The Renegade Lawyer Podcast

Ep. 185 – Building a National Niche Law Firm with Kyle Claussen of Resolve

• Ben Glass

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What happens when you combine legal expertise, a physician’s insight, and technology into a single business model?

You get Kyle Claussen and Resolve—a firm that's reviewed 10,000+ physician employment contracts and built a legal-tech platform serving doctors across the country.

In this episode, Ben Glass and Kyle Claussen dive into:

  • The origin story of Resolve and how it became a niche national practice
  • How Resolve leverages AI to speed up risk analysis, enhance support workflows, and deliver consistent client experiences
  • Why flat-fee legal services work better for both doctors and lawyers
  • What it's like running a fully remote legal team—and how to keep culture strong without an office
  • Lessons for lawyers building systems-first, market-smart firms in 2025 and beyond

This one’s for anyone building a firm that breaks the mold—especially if you're exploring AI, alternative pricing models, or practice areas beyond your local zip code.

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.




Speaker 1:

some of the local attorneys will actually come to us for that piece and say, hey, will you co-counsel this with me? I've got the relationship with the client, but I have no idea what a work RVU is or a conversion factor should look like, and so we know that you guys do this all the time. Help us out with it. So that certainly is. You know it does happen.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work and still make it home for dinner. Each week, ben brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Speaker 3:

Hi everyone. This is Ben, Welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast where just about every episode, I'm interviewing somebody inside or outside of legal who's dinging the world. Today it's really neat because I have Kyle Clawson, so Kyle is an attorney. So I just want you to picture this he's an attorney in South Dakota. We met because we're both speaking either virtually or in person at the White Coat Investor Summit next March in Las Vegas, so that's serving, obviously, the healthcare industry, the doctor industry, and Kyle has developed this practice, which I think you're really going to like to hear about, where his niche within the niche is helping doctors and their contracts and has reviewed and consulted on over 10,000 doctor contracts. He's got a non-traditional payment scheme. He's got sounds like membership and continuity of some sort, and he's doing it, has to be doing it all over the country, much like my own practice where we're representing folks in disability claims all over the country, and so for me, this is like really interesting. I looked at Kyle's stuff like this is cool, Like I get it, and this looks like you've built something really neat. So so thanks for carving out some time to get on the program today. Appreciate you having me Great intro.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Give me. Yeah, well, I was excited when I went to the website. I'm like I see what he's doing. That's awesome. So why don't you start? Let's just start by describing what the firm is and does today. Then we'll do some background and then we'll get into the nitty gritty. So you know, I presented as doctors in contract negotiations and, of course, in a world where private practices are being eaten up, I think, by big corporations, you must be very busy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so what Resolve is? What we do all day, every day is we? We want to help and empower physicians as they're looking at their employment contracts, making sure they're protected, paid fairly, have terms that are beneficial for them. We know that healthcare is consolidating right, which you just referenced. It used to be a lot of private practice kind of 50-50 employed and them owning their own space. As opposed to now it's dramatically shifting towards fully employed models. We provide the legal technology platform to help them from anywhere, from the do-it-yourselfers right that want to go out there and just you know kind of handle these things on their own and they need transparency and access to information to folks that need, you know, full services from attorneys kind of all the way through that process.

Speaker 3:

So walk me back, and I love this. Like you didn't describe yourself as a law firm, but you're providing a legal technology platform which is just like as we're doing this in August of 2025, it is so topical, but you've been doing it for a while. So tell me how you found this very narrow niche, but has enough, obviously enough individuals in it to keep you well supplied with work. How did you first discover this?

Speaker 1:

world. I got lucky so I didn't start, resolve or I didn't have the idea. The concept it was founded by a physician who was mentoring you know his residents as they were coming out of training on some of the business medicine things and you know they would ask questions about their contracts. They'd ask questions about you know, this job versus that job. It's their first real business decision as they're coming out of training. And so he thought that rather than helping you know four people a year, it'd be nice to help all of the physicians that are out there. And that's how the company was started, that's how it was formed.

Speaker 1:

I'm lucky to be married to a physician and so understand it from a personal level and have lived that journey as a spouse of going through medical school, going through residency and then exploring different offers that are out there and watching that happen. So not a physician, but I've had a first seat to it type of thing. So that's where it came from and it's obviously the industry has shifted and kind of helped us and our business, I think in the last 10 years. But also I think the need is just it's so strong because there's not enough physicians that are out there. We know there's a shortage, we know that they're not making more of them every year, and so they definitely have some unique characteristics as clients and they tend to have quite a bit of leverage.

Speaker 3:

You know it's so interesting because you know they come to like.

Speaker 3:

I'm constantly amazed at how long it takes education after high school for a physician to be unleashed on the world, and typically they've accumulated a lot of debt like more than most young lawyers, I think and certainly the time horizon is longer than for most young lawyers.

Speaker 3:

Now again, as we're doing this interview in August of 25, we've seen the last couple of years, so the real advent and even in the last six months, kyle, this whole AI revolution. Six months, kyle, this whole AI revolution. And as I describe it to lawyers, I think most have not opened the box at all. Some have opened the box and are running away from it, and then there are those of us who are opening the box and saying, oh my gosh, I'm really not sure where this will lead us, but it's going to lead us to someplace awesome. So you haven't always had the robust AI assistance in Resolve, which is the name of the firm that you do today. But talk to me a little bit about your AI journey, like, how did you start to see how it would help in your practice? And then what people or technologies have you turned to to help integrate AI into the firm?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you know, when Resolve started 15 years ago, there was no AI right in there.

Speaker 1:

There were actually very few even legal tech you know type companies or platforms that were out there, and so it was very much a traditional one-to-one, you know, human-to-human type of interaction.

Speaker 1:

And so, as technology has evolved and as, I think, most businesses that are out there, you want to be as efficient as you can and get clients deliverables at the best price point that you can, at a very high quality, and so we started out with just bringing in some engineers of our own and saying, hey, let's create a platform, let's make what we do today this is even pre-AI just more accessible, easier to access, right, kind of the 24-7, you know kind of capabilities.

Speaker 1:

So that was a starting point. And then, once you go through that and AI starts to develop right, you know three, four years ago you start to see more efficiencies and saying, okay, hey, if we have some things that are repeatable, right, some things that we can do and that you might have staff doing legal assistance or paralegals helping with, is there a way to speed them up right and to give them more tools to make their job easier? And so once you start to do that, you can then start to think about client interfacing, and you know how do you deliver that directly to the client instead of having it work through the back channels, and so it's. I think the legal world is you know is is ripe for this Right. I mean, there's a lot of things that are repetitive in legal practices, and so I think you're going to see more firms like ours, not necessarily in our space, but others that are out there. Legal tech is certainly an area that I think is expanding.

Speaker 3:

I agree. And how do you? Because you're in South Dakota, well, a long ways from a major metropolitan area, probably. And yet I grown your being viewed as guru or thought leader in the physician contract space.

Speaker 1:

We've taken a very, I would say, organic approach to that is, you do a really good job at something for long enough and people, one will tell their friends and then, two, industry will start to notice and notice.

Speaker 1:

And so I think you know we've been lucky enough to be doing this for a while, um, and I think we've always kept, you know, kind of our mission and our north star, to be true to physicians and to make sure that we're we're having their back on that. And so you know, for us it was never a flip the switch and one thing works it it's, you know, use all the digital channels that are out there. You know you mentioned White Coat at the beginning. You know there are certain communities and organizations where our clients live. You know we're now I don't think endorsed is the right word, but we're member benefits of almost every national society. It's like the AMA and ACP and all these position organizations have said yes, this is a problem for our members and this is a really good resource to utilize for that. And so you know, when you start to, Just a quick break.

Speaker 4:

If you're enjoying this episode, you're going to want to check out the GLM Summit happening October 2025. It's where entrepreneurial lawyers come to rethink what's possible in their practice real strategies, real marketing, no fluff. Head over to GLMSummitcom to grab your seat. Now back to the show.

Speaker 1:

And when your brand starts to encompass those things, I think it just creates that trust and that value from your clients and it's easier for them to make that decision.

Speaker 3:

What does the member benefits scheme architecture look like? Are you offering a discount if you're a member of this organization? Put in a code and you get.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so most of the organizations will have relationships with industry in different categories and they do a real nice job of vetting all of those companies and making sure that they are a trusted brand and that it's a legitimate service and things like that. And so then, yes, if you are a participant or a member of those things, there's usually discounts and benefits to your membership to go utilize those downstream services.

Speaker 3:

In terms of human beings that are on your team, either in person, remote or otherwise. How many humans are there?

Speaker 1:

We have about 20 humans give or take, right. They kind of move back and forth, but we also have, because we operate on a national level, right, we have people that are in-house with us. We have, you know, some that are legal in nature. We have some that are engineers, right, and marketing folks that handle communications are legal in nature. We have some that are engineers, right, and, and marketing folks that handle communications, uh, and then we also have, you know, co-counsel is needed in different States if there's licenses that we don't have internally. So, um, you know, the team is efficient, right, um, but also broad enough to handle the entire market.

Speaker 3:

I'm curious now about how you are the CEO of the firm. Do you have equity partners? Are they all lawyers, or do you have some?

Speaker 1:

sort of alternative. Yeah, so if you're asking about like is there outside capital? There is.

Speaker 3:

That's cool. And then you deal with the state licensure issue. If you're reviewing a contract because this comes up in my practice, in my disability practice right, because it's ERISA and because of some of the federal regulations under ERISA, like you can have anybody to do your administrative appeal, like they could be your brother, right, and many doctors are doing trying to do administrative appeals under ERISA for their patients, so it's a little so the barrier for us at a certain level is relatively low. If we go into litigation, we either get local counsel In some districts you actually don't need, you can just apply and you're in. How do you manage that? Or how do you approach that when you've got a physician, maybe he reaches out from a state, wants a contract review, and I think part of what you're doing is you're also analyzing the market, I think in that physician's geographic area, but you don't have a licensed physician. Are you getting somebody else on board to paper this or are you going to give life consulting advice?

Speaker 1:

so it depends, I think. So that kind of like what you're saying is I think there's there's certain things that are absolutely state specific right and you, you have to have right licensure there, and we have a lot of licenses in-house and if we don't have one, we go get that. If there's litigation, like you mentioned, I mean, we don't, we don't do that, we're transactional in nature and so we would do the same type of thing. So it's a combination of both of those right, but because of the business model and because of, you know, our goal on being available for all specialties across the country, that's kind of a solution that we had to solve for early on to make sure we had that or else the model just didn't work.

Speaker 3:

Today, in a few minutes, we'll talk about, like, what the services or the bundles, the different bundles of services are that you offer, but how are you using some of these AI tools? You mentioned engineers and that could be like front end, like website. Your website is very cool, but it what we're all trying to do? Yeah, well, we aren't competing with Facebook and these others that are hiring AI engineers. We feel like we're paying a billion.

Speaker 1:

We don't. We don't have billions of dollars to shell out, but, yeah, that part's off for us. But we know that there's a lot of good I mean AI tools that are out there and you can utilize those and customize those right, and we do paralegals kind of get the documentation ready for the attorneys in that process, so we utilize it there. We also are finding, you know, just like any other business, you know ways to use it with your phone system, right, and you know note-taking and you know summarizing not that I'm doing it right now, but summarizing. You know discussions like this and recapping things. So it's. I think sometimes attorneys are concerned on how to integrate that into your practice. I think you can certainly walk before you run, right. I mean, I think there's so many things to trial and to see hey, does this work, does it not work? Let your people make the decisions, because I think there's there's so many benefits to it.

Speaker 3:

Oh, a hundred percent, you know, and there's. There's things like so we record all of our phone calls and there's actually very little. If I'm doing a consult with a physician, there's very little personal identifiers. Hey, this is Ben. Like you know, I got your stuff and you can't even tell who I'm talking to. And so then, running that through, we do the same thing like summarize our notes to the file, summarize the email back to the client that has the plan for the next three things, summarize the points for what the paralegal needs to do.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, that's a way we can all become sort of more efficient there. Talk to me a little bit about physician hears about you at a conference, or sees you at a conference, or they see this member benefit. Give our listeners some sense, kyle, of the various sort of services that a physician will come to you, because I know you have different tiers and different look like flat fee models, again with some level of continuity to attach to some of these. But no one will have visited your website yet, but I looked at it, so give us a picture of what a client side looks like as they're coming to you, yep.

Speaker 1:

So when clients come into us, we feel like we want to have solutions for various stages right of practice, and you know level of need. And so there's a very baseline offering, kind of a technology offering where they can utilize some access to compensation data and kind of that market information and market analytics to make sure they're being paid fairly and they know what they should be asking for. They can get that risk and kind of AI component right Scoring done on their contract. So that's for the do-it-yourselfers. There's different levels of service on whether or not they want an attorney at all. Right To actually help and look at the document, redline it, mark it up, talk to them, consult with them if they want help negotiating or not, if they have multiple offers or not.

Speaker 1:

And then there's also different types of categories of contracts, right, so there's partnership contracts and there's maybe exit things or group negotiations, and so we try to categorize them as simply as we can, but also, you know, leave some room for those outliers. You know that come in as needed. So we think flat fees are really important. We think that that's, you know, for our practice, the way that it should be. You don't want clients guessing or limiting email communication right for hourly rates. We feel like best outcomes happen when that communication is free, so that's how we view it.

Speaker 3:

The most frightening thing in the world for a law client is not knowing how much the thing will cost. You ask your family law attorney well, what's the divorce going to cost? In here she says I don't know. It depends on what the other side does. That's got to be frightening. My world is almost pure contingent fee. You know, I do this consulting for physicians, but like you, it's flat fee and you've got some options that have what I would call a tail or, you know, repeat annual business or fee for more information. Give us an idea of what that is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's essentially making sure you have access to the information, the market information that you need right on an ongoing basis. And so we view employment contracts similar to like a tax return, where you know, once a year you need to go in and make sure you're still at market, because reimbursements change quite a bit. You know certain specialties will, for whatever reason, see extreme shortages, right, and so you can think about. You know, in our market it's like radiology and anesthesia last year we're receiving offers much far above what the surveys were saying they should be right or what they had the year before, and so we just think that that's again, for our clients, a need that's there, not a mandatory need, right, I mean they can cancel that if they want to but certainly something that would benefit them long term to pay attention to those metrics.

Speaker 4:

What do you do? Theory, no fluff, just the mindset and tools that helped us build a law firm that serves our family and still fights for our clients. Grab your copy at renegadelawyermarketingcom and start building a law practice that actually works for you. Now back to the show.

Speaker 3:

To stay in contact with your clients. You know my estate planning attorney runs a little mini seminar or virtual conference for his clients every year. Updates on, you know, federal law and tax law and all that sort of stuff Offers at pale same thing. Are you doing anything like that for your clients, your past clients?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So we're notifying them, notifying them with technology on any type of new data and information that comes in. We're providing educational webinars on the shifts in the market and what's happening. We're able to do compensation reviews, so help them on that annual review when their new contract comes in. So we try to be available. We also try to not be overly salesy or overly in your face, because we feel like physicians are busy. They're plenty smart, right? I mean, if they have access to good information, they make great decisions, you know on their own, and so we want to be there to support them when they need it.

Speaker 3:

that they don't you know? There's a couple, but no more than maybe two law firms that their whole practice is everything is representing health care, from malpractice claims to regulatory issues, to forming corporations, to contracts. Is that who you are essentially competing against?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's essentially the local law firm, so a lot of the physicians will have mentors, right, people that graduated the year before them and they have used somebody locally in the town where they're doing residency. So our competition is pretty what I would say is robust and fragmented all at the same time. So there's a lot of people that have relationships, but it's also their sample size is pretty small, which is one of the benefits that we think we can uniquely provide is this access to, you know, intelligent information across the entire market, cause it's it's really more common than not that physicians are going to have offers in Ohio and California and Florida that they're considering, and so somebody local has no idea, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's interesting and I also imagine. I also imagine that most lawyers who are serving the physician industry are not doing this value add, which is and we can tell you about the market. That's a brilliant idea.

Speaker 1:

We actually have some of the local attorneys will actually come to us for that piece and say, hey, will you co-counsel this with me? I've got the relationship with the client, but I have no idea what a work RVU is or a conversion factor should look like, and so we know that you guys do this all the time, help us out with it. So that certainly is you know it does happen.

Speaker 3:

Tell me a little bit about how you run the firm. We run Ben Glass Law on EOS, so we have weekly meetings, quarterly meetings and a two-day annual offsite. What are you doing with your team to maintain culture, grow, attract the next employee? Things like that.

Speaker 1:

Well, we're a fully distributed remote team, so all of what we do is done via Microsoft Teams. Right there's, you know, communications like this. We do have some density right In, you know, south Dakota and Missouri and a couple other spots where you know people can get together in person. But you know, 90%, 95% of our communication is all remote. So I think you have to be one extremely careful on who you hire. In those situations you got to have really good, you know, determined employees, people that are going to show up in good faith, that are going to handle client communications like they're supposed to. So we think hiring is really important.

Speaker 1:

I personally think giving folks autonomy and flexibility is what I believe in. So you can either do the job you're a professional, you're an attorney, or you're not, and so for us we think that those things are really important. And also for folks that join us, our we pair them, you know, with somebody who's done this for a long time. So we're never kicking somebody into a practice area that they, you know, are uncomfortable with or unfamiliar with. So I don't know that I have a specific like hey, this is how we run it. But those are kind of some of the characteristics that you'd find if you lived inside of Resolve.

Speaker 3:

Well, it sounds like you got a lot of it right. Right, Because you've built this thing that is I've just never heard of. You know, I've heard of models like this, but that space is very, very unique, and one way to win is to create a market of one and be the one in that market and then attract people to you. How many lawyers are with the firm? We have seven, right now.

Speaker 3:

What are you trying to? I'm curious, what are you solving for now, Like if we're having this discussion three years from now. What do you want Resolve to look like? Are you looking at because you're providing this cool set of services? There's other things I'm sure that you could do. In some mornings you probably wake up thinking should we do this, Should we do that? Right? Yeah, it's the entrepreneur's blessing and curse. Frankly, what are you thinking about generally, as you think about?

Speaker 1:

your law firm over the next couple of years. Well, I think we probably, like everybody else right, are looking at all the ways that AI can help us right and all the ways that we can deliver more personalized insights for our clients. We have such a large data set right that we work on a very unique data set, and so you know, our focus is doing as good a job or a better job right than we're already doing on our current. You know skill set and then I think from there you're right. I mean, every entrepreneur has a thousand ideas every morning. It's probably more important to shut those off at times than it is to explore them. So I think for us, it's more of just doubling down on what we're doing and making sure we're utilizing technology the right way.

Speaker 3:

I think my research showed that you've got some youngins at home, I do. What's their age span?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 13, 10, and 7. And today's actually their first day of school, so we dropped them off and they're back at it.

Speaker 3:

Yes, well, in Fairfax County they started early, although I don't have any that young anymore. So, yes, well, in Fairfax County they started earlier, although I don't have any that young anymore. So I'm curious. You know, part of what we do at Great Legal Marketing is we help lawyers build practices that make their family happy, right? So what are some of the personal habits, if you're willing to share, that you engage in? You know either. Health reading outside the industry. You know learning mastermind groups. Health reading outside the industry. You know learning mastermind groups. What do you do to keep this all fresh and interesting for yourself and still be there for the three youngins?

Speaker 1:

yeah, well, I, I do think I mean, my kids are important to me, so I I enjoy making a breakfast almost every morning, right, and and allowing, you know, having a job that allows me to do that, uh is great, and I think that's one of the things our employees like as well is this flexibility where they can have some of that work-life balance. I'm a big believer in getting to the gym and taking a break, and so for me, that's over the lunch hour is what I like to do is to cut my day in half and punch out for a little bit, and for the last 10 years for sure, when your kids are real little, it's all a blur. You drink a lot of coffee, but you know, you just realize that they're so busy with events. I would love to stay and read a lot and I do all these things, but I don't. I'm going to basketball games and football games and volleyball games.

Speaker 3:

Well then what you do is you look in the Facebook posts of the parents who are dropping their kids off at college and saying how fast that all went right. That's right, Because it can be very hectic for a while. Well, look, I think people ought to go and at least look at your website. If that's okay, why don't you give out the? Because I know you have a URL for the company and then I think you have a different, slightly different URL for the law firm itself. Yeah, so it's firm itself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so it's just resolvecom. I mean that'll get you to pretty much everything we talked about today. It's resolvelgl for the law firm that supports it, and so both of those are going to look fairly consistent. But the resolvecom, that's the one that'll get you more information.

Speaker 3:

That's awesome. Look, I know you're a really busy guy, I really appreciate it. That's awesome. Look, I know you're a really busy guy, I really appreciate it. I'm glad that we connected and I had no idea until I started to look around like where this conversation would go, because when I first looked at it I'm like, oh, it's all about physician contract negotiation. Well, that'll be a challenge to link it back to the solo and small firm lawyers. But it's great and I'll ask you this actually after we go, after we stop recording. Thanks for giving us your time today, kyle. Thanks.

Speaker 2:

See ya. That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on, Subscribe, leave a review and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger, Want more tools, strategies and stories from the trenches? Visit greatlegalmarketingcom or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.

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