November 11, 2025 • 34 mins
Discover why Bob Tharp's firm was stuck for 10 years doing multiple practice areas—and how going divorce-only doubled their revenue within 2 years.
This law firm specialization story reveals the multi-practice area challenges that keep firms stuck at revenue plateaus and unable to build scalable systems. Bob Tharp shares the exact divorce-only law firm strategy that unlocked explosive growth after a decade of struggle—including the difficult transition of saying no to work, letting go of attorneys outside family law, and choosing single practice area focus over short-term revenue.
You'll learn the law firm systems building advantages that only come from focus, plus proven law firm revenue growth tactics including geographic expansion strategy, law firm office location strategy for local SEO dominance, non-lawyer sales team structure for intake, and the review generation system that pays staff $250 per Google review.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughes
📝 Get your FREE Law Firm Growth Guide: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
📚 Order the Waterfall Method Book Now: http://www.RocketClicks.com/pre-order
---
📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Law Firm Specialization: Why Divorce-Only Built a 30+ Attorney Firm
1:00 - The 10-Year Struggle: Multi-Practice Area Challenges That Stunted Growth
3:00 - Making the Cut: Transitioning From Business Litigation to Family Law Focus
6:00 - Law Firm Revenue Growth: How Specialization Doubled Numbers in 2 Years
10:00 - Scaling Focused Law Firm: Geographic Expansion Across Georgia
15:00 - Law Firm Office Location Strategy: Google Maps Algorithm Secrets
20:00 - Building Systems Through Single Practice Area Focus
27:00 - Law Firm Review Generation System: $250 Per Review Incentive Structure
29:00 - Law Firm Intake Team Structure: Non-Lawyer Sales Team Model
----------------------
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:
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LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls,
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4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
46% of all local family law leads come from the
maps.
They come from someone searchingfor divorce attorney near me,
divorce attorney plus city name,and then leveraging, of course,
paid resources above that totake as much for the can.
Welcome back to the SterlingFamily Law Show, the podcast
(00:21):
designed to help familyattorneys build the firm of
their dreams.
I'm one of your hosts, TylerDolph.
I'm also the CEO of our law firmconsulting agency called
RocketClicks that was born outof our own law firm, Sterling
Lawyers, that has grown to over27 attorneys.
Today we have Bob Thorpe ofMerriweather and Thorpe, a 30
(00:46):
plus family law firm in Atlanta.
He tells his story of growth.
Him and uh the co-founder of ourfirm, Jeff Hughes, talk back and
forth about what it takes toactually scale a law firm and
the power of focus.
You do not want to miss thisone.
Really appreciate you being onthe podcast today.
Excited to learn more about you.
(01:07):
If you wouldn't mind, justintroduce yourself to uh our
audience and give us a quickhigh level on the firm today.
And then as Jeff was saying, wecan uh we can go back to the
origin story.
SPEAKER_03 (01:17):
Okay.
Um my name's Bob Tharp.
Um appreciate y'all having meon.
Um I'm in Atlanta, Georgia.
We got a divorce firm.
We started 27 years ago or so.
Um and you know, they go fast.
Um we are divorce only and wepractice um slowly, we're moving
throughout the whole rest of thestate.
SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
I love the divorce only, by the way.
So um so many of these big firmswas want to throw everything in
there.
And I feel like we have we haveprospered because we've just
stuck the divorce paternity andpost-judgment period, no,
nothing else.
SPEAKER_03 (01:53):
You know, we discovered the hard way.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
What what was the pathway to get there?
SPEAKER_03 (01:57):
We discovered it the hard way.
Um, we went out and tried alittle bit of everything, and I,
you know, remember one momentwhere I was doing mainly
business litigation, LeeMerriweather, um, the other half
was doing divorce, and we'relike, we gotta go all in.
We can't build systems, we can'tget routines going unless we
have one thing we're doing.
And I was like, Yeah, that'shalf our revenue.
(02:18):
Um, can we really make thatmove?
Um, and we talked about it andyou know, probably more than
once, but um made the call togo, we've got to go all in.
You can't do this partial.
Um, if you get two practiceareas, which seems kind of
reasonable, it's too many.
Um, because you can't masterevery system, especially from
scratch, every you know,procedure, get your attorneys
(02:41):
trained, get everyone rolling inthe same direction uh on two
different things.
Um so I love you know just thesingular focus of a practice,
regardless of practice area.
SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
Yeah, whenever you explain that to other attorneys
who who think they can do morethan one, what's the typical
pushback they give you?
Because it's a hard, it's a hardconversation for me.
SPEAKER_03 (03:01):
You know, one, I think it's just a passion.
I think that sometimes they justlike doing different things.
I mean, um two, I think they'rescared, um, you know, giving up
the revenue.
I got money.
This person wants to give memoney.
I can do what they're asking,um, and I should take it.
Um, but I think they're missingthe opportunity cost of taking
that means you can't dosomething else.
(03:24):
You can't build whatever yourprimary focus is.
So, you know, I can cut thegrass, but it's probably not the
best use of my time.
And I may not be the best at iteither.
SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
So, how far in or how long into your practice,
your startup were you when yougot to that realization?
Let's go all the time.
Like 10 years.
SPEAKER_03 (03:44):
Yeah, way too long.
Yeah, 10 years.
We were 10 years in, it wasprobably 2006 or so, um, before
uh we struggled for 10 yearstrying to get things going, give
or take.
And we're like, why can't wereally get over the hump?
Why can't we really grow?
And I think that was one of ourfirst major hurdles was like,
how are we going to start togrow?
(04:04):
Well, we can't grow if we'redoing recreating the wheel with
new stuff every day.
We've got to do something thatwe can leverage what we did in
the past for future growth.
SPEAKER_01 (04:14):
And how did you make the cutover?
What'd you have to go throughwith that?
SPEAKER_03 (04:19):
You know, probably with a couple tiers.
Um, you know, uh, you know, wewe just had to say no.
Um, it's actually as simple asthat.
Um, but it sounds so simple,it's so tough to do.
I had clients that were businessclients of mine for a long time.
I was like, well, you know, Igot some good friends in the
industry, let me refer you out.
But I liked working with you.
And you're like, but in in yourmind, you're always a better
(04:41):
attorney than anyone else.
I think that's one of ourproblems is we always think we
can do it better.
So it's like, yeah, I probablycould do it better than you
know, the guy I'm referring itto.
But the reality is they're goodattorneys, they know what
they're doing.
Um, but what it is, it'simpacting our business and
stopping my ability to grow inone practice area.
So, you know, it I'll saypainfully, um, but it's as
simple as actually just sayingno.
SPEAKER_01 (05:02):
Yeah.
Did you have attorneys that youhad to let go because they were
not in in the family area?
SPEAKER_03 (05:09):
Um, truthfully, we did.
Um, and we gave notice um abouttwo years before we we pulled
the cord and said, go find otherjobs.
I try to help them out find newplaces.
I let one attorney kind of stayuntil she could find a job
somewhere else.
Um and we needed to wrap up thecases anyway that were there.
(05:30):
Um, but um it was sort of sometough conversations saying, I
hear you, you're great on thispractice area, but that's just
not where we're going.
But there's a lot of goodplaces, and I made a lot of good
friends over the years.
Let me see who I can at leastcall and put in a good word for
you.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah.
So your your revenuepre-cutover, your pre-focus,
let's call it, and then and thenyour revenue a couple years
later, what was the thevariance?
What what did you see happenfinancially to your firm?
SPEAKER_03 (05:59):
Oh, it it was like almost an instant lighting,
lightning rod.
Um, I think you know, we're sortof I can't remember the exact
numbers, um, but you know,staying at the same number
roughly year to year.
And then, you know, two yearsout, we're doubling numbers or
tripling numbers, and we'recausing a clear momentum that
you can see, oh wow, we canactually you know make you know
10 million or more.
(06:20):
Um, this isn't as difficult aswe thought.
Um, but it happened a lot fasterthan I thought.
That was a very rapid growthcoming out of it.
The first year is a littlerough.
Um, I was just trying to breakeven with the swap of business,
but after that, the foundationstarted to build upon
themselves.
And I think that year two iswhere massive growth happened
for us.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Yeah.
So in just for our audiencesake, I I counted up on your
site this morning.
You've got 32-ish attorneys,family attorneys on your team?
Um at least probably more.
SPEAKER_03 (06:51):
Yeah, there's probably a couple that aren't
announced with you saying that.
But um, you know, uh yeah, 32for today sounds good.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Okay, well that that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03 (07:01):
I mean, I think, you know, don't we all have a couple
that are about to be announceduh that we're just kind of
waiting for certain things tofall in place?
SPEAKER_01 (07:08):
Yeah, and sometimes it's as simple as our our web
people haven't gotten to puttingthe pictures on the website yet,
sort of thing.
And yeah, so yeah, we've we'vegot a little bit of that too.
So um okay, so when you make thecutover, you then you see your
growth in year two.
From a system standpoint, whendid you start having to re
reconfigure your systems whenyou're outgrowing them?
(07:29):
What what was that like?
SPEAKER_03 (07:31):
To me, um it kind of uh the day-to-day how to run a
case side work hard andnaturally.
You build the system side of thecase, you actually get
foundations, and you know, everyyou know, complaint, every
answer, everything you have istemplated, um with you know a
bunch of variations that coveredmost of your major, you know, uh
(07:52):
situations.
Um that probably was a one ortwo year barrier.
I think my next problem reallyran into me.
Um I really enjoyed practicinglaw.
Um, but I also recognized Icouldn't train more attorneys to
do the level um of care um andquality that I wanted to
maintain.
And you know, I felt like I wasalways like debating this, you
(08:15):
know, my working on cases, but Ialso need to train people up.
Um and I think that was one ofthe next big challenges is you
know, I can't keep doing this ona case-by-case basis.
I can make a bigger impact formore people if I could train a
group of attorneys to handle itin a certain way.
And so that was kind of the bigsecond part.
That's probably tougher than thefirst one for us, um, because I
(08:38):
had to let go of doing cases.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
Okay.
So today, what's your role?
Are you managing the theattorneys directly or are you
overseeing the business?
What what are you doing day today?
SPEAKER_03 (08:49):
You know, I would don't do cases anymore.
Um, I would say running thebusiness.
I run with all departments, somarketing and intakes, I
oversee, you know, departmentheads in each one of those
categories.
I have someone in charge ofcase, actually, several
different people and thevariations of it in charge of
case that kind of report to me.
Um once in a blue moon, I maylook at a case a little bit
(09:09):
longer because I can't help it.
Um, but very rarely do I uh youknow actually get involved in
the day-to-day of a case.
SPEAKER_01 (09:15):
Yeah.
And do you have some attorneysthat are managing other
attorneys that's all they'redoing is just overseeing them?
SPEAKER_03 (09:22):
Yeah, that's the I think the next level you got to
work on after you kind of startthat growth is now you only have
so much time.
So how do you leverage that?
And so I think the naturaladjustment is well, I need
someone to do the training atthe attorney.
So let's get one of ourattorneys to kind of shift a
little bit more into thattraining role.
Um, I need someone to be doingthe marketing.
Let's get someone in charge ofmarketing.
(09:44):
So lots of little shifts.
SPEAKER_01 (09:46):
Yeah.
What what was the process likewhen you elevated your first
attorney to managing partner?
What what did you go through toget that done?
Because we've had some storiesthere.
SPEAKER_03 (09:58):
Um, you know, I I carefully avoid titles.
Uh, that's one thing, um,whatever we can on some of that
thing.
So um, I always try to keep, youknow, a bunch of team leaders,
that's the way we'll kind ofbracket it, and then leaders of
the team leaders, um, and andsort of keep that side.
But I think we all havestruggles.
Um, I probably didn't do a goodjob training leaders um in the
(10:21):
beginning, and it took a whileto go, oh wait, that was
important.
Um, they didn't know everythingI knew, and I'd see mistakes
that um I should have thoughtabout earlier and trained on.
That was the system development,if I had to say, on the growth
pattern, that was the one Iprobably missed building the
system first on.
Was we got to train thetrainers, right?
We gotta train the leaders.
Um and you know, that happened alot sooner than I thought it was
(10:44):
going to.
Um, us thinking that was alwaysways down the road, but as
you're growing, you gotta havethat.
And if you don't, you take astep back real quickly.
Yeah.
And you know that.
You've had that problem, I'msure.
SPEAKER_01 (10:55):
Oh, we've had fits and starts for our history for
sure in that area.
SPEAKER_03 (10:59):
Yeah, step forward, two steps back that time, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah.
Leaps backwards sometimes feelslike.
Uh now you folks are doing uhfixed fee on it.
Seems like you've blended infixed fee with hourly.
Is that am I reading that righton the site?
SPEAKER_03 (11:16):
Yeah, we do both.
Um, you know, we have uhbrackets, if you will, of how
we're doing cases.
So we have uh certainly fixedfees, we have monthly
subscriptions, and we have whatI call traditional billable hour
cases.
SPEAKER_02 (11:29):
Is that three separate systems, Bob, that
you're having to run, or is itthese attorneys specializes in
fixed fees, so they get thefixed fee cases?
How does that work?
SPEAKER_03 (11:37):
Yeah, we have them in three brackets.
So the attorneys are kind ofgrouped off into three sub
brackets, if you will.
And if you're in bracket A, forexample, those are the cases
you're handling.
If you're in bracket B, thosecases.
You may you know progress out ofbracket A to bracket B and you
know kind of get promoted incertain places uh depending upon
you know strengths and skills.
SPEAKER_00 (11:56):
Hey, family law firm leaders, my partner Tony Carls
just released his book, which helays bare our precise blueprint
for growing sterling lawyersfrom zero to 17 million.
This is the blueprint that westill use daily.
And Tony explains it in verysimple terms.
The truth is, this is not simpleto do.
(12:17):
Success requires and demandshard work, but if you have the
patience and the work ethic todo it, your family law firm will
succeed.
SPEAKER_01 (12:27):
Well, of the three, which one is is viewed as the
most plum one to be in?
The one that the attorneys wantto strive for.
SPEAKER_03 (12:34):
I think it's still probably the traditional um
billable hours.
Attorneys like it, they seethat, they're familiar with it.
Um it depends on the attorney.
Like some attorneys are, I wantto bill hours and that's their
focus.
And some really don't.
Um, some really want to delivergreat customer service as their
focus, and you know, let's notworry about the you know every
little billable hour.
So I find that you get greatattorneys on both brackets.
(12:56):
Um, it's fairly a personalityfit for how they're trying to
achieve stuff.
You get clear KPIs with billablehours, that's that's for
certain.
Um, but there's plenty of KPIsyou get on the other side too.
SPEAKER_02 (13:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (13:08):
Probably makes recruiting a little easier,
though, as well, right?
It does.
It opens the door for a lot ofdifferent individuals that
frankly we may have said no toin the past.
Um I even look at some attorneysthat didn't, you know, kind of
make it with us um and go, wow,they would have really worked
better under this currentsystem.
And I could have put them in adifferent place, and they've
been very successful.
(13:29):
They were good attorneys, butnot necessarily good billers.
And with adjustments, I couldhave, you know, actually had
them stay here and work well.
But, you know, that's what welive and learn on, right?
SPEAKER_01 (13:40):
Yeah.
Well, I've had that exactly thatexact thing happen to me.
We had we lost an attorney namedHannah um a couple years ago,
and she said, Jeff, I I love thefirm.
I just don't want we're 100%fixed fee.
I don't want to do any fixedfee.
I want to go back an hourly, andso we're like, oh, bummer to
lose her.
But how do you structure yourfixed fee cases?
SPEAKER_03 (14:01):
Um I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're
doing.
SPEAKER_01 (14:06):
How do you structure your the fee?
Like how do you determine thefee and uh for a fixed fee
divorce case, for example?
SPEAKER_03 (14:14):
Um we've really kind of went through about I don't
know, about 10,000 cases,studied the data on all of them.
I'm a data junkie, um, andpinpointed out what was the
average cost over you know,literally hundreds, if not
thousands, of cases in differentbrackets, and said this is the
range that it usually comes in.
And we probably took a midpointand bumped it just slightly.
(14:36):
So we, you know, the house wouldhopefully make a little bit more
of on the fixed fees than it wastraditionally.
Um but you know, we reallymicroanalyzed it, probably too
much, but um it helped youunderstand and go, okay, how do
we get comfortable?
This isn't going to be too muchwork for us on some cases and
you know, break the bank, if youwill.
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very, very similar to how we'vegotten there too.
Do you is it all one fee upfront, or do you break it up
into different fees fordifferent aspects of the case?
SPEAKER_03 (15:08):
We have both options.
Um, so we do have the upfront,and we don't include trial with
our upfront, but we do have likea fixed flat for pre-trial uh
work.
Um and then we have you know amonthly subscription amount that
we've worked out prettycomfortably with.
Um and then we do have someother models in there that you
know can be add-ons if we liketo call them.
(15:29):
Um additional things you can do,like you want that special
deposition.
Really don't think you know thatwould be part of our routine,
but um, if you think it'sneeded, the attorney thinks it's
needed, we can do it, but that'sadditional flat cost on that
side.
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:45):
And do you have non-attorney sales?
We don't.
We still go with attorney salesto this day.
Oh, okay.
Um, I know a lot of the vastmajority of the marketplace has
gone the other way with it.
I think y'all have gone theother way with it.
Um, certainly you know, wouldlove to hear and learn more from
other folks, but we've been verysuccessful with attorney sales,
but we had we handpicked theattorneys that were very good
(16:06):
sales folks to begin with,right?
Um, and so it wasn't a casualmove.
And then we put them throughtraining, um, classic sales
training with different you knowtraining organizations over the
years to kind of focus them thatway.
And that's all they do.
They aren't doing cases, sothey're exclusively focused in
on handling the sales calls.
SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
Yeah.
And are you doing the majorityof your consults in person, or
are you still are you allowingremote?
SPEAKER_03 (16:32):
Um, we are actually very friendly with remote.
Um, one thing I learned aboutexpansion is I got offices
throughout the state already.
And it's like a five-hour drivefrom here.
So I'm not gonna go in persondown there all the time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:44):
Um show.
SPEAKER_03 (16:46):
Yeah, that would have been pretty harsh.
So um, you know, we went um andenabled remote coming out of
COVID.
Um, our all employees can work,you know, remote or they can
work um in person.
We have offices at all theselocations um and sort of their
choice.
Um a lot of, you know, I thinkdifferent people like different
things.
I love coming in every day.
(17:07):
Um, it was painful for me tostay at home um and not being
able to come into the office.
It's it's clear distinction inmy mind.
I know this is work time, I knowthat's home time.
Um, as much as you can, I likethe distinction better.
Um, as to the actual question,maybe underneath it, though, is
the client side.
We're I've been stunned comingpost-COVID.
(17:28):
Um in the metro area, mostpeople want to do remote
consultations.
Uh, they want to do remoterepresentation.
They're wanting to do remotetrials if we, you know, the
courts would let them.
Um, you know, it's it's weirdfor me as an older attorney
that, you know, did everythingin person and frankly would
never think about doing thatbefore COVID, um, to sit back
(17:49):
and go, this actually has workedas a complete culture shift.
Um, we find that to be true inmetro areas, a little bit more
so than you know, some of thedifferent parts of Georgia.
But um definitely in Atlanta,I'd say 80, 90 percent never
come in.
SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
Yeah.
Well, just anecdotally, we're95% remote for all of our
consults, and I would say atleast half of our firm is
considered um just out in therural areas of Wisconsin.
So even there, they don't wantto drive 10 minutes with
nothing.
SPEAKER_03 (18:22):
We haven't done an in-person consult in it might
have been pre-COVID.
Um, you know, we've gonecompletely in the consult.
I was talking about full timeall the way through the case.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:33):
Yeah, it's kind of blowing me away how I thought,
you know, okay, consultation,fine, but no, they actually like
it all the way through to petrolprep.
And you're like, kind of needsome nonverbals.
We're actually gonna be live infront of the court here.
SPEAKER_01 (18:45):
Yeah.
Wow.
Tyler, I'm monopolizing the timehere.
You got I know you gotquestions.
SPEAKER_02 (18:51):
No, I love it.
I love it.
Uh I feel uh you both have grownuh your respective firms so
much.
And I've talked to Jeff all thetime about the future of
Sterling and where we're going.
Bob, I'd love to hear about yourfuture plans.
You know, you've accomplished uhan incredible feat, you have an
amazing firm.
How do you stay motivated?
(19:13):
What are you thinking about?
Uh, what's on the horizon foryou and your firm?
SPEAKER_03 (19:17):
Um there's always, I think, that hunger that you've
never kind of stop.
So we're going to keepexpanding.
Um we uh got a couple citiesleft in Georgia.
I want to make sure we havecomplete statewide coverage.
Um, and then um we'll we'll seewhat goes from there.
Um we also have some newproducts that we haven't even
brought to market yet that we'rekind of studying and in the
(19:41):
hopper, if you will, that Ithink it could be um a little
bit more competitive in a fastlyevolving world.
SPEAKER_01 (19:48):
Hmm.
Are you uh is this an AI productthat you're looking at?
Are you developing?
SPEAKER_03 (19:52):
Yeah, you know, we we're not talking about it yet.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
So uh we're working on one right now in the uh
basically it's AI enhancing ourlawyers, so where the they'll
get unlimited contact with thelawyer and it will be AI
assisted, but it'll be the finalproduct will be a lawyer eyes on
sort of stuff.
So um we think AI does somewonderful things.
SPEAKER_03 (20:15):
Um if you leverage it right and you get if you're
study the prompting, it can dosome amazing things.
SPEAKER_01 (20:23):
Yeah, we've we've had a lot of success with it
just just with it within thefirm with email management, doc
management, and that sort ofstuff.
SPEAKER_03 (20:31):
Even if you just use it for help me respond to this
email, it's a heck of a stepforward.
SPEAKER_01 (20:36):
Yeah.
So kind of back up to the thebrackets of the lawyers.
So when you're going through theinterview process, what are you
looking for for the fixed feebracket?
What are you looking for for thehourly bracket in terms of uh
just the lawyer's approach totheir practice, their
personality?
Are you trying to like fit theminto different brackets when
(20:57):
you're going through theinterview process?
SPEAKER_03 (20:59):
I mean, probably somewhat.
Um, I'm still looking at corefundamentals.
Are they hungry?
That's always a major factor forme.
Um, I think I can overcome anychallenge someone has.
Maybe, you know, I'm wrong onthis, but I really do think you
get someone that's hungry,willing to work hard, they're
already lawyer, they got somebase, you know, online
knowledge.
You can train what they'remissing.
Um I think the difference ofputting in different brackets
(21:22):
depends on, you know, somewhatexperience.
Um, you know, and they're notjust how many years you've been
doing it, but actual experiencein the field.
Um, it's also actual experiencewith billable hours.
You know, people that haven'tdone billable hours and 10 years
out struggle to, you know,transition to a billable hour
role.
Um they can do it, but itdepends on the person.
SPEAKER_01 (21:43):
Do you work with any outside uh organizations,
coaching organizations, um,anything like that within your
firm?
SPEAKER_03 (21:51):
Uh not currently.
So uh definitely looking, guys.
Um, but uh I have in the past.
Um and I found it reallyvaluable.
I thought, you know, I don'tknow um, you know, as far as
talking about who it is andstuff, but I think what's best
about any group is thecommunity, getting together,
being able to challengeyourselves.
Um some of the strategies reallycame from internal challenges
(22:15):
that I would have at a coachinggroup where we're all talking
and brainstorming and like, allright, who's got the best idea
for moving this forward?
And you know, you you you know,natural attorney instinct of
wanting to win comes in, Iguess, maybe.
And so you put that on yourbusiness side and you start
thinking through.
Um, I think there's such a valueto talking to peers and
community that you know aredoing what you're doing and
(22:37):
thinking and frankly want togrow.
Um, bar events don't always havethat.
Well said.
We talk about the power of amastermind all the time around
here.
There's something to it.
Um I wish I could just like putin a little box and you know
hand it out to people, but umit's the brainstorming.
It's not you telling me what todo.
I could probably read a couplebooks and get a pretty good
(22:59):
roadmap.
Um, it's the actual school ofhard knocks and thinking it
through, but fast-forwardingthat knowledge and a mastermind
group really accelerates yourlearning path.
SPEAKER_02 (23:10):
Love it.
Bob, we're in a unique settingwhere uh, you know, you
mentioned you've been followingJeff and the Sterling story for
a little while.
Uh anything you want to ask uhof Jeff?
I I love the opportunity to youknow get some of these old
stories out on the air as well.
SPEAKER_03 (23:24):
Yeah, I mean, it you know, we've been watching y'all.
Um it's practically the otherside of the country for someone
from Georgia, um, but I'vemonitored you know nationwide
trying to see who's going, youknow, doing what.
And y'all stood out on theradar, um, saw the growth of
locations.
Um I noticed you did amazingwith your local um marketing uh
pack or mark local marketingapproach.
(23:45):
Yeah any kind of things you'rewilling to share about how you
approach that?
SPEAKER_01 (23:50):
Oh, Tyler, you've you've been on the podcast with
Sony.
So I might I have a non-lawyerpartner in the firm, and he's
he's the marketing brains behindeverything.
I'm just I tell him I'm just apretty face, even though he's
better looking than me.
Um but I brought the law the lawlicense to the deal, so that
that's pretty much was mybiggest contribution.
But he has um he's built anincredible process for us on the
(24:13):
local side.
So we get the vast majority ofour leads from our just the
local local Map Pack and local.
So we've got 25, 26 locations.
I think we have two more comingonline in Illinois next month.
And that those are by and largeour they're they're they're part
of our marketing expense morethan anything, um, even though
we use them legitimately and wedo it all right from a
(24:34):
standpoint of how Google seesit.
But uh it's it's been thecatalyst for our growth, without
question.
SPEAKER_02 (24:40):
46% of all local family law leads come from the
maps.
They come from someone searchingfor divorce attorney near me,
divorce attorney plus city name.
And we've built an entiremarketing strategy around
helping our clients andobviously helping Sterling show
up in that map pack so that wecan garner 50% basically of the
(25:01):
lead share in any given marketthat we're in, and then
leveraging, of course, paidresources above that to take as
much market share as we can.
SPEAKER_03 (25:10):
Yeah, I've done an excellent job with it.
I've kind of looked through allthe locations and studied local
maps and see what all y'all haveadded to it and stuff.
And um it is a you know abrilliant way of approaching it.
You know, when we started, theydidn't have maps.
Um I'll take myself a littlebit.
Um so we worked much more theclassic SEO build, um, did a lot
of content and and developed itthat way, going for that other
(25:32):
uh target uh of it.
But um we we see the value ofit.
Um the the world has shifted.
Maps are so important,especially with you know AI
coming in.
Um it may be the number onedifferentiator.
Um one thing I noticed y'all didespecially well was getting
reviews.
Um, you know, I'll look, I thinkalmost every office has 30 or
(25:54):
something more reviews.
Any tips or tricks that you youknow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:00):
So um we use uh I'll give you a long answer to that,
but I'll kind of share how we'vewe've done it.
We've we get about 60 to 75 amonth that are four stars and
north of that, four and fivestars.
So we up we apportion those towhere we need them.
So we'll send the client thelink.
Hey, you want to give review?
Great, go to this link, and thatlink will point to one of our
(26:20):
locations that maybe we'reopening up.
So when we open up, we we wantto open up with with 30.
That's our goal is to have 30day one.
We open the open the doors.
So the way that's how the clientthe client doesn't, it's it's
the same experience.
They just get a link, we make iteasy for them, um, and then they
just fill it out and they submitit.
So that's how that goes.
(26:40):
But in terms of getting themfrom our our team, we use a
process called net promoterscore every at certain cadence
within the case.
And so we watch that prettyclosely.
And if we're getting goodscores, well, that's when we'll
approach a client and ask themto give um to give a review.
The attorneys, we also we wehave a huge emphasis on the
client experience within thefirm, as you probably do.
(27:02):
And so we want to do everythingwe can to reward the attorney to
produce good client experience.
So one of the ways is we spiffthem is like when they get good
reviews.
So I think they if they get aclient review, I think they get
like 250 bucks for everyfour-star or five-star client
review.
Um, and so for them, that's athat's a lot of money.
And then we track it every everymonth in our weekly, our monthly
newsletter called the moneylist, kind of like for golf or
(27:25):
something, like where theattorneys track where they're at
on the money list, you know, andwe'll we'll pay out$15,000,
$20,000 a year to the highpeople on that list.
That's just extra money for forgetting good reviews.
And so that's how we we try toreward them internally to offer
a good service.
We don't pay anything to theclient, you know, they just they
they're giving it gratis.
We don't give them anything forit, but we give our team when
(27:46):
their clients do leave reviews,and they can leave a review on
Google, they can leave it onFacebook, they can leave it on
Yelp, and they get$250 per.
So if they can get a clientthat'll really go out and give
them like four or five, they'llthey'll make a grand off that
one client at the end of theday.
So that's how we that's how wereward for it.
SPEAKER_03 (28:06):
It's critical.
I mean, um, GVP and mapplacements are one thing, but
reviews are clearly a majorfactor um to doing well there.
And y'all have done an excellentjob uh compared to a lot of
competitors I see out there.
So, you know, kudos on that.
SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:21):
One more point on the location um strategy that I
think is important for theaudience.
It's not just any location.
Knowing where to put your officeis extremely important because
the maps algorithm is based ondrive time and the average drive
time that a user has in a givenmarket.
So, for example, if we wanted torank high in Chicago and rank
(28:42):
for a divorce attorney Chicago,we would need an office uh every
five or six city blocks.
Because if you live downtownChicago, that person is used to
getting everything they needwithin such a small radius.
Uh, conversely, we have a clientin Fargo who pulls traffic from
an hour and a half away becausepeople are so used to driving
(29:02):
large distances in that area ofthe country.
SPEAKER_03 (29:06):
Yeah, we're seeing a similar pattern.
I'm from South Georgiaoriginally, and you know,
driving an hour to you know, goto the mall wasn't actually that
big of a deal.
Um you know, here, you know, wemight still be driving an hour
to be honest, but it's only fivemiles down the road.
Um, so uh, you know, um there isa limit of how far we want to go
um as humans, and being nearpeople matters.
(29:30):
It's not just a Google thing,it's a actual people want to be
able to go in person, even ifthey don't go to the office.
That's what stuns me.
Um they'll never come in, butthey want to make sure you have
an office close to them.
Um so it's an important factor.
Love it.
This has been awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (29:44):
Uh, any other any other questions or comments
before we wrap this thing up?
SPEAKER_03 (29:49):
You know, I hear y'all do a lot of stuff with
intakes, and that's a you knowthing I love.
I think it was, you know, one ofthe challenges growing the firm
was I had attorneys andparalegals all trying to do the
thing.
And you know, paralegals weretoo busy to take the call, then
attorneys were too busy to takethe call.
The whole thing was just missingas much as it could.
You know, brought in some intakecoordinators, kind of start
(30:11):
replacing the paralegals, andthen they started complaining
that attorneys never want totake the call.
Attorneys say, hey, I never geta case.
I introduced them.
I thought they knew each other,but you know, have a big
seminar, everyone all handsmeeting and you know introduced
them.
It didn't work.
Um and so we brought in closers.
What y'all said y'all go with adifferent approach.
So love to hear, you know,y'all's process on that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:32):
Yeah, so we we have an intake team, and within
there, there's probably severaldifferent roles.
You have just the folks that arejust answering the phone right
away, and then we have afollow-up component of that
where they're following upwithin that team too.
They follow up pre-consult andthey follow up post-consult
whenever they're qualified.
So once they go from the intaketeam, they'll set the consult.
(30:55):
About 60% of our consults aredone by non-lawyers, 40%, maybe
a little higher in that range,but directionally accurate, are
done by lawyers.
Um, and then the follow-up teamwill follow up whether it's the
non-lawyer that's doing theconsult or the lawyer that's
just their whole job is tofollow up.
Our non-lawyers, so we haveright now we have four what we
call regional offices.
(31:16):
Um, we're gonna add another onein Illinois here soon, but then
we have a non-lawyer salespersonassigned to each of those, and
they're following up on certaincases that are that are really
good potential cases, with um,they're following up within
their region, like you know, sothey get to know the lawyers
really well.
So they sit in on the weeklyL10s, the the management
meetings that all the lawyershave, they sit in on those and
(31:37):
they're they're reallyintegrated.
So the lawyers really get toknow them well.
Um, so and and they're probablythe equivalent of what you call
the closers, except they'renon-lawyers.
So the closers will sit in onthose meetings.
Um, so that that's worked wellfor us.
And I would say of our intaketeam, we're blended between
onshore and the Philippines.
Um, we've gotten a lot of reallygood talent and great teammates
(31:59):
from the Philippines.
And so, um, and they'reclient-facing, so they do great,
just as just as well as someonewho's native born here and lives
here.
So that's been the processthat's worked for us.
We have one sales leader overthe whole organization, both
intake and the non-lawyer.
Um, so we call the non-lawyersales team CLAs for consult
(32:20):
legal assistant.
So that's what that's what theydo.
But one person oversees thatwhole group.
Then we have one guy thatreports into her named Mark, and
he oversees the intake team.
But that's been for us.
But when you talk about the kindof the communication between the
intake team and the lawyers onyou know, qualifying cases,
qualifying consoles, that's allthat was always a point of
(32:40):
tension for us.
And like you, you know, the whatare you get you get the tension,
the the ways there could betension there, where they get a
case and that person's not agood person and just really
scary, for example.
That's been a that's happenedquite a few times, or they have
a case that is in Georgia and wecan't service it in Georgia, but
yet the con the consultschedule, the lawyer's there,
(33:01):
they've prepped, and it's noteven a case in the state.
And then there's like, you know,intake sucks, you know, we don't
want to work with you anymore,sort of thing.
So it, you know, it's taken us awhile to work through that and
build the process is to makethat work well and get them to
trust each other and and tocommunicate with each other was
has been a challenge.
We didn't get it done in a year.
It's been several years of kindof getting that all figured out,
(33:23):
and it coalesced pretty muchwhen our current sales leader
was in place, and she just gotgot them together more.
And so she sits on in our on ourexecutive leadership team with
our our top lawyers who sitthere too.
So there's been trust built upover years now that they're
gonna make mistakes, they'regonna give you cases that you
probably shouldn't have, butyou're not perfect either.
(33:43):
You know, you're gonna screw upon a consult too, you know.
So it's it's getting the lawyersto see that part is it can be
challenging, but it we got greatpeople and they figured it out.
SPEAKER_02 (33:54):
That's awesome.
This was fun.
Um, really appreciate your time,Bob.
Love your insights, yourjourney, you the the ability
that you've been able to scaleyour firm is is really
remarkable, and I think it'll beinsightful for our listeners.
Um I don't have anything else.
Jeff, anything else?
Uh I have lots of else, but forthe sake of time, we probably
should cut it off.
(34:16):
Love it, Bob.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
Really appreciate your time andinsights.
Looking forward to followingyour journey as you expand
across Georgia and everywhereelse.
46% of all local family law leads come from the
maps.
They come from someone searchingfor divorce attorney near me,
divorce attorney plus city name,and then leveraging, of course,
paid resources above that totake as much for the can.
Welcome back to the SterlingFamily Law Show, the podcast
(00:21):
designed to help familyattorneys build the firm of
their dreams.
I'm one of your hosts, TylerDolph.
I'm also the CEO of our law firmconsulting agency called
RocketClicks that was born outof our own law firm, Sterling
Lawyers, that has grown to over27 attorneys.
Today we have Bob Thorpe ofMerriweather and Thorpe, a 30
(00:46):
plus family law firm in Atlanta.
He tells his story of growth.
Him and uh the co-founder of ourfirm, Jeff Hughes, talk back and
forth about what it takes toactually scale a law firm and
the power of focus.
You do not want to miss thisone.
Really appreciate you being onthe podcast today.
Excited to learn more about you.
(01:07):
If you wouldn't mind, justintroduce yourself to uh our
audience and give us a quickhigh level on the firm today.
And then as Jeff was saying, wecan uh we can go back to the
origin story.
SPEAKER_03 (01:17):
Okay.
Um my name's Bob Tharp.
Um appreciate y'all having meon.
Um I'm in Atlanta, Georgia.
We got a divorce firm.
We started 27 years ago or so.
Um and you know, they go fast.
Um we are divorce only and wepractice um slowly, we're moving
throughout the whole rest of thestate.
SPEAKER_01 (01:38):
I love the divorce only, by the way.
So um so many of these big firmswas want to throw everything in
there.
And I feel like we have we haveprospered because we've just
stuck the divorce paternity andpost-judgment period, no,
nothing else.
SPEAKER_03 (01:53):
You know, we discovered the hard way.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
What what was the pathway to get there?
SPEAKER_03 (01:57):
We discovered it the hard way.
Um, we went out and tried alittle bit of everything, and I,
you know, remember one momentwhere I was doing mainly
business litigation, LeeMerriweather, um, the other half
was doing divorce, and we'relike, we gotta go all in.
We can't build systems, we can'tget routines going unless we
have one thing we're doing.
And I was like, Yeah, that'shalf our revenue.
(02:18):
Um, can we really make thatmove?
Um, and we talked about it andyou know, probably more than
once, but um made the call togo, we've got to go all in.
You can't do this partial.
Um, if you get two practiceareas, which seems kind of
reasonable, it's too many.
Um, because you can't masterevery system, especially from
scratch, every you know,procedure, get your attorneys
(02:41):
trained, get everyone rolling inthe same direction uh on two
different things.
Um so I love you know just thesingular focus of a practice,
regardless of practice area.
SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
Yeah, whenever you explain that to other attorneys
who who think they can do morethan one, what's the typical
pushback they give you?
Because it's a hard, it's a hardconversation for me.
SPEAKER_03 (03:01):
You know, one, I think it's just a passion.
I think that sometimes they justlike doing different things.
I mean, um two, I think they'rescared, um, you know, giving up
the revenue.
I got money.
This person wants to give memoney.
I can do what they're asking,um, and I should take it.
Um, but I think they're missingthe opportunity cost of taking
that means you can't dosomething else.
(03:24):
You can't build whatever yourprimary focus is.
So, you know, I can cut thegrass, but it's probably not the
best use of my time.
And I may not be the best at iteither.
SPEAKER_01 (03:34):
So, how far in or how long into your practice,
your startup were you when yougot to that realization?
Let's go all the time.
Like 10 years.
SPEAKER_03 (03:44):
Yeah, way too long.
Yeah, 10 years.
We were 10 years in, it wasprobably 2006 or so, um, before
uh we struggled for 10 yearstrying to get things going, give
or take.
And we're like, why can't wereally get over the hump?
Why can't we really grow?
And I think that was one of ourfirst major hurdles was like,
how are we going to start togrow?
(04:04):
Well, we can't grow if we'redoing recreating the wheel with
new stuff every day.
We've got to do something thatwe can leverage what we did in
the past for future growth.
SPEAKER_01 (04:14):
And how did you make the cutover?
What'd you have to go throughwith that?
SPEAKER_03 (04:19):
You know, probably with a couple tiers.
Um, you know, uh, you know, wewe just had to say no.
Um, it's actually as simple asthat.
Um, but it sounds so simple,it's so tough to do.
I had clients that were businessclients of mine for a long time.
I was like, well, you know, Igot some good friends in the
industry, let me refer you out.
But I liked working with you.
And you're like, but in in yourmind, you're always a better
(04:41):
attorney than anyone else.
I think that's one of ourproblems is we always think we
can do it better.
So it's like, yeah, I probablycould do it better than you
know, the guy I'm referring itto.
But the reality is they're goodattorneys, they know what
they're doing.
Um, but what it is, it'simpacting our business and
stopping my ability to grow inone practice area.
So, you know, it I'll saypainfully, um, but it's as
simple as actually just sayingno.
SPEAKER_01 (05:02):
Yeah.
Did you have attorneys that youhad to let go because they were
not in in the family area?
SPEAKER_03 (05:09):
Um, truthfully, we did.
Um, and we gave notice um abouttwo years before we we pulled
the cord and said, go find otherjobs.
I try to help them out find newplaces.
I let one attorney kind of stayuntil she could find a job
somewhere else.
Um and we needed to wrap up thecases anyway that were there.
(05:30):
Um, but um it was sort of sometough conversations saying, I
hear you, you're great on thispractice area, but that's just
not where we're going.
But there's a lot of goodplaces, and I made a lot of good
friends over the years.
Let me see who I can at leastcall and put in a good word for
you.
SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah.
So your your revenuepre-cutover, your pre-focus,
let's call it, and then and thenyour revenue a couple years
later, what was the thevariance?
What what did you see happenfinancially to your firm?
SPEAKER_03 (05:59):
Oh, it it was like almost an instant lighting,
lightning rod.
Um, I think you know, we're sortof I can't remember the exact
numbers, um, but you know,staying at the same number
roughly year to year.
And then, you know, two yearsout, we're doubling numbers or
tripling numbers, and we'recausing a clear momentum that
you can see, oh wow, we canactually you know make you know
10 million or more.
(06:20):
Um, this isn't as difficult aswe thought.
Um, but it happened a lot fasterthan I thought.
That was a very rapid growthcoming out of it.
The first year is a littlerough.
Um, I was just trying to breakeven with the swap of business,
but after that, the foundationstarted to build upon
themselves.
And I think that year two iswhere massive growth happened
for us.
SPEAKER_01 (06:40):
Yeah.
So in just for our audiencesake, I I counted up on your
site this morning.
You've got 32-ish attorneys,family attorneys on your team?
Um at least probably more.
SPEAKER_03 (06:51):
Yeah, there's probably a couple that aren't
announced with you saying that.
But um, you know, uh yeah, 32for today sounds good.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Okay, well that that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03 (07:01):
I mean, I think, you know, don't we all have a couple
that are about to be announceduh that we're just kind of
waiting for certain things tofall in place?
SPEAKER_01 (07:08):
Yeah, and sometimes it's as simple as our our web
people haven't gotten to puttingthe pictures on the website yet,
sort of thing.
And yeah, so yeah, we've we'vegot a little bit of that too.
So um okay, so when you make thecutover, you then you see your
growth in year two.
From a system standpoint, whendid you start having to re
reconfigure your systems whenyou're outgrowing them?
(07:29):
What what was that like?
SPEAKER_03 (07:31):
To me, um it kind of uh the day-to-day how to run a
case side work hard andnaturally.
You build the system side of thecase, you actually get
foundations, and you know, everyyou know, complaint, every
answer, everything you have istemplated, um with you know a
bunch of variations that coveredmost of your major, you know, uh
(07:52):
situations.
Um that probably was a one ortwo year barrier.
I think my next problem reallyran into me.
Um I really enjoyed practicinglaw.
Um, but I also recognized Icouldn't train more attorneys to
do the level um of care um andquality that I wanted to
maintain.
And you know, I felt like I wasalways like debating this, you
(08:15):
know, my working on cases, but Ialso need to train people up.
Um and I think that was one ofthe next big challenges is you
know, I can't keep doing this ona case-by-case basis.
I can make a bigger impact formore people if I could train a
group of attorneys to handle itin a certain way.
And so that was kind of the bigsecond part.
That's probably tougher than thefirst one for us, um, because I
(08:38):
had to let go of doing cases.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
Okay.
So today, what's your role?
Are you managing the theattorneys directly or are you
overseeing the business?
What what are you doing day today?
SPEAKER_03 (08:49):
You know, I would don't do cases anymore.
Um, I would say running thebusiness.
I run with all departments, somarketing and intakes, I
oversee, you know, departmentheads in each one of those
categories.
I have someone in charge ofcase, actually, several
different people and thevariations of it in charge of
case that kind of report to me.
Um once in a blue moon, I maylook at a case a little bit
(09:09):
longer because I can't help it.
Um, but very rarely do I uh youknow actually get involved in
the day-to-day of a case.
SPEAKER_01 (09:15):
Yeah.
And do you have some attorneysthat are managing other
attorneys that's all they'redoing is just overseeing them?
SPEAKER_03 (09:22):
Yeah, that's the I think the next level you got to
work on after you kind of startthat growth is now you only have
so much time.
So how do you leverage that?
And so I think the naturaladjustment is well, I need
someone to do the training atthe attorney.
So let's get one of ourattorneys to kind of shift a
little bit more into thattraining role.
Um, I need someone to be doingthe marketing.
Let's get someone in charge ofmarketing.
(09:44):
So lots of little shifts.
SPEAKER_01 (09:46):
Yeah.
What what was the process likewhen you elevated your first
attorney to managing partner?
What what did you go through toget that done?
Because we've had some storiesthere.
SPEAKER_03 (09:58):
Um, you know, I I carefully avoid titles.
Uh, that's one thing, um,whatever we can on some of that
thing.
So um, I always try to keep, youknow, a bunch of team leaders,
that's the way we'll kind ofbracket it, and then leaders of
the team leaders, um, and andsort of keep that side.
But I think we all havestruggles.
Um, I probably didn't do a goodjob training leaders um in the
(10:21):
beginning, and it took a whileto go, oh wait, that was
important.
Um, they didn't know everythingI knew, and I'd see mistakes
that um I should have thoughtabout earlier and trained on.
That was the system development,if I had to say, on the growth
pattern, that was the one Iprobably missed building the
system first on.
Was we got to train thetrainers, right?
We gotta train the leaders.
Um and you know, that happened alot sooner than I thought it was
(10:44):
going to.
Um, us thinking that was alwaysways down the road, but as
you're growing, you gotta havethat.
And if you don't, you take astep back real quickly.
Yeah.
And you know that.
You've had that problem, I'msure.
SPEAKER_01 (10:55):
Oh, we've had fits and starts for our history for
sure in that area.
SPEAKER_03 (10:59):
Yeah, step forward, two steps back that time, you
know.
SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Yeah.
Leaps backwards sometimes feelslike.
Uh now you folks are doing uhfixed fee on it.
Seems like you've blended infixed fee with hourly.
Is that am I reading that righton the site?
SPEAKER_03 (11:16):
Yeah, we do both.
Um, you know, we have uhbrackets, if you will, of how
we're doing cases.
So we have uh certainly fixedfees, we have monthly
subscriptions, and we have whatI call traditional billable hour
cases.
SPEAKER_02 (11:29):
Is that three separate systems, Bob, that
you're having to run, or is itthese attorneys specializes in
fixed fees, so they get thefixed fee cases?
How does that work?
SPEAKER_03 (11:37):
Yeah, we have them in three brackets.
So the attorneys are kind ofgrouped off into three sub
brackets, if you will.
And if you're in bracket A, forexample, those are the cases
you're handling.
If you're in bracket B, thosecases.
You may you know progress out ofbracket A to bracket B and you
know kind of get promoted incertain places uh depending upon
you know strengths and skills.
SPEAKER_00 (11:56):
Hey, family law firm leaders, my partner Tony Carls
just released his book, which helays bare our precise blueprint
for growing sterling lawyersfrom zero to 17 million.
This is the blueprint that westill use daily.
And Tony explains it in verysimple terms.
The truth is, this is not simpleto do.
(12:17):
Success requires and demandshard work, but if you have the
patience and the work ethic todo it, your family law firm will
succeed.
SPEAKER_01 (12:27):
Well, of the three, which one is is viewed as the
most plum one to be in?
The one that the attorneys wantto strive for.
SPEAKER_03 (12:34):
I think it's still probably the traditional um
billable hours.
Attorneys like it, they seethat, they're familiar with it.
Um it depends on the attorney.
Like some attorneys are, I wantto bill hours and that's their
focus.
And some really don't.
Um, some really want to delivergreat customer service as their
focus, and you know, let's notworry about the you know every
little billable hour.
So I find that you get greatattorneys on both brackets.
(12:56):
Um, it's fairly a personalityfit for how they're trying to
achieve stuff.
You get clear KPIs with billablehours, that's that's for
certain.
Um, but there's plenty of KPIsyou get on the other side too.
SPEAKER_02 (13:08):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (13:08):
Probably makes recruiting a little easier,
though, as well, right?
It does.
It opens the door for a lot ofdifferent individuals that
frankly we may have said no toin the past.
Um I even look at some attorneysthat didn't, you know, kind of
make it with us um and go, wow,they would have really worked
better under this currentsystem.
And I could have put them in adifferent place, and they've
been very successful.
(13:29):
They were good attorneys, butnot necessarily good billers.
And with adjustments, I couldhave, you know, actually had
them stay here and work well.
But, you know, that's what welive and learn on, right?
SPEAKER_01 (13:40):
Yeah.
Well, I've had that exactly thatexact thing happen to me.
We had we lost an attorney namedHannah um a couple years ago,
and she said, Jeff, I I love thefirm.
I just don't want we're 100%fixed fee.
I don't want to do any fixedfee.
I want to go back an hourly, andso we're like, oh, bummer to
lose her.
But how do you structure yourfixed fee cases?
SPEAKER_03 (14:01):
Um I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're
doing.
SPEAKER_01 (14:06):
How do you structure your the fee?
Like how do you determine thefee and uh for a fixed fee
divorce case, for example?
SPEAKER_03 (14:14):
Um we've really kind of went through about I don't
know, about 10,000 cases,studied the data on all of them.
I'm a data junkie, um, andpinpointed out what was the
average cost over you know,literally hundreds, if not
thousands, of cases in differentbrackets, and said this is the
range that it usually comes in.
And we probably took a midpointand bumped it just slightly.
(14:36):
So we, you know, the house wouldhopefully make a little bit more
of on the fixed fees than it wastraditionally.
Um but you know, we reallymicroanalyzed it, probably too
much, but um it helped youunderstand and go, okay, how do
we get comfortable?
This isn't going to be too muchwork for us on some cases and
you know, break the bank, if youwill.
SPEAKER_01 (14:56):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very, very similar to how we'vegotten there too.
Do you is it all one fee upfront, or do you break it up
into different fees fordifferent aspects of the case?
SPEAKER_03 (15:08):
We have both options.
Um, so we do have the upfront,and we don't include trial with
our upfront, but we do have likea fixed flat for pre-trial uh
work.
Um and then we have you know amonthly subscription amount that
we've worked out prettycomfortably with.
Um and then we do have someother models in there that you
know can be add-ons if we liketo call them.
(15:29):
Um additional things you can do,like you want that special
deposition.
Really don't think you know thatwould be part of our routine,
but um, if you think it'sneeded, the attorney thinks it's
needed, we can do it, but that'sadditional flat cost on that
side.
SPEAKER_01 (15:44):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:45):
And do you have non-attorney sales?
We don't.
We still go with attorney salesto this day.
Oh, okay.
Um, I know a lot of the vastmajority of the marketplace has
gone the other way with it.
I think y'all have gone theother way with it.
Um, certainly you know, wouldlove to hear and learn more from
other folks, but we've been verysuccessful with attorney sales,
but we had we handpicked theattorneys that were very good
(16:06):
sales folks to begin with,right?
Um, and so it wasn't a casualmove.
And then we put them throughtraining, um, classic sales
training with different you knowtraining organizations over the
years to kind of focus them thatway.
And that's all they do.
They aren't doing cases, sothey're exclusively focused in
on handling the sales calls.
SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
Yeah.
And are you doing the majorityof your consults in person, or
are you still are you allowingremote?
SPEAKER_03 (16:32):
Um, we are actually very friendly with remote.
Um, one thing I learned aboutexpansion is I got offices
throughout the state already.
And it's like a five-hour drivefrom here.
So I'm not gonna go in persondown there all the time.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (16:44):
Um show.
SPEAKER_03 (16:46):
Yeah, that would have been pretty harsh.
So um, you know, we went um andenabled remote coming out of
COVID.
Um, our all employees can work,you know, remote or they can
work um in person.
We have offices at all theselocations um and sort of their
choice.
Um a lot of, you know, I thinkdifferent people like different
things.
I love coming in every day.
(17:07):
Um, it was painful for me tostay at home um and not being
able to come into the office.
It's it's clear distinction inmy mind.
I know this is work time, I knowthat's home time.
Um, as much as you can, I likethe distinction better.
Um, as to the actual question,maybe underneath it, though, is
the client side.
We're I've been stunned comingpost-COVID.
(17:28):
Um in the metro area, mostpeople want to do remote
consultations.
Uh, they want to do remoterepresentation.
They're wanting to do remotetrials if we, you know, the
courts would let them.
Um, you know, it's it's weirdfor me as an older attorney
that, you know, did everythingin person and frankly would
never think about doing thatbefore COVID, um, to sit back
(17:49):
and go, this actually has workedas a complete culture shift.
Um, we find that to be true inmetro areas, a little bit more
so than you know, some of thedifferent parts of Georgia.
But um definitely in Atlanta,I'd say 80, 90 percent never
come in.
SPEAKER_01 (18:05):
Yeah.
Well, just anecdotally, we're95% remote for all of our
consults, and I would say atleast half of our firm is
considered um just out in therural areas of Wisconsin.
So even there, they don't wantto drive 10 minutes with
nothing.
SPEAKER_03 (18:22):
We haven't done an in-person consult in it might
have been pre-COVID.
Um, you know, we've gonecompletely in the consult.
I was talking about full timeall the way through the case.
SPEAKER_01 (18:32):
Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (18:33):
Yeah, it's kind of blowing me away how I thought,
you know, okay, consultation,fine, but no, they actually like
it all the way through to petrolprep.
And you're like, kind of needsome nonverbals.
We're actually gonna be live infront of the court here.
SPEAKER_01 (18:45):
Yeah.
Wow.
Tyler, I'm monopolizing the timehere.
You got I know you gotquestions.
SPEAKER_02 (18:51):
No, I love it.
I love it.
Uh I feel uh you both have grownuh your respective firms so
much.
And I've talked to Jeff all thetime about the future of
Sterling and where we're going.
Bob, I'd love to hear about yourfuture plans.
You know, you've accomplished uhan incredible feat, you have an
amazing firm.
How do you stay motivated?
(19:13):
What are you thinking about?
Uh, what's on the horizon foryou and your firm?
SPEAKER_03 (19:17):
Um there's always, I think, that hunger that you've
never kind of stop.
So we're going to keepexpanding.
Um we uh got a couple citiesleft in Georgia.
I want to make sure we havecomplete statewide coverage.
Um, and then um we'll we'll seewhat goes from there.
Um we also have some newproducts that we haven't even
brought to market yet that we'rekind of studying and in the
(19:41):
hopper, if you will, that Ithink it could be um a little
bit more competitive in a fastlyevolving world.
SPEAKER_01 (19:48):
Hmm.
Are you uh is this an AI productthat you're looking at?
Are you developing?
SPEAKER_03 (19:52):
Yeah, you know, we we're not talking about it yet.
SPEAKER_01 (19:54):
So uh we're working on one right now in the uh
basically it's AI enhancing ourlawyers, so where the they'll
get unlimited contact with thelawyer and it will be AI
assisted, but it'll be the finalproduct will be a lawyer eyes on
sort of stuff.
So um we think AI does somewonderful things.
SPEAKER_03 (20:15):
Um if you leverage it right and you get if you're
study the prompting, it can dosome amazing things.
SPEAKER_01 (20:23):
Yeah, we've we've had a lot of success with it
just just with it within thefirm with email management, doc
management, and that sort ofstuff.
SPEAKER_03 (20:31):
Even if you just use it for help me respond to this
email, it's a heck of a stepforward.
SPEAKER_01 (20:36):
Yeah.
So kind of back up to the thebrackets of the lawyers.
So when you're going through theinterview process, what are you
looking for for the fixed feebracket?
What are you looking for for thehourly bracket in terms of uh
just the lawyer's approach totheir practice, their
personality?
Are you trying to like fit theminto different brackets when
(20:57):
you're going through theinterview process?
SPEAKER_03 (20:59):
I mean, probably somewhat.
Um, I'm still looking at corefundamentals.
Are they hungry?
That's always a major factor forme.
Um, I think I can overcome anychallenge someone has.
Maybe, you know, I'm wrong onthis, but I really do think you
get someone that's hungry,willing to work hard, they're
already lawyer, they got somebase, you know, online
knowledge.
You can train what they'remissing.
Um I think the difference ofputting in different brackets
(21:22):
depends on, you know, somewhatexperience.
Um, you know, and they're notjust how many years you've been
doing it, but actual experiencein the field.
Um, it's also actual experiencewith billable hours.
You know, people that haven'tdone billable hours and 10 years
out struggle to, you know,transition to a billable hour
role.
Um they can do it, but itdepends on the person.
SPEAKER_01 (21:43):
Do you work with any outside uh organizations,
coaching organizations, um,anything like that within your
firm?
SPEAKER_03 (21:51):
Uh not currently.
So uh definitely looking, guys.
Um, but uh I have in the past.
Um and I found it reallyvaluable.
I thought, you know, I don'tknow um, you know, as far as
talking about who it is andstuff, but I think what's best
about any group is thecommunity, getting together,
being able to challengeyourselves.
Um some of the strategies reallycame from internal challenges
(22:15):
that I would have at a coachinggroup where we're all talking
and brainstorming and like, allright, who's got the best idea
for moving this forward?
And you know, you you you know,natural attorney instinct of
wanting to win comes in, Iguess, maybe.
And so you put that on yourbusiness side and you start
thinking through.
Um, I think there's such a valueto talking to peers and
community that you know aredoing what you're doing and
(22:37):
thinking and frankly want togrow.
Um, bar events don't always havethat.
Well said.
We talk about the power of amastermind all the time around
here.
There's something to it.
Um I wish I could just like putin a little box and you know
hand it out to people, but umit's the brainstorming.
It's not you telling me what todo.
I could probably read a couplebooks and get a pretty good
(22:59):
roadmap.
Um, it's the actual school ofhard knocks and thinking it
through, but fast-forwardingthat knowledge and a mastermind
group really accelerates yourlearning path.
SPEAKER_02 (23:10):
Love it.
Bob, we're in a unique settingwhere uh, you know, you
mentioned you've been followingJeff and the Sterling story for
a little while.
Uh anything you want to ask uhof Jeff?
I I love the opportunity to youknow get some of these old
stories out on the air as well.
SPEAKER_03 (23:24):
Yeah, I mean, it you know, we've been watching y'all.
Um it's practically the otherside of the country for someone
from Georgia, um, but I'vemonitored you know nationwide
trying to see who's going, youknow, doing what.
And y'all stood out on theradar, um, saw the growth of
locations.
Um I noticed you did amazingwith your local um marketing uh
pack or mark local marketingapproach.
(23:45):
Yeah any kind of things you'rewilling to share about how you
approach that?
SPEAKER_01 (23:50):
Oh, Tyler, you've you've been on the podcast with
Sony.
So I might I have a non-lawyerpartner in the firm, and he's
he's the marketing brains behindeverything.
I'm just I tell him I'm just apretty face, even though he's
better looking than me.
Um but I brought the law the lawlicense to the deal, so that
that's pretty much was mybiggest contribution.
But he has um he's built anincredible process for us on the
(24:13):
local side.
So we get the vast majority ofour leads from our just the
local local Map Pack and local.
So we've got 25, 26 locations.
I think we have two more comingonline in Illinois next month.
And that those are by and largeour they're they're they're part
of our marketing expense morethan anything, um, even though
we use them legitimately and wedo it all right from a
(24:34):
standpoint of how Google seesit.
But uh it's it's been thecatalyst for our growth, without
question.
SPEAKER_02 (24:40):
46% of all local family law leads come from the
maps.
They come from someone searchingfor divorce attorney near me,
divorce attorney plus city name.
And we've built an entiremarketing strategy around
helping our clients andobviously helping Sterling show
up in that map pack so that wecan garner 50% basically of the
(25:01):
lead share in any given marketthat we're in, and then
leveraging, of course, paidresources above that to take as
much market share as we can.
SPEAKER_03 (25:10):
Yeah, I've done an excellent job with it.
I've kind of looked through allthe locations and studied local
maps and see what all y'all haveadded to it and stuff.
And um it is a you know abrilliant way of approaching it.
You know, when we started, theydidn't have maps.
Um I'll take myself a littlebit.
Um so we worked much more theclassic SEO build, um, did a lot
of content and and developed itthat way, going for that other
(25:32):
uh target uh of it.
But um we we see the value ofit.
Um the the world has shifted.
Maps are so important,especially with you know AI
coming in.
Um it may be the number onedifferentiator.
Um one thing I noticed y'all didespecially well was getting
reviews.
Um, you know, I'll look, I thinkalmost every office has 30 or
(25:54):
something more reviews.
Any tips or tricks that you youknow, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:00):
So um we use uh I'll give you a long answer to that,
but I'll kind of share how we'vewe've done it.
We've we get about 60 to 75 amonth that are four stars and
north of that, four and fivestars.
So we up we apportion those towhere we need them.
So we'll send the client thelink.
Hey, you want to give review?
Great, go to this link, and thatlink will point to one of our
(26:20):
locations that maybe we'reopening up.
So when we open up, we we wantto open up with with 30.
That's our goal is to have 30day one.
We open the open the doors.
So the way that's how the clientthe client doesn't, it's it's
the same experience.
They just get a link, we make iteasy for them, um, and then they
just fill it out and they submitit.
So that's how that goes.
(26:40):
But in terms of getting themfrom our our team, we use a
process called net promoterscore every at certain cadence
within the case.
And so we watch that prettyclosely.
And if we're getting goodscores, well, that's when we'll
approach a client and ask themto give um to give a review.
The attorneys, we also we wehave a huge emphasis on the
client experience within thefirm, as you probably do.
(27:02):
And so we want to do everythingwe can to reward the attorney to
produce good client experience.
So one of the ways is we spiffthem is like when they get good
reviews.
So I think they if they get aclient review, I think they get
like 250 bucks for everyfour-star or five-star client
review.
Um, and so for them, that's athat's a lot of money.
And then we track it every everymonth in our weekly, our monthly
newsletter called the moneylist, kind of like for golf or
(27:25):
something, like where theattorneys track where they're at
on the money list, you know, andwe'll we'll pay out$15,000,
$20,000 a year to the highpeople on that list.
That's just extra money for forgetting good reviews.
And so that's how we we try toreward them internally to offer
a good service.
We don't pay anything to theclient, you know, they just they
they're giving it gratis.
We don't give them anything forit, but we give our team when
(27:46):
their clients do leave reviews,and they can leave a review on
Google, they can leave it onFacebook, they can leave it on
Yelp, and they get$250 per.
So if they can get a clientthat'll really go out and give
them like four or five, they'llthey'll make a grand off that
one client at the end of theday.
So that's how we that's how wereward for it.
SPEAKER_03 (28:06):
It's critical.
I mean, um, GVP and mapplacements are one thing, but
reviews are clearly a majorfactor um to doing well there.
And y'all have done an excellentjob uh compared to a lot of
competitors I see out there.
So, you know, kudos on that.
SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (28:21):
One more point on the location um strategy that I
think is important for theaudience.
It's not just any location.
Knowing where to put your officeis extremely important because
the maps algorithm is based ondrive time and the average drive
time that a user has in a givenmarket.
So, for example, if we wanted torank high in Chicago and rank
(28:42):
for a divorce attorney Chicago,we would need an office uh every
five or six city blocks.
Because if you live downtownChicago, that person is used to
getting everything they needwithin such a small radius.
Uh, conversely, we have a clientin Fargo who pulls traffic from
an hour and a half away becausepeople are so used to driving
(29:02):
large distances in that area ofthe country.
SPEAKER_03 (29:06):
Yeah, we're seeing a similar pattern.
I'm from South Georgiaoriginally, and you know,
driving an hour to you know, goto the mall wasn't actually that
big of a deal.
Um you know, here, you know, wemight still be driving an hour
to be honest, but it's only fivemiles down the road.
Um, so uh, you know, um there isa limit of how far we want to go
um as humans, and being nearpeople matters.
(29:30):
It's not just a Google thing,it's a actual people want to be
able to go in person, even ifthey don't go to the office.
That's what stuns me.
Um they'll never come in, butthey want to make sure you have
an office close to them.
Um so it's an important factor.
Love it.
This has been awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (29:44):
Uh, any other any other questions or comments
before we wrap this thing up?
SPEAKER_03 (29:49):
You know, I hear y'all do a lot of stuff with
intakes, and that's a you knowthing I love.
I think it was, you know, one ofthe challenges growing the firm
was I had attorneys andparalegals all trying to do the
thing.
And you know, paralegals weretoo busy to take the call, then
attorneys were too busy to takethe call.
The whole thing was just missingas much as it could.
You know, brought in some intakecoordinators, kind of start
(30:11):
replacing the paralegals, andthen they started complaining
that attorneys never want totake the call.
Attorneys say, hey, I never geta case.
I introduced them.
I thought they knew each other,but you know, have a big
seminar, everyone all handsmeeting and you know introduced
them.
It didn't work.
Um and so we brought in closers.
What y'all said y'all go with adifferent approach.
So love to hear, you know,y'all's process on that.
SPEAKER_01 (30:32):
Yeah, so we we have an intake team, and within
there, there's probably severaldifferent roles.
You have just the folks that arejust answering the phone right
away, and then we have afollow-up component of that
where they're following upwithin that team too.
They follow up pre-consult andthey follow up post-consult
whenever they're qualified.
So once they go from the intaketeam, they'll set the consult.
(30:55):
About 60% of our consults aredone by non-lawyers, 40%, maybe
a little higher in that range,but directionally accurate, are
done by lawyers.
Um, and then the follow-up teamwill follow up whether it's the
non-lawyer that's doing theconsult or the lawyer that's
just their whole job is tofollow up.
Our non-lawyers, so we haveright now we have four what we
call regional offices.
(31:16):
Um, we're gonna add another onein Illinois here soon, but then
we have a non-lawyer salespersonassigned to each of those, and
they're following up on certaincases that are that are really
good potential cases, with um,they're following up within
their region, like you know, sothey get to know the lawyers
really well.
So they sit in on the weeklyL10s, the the management
meetings that all the lawyershave, they sit in on those and
(31:37):
they're they're reallyintegrated.
So the lawyers really get toknow them well.
Um, so and and they're probablythe equivalent of what you call
the closers, except they'renon-lawyers.
So the closers will sit in onthose meetings.
Um, so that that's worked wellfor us.
And I would say of our intaketeam, we're blended between
onshore and the Philippines.
Um, we've gotten a lot of reallygood talent and great teammates
(31:59):
from the Philippines.
And so, um, and they'reclient-facing, so they do great,
just as just as well as someonewho's native born here and lives
here.
So that's been the processthat's worked for us.
We have one sales leader overthe whole organization, both
intake and the non-lawyer.
Um, so we call the non-lawyersales team CLAs for consult
(32:20):
legal assistant.
So that's what that's what theydo.
But one person oversees thatwhole group.
Then we have one guy thatreports into her named Mark, and
he oversees the intake team.
But that's been for us.
But when you talk about the kindof the communication between the
intake team and the lawyers onyou know, qualifying cases,
qualifying consoles, that's allthat was always a point of
(32:40):
tension for us.
And like you, you know, the whatare you get you get the tension,
the the ways there could betension there, where they get a
case and that person's not agood person and just really
scary, for example.
That's been a that's happenedquite a few times, or they have
a case that is in Georgia and wecan't service it in Georgia, but
yet the con the consultschedule, the lawyer's there,
(33:01):
they've prepped, and it's noteven a case in the state.
And then there's like, you know,intake sucks, you know, we don't
want to work with you anymore,sort of thing.
So it, you know, it's taken us awhile to work through that and
build the process is to makethat work well and get them to
trust each other and and tocommunicate with each other was
has been a challenge.
We didn't get it done in a year.
It's been several years of kindof getting that all figured out,
(33:23):
and it coalesced pretty muchwhen our current sales leader
was in place, and she just gotgot them together more.
And so she sits on in our on ourexecutive leadership team with
our our top lawyers who sitthere too.
So there's been trust built upover years now that they're
gonna make mistakes, they'regonna give you cases that you
probably shouldn't have, butyou're not perfect either.
(33:43):
You know, you're gonna screw upon a consult too, you know.
So it's it's getting the lawyersto see that part is it can be
challenging, but it we got greatpeople and they figured it out.
SPEAKER_02 (33:54):
That's awesome.
This was fun.
Um, really appreciate your time,Bob.
Love your insights, yourjourney, you the the ability
that you've been able to scaleyour firm is is really
remarkable, and I think it'll beinsightful for our listeners.
Um I don't have anything else.
Jeff, anything else?
Uh I have lots of else, but forthe sake of time, we probably
should cut it off.
(34:16):
Love it, Bob.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday.
Really appreciate your time andinsights.
Looking forward to followingyour journey as you expand
across Georgia and everywhereelse.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.