Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You have to be more than a lawyer to run a successful law firm. Business owner, cto, you know, chief technology officer. You have to have a little bit of all of that in you in order to succeed.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Most firms survive. The best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin. Daisy. Let's jump in. What's going on, everyone?
Welcome to another recording of the Managing Partners podcast.
We, we are in the new year. As we're recording this, I know we have quite a backlog, so this could be coming out a little bit later in the year. But excited for this year, end of the year on a strong note for my companies anyway, in 2025. But we got big goals for this year and I'm excited to be recording with some some fresh guests. Today we have Michael Cohen out of New York, has a really cool firm, very tech forward, and just excited to have him tell us his story, what he's doing different so that we can all learn and apply it in our businesses. That's what this podcast is all about. So excited to be here with you all and thanks again for listening. As always, Michael, welcome to the show. Dude.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Thank you so much. Happy New Year. I'm psyched to be here.
Yeah, I mean, as far as technology goes, you know, the new year is going to bring a lot of both challenges and exciting opportunities from a technology perspective. But, you know, starting out, I started my firm out of a Starbucks with a laptop. And after I left my old firm, we had a whole feed dispute about the cases that I took, and it got kind of ugly. But having to do that forced me to be tech forward. So if a client had wanted to come into the office, there was no office.
Everything had to be signed digitally. I had to be paperless.
I was a quick adapter to RingCentral right away, which is a digital VoIP. So I was kind of forced into being tech forward. And now it's kind of become a habit or a structure for me in my office to be always looking at the newest technology and seeing how we could use it to better serve our clients. So now our firm, we're up to 20 people.
Everybody's working remote. We do have a Manhattan office for when clients want to come in. And if we do, for instance, we do a monthly meeting or if I need to meet with staff one on one, we'll go to the office. But I found that especially since COVID people have adapted well to working from home and being effective. And if you have the right team if you have a players, people that are, that are willing to perform or want to perform and improve, then. Then you're not going to worry about them slacking at home or not doing work. A lot of the stuff you see on social media, all jokes and memes about people working from home and, you know, being on the golf course at 1pm we haven't had that problem because we've kind of set it straight. So, yeah, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to see what the technology advances in 2026 are going to bring.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah, things are moving fast, that's for sure. And obviously AI is mentioned on every, you know, everything. Every show, every conference, every podcast.
Yeah, but it's, you know, it's. It's real, it's here, and you should have been using it well before now. But I wanted to back up a second one thing you just said, which is something I was on a podcast the other day as a guest on someone else's, and they were asking me these questions about, you know, growth and how do you maintain the growth you've had and culture and all this stuff. If you have A players, that's a dumb question. Like, oh, aren't you worried about your team slacking off or not doing their work?
No. 100 not if you only bring in A players and that is. That's it, then those concerns go out the window, right?
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you're preventing that during the hiring process. You cannot wait for somebody to start working for you and then just set all these rules for them and expect them to follow them. No, the hiring process, you've got to be making sure that this is a person who you're going to trust to be a responsible adult at the end of the day and prioritize their work. Now, of course, if somebody has a doctor's appointment or they want to go grab a cup of coffee, you're not going to kill them over it. I mean, you know, that's the freedom that they have. Right. But again, it starts. Culture is driven from the top, but it's built from the bottom. Meaning that I could scream and bark and scream about culture all day, but at the end of the, at the end of the day, it's the hiring process, the intake process, the training process, which kind of builds the foundation for the culture that allows your A players to thrive and not slack.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: So, yes, and it. And those A players protect that. And so they stop a B or C player even coming in that. That room. Right. They're like, this is how we do things here. This is how I like to do things. And everyone else does, too, and they'll stick out like a sore thumb even if they make it past, you know, the hiring process that you have.
So it's just a. A cool thing to be like, you know, to be able to say that. Because when you said that, I was like, oh, that's. You know, people ask me that all the time because I have over 60 remote. And it's like, some people, like, cringe, like, oh, no. Like, you could be, like, having all these people wasting all this time and money, and it's just not the case.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: So it's not. Not.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: And you're watching that here on the show.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, just like you said, the. The A players will not allow. The B players will feel uncomfortable. The B and C players, they will not feel comfortable working at a place like this. And the A players will come to you and say, like, look, I think this is a B or C player. Here's the reason why. So you could build that foundation to weed them out or keep them out.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: But, yeah, and I people, you know, if you're trying to hire attorneys and you can't find anyone and you're spending money on recruiters and all this, you ain't got to do that. If you're a culture of A players, you just go to the A players, say, hey, who do you know that would be awesome to work here? Oh, they. They immediately have some folks in mind, or they'll go find them. Or you have a bunch of people already. You know, typically when you have a group like that. So, yeah, no, we're not.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: This.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: This episode is not a culture episode necessarily, but it's here we are here. It's so powerful and so many good things come from it. When you have a good culture. And I like your point, too. It starts from the top. Like, what are your values? What do you want to see? What do you want to do? But then it's very much built from there, from the bottom. So. Yeah, good point.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: It's a relevant discussion because A, all the remote work since COVID but also it ties into technology because A players are also going to adapt quicker. Right? AI is changing every day there's a new app or, you know, so the new hot product, you know, on a weekly basis or something new. And you're. If you have a team of A players, they're going to be like, look, this is the best one. Or this is what we have to change and do. All right, let's do It So you don't you figure you're not the only one just coming with ideas and screaming at people to use it. Your team is on board. So it does tie into technology.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: No, you're, you're right. And I can think back when I've had different versions of my company and team, right today they bring ideas. Hey, we can get rid of these three pieces of software. I've checked this one out on my own free will, on time. And this is gonna be a game changer. This will help me and my team improve. And so they bring that to the table again versus back in the day be like, hey, we're gonna do this. We've decided, roll it out. And then everyone's all pissed off because they have to change.
Especially a players, you know, if you take something away from them that they needed or wanted, they're not going to stick around.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: And that adaptability what you just described, like, hey, let's get rid of this software, let's sign up for the next one. I think in the next five to 10 years that's really going to separate the good law firms from the bad. Because with the advent and again, you know, the new hot product, the new hot AI right now, it's about kind of trying everything. You're kind of feeling it out, what's good, what's not. And during that stage, it's important to be able to jump for, to the, you know, the better one or the one that suits your needs. For instance, we were using Slack for a couple years and all of a sudden we said, hey, our Google Chat and Google Workspace does this same exact thing and it's included with our email.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: We have Slack, we have Slack right now and we, we run on Google. So we had that conversation the other day about could we switch back or switch to it. So yeah.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: And within two days, that's it. Boom, we went from Slack to Google and it was over. And that's, you know, firms are going to be, they're going to be required almost to do that in order to operate smooth. Because if you get stuck on an old technology, it's really tough. It's the equivalent of some firm still having paper files. Which is crazy to me, by the way. It's insane to me that they still have like, if client calls and you walk over to the, you know, the filing cabinet and pull out their file. That's crazy talk. It's, it's a. But anyway, that's what's going to happen.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: I don't have a printer here at My house or the my home office? We have one at the office when I'm there a few times here and there. But yeah, that is crazy talk to even think of.
But yeah, like we just mentioned in earlier, like we use Slack for all communications for our teams.
We're looking at can Google, we just switch to that. But, but every month we're looking at, you know, how efficient are we, how profitable are we, what are we paying for that we don't need? We always find stuff. Hey, we got five pieces of software. Yeah, we don't really need those. Let's cancel those.
We pay for all the Slack licenses for all our team.
We could move to Google and we're already paying for it.
So you're looking for those efficiencies too, which you can pass on to your clients, to your customers.
And in Slack though, like we have a channel called Daily Status. Hey, go on and grab a coffee. Hey, gotta run and pick up my kid at the school bus. Like everyone knows what everyone's doing and we have, we have channels like that where people can freely move about their day if they need to. And we're not like where are they? We know where they're at, they tell
[00:10:25] Speaker A: us that's a great idea. And then you're also encouraging people to do that. It's kind of like less of a cat and mouse game with people. Like you never catch somebody off guard, you know that, you know that they're not prepared to have like an impromptu Google Meet or Zoom call. Right. You know that. So it's a good way of encouraging people to do that. And that's it. I mean law firms are running like tech companies.
I think they will be over the next five years. It just is what it is and you got to keep up.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean the ones that don't are going to be way left behind and the, the clients want the efficiency, they want the access, they want the if you're bill by the hour. Right. They want the lower cost savings.
The ones that don't move to technology and don't embrace at least some virtual.
Our clients are going to find that help elsewhere.
I wanted to back up too just for everyone that's listening, tell me more about your firm, what you do.
So I get lawyers that are listening what kind of firm you actually are might change their perspectives a little bit.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I we are a Manhattan based but New York and New Jersey personal injury law firm. The majority of our cases are auto cases and then the minority are other types of negligence like Premises and product liability.
We handle pretty much all counties in New York, which is, again, made possible by technology. The advent of technology and the courts kind of keeping up or trying to keep up with the technology.
You could litigate remotely, a little bit remotely, if you need to.
And we have a team comprised of a couple attorneys, a lot of paralegals and support staff, and we're just trying. We're just starting to build our vertical structure with the firm as we grow.
And again, technology has allowed us to do that.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome.
And, you know, obviously, Covid helps with some of these advances in the courts. You know, getting on board with this kind of stuff.
People don't realize maybe how. How big a difference that actually made, you know, to law firms, you know, to. To do these things more virtually.
How. When did you start the firm?
[00:12:47] Speaker A: June 2016. I started the firm. I was pretty much forced to leave my old law firm because they were never. I reached my cap there. They were never going to make me partner. They were never going to give me the fee split on the injury cases that I needed or that I deserved.
So I left. I took my laptop to a Starbucks. I contacted all the clients I had referred there and asked if they would come with me. They all agreed, and we were off and running. Eventually, I got one paralegal to come work with me out of the Starbucks, and I had to buy. It was summertime, so I had to buy two iced coffees a day for the manager not to kick us out. One in the morning, one in the afternoon.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Not squatting.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Not squatting. Yeah. They weren't calling the police, Even though these days in New York it's more acceptable to do that. Back then, it was not.
And that was it until we got an office space, like, six months later and just been. Feel like I've had my foot on the pedal ever since. Just constant growth, constant maturity, both as an attorney and a business owner. And I think these days, again, I feel like I'm repeating myself. But you really have to have. You have to be more than a lawyer to run a successful law firm. Again, business owner, cto, you know, chief technology officer. You have to have a little bit of all of that in you in order to succeed, I think. And I think, again, that's. Those firms are going to separate themselves over the next five years even more dramatically than the last five.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. And a cool story. It made me think of, like, Jerry Maguire, you know, like, who's going with me?
You got one paralegal to Say, all right, buy me some iced coffees every day. Yeah, I'm in.
[00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. The one guy in the corner who nobody wanted.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Anyway, that's the thing. Like, every firm has its own vision, culture, niche, whatever. And you're going to find those players as they. Players that, that want to follow for whatever reason. Like, I'm in.
And I think when you're starting out, it's like, why would they want to follow? What the crap I got going on here? But, you know, those people find you and, and they're important to hold on to, that's for sure.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: It's tough to get people out of their complacency. You got a steady salary, you know, you're working at a big firm. This was a big firm. We were on the 75th floor of the Empire State Building. Life was good.
The corner office, everything was, was lined up. But if you're not happy, you're not happy. And if you're not being properly rewarded for the work that you're doing, you're going to leave. And that's a lesson that I take with me and I. And how I look at my own staff. When it comes to time for raises and bonuses and, you know, rewards, there's always that com. There's always in the back of my head, is this an A player that I want? Is this person happy? Am I creating a structure for this person to be here long term? And that's really important. It's really important.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Because you have your own, your own story that you're experienced to kind of think back on and say, wait, I was an A player, Nick. You know, I wasn't happy and I left because of these reasons.
Yeah. One of the things I was thinking of earlier too, is when it comes back to a players, the biggest, your biggest concern with a players players is that you can't keep up and they leave because they get better opportunity or they go start their own firm or something like that. So I, I've lost some great A players over the years that own their own companies now that are doing well and they're still friends.
And you always go, why? Why are they leaving? You know, like.
Or unexpected, like, crap, that person's leaving. I never expected in 100 years they would leave, but they're a players. Like, they can go do pretty much whatever they want anywhere. And so, yeah, keeping up with that, bonuses, paying them well, taking care of their needs, getting that technology that they requested or at least hearing them out, Right?
Yeah.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: And it's harder to do with younger staff. With, I mean I guess we're, we're veering off a little bit. But gen zers, it is very difficult to, to, to know what's going to keep them satisfied in the workplace and what's going to, you know, keep them performing high. And I've learned you got to kind of lean in. I mean even if you disagree with, you know, I, I go to networking events and people, I can't find anybody good who's in their early 20s and these gen zers, they don't want to work and they're lazy. I think it's more that you have to kind of lean in and see what they want. They want to travel a little bit, they want to work remote, they want to, you know, have a seven dollar iced latte every day at 11:00am it's just, you have to kind of see what makes them tick and lean into that. It's just a different experience. So I think it's more of an adjustment more than an impossibility.
But that's another thing that's been going around about how you know, Gen Z's are tough to do.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: To me, if I hear a firm say that then it's that, that tells me that culture is not as important there or it's, it's probably a culture that's more abrasive to those, those folks, it's not somewhere they want to be or work. And you know, you should have people lined up.
I know some firms that are like yeah, no problem. We hire anytime because we, everyone wants to work here. And you have other firms that are like we can't find anybody. You're just blaming, you know, the job market on it or they don't want to work and it's just not the case. When you have a good culture, you run a good company. I think with these, the younger folks too. And within my team anyway it's camaraderie. This is a team of people they want to work with. That's what keeps them there more so than what I can give them sometimes, you know. Yeah, a little extra pay, things like that. That's great.
I think you also sitting down and talk with them. We do one on ones with every team member every single week.
Mandatory. Every manager has to do that.
And every time we've lost someone or found out a problem, we find out a manager wasn't doing one on ones.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Really?
[00:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And then sometimes we actually we had a situation where we, we had someone leave and then the manager we got rid of and then we had the person that Left, go, hey, can I come back? It was really that person that was the reason I left, you know, so.
And we said, come on back.
Yeah. So new situation.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Unbelievable.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Sometimes you don't recognize, you know, the. The terrorists of what.
I forgot what book that is, but one of the books out there calls them a terrorist. They're like a. They perform well, they bring some kind of special talent, but they're toxic and they create a lot of problems and chaos without usually the owner really recognizing it. So.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's. It's easy to. I mean, it's not easy to let that slip, but it could happen. You're caught up in the work and creating these processes and systems, and you're just like, you know, you just assume that the high performer is also a good manager, but that's not necessarily the case.
So just you constantly got to be auditing yourself and your systems.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's easy when there's like a rainmaker. Like, that is the. The terrorist. Right. They're bringing in, you know, three quarters of our revenue or a quarter of a revenue or whatever it might be. And that's hard to say, hey, we got to just get rid of that person because, you know, they're. They're bad. Cultural fitness.
And the best thing is when you can actually make that decision to say, yeah, I know you're bringing in all this revenue, you're out. And the rest of the team celebrates, and it strengthens the hell out of that team that you have for sure.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Have you tried. This is the wrong word for it, but have you tried, quote, unquote, rehabilitating a toxic person and seem like, hey, maybe if we do trainings and this and that, that they'll change?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: I mean, in the past, I feel like we've tried to give those routes. I think we're know we're past that point of, no, no, you know, no obsess, obsessions at this point. It's just. You're out. You know, if. If we see something that is just sometimes you just can't come back from certain things, you know, so now we just don't. We don't play around.
So, yeah, if it's like, hey, they're a really good cultural fit, maybe they just. They're not in the right position.
We've always kind of been in the past, like, oh, we won't create positions. You, you know, if there's no position, you got to, you know, exit. Right.
We're not quite like that. So if we got a really good person that's smart and strong. And they say, hey, I'd like to try to be on this other team or learn this other thing. We had an account manager recently fall in love with the SEO and be like, I want to be on the SEO team. And we made that transition. So it's completely different career path, you know, but we saw the team and say, hey, what do you guys would you want her on your team? And she's going to be learning and as long as they agree, then, then shit, let's go for it. Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Some. I've also found that sometimes, like in the feedback loop with performance reviews or weekly meetings, they're lacking support or training. It's like, hey, you know, I, I don't know how to do this, but no one ever taught me. Or I, you know, I'd love to learn about XYZ topic.
And I think it's also important to provide that support for people who are a good cultural fit, willing to work hard and may just be in the wrong position or maybe weren't supported in that position.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: It's really important to have those. Yeah, school can be taught. I mean, you know, so if you got a great person, good culture fit, you want to be around them, you want to work with them, they need to learn some stuff, then that's, that's easy. Obviously, being a lawyer versus not, that's a completely different situation. But you know, most of my team, it's, it's marketing, right? It's. They can be trained and taught.
Are your paralegal team or admins or receptionists or whatever other, you know, positions you have?
I think the biggest thing, they want to be there and they're a good fit at your firm. That's, that's the harder part to find, so.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: Exactly. Teaching them the substantive work is not as hard as teaching them to be a fit.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: You can't teach someone to be a good person.
You can't change their behavior really. You know, so it's, you gotta hold on to those people if you can. Again, you don't want to just make up positions and it comes, you know, it'll hurt them and you at some point. But. And that's where I think too, like, you know, you let people go like, hey, I know you want to do this other thing. We just don't have that here. I think you would do better if, if we help you find a position somewhere else and because sometimes people think they have to stay, you know, they like it there, they, they have friends there, they like you, whatever.
And they just will stick themselves and get stuck and never say anything, you know, because they're just being nice. But sometimes it's good to say, hey, you really want to go do real estate? You should probably, you know, let's just.
Let's go try to figure out how to make you give me a real estate agent. Whatever, you know, whatever it may be.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: Yeah. It's good for both sides.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: And we actually had. I had a kind of like a director position.
Local guy here to me and still a good friend of mine now he was there like, you know, director, like over everyone. He was like our manager.
And I have real estate. My business partner has some real estate. And so we're always like, hey, everyone, you should reinvest. You should do other things outside of this job. Like, you should, you know, this is your life. He got into real estate, liked it, loved it, and he left to be started saying real estate company.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: He fell in love with that. And that was kind of our doing, you know, it was going to happen one way or another, you know, is
[00:24:15] Speaker A: what it is better to happen on your terms than on theirs?
[00:24:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Other than a big surprise, like, we have no clue what's happening. Why'd that person leave?
Yeah, we, you know, so put it all out there. Right. You know, they. They might find. Fall in love with something that you put them in touch with. But, you know, it is what it is. It's gonna happen.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Especially in a very flux job market where a lot of people are taking jobs just because, like, it's a job and they want to get paid and they don't necessarily know or. Or that's just what they have experience. And maybe somebody graduated college and they're a paralegal. They've always been a paralegal. They don't else. And then once they've been exposed to a little bit, they could be like, oh, maybe I want to do this, this and that.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't. I've owned marketing companies for a long time, but you. I wouldn't want to be doing the work. I would lose my mind at this point.
So. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Just because you hired a paralegal that's been a paralegal forever. They might hate it or maybe they just feel like that's what they have to do.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Situation can change. So, yeah. You're. Anyone listening? You're going to lose people that you don't want to lose. You're going to bring in people that you shouldn't have hired that are Going to screw things up, people is the hardest part of a business, in my opinion.
But it can be the most powerful thing if you put time and energy into it. So.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that goes for employees and for clients. Right? Just dealing with people, the clients, their personalities, their stories, their issues.
You know, it goes both ways. Just connecting with them and, and keeping them loyal.
It's a lot to juggle. It's a lot.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: But yeah, you know, if, you know, if I called your law firm, right, and you're just a, you don't care about building a great company. You just need bodies and seats and, and people that want a job.
You, you leave from the top down and, you know, people just have to show up and that's it and blah, blah. The experience that I get when I call your office, I talk to an admin or a receptionist, when I interact with a paralegal or maybe a lawyer that you're not paying or giving him what he's due or, or she.
What's my experience going to be like? Right. Versus the opposite of that. Right. Where everyone wants to be there. Everyone's looking for efficiencies, everyone's looking to help the client. Everyone's happy to just be there and do their job. Totally different experience. Referrals go up, reviews go up.
You know, that is your brand, that is your marketing, your people. Right.
Because you can get, I can get you leads all day. That's what I do. But what happens once they call you and interact with you? Why would they get with your firm? You know, and the firm has all the ownership on that. You know, you can't blame a marketing agency for the deals not signing and the not closing. So it's a lot to think about.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Every contact with a client is a sales. Is a sales call in one way or the other.
It is. And I think that people might underestimate the structure it takes to have in place to do exactly what you just said, to have a consistent, positive customer service experience from the bottom all the way to the top. It takes structure, it takes training, it takes auditing. And people might not realize that, oh, send me the cases, send me the clients, send me the business.
For you to do what? For you to botch it. It has to be. The structure has to be in place before you move forward to scale or grow or whatever it is you want to do in your business.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Yeah. If you don't have the technologies in place and metrics and tracking to be able to pinpoint a weak spot. Right. And be like, hey, we can improve that. And you should be always going, how can we improve? Just over and over and over. Just, things are changing, markets changing, people's habits change.
But yeah, you got to be doubting all that stuff. And I love what you said there too. Like, you're, you're basically, you're mapping out from they see you online or see you on a wherever all the way to they just referred you another client. And, and how do you map that whole thing out? And then you just start fixing things and adding things. You know, if you're just starting a firm, you're not going to be able to do all that and plan it all, but you can still map it out and say, all right, here's where we can't afford to do these right now, but we know we need to fix this later. Here's the most important things that we can work on now.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: So it takes a lot of humility and it also takes a lot of reflection. You have to be able to map it out and also be willing to say, like, okay, I'm doing this wrong. You have to be willing to say, like, wow, maybe I'm not so good at this. Like, I learned, I learned very early on that I could be very good at taking a complex topic and oversimplifying it almost to a fault where clients are like, wait, that's it.
So sometimes if you want to have like a very high level discussion about the complexities of an issue, I might not be the person to talk to. And sometimes I'll defer to like a senior paralegal or another attorney to be like, they want you to sit down and go through this. I'm not that person. I'm the guy that's like, you want the quick and dirty. This is, this is how it's going to go. I already know how this is going to end and this is how it's
[00:29:21] Speaker B: going to play out.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: So it's like understanding your weaknesses and be able to plug those weaknesses with either staff or structure or whatever it is to make sure that the experience is consistent is not easy.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: No, it's, it's not actually. And it's funny too, like, because I suck at a lot of things. Like, I'm bad at, like, I'm like ocd. I'm ADHD for sure. But, you know, tasks and little, you know, small things like that. I'm terrible at, I'm good at sales. I'm good at making relationships, talking to people.
And my team now knows what I suck at. And they've just put things around that to avoid things from happening.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:02] Speaker B: But yeah, you kind of have to be like, yep, I suck at that. And, and it's a known thing and, and there's things I'm good at. Right. And, and shout out how I can do more of those things and then put people in place or process to, to do the rest of it. So yeah, 100%.
Gotta have some humility for sure.
Well, it sounds like, you know, your firm is just growing and you're doing a lot of cool things, you know, and, and doing it virtually. Lots of technology, a team, a player sounds. You had a great culture there.
See, you know, we got some similarities for sure. And what's kind of some goals, 2026, what's your plans and anything exciting that you got coming up you want to share?
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
So for 2026, our goals are to a. Create a little bit more accountability when it comes to meeting structure.
It's very easy if you're on the phone with a client or on the phone with an insurance company to blow off a meet, not blow off a meeting, but just show up late or not be prepared for something.
And we're looking to create that structure with as much technology help as possible. For instance, there are certain AI platforms that if you have a meeting that's a follow up from a previous one, it'll automatically email you the notes from the last meeting, like, hey, be prepared. This is what happened last week.
So we're looking to create that kind of structure with especially our older staff because the younger staff, they kind, they get it quick. I think they're okay with it, but older staff may not be so adept. And then the other thing is really creating custom LMS and GPT. I think it's, I think every company, definitely law firms I think should have, but every company should have a custom GPT where an employee could log in and say like I'm having this issue, you know, according to our company manual training handbook, you know, common practice, what should I do? And just having that one center resource for staff to go to, it's a lot of work. It's obviously, it's a lot of customization and it's not really a set it and forget it thing. It's something that constantly needs to be worked. But I think once you get to that point, you're, you're, you're decentralizing a lot of your firm away from you having to answer questions and make decisions as long as the technology is reliable.
So that's one thing that I'm working on for 2026 is perfecting GPT. So that, I mean, I wanted to get to the point where the paralegal could be drafting documents. I think that's, we're past that point. If you're not using AI or some sort of technology to draft documents, you're going to fall way behind the next year or two. But even the next level, like here is the information on the case. What is your analysis as to how much you think this case is worth? Obviously people might hear that and say, what, you're going to rely on a computer to give you a case value? No, we're not going to do that. But I want their paralegal before they come to me to determine, decide what we're asking for in a case or how much a case is worth to have to allow me to be fully prepared to make all the decisions. And the AI could help you find the holes in a case, what's missing, what's your weaknesses, what's not there. And then from there you could either improve the case, obtain more information, or make an informed decision as to how to go forward for a client. Then that's the second big goal. And the third is to kind of automate communication. Communication with AI. I think that's the toughest part about personal injury. Everybody complains about. My lawyer never contacts me.
We don't have that problem. We have, you know, over 500 five star Google reviews. If you look us up, our clients are very happy with the communication process. But I think that technology could do a better job of assisting in that, in all of those important touch points and that's what we're going to be looking at in 2026 to help improve our processes internally. I'm really excited.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Plug for my friends over at Hona, they have Hona's AI that, that helps with some of that messaging and you know, sends out like a videos and text messages, all the things, you know, along the way. Which is actually pretty cool. There's a couple other companies out there like that too, but just some folks I had on the podcast and they got a pretty cool technology.
Yeah, Huge complaint. Almost all bar complaints or bad reviews have nothing to do with the outcome of the case.
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Zero.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: You know, so it's all communication related for the most part. So yeah.
Yep.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: On a larger scale and I'm going to veer really far off. But I think it's important to mention on a larger scale the technology and the AI could get to the point where it's doing not all the legal work. But a lot of the bulk of the legal work in any type, of any type of practice.
And I think that human skills, emotional intelligence are going to be bigger factors in hiring than they were in the past. I'm not hiring somebody to read a document because any software could do that.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: That is. Yeah, I talk about this a lot. And I got kids or 12 and 14 right now.
You know, who's gonna hire you, right? He's gonna hire the people that they want to be around that has relationships that, you know. Because if it's just a turn, a wrench, jot, you know, whatever job you can pick from a bunch of people, you're gonna hire the people that you want to be around. This cultural fit that has that emotional intelligence, can have a conversation, right? Someone that can, you know, with a sales kind of mentality, background, whatever. That's going to be a big difference in these kind of positions, for sure. Yeah. Unless you want to be a blue collar and, and you might, might be good there for a while, but.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: Yeah, but in service businesses specifically, not just law firms. So there was a movie, the Internship. I don't know if you saw it with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.
They lose their job and then they go get internships at Google. And like, they don't know anything about technology, but the fact that they're able to connect with people and, and lead teams and bring people together allows them to thrive in their job. It's a funny movie, but I feel like that's the future.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: That's a funny movie. No, I, I think like that all the time. And I tell young folks or people that all the time, like, that's going to be the biggest thing. And then, and these, you know, these kids, my kids are not too bad, but, you know, they, they're awkward. They don't want to talk to anybody. They're just, you know, on their phones all day making, you know, making less connections, you know, every day, I think. So it definitely could be an issue in the future, but those are the ones that are going to stand out and that are good the position.
So, yeah, no one listening should have to worry about that personally. Hopefully it.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: Not yet.
[00:36:49] Speaker B: Well, Michael, I appreciate you sharing what you're up to, what you're doing, how your firm's operating, and it's really cool stuff. And we talk about AI a lot and technology, but I think on this episode too, we talked about a players, your culture, how important that is and the pros that come out of it, you know, worried about people working from remote. They Ain't gonna work. Well, you know, you ain't got the right team, if that's what you're concerned about. So I think if we want to sum this episode up, it's, you know, focus on those things. Hire the best people, you know, focus on their needs, their wants, their goals, and build an awesome culture. And I'm telling you, those things will.
Will be not eliminated, but they'll be much less of an issue.
[00:37:39] Speaker A: Definitely. Definitely. Thank you for having me on. It was a good time. I love talking about this stuff and hopefully give some solid information to people listening.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Michael, I love your story and appreciate sharing. What's the best way for folks to find you and connect? Yeah.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: Go to our website, cohanlegal.com or our email address. You could email contactohanlegal.com the way I differentiate myself from all the other Michael Cohen's is my name is an an C O H A N for all the New Yorkers out there.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Yeah. That's why actually Michael Cohen is down in Texas, has been a guest on this show. Totally different. Michael has a law firm mostly in, like, trucking and. But personal injury, too. So I'm not sure if, you know, he's got a podcast too, so. But he's spelled, I'm pretty sure with the. With the E in there. So.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Uh, there's also Donald Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, who we'd like to differentiate.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: I can see that being more.
Oh, man.
Well, I probably shouldn't say this on the recording, but I had a firm the other day that was wanting to work with us, but they had a. Their name was like the name of a city law firm, but they were in a different city in the country. Oh, my God. And it was the last name of the guy, so. But it was.
[00:38:58] Speaker A: What could you do?
[00:38:59] Speaker B: I was like, man, this is going to be a.
A mess. But they're not a client. They weren't really a fit for us. But. But that was going to be quite.
I told my team about. They're like, oh, man, that sounds terrible.
Yeah.
Anyway, good luck with that.
Well, Michael, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you, everyone, for listening to the show. As always, I'm excited for this year. We have an awesome lineup of guests coming every single week. We actually might go to twice a week because we had such a backlog, which is good. We have a lot of great guests, a lot of good information, and we'll keep bringing it to you every single week. So. So we'll see you soon. Michael, you stay on with me. Everyone else, get out there. Grow your firms, do it smart, use technology and work on that culture. It's the best thing you'll do. We'll see you soon.
