March 25, 2025 • 27 mins
What happens when a Marine officer, Silicon Valley engineer, and fintech disruptor builds a better way for law firms to get paid? On this episode of Veteran Led, host John Berry sits down with Emery Wager, co-founder & CEO of Confido Legal. From combat tours in Afghanistan to streamlining cash flow for thousands of law firms, Emery shares why financial clarity is the lifeblood of legal success—and how great leadership starts with ownership. Tune in for real talk on accountability, client experience, and the business side of law that too many attorneys ignore.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Leaders that I've worked for have reallygiven me, I would say,
space and responsibility.
The space to solve the problem myself andnot be told what to do or how to do it,
but also put the weight ofresponsibility on my back.
Welcome to Veteran Led.
(00:20):
Today's guest is Emery Wager.
Emery graduated from Stanford Universitywith a degree in mechanical engineering
and began his career as an engineer at astartup in Silicon Valley
before joining the United States MarineCorps and earning a position
as an infantry officer.
Emery spent two combat tours inAfghanistan, one as a platoon commander
(00:41):
and one as a company executive officer.
He left active duty and wrote a novelcalled How to Name a Generation.
After almost a decade in the financialtechnology sector, Emery developed a
concept for Confido Legal, wherehe is the co-founder and CEO.
Confido Legal focuses on finding waysto help law firms succeed as businesses.
(01:06):
Through Confido, Emery has personallyworked with hundreds of law firms, helping
them optimize their financial health.
Welcome to the show, Emery Wager.Thank you.
I'm very excited to be here.
The great thing about...
We got a Marine, Stanforddegree, Silicon Valley, and now
is working in the legal industry.
(01:27):
As a lawyer, I know that a lot lawfirms are horrible with their finances.
They don't understand.
Usually, they're really good with theirtrust accounts, but beyond that, they're
horrible at running their businesses.
Tell me, how did you come upwith the concept of Confido?
I worked in financial technology andpayments for about a
(01:48):
decade, as you mentioned.
One of my side roles at the company Iworked for was managing all of the
relationships we had with the variouslaw firms that the business worked with.
I was basically a businessclient of half a dozen law firms.
And after paying millions of dollars overthe course of 10 years in legal
(02:10):
bills, being in payments, I saw the...
I'd never experienced an industry thatwas so far from e-commerce best practices.
You think aboutthe effort that Amazon puts in to optimize
that checkout page and thevalue that they get out of it.
Of course, the benefit is not as extremein the legal case,
(02:30):
but it can be life or death in terms ofcash flow, taking the friction
out of that experience.
We wanted to bring best-in-class financialtools to law firms and make sure that they
could still comply with their ethicalobligations and get best-in-class
digital payments technology.
Yeah, and this is wherethe huge opportunity is.
(02:52):
I mean, obviously, youcome from Silicon Valley.
People are hungry for opportunity.
But what you see is lawyers are greatabout managing their trust accounts.
They are all over it.
You mess up your trust account,you're going to lose your license.
You're going to lose that ticket.You will not practice law.
So no monkey businesswith the trust account.
You got to keep that clean.
(03:12):
And also, lawyers usually do aphenomenal job working their cases.
The good lawyers do, right?
They are so laser-focused on the law andgetting the best result for their clients.
They are zealous advocates.
And yet when it comes to running their ownfirm, their own business,
they are horrible.
And I know this becausethat's who my father was.
My father was a legendary attorney.
He tried cases in 24 states,three different foreign countries.
(03:34):
He was well known for the Green BeretAffair where he defended the
Fifth Special Forces in Vietnam.
Well known lawyer, horrible businessman.
And so a lot of it is becausethey're trained to be lawyers.
They're not trained to run a business.
And they leave law schooland they start a practice.
And then the old guard is like, Well,this is a practice, not a business.
(03:55):
And so for some reason, they think thatthe legal industry is the only one that
shouldn't have market or sellor be financially responsible.
It's all about a practice, but it's not.It is a business.
If you don't run it as a business, you doa disservice to
your clients because you need your bestpeople doing what is the highest and best
(04:15):
use of their time, which issolving the legal problem.
But you also need people in the businessspace to make the firm profitable so that
you can get the best lawyers, thebest paralegals, the best technology.
Take us on that journey.
When you're going through there seeing howjacked up the legal industry
is from this perspective.
These great professionalswho do everything for their clients seem
(04:36):
to be incompetent atrunning their businesses.
Tell us about that.Yeah.
So if you and I were not doing a podcastright now, but we were actually doing
legal work in your average hourlyfirm, hourly practice area,
the work that we're doing today, we wouldget paid for, and this is average, we
(04:57):
would get paid for in June sometime.
So you think about, that's basically afour month, three-and-a-half-month loan
that you're giving to your clients.
And you just think aboutas the firm grows, the amount of cash that
is outstanding there isjust, I mean, it's huge.
(05:17):
And not to mention the impacton the likelihood of payment.
So it also hits your revenue.
It hits your profit in a big way becauseyou've already done the legal to
get that money.
So all of that,collections, revenue that's coming in
drops straight to your bottom line.
(05:39):
So we think a lot about cash, profit,and revenue, and
I am personally, given how I came to this,passionate about the client experience
and making that just way, way better.
There's a lot ofchallenging things for the client when
they're dealing with a law firm, and webelieve that experience should be better.
(06:02):
Absolutely.Let me just tell you something.
There's nothing worse than when a lawyerprovides outstanding service for a client,
wins the case, and maybe they're askingfor a five-star review, and the client...
But the billing is screwed up.
The client is mad becausethey got an inaccurate bill.
They feel they got ripped off or theydidn't get the billing for three months,
(06:23):
and now it's like, all of a sudden, wait aminute, you've been
charging me the whole time?
There's ways we can really screw up theclient experience if we don't
understand the financial piece.
Now, that being said, youbrought up a great point, too.
AR.Man, I used to suck at AR.
I wouldn't bill the clients right away.
And for some lawyers, theyhave head trash around that.
(06:45):
But I wouldn't bill them right away.
And then I found out that the longer Iwaited to bill them, the less I get paid.
Then I figured out, if you don't get paidwithin 30 days, then you
might not get paid in 60 days.
If you don't get paid in 60 days,you might not get paid in 90 days.
And if you don't get paid in 90 days,you're not going to see that money.
Right?A hundred percent.
I mean, I've probably talked to about2,000 law firms in my time here, and
(07:06):
it's amazing how you say,what is your collection rate at the firm?
And they say, well, mycollection rate is 100%.
B******.We collect everything.
And then you say, well, how muchdo you have in 90 day plus AR?
And it's like, well, they have five yearsof revenue sitting in in
that aging report still.
It's like, you probablywon't be collecting on that.
(07:30):
Yeah, there's nothing moredisgusting than aging AR.
You know that the more it ages,the less likely you are to recover.
And of course, you neverwant to sue a client.
Sometimes people have to do that, but thenyou end up terminating the
attorney-client relationship.
And especially in a large transactionalfirm, you don't want to be...
I've seen that happen where someone, theirgreat client is the one that's bleeding
them to death because they're paying theleast revenue, they're carrying the most
(07:52):
AR, they're not paying them for months.
And I got to tell you, back when my dadpracticed law early, back in the days
in the '80s, before you could get...
Now, today, you go bankrupt, you'll geta credit card in the mail by Friday.
But back in my dad's day, therewasn't all this cash out there.
People would then hirethem, they'd pay them.
And when you did criminal defense, they'dpay them with cars,
guns, whatever it took.
(08:14):
Everybody had something but my dad alwayshad a saying back when he had criminal
defense, because if you would win acriminal case, people would be like, Well,
I shouldn't have had to hire a lawyer.
If you'd lose a criminal case, they'd say,Well, what good did you do for me anyway?
My dad would always say...
When I first started, and I startedcriminal law, now I do Veterans
disability, personal injury,and some other things.
But when I started, that waswhere I learned how to try cases.
(08:35):
My dad would say, You got to get the moneywhen they come to you with
the tears in their eyes.
Get paid up front.
I'm going to remember that one.
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the thingsthat totally we preach that,
a collect early billing model.
Even if it's just grabbing the...
Storing, securely the client's paymentmethod, so at least you have, maybe you
(08:58):
don't have the money in the trust accountto work against, but at least
you have a way to bill them.
So they don't need to take any action topay you because that's what they're used
to on Amazon, Uber, all these places whereit's so easy to click and
pay or do nothing and pay.
Absolutely.
And I think that's the challenge is thatwe're not competing
(09:21):
against other law firms.
We're competing against Amazon, FedEx,Uber, all these instant payment.
Those are the people who are getting themoney because they're We're
getting the money right away.
For firms like ours, we're acontingency-based firm, mostly now.
That means when we do personal injurycases, we don't get paid
unless our clients win.
In our Veterans disability cases, wedon't get paid unless our clients win.
(09:43):
Our clients don't pay us money up front.
It's really important not only that wecollect the money and we're smart about it
and we get our clients paid right away,but also that
file can't just sit on a desk.
Every day that that file sits onthe desk, it costs the firm money.
The lawyers need to work the cases andwork them quickly in order to, number one,
(10:04):
get our clients paid who are oftentimesmaybe facing bankruptcy or they're worried
about whether they're going to be able topay their medical bills,
they're not working.
We need to get them paid right way, butit's also really good for the business
when you can keep that cash flow goingbecause there's nothing worse than not
being able to meet payrollor worse, going bankrupt.
(10:26):
No, it's amazing.
I'm looking at the topcontingency-based firms like yours these
days, and just that that modelis the incentives are so much more aligned
with creating a good business, creating agood client experience, because you do
want to move it quickly, beefficient, create a great experience.
(10:48):
On the hourly side, the incentives are alljacked up, where it's actually
better to draw it out.
And of course, there'sa few bad eggs out there, but
most attorneys are doing a good job.They're doing their best.
But at the end of the day, the incentivesare totally misaligned on that side.
(11:10):
Yeah, divorce attorneys, right?Divorce attorneys.
Hey, let them fight for six hours, whateach attorney is billing them $1,000 an
hour, let them fight over the$300 drapes for six hours.
All of this, it's just it's insane.
A lot of times with a divorce or eventransactional, it becomes personal.
People say, it's not aboutthe money, it's personal.
(11:32):
It's like, well, but it is.
There are times like criminal defense.
Now, you served your country, you swore anoath, you understand what it means to
support and defend theConstitution of the United States.
There are times when our liberty is atstake, where there is no amount of
money that's going to fix the problem.
Either the government will dismiss thecase, or we will defeat them at trial.
That's the attitude.
But because our clients don't want to beconvicted felons, they don't want to lose
(11:55):
their civil rights, they don'twant to lose their Civil Liberties.
They will fight till the end, andthen they need a lawyer to do that.
But when it comes to money,it's always interesting to me.
People are fighting over theirprinciple, and it's insane.
I'm going to fight themover the principle.
I mean, look, maybe weshould have trial by combat.
I don't know if you wantto fight over a principle.
Otherwise, it's just money.
(12:16):
At the end of the day, if you have aproblem and you have enough
money, you don't have a problem.Let's get into that.
Tell me all the ways that you help lawfirms now with their money,
which is the lifeblood.
Cash flow is the lifeblood ofa law firm or any business.
How do you help?
We basically built our entire business onthe non-contingency practice areas and
(12:39):
helping those firms that need to get paidfrom their client, eliminate all
of the friction in that process.
So obviously, if a client doesn't wantto pay, that's outside our purview.
But any client who wants to pay but isbusy, whether they're a business client,
an AP person or a consumer client,we want to take all the friction out for
(13:04):
that client so that the law firm, insteadof being the 10th bill to get paid,
they're the first ones to get paid.
And so we think a lot, like I said, aboutshortening that AR cycle to
impact cash, profit, and revenue.
So that's how we've built ourbusiness for the last five years.
(13:25):
Something I'm very excited about, welaunched earlier this year, is a outbound
a digital payments solution toallow contingency-based firms to
really improve their workflows.
But more importantly, as you mentioned,speak to that next generation of
plaintiffs who grew upon Venmo, Cash App, Amazon, all these
(13:46):
digital options, and they don't want towait for the check to show up, and they
don't even know what todo with it when it comes.
And so, again, coming back to that clientexperience and giving that Amazon-esque
experience to law firm clients and justmaking it instant, easy,
(14:08):
and really improving that experience.
Yeah, I find it crazy.
I've been involved withsome other law firms.
As a lawyer, look, I don'thandle my own stuff, right?
So I hire lawyers for stuff,and it's always amazing to me.
It's like, Okay, look, why are youmaking it hard for me to pay you?
This doesn't have to be hard.
You got LawPay and these other companies.
It's like, Look, let meclick a button and pay you.
(14:30):
I'll sign the agreement, but you can't getme a digital agreement to sign and
let me click a button and pay you?
What's wrong with you?
It's like, Hey, take the money, because Iknow if you don't take the money, you
can't run your operations to represent me.
So I lose confidence in you if you can'tcontrol your cash,
I don't think you can control your firm.
(14:50):
And if you can't do that, you'renot good enough to represent me.
It basically says to the client, I think,I didn't care enough to
make this easy for you.
And that is the area where a lot of peopleare looking at a bill that's
bigger than they expected.
And those little things, those littlemoments, just have a huge difference.
(15:15):
That's how we got into this in the firstplace, seeing that from the client side.
What we didn't know initially, and now welive and die by this, is the massive
financial impact thatoptimizing that has on the on the
underlying cash and profitposition of the firms.
(15:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, it's good for thefirm, it's good for the client.
Just stay on top of it.
I found also, give your client the dignityof allowing them to pay
for the legal service.
So many times it's like,Well, the client is behind.
Why not?Pick up the phone.
How do we help them work through this?
Because sometimes our clients do gothrough difficult times, whatever it is,
(15:56):
whether it's a divorce, they losta job, they've been laid off.
I think any time the client is strugglingand we can help them work through
that payment process, it's important.
Sometimes it is giving them grace, andother times it's saying,
Look, this is an agreement.
We have to have this conversation.
I realize that you may want to,whatever people waste money now on, I
(16:19):
don't even want to know,on Prime or whatever.
But hey, your legal bills,this is your future.
What is a more importantinvestment than your future?
If I'm hiring a lawyer,I'm investing in my future.
That lawyer is supposed to protect myfuture, and I'm not going to go cheap.
There's nothing moreexpensive than a cheap lawyer.
But you see these lawyers, and if theycan't control their finances,
(16:40):
where else are they broken?
Where else are they going to fail you?
And what are you paying for as aclient that isn't that quality service?
You're basically paying forthem to run a s**** business.
Yeah.And where else are they dropping the ball?
And that's, excellence in the practiceof law, excellence in business.
(17:02):
We expect both as consumers.
So you don't work withcontingency firms now.
It's all mostly hourly-based?
Well, now we are, yeah.
As of this year, with theoutbound digital product.
We're starting to workwith contingency firms.
Frankly, it's been very fun because ofthat, what I mentioned earlier, where the
(17:25):
incentives are so aligned toreally think about the business in
strategic ways and move casesthrough and be efficient.
It's really been enjoyable to work withthat area of law that we haven't
really focused on in the past.
That's great.
I think that's probably how we gotconnected because we are mostly in the
(17:46):
contingency space, and we're prettytech savvy and somewhat business savvy.
But I had a paper routesince I was 10, 10 years old.
That was my business lesson.
I learned all about collectingmoney, people bouncing checks, AR.
It's amazing when you think about it, howpeople used to write checks at the grocery
store, and the grocery store was basicallytaking the risk on that payment
(18:11):
that you were good for those checks.
So we think about credit cards andwhatnot as airline miles and whatnot.
But there's amazing...
That instant authorization is an amazingtool for the business that used to be
hoping that you were good for the money.Yeah, that's great.
And you know what?
(18:32):
We still take checks in some cases, butyeah, it's a lot better
when we can do it digitally.
So I want to talk a little bit aboutyour novel, How to Name a Generation.
I mean, here you are, a Stanfordgrad with an engineering degree.
Now, my brother went Navy.
He's a Stanford gradwith a systems degree.
He worked in my business, so heworked in the law firm for a while.
But tell me, how is it thatyou came to write a novel?
(18:54):
I mean, you're an engineer, sowhy did you think you could write?
I had actually always enjoyed writing, andit was in college, I was choosing
between English and engineering.
Engineering won out, but I'vealways enjoyed writing on the side.
When I got out, I took a little time todecide what did I want
to do with my life next.
(19:16):
And I was fascinated by two things.
One, I went to aprestigious private high school.
It was the same high school that BillGates and Paul Allen met at
and developed Microsoft.
And so the MO there was like, no,you're going to graduate from here.
You're going to go to the best college.
(19:37):
You're going to get the best job, andyou're just going to be on this path.
And I was on that path, andit was really hard to get off.
It was a major mental shift for me to makea decision to say, oh,
I can join the military.
I can be a Marine.
(19:58):
I can get off this path.
It took me a while.
I went through college, and I startedworking before I made that shift.
But I thought it would be fascinating, A,to write about someone who is in that
situation and made that decision to enlistright out of high school
(20:19):
in that situation.
That was the first piece of it.
The second piece of it, I was fascinatedas I was getting out
a lot of the Marines thatwere in my platoon, in my company, my
battalion, theyhad done four, eight years.
They were getting out, and now they weregoing to college for the first time.
(20:41):
And I thought,wow, it would be so fascinating to write
about their experience meeting the me's incollege without that experience,
without that maturity.
What is it like for them to go backto college and be with those younger kids
who don't have that experience in combatin the Marine Corps or
(21:07):
in any of the services.
Those were the two topics that I reallythought were fascinating to explore.
And, in the novel, the main charactergrows up, goes to a prestigious private
high school, througha series of events, decides to
enlist right out of high school.
It's about his experiencejuxtaposed by that of his or those of his
(21:30):
classmates who go on to top-tier colleges,high-powered careers and everything.
At the end, he gets outand goes back to college.
It's about his experience interacting withthose classmates that are
five years younger than him anddon't have those experiences.
Really, really fun experience just goingthrough the process of writing it.
(21:55):
Did you ever read Once an Eagle?
I love that book.
When I got out, actually, three people hadgiven it to me, and I drove back across
country and listened to it, andit took me almost exactly...
I was basically hitting the PacificOcean when it was wrapping up.
(22:19):
It's amazing.
It really is an amazing book.
Yeah, I see some similarities there.
The guy doesn't get into West Point, andso he enlists to fight in the war and then
becomes an officer, and then he'sdealing with the careerist officer.
I mean, it's an interesting...
A little bit long for my taste, a littlebit too much on the romance
(22:40):
side and all that garbage.
But I thought it was a very well-writtenbook, and I loved it when, especially I
believe he's in when hewent to China, right?
And he's there and he's talking to theformer Emperor who's now
leading the resistance.
And I thought that wasjust such a great moment.
All right, well, we will move awayfrom literature and get to leadership.
All right, let's talk about this.
So you've been a Marine Infantry Officer,but you've also led tech teams in Silicon
(23:07):
Valley, and you're leading a startup.
Let's dive in.
Of all of those,just mesh them together whatever, your
three best examples of leadership andthe three worst examples of leadership.
And name names or don't, I don't care.
All right.
So best examples, I think, are the timeswhen either
(23:30):
I or leaders that I've worked forhave really given me, I would
say, space and responsibility.
So the space to operateautonomously, to solve the problem myself
and not be told what to do or how to doit, but also put the weight of
(23:54):
responsibility on my back forsuccess or if we are not going to be
successful owning thefailure, learning from it.
So I would say a big thing is that spaceand also that responsibility.
I've really done well in those situations,and we really try to make that...
(24:18):
We really try to instill that in ourfolks and in the culture of the company.
One of our core principles is,everyone's an owner.
We do provide legal ownership, but that'snot the important part.
The important part is everyone's expectedto think and act like the owner of the
(24:39):
business, not like they're in their littlesilo and they're only thinking
about their one little part.
They need to understand the economics,the customer acquisition cost,
the customer lifetime value.
If you don't understand those things,how are you going to
spend money to solve a customer problem?
You won't know how much to spend,and you'll have to be told what to do.
(25:03):
That part of our culture is huge.
I would say on the negative side, you cantell when a leader is out for themselves.
And the toughest leaders that I've workedfor, tough in a negative
sense, where I really didn't feel likeworking hard for them,
(25:29):
was when you can tell that they'rereally in it for themselves.
When they're talking to you, it's notabout the best interest of the unit,
the best interest of the company.
It's how can I advance,and I want to be in charge.
You don't have to say anything specific.
(25:50):
You can just feel when that's there.
Those are the worst examples.
Fair enough.
As we wrap up, and I don't think I nailedthis, Emery, but what is
your title at Confido?
I like to use co-founder, butI put CEO on the contracts.
(26:11):
All right, fair enough.
Emery, where can our audience learnmore about Emery Wager or Confido Legal?
Confidolegal.
com is the best place to getin touch with the company.
You can reach out on our contact us page,a bunch of different ways to get in touch.
And then for me personally, LinkedIn.
(26:34):
I'm pretty active on LinkedInand check those messages.
So please send me a note.
Love, especially working with Veteranentrepreneurs and helping out where I can.
Our lead investor at Confido specializesin Veteran-led startups,
and so we're really deep into thatVeteran entrepreneur ecosystem.
(26:58):
But you don't have to be a Veteran.
Hit me up on LinkedIn.I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks so much for your time, and thankyou for your service and your continued
service to our communityand to our Veterans.
Thank you.
Thankyou for joining us today on Veteran Led,
(27:18):
where we pursue our mission of promotingVeteran leadership in business,
strengthening the Veteran community, andgetting Veterans all of the
benefits that they earned.
If you know a leader who should be on theVeteran Led podcast, report to our online
community by searching @VeteranLed on yourfavorite social channels
and posting in the comments.
We want to hear how your militarychallenges prepared you to lead your
(27:41):
industry or community, andwe will let the world know.
And, hit subscribe and joinme next time on Veteran Led.
Leaders that I've worked for have reallygiven me, I would say,
space and responsibility.
The space to solve the problem myself andnot be told what to do or how to do it,
but also put the weight ofresponsibility on my back.
Welcome to Veteran Led.
(00:20):
Today's guest is Emery Wager.
Emery graduated from Stanford Universitywith a degree in mechanical engineering
and began his career as an engineer at astartup in Silicon Valley
before joining the United States MarineCorps and earning a position
as an infantry officer.
Emery spent two combat tours inAfghanistan, one as a platoon commander
(00:41):
and one as a company executive officer.
He left active duty and wrote a novelcalled How to Name a Generation.
After almost a decade in the financialtechnology sector, Emery developed a
concept for Confido Legal, wherehe is the co-founder and CEO.
Confido Legal focuses on finding waysto help law firms succeed as businesses.
(01:06):
Through Confido, Emery has personallyworked with hundreds of law firms, helping
them optimize their financial health.
Welcome to the show, Emery Wager.Thank you.
I'm very excited to be here.
The great thing about...
We got a Marine, Stanforddegree, Silicon Valley, and now
is working in the legal industry.
(01:27):
As a lawyer, I know that a lot lawfirms are horrible with their finances.
They don't understand.
Usually, they're really good with theirtrust accounts, but beyond that, they're
horrible at running their businesses.
Tell me, how did you come upwith the concept of Confido?
I worked in financial technology andpayments for about a
(01:48):
decade, as you mentioned.
One of my side roles at the company Iworked for was managing all of the
relationships we had with the variouslaw firms that the business worked with.
I was basically a businessclient of half a dozen law firms.
And after paying millions of dollars overthe course of 10 years in legal
(02:10):
bills, being in payments, I saw the...
I'd never experienced an industry thatwas so far from e-commerce best practices.
You think aboutthe effort that Amazon puts in to optimize
that checkout page and thevalue that they get out of it.
Of course, the benefit is not as extremein the legal case,
(02:30):
but it can be life or death in terms ofcash flow, taking the friction
out of that experience.
We wanted to bring best-in-class financialtools to law firms and make sure that they
could still comply with their ethicalobligations and get best-in-class
digital payments technology.
Yeah, and this is wherethe huge opportunity is.
(02:52):
I mean, obviously, youcome from Silicon Valley.
People are hungry for opportunity.
But what you see is lawyers are greatabout managing their trust accounts.
They are all over it.
You mess up your trust account,you're going to lose your license.
You're going to lose that ticket.You will not practice law.
So no monkey businesswith the trust account.
You got to keep that clean.
(03:12):
And also, lawyers usually do aphenomenal job working their cases.
The good lawyers do, right?
They are so laser-focused on the law andgetting the best result for their clients.
They are zealous advocates.
And yet when it comes to running their ownfirm, their own business,
they are horrible.
And I know this becausethat's who my father was.
My father was a legendary attorney.
He tried cases in 24 states,three different foreign countries.
(03:34):
He was well known for the Green BeretAffair where he defended the
Fifth Special Forces in Vietnam.
Well known lawyer, horrible businessman.
And so a lot of it is becausethey're trained to be lawyers.
They're not trained to run a business.
And they leave law schooland they start a practice.
And then the old guard is like, Well,this is a practice, not a business.
(03:55):
And so for some reason, they think thatthe legal industry is the only one that
shouldn't have market or sellor be financially responsible.
It's all about a practice, but it's not.It is a business.
If you don't run it as a business, you doa disservice to
your clients because you need your bestpeople doing what is the highest and best
(04:15):
use of their time, which issolving the legal problem.
But you also need people in the businessspace to make the firm profitable so that
you can get the best lawyers, thebest paralegals, the best technology.
Take us on that journey.
When you're going through there seeing howjacked up the legal industry
is from this perspective.
These great professionalswho do everything for their clients seem
(04:36):
to be incompetent atrunning their businesses.
Tell us about that.Yeah.
So if you and I were not doing a podcastright now, but we were actually doing
legal work in your average hourlyfirm, hourly practice area,
the work that we're doing today, we wouldget paid for, and this is average, we
(04:57):
would get paid for in June sometime.
So you think about, that's basically afour month, three-and-a-half-month loan
that you're giving to your clients.
And you just think aboutas the firm grows, the amount of cash that
is outstanding there isjust, I mean, it's huge.
(05:17):
And not to mention the impacton the likelihood of payment.
So it also hits your revenue.
It hits your profit in a big way becauseyou've already done the legal to
get that money.
So all of that,collections, revenue that's coming in
drops straight to your bottom line.
(05:39):
So we think a lot about cash, profit,and revenue, and
I am personally, given how I came to this,passionate about the client experience
and making that just way, way better.
There's a lot ofchallenging things for the client when
they're dealing with a law firm, and webelieve that experience should be better.
(06:02):
Absolutely.Let me just tell you something.
There's nothing worse than when a lawyerprovides outstanding service for a client,
wins the case, and maybe they're askingfor a five-star review, and the client...
But the billing is screwed up.
The client is mad becausethey got an inaccurate bill.
They feel they got ripped off or theydidn't get the billing for three months,
(06:23):
and now it's like, all of a sudden, wait aminute, you've been
charging me the whole time?
There's ways we can really screw up theclient experience if we don't
understand the financial piece.
Now, that being said, youbrought up a great point, too.
AR.Man, I used to suck at AR.
I wouldn't bill the clients right away.
And for some lawyers, theyhave head trash around that.
(06:45):
But I wouldn't bill them right away.
And then I found out that the longer Iwaited to bill them, the less I get paid.
Then I figured out, if you don't get paidwithin 30 days, then you
might not get paid in 60 days.
If you don't get paid in 60 days,you might not get paid in 90 days.
And if you don't get paid in 90 days,you're not going to see that money.
Right?A hundred percent.
I mean, I've probably talked to about2,000 law firms in my time here, and
(07:06):
it's amazing how you say,what is your collection rate at the firm?
And they say, well, mycollection rate is 100%.
B******.We collect everything.
And then you say, well, how muchdo you have in 90 day plus AR?
And it's like, well, they have five yearsof revenue sitting in in
that aging report still.
It's like, you probablywon't be collecting on that.
(07:30):
Yeah, there's nothing moredisgusting than aging AR.
You know that the more it ages,the less likely you are to recover.
And of course, you neverwant to sue a client.
Sometimes people have to do that, but thenyou end up terminating the
attorney-client relationship.
And especially in a large transactionalfirm, you don't want to be...
I've seen that happen where someone, theirgreat client is the one that's bleeding
them to death because they're paying theleast revenue, they're carrying the most
(07:52):
AR, they're not paying them for months.
And I got to tell you, back when my dadpracticed law early, back in the days
in the '80s, before you could get...
Now, today, you go bankrupt, you'll geta credit card in the mail by Friday.
But back in my dad's day, therewasn't all this cash out there.
People would then hirethem, they'd pay them.
And when you did criminal defense, they'dpay them with cars,
guns, whatever it took.
(08:14):
Everybody had something but my dad alwayshad a saying back when he had criminal
defense, because if you would win acriminal case, people would be like, Well,
I shouldn't have had to hire a lawyer.
If you'd lose a criminal case, they'd say,Well, what good did you do for me anyway?
My dad would always say...
When I first started, and I startedcriminal law, now I do Veterans
disability, personal injury,and some other things.
But when I started, that waswhere I learned how to try cases.
(08:35):
My dad would say, You got to get the moneywhen they come to you with
the tears in their eyes.
Get paid up front.
I'm going to remember that one.
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the thingsthat totally we preach that,
a collect early billing model.
Even if it's just grabbing the...
Storing, securely the client's paymentmethod, so at least you have, maybe you
(08:58):
don't have the money in the trust accountto work against, but at least
you have a way to bill them.
So they don't need to take any action topay you because that's what they're used
to on Amazon, Uber, all these places whereit's so easy to click and
pay or do nothing and pay.
Absolutely.
And I think that's the challenge is thatwe're not competing
(09:21):
against other law firms.
We're competing against Amazon, FedEx,Uber, all these instant payment.
Those are the people who are getting themoney because they're We're
getting the money right away.
For firms like ours, we're acontingency-based firm, mostly now.
That means when we do personal injurycases, we don't get paid
unless our clients win.
In our Veterans disability cases, wedon't get paid unless our clients win.
(09:43):
Our clients don't pay us money up front.
It's really important not only that wecollect the money and we're smart about it
and we get our clients paid right away,but also that
file can't just sit on a desk.
Every day that that file sits onthe desk, it costs the firm money.
The lawyers need to work the cases andwork them quickly in order to, number one,
(10:04):
get our clients paid who are oftentimesmaybe facing bankruptcy or they're worried
about whether they're going to be able topay their medical bills,
they're not working.
We need to get them paid right way, butit's also really good for the business
when you can keep that cash flow goingbecause there's nothing worse than not
being able to meet payrollor worse, going bankrupt.
(10:26):
No, it's amazing.
I'm looking at the topcontingency-based firms like yours these
days, and just that that modelis the incentives are so much more aligned
with creating a good business, creating agood client experience, because you do
want to move it quickly, beefficient, create a great experience.
(10:48):
On the hourly side, the incentives are alljacked up, where it's actually
better to draw it out.
And of course, there'sa few bad eggs out there, but
most attorneys are doing a good job.They're doing their best.
But at the end of the day, the incentivesare totally misaligned on that side.
(11:10):
Yeah, divorce attorneys, right?Divorce attorneys.
Hey, let them fight for six hours, whateach attorney is billing them $1,000 an
hour, let them fight over the$300 drapes for six hours.
All of this, it's just it's insane.
A lot of times with a divorce or eventransactional, it becomes personal.
People say, it's not aboutthe money, it's personal.
(11:32):
It's like, well, but it is.
There are times like criminal defense.
Now, you served your country, you swore anoath, you understand what it means to
support and defend theConstitution of the United States.
There are times when our liberty is atstake, where there is no amount of
money that's going to fix the problem.
Either the government will dismiss thecase, or we will defeat them at trial.
That's the attitude.
But because our clients don't want to beconvicted felons, they don't want to lose
(11:55):
their civil rights, they don'twant to lose their Civil Liberties.
They will fight till the end, andthen they need a lawyer to do that.
But when it comes to money,it's always interesting to me.
People are fighting over theirprinciple, and it's insane.
I'm going to fight themover the principle.
I mean, look, maybe weshould have trial by combat.
I don't know if you wantto fight over a principle.
Otherwise, it's just money.
(12:16):
At the end of the day, if you have aproblem and you have enough
money, you don't have a problem.Let's get into that.
Tell me all the ways that you help lawfirms now with their money,
which is the lifeblood.
Cash flow is the lifeblood ofa law firm or any business.
How do you help?
We basically built our entire business onthe non-contingency practice areas and
(12:39):
helping those firms that need to get paidfrom their client, eliminate all
of the friction in that process.
So obviously, if a client doesn't wantto pay, that's outside our purview.
But any client who wants to pay but isbusy, whether they're a business client,
an AP person or a consumer client,we want to take all the friction out for
(13:04):
that client so that the law firm, insteadof being the 10th bill to get paid,
they're the first ones to get paid.
And so we think a lot, like I said, aboutshortening that AR cycle to
impact cash, profit, and revenue.
So that's how we've built ourbusiness for the last five years.
(13:25):
Something I'm very excited about, welaunched earlier this year, is a outbound
a digital payments solution toallow contingency-based firms to
really improve their workflows.
But more importantly, as you mentioned,speak to that next generation of
plaintiffs who grew upon Venmo, Cash App, Amazon, all these
(13:46):
digital options, and they don't want towait for the check to show up, and they
don't even know what todo with it when it comes.
And so, again, coming back to that clientexperience and giving that Amazon-esque
experience to law firm clients and justmaking it instant, easy,
(14:08):
and really improving that experience.
Yeah, I find it crazy.
I've been involved withsome other law firms.
As a lawyer, look, I don'thandle my own stuff, right?
So I hire lawyers for stuff,and it's always amazing to me.
It's like, Okay, look, why are youmaking it hard for me to pay you?
This doesn't have to be hard.
You got LawPay and these other companies.
It's like, Look, let meclick a button and pay you.
(14:30):
I'll sign the agreement, but you can't getme a digital agreement to sign and
let me click a button and pay you?
What's wrong with you?
It's like, Hey, take the money, because Iknow if you don't take the money, you
can't run your operations to represent me.
So I lose confidence in you if you can'tcontrol your cash,
I don't think you can control your firm.
(14:50):
And if you can't do that, you'renot good enough to represent me.
It basically says to the client, I think,I didn't care enough to
make this easy for you.
And that is the area where a lot of peopleare looking at a bill that's
bigger than they expected.
And those little things, those littlemoments, just have a huge difference.
(15:15):
That's how we got into this in the firstplace, seeing that from the client side.
What we didn't know initially, and now welive and die by this, is the massive
financial impact thatoptimizing that has on the on the
underlying cash and profitposition of the firms.
(15:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, look, it's good for thefirm, it's good for the client.
Just stay on top of it.
I found also, give your client the dignityof allowing them to pay
for the legal service.
So many times it's like,Well, the client is behind.
Why not?Pick up the phone.
How do we help them work through this?
Because sometimes our clients do gothrough difficult times, whatever it is,
(15:56):
whether it's a divorce, they losta job, they've been laid off.
I think any time the client is strugglingand we can help them work through
that payment process, it's important.
Sometimes it is giving them grace, andother times it's saying,
Look, this is an agreement.
We have to have this conversation.
I realize that you may want to,whatever people waste money now on, I
(16:19):
don't even want to know,on Prime or whatever.
But hey, your legal bills,this is your future.
What is a more importantinvestment than your future?
If I'm hiring a lawyer,I'm investing in my future.
That lawyer is supposed to protect myfuture, and I'm not going to go cheap.
There's nothing moreexpensive than a cheap lawyer.
But you see these lawyers, and if theycan't control their finances,
(16:40):
where else are they broken?
Where else are they going to fail you?
And what are you paying for as aclient that isn't that quality service?
You're basically paying forthem to run a s**** business.
Yeah.And where else are they dropping the ball?
And that's, excellence in the practiceof law, excellence in business.
(17:02):
We expect both as consumers.
So you don't work withcontingency firms now.
It's all mostly hourly-based?
Well, now we are, yeah.
As of this year, with theoutbound digital product.
We're starting to workwith contingency firms.
Frankly, it's been very fun because ofthat, what I mentioned earlier, where the
(17:25):
incentives are so aligned toreally think about the business in
strategic ways and move casesthrough and be efficient.
It's really been enjoyable to work withthat area of law that we haven't
really focused on in the past.
That's great.
I think that's probably how we gotconnected because we are mostly in the
(17:46):
contingency space, and we're prettytech savvy and somewhat business savvy.
But I had a paper routesince I was 10, 10 years old.
That was my business lesson.
I learned all about collectingmoney, people bouncing checks, AR.
It's amazing when you think about it, howpeople used to write checks at the grocery
store, and the grocery store was basicallytaking the risk on that payment
(18:11):
that you were good for those checks.
So we think about credit cards andwhatnot as airline miles and whatnot.
But there's amazing...
That instant authorization is an amazingtool for the business that used to be
hoping that you were good for the money.Yeah, that's great.
And you know what?
(18:32):
We still take checks in some cases, butyeah, it's a lot better
when we can do it digitally.
So I want to talk a little bit aboutyour novel, How to Name a Generation.
I mean, here you are, a Stanfordgrad with an engineering degree.
Now, my brother went Navy.
He's a Stanford gradwith a systems degree.
He worked in my business, so heworked in the law firm for a while.
But tell me, how is it thatyou came to write a novel?
(18:54):
I mean, you're an engineer, sowhy did you think you could write?
I had actually always enjoyed writing, andit was in college, I was choosing
between English and engineering.
Engineering won out, but I'vealways enjoyed writing on the side.
When I got out, I took a little time todecide what did I want
to do with my life next.
(19:16):
And I was fascinated by two things.
One, I went to aprestigious private high school.
It was the same high school that BillGates and Paul Allen met at
and developed Microsoft.
And so the MO there was like, no,you're going to graduate from here.
You're going to go to the best college.
(19:37):
You're going to get the best job, andyou're just going to be on this path.
And I was on that path, andit was really hard to get off.
It was a major mental shift for me to makea decision to say, oh,
I can join the military.
I can be a Marine.
(19:58):
I can get off this path.
It took me a while.
I went through college, and I startedworking before I made that shift.
But I thought it would be fascinating, A,to write about someone who is in that
situation and made that decision to enlistright out of high school
(20:19):
in that situation.
That was the first piece of it.
The second piece of it, I was fascinatedas I was getting out
a lot of the Marines thatwere in my platoon, in my company, my
battalion, theyhad done four, eight years.
They were getting out, and now they weregoing to college for the first time.
(20:41):
And I thought,wow, it would be so fascinating to write
about their experience meeting the me's incollege without that experience,
without that maturity.
What is it like for them to go backto college and be with those younger kids
who don't have that experience in combatin the Marine Corps or
(21:07):
in any of the services.
Those were the two topics that I reallythought were fascinating to explore.
And, in the novel, the main charactergrows up, goes to a prestigious private
high school, througha series of events, decides to
enlist right out of high school.
It's about his experiencejuxtaposed by that of his or those of his
(21:30):
classmates who go on to top-tier colleges,high-powered careers and everything.
At the end, he gets outand goes back to college.
It's about his experience interacting withthose classmates that are
five years younger than him anddon't have those experiences.
Really, really fun experience just goingthrough the process of writing it.
(21:55):
Did you ever read Once an Eagle?
I love that book.
When I got out, actually, three people hadgiven it to me, and I drove back across
country and listened to it, andit took me almost exactly...
I was basically hitting the PacificOcean when it was wrapping up.
(22:19):
It's amazing.
It really is an amazing book.
Yeah, I see some similarities there.
The guy doesn't get into West Point, andso he enlists to fight in the war and then
becomes an officer, and then he'sdealing with the careerist officer.
I mean, it's an interesting...
A little bit long for my taste, a littlebit too much on the romance
(22:40):
side and all that garbage.
But I thought it was a very well-writtenbook, and I loved it when, especially I
believe he's in when hewent to China, right?
And he's there and he's talking to theformer Emperor who's now
leading the resistance.
And I thought that wasjust such a great moment.
All right, well, we will move awayfrom literature and get to leadership.
All right, let's talk about this.
So you've been a Marine Infantry Officer,but you've also led tech teams in Silicon
(23:07):
Valley, and you're leading a startup.
Let's dive in.
Of all of those,just mesh them together whatever, your
three best examples of leadership andthe three worst examples of leadership.
And name names or don't, I don't care.
All right.
So best examples, I think, are the timeswhen either
(23:30):
I or leaders that I've worked forhave really given me, I would
say, space and responsibility.
So the space to operateautonomously, to solve the problem myself
and not be told what to do or how to doit, but also put the weight of
(23:54):
responsibility on my back forsuccess or if we are not going to be
successful owning thefailure, learning from it.
So I would say a big thing is that spaceand also that responsibility.
I've really done well in those situations,and we really try to make that...
(24:18):
We really try to instill that in ourfolks and in the culture of the company.
One of our core principles is,everyone's an owner.
We do provide legal ownership, but that'snot the important part.
The important part is everyone's expectedto think and act like the owner of the
(24:39):
business, not like they're in their littlesilo and they're only thinking
about their one little part.
They need to understand the economics,the customer acquisition cost,
the customer lifetime value.
If you don't understand those things,how are you going to
spend money to solve a customer problem?
You won't know how much to spend,and you'll have to be told what to do.
(25:03):
That part of our culture is huge.
I would say on the negative side, you cantell when a leader is out for themselves.
And the toughest leaders that I've workedfor, tough in a negative
sense, where I really didn't feel likeworking hard for them,
(25:29):
was when you can tell that they'rereally in it for themselves.
When they're talking to you, it's notabout the best interest of the unit,
the best interest of the company.
It's how can I advance,and I want to be in charge.
You don't have to say anything specific.
(25:50):
You can just feel when that's there.
Those are the worst examples.
Fair enough.
As we wrap up, and I don't think I nailedthis, Emery, but what is
your title at Confido?
I like to use co-founder, butI put CEO on the contracts.
(26:11):
All right, fair enough.
Emery, where can our audience learnmore about Emery Wager or Confido Legal?
Confidolegal.
com is the best place to getin touch with the company.
You can reach out on our contact us page,a bunch of different ways to get in touch.
And then for me personally, LinkedIn.
(26:34):
I'm pretty active on LinkedInand check those messages.
So please send me a note.
Love, especially working with Veteranentrepreneurs and helping out where I can.
Our lead investor at Confido specializesin Veteran-led startups,
and so we're really deep into thatVeteran entrepreneur ecosystem.
(26:58):
But you don't have to be a Veteran.
Hit me up on LinkedIn.I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks so much for your time, and thankyou for your service and your continued
service to our communityand to our Veterans.
Thank you.
Thankyou for joining us today on Veteran Led,
(27:18):
where we pursue our mission of promotingVeteran leadership in business,
strengthening the Veteran community, andgetting Veterans all of the
benefits that they earned.
If you know a leader who should be on theVeteran Led podcast, report to our online
community by searching @VeteranLed on yourfavorite social channels
and posting in the comments.
We want to hear how your militarychallenges prepared you to lead your
(27:41):
industry or community, andwe will let the world know.
And, hit subscribe and joinme next time on Veteran Led.
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