September 3, 2025 • 35 mins
Law firm hiring struggles? Watch Tom offer a $140K salary but get only 3 resumes in 3.5 weeks - here's what we learned.
Most family law firm hiring fails because owners rely on job boards instead of direct outreach. This legal recruiting challenges discussion reveals attorney salary benchmarks and law firm growth hiring strategies that actually work when scaling your practice.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughesÂ
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—
đź“„ CHAPTERSÂ
0:00 - Law Firm Hiring Challenge: $22K Revenue But Can't Find StaffÂ
12:27 - Family Law Firm Hiring: Associate vs Paralegal DecisionÂ
14:13 - Attorney Recruitment Strategies: Indeed Results RealityÂ
15:40 - Law firm Staff Hiring: $120-160K Salary Range DiscussionÂ
17:04 - Legal Practice Recruitment: Why Law School Doesn't MatterÂ
19:22 - Law Firm Team Building: Direct LinkedIn Outreach StrategyÂ
23:03 - Attorney Salary Benchmarks: Competition for 2-5 Year ExperienceÂ
25:02 - Law Firm Hiring Process: Why New Grads Apply Anyway
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Have you wondered if it's possible to start a family
law firm and go from zero to20,000 plus a month in under a
year?
Well, we have been followingTom Harten as he has done just
that, starting his firm lastSeptember of 2024.
And here we are, finishing upJune and he's concluded a second
month in a row at 20,000 plusin revenue.
(00:21):
Well, hello and welcome to theSterling Family Law Show.
My name is Jeff Hughes, I'm theco-host, I'm the CEO and
founder of Stilling Lawyers.
We are a 27 attorney family lawfirm doing over 17 million in
revenue.
And my co-host is also joiningtoday, tyler Dolph.
He's the CEO of our sistercompany and our purpose is to
(00:41):
share our wins, our losses andequip family lawyers to have the
firm of their dreams.
And this week we're back withTom Hart in one of my favorite
monthly shows, tom.
We have been following Tomsince September, actually before
September of last year, but hestarted his firm in September of
24 and has had two crazy goodmonths in a row.
(01:04):
Tom, this is starting to looklike a trend, so I'm going to
hand it over to you what hashappened, number-wise, in the
month.
So we're sitting here in Julyobviously July 14th today, and
then we're looking at June oflast month.
So what happened in June oflast month?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's right.
Yeah, thanks for having me,jeff, and hi to you, tyler.
So we, yeah, june was.
I guess that puts me at monthnine, right Nine or 10.
I don't know, too early formath, but yeah, around month
nine.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
When you have to do math on the spot, it's really
really hard.
Yeah, the pressure.
You know everyone's looking atyou trying to add.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So, yeah, may was the first month I crossed the
$20,000 threshold and top linerevenue and I continued that
trend in June.
So a little dip, but nothingsubstantial.
May was $24,000 and June was alittle over $22,000 in top line
revenue, which is awesome.
I love to see those numbers,obviously and, yeah, hoping
(02:00):
those numbers continue to go up.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, yeah.
So break down your numbers,leads and consults, and what
will happen there?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Leads went up a little.
So I had 11 leads, consults andI don't have the answer for
this off my head, but consults.
Six of them turned intoconsults and three of those
consults turned into hires.
So you know, I think leads wise.
I'm trying to think of reasonswhy the leads did not turn into
consults, because usually thatnumber is much higher for me,
(02:29):
especially since, as of rightnow, I am still doing free
consults, right?
So if someone calls and says,hey, I'm looking for a free
consultation, do you do them andI say, yes, it's pretty rare
for that consultation not tohappen.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
You said 11 leads to six consults.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I believe.
So yeah, and I am Tyler.
I know I'm working with theteam at RocketClicks to get a
CRM going.
I am very poor at trackingthese numbers, at least the lead
number.
Sometimes that is a little bitof an educated guess.
The consult number and thehired number is definitely
accurate.
Little bit of an educated guess.
(03:06):
The consult number and the hirenumber is definitely accurate.
That CRM will be very important.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But the interesting point you made a little more
than 50% from lead to consultand then exactly 50% from
consult to hire, yes, which Ithink that number, the 50%
number from consult to hire, ispretty standard.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Looking at my past numbers that's been about,
that's probably about where I'vebeen, average about 50%.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I think you're doing this, tom, but I'll just offer
this up for benefit of ourdiscussion here in our audience.
So, being consistent about yourdefinition around what a lead
is can be hard right, but youhave to in order to be able to
have the data you need to make adecision in the future about be
hard right, but you have to inorder to be able to have the
data you need to make a decisionin the future about your
marketing right.
So how are you defining whatcounts as a lead?
(03:53):
If I called you up and said,hey, I've got a, I've got a
small time criminal, owi or DUItype deal, are you going to
count that Like?
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, I shouldn't be right.
So so a lead to me is somebodywho's looking for a divorce or
family law attorney.
So some you know, custodyissues, support issues, stuff
like that, and and they're in myarea, they're in Nassau County
or Suffolk County or you know, Imight take some cases in Queens
County too.
But so, yeah, I guess thosewould be my two primary factors.
Are they in my practice areadivorce or family issues and are
(04:23):
they in my you know location?
So, and you know, another thingthat's up with leads is we were
just talking about this offlineis I'm still answering the phone
.
So you know, if someone callsat 9pm and I pick up the phone
real quick and talk to them, Imight forget to write that one
down.
So you know that becomes that'sa little more difficult.
(04:45):
So I am looking forward tohaving that, putting that CRM in
place so we can track thatnumber a little bit more
accurately, and we probablyshould break that up into like
total number of calls you knowhow many of those calls were
actually qualified leads andthen write that.
So that should probably be asecond step that we're tracking
there.
But yeah, that's hard to dowithout a CRM.
Step that we're tracking thereand but, but yeah, that's that's
(05:05):
hard to do without a CRM.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Tom, do you feel like uh of the 11 leads, and let's
assume the numbers right at 11,?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
did you talk to all 11 of them?
Uh yeah, I I wouldn't havecounted it as a lead if I didn't
speak to them.
Yeah, and I can think of twothat like two offhand that
booked a consult and then one ofthem one of them didn't show up
.
She actually called back.
It was supposed to be like aMonday morning consult.
She didn't show up.
She had some issues.
She called back like Mondaylater in the day and asked to
reschedule for later this week.
(05:35):
So that's one I can think ofoff the top of my head and then,
although we're talking aboutJune, so I guess that one
actually doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
But so, tom, are you getting a sense yet as to what
your average client value isfrom a standpoint of revenue?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
My numbers will be all over the place.
So I have you know, I would saywhat's been driving my revenue
in May and June has beenprobably like three cases that
are just there's just been a lotof court appearances, maybe
four cases, a lot of courtappearances, a trial going on in
(06:18):
one of them where their firsttrial date was in May, family
court's so backed up, so fulltrial date in May and then, you
know, half a day of prep beforethat.
Second trial day was in June,half a day prep before that and
then we have the last two daysscheduled in August.
So that's yeah, that's drivingthe revenue at.
You know another client wherethere's just there's issues in
family court and Supreme Court.
So there's a lot going on there.
(06:39):
Actually there's two like that.
I have clients that have issuesin family court and Supreme
Court at the same time.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, now Supreme Court in New York is different
than every other state right,let me clarify that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, supreme Court is our lowest court in New York.
Yeah, I can thank the Dutch forthat tradition.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Okay, yeah, Okay, and then on revenue are you
counting revenue as billed or doyou count it as received once
received?
What's your definition there?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So I'll say that that is billed.
But I will also add a caveat tosay that my collection rate is
100%.
I have not sent out a bill thatI have not been paid for.
So, yeah, I have not collected.
So the way that I work is Isend out, know, send out the
bill earlier in the month, andthen a lot of people pay by
credit card.
(07:27):
So I won't, I won't actuallycharge that right now.
We're saying July 14.
So I'll probably charge thatnext Friday, whatever that is,
and that is when.
That's when that money will becollected.
But, yeah, that's so thatthat's the bill that was sent
out.
But, as I've said, mythankfully to to you and one or
two other people who, early on,told me to focus on making sure
(07:51):
my collection rate is very high.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I was very- Well, I was just going to compliment
you on that.
You're doing great with that.
Yeah, congratulations on yourrevenue but, more probably
important, congratulations onyour collection rate, because
you could have a lot of revenue,collect 50 of it right, and I
know that that's a big.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's a big problem in in the family law industry
and that's something you don't.
You probably deal with lessbecause you're you're dealing
with fixed fees.
Um right, so you, you probablycollect more up front, but for
me, who is wants to do fixed feebut currently is still doing
hourly, yeah, that's, that's abig issue and I heard that,
thankfully, from enough peoplebefore before I really got going
to.
You know, put those systems inplace to make sure.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, good, so all right.
So, working on our way out ofyour numbers, you got a new
office that you're in.
Now let's talk about thattransition.
What's going on there?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I did.
Yeah, I mean I I don't have aton to say it's, I mean I like
it a lot better.
It's literally across thestreet, so it was a really
really easy move.
Uh, hopefully didn't impact mymap rankings at all.
It didn't really seem like likeit did, uh, but it is.
It is much bigger.
I have room to uh fit one ortwo other people in here,
probably one, but I could evenfit two if I needed to uh, which
should segue us into our next.
Probably our next talking pointis hiring, but yeah, I mean the
(09:09):
space is great.
I'm really really happy to haveit and it wasn't surprising.
Like I said, same exactlocation across the street,
probably two and a half timesthe size and same price.
So I don't don't know why.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, I don't know why I didn't make this move,
yeah, 50 bucks more.
You did bring up an interestingthing I want to double tap on,
and that's the map rankings formoving locations.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Tyler, maybe you 46% of all of our family law leads
have come from a local searchright Someone searching for a
divorce attorney near me orattorney name plus city name and
(09:54):
so ensuring that you arevisible in the maps is paramount
, because literally half of theavailable leads live there and
so doing the right thing.
Helping Google understand I'vemoved offices.
I've set up a new.
Helping Google understand I'vemoved offices.
I've set up a new Google myBusiness profile.
I've got the postcard in themail with the code on it and
I've entered that information.
We did all this for you, tom,but if you're listening to this
(10:15):
and you're thinking about moving, ensure that you help Google
understand that you have movedand that you update your Google
my Business profile so so youdon't miss out on some of those
map bases.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So how did you do that, practically speaking Tom
from moving across the street inone month and not see a dip?
Did you have to plan that inadvance, or what all took place
there?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
What I did was I reached out to the team at
Rocket Clicks and said, hey, Ineed to move because I was just
having a lot of issues with myother location and they told me
to expect a little bit of a dip.
But you know, maybe they, youknow, hopefully that dip
shouldn't last more than youknow.
I think they said somewhere twoto four weeks, something like
that.
So you might see a real, realshort, temporary dip, just while
(10:59):
Google does.
I don't know whatever they do.
That's why I have rocket clicks.
I don't get too involved inthat.
But you know, whatever Googledoing, whatever they do to
re-index me in their searchsearch results and yeah, I don't
, I don't think I've seen any,really any dip as far as I can
tell.
But I guess I guess let me goback and look in August but look
(11:22):
back at these numbers.
But yeah, as far as I couldtell, I haven't really noticed
anything.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So obviously the lesson here is you're moving,
think ahead on this issue,because this directly impacts
your lead flow, so get in frontof it so you can make sure you
minimize that dip.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And of course so we're only right now speaking
about my Massapequa office.
Of course I still have theMelville one also which, yeah,
to date that office has justthat one's been really, really
slow.
This has been, massapequa hasbeen.
I want to say all If not.
I have one client that couldpossibly have come out of
(11:59):
Melville.
I don't know how I wasn'ttracking well at that time.
I know he works in Melville buthe lives in Seaford, which is
the town right next to MassPequot, so he could have found
me in either search result.
So this is still by far it's myfirst location and still by far
the busiest.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, we've talked a little bit in the past about
hiring and now it's starting tohappen, so let's dig into this.
This is a fun topic.
Tell us what's going on there.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I am and yeah, we have.
So we have talked about and Ithink last time I was still torn
between whether I was going togo for an associate or a
paralegal, and then I made thedecision pretty quickly
thereafter to just I want to goright ahead and hire an
associate.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm thereafter to just I want to go right ahead
and hire an associate and I'm.
I guess best answer is that Iwant to grow as quickly as
possible.
Realistically, I probably needboth at some point.
You know, hiring an associatewithout a paralegal Will they be
happy about that?
I don't know.
You know, and I know differentgetting off topic here but
different firms utilizeparalegals differently.
Different getting off topichere but different firms utilize
(13:06):
paralegals differently.
So I know I've spoken toattorneys who might have three
attorneys for every paralegaland then I've heard the opposite
where, like, one attorney mighthave two paralegals working for
them.
So you know, I, I know, I thinkyou tend to lean more towards
the latter, where you have your,your paralegals do a lot of, do
a lot of.
You know a lot of drafting andpretty much anything that's not
(13:27):
you know, anything that's notgiving legal advice or appearing
in court or anything like that.
There's no, there's no reason aparalegal can't handle it.
But yeah, I don't know if I lookforward and I still do.
I don't like to talk about thistoo much but I still I do have
the benefit of having that otherjob where I can pick up always
pick up more work from thatdoing patent work on a contract
(13:48):
basis?
Right, so I can hire anassociate.
I can give them, you know,pretty much all of my, all of my
new incoming work and some ofthe work that I'm already doing
is as long as the case is likenew enough, then you know I
again, if my goal is to grow asquickly as possible, then it
just made like the I don't knowmade the most sense to me.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, makes sense.
So you put up an ad on Indeedfor a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Put up a listing and it's a sponsored listing so it
should be should be appearingtowards the top, and that just
means I pretty much pay Indeedto have my listing go towards
the top.
Pretty much pay Indeed to havemy listing go towards the top.
And yeah, I've gotten, I think,only three again, it's only
been open three and a half weeks, something like that at this
point, and I've gotten threeresumes but nobody I've wanted
(14:35):
to interview yet.
So it is definitely a difficulthiring market.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And Tom, did you just choose Indeed because because
it's one you've heard of versusyeah?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
actually, why do you have, if you have better, uh,
ideas?
I'm open, definitely open to it.
It is, yeah, it was kind oflike a test, like a quick
decision yeah, I'm gonna hiresomebody.
This I think it's.
You know, I think my the otherthing I thought about would have
been going the recruiter route.
But you know, obviously thenyou pay them a fee and so I
don't know, if I get desperateenough, I might, might, resort
to that.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But I've never had a good experience with recruiters
and I've went back to that Wella few times.
Yeah, um, we've had modestsuccess on our State Bar
bulletin board job listing board.
That's been something that'sworked well in Wisconsin.
Ironically, we've had zerosuccess in Illinois with that.
(15:28):
I don't get it.
I guess lawyers in Illinoisdon't look at the State Bar
website and Wisconsin lawyers do.
I suppose that's been somethingOverall Indeed is the winner
for us too.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, let yeah, so yeah, and I, I, uh, so, let's
see, I, I know my, my salaryranges is where it should be,
perhaps even even a little biton the higher end.
Uh, looking for someone.
I think I put two to five yearsexperience.
You know, ideally I'm probablylooking in that three year range
.
Um, I had.
(16:00):
So, of the three resumes I couldtell you off the top of my head
, one of them had.
One of them was an experiencedattorney with no divorce or
family law experience.
Uh, they all like criminal,criminal law background and like
, I think, some trust in estateswork.
Uh, another one was a fresh lawgraduate.
Despite that, I had, you know,very clearly listed that I was
looking for and they were.
(16:22):
They came from like really goodschool and you know, I don't
know, but still, you know, Ineed, I need someone with
experience, especially given my,my background.
So that one.
And then there was another onethat had had like five jobs over
the past three years orsomething like that.
So, yeah, all, none of those,none of those were people I was
interested in hiring.
(16:42):
And I think the other two Ididn't even respond to, I think,
the new grad I just respondedto, like you know.
Hey, I'm looking for someonewith experience, you know you
have.
You have great credentials.
Probably better off looking at,you know, a larger firm who's
would be more likely to trainyou.
You know, best of luck,something like that.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, for what it's worth, I'll share some
experience here to kind of maybehelp you target where you're
going after I have found thatschool means zip, zero, nada.
It has no influence on alawyer's ability to perform in
family law.
So that's been my experience.
Now, maybe I'm telling you thatbecause I came from a I don't
(17:19):
know third or fourth year of lawschool.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I was just going to say that.
I've heard so many people saythat, but I did take out the
loans to go to a very goodschool, jeff, so I don't want to
say that but you're in IP law.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Maybe it's different there.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
No, I think, even less so.
I think, even less so actually.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Okay and I have also found that experience is
important but it's not in thetop most important.
So legal experience the mostimportant that I have found in
family law is interpersonalability.
That is far more important thanI'll take a.
I'll take a 38 year oldparalegal that's been a
paralegal for five years, over a10-year attorney all day long.
(18:01):
I mean a paralegal has become alawyer going to night school.
Those people are incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I will.
So I will agree with you 100%,with a slight pushback saying
you have, at this point, systemsin place to train someone,
right?
If?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
you bring in an associate with no experience.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I don't have that, I don't have the
experience.
Yeah, I don't, I don't havethat.
I don't, I don't have, I don'thave the time to train them, I
don't have, I don't, I don'tknow, I don't have.
Right, I'm, I'm hiring someone.
This is a a unique situationwhere I'm I'm hiring someone
with more experience than methat probably yeah, and I'm not
challenging your decision, tom,whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I'm sharing my experience, maybe for the
benefit of our audience audienceas they're looking at it, but
at hiring.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So, yeah, no I think if you have you have an
established culture andestablished you know training
system, yeah, I could definitelysee the benefit of bringing on
you know new law graduatesbecause they you know, they get
trained on your systems andthey're not you know, they don't
have that baggage coming fromother firms and all that.
But yeah, I don't.
I'm not there obviously yet.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
So Tom, this is going to be a time suck, but you do
have a really unique story andyou and this is a unique
opportunity for your firmbecause it's someone who can
come in and really establishthemselves and literally be like
a major component of yourpractice.
And one thing that we foundover at the agency side is
(19:19):
deliberate direct outreach viaLinkedIn, and so we curate lists
all the time of idealcandidates and then we like
literally direct message themand tell them about the
opportunity or what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I've thought about that and I, not only on LinkedIn
, but even you know, I know of.
I know of like three or fourlarger firms around here that I
don't know, I guess are knownfor bringing people in and
training them and they probablydon't pay well and they're
probably high stressenvironments.
So they're, you know, the typeof firms where people go, they
work a few years and then theygo work somewhere else.
I think it's it's fairly commonthere.
So I've almost thought about,you know, a lot of those firms
(19:55):
will will list their associateson their website and their like
email addresses and contactinformation and just reaching
out to them by email.
Also, I don't know, the worstthing they could say is not
interested, yeah right, or thefirm has some type of spam
filter that just makes mymessage not even get delivered
to them.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Oh, they're not necessitated.
I've done hundreds and hundredsand hundreds of those direct
reach out emails and I can tellyou that in our early years we
had by far the most success inone-on-one reach outs.
Linkedin.
I mean both of our currentmanaging partners.
Today I reached out to thempersonally on LinkedIn and got
their interest and got theirattention and brought them over,
(20:33):
so I would not underestimatethat at all.
Now you'll probably start toanger some of the other lawyers
in town, but that's okay, noneof them are sending you a check.
So, yeah, right, just yeah,don't worry about it.
Yeah, so, um, also in in Tylermentioned this, and I'll let me
go back on and kind ofunderscore this a little bit.
Your story is pretty incredible, your growth story, your nine I
(20:57):
can't do the math either on theon the spot, but you know, we
just finished.
Let's call it, let's seeSeptember, september, your 10th
month.
Okay, all right, we justfinished and you're already at
at averaging 20 grand plus amonth in revenue, at least over
the past two months.
Okay, let's put that out there.
So, um, you've got an amazingstory to tell and that's like
one of your biggest, I think,leverage points.
(21:19):
You don't have all these otherthings.
So I would lean in on that.
I would also share the link toall of these interviews that
we've done here together,because that really helps
someone that is interested ingetting in a growing, vibrant
new firm with already twolocations to get to know you a
little bit better.
So I would leverage that.
I to know you a little bitbetter, so I would leverage that
(21:40):
.
I mean you're already out there.
There are certain people thatare really be drawn to that and
drawn to you and your story andget to know you before they even
meet you.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So they get so much autonomy.
Right You're?
You want them to take on thatresponsibility.
There's a lot of firms and alot of founders who can't let go
of the vine, who are, you know,there's a lot of firms and a
lot of founders who can't let goof the vine, who are in the
weeds on every single case.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
This potential new hire has an opportunity of a
lifetime, right, yeah, and Isaid that, I think, on our last
podcast, that I think it is anattractive offer, not only
financially, but just theability to come in and run your
cases the way you want to runthem.
Yeah, come in and run yourcases the way you want to run
(22:31):
them, you know, as long asyou're doing things ethically
and you know, obviously I do, Ithink, need to have some kind of
oversight of the cases, but youknow, at a really high level,
just making sure everything likefirm personality I don't know,
it's probably a better term forthat but culture is being
carried out and you know, like Isaid, if you're doing a good
job and you know bringing in,you know getting good reviews
from clients and you know goodfeedback and all that, yeah, you
can.
You can run the case the wayyou want to run it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
What's the advertised starting salary that you've
offered?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I put I think I put 120 to 160,000, I think was the
range Wow, which, yeah, greatstart, yeah.
So, yeah, my target is, like Isaid, you know, two or three
years experience.
Probably you should expect topay about 140 for that, which,
yeah, I think it's probably onthe higher end for my area.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
So for that which, yeah, I think it's probably on
the higher end for my area, andhave you got any feedback from
other lawyers in your communitythat have said anything to you?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
about it.
No, just the one I spoke to,who you know, said, you know,
seemed like everything was inthe right spot, but that there's
just so much competition forassociates in that you know that
experience range, that you knowrange that two to five year.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Jeff, are you seeing the same thing across Wisconsin
and Illinois, and is this abigger topic for our listeners?
On the forefront of a hiringblitz that's coming.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Well, we've always struggled to find really quality
lawyers.
As we've gotten bigger, however, it's been easier because our
name reputation's out there.
So it does get easier as yougrow.
But the first seven, eightyears it was a constant struggle
and we struggled too with justa lot of things internally,
operationally, we kind of shotourselves in the foot a little
(24:16):
bit by creating a reputationthat we didn't want to have, you
know, just because we wereoperating so.
But it's a struggle foreveryone.
It seems like.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, again, I don't know Small, small sample size
Right.
It's only been only been outthere three, three and a half
months, and part of that wasover.
I probably didn't post it atthe best time.
It's like July.
People are, people aretraveling.
I've been out there three,three and a half months and part
of that was over.
I probably didn't post it atthe best time.
It's like July.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
People are, people are traveling, People are taking
vacations anyway, so you knowsilver bullet here Wait a sec.
There's no silver bullet here.
It's really just doing theexercise and having the
conversations and finding theright products.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
It's so important for the next phase of your firm to
ignore the rules and be a littlebit more aggressive than others
that they applied, even thoughthe the ad said don't apply
(25:20):
unless you have two years.
Sometimes those people areworth talking to because you
might find someone who's reallyautonomous and they can get
going on their own and they canjust go figure it out because
they're willing to ignore theconventions that are put in
front of them.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It does, yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
I don't know it's probably worth your time to call
them and just talk to them andto see maybe it's a future hire.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I think.
I think I would have beensomeone you would have wanted to
hire because I was veryautonomous I can just figure it
out on my own, even as a brandnew associate and I would have
ignored those rules.
I was I'm just going to apply.
What are you going to do?
Say no to me, that's okay.
It would have been no anyway.
So that would have been mymentality, and so I would not
exclude those people that applyoutside of your conventions.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I agree, I think, I think if maybe, like someone,
had one year experience orsomething, you know something,
but I am, I am.
I don't think I'm in a positionto hire a new grad right now as
my first.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I don't want to challenge you on that time.
You would have hired JeffHughes 20 plus years ago.
I just had, I was justaggressive, I just wanted to go.
I was in court day two on myown.
You would have been totallyhappy with that.
I would have known pretty muchas much as you do right now
starting off, but then you wouldhave left your own firm.
Well, so what?
(26:43):
I'm kidding Maybe you wouldhave created a, maybe you would
have created an opportunity forme that I would have stayed and
been your managing partner.
All I'm saying is that I wantto challenge that thinking.
Well, they're not two years so Ican't talk to them.
You may find it's worth aconversation and you don't know
right away.
If they're scared of theirshadow, you'll sense it and
you'll just move on.
But if you sense this likehunger and aggressiveness and
(27:04):
pushing and those are rarepeople, they're not like,
they're like one in 20.
But if you get that person, youmay like I'm just going to give
you a chance and we're notgoing to start you off at 120,
jeff Hughes, because you don'tknow anything.
You know and you cheated andwhenever you applied you
shouldn't have applied.
But I'm going to let you in at90.
You know, you know whatever Imean.
Tell the story to them and justchallenge them.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'm a product of that .
Just for the record, I met JeffHughes on a plane and had a
little.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
That's right I didn't know that story until like two
months ago.
It's an awesome story, it'sfunny.
Yeah, I'll consider it.
Jeff, I am, I don't know, Idon't know, having someone come
and you know, I guess I wouldneed to set the rules, like you
know, hey, you have to figureeverything out.
(27:50):
You know, I don't, I wouldn'twant that.
You know, hey, you have tofigure everything out.
You know, I don't, I wouldn'twant that.
You know, someone coming intheir first week and be like,
hey, how do I do this?
Right, I don't, I don't want tobe training someone on the
legal side right now.
I don't, I don't have the time.
Uh, even right now, like one ofthe reasons I expect my revenue
in July to be a little bitlower is I have so much
administrative stuff that Idon't, that I haven't had time
(28:12):
to do, like setting up a CRM,setting up billing systems, I
don't know.
There's just a lot of stufflike that that I need to do, and
so if I hire someone again, mygoal is to offload a lot of the
legal work to them so that Ihave room to A do some work on
my other job.
B do a lot of theadministrative stuff at my firm
(28:33):
and at least get systems inplace the way I want them to be
in place.
And then, of course, you couldhire someone to run them after
that and C start doing some morein-person networking and
getting involved on that sideand trying to bring in business
locally.
Like that I don't think we doon a statewide level.
I believe we do on a in likebar associations, like local bar
(28:55):
associations.
So I know, uh, I am thankful toknow the president of the
Nassau County Bar Association,uh, who is James Joseph, who is
a friend of yours that I metthrough.
I always forget if it was yourpodcast or another podcast, um,
but you, yeah, you know him, Iknow you.
You guys interact, uh prettyfrequently, um, so he, I I've
(29:15):
heard him talk about how theyhave that in the Nassau County
Bar Association, which that's,that's my county, where I
practice in Nassau County, um,so, yeah, but obviously then you
need to.
I'm not currently a member ofthe Nassau County Bar
Association.
I probably should be, um, butyeah.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I know they have that .
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So it's, you know, obviously something I need to
pay to get, to get into.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
And I don't think it's that cheap.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But it might be worth it.
Yeah, just a thought.
Yeah.
And even on a I, when I wasfirst starting I, I reached out
to two James to ask for like acouple template documents and
and he gave them to me without asecond thought he's, he's been
he's been awesome.
He's wonderful, yeah, althoughI will say, james Joseph, if
you're listening to this, he isstarting to run LSAs in my area,
(30:01):
which I expect, nothing less.
He's a.
I know he's looking to grow andhe's he's got a great firm.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
All right, anything else on your mind?
Speaker 2 (30:16):
No, I don't think so.
I think hopefully by next monthI'll have some I don't know
better news on the hiring frontand hopefully business keeps
going.
But we didn't one thing we weregoing to talk about.
I forget if we hit it brieflyor kind of glossed over it, but
uh, answering service yeah,you're coming.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You have a vacation coming up here in august that
you're gonna be out a week.
So how are you thinking about?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
it's not like it's.
It's a vacation where I couldstill answer if I had to.
Yeah, I would like not to rightlike so.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I took a vacation in april and that was the disney
world, which is an impossibleplace to answer the phone even
if I, even if I heard my phoneringing it's a small world, yeah
right, yeah, um, but I wouldsay fortunately or unfortunately
.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I think I got like two calls the entire week that I
was there, so fortunately formy kids, unfortunately for
business, um, but that you knowthat was that was a slow month
and but yeah, if things keepgoing in this direction, I don't
expect expect August to be slowlike that.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So this is.
You know, we're going to a lake.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
You know I could probably be available to answer
my phone much of the time, butyeah, I prefer not to be.
So I know, you know, long-termI would love to have someone
in-house, that's that'sanswering my phone, you know,
during, during all hours andafter hours.
(31:35):
But for now I almost feel likeI need like a Band-Aid for now,
because I don't think that I'mthere yet and if I am looking to
hire an associate, I can't alsohire like a full-time, you know
, receptionist or intake team orwhatever the right term is at
this point.
So someone you know at least toanswer the phone, you know
after hours or while I'm incourt, something like that, or
(31:56):
while I'm on vacation, and I canstill, you know, I can still be
the one answering the phoneduring normal business hours if
I'm just here working on otherstuff.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Tom, I personally think this is a great idea.
The fact is, you're only goingto get busier right.
Your firm is going to continueto grow, and we talk about this
a lot on the podcast, but thefact that when someone calls in
to talk about their divorce,normally this is the first time
they're telling someone thatthey don't know outside of their
friend or family circle about aterrible thing that's happening
(32:27):
in their lives, and so theydon't want to do that.
Three, four or five times.
Answer rate is so important togenerating growth within a
family law firm because you haveto have the at bat, and if
you're not calling them backwithin five or six minutes, they
are now telling that story tosomeone else and they're not
going to tell it to you, and sowe coach our clients at
(32:50):
RocketClicks all the time on theimportance of answer rate and
the importance of callback, andso I would just encourage you to
to find a solution here,whether it is okay you're going
to do it yourself, or you'regoing to find some after hours,
or you know call center that canat least pick it up yeah, I
agree, and like I said it's,it's a new problem.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I've been, you know, for the first again we're in
month 10, for probably firsteight months I was answering.
You know 98% of my calls, youknow myself and you know
scheduling the consults andeverything like that.
But now court has been a bigone.
It's you know, obviously youcan't pick up the phone while
you're in court and you knowstarting to get more calls on
(33:31):
weekends and stuff which youknow.
If I see it ringing I'll answerit.
It's not like I'm not answeringmy phone on weekends, but yeah,
sometimes I'm away from myphone.
Especially I spend a lot oftime at the beach in the summer.
Hard to answer your phone whenyou're in the ocean and it's
funny.
I actually find some people aretaken aback when the attorney
answers the phone and like in aI don't know if it's in a bad
(33:55):
way or not, they're just like oh, I wasn't expecting to get the
attorney right away and Ihaven't.
I haven't encountered a problemwith that, but I almost feel
like it looks better if someoneelse answers the phone.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
You could really lean into it and talk about the
importance of every client.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, and I do.
Yeah, of course.
So, yeah, I don't know.
I think probably I'm familiarwith some of the bigger
answering services, likeanswering legal or another one,
something receptionist, so Idon't know if that's.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Ruby or something like that.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Maybe that's one that might be a temporary solution
that I, you know, sign up with.
Maybe that's you know,something I do for the end of
the year and I'm sure there'seasy ways to schedule.
Like, I'm available to answerit this time and I'm not in
court today, so I can answer it.
Or I am in court or I'm onvacation.
I need you to answer it at thistime and I don't know how it
works.
Again, it's a new problem, butI'm sure they've been around a
(34:48):
long time.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So I'm sure they've been around a long time so I'm
sure they've got it figured out,but I know a lot of integrated
AI answering service companiespopping up all over the place.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I'm reluctant to use that and that might be a
personal thing.
I hate calling places andgetting automated answering
services, so I don't know.
I agree.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
The power of the human is important.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, right, especially in what we do.
So, yeah, I guess that'ssomething else.
I'm looking into something else.
I need more time.
For another reason not to hirea fresh graduate.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, all right.
Well, good to Tom.
This has been a great monthalready, so looking forward to
hearing what's going on.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And for the month of July yeah, good Tom, this has
been a great month already, solooking forward to hearing
what's going on for the month ofJuly Next month Cool, all right
, thanks, guys.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Good talking to you.
Appreciate it, tom.
Good to see you.
Have you wondered if it's possible to start a family
law firm and go from zero to20,000 plus a month in under a
year?
Well, we have been followingTom Harten as he has done just
that, starting his firm lastSeptember of 2024.
And here we are, finishing upJune and he's concluded a second
month in a row at 20,000 plusin revenue.
(00:21):
Well, hello and welcome to theSterling Family Law Show.
My name is Jeff Hughes, I'm theco-host, I'm the CEO and
founder of Stilling Lawyers.
We are a 27 attorney family lawfirm doing over 17 million in
revenue.
And my co-host is also joiningtoday, tyler Dolph.
He's the CEO of our sistercompany and our purpose is to
(00:41):
share our wins, our losses andequip family lawyers to have the
firm of their dreams.
And this week we're back withTom Hart in one of my favorite
monthly shows, tom.
We have been following Tomsince September, actually before
September of last year, but hestarted his firm in September of
24 and has had two crazy goodmonths in a row.
(01:04):
Tom, this is starting to looklike a trend, so I'm going to
hand it over to you what hashappened, number-wise, in the
month.
So we're sitting here in Julyobviously July 14th today, and
then we're looking at June oflast month.
So what happened in June oflast month?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's right.
Yeah, thanks for having me,jeff, and hi to you, tyler.
So we, yeah, june was.
I guess that puts me at monthnine, right Nine or 10.
I don't know, too early formath, but yeah, around month
nine.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
When you have to do math on the spot, it's really
really hard.
Yeah, the pressure.
You know everyone's looking atyou trying to add.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So, yeah, may was the first month I crossed the
$20,000 threshold and top linerevenue and I continued that
trend in June.
So a little dip, but nothingsubstantial.
May was $24,000 and June was alittle over $22,000 in top line
revenue, which is awesome.
I love to see those numbers,obviously and, yeah, hoping
(02:00):
those numbers continue to go up.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, yeah.
So break down your numbers,leads and consults, and what
will happen there?
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Leads went up a little.
So I had 11 leads, consults andI don't have the answer for
this off my head, but consults.
Six of them turned intoconsults and three of those
consults turned into hires.
So you know, I think leads wise.
I'm trying to think of reasonswhy the leads did not turn into
consults, because usually thatnumber is much higher for me,
(02:29):
especially since, as of rightnow, I am still doing free
consults, right?
So if someone calls and says,hey, I'm looking for a free
consultation, do you do them andI say, yes, it's pretty rare
for that consultation not tohappen.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
You said 11 leads to six consults.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I believe.
So yeah, and I am Tyler.
I know I'm working with theteam at RocketClicks to get a
CRM going.
I am very poor at trackingthese numbers, at least the lead
number.
Sometimes that is a little bitof an educated guess.
The consult number and thehired number is definitely
accurate.
Little bit of an educated guess.
(03:06):
The consult number and the hirenumber is definitely accurate.
That CRM will be very important.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
But the interesting point you made a little more
than 50% from lead to consultand then exactly 50% from
consult to hire, yes, which Ithink that number, the 50%
number from consult to hire, ispretty standard.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Looking at my past numbers that's been about,
that's probably about where I'vebeen, average about 50%.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I think you're doing this, tom, but I'll just offer
this up for benefit of ourdiscussion here in our audience.
So, being consistent about yourdefinition around what a lead
is can be hard right, but youhave to in order to be able to
have the data you need to make adecision in the future about be
hard right, but you have to inorder to be able to have the
data you need to make a decisionin the future about your
marketing right.
So how are you defining whatcounts as a lead?
(03:53):
If I called you up and said,hey, I've got a, I've got a
small time criminal, owi or DUItype deal, are you going to
count that Like?
What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, I shouldn't be right.
So so a lead to me is somebodywho's looking for a divorce or
family law attorney.
So some you know, custodyissues, support issues, stuff
like that, and and they're in myarea, they're in Nassau County
or Suffolk County or you know, Imight take some cases in Queens
County too.
But so, yeah, I guess thosewould be my two primary factors.
Are they in my practice areadivorce or family issues and are
(04:23):
they in my you know location?
So, and you know, another thingthat's up with leads is we were
just talking about this offlineis I'm still answering the phone
.
So you know, if someone callsat 9pm and I pick up the phone
real quick and talk to them, Imight forget to write that one
down.
So you know that becomes that'sa little more difficult.
(04:45):
So I am looking forward tohaving that, putting that CRM in
place so we can track thatnumber a little bit more
accurately, and we probablyshould break that up into like
total number of calls you knowhow many of those calls were
actually qualified leads andthen write that.
So that should probably be asecond step that we're tracking
there.
But yeah, that's hard to dowithout a CRM.
Step that we're tracking thereand but, but yeah, that's that's
(05:05):
hard to do without a CRM.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Tom, do you feel like uh of the 11 leads, and let's
assume the numbers right at 11,?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
did you talk to all 11 of them?
Uh yeah, I I wouldn't havecounted it as a lead if I didn't
speak to them.
Yeah, and I can think of twothat like two offhand that
booked a consult and then one ofthem one of them didn't show up
.
She actually called back.
It was supposed to be like aMonday morning consult.
She didn't show up.
She had some issues.
She called back like Mondaylater in the day and asked to
reschedule for later this week.
(05:35):
So that's one I can think ofoff the top of my head and then,
although we're talking aboutJune, so I guess that one
actually doesn't count.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
But so, tom, are you getting a sense yet as to what
your average client value isfrom a standpoint of revenue?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
My numbers will be all over the place.
So I have you know, I would saywhat's been driving my revenue
in May and June has beenprobably like three cases that
are just there's just been a lotof court appearances, maybe
four cases, a lot of courtappearances, a trial going on in
(06:18):
one of them where their firsttrial date was in May, family
court's so backed up, so fulltrial date in May and then, you
know, half a day of prep beforethat.
Second trial day was in June,half a day prep before that and
then we have the last two daysscheduled in August.
So that's yeah, that's drivingthe revenue at.
You know another client wherethere's just there's issues in
family court and Supreme Court.
So there's a lot going on there.
(06:39):
Actually there's two like that.
I have clients that have issuesin family court and Supreme
Court at the same time.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah, now Supreme Court in New York is different
than every other state right,let me clarify that.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, supreme Court is our lowest court in New York.
Yeah, I can thank the Dutch forthat tradition.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Okay, yeah, Okay, and then on revenue are you
counting revenue as billed or doyou count it as received once
received?
What's your definition there?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
So I'll say that that is billed.
But I will also add a caveat tosay that my collection rate is
100%.
I have not sent out a bill thatI have not been paid for.
So, yeah, I have not collected.
So the way that I work is Isend out, know, send out the
bill earlier in the month, andthen a lot of people pay by
credit card.
(07:27):
So I won't, I won't actuallycharge that right now.
We're saying July 14.
So I'll probably charge thatnext Friday, whatever that is,
and that is when.
That's when that money will becollected.
But, yeah, that's so thatthat's the bill that was sent
out.
But, as I've said, mythankfully to to you and one or
two other people who, early on,told me to focus on making sure
(07:51):
my collection rate is very high.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
So I was very- Well, I was just going to compliment
you on that.
You're doing great with that.
Yeah, congratulations on yourrevenue but, more probably
important, congratulations onyour collection rate, because
you could have a lot of revenue,collect 50 of it right, and I
know that that's a big.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That's a big problem in in the family law industry
and that's something you don't.
You probably deal with lessbecause you're you're dealing
with fixed fees.
Um right, so you, you probablycollect more up front, but for
me, who is wants to do fixed feebut currently is still doing
hourly, yeah, that's, that's abig issue and I heard that,
thankfully, from enough peoplebefore before I really got going
to.
You know, put those systems inplace to make sure.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, good, so all right.
So, working on our way out ofyour numbers, you got a new
office that you're in.
Now let's talk about thattransition.
What's going on there?
Speaker 2 (08:49):
I did.
Yeah, I mean I I don't have aton to say it's, I mean I like
it a lot better.
It's literally across thestreet, so it was a really
really easy move.
Uh, hopefully didn't impact mymap rankings at all.
It didn't really seem like likeit did, uh, but it is.
It is much bigger.
I have room to uh fit one ortwo other people in here,
probably one, but I could evenfit two if I needed to uh, which
should segue us into our next.
Probably our next talking pointis hiring, but yeah, I mean the
(09:09):
space is great.
I'm really really happy to haveit and it wasn't surprising.
Like I said, same exactlocation across the street,
probably two and a half timesthe size and same price.
So I don't don't know why.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, I don't know why I didn't make this move,
yeah, 50 bucks more.
You did bring up an interestingthing I want to double tap on,
and that's the map rankings formoving locations.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Tyler, maybe you 46% of all of our family law leads
have come from a local searchright Someone searching for a
divorce attorney near me orattorney name plus city name and
(09:54):
so ensuring that you arevisible in the maps is paramount
, because literally half of theavailable leads live there and
so doing the right thing.
Helping Google understand I'vemoved offices.
I've set up a new.
Helping Google understand I'vemoved offices.
I've set up a new Google myBusiness profile.
I've got the postcard in themail with the code on it and
I've entered that information.
We did all this for you, tom,but if you're listening to this
(10:15):
and you're thinking about moving, ensure that you help Google
understand that you have movedand that you update your Google
my Business profile so so youdon't miss out on some of those
map bases.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So how did you do that, practically speaking Tom
from moving across the street inone month and not see a dip?
Did you have to plan that inadvance, or what all took place
there?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
What I did was I reached out to the team at
Rocket Clicks and said, hey, Ineed to move because I was just
having a lot of issues with myother location and they told me
to expect a little bit of a dip.
But you know, maybe they, youknow, hopefully that dip
shouldn't last more than youknow.
I think they said somewhere twoto four weeks, something like
that.
So you might see a real, realshort, temporary dip, just while
(10:59):
Google does.
I don't know whatever they do.
That's why I have rocket clicks.
I don't get too involved inthat.
But you know, whatever Googledoing, whatever they do to
re-index me in their searchsearch results and yeah, I don't
, I don't think I've seen any,really any dip as far as I can
tell.
But I guess I guess let me goback and look in August but look
(11:22):
back at these numbers.
But yeah, as far as I couldtell, I haven't really noticed
anything.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
So obviously the lesson here is you're moving,
think ahead on this issue,because this directly impacts
your lead flow, so get in frontof it so you can make sure you
minimize that dip.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And of course so we're only right now speaking
about my Massapequa office.
Of course I still have theMelville one also which, yeah,
to date that office has justthat one's been really, really
slow.
This has been, massapequa hasbeen.
I want to say all If not.
I have one client that couldpossibly have come out of
(11:59):
Melville.
I don't know how I wasn'ttracking well at that time.
I know he works in Melville buthe lives in Seaford, which is
the town right next to MassPequot, so he could have found
me in either search result.
So this is still by far it's myfirst location and still by far
the busiest.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, we've talked a little bit in the past about
hiring and now it's starting tohappen, so let's dig into this.
This is a fun topic.
Tell us what's going on there.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Yeah, I am and yeah, we have.
So we have talked about and Ithink last time I was still torn
between whether I was going togo for an associate or a
paralegal, and then I made thedecision pretty quickly
thereafter to just I want to goright ahead and hire an
associate.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I'm thereafter to just I want to go right ahead
and hire an associate and I'm.
I guess best answer is that Iwant to grow as quickly as
possible.
Realistically, I probably needboth at some point.
You know, hiring an associatewithout a paralegal Will they be
happy about that?
I don't know.
You know, and I know differentgetting off topic here but
different firms utilizeparalegals differently.
Different getting off topichere but different firms utilize
(13:06):
paralegals differently.
So I know I've spoken toattorneys who might have three
attorneys for every paralegaland then I've heard the opposite
where, like, one attorney mighthave two paralegals working for
them.
So you know, I, I know, I thinkyou tend to lean more towards
the latter, where you have your,your paralegals do a lot of, do
a lot of.
You know a lot of drafting andpretty much anything that's not
(13:27):
you know, anything that's notgiving legal advice or appearing
in court or anything like that.
There's no, there's no reason aparalegal can't handle it.
But yeah, I don't know if I lookforward and I still do.
I don't like to talk about thistoo much but I still I do have
the benefit of having that otherjob where I can pick up always
pick up more work from thatdoing patent work on a contract
(13:48):
basis?
Right, so I can hire anassociate.
I can give them, you know,pretty much all of my, all of my
new incoming work and some ofthe work that I'm already doing
is as long as the case is likenew enough, then you know I
again, if my goal is to grow asquickly as possible, then it
just made like the I don't knowmade the most sense to me.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yeah, makes sense.
So you put up an ad on Indeedfor a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Put up a listing and it's a sponsored listing so it
should be should be appearingtowards the top, and that just
means I pretty much pay Indeedto have my listing go towards
the top.
Pretty much pay Indeed to havemy listing go towards the top.
And yeah, I've gotten, I think,only three again, it's only
been open three and a half weeks, something like that at this
point, and I've gotten threeresumes but nobody I've wanted
(14:35):
to interview yet.
So it is definitely a difficulthiring market.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And Tom, did you just choose Indeed because because
it's one you've heard of versusyeah?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
actually, why do you have, if you have better, uh,
ideas?
I'm open, definitely open to it.
It is, yeah, it was kind oflike a test, like a quick
decision yeah, I'm gonna hiresomebody.
This I think it's.
You know, I think my the otherthing I thought about would have
been going the recruiter route.
But you know, obviously thenyou pay them a fee and so I
don't know, if I get desperateenough, I might, might, resort
to that.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
But I've never had a good experience with recruiters
and I've went back to that Wella few times.
Yeah, um, we've had modestsuccess on our State Bar
bulletin board job listing board.
That's been something that'sworked well in Wisconsin.
Ironically, we've had zerosuccess in Illinois with that.
(15:28):
I don't get it.
I guess lawyers in Illinoisdon't look at the State Bar
website and Wisconsin lawyers do.
I suppose that's been somethingOverall Indeed is the winner
for us too.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, let yeah, so yeah, and I, I, uh, so, let's
see, I, I know my, my salaryranges is where it should be,
perhaps even even a little biton the higher end.
Uh, looking for someone.
I think I put two to five yearsexperience.
You know, ideally I'm probablylooking in that three year range
.
Um, I had.
(16:00):
So, of the three resumes I couldtell you off the top of my head
, one of them had.
One of them was an experiencedattorney with no divorce or
family law experience.
Uh, they all like criminal,criminal law background and like
, I think, some trust in estateswork.
Uh, another one was a fresh lawgraduate.
Despite that, I had, you know,very clearly listed that I was
looking for and they were.
(16:22):
They came from like really goodschool and you know, I don't
know, but still, you know, Ineed, I need someone with
experience, especially given my,my background.
So that one.
And then there was another onethat had had like five jobs over
the past three years orsomething like that.
So, yeah, all, none of those,none of those were people I was
interested in hiring.
(16:42):
And I think the other two Ididn't even respond to, I think,
the new grad I just respondedto, like you know.
Hey, I'm looking for someonewith experience, you know you
have.
You have great credentials.
Probably better off looking at,you know, a larger firm who's
would be more likely to trainyou.
You know, best of luck,something like that.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Well, for what it's worth, I'll share some
experience here to kind of maybehelp you target where you're
going after I have found thatschool means zip, zero, nada.
It has no influence on alawyer's ability to perform in
family law.
So that's been my experience.
Now, maybe I'm telling you thatbecause I came from a I don't
(17:19):
know third or fourth year of lawschool.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I was just going to say that.
I've heard so many people saythat, but I did take out the
loans to go to a very goodschool, jeff, so I don't want to
say that but you're in IP law.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Maybe it's different there.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
No, I think, even less so.
I think, even less so actually.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Okay and I have also found that experience is
important but it's not in thetop most important.
So legal experience the mostimportant that I have found in
family law is interpersonalability.
That is far more important thanI'll take a.
I'll take a 38 year oldparalegal that's been a
paralegal for five years, over a10-year attorney all day long.
(18:01):
I mean a paralegal has become alawyer going to night school.
Those people are incredible.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I will.
So I will agree with you 100%,with a slight pushback saying
you have, at this point, systemsin place to train someone,
right?
If?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
you bring in an associate with no experience.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, I don't have that, I don't have the
experience.
Yeah, I don't, I don't havethat.
I don't, I don't have, I don'thave the time to train them, I
don't have, I don't, I don'tknow, I don't have.
Right, I'm, I'm hiring someone.
This is a a unique situationwhere I'm I'm hiring someone
with more experience than methat probably yeah, and I'm not
challenging your decision, tom,whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I'm sharing my experience, maybe for the
benefit of our audience audienceas they're looking at it, but
at hiring.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So, yeah, no I think if you have you have an
established culture andestablished you know training
system, yeah, I could definitelysee the benefit of bringing on
you know new law graduatesbecause they you know, they get
trained on your systems andthey're not you know, they don't
have that baggage coming fromother firms and all that.
But yeah, I don't.
I'm not there obviously yet.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
So Tom, this is going to be a time suck, but you do
have a really unique story andyou and this is a unique
opportunity for your firmbecause it's someone who can
come in and really establishthemselves and literally be like
a major component of yourpractice.
And one thing that we foundover at the agency side is
(19:19):
deliberate direct outreach viaLinkedIn, and so we curate lists
all the time of idealcandidates and then we like
literally direct message themand tell them about the
opportunity or what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
I've thought about that and I, not only on LinkedIn
, but even you know, I know of.
I know of like three or fourlarger firms around here that I
don't know, I guess are knownfor bringing people in and
training them and they probablydon't pay well and they're
probably high stressenvironments.
So they're, you know, the typeof firms where people go, they
work a few years and then theygo work somewhere else.
I think it's it's fairly commonthere.
So I've almost thought about,you know, a lot of those firms
(19:55):
will will list their associateson their website and their like
email addresses and contactinformation and just reaching
out to them by email.
Also, I don't know, the worstthing they could say is not
interested, yeah right, or thefirm has some type of spam
filter that just makes mymessage not even get delivered
to them.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Oh, they're not necessitated.
I've done hundreds and hundredsand hundreds of those direct
reach out emails and I can tellyou that in our early years we
had by far the most success inone-on-one reach outs.
Linkedin.
I mean both of our currentmanaging partners.
Today I reached out to thempersonally on LinkedIn and got
their interest and got theirattention and brought them over,
(20:33):
so I would not underestimatethat at all.
Now you'll probably start toanger some of the other lawyers
in town, but that's okay, noneof them are sending you a check.
So, yeah, right, just yeah,don't worry about it.
Yeah, so, um, also in in Tylermentioned this, and I'll let me
go back on and kind ofunderscore this a little bit.
Your story is pretty incredible, your growth story, your nine I
(20:57):
can't do the math either on theon the spot, but you know, we
just finished.
Let's call it, let's seeSeptember, september, your 10th
month.
Okay, all right, we justfinished and you're already at
at averaging 20 grand plus amonth in revenue, at least over
the past two months.
Okay, let's put that out there.
So, um, you've got an amazingstory to tell and that's like
one of your biggest, I think,leverage points.
(21:19):
You don't have all these otherthings.
So I would lean in on that.
I would also share the link toall of these interviews that
we've done here together,because that really helps
someone that is interested ingetting in a growing, vibrant
new firm with already twolocations to get to know you a
little bit better.
So I would leverage that.
I to know you a little bitbetter, so I would leverage that
(21:40):
.
I mean you're already out there.
There are certain people thatare really be drawn to that and
drawn to you and your story andget to know you before they even
meet you.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So they get so much autonomy.
Right You're?
You want them to take on thatresponsibility.
There's a lot of firms and alot of founders who can't let go
of the vine, who are, you know,there's a lot of firms and a
lot of founders who can't let goof the vine, who are in the
weeds on every single case.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
This potential new hire has an opportunity of a
lifetime, right, yeah, and Isaid that, I think, on our last
podcast, that I think it is anattractive offer, not only
financially, but just theability to come in and run your
cases the way you want to runthem.
Yeah, come in and run yourcases the way you want to run
(22:31):
them, you know, as long asyou're doing things ethically
and you know, obviously I do, Ithink, need to have some kind of
oversight of the cases, but youknow, at a really high level,
just making sure everything likefirm personality I don't know,
it's probably a better term forthat but culture is being
carried out and you know, like Isaid, if you're doing a good
job and you know bringing in,you know getting good reviews
from clients and you know goodfeedback and all that, yeah, you
can.
You can run the case the wayyou want to run it.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
What's the advertised starting salary that you've
offered?
Speaker 2 (22:57):
I put I think I put 120 to 160,000, I think was the
range Wow, which, yeah, greatstart, yeah.
So, yeah, my target is, like Isaid, you know, two or three
years experience.
Probably you should expect topay about 140 for that, which,
yeah, I think it's probably onthe higher end for my area.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
So for that which, yeah, I think it's probably on
the higher end for my area, andhave you got any feedback from
other lawyers in your communitythat have said anything to you?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
about it.
No, just the one I spoke to,who you know, said, you know,
seemed like everything was inthe right spot, but that there's
just so much competition forassociates in that you know that
experience range, that you knowrange that two to five year.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Jeff, are you seeing the same thing across Wisconsin
and Illinois, and is this abigger topic for our listeners?
On the forefront of a hiringblitz that's coming.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Well, we've always struggled to find really quality
lawyers.
As we've gotten bigger, however, it's been easier because our
name reputation's out there.
So it does get easier as yougrow.
But the first seven, eightyears it was a constant struggle
and we struggled too with justa lot of things internally,
operationally, we kind of shotourselves in the foot a little
(24:16):
bit by creating a reputationthat we didn't want to have, you
know, just because we wereoperating so.
But it's a struggle foreveryone.
It seems like.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, again, I don't know Small, small sample size
Right.
It's only been only been outthere three, three and a half
months, and part of that wasover.
I probably didn't post it atthe best time.
It's like July.
People are, people aretraveling.
I've been out there three,three and a half months and part
of that was over.
I probably didn't post it atthe best time.
It's like July.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
People are, people are traveling, People are taking
vacations anyway, so you knowsilver bullet here Wait a sec.
There's no silver bullet here.
It's really just doing theexercise and having the
conversations and finding theright products.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
It's so important for the next phase of your firm to
ignore the rules and be a littlebit more aggressive than others
that they applied, even thoughthe the ad said don't apply
(25:20):
unless you have two years.
Sometimes those people areworth talking to because you
might find someone who's reallyautonomous and they can get
going on their own and they canjust go figure it out because
they're willing to ignore theconventions that are put in
front of them.
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
It does, yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
I don't know it's probably worth your time to call
them and just talk to them andto see maybe it's a future hire.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, yeah, maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I think.
I think I would have beensomeone you would have wanted to
hire because I was veryautonomous I can just figure it
out on my own, even as a brandnew associate and I would have
ignored those rules.
I was I'm just going to apply.
What are you going to do?
Say no to me, that's okay.
It would have been no anyway.
So that would have been mymentality, and so I would not
exclude those people that applyoutside of your conventions.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I agree, I think, I think if maybe, like someone,
had one year experience orsomething, you know something,
but I am, I am.
I don't think I'm in a positionto hire a new grad right now as
my first.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I don't want to challenge you on that time.
You would have hired JeffHughes 20 plus years ago.
I just had, I was justaggressive, I just wanted to go.
I was in court day two on myown.
You would have been totallyhappy with that.
I would have known pretty muchas much as you do right now
starting off, but then you wouldhave left your own firm.
Well, so what?
(26:43):
I'm kidding Maybe you wouldhave created a, maybe you would
have created an opportunity forme that I would have stayed and
been your managing partner.
All I'm saying is that I wantto challenge that thinking.
Well, they're not two years so Ican't talk to them.
You may find it's worth aconversation and you don't know
right away.
If they're scared of theirshadow, you'll sense it and
you'll just move on.
But if you sense this likehunger and aggressiveness and
(27:04):
pushing and those are rarepeople, they're not like,
they're like one in 20.
But if you get that person, youmay like I'm just going to give
you a chance and we're notgoing to start you off at 120,
jeff Hughes, because you don'tknow anything.
You know and you cheated andwhenever you applied you
shouldn't have applied.
But I'm going to let you in at90.
You know, you know whatever Imean.
Tell the story to them and justchallenge them.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'm a product of that .
Just for the record, I met JeffHughes on a plane and had a
little.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
That's right I didn't know that story until like two
months ago.
It's an awesome story, it'sfunny.
Yeah, I'll consider it.
Jeff, I am, I don't know, Idon't know, having someone come
and you know, I guess I wouldneed to set the rules, like you
know, hey, you have to figureeverything out.
(27:50):
You know, I don't, I wouldn'twant that.
You know, hey, you have tofigure everything out.
You know, I don't, I wouldn'twant that.
You know, someone coming intheir first week and be like,
hey, how do I do this?
Right, I don't, I don't want tobe training someone on the
legal side right now.
I don't, I don't have the time.
Uh, even right now, like one ofthe reasons I expect my revenue
in July to be a little bitlower is I have so much
administrative stuff that Idon't, that I haven't had time
(28:12):
to do, like setting up a CRM,setting up billing systems, I
don't know.
There's just a lot of stufflike that that I need to do, and
so if I hire someone again, mygoal is to offload a lot of the
legal work to them so that Ihave room to A do some work on
my other job.
B do a lot of theadministrative stuff at my firm
(28:33):
and at least get systems inplace the way I want them to be
in place.
And then, of course, you couldhire someone to run them after
that and C start doing some morein-person networking and
getting involved on that sideand trying to bring in business
locally.
Like that I don't think we doon a statewide level.
I believe we do on a in likebar associations, like local bar
(28:55):
associations.
So I know, uh, I am thankful toknow the president of the
Nassau County Bar Association,uh, who is James Joseph, who is
a friend of yours that I metthrough.
I always forget if it was yourpodcast or another podcast, um,
but you, yeah, you know him, Iknow you.
You guys interact, uh prettyfrequently, um, so he, I I've
(29:15):
heard him talk about how theyhave that in the Nassau County
Bar Association, which that's,that's my county, where I
practice in Nassau County, um,so, yeah, but obviously then you
need to.
I'm not currently a member ofthe Nassau County Bar
Association.
I probably should be, um, butyeah.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I know they have that .
Speaker 2 (29:31):
So it's, you know, obviously something I need to
pay to get, to get into.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
And I don't think it's that cheap.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
But it might be worth it.
Yeah, just a thought.
Yeah.
And even on a I, when I wasfirst starting I, I reached out
to two James to ask for like acouple template documents and
and he gave them to me without asecond thought he's, he's been
he's been awesome.
He's wonderful, yeah, althoughI will say, james Joseph, if
you're listening to this, he isstarting to run LSAs in my area,
(30:01):
which I expect, nothing less.
He's a.
I know he's looking to grow andhe's he's got a great firm.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
All right, anything else on your mind?
Speaker 2 (30:16):
No, I don't think so.
I think hopefully by next monthI'll have some I don't know
better news on the hiring frontand hopefully business keeps
going.
But we didn't one thing we weregoing to talk about.
I forget if we hit it brieflyor kind of glossed over it, but
uh, answering service yeah,you're coming.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You have a vacation coming up here in august that
you're gonna be out a week.
So how are you thinking about?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
it's not like it's.
It's a vacation where I couldstill answer if I had to.
Yeah, I would like not to rightlike so.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
I took a vacation in april and that was the disney
world, which is an impossibleplace to answer the phone even
if I, even if I heard my phoneringing it's a small world, yeah
right, yeah, um, but I wouldsay fortunately or unfortunately
.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
I think I got like two calls the entire week that I
was there, so fortunately formy kids, unfortunately for
business, um, but that you knowthat was that was a slow month
and but yeah, if things keepgoing in this direction, I don't
expect expect August to be slowlike that.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So this is.
You know, we're going to a lake.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
You know I could probably be available to answer
my phone much of the time, butyeah, I prefer not to be.
So I know, you know, long-termI would love to have someone
in-house, that's that'sanswering my phone, you know,
during, during all hours andafter hours.
(31:35):
But for now I almost feel likeI need like a Band-Aid for now,
because I don't think that I'mthere yet and if I am looking to
hire an associate, I can't alsohire like a full-time, you know
, receptionist or intake team orwhatever the right term is at
this point.
So someone you know at least toanswer the phone, you know
after hours or while I'm incourt, something like that, or
(31:56):
while I'm on vacation, and I canstill, you know, I can still be
the one answering the phoneduring normal business hours if
I'm just here working on otherstuff.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Tom, I personally think this is a great idea.
The fact is, you're only goingto get busier right.
Your firm is going to continueto grow, and we talk about this
a lot on the podcast, but thefact that when someone calls in
to talk about their divorce,normally this is the first time
they're telling someone thatthey don't know outside of their
friend or family circle about aterrible thing that's happening
(32:27):
in their lives, and so theydon't want to do that.
Three, four or five times.
Answer rate is so important togenerating growth within a
family law firm because you haveto have the at bat, and if
you're not calling them backwithin five or six minutes, they
are now telling that story tosomeone else and they're not
going to tell it to you, and sowe coach our clients at
(32:50):
RocketClicks all the time on theimportance of answer rate and
the importance of callback, andso I would just encourage you to
to find a solution here,whether it is okay you're going
to do it yourself, or you'regoing to find some after hours,
or you know call center that canat least pick it up yeah, I
agree, and like I said it's,it's a new problem.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I've been, you know, for the first again we're in
month 10, for probably firsteight months I was answering.
You know 98% of my calls, youknow myself and you know
scheduling the consults andeverything like that.
But now court has been a bigone.
It's you know, obviously youcan't pick up the phone while
you're in court and you knowstarting to get more calls on
(33:31):
weekends and stuff which youknow.
If I see it ringing I'll answerit.
It's not like I'm not answeringmy phone on weekends, but yeah,
sometimes I'm away from myphone.
Especially I spend a lot oftime at the beach in the summer.
Hard to answer your phone whenyou're in the ocean and it's
funny.
I actually find some people aretaken aback when the attorney
answers the phone and like in aI don't know if it's in a bad
(33:55):
way or not, they're just like oh, I wasn't expecting to get the
attorney right away and Ihaven't.
I haven't encountered a problemwith that, but I almost feel
like it looks better if someoneelse answers the phone.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
You could really lean into it and talk about the
importance of every client.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah, and I do.
Yeah, of course.
So, yeah, I don't know.
I think probably I'm familiarwith some of the bigger
answering services, likeanswering legal or another one,
something receptionist, so Idon't know if that's.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Ruby or something like that.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Maybe that's one that might be a temporary solution
that I, you know, sign up with.
Maybe that's you know,something I do for the end of
the year and I'm sure there'seasy ways to schedule.
Like, I'm available to answerit this time and I'm not in
court today, so I can answer it.
Or I am in court or I'm onvacation.
I need you to answer it at thistime and I don't know how it
works.
Again, it's a new problem, butI'm sure they've been around a
(34:48):
long time.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
So I'm sure they've been around a long time so I'm
sure they've got it figured out,but I know a lot of integrated
AI answering service companiespopping up all over the place.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I'm reluctant to use that and that might be a
personal thing.
I hate calling places andgetting automated answering
services, so I don't know.
I agree.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
The power of the human is important.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, right, especially in what we do.
So, yeah, I guess that'ssomething else.
I'm looking into something else.
I need more time.
For another reason not to hirea fresh graduate.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah, all right.
Well, good to Tom.
This has been a great monthalready, so looking forward to
hearing what's going on.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And for the month of July yeah, good Tom, this has
been a great month already, solooking forward to hearing
what's going on for the month ofJuly Next month Cool, all right
, thanks, guys.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Good talking to you.
Appreciate it, tom.
Good to see you.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.