Scalable Law Podcast

It is only six weeks until the end of the financial year, so today on the podcast Caralee discusses the four things that you should be doing in your law firm between now and then to get your firm in the best position for the new financial year. 

You will learn what you need to do in your firm to make this EOFY happen and how you prepare to make 2022-2023 your best financial year yet! 

Depending on where you are located in the world may affect how much of a priority EOFY is for you. Here in Australia, June 30th is the last day of our financial year. Don’t wait for the two weeks before EOFY - get started now, no matter where you are!

Remember, in business you want you to be proactive rather than reactive! 

So, what do you need to get ready for EOFY? Caralee dives into the importance of the below: 

1. Contact your Accountant & look at your figures! 

You need to plan; we have six weeks until EOFY - Think, what invoices do you have coming in? What will you be billing? Is everything up to date and reconciled? Have you contributed to Super this year, and if not, can you contribute to your super fund? If you haven’t had this conversation with your accountant - go now! 

2. Plan your goals for the next financial year! 

If you haven’t had time to do your planning or filter your goals for the new financial year, now is your time. Not in July, this needs to be done this side of the year. Stay proactive rather than reactive.  

3. Create a marketing plan that will support your law firm's goals

In order to grow and reach your goals, you must have the proper marketing to support them! Your marketing plan may start small and grow more extensive throughout the year - depending on your goals. 

4. Create a content plan to support organic growth

What will you break down to promote your law firm on social media in the new financial year? You can watch Caralee’s FREE Social Media Workshop to digest precisely how you can plan your social media content. Social media is the best form of organic marketing, so set aside some time to do this workshop. 

If you would love to do an entire planning session with me, now is the time! In the Scalable Business Lounge, we will have a Masterclass in June on exactly how you can get organising and prepare for your 2022-2023 financial year! 

To apply to be a part of the lounge, you can do so by visiting scalablelaw.com

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This week on the podcast, Caralee dives into how you can minimise client complaints by having excellent but simple best practices for the service that you offer. Getting client complaints is time-consuming, frustrating, energy-zapping, and avoidable! 

Excellent customer service is something that Caralee’s firm, Collective Family Law, constantly strives to improve, and now Caralee wants to share her tips with you! She recognises that no matter how good your business is, there is always room to improve. 

As law firm owners, we often know how to give excellent service to the clients ourselves,  however, we can forget to train our team on how to do the same! Remember they are great lawyers, and they not have ever considered how to give a five-star service to the clients that walk through your law firm doors.

We all know what it is like to be a client, and we all know what it is like to be on the receiving end of a bad or poor service experience. It is frustrating and often can result in bad reviews.

At Collective Family Law, Caralee and her team aren’t unicorns so of course, they receive complaints from time to time. However, they work on as a team how to minimise those complaints by giving excellent customer service using a few simple strategies.

So, what does the ultimate service look like to minimise client complaints in your law firm?

In this podcast, listen to Caralee's tips to provide the best practices when it comes to service in your law firm. Create raving fans and keep complaints to a minimum. 

As mentioned in the podcast, head to ScalableLaw.com to download free resources, templates, and you will find Caralee’s mastermind membership - the Scalable Business Lounge. This is a program whereby Caralee breaks down how to scale your law firm in 4 easy strategies!

See the links below for more info! 

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On the podcast today, Caralee interviews Adele Anthony from Your Legacy Lawyer! Your Legacy Lawyer specialises in Wills & Estates, Superannuation, Power of Attorney, and Succession Planning matters. Adele began her work in the law over 30 years ago as a legal assistant and returned to study to qualify as a solicitor when she was in her forties and fifties.  Your Legacy Lawyer strives to ensure women are financially sound when it comes to estate planning.

Adele was one of the founding members of the Scalable Business Lounge and has been an incredible addition to the group. When she first joined the lounge, she had only just opened her business, in only 18 months since then she has dramatically grown her firm, employed solicitors and is working herself only 10 hours a week on client work. Her big goal is to get off the tools by the end of the year so she can focus on the scaling of her business!

This podcast is super inspiring and displays how working on your business, rather than in it, can have rapid results when you take the right steps!

The Scalable Business Lounge allows students to access the best resources to scale your firm - fast. The Lounge is designed to help you make a difference to the people you help and your team. The SBL helps driven legal professionals to scale their law firms by taking client work off their plate without sacrificing quality.

If you would like to know more about the Scalable Business Lounge, visit us! Click here.

CONNECT WITH Adele:

LinkedIn: @AdeleMAnthony

Website: https://yourlegacylawyer.com.au/contact-me/

Instagram: @Your.Legacy.Lawyer

Facebook: @AdeleMAnthony

CONNECT WITH Caralee:

LinkedIn: @caraleefontenele

Instagram: @caralee.fontenele

Facebook: @caraleefontenele

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This week on the podcast, Caralee dives into how to avoid making the same mistakes she did in her law firm, which was a $250,000.00 mistake. 

Running Collective Family Law for ten years and being a part of the business for fourteen years, Caralee has made plenty of mistakes, but this one is an expensive learning curve that other business owners can avoid if they have their whits about them. 

When Caralee took over the firm, it was a shambles, dabbling in many fields of law in the hope of reliable cash flow, taking on any client or matter that came through the door and there were no systems or billing practices. When Caralee became the Principal of Collective Family Law, she cleaned it all up and specialised the firm to be only Family Law, leading to a niche market and more cash flow. It is a common misconception that people think the more you offer, the more money you make, which is not always true.  

Caralee shares her mistakes openly on this podcast so that you don’t have to make them! To find out the mistakes Caralee made, which eventually cost her $250,000.00 - listen to the podcast! 

If you found this podcast episode to be extra informative, you will LOVE the Scalable Business Lounge. Caralee has built the lounge to focus on your learning without the fall and scale without the mistakes! With the support from Law Firm owners from different fields, experiences and countries, there is so much to be gained! To find out more, click here! 

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This week on the podcast, Caralee dives into a FAQ that was asked in the Scalable Business Lounge. ‘Should I hire a part-time lawyer in my legal practice?’

For many law firm owners, employing a part-time lawyer seems challenging. This is often because sometimes, in certain practice areas, it can be very demanding in terms of what clients need from you - which is sometimes daily contact. 

Caralee shares her personal experience with hiring part-time solicitors and how to manage the role. There are so many benefits to hiring part-time employees, and while there are challenges, there are workarounds. 

Listen to the podcast to find out how Caralee manages the part-time lawyers in her law firm and how much value they have brought to the team, clients, and work environment!

If you have a bubbling question like this one, in the Scalable Business Lounge, Caralee runs a Hot Seat session that runs once a month; in this session, Caralee answers all scopes of questions and input from over 40 law-firm owners from across the globe. Enrollments are now open; visit caraleefontenele.com to apply and arrange your 1:1 call with Caralee. 

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Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, you need to! I don’t want you to miss an episode.

Today on the Being Unstoppable Podcast, Caralee dives into how to get your and your teams CPD points the either low-cost or no cost way. All while ensuring they are of massive value to you and your team. There are a few strategies to be creative to get those points, and today Caralee shares how she and her team get in those CPD sessions! 

Tune in to hear the below ideas and how Caralee has run them in her law firm:

When it comes to CPD points, it doesn’t have to be giving up your weekend and spending thousands of dollars to attend a conference. Instead, be intentional about what you want to learn and get creative using the above tips and tricks! You will have your CPD points before you know it! 

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This week on the podcast, Caralee chats about recent updates in her firm, one, in particular, being a team retreat she took her team on to Couran Cove on the Gold Coast, Australia.

During the retreat, Midja Fisher joined to lead the team in a no-bullshit leadership session where she broke down exactly what a great & effective leader ought to be. This session was unreal and made some people uncomfortable due to the cut to the chase approach, that is, ‘you either got it, or you don’t.’

Midja preached to the team that in no way do you need a title of leadership in order to be a leader. Whether you are a law firm owner, lawyer, junior lawyer, receptionist - anything, you always have the potential to lead. Below are the three main pillars Midja broke down into practical steps to lead. Self-awareness Self-belief Self-regulation. These three pillars of leadership changed the game for Caralee’s team and Caralee herself. The way Midja broke down these three movements was enough to awaken the inner leader in everyone - no matter who you are!

This is a real eye-opening podcast, and it may be uncomfortable to listen to as you reflect on yourself and those who surround you, but it may just be the most productive podcast yet. Listen in as Caralee guides you through Midja’s message; click here for the full podcast!

CONNECT WITH Caralee:

Instagram @caralee.fontenele

Facebook: @caraleefontenele

LinkedIn: @caraleefontenele

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This week on the Being Unstoppable Podcast, we have the inspiring Karen Finch from Legally Yours joining us for an unstoppable chat about law, business and breaking barriers in the legal world!

Karen Finch is a non-practising lawyer, CEO of Legally Yours, Co-Director of Pro Help Legal Australia, Board Member of the Australian Legal Tech Association (ALTA), and more! Karen is incredibly passionate about her career, and knowing how much of a difference she is making in the world is her main drive to be unstoppable.

Karen’s passion for law began through her family, where she saw her family lose a complex litigation matter involving her father's company. This saw her family losing everything, not necessarily due to the litigation matter itself but due to their legal representation. This then sparked Karen to become a lawyer and make a change. It took her a while to find her space in the law where she was felt truly aligned. But once she did, she became unstoppable and created Legally Yours!

Legally Yours is a dual-sided online legal marketplace that was created to help the 70-80% of Australians who have legal needs and currently don’t have access to lawyers. This is often because they fear costs, don’t know how to find a ’trusted’ lawyer and don’t understand the legal process. Legally Yours helps potential clients overcome the traditional barriers to accessing legal services by matching them to fixed-fee or value-based pricing lawyers across Australia.

The other side of the business focuses on disrupting how traditional lawyers deliver legal services. Legally Yours does this by educating and supporting Australian lawyers and legal professionals to change their business model away from billable hours to a transparent pricing model that lets their clients know how much they will charge and what they will deliver. They do this through our online member community portal - the LY Hub.

Karen’s passion for change is contagious, and this podcast episode is a genuinely fabulous listen! Listen to the full podcast by clicking here.

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If you want to scale your law firm, you will experience growing pains - it is inevitable for every business. Welcome to another episode of the Being Unstoppable Podcast! In this episode, Caralee dives into growing pains, how to navigate them, and why it is a sign of scaling when your business has them. Caralee walks you through the below strategies to ensure that growing pains and challenges that you experience don’t become recurring objections in your scaling journey;

- Hiring the right people to help you is one of the keys to success. This could be hiring the right people on your team or hiring external consultants to help you. I.e., Business Coach, Accountant, etc.

- Be a good delegator! Remember - you are trying to scale your business, so it doesn’t rely on YOU! You only have a certain number of hours available so you need to leverage your time by delegating tasks.

- Plan for a middle manager or a second in charge in the future of your business! You might not be ready now, but at some point, you will need one to scale your firm to the next level.

- You will need to implement processes & systems! (Yes, even if you are a solo practitioner!) Listen to podcast episode 71 to dig deeper into processes.

- Plan for growth through your vision & goal setting!

To find out other methods, Caralee took which saw her taking over a debt-riddled company and turning it into a multi-million dollar law firm - the Scalable Business Lounge is awaiting! The Scalable Business Lounge is designed through Caralee’s experiences and ensuring you have the shortcuts and secret sauce to success!

To find out more about the Scalable Business Lounge, click here.

CONNECT WITH Caralee:

Instagram @caralee.fontenele

Facebook: @caraleefontenele

LinkedIn: @caraleefontenele

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Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, you need to! I don’t want you to miss an episode.

In this week's podcast, Caralee explains what strategy she implemented into her law firm, which increased the turnover by an extra $400,000.00 in revenue in one year! There was no extra marketing implemented, no more work, just one new system implemented into her legal practice.  

So, what was this system? Accountability tracking! 

If implemented correctly, accountability in your law firm can help you increase growth in revenue, client intake, and your team. As a leader holding yourself and your team to a level of accountability is crucial when scaling and ensuring you can work less!

In Caralee’s law firm, Collective Family Law, she took it over when it was struggling and in a state of serious debt. She turned the firm around to what it is today, a thriving law practice with a team of 14. 

The accountability piece was created on a simple spreadsheet and is used to start a conversation each week with each of the team members.

Caralee shares the full strategy on the podcast. However, if you are a member of the Scalable Business Lounge, you receive full training and have access to Caralee’s spreadsheet to use in your firm.

To find out other methods, Caralee took which saw her taking over a debt-riddled company and turning it into a multi-million dollar law firm - the Scalable Business Lounge is awaiting! 

The Scalable Business Lounge is designed through Caralee’s experiences and ensuring you have the shortcuts and secret sauce to success! 

To find out more about the Scalable Business Lounge, click here. 

CONNECT WITH Caralee:

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW IN ITUNES FOR A SHOUTOUT

Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you’re not, you need to! I don’t want you to miss an episode.

Now, if you’re feeling extra loving, I would genuinely appreciate it if you could leave a review for the podcast. The reviews help me be found in the big podcast world by other law firm owners, plus it is so lovely to get feedback. Also, if you have any podcast requests, email me at [email protected].