Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] So tell me about, you know, your experience in the bar that, you know, some people view it as a they’re giving back to the community. Some people view it as a business development sort of thing.

I mean, it could be all sorts of things. Some people are just political animals. What got you involved in the bar and what sort of benefits have you received along the way? I know once you get on that ladder, it takes many, many years to, to all of a sudden ascend to the presidency.

So I know you’ve it a long time.

James P. Joseph: Yes. So, I can speak from my bar association and I presume, you know, it’s similar across the country. You know, and to the point that you just made about these different groups, Atticus and so many others, the value of these professional relationships and on so many levels and on the level that you’re referring to where we get to see what other people are doing and we share and we learn from them.

And you know, again, I, had I not seen what was possible in other lawyers actually doing it. I wouldn’t have gone down the path. I went down. And [00:01:00] so that, you know, has had such an impact on my life and the Bar Association is one place to get that.

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 attorneys of law firms all over the country. And I get to meet folks that didn’t previously see. No, but today’s guest is James Joseph. And, you know, cool thing about James and meeting James is we, you know, sort of interacted and had some back and forth on LinkedIn for some period of [00:02:00] time. But I’d never actually met him. And then we were both at the same legal conference and we actually had spent a lot of good time together, went out to dinner and got to know each other and just came away. Just really impressed with what James has done with his firm and his background and just, he’s just a good guy.

So excited to welcome James Joseph today. He is the founder of Joseph Law Group, which is a matrimonial firm in Long Island, New York. And so he’s done a bunch of other cool stuff too. We’ll get into that, but James, why don’t you introduce yourself. Tell us about your firm how many attorneys, you know, how long you’ve been doing it, that sort of thing.

James P. Joseph: Sure. Sure. So thank you Jonathan for the kind and generous words. I do really appreciate it. It was so great to finally meet you in person. You know, not only did we have the back and forth on LinkedIn, in the last year or so. But I always have been a big fan of your podcast, so feel really fortunate to be here and to have had that time that we got to know each other a bit.

So I’m a matrimonial attorney, as you said. I’ve been practicing law for more [00:03:00] years than I care to admit. Let’s see, it’s just over 30 years now. I started my own practice five years outta law school. So I’ve been on my own for, or have had my own firm for 25 plus years. We’re currently five lawyers and we now have a staff of five and all we do matrimonial and family law.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you started five years outta law school? So, you know, I asked this question. I’m always very interested. You know, there are some folks that sort of knew, they’re like, I’m gonna start my firm. It’s just a matter of when, not if, and there are others. That said, I never thought about it. I just sort of fell into it. Which camp do you fall into?

James P. Joseph: So great question and ironically, my wife and I had this conversation this morning. So, if she were answering it, she would tell you, and she’s probably right. And as a divorce lawyer, I’ll say, she’s always right. But she will say that I was in the camp of, this was my destiny. I would not have stayed as an employee in another firm.

That conversation came about because I was expressing gratitude towards the firm that [00:04:00] I left, which ultimately, which was a bunch of great guys, great lawyers men and women. But it imploded. It was very poorly run. And I said to her, had that been a better run firm, perhaps I wouldn’t have gone down this road.

And she said, absolutely not. You were destined to run your own practice.

Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, you know, that’s a good point about, you know, a lot of firms start when a former firm implodes.

James P. Joseph: And, And this one didn’t implode until years later, but it was on that path and you know, just was wonderful lawyers, smart, hardworking lawyers who just didn’t know how to run a business and just couldn’t turn a profit. And it was just not a great place to be an employee.

And it wasn’t great for them either. And they ultimately all enjoyed a lot of success when they went their own ways.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Yeah. It’s implosion can be a slow implosion or a quick implosion, but

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: is, Is that you, you sort of saw, it sounds like you saw it and you’re like, all right, I gotta get off this train and sort of jump on my own. [00:05:00] So, how long did it take you to sort of make that decision? You know, that’s another thing that’s very interesting to me is, you know, it’s one thing to say, yeah, I know I’m gonna do it someday, but it’s another thing to actually say, alright, I’m doing it today. And so what was the thing that finally said, all right, I’m doing it where you said, I’m not gonna think about it anymore. We’re on it.

James P. Joseph: Yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: it?

James P. Joseph: Great question. So it was 1998, so, the numbers are very different back then, but I, I was making $45,000 a year along, I was five years outta law school. My wife and I combined student loan payments were 1400 a month, which may not sound like a lot now, but that was a nice chunk of what I was taking home.

And when I went in to ask my boss for a raise who, you know, remained a mentor, you know, until his death a number of years ago he said to me, you know, what, what, how much do you think I should be paying you? And I said, honestly, double. And he said to me, you’re right. He said, but we have no money. You know, he is like, we can’t pay our bills.

He’s, I haven’t gotten up. He was always lamenting he hadn’t been paid in, you know, weeks [00:06:00] and months. And so it was a probably a quick and easy decision, at least in hindsight, I’m sure I struggled a bit at the time. But. I, you know, and at the time, maybe retainers on divorce cases and this, I don’t have a clear memory, but 2500, 3500 maybe you’d get a 5,000 dollars retainer.

And so the math was pretty easy. I didn’t need many cases to match what I had been earning with a $45,000 income. So, that’s how I recall it. So it’s 1998. The timing wasn’t great because my, at least because my wife was, had just become pregnant with our first child right around the time that I started my own practice.

But she’s been very supportive these nearly 30 years. And and here we are.

Jonathan Hawkins: so your wife’s a lawyer too, right?

James P. Joseph: She is. Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: Does she practice?

James P. Joseph: Yes. So, she was in the district attorney’s office as a prosecutor at the time. She stayed there for about 10 years. And then we had two young children. The firm was doing well, so she was able to work here [00:07:00] part-time and really be there for our children when they were younger. She was very good at matrimonial law, but it was not her passion.

I think it’s not the passion of many matrimonial law lawyers. And so recently she went back to the district attorney’s office where she couldn’t be happier. So she’s once again in, in doing what she loves.

Jonathan Hawkins: that’s cool. So, so I wanna ask, so, to the extent you’re comfortable talking about it, so, you know, you can learn a lot by mistakes of others. And so you mentioned that the other firm weren’t very good business people. They weren’t able to pay you. As you look back, I mean, what any lessons learned there?

What were some of the things they were doing wrong?

James P. Joseph: Countless lessons for which I’m very grateful. And so what did they do wrong? So I think the biggest problem was the matrimonial side of the practice had just started to grow when I joined the firm, and they didn’t know anything about the importance of client selection of billing, of collecting.

The [00:08:00] partner that was in charge of that side of the practice was a really decent nice guy who cared deeply about people. And we represented, as often happens when you start a matrimonial practice, friends and family and his friends, the bulk of them at the time didn’t have a lot of money. And matrimonial law could get very, divorce is expensive and he felt bad charging them.

And, And I, I later battled the same thing when I started my own practice. So I guess it took me a long time to learn the lesson. But one of the stories I like to share is I was two years outta law school when I started there. The senior associate was three years out of law school. And I said to him, I’ve never billed before.

How does it work? And he said, well, we’re generally here 12 hours a day, try to capture four. So we would capture four of the 12 hours we worked and we worked hard. And then the boss, when he would bill, he was probably billing half of those hours. Maybe collecting half of that. So, so that was one of the really valuable lessons.

Another one if, [00:09:00] you cut me off, cause I could speak all day about the lessons that I, I learned there.

Jonathan Hawkins: keep coming. Yeah. This, this is, This is good stuff.

James P. Joseph: And, And they were invaluable. One of the, back in the day, we used to have when you get a message from your staff, a phone message, it was on a three part there was a book, a phone answering book, and you’d get these little, not many people, I guess will see us on the video more.

We’ll probably listen, but you’d get the little, you know, three by five size message. And we would have a question for the partner. We being myself and the two other associates at the time. So we would go into his office and he’d be chain smoking because back then too many people did that, and across his desk would be literally.

50 of these three part messages, phone calls that he needed to return. And he’d be smoking and calling people back and we would sit there for two hours. And so he clearly was not good at managing his phone calls. And we would wait. And he wasn’t good at managing our time. ’cause we would sit in the room waiting to ask our question.

And because he, he was an experienced lawyer and a very smart, good lawyer, [00:10:00] but he was new to matrimonial law. So after literally two hours of sitting there, he would deal with his raspy voice, which I no longer will try to imitate because it hurts my throat. His smoker’s voice. He would say, you know, what’s your question?

And we would tell him, he’d say, I don’t know the answer. You guys are lawyers. This is what I pay you to do. Figure it out. And it would be said lovingly. And you know, there’s no criticism of him other than he, like all of us wasn’t trained to run businesses. He wanted to practice law. And that was a problem.

So we, I learned a lot. he was very good. I was, had not been somebody who was a. All that networked kind of person, and he was great at that, and I would sit and get to listen to this. Man who was an expert in that arena on the phone for two hours most days, which is also why we weren’t billing all that much.

So, so a lot came out of that. So I knew and so what happened as a result, we had to take on a lot of extra business because there was no money. So any case that came in, we would accept, regardless of whether they could afford to pay us in full, [00:11:00] regardless of whether they were reasonable, whether their goals were reasonable, and we could never get the work done.

And so. All day, we would put out fires. And I joke now, at the time I had been a volunteer fireman and I really enjoyed putting out real fires. There were, you know, as a fireman, and this may be terrible to say, but from the fireman side, there’s never enough. You know, you never wanna see people lose their homes, but, you know, there was not enough fires to keep us busy at work.

All I did all day was put out fires, and that’s terrible. And that was really upsetting. We couldn’t, we would have motions and we, we could never respect the due dates because we didn’t have, there was no time in the day because we were so busy because our caseload was unmanageable. And so, I, when I left, I, I knew that what we were doing was wrong.

And I thought with although I’ve never been accused of being arrogant, but with the confidence of a 20 something year old you know, who had a marketing degree. So I had a business degree. I was sure I was going to be a better business person. And then I started my own practice and we’ll get to that.

You know, but started to go down that [00:12:00] same path as I got busy.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you, you know, doing a lot of work, working 12 plus hours a day and not getting paid, I mean, you’re just stressing yourself out. I mean, if you’re gonna work that hard, you gotta make sure you’re getting paid. And, you know, I say this a lot, it’s like, you know, there is you know, it is good to do pro bono work.

You can if you can, but do it on purpose, not on accident.

James P. Joseph: Brilliant.

Jonathan Hawkins: and

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: it’s just so, yeah, and I get it too. I mean, the family law, divorce context, everybody’s emotional. You feel bad. I mean, they’re going through a tough time and you want to be helpful, but you know, if you aren’t getting paid you aren’t helping any of your clients probably.

James P. Joseph: Completely agree. You’re not helping your clients, you’re not helping yourself. It’s not fair to your firm. You know, just a terrible I had, I had a similar to what you say, I had a. A wise lawyer say to me earlier in my career, choose your pro bono cases. Don’t let them choose you. And as a result of that, we made it a habit.

He, I copied what he did and we always had one, what I call legitimate [00:13:00] pro bono case in our office. One that we would take from something like the Coalition Against Domestic Violence or you know, another similar nonprofit. So we always had one and that I thought would make us comfortable saying to the clients that came in that couldn’t afford it, we can’t help you.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

James P. Joseph: that was very helpful to me.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Okay. So five years after law school, you start your firm. Tell me about that. So, I assume, were you able to bring some cases with you? How’d you get the cases now back then? You know, 98 I guess I. The internet is starting, but you know, completely different world than it is today where everything’s basically in the cloud and virtual.

So it’s a different setup. You know, nowadays you just need a computer and internet connection really. And a

James P. Joseph: Right.

Jonathan Hawkins: and you can go, so tell me about getting it off the ground. What was that like?

James P. Joseph: Yeah, so right. Completely different world and, you know, as we may get to this world of internet marketing is, was completely foreign to me a couple of years ago and is very new to me. So back then, you know, I think personal injury [00:14:00] lawyers were running yellow book page ads. I don’t think any other areas of law were doing that.

And quite frankly, you know, it was probably frowned upon and that’s how I was brought up as a lawyer that we’re professionals and we don’t advertise. And and there wasn’t the availability to advertise like there is now. And so it was all word of mouth. So when I started my practice. You know, I think in the first month, I, you know, or two months, I, at some point I had three clients.

But again, I was making money. You know, I remember, you know, coming home to my wife and or calling her saying, I got a check for $3,500 we’re rich. You know, I mean, it was a lot of money, right? I was making, you know, 4,000 a month before that, or not even. And so, you know, of course I had, you know, some overhead, not a lot, but, so I didn’t have, I had very few cases in the beginning and, you know, worked hard.

I knew a lot of lawyers, so, you know, I did. Although I, I, I say I learned a lot of networking from that boss. I had always been active in my community. I had been a volunteer fireman. I knew a lot of people. I, although I [00:15:00] was. Born in Manhattan. I grew up on Long Island. I’m in the same town that I grew up in.

I knew a lot of people I was at some point I got active in our local Kiwanis Club, another community service organization. So I, I had a decent circle of people outside of the law. And then when my wife started in the DA’s office right out of law school, the class of attorneys that started with her, there were probably 30 lawyers.

And every week they, and myself, I, we were dating at the time not yet married. We would go out for happy hour, and so I got to know these 30 young lawyers who were criminal prosecutors. By the time I started my practice, the majority of them had started their own practices. And in the beginning, like many lawyers, when they start out, they take everything.

And fortunately for me, most of them would do one or two divorce cases and they would say, I’ll never do this again. I’ll give it to James. And so I had a decent network of referral sources pretty early on and, you know, and, and put my and with three cases you have time to work really hard. And I was accustomed to working [00:16:00] really hard and so did a, a nice job.

So, you know, I was able to develop a reputation pretty quickly. Which, which helped the practice grow.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so I don’t wanna circle back to that but first, so when you started your firm was it just you, did you have another attorney? Did you have a paralegal? What was the setup?

James P. Joseph: Just me. I don’t recall when we first, when I hired my first assistant you know, at some point I hired a secretary, you know, but probably not, you know, I, I don’t know if that happened in the first, you know, maybe in the first six months to a year would be my best guess.

Jonathan Hawkins: I guess if you have three cases to begin with you don’t have much work

James P. Joseph: Right. You don’t need a lot of help.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you know, run a firm. So, you know, I sort of look at it, you can probably divide it lots of different ways, but you know, there’s sort of three big areas, right? There’s the being a lawyer and delivering the legal part and that, you know, we learn that pretty quickly.

I mean, unless you’re in some super area, you can learn that pretty quickly. And then you’ve got sort of the marketing, you know, how do you get your cases? And then the other part is running the business, all the other stuff.

So, on the marketing side, it’s sort [00:17:00] of the old school referral. You got that, but how did you learn how to, I mean, you saw how not to do it, but how did you learn to run a business?

James P. Joseph: Yeah. So, at first it, you know, it was the misplaced confidence that I had a bachelor’s degree a business of BBA very quickly. I, I, I learned that. I couldn’t find the time to run the business because I got busy and I, you know, I quickly got more cases and began to find myself drowning similar to what had happened at my other firm.

So, falling into that trap in, probably late 2001 two things occur. One, I have a very large case in Staten Island, one of, one of the boroughs of New York City against at the time, very well known, respected New York City Manhattan divorce attorney and I guess I was late twenties could have been 30 at the time, 30 early thirties at the time.

And really excited that I had this adversary on the side. And interesting [00:18:00] situation, you know, where somebody had come into a a windfall of tens of millions of dollars. And so I can remember to this day where I was on the phone with this attorney, when he said to me, I was in my car, and he said, you know, James, can I give you a little bit of advice?

And I said, you know, Bob, of course, you know, I’d love to hear from you. And he said, you know, you’re, you’re really smart, you know, young lawyer, you’re gonna do great. You know, you have a great career ahead of you. But the one bit of advice I’ll give you, you need to return phone calls timely. And I literally broke out in a cold sweat.

I was, this was the one thing that I had sworn to myself, I would not. Put myself or my clients in ever again. And here I am. I’ve been out on my own for three years. And that’s exactly what’s happened. And it was kind of that wake up call. I’m doing exactly what, you know, I had left to build something better.

Around that same time, there’s an article in the New York Bar Association at the time had a monthly newspaper as I recall it. And there’s an article written by a management [00:19:00] consultant about how to run a practice and have a better life. And it spoke to me. There were not, now everybody’s a coach back then, as I, I had never heard of this before.

I think in hindsight I’ve learned maybe there were two companies that were working coaching lawyers on the business side of things. So this company was the writer was a coach at Atticus which is still around a very successful lawyer coaching outfit. And coincidentally, they had something coming up in early 2002, a three day seminar, introductory seminar in Manhattan.

And so I signed up for that. And as they say, the rest is history went to this and it was life changing. So I can tell you a little bit of, if, you know, I’m happy to,

Jonathan Hawkins: wanna hear about that. You know, like you said there, there’s so many coaches and consultants nowadays. They’re everywhere and they’re all promising you this, that and the other. And I’ve always, you know, I’ve known about Atticus for many, many years, and I mean, I’ve got a coach there now. I’m not part of the formal program, but I’ve always thought of them as one of [00:20:00] the, the OGs.

James P. Joseph: yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: and you know, it’s amazing still, and I’m curious your opinion too, but even today you know, with a coach on every corner there’s still a lot of attorneys that are just out there floundering. And they just don’t know where to go. So, you know, something like that be very helpful for them.

For them. So, so you go to the seminar. Does it

James P. Joseph: Yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: you away? Tell me, Tell me.

James P. Joseph: Blows me away. So, so a couple things happened stories I, I’ve shared countless times because it was so powerful for me. And we just had an employee start yesterday, and I shared this one story in particular where Mark Powers the founder of Atticus said so there’s a group, and at the time I’m, I’m one of the youngest in the group, so let’s say there’s 40 attorneys in the room, and he said, all right, let’s take a couple of minutes and I just want you to jot down what do you like to do in your free time?

You know, and the room goes silent. And I’m thinking you know, I used to, I think I used to do this, and I look around and no pencils are moving. So, you know, that was of course very powerful. And you know, after you know, mark, let us sweat a [00:21:00] little bit. And Mark then said, you know, when you guys were in law school, was this the dream?

You know, that you would have no life outside of your practice, you know, and of course it was not. And then at some point later, over the course of the seminar, he said to us, I guess towards the end, so this is what, this is your marching orders. What I want you to do is, unless you have a trial coming up, stop working weekends.

And not only did he tell us to stop working weekends, but he said, I also want you to take once a month, take one midweek day off. And he said, he laughed and he said, none of you’ll know what to do with your free time because you have no interests or hobbies. He said, so go to the movies, you know, just do something but get away from your office.

And at that point he had explained very clearly the benefits of doing that or at least a fair amount of them. But, but I still wasn’t fully convinced. And so I pulled him aside at a break. I said, mark, I, you know, I want to ask you a question. I said, you have to understand I’m, you know, and I’ll do that.

So I’m 35, you know, things are going well in my firm. I want to be the guy, I wanna be the top divorce attorney [00:22:00] on Long Island. That’s what drives me and you’re telling me to work less. And I don’t get it because, you know, great lawyers of course have to, you know, work really hard, you know, work countless hours.

And he smiled and he said, James, let me ask you a question. He said, if you wrote another motion, would that make you a better lawyer? I said good point. You know, at this point, definitely not. He said, okay. He said, what if instead, you had time to strategize? What if you could, what if you had, you could really think about your cases and, and, you know, figure out the best approach.

And I said, gosh, mark, like that’s a no brainer. Right? It makes total sense. And you know, in my firm, you know, we’re really proud that we’re proactive, not reactive and that we can only do that. That’s not because we’re brilliant that we can only do that because we run the firm. Right.

And we can only run the firm. Right. Because I’ve been coached for 20 plus years you know, through Atticus and now, you know, you know, with a lot of different resources that have become available to us.

Jonathan Hawkins: So I gotta ask did you take the weekends off and the one day a week, did you do

James P. Joseph: I,

Jonathan Hawkins: how long

James P. Joseph: you know,

Jonathan Hawkins: for you to do [00:23:00] it?

James P. Joseph: great question. I, I can’t imagine that changed overnight and not back then because I wasn’t staffed up enough to, you know, and I was still, I still had too many. Cases that were not appropriate for my firm, you know, is the best way to put it. So, you know, there’s a lot that goes into being able to do that.

It’s completely doable and it leads to a better life and a better practice better, you know, we do better lawyering when we are careful with how we, who we led into our practice. So, I, so I don’t recall I’d be making it up. It took a while, I’m sure, but it reached a point where you know when Atticus would do certain seminars and quarterly meetings, and they would ask some of us from the experience group to go in and talk to the new people and mark over at lunch, and Mark would say to us, do me a favor.

Don’t tell them what your life really looks like because they’ll think you’re shilling and they won’t believe you. And that was true. And we couldn’t share people weren’t ready to hear that that, you know, how good your life could be [00:24:00] and still run a really good practice that you could be proud of and still know that your clients aren’t getting better representation anywhere else.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you, you know, even if you didn’t immediately implement it, it is a good goal to shoot for and you know, a good starting goal.

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Starting goal.

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so you got, you, you became more and more involved with the Atticus. You you know, your firm grew. It became more of a business you started operating.

It’s more as a business now at some point. I understand you, you sort of became a coach or did some coaching for lawyers at, with Atticus or maybe elsewhere.

James P. Joseph: So,

Jonathan Hawkins: me about that.

James P. Joseph: so Atticus you know, I have such, you know, love and respect for the organization and for Mark Powers and Shawn McNalis, who was my personal coach and writes a lot of materials and, you know, if I start mentioning names I’ll omit somebody. And I don’t wanna offend because so many had such a great impact on me.

But there was a time that Mark and Shawn were leading a program for divorce lawyers and divorce lawyers from around the country. Many of them, members of the American Academy of [00:25:00] Matrimonial Lawyers, which I chose not to do for various reasons, but you know, very respected, impressive attorneys from around the country were a part of this.

And I had been around so long and you, you know, for whatever reason, Mark and Shawn said, Hey, why don’t we start training you, you know, would you have any interest? We’ll train you to coach. You can help us run these meetings and, you know, work under dur us, work with us. And that was, you know, an incredible, you know, I.

Again, that they had such a big impact on my life. Shawn coached me. Maybe we’ll have time to get to it, you know, through some really tough times in my life and very effectively. And so I was happy for the opportunity. So I began to help. I began to help them run what at the time was called a Dominate Your Market Program for matrimonial attorneys.

So we did that for a while. That was great. And then added that in some other experiences they had with taking clients that they had coached and helping them become coaches. Because, you know, I would joke that I had drank the Kool-Aid and in in a way. That, you know, again, I, you know, I think I’m emphasizing it enough, but, you know, out of respect, you know, not out of, they’re [00:26:00] crazy but it was just so life changing.

And not rocket science, but, you know, but powerful lessons I learned. And so they ended up developing a program to train other clients of theirs as coaches. So, and they, they still have that, it’s very effective. Their APA program Atticus Practice Advisor program. So I became an attic. I did some more training with, they did some formal training, which was phenomenal.

Became an Atticus practice advisor. Coached a couple of attorneys along the way. I don’t do it anymore. I’m at a different stage in life and I’m doing some exciting things with the firm and my local Bar Association. I’m about to become president next week. And it’s a, a very big local bar association.

We have 3,700 members. We have our own building. We have an in-house caterer. So it’s a lot of work, a lot of responsibilities. So, so I’ve put that part of my, that chapter aside for now.

Jonathan Hawkins: Alright, I wanna talk about your upcoming presidency or what, or chairmanship, whatever they call it. But before we do that, I want button up the coaching thing. So maybe because you started taking all this time off you had more time to do it, [00:27:00] but how did you manage back in the day, you know, running and growing a firm and then also basically running a different business, being a coach, you know, how, how do you balance those sorts of things?

James P. Joseph: You know, it’s interesting, when I interviewed for my bar association board for the first time, you know, 15 some odd years ago we go before a panel of you know, at the time, you know, older, more experienced attorneys. And one of the past presidents, when he saw what I was doing, I was volunteering in, in a number of different charities.

I was on the board and ultimately chaired the board of a big social services nonprofit based on Long Island with a $25 million budget. I was on the board of our local chapter of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society for many years and did a ton of fundraising for them. And he said, how do you do and, and had this firm that, you know, everybody knew about and had a really nice reputation. You know, how do you do it all? And great advice. I mean, it just really, you know, I, one of the things when we, I’ve been fortunate to be able to, have really good lawyers come and work with me and, you know, become partners in my firm. [00:28:00] And they came, you know, a number of them, you know, they come from all different places, but we’ve had a couple that have come from really respected law firms.

And one would share how, you know, when the copying machine broke, you know, he was the younger guy, he’d fix the copy machine. And, you know, if and I remember when I started my practice maybe I’ll tease our listeners, your listeners. Maybe they don’t remember stamps, but you know, I used to go to the post office when I started my practice and I’d go buy stamps and I’d go back, you know, later in the week and drop off my letters.

And so what I learned was that really is inefficient and lawyers should do you know, what’s their highest and best use you know, is practicing law. And in a hourly firm, you know, there’s this very direct correlation and in a contingency firm, you know, ultimately that pays off too. And so early on through coaching, understood the value, understood that it wasn’t a cost to hire staff, it was an investment.

I shouldn’t view it as just an [00:29:00] expense and made that investment and also understood that I needed to have the right people. And so, particularly in the early years, we went through a lot of people and it was hard and a lot of really nice people that I cared about personally, we couldn’t retain because they weren’t right for the firm.

And Atticus a amongst the countless lessons they taught me that as the firm owner, I can’t adopt people. That’s not fair to the rest of the firm. And it’s not fair to those people because what I have seen is in firms where they. Where they would hire poorly and not fix those errors. You’d have people that have been working in a place for 10 years, they know they’re not respected.

They know that they’re not, that people aren’t happy with them. So they’re miserable. Everybody’s miserable. And I think that, you know, you’re doing everyone a disservice. And so that was a hard lesson. You know, I’m an, you know, a nice guy. I care about people a lot. But we worked really [00:30:00] hard and still do, to make sure that our team is top notch and it pays off.

And that, and so the lawyers practice law and, we work very efficiently so that we don’t spend 12 hours in the office regardless of how much we bill. You know, I’m, money has never been the biggest driving force in my life. Maybe to a fault. But it, it’s really important that we have a life outside of law.

Mark Powers, you know, highlighted that even as a lawyer for me that’s possible. And and it’s, and so that’s allowed me to do a lot of other things that other lawyers, you know that, had I not been exposed to this, I wouldn’t believe is possible either.

Jonathan Hawkins: So just made a ton of good points, but I wanna maybe bring out two. One is, you know, the people. And it’s really more, I mean, the people are what matters, you know, if you really want to go, you gotta get good people. Everybody knows that, I would hope. But the flip side of that is if somebody’s not right, you gotta get rid of them.

And that’s, it’s not easy. It’s hard,

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: small where the atmosphere.[00:31:00]

James P. Joseph: Right.

Jonathan Hawkins: but then the other piece is these groups like Atticus and there are other groups out there where you get to hang out and talk to other owners sort of a support system. And they can tell you that you may know it, like, I gotta do it. I probably shouldn’t be, you know, keeping this person on. But they’ll call you out on it and they say, next time I see you, you better have made your move or whatever. And then it sort of, it helps. I mean, I, I’ve been there and those groups are, you know really valuable. So anybody out there that’s not in a group like this, you know, definitely encourage you to do that.

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: Let’s talk about your, your, is it you’re gonna be president of the bar

James P. Joseph: Yes, president.

Jonathan Hawkins: So tell me about, you know, your experience in the bar that, you know, some people view it as a they’re giving back to the community. Some people view it as a business development sort of thing.

[00:32:00] I mean, it could be all sorts of things. Some people are just political animals. What got you involved in the bar and what sort of benefits have you received along the way? I know once you get on that ladder, it takes many, many years to, to all of a sudden ascend to the presidency.

So I know you’ve

James P. Joseph: Yes,

Jonathan Hawkins: it a long time.

James P. Joseph: Yes. So, I can speak from my bar association and I presume, you know, it’s similar across the country. You know, and to the point that you just made about these different groups, Atticus and so many others, the value of these professional relationships and on so many levels and on the level that you’re referring to, where we get to see what other people are doing and we share and we learn from them.

And you know, again, I, had I not seen what was possible in o other lawyers actually doing it. I wouldn’t have gone down the path. I went down. And so that, you know, has had such an impact on my life and the Bar Association is one place to get that. And so, you know, we, in Nassau County [00:33:00] where my office is on Long Island, we have a, we’ve always had a very strong bar association.

Our bar was, we just celebrated our hundred 25th anniversary. We were founded in 1899. We own our own building you know, which is kind of nice and not true for many bar associations. And we have an in-house caterer at our Bar Association. So it’s a really special place and a lot of good goes on there.

So, we have we have a charitable arm of our bar association. We care, the bar covers all of their expenses. So every dollar they raise, they get to give back to local charities and they give out a few hundred thousand dollars a year. So we have a lot of lawyers involved in that. We have our, we run our academy of law, the continuing legal education we run out of there.

So part of our bar membership includes free CLEs and of, and all lawyers, I presume across the country have a cer have different requirements for CLEs. So we run great programs through that. We have a LAP program, a lawyer assistance program. I think we’re one of two or three in New York state that has a full-time social worker on staff so that attorneys with [00:34:00] drug or alcohol or mental health issues can come in confidence and have somebody to speak with and get the support they need, both on a personal level.

But then also there are attorneys that, that are part of our lab program that will come in and help them run their firms and cover cases and deal with the fallout if they have to go into rehab or whatever else it may be. So, so much good happens at many bar associations, mine included. So it, it fulfills that I.

That charitable side of things. And then from a networking standpoint at least for me as we discussed earlier so much of my work has always come from other attorneys and then has been representing other lawyers in their own divorces that it’s a great place for me to be. And although I’ve been a member of my bar association, you know, probably for almost as long as I’ve been an attorney at.

I probably got active 15 plus years ago, and then at some point it was one of my Atticus coaches. I was lamenting that I was spread too thin and I was, you know, at the time I think chairing the [00:35:00] social services nonprofit board, I was, you know, very involved in the Leukemia Lymph Lymphoma Society board.

I was very involved with Atticus, with, you know, coaching and being coached and said, you know, I’m out of balance and I’m not, you know, taking the ti kind of time off that I had become accustomed to. And the coach wisely explained to me, he said, James you can’t do everything. You have to learn how to say no.

I have a funny LinkedIn post I did a year ago about the importance of saying no, and that’s probably, you know, where it comes from. And he said to me, James, figure out where you, what organization will serve multiple purposes. Pick that one to put your time into, and the other ones put your money into.

But you can’t do all of this. And it was brilliant advice and, you know, and, and the answer was in front of me. You know, the bar fulfills my desire to serve both my, the community at large, but also other attorneys and certainly fulfills the goal of my firm. And, you know, we’re always looking to grow and, and, you know, the referrals, you know, that I [00:36:00] get of that have been, you know, incredibly valuable.

And so, so it was for me, a bit of a no brainer. I will say it’s a lot of work. And I knew that going into it when I when I began to interview for our executive committee is, is a ladder once you get on it, and it’s really a six year ladder because the six year we’re the immediate past president and.

Jonathan Hawkins: I hear that’s the best year, by the

James P. Joseph: Yes, Yes. I, I, I, I do believe that, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t, I don’t look forward. I, as I certainly am looking forward to this year, and I certainly am looking forward to that year as well. And so it took several years of interviewing before you finally get chosen. So I was probably 48 when I thought this was a great idea.

I’m now 58 and I’m, I am honored to serve and I’m excited and looking forward to it, and I’m looking forward to being the immediate past president as well.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I wish you a, a good year. I know. It’s a ton of work. I’ve not personally done it, but I’ve seen people, I’ve talked to people and there it’s like, oh my gosh. Ton of work.

James P. Joseph: Yes, yes, It in front of you, so, so good luck.

yes. Thank you.

Jonathan Hawkins: [00:37:00] so, so I want to shift gears a little bit. And I know you, you’ve spoken about this a lot and you know, we don’t have to linger on it, but I do think it’s an important part of your story. And that’s you know, three years in into starting your firm, you had, you know, young children or one or two at least. And then all of a sudden you get boom hit with some crazy news out of the blue. So why, why don’t you sort of tell us that story? ’cause I, I think that’s important. And the other thing I, just to give it some context too, it’s, you know, you go through life and you got these plans and you’re like, I’m gonna do this and it’s gonna be great.

And you’re there and you just, you never know what’s gonna come out of the blue. But something almost always is gonna come out of the blue. So, how you deal with it is

James P. Joseph: Yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know,

James P. Joseph: Yeah.

Jonathan Hawkins: again you’ve spoken on this on, can find it. I think it’s very powerful. But, you know,

James P. Joseph: Thank you.

Jonathan Hawkins: what happened.

James P. Joseph: So, you know. Yeah. Yes. So, well said, completely agree. You know, as I write my my speech for my installation I’ve been giving this some more thought. Not that it’s [00:38:00] ever all that far removed, but you know, as a, as we, I think the older we get hopefully the more we realize that everybody has a story and everybody is gonna go through some real hardship.

Life is hard. And I think that’s kind of a baseline and I think accepting that can make life easier and more enjoyable. We’re all gonna get our teeth kicked in at some point. You know, I used to think that divorce law was economy proof. I figured if the economy was, was good, people would have money and they would cheat.

And if the economy was bad, they would fight. And, you know, I, I don’t say that lightheartedly, you know, it’s sad but I always, you know, thought we’re fine. And then, you know, oh eight hit. And business dropped off for everybody. I hated going to court because all my adversaries were lamenting how bad business was.

And then of course, COVID came and affected, you know, I think other than the bankruptcy attorneys, I think everybody got hurt by that. So, so we all have something. So for me so when I was 34, life was going great. The practice was doing really well. My wife was seven months pregnant with our second child, and I was having some routine [00:39:00] blood work done and came back with a high white blood cell count.

My doctor, who was a friend, was very concerned. He had lost a, a friend who was, when they were residents to leukemia. So he red flagged it. My internist said, ah, don’t worry about it. You’ve always had a white blood, high, white blood cell count. We did another follow-up test and my internist said, the other doctor said.

I’m sending it to a hematologist, and I was outwardly healthy. Life was great. I, you know, I’ve always been a relatively fit guy, and so I really thought nothing of it. My wife who tragically lost her father to cancer when she was a senior in college was, you know, a bit more concerned. But one Friday she went to work.

I had my own firm. I, you know, went to the doctor’s office. And this young doctor who I ended up representing ironically, or coincidentally or not, I guess, did some blood work, came back a little bit later with tears in his eyes. He knew my wife was pregnant. He had just had a newborn himself, unbeknownst to me at the time, his marriage was failing.

And he said to me, I have bad news. You have leukemia. And and I was, you know, the furthest thing from my [00:40:00] mind. I, it was a beautiful, it was April 27th, 2001. Beautiful day. And I can picture, I, you know, I’ll never forget. Any of it, but driving home and my wife, who’s panicked is calling me and the phone just keeps ringing.

And to this day it moves me, you know, this poor, you know, we were kids, you know, compared to where we are now. And she had our child inside of her, and she knew something was wrong and I, you know, did not, never saw this coming. And so I had, I was diagnosed with a chronic leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which a chronic disease is often slow moving.

I was fortunate within you know, six months to a year I was able to get to. The world renowned expert of CLL at the time, the staging system was named after him. This, the wonderful, beautiful man, Dr. Kanti Rai happens to practice, right, right in my, on Long Island. And I think he’s still not retired and he’s gotta be well into his nineties.

But brilliant man, great bedside manner. And I, and when I got to him, I was so excited to find out what stage I was in. ’cause it was the Rai staging system. And he said, you know, very wise man, he said, you know, I don’t really like [00:41:00] using that anymore. You know, that made sense back then, but we understand the disease better.

And so, so for the next four years I was in what’s known as watch and wait. So no one knew. We told our closest friends, but of course who’s hiring a divorce lawyer who has cancer. And I’ll probably say it more than once, but I, I’m the poster child for perfect Outcomes. I was cured 18 years ago and I’ve been in perfect health ever since.

So for the next four years, every, you know, we would, I would compartmentalize it, but you know, of course it was a lot of stress on my wife and our, you know, young children and me too, you know, probably still in denial to a degree, but every three months you’d go and you’d be waiting for the shoe to drop.

And finally in August of 2005 it was time to start chemo because they, at the time, with the treatments they had it didn’t, you wouldn’t do anything until the disease progressed. And I was relatively young at that time. They still believed this was a disease much more common in, in people in their sixties and seventies.

But it’s not uncommon in, in young people as well, unfortunately. And Dr. Rai [00:42:00] knew enough about the disease, had a deep enough understanding that he knew, he was fairly confident that chemo would put me into remission, but that I wouldn’t stay in remission. And that the only possible cure was what’s known as a stem cell transplant.

That is still a very risky procedure. Back then, it was even riskier. But before we started chemo, he sent me up to Boston because back then it was not as common a procedure. So there were only a few really great transplant hospitals in the country. One was in Boston, and so we went to Boston and we did a consultation with a doctor up there.

And so for the next two years I had chemo on and off. And again, I was always, the poster child for, you know, it always was the best of the worst, I guess. And so I didn’t know what was gonna happen. I had two trials coming up that September. I pulled both judges aside. I said, please keep this quiet.

I may be calling you at the last minute for an adjournment. I have no idea what the chemo’s gonna look like. And the chemo wasn’t terrible. You know, I think I got, you know, outwardly sick once. I, as you and I wear our hair similarly, and [00:43:00] I, I wore it the same back then. The, for those who are not watching it we keep our hair short.

And so, hair loss wasn’t really an issue. And so I, so people still didn’t know, and so from oh five to oh seven, I had periodic chemotherapy and it was just a scheduling issue. And on the light days, I would be, I would go to chemo at eight and I’d be in court at nine 30 and nobody knew.

And we just kept we had to tell my office at that point. But everyone understood, we, there’s no need to tell clients, we’re not deceiving them. I’m functioning fine, you know, under a lot of pressure, but functioning fine. And doing a nice job, you know, proud of the work we did back then. I had a couple associates at the time.

And then in, in oh six or right around Christmas time, it became clear and the decision was made. It was time to get a, a stem cell transplant. And that’s, you know, you know, I could, you know, we could spend a lot of time talking about that. But the goal is to get to get as little disease as possible in me, the patient and to find a perfect match.

And some people, genetically, there are lots of perfect matches in the world, and some people [00:44:00] there aren’t. And for me, there were two. And often when you find the match, they may not still be willing to donate. They may have gone into the system because they did it for a friend or a neighbor. So I would implore everybody listening.

There’s a couple of outfits that do it. I think one is be the match. You know, it’s they would a cheek swab and you’ll be saving somebody’s life. And somebody saved my life you know, because, somebody who was, you know, the same match. So I got, I was found, got a perfect match. And, but it took time.

So from December through that July or that June, we were just kind of waiting for the stars to align, for me to be healthy for the, my donor to be healthy. And they flew somebody halfway across the world from Dana-Farber to pick up the stem cells. And and I said goodbye to my girls. We, I was told there was a two and seven chance as I recall, that I wouldn’t make it.

I was told there was a. Two. And, And still, you know, is, is moving, you know, 18 years later,

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

James P. Joseph: two in seven chance I would have lifelong debilitating side effects and one in seven for a perfect outcome. And I had the perfect outcome. [00:45:00] And so, so July 5th, 2007, my license plates now say their SCT for stem cell transplant.

They look like any other New York plate. You wouldn’t know it unless I told you it’s 7 5 0 7 the date of my transplant, July 5th oh seven. I’ll be celebrating my 18th three birthday next month. Based on our filming. And so had the transplant, everything worked out great and, you know, and for years I would go back once a year for checkups, and the doctor and I kind of recognized that this was silly.

I’m cured. They don’t like saying cured. But I, it became obvious after a number of years that there was no trace of disease in me. But I would, but I, I still felt good going because I could talk to the other patients and, you know, they could see that, you know, some people, you know, it works out really well for, so, so anyway, so, so here I am very happy and relieved.

And you know, the child that was in vitro now lives in la 23, 23 years old, doing great. She’ll be flying back home for my installation in a week or so.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that you know, well, number one, I mean, I don’t even know what you say. Congratulations or I don’t know what you say, but, [00:46:00] you know, that’s an incredible story. You know, the odds, I mean, it’s, I mean, you hate to say it, but it’s almost like it was meant to be and you’re here for something.

I don’t know if, did it change? I’m sure it did all sorts of things to you, but how did it change, sort of your outlook on life, your firm you know, was it before and after? I mean, is it sort of like that?

James P. Joseph: You know, it took me a long time to recognize and accept the impact of it. And, you know, as a divorce attorney, we work with a lot of mental health professionals. And I’ve done some collaborative work, which involves at the table, the negotiating table, you’ll have a mental health professional.

Became close with quite a few. And one day I was sharing my story and, and I. Once one of my friends said to me, she said, you know, you still have not dealt with this and you’re not understanding the impact it had. And I, and for a long time I wouldn’t talk openly about it because post-transplant, it takes a long time before you feel safe.

It took even longer for my wife to feel, you know, safe and secure again. [00:47:00] But that first year is, is, you know, the first three months are very risky and even the first year is, is risky. So, so it took a long time to to recognize and accept the impact. So I wouldn’t say that it’s, it’s not black and white that, you know, everything changed.

It’s helped me a lot and that’s, you know, I have the license plate because I think, you know, we all get caught up in the day to day and, you know, we wake up and we, oh, I got this to do and I have that to do, and oh, my life’s so hard. And and that’s all true. But we also woke up and I think.

I work hard to remain in gratitude. Atticus gives us hands out a nice card that I keep on my desk, which are, are there I, I’ll show to, to the extent that people see this. And it, it’s two parts, but it says, in daily life, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.

And that’s a quote from a monk that both Mark Powers and I and some other people know very well. So, so I think it’s made it easier for me to [00:48:00] recognize the fragility of life. My children know it well, you know, the pandemic, you know, was nothing new for us because when they, you get a stem cell transplant, they basically eradicate your immune system and it takes a long time for that to come back.

And so living with masks and gloves is something that my kids did when they were very young, five and seven, you know, so that I wouldn’t get sick and something, you know, that I lived with. And so we were able to donate. We have a friend who you know, in the medical field, and we gave her literally a thousand N95 masks because we had them from, you know, 10 plus years ago at the time.

You know, so, so it taught us a lot. So I understand you know, we all understand it rationally. I think it’s something that I try to, I try, I work hard to think about a lot, and I don’t do it. You know, I do it because I think we should all hopefully live our lives that way because life is short and bad things happen to all of us.

And, you know, as I said before, and I, I truly believe it, you know, as a divorce lawyer in particular, I’ve had, I guess, the honor of people sharing, [00:49:00] you know, really sad things with me. And the truth is, you know, when you, I don’t know how many people go through life unscathed and this monk that I referred to which is at some point doing these quarterly meetings with divorce lawyers and, and Mark Powers and one of the guy’s father was an Episcopalian monk, a minister. And he said to us, what do you think about us? One meeting at, at a monastery one day? And I was a little hesitant.

But but we went and the first day was amazing and really had an impact us. And day two comes and there’s 12 of us. There was one criminal defense attorney and 11 divorce lawyers. And the monk brother Curtis, with a twinkle in his eyes, says to us, something amazing happened this morning and I inch up in my seat ’cause I can’t wait to hear that the impact that US divorce lawyers had on these monks.

And he smiles and he says we all woke up and he said, we were able to see the clock and our legs worked and were able to get us outta bed. And I later learned that tragically Brother Curtis’s, one of his biological [00:50:00] brothers, I think three or four months earlier had been visiting the monastery. And it, I think it was, I forget if it’s 95 or 91 up in Boston.

And he got on the throughway and he got killed in a car accident. And brother Curtis had just, you know, undergone this really rough tragedy, and yet he’s still able to be grateful every morning that he woke up. And I’ve taken that with me and I’ve told that story, you know, easily a thousand times.

I told it to my Uber driver when we were down in Florida. I had an Uber driver who clearly was in recovery. Hopefully he was recovered but really struggling. And I and I was excited to share that with him. You know, as he was lamenting how hard he works and he can’t make ends meet. And so, so for me, I think, it’s probably easier for me to be philosophical having gone through, you know, what I went through and my family went through and, you know, it’s corny and, and, you know, if you’re currently a cancer patient out there, you know, my heart, you know, goes out to you and you may, and you won’t be ready to hear this.

So, so, turn down the volume. But but it really, you know, was a blessing. You know, [00:51:00] a, I am, my life is better because of it. I wouldn’t, you know, if, if I had a do-over I don’t know that I would pick that route. But I probably should pick that route because it was very valuable and it’s impacted everything we do here.

It’s impacted my firm and all for the better, you know, and just, and it’s impacted, you know, I think my clients benefit from it, you know, from us recognizing what’s important and you know, when I was a young lawyer I became a lawyer. I went to the try cases. And early on I knew that trials are generally not in divorcing clients’ best interests.

There are times you need to do it. And I would tell the clients back then, you know, look, I enjoy that this isn’t about me having fun. We have to do, you know, what’s right for your family. We understand that I think here on a deeper level and are work hard to make sure that clients are doing what’s right for them rather than being guided just by emotion and running up fees unnecessarily.

And I think all that kind of goes into this history that I had.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, well thank you for sharing that. It’s a really powerful story and you know, to sort of circle it back [00:52:00] to your firm. I mean, I, this sounds like it was a multi, multi-year process. Sort of basically started shortly after you started your firm, but then you were going through this personal thing the same time you’re growing your firm.

I mean, just really sort of amazing that you were able to do that. I

James P. Joseph: Yes, great observation. And I’m laughing. You know, we, we grew revenue wise, gross revenue, 40, and this is pre-internet, you know, this is referral based market, you know, we grew 40% a year, our gross revenue from the time I started through chemo, through transplant, stopping only after the financial crisis.

And, you know, so through it all somehow, you know, and, and again I won’t, the only patting on my back I will do is that I was fortunate enough to find experts to give me guidance and, whatever adjective we want to use. Smart enough, humble enough, desperate enough to be ready to accept their guidance, you know, and maybe the cancer helped me accept that too.

Who knows? You [00:53:00] know, recognizing that, you know, maybe that, you know, learning that we’re not in control, right? A lot of lawyers, right? We’re driven and we think that we can control everything and we fight. And and maybe, you know, I learned, I’ve never put these pieces together, Jonathan. So, so this is really helpful to me.

But Maybe that’s where I, I recognize for the first time that you need to find the best, you need to find experts, and then you need to trust them. And that’s hard to do. You know what I feel for my clients, it’s hard, you know, they’re putting a lot of trust in us, and there are some clients that have a really hard time doing that.

But you need to find the right, the right people to, you know, there’s a term called your, your rope team. You know, the people on your rope team. The I think this blind climber, I think I saw a great video of her. She spoke at an Atticus event. And I may get the story wrong, but you know, she needed a rope team to climb.

She was blind and she did some great climbs. I think she wrote a book. I think she’s very famous. It’s terrible. I don’t remember her name, but you know, this reference to you who’s on your rope team, you know, who’s gonna help you. And this thought that we go through life alone and you know, this myth of the American cowboy, you [00:54:00] know, taking over the west.

And you know, that’s not reality. You know, we can’t, and in the modern world, you know, flying solo in life is a big mistake and there’s so much, and now with the internet, there’s so much information and advice available. You know, it’s incredible. So,

Jonathan Hawkins: So,

James P. Joseph: thank you,

Jonathan Hawkins: Yes,

James P. Joseph: you for bringing that, that connection up.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. And, you know, thanks for sharing. And so I’ve got a couple more questions that they may take a little while to answer, but you’ve dropped a lot of good stuff, but sort of wrap it up with you know, for other law firm owners out there that maybe, you know, several stages behind you, advice you would give them, you know, in terms of just, you know, getting their life together, getting their firm together.

And this is both from going through it yourself and from being a coach.

James P. Joseph: Yep. So, yeah, so, so a few things come to mind immediately and I guess the first obvious answer, based on our conversation, get a coach. You know, find somebody you know, we tell our clients, all of our clients, get yourself into therapy. And [00:55:00] someone like therapy, I, there’s nothing wrong with me.

It’s his fault. It’s her fault. And I say, I understand that, but you know, you, you weren’t trained on how to handle a divorce. And there’s a lot of emotions that go with that. And you cannot get a, a therapist, but I promise you, your divorce is gonna take longer. ’cause the emotions are gonna cloud your judgment.

They’re gonna make my job, my team’s job harder. So get a therapist. So, so, and you may have to interview quite a few. You may need to, you know, you don’t always find the right person the first time, just like we discussed earlier with employees. So find a coach. You know, I’m a fan of Atticus, of course.

You know, and there’s a lot of outfits out there. You know, but speak to somebody. I think that, you know, is the biggest game changer. And out of coaching some of the big things that you’ll get, you know, time management is a real thing. Although I’m a big fan, I think it’s Oliver Burkeman, 4,000 Weeks he talks a lot about where time management is impossible.

And I agree with him. But we can manage our day to a large degree and we can use our time more efficiently. You know, interruptions. There’s so many simple things we can do. So many of us you know, are just interrupted all day long, and you can manage those [00:56:00] interruptions. I’ve done it. I. I have a busy, successful matrimonial practice.

I used to have a full case load. It can be done and it can make a difference. So time. So get a coach and from that coach, let them teach you techniques on time management. Learn about client selection. You know, you can’t take every case that comes in the door, figure out what your ideal, you know, figure out who you like representing.

Figure out who you’re currently representing and get those into alignment. And by like, you know, they also need to be profitable. You need to turn a profit. You know, this is not the place to do your charity. You know, do pro bono. I’m a big fan, pro bono, you know, do volunteer work, but you need to run.

A profitable firm now more than ever because it’s going to get harder and harder to compete. And that’s, you know, topics for different podcasts and, and perhaps people other than me. But you know, there, there’s a lot happening in, in the world and in the, and in the legal, you know, in the legal world, particular to us.

And so I think that we’re gonna all have to get really efficient and I think we’re gonna have to grow if we think we’re gonna survive. So, so learning about [00:57:00] client selection is so important and, and really picking and choosing. And then I think you know, one of the reasons I, I loved Atticus is that, you know, their, their motto is Great practice, great life.

And, you know, there’s different coaching outfits, you know, some focus on marketing, you know, some, you know, focus on, you know, just making a lot of money and, you know, all those things are great and important and again, perhaps because of my history but I think that I. You know, at some point it became clear to me and Atticus did an exercise with us.

They call it My Great Life. And it’s an exercise that I think isn’t uncommon in the coaching world, but we start with how do you wanna be remembered? You know, what do you want written on your tombstone? And that for many of us, is a great opportunity to recognize that. I don’t want my tombstone to say he was a great lawyer, you know, committed to his profession, who died at his desk, you know, at the ripe old age of, you know, 72.

That’s not what I want for myself. And I would suggest that for most of us we can do more and we can have more. We can not only be great [00:58:00] lawyers, but we can be great spouses, partners, parents, friends, and lead a really good, fulfilled, powerful life. We’ve been very fortunate to be lawyers whatever it is that got us here.

You know, we you know, we take an oath and you know, that’s a, you know, a solemn oath. And and we have power and we can influence and represent people and and we be, should be role models and role models for society, for our clients, for our children. And having a fulfilled life I think is part of that.

And for most of us, I think we can do more than just role model. I worked my ass off and I was at the top of my game. I think you can work really hard, be at the top of your game, but also have a great life and that great life, a great life, you know, maybe in the office. I, you know, I certainly don’t use the word fun for the practice of matrimonial law.

You know, I have a friend who does criminal defense work, and I think he has a lot of fun. His trials are really interesting, and but that’s a different practice [00:59:00] area, and I don’t think that’s common. But I, I, you know, I think that life should also be fun and a fulfilled life to me is, is more than just a practice.

And it’s possible. So I think you need that vision. So I think creating that vision, because if you don’t have a compelling vision, you’re not gonna change. And if you, if your life sucks and you hate your spouse, and you don’t wanna go home because you know, it’s just miserable, then you’re just gonna stay in the office all day.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, you know? That’s why I can, you know, I’m not an advocate for divorce in general, but by the time people get to me, I certainly am because it’s an opportunity to have a better life. And I can’t imagine I look forward to going home. I always did. I can’t imagine what it’s like dreading going home and life should be more than that.

So, so I think with coaching, you know, just to stay focused, you know, top things to do, get a coach and start thinking about these things because then life can be great, you know, and that’s worth doing. It’ll still be hard but it’ll be great.

Jonathan Hawkins: So great advice and great segue to my last question. So, and thank you for your time here today. [01:00:00] But so you’ve built over the years, despite everything you’ve gone through, you’ve built a great practice and a great life. But I, I think I saw maybe on a, on LinkedIn post, or maybe it was on our car ride to the airport that I think, you know. You’re looking to maybe do some more with your law firm. So

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: your vision? You’ve done a lot, but there’s still a lot you want to do. So sitting here today what’s your vision for your firm and for your life?

James P. Joseph: So, we feel we have, you know, something really special to offer. You know, we’re proud of the work we do here. We think that we’re having a positive impact. We like to say that we’re part of the solution, not part of the problem. And unfortunately, like in every field, that there’s a lot of people that, you know, don’t help solve problems.

And so I really want to expand. You know, I’m a bit mission focused and feel that there’s value in, if we could help a lot more people and I’m always happy to make more money, I’m not opposed to that. And I wanna make sure that I can pay my firm and my team members. Well, and so we’re looking to grow a lot.

And in the last couple of years, as I alluded to, [01:01:00] I’ve really stepped back from the practice of law and been able to attract great talent. So I know that the clients are being represented, you know, even better than when I did it. And I thought I did. You know, I, I know I did a great job because of, you know, the feedback in the community and, so we’re looking to grow.

So, so I think we could easily triple in size. That’s a nice new challenge for me. I feel like I’m, you know, I’ve done this for 30 years. I, in, in many ways I feel young and healthy and strong and you know, I have some friends who have been fortunate to be in positions to retire at relatively young ages and retire well and don’t need the money.

And, you know, they struggle with what to do. And, you know, I’m working a lot right now because of the Bar Association. But when that’s over, I’ll go back to not working, you know, crazy hours and having a really nice, balanced life. And I’m confident that I can continue that and still grow the firm.

So it’s a neat new challenge. You know, I, I got to where I wanted to be professionally as a practicing attorney, as a technician. And now I’d like to see if I can you know, you know, [01:02:00] people ask what I do here, and I, amongst our circles that you and I run in where we have friends with law firms, with lots of C-level, you know, COOs and CFOs and C CMOs.

I say I, I can’t call myself a CEO yet because I think the firm’s too small for that. But I’ll get there. So, so that’s what we’ve been doing.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, well, I love it. Love having big vision and, and I mean, love the energy and I mean, we all need something to keep us going, so, and I know you’ll do it, so,

James P. Joseph: thank you.

Jonathan Hawkins: to you. And you know, again, if there’s any way I can help you if you ever wanted to expand down south, just let me know.

James P. Joseph: Thank you, Jonathan. You got, you have some big competition where you are.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

James P. Joseph: of meeting some divorce lawyers with very big firms where you are but pleasure. You. You’re, as you know, this is a, a wonderful service that you’re offering the legal community. You know, I’ve learned so much, you know, from you and from your guests and, you know, appreciate the friendship and this opportunity.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell, you know, I really enjoyed meeting a person at that, at the conference. You know, the two highlights were the [01:03:00] dinner that one

James P. Joseph: Yes,

Jonathan Hawkins: The six of us were there. I mean, that was really just incredible little mastermind session.

And then the car ride to the airport it was like, that was really, I I, there was a lot of, we we’re exchanging a lot of information there.

That was really

James P. Joseph: yes. Good stuff.

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, thanks for coming on. It’s, it is really been fun getting to know you. For people out there that want to find you, what’s the best way I.

James P. Joseph: So our website. Thank you. Uh, Joseph law pc.com is our website. There, there have been times that I’ve been really active on LinkedIn and really enjoyed it. It’s been a little while because of my bar activity but I enjoyed my posts and, and perhaps some of your listeners would like to see them.

So feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn. You know, I’m always looking to expand that community and so, and that’s I think I’m James Paul, Joseph, Paul, middle name. So you should be able to find me pretty easily there too.

Jonathan Hawkins: Cool. James, thanks again. Thanks for coming

James P. Joseph: All right. My pleasure, Jonathan. Thank you.

OutroUpdatedWebsite-1: Thanks for listening to this episode of the founding partner podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, [01:04:00] 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.