Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] You know, most people have this view that it the advertising firms the owners aren’t really, in the cases very much, which sounds like it’s very different for you. But you know, as you said, it’s very competitive. Advertising is expensive. It is a long game. You gotta play. You don’t just throw a couple commercials up and get cases.

You gotta be out there for a good long time for it to actually work. But for those lawyers out there that can’t afford advertising. It sounds like you still get a lot of referrals. I mean, what sort of advice would you give to them to generate cases, referrals, cultivate the relationships, those sorts of things.

Howard Ankin: So I’ll say two things. One, just being on the advertising lawyer. I’ve had people that come to me or they want advice, but like the mindset becomes, hey, I turn on the commercial and you know, my staff will take care of it and I’ll go golfing. When you start advertising, if you’re actually doing it right, you’re actually gonna be working more, not less.

Welcome [00:01:00] to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating stories of successful law firm founders. We’ll uncover their beginnings, triumph over challenges, and practice growth. Whether you aspire to launch your own firm, have an entrepreneurial spirit, or are just curious about the legal business, you’re in the right place.

Let’s dive in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. This is a podcast where I get to interview law firm founders, successful law firm founders that have done all kinds of cool stuff, and today is no exception. Today I get to interview a, a very successful and apparently up in Chicago, very well known.

I I’m not in Chicago, but I hear everybody knows this guest. So, today, happy to welcome Howard Ankin. Howard, thanks for coming on. Why don’t you tell us, you know, a little bit about [00:02:00] you, a little about your firm and your practice.

Howard Ankin: Well, thanks for having me. That’s a very nice introduction, Jonathan. I’m a third generation lawyer, a little bit different third generation than most. It was my dad’s father that was a lawyer, and then my mom married a lawyer. So I guess then the only thing that my mom knew was for her firstborn son that I was gonna be a lawyer to so I’m here in Chicago, Illinois.

And my office is located, if you put a bullseye right in the center of what we call our Chicago loop or Chicago downtown that’s where my office is at 10 North Dearborn. And I practice personal injury law in all facets. Anything that’s contingency fee related, I do workers’ compensation, personal injury, medical malpractice products, liability trucking, slip and fall dog bites.

So, social Security Disability, mass Torts. So anything that’s contingency fee related in the injury field, that’s what we do here.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so for people like me that, [00:03:00] that aren’t from Chicago you know, my understanding is you’re an advertiser, or at least as part of your marketing mix. And so. Like I said, a lot of people know who you are. Is that, Is that right?

Howard Ankin: Well, you know, I grew up in the Chicago land area. I went to law school. I went to undergrad at the University of Illinois. I went to law school here in the Chicago Loop. So I hope I was a hometown guy to begin with. But then like most lawyers, as their career advances you wanna get your reputation out and in city over 10 million people.

I used to think as a younger lawyer, you know, I had all these jury verdicts and I was doing all this great stuff and I was working 15 hours a day and working late into the night, and I thought like the name was gonna get out there. But you find unless you have some type of way to be on a podcast or you know, do some type of marketing, it’s very hard for that name recognition to get out there.

So yeah, so then I started marketing and advertising my practice.

Jonathan Hawkins: So I [00:04:00] do wanna get into some of that a little later but first I wanna circle back. So third generation lawyer. So was it your destiny? I mean, was this something you knew growing up? Is it your parents were saying, Hey, you’re gonna be a lawyer, or is it something you just wanted to do? Or was it it’s just there wasn’t anything else you could think of to do.

Howard Ankin: Well, I didn’t know what type of lawyer I was gonna be, but in my world with my pate, with my maternal grandfather being a lawyer and my father being a lawyer I really didn’t know anything else. Like, from the beginning of time I just thought that I would be a lawyer ’cause that’s what you’re supposed to do.

So like in the community that I grew up in, there was a lot of, like, if you came from a certain background, there’s a lot of people that own Dunking Donuts. There’s other you know, backgrounds people if they you know, they owned I dunno, cleaners, that kind of stuff. Like in the world that I was in I was a lawyer that was like what my, that’s what the people in my background did.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, my dad was a lawyer, so I’m a second generation and you know [00:05:00] I sort of wanted to do my own thing. I wanted to not be a lawyer, but I tell the story before of it. So I was at undergrad, I went engineering undergrad, and I did not wanna be an engineer either. So I went to the career services and I did all these assessments, and took all these tests, and it gave me the top 10 careers that were, that I was best suited for and I think five of the 10 were some sort of lawyer. So, so for me it was almost like destiny.

Howard Ankin: Yeah. You know, I came, I worked at a summer job like most people, so I worked trading in an options pit over the summer between my junior and senior year. And it was my job to run around and check the trades. And then, you know, sometimes like I’d have to come in on a Saturday morning and it was triple witching hour, had to like, make sure that all the trades cleared and whatever.

So at the end of the summer, the group that I worked for, they said, look, you’re doing a great job here. We like you. Why don’t you finish up your third year of your last year of college? You’ll finish it up here. We will train you more and you can come start, you know, [00:06:00] being a trader. And at that time, you know, trading options was like, that’s where like some big money was made.

So I remember coming home and I said to my mom, I’m like, you know. I am thinking maybe this law school thing might not work for me. I’m gonna be a traitor. She said, you’re going back to college, going to law school, and then you can decide what you wanna do with your life after that.

Jonathan Hawkins: There you go. Yeah. Yeah. So your firm now take me back to be before that. So, you know your granddad, your dad were lawyers. Did you go work with them immediately after law school or did you do something else?

Howard Ankin: So I have a much different path for like a generational law firm path. You know, my grandfather had a real estate practice and it really had nothing to do with anything that I’m doing today. It had nothing to do with my dad’s practice. My dad was functionally a criminal defense lawyer. But he also had for like many lawyers of his generation, he was a general practice lawyer.

So he [00:07:00] did some real estate closings too, or general type civil lawsuits and that kind of stuff. With his focus more on the criminal law. So for me, I followed the path that most people I did. I went to law school. I worked for a law firm while I was in law school, and then went out.

I on graduation, I worked for a law firm for a year. Then I worked for another law firm for about four years, and then I had to make a decision about five years in which way I was gonna go. So I probably jumped too early at that time, but it worked out for me and I started my own law practice independent of my dad or independent of anybody else.

And then later over time then my father and I merged together and we worked together. But really, he still kind of did the type of law that he did. And I did the law that I did, but it was under one roof of what we now call Ankin Law.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so take me back to when you started your firm. I mean, you know, you did have the benefit of growing up in a lawyer [00:08:00] family, and I assume your dad had his own practice. So was this something that you just sort of always sort of knew you were gonna do or something else when you started your practice?

Howard Ankin: Yeah, I mean, I was hungry. I was. I still relish being a lawyer and I still have a strong passion for being a lawyer today. And I still have a strong passion for what I’m doing now and for goals that I wanna have today, but especially, you know, taking it back 35 years ago I was hungry to have my own law practice and be a successful lawyer, so I was trying a lot of cases as a young lawyer working at the firms that I was at, I was.

Working all kinds of hours. You know, I remember my dad having a conversation with me where I was calling him one night at like 10 o’clock at night from like the office, and he’s like, you know, you’re like trying to sprint a marathon. And, you know, maybe at the time I was but anyways, so I started my own law practice.

I had maybe had accumulated about 40 [00:09:00] personal clients or referrals that were personally like referred to me over time. So when I left my old law firm, I had about 40 cases that I started with and, you know, I just I was just took various resources that I knew and I was calling everybody I knew and I told ’em that I was starting my own law practice.

And at the beginning, even though, you know, injury work is what I did you know, my dad was a general practice lawyer and it put me through law school. So I started doing general practice work for, I’d probably say the first five years of my practice. So people had a phone, they had a lawyer and I was doing some criminal defense work.

I was, you know, doing real estate closings. I was doing bill by the hour you know, lawsuits whatever it took. But I was building up my practice and about the time that I was 30 years old. Then I, you know, hit my first big case and you know, from there then it kind of went off to the races from, at that point.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, yeah, I was gonna [00:10:00] ask when did it change from the general practice, I’ll call it, to really focusing on the personal injury practice? Was it after you? Hit that case, you had enough resources that you could focus, or was it something different?

Howard Ankin: You know, looking back, I wish I would’ve had a little bit more faith and confidence in myself. And I’m still always worried about the success of my practice. You know, with the summer now, you know, we have a lot of summer clerks here. So we have about 110 people. They’re in my office working at this point.

But in general, you know, I average about a hundred people with me helping people. So I probably should add a little bit more confidence in myself that it was gonna work out. But for a long time, you know, I was always worried about like when I was gonna get the next case or if I was ever gonna get the next case, or, you know, in the personal injury field, you, there’s a lot of costs.

So you always have a lot of costs outlay, and if the, if you’re on a contingency fee, meaning a percentage of the recovery so if the case doesn’t work out. So, you know, [00:11:00] even today I’m always as good as, you know, what I did yesterday but especially younger. I was always concerned about that. So anyways I eventually had a case where, you know, this goes back several years, but at that time I had about $50,000 in experts on the case which was a significant amount of money for me.

And it was one of these cases where there was no offer until you were showing up to the final pretrial, right before picking the jury. So the judge comes out and basically says to the defense, are you offering anything or you’re not offering anything? And the defense is hemming and hawing. And the judge is like, I don’t have time for this.

Let’s go pick the jury. Okay? And he says, Mr. Hankin, you gotta a demand on the file. I’m like, your honor, not only do we have a demand but we got a demand. And we also got a you know, we got basically like. We call it like a penalties petition, where like if they, we got a verdict over the policy limits, we’d have an opportunity to get money beyond the policy limits.

So, at [00:12:00] about 50 grand at stake. And if this case didn’t go right, I was probably gonna have to wrap it all up and go start working for somebody else. I didn’t know what was gonna happen. But anyways, at that moment you know, we’re in the judge’s chamber. The defense said, you know, we’re gonna pay the policy limits on this case.

And anyways, from there it was, it was a significant sum and like kind of in, I had that matter, and then I had another matter that kind of resolved itself in the similar timeframe. And those two cases was kind of like, it was, it was a definite shift in my life that made all the difference. So.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s funny. You know, talking, hearing your story. I mean, I’ve had mine and talking to others it’s like you, you’re sort of clawing and scraping and scraping and all of a sudden, boom, this moment hits and then you’re like, this is gonna work. And then you’re like, we’re going for it.

So your firm now, you got a lot of people, a hundred people plus that’s a lot of people. So, maybe take me through a little bit, sort of the evolution. So when you first went out you had some cases, that’s [00:13:00] good. Was it just you when did you start adding help and maybe take me through sort of the jumps you made along the way.

I mean, you don’t go from one to a hundred overnight.

Howard Ankin: Yeah, you know, it wasn’t pretty, I will tell you that, I started in an office and for the first, until this case that I’m talking about happened my desk was a car table, Chi was a car table and a car table chair that had my computer on it. That was how fancy it was. And when this case happened, I, you know, went out and bought a desk and got office furniture and all that kind of stuff.

But it didn’t start it started with very me meager means. And really what happened is, like first employee all they did was answer the phone. Then I had somebody that answered the phone and then I had you know, it was like I used to work all week. And then I used to like anything that was like secretarial, you know, support staff stuff.

All those files would get [00:14:00] put like on the side. And then like, that was my homework for Saturday and Sunday because I was doing like the legal work during the week, but it was like weekends or at nights. That’s when I changed my hat from being a lawyer to a legal assistant. And then I would do it that way.

You know, it’s funny today, but like we file complaints or the money that has to go into a legal case. You know, like I just signed checks all day long in my firm. Now and I don’t know that the younger lawyers even appreciate this, but there was a period of time where I’d be like, okay, well I’m gonna put this case in.

This is the statute on this one, and this is what’s happening with this case. I’m gonna put this case into suit next week. And then like, I’ll put this case in the suit the following week. ‘Cause you know, if I had to put up $500,000 per case, it was like I almost had a like wagon to it. I couldn’t put like all six cases in the suit on the same day.

So, you know, it’s just like the difference. But anyway, so I got [00:15:00] a phone receptionist, then a legal assistant, then another legal assistant, and after a while. You know, like I got my first attorney that came to work for me and a second attorney and a third attorney, and it kind of molded on from there.

But for a long time it was like me and 10 legal assistants and I just, they just put all the paperwork together and told me where to be and I’d be bopping around from like one courtroom to the next and I’d be like, with my hair on fire. And you know, my main legal assistant at the time, I’d come in and I’d be like, did the phone ring?

And she’s like, ah, it’s been pretty quiet. And I don’t, I’d sit down at my desk, I make calls and you know, she said to me one day, she’s like, you know, whenever you’re around, the phone’s ringing off the hook. And I’m like, and I’m like, I got it. So I, even though I got a hundred people today you know, I feel like I need to be around to I feel I need to be around to, you know, make every, you [00:16:00] know, make the room spin around.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah the card table story, it reminds me, you know, read about Jeff Bezos and when he started, I think they couldn’t afford desks, so they went to Home Depot and just bought doors and just stood ’em up. So they had their desks were literally doors from Home Depot go ’cause a little cheaper

Howard Ankin: I guess I was ahead of Jeff Bezos with the uh, card table chair, but he, you know. Obviously I didn’t think it through that. Well, I should have done it a little differently.

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so, so you said at some point your dad joined you. So, you know, I’m always interested, you know, my dad was a lawyer. Like I said, I’ve never practiced with him. We’re in two different cities. But what was that like having your dad come on? I mean, it’s sort of like full circle. It sounds like you’d been running your firm for a while and you’re like, alright, come join me.

And maybe what was that like and what’s it like working with your dad?

Howard Ankin: So actually what happened is it was like we moved into an office together when this happened and I was on like this corner of a small office and my dad had an [00:17:00] office on the opposite end of the other corner. And a buddy of his came in that rented space and you know, we were so concerned about the rent that he act, we actually gave his buddy the best primary office in the suite.

My dad and I had like, what would be like the two associate offices and you know, he did his work on his end and I did my work on my end, and we started to be like, okay, I’m gonna refer you this case and you’ll refer me this case. And it just got to be such back and forth between like, I’m referring you this and I’m referring you to that and keeping track of it.

And we eventually, we just are like, you know, we just like merged it together in terms of like one office. But my dad continued to always do the type of work that he did and I continued to do the type of work that we had. And he kinda like continued to like, you know, greatest thing about being a lawyer is a hundred thousand lawyers plus in the state of Illinois and everybody could be a lawyer, how they wanna practice law.

So my dad kind of continued to practice law he wanted and I continue to [00:18:00] move forward and practice the, you know, practice the vision of law of how I wanted to. But it was great being in the office with my dad. We had lunch together you know, so, you know, so on and so forth. I don’t know that we practiced that much together but just being able to be around my dad was great.

Jonathan Hawkins: So are there any Ankin’s that are gonna be the fourth generation lawyer?

Howard Ankin: That is Jonathan, the million dollar question. Proud that my son just graduated from high school. My daughter just finished up her freshman year of high school. So I got started late. You know, there’s about 10 years of my life. They’re unaccounted for. My son. I celebrated my 40th birthday when my son had his six month birthday.

So it shows you what happens when you become a lawyer. So we’ll see. I got about. I gotta keep doing what I’m doing for the next 10 years, whether I like it or not. We’ll see if they wanna be lawyers, maybe they’ll have a significant other one of them that they may wanna do something. So we’ll see how it goes.

Otherwise, I got a lot of lawyers that are partners and a lot [00:19:00] of people that will be partners that work with me, and I know that they have their hopes and dreams and hopes and dreams for their family. So I’m, I’m pretty hopeful that the income law label will be around for at least another generation or two providing the good services that we do.

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about, and I want to get into that too, but the growth of your firm. And you know, I sort of feel, I could be wrong here, but my sense is from my own experience and talking to lots of people, it’s, you know, growth or real growth is really not accidental. I think you sort of have to make a decision.

You know, at some point you have to decide, am I gonna take the risk, hire the extra people, and really go, I mean, on some level, when it was just you probably got busy enough and you’re like, I just need some help. So, but once you get to that level, you sort of, I think, have to make a decision. So was there a point in your career where you said, all right, I’m gonna grow this baby.

Howard Ankin: So I’ll answer that. I’ll answer that to you, Jonathan within two. I’ll I’ll answer that to you two ways. I got two answers [00:20:00] for that. First answer, what was really happening to me is it was me and I had, I don’t know, 10, 12 legal assistants and I had like maybe, you know, one lawyer, maybe two, that were helping me at a certain point.

And I used to get a lot of referrals from other lawyers. Like I’d up walk up and down like the main street of the Chicago Loop by the courthouse. And you know, lawyers that didn’t wanna try cases like they may settle ’em, but if they didn’t settle, they needed somebody to go to court and try the case.

So I got a lot of referrals from lawyers that had difficult cases that they didn’t wanna try for whatever reason. I had referral sources from other lawyers and I was pretty content with that law practice and I probably would’ve kept going with that. What happened with me was in the 2008 downturn, all of a sudden, all the lawyers that, like in the two thousands that had like all types of private equity deals and real estate deals [00:21:00] and .com deals and whatever, the world was starting to dry up in that 2008 economy. And I was like looking at myself and I’m like, where’s the referrals? But the lawyers that were referring, they were kind of keeping those cases themselves now, so.

You know, I didn’t set out to be a an advertising attorney, but I didn’t wanna lose the infrastructure that I already had and I had to keep that volume up. So I started advertising. And with the advertising is, you gotta keep feeding the monster because, you know, once you have 10 people, you gotta feed ’em and you gotta feed 20 and you gotta feed a hundred.

So the other aspect of this is there were periods of time in my career. In a prior time where I’m like, yeah, 20 people’s enough, 50 people’s enough. And I can kind of try to run it at like this level. But every time that I got to a point where if [00:22:00] you’re not growing, you’re dying. Okay. And where we’re at now in a legal world is.

I am no longer competing against the law firm across the street, or the lawyer that’s got a firm in the suburbs. And I, it doesn’t matter if they’re here for one generation, they just started third generation law firm. The competition now is coming out of Florida and Texas and Nevada and New York. California.

The people that, the firms that we’re competing with, that we’re competing with now are national. And so, their war chest, their budgets their ability to hire the best lawyer, talent, so on and so forth that’s what I’m competing against. So, you know, there’s always room for another good lawyer. But as far as being a lawyer, you wanna work on the best cases that you could work on.

And you wanna try to find as much success as you have [00:23:00] because for the client, the client wants to know that the lawyer has sustaining power, and the client wants to know that the lawyer has all the resources to bring to task to be the most successful for them. So, you know, some clients are like, it’s not, you know what, you know, it’s who you know.

Okay. And there’s a lot of like, you know, when it’s on a contingency fee. You don’t want there to be a lawyer that feels like he’s gotta settle the case on Friday because he’s gotta pay the rent. You know, he needs sustaining power. So, long story short is that issue about growth, if, especially now there’s national firms that have thousands of lawyers.

So if I don’t have a hundred, if I don’t have a hundred people you, you’re not gonna be you’re not gonna bring. To bear what the client needs to be successful.

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about sort of as your firm has grown, maybe how your role in the firm has, has grown. So [00:24:00] you started out as a, you know, trying cases, getting referrals, trying cases people didn’t wanna try. And so, then you advertise your volume, property goes up. You’re building business. You gotta manage all that.

So what do you do now? Do you take an active role in any cases? Are you trying cases still or is that?

Howard Ankin: Still, yeah. Yes. I still have an active role with a lot of cases, some people might think that my active role is in the cases that are like the most financially lucrative but a lot of times it’s actually the opposite. So a lot of the cases that I personally get involved with is I may advertise but I also still get referrals from other lawyers.

I still get referrals from people that I you know, grew up in my hometown, went to high school with, they get referrals from people that know me from my kids’ schools, what have you. So a lot of times if somebody calls me and says like, Hey, it’s my nephew has this problem, I can’t [00:25:00] really turn that case over to one of my partners or associate attorneys. So a lot of the cases that I handle personally are cases where like people are close to me, and since I’m kinda prolific and out there you know, I, I do have more, I am lucky to have more than a fair share of people that like, want me to help them and they’re kind of expecting that I’m the one that helps them.

And I try to do that the best that I can. The other way is on the larger cases, but in all of our cases, even when new cases are coming in, the cost of us to get an expert to like go out and inspect the car when the airbag didn’t open, or to check to make sure that like this product was defective or whatever we need to do, we’re talking, you know, $10,000, like without blinking an eye.

So, you know, [00:26:00] we could have cases that our costs are 10,000, but we could have cases that are 50,000 or $500,000 that we need to invest. Not our time, but hard dollars in. So for my purposes, I wanna know what cases we’re invest, we’re investing the expert costs on. I wanna know who the experts are. I wanna know what their expert reports look like.

Because if it’s an expert’s case, the case might rise and fall on who the experts are that we have. And for my lawyers they may be incentivized on the outcome of the case. But I don’t have a Desi, I don’t have a desensitizing way that if like the lawyer decided that he needed an expert, but then.

If the case doesn’t go right or like, we investigated a case, but then we decided that after investigation it doesn’t pan out. These are overhead costs that can serve severely affect [00:27:00] the ability to put food onto my table at the end of, you know, at the end of the day. So I’m involved in, that’s a, it’s a big heavy involvement that I need to be involved in overseeing that also for me personally I gotta come to work here every day.

You know, this is, I invested a good portion of my life in my law practice. So I’m still also involved in interviewing and that type of stuff. I may not do the first interview but for the most part, many people that work here I’m involved at some point in that interview process and I wanna know who’s working here.

And I also wanna be involved in, you know, what people are doing here, like our processes. To make sure that the service that we’re providing is the same type of service that I feel I feel good about providing.

Jonathan Hawkins: And for all those owners out there and want to be law firm owners, I mean, it’s, when you’re the owner, you’re, you care about it more than anybody else top to bottom. And that’s like you said, culture hiring. [00:28:00] All that stuff. The investment in the cases. And so, so that, I mean, that’s cool that you’re still heavily involved in all that stuff.

You know, most people have this view that it, the advertising firms the owners aren’t really, in the cases very much, which sounds like it’s very different for you. But you know, as you said, it’s very competitive. Advertising is expensive. It is a long game. You gotta play. You don’t just throw a couple commercials up and get cases.

You gotta be out there for a good long time for it to actually work. But for those lawyers out there that can’t afford advertising. It sounds like you still get a lot of referrals. I mean, what sort of advice would you give to them to generate cases, referrals, cultivate the relationships, those sorts of things.

Howard Ankin: So I’ll say two things. One, just being on the advertising lawyer. I’ve had people that come to me or they want advice, but like the mindset becomes, hey, I turn on the commercial and you know, my staff will take care of it and I’ll [00:29:00] go golfing. When you start advertising, if you’re actually doing it right, you’re actually gonna be working more, not less.

Why? Because that quality control from the first time that the telephone rings, you have to have strong quality control. You have to have infrastructure to be able to take in those telephone calls. And even if you’re not accepting a case in the world of Google, you’re gonna get multiple one star reviews, okay.

Online when you don’t accept the case. So I’m the longest winded person I know, as you can tell from our podcast today. And the reason for that is, is because as soon as I don’t explain something to somebody in triplicate, they’re mad and I’m not eating okay? Because they’re just gonna go online and hammer me.

Okay. So you need to have infrastructure that is going to be able to do it, and you need to have infrastructure that’s gonna provide quality care [00:30:00] once, if you’re a lawyer, which we’ll get to in a second, and you’re getting referrals from friends and family and they don’t like how the case goes, they may not talk to you again, or they may tell you that like they’re not happy with your services, but they may not go to the next step of going online and being like, I hate my next door neighbor.

Okay, so. But when you’re dealing with the public, everything you do is highly scrutinized and you’re gonna end your law career pretty quickly with a bunch of one star Google reviews. So anyways, advertising equals much more infrastructure and much more oversight to make sure that it’s going the right way.

The advertising also, at least for me. A lot of times gets you business that you should have been, that I think I should have been getting anyway. What I mean by that, so I have people that’ll call me from high school, Howard, how are you? What have you. Okay. Yeah. We were [00:31:00] good friends in high school. Okay. Or you know, good school friends, let’s say, but I may have not seen or talked to them in 35 years.

But with the advertising now I remind them, and I’m in this world and they call me. ’cause you know, they do know me and I can pick up the phone like it’s 35 years later and be like, how you doing? So, advertising helps in that way. Now for me, what is the best form of advertising? The advertising for me works when it reinforces what I’m already doing in the community. So like if I’m going out, I do I do a lot of workers’ compensation also injuries. So if I go out to like a union hall and I’m making a union speech the people at the union, hopefully they’ve heard of me because I’ve been doing work in the union and I’ve done good work there. But in general, if I go to a new union or go to a new place, they may have heard the name Howard Ankin before.[00:32:00]

So it’s like now they’re meeting me in person. So, or if somebody says to somebody, Hey, I’m referring you to Howard Ankin. In this day and age, everybody wants to like do research. They wanna know who their lawyer is. So typically, like if somebody said, Hey, you need a dentist, do you need an accountant? Hey, where do I buy a pair of socks?

But everybody’s gonna go online and be like, Hey, are these good socks? You know, they wanna do their own research. So, you gotta be out in the community and doing things. So I’m the president of my Law School’s Alumni Association. I’m on the Board of Managers for the Illinois Trial Lawyers. I’m on the Board of Governors for the American Association for Justice.

I’m an section counsel for the Illinois State Bar Association for a free service legal group that’s across the street from me. I was on their board for several number of years, and I’m still active in the work that they do and so on and so forth. So I try to give back to the legal community as [00:33:00] much as I can to whatever else I’m involved in.

My kids’ school, so on and so forth that try to be, you know, active in my local community. And then my law firm in general, we try to pick our spots where we could be have like some the community could see us doing things and doing charity work and giving back. So we do this thing where we have something that’s called Teacher of the Month and we basically students can write in about a favorite teacher and the great work that the teacher’s doing.

And then we’ll go to the school and we give a, the teacher gets an award and we give a thousand dollars to the teacher to buy school supplies or whatever they wanna give. And then that kind of gets put out there in the ether so that people know that my firm is trying to be part of the community and give back.

So these are just, you know, we also have, you know, internet stuff and billboards and TV and radio and those things. But the style in [00:34:00] which we advertise. Those advertisements are, I feel that we do that more like from a community sense. We’re trying to provide information that would be good for somebody watching those advertisements more than just like, Hey, I got a million dollars for this case, and look how great I am.

Jonathan Hawkins: So saying

Howard Ankin: that that’s not a good, that’s not saying that’s not a good advertisement for other people. I’m just saying that’s how we distinguish ourselves.

Real quick. Thanks for listening. If you’re getting any value out of this podcast, please take two seconds to hit the subscribe button and leave a five star review. It would really mean a lot to me. Now back to the show.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so, you know, it sounds to me like, you know, you grew up in a time where relationships matter and you got a lot of referrals. So I imagine, tell me if I’m wrong, but I imagine you, you have a you stay in touch with your past clients and maybe talk about a little bit some of the things you do.

To do that, to nurture those relationships. So it’s not like your case is over. I [00:35:00] never talk to you again. I mean, what sorts of things do you do to nurture those relationships and hopefully get referrals from your past clients?

Howard Ankin: You know, my dad was a sole practitioner in a day when, you know, maybe even more advertising was frowned upon, which is kind of like why it took me a long time to even get into the advertising game. You know, but. You know, my dad’s prior clients, those were the lifeblood. Those are the people that put me through law school and put the food on the table at our house.

So, you know, I grew up watching you know, my dad answer every telephone call you, you know, like, you know, be concerned about like what was happening in his client’s lives. Like my dad lived a lot of the, his client’s cases, like where he was as concerned for like what the outcome of the case would be.

Almost like it was him. You know, so that’s how I grew up. So I don’t know, there was what was it, Monday or Tuesday this week. I remember like, it was like the end of the day and I had to get home before my wife yelled at me one more time that I was gonna miss dinner with the family.[00:36:00]

And I had, I remember looking at two things. One that would be more personable to me, and one was this phone call and I had to make a decision which one I was gonna make. And I’m like, well. This is the right one to make and this is what I’m gonna make. So I had a union store you know, he’s never asked anything of me.

He is referred me, you know, a couple cases over the years, always been nice to me, what have you. And he called me and he is like, you know, I’ve known you a long time and I’ve never really asked you for anything. But like, you know, my son, he was in the military and you know, he has this divorce going on and you know, another state and.

It’s like, can you just talk to him and give him some advice? And I was like, well, you know, I haven’t done much with divorce work in over, you know, 25 years. But you know, I’m like, you know, so I called him and I talked to him and found out what the problem was and then I had to like called one lawyer and got some advice about what happened and I [00:37:00] had to call another lawyer ’cause that one didn’t work, that I got advice about happened.

And then ultimately I’m like, okay. This is what’s happening here. There’s the lawyer that you need at the price point that you’re at or whatever, in this other community. And, you know, an hour later I was home for dinner late, but I got him exactly where he needed to go. And I don’t know that he was gonna be able, it took me an hour to navigate it for him.

There’d be no way that he was gonna navigate that in an hour. I don’t know that he would’ve been able to navigate that ever. So anyways, you know, I you know, like the world is round and you know, is this ever gonna come back to me? No. But like, almost like, you know, his dad asked me to give legal advice to his son and, you know, I owed it to him.

And so a lot of the stuff that I do, a lot of times it’s, you know, like I, you know, I say to myself all the time, I can’t ask somebody else to do something for me unless I’m willing to do stuff for them. So that’s just kind of [00:38:00] how I, that’s. Like how I lead my day as far as like, you know, what do I do every day?

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s a good point. You put good things out into the world, you may not, you know, just to be good. And it’s just good energy, whatever you wanna call it. And eventually, hopefully some of that comes back your way. But if. You know, it may not be a direct line from this guy, but I guarantee you he, he’s not gonna forget what you did for him.

He may not real realize how much you saved him or how much work you’ve been into it, but he is never gonna forget it, I suspect.

Howard Ankin: Your, like your podcast, Jonathan. You know, you put it out there. Everybody and everybody, you know. All come all, all goodwill comes back to you for like helping the world.

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, you never know. You just never know. But so, so I wanna shift real quick. So. I want to maybe shift to the business aspect of your firm. So, you know it’s way different operating a hundred person firm versus a one person firm. So how did you learn it along the way and, you know, do you have people that help you now?

How do you run this big [00:39:00] operation?

Howard Ankin: So along the way, you know, you always meet people and you know, they give you good advice. You listen to podcasts and you get good advice or whatever. So I remember talking to a lawyer and I was complaining. I was like, ah. You know, it’s hard to find like lawyers that wanna like, you know, work as hard as me and you know, like the competition to get like to good cases is very competitive.

And there’s people that are doing, you know, like maybe some unsavory things that, you know, I wouldn’t wanna do to get legal referrals. And it’s going on and on and on. And this lawyer said to me, they’re like, look, you have to realize that, you know, I appreciate you’re trying to be as much of a lawyer as you can but laws become also like there’s a business aspect of law and he is like, you’re a businessman.

So he’s like, whatever the obstacle is to being successful in your business, you need to understand what those obstacles are. Think them through. And then come up with a game [00:40:00] plan to like work around that obstacle.

‘ ’cause that’s, that’s what you do. And he’s like, don’t complain about it. He’s like, good businessmen. They figure out what the problem is and they figure out how to fix the problem. And then you need to move forward with that. And he is like, the day that you don’t want to fix the problem anymore is probably the day that you know it’s gonna be the beginning of the end for your law practice.

So anyways, whatever it is, how do you know? There’s a lot of trial and error. You know, this is a law practice. It’s not a law. Perfect. So, you know, every day that I come to my law office I’m learning, you know, I’m trying to be better today than I was tomorrow. So, you know, the alarm goes off at five 30 and, you know, I, get up and I, you know, I have a zest for life. I have a zest for my law practice and you know, I just get at it and I work at it. Now, fortunately for me I’ve [00:41:00] always been lucky for the family. I have, the friends that I have and the people that are my colleagues and associates, everybody has like.

You know, the one thing in life that, you know, provides them a special skill and that special skill that, that, the special thing that God gave me was just I’ve just been lucky to have the people that are in my life. So my legal assistant, she’s the best the managing partner in my office.

He’s the greatest the first you know, my first lawyer that handled my all my law department cases. Nobody’s better than him. You know, a lawyer that focuses on workers’ compensation. My partner, you know, he started with me as a law clerk. We had no, no room. Even in my office, his desk and my desk were in the same office.

You know, he’s a rock star. So is with that he, you know, there’s no success that any lawyer has. You know, you watch any old time movie or old time TV show, they always show like. The [00:42:00] lawyer that has his awesome investigator or his awesome, you know, legal assistant, and they’re even better than him.

Like they show him up. You know, so you know, you know the lawyer’s that good, but like the people around him are even better. You know, fortunately for me, that’s my law practice. So, and I’m lucky that way, but it takes a long time to develop those relationships and nurture them back and forth.

And you know, I I think any strong law practice, it’s not the building, it’s not the furniture, it’s not the cases, it’s the staff that’s for the law firm is what it’s all about. And so, the ongoing success of our law firm is really based on, you know, are we able to continue to add the best staff that we can possibly bring on and you know, you know, continue to develop the already you know, strong core that we have.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, a hundred percent agree with that. People are the key. People are the key. [00:43:00] So you mentioned it is not a law. Perfect. So, if you’re willing maybe as you look back on building for your firm, you know, we’ll talk about mistakes you know, maybe. Things that, that looking back like, I wish I hadn’t done that.

Or maybe some advice to folks out there. Be careful of this, you know, learn from my mistake. And that could be both something you did that maybe you shouldn’t have done, or maybe something you wish you had done way earlier than you eventually did it. Can you think of anything there?

Howard Ankin: I think the number one thing that I wish that I would do differently, I still guess I still wish that I would do it today, is, you know, I am you know, I’m always a little bit wary about like, will I find, you know, will I find future success? I was always worried about that at the beginning. And I’m still worried about that to today.

And so I am very, very careful and methodical as far as like [00:44:00] making next moves. ‘Cause I’m always very concerned about overstepping. I, I never I, I’m always concerned about backsliding. So if anything, I think in my career I’ve maybe been a little bit too careful and other firms have, especially national firms taking more risks.

You know, so the other factor is for me, I advertise my practice and, you know, all law firms have developed to where they need a business model. But I still feel like it’s not a law of business, it’s a law of practice. And so I feel like there’s a lot of other firms that financially may do better.

But I still feel like I’m in the field of law and I need to help people. And there’s certain things that I could do that would maybe be more profit, would be much more profitable as a law business that we just don’t do. And every time that I see these things happening and I don’t do them I see how other [00:45:00] firms are becoming more and more successful.

And I know that I’ll eventually be upset that I, like I. That just became the norm of what, like law’s about but I still have like an old school feeling about like what law’s supposed to be about because I saw my dad or my grandfather and how they help people. So I still feel like in my mind that’s like what needs to be done.

But if there’s a different person managing what I’ve built here, they’d probably be doing things that are more law business than law practice. But for as long as you know, I’m in the driver’s seat, I feel like people are gonna get much better care with me than they’re gonna get with somebody else.

My biggest mistake that I’ve ever made is you know, you can’t really solve law practice. You know, there’s different things that people can sell phone numbers and websites and other, you know, things. Maybe they could sell that. But like the actual whole law firm, it’s kind of hard to sell. So for a lot of clients that I had over the years, they might have owned like the Corner Liquor [00:46:00] store, but they owned the store and you know, they woke up 30, 50 years later and that corner was like, you know, just like a regular street corner in the old town.

But now it’s like the main corner of like Main Street, you know, 50 years later. So. My attitude was, is that I would purchase my own law building and house my law practice in it. And then, you know, like when I got to an age where, you know, hey, I woke up and instead of paying rent to a landlord, I paid rent to myself.

It would all work out. But I, the only thing that I didn’t consider was, is they had this thing called COVID.

And downtowns in big cities were not places that people came back to work anymore. And now remote work and so on and so forth. Even remote courthouses are a thing that I never envisioned nor could I envision COVID.

So financially it wasn’t the greatest thing for me to [00:47:00] purchase my own law building to house my practice. But in general, I hope that my clients get the idea that you know, my firm is here. We own the bricks. No one’s pushing us around. We’re not going anywhere. Which is the reason why you know, I decided to do that to begin with.

And so I’m hopeful that, you know, I’ll be around another 20 years and the market will come back and, you know, but in the current world you know, that was not one of my better, that was not one of my better law practice business moves.

Jonathan Hawkins: I think it’s gonna come back. I just think that I. You know, I really think it’s gonna come back is people need to be around people. And that’s the important part. And with everybody virtual and not coming in I just, I don’t know. I like being around people, so I think it’s gonna come back, but, so you sort of touched on something that I do wanna ask you about.

So, you know, you’ve seen a lot of change in the law. We’re seeing a lot of it now and it seems to be accelerating the change. As you look out in the future, I [00:48:00] mean, any predictions of where you think this is going? I mean, there’s, like you said, bigger players in the PI space. There’s, you know, you got Arizona where you’ve got private equity and non-lawyer owners.

You got all sorts of things going on as you look out. You know, anything that you think’s coming our way.

Howard Ankin: Well, you know, maybe we always lived in an uncertain world, but it just seems like the world that we live in generally, not just in. We live in a very uncertain world, in uncertain times now, and you know, we’re going through a lot of change. So the first thing about that big change is like, how’s AI gonna change all of our lives?

You know, like the concept that I said, like, you know, as a lawyer, you, whoever you are, for most part you have more of a conservative nature, so you’re reluctant to change. You know, there’s a lot of lawyers, they’re still using paper and pen. You know, so like the world is gonna start changing faster and the law’s always on the back end [00:49:00] of it as far as keeping up and how law firms are gonna keep up and how that’s gonna work.

It’s gonna be very interesting. In the community that I grew up in, there was like where the big houses were, where the good looking, you know, the best looking people with the biggest houses, with the best, you know, the best families. In that community, there was a lot of those people where their parents were pharmacists.

Okay. And they had like the neighborhood pharmacy and you know, that’s where everybody went to get their prescriptions and you bought your toothpaste or whatever there. And then over time those, that type of pharmacy really doesn’t exist anymore. It’s all CVS and Walgreens and all these done.

Right. Whatever. It’s all national chains. Okay. And everybody that all the parents of these kids that I went to high school with friends from high school, they, their parents ended up, they were like the pharmacist at like the Walgreens here, the Walgreens there. So I’m just [00:50:00] saying is now what’s happening in the world, like whether it’s Utah or it’s Phoenix or it’s Washington DC where there’s different types of ways where non-owners.

Can have ownership of law practices. I just really don’t under I don’t think people that are at like the ABA and, you know, other bar associations that you know, like this and they think it’s good to provide services. I just really feel like, you know, overall there’s a corporate policy for how we dispense like prescriptions now.

You know, and that’s probably good that there’s all that oversight. Maybe when you’re doing like one thing, like prescrip, like giving like, you know, heavy medication but the lawyer really needs to have some independence. And if everybody’s ending up working for either you know, Walgreens or CVS, and that’s where you get your legal services from, one or the [00:51:00] other.

I, you know, I. Like, there’s just not gonna be a lot of independence to that. And if like a lawyer just wants to provide from some free legal, or he wants to be long-winded about something, or he just wants to not build this hour you know, I don’t know that the corporation is gonna be into that. And as a community I think it’s gonna be a problem.

But anyways that we have a lot of uncertainty in the world, but that path where there’s going to be a major consolidation of consumer firms. So in the corporate world, you know, there’s been major consolidation over the last, you know, since I got outta law school. And I feel like in the consumer firms there’s gonna be a lot of major consolidation.

You know, over time there’ll always be people that will, you know, have, you know, spinoffs in, you know, smaller firms. But overall we’re going towards big firms for consumer law. And [00:52:00] massive firms, 5,000 person firms that are very corporate. I’m not sure that’s great for our society.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So in light of that one possible backdrop or the future, you know, what’s the vision for your firm as you look out over the next 10, 20 years? You know, what are you looking to do with your firm?

Howard Ankin: I am looking to help make sure that the lawyers my partners and associates here they have the best education. The best computer support, the best systems available, and we invest a lot of money in our technology here. And we put a lot of resources into technology. So as the world goes into that next phase, that technology, that education, you know, we’re gonna be there. We’re, you know, if we’re not on the forefront we’re not gonna be in the back front either. Like my, we’re gonna be there as technology grows and if there becomes consolidation or, you know, what have [00:53:00] you, you know, my firm is, you know, like we’re gonna make it.

You know, post COVID, there was a lot of law firms that closed the doors and my firm only grew at that time. So I feel like as other firms who have not invested in their technology, not invested in their education, not invested in their people not invested in, you know, making sure that they’re getting jury verdicts and you know, really helping people and having a strong base of clientele that know that you did right by them and, you know, really wanna give back to you by referring friends and family.

’cause they know they, that they got good they got good service. As the world goes through that metamorphosis, I really just think naturally my firm is gonna grow and I hope to be in the running with you know, good lawyers that just have like small practices that just, you know, they spent their whole life practicing law, but they didn’t see, they didn’t see this hurricane on the horizon [00:54:00] coming.

And you know, they just determine that it’s like better to be with someone that has the infrastructure, has the technology, has the know-how, and you know, we can join forces together. So I could even do more for clients that come here and even get better results that we’re even getting today.

It’s kind of like where I see my vision going.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s great, Howard. I think that’s a very, noble vision and, you know, I think one that will resonate with folks, especially as they sort of see some of these things that, that you’re talking about. So, thanks for coming on, man. This has been really, really interesting. It’s been, It’s been fun to hear about your journey, your background and your lessons that you’ve learned along, along the way.

So if, for anybody out there that wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to find you?

Howard Ankin: The best way for them to find me is first by calling 3 1 2 6 million, which is 3 1 2 6 0 0 0 0 0 0. And if you [00:55:00] wanna learn more about me, you could see me at AnkinLaw.com, which is A-N-K-I-N-L-A-W.com. Always here to help. And Jonathan just wanna tell you, you’re a great interviewer and I appreciate you letting me go on even a little bit long here today.

But I really enjoyed your questions and enjoyed being with you here today.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, well thank you very much and again, thanks for coming on. It’s been great.

OutroUpdatedWebsite-1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the founding partner podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on the latest episodes. You can also connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn and check out the show notes. With links to resources mentioned throughout our discussion by visiting www.lawfirmgc.com. We’ll see you next time for more origin stories and insights from successful law firm [00:56:00] founders.