Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: If I don't have somebody handling my pre suit cases as my pre suit attorney, then by default I am the pre suit attorney or before my office manager was here and from administrator I would be the HR person. And so I think recognizing that if I don't have that person that I become that, that conditions me to recognize that I need to hire that person so that my time can be freed.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Most firms survive the best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast where law firm leaders learn to think bigger. I'm Kevin. Daisy. Let's jump in. What's up everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Managing Partners podcast. My pet project wanted to help, you know, law firm owners out there do better grow their firms have the life they want and just excited to always meet new folks, bring new guests on, interact with everyone. It's been a blessing and I'm just excited every day to get to record. So thanks for listening as always. And I have Andrew Pickett on the show today. We actually connected through a Facebook group that I have for the managing partners podcast, Managing Partners Mastermind group. So if you don't know about it, it's a free Facebook group, It is private reach out. But that's how I met Andrew and excited to have him on. He does personal injury down in Florida. He's going to tell you all about it and we're going to dive into some really cool stuff about growth as a lawyer, as a business owner. And I'm just excited to to learn from Andrew today and hopefully you all can as well. Andrew, welcome.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Hey Kevin, thanks for having me.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yes, sir. Well, you know, tell us a little. I know you're out of Melbourne, Florida, you, service, I believe the whole state of Florida. But tell us a little bit about your background and yourself and so we can get to know you and a little bit about your firm.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: So I grew up in Florida, here on the Space Coast. So I live in Melbourne, which is about an hour east of Orlando. And so I'm practicing law in the area where I grew up. So I grew up here and then went away for college at University of Virginia and then came back to Florida for law school.
I see you're giving the shout out to Virginia. I know that you're in Virginia beach, right?
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, everyone that I know, my wife, my partner went to Virginia Tech. But say if you're outside the state, it's like go uva. Cool, we'll support you. But if, if you're in state, it's like, it's hokies.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Well, I came back to Florida to finish out my education. I was at University of Florida for law school. Then I did a master's at University of Miami and originally thought that I wanted to get into estate planning and tax law, but after a short stint in that field, determined that that was not for me. So I moved back up to the Space coast and got a job as a prosecutor working at the state attorney's office. So I did that for four years and really kind of fell in love with being a trial lawyer. And after four years there, I left to go into the private practice, joined a personal injury firm where I kind of learned the nuts and bolts of PI work, and then in 2018, decided to start my own firm. So I've been Andrew Pickett Law for about seven years and have evolved quite a bit since I started.
And so we're here in the Space coast handling primarily personal injury, wrongful death cases, mostly motor vehicle accidents, some sex abuse cases, and also some mass torts.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Okay, excellent. No one really usually knows exactly where they want to end up at until they kind of experience some of it. So.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's particularly true with lawyers. I think a lot of people go into law school thinking that they want to do a particular area of law and really have no idea what that means to be a corporate lawyer or, you know, transactional contracts, real estate. And so I think that getting into that practical world and actually working with the firm really gives you exposure to that. So you can understand that it's going to be different in the real world than it is in law school. And that was certainly true for me. So it took me some time to figure out and experiment different areas, but I think I've really found my passion.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: That's excellent. So, to Virginia. How did you end up deciding on that school coming up? Coming up to our. My neck of the woods. Yeah.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: So I was actually born in Virginia. I was born in Lynchburg, and I have some family outside of Charlottesville, which is where UVA is. Also. My dad went to uva, and so it was always near and dear, dear to my heart. And I have a twin brother who went to University of Florida. And I just wanted to do something different than him and kind of get out of state and forge my own identity. I always felt like growing up, people would associate us together like we were the same person. And so I felt a strong need to go be my own person. And UVA had a good academic reputation and I had an opportunity to walk onto the swim team there. So I was a four year Collegiate swimmer at uva. So the combination of the academics, the athletics, and just kind of getting away from my hometown was something important to me at the time.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: What kind of the colors? You got the orange and the blue, you know.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: Yeah. In fact, we selected our firm colors, or I selected our firm colors based on it being the UVA colors, which also roughly.
Roughly match the UF colors as well. But so there's kind of an interesting story behind that. So I started my law firm in February of 2018, and my father, who I mentioned went to UVA. He passed away in January of 2018. So literally, like, one month before I started my law firm. And interestingly, his last job was counseling small business owners on how to build business plans and start their own business. So I had an opportunity to talk to him right before he died about my plans to start my law firm, and he was really encouraging on that end. And then after he passed, I kind of selected the colors as a tribute to him. And so that's. That's been really meaningful for me. So I picked the orange and blue to honor my dad.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: That's awesome, man. Great story. Also, I'm sure that stuck with you getting to talk to him about starting a business and getting some of his advice at the same time. So.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Yeah, it really did. And I think that I think a lot about honoring him and what I do with my business and making him proud.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: I hope my son's listening to this episode. He's only 14 right now, but probably not one day.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: One day.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah. That's awesome, man. I love that. So, you know, me and Andrew, we jumped on and chatted a little bit, which I do with any guests. Just kind of get to know them and. And kind of see what. What they were passionate about when they can bring to the table. And, you know, I think it's kind of a struggle that most have we talked about kind of often. Just, you know, you're the technician, you're the lawyer, you're the person that, you know, just like, if you're the handyman or the H Vac tech or whatever, or the marketer transitioning from. From that main role, not completely getting away from it. But you're on a business, you have to employ people. You have responsibilities. And then the clients expect service. I think that's a big thing that people miss. Like, the client expects service, which means you have to grow and implement things in order to give them the better service that they need, not just the outcome of the legal work. Right. That's obviously a given, but Everything in between is where the complaints come from. Right. And so going out on your own 2018 to now, obviously Covid was thrown in the middle there that you probably didn't see coming.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Yeah. But that was actually a big turning point for me, just kind of coincidentally with my journey. So, yeah, I started in 2018, and then just about two years later, Covid hit. So in the first couple years, it was just me and two other people, and we were. We were growing mostly through referrals from other attorneys. And I still had a heavy litigation docket and actually tried my first really big case on my own in 2019. So, you know, being a trial lawyer has always been really meaningful and important to me, and I was able to get, I think, what was kind of a career changing verdict back in 2019.
But then Covid hit in 2020. I was actually at a trial lawyers seminar in Colorado, and this was just mid March, and it was right around the time that, like, all the big sporting events were getting canceled, like March Madness and the Masters and all of that. And so I ended up getting stuck in Colorado at this seminar. Like almost all of the people who are supposed to be teaching just didn't make it there. So I was there at the time, and I had come across a. Or I'd heard of a business coaching program called Atticus, which is actually based out of Florida, and it's to help law firm owners learn how to kind of run the business. And so I had a couple days there until my flight came back and I started looking up this program, Atticus, and that was my first time that I really made the decision to start focusing on investing in the skills to run a business. And then I joined the Atticus coaching program. And I've since done a lot. A lot of other coaching programs, but it really helped me to kind of shift my mindset from, you know, just being the trial lawyer and doing everything with bringing in the cases and running the firm to understanding the need to scale and hire other people and delegate. And so that was kind of my path.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: That's awesome. I've heard of Atticus. I've seen them. I've heard about them. I don't know anyone there. I need to. And I can make, because I like just recommending people to different programs or coaches or masterminds. And, you know, different programs are different for different folks. See, I need to connect with someone over there at some point. But, yeah, I think, you know, the main thing there is I was just talking to an EOS implementer. EOS is entrepreneurs operating system. But it's like, you know, a lot of business owners are lawyers. Like, I don't need to implement or I don't need to coach. I don't need, you know, it's easy to be like, I can do this myself, but to seek, you know, seek someone to help, seek answers, listen to others, go into a seminar, go to a coaching group and hang out with others that are successful. They all have coaches, they all have implementers, they all have people helping them. So I think, yeah, definitely that turning point for you that you made that decision, like, okay, I need to learn how to do this stuff and I need help to do it.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Exactly. And I felt like at the time I didn't realize it, but I was just wearing like way too many hats.
By trying to do everything, it was kind of impacting the quality of everything that I was doing.
Soon after that, I decided to hire somebody who became kind of an office manager and then ultimately my firm administrator. And that's been probably my best decision that I ever made.
And so I'm able to delegate a lot of the, the hr, the administrative stuff so that I can focus on, you know, my legal work, but also kind of being the CEO and visionary of the firm. So it's interesting you mentioned eos.
My. I, I'm still doing coaching with Atticus, but I'm also doing coaching with Fireproof. You probably have heard of Mike Morris. Yep. With Mike Morrison. We implement a version of eos. And I started that about a year ago.
And that has been really helpful in kind of evolving my kind of continued path towards delegation and, and running a firm and kind of building my firm on systems. You know, we have weekly accountability meetings where we're kind of checking our progress on our quarterly goals, and then we have an annual meeting where we set our goals. And so yeah, my rocks. Yeah, Fireproof. Actually it calls it, they, they call it flames as the equivalent of the, of the EOS Rocks. Yep. Traction. I got, I got that book on my bookcase too.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: This thing worn out over here.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: There's another one called Rocket Fuel that the same author wrote. It talks a lot about like the, the interplay between the visionary and the integrator. So I would, I would definitely recommend that. But my firm administrator is becoming my integrator and which is kind of free me up to focus on, on everything else that I want to do. But I think where, where my, where my thought process has really evolved is understanding this idea that if I don't have an employee who's dedicated to handling a particular function, then that defaults to me. So in other words, like, if I don't have somebody handling my pre suit cases as my pre suit attorney, then by default I am the pre suit attorney. Or before my office manager was here and my firm administrator, I would be the HR person. And so I think recognizing that if I don't have that person that I become that, that conditions me to recognize that I need to hire that person so that my time can be freed up. So that's, that's been kind of a big part of the, of the evolution. I think another thing has been the idea of recognizing that you need a lot of times to hire in anticipation of growth as opposed to waiting until you're like bursting at the seams and then kind of scrambling to hire. And I've shifted my mindset in that regard a lot in the past couple years and I think what's that, what that has allowed me to do is to be a lot more intentional on the type of person that I want as opposed to kind of hiring out of kind of desperation at the moment. And so we've really embodied one of these ideas from Fireproof in particular, where it's like you want to hire for traits, not necessarily skills, because you can teach the skills, but you can't teach somebody to be detail oriented or a hard worker or have a positive attitude. Whereas I think in the legal world there's a strong tendency to, to hire people who have a lot of experience in a particular area, but they may have developed bad habits or bad attitudes over time. And so our last several hires have been really people who not necessarily have the specific PI experience, but who we know we can train because they've got a growth mindset, they've got a positive attitude, and I think they have the, the traits of somebody who's hardworking that would fit in well to our culture. So that's been something that's been, I think, transformative in the way that we're viewing hiring.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: That's so a couple of things there.
The one part I love the concept of, if I don't have someone to do it, then that's my, my role, my job. I never really thought about the fact that that's a great experience or exercise for anyone that's listening. You don't have someone to manage the office or take out the trash.
Guess who does it?
And that's just a good way to kind of think about it and, and bring a little bit more importance and urgency to that matter.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: And maybe this roles that you're like, hey, it's fine, I do that for a while. But I know that's something I should not be doing.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. And for me, my kind of awakening to that was am I this is through somebody who you might know. Do you know Jen Gore?
[00:14:51] Speaker B: I do, yeah. Very well.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Yes. So Jen's a good friend of mine and she's mentored and coached me and when we first started she was trying to understand the structure of my firm and at the time she asked me, you know, who is, who is supervising my pre suit paralegal and ultimately approving settlements and demands on pre suit cases. And I said, well, that's me. And so her question she posed to me is, you know, is that what you want to be doing? And really it's not what I want to be doing, but I don't think I just didn't realize that by default I was the pre suit attorney. And so I hired Tiffany Whitehouse who now handles my pre suit back in May of 2024. And that has just been a great hire because she's able to focus her entire skill set and energy on that while allowing me to focus on the things that I really enjoy. So I think doing this coaching has really made me like self reflect a lot on what it is that I want and how I want to be spending my time and if I'm ha. If I have the ability to delegate every time that I've done it, I haven't regretted it.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's. And again, going to these things, talking to other people, not trying to be an entrepreneur on your own is. That's the shortcut. It's a secret. You know, Jen can share so much with you that she's done.
All these other attorneys that are beyond where you're at, they all a resource. And then of course fireproof and eight figure firm and there's all these other pillma. Just tons of resources out there that anyone listening if you're starting your own firm can lean on and show up and just participate. Some of these things cost money. You can go to conferences, buy a ticket, you can meet people depending on where you're at. But the best of the best at the top of their game have coaches, they're part of other groups.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: That's been pretty eye opening to me seeing even people who are at the top of their game are still being coached. And I mean even when you look at like professional athletes like Michael Jordan, LeBron James, they still have coaches on their mindset, on their psychology, they have trainers. And so I think part of succeeding in business is having the humility that you can learn from somebody who's, who's done it before and who is at the level where you want to be. And yes, I agree that it does cost money to invest in these coaching programs and conferences, but it's really both an investment in the firm and investment in myself. And that's been also a realization that I've had is how much my own personal development has tracked my development as a business owner and how they really kind of go hand in hand and understanding what my shortcomings are and how I can improve as a person. That's also helping me improve as a business person because a lot of my tendencies in my personal life are reflected in my business life. And so I've really been thoughtful about how anything that I'm working on in my personal life might benefit my business. And so any coaching that I do for my business is absolutely an investment in myself that is that I just budget for every year. And I think it's, it's really paid off.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: No, a hundred percent. I mean, like it or not, as an entrepreneur, you know, you're, you're very integrated with your business life. It's not really separated too much, right? It's, you know, this is your identity. You own your law firm. I don't care if you're, if you're at my house right now hanging out and we're just having, watching football.
Your law firm is still in the back of your mind. It's what you do. It's what you live for. It's everything.
And so, yeah, yeah, it's very important to have, you know, the personal side of things in order and vice versa. So it's very connected. So a hundred percent, you know, a lot of these, you know, these coaches and people, it's personal development. It's not just, you know, just business stuff. One of the things I like that you said a few minutes ago was, you know, we, we agree on 100% is, you know, hiring people that are a cultural fit, not the skill they have, because we can train the skill. We do marketing and websites and stuff like that, right? So I can train anybody. But if they, if they're not a good person, they shouldn't be here. I can't change that.
If we don't want to work with them or they don't like they'd be fun and fit into what we do here. That's not going to work. If they're just the best at something. So and then planning ahead, be able to hire, like, we just did this. We just hired a bunch of people. Way ahead of what our plans for growth are. To be able to do that versus, like, holy crap, we need to find someone next week. They. They have a pulse. Let's hire them. You know, it's just a bad way to go.
[00:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
What you were saying earlier about the, like, being a business owner and having, like, that be so much part of your identity in your life, I've actually been thinking a lot about that lately, and just I think that there's this idea that. This idea with work life balance, I think can be very misunderstood. And I actually heard it conceptualized in a really compelling way by a guy named Bill Biggs. I don't know if you know him, so.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I know Bill. I know. Yeah, yeah, Bill's awesome.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: So Bill is now running the Fireproof Masterminds, and he talks a lot about that idea. And I've always had kind of this, like, gut reaction to the work life balance phrase. And I didn't really know why, but the way that Bill explained it, I think was really good. And the idea is the term work life balance really implies that your work is really bad and that your life is really good and that you need to have less work and more life. And so it almost like, trains people to think that, like, just work is miserable. Yeah. And so kind of the way that he frames it is it's not really work life balance, it's work life integration. Because you're, especially as a business owner, your work should be giving you more life and giving you more enjoyment of your life. And if you view it like a chore, then you're constantly having a negative mindset towards work. And so I thought that was a really kind of a cool way to think about it, which makes a lot of sense. And I think when you have potential hires whose number one priority is work life balance, I think a lot of times what that tells me is that. And they don't really want to work or they have a negative view towards it. And I think there's a way to have a business that reflects and values people's, you know, family life without having this culture around, like, you know, dreading coming to work. So I thought that was kind of interesting point.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Now this is a huge step here on the. On the show.
Yeah, we, We. That's what we talk about. That's what everyone talks about. And so, yeah, you're, like, separating it. Work sucks. Don't do too much of It. And then you got, you know, live your life. Right? Yeah. Enough of that negative talk. Even if you're joking with friends, I gotta go work on Monday. Over time, it's just, it's always this negative talk around it. So even if it's, even if you do enjoy the work, it's like you're, you're constantly bringing it down for some reason. Just because I heard, can't remember who told me this. It's someone I knew personally, but they were talking about work, life, rhythm. You said integration. I like either one of them better than balance.
[00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I like, I like that term too. Rhythm, because it kind of implies that like they're going to be ebbs and flows and you just have to like, you have to, you have to kind of go with it. At some times, you know, you're going to be on vacation and have less work. Other times you're going to be work on the weekends as you need to. It's just, it's just a rhythm.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, if you know, you know that taking care of your business is important, that helps take care of your clients and take care of your employees and then of course, family and things like that. If your wife or husband or whoever, they, they know that versus they think that's a bad thing. Like, can you just take off work? Like you work too much. Like it should be more integrated. Like you said that they should be like even thinking of ideas and things that you could do as for the business, to have them aware of what's going on with the business versus like, you know, I'm going to cut off and be this other person all of a sudden and I don't want to talk about work and like I'd rather be again, more, more integrated, like you're saying, because it affects all those people. Right. They should care and have an understanding of what, where the business is and why I got to go to this conference and why I'm going to go take some time to go work on my personal and professional career. Right. Or again, going to like fireproof or something like that. Right.
Your wife could be like, hey, well, why you, why are you going to. That you're at work all day and now you're going to this event on the weekend, you know.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And I, that's something that I've reflected on a lot. I'm very grateful that my wife is very supportive of my, all of my work trips and my personal development journey. And I think that's really important for an entrepreneur to have a supportive spouse. So that you're not working against that. So I'm very grateful for that.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Same here. You know, I know a lot of lawyers and non lawyers that.
And I'm trying to do this now. It's just, you know, she works at work, but they, you know, take the spouse with them and then they.
There's even some tax advantages. You can have a business trip and then you can stay there for a couple extra days and go see different cities. So they're literally bringing their spouse with them and they get a couple days to go do what they want while you're at the conference. You know, so there's all kinds of ways you can do that, but it's not the norm. The norm is, you know, this separation, you know, and negativity towards. Towards work. Like you're saying. Yeah, and it's really like we. One of our core values here is passion. So if I have an employee that's like, we just need to be away from here because I got work life balance.
Like you got to have passion in order to be part of this culture. You know, they're not going to view work that way, you know, if they have true passion.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Culture is so important. I love your, your idea of hiring before growth, planning for it ahead of time.
A lot of firms I've talked to that I can't find an associate attorney to do xyz and we need someone right away.
That's just not a place you want to live.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: You're going to end up with the bottom feeder, right?
Well, Andrew, I appreciate you sharing kind of about your firm and your story and just kind of the journey that you've already had so far. Obviously you're growing, you're doing good things, you're in the right circles, spending time with the right people. And that's what this podcast is all about too, is just making connections, bringing on great people to tell their story. Hopefully someone listening learned a few things from listening to you today.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: I hope so too.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Of course. Everyone connect with Andrew. Andrew, what's the best way for folks to reach out or connect with with you directly?
[00:25:18] Speaker A: So I can be found on Instagram at Andrew Pickett Law or Facebook with Andrew Pickett Law. My website is andrew pickett law.com and so and I'm also on LinkedIn and
[00:25:28] Speaker B: as always, ask me and I'll make a personal introduction. So he's also in our Facebook group. Again, it's private, but it's free. So reach out if you're interested to pop in there. Andrew's a member. And well, Andrew, thanks so much for sharing today. Everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in to this podcast. I appreciate everything you do, and we'll see you on the next episode. All right.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Thanks, Kevin.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Sam.
