Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Most firms survive. The best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners Podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger.
I'm Kevin. Daisy.
Let's jump in.
What's up, folks? Welcome to another episode of the Managing Partners podcast, My favorite thing to do every single week. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening. And I have a guest on here today, Brian Beckham.
We know a same gentleman, Mr. Or, I'm sorry, Ben Glass. His son's Brian Glass with great legal marketing. Brian's known him for a long time, but kind of listed him as a protege. So excited to have Brian on the show today, talk about himself, firm and just share with all of us so we can learn something and apply it to our own businesses. Brian, welcome to the show.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Kevin. I'm really looking forward to it. We were talking earlier. You said, we're going to get to talk about you a lot. And I said, yeah, that's my favorite subject.
And then you said. And then you said, yeah, all trial lawyers are like that. Which is true.
Or psychologically wired.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: It is. And that's why, you know, podcasts work so easily. You know, you just ask them on and give them a platform and it's just a great, great way to talk to people and meet people. Yeah. And they definitely want to talk about themselves, which is good. So.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Exactly.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: Well, you know, I know you're down in Houston, Texas. Texas, and have a. A great firm down there, but introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. So, Brian Beckham. My firm is VB Attorneys. It used to be via Sanovich and Beckham. And just by saying the name, I think probably figure out why we shortened it. The funny thing is, my partner's name is Vuk. VK Vuya Sonovich. And I'm Brian Beckham. That's the V and the B. But people would always spell his name right, spell my name wrong. And my theory on that was that his name was so hard and took so much energy and concentration to spell right that people were wiped out by the time they got to me. But, yeah, so it was VB Attorneys. We actually celebrated our 20th anniversary last year, which I've had the same partner, the same wife, and the same house for 20 years, which I'll bet there's not a single trial or listening that can say that.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: So you need some change in life, in your life. What's going on over there?
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you can have change. You need to have change. Absolutely. Otherwise you're not growing. But certain things probably are Better if they're pretty consistent. But anyway, started.
Started this firm 20 years ago. You know, I didn't. There's not a single lawyer in my family on either general or on either side, mother or father, as far as I can trace. So I had kind of no mentors when I went to law school. Any idea? I mean, I made really good grades. I was on the Law Review of Texas, was an editor, published a law review note, got cited in the US Supreme Court. So I had the credentials and you know what people do to the University of Texas Law School with those credentials. By and large, they went and worked for big law firms representing huge companies. And so that's what I did, because that's what I thought everybody was supposed to do.
I had a trial. I think it was my second year as a lawyer. And I lost. Lost to a black plumber named Eric LeGrone, who had been hurt falling off a roof. And his lawyer beat my butt in. In trial. And as I was handing the check over to Eric and his lawyer, in the back of my head, I was saying, man, I'm so glad he's getting this money. And I thought to myself, oh, I might be on the wrong side of things, so.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Wrong side of the things?
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Not. Not too long after that, I switched to the plaintiff side. I went and worked for a small firm for a couple years, met Vic there. We kind of looked at each other. We didn't really like the situation we were in for a variety of reasons. And Vic said, I'm leaving. And I said, well, that's interesting. So am I. What are you doing? I don't know. What are you doing? I don't know. What about we start a firm together? Yeah, that's. That's pretty much exactly what happened. And so that was 20. 20 plus years ago. You know, one of the things. I don't know if you've seen this, Gavin. I'm not sure I've seen it, but appliance firm with same partners being in business for 20 years is about as rare as a unicorn. Like, it just doesn't happen. And there are. There are lots of reasons for that. One of the reasons is cause people are selfish and greedy. Another reason is.
And we see this all the time, one of the partners starts cheating on his wife and gets his other guy to cover it up, and it becomes a big mess. Or somebody has some sort of health problems or mental problems, or they don't like what they're doing, or this guy's working harder than this guy. And I'm Jealous and blah, blah, blah. And Vic and I somehow have managed to dodge all of that. And I can tell you, we're talking about the business of law here on this podcast. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that one of the decisions we made when we. The day we started our firm is one of the reasons we're still here today. And that is we decided we were going to be true partners, 5050 partners. And it wasn't. Wasn't necessarily my idea. It was a very experienced lawyer when I was starting my firm. I said, how do you do it? He says, there's two ways to do it. You can be equal partners. That's a true partnership. Or you can have basically an arrangement where people kind of eat what they kill and they get more money if they bring in more business. And he says, if you want a true law firm, be equal partners. If you want a group of lawyers that just happen to sit in the same building and have the same letterhead, then do it the other way. And I'm convinced with 20 years of looking back, that if you, if you're not a 5050 partnership, if you're not an equal, truly equal partnership, your firm will not survive or you're going to have all sorts of problems because it is inevitable that somebody is going to do better than the other person for some period of time. So there's been a year or two where I have more settlements in vuc, but then vice versa. There's been years where I bring in more business, but then vice versa. There's been times where I set up the computer systems and he's out marketing. If, if it's not an equal partnership and I'm working on the computer systems and he's out marketing, I'm going to be pissed that he's doing that because he's making more money. You see what I'm saying? It's not, not a. It's like having a marriage where one partner gets to do whatever they want and the. And the other one doesn't. Like, you can, you can be successful, you can make money, but you're not a partnership unless you're. Unless there's some level of equality. So that. That's basically how I got to where I am today.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Well, that's amazing. I mean, yeah, I've seen a lot, you know, doing marketing for law firms, you know, partners going away or partnerships folding or partnerships dissolving and then starting their own firms, you know, one of them hires us to continue to help them, and the other one, you know, Doesn't. It's definitely something I see often.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: And it's like a cliche at this point, right? Like here, this is the cliche that I see a lot. Lawyers, young lawyers, start a law firm, spend a bunch of money on marketing, start bringing in a bunch of business, and the next thing you know, they're suing each other and breaking up because one guy made 5 cents more than the other guy. Like, it just happens so often. I mean, good friend of mine's involved in this right now, and I'm just kind of chuckling, going, dude, I could have told you that was going to happen the second you open that firm. That's just the way. That's just human nature, proud lawyer nature. So I try to. One of the things that you talked about Ben Glass earlier, one of the things that Ben really.
The details that Ben teaches weren't super helpful to me. What was helpful to me is the mindset that Ben had taught. Ben gave me permission to ask questions about all of this shit. Like, who made the rule that plaintiffs lawyers and as partnerships had to fight and be greedy and like, not like each other and stiff each other on fees? Who. I mean, like, is there, is there another way? Can you just be honest and be fair and not be greedy and maybe you can only afford one Porsche instead. It too, like. And you know what I mean? And so, so Ben, really. Ben really 15 years ago, changed my mindset about a lot of things.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Ben, great mindset. Just a great teacher.
Just a great, great, you know, just showing you what, you know, what life's about and how, how it can be and having a firm that aligns with, with your personal life, not just, you know, being a business that runs you. So he does a great job.
I love following Ben and watching his content and seeing him in person here and there. I was going to be in his. I'm usually at his events, but I wasn't able to go to the one he has this year.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: He's a good person, is the bottom line. If Ben Glass had a hundred million dollars, he would not have a plane. It's just not his personality. You know what I mean? Yeah. Whereas all, all his trial lawyers, all his trialers, the second we can afford a plane or, or renting a plane, that's all we ever post on our social media. It's ridiculous. It's like, hey, look at what I bought. I got a plane. Okay, so in other words, in the, in the day of zoom and video, where you could save your clients tens of thousands of dollars you'd rather fly around in a plane to go to a hearing for. That's stupid. But again, it's kind of this, it's this idea that all those trialers are kind of virtue signaling to each other. Hey, look at my plane. Hey, look at my house. Hey, look at my car.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Well, you're down in Texas, so you have a horse.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: I don't, but. So see, in Texas it's a ranch. It's like everybody buys a ranch.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it has to be ranch.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: You got to be, you gotta have a ranch. I've been trying to talk my wife and let me buy a little ranch, but she doesn't want me to do that. And she's, she's pretty smart, so.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: And she stuck with you this long, so you don't want to mess that up.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: So no kidding.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: You better listen.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Don't want to jinx things.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: So when you started your firm, huh. You know, you, you, you know, I know we talked before know you didn't have initial clients, you didn't have a really source of, of clients coming in. So. And, and you've been successful, the partnerships remained. A lot of good things have, have happened. Obviously you've met with Ben and he's helped you along the way. But you know, what were some, you know, I guess major other major things along the way that have led to where you're at and, and still running a, a successful.
Thank you for tuning in to the show today.
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Now back to the show.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: So yeah, like you said, we started our firm, no cases, no idea how to get cases. They don't teach you how to market in law schools. We had to like, I mean when we first started out, 99% of our business came from referrals. And so the marketing was primarily to those referral sources. You know, we used to take, we had Astro Houston Astro season tickets. I'd be taking people to Astros games two or three nights a week, drinking beer, getting fat, feeling like crap, and spending a lot of time for, for not a great reward. So I remember about 15 years ago, I have a degree in computer science. So I've always been in to technology, at least for the last 40 years. I remember about 15 years ago telling Vic, we need to start getting cases online direct. That'll never happen. There's no way. I said, what if it did? And now 95% of our cases come not from referral lawyers, but from other marketing type efforts like direct to our potential clients. That's been like, to me, the biggest change until about, what's it, 20, 25, until five years ago when everybody went into quarantine. And all of a sudden we realized, Kevin, that the idea of, I mean, think about, think about what we used to have to do. When I first started practicing law, the Houston state courts would have docket call on Friday morning and motion practice, and there would be 30 lawyers that would be required to show up at 9am and sit there. And if you were number 30, you'd be there for five hours listening to everybody else's hearing. And I would look around and I would just think, there's a hundred thousand dollars an hour being built. Like, this is so stupid and inefficient. There's gotta be a better way. I didn't know what it was at the time.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: I do now needed Covid to come along, change things.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah, Covid blew things up, and in a good way. And so, you know, I tell people, this is the example I use. Right after Covid, I had a case in federal court in Pittsburgh and I had like eight hearings one month on different days before COVID That's $200,000 in expenses for me to fly up eight times for literally a 10 minute hearing. It is.
Well, if I got my own plane, it'd be twice as much. But of course, all everybody, everybody that saw me do it would think I was successful. Right? Cause I have my own plane. That means I'm better than everybody else. I think that's, that's the idea. But anyway, I had this. So instead of $200,000 in completely unnecessary costs and expenses to my clients, I had eight hearings that took 15 minutes each, that cost $0 because I was able to hop up on a zoom call. And the courts have been really receptive to this, which I'm super happy about, because unlike most of the courts, some of my colleagues, the second quarantine was over. Said, everybody come back to the office right now. And I'm like, why? Like, because that's the way we've always done it. Well, that's not a, that's not a reason. That, that's a, that's A very poor reason. So, I mean, I understand why people want some in office stuff.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: I'm in twice a week. That's it. I'm here today.
I record on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's usually when I come in.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: So I'm never in the office anymore. But part of that is because we literally don't have a physical office right now. We're building a building. But when my building's done, which is, I think, going to be this summer, I'll be in there about twice a week as well. And you know what I used to do, Kevin? I mean, think about this. Think about how backwards this seems now. And you would probably do this, too. When I was working at Fulbright and Jaworski, for instance, I would wake up in the morning in my little box called a house. I would put on a suit. I would get in my little box called a car. I would drive that box down a highway with thousands of other boxes. And then I would get on an elevator and go up 50 floors to sit in a different box and work from 9 to 5 or 9 to 7. And then I would go down that elevator, get back in that box, drive home, go on my other box. And I was literally wasting hours of the day. Now I wake up, I walk upstairs, I make a cup of coffee, I walk upstairs, and I'm working immediately, and there's no wasted time. I mean, this is so much more efficient for the clients and for the lawyers. It's hard to overstate. So.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah, totally agree.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: You asked what the two big changes have been in my 25 years of practice. The first one is the rise of digital online marketing and lawyer stuff. And the second one is the rise of the remote practice.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah, no, those are.
We're just preaching the choir on the digital stuff. Of course. Yeah. With the, you know, being a marketing company, digital marketing company, we had kind of gone. We were kind of still old school in the beginning. Like, we. We had an office, which we still have. I'm in it right now. But we had every employee here in the, you know, back in, like, what, 2015, 2017, up until maybe 2019, we had kind of started going remote at that point, to the point that, you know, majority of our company was remote because we wanted the best talent, and the best talent's not five blocks from the office or 10 miles from the office. So for us, we started going remote before COVID and by the time Covid hit, we were like, we're completely remote and we have no issues at all. So, yeah, so that That's. And then for us. Yeah. Do we go back and does it matter? No. I come in here twice a week now because, like. Well, I like to see a few folks and I got my studio here.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Gets me out of the house and mixes things up a little bit, but it's still not necessary at all.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Agree. The only thing so, so far, the only thing I've been able to. The only advantage I've been able to figure out with an in person office situation is I think there are some instances where being in the same room helps the ideas kind of flow a little differently than they do on the computer screen. But other than that, there's nothing that, that is, you know, you have to be there. And I'll tell you what, it's interesting, Kevin, because my paralegal has been with me for 20 years now, has been remote for 15 of those years now. We started on Fridays only and I said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to work from home on Fridays. Fifteen years ago, that was like. And I said, don't tell anybody at the firm that you're working seriously from home on Friday because I want to see if anybody noticed it. Nobody noticed. And in fact, she was getting more stuff done. Here's the objection that a lot of business professionals and lawyers have to the remote work. How do I know they're working? Okay, so let me translate that for you. My employees are liars and cheaters and I have to have my eyes on them at all times or they'll cheat me. That's. That's the translation of that comment. Okay. That's really what they mean. Right. But, but not, not only is that what they really mean, but it's a bad way of looking at things. So if, if, let's say that you and I are a firm and we're in the office. Well, think about this, okay? There's even a more practical reason. Let's say we're, you and I are at a firm and we're. Everybody's in the office all the time. There's going to be some people that are really, really good at the water cooler talk at making you think they're working hard. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't people. So in other words, good bullshitters. When you're not in the office and all your work is remote, what is a criteria by which you judge the work? Is it their jokes around the water cooler? Is it their. No, it's the work.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: It's the quality of the work. It's the Quality of the work, speed of the work.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: And, you know, so my point is, the remote work is actually a better way to monitor the output of your employees than sitting there and staring at them from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: There's a lot of distraction.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: That's what people. Yeah, that's what people don't realize. So when. Whenever you hear a lawyer. From now on, whenever your listeners hear a lawyer say, I have to have all my people in the office all the time, so I know that they're working, I want you to retranslate that in your mind to. I have a bunch of people working for me that I don't trust and I think would steal from me. Because that's what they're saying.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, people ask us all the time how. How we do that, and we have a. We have a great culture here. We have everyone that works here, the managers, everyone. Like, for one, they're not gonna let someone in here that is not gonna do the right thing. If not, they get filtered out real fricking quick. Because our people don't want someone in. In this group that takes advantage of us and doesn't do the good work. It's. If. If you just have a good culture, which takes time to build, you put some trust in the people.
And. And if they're not doing their work, they, you know, they'll. They'll be found out pretty quickly. But you gotta keep all the trust in them. You hire them, you put them, you know, put them through the process, bring them in the door. And if they believe your vision and you have a good culture, then they're gonna have to perform or they're not gonna be a good fit. But they. The people that are trying to take advantage of you will be scared by that because as they interview and they see the culture, a winning culture, people that get stuff done, they won't want to take that position.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So agree. Yeah.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: No, that's a good way of putting it. I like that.
Yeah. You're basically saying you don't trust your people, which is what. Which means you don't have people that trust you or want to stay there. They're just there for a paycheck, which will not ever. Which will not ever end well or lead to someone, you know, like yourself building a firm over 20 years with the same partner, the same team. You know what I mean?
[00:19:43] Speaker A: So it's interesting because by.
I tell my. The lawyers that I hire, I say, I'm gonna teach you everything I know. Every. I'm not holding anything back. Not gonna be like some of these lawyers. I might keep some trade secrets so you can't steal them from me. You can't. Look, I could tell you right now everything I. I could literally tell you right now on videotape every single thing my firm does for marketing, and nobody on your. None of your listeners could duplicate it. It's too complicated. There's. It's been built over too many years. But anyway, the point is, I tell all my lawyers, I'm going to teach you everything I know. I'm going to teach you so well that you can be able to go start your own law firm if you want to and be successful.
I want. I want you to stay, but I don't want you to stay for any reason other than you want to stay. Like you want to be a part of what we're doing. You know, so far, so good. We've lost people just like everybody else. Yeah, our retention is. Yeah, our retention is awesome. And most of the time. So people leave our firm for one or two reasons. They either leave our firm because they can't do the work, they can't keep up, or they're going to do something better. So I've had three receptionists that are now lawyers.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: I started as a receptionist, worked their way up to paralegal, applied to law school. I wrote them letters for recommendations. I went to law school, and now they're lawyers.
I got another guy that just left. He was awesome, but he wanted to go do some Internet marketing stuff. And I said, awesome. Keep us in mind. Come back if you get bored.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I've lost, you know, I've lost plenty. Not plenty, but a few good ones, too.
Starting their own companies and not necessarily doing exactly what we do. They, you know, niched, and one's running a podcast production company, the other one's got a videography and social companies for financial planning industry. And you just can't keep some people. They're. They're running faster than you sometimes. So let them. Let them go, you know?
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: But your attention's higher, I bet, than most because of that.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's right.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, Just let people do it, you know, And I think it's. It's good to. They have those conversations too, like, hey, what do you want to do? Well, and they say, well, I really want to do X, Y, Z. If they. If they can come out and be truthful and feel comfortable, like, yeah, I really. I really want to start my own company at some point. Okay, cool. We know that.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: What can we do to help you?
[00:21:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. What's your timeframe? Is that like really soon? So we should be worried or, you know, is this something you're trying to do in the next couple years and have a plan for that? Help them get there?
[00:22:00] Speaker A: There's nobody. There's nobody at my firm that is. Can't be gone, including me. And we've designed that per.
Purposely. Like, there's nobody that's irreplaceable. Nobody.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: My business partner says that he's like, me and you can be replaced. Like we're not.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: I. I want to be replaceable. Like, I want to. What I. Kevin, what I really want to do is I, I want to. I want my firm to run when I'm not paying attention to it because that means I've got a real business. Right. I got involved with some public interest work over the last couple years and right when I got involved, it is not paying, but it's something that was going to take a lot of time. Right. When I got invol this, I told my trial team, I said, I'm going to get involved in some public interest work and I need you guys to keep an eye on the docket for me because I'm going to be distracted for a little bit with some other things. And guess what? They did that and we did better that year than we had done the previous five years. Gets you out of the way, I'm telling you. So what does that say? Unless you're. Unless you're not paying attention. What that says is maybe I'm getting in the way in certain areas. I found actually that my staff prefers it. We have this messaging platform used to run our firm. They like it when I'm not constantly in there telling them what to do because that means I actually have some time and some space to actually do the substantive work instead of responding to messages from me all day long.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, we use Slack. What do you guys use over there?
[00:23:20] Speaker A: That's what we use. We use Slack. Same thing. We've been using Slack for a long time now. It's super robust. But I'm not in there every 10 seconds peppering them with questions.
In fact, I don't email, text or slack until 2 in the afternoon or later, generally speaking.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: This is my schedule is. So I'm completely and totally addicted to reading books and have been since I was in about the third grade. Like, books are my thing. I read a hundred books a year. And so when I wake up in the morning, that's the first thing I do, I spend 30 to 45 minutes reading. I don't look at my phone, I don't look at my computer. None of that, none of that stuff. Once I'm done with reading for. And it's, by the way, it's not lawyer related stuff. It's. It's like enjoyable literature, biographies or stuff. And then I start, quote, working. But you know what my first 10 minutes of my quote, working day usually is? I go out my back, weather permitting, go out on my back porch without a phone, without anything other than a cup of coffee. And I sit there and I start a timer for 15 minutes. And I just think about what I want to do that day, what's important, what's not. I just kind of let my mind go.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: No distractions.
[00:24:30] Speaker A: Those are the, those are the best 15 minutes of my day. Because most of us, we're getting bombarded from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to sleep with incoming information.
Right. Every time you pick up your phone, there's information shooting into your brain.
And it's very rare to be sitting there for 10 or 15 minutes and not having information coming into your head. And boy, is it a valuable time. Like, in fact, I think one of the superpowers going forward for young people is the ability to sit there and do nothing. I mean like, that is a superpower and will be a superpower. Yeah, it's gonna, I mean, ability to control your attention.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Except for us, except for me to do that.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Yeah, me too.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: But like thinking about my kids, you know, they're 12 and 14. Yeah. That's almost impossible to them to probably think about that.
But I'm gonna see what if. I'm gonna see if I can get them to, to do some exercises like that. Maybe five minutes. Start with something small, but they're just slow. They're just wired all day.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: When I started meditating 15 years ago, I started with five minutes. And it was five minutes was the longest five minutes ever. Like, I was like, oh, how do people meditate for 10 minutes? That is ridiculous. Like, there was five minutes of monkey mind, five minutes of my brain. Just. I was like, who the hell is this person saying all these things inside my head? But then after a while, I built up to 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I could even meditate for an hour. And so, yeah, it's, it, it's like a. It's like exercise. The more you do it, the better you get at it.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Muscle, you gotta work, I guess.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Something I've something I've not really tried something that I've been told many times and it's one of the things that I haven't prescribed to I, you know, like to get up, work out, read. And that's one of the one things that I get told a lot and I haven't actually done it. So something I need to do.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: You said weather permitting. I bet. So in Texas you probably got a good chance. The weather is decent. I'm in Virginia, only time runs are crazy here.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: The only time I can't sit outside in Houston, Texas is there's like two weeks out of the year where it gets to be like 40 degrees.
Other, other than that it's, it's, it's either super hot or it's like right now it's super. I think it's 80 degrees outside right now.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: It was in the 40s this morning here in Virginia. So.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I like it cool like that though in the fall weather. I can deal with that. So looking forward to it.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Good, good cigar smoking weather.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: There you go.
So there was a cigar for 10 minutes.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Well, Brian, I appreciate you sharing. Just kind of like your story and yeah, some of the things that you've talked about I think are unique, you know, and what's was contributed to where you're at now. And of course kudos out to Ben Glass if he's ever listening to my show. He's been on his show a few.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Times, so he's been on my show twice.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah, I've had Brian on a couple times. His son, his son's doing a great job, kind of following his footsteps as well. So.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: You know, it's funny you'd say that because my son is a senior in college thinking about going to law school. First person, first person I reached out to was Ben. I said, tell me what it's like working with your son. And then Ben and I had a great conversation about that.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Yeah, Brian's really taking hold of things and, and is running with it.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Yeah, he's doing awesome.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Doing stuff with, you know, with the whole, with great local marketing and the summits and you know, he's all, he's all in. So. Yeah, great guy, good friend and, and again, back to the mindset. You know, I think Ben does a good job of that piece of it and, and you seem to have really done well in that area and stay focused and true, you know, to what you, you started out doing. So kudos to doing that.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Nice. Thank you.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So before we wrap up, I Guess you know what's on the horizon. Anything new that you guys are doing that's exciting at the firm?
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Building a new office, which is going to be awesome. And it's going to be a modern office. So we're building three podcast studios. I say podcast studios, three video studios where I can do podcasts, but we can also do court hearings and depositions and meetings and stuff like that. It's going to have a golf simulator. When it's too hot, Vic and I can practice golf inside. It's going to have a humidor tent in the back. And coming down to visit, you need to. So when I. You need to. Yeah. And so I'll be able to smoke really nice cigars like this one right here in the kind of back part of the office we're going to have on the sec. We're going to have a little courthouse. We're going to do mock trials and the second floor is going to be a bunch of offices that are exactly the same with their nobodies. It's first come, first serve kind of deal. So that's going to be super duper cool.
AI. I've been using AI for 3 or 4 years and lately I've been using it in such a way that it is a massive competitive advantage over the people that I'm competing with. And I can already see some ways that I can use AI to crush the competition. I don't mean to say it that way, but it is ridiculous how useful it is becoming for me. And I am way ahead of most people in terms of how I'm using it so that I'm super excited about.
Hey, yeah.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yep. Well, sounds like you got a passion project.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Well, Brian, I appreciate you just sharing everything, excited where you're at, your success, some things that you've done that you know is somewhat unheard of in your space. Hopefully some folks can learn from what you've done and what you shared. What's the best way for folks to reach out and connect?
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Brian Beckham B R I A N B E C K C O M Put that into Google and I'll pop up everywhere. Website brianbeckham.org or vbattorneys.com but all you gotta do is Google me and it's kind of embarrassing. Like I'm everywhere.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I tell people sometimes. Like my name's kind of unique. So just Google me and you'll find me all over the place. Hopefully I keep it places that I want you to find me. But as of today, yeah, there's no mug shots.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: That's right. I may have a mug shot or two, but it's from when I was in college and I did community service for that. So.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Yeah, put that out there now.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Hey, you gotta experience what your clients are experiencing.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: You know, I. I have a few criminal defense clients, clients that, you know, have their own stories and they. They work that into their messaging. You know, they were DUI or had, you know, different things happen to them that kind of worked into why they do what they do now.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: So, yeah, lean into it. Don't be afraid of it.
Well, Brian, I appreciate you coming on. Share, man.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Thanks, Kevin.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: Please reach out, connect with Brian. He's done some awesome stuff and he's. He's still pushing. AI is going to be massive. Get on board, everyone that's listening with AI or you're going to be left behind.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Let's go. Let's go.
[00:31:14] Speaker B: Brian's leaning heavy into it big time. Well, Brian, you stay on with me just for a few minutes. Everyone else listening. Thank you so much for tuning in. And we're going to see you on the next episode of the Managing Partners podcast. See you soon.
[00:31:32] Speaker A: Sam.
