The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Building a Thriving Law Firm with Joshua Brumley: Growth, Training, and Leadership Insights
Join us on The Renegade Lawyers Podcast as we dive into the world of personal injury law with Joshua Brumley of the Brumley Law Firm. Discover how Josh manages a competitive firm with 40 staff members, his journey from a solo practitioner to a thriving practice, and the importance of key performance indicators.
Learn from his innovative approach to staff training and get a glimpse into the future of his firm. Don't miss this insightful conversation filled with actionable advice for growing your own law practice.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
So I'm remotely involved with the litigation at this point. I have a litigation attorney that works in the firm that kind of oversees all the litigation cases as they develop, and on a handful of cases, depending on my relationship with the parties or how they came to the firm, I might be more involved than others. So it's very uncommon for me to have depositions, but this morning was one of those exceptions and it was just squeaked right into the calendar. There are some treatment providers that needed to be deposed, so I love it. I love being involved with the litigation, I love running the business. They're two separate jobs and I wish I had the capacity to do both.
Speaker 2:Hey there. I just want to take a quick break from today's podcast to tell you about an event that we're hosting August 1 and 2. I'm going to be hosting a small, intimate event for solo and small firm lawyers here in our offices in Fairfax, virginia. If you've never been to a great legal marketing event before, or even if you have, this is going to be the place for you to start. Thank you. Even if you have a small team, this is going to be perfect for a law firm that's doing between about $500,000 and a million dollars in top line revenue. If you're making more money than that, good for you. You're doing a lot of things right, but this event isn't for you.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you what this is not. This is not an event where, under the guise of a seminar, we're going to be selling you websites, pay-per-click ads or other digital marketing media. That's not our space in the market. This is where you're going to learn how to effectively use your next hour and your next dollar in growing your law firm. We'll be part lecture and part workshop. There'll be some prep work to do before the event and some post-event follow-up so we can answer lingering questions and keep you motivated to building a better life for you and your family Together. Let's figure out why you're not making more money, getting better cases and converting more of your leads Again. This is August 1 and 2 in our offices in Fairfax, virginia, and if you want to be on the early list of people who are getting up-to-date information, just shoot me an email at ben at greatlegalmarketingcom.
Speaker 3:That's ben at greatlegalmarketingcom, and I'll make sure you're one of the first to know. Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show where we ask the questions why aren't more lawyers living flourishing lives and inspiring others? And can you really get wealthy while doing only the work you love with people you like? Many lawyers are. Get ready to hear from your host, ben Glass, the founder of the law firm Ben Glass Law in Fairfax, virginia, and Great Legal Marketing, an organization that helps good people succeed by coaching, inspiring and supporting law firm owners. Join us for today's conversation.
Speaker 2:This is Ben. Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast where each episode I get to interview interesting people inside and outside of legal. And this week we're going inside of legal out to the West Coast, the Northwest part of the country to Joshua Brumley, the Brumley law firm. Josh is a personal injury attorney, obviously in a very he's in Seattle is in a very competitive marketplace. He's got what did you say right before we started? 40. 40 people under roof. 40, okay, so that's interesting. 40 people under roof, so that's a lot of management skills and I'll bet you didn't start on day one with a lot of really good management skills. So I want to talk about that. Thanks for carving out some time today. Josh is also the host of the Iron Mind podcast. We'll talk about that a little bit. Podcast mainly directed towards young entrepreneurial lawyers who are also on this journey that some of us have been on. I've been on it longer than you have.
Speaker 1:It looks by our ages, but good for you. It looks like you've built something solid, so I'm going to talk about that.
Speaker 2:I'm great. Thank you so much for having me. Well, good. So talk to us a little bit about the journey because, josh, a lot of people who listen to this are either law students, some wanting to go to law school, many lawyers in firms of one to five lawyers, maybe 25, sometimes 40 under roof, but 40 gets to be a bit the higher end before you've really got a monster on your hands. So let's talk a little bit about where you have come from to get to this stage and we're recording this in May of 2024, 40 people under roof. Man, that must be a lot of meetings. It is a lot of meetings.
Speaker 1:I actually left the meeting, did a deposition, went back into the meeting and then left that meeting to come to this podcast today. But it's all great things. I'm super excited Every morning. I wake up just really excited to get into the office and do these meetings. I'm just fired up. I love every bit of it.
Speaker 2:Well that's interesting that with 40 people so a lot of lawyers who are running firms that get that big people-wise they're not doing the cases, they're not doing the depositions anymore, they're not doing the trials. It's a different stage of business, it's a different stage of life. But give us some idea of the minarets and the structure how many lawyers staff? And then do you have any out-of-country staff?
Speaker 1:Because that's a big thing. So I'm remotely involved with the litigation at this point. I have a litigation attorney that works in the firm that kind of oversees all the litigation cases as they develop, and on a handful of cases, depending on my relationship with the parties or how they came to the firm, I might be more involved than others. So it's very uncommon for me to have depositions, but this morning was one of those exceptions and it was just squeaked right into the calendar was one of those exceptions and it was just squeaked right into the calendar. There are some treatment providers that needed to be deposed. So I love it.
Speaker 1:I love being involved with the litigation, I love running the business. They're two separate jobs and I wish I had the capacity to do both on a full-time level, but I just don't, and so I have to choose. Do I want to run the business or do I want to be the lawyer doing all the cases? And so I've got a duty to my staff. I've got a duty to my clients to have a really healthy business, and so my priority is running the company and making sure that the operations of the company are constantly moving forward in the best fiscally responsible way and making sure that staff are meeting their KPIs.
Speaker 1:For those people that don't include KPIs in their management, please do. Please look it up. Key performance indicators and metrics for tracking when you have a staff of any size. It's incredibly important. You can't manage an organization without those metrics, and so that was something that I learned later on in my management career, and it has been like a night and day light switch that changed me from running a business and being involved with the day to being able to run a system, and once that system's in place and you have the beginnings of the tools to manage that system, you can start to see where your system needs a tune-up.
Speaker 2:Give us a bit of overview historical in a nutshell, because you didn't wake up one morning and be running a 40-person firm for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I started as a solo practitioner. I was renting an office space from another attorney, as so many of the young attorneys that I network with are doing. You find a mentor that is willing to feed you a couple hours of casework and teach you some stuff about an area of practice. The attorney that was working with me was a family law attorney and over the following couple months she just was like hey, how can I get you to quit your full-time job at social security and really go all in just for yourself? And that was the push I think I really needed, because I had the safety net of a full-time federal employment job. That was preventing me from being the hungry entrepreneur, with 40 hours of work finding the cases and doing the legal research and understanding the law and practicing oral arguments and doing everything I needed to do to be a better lawyer. And that push of hey, what would I need to provide to you to quit that job was exactly what I needed at that moment.
Speaker 1:And I did quit and I was so unhappy being an employee. I was like the worst employee. I was definitely destined for being my own boss, and that was clear to me for many years ago. But now that I took that leap, it was with that safety net gone. I was the master of my own fate and if I wanted to go out and spend that 40 hours a week that I would have been working for someone else. Spent that 40 hours a week just generating new leads, just spending my time networking. Just spending my time honing my skills as a litigator or learning about the laws, that I was hoping to find clients in that practice area. It was really what I needed. That was the push to develop me into who I am now and who I'll become.
Speaker 2:And it was really exciting, did you pursue personal injury, or did it pursue you somehow?
Speaker 1:It's funny because, as many people know, a personal injury practice takes many years to develop. The cases don't resolve quickly and the higher value cases can take sometimes years to resolve, and so having a staff with payroll needs every two weeks is not something that you can just flip on a light switch without you know maybe somebody's dad's money in your bank account or something like that to pay the payroll every two weeks, and I didn't have that safety net, so I kept the lights on. I kept the lights on with criminal defense work, with family law work and with business contract litigation work, and after a while of getting those personal injury cases into the process and resolving some and then building on, okay, how can I use that money to do more marketing for personal injury? It's a competitive marketplace. The personal injury space is really competitive and there are attorneys who have been doing it a lot longer, and I had to find my own unique position in where I relate to those attorneys for people to want to hire me instead, and that's something that everybody has got to find on their own.
Speaker 1:It's not so simple as just putting a billboard up. I think a lot of people spend a lot of money on billboards and that's a cool play for branding and maybe a cool flex for the internet, but it does not generate new clients. It's not how you get new clients. People don't drive after a car accident to where the nearest billboard is. They use the internet, they use their social media, they use their own personal networks, they use their family and that's where you need to be. And if you're not in those places in those conversations, then your billboard is a waste of money.
Speaker 2:Thinking back now to when you were much, much smaller one of the questions that gets asked a lot by lawyers who start a practice. It's small. They reach that stage where they're doing everything, but then they reach that stage where they really can't do everything, josh. So what were the positions that you hired for first and how did you think about making not the specific decision of Mary over Bill, but the specific like roles that you would hire for way back?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did a lot of research on this because I think that there's a desire, when you have this fire for entrepreneurship or growth, to hire the top level people first, and that's actually the opposite of what you should be doing. You should be focused on the bottom layer of that pyramid first and build those foundational workers before building up your pyramid to CFOs and partner level, attorneys and all those other things. Find the ground level employees that are going to help you build a healthy business and generate revenue faster than you could on your own and then use that revenue to expand. But if you don't have a staff of experienced working level folks, you can't find those or expect high level folks to be doing that work, and so don't start hiring with your C-suite, you know. Start hiring with the people that need to be able to generate revenue.
Speaker 2:Today, now again spring, summer of 2024, what I'm curious now? You, because you mentioned twice in that C-suite. So what is the organizational structure at the top? For example, are you the sole owner? Do you have a leadership team? Are you running a program like EOS or some other business operating system? How does that work? I'm the sole owner.
Speaker 1:I have a management team that I'm very in touch with, team that I'm very in touch with, and everything is really compartmentalized into the different stages of pre-litigation or litigation. And what that management team looks like is divided, first and foremost, by pre-litigation and litigation teams. And then there's an entire marketing team with a head of the marketing division, a CFO, who handles all the financial side of things helping me develop metrics, helping to make sure payroll and budgets and taxes and accounting and all that stuff is getting done, because that's a whole other cluster of problems and then an IT team as well. The needs of each individual team completely differ and I have to be finger on the pulse with the leadership of each one of those teams and then trust that those leaders are the right person to lead the way that I would if I was in that position. So there's a lot of mentorship, a lot of conversations, a lot of back and forth closed door, open conversations where they have the opportunity to tell me.
Speaker 1:This is why I think you're wrong and I encourage that kind of conversation.
Speaker 1:I want to know if I'm making a decision that the leadership team doesn't agree with, but I don't want that to come out in an open in front of the entire staff conversation. I want that to come out in a closed door meeting, one-on-one with me, where that person has the opportunity to be candid and not disrespectful or to seem like they're not in line with the vision of the business, because that sort of one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch attitude, can really affect morale and can affect the growth that we're seeing here. So I encourage that open, honest, candid discussion in a closed door way and it's paid dividends. I think I have a lot of buy-in from my senior management on where the firm is going. I have a lot of trust in them to manage the way that I would manage if I was in their exact position, in them to manage the way that I would manage if I was in their exact position. But I still sit in on their team meetings and add input, especially the litigation team, because I just love it so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's why we went to law school. So to not be involved with that and to not have that creative litigator itch, be able to be scratched by having those conversations and to be so proud as well to just listen as a fly on the wall to the conversations that the team under my roof is having. It's just. It's so empowering and makes me know that I've made the right hiring decisions and the team that I have is just unbeatable. It's so great.
Speaker 2:It's a secret. Yeah, so it's a secret leadership skill to talk last right, particularly when you have the litigation experience. The others may or may not have as much as you, maybe some of them have more than you do, but in those meetings when they're talking about, well, do we do this strategy or do we take this deposition, or go find, you know, this inspection, you'd like to just shut up and listen is a very high level leadership skill. Let me ask you this, josh so not many firms have CFOs. What was the point? And you know. You don't have to reveal numbers, but either you know revenue size or number of people on the roof, or you know, or you're pulling your hair out of your head. How did you know when it was time to go find someone who was dedicated to the finances of the company?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it was clear years before I had the person. But I think a lot of law firms have a problem finding a good accountant.
Speaker 1:It's really tough to find someone who's got the experience and understanding and the risk aversion that we need in that role to protect us, the way that the bar requires us to take that fiduciary duty seriously. And so finding the right accountant was something that took a long time, and I was lucky to have a very close friend of mine doing the accounting for me nights and weekends, separate from her regular job, for probably over six years and, and you know, that person was instrumental to the growth of my business but also was like killing herself to develop the systems that we needed to develop as we grew. And she ended up having a baby and her baby took a lot of the free time that I was used to having and that kind of pushed me into I needed to find a solution. That was the next level, and so it wasn't a numbers, it wasn't a certain number of staff, it was really the accountant who's dedicating her nights and weekends to me.
Speaker 1:Had life occur in a way that she wasn't able to donate that time to me anymore and that pushed me to find other options. So my firm would not be where it's at without the dedication of Sonia and and I hope that she's happier being involved because it was nighttime and weekends and time zone changes because she was in Florida, and so it was a lot and a level of stress that I'm sure she's happy to not be involved with at this point, and a nice change of pace to not be hoping for a favor from a friend to help run business because that's an incredible complication when I'm trying to run an organization.
Speaker 1:I don't want the relationships that I've built to be part of that calculus. I want it to be business decisions and I want there to be rapport because of the relations I've built. But I don't want that to cloud my judgment or make me walk on eggshells because I feel like I'm asking for a favor from someone who's got a job to do and I've got to get the job done.
Speaker 2:That's another challenge many of us have in running small law firms is that you get to know the people. We don't make and I want to ask you about your recruiting and hiring process here in a minute but we don't make a lot of recruiting and hiring decisions in a year. We're oftentimes slow to start a breakup when actually a breakup should happen, because we know these people and we see them as human beings. So that's everyone who's listening to this. You just know that's a big challenge. So I didn't go to look do you are all 40 people under one physical roof? Do you have multiple offices or are people working remotely?
Speaker 1:Some of them said, yeah, yeah, I'm super flexible with certain positions, a lot of the people are not under this roof To accommodate the right staff. I had to make hiring decisions that allowed flexibility, and so if I really want someone and as part of their interviewing process or hiring process, they say, hey, I need a hybrid schedule, and that's what led me to be on the hunt for a new job right now. I understand that if I don't offer this, I'm either not going to get this person or I'm not going to keep this person, and while I find an incredible benefit of being physically in office, not everyone is the same as me, and to require everyone to be in the office, I think I would lose a lot of my key level staff, and so, understanding that the aversion to requiring everyone to be in office or allowing remote staff is really we don't know what they're doing right. That's why employers are so reluctant to let staff work from home is they assume they're using one of those apps that moves the mouse all day long and they're just in bed still sleeping. Those apps are really free to download.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what that is, you can get one. It shows your Microsoft Teams is active even when it's not, and then they just turn the volume up on their keyboard. There's tons of ways to trick the systems in place, but the thing that you can't trick is those metrics. And if you have good metrics in place for your staff and you're tracking them and you're following up with your staff and you're giving the oversight that your staff need to understand their metrics and the leadership that they need to give you the results that you're hoping for, then who cares what physical location that they're working from, but-.
Speaker 2:Or even what time zone they're working in.
Speaker 1:So that's really what it comes down to. It was the development of key performance indicators and those metrics that helped me to scale, and I think that the person that I'd like to thank for that input is Alan Jaroji from Active Healthcare. He's the CEO of Active Healthcare, one of my mentors and close personal friend. His business exploded to the level of over 500 employees. I was a director of operations for his company for a short time and the systems he had in place were things that I had never been a part of before and I just copied his playbook and I've been telling everyone to copy that guy's playbook for years.
Speaker 2:So again, another great tip here Josh just give you is that so much of what can make a small law firm better doesn't come from inside of legal. It comes from hanging out with people and in your case you're actually working inside a non-legal business and just being curious and watching what's going on and asking questions why do we do this way? Could you teach this to me? So many people miss it? I don't think a lot of. So. A lot of small firm lawyers like they get it right. Established bar not so much. But it's a really important point for any part of your business, from operations and marketing to finances is keep looking outside of legal for the really good ideas that are out there. Talk to me a little bit about your recruiting and hiring process, because at your size, you are probably always on the hunt to have a bench so that as people leave, shift around, whatever right, you're not caught out. So do you have HR?
Speaker 1:We've worked a lot with recruiters and at this point we have just like a careers page that has postings on our website and there are always people applying. We're always interviewing, even if there's not a position open, because we want to find those A players. And what we see is a lot of the A players come from competing firms that are right here in our area and they have no problem coming to these interviews and spilling the beans about why their employer is the worst. And while that might lead to employment with me, might not. I think that alone is valuable enough information for me to be involved with the hiring processes and the interviews with anybody that comes from another firm, Because I want to know what my competitors are doing right and I want to know what my competitors are doing wrong.
Speaker 1:And frequently what I see is my competitors are not treating their staff the way that their staff deserve to be treated, and I strive to be the boss that always treats people the way I'd want to be treated, and that's what lowers turnover, that's what keeps staff happy and engaged in the work and committed to the mission and vision of the business. And when I hear the things that are going on at these other law firms, or when I see you know I'm involved with working with some of the other law firms in the area for their litigation because they don't litigate their own cases they outsource those cases to me. But when I see what's going on, not only with the case management but with their systems in place to manage their staff or not manage their staff or not have KPIs, or be frustrated when people leave and say, instead of giving two weeks, just leave right now. That two weeks notice is meant to really help you to force that person out of the firm immediately might be in your best interest, depending on where they're going, but it might ruin your relationship with that person. And this is an incredibly small industry People recycle through. I've rehired people after they've gone. I never want to burn that bridge with an employee who's leaving and I want to do an exit interview with every one of those employees that's leaving and talk to them about why they left or why they're deciding to leave.
Speaker 1:And when I started doing that, the first thing that I heard was I wasn't trained enough and I feel like I'm not doing a good job. And I took that really personally because it's my job to make sure that the staff are doing a good job and feel empowered and are getting the training they need. So I started implementing a whole big training program and we offer that training program to other firms as well. So there's an online portion and a physical portion with books that they work through, and other firms can send their staff through our training programs to help develop an entry-level person who you love their work ethic, you love their tenacity, but they just don't have the experience in this industry. And then we don't have to capitalize on each other's staff.
Speaker 1:I don't want my competitors calling employees at my firm and the firms that I have relationships with. I don't interview their staff. If their staff apply for any of my positions, the first thing I do is call that attorney up and say, hey, just so you know this person's looking for other work. They sent me their resume and I'm not going to interview them, but you should know that they're looking and maybe you should have a conversation with this person to discuss why, if you want this person to stay, why they're interested in leaving, Because something's going on and you should have your finger on that pulse.
Speaker 2:Tell me a little bit about this training program, because I've never heard anyone else. Of course lots of firms have in-house training programs. They have figured that out. But a training program where you invite competitors staff to come and be trained up on processes, presumably in the personal injury space, primarily. That's interesting, and so is this a program you sell? Do you offer it to the world as like you're a good, altruistic guy or what Like that's a neat idea. And where did you get that idea?
Speaker 1:from. I'm a problem solver. I think my background in business and my entrepreneurial brain is just always trying to figure out how to best solve a problem that I see in our industry. And so I think a rising tide raises all ships. And if I had problems with turnover because I wasn't training and because the industry is so in need of experienced workers that when I had a good, experienced worker, someone would come steal them out from my firm and offer them like double the salary when I was still new and not able to pay really aggressive salaries, I said how do I fix this? And the way to fix it is increase the level of employees in the marketplace who can take these positions so that we don't have to cannibalize on each other.
Speaker 1:The plaintiff's bar should be united. We should not be aggressively contacting each other's employees or dealing with, you know, taking each other's cases. There's enough cases to go around. There's enough employees to go around. You just have to find them. And sometimes people would rather find them by going on a competitor's website and going to their team photos and then emailing everyone on their team's page to say, hey, are you looking for other work? What's your salary? I'll double it.
Speaker 1:But I said, okay, well, how do I avoid that? So I started building relationships with the other firms in my area and said don't hire my people, I won't hire yours and I'll call you if you call me. And that was easy enough. And then I started getting those calls and I said, okay, well, this person is interested in leaving.
Speaker 1:Let me figure out why, and the why that was overwhelming in the beginning of my process was there was not enough training for me to feel good about this. And this other firm says that they could train me, and I know enough now to kind of take this entry level knowledge to the next level for more money. And I said, okay, well, I need to build something. Then and I spent so much time building it and you know we're not hiring 50 new people a day but I spent a lot of hours building out this program and I said how could I monetize that? And so it is not something that I offered other firms altruistically, but if another firm wanted to go through that training program, they could absolutely send an email, and it's not something that I've really promoted, but I'm happy to develop that into a product that I offer to anyone.
Speaker 2:I imagine, too, that now that people will hear this, hear about this on this podcast, that you may get inquiries from, you know, outside of Washington. That's even better, because then there'll never be someone who's stealing an idea. That's a really I love that. That's really neat, forward thinking idea which has win possibilities written all over it. Let me ask you so I'm curious about three more topics. I want to talk about marketing and then gurus that you follow, and then your own personal habits, because you impressed me as someone who's getting a lot of shit done right, which is really cool. But marketing in terms of where your firm is directing its time and money resources these days. You alluded earlier, of course, to the Internet. What if you're willing to share? What are you doing for case acquisition? Where do you spend your time, energy?
Speaker 1:and money. I think overwhelmingly still at this level of my firm, the number one way to get new cases is word of mouth, and if you do a good job on a case, that person's going to tell everyone, and if you do a bad job on a case, that person's going to tell everyone. And so you have to really treat every single case that you have like it's your only one and you have to give the best level of service that person is going to expect and you're able to deliver for each one of these cases. So when they're done, that person is singing your praises to their community, and so many of my cases come from past clients, current clients who have additional accidents that occur and then being a resource for the community, I do a lot of like know your rights events.
Speaker 1:I do events where I'll volunteer my time as a previous family law attorney just doing clinics and things like that to help people, and I just remind people during those clinics. Hey, this is not what I do anymore. A previous family law attorney just doing clinics and things like that to help people, and I just remind people during those clinics. Hey, this is not what I do anymore. I do not want to take any family law cases on, but if you ever have a car accident case, please think of me, and that's an easy thing to ask for when you're donating your time to help someone with a stressful legal need And- 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I hope people are listening because you know, josh, I know you're in an area where there's firms that are spending, you know, multiple tens of thousands of dollars a month on SEO and pay-per-click and buying Facebook ads and all of that stuff. And yet you know what you know. At our firm, probably 80% of our money comes because a human being knew us right, and 80% of our money comes because a human being knew us right, and 20% of our money comes we would call cold over the internet. Somebody just went searching and found us. Everybody who comes is probably going to go look at your digital space, no matter how they heard your name. But most of it in firms that we talk to are going to come just as you've described, because you have a human being relationship.
Speaker 2:Either you spoke to a group, you serve somebody really well, you're out there in the community somehow, and I think a lot of small firms kind of skip over that, because it is work Like you have to go and do something, and whipping your credit card out is easier, although oftentimes much more expensive, especially when you're competing in a market where there's some big firms where you are who can spend some big money. Who or what have you found valuable over the years? You mentioned a mentor in the medical industry. Have you been a part of any other lawyer? Mastermind groups, coaching groups, seminars you go to, or even what do you read? People are curious to know how successful people think and stay. You're obviously excited still about the profession and the practice. So what are you feeding your mind?
Speaker 1:I think Don Keenan, the trial lawyer out of Georgia. He's got a lot of a robust level of stuff for his Kenan Institute. Chris Voss, the FBI negotiator, wrote a book called Never Split the Difference, and the premise of that book is the idea of negotiations for personal injury cases never being as serious as hostage negotiations. And in hostage negotiations you can't say, okay, you keep four, I'll keep four, and we'll both just be done.
Speaker 1:That's not how hostage negotiations work, that's not how our negotiations should work, and so just constantly being interested is not something that I could change or that one person really inspired me to be.
Speaker 1:That's just who I am, and the fire that's inside me about this industry is just inherent. I'm constantly interested in talking about it and learning about it and being on podcasts to discuss it, and I think that is something that separates me from other people in this industry. I think a lot of people dip their toe in personal injury and I think a lot of people talk about being a personal injury attorney that they run settlement mill type law firms where they're just their whole goal is to just get a couple bucks in the door and get on to the next one, and that's never going to result in a sustainable long-term practice that helps you grow, and so we focus really hard on how to be the best litigation firm and what we can do to always get better, and the team that I have is very like-minded and we're very focused on getting the best possible results every single case, and if that means taking it all the way to trial, that's what we got to do.
Speaker 2:If I followed you around for a week or two, what would I see you doing in terms of personal habits? You know what? Do you got any hobbies? I don't know. If you have family, like what would that would I be? So for most people you follow, a successful person around, you would get exhausted seeing how much they get done and how much they do in a day.
Speaker 1:I was talking to another law firm owner recently and he said I can't meet with you today. I'm in court till four and I said your day ends at four. You're the owner of this business and your day ends at 4 PM. I'm frequently the first person to show up at my firm. I don't live close by, I drive in 20, 30 minutes away and I'm the first person here and, almost every day, the last person to leave.
Speaker 1:And that's not because you know the work I'm working on is on a deadline or anything like that. It's because by the time I look at the clock, it's five o'clock and people are like, hey, see you later, boss. And I'm like I still got two more hours of this project and I don't want to stop. There are never enough hours in a day for me to feel like I should just be done for today.
Speaker 1:And there are things that occur where I say, okay, this is about work-life balance. I need to spend some personal time. You know it's Mother's Day or a significant other's birthday or lots of things that will pull my attention away from the work, but even in those situations I'm my attention away from the work. But even in those situations I'm obsessively thinking about the work and the idea of being done at 4 pm or going ona vacation every month, like some of these other lawyers do, or being at the golf course all day. That is not who I am. I'm not working in this role to spend some time on vacation here and there. Now. I'm working right now to build a business that completely destroys the marketplace, that takes over, and that's not a job that gets done by 4 pm.
Speaker 2:That's interesting.
Speaker 1:So where do you think in five years Gosh I guess I could try to be like Babe Ruth and call my shot right Five years from now. I don't know 20 lawyers, let's say 20 lawyers. I'm going to say it Five years from now 20 lawyers, multiple states and everyone will have heard of me.
Speaker 2:That's awesome If people want to go check out website law firm.
Speaker 1:Brumleylawfirmcom and that will link you to a bunch of different pages like the iron mind podcast website, which is ironmindpodcastcom at brumley law firm on instagram, at ironmindpodcast on instagram. Both pages are really great content and I recommend you getting involved with those at any time and I really excited to share any of that knowledge and experience with anyone who wants to tune into the podcast or your podcast, ben. And if you've got any words of wisdom for any of my podcast guests, please lay them on me, because this has been really insightful.
Speaker 2:You know the words of wisdom I would say is, when you meet somebody like Josh, you just ask curious questions Like so what I find is that people who are highly successful entrepreneurs are more than willing to share what they know with people who are interested. They don't want we don't want our time wasted by BS, right? So if you come, bring a notebook I will share. I have opened all of my marketing and processes to PI lawyers right here in Northern Virginia and we've always said we'll show you exactly what we do. The reality is, I'm always going to do it in a different flavor than you are and most people are not willing to do the work that we have done over the years to build out systems and you know marketing collateral and just get really good at it. But when you especially if you're a young lawyer, like a guy like Josh, like he will find some time in his busy schedule If you are genuinely interested in learning how to build a better, more powerful practice, even if it's outside of the PI space, because the reality is one law firm is not all that different in terms of practice areas and what you need to do than another. So really appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2:This has been great. 40 people under roof. Bless you for doing that. That is, that's a lot. And broke away from taking depositions and holding meetings so you could get on with us, so appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, ben, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:All right, that's it.
Speaker 2:We'll talk later.
Speaker 3:If you like what you just heard on the Renegade Lawyer podcast, you may be a perfect fit for the great legal marketing community. Law firm owners across the country are becoming heroes to their families and icons in their communities. They've gone renegade by rejecting the status quo of the legal profession so they can deliver high-quality legal services coupled with top-notch customer service to clients who pay, stay and refer. Learn more at GreatLegalMarketingcom. That's GreatLegalMarketingcom.
