Margaret Burke & Casey Blake: Solving Inefficiencies in Your Law Firm

In this episode, Steve Fretzin, Margaret Burke, and Casey Blake discuss:

  • Inefficiencies in technology and financial management in law firms.
  • Daily inefficiency improvements.
  • What happens when you wear too many hats.
  • Your law firm as a business.

Key Takeaways:

  • Anyone considering working with you, not just clients, are looking at your website. Make sure it is supporting what you want people to know.
  • Having a diverse team, with mixed speciality areas, can assist you in better supporting and understanding your clients.
  • Fix problems, don’t just cover them with a bandaid. Taking all the work on yourself, is only a bandaid. Let go and delegate to the right people.
  • It is important to see your firm as a law firm and understand that it needs to operate in that fashion.

 

“Having a process in place really streamlines time and makes staff happier, because the staff end up, sometimes, doing extra work when there’s not a process in place. The financial management and processes are critical.” —  Casey Blake

 

Connect with Margaret Burke & Casey Blake:  

Website: https://www.kolibrilaw.com/

Phone:  833-330-1633

Email: cblake@kolibrilaw.com & mburke@kolibrilaw.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KolibriLawSupport/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kolibrilawsupport/

Kolibri’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kolibri-law-support-solutions/

Margaret’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-t-burke/

Casey’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-blake-mosca-82a99324/

 

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

law firms, firm, people, inefficiency, casey, margaret, business, clients, website, lawyer, background, boston, important, financial management, decisions, great, hats, learning, bistro, area

SPEAKERS

Margaret Burke, Casey Blake, Narrator, Steve Fretzin

 

Margaret Burke  [00:00]

any firm that is not able to get the reports they are looking for can do two things. Look at your time and billing system. There’s plenty that are amazing out there Time and Billing and case management combined. I think it’s really important for firms and, and then in addition, knowing that you may not be able to do everything yourself, and having a professional, it could be a fractional CFO, fractional controller, just come in and take that data for you once a month and put it in a format that’s on one page that the partner can get together and look at every month and make a commitment to making a decision once a month on that data.

 

Narrator  [00:44]

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 with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.

 

Steve Fretzin  [01:07]

Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin. And I’m so happy that you’re with me today. And listen, it’s all about being that lawyer someone who is competent organized in a skilled Rainmaker, as you know, you’ve listened to the show before. And a little bit, a little bit of a change of this, I should say this morning, it’s this afternoon, but it doesn’t matter to you, because I don’t know when you’re listening to this. But I found a really great quote years ago, and I just wanted to share with you and then I’m gonna bring my guests in to kind of get their take on it. But the quote is from Winston Churchill, and it goes something like this, Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. And I have an opinion about that. And I have some clients recently who they’re not there, some of them are struggling. I mean, we’ve got introverts, we’ve got a tough marketplace in some scenarios, and I just I look him in the eye every day, and I say, We’re gonna make it we’re gonna get through it, we just have to stick together. And we just have to, you know, not give up. And that’s really what it means to me. And failure sometimes just means learning. So I’ve got Casey Blake, and I’ve got Margaret Burke here with me today out of Boston, I cannot have a Boston accent Boston. And from Boston, I just do in the commercial now from the newcomers Sam Adams commercials. But welcome to the show. And before we get into your bios, and in about you, what is that, quote? What is that? What resonated with you? When I when I read that quote? And Margaret, feel free to jump in?

 

Margaret Burke  [02:31]

Oh, sure. Absolutely. I, frankly made me feel good, because it’s true. You know, there, we don’t always hear about successful people in all the challenges that they have had to get to where they are, no one just becomes successful from not failing. And so that quote, really is a reminder that the biggest failure, I guess, is not trying. And that’s a cliche, because it’s there, because it’s so true. We have to get out there and try. And we learn from failing. We learn from putting ourselves out there. And so that quote, frankly, made me happy when I heard it. It’s a nice reminder.

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:13]

Yeah, wonderful, Casey.

 

Casey Blake  [03:15]

I agree. And I think it’s embracing everything as a learning opportunity and acknowledging that it isn’t going to be always here’s point A to point B, but there might be some bumps and bruises along the way from A to B, but you’ll get there. And whether it’s the journey that you anticipated, or it’s kind of taking you down some detours, it’s learning from those experiences and taking those with you as you continue to grow and develop and change.

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:42]

Yeah, and you know, I’ve run a number of businesses outside of Fretzin, Inc. And they, some of them failed. You know, I had a recruiting firm, I had an executive coaching business, I’ve done a bunch of different things. And I, you know, did I lose my shirt and end up in the, you know, living in a box? No, but they failed in the sense that they weren’t successful, and they didn’t grow them to, you know, multimillion dollar businesses. But I definitely learned I definitely learned what I want to do what I like to do what I’m good at doing. And that’s that’s sometimes half the battle. We just have to keep keep trudging forward, and and keep learning from those mistakes. And I try explain it to my 14 year old and like, he definitely needs to learn by doing he doesn’t learn for me to dad tell him that’s for sure. And Andrew, if you’re listening to this, you know what I’m talking about. So do me a favor. And let’s go back for a moment into your backgrounds, because you’ve got a really deep background in legal and leading into your current business at Kolibri. Law support solutions, which, Margaret give us a little background on yourself, and then we’ll move to KCMO. We’ll pull it all together.

 

Margaret Burke  [04:44]

Sure. Yeah. Thanks. First of all, we’re thrilled to be here. And my name is Margaret Burke. I’m the managing director of Colibri lat support solutions. And as Steve mentioned or started to, we provide services to law firms, and my background is in Vienna. To law firms. So I have been in the legal management field for almost 20 years, my last position in a law firm was a CEO of a law firm in Boston. And as part of my background, I’ve had the experience of starting a firm, grow and grow in a firm, I’ve also had the experience of being very hands on and then building a team and managing people and coaching them and helping to build a successful law firm. In addition, I’m also a Certified Legal manager. And I have my MBA. And I also have a background with human resources. So I’m a professional in human resource. So I take those different, you know, learning opportunities, and I bring that to our clients. And, and frankly, I’ve just been really fortunate to be able to use my skills with hands on Lifetime management for many years.

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:56]

Well, I know that background and your current experience is going to be really helpful to my audience and what they’re going to take away from the show today. And we’re going to get into that in a moment. Casey, you want to go back and give us a little bit of your background?

 

Casey Blake  [06:09]

Definitely, yes. So I am Kolibri is Director of Client Success. And what I bring with me to the table is strategic creative thinking, I love thinking outside of the box, and really helping people drive at solutions that are unique to their firm. And also, you know, something that they maybe haven’t tried before. I also love to be the, you know, the dot connector, as I call myself between either again, creative problem solving, or networking. So getting people interconnected. My background is in marketing and business development in the professional services space. I spent the better half of my career in the accounting industry, which is very translatable to my friends in the legal industry, which is why this fit like a glove when I was able to come and join my colleague, Margaret at Kolibri, and work with law firms on their strategic planning, marketing, business development, overall brand engagement.

 

Steve Fretzin  [07:00]

Okay, so which which group is more difficult to work with lawyers or accountants? How about that on the spot?

 

Casey Blake  [07:09]

My answers I’m not going to answer. Equally as fantastic. I’ll say that oh, my God. They’re equally fabulous.

 

Steve Fretzin  [07:17]

What a total cop out. Thank you. That’s great. That’s great. All right. Well, listen, we don’t have to go there. I will tell you I’ve worked in both industries. And I think accountants are tougher to work with, I think they are just so slow. I mean, they make lawyers seem fast sometimes. So I know. That’s my take. And I can say it, because, you know, I’m friends with some accountants, and they can appreciate it. So let’s talk about what challenges and we’re in a unique environment right now in the COVID. Era in in. There’s just a crazy time for legal right now. And what are the challenges that law firms have with inefficiency, what in that could be in an operations that could be a marketing and sales and it could be in the financial side? But what types of things are you used to seeing on a regular basis as it relates to inefficiencies within law firms? Margaret?

 

Margaret Burke  [08:07]

Sure, I would the two things that jump out in terms of inefficiency is technology, and financial management. So those are two areas that are critical to running a successful law firm. And what we see happens in the tap into my own experience, probably affirms is, it seems like such a daunting change to upgrade technology, and to also upgrade and make decisions related to financial management, that it doesn’t always happen. Attorneys have very busy people. They’re very busy working with clients and solving problems for other people. And so as a result of that, it’s they don’t always, or they’re not, they don’t believe they can take the time to focus on these two areas, when the time spent on making some decisions will really pay off in the future apart for law firms. Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [09:02]

So technology in in the financial management Casey, what what would you add on top of that?

 

Casey Blake  [09:08]

Yeah, I think my two takeaways or my two things to contribute here is very kind of piggybacking off of what Margaret just said, it’s often one or two attorneys trying to do so many things, right. They’re trying to bring in business, retain great clients and keep their people happy. All of which are like the trifecta of a successful firm, you want your clients, your people to be happy, and you want to keep bringing business in. Absolutely. But that can be ever so challenging to do all those things equally, as well. And so I think where there’s inefficiencies is someone’s trying to wear all of those hats at one time, and we see that across the board and professional services. And so there’s people that can assist with those types of services and how they can be helpful. And I’d also add from a marketing perspective, I think an inefficiency that I noticed sometimes is proper use of a website. So I think there’s sometimes this tendency for certain firms just say, well, it’s not, you know, I just want people to be able to see us and get a picture of us and so on and so forth. But it really can be a driver of new business. And it also, you know, you want to be found, do you want to be found? Well, you want to be found easily with the correct search terms, it’s a really important piece of your external brand. So I think that though there are some firms doing this exceptionally well, their websites are current, and they look great. There are others that are I think, are really missing an opportunity to engage with their audience.

 

Margaret Burke  [10:29]

Yeah, and by the way, in case you just said something so important, we hear a lot, Steve, I’m sure you’ll probably shake your head. Many firms will say to you, we don’t get visits from our law firm from our website. That’s not our clientele. However, Clio actually had a really great report out recently, and study and they share that more than like, 85 to 80%. I’m coming from memory now. So I hope that’s correct that number, but it’s a high percent of anyone considering working with a law firm, they go to their website, and they judge within three seconds. And even if you don’t get business through your website, anyone considering working with you is looking at your website. So Casey’s point is so important.

 

Steve Fretzin  [11:16]

Yeah. So it’s, it’s not about like, hey, my loft, my my website converts Personal Injury into intake. It’s the fact that people are using it for validation. They’re using it to acknowledge that the referral they received is supported by what they’re seeing on the screen. And the other missing piece that I’m going to add that is so critical, maybe now more than ever in the history. And I may be exaggerating, but I don’t know, you’ll let me know, is hiring. And the diversity, the the website demonstrates the culture. And right now, you know, people people need to retain and people need to find talent, because it’s just a crazy time. And so I think that would be something I’d add as well that it defines the, to some degree, the image of the culture, that you’re that the perception of that firm, that might also bring in new talent. Right? See ya. What am i Huh?

 

Margaret Burke  [12:10]

You’re good? Yeah. No, you hit the nail on the head, Casey. And I if we weren’t sure if people could see us, you know, we were shaking our heads. Yeah. We all know, right now, recruiting is I can say a challenge. retaining people is critical. What is the what is the term right now, the great resignation? You know, it’s just in the diversity component in an industry that does generally does not have a lot of diversity. That is something that especially some younger talent are noticing, you know, not just younger, but that is really important to a lot of the folks coming out of law school right now is what a firm is doing to bring in a diverse population.

 

Steve Fretzin  [12:50]

Yeah, so the three white guys on the cover of the homepage, right, in the, in the suits in the in the oak wood, you know, that’s, that’s just, you know, that’s just not that’s not now, again, if a firm doesn’t need or care or want anything about, about diversity, or about recruiting, hiring at that, that’s fine, you know, play play through, but mostly, you know, law firms that are looking to grow and scale and they’re looking to stay around long term, they got to consider the website is their image and, and culture and diversity, and all those elements are going to come into play. So let me ask this question. With all those efficiencies in technology, financial, you know, people wearing too many hats and in marketing, what are some of the things that you work on day to day with law firms to help them improve efficiencies? And the more tactical you can get the better in the sense of giving, you know, a specific idea around those concepts? Yep. Can you see want to start us off? And then we’ll go to Margaret, I just I just caught you in the middle of

 

Casey Blake  [13:50]

you have a thought Margaret, feel free if you want

 

Margaret Burke  [13:52]

shy? Sure. So I was going to go back to the financial component. And I think that, you know, it’s going to sound basic, but it really comes up a lot. And it can be the driver of success in getting the reports and information that firms need. And it’s not just firms don’t really want reports for the sake of reports, they want information to make decisions. They want them to make decisions based on hiring and frankly, compensation, you know, it comes up you would attract certain things. And I think it’s worth any firm that is not able to get the reports they are looking for a can do two things. Really look at your time and billing system. Because there’s plenty that are amazing out there Time and Billing and case management combined. I think it’s really important for firms and, and, and then in addition, knowing that you may not be able to do everything yourself and having a professional, it could be a fractional CFO, fractional controller, just come in and take that day. data for you once a month and put it in a format that’s on one page that the partner can get together and look at every month and make a commitment to making a decision once a month on that data using that data. So that’s sort of my

 

Steve Fretzin  [15:13]

can they can they break it out into into practice groups as well? Like is that another way to look at each practice group by profitability and revenue and such?

 

Margaret Burke  [15:21]

Yeah, that’s actually a great point. And that is the type of data that many firms want in need, how how profitable is a practice area, and that would really, ideally, include the cost to support that practice theory. It’s the attorneys, it’s the staff allocating some of the overhead, because, you know, quite often the busiest practice area may not be the may not be the most profitable, and you keep hiring for that practice area in sometimes it’s other reasons. They may be a loss leader. There’s other reasons. But if you don’t have that information, it’s actually very hard to make a decision when you don’t have information. And that can hold firms back from making important decisions.

 

Casey Blake  [16:00]

Yeah, they see, I’d say one of the biggest things to to help assist clients with their inefficiencies or thinking thinking things through is really being a soundboard. You know, I think one of the qualities that we bring to our, you know, insert when we meet with these clients, is that weekly, Is it monthly, our goal, and ultimately, and it is what makes us different is we want to be a teammate, we want to be someone that is understanding of what you’re going through, because chances are with the background of our team, someone’s dealt with something similar in a in a previous role. And that’s what makes our bench strength so strong is that we have people who have, you know, mixed expertise and specialty areas. But ultimately, we want to listen and offer strategic solutions. And I think that when there is that feeling of inefficiency, it can be that hair pulling moment where we can look in our clients space and see that, you know, how can we help them navigate whatever this inefficiency is whether it is related to the financial side or something for management or something in the human capital space? How can we help smooth that over? And we do that by being a sounding board and then being the advice giver? So I think that that’s something that we help clients with, too. Well, let’s

 

Steve Fretzin  [17:13]

let’s take that. Margaret. Yes,

 

Margaret Burke  [17:15]

sorry. I just want to piggyback on Casey. I think that another area where we do provide a resource that I didn’t actually envision happening, but I see it now is we work with clients that want to improve. So they have a goal so that there’s some motivation there. And we’re also very neutral. Like we come at our feedback from a very factual perspective, versus sometimes people in the forums, and I know firsthand, it can be emotional, you’re sure and in some people have, you know, in decisions can have an impact on them. So it can be hard to sometimes make decisions we come in with, we’re not we’re passionate about our clients. But we’re not, I wouldn’t say emotional about decisions. We’re very factual and I it’s something that I see now often. And I compare it to working at a firm and how different that can be for our clients, and how helpful it can be

 

Steve Fretzin  [18:18]

mentioned you guys right at the beginning before we started taping that I have some Rainmaker roundtables where I have a number of equity partners and managing partners that get together to discuss these kinds of things and discuss inefficiencies and efficiencies and share ideas. And one that just keeps coming up time and time again, is the one with the hats, you know, too many hats, you’ve got a managing partner who’s also responsible for billing 2000 hours, who’s also trying to develop business and feed the troops who’s also involved in you know, hundreds of hours of firm management meetings, who also who also who also write and trying to get that done. And at the end of the day, right, it may be it works, but not not to the delight of the individual. So what are we what are we talking to those kinds of individuals about that are just wearing too many hats?

 

Casey Blake  [19:08]

Yeah, I’ll start it’s taking its Well, I think it’s two things, it’s acknowledging that something needs to come off the plate, which is sometimes the hardest, because when someone’s been heavily involved historically, with all of those hats that you just mentioned, it’s really hard to take one off, because they probably enjoy, you know, engaging with new team members and clients and the, you know, networking, because that’s probably what brought them to that leadership role is their ability to do all of those things and do them quite well. So I think it’s one it’s acknowledging, okay, I’m trying to do so many things right now. And then allowing someone else to step in to assist with that. And, you know, there’s so many ways that that can be done very gingerly. It doesn’t have to be the bandaid being ripped off the skin knee. But what we’re trying to do is not put band aids over firm issues, we’re trying to stitch them, right? So we’re trying to come up with long term impactful solutions, rather than continue to like, put 18 band aids, and then they all get ripped off at one time. Right? So not to go down that rabbit hole of a, you know, example. But

 

Steve Fretzin  [20:17]

yeah, maybe trying to find figure out like from that managing partner or from that individual, you know, what, what they enjoy or what their core focus is, or what are they what are they really good at doing? Like, I can tell you from my background and running a number of businesses, I don’t like managing people. I’m a terrific coach. And that’s different than managing an employee. I hate managing people. So I have no employees. I don’t want to have employees. I’m done. I’ve been there. Okay. And so, but but people don’t maybe think that they just it just has to be done. And so they’re the one to do it. So do you guys have a process that you put them through a Margaret, you want to chime in on on the hats issue?

 

Margaret Burke  [20:54]

Sure, definitely. The hat issue is a very real issue. And it’s very common it is quite often in the legal industry, the person that produces the most business is, you know, promoted to managing partner. And it’s such a wonderful prestigious place to be. And it is next to impossible to do it properly if you are also managing clients. And I think that there’s a few things in Casey, you said something that Steve, you did also that you sort of took it away from me. One is that you don’t it’s important to let go. But it’s also important to keep it you like so highest and best use what is what is his management partner best at really defining that. And then for the people that are that are taking the work over for this individual, no one when to report in, because it is hard to let go. It’s very hard if you’ve been in charge of something to completely let go. And I think having the right people to take over some of the responsibilities and that person reporting in and keeping them in the loop. But also being having the ability to make that decision. Yeah, it’s gonna is really important.

 

Steve Fretzin  [22:05]

Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think one of the problems that law firms have, and it’s not going to go on forever, because the times they are changing. And you can tell in Arizona and Utah, where they’re going to be in there, you know, there already are non lawyer run firms and cooperative firms that these are run these are businesses in law firms need to be run like businesses, not like law firms and the good old days of the Old West, you know, just shooting guns up in the air in the saloon. And that’s how we do our copper. That’s how we figure out how people get paid, or that’s how we figure out who does what, I think those days have to come to an end at some point? And are you helping law firms get organized with the future? And how to run it more like a business? And and why is that so important? Now more than ever?

 

Margaret Burke  [22:52]

Yeah. So so that’s a very big part of what we do, actually. So we, especially on the financial management side, and big, a large value that we offer, that can be really hard to have in house, unless you’re a big firm with a with a high level CFO that’s able to crunch the numbers and analyze and be analytical is we help our clients develop, you know, KPIs, what’s important to them, we talk a lot about why is that important. We also share best practices on the types of things they may consider tracking. And then we give them this information monthly. And in and what makes us different related to this is we don’t just give the information, we then take the decisions that are made and help execute. So that’s back to Casey’s point earlier, where we’re part of the team, a lot of consultants who are incredibly valuable, they come in and they give a lot of great information, but then it does need someone to x, we need some. And that’s where we’re different. So we help make decisions. And then we execute.

 

Steve Fretzin  [23:53]

Yeah, so it’s like I have so much on my plate. And now you’re telling me to make all these changes. And I now have to go take more time to execute or handed off to you to write and you guys actually execute for us or help us execute. And so no, it’s not maybe an extra thing on my plate. It’s maybe one less thing on my plate. Yeah, a lot,

 

Margaret Burke  [24:11]

a lot less. Yeah, it’s actually really it is a lot less than goal is to always drive more revenue, to help the partners and attorneys enjoy what they do. And give them some free time. And that won’t just happen unless someone else is able to take over their responsibilities. And someone that has the skill set to do it successfully. It’s hard to keep that in house sometimes. Yeah, they see. Yeah, I

 

Casey Blake  [24:37]

don’t know if I’d much to add because Margaret just said it so well. And the one thing I will let us when Margaret and I were on a webinar a couple of months ago. One of the things that Margaret said to the group was your law firm is a business. Yes, it’s a business. That was the title I think that Margaret presented. So when you said that it brought me right back to that time, Margaret, that you said that because it really is important to see. To see your firm that way and how it needs to operate in that fashion. So it totally resonates with with us for sure.

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:05]

Then the good news is that there’s never been more health, more automation more technology more ways to make things better than ever than now, right. I mean, tonight, like 2022 is, is so much better than, you know, 2018. I mean, even so, you know, any kind of final words on that before we move to the three best stuff?

 

Margaret Burke  [25:26]

Sure, I’ll add it and you touched on it, it’s, um, processes. Yeah, it’s really important. And it can, it’s not the not everyone enjoys doing it. But it’s really important to have someone the project management skills that can come in and in find out from everyone at the firm that’s involved in a process, why something is being done a certain way, and then come up with better solutions, document it, train it and make it part of the firm, because that’s another trade at law firms. And I hate to generalize, but I believe it’s pretty true as things people can practice in silos sometimes. And when it comes to processes, not everyone follows them. And when you want to get information, sometimes the information isn’t there, because people aren’t following the processes. So having a process in place, really streamlines time and make staff happier, because the staffs end up sometimes doing extra work, when there’s not a process in place. So again, I think the financial management and processes are critical.

 

Casey Blake  [26:28]

Yeah. Hey, see? Yeah, I’ll see, I think in closing just with how to make things more manageable, and Margaret knows, I love this, it’s turning, and I’ll use this from a business development perspective. I love saying to turn your business development into digestible bites. And I love to talk to people about how to make things feel more manageable. And granted, it’s definitely through some ways that we can work with clients, but it’s things like setting small goals of everyday getting on LinkedIn for 15 minutes, like start there. If LinkedIn isn’t in your, you know, repertoire, add it there, but do it in a digestible way. Or, you know, looking at every market every opportunity as a marketing opportunity. So if you’re a lawyer, you know, understand who the advisors are your other clients make those outreaches be a guest at a networking circle. There’s ways to make things not feel quite so overwhelming. And in this into your point, in this day and age of we can do this through zoom, we can do things differently. There’s so much opportunity and make it feel digestible and manageable.

 

Steve Fretzin  [27:26]

Well, that’s wonderful. And and I agree with that a lot. And I sometimes Yeah, that’s where we need to start. It’s not you know, you can’t how to eat an elephant. Right? One bite at a time. Right? So which is gross? But anyway, listen, let’s move to three best of you’re in Boston. And if I come to Boston, and I will and I will treat you to to dinner. Okay? And where? Yes, but where are we going? Because I have very high standards. Oh, no, I’m just kidding. I don’t but I, I I just like good food. I don’t need to have a five star experience where I’m, you know, tasting 20 different things. But what’s what’s like a hot, hot joint. What’s a great place to go, Margaret.

 

Margaret Burke  [28:09]

Okay, so I have two places and one is not high end, okay, at all, actually. But I was going to say it. So it’s actually an area where PC lives. She lives in the she has so many restaurants near her home. That it’s it’s amazing. She’s near Cambridge, Cambridge math. So I think Cambridge is a definite place that people should visit in terms of restaurants. It’s in Somerville, and it is called True Bistro. It is vegan Ultra. So that might not appeal to everyone, but it is absolutely amazing. And so I would recommend true Bistro. I would recommend going to Cambridge, and I met a lot for the third place someone should go I like to throw out what everyone expects, which is like Fenway Park, but it’s December Well,

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:00]

we’re not there yet, though. So restaurant is true Bistro, I guess. Somerville so Alright, so I’m coming in so after dinner before dinner, we’re gonna you’re gonna take me somewhere. And we’re, it’s some it’s something that I need to see. It’s it’s, it’s a it’s a monument. It’s It’s art. It’s it’s, you know, an amazing garden. I mean, what’s something you have to see when you come to Cambridge or Boston or the whole area?

 

Margaret Burke  [29:22]

Okay, so I will my location, it’s not near to Bistro, but it’s I’d saved the Rose Kennedy walkway in Boston. There’s a lot of different things happening there. A lot of it’s put kids but a lot of us are adults. And there’s a brewery there that’s outside. There are Ferris wheels is water fountains. And what’s fun about it is it’s right in the middle of a main road with wonderful restaurants, outdoor dining that just everything is in one place and walking distance. So I would say the Rose Kennedy walkway from one end to the other.

 

Steve Fretzin  [30:01]

Okay. And Casey, we’re gonna wrap up on you with what are locals into? What are people doing these days?

 

Casey Blake  [30:09]

Yeah, I would say so one of the big ones, I think, well, there’s a couple. But one of the biggest Margaret does that was breweries, we have some awesome, awesome breweries in the greater Boston area of Margaret’s, and I’m like, 12 minutes north of Boston actually market I can walk to true these droves. So we’ll have to catch up. Seriously, yeah, he’ll square anyway. So we’ll chat about that, too. But um, yeah, I mean, there’s some awesome craft breweries right around, like, all over the place, and they’re good. There’s outdoor, there’s firepits, there’s activities. I have young kids, it’s fun to bring kids. So it’s just it’s a great kind of culture of people just getting outside and having a nice afternoon.

 

Steve Fretzin  [30:45]

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, look, I there’s a couple of different cities I haven’t been to and Boston is one of them. So I’m gonna have to it’s on the list. If people want to get in touch with you for business purposes, which I you know, recommend if you’re a law firm that is looking to tighten up those bolts and get yourself in game shape. Kolibri law support solutions, how do people get in touch with you?

 

Casey Blake  [31:09]

Yeah, they can find us online. So our website is Kolibri law.com. And that’s KOLIBRI law.com. And we’re also on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. So definitely check out our social pages. And then my email is C Blake at Kolibri law.com. Wonderful, wonderful, Margaret.

 

Margaret Burke  [31:29]

Sure. And my email is m b u r k e at Colibri live.com. and phone number is 833-330-1633. Please feel free to call us Awesome.

 

Steve Fretzin  [31:42]

Awesome. Well, you two have been delightful. And it’s been fun. And it also has been very educational because we’ve covered a lot of ground regarding inefficiencies and ways to make law firms run more like a business and more efficiently. And so I just want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom and spending some time with me today. Thank you. Thank you so much. My pleasure. My pleasure. Hey, everybody. Thank you for spending some time with us today and again, hopefully you’ve got some some good takeaways from today. I know I do. And listen, it’s all about being that lawyer someone who’s confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker, and sometimes you need a little help to get there and whether it’s the show or reading a book or, or you know, calling Casey and Margaret, whatever it takes to to get where you need to go. You got to take care of it. So be well be safe. We’ll talk again soon.

 

Narrator  [32:33]

Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for grilling 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