Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Then I would say for any solo or like anybody who's trying to grow, that's kind of the most important thing to keep in mind. If you're going to expect immediate gratification, it will not be there. You have got to invest the funds and it's going to take six months to a year to really kind of start seeing where that, that effort.
[00:00:33] 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. Well, hello everyone. What's up? Welcome to the show. Thank you for tuning in and listening and I'm excited to have a guest here. Not just a guest, but a client and a friend. I got Shannon here, she's with East Coast Elder Law and she's really impressed the hell out of me. She's growing a business very fast.
And again on this podcast, we're, we're here to help lawyers that either solo starting up or just stuck and looking for, for some tips, some, some things that can apply to their firms to, to better their business. So, Shannon, welcome to the show.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: I guess, you know, your background leading up to starting your own firm, you're just, what, a year year into owning your own firm.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Historically, I actually have a business background, so my undergrad was in business, which has played. Lended itself very well into running a law firm. And that's just because, hey, they don't teach us that stuff in law school. And prior to that, I was with another law firm. Fresh out of law school for 10 years. I was made shareholder very young, I think in 2016, right after I had my twins. And, you know, I thought that I was gonna be there for the rest of my life. You know, I didn't hate it, but things were changing, so it was time for me to leave. I had a very abrupt ending there.
But, you know, that is where I was able to hone my skills, really. You know, I work in a very niche practice area and so I was able to have kind of that support, learn my network, and kind of learn about what my practice area even was. Cause prior to going into it, I had no clue what elder law was. Then I ended up with another local law firm for a period of two years while I was trying to work on some things, there was some toxic stuff that happened in my old firm that I needed to kind of shake before I went out on my own. We. We probably all knew that I wasn't going to stay at that other firm for forever because I do have that business mindset and I'm a very niche practice. And what you'll find out with the Elder law bar is the vast majority of us do have smaller firms. You're not going to necessarily find a bunch of elder law practitioners and, you know, those big international or national firms. So. Started my firm in March of. It's March 31st of 2025, and we have been growing ever since.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: It's been crazy to watch. And so Shannon's also here in Virginia beach, which is where I live, and so she's right here in our backyard. So how many offices do you have at this point?
[00:03:11] Speaker A: So we currently have three offices. So I've got one in Virginia beach, one in Newport News. And then we do have a Moyak location as well, because I did bring on a North Carolina attorney. She's wa for her Virginia license now, but I am licensed. We got four states covered, though. So that's the other big thing is that I went to law school in Maryland, so I now swore into Maryland. I've had my Pennsylvania license for quite a while. I've got my Virginia license, and then we've got the North Carolina attorney. So we're currently able to represent people in four states.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Again, just, it seems like every other other month I see you asking our team because you have a new office or some new location that you have to. To set up so.
Well, you know, is awesome.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: Well, we had some, like, transition thing. It was when Brittany first came on, she was living in Asheville. That's kind of where she's from. She wanted to start before she came down here. So we had the Asheville location. And then what happened was, is trying to find space up around like the Elizabeth City, Moyak area is very problematic. They don't have a whole lot of commercial space. And so we kind of like went back and forth. And then we were able to kind of now land in the Moyak. We do have a lease agreement and kind of everything else to where it's a permanent location for us.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: This point should have gone Outer bank, so we have somewhere to go visit.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Trust me, my staff has already requested that I get an Outer Bank's office. It's like, let's see, it's got a
[00:04:29] Speaker B: big beach house and we'll call it the Office.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: And yes, I will live down there.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: And your vendors get to use it as well.
So, you know, so yeah, but just kind of, you know, a year and a few months, like in business. So. But you're. You're Rolling. And obviously you have the business background, business mindset, and you have a niche area that you work in, which I think is super important. You know, a lot of law firms I see, I, I get starting out early on if you don't really know where you want to be. And you know, a lot of lawyers just take on whatever they can. But the most successful that, the most successful ones I see, they really niche or hyper niche, even if it's like personal injury. And they're like, well, I only do truck accidents or I only do, you know, they seem to just fare well, better and they grow faster. And then, you know, I've also seen where they, they do that and then they can, they can kind of, you know, tack on other areas later.
But that's once they've been successful, they've built the company to a place that can grow and scale. They have great systems in place.
Then you can say, hey, let's, let's add on these other things.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: So I think the world of general practitioners is kind of gone, right? The law has just become so overly complex. Right. We've got to really figure out what's going to make us differentiate ourselves from other people, right. So very early in my career, I became known as the special needs girl. You know, I've been tapped into the disability community since I was in high school. And so I worked for nine Cerebral Palsy of Delaware when I, during my summer camps and when I was in law school. Once again, didn't know elder law was a thing. Didn't know special needs planning was a thing. None of it. And within my first six months, I actually worked on my first personal injury case because I work on the back end of them. Let's be clear, I'm not the one getting the money. I'm helping protect the money whenever it's all been received. And I kind of just latched onto it, right? The very. I had to do a what's called special needs trust with the settlement protection trust and a Medicare set aside. So the most complex that I can possibly get in the personal injury realm, I just kind of latched onto it and grew. And I am one of only a few people in the country now at this point in time that does the personal injury level or the personal injury planning to the level at which I do. So I'm friends with a lot of the settlement planners, I'm friends with, you know, attorneys throughout the country because ultimately these cases come in, they could be from any state and I serve as the national council and bring in my Friends from around the country to help me kind of push through whatever I need to do. And so that early on, just kind of became one of my little, like, sub niches that even people with my credentialing don't always do.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: That's well, smart. And it sounds like something you. You kind of recognize or saw an opportunity in. In the short amount of time that you've been in business for yourself. Obviously, you've been doing this a long time, so it's had time to think and plan, which you kind of told us that a little bit. What is really, you know, some of your goals and. And. And plans, you know, as you go Again, I feel like you've done a lot in a short amount of time.
But what do you see? What's it look like and. And maybe what challenges do you foresee or you're having at the moment?
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Whenever I created the firm, I think the biggest thing was, is to not lose the personal element in what I do. Right. My practice area, I still get hugs. One of the old firms I worked at, you know, they're more general practice or. Or like, you know, they kind of do a bunch of different things, and they're like, your clients bring you food, they bring you gifts, and they give you hugs. I'm like, well, yeah. Cause I have a very touchy feely one. Right. It had gotten to the point at my first firm where it just became about the money. Right. And so in my mind, that's always something that I am keeping in the back of. It is whenever I'm no longer passionate about what I'm doing, I know that I've lost touch with the fundamental principles of what I do. I believe that that approach has also led to a lot of my success, because I get routinely that we feel like you're very genuine. What you see is what you get. In my firm, there's not a lot of, like, false pretenses and kind of everything else. I don't think that I'm better than anybody walking through the door. And even from a team level, right? Yeah, it's my firm. But I want everybody to treat my staff the same exact way that they would treat me. They're on an equal playing field for me in that standpoint. So that's just kind of, you know, where we're at now from a growth perspective. I do want to bring on more attorneys. I want to be able to kind of teach them what I know because it is a niche practice area. We've got a baby boomer generation coming up there's only so much that I can do from a certified elder law attorney perspective. Pretty soon it's only two of us, right? You've got Leith McDowell, who is a very dear friend of mine and me.
Andy Hook just retired at the end of June and he's only kind of, you know, semi doing it. And then you've got Sandy Smith, who is also, from what I understand, partially retired. So, you know, we've got a very incredibly technical practice area with not a whole lot of knowledge. So I want to be able to bring in people, get them to grow, and then obviously grow the firm too, to where it's not me at 2 o' clock in the morning managing case files because I'm meeting with clients literally all day, every day, going home, I'm doing the work. I do work very late because also on the weekends, as you know, because you watch my social media, I am very active with the girls in particular on the weekend and that is my time to spend with them. So that's kind of where we're at. I think my biggest struggle is right now in terms of getting there, is there are law schools that are no longer teaching trust and estates, which is problematic. You know, we've got drafting software and everything else that's kind of come out to where people think that it replaces the knowledge that I have. But we even have attorneys who are leaving litigation to come into our field and they don't have the tax knowledge, they don't have the very technical expertise that you actually kind of need to get some of this stuff done.
And so I am having a very difficult time finding the quality staff that I want to be able to bring in because it's going to be a lot of hard work if it, if you're new to the game. Right. I, whenever I was first, my first year of practice, my husband was deployed and it was just me. Right. So I had nothing better to do than just really learn and hone my skills and kind of do what I needed to do.
And that's very, I think, difficult, you know, with some of the challenges that we have in the modern workforce in particular.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Those are all good points right there. So I don't, I don't meet very many attorneys in your space, especially as niche as you are.
I was somewhere, I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and I was talking to you attorney. I can't remember their name for some reason, but they were elder law and I mentioned your name. They're like, oh, yeah, definitely know her. And she's One of the best out there. So, so, and this is like, I think I was in Florida somewhere. But so yeah, it's, it's a, it's a small network is what it sounds like to me. Yeah, yeah. AI is obviously playing a big game. The summit, the thing I was at was an AI summit. So it was a lot of estate planning firms there, PI firms, a bunch of firms, but they're just to learn how to implement AI and build out things in their own systems and how they're used to be efficient. Yeah. I think the main thing remains my, my thoughts and a lot of other experts I talked to is attorneys aren't going to be replaced. It's not going to go away. But, but obviously a lot of staff is being replaced in different systems and processes. I think I, I thought attorneys are like hey, we're, we're already switched over and we're fully intake and our phone systems and everything. And then I know other ones on the other side that are like hell no, never, no matter what.
And I think there's some in the middle too that are like, well if my phone will get not answered at all then maybe I have something that's a solution in between to help the client make sure they get someone on the phone.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: But well, I think you have to understand your client.
[00:12:03] Speaker B: What are your thoughts on that?
[00:12:04] Speaker A: You have to understand your client first. Right. I'm dealing with seniors. There was actually a big admin meeting that we had about how many rings am I going to let it go through before it goes over to my call service? Because I do have a backup call service. I run a very lean team right now.
Right. I've got two on intake. One of them was part time. The other one also helps me with some of my marketing stuff. And then I've got my two paralegals and then I've got one other attorney. Right. Very. And we're running a seven figure firm. I was running a seven figure firm before I brought on the other attorney. So it is about the systems and processes and, but if I tried to have an AI intake system for my 80 year old clients it would be problematic.
And I'm the first person that if I am not getting to where I need to go, I'm going to hang up. Right. So I get frustrated even understanding the technology.
Even worse, I had a very bad experience as actually a dominion power.
I am the fiduciary for an elderly couple and I need to get their cable or no, it was Cox I think. I don't know. I Don't know. Anyways, one of, one of the service prizes, Dominion or Cox, um, but they have. I cannot get through to a live person. I'm literally screaming at the phone, right? Being like live person help, like just trying to get around. And it's funny too because I was like, I don't want to talk to a robot, I need to talk to a person. I'm not a robot, right. And it's literally the same repeating of the, the conversation there. And so I don't want my clients to experience that. So I just don't think that we're at a point where I can implement AI on the intake side. But that said, I have a lot. I've had systems in place for a very long period of time. I can't run a seven figure law firm not having very good systems in place, you know, and we're doing volume. I work in a commoditized practice area, not necessarily for the long term care planning side, not for the special needs side, but from a general estate planning side. People only got to pay so much, right? They're not going to pay $20,000 for a revocable living trust based plan. So it's about having those systems to kind of get done what we need to do. Those systems are going to get us about 90% to where we need to go. So I've been using, it's interesting because I've talked to some of the companies that want to integrate, you know, that can help you integrate AI.
And I've got such a robust hot doc system that I've built out because you know, people are building their own creative AI agents and they're all, you know, whatever, but they're like, you really already have it built into hot docs. And so, you know, I sat in on like a DEED AI seminar hosted by one of my colleagues and it's interesting because he was talking about it takes, I think he said in a half an hour he can get the deed done. Right. I talked to my staff and I said, okay, using HotDocs, if I need to draft a transfer on death deed, how long is it taking you? Right. And we went through the process of them actually pulling it from the courthouse and actually getting the data into hot docs and generating it. It was taking 20 minutes.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: I don't need AI, you know what I mean? So I don't need AI to kind of do that.
But I've been using technology for a long period of time now. That said, I'm trying to build databases and everything else. As I'm bringing on staff, they've got a resource and a tool that it's like, hey, you can enter this in, Claude, which is what we're using.
And, you know, it'll help kind of come up with the answer that they need without necessarily coming to me. Because one of the ways that I train is actually, you know, early on, I'll approach the answer, the question, but I will always say, you know, at a certain point in time, I'm like, I don't know, what. What do you think? Normally they look at me, right? And I'm like, until you have an answer, why don't you go find an answer, look at it, and then we'll talk about yes or no in terms of that answer. Because otherwise they're being dependent on me and running the firm. I don't have time to. For anybody to be dependent on me. Right?
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And that's. If you become that person where you just.
They know that you're going to give them the answer, then they're going to all continue to come to you, and that's. You're training them to just ask you more questions. Yeah, my business partner's always been like that. We use Google Drive, and now we have Gemini and Drive, which is pretty awesome. This is back when we first became partners. Like, anyone would ask him, or even I would be like, hey, do we have this? Whatever? I don't know. Do you check Drive?
No. It's like, you know, so you have to get to that. That place where, hey, have you gone and done any research or tried to find the answer yourself? And if, you know, go, go do it and come back if. If you still have a problem, yeah, I'm going to help you out. But, yeah, we have to wire our staff. And I think that's the challenging thing when you're growing and scaling. It's like, delegating is challenging, I think, for lawyers, especially if they've been a solo or they're. They're, you know, they've done it themselves for a long time. I think it's really difficult, but it's an ongoing issue. This happens to me all the time, delegate almost everything, and then new projects come about, new ideas come about, and now you're doing a bunch of shit again. And then you're like, wait a minute, why am I. It usually takes someone else to go, hey, Kevin, why. Why are you doing this? Or why is that on your calendar? I don't know. I. And then you gotta delegate again. So I think it's almost like an audit, you know, every once in a while you have to kind of take for yourself because you'll slip right back into, you know, wanting to handle things.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: But I think that that's why, you know, that you're running a good business, right? Like, I think that fundamentally, whenever you can delegate and it's like, hey, I'm in a smooth position, let's take some more stuff on. Now all of a sudden it's like, okay, you're back into it. It becomes like your little baby, your little project, right? And you've got to get it back off. It is funny because my team is very familiar with the phrase, is that my highest and best use, right? And so even from my paralegals perspective, as we're kind of doing certain things, I'll be like, is that something you should be doing or should we bring that back down to the admin level and let them do it? Is this your highest and best use? I need you guys drafting plans or dealing with probate courts or, you know, whatever it might be. I don't need you scanning in this big set of documents that were dropped off, right? And so that's kind of how I deal with it. Is this my highest, highest misuse?
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's a great, yeah, just have something like that in, in your office or you know, sticky on your, you know, your monitor, but just something to keep that reminder that's, that's good to have built in your culture for sure and having that growth minded culture of hey, we're, we're trying to grow, we're trying to scale so we can help more clients, whatever your, your why is. But if you have a, a team that also sees and agrees with that and you continue to, to talk about that, then they look for efficiencies, they look to remove stuff off your plate, they come up with solutions.
And that's, you know, when you start to kind of really go, wow, this is, you know, I got a team that's, you know, performing, but they're also, they're better than me at most of this stuff. And so let them do their thing. I forgot there was a book, I know this is in a couple books, but there was a book I read, it was a short book on a plane one time. But it was like you kind of audit your day and this one had like, it was $10 an hour work, a hundred dollar an hour work, thousand dollars an hour work, and then $10,000 per hour work. And so obviously anything in that's $10 an hour you should get rid of and even a hundred dollar an hour work as the owner.
But it was kind of like you break it down, you know, you track your day and, and, and try to make a list of all these things over like a week and, and then it's kind of eye opening, honestly, but, but it was like if you could do $10,000 an hour work at least once a week, that'd be like speaking, maybe recording a podcast like this, something that's extraordinary, that has benefits that are hard to track, $10,000 an hour work, you should be looking to do as many hours as that per day. So whether that's new processes, hiring someone, you know, whatever it may be. So I think that's a good exercise to get through.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Well, it's interesting too because when you look at my practice area, probably compared to most other practice areas, right. I still shake hands and kiss babies on a regular basis. Right. I've got to be out in the community. So I mean, you guys handle, you know, all the marketing stuff that, you know, is way beyond my technical expertise. I was always taught from a very kind of early on in my career that it takes time to build that brand. It takes time to build the marketing. Right. And even though I may go to these like senior advocate events or, you know, I've got actually at 4:00, I'm going to present at another assisted living community. They want to be on some resource panel. Am I going to get something immediately from that event? Maybe not. But what? I mean, if you have dealt with people, you were down in Florida. I've got no clue who you're talking about, but there are different attorneys around the country. Be like, oh yeah, I know, Shannon, right? I, you know, I've taught at Stetson School of Law. I teach at the National Special Needs Trust Conference on a regular basis, but that didn't come overnight. And I would say for any solo or like anybody who's trying to grow, that's kind of the most important thing to keep in mind. If you're going to expect immediate gratification, it will not be there. You have got to invest the funds and it's going to take six months to a year to really kind of start seeing where that, that effort is. Right. And so as you know, I'm in various groups, even on Facebook, and like they talk about like they're trying to DIY all their own Google, all their own whatever. And once again, I'm like, that is not my highest, best use. And I know that there's Professionals that are going to be much more proficient in this than me. Yeah. There's an ongoing cost associated with that. But number one, it lets me focus on the clients, which is how I'm bringing in the money to begin with. And then number two, right. At some point in time, it kind of like it becomes this cycle where you've built this brand reputation you're working with.
So what? Google, I think, just did a, like a change where from that. Whenever I was talking to Christina the other day, she was telling me that they just did something within the algorithm or, you know, something where it's like, then you guys had to get it all caught up. Well, that's something that I'm not paying attention to. Right. That's why I have you guys. But I think that is the number one thing that I learned early on is that for me, I've got to be in the community. I'm not going to get immediate gratification. That is a cost. Right. I do not pay my staff, like from an attorney level, you don't get paid to do that. You're building your brand and your, you know, your personal brand, not just the firm brand. And that any marketing efforts that you do, it's going to cost on the front end via time or money? Both. But then once it's in there, it makes your life so much easier. I mean, I was able to jump from one firm over to another.
The other firm really didn't have to market me a whole lot. Right. I mean, and I was still doing seven figures for them. And then I was able to jump into my own firm and basically double what I was doing over at the other firm.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Spot on, 100%. I, I just did a workshop on where I did like, you know, I cover like personal brand. For lawyers that own a law firm, there's always going to be that, that one attorney or personal brand that's tied to the firm. We can't do it without the firm and the lawyers being part of it. We can't just have this, like, faceless firm that doesn't want to participate, doesn't want to be in the community, doesn't want to be on video, doesn't want to do social.
We can't just, you know, we can't do anything with that. We have to have the firms participate. They have to agree with the strategy. And it's, it's a, it's an ongoing strategy. Right. So to your point. And it, it compounds. It's like investing. Like, you start it, you're paying for it. You're doing stuff, you're putting your name out there, you're showing up. It compounds and it starts to, you know, just get bigger and better as time goes. I hear folks like, yeah, well, I don't think I can compete. I don't, you know, I just started. There's a lot of big firms in my market. You just got to get started. You're not going to just, you know, be competitive with them the first day, but you keep doing it, you're consistent, and next thing you know, you're taking market share, you're getting clients, and they might take their eye out the ball because they're maybe they're just, you know, sitting back then.
They've had the reputation for a long time, and that can go a long way. But things are changing to your point. You know, Google changes all the time. AI search looks at different places to recommend you, and you can get there quicker than you think. As far as, you know, a firm sitting back, they haven't made new strategies. They're not doing some of the things that we're doing.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Well, the ones that are just relying on billboards and like, what they've always done, right? Like, they maybe they don't even have a major SEO strategy or they're not building out backlinks or, you know, whatever the case may be locally. I mean, and I'm kind of blessed in that I don't have the personal injury attorney competition. Right.
And I'm fully aware of that. But, you know, there are some players that have been around a lot longer than me. And whenever I first started the firm, thank God I did have my personal brand because I have had clients who have followed me through things, and I get tons of referrals just from other professionals and from prior clients and whatever. But I am competing against these people. One of, one of the firms here locally have been in existence for over 100 years. Right. I mean, they weren't specialized in the elder law practice, but, you know, now they are. They were the original. They're the OG elder law attorneys in the area. Guess what? I'm competing against them. Right? And I know because I used to be there, I know what their market.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: I know what firm that is.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Yes.
I try not to use any names, but I know what the marketing budget was right. Whenever I was there. And I'm not paying what they paid. And I'm doing. And I'm doing just fine.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: I mean, literally, again, you're focused on each. Yeah, you have a niche. You got to focus. You're able to separate that. And so yeah, and anyone listening like you can compete. You just have to have a strategy, you have to be consistent and yeah. Do you have to hire an agency like us? No, not, not necessarily. But I think it's way, you know, weigh your time, energy and effort, what you want to be doing. I'm doing a lot of, you know, talks on brand and we don't really do, we're not a branding company, but I put such an emphasis on it because it's everything, it's so important. And brands, your reputation, it's your culture, it's your. When I call and you answer the phone or someone there does, it's everything. And so if you can tighten that up and have a plan and to work on it and then the attorneys do their part, the marketing agency or marketing internal people do their part and they're row in the same direction, you can get far pretty quickly and you can be a thorn in someone's side very quickly as well and say, hey, where the hell did this, this firm come from? You know, so, and here's the thing
[00:25:34] Speaker A: is too is I want to be working on client work. I want to be meeting with clients, right. I don't want to be messing around with, I mean, yeah, we all, we're going to be dealing with the business of law, right? But I'm looking at numbers and kind of whatever there. But I don't want to be messing around with Google. I don't want to setting up a Bing account. I don't want to be monitoring every time an ad has been disapproved or you know, whatever case may be or need to replenish Bing or whatever it might.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: I agree. I don't want to do that stuff either.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Well, that's because you have delegated all that down too.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: But no, you told me that the Google, you said the Google change. I'm like, I don't know, I'll check, I'll check.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: I love that. I knew that. And you didn't even know
[00:26:10] Speaker B: about vacation things.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: I mean, think about it. You're not making money by doing those things, right?
You, you outsource that highest and best use and then at the end of the day you've got the clients coming in the door and those are the ones paying you and those are, that's where the work needs to be done. And once you are so busy just dealing the work right now, you can delegate down. You know, I, I literally open with three staff. For most people starting their own firm, it's them and them Right. Maybe one other person. I open my doors with me and three other people.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: I've had a lot of solos on this show that hired in the first, you know, a few people in their first year, and I know other ones that are still solo for decades. So it's, it's a matter of your mindset and what your goals are and, and, and what you want to do.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Quality of life, right? Do I pay for things during the week? I said that earlier. Right. There are days that I'm working till 2 o' clock in the morning. My kids absolutely despise it. I do try to, like, you know, get dinner on the table and we sit around and have dinner, but I have to have a team even at home. Right. Like, I don't take care of my own house. I've got people that I've got to outsource that to. My kids have had a nanny since they were babies. Why? Because I don't have time to be toting them back and forth to all their activities and schoolwork. Once again, that's not on me. I got somebody else to help with the schoolwork. But, and, but at the end of the day, number one, if they need discipline is on me. But number two, because I don't tolerate much whenever it comes to them being bad, but, you know, whenever I do have the time with them, it's. I have worked so hard throughout the other time that whenever they get my attention, they 100% get my attention. And nothing's getting ready to come into that.
I do a lot of trips with them. I've traveled more probably in the last year and a half than what I have my entire career. But for me, that's also the time that I can grab my girls, we go somewhere, and once again, I am completely shut down and we get to just go have fun. And so for me, that, you know, even that personal life aspect of it. Some people don't want to work as hard as what I'm working right now. Other people would love to get there. They just don't know how to get there. And so just figuring that out too.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: You make a good point there, too. This is something I've done. The same thing is if you don't want to work that hard, but then you got to go home, do your, your lawn, clean the house, you're still working, you're just doing different things. So, you know, if you get to a point, you know, grow where you can be comfortable and I guess, you know, solo could definitely, you know, lawyer can, can make a Lot of money and be comfortable. But I. I remember, like, it's about a year or two years ago, two years ago, I went and bought a brand new, like, riding lawnmower, you know, just to get a new one. And I never used it. So that same year, I decided that I was like, I'm not going to do this. Like, I come home, spend half my day Saturday doing yard work. Then I don't want to do anything or talk to anybody or hang out. So. So, yeah, I started just getting rid of all that stuff.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Well, I feel like I didn't really have a choice. I mean, I'm. I'm a twin mom, right? So you pop out two of them, there's only so much you can do. They were not on the right sleeping schedules together and whatever. My family is all remote. His family is all remote. And, oh, by the way, he would deploy every other month for 30 days. So it rested a lot on me. So I had to figure it out, right? So nanny, really early on, my mom and dad, whenever they were. Whenever he would be away, they would come from Delaware and help out quite a bit. And I was like, once again, like, I don't got time to do the laundry. I don't got time to do everything else with everything that I want to do. So it was kind of like a forced thing. It wasn't anything that I ever really consciously even thought about. It was just, it takes an army to raise a set of twins from a very young age. Whenever you're pretty much doing it on your own. And also, by the way, I was a business owner at that point in time, right? I mean, you have to kind of balance your priorities. And I'll never forget, my old partner made a comment one time, he was like, you need to figure out what you can. What you can just throw money at, right? To make your life easier. That's also kind of something that I've kind of kept in the back of my mind. Is this something that I want to be doing? And if not, how much it's going to cost me to do something else?
[00:29:57] Speaker B: 100%, I'm pretty sure, you know, I. Multiple people, you know, just making comments to me like, hey, why are you doing this? Or why are you doing that? And at some. At some point it stuck. And I was like, all right, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna take some of this stuff off my plate. Things I don't want to do, right? Some stuff I like doing, like fixing something or woodworking or, like, you know, I like to do some things. It's satisfying to do some things. And so I have a lot of tools and like, I like to make or build stuff, but those are like, for me, that's more like hobby type stuff. Mowing the lawn every single week because it has to be done is just. I have no interest in doing that.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Yes, not too many people do.
[00:30:34] Speaker B: No, some people do like, oh, I listen to podcasts and I do my. Do my thing.
That's cool. But. But no, I. All great tips and information from you today and people get a. A little bit of a, you know, a view into, you know, a startup firm that's, you know, a year and a half into it. What you've done so far, what your plans are, what your struggles might be,
[00:30:55] Speaker A: and if anybody knows good elder law attorneys that want a job, let me know.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, if you're watching this episode, reach out to me or, you know, we'll have Shannon's information out. You can connect with her directly. That's a good question. Right now, before we wrap up, uh, what's the best way for other attorneys that are listening to connect and reach out?
[00:31:15] Speaker A: So I have the most beautiful website that's ever been created over at Array Digital.
Um, I'm pretty biased, but that's a nice website. They did some, like, interesting things whenever they built up my website to kind of give it that, like, more coastal and whatever vibe. So eastcoast-elderlaw.com is my website. My email address is shannonastcoast.com and then our phone number is 757-73474. 584. Don't be surprised if my assistants do Gatekeep. Just make sure you let them know that like, you're another attorney or whatever and then they'll kind of get you through. But I get a lot of stuff that tries to come through. So they've kind of been trained to like, if there are other professionals. As long as you say that, they will get you over to me pretty quick. Yeah.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: Again, if not, you know, always leave a comment. Reach out to me and I'll. I'll do a personal introduction by email or whatever you need. So once again, always good talking to you. I will talk to you often.
We are local and just excited to see you grow and, you know, glad to be able to help you out in some areas and yeah, just excited to see where, where your firm goes.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: So we can thank Luke.
[00:32:22] Speaker B: Thank you. Yeah, I think Luke, look on my sales team, I think. I don't know how he reached out to you did. He called out LinkedIn.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: And it's interesting.
[00:32:28] Speaker B: LinkedIn so you can get to attorneys, you can just.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's interesting.
What he didn't know at the time is I had literally been with another marketing agency who did not do well with me at all. Like I did not get the white glove service, whatever by, oh, I was talking to somebody that you and I mutually know. Once again, I'm not going to drop any names. And she had said, you should really go talk to Kevin at Array. And of course I came from a firm that was using you guys at the time, so I didn't necessarily feel comfortable doing. You know what I mean? Like it wasn't something I was going to do, just whatever.
And literally that night is when Luke messaged me. And so I was like, okay, this is kind of. Sometimes I take signs into account. Right. We just talked about it. I was going to be like hesitant and be a pain in the neck. And then Luke reached out and I was like, why not? And so we met and I had already known the quality of you guys work. So it was an easy no brainer at that point.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it was interesting when I was like, how'd this, you know, go down? So, yeah, whatever works. I appreciate that other person making the recommendation. And then kudos to Luke on my team for, for reaching out. So awesome. Well, Shannon, you stay on with me as we wrap up. We'll say bye to everyone here, but everyone listening. Thank you so much for tuning in to the show, listening to the real stories of firms out there growing at all stages. So whether you're large, solo or even thinking about it, I also have, you know, a lot of folks that listen, if you're listening right now that you haven't started your firm yet. I love when folks reach out and say, hey, I have, I'm about to go on my own, or I'm thinking about it, you know, reach out and you know, if I can connect you with anybody or referral sources, other attorneys, I will do so and look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
Shannon, See you all later.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: It.
