“Decrease the level of stress and increase happiness for the staff at your firm.”
Civil litigation attorney and adjunct professor Megan Daic places an emphasis on her employees having an actual work-life balance. But, employees are only one part of running a successful firm. Starting and growing a practice can be difficult or fear-inducing, but as Megan says, “there are all of these unknowns with litigation and with business,” but, “you have to get over that fear.” In the third episode of Smokeball’s interview series, Hacking Law Firm Success with Jordan Turk, attorney Jordan Turk and Megan Daic, founder of Daic Law in Houston, TX, talk about the legal technology Megan used to grow her practice, how goal-setting for herself and for her staff changed the game for her, and how to overcome the fear of failure in expanding your firm.
Hacking Law Firm Success is brought to you by Smokeball and hosted by Jordan Turk.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on this podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Jordan Turk
Legal Technology Advisor, Smokeball
Jordan Turk is a practicing attorney in Texas, and is also the Legal Technology Advisor at Smokeball. Her family law expertise includes complex property division and contentious custody cases, as well as appeals and prenuptial agreements. In addition to her family law practice, Jordan is passionate about legal technology and how it can revolutionize firms. To that end, Jordan created her Smokeball series, Hacking Law Firm Success with Jordan Turk, where she interviews law firm founders about how they grew and scaled their practices, as well as their ethos behind managing a firm.
Megan Daic
Owner, Daic Law
Megan Daic, Founder and Owner of Daic Law, is a compassionate legal professional dedicated to providing client-oriented services. With a vision to address the needs of individuals in the community, Megan established Daic Law as a trusted law firm that simplifies the legal process during challenging times. Before entering the legal field, Megan earned a Bachelor of Arts in Government from The University of Texas at Austin, where she developed a passion for making positive change in her community. This drove her to intern on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., where she gained valuable experience and insights into creating impactful transformations. Megan further expanded her knowledge by working as a Junior Research Analyst for a political polling firm. Returning to Texas, Megan pursued graduate courses in International Affairs at Texas A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service. Driven by her desire to assist others, she subsequently worked for national non-profit organizations focused on healthcare and education, fostering her dedication to helping people. Megan's journey led her to the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC), where she earned her Juris Doctor degree. During her time at UHLC, she actively engaged with various organizations, including the Blakely Advocacy Institute's Interscholastic Mock Trial Team, honing her advocacy skills and further solidifying her commitment to providing exceptional legal representation. She is currently an Adjunct Faculty member and Director of UHLC's Alternative Dispute Resolution competition team. As the driving force behind Daic Law, Megan Daic combines her diverse background, legal expertise, and genuine care for her clients - and her staff - to create a unique and innovative approach to practicing law.
Jordan 00:00
What if we could demystify starting a law firm? What if hanging your own shingle didn't require us to fly solo blind into the abyss that is law firm management, that we make the unknown known. Starting a law firm, to me always seemed like some sort of huge, monumental, unknowable risk. But plenty of us do it and plenty of us succeed. I want to start my law firm off on the right foot. And I also want to know the secret sauce to founding a successful law firm. And frankly, I want to avoid failure at all costs. That's exactly why I started this series. Welcome to hacking law firm success with me your host, Jordan Turk. If you are a lawyer looking to grow your practice, or you want some insight into how other attorneys run their firms, you've come to the right place. For each interview. In this series, I'll be sitting down with a different law firm founder from across the country to discuss their secrets to success, as well as the obstacles and maybe some cringe worthy moments that they have had to overcome in starting their firms. From foundation to legal technology to firm culture. We cover it all. Thanks for joining. And I hope this series helps empower you to set up your law firm for success. Hello, hello, hello. And thank you for joining me on this interview series episode. This is Attorney Megan Daic and hello Megan, welcome.
Megan 01:16
Hello, thank you so much for having me.
Jordan 01:19
So really, I want to know, and what we're going to go through with this interview series is what made your law firm successful, what tools did you use physical, mental things like that? And what how you got here, essentially. So I'll be talking with other law firm founders too, as well as trailblazers in the industry, and judges and things like that. But I'm very honored that you said yes, to be interviewed here. I've heard amazing things about your firm. So I'm excited to get started.
Megan 01:45
Well, thank you so much. No, and I'm honored to be here. So I really appreciate you having me. And I'm excited to talk about this I'm I'm very passionate about especially because I'm also an adjunct professor at University of Houston Law Center. So I deal with a lot of law students. And we see a lot more people kind of hanging their own shingles. And I have a lot of former students who started firms and a lot of colleagues and friends who have graduated with who started firms to so it's always exciting to see. And it's kind of an especially exciting, sorry, I was gonna say what female attorneys to it's really exciting to see when they start their firms.
Jordan 02:16
Yeah. And also just skewing on the younger side, too. I think a lot of people when they imagine even when you're in law school, and you imagine being a firm owner or firm founder, I think in your mind, you always picture yourself older, right? Oh, yeah, I'm going to start my own firm, maybe in my 40s, late 40s, early 50s. And I'm just going to, you know, do that be a rainmaker and things like that. But in reality, a lot of people just hanging their own shingle, either right after law school or pretty early on actually, once they realize, oh, I can actually be making more money, and I can do this better.
Megan 02:46
Right, exactly. Yeah. And if you want the flexibility, I always say when I started my firm, yes, I do have a lot of flexibility with my own time, right? Because I'm my own boss, I just don't have a lot of time to be flexible with because you're your own boss, and you've got a lot of clients and you're always busy.
Jordan 03:02
Be busy all day, every day. All right, well, let's get started with the basics. So a little bit of background about what's your name? What's the name of your firm? And what's the position that you hold at your firm?
Megan 03:11
Perfect. So my name is Megan Daic. And my firm is Daic law. My last name is da I see but pronounced di It's so strange. So our moniker is difficult names, simple solutions. Most clients can't say her name. And we're located in Houston, Texas, and we have a pretty unique model. We focus primarily on debt defense. So we represent individuals who've been sued by creditors, we also do chapter seven, bankruptcy and business litigation. Oh, wow.
Jordan 03:45
That's amazing. And then did you always did you pretty much know, from the jump once you graduated from law school that this was the area of law that you wanted to be in?
Megan 03:53
No, definitely not. When I first came out, I didn't know really what area of law I wanted to work in. And I also didn't really intend to start my own firm. When I graduated, I did not know that that would be the path for me. So I originally wanted to just go to trial. So I was ready to go to a district attorney's office. But I needed to get paid while studying for the bar. So I was studying for the bar full time. And I was hired by a plaintiff's medical malpractice law firm. So I worked and I would work basically until maybe three o'clock every day and either stay the firm and then study until about six and then go home. Or I would leave and then go home and study then and I'd study till about midnight for the bar. And so I continued to work while I was studying for the bar and took a couple of weeks off for the bar exam. And so what I did there, it was really unique because I wasn't actually litigating. It was a litigation law firm, but I was doing a lot of referring out cases, a lot of intake and marketing. So I helped manage a lot of our websites and I really did a lot of client counseling and interviewing, I saw what cases we were bringing in, what cases we could take on. And if not, you know where to find a happy home for these potential clients. But from there, I actually ended up going to personal injury law firm to do litigation. And I think sort of like you mentioned, I think a lot of people realize, like, hey, either I think I can do this differently, or my own way, maybe better potentially, for me, it was just a matter of wanting to really create kind of a safe space, especially for younger people, young attorneys, and staff and help them feel comfortable and supported. And so we do a lot of like, goal setting with our firm, and we do Monday, check ins, it's just thoughts and feelings. Everyday we're doing water check ins via slack.
Jordan 05:49
Law firms don't do that at all, you know, I, I cut my teeth that are very old school law firm, right? Where it's we don't care about your feelings, just build the hours that you need to be billing, which it was I say all this all this to say it was a great firm, but it was very much an old school mentality. So it's interesting that you recognize this new, soft for what it was, which was incredibly toxic, and decided to go and say, I'm not going to do it. So the fact that you check in with your staff, you know, constantly and see how they're doing is extremely refreshing and something that is absolutely not the norm.
Megan 06:24
Yeah, and, and I think we see a lot of burnout from that. And I'm seeing it too, I think you notice the change and transition, especially because I've been teaching for like seven years now, with students and the differences that you see as they're coming out of law school. And I think the mentality, especially with COVID, and work from home life has changed to some degree to where people are more, I think disenchanted with sort of like what you said, which I think was kind of this older school mentality. Where as we I read a lot of Simon Sinek and start with why. And so like with our firm, everybody starts with that book, they read start with why even this week, I do it, you know, every few months or so I'm like, hey, if there any online classes that you guys want to take any classes that you're interested in, but Simon Sinek specifically, there's one class I want to take right now on like how to give and receive feedback. So I say the firm will cover it for you guys. And so we really just want I mean, work is only a say a small portion of our lives, it's obviously this huge portion. timewise. But I think that like our, our minds, and our feelings and emotion should really be focused on obviously ourselves and our families and the people who are important to us. And you know, our firm, everybody that works here is important to us. So we I want us to be supportive, but I also want everybody to have their own lives.
Jordan 07:49
Right and truly happy employees make, you know, happy home life makes for happier employees. And I've always believed that, you know, there's only you're gonna, you're eventually going to burn out. It's just a matter of time, right? So my thought process is always if I'm looking at retaining talent, which a lot of law firms or are horrible at, because they say, that's why I pay you, right? It doesn't I don't really care about your feelings so much. It's why I pay you, but then that gives me no incentive to stay there.
Megan 08:15
Exactly. And I'd heard that a lot before to where, you know, I was helping manage a firm, and I said, you know, hey, this person, I think that maybe this is a role that they didn't really come in thinking that this is what they were going to be doing. You know, maybe we can have some discussions about this, and how do we, you know, transition or do some more training, or maybe just, you know, find a better fit for them, especially since the expectation was very different. When they first came on board. And it was a lot of sort of, like you said, I'm paying them, right, this is this is my firm, you know, they get their paycheck for me, they're gonna do what, what I want them to do. And, you know, I understand that mentality as well. And obviously, we need the work to get done. And I just like to take a very holistic view. So if we are all focused on the bigger picture, which is really making sure that you know, we're meeting our purpose and our clients goals and purpose and being very Client Center, than if we're all kind of working towards that all the time, then I think there won't be any miscommunication or misunderstandings about you know, what it is that we're all supposed to be doing. And as
Jordan 09:21
far as your culture goes, Is there anything else they do I know that you said that you do Monday check ins consistently and things like that. Is there anything else that you think you do that makes your law firm culture in particular stand out? Um,
Megan 09:34
so some different things that we that we try to do. Timing is of course, always the issue when it's litigation. I can't say like, oh, every week we're going to schedule this. So learning lunches for instance, that's something that's sort of fallen behind especially as we've been in the middle of a move. But I really enjoyed when we were doing learning lunches so is usually once or twice a month. Whoever is in town and could come into the office we would meet and we would kind have alternate between like a legal topic, and then maybe more of like a self help or study topic. And we try to do like we had our quarterly check ins recently, which is really just, you know, hey, let's talk about what your goals were previously. What are they now let's look at short term long term personal professional. And then we'll also do long range planning. Where we did it last year, we'll check in again this year, where we talked a lot about our firm's values and our mission. And if we need to kind of adjust anything, make sure we're really on the same page and figure out what we can do, you know, to continue growing the firm, right?
Jordan 10:41
It's just so different and wonderful, because I mean, and I talked to law firms all day long. And also, you know, I have my own firm experience. But for one, the vast majority of solo or smaller law firms or even boutique law firms, the thought of goal setting for them is non existent, especially when it comes to goal setting for their employees also non existent, they're just happy that you're building a continue building, this is great, thank you very much. So the fact that you would go this extra mile, which is wonderful. And again, just extremely rare. I love this so much. And I hope that if anybody is watching this as they're going through that they try to adopt some of these things as they go forward, because I think this absolutely will make for happier employees. Just crazy. But I'm just gonna go on a rant about it. Too, particularly what I want to know is questions about technology. So is there any type of technology that you use, or that when you went to go hang your own shingle, and you were looking at what you did prior at your old firm, you were like, Hey, we need to update this and make it a little bit better.
Megan 11:45
So I think the issue that that is pretty pervasive is Is there one software that can do it all for you. And so that it isn't piecemeal. And everywhere I've been, I basically had kind of a couple of different experiences. One was, we're going to build everything from scratch, which is obviously, you know, very costly and time consuming, and inevitably won't be able to do things that you want it to do. I think it's great if you can have your own coders, and you have your own program, but things can change, right, if you lose that programmer, you know, or they start working somewhere else, you know, you might be subject to who has the code. The other thing that I've dealt with is, yeah, just a lot of different software. So we, we try to consolidate as much as we can. But there are certain things that you just realize, this just works a little bit better for us. So for instance, for any sort of electronic signatures, we use Adobe, you know, for like Bates labeling, organizing documents, things like that. But we prefer to not use Adobe for signatures, because we noticed, I think it was going to whoever would send out the document, it would come back to them. Versus we've got it right now, unlike one place, so anybody could follow up if they wanted to. And that's important to us, like cross training. Most everybody, not everybody can do everybody's job. But it wouldn't take a lot of work, I think for them to learn too. So we want to make sure that we can sort of step in, especially if somebody wants to take time off, go on vacation and not have to worry about their work behind them. And then for us, yeah, we I mean, you've got obviously things like emails and direct messaging, and calendaring, providing updates to clients, you know, case management software, we use air table a lot, which I am obsessed with. And I've used it for quite a while. And okay, so air table, it's some people say, okay, so it's like Google Sheets. And yes, and no, it's it's spreadsheets. And it's very organized for me. And it's very color coded. You can have great filters, great grouping. And it also provides you with updates, such as the last time that somebody had made a comment. So you can actually see like a timestamp as to when something was done. You can also create automations. So for instance, for us, if we have a new client sign up, once they send back the power of attorney and engagement agreement. It's somebody will mark that off show it's been received, you know, Process Payment and you know, put through the intake process to get an answer on file, etc. Will so that will automatically notify us in Slack. We get a message so we know to move forward on that. Yeah, sometimes you might get an email but automations are great. Oh, yeah,
Jordan 14:41
it changed the game for me. I mean, similar to you at my prior firm we had I think I calculated it out on time. It was I think we had eight different pieces of software that we use on a daily basis right file sharing for you know, net docs for file storage ignite for file sharing law pay for payments. Let's See? Oh, yeah, I think my case at one point for just the calendar system, which then we moved to practice, I think practice master, which was insane, and you know, tabs for billing, things like that. But it was insane, just on a daily basis how many things I had to remember to log into. And it drove me nuts because we had no centralized system to store things like we had met docs for storage, but nothing communicated with each other. Right. And so it just drove me absolutely bonkers. And so a lot of it for me was trying, when I was thinking and, you know, went out and formed my own firm, a lot of it was, I just want everything as simplified as possible, and for things to do their job. Which actually, that's what drove me to smoke ball. But it's really that's it if you find something that you love, but it's specially anything that can do document automation, was the game changer for me, truly, like just absolutely incredible. So when I saw what smoke ball can do, and obviously what you use for airtable, it's just like, absolutely insane. And so I think about all the time that I've wasted, using all this other stuff, it is crazy. And I wish I would have been, you know, I wish I would have known that these things existed at my prior firm, because I think had I brought it up, you know, to the managing partner who probably would have been receptive to it, I think it would have saved me from a lot of semi nervous breakdowns. It's just wild. I don't know why but as we're going through, and so you've already kind of told me about the technology that you used and what you like about it. But did you adopt this technology? Pretty much from the gate when you started your own firm? Or was this kind of added later, as you were thinking about? Oh, my gosh, I have to grow? I have to scale and I need, you know more of this stuff?
Megan 16:41
Yeah, no, it definitely changed. It changed. But I knew I worked at a firm before that didn't use any form of case management software. So when you had a call with the client, and you wanted to notate it, first of all, most people weren't notating. But I was like, I want to know, so that if a client says why haven't heard from him, like, oh, well actually talk to you on this date, you know, here's what we discussed. You know, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page. So we were using just like Microsoft Word, and you would create a Word document or spreadsheet. And yeah, and you would just kind of create whatever you wanted for it. So I didn't love that. So I said, I know I want case management software. If for no other reason, then I want to be able to have a place to say, you know, here are my notes. Here's what we've done. I did very quickly add in, you know, the automated tasks, so that it would notify me like, Okay, this has happened. Now this is when you follow up, use them for calendar as well, of course,
Jordan 17:37
that was the thing is really just Yeah, even just being able to, you know, it would drive me nuts, because on any given case, we'd have four people copied on it just from our office, right. And so sometimes people were left off, sometimes you couldn't figure out who was the last person who touched base with this particular client or opposing counsel. So when you start using legal tech, you know, a lot of them provide it, you know, a lot of them, what you can do is look, and you can see who exactly emailed this person last and when and what they said. So even if I wasn't copied on it, I can see exactly what's there. And so for me, I have control issues, which I know is not shocking. But that's what I want to see, right? Especially if I'm looking at touch base with a client, especially if it's a cya issue, you know, because there's always every client that says your net, you never call me you never right. And so it really is a game changer when you're looking at it from the perspective of I want to know exactly what's happening on every single case. And I don't want to have to rely on somebody else to tell me what's going on.
Megan 18:36
Exactly, exactly. Yeah. So I think it's huge. I, I've had former students before ask and say, Well, is it really necessary? And for me, absolutely, yes. And I've even said, Look, even if you just get the cheapest one. So you have a place where you guys can all go into and see the notes and comments. I think it's really important for me, but some other ways that we change. I mean, the firm changed originally I was doing primarily personal injury, and then any business clients I could get I mean, really, I was taking anything that I could I did landlord tenant, I did a lot in small claims, which that is now actually continued. It's just like a much higher volume. And it's different types of cases. And I mean, I pretty much been solo maybe with like a couple of law clerks before for a number of years. And then I went and I managed another firm for a little while. And I learned this other model, which is kind of a game changer for me advertising wise because we know how much you can spend, you know, obviously if you're trying to advertise for personal injury plus all the staff you need for it just exact Right, right. Yeah, and yeah, exactly. And you don't necessarily know like, you need to find some metric to determine if you're going to have a return on investment for it. Right because there's so many people out there who will say do this, spend money on this, spend money on that. This is really a bit easier because we know people, we created our own program through a programmer that we found online, where we can pull the dockets every day, and all of the counties that we have cases, and see who's been sued for the types of cases that we handle. And since they have been sued their defendants, we can actually send advertisement letters to them. Oh, that's beautiful. So, yeah, it's a very different type of advertising and marketing. And then they call us so they get our letter, they get letters from other firms too, but they call us. So with that big transition. The difference really is I went from handling maybe like 60 cases, right? personal injury cases, to right now, we probably have over 1000 active cases. And it's just it's a volume business. And it's different. And a lot of our cases are actually injustice, the P squirt, which is, you know, what a lot of people are like, oh, right, exactly. Definitely the Wild West. And a lot of people are very unfamiliar with it. So yeah, our technology definitely had to change as we grew, because we went from me to, we've gone up to as many as like, 12 staff members before right now we're in about eight, and then we'll have somebody for the summer to make sure you're on the same page. Yeah. Well, speaking
Jordan 21:14
of that, and as far as growth goes, have you implemented any specific strategies to grow? Your law firm? Just in general, I know, you just mentioned how you're growing your client base, right? Is that advertising? That you do? But is there any other thing that you've that you think you've done to grow revenue, or just really grow your firm in general?
Megan 21:31
So I think that what we've talked about is really a lot of it's just kind of brainstorming ideas of what we can do. Is it diversifying, and if it is diversifying, is it we, you know, out on different areas of law? Or is it possibly, you know, we're kind of all over the state of Texas, even though my main office is in Houston, we handle cases everywhere. So it's not that we need a bunch of different offices in Texas, it would really be if we would expand out, excuse me expand out of state. So that is definitely an option and something that we've been looking at. Another option two would be there are, you know, several firms who do what we do, and, you know, maybe just having discussions with them as well to see if there are ways that we can collaborate with one another. I think that's at least an option.
Jordan 22:22
There's enough freak you out. When you look at, you know, I can conceptualize opening my own firm, cool, like, this is fine, this is profitable, I'm good. But then the thought of opening another firm in another state gives me massive anxiety because again, I have control issues. So so even entertaining it for me, like my heartbreaks just skyrockets. I mean, I guess what my guess my question would be, do you not just get freaked out when you think about the potential of your firm and the growth of it all, but also having to maybe release a little bit of control about it?
Megan 22:56
Definitely. And so a few things that I learned, especially as the firm grew, because I tend to be like you, I like to be in control. And I tend to be a perfectionist, or at least I used to be. So the thing with the volume business is, and I tell people this often we need to allow ourselves some grace, because things will happen. I mean, we had a case last week, where, you know, we were like, Oh, how was there? A default judgment, we had an answer on file. I guess there was a trial, we were never notified. And we even check the dockets every month, you know, I mean, somebody has to manually go in on every case that we have, and go to the court or call and look. So we were like, so how did that happen? Well, we were never noticed by the opposing party, and the court doesn't notify you, only the opposing party has to. You know, I mean, things happen, and it's just not going to be perfect. But you know, our goal, like I said, difficult names, simple solutions. We are problem solvers. We we work to find solutions, and we're going to both for our clients and ourselves internally. So I've learned to, I think, be a lot better at delegating and worrying, I guess less about things going exactly the way that I want them to, because they're just not in litigation. It just doesn't go the way that you ever
Jordan 24:17
expect. Oh, no, no. I don't think anybody really truly understands where you could have the best set of facts on the face of the earth, you could have the best client who had the best testimony on the stand. And you could think it's a slam dunk, but it never is, right. There's just too many factors that can go into many variables that go into it. So it takes a special type of person for one to want to be in litigation and to to want to stay in it. Long term, right? Because you have to be okay with the unknown, which I do think makes for a good law firm owner at that point and a good law firm founder because you have to be you just have to be okay with not knowing exactly what's going to happen.
Megan 24:56
Exactly. And I think then, so as long as you're building teams that that you feel confident in. And I mean, obviously there's there's got to be a lot of trust. I'm less worried about expanding into new state as far as so what happens with like our home office? What happens in the new state? It's more of, okay, now I just have to It's the time of like, replicating it all. Okay, so now we need to figure out the programs for that state. And then, of course, you know, the laws and seeing how the courts are, I mean, it's taken years to figure out and then as judges change to, okay, so this court wants something different now. You know, in figuring all that out, it's not uniform, maybe it is in other states, but like, if E filing were uniform throughout the entire state, it was amazing.
Jordan 25:43
Yeah. Wouldn't it be great, but no. Well, as far as a little bit talk, so we talked about growth and change and things like that. But what do you think what was the biggest challenge that you face so far in growing your practice and starting your own practice?
Megan 25:59
So I would say two things, and they kind of stem from the same thing. It's really just, it's fear, I tend to be very forward thinking, which means I'm looking into the future a lot, which means I'm worrying a lot. And so and obviously, fear can prevent you from doing a lot and I think creates, I mean, a lot of fear, not for all people, but for me creates the sense of like scarcity. Okay, am I gonna get new cases? Are we gonna be able to survive? What's going to happen next month? I mean, again, they're all these unknowns, not just with litigation, but with having your own business. And so I think, you know, taking steps sometimes to say, Okay, I am afraid and I don't know what's going to happen. And I can take the easy route, like I could go manage this other firm, or, Hey, this firm wants me to run their litigation department, or somebody else that I can do this, or, you know, I know, I could go work somewhere else. And there's so much responsibility, right? It's, I'm responsible for my clients, of course, but also my staff, right, I'm like, I need to make sure that they get paid, and they're relying on that, and that their payroll is coming at the same time, you know, twice a month. And so, I think those are kind of the two big things kind of getting over that fear, that big hurdle, which is constant, right? I mean, there's always some new thing that I'm worrying about. And then also just the the elevated sense of responsibility that I, I had not thought of beforehand. It's, I mean, they're not my children, right. But it's a sense of responsibility for other people and their well being.
Jordan 27:34
Well, talking about pivoting from challenges to then success. So how would you define success professionally for your firm?
Megan 27:41
Oh, man, that is a really great question. And something that I think I probably need to brainstorm a lot more like, we need long range planning to discuss this, what does success look like? Because I think that's kind of the ultimate question, I think. I mean, of course, we've got metrics and numbers that we want to see. And it kind of ebbs and flows, and, you know, life pre will pre COVID, post COVID, it's all very different, and things still continue to change. But I think if we are decreasing the level of stress and increasing, you know, happiness, and, you know, self awareness and self care, you know, for people within our firm, I think like you said, earlier, you used it, and I was just perfect. You said trickle down, which I think is the idea of Simonson X book leaders eat last, which is, you know, if you have your leaders, and they're focusing on, you know, their people, and if their people are happy, your your employees, your staff, if they are happy, that is then going to seep into your clients, right? They're going to want to make your clients happy, because they're going to care about them because they're being cared for.
Jordan 28:48
Also, what a change in conversation, right? Because when usually talk about law, firm managers, law firm partners, it's a lot of, oh, everything rolls downhill, if the partner is upset, then guess what everybody in the firm is going to be upset. And so now I love that that's kind of been turned on its head. And we started talking more about, hey, if the partners happy, and if they are valuing everybody in that firms happiness, and they're putting prominence or you know, they're put it there saying that this is critical, and this is important for the firm to be happy. And, hey, that's going to trickle down to everybody else, it's going to trickle down to the clients. So it's interesting that now we're talking about it in a positive aspect.
Megan 29:26
And I'm not saying I mean, this could be to my detriment, but I actually for me, I'm kind of the, in my mind, one of the least important parts of the puzzle, or pieces of the puzzle, because I'm hoping that we're in a position to where like, if something were to happen to me, that's what I think about is okay, so if I cannot come to work, are people set up for success? And that's when I'm constantly working towards I will say it's difficult. I am the owner. I'm the only owner partner I have one Associate Attorney. So it's kind of figuring out those things to make Sure it's succession planning, making sure that everybody knows what they're doing, how to do it, and how to survive if something were to happen to me. So I really want them to be happy and uncomfortable.
Jordan 30:13
Well, then I think we'll end on this is what advice would you give to others who are looking to open their own firms or to make their firms be more successful?
Megan 30:21
I think that all too often in law firms, and hopefully, we're seeing a change in this now moving forward, that we haven't focused enough on firm culture. And really what that means. So I think you need to consider yourself as a leader, and what kind of leader you are. And based on that, you know, who you should be hiring and how you support them. And I say that a lot. Like one thing I tell people, when I interview them is I am not a micromanager. I like people to be thinking big picture. So if you know yourself well enough to know that you need somebody to give you tasks constantly. This won't work out that well, because I am just not that person. And so I think just kind of knowing those things about yourself and the kinds of people that you work well with that I think you're going to help lead them to success. But they're also going to make you better, you know, I everyone around me is very smart and very motivated and very organized. And also, they have different, you know, attributes and skills and things. We have a lot of actors in our firm, and I love hearing about what they're doing and talking to them about how they get over this fear, like how would you do an opening statement? How would you do your closing argument, you know, learning from the people around, you
Jordan 31:34
know, what you get, and you give them the time to do it. I mean, and I love that you said that about micromanagement, because I think a lot of I think a lot of managing partners do that. I think a lot of senior attorneys do that. And the problem with that is if you micromanage somebody to death, there's no time for that person to have or Hone any type of critical thinking skills. Right? Because they're just doing that go go go, they have the exact task that they need, and they're getting it done. But it's very much more motivated by getting the task done, as you know, as opposed to actually sitting down thinking about it, maybe thinking about it in a different way.
Megan 32:07
Exact Exactly, yeah, critical thinking and allowing them to take, you know, agency or to have their own agency. I think it's really important just for people, you know, generally and again, I think there are some people who really do need tasks, and I think that's that's fine as well, but you need to find a place that's a good fit for you and you need to engender, I think the culture and the processes that that I think kind of align with your leadership skills.
Jordan 32:34
Absolutely agree. Well, Megan, thank you so much for joining me. This has been incredible and I really appreciate you coming on the show.
Megan 32:42
Thank you so much. I appreciate you!
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