In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Jon Vegosen discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"I take a genuine interest in others, I befriend them, and they see that I care. I listen to them. With a high mission of service, I try to help them with things in their personal and business lives that may have nothing to do with legal issues." — Jon Vegosen
Connect with Jon Vegosen:
Website: FVLDLaw.com
Email: JVegosen@FVLDLaw.com
Call Jon directly: 312-701-6860
LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/Jon-Vegosen-06b155/
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.
Jon Vegosen 0:00
I listed about eight items of what I like to do. And only one of them concerns the legal work I've done for clients. The rest of the items are all about the valuable relationships that I've been able to create and the trust I've been able to instill by my authentic interactions with people and caring about them.
Narrator 0:23
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 0:46
Hey, everybody, how's it going? Welcome to be that lawyer. My name is Steve Fretzin in a business development coach for lawyers and law firms. And I have a great guest today super interesting guy, john Burgos in who's the founder of Chicago corporate litigation law firm Funkhouser Vegosen Liebman & Dunn, otherwise known as FVLD. How's it going, john?
Jon Vegosen 1:09
Great. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity, Steve, to have this conversation with you today. I really admire the fine work that you do for attorneys with respect to marketing and developing their practices. Indeed, as you know, lawyers from my firm have worked with you and received your guidance and, and benefited from it.
Steve Fretzin 1:30
Well, thank you, I appreciate that. You've got a great team over there. And again, some very forward thinking lawyers, which I think is important right now as we're going through the zombie apocalypse or whatever we want to call it these days. But obviously, I my audience knows I don't do justice to people in a quick introduction. So can you give a little more about your background in your firm and what you do?
Jon Vegosen 1:50
Sure. I grew up in New Jersey and came to the Midwest to attend Northwestern University, where I've had the privilege of obtaining a you know, an outstanding college education and, and really the joy of playing varsity tennis for all four years. That's one of my passions. And right after college, I attended Northwestern University Law School, and I continued my passion for tennis by teaching tennis while I was in law school. after law school, I served as a law clerk to a federal judge for two years. And thereafter, I had some offers from some large well known firms in Chicago. However, I opted for a midsize firm because it did not require lawyers to specialize early on in their careers. I was still finding my way. And I wanted to do at least initially to have a broad based background. Well, about two and a half years at that midsize firm I received an offer I couldn't refuse to partners of the firm offered another associated me the chance to join them in the creation of our own law firm. They said, we'll make you a partner overnight, we'll double your compensation to start. And you'll have a major say in the running of the front. I seize that opportunity. And that seems like a few minutes ago, Steve, but on February 4 2021, my firm is going to be celebrating our 40th anniversary.
Steve Fretzin 3:12
Wow! That's great.
Jon Vegosen 3:14
And on the personal side, I've been happily married for 40 years, I know the four magic words to a great marriage, whatever you want there. And I have a marvelous life and I'm very privileged to do. I've spent so much time with her. And my wife and I are blessed to have two terrific sons and two captivating granddaughters. Now, you asked about our practice, we're a corporate and litigation law firm of about 20 attorneys. We don't believe in having our attorney specialized early on in their careers, but rather encouraged them to work on a variety of legal matters. And that provides them with an excellent foundation. Moreover, our clients, most of whom are middle market companies and wealthy individuals appreciate our approach, as we generally serve in the role of outside counsel. Now, having said before going, as our attorneys develop knowledge and experience and interest in areas of the law, they start to gravitate more toward a few areas. For example, in my own case, I do a great deal of employment, law, work and estate planning. Now I think you ought to be to let you know like that what we do and how we help people. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that'd be great. Our broad based backgrounds early on in our careers, enable us to view and solve legal problems with a business perspective. In fact, many issues that cross our desks, well complement our experience. And we have a saying on our website, someone here has done it before. And I believe that is quite apt. In addition, because we're a small firm and we run a business ourselves, we can put ourselves in our clients shoes when we advise them about legal and business matters. And finally, we care about our clients. their well being and their visions. Our clients know this about us. And they put their faith and confidence in us to well advise and represent them. We take that responsibility seriously. And that bond of trust enables us to more effectively help our clients.
Steve Fretzin 5:17
Well, very cool. I mean, that's amazing. And I'd like to hear more about, you know, is there a point in or or experience in your life that directed where you went personally or in business? Because that's, that's where it all starts?
Jon Vegosen 5:28
Sure. That's a great question, Steve. I think there are a few points here. One I've already shared with you is being invited to start our own law firm that was clearly a turning point. But another one is why I decided to attend law school in the first place. And I think a few factors coalesce for me. Growing up, I had some role models and mentors. My brother, who is very talented and seven years older than I am, is a lawyer, and he enjoys and enjoyed practicing law at the time, obviously, my parents had some good friends who were excellent lawyers, and I had the good fortune to serve as a paralegal for their firm. One summer while I was in college, I really liked it, I learned that the law was a great way to help people solve their problems, which is something I like to do. I also thought that the law would allow me to use my brain and worthwhile and creative ways that that my skill sets of writing and speaking would be well suited to the law. And then back in the early 70s. With the Vietnam War and Watergate, there was considerable disillusion on college campuses, and moreover, businesses or business was viewed somewhat suspiciously. So I saw practicing law as a way to help people and still make a good living. Now, another important crossroad was when I was asked to serve as Chairman of the Board President and CEO of the United States Tennis Association, and to be chairman of the US Open. It required a great deal of my time in it and extensive travel. I so I shared with my partners why I wanted to serve, which was to get back to a sport that had a perfume have profoundly impacted my life. I also share with them How am I serving in these roles and working remotely a great deal of the time could enormously benefit the firm by virtue of the people, I would be meeting some of the media exposure, I would receive the opportunity to host clients at the US Open, and the business that might result. My partner's were very open minded. And I'm glad to report that it was a win win for all concerned.
Steve Fretzin 7:36
Yeah, that's amazing. And I know that part of being successful in boards is, you know, building relationships. And when did you kind of figure out the importance of building relationships? And did that sort of inspire either joining the board or how you interacted with the board?
Jon Vegosen 7:52
Perfect segue. I think the importance of relationships crystallized for me, Steve, by teaching and playing tennis while attending law school. For someone who was not raised in Chicago, it was a great way to meet people and develop friendships with business persons and their families. Several of them eventually became clients and referral sources. Now, my answer to the second part of your question, I think that developing relationships played a role in the back of my mind and joining some port, some boards, but what really inspired me was the chance to pay it forward. My focus was on supporting the missions and causes of the boards on which I served. If business came from that endeavor, you know, so be it. But that wasn't the reason I joined the boards on which I serve. And I think my fellow board members knew that about me, and I've allowed them to see me in action and gain their trust and confidence. The work I did on the boards on which I serve fortunately didn't result in obtaining business my firm, but that was not my why for survey. Let me just give you a couple of examples to illustrate it. Some of the not for profit boards in which I served did not have strong anti harassment policies or didn't have them at all. In addition, they had not done any any harassment training. I shared with the boards how these policies were so important and why they were so important and how they could be improved, and why any harassment training is so critical. I also offered to revise any existing policies that I'd seen in terms of harassment and to conduct on a pro bono basis, harassment training for the board and the staff. Although I did not seek or expect anything in return, by raising my hand and saying, I'd like to help some board members referred me clients or engage me to provide similar services for their companies. And likewise on a few of the boards with which I've been involved. There have been some tricky issues with say employment and separation agreements of executives. And again, on a pro bono basis, I've either guided boards Through those issues or help craft the strategy or even sometimes prepare documents. And that has also led to some referrals and business opportunities.
Steve Fretzin 10:10
Yeah, I mean, that's really a great way to tick tick. And to go into it, I don't think people should be going into it just for the pure business development, I think people would see right through it. And through that type of a mentality, I think you're going in to help and to do the right things. And if you do that those things, then the business comes your way, because people can see not only that you're competent, but that you care. And so I think that's what you sort of demonstrated in that scenario, which is, which is ideal? And was there specific things you enjoyed work about working on boards, and were there any barriers to overcome in, in being, you know, on that, on that very high level Board of you, it was the US Tennis Association?
Jon Vegosen 10:47
You know, I enjoy a number of things, Steve, there is a chance to get back to the not for profits and to be a positive influence. I also enjoy the meaty issues we face. And I'll give you a couple of examples in a moment. In addition, I highly valued the interaction with my fellow board members. They come from different backgrounds and perspectives. Many of them have become good friends. We didn't always agree in the boardroom. But it wasn't so much that we needed to agree with how we disagreed and we disagreed respectfully. With respect to my service on the board of United States Tennis Association, I was privileged to be involved in some major decisions that had a profound impact on the sport. Let me give you a couple of examples. One was we had to decide whether to upgrade the entire USTA, Billie Jean King national Tennis Center, where the US Open is played, and then decide to whether we should be building roofs over Arthur Ashe Stadium, and what to do about Louis Armstrong Stadium, which was 50 years old and needed to be fixed or replaced and also needed a roof. It was a $600 million project. And the board made this decision to undertake it and to finance it. And it was certainly the right way to go. And it was very exciting to be a part of it now to see the results of it. Another major decision was whether the USDA should invest the resources to reinvent the sport of tennis. What do I mean by that? Well, we were facing some challenges growing the game. And the board and the staff recognized that we needed to make some changes. Unlike other sports, such as soccer, basketball, baseball and football, tennis had not been kid sized to make it more inviting and fun for kids to play our sport. In addition, there were some financial barriers and we wanted to attract more diverse children. Therefore, we decided to kid size tennis through shorter courts, smaller lower cost rackets and lower compression balls that would bounce at a kid's knees rather than over children's hit. And then finally, by bringing tennis to all communities, schools, community center is going to be played inside outside in your backyard. And so this was a massive undertaking, but it paid off. And we got pretty lucky because in conjunction with this decision, Michelle Obama was just rolling out her let's move campaign. She chose Chicago as one of the three sports that she would showcase during the campaign. And then she agreed to do a PSA for us. In addition, about the same time, Grand Slam tennis champions, Andre Agassi and his wife, Stephanie Graf, agreed to do some PSAs. So we had the First Lady and the First Family of tennis supporting us. And one of the PSA is we created was to have Mrs. Obama, Andre and Stephanie, serve as the ball persons for these two young girls playing tennis with the new tennis equipment on a shorter court. And the PSA was a huge success. And I had the opportunity be there when it was filmed. And by the way, when I first met Mrs. Obama at the filming, I asked her if she'd ever been to the US Open, and she said that she had not. So I invited her to be a guest of the USTA thinking she probably wouldn't be able to come. But she accepted and did come and had a great experience. Her visit also resulted in 58 million media impressions for the sport of tennis. And that reinforced for me something that I think all lawyers he had to keep in mind when when it comes to you know, seeking business or for other opportunities, and that is nothing ventured, nothing gained. So those important endeavors turning out turned out also to be a lot of fun as some of the fundraising projects and other projects in which I've been involved while serving on boards. Now you asked about barriers. Yeah, I didn't have some barriers to overcome. I had to learn how to handle the unexpected and how to deal with the need. While tennis has been fortunate to have a lot of excellent media coverage, there were times when both the unexpected occurred, and the coverage could be rough. And I want to give you an example, during the first year of my presidency of the USGA, the week before the US Open was supposed to start, there was an earthquake on the eastern seaboard that resulted in some damage to a few courts, so we had to really hustle to get them fixed. That however, was minor compared to what happened the next week, Hurricane Irene hit New York with a ferocity and per the order of the mayor, we had to cancel Arthur Ashe kids' day, the Saturday before the open, was supposed to begin Morrow with and that was beginning on a Monday. Moreover, after having spent a month getting everything ready for the open from the chairs, the tables, the planters, the flowers, the banners, the flags and signs, you know, the things that were not nailed down, we had to take them all down and store them, and then put everything back up in 24 hours so we could open Monday morning. It was a monumental task, and the staff did a tremendous job working all weekend on it. early Monday morning, the USGA Director of Communications told me that one of the TV stations wanted to interview me. I asked if he knew what the topic and the questions were. He replied that the interviewer simply wanted me to explain how the USGA had to dismantle things on Saturday and then set them up again on Sunday. For the opening on Monday, I asked if there'd be any other questions. And the director said, Nope, that's it. So I agreed to the interview, and I was asked the two questions that the Director of Communications had predicted. And I was about to take off my microphone when the interviewer pointedly asked on national television. Mr. Ferguson, don't you think it is outrageous that the USDA is charging $17.50 for a lobster roll? Well, that question was designed to catch me off guard and put me on the spot. I could have been flustered. But I kept the Top of Mind one of the key visions of my presidency. The mission of the USGA, Steve is to promote and develop the growth of tennis. And during my administration, I extended that into a higher purpose, namely, to develop the growth of people through tennis, someone responding to the loaded question, I said, No, I don't think it's outrageous, I think we charge about the same as the Mets and the Yankees charge for a lobster roll. But more importantly, the profits of the Mets and the Yankees go into the pockets of the owners of those teams. The USDA profits go back into the communities like queens, and then Steve, I took off my microphone and exited the interview.
Steve Fretzin 17:50
Well, listen, man, you know, calm under pressure. That's, that's, that's a big, important thing to have, under those circumstances. That's really amazing. I mean, I think people can really learn a lot from, you know, the idea that, yeah, you can be a lawyer. But you can also have a role in a board like this, where it can just be so exciting and interesting. And you can help so many people, it doesn't just have to be, you know, lawyer in go home, come back the next day, and do the same thing. You can have some entrepreneurial endeavors, you can have some big time board exposure, you can really enjoy a lot of things that you're doing. I know, my father, for example, was the president of our school board when I was going to school, and I grew up in the North Shore of Chicago, and, you know, having my dad on the school board as a president, you know, there's some positives and negatives. But, you know, as a lawyer, I think he really enjoyed the problem solving and oh, there's a teacher strike, what do we do? And, and it sounds like you had a lot of that kind of back and forth, which made it really interesting.
Jon Vegosen 18:46
It did, Steve, and I think your father would agree with me that being a lawyer, I think gives you a leg up in the boardroom because of the backgrounds and training that we have, and legal issues do come up and problem solving. So I think having a lawyer in the boardroom is a big advantage for an organization.
Steve Fretzin 19:03
Yeah. And I think they should be seeking out those kinds of roles. Because it's it's not only great exposure to business owners and other general counsel's and you know, where you can, yes, get business, but more importantly, it gives you an opportunity to solve problems in in a space where, you know, there may be opportunities that normally don't exist. Right?
Jon Vegosen 19:22
Exactly.
Steve Fretzin 19:23
So let's turn the corner a little bit and be the coach for a moment. For my listeners who are primarily lawyers looking to get ahead looking to develop business, what would you tell them they have to do in order to be successful at growing a law practice? Because that's really the key to success these days. It isn't just being a great lawyer. I think that's sort of job number one and then job number two is, you know, you got to build your own client base. So how do you how do you direct them?
Jon Vegosen 19:50
I don't think there is one right answer to this question. A lot has to do with one's experiences, areas of practice, and how one wants to approach building a person Some people like to give speeches others like to write others are adept at using social media. I'm going to share with you and your listeners, what I found worked for me has worked for me in creating and cultivating successful relationships with clients. And in a nutshell, it's what I guess I would call an authentic approach. I take a genuine interest in others, I befriend them, and they see that I care. I listened to them. With a high mission of service, I try to help them with things in their personal and business lives that may have nothing to do with legal issues. This includes offering helpful non legal suggestions, sharing my network of contacts with them, or doing you know favors that can make a difference for them or their family members. It's my intention to bring joy to their lives. No matter what else is going on, I focus on being extremely responsive, especially when they ask for for legal advice. This includes returning phone calls promptly, and making sure their issue is the most important thing on my mind, no matter what else I have going on, I make sure to provide them with first great service and advice. And from there, I follow up either on the matter I have helped them on, or other matters, I know that are of interest to them. And that includes sometimes sending articles to them or just keeping in touch. And finally I share the clients and the relationships with others in my firm. And when I can, we try to cross market. Now interestingly, Steve, if you note I listed about eight items of what I like to do, and only one of them concerns the legal work I've done for clients. The rest of the items are all about the valuable relationships that I've been able to create and the trust I've been able to instill by my authentic interactions with people and caring about them. Let me give you an example. I am also a member of a CEO leadership peer advisory board. And if new member joined the board, let's call him Jeff. Well, Jeff mentioned that he was about to leave some space for his business. And I suggested that he worked with a tenant representative and have the rep negotiate for him. Well, Jeff had never heard of a tenant rep and was concerned that he would have to pay a fee for the rep services. And I explained that the landlord pays the fee and referred Jeff to a very fine tenant Rep. That referral wound up saving Jeff's business 200,000 in rent plus, he got 1000s of dollars worth of furniture for free. I wasn't expecting anything in return. It's what you do for a fellow board member. I just simply wanted to help them. But because I created trust with and value for Jeff. Soon thereafter, he became a client. And a few years later, he wrote me a very kind note that I think illustrates why my approach has been successful. And I just like to quickly read it to you and your listeners. He said and I quote, there are few people that one meets in a business lifetime who fill multiple roles. You were one of those rare few for me, you are of course my attorney, but this is probably the least important role you have played. Not that your work has been anything less than outstanding, more important roles of different occasions where you have served as mentor, coach, confidant, advisor, partner and of course, most importantly a friend. I'm constantly impressed with you on so many levels. One example is that you probably have the most extensive business and friendship networks of anyone I know, there was rarely an issue or discussion where you do not have at least one person in your network that you can provide to assist. Having the network is one thing, but you share it so unselfishly, always focused on what you can do to help. This is a rare character trait. So I was very grateful for that. That note.
Steve Fretzin 23:59
And I don't know that lawyers realize maybe to the extent of importance of having those kinds of relationships and also how to become that consistently airy to become that counselor, beyond the law beyond the legal work and becoming that go to person I can give you a quick a quick. You know, my dad's story I do kind of bring up my father on occasion. And, you know, he he was asked to do a eulogy. He had one of his clients, very strong friendship clients that had passed, and his son who knew the relationship between my father and his client asked my father to do the eulogy at his funeral. And then years later, after my dad had retired, invited him out to this Polo farm out and I think Woodstock, Illinois or something like that with his whole family. We went out there and all the grandkids and begged my father right in front of me to please Larry, come back and work for me. You know, come back into law and how you don't get that from just practicing the law charging the rate and doing Some work I mean, these are relationships that go so far beyond. And I think your illustration is, is exactly the mentality lawyers need to have today, more so than ever before. Because it's it's so hard to keep clients and keep them happy, and to justify the rates. And when you're doing all that for people, they just can't leave, they're not going to leave you because your rates are, you know, $50 an hour higher than someone else. It's just not going to happen.
Jon Vegosen 25:26
Well, that's a wonderful tribute to your father. He's, he's quite a guy, wish I could beat him.
Steve Fretzin 25:31
Yeah, well, he would he talks to anybody your grocery store in line, you can expect that you'll talk your ear off for 15 minutes. But just a terrific, terrific guy. So sort of one of the last last couple segments I like to do is is this one's fun. It's called they never taught me this in law school. And so is there one thing that every young lawyer needs to know coming out of law school that, that maybe you'd like to suggest?
Jon Vegosen 25:59
Yeah, I don't know that I can narrow it down to one, although I'll focus on one, Steve, there are a number of things. And probably the first is developing your competence, so that you can gain the confidence of clients and provide wise counsel. So I would say to, to the newer lawyers that listen to this, develop that first, second, learn to ask what I call high value questions. These are questions that can reveal your value to a prospective client in an indirect way. For example, you might ask a person reluctant to engage in estate planning something like would it make a difference to you if by planning your estate now you can say $2 million in estate taxes? What are they gonna say? That wouldn't make a difference? Right, right. How are they? Yes, a hard question. But if I had to boil it down to one thing, I would say always, always, always be there for your clients. This was brought home to me by a client for whom I've not only provided legal services at times for for 20 years, and often when I have a lot on my plate, including when I was out of town at the US Open. But also I introduced into a splendid up employment opportunity that he accepted. And I also assisted his daughter by conducting a mock interview with her for law school, and then critiquing it, and she got into the law school she wanted, I think she would have gotten in without my help. But the client also this client also wrote me a wonderful note, which illustrates my point here, and I'll share that with you. He said, from my perspective, you're a man without pretense, then he thanks for being an extraordinary example of how a person of your sheer brilliance commitment and humility can embody an individual such as you, of course, your business catchphrase, we return your calls promptly is certainly true. But it's the boundless energy combined with your unbridled dedication to take care of your clients, which is really your hallmark, I probably don't need to remind you at the times when it appeared, my legal needs seem to annually coincide with your work with USDA, both at Flushing Meadows during the US Open. And when you were abroad, without fail, you've without fail, you've always been there. And I share this need not to tout myself here. But to illustrate for your your listeners, the client perspective here, this is the kind of things that clients feel. And if you can make clients feel this way, I think your listeners can be very successful in their efforts to market.
Steve Fretzin 28:30
Now, that's really amazing. And again, I think it's not just it used to be the saying is, you know, if you could just be a great lawyer, you know, then the client will be loyal. And I think what you're suggesting is that, if everything is client centric, if everything is about how to improve the client's life, friendship, work, responsiveness, being selfless helping in any way you can, that that's really gonna take it to the next level, not only in retaining that client, and getting the kind of letters that have been written to you, but also that the referrals are going to flow much more naturally, because they can just, they're thinking about you all the time, because of all the all the effort and goodwill that you put out for them. Well said, Thank you. Well, let's wrap things up with one more question. And this is something that, you know, is unique in this period of time going through the COVID-19. And in pandemic that we're going through, are there things that attorney should especially keep in mind today, with respect to developing business during the pandemic?
Jon Vegosen 29:30
Great question, Steve. In a nutshell, I think my advice would be definitely to move forward with your marketing notwithstanding the pandemic, but to so in a spirit of to this better to give than to receive. Let me take you through what i think i mean by that. First of all, a crisis is the worst time to pull back on marketing. When the chips are down, marketing is more critical than ever and should be I think the last thing that Not the first thing that go. And this, by the way is for the short term and the long term. I think we both recognize that not enough lawyers market, or they don't like to mark, but they need to do so. And so the pandemic provides a great opportunity for firms to train all of their lawyers about the importance of marketing, and how to do it effectively. And we've In fact, been doing that ourselves. And now we've got everybody doing some kind of marketing, and we're tracking it. So I think I think I would recommend that your listeners do that. Second, I call it educate, educate, and do so selflessly. Check in with clients and referral sources about how they're doing, and seeing what's up with them. And as questions arise, listen and share information of value with them. You may want to look for opportunities that clients or businesses may not be seeing, so that you can bring them to light. And this may or may not relate to their businesses or law. But now I have some clients who love the US Open and I told them, okay, it's on, but it's not going to be no spectators, but it's going forward. And they didn't know that. And they appreciated being advised that I think also you can use the opportunity in terms of education to demonstrate and become known for thought leadership. We've been doing that for a long time with newsletters and articles. But during the pandemic, we've stepped that up, instead of doing a newsletter a month, we're doing two to four, because we think people need that kind of hand holding and are craving that that guidance. Same thing with webinars. But it all has to be done in a spirit without seeking something in return. If you don't get anything in return, it's okay. But usually something does come back because you've given freely. The third thing I would say is don't use fear or overly dramatic language. When you're communicating with clients during a pandemic, for example, you wouldn't say something like you'd better revise your will. And soon, you know, you could die from the Coronavirus. I mean, that's just like the most horrible thing you can say to a client. Perhaps a better way would be something like the Coronavirus can have an impact in some of your estate planning documents. If that concerns you let me know. And we can discuss how to address that it's a softer way to get the message across. It's, I think, a more effective way. And then finally, I would say Steve, during a pandemic, it probably is more important than ever to try and help charitable causes or causes that are near and dear to your heart. And to share your resources with I'm not necessarily talking money I'm talking about which is certainly fine to contribute. But it's also sharing your knowledge and guiding them about some of the things that are going on the staff and board members of charities will likely be grateful for your support. And they may well repay your kindness with referrals or by engaging your firm for legal work and for their businesses. But even if they don't, I'm a sort of a believer in karma and what goes around comes around. So it's the right thing to do. And I think it's our responsibility as lawyers to help out.
Steve Fretzin 33:06
Well, John, everything you've shared today, I think is super helpful to the listeners and to the lawyers that are trying to get ahead and in trying to you know, they really need to think you know intelligently about their future. And, and and whether it's education on business development, whether it's client centric, client focused, service, these are all the things that you that you tout every day, and that you show that you do. And so there may be attorneys that want to either refer you or that may want to get in touch with you. Maybe come work for you. I don't know, you know what that's like, but you know, from the standpoint of that, but how do people get in touch with you if they want to reach reach out?
Jon Vegosen 33:42
Okay, well, our website is FVLDlaw.com. My individual email is JVegosen and I'll spell that like I do every single day. JVEGOSEN. So it's jvegosen@FVLDlaw.com and I'll give my phone number out. It's the direct dial is 312-701-6860.
Steve Fretzin 34:12
That's great to and John, I just want to thank you for being on the show and for sharing all those great stories and examples. It's, it's just truly, truly an honor.
Jon Vegosen 34:21
Well, Steve, thank you for inviting me today. I really enjoyed our conversation. I am looking forward to meeting your father. Maybe the three of us can have lunch together when the pandemic is over. And I do hope that your listeners will derive some beneficial information from our discussion today. Thanks so much.
Steve Fretzin 34:39
Yeah, and actually I didn't mention this, but he's a huge tennis enthusiast. In fact, I think it's probably the only sport that he watches. So there might be even more reason to to get together I think it would really make make him happy to to be able to meet you and talk with you. And listen, everybody. I just want to thank you for spending some time with John and I today on the show and that you're getting one step closer to being Lawyer someone who's confident organized in a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody be safe, be well.
Narrator 35:10
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.