November 18, 2025 • 47 mins
Law firm employee benefits that turn your team into millionaires—Dana Palmer's 25% SEP system solves retention for good.
Family law firms lose great people because they compete on base salary instead of law firm compensation strategy—Dana Palmer flips this by offering a 25% SEP retirement contribution that makes every team member, even receptionists earning six figures, into millionaires within 20 years.
This interview reveals exactly how competitive law firm benefits become your retention moat through building millionaire employees, reducing staff turnover costs, and positioning your firm as the destination for top legal talent who value long-term wealth over short-term cash.
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📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Law Firm Employee Benefits: Introduction to Dana Palmer
0:56 - From Broke Law Student to Building Team Wealth Systems
6:17 - Opening Palmer Law Group: Accidental Firm Origin Story
16:20 - Staff Retention Strategies: Hiring the Best of the Best
17:03 - Finding Key Management: Jennifer Hart's Restaurant Leadership
24:06 - Law Firm Culture Building Through Coaching Investment
41:10 - SEP Retirement Plans for Lawyers: The 25% Contribution Model
41:30 - How $100K Salary Becomes $125K Tax-Preferred With Benefits
42:16 - Six-Figure Receptionists: Keeping Top Legal Talent Strategy
42:38 - Building Millionaire Employees: The 20-Year Wealth Formula
43:18 - Law Firm Team Building Philosophy: Choose to Work vs Have to Work
45:26 - Dana's Mission: Ending Unhealthy Marriages Through Law Practice
----------------------
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
It's my mission in life to change the way that
people approach the divorceprocess.
We don't take clients that wantrevenge.
And a jerk is a client who wantsrevenge.
We literally define them as ajerk, and a jerk doesn't want a
soft divorce.
They don't want a healthydivorce, they want to have a
hard divorce.
SPEAKER_03 (00:19):
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 our digitaladvertising agency that works
exclusively with familyattorneys, born out of our own
law firm, Sterling Lawyers, thathas grown to over 27 attorneys.
(00:44):
Today, uh Jeff Hughes, myco-host and also the co-founder
of Sterling Law, joins us as wecontinue our owner operator
series.
We are interviewing Dana Palmerof the Palmer Law Group in
Texas, who has built a greatfirm.
He has tons of passion, lots ofideas, big time visionary,
(01:05):
talking about his firm and whathe's done.
Some really, really coolinsights in this episode.
Make sure to check them out.
I am sure you will love it.
Dana, thank you so much forjoining us today.
We were uh just kind of talkingoff the record about some of the
things you're doing today, whichis amazing.
If I could, though, I would loveto jump back to the beginning.
(01:28):
Uh, if you wouldn't mindintroducing yourself to us, to
our audience.
Uh tell us a little bit aboutyour firm and kind of how you
got your start.
SPEAKER_02 (01:35):
So I'm Dana Palmer and I own the Palmer Law Group
PC.
We're a Texas-based law firmexpanding into Florida, and we
do a lot of nationwide things.
If if we have a divorce casethat's uh$5 million net worth or
above, I'll go anywhere in thecountry in order to do that, and
I get calls for that.
And um, I've been, in fact, uh,we're two days past our 19th
(01:57):
anniversary.
And when I was in law school, Inever thought I was gonna be an
attorney.
In fact, one of the guys thatworks with me who went to law
school with me specificallyremembers the many times where I
told him, Yeah, I'm never gonnabe an attorney.
I just wanted to be a businessperson.
And I figured I I wanted to likecomplete my business training as
(02:17):
an entrepreneur, which it doeszero for entrepreneurial type of
training.
In fact, it does the opposite,it just scares the crap out of
you.
And you never want to like dareopen a business ever again
because you're like, oh, allthese lawsuits can happen.
And but um, but I figured as theCEO of a company, if it only
costs me three years of my lifeand a quarter of a million
(02:38):
dollars for three things, thenit's worth it.
And those three things were toknow what the lawyers know, to
know which are the right lawyersto hire, and to be able to
evaluate those lawyers and knowwhether or not they're doing the
job that they need to be doing,then as a CEO of a company,
that's worth that time andinvestment.
(02:59):
But I never thought I'd be alawyer, and I actually waited
tables through law school.
And so I and I didn't take thebar straight out.
I only took the bar exam becauseI couldn't have a conversation
with my father without the wholethe conversation, it was just
like I was like, it wasgroundhog day every time.
Like, you know, you you alreadytook you you got the degree.
(03:20):
Why don't you just take theexam?
It'll be a feather in your cap.
Even if you're never gonnapractice law, just take it and
get the license.
That way you got it.
And the longer you go, uh themore you're gonna forget or
whatever.
It's like I got one of thehighest scores on I I took it
like two years after law school,or and I got like one of the
highest scores of anybody thatI've I've known.
I only know of one guy from lawschool, maybe, maybe two that
were anywhere close.
(03:40):
And and but and so I'm likewaiting tables, and I uh the my
license comes in, and I getasked, hey Dana, will you my
girlfriend had her daughterkidnapped by her ex and he won't
give her back and let us seeher, like, can you help with
that?
And I was like, uh, okay, I'lldo that for you today.
(04:01):
And then like tomorrow I gottago figure out what I want to do
with my life because like lawschool in itself, I was the
brokest.
I wasn't poor because poor is amindset.
I've never had that mindset.
Um, I but I've you know had tosleep in the car, and thankfully
I had a$2,500 paid for, youknow, 15-year-old car or
20-year-old car at that pointthat bear, you know, and and the
(04:23):
and the uh the driver's sidedoor wasn't opening, so I had to
crawl in through the passengerside, and I was like willing to
sleep in that one night.
And my one of my classmates waslike, no, just come stay with
me.
I was like, Oh, okay, great.
And I paid him$100 a week, andyou know, and so I I went from
that, and I had owned a businessbefore that like it was
successful but small, and Iwanted to play a bigger game, so
(04:44):
it's like I got to go to lawschool in order to play this
bigger game, and so but I I wasso beat down by law school
because nobody told me, like,hey, by the way, it's easy, just
read the horn books, don't fallfor that.
You got to brief everythingcrap.
It's it's all a lie, right?
Just it's everybody gets thesame license.
Unless you went to Harvard, itdoesn't matter.
And go to the best law schoolyou can go to for free, and you
(05:06):
know, like get through it theeasy way.
And by the third year, I wasrealized, oh, you don't even
have to buy books.
Like, you just like it's onetest at the end, and you can
either show up and talk aboutall the stuff that's probably
not on the test, or you canlike, especially for their first
year stuff, just do the Barberymaterials and you'll you'll ace
the tests, and you didn't evenhave to go to class.
It was all just you know, justcrazy prerequisite, but don't
(05:27):
get me started on that.
But so I'm like, then the nextday comes and I'm at the
restaurant, or you know, andthen they're like, okay, well,
Steve Steven just got arrested,you got to go get him out.
I was like, okay, well, I'll dothat for him today, and then
tomorrow I got to go figure outwhat I want to do with my life.
And then the next day, so likesix weeks goes by.
And by the way, at the sametime, one of the guys comes up
and goes, Hey, listen, we knowyou're gonna be in a suit
(05:48):
anyway, but um, once a week, doyou think you could come in and
be our on-call manager?
I'm like, so what's the job?
And they're like, you touch eachtable twice, you tell them what
a good idea that it was to comeinto three forks that night, and
then you make sure that thesteak is perfect when it hits
the table, which it like alwayswas.
And if it wasn't, oh, that's mytime to shine, because I can
solve that.
I just grab a different steak,you know, whatever, you know,
(06:09):
and like solve it and dazzlethem and they're amazed.
But in the meantime, everybodythat worked at that restaurant
had hired me for something.
Like I represented more thanhalf of this of the staff, and
then a lot of the regularclients, like, so what I we I
got my license on August 26th or25th or 26th of 2006.
(06:32):
And on September 1st, we openedthe Palmer Law Group.
It was called Dana Palmer LawGroup or PLS, you know, we
changed forms, but I opened onSeptember 1st because I had to
put a name on the pleadings inorder to help try and get this
child back.
And so after about six weeks ofthat, I was like, oh well, I
guess I own a law firm and hereand now I'm the CEO of that.
(06:55):
But I did like everything thatyou can do wrong and kind of
figured it out by about yearfour, you know, and I was able
to do about like three, threehundred thousand, three or four
hundred thousand dollars worthof work and collect about 80
grand.
And I'm like, this isn'tworking.
So I finally hired a law firmmanagement coach.
I did the how to manage a smalllaw firm with R.
John Robbins, um, which I thinkis a good program for about the
(07:18):
first 18 months.
And then I kind of like welloutgrew it, and I was one of
their top people at the time.
And in that program, he said,you got to pick a niche.
So I started going through theformula.
And for when that week I did nobillable work, I was in an
excess existential crisis.
Like I was like severely, Ican't, what do I do?
You know, and I think I kind ofknew what it was, but didn't I
(07:39):
wasn't cool with that becausethe last thing I wanted to do
was be a divorce lawyer.
And and finally we're on thiscall.
There's like 10 attorneys, andit's like, press a button, get
in line.
And I'm like, waiting.
I'm like, I'm trying to go last,you know.
Like, did everybody press thebutton?
Are you sure?
And I'm like, beep, you know,like, and and all these other
(08:00):
guys are going, and I'm havingthis huge argument with my wife
Summer about I can't pick aniche.
She finally throws her hands upand just just tell them you're
not willing to pick a niche andyou're gonna do all this, and
like you just and I'm like, allright, you know, and now now I'm
like really I'm even on my own,you know.
I've like feeling abandoned byeverything, and like, so and I'm
like, all right, well, I'm gonnause the formula.
Don't do anything that I'm doingjust for money.
(08:21):
So personal injury is outbecause I hate doing that.
Like, they're always trying tonot pay people, and like it's
just all this.
I and I thrown a phone throughthe wall after talking with an
insurance agent about like thisguy's gonna die before I can get
him money and help him, and likeall I'm gonna do is get money
for his family, but he's gonnaprobably die because I can't
even and like it's just like Ijust hated it, right?
(08:42):
And then criminal defense, I wasreally good at it, but I can't
sleep tonight before trial, andlike you know, and I don't I
didn't really just want to be inthat.
And I was like, you know, out ofall the clients, it's the family
law clients are the healthy andhappiest ones, but there's no
way I'm gonna be a divorceattorney.
I don't even believe in divorce.
I hate divorce, I wouldn't wisha divorce on anyone.
But I was like, but I had amentor early on that goes, you
(09:04):
know, every other area of law,you can measure win or lose in
criminal defense, death penaltyor life, life or probation, you
know, jail or probation,probation or not guilty
completely off.
You can measure that.
There's a clear win or lose.
In a money case, there's a clearwin or lose.
How much money did you get?
Or how much did you money didyou not have to pay out?
(09:26):
Like where you can measure it indollars.
If you're measuring in dollarsin a family law case, and that's
the metric that you use, well, Iguess you need to put a dollar
amount on every non-tangiblethat there is in family law.
Like, how do you what's thewhat's the dollar amount on
whether or not your kids hateyou for the way that you treated
the other parent?
What's the dollar amount?
Like, what how what's really awin in that?
(09:47):
And so I'm like, all right, allright, so okay, divorce doesn't
have to be so hard.
That's what I said.
Well, let me see if there's awebsite.
Like, let me see if I can even,you know, may is is this a
viable, let me see, and thenbecause if I can't find a
website or whatever, that's agood reason and not.
So I like look and I'm like,okay, easy divorce.com.
Oh, that was taken the day theinternet was invented.
Okay, what's not hard?
(10:10):
Softdivorce.com.
It's available.
I'm like, I buy it.
And I go, okay, summer, ask mewhat I do.
Because that's the prompt that RJohn's gonna do.
And and she goes, Okay, um, andwe call each other Palmer.
I had this case early on with afemale soldier, and she called
me Palmer, and Summer has alwaysworked with me since the first
(10:30):
month that we were married, andand she just got typical pink.
So she's called me Palmer eversince.
So then therefore I call herPalmer.
So we call each other Palmer.
She goes, Palmer, um, what doyou do?
I go, I help people get a softdivorce.
Oh my god, I am just done.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, wait,ask me what a soft divorce is.
She goes, Okay, what's a softdivorce?
(10:52):
I go, because divorce doesn'thave to be so hard.
And now she's like, she's likeout.
Because the last thing she wantsis for me to be a divorce
lawyer.
Right then, right, I mean, like,I couldn't have planned it
better.
So, all right, next, Dana.
Dana, are you on?
I'm like, oh, oh, oh, are you onmute, unmute?
Okay.
All right, can you hear me?
Yeah, all right.
(11:12):
So, what do you do?
I go, I help people get a softdivorce.
I like it.
Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no.
Ask me what a soft divorce is.
He's like, okay, what's a softdivorce?
I go, because divorce doesn'thave to be so hard.
I like it.
Like, I was the envy ofeverybody in that program, all
(11:33):
like the other hundred lawyersin there, they're like, and and
and so the only person that I'veever said that to that didn't
like it was Summer for the samereasons that I was having a
problem with.
I can't be a divorce attorney.
And I'm like, look, but it'sit's it's it's a and here's what
turned it around is when Irealized if people like me don't
go into that area of law, thenwhen everybody who who ever has
(11:57):
to face that has to go throughit, who are they left to go to?
So I was like, oh, okay, it'smission work.
It's God asking me to do this.
It's my mission in life tochange the way that people
approach the divorce process.
And what I really mean by softdivorce is healthy divorce,
which I bought that domain name.
I think I spent 20 grand just tobuy the name.
(12:18):
I've also since bought harddivorce, and hard divorce is
really the same thing.
What this really gets down to,it's also client screening.
It protects us from having a badclient because we don't take
clients that want revenge.
And a jerk is a client who wantsrevenge.
We literally define them as ajerk, and a jerk doesn't want a
(12:38):
soft divorce.
They don't want a healthydivorce, they want to have a
hard divorce.
Here's the message for harddivorce: has your spouse
threatened to take your childaway from you, ruin you
financially, and make your lifea living nightmare?
We call that a hard divorce.
If that's not what you want,we're here to protect you from
that.
But if you want a hard divorceor you want revenge, do not hire
(12:58):
us.
We are not the right law firmfor you.
You will fire us or we will fireyou, and we will definitely hate
each other.
Don't even come to us.
But if you want a healthydivorce, that's us.
I also own Christiandivorce.com,which was like another$20,000
domain name, I think.
I also I also owndivorceadu.com, which I pay$10 a
year just to tell that joke, andall my Jewish friends think
(13:21):
that's hilarious.
So that's and those principlesare those are our guiding
principles about what we do.
We we're a multi-million dollara year law firm.
The way that the firm isstructured is we pay based on uh
percentages and commissions,essentially, with but and but
we've also structured it towhere if lawyers help out on
(13:42):
each other's cases, it doesn'taffect their money one way or
the other.
Everything's fine because of theformulas that we use.
It's really magically balancedout.
And if anything, we're high onlabor.
We work remotely and don't havefixed office space, which that
money we give right back to thesalaries and compensation
packages that we pay out withour firm.
(14:03):
It's an incredibly good place towork.
We have, and I invest heavily inadministrative help.
I hire restaurant managers fromthe highest end restaurants.
And why?
Because I was looking for like,you know, you promote a
paralegal to be your officemanager, right?
And like there's a conceptcalled rising to your level of
(14:25):
incompetence, and that's whathappens when you promote most
lawyers into people managementpositions or most paralegals or
whatever into like officemanagers.
And I kept trying to hirelawyers or different things.
Lawyers can manage cases well,but they can't manage business
and they can't they can't managelike the internal employees as
(14:46):
well.
So, what did I do?
I went out and found restaurantmanagers who are good at two
things managing their staffamazingly, and managing the
customers and the relationshipamong the customers and keeping
client relations at atremendously high five-star
level.
That's where the concept offive-star comes from.
Restaurants, they get that.
(15:06):
And what do we provide?
The business of a law firm isselling legal services.
So it's a service business.
We provide service, they are inthe from the service industry.
And to come in, especially mewho worked in high-end
restaurants through law school,to understand that your your
attorneys are your waiters andyour your like sous chefs.
(15:28):
Your managing attorney is yourexecutive chef.
The the I'm the owner of therestaurant.
The the your your receptionists,those are your maitre D's.
And and um the your paralegalsare your busers and your line
cooks, your legal assistants areyour dishwashers and your prep
(15:49):
crew.
Like it's a restaurant, it's thesame exact thing, and our
standards of service match withthose standards.
We are there's some some lawfirms are McDonald's, some law
firms are high-end steakhouses.
Our law firm is a high-endsteakhouse.
You're gonna come in, we'regonna treat you amazingly,
you're gonna probably love us,or we're gonna have to kick you
(16:10):
out of the restaurant becauseyou're throwing food on the
floor.
Like, you know, it's like, andand I mean, like, not like
you've spilled something, sir.
We'll get that no problem.
You dropped a fork and we'vepicked that up, and now we're
getting our Michelin star.
It's that you're taking and andgrabbing handfuls of mashed
potatoes and throwing it at thestaff.
Like it takes a lot.
There's for somebody to not likeus, and by the way, you can go
(16:32):
to our you can go to our Yelpand you can count every bad
client that I've ever had,because every single one has
left a one-star review.
I have a one-star review fromsomeone whose case I won.
Um, long story, but and there'snot many of them.
Um, and we're on client numberlike 6,775 or something like
that, and over 19 years, justcelebrated 19 years.
(16:55):
And when you have a niche andyou can be the best at
something, and you're missiondriven, it it becomes really
easy.
And we have the best of the bestin every position on our team.
We have the actual like cream ofthe crop, top of the top.
And um, it doesn't get anybetter than the lawyers that
(17:15):
we've got that are working forus, and it doesn't get any
better than the paralegals thatwe've got.
And especially because of themanagement, I one of the keys in
me being able to grow wasfinding that one key pivotal
manager.
Her name's Jennifer Harr.
And she used to be the generalmanager of the Bob's Steak and
Shop House in the Omni Hotel indowntown Dallas.
That was Bob's Steak and Shop'snumber one store.
(17:38):
And I went into the store on herlast night there after we had
hired her.
And the it was like the it was agiant, oh my god, love and
crying fest in their staffmeeting that they had at the
beginning with like 70 people atit before the shift that night.
Of they they they were like, wedon't want you to go, but we
(17:58):
realize how much better thatthis opportunity is for you than
you staying here, and we knowand we will not allow you to
stay here and not take this job.
Like you're going, but God, dowe miss you and we love you?
And and now we've brought thatbecause I I don't manage people
well.
I'm a great visionary.
I don't know if you can see bythe, you know, like I haven't
y'all haven't gotten a word inedgewise, I guess.
(18:20):
One of these days I'll ask you,I'll let you guys talk.
But just kidding.
But she, but I I I'm really goodat at being the visionary and
inspiring, but on day-to-daymanagement and all that, like I
know what needs to be done, butI have to like specify that to
Jennifer and other people, andthen they deal with these
different things because I'malways having to be on that
bigger picture thing.
(18:40):
And and when I do practice law,and if and as I bill, I'm$800 an
hour.
And for a lot of the differentthings, like if and my wife
complains about this for me too,is like if I try and do a little
project or something around thehouse, we literally have to go
through why are you doing this?
Is it are you do you just needto feel like you got something
(19:01):
done and you have to dosomething with your own hands,
or you need a mental break fromdoing the other stuff that you
do?
Or are you stealing the job fromthe housekeeper?
Like, because if I can make$800an hour this hour, or I can
clean my toilets, I could havepaid somebody$100 to clean my
toilets who would go home andgo, honey, we're saved.
(19:21):
I I made$100, we can eat today,right?
And and I've cost myself$700 todo their job.
Like, so it's it's all there's alot of that.
And so why am I gonna try and doa job that I do badly?
Most of the paralegal work inthe firm, I don't do very well
because I don't do that workevery day.
(19:42):
And why would you pay me to dothat?
Like attorneys who are like theycall them true solos.
I I call them the for the sakeof this podcast, I don't really
call them this uh a lot, but youcould call them like the true
cowards.
Why?
Because you're afraid to takethat level and operate at the
level that you need to.
You're doing everythingyourself.
(20:02):
You're afraid to hire someone,you're afraid you're not gonna
be able to pay them, you'reafraid that you're gonna that
you're gonna be ruining theirlife, you're afraid that you're
not gonna have the business thatcomes in, you're afraid that
they're gonna be a tax on yourtime, you're afraid, you're
afraid to hire somebody.
But if you don't take that riskas an entrepreneur and hire the
person in order to do that, youcan't leverage yourself up.
You can't, you're certainly nothelping them, you're not giving
(20:23):
them a job.
And I'm able to handle hundredsof clients at a time because of
the team that we have in place,versus how many clients would I
be able to hire just on my own?
Like 20?
Because most of if you're a truesolo, you're maybe billing 20
hours a week.
More than half your time is onadministrative other stuff.
Even me as the entrepreneur, mylike I've gotten it to where our
(20:46):
systems are down, but I stillonly maybe do 20 hours a week
worth of legal work.
Most of the stuff that I'm doingis on the entrepreneurial side
and administrative side andmanagement side and then
coaching, because now not onlydo I have Jennifer who I
mentioned, I have two more,Keith and and and Leo, who are
like clones for that.
And even then this past year, weintentionally have we're opening
(21:10):
up in Florida.
We've opened and we're killingit by having actual expansion in
Houston.
We've handled cases in Houston,but now we actually have offices
that were that are there.
And again, these are justlocations that we commonly rent
office space for and we and wework and we have somebody that's
willing to meet at that.
We have uh a head of our Houstonuh office that goes to our two
offices that we establishedthere.
(21:31):
But we've like just in inbringing that on, I mean, our
Houston office would be enviableto most business owners just on
its own.
And that's like our kind of youknow secondary to and and the
and the other thing is I'm alsoI'm personally willing to go
pretty much anywhere in thecountry, but especially anywhere
in Texas.
The reason why is I'm uh yearsago, I started about three years
(21:54):
ago, or maybe four now, three orfour years ago, I started
competitively shooting ski.
And every weekend I travelacross the country.
I've gone as far as asCalifornia and Florida and up to
um um uh Chicago and and uhIllinois and everywhere in
between.
I think I've shot it like 19 or20 states.
Last year I shot the number one,I shot more competitive ski
(22:17):
targets than anyone else in theworld for American ski, and I'm
working on going to the 2028Olympics.
I have like I'm just that guy,as my uh as one of my coaches
says.
Um, like I've taken lessons withmultiple Olympic, three three
different Olympic goldmedalists.
Like, you know, I'm I in orderto train myself to do to be the
best of the best, and I've wontwo world championships, I won
(22:38):
those in the rookie category androokie concurrent, and uh I I
shoot extremely well.
I'm rated in the top hundred uhuh shooters in American skeet in
the world, and now switchingover to the international and
Olympic skeet.
I've got my first Olympicqualifying event in November,
and I do that on the weekends,but even with that, like I go
out to the field, I shoot anhour and a half event, I come
(22:59):
back and I'll do like new clientcalls in between, and then I'll
go out and shoot the next event,and then I'll do like another
client call.
And you know, like I'm just likeI'm severely I drown myself in
workahol.
I like to go from the momentthat I wake up until the moment
I go to sleep.
I I I completely like ElonMusk's work ethic makes total
(23:22):
sense to me.
I like I feel like I'm like, oh,I get that.
You know, I I I love hearingpeople talk about him.
And I'm like, all right,somebody else, like I'm not the
only one.
SPEAKER_00 (23:31):
Um hey family law firm leaders.
My partner Tony Carls justreleased his book where he lays
bare our precise blueprint forgrowing sterling lawyers from
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.
(23:53):
Success requires and demandshard work.
But if you have the patience andthe work ethic to do it, your
family law firm will succeed.
SPEAKER_03 (24:03):
Like, it just just clearly off.
Like, love everything you'vedone and your passion of
excitement.
It's just like it's oozing fromyou.
I want to, I'm sitting herethinking, how did you get out of
your way enough to make thatfirst hire?
When did you recognize early onthat, like, oh my god, I gotta,
I gotta get someone to help mehere because I'm all visionary
(24:25):
all the time?
SPEAKER_02 (24:26):
Well, I had always been trying to have like at
least one person.
I I was I knew I knew myselfenough that I'm like, I gotta
have at least one person.
And so, even from like the firstmonth or so, like I hired one of
my fellow waiters, you know, andI knew that she also had a job
and we could kind of do this inour side time, you know, and and
(24:46):
um, and then when I got married,um, I immediately enlisted my
wife because she was makingabout$45,000 a year at the time.
I was like, and and she was aproject manager.
I'm like, wait, you're a projectmanager?
That's like a paralegal.
Paralegal is manage each case islike a project, so you just
manage that.
And look, I'm gonna have to hirea paralegal anyway, so I can
(25:09):
either hire you and then we canwork together and always be
together all the time.
Don't do that.
That's not a good idea.
Like our first year of marriagewas like real shaky, and and
we've gone through a lot of, andI've had to hire a lot of
coaches and a lot of, I mean, II've definitely spent upwards of
between a half a million and amillion dollars just on coaching
(25:31):
over the last the first coachingprogram I got in was 2011.
And I did and and I went fromlike I think we grossed$80,000
that year, and then the nextyear we grossed 200, and then
the next year we grossed 800,and then we've been over a
million, we we crossed over amillion uh there, and and this
year we're at probably three anda half or four.
(25:54):
Um, and next year I it lookslike we'll be at five to six,
maybe seven, um, just because ofthe growth that we've got.
And a lot of that management,like you can't get you can't get
to those levels um withouthaving a certain amount of
management team, lots ofpredetermined systems and
structures in place, um, reallygreat customer service.
And um, we we use even we do wedo things that I don't know of
(26:18):
any other law firm that does.
Like, for example, we record allof our phone calls and we
provide those to the client.
We also use an outlining programthat um they can see all of our
attorney's notes and it and itas we're entering the notes, we
enter it into outline format.
So it builds the outline oftheir case so they can look in
and it's like really obviousevery single thing that's there.
(26:40):
And because we've listened tothose recordings and we run them
through AI, we get a transcriptof it and we get summaries of
it.
And so every fact that a clientever tells us is useful for some
purpose.
We we want to make sure that weask the other side about that in
deposition.
By the way, if we're gonna dothat, then here's how we want to
approach the angle.
Make sure you'd say this onefirst, then this one.
(27:01):
But it's there from everyconversation.
And so, what does that do?
The clients and and we give atremendous amount of um
oversight and overview becausewe use a paid secure view
version of Google Drive.
Well, Google Drive shows you thetimestamps of every different
change that you made, and webill by the hour.
So, what are we doing?
We're showing our work.
Like you didn't do anything.
(27:22):
Well, here's where it says wedid.
You can track the hour that Ibilled you for right here.
And and if if a client decides,and there's a lot of reasons why
clients would decide this, theirfriend found this other
attorney, and they want to, youknow, like so.
On the occasions, not doesn'thappen a lot, but where they do
hire a different attorney in themiddle of it, we go share with
other attorney, here'severything.
(27:43):
Like, well, what did they say onthat?
What did you say to thatattorney?
Well, why don't you just listento the recording or read the
transcript?
It's literally right there.
They don't you don't even haveto call us.
But and by the way, I would tellyou the big picture about
everything, but we have a tabwhere it says status, and like
that's like our big picture.
You can read that and know,like, here's everything that's
happening.
Like, here's every thought thatI've had about the case in an
(28:03):
outlined, useful format.
Like, if you're having a c a lotof attorneys, they'll have a
conversation with the client,and then the client will you get
some questions answered, andthen they hang up and like,
what's the result of that call?
Like, where's the production?
Like, you got maybe something,and now you get a little bit of
clarity.
Like, ours is in the on paper,in the outline.
We can trace it out.
(28:24):
It's the work was done andprogress was made there.
And the other thing is when youuse a system like that and we
use timers for all that stuff,you get to the end of the day,
and you're free.
You can go shoot some skeettargets.
Why?
Because I have no thoughts in myhead that I'm carrying the
stress that, oh, I got toremember and make sure I do this
(28:44):
or whatever, tomorrow, whatever.
It's all in our system and ourcalendar stuff.
If there's something I need todo, we calendar.
All of these little proceduresthat we do make it an absolute
joy to practice law the way thatwe do.
If we didn't do it this way, Iwouldn't still own this law
firm.
I wouldn't be in law.
I would go do somethingentirely, completely else
(29:05):
because I've done it both ways.
I will never go back.
It's too stressful, it sucks,and it's great to work things as
a team.
It's just the way, the way thatwe work, it makes us pretty
unbeatable in court.
Um, and when we go to court,we're just running through the
outline.
We've already got it all plannedout, everything.
(29:25):
And so you can pay attention andlisten.
And then you got, and we alwaysgo with at least an attorney and
a paralegal.
Usually more than that, but atleast an attorney and a
paralegal.
And the paralegal is justsitting there with our outline
checking off and making sure weproved everything and got
everything done.
Like, is this exhibit in?
Yes, admitted that, likechecklist there, because we've
got our exhibit list, that's alladmitted.
We've got all these things thatwe wanted to do and show about
(29:48):
whatever the case is.
We've checked it off in incourt.
The paralegal's job is to dothat and then like go, hey, they
said this.
I know that's a lie.
Pull this, and the paralegalpulls it and go, and then we
cross.
Cross-examine them there.
It makes all of what we do likevery easy and reactionary and
responsive, as opposed to like,oh, I'm gonna sit there and
(30:10):
stress.
I got to worry about what it is.
So many attorneys just sitspinning their wheels worrying
about stuff.
It's like, do it, put it inthis.
If you operate like this and youbuild it the whole time you have
the case, there's never a stresspoint about anything.
And the clients don't havestress points.
They can look at it all.
SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
Dina, are you in a coaching or um mastermind
program right now?
SPEAKER_02 (30:31):
Um, I have the last one that I did was with Patrick
Bet David recently from fromValue Tainant.
I'm not in one now.
Um, but that's um probably moreof an issue of my schedule.
Uh, I mean, we sort of do, Imean, part of the team.
So we have executive meetingstwice a week, and that's with
(30:51):
Leo, Keith, Jennifer, Summer,and myself.
We call that's our C-suite forthe firm.
We do those on Mondays andTuesdays.
One of those is specifically umnumbers analysis, another one is
marketing, and then we do avariety of different um
mastermind things like that.
At the but at the I my the mostrecent actual mastermind that I
(31:12):
did um privately was inFebruary, maybe.
So I haven't done one in a fewmonths.
SPEAKER_00 (31:19):
Okay.
And then I loved your idea aboutthe way you execute on hiring
support teams from restaurantsand so forth.
Do you have any markers orpersonality traits you look for
for your lawyers?
Any like shortcuts on how youidentify the right lawyer for
your firm?
SPEAKER_02 (31:35):
Yes.
So um you definitely always haveto meet your attorneys in
person, for one thing.
Um, and you definitely you wanta system that you go through.
Um, by the time somebody gets tome, my job is not to screen them
out anymore.
It's to screen them in by thatpoint.
If I notice a red flag orsomething, I can and and would
(31:56):
screen them out.
But you you really wantscreening out from like multiple
levels.
The whole the motto of slow tohire, quick to fire is really is
very important.
Um and um, you know, it's likeit's kind of like picking a jury
to a certain extent.
You want to screen out everyonewho's bad for you, and then pick
your favorite from who's leftover.
(32:18):
Same thing you should do withdating, by the way.
Um, and we could talk, I couldtalk a long time about that.
But um, you know, if you ifyou're picking a jury, if you
screen out everybody on thepanel that's bad for you, then
by default, whoever's left overis good for you.
Um and so have you know, they'vegot to go through Keith, Leo,
Jennifer, and uh Daniel, who'sour uh he's an attorney, but he
(32:40):
and he's our managing attorney,basically works purely on the
legality and logistics of thecases.
And so they they have to getthrough those four people before
they come to me.
And it's important that thatprocess happens because I'm more
of a salesperson to sell them inand get him excited, as opposed
to like you know, building thewall.
They've gotten past the walls,but in general, I want somebody
(33:03):
who preferably has like charismais a bonus, um, but somebody
that is also coachable andbecause some people will come
in.
I've had I've had a guy thatcame in and like every day was a
fight.
It was just miserable.
I wind up having to fire him.
And um and you know, just wasn'tresponsive to we need people
(33:25):
that are responsive to the teamapproach, um, that like having
uh people that they can talkwith and and take direction from
and and bounce the big pictureof.
Because you know, when you'restuck in the trees, you're
looking at trees, you're notlooking necessarily at the shape
of the forest and everything orthe big picture.
And sometimes you got to go getout of that trees and go this
way, go another way.
(33:46):
So it's part of it depends onbig picture, part of it depends
on like what specific skill set.
Like, are we needing somebodythat just prefers to do
paperwork, or are we needingsomebody that can go into court?
And maybe we hire somebody thatjust does all the pre-litigation
stuff and they're you know kindof nerdy and like to stay in
their cocoon and antisocial.
(34:08):
Like, if you're like, well, Iwent straight through school,
I've never had a job, but Iinterned at a law firm for for a
summer.
I'm like, maybe, but but like,you know, and and and as
Jennifer says, this is that wecan teach for for for certain
skill sets, we can't teachcaring, and we can't teach how
(34:32):
to, you know, customer service.
That it's not you're not therefor you or your ego at all.
You're there for them.
We need people that are able tolisten really well.
I know I'm talking a lot, butwhen I'm on a consultation, if
my lips are moving, I'm losing,and I'm usually just asking
questions.
I've actually taught salestechniques of try to have an
entire conversation and only askquestions for the rest of the
(34:56):
conversation.
And you can actually do that,and a lot of times the other
person won't even notice.
Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01 (35:02):
Yeah, that's for that's definitely true.
Like, yeah, they'll keep going.
SPEAKER_02 (35:08):
Exactly.
I'm interested in how you did.
Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_01 (35:12):
What's that?
SPEAKER_02 (35:14):
Did you notice that I just did that exact technique
and I'm doing it again duringthis sentence?
SPEAKER_01 (35:19):
I didn't notice that actually.
I should be listening for it.
SPEAKER_02 (35:22):
But it's that technique, and you just whatever
it is that you're gonna say, youturn it and phrase it into a
question at the end.
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
Yeah.
So I'm interested in how you'rescaling.
Do you have um a managingpartner that the attorneys
report to, and then that personreports to you?
How do you set that part up?
SPEAKER_02 (35:38):
Yes.
So, so there we we assign casesto to attorneys, but it's not
like you might think in mostfirms.
That's a you are responsible tomake sure you know what's going
on, but whoever needs to work onthat, however, it needs to work
on it, you kind of determinethat.
And it's the same way with aparalegal.
(35:58):
And we don't necessarily haveparalegals assigned to
attorneys, we have paralegalsassigned to this case is suited
for you as a paralegal, and thiscase is suited for you as an
attorney.
And so you work on this, butthere, but there's always times
where, especially innegotiations, because every case
really is just a great bignegotiation because you're
either going to negotiate infront of a judge and they're
(36:19):
gonna decide, or you're gonnanegotiate with the other side
and you're gonna get to anagreement.
So a lot of times we'll do goodcop, bad cop, or one person will
take a position about one thingand one person will be we call
it hard versus soft, or good copversus bad cop.
Like they're the hard way,they're prepping for court, and
they're not stopping.
But you can negotiate with me,and I'm gonna try and get
(36:39):
something done and and andnegotiate that.
But in the meantime, like thehard part is is still going.
We're on the hard path until youcan get on the on the soft path.
And the soft path is helpful.
We always, from the verybeginning of the case, as soon
as we have the financialinformation that we need in
order to decide to be able todraft a final decree of divorce,
we draft the final decree ofdivorce.
(37:01):
Well, why would you do thatbefore you even have an
assignment or an agreement?
Because you can't get anagreement until they sign.
They can tell you they agree allthat you want, but until you get
an agreement, so why not sendthem the contract?
I actually learned this fromDonald Trump's attorney in the
year 2000.
I was remember how I was broke?
Well, there was always a freelunch at SMU.
(37:21):
That's what I lived on for liketwo and a half, three years.
That and I also knew this magicmagic statement from the
restaurants I worked at.
Hey, boss, what do I need to doextra for you today in order to
get a free bowl of soup?
I would always and they would,well, you can like clean this
thing over here or whateverwhile I'm standing around doing
nothing anyway.
So I'd go clean that.
I'd be making all the money fromthe tables.
(37:42):
Hey, I know you got to youreally got caught, you got
tickets to that concert.
You want to get it get outearly.
For$10 today, I'll do yoursidework.
The more they wanted to leave,the higher my price was.
So always a hustler, alwayswheeling and dealing.
Yeah, and I would make twice asmuch money as all the other
waiters because I was willing tolook, you get there at three
o'clock, you get your firsttable at five o'clock.
There's two hours of waiting.
(38:03):
And you go one round and youwant to leave.
Well, I want to go a secondround because there's it
eliminates that two hours ofwaiting at the beginning.
And you become my indenturedservant if I'm taking your last
table from you.
I get the money from that.
And by the way, I need you togive water to everybody in the
section over here before youleave.
And yeah, at the end, before Ileave, I might maybe I'll maybe
(38:23):
I'll I won't finish, but maybewhen I'm last table here and
they're sitting around, that'swhen I can do all the side work
for everybody anyway.
And I've made an extra 50 bucks.
Plus, I'm gonna make the tip offof that table that would have
been theirs, but they wanted toleave early.
I I realize I can make twice asmuch money being the closer, and
I can hustle another 50 bucksand eat for free being the
closer.
SPEAKER_01 (38:44):
So does Summer work full-time with you?
SPEAKER_02 (38:47):
Yeah, she's the she's the uh the basically the
CFO of the company.
And I there's not, you know, nowI now I've learned, okay, if I
just go to the bank and getcash, then I can spend some
money that she doesn't knowabout.
But she knows how much cash I'vetaken out.
But basically, there's like nota penny that I spent.
But she's she's great withmoney.
(39:08):
I mean, I you know, uh, you knowhow you you know one thing, how
you can make a uh a smallfortune shooting skeet.
Do you know how?
You start with a large one.
So like I spend way more moneyon on my sport than Summer
spends on anything, and um, andand she's good with it.
She's also she picks stocksreally well.
(39:29):
Like I don't even I let her pickall the stocks.
Like I I made the decision aboutAngel Studios, but she she runs
our portfolios really well andand she runs and I mean and
she's the type that if if ifthere's a if our system shows a
penny difference in especiallyin an account or our trust
account or whatever, she'llspend a day on it and she'll
find the penny.
(39:51):
You know what this is?
Here, you can even I'll let yousee.
I don't care if you see theaccount number, it's a check for
six cents.
Six cents.
This has been on her desk.
I tried to put it in theshredder.
She won't let me.
This is for whatever this is,the six cents that's important
to her.
She's gonna like do an like I'veconvinced her not to spend the
(40:13):
time to deposit.
So there's a six cent checkthat's just been sitting here on
the desk, or maybe you know,it's probably got my does it
have my home address on it?
No, okay, good.
But it's a check for six cents.
Like, that's my wife, and I'mfine with that.
It's it's it's it's good, youknow, and and it it causes me to
be inclined to make like thatmuch more money and be that much
(40:36):
more driven.
And you know, one of the thingsin a lot of the coaching
programs that I've done is ifyou don't have a reason why you
need to make a certain amount ofmoney, just oh, I want to make a
lot of money or I want to makemore, I want to make a million,
it's random to you, you're notgonna make it because you don't
have the driving force.
But for me, I have dollaramounts on I need ammo for this.
I need I need a new shotgun uhbarrel because international
(40:58):
sketch, you know, American ski,you're heavy and long,
international sket, light andshort.
So you have to get totally youknow different equipment for
that.
And I'm like, okay, I gottaspend$7,200 on a barrel, you
know, for for my gun.
I have cars, several cars thatI've owned in my life, they're
less expensive than my stupidshotgun.
(41:18):
It's not stupid, I love it.
It's it's an amazing piece ofequipment, by the way.
Um, but still, like, and and ifit wasn't for the fact of, oh,
okay, I gotta cover that, or orand we also do a thing called an
SEP uh retirement program,simplified employee penchum.
So for every dollar, for or forevery hundred dollars that our
(41:39):
that our team members earn ontheir check, you know, a lot of
times people offer a 401k, it'slike we get a 3% matching.
So that means you get$100 onyour on your paycheck.
You have to put$3 of that into aretirement account, and then the
company will add$3.
What we do is we give 25% on topof that in our SCP.
(41:59):
That's hundreds of thousands ofdollars a year that we give to
our our staff, and that is taxpreferred.
So if they've made$100,000,they're actually taking home
$125,000, but there's no tax onthis, not until you withdraw it.
So it's about the equivalent ofa 300 of$35,000 extra.
And we do that, and that'smaking millionaires in our firm
(42:21):
of our of our everybody, eventhe receptionists, our matries,
which by the way are well paid.
Uh, some of those are making sixfigures for like just answering
answering our phones and and andbeing able to convert new
clients that come into our intoour and we're we're turning
every if you work for our firmfor 20 years, you will be a
(42:42):
millionaire as long as you like.
I mean, theoretically, and it'sa self-controlled thing, so you
do have to invest it.
But there are a couple of peoplewho got that and then quit and
liquidated it.
I'm like, oh, like, you know,that that's probably a good uh
an indicator why you're notstill here.
Because the people that arehere, they're like our managing
attorney Daniel Boomer, he'slike, that's why I work here,
(43:05):
and he tells everybody that hegoes, we live off of what I make
on my W-2 and all of ourinvestments, that 25%.
That's what that's what ourmoney actually is.
Because all this other moneythat I get, it goes to the guy
who has my mortgage, it goes tothe guy who kills the cows that
I eat, it goes to the guy whowho mows my grass, it goes to
the guy who built my car, itgoes to the guy who put who
(43:28):
manufactures the gasoline that Iget.
I all that money goes away.
But what do I get?
I get that 25% in my retirementaccount that is growing and
earning me money and ininvesting there.
We're making everybody thatworks for us absolutely rich.
And if you work for the PalmerLaw Group for 20 years, you will
be a millionaire.
Even if you just put your moneyinto index funds, you will
(43:50):
absolutely get there.
And that's the that's the idea.
Is the idea is to get it towhere you don't have to work,
you're choosing to work.
And we make the company sopleasurable to work for that
it's even when people are like,I don't have to work anymore.
I have enough money, I couldretire and not have to work.
But I enjoy doing it, and Ienjoy working with people, and I
like I I know what else I woulddo.
(44:12):
I would shoot like that manymore targets all day long.
And you know, I'm I'm I'm alsolike 90% into a there's a band
that I've auditioned for until Iblow it, or unless I blow it.
Like I have to really be spoton, and we've got to do a bunch
of rehearsals, but it's uh it'sa band called Killed the Robot,
and we're gonna be going on tourin in May, and it's with uh
(44:32):
Stephen Gibb, who is uh BarryGibbs' son, and Barry Gibbs
sings on track three of therecord, and it's getting a lot
of traction.
I think it's been nominated fora Grammy.
I was not the I play drums, andso I was not the drummer on that
album, but I'll be the drummerplaying live and on the next
albums going forward, um,assuming that I like it's my I'm
in the band until and unless Iblow it for some reason.
(44:56):
We also have to kind of worryabout the the the the the timing
of the competitions because I'mlike, what happens if we get
this major like what happens ifwe get to open for tool and or I
get to go to the Olympic trial,like a qualifying match?
Like where's that where's thatcompeting interest?
That's the that would be thereason why maybe I don't get in
it, but uh you know we'll we'llsee about something like that,
(45:18):
or maybe I get a substitutedrummer who then hopefully
doesn't steal my spot.
But um and and my wife, yes, shedoes think that I do in entirely
too much, but I I enjoyeverything that I do, and I I
like and the and the biggestthing is the results that we get
for our clients.
That that is such a joy andreward.
And I have been blessed with anamazing talent of that.
(45:42):
I actually view myself as theguard of the gate.
And my rule is thou shalt notpass, because if you pass me,
you have to get a divorce, and Iwouldn't wish a divorce on
anyone.
And one of the projects thatI've been working on, I've been
trying to get it to going foryears, but we are and we're very
close, but I think it's likelyto happen, is I own healthy
marriage.com, which was another,I think I paid 20 grand for that
domain name just to get that.
(46:03):
And what that is, it's designedto make a bad marriage good
again, make a good marriagegreat, and keep a great marriage
great.
It's also designed to help youfind and and have a great
marriage if you've never beenmarried.
And so that's under development.
I really would like to launchthat um pretty soon.
But my really my ministry ismarriage.
(46:24):
I hate seeing unhealthymarriages.
So my goal is to end unhealthymarriages.
But there's two ways to thathappen.
Preferably, they make it into ahealthy marriage again.
But if not, they need to get ashealthy of a divorce as
possible.
SPEAKER_03 (46:38):
Tennant, you have been amazing.
You you have so much to say andso much to share.
And I really appreciate the timethat you've given us and the
lessons learned and kind of howyou're thinking about your firm.
Um, your passion is extremelycontagious, and I really
appreciate all the time thatyou've given us today.
If you enjoyed this episode,make sure to tune in and check
(47:00):
out the other owner operatorseries uh episodes that we have
in the queue.
We do these about once a week.
So we have lots of law firmowners telling their stories,
sharing lessons learned, lots ofgreat insights for you on the
show.
It's my mission in life to change the way that
people approach the divorceprocess.
We don't take clients that wantrevenge.
And a jerk is a client who wantsrevenge.
We literally define them as ajerk, and a jerk doesn't want a
soft divorce.
They don't want a healthydivorce, they want to have a
hard divorce.
SPEAKER_03 (00:19):
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 our digitaladvertising agency that works
exclusively with familyattorneys, born out of our own
law firm, Sterling Lawyers, thathas grown to over 27 attorneys.
(00:44):
Today, uh Jeff Hughes, myco-host and also the co-founder
of Sterling Law, joins us as wecontinue our owner operator
series.
We are interviewing Dana Palmerof the Palmer Law Group in
Texas, who has built a greatfirm.
He has tons of passion, lots ofideas, big time visionary,
(01:05):
talking about his firm and whathe's done.
Some really, really coolinsights in this episode.
Make sure to check them out.
I am sure you will love it.
Dana, thank you so much forjoining us today.
We were uh just kind of talkingoff the record about some of the
things you're doing today, whichis amazing.
If I could, though, I would loveto jump back to the beginning.
(01:28):
Uh, if you wouldn't mindintroducing yourself to us, to
our audience.
Uh tell us a little bit aboutyour firm and kind of how you
got your start.
SPEAKER_02 (01:35):
So I'm Dana Palmer and I own the Palmer Law Group
PC.
We're a Texas-based law firmexpanding into Florida, and we
do a lot of nationwide things.
If if we have a divorce casethat's uh$5 million net worth or
above, I'll go anywhere in thecountry in order to do that, and
I get calls for that.
And um, I've been, in fact, uh,we're two days past our 19th
(01:57):
anniversary.
And when I was in law school, Inever thought I was gonna be an
attorney.
In fact, one of the guys thatworks with me who went to law
school with me specificallyremembers the many times where I
told him, Yeah, I'm never gonnabe an attorney.
I just wanted to be a businessperson.
And I figured I I wanted to likecomplete my business training as
(02:17):
an entrepreneur, which it doeszero for entrepreneurial type of
training.
In fact, it does the opposite,it just scares the crap out of
you.
And you never want to like dareopen a business ever again
because you're like, oh, allthese lawsuits can happen.
And but um, but I figured as theCEO of a company, if it only
costs me three years of my lifeand a quarter of a million
(02:38):
dollars for three things, thenit's worth it.
And those three things were toknow what the lawyers know, to
know which are the right lawyersto hire, and to be able to
evaluate those lawyers and knowwhether or not they're doing the
job that they need to be doing,then as a CEO of a company,
that's worth that time andinvestment.
(02:59):
But I never thought I'd be alawyer, and I actually waited
tables through law school.
And so I and I didn't take thebar straight out.
I only took the bar exam becauseI couldn't have a conversation
with my father without the wholethe conversation, it was just
like I was like, it wasgroundhog day every time.
Like, you know, you you alreadytook you you got the degree.
(03:20):
Why don't you just take theexam?
It'll be a feather in your cap.
Even if you're never gonnapractice law, just take it and
get the license.
That way you got it.
And the longer you go, uh themore you're gonna forget or
whatever.
It's like I got one of thehighest scores on I I took it
like two years after law school,or and I got like one of the
highest scores of anybody thatI've I've known.
I only know of one guy from lawschool, maybe, maybe two that
were anywhere close.
(03:40):
And and but and so I'm likewaiting tables, and I uh the my
license comes in, and I getasked, hey Dana, will you my
girlfriend had her daughterkidnapped by her ex and he won't
give her back and let us seeher, like, can you help with
that?
And I was like, uh, okay, I'lldo that for you today.
(04:01):
And then like tomorrow I gottago figure out what I want to do
with my life because like lawschool in itself, I was the
brokest.
I wasn't poor because poor is amindset.
I've never had that mindset.
Um, I but I've you know had tosleep in the car, and thankfully
I had a$2,500 paid for, youknow, 15-year-old car or
20-year-old car at that pointthat bear, you know, and and the
(04:23):
and the uh the driver's sidedoor wasn't opening, so I had to
crawl in through the passengerside, and I was like willing to
sleep in that one night.
And my one of my classmates waslike, no, just come stay with
me.
I was like, Oh, okay, great.
And I paid him$100 a week, andyou know, and so I I went from
that, and I had owned a businessbefore that like it was
successful but small, and Iwanted to play a bigger game, so
(04:44):
it's like I got to go to lawschool in order to play this
bigger game, and so but I I wasso beat down by law school
because nobody told me, like,hey, by the way, it's easy, just
read the horn books, don't fallfor that.
You got to brief everythingcrap.
It's it's all a lie, right?
Just it's everybody gets thesame license.
Unless you went to Harvard, itdoesn't matter.
And go to the best law schoolyou can go to for free, and you
(05:06):
know, like get through it theeasy way.
And by the third year, I wasrealized, oh, you don't even
have to buy books.
Like, you just like it's onetest at the end, and you can
either show up and talk aboutall the stuff that's probably
not on the test, or you canlike, especially for their first
year stuff, just do the Barberymaterials and you'll you'll ace
the tests, and you didn't evenhave to go to class.
It was all just you know, justcrazy prerequisite, but don't
(05:27):
get me started on that.
But so I'm like, then the nextday comes and I'm at the
restaurant, or you know, andthen they're like, okay, well,
Steve Steven just got arrested,you got to go get him out.
I was like, okay, well, I'll dothat for him today, and then
tomorrow I got to go figure outwhat I want to do with my life.
And then the next day, so likesix weeks goes by.
And by the way, at the sametime, one of the guys comes up
and goes, Hey, listen, we knowyou're gonna be in a suit
(05:48):
anyway, but um, once a week, doyou think you could come in and
be our on-call manager?
I'm like, so what's the job?
And they're like, you touch eachtable twice, you tell them what
a good idea that it was to comeinto three forks that night, and
then you make sure that thesteak is perfect when it hits
the table, which it like alwayswas.
And if it wasn't, oh, that's mytime to shine, because I can
solve that.
I just grab a different steak,you know, whatever, you know,
(06:09):
and like solve it and dazzlethem and they're amazed.
But in the meantime, everybodythat worked at that restaurant
had hired me for something.
Like I represented more thanhalf of this of the staff, and
then a lot of the regularclients, like, so what I we I
got my license on August 26th or25th or 26th of 2006.
(06:32):
And on September 1st, we openedthe Palmer Law Group.
It was called Dana Palmer LawGroup or PLS, you know, we
changed forms, but I opened onSeptember 1st because I had to
put a name on the pleadings inorder to help try and get this
child back.
And so after about six weeks ofthat, I was like, oh well, I
guess I own a law firm and hereand now I'm the CEO of that.
(06:55):
But I did like everything thatyou can do wrong and kind of
figured it out by about yearfour, you know, and I was able
to do about like three, threehundred thousand, three or four
hundred thousand dollars worthof work and collect about 80
grand.
And I'm like, this isn'tworking.
So I finally hired a law firmmanagement coach.
I did the how to manage a smalllaw firm with R.
John Robbins, um, which I thinkis a good program for about the
(07:18):
first 18 months.
And then I kind of like welloutgrew it, and I was one of
their top people at the time.
And in that program, he said,you got to pick a niche.
So I started going through theformula.
And for when that week I did nobillable work, I was in an
excess existential crisis.
Like I was like severely, Ican't, what do I do?
You know, and I think I kind ofknew what it was, but didn't I
(07:39):
wasn't cool with that becausethe last thing I wanted to do
was be a divorce lawyer.
And and finally we're on thiscall.
There's like 10 attorneys, andit's like, press a button, get
in line.
And I'm like, waiting.
I'm like, I'm trying to go last,you know.
Like, did everybody press thebutton?
Are you sure?
And I'm like, beep, you know,like, and and all these other
(08:00):
guys are going, and I'm havingthis huge argument with my wife
Summer about I can't pick aniche.
She finally throws her hands upand just just tell them you're
not willing to pick a niche andyou're gonna do all this, and
like you just and I'm like, allright, you know, and now now I'm
like really I'm even on my own,you know.
I've like feeling abandoned byeverything, and like, so and I'm
like, all right, well, I'm gonnause the formula.
Don't do anything that I'm doingjust for money.
(08:21):
So personal injury is outbecause I hate doing that.
Like, they're always trying tonot pay people, and like it's
just all this.
I and I thrown a phone throughthe wall after talking with an
insurance agent about like thisguy's gonna die before I can get
him money and help him, and likeall I'm gonna do is get money
for his family, but he's gonnaprobably die because I can't
even and like it's just like Ijust hated it, right?
(08:42):
And then criminal defense, I wasreally good at it, but I can't
sleep tonight before trial, andlike you know, and I don't I
didn't really just want to be inthat.
And I was like, you know, out ofall the clients, it's the family
law clients are the healthy andhappiest ones, but there's no
way I'm gonna be a divorceattorney.
I don't even believe in divorce.
I hate divorce, I wouldn't wisha divorce on anyone.
But I was like, but I had amentor early on that goes, you
(09:04):
know, every other area of law,you can measure win or lose in
criminal defense, death penaltyor life, life or probation, you
know, jail or probation,probation or not guilty
completely off.
You can measure that.
There's a clear win or lose.
In a money case, there's a clearwin or lose.
How much money did you get?
Or how much did you money didyou not have to pay out?
(09:26):
Like where you can measure it indollars.
If you're measuring in dollarsin a family law case, and that's
the metric that you use, well, Iguess you need to put a dollar
amount on every non-tangiblethat there is in family law.
Like, how do you what's thewhat's the dollar amount on
whether or not your kids hateyou for the way that you treated
the other parent?
What's the dollar amount?
Like, what how what's really awin in that?
(09:47):
And so I'm like, all right, allright, so okay, divorce doesn't
have to be so hard.
That's what I said.
Well, let me see if there's awebsite.
Like, let me see if I can even,you know, may is is this a
viable, let me see, and thenbecause if I can't find a
website or whatever, that's agood reason and not.
So I like look and I'm like,okay, easy divorce.com.
Oh, that was taken the day theinternet was invented.
Okay, what's not hard?
(10:10):
Softdivorce.com.
It's available.
I'm like, I buy it.
And I go, okay, summer, ask mewhat I do.
Because that's the prompt that RJohn's gonna do.
And and she goes, Okay, um, andwe call each other Palmer.
I had this case early on with afemale soldier, and she called
me Palmer, and Summer has alwaysworked with me since the first
(10:30):
month that we were married, andand she just got typical pink.
So she's called me Palmer eversince.
So then therefore I call herPalmer.
So we call each other Palmer.
She goes, Palmer, um, what doyou do?
I go, I help people get a softdivorce.
Oh my god, I am just done.
I'm like, no, no, no, no, wait,ask me what a soft divorce is.
She goes, Okay, what's a softdivorce?
(10:52):
I go, because divorce doesn'thave to be so hard.
And now she's like, she's likeout.
Because the last thing she wantsis for me to be a divorce
lawyer.
Right then, right, I mean, like,I couldn't have planned it
better.
So, all right, next, Dana.
Dana, are you on?
I'm like, oh, oh, oh, are you onmute, unmute?
Okay.
All right, can you hear me?
Yeah, all right.
(11:12):
So, what do you do?
I go, I help people get a softdivorce.
I like it.
Wait, wait, wait, no, no, no.
Ask me what a soft divorce is.
He's like, okay, what's a softdivorce?
I go, because divorce doesn'thave to be so hard.
I like it.
Like, I was the envy ofeverybody in that program, all
(11:33):
like the other hundred lawyersin there, they're like, and and
and so the only person that I'veever said that to that didn't
like it was Summer for the samereasons that I was having a
problem with.
I can't be a divorce attorney.
And I'm like, look, but it'sit's it's it's a and here's what
turned it around is when Irealized if people like me don't
go into that area of law, thenwhen everybody who who ever has
(11:57):
to face that has to go throughit, who are they left to go to?
So I was like, oh, okay, it'smission work.
It's God asking me to do this.
It's my mission in life tochange the way that people
approach the divorce process.
And what I really mean by softdivorce is healthy divorce,
which I bought that domain name.
I think I spent 20 grand just tobuy the name.
(12:18):
I've also since bought harddivorce, and hard divorce is
really the same thing.
What this really gets down to,it's also client screening.
It protects us from having a badclient because we don't take
clients that want revenge.
And a jerk is a client who wantsrevenge.
We literally define them as ajerk, and a jerk doesn't want a
(12:38):
soft divorce.
They don't want a healthydivorce, they want to have a
hard divorce.
Here's the message for harddivorce: has your spouse
threatened to take your childaway from you, ruin you
financially, and make your lifea living nightmare?
We call that a hard divorce.
If that's not what you want,we're here to protect you from
that.
But if you want a hard divorceor you want revenge, do not hire
(12:58):
us.
We are not the right law firmfor you.
You will fire us or we will fireyou, and we will definitely hate
each other.
Don't even come to us.
But if you want a healthydivorce, that's us.
I also own Christiandivorce.com,which was like another$20,000
domain name, I think.
I also I also owndivorceadu.com, which I pay$10 a
year just to tell that joke, andall my Jewish friends think
(13:21):
that's hilarious.
So that's and those principlesare those are our guiding
principles about what we do.
We we're a multi-million dollara year law firm.
The way that the firm isstructured is we pay based on uh
percentages and commissions,essentially, with but and but
we've also structured it towhere if lawyers help out on
(13:42):
each other's cases, it doesn'taffect their money one way or
the other.
Everything's fine because of theformulas that we use.
It's really magically balancedout.
And if anything, we're high onlabor.
We work remotely and don't havefixed office space, which that
money we give right back to thesalaries and compensation
packages that we pay out withour firm.
(14:03):
It's an incredibly good place towork.
We have, and I invest heavily inadministrative help.
I hire restaurant managers fromthe highest end restaurants.
And why?
Because I was looking for like,you know, you promote a
paralegal to be your officemanager, right?
And like there's a conceptcalled rising to your level of
(14:25):
incompetence, and that's whathappens when you promote most
lawyers into people managementpositions or most paralegals or
whatever into like officemanagers.
And I kept trying to hirelawyers or different things.
Lawyers can manage cases well,but they can't manage business
and they can't they can't managelike the internal employees as
(14:46):
well.
So, what did I do?
I went out and found restaurantmanagers who are good at two
things managing their staffamazingly, and managing the
customers and the relationshipamong the customers and keeping
client relations at atremendously high five-star
level.
That's where the concept offive-star comes from.
Restaurants, they get that.
(15:06):
And what do we provide?
The business of a law firm isselling legal services.
So it's a service business.
We provide service, they are inthe from the service industry.
And to come in, especially mewho worked in high-end
restaurants through law school,to understand that your your
attorneys are your waiters andyour your like sous chefs.
(15:28):
Your managing attorney is yourexecutive chef.
The the I'm the owner of therestaurant.
The the your your receptionists,those are your maitre D's.
And and um the your paralegalsare your busers and your line
cooks, your legal assistants areyour dishwashers and your prep
(15:49):
crew.
Like it's a restaurant, it's thesame exact thing, and our
standards of service match withthose standards.
We are there's some some lawfirms are McDonald's, some law
firms are high-end steakhouses.
Our law firm is a high-endsteakhouse.
You're gonna come in, we'regonna treat you amazingly,
you're gonna probably love us,or we're gonna have to kick you
(16:10):
out of the restaurant becauseyou're throwing food on the
floor.
Like, you know, it's like, andand I mean, like, not like
you've spilled something, sir.
We'll get that no problem.
You dropped a fork and we'vepicked that up, and now we're
getting our Michelin star.
It's that you're taking and andgrabbing handfuls of mashed
potatoes and throwing it at thestaff.
Like it takes a lot.
There's for somebody to not likeus, and by the way, you can go
(16:32):
to our you can go to our Yelpand you can count every bad
client that I've ever had,because every single one has
left a one-star review.
I have a one-star review fromsomeone whose case I won.
Um, long story, but and there'snot many of them.
Um, and we're on client numberlike 6,775 or something like
that, and over 19 years, justcelebrated 19 years.
(16:55):
And when you have a niche andyou can be the best at
something, and you're missiondriven, it it becomes really
easy.
And we have the best of the bestin every position on our team.
We have the actual like cream ofthe crop, top of the top.
And um, it doesn't get anybetter than the lawyers that
(17:15):
we've got that are working forus, and it doesn't get any
better than the paralegals thatwe've got.
And especially because of themanagement, I one of the keys in
me being able to grow wasfinding that one key pivotal
manager.
Her name's Jennifer Harr.
And she used to be the generalmanager of the Bob's Steak and
Shop House in the Omni Hotel indowntown Dallas.
That was Bob's Steak and Shop'snumber one store.
(17:38):
And I went into the store on herlast night there after we had
hired her.
And the it was like the it was agiant, oh my god, love and
crying fest in their staffmeeting that they had at the
beginning with like 70 people atit before the shift that night.
Of they they they were like, wedon't want you to go, but we
(17:58):
realize how much better thatthis opportunity is for you than
you staying here, and we knowand we will not allow you to
stay here and not take this job.
Like you're going, but God, dowe miss you and we love you?
And and now we've brought thatbecause I I don't manage people
well.
I'm a great visionary.
I don't know if you can see bythe, you know, like I haven't
y'all haven't gotten a word inedgewise, I guess.
(18:20):
One of these days I'll ask you,I'll let you guys talk.
But just kidding.
But she, but I I I'm really goodat at being the visionary and
inspiring, but on day-to-daymanagement and all that, like I
know what needs to be done, butI have to like specify that to
Jennifer and other people, andthen they deal with these
different things because I'malways having to be on that
bigger picture thing.
(18:40):
And and when I do practice law,and if and as I bill, I'm$800 an
hour.
And for a lot of the differentthings, like if and my wife
complains about this for me too,is like if I try and do a little
project or something around thehouse, we literally have to go
through why are you doing this?
Is it are you do you just needto feel like you got something
(19:01):
done and you have to dosomething with your own hands,
or you need a mental break fromdoing the other stuff that you
do?
Or are you stealing the job fromthe housekeeper?
Like, because if I can make$800an hour this hour, or I can
clean my toilets, I could havepaid somebody$100 to clean my
toilets who would go home andgo, honey, we're saved.
(19:21):
I I made$100, we can eat today,right?
And and I've cost myself$700 todo their job.
Like, so it's it's all there's alot of that.
And so why am I gonna try and doa job that I do badly?
Most of the paralegal work inthe firm, I don't do very well
because I don't do that workevery day.
(19:42):
And why would you pay me to dothat?
Like attorneys who are like theycall them true solos.
I I call them the for the sakeof this podcast, I don't really
call them this uh a lot, but youcould call them like the true
cowards.
Why?
Because you're afraid to takethat level and operate at the
level that you need to.
You're doing everythingyourself.
(20:02):
You're afraid to hire someone,you're afraid you're not gonna
be able to pay them, you'reafraid that you're gonna that
you're gonna be ruining theirlife, you're afraid that you're
not gonna have the business thatcomes in, you're afraid that
they're gonna be a tax on yourtime, you're afraid, you're
afraid to hire somebody.
But if you don't take that riskas an entrepreneur and hire the
person in order to do that, youcan't leverage yourself up.
You can't, you're certainly nothelping them, you're not giving
(20:23):
them a job.
And I'm able to handle hundredsof clients at a time because of
the team that we have in place,versus how many clients would I
be able to hire just on my own?
Like 20?
Because most of if you're a truesolo, you're maybe billing 20
hours a week.
More than half your time is onadministrative other stuff.
Even me as the entrepreneur, mylike I've gotten it to where our
(20:46):
systems are down, but I stillonly maybe do 20 hours a week
worth of legal work.
Most of the stuff that I'm doingis on the entrepreneurial side
and administrative side andmanagement side and then
coaching, because now not onlydo I have Jennifer who I
mentioned, I have two more,Keith and and and Leo, who are
like clones for that.
And even then this past year, weintentionally have we're opening
(21:10):
up in Florida.
We've opened and we're killingit by having actual expansion in
Houston.
We've handled cases in Houston,but now we actually have offices
that were that are there.
And again, these are justlocations that we commonly rent
office space for and we and wework and we have somebody that's
willing to meet at that.
We have uh a head of our Houstonuh office that goes to our two
offices that we establishedthere.
(21:31):
But we've like just in inbringing that on, I mean, our
Houston office would be enviableto most business owners just on
its own.
And that's like our kind of youknow secondary to and and the
and the other thing is I'm alsoI'm personally willing to go
pretty much anywhere in thecountry, but especially anywhere
in Texas.
The reason why is I'm uh yearsago, I started about three years
(21:54):
ago, or maybe four now, three orfour years ago, I started
competitively shooting ski.
And every weekend I travelacross the country.
I've gone as far as asCalifornia and Florida and up to
um um uh Chicago and and uhIllinois and everywhere in
between.
I think I've shot it like 19 or20 states.
Last year I shot the number one,I shot more competitive ski
(22:17):
targets than anyone else in theworld for American ski, and I'm
working on going to the 2028Olympics.
I have like I'm just that guy,as my uh as one of my coaches
says.
Um, like I've taken lessons withmultiple Olympic, three three
different Olympic goldmedalists.
Like, you know, I'm I in orderto train myself to do to be the
best of the best, and I've wontwo world championships, I won
(22:38):
those in the rookie category androokie concurrent, and uh I I
shoot extremely well.
I'm rated in the top hundred uhuh shooters in American skeet in
the world, and now switchingover to the international and
Olympic skeet.
I've got my first Olympicqualifying event in November,
and I do that on the weekends,but even with that, like I go
out to the field, I shoot anhour and a half event, I come
(22:59):
back and I'll do like new clientcalls in between, and then I'll
go out and shoot the next event,and then I'll do like another
client call.
And you know, like I'm just likeI'm severely I drown myself in
workahol.
I like to go from the momentthat I wake up until the moment
I go to sleep.
I I I completely like ElonMusk's work ethic makes total
(23:22):
sense to me.
I like I feel like I'm like, oh,I get that.
You know, I I I love hearingpeople talk about him.
And I'm like, all right,somebody else, like I'm not the
only one.
SPEAKER_00 (23:31):
Um hey family law firm leaders.
My partner Tony Carls justreleased his book where he lays
bare our precise blueprint forgrowing sterling lawyers from
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.
(23:53):
Success requires and demandshard work.
But if you have the patience andthe work ethic to do it, your
family law firm will succeed.
SPEAKER_03 (24:03):
Like, it just just clearly off.
Like, love everything you'vedone and your passion of
excitement.
It's just like it's oozing fromyou.
I want to, I'm sitting herethinking, how did you get out of
your way enough to make thatfirst hire?
When did you recognize early onthat, like, oh my god, I gotta,
I gotta get someone to help mehere because I'm all visionary
(24:25):
all the time?
SPEAKER_02 (24:26):
Well, I had always been trying to have like at
least one person.
I I was I knew I knew myselfenough that I'm like, I gotta
have at least one person.
And so, even from like the firstmonth or so, like I hired one of
my fellow waiters, you know, andI knew that she also had a job
and we could kind of do this inour side time, you know, and and
(24:46):
um, and then when I got married,um, I immediately enlisted my
wife because she was makingabout$45,000 a year at the time.
I was like, and and she was aproject manager.
I'm like, wait, you're a projectmanager?
That's like a paralegal.
Paralegal is manage each case islike a project, so you just
manage that.
And look, I'm gonna have to hirea paralegal anyway, so I can
(25:09):
either hire you and then we canwork together and always be
together all the time.
Don't do that.
That's not a good idea.
Like our first year of marriagewas like real shaky, and and
we've gone through a lot of, andI've had to hire a lot of
coaches and a lot of, I mean, II've definitely spent upwards of
between a half a million and amillion dollars just on coaching
(25:31):
over the last the first coachingprogram I got in was 2011.
And I did and and I went fromlike I think we grossed$80,000
that year, and then the nextyear we grossed 200, and then
the next year we grossed 800,and then we've been over a
million, we we crossed over amillion uh there, and and this
year we're at probably three anda half or four.
(25:54):
Um, and next year I it lookslike we'll be at five to six,
maybe seven, um, just because ofthe growth that we've got.
And a lot of that management,like you can't get you can't get
to those levels um withouthaving a certain amount of
management team, lots ofpredetermined systems and
structures in place, um, reallygreat customer service.
And um, we we use even we do wedo things that I don't know of
(26:18):
any other law firm that does.
Like, for example, we record allof our phone calls and we
provide those to the client.
We also use an outlining programthat um they can see all of our
attorney's notes and it and itas we're entering the notes, we
enter it into outline format.
So it builds the outline oftheir case so they can look in
and it's like really obviousevery single thing that's there.
(26:40):
And because we've listened tothose recordings and we run them
through AI, we get a transcriptof it and we get summaries of
it.
And so every fact that a clientever tells us is useful for some
purpose.
We we want to make sure that weask the other side about that in
deposition.
By the way, if we're gonna dothat, then here's how we want to
approach the angle.
Make sure you'd say this onefirst, then this one.
(27:01):
But it's there from everyconversation.
And so, what does that do?
The clients and and we give atremendous amount of um
oversight and overview becausewe use a paid secure view
version of Google Drive.
Well, Google Drive shows you thetimestamps of every different
change that you made, and webill by the hour.
So, what are we doing?
We're showing our work.
Like you didn't do anything.
(27:22):
Well, here's where it says wedid.
You can track the hour that Ibilled you for right here.
And and if if a client decides,and there's a lot of reasons why
clients would decide this, theirfriend found this other
attorney, and they want to, youknow, like so.
On the occasions, not doesn'thappen a lot, but where they do
hire a different attorney in themiddle of it, we go share with
other attorney, here'severything.
(27:43):
Like, well, what did they say onthat?
What did you say to thatattorney?
Well, why don't you just listento the recording or read the
transcript?
It's literally right there.
They don't you don't even haveto call us.
But and by the way, I would tellyou the big picture about
everything, but we have a tabwhere it says status, and like
that's like our big picture.
You can read that and know,like, here's everything that's
happening.
Like, here's every thought thatI've had about the case in an
(28:03):
outlined, useful format.
Like, if you're having a c a lotof attorneys, they'll have a
conversation with the client,and then the client will you get
some questions answered, andthen they hang up and like,
what's the result of that call?
Like, where's the production?
Like, you got maybe something,and now you get a little bit of
clarity.
Like, ours is in the on paper,in the outline.
We can trace it out.
(28:24):
It's the work was done andprogress was made there.
And the other thing is when youuse a system like that and we
use timers for all that stuff,you get to the end of the day,
and you're free.
You can go shoot some skeettargets.
Why?
Because I have no thoughts in myhead that I'm carrying the
stress that, oh, I got toremember and make sure I do this
(28:44):
or whatever, tomorrow, whatever.
It's all in our system and ourcalendar stuff.
If there's something I need todo, we calendar.
All of these little proceduresthat we do make it an absolute
joy to practice law the way thatwe do.
If we didn't do it this way, Iwouldn't still own this law
firm.
I wouldn't be in law.
I would go do somethingentirely, completely else
(29:05):
because I've done it both ways.
I will never go back.
It's too stressful, it sucks,and it's great to work things as
a team.
It's just the way, the way thatwe work, it makes us pretty
unbeatable in court.
Um, and when we go to court,we're just running through the
outline.
We've already got it all plannedout, everything.
(29:25):
And so you can pay attention andlisten.
And then you got, and we alwaysgo with at least an attorney and
a paralegal.
Usually more than that, but atleast an attorney and a
paralegal.
And the paralegal is justsitting there with our outline
checking off and making sure weproved everything and got
everything done.
Like, is this exhibit in?
Yes, admitted that, likechecklist there, because we've
got our exhibit list, that's alladmitted.
We've got all these things thatwe wanted to do and show about
(29:48):
whatever the case is.
We've checked it off in incourt.
The paralegal's job is to dothat and then like go, hey, they
said this.
I know that's a lie.
Pull this, and the paralegalpulls it and go, and then we
cross.
Cross-examine them there.
It makes all of what we do likevery easy and reactionary and
responsive, as opposed to like,oh, I'm gonna sit there and
(30:10):
stress.
I got to worry about what it is.
So many attorneys just sitspinning their wheels worrying
about stuff.
It's like, do it, put it inthis.
If you operate like this and youbuild it the whole time you have
the case, there's never a stresspoint about anything.
And the clients don't havestress points.
They can look at it all.
SPEAKER_00 (30:26):
Dina, are you in a coaching or um mastermind
program right now?
SPEAKER_02 (30:31):
Um, I have the last one that I did was with Patrick
Bet David recently from fromValue Tainant.
I'm not in one now.
Um, but that's um probably moreof an issue of my schedule.
Uh, I mean, we sort of do, Imean, part of the team.
So we have executive meetingstwice a week, and that's with
(30:51):
Leo, Keith, Jennifer, Summer,and myself.
We call that's our C-suite forthe firm.
We do those on Mondays andTuesdays.
One of those is specifically umnumbers analysis, another one is
marketing, and then we do avariety of different um
mastermind things like that.
At the but at the I my the mostrecent actual mastermind that I
(31:12):
did um privately was inFebruary, maybe.
So I haven't done one in a fewmonths.
SPEAKER_00 (31:19):
Okay.
And then I loved your idea aboutthe way you execute on hiring
support teams from restaurantsand so forth.
Do you have any markers orpersonality traits you look for
for your lawyers?
Any like shortcuts on how youidentify the right lawyer for
your firm?
SPEAKER_02 (31:35):
Yes.
So um you definitely always haveto meet your attorneys in
person, for one thing.
Um, and you definitely you wanta system that you go through.
Um, by the time somebody gets tome, my job is not to screen them
out anymore.
It's to screen them in by thatpoint.
If I notice a red flag orsomething, I can and and would
(31:56):
screen them out.
But you you really wantscreening out from like multiple
levels.
The whole the motto of slow tohire, quick to fire is really is
very important.
Um and um, you know, it's likeit's kind of like picking a jury
to a certain extent.
You want to screen out everyonewho's bad for you, and then pick
your favorite from who's leftover.
(32:18):
Same thing you should do withdating, by the way.
Um, and we could talk, I couldtalk a long time about that.
But um, you know, if you ifyou're picking a jury, if you
screen out everybody on thepanel that's bad for you, then
by default, whoever's left overis good for you.
Um and so have you know, they'vegot to go through Keith, Leo,
Jennifer, and uh Daniel, who'sour uh he's an attorney, but he
(32:40):
and he's our managing attorney,basically works purely on the
legality and logistics of thecases.
And so they they have to getthrough those four people before
they come to me.
And it's important that thatprocess happens because I'm more
of a salesperson to sell them inand get him excited, as opposed
to like you know, building thewall.
They've gotten past the walls,but in general, I want somebody
(33:03):
who preferably has like charismais a bonus, um, but somebody
that is also coachable andbecause some people will come
in.
I've had I've had a guy thatcame in and like every day was a
fight.
It was just miserable.
I wind up having to fire him.
And um and you know, just wasn'tresponsive to we need people
(33:25):
that are responsive to the teamapproach, um, that like having
uh people that they can talkwith and and take direction from
and and bounce the big pictureof.
Because you know, when you'restuck in the trees, you're
looking at trees, you're notlooking necessarily at the shape
of the forest and everything orthe big picture.
And sometimes you got to go getout of that trees and go this
way, go another way.
(33:46):
So it's part of it depends onbig picture, part of it depends
on like what specific skill set.
Like, are we needing somebodythat just prefers to do
paperwork, or are we needingsomebody that can go into court?
And maybe we hire somebody thatjust does all the pre-litigation
stuff and they're you know kindof nerdy and like to stay in
their cocoon and antisocial.
(34:08):
Like, if you're like, well, Iwent straight through school,
I've never had a job, but Iinterned at a law firm for for a
summer.
I'm like, maybe, but but like,you know, and and and as
Jennifer says, this is that wecan teach for for for certain
skill sets, we can't teachcaring, and we can't teach how
(34:32):
to, you know, customer service.
That it's not you're not therefor you or your ego at all.
You're there for them.
We need people that are able tolisten really well.
I know I'm talking a lot, butwhen I'm on a consultation, if
my lips are moving, I'm losing,and I'm usually just asking
questions.
I've actually taught salestechniques of try to have an
entire conversation and only askquestions for the rest of the
(34:56):
conversation.
And you can actually do that,and a lot of times the other
person won't even notice.
Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01 (35:02):
Yeah, that's for that's definitely true.
Like, yeah, they'll keep going.
SPEAKER_02 (35:08):
Exactly.
I'm interested in how you did.
Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_01 (35:12):
What's that?
SPEAKER_02 (35:14):
Did you notice that I just did that exact technique
and I'm doing it again duringthis sentence?
SPEAKER_01 (35:19):
I didn't notice that actually.
I should be listening for it.
SPEAKER_02 (35:22):
But it's that technique, and you just whatever
it is that you're gonna say, youturn it and phrase it into a
question at the end.
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
Yeah.
So I'm interested in how you'rescaling.
Do you have um a managingpartner that the attorneys
report to, and then that personreports to you?
How do you set that part up?
SPEAKER_02 (35:38):
Yes.
So, so there we we assign casesto to attorneys, but it's not
like you might think in mostfirms.
That's a you are responsible tomake sure you know what's going
on, but whoever needs to work onthat, however, it needs to work
on it, you kind of determinethat.
And it's the same way with aparalegal.
(35:58):
And we don't necessarily haveparalegals assigned to
attorneys, we have paralegalsassigned to this case is suited
for you as a paralegal, and thiscase is suited for you as an
attorney.
And so you work on this, butthere, but there's always times
where, especially innegotiations, because every case
really is just a great bignegotiation because you're
either going to negotiate infront of a judge and they're
(36:19):
gonna decide, or you're gonnanegotiate with the other side
and you're gonna get to anagreement.
So a lot of times we'll do goodcop, bad cop, or one person will
take a position about one thingand one person will be we call
it hard versus soft, or good copversus bad cop.
Like they're the hard way,they're prepping for court, and
they're not stopping.
But you can negotiate with me,and I'm gonna try and get
(36:39):
something done and and andnegotiate that.
But in the meantime, like thehard part is is still going.
We're on the hard path until youcan get on the on the soft path.
And the soft path is helpful.
We always, from the verybeginning of the case, as soon
as we have the financialinformation that we need in
order to decide to be able todraft a final decree of divorce,
we draft the final decree ofdivorce.
(37:01):
Well, why would you do thatbefore you even have an
assignment or an agreement?
Because you can't get anagreement until they sign.
They can tell you they agree allthat you want, but until you get
an agreement, so why not sendthem the contract?
I actually learned this fromDonald Trump's attorney in the
year 2000.
I was remember how I was broke?
Well, there was always a freelunch at SMU.
(37:21):
That's what I lived on for liketwo and a half, three years.
That and I also knew this magicmagic statement from the
restaurants I worked at.
Hey, boss, what do I need to doextra for you today in order to
get a free bowl of soup?
I would always and they would,well, you can like clean this
thing over here or whateverwhile I'm standing around doing
nothing anyway.
So I'd go clean that.
I'd be making all the money fromthe tables.
(37:42):
Hey, I know you got to youreally got caught, you got
tickets to that concert.
You want to get it get outearly.
For$10 today, I'll do yoursidework.
The more they wanted to leave,the higher my price was.
So always a hustler, alwayswheeling and dealing.
Yeah, and I would make twice asmuch money as all the other
waiters because I was willing tolook, you get there at three
o'clock, you get your firsttable at five o'clock.
There's two hours of waiting.
(38:03):
And you go one round and youwant to leave.
Well, I want to go a secondround because there's it
eliminates that two hours ofwaiting at the beginning.
And you become my indenturedservant if I'm taking your last
table from you.
I get the money from that.
And by the way, I need you togive water to everybody in the
section over here before youleave.
And yeah, at the end, before Ileave, I might maybe I'll maybe
(38:23):
I'll I won't finish, but maybewhen I'm last table here and
they're sitting around, that'swhen I can do all the side work
for everybody anyway.
And I've made an extra 50 bucks.
Plus, I'm gonna make the tip offof that table that would have
been theirs, but they wanted toleave early.
I I realize I can make twice asmuch money being the closer, and
I can hustle another 50 bucksand eat for free being the
closer.
SPEAKER_01 (38:44):
So does Summer work full-time with you?
SPEAKER_02 (38:47):
Yeah, she's the she's the uh the basically the
CFO of the company.
And I there's not, you know, nowI now I've learned, okay, if I
just go to the bank and getcash, then I can spend some
money that she doesn't knowabout.
But she knows how much cash I'vetaken out.
But basically, there's like nota penny that I spent.
But she's she's great withmoney.
(39:08):
I mean, I you know, uh, you knowhow you you know one thing, how
you can make a uh a smallfortune shooting skeet.
Do you know how?
You start with a large one.
So like I spend way more moneyon on my sport than Summer
spends on anything, and um, andand she's good with it.
She's also she picks stocksreally well.
(39:29):
Like I don't even I let her pickall the stocks.
Like I I made the decision aboutAngel Studios, but she she runs
our portfolios really well andand she runs and I mean and
she's the type that if if ifthere's a if our system shows a
penny difference in especiallyin an account or our trust
account or whatever, she'llspend a day on it and she'll
find the penny.
(39:51):
You know what this is?
Here, you can even I'll let yousee.
I don't care if you see theaccount number, it's a check for
six cents.
Six cents.
This has been on her desk.
I tried to put it in theshredder.
She won't let me.
This is for whatever this is,the six cents that's important
to her.
She's gonna like do an like I'veconvinced her not to spend the
(40:13):
time to deposit.
So there's a six cent checkthat's just been sitting here on
the desk, or maybe you know,it's probably got my does it
have my home address on it?
No, okay, good.
But it's a check for six cents.
Like, that's my wife, and I'mfine with that.
It's it's it's it's good, youknow, and and it it causes me to
be inclined to make like thatmuch more money and be that much
(40:36):
more driven.
And you know, one of the thingsin a lot of the coaching
programs that I've done is ifyou don't have a reason why you
need to make a certain amount ofmoney, just oh, I want to make a
lot of money or I want to makemore, I want to make a million,
it's random to you, you're notgonna make it because you don't
have the driving force.
But for me, I have dollaramounts on I need ammo for this.
I need I need a new shotgun uhbarrel because international
(40:58):
sketch, you know, American ski,you're heavy and long,
international sket, light andshort.
So you have to get totally youknow different equipment for
that.
And I'm like, okay, I gottaspend$7,200 on a barrel, you
know, for for my gun.
I have cars, several cars thatI've owned in my life, they're
less expensive than my stupidshotgun.
(41:18):
It's not stupid, I love it.
It's it's an amazing piece ofequipment, by the way.
Um, but still, like, and and ifit wasn't for the fact of, oh,
okay, I gotta cover that, or orand we also do a thing called an
SEP uh retirement program,simplified employee penchum.
So for every dollar, for or forevery hundred dollars that our
(41:39):
that our team members earn ontheir check, you know, a lot of
times people offer a 401k, it'slike we get a 3% matching.
So that means you get$100 onyour on your paycheck.
You have to put$3 of that into aretirement account, and then the
company will add$3.
What we do is we give 25% on topof that in our SCP.
(41:59):
That's hundreds of thousands ofdollars a year that we give to
our our staff, and that is taxpreferred.
So if they've made$100,000,they're actually taking home
$125,000, but there's no tax onthis, not until you withdraw it.
So it's about the equivalent ofa 300 of$35,000 extra.
And we do that, and that'smaking millionaires in our firm
(42:21):
of our of our everybody, eventhe receptionists, our matries,
which by the way are well paid.
Uh, some of those are making sixfigures for like just answering
answering our phones and and andbeing able to convert new
clients that come into our intoour and we're we're turning
every if you work for our firmfor 20 years, you will be a
(42:42):
millionaire as long as you like.
I mean, theoretically, and it'sa self-controlled thing, so you
do have to invest it.
But there are a couple of peoplewho got that and then quit and
liquidated it.
I'm like, oh, like, you know,that that's probably a good uh
an indicator why you're notstill here.
Because the people that arehere, they're like our managing
attorney Daniel Boomer, he'slike, that's why I work here,
(43:05):
and he tells everybody that hegoes, we live off of what I make
on my W-2 and all of ourinvestments, that 25%.
That's what that's what ourmoney actually is.
Because all this other moneythat I get, it goes to the guy
who has my mortgage, it goes tothe guy who kills the cows that
I eat, it goes to the guy whowho mows my grass, it goes to
the guy who built my car, itgoes to the guy who put who
(43:28):
manufactures the gasoline that Iget.
I all that money goes away.
But what do I get?
I get that 25% in my retirementaccount that is growing and
earning me money and ininvesting there.
We're making everybody thatworks for us absolutely rich.
And if you work for the PalmerLaw Group for 20 years, you will
be a millionaire.
Even if you just put your moneyinto index funds, you will
(43:50):
absolutely get there.
And that's the that's the idea.
Is the idea is to get it towhere you don't have to work,
you're choosing to work.
And we make the company sopleasurable to work for that
it's even when people are like,I don't have to work anymore.
I have enough money, I couldretire and not have to work.
But I enjoy doing it, and Ienjoy working with people, and I
like I I know what else I woulddo.
(44:12):
I would shoot like that manymore targets all day long.
And you know, I'm I'm I'm alsolike 90% into a there's a band
that I've auditioned for until Iblow it, or unless I blow it.
Like I have to really be spoton, and we've got to do a bunch
of rehearsals, but it's uh it'sa band called Killed the Robot,
and we're gonna be going on tourin in May, and it's with uh
(44:32):
Stephen Gibb, who is uh BarryGibbs' son, and Barry Gibbs
sings on track three of therecord, and it's getting a lot
of traction.
I think it's been nominated fora Grammy.
I was not the I play drums, andso I was not the drummer on that
album, but I'll be the drummerplaying live and on the next
albums going forward, um,assuming that I like it's my I'm
in the band until and unless Iblow it for some reason.
(44:56):
We also have to kind of worryabout the the the the the timing
of the competitions because I'mlike, what happens if we get
this major like what happens ifwe get to open for tool and or I
get to go to the Olympic trial,like a qualifying match?
Like where's that where's thatcompeting interest?
That's the that would be thereason why maybe I don't get in
it, but uh you know we'll we'llsee about something like that,
(45:18):
or maybe I get a substitutedrummer who then hopefully
doesn't steal my spot.
But um and and my wife, yes, shedoes think that I do in entirely
too much, but I I enjoyeverything that I do, and I I
like and the and the biggestthing is the results that we get
for our clients.
That that is such a joy andreward.
And I have been blessed with anamazing talent of that.
(45:42):
I actually view myself as theguard of the gate.
And my rule is thou shalt notpass, because if you pass me,
you have to get a divorce, and Iwouldn't wish a divorce on
anyone.
And one of the projects thatI've been working on, I've been
trying to get it to going foryears, but we are and we're very
close, but I think it's likelyto happen, is I own healthy
marriage.com, which was another,I think I paid 20 grand for that
domain name just to get that.
(46:03):
And what that is, it's designedto make a bad marriage good
again, make a good marriagegreat, and keep a great marriage
great.
It's also designed to help youfind and and have a great
marriage if you've never beenmarried.
And so that's under development.
I really would like to launchthat um pretty soon.
But my really my ministry ismarriage.
(46:24):
I hate seeing unhealthymarriages.
So my goal is to end unhealthymarriages.
But there's two ways to thathappen.
Preferably, they make it into ahealthy marriage again.
But if not, they need to get ashealthy of a divorce as
possible.
SPEAKER_03 (46:38):
Tennant, you have been amazing.
You you have so much to say andso much to share.
And I really appreciate the timethat you've given us and the
lessons learned and kind of howyou're thinking about your firm.
Um, your passion is extremelycontagious, and I really
appreciate all the time thatyou've given us today.
If you enjoyed this episode,make sure to tune in and check
(47:00):
out the other owner operatorseries uh episodes that we have
in the queue.
We do these about once a week.
So we have lots of law firmowners telling their stories,
sharing lessons learned, lots ofgreat insights for you on the
show.
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