In this episode of The Founding Partner Podcast, join us as we explore the remarkable journey of Robb Cruser, co-founder of Cruiser & Mitchell, a law firm spread across nine states. Discover how a humble start on April Fool's Day evolved into a legal powerhouse with over 200 staff members.

Learn about the pivotal moments, strategic growth, and the power of credibility in building a successful firm. Tune in for an inspiring story of entrepreneurial spirit and the unexpected paths to success.

Robb Cruser: Yeah. Thanks Jonathan. Good to be with you. Appreciate it. My name is Rob Cruiser and along with my co founder Bill Mitchell. We have the law firm of Cruiser and Mitchell. We are in nine states. Our mothership is Georgia, but we're in California, New York, New Jersey, Indiana Florida, Washington, Pennsylvania and some others.

But we're an insurance and defense-oriented firms. We represent insurance companies, insureds companies, self-insured. Our headcount is about 105 attorneys, and our total staff is a little under 200.

Robb Cruser: No, it was it's still humble, but it was real humble back then. It was four of us and we opened on April's Fool's day of 2000. We thought that was appropriate. I sat in the front that we, I had no office. I sat in the reception area with a desk. I signed for the FedExes, I signed for everything that came in.

I had my hundred-dollar desk up until about two years ago. So for the first twenty-two years of the firm, I had a hundred-dollar desk and it was great.

Jonathan Hawkins: That's a great desk. The annual cost of that, what is that?

Robb Cruser: Hard to appreciate something with no basis.

Robb Cruser: yeah, we were both at Drew Echol, a good firm, another defense firm. We had started there together basically three days apart in 1990. Bill was ahead of me on the letterhead. He likes to remind me on that one, but I clerked there. So I said I had more seniority than him. But we were there 10 years and then we left to start our own firm.

Jonathan Hawkins: Nice. So, we're gonna get into that, but I noticed that from your bio, that I guess you are a CPA. Did you ever practice.

Robb Cruser: Yeah, I, well, I'm a former CPA just to, I don't want the licensure people to come after me,

Jonathan Hawkins: We gotta be technical here.

It was a great experience, great time, and back then you had to practice for one year before you, they'd give you the license. So I practiced one, one year. In one day. I got my CPA license and then I went on to law school and [00:03:00] promptly did not renew the CPA. So it turned out to be good knowledge, but I didn't keep a license up.

Jonathan Hawkins: So did you know you wanted to go to law school when you became a CPA, or is that something that working as a CPA said, all right, I'm getting out.

Robb Cruser: Yeah, they were mutual reinforcing. I did know I wanted to go but my undergraduate program, once you were in accounting, it was so geared to take in the exam. Like you kind of felt bad if you didn't. So you take the exam, you help the statistics, and and I enjoyed my time at Ernst. & Winnie. It was great experience.

Jonathan Hawkins: So 10 years into your law career, you decide to go start your own law firm. Is that something you always knew you were gonna do? Or how did that come about?

And so, you know, I just made partner a year and a half before that and he was my mentor, but my mentor's gone. And then Bill's mentor was Ted Freeman and Ted Freeman left to start, you know, Freeman, Mathis. And Bill, I think was the only person that didn't go with Ted. He should have, 'cause he got stuck with me.

That was a strategic mistake on his part. But, so we were both left a little bit un anchored. Which I'm not saying was determinative, but it certainly played into the decision of, well there's, you know, our boss is no longer here. We're boss free. Maybe we can be boss free on our own. So it didn't take, you know, we talked about it and of course we didn't have any money.

My dad's a kind of a grizzled, you know, cold War dad and business guy. And we go down there and we, I've got the, I got the kids and the wife and dad looks at the plan. He talks to Bill and I, he goes, well, fellas, I gotta tell you, I don't, you guys don't bring a whole lot to the table here, but what am I gonna do?

I'll definitely back you. I got no choice. I mean, you're my son and you're my son's best friend, so, you know, I'll back you until he agreed to loan us some money. And then we told him we needed, I think, $50,000. He goes, no, fellas, you're gonna need more than that. So he said, go try to get it from a bank, but if you can't come back to me.

And so with that inauspicious start of him saying, I don't see you guys bringing much to the table. That's how we got financially set. And in fact, bill always says Cruiser, Mitchell is because of my dad. He was the cruiser, not me. That's why we got, I got first billing is 'cause, you know, he agreed to finance it.

Jonathan Hawkins: So were you able to bring clients with you when you started?

Robb Cruser: Yeah, we did. We had I had basically one pretty sound client that I thought was gonna work. Bill had a couple more than I did, but I mean, it wasn't, it was not a ton of work. It was just enough for him and one associate, and me and one associate. But it was enough. It was just enough. And in fact.

There was a couple clients. I remember one case very distinctly we had a case and it was Georgia Power was involved. And I said to the client, I said, I can't handle this case. It's just too big for what I'm doing. And the client it was a TPA and he was so appreciative. He goes, you know, I can just tell you, no one ever turns 'em back.

So I know you won't take a case you can't handle, so I always tell that story of sometimes you turn down a case that's the best marketing you could do.

Jonathan Hawkins: That's a great story. Credibility is huge and it worked there. So that is a great story.

Robb Cruser: Yeah, that was good.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, I want to talk through, I mean, you started with four attorneys, one office, you've got nine offices, or at least nine states. I wanna. Talk about the growth and you know, you can take us through it how you think best, but you know, how did you, over the years, you know, when did you add your second office or when did you know it was time?

Take us through that.

Robb Cruser: Well, there was no grand plan. I can tell you that we wanted to show you how foolish we were at the beginning. We were just gonna have a boutique firm, so didn't want to get it too big, too outta control, too tough to manage. And so we had a good client we developed in Atlanta, and we're doing a lot of volume for this.

And just to get him off the phone, I said, tell you what I'm gonna do. If you promise me 40 cases and a half a million dollars in work up in New York, we'll be your New York attorney. And so he thinks for a minute and he says, done. I go, what do you mean done? He goes, you just said if I did this and this other thing.

You would do it. And I said, well, I did say that. He goes, all right, well you got two weeks to get somebody up there. And I said, I need a month. And so we didn't plan New York. A client broke through our Stubbornness and our lack of foresight. And that's was the aha moment of what these other offices can work.

That client is gone long gone. They got out of the business and, but it just shows you there's strategic timing to it. Some luck and if you're good to people, they'll try to be good to you.

Jonathan Hawkins: If we could all have a client like that

Robb Cruser: Oh, I'll tell you it, well, it, it's it's a once in a career story. It's a once-in-A-curtain never happened before. Since,

Jonathan Hawkins: so that, so New York was your first or your second office. I'll say your first out-of-State office.

And how long ago was that?

Robb Cruser: That's gotta be 15, 18, almost 20 years. I mean, they were probably four or five years behind the Georgia opening. So it was pretty, pretty close.

And then Indiana came and then,

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so before we move on, so I want to go back to the New York office. I'm really fascinated by the firms that add offices in other states. You know, I think it sounds great, but then the practical. Day to day the integration of the new office, the management of the new office, you know, how did you figure that out?

Robb Cruser: Well, I can tell you. 18 years ago was a lot easier than it is now. Having just brought Illinois and Miami on in the last six months compared to what we did in New York 15 years ago, I can tell you now, we have an IT team that goes in. We have a banking team that goes in. We have a back office team that goes in and we have a training team that goes in to the site, sets everything up, does the training, some training's online, but some training's in person.

And we've had a few office, not one office not work out because we had the wrong partner. And he might say the same of us. But our New York partner, same Randi Novitz, fantastic. She's, she started it. She's still with us. We're still going strong. Doug Sanchez, managing partner in New Jersey, same deal.

Been with us going strong. You know, he's just a few years behind Rondine. So, just getting that key partner makes all that transition so much easier. And,

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so, so let's. Unpack that a little bit. So you have the client come to you, we'll give you 40 cases, go figure it out. How did you go about finding the right partner?

Robb Cruser: well we,

Jonathan Hawkins: some frogs? How did you find the person?

Well, it wasn't long before Justin didn't wanna do defense work, so Rondine was quickly. Then she, it just, when you have the right person, you have a mindset of, okay, we're gonna overcome the obstacles, whatever it is. The trust account's not right. The, it is not right. Getting the right people is challenging, but when you have someone with that overcoming mindset, which Rondine has and very hard to fluster her it just makes the process go easier because she accepts the potholes along the way.

So it wasn't, it, it wasn't as, it was difficult and challenging, but manageable.

You know, and so you found the right person in New York and New Jersey. What was, what did you say was after those two offices?

Robb Cruser: We had Indiana that came along just actually through a friend of a friend. A trucking client had a firm they used and he wanted to break out and wanted to do something different, and they just introduced him to us. Sometimes we don't have this great, here's our ten-year plan. What we have is a very short-term plan, and then we kind of open up, we just opened opportunities.

I, I dunno if you've ever read Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, of course, his book Eat More Chicken, inspire More People. He goes on about, you know, there's nothing wrong with having these ten-year plans. He goes, we don't have, we never had a ten-year plan. We just had a, you know, like these short little three-year plans.

Jonathan Hawkins: big believer in that too. So the opportunity, the universe, God, whatever you wanna call it, will present opportunities. You gotta be, you know, you reach the fork in the road, you gotta pick it up. And so it sounds like I. Maybe all tell me, are all the offices you added, were they sort of opportunistic or did you ever go out and say, Hey, we want to go to this market, or maybe client-driven, even like the first one.

Robb Cruser: Yeah, the, we actually did Headhunters on two of them. So those were, I would say, opportunistic. We always wanted California because we're marketing, you know, we're going to a client. We're saying the marketing, you know, just opens up so much. When you have other offices, you go market a carrier or TPA and they say, oh, we don't have anything in Georgia.

That was, that in Texas and Florida were always the ones that would say we they have opportunities. So we had a HUD Hunter get involved and found Mark for us. Mark Simmons and Mark's just been fantastic. He came on board in 2016. And grew that office from four or five attorneys to, he's now got twenty-one twenty-two attorneys, and that's only since twenty-sixteen.

So, that's when you have these, it's a virtuous marketing cycle, which is really strategic as these other offices you can market for one another when you're marketing for yourself. And that has been a big catalyst to our growth.

How did you figure that out? And you know, do you have the right, did you have to go hire people internally, externally to help make the process work?

Robb Cruser: You know, it's like anything you do it, you trial and error. You make the mistake, you figure out the trust account wasn't right in New Jersey, so we're not gonna have that problem in Chicago. We're gonna get ahead of it, which is a very true story. We now have the team the same, the it, we have a we have a third party IT team that works in our space.

They're third parties, but they're in our space and, you know. It's kind of funny. Michael will come to me and he's come to me every for the last 20 years. Now, are you guys gonna grow at all? I said, no, we're not growing Michael. We're not adding another office. Absolutely not. He goes, 'cause it's important 'cause we have to add the server and it has to have capacity.

So that's kind of locked in. Our back office, Elizabeth she's done the trust account and the banking on each of these, so she knows what has to happen, the business license, all that. So, you know, we do have a process. We have a, like I said, it's checklist driven. And it works when you have the right people.

And right now our, we were able to transition to, like I mentioned, both Illinois and Miami in Q-three. Q-four of twenty-twenty-three. Now, we've never done that before. Bring on two within a small timeframe. But you know, the team is good.

Perhaps they're moving from one system, you know, document management system or practice management system to yours. That takes time, and I'm sure there's all sorts of pitfalls along the way. It's, and it's not cheap either. I'm sure that. You know it takes time and costs money.

Robb Cruser: It's it can't take too long because all the expenses are front and the revenue trails of course. And there are, that's why I don't think we would take a big, like our sweet spot is at two to five firm. If you told me, well, let's gobble up a ten-person law firm. I'd be really reluctant on that because I wouldn't wanna sow the seeds of our own destruction.

You gotta have, you know, I look at it as, you know, if you've got a quarterly billing client or maybe even a bi-monthly one, so we're out 60, 90 days before we can even bill, it's gonna take another 60 days collect. So we're five to six months of expenses for five attorneys and three staff with zero revenue coming in.

This is how long it'll take to break even. Because in my mind, a thriving culture has three things. Has, you know, employee engagement, customer satisfaction, positive cash flow. And if that last piece isn't there, I'm not interested. We can't have negative cash flow for too long. It's gotta even out, and it should after 10 months to two years, depending on the firm and the billing structure.

So I absolutely have to keep eye on that. Absolutely has to be sooner rather than later because of the cash flow.

Jonathan Hawkins: So that's an interesting point I imagine you have. Been presented with opportunities that you run through your metrics, whatever they are you know, one of them, obviously if it's a 10 person or bigger practice, you're probably gonna say no. And so you probably, the good thing is you've got your metrics, you can run 'em through there before you go to the next stage.

Robb Cruser: I mean, yeah, I mean, we will look at a, we'll look at a firm and either the the practice is something so foreign that we don't, do, you know, it's a bankruptcy or it's this, that, or, well, we're not, I can't market bankruptcy that doesn't fit within our platform of marketing. I can't get there.

So that wouldn't work. And if the numbers, you know, the numbers have to be right and we always are conservative and we think they're gonna bring less revenue than they say we think the expenses are. We, you know, we bump those up 10% 'cause they'll be more expensive than you think. But we get a pretty, pretty good estimate.

You can tell if you wanna do business with another entity, if they're willing to give you the data, then that's a very good indicator that it's, it could be a good partner.

Jonathan Hawkins: So in case anyone out there is listening that might be interested, you know, are you interested, would you be open to more acquisitions or new offices? And if so, what's some of the, what are some of the things you're looking for?

Jonathan as you know, you just, sometimes you just, what you have is what you have and you're blessed to have it. But we have been trying to get DC like I said, two decades. And so if you if there's a Texas firm out there that's five attorneys that's looking to looking for opportunities, love to talk to you.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Yeah. Alright, so, you know, you've grown this firm from four to over a hundred attorneys. What does your typical work week look like in terms of client work, firm management, marketing, business development, that sort of thing? You know, how do you divide up your time?

But I like to have my caseload too. As far as management, very hands-on my CPA background, just as this I get, we call the big four reports on every office every month, so I, there's no wondering where people stand, if. Who's up, who's down? Are they in the red? Are they we are, you know, some law firms, and I preach this all the time. You, you have to have, you have to design a thriving culture. And that takes two things. That is on the business side. You've gotta have growth-oriented number one, and you gotta have the right incentives. And on the right incentive side, you don't know what you have unless you're tracking the numbers.

And you've gotta give your partners their numbers every month. So that they know and they can course correct if necessary. And so you don't get six months into something and you've got a big problem somewhere. It is just you. How do I spend my time? So I've got the litigation piece, I've got the management oversight.

All our accounting is internal. All our, it is external. We use a third party for that.

Jonathan Hawkins: So another question. You've got nine states you've cover, is it in office, hybrid, virtual? How does that shake out?

Robb Cruser: All right. Typically we let the managing partner of the individual office, let say Rondine in New York. We try to let her run her shop. I mean, that's part of the what we say is our appeal is we're not gonna, you know. Micromanage you at all. So if she, if the market in New York requires there to be remote, then she can meet the market by doing it.

Jonathan Hawkins: I'm with you. I can see both sides of the argument, but I'm with you. And thinking back on the origin of your firm, if you and Bill did not work together in the office and you were both remote working in different places, probably this firm wouldn't be here, right?

He goes, come here into my office. That is how I met art and that's how I got my offer in 1988. If I would didn't come around that corner, it never would've happened if I hadn't been in the office. It doesn't happen. I mean when you're in the office and there's some emergency, guess who, you go to the people in the office and all of a sudden you know who the people you can go to take care of emergencies.

Well, guess what happens? You go to them again and again and the people that aren't there outta sight outta mind. I don't think it's good for their professional development, but like you and I am not if that's their thing. 'cause we also say work-life balance. So I can't be a hypocrite. I got work-life balance.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I think probably a blend is the place to be. It reminds me, I hear a lot these, you know, conferences and conventions, they say the magic. Is not in the room listening to a speaker. The magic is in the hallways when you're interacting with the other folks there, or maybe at dinner, coffee, whatever it is.

That's where the magic is. I think that's the same thing in an office. It's headed to the kitchen, getting a soda or whatever. That's where the

Robb Cruser: It's a true, it's a true Cathy thing. It. All of a sudden opportunities to present themselves, you didn't plan on whether it be in the hallway, the kitchen, all those places you've just described, everybody has a story of you're not gonna believe what happened to me. Everybody has that story. If they're out and about.

No one has that story in their kitchen, in their own house, in their bedroom, in front of their laptop, unless you're a good digital marketer and you could be on LinkedIn. But those stories are few and far between.

Robb Cruser: I think I have you to thank for a little bit of it. Jonathan. 'cause when we were small and everybody was in Atlanta and coming to the office every day, I mean the culture was expressed, shoulder to shoulder, partner to associate mentoring, the old classic style that you work hard, serve the client. It was very easy to see the culture, but when you grow, I don't see California, I don't see the other offices.

And even if I was there. How do you instill culture experientially to someone who comes in two days a week or how even, and let's say they come in three days a week now, but their boss isn't there. Their boss is now working remote. So between the two of them, there's no longer the shoulder-to-shoulder stuff.

So, you know, we've written all that up and we're about to kind of do a big rollout, firm wide explaining, this is the design. We gotta have growth mindset and the right incentives, and then how we're gonna build it. We need our can-do mindset, we need competence and we need compatibility.

Those are the things we're going to strive as our structure. And if we can do those things, then we can deliver on the whole purpose of the thing, which is employee engagement with customer satisfaction and positive cash flow. So I think one lesson as we got bigger, as we've ignored the culture too long, we're too busy to talk about culture.

Jonathan Hawkins: I will be interested to hear how that goes over the next year or two. I've talked to others that have sort of gone through the process and it changes everything obviously once they're there. But even on the hiring side and the, you know, the onboarding, it really changes everything. So

Robb Cruser: you'll see it because you're, you'll see it 'cause you're in the introduction.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so let's talk about well, yeah, I do wanna see that. Let's talk about hiring and training. How do you approach that? Again, you've got a hundred lawyers, you know, people don't stay at the same firm forever, so I'm sure you have people come and go. Like any firm, how do you manage that part of the you know, firm?

I'm gonna leave. And it was to a good firm. And I said, well, first of all, you should always come. You've come to me. Thank you. You should always come to me. If it's dollars, that's fine, but let me ask you this. Are you chasing dollars or opportunities? 'cause I always tell people, don't chase dollars.

Chase opportunities. For instance this partner you're gonna work for, what clients are you gonna work for under him? Well, I'm not sure. Alright. How many partners has that partner made? Has he made none over the last 10 years or has he made four? Because you want someone who makes partners 'cause you wanna be partner and all that made sense to her.

That's a big factor. But it is the most challenging hiring environment I've been involved in in thirty-three years. In fact, we're, hey, out there, we're looking for any three to five year associate good work life balance, plenty opportunities. So, we are looking fiercely. In fact, we brought on a full time, hiring coordinator just to beat the bushes for us. So that's, we didn't have that a year ago.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I commend you on the way you handled that person saying they wanna leave. I've heard stories, I guess secondhand from folks that went to tell their superior that their, you know, their boss or whatever, that they're leaving and it was, get the hell outta here, except it wasn't hell that they said and they were locked out.

I hear that from a lot of people. Have, has it changed at all? Has it gotten better? Is it still as tough as it was? You know, three years ago,

Robb Cruser: It's not as tough as it was three years ago, but there, but it's not good. It's, there's been a, some improvement. We're getting more resumes, more people that are willing to venture out of the house. More people that are like, all right, well COVID's over. It's really over. I've kind of, I don't wanna say milked it for as long as it'll go, but I gotta start my professional career.

Let's get going. So we've actually had I think two or three hires since. December. So it's better, but by no means it's a, it is a, it's a candidate's market, not an employer's market for sure. At least on, on kind of defense firms.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I've heard that across the board, no matter what the type of firm, so.

Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. I had not seen that. I'll have to go

Robb Cruser: tell you off, I'll tell you off air. Who did that?

Jonathan Hawkins: So I want, I wanna shift a little bit and talk about, I know you, you've authored at least one book, maybe more. So let's talk about the book. I think it's called disrupt the Disruptive Lawyer. Tell me about that.

Robb Cruser: I'm sorry, Jonathan, do you mean this book?

Jonathan Hawkins: Oh, you got that one. Litigation Management. Do you got more than one or is it.

Robb Cruser: Yeah. And then we've got, of course, our negotiation book. No our Disruptive Lawyer. One is the litigation manage book. Book that's. That I give Bill a hundred percent of the credit on that. Without his leadership on that, it wouldn't have been, wouldn't have been done. He did about 90, 80% of it, whatever it is.

This is what we do. So whenever anyone says what is different about or what's procuring, say, we are disruptive lawyers and it means this. That's what this book. Came from, and I'll tell you, it's been it's been a great North star for the firm, the part, the members of the firm and all the way from partner to associate, but it's a brand.

Jonathan Hawkins: So the content and the principles or whatever that are in the book, is that part of the training and the onboarding when you bring on a new office, bring on a new.

Robb Cruser: Yeah. Every new attorney gets both books. They're they go, they're told to read 'em. And then their partner, if it's California, mark Rondine in New York will sit down with 'em and go over firm culture, firm history, but also emphasize, I mean, it's hard to miss it. It's in the book, the Disruptive lawyer.

It's on the website. Disruptive Lawyer. That's our brand. So someone says to you tell me about Disruptive lawyer and you don't know about it. Well, then we have a training problem.

Jonathan Hawkins: So it sounds like you use it internally for your team and your attorneys. I imagine you also use it as a client development or business development tool.

It's digitally and of course hard copies, and it's been very fruitful. We've gotten new leads and new clients as a result of both books, which I again, give Bill a hundred percent of the credit on.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, where do you get the book? How would I go about ordering it?

Robb Cruser: Yeah, just go on our website, you'll see an order form that you just fill out digitally and our marketing director will send you either one of the books the litigation management or the. Negotiator,

Jonathan Hawkins: I'll tell ya. You know, they talk about leading with the book. I think it's great. You've got two. It, I. It is not easy to get a book together and publish, so

Jonathan Hawkins: That's cool. And will that be an internal or external?

Robb Cruser: We're not sure. 'cause externally it would be kind of turning us into business consultants, which I'm not adverse to, but that's, you know, I'm a lawyer, not a business advisor, but we'll see, you know, you know, drew Kathy. Let's see what opportunities

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you know, that's the second part of your career. I think a lot of people, this part of this, the reason for this podcast is, you know, selfishly I wanna learn, but I think others wanna learn too, from four lawyers to over 109 states. That's, you've got a lot to, to tell people about. So. Don't say no.

Robb Cruser: Exactly. Never know.

Getting people on board, all these things. How do you manage it? What are some of your daily habits to help you manage the firm and manage all these offices?

Robb Cruser: Well, a couple things is you partner up with you pay up is what I, you know. There's some key positions that you just don't quibble about. I would say, you know, my executive assistant don't quibble with that. I don't quibble with my back office financial people. I don't really quibble much with RIT.

When you have people I remember a quote, Barbara Bush. They asked her, what's the secret to your nearly seventy-year marriage with. President Bush and she said, oh, it's easy. Well, what is it? What is you? Well, each of us was willing to go 75% of the way, and now I'm not asking a partner to go 75% of the way, but you know, if you have, if you're willing to go 60% of the way and you get these people, you know, you talked about trust in a partnership.

Trust is right. Toughness is right, but a generous spirit if I'm willing to go 60% with my partner and that partner's like-minded and they're going to willing to go 60%, guess what? You don't have many issues that are too far. If you're both willing to do that and we've just, you know, when you're generous financially to your partners, you don't, I would say that is you only build a firm with the right incentives.

It's all formulaic. Some firms is this black box concept, which they swear by and that's fine, but I'm on the other side of that. I want everything transparent. Here's our, here's the formula I go back to Truett Catholic. You wanna be a franchisee. They get 15% off the top and 50% of the profit.

That's the Truett Catholic, that's the model. That's a very simple incentive, and they have. Was it 20,000 applicants for seventy-five spots every year? So is it generous enough? Absolutely. You got that kind of demand. It's pretty generous. So, and they have a 5% attrition rate because people die. Their operators are dying here and there or their divorce or whatever happens.

I don't mind if you have mediocre performance, that's fine. You just get mediocre dollars and you get mediocre control. And that's the deal here. And it's not like, well, what's Rob? Whatever, Rob and Bill decide. Not at all. Here's the formula. Whatever your number is, that's your number. Everybody knows exactly what they get paid.

There's no ambiguity. So, and if the number's good enough. If that eliminates a lot of problems, you give 'em enough control, that eliminates a lot of problems, and then they have a generous spirit that eliminates all the problems.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you've talked a lot about, I think what makes a good partnership work, which I think is important. I get a lot of attorneys coming to me start asking about starting a new partnership. And one of the things I tell 'em is, you know, you gotta trust each other, that sort of thing, but also vision. You need to be on the same page.

Robb Cruser: You know, sometimes you just, you stay like minded. I mean, I feel a little bit fortunate in that now Bill's had a little bit more interest in the marketing side and less on the on, I mean, he's got an active caseload too, don't get me wrong, but mine's a little bit heavier, and so I'm like, great, pursue that.

I mean, if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have the books. And the books have led to a lot of work, not just for him, but for other people within the system. So that worked out beautifully. I think you just have to we're in a little bit different position because. We started the firm, but if you let people say they want to do sideline this or sideline that, well under our system, you can do, I wanna work less 'cause I want to take a sabbatical with my kid or whatever.

I mean, it's, you know, it's like you build 200 hours. It's, there's a lot of time and trouble to process someone who does 200 hours. But generally speaking you know, we can accommodate it. And we also don't want people, Hey, if you can't thrive doing what we do. That's what we're, but we wanna create opportunities so people can grow and thrive.

If you can't grow and thrive with us, no, no problem leave. In fact, we want you to leave. We don't want you to be somewhere you don't want to be. We don't want, 'cause then you lose that can-do spirit. You lose that generous spirit and it's just a negative. You gotta want to come in, want to be with the people.

Otherwise it's, to me, it's neutral or negative.

Robb Cruser: I would say, you know, I would say this any, I guess, not just to myself, but any young person it took a lot of it, it's a tr tough balance. 'cause people say they want to grow associates, I want to grow, okay, I want you to grow and here's, you know, here's some opportunities for you to grow with.

Why don't you just prepare a paper on this subject matter expertise and we'll get it out on a blast or on a LinkedIn. We'll get it to a thousand people and we'll see what happens. But. They don't want to do the blog post now. You're very active. I can guarantee you, you have to spend a lot of time juggling family work and getting, knocking out those LinkedIn.

We say the speak the words, three minutes, it's over. Well, Mike and his partner made a movie now in 1981, you couldn't make a movie. Okay? You had a projector on your shoulder and there was no, so there was no sound. He dubbed it and I'm like, Mike. How did you do that? You have school, you have sports after school, and you have a job after.

And that's gonna align your trajectory. So I would tell people, you can eliminate a lot of stress in your life by determining the angle of your trajectory. And then I would tell 'em. No one, you know, you worry about worst case on this and stress about this deadline. Stress. It all tends to work itself out.

I mean, that's of course happened, but I would tell people, figure that out.

Jonathan Hawkins: I'm with you. I built my practice on the side, or in addition to a full-time associate load that I had back in the day. No, no one at my firm did what I do now. No one really even knew or told me to do it. I just did it and I remember. I would buy, I bought my own treatises and read them cover-to-cover.

I remember thinking I was gonna write a book, you know, many years ago, and I was sitting at the kitchen table as my kids were taking a nap or whatever, and I'm doing all this stuff. My wife thought I was crazy and maybe I was and it was a lot of work and you know, no one saw it. I don't know why I did it.

Now luck happens, but you gotta be ready for it. I think that's huge.

Robb Cruser: One of our elements of. A thriving culture is competency. And your comment just made me think one part of the book is Bear Bryant had his famous saying is, it's not the will to win. We all have the will to win. It's the will to prepare to win. It's the will to for you to go on your kitchen table and read through these corporate books and carve something out that no one expected you to do.

I'm going to modulate my profession. But when you have, you try to start a firm or be a, have a. A partner with four or five associates or a big practice and you wanna have family, you gotta say no to stuff. I would've loved to have done stuff with the state bar. I hard, no, I would've loved to have done other things.

No. You got to start. Unless you wanna be divorced, you gotta say no to a lot of things. Other things. And so I would tell my younger self to be better on. No. And I tell anybody coming up, if you're young and you're married and have a young family, you've gotta say no. To a lot of outside things or you'll be consumed.

And maybe that's you, but if you weren't practicing law, what do you think you'd be doing?

Robb Cruser: I think it's an interesting thought exercise. 'cause I do blipraxin well, so I haven't even grits at all. I've enjoyed it, but I've also enjoyed the business side of it. You know, creating this business and seeing, you know, hiring people and seeing people flourish and working side by side, that's been really enjoyable.

So I think if I didn't do this I would do some, I'd be a small business person somewhere doing whether it be professional services or, you know, I say to my son, you know, we got a lot of people, you know, a pool company. This, there's a lot of service companies. That I just see these great little niches.

I'd be doing something like that. I would still be working for myself just in, not in a legal sense, doing some other professional services or even better a good, so I wouldn't be tied to people in time. I could be more tied to goods in production,

Robb Cruser: Exactly. Yeah, you just even Google Cruiser Mitchell. Our website's gonna come up. Www.cmlawfirm.com, my number is on there. My direct dial, so 4 0 4 6 2 6 5 3 6 7. That's my, that's the hotline. Call me. I'd love to talk to you. Anything you heard today that you disagree with I'm welcome to that 'cause humility this business will humble you.

And so if you've got some insights that contradict what I think, let me know. I'd love to hear.

Jonathan Hawkins: Great. Well, I appreciate it again, Rob. Thank you for joining us.

Robb Cruser: Thank you, Jonathan. Appreciate you.