In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Geo Bellas discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"The old way of practicing is going to fade out, and is fading out. We have to learn how to live in that world, make money in that world, and, more importantly, serve our clients." — Geo Bellas
Connect with Geo Bellas:
Twitter: @GeoBellas
Facebook: Bellas & Wachowski, Attorneys at Law
Website: Bellas-Wachowski.com
LinkedIn: Bellas & Wachowski & George “Geo” Bellas
Justia Lawyers: Bellas & Wachowski - Attorneys at Law
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Geo Bellas 0:00
People have to trust us because they give us all kinds of confidential information. They come to us for counseling. It's not just about their particular legal issues. Sometimes we're counseling them on many other factors that affect their business, and our judgment, which is based on our experience. So once we recognize that those are the foundations of a successful practice, then we have to find ways that we can use technology to advance those qualities that people are looking for.
Narrator 0:38
You're listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, we'll take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin 1:00
Welcome, everyone to be that lawyer. My name is Steve Fretzin. And welcome to the show. If this is the first time you've listened to the show, be that lawyer is all about helping lawyers to understand what it's like to be a lawyer and conduct business development, marketing technology efforts that are going to make you better as a practitioner. And so we try to bring on great guests and great topics to do that. Today's guest is a good friend of mine and just one of the best guys I know Gio Bellas. He's an award winning business and litigation attorney and is the principal and senior partner at Bellas and chelski. And want to welcome you to the show. How's it going? Good morning. Welcome to the world of the pandemic. Yeah, we are right in the heart of things. think we're just about hitting our peak here in Chicago in Illinois. So how are you weathering the storm so far?
Geo Bellas 1:49
We've been remote, the entire firm has been remote since the beginning of March. And we're gonna probably stay that way through the at least till the middle of May, if not longer. We'll see how it phases in.
Steve Fretzin 2:02
Yeah, it's it's, it's crazy for everybody. For the purposes of just my listeners understanding you a little bit in your background, would you mind just sharing a little bit about your practice, how you help people and kind of what your focus is?
Geo Bellas 2:13
Our practices, a general practice, my particular area with my team, which has a total of five lawyers is focused on business and business litigation. I'm also work on enough counsel basis with Clifford Law Offices downtown, working with them on tech issues in litigation, particularly e discovery.
Steve Fretzin 2:37
Gotcha. And I know from speaking with you, and from from kind of watching you over the last number of years that you've got quite the history and reputation for using technology to win big cases, just out of curiosity, what led you down that path?
Geo Bellas 2:51
A long winding path. I've always been an advocate of using computers. I remember in 1983, I bought my first computer, it was a Sony it had a main station in a what they call the slave. So it was like a little network with a big dot matrix printer that when it printed, the whole building shook that system in 1983 cost me $12,000. And ever. Yeah, ever since then, I've been an advocate of using computers, I've been lecturing to lawyers about the importance of using computers for years. And Along came a case in 1995. That challenged my ability to handle a piece of litigation just because of the sheer volume of the documents. So I ended up using a program called summation to help me organize that case in the documents. We ended up settling that case for a ridiculous amount of money. Large, ridiculous. And while I was working on that case, and working with Clifford law, Bob asked me to get involved with the Ford Explorer. And while I was working on the Ford Explorer on getting discovery for them, the recall hit of the Ford Explorer. And all of a sudden I became overnight, a nationally popular lawyer with other lawyers because I understood the documents that led to the rollover problem. And ever since then, I've been using technology and advocating its use. And then in 2006, the federal rules changed and adopted e discovery. And I went around the country lecturing about how to use e discovery, especially for plaintiffs lawyers. And I've been applying that use in my practice.
Steve Fretzin 4:35
And so you know, technology obviously has changed quite a bit since the 80s. When you bought that $12,000 computer, what do you see is going on right now 2020 and how it's going to change continue to change in the future.
Geo Bellas 4:48
With the changes we've been talking about technology has been coming at us like a tsunami for years, and it's only accelerating. I remember quote that I first heard in 2017, said that change has never been this fast before, and it will never be this slow again. And so technology has been just advancing it all levels, the legal field has been slow to adapt to it. Lawyers in particularly have been slow to adapt to technology. Just for example, right now, lawyers are having a hard time handling a zoom meeting, I did a meeting yesterday with 10 lawyers, and three of them needed help with their, from their grandchildren to get on the zoom meeting, lawyers are just not prepared for dealing with technology. And it's going to continue to advance at even a greater rate. So we can expect the changes that we're going to see because of technology accelerating now. Because this pandemic is forcing lawyers into doing things that they previously have been uncomfortable with.
Steve Fretzin 5:57
So is that is that also going to impact the ability for lawyers to to conduct business and continue to make the kind of revenue that they've made? Are they are they going to get get some some people get hurt pretty badly by that?
Geo Bellas 6:12
I think that this is just my opinion, I think there's a large number of lawyers that are never going to survive this pandemic. We're probably gonna see, lawyer bankruptcies accelerate. People, lawyers that have been living month to month haven't had income in two months and won't have income for a couple more months. So we're gonna see a big Fallout. And the only way that lawyers are going to be able to survive is to accept the fact that the old way of practicing is going to fade out and is fading out, we're going to have to learn how to do depositions remotely, we're going to have to do, I just did a mediation last week, remotely, it was all done through zoom, or a variation of zoom. That's the kind of things that we could expect in the future. We have to learn how to work live in that world and work in that world and make money in that world, and more importantly, service our clients.
Steve Fretzin 7:05
Yeah, so the attorneys that don't conform with the new, you know, with new technology, and with the changing, you know, times they're going to be they're going to be left out in the lurch. That appears to be pretty, you know, pretty obvious. Are there suggestions that you would make to the attorneys that are struggling with technology or that are not maybe seeing the writing on the wall? What's going on for the next few months?
Geo Bellas 7:26
Yeah, I was just thinking about this. In preparing for today. You know, the Bar Association is talked about mentoring young lawyers, to help them prepare for the practice of law. I'm thinking that we ought to start thinking about reverse mentoring. We're older lawyers, established practitioners, bringing young lawyers who understand technology, or better yet are more comfortable with technology, and let them help the lawyers move into a technological world that they're not prepared for. Technology is just going to Well, let me rephrase that this pandemic is accelerating the pace of change. And it's all going towards a technological world. You know, technology is being used in so many different ways that we haven't even thought about before. There's a lawyer in England is doing a lot of radical, different things. There's a lawyer in England, who has developed software, an online application actually, to help service the large portion of our population that's underserved by legal services, people are doing more and more things online. And technology is allowing them to do that. And the innovative lawyers and even non lawyers, more importantly, are finding ways to make money using technology to service a portion of our population that has previously been underrepresented or underrepresented in legal matters.
Steve Fretzin 9:04
Yeah, and I'm trying to remember but I thought there was a 60 minutes episode that actually timed a high level lawyer against AI to try to research a document. remember seeing something about that or reading that?
Geo Bellas 9:17
Yeah, I'm actually seeing it in action. Yeah, I just got a demonstration of West laws, new service, they will take your brief, run it through their AI, and give you suggestions as to how to improve your brief. They will analyze your brief and tell you if there's holes in your brief. If you've missed any cases, they will take the opponent's brief and check all the citations and see if they accurately referenced the cases and if there are any cases to country at all using an art form of artificial intelligence. So that's just a simple application. Ross, r o s s is a variation of the Watson computer. Ross, he actually has a form of artificial intelligence that analyzes security agreements. And this has been going on for several years now. Morgan Stanley, for a couple years ago, started running their security interests, instruments through Ross, to analyze and see if the terms of the security agreement conform with their requirements. It replaced 250,000 lawyer hours. And it put how many lawyers out of work. So they're using artificial intelligence to do routine mundane performances, document reviews are being done using technology. The big buzzword in discovery these days is technology assisted review tar, where the computer creates an algorithm and you train the computer on what to find that may be relevant in searches, huge numbers, I'm talking 10s of millions of documents, or files in a computer and finds them the documents that might be relevant to your case. So think about how many lawyer hours that is eliminating. So technology is taking over a big portion of our practice. And it's been good it's been going on, it's going to be even faster. Now. Think about big firms. big firms have been paying a lot of lawyers to review documents, they don't need them anymore. It's no longer a profit center. So they're not hiring as many lawyers as they used young lawyers to review documents. So that means that people are coming out of school or not going to the big firms, which means that they're filtering down to the mid size firms, which means that the people that they are hiring and midsize firms are moving down to lower smaller firms. And then smaller firms are getting smaller and solos are becoming more prevalent. And you're going to find more and more lawyers forced into their basement practicing law from their basements.
Steve Fretzin 12:06
Yeah, so let's say that we've got an influx of solos, you know, how are they going to manage to get to get their numbers up? What What do they have to think about?
Geo Bellas 12:14
Embrace technology, number one, find ways to do things in different ways think out of the box, you have to start thinking out of the box, you can't just say I'm going to do a will when people could go online and get a will done very simply and cheaply if they have the wherewithal to do it themselves, or are brave enough to do it themselves. But there's all kinds of things that people can do online without a lawyer. Corporations are being formed and LLC are being formed online 24 hours a day, I have, I have a link in my website, that people can set up corporations in several states by filling out forms online, charging the fee to their credit card, and end up with an LLC, or corporation. So that I'm making money, well, the world sleeps.
Steve Fretzin 13:13
Got it got it. So the technology is actually automated, how you're helping people do contracts, and you don't have to really be too involved in it or at all.
Geo Bellas 13:22
My involvement is minimal, it could be handled for the most part by a paralegal. And like I said, if you could find if lawyers can find a way just like any other business, to make money while they're sleeping, they will survive. But if they if they don't understand how they could use technology to their advantage, they're not going to survive it matter of fact, the rules are rules of Professional Conduct mandates that we adapt to the changes in technology, we have to if we don't, we're actually not listening to what the Code of Professional Responsibility says. We have to be able to service our clients. And and here's the really important thing. Our clients are becoming more sophisticated. They understand technology. We don't have to train them on how to use email, everybody uses email, how many of our clients are not on Facebook? You know, so they're on, they're on the computer every day, we have to understand that that's the world we practice it.
Steve Fretzin 14:26
Now, it's absolutely the case. And you know, if I think about LinkedIn going back, I started teaching LinkedIn probably 12 years ago, and I used to get 100 people in a room and I'd say, you know, how many of you are actively using LinkedIn and maybe, you know, five or 10 hands out of 50 would go up? Today, it's it's, you know, it's you know, 4548 out of 50. So, it really social media and technology and email and texting. It's all it's all right there. And if it isn't embraced, then then someone's going to definitely be left behind. Let me ask Question it, you know, this is technology. But it also, you know, rolls into business development. And I know us as a business developer, who's been very forward in growing. Is there some advice that you would give to lawyers regarding technology and business development and its importance in the future of law?
Geo Bellas 15:21
Well, yeah, I think we, as lawyers have to remember why people come to us. And keep that in mind, before we even start thinking about embracing technology, or what to do, people, the qualities that we offer our number one trust, people have to trust us, because they give us all kinds of confidential information. They come to us for counseling, it's not just about their particular legal issues, sometimes we're counseling them and many other factors that affect their business, and our judgment, which is based on our experience. So once we recognized that those are the foundations of a successful practice, then we have to find ways that we can use technology to advance those qualities that people are looking for. I think that the most successful innovative lawyers today are going to have to be using three interconnected forces, we're going to be facing more sophisticated clients, armed with a lot of information, and a lot of market power, that will rein in and minimize the cost of legal services. We're facing a global economy. And that increases the complexity of what we do, and also has more competition, because we're going to be getting competition from foreign entities that come in here to offer legal services. And then we use we have to hit understand that information technology is automated. And it's going to replace many of the billable functions we've we've been doing as lawyers, and we are in that dovetails into another thing, we're gonna have to find more creative ways about how to charge clients, because the hourly rate is dying.
Steve Fretzin 17:14
Well, it's interesting that you bring that up, because I remember, you know, even 10 years ago, this same conversation was going on. And I don't know what happened, because I thought it was all going to be alternative billing, and it was all about, you know, companies, you know, really trying to figure out how to, you know, how to manage legal. And then and I'm sure that's happened, but I'm just not I'm just not seeing it. Like I thought I was going to see it I'm not seeing that alternative billing and and that being at the forefront of the large corporations and mid market companies, you know, the way that they're that they're, you know, looking for law firms to to change? Is that is am I missing something? Is that is that still yet to come more than it has?
Geo Bellas 17:56
I think it's a process. And people are trying to find ways to figure out how to get away from the billable hour, but I think clients don't want the billable hour. You tell somebody, you know, my hourly rate is $700 an hour yesterday? Wow, are you kidding, that's more than I earn in a week. And most people are not going to be able to afford it. And there's another factor at work and all that. And that is the middle class market that most lawyers of our ilk have service is shrinking. So there's so many different factors that are coming into play, that we really have to rethink how we provide legal services in charge for them.
Steve Fretzin 18:40
Yeah, and I think a lot of especially smaller firms are going to, you know, virtual administrators virtual call center virtual offices, you know, I'm friendly with Ron box dollar over tomato law centers, shout out to Ron, but you know, his whole play is, you know, why are you paying, you know, $20,000 a month for for rent and in having your own space when, you know, you can cut that and a third or half or whatever and, and have a space that's just as nice or nicer, and make a virtual, no long term contract. So a lot of things are moving in that direction, I think, because we need to start thinking about, well, you know, a pandemic just hit and now, you know, I've got this 20,000 a month before payroll, and no one's even using the office or people like to work from home. So are you are you seeing more of that people moving into into different technologies and virtual situations?
Geo Bellas 19:38
I think there's always been a trend. But before you ask the question, you made a point. And I think, I think what we have to recognize are lawyers need to recognize is that there are a lot of challenges that we're facing, because of the radical changes that are coming. The challenge that we lawyers are have to meet is we have to find innovative, technological ways to meet these new challenges because we I don't think we really appreciate all the changes that we're going to see it, we can't I don't think we could see everything. But let me let me give you a laundry list of things that I think we're going to see change immediately, we're gonna see more and more virtual courts. That means less and less travel. And it also means that we're going to be, we're going to be doing more and more things from in front of our computers, like some something that a Florida judge who is doing virtual court hearings, reprimanded the lawyers fernet dressing appropriately in front of their computer monitor. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin 20:41
I just I think I just saw that here in Chicago, too. There was a that you got to have your dress code, even on the on the zoom call.
Geo Bellas 20:48
It's just a small problem, a small example of the different things we're going to see, we're going to have, this sounds incredible. But we're going to have a web based global legal business challenge. There are web based global businesses that are going to be challenging what lawyers do more and more online document production and review. The term commoditized service has been kicked around for years. What that means, it means that we're going to have to find a way to offer legal services, kind of like what a restaurant does with offering you the dinner menu, there's going to be a menu of services that they could get, and it's going to be shoehorned into your, your legal services are going to be shoehorned into what the client and the customer wants. And well, that brings up another thing. But going back to what you're saying, legal processes are being outsourced, and what you were talking about doing things online, that's really a web based simulated law, law firm, to think about that, we're going to put our law firm, simulate a business and a law firm on the web. Imagine, you want to talk to your client, and you have a fake law firm background, showing your library books or whatever they else in a mahogany desk, and you sit in behind there, and you have that as your virtual office. And all this is going to create you in different jobs. We're going to have different employers. So we really have to start thinking outside of the box in order how we're going to survive.
Steve Fretzin 22:31
Yeah, it's, it's just it's just the most interesting time. You know, I mean, it's a scary time. And it's it's a depressing time, in some ways, many ways. But it's it's just the most interesting time as far as change politically and in just the economy and the environment. It's It's, it's, again, very scary. But it's just interesting to you know, if you're looking at it as an outside, you know, observer, all the different changes that are happening. Hey, George, I'd like to finish up with something. It's kind of a fun segment I'd like to do and it's called, they never taught me this in law school. So is there one thing that you wish they had taught you in law school that they didn't or that you suggest they should start teaching? That would be really critical for lawyers coming out now?
Geo Bellas 23:15
Yes. You know, a lot of law schools are still not teaching tech. in law school, a couple of law schools have adapted in particular here in Chicago, Kent law school has been an innovator in using technology for about 20 years now, which has moved them up into the rankings of law schools, I think they're now in the top 21 of the top 25 law schools in the country. And that's primarily because they're such a tech based school that teaches technology. And they brought in professors that are very sophisticated in how to use technology. So I think they don't teach tech, I tried to find law students. To help me with some projects, I can't even find enough people who understand anything about e discovery that is being taught in law school. And so a lot of schools today are not teaching tech, I heard of one law, large law firm, that think about this. As part of the interview process, they asked them to prepare a search algorithm for a complex Excel spreadsheet. That was one of the requirements as part of the interview process. So if you didn't know how to write a search algorithm, and I'm not talking about just typing, look for the word search in the document. I'm talking about the something that gives a an algorithm that gives parameters for the search. So are lawyers prepared? Lots student kids coming out of school prepared to do that? I don't think so. So, if you don't understand what I'm talking about and doing as a search algorithm, you're really not prepared to practice in the 21st century.
Steve Fretzin 24:53
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that's amazing and interesting, and I'm, I'm seeing a lot of different skills that that aren't taught in law school that, you know, business development, I think is just on the beginning, cusp of of being considered to be discussed technology, marketing, how to run your own solo practice, which is we've discussed is going to be critical because as people come out of law school and try to find those big firm jobs that don't exist are the ones that get lost to technology. Yeah, I mean, opening up your own shop is going to be a big option, and, and they're going to need to know all this stuff.
Geo Bellas 25:28
What is Steve, if I, if I could see if we're going to give a piece of advice at the end of the day to lawyers about how to practice in the future? Can I rattle off a few things? Sure. Number one, we're not going to have clients anymore as much as we're going to have customers. And so rethink about, you know, the client relationship, no matter what you want to say, yes, we're learning profession. Everything else like that note, we're dealing with customers, primarily because they're coming to you in their shopping. Number two, I think we have to offer flat fees per project or per procedure, so that we get away from the billable hour. Number three, we have to recognize that the market forces are driving our rates a lot lower than they were 10 years ago. I've seen you for how many years cash, I remember real estate closing 30 years ago, people were charging $400, which was probably a lot of money. And they're still charging less than that today, we're going to have to learn lawyers, number four are going to have to learn how to budget, their legal work, they're going to have to create budgets. And lastly, we're going to have to learn to run a practice, like a real business. We're gonna have to know what the costs are for running our business. We're gonna have to calculate what a profit margin is. And we're gonna have to offer immediate services at the best price possible. That's a huge demand on lawyers is contrary to what we have been taught on how to practice over the years.
Steve Fretzin 27:17
Yeah, that's, that's all really insightful stuff. I mean, certainly Gio, you're a trendsetter. And you're someone who you know, people need to really listen to because you not only have a lot of experience in the law, but experience in technology, I think you see things that others just haven't been seen. And so I want to thank you for being a guest on my show today. Just amazing. Hopefully everybody gets a chance to listen to this. Anything that you want to promote or how do people get in touch with you if they want to reach out to you for some questions or to help help with the law?
Geo Bellas 27:49
My website is probably the best way Bellas-wachowski.com b e Ll e S dash, W a CH o wski.com. I also do every Wednesday, third Wednesday of each month they do a lunch and learn with Gio at the rolling Meadows courthouse teaching tech issues for for trials. And I'm easily found.
Steve Fretzin 28:13
Awesome, awesome. Well again, thank you so much for being my guest and Hey everyone. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's show and got some great takeaways and that you're one step closer to being that lawyer confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody and be safe.
Narrator 28:33
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life Changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website Fretzin.com for additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today's episode, check out today's show notes.