Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] So you’ve been doing this a while with your own firm. You’ve done a lot. We’ve talked about a lot of things you’ve done. As you look to the future, is there anything that you haven’t done yet or any things that you want to do either personally or with your firm?

Erik Pelton: Wow, that’s a great question. I’m blessed in that I’ve achieved a lot and enjoyed every minute of it, and I was just telling somebody this the other day, my failures have led to more success than my successes. You know, like learning from and building on failures, and there’ve been plenty of failures and mistakes along the way, going all the way back to college, you know, and law school, and early building of the firm.

So, you know, my goals now are to continue to be a leader in the field, a leading firm in the field, and to help, you know, influence what the future of the practice of trademark law looks like.

Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, [00:01:00] 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. Today on the podcast, we have Erik Pelton, who is a, I’ll call him an IP lawyer, and I’ll let him tell you exactly what he does. IP lawyer in the DC area. Really excited to get him on. A friend of mutual friend, Aaron Thomas, who’s been on the pod a couple times recommended that I introduced Erik and I, and recommended that we talked. And then we actually got to meet in person about a week or so ago. So it’s just coincidence, and happy to get you on the show, Erik. Welcome

Erik Pelton: That’s right. Happy to be here

Jonathan Hawkins: [00:02:00] So, tell me, tell us, you know, just sort of give us an overview of your firm, what kind of work you do, how many attorneys, where you’re located, where you do your work

Erik Pelton: Yeah. We are just a few miles outside of DC, also a few miles from the US Patent and Trademark Office because that used to matter when things were physically hand-delivered. Now, of course, it’s all electronic, but we work with businesses from around the country and around the world to protect their brands, registering trademarks, searching, monitoring trademarks, dealing with disputes and some litigation related to trademarks.

We’re a small team. We’re currently three lawyers, myself and a marketing and content person, and like you said, we’re, we’re just outside of DC and we love every minute of what we do

Jonathan Hawkins: And you’re doing a lot of cool stuff other than just being a normal lawyer. We’re gonna get into all of that. But let’s, take me back. So you started your firm, I think, in around [00:03:00] 1999, and I wanna get into that, but let’s talk about before that. What were you doing before you started your law firm?

Erik Pelton: So when I was in law school, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do except for get more education and to be around smart, interesting people. And I did every kind of internship, part-time job possible, from working to a judge, to working for a nonprofit, to working for the government, to, working in a small personal injury firm.

Y- you know, I really ran the whole spectrum. And what I learned at the time was that I didn’t wanna do most of those things. But it was great education by process of elimination in some ways, and it led me to what I also did at the time, was did some very basic software-related things. I was interested in technology and geeky stuff.

This was, you know, in the years as the internet was first [00:04:00] exploding, much like AI is exploding today. And that’s how I found myself into the world of intellectual property. And then my first job out of law school was working for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as an examiner, reviewing trademark applications, approving, denying them, and that was like an incredible opportunity, incredible training, great people, great experience.

I’m still friends with a lot of the people that I was examiners with at that time

Jonathan Hawkins: And it’s a great point. People ask me, I’m sure they ask you, “How, how do you find what you wanna do?” And I think process of elimination is really, that’s the way I sort of found my niche. With some luck along the way too, but you’re lucky that you get to try a lot of different things. You’re like, “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.”

And then it sort of backs you in a corner and you’re like, “Hey, this isn’t that bad. I’ll stay here.”

Erik Pelton: Yeah. So the Hollywood script version, right, is that you’re 10 years old and you know what you wanna do, and you’re doing it 30 years later, right? Well, I’m not playing [00:05:00] first base for the Boston Red Sox, so it didn’t work out that way. and I, you know, that, for the people who that does happen to, like God bless them, right?

But for a lot of other people, it’s that process of elimination

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you certainly did not wanna be playing first base and let a ball go in between your legs, right?

Erik Pelton: Yes. Well, see, growing up of my age, I’m almost 54, you know, being a Boston sports fan, it… People, my kids find it hard to believe now, it was very painful. The Patriots were terrible. Yes, the Celtics were great, but the Red Sox were heartbreak every year, you know. So those were my formative years

Jonathan Hawkins: Yes. Okay, so you worked at the, the patent trade office. W- when and why did you leave to start your firm? What, what s- you said, “All right, I’m ready to go do this”?

Erik Pelton: Yeah. I was relatively young. I had gone straight from college to law school to working at the USPTO, and I sort of r- I realized that long-term [00:06:00] working for the federal government was not for my taste, my personality, even though I loved the people and training that I got there. And I had the crazy idea at the time that if I’m ever going to, quote, “hang my shingle,” you know, it’s a lot easier to do it now when I don’t have kids, I don’t have a mortgage, I don’t have a family.

It’s a lot low- was a lot lower risk at the time. And I, I, I had an entrepreneurial bug. I didn’t realize how big of an entrepreneurial bug it was at the time but it worked out great

Jonathan Hawkins: There’s a lot of younger lawyers now that they look out there, they think they wanna start a firm, and there are resources everywhere. There are consultants. They’re like Starbucks, you know, they’re everywhere. You’ve got free materials. There’s, there’s just so much out there nowadays. It’s almost an overabundance of material about starting a firm.

But back then, there was almost nothing. [00:07:00] There you had that Fumberg book maybe a few blogs but other than that, there really wasn’t much out there. So how did you maneuver starting your firm and figure it out back then?

Erik Pelton: Yeah, you’re 100% right. There was a fraction, a tiny fraction of the resources that there are now. And when you found a great resource, you clung to it. But it was a lot of figuring it out as you go because that was the only way to do it. I guess the one benefit of it there not being all those resources is you didn’t have any reason to believe that what you were doing was wrong or somebody was doing it better because you just were, you know, you were just laying the tracks in front of you a- as you saw them, and there was no other way to do it.

So I just managed to figure it out, and it, look, at the time, I told you I had had done some software stuff, so I knew how to code HTML poorly, but I knew how to code [00:08:00] HTML. So I literally built the first website myself. And I literally just came up with, out of convenience and not wanting to have to deal with tracking time and chasing people for money, came up with the idea with, “We’re just gonna charge flat fees from the outset,” so that it, you know, it simplifies accounting and bookkeeping.

Doesn’t mean it’s still not messy, but it’s a lot simpler. And those two things, the relying on the internet and the relying on the flat fees, turned out to be the foundation, in addition to the experience as an examiner, but turned out to be the foundation of what everything was built on after that

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s, I wanna talk about both. Let’s talk about the flat fee piece first. you know, you didn’t wanna bill time or whatever. It was easier accounting-wise. How did you set your prices or set your, the value of the services? Is it, you know, people talk about that now and, and I tell people, “Well, you gotta start somewhere.”

How did you figure out where to [00:09:00] start, and maybe how did you tweak it over the years?

Erik Pelton: Yeah. I was rock bottom prices. Like, I cannot believe what I was charging at the time, right? And part of it may be the flat fee also was that, I mean, here I was, let’s see if it was … I was a 27-year-old baby-faced kid, and I couldn’t look in the mirror and just say to somebody that I was gonna be charging you, w- at the time, whatever, $250 an hour or whatever the going sort of rate would be.

And I can’t, I don’t remember exactly how I came up with the calculation of the flat fee, but what I knew was it was going to be based on volume, and that what was going to make us different was because of the internet marketing, that we were going to rely on volume and still provide quality service, but that that volume would then allow us to invest in the technology to make the process more efficient and to have the incentive, the extra [00:10:00] incentive, to be efficient because we’re charging flat fees.

And so those were really two levers that were working in parallel to keep the rates low. And the first few years, honestly, I p- I probably only broke even. I invested almost everything back into marketing and building the firm. I worked, my wife is in the restaurant industry. She owns two restaurants with her brother these d- these days, and I worked bartending and waiting tables to make money to, like, make sure that I could pay the rent and pay the bills so that I could put everything back into the law firm during those first few years.

Jonathan Hawkins: And when you started, it was just you? Did you have any help?

Erik Pelton: me. It was just me

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about the website. So n- I think this was around ’99, 2000. I think it was around this time. So you build a website and you know, that was early, early, early days of the internet where at least to the public where web start, [00:11:00] Netscape and website sites started popping up. It was very hard, difficult to do a website back then.

And there probably were not many, and probably in the law space probably were not many of those. So

Erik Pelton: That’s, that’s right. I mean, the internet had been around for a few years, but at that point it was still, like, people were, “Do we really need an inter- a website? Is there, is anybody really gonna find us that way?” You know, lawyers notoriously slow to ad- adapt, right? And so a lot of even downtown successful big law firms did not have websites, or maybe they just had a site that was like a business card with their address and phone number, you know?

And so building that site really gave us a leg up to where before there even was a need for Google AdWords or online advertising, it was just the natural search results, and if you searched anything about trademarks, it was a lot … Like, pretty much the USPTO and my website [00:12:00] came up and dominated the first pages of results.

And then you know, another thing related to this was 2000, because it was December 1999 when I launched the firm, and you know, another thing that just timing, karma, call, you know, whatever you want, but I just believed from the beginning that the more information people had, the more likely they were to want to use the services and to do it.

Where this was, again, sort of contrary to what traditional downtown law firm, which were the vast majority of firms that had IP services. There weren’t a ton of solos and boutiques at the time. And so they were, they were… They held their information close to the vest, right? Like, “You gotta come in the door and work with us before we’re gonna share any information from you.”

I saw the internet ch- you know, being about to change everything, and blogged and newsletters, and then eventually a couple years laters, it was getting into video and YouTube, and that was [00:13:00] another huge, like, breakthrough for us, having a YouTube channel with tons of video content.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so you, you, you know, you’re sort of techy and you’re on the f- the front edge of that, at least in terms of law firms. Your client base, I imagine or at least early on, probably you had a lot of tech savvy clients because they’re the ones that are using the internet, I would imagine. I don’t know, you tell

Erik Pelton: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I love about doing trademark law is we get to work with all kinds of businesses and clients. I don’t have any specialization in that manner. But yes, it’s always been somewhat skewed tech, but we get to work with realtors and restaurants and consultants and landscapers and, you know, you, you name it, everything under the sun.

But in the, you know, in the first few years, then apps came around, right? Once the iPhone exploded, that was probably mid-2000s, if my re- memory is correct, apps exploded. We… So then we had tons of clients who were building apps and needed to [00:14:00] protect the names and the icons for the apps. And so that interested me, and I actually hired a developer, and we worked on building an app to access trademark pages from the USPTO and things online, because the USPTO didn’t have a great website, and they still to this day don’t have an app really.

So I was always interested in the tech, and then using the tech helped give me some more credibility with the clients all along the way and in the marketing.

Jonathan Hawkins: So that app you developed, was it for you, for the law firm to use, or was it for

Erik Pelton: It was, it was really selfishly for me of like, if I’m gonna be trying to get to all these things on my phone all the time anyways, ’cause I’m such a trademark dork that I’m walking down the street and I see an interesting name and I wanna know if it’s registered, and if it’s registered, I wanna know if I know the attorney who did it, and like all those things.

But then it was really f- more for use by other law firms. But aga- but I made it free, widely available. That was also a good way to get our name [00:15:00] out in the field and get a reputation among other trademark lawyers with some of these tech-related tools that we, that we worked with

Jonathan Hawkins: So is that app still out there? Has

Erik Pelton: That app is not still out there.

It became, between the USPTO making changes to their website and layout and structure and, you know, the iOS updates all the time, it just became way too cost-prohibitive to keep updated. But believe it or not, some of the key USPTO resources to this very day are not mobile friendly, and the USPTO does not have an app even though they are, they call themselves America’s Innovation Agency.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you, you, you build your website, you build a custom app to address a problem. Did you also build your own basically practice management software for-

Erik Pelton: We, we did indeed, yeah. It happened to be that the first lawyer that I hired, who started as an [00:16:00] intern while he was in law school and then became an associate with me, and he had some background in computer programming, and we were able to sketch out what a case management software would look like for us, and we hired a developer, who I still work with to this day to build a case management software customized for us.

It really grew out of a need of, you know, when you’re in trademark filings, you end up having dozens and then eventually hundreds of application numbers and deadlines and dockets, and it, you know, a spreadsheet can only do so much without becoming overwhelmed. And so that’s when we transitioned to the software, and then we keep adding to and enhancing the software all the time, even to this day.

It’s still only ours, completely proprietary. I did eventually file and get a patent registration on the software, and I did [00:17:00] also, somewhere along the way, create a stripped-down version of it that I made available to other law firms to use for free, where you could track files and get some basic updates through that.

So again, another way to sort of tie in my interest in the tech with education and information and getting our name out there

Jonathan Hawkins: So that sounds expensive. So why did you take that approach versus was there any, are there, were there any off-the-shelf type of options back then?

Erik Pelton: Back then, there were some software programs for IP firms. They were dominated by things that were built for patent firms that they then also claimed would work with trademarks, but they didn’t have the same investment of maintaining and building out the trademark side of it as much. And they were really expensive because they were aimed at the bigger firms.

So yes, it was expensive, but I have no doubt that our return on investment over [00:18:00] time has been exponential because, well, I mean, we use it not only to track the core deadlines and calendar and updates, but to, you know, to all of our workflows are essentially built through the software to generate status updates to clients, to manage our tasks, all kinds of things

Jonathan Hawkins: So now if I’m a trademark attorney, I want to start my own firm, are there options out there now or would, would I have to build something?

Erik Pelton: No, there are, there are good options. There are numerous options. And then e- just within the last, you know, six months or a year, the number of options is exploding because of things building, people building things with AI help. So it’ll be really interesting to see what happens to this market in the next year or two, I think.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I’m curious, it’s I’ve talked to some others that have developed in-house practice management or whatever type systems, and on the one hand, you know, it probably costs a lot to both expense, like [00:19:00] you gotta pay a developer, but also the time, you know, all the things that go into it. And then you have to maintain it and all of that make sure it’s you know, still, still useful.

But you get to do it the way you wanna do it, and you don’t have to pay the, the license fees forever.

Erik Pelton: You’re not b- you’re not beholden to somebody else changing the terms of the agreement or raising the rates, and that is really valuable. I mean, I’m sh- I’m virtually certain if I was launching a practice today, I would not, you know… Well, let me say, today it’s a little bit different, right?

‘Cause it’s a little bit easier to build something. If I was launching a practice anytime in the last 10 years, th- before 2025 or 2026, I wouldn’t have invested in doing it myself because there are great things out there. But it also, again, it gives us credibility with clients in unique ways when we say that we have proprietary software that we’ve patented, that we’ve built.

It is another way of setting us apart from the others.[00:20:00]

Jonathan Hawkins: And it sounds like you have a little bit of a an itch, a tech itch that you have to scratch, sounds like.

Erik Pelton: I think that that’s a great way to put it

Jonathan Hawkins: And so as it sounds like it’s fun for you, so you know, it’s your firm. Do it the way you wanna do it, right?

Erik Pelton: That’s the bottom line. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t be doing it. I re- it, I enjoy it. It keeps me interested and thinking. Yeah

Jonathan Hawkins: So the other thing you’ve got, I mean, you’re a trademark attorney, so of course you’ve got your own trademark. I love it. Making trademarks bloom since 1999. Love that

Erik Pelton: That is a slogan of ours. You wouldn’t believe, we actually have, I think, more than 20 trademark registrations at this point between names, logos, a couple slogans. Yeah

Jonathan Hawkins: It’s funny you probably do this too. I know a lot of people that, that collect URLs. When I think of a good name, I go ge- I go grab the domain name. You collect trademarks.

Erik Pelton: Yeah. Yeah. I did for a while collect URLs. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve stopped that habit a little bit, but but yeah,

Jonathan Hawkins: [00:21:00] get, it can add up. It can… I had to go back a while back and sort of take some off my list ’cause

Erik Pelton: Yeah. Turn off those auto renewals.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. they seemed like a good idea at the time. But I do still have some. It’s funny, I, I don’t know if you, if you have GoDaddy, that’s where I have all mine, and they have this now, they sort of give it a value, so it’s almost like it’s an asset.

It’s just they’ve made it up, I’m sure. But I guess that encourages you to keep it

Erik Pelton: It’s gr- I think it’s great, you know, that, you know, there probably was a peak for the use of it a couple years ago. Now the search engines and AI tools are so much smarter, you don’t necessarily need to direct people exactly where they need to go. But for example, YouTube channel, I’ve just bought the domain many years ago, erikpelton.tv, like when .tv domains launched.

What a great way. I don’t have to give somebody the URL youtube.com backslash whatever, whatever, which I can barely remember. Just erikpelton.tv, and they’re gonna go, and it auto-directs to the YouTube page. [00:22:00] So I have a couple like that. They’re tremendously useful

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s a great idea. I like that. Write that down.

Erik Pelton: There you go.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Everybody out there listening too. Okay. So like I said, you’re doing a lot of cool stuff. So the, your website, I encourage everybody to go look at your website. So maybe throw that out there real quick because there’s some things I wanna

Erik Pelton: Yeah, it’s erikpelton.com. It’s E-R-I-K P-E-L-T-O-N.com. We put a lot of time and effort and passion into our brand. Number one, because we enjoy it, and we want to make a presence in front of our clients and potential clients. Number two, we’re in this industry of working with clients and their brands, so we think it’s extra valuable to show that we understand and care and s- speak, talk the talk and walk the walk, you know, of branding.

And so we put a lot of care into designing and always tweaking and [00:23:00] updating that website. And then we have a plethora of content. I, as I mentioned a little while ago, from the outset, I was always of the mindset to share content. I’m not afraid of somebody, you know, gaining too much information. So videos, podcasts, blog posts, newsletters, you name it, we’ve got all that kinds of content.

Jonathan Hawkins: And I’m sure, well, now we’re moving to the AI search. I’m sure all of that builds the credibility which forces you or at least pulls you into the AI results, I would imagine

Erik Pelton: It really seems to be. You know, I think there’s a variety of things that contribute to that. The amount of content and the longevity is definitely one of them. And we are seeing every month the number of leads and the percentage of leads that are coming from the AI queries is growing rapidly

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that I think, you know, I’m seeing it. I’m sure [00:24:00] lots of people are starting to see that. It’s really interesting to see how that’s, what it’s gonna do to Google and all of their, or at least some of their revenue streams. It’ll be interesting to see. You mentioned branding, so branding’s really important to you.

I, and, and I agree. And you know, I guess the, where we met, they were, they were talking about some of what they were talking about was selling law firms. So I wanna touch on that for a minute. You know, I’m of the opinion that when, if and when a buyer’s coming in, part of what they are of value to them now obviously you got client lists and people and all that kind of stuff, but branding, your brand assets, your content, all the things you spend a lot of time building those are the sorts of things that in my view would be valuable to a buyer, whether it’s an individual buyer, a law firm buyer, or private equity or some sort of private capital buyer.

And so, any advice out there that you would give for law firm owners about any trademarks [00:25:00] and other things maybe that they can do to lock down some of the branding that they are hopefully building?

Erik Pelton: Yeah, that’s a great point. First of all, we’ve worked with many law firms over the years to protect their brands, which is like an, it’s one of the biggest honors I find when you know, other lawyers, sometimes even other IP lawyers come to us, you know, to do IP work.

And even if you have a, I’ll say, boring law firm name like Erik M. Pelton & Associates, right? You still may have a great logo, a great slogan, a creative name for your podcast or your newsletter. And so there are these other branding assets that you may have, and if you don’t have them, I encourage you to think about them.

Why create a podcast with a boring name when you can create one with a more interesting name, right? That will attract people and be memorable. And then if that’s what it’s doing, you ought to protect it. The investment’s not, you know, that [00:26:00] tremendous.

Jonathan Hawkins: And I might even go a little further, sort of like you came up with the one on your website, Making Trademarks Bloom. You invented that. So if a firm doesn’t have a slogan or something like that, maybe they should think about coming up with one.

Erik Pelton: For sure because between a slogan and or a logo, you can really convey a lot of information about whatever you want to convey, right? So making trademarks bloom since 1999, it’s very conscious. We’re talking about how we’re helping things grow and become more valuable and become bigger, but also that it’s a little bit softer, bloom.

It’s not like hard edged like some people think about lawyers, right? Because most people come to lawyers when they have a negative experience. And so we’re softening that edge. And then we’re saying since 1999, so we’re reinforcing, “Hey, we’ve been around the block. We’ve been here a long time.” So in just that small, simple message, we’re conveying quite a bit.

And then in our branding and our logos, we use a lot of sunflowers [00:27:00] which tie into the bloom and tie into again that like, oh, that’s kind of different and unique for a law firm, right? It helps us stand out a little bit more. So you can use all of these things to help tell a story or convey a message about whatever it is you want to tell your potential clients

Jonathan Hawkins: I like that and I like the thoughtfulness behind it. You put, I mean, you clearly, you put a lot of thought into that, really thinking about h- how it blends with how you wanna position your firm and all those things. You don’t just come out there and just say, “Hey, we do trademarks, baby. Come see us.”

Erik Pelton: Right.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, back to your website. So another thing that’s cool on your website, you’ve got courses that you sell. Somebody can go in there and, and I guess buy the course online, pay the money, and take the course. So tell me about that. I re- that really fascinates me

Erik Pelton: Yeah. So years ago, I started speaking more, and I [00:28:00] did it actually to, to help come out of my shell and help boost my name and credibility in the field. And then it turned out that I actually enjoyed it a lot, and I think I’m pretty good at it because I kept getting asked to speak more and come to conferences and this and that.

And so that evolved to where a good friend of mine, Sonia Lakhany, she’s actually in the Atlanta area as well. I don’t know if you know her, but she’s also a trademark lawyer, and she’s also a great marketer. And so she started putting together courses to sell live and recorded online, and we partnered up where I, I, you know, had the pleasure of working with her on some of those and appearing on some of those, where we’re working to educate other trademark lawyers, whether they’re newer trade- newer trademark lawyers just learning about trademark law, or maybe they- they’re somewhat experienced and wanna sort of [00:29:00] become experts.

And that’s been great. I love it, and it’s actually led to me doing some more teaching in classrooms as well. And it’s always great to have that passive income of having a recorded video that somebody could buy on the weekend or the middle of the night, you know, with no… with minimal additional effort from you

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s why it’s so fascinating to me.

Real quick, if you haven’t gotten a copy yet, please check out my book, the Law Firm Lifecycle. It’s written for law firm owners and those who plan to be owners. In the book, I discuss various issues that come up as a law firm progresses through the stages of its growth from just before starting a firm to when it comes to an end.

The law firm lifecycle is available on Amazon. Now, back to the show.

Jonathan Hawkins: So Sonya I know she’s great. She, she’s been a, she’s been a guest in the past, and she’s got a whole business around the courses. But I’m curious for, and y- you know, I’m not asking for details, but you know, the [00:30:00] passive income piece, you’re not probably, you know, you’re not gonna retire on the courses, I would imagine.

But it is something that you’re al- you’ve already done the stuff. You sort of have to do it once, and then you can put it there, and then it is something that hopefully, like you said, while you’re asleep, you can make a little extra money on this thing. I’m curious from your experience doing that, any advice or, you know, thoughts of others in other practice areas thinking about something like that?

Erik Pelton: It’s great. I’m surprised that there’s not more of it. Yes, so teaching keeps you on your toes as a, as a teacher, right? Because even if you’ve talked about and taught about these materials before, you gotta prepare, you gotta stay up to date, you gotta answer questions from somebody. Sometimes the newbies’ questions are the best, right?

‘Cause they’re sort of looking at it completely innocently, and you’ve gotta explain something that you just we’ve just been doing it that way for 10 years, and it… You gotta go back and think about why we do it that way. So it keeps you on your [00:31:00] toes. It’s also gotten my name out more, more visibility, so that’s great.

Yes, some income, of course, is great. And it’s tremendously rewarding, like when I’m at a conference or when I meet somebody and they’re like, “Oh my God, I took your course and I loved it and I learned so much, and now I’m doing more trademark law and making more money.” Like, so, you know, you’re planting seeds for other people, which is a great way to create some sort of lasting impact.

So all that is to say, I think more attorneys who are advanced in their career and want to give back and contribute in some ways ought to do it. And in particular because, I mean, par- particular, I’m surprised that these type of videos haven’t caught on a little bit more because I find traditional CLEs to be so bland and boring and not worth the money, yet it’s a whole system and economy.

And [00:32:00] so to get more people teaching newer, different faces and perspectives and think about new ways to teach and learn the material can only help the whole, you know, our whole profession and industry

Jonathan Hawkins: And another component, at least f-for the courses that I looked at, they’re made, they’re really made for other lawyers which are either competitors or future competitors. And so there’s also an abundance mindset you have to have if you’re gonna put that kind of stuff out there, you know. Some people like to protect and not share the secrets or whatever it is, secret sauce, or at least make it f- make people think they have the secret sauce.

And so, you know, especially if you are educating your competitors, that’s something you’re gonna have to get over, I think, the, the, this mindset

Erik Pelton: that’s a great point. And yes, I think abundance mentality, same with the sharing content to clients, you know, not afraid of competition. The competition keeps us sharper, you know. That’s why [00:33:00] you and I, you and I met at a conference, right? I like going to those kind of things, being around other successful people, learning from them or just exchanging ideas with them.

That makes me better and sharper. I’m, you know, I’m not worried about the competition.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned teaching too. So you, you teach at, is it Georgetown Law?

Erik Pelton: I, I have taught a couple years at Georgetown Law and a couple years of teaching and running the trademark clinic at Howard Law. I’ve taken a break from that the last two years or so. Our practice was so busy, my kids were, you know, in their last years of high school and going to college. And so it’s just at, at, at a, at a point where I wanted to focus on other things.

I do imagine I will go back to teaching more at some point in the future ’cause I really enjoyed it. It doesn’t pay nearly as well as running your own firm though.

Jonathan Hawkins: It’s a lot of work and probably not, not as much. So, so well tell me, how did you get those gigs? I’m cur- did you, did you go pitch them and say, “Hey, [00:34:00] I think this would be interesting”? Did they pitch you? Did somebody… H- how did that come

Erik Pelton: No, it was a complete stroking of my ego when they came and asked me. Although actually the first one, believe it or not, Small Worlds, the director of the clinical programs at Howard is somebody that I knew from Massachusetts from my childhood. And she called me one day. They were in a pinch because they needed somebody to run the trademark course after, I think, the previous person left or was ill.

And she said, “Well, do you know anybody who could do this? Do you know anybody that we should talk to?” And I thought about it for a few minutes and I said, “Well, what about me?” You know? And so they didn’t ask for me, but I sold myself to them, and that worked out great. And then ever since then, a few other schools have reached out to me, and it’s, like, very rewarding you know, to know that I guess people must think I did a, a good job doing [00:35:00] it in the past to keep getting new opportunities

Jonathan Hawkins: So let, let’s dive down a little bit on that. So what do you think led to them reaching out to you? Was it the, the, all the branding and all the, the content stuff you put out there? Was it the first teaching gig? And, and I’m really thinking for others out there that might be interested in

Erik Pelton: Yeah

Jonathan Hawkins: you know, what are some of the things they can…

And, and not, not even teaching, just opportunities in general that just sort of float your way. You know, what, what can you do to make the universe or make it more likely that these opportunities will fall in your lap?

Erik Pelton: I love this conversation. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to let people know. It’s possible that somebody would out of the blue say, “Hey, I think you’d be a great teacher, and have you thought of… We have an o-” But it’s a lot more likely if you lay the groundwork by letting people know, I- you know, when you have that opportunity, when it, when it comes up or it’s adjacent, “I- I’ve been teaching some and [00:36:00] just wanted to let you know if you ever need a guest speaker.”

I guest spoke at several law school classes years before. So number one, I wanted to know what it was like inside of a law school classroom as the professor or guest per- guest lecturer before you’re put on the spot to do it, you know, sort of full-time. And same thing with conference opportunities. You know, when I started speaking, it was mostly because I sought them out, then they started speaking me, seeking me out.

But I tell this to younger attorneys all the time, “You know, you gotta volunteer and put your name out there and offer to help, or make it known that you’d be interested and willing to contribute.” It multiplies the number of opportunities. There may still be opportunities, but it’s gonna vastly multiply it in my experience.

Jonathan Hawkins: So true. I’m with you. If you don’t ask, you may not get it. So ask, ask, ask. What about the people out there that say, “Well, I’m not an expert enough,” or, “What would I [00:37:00] talk about?” And, “Nobody wants to hear me speak.” What would you say to those people?

Erik Pelton: Yeah, well, I would say probably you are, right? And you need to get practice or coaching if you’re not comfortable speaking. These are skills that you can learn and grow into if it interests you. Look, I wouldn’t force somebody to do it if it brings them no joy. I would encourage somebody to try it if they’re unsure that they’d be good at it or it would bring them joy.

And so I have pushed, or at least gently nudged several of my younger associates to do those things. It’s similar to also speaking in front of a judge, thinking on your feet. Now, in the trademark world, we don’t necessarily do that a lot, but we do it some. And so getting these experiences build on each other and give you that confidence that, you know, now the first time you do it, right, the first time you speak at a conference, you’re up the night before until midnight checking, updating.

You’re up at the crack of dawn the next morning reviewing. You know, by the fifth [00:38:00] time, you’re like, “Okay, I got it. I got a couple bullet points, and we’re ready to go,” you know? And so you just gotta exercise that muscle. And just to go back to the promoting yourself, ’cause I left out one phrase that I love that someone who was a bit of a mentor to me, his name’s Alan Weiss, he works with all kinds of consultants, not lawyers, but he always says, “If you don’t toot your own horn, nobody’s gonna do it for you.”

You know? And, and that’s, I, I mean, especially in our world of owning and running our own firms, but even r- e- even in any world, if you’re not advocating for and bragging for yourself somewhat, you can do it without being obnoxious and over the top, and if you don’t do it, nobody’s going to

Jonathan Hawkins: Absolutely. And, and speaking is you know, a lot of lawyers speak as part of their job. A lot of lawyers don’t speak as part of their job. But it’s funny, I was having this conversation with my daughter last night. She’s got a cla- she’s just started school. She’s got a class, she’s a [00:39:00] junior. She’s got some class that’s gonna require her to present twi- I think twice a month for the whole school year.

And she’s like, “Man, that’s gonna suck.” And I’m like, “Oh my God, that’s the best thing you could do.” I mean, of all the skills for anybody to have in this world, I think n- especially with AI, all the stuff that’s coming, if you can get in front of a crowd and actually communicate in a entertaining and compelling way, it doesn’t matter what happens in the world, you, there will always be a place for you.

So I, I, I encourage everybody to just practice

Erik Pelton: I agree. I think it’s probably more valuable for young people today than ever before because of the screen time, right? And yeah, both my … I think I mentioned both my kids are in college, and I believe both of them had mandatory classes where they had to speak and give presentations, and I’m glad to see that schools doing that

Jonathan Hawkins: And back to the speaking at Georgetown, I mean, that’s impressive. I’m sure that helps when your potential clients say, “Hey, [00:40:00] he, he was a professor.”

Erik Pelton: I mean, it can’t hurt, but I, I’ll be honest with you, you know, and people Sonya and I like to joke about this and, and not joke, just to, to talk about this when we’re planning things or when we’re introducing each other on webinars is, like, I was never in the top percentages of my class. I was never… I didn’t get great scores on my LSATs.

I didn’t get great you know, I didn’t get recruited by top firms. Not one client in 26 years has ever asked where I went to law school or was I on the law review or you know, anything like that. What they care about is, do you do good work, and can I trust you? Can we build, like, can we build a rapport, and are you somebody that’s gonna give it to me straight and, and that we can work together and trust?

And that, just to circle back [00:41:00] to something else, is that’s where I found the g- videos and podcasts to be so great because it got my face and my voice out there. And so what we found once we started having success on YouTube is that when people would call or when we would have a scheduled appointment and I’d call somebody and we start talking, they, they feel like they already know me.

It’s not like I have to introduce myself and go through, like, a couple minutes of, like, a call, a warmup, you know? They’re like, “Oh, I, I just listened to this guy talk for 15 minutes about trademark stuff. I know he already know,” you know, and it, it allows to establish that trust and build that rapport so much quicker

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about your YouTube channel. When, when did you start that and how, you know, how many subscribers and what kind of traction does that give you from a business development standpoint in addition to what you just mentioned?

Erik Pelton: Yeah. I started it a long time ago. I don’t remember exactly when I [00:42:00] started it. We have a couple thousand subscribers, but not crazy numbers, and we, you know, have a lot of views, but n- again, not crazy numbers. But the important thing is everybody who’s watching one of my videos is watching it because they want to learn about trademarks and maybe hire somebody to help with them with trademarks.

We’re not trying… I’m not really trying to entertain anybody who’s not interested in trademarks, you know? So I think it’s a good lesson in, yes, it’s great to, like, cast a wide net and get a million views, but getting a million views if only a tiny fraction of them are your potential audience versus getting 5,000 views and 4,500 of them are your potential audience is, like, it’s, it’s a lot easier to make and find that 5,000 audience.

And so that, that, you know… Again, I can’t say that all of this was, like, done with foresight. I thought it’s, in hindsight, worked [00:43:00] out worked out great. And, like, our old videos, I mean, we would work… I th- I don’t even remember what kind of special camera I had, but the backdrop is terrible, and the lighting is terrible, and, you know, you can tell that they’re vintage, and then they’ve evolved over time.

Jonathan Hawkins: I’ve been… I have a YouTube channel, and mainly we drop these podcasts on there and some clips. So there’s a couple other things maybe, but it is definitely something that is on my list of things to do at some point when I have a little more time or bandwidth. But the good thing about all of this, and YouTube is just one of the things we’ve talked about that you’ve done a lot of, you, you build these assets over time that build on themselves, and in my view and in my experience, they amplify the effect of each individual channel or, or asset that you build.

So you’ve got… You probably have… You’ve got your YouTube videos, you have a, a podcast, which we’ll talk about in a minute. You’ve got your courses, you’ve got your teaching, you’ve got all the [00:44:00] stuff. And if someone brand new comes out, they’re like, “Oh my God, I’m overwhelmed. I gotta do all these things.”

It’s like, hold on, just start with one. And, you know, you book the YouTube video, that’s gonna be there forever until you decide to, you know, take it down, and then you do another one, and then another one, and another one. I’m curious now, you know, you’ve built a lot of assets. How… Are you adding to the YouTube channel

Erik Pelton: Yeah.

Jonathan Hawkins: or are you, are you sort of done with it?

Erik Pelton: Not as frequently. I did find it gets hard after, like, 10 years and hundreds of videos to come up with exciting new things to say. So we are spend– we do spend time re-editing old videos using AI tools and other things. I do still make new videos from time to time, more short form reels type of things for the most part.

But I do like to keep feeding the YouTube engine and algorithm as well. YouTube’s the number two search engine in the world, and it’s owned by the number one search engine in the world, so it’s very, very [00:45:00] valuable for getting your content on there. So yeah, I’m still creating content, although not quite as prolifically as I once was, I would say.

Jonathan Hawkins: I’m curious, i- is your channel monetized? Do you get a little check every

Erik Pelton: I don’t have enough, I don’t have enough viewers

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you gotta change that, man. You got another little revenue stream.

Erik Pelton: Again, it’s monetized because it’s driving traffic to my

Jonathan Hawkins: Now that’s, that’s, that’s where the money is, yeah. All right, so let’s talk about, you’ve got a podcast too, right?

Erik Pelton: Yeah. So the podcast is not active. I haven’t recorded it in a year or two, but came up with a clever name, if I do say so myself for it, called Tricks of the Trademark, right? And you can find it

Jonathan Hawkins: And is that trademarked? Is that trademarked?

Erik Pelton: Is that, of course it’s registered, of course. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, and on YouTube. And again, like same thing, I wrote a book a couple years ago.

Actually, the funny story, not funny story is my book came out like the week that the world shut down from COVID. But we had [00:46:00] planned and scheduled and built all this pub- you know, publicity, wrote a video and podcast episode and all these things around it that, you know, that that it still went forward even though the world was shutting down when my book came out called Building a Bold Brand.

But then I went back and I recorded the whole book on YouTube. I t- I’m, I’m not making money off the sales of a tiny number of books to make $3 on each one or whatever it is from Amazon, right? It was like, I’m interested in boosting my credibility and getting clients to the law firm. So I went back and I recorded the whole book on audio and video.

So it’s on Audible and it’s on YouTube for free

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about, do you have one book? Do you have more than one book?

Erik Pelton: One mock. One mock

Jonathan Hawkins: That’s another thing. You know, I did my book last year and it, you know, I, I, I don’t think in terms of book sales and, and the investment to get… that went into it, it probably will never even break even, probably. But but, but again, it was it is, [00:47:00] you know, I’ve had people tell me that, that, you know, it’s, it’s for lawyers and, and I’ve had them, and I don’t think they’re just being nice, but maybe they are.

You know, they say they enjoy it. Your book, was it for potential clients? How do you use it? So is it to get clients or is it a potential client comes in the door, you send it to them to sort of reinforce? How do you build that into your marketing

Erik Pelton: Yeah. It’s to educate people. It is for business owners. And hopefully, you know, with any of my content, it’s, it’s im- it’s implicit in it if it’s not explicitly saying that like, ” Here’s a lot of information, but if you really wanna do it right and do it well, you need to work with an expert,” right? “Oh, and by the way, you’ve now been listening to an expert who you know how to contact.”

But it’s to g- educate people, inform people. It does, you know, boost credibility. And then, yeah, I buy, you know, 50 or 100 every once in a while, and we just exhibited at a conference of business owners, for example, earlier this summer. We handed out copies of it. You [00:48:00] know, I’ll take copies if I’m going to a conference.

Or a, a great thing, I’ll send copies as a thank you to somebody or a thank you to a good client you know, with a little inscription kind of thing. So it, it has a couple different ways that we can work it into the marketing

Jonathan Hawkins: So, again, we’ve talked a lot about marketing. You’re doing all, you’re doing all the things plus more, and I, I love it. And, you know, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re doing all these things. I wanna, I wanna shift a little bit ’cause we’re, we’re get- we’ve been here for a while. I wanna talk about operating your firm.

So we’re gonna switch to sort of running the law firm, like actual… And I’m just cur- You know, again, you started way back when, when there was not much guidance out there for people, and so you probably learned a lot just by making mistakes along the way. But talk to me about some of the things you’ve learned over the years from just running your firm.

And it can be hiring, firing, getting clients, all, all the things, managing clients

Erik Pelton: All the mistakes, I’ve [00:49:00] made them for sure, and learned things the hard way and probably taken way too long to learn many of them. But s- I would say, you know, some of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned over the time is delegate as much as you can. You know, outsource bookkeeping, outsource certain other things.

Like at one time when we were doing a lot of Google AdWords, you know, I hired a, an online marketing expert to help run those campaigns. You know, just like where I get caught up is like, I love learning about those kind of things, right? It’s interesting. It’s also a break from doing what we do, you know, dealing with client headaches and all that.

So sometimes I, I, I want to do it, but I have to stop myself and say, “It’s gonna be more efficient and more effective if I delegate it.” So I’ve had to learn that lesson. I’ve– hiring, you know, hiring before you need to hire, that is the hardest. Once you’re already overwhelmed with work, and this has happened to me more than once.

Once you’re [00:50:00] already overwhelmed and behind the eight ball, now to take the time to interview people and hire somebody and train somebody is now you’re just, you know, you’re just gonna be more behind the eight ball. So you tend to delay it even longer, so it’s a no-win situation. So you gotta try to be proactive in hiring.

And like the, the… You know, one of the best decisions I ever made was a o- like one time when I was looking to hire one associate and I had two great candidates, and I said, “You know what? Let’s just hire them both. I can train them both together.” You know? And it’s a win-win. E- either they both work out great and it’ll be great, or now I’ve sort of doubled my odds that at least one of them work out great, you know?

So those have been some of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned.

Jonathan Hawkins: So how has your role changed over the years? You know, early on it was just you, you did everything. You did client work, you did everything. So as you’ve been able to grow and add support and delegate and these things, [00:51:00] how has your role changed? And then how did you have to change in order to make this growth happen over the years?

Erik Pelton: It’s been challenging changing myself. My own habits is the hardest part. Trusting other people when they’ve earned the trust, right? But you still have to trust them to do it and not try to be involved and do everything yourself because you can’t. So that is always a a evolution for me. So working with coaches and wor- and working in groups, masterminds, and getting to know other law firm owners has been tremendously valuable and helpful for me over the last five or so years on that front.

And so I view myself ideally today, I try to visualize myself as the conductor of a top-notch orchestra so that I know how to play all the instruments, and I know that what they’re doing at any given time [00:52:00] sounds right or that doesn’t sound right, so I know how to help them fix it. But that I’m just orchestrating it and conducting it, and that they’re playing all the instruments.

Now, I won’t say that I am perfect at doing that, and but that’s what I’m striving for. Recently, we had one of our one of our associates out on maternity leave, so I was doing a lot more of the work, which was a nice change of pace and good for me to get back to, like, exercising some of those muscles that I hadn’t exercised so much in a few years.

But it’s also nice to go back to trying to conduct more.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you’ve been doing this a while with your own firm. You’ve done a lot. We’ve talked about a lot of things you’ve done. As you look to the future, is there anything that you haven’t done yet or any things that you want to do either personally or with your firm?

Erik Pelton: Wow, that’s a great question. I’m blessed in that I’ve achieved a lot and enjoyed every minute of it, [00:53:00] and I was just telling somebody this the other day, my failures have led to more success than my successes. You know? Like learning from and building on failures, and there’ve been plenty of failures and mistakes along the way, going all the way back to college, you know, and law school, and early building of the firm.

So, you know, my goals now are to continue to be a leader in the field, a leading firm in the field, and to help, you know, influence what the future of the practice of trademark law looks like. We’re at, obviously, a fascinating time with AI coming in and affecting how and what we do, and I don’t think that anybody can safely predict what that’s going to look like in two years or four years or five years or 10 years.

And so to, to be in a position to have the experience of how we got to where we are and to [00:54:00] play a role in that narrative of what does the future of the profession look like is exciting. I mean, a- and, you know, and I- I’ve always dedicated time, or at least for many, many years, to being involved in industry committees and conferences and things like that.

Again, to, to, to eventually have a seat at the table, right? That, that helped steer where that future is

Jonathan Hawkins: So for people out there that wanna start a firm or maybe grow their firm, is there anything else that we have not talked about? Any other advice that you might give those folks?

Erik Pelton: I would, I would just reiterate that one, that one point about finding mentors, coaches, peer groups. Again, those things didn’t exist nearly as much when I was early in my career. And boy, I wish they had, because the groups that I found, you know w- just one of many examples is Lawyerist. You know, where I found a [00:55:00] community to learn from and be inspired by other people.

And, and then, you know, we talked about learning from your mistakes. In some ways you can then learn from other people’s mistakes too. You don’t have to make all the mistakes. And so, but that’s an investment of time, and it’s also opening yourself up, right? And so not, it’s not for everybody, but I do think that it is tremendously valuable

Jonathan Hawkins: 100% agree with that, for sure. Mentors, groups, other lawyers many of them are very, very, very generous and willing to share. You just gotta get out there and, and find your group or groups and, and get in there and, and share with them too. So, so Erik, this has been great, man. This has been real fun.

I’m glad we got introduced. And again, I encourage people out there to go check out Erik’s w- website. It’s got some really cool stuff on there, maybe give you some ideas. But Erik, if people wanna get in touch with you, maybe ask you some questions, maybe they need you to help trademark some of their stuff, how do they find you?

Erik Pelton: Always happy to talk to people, whether it’s about protecting their [00:56:00] brand or just career advice or whatever. I’m always happy to chat. They can find me at erikpelton.com. Thankfully, it’s a unique name too, so if you just, you know, search it on your favorite search engine, you’ll find all my platforms and socials.

You can email me, erik@erikpelton.com. And thanks so much for having me. The hour went by super fast.

Jonathan Hawkins: It does. And it’s Erik with a K, not a C, so.

Erik Pelton: Thank you.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, yeah, thanks for coming on

Erik Pelton: All right, Jonathan. Thanks

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 [00:57:00] from successful law firm founders.