Building a Legal Empire: Choose Your Business Model

Ali Katz:
Three years from now, what did you build? What did you build? Did you build a solo practice, 4-6 new clients a month? Did you build a staffed practice with 12-15 clients a month? Or have you built a million dollar empire already? 20 or more clients a month? Knowing that is going to impact all of your decisions going forward. And three years from now, you can have any of it, even if you don't know any estate planning right now.

Ali Katz:
Hello, and welcome to the NewLaw podcast, where we guide entrepreneurial lawyers to build law practices into businesses they love. I'm Ali Katz. Solo, staffed practice or empire builder? Which is the right business model for you? And what do you do 1st, 2nd, 3rd? No matter what, this episode is going to lay it out for you. So wherever you're starting, wherever you want to go, listen in, choose the right business model. Know that you can grow. You can start with solo and decide you want to stay there, or you can grow to staffed or even empire and have a multimillion dollar law practice. It's all based on what is right for you. And this episode is going to lay it all out for you. Listen in and I'll see you on the other side.

Ali Katz:
One of my favorite success stories is 25 years in practice, really as a door lawyer, focused on estate planning, specifically as a Personal Family lawyer, and sold his practice for over a million dollars. And so I want you all to be thinking a bit about, where are you going with this? When you've dialed it all in and dialing it all in? Could be one year, it could be five years, it could be ten years. You could, you know, still be tweaking. Most people are not. But I think it was about five years later he sold his practice for around a million. Know that every day is a new day. And that even if you're just making the baby steps progress, it is, it is enough. It is a lot.

Ali Katz:
It is to be celebrated. And if you've been in business for a long time, you already know that. But what you might not know is actually how fast things can change. Because it may be that you've been stuck in an old model for a really long time, and now you're ready to have this change. And how fast can things really change? Well, I was on the phone with one of our longtime clients right now, Bev and Dirk. And Bev came to us because she interviewed me for a book she was writing about the "Happy lawyer". But she had decided to give up the law. She was not a happy lawyer, decided to write this book, interviewed me, heard about Personal Family lawyer and was like, oh, I think maybe I want to come back to the law and do that.

Ali Katz:
So she did enrolled with us, and then Covid came, and it was July of 2020, and she was ready to quit. She was ready to quit July of 2020, I think, like many lawyers, right? Like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? We had a conversation in July of 2020, and I said, you know, you're at that part of your business now where you have a choice. You have a choice, and you can either give up or go forward. Those are the two choices. Where do you want to go? Where do you want to take this practice? What do you want to do? What do you want to build? And she decided she was going to double down, make even more investments, even more goals. That was four years ago. So I was just on the phone with her and her partner and a consultant that we hired to work with them around the sale of their law practice. Where are they today? Over 2 million in revenue, and they're looking at a sale of their law practice in the next two to three years for 1.5 million.

Ali Katz:
That's their goal. It was only four years ago that she wanted to quit. I share this with you because that's how fast you can go if you choose to. If you choose to. There are also plenty of members that we have who've been with us ten years or more. They didn't want to grow that fast or big. They wanted to stay serving four to six new clients a month, forever. And they just want to do that for the rest of their business life.

Ali Katz:
And they're happy with that because they don't want to build a team. They don't want to hire other attorneys. They want to keep their systems lean and mean, but really not mean. Really nice. Lean and nice. So here's the important thing that I want you all to take away from this is you are in the power seat of creating exactly what you want. What it takes is for you to know, what do you want three years from now? What did you build? What did you build? Did you build a solo practice, four to six new clients a month? Did you build a staffed practice with twelve to fifteen clients a month? Or have you built a million dollar empire already? Twenty or more clients a month? Knowing that is going to impact all of your decisions going forward. And three years from now, you can have any of it, even if you don't know any estate planning right now.

Ali Katz:
Even if you don't know any estate planning right now. So what are you creating. What are you creating? I want you to claim it. Three years from now, what did you build? Solo, staffed or empire? Four to six new clients a month. Solo, with some outsourcing, staffed twelve to fifteen new clients a month. Probably two to three staff members, or an empire, twenty plus clients with other attorneys working with you. And in order to be there, either staffed or empire in three years.

Ali Katz:
End of 2027. Where do you need to be a year from now? Where do you need to be a year from now? What needs to be true a year from now? How many clients are you engaging each month? One year from now so that you have the capital to invest in hiring and in marketing. Because in order to build a staffed practice or an empire, you have to invest in hiring and in marketing. And what we want you to be doing a year from now is ideally at least that four consistent clients a month.

Ali Katz:
Would you love direct support? To help you grow your law practice into a business you love, go to newlawbusinessmodel.com/show and sign up for a call with one of our trusted law business advisors. Each of our advisors has been trained directly by me over the past five years plus to help you chart your path from wherever you are now to where you want to go as efficiently and effectively as possible. You're ready to grow. We are here to help.

Ali Katz:
That's really the first goal, that four consistent clients a month, because if you can do four by yourself, you can do eight to ten with a team member. Now, what do you need to do before you can do four? You got to do one. You got to do one. That's it. One to two. And know that you can engage those clients.

Ali Katz:
That is your number one goal here, is to know that you can engage those clients. Because when you can engage clients, you can make money out of nothing. In the past, you've probably made money by selling hours or documents, transactions or conflict. That's what you sold before, but now you don't sell either of those. In fact, you're promising to keep families out of court and out of conflict. And you're not billing hourly. And you will deliver documents, of course, because the documents are needed as part of the delivery. But that's not what you're selling.

Ali Katz:
What you are selling is an experience for the people you serve, an experience that has them feel something. What are some of the things that you think that people will feel? Looking at what they have of going through your counseling process to help them make decisions about the most important things in their life, the things that matter to the most that they know they've done the right thing for the people that they love, that their kids are going to be taken care of by the people they want in the way they want, no matter what. They're never going to be taken in the care of strangers, that their assets won't be lost, that their family won't be in court or conflict. Yeah, great. All of these things, comfort and peace of mind, relief, feeling organized. That's a big one, y'all. This feeling organized. I don't want you to underestimate the value of that.

Ali Katz:
Most people today have some form of ADD, ADHD, disorganization and feel overwhelmed by it. You might too, by the way, feeling as if somebody else has their arms around their stuff and can help them and can help their family when something happens and it's not all scattered and lost is such a feeling of relief. Feeling organized helps people make good decisions. Relief and taken care of. Yes. Secure, empowered and in control, cared for, supported and prepared for the future. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Ali Katz:
This is what you do for people. This is what you do for people. Now you doing that for people will take some systems, right? It's going to take some systems. And what you get to think about and you get to think about what role do you want to be in? Right now, you're in all the roles. You're the lawyer, you're the entrepreneur, you're the business owner, you're the strategist, you're the person who sells, markets. You're in all the roles. But a year from now, you get to offload one of those roles. Which one is it? And three years from now, if you got to only keep one of those roles, which would it be? Because you will have built systems and a team to create a reality where you don't have to be in all the roles, you only have to be in one of the roles.

Ali Katz:
And you get to pick, do you like meeting with the clients? Great. You get to keep doing that. Do you like marketing and educating in your community? Great. You could keep doing that. Do you like actually drafting the documents? Great. You could keep doing that. Do you like printing the binders and making the diagrams? Great. You could keep doing that.

Ali Katz:
But here's the cool thing. You don't have to do any of that. Actually, the only thing that you have to do is make the decisions. That's the only thing that you have to do. Great.

Ali Katz:
So a year from now, Heather, you are going to have, my guess is, a client services director. Because that's really what we recommend you hire first, and that person will handle your 15 minutes intakes and get them booked on the calendar until you get to a point where that person can't both handle the intakes and get them on your calendar and handle all the work after you engage them, because that's really what the client services director also does. And then you have to choose what does the person you hired keep doing? And then you hire somebody to do the other part. But the first person you hire does both the front stage and the backstage, the getting them on your calendar and taking care of them after you engage them.

Ali Katz:
So the client services director differs from a paralegal because a paralegal, usually definition of paralegal is they're doing legal work. Now, you could have a paralegal who is a client services director, but your client services director is really the person that is linking arms with you and that's going to build your business alongside you. They are the most important hire in your office, and it is the most important role. And you want to do a really good job of deciding who you hire because they can make or break your firm. They're the first person that somebody talks to when they call your office, and they're the last person that that person works with through your process. And a paralegal typically is kind of single minded focus like most lawyers are. Let me just check the things off on my list, right? I can file papers with the court, I can draft documents. You probably want somebody who's more either sales oriented, customer service oriented, client service director, or really great at project managing back office right? Now, what does that bring us to? We want to make sure that you can engage and serve clients with life and legacy because that's what funds everything else.

Ali Katz:
You can't afford to hire if you can't engage clients. Doesn't make sense for you to do any marketing if you can't engage clients. So we want you laser focused on engaging clients and really going out and getting your first two practice clients. So my question for all of you is, when will you have your first two practice clients? Do, you know, just choose a date. Everything that you will do in your life, that is way to move things forward will happen because you put dates on the calendar. Without a date on the calendar, things are just floating in space. So I want you to have a date on the calendar, which then you'll work backwards to say, okay, I have to have the homework ready.

Ali Katz:
You just heard one of our internal coaching calls at NewLaw Business Model with our Personal Family Lawyer Firm leaders. And if you would love to get on the path to PFL yourself and start building a law practice that you love into a business that you know you can count on, whether it's a solo, staffed practice or empire, go to newlaw.co/show. That's newlaw.co/show and apply for a call with a law business advisor where we can map your path to PFL and help you understand what are the investments, how much time, energy, attention and money will it take to create your solo, staffed or empire builder practice and turn it into a business you love. I'll see you on the other side.