Scaling a Law Firm Means Evolving Faster Than the Market

[00:00:00] Speaker A: If your business isn't growing, you're dying. There will be someone else out there who is continually trying to grow and then take your market share. So you've got to kind of come to terms with the fact that once you hit a certain level, however you want that to define that parameter or that goal, there has to be a next one because or else there's going to be someone coming doing the same thing that you're doing, just better or more efficient. [00:00:38] 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? We are live and excited here for this episode because I have Merit Farmer on the show. Me and Merit met at pilma. We're down in San Antonio. We actually spent some time in the airport having a cocktail. [00:01:08] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:01:09] Speaker B: So there's a funny story. Is there because I missed my next flight, but not. [00:01:14] Speaker A: Not on your own fault. [00:01:16] Speaker B: It wasn't my fault. It was American. [00:01:18] Speaker A: Not your fault. [00:01:19] Speaker B: But no. Met at PILMA and just been chatting up here with Merritt. He's just super cool dude and down home, South Carolina, Charleston guy. And we have a lot of things in common here to talk today about where he's at, running his law firm, what he specializes in, but I think also too kind of, you know, where he is, mindset wise and how he. We met at pma, really, because it was his first conference. Right. So. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Yep, first one, yeah. [00:01:51] Speaker B: So. Well, Merritt, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about your. Your background and, you know, what you focus on and all that good stuff. [00:01:58] Speaker A: Sounds good. Thank you, buddy. So my name is Merritt Farmer and I'm with the Farmer Law Firm here in Charleston, South Carolina. My office is actually in Mount Pleasant, which is right across the bridge. And we service kind of the Charleston Tri county region, which covers Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties primarily. We have handled cases kind of throughout the state, north of Charleston up towards like, Georgetown and Myrtle Beach, Horry county area, or south down towards Beaufort, but in a pretty good spot here, close to 26 and can get to wherever we need to be, which isn't bad. And we primarily handle personal injury and criminal offense matters and started practicing in 2014. I'm originally from Myrtle Beach. Came down here to go to the Citadel and then never left, so stayed down here during the summers. Charleston was a lot of fun and hard place to leave once you've been down here and then went to law school here at the Charleston School of Law. Always Had a, I guess a vision of working for myself. My dad, he's a cpa. He has his own firm. And so that's all I. All I kind of knew was, go work for yourself. So you've been doing it a pretty good while now and try to have a lot of fun doing it and all the other fun things that Charleston has to offer, especially this time of year. [00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah, Charleston's a beautiful, beautiful place. Never spent a lot of time there, but what's not to like about Charleston? It's beautiful. Is like, even merits Merit's background. The paint color on his wall, it's bright and looks like he's in Charleston. Yes, it's got that feel to it. No, I love that. And so, you know what, you know, what me and Merritt were talking about earlier was like, you know, where is he at? It's a firm. And really he started kind of talking about, you know, he listens to this podcast, he's listening to other folks. He got introduced to PILMA and came out to pilma, and we know some of the same folks now. But yeah, just give me a little background on kind of your thought process and where you're at and trying to expand and grow your firm. [00:04:02] Speaker A: So back in, I guess it was probably around maybe November of last year, October, I was trying to figure out a transition from the marketing folks that I previously been using. And a good friend of mine from Myrtle beach had joined PMA several years ago and her name's Amy. Lovely. She's awesome. Her and her husband have a great firm up in Myrtle beach, and she had told me to join PMA years ago, and I didn't, obviously. It's kind of like, you know, your child not listening. Then I got in touch with Ken and got to meet Ken, and Ken was great. And through that process, I went down this long rabbit hole of, you know, the personal injury marketing and a lot of different podcasts, a lot of podcasts that are even more beneficial towards, like, casework that people are done and things that people are doing in certain types of litigation. So I really went down this deep rabbit hole between Dan Ambrose Podcast Trials University, the Max Law guys. You know, those guys are great, and a whole bunch of them. And then decided that I was going to go to the conference in San Antonio for pilma, which was a whole nother eye opening experience that I really didn't know even existed. You know, you walk in there and there's, you know, 300 vendors and, you know, every other one's a dot AI right now. [00:05:34] Speaker B: But no crap. [00:05:35] Speaker A: What was interesting is what we. We obviously a small firm and at the time I had another attorney working with who sits left and will probably be looking to add another attorney sometime over the next 12 months. But we have one other paralegal and outside of just trying to grow the business and get more people to call and expand, you know, your intake, the other part of that is how do you handle, you know, your caseload. And we had a pretty good setup based on my other attorney that was with me handling a lot of the stuff pre sued with the insurance adjusters and things like that. Because I also do a fair amount of criminal defense work, a lot of DUI work. And so I'm in court probably, you know, two to three days a week or so on average. So you're, you're looking at all these little avenues and ways to get better and more efficient. And the one thing I think that's really interesting and has been very helpful since, since joining pilma's, you know, a meeting people like you at PELMA and seeing all of these, all of the different things that are available to law firms nowadays, especially smaller mid sized firms, that can make your life a lot easier. We just signed up with EvenUp to help with our pre litigation and all of our files and keeping everything together and moving cases along at a more efficient pace. So that's what really brought me to pim was trying to kind of peel back the, the layers of the onion, if you will. And then once, once I started that realized it's a pretty deep rabbit hole. It's like the Matrix, you know. And I think if you really wanted to, there's really no end to it. Personal injury especially is such competitive market. I mean, you know, probably better than anybody that I'd be hard pressed to think that there's a more competitive advertising and marketing space than the personal injury legal space. [00:07:33] Speaker B: No, yeah, you're spot on. The interesting thing too is that you can't just market or just advertise. Like you have to get all the other. Right. [00:07:41] Speaker A: So, right. [00:07:42] Speaker B: You know, you have to run a good operation. You have to have good client experience. You have to not drop the ball. You have to get the results right. So yeah, it takes a lot. It's, it's. You can't just do one thing right. So I think 100% and that's what, you know, Pilma, Ken, there's tons of other organizations out there as well. But so I preach this all the time to anyone listening, like go find a group of other People that are doing what you're trying to do. You know what I mean? [00:08:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:09] Speaker B: It's the secret to growth, really. It's. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:13] Speaker B: You mentioned Dan Ambrose and Charlie Lawyers University, Bob Simon, we got Lottie Grohl and National Trial Lawyers Events. Pilma Eight Figure Firm is another great one. So there's not a. There's. There's so many resources. I think you said that like you can go find YouTube channels and podcasts and learn all this shit yourself. [00:08:35] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:36] Speaker B: But it's really powerful though, when you get in a room full of people together. [00:08:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. You know, especially when you're a smaller, mid sized firm. I think that sometimes, you know, being a lawyer and practicing law can be kind of a lonely venture. Right. You know, it's not like I get to go home and tell my wife everything about what I did today and, you know, all the ins and outs because everything that, you know, we're dealing with is obviously privileged and confidential. In addition to that, you know, most of the time when I've got a client and no different than anybody else, but the person sitting across my desk and asking me to help them is needing help for something that is probably something they've never dealt with before for and might be the most catastrophic event that they've dealt with with their family or a child or what have you, and something that could change the course of their life and career from a pretty monumental trajectory. Right. So you've got a lot of people depending on you and when you, when you end up in a space like Pillmoth, you know, it's obviously very reassuring to know that everyone is dealing with those same sorts of problems. Right. And they're also trying to figure out from a business perspective, you know, what's the best way to do this for me, for my clients, for the, you know, for our staff. And it's obviously reassuring and good when you can get in a room like that and see, like for instance, you know, Trey Harrell is a local guy here in Charleston who I've known for a long time and he's seen a lot of growth over the last few years and spoke at PILMA and has done a really good job. So it's great to, you know, get in a room and hear from people who are either where you were situ. Where you're situated now, that they were there a couple of years ago, or, or maybe 10 years ago and see where they are now and how they were able to do it, which was really, you know, reassuring, helps with some, you know, motivation that you Know you can get the top of the mountain. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, everyone can do it. I think. You know, I've been in business for, I've been self employed at least for 20 years. So one thing I know for sure, because this is daily, like I have a partner's meeting today. We'll make a change, fix a bunch of stuff and it creates five more problems. You know what I mean? So, and like this, I was just looking in my slack channel before this episode, before recording, I was like, oh, you know, we just promoted this person over here. But then there's all these issues with, with that job role and it caused all these other issues. And you know, so by putting one person in leadership over here and then it causes all these problems. If you go use even up, maybe it, you know, it helps a bunch of things here, but uncover some other issues that you didn't know about. [00:11:21] Speaker A: So it's. [00:11:22] Speaker B: So it's never ending and never will be. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Always. There's always a moving target. [00:11:26] Speaker B: It'll never be done. So. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:28] Speaker B: I think that's the thing as an entrepreneur is like, and just be. You have to come to terms with that. It'll never be perfect. It'll never be right. It'll never be done. There's gonna be another fire. And I think if that's not what you want, then maybe it's not for you, but. [00:11:44] Speaker A: Right. [00:11:44] Speaker B: But if you, you can get comfortable with that and say, all right, cool, fix a bunch of problems today. What's the next problems that are gonna surface next and be ready for that versus going crap, it's another problem. Like there's always gonna be another problem. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Absolutely. And also, I mean, you know, when you're looking at it, if you start setting, you know, some goals, whether you know it's some sort of internal function goal or just like a growth goal, once you get that goal, it's not done because then there inevitably should be a next goal. Good friend of mine, he was in the medical waste business, he told me one time, he said, you know, if your business isn't growing, you're dying because there will be someone else out there who is continually trying to grow and then take your market share. So you've got to kind of come to terms with the fact that once you hit a certain level, however you want that to define that parameter or that goal, there has to be a next one because or else there should be someone coming, doing the same thing that you're doing, just better or more efficient. I guess when I first started working with Liking an SEO company. A few years back, you know, I had no idea about how Google worked and SEO and algorithm and all these things. And that's what, you know, part of that rabbit hole and podcast has taught me that those are, that that's another moving target too. Right? Because even if you're, you know, hiring somebody, say, okay, this is our goal and we've hired somebody to handle this. Well, it's always evolving on their end on what they need to do in order to stay on page one or whatever that parameter is that you're looking for. Because Google's changing that all the time. So even though you've tried to take that off your plate, they're still going to come back to you and need you to be proactive and involved to say, hey, we need more of this or more information or content or whatever it is. And that's obviously a revolving door that's never going to stop turning. [00:13:41] Speaker B: No, it's, I talk to obviously law firms all the time about this, but it's, it's a two way street. You don't hire an agency and you sit back and they just do everything. The law firm has a lot of tasks and things they need to be doing, be involved. Community involvement, community events, local sponsorships, creating video, getting on podcasts. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:03] Speaker B: The more you can do as a owner or the brand of the firm, the easier it is for the agency or internal marketing of whatever you have. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:13] Speaker B: The more you're able to commit to those things and make it part of your, your daily habits, the better. You can't just have an agency just may, you know, wave a wand and it's all right. We, we got it figured out and. [00:14:25] Speaker A: Right. [00:14:25] Speaker B: There's nothing else you have to do. It's changing. Yeah. Rapidly. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Out of curiosity, what, how did you end up in the law firm marketing space? Like what brought you there? [00:14:37] Speaker B: Damn it. Good question. So I, back when I was like in middle school, started making websites. It's like late 90s probably, and I just thought it was a fun thing and then went to college for architecture. Did not go there for the woman marketing. But I like to design stuff, build stuff, create stuff. So long story short, into a career in the engineering kind of space. I met some entrepreneurs, like a side kind of group. I didn't own a company, but I was like, I like to make websites. And that kind of people raised their hand like, yo, I need a website. So anyway, I got the bug, left my job, quit and started my own company in 2006 just doing local websites. For Virginia Beach, Virginia Beach, Virginia area. And I just grew that to where I started doing marketing and SEO and web and all that crap. But it was all local, which was cool. But then I, I did the same thing as you. I went down the rabbit hole, went to a mastermind group. They're like, you don't niche. You don't niche into like any industry. I'm like, no, I just, you know, we're local, we work with a bunch of law firms locally, not by design. And again, exposing myself to others that were like, if you niche and you focus and you, you're specific with your message and you become an expert in whatever industry you pick, that's how you really build and scale and attract, you know, the right kind of client. [00:16:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:06] Speaker B: And so it was a process of elimination. You know, we, we, we had a bunch of medical clients, we had law firm clients, we had lots of home services clients. We just chose law and kind of profiled out what our, our clients look like, which ones were fun to work with. I've, I've mentioned this to you before, but I have a H vac home service marketing company, so we kind of did both. So it was like, hey, we're going to do this over here and start this over here. I've always been the face of the legal side. That's who I hang out with. That's, that's, that's all I do. So, yeah, man, you can pick some better friends. I know. You know, so I'm really reconsidering. No, I've just met so many great people in this, this industry and so many good lawyers that are passionate, they're fun, they're casual, they're cool. It's, it's not. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:54] Speaker B: What the, the world would think lawyers are. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:16:58] Speaker B: I think that's been a really cool process. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:01] Speaker B: We're all here trying to build our businesses, help people, and lawyers help a lot of people. Absolutely. [00:17:07] Speaker A: And that is one thing that I've, like, if you look at what Dan Ambrose does with his podcast and his, you know, business, he's obviously really trying to help and teach people to hone their skills. And then there's a, there's a guy here in South Carolina named Kenny Berger who's an outstanding attorney. He's got a great podcast called Best Practices where similarly he talks with other lawyers as well and about certain case specific things, which, that's another really interesting part. And going down this like, rabbit hole in that, you know, yes, we are all competing against each other. And like the guy down the street, right? [00:17:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:49] Speaker A: But I feel like when you go to Pilma and you start, you know, engaging in these groups, there's a very cohesive goal of helping people because we're all, you know, we are either litigating against the insurance industry, which is probably the largest lobby in the country, or the government, which is the largest, you know, entity that you've got to go against. Right. I don't know if I didn't expect it, but the amount of resources and people that wanting to help other people and put them in the best place because, you know, there's always going to be a lot of business. Right. You know, like Charleston, we have grown exponentially and have essentially the same amount of roads that we did when I moved here 23 years ago. Right. And far more cars on the road. So, like, there are always going to be a need for services. And so you obviously try to put your. Your business and. And you in the best position to get that. But from a standpoint of when you need help or some advice or, you know, a lot of people are seeing these Amazon cases. I forgot which podcast I think it might have been on, the Great Trials podcast, they had a guy on that does a lot of Amazon work in figuring out how to, you know, attack certain things that everybody's there for the betterment of our industry, which I think is very good, because that's what people need when they're hurt, you know? [00:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean it for this, you know, for you all to get better as law firm leaders, to start your own firms, to be there as a service. They have a community to help you give better client experience, represent them better in the courtroom and in your cases. And then for the great lawyers out there doing the great work, we want them to be the ones that show up when someone's looking for help, not just a person that can buy ads and have a facade and not be a community, actual contributor. So. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Right. [00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's. That's, you know, that's my podcast is all about, is these stories and someone go, oh, damn, I didn't know that. I didn't. I didn't know I could use that. Or I'm going to apply that into my. My firm, my business. So. So, yeah, there's such a great community, tons of resources. Anyone listening? If you're a solo starting out, whatever, to say there's no help out there is crazy. You just got to look there's. And. And go down the rabbit hole like. Like Merit has done. So he's just at the Start of it. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Yes. That's what my, my poor wife. When we go anywhere, you know, my parents live a couple hours away and got family like five hours away. So we road trip a lot and as soon as we get in the car, boys fall asleep and it's like, all right, podcast. [00:20:53] Speaker B: She's like mowing the lawn again. Yeah. [00:20:56] Speaker A: She hears like the intro music and she's like, oh really? Well, you're gonna go to sleep anyway. I need my wife always something beneficial to come out of this. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah, my wife always goes to sleep. The kids usually, they don't go to sleep as easy now because they're old, but older but still they're on their phones with their, with their headphones on at this point. [00:21:17] Speaker A: So we're not there yet. We've got two and a half year old and a ten month old. So, you know, give them a snack and their water bottle. They'll usually fall asleep there pretty shortly. But that's a whole different set of circumstances, challenges than the phones and the iPads. [00:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah, everything costs more. I'll say that. I wanted a gaming computer. Holy crap. Like that's, you know, I remember when Christmas was like 200 bucks a pop and now it's like a couple thousand. Yeah, well, so, yeah, pro tip. Yeah, there's, there's so much access to things now and there's a lot of people trying to help. There's tons of groups just go down the rabbit hole like Merit Son, like. Or just go to Kevin Hardison Pilma. You go to how to manage a small law firm. There's another big group mainly for solos that are starting out. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:11] Speaker B: So there's so much stuff out there, but I definitely advise anyone to get off their ass, go travel and get in the room. Yeah, it costs more set, but if you've never gone to one, like it'll change, you know. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Definitely a little bit intimidating. I was kind of nervous. So as you said earlier, you know, my wife came out there with me, but the first day when I got out there for registration, I flew in and she didn't come till the next day. And I obviously didn't know what to expect. And my friend Amy, who was supposed to be there with her husband Justin, they ended up not being able to go. So I was sitting there like now I don't know anybody. Trey, when are you getting here? And walking in that room and the, the vendor area is just like huge. I mean it was, it was an eye opening experience that definitely beforehand was a little bit intimidating just based on the Unknown. But then you get in there and you start meeting people and then you start seeing people that, you know, like Dan Ambrose, listen to his podcast and then see him walk around. Right. That's tracks. And everybody's obviously great, like you said. And there is, you know, that that first step, not going, not having been to one definitely changed things because I will absolutely be it super summit again next year. And I've already started looking at others kind of for different perspectives too. Like, definitely want to go do TLU at some point. Knowing that once you kind of rip that band aid off or at least, you know, open the door to go down the rabbit hole, that is definitely something that gives you a little bit of hesitation. But it. It was a great experience. Now I look forward to doing it more. [00:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I preach it all the time. And again, I might, you know, I might be there. I was. I'm kind of a vendor, if you will. Although I. I always just set up to be. To do this podcast instead of. [00:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:13] Speaker B: You know, trying to. Trying to be a vendor, but like going to the sessions and learning and like, I run a business too, so it's. A lot can be applied, A lot can be learned. And not maybe just the attorneys, but if you're a larger firm, you're second in command. Maybe you have coo, maybe you have other people. Yeah, they can all. They can all benefit from one of these as well. [00:24:33] Speaker A: Also, another real big takeaway that I have from there is even just outside the legal industry, the biggest thing that you're to see going on right now is AI right. And the use of ChatGPT or Claude or all of these different things that you can use, which I think that my initial perspective was probably much more negative than it is now, in a sense that ChatGPT and all of these things are now as good as they ever have been, but six months from now, they will be demonstrably better. Which is one of the reasons that we kind of used even up that if you. You have to have some sort of embracing of that and the benefits that it can provide, because I don't think that we are an industry that will ever. You know, everybody talks about it taking away the need for a lawyer because it can draft a contract, what have you. You know, at least in our business, in criminal defense and personal injury, you are litigating. ChatGPT cannot represent you in court, but what it can do is it can help you run more efficient and keep things kind of streamlined, which is obviously beneficial. If you don't embrace it then I think you will absolutely get left behind. [00:25:56] Speaker B: And yeah, it'd be like not, it'd be not like not using email when email came out. [00:26:00] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:01] Speaker B: You know, I mean, it ain't going nowhere. [00:26:03] Speaker A: There's so many different systems out there that I think that, you know, a lot of them do very similar functions. Right. You know, there's a lot of AI intakes now, which I think a year ago I've said, that's, that's crazy. I hate talking to a robot when I'm trying to call somebody. Right. But now as this technology's gotten so much better, I think that there's a lot of people that I wouldn't say enjoy but don't have any aversion to communicating with some sort of AI system on a telephone because it's more efficient and can be better than a real person. Right? [00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah, they're trying to get, they're trying to get something accomplished. So. [00:26:42] Speaker A: Right. [00:26:42] Speaker B: Sometimes it depends, depends on the step in the process, maybe. But to your point, you're like completely against it now. It's like, ah, maybe, maybe not. Merit was on my Mastermind that we just had on this week, and one of my clients, who's a personal energy attorney, has developed his own AI intake. He might even come back next time on the Mastermind to share what he's done, but he's doing it himself. [00:27:10] Speaker A: I'm looking forward to hearing about that because I've got friends that are in the IT world and that's what they do. And they're like, you can build this. And I'm like, dude, I'm lucky to navigate my safari tabs, much less build some sort of AI agent on my own. But there are so many, just so many things that if you find, you know, what fits best for you, because they all have different little niches or different little additives that may work better for you, like randomly. The guy from even up who came and met with me, he and I had known each other through just some mutual friends several years back. We're excited to kind of start with them here in the next week or so. And I'll be interested to see the difference in the next, you know, 90 days to six months on how keeps everything together and streamlines the process on, you know, you know, what your next steps are. But where are. Yeah, it's kind of like, like a running tally of everything that's got to get done to the next point, right? [00:28:16] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I mean, there's just, there's so many companies out there. I'VE had a lot of them on the show, but even up Ray, one of the. The founders, I've had Eve on the show. There's all kinds of competitors and there's. There's so much. It's overwhelming how many things are out there. But I think it's a good step to say, hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna dip my toe in the water and, and see how it works. And you're investing in AI, which is. Which is great. So, yeah, I just came back from a law firm like AI Workshop last week that I spoke at, and, you know, lawyers, solos and big ones sitting there, you know, trying to figure out some of the stuff themselves, build their own systems. But yes, there's so many good systems out there that you can buy versus you having to go do it yourself. So. [00:28:58] Speaker A: Right. [00:28:59] Speaker B: Depends on kind of your appetite. [00:29:01] Speaker A: And also, I think one thing that I was a little bit. Probably a little bit misguided on was that, you know, obviously my version to using like Chat GPT in the past or something similar was that a. It's not secure. So there have been a lot of issues with people kind of across the country putting things in that shouldn't be in there. Right. So that's a risk factor that I was like, you got to avoid that. And then also it coming off as if you were to ask Chad GPT to create some sort of document or letter for you. You know, especially nowadays, you can kind of tell and see that the AI has created your document or your product. Yeah. And it seemed a little bit just like, kind of lazy to me. But then when you start kind of really getting to know what's available, it's just something that can make you better. It's like for. For instance, I would assume that in your business, you know, we see a lot of things that Google will, like if you're talking about content or a blog post or, you know, something like that, you know, I've heard that it will flag and not treat it as, like, genuine content. Right. There are ways that it can. You know, it's just like anything else. It's like a tool. Like, do you want to use an electric saw or do you want to use a hand saw? [00:30:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You just got to know where to use it. And, you know, this is something I'll end with is, you know, we've kind of chosen to go all. In my business anyway, we could do all AI, we could go all offshore or we could go all real employees than an office. You know, we've Kind of gone all three. So it's. We have support in South America. Awesome, awesome team of people that are layers in the middle. We have full time people in the US that do the majority of our creative work strategy. They guide it. And then there's AI that can be used in the middle. And you always want to have a human oversight check everything and, and yeah, you know, so if we wrote a blog, yeah, AI could write the blog, but we build the instructions, it can write the blog, and then we can have humans come back to refine it and make it a custom piece. So there's all kinds of ways you can use it. And, and now like if you're a lawyer, if you're making videos, you're doing podcasts, the transcripts can be taken and given to your marketing team. They can use the transcripts to write the blog, which is your, which is your voice, which is unique. And it's not going to, to be AI generated. Use AI because it can help you, but just don't be careless with it and. [00:31:33] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:33] Speaker B: And don't use it. Don't use 100% AI ever. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Agreed. [00:31:39] Speaker B: You'll be safe. Well, cool, man. Merit, I appreciate you. A lot of people are probably in your shoes, where you're at trying to hire that next attorney. You had an attorney, but it looks like you're hiring again soon. Go down the rabbit hole, go to some events, you know, listen to some of these awesome podcasts that are out there. [00:31:54] Speaker A: There's plenty of them and they're all very helpful. [00:31:57] Speaker B: You mentioned a bunch, so I appreciate that. What is the best way for folks that want to connect with you? Maybe they have a need for your type of law in South Carolina. Maybe they don't have a good referral partner. What's the best way to reach you? [00:32:11] Speaker A: Website is www.the farmer law firm.com. my email address is m.farmer the farmer law firm.com and our number is 843-306-4144. Anybody can shoot me an email. Happy to help them any way we can. Thank you for having me on. [00:32:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, thanks for joining me and yeah, I look forward to seeing you soon in other places. Conferences, the mastermind and, and your inevitable [00:32:39] Speaker A: trip down to Charleston. [00:32:40] Speaker B: I know he's trying to get me to go to Charleston, which is not going to be too hard to do. It's going to get the, the wives to align and we're being just fine. [00:32:50] Speaker A: This is a fun trip. [00:32:52] Speaker B: It's gonna be a fun trip. So looking forward to that. And Met Merit I mean, we might have met briefly at the conference, but [00:32:59] Speaker A: briefly at the conference. And then sitting there, the one restaurant bar there in San Antonio. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Now there's one. Don't walk too far. You're gonna go past it and then you come back, so. But yeah, you never know who you're gonna meet, you know? So just put yourself out there and show up. And I think that's a great, great takeaway from today's show, so. Well, everyone, thanks for listening to another episode. I hope you get to run into Merit, meet him, reach out to him. If you want a direct connection to him, please let me know and I'll. I'll make it happen. [00:33:32] Speaker A: I appreciate that, Merit. [00:33:33] Speaker B: You hang on with me. Everyone else, we'll see you on the next episode. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Sounds good. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Kevin. Yes. [00:33:39] Speaker B: S [00:33:43] Speaker A: sa.