Blue Skies and Bold Moves with Mitesh Patel

Mitesh Patel: [00:00:00] If you want it, go freaking get it. Like. You know, and yeah, it’s gonna be perhaps a little painful, but you’ll get what you want, truly.

Surround yourself with superstars. these people are phenomenal. I mean, every time I get together with them, I am in awe of them.

I think having a peer to peer group is invaluable.

I’ve had one in some form or another for 15 years and I would never own a business without having some type of peer to peer, whether formal.

We were doing virtual happy hours and most of our discussion, my recollection of it was telling each other that’s going to be all

Jonathan Hawkins: What was going through your mind?

I mean, it wasn’t, it wasn’t just like, well, I guess I got to do it again. Or is it, I’ve been here before I can do it. Or were you nervous? I mean, tell me what, what was it like?

Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating [00:01:00] 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. I’m honored to have today’s guest, one of my good friends here in Atlanta, Mitesh Patel. He’s the founder of Blue Sky Law, which is a business and real estate law firm here in Atlanta. Mitesh, welcome to the show. Glad to have you. Why don’t you introduce yourself?

Tell us a little bit more about your firm, what you do, how would you characterize your firm, how many lawyers, all that good stuff.

Mitesh Patel: Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me today. I appreciate it. And I think so cool that you’re doing this, and glad the podcast is going so well. But, as you said, Mitesh Patel, I’m the founder and principal of [00:02:00] Blue Sky Law based in Atlanta, Georgia. We’ve got nine attorneys, handful of support staff, and we’re primarily focused on. Middle market, lower middle market, privately held businesses. Me personally, I’m a mergers and acquisitions attorney, and that’s where I spend the vast majority of my time is helping folks get ready for an exit, cleaning up the house, so to speak, getting the hedges trend and the house painted. Before we take that house, the company to market.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you had a pretty interesting and varied legal career, which we’re going to get to. But as I was getting ready for this podcast, I learned some new things that I didn’t know about you. So you got a really interesting pre law career background. And I had no idea. I’ve known you for a long time now. I had no idea.

So we’re going to talk about some of that first. So I guess first thing is, you know, you’re here in Atlanta, but where are you from? Where’d you grow up? Ha

Mitesh Patel: grew up in Appalachia, East Tennessee. Little bitty town called Tazewell. most folks, even Tennessee [00:03:00] residents, have been there for their whole lives and have not heard of it. But, there’s an interesting book right now. It’s a fiction book called, Demon Copperhead run by Barbara Kingsolver. And where that book is set is the community in which I grew up.

It’s technically in Virginia, but that actual county, that town, Where it’s taking place, it’s a real place. It’s like five minutes from where I grew up. So, it didn’t shock me really as much as I think it has. A lot of furniture. Anyway, that’s, that was home. I mean, it was a tiny little town. We really had television.

We just did outside redneck stuff, know, back, it was a great place to grow up. It really was. I could not wait to get out. It just felt very confining to me. Now, I’d go back and work.

Jonathan Hawkins: I gonna move your law firm there. That’s next place.

Mitesh Patel: Don’t know if they have internet in town, but we’ll see. I would if I could.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so [00:04:00] you know you went with the law school did you go to Tennessee for law school

Mitesh Patel: No, I did, my undergrad was at the University of Tennessee, and it was in finance, and I worked in for a few years. A a number of other things. I guess we’ll get into that, but law school was University of Florida down in Gainesville. I spent only just that time in Florida there for school. Florida is great. People are looking great.

It’s just too hot for me. And frankly, I wanted a big city, kind of that backlash, probably from that tiny town where I grew up. I wanted to get that big city feel for a while. So I came straight here to Atlanta and I had a couple of really nice offers. I was very lucky in that sense. And so I was able to get the ground running once I got here. Grab running

Jonathan Hawkins: cool Okay, so you went to Tennessee. You got a finance degree. So that’s part of your background So before law school you were a financial analyst, is that correct? And so what does that mean? And what did you do?

Mitesh Patel: So it, sat at a desk and looked at numbers all days. I was a corporate financial analyst. So the company [00:05:00] I worked for massive international automotive parts manufacturer, I think at that time, they’re about a 30 billion company. They had like 88, 000 employees worldwide. I was in one of their Tennessee manufacturing facilities.

My job was to keep up with. Scrap loss, job costing, product costing, all these things that are really important to massive manufacturing companies is there every fraction of a penny that they can save times billions of products that they produce is a lot of money for them. So that’s Casa. It’s horrendously boring and so I didn’t last very long.

I was like, I gotta get out of here. tried my hand at executive recruiting. That was probably one of the best things I’ve ever done career because it is. Sales and it’s hard. I had an amazing teacher. She pushed me. and I thought she was a little mean at the time. Looking back now, I was like, she just cared about, you know, care a lot about me, cared a lot about [00:06:00] business. But she taught me how to afford the relationship. So, had manufacturing companies that didn’t go anywhere.

Jonathan Hawkins: before you go move on to that I want to sit on the executive recruiter thing for a while. So How and why did you go there? what led you to that? And was there a specific industry niche that you took care of or how did it work? I mean,

Mitesh Patel: I did. Yeah. So, you know, I went there really out of not not really being sure what I wanted to do. I wanted to have more control over my career and over earning power. So I love that. I love the fact that my efforts, if I was able to play somebody, bring in a job, etcetera. that I would get a big piece of that.

I love that. I thought that it made a lot of sense to me and I was like, okay, it’s up to me as far as production is concerned. Also, you know, I really did want to go into personal financial planning. That’s why I went into finance at that time, which was a long time in Knoxville. It’s a long time ago. There weren’t a lot of financial planning shops. Truly the independent ones [00:07:00] and I wasn’t willing to move. I think that I did myself a little bit of a disservice at that time by being so limited, kind of restricted, you know, to my geographic area. but it all worked out just, you know, getting this recruiting job.

And I was primarily placing CFOs and controllers in manufacturing. So it was very niche, uh, it was a very niche area.

Jonathan Hawkins: so as part of that job. Was there a lot of cold calls? I mean, is that when you say sales, is that what you mean what you’re doing? Cold calling?

Mitesh Patel: This is cold calling. You know, I’m going to date myself. This is cold calling when the internet is just coming out, right? Which means that very few companies at that time had websites. I’m talking like 10%. And the ones that did were like massive publicly traded companies. I remember specifically in undergrad, I did some little project on the Callaway Golf Company and Nike.

And both of them had two page websites, two pages. That’s it. There’s no [00:08:00] commerce, nothing, right? So. finding companies, finding the decision maker. And now we just go to a company’s website. We go team who’s there. Okay. CEO, CFO and everybody that works there at that time, it wasn’t that open. So even if you call into a company to ask the gatekeeper will be like, Oh no, I’m not telling you what’s here. And so it was difficult from that standpoint. It was absolutely 100 percent full of calling. I was dialing for dollars. My goal was to try to make. 50 or so outgoing calls in a day. It doesn’t seem like a lot, you know, objectively, but man, getting hung up on 49 out of 50 times that was, as I get hung up on, this is East Tennessee.

People were friendly, but they were just like, sorry, son, but

Jonathan Hawkins: Bless your heart.

Mitesh Patel: bless your heart. You’re doing this right.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So were you, were you calling on companies or are you trying to track down like the executives to place at companies or both?

Mitesh Patel: you know, a little bit of both. If it was a really specialized position [00:09:00] and a lot of them were, you know, companies were particular, but truly the very specialized ones. Cost accountants, for example, right? Not many of those around. I was calling into every company I could find, right? Pull those folks out. So it was a combination of both. The hardest part was getting the job orders as we’d call them from the companies, right? The folks looking to hire and you know, it’s not an 20 to 30 percent of a person’s starting salary. You’ve got to have a pretty motivated company that either has had a really hard time or they just invest that type of time and money into their work.

And I think it’s probably more prevalent now to see that kind of investment. I mean, we’re right now in the heyday of employees and employee empowerment, you know, but, at that time it was, it was tough. It was to companies to try to find out if they were hiring. Occasionally you’d see an ad place. You’d be like, let me try to call in there and see if I can get that business.

That never, very rarely work, I should say, but, [00:10:00] yeah, it was in it again, honing that skill, having the training that I did. I wouldn’t be where I am today, if it for those few years doing executive work.

Jonathan Hawkins: we’ll get to it later, but you know, I’ve always sort of thought of you as a good business developer in the law. And maybe, maybe this is why or part of why, you know, the resilience, the, you know, like you said, the consistency, 50 calls a day to hang up, you got to keep going, and you got to figure out how to talk, right.

Talk around the gatekeepers and talk to people. All right.

Mitesh Patel: very sweet job

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So you, you didn’t last there too long. It sounds like, but the other couple of things that I noticed, in your bio, so, you were a firefighter and a rescue technician. Tell me about that. Was that before or after college and executive recruiter stuff?

And what did you do?

Mitesh Patel: right in the middle of all that. Again, in that little town where I grew up, they had a volunteer fire department and most people [00:11:00] don’t know the overwhelming majority of firefighters and rescue technicians in the United States are volunteers. it doesn’t mean that they’re not professionals because this small volunteer, city department sent me to the Tennessee state fire school, paid for it, got my certification, et cetera.

We had lots of training, but I started there at the age of 16, our local, I was in the Boy Scouts, our local scout leader, something came up, he couldn’t do it anymore, and nobody picked it up, I mean, it’s that small of a town, right, and so our scouting program just died, and I was like, okay, I, you know, I liked being out of the house and staying active, and I was like, that’s pretty cool.

And one of the added benefits is the fire chief was, one of my fourth grade teachers and so I knew him pretty well and was able to just approach him and say, Hey, can I do this? And he was like, Hey, you’re a bit young, but yeah, we’ve taken them as young as you would say. I was studious and minded my manner, so I think it was probably easy for him, but just [00:12:00] absolutely one of the most awesome experiences I have done some insane things. And it’s amazing with enough training, what you can. You know, fears that we have, how easily you can put them aside by repetitive training. And I think that’s the case with almost any area. But when I went to college, I couldn’t do fire anymore. Didn’t really want to, but in Knoxville, Tennessee had an opportunity to do rescue.

And so, and rescue was for the most part, cutting cars off bodies, cutting cars off people. I know it doesn’t sound great, but that’s the vast majority of what we will do in between that stuff with the water rescues. East Tennessee is filled with caves, cave and vertical rescue, heavy trench rescues.

So that team went up to New York during 9 11 to remove all this heavy concretes, that kind of stuff of work, right?

So, it was, it was dangerous, it was fun, it was very much like a fraternity, it’s probably the only thing in my life That I still truly [00:13:00] miss. I really do miss it. But, when I went to college, I was doing that through undergrad.

And, you know, it was pretty easy to work with a, with a college schedule. But then when I started working in my professional job, I had to figure out a way to make it work. So I actually moved into the station, and so I would work the night shift. Which is fine in the winter time. People don’t get out and do dumb stuff.

I could have a nice night of sleep every now and then, two or three nights a week, I’d probably get woken up. My day job was the financial analyst job and the recruiting job. So I’d get up, you know, sign off of the truck and get ready to go to work and come back and do that. Summertime’s were busy. People get out, drink a lot and do dumb stuff.

it’s, I mean, from like May until October, night times were busy. I’d get woken up three, four, five times a night. I look back now and I’m like, I don’t know how I did it because I feel like I’m in a perpetual state of being tired now. Uh, so back then I’ve, I’ve been just nonstop. I didn’t need that much sleep, but so much.

So all in all, 10 [00:14:00] years. Yeah.

Jonathan Hawkins: really cool. So did you ever, I mean, were you like rappelling out of helicopters and some of these mountain rescues and stuff? I mean, was that you?

Mitesh Patel: that’s enough.

Jonathan Hawkins: was the other team.

Mitesh Patel: It was the other team, you know, those were our teams. We, they’re usually not out of helicopters, although we did have a contract with them. UT Life Star for our dive rescue team. So like we had to fly to another, we had to go for dive rescue for another community, go there to their place, put our tanks in.

We had special holders for the helicopter and then off we go. So, I was on our dive and swift water rescue team. That’s, I enjoyed doing that a little bit. So, but yeah, we would do a lot of lift rescue again, people slipping, falling down into caves. So yeah. strap up and off you go.

Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. That’s cool, man. I never knew that. That is, that’s really cool.

Mitesh Patel: Yeah. Just last week, I was at a local restaurant and somebody had an accident as they were coming in and people were running [00:15:00] out and instinctively, I was the guy running. And I didn’t notice until later, everybody’s like, you’re insane. I was like, oh, I was like, well, I didn’t think about it much. So, you know, could hurt myself possibly.

But, uh, again, training,

Jonathan Hawkins: you’re getting old, man. You’re going to pull it back. Now you’re going to go in

Mitesh Patel: that’s yeah, yeah, right.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s cool. Okay. So, all right, so we’ll go back. So financial analyst and executive recruiter now what took you to law school? How did you finally end up there?

Mitesh Patel: I mean, I’m not gonna give you the answer that I probably gave on my application or to the school because it was totally bogus. I mean, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew that I. Wanted to go back and I felt like I really needed to go back to graduate school Wanted to get a master’s or doctorate.

So I was really considering an MBA or Law school and at that time so many folks I knew were doing MBAs They seemed to be kind of a dime a dozen that was [00:16:00] just just me as well And so I decided to go to law school, but truly I didn’t have any I did not dream of being an attorney. I never once thought about it until after I graduated from undergrad.

I would say a little bit of that was being at that big corporation of when we would have to make critical decisions, it would always go to legal first, right? After we do it and okay, let’s send it to legal. I’d be like, it’s numbers. what are they going to send it to legal? And so I was like, I want to be that guy making some of those decisions, you know, telling the other folks what’s good.

So that was a part of it.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you graduate law school and then I guess that’s when you moved to Atlanta you went you went sort of the big law route right,

Mitesh Patel: Yep. You got it. I did. You know, the, on campus recruiting, they would come and dog and pony show the rockstar Summers. I, I hope they, they still do those, but, yeah, I don’t Did you do one of those? Did you get a rockstar Summer or

Jonathan Hawkins: I Wanted to be a plaintiff’s trial lawyer. That’s all I [00:17:00] tried to get and I didn’t even try I look back and it was the dumbest thing. It was the dumbest thing. It was, I should’ve gone to the big, I should’ve tried, man. Cause yeah, I mean, you got paid like crazy and then, you know, you’re just basically getting steak dinner and going out every night, you know?

Mitesh Patel: Yeah, well, you know, you look back, they keep you drunk, so you don’t know any better. And when it’s time to sign on the dotted line, you say yes, because you had a phenomenal time. But, you know, it’s a great experience. It truly is. I think almost any big law, if you’ve got a good team, good people around, the real advantage is that that advantage and disadvantage, right?

You’re working a ton of hours, but you get really complex stuff and you’re working literally about double what any of your friends and other industries do. So one year in big law, I’m still to this day convinced is pretty close to two years in a mid or smaller size shop. And then you add the complexity and the pressure, you [00:18:00] grow up really fast.

So, but it also just absolutely, you know, I had a head full of hair when it started and it didn’t take long. Kids and big lawn. Gone.

Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: We’ve heard some people say, depending on where you are, you know, when you actually get your effective hourly rate of what you’re getting paid, you know, you got a big check, but when you factor in how much you’re working to get it, this is, it’s not as good as it looks.

Mitesh Patel: Yeah. Divide. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not a 40 hour a week job by any stretch. Yeah. You’re working two jobs. So if you look at that and the number of hours, it’s not so awesome. At that point

Jonathan Hawkins: And so you, were you doing real estate stuff then or,

Mitesh Patel: I was doing secur. Just, just securities. Yeah. rework, s elevens, uh. It’s some non read word, but it was all regulation. D 506 PPMs and the like. If you’ve seen all that, I mean, that’s I sat at a desk and crank those things out. Yeah, I don’t know if you, you know, for folks that I don’t, you don’t get many of these anymore.

You get those little tissue [00:19:00] paper, you know, prospectuses when you invest in stocks and bonds. And even before I went to law school, I was like, God, what poor SAP has to write this crap.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

Mitesh Patel: And I was like, the poor staff didn’t do that, but I was like, oh, this is what hell is like so it

Jonathan Hawkins: so, uh.

Mitesh Patel: It might be I

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah,

Mitesh Patel: So for the Associates sake

Jonathan Hawkins: so you you know, you burned it out there at the big law firm And then eventually you left and you went to uh, called a smaller Smaller law firm tell me about that.

Mitesh Patel: yeah, yes, it was right at 2009 when I left only half jokingly say that I would have stayed they probably would have fired me

It was just the times. I mean, at the firm that I was in, they were bringing in folks at mass into the conference rooms and just like, okay. All 30 you need to go. So there was a lot of nervousness around.

I got a little talking to by some of the partners. It was basically like, yeah, you [00:20:00] know, maybe, maybe you start exploring options. We’ll talk again. And in December, and this was like early part of the year. I was like, they’re giving me a year basically to, to figure something out. And I knew I was going to leave and start them out.

What the heck might as well go now, right? I mean, building, I knew that building relationships. takes time. And, you know, if you want to have your own practice, you have to have your own clients and relationship based. I was like, what the heck? Might as well start now. Start building that book rather than waiting.

You know, I had offers. I did interview a little bit. I had a couple of offers from other big law firms, but I was like, ask and put me to put me in the same spot.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you interviewed, so you knew you were gonna start your firm.

Mitesh Patel: I did. I did not. Not right out of the gate. I mean, it was a lot of When, when those layoffs are happening after I got, you know, got to talking to, so to speak. Yeah. I sat down with those partners. It’s two or three months of really thinking, et cetera. I tell folks still [00:21:00] to this day, the hardest part about start, at least for me, starting my own practice was making up my mind to do it in earnest.

Once I was like, I’m going to do this, everything else was significantly easier. Then that decision, because the rest was blocking and tackling, you know, has people figure out what you got to do. And as attorneys, we’re, we’re really good. So, you know, so the rest was just water on the bridge, super easy. But yeah, I went to that smaller firm.

It’s kind of a lot of us were doing some office sharing in there. And once I got my book of business took place where I was like, I don’t need to split with these guys anymore. Frankly, I needed more resources. I, and this was 2011, I left. Hung up my own shingle. one of the guys that I had met there at that firm, he was working on his book of business, so he, he came along, he was kind of straddling both firms for a little while.

I hired someone else, eventually got an office manager. my wife helped out for a while, and [00:22:00] I recommend that to folks if you like your significant other. Some people can do it, I don’t know how they can say. But, it didn’t work for us, and all for the best though. That was the beginning way back when.

This is the original sign for my office. I just hung on to it all these years. But, yeah, I had fun. It was hard.

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s a good looking sign

Mitesh Patel: Yeah, I appreciate it.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you end up starting your firm and then I guess the guy joined you were y’all partners, how did that work?

Mitesh Patel: We were, we were so not at first, at first, again, he was working on building his, building his book. We gave him a goal. Hey, once you hit this number, then we’ll start talking about it. So it was maybe three and a half years, four years or so working jointly, but not as equity partners. And then it was around 2014 or so.

He bought into the practice. We rebranded at that time with our names. We went and bought a building, which, which I still own here and And we were, we were off to the races. So we had six years together as partners. And then in [00:23:00] 2020, that’s when we decided to split it up and go our separate ways.

And that’s where my current firm, Blue Sky Law, came from.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right, so we’ll talk about Blue Scout real quick. So when you and your partner Went your separate ways. did you jointly own that real estate as well as the firm?

Mitesh Patel: we did. Yeah, both. And, I will tell you that, we both had the advantage of doing a lot of partnership disputes for clients. a bunch of them. And we still do a lot of them. I think we have about a dozen actively. And we had learned what to do and what not to do and where those things end up.

They almost always end at the exact same place with the same types of activities, that lead to that. And so it was like, okay, let’s just fast forward this. Let’s promise each other that we’ll be civil. And we were, we ended up talking through intermediaries toward the end. We haven’t communicated in years, but you know, it’s, it’s all okay.

It worked out. I bought his half of the building, which is something that I really wanted. And thankfully, he, he did not really. [00:24:00] And so that worked out well. And, uh, you know, we worked out some stuff. The cash, assets, you know, certain clients have free choice, but there are definitely certain clients where we were both working on them.

So it was like, okay, who’s You know, we didn’t want to cause confusion with those clients who wanted to keep it clean. So there was some discussion of, hey, you, you pursue that of these particular ones. I’ll talk with these and then we’ll kind of see how they shake out. But we really had a fast track process for that.

start to finish with two months. In all honesty, it should have taken about nine to 12 months, just even though we had a plan, but we really crammed a lot of stuff in very, it wasn’t necessarily by my choice, but whatever. It’s, you know, hindsight works out.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you, you know, I remember when that went down, but you know, it’s and I do a lot of that too. And it’s, even in the most amicable [00:25:00] breakups, there’s always going to be Uh, and so, I mean, I think you guys, I wasn’t in on all, all the details, but at least from where I sat, it looks like you guys handled it, you know, pretty professionally, you know, you’re both standing still.

Mitesh Patel: Still standing. Still practicing. Yeah. Yeah. I think it all worked out. You know, it sadly we learned the most truly like we learned deeply from the worst things. I mean, for those that can come out on the other side and look back and I was fortunate in that way. And so I learned a lot. I wish I didn’t have to learn it that way.

But, but I did and I’m better off for it. I wouldn’t repeat it. And, but it’s honestly made me a much better, practitioner, better father, better husband, just all around. I think it was better, much more patient.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you guys went your separate ways and you said, all right, I’ll take the building and I’m going to rebuild this thing. And was it just you or did, did it, did you have attorneys that came with you?

Mitesh Patel: We did. So at the time that [00:26:00] our firm split, I might get the number wrong. We’ve gotten up to about 18 attorneys, a couple of handful or so of, support staff. And it might’ve been just a little bit smaller than that. My ex business partner is a litigator by trade. And so. some of our litigators, I think all but one went with him, the rest stayed with me.

And so, at that point, and some people were like, eh, it’s, you know, time, let me go look at some other stuff, but it was right there, kind of March to May of 2020, the world is shut down, partnership dispute was full blown. A dog of 18 years passed away and I was like, man, can this get any worse? So, but, it’s all fine now.

But yeah, it was, sorry, going back to your original question at that point, there was, there were five, there were maybe five or six attorneys on my side. A couple that we had is of council. So if you include that, maybe about eight of us that stayed [00:27:00] here with, you know, with me and, and that helped to.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so you decided to go with the name Blue Sky Law, which, you know, everybody that listens know I love a good trade name. And so tell me about that. You know, why trade name? Why Blue Sky Law?

Mitesh Patel: You know, at 2020, the sky was falling and I was like, all right, we need some positivity in our lives. But it was a combination of different things. I, as a group amongst our attorneys, I said, let’s all come up with a cool name that doesn’t include my name. And thankfully, our Georgia laws have changed where we can now have, you know, agnostic law firm names.

I’m so glad I’m coming into. The new millennia. But, that was a big part of it. We were doing more and more work out of state. I wanted something that could survive me, right? So if partners came and went, we wouldn’t have to rebrand. and the firm is frankly becoming much more than just me. and so the other things, [00:28:00] we wanted some positivity about it and and we like that.

And we also wanted something that other attorneys would recognize that, hey, this is a business oriented firm. So that’s kind of where we settled on Blue Sky Law. And the interesting thing is, is the domain was already owned by another law firm. And so, as was the trade market. So we had to reach out and do some finagling, negotiating, purchasing of You know, uh, the existing trademark domain, et cetera, but that’s what we wanted.

It worked out. Well, I’m so glad that that I did it

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s pretty cool. I did not know you had to go, buy that. That’s, pretty cool. The other thing, you said you started as a securities lawyer. So I always wondered, did it have something to do with, you know, the blue sky laws?

Mitesh Patel: it did a little bit. It did a little bit. You know, it’s, it’s interesting because folks, Oh, you guys are just a securities firm. And now we go, well, you know, it’s your security is a slightly different way with M and a, that is security work, but but not in the traditional sense. So, yeah, we don’t do as much of that [00:29:00] on course securities.

In In fact, we did, but it still worked out checking so many boxes that it wasn’t a deterrent for take me back.

Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, you had already started a firm. So you’d been there before. So you, you sort of knew what, you know, probably learned a lot of lessons there, but you’re coming off. You said, you know, you’re, you’re breaking up with your partner. Your dog died. I mean, it just, everything’s going bad 18 years.

That’s, an old dog, by the way.

Mitesh Patel: Here’s an old dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coronavirus was full swing, right? Everybody, this one, we

Jonathan Hawkins: We were all going to die. Right.

Mitesh Patel: down in a road circus, right? We’re wiping off cereal boxes, like, come on,

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, there was that time we were all going to die. That’s the way, you know.

That’s what everybody thought. So you start a firm in that sort of mental state, you know, even though you had done it before, I mean, what was going, you know, take us back.

What was going, what was going through your mind?

I mean, it wasn’t, it wasn’t just like, well, I guess I got to do it again. Or is it, I’ve been here before I can do it. Or were you nervous? I mean, [00:30:00] tell me what, what was it like?

Mitesh Patel: Yeah, yeah, it was, it was definitely not a good feeling. Yeah, you know, when I was opening up the firm way back when, you know, this one, it was positive, things were going well, etc. This was the opening of a new firm because a hand was forced, right? With the partnership dispute, the breakup of the prior firm.

I knew I wasn’t going to go back to work for anyone else. I can never do that ever again. and the money and lifestyles was too good. But so I was like, okay, this is going to move forward. I’m going to continue to service my client. I had hundreds of clients at that point. And so it wasn’t a question of if I was going to do it, I was going to do it.

but with all of the, you know, the world is shut down with the virus. We didn’t have any money coming into the firm. Every project stopped. We made a decision with our firm at that time that we were going to counsel our clients and not charge them for it. We were like, look, this is the end of the world.

As you just said, we kind of were thinking like, hey, this could go a really terrible [00:31:00] way. we didn’t want to be greedy and all of our clients were really suffering just as we were. But, you know, they were like, what, what about. These jobs are working. What about these contracts? What about our people?

Do we have to keep paying them? Do we have to pay to keep the lights on? What do we do? What if, you know, the ones that have real disputes and other issues going on, it just compounded their level of pain. So it was tough. It was emotionally very tough to deal with all of their issues. And then once the phone stopped, which would be almost midnight every night, it was like that for months of that counseling these clients and a lot of it was just psychological counseling like It’s gonna be okay, right?

Like, hey, let’s hug each other virtually through the phone. It ended up being okay, right? But it was very, very tough. I was most concerned about how do I keep my people paid and done well in savings and continue to keep them paid at the level that they had been getting paid for months without any income coming in.

The good and the [00:32:00] bad is I continued to do that. The bad part is I sucked my reserves and, and savings dry. But In hindsight, I’d do the same. I’d probably make some modifications, but I think I would still keep that going and more of that was just my own psychology, right? Knowing that I was doing what I would want someone to do for me, which is lessen the amount of stress and what was going on.

So it was just kind of survival there for a while. You know, once we got the name down, it was like, we’ll deal with who we and what we are as a firm a little bit later, right? Let’s keep things moving as much as we can. And sure enough, the world opened back up. Georgia was a good place.

If you will, we didn’t buy into really anything. It’s a topic for another day, but I think our shutdown here was a lot different than it was in other places in the world. I feel very fortunate. It

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I remember some of those early days we would have that, I think it was a weekly Zoom call with some of our friends, [00:33:00] lawyer friends that own firms, you know, those. That was a, that was a weird time, you know, I’ve just blocked it out of my memory, but that was a weird time, was, I mean, as, as I was thinking about, you know, coming on today, I knew we would probably be talking about that time. And it was just like,

Mitesh Patel: We were doing virtual happy hours and most of our discussion, my recollection of it was telling each other that’s going to be all

Jonathan Hawkins: right, right? We didn’t, I think we spoke some details about employees and overhead and this and that.

I remember the overall theme being, you know, resilience, patience, right? Love and let’s, you know, let’s, let’s help each other, support each other. It was a, it was a nice time in that sense. I think if people come in again. Yeah, I thought it really,

you know, like a lot of lawyers sort of had to make these real time pivots during that time period to sort of do stuff, and I know a lot of stories, and you do too, and you have yours, it reminds me, two firms ago for me, I was at [00:34:00] that firm Fultz Martin, I don’t know if you remember them,

Mitesh Patel: I do.

Jonathan Hawkins: and they, you know, Martin had this huge, real estate transactional practice.

I represented, you know, developers and owners and that kind of stuff. Huge. And then the great recession hit and like overnight deals just came to a halt

Mitesh Patel: Yeah,

Jonathan Hawkins: in his practice sort of became, you know, representing the same kind of folks, but against the banks and against the lenders and his, his book of business, like doubled, I mean, it’s like. it was amazing to watch. and so I remember having to do a lot of that work. I hated it. It was just, it was like you’re fighting with both your hands tied behind your back and maybe missing a leg too. And you’re just like taking the blows from the bank attorneys. I think that firm you went to was on the other side of a lot of that stuff.

Mitesh Patel: we were doing a lot of that firm is doing a whole lot of that stuff.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, you represented the banks. you’re blooding me up.

Real quick. Thanks for listening. [00:35:00] 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: So COVID was tough. You had to start the new firm. So take, what’s it like now, man? Tell us where you are. And, you know, I think you’ve had more growth. I know people have come and probably some have gone, but where are you now?

Mitesh Patel: It’s been great. You know, right after all that mess, wasn’t too many months after partnership divorce was finalized that I picked up two of my largest clients today. I mean, just massive clients, throwing on lots of work and lots of cash. And so that was something that was a nice rebound, if you will, you know, from all the emotional mess.

was that. So it was really nice. Also, having a chance to hit the reset button. Although, like I said, you know, a moment ago, it wasn’t something that I wanted to do. But, when it happened, it was like, alright, well, might as well embrace it. And I [00:36:00] didn’t have to clear anything through anyone else. And there were a lot of things that I wanted to do, just didn’t jive with Kind of how we were set up before and the firm philosophy, et cetera.

But I had a chance now at an almost blank slate, if you will, to rebuild the firm from the ground up. And that’s exactly what I did. I did things that I did not do the first time because I just didn’t know any better. I was so pompous and young and all that other stuff. I was very focused on just making, money. And what I learned is there’s so much more than making if you wanna have a successful business.

So I feel like I did it. the right way this time. A lot of that was was implementation of the E. O. S. entrepreneurial operating system. For those that have read the book, traction was one of the biggest catalysts in changing the way that we were building the firm. And now it’s solid and multiple in a that we never were before.

Not that it was a bad firm [00:37:00] before. It’s just so much better in my opinion now based on us doing The hundreds of hours of work that we put, you know, onto working on the firm versus in it, so to speak.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I know a lot of firms who are on the U. S. system and they just swear by it and they say it’s just night and day. After they’ve done it for two, three years, it’s like, it’s just, it’s good. I’m not there yet. I’m headed there at some point. so you mentioned secondary year, you said you got to your biggest clients.

And again, you know, I’ve always considered you a rainmaker, in the. You know, greatest sense of the word. you’re good at getting business, man. So what’s your approach? I mean, how do you go get your two biggest clients? you know, teach me

Mitesh Patel: Yeah, so both of those came about from people that I knew, they trusted me, I trusted them, we had existing relationships. Enough so to where they were willing to send, billion dollar [00:38:00] clients my way. And that’s the revenue that these companies were throwing. And private companies, too. Both of them were family held. By just two people. I mean, just amazing amount of success. But I’ve laid the groundwork with years of courting relationships of certain advisers, CPAs, CPAs, planners, operational consultants, other attorneys. But It’s relationship based, right? I mean, most of us know that, but that’s truly the key. I feel like for long lasting business development, there’s always the occasional right place, right time, or, you know, you just get that call for that nice little project and it comes out of the blue, but that’s not the majority of the business that I receive or the business I get from, you know, putting in the groundwork on relationships.

Jonathan Hawkins: and your client, you know, your business clients, more sophisticated. Probably a longer sales cycle. It’s not like consumer practice, you know, divorce or personal injury or criminal.

Mitesh Patel: Yeah,

[00:39:00] CEOs are not combing the internet for their next law firm, right? They’re going to their buddies who are also CEOs going to their CPAs or wealth manager and going, who do you trust, right? Where would you send your business? And thankfully it’s again, laying the right groundwork doing, you have to do phenomenal work.

You have to really good work, be engaged, et cetera. It’s not just that relationship, right? You have to do do the work, really good. so it all, it all worked out. But, Yeah, I love, I love business.

development. And it is truly such a challenge. It’s always, and it is truly. I’m an introvert by nature, but I continue to love the challenge because if, I succeed, I get some immediate results, right? Smiles and money and compliments. Two, three things I really love. So it is very self serving, you know? So,

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, yeah. So another thing you’re involved in is EO, [00:40:00] which is not EOS. It’s you know, What is it? Entrepreneurs Organization? Is that what it’s called?

Mitesh Patel: yep, yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: So there’s probably some folks that know what that is and probably some that don’t but why don’t you sort of explain what it is And how long you’ve been involved?

With it. And then I may dive in a little bit. I don’t know if you’re sworn to secrecy or not, but, once you’re initiated, you

Mitesh Patel: I can’t show you the handshake, but there are certain handshakes. Yeah, yeah, EEO is a worldwide organization that’s comprised of business owners, and it’s business owners that have met certain financial level criteria in their business.

Most of the folks are invited in or will know somebody there, and then you go through some classes and training before you actually get in.

So that’s kind of the cool thing about EEO, is by the time you’re in, you’ve already put in some time. Other folks have put time into you. And it is a extremely tight knit group of business owners. If you’re in [00:41:00] a moderate to large size city, chances are you’re going to have an EO chapter in your city. So I’d say, you know, it has been by far in my career in the top five best things that I’ve ever been.

Both personal development, professional development, I could talk for the next several hours about it and truly the advantage of it is, and I would say, if it’s not EO, you can replicate this. Surround yourself with superstars. these people are phenomenal. I mean, every time I get together with them, I am in awe of them.

What they accomplish and how they go about it. And some of these businesses are smaller than mine. Some are much larger. But the interesting thing is you have folks that because of the training, et cetera, you come in high level of confidentiality, which allows these business owners to really express themselves.

You know, there’s a lot of humility that goes on and a lot of sharing of things that [00:42:00] challenge in our lives. And sometimes it’s personal, you know, being a group and somebody will say, Hey, I found out that My significant other is cheating. I mean, that was an actual scenario, right? It’s like, I don’t know the best trained person to help with that. But they were willing to share. It’s the kind of place where you can share something like that. And then people share ways to overcome, you know, those, those challenges. But it’s a great place also to tap into community leadership, personal growth. I’ve had opportunity to hear some of the and meet some of the most amazing people. CEOs, business owners, people that have won Nobel Peace Prize. I mean, you name it, just it’s an amazing organization because it’s worldwide. You’re immediately part of a great fraternity, so to speak. So not a lot of lawyers in it. You know, you tend to. It’s just something that lawyers don’t do. But I would, I would encourage folks to look into that or Find something else in your community, but I think having a peer [00:43:00] to peer group is invaluable.

I’ve had one in some form or another for 15 years and I would never own a business without having some type of peer to peer, uh, whether formal or I think it’s absolutely,

Jonathan Hawkins: lot of lawyers, they talk about these mastermind groups. I’m in some, you know, where you’re with other lawyers. This is sort of like that, I think, but you’re with a lot of non lawyers, and it’s, a little bit, Bigger, I think, you tell me, but bigger than a traditional lawyer mastermind group where you’re really just talking about your business.

Maybe you talk about a couple of personal things, but, you know, other people that I know that are involved at EO, they talk about, you know, it’s, I think you guys have some sort of, saying about, you know, the personal above the, I can’t even remember what it is, like,

Mitesh Patel: we call it 5%.

Jonathan Hawkins: 5%, that’s

what it is. Yeah. 5%.

Mitesh Patel: 5 percent that you, most people would never speak of, right? It’s that 5 percent in our, And with our families, [00:44:00] work, and personal lives that, for good or for bad, we don’t share with other folks. it’s the, real deep stuff, if you will. So,

yeah.

Jonathan Hawkins: and so, you know, you, you make really good friends. And, and my understanding is, is, you know, most of the, the little groups of cohorts, I mean, stay together for years, years and years and years. Right. I mean, once they sort of form one of these groups, don’t you guys. I mean, you’re traveling together, you’re doing

all sorts of things, right?

Mitesh Patel: I travel across the world with my first, what do we call them, forums, small group. I just went to Ecuador, Galapagos Islands, Cape Town, South Africa, you know, Costa Rica. Now, there’s some small groups that don’t travel like that, but we did, and it’s phenomenal. Even though I’m in a different group now, which we all decided to, you know, disband, change it up, but, it’s just amazing.

And, and I, you know, and, and you and I are in a lawyer’s business owner group, and it’s got its advantages, but. One thing about attorneys is we, we tend to [00:45:00] crawl into our little hole, put our heads down. and then the rest is history, right? We pick our heads up 30 years later and go, where’s the fax machine?

You know? So, the great thing about being with other CEOs really is they are so much more in tune with things that our legal industry is not yet. Technology is a big one. I learned so much from them about things they’re using that easily applicable to our industry. It’s just that. Attorneys aren’t using it, necessarily, and resources and, and honestly, ways of looking at things, that.

We tend to find that, yeah, you know, you practice law long enough, folks think a lot alike, and it’s because of the nature of practice. So it’s really nice having outsiders ask me very critical questions like, Why do you do that that way? Well, I don’t know. I was taught that way. And things that you wouldn’t always necessarily, you know, think of.

How we compensate our folks, right? Why, why do you do that? Why do you have business development? We don’t do this, but you know, we see [00:46:00] folks that are good business developers where their firms require them to crank out hours. It’s like, is that really their highest and best use? So, having outside CEOs, business owners push me, challenge me, question me, question my thinking, my philosophies, and I, it, I love that.

Jonathan Hawkins: I like say, uh, why do you call it business development? We call it sales.

Mitesh Patel: You’re right. Yeah,

that’s so true. It’s so funny. Yeah. I mean, to hear them ask questions. I mean, you really find out how quirky law is and how old school it is. It is so old school. I mean, but things are changing, you know, we’re fine.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, well, I remember seeing, you know, our, our friend, Jimmy Trimble, he did a post something about EO and I’m looking at the people in the, in the picture. I’m like, I recognize that head that’s, that’s, that’s the dash.

Mitesh Patel: some starburst pattern, uh,

Jonathan Hawkins: I didn’t know you two knew each other. Yeah, so that [00:47:00] was cool. Uh,

Mitesh Patel: cool too. Again, I think I’ve gotten a chance to rub shoulders with some really cool folks here in the Metro Atlanta area and through here, you know, Arthur Blank, founder and, you know, chairman of Home Depot. I don’t think he’s any longer the chairman, but, Sarah Blakely. founder of Spanx, her husband, Jesse Hitzler.

I mean, just really interesting. Vern Harnish, he wrote the book Scaling Up. He’s actually an EO founder. He’s very well known. it’s amazing just the types of folks.

Jonathan Hawkins: that’s cool, man. So, let’s, go back to the law firm. So, you know, you start the new thing, you’re a good business developer, you do some works, but tell me about sort of your typical Weak. What’s it like now? How much is out there getting the business and managing relationships versus actually really cranking out the work?

Mitesh Patel: Yeah, so cranking out work for me is, a little different than maybe most folks because I don’t really, [00:48:00] build I mean, I am engaged with clients, I’m attending meetings, things like that. And I would bill for that time. and but To give you an idea, it’s probably 20 hours a month that I bill. the reason is, is it’s not my highest and best use.

I truly am a believer that most, we can all be good at multiple things, but I think that we can really only be great at one or two things. And if you are trying to bring in the client, do the work,

get it out the door, follow up the administrative side. Chances are you’re not really good at multiple areas there, right?

And I think that’s one of the issues that our industry faces. I see it with others, but it’s especially prevalent with us. But we’re smart folks, right? We’re tenacious, we’re taught, like, you can figure this out. We do not need to figure it out. So anyway, sorry, just a little side note. But, yeah, so, I mean, my average day, well, overall time, I would say that I spend 50 percent of it is on [00:49:00] business development, and that includes some client facing, you know, again, strategy meetings, helping with structuring, this and that. Not much pen to paper grafting, though. I’ve got folks here who are just so much better than I am at that. And then the other 50 percent of the time is spent working on the firm. So, processes, procedures, growth. fostering our folks, mentoring our people, helping them find the resources that they need, helping them with business development. So it’s very much now focused on let’s grow the firm, bring in new clients, service the ones that we have. but yeah, probably 50 50. I would say client plus client side stuff. And then the other half is working on the family.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s, it’s interesting. You mentioned something earlier and you sort of touched on it there to your highest and best use. It’s really strange. Strange may be the wrong word. misguided, maybe is a better word that a lot of law firms, especially, for their partners, they expect them to do everything they expect them to [00:50:00] crank out lots of work, go develop clients, train people.

I mean, it’s like they want them to do it all it. I think it’s a unicorn of a person. That would be good at all those things to begin with. but even if they were good at all of them, it’s not, I don’t think a good use of their, mental bandwidth to try to do it all. It’s, you know, I think law firms will be better served.

Find the people that are good at. Cranking out the work, find the people that are good at training the people, find the people that are good about managing relationships and find the people that can go hunt the whales. Right. and you shouldn’t expect everybody to do everything. And it’s, that’s just crazy to me that That’s still, you know, many, many, many firms, that’s the way it is and it’s the way they structure their compensation, all of it. It’s just, it’s just crazy to me.

Mitesh Patel: It’s crazy to me, too. I do not understand it. It might be one of the very few, if not the only industry now that’s like that, like medical, dental, [00:51:00] accounting, valuation, all these other business service firms. they’ve figured it out. They’re like, it is not good to have these highly compensated, you know, brain surgeons doing everything.

You know, there are certain things that Frankly, we have no business to do. there are other things where, where we should. And yeah, I, I don’t get it. I mean, if you’ve got somebody in your firm that can really bring in clients and produce, get them from, get them away from the desk, get them outside, you know, get them to go bring in more business so that you can have two people behind desks instead of one, you know, and it’s amazing.

It’ll pay for it if you get more business, but I don’t get it. That’s, you know, so old school is

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so what was the transition for you from doing the work to taking this role? you know, I, I think it’s probably pretty easy for you. Mentally, I know there’s some attorneys that they’re so caught up in their self image of being an attorney, a great attorney that it’s hard for them to let [00:52:00] that go.

I know that’s a common thing. But, you know, How is it for you to move from doing the service work to sort of the role you have now?

Mitesh Patel: you know, I, it’s kinda multifaceted, I think versus is some self-actualization that you could still be a phenomenal attorney. and I’m, I’m a really good attorney and it’s just, I’ve had great training. I’ve had good partners that I’ve worked for. I’ve made good mistakes, , you know, so, uh, but.

But I, I’m, I feel like I’m a really good attorney and part of being a really good attorney is not just the work. The work is only a tiny fraction of being a really good attorney. And so, you know, it was probably, for me, once I left to start my own practice, the big shift was when I got the guts enough to hire a full time WTUDE employee.

Somebody was making Real money. I’m talking like, you know, well into the well over and into the 100, 000 mark and a couple of years. That person was at an over 200 K and, you know, telling [00:53:00] myself like, okay, it’s going to be okay. Right? You can hire this person. They’re going to do this work. It’ll give you more bandwidth to go, get business.

Absolutely. It took me about 45 days. Before I started kicking myself going, God, why did I not do this five years earlier? It literally, I thought about it for about four and a half to five years before I pulled that trigger to hire that first W2, you know, attorney. Now we have seven. and it was a game changer.

I think the two, there’ve been several big game changing moments, but one was hiring an office manager, somebody to do. Everything that’s non-billable. thankfully I did that, or I think that’s a big part of why I had success right now,

out of, actually I’m pretty And then the second was, leverage. I mean, if you don’t leverage your firm, it’s pretty, pretty easy to do the math on what your life is gonna look like and how much income for the rest of your life.

It’s limited by your billable rate and how many hours you’re willing to work and hopefully you collect on all that. But [00:54:00] that’s it. I mean, you can do the easy math and go, ah, here’s how many. Days off I may get, here’s how much I can make, but if you don’t leverage it, that is your equation for the rest of your life.

And that, I didn’t want. I love having, take about the equivalent of, I probably should say, a lot, lots of time off, lots of flexibility. I love it. I would,

Jonathan Hawkins: so another thing that we haven’t touched on is, you know, you’re continuing to Try to grow your firm and that you know part of that is bringing in clients. The other part is getting attorneys So how much of your time is spent recruiting and you know, tell me about you don’t give me your secrets But you know generally what’s your approach recruiting?

How do you find people? How do you sell the firm? How do you tell them? Hey, there’s a good place to come

Mitesh Patel: I’d say 15 percent of my time. If we looked at the year as a whole, right, ebbs and flows, but it’s about 15%, 10 15 percent that I spend on talking with and trying to identify other attorneys that may join this firm. [00:55:00] What I’ve found over time is the, the ones that have business, which are unicorns in our industry, right?

It’s why we’ve got a handful of partners and a whole bunch of associates, but they’re the hardest to bring in. And, So to do that, you have to have a relationship with them. Occasionally you’ll get lucky and find somebody who’s ready to move right then, et cetera. But what I want is. I want them to think of me when, in our firm, when they’re thinking about it.

And that, again, is, it’s business development, kind of, but it’s just in a different way, right? It’s with attorneys and letting them know who you are, and you’ve got to stay in touch with folks. that’s the one thing I’ve had a few of those I’ve been working on, and then they end up going somewhere else, right?

And it’s, gosh, why did that happen? So, it does take time. The other way that we attract folks is we really put a lot of time into our HR hiring, hiring processes. And we absolutely [00:56:00] have, I’m convinced of it, the most phenomenal attorneys for us. I mean, they match our philosophy. They work the way that we want them to.

Great. They came from amazing, big firms, great schools. They’ve got, you know, amazing personalities. But It took a lot of work on the front end to really push us to find out what do we, what do we want, you know, and What’s good for us? What does our current team look like? Does everybody on the team currently buy into this philosophy?

And there was a period, in the not too far past where even with the new firm, I had to make some adjustments based on philosophy. So, but I think if you invest the time looking for and finding good attorneys, especially if they’re going to be service based attorneys, they’re out there. You can find amazing partners, the business developers, much, much harder.

but it can, it can be done. Just, you know, put in the time. one big game changer for us is we went to, a recruiter that we [00:57:00] pay by the hour. And what we found is that their process, because they’ve been working with other industries, not law, but they really had a system and process down for how do we write the job description in a way that’s going to attract exactly the kind of folks that you want.

I was very skeptical. I was like, well, just some words. It’s going to make a difference. And I was like, this is going to be some job description like the hundreds of others that I’ve read. Not the case, not the case. And, words matter, the process matters, the system matters, and it produces better results at the end.

So we’ve got a five step hiring process for attorneys and everyone in the firm is engaged when we do it. folks coming into our firm are going to get a chance one on one to meet, talk with people, ask the hard questions and our team as well. they’re going to get a chance to weigh in, but we’re so dialed in right now that we don’t need any, any turds coming in and smelling up this [00:58:00] place.

I mean, everybody gets, at least all the attorneys get a say in a voice and you think you can work with this person, you know, it only gets tough and you know, you, you get something really tough if you want this person playing. So, yeah. But I think if, if you invest the time in it, pays good dividend

Jonathan Hawkins: I’m gonna have to get the name of your recruiter when we get off here.

Mitesh Patel: will do

Jonathan Hawkins: you’ll share that secret with me. You know, I call it, the ABR philosophy. Always be recruiting. Always be recruiting. Cause the timing is always, it’s never right when you need it or right when they’re ready.

And so you just got to keep it going. And then hopefully the stars will align at the same time and then boom. and it’s, you got to have lots of irons in the fire, all that stuff. So, I hear you and, and you’re a recruiter. I mean, you used to be a recruiter, so you better be good at it. Right.

Mitesh Patel: That’s is true. That’s true. Yep. Yep. the one thing that I think that, just a quick piece of advice for most folks and, try to remind myself of this, is don’t be [00:59:00] afraid to ask. When I meet somebody I like and I feel like I get to know ’em, I’ll just tell ’em, like, Jonathan, I like you dude. I would love to work with you.

And if you, you know, if you’re ever at a transition point. I hope you’ll just, you know, call me so we can just talk. and I will say that I’ll tell folks, I’m like, please do me a courtesy. Don’t go anywhere unless we’ve spoken. and most do reach out. So they’ll be like, I remember you saying, even if, you know, even if they don’t come here, but, don’t be shy.

I mean, business owners, most of us are not, but I think you have to be a a little bit more bold when it comes to. Recruiting and attracting people want to be desired, right? They want to be liked and think back and, you know, dating days. If you’re lucky enough to have somebody courting you, it’s like, man, it feels good.

So I try to tell folks, I’m like, man, you’re awesome. I’d love to work with you.

I think it

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, there’s so much more that I’d like to ask you, but you’ve been very kind with your time today and I don’t want to keep too much longer. So I got, I [01:00:00] got one last question and that’s, it’s really, you know, as you look back at your career and your multiple, you know, you started a couple of firms, you’ve done lots of different stuff.

You know, what, what advice would you give to folks out there who are further behind you in the journey to maybe speed up their timeline?

Mitesh Patel: Wow. Well, there’s so many, so many little pieces of pieces of advice. I think for attorneys especially, getting, not getting too mired in, well, let me say this differently. We have the opportunity, a lot of us, of making good money. And then what I find, and I see this in others, is that we get a little trapped and we don’t follow what we want and our own philosophies.

And it’s, it’s easy for me to, you know, folks out there may, ah, it’s easy for him to say he’s sitting there, he owns a firm, he can do whatever he wants.

You know, But I had to make that scenario, right? And, and my scenario is not everybody’s scenario, but really take the time for [01:01:00] yourself to think about what you want, what, what do you want, what do you want for your family?

And things don’t come about by sheer chance, you know, time is ticking by. If you want it, go freaking get it. Like. You know, and yeah, it’s gonna be perhaps a little painful, but you’ll get what you want, truly. And it’s, I think, especially attorneys. We are smart. We’re driven. Most of us, you know, we can solve problems.

So, solve your own problem. If you don’t like where you’re at, fix it. You know, approach it like a client problem. What would you tell your client who says, I hate my job, and I don’t like what I do, and I’m working with all these assholes. Like, fix it, you know, especially where we are. This is America, right?

It is harder in other places, but here, no excuses. So, want something? Go get it one.

Jonathan Hawkins: hit it on that, but, before I let you go for everybody out there, if they want to find you, what’s the best, way to get in touch.

Mitesh Patel: Absolutely. So, our website is blueskylaw. com. My personal [01:02:00] email is mpatelatat blueskylaw. com. You’re welcome to shoot me an email. It’s the easiest way because I’ve got some folks that help monitor that so I don’t miss too many things. But, yeah. Somebody’s out there, you’ve got a question, you want to, you know, pick my brain.

I love talking with other attorneys and other law firm owners, business owners, and I mean, I’m probably going to learn a lot of stuff from you too. So yeah, don’t hesitate, please reach out.

Jonathan Hawkins: Thanks again, Dash, man. That’s been fun.

Mitesh Patel: Guys, that has been fun. I appreciate you having me. I’ve loved watching your success and appreciate all the actual technical work.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Well, yeah. Enjoy working with you, man. Thanks.

Mitesh Patel: likewise. All right, man. Take care.

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. [01:03:00] 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 founders.