Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You know, if you have limited time, you need to make sure you're spending it where it makes the most sense.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Managing Partners Podcast. I'm Kevin Daisy and I'm your host today. I have someone that I've connected with for, for quite a while now, actually, and I've known a few of her different employers and had a few of them on the show, but we connected when she was working for how to Manage a Small Law Firm and Ardon Robbins.
So she is connected. She's deep in the legal industry, tons of background and expertise, and I'm excited for her to share some cool stuff today, a topic that never really covered before. And so I think that will be intriguing for everyone here that's tuning in real quick. Before I introduce her and have her tell us about herself, just always give a shout out to our podcast partner and sponsor Answering legal.
They answer phones for law firms. That's all they do. So, Delacy, welcome to the show.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Hi. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. I'm excited that we finally got you on the show and talk about some stuff that you see out there. So I forgot when we exactly met, but we're going to tell that little bit of story. But first I want to have you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your background and what brings you to the show today.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Sure. So I am the daughter of a trial lawyer.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: That's.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: That's usually how I introduce myself. I quite literally grew up in a law firm. I was born the day my father became a lawyer. I thought I would become a trial lawyer with him and we would just be in the courtroom fighting for our clients.
And then I quickly realized I actually love marketing a law firm much more and decided to become a legal marketer. So I've spent a majority of my career marketing a law firm and being on that side of it. And then I realized that I love lawyer referrals, which is what we're going to talk about today. I love talking about lawyers, referring business to other lawyers and making that an important part of any business, no matter what practice area you're a part of. And I spent the last two years working with Arjon Robbins, who is the attorney who started how to Manage a Small Law Firm. And I realized then I really do enjoy learning the business side of running a law firm, too. And not a lot of people talk about how important that is when you want to scale your law firm. So talking about the business side of a law firm and talking about how referring business to other Lawyers is a big part of who I am and what I enjoy talking about on a very regular basis.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Well, yeah, quite. You know, you've kind of rounded it all out, right? So you've. You've kind of had different desires and moved into different things and. And fall in love with different aspects of it. Uh, I guess similar to my background. You know, I. I wanted to be an entrepreneur then. I like to do design and marketing, but I love the business. And this podcast is all about all aspects of running a company, or in this case, a law firm. And so, you know, I just love having conversations about that more than I do marketing itself. My team loves marketing, but, you know, I like the business side of things, so it's exciting to talk about that today. So. So referrals, interestingly enough, I was just recording with a gentleman, Armando. He does podcasts, like, he produces podcasts for law firms. So where I do my own podcast, that's what he does. And we were talking about just how you can use it for referral partnerships and interview referral partners, other lawyers build that relationship, give them a platform to talk about themselves and just a cool way. And we were just talking about this a second ago, how how podcasts have really become cool again, if you will, but more mainstream.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: And so, yeah, absolutely. You know, you had one of my former employers, Michael Cowan, on your podcast. I created the Trial Lawyer Nation podcast with Michael back in 2018.
And so I've had a huge love for podcasts since 2018. I didn't know anything about it and had to just jump in and figure it out. But like you and I were talking about a second ago, I think 2024 has really highlighted how important podcasts are in spreading information.
And I think you're going to see a lot of people in 2025 say to themselves, how can I create a podcast to help my business?
How can I create a podcast to market the services I can provide and make it a real part of my marketing strategy? And I am a huge advocate of that, as I know you are. And I think we're going to see a lot of people out there trying to create podcasts in 2025 and making it a big part of their 2025 business plan.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And again, I think there's a huge role that can play within your referral partnerships as well and strengthen those and creating new ones. So all kinds of cool stuff that, you know, I've been talking about how to leverage a podcast for those things as well. So. But for another time, I want to get more into what you have to talk about today because you have a pretty cool perspective, but again, something I haven't heard of before because I got with Delacy a few weeks ago, like, hey, what are we going to talk about? And so, and the reality is we could talk about about 10,000 things and we could probably record an episode a day.
And so we were trying to like, okay, well, what's, what's different that she can bring to the table?
And so again, I'll let her kind of dig into it, but it's referrals. But that's obvious. Like everyone, there's a lawyer's focus on referrals to some degree, but not to the level that she's about to tell me. Tell us so.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: Right. And, and I think you, you've, you've actually talked about it on your podcast before. I was just listening to your episode with Tim Semmel Roth yesterday, and Tim talked about some of the things that he does with his director of marketing, um, to help grow those relationships and stay top of mind. And like I was telling you, I am a big believer in the more hands you shake, the more money you make. And that is great, but should be taken further and assessing where your value comes from in those relationships after you create them. I can shake a whole bunch of hands and make a whole bunch of money, but once I've done that, I, as a business owner then have to sit down and say, okay, who out of these, however many referral partners you have, really brings me the most value? Because at some point, you, as the law firm owner, have to say, what is the highest and best use of my time? If I'm going to dedicate nurturing these relationships, I need to make sure I'm spending my time where it makes the most sense and where I get the highest return.
And that's the other part of referral marketing is once you've created those relationships, assessing the value of those relationships and making sure you're spending your time where it makes the most sense. So what I want to talk about today on the podcast are the five different things you should be looking at when it comes to your referral partnership. To place a value on those referral partnerships so you can then invest your time into nurturing those partnerships and doing it where it makes the most sense. And once you do this, you might also realize that some of the partnerships you have might not be a good fit for you anymore. And you have to do that consistent assessment because the numbers only tell a small part of that story.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: No Yeah, I love it. And yeah, Tim's episode was awesome. And it's, it breaks down a lot of process of how you can stay in front of your referral partners and, and reward them and, and give back and, and make them stay top of mind. That's great. His episode's awesome about that but, but I don't go deep like what you're about to share, so. And when Delacy told me, I was like, oh, that, that makes a lot of sense. Like if you got 10 referrals from someone versus a hundred referrals from someone else, the 10 might be more valuable, right? Better cases, they might have lined it up better. The handoff might have been just there's so many things that you could dig into there and the other ones might be costing you time or money. You don't even know what the values of it. So I'm excited to dive into it. So.
[00:09:40] Speaker C: Today'S episode is brought to you by Answering Legal. Now to switch 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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[00:10:59] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So let's, let's jump in. I think the first of the five is the one that everyone thinks about. It's your average case value. If you look at your referral partners and say, okay, let me run a report and find out what is the average case value that I'm getting from this referral partner. Then you can start to compare them to your other referral partners and say, okay, who's providing me the higher average case value? I'm going to focus on these relationships a little bit more because they're more profitable to me rather than these that provide the lower average case value. So step one, run a report and Find out what is the average case value of your referral partnerships, and take a look at those numbers and find out, is there something in here that you really didn't realize? Did you think one of your referral partners actually had a higher case value than you thought before you ran this information?
The other thing that I would do when you run that report is take out the outliers, or not to get back into grade school math, but do a mean median and mode. Because sometimes you have to say to yourself, okay, you know what? Kevin gave me an average case value of $200,000, but that number is actually a little bit straight or a little skewed because we had this huge settlement this year. And so when you're running your average case value, keep that into consideration as well.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: So that might just be like, one. One big settlement out of all these referrals.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Right. You don't want to just run the report and not take it a step further and say, is there a case in here that's kind of skewing this information? Because then you don't really have accurate information. That one case just sets everything off.
The second one is average attorney's fees. So, yes, you're looking at your average case value, but at the end of the day, you really need to be looking at your average attorney's fees to determine how much am I really, truly making on these cases, because the average attorney's fees is what's going to be paying the bills, not your average case value. So take it a step further and say, okay, let me now run a second report. I want to see what's the average attorney's fees that I'm making on these cases. Because you might soon realize, okay, I've got Kevin sending me 20 cases a year, but I have DeLisi sending me five cases a year. And my average attorney's fees are higher on Delisi's than they are on Kevin. So if my team is stretched thin and my capacity is probably a little too high and I have to decide whose referrals do I want to be accepting in the firm, I might think a little bit differently if I know, you know what, Delicio only sends me five, but Kevin's case is I'm going to get a lot more of them, but I'm going to make less money. And this is where that average attorney's fees comes in, because you want to take a look at that and decide which ones are going to bring me the higher attorney case fee. And that number is really important to look at now.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Hopefully Real quick, people are tracking all this somewhere. Oh, and I just want to throw that in there. Like, what are you all, what do you use? What do you recommend for those that are like, I don't even track this stuff because I'm sure there's someone out there listening that doesn't.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: First of all, you're right. Let's not assume everyone is tracking this information. I think you could probably do an entire podcast episode on the importance of tracking data.
I would also say tracking your attorney's fees 100% should be a requirement for, for anyone who works in your law firm because you need to be able to track the money you're bringing into the firm and your financials need to be done. I mean, your financials need to be done. You need to have that information for a whole bunch of different reasons. And let's not even go into a three way trust reconciliation and all the things you should be doing to make sure your books are correct. I worked for Arjon Robbins, who wrote the book Profit first for Lawyers, and I have never been more passionate about financial reports until I worked with Arjon while he wrote that book. But you're absolutely right. Tracking that information is so important. Not just so you can place a value on your attorney referral partnerships, but also because you as a law firm owner should know your financials. And if you don't know your financials, you are making decisions in your law firm with bad data. And that is not healthy for your law firm at all.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I started to go on a tangent, but I thought, you know, well, let's throw that in there. But yeah, you know, you gotta know your numbers and not just like at the end of the year or from last year. Like you need to have this on your desk the first few days of. You every month at least.
So just something to think about if you're not tracking this stuff where you need to be.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: But yeah, and I would also say your budget variance report is incredibly important. And if you don't have the information, you have no idea that you made decisions based on X amount of money coming in, but Y came in instead. So now you have to change up how you're spending your money and the decisions you're making because you made less money. But you can't pivot and make those decisions if you don't know the info. So you're, you're absolutely right. You have to be looking at that every single month. So we'll back up from your numbers.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Well, no, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And you Know, none of us start there, right? It, it took us time and learning to, to get to, to be able to have those things in place. And then you're always adding things and numbers and KPIs and, you know, refining all that stuff constantly. So, Joe, let's, we'll get back on track. So let's go back to hit on one and two and then we'll.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yes. So one was average case value, two was average attorney's fees. Three is going to be something that's a little bit harder for you to run a report on. And so this one is more of a high level thinking and assessment of your cases. If you can devote the time to do this. The quality of the cases.
And when I say quality of the cases, I mean are they good cases or are they bad cases? Are they cases you want? Are they cases you don't want? Are you making a decision in 2025 you're going to accept these cases, but not these cases?
And I think the other part of quality of cases is also the. What do I want to say? It's, it's like the, how the case is sent to you.
Is the case a total mess? Do you have five documents instead of 50 documents? Is everything a mess? You know, sometimes you have to think about the quality of cases in, in that way, because some of the hardest referral partnerships are ones where you get a messy case referred to you and you're trying to clean it up and play a lot of time catching up to where you are in the case now and understanding where the case is. And so yes, it's a good case versus bad or what kind of case do you want? What kind of case do you not want? It's also the quality of the referral, the state in which the case is referred to you. Are the documents saved? Are they sent to you? Are you searching for a lot of data or they're providing it to you right up front? Because sometimes you spend a lot of your time trying to play catch up and organize a file that you shouldn't. And when you're thinking about the value of your relationships, that includes the time your staff is trying to get up to speed to take on that referral. And I think about that in terms of money. Time is money. If your staff is spending a lot of time trying to clean up a case, then I, I place a real value in that. And so 3 is the quality of your cases.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: I like that. So that's almost like, I know with like in my CRM, you could like add A custom field or something, and. And have that mainly, like, what was the quality of the case? Maybe have a range or some kind of, you know, low, medium, high, whatever. Something you could maybe run a report on if it was filled out. So I think of ways you can probably, you know, do that and still track it.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: I think the other part of it is having honest conversations with the people in your firm, too. If attorney referrals is a part of your business, there are certain people in your law firm who are having those communications with your referral partner. Go straight to the source, go to your team and say, hey, when Kevin refers me a case, tell me about that experience.
Does the file come to you complete? Do you have a lot of questions? Is it organized?
Those questions don't have to be answered in a report. It could just be a conversation you have with your people. And there's a real value in that, too, because you want to work with partners who your staff enjoys working with. And part of that is the quality of the case. And if their life is a lot easier because of the partnership or a lot more difficult and. And it's a real conversation with your staff.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: No, I love that. Kind of. Not the same, but, like, I'll have people that, like, refer stuff to. To my firm, and we do referral partnerships, but I have different levels. Like, if. Lacy, if you just said, hey, I met a guy in the store today, he might need a website.
Go, go find him. Like, okay, well, that's. It's not really a great referral versus, like, someone that would help handhold, introduce, be on our first meeting, you know, make the connection. And that's like, okay, that was very helpful, right? It's yes. Or people can refer you. Bad people, like, hey, I need a deck fixed to my house. They refer you to someone that's complete trash, then you're not going to trust that referral source anymore. So I think it's a cool way to think about it. I think going to your staff is going to be the best way to get the skinny, right? To figure out what's quality.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Oh, that guy. Oh, that's not his cases.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: We joke about it and we say things like, it's another case from Kevin. You know what's going to happen. I'm going to be searching for that file for two weeks. And you know, when people joke like that, there's some truth to it. And you as a business owner need to uncover that truth and get to the bottom of it so you can solve the problem. Because the problem is Clearly, Kevin, sending your office crappy files and your staff is working extra hard to fix it. So whenever someone's joking like that, they might be joking or complaining, but. But ask about it, do something about it.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Well, I think too, maybe there's a chance there that the referral partner doesn't really know that maybe that, you know, there's an opportunity to say, hey, you know, we'd like to keep getting your referrals and sending you checks, but here's some of the things you know would help the process and whatever, right? And so uncovering that and going back to the referral partner, instead of just cutting them loose, say, hey, there's some things that we can work on because this has been difficult for us.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Love that. That goes back to having a referral partner you communicate with. And, you know, when you refer someone business, it's a very special moment in my mind. Not to get kind of nerdy on you, but I think it is a huge compliment for someone to refer business to another lawyer because you are trusting for that person to provide a great service to a client who went to you for services and you're now sharing a fee and you're an extension of their business. But to your point, I have a great example of that. When I refer a case to another firm, my intake team creates a folder to share with the referral attorney. So they have all the documents.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: We have our own folder system. All of our subfolders follow a specific system, and that's how we save all the documents. But one of my referral attorneys came to me and he said to Lisa, when you refer me a new case, and I come in, But I see 15 subfolders, my team goes into those 15 subfolders and they only see that there's documents and maybe four because it's a new case out of state and I need. I need an out of state lawyer. And they go back and forth with your team thinking your folders are empty, but really they're not empty. There's nothing in there. Because the case is so new and we waste a lot of time going back and forth. And I loved that he told me that because then I as a manager could go to my team and say, guys, let's talk this out. If you have a new case and there's only 10 documents in the file, don't give them the entire folder tree because they're going to think it's empty and it's a mistake. Instead, just upload these documents and say, hey, guys, it's a new case. There's only 10 documents here. Here you go. Because it created a problem, but because my referral partner talked to me, we gotta fix it. And I appreciated it so much. So much.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Well, so I could see there's sufficiencies there. Like, there's a template that probably creates all those folders so they're not individually making them. Right. So that helps speed things up, but it also causes another issue. Right. So. And now there's an extra step. Delete the ones that aren't needed. Right?
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: You'll update your process document, delete those folders, send it.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Exactly. And you know what? It was a simple fix. But that simple fix, because we talked about it, saved everybody time. And it goes back to time is money. The more efficient we are, the more. The faster we can work together and bring in money to our firms.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, well, what do we got next on the list? What's next?
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Number four, Case acceptance versus rejection. I didn't learn the importance of this piece of information until later in my career, and so this one is really, really important for me because I realized it will change the way you think about your referral partnerships.
When you run a report at the end of the year, I really hope everyone listening has a way to determine how many cases were accepted and how many cases were rejected from a referral source.
The first year I ran that information, I realized I needed to have conversations with my referral partners on the case criteria for the types of cases I would accept and the types of cases I will not accept.
And looking at that information helped me do that because I quickly realized my intake department was having a lot of conversations from referral partners on cases I knew we wouldn't accept.
And so running the report to find out how many cases am I accepting and how many cases am I rejecting from each of my referral partners will help you understand.
Do I need to have a conversation with my referral partners and remind them on the types of cases I accept and the types of cases I do not accept?
Because your referral partner might not know. And that's exactly what I found out. I had a med mal lawyer at my old firm who was referring me multiple cases each month that I no longer handled because we decided to niche down even further.
I communicated that to my referral partners, but just because you say something one time doesn't mean someone's going to remember it all the other times or they shared it with their staff. So running that information helped me have a conversation with my referral partner and also with her team.
And as soon as I did that, my case acceptance percentage went up tremendously. My case rejection went down tremendously. And again, it goes back to time is money. My intake department no longer had to answer phone calls on cases where we weren't going to accept because I was able to communicate to my referral partners. I take these kinds of cases. I don't take these kinds of cases. And that's a really important one because until you look at that information, you might not know your intake department is taking calls they shouldn't be.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's times being wasted. You might expand your intake team to handle excess calls and, and time, and then there's more money out the door, so.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Right. And also for the referral partner, because now my referral partner has their law firm calling us on a case that I know we're not going to take. I can save their team time and money if we have that conversation. And the only way you do is if you run the info. So case acceptance versus case rejection. Take a look at the rejected cases and really identify. Do I need to have a conversation with my referral partner on the types of cases I accept and the types of cases I don't accept?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Well, plus, for your referral partner, they know that that's not for you. They, they take it to another referral partner that they either do or do not have yet, so now they're going to be more successful and referring that to someone that does want that case.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Exactly. And one of the things that I did, because I am a true believer in attorney referrals, if I no longer accept a kind of case, I want to put that lawyer in touch with someone who does. I always want to be the solution. I never want to be the problem. And so if I'm someone who tells you I can't accept a type of case, I want to be the person who says, but you know who does. And then connecting them with that other attorney and you know what's gonna happen? That other attorney is gonna be thankful. And you know what? That other attorney might refer me a case too. And so it's a win win for everyone. Because I might not handle a case anymore, but I put you in touch with someone who does, and that person's going to appreciate it and they might refer business back to me too. And so I always want to be the connector. I never want to be the dead end.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: I love that I'm the same way. Like if I, hey, we can't work with you or If a law firm wants to do, like, marketing for whatever reason, then, yeah, always, always try to give them a referral to someone that can. So I know a lot of my competitors for that reason and vice versa. I got competitors that send me leads all the time.
May there's a conflict or budget and. Or just bandwidth, whatever, it doesn't matter. But I got many agencies that will send me referrals, and I try to do the same, so.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't. Yeah. Have a solution. Be that connector, that networker. You know, that's going to definitely serve you well. For sure.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: All right, what else we got? What's up next?
[00:31:30] Speaker A: One, number five.
This one is not a report that you run. It goes back to just reflecting on your attorney partnerships and also talking with your staff. And number five is, Is my referral partner easy to work with? People probably don't think about it when they're thinking about their referral partnerships because they're so focused on bringing the money in. But once you create a lot of referral partnerships and you have the privilege of saying, okay, I have these standards in my firm, and my standards are abc. If someone does not have C, I don't want to do business with them. And ABC is going to be different for everyone. Because I might love working with referral attorneys who want to be involved in every step of the process and want to talk every 30 days on the case. But maybe Kevin doesn't. Maybe Kevin just wants people to leave him alone, and then he just sends a check at the end of the case. Or maybe it's the people who Kevin employs. You know, when I ask my team, is this referral partner easy to work with, it's not just the attorney, it's their staff, because the referral partnership, it doesn't end with just the referral attorney. Our staffs are working with each other to partner on this case. We're sharing document information. We're talking about the client together. We're giving each other case updates. And if we don't work well together, that's something to keep in mind because I, as a law firm owner, want my team to enjoy where they're working. But I also have to give them an opportunity to tell me, do they really hate working with Kevin because I don't know, Kevin's staff is rude. Or do they not like working with Kevin because, you know, his files are always a mess? Do we not like working together because maybe we always have a disagreement on the value of a case or the workup of a case? And so looking at your list of referral partners and truly asking yourself, is this referral partner someone easy to work with? Do I enjoy working with them? Because there are some younger attorneys out there who might not have those boundaries or those standards yet and say, look, I will deal with anything because right now I need to grow my firm and I need to make as much money as I can to scale this business and hire the right people. I will work with people I don't enjoy working with for this small moment of time. But there could be lawyers listening to this podcast right now who have tenured referral partnerships and have reached a point where they say, my mental health and the mental health of my staff and the enjoyment that I have in my partnerships on these cases mean something, and there's a value to it. And I love working with these referral partners. But you know what? We have not had a very positive experience working with this referral partner. And I think it's time for us to make a decision and decide, is this referral partner still the right partner for us? And that's a really important one. It's also kind of scary, too, because some people like to say they have boundaries and standards, but upholding them is something entirely different.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: No, I love that. I think you're spot on. This comes with, you know, a little bit more business maturity, I think. I know. Like, for us, similar. I guess it's like clients. Like, we've fired clients. Law firms that are just bad clients. They're rude, they're not nice to my staff. But as you're younger in business, you don't fire clients. Like, you would never think to do that. It's no money coming in. My staff's the problem. Like, just deal with it, you know, and you can't continue to do that for so long, or you're just not. Again, you're not mature enough to see through it and say, all right, is this worth it? Is it worth losing my staff? And I also kind of think, you know, it's. It's almost like a cultural thing. Like, does your staff. Their staff are. Are the cultures of the firms similar enough to. Because if they are, they're probably going to work well and they're probably going to be as organized as you or whatever the. You know, or as crazy as you. Whatever the culture is there. But I feel it's almost like hiring an employee, you know, or staff. It's. You know, there's a fit or not. Do they have A, B or C? Do they. Do they have these same values that we have. And so I think that's very similar to that.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: It sounds like, yeah, absolutely. You know, I'll, I'll give you an example to that. We have referral partnerships. And when I joined the firm I'm at now, one of the things that I implemented is a series of questions that every case referred out has to have answered once a month because we have a joint partnership. And I want to make sure we're following up on the status of the case and what's happening with it. And there are some lawyers who we partnered with who love that. They're like, oh my gosh, I'm going to start asking these questions on the cases we referred out. I'm like, you should. And some lawyers who are like, oh my God, you want me to tell you these five things? I'm like, yes, it's not crazy stuff. Did you talk to the lawyer in the last 30 days? Is a client still treating as trial been set? You know, they're very simple things. But the referral partners, who probably are shocked by that and not embracing that kind of constant communication on a case, it's thinking to yourself, is that really the right referral partner for me? And they might not be. Or the ones who I know of lawyers out in the world like my father, who don't have a case management system. They organize everything in a file system and they use Outlook and they don't have any of the plethora of case management softwares that are available out there. Someone like that might not be a good fit for me because the way I run my firm, we use a system that has reports for days and we have a dedicated employee in our office whose job is an admin for that system. So, yeah, there are a lot of things that are probably not a good fit. But you have to ask yourself the question, is this referral partner the right fit for us still?
[00:38:21] Speaker B: I love it. It's again, different, different concept that I, again, I wasn't exposed to. And I've got a lot of people on this podcast, so it's a level up. Right? So that's what it's all about. So I appreciate you sharing all this.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. And the other part of it is we've been talking this entire podcast about how time is money. You know, if you have limited time, you need to make sure you're spending it where it makes the most sense. Is this the highest and best use of my time to have lunch with this referral partner? You can't make that determination until you've taken the time to assess the value of your referral partnerships. And those are five things that I like to do to try and assess and place a real value on each of those partnerships.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: I love it. Well, I'll say this was worth my time today for sure.
And hopefully everyone else's time that's tuned in, she probably is going to save you a ton of time, a ton of money, staff sanity. So. But again, I just, I think this is, this is a level up for folks listening that maybe are always trying to level up, questioning your referral partners. Different, different concept. But you know, if you have a lot of them, it's, it can be causing you a lot of problems.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: So yeah, it can. And I think, you know, we're about to hit December and this is a time when you reflect on that and you decide what are the things I'm going to do in the next year. And doing that assessment is, is a big part of it.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: Yep. How things go this year, what do you want them to be like next year? Where do you want to be in five years and what's, what are you going to do now to help you get there? So I love it. I love it, I love it. Well, Delacy, what's the best way for folks to connect with you? Because now you're at a new firm. Let's, in case everyone doesn't know where you're at, tell us more about the firm real quick and then how they can connect with you.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Sure. So I am the chief transformation officer for Cesar Ornellis Law. We are a nationwide personal injury firm. 10 offices in four states as of this recording.
Anyone can reach out to me on LinkedIn. I am a huge advocate just like Tim Talked about of LinkedIn. So LinkedIn.com backslash delicifriday. I'm sure we can put the link in the show notes. I love to post on LinkedIn all of the things that I am learning in my growth as a professional and any tips that I can provide that can help anyone else. And if someone has a question about something we talked about on this podcast, happy to answer them and assist if I can through LinkedIn. So we can put a link to my LinkedIn profile in the show notes and I'm happy to connect with everyone.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Oh absolutely. I'm gonna put, we'll tag you in all this and if anyone needs to connect with her and you can't for some reason, reach out to me, leave a comment, message me. I'm on LinkedIn all the time. So you know, just find me and I'll connect you. I also have her email, so if you need to get in touch with that way I can do that too. But thank you so much, Lacy. This has been a pleasure and eye opening stuff and hopefully my audience find it pretty valuable. So appreciate you sharing. Today everyone get serious about your law firms.
Make sure you have your numbers, make sure you can run reports and you question your referral partnerships. I think it's awesome. So Felicity, you can stay on with me. We'll wrap up. And everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you soon.
[00:42:02] Speaker A: Thank you.
