From Overwhelmed Lawyer to Strategic Law Firm Owner, with Chad Fox

Episode Notes

Transcript

Stephanie Everett:

Hi, I’m Stephanie.

Zack Glaser:

And I’m Zack. And this is episode 5 75 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, Stephanie talks with Lawyerist lab business strategist, Chad Fox, about what it takes and how it feels to dig out of overwhelm at your office. So

Stephanie Everett:

I read something the other day on LinkedIn, Zack and I just want to steal it. Here’s what it said. If you’re going to make you make small decisions in business meetings,

Zack Glaser:

You

Stephanie Everett:

Make big decisions in a pub and you make huge decisions on the beach. And so the point obviously is that sometimes you have to get out of your office. You need to step away from the day to day and give your mind, we talk about this, sometimes you need to give your brain space when you just even shift your location. Even just going to a restaurant doesn’t mean that alcohol had to be involved. They just said pub in the little

Zack Glaser:

Meme.

Stephanie Everett:

But when you step out of the walls, you get different perspective, you get different,

Zack Glaser:

Different

Stephanie Everett:

Insight. You give yourself space, you think differently.

Zack Glaser:

I like that. I like that. Yeah. I kind of equate those mid-level decisions too. I make those on runs when I’m out doing something.

Stephanie Everett:

Exactly.

Zack Glaser:

I like to go to coffee shops just to get different perspectives on working. But I think you’re right. I hadn’t really thought about that of, well, I mean we’ve talked about it before, but the big, big decision I think you went to, was it Utah a couple years ago where you went on a big retreat and I remember you came back fired up with a lot of big ideas.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah, I went on my first solo retreat. I just intentionally went away for a couple of days by myself with an intention to think about the business and think about what was next for us and how I wanted to show up for the business. I mean, it turned into all these things. And I mean, here’s the things people listening may be like, that sounds great, but when do I have time? Or when am I going to do this? Or how do I make this happen? And so obviously I’m coming in here with the good news is that we have created the space for you. So every year,

Hopefully listeners now have heard us talk about lab. It’s our conference that we put on, but it isn’t a typical CLE with people talking at you and lecture upon lecture. It’s space for you to do that. Just this for you to step away from the day to day for you to have bigger conversations for you to get inspired by other people, hear what other people are doing, and think about how, even if that idea isn’t the exact idea, is there something like that that you could start to implement and work on for your business? And I wanted to mention it today because we always put a couple of spots away for people who aren’t in the lab program but maybe are interested, maybe you’re like, oh, I don’t know. I want to go check these people out. I’m listening to Zack and Stephanie for years. Maybe I’d like to see ’em in real life and see what this whole thing’s about. I think this is the best way to come and do it.

Zack Glaser:

We talk about lab hopefully a lot on here. And as you were talking about that, I was thinking kind of why. And one of them is that we believe in that we don’t do. I’m going to say something really kind of odd here. I guess Lab Con is not a revenue stream for us.

Stephanie Everett:

Oh yeah. No,

Zack Glaser:

This is not something We do not come away. We’re not selling Lab Con to walk away with tons of money here. It’s a thing we believe in. We think that stepping away and getting around people that are also thinking big is a way to really up your game. It will fire you up. It will get you firing on more cylinders. I was talking with one of our longtime lobsters the other day just solving a totally separate issue related to podcasting. And she was like, I really look forward to lab com because I get to step away and just work on myself. That’s why she looks forward to going to it. Is that time set aside.

Stephanie Everett:

And the other thing I love about it is a lot of conferences, which I love. I mean, look, I’m a conference junkie. I love going to them. But a lot of times what happens is you walk away with a notebook full of ideas that six months later you’re like, well, what did I get done? Because the phone started ringing and emails and all the things. And so also what I love about what we do is we give people space to start actually implementing those ideas so that you come home with something, not just an idea in a notebook, but it’s started. Sometimes it’s finished. I mean, it kind of depends on what the project is that you take on, but you’re well on your way to having that thing for your business that you really need. So if this at all interests you, please. I mean, I love this event so much and I get very excited by it as well.

I mean, our whole team does. And this episode’s dropping on August 21st. Our event starts on Sunday, September 28th. It’s in Atlanta. So you get to come hang out with me in my hometown. And it’s such a great opportunity. So if you’re at all interested, let’s chat about it. Let me get you one of those slots that we have open. And I don’t think you’ll regret it, I guarantee, in fact, I’ll guarantee it. I know you’ll get way more value out of it than what we asked for in return, which helps us sort of cover our costs. This is not a profit center, this is just we love it.

Zack Glaser:

All right. Well now here is Stephanie’s conversation with Chad.

Chad Fox:

Hi, I am Chad Fox and I’m one of the business strategists here at Lawyerist.

Stephanie Everett:

Hey, Chad, I am excited to welcome you back to the show. And today I thought we’d kind of talk a little bit about the journey that law firm owners go through as they’re building their firm. A lot of times when you’re just starting in that stage one business, I mean, let’s be honest, it’s all about getting clients. They’re just trying to get money in the door, trying to sustain yourself. And then at some point, things start to shift a little bit and all of a sudden you realize you have work coming in, maybe more work than you can handle. Now you got to get all that work done. And so that’s what we around here call a stage two, level two law firm. And I thought we might pick it up from there and talk about what these folks are dealing with. And you work with a lot of these firms and what’s it like when they first come to you?

Chad Fox:

When they first come to us, they’re overwhelmed is a pretty popular one. They have all these ideas, all these things that they want to get done. It’s all stuck in their head. They don’t know how to prioritize it, how to get started. It just all seems so big. It all seems important. And one of the things that we do really well here at Lawyerist for all of us business strategists is help them to get all that out of their head out into a place where we can look at it from 30,000 feet and then break it up into bite-sized chunks and actually start doing some of it

Stephanie Everett:

And focusing on the right things. Because I think to your point, when it’s all there swirling around, it’s sort of hard to even know how to act, where to act, where to spend your time, where to even get started.

Chad Fox:

Yeah, what’s urgent, what’s noise, what can wait until later? I mean, that’s definitely important. And they don’t know. They have a hard time prioritizing those things.

Stephanie Everett:

And so once you start helping them with that prioritization, I’m just curious, what have you noticed working with firms? What shifts for them? What changes?

Chad Fox:

Even after the very first call, you can see just a change from the beginning of the call to the end of the call. You can see a change in the energy with them. Just you see hope, right? Hope that it doesn’t have to always be this way, that now we have a plan of how we’re going to move forward and they can see what the finish line looks like and how we’re going to get there. Think hope is a really good word that I think describes the immediate shift.

Stephanie Everett:

Is it difficult to figure out where to focus next, or is it usually pretty obvious to you?

Chad Fox:

It’s usually pretty obvious. I mean, after the first 15, 20 minutes where we’re kind of getting to know each other and really understanding what’s going on in their business, and the themes are surprisingly very similar across all the businesses. I think people come into it thinking that their situation is unique and oftentimes with a few small differences, it’s very similar.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah, I think that surprises a lot of people, like you said, because I think I must be the only one

Chad Fox:

Experiencing

Stephanie Everett:

This or going through this, or maybe they even have some negative talk about like, oh, I’m an idiot, or I should have figured this out sooner. Why am I here? And it’s like, actually, you’re probably right where you’re supposed to be. A lot of people have to, I mean hate to say this, but you kind of go through this journey to get to the next level,

Chad Fox:

And they don’t know what they don’t know. I mean, how can you figure this stuff out when you just don’t even know where to start or how to prioritize it?

Stephanie Everett:

And I know that a lot of folks too that I’ve worked with over the years, they really appreciate hearing other people in the community raise their hands and say they’re struggling with these things, and then they’re just

Chad Fox:

Like,

Stephanie Everett:

Oh, oh, I’m not alone. There is a help. So that’s always a good feeling too.

Chad Fox:

I do love that about our community and how willing everyone is to jump in and help each other and offer their ideas, and I think that’s such a valuable piece of what we have here is the community and just having that peer group.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah. I know one of the things that you talked to lawyers about is this idea of helping them dream big, but then to break it down. And I’m curious of how does that process for most lawyers work? I feel like sometimes they get stuck and what have you noticed?

Chad Fox:

Yeah, something that I see a lot is that they don’t know how to dream big.

They get so stuck on what’s realistic, and I really have to push them to almost make it seem impossible. When we say dream big, it’s like think about what’s almost impossible. I always tell my clients on my calls, and this is usually always on our first or second call, I always tell ’em, shoot for the moon, because even if you miss, you’ll still land in the stars. And so we set impossible goals that maybe seem impossible, but are not actually impossible, and trying to get them out of that place of being stuck in what’s realistic, what’s likely.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah, it’s occurring to me while you’re saying that US lawyers, it doesn’t surprise me that we struggle here because I think we’re so logical and we’re so by nature kind of precedent driven. I know sometimes, I mean my husband, it drives him crazy or it drives my family crazy because I get stuck in the details. If he says something, I almost, I’ll come back and be like, no, that isn’t exactly what you meant. And I get into the nitty gritty details that he’s like, this is not important, but my lawyer brain is like, no, the details matter and we have to be precise. And I think when you’re asking someone to dream big, that feels like the opposite of precision,

Chad Fox:

Really pushing them to step outside of their comfort zone. Oftentimes, most attorneys that I’ve worked with are not artistic minded, and so like you said, very, very logical. And I also think that that’s why they thrive in our program is because they’re so logical and want that structure and we help provide that. But getting them to dream big is definitely one of the things that I have to push them to do.

Stephanie Everett:

Do you have a couple of examples of what would that big dream look like? I think that might help our listeners understand what we’re talking about.

Chad Fox:

One thing I see is what do they want to see to the size of their firm become? They come into it thinking that, well, I’m good with it just being me, and maybe if I could have one other attorney and maybe two paralegals and an assistant, and that’s fine. That’s a nice practice, you and an attorney and a few staff members. I mean, that’s a nice practice, nice size practice, but what would big look like? And so maybe that maybe big means that it’s 10 attorneys and five paralegals, and we have a handful of admin staff and we own the building. The things like that are when we start dreaming big,

Stephanie Everett:

I love pushing people to be like, what? We’re so used to, firms only looking the way they’ve looked the last 150 years, that what does it look like to have something that maybe you run remotely, that you could work from anywhere in the world and still have a business? And that’s a little bit harder if we’re litigation focused, if we have to be in court. But for a lot of practices, we do have people who go and spend the summers now in Europe and travel and do things that they didn’t think were possible before.

Chad Fox:

Yeah. It’s funny that you say that. I had a call with a client yesterday and she feels guilty about having achieved that, right? I mean, she’s in that position where she doesn’t have to be in the day-to-day, and it’s a combination of feeling guilty about it, but also in a way kind of missing the grind of it. So that’s something that she’s wrestling with. But I think just on the former part of that, you don’t have to feel guilty because it’s your business and this is what you’ve envisioned. And as the owner of the business, you’ve now become a business owner versus a business operator. And that’s kind of the vision I try to plant for people when I start working with them is right now you’re an operator, you have a job, operators have jobs, but when you can become a business owner, then you actually have freedom.

Stephanie Everett:

I think you’re hitting on something though that a lot of folks, I don’t want to feel like I’m better than my team members. If I ask them to do something, I want to be in the trenches doing it with them. And so there is a little bit of hesitation around should I be asking other people to do things when I’m going to be away, I’m going to go do this other focus. Is that fair? What would you say to that person?

Chad Fox:

Yeah, I think it is fair because you’ve paid your dues, you’ve been, most likely, you’ve been where they are at some point, and you’ve worked your way up into the trenches, you’ve done the grind, you’ve done the hustle, you’ve built this business. You’re providing a great environment for your team to work in. And if you’ve done that well, your team wants to be. If you’ve done that well, your team wants to succeed for you. They want to see the firm succeed. They’re bought into the mission of the firm and the values of the firm, and they want to help. They want to do their part and they don’t want to let you down.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah. I kind of like the idea that if you do this well and you build a great team and you provide for the team, and everybody has their role and responsibility on the team, and I think it kind of brings me back to a story I used to tell when my very first legal assistant found me early on. I mean, I was a couple weeks into practice, and she saw me at the copy machine and she was like, what are you doing? I was like, well, clearly I’m making copies what you think I’m doing? And she’s like, okay, here’s the deal. I make copies. You write briefs, you’re capable. You’re trained to do legal research and write briefs and do all these things that I can’t do, but I can do this job and I do it really well, and the client wants to pay. They don’t want to pay for you to do my job. They want me to do my job. You do your job, and then we’re all happy. And as a young attorney, that was such a valuable lesson for her to teach me. And I still think Linda, to this day, because it was good. I’m not demeaning her by asking her to do copy to make copies for me. It’s not me saying I’m not capable of making copies. It’s just my job was to do something different and her job was to make copies.

Chad Fox:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good point. And it makes me think of a concept I learned a long time ago, and this might be a little bit off topic, we always hear this cliche of we’re not supposed to care what others think, but I think in business that’s not really true. And I always used to tell when we own our franchise, I used to tell my managers, you have to manage perceptions with your team. You can’t have that mindset of, oh, well, they don’t need to know what I’m doing or those kinds of things. You really do have to manage perceptions, and one way that you can do that really well with your team so that they can see what you’re working on is in your team meetings. If we have regular team meetings and we are all reporting on the things that we’re working on and how we did from last week to this week on the things that we’re working on, what we got accomplished, and that goes for the owner too.

The owner is reporting to their team on the things that they’re accountable for and how they did and what roadblocks came up. And you do that stuff really, really well. It builds amazing comradery amongst your team, first of all. But then you’re also always managing those perceptions. So your team will never say, well, what does Stephanie do all day? We’re out here busting our butts, and I have no idea what she does, goes on vacation. I don’t ever see her working. I mean, I think if you build a good team, you probably don’t have to deal too much with that, but I still think it’s a great exercise and eliminates any possibility for that stuff happening.

Stephanie Everett:

I mean, to that point, one of the things I know you do and work with attorneys on is what should be on their plate and what shouldn’t be on their plate, and how do they get the things that are on their plate done? And this feels like such a big struggle for so many people. And so what do you tell those folks?

Chad Fox:

That’s one of my favorite topics to go. That’s usually first call we have that conversation, especially if they’re overwhelmed, because usually if they’re overwhelmed, it’s because they’re doing too many $20 an hour tasks. And so what I tell ’em to do is go through and write down everything that you do throughout the course of your day and then go back through that list and put an hourly rate next to it. Is that a $20 an hour task or whatever you charge by the hour, whether you’re flat fee or bill by the hour, figure out what you’re making per hour and then put that dollar amount next to the attorney stuff, the stuff that you’re actually making three, four or $500 an hour doing. And when they go through and do that, it’s an aha moment. Even when I tell them to give them that example and say, how many $25 an hour tasks are you doing and how many $300 an hour tasks are you doing? That is almost an immediate mindset shift.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah, I love that. And I love to also remind them that working on your business, playing the role of CEO and building a healthier business, doing all the things that we’re talking about is actually high value work. Because the mistake that a lot of lawyers make is we have a concept of billable and not billable. And so if it’s billable, it’s for the client. If it’s not billable, it’s everything else, which in this example would include your $25 task and creating a strategy for the business or creating a new, maybe we’re going to create a new business offering and flat fee it, and it would generate a ton of money. Well, that just because it’s not billable doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.

Chad Fox:

And

Stephanie Everett:

That’s the mistake I think we make too, is think, well, I need to only be focused here and discount or put all the non-billable slash in their mind, not valuable things to last.

Chad Fox:

Yeah, that’s a good distinction. Because we’re not saying that the stuff you’re billing, you’re not billing for is not a 5, 3, 4, $500 task. We’re saying to think like a CEO, not like your admin assistant or your paralegal, right? Maybe paralegal is not the best example, but

Stephanie Everett:

Well, I mean, even associate, right? There’s some legal work. Even if we’re doing legal work, I mean, we know this to be the case all the time. Lawyers should be delegating work down. So there’s probably associate level work that you can do. I mean, I had some folks that we had, we called it the no first draft rule because it was like, why are you doing a first draft? Somebody else could be doing the first draft and you should be editing it and revising it and making it that much better, not starting from a blank piece of paper. So I think it’s

Chad Fox:

Fair enough. So maybe there’s another tier there. It is a $25 an hour task. There’s the $150 an hour task, which I think that would fall in place of, and then there’s where you value your time, what’s your highest and best use, and that’s something that you like to say, what’s your highest and best use? And yeah, strategy is the highest and best use. And to the point of what we were talking about before, that’s also something to communicate with your team is that the things you’re working on are what your highest and best use are to the firm and where you’re going to be able to add more value, continue to provide more opportunities for them to grow. And

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah, and so maybe to bring it full circle, one of the things that you really help lawyers do is, okay, they come in overwhelmed. We’re going to get it all out of your head. We’re going to get it on paper so you can see what the whole universe looks like. We’re going to audit your time to see where you should be spending time. And then I think probably one of the most helpful things that we sometimes forget even that we’re doing this is that lawyers don’t know, okay, I know I need to be the CEO, I know I need to think strategically about my business. I just don’t even, they might not understand what does that mean? What does that look like? What kinds of things am I doing? What am I thinking about? How am I doing that? And that’s what I really love that we come in and say, actually, we’ve got this for you. Just follow this system and it’s going to work out just fine.

Chad Fox:

And they come in and often are missing much of a system. I mean, they’re in the day to day of working in the business, like you said, and we help them to learn what it’s like to work on the business. And carving out time to work on your business is an important thing that we really get people into the habit of doing.

Stephanie Everett:

Yeah, I agree. I feel like that’s do not pass, go or do not start. I don’t know what the right phrase is there, but you have to do that first. Are you willing to actually commit to, I need to focus on my business. That’s the only way this thing is going to get better and become what I want it to be.

Chad Fox:

And you have to protect that time at all costs, right? That’s an important piece. And if it’s earlier in the week, I always say is better. I always think it’s interesting when I start working with attorneys and Friday is their day to do that. I’m like, yeah, but you’re going into the weekend. It’s like maybe earlier in the week is better so that you have time to implement some of this stuff before you go into your week.

Stephanie Everett:

So Chad, this all sounds great, but what does this look like in real life?

Chad Fox:

Yeah, so one of my laps that I work with, we’ve been working together, I guess it’s been about seven or eight months now. He came in similar situation, overwhelmed, no visibility on his finances, and had a little bit of a team. And now just this morning he sent me an email. He just promoted three people to new positions, to higher positions and hired people to take those positions, and then just brought in another person. So really a four person shift in his law firm because of the growth that he’s had just over the last six or seven months. And I mean, he does the work. He never misses the calls. He is in it and it is showing, I mean, he is reaping the rewards of all the hard work he’s been doing.

Stephanie Everett:

I love that. And I love the idea of ending on hope. It doesn’t have to be so hard. I think that maybe that’s what I want people to hear is that we get it. We know that it feels really hard. It feels like you’re in it. How could the path look different? And the answer is, I mean, it’s going to take a little bit of work to get there. It’s not just going to be snap your fingers and it happens. I wish we could do that for people, but it doesn’t have to be so such a heavy burden all the time.

Chad Fox:

And it shouldn’t be because when we get into business, we have dreams and aspirations of owning our own business and having freedom. And then oftentimes we get into it and then we get overwhelmed and we can’t make apples from oranges and just seems like it’s never going to slow down and we’re just never going to have time to go on vacation. Or we have a lobster who, when he came to us, he was working 16, 17 hour days and he was getting home at like nine o’clock at night. Those are the kinds of things that should not be the norm. If you have one-offs, you have one-offs, but that should never be the norm as a business owner.

Stephanie Everett:

I love that. Well, thanks Chad for chatting with us today and giving us all a little bit of hope of what our law practices and firms can look like.

Chad Fox:

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

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