Practice Success

In this engaging episode, Lisa and Dave shake it up a little! Instead of being joined by a guest, they spend the time exploring E-Freedom, or Entrepreneurial Freedom. Over the past 20 years, Dave has worked to create the E-Freedom structure for lawyers which allows them to live their dream, whatever that means for them. It all begins when you join. We look at your practice on the day you join from the lens of our four pillars. First, is legal knowledge. What do you know? Since a law practice is actually a business, what you know informs what you are able to offer. That’s why we start by defining what you know, what you want to know, and what you want to offer. Next, is determining your competence in marketing and sales or messaging and communications. How are you speaking about what you offer? Do people know what you offer? Third, we look into your operations. The efficiency of your operations is the best way to measure your profit. How efficient are you at delivering your work product? Lawyers who have mastered this are consistently achieving a million-dollar practice! Finally, we look into your culture. How do your values carry through your firm? Have you built a culture of success? This inquiry helps us determine your practice’s model and best ways to help you grow. Most members start with a model that is less than profitable, build to a profitable model, and even achieve a robust model where they are achieving $100-150,000 a month in revenue – with just one attorney and 4-6 staff members! At the end of the day, E-Freedom is about building your practice model so you have the ability to define what entrepreneurial freedom means to you. We want to help get you there! 

Lisa and Dave are joined by Mitchell Lansky, of the Lansky Law Firm, in Nashville, Tennessee. Mitchell has been practicing almost 40 years! He calls his journey “a little strange” in the beginning because he first got his Masters in Tax. Mitchell worked for a corporation for a few years and even ended up as the General Counsel in his early 30s – young for that seat. But he always wanted to practice estate planning. In 2014, he found that taxes no longer drove estate planning and he knew he needed to update his knowledge and skill set in order to keep helping people. In searching for where he could learn more, Mitchell found LWP. And he will be the first to call his time with LWP a journey, a journey he says he may never end. At his core, Mitchell cares about helping people and he’s dedicated to being a forever student so he can continue to do just that. As a more mature attorney, Mitchell leaves us with this salient point…in today’s world if you’re not growing at least a little bit you’re fading away. He wants to keep growing. And if you do too, then you have to give this episode a listen! Mitchell inspires us all to keep growing and expanding, pushing ourselves outside our comfort zones.

Lisa and Dave are joined by David and Julie Salter, of Salter Law, in Minnesota. David and Julie are a husband and wife power team. When things got a little crazy during the pandemic, they decided to join LWP to help focus the firm on being a business as opposed to simply a law firm. When David originally took over the business, he thought he’d have enough incoming leads from referrals that he wouldn’t have to do any marketing. After a few years, and a global pandemic, it became clear that wasn’t the case. However, marketing always remained at the bottom of his list. It was an epiphany that David needed to have on his own, but once he was ready Julie was there to help him implement a strategy. And LWP’s tools really helped them determine what to focus on and where to take the firm. Their advice to any lawyers who feel like they are coming to a similar realization? Identify what is holding you back and figure out how to overcome it. It’s hard to break out and realize you need help with the business, as opposed to just carrying on as a lawyer. But you’ll be glad you asked for help, they guarantee it.

Lisa and Dave are joined by Adam O’Dell, of Gordon Law Group, in Nashville, Tennessee. Adam always knew he wanted to be an attorney. He started his career as a Marine JAG officer, but 18 months in he unfortunately sustained an injury and found himself faced with a decision. He joined his current firm eight years ago, but at the time the firm looked very different than it does today. The firm started as an entertainment firm, representing country music artists, and was litigation heavy. In fact, estate planning was only about 2% of the business. When Adam came on board, he did whatever the others needed him to do, but business and estate planning were always what called to him. Personally, he’d seen it work really well on one side of his family and wanted to help others achieve the same success. The firm then joined LWP in 2017, and through what they’ve learned and implemented they have been able to eliminate the need for litigation, increased revenue, and decreased stress. The key word in this episode? Pivot. Knowing when to pivot and how to do it in a way that is best for you and your business. Dave and Adam talk about how LWP can help your entire firm find and achieve a work/life balance, fulfillment, and success. By the end of this episode, you’ll be ready to take the plunge too! So, don’t let fact-finding get in the way, give it a listen today.

Lisa and Dave are joined by Sharon and Rob Hoskins, of Hoskins LLP, in Westbury, New York. This husband-wife team are educators at heart, and that’s what drew them to the LWP process. Sharon and Rob discuss how they made the transition and give their best advice to anyone else considering the jump – don’t be afraid. Estate planning and elder law allow you to follow your passion, help others, educate families, and make a meaningful contribution to your community. They all agree, the best part is knowing that your clients will never know what you were able to save them from experiencing. So, if you’re thinking of making the transition yourself, listen to this episode – then talk to attorneys in your area, talk to LWP about the system, and learn about it yourself. Dive in and don’t stop! As Rob says, at first it may seem too good to be true, because it’s basically a practice in a box, but you don’t want to be kicking yourself in ten years, wishing you took the leap today.

Lisa and Dave are joined by Alay Ajnik, of Law Firm Success Group, who is dedicated to helping small law firms be successful. Alay works with attorneys who have left the “big law life” behind and are now forging their own way as the business owner of their own firm. Alay helps his clients across the country to achieve their vision through 1:1 business coaching that focuses on strategy, hiring the right people, and using solid systems. It becomes clear early in this episode how Law Firm Success Group and LWP have a lot of synergy in their approaches. Dave reviews LWP’s four pillars: legal knowledge, value creation, operational proficiency, and company culture and has Alay weigh in on each, along with the overarching element – mindset. If you are done being shackled to your desk and are ready to find freedom and flexibility in your practice, this is an episode you won’t want to miss!

Lisa and Dave are joined again by LWP Member Michael Rutkowski, Founder of Rutkowski Law Firm, an Asset Protection and Estate Planning firm in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This time, Michael and Dave talk about the EOS principle of getting the right people in the right seats and knowing your own “whoness.” Is everyone in every seat a who? Are they empowered to execute their role? Are you able to spend the majority of your time in your unique ability? Listen in for tips on how you can implement this important EOS principle. But that’s not all! We also cover what you need to truly have Entrepreneurial Freedom (E-Freedom). Since what you do this week, this month, or even this quarter can bring you closer to being free from what’s not naturally yours, not your whoness. At the end of the day, E-Freedom is a journey not a destination, and you have to find time to live along the way.

Lisa and Dave are joined again by LWP Member Michael Rutkowski, Founder of Rutkowski Law Firm, an Asset Protection and Estate Planning firm in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This time, Michael shares how EOS (Entrepreneur Operating System) allowed his firm the flexibility to quickly implement a new operating model in the pandemic and why they haven’t looked back. Hint: they haven’t needed to. But the best part of this episode? Dave asks Michael what words of encouragement he would give to young lawyers as he looks back on the decisions he made in building his firm into the thriving business it is today. You won’t want to miss their answers!

Lisa and Dave are joined by LWP Member Michael Rutkowski, Founder of Rutkowski Law Firm, an Asset Protection and Estate Planning firm in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. As someone who just really loves helping people, Michael’s first career in law – workers compensation defense – never really sat right with him. But when he started to help friends with their estate planning needs, it opened his eyes to an area of the law where people truly appreciated his efforts, and some cases even ended in a hug! So, he branched off and found a niche in revocable living trusts and will planning. Then a referral led him to discover Lawyers With Purpose and he started to learn how to regain his sanity and his freedom. LWP helped Michael go from having a law practice managing him, instead of him managing it, to developing systems that allowed his firm to run efficiently from multiple locations and with far less headache. And the best part? His pre-LWP revenue of $500k soon exploded to over $1.9 million within just two years! Suffice it to say, you don’t want to miss a second of our three part series with Michael.

In this engaging episode, Dave discusses the LWP Entrepreneurial Freedom (E-Freedom) Program and what it can mean for an Estate Planning and Elder Law attorney and their business. This complete law practice system covers four pillars: Legal Knowledge, Marketing and Sales, Operations, and Culture. Dave defines and explores the metrics needed for each law firm practice success model: Profitable, Robust, and E-Freedom. If you’ve ever wondered what your E-Freedom (or practice success) could look like and how to achieve it, this episode is for you.