August 20, 2025 • 26 mins
Law firm culture isn't soft stuff - it's the business driver that took Sterling from struggling to $17M. Here's the system.
Most family law firms struggle with turnover, low profitability, and team dysfunction because they treat culture as an afterthought. After 11 years of trial and error, we've cracked the code on building law firm culture that actually moves the business needle. This isn't about feel-good initiatives - it's about systematic approaches to team retention, remote law firm management, and scaling family law practices through intentional culture design.
Learn the proven framework for building law firm culture that drives retention, client attraction, and profitability in family law practices.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughesÂ
đź“ť Get your FREE Law Firm Growth Guide: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
—
đź“„ CHAPTERSÂ
0:00 - Law Firm Culture: The Foundation of $17M GrowthÂ
2:25 - Why Most Family Law Firms Fail at Culture BuildingÂ
6:11 - The Three Pillars: Mission, Values, and Vivid VisionÂ
11:01 - Level 10 Meetings: Weekly Culture Reinforcement SystemÂ
13:34 - Remote Law Firm Management: Video-First Connection StrategyÂ
15:19 - Attorney Retention Strategies: Celebration and RecognitionÂ
19:58 - Leadership Modeling: Why Culture Problems Start at the TopÂ
21:09 - The Hard Truth About Firing for Culture FitÂ
24:00 - Scaling Law Firm Culture: Duplicating Leadership Systems
----------------------
Ready to find the accountability partner you need to build your dream family law firm the same way we grew Sterling Lawyers?
Follow these steps:
1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
3. CONNECT WITH US:
LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls,
Facebook: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls,
Instagram: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls
4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our team.
By and large, the vast majorityof them certainly care about
the clients, about each otherand about the firm ultimately
winning.
So that comes from having agood culture that collaborates
and works well together.
So those are some of the mosttangible benefits of focusing in
on culture and what you get outof doing that.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show, the
podcast designed to help familylawyers build the firm of their
dreams.
I am your co-host, tyler Dolph.
I'm also the CEO of ourfamily-focused marketing agency
called Rocket Clicks, and I'mwith my co-host, jeff Hughes,
today.
Great to see you.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hi everyone.
I'm Jeff Hughes, ceo ofSterling Lawyers.
We are a 27 attorney family lawfirm and doing about 17 plus
million in new business thisyear.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Incredible results.
And today we're going to talkabout something very close to
both of our hearts, which is theculture, the heartbeat of our
firms, and we're going to talk alittle bit about the remote
aspect of Sterling, but alsojust the importance of doubling
down on your vision and yourvalues and what it takes to
really build a successful lawfirm.
(01:10):
Jeff, it's great to be back.
You know, we're taking thisdeep dive into Sterling and one
thing that we've talked about alot, and that I've talked about
with a lot of other attorneys,is the idea of building a
culture.
We see so many times wheresmall law firms who have the
single attorney or the attorneythat left a big firm that starts
their own firm at the beginning, they're doing everything
(01:32):
they're billing, they'recollecting, cash and they're
having to be a lawyer, right,yeah?
because they have to be, buteventually they start to grow,
and as they grow, they have togrow and change as a leader,
because they have to build aculture.
They have to empower others todo the work, and, as we know,
sterling has done such anincredible job of this growing
(01:54):
into two states with multipleoffices and almost 90 team
members and so I want to spendtoday talking about how you and
your team were able toaccomplish that at Sterling.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, certainly, tyler.
I love this topic and it's oneof those things.
What's interesting aboutculture is that it's the most
dominant force that drives thesuccess or the sub-success I
want to call it failure, okay,the sub-success of a law firm,
but it's the one thing.
You can't go out and buy, likewe can go out and buy marketing,
(02:27):
we can go buy financialservices, we can go buy all
these things, but we can't buyculture.
Yet it is the driver of familylaw firms succeeding.
So I know we're going to stripdown what we have done today
here at Sterling on that and Iwant to give our audience a
little bit of context so theycan understand the perspective
(02:47):
we're coming from here at ourfirm.
So we've got 80-ish teammatesokay, spread out over two
countries, about 30-something inthe Philippines and the rest
here in the US.
We're in two states and thevast majority of our team works
remote.
So we have four what we callhub locations where the lawyers
and paralegals go to, butthey're there maybe half the
(03:09):
time.
Each person, some people alittle more than others, some
people rarely in the office.
Yet despite all the far flungteammates we've got, we've been
able to build a very cohesiveand powerful culture that is the
driver of our profitability asa firm.
We could have a crappy cultureand probably eek by, but we have
(03:30):
a wonderful culture withwonderful people that we're very
, very intentional about and so,yeah, one like third party.
One affirmation on this beforewe jump into the meat of the
content I have always been kindof like sour on these best
culture, best place to work typethings, cause I felt like, oh,
you just got to apply and you'regoing to win.
(03:51):
Well, maybe a little bit, butwe just recently did it and we
got top place to work.
But that's like big deal.
Okay, that that's nice.
But what was really cool is thatwe had 90 plus percent
participation, which is reallyhard to get.
Everyone's got to go on and dothe survey and all that, and
it's anonymous.
But here's the thing we got ahundred percent of the
(04:12):
respondents said it was a greatplace to work, and that blows my
cause that I still have a hardtime believing it, and maybe
those few people who didn'trespond were the ones that would
have said it sucks or whatever.
But the fact is we got a lot ofparticipation and 100%
unanimous like this is a greatplace to work.
So that speaks to our leadersthat are in the trenches with
our teammates that make thissuch a fun place to work.
(04:34):
It's not, certainly not on JeffHughes.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So that's so big.
And I think one thing that'sreally important about culture
that's maybe a little nuanced iswhen you're building culture,
you're building it for the longterm, and it's so much easier to
build that with a team that youtrust and can rely on and that
has been there with you for awhile in the trenches.
You mentioned that it's so muchharder to do that if you're
(04:57):
turning over team members everyyear or your leadership team
continues to change.
I know in prior conversationsyou talked about the longevity
and the retention of yourcurrent leadership team, which I
believe probably lends to yourability to create a group.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, and it wasn't always that way, tyler, as you
know, because you've watched usbuild this from, you were there
in the beginning, so you'vewatched us build it and we
struggled getting our cultureright and I thought, being kind
of a guy who really paid a lotof attention to leadership
issues, got a lot of reading andstuff, it's kind of a real
passion of mine.
I thought this would be like anarea I would personally excel
(05:32):
at, but it honestly took five,six years to start to get it
right.
And it's only been in the pastfew years, with Jeff Kirlin
coming in and elevating some ofour other leaders, that we've
been really able to kind of dialit in.
I didn't even want to do thatbest place to work thing about
three years ago because we wouldjust get hammered.
It was not, would not have beengood.
(05:53):
So, anyway, back to the topicat hand.
So for family, I'm going tofocus on the family law firms
because I can share from thatexperience and for all you
family lawyers out there, thereare some real benefits to being
intentional about culture,focusing in on it and building
it.
So what I have witnessed, okay,is that as our culture has
(06:15):
improved and it's gottenstronger.
We have been able to retaintalent and it's as you know,
tyler, you go out and have toreplace someone.
That's extremely expensive,especially with lawyers who take
a lot of clients with them outthe door, not to mention the
loss of training and the expensethat all went into that.
So our retention has improved.
Our ability to attract clientshas increased.
(06:39):
So that's been probably one ofthe most obvious measurable
results of our culture improving.
Another thing our profitabilityhas gone up substantially, and
one of the factors thatcontributes to that the most is
that our teammates care aboutthe success of the firm.
They care about the success ofeach other, and I'm not trying
(07:00):
to paint this in a glossy way,that that's not true, because
I'm not trying to like paintthis in a glossy way.
That that's not true, cause Idon't.
I'm not talking about ownershipmentality, cause I think for
two I am a little bit, but Ithink for someone to really
genuinely feel that they have toactually have some ownership,
and that that's not.
That's not true in our firm.
There's not, there's only a fewowners, but yet you see a our
(07:22):
team by and large, vast majorityof them certainly care about
the clients, about each otherand about the firm ultimately
winning.
So that comes from having agood culture that collaborates
and works well together.
So those are some of the mosttangible benefits of focusing in
on culture and what you get outof doing that.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I'd like to focus in a little bit, jeff, on how to
set a great culture.
I think our listeners maybethey're a little bit smaller
firm, but they want to grow,they want to build them as the
owner realize, like you did.
Hey, it's on me.
I have to be the one to pioneerthis, and to me that all starts
with vision right, setting thecourse, helping the company or
(08:02):
the firm understand where are wegoing.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah.
So I think there's some toolsthat family law firms
unfortunately, a majority ofthem that I have talked to don't
have these in place and it'skind of the foundation of
building your culture, becauseit defines the jumping off point
.
Okay, and in the world ofbusiness these are very common,
right?
You talk about a vision, amission or a purpose for why
(08:27):
your firm even exists.
And what are your?
What are the values of theirlike that you're really going to
die on those hills, thosevalues hills, okay, and for us
we set those early on and wehave stuck to them and we
constantly, weekly, go backwithin the firm formally and
refer back to them.
So, like in our case, sterling'smission or our purpose is to
(08:49):
equip family law clients.
That's it, that's the end of itperiod, full stop, right, so
that's one.
And then we have four valuesthat we talk about, we celebrate
, we reward on and all that, andthen we have a vivid vision.
That's a one-page document thatit sounds kind of cultish here
but we actually read it out loudin our weekly meeting.
(09:11):
So it's, I think building aculture starts with those three
things as the foundation of thatculture, and that vivid vision
is like one page long and ittalks about various aspects
between how we serve clients andtake care of each other and
that sort of thing in there andour future.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So this is really about creating alignment right.
It's about having everyone inthe firm agree.
This is where we're going.
We're going to get theretogether and we're going to act
a certain way so that we can alldo this in a united front.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, you can literally go to someone that's
been in our firm for four monthsand ask them what are your
values and they'll be able totell you the four values that we
have.
Most of them would be able toprobably not everybody, but
certainly anyone who's beenthere for any length of time.
But the reality is you go to somany businesses and you ask the
owners and the you know, likethe leaders of the business,
what are your values, and theycan't tell you because they're
(10:01):
just not, they have them on awall, really, you know,
integrated within the service ofthe entire firm, so that our
firm does that and it helps.
It does give us alignmentbecause we know, we know what
our four values are.
You, you violate one of thosevalues.
You know like you get a lot ofattention in a negative way for
doing that.
Right You're, we talk about it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So yeah, To me, values is something that that
has to be lived.
It can't be something that youmake up or you sit in a room and
like, oh, would this sound good?
Do you think people would likethis?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It's more like who are we as people, and what do we
actually believe in and how dowe embody those on a day to day
basis?
Yeah, teller, you asked aboutlike how we do it here.
Okay, so I'm going to sharewith you how our firm has done
it and I think there's a lot ofcrossover applications to every
other family law firm, whetherthey're our size or smaller or
larger.
(10:51):
Okay, so there's, I think, alot here that a leader of a
family law firm can pull out,can modify and fit their context
and put it to work.
Okay.
So I kind of think of buildingour culture.
Is there some real tangiblesthat we can do?
And there's some, some areasthat are really kind of
ephemeral.
They're hard to kind of pindown, intangible a little bit.
(11:13):
And there's there's one, themost important ones in
intangible.
I'm going to wait till the endand share that with you.
But from a tangible perspective, you get past the foundational
purpose mission or you knowpurpose values and vivid vision,
your vision of your firm.
Purpose values and vivid vision, your vision of your firm.
The tangibles that we use isevery teammate is in a weekly
(11:34):
meeting.
We call it a level 10 meeting,an L10.
Some teammates may be biweekly,but certainly every lawyer,
every paralegal, legal assistantand leadership team anybody in
a leadership role is in an L10every week.
Now what is that?
That's a weekly coming togetherand talking about the issues in
everybody's individual jobs anddepartments and as issues
(11:56):
bubble up, they're eitheraddressed there or they're maybe
escalated to some other part ofthe firm and that's just a real
cleansing kind of meeting toclear issues and get alignment
back again.
And even the lawyers show up tothis and they're all busy and
it's usually held over lunch.
People are eating and they'redriving in their car.
It's not like a formal thing.
Everyone comes together andthey got to like sign the agenda
(12:18):
at the end.
It's very kind of like drivenby an agenda, but it's an issue
clearing thing.
So that's one thing we do.
What's really important aboutthis everyone is that in the way
we have found that they work,the best is certainly do them
over video, because everyone'severywhere.
But we make and we requireeveryone to have their video
camera on.
(12:38):
Now there are somecircumstances where you're not
going to and we get that andit's not in every single minute
of every single L10, butroutinely.
Have your, have your camera onevery single minute of every
single L10, but routinely haveyour, have your camera on, and
that came from an idea that wegot early on, where we realized
that if you can see each other,there's something neurologically
happens on the connection witheach other than just hearing
(12:59):
voices.
Plus, you can see kind of ifyou're paying attention.
Now you can always be lookingat the screen and typing an
email to your mom, right, butokay, there's always a way
around the rules.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But it does help.
It's nonverbal right.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's totally.
Obviously, 80% of ourcommunication plus is nonverbal,
so that does certainly aid inthat.
So we require that.
Another tool that we use is wehave a bi-weekly all team
meeting.
That's not oriented around thebusiness as much as it's
oriented around social things.
(13:34):
So what this looks like isevery other week called the
summons, and I did a wholepodcast on this maybe a couple
months ago.
You can go back and find it.
I actually showed one of ouractual summons and then we
talked about how it worked andeverything, and this is an
incredible tool.
It does not take a ton of prep.
It does to get it kind of going, but once you get it going it
(13:55):
doesn't.
So it's an all team meetingwhere we have people from the
Philippines in the middle of thenight over there and we have
everyone here and we do it overlunch.
Everyone's doing their thing.
There's shout outs, it'scelebration, it's high fives, we
do lawyer success stories wherewe did something amazing for a
client.
So it's all about celebrationand recognition and that is
super powerful for people tofeel a part of something,
(14:19):
especially when they're workingfrom home and they don't see
their teammates butt on a screen.
Okay.
So that's another thing that wedo.
We do every other week, theopposite week from the summons.
We have a newsletter we puttogether that we send out and
that's the same thing.
It's basically a written,pictorial version of the summons
and it's we put all of ourclient testimonials from the
(14:40):
past week and sometimes thosecan be like six or seven pages
of testimonials.
But I guarantee you, everylawyer and PL team, paralegal
team that is out there they goread them because it's their
clients that they're serving andtheir client gives them
something good back.
We kind of project that to thewhole team, the whole firm, so
they can all celebrate with eachother.
So we do that in there.
So those are three like real,obvious things meeting wise,
(15:06):
bringing people together.
And this gets back this next one.
Here it's harder to describe inlike a short, pithy explanation
here, but it's all aboutaligning the incentives, now
that I'm talking aboutcompensation incentives and for
us we want our lawyers to do agreat job taking care of clients
(15:28):
.
So part of their alignment isservice oriented right, and so
aligning incentives across thefirm to, you know, row in the
same direction If you're, ifyou're, if you're keyed on, you
know, client service, makingthat a part of incentives.
You know, profit whatever it isaligning up those incentives.
You show me the incentives fora family law firm and I'll show
(15:51):
you the results.
It's a one-to-one correlationin how that works.
And another thing and I'vetalked about this already is we
do a ton of celebrating, notonly in our summons, not only in
our L10s, not only in theMonday memo.
We bring everybody togetheronce a year.
We do recognitions there on ourSterling day.
We have every team has a budgetthat they get together for
(16:14):
lunches, dinners, special eventson a quarterly basis.
Those are again voluntary, youdon't have to go, but it's all
about trying to create communityand connection on the local
individual level, like even overin the Philippines.
We fly everyone to an islandonce a year and we have a big
deal that goes for a couple ofdays there, cause it's even
harder to get people togetherover there.
(16:34):
But, like here, all of our fourindividual offices get together
regularly, quarterly, and andthe purpose there is not talk
about business, obviously, butjust to bring people together
for connection time andcommunity time and that sort of
thing.
So those are the tangibles thatwe we follow.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I think what I hear you saying is that, as a vision
becomes more concrete, youleverage the opportunity to
connect, to build more alignment, like, hey, we are now aligned,
we're going in this direction,we're all going together.
Now let's make sure that we'rebuilding a community so that we
can enjoy each other and enjoythe journey that we've decided
(17:15):
we're going to go on together,and also let's make sure that
we're aligned on how we're goingto get paid and what that whole
situation looks like.
And to me, the overarchingmessage is the repetition.
There's the whole narrativethat you have to hear things
seven times before you hear it.
The first time.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Well, the same.
Thing here.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Right, it's like you've got to create this.
You've got to create theopportunity to continue to
reinforce the vision and thevalues and the foundational
culture elements for your firmall the time.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah Well, you said something really profound there
that I hate to do because I getbored doing it, and that is
repeating a message over andover and over.
Do you feel like they've heardthis so many times?
They don't want to hear me sayit again, but that's simply not
the case.
In your mind it's like done,you already get it, but they got
to keep hearing it.
That's how teammates, that'show it works.
(18:07):
And so, like our firm about 18months ago, realized that we had
some real opportunity toimprove our client services.
Okay, and so we knew we had toshift away from the focus within
the firm, for lawyers was oncollections make as much money
as you can, bring it in, bringin the business, blah, blah,
blah.
And we knew that we are missingit by not focusing on taking
(18:30):
care of the client first,because if we do that, then the
money will come.
Well, that took a culture shiftthat I had to be a significant
part of, because I'm the one whocreated the negativity on the
other direction, talking so muchabout collections and
celebrating that.
We shifted from celebratingthat to celebrating client
service scores and everyopportunity that I could and the
(18:52):
entire executive leadershipteam.
Every time we could.
We talked about client servicescores over and over and over
and over again.
Where I like shiny new stuffthat turns me on and gets me
excited, I don't like talkingabout stuff that's in the past
or that is like repetitive.
It seems like it's not useful,but it's the opposite of that.
When it comes to leadership andarticulating the culture of
(19:14):
where it's going.
You got to repeat those corethings over and over again.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, we over at Rocket Clicks we have this
narrative that, like once, weget so sick of saying the same
thing.
That's probably the first timeour team heard it, so we need to
like double down.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, you got to get stay sick of saying it another
couple of months.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So, absolutely so, jeff.
You know you, you've been sointentional and your team has
been intentional about buildingthis culture at Sterling.
If someone is is at a smallerfirm and they want to start
instituting some of this withintheir firm, what are some like
just tips or tricks or, you know, watch outs that they should
think about, as as they'rethey're building an intentional
(19:57):
culture at their firm.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well, tyler, I think the most important contributor
to a strong culture, it startswith the leaders, because it's
all about modeling.
It's not do what I say, it'syou're going to do what I do.
Maybe if we're lucky and if I'mdoing it right, we'll get some
(20:20):
people to do that.
If I'm doing it wrong, we'llget most people to do that.
That's how it works in reallife.
And so any culture that isnegative and toxic, a hundred
percent of the time it's theleader's fault, not 95%, not
like that.
It's that employee that youallowed to do that negativity.
(20:40):
It's their fault.
No, you allowed it because youdidn't fire them.
And so it all rises and fallson leadership.
And so every culture, the mostimportant contributing factor is
the leadership in that culture.
What are they modeling?
What are they doing?
What are they rewarding?
What are they aligning up froman incentive standpoint?
(21:01):
And so that starts and ends withthe lawyer, because if there's
a negative person in yourculture, it's your job to get
them out of the culture.
And you can talk about hiringall you want.
Yes, you can hire for culture,and everyone tries to do that.
But reality is you don'tunderstand who that person is
until you've been working withthem three to six months if
you're lucky.
And so it's not as much abouthiring them yes, try to do that,
(21:23):
please but it's way more aboutfiring them.
It's when someone you cannotturn in the right direction by
coaching, by supporting, byloving on them, by helping them,
if they won't line up with yourculture and you're allowing
them to stay within your familylaw firm, that is on you and you
need to get rid of them.
That's where the culture ismostly built there, because now
(21:46):
you help them find a settingbetter that fits them and you
sent the message to everyonethat remains within your firm.
This is the culture.
Yeah, this is where we're going, and we're going to put wood
behind that by helping teammateswho don't fit that leave and
find something that's a betterfit for them.
That sounds mean to some people, I know, but if you cared about
(22:06):
your team enough, you will firethe people that need to be
fired.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
You allowing them to stay is a message you don't care
.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You don't care about that issue.
You don't care about your value, whatever it is, your values.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I made this mistake a hundred times and that you
think by letting them stay, well, they'll figure it out.
You know, I'm going to supportthem.
I'm going to give them anothertry.
The problem that happens when,when you do that is the people
you actually want to stay end upleaving.
So like, well, he's not goingto make the hard choice, so I'm
(22:39):
going to go find someone whowill.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, the two hardest fires are the ones where they
have a great character, greatpeople, but they're incompetent.
They're not competent at thatjob.
Right, that's really tough.
And the other one, though, isback to this culture issue
Someone who's an incredibly highperformer, who's just killing
it and they're just bringing inthe results, but they're a toxic
(23:04):
influence on your culture.
You know you, you got to bitethe bullet, you got to let them
go.
You just have to.
You're better off and I've seenit over and over again, and
I've justified it too Keepingsomeone well, they're such great
at this or great at that, wereally need them.
They're hard to replace, it's ahard culture, it's a hard time
to hire.
That's all excuses.
You got to fire them.
(23:26):
What you're really?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
doing is you're changing the culture by keeping
them there, because that personis now influencing a new culture
like oh well, I guess that'stolerated, so I guess I can get
away with that.
So that's the acceptability ofthe culture which is shifting
under your nose and you don'teven know it.
You know most of the time.
Yeah, so true, so true.
It's really powerful.
(23:47):
So talk to us about, uh, future.
How are you going to continueensuring that the culture
remains really strong atSterling?
What are some things you'rethinking about as it relates to
the continuation of this amazingculture you've built?
Oh man, Well it's.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's easy to start to let what got you there kind of
slip over time, right Cause we,you're, you get there.
It's like, oh, we don't have todo the meeting, the summons
this week, we can skip itbecause we're just doing so well
.
We're really focused oncontinuing to do those
fundamental things that got usthere and not back away.
So stick with those things.
(24:25):
And I think at this level ofwhere we are at in our firm,
it's all about empowering theleaders underneath us to get
better and to grow and to haveownership over their individual
team cultures as so long as itfits in with others.
So it's about training andraising up leaders at this point
, and that's really hard.
It takes a long time to do that.
It takes a long time to do that.
(24:46):
So I'm not in any L10s anymore,so I have Jeff Kerlin runs the
firm day to day.
He's our president.
We've got an amazing leadershipteam that are just doing
incredible things within theirteam.
They're all growing, they'regetting better as leaders now
and they're passing on ourculture.
So we're now at the stage ofduplication.
So as I look into the future,I'm seeing our teammates
(25:09):
duplicating what God is theretoday, duplicating leadership,
duplicating our values andliving those out.
And it's just, it's one of themost magical feelings.
It's taken us 11 years to getthere.
This doesn't happen overnight.
This is a slow process but ifyou can stick with it and you
can stay disciplined on focusingon having that type of culture,
(25:29):
the rewards are incredible.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, I'll leave us with this.
Every Monday, I give our wholeteam a five-minute conversation
to start the week, and today'stopic was do the boring thing,
and I talked about how Amazonspent 20 years on doing one
thing, which was to improve thecustomer experience.
They did on logistics and nextday, shipping.
(25:54):
Chick-fil-a became the mostprofitable fast food chain in
America by focusing on one thingexceptional customer service.
Doing the boring thing over andover and over again is actually
what allows companies and lawfirms to get to those incredible
results.
It's not doing the shiny objector the next hottest thing or AI
(26:17):
or whatever it is.
It's focusing on doing theboring things and doing it great
and then duplicating thatacross your firm.
Yeah well said Well, jeff,appreciate your firm.
Yeah, well said Well, jeff,appreciate your time, excited to
continue this journey togetherand helping other family law
firms learn about the greatsuccess of Sterling and continue
(26:38):
to empower their firms as well.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, it's been fun talking about something that's
been so important in our firm.
Our team.
By and large, the vast majorityof them certainly care about
the clients, about each otherand about the firm ultimately
winning.
So that comes from having agood culture that collaborates
and works well together.
So those are some of the mosttangible benefits of focusing in
on culture and what you get outof doing that.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show, the
podcast designed to help familylawyers build the firm of their
dreams.
I am your co-host, tyler Dolph.
I'm also the CEO of ourfamily-focused marketing agency
called Rocket Clicks, and I'mwith my co-host, jeff Hughes,
today.
Great to see you.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hi everyone.
I'm Jeff Hughes, ceo ofSterling Lawyers.
We are a 27 attorney family lawfirm and doing about 17 plus
million in new business thisyear.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Incredible results.
And today we're going to talkabout something very close to
both of our hearts, which is theculture, the heartbeat of our
firms, and we're going to talk alittle bit about the remote
aspect of Sterling, but alsojust the importance of doubling
down on your vision and yourvalues and what it takes to
really build a successful lawfirm.
(01:10):
Jeff, it's great to be back.
You know, we're taking thisdeep dive into Sterling and one
thing that we've talked about alot, and that I've talked about
with a lot of other attorneys,is the idea of building a
culture.
We see so many times wheresmall law firms who have the
single attorney or the attorneythat left a big firm that starts
their own firm at the beginning, they're doing everything
(01:32):
they're billing, they'recollecting, cash and they're
having to be a lawyer, right,yeah?
because they have to be, buteventually they start to grow,
and as they grow, they have togrow and change as a leader,
because they have to build aculture.
They have to empower others todo the work, and, as we know,
sterling has done such anincredible job of this growing
(01:54):
into two states with multipleoffices and almost 90 team
members and so I want to spendtoday talking about how you and
your team were able toaccomplish that at Sterling.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, certainly, tyler.
I love this topic and it's oneof those things.
What's interesting aboutculture is that it's the most
dominant force that drives thesuccess or the sub-success I
want to call it failure, okay,the sub-success of a law firm,
but it's the one thing.
You can't go out and buy, likewe can go out and buy marketing,
(02:27):
we can go buy financialservices, we can go buy all
these things, but we can't buyculture.
Yet it is the driver of familylaw firms succeeding.
So I know we're going to stripdown what we have done today
here at Sterling on that and Iwant to give our audience a
little bit of context so theycan understand the perspective
(02:47):
we're coming from here at ourfirm.
So we've got 80-ish teammatesokay, spread out over two
countries, about 30-something inthe Philippines and the rest
here in the US.
We're in two states and thevast majority of our team works
remote.
So we have four what we callhub locations where the lawyers
and paralegals go to, butthey're there maybe half the
(03:09):
time.
Each person, some people alittle more than others, some
people rarely in the office.
Yet despite all the far flungteammates we've got, we've been
able to build a very cohesiveand powerful culture that is the
driver of our profitability asa firm.
We could have a crappy cultureand probably eek by, but we have
(03:30):
a wonderful culture withwonderful people that we're very
, very intentional about and so,yeah, one like third party.
One affirmation on this beforewe jump into the meat of the
content I have always been kindof like sour on these best
culture, best place to work typethings, cause I felt like, oh,
you just got to apply and you'regoing to win.
(03:51):
Well, maybe a little bit, butwe just recently did it and we
got top place to work.
But that's like big deal.
Okay, that that's nice.
But what was really cool is thatwe had 90 plus percent
participation, which is reallyhard to get.
Everyone's got to go on and dothe survey and all that, and
it's anonymous.
But here's the thing we got ahundred percent of the
(04:12):
respondents said it was a greatplace to work, and that blows my
cause that I still have a hardtime believing it, and maybe
those few people who didn'trespond were the ones that would
have said it sucks or whatever.
But the fact is we got a lot ofparticipation and 100%
unanimous like this is a greatplace to work.
So that speaks to our leadersthat are in the trenches with
our teammates that make thissuch a fun place to work.
(04:34):
It's not, certainly not on JeffHughes.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
So that's so big.
And I think one thing that'sreally important about culture
that's maybe a little nuanced iswhen you're building culture,
you're building it for the longterm, and it's so much easier to
build that with a team that youtrust and can rely on and that
has been there with you for awhile in the trenches.
You mentioned that it's so muchharder to do that if you're
(04:57):
turning over team members everyyear or your leadership team
continues to change.
I know in prior conversationsyou talked about the longevity
and the retention of yourcurrent leadership team, which I
believe probably lends to yourability to create a group.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, and it wasn't always that way, tyler, as you
know, because you've watched usbuild this from, you were there
in the beginning, so you'vewatched us build it and we
struggled getting our cultureright and I thought, being kind
of a guy who really paid a lotof attention to leadership
issues, got a lot of reading andstuff, it's kind of a real
passion of mine.
I thought this would be like anarea I would personally excel
(05:32):
at, but it honestly took five,six years to start to get it
right.
And it's only been in the pastfew years, with Jeff Kirlin
coming in and elevating some ofour other leaders, that we've
been really able to kind of dialit in.
I didn't even want to do thatbest place to work thing about
three years ago because we wouldjust get hammered.
It was not, would not have beengood.
(05:53):
So, anyway, back to the topicat hand.
So for family, I'm going tofocus on the family law firms
because I can share from thatexperience and for all you
family lawyers out there, thereare some real benefits to being
intentional about culture,focusing in on it and building
it.
So what I have witnessed, okay,is that as our culture has
(06:15):
improved and it's gottenstronger.
We have been able to retaintalent and it's as you know,
tyler, you go out and have toreplace someone.
That's extremely expensive,especially with lawyers who take
a lot of clients with them outthe door, not to mention the
loss of training and the expensethat all went into that.
So our retention has improved.
Our ability to attract clientshas increased.
(06:39):
So that's been probably one ofthe most obvious measurable
results of our culture improving.
Another thing our profitabilityhas gone up substantially, and
one of the factors thatcontributes to that the most is
that our teammates care aboutthe success of the firm.
They care about the success ofeach other, and I'm not trying
(07:00):
to paint this in a glossy way,that that's not true, because
I'm not trying to like paintthis in a glossy way.
That that's not true, cause Idon't.
I'm not talking about ownershipmentality, cause I think for
two I am a little bit, but Ithink for someone to really
genuinely feel that they have toactually have some ownership,
and that that's not.
That's not true in our firm.
There's not, there's only a fewowners, but yet you see a our
(07:22):
team by and large, vast majorityof them certainly care about
the clients, about each otherand about the firm ultimately
winning.
So that comes from having agood culture that collaborates
and works well together.
So those are some of the mosttangible benefits of focusing in
on culture and what you get outof doing that.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I'd like to focus in a little bit, jeff, on how to
set a great culture.
I think our listeners maybethey're a little bit smaller
firm, but they want to grow,they want to build them as the
owner realize, like you did.
Hey, it's on me.
I have to be the one to pioneerthis, and to me that all starts
with vision right, setting thecourse, helping the company or
(08:02):
the firm understand where are wegoing.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah.
So I think there's some toolsthat family law firms
unfortunately, a majority ofthem that I have talked to don't
have these in place and it'skind of the foundation of
building your culture, becauseit defines the jumping off point
.
Okay, and in the world ofbusiness these are very common,
right?
You talk about a vision, amission or a purpose for why
(08:27):
your firm even exists.
And what are your?
What are the values of theirlike that you're really going to
die on those hills, thosevalues hills, okay, and for us
we set those early on and wehave stuck to them and we
constantly, weekly, go backwithin the firm formally and
refer back to them.
So, like in our case, sterling'smission or our purpose is to
(08:49):
equip family law clients.
That's it, that's the end of itperiod, full stop, right, so
that's one.
And then we have four valuesthat we talk about, we celebrate
, we reward on and all that, andthen we have a vivid vision.
That's a one-page document thatit sounds kind of cultish here
but we actually read it out loudin our weekly meeting.
(09:11):
So it's, I think building aculture starts with those three
things as the foundation of thatculture, and that vivid vision
is like one page long and ittalks about various aspects
between how we serve clients andtake care of each other and
that sort of thing in there andour future.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
So this is really about creating alignment right.
It's about having everyone inthe firm agree.
This is where we're going.
We're going to get theretogether and we're going to act
a certain way so that we can alldo this in a united front.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, you can literally go to someone that's
been in our firm for four monthsand ask them what are your
values and they'll be able totell you the four values that we
have.
Most of them would be able toprobably not everybody, but
certainly anyone who's beenthere for any length of time.
But the reality is you go to somany businesses and you ask the
owners and the you know, likethe leaders of the business,
what are your values, and theycan't tell you because they're
(10:01):
just not, they have them on awall, really, you know,
integrated within the service ofthe entire firm, so that our
firm does that and it helps.
It does give us alignmentbecause we know, we know what
our four values are.
You, you violate one of thosevalues.
You know like you get a lot ofattention in a negative way for
doing that.
Right You're, we talk about it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So yeah, To me, values is something that that
has to be lived.
It can't be something that youmake up or you sit in a room and
like, oh, would this sound good?
Do you think people would likethis?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
It's more like who are we as people, and what do we
actually believe in and how dowe embody those on a day to day
basis?
Yeah, teller, you asked aboutlike how we do it here.
Okay, so I'm going to sharewith you how our firm has done
it and I think there's a lot ofcrossover applications to every
other family law firm, whetherthey're our size or smaller or
larger.
(10:51):
Okay, so there's, I think, alot here that a leader of a
family law firm can pull out,can modify and fit their context
and put it to work.
Okay.
So I kind of think of buildingour culture.
Is there some real tangiblesthat we can do?
And there's some, some areasthat are really kind of
ephemeral.
They're hard to kind of pindown, intangible a little bit.
(11:13):
And there's there's one, themost important ones in
intangible.
I'm going to wait till the endand share that with you.
But from a tangible perspective, you get past the foundational
purpose mission or you knowpurpose values and vivid vision,
your vision of your firm.
Purpose values and vivid vision, your vision of your firm.
The tangibles that we use isevery teammate is in a weekly
(11:34):
meeting.
We call it a level 10 meeting,an L10.
Some teammates may be biweekly,but certainly every lawyer,
every paralegal, legal assistantand leadership team anybody in
a leadership role is in an L10every week.
Now what is that?
That's a weekly coming togetherand talking about the issues in
everybody's individual jobs anddepartments and as issues
(11:56):
bubble up, they're eitheraddressed there or they're maybe
escalated to some other part ofthe firm and that's just a real
cleansing kind of meeting toclear issues and get alignment
back again.
And even the lawyers show up tothis and they're all busy and
it's usually held over lunch.
People are eating and they'redriving in their car.
It's not like a formal thing.
Everyone comes together andthey got to like sign the agenda
(12:18):
at the end.
It's very kind of like drivenby an agenda, but it's an issue
clearing thing.
So that's one thing we do.
What's really important aboutthis everyone is that in the way
we have found that they work,the best is certainly do them
over video, because everyone'severywhere.
But we make and we requireeveryone to have their video
camera on.
(12:38):
Now there are somecircumstances where you're not
going to and we get that andit's not in every single minute
of every single L10, butroutinely.
Have your, have your camera onevery single minute of every
single L10, but routinely haveyour, have your camera on, and
that came from an idea that wegot early on, where we realized
that if you can see each other,there's something neurologically
happens on the connection witheach other than just hearing
(12:59):
voices.
Plus, you can see kind of ifyou're paying attention.
Now you can always be lookingat the screen and typing an
email to your mom, right, butokay, there's always a way
around the rules.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
But it does help.
It's nonverbal right.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Yeah, yeah, it's totally.
Obviously, 80% of ourcommunication plus is nonverbal,
so that does certainly aid inthat.
So we require that.
Another tool that we use is wehave a bi-weekly all team
meeting.
That's not oriented around thebusiness as much as it's
oriented around social things.
(13:34):
So what this looks like isevery other week called the
summons, and I did a wholepodcast on this maybe a couple
months ago.
You can go back and find it.
I actually showed one of ouractual summons and then we
talked about how it worked andeverything, and this is an
incredible tool.
It does not take a ton of prep.
It does to get it kind of going, but once you get it going it
(13:55):
doesn't.
So it's an all team meetingwhere we have people from the
Philippines in the middle of thenight over there and we have
everyone here and we do it overlunch.
Everyone's doing their thing.
There's shout outs, it'scelebration, it's high fives, we
do lawyer success stories wherewe did something amazing for a
client.
So it's all about celebrationand recognition and that is
super powerful for people tofeel a part of something,
(14:19):
especially when they're workingfrom home and they don't see
their teammates butt on a screen.
Okay.
So that's another thing that wedo.
We do every other week, theopposite week from the summons.
We have a newsletter we puttogether that we send out and
that's the same thing.
It's basically a written,pictorial version of the summons
and it's we put all of ourclient testimonials from the
(14:40):
past week and sometimes thosecan be like six or seven pages
of testimonials.
But I guarantee you, everylawyer and PL team, paralegal
team that is out there they goread them because it's their
clients that they're serving andtheir client gives them
something good back.
We kind of project that to thewhole team, the whole firm, so
they can all celebrate with eachother.
So we do that in there.
So those are three like real,obvious things meeting wise,
(15:06):
bringing people together.
And this gets back this next one.
Here it's harder to describe inlike a short, pithy explanation
here, but it's all aboutaligning the incentives, now
that I'm talking aboutcompensation incentives and for
us we want our lawyers to do agreat job taking care of clients
(15:28):
.
So part of their alignment isservice oriented right, and so
aligning incentives across thefirm to, you know, row in the
same direction If you're, ifyou're, if you're keyed on, you
know, client service, makingthat a part of incentives.
You know, profit whatever it isaligning up those incentives.
You show me the incentives fora family law firm and I'll show
(15:51):
you the results.
It's a one-to-one correlationin how that works.
And another thing and I'vetalked about this already is we
do a ton of celebrating, notonly in our summons, not only in
our L10s, not only in theMonday memo.
We bring everybody togetheronce a year.
We do recognitions there on ourSterling day.
We have every team has a budgetthat they get together for
(16:14):
lunches, dinners, special eventson a quarterly basis.
Those are again voluntary, youdon't have to go, but it's all
about trying to create communityand connection on the local
individual level, like even overin the Philippines.
We fly everyone to an islandonce a year and we have a big
deal that goes for a couple ofdays there, cause it's even
harder to get people togetherover there.
(16:34):
But, like here, all of our fourindividual offices get together
regularly, quarterly, and andthe purpose there is not talk
about business, obviously, butjust to bring people together
for connection time andcommunity time and that sort of
thing.
So those are the tangibles thatwe we follow.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I think what I hear you saying is that, as a vision
becomes more concrete, youleverage the opportunity to
connect, to build more alignment, like, hey, we are now aligned,
we're going in this direction,we're all going together.
Now let's make sure that we'rebuilding a community so that we
can enjoy each other and enjoythe journey that we've decided
(17:15):
we're going to go on together,and also let's make sure that
we're aligned on how we're goingto get paid and what that whole
situation looks like.
And to me, the overarchingmessage is the repetition.
There's the whole narrativethat you have to hear things
seven times before you hear it.
The first time.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Well, the same.
Thing here.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Right, it's like you've got to create this.
You've got to create theopportunity to continue to
reinforce the vision and thevalues and the foundational
culture elements for your firmall the time.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah Well, you said something really profound there
that I hate to do because I getbored doing it, and that is
repeating a message over andover and over.
Do you feel like they've heardthis so many times?
They don't want to hear me sayit again, but that's simply not
the case.
In your mind it's like done,you already get it, but they got
to keep hearing it.
That's how teammates, that'show it works.
(18:07):
And so, like our firm about 18months ago, realized that we had
some real opportunity toimprove our client services.
Okay, and so we knew we had toshift away from the focus within
the firm, for lawyers was oncollections make as much money
as you can, bring it in, bringin the business, blah, blah,
blah.
And we knew that we are missingit by not focusing on taking
(18:30):
care of the client first,because if we do that, then the
money will come.
Well, that took a culture shiftthat I had to be a significant
part of, because I'm the one whocreated the negativity on the
other direction, talking so muchabout collections and
celebrating that.
We shifted from celebratingthat to celebrating client
service scores and everyopportunity that I could and the
(18:52):
entire executive leadershipteam.
Every time we could.
We talked about client servicescores over and over and over
and over again.
Where I like shiny new stuffthat turns me on and gets me
excited, I don't like talkingabout stuff that's in the past
or that is like repetitive.
It seems like it's not useful,but it's the opposite of that.
When it comes to leadership andarticulating the culture of
(19:14):
where it's going.
You got to repeat those corethings over and over again.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Yeah, we over at Rocket Clicks we have this
narrative that, like once, weget so sick of saying the same
thing.
That's probably the first timeour team heard it, so we need to
like double down.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Yeah, you got to get stay sick of saying it another
couple of months.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
So, absolutely so, jeff.
You know you, you've been sointentional and your team has
been intentional about buildingthis culture at Sterling.
If someone is is at a smallerfirm and they want to start
instituting some of this withintheir firm, what are some like
just tips or tricks or, you know, watch outs that they should
think about, as as they'rethey're building an intentional
(19:57):
culture at their firm.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Well, tyler, I think the most important contributor
to a strong culture, it startswith the leaders, because it's
all about modeling.
It's not do what I say, it'syou're going to do what I do.
Maybe if we're lucky and if I'mdoing it right, we'll get some
(20:20):
people to do that.
If I'm doing it wrong, we'llget most people to do that.
That's how it works in reallife.
And so any culture that isnegative and toxic, a hundred
percent of the time it's theleader's fault, not 95%, not
like that.
It's that employee that youallowed to do that negativity.
(20:40):
It's their fault.
No, you allowed it because youdidn't fire them.
And so it all rises and fallson leadership.
And so every culture, the mostimportant contributing factor is
the leadership in that culture.
What are they modeling?
What are they doing?
What are they rewarding?
What are they aligning up froman incentive standpoint?
(21:01):
And so that starts and ends withthe lawyer, because if there's
a negative person in yourculture, it's your job to get
them out of the culture.
And you can talk about hiringall you want.
Yes, you can hire for culture,and everyone tries to do that.
But reality is you don'tunderstand who that person is
until you've been working withthem three to six months if
you're lucky.
And so it's not as much abouthiring them yes, try to do that,
(21:23):
please but it's way more aboutfiring them.
It's when someone you cannotturn in the right direction by
coaching, by supporting, byloving on them, by helping them,
if they won't line up with yourculture and you're allowing
them to stay within your familylaw firm, that is on you and you
need to get rid of them.
That's where the culture ismostly built there, because now
(21:46):
you help them find a settingbetter that fits them and you
sent the message to everyonethat remains within your firm.
This is the culture.
Yeah, this is where we're going, and we're going to put wood
behind that by helping teammateswho don't fit that leave and
find something that's a betterfit for them.
That sounds mean to some people, I know, but if you cared about
(22:06):
your team enough, you will firethe people that need to be
fired.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
You allowing them to stay is a message you don't care
.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You don't care about that issue.
You don't care about your value, whatever it is, your values.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I made this mistake a hundred times and that you
think by letting them stay, well, they'll figure it out.
You know, I'm going to supportthem.
I'm going to give them anothertry.
The problem that happens when,when you do that is the people
you actually want to stay end upleaving.
So like, well, he's not goingto make the hard choice, so I'm
(22:39):
going to go find someone whowill.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, the two hardest fires are the ones where they
have a great character, greatpeople, but they're incompetent.
They're not competent at thatjob.
Right, that's really tough.
And the other one, though, isback to this culture issue
Someone who's an incredibly highperformer, who's just killing
it and they're just bringing inthe results, but they're a toxic
(23:04):
influence on your culture.
You know you, you got to bitethe bullet, you got to let them
go.
You just have to.
You're better off and I've seenit over and over again, and
I've justified it too Keepingsomeone well, they're such great
at this or great at that, wereally need them.
They're hard to replace, it's ahard culture, it's a hard time
to hire.
That's all excuses.
You got to fire them.
(23:26):
What you're really?
Speaker 2 (23:26):
doing is you're changing the culture by keeping
them there, because that personis now influencing a new culture
like oh well, I guess that'stolerated, so I guess I can get
away with that.
So that's the acceptability ofthe culture which is shifting
under your nose and you don'teven know it.
You know most of the time.
Yeah, so true, so true.
It's really powerful.
(23:47):
So talk to us about, uh, future.
How are you going to continueensuring that the culture
remains really strong atSterling?
What are some things you'rethinking about as it relates to
the continuation of this amazingculture you've built?
Oh man, Well it's.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's easy to start to let what got you there kind of
slip over time, right Cause we,you're, you get there.
It's like, oh, we don't have todo the meeting, the summons
this week, we can skip itbecause we're just doing so well
.
We're really focused oncontinuing to do those
fundamental things that got usthere and not back away.
So stick with those things.
(24:25):
And I think at this level ofwhere we are at in our firm,
it's all about empowering theleaders underneath us to get
better and to grow and to haveownership over their individual
team cultures as so long as itfits in with others.
So it's about training andraising up leaders at this point
, and that's really hard.
It takes a long time to do that.
It takes a long time to do that.
(24:46):
So I'm not in any L10s anymore,so I have Jeff Kerlin runs the
firm day to day.
He's our president.
We've got an amazing leadershipteam that are just doing
incredible things within theirteam.
They're all growing, they'regetting better as leaders now
and they're passing on ourculture.
So we're now at the stage ofduplication.
So as I look into the future,I'm seeing our teammates
(25:09):
duplicating what God is theretoday, duplicating leadership,
duplicating our values andliving those out.
And it's just, it's one of themost magical feelings.
It's taken us 11 years to getthere.
This doesn't happen overnight.
This is a slow process but ifyou can stick with it and you
can stay disciplined on focusingon having that type of culture,
(25:29):
the rewards are incredible.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, I'll leave us with this.
Every Monday, I give our wholeteam a five-minute conversation
to start the week, and today'stopic was do the boring thing,
and I talked about how Amazonspent 20 years on doing one
thing, which was to improve thecustomer experience.
They did on logistics and nextday, shipping.
(25:54):
Chick-fil-a became the mostprofitable fast food chain in
America by focusing on one thingexceptional customer service.
Doing the boring thing over andover and over again is actually
what allows companies and lawfirms to get to those incredible
results.
It's not doing the shiny objector the next hottest thing or AI
(26:17):
or whatever it is.
It's focusing on doing theboring things and doing it great
and then duplicating thatacross your firm.
Yeah well said Well, jeff,appreciate your firm.
Yeah, well said Well, jeff,appreciate your time, excited to
continue this journey togetherand helping other family law
firms learn about the greatsuccess of Sterling and continue
(26:38):
to empower their firms as well.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Yeah, it's been fun talking about something that's
been so important in our firm.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.