Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] So, what’s your approach or how do you advise law firm owners that have the vision, the big vision, and they want to get there and grow fast?

How do you balance and allocate resources and figure out how to do it and not get ahead of your skis, so to speak?

Tim Mckey: Yeah, there’s several things that I can go into here, but one is still goes back to that strategic planning discussion because one of the exercise that we do with firms when we go into that is, let’s just pretend you did have 10 million. Now I know you’re bootstrapping, you know, don’t have two nickels to rub together, but let’s pretend that you got a billion dollars on this. What would you do?

And we start, you know, we listen, you know, I mean, we can provide input, but what are the pain points? Where do they see them? And so we get this list of things. And then based on what we’ve known with what we, we’ve already talked about, you know, the metrics and the, you know, having mentally healthy people work with you and those kind of things. Where does this fit in?

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

Let’s dive in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. So this is gonna be a little bit different episode. Usually I interview founders of law firms, but today we’re, we’re doing something a little different. I’m, I am interviewing a founder, but he is not a founder of a law firm. He’s founder of a consulting firm that consults with law firms.

And we’re gonna talk about a few topics to dive in about things that, that help hopefully will help you run your firms better. So, today we’ve got Tim McKey. He’s a CEO and [00:02:00] owner of Vista Consulting. He’s worked with over 250, maybe more law firms in his career as a consultant.

I’ll let him maybe give a little bit more information on exactly what he does and what he’s done. So, Tim, welcome to the show. Glad to have you. Why don’t you tell us about yourself.

Tim Mckey: No, I appreciate it. And, and am I the, the first non-lawyer that you’re interviewing, Jonathan?

Jonathan Hawkins: You are, you are

Tim Mckey: Well, we’re, so, we’re okay. So we’re starting off plowing new ground here. So all, all good. Well, look certainly thank you for, for having me. And just to tell your audience a little bit Jonathan and I met on opposite sides of a buy, sell transaction a year or so. And even though we were on opposite sides, I felt like we were, we were working toward a common goal. So it was a very interesting thing and I think we developed a friendship from there. But yes, I’m the owner and CEO of Vista Consulting and we work primarily with plaintiff law firms. So, I know your audience, Jonathan.

[00:03:00] I think I know, ’cause I’ve listened to the podcast. Your audience is a little bit broader than just plaintiff firms. So, a lot of the things I’m gonna say today. Probably just are naturally geared toward plaintiff firms, but I think they will apply across the board. So, that’s all good. And yes, I’m not a lawyer. I’m actually a CPA was a totally immersed in the CPA world for 18 years, and then made a not a really a career change, but a different focus. At my firm, we decided we want to help, not just keep the score. But to affect the score. So we started a consulting firm and one of the businesses that for lack of a better word, drank the Kool-Aid with us and said, Hey, we want to, we want you to help us look at our operations and you know, become more efficient and effective at what we do and therefore more profitable.

Happened to be a personal injury law firm, and we got a lot of traction there. They actually hired a A COO there that became a really good friend and founded Vista with me. His name’s Chad Dudley. [00:04:00] I, if I said it was Chad Dough, he’s, it still is Chad Dudley. So, and he’s around.

He is a really good friend of mine and really helped kick off Vista, but we’re a full service operational firm that looks at systems and processes within plaintiff firms to help them become more efficient and effective, which is a very broad area. But we’ve got a methodology that we use.

We don’t have a. We don’t have a cookie cutter of what comes out of that methodology because every firm is different. Every firm has different protocols and systems that they’re currently using. And our MO is to help them be better at that. So, that’s what Vista does, along with working with some m and a merger and acquisition type deals and that kind of thing.

So I hope that gives you a little bit of background.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so lemme ask, so I, I know Vista does a lot of stuff and you said systems and operations but you also have a financial component as well. I mean, you’re a CPA, so you help with some of the financial part,

Tim Mckey: Yeah, we didn’t we didn’t totally throw [00:05:00] the baby out with the bath water when we started into the consulting business. You know, we, we look at operational metrics and I think that was, was really came from our CPA background, looking at financial metrics. And we still do that within our consulting business.

We actually have a, an area that focuses on part-time or what we call fractional CFO, chief Financial Officer work for some of our clients. You know, I was asked the other day, who needs A CFO? And quite honestly, everybody does, but everybody can’t afford a COO. So what we’ve been able to do is kind of carve down certain things that COOs do and do it on a part-time basis for, for plaintiff firms.

And that’s, and it’s been working out very well, so.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so, like you mentioned, we, we met little over a year ago or so. Year and a half maybe. I lose track of time. But it was on other sides opposite sides of a, of a m and a transaction. Pretty big one sort of PI firm obviously, which is what you work on. And that’s how we got to know [00:06:00] each other.

But you know. Clearly, you know, you’ve worked with a lot of firms, so you, and you’re on the operation side and on the financial side. So you’ve seen the insides of a lot of firms probably you’ve seen a lot of firms evolve over time. So you can sort of see what has worked and what hasn’t worked.

And so I wanna. Lean into that experience and, and dive into a few topics today and sort of, hopefully share some wisdom for, for the other owners out there that maybe they can say, Hey, these are some things I can do. So. Maybe I’ll, I’ll just start with this. I’m gonna ask a big, big, broad question and see where we go from there.

But, you know, are there any things or any commonalities of, that you have found of what the best performing firms sort of share in comment, at least from your perspective?

Tim Mckey: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I give a presentation when I, when I get a chance one of those pres give different presentations, but the, I have one that talks about the characteristics of the top performing firms, so [00:07:00] that’s exactly what you asked there. There’s probably 10 or 12 of those.

I’ll try to hit a few here and maybe I, I’m certainly not gonna have time to go deep on a lot of these characteristics, if you will, of the top performing plaintiff firms. But I think there, there’s some that we might want to dig in on a little bit, but I’ll just hit ’em and, and that some of them and see where that goes.

And, you know, the first one is, you know, the top performing the performing firms. They understand that there’s really only four ways to grow a law firm. I’m gonna leave, I’m gonna leave that hanging for just a minute. We’ll come back to that one because that’s probably the biggest one. Okay. They know that they have to work on their business as opposed to just in it.

And what I mean by that is, you know, you are running a business that happens to practice law. You know, we can get into discussions with or we have gotten into discussions with lawyers before, Hey, you know, this is our, our, our, our operation is different. Well it is, but if you don’t make a profit, you’re [00:08:00] not gonna be doing it very long. So learning some of the tricks of, not tricks, but some of the, the best practices to put you in the place of most potential to, to be successful is being able to work on it and not just in it. And what I mean by that is, you know, in it would be depositions and case strategy and hiring experts and those kind of things.

And working on it are things such as deciding how your intake. Script is going to work. Deciding what metrics you need to track, deciding what people in, in what positions you actually need to fill. So the top of performing firms, they understand that working on it. As, just as important as working in it.

So I hope that that computes a little bit. They also go a step further. The firms that are really good, they have a vision of what they want to be. You know, most of the, the, the clients that are even doing very well, they may be satisfied with where you are, [00:09:00] where they are, but they’re not. Where they want to really be. So it’s, you know, what are the things that I need to do? Can I picture in my mind three years out say, of what I want this firm to look like? And then they simply do the things we talked about. They work on it, build the systems to, to realize that vision. So um,

Jonathan Hawkins: before you move on from that one, the vision one I think is, is huge. You know, it’s, and, and that applies to everybody and, and sort of the way I view it is it’s almost like a filter through which you see the entire world and you, it it’s a filtering mechanism for all your decisions as you mentioned.

So it’s like, you know, if, if your, if your vision is to, for example move. To be a regional firm and cover lots of states, then you’re gonna make decisions to start opening offices in other states where if you say, no, I want to be the biggest, baddest in this city, then you’re, you’re gonna make different decisions to, to, to realize that.

So [00:10:00] I think that’s just huge. I think that applies to, you know,

Tim Mckey: It applies, it actually applies to any business. You know, I, I, you know, Stephen Covey wrote a book, which wa one of my favorites, and it’s old, the Seven Habits of Highly Affected People, and the very first habit is begin with the end in mind. Which means, okay, what is that vision? And you know, I say there’s actually two construction projects when you’re building a business is you build a, you create or build a blueprint first. And then you get the hammers and, and nails and you say, okay, this is what we’re gonna do and how we’re gonna build the firm. And I propose to you if you don’t have that blueprint you know, I don’t know if the house is gonna stand. Okay.

So, yeah. Anyway, that I, I, I, again, I, I think that is, you know, common with all businesses as, as well as the other thing that, that the top perform.

One of the other things they top performing firms pay attention to is the actual culture. That is within their four walls, you know, and the culture generally follows the owner’s [00:11:00] lead. And you know, if the owner happens to be a jerk, then maybe that their culture is not very good. and I’m gonna tell you, if you are a jerk, to pretend you’re not, and uh, and to create a system that, that within. You have, how you’re gonna treat your people, how you’re gonna treat your clients, and those kind of things. And obviously I’m, I’m, I’m playing fast and loose with the terminology here, but being intentional about that every, every business has a culture. You know, it’s gonna be by default or by intention. And the good ones, it’s very much by intention. So that’s another one of the areas that are good. The other is, they know the, the top performing firms know their data. They know, you know, how many leads they get. They know ma how many of those they want. They know how many they convert. They know. Client contact what their standards are and and, and that what goes along with that is, is having an accountability system to be able to have some transparency into your, your operation to [00:12:00] see that these best practices and factor are being followed. Because if not, you have to look at every case you have to. Dig in, you have to have, you know, good reports to be able to see that. So it sounds like a lot here and I guess it, it could be, but you know, these are what the top, top performing do farming firms do, and I’m gonna only mention really one more. And that is they usually have someone within their firm that is not the visionary that that really works. Day-to-day on the operations, and you can call ’em a COO, an office manager. It may be a group of people, but they’ve certainly identified personnel within their operation that’s going to allow them usually to be the, the visionary of what we want to be. And then you have these operational folks to. Carry it out.

And I see there’s one common characteristic of, of good operational people or a team, is that they’re, they’re, mentally sound and I’ve got a [00:13:00] definition for that. Uh, it is, they don’t allow drama.

They squash drama. Which kind of ties back into culture, it ties back into working on the business. But, you know, I know that most of your listeners don’t have any drama in their businesses, but sometimes it, it crops up and to have people that don’t ramp it up. But squash it and handle it, you know, at a level before it you know, escalates is extremely important. And the top performing firms do that. They did. It’s almost a no drama environment and quite honestly, it’s a little bit rare, but, but the good ones do it, so

Jonathan Hawkins: And I’ll, I’ll say this too. A good operations person knows how to put up with the the leader of the firm that’s always throwing ’em some new idea.

Tim Mckey: no,

absolutely.

Jonathan Hawkins: how to say no. They know how to, how to gracefully say no, not yet.

Tim Mckey: I call that the filter, they can become the filter and help you know, really clarify what those owners mean. And, and the other word in there is [00:14:00] prioritization. So you’re absolutely right. I agree with that. So.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned earlier there’s four ways to grow a law firm. I do wanna circle back to that. I want to, I wanna, I wanna hear to you that.

Tim Mckey: I wasn’t gonna, I wasn’t gonna let it go. You know, and look, I mean, I, I hope that all of you, the people listening are grabbing a pencil and getting ready to write these four down. But to be honest, they’re not rocket science. They’re four and I’m gonna name four, but two of them are actually subsets, so have to get more cases. Okay? That’s number one to grow, affirm. And the second one is you have to increase the resolution value of those cases. Okay. Those are the two biggies.

Number three is create a system in your firm that basically wows the clients that come through. We call it, you know, a world class experience within the firm because what we want those people to do is refer back to us. There’s thousands of different ways to market, [00:15:00] but the most effective one is to have past clients are maybe identified referral sources referring to you on a daily basis. And there’s a methodology to do that. So that’s number three, but it actually ties into more cases, right? So that’s a subset.

And then the last number four is to make sure that every system and process within your business is as efficient and effective as it can be. You know, and I, I don’t use one of those words without the other. To be fast, for fast sake is not what you really want to be. There’s a lot of times that cases need to be actually slowed down. You need to take another depo. You need to get an expert. You need to dig deeper and make sure that client is getting the proper treatment in the personal injury world and those kind of things.

Not trying to create anything that’s not there. To understand what is there, and sometimes that may takes more time. So that’s being effective and it increases the case values and that’s [00:16:00] that. So that comes all the way back up there.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so I want to maybe shift a little bit, but I think you, you, you mentioned it a minute ago, you said, you know, gotta know your numbers, you know, we call it metrics, whatever. And so, you know, I think that sounds great. But to somebody who’s not doing it, that can be overwhelming. They’re like, where do I start?

What do I look at? What, what are, you know. And I know, I know I’ve talked to owners that have, they track 200 metrics, you know, and it’s like, but that’s a ton and no one can start there. So do you have advice on, you know, where do you start? What, what do you look at first? What’s low hanging fruit on the metric side.

Tim Mckey: I want to agree with you. There are owners that sometimes when they start getting a few numbers, they become. Data junkies which can be too many. You know, there’s just, you know, my dad would say that’s just too much sugar for a dime. You know, you’ve got so much information, you can’t, you can’t handle it all. I’m gonna say, if there were only two metrics that you, you [00:17:00] track in a, in a personal injury firm, it should be your intake statistics. And I named them before, you know, how many leads are you getting and from what source? Of those leads. How many meet your firm’s criteria at Vista to be a case at Vista, we call that wants, which ones do you want?

Okay. And then of the ones you want, what’s your conversion rate? How many of those actually become a case? And knowing those numbers put you in a place where you can. Work to improve them. Okay. We know, you know, from being in those, you know, almost 300 firms, that the good firms, they actually convert 93 or 94% or above of the cases that they actually want. And if you ran your numbers and you’re

getting 80.

Jonathan Hawkins: That, that’s strong.

Tim Mckey: Well, That’s remember now it’s the ones you want. It’s not the leads you get. The leads you get because you’re going to, you’re gonna catch a lot of guppies if you’re fishing for whales, [00:18:00] right? You don’t want those. But if the ones that qualify and you want them. You should get the vast majority of ’em. And a lot of firms, number one, they don’t track it. And then if they do well, they’re getting, you know, let’s just say it’s 80%. Well, the difference between 80 and 93% in numbers of cases, let’s just say that’s. 10 cases a month, or let’s just say be conservative. It’s five cases a month. Okay? Five cases a month at a, let’s be conservative again. At a $10,000 average case fee is $50,000, and if my math is correct, that’s $600,000 a year. So you can see how, you know, making some minor adjustments and following these metrics will help. So that goes back to getting cases without actually spending more money.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so, you know, I wanna hear your, your thoughts on this. You know, I, I’ve heard lawyers out there and they’re like, we close every case that comes in, we close every case that comes in and you’re like, show me the numbers. And like, we don’t track it, but we just [00:19:00] know what have you found? I’m sure you’ve had a conversation with somebody that said that, and then you went in and actually started tracking it and it wasn’t a hundred percent I’m guessing.

Tim Mckey: You’re right on all accounts that we have talked to people that we get every one we want, but. 98% of the people who tell us that don’t track it. So we then say, look, we’re not arguing with you, but let’s track it. And then all of a sudden we realize without fail that they don’t get ’em all and it is some other number and they don’t have a chase procedure because they don’t know who to chase.

They don’t, you know, these are the systems and processes that we talk about. That are really minor tweaks that can have major outcomes, just like we talked about, you know, getting another case or getting five more cases. You know, I would like to think that $600 thousand in additional revenue may mean something to someone. And, and again, I I, I said one, two metrics. That’s one. So that’s, that’s huge. And it has to do with one of the four ways to [00:20:00] grow, right? It’s getting more cases. The other one is having a standard. For contacting your clients, and again, I’m really more referring to plaintiff firms, but being proactive and having a system to contact your clients because it gets, it does two things.

One, it helps you get more information because obviously you have a set of questions that you want to hear from that client. Are you still in treatment? Are you any more pains? Have you seen a new doc? There’s a lot of things that you go through. And also if you are able to convince the majority of your clients that you’re gonna call them. And let’s just say for that, we have firms that use different timeframes. Let’s just say it’s every 14 days or every 21 days, and you say, look, we want you to call us if, if something’s hot, but know that we’re gonna call you every 14 days and we’re gonna, we’ll even try to narrow it down between this time, et cetera.

Get your best number and how you wanna be contacted. [00:21:00] We like to do it. that that contact, by the way, by phone or zoom if you can. And there’s a whole set of reasons why, but the other things that it does other than just keeps you in communication, helps your client make better decisions to increase the value of their case. If you’re able to convince them not to make those calls in, then it doesn’t disrupt. The efficiency and effectiveness of your, of your operation because, you know, we’ve gone into firms and as case managers or paralegals, whatever the term that particular firm uses, how much time do you spend fielding calls where the client is checking on their case? We’ve heard 10% to 75%. And you know, if you’re interrupted constantly, then you’re not getting your work done. And it’s just a, it’s a, it be, it be, can become a mess. So. Changing that dynamic can be huge. And again, I’m, first of all, we gotta track it. Are you doing [00:22:00] it? But then what I’m telling you now, here’s the things to do to improve that, and that helps you with case value.

So if I only had two metrics, those would be the two to track. There’s a lot of other ones though.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s just that last point you made about. Proactively reaching out will reduce them reaching in. I’ve never heard that. I think that, and it seems obvious now that you’ve said it, but that is huge. You know, there’s a couple other things too about the proactive contacting the clients. You know, one it reduces bar complaints.

It’s like one of the biggest. Reasons of a bargain complaint is my lawyer’s not calling me. The other thing, especially in the PI world is that clients are fickle and they will, you know, kick you to the curb and move to another firm if they think you’re ignoring them. And you know, it probably helps you keep the clients as well, I would imagine.

Tim Mckey: No, it absolutely does, and there’s a little bit of a. Gosh tricks or techniques that can be used here. Every one of those calls doesn’t have to be the lawyer, it can be the paralegal [00:23:00] or legal assistant. Okay. But the lawyer should talk to them periodically as well. But if, if the conversation with the legal assistant, whatever the term you want to use is, is calling, is. You know, lawyer, Jonathan asked me to give you a call to talk about this. Okay? You, you bring that lawyer and let them know the lawyer is in the mix. So these little bitty techniques, I mean, here’s an analogy. if I had surgery and I get a call the day after surgery from the nurse that said, Dr. Hawkins wanted to check on you. That, and there’s been studies about this that is 95% as good as the doctor calling and saying, how are you doing? Be, and again, these little subtle things to make you, to leverage your business, to save you time where you can actually be working on cases. It, it’s immensely valuable.

And you know, those are the kind of things that we teach obviously, but they’re not secrets. You can tell your people to do it, but if you don’t have an accountability system to [00:24:00] know that it’s being done and that not gonna go into the details of how that’s done, but it’s important. It’s very important.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s part of what I’m thinking, you know? You can have the system, but how do you make sure it’s being run? And I’m sure that’s something you help

Tim Mckey: Yeah. and then again, it’s not rocket science either, Jonathan, it’s, it’s using case management systems, it’s using other reporting mechanisms. And I had a client just last week said, well, what if my team doesn’t tell the truth on that? That is the one thing that is a capital offense. If you’re not, they’re not gonna tell the truth on their reports, then they can’t work in your firm. You know, I’m, I’m sorry. You know, there there’s very few things that I am that harsh about, but that’s one of ’em because all of a sudden you’ve got bad information and anything, and, and the one thing that’s worse than making decisions off of no information is making decisions off of bad information.

So,

Jonathan Hawkins: And it’s certainly a, a, a trust issue, which you know, that that’s a huge issue.

Tim Mckey: Look, it very rarely [00:25:00] happens because we, because what we do is talk with the, the people who are gonna be inputting that data about the importance of it and why we’re doing, you know, people wanna know the why behind it, and if they know the why they usually buy in. It’s not a, it’s not a big deal. So.

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

Jonathan Hawkins: so I wanna shift again. So another thing I’m curious about you know, in your, you know, dealing with all these law firm owners and, and leaders sort of the, the question of mindset what have you found is sort of the, the good mindset or the good attributes and maybe the things that are, maybe I’ll call it unhealthy,

Tim Mckey: well, the not so in, in Vista we call it pixie dust, you know? And I’ll give you another analogy here. And this is a very bad one, but you know, and I’ve told law firm owners, firm law, firm owners this before, look, if you wanna hire [00:26:00] us and expect, it’s like joining a gym and never going, and never working out, and never, and still expecting that you’re gonna get stronger and lose weight. This is not gonna work. You know, what we do is help identify what needs to be done and then work with our clients together to see that it is done. You know? And if, if, if the owner’s not gonna back us up on those kind of things and say, look, this is work, and know what’s that old saying? You know, I, I I, I found the secret. And it’s dressed in overhauls, overhauls, and it’s called work. And you know, this is work. And so the, the people who have the mindset that, hey, there’s a magic bullet out there, and we can talk a lot about that. I mean, AI is around now. We got venture capital coming in. There’s a lot of different things that’s disrupting this industry right now that some people look at as silver bullets.

And I propose to you there’s not, it is, you know, [00:27:00] identifying the problems. Correcting them through modifying behavior or getting good reports. That I don’t think that’s changed in a millennia, but there is, there are owners of businesses, and I’m not gonna put it just in law firms that think there’s a magic bullet and, and you know, or pixie dust, it’s not, it’s work. So, and the ones who realize it. And buy in. You know, and, and one more thing, and I know you want to wanna jump in here, is that the owners that, that are, their firms are doing really, really well. They’re looking for that next little incremental bit. Those are the ones that are, are number one, they’re the funnest for us to work with because they understand this, they and what got them there, which is really hard work.

And they’re looking for, Hey, what’s that? I call it the crouton and the chopped salad. You know, what is that little thing that’s gonna take us a little bit further? Those are the ones that, [00:28:00] that, that really do it. So.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so, so putting in the work. Absolutely agree. I want to get your, your take on this. So I’m a law firm owner. I’m just drowning and I’m just, I’m hurting and I’m like I just don’t have time to put in the work. Do you have any tips or advice on how to sort of put in the work to get there? And then I think the answer probably is you do that for a while, then you can sort of get to the other side.

But you know what, what is your advice

Tim Mckey: Well, again, another analogy or another thought is Steve Jobs started in his garage, but he didn’t stay there. Okay. You know, so you’re busting your butt, you’re doing everything, and you say, I don’t have time to grow. Well, you’re gonna have to. Do something different. You know, are you gonna get what you, you always got, right? I like to think about it with, okay, if you’ve got a flat tire on your car and you’re, you’re booking down the, the interstate highway and, and your tire goes flat, [00:29:00] you really have to pull over and change that tire because it’s gonna tear up 10 other things. But if you do change it, and let’s just say you put on even a better tire. Then you can continue on, but you had to slow down or stop in this case to make that happen. We talk to law firm owners who feel that way, that they’re overloaded, they’re maxed. Let’s just take a day or two days, and let’s talk about where all these pain points are. What can you delegate that you’re not or you’re not delegating because you may not have the personnel or have identified the position. But going through that and. You know the technical name for that meeting is a strategic planning session. You’re getting your strategy right before you actually get to the tactics of hiring the new person, where you have to have the plan. It goes back to the vision. You know, that’s the advice is to pull the car over. You gotta change the tire, and then we can go faster. But you’ve gotta put [00:30:00] in the work to build the blueprint to go forward. Again, I wish it was pixie dust, but it’s not. But sometimes, you know, I don’t even have time to scratch my ear. Well, if you’re gonna continue to do that, then you’re gonna continue not being able to scratch your ear. So,

And again, I’m not trying to make fun of them or be flippant or arrogant, but tho that’s the truth.

Jonathan Hawkins: I heard, I heard a lawyer, a successful firm owner, a, a year or so ago, speak and you know, he said that the, the thing that he attributed it to was taking one day. A week to work on the business. And he said, you know, looking back, that’s the one thing that moved the needle the most. And he said, don’t do it on a Friday because you’ll, it’ll turn into a three day weekend.

So, so No, I like that a

Tim Mckey: lot. or Wednesday. And so I hear you and you know, I, I tried doing that. Some days the, the bombs drop on your desk and you, you sort of get distracted, but, you know, [00:31:00] but yeah, it’s a challenge. It’s a challenge.

But it’s in, you have to be, in my opinion, you have to be intentional about that. And if the bomb drops and you’re busy for a period of time. I think you just say, look, that’s fine. So next week I might take two days to do that strategy. What, you know, it, it reminds me of, of what people talk about work life balance and those kind of things. Work life balance. I, I like the concept and I think it should be lived, but it’s not in, you have half day of work and half day of not, and it’s like work is bad. You know, it’s like you might have three weeks of very intense things that needs to be done and you take three or four days to, to regroup. You know, that’s still balance.

It’s just not all consistent. And again, recognizing that that’s okay and, you know, certainly making sure, telling your family, look, this is what’s going on. Again, I just find that communication in all areas possibly even over communication on the business side and the [00:32:00] personal side. You know, it puts you in the place of most potential to have a better life. So that’s what we’re looking for.

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so I’ve got a question that I personally am interested in. I wanna get your take on it. So, and I think probably people in the audience would be interested in this as well. It’s, it’s you know, you’ve got a firm and you want to grow it. You’ve got the vision and you’re like. I want to get there.

But you know, and if you had $10 million drop in your lap and you can just hire everybody and spend all the money and do all the stuff, you could do that really quick and get there. But most people don’t have that. They’re bootstrapping both with cashflow and with their time. So, what’s your approach or how do you advise law firm owners that have the vision, the big vision, and they want to get there and grow fast?

How do you balance and allocate resources and figure out how to do it and not get ahead of your skis, so to speak?

Tim Mckey: Yeah, there’s several things that I can, uh, can go into here, but one is still goes back to that strategic planning discussion because one of the [00:33:00] exercise that we do with firms when we go into that is, let’s just pretend you did have 10 million. Now I know you’re bootstrapping, you know, don’t have two nickels to rub together, but let’s pretend that you got a billion dollars on this. What would you do?

And we start, you know, we listen, you know, I mean, we can provide input, but what are the pain points? Where do they see them? And so we get this list of things. And then based on what we’ve known with what we’ve already talked about, you know, the metrics and the, you know, having mentally healthy people work with you and those kind of things. Where does this fit in?

So we kinda meld what we see as best practices and what the owners have as kind of their, their pain points.

Where are they hurting the most? We look at those together and then we say, okay, that’s over. We don’t have the billion dollars and we got a list of 20 things that need to be done. Let’s prioritize. So then you go back and you, you know, again, this is [00:34:00] work and it’s not rocket science. Okay? This is the biggest pain point. If we can get this. Then that’ll allow us to do that. Do we have the money to invest in that? Where can we get the money? Is there a bank? Do I have personal assets? Do I have to go to my uncle and bought, you know, there’s a thousand different ways to do it. And you know, that’s why, you know, I don’t think I said this earlier, but there, we don’t bring a cookie cutter to any law firm and say it’s gonna be done this way because. E every firm is different. You know, somebody might have not two nickels to bar rub together. Together, and somebody have, look, I’ve got a credit line of X, or I’ve got, I, you know, there’s just some, so many different ways, but going through the pain points, going through what we know are best practices, and then working through a pro prioritization. Of those, again, it is just extremely healthy because it, you then get that blueprint and it’s just like, you know, gosh, I, [00:35:00] I’m full of cliches today. Eating the elephant is one bite at a time, right? So let’s take this first bite. Let’s see how, how we can do this and how quickly. I’m generally not one to put total deadlines out there that by, you know. You know, three weeks from Wednesday we’re gonna have be here. Well, that may be a good, a good idea and a good thing, and we think we can do it, but, you know, what are the things that have to happen? So, I don’t know if I’m totally answering your question, but that’s the way it’s, it needs to be done is a plan and then work the plan. One last thing, and I’m gonna shut up another cliche is, you know, the plan doesn’t have to be perfect, you know, the, and imperfect. Plan well implemented is better than a perfect plan never implemented. So get the plan, start working the plan, knowing that you’re gonna vary a little bit and you know, just freaking do it. And again, there’s a reason for coaches, and I’m not touting Vista or anything, there’s [00:36:00] a reason for people to help hold you accountable. And to help you have expertise in areas that, that you don’t get those people. And if it’s not Vista, I’m, that’s okay. I want it to be Vista, but it doesn’t have to be, you know, get somebody to help you. ’cause that’s, that, that, that’s what does it.

Jonathan Hawkins: I agree with that. You know, you hear people say you, you’re gonna invest the money and the time whether you’re trying it on your own or with help is the question is how quickly are you gonna get there? And maybe if you’re ever gonna get there, that, that’s part of

Tim Mckey: Well, But, I wanna, I’m gonna challenge you a little bit on what there is because even people who have very clear visions, that vision gets modified. The closer you get to the initial one, it’s always that next little bit of carrot. And again, that may be, that may be a, a sale or just more profit or. You know, more clients, which then yields more profit.

There’s, there’s, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the high, the [00:37:00] highest performing firms are not, never satisfied, so

Jonathan Hawkins: I agree with that. There’s always another peak. There’s always another peak to go after, for sure. Well, so I wanna shift, oh, I got one more thing I, I want us to, to talk about and, and then we can start to wrap up. And that is what are you seeing? You know, I. You mentioned private equity earlier, so, you know, and, you know, we did that deal last summer.

I’m, I’m curious, what are you seeing out there in terms of private equity? I know I’m seeing some things and then even the, the MSO structuring and, and you can explain what that is if you’d like, or you know, what, what are you seeing out there? You said there’s lots of disruption. We, we, we will leave ai AI to the side.

I really wanna focus on sort of this outside investment

Tim Mckey: Yeah, we can, we can put a to the side, but after I say one thing, which is it’s just a tool, it’s not pixie dust, so let’s put that aside. It’s not gonna, you know, revolutionize your practice in the short run. But what, what we’re seeing in regard to what I call disruption in the [00:38:00] marketplace is with the, with the aging population, with, non-lawyer ownership, at least in Arizona and dc and you know, some other states trying to figure out how to play in that game. And the entry of private equity or venture capital coming into this space is what’s caused the disruption. It’s caused these owners, again, whether you’re old, older, seasoned is a better word or not, you’ve. There’s lots of people who have thought there’s that this business, this type business can’t be a creation of value point or something you can sell. That mindset in the last five to six years has totally changed that because of the things I mentioned is, hey, you know, I may be able to build this asset and actually sell it, and there’s specific ways to do it, and that’s not for this discussion, but that’s caused a very different [00:39:00] perspective. From lots of different plaintiff law firms, and again, probably other law firms as well. But hey, I may be able be building an asset and how can I, how can I get in that game? And I’ve, I’ve facetiously said before that you’re either on the table or at the you’re either at the table or on the menu. You know, you’re either, you’re out there maybe looking to buy something or, or maybe you’re gonna be bought. I don’t think that’s a. Negative viewpoint at a very high level. Okay? Because the things that that prepare you to sell are the things that prepare you to be more efficient, effective, and profitable. So that is an alignment of things that firms should be doing. Just the fact that we’ve now have these, this other potential opportunity that, hey. Maybe we are building value here that we can sell and there’s ways to do it. I mean, heck, you and I were part of, part of one, and I’ve been, [00:40:00] I mean, I think you and I have been part of others. On a little bit of an aside, I’ve worked on two very large transactions that never happened. That I learned more in all the transactions that I’ve closed, you know, you know, it wasn’t a, it wasn’t a, a fun day when we said we’re not gonna pursue it anymore, but it, it’s, it’s interesting and fun to pursue and. I think if you’re a law firm owner and you’re not at least paying attention to this a little bit, you’re probably a little behind the eight ball. So I don’t know if that was the, the answer you’re looking for, but that’s, that marketplace is, is out there now.

Jonathan Hawkins: It is, you know, one thing you, you mentioned that, that I tell, I tell everybody you know, you know, it used to be that if anybody, you know, at least the ones I see are for a long time saw it’s somebody that’s like, yeah, I’m ready to hang it up in six months. It, that’s just not enough time number one.

And, and it’s, and I always tell people. If you build it and get it [00:41:00] ready as if you can sell it, you don’t ever have to sell it. But if you design it that way, it’s gonna be more profitable. You’ll, you’ll pull more money out of it every year along the way, and you’ll make the asset more valuable at the end.

And I think you’re right too, on the, either at the table or, or on the menu, I, I think you can put your head in the sand. And pretend this is not coming. But it’s, it’s here and I think it’s coming even more. You know, my view has been that, or at least what, from my perspective, it’s been focused initially on the PI space, but I’m seeing it now in non pi and I call ’em, I call ’em traditional style firms, hourly, broad practice area type firms.

That people are starting to look at and, and see how they can get in there. So I don’t, I don’t think any practice area is completely safe. Now, if you are, you know, a ultra low [00:42:00] volume super trial lawyer, you know, you can’t really sell that.

Tim Mckey: I agree. The board that, and again, that goes back to why systems and processes are so important. You know, it’s, it’s a little bit counterintuitive for, for us guys that actually have egos that, Hey, we wanna be the man. You know, being the man and trying to sell is, is incompatible almost. You know, you need to not be the man.

You need to set up this thing to run without you. You know, that, you know, said Jim Collins wrote that book Good To Great, where if you picture the flywheel, you’ve gotta push it really hard to get it started, you know, and then you can touch it. You should be at the point when you sell that you’re touching it and it’s, and you’re keeping it moving because it’s already moving. But. The, the hard work is getting it started, getting the systems in place and being able to have those strategic days, or those thinking days where you can, you know, get the next bite at the apple within, within your [00:43:00] operation and those kind of things. That’s where, that’s where the, the highest values are gonna come from. And, and again, it’s totally aligned with increasing, you know, your service capabilities and your income. Today. So, you just gotta do it. So.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you, I mean, stay tuned. This, this, it’s, it’s, it’s here and it’s coming more. So everybody out there, you know, don’t put your head in this sand on this one. So, so Tim, before we wrap up, I do wanna sort of ask, o one more sort of broad question if you can answer it. And that’s for, for law firm owners out there.

Do you have, you know, we’ve talked about a lot of things today. Do you have maybe one, two, or three sort of action item practical steps that they can take today? You know, beyond theory, like, do this.

Tim Mckey: Do create a vision. Sit down and write down what you want to be doing personally in, three years from that date and what you want your firm to look like. That’s number one. [00:44:00] That’s a tangible, you can sit down this afternoon and take, I don’t know, you may can do it in 15 minutes. It takes me a little longer to have those deep thoughts, but that’s something that can be done.

The other thing is know your numbers. Go find out what that data is, you know, and we talked about intake case management. There are others and, you know, call me if you wanna know what the others are, but, but don’t, again, be bound by trying to gather every bit of information that you’re not gonna use. Okay? So you know, getting that vision or mindset of this is how I’m gonna work on my business. I’m gonna set a vision, I’m gonna learn my numbers, and we’re gonna and work from there are probably the two biggest that takeaways. And you can start the process of getting your numbers today.

You know, talk to your operations people.

What are they measuring, what are you looking at? Do you know these things? And I’m, again, I’m not gonna say that, I mean. Well, what I’m gonna say is getting the numbers is a [00:45:00] starting point. ’cause then you say, okay, this is what I got. How can I improve ’em? And then that starts a whole different thing. But you can start these things today, you know, especially the visioning part and then, and saying, where do you want to be? And then say, okay, your, your next, after you do that, the next day is, okay, what are the five things I need to do that can make that happen? You know, it’s, it’s not rocket science, but it’s things that. Are tangible that, that anyone can do. And again, very self-serving on this, but a lot of times you need people to help you clarify your thinking on these things.

And, you know, that’s, that’s part of our role. But do it. You can do it. And that’s actionable. You go do it today.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, Tim, I, I appreciate you coming on. I, we, I mean, there’s so much to talk about. There’s no way we get it, get it done. And I know you do like two day, three day conferences and go over and you still don’t get, get to talk about all of it. So, you know. We were, we did jump around a little bit, so, you know, I appreciate you coming [00:46:00] on and sharing some of your, your wisdom and knowledge for anybody out there that you know, wants to find you, what’s, what’s the best way?

Tim Mckey: Let me see if I can do this right. I’m sharing a screen. Does that work?

Jonathan Hawkins: There it is. Yep, I see

Tim Mckey: There it. is. That’s uh, and that’s, um, that’s my cell number up there. Feel free to call or text me and, you know, I’m pretty, obsessive about returning calls. That’s not, I’m not gonna ghost you, whoever you are. Leave a message if I can’t get it. And there’s my email address and again, I’m looking, yeah, there’s the website, vista ct.com.

Jonathan Hawkins: And this, you know, for those, watching this on YouTube, wherever the information’s there for those listening on audio. I don’t know if you wanna say your cell phone

Tim Mckey: Yeah, yeah. No, I’m, I’m fine with it. First of all, the um, the email address is, is just my initial name, T-M-C-K-E-Y, at Vista, V-I-S-T-A, ct.com. And the phone number’s [00:47:00] 2-2-5-9-3-1-7-0-4-5.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, Tim, thanks again. It’s been really informative for me and I, I’ve got some things I gotta go do. I wanna get off the phone here, so.

Tim Mckey: Well, thank you Anytime. And I, I appreciate you very much ha, having me on and looking forward to you. Uh, Vista has a podcast and want you on there, so we’re gonna do it.

Jonathan Hawkins: Awesome. Well, I appreciate it.

Tim Mckey: All right, my friend. Take care.

OutroUpdatedWebsite-1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the founding partner podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on the latest episodes. You can also connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn and check out the show notes. With links to resources mentioned throughout our discussion by visiting www.lawfirmgc.com. We’ll see you next time for more origin stories and insights from successful law firm [00:48:00] founders.