Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:18] 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. All right, we are live recording.
Leah, welcome to the show.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on the show. Got to know you over the last few months or more. You do a lot. You're up to a lot. I'm excited to have you share about your firm today and some of the unique things that you're doing to grow your firm, to grow your business, and hopefully a lot of other attorneys that are listening, we'll be able to pick up some tips and. And replicate what you're doing. So I guess first, you know, just have you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your law firm down there in Florida, what you focus on, and kind of what the firm makeup looks like for everyone listening. So let's, let's do that first.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Sounds good. My name is Leah Meyerson. I own Mayerson Law Group. In February, we had our 25th anniversary, and our primary office is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Florida. And we have a number of executive suites throughout Florida, and we handle primarily criminal and family law statewide throughout the state of Florida or federal criminal will handle that nationwide.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Excellent. So criminal family primarily. And I love the executive suite, you know, kind of strategy there. I think that's, you know, has that been worked well for you? From a strategy of just kind of reaching more clients, online presence. How's that worked out for you?
[00:01:49] Speaker A: That's worked out well for us. I mean, like I said, the Fort Lauderdale office is fully staffed, and the attorneys that work with us in other counties and locations can go to executive suites as needed to meet with clients. During COVID it became less and less necessary for clients to want to meet in person. Usually now it's only our older clients who request in person meetings or people who aren't super tech friend.
And I would say it's more on the family law side of the practice than on the criminal law side of the practice.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, that's.
That makes sense to me.
I wanted to kind of get into. So how many attorneys do you all have in 25 years? I thought you were only 30 years old, so I don't understand how the math works.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate that very much. So the firm has a combination of W2 employees of council attorneys, some of which are full time, some of which are part time, and contractors. So it's, I'd say a cobbled together mix of attorneys that, that are helping us from a full time perspective, there are five, you know, full time attorneys from a contract from of counsel, we have two primary of council attorneys. And then from a contractor perspective, we have eight contract.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Okay, awesome.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: And those numbers have. Have changed depending upon the firm needs. You know, these days it's been difficult recruiting more full time attorneys who want to be necessarily W2 employees who want to come into the office. So we've tried to be flexible so that we can get the best group together to work on behalf of our clients.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: You know, that's what business is all about, you know, navigating new challenges, being flexible, being able to pivot. So times are changing. You got to. Yeah, dude. Same with like, you know, Covid and change the way people interact with law firms. Not necessarily having to be in person, not having to go to court in some cases for a lot of practice areas. So a lot, a lot of change in the last few years for sure.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Definitely. Now for our primary practice areas, we do have a lot of court appearances, particularly for evidentiary hearings and for trials. On the criminal law side of things, unfortunately, since COVID there's been a bit of a retraction in judges allowing us to use zooms, which I think is really a disservice to the clients, but it's somewhat protectionist on their part. Whereas on the family law side, the judges have really embraced that and are allowing more and more from a zoom standpoint. I think it gives them more flexibility.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay, that's. I wonder if it's like that around the country or not. I have to survey more clients and people on what they're seeing across the board. Yeah, I see. You know, I feel like most of our family law clients don't go in to court as much. My all my criminal law firms that I have around the country or in court all week, all the time, for the most part.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: I think it's really county by county dependent because I've seen differences in the different counties in Florida since we practice in all 67. It makes it, you know, challenging to keep up with what's going on and the legal trends, but we do that.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, one of the things I wanted to dive into is again, you know, you have a lot of unique things that you have going on, and one of those is kind of a networking group that you've built and helped curate. And so I wanted to talk about that. I thought that was unique and something I don't think we really covered on the show here. As far as what you've done and how you've done it. And I don't even know all the details, so I think that'd be good to kind of discover and dig into. So just tell me a little bit more about this group and what it's called and kind of how it's set up and how that's benefited you. 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, their 247 virtual receptionists take the call and take them through a full intake process so we never miss new business again. Now, Answering Legal has been at this for more than a decade and they specialize in answering phone calls for law firms like yours. They even have a brand new easy to use app and they integrate with all the top legal softwares and platforms. So from our listeners today, we actually have a special deal of a 400 minute free trial offer of Answering Legal services that you can try out by going to answeringlegal.com array. You can also call 631-437-4803 and use special code Daisy. That's my last name. D A I S E Y.
So go check them out and let's get back to the show.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: So I actually have two current groups and one is called Profitable Connections and it's a combination of both law firm owners and business owners. And we meet in person at least once a month and we usually meet in one standard location in a restaurant. And everyone in the group has been getting to know one another and I invited a curated group of people to attend this in person for lawyers or business owners who are enthusiastic about getting to know other people and being great listeners.
The other group that I set up is called Profitable Attorney Connections and that is an online group and we're doing monthly zooms. I'm about to launch the Profitable Connections online as well so that the mixture of law firm owners and business owners who are attending in person will have an additional forum. And we do plan to open these in a number of other counties. And for the Profitable Attorney Connections, I'm only allowing people into the group currently or members of the bar somewhere and who practice. So people who are in marketing, if we've been finding them in the group, we've been kicking them out of the group. We're happy to invite them into the other group as long as they're not harassing and soliciting our members.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Those darn marketers you know?
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Exactly. No, but what we've done so far from a virtual standpoint, that's worked really well. We've invited a number of people to go ahead and appear on the monthly Zooms and talk about different topics. For example, we were putting together a backlinks initiative so that that would help all the different members in the group increase the ratings of their websites. So for that we put together with the director of marketing about five different law firms who were supposed to put together specialty blogs that weren't necessarily AI generated so that it wouldn't cause a problem for the other lawyers and post them on each other's website at a set schedule so as not to cause any problems with Google. What I'm encouraging people to do now for both groups is I'm going to have people interview one another in the group to introduce each other and then add it to our YouTube page and then link their website so they have other connected links. And we've been working on different kinds of initiatives to help everyone improve what they're doing with their socials. Whether we're doing, you know, reviews, campaign or other types of campaigns. We've been trying to match people up in both groups with other like minded individuals that they want to meet who might be able to refer cases back and forth to one another. So if this is something you're interested in, awesome. Get in touch with intakeyerson Law spelled M A Y E R S O H N dot Law and we can go ahead and add you to our monthly Zoom meetings. If you're not in Florida or if you are in Florida and want to attend in person, they can add you to those in person events. And this has been terrific and it's part of our new backend marketing initiative and it's helped double our back end referrals from the prior year. So it's been really terrific and it's a lot of fun, you know, because once a month you get to get to together with friends of yours or new friends of yours and you know, just chat in a relaxed environment and help each other grow their businesses. And my team tries to make extra efforts to connect people and get them referrals if they're coming regularly to the group. Like for example, we built out notion, a template of who's sending us referrals and what initiatives they participated in if they've been coming to the meetings. And we give priority to sending referrals out to the people who've been coming, who've been engaging with the group, who've been Engaging with our law firm. So I think it's a very positive thing. I would encourage other people to do it in their areas or if you want to join ours and help maximize it, because we've already taken the step of trying to do that. It's been working very well.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: That's excellent. I love it. I like that you have the two and one specific to attorneys. And also I guess people could search that they wanted profitable attorney connections on Facebook and there's a group that they could request to join. I assume that they answer the question that they're barred what state and that they practice to keep marketers like myself out of there.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Sorry about that, but no, that's how it should be.
You might be eligible to join the other groups and you own a business.
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no. So I love this idea and I think the local one is super important. I had an attorney on recently that she had gone leaps and bounds in 10 months of her firm since she started. She had already had like two, three, two people and was just doing everything so right. And I was like, how did you. She said, well, I joined a mastermind, a local business owner group, not just lawyers. And she just was able to. To grow and put things in place much quicker. And so, yeah, tons of value in a group like that. Even if they're not only all the lawyers to your point, if it's just other business owners that you can interact with someone event to talk to, you know, talk about problems with and is, I don't think anything more powerful than a group. Also, you're in how to manage a small law firm, correct?
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So I've had Arjon on the show. I've had Delacy who used to be with how to manage on the show. These groups are invaluable and so how to manage is specific to law firm owners as well. But what you've done, you've kind of like made your own groups and put your own rules in place. And I love that idea. I got a ton of ideas right now because I'm in a group of like 130 business owners in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where I'm from. And they don't really have as good of organization that you were just mentioning, but a lot of ideas that I. That you just said I might take back to the group when I meet next week.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: So they're welcome to join the virtual group. So I. I can have Fabio send you the link?
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Sure, absolutely. So is the. The virtual is you had the attorney one as well as the business center one.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: I'M having Fabio and I had discussed. Fabio works with me in the marketing department. I'm having him create, create that group. We had discussed it with some of the team members because I had a lot of people who were from the in person group trying to join my lawyer group. And I wanted to keep the lawyer group specific in case there are any attorney client privilege questions that came up. And this is really geared specifically towards lawyers. So this one is, you know, the second one is for both, like I said, the business owners and lawyers.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: Excellent. And that's something you're just setting up. What. How could someone maybe search that or find it, I guess is the same email address a good, good place to.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Reach out intakeyerson Law, or it should be called profitable connections as opposed to profitable attorney connections. And that, you know, will be open.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: That's a Facebook group as well. Okay, cool.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: That's a Facebook group as well. And that's just so that we have a meeting platform for everyone.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. That's awesome. So I like the fact that too, like, you know, you're, you're building out these referral sources and stuff like that, but you're also the members that show up consistently. You know, there's a priority on those referrals. It makes a lot of sense. Like, who's going to be there, given.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Priority referrals from my law firm. And I'm trying to get the other members of the group to do that as well from their firms, because they're people that they're regularly engaging with.
And like I said, we also, at the end of the events, Fabio goes ahead and he emails out to everyone the list of everyone who attended. And we asked them to go ahead and follow up with if there was anyone that they wanted to connect with who went to the event or is it a prior event that they didn't get to connect with. So we could set up a meeting between the two of them or if they have any specific referrals. So we could go ahead and either connect them with someone who could go ahead and handle that matter for them, or if we can go ahead and find someone who can do that. And we try to match people up quite a bit. So, for example, I have a friend that owns a very large teleradiology company and there was someone else in the healthcare industry who does, you know, other kinds of testing. And I know the one company was going to be doing other stuff as well. I made sure we made a connection to them together. And we specifically coordinated that both of Them were going to be attending the event that evening and made sure that they got a special connection.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: That's awesome. I think that's where a lot of groups fail. Like I said, I'm in a, I'm in a business owner group that's you know, kind of meets to talk about, you know, local and city and you know, planning issues and business type stuff like that. But still it's a 130 people that get together, that own businesses and so. And I've been in plenty of networking groups or like boards and stuff like that. And I feel like people, a lot of people show up to a networking event or something like that and they, they don't open up or they don't talk to everybody. And so I like the fact that you have that kind of follow up and say, hey, is there someone that you wanted to meet? Is there someone you didn't get to connect with? That makes the group so much more powerful versus if you don't show up and take the initiative, then you, you won't get anything out of it. Exactly, yeah. That's awesome.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: We also have everyone introduce themselves during the course of the meeting. So, you know, about an hour into it we'll go ahead and I'll start with the introductions and then everyone's going to go around the room and explain, you know, who they are, where they work, what kind of business they have and you know, what they're looking for.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: That allows everybody to identify who's maybe a good fit to spend time with and meet. That's great.
[00:15:37] Speaker A: Exactly. And then in the lawyer group, we've been encouraging one on ones between the different attorneys. Now the lawyer group I specifically created because during COVID there were so many clients that moved down to South Florida and to Florida overall from other states in the north and from the west. So I tried to target attorneys in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California, which were the main areas that we saw people coming to South Florida. And that was specific based upon the client calls that we're getting. Because we've had a lot of matters to refer back to those attorneys in those areas. And they've had a lot of matters to refer to us. Because if someone just moves to Florida, they might not be comfortable. For example, if they have a criminal matter, whether they're a victim or defendant in something, or if they have a divorce related matter, post judgment matter in a family law case, they might want to connect with someone through their counsel that they've had for their entire life and that makes it a Much more comfortable experience. And sometimes people, you know, contact us about matters in Florida, but there's no jurisdiction for Florida yet, so we have to connect them back with an attorney in the jurisdiction they originally came from. So that's why we're trying to do that. And we're encouraging the attorneys to interview one another and then go ahead and post it on a YouTube and then they can link to each of their respective web pages. So that should hopefully give them number one, an endorsement from another attorney and number two, you know, extra traction from an SEO standpoint to try to help out.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: That's really smart. That's awesome. Yeah, it's, you know, you'd be surprised. I mean I have clients reach out to me all the time and go, Kevin, you do you know a family law firm in Florida or Fort Lauderdale or whatever. So surprisingly enough, sometimes I'm like, oh, I actually do and just make that a connection. And of course I can't get a referral for that, but I'm always open to do that. And, and through this, this podcast, this show, it's, you know, if I can connect someone to someone else, that's great. I like the, the, the initiative you took there and seeing that trend and, and capitalizing on it, that makes, that's awesome.
Yeah.
So really cool. So profitable connections or profitable attorney connections, two different Facebook groups you can reach out to. I'll definitely join the one for sure. Without a doubt. And yeah, I think it's a, it's a really cool concept. I think, you know, there's like my business partner actually just, you know, just left the office early because he's off to eo, which is entrepreneurs organization.
And so if anyone's listening, if you run your firm or maybe you're a solo or you could been in business for 25 years if you've not been part of a mastermind or any just a local group of other people like minded or business owners, you'll get so much value from it. Like you can't even put a price tag on it. If you can get a specific to like a group of attorneys, then even better. But it's, there's a lot of options out there. There's big groups, there's paid groups and, and, but there's, there's all this opportunity to create a group of your own like Leah's doing or join her group. So I like the, the setup of yours though. I think you know, if you look at how to manage or there's eight figure firm or there's. Which is more for personal injury. They all have their own little thing, you know, they're all different formats and you know, you might find one that works better for you. But I think anyone listening should consider. And some people are in multiple groups, you know, to try to get a little bit from the different types of groups that are out there. So yeah, so like you have how to manage but you know you're not stopping there. Right.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: So yeah, that just provides the law firm coaching for my law firm and we use their fractional COO services.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And that, yeah, how manager is great and they do CMO and they add, they do CEO, cfo, all that good stuff. So great for a firm that doesn't need to be hiring those people full time. So great resource.
So okay, I love the group. So everyone, you know, check the groups out, reach out. Our team will, will make the connection. If you're an attorney, of course, which most of my audience is, there's the, the profitable attorney connection. So that'd be the right, right route to go. But Leah also wanted to kind of. You have some new news too on a different front. You have a new podcast you're starting, correct?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: Yes. So one of the of counsel attorneys is Denise Isaacs. And Denise has had her own law firm for many, many years and she decided it was time in her life to kind of change things up. And now she's of counsel to Meerson Law Group full time and she's got a very large social media following, about a million followers across multiple different platforms.
So she and I put together a new podcast called Love X's and O's and we've shot about 10 episodes so far. We have some more that are being shot and we're going to have some specialty guests. Anyway, we're very excited about it and we're going to address, you know, some topics about love, some topics about life, and certainly a lot of alchemy.
And we would love to have people subscribe to our YouTube channel, Lovex and O's and some, some of our podcasts and hopefully it will be very entertaining. If there are any questions or topics you'd like us to address or anyone who's listening would like us to address, I would love to hear those. Our email is infoovexso.com spelled L O V E E X E s o h s.com so hopefully we'll have, you know, a lot of entertaining episodes for you. We can hopefully keep that going.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: That's awesome. You know, you know, I love podcasting and I talk about on other podcasts I talk about podcasting a lot and how it's helped, you know, our business and helped, you know, just me being able to get in front of people and the opportunities that it's created. And even though, you know, and I own a marketing business, but talking to law firm owners and it's just like your group, like, it's. I can learn from what you've done with your business and apply it to my business. I can learn from what you're on your podcast or that you even have a podcast. A lot of. A lot of lawyers should be putting their own podcast out for many different reasons. There's a lot of ways you can use it. Like, you have your own kind of way you want to do it, which is unique. You can use it for referral partners. You could use it for just putting out content or discussions about the law. And you can take all that content and put it on your website. You can put audio clips, you can do video, social. There's boundless things that you can do. A lot of lawyers just. They hold back or they don't know if they should do one or why they should do one and if it makes sense for them.
But it's still a blue ocean out there in my mind, and in relation to how many blogs there are or how many things like that that are out there, podcasts, there's such a small amount compared to what else is going out there. So I think it's awesome. I think it's a great move, and congrats on launching that. It's awesome.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Thank you. We've been very excited to do that, and we're excited to see what kind of traction we're going to get. We had shot a number of the episodes, but we just started releasing them because we wanted to have a little bit of a backlog due to both of our travel schedules. So I don't know how many episodes have officially been released publicly. I know at least one, but those should keep coming for quite a while. And I think that they get better as we're going along.
We've been interacting better, and it gives a very different take on a lot of different issues. So Denise is a little bit older than me, and we have different perspectives from each owning our own law firms and managing them different ways many, many years. And I think it's. I think it's a lot of fun.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: It sounds awesome. I think you'll get a lot of people, dedicated listeners to that.
Yeah. Well, this show, you know, I have a backlog record, you know, sometimes four times a week or more. So.
So when this comes out, you know, she. She'll probably have a handful of episodes released, and you can check those out. So.
But no, here's the one thing, too. Like, I try to.
I give talks all the time on podcasts, you know, stuff like that. And I'm almost at 400 episodes on this show, and we might already be at 400 episodes. But you're gonna get better.
You're gonna try to be perfectionist in the beginning, and then you're gonna figure your stuff out, and it'll just get more natural and easy, and you kind of figure out what you want to do. But if you don't do it, you don't start. You're not going anywhere. So.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: Exactly. So anyway, I've been very excited about it, and I hope it helps our marketing. And I would say the last thing that we're doing that's been very exciting is over the years, I've acquired a number of different law firms. I purchased some, got, you know, got some. And anyway, we're in an acquisition mode. So if you have a practice in Florida in the criminal or family law space, and you're interested in either merging with a law firm or being acquired one way or another, please reach out as well. You can reach out to intakeyerson Law, again, M A Y E R S O H N Law. And please let us know what kind of practice you have, how long you've had that practice, and what kind of relationship you're looking for. So I found that although I really enjoy working on marketing in the business, and I've loved working and managing my practice for 25 years, there are a number of attorneys who would really rather just practice and not necessarily manage things themselves and would like for someone else to handle the marketing or other aspects of the firm. Collections, billing, you know, client communications, things of that nature. So, anyway, we're very excited about this new initiative about acquiring or purchasing other law firms or merging with them, and hope this helps us grow.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: I love it. That's awesome. Yes. Where you want to be right there.
If anyone wants to sell to her, I'll take 10% for. No, please reach out and. And just like I say on every show, you know, if someone needs direct connection or needs that email address or whatever, if you're listening in your car, maybe you're driving, just reach out to me and I'll connect you and. And make sure that she gets your information.
That's awesome. And that's, again, that's right where you want to Be I just recorded an episode the other day about you know, setting up your law firm or exiting exit, planning different ways that, that folks can exit a firm.
And yeah, it's running a business is, is not pretty. And if you want to be just the technician, the person doing the legal work, you know, it's not always the best, you know, fit for you. So I think, you know, are you the CEO and running a firm or are you, you know, more of you want to be the best lawyer and do the work and you can be in the middle. But I think that's a good thing to ask yourself and make that decision.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: It's hard to wear a lot of different hats, you know, when you're running.
So you have to make a decision about what you'd like to do so that you can do it. Well.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not good at doing a lot of things and so I'm more of a visionary and you know, I can talk, I'm the face. But you know, we have 50 some employees and there's stuff I don't even.
I would fail at almost all of it. So you have to delegate, you have to bring on people, you have to be comfortable with all that. And over time you can get to a good spot and not have to do those things. But in the beginning, you know, you wear a lot of hats, you burn you out real quick. So yeah, if you're looking to sell, you're down in Florida. And this is across the whole state or is that certain area of Florida?
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Across the whole state.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Excellent. Okay, well, you know who to call people reach out.
[00:26:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I figured this should help us expand because it's been tough finding the right people who are motivated, who want to work in all the different areas, want to work full time.
And because of that I figured, okay, if I can acquire another law firm, hopefully I have long term staff that's been there a while, we can keep things going and then perhaps help them, you know, modernize a little bit and leverage that staff.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And they had the, you know, local connections brand or the name that they've built up in that area. Connections and clients that, that trust them. I think it's a good, it's a good all around for everybody.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: We're actually in an acquisition kind of mode as well. So as far as we find an agency that just similar situation. Not that I'm promoting that here because there's probably no agencies listening, but if it makes sense, it makes sense. Someone that's got great clients and they just need to be taken care of better or have better systems in place. You know, if that makes sense. You know, that makes sense. We've never done that before. Well, no, we did that once before. Very small, but it's a great way to grow if things align and it makes sense. Kudos. Awesome. Well, I love everything you're doing. A lot of cool initiatives, hopefully some good, you know, information and motivation for those listening. Depending on where you're at in your law firm journey, whether you're just starting out or if you. You've been running a firm for many years and you're just trying to still figure yourself out and that. That happens, you know, we can get stuck in the weeds, get your head down and work and. And maybe the firm's not the firm you want. Maybe it's not what you hoped it was. I know how to manage preaches. You know that. You know, you should build the firm that you want to have and have the freedoms to travel and do the things that you need to do. So Leah's doing all those things. So pretty cool.
All right, well, yeah, Leah, thanks so much for coming on. And everyone, you have some homework, so you got a couple groups to join and reach out to intake at Marison Law for some of these inquiries. If you have anything you want to connect with Leah and also again, reach out to me if you want to connect with her and we'll make sure that happens.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Wonderful. Thanks so much. It was great seeing you, Kevin.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: You as well. Well, stay on with me for a second when we stop. Sometimes the files take them in a dub way. But everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks for listening to me and Lita today and we'll see you on the next episode.
