Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] This is to lawyers that are out there doing social media you’ve looked at a lot of social medias. I know you have a lot of good opinions on that. So what do you see are some of the top mistakes and maybe some advice you would give them? Some, you know, 80/20 things that they could fix pretty quickly to maybe get better traction on social media.
Bianca Jordan: So my biggest pet peeve, this is specific to LinkedIn. I hate when I see posts and it’s like, I’m thrilled to announce I just got this certification. I’m thrilled to announce whatever. Nobody is ever actually thrilled to announce these things. Like when you’re creating content on social media, speak like a human being please and thank you.
Stop with the, I’m thrilled to announce things. Another thing that I see right now happening that’s also kind of making me mad is what I like to call empathy porn, which is people posting things like, you know, I got fired from my first job outta law school. Here’s how it turned into a million dollar law firm.
Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating stories of successful law [00:01:00] firm founders. We’ll uncover their beginnings, triumph over challenges, and practice growth. Whether you aspire to launch your own firm, have an entrepreneurial spirit, or are just curious about the legal business, you’re in the right place.
Let’s dive in.
Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. Today we are gonna welcome Bianca Jordan to the show. She is an immigration attorney. She’s got a pretty interesting background and she’s got. Sort of a, I don’t know if it’s a side hustle or it’s a different sort of side business that we’re gonna get into as well.
But Bianca, welcome. Why don’t you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you and your firm, where you are what you do.
Bianca Jordan: Sure. Thanks so much for having me. So I am Bianca. I’m mostly an immigration attorney. I like to say that I turn your red flags into green cards because the majority of my cases are super [00:02:00] complicated, marriage based green card cases. Cases that are full of issues that the government thinks are red flags, things like, you know, large age differences between the two spouses, or maybe they don’t live together, maybe they don’t have any financial assets together.
So I help them to navigate that process successfully so that they can get their green card. I also handle some cases for people who are in removal proceedings, so I help them avoid being deported from the United States. When I’m not doing that, I am helping licensed professional service providers with their personal branding to grow their businesses without all the gimmicks and tricks that the internet bros tell you that you have to do to grow your business.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yes. Well, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have to teach me, teach our listeners a little bit today, so hopefully you give us some tips. But let’s start. So why immigration has that been what you’ve always done or is that something you got into later?
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, so I started my practice doing small business law and immigration over time. Dropped the small business law ’cause it’s not as exciting as immigration. To be honest. I’ve [00:03:00] always wanted to be an international human rights attorney. Like I kind of wanted to be like a mall Clooney, but I didn’t want to do work outside of the US.
I did some human rights work outside of the US in law school. Didn’t really love it that much, wanted to do something similar, but in the US and for me, immigration was that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Nice. Okay, so the other thing that I, I found in researching you is it looks like straight OUTTA law school. You started your law firm. Is that correct?
Bianca Jordan: Yep. Like within a month of getting sworn into the bar.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, yeah, tell me about that. That’s, I don’t know. That’s, a big move. Is that something you always knew you were gonna do outta law school or is that something that you’re like, well, I guess I just have to do this?
Bianca Jordan: A little bit of both. I always knew that I wanted my own practice. But I figured I needed to work for someone first because law school doesn’t really teach you how to, you know, practice law, nevermind running a legal business. And because I, I was focusing on immigration, most of my internships were at legal aid organizations where my clients didn’t actually pay us for services.
So I figured maybe I should work for someone so I at least [00:04:00] know what I should be charging for my services. I had a job offer and then they pulled it and I was just scrambling to find work. Ran outta money, ran outta my savings, my retirement. And after 500 or so job applications, I decided, well, you know what, if no one wants to hire me, then I’ll hire myself.
And so I just, within a month practice or opened up my own practice. I had just enough money left to get my law license like print some business cards with a design that I created on Microsoft Word. I wasn’t even using Canva at the time. And with my MySpace HTML skills, I built my own website and I kind of just.
Started with what I had.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you know, and you’ve, sounds like you’ve built a lot. So that was about 11 years, years ago. Right.
Bianca Jordan: Yep.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. So you mentioned it, you know, they, they don’t really teach you these things in law school, so how did you figure it all out?
Bianca Jordan: I kind of just winged it, you know, I figured at a minimum, you know, Massachusetts felt like I was, you know, they were confident enough in my abilities to practice [00:05:00] law, so that was half the battle. I figured, what do I need to practice law? I need my law license and some wifi. So as long as I had that, everything else, I would just figure out.
I started with the cases that I kind of knew how to handle based on my internships, and I was in an immigration clinic and law school for a year, so I focused with what I knew, and then once I got more confident in that, I started to try to get other cases and kind of just built from there. I.
Jonathan Hawkins: Did you have mentors or people that you could sort of lean on to say, Hey, what, you know, what, what do I do here? Or did you just truly just figure it out on your own?
Bianca Jordan: I mostly figured it out on my own. I did occasionally go to my immigration clinic director. I would occasionally go to her with cases where I’m like, I don’t know what to do. But she didn’t know what to do either. She was like, I’ve never had this kind of case come up before. So however you think you could handle it is probably right.
And so I just trusted that and I did a lot of research. I would go to like the law libraries around me and just do a lot of research Googling. I didn’t really have any [00:06:00] formal mentors because a lot of lawyers just didn’t believe in what I was trying to do with this virtual law firm. A lot of people thought I was a scammer, and so they didn’t really wanna like be involved in that at all.
So they were kind of like. Best of luck to you. So I just kind of had to figure it out on my own.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I mean, so you know, nowadays post covid virtual law firm, it’s sort of, it’s no big deal. Everybody’s like, yeah, that’s, everybody can do that. But back when you started, that’s not the way it was. Right?
Bianca Jordan: right. It was very conservative, brick and mortar, you know, so I was definitely breaking the norm.
Jonathan Hawkins: and I remember back in the day, it was like borderline, potentially. Not ethical under some of the rules in some of the states,
Bianca Jordan: Yeah
Jonathan Hawkins: I guess Massachusetts. Did you have any, do you have to bump into that at all or make
Bianca Jordan: really. No. Yeah, no. I didn’t really have that issue, or at least I didn’t ask if it was gonna be an issue. I kind of just, you know, I figured I’m very big on, you know, like, do something. It’s better to ask for forgiveness and permission kind of thing.
Jonathan Hawkins: Now the good thing about immigration, [00:07:00] that’s a national practice, right? You’re not tied to your state.
Bianca Jordan: Exactly.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so a virtual firm, I mean you, I mean, you could be anywhere, right?
Do you take advantage of that?
Bianca Jordan: I do I travel a lot for work. My clients are everywhere. And it’s also my way of kind of tapping into the access to justice problem as well because like I speak different languages and there are people in other states who speak my language that maybe don’t have an attorney close to them that speaks that language.
So, in a way, because I can be wherever my clients are, then that helps me to help more people.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what, languages do you speak other than
Bianca Jordan: Um. I speak Haitian Creole and a little bit of French.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so are you, do you have a connection to Haitian.
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, so my family’s from Haiti.
Jonathan Hawkins: Haiti, sorry.
Okay. So are you uh, you were not born in Haiti but your family was or, or,
Bianca Jordan: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: so are you the daughter of immigrants or is it more moved than that?
Bianca Jordan: Yep. Both of my parents were born in Haiti.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so is that, did that [00:08:00] have any influence on, you know, pursuing the immigration?
Bianca Jordan: Not really. You would think it would, but I didn’t really factor my parents into my decision to be an immigration attorney. I really just wanted to help people. I wanted to do international human rights law or something related to that.
Jonathan Hawkins: So are you like a sort of stereotypical child of immigrants where you know you have to go to get a professional degree? Were your parents pushing you or was that you?
Bianca Jordan: So this was actually all me. I decided at 12 that I wanted to be a lawyer based on playing the role of a lawyer during a field trip. I figured I liked it. This was kind of cool. I think I’ll do it when I grow up and I actually did. I wonder sometimes though, if I hadn’t made that decision on my own, if my parents would’ve pushed me.
But I don’t really think so. My parents were pretty much like, we don’t really care what you do, as long as you’re the best at it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So let’s go back to the early days of your firm. Again. So you come out you know, how, did you have any clients when you started?
Bianca Jordan: I had two, I believe. Yeah, I had one client within I had two clients within a month of starting, [00:09:00] and then I had another client like a month later. So three clients.
Jonathan Hawkins: And how did you get those clients?
Bianca Jordan: So the first two I got from just going around in my local town, just handing out flyers and business cards, just saying, Hey, I’m an attorney.
I can help you. Here’s how to reach me. I would go to various churches in the area and just pass out flyers and somebody contacted me from that.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. I mean, you know, a lot of people out there that, that are going to start their firms if they do not have clients. You know, the big fear is, you know, where am I gonna get ’em? And there’s lots of different ways to get ’em. Some are easier than others, some are more expensive than others, but you know, that’s, that’s grassroots, boots on the ground kind of stuff.
So you went around doing that, got your first three clients I assume that sort of changed over time of how you get clients. So take me through the progression, you know, how do you sort of get clients now and then how did you get to that point?
Bianca Jordan: So, over time, the reason why I stopped going from like church to church and place to place honestly is ’cause winter [00:10:00] came and it was cold and I didn’t wanna like, walk around in the cold anymore. And so I just switched to mostly marketing on social media. Instagram in particular, because I already had an Instagram account.
So I just started posting like legal tidbits and things and just telling people, Hey, I’m an attorney. Here’s how I can help you. Here’s what I help you with. And so over time, people just started noticing me on Instagram and then I moved over to YouTube, got a LinkedIn, and then during Covid I got TikTok.
And that really blew up my business.
Jonathan Hawkins: Really? so now is TikTok a big, big source?
Bianca Jordan: Mostly TikTok and YouTube.
Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. Yeah, so I’m not on TikTok at all, so I ha it’s just com I see. You know, I’m on Twitter, so if, it’s really, really big on TikTok, it sort of makes it over to Twitter. So that’s how, I know it’s really big, but, so I don’t really know much about it. But how did you figure all that out? I mean, did you just start experimenting?
Bianca Jordan: Pretty much, I’m very big on like, so I don’t really like marketing like other people do, especially lawyers ’cause I find that a lot of legal marketing is boring. And so I just talk to people, like a [00:11:00] regular person. I don’t really, I don’t use a lot of legalese in my content or anything. I’m just relaying things how I would wanna share it.
I share a lot of memes and pop culture and like hip hop lyrics and stuff in my content, which really relates to people on just an individual level. And I’m able to just share information that they wanna know and that kind of attracts them to me ’cause I’m not like a typical stuffy lawyer. Like you’re very rarely, if ever going to see me in like a suit and you know, all dressed up and whatnot.
I find a lot of people find that intimidating, especially from an immigration perspective. And so I’m kind of just like. I am just regular Bianca. I just happen to be an attorney who can help you with your immigration case, and I find that a lot of people can relate to that.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, so let’s talk about like, I mean, each one of those platforms is, has its own personality. So you know what works on TikTok may not, is not gonna work on LinkedIn, and you know, what works for YouTube. Let’s talk about YouTube real quick. So that’s something that’s of interest to me. I’m just curious what’s your approach to that?
I [00:12:00] mean, you could do the shorts, you can do the long form, you can do lots of different things. What do you do on YouTube?
Bianca Jordan: So I don’t do short form on YouTube because I really find that that’s really tiktoks special sauce. So I do long form content on YouTube. People are mostly going to YouTube when they wanna learn something. It’s very big on like how to content, and so that’s what I’m sharing. I’m usually sharing news updates.
I’m sharing tips on things. I’m sharing success stories so that people know that maybe you might have an opportunity to do something, or maybe just because your case was denied before doesn’t mean that it won’t be approved this time around. Maybe you missed something. So I’m sharing a lot of information like that.
I also share long form content and other languages as well on YouTube to kind of diversify that a little bit. But my YouTube is mostly long form content anywhere from. Like three to five minutes. I try not to keep it too long ’cause people also do have like a short attention span. But I mostly just walking through people, walking people through a particular topic that they want to know about.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that was gonna [00:13:00] my question. What do you mean by long form? I know some people, you know, say should be eight to 20 minutes long. That seems like a long time, but for you, three to five is sort of the sweet spot
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, and it really just depends on what you’re talking about because if you can make it interesting, somebody might wanna sit through like a 45 minute video watching something. I was actually on Sunday, my husband and I were watching a YouTube video that was literally 45 minutes long and it was just a travel video, but it was interesting enough where we actually sat through the whole entire 45 minutes.
So if what you’re talking about is engaging enough and interesting to your audience, they will stick around. So it doesn’t necessarily have to be like a. Two minute video. It just has to be informative.
Jonathan Hawkins: So another question, you know, myself and maybe other attorneys out there. Let’s say you’re at a firm that has, you know, different practice areas you know, you mentioned a second ago that you have different languages you’ll drop videos for. And so do you have different channels or are they all in the same channel?
How do you sort of break those apart for the consumers, for people out there that are thinking about maybe how do I set up my own [00:14:00] YouTube channel?
Bianca Jordan: So that’s really a judgment call. There are some people that have, I’ve seen some attorneys where they have one channel all in English, and then another one in Spanish. You could totally do that. Mine is just one. So like my TikTok account, I only have one that I mostly use and I speak both languages on that channel.
YouTube, same thing. And part of that is really just ’cause I’m lazy. I don’t wanna have to manage like multiple YouTube channels just because they’re different languages. But you could totally do that if you wanted to. I just chose not to.
Jonathan Hawkins: what about like the thumbnails and the headlines and the hooks? Do you do all that stuff yourself or do you outsource any of that?
Bianca Jordan: I do all of it myself. A couple years ago I did try to outsource my social media marketing to someone. Didn’t really work the best. For one, they didn’t really capture my voice well, so a lot of people would kind of like slide in my DM thinking that like my page was hacked because a lot of my content wasn’t sounding like me.
And then also a lot of the content that I was creating for myself was outperforming what the company I was paying to do was doing. So I’m like, well, I might as well just do this on [00:15:00] my own then.
Jonathan Hawkins: So somebody like me or maybe other people out there, I hear this and I’m like, man, that sounds really overwhelming. There’s no way I personally could get in there and figure all this out and do it. How much time, I mean, you’ve probably got it down pat, but how much time does it take you and how long did it take you to get good at it?
Bianca Jordan: So I’m not really sure how long it took me to get good at it, because this is just something I’ve always done. Like I’ve always been on social media, even from like MySpace days. I’ve always created content. So for me it’s pretty easy. But I’m not someone who I. So for one, I’m not overthinking everything, which a lot of lawyers do, unfortunately.
They’ll overthink something. If I get an idea for something, for content, I’ll just post it. I’m not too worried about it being perfect, but it also depends on the platform. My YouTube videos take a little bit more time. Those, some of them I do outsource to someone to edit for me. But most of the time it’s just.
I’m recording a video and then I post it depending on how, like, if it’s something that’s breaking news and I don’t really have time to get it [00:16:00] to an editor, I’ll just record it, post it and be fine. TikTok is more so like real, authentic and real. You shouldn’t be planning out a whole TikTok video. It really should just be you pick up your phone, talk to the people and post it.
It shouldn’t be all perfect, so it really just depends on the platform.
Jonathan Hawkins: So real quick, why don’t you drop the handles out there for YouTube and TikTok If anybody wants to go check out your stuff,
Bianca Jordan: Sure. So for YouTube, I’m Brazen Legal, which is my law firm name. And then for all other social media, I’m brazen lawyer everywhere. So like on on Threads, on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, like, I’m literally brazen lawyer everywhere.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so here’s another question that I’ve sort of heard some rumblings about lately about you know, YouTube and maybe some others the branding of the channel like your company versus you individually. And there’s probably different schools of thought out there. Have you ever, have you given that any thought?
Do you have an opinion on that or does it matter?
Bianca Jordan: I think it matters, especially for platforms like LinkedIn. [00:17:00] Sometimes people will get like their company profile on LinkedIn and then they’ll have their personal one, but people aren’t really going to your law firm page on LinkedIn. I. They’re really going to your page. And you know this, or at least people should know this because if they’re posting something on their business page, they usually repost it on their personal page.
You wouldn’t have to do that if you thought people were going to your business page and so. That’s kind of a problem. And then the other thing too, that people need to understand is that people buy from people, not companies. We don’t really care about. You know, the company we don’t trust the company is pretty cold.
You know, we really wanna buy from you. We wanna do business with you. If we know, like, and trust you, we’re not gonna get to know, like, and trust your company. We’re gonna get to know, like, and trust you as a person.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so Brazen Legal where’d you get the name? Where’s that from?
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, so Brazen Legal honestly, just, I was sitting at a desk one day wanting to change my law firm name. When I started it, it was the law office of Bianca Gay, which was my maiden name, and I knew I was getting married and didn’t wanna have it be the law office of [00:18:00] Bianca. Jordan figured I need a new name that kind of.
You know, matches my style and matches what I think is the way that I approach law. Especially when it comes to immigration law. I’m very like bold. I’ll push boundaries, never do anything illegal, but I’m very big on like, unless the law says I can’t do it, then I can try. And so I feel like that’s really bold.
That’s really a brazen, and it kind of just came to me and I just went with that.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. I, I say it over and over on the show and anybody that listens to me, I like a good trade name for a law firm. So, I like it. Alright, so let’s go back to your firm. So you get you your virtual firm. You’ve got you and you got, you know, you got your social media stuff that you do a lot of.
What about help? Do you have any assistants, virtual assistants or other attorneys or paralegals, whatever.
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, so I have a contract attorney. I have a legal assistant. I just hired an OBM recently, and then I have my virtual receptionist. I had a bigger team before, but felt like I needed to downsize because I didn’t need all the help that I had. And so now I’m kind of in this like rebuilding phase.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you know, a big issue for a lot of lawyers when [00:19:00] they start out is that first hire. It just it’s, they overthink it, like you said, or they’re too scared about it. Nervous, you know, they’re like, I’m gonna spend all this money. Did you have that issue that you had to deal with, battle with, and then how long did it take you before you made your first hire?
Bianca Jordan: So I definitely waited too long to hire, and part of it was just my fear of like, will I be able to afford this person? Like, what if I, you know, what if I get to a point where I can’t afford to hi, like. Keep paying this person. And my therapist was like, then you let them go. Like it’s not, you know, it’s not rocket science, like it’s not personal, it’s business.
But when I had a bigger team, I never had any issues with paying them. So it was just like all in my head. And also like when you hire people to help you, it frees you up to make money in other ways. So the likelihood that you’re not gonna be able to afford your first hire is slim to none. It’s really in your head.
But God forbid you do get to that point. It’s. One of those things where you just have to let them go, but it’s not really, it’s not a personal thing.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I’m with you now. A lot of people, they say, alright, well I’m just gonna throw even [00:20:00] numbers out there. But it’s, it is a hundred thousand a year to have this person. Well, you’re not paying them a lump sum at the beginning. You know, you’re paying them over over the year. So you know you’re never gonna, if it, if it’s not working out, like you say, you can let ’em go.
But, okay, so how long, you know, that’s, that is the other thing is once you free yourself up, you know, it’s the whole buyback your time type thing you really start to see some multiplier effects. So your first hire, was it a, a, what was it? Assistant paralegal.
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, so my first hire was a legal assistant. She worked for me full time and within the first month she was booking enough consultations for me and it that it was covering her salary and then some. So part of me was like, I should have hired her a long time ago because she was making me, she was bringing in money, covering her own salary, and you know, and those people were converting into clients, so she was really helping me make more money.
So sometimes the people that we’re afraid to hire are the ones that are actually going to make us more money.
Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. And so how long till you sort of hired your first attorney?
Bianca Jordan: So my first attorney, I didn’t hire until I wanna say [00:21:00] like. Maybe a couple years after I hired the legal assistant. And part of that was I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to hire like a full-time or even a part-time employee attorney. And then also all the other attorneys that I was speaking to, they either had their own law firms and didn’t wanna work for someone else either.
So it ended up being like a win-win because they had the flexibility to help me how they want to, and I didn’t have to deal with like all the extra payroll and you know, expenses from benefits and things like that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that is a good intermediate step. You know, like a contract attorney or like an of counsel, something like that. I know a lot of people, I mean, shoot, I did that years
Bianca Jordan: Mm-hmm.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s and so it’s sort of like pay as you go almost. So it’s lower risk. So another thing, you know, virtual work from home, all that, all the rage now, now it’s, you know, it’s.
guess becoming more uh, controversial, you know, whatever. So yeah, so now we got work from home and virtual. And you know, there’s, you know, there’s the school, the old school that says, oh, you [00:22:00] can’t train ’em, and they need to be in the office. And then others are like, you’re crazy. You can train ’em. But it is more challenging.
I mean, I don’t think it’s a, you can dispute that it is more challenging to train people up when they’re virtual. So how did you go about that aspect of hiring your virtual team?
Bianca Jordan: So for one, I believe that we’re all adults. I should be able to trust you to do your work. If I have to micromanage you, then you don’t need to work for me ’cause I’d just be doing the work myself anyway. But as far as training goes, I created like a workflow so that for my employees, I. They were going through like an onboarding so that they would kind of do it.
Like day one is where they’re setting up all their like financials and whatnot. Day two, they’re learning, you know, about my business. Day three, they’re learning specifically about their job and what they’re going to be doing. And then day four we’re doing like some on like hands-on stuff. And then day five, like they’re kind of on their own to start trying.
And so I kind of did it that way. Same for my contractors. I’ve had contractors who worked for me like. In Massachusetts, in the Dominican Republic, like [00:23:00] all over the place. So it’s really just a matter of trusting people to do the work that you’re hiring them to do. And then we also had meetings. So even though we weren’t like meeting in person, we would still have like weekly meetings where we would go over things.
And so for me it worked out.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so for the onboarding and the training, are there any software platforms that you use that you think are good for that?
Bianca Jordan: So there are a lot of the ones that you could use, like now. You could use Canva, like Canva has a lot of things in there that you can use. You can do something like this through Clickup, Trello. Like there’s a lot of different ways that you can go about doing it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So the other thing you mentioned a minute ago, you said you had sort of built your team and then you’re like, all right, I gotta cut it back down. Tell me about that. What led you to build it too big and what led you to the decision to say, no, I’m ready to cut it back. I.
Bianca Jordan: So I think I built it too big because I had a video go viral on TikTok, and I immediately got like within a matter of hours, I had like 150 leads and the majority of [00:24:00] them were actually good ones. Like they actually had cases that I could handle and wanted to hire me. And so I was like, I should probably hire people to help me with this now.
And then I also was thinking, if this continues, then I’m gonna need more people. And so I had like, I had two paralegals, I had. My legal assistant, I had another person who I called my client engagement manager. Like I just had all these people to kind of. Just do all types of different things. And it got to the point where all I was doing in my business was the marketing, and I actually got a little bit bored because like my clients didn’t even wanna talk to me anymore.
They’re like, we don’t need you. Like we, we’ll come to you if we need you. It was, It was a beautiful thing. But then a couple years ago. Things started to kind of change where I was getting less clients. And then also a lot of the people that were doing work for me now, a lot of their work was just overlapping on top of each other.
And so I was like, I don’t really need all of these people. ’cause it’s like now you two are doing the same thing and then you two are like not really doing anything. So it was a combination. Some people weren’t doing what they needed to do at all, and then other [00:25:00] people were doing the same thing. And so I ended up just letting some of the people go.
And then I had one person who ended up. Leaving to go work at a different law firm. And so right now I’m kind of assessing where I don’t wanna make that same mistake again. Well, I don’t call it a mistake, but like a learning. I just don’t wanna hire more than I need, but I don’t wanna not have enough people either.
So it’s like a delicate balance.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it is a balance and it’s one I think all law firm owners struggle with, especially early on. you know, the question is, you know, you, you. Where do you, you have limited resources and what do you focus on? So one, you gotta get cases in the door. It sounds like you sort of figure that out.
You went viral, got all this stuff, and you’re like, okay, now I have, I gotta be able to handle the work. And so then the question is, do you hire and sort of increase your bench to get ready for it or do you wait till you’re overwhelmed? And then how do you sort of balance that stuff? It is a hard decision and, and I mean you can’t really predict it.
You just sort of have to go through it. It sounds like you went through that experience. I know I have. And I know many others have.
Bianca Jordan: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: so the [00:26:00] TikTok stuff what does it mean to go viral on TikTok? Like, I know every platform viral means something different. What does that mean? And,
Bianca Jordan: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: ‘ cause that’s a lot of, lot of leads outta one video.
Bianca Jordan: Yeah, and it was the most random video too. Like it wasn’t, it was one of those videos, it was early on when I first started TikTok, so I think I started, I think I joined TikTok like May of 2020. And I didn’t even wanna join TikTok, but that’s a story for another day. And nobody was really watching my videos.
It was getting like 20 views per video for a while, and then somebody asked me a question they just wanted to know. Like, could I help them? They’re not in Massachusetts. Could I help them? And so I, up until that point, I was actually like kind of getting dolled up, like wearing makeup, like, you know, dressing like I, you know, looking like a lawyer on TikTok.
And my videos weren’t doing well at all. That video or that comment, I decided to respond with a video. I had no makeup on. I think I might have had some chapstick on and a hoodie. And I just answered that question and I got so many views, like that video went totally viral. And I, I I have a virtual receptionist and I’m looking at [00:27:00] all the people that are calling and all the people that are booking consultations and looking at the intake.
And it’s like all cases that I can actually take. And so, so I guess to answer your question, going viral means something different to different people. Some people might say like, it’s getting tens of thousands of views in a really short period of time. Some might say it’s getting millions of views.
I don’t think any of my videos have ever hit a million. I have a client recently who went viral in his video, hit a million, but it’s really just a lot of people getting your video in a short period of time.
Jonathan Hawkins: So now that you’ve been doing it a while, do you think you, is there any way to predict or you know, some of the elements that you think, all right, yeah, I think this one could go viral. So you can sort of, design it on the front end.
Bianca Jordan: Not for me because it’s always the most random videos that I do that will go viral, like I remember. Like last summer I was sitting on my couch. I think I had just come back from like a walk. I’m wearing like a Wu-Tang shirt with like a matching bandana on, and I’m just talking about a [00:28:00] random case that I just won.
And that video went viral, like hundreds of thousands of. Comments or views and like a lot of comments. And so for me, I can’t really predict it, but if I had to predict it, I think people just want real, like they’re sick of all of the fake stuff, you know? Especially all the AI generated things. They just want what’s real because so many people are creating fake stuff that they really just appreciate that human connection, storytelling, things that they can really relate to.
Real quick. Thanks for listening. If you’re getting any value out of this podcast, please take two seconds to hit the subscribe button and leave a five star review. It would really mean a lot to me. Now back to the show.
Jonathan Hawkins: So maybe this is a good time to shift into your sort of side business and maybe side business is the wrong word. Maybe your law firm is your side business. I don’t know. You can correct me, but you’ve got, maybe it’s a consulting or an agency. I don’t know how you describe it, but it’s called Brilliant Rebel.
So why don’t you tell, tell me what, how you would describe that [00:29:00] business?
Bianca Jordan: Sure. It’s kind of a side business right now. I would love if my law firm would be the side business and this would be what I do full-time. ’cause I enjoy that a little bit more, especially these days. But Brilliant Rebel, I think of more as a consultancy and it’s going on four years this month actually.
And I started it during COVID. Because a lot of lawyers specifically were in my dms, wanting my advice on how to go viral, how to even go virtual and start marketing on social during COVID, where everybody was, you know, freaking out. Rightfully so. I would go live every Friday on Facebook, and I would always end by saying, Hey, immigration is still open. File your applications. I’m here to help you from a social distance.
And I would talk about the cases I was winning and lawyers would be like, how are you even getting clients? I can’t meet with anybody. My office is closed and I don’t really, I don’t meet with people in an office. So that was never a problem that I had.
And interestingly enough, a lot of the lawyers that were like making fun of me in 2014 because I went viral, were now in my dms asking [00:30:00] me, or virtual rather, were now in my dms asking me to help them with that. And so at first I’m just like sharing all the details in the dms. And then my mom and one of my friends was like, so you’re not making any money off of this.
You’re just like sharing all this, you know, advice and tips and all this stuff for free to all these lawyers. Like you should really do something about it. And so I kind of just to test it out, I did a webinar basically, you know how to market on social. I think I called it Six Figure Social, and just wanted to see if anybody was interested in it.
And a lot of lawyers signed up. A lot of lawyers bought the replay. I ultimately turned it into a full blown course that kind of shows you how to market on social, and then it kind of just created the business from there.
Jonathan Hawkins: So that first webinar, did you charge for it?
Bianca Jordan: I did,
Jonathan Hawkins: Wow, that’s pretty cool. You know, it’s, it’s funny that um, you know, not funny, but I mean, you were teed up ready for covid. I mean, you were ready. Nobody else, I mean, very few people were. You’re ready. And I, you know, I’m gonna butcher this quote.
I can’t remember what it is, but it’s something like, you know, at [00:31:00] first they laugh at you, then they do this and whatever. It’s sort of, you’re there. Okay. So that’s another interesting thing too, that you see a lot in business and it’s sort of like, you don’t necessarily set out to create a business.
It’s the market is talking to you and reaching out to you saying, Hey, help me, help me, help me. And you’re like, wait, this could be a business. So you did that first webinar and then you turn into a course. Tell me sort of the evolution of Brilliant Rebel. How, How has it sort of evolved?
Bianca Jordan: Sure. So originally it was called Rebel Immigration because at first only immigration attorneys were coming to me wanting help with going virtual and marketing on social. Over time, other people were coming to me as well. I had IP attorneys coming to me, criminal attorneys, accountants, therapists.
It was more than just immigration attorneys, so I eventually changed the name to Brilliant Rebel. And I, for me, like words like brazen rebel, like, I like to be out there in case you didn’t notice. And so, I like to think of like rebelling against the status quo.
The legal [00:32:00] profession is very vanilla, boring, just very just. No risk taking whatsoever. And I’m kind of like, no, let’s push the envelope a little bit. Because yes, our profession is conservative and whatever, but the people that we’re going to be serving might not be. And we need to be able to relate to them from like their perspective, not just focusing on like I.
Being super serious and whatnot. And so over time I just started offering more services to other people. Also noticed that a lot of people were coming to me after using other companies, like just signing up for them, not really getting the. The traction that they wanted. ’cause a lot of these other companies tell you to spend a ton of money a month on Google Ads, which don’t always work for everybody.
And it doesn’t matter if someone, you know, clicks on your website from a Google ad, if there’s not enough personality or anything there to really make them wanna book a consultation with you, you’re paying money for nothing. And so I’ve just been. Showing people that the secret sauce is themselves. You know, [00:33:00] like it’s really just you being authentic because sure, there’s like a million attorneys out there, but nobody is like you and your people want to hire you.
They just need you to show up as your authentic self. And so I kind of empower people to put themselves more in their marketing because that’s what’s gonna make people hire you, copying what other people are doing. Is not really gonna bring you clients because number one, you end up catfishing your clients ’cause you’re being something that you’re not.
And when they hire you, they’re like, this is not what I signed up for. And also, if you think that you need to copy what I’m doing to get clients, then those aren’t your clients. Those are mine, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: I like it. Okay, so I’m a lawyer out there and I’m, and I come across Brilliant. Rebel and I think I wanna work with you. So sort of take me through the process. What’s that? Like, what’s your process to take them through?
Bianca Jordan: Sure. So at first I kind of wanna see where they are, like where they are in their journey. Are they a new law firm owner? Are they someone who’s been doing it for a while? What are they doing for marketing, if at all? What’s working, what’s not? Because I don’t wanna suggest [00:34:00] that they do things that aren’t really working.
So I kind of wanna just see where they are. And then the main offer that I have is something called Niche, please. Because a lot of lawyers struggle with niching down. Like there are so many lawyers that are like, I’m a trademark attorney, I’m an state, I’m a state attorney, I’m an immigration attorney.
They’re doing all of these things because they think that. That’s what’s gonna make them money. Whereas it’s really niching down that makes you money. Like I make more money now doing literally one case type than I, than when I was also doing business law and all the other immigration things. So I work with people just to help them figure out what exactly is their special sauce, what is that thing that they can do better than anyone that they can do, you know?
Eyes wide shut just in their sleep. Like they can do it better than anyone. What they wanna be known for, who they wanna work with. Just helping them really hone in on that and helping them to create branding around that and to help them with their marketing around that. So like for me, I’m really big on super [00:35:00] complicated.
Green card cases for married couples. I turn your red flags into green cards. Like that’s my immigration brand. Pretty much that’s what I’m known for. So those are the cases that people come to me for, and those are the cases that people know to refer to me because I make that known. So just really helping them figure out like what their thing is and just going all in on that.
Jonathan Hawkins: First of all, how did you figure that out? Is that something you just intuitively discovered or did you sort of learn it by trial and error, or did you hear it from somebody else or all the above?
Bianca Jordan: All of the above. So there’s that saying that says the riches are in the niches. And I was like, no. ’cause you know, like people are always like, you have to have your hand in different things to really make money. But over time, like I got tired, honestly. I was like, I don’t wanna do all these things. I don’t.
’cause it’s like when you’re doing multiple things in your business, you have to have like different workflows for all of this stuff and you gotta manage all that stuff. So I’m like, what? Like how can I just have one thing that I do? That I’m really great at, that I love doing. And then also when I was [00:36:00] looking at trimming down my law firm, I realized that about 90% of the cases that were coming in anyway are these exact types of cases.
So letting go of everything else wouldn’t really impact my income. So once I realized that I went all in on the super hard marriage based green card cases, ’cause those are what I like to do anyway. And so once I figured out that I would be okay and I wouldn’t end up like broken homeless, like I just kind of kept going with that.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean the whole, the niche thing, a huge believer in that. I’ve seen it over and over and over. Definitely a hundred percent agree. I mean, you look at, I mean, I hate to compare law to uh, fast food, but you know, you look at Chick-fil-A, you know, they don’t serve burgers and they’re the top, you know, per store sale, fast food place in the country.
I think number two is uh, raising canes and they have like three things on the menu or whatever it is. So it’s, you know, you just do the one thing, get really good at it. It’s easier to market, it’s easier to find your avatar. All the way. So, okay. So you, you help people sort of find their, brand, their niche.
What about the [00:37:00] actual social media stuff? You know, do you help them design sort of their you know, what they’re gonna put out there? Do you review their stuff and give them feedback? Do you script it for them or is it, how does
Bianca Jordan: So, so I don’t even script things for myself. Like most of my videos is like off the cuff when I have tried scripting. The video just does not feel like me and doesn’t look like me. So I, everything I do is literally like off the dome. But I do help my clients with that, and so I help them. I literally give them like a 30 day blueprint of this is what you’re gonna talk about.
On LinkedIn, here’s how you can repurpose it for TikTok. Or like, I kind of helped them with that. I helped them figure out a better way to batch record and create content. There was a Sunday afternoon, I was bored. I created like three months worth of content in that afternoon and I just scheduled them out.
So I had content scheduled out for like all of Q4 of 2022, I believe it was. So I just kind of help people with that and I really help them just figure out exactly what they’re gonna post about so that they don’t have to think about it. [00:38:00] I have like. My method really helps them figure out what to. I’m trying to think of the words like it, it helps you figure out what exactly to post about when you think you can’t think of anything.
Because a lot of attorneys, their excuses, I don’t have the time. I never know what to post about. I dunno what to write about. If I tell you and I give you a framework that’s repeatable, then you never have to think about that again. And then also when in doubt. You can repurpose stuff. You can post things.
Again, just like we watch reruns on tv, you can post something. I promise you the thing you posted last summer, if you posted today, no one’s gonna bring that up because we barely remember what happened to us last week, you know? And so just kind of giving people I. Things to post about that are authentic to them.
I am very big on do what’s comfortable for you. So if you’re someone who doesn’t like being on video, I’m not gonna tell you that you need to go live every day on Instagram because you’re not gonna feel comfortable with that. If you love writing, then I’m gonna encourage you to get on LinkedIn maybe Facebook, but I kind of work with what people want to do and what they’re comfortable with.
Jonathan Hawkins: So [00:39:00] I imagine just knowing lawyers and knowing myself too in the early days hitting the publish button or the, you know, upload button is really hard and it’s, just really hard to get them. I. In the get beyond the fear or whatever it is. So I imagine part of your coaching is getting them outta that and really sort of changing their head space.
So, uh, do you see that or the people coming to you are sort of already on there and they just wanna get better?
Bianca Jordan: So a lot of my clients hate social media. Like they hate marketing. They do it just ’cause they have to. And I’m actually working on something for people like how to market when you hate social media. But a lot of people don’t really wanna do it. They kind of wanna do the bare minimum or the biggest thing is their fear of like, what if I post something and people don’t like it?
Or what if I post something and it’s stupid? We won’t know until you actually put it out there and the thing that you think sucks, people might actually love, you know? So it’s really just getting out of your own head and just focusing on what the goal of your post is. I never encourage people just to post.
Like, I’m never gonna [00:40:00] tell you you have to post every single day for like 30 days straight, or anything like ridiculous like that. I tell people to post with a purpose and you know, just. Put this stuff out there because I promise you, like people are gonna wanna hear about it and that’s what’s gonna get people to know, like, and trust you a little bit better.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I will say the beauty of the early days of social media posting is, is that. No one sees it. It’s like you got hardly any, any followers. And even of the followers, you’ve got probably some very small percentage actually see it and then it’s gone. It’s gone. It’s not gonna stay there really forever.
If you want it to come back, you’re gonna have to repost it. Right? Yeah. so is that, how do people get in touch with you for Brilliant Rubble?
Bianca Jordan: Um, They,
Jonathan Hawkins: website?
Bianca Jordan: yeah, so that’s brilliant. rebel.com or people send me a DM or a message on LinkedIn. Most of my clients for Brilliant Rebel come to me from LinkedIn ’cause I post a lot on LinkedIn. Not really recently, but I usually post a lot on LinkedIn. So people usually come to me from there.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so let’s, you’ve got these two businesses. [00:41:00] How do you manage and split your time between the two and how has that maybe changed over time?
Bianca Jordan: So for the law firm, I only work on that a couple days a week. And then for Brilliant Rebel, so my law firm I work on from Tuesday through Thursday and then Brilliant Rebel. I work on Mondays and Fridays, so I have like those designated days. Occasionally, if I feel like working on a Saturday, I’ll limit myself to Saturday mornings.
I really don’t like working on weekends. I kind of just break it down that way, so that way I know like these are designated days for the law firm work. These are designated days for Brilliant Rebel.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so as you look forward, you know, the next 5, 10, 15 years both your firm and Brilliant Rebel, what would you like, you know, what’s your vision? What would you like to see? And then for you personally, your role in both?
Bianca Jordan: So for the law firm, I’d like to transition into a role of, I own a law firm. I’m not working in it anymore. Whether that means I bring other people in to manage it or I sell it, or it’s not in existence anymore, I [00:42:00] don’t really know. But I don’t see myself running this business and working as an attorney in it in the next 15 years or so, over the last few years.
A lot of companies and like. State and local governments have been hiring me as an immigration consultant to really advise them on how to handle the influx of migrants they’ve been experiencing over the last couple of years. And so I love doing like that consulting, immigration work more than I like actually.
Like going to court, representing a client. So I think I would like to transition more into doing that type of work than actually like working day to day in my law firm with brilliant rubble. I would love to see it grow not only with, you know, like beyond lawyers. I. I like to help people who, like if you had to sit down and take a test and get a license to do what you do, like that’s who I wanna work with because I find that it’s not just the legal industry that’s really conservative, it’s also real estate, financial services, accounting.
You know, there’s a lot of different Industries [00:43:00] where a lot of people, regular people lay, people don’t know what’s going on. And there’s this disconnect between the professionals and the lay person where we don’t feel comfortable maybe seeking out assistance from, you know, a therapist. So now we’re using chat GPT for therapy instead, or because we don’t really understand what therapists do, or we don’t.
Necessarily want to incur a heavy copay to go see a doctor when we can maybe Google it. And so I think if more professionals were creating content and marketing in a way that’s more personable, that it would really bridge the gap between what you do and what the people that need your services can learn about.
Jonathan Hawkins: So for brilliant rubble, I know you, you help. People other than lawyers. But let’s circle back to the niche issue.
It’s easy for you to market brilliant rebel and social media and marketing to lawyers. ’cause you’re a lawyer and you’ve done it and people say, oh, she did it. How do you broaden that niche to just professionals of, of any sort?
And how do you [00:44:00] market that?
Bianca Jordan: yeah, so same way. So like, for example, you can be a CPA who specializes in helping people navigate mergers and acquisitions. Or maybe you are a therapist who focuses on anxiety with. Women dealing with postpartum. You know, like it’s really just a matter of like what your, what’s your niche and how do you reach those people?
Jonathan Hawkins: And so for you, for both of your businesses, it’s all organic social media outreach for you. You don’t have any paid or any other type of marketing type stuff you do.
Bianca Jordan: Nope. I’ve never, I don’t, it’s not that I don’t believe in paid ads, I just haven’t needed to use them. You know, and even with my Google My Business page, I kind of just pimp it out such that it kind of does the marketing for me. Like I do get a lot of clients from Google, but it’s not because I’m paying for ads, it’s because of the keywords and things that I optimize in my Google My Business page that shows up in their search.
And that’s kind of how they come to me. But if ever I needed to do Google ads, like I wouldn’t be opposed to it. [00:45:00] I just haven’t needed to.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so I’m gonna ask you sort of the same question, but in two different sort of ways. So the, and this is for your law firm, you know, you went out on your own, started your firm, you’ve learned a lot over the last 11 years. So, uh, do you have any advice for lawyers out there with regard to just starting or growing their law practice?
Not social media stuff, just the law firm stuff.
Bianca Jordan: Sure. So for those who are thinking about starting your law firm whatever your biggest fear is, say it out loud, write it down. You know, read it out loud too, just to kind of disarm it, you know, or disarm it rather because a lot of people just. Hold onto that fear of like, what if I fail? What if you know this happens?
Okay, so what if you fail? You can go get a job. You know, like if you, or what if you wake up one day and you hate your law firm again? You can close it. Go get a job. Like it’s not like if you work for yourself and start your law firm, that’s your completely unemployable for the rest of your life. If anything, the opposite is true because now as a solo entrepreneur, you’ve learned things [00:46:00] that make you more marketable should you decide to go work at another law firm or whatever other company.
So that’s the first thing I would say. Just kind of just do it. Start small. Also focus on just what you need. I know a lot of people are like, I need the big office with all the fancy equipment and I need all this stuff. Like, no, just. For me, I literally just had my law license and some wifi. Like that’s what I started with, and that was enough to get me going.
So just start with what you need and then you can kind of build up from the rest. For those who are wanting to grow their law firm, same thing, like don’t rush to go hire people. Once you start to make money, don’t rush to go buy the latest. You know, iPhone and all the gadgets and whatever you know, still be fiscally responsible and treat yourself like you’re still starting out until you really can’t afford to kind of splurge a little bit more.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so similar question. This is to lawyers that are out there doing social media you’ve looked at a lot of social medias. I know you have a lot of good opinions on that. So what do you [00:47:00] see are some of the top mistakes and maybe some advice you would give them? Some, you know, 80/20 things that they could fix pretty quickly to maybe get better traction on social media.
Bianca Jordan: So my biggest pet peeve, this is specific to LinkedIn. I hate when I see posts and it’s like, I’m thrilled to announce I just got this certification. I’m thrilled to announce whatever. Nobody is ever actually thrilled to announce these things. Like when you’re creating content on social media, speak like a human being please and thank you.
Stop with the, I’m thrilled to announce things. Another thing that I see right now happening that’s also kind of making me mad is what I like to call empathy porn, which is people posting things like, you know, I got fired from my first job outta law school. Here’s how it turned into a million dollar law firm.
Or like just posting things where it’s like, here’s this really bad and sad thing that happened to me that I want you to feel bad about, but here’s how I turned it around to like rise up. Like I hate those posts because it’s very. Gimmicky. Again, just speak to people, you know, the way that you would want to be [00:48:00] spoken to.
I also think we need to give masterclass a break. I feel like every other day it’s like, so and so is teaching a masterclass on this, and a masterclass on that. Not everything is a masterclass, right? So it’s just share content that you would actually. Want to consume and that you think your client would actually care about.
Your client doesn’t care that you just bought, you know, a new bench. Your client doesn’t care about your red bottoms. They care about like they have this problem that they need help with. Can you help them? And more importantly, do they even like you? Because the gag is, a lot of people don’t even wanna hire lawyers.
They would rather just hire someone else because it’s cheaper, or DIY. So you already have that working against you. Don’t be the type of person that falls into that stereotype of what other people think. Lawyers are just be a normal person. That’s all they’re looking for.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, you mentioned the empathy porn. You know, there is on Twitter at least some really good satire accounts that basically do that, but it’s ridiculous. So are you on Twitter?
Bianca Jordan: Um, Not anymore. I haven’t used Twitter in years.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I, I’ve never [00:49:00] posted, I, you know, I’ve lurked. It’s not the way it used to be. I’ll just say that. It’s not as good as the way it, the, you know, the good years are behind it.
But there’s still a few good stuff, things on there, but so what are your main channels? You got TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, or those, your three main.
Bianca Jordan: Those are my three main for business. I also love threads because I used to love Twitter. Like I used to go in live tweet shows all the time, just, you know, shenanigans on, on Twitter, and I kind of do that on threads now. So on threads, it’s kind of a mix of professional and personal wear. I. I’m sharing like, you know, a day in the life of, you know, solo entrepreneur.
You know, I’ve been sharing like my hiring chronicles ’cause hiring has been challenging for me this year. And just kind of sharing different things. I share some tidbits about immigration. I share some tidbits about personal branding. So it’s really just a mix of, if you wanna know what I’m really like, then that’s kind of what it is.
And if you like me on threads and then you’d meet me in person and like me too. ’cause I’m exactly the same way online as I am in person.
Jonathan Hawkins: So be, before I let you go, I do want to [00:50:00] hear about your thoughts on Facebook. So, you know, it’s gone through all sorts of evolution and, you know, it’s like a bunch of boomers, whatever it is now. I don’t know, people are like, I hate it. I’m not going on there. But what is your view on that? I feel like people get clients out of there, so what do you think about it and what’s, what’s a good way to approach Facebook?
Bianca Jordan: So I have a, like hate relationship with Facebook. I’m on there really ’cause my family’s on there. But I have gotten a decent amount of clients on Facebook and I also get paid for creating content there. So that’s also motivating to kind of create stuff there. Facebook is hit or miss for me. I am in a lot of Facebook groups, so I do kind of communicate with some lawyers here and there, but.
It really just depends on what you’re using Facebook for. Like if you plan on using Facebook for marketing, then you have to be a little bit more strategic about it. Live video does really well on Facebook, whether people are actually watching you live or not. Most people are more likely to watch your videos after the fact, then [00:51:00] watching it live.
So if you’re gonna be posting, then that’s the way to go, but it’s just, I don’t know, it’s like kind of like most social media platforms. It’s, It’s hit or miss these days.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, what do you do outside of business and law? What do you do for fun?
Bianca Jordan: So I love to bake. I think I’m biased obviously, but I bake the best carrot cake that you’ll ever have in your life. I bake everything from scratch. I don’t have a sweet tooth though, so I really literally just bake things and give them away to people.
Jonathan Hawkins: Where do you live? How, How close
Bianca Jordan: I live in
Jonathan Hawkins: are you to.
Bianca Jordan: so fun fact I was meeting up with a friend at Clio Con in Austin in October, and I literally baked her a lemon cake and brought it with me just to hand deliver it to her just, just because.
So if you love to, if you love sweets and stuff, you know, I can definitely bake something and send it to you. Other than that, I love gardening, although in Massachusetts we can’t really garden until summertime, but those are the things that I kind of like doing in my spare time.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned Clio Con. Do, Do you go to many conferences? Do you, do you Do you travel, go [00:52:00] to those?
Bianca Jordan: Yeah I don’t mind traveling, although this year’s is in Boston, so I won’t have to travel.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what, what are your conferences of choice? You got Clio and what else
Bianca Jordan: So Clio Con has been my favorite legal conference to go to so far, just because they’re actually pushing innovation and whatnot. Especially ai, which is like oil and water for lawyers. But I I like Cle Con. Other than that I’m trying to think. Last year I went to Laro, which I think was like a virtual conference.
Those are the last two that I’ve gone to. I’ve gone to the American Immigration Lawyers Association conferences. I’ve been a speaker at those a few times. So I’m actually looking for other conferences to go to, ’cause I personally find legal conferences to be very boring, cookie cutter and like, same speaker, same topics, you know, and I’m kind of looking for a little bit.
You know, I kinda want something different, you know?
Jonathan Hawkins: Outside the law you mean?
Bianca Jordan: Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, there’s so many conferences nowadays. It’s uh, yeah, there’s so many, I mean, so many [00:53:00] legal, so many non-legal, and it’s hard to find, you know, necessarily which ones to go to. And, I mean, I was talking to somebody and it’s like, I could fill my calendar fall and spring with nothing but conferences uh, and I wouldn’t be able to get anything
Bianca Jordan: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’d be fun though, right? Yeah. Well, cool. So, you know, anything, you know, as you look to the future, you know, anything you think you want to do that maybe you haven’t started yet or you know, any other things that you’re looking forward to?
Bianca Jordan: I speaking about the conferences, I would love to one day like host a conference that is different than the typical legal conferences. I feel like every year it’s the same topic, same speaker, same everything. And I just want lawyers to know that like you have personality, like you were someone before you became a lawyer.
I understand that. Law school strips us down, breaks us down, doesn’t build us back up. Like, I just want lawyers to tap back into who they were before they became an attorney. Because for me, I look at being an [00:54:00] attorney as like my job, I don’t plan on doing this for the rest of my life. And I feel like a lot of people can’t separate the two.
And I just want lawyers to kind of let their freak flag fly a little bit, you know, and just like bring more of that personality into your business and into your life and like everything will be imp improved for you. So I kind of wanna. One day kind of create a conference that allows lawyers to do that while also learning things other than the typical things we learn at conferences,
Jonathan Hawkins: Well put me on the email list, make sure I get notice when you, when you decide to do it. Well, Bianca, this has been great. Appreciate you coming on. So for people out there, you’ve dropped some of your stuff earlier, but why don’t you tell us again, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
Bianca Jordan: Sure. So I am brazen lawyer on all social media and I’m also on LinkedIn a lot. So you can just look me up, Bianca Jordan on LinkedIn. Shoot me a message. I don’t bite, you know, so just call it at me.
Jonathan Hawkins: Alright, well I appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.
Bianca Jordan: No problem.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the founding partner podcast. [00:55:00] 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.
