In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jeremy Poock discuss: Designing and brokering your exit strategy. Building your law firm like the business it is. How to implement trust transfer. Selling the machine that you created. Key Takeaways: At some point, solo lawyers will need to look at their law firm as a business and build it in the way that it will work for them and is something that they might be able to sell in the future. In the Senior Attorney Match model, trust is the flux capacitor that will allow you to transfer your firm (where people are coming to you) to another senior attorney whom you also trust. Even in a solo firm, you do not need to use your name to name your law firm. There is power in brand names and in creating brand value. The winningest meetings happen when there is synergy between the senior attorney, looking to leave, and their younger protege looking to take over. "Trust transfer is our flux capacitor. We're transferring the trust that our clients that a senior attorneys clients have in that senior attorney. We are transferring that trust to a successor attorney." — Jeremy Poock Episode References: Gary Vee: https://garyvaynerchuk.com/ Connect with Jeremy Poock: Website: https://www.seniorattorneymatch.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremypoock/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/srattorneymatch Thank you to our Sponsors! Legalese Marketing: https://legaleasemarketing.com/ Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/ Practice Panther: https://www.practicepanther.com/ Connect with Steve Fretzin: LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin Twitter: @stevefretzin Facebook: Fretzin, Inc. Website: Fretzin.com Email: Steve@Fretzin.com Book: Legal Business Development Isn't Rocket Science 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.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jeremy Poock discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"Trust transfer is our flux capacitor. We're transferring the trust that our clients that a senior attorneys clients have in that senior attorney. We are transferring that trust to a successor attorney." — Jeremy Poock
Episode References:
Gary Vee: https://garyvaynerchuk.com/
Connect with Jeremy Poock:
Website: https://www.seniorattorneymatch.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremypoock/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/srattorneymatch
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Legalese Marketing: https://legaleasemarketing.com/
Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/
Practice Panther: https://www.practicepanther.com/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn't Rocket Science 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.
Jeremy Poock: [00:00:00] Trust transfer is our flex capacitor. Okay. And what are we transferring? We're transferring the trust that our clients, that a senior attorney's clients have in that senior attorney. We are transferring that trust to a successor attorney.
Narrator: 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 Freson, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve.
Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, welcome to be that lawyer.
I am so happy that you're with me and, uh, the show today. We've got a lot, lot to go on, a lot to happen here. Um, listen, we are looking to help you not only be that lawyer from a standpoint of [00:01:00] getting your book a business built and, and, and building balance in your life, and just making sure that you're living the best possible life.
But some of you are out maybe at the, you know, consider. You know, retiring at some point, or maybe you're considering merging with another firm and you've got a lot of questions. Um, today's show's gonna be a little bit more about that, and I've got a fantastic, um, friend and guest and Jeremy who's waiting in the wings to talk all about it.
Jeremy, how are you? Doing
Jeremy Poock: well, Steve, thanks for inviting me to the program today.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're ex I'm excited to have you and I know we're gonna get into, into the weeds pretty heavily about it. Um, gotta of course, thank the sponsors. We've got legalese, uh, helping with the marketing. We've got Money, penny on the virtual reception or, um, live, live virtual, uh, reception and, and on your website and of course, practice Panther helping you get automated with how you run your law.
Jeremy, you've got an interesting quote. Um, not from someone necessarily famous to us all, but very famous to you, and that's your grandfather, uh, who wrote you, I believe, a lovely Bar mitzvah note. And one of [00:02:00] the things that he said to give you advice in life was always be the first to help, which is I think a lesson that our kids need to learn right now, especially the teenagers.
Being selfish, little pigs, and we gotta get them thinking about others and realizing that that's where the reward in life is. So talk to me about, about your grandfather in that quote and why it was so meaningful to
Jeremy Poock: you. Steve, thanks so much. And I always enjoy the opportunities to honor my, uh, my maternal grandfather and had great experiences with all my grandparents.
Luckily, uh, my maternal grandfather, max Rayco, my brothers, and I call him. He just had it out from the get-go to just teach us life lessons. Steve. I mean, he grew up, um, working, uh, from age six selling newspapers in, in Cambridge, uh, Massachusetts. He'd wake up early, sell papers in the morning after school, go out to the corner of, uh, beacon Street and Mass Avenue and Boston.
You know, that's not an easy commute for a. Bring home the money, put it on the kitchen table. And when my brothers and I were [00:03:00] going up, he wanted to make sure that, you know, that we understood that even though we were living in a pretty much an upper middle class kind of suburban life, um, as kids that, that we really needed to know, um, you know, that it's not easy out there.
Um, and that he worked really hard in life and sort did all my grandparents really. And so the lessons that, uh, that, that PPA taught my brothers and me, we, we, we all reflect on him all the time and we're just really grateful he had such a meaningful impact. I wouldn't be surprised if I quote him again during the course of this podcast.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And, and honestly the people that that look to help first and that look to give first, and, and they, they always do better in, in, in business and in life than people that just take and are kind of, you know, greedy about things and, and they just don't, they just aren't gonna be as relevant in the marketplace in, in a year to five years, to 10 years.
So I think your grandfather was a very wise man, and, uh, and I'm glad that you were able to, to learn from him and, and figure out, you know, the, the lessons he was teaching you are, you know, important for. [00:04:00] Thank you. Yeah. So, uh, Jeremy Pook, you. The founder of Senior Attorney Match and now some people are gonna say, well wait a second, is he a recruiter?
The answer is no. You're not a recruiter. You're actually doing something very interesting and I'm gonna save that for you to give your background and then get into like what you actually do for lawyers. Cuz it's super interesting and I said right before we got on air that you know, there just aren't a lot of people doing this and that's okay for you, that's okay for everybody.
But I think lawyers need to know about you and what you do, uh, is a very important. Like, I'll, I'll get into my father later because I think he made a terrible, you know, end of the career decision. But anyway, go. You're on, you're on. Go for it
Jeremy Poock: Steve. Thanks so much. So Senior attorney Match, we do two things.
We work with attorneys primarily that are, that are practiced more than 30 years, and we help them to design succession plans for their practices. How can they sell their practice? What is their practice? Should they consider an internal sale or a sale to what we call a growing law firm. And [00:05:00] then after designing plans with our clients, we then go out and implement on them.
So then we, we broker them. So you were saying before that senior attorney matched that we're, we're not recruiters. You're right. Technically we are brokers. We're brokering the sales of law practices. We're facilitating that though, by and large, via recruiting. That is, and we're gonna talk a lot about this, I think.
That many internal successors, right? Think about your senior associates, your junior partners, even your partners in law firms that are led by these senior attorneys, attorneys that have practiced more than 30 years. Those junior people in your practice, they often don't want to purchase your practice internally.
So we're offering structuring these sales by recruiting senior attorneys and their lawyer staff and their non-lawyer staff into growing law firms.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And what's your back? How do you, I mean, I know you're, you're an attorney and, and, uh, give, but give what led up to this cuz that that's not something that you came up with overnight.
This is something that, that was [00:06:00] led to.
Yeah.
Jeremy Poock: Thanks so much. So, so a couple of answers there. I probably should have gone stage right in to business school instead of law school. Um, and then I think there's a bit of, of genes to this. It took me a little while to, to, to see this Steve, my father and my paternal grandfather both went to law school.
Practiced for a little bit and then went outside of the law and went into real estate and they were in commercial real estate sales and management of real estate. So it's not all that surprising, but my trajectory that is went to law school. Gravitated towards working with business brokers, so helping them paper deals.
Okay, so I got pretty close with business brokers throughout New England. Joined the New England, uh, business Brokers Association helped them paper their deals on both the buy side and the sell side. And then to your question about, okay, what led up to senior attorney. Began observing at those meetings that their focus and was very smart of them at the turn.
It's so weird, Steve to say the turn of the century. It makes me, it makes us [00:07:00] feel . Like I did the turn of the century, like 1901. Not like 2001. Yeah. But for these purposes, around the year 2000, the business brokers were already focusing on the boomers. And there I was sitting in those meetings thinking, why aren't they brokering the sales of law practices?
Yeah. And that's really where the idea went off thinking, wow, there are, there are hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of boomer. Attorneys in the United States, let alone New England where I am, and they have value to their practices. And if the business brokers in this room aren't brokering the sales, it doesn't mean there's not an opportunity here.
There's not a market need for it. And that's really where the idea for senior attorney match came up. And that was about 2010. And then I launched the business in 2013.
Steve Fretzin: Okay. And was there any form of a, uh, be that lawyer tipping point for you in either that decision or just in your career?
Jeremy Poock: I'm very grateful that I've been working with a certain business coach for a long time.
So he and I would noodle over this idea for a while, you know, because, you know, as you know, as with student loan [00:08:00] debt and having a job, getting married, thinking about having children, and they're like, wow, am I really gonna stop what I'm doing and practicing? Well, I have a decent job. I don't like it. And I know Steve, you work with a lot of attorneys like that, right?
I fell in that category like I'm practicing law, but it's not where, it's not where my passion is. And then the sort of tipping point to your, to your question is that I was working with a colleague of mine, a financial planner, who was purchasing the practice of another financial planner. And I was thinking to myself, geez, this is exactly what I want to do.
I want to be brokering these. But on the lawyer, Coincidentally, the lawyer on the on the sell side happened to be a senior. It's amazing attorney, I'll mention his name of so much respect for him. Bob Gore Finkel. Okay. Of Braintree, Massachusetts. And, um, Bob had that prototypical internal person that could not, that was not gonna purchase Bob's practice.
And I talked with my business coach Scott, and built up the guts. Cause I was like, oh, what should I say to Bob? Should I say it in the Bob? And [00:09:00] so after the deal closed on the sale of the financial planning process, said, you know, Bob, we just closed on this deal. If you would ever think of selling your law, I would love the opportunity to do the exact same thing we just papered over for our clients.
And luckily he said, yeah, Jeremy, you know what? Let's, let's give it a shot. And, uh, it was a great experience. Um, and, and, and I'm so grateful to Bob. He's a lawyer's lawyer, and I'm sure, Steve, you know what I mean by that? Like, just in terms of the contracts and whatnot. So many of my documents today that we use, I'm so grateful for all of the long nights I had with Bob Finkel because we, we really crafted a lot of documents that I, that I still use.
Steve Fretzin: Well, it doesn't hurt to have a lawyer, a close lawyer like my father, you know, helped me out in many situations. Uh, you know, where I was able to get through the, the language on a contract or something where, you know, I got into trouble with the police one time and he just like, he's like, wait in the car.
And I, we went into the police station, he came out, he says, all right, we're okay. I was like, what the heck? And he never told me what he said, but [00:10:00] anyway, , he refused to tell me, but he got me out of a jam. Um, very nice. So, yeah, it doesn't hurt. Doesn't hurt. So I think there's a disconnect between lawyers thinking of their law practices as businesses and their, their mindset about like, Hey, I can actually build something that's sellable.
So why, why is there that disconnect between lawyers and, and, and thinking about a sellable business? Similar to if I ran a marketing company or if I ran a, you know, a company that provided product.
Jeremy Poock: Sure. It's a great, it's a really great question and, and, and many lawyers of course don't think of their, their businesses as a business cuz they think of it as a profession.
Right, right. Like I said before, like I should have gone stage right into to business school cuz so many lawyers, we go into this because of the love of the law, the love of the profession. And then we realize at one point or another that, okay, well you know what? By default I'm actually running a business, you know, but I, but what I need for my business is I [00:11:00] need clients, right?
The more clients I have, the more money that comes in. I can hire, I can hire other lawyers, I can hire other support staff. Uh, towards the end of the year, I can look and see, okay, am I actually making money this year? What? Looking towards next year, um, I know that I just need to bring in this number of clients and, and build this number of billable hours and I'll have a good year.
So hence that mindset of, okay, my building something of wealth that I could actually sell is typically not part of the mindset until. Senior attorneys start reaching like age 60, 65, 70, and they're like, oh, wait a second. I actually have something of value here. But what is it? Like what, what? Who would want it?
Because my clients come to me like, I get that all the time, Steve.
Steve Fretzin: Right. I was just gonna, I was just, I mean, you pivoted perfectly. Like I was about to say, Hey, I'm the business, right? My father Larry Freson was the business. And so how do you sell something where everybody [00:12:00] loves the lawyer, they don't have, you know, the 10 underlings under them and that infrastructure set up.
So is that even a sellable thing?
Jeremy Poock: Alright, so I'm gonna skip ahead. Okay, I'm gonna skip ahead to what we call the flux capacitor of the senior attorney Match model. So I think everybody remember , that, that really fun scene and back to the future, right? Where, where, where Doc explains like how time travel works, right?
It's the flux capacitor. Okay. And hence, you know, uh, Michael Day Fox can go back to 1980, whatever. Okay. Um, to answer your question, like how does any lawyer. Transfer the value is what we call trust transfer. Trust transfer is our flex capacitor. Okay, and what are we transferring? We're transferring the trust that our clients, that a senior attorney clients have in that senior attorney.
We are transferring that trust to a [00:13:00] successor attorney. And here, Steve, it's a, it's a syllogism. I was really bad in geometry, like real bad. I, I sat in the back of class. I was in the fifties club with ano. I won't name this other person. He's probably a Supreme Court justice at this point for all I know.
But he and I were terrible at geometry. We'd sit in the back, we were in the fifties club for whatever weird reason I just remembered, probably because of like the name of it. I just remembered s. Okay, that A, if A equals B and B equal C, then C equal A. And that is part of trust transfer. That is if the clients trust the senior attorney, the senior attorney trusts his or her successor, the clients will trust the successor.
Now, how does this all fit in in terms of law firm sales? Because the value of the practice is based upon, at least right now, what we call law firm sales 1.0. It's based upon the senior attorney's client list, that book of business that lawyers develop over the course of their careers. That's the [00:14:00] value, okay?
For lawyers to be paid consideration on the value of that client list, they need to implement that syllogism, that trust transfer for Attorney Jones to say, you know what? I just joined the A B C law. And I'm working with attorney Diane. Diane is amazing in the same practice area as me. Let's say commercial real estate.
She can read leases and revise leases even better than me. So when we have this new shopping center lease that you want me to do, because I've been doing it for the last 20 years, you know what Diane's gonna do it just as well, Steve, when that, that just as well right. Phrase is said, the trust transfer happens.
Yep. The client sticks with the successor. The successor pays a percentage of the. To the senior attorney, and that's how law firm sales, and we can go into more details on it, but that's essential Law firm sales happen. It's a, it's a sharing of fees based upon the clients that join the successor, stay with the [00:15:00] successor, and those sharing of fees occur during a negotiated period of time.
Steve Fretzin: Yep.
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Steve Fretzin: and I think my father's big mistake. And look, had a fantastic career and just celebrated his 88th birthday with this weekend. Yeah. And he's still kicking and just still funny. Check out the 200th episode of Be That Lawyer. Everybody, if you want to hear me, stick it up with my father.
Uh, Larry, the lawyer, but he in the 11th in, you know, in half hour, got a couple of knuckleheads to basically. Take over the [00:17:00] business, his individual solo practice, and they ran it into the ground in six months because he didn't do the trust transfer. He didn't, he wasn't educated. He wasn't knowledgeable about how to do what you're saying, Jeremy, and it's so important that people talk with you because.
It could be the difference between having that additional revenue and that additional, you know, business sale potentially, versus just, again, running it into ground. It was like, not that it was all for nothing. He made a living and he got the retirement and all that, but there's more that, you know, on top of that, if you work smartly, work intelligently, I should say, before you, you know, get to the point where it's, it's the 11th and a half.
Jeremy Poock: Yeah. You know, and some of our clients, Steve, they do come to us too late or, and I don't know, we've worked with the estates of lawyers and there there's really no value cuz we go back to that flux capacitor. You need the lawyer there to transfer the trust. And the ideal buyer is typically what we're saying to our clients is typically your friendly competitor, it's typically the lawyer that's [00:18:00] 20 years younger than you.
And it has that same level of. That you had to grow your business and to be top class in your same practice areas, and that exists typically in almost every community. That is the right buyer. We're finding that wants to take what you as the senior attorney, um, have developed and continue it and grow it.
And especially Steven, you know, kudos to you for your, for your new book. I can see right behind you, you know, it isn't rocket, you know, isn't rocket science and you recognize about the, the, you know, the impact that we're now in the digital age of social media. So many of our clients, they, they haven't connected with their clients.
On LinkedIn or in any meaningful ways digital marketing wise? I'll just share with you Steve, about this was really fascinating. A client of mine recently joined a growing firm, right? And she was super organized, so we knew she had 997 clients. Like that's really amazing that like she had it down the client list.
Well, she sent [00:19:00] via constant contact to all of her clients announcing that she joined this growing firm. Do you know what the open rate was on that? No. 80%. That's really high. Oh yeah. Because that trust is so. And so those, the, the lawyers of that firm are really psyched. They're gonna be able to market to her clients, of course, in ethical ways Yeah.
For the areas that she's in. But that practice, which is very typical for buyer Steve, that practice does more than what she's done. So from a across marketing standpoint, there's all kinds of opportunities there to leverage that trust
Steve Fretzin: transfer. Yeah. And there's right now a record number of lawyers, whether they're being forced into it or it's a, a personal decision.
That are getting out of the law firm's space and, and starting their own, their own gig with a couple of buddies or a couple of gals or whatever it might be, or just on their own. And they're not thinking about, you know, in some cases they're not thinking about the sale at the end, they're just thinking about making it, you know, how do we, you know, build enough business for to, to, to eat year after year and put [00:20:00] money away or whatever.
My question to you is, how different is it for someone to just stay solo, build those client relationships and do great work for, you know, till they're 60 or 65, whatever the year is, versus someone who brings in an associate and then two and then three and has like, I've got some clients that have, you know, four or five lawyers working for them with them.
How different is that when it comes to saleability of.
Jeremy Poock: So we're talking about a couple things here. Okay. So let's talk about that first. A lawyer that has like multiple lawyers working under him or her, right? And they presumably they cover several practice areas. There's not an internal buyer, like that's real interesting value there to that growing firm.
So esp, I'll say, especially in today's market. But regardless of the, of whether there is a need for talent as there is right now at this point in history, rights, a need for talented lawyers and office staff, right? We're to take those lawyers, the senior attorney, [00:21:00] the lawyers, the lawyer staff, go to another firm, hugely valued, don't need to train those people that've got the relationship with the clients.
Great value there. Now, let's talk about what you were. About the solo, right? The solo person doesn't build it, you know, builds up clients, you know, over, you know, over the years. I'm gonna break that into two parts, okay? There's the, let's assume that those people that, that create their own practice now, post 2020, if they're smart, and hopefully they are, they're gonna realize that we have now entered in what we call the 3.0 digital age for law firms.
They're gonna recognize that there's brand. Okay, that they can be out there marketing their firm using seo. Pay per click. Okay. Creating a trade name for their law firm, and I'm sure clients of yours are doing this now, right? Why the heck in 2022, heading towards 2023 and further into this decade? Why do we still need to name law firms after the surname?
You know, of the founding lawyer, like we're not in 17th century England anymore, right? Yeah. [00:22:00] You know, we are in the 21st century and using trade names is permissible, I'm pretty sure in every single state today in the United States. So if that lawyer is creating real brand value and even as a solo has brand value, a URL that we can show all kinds of data analytics of how the clients come in, that has re, that has real value, the solo that practices in a pre 2020.
Okay, let's just say, let's just pick on a particular area, intellectual property, right? They're amazing at, you know, at IP litigation, right? They were charging out at $1,200 an hour in some firm in Chicago. Now they've got a boutique practice and they charge at $800 an hour, and they've got six clients and like they, they kill it, right?
As a solo doing that? Yeah. What do they, but what do they have to sell? Right? They have six clients. Right. And so like those six clients could be huge, right? Yeah. But if those six clients aren't so huge, like what does that person necessarily have to sell? If they've, you know, if, if, if [00:23:00] 40% of those six clients, I got a call this recently, 40% of those six clients is, it makes up all of the revenue.
In a, you know, in a fee sharing situation. Okay, great. Could they do something when they're looking to retire and fee share off of those clients? That's where trust transfer is, is huge. The person with the brand value that has data analytics, we're gonna be heading into what I call law firm sales 2.0.
Soon enough we're already there for in personal injury law where, where we have predictability. Okay? John Morgan knows from Morgan and. They know how many clients they're gonna be getting in each of their markets, where they're pouring in tons of digital and tv and I don't know if they're on radio. I certainly, certainly Austin.
Yeah. They get,
Steve Fretzin: they got the the biggest spend in the industry, right? Yep. So it's so I think, I think it sounds like you've got an opportunity regardless, but I just wonder if somebody's a solo and they say, you know what? If I can. Two or three associates. So I'm 50. Let's say I'm 55, I'm a lawyer, and I go, you know, I really [00:24:00] wanna retire by the time I'm 65.
Or at least slow down a bit. If I said, look, if I can just bring in three or four associates and whatever, and not offer them the, the pr, of course they could buy the practice if they want, but if it's built to sell and you've got that support team in place, you've got the lawyers in place, your overhead's low, your brand is high.
Is that kind of like the Promised Land for a small firm, you know, to, to make it at the end of the game?
Jeremy Poock: So, yes. With a, but. Okay. Okay. That is in law firm Sales 1.0, which I, which I mentioned a few minutes ago. The consideration of that, just to be clear to the listeners, is an earn out. Okay is that we've got these clients and the referral sources that the seller is bringing over, including in that example that you just, that you just brought up and a and, and buyers will say, great, you bring over those clients and referral sources, we'll pay you that percentage over a negotiated period of time.
Said differently. That is a 100% [00:25:00] seller financed sale of a law practice. Now the lawyer that can show data analytics and predict. That the clients are coming in, not just because, you know, this is the Freson Law firm. Okay. And they're asking for Steve Freson. I know Steve, you're not a lawyer, but let's just Yeah.
Steve Fretzin: But you're, but you're selling, you're selling the machine that's been created.
Jeremy Poock: Correct. Okay. And that situation then, Banks are gonna start actually lending to buyers because of the machine that you just mentioned. Right. And that's where at and it's really fun, Steve, and I'll just share this with you cuz you get to see, um, you know, unlike a lot of, you know, like, like, like people involved the legal industry outside of like CFOs, you get to see a lot of PNLs of your law firms.
Luckily, but luckily, but I do too. And it's so fascinating to. That the marketing spend by most law firms that I see is still way too low. Way, way too low. And as a [00:26:00] result, those growing firms, you just talked about, this lawyer that wants to build it up to several associates and sell later. Pour some money into digital marketing.
Create that machine that you're talking about and show that the revenues are coming in via Google and, and via other kinds of digital entrees into the firm. Instead of, oh, I'm, I'm looking for attorney pretzel, I'm looking for attorney pu, I'm looking for Attorney Johnson. You know, that's gonna make the law firm even more valuable and can actu and will actually garner upfront money.
Steve Fretzin: Well, that's just so interesting. I think this is where people's minds need to be. It's, it's the value of what you can bring in and the relationships and the marketing working together, the relationship side with the clients and, and the business development side and the marketing side working together, and I've written on this even recently in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.
I think it might be, Oh, back from, you know, let's say August, you know, July, August, September and 2022, talking about, you know, intelligent [00:27:00] lawyers need to consider the relationship side, the business development side of the mountain, and then the marketing side of the mountain, and they meet at the peak.
And that's really where the business, uh, generation happens. And also it sounds like that's where the business might be most.
Jeremy Poock: Yeah, exactly. And then there's also the handoff, you know, and, and I really appreciate the opportunity on the be That lawyer and be with you. And I know, you know, you're one of the country's leading coaches when it comes to business development for lawyers.
And we're regularly saying, Steve, that the, this is not a word in the English language, but we say it nonetheless. Okay. The winningest, maybe it is a word, but I don't think so. The winningest meeting from a business development standpoint is when the senior. 60 something or early 70 something walks into the meeting with one or two 40 somethings right?
The client knows they've got the wisdom of the senior attorney that they have trusted for so many years together with that youth, but not too young attorney. And to get that synergy down between the [00:28:00] two of them is there's a need for. Because you're typically of two different generations where often that winningest meeting we're talking about needs coaching because you've got the boomer attorney walking in either with the exer or the millennial, but when they're in tune with each other, clients love it.
Steve Fretzin: Well, in the biggest misstep that lawyers make, and again, I've had countless, you know, experts come in and talk about this with my managing partner, you know, my round table groups and. Is that the lawyer? Everyone wants me. I'm the lawyer. I'm the name on the door. I'm the lawyer. Everybody wants, I'm be that lawyer, whatever it.
And they haven't figured out the importance of having that lieutenant, having that 40 something and making sure that clients understand this is a team, this isn't me. It's a we, it's not I, it's we. And if that's not how you're playing the game, you're in for, you know, trouble down the road, you've gotta make it the we game, not the I game.
And understand that that transfer of, of authority and, [00:29:00] and, and expertise and all those things happens when you bring. 40 something or 50 something to your point. And I just, I think it's like they just can't seem to get over that hump of understanding how that works.
Jeremy Poock: Yeah. I can't agree with you more. You know, I mean, and especially for those lawyers that want to be able to monetize their law practices, right?
We're all, thank God, right? We're all living longer. Okay. And, and we're going to, lawyers are gonna need lawyers make plenty of money, but lawyers are going to need the, the money that their practices can generate. But without doing that trust transfer that you just referenced, that we talk about, we talked about throughout this podcast today, they're not gonna be able to monetize it to the extent that they can.
And I'll just share with you, Steve. I've been doing this for 10 years, and not that that we've served thousands and thousands of clients, but in doing this for about 10 years now, since since 2013, I've only come across one unicorn. One unicorn and she's an unbelievable mediator. And there, I think that she has such [00:30:00] a, a, a, a, a skillset that replacing her and that particular skillset very, very hard.
But by and large, that there are not unicorns, sorry for, to add some humility to the really amazing lawyers that listen to this podcast. But yes, there are lawyers that can do it just about as well as you, and, and you can teach them. And by the way, Your clients want to know that they're gonna be in good hands when you're not gonna be there for the rest of your life.
Steve Fretzin: Yep. Really, really important stuff. Let's wrap it up with, with, well, before we get to game changing book, let's wrap it up with, do you have a success story to share that, you know, keep it brief, but like a success story that happened in the last couple years where someone maybe didn't realize they. This business that was sellable or this business that was transferable or whatever.
And then what was sort of the outcome of that in, um, how they kind of wrapped things up in their career?
Jeremy Poock: Yeah, thanks so much for asking. So, [00:31:00] so I have a very much on point answer for that. So I'm in a networking group and someone in my networking group contacted me because she shared space with a go-to zoning attorney or a given city in Massachusetts, a certain town in Massa.
She said, you know, I think you should talk to the person that I shared space with, because he's thinking of just hanging up his cleats. I heard you help people sell law practices. Why don't you just talk to him? I called him. He's like, I don't think I have anything. I'm just gonna spread out. My clients gonna hand them out to some of my colleagues, call it a day.
Right said, what are you nuts like you're the go-to, right? You are the go-to zoning attorney for this really affluent town in Massachusetts. And it just so happened by coincidence that, and I don't represent many growing firms who typically represent in the senior attorneys, but a growing firm that I represent, they have a zoning attorney that happens to have an ex.
Point on point experience in the adjacent town as this town had a little bit experience in the town that this senior attorney was in. Long story short, he joins that firm. He's been able to make tens of thousands of thought, [00:32:00] hundreds of thousands of dollars, okay. He's continued to practice a little bit to, with what we call a win-win, win, win for the senior attorney, win for the growing firm to get those clients and build off of his reputation, and a huge win for the clients because they're in, they're in, they're in great hands.
Steve Fretzin: Well, that's exactly it. And I think, again, you know, if we could go back in time with the flux capacitor and we could get my father, you know, I wish I could have gotten my hands on him, you know, a year or two before he retired. I, and I'm not saying he would have a whole different lifestyle. He's a, you know, he grew up in the Depression, so like, you know, he still doesn't know how to spend money , he hates spending money on anything.
I got him a sweater for his birthday from Marshalls just because I knew he didn't want me to spend a lot of money. I mean, that's, that's where he is in his mindset. That's. I said it was Marshall Fields without the fields, cuz that's gone anyway. But only my wife got that joke, by the way when I said it.
No, I got it. Don't worry about it. No, no, but I'm saying like at the time when I mentioned that joke in front of my family, like no one really picked up one up, but my wife thought it was great. So it's, I think it's really [00:33:00] important that people understand, you know, get in early to, you know, to talk with you Jeremy or you know, to make sure that you underst.
The numbers to understand what the value is, to understand what the saleability is now or in the future. If people wanna get in touch with you to understand kind of what their potential is for the future and, and, and all that, what are the best ways for them to reach you?
Jeremy Poock: Thanks so much. So the website, senior attorney match.com, um, but then also LinkedIn.
The many of us use LinkedIn today. And on LinkedIn I lead a twice a month, seven minute livestream called the state of the Market for law firm sales in seven minutes. So, uh, welcome people to check that out.
Steve Fretzin: Yeah, awesome. We'll put all that in the show notes real quick. We've got a, I don't think it's a game changing book.
I think it's a game changing, like social media guy, a Gary v.
Jeremy Poock: Yeah, so I'm hooked on Gary Weiner, Chuck, and, you know, I know you, you'd asked about, you know, a game changing book, but I'm a lousy reader, the lawyer who's a lousy reader, who would've known , but I, I [00:34:00] really enjoy podcasts and, um, you know, and, and listening to Gary and he puts out podcasts every single day.
It's very helpful in terms of, you know, listening to something in the non-legal space. But he focuses so much on digital and we in law are always behind, right? And so to listen to people that are a little ahead and to see where we're going, where's the, the legal industry is in digital. We're getting, we we're dragged into it by the, you know, by the pandemic.
Yeah. We're not leaving it. And law firms need to get much more.
Steve Fretzin: All right. Well check out Gary v I know he, I've watched his stuff for years and you know, Jeremy, just thanks so much for being on the show, sharing your wisdom. I think a lot of people listening have their eyes open to the potential, if they work harder to be that lawyer and, you know, focus on the market and the business development, you know, getting that lieutenant in place.
There's all kinds of great things to do to, to end the business, uh, or wind it down in a way that's more profitable. So, just appreciate you, uh, you sharing your. Steve,
Jeremy Poock: really appreciate the opportunity. Thanks so much. Thanks for all you do.
Steve Fretzin: My pleasure and everybody, thank you [00:35:00] for spending some time with Jeremy and I today.
Hopefully it helps you get a little closer to being that lawyer, someone who's confident, organized in a skilled rainmaker. Take care, everybody. Be safe. Be well. We'll talk again soon.
Jeremy Poock: Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website freson.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.