In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jim Zadeh discuss:
- Having a marketing plan, in writing, that you stick to.
- Going beyond “get out there and network!”
- Marketing no matter what.
- Setting important goals that work towards what you want to achieve.
Key Takeaways:
- Be open with your friends and family that you are a lawyer and what it is that you do. To grow, you have to go beyond just friends and family though.
- Identify who you are, what you want, and what kind of practice you want to run.
- There is always someone doing better. Understand what you want and hold to those goals.
- Set your goals in writing and go over your goals with someone you trust.
“Use your passion in your marketing. You will find when people find you happy and competent that it will transfer over to your business.” — Jim Zadeh
Connect with Jim Zadeh:
Website: https://www.zadehfirm.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpniN8YYjlJ7y6JOM6lyeUQ
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimzadeh?trk=tab_pro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZadehFirm/?ref=hl
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jim_zadeh/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lawyers, students, law, work, goals, people, business, clients, practice, firm, big, grow, years, case, important, plan, listening, call, marketing, mentor
SPEAKERS
Jim Zadeh, Narrator, Steve Fretzin
Jim Zadeh [00:00]
What I tell a lot of my students is, what is your passion? Right? What is it that you do outside of work? Like for me, I just said it’s soccer. Yeah, I can now trace 70% of my business directly or indirectly through playing soccer and the people that I’ve met over the last 30 years of coaching and playing, it’s something that I do. It’s something that I’m pretty good at. It’s something that I enjoy, and people see me happy.
Narrator [00:25]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time, greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:48]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer, as the announcer mentioned and you know very well, I’m Steve Fretzin. I am the president and chief bottle washer at Fretzin Inc. And our focus, as you know is to help lawyers to become that lawyer, someone who is competent, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. And in order to do that we have programs for just about anybody that’s ambitious, hungry, looking to grow business, that could be a coaching and training program that’s very involved a big investment, time, money and energy, but well worth it, as you may have heard from my clients, and I also offer mastermind groups peer advisories for lawyers under a million, and they want to continue to grow their law practice, and they work with other lawyers as advisory group to each other, handle challenges offer ideas, accountability, and then I have another one that’s for lawyers that do over a million, and many of them are managing partners and their skilled rainmakers who have been doing it for years, and also want the power of working as a team with other lawyers in different practice areas and other firms to do it. And so that’s enough of that. But I wanted to go into my guest today. And before I even do that, I just want to mention, if you’ve been listening to one show, or many shows, this is our 100th episode. So it’s been going on for just over a year and a half, and we’re at 100 episodes, and I couldn’t be more excited about the guests. That’s my 100 guest. And that is a teacher, a lawyer, a mentor, an awesome guy, Jim Zaida. How’s it going, Jim?
Jim Zadeh [02:12]
It’s going great. Congratulations
Steve Fretzin [02:13]
on 100 shows and yeah, man, it’s gone by in a blink. I’m honored to be your your guest. Yeah. Well, I’m honored to have you here. And we’ve had some really good offline conversations and getting to know each other. And I just am excited to get into the weeds with you a bit today on the challenges lawyers have in law school and coming out of law school, and just talk about business development in general and how they can make it happen. So do me a favor, give a little more of a background yourself your law practice and teaching over at Texas a&m?
Jim Zadeh [02:44]
Absolutely. I’m 58 years old. I have been practicing in Fort Worth, Texas for the last 32 years. We just in Fort Worth now just found out were the 12th largest city in the country. We have almost a million residents here. We’re kind of dwarfed by our noisy neighbor to the east with Dallas. But we are pretty busy over here. I started with a big firm back in 1988. It was big firm for Fort Worth, I was an associate there for five years, went to a smaller firm was an associate there became a partner. And then in 2002, the lease came up the five partners that we were all talking we decided we did not want to personally guarantee a lease at $30 a square foot for five years. And so we all decided to go our separate ways. I started my own firm in 2002. And I’ve been doing my own thing since then I practice. I’ve done mass tort on the plaintiff side and on the defense side. And I do personal injury now and first party insurance cases. Also, I have been teaching as an adjunct professor at Texas a&m School of Law, which when I started was ranked like 110. And now it’s up into the 50. So it’s really grown not because of me, of course, but it’s really it’s all the
Steve Fretzin [03:57]
It’s all because of you single handedly, you’ve taken taking it to the next level.
Jim Zadeh [04:01]
Yeah, that’s right. No, it was wasn’t because of that. But it’s really growing. It’s doing really well. And so I teach a class there called law practice management. And it is what I wish they would have taught me when I was in law school, and that is marketing technology, how to manage your staff how to manage the courts, and then at the end of the class, have the students do a business plan. And so for the last five to six years, I’ve been talking to students with their business plans, and then mentoring them. And then I also serve as a mentor for several existing lawyers right now. The other thing I was I’m a passionate soccer player, and I’ve been a coach, and I play on three teams. And that’s kind of where my out of work passion lies.
Steve Fretzin [04:43]
Yeah, I played soccer all through high school and I’d love to get out there and I think I’d probably get hurt on all five minutes in maybe 10 minutes. You know, somebody would tackle me or I’d trip on someone’s feet or that’d be the end of my soccer career again, but I tried to play racquet sports so at least there’s some distance between me and the other person’s I can’t fall all over them with my old body. Well, very cool. So you know, first of all, let’s talk about how you built your law practice. Because I think it’s important for people to understand, you know, to teach practice management, you have to know practice management, you know how to run a practice and how to be successful. So talk about your sort of like challenges coming up building your law practice and sort of where you found your sweet spot, and then we can transition into talking about teaching law school.
Jim Zadeh [05:27]
Absolutely. So I started in 2002. And when I started, I was very fortunate on the second month that I was my own practice, I had plaintiffs case that I brought with me, and I ended up with a fee, that was mid six figures. And not everybody gets that. So I was very fortunate. And then I was handling a defense case, I was representing some asbestos manufacturers who manufacture breaks. And I was bringing in monthly business after that. So I was very fortunate to have income streams when I started. But I’ve read your book, Steve, and in reading your book you put in there, it’s super important to have a marketing plan that’s in writing. And I had a marketing plan that was in writing I stuck to, and that was gold to me, that has served me well, in terms of keeping up my business and getting my clients.
Steve Fretzin [06:17]
Yeah, I mean, that’s so critical. And I would say, I mean, maybe even more than 95% of the attorneys that I talk to whether they have a $5 million book or $100,000 book, they don’t have a business plan, a marketing plan, a prospecting plan, whatever we want to call it in writing. And if they do have something, usually it’s what their firm tells them to put together for their year end meeting or something. And it’s a list of the events that they attend, or it’s a list of the people they know or their clients. That’s not really a plan, in my opinion, that’s a bunch of lists. What did you have in your plan? And how did you execute and get success, ongoing success.
Jim Zadeh [06:53]
So it’s the same thing I tell my students, the first place that you’re going to get your business is from your friends and family. And you just need to tell them, I’m a lawyer. And this is kind of work that I do. And oftentimes lawyers will go out and just tell their friends and family and they’ll have enough business to keep them going. And they won’t have a plan in place, they won’t have a website, they’ll just say, Okay, I’m unhappy, I’ve got this, if you’re somebody who hasn’t, doesn’t have any ambition to grow, that works for you. But if you want to grow, you’ve got to go beyond your friends and family. And you’ve got to go into the electronic side on website and, and Facebook and social media. And then you have to do the networking side where you have face to face networking, we have a class called Real Life networking, where I tell them all the ins and outs of what’s your elevator pitch, you know, what are you going to tell somebody and I call on students cold? What’s your elevator pitch? And they just can’t do it? They don’t have one yet? And how do you handle it? We’ve all been to charity events I’ve been to so many, I can’t talk about it. But there are so many people out there that go into them. And they they don’t know how to handle themselves in those events. And so we work on that to actually tell them, You know what dress codes mean, you know, what is black tie what is business casual, I mean, all these little things that you need to know. But you do that and you get your real life networking, you get your online networking, you get your family, get your friends, you have goals, and you just power through. That’s how I
Steve Fretzin [08:18]
Yeah, the one thing that I would add to that I’m sure this is a part of things too. But what I try to help lawyers with is find like their top three focus points, right, or we would call strategy. So let’s say friends and family is one, networking would be number two, and maybe number three is like getting good at LinkedIn. So those are the three things that a lawyer is going to focus on as far as his or her time and efforts the first year, or it could be quite frankly, you know, 20 years, but needs to be done. And then I try to get into the weeds a little bit with the tactics. And the tactics are the pieces that most people are missing. And the way that I teach tactics is all about thinking about it like a story. Every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. And so if you’re going to do networking, well, then what’s the beginning of the story? Who are you targeting? What networking groups are there available, and if so, are your targets there, and how you’re going to approach the person that runs that group to get in and find out if it’s a good fit. That’s the beginning of the story. But that’s in writing, as far as like an approach and then the middle is how you’re engaging in those networking efforts, then the last piece would be the follow through. So I’m trying to help people understand that. It’s one thing to just say, I have to get out in network, like that’s something a managing partner would say to an associate, get out their kid get out their network, and it’s never enough. It’s never giving them the specifics of how to do it in putting that in a plan. Do you find that to be the case?
Jim Zadeh [09:44]
Yeah, and I would add this what I tell a lot of my students is what is your passion? Right? What is it that you do outside of work? Like for me, I just said it’s soccer. Yeah, I can now trace 70% of my business directly or indirectly through playing soccer and the people that I’ve met are For the last 30 years of coaching and playing, it’s something that I do. It’s something that I’m pretty good at. It’s something that I enjoy, and people see me happy. I went on a nonprofit board, I hated it. I got no business from it. It wasn’t what I was passionate about. I had a student who was a gamer, I said, go out and tell everybody that in your gaming world, that you’re going to be a lawyer. And he said, Jim, I started getting business people, you know, coming to me, so don’t throw away your passion. Use your passion in your marketing. And you will find that when people find you happy and competent, that they’ll translate that over to your business.
Steve Fretzin [10:33]
Yeah, exactly. And there’s people that have unique things in their background, whether it’s music, whether it’s sports, whether it’s art, and to be able to get engaged in those activities, and meet all these wonderful people who can use your services or network with you or develop some strategic partnerships. That’s all really good stuff that, you know, I talk about with my clients all the time, and they just need to follow through on it and good things happen. So what are than some of the things that you’re teaching your students about running a law firm? Where and how are they sort of handling it? Because I know it’s hard for them to take in that it’s like I, I came to law school to learn the law and not to go run a business or delta book.
Jim Zadeh [11:13]
So it’s funny, I when I first started the at a&m, it had a night program. So the students were a little older. And so they were a little more sophisticated. But now I’ve got the 2425 year olds. So I’ll ask them, How much do you need to retire? And I will get answers from anywhere as high as $100 million down to $60,000. So I called on the student says $60,000, and they said, Okay, you’re 65, you retire, you spent 5000 a month, and now you turn 66. And you have no money. What are you going to do? Like, oh, okay, now I get it. Right? So what I tell them is, let’s look at the end. And let’s begin with that. What is it that you want to do in your life? What is it that you’re passionate about outside of the law? If you love the law, that’s great. And you can work forever? But if you’re passionate about something else, can we how do we figure out how to get there, what your exit strategies can be to get there, let’s build a business that can generate you the income that can allow you to do the things that you want to do and allow you to live the life that you want to live. Let’s figure out how to do that. And so then we walk through first thing you have to do is get clients, we spent four classes, eight hours total, on all different types of marketing. Then we talk about well, I’m but I’ll tell you at the very beginning, when we talk about is goal setting, and who you are and identifying who you are, and identifying what kind of practice you want, I find that 80% of students are in the right direction. 20% of the students are going in the wrong direction. I had a guy who was made for litigation, and he’s doing his state work, you know, what are you doing? He so I don’t know. So we got him back. But most people seem to go in that direction. But once they get their goals, once they get their identity, their core values, we talk about core values. Are you somebody with your core values? Are they designed to be a solo practitioner? Are you somebody who suits better in a big firm, and there was a young lady who wanted to be a solo and she shouldn’t be solo, she was set up for a big firm, she could go and do the big business, but she didn’t like the administrative she didn’t like the low level stuff. And so she’s perfect for that. So we get your core values, we get your goals, we tell you how to get clients, then we talk about technology and how to run a firm with case management software. And then we talked about how to deal with employees and to have you do a business plan in writing. I know
Steve Fretzin [13:23]
for lawyers, you know in years past there’s been you know sentiment that happens in law school where they’re put on a pedestal because law is a sacred thing and I mentioned this in another podcast similar to you know, being a doctor you know, it’s this is like the top level of of a profession that is so important and meaningful. Obviously a lot of professions are but there’s a couple where they’re regulated for a reason okay. And business development is marketing are just are beneath that profession beneath that those types of activities. Are you feeling that still exists or has that barrier been kind of knocked down?
Jim Zadeh [13:59]
I think that Barry’s been knocked down with social media, I think everybody influencers, YouTube influencers and all that I think everybody understands you have to mark it and you can mark it if you’re a rapper, you can mark it if you’re a lawyer, you can mark it no matter what. So yeah, the younger students understand they don’t feel like we felt in the beginning where if you put an ad in yellow pages that was beneath the lawyer that’s become
Steve Fretzin [14:23]
much more free to is it relates to how people market and how they get business versus years ago where Father tells me a story of this is probably back in the 70s if we want to go back that far. But you know, he put out his one of his lawyers in his office died at his desk and they put an ad in the Chicago Daily law bulletin a little you know, half page quarter page about you know, their fallen comrade and how he’ll be missed and they’re going to take like a day off in his honor that to die, and they got written up by the RDC. So you know how things have changed where people are doing billboards and they’re doing all kinds of TV ad and all the way through social media.
Jim Zadeh [15:01]
I’ll tell you one other thing that we emphasize that I try to emphasize is work life balance. I think, as an attorney, and as a student, especially you can get way out of whack and see students who gained weight in school, I can tell like, I can see it etched on their faces as to how the stress of law school is just grinding them away. And I was doing the same thing. When I had my kids. I had a five year old and a one year old and 2002, my wife came to me and said, You’re working 80 hours a week, I know you’ve got a new law firm, I understand you’re doing that. But we’re just gonna live parallel lives. I’m not divorcing you, I’m not leaving you. We’re happy, we’re gonna do that. But I’m gonna live my life with the kids and you go ahead and live your life. And I decided that I didn’t want that. I do goals. Every year, I have a friend of mine for 25 years, we’ve sat down and unwritten goals over between Christmas and New Year’s. And my goal, January one 2003, was to have breakfast and dinner with my family that would force me to be home in the morning and force me to go home at night. And that was transformative to me, because then I became very close with my boys as they grew up, and we become very close.
Steve Fretzin [16:05]
So it goes to the old adage, nobody ever on their deathbed. I wish I had just worked a few more hours, right.
Jim Zadeh [16:12]
And you know, I’ll tell you what, there’s always someone doing better. I don’t know, if you just saw the mark Lanier just had the $2.1 billion verdict in Johnson Tao case it was the United States Supreme Court was trying to consider it. Because they didn’t decided not to take it on the $2.1 billion dollar verdict is now upheld. And Johnson Johnson just announced that they’re paying it and they had $4 billion set aside for that. And others, if Mark had it on any sort of contingency. He is doing very, very, very well. And so there’s always someone doing better, you can think that you’re doing well. But if you keep striving to be, you know, top 10 Number one, you’re gonna spend your whole life just, you know, pushing a rock up a hill, you just not gonna get there. And I think,
Steve Fretzin [16:57]
you know, like, I don’t know about most people, I used to have visions of grandeur of playing at the finest golf courses and having a jet and having, you know, three houses and all that stuff. And that’s just the way you know, your mind drifts when you’re an entrepreneur, and you’re interested in the future. And what I realized, and this goes right along with what you said, Jim is, you know, my happiness isn’t based on how much stuff I have, or you know how big my overhead is, I actually go the other way, I try to keep my overhead low. I try to sock money away. And most importantly, I try to have balance where Yeah, I work hard. But you know what, I spent a lot of time with my family, I try to take you guys see me up on social media, taking fishing trips with my son, it’s, that’s the most important thing to me. And my business is also important to my clients, but I need that balance, I thrive on that balance. And I don’t need to have the biggest house to feel like a success. I feel like my success is derived by my clients success, their happiness, and their appreciation of what we did together. And I hope that lawyers listening can hear your story in mind. And you only have one shot at this thing and called life, right? And we need to make sure that we’re taking things in a direction that is going to really make us happy.
Jim Zadeh [18:07]
I agree 100%, I had a boyfriend of mine hit a big lake, it was about 15 million in fee for him after tax. And I told him, I said, What are you going to do you know what differences are going to make? And he says none. I said, Well, what is it that can make a difference? He said, Well, if I get to 25 million, then I have airplanes. And in reading Warren Buffett, he said the only thing that made a difference in his life was airplanes, private planes, you know, I’ve been on private planes, I will tell you, they’re very nice. I do not want to own one, I don’t want to spend $25,000 to get up in the air. That’s how much it costs. It just seems to me to be a waste. They’re very nice. But I don’t think that you know, as Buffett says, he eats the same steaks, he watch the same TV shows, when you really get down to it. You know, having that much money is nice, but it’s just the way keeping score. And if that’s not important to you just make enough to be happy and feel like
Steve Fretzin [18:58]
it my listeners know that I’ve actually crashed in a private plane. So I’m not a big fan of it for that reason. Yeah, that’s a whole other story. But at the end of the day, you know, I think the kids coming out of school working under your tutelage are learning critical life lessons, you’re putting them through a little bit of a reality check that the law is sacred. And while the laws is important, and being a great lawyer is job number one, that the importance of planning goals, building your own book of business, which obviously relates to freedom and control, right? And so you know, you could be a worker bee or you could be, you know, a desk jockey, you know, that’s fine. And for some people that’s going to work for most people these days and moving into the future, you’re gonna get the balance by having your own clients. Is that kind of what you’re sharing with them?
Jim Zadeh [19:46]
Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m sharing, but I will give this insight to your listeners. I’ve been fortunate to have 35 students in all my classes I don’t think seem to be popular. But what I found is that this particularly this year, I’ve had more Word that are interested in social justice issues than all the other years combined. And so they’re very interested in that. And that’s great. But you’re right on the dose of reality. I say, Okay, you go out there and you work for this legal aid group, or you work for that, how are you going to pay your rent? You know, or if you’re gonna go out and do a solo practice doing low bono work, let’s do a financial, let’s go ahead and do your first year, financial month by month revenue, all the expense. And when they do that math, they’re like, I don’t know. You know, the other thing that’s terrible for students nowadays is the student loan debt. I ask how many of you have 100,000, I usually get half of the students. And then I say, How many of you have 200,000, and I’ll get two or three students tell me they have 200,000 in debt. And those students tell me that they’re not having kids and not getting married, in part because of their debt. So yeah, I do teach a reality as much as I can. But life teaches them reality with this debt, and with all that stuff. So
Steve Fretzin [20:55]
let’s move on to something more tactical in this conversation around big or small changes that you made in your law practice to make it more enjoyable? And what are things that you suggest to other either grads or even lawyers that you mentor and talk to about the kinds of changes they need to make in order to be successful and happy?
Jim Zadeh [21:15]
I think the first thing you do is you set your goals in writing, I think that’s a huge change for everybody. And when I asked my students or lawyers out there in the world, have you written your goals? And when was the last time you sat down and wrote your goals? And not very many have done it? And then have you gone over your goals with somebody that you trust? A mentor that can say, That’s stupid?
Steve Fretzin [21:37]
Why are you in this friendly with you? That would just say, You’re a moron. What are you doing?
Jim Zadeh [21:40]
Yeah, exactly. Stupid goal, and you can rip on each other. And we’ve been doing that like so my buddy. And I’ve been doing it for 25 years, we have another friend who’s joined us for the last 15 years, that is a great place. And I put that in my sock drawer. And so when I’m getting dressed in the morning, I go back and review my goals. And because when you get into the thick of it, when you get into the grind, when you got a summary judgment coming up, you got a trial coming up, or you got a big meeting coming up, you forget what you were thinking about when you made those goals. And you’re like, you have to go back and think, does this go towards what I’m trying to accomplish. And so the goals are important. And then when you have a written plan for marketing, always go back to that. I’m a big believer in having a set plan, obviously fluid, but just making it go. And then if you’re finding that you’re not happy, then you got to figure out what is it that I’m doing that’s not happy. And what happened with me was just recently I was busting at the seams, we had so much work here that I said I can’t do all of it. And so I hired someone else made a little less money by hiring someone else. And then I liked it so much I hired another lawyer. So now I got three lawyers, including myself, six total staff, and it’s made my life a lot better.
Steve Fretzin [22:52]
And again, you know, it’s important for people to recognize that in order to be sustainable, balanced in everything, you’ve got to figure out how to delegate, you’ve got to figure out where your time is getting pulled and try to figure out is that a virtual assistant, an outsource marketing agency, is that an associate virtual or real or full time, you got to make those decisions. But I will tell you one thing that really helps to make those decisions. And Jim, you’d know this better than anybody is getting in the business yourself. If you have the business in and you’ve got the revenues, and you got the money sitting in the bank. Boy, it sure does make it easier to make those decisions, right?
Jim Zadeh [23:26]
It does. And I will tell you, I have a money market account where when I first started out, I put $100,000 in that money market account as my own personal line of credit. That’s always been there. When I started when I got that big settlement in 2003. I put it in there. It’s always been there. I’ve never touched it. I’ve also had lines of credit outside the firm that I paid 150 bucks a year for never touched it. But it makes me sleep better at night, knowing that I’ve got my payroll covered, I’ve got my rent covered in case everything goes bad. So yeah, I try really hard to put in Plan A B, my wife tells me all the time, what are you on plan a plan B, plan C, I always have a plan A, B and C in place in case things don’t go the way I want them to go?
Steve Fretzin [24:08]
Well, I think we’re getting to the point where it just makes sense. And you’ve got goals, you’ve got a marketing plan, you’re delegating, you’ve got to get out there and be active to grow business. And I hope the generation that’s coming out of law school now is getting the kind of education that you’re providing from other schools because and I speak at those schools and I don’t know that they’re doing it quite the way you’re doing it. And I’m not gonna you know, crack on any of them. But you know, I spoke to one recently and you mean just complete deer in the headlights? I mean, I asked them, What are your challenges? How do I get a client, a client that wasn’t discussed at all in three years? How do I get a client? How do I you know, get out there. They didn’t have any clue on infomercials? I mean, so, Holy mackerel, we’ve just got to step up. So what are your thoughts on the future? I mean, where do you see law going in the next five or 10 years and the changes that are happening? I mean, you’re I know you’re involved in the politics and how that impacts the law. on things, what do you see coming up the pipe?
Jim Zadeh [25:02]
You know, I live in Texas and we are very conservative here. We just passed a law that anybody can wear a gun whenever they want. I’ve shot a gun, but that’s no
Steve Fretzin [25:11]
problem. There’s nobody gets hurt with guns. You know,
Jim Zadeh [25:15]
I shot a gun twice in my life. I’m like from Barney Fife filat Oh, Mayberry RFD and now that I can carry a gun on my hip wherever I go in Texas, effective September one. I mean, there’s some crazy stuff coming down. And we could spend some time on that. But when you get down to the real laws, what you’re finding is Money Talks, there’s lobbyists out there that are changing the laws to make things more favorable to them. But I’m not seeing anything super evil going on. I think we as lawyers are still positioned, well, I think we will continue to be needed. And as long as we don’t kill the golden goose by just being so greedy, you know, sometimes lawyers get super greedy. I think we as professional will stay. There’s challenges, I’ve had to reinvent myself three times while being to have my own practice, because different parts of the areas of practice have gone away. If you’re a competent lawyer can read the law, understand the law, and you’ve had basic skills, you can do a lot of
Steve Fretzin [26:09]
different areas. Yeah. And I think it’s important for people to recognize, you know, a do something you enjoy, be do something that, you know, where your skills lend a hand, like you mentioned, the litigator should litigate, you know, don’t just eat the sandwich in front of you walk to the restaurant. You know, sometimes the other thing that I you know, I don’t know if if and when this is going to happen, or maybe it’s already set in some states. But you know, there may be, you know, non lawyers owning and running law firms at some point soon in the next five to 10 years in a more. So it’s going to be even more critical for lawyers to get their act together to make sure that they’re running a good culture law firm, a profitable law firm, a marketable law firm, because they’re going to be competing against entrepreneurs that have all those skills.
Jim Zadeh [26:49]
I think that’s a real issue. And I’ve studied that, in part to prepare my class. Yeah, Utah in the bath are the two states right now that are have what they call a sandbox regulatory sandbox, where they can play around and I think in Texas, we’re really close to making trade names. So you got to be smart, my firm guy got to have the trade names. So I think trade names make it easier when you want to go ahead and for succession purposes, to give it to another attorney. If you have Fort Worth legal, it’s a lot easier than the locks of Jim’s ADA. So if I’m gone, everybody still knows what with legal. And if we got that brand strong, you can do that trade name, the problem I see is if you have non lawyers, especially in the monster terms, if you get non lawyers and law 100. And they start seeing those profits, and they start squeezing on the lawyers like management has done in the medical community. I see that being a real problem. It’s the fiduciary duties of doctors and the fiduciary duties of lawyers don’t always mesh well, with hedge fund people. I see that as a real problem down the road for the monster firms.
Steve Fretzin [27:49]
Well, it’s gonna be an interesting road as it’s been and, you know, kind of final words, you know, to the listeners, you know, if you’re a lawyer looking to grow book a business, you know, what’s kind of your final word on that 100 show, so it better be good.
Jim Zadeh [28:03]
I would tell them first and foremost, to listen to the first 99 There we go, you had awesome. And then once they learned all of that, come listen to me, and then do everything that I just said, and then there’ll be tremendous alert.
Steve Fretzin [28:17]
That’s it. Alright, so pay attention. That’s the key now. Yeah. Well, Jim, thanks so much for being my guest. You know, I can say I saved the best for last, but we’re gonna keep going on but you’re number 100. And that’s a big deal. Just appreciate you. I appreciate your role in the future of law teaching, mentoring, advising that’s beyond noble of just being a lawyer to help others to be successful. And so I just want to tell you, I’m grateful for you being on the show and for your sharing your knowledge and your wisdom. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Hey, everybody, please keep the date open August 20. Me and superstar marketing expert Frank Ramos are going to be doing a two hour two time event coming up on everything sales and marketing related to grow your law practice, check it out@fretzin.com programs, and you’ll see what it’s all about. And you can register right there from my website. Hope to see you there. And listen, everybody if you didn’t take a couple notes or get some good ideas from Gemini today than your sleeping don’t sleep while listening to the show. That’s rule number one. But I want to thank you for being a listener if you’ve listened one show or odd now 100 I hope that you’ve gotten some good information takeaways, what we do here which is helping you to be that lawyer, someone who is skilled Rainmaker, competent, organized, etc. And you know, please like us and share and give us thumbs up or whatever that is happening on social media and on that platform that you’re listening to this we’d appreciate your support. Take care be well be safe.
Narrator [29:45]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business Development and Marketing Trends for more information and important links about today’s episode check out today’s show notes