinicsand welcome back to the Revenue Roadmap.
We are continuing our interview seriestoday where we talk to family
law firm owners and hear their story.
Today we talked to Scott Ashby,who is an incredible attorney.
He spent a number of yearsat a big corporate law firm
(00:43):
working with large companiesand and just decided it wasn't for him.
After a long timeand want to do something new.
And so he built the Pacific Northwestfamily law firm, did it from scratch.
He has a great origin story onhow he came to this conclusion
and what he's done since.
Make sure to check it out.
(01:03):
Scott, thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for inviting me.
Absolutely.
Give us a little backgroundon, your story, The Firm,
how things got started.
We love, the origin stories around here.
Oh, sure. Well, I'll.
I'll try to make it quick.
I grew up on a farm in north centralWashington,
and, thought I would be a farmer and,at some point,
(01:25):
I really became attracted to the, like,a cousin who was, an attorney.
And, so, I studied,I did not do well in high school.
I did very poorly in high school.
Near the bottom of the class.
I'm afraid to admit Classic entrepreneur.
Yeah, but when I got to the university,that got exciting, and I did very well
there and, ended up at, a good law school,a really good law school,
(01:47):
and, got recruited to a very large firmin, Phoenix, Arizona.
And I was there in Phoenix for,I think, 18 years doing
commercial litigation for, mostly fortune100 companies
and, had a successful career.
But, I don't know.
You know, the term burned outis not really very accurate,
(02:08):
and it's so broad,and I think it's over you.
So I'm notI don't want to put that label on it, but
I thought there must be more and startedlooking around.
I, you know, I was, you know, maybeit was a midlife crisis, but, whatever.
I started looking around and I thought,there must be something more.
And, about that time, I, found outthat there was a, an attorney
(02:29):
who was getting ready to retireand had a small practice and,
and about 3 or 4 people working for himand, just decided, you know what?
I'm going to resign my partnership,and I'm going to go, go start
doing some more consumer oriented stuffand see if I like that better.
And so, literally, like, on a whim, said.
I'm going to get out of the.
Well, it was it was it wasn't a whim.
(02:52):
I mean, I, you know, I'll be very candid.
I was going to counselingand trying to figure out
what I want to do with my lifeand talking with my wife.
We've been married 45 yearsnow, so, you know, she's every bit of,
she she's very much a life partnerthat, I talk things over with
and, you know, Phoenix was expandingand continues to expand.
(03:12):
Don't get me wrong, we love Phoenix.
But, boy, growing up on a farm and,you know, when I first moved to Phoenix,
my commute was 20 minutes,and we bought a house.
And by the time I moved away,it was an hour and 20 minutes one way.
And so that starts eating into your day.
You know, when you're spendingnearly three hours a day in the car, and,
and with, with a, 2000, you know,trying to build 2000 hours a year
(03:35):
and then spend it three hoursa day in a car, started be a little rough.
And so, moved, back to Washingtonwhere, where I grew up
and, joined this very small, largelyconsumer oriented firm.
And it was,for about the first couple of months,
I felt I was, Felt,how do you want to say it?
I was always, like,almost like being a new attorney
(03:57):
or new attorney all over again.
But but having said that, I had very,very good courtroom skills
that thanks to the big firmand the training programs
and all of those things I developed.
And so I caught on pretty quicklyand started, having a lot of clients
come to me.
And after about two years,at working for somebody else,
(04:19):
and that I'd been a partnerat the big firm in, Arizona.
And so I was,I guess I was champing at the bit
a little bitand regretting working for somebody else
because, This other personwas not entrepreneurial in the same way
that I was and didn't want to.
Didn't want to grow,didn't want to, market very much.
Didn't want to, look for betterand bigger clients.
(04:40):
Mostly just had a big sign outfront on a, on a busy street,
and people would just drop inwith all kinds of problems
and the lack of focusand the lack of I mean,
it just just started drive me nuts.
And so, so I left that and, and thought,well, here I go.
And, and, open my own firm and,I hired a paralegal who also helped me
(05:02):
keep the books.
And, you know,the one thing you, when you're moving
from a large, firm into, you decide,hey, I'm going to start my own firm,
or you move to a smaller firm.
The big thing.
And maybe you guyshave found that out too.
Probably is.
What do you mean?
I got to keep books.
And how do you do? Trust accounting.
You know, I'm a 20 year attorney,and, like, oh, crap.
(05:23):
If I get this wrong,I should get disbarred.
I got to be really carefulwith my trust account.
And so I actually went and took.
I don't if you call in remedial courses,but, courses from the bar on
how do you do trust accountingand, in Washington
most bar associationsI think have those available lots. It
now they didn'tthey didn't then 15 years ago.
(05:45):
But now they have those available,on demand, streaming
and so they're easy to get.
But back then I had to, traveland stay overnight and go take a course
on, you know, my undergraduate degreewas economics, and so I'd had a couple
of semesters of accounting,but by then that was a long time ago.
And, I had to figure outa trust accounting.
Had to look at all of the differentofferings.
(06:09):
There's a plethora of,practice management software offerings
and figure out what I wanted to do there.
And, there were there was a lotmore than I had anticipated.
At the same time,I must say, it was hugely enjoyable.
You got to make all the decisions.
It's so funny.
Scott.
Your story is is not a unique one, right?
You go from working at a large firmwhere everything's kind of done,
(06:31):
and you get to just be a great attorney,which is awesome, and it's amazing.
And kind of.
That's the damage I'm sure you hadwhen you were in law school
and then just transition to,I now have to pay rent,
I have to make payroll.
I have to understand accountingand excel and business management
and all these things that are not, Yeah.
And my wife isn't going to be happywith me if I can't pay the mortgage right?
(06:55):
And so.
And so, you know,if I can't, if I can't get a new car
every few years, and if I can't,you know, go on vacation, you know,
my wife isn't going to be happy.
And so I guess the next stage was is,I became very busy.
I mean, I'm a good courtroom attorney,and so I became very busy.
I got good referrals.
(07:15):
I'd set up a network,and I think that's important.
And I wasn't spending a lot of money.
I mean, the most money I spent wasI had a website hired somebody to develop
that, and, it wasn't a great website,but it was just it was a website.
And, You know, I was really busy,and I was making pretty good money.
Just, me and I had, two paralegalsand an office manager
(07:37):
who also did some paralegal work. Right.
And we were busy.
We were really busy.
And after a while, I started feeling tiredand a little exhausted.
It it is exhausting being a true solo.
I don't know how people do it.
That that is, you know,I tried going on vacation
and of course, they took my cell phoneand, you know, you get calls from clients
(07:58):
that need something, and,hey, you got to file this motion
and you got to do this, you know,while I'm on vacation.
Well, who's going to help me?
Oh, my goodness, I don't know.
You know, I can I can get to it next week.
It's just me.
And so, that that became really stressfuland I couldn't be gone
for more than just a few days.
It seemed like.
I mean, one time,my daughter was graduating high school.
(08:20):
We decided to take a trip to London for,I think we went for ten days,
and, we go to London and,the whole time was stressful.
And I still have good memories from it,don't get me wrong.
But I did not expect the stressand the number
of phone calls and emails from my officestaff saying, what do we do?
This happened,or what do we do that happened?
(08:41):
And when I came backfrom that trip to London, I said,
I've got to do some marketingand I've got to hire another attorney.
And so that was thethat was really the beginning.
That was the coming tothat realization was really set the stage.
And it's like, and I look backand there's some turning points,
but that was the big one when I decided,I don't like not being able
(09:03):
to take a vacation.
I don't like not being ableto set my own schedule.
I don't like, I likeI like being in business for myself.
I like making the strategic decisions.
But, more and more,the firm is running me,
and I felt like I was working for my staffrather than the other way around.
Right. And, I can see some heads nodding.
(09:25):
So I think, you all probably experiencedthe same thing a few years ago.
And, so I, took a deep breathand, rented a larger space
and, hired an attorney and,started to do some marketing.
And so that's the origination.
It just, at some pointnot too far into it.
I had never done a lot of family law.
(09:45):
I mean, being a big firm litigatorfor large companies,
I mean, you know,I was used to having maybe two cases
and, as a, as a partner at a big firmrunning a trial team and,
you know, it's different when you startdoing consumer oriented work.
You know,you have a lot more than two cases
or you're or, you can't pay the rent.
(10:05):
And, so I had to learn how to jugglea lot of cases.
That's one thing.
Skill I did not have coming for biglike a juggle two, three, 4 or 5 cases.
But, you know, I think at one pointwhen I find deciding to hire
another attorney,I think I had 75 active cases.
And, you know, I,I installed a big whiteboard in my office
and I had them all listed,and I was doing it that way
(10:27):
because I couldn't even keep track of themwith my computer system.
And, you know, to make sureI didn't fall through the cracks.
And I wake up in the middle of the nightand think,
oh, man, with all these cases,did I forget anything?
You know that I forget somebody?
Yeah, I mean, it,it started to take its toll.
And so hired another attorney and got halfthose cases over to over to her.
And, started to see that.
(10:48):
Okay.
You know, maybe this isn't too bad,but I ran into some roadblocks, you know,
having 1 or 2 attorneys working with you,you know, inflation changes everything.
Or just rough back of hand.
When I got close to $1 million in revenuefor the firm,
I started running intoall kinds of issues. And,
actuallyhired, a business coach,
somebody who's in the coaching industry.
(11:10):
I joined a coaching group, andthat turned out actually very, very good.
Up until about $3 million.
And at that point, we started runningand just we started running
to some different roadblocks.
Right.
And it was, we started to have to addsome middle managers.
And so, I joined a differentcoaching group because, I needed
(11:33):
somebody who was not orientedtowards the coaching group.
I was first and was oriented towardsgetting you to seven figures,
and it workedreally well up into about 3 million.
And then it didn't.
And so I got into a groupthat was oriented in further growth.
And, that's where we are now.
And yeah,we've, we've made the Inc 5004 times,
(11:54):
which as you know, it gets harder andharder every time because it's multiples.
It's a progression.
And so, yeah, we've been it'sit's been a lot of fun.
Scott.
Congratulationson. On all the success I can.
Really.
It was so much of of what you said.
I want to talk through a little bitabout the power of focus.
You know,we talked to a lot of firm owners
and a lot of firms become very successfuldoing a lot of different things.
(12:16):
Our personal experience at Sterlingwas that we were going to do
one thing really welland, and create a factory,
almost of repeatable workthat that we can do at a very high level.
And it feels like you went through thatsame kind of inflection
point of being hyper focused on family.
Give us a little perspective on,that learning experience and the benefit.
(12:37):
Well, when I came out of Big Lot, I'd donea lot of courtroom.
I was very comfortable in the courtroom.
And, family law is has some differencesto, commercial litigation.
I found out very quickly.
It's a it's a court of forfor all the lawyers.
It's a court of equity,not a court of law.
And so, it felt very,what's the right word?
It felt very squishy,you know, it was hard.
(12:59):
You know, you don't go in and get summaryjudgment motions and you don't make,
very few things or decidedas a matter of law.
They're, you know, thethe standards are squishy.
It's the best interests of the children.
It's equitable division of property.
It's those kinds of things,especially with no fault divorce.
You know, itnot very much matters except, what's
in the best interests of the children?
(13:22):
What's in the,What what's fair and equitable? And.
Yeah, there arethere's a, along statute in Washington,
but some of it is, pretty legal.
But, child support is fairly wooden, buta lot of it is, I would say guidelines
kind of squishy.
There's caselaw that instructs the courts
how to, to deal with those and attorneys.
But, you know,one of the things that I tell our
(13:42):
attorneys is, we have offices now clearacross Washington state,
and it's very clear, all,and I'm sure you all experienced it, too,
which is that all family law is local.
And it depends on the judgeor commissioner.
And that can vary even within a locality.
And you really have to know.
(14:03):
How things are handled locally.
So you have to know the local rules.
But beyond that,you have to know the local people.
I mean, it's localin almost every aspect, right?
Even on the marketing side,when we work with firms, you know,
we've realized that over 40% of leadscome from the maps.
If you think aboutjust from internet only.
And that is all based aroundyour location.
(14:24):
It's based on the the map algorithmand the drive time, from your office to,
to other places in that town and city.
And so All all marketing for family law.
You know,when we started doing only family law,
that's one of the things that I learned.
Just what you saidthat, all marketing is local.
You local.
(14:44):
You can't have a statewide website.
I mean, our website is statewide,but it's very geared towards, localities
and and even people, you know,people are when you start drilling down,
people are different from city to city,especially, you know, in, in the west.
I mean, this side of the stateis politically fairly conservative
(15:05):
and the other side of the stateor the majority of the, you know, the
the west side of the state,CL King County,
where the majority of,our population is, is, quite liberal.
If you watch the news, quiet, very blue.
And so, you know, all of that playsinto, into, marketing,
some marketing that worksvery well over on this side of the state
(15:25):
when we first wentinto the other side of the state,
it's like, well, we spent all this moneyand not very good response.
What's going on?
And then, you know, as we work through it,we realized that we were, the values
that people have overhere are different than the values
that people have over there.
And no judgment people can have.
I'm I'm very libertarian.
People can have whatever,whatever values they want.
(15:47):
But we had to shift our marketing to geta good response on that side of the state.
Very locally focused. That's.
That's so, True.
And something that we see every day.
Scott, I love your story.
I love the the path it took for youto get to where you are today.
As we close up here,give us a little preview of what
the future of your firm looks like.
(16:10):
Are you going to continueto expand across the state?
Yeah. Okay.
We'll continue to expand across the state.
We are right now, looking at,looking at expanding into Idaho.
And, at some point, probably southwardinto Oregon along the I-5 corridor.
We are, you know, I would say our biggest,block, the
we really have our marketing dialed in.
(16:32):
My my son, who's about,you know, what is he,
a ten, 12 year attorney now?
Is is, full partner with meand owner in the firm, and, has really,
got the marketing dialedin, so we're we're very,
I'm I'm he's, I'm I'm fairly tech savvyfor someone of my, age, as he would say.
(16:55):
But, but not like he is.
And he, he really gets how the,how the marketing works and has worked
with some good peopleand really understands it.
But but yeah,the future is continued growth.
And and also filling in,I mean, we believe that we have a mission
to, our, our tagline,to use a marketing term, is that we help,
we help people becomewe help our clients become family heroes.
(17:18):
And so what we want is towhen people come in for a divorce,
which is our bread and butter, it'sbread and butter of any family law firm.
They come in for a divorce.
Most of our clients are worriedabout what happened to my family
would have my kids,and our goal is to take a long term view.
Our objective, we take a long term view.
We help them.
A lot of them are in the fight mode still,you know, with their ex,
(17:41):
significant other.
And we say,where do you want to be in five years?
A lot of them haven't thought of that.
And that helps us calm things down,get the case together, find out a way
for them to co-parent and, and move onand have a really have a better life.
And so,we really feel like we have a mission
to help peoplegoing through that in Washington.
(18:03):
And, so if we really believethat, my feeling is,
is that if we really believethat we have a mission
and we can make a difference,we should expand
so that we can help more people.
And that's what we're trying to do.
That's incredible.
And, having a mission and a focuswhere you're really able to change
people's lives for the better.
Why wouldn't you expand?
(18:24):
Why wouldn't you want to continue to helpWell, you know, I,
I loved for the first part of my career,working for, Billion
trillion dollar companiesand flying all over the United States.
And, you know, and it having a big officeand a tall building with a great view
and all of that.
I mean, it was pretty cool,but this is better.
This is because because I'm making,we are making intergenerational
(18:47):
differences in the lives of our clientsand that that's pretty cool.
Scott, I so appreciate you and your story.
I appreciate your time.
Listeners, I hope you're able to getsomething truly valuable out of this.
And we will see younext time on the revenue roadmap.
If you enjoyed Scott's story,you will love our continuation
(19:07):
of our interview serieswhere we interview the,
attorney and brother in law.
Make sure to check it out right over here.
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