Jerold Rothkoff: From Starting Out Alone to Leading a Growing Firm with Strategy and Discipline

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jerold Rothkoff discuss:

  • The importance of time management and daily structure for lawyers
  • How networking, marketing, and relationship-building drive law practice growth
  • The role of delegation, staff investment, and team-building in sustaining a firm
  • Learning from mentors, conferences, and coaches to avoid reinventing the wheel

Key Takeaways:

  • Tackling the most difficult or uncomfortable task first thing in the morning, whether it’s a dreaded client call or writing a newsletter, not only builds momentum but ensures the rest of the day feels easier and more productive.
  • Sustainable law practice growth does not come from waiting for opportunities but from actively creating them by showing up, networking, volunteering, and consistently putting yourself in situations where “luck” can happen.
  • The real challenge is not launching a law practice but learning to manage its growth, which requires letting go of perfectionism, embracing that “good enough” from staff is often sufficient, and shifting focus from doing everything yourself to leading others.
  • Investing in yourself through coaches, conferences, and professional development creates a long-term competitive advantage because the ideas, systems, and connections gained can be implemented in ways that most other attorneys in your area will never pursue.

“You create your own luck. Luck just doesn’t happen. You will not get lucky no matter what type of business, including being an attorney sitting at your desk, 24/7, hoping the phone rings.” —  Jerold Rothkoff

Check out my new show, Be That Lawyer Coaches Corner, and get the strategies I use with my clients to win more business and love your career again.

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Episode References:

Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy: https://www.amazon.com/Eat-That-Frog-Great-Procrastinating/dp/162656941X

About Jerold Rothkoff: Jerold E. Rothkoff is the founder and managing attorney of the Rothkoff Law Group, a Philadelphia-area elder care law firm, where he dedicates his practice to serving clients in the areas of elder law, life care planning, asset protection, veterans’ benefits, estate planning, and long-term care advocacy.

Jerry Rothkoff is an outspoken advocate for the rights of the elderly and disabled. He writes for and gives presentations regularly to attorneys and other professionals about elder law. Jerry has received numerous awards both locally and nationally for advocating for seniors, including the Alzheimer’s Association Kaleidoscope Award for philanthropic excellence and community service, the Mae Krier Award from the Twilight Wish Foundation as Senior Advocate of the Year, and the Artz Philadelphia Community Catalyst Award.

Connect with Jerold Rothkoff:

Website: https://rothkofflaw.com/

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-rothkoff-9a19b921/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/rothkofflawgroup/

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: [email protected]

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

 

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Steve Fretzin  [00:00]

Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here, and we’ve got so much for you guys coming up. We’ve got be that lawyer the book 101 top Rainmaker secrets to growing a successful law practice on Amazon. We have be that lawyer Coaches Corner with Steve Fretzin As a second podcast. And of course, if you’re enjoying this show, be that lawyer continue to check them out and tell your friends and give us a kind review and enjoy the show.

 

Narrator  [00:27]

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  [00:48]

Hey everybody. Steve Fretzin, and welcome to be that lawyer. We are the show for lawyers who are looking to grow, looking to scale, looking to learn the business side of this whole crazy thing called the practice of law, and we’ve been doing this for 17 years, working with lawyers all over the world, helping them to learn the stuff you didn’t learn in law school, if you guys don’t know already, frets and does only two things we do, coaching and training, pretty involved program to get people to double, triple their books of business stay sustainable through the rest of their career. And we also work with amazing rainmakers, people that are running 10, 2050, person firms, putting them in a room with other smart managing partners, rainmakers, in our Rainmaker roundtables. And they absolutely love it. In fact, I just had someone leave, and then just email me and said, Hey, I need to come back. I miss it. I was do is, I shouldn’t have left. It was my mistake. And I was like, yes, it was your mistake. That’s okay. We’re happy to have you back there listening. He’s not anyway, I’ve got Jerold waiting in the wings. How’s it going? My friend, fantastic.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [01:48]

Steve, thanks for your time today. I’m honored to be on the podcast. So excited.

 

Steve Fretzin  [01:53]

Yeah, we’re gonna have a really good time. We got a lot to cover, and let’s start off with our quote of the show. Now there’s a book called Eat That Frog. I think it’s a who wrote that book, Brian Tracy, but I think the original is eat a frog, and that’s Mark Twain. So welcome to the show, and tell us why that is your quote of the show.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [02:10]

I always learned from people that or that have great deal of experience than I do, and I’ve always tried to emulate them and pick up and be a fly on the wall. So when I started out my career in elder law, 25 plus years ago, I remember being at a conference now, and we were just in the hallway talking to people, and we were they were trying to get good. I didn’t practice ideas or business building ideas. And one of the participants mentioned the first thing you should do in the morning is eat a frog. And I always took that to heart. That was probably told to me again, probably 2728 years ago at this point, and when I was a baby elder law attorney, and like, Well, I had to understand and interpret exactly what that meant for that person. And they explained, you know, if you take care of something first thing in the morning, and that you really know needs to get done, but you but you don’t really enjoy doing it, but you know it’s going to be painful, but when you finish that task, if you do something from seven to eight, you have the next 810 hours available, and it’s like the rest of the day is a piece of cake. Yeah, because you and you feel good about yourself that you accomplish something that you know that you really don’t want to do, whether you needed to talk to this disgruntled client, or whether you needed to do something that would be out of your comfort zone, or write this or write a newsletter, or do something and so that’s I’ve taken to heart, and it truly works do something in the morning that you know needs to get that you have to get done, but you kind of dread doing it, and the rest of the day is a piece of cake, yep.

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:40]

And I, that’s why I’m talking to lawyers all the time about business development and getting it done early, not only because it’s sometimes the hardest thing for them to do during a day, but if you think about it, if you wait till the end of the day and then the day gets hijacked, right? Then what’s going to get pushed out and down in a way exactly, it’s going to be the beat. So get knock it out early, right? Yeah, get those emails out. You know, write that blog, put together a video. You know, I’m an early riser, and so to me, it comes natural, but not I know not everyone is, but get that, get stuff done. Get those emails out, reply to those emails, because the day just will get away from you once. 9am hits, yep, I love it. I love it. Well, listen, everybody, you’re going to have a great time today. We’ve got the managing partner of Rothkopf Law Group, Jerold Rothkoff, here with us. And, you know, listen, we were introduced by our friend, our mutual friend, Phyllis. We are both provisors people. Phyllis is amazing, and she’s, you know, beloved in the provisors universe. And but let’s get down to your background. How did you come to be a baby lawyer to now the managing partner of a firm 25 years I think, right, yeah.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [04:46]

So, I mean, there, it’s a progression. I can’t say there’s one magic pill I took, but I was practicing back in the late 90s. I was still practicing personal injury law in Center City, Philadelphia, and I towards the latter part of my career. There, I started getting a couple cases with older adults involving healthcare, nursing home bills, and I had an I also had a background in suing nursing homes, and I realized that I did not enjoy litigation for I did not like the monotony. I didn’t like a lot of what I thought was useless work involved in litigation just to litigate and bill on the file, so to speak. So I decided that I want wasn’t interested in doing personal injury work, and I I went to a to a seminar, full day seminar just happened to be a few blocks from my office in Center City, Philadelphia. It was a national elder law conference, and I was there for about six hours. Didn’t know anyone, but I thought, wow, these people are so passionate about what they do for a living. And I started, and I said, I came home that day, since it was local, and I said to my wife, and I had one year old twins at that point, twin girls who are now 27 identical girl. And I said to my wife, I think I want to do Elder Law. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I think it’s going to be really cool. Part of it was a marketing exercise and for practice development, with one year old twins who are quite hungry and a wife who was working from home because she stopped teaching to raise our daughters. And I said, you know, I think I’m going to do elder law. This is expanding population. There’s not too many attorneys who do it right now, and obviously the expanding older adult population in this country. So I put out a shingle about six months later, in February, 2000 and opened an El Dora practice with me, myself and I, and, you know, the bottle washer. And I did everything as as you do as a as starting a business. And now we’re 48 full time equivalents, yeah. And now we’re probably the we turned ourselves into the largest boutique elder care law firm throughout Philadelphia region in both in Pennsylvania and New Jersey so. And you know, I had a lot of support along the way, but you know, hard work certainly, and surround yourself with good people, and eventually it will breed success. And you know, you mentioned when we were started talking the first time, when we first met, you used the word luck, and a little luck along the way as well.

 

Steve Fretzin  [07:04]

Yeah, but luck. So let’s talk about luck, because that’s an interesting word. And there are people who point at someone and say that person is successful because they got lucky, or that person’s so lucky because of something you know, that they’re they’re jealous of, or whatever. But how do you see luck playing in the role of you know, from nothing to you know, 25 years and 48 people and the success that you’ve

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [07:29]

had, you create your own luck. Luck just doesn’t happen. You will not get lucky, no matter what type of business, including being being an attorney, sitting at your desk, 24/7 hoping the phone rings. Yeah, you create your own luck and that go get now the office and meeting people and getting out of your comfort zone. Most attorneys do not enjoy the marketing aspect of a practice. They enjoy lawyering, but not marketing, and I enjoyed both. And you’ve got to get out. You got to meet people, you have to invest in yourself. And so you know it as Woody, you know, with Woody Allen’s expression certainly is true. You know, with what 80% of your success is just showing up something along those lines, put yourself in the position to succeed and then volunteer for stuff. The first time I remember, I went to a Philadelphia elder law conference, and they knew I did elder law, but I really didn’t. It was like six months in, they asked me to be on a professional Elder Law panel for new education credits. I was shaking in my boots, but I said yes. And what I was offered the opportunity because I went to this noon brown bag lunch in Center City at a law firm. I didn’t know anyone but you, but, but that’s an example of putting it yourself in a position to get lucky and to be able to say yes when someone asks you to volunteer for something. And that was the first speaking agent in front of lawyers I probably ever did about maybe 24 plus years ago.

 

Steve Fretzin  [08:53]

Well, what’s interesting too, is that you say yes and to put yourself in a position to be in front of people and to be out there, right, and to be active in the Bar Association, the Chamber of Commerce, any of the places you need to go to start getting your name and brand built, and then 25 years, or maybe even last 10 years, 15 years later, you have to become really good at saying no, because now you’re being asked to do all these things, and now you have the business, and you have the billable hours, and you all these pressures, and you have to turn this Yes thing that made you so successful into being successful through the word no. And are you in line with your smiling? So you’re in line with me on that?

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [09:27]

Yeah, I agree with you. You know, if your name is out there, you’re going to be asked to donate to every Gala. You’re going to be asked to be on every panel out there. You’re going to be asked to, do you want to speak here? Want to speak there? So obviously, it strokes your ego, right? But you do have to learn to say no, and you do have to decide to what to say yes to, and maybe even more importantly, at this point, what to say no to, but you’re right. And it’s hard, but I mean, part of it is having others we now. We have eight attorneys in the office. We have eight geriatric social workers, and so we have a great we have death doulas, we have Veterans Benefit Specialist, health insurance specialist. So we have these great deal of non traditional law firm staff who specialize in long term care advocacy that can cover that, and probably do a better job than I can at this point, in many ways. Yeah, and

 

Steve Fretzin  [10:27]

it’s interesting the, you know, the getting to a No, and I think part of it has to do with, you know, looking at your time, prioritization of where your time is best spent. And then the thing that I talk about constantly with my clients, is qualifying. So what does that mean? Qualifying? What’s the value of this opportunity? How does it fit into my day? What do I have to give up to do it? Is it direct? Like I’m speaking in front of a room full of lawyers, right as me and my business, versus speaking in front of a room full of entrepreneurs? Well, one of them is a room full of direct potential clients, and the other is a bunch of maybe potential connectors. Well, one is going to be far better than the other. So I think we have to look at prioritization and qualifying and then figuring out, like, you know, what’s the best use of our time? And I know you’re super busy doing all these different functions within the firm. How do you then figure out how your time should be spent? But first of

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [11:21]

all, you have to be structured. So you and I will you use you mentioned Phyllis Sisson wine, who’s a superstar. I Phyllis Sisson wine has been my business coach for about the past 23 years. Okay, so one way is to hire a coach. I think everyone, especially attorneys, need a coach. They need to someone who will give them a kick in the butt and help and so and basically, many people are poor time management, so you need to be structured. Get up early. Get up by 5am not everyone does that, but yeah, at least six, at least six, nine and 10 o’clock, I think you’re missing a lot of the day. That’s lunch time. But sure so. But in all sincerity, I think you need to structure your day, and you need to use your time wisely. So everything should be structured. You should be scheduling first appointments at this time. You I do minimize the interruptions. That means minimize email. You know, don’t check it. Don’t keep it on your computer. You know, don’t check it on your phone. 24/7 that also means that you should do a great deal of well, of course, now it’s more zoom, but I still do a great deal of phone calls with clients, but they’re structured at the beginning or the end of the day. Yeah, they’re not structured at 11am or 2pm that kills the whole morning or afternoon. They’re structured from four to five, something like that. So you have to have certain slots. And then you need to use technology wise. You need to use your time WISE. WISE. If you’re driving in the car, you’re driving 45 minutes to and to for, for to do a seminar, I’m going to schedule a call along the way. I mean, I mean some people, that’s not for someone, but also when you talk about and you prioritize it. Well, the first thing you have to decide, how do you define what’s a priority for you? You know, maybe a priority is non monetary for some people too. So some of the things we do, it’s not a it’s just about giving back. Or maybe there’s a good referral source that asked you, you’re doing a courtesy to that referral source.

 

Steve Fretzin  [13:22]

Well, don’t forget about your health. Don’t forget about health. Like I got up this morning as a priority 7am and did Pilates, and I’ve been doing Pilates coming up on three years. Well, why is that a priority? That’s not a business thing. Well, that’s my battery. That’s my health, right, right? I think we have to look at all the different priorities. And I love the idea that you’re saying structure and organization. Because if you you know, the question I would put out there is, did you have the day or the day have you right?

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [13:49]

Yeah. I mean, sometimes I’m not perfect. Sometimes the day does get, no doubt about it, yeah, happens to us all, yeah. But you know I mean structure, I mean it starts out the night before it starts or the evening before you have a to do, you write it. I still write I’m old school because it helps me decipher and think and put it on paper. I write out my to do list for for the next day. Yeah, what I want to accomplish, whether it’s from a marketing perspective or just working on files, working doing staff development, talking to my office administrator, whatever the case may be, I or I put it on my to do list for the next day. The top five get priorities. The bottom five. Okay, if I don’t accomplish everyone, it can roll into the next day. Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [14:42]

Hey, pi attorneys, if you’re serious about scaling your firm, there’s one event you can’t afford to miss. Pim con 2025 happening October 5 through the eighth at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. Pimcon isn’t your average legal conference. It’s an experience. Learn how to take your firm from good to go. At some of the biggest trailblazers in the PI space, including yours truly, as we share our elite marketing and brand building strategies. Tickets on sale [email protected] that’s p i m, c o n.org or just hit the link in the show notes. Your climb to the top starts at PIM con 2025 let’s go from good to go. Goat. Hey, be that lawyer friends. If you’re looking for smarter ways to grow your law practice and want to stay ahead of the curve in legal, tech, business and strategy, then it’s time to check out legal verse media, the go to hub for lawyers who want more. This international platform connects you with global thought leaders through articles, podcasts, webinars and interactive forums that are shaping the future of law, explore everything with a free 14 day trial, including early access to tools peer discussions and a chance to build your brand as a thought leader. Don’t wait. Visit legalverse media.com and register for membership today. Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzen.com and grab a time that works for you, and let’s make this your breakout year. Well, I think you’ve hit a lot of high notes. So organization, delegation, automation, prioritization. I mean, these are all great things that lawyers may be missing the boat on. Is there a secret to getting started to be an organized person, because I think there’s people listening that are hair on fire, fire hose in the mouth all day long, every day, right?

 

Speaker 1  [16:49]

Tough. Well, you got to delegate. So, yeah,

 

Steve Fretzin  [16:52]

that maybe making a list of the things that are delegatable

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [16:57]

sure, anything you know, and it’s all I would say. It all goes back to a business coach.

 

Steve Fretzin  [17:00]

Okay, well, how can I argue with you? Because you’re making so much sense. I mean, so that’s where planning and process and systems and organization can happen if you have the right coach.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [17:12]

And it’s not just that invest in yourself. You know, the most bar associations offer time management classes. So it’s not just a coach, like I took a class through the New Jersey bar about time management, especially related to emails which were driving me crazy, how to manage your time, related related to barrier that can bury you very quickly. So, yeah, so I mean, these are these. Typically, these courses are offered as a practice development tool. Sometimes they’re free. You mentioned it could be your County Bar Association. It could be your regional, your regional networking groups can offer them. Chamber of Commerce is, as you already mentioned, can offer them. So there are some, even some, like small community colleges may offer free courses for yourself or your staff in businesses, in business development and such, in time management.

 

Steve Fretzin  [17:58]

So and there, I mean, there’s, there are also specific coaches. Sarah reef, hecking, for example, Dan Warburton, these are coaches specifically for time management. I do time management, but it’s not the theme. It’s not like, you know, on their own six week course on it and, you know, but that, but they’re in their books getting things done, atomic habits. I mean, there’s a lot of resources.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [18:17]

And also, if you I mean, I love what I do because I get the privilege of working with older adults and those with chronic disabilities, and I help help to advocate for them, and we have a whole holistic team so who are devoted to advocating for these individuals. So but what I’ve learned earlier in my career is not most people, if there’s hardly any original thoughts left in this world, if no one has an original thought. You get your ideas from someone else. So and that’s really how I built my practice. And so when I opened my put out my own shingle and said I did elder care law, I probably attended four to five national conferences annually over the first five to 10 years, and that’s how I learned to develop the practice. That’s how I learned the value of a coach. That’s how I learned what tangible services I can offer and and how a geriatric social worker can benefit the practice and our clients. I just learned from people far smarter than I all over the country and just to fly on the wall the first five years so. And that is, and most attorneys are not willing to do that,

 

Steve Fretzin  [19:19]

but I think that could be one if not well, let’s say one of the three top takeaways from this podcast so far, and we’re not done yet, is the concept of there are people who have done it before you. There’s people who have been successful before you, in your area, out of your area, in different areas of organization and business development, coaches, whatever. And what are you doing to learn from them and to emulate them, because you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It’s been done. But I don’t know that people are digging in at the level, like I’m a podcaster, but I love listening to podcasts, and the podcast that I’m listening to, generally speaking, are ones where I can learn from the smartest people in the world. And I’m. Just trying to take one or two things, 321, or two things away from every podcast that I listened to that gives me a different perspective, or gives me something that I can emulate the way, you know, someone might emulate. You know, I was just talking with a client about Goggins, right, this guy who’s crazy fanatic, you know, health guy and, you know, just motivational and like that. That’s what he needed to emulate. I’ve got other people I emulate So, and you

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [20:24]

do too, yeah, yeah. I mean, you just try to emulate people who you perceive as something that you can benefit from or contribute give them a call. I mean, you know, if there’s someone, especially those who don’t practice in your area, in the same area, so you’re not in competition, yeah, you know. And that’s what I’ve done. I mean, elder law attorneys love to share information. They’re very excited, especially if they don’t work in your geographic region. They’re you. They wouldn’t perceive you as competition. Reach out to them. Yeah, I also, when I got started, for example, I visited a gentleman in Nashville, Tennessee, who already put together the type of office we wanted. I spent two days in his office, basically just shadowing him around and then build a practice based upon what I saw.

 

Steve Fretzin  [21:07]

Yeah, there’s an attorney that I talked to the other day who’s 28 years old. He’s bright and energetic and has he’s already done more marketing and business development at 28 than some lawyers will do in their whole lives. And he’s thinking of joining an estate planning firm to learn estate planning. And I’m thinking, okay, I get that, because that’s a great, great way to learn. But he’s so entrepreneurial. I was like, why don’t you just, like, partner with a couple of really seasoned estate planners, do some work for them, learn from them. Get that free education by doing work for them, right? Get paid hourly or whatever to learn it, and then you can keep the, you know, the practice, because this guy’s not going to work at a firm long term. I could tell,

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [21:46]

yeah, if he has that truly entrepreneurial spirit, he probably doesn’t want to be told what to do, how much he can spend on marketing, etc.

 

Steve Fretzin  [21:53]

So if you had to give one final tip to or advice for lawyers who maybe they’re great at what they do already, they’re considering opening up their own law practice in the area of focus that they’re already great in what’s advice that you would give them to inspire them to do it, or just things that they need to do to get started.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [22:12]

This isn’t for everyone, but take a leap of faith. Have faith in yourself, because when you hire your first paralegal or administrative assistant. They may make more money than you make, but you could, but it’s the power of delegation. You can then network, do more one on ones, attend Bar Association functions, attend national conferences, where you’ll meet brilliant people from all over the country that you can then bring back. And then guess what? You know you can then charge for it, because 99 5% of the people who do what you do in your area did not attend that conference. And that has value. That has value to that potential client you’re sitting across as well. So don’t discount the value of conferences. Don’t discount the value of delegation, but you have to. It also takes money you have to invest in yourself. So if you’re, you know, from a dollars and cents perspective, before you start on your own, make sure you have a sufficient line of credit.

 

Steve Fretzin  [23:08]

Yeah, well, line of credit, I think if you can bring some business with you as a way to buffer it and yeah, also keep in mind, like there was a day back in your time, right in my time, where, you know, you had to have a full time receptionist. You had to have an office. You had to have all these things where now you really don’t, right, yeah. I mean, you do and you don’t. It depends on your area. Okay, okay, we’ll put that out there, but, yeah, but, I mean, sure, there’s still virtual offices, and there’s an office in someone else’s firm where you have a conference room and there’s a professional environment, but I’m just saying, like, it’s not a prerequisite or mandatory for someone to have 2030, grand, you know, ready to invest day one in a big, expensive website and all the things that were sort of more mandatory back in the day. Sure. I mean, you can certainly, with technology today and virtual offices, you can certainly punch far above your weight. Let’s put it that way. Yeah, there’s no doubt. All right, let’s talk about what I like to call failing forward. We all have moments in our lives, in our careers, personally, business, where we fail at something. We make mistakes. We you know, we hope they’re not critical, but sometimes they are. And then what do we learn from them? And what’s an opportunity time when you feel like you failed forward?

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [24:17]

Well, that’s the only way you’re going to learn. I mean, you know, is to I would say that. I mean, and then we talked about this when we first met eat, building a practice is easy in reality. I mean, I might say it’s simple, but it’s when you start out with nothing. It’s that’s not difficult to build a practice. It really is not. If you’re personable, you’re smart, and you have a drive, the more difficult part is managing the growth of that practice, because that can eat you alive. So I think, you know, I think that was the difficult part for me, that, why couldn’t everyone think like me when I hired people? Why couldn’t they have that same work ethic?

 

Steve Fretzin  [24:56]

Yeah, even, even attorneys, you’re so on the money.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [24:59]

Yeah. So, you know, I think the first couple associates I had, I thought had to be like me. They had to get up at 5am they had to get in the office early. They, you know, they had to eat lunch at their desk. And like, why couldn’t they be like me? Yeah, and, you know, and then I realized, because they’re not me, and they never will be. And sometimes good is good enough. You know, the art of perfection will stifle you, yeah? So I think one of the key lessons is, you know, you they may not do it as perfect as you would, or exactly like you, but good sometimes is good enough. Yeah, good even though it may not exactly like

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:42]

good is sometimes going to do it, yeah. And Perfection is the enemy of good. Exactly. Yes. Okay, well, really important. And I have a lot of client experiences coming into my head as we’re talking through this, because I just had another client who said, I just can’t find like, he’s going to meet with me one on one to talk about this, but he’s really struggling with recruiting, because he goes everybody I’m interviewing is a bozo. Like, there’s nobody that he’s meeting with that just impresses him anymore. It’s, like, so frustrating for him and and so we’re going to sit down and, like, come up with a plan of a variety of different ways to try to even recruiters. He wants to, he hates recruiters. He’s, like, totally off on them because he’s he just feels manipulated by them and that they’re no better than, you know, than he is to find people.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [26:22]

So, I mean, yeah, I hear what you’re saying. There are good people out there.

 

Steve Fretzin  [26:25]

Oh no, I’m friends with a bunch of recruiters, and they’re amazing, and they Yeah, but again, you know it’s, it’s like sometimes one bad apple spoils the bunch. And when you have a bad experience with a marketing agency, a bad experience with a recruiter, something that turns your stomach, it’s hard to get back in there and try again.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [26:42]

It is, I mean, you know, and when you talk about staff, you know, the if your staff is, you know, constantly turning over, there’s a problem. And the problem, typically, is, you

 

Steve Fretzin  [26:54]

Yeah, I could, I’m not gonna say I could see that with this guy, but I mean, he’s, he is, is a personality that is very strong, and I love him for that, okay, but I think it makes it very difficult, like, almost, I want to say to him, like, you should not be in. You should not be hiring anybody like you should be. Someone else needs to, it’s your firm needs to handle it, because I don’t think you’re going to be, you know, able to handle, you know, hiring with your standards the way they’re set. Yeah.

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [27:19]

So, yeah. So, you know, longevity. I mean, we have a great deal of thankfully, we have a great deal of people that’s been with us 10 plus years and so and you got to invest in your staff, and you got, we tried to invest in them, not just financially, because that does, that’s not what always makes them tick. We also invest in education, take them to conferences, and just try to treat them well at the same time.

 

Steve Fretzin  [27:43]

You guys, I hope you’re all getting a lot out of this. I mean, we’re talking about, you know, luck and leap of faith, and we’re talking about controlling your practice growth and and making your own luck and all these great things that Jerold’s bringing to the table. And I just feel it’s so important whether you’re on your own or going on your own or not on your own, you know, I think it’s you Inc, no matter where you are, whether you’re at a firm or your or your buyer, you know, building a practice a law firm, really, really great stuff, amazing. Let’s take a moment. Thank our sponsors. Of course, Pim con, coming up is the top personal injury event of the year in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the Venetian that’s going to be pimcon.org. To check that out. We’ve got the law her podcast with Sonia, helping women be their best lawyer versions. And of course, we want to talk about legal verse media. Legalverse media.com international publication online. You can become a member and get great, great content. Be a part of that community. Check that out. Legalverse media.com Jerold, people want to network with you. They want to use your firm. What are the best ways for them to reach you?

 

Jerold Rothkoff  [28:43]

Best way is our website. Rothkopf law.com, R, o, t, h, k, O, F, F, l, a, w.com, or feel free. The best way to you know, with different email addresses and such, feel free to reach out to us. And there are no toll free numbers there. Our email addresses are there Be my guest, if there’s any, our focus is even for attorneys. I tell, let alone consumers, is to be a resource and for them. And because, if you have any questions about elder law, or any questions about building, you know, building a practice, not just an elder law, feel free to reach out. I’ll be happy to try to help you along. Yeah, well,

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:20]

now you’re going to get inundated with calls people I want to talk to you. That’s okay, Listen, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. It didn’t fly by 30 minutes. It always does. Steve, I can absolutely this is great. We got to do this again sometime. Yeah, yeah. We will. We will. Thanks again, Jerold, and thank you everybody for hanging out with us for 30 minutes at be that lawyer, you know, be success. Be, you know, emulate the people in that are going to help you build the practice of your dreams. That’s really what it comes down to. And there’s a lot of people out there that have been successful before you, and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. So listen to everybody. Take care, be safe, be well. We’ll talk again so soon.

 

Narrator  [29:56]

Thanks for listening to be that loyal. Life change. Changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fretson.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.