What if the thing that makes you different is exactly what your clients are looking for?

Josh Hodges didn’t become a lawyer until he was 32. No Ivy League pedigree. No polished fast track. Just grit, DMV floors, and a daughter who changed everything. Today, he runs one of the most trusted personal injury firms in small-town Ohio—not by outspending the big guys, but by out-showing up.

What does it take to build real trust in a world obsessed with flash?

This story might make you rethink how you grow your firm.

So you know, think about those things when you're doing videos, I think is what a lot of people kind of sell themselves short of how well they're doing. I think a lot of times people are doing maybe better than they think.

Jonathan Hawkins: Great point. So I wanna go back to your current firm now. I did wanna touch on this is, so you started it with a partner and so that's a question I get a lot, you know, should I go by myself? Should I do a partner? You know, what was your thought process in going out with a partner versus just saying, you know what, I can do this.

Like, we're both pretty generous people. I think.

Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating stories of successful law firm founders. We'll uncover their beginnings, triumph over challenges, and practice growth. Whether you aspire to launch your own firm, have an entrepreneurial spirit, or are just curious about the legal business, you're in the right place.

Let's dive in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Hawkins. This is a podcast where I get to interview founders and owners of law firms to hear about their journeys and hopefully learn some lessons that they have, or at least some things that they have learned all along the way.

Why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us about your firm and where you guys

Josh Hodges: Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, I mean it's Cincinnati area, but I will draw the distinction. We're in the city of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ohio, you know, people here. We got our own little city up here. It's about, it's just one county north of Cincinnati, so about a little bit closer to Cincinnati than I am to Dayton, but we're in between the two.

And that's where I started. We do personal injury. We have six lawyers. I think our team total is about 26, 27 people right now. Growing fast, just the number's been going up slowly, you know, not so slowly some years. Yeah, been going this week actually is the seven, I think it was like yesterday is the seven years we've been in business as partners.

And I got a job in big law and big firm had like five, 600 attorneys did civil litigation there. And then 2017 left there, went out on my own for about a year and a half. And then in 2018, about halfway through, me and Scott Team Dub started doing just the personal injury focus here in Hamilton. It was our hometown.

So I, I kind of knew I needed a, needed some kind of catchphrase or tagline or nickname or something, but I didn't wanna be something cheesy, like something that people have, even though it works. No offense to anyone, you know, but I wanted something that like my uncles wouldn't make fun of me for, I guess.

But I needed something you can remember. So I went with the hometown lawyer. It was kind of like, you know, memorable enough without being too anything they could make fun of me too hard for. So that's what I stuck with. And then it seemed to work. As we've branched out into other towns though, I had to like kind of rethink, you know, how I'm gonna brand this, you know, because I'm not, I'm not in my hometown in every town, obviously.

But we kind of just try to treat 'em all as if, you know, 'cause we're in multiple areas. Try to treat 'em all as if, you know, I care about 'em all the same, you know, and try

Jonathan Hawkins: America is your hometown.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Well, cool. I wanna unpack all that stuff. There's a lot. There was a lot there. So, um, so let's go back. So, so law is sort of a second career for you. And you know, I have found I took a year and a half off, but I, and I did odd jobs, but I did not have a career before the law law school.

And most people just go straight through. I have found it's not always this always this way, but I have found that the ones that had sort of a career before seemed to come out and hit the ground running a lot faster than those that sort of went through straight from undergrad to law school. What was your experience like having a career then and then sort of having to stop and go back to law school and then start over?

Josh Hodges: yeah. I don't know if I ever really had a career. That mean I worked a lot. I mean, I got a job when I was 14. I had all kinds of jobs, but not one of 'em. I'd say that was my career. I mean, I worked at the DMV for a few years, that was the longest. But none of them ever felt like I was gonna stick there forever.

People. My, you know, everybody my age was already attorney if they were gonna be, or a lot of 'em were. But I do think what you said when I got out, I do think I hit the ground running a little quicker and kind of got after it a little bit faster than some of the people I went to law school with. And I think I've thought about that a lot.

Why that was, I think part of it, you know, like when you look an attorney, they've been an attorney 20 years, they got experience, they got their stuff together. Part of it's the 20 years of legal experience is important for sure, but I think it's also just 20 more years of being alive is part of it. And now how much of that equals out?

I don't know. But I think, you know, a guy's been an attorney 40 years, he's a smart lawyer. Part of it's just that he's 60 something years old and 'cause a lot of the law just like, you know, experience in life. And so I think, yeah, people my biological age when I graduated had already been lawyers seven years.

So, I mean, I had, I was still young, I was 34 when I started the firm, relatively, but I wasn't like a kid, you know, I could talk to someone who was in their fifties and they, you know, I looked like a grown a, a full grownup, you know? So I got hired on cases quicker, I think, than I would've if I'd have been 22 or three or whatever, four or five, whatever people get outta law school.

Yeah, so I think I've been trying to catch up, I guess. I mean, it puts a little chip on your shoulder too. You, You know, you're behind, or at least I felt like I was, so I need to go extra hard to catch up the people that are 42 like me, where they're at in their career. I think

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it's funny, there's this saying, I've heard somebody say chips on shoulders equals chips in pockets, so, not a bad thing.

I mean, I think you do it to yourself, but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing either. I mean, it can be if you let it weigh you down, but I think I've, it took me a while to kind of like blossom and find, I was definitely a late bloomer, but you know, I kind of find my footing, what I like to do and what I was good at and I've kind of like leaned into that as hard as I can now and try to, you know, keep growing and keep learning and you know, bring some people along with me is kind of, you know, part I'm really enjoying now as I got more lawyers working for us and we've seen other people kind of find, you know, their footing and stuff in the wall. It's kind of fun.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, you know, I think there is something there with the, you know, sort of, I mean, you are older, so, you have a little more gravitas for a client versus somebody like me that took a while for me to grow out of this baby face. I had to lose my hair, like, to get out of it. But so you have that advantage.

Josh Hodges: Yeah, I think it does. I mean, I know it does. I think people, blue collar people, you know, especially people that haven't went to college and they went to high school, maybe haven't even got through high school. A lot of 'em, and they just like, you know, elite people, Ivy League people have, you know certain ideas about those types of people. People, blue collar people have certain you know, stereotypes of attorneys of us and people in suits and it ain't always good. And I think trying to cut through that in real life and in my marketing has kind of always been one of my goals. And I knew I could more so than maybe other people.

And I was in big law. But, and I liked that and I didn't hate it. And I think I could have done good there. But. I kind of knew that just my heart was just dealing with everyday people where I'm more comfortable and and it's more fun to me. And I know a lot of attorneys that are maybe third, fourth generation lawyers might not be as naturally good with those types of folks.

So that's what drew me to do it in my hometown. And my hometown was having kind of a resurgence. It was an old factory town. It's, we're right in the rust belt, man. Like every, everyone my ages grandpa worked in the factory here and then they all shut down in the seventies and eighties. And our town was kind of depressing when I was coming up, like a lot of towns in the Midwest.

And that's just where I know that's my niche. I found my niche where I need

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, yeah, I want to get into that, but Yeah, for sure. 'cause it's very interesting. But before we get there, so you just, you went big law. I guess the first thing is sort of where, like, did you go to a big city? What city and why did you go to the big law route? Was it because it was the, they gave you an offer and they're paying big bucks or

Josh Hodges: Basically, I mean, you know, I graduated high school. I, I didn't take high school seriously. I just didn't care. I got good enough grades to play sports, and that was about all, as long as I didn't get in trouble, my mom wasn't on me, you know, my brother got a little more trouble than me, so she was on his butt a little bit more than me.

I just figured I'd go ca catch a job as soon as I was 18, which is what I did. So I think I graduated high school with like a 2.2, and then I started going to college, kind of petering through. It took me like a decade, but during that decade of going to school at night, I started get, becoming a better student, taking it more seriously.

I got older, I had a kid, and by the time I graduated college, I was a pretty good student. You know, I was well into my twenties and then when in law school I did really well. So I was like, as the school should have got harder, I started doing better. And I got a job in big law offer, and the basically the recruit of the people at my law school that do the job posting, I mean, they, they have incentive.

It was a, it was a, it was a firm, outta Cincinnati, but they have offices all over Midwest and I think in the South now. And they had a, they had kind of a satellite location in my county, which made it even easier. So I didn't even have to drive downtown Cincinnati. It was like 15 minutes from my house.

So it was like the perfect place for a big law for me. And I worked there for a couple years, but I just kept getting calls from random people that I knew that I was the only lawyer they knew, like, Hey, I got a DUI or Hey, I got hit by a car, whatever it was. People don't understand that like attorneys kind of specialize in something.

They just, and I would just tell 'em, I can't take that case. I'm in government litigation or whatever. They're like, what does that mean? You know? And I just kind of knew I wouldn't starve if I, I was like keeping it in my mind like I was sending cases to other attorneys. Like I figured if I actually, and I wasn't even trying to get this business, if I tried hard, I probably could make a go of it.

So that's what I did. It was a

What, what led you to do it?

Josh Hodges: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't have a perfect answer for it. I obviously, I don't know why other people don't, I'm not in their brain, but it is scary. I think part of it's just, I kind of grew up, I wouldn't say I was like, I'm on like dirt poor, but I was definitely like on the broker side of things compared to most lawyers.

You know, like I lived my grandma, she was on food stamps, you know, we didn't have a lot of money and. But I, but it wasn't like a bad childhood all the time. Like I've been kind of broke and I was still kind of happy. So I think I was never scared. Like I think some people, if you come from more upper middle class and you got 150 grand job, being broke is really scary to someone who's never been broke and now being broke to me would suck, but it ain't as scary 'cause I've already been there before.

And so I think I have a kind of a higher tolerance to that. 'cause I know that I was happy when I was a kid. I'm kind of a happy person. Like I wake up in a pretty good mood most of the time. And if I'm rich, I'll probably be happy. And if I'm dead broke, I'll probably be happy too. As long as you know that that's not gonna really drive it.

I was looking, I was always antsy too, like in big lawyer. You know, you're like seventh on the bench to get in there and do something interesting. And I was older, I was like, man, I'm gonna be 45 before they even let me do anything cool. You know, like, and I just didn't wanna wait that long and I didn't.

And I thought that I could do better. I mean, really, I just kind of had some confidence that I'd build up. Took a long time, but I kind of knew. I, I deep down knew I could figure something out. I didn't know quite what it was gonna be, but I kind of knew I was gonna be okay. And my, and I'm lucky I did it because it my wife had a job at the city, you know, just a basic, you know, job with, it wasn't a great job, but enough to where we wouldn't starve.

So then I was just all me. If that, if I would've stayed another year in big law, which I was considering like, Hey, you know, wait one more year, pad my savings a little bit more, I never probably would've done it then. 'cause I wouldn't. Yeah. So if I wouldn't have left in 2017, I don't know if I would've left in 2018.

I don't know. Maybe I, I hope I would've got the gumption to do it, but I can't say for sure. It would've been a heck of a lot. It was scary when I did it. It would've been a lot more scary when your daughter's, you know, sick and she's doing way be, I mean, she's doing great. Like, way better than the doctors ever thought.

But you know, my wife's never worked since then.

Jonathan Hawkins: mm-hmm.

Josh Hodges: Put the pressure, but, you know, pressure.

Jonathan Hawkins: glad your daughter's doing better.

Josh Hodges: Thank you, man. She's doing great. I mean, they told us that she might not walk or talk and she does all that. She goes directly to school. But yeah, I was sitting in the hospital, like working with a guy.

You know, we're definitely, we've been through some tough times and we'll have some tough ones coming in the future, I'm sure. And you deal with 'em as they come.

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah I can relate a little, although I was at a firm, but I have twins that are 15 now, and our daughter was born with, with cancer and we went through a lot of shit for a number of years. And it was, you know, they give you the parade of horribles, but she's actually. You know, we got past all those.

She's doing

Josh Hodges: Oh, that's awesome,

man.

Jonathan Hawkins: so yeah, I know. It's tough. Now, I did not start my firm in the middle of that, so that's a whole other element. But so you've got a partner now. Did you start your firm with a partner?

And then I transferred up to, I was doing that in Cincinnati. And then I moved to Ham, moved the office to Hamilton and teamed up with a different partner here in 2018. We've been together since then.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So let's talk about that before we get to your current firm. So the first one you were doing, I guess, big government litigation or whatever.

Josh Hodges: The real big law firm. Yeah, it was a little bit of everything, but I was on the zoning litigation team, so that's, anything with land use usually sounds boring, more boring than it is. It was actually kind of fun sometimes.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, well, you start your firm with your friend. What were you guys doing? Like, what was the law that you did?

Josh Hodges: He was an immigration lawyer already and I was helping him kind of get clients for that because I was kind of good at getting people to hire. So no matter what it was, I mean, that's what I'm kind of good at. And so I was helping him get immigration clients and I was helping him some on that.

And but we were brand new law firm. So you're, I was doing a little bit of everything. I did a couple divorces, you gotta kind of do what you can early on. But I was getting good at getting cases. And I was getting cases that were too difficult for me even to do in different avenues. So I was co-counseling with other attorneys, finding older attorneys that knew I.

How to do a, you know, a big felony case or a bigger PI case and was learning from them. And then I kind, I had done clerk, law clerk and a personal injury plaintiff's firm in law school. So I always kind of had that back of my mind as something I, like, I didn't like billing, like the actual practice of keeping the hours kind of not up my alley.

He was just a true solo and he'd done some pi, so I just kind of convinced him, let's just go full on, focus on that. And we've been doing that ever since.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right, so before we get to your current firm you said you're, you were good. You're good at getting clients, so let's talk about that. So, you know, I mean. Every lawyer, every law firm, you gotta get a client. I mean, you're not gonna survive if you can't do that. So if you're good at it then, then that's, that's golden.

So I guess the first thing is you know, really you know, why do you think you're good at it and how did you get 'em?

Josh Hodges: I mean, I've got 'em all kinds of different ways. I mean, any way that's ethical, you know, I'm not gonna break the rules, but I think why I'm good at it, I don't know people, I li I like people, I think and I think people trust me, you know, pretty quick. And I keep their trust. I do the damnedest to do the right thing always.

PI is a whole nother, that's a different. Avenue, you know, a different thing entirely. So then you get good at, you know, I learned about digital marketing. I read, I think every book you can think about it. And every follow, every podcast, every lawyer, podcast, under the sun, I listen. If they're talking about marketing, I'm listening to 'em.

I go to conferences. Then I started really, you know, we were doing all right and then I really, I knew social media, I had to do better. And I didn't quite get that. And I didn't want to get good at it, really. I didn't really enjoy it. I thought, you know, that's for younger people. I'm old or whatever, older than I didn't grow up with Facebook.

That's,

Jonathan Hawkins: so what do you do with the videos? Do you have a YouTube channel? You send it, put 'em on all the platforms? What,

Josh Hodges: Yeah, some, I I have, I started really doing well. I had Facebook and YouTube and everything, but I started really doing well on TikTok. For whatever reason would've been the last one I thought I'd be good at to be honest. But during the pandemic, I started posting on TikTok and it started taking off.

I do le, I do legal content, but I do most of my content's not legal. It's about, you know, behind the scenes being a lawyer. Sometimes it's just talking to my wife while she's cooking. Those are the ones that do the best. I do a lot of, I have a videographer, I hire him and he go, we go out together and we highlight.

They're in business. You know, I can understand scary to start a bakery. It's scary to be a start, start a law firm. It's scary to, you know, start anything, you know. And so I like people that are out there, you know, running businesses in small towns and we, and a lot of 'em don't have marketing budgets and PI firm.

Once you start doing well, you hit some cases, you got a little bit, you know, I could, I put 20 grand more toward pay per click or maybe I could spend a few grand highlighting some other people every now and then. I think long term, for one, I know it's more fun and I enjoy doing that better than spending more money on Google clicks.

But I think long term I. That's where I can set myself apart from, I'm never gonna outspend the big guy in town, or the Morgan Morgan. I mean, it is impossible, but I can out, I can out Hamilton them. That's what I tell people, you know, if someone come, if a lawyer comes and does more hustling in Hamilton, Ohio, then I'll tip my hat to 'em, you know, they'll deserve to win then.

You can win in your neighborhood and then

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you made a, you made a couple really good points there. One, you know, lots of things in marketing work, lots of things. And if you're gonna do something, you might as well do something that you enjoy and have fun doing. So that's, that's a good point. And the other point is, yeah, you can't outspend, you know, the big, the dinosaurs or the, you know, 800 pound gorillas as they call 'em.

So you gotta do what's gonna work and lean into what you got. So it sounds like you've been doing that. So tell me about TikTok real quick. I'm not on TikTok. If it makes it over to Twitter, I'll see some TikTok stuff, but you know, you said you've done well on it. What does that mean?

Like, I mean, do you get cases where they say, yeah, I saw you on TikTok or, you know, how does it work?

And she was on it for a few months and I didn't pay no more attention to it, just 'cause I, I don't know. I'm too old or I'm better than that. I'm gonna read a book. I'm not gonna just waste my time on this. But then she kept, you know, sending me like little videos that were, first, they were kind of funny, then some of 'em were more serious.

And then I, I downloaded it just 'cause there was nothing to do in the pandemic, you know, it was boring, you know. And I started scrolling and I immediately, I didn't know at the time it was because their algorithm was different. But I did notice like, I'm getting fed. It ain't just kids being silly dancing.

Like, it's this guy talking about real estate investing where it's this person talking about, you know, history, like interesting stuff. There's smart people on here. And I was like, this isn't I don't know, for whatever reason I was like, this is not what I thought it was. And I just thought it was an opportunity to be an early adopter.

The first year I really blew up on there. And. And you know, did I get cases off the bat? No. The first year I don't think I got any. But I still remember the first case I got off that I directly know came from there. It was one of my paralegals who they were all making fun of me. Like, Josh is over here making tiktoks, whatever.

And I just kind of, you have to be stubborn enough to believe in something sometimes, even if there were people who are telling you that's advice for any business person. Don't be so stubborn that you won't listen, but be stubborn enough that sometimes you won't listen if you really believe in it. And I just believed in it.

And one day, sh and I was doing all these food review videos and highlighting other people on there and having as much fun with as I could, but hoping that it would help the business. And she answered a phone and she, I could hear her saying, you hired us. Why? And then she covered her and looked at me and she rolled her eyes.

And because you feel and that's for anyone out there trying to do on social, it feels like you're yelling into the void for a long time. You ain't gonna, it's like lifting weights or something. You're not gonna get like Arnold Schwarzenegger probably ever. You're definitely not gonna get like that in a week or a month or six months.

Like it is a long, and social media is like that you gotta do post and stay consistent with it for a long time. And I've know I've got more cases that I can't even track, but I, I do get cases where they directly tell me, they message me on there, they tell me they watch their tic, the tiktoks, and then I put the videos on all the other platforms too.

So I mean it, I know it helps. I cannot tell you how many cases directly a year I get from it. But I know, I mean, I'd go to, oh, I'd go to court and the bails would be like, Hey, we saw your video, like on Facebook it might be on a different platform where everybody watches 'em on their own place. But and then the other odd thing, I met a lot of, a lot over the years, a lot more attorneys got on there.

I think three, you know, I got 25 team members. Three for sure. Three of my employees came off TikTok, which is like 10% of my staff, you know. So, people are on there and they, especially, I mean, younger people are the ones coming outta school and they're on TikTok and they see me on there. Like, that guy doesn't seem like too bad a jerk.

And he is down the road in Cincinnati or Hamilton or he, he was. Eating lunch in Columbus and I'm going to Ohio State, they see you and they reach out to you. So it

Jonathan Hawkins: they reach out or do you post a job, somehow, post a job ad on TikTok, or do they,

So it others I had a lady one of my mar marketing assistants, I had a different lady of mine that was an influencer on TikTok and I reached out to her, offered her a job. She said, nah, I don't really wanna do it, but my friend would be good at it. So she introduced me to her friend. I mean, like, it's basically just networking.

I mean, that's how I used to think social media is this, and in-person networking's this and. You're either good at one or the other, or people don't wanna do one or the other. I think people need to throw that out. Like networking is networking and Yeah, in person's one thing. But you know, me and you were getting to know each other here, it's not quite in person, but it's, you know, TikTok or Facebook, whatever it is, social media.

It, you can meet some really interesting people in there. And I've leaned in, I'm leaning into it even more and more. I'm starting, this is more new, but I'm, I'm meeting local content creators, people in my neighborhood that are not lawyers that are doing other types of content, and I'm teaming up on with them on stuff.

You might be able to afford the lady in your town that has, maybe she just has 5,000 followers, but they're all local. That's a lot of people who like somebody. And if they're vouching for you, that you're a cool person. I don't know what's that worth? I can't put a number on it. You tell me. Someone smarter than me maybe can, but it's, it's not bad.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So I've had, you know, I'm not on TikTok. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I've had some similar experiences. So one thing that I've noticed there are a lot of local, I'm here in Atlanta. There's a lot of local attorneys that they never interact with the Post at all. They don't comment, they don't like, there's no evidence that they saw it.

You know, were you gonna be meeting somebody from, you know, Los Angeles or New York or wherever? I mean maybe, but chances are probably pretty low.

Josh Hodges: Yeah. And I know how I, I mean, I can, I can tie it back to how I'm talking to you through social media. I met Gary Sarner on social media, the radio guy. He introduced me to Steve. Steve introduced me to you, and this is how it goes. I mean, and, and it's no different than meeting someone. If I'd have met them in person, they'd introduce me to you.

It's no different. And I think a lot of people get that, a lot of people in the legal space I think this is important for people who maybe think they're struggling on social media, they're not doing well enough 'cause they're not going viral. You know, you're, you probably are not gonna go viral talking about your type of law if you do go viral, I'd almost be worried that you probably said something that you shouldn't have and people are making fun of you.

Jonathan Hawkins: you had something on your face. Yeah.

Josh Hodges: Yeah. Yeah. Said something, you know, like something awful, you know, apolitical or something and or something wrong off color and, or it is not gonna be probably a good thing.

And people like, well my views on videos are only getting 300. Well, how long would it take you to talk to 300 people in real life? That would be like a whole year, you know, once a day. 300 people watch your videos, not, don't look at it as a bad thing. Yeah. Other Mr. Beast has 27 million. You're not him.

He's giving away a bag of million dollars. You know, like you're talking about, you know, custody law in Utah, everyone in the country doesn't care about that. But maybe if 80 people in your town watch one video that just change the goalpost of what you think is success. You know, like, I don't think that's bad.

So people, you know, set reasonable expectations. You know, if people, I'm more worried about where my views come from than necessarily the total number. If I'm an Ohio lawyer, I'd rather have a thousand views in Ohio than a million in Los Angeles. Doesn't really do me that good. Looks cool. It's a vanity metric.

So you know, think about those things when you're doing videos, I think is what a lot of people kind of sell themselves short of how well they're doing. I think a lot of times people are doing maybe better than they think.

Jonathan Hawkins: Great point.

Real quick. Thanks for listening. If you're getting any value out of this podcast, please take two seconds to hit the subscribe button and leave a five star review. It would really mean a lot to me. Now back to the show.

Josh Hodges: Yeah, I mean, I knew I could kind of do it. I'm a bit of a social person. I think. I didn't wanna just be alone. You know, you don't know if you're gonna grow. I do think, you know, and me and my partner are very different people, personality and everything, skillset. But we do kind of agree, like we're, me and him align a lot on, is like, kind of like on the money thing.

Like, we're both pretty generous people. I think. Me and him have, I've never went to him been like, Hey, we need to give, you know, Becky a raise. And we had like an argument like we're both like, yeah. Or whatever. Give somebody to li league, like, and amongst ourselves, we're not like real, like, jealous about money, you know, we disagree on other things, but I think if you kind of agree that you both are like good people at heart that are kind of like generous and general with each other, I think that's a good start. But like, you know, from the business side, like I handle ba basically the whole business, you know, like he's not a real business, you know, minded person.

I'm not a lawyer near as much, you know, anymore with, I'm a lawyer all the time, but like, I'm not doing legal work all the time. We've hired other people and I'm trying to like, drive, you know, kind of the business, the vision, you know? And that's how we've divided it. so I think, you know, as long as.

Yeah I, I think it's, it partnerships can be difficult. I know a lot of people's partnerships fail. But I think, you know, it is good to know, like when I'm on vacation, if something blows up, at least someone here owns some of this place and will fall on the sword where I don't always have to you know, and do the, the dirty work, you know, that only an owner really can.

Having multiples of those I think is helpful. And, you know, when my daughter got sick, I kind of, I wanted to be a trial lawyer a hundred percent all the time. And then she started going to hospital every year for a month or so, started like putting a dash on that dream like man, I can't really just be delaying trials and big depositions all the time 'cause my daughter's sick and I don't wanna leave her in the hospital.

But you gotta, you know, life throws your curve balls, you gotta kind of like react to it. And and I've really found that I like running a law firm as much as I did. You know, I've turned this into my dream now. I used to be one to be the biggest, baddest trial lawyer. Now I kind of want to be really, really good at running a firm and making a good place to work for other people and good for the clients and all those things.

So kind of shift, shift the goals and shift, you know, with life, you gotta kind of take what it gives you sometimes and make the best of it.

And then I did my first hearing. I was like, man, that's great. I did my first trial. I was like, oh my God, this is exciting. But then after a while I was just like, yeah, I mean, the facts change, but the elements are sort of the same. And, it just for me I needed something new. And so the thing with growing a business and a law firm, there's always something new.

You're never gonna figure it out. And the second you think, you figure it out, like you said, that curve ball comes and you're like, oh, shit.

Josh Hodges: Yeah. And it, and I get bored. I get bored easy. And so running a law firm keeps me from getting bored 'cause it's always something new and I get to wear a lot of different hats. I still practice law a little bit, but, you know, we got, we're rehabbing a 140 or 50-year-old building right now, some running point on that.

And then we're, you know, I run point on marketing and then, you know, helping, hiring, building the team up. It ke there's a lot of things that keeps you busy and they're all not easy. So, you don't get bored running a business for

So I wanna, I wanna move to well, first thing I have noticed your posts about that office building and you, I think you found the signs underneath. That's cool, man. That's really

Josh Hodges: that was awesome. I mean, it was, people were the there'd been a metal facade over it, these transom windows that were painted under, but no one knew they were painted and it'd been covered, I think, since maybe the late forties. So you'd have to be super, I mean, pretty old to even, I mean, remember most people live in or not.

I mean, it's like 80 years ago and we pulled that metal off and I didn't know what we were gonna find. It's kind of halfway looking out like this kind of scared 'cause it's already expensive enough and they pop that off. And these, this beautiful painted windows for the furniture store. I think they were painted in the twenties or thirties.

So, but now I gotta figure out we're gonna, how to fix 'em up, you know? 'cause we can't, it just, it's all about furniture all the time, which doesn't really help me out too much in the law firm, but we're figuring out how to like, kind of,

Jonathan Hawkins: you gotta do furniture law, furniture law, man.

Josh Hodges: It was cool though. It's fun, but there's fixing up all buildings.

There's a lot of not fun stuff that comes along with it too. So, you know, kind of take your lumps. But I think it's giving back to the community, fixing up a building. I think it, it just further with the brand, you know, like the guys out of town that have the big budgets, they may run more TV ads or more Google, but they're not fixing up the old building right by the courthouse.

And digging in roots deeper and deeper always, I think is kind of the goal.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, yeah, let's circle back to that. So you use the hometown lawyer and I think maybe your website is hometown lawyers. How did you come up with that and you know, how does it work? Is it working for you? It sounds like it is.

When I started out I didn't have any clients, you know. So how I came up with it, I just wanted something that kind of spoke to a small town more, but I didn't wanna say small town lawyer. 'cause it small seems more like, you know, dominion, like less powerful or something. I didn't want that, but I wanted something.

You know, 'cause hometown could be New York City too, so it's not like pushing anyone away necessarily. But I think it has more of a warm feel of like a, a mid-size town, like where I'm from, you know, in Ohio. And it's memorable enough, but I didn't want it to be a joke. I didn't wanna be like an animal or the pit bull or something that I didn't feel good about.

Kind of like, you know, people in the Midwest is just different, you know, like, I don't think it would maybe work in Miami, the hometown lawyer. Now I might have to be a little bit more, I don't know, colorful or something. But like it works in Wilmington, Ohio, where, you know. People work hard and there's farmers and you know, people don't really want to get an attorney at all, but if they are gonna get one, they want to get one that's maybe not too flashy and just seems more every day.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you're based outside of Cincinnati. You've got the hometown lawyer as your sort of brand. I imagine you do have some cases in CI Cincinnati. I don't know, but you know how, you know, how with the branding and sort of your focus in the small town, you know, how does that shape your strategy in terms of growth and what you're gonna do next?

Josh Hodges: Yeah, I mean, I've read about

Jonathan Hawkins: Amazon, Until Amazon came around.

Josh Hodges: Yeah, and I'm not a, you know, I'm not a stranger to that story. You know, the Dollar Generals, the Walmarts, you know, it's been done outside of legal and I thought about that and I've thought of, you know, looked at other businesses, model business models of, you know, and I just believed Hamilton, where I'm from is not that small.

So there's 65,000 people in my city, and the county has about 400,000. So it's not tiny at all. Not for Ohio, man. It's a pretty good amount of people. And there wasn't a ton of competition here. People in Cincinnati marketed here, people in Dayton marketed here, but not a lot of people were here. So I started here.

If you do well in Atlanta, there's enough people there to do well and probably don't have to go anywhere else. If you're gonna be a small town lawyer. Your geography has to get a little bigger. 'cause you gotta have population and there's less populations, more, less densely populated. Long, long way of saying you gotta be willing to drive more, you know if

Jonathan Hawkins: Especially if you have a niche practice like you do versus doing everything that walks in,

Josh Hodges: Yeah. So you can be a niche practice in a big city. You can be a small town who only focuses small town. If you're a generalist, that's what most small town lawyers do. I was trying to bridge the gap between those. I wanted to be a niche practice. 'cause I think it's better for your clients and better for your everything, your procedures.

So I market, you know, I hire people, local people in different small towns, all, you know, around our area. And, I, I myself, I do a lot of digital marketing, all the area obviously and, and we do the highlight videos all over southwest Ohio. But I get in my car and I go meet people all over the place too.

You know, I might be in, I might be south of Columbus in a small town one day, and the next day me might be north of Dayton meeting other attorneys or meeting insurance people, whatever it is, networking. So I don't just, you know, if you wanna to sit in one area you be, if you wanna be a niche practice and, and sit in your office, most of the time you gotta be in a big city.

You know, if you are gonna be a small town lawyer, you gotta drive around more. And not a lot of people wanna do that. Not a lot of people maybe fall to do it. I don't know. I'm sure other people do it, but that's, that's what I do. And we get cases, you know, out in the sticks and I like being out.

They don't even wanna do niche practice usually. So sometimes they like that you're there and you're helping them out with cases they were trying to handle. But you gotta put into FaceTime and build trust with people.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you've got your building that you guys are, are renovating and, and so you're gonna be there for sure. And you drive, so there's, you know, you gotta be within at least half day or whatever, driving distance. Do you have any ideas of maybe expanding the actual like office footprint at some point of

Josh Hodges: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. I have other offices, so at least I'll hire somebody. And when I say, like I, I hired someone in Circleville, Ohio, and I have an office there. And I, you know, I hired somebody in Eaton, Ohio, and I have an office there smaller office, you know, one person. But it and then we'll go up there to other people in the office, may go there too if they need to.

I hired a lady who was from there. She was my age, lived there her whole life. So she knew everyone in town. 'cause it's a small town. She didn't have any legal experience. Definitely in none at all. Definitely not in pi. 'cause why would you? There's no PI lawyers in the town. But she knew everyone in town, so I hired her for, and I didn't have any cases there anyway, so it was fine.

So I hired her basically just to be my outreach person. She helped me meet people for a year and then when we started getting cases, then she slowly transferred to being a legal secretary. Now she's doing great with that and I've done that multiple times. So the first time I hired someone in town, she usually, they don't have any experience 'cause there's no other lawyers there really doing what I'm doing 'cause it's a little town.

I mean it, social media and the networking, people think it's fun. It wears you down. You gotta do, you know, you gotta do it every day. I've been doing it every day for four or five years and, you know, there's a reason. Not everybody does it 'cause

Jonathan Hawkins: you gotta feed that beast. You gotta feed

Josh Hodges: You gotta keep busy. But it, it's fun and it keeps you creative.

I'm all, every year I'm thinking of a new, I usually thinking of a new video series or a new. Outreach method we could do every year that we try to implement, because I guess I wanna stay ahead and it, and it's fun to come up with new things.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you, you know, we've talked about the social media. You do, do that you know, definitely TikTok, probably the others. You also have a podcast. Let's talk about that. Tell me about what's it called and, and tell me your strategy or your approach for that.

Josh Hodges: Yeah. We just call around town with the hometown lawyer and then the smaller one, the short that it's usually 15 to 30 minutes. And then we have the shorter one, it's called the around town minute. It's usually a minute or two. And that I'm not in that, it just has my branding and it's all about whatever small business we're highlighting that week.

The la one of the last ones I did was the City of Hamilton has a professional arborist. We're like a tree city. They got a grant and we have a bunch of trees and he takes care of 'em. And I met him out and he told me about this ginkgo tree we're standing in front of. He picked a good tree, you know, he knew all the stuff and we just talked to him for about half hour about what he does, about his life, about trees.

All I don't really prepare too much for it, I just let it go where it goes. I've done it one with the guy who writes parking tickets in a town. I've done it with local politicians. I've done it with you know, other people who are big in social media in Cincinnati. I haven't done, I got one I'm gonna probably do with a judge pretty soon that just retired.

Last week we did, two weeks ago we did Hillsborough, Ohio, small town, about an hour from where I'm at now. I'm about an hour and 20 minutes from where I'm at. And s o we drove there and she had all through the Chamber of Commerce and we work, she works it ahead of time. We had 13 small businesses set up that day, all in a line.

And we did a highlight video for every single one of them. And I went to every single one of 'em, shook their hand, talked to 'em while we did it, told 'em, you know, and they're all excited for these videos. So we just posted the last one. And then all the other people know, like when ours coming out. So it's like probably every other week for the rest of the month.

I got videos in Hillsborough, Ohio. And I've only went there one day with that. I've went there more, but with that intention. So now we got 15 videos. I don't need more content there for a while, you know, and they can repost 'em. So I'm probably good there for a year or two. And so we're always looking for a te we'll call it like we're Mount Sterling Day, we got that coming up, another small town.

Jonathan Hawkins: That's, I mean, it's great. I'm sure it's fun getting to know these people, but the goodwill that you are creating, I mean, it's probably just incredible. And back to what you said earlier, it's not an immediate tomorrow. It's a compound effect.

Josh Hodges: and it's hard to track if it's ever working.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. And if you ever wanna run for a statewide political office man you, you're setting the

Jonathan Hawkins: well, hopefully things will have settled down and it's back to being boring again and, you know.

And I just like my state more now that I've been doing this. And I see towns, some of them need to like, have some development. Others are further along and they're doing great, you know, and, and I see the progress that's being made and, you know, we're doing a little bit peace to help, I think.

And it's fun. It's not, it's hard to track, but, you know, people, they're asking me, does it work? I think it I know it does deep down. Can't always prove exactly my ROI, like, I could on a, a local service ad, but I'm never gonna regret doing this. Like, when I'm an old guy, I'm gonna be like I'm gonna look back and be like, man, me and the camera guy drove around Ohio once a month for all those years highlighting people.

I think it's kind of fun. And I think people realize like, it's coming from a good place. And then I think that's how it works. It can't be fake, you know? And you have to, if you do, if this sounds like an awful idea to you, then don't do it. You're not gonna like it. You know, do something, find, you know, find some other way to do it.

Jonathan Hawkins: That's great advice and it just dawned on me if it's not politics and it's not law, you can have a TV show. You're, it is a TV show, you know? I see. You know, it's like, I see these in small town where they go around renovating houses. You've got a, a building under your belt. You could, you know, revitalize the state.

Josh Hodges: And I'm lucky in Ohio there's, you know, not every Ohio has a lot of like little mid-sized towns like cities. Every county has like a little old courthouse and a lot of old buildings. And now west coast I've been to, I like the West coast for other reasons and nature and stuff, but they don't have as many small towns as this side of the river.

So I'm you know, I'm kind of lucky that about every half hour there's a new little mini town with a courthouse in a downtown little area. You know, some nicer than others, but. There's just a lot of little places to kind of explore which probably not too exciting when you're in your twenties, maybe if you wanna be in a big city.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. That's what we do. Right? So a question I like to ask folks. You know, as you've been doing this for a while, and as you look back, you know, any lessons learned and it could be something that you wish you had done sooner or maybe something you wish you hadn't done at all. As you look back, is there anything you can point to?

Josh Hodges: I mean, I wish I could, I mean, Back to the beginning, I wish I could have got started sooner with it, but I then, at the same time, I don't know if I'd have been the same person doing what I'm doing now. If I had, you know, I'm probably sure I probably wouldn't have. So I really regret that. I think I would've. You know, we bought, we, I'm I'm sitting in my first office we bought right now, and it's, got way too small, way too fast because you wanna be a little conservative, you know?

That was really good. But I wish I would've had, you know, there's different mentors too. There's, I've got legal mentors that help me become a better legal practicing lawyer. Then there's mentors that are good business people, you know, and my mentor is not even an attorney. He runs the law firm, you know, he is the COO.

And I have many mentors, but he's one of my main ones. And I wish I'd have found him earlier 'cause he just taught me more than law school ever could or would about running a law firm. 'cause he knew how, he knew the nuts and bolts and the numbers and you know, things that when he first started talking, I was like, holy shit, you know, like this dude.

But other than that, I don't know. I mean, I don't really regret all that. I think things are moving along pretty good. And you know, I think probably, you know, I probably, I wish I would've gotten done. I mean, I started videos quick, quicker, most people. But if I'd have done it two or three ear years earlier would've even been, been even better.

Other than that not, not a whole lot. I,

Jonathan Hawkins: to be, that tends to be a a mistake that I make a lot is I wish I'd just start, whatever it is, had started earlier.

Josh Hodges: yeah. I make quick, I make quick decisions. One of the things that's helped me, like I will make decisions and just start charging forward. Sometimes I didn't think it through a hundred percent, but like I think a lot of successful people, it's better than like just sitting around thinking about things forever.

So don't be scared to, you know, do something you think other people may not. Like. When I started doing videos, I mean, I'm in pretty conservative areas, small towns, Ohio lawyers aren't doing videos or marketing at all. Most time. And I'm out here doing tiktoks. I. It was kind of scary a little bit, you know, but most of it's been positive.

I mean, you're gonna get a catch a hater here and there, but you know, as long as you're being a good person, look yourself in the mirror. People that need to find you will find you that will support you. And, And they will. I, and you know, I will, if anyone ever needs help, they can reach out to me. I'll do anything I can to help another attorney that's trying to market themselves.

I mean, I'll spend much time with you as I can, trying to make it easier. And people have helped me. I, I try to help as many people as I can behind us.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, well, that's, that's great advice. So, last question as you sit here now, you know, what's your vision for the next 5, 10, 15 years for your firm, for your life? However broad you wanna make it.

They don't have any young lawyers. Mostly if they do, they're a prosecutor or a public defender. They're not out in public private, you know, doing any kind of civil. So I think I want to bridge that gap and access to attorneys. And I think it's a good thing for society to have access to attorney, but it's also a good business opportunity.

And, you know, that'll probably keep me busy for a while. If I wanna be the, you know, be in every little small town to Ohio would probably keep me busy for a minute, I think.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, probably enough to go to the end.

Josh Hodges: yeah. You know, maybe, maybe branch out, help some other people do it, you know, kind of a version in other, there's other states that, you know, you could do similar things.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you could franchise the name, man. You get that thing trademarked if you haven't already.

And that, that, you know, it's not, that's behind the scenes. Everyone doesn't see that all the time, all the policies and procedures and all the technology to make sure nothing's getting missed. That's been really hard work. And and so I don't ever wanna grow so fast that the, I don't want to be a mill where quality drops.

So kinda like, try to grow as fast as I can without that. So, you know, balancing the two. 'Cause I think I, I wanna do a good job on both ends, you know? And not a lot of people figure that out. You know, I think there's a lot of people that are really good lawyers, not so good at business. Some people are great at business and maybe not so good at outcomes all the time.

I want to kind of, there's some people out there doing both, and I wanna be one of those. I mean, and that's, it's, you know, they're not always. You know, I think long term, if you do both, it's better for your business. But it's a balance, you know? And it's not, it doesn't just do itself. 'cause, just 'cause you got a lot of cases doesn't mean you're gonna do well.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, finding that balance is a challenge and you're never gonna find it. You may have it for a brief moment and then it gets outta balance again. But yeah that's, that's the goal. But Josh, man, this has been awesome. You got some really cool things you're doing and I appreciate you coming on and sharing it.

Anybody out there that wants to find you, what's the best way?

Josh Hodges: Yeah. I mean, uh, if you go on any of the, you know, on TikTok, I'm the hometown lawyer, YouTube, the hometown lawyer Instagram, the hometown lawyer. On my Facebook, it's just Josh Hodges. 'cause I had that before and I don't wanna change it. My grandma would be asking me what happened to her, you know, my name I guess, or whatever.

I'll be speaking about some of this community outreach and social media stuff I do at that conference. So yeah, don't be a stranger. Reach out to me. I, I love when people do that. You always learn something from them too. They call you, maybe you're thinking you're gonna help them, but I almost always get a little nugget from them too, and put that in my arsenal and try to, you know, spin it into something I can do too.

That's out. That's my favorite part of running a law firm, is learning from people and helping people. It's two way street.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, well, I'm hoping to make it to that conference. I gotta see if I can swing it, but it's, it's on my list, so hopefully I, I'll get there. And if I don't see you before

Josh Hodges: Yeah, maybe see you out there.

Jonathan Hawkins: to get to meet you in person. So,

Josh Hodges: love to.

Jonathan Hawkins: so I appreciate this and enjoy your weekend for the, you know, timing wise.

We got fourth July's this weekend. So, enjoy your weekend and have a good time, and thanks again for coming on.

Josh Hodges: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I.