Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] How do you charge your clients? Are you like many other criminal defense that basically the retainer, or do you bill by the hour?

Trevor Riddle: We are strictly a flat fee business model. It was, you know, at the time I left The firm I was at in Wichita. You know, I don’t post a lot on LinkedIn, but I did, I think, post about this at one point. Had gotta the point where I really felt very burnt out. In the moment. I attributed a lot of that to just the work. You know, I, I kind of specialize in high stakes, high complexity types of high severity cases. When you have a whole caseload of those types of cases, you can imagine there’s some stress that goes along with that. So at the time, I had really attributed most of it, my burnout to that, although I knew there were some other kind of things going on. It wasn’t until I left the firm and had been out for a while but, you know, time and space gives you some perspective on things, but I realized one of the big issues I had was the billable hour model for a number of reasons.

You [00:01:00] know, because of my background or whatever it is, you know, I tend to try to find the most efficient ways to do things and which means that a lot of times I can do things in ‘ cause I’ll adopt some tool or some other technique or something that allows me to accomplish the work I need to do in less time. Well, obviously there’s a disincentive there to be efficient and to find better ways to do things.

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 curious about the legal business, you’re in the right place.

Let’s dive in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. This is a podcast where I get to interview founding [00:02:00] attorneys and hear about their journeys and lessons they’ve learned along the way. And today my guest is Trevor Riddle. He is a criminal defense lawyer. His firm is Triad Legal. They’ve got offices in a couple states. We’ll dive into some of that. But Trevor, thanks for coming on the show. I’m looking forward to learning about your journey.

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, Jonathan, I appreciate it. I was thrilled that we were connected by a mutual friend. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a couple years now, and gotten great insight from it. So my goal is hopefully I can provide something of benefit to the audience.

Jonathan Hawkins: I am sure you will. So th this, you’ve, you’ve done a few. Different things in your career. We’ll touch on some of those. So that’s, I’m looking forward to that. So as I mentioned, you are currently a criminal defense lawyer, but you’ve tried your hand at some other things too. So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about, you know, maybe how you started and sort of how you got to where we are now, and then we’ll, we’ll [00:03:00] unpack that, but gimme a high level.

Trevor Riddle: Absolutely. Well, I’ll maybe clarify one and say that I am a criminal defense lawyer. I think at this stage in my life, I’ve come to terms with the fact. That, that’s who I am. It’s where my passion lies. So that’s, that’s what I do. I’ve been practicing, I’m in my 21st year now licensed in Kansas and Oklahoma. The vast majority of my career has been spent in the criminal justice system. Started when I was in law school as a law clerk at the local prosecutor’s office. After graduation, passing a bar. I worked for a small county attorney’s office in a small county in Kansas, and worked there for a couple years. Realized some point in there that the prosecution side was probably not gonna be a long term career path for me and was just lucky enough to get an opportunity to work at a really prestigious boutique firm in Wichita, Kansas that was focused solely on criminal [00:04:00] defense and spent the next 14 years there.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so lemme ask, did you always wanna be a criminal defense lawyer or was this something that you sort of fell into? You know, and I ask, ’cause some people they know what they wanted to do, but you know, since they were 12 and then others, it’s sort of like, well, I just sort of fell into it. What, what was it for you?

Trevor Riddle: Not only did I not know I wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer, I didn’t know I wanted to be a lawyer. In fact, I never wanted to be a lawyer. I didn’t have no lawyers in my family. I come from a family really, of educators and, and my mom was a teacher. My dad was a teacher early in, in his career. Later went into engineering. So they both have science and math backgrounds. I thought from an early age I wanted to be a, a doctor. I remember from, you know. Eight, nine years old knew that I wanted to wanna be a doctor. And so I have a background in math and science because of that. ’cause my parents so, and went to college was a pre-med [00:05:00] student. Started taking all of the biology science classes and was on my way to becoming a doctor. And then realized that the path to becoming a doctor was 10 plus years in, in length and several hundred thousand dollars in student loans and thought, you know, maybe I should find something else to do. The next kind of natural thing for me within was to be an engineer.

So I went from pre-med to engineering, and again, math and science classes, physics and calculus, and those kinds of things. But again, law was never even on my radar. It wasn’t until I found my way into the philosophy department and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a year under my belt in the Master’s program and philosophy that I found a way to law school.

So I fell in love with philosophy for all kinds of reasons. We, we can talk about [00:06:00] thought I was gonna be an academic I was working kind of on the PhD track, got into, into the master’s program, was a teaching assistant and taught a couple of, you know, freshman level classes and enjoyed it. Actually somehow managed to get pretty good student reviews, but realized it was probably not a long-term career solution for me. And again, as kind of the theme of my life, was lucky enough to have an advisor and sit down had a discussion with him and he said, well, have you ever considered law school? I said, absolutely not, but tell me more. I didn’t even, I had no idea what good law, what the good law schools were. I didn’t know how you applied. I didn’t know what the LSAT was. I didn’t know any of that. He’s, you know, kind of explained it to me. He said, go study for the lsat. Go take it, see what you get, come back and talk. So, picked up a study guide, study, took the lsat, I guess, got a good enough score to get into a decent law school and here I [00:07:00] am.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, we’ll say it’s a lot harder to make money as a philosopher than, as a lawyer. But you know, the folks I went to law school with that were philosophy undergrad did really well. So I imagine you did pretty well in law school. That’s, I’m just guessing something

Trevor Riddle: I think it’s a thing. I think it’s a thing that got me through the LSAT for sure, because one of my areas of interest in the philosophy depart was symbolic logic. And so, you know, they were basically training me to take the LSAT.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. I kicked ass on the L side, I’m sure. All right. So back back to the criminal law. So you, you sort of fell into criminal law. So you know, you, you started in, I guess the prosecutor type role and then switched to the defense. Have you always done criminal law after you started or have you experimented with anything else along the way?

Trevor Riddle: So 2021, I was 14 years at the firm. I had been in Wichita needed a, a change. So my wife [00:08:00] and I, I left the firm. My wife and I somewhat circuitously, found our way back to Tulsa and, you know, in the kind of vein of fresh darts decided to set criminal law aside for a while and took up estate planning.

Jonathan Hawkins: So how do you do that? So, I mean, look, I love pivots. I do. And I think lawyers can pivot and I’ve seen lots of people do that. But that is an extreme pivot from going from criminal law to basically moving to I don’t know how, how many folks you knew there, but switching practice areas, moving towns.

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, it was I will tell you, it was very, despite having, you know, at that point, 15 plus years of experiences, still very naive in terms of what it would take. You know, we, my wife and I are both, you know, we grew up in Oklahoma. My wife’s from Tulsa, so we kind of thought like, you know, we’re, it’s you know, we’re coming home.

It be easy. It was not we hadn’t lived here in 20 [00:09:00] plus years, and so it was literally moving to a brand new city Yeah. And taking up a, a new area of practice in a solo, solo setting. So yeah, it was far more difficult than I ever thought it would be again. Lucky enough story of my life, I had a colleague that I had actually met, lived in Idaho. And had a kind of similar career path as me. He started off in working in a public defender’s office and worked there for 10 plus years burnout. He and his wife moved to Idaho from California and he took up estate planning. And I was like, oh, well how do you do it? And so he kind of took me under his wing, so to speak, and said, you know, here’s how you get started. And so that’s, I kind of modeled it, my solo practice after that.

Jonathan Hawkins: So how did it go? So again, you sort of moved to a new city. I’ll say it’s a new city. You hadn’t been there forever. You, you probably don’t know that many people probably don’t know that many lawyers. I mean, maybe a few. You switch practice areas. How do you spread the [00:10:00] word? How do you get clients? How did you figure it out?

Trevor Riddle: You know, I’d love to say that I had it all figured out, but if that were the case, I, you know, may still be doing estate planning. But you know, look, I made a lot of mistakes. As someone who is ever interested in, in technology, I kind of thought, you know. Again, I was gonna have the solo practice.

Being able to do estate planning meant I could probably have a virtual practice. You know, I was gonna rely on technology digital marketing, you know, and, you know, the clients would just come flooding in. About six months into it I realized that was not entirely working and so I had to kind of go back to, you know, essentially basic principles.

My prior firm in the criminal defense world, you know, our best and. Best cases, best clients came from referrals. And so I’d said, you know, how do I, how do I start trying to generate referrals? Where’s the, where’s my market at? And it just so happened my wife’s a real estate agent and had signed up with a brokerage here in Tulsa, [00:11:00] and I just reached out to ’em and said, Hey, I’m doing estate planning. You know, there’s overlap with, with real estate. You know, you may have clients who are buying or selling a house that’s in a trust, you know, how do you handle those types of transactions? I’d love to come in and give your, your agents some continuing education. So, put together a continuing education class and went to one real estate agency that was my wife’s working at, gave a presentation.

They got a few referrals. Reached out, some of the other agencies in town said, Hey, I have this course that’s pre-made. I’ve already given it to your competitor down the street. I would love to come give it to your agents. So that was kind of how I started, was just trying to find the people who knew the, who knew who my clients were and where I could find them.

And I tried to connect with those people.

Jonathan Hawkins: That is a tried and true approach. So yeah, you know, it, it, it works. Anybody out there, you know, it’s, it’s figure out, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s much [00:12:00] easier to reach out to the, the people that. Then know lots of your potential client then to try to find your potential client, and then you sort of magnify your reach that way.

So, yeah. Okay. So you did that for a while. You, you know, you obviously you tried the, the trust and state thing, but you’re not doing that anymore back to criminal law. So, it some point you, you said, all right, I’m gonna give that up or, or move back to criminal law. So take, take me through that process.

What, what pushed you back and it, I guess, probably. Was this 2021 when you switched? Was this around the COVID time or

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, so we moved, we moved back to Tulsa. I left my firm in July 21. So coming out of COVID, but we had, you know. Certainly one of the triggering events for us was living through COVID and some of those things. But so coming outta that, we moved back to Tulsa in February of 2022, and that’s when I formally started my practice here in June 22.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so you did that for a while, but and then you pivoted back to criminal tell me about [00:13:00] that sort of decision and what led to that?

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, you know. had started again through connecting with real estate agents and those connections and other connections, it started to kinda get some traction and get a steady enough inflow of clients that, you know, in a truly solo, super low ever overhead virtual practice could kind of see things going in the right direction. But you know, as I joked when we started this conversation I am a criminal defense attorney and, you know, that’s where my heart is, that’s where my passion is. And it was probably early October, 2023. I was in the office here at home doing something, drafting power of attorney or a will, or I don’t remember what it was at the time.

And I remember it was in the evening. My wife was the living room. And I walked outta the office and went in. I said, you know, would you think I’m entirely insane if I told you that I want to [00:14:00] go back to criminal defense? And we’ve been together 23 years now, so she knows. And she, without missing a beat, looked at me and said, I don’t know what took you so long. So that was the moment and the next day, we sat down and said, all right, what’s it take to switch gears? What’s it take to pivot back again and go do the thing that I’m passionate about and off we went.

Jonathan Hawkins: I love that, you know, again, it’s funny when, when I was, I think, I think many lawyers go through this sort of process where you do this thing for a while and you’re like, yeah, I just don’t like this. I’m gonna try something else. Whether it’s in the law or outta the law or whatever. And then you do that for a little while and you’re like, well, you know what?

I sort of really did like the thing I was doing before, so, so you go back. And so, okay, so you decided to go back. Well, lemme ask, so you’re, you’re, you’re full in criminal now. Do you still do any wills trusting state work, or is that complete? Are you done?

Trevor Riddle: I am done. I’ll leave that to folks who, have the more patient laid [00:15:00] back mentality to life than me. So it was great. I mean, the client, you know, clients come to you. They’re not you know, cops aren’t banging on their door with a search warrant. It’s, everything’s very much more relaxed and easygoing.

And I just I apparently I need that kind of excitement in my life. So I don’t do that anymore. I have a something that came out of that practice was a kind of a side project a more technology based platform that I, and my wife and another. Co-founder are working on when we find time related to estate planning, but I don’t do any actual practice involved in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, you don’t get the same adrenaline rush I’m sure you get from the criminal practice. Okay, so you pivot back. So then the question is, so is it, is it still with your own law firm or are, did you pivot and then you founded Triad Legal? Tell, tell me sort of that timeline.

Trevor Riddle: Yeah. You know, again, timing is everything in life. That was so early October. I said I’m, I’m going [00:16:00] back to criminal defense. Made the pivot. To kind get things going here. Because of my experience, I was able to get on what they call the CJA panel, which is for private court appointed work in federal court. There’s plenty of that here in the eastern part of Oklahoma. So I started doing that, and then strangely enough, I got a call not long after I’d made the pivot back, got a call from a former client in Wichita. Who had found themselves in some pretty serious trouble and asked if, if I could help him.

And I said, as a matter of fact yeah, I think I can ended up going driving up to Wichita with a client and not, it was either that day or shortly after that ran into my now founding partner at Tried Legal, who was my colleague at the prior firm I was at. He was still there, but was. Found out was contemplating a move of his own. And we said, you know, let’s, [00:17:00] we work well together. We’ve always kind of complimented each other and our personalities and our working styles, and said, well, let’s, let’s join up and we’ve already got a couple clients and let’s, let’s see what happens. And so we, we partnered and, and formed what is now Triad legal.

Jonathan Hawkins: So anybody that knows me knows that I love a good trade name for a law firm. So how’d you come up with Triad Legal and what was the thought process behind it?

Trevor Riddle: You know. When my partner and I, you know, kind of sat down one night over a couple of beers to kind of talk principles founding principles for us, what is it? We wanted this firm ultimately to be what we wanted it to represent, what we wanted it to be for us. We both knew that we didn’t want this firm to be a direct reflection or directly tied to either of us individually. We wanted ultimately to have some point [00:18:00] down the road a business that had value separate from us, that whether we would ever sell it or not, who knows, but that we could. And so the idea of not having our names on the, on the sign out door, outside kind of.

I was the genesis of that. We tossed around a few ideas and you know, it’s, I like to say there’s some great theme behind where it came from, but my solo practice firm the marketing agency I’d worked with when we kind of come up with some branding material had a set of three interlocked triangles and we just kind of like, well, let’s keep the logo ’cause I’ve already spent the money on it. Okay. What’s that look like? Triad, tri Legal. We kind of, after the fact came up with a philosophy kind of, tie in with it ethos, pathos, logos mentality. But if I’m being honest, that was kind of a, after the fact, we looked at the triangles and went triad. Sounds good.

Jonathan Hawkins: So the thing you mentioned that I think is really important for anybody [00:19:00] out there that is thinking about a partnership is the, it’s the meetings and the discussions before the partnership, and it’s really hugely important. I don’t think enough people spend enough time. On that process. So maybe take me through that.

How did you come to do that, or why did you do that? And, and how long and what types of discussions did you have?

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, the first discussion took place pretty informally over a couple of beers at a local restaurant. To kind of understand each other, where we were at in our lives and what we were looking to do. Just to make sure that there was some kind of initial fit in our where we wanted to take things, our lives personally and professionally. And then once we kind of. Understood each other. We were on the same page. We had a series of of meetings over the next couple of months where we sit down and literally, you know, pen to paper and said, [00:20:00] what’s this thing look like? What’s it look like? What do we want it to be? How do we want it to operate? How do we want to operate with each other? I’m not gonna say that we covered everything we probably should have covered, but we did spend a lot of time. That we were aligned in terms of our personal goals, professional goals, and ultimately what we wanted this business to look like and what we wanted it to achieve for us again, individually and as a partnership.

Jonathan Hawkins: So I’ll say for people out there listening. That have not gotten into a partnership yet, but thinking about it, what you just said was gold. I mean, it really, really was. So it’s more than, Hey, we can come together and make a bunch of money, or whatever. It’s vision. Personal and professional because the, it’s, they blend together.

You know, people that want to, you know, some people wanna work two days a week and, you know, play [00:21:00] golf or do whatever, and then the other person wants to grow the biggest firm in the world, and those two things are not gonna last. And so it’s better to have that discussion on the front end and sort of figure it out.

Before you go shake hands and get married, so to speak, then figure it out several years in so that that really, really.

Trevor Riddle: It is the equivalent, the business equivalent of getting married, I mean. You know, you are getting into a relationship with somebody and if it doesn’t go well, you know, getting out of it can be ugly and cost a lot of people, a lot of time, a lot of money. So it makes a lot of sense to make sure that, again, before you jump into that business marriage, that you were aligned with your partner.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so another interesting thing about your, your firm and the genesis and partnership is that you started with two offices, right? In two different states. I mean, you went from immediately one, you know, Hey, let’s make this two states. [00:22:00] So tell me about how, how you guys have sort of integrated the two offices and how do you make it work long distance, so to speak.

Trevor Riddle: Yeah. You know, again, some of that goes to my own stubbornness or naiveness about things, you know? And I do recall when we sit down and said, yeah we have offices in, we can start this firm immediately with offices in two states. Looking back on it, would I have done it the same way? I, I don’t, I’m not sure.

But we kind of jumped in that way and that’s, that’s the way it’s worked out. We knew that. We knew that because we were gonna be in two different. States, two cities. And also because we, again, part of our thing we knew we were on the same page about was that we wanted, at least as we got the thing going to make sure we kept our overhead low to make sure we were kind of, as we said, lean and mean. To make sure that we were making use of every dollar we spent. So we had, you know, I have a [00:23:00] coworking space here. I was ing out of my partner in Wichita. We had a essentially a, a executive office space there we were ing out of. And so, and we knew that we were gonna need to incorporate some technology. I was thrilled about ’cause I, you know, I’m, I’m a self-professed technology nerd. I love everything I new and shiny on the technology front, so that was music to my heart. A founding partner was willing to come on and trust me that we could make it work. And so we knew we were gonna need to incorporate some new tools on the technology side to allow, again, just simple communications, daily, things like that. So that was a big part of it. And then this, another part was recognizing that, you know, if we’re gonna be in two separate cities when it comes to finding talent to help us be it legal assistance marketing operations, whatever it was, we could, we could look far and wide. And so we, one of our very first hires [00:24:00] I found on, we found on the Upwork freelancer site, a young man out of the Philippines whose. Now my, technically his title’s my executive assistant, but he does a little bit of everything for us. So, technology willingness to go find great talent wherever it is, and, and leverage those things to create a firm that’s efficient and, and generates not just generates revenue, but generates, you know, profit.

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s, let’s talk, let’s dive into the technology a little bit. You have you always, I mean you, you said you were big into math and science and engineering. Has technology always been something you’re interested in and it’s sort of a natural flow that you can incorporate it into the practice? Or is it something you came to later?

Trevor Riddle: No, I’ve, I’ve always, I’ve always been been into technology. I don’t remember. I don’t remember exactly when I got my first pc, but it was definitely, you know, it was the black screen with green [00:25:00] black text and it was pre, pre Windows days. So, I remember the big, big, five and a quarter inch floppy drives that, that’s, the programs all ran on those.

So, that was my first pc. So, you know, my parents always kind of fostered that kind of creativity and exploration into those things. And so from there you know, my, my brother and I, when we were in college, tinkered with building, it was big at that time. The TV show, battle bots, you know, people built the, the rope fighting robots.

We tinkered with building those things. So it’s always kind of been part of my life and it’s just been a natural, kind of a natural. Transition or kinda a just been a natural part of, of my practice. I mean, even, even at our old firm we were, I was kind of constantly pushing to, you know, let’s try this new tool or that new tool to see if it can improve some internal system or can [00:26:00] improve or client satisfaction or the, the, the client journey.

I’ve always kind of been looking for those things.

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so correct me if I’m wrong, but my sense, again, I could be completely off base here. But my sense of a traditional, normal criminal defense lawyer is that, that they’re not into technology. They, they got a cell phone and a notepad and they just got, get in their car and they drive around. So are you different in that way compared to some of your criminal defense brethren, do you think?

Or, and then maybe if you are, how do you think it helps your firm?

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, I think there is within criminal offense, you know, we probably have a, a larger percentage of attorneys in this practice area who are either solos or maybe at, at most, they’re in some corner of, expense sharing arrangement with a group of other attorneys. There aren’t a lot in our area anyway, really law firms that specialize or focus [00:27:00] even on criminal defense. I was, again, incredibly lucky to when I left the prosecutor’s office and decided to go into criminal defense to end up at the firm. I did. ‘Cause not only was it founded and run by one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country, but it was very much run as a business. And because of that incorporated where they could technology, you know, they were probably one of the first firms, at least in our area, to ever have a website. And they did that pretty early on. One of the first in our area, at least in our practice area, to essentially connect to the internet. My former boss and mentor, he told me the story of how they bought it a single computer and set it up in the office and, you know, just connected that one computer to the internet so that they could access some of the early. You know, legal databases and things. And so they were you know, traditional in a lot of [00:28:00] sense. You know, particularly an adherence to the billable hour model, but non-traditional in that they, where it made sense embrace technology to improve their, the way they practiced and, and the way they serve their clients so.

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

Jonathan Hawkins: So you just brought up the billable hour. How do you charge your clients? Are you like many other criminal defense that do the basically the retainer, or do you bill by the hour?

Trevor Riddle: We are strictly a flat fee business model. It was, you know, at the time I left my. The firm I was at in Wichita. You know, I don’t post a lot on LinkedIn, but I did, I think, post about this at one [00:29:00] point. Had gotta the point where I really felt very burnt out. In the moment. I attributed a lot of that to just the work. You know, I, I kind of specialize in high stakes, high complexity types of high severity cases. When you have a whole caseload of those types of cases, you can imagine there’s some stress that goes along with that. So at the time, I had really attributed most of it, my burnout to that, although I knew there were some other kind of things going on. It wasn’t until I left the firm and had been out for a while but, you know, time and space gives you some perspective on things, but I realized one of the big issues I had was the billable hour model for a number of reasons.

You know, because of my background or whatever it is, you know, I tend to try to find the most efficient ways to do things and which means that a lot of times I can do things in ’cause I’ll adopt some tool or some other technique or something [00:30:00] that allows me to accomplish the work I need to do in less time. Well, obviously there’s a disincentive there to be efficient and to find better ways to do things.

And so I never really kind of grasped that tension until I I’d left the firm and had some perspective. So there was certainly that element of it. And I knew then that I didn’t want that. I mean, I didn’t want to live by, as I tell people, live my life in six minute increments and I didn’t want the burden to my clients.

I, the other thing I would say is that, you know, in 14 years in private practice, I was lucky enough that the vast majority of my clients were always satisfied with, with my services to them. And the very few conflicts I ever had with clients were about money. And, and the bill and, and all of those things.

And so just because of what I saw as now understand as a, as a disincentive to, to find ways to be more efficient and, and a, a mismatch in, in incentives [00:31:00] between lawyer and client that, you know, again, that’s one of the things, when my partner and I sat down, we agreed this was going to be a flat fee firm. We don’t know how we’re gonna do it, particularly given the types of cases that we do that are high complexity. High severity. They often take a year, 18 months, two years sometimes or more to get to a resolution. We didn’t know how we were going to do it, how we were going to price our cases, but we knew we were gonna commit to figuring it out.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, for others out there that are thinking about fixed fee type work and that have never done it, I mean, that’s really. That’s, I’ve tried it. I do some of that and really, you just gotta try it. You gotta try it, make some mistakes, and you figure out how to get where you, you’re not gonna come outta the gate. Perfect. On that. I bet you’ve missed price things quite often in the early days.

Trevor Riddle: We have definitely lost some money on some

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

Trevor Riddle: that’s for sure. But it’s, you know. again, maybe a little bit non-traditional for a lawyer in legal practice, but [00:32:00] everything to me is kind of an experiment. And there’s no reason, you know, again, as long as it’s not going to have some major adverse effect on a client whether, but when it comes to our internal systems pricing, the tools we use, whatever, there’s no reason not to try. I’m a big believer that there’s always a better way to do things, and if you’re not experimenting and you’re not trying new things, you’re not getting better.

Jonathan Hawkins: Absolutely. So you mentioned a minute ago that getting burned out and the stress, and again, I mean, being a lawyer is stressful. Being a criminal defense lawyer is probably very, very stressful. So what are some of the things you do to, you know, get out and just. Relieve the stress things outside the law.

What are some of the things you do?

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, I got, I guess I’ll probably chalk this up as well to my, you know, my philosophy, background and education, but also my, my childhood. I mean, my grew up, my parents are big outdoors people. You know, we grew up, my mom, [00:33:00] I would always joke that, you know, she would ask my brother and I what we wanted to do for a summer vacation. You know, most kids would be like, wanna go to Disneyland or, you know, this place or that place. We always just wanted to go to the lake. So that was our summer vacations. Usually we, my parents had packed my brother and I up and we’d go camp at, you know, the lake one, the lake’s here in Oklahoma for a week. And so we’ve just always been big outdoors people. And so that’s, that’s what I do for the most part. And I. Yeah. Again, philosophy, background or whatever it may be. I do very much believe that there’s a connection between mind and body and so, and when the body is in good shape, when the body is feeling good, the mind feels good, and I don’t think there’s any better way to kind of. Treat those two connected systems any better than just being outside. I mean, getting a little, just walking out and getting a little sunshine on you is great. So that’s, that’s my therapy for the most part.

Jonathan Hawkins: [00:34:00] Have you, have you read that book, the Comfort Crisis?

Trevor Riddle: You know, you mentioned that to me in our early discussions and I have to, I have to confess that I have not had a chance to read it. I did have, however, picked it up, so I will

Jonathan Hawkins: It is, it is a great book. You need to get that book you need to read it. It’s, it is, and readers or listeners get that book. It’s really fascinating book. And he, it’s, I’ll give you sort of the, the layout. So he ba, the author basically takes this trip to Alaska. Wilderness, I mean the outback of Alaska to hunt, you know, caribou or whatever it is.

But in, in between he drops these chapters about, you know, scientific studies and all these things that, that are going on in the modern world. And I, and I, it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but one of the things he says is just what you just said. He said there, there’ve been all these studies about spending time outdoors for some extended period. Now, obviously walking in the woods is good, but I mean, for extended periods of time, they do all these blood tests [00:35:00] and all these things and it, it, it changes people for the better. And so part of his, his, you know, thesis is we gotta get outdoors more. So I think you’ll, I think you’re gonna dig that book.

It’s, it’s really good.

Trevor Riddle: I appreciate the recommendation. I said I’ve, I’ve picked it up and I’m. On my next to read list. So

Jonathan Hawkins: I will say getting to the Alaska Outback, Alaskan Outback sounds scary as hell. ’cause you, you gotta take all these small airplane flights and apparently they crash all the time. They’re just crashing all the time. So it is not,

Trevor Riddle: I would, I’ve never, been quite that adventurous. I do. We aren’t able to this year, but generally every year end of October, 1st of November, I go with a friend of mine. I, I take my dad and we go to the mountains in Idaho and camp for 8, 9, 10 days. And that’s, that’s enough probably right now for me enough quote unquote wilderness.

The two years [00:36:00] ago we were there and we got, we. The first night we were there, we got about 12 inches of snow. We were there for another seven days and it snowed nonstop every day. To the point that I think when we finally were able to get off the mountain, there was about three feet of snow on the ground.

Jonathan Hawkins: gosh. So I was gonna ask, what time of year do you take these trips? So,

Trevor Riddle: This one, this one is usually the, like either last week of October, first week of, of November. So it’s, you’re, you’re asking for weather when you go go into the mountains that time of year, but it was, it was extreme that year for

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so are the bears holed up by that point? Are they still out and about f.

Trevor Riddle: No, they’re still out and about. So are the, so are the moose and, and all of that good stuff. So the area we go, in the past has really, it’s been black bears that that’s the, the bears they have there. But where we goes close enough to the Wyoming border that the, as the [00:37:00] grizzly population has expanded, it’s moved out.

And last year, I think it was last year, they had their first confirmed grizzly siding in that, in that area that we. We can’t, but, you know, I think it’s, you know, we talk about getting outside and, and you know, how that the, the positive effect it can have on you. I may be crazy on this, but I think there’s some positive effect to be had on us when we go out somewhere and we’re not necessarily at the top of the Fuji. You know, my wife and I scuba dive. I think there’s a little bit of that involved in that too. So love seeing sharks, but you know, you just kind of know that. You know, I’m not the top predator in this environment. There’s something, you know, humbling and I think good about that.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it’s, I, I, I didn’t really know this till fairly recently. People told me that and again, I could be completely wrong, but moose are like more dangerous than the bears.

Trevor Riddle: That’s exactly true. I’m there are a lot where a lot of moose where we go and camp and I’m. I am generally far more concerned. I give the, I [00:38:00] give most a much wider ber than I, than I would, you know, certainly black there. They are, they are territorial. They don’t care that who or what you are, you need to get out of their way.

So,

Jonathan Hawkins: And they’re so big, man. They’re huge.

Trevor Riddle: yeah, nobody, you don’t, until you see one kind of up close and in person, you don’t realize how big they are. And they’re, they’re very large animals, is.

Jonathan Hawkins: I’ve not seen one in person, but I’ve seen footage of them walking down like the median of a road next to the cars and you’re like, holy crap. That thing is huge. Alright, well cool. Let’s switch back to the firm. So you, you’ve, you’ve started your firm, I dunno, what, how, how many years ago did you start it?

Trevor Riddle: So my solo practice I started in, in roughly June of 2022.

Jonathan Hawkins: And then Triad Legal. When did that start?

Trevor Riddle: Officially, that would’ve been April of 24, so, we’re, we’re not quite two years into what is now Triad Legal, the the criminal defense [00:39:00] firm.

Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about marketing. Let’s talk about that a little bit. So you’ve, how, how do you and your partner go about marketing your practice. And, and I imagine some of the same principles apply depending on the practice area, but maybe there’s some different nuances for a criminal def defense practice.

Trevor Riddle: Given, you know, given the nature of our practice and, and the types of cases we focus on. They’re, they’re not the kind of lower severity, higher volume type cases. So, you know, paid advertising, Google ads LSAs, those types of things haven’t really been something we’ve focused on. Instead, we have focused on. You know, I love all things technology and like new and shiny, but there are some principles that whether you’re in criminal defense or estate planning or you name it, that that still kind of apply. And that is, there’s nothing like personal relationships. And [00:40:00] so we’ve really focused time and attention, not entirely, but you know, a good bit of our time and attention on those personal relationships for other people.

That, again. Just like when I was in estate planning, going and finding the real estate agents, you know, we look, we try to make sure we maintain relationships with the family law attorneys in our jurisdictions and other attorneys that, and, and other people bondsmen, attorneys, you name it, that can and have sent us business in the past.

And we try to nurture, try to nurture those relationships because, I like data. I wouldn’t say we’ve been able to we’re working on it collecting the kind of marketing data we need to make more informed decisions. But I do know, based on the data we have from this firm, and what I knew from 14 years of practice before that our best cases, our most, our best clients our most valuable cases come from referrals.

And so that’s, that’s really where we focused on, which is a very low tech thing to [00:41:00] talk about. But some things, some things never, some things change and some things never do.

Jonathan Hawkins: So another question I have, so you get, you have high severity cases so I assume the pool of potential lawyers is probably smaller that do those cases. That probably helps you get a personal referral. But the other element is they may be thrown in jail on a Saturday night at 2:00 AM kind of thing, is how do you handle the intake and, and dealing with these, you know, off hour emergency call type situations.

Trevor Riddle: You know, at our intake like a lot of things in our firm is a continual work and process. But one thing, again, going back to the principles that my partner and I sit down and, and agreed on, one of those principles was that there would be a live human being that would answer our phones 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so during the day, during business hours, we have internal team member reception that, that [00:42:00] answers calls. But we also have a fallback. We have a virtual reception service that catches any overflow calls during the day and is available after hours. So, you know, when it comes to criminal defense, and that’s a thing that sets it apart from certainly like estate planning and some of the other practices, you know, when someone knows they need a criminal defense attorney, they need that attorney right now. You know, they’re not thinking about getting in trouble and thinking about hiring an attorney for something they’re gonna do down the road. They, or a lot of times a loved one has been arrested or the cops are at the door with a warrant. And so there’s a, an immediate need. And so the one thing we can do is answer the phone. And again, that sounds very low tech, but interestingly, if you look at, you know, Cleo puts out every year their, their legal trends report. If you look over their report, even as, as recently as last year [00:43:00] the percentage of firms that even during regular business hours don’t answer their phone is outrageous.

And so just by having a live human being. Even if it’s a virtual reception service, they can answer the phone and be that first human voice that that person hears that says, we’re, we’re here to help you. I mean, you’re, you’re on your way to having a client at.

Jonathan Hawkins: I agree, I agree with that completely. So let me ask the next question. So you’ve got, you’ve committed to have a live human answer. That’s not you. How do you deal with the, the late night emergency, does it get directed to a lawyer to you? Do you have rules about, Hey, I’m just not gonna answer the phone.

We gotta take a message. What, how do you handle that, that part of it?

Trevor Riddle: So the, the way it works right now is the, they don’t ime, they don’t contact us or transfer it directly but it gets fed into our CRM system. And then we get both my partner and I [00:44:00] right now get a message on our phones that says, BA basically here’s the caller, here’s what they’re calling about. And then whoever sees it first picks up.

We, first thing we do is we can see that and determine is this a, is this an emergency? And when you, you, you know, cops are at the door. We, we’ve been doing this long enough. We, like, we see the signs of what a real emergency is, and if it is one of us picks up the phone and, and calls the person. If it’s not an emergency the virtual reception always offers the person. So if it’s on a Saturday, they offer a Monday morning, they call with the attorney. So before that person gets on the off the phone, they have a call set up with the attorney. They’re told you, we’ll let the attorney know and if we, we’ll get back to them before then. So

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. For.

Trevor Riddle: you, the, in the shopping cycle, you know, it’s much shorter sales cycle with criminal defense.

And again, if you can be one, answer the phone, have some compassion for the person [00:45:00] and get them at least scheduled for a call, a lot of times you stop the shopping process, you know, they’re not necess, they may not then go to the next attorney they had on their list to call. So for us it’s really about interjecting and stopping the, the shopping process because a lot of people, you know, they may, even if we get a referral, you know, they may have contacted two or three people in their social network and they may have 2, 3, 4 names of attorneys. So we may not be the only one they’re contacted. And so yeah, answer your phone which a lot of particularly criminal defense attorneys don’t do, ’cause it may simply ring to their cell phone, but have a live person answer, show some compassion and get them scheduled for a consultation. And we found that to be pretty successful so far.

Jonathan Hawkins: For a minute there, I thought maybe you had found a way to marry your early desire to be a doctor with lawyers. So you’re, you’re on call, you know it’s your

Trevor Riddle: Yeah, I mean, we are, we are essentially [00:46:00] on call, but we don’t, you know, I think it’s something I’ve learned through my practice and, and again, I think learned through paying attention to some other really smart people. I know you’ve had a, a conversation not too long ago with Regina Edwards family law attorney in, in, in Georgia. And, you know, I took a lot of stuff from her and her communications policies and, you know, one thing I got from her in her milieu was that there are very few things that are true emergency. And so we’ve kind of taken that approach there. Really, there. Really, aren’t a lot of things that are such a true urgency that, you know, I or my partner or anybody else in the firm needs to immediately. Get up out of bed and make the call is we do, but for the most part, we’ve been pretty fortunate. It seems to have worked again. Person, answer the call, show some compassion, get ’em scheduled for the very next possible time for an attorney to talk to.

Jonathan Hawkins: So we’re, we’re starting to run [00:47:00] towards the end of our time here, but I, there’s no way I’m gonna get to all my questions here. But

Trevor Riddle: I have been a time or two in my career accused by a judge and prosecutor here or there being a verbose so.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, no, this is the fun part and I always prepare way more than I can ask. But I do wanna ask, so you’ve had an interesting career, so you’ve gone through the pivot and you started your firm and all these things as you look back on it, you know. For other lawyers out there that maybe thinking about starting a firm or thinking about a pivot or whatever, do you have any advice that maybe you’d give them?

Trevor Riddle: Oh goodness. How long do we have? Yeah, I would, and this may again, sound somewhat contradictory to everything I’ve said in terms of my appreciation and love of all things technology and new and fancy but really it is the basics are the things that matter. law firms are a business. You know, we are yes professionals. Everything they teach us in law school about, you know, this is a noble [00:48:00] profession and all of that is all true. But at the end of the day, these are businesses and you have to treat them that way. And no business operates without customers.

So you can do, you can have the fanciest technology, the fanciest systems, SOPs and all that other good stuff that a business ultimately needs to run and survive and grow and scale. But if you don’t have customers, you don’t have a business. And So anybody who’s going to go out on their own ’cause again, I think this, I was naive, a little bit, way naive and in my view of how easy it was gonna be to get those customers have a plan in place for what are you gonna do? You know, unless you leaving in some big firm, you got a big nest egg or, you know, you’ve got some family investment to get you, you know, plenty of money to do all the fancy websites and things like that paid advertising, whatever it may be.

Most of us starting out in this are on a very limited budget sometimes shoestring budget. And so [00:49:00] you have to find the things, kind of gorilla tactics to find those clients. And that again, goes back to those principles. Just like I mentioned left out, my wife’s a real estate agent connection. Go talk to real estate agents. You know, you’re a criminal defense attorney. Go find out where the local bar association, what the family law bar is doing, and go to one of their events and sponsor, you know, sponsor one of their social gatherings. Do something like that, find a way to connect to the people who know your clients. And those are the ones that are gonna send you business.

Jonathan Hawkins: Great advice.

Trevor Riddle: Everything else, everything else gets built on top of that.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, great. Great advice. Alright, so last question. what’s the favorite thing? What’s your favorite thing about having your own firm and being able to run your own firm?

Trevor Riddle: You know, I, I, wow, there’s a lot. I think probably what it boils down to is. You know, I’ve always kind of been a bit of a independent contrarian, do my way, do things my own way kind [00:50:00] of person. And to me, having your own firm means you get to build it in your image. You get to do things the way you want to do them, right and wrong or indifferent, right? We get to say we’re gonna be a flat fee model and we’re gonna stick to it. And so does it make sense? Does other people say you’re crazy for doing that? Maybe. But you know what? It’s mine, so I get to do it that way.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I love that we’re gonna end with that. Trevor, again, thanks for coming on, sharing a little bit about your journey and for anybody out there that wants to get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them to find you?

Trevor Riddle: I am probably the best way our attorneys and, and others to find me is probably LinkedIn. I’m not nearly as active there as our friend Ron would like me to be, or as he tells me I should be. In terms of at least active posting and things like that that’s on the, it’s on my, one of my rocks for this year is to be more active on LinkedIn, but I am on LinkedIn and somebody messages me or wants to contact me.

That’s usually the [00:51:00] best way.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well again Trevor, thanks. Thanks for coming on. It’s been real fun and look forward to seeing you on LinkedIn.

Trevor Riddle: Jonathan, I appreciate the time and, and the opportunity to come and chat.

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 founders.