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Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating stories of successful law firm founders. We’ll uncover their beginnings, triumph over challenges, and practice growth. Whether you aspire to launch your own firm, have an entrepreneurial spirit, or are just [00:01:00] curious about the legal business, you’re in the right place.
Let’s dive in.
Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to family partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. Today’s guest, man, I owe a lot to this guy and, we’re going to get into that a little later, but Jeff Cunningham is a lawyer I met online on LinkedIn don’t know, maybe two and a half years ago, three years ago now. And he recently went out and founded a firm and, he went big out of the gate too, I mean, 75, maybe 100 lawyers, so we’re gonna, we’re gonna get into all that, so, Jeff also his practice area is similar to mine, we overlap in some areas here, so, we’ve got that in common too, so, Jeff I guess the name of the firm is Cohen Vaughn,
Jeff Cunningham: That’s right. Yep. Thanks so much for having me.
Jonathan Hawkins: why don’t, why don’t you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about where you are, what you do, and, and, You know, tell us a little about your firm.
We’re going to dive into the firm, so give us a high level and we’ll go deep.
Jeff Cunningham: Sure. So Jeff Cunningham. I am in Stanford, Connecticut [00:02:00] One of our many offices we did we did come out of the gate swinging We have I think 80 lawyers and maybe a new office Depending on how this morning’s call without me goes we might have a new office launching in a new state. So we’re in seven states it’s a partnership of law firms.
There’s actually three firms that came together our side is brand new and then we partnered up with another firm that acquired another firm. So it’s been an interesting collaboration. We do insurance defense and commercial litigation really on the defense side. And yeah, seven states. So it’s been a lot of work.
I’m the general counsel of the firm. So there’s been a lot of integration. It’s been really interesting to do and you know, really exciting. And it’s, a weird but exciting role as, as the owner and founder of a firm now, a whole different, whole different world. So
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s different. So guys solely litigation of all types? Do you do anything other than litigation?
Jeff Cunningham: for now it’s, it’s solely litigation. I mean, with workers comp as well, which is, you know, I guess. Um, Yeah, yeah. [00:03:00] Um, There’s definitely interest in more transactional work as well. And I have I’d love to see some IP guys come in and some more corporate, traditional corporate stuff come in as well.
And then we also do have a bit of cover insurance coverage practice that sort of. You know runs along with the insurance defense side
Jonathan Hawkins: So, like you said, you guys went big out of the gate. Seventy five lawyers at least, starting. You had to bring together two or three sort of firms. What’s it been like for you? I mean, you’re used to practicing law. You know, running client matters. Have you had time to do any of that?
Jeff Cunningham: Yep. Yeah, I’ve still had time to run my practice and I mean You know, I mostly defend lawyers deal with the grievance stuff do the general counsel work like like you do I have a couple of other matters as well that I’ve sort of you know stuck with me For it for most of my career at this point.
They just kind of never ending, but hopefully we wrap them up soon. I’ve had some time to do that work. Most of my time has been devoted to streamlining our processes. You know, we [00:04:00] had three groups basically, and everybody was doing things a little different. So. You know, sort of picking out the best, the best end result of, pretty much everything we’re doing has been my full time job this month, two months.
We have a great core of C-suite people, non lawyers Chief Operations Officer, Chief Admin Officer, Chief Marketing, Chief Human Rights, Chief Client Relationship, and Chief Financial Officers. They’re all non lawyers. They all have like 20. Well, most of them have 20 plus years of experience. And so they’ve done a ton of the heavy lifting on that side, which I think has been a real blessing for us.
But also I think it’s sort of setting our firm up for success because it allows, you know, most of the lawyers to really focus on just Practicing law, you know, not not trying to do those other things that we’re just not as good at.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, that raises a question for me. This is something that I’ve, talked to others about. And, it is just something that a lot of people Who’ve never gone through it probably don’t think about and that is you know, you guys brought together You had at least one existing firm and you’re bringing a lot of people [00:05:00] together with bringing clients from all these places probably coming from different platforms and just the logistical implement implementation of bringing that all together. You know, it’s one thing to say, yeah, we’re partners, we’ll sign a partnership agreement. It’s another to like actually bring in the data and do all that. So I guess the first thing is, is, I assume you had a team that helped do that. But how do you choose, for example what technology platform practice management to use?
Because I’m sure you were using. At least two or three different ones. How do you say, all right, we’re going to do this one.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah So we have a technology committee. I’m a big fan of committees and trying to you know, get buy in from partners Lawyers non lawyers everybody and anybody I can sort of pull into the committee. I do So our tech committee we’ve spent probably three to five hours a week Demoing different platforms.
We didn’t want to be tied into kind of what we all knew and used just because, you know, we didn’t want inertia to sort of keep us [00:06:00] most of us were familiar with certain platforms and that was good. There’s definitely an advantage to that but we really wanted to shop around. So we’ve been shopping, you know, pretty much everything.
We’re sort of using our existing software until we find a replacement. And then there’s some new stuff that we are exploring. There’s this company Nexel, which is a client management tool. You know, we shopped a bunch of them and we have a platform right now that does a decent job of it.
But Nexel sort of taking it, you know, I guess they named themselves Nexel because of that. They’re sort of taking it to the next level and I just got their name. I never, I never really thought about that before, but that’s been a really exciting tool. That’s going to take probably half a year for our, our people to finish the training on because it is.
It’s really different. I mean, it’s really AI driven. And I think it’s going to be really, really powerful. But, you know, only a few of our people are going to use that. The rest of us are going to use our traditional CRM that we’re a little more comfortable with. I don’t even want to say it’s limited, but it’s not unlimited like Nexel seems to be.
But even things, you know, mundane things like, some of us used [00:07:00] Zoom, some of us used Teams, you know, it was sort of a, and there, pricing wasn’t a factor, you know, the actual software use isn’t a factor, they basically do the same thing, it was more of like a Pepsi Coke. You know, I know, I know you’re down in Atlanta, so I don’t want to, I don’t want to get into that battle.
But, you know, it really is more just like, what do you, what do you use generally? What are you comfortable with, you know, and as a litigation firm, what do your courts use? You know, I’m in New York and Connecticut. They both use Teams. So Teams makes sense for me. But and Teams won the fight. So, although, although we still use Zoom a little bit.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, let’s just talk about Teams and Zoom. So I use both and, you know, some people prefer one or the other. But a really smart lawyer I know said he talked to a lot of smart lawyers he knew. And sort of the conclusion was going forward to the extent you can stay within the Microsoft universe. You know, they have lots of different services and, you know, teams competes with Zoom. It may not be as good right now, but long term, the more you can stay within that universe, it talks to each [00:08:00] other. And then as AI sort of
Jeff Cunningham: Yep.
Jonathan Hawkins: on top of it, it can pull all from the same universe more easily than if you’ve got these different platforms that are
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: together, so to speak. So let me
Jeff Cunningham: And this is the security too. I mean, the Microsoft security platform, you know, it’s just more robust than zoom. So that’s my understanding. So, you know, I think as it grows to, you’re going to be better off in that world from a security standpoint too. So, sense.
Jonathan Hawkins: I know that’s big for you. So let me, I want to dig in a few more of these. So, so I’m sort of looking for practice management, solution maybe switching here do you have a top two or three that you like? I’m just, I’m curious
Jeff Cunningham: so you, you use Clio if I remember correctly, right?
Jeff Cunningham: Now. Okay
Jonathan Hawkins: And so it manageable, but there’s a lot of limitations.
Jeff Cunningham: yeah, so I think Clio is probably what I recommend to people the most. I’ve only demoed it I’ve never actually used it in the trenches. So I like to be clear about that. I mean right now We’re using Prolaw, which is really, you know, you need a lot of users. I think to [00:09:00] make it make sense. It does a lot I’ve never found one.
I love I’ll say that right? There’s no perfect system. I think Prolaw is really great for us in that it, the billing component, pretty integrated and streamlined and it’s, you can get it everything from a lot of different ways, but you know, our people are billing every six minutes. So anything we can do to get their time in contemporaneously and not waste a lot of time billing.
That sort of wins out over other functionality, which I don’t know that you would necessarily need or or a lot of firms would actually You know, honestly, I don’t even need it. Most of my practice is now flat fee and membership based less hourly billing but so that’s a big component for us. i’ve heard really good things about smokeball, which i’ve also demoed but never actually used for real, but I I do know with Clio as well and Smokeball, I think as you scale, you know, they sort of get you in at kind of a realistic price.
And then as you scale, it sort of [00:10:00] gets expensive, but you’re sort of tied into, you know, it’s sort of like if you’re committing to teams, right? If you’re committing to Clio, you know, and they would start raising the price as you grow, then it’s like, how do you, you know, it’s expensive to get out of Clio.
Jonathan Hawkins: So is the number one thing. So I’ve been looking to switch, but you don’t want to just switch willy nilly because it’s expensive.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: more of a time data transfer training. you switch and you’re like, Oh yeah, I didn’t really like that when I’m switch again. It’s just, that’s just too
Jeff Cunningham: exactly. Yeah. Yeah. it’s a tough reality because. You know, and if you demo something, right, it’s different, because like, it works perfect, they have it set up so that it, you know, you know, that it looks great, right? It’s like test driving a car, you know, like, you’re in it for a minute, and everything’s cool, and then, you know, you buy it, and you get home, and you’re like, wait a minute, you know, there’s no cup holder, right, or whatever, you know, the little things you don’t notice.
so it’s tough. I mean, and I think the best thing you can do is ask around, but I find if you ask lawyers about their practice management solutions, any technology solutions, you know, you’re [00:11:00] just going to get negative feedback. I mean, nobody’s like, I love my practice management software, you know, nobody, cause there’s always
Jonathan Hawkins: There’s always friction with what
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. I’m going to talk one more sort of transition question, then we’ll move into some other stuff. But and this is a component to probably your practice. I know mine it’s, the logistics of sort of the notice to the firm notice to the clients and the file transfer, you know, again. It was a lot going on. How long did that take? take me through, you know, give me
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: on it.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. So you know, my prior firm, McAngus Goudelock Courie should teach a course in how to properly. Transfer, transition lawyers out of their firm. They did an amazing job and you know, I, this is now my sixth law firm I’ve been at and they did it right and it’s still ongoing, right?
I still have a couple of clients that like. You know, I’m trying to get them to respond. And, you know, they would write back like, I’m going with you, Jeff. And it’s like, thank you. But could you please direct, you know, my old [00:12:00] firm to transfer the file? What are we supposed to do with this trust money?
You know, like, can you answer any of the questions I asked you? and yeah, it’s, it’s a lot. And as, you know, and as you and I have discussed, like when you have to provide notice to the firm, when you then can go to the clients we, At MGC, my prior firm, they’re very big on the joint letter approach.
Which was fantastic and we were able to do my partners came from four different firms, right? And so some of them did, like, almost as good a job. Some of them did a very bad job, those firms. And, you know, some of them tried to suggest that you couldn’t compete with them, which, of course, under the ethics rules, you know, we can’t agree to that.
Some of them were a little I don’t want to say shady, but near shady about, you know, client files and, trying to hold client files hostage, which of course we can’t do either. So, we are not done transitioning files. And I do think like, you know, that’s one of the, the, it’s the third item on my, [00:13:00] my to do list is to create a protocol so that when people leave us, we haven’t lost anybody yet.
But when people leave us, we have as smooth a transition as possible. And the reality is, I mean, and, and again, I think this shows by how much I’m going to say McAngus, Goodalock, and Curry today. There’s no, like lawyers leave, there’s no reason to take a normal end of a relationship and make it bad.
Right? I have nothing but goodwill towards that firm. I’ll send them work. I left work there with clients that came with me, but a couple of, of specific cases were best handled by them. Cases where I have lawyers in Pennsylvania, I could have took that work, but it’s in the right hand. So we’ve left it there.
and it’s just, you know, they did it right. and they’re creating an alumni network that actually wants to help their firm. With so many of my other prior firms go the opposite direction and try to like cut your legs out from under you and, you know, so yeah, the transition is still ongoing.
It’s been interesting to see it from so many different law firms. But I think there is it. And most law firms [00:14:00] mi
Jonathan Hawkins: there that, you know, are maybe considering leaving their firm to go start a firm. You know, it’s. It’s just something that you got to think through and then also on the, on the flip side, you know, if someone leaves, you got to, you know, there’s a right way and a wrong way. there’s a lot of shades in between, I guess, that we all see. So, well, cool. All right, man. Well, I want to go back. I want to go back before law school. Another thing, I know, I know you’re big, you’re a Citadel grad, I know that’s a big thing for you. So I want to dive into that just a little bit. So, why did you decide to go there?
I’m curious. I’m curious.
Jeff Cunningham: So I just was goi That was kind of my plan. the Naval Academy. My, bo were in the Navy being, u Four hours from the ocean. So I don’t exactly know why I thought that was a good idea. I didn’t go in the Navy, but my medical got deferred a year. So I got into the Naval Academy. It was a lot of hoops to jump through, but I had to wait a year cause my medical was late.
And then I got a scholarship to the Citadel. So my [00:15:00] father said, go to the Citadel for a year. You’ll get in shape, you’ll learn the stuff. And then you go to the Naval Academy. So I did that. And I got kind of brainwashed, you know, you get, the ring, right? I switched to army shortly after after the first semester in the Navy, I switched to the army ROTC program and decided I wanted to, you know, be a Citadel graduate and not go to the Naval Academy for better or worse.
And then, you know, it, it was a terrible, terrible experience. Just a day to day. It was absolutely awful. And you sort of trick yourself into believing that like next week, next year, it’ll be better and it only gets worse and worse and worse. You know, it, it was four years of just awful.
But now that it’s done and behind me, yeah, it’s a huge part of my life. I’m, I’m so grateful that I did it and learned so much from it. Learned a ton about myself. I have amazing friends and a incredible network. But yeah, it’s just an awful college experience. I mean, you know, there’s something wrong with people who are like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.
So,
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s
Jeff Cunningham: know,
Jonathan Hawkins: my nephew is in the Air Force Academy and it’s, you know, I don’t talk to him a bunch [00:16:00] about it, but similar sort of stories, you know, that
Jeff Cunningham: yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: it’s like, is he going to quit any moment? Is he going to quit? Is he going to quit? then the second year, is he going to quit? Well, well, he’s going to be graduating soon, you know?
Jeff Cunningham: it’s, I mean, it’s interesting how it, gets worse and worse in different ways, you know, and we do, we lose about 30 to 40 percent of the people by the time, about 30 percent in the first year. But by the time you graduate, you’re usually down to like 40, maybe 50 percent of the class, you know, also it’s a college, so like, you know, not everybody’s cut out for being in college and so.
And then when I was there, the Afghanistan and Iraq wars had just kicked off. So we had guys, you know, dropping out to go enlist and stuff. It was so, you know, you, you lose, you lose a good chunk of people, but the people who, who finished with you, I mean, they really are lifelong friends and it’s, it’s really an amazing network,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I
Jeff Cunningham: uh, that I’m,
Jonathan Hawkins: this awful experience, so to
Jeff Cunningham: yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: to speak and
Jeff Cunningham: yep.
Jonathan Hawkins: you, right? So you, so I’m sure you’re very close with your class. What about sort of just the alumni network? Is that pretty
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. [00:17:00] it is, and it’s really wild. You know, I could talk to a guy who graduated in the sixties, or a guy who graduated in 2024 or a girl in 2024. There was no girls in, the sixties, but a guy or a girl recently. And, you know, everything has changed, but like nothing has changed.
It’s really crazy to the similarities between now and then and my time. And I always say, like, you can at least trust the Citadel grad, you know, you can take them at face value. there’s enough enough that wears people down there and sort of separates I don’t know, the wheat from the chaff, I think is the expression or something.
But, like, if somebody graduated, they’re probably a decent person. They’re probably trustworthy. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s pretty close. And so you have, like, kind of an instant bond, and I run our Citadel Alumni Legal Network. It’s a Facebook group primarily, and we just connect grads to lawyers, and we try to connect grads to Citadel lawyers, but that’s not always possible.
We, you know, it’s a small school, and it’s very concentrated in, in South Carolina and the South. And it’s, it really is just a great [00:18:00] network and a great program, and, you know, you’re just dealing with a caliber of people that you can sort of trust sight unseen, you know, and again, it’s not perfect.
we have a bad apple here and there, but, compared to the average person off the street, you know, you’re dealing with someone who’s, who’s probably a little better and if nothing else, you know, they can, you know, they can suffer and endure and endure a bad situation and get through the other side.
So that’s something
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you made it through did you have to serve? Was there any sort of commitment?
Jeff Cunningham: no. So I, luckily for me, I got a academic scholarship to go there. So I had, you have to do ROTC. So I did four years of ROTC, three and a half of army ROTC, and I was planning to go into the army and be a lawyer. That was sort of my, you know, my big plan. And I, ended up getting a Fulbright Scholarship, which was like 99% my professor, Dr.
Gerganus, he sort of duped me into being a dual major. You know, I was a history major, and I grew up, I speak Yiddish, I’m Jewish, obviously. And Yiddish and German are extremely close together. I didn’t know this when I was a kid, but I, I signed up for Spanish in high school. It was full, so they put me in German, and I was like, I kind of speak this [00:19:00] language already, you know, so I sort of, sort of faked my way through German in, high school.
And I didn’t actually have to take any, any language classes at the Citadel because my New York High school credit counted as college credit down there. And so he called me into his office. I didn’t sign up for anything. And he called me in his office and I think he hypnotized me. I left as a double major.
Yeah. I wasn’t even signed up for your class and I left as a double major. And I was like, what happened? How did he do that? And then he essentially just, you know, he did most of the legwork to get me the scholarship. So I had a year long scholarship to Germany. I went to Israel after that. I was still planning to come back to the army, but I had a six month scholarship at Israel, and then I met my wife.
who decided I should just be a lawyer and not a lawyer in the army. And so she sort of hypnotized me too. I went back, I went to Fordham and, gave up on the army for better or worse, all my guys are retiring this year from the army so that, you know, they’ve hit the 20 years. So I’m a little jealous, but.
Jonathan Hawkins: pension,
Jeff Cunningham: You
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so let’s, so why, why law [00:20:00] school? Do you, do you have lawyers in the family? You said you knew you wanted to do it. what about the law? What was it?
Jeff Cunningham: know, I actually, my uncle was a St. John’s Law School grad, but he was a history teacher. He never practiced law, really. And then I have a cousin who’s, now I have a cousin who’s a tax attorney, but he’s, he’s my age. I had a cousin who was a solo practitioner up in Albany. But I never really, no, I mean, I was my immediate family.
I was the first college graduate, like didn’t really know lawyers. I didn’t even know my uncle was a lawyer, you know, the guy, he was a teacher. So I just, I didn’t know it until I like went to law school. He did not like law school or practicing law, obviously. That’s why. Um, And you know, I was one of those kids who like everybody said you should be a lawyer cause I was, you know, kind of a smart aleck, I guess.
And, you know, looking back, it wasn’t like people thinking I was so smart. It was like, I think I was probably an annoying little kid and they were like, Oh yeah, you should be a lawyer. Um,
Jonathan Hawkins: Man.
Jeff Cunningham: yeah, yeah, I don’t, you know, looking back, it wasn’t a compliment about how smart I was, right? You know, I think law [00:21:00] school yeah, it was a lot my life, but I, I was planning to be a lawyer in the army.
I, I kind of thought I would go in the army first. the wars were still on, it was still sort of, you know, I was still more brainwashed from the Citadel. And so I was, I was dabbling in being an artillery officer cause I, you know, I like blowing things up and fires and stuff. So it sort of seemed cool.
Yeah, my wife sort of steered me to just, you know, go to law school. And then I only applied to New York city law school. She was finishing her graduate school there. And yeah, I guess I’m not good at anything else. And that’s ultimately why I think I’m a, I’m a pretty good lawyer. But yeah, nothing else I could come up with to do with my time.
That would be as, as profitable or as fulfilling. So, you know, it sort of made sense.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you something else you’re really good at and that’s LinkedIn. So,
Jeff Cunningham: Yes. I am going to,
Jonathan Hawkins: So, that’s how we met. You know, this problem again. I don’t know exactly. It might be three years ago,
Jeff Cunningham: yeah, I think about three years at this point,
Jonathan Hawkins: like that. I remember you, you reached, I’ve been only 10 forever, but I never did anything on there really.
And then you reached out and [00:22:00] said, Hey, let’s hop on a zoom call. You know, out of the blue. And I said, sure. And you’re like, you know, we sort of do sort of the same thing. And we started talking and, I started looking at your LinkedIn profile and I was like, man, this guy is like posting. And I remember asking you, like, you know, is this worth doing? Should I try it? And you, and you, you encouraged me to do it. So, I’m not as active now as I have been in the past. It’s just, you know, you get through these waves. I’m,
Jeff Cunningham: ebbs and flows.
Jonathan Hawkins: have to, you know, you, you, get really excited about it, then sort of burned out and I’m sort of, I’m still doing a little, I’ll just say that.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: so let me ask how and why did you get started with LinkedIn?
Jeff Cunningham: so right before I answer that, I will say you should go look at your analytics. And while, you know, while you step back from it, I think it’s always interesting to look, you know, if I have like a Jewish holiday where I’m at, I’m offline for four days, once in a while that happens, hop back on and I see that it was like working in the background.
While I wasn’t using it, I got 20, 000 impressions or something. So check out your analytics. It could [00:23:00] fire you back up to get more into it. In 2011, I was at Wilson Elser and they brought all the New York City Associates into the big conference room. And they had some speaker come and talk about LinkedIn and they made us sign up for LinkedIn right there, right?
They passed around tablets. Everybody had to sign in, you know, create their LinkedIn profile And so I did because I was told to do it and then they never made us do anything with it after that It was just a you know, it was just you know, you had to do it and so I sort of used it kind of passively until COVID hit And when COVID hit you know, my wife was just like, you have to stop talking about this stuff or we’re going to need to get divorced because I can’t deal with the rules of professional.
I don’t care. You know, she’s a school psychologist. She did not want to hear about my, you know, my take on 1. 6. It just, it wasn’t working for her. And I was like, all right, that’s fair. So you know, I started posting on LinkedIn. I had always kind of shared articles like once in a blue moon at Goldberg Scott, we had a program where.
It would sort of help you share articles. It would, you know, you punched in what you liked, and it would kind of feed you [00:24:00] articles. And then you could share right from that platform. It was, it was all right. But it was really COVID and not having, and I, you know, I was, I was in our living room working.
I didn’t have any social outlet at all. It sort of turned into that. And I watched Justin Welch, you know, had this webinar. And a guy, Frank Ramos, who’s actually at Goldberg’s, Goldberg’s Gala now, he wasn’t then, but he, he gave a webinar about, you know, LinkedIn for Lawyers, and I watched that, again, it was just sort of, I had nothing else going on because of COVID, and those two webinars kind of got me fired up, I bought Justin’s of course, it was like 80 bucks or something.
It was fantastic. And then from there, you know, I just kind of came up with a plan and committed to posting every day. I think I’m a very successful amateur. You know, I don’t I don’t have any secrets. I just, I think the biggest thing you can do on LinkedIn or any social media is just, post, produce content.
And, you know, the inertia gets there. So many lawyers use LinkedIn. But don’t do anything with it. They’re just consumers so you can really stand out by just posting and I post mostly about the model rules And I usually do like in order by number, you know, one day I talk about 1. 1 the next day I talk about 1.
2 [00:25:00] And as you know, I’ve created a bunch of different LinkedIn groups because I was posting it turned out I was posting too much I was posting five times a day So I’ve created groups to sort of but yeah, it’s been great and I think about 75 percent of my work, maybe more, my new work comes from LinkedIn or social media.
I mean, I use other social media as sort of a dumping ground. I really focus on LinkedIn and I’m approaching 30,000 connections, which after the 30,000 connection point, you, you can’t make connections, right? You can only get followers. So that’s sort of a big, a big milestone. So I’m at about 28,000 I think right now.
So, but yeah, it’s uh, it’s been great.
Jonathan Hawkins: year. Yes. It’s funny. You mentioned, you know, there’s a lot of people that I’ve talked to that, that got active on there during COVID. like,
Jeff Cunningham: Mm hmm.
Jonathan Hawkins: their house and you know, there’s some folks that sort of view that as the glory days before people like I got in you know, involved.
But the other guy, you mentioned Frank Ramos, he’s like. One of the OGs,
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. 75, 000, I think.
Jonathan Hawkins: lawyer,
Jeff Cunningham: [00:26:00] followers.
Jonathan Hawkins: folks,
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: And he’s still doing the same style. It’s just text posts, no photos. No, I mean, maybe every now and then he does, but no videos. just consistent. Boom,
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. I mean, and that’s, and he’s posts, he posts great stuff. And I, you know, I’ve, I’ve met Frank virtually a few times and he really embraces kind of what I think works best on LinkedIn is just sort of that abundance mentality giving, you know, he hosted for like a year, once a week, it was just this open AI forum.
Anybody who wanted to talk legal AI could hop on this webinar with him or this you know, zoom call or whatever it was. And it was an hour and he spent an hour every week just talking, you know. with anybody who wanted to show up and it was really great conversation. I wish he’d keep doing it. I, I’m guessing life got in the way, but but yeah, he, he’s a great example of like just consistency and you know, every, every day, you know, he’s going to post something.
It’ll be, you know, probably interesting enough to check out and he does a great job with it.
Jonathan Hawkins: So the other thing about your content It’s, you experiment, which I like. You’ve done all sorts of different posts uh, you know, some [00:27:00] videos, some, some carousels, some this, some of that. You’ve done lots of different things, which is good. And you know, a lot of lawyers I would not say, let me, how do I say this? I do think there is a wrong way to use it.
Jeff Cunningham: Yes.
Jonathan Hawkins: There are lots of right ways, and there’s definitely some wrong ways, and one that most lawyers Use it. Look at me. I’m a super
Jeff Cunningham: Right, right.
Jonathan Hawkins: Look at me. I won this award.
Jeff Cunningham: Right. I’m a super lawyer.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, I mean you know, put that on your company Profile maybe but but just it’s it’s sort of a waste.
I mean, it’s really a waste You know sure you can do it every now and then but way I mean, this is harsh But nobody cares
Jeff Cunningham: Right. Yeah, it’s true. And
Jonathan Hawkins: the
Jeff Cunningham: the reality is,
Jonathan Hawkins: doesn’t care either so
Jeff Cunningham: right, right.
Jonathan Hawkins: me people are gonna see it
Jeff Cunningham: One of the best posts I’ve ever made, and it got like 80, 000 impressions, and it was just an off the cuff text post. I thought it was funny. I transitioned from one firm to the other two years [00:28:00] ago, three years ago, and I didn’t get super lawyers. I had gotten super lawyers since like 2015.
Never did anything, never bought anything. Nothing. But always, you know, always got it. I got it again this year. and that’s one of those things that I think, you know, lawyers know is kind of a, it is what it is. Right. But other people, I guess they’re sort of impressed or whatever. Clients do seem to care, at least in certain practices.
But I didn’t get it that year. And so I posted like, I’m a, you know, everybody says like I’m humbled and honored to, you know, to announce that I got super lawyers and I wrote like, I’m ashamed and humiliated
Jonathan Hawkins: I
Jeff Cunningham: that I.
Jonathan Hawkins: that was
Jeff Cunningham: And I didn’t get, you know, and it took off because it resonated with people that like, you know, we do, we post these kind of bogus self promoting awards and, you know, every time I post it’s self promoting, right, because I am saying, look at me, you know, look at my thoughts about rule 3.
1. but if you do it in a more authentic way, I think it just works better.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I, I call it I didn’t coin this phrase, but you know, when people ask it’s, it’s edutainment, right? You
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: Educate in an entertaining or at least interesting way or else [00:29:00] no one’s going to read it. I mean, you could have the best idea, thought, insight in the world, but if it’s not presented in a good way no one’s going to see it.
No one’s going to see it. So, you know, lots of ways, lots of techniques and things you can do to it and all those things. But,
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah, my point one videos I think are a great example. So I, you know, I take a New York State Bar Association ethics opinion. I’ve been a little behind the curve on it. I got to get back into it.
Jonathan Hawkins: seen one of those in a while, man, what’s, what’s
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah, yeah, it’s been, it’s been a while. I, you know what, the problem is I don’t have a suit.
Jonathan Hawkins: you’re busy starting a firm or something, I mean.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah, I don’t have a suit and tie here in the office.
That’s the problem. I got to get a suit and tie and just leave it here because I like, I like to have the tie on my videos. Or I I could try to get over that, but I don’t know. That’s, that’s some Citadel brainwashing still. But you know, my idea was in a point one, you can, you can think about ethics and risk management in six minutes or less.
So I had these six minute videos and Nobody was watching them. They, they bombed. And I think it was Vivica, Vivica Hess, who, who I work with, you know, she’s sort of a LinkedIn coach. She leads a group that, we all get together and talk LinkedIn. I think she said, [00:30:00] well, try a shorter video. And I was like, you know, I’m cramming this ethics opinion into six minutes, but all right.
So I, kept it under a minute. I did a week’s worth and it like got, instead of like 50 views, it got like a thousand views. and they’ve done, and since then I’ve kept them under a minute. It sounds so much better because. Nobody wants to watch me talk about an ethics opinion for six minutes, right?
They don’t really want to watch me for 45 seconds, but people will invest the 45 seconds more or at least like see what is cunningham talking about, you know more than if it is like a six minute commitment Which is you know, maybe an indictment of our attention spans I don’t know like, you know, six minutes is not a whole lot, but I guess I do it too You know, I don’t want to spend you know, even if it’s an interesting topic, you know, i’m not scrolling for that
Jonathan Hawkins: other thing that, you know, a lot of lawyers and I want to ask some of you, give some advice here in a second, but, you know, a lot, a lot of lawyers are, you know, perfectionists. They’re nervous about making a mistake. I mean, that’s part of the profession. You got people always trying to point out the mistakes you make or argue against you.
So you’re [00:31:00] very careful and they’re, very careful and nervous about posting anything. And at the end of the day. I don’t think I’ve ever watched more than 10 seconds of any of your videos ever. and you as, as the person putting it out there probably don’t really care. All you care about is I see your face and then I know you’re talking about ethics.
So forever and ever, I’m going to think about you and ethics. And that’s really what I think. should be thinking about as they post, as they do anything. It’s really, most people don’t have time to really dig into whatever you’re saying anyway, you want to associate yourself with whatever it is you want to be associated with.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. And the videos are a great example, too, because You’re a Georgia lawyer. Why would you waste a minute of your time listening to a New York State ethics opinion every day? Like, it wouldn’t be helpful for you. And so, yeah, I don’t, I don’t think my mother watches my videos and, you know, like, nobody, nobody, and I don’t care.
Like, they see me, they know I’m talking about it. I do a LinkedIn Live every month, and it’s, I think, a perfect example. The invitation, you know, you can send a [00:32:00] thousand a week. I started inviting six weeks out. So I invite probably five, 6, 000 people to the LinkedIn live. They get the invitation, they say yes or no.
About 100 to 200 people sign up and say yes. Not a great return on 6, 000 invites, but you know, whatever. All the people getting the invite see me and know I’m talking about Law Firm General Counsel. The people who click yes. They get a reminder, they, you know, they know that I’m talking about this, they see the picture and stuff and then, you know, 10 to 20 people actually log in and watch the half hour show.
After that, LinkedIn keeps it around for like a week, and I pick up maybe another 20, maybe. If I get 50, 50 people actually look at it, that’s a lot. I mean, it’s probably closer to like 10 to 20. But it’s thousands of people that, you know, have seen the post, seen the reminders, you know, seen that I’m out there talking about it.
If somebody’s really interested in the topic that month, And maybe they watch it, and they get more out of it, and they reach out, but if nothing else, it’s just really to keep me top of mind, and, you know, I think, I think that’s a [00:33:00] huge part. The other aspect of, like, the perfectionist aspect, yeah, lawyers, I mean, we’re the worst in a lot of ways, but, you know, if, I use the wrong there in a post, I can put money on the table that somebody is going to correct it.
Like they won’t comment about,
Jonathan Hawkins: time.
Jeff Cunningham: they won’t comment about the substance of what I’m talking about, but they’ll just have to note that I said they’re over there and in a way, like. That’s good because then the algorithm’s like, oh somebody’s commenting, you know this and then I respond and I say, oh, yeah Yeah, thanks so much.
You know, that’s helpful and you know, it’s a weird reality that like some people just can’t help themselves and you know, they’re otherwise Fine people, I’m sure, but that actually helps, you know, the, the commenting get, get on, you know, along. And if you have a typo, like, that’s a great way to indicate this isn’t AI, right?
AI doesn’t make typos. Jeff makes typos, you know, so you have, it does, you have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit. it is very contrary to how lawyers think and behave, I think, on the whole. But, you know, I think it’s [00:34:00] really worth it, and I, I think it really does pay dividends, and you can stand out.
I talk about the model rules of professional conduct, right? Like It’s hard to come up with a more, you know, the tax code, maybe more boring. I don’t know. It’s hard to come up with a more boring subject matter. and you can really stand out easily because most lawyers aren’t doing it. Most lawyers are just consuming on, on social media.
So,
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s right. It’s funny you mentioned the commenting. I think maybe I’ve only blocked, I mean, LinkedIn is fairly tame compared to Twitter, you know, other stuff. But, you know, it’s every now and then you get sort of a troll. I think I’ve only blocked maybe one or two people. Ever cause it’s just getting out of hand, but sometimes I like the troll.
I like somebody to come in and, and then I’ll sort of poke them in the comments to try to get them to And then I,
Jeff Cunningham: yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: know, again, it’s, it’s driving the algorithm comment. Yeah, make fun of me. I don’t care. Come on.
Jeff Cunningham: right. it is funny how, how, you know, I think they don’t. And I think it’s really important to recognize that they’re actually helping you by, you know, by, by posting. And what’s really weird, you mentioned [00:35:00] Twitter which, you know, there’s a, crazier audience out there. I think I’ve mentioned it before, the I’m blanking on the name of it now.
It’s an anonymous app oh, Fishbowl, Fishbowl. and Fishbowl, you, can post your name, you can post your Business affiliation or you can just post as like a partner or associate and it is shockingly supportive, right? It’s a lot like reddit same idea. I don’t really use reddit. Just, I don’t know.
I don’t know why. it’s pretty supportive for an anon, I mean you get people occasionally because it’s anonymous that, you know, they’re nasty or whatever, but like on the whole it’s really less aggressive, I think, than like Twitter. Where people, you know, are not anonymous and are totally comfortable, you know, being jerks.
So,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, Twitter, I lurk. I don’t really post, but I lurk. So, for people out there, you know, I consider you sort of a LinkedIn pro. Maybe you don’t call yourself that, but you’ve been doing a long time and you do a lot of different things. You’ve experimented a lot. What are some, maybe a couple of pieces of advice that you would give to lawyers out there that are considering it?
You know, something I hear a lot is, well, there’s the [00:36:00] mental And there’s no hurdle I got to get over just to do it. But then they’re like, I got nothing to say. I got nothing to say. So, What what advice would you give to people out there that are maybe thinking about it?
Jeff Cunningham: so I think what I always recommend to people who want to kind of get started is if you read something and it’s not objectionable, like it, right? Just drop a like. I use it, I use the like button as like, okay, I read that, so I like it. So I like a ton. Every time you like it, your name could be on the person’s post.
So you’re sort of You know, it’ll say underneath one person’s name who liked it. It could be your name. So I, you know, Jonathan, I like everything you post. I read everything you post. I have your bell rung so I get a notice every time you post something. And then your entire audience sees that, I mean, once in a while, not every time, but once in a while they see that I like the post, my name’s there.
The other thing is the comment, you know, and don’t just comment with like great posts, you know, try once a day to, to have a substantive comment that sort of builds and supports. Takes a different angle. I mean, you can be contrary and in a professional [00:37:00] and interesting way. I think commenting is just as important as posting, and I think it’s underutilized because it actually takes more time, I think, than posting.
And then, and then I have nothing to say, you know, I would urge any lawyer to just figure the most boring part about their job. And for me, it was the rules of professional conduct. If they’re in number order, I think it’s even easier because you could do one a day or one a week or one a month. And just try to post something about, you know, rule 1.
1 competence. It can be funny. It can be boring. You can cut and paste the rule. I mean, it doesn’t have to be much, but if you get in that rhythm of posting once a week, you know, one, you’re going to see. Automatically, if you’re a new poster, the algorithm is going to recognize that you’re a new poster and it’s going to throw your stuff out there to test the waters and you’re going to get a bump early on.
But then two, the more you do it, you kind of get over that initial like awkwardness. I was very awkward about the videos. I did not like posting videos of myself. And after I did it a little [00:38:00] bit, I didn’t care anymore. and, you know, There is like this initial sort of skepticism about it.
So I think just doing it, you know, the Nike slogan, right? Just do it. Figure out what you can do once a week, once a day, once a month, even, and just do it. It doesn’t have to be profound. Like we talked about earlier, most people aren’t going to really pay attention to it. You know, I think it’s sort of human nature to want to put out something interesting and that’s polished.
But some of my most interesting and polished stuff, nobody cares about some off the cuff stuff. Like, oh, I’m humiliated. I didn’t get super lawyers. You know, it connects with people. So I think just, throw stuff out there. You can also reuse stuff. I, I’m sure you’ve seen the post. I, my most successful post, and it’s really the top four most successful.
I just had 300, 000 people 300, 000 impressions on this post. It’s by far my most successful post. I interviewed six disbarred lawyers. It used to be five disbarred lawyers. I interviewed one more. I use that every six months. I change it up, but the message is all the same. There’s always a wellness.
right? There’s always som the disbarred [00:39:00] lawyer. It who’s got everything work some mental health or sub And so I share that about I think it’s a really imp it consistently does. I d I’ve talked about interviewing disbarred lawyers in other ways, other formats. But that one, I just, I rework it every six months and it consistently performs like on the top end of, my posts.
So when you find something that, works for whether it’s the algorithm or the audience, I don’t know, both you can keep using that. So you can keep kind of re reusing your stuff. Nobody, I don’t remember what I would talk about last week. So nobody remembers what I talked about last week. You know, it’s just something you have to get, get comfortable with, and, sort of just doing it helps.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, I definitely recycle post. You know, someone said you got to learn to say the same thing a thousand different ways. You know, the other thing that I would say is You know, to add to you, it’s, you know, people out, you know, I guess the first thing is Probably no one’s really seeing it. So don’t worry about, you know, Embarrassing yourself [00:40:00] because there’s not gonna be many people you actually see it probably at least at first And the other thing I’ll say for lawyers particularly That say, I don’t have anything to say or I’m gonna risk a lawyer and nobody wants to hear about that.
Well, you know, I tell you what, every lawyer has experiences that they can talk about that would be interesting. So, first day of a new job, your first firm, your first trial, your first deposition, you know, your first this. I mean
Jeff Cunningham: Yep,
Jonathan Hawkins: your weirdest that, or your weirdest, you know, whatever. And just tell the story.
And people gonna like, I mean, I’ve got some of those I, I cannot post on LinkedIn. Just would not be appropriate. But. They’re funny as hell, and I’ll tell you offline, but like, that’s just a good way to get started, because everybody’s got that. You got your own point of view, your own story, and people will like that stuff.
So, and if, if people aren’t following you, go follow Jeff Cunningham on LinkedIn. You know, it’s funny, Jeff, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but I used to work, there’s a lawyer here in Atlanta that I worked with forever, his name’s Jeff Cunningham, so. There
Jeff Cunningham: and he’s a general counsel, he’s a general counsel to companies, I know.
Jonathan Hawkins: lawyer.
Jeff Cunningham: [00:41:00] Yeah, yeah, so,
Jonathan Hawkins: so anyway, Jeff Cunningham. Do you list Connecticut or New York as your location?
Jeff Cunningham: I think it says greater New York area, maybe, something like that, yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: right, go find Jeff. He also does talk, the model rule memes that are pretty good. So keep
Jeff Cunningham: Yes, the I am the only source of model rules based memes, and you know, it’s a passion project. But every day we put out, you know, a meme based on the model rules. We just restarted actually. So that’s also available on LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram.
Jonathan Hawkins: Very impressive, man. That takes a lot of work to
Jeff Cunningham: I was at a Valentine’s day Suffolk County Bar Association has a Valentine’s day CLE program. I was surprised. It was very well attended. I don’t know, not a very romantic county, I guess. And so, somebody mentioned, I didn’t even mention it, but I was talking about ethics and elder law, and somebody mentioned my model rule, Mima Day, and the consensus was it was so cool.
And I was like, no one has ever called those cool. They are the opposite of what is cool. But thank you, I appreciate that.
Jonathan Hawkins: hear what my wife [00:42:00] says about that.
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah, yeah. She does not think they’re cool at all, so.
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh, cool. All right.
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: Well, so I want to move on to something else that’s really cool that you’re doing and that, that I’m really interested in personally and I think other lawyers could learn a lot too. And that is you have sort of a subscription service offering, maybe more than one. So I want to sort of dive into that.
So first, you know, describe if it’s more than one, describe all of them. Just tell me
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: what you offer.
Jeff Cunningham: so we have two. One is up and running. We’ve been doing it for, I guess this will be our third year. Yeah. Third year. And in February, it started in February. So, it’s the on call general counsel membership and it’s for 1, 000 a month. Law firms, we target law firms of 10 lawyers or less, but we have a couple that are bigger.
Law firms get Unlimited attorney client privilege [00:43:00] communications call text email. It’s all included in the monthly fee. There’s a CLE every month that we give that’s ethics risk management base. So it counts as ethics credit every month. It’s through all on And we meet with the firm firm leadership.
However, the firm defines leadership once a month for a half hour. That’s set And then they can just reach out as needed when issues come up. And there’s flat fee offerings every month, like this month is a conflicts protocol so that we’re able, you know, sort of package it and make it affordable.
And then if, hourly work is needed, there’s a 15 percent discount. But you’ve also got us kind of essentially retained once you joined the membership and the membership it’s, I had created it as an annual membership, but it’s really start and stop. I mean, some, some smaller shops take the summer off.
But you know, you can start and stop at any time. We prorate and return the month’s money if you cut the membership halfway. I haven’t really lost too many, although a few do take the pause. You know, if you’re going to be on vacation for August, there’s really no point in paying, you know, and, and if something comes up, you can just pay us for the rest of August.
And we’re happy to have you [00:44:00] back on the team. The other offering is it’s in the works. It’s not live yet, but uh, the conflict Sentinel program. and the idea is for 50 per lawyer per month. We run an outsourced conflicts department. So we have your database We put it in our conflicts software.
We have our conflicts analysts run, you know names as you get new clients We have conflicts counsel currently just me, but soon we’ll have more than just me review any hits We provide reports if any report or opinions needed about the conflict and why we think it is or is not a conflict and then waivers, a template waiver, you know, if you if it is a waivable conflict will provide the waiver and then we we package that and ship it back.
The idea is going to be within 24 hours, maybe sooner. We’re going to sort of. Figure out the time, the response time for the law firm’s lawyer, we still expect the client law firm is going to have a lawyer put eyes on it, read our recommendation, review our waiver [00:45:00] and go from there. But the idea is, I think conflicts checks are a real weakness for small firms, large firms, every firm.
I mean, no matter how good your complex department is, it could be better. And so I think this is a great way for smaller firms to kind of tap into our software and our staff. You know, a small firm doesn’t need to hire a conflicts analyst, right? So they end up making a receptionist, an assistant, somebody kind of do the legwork and running the conflicts, checks.
And then most smaller firms, the lawyer who’s clearing the conflicts and saying, oh, no, no con, no conflict, no problem. is usually the lawyer who has a direct financial interest in not finding a conflict, right? So, you know, at big firms too, at many of the large firms I was at, the final say in whether or not there was a conflict was the lawyer who would actually benefit from not finding a conflict.
That’s not a great system. Even, even if you have great lawyers who are professionals and everything, it’s just different if you outsource it. And so I think it’s a real, a real value add the pricing right now. I mean, [00:46:00] I, I think it makes sense for the clients. I think it makes sense for us that might be adjusted once we go live and actually see how it works out.
but I wanted to, have something that’s like extremely affordable and that’s sort of the key with the. The 1, 000 a month membership too. It creates a initial relationship. And then we meet every month and we talk and it drives a lot more work because what a client law firm. For my hourly clients, I do have some hourly clients who call me with problems, right?
And we work through the problem and then maybe that problem they’re like, oh wow We should have a complex protocol in place, you know, this this problem was related in conflict, but maybe it’s not So then it’s just the next problem that they call me for with the monthly memberships. It’s much more proactive We have great conversations.
the clients are less Concerned about the clock, you know, I know my clients kids names. I know like what they’re doing this weekend Yeah, it’s just a very different relationship. I like it a lot better too because I’m not billing every six minutes I’d rather spend an hour with somebody and have a good conversation and really provide value then, you know, then build a [00:47:00] point five for a half an hour.
Like it’s just so much better all around It’s very profitable and I think really provides a great, great value to the client. And then it drives a lot of hourly work. About half of the members have used us for hourly work or flat fee work. That they otherwise probably wouldn’t have because they wouldn’t have thought of, Oh, yeah, we should revise our partnership agreement.
Or can you take a look at this or that? So there’s a lot. It drives a lot of business as well.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I want to ask you about conflicts in a second, but before I get to that, I want to, I want to ask a couple of things about subscription stuff. We could do a whole hour on this, probably more. I got a lot of questions, but I’ll, I’ll keep it short. So first thing you know, for people, myself, anybody out there who’s thinking about subscription you know, a lot of people are concerned about, well, how do I price it?
You know, how do I figure all that out? Did you do it? Was it just sort of like, hey, I’m just going to throw a dart, see what happens, and then we can work from there and iterate from
Jeff Cunningham: So, yeah. it kind of was, but I threw the dart. I picked the number and then I battled my firm for eight months. You [00:48:00] know, like every time I would convince one partner that I should do this, like then out of the woodwork would come another guy who’d be like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, we did flat fees once it didn’t work.
Like, so I fought and fought and fought and eventually I think they were just like, you know what, if you can keep your other hours up, we’ll let you play around with this and you’ll see that it won’t work. And then you’ll leave us alone. and I really think, I don’t think I want anyone over. I think I just wore him down.
and the pricing started at 500 a month. And it was really because I had a, a law firm that I was friends with the two owners and you know, I was like, Hey, what could you afford, man? I need to get somebody to say yes here. and I was like, could you do a thousand? And they’re like, no way. I was like, could you do 500?
And they’re like, yeah, okay, fine. We’ll do 500. And that’s where we came up with the 500. It quickly went to six and eight. And then it’s been a thousand now for over a year. And I think that’s kind of a good spot. It’s a nice, easy number.
Jonathan Hawkins: So do you change the pricing depending on how big the firm is?
Jeff Cunningham: so the idea is 10 lawyers or less is a thousand. And then, yeah, [00:49:00] if it’s above that, I try to push it more towards a fractional approach. I only have two firms that do that and that’s like, you know, they use us once a week. So they pay a price. It actually works out to be cheaper for them, I think. But yeah, it’s not a thousand a month.
It’s, It is different if they’re bigger. Both of those clients have their own general counsels too, so it’s, it’s more, you know, we’re making up sort of the general counsel’s office. I’m their deputy GC essentially, and then the rest of my team kind of supports them. So those are a little, as they get bigger it’s a little different.
I’ve had a member who had 22 lawyers. But they essentially were like, only three of us are going to, you know, the three partners are going to work with you. If somebody else has an issue, they’ll bring it to us and then, you know, then we’ll bring it to you if needed. And I said, I was like, look, if you want to open the door to all your people, I don’t think that’s a problem.
My old two firms ago when I launched this they made me track time still because they were all convinced it wouldn’t make any money. And I mean, it was extremely lucrative. [00:50:00] From an hourly standpoint I built 800 an hour now back then it was. For private clients was like 350 or 400 I think and it you know, I don’t track the time anymore But it converted to about nine hundred and seventy an hour and I think it was still a huge value add to the clients But you know It just some people don’t use it that month except the monthly meeting and so you make up some time when somebody has an issue Or somebody wants to work through something they’re gonna use it more So there is a give and take but when you get more clients, right you get You get enough that aren’t using it a lot that month to really make make the money make sense But I think my advice for pricing is to you know Throw a dart at the board come up with something you could sell and then let the market sort of dictate you know if you’re too high or too low in my experience attorneys very rarely overprice service, right?
We under, we underpriced our services. We never feel good about it. Even the guys billing like 2, 600 an hour. I feel like they’re probably actually undervaluing their [00:51:00] time. Right.
Jonathan Hawkins: hard to
Jeff Cunningham: Um, You know, I, look, if somebody is willing to pay it, then it’s reasonable. And if somebody is willing to pay it, that means somebody is probably willing to pay more.
So, you know, we should all raise our rates. But at the same time, I think if you’re launching a flat fee, Service like consider the first few clients like if you take a little bit of a wash, that’s fine You know under price it you can always raise the price once you get a feel for it but yeah, it’s sort of but in a lot of ways and it’s the same battle I had with my old partners was like we’re all just making up a number, right?
There’s no, you know There’s no science behind our hourly rate, you know we’re all sort of gauging it based off of what other people do what we think we can convince people to pay us and You know, so making up a flat fee is no different. I mean, it’s just, there’s less to compare it to.
I think that’s all.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. Last question on subscriptions. This is one that, that really I’m thinking about a lot and it’s, how do you administer the program? Do you have a special technology platform? how do you
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah. So no, [00:52:00] I don’t. That’s a goal and that’s a goal that my new firm will be tackling. Like I have a doc bank and it’s got templates. Just basically anything anyone’s ever paid me to do, or I’ve had to do for my own firm. Conflicts protocol, of council agreement, referral agreements, engagement agreements, turndown letters, you name it.
I even have a partnership agreement. they’re all extremely bare bones. Right? And the idea is Nothing, and I do want to plug, I do want to plug your services you know, that we’ve used. Nothing we do is rocket science. Any lawyer can create a complex protocol, right? I’m as equipped as any attorney to handle the risk management stuff.
what you and I bring to the table is we’ve done it for a lot of other lawyers. So we, we’ve got a really diverse experience base. The templates I think are really valuable in that you can look, look at my partnership agreement template. You want to make it up yourself, go for it. If you want to pay me to do it.
I can do it. And I think the templates help because, you know, you open it up and you’re like, I don’t want to, you know, I’ll pay Cunningham a little bit to do that. And, you know, it’s not a do it [00:53:00] yourself job. And as, as, you know, I hope your audience enjoys, like, I consider myself the law firm general counsel.
I created a law firm and we paid you to review our partnership agreements, right? Like, you know, it’s not do it yourself. It’s what I do for clients all the time. But I always joke like a dentist doesn’t do his own dental work, you know, if a dentist needs dental work, he goes to a dentist lawyers. Really?
We shouldn’t do our own. legal work. it’s just not best practice. and so even though I am more than equipped to draft a partnership agreement, I was happy to pass it along. All of my partners were like, yeah, a hundred percent, let’s get him in on it. And you provided really great insight.
And now it happens, you know, you happen to be a genius, right? You happen to be one of the best lawyers I know. But it also is just a matter of like, you’ve seen different things that I have. And we both work in this world and probably have more experience than most in our little world of general counseling.
You know, we’ve just seen different, different issues come up and there’s no way to reproduce that aside from roping in a lawyer to help you out. So [00:54:00] the doc bank I would like to have right now, they’re word documents. You know, they get a list or they’re like, Hey, do you have enough council agreement?
And I send it to them. So I want to get that on a platform. We are able, I’ve had problems with payment and I do love your payment platform through Clio. We have had trouble because my firms are all large firms. Not based on individual law firms paying by credit card. So we’ve had problems with that in the past.
Now I have a streamlined platform for payment, but it’s not connected to any larger platform. It’s really just our billing platform. So no, I don’t have a great software solution and that’s something I, you know, it’s on the to do list. It’s definitely a goal to have that options just to make it easier for clients to sign up, to pause to access the resources.
They’re also calling and texting and emailing, you know, they text and call my cell phone. It’s rare that anyone, I don’t actually have a physical office phone, although I have a number. So you know, a platform where I could streamline communications so that it’s not, you know, coming in from all different directions [00:55:00] and it can be lost.
Also, we’re growing and we have a deputy general counsel starting Monday. I’m very excited about that. And you know, I have some staff now more than I’ve ever had. And also I’m In a position where I can hire more people. So I do also want to get a platform so that I’m not, you know, answering the bat phone all the time.
Obviously, there’ll be instances where I need to be brought in, but the more I can spread the wealth, I mean, it’s better for the client. They’ll have 24 7 access. They have 24 6 access right now, but that won’t last forever with me. And so, yeah, getting a central software is gonna be key. So,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so
Jeff Cunningham: if you have something in mind, let me know.
So,
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m thinking through that myself, because, you know, I know a lot of lawyers, I’ve talked to a lot of lawyers that have subscription services, but at least the ones I’ve talked to, they’re generally solos and it’s, easy when it’s just you, I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but it’s
Jeff Cunningham: right.
Jonathan Hawkins: because
Jeff Cunningham: It’s doable. Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: what’s in, what’s out, who’s in, what’s out, you know, they, it’s one, you know, flow through, through whatever,
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: a [00:56:00] team or if you have a second lawyer or a third lawyer, maybe paralegal, and they’re coming at you through texts and email and this, and how do you manage all of that?
And that, that’s something I’m thinking a lot about. And I’ve, I’ve not yet been introduced to a solution out there, but it’s something that obviously
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah, so I think there’s so there’s accounting software like client portals for accountants And I think something like that is actually what I’ll end up using Because they’ll have access to the documents they can upload documents and it has the communication capabilities But yeah, I don’t I haven’t come across a good platform for lawyers Which you know, I think is probably just We don’t do it as much as the accountants do but I think that’ll help a lot.
Yeah. Um, And it is
Jonathan Hawkins: a portal is going to be central to whatever you do, I’m sure. Yeah.
Jeff Cunningham: and the other thing is it’s a great sales tool, right? Because people want to explore the options before they commit to talking to me And also if somebody has the portal access for the general council membership, then maybe they see the conflicts Membership and like [00:57:00] what’s that they click and they learn more and then you know, who knows so I think I think it’ll be A really nice way to drive sales as well
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that’s cool. So, I, been at it for a while. I’ve got a few more questions. I do want to ask you this. So, just for anybody out there, I think this is just an important, you’re going to, it’s time for you to educate just a little bit. Two minutes or less. We got to do a point one or less here. But conflict systems.
I know you have the membership that you’re, launching and have launched, but, you know, for people, you know, what’s a good approach? I mean, you mentioned you have a software, but, you know, I’m sure you’ve seen it. You’ve got the old school that’s just got paper. I mean, how the
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: you run a conflict check, do a paper filing
Jeff Cunningham: yeah, so
Jonathan Hawkins: then you got some that have softwares and maybe they have spreadsheets here. What in your view, you know, if you could just whiteboard it for a firm, let’s say they have three lawyers, let’s just do that. Three lawyers and a paralegal. What would you recommend the protocol be?
Jeff Cunningham: yeah So
Jonathan Hawkins: Let’s set up.
Yeah. New client emails [00:58:00] one of the attorneys or calls. What do you do next?
Jeff Cunningham: so I think the key is to have a redundant system and you know Lawyers don’t like that right away because that’s double the cost double the process Putting aside the intake part because I think that it’s completely connected to the conflict side You have to have a redundant system where you can do that initial conflicts check and make sure you’re not creating a conflict by talking to this prospective client.
You need to make that quick and easy so that whoever is answering the phone, paralegal, receptionist, lawyer, whatever, can quickly determine whether or not there’s any issue. And then have a more robust conflicts check on the back end once it turns out that this person is going to engage you. If you don’t have software, Excel works, right?
An Excel spreadsheet, it works. Checking your email, or a paper, or memory, that doesn’t work, right? That’s not a way to do it. That’s not even the way to do that initial check. And so many firms, firms that are larger than three lawyers, you know, sort of check their email. [00:59:00] Sort of, you know, I know my clients.
You don’t and you certainly don’t know like 10 years ago, you know a client It’s just it’s not a way to do it. So I think in xls,
Jonathan Hawkins: too, real quick. It’s one thing to know your clients, which I’m with you. The longer you practice, you just forget all that stuff. But what if it’s somebody who consulted and gave you a lot of information, but did not hire you? So they never really actually became your client.
Jeff Cunningham: right and the advantage I think your spreadsheet and searching your email are probably pretty comparable. But if the bar says, you know, if the grievance committee comes knocking, you can’t hand over your, your outlook, right? But you can say, Oh yeah, here’s my spreadsheet. Here’s where we actually, you know, here’s the email confirming that we ran the entity through our conflict system.
And you know, here’s the lawyer that did it and said, no, no conflict. So it really provides a more defensive. Conflicts check then like yeah, I always just check my email. Like did you check your email that time? Probably I don’t know it was six years ago so I think having it in Outlook is good The big problem with [01:00:00] Outlook as opposed to a more robust system is like if you get a typo You can’t really do fuzzy search.
I think you can do fuzzy searching in Outlook, but it’s not as good. Fuzzy searching meaning, you know, you could type in my name, J E F exclamation point, and that would get Jeff, Jeffrey, whatever. You could type in J asterisk F F, and that would get Joff or Jeff or whatever, you know. So, you want, you want capabilities that’ll, that’ll avoid simple admin errors like a typo, right?
A good conflicts check platform would be able to get Jeff spelled with a G. to Jeff with a J like I spell it. So, you know, again, there’s always room for improvement, but I think starting from scratch, yeah. At least using Excel is really key. And then having a dual approach. And I think the dual approach is you have an Excel spreadsheet and someone, hopefully a lawyer who keeps the conflict database spreadsheet, and then someone from your billing side that uses your billing as sort of.
conflicts program becaus are really good about [01:01:00] ke and while that doesn’t necessarily catch the prospect who comes in the door, it should, you should still enter them into the billing platform. If for no, even if you don’t bill them, right. If for no other reason than just to back up conflicts. But I think it can also be used for marketing purposes.
Like if that guy came in the door and didn’t retain you, you still want to know who he is and be able to be in touch with him because maybe he’ll have something else for you down the road. but using another database as your redundant conflict search will pay dividends. And I think, I think. Tying it to your database of finances is the way to go.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, and I’ll say, like, me, personally, one part of my practice is doing law firm. And so it happens all the time where one of the lawyers calls me and then within a day or two, the other ones referred to me as well. And as we grow, you know, so I mean, if anybody calls, I mean, it’s like emergency send out an email.
So everybody sees it, all the lawyers, just in case they get a call.
Jeff Cunningham: Mm hmm,
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, at least, [01:02:00] you know, prevent that embarrassing moment. So, there’s one other one, I know we’re going wild, but there’s one other one that, that I’ve seen a lot, and I’m sure you have, and it’s, particularly at the bigger firms. You ran the conflict check at the beginning, everything passed, you’re all good. You’re in the middle of litigation, and then you say, alright, we gotta do some third party discovery. So, you send out all these subpoenas. And then all of a sudden your partner down the hall comes in and is like, What the hell?
You sent my client this subpoena. What are you doing? And so, you know, real quick, what’s your approach, like, middle of the matter? How do you, you know, should you conflict check before you send out your third party subpoenas? Or, you know, what’s your approach there?
Jeff Cunningham: 100 percent and, and yeah, I mean subpoenas definitely you know, new parties and it’s, a battle, right, to, to make lawyers remember. That if parties get added, you’ve got to run a conflicts check on them. But it is such an embarrassment, even if it’s not an actual, like subpoenaing a client, like that’s not a conflict of interest, probably.
I mean, I guess it could be if it was the same matter, but it’s so embarrassing and you’re going to get. Really great results. If [01:03:00] you’re able to go to that relationship attorney and be like, Hey, I need to subpoena your client. Can you call them and see what the best way to do that is? You’re going to get the client’s going to be helpful.
You know, if they get the subpoena served on them, they’re not going to be helpful. They’re not going to be happy about it. And it’s, it’s bad. So building in, you know, that sort of intelligence is key. But again, from the But the marketing side of things too, like if I have to subpoena a client for information, then there’s some synergy there between my practice and that other person’s practice that we want to explore and we don’t know about.
And so I think it’s really important, like I think conflicts, your conflicts checks should be baked right into your, your billing and baked right into your marketing because I think they’re intertwined in a way that most law firms don’t really explore.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, cool, man. This has been real helpful. So, so Jeff we’ve been at it for a while and I want to be respectful of your time and I’m glad we finally got to do this. You know, you’ve been on my list, but finally became a founding partner so I could invite you on, man. So,
Jeff Cunningham: Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: so yeah, man, it’s been real fun.
[01:04:00] So, people out there that want to find you what’s the best way?
Jeff Cunningham: LinkedIn is probably the best way. I’m always on LinkedIn. You know, you can check out our website. It’s a cool website and we have some fun stuff on there too. Uh, Fun facts. I don’t really have any fun facts, but a lot of my partners and our employees are, much more fun than I am. But yeah, LinkedIn, I’m always on LinkedIn and, and, but before warned, if you connect with me, you’re going to get a lot of model rules content, so
Jonathan Hawkins: Good stuff. So, well, thanks man. This has been real fun.
Jeff Cunningham: Thanks so much.
Jonathan Hawkins: your knowledge, man. This has been real good.
Jeff Cunningham: I appreciate it. Thank you.
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 [01:05:00] insights from successful law firm founders.
