Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You don't have a choice. You do things that are really uncomfortable and you're reluctant to do it.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: What's up, everybody? It's Kevin Daisy here with another episode of the Managing Partners podcast. Looking forward to sharing today about how to build a firm from scratch. So there's solos out there, there's lawyers wanting to go on their own or trying to find their way, hang their shingle. We got a cool story for today, and Liam's going to be here sharing his experience and what he knows. So I'm excited to get into that. And first off, always want to get a shout out to my friends and sponsor at Answering Legal. Well, Liam, welcome to the show. Glad to have you on having me.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Honor, and a pleasure to be here.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: You as well. This is all about you. It's your show. I'm just here to look good. If you're watching on video, if you're listening to your car. I'm just, you know, here to sound really good. So. Well, introduce yourself. You're coming out of California, right outside of Los Angeles, personal injury. But tell us. Tell us your story. How. How did you get in the seats you're in today?
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Well, the firm opened 10 years ago, and I really didn't have much experience in the legal field. I mean, I passed the bar 2012, and then I did kind of just whatever jobs I can get a lot of temp jobs, um, just contract jobs, just odd things, whatever I could get my hands on. It was a kind of a tough time back then, getting a, you know, a job as an attorney out here. And 2014, I was newly married, had a kid on the way, unemployed, just collecting some unemployment checks, trying to get by. And I got a real kick in the pants when, you know, I had a kid on the way. So I was like, you know, let me. Let me open up a practice.
You know, I just create a job for myself, market myself to the area. I'm. I'm from West Covina, California. Like, I was born and raised out here, was still living out here, living with my parents at the time.
And, you know, I had some connections out here. So I said, you know, let me open an office out here and just reach out to everybody I know.
Started out practicing workers comp, estate planning and personal injury just by myself.
Just found some small space and just let everyone know I was open for business and then just really just helped out as many people as I could from the start and started out with just myself and a Google page and a Yelp page and just letting everybody Know, to leave a review when they, you know, had their service or just if I spoke to them on the phone. And that was really. I think the key was just getting the reviews out there, helping people out. And, you know, at a time when that wasn't that popular yet. So since then, it's, you know, grew from me to now there's 20 people here, including myself.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: That's awesome. Well, so to back that up, I mean, that you were at a kind of a low point, right? I mean, you were. You were scrapping. You were, you know, doing what you could, but had a kid on the way that'll. A kid on the way will shake things up real quick.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I was a little nervous, a little anxious about everything. How am I gonna, you know, support a family, provide for, you know, my family? And I thought just open an office now. And I. I could think if I just grind away, put a bunch of hours and just figure things out, you know, it'll work out. I'm really optimistic. I was really optimistic. I'm just kind of an optimist, and. And I thought, yeah, if I just pour myself into it, give it my all, why wouldn't it work out? So just really thankful that. That it did. Really. Just blessed that everything panned out.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Okay, well, you know, you got the drive, the desire, you know, that's. That's a lot of it right there. Right? You're gonna. You're gonna figure things out, and. And obviously you got some. Either some good advice or you just did a lot of the right things in the beginning. Working hard, doing good work, asking for reviews, even if you give advice, trying to build up that, you know, reputation is very smart. And I think obviously that panned out because that's still a big, you know, would be a big recommendation for anyone starting today. So nothing's really changed in that regard. So kudos on that.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Thanks. Thanks. And another thing that I did at the time was, you know, I didn't have any experience with website building, but, you know, a website was huge. I didn't have money, and I just thought, yeah, let me just create a website and just put a bunch of content online. And I would just grind away, you know, past midnight, just making content to show up. You know, I would see what's out there. And, you know, the competition wasn't as, like, how it is now. People weren't focused on SEO then, like, how they are now. And back then, if you looked up Wes, communicate as an attorney. When I first started there, nobody was really doing it, and Then I did it and then three months later, it was just my face on page one for a long time.
So, yeah, I think just really hitting the SEO hard, creating a bunch of content online was, was just really instrumental in building the practice.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, back then it was the wild, wild west, you know, SEO and content and some of the things that you could do that I used to do for my clients to get them ranked quickly and you know, a lot of the principles, a lot of things of that still, you know, apply. But you know, doing it early, you know, just like anything, you know, the longevity, the consistency across. Yeah, reviews, all that stuff is, is still, you know, pretty relevant, pretty important. So, so you. I guess the moral of the whole story here today on this episode is that you've really had to like, just figure stuff out. Like you've just done it. Like you just, I'm going to do this, I'm going to figure this out. And it's worked out pretty well for you. So, you know, excited to kind of jump into, you know, some of the intro workings there, like what you've done once you kind of got your feet on the ground and, and someone that's listening now that's like, hey, should I start my own firm? You know, breaking down maybe a little bit for like, you know, what are the major, some of the things that you did in place once you like, you know, got some success, you got some work, you know, what did that look like as far as when did you hire your first assistant or person, paralegal, like those kinds of things, you know, what did that look like for you?
[00:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah, it was really difficult to just figure things out, just even hiring someone, the first person, because you have to figure out payroll. You're like, how do I even do payroll? Or how do I make sure that I'm in compliance with employment laws? So, you know, you just ask questions to the right people.
I think that that was really important too in the beginning. Like, I didn't really know that many people in the field, so I just reached out to anyone. Like, I would reach out, I would go online and find attorneys and just email them and ask them questions. And thankfully a lot of people are really, really just out there and they're so willing to help, like just strangers, like, they can read my email and say, this guy needs help. I was there before, let me, let me help out. And I think not being scared to ask people questions and not being embarrassed to ask questions is really important to figuring those things out. When you're starting and another thing is, which I think was really important is just keeping overhead low to start. Like, if you get a win, you're like, okay, this is great. This is, you know, five, $10,000.
Instead of, you know, taking that off the table and using that for yourself, for whatever expenses you have, just reinvest that into the firm. And that is the principle from day one is, you know, great, the money's here. But what's more important is using this money for the firm to continue to grow.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: That's, that's huge.
Well, I liked your, I liked your tip. Your first tip, though, reaching out to people, asking questions. You know, LinkedIn these days will maybe a little, you know, you could connect with another attorney and ask them questions. You can message them. And, you know, people are very nice. Most people are nice. And a lot of attorneys that I know are very nice people. And they give and they, they, they coach and they teach. And so I think that's a great tip is reach out to others.
You'll be surprised with, you know, what you'll get back.
And then what you just said with the expenses. There's a good book that I always, that we follow here is called Profit first, but it's really just a, a way to, you know, pay for the stuff you have or run on a, you know, a budget that allows you to take a little bit, but everything's accounted for. And me and my partner, we actually now at the point where we track our return on investment into the firm. So if we ever leave money in the firm or put money back in the firm or the companies that we own is a better return than anything I've ever put money into. And so if we invest back into our companies, we're always going to be better off than if we take it out and buy something else or put it in a stock market. It's just for us, it's always been a better return.
And so I think it's important and it, and if you don't start out that way, like you're saying, you just go off the rails. You're buying stuff, expenses, bigger, better offices, way before you deserve to have it.
And then you just get stuck in this machine, you know, with lots of overhead. So, great, great tip, especially for someone starting out.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, I'm always just, in my personal life, just had a saying to just live below your means.
So if I live below my means, you know, I'm not going to need to take that much money from the firm. I'm not going to be stressed out say, oh, we need to close this case, or we can't reinvest for ads, or we can't take this risk. You can take more risk in your practice if you have, like, in your personal life, less expenses. So just being able to do that and reinvest has been really important.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you could easily be a burden to your firm and then a threat to your clients that you took on and a threat to your employees and staff. If you have neglected, you know, those expenses or you require too much money. Right. Then it puts the stress on the whole company, which, again, it's bad business. And then it's, it's not good for your team and staff if, if you're stressing out, trying to close cases all the time. So. Yeah, very good point.
[00:10:47] Speaker A: And I think, I think if your, your staff sees like that you're. If you do live a luxurious lifestyle and they see where the money is going to, to fund that kind of thing, then, you know, I, I think that would build a lot of discontent.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Oh, it's, it's going to. I mean, there's no way around it. It's like, I've had clients in the past that, because we do marketing for clients, but where the owners would they, like, show up on like a, you know, a marketing call when they're tight on cash? Like, hey, they're. They're literally taking everything from the company. Like, I knew them enough to. Because they tell me, oh, I took out this much for this month, like, million dollars, you know, like, and then they, oh, I need more money. It's like, well, you, you just blew a ton of money. Like, you're so they, they. They kind of live like that, like, everything's great. Take a bunch of money out and then go, crap, I need more money. And then they be looking at us. And it was just a roller coaster. And the staff was always leaving and ups and downs and it. The whole company lived to put money in their pocket pretty much. And yeah, they never built that sounds.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Like a toxic environment.
[00:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah, very toxic. Yeah. Everyone talking behind their backs, you know, I can see it. And it was again, a client at the time. Not anymore. You can see it. You can feel it if you go to their office, you know, always people turning out stuff like that. It's just the, the client, the culture you're going to create, for sure. But so, yeah, being responsible out the gates, I think, you know, I think it's hard. I think, I think some lawyers can get successful quickly, especially in your, your field.
And it could probably be easy to, to splurge a little bit.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: So, yeah, it gets, it gets pretty tempting. I think my, I mean, a small case for us is a $15,000 settlement. That's $5,000 in attorney's fees and a big case. You know, there's, I mean, a hundred thousand dollars at that time was a big case for me and I got, you know, $33,000 from it. And it's just like, wow, you know, I could look, you know, the first thought is like, what, what can I buy with that? What kind of car can I get with that? Oh, I can get a nice, you know, used BMW with that. But that the best thing. No, that's not best. Big picture, maybe right now it will be happy for a week or so, but big picture, you know, you got to reinvest that or just to make the practice grow, make the firm grow, make it better.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: Today's episode is brought to you by Answering Legal. Now, I just switched my company array digital over to Answering Legal and it's made my life a whole lot easier. If I can't get to the phone, there are 24, seven virtual receptionists. Take the call and take them through a full intake process so we never miss new business again.
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[00:14:33] Speaker B: Get back to the show.
Well, I, yeah, I love that. I mean, I think, you know, it's, you know, the kind of, the track you came on. Like, you, you came, you parsed the bar, you're out on your own. You decided, hey, I'm just gonna go do this thing, you know, versus lawyers. That may be. They went, they, they spent 10 years to 15 years and they're kind of like slowly like, oh, let me go start my own thing. You know, there's obviously different paths there that I see when I interview people on the show. And so you really, you know, it was, for you, it was kind of like, you're all in. You know, there was nothing it couldn't fail, I guess.
Which.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. How to do everything.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Have a choice.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. When you don't have a choice, you do things that are really uncomfortable and you're reluctant to do it.
Like, I. I had to reach out to all. All my old friends and family I haven't spoken to in months or years even to let you know, to say, hey, I have a firm. If you need me, give me a call. When it's purely just for me to grow practice versus me reaching out genuinely to these people. So that's a weird situation. Right. And then I have to reach out to strangers or people in my community and ask them for help, like, oh, how do you manage this or that in the case. How do you do this? And it's a really humbling experience. But, you know, when you have to do it, you do it. You put your ego.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: One of the things. One of the things me and you chatted about. We chatted a couple weeks ago. A couple days ago. Just putting yourself out there, right? Like, you're literally like, hey, I need help. Or I. I need business. If you. If you need anything, I'm here to help you. And, you know, I bet your friends, family didn't think anything bad about that. They wanted to help, so. But I think it sounds scarier, like, oh, I'm. I don't want to do that. I'm above that. You know, it's just uncomfortable.
[00:16:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. Especially at the time I was, you know, 32 years old. And for me to hang a shingle and say, hey, come to me, I'm. I'm really good at what I do when I don't have that much experience compared to everybody else in the field, and I think they can see it. Cause I look back at my old pictures that I and I, that I posted, I'm like, oh, my God, I look like a kid. Right? Why would somebody call me?
Yeah, so, yeah, dealing with that was. Was tough.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: And so I started my own company when I was 23.
And I've struggled with that because how do you take anyone serious that's so young? And so I. Yeah, I worked hard at that, like, building a network. Reviews, testimonials, referrals. Because that was really the only way. If I walked into a room and say, hey, I want to do your website, your SEO or whatever. It was like, who's the hell? Who's this kid? You know what I mean? So it. It was not till I was probably like, 27, 28, 30. Like, oh, people are starting to kind of respect me, but.
But I at that point had time under my belt. And that's tough. If you're young, coming right out of the gate, it's going to be tough. You know, it's. It's going to be hard to. To be taken serious or hire people that are older than you to be attorneys on your team, right?
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, that's hard. Yeah.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: But you gotta bring in the expertise. So you're around 20. You said 20 some folks at this point.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: 20. Yeah, 20. Yeah, 20 including my wife and I. My wife is also an attorney, and she's been a huge help, too. She's a co owner here and yeah, without her help, we wouldn't be where we are today. She's taken so much responsibility off my plate where I can focus more on, you know, growing the business.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: So was she an attorney before or was she going to law school or how'd that work out?
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Oh, when we got married, she was already an attorney. Yeah. So I brought her on, I think after. After two years of the office being open and I started getting some clients. I was like, hey, you know what? This is. This is really going well. Getting a bunch of clients, getting a bunch of cases.
You can. You can leave your job and come over here and this thing will really take off if, you know, if we get that help from you. So, yeah, she came in early on and it's just been growing since. I mean, there's, of course, like, during COVID was a little bit tough to grow because people weren't on the roads getting some accidents. But yeah, it's just been an upward trajectory since since then. Just keeps. You just keep going.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Well, so what are. Yeah, so, yeah, Covid was definitely challenging for the PI space. What. What are some of the things that you focus on mainly there in PIs? Car accidents? You know, what's like, is there anything specialty that you focus on there that you see a spike in?
[00:19:21] Speaker A: We handle mostly car accidents. That's mostly the space that personal injury is involved in. I mean, we. We take on other cases. You know, dog bites and slip and falls are. Are really popular too. There's some other. Just kind of odd ways that people can get injured, but generally it's. It's car accidents.
Yeah, 90%, probably.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So that seems to be the majority. I just figured I'd ask, see if there's any. Any, you know, pedestrians or anything like that. Bikes, bike accidents, something like that. So, yeah, that seems to be pretty much across the board. But so with your. Your 20 folks kind of what's kind of the team dynamic over there is like attorneys, associates, paralegals.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah, we have, we have one, two, we have four attorneys total, including myself, my wife, and then we have four case managers. And then we have, after that, it's the support staff, you know, requesting medical records, handling property damage, negotiating medical liens.
Yeah, it's kind of just support staff handling those focused aspects of, you know, the personal injury space.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: That's awesome.
What, you know, so you were doing, you know, content and SEO and all that kind of stuff. What, you know, what marketing, I guess channel right now is, is working best for you guys?
[00:20:44] Speaker A: Definitely. Just from the beginning, it's always been SEO. SEO is, for me, the most important aspect, probably outside of referrals, I'm not sure. I haven't done the numbers exactly with referrals from previous clients versus SEO, but, I mean, we wouldn't have those referrals if it wasn't for SEO. In most situations. It's not like it's mostly friends and family. These are people that stemmed from finding us online from Google or from Yelp. But yeah, that has been the most important thing for us from the start. I mean, we tried everything just to kind of get a feel of what, what has the biggest return print. We've tried billboards, we've tried radio, church newsletters, and everything works a little bit like you get a client wherever you put money in, but the return isn't as much as SEO. And I think organic, organic SEO has been the best for us.
Pay per click and the like is, it's too expensive for me. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't like it.
I, I can't stomach the cost. Like, it's 500 bucks for a click. I, I, I can't do it unless you do the right keywords. And I, I mean, I know, you know, but I, I just, I, I just, I can't.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Well, I know I can get very, very competitive and very expensive. Yeah, so. Well, yeah, it's good to hear. I mean, I was, I was at a conference in Phoenix. It was Ben Glass, his group, great legal marketing. And it was actually funny. I was sitting there standing, I was standing there with a few competitors of mine, Blue Shark and Hennessy, and some other agency owners just kind of chatting it up. And, and we all believe in SEO. We love SEO. But someone was like, some other attorney was like, hey, explain SEO. And this lawyer that was standing there with us actually answered the question, not the SEO people in the room.
And, you know, he was just like, well, it's everything. It's your whole reputation online. Like, so whether it's reviews or LinkedIn or Facebook or your website content, what people say about you, talk about you. You know, if a website's linked to you, if the news mentions you, it's everything about you instantaneously. And so you should always be working on building those things up and adding to the fire. And so, you know, where radio and tv, they have their place, they might increase a little brand mentions, which does help SEO kind of, but it's just, what are people saying about you? You know, what's your reputation?
Do you do good work? Do people look your name up and search you? So SEO is a lot more than just content or a website. So I just like that because it's. It really is not just, you know, hiring a company to do it, like us. Like, it's. You and your team have to be in the community, you have to be doing a lot of other things that help support all that. You know what I mean? So it's. It's truly being a good firm and doing a good work, and that other people talking about you really is what SEO in my mind is. So good job on that.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. I, I absolutely agree about that. SEO is, Is everything. I mean, it's, it's your reputation. I think two clients had a good. I built good rapport with them, potential clients, and they actually told me, like, hey, let me. I decided to go with somebody else because they have a better reputation online. And at the time, I, I did not have, you know, articles in different publications. I didn't have feature articles in, you know, and newspapers or things like that, like nice little icons and logos from other publications or just newspapers. I didn't have those things. So I said, you know, I need, I need to get that because clearly people are looking at it and people were nice enough to tell me, hey, this is what you need to help improve on. So if two people told me that, how many people are thinking that? Right?
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: So I went out and, you know, I did some pr and, you know, I think I have, I have some. Always looking for more. But yeah, that's. That's. That's part of it.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Digital PR podcast.
Right?
This will go up on YouTube and he'll be tagged, and if you search his name in the future, you'll. You'll find this video. Right? So it's just one little more thing, right? This. I mentioned about. The law firm, mentioned about him. So, yeah, SEO's everything. Everywhere. So just. You're putting stuff out all the time. So.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I. I did some YouTube videos, just myself talking about car accidents. And I go back and I have, I don't know, 10, 30 views on it, and I'm like, okay, it's not really doing anything, but later on I find out, like, oh, someone. Oh, we saw all your videos, so that's why we called you. All right, that's great. It works.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Yeah, they might. You might have made 50 grand from that one person or, you know, or 5 grand at the minimum. So.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's not about, like, yeah, how. Like this podcast. How many downloads did I get? How many views I got? It's. It's about the right people that see it and connect with you because they saw it or they read it, you know, so, of course, yeah, you want to explode that and make it bigger. But you could put one thing out there. If someone goes, you know what? This is. I connected with this. This is what I was looking for. I have this case. Right?
[00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: And so, yeah, just putting stuff out there and being consistent and.
And having a good reputation.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. Well, so you really, literally, you know, from the bottom, scrapped your way, clawed your way into business ownership and did pretty well. So impressive story.
And then Covid, of course, through a wrench in there, and you still came out the other side. So it's good stuff. What is the best way for our listeners, other attorneys that are listening in that connect with you? Maybe they don't have a resource in your area. Maybe there's some referral opportunities. What's the best way for them to, you know, reach out to you or connect if they have questions?
[00:27:04] Speaker A: I. I give my cell phone number to anyone that wants to use it. 626-252-2168. Feel free to text it.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Texting me is the best.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: If you call me, I. I think it's just probably a spam call. So I don't. I don't pick up all the time, but if you text me, I get back to you.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, hey, if anyone wants to connect with them and you. Maybe you didn't listen to that quick enough or you're driving your car, you know, just pop me a comment or reach out to me. I will totally connect you guys and make sure that that connection's made.
[00:27:34] Speaker A: If they want to email me. Lemgarcialaw.com that's good, too.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Okay. Limit Garcia. Limit Garcia law.com Lemgarcialaw.com. got it. Awesome. All right, well, everyone reach out to him. Ask him any questions. Just like, if you're starting out a new firm, I'm sure Lim would be glad to tell you what he did and if you have questions like he had when he started out. So I think that's just a really good tip. You know, get uncomfortable, reach out to local attorneys that you don't know and say, hey, how did you do this? Or you'd be surprised how many people are willing to help and just talk shop. I got. I got competitors that I actually go meet with for drinks in my local area. They're law firms. They're competitors in the same area.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: We.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: We go out and talk shop. And I'm a marketer. I don't even run a law firm. So, yeah, there's a lot of good people out there. So if you look, you'll find them.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah, there's enough for everybody. We can help each other out. We'll make it together.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: That's right. Well, Lim, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story today and kind of what you've gone through and what you've built. Some important lessons in there. Don't go crazy with your expenses, your overhead reinvest into your company to your firm.
It'll definitely pay off. It has for me. And do SEO. If you do it yourself or hire somebody, it doesn't matter.
Practice it all the time. So, Lynn, will you stay on with me? Everyone else, we will see you in the next episode. We appreciate you listening. Thanks for tuning in. If you want to connect with him, let me know. I will make that happen. And then also, if you think you could be a guest or recommend someone else that you'd like to see on the show, hit me up. Happy to have you on. And we'll talk some shop. So, everyone, Lim, we'll see you soon.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: All right.
