What if the one thing holding your law firm back isn’t more cases, but the way you run the cases you already have? In my latest conversation with Tim McKey of Vista Consulting, we dug into the uncomfortable truth: top firms don’t rely on pixie dust or luck—they rely on vision, culture, and two numbers that most firms don’t even track. Could the difference between a good practice and a great one really come down to just intake conversion and client contact? Listen and decide for yourself.

How do you balance and allocate resources and figure out how to do it and not get ahead of your skis, so to speak?

Tim Mckey: Yeah, there's several things that I can go into here, but one is still goes back to that strategic planning discussion because one of the exercise that we do with firms when we go into that is, let's just pretend you did have 10 million. Now I know you're bootstrapping, you know, don't have two nickels to rub together, but let's pretend that you got a billion dollars on this. What would you do?

And we start, you know, we listen, you know, I mean, we can provide input, but what are the pain points? Where do they see them? And so we get this list of things. And then based on what we've known with what we, we've already talked about, you know, the metrics and the, you know, having mentally healthy people work with you and those kind of things. Where does this fit in?

Let's dive in.

Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Hawkins. So this is gonna be a little bit different episode. Usually I interview founders of law firms, but today we're, we're doing something a little different. I'm, I am interviewing a founder, but he is not a founder of a law firm. He's founder of a consulting firm that consults with law firms.

I'll let him maybe give a little bit more information on exactly what he does and what he's done. So, Tim, welcome to the show. Glad to have you. Why don't you tell us about yourself.

Tim Mckey: No, I appreciate it. And, and am I the, the first non-lawyer that you're interviewing, Jonathan?

Jonathan Hawkins: You are, you are

Tim Mckey: Well, we're, so, we're okay. So we're starting off plowing new ground here. So all, all good. Well, look certainly thank you for, for having me. And just to tell your audience a little bit Jonathan and I met on opposite sides of a buy, sell transaction a year or so. And even though we were on opposite sides, I felt like we were, we were working toward a common goal. So it was a very interesting thing and I think we developed a friendship from there. But yes, I'm the owner and CEO of Vista Consulting and we work primarily with plaintiff law firms. So, I know your audience, Jonathan.

Happened to be a personal injury law firm, and we got a lot of traction there. They actually hired a A COO there that became a really good friend and founded Vista with me. His name's Chad Dudley. [00:04:00] I, if I said it was Chad Dough, he's, it still is Chad Dudley. So, and he's around.

He is a really good friend of mine and really helped kick off Vista, but we're a full service operational firm that looks at systems and processes within plaintiff firms to help them become more efficient and effective, which is a very broad area. But we've got a methodology that we use.

We don't have a. We don't have a cookie cutter of what comes out of that methodology because every firm is different. Every firm has different protocols and systems that they're currently using. And our MO is to help them be better at that. So, that's what Vista does, along with working with some m and a merger and acquisition type deals and that kind of thing.

So I hope that gives you a little bit of background.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so lemme ask, so I, I know Vista does a lot of stuff and you said systems and operations but you also have a financial component as well. I mean, you're a CPA, so you help with some of the financial part,

We actually have a, an area that focuses on part-time or what we call fractional CFO, chief Financial Officer work for some of our clients. You know, I was asked the other day, who needs A CFO? And quite honestly, everybody does, but everybody can't afford a COO. So what we've been able to do is kind of carve down certain things that COOs do and do it on a part-time basis for, for plaintiff firms.

And that's, and it's been working out very well, so.

But you know. Clearly, you know, you've worked with a lot of firms, so you, and you're on the operation side and on the financial side. So you've seen the insides of a lot of firms probably you've seen a lot of firms evolve over time. So you can sort of see what has worked and what hasn't worked.

And so I wanna. Lean into that experience and, and dive into a few topics today and sort of, hopefully share some wisdom for, for the other owners out there that maybe they can say, Hey, these are some things I can do. So. Maybe I'll, I'll just start with this. I'm gonna ask a big, big, broad question and see where we go from there.

But, you know, are there any things or any commonalities of, that you have found of what the best performing firms sort of share in comment, at least from your perspective?

I'll try to hit a few here and maybe I, I'm certainly not gonna have time to go deep on a lot of these characteristics, if you will, of the top performing plaintiff firms. But I think there, there's some that we might want to dig in on a little bit, but I'll just hit 'em and, and that some of them and see where that goes.

And, you know, the first one is, you know, the top performing the performing firms. They understand that there's really only four ways to grow a law firm. I'm gonna leave, I'm gonna leave that hanging for just a minute. We'll come back to that one because that's probably the biggest one. Okay. They know that they have to work on their business as opposed to just in it.

And working on it are things such as deciding how your intake. Script is going to work. Deciding what metrics you need to track, deciding what people in, in what positions you actually need to fill. So the top of performing firms, they understand that working on it. As, just as important as working in it.

Jonathan Hawkins: before you move on from that one, the vision one I think is, is huge. You know, it's, and, and that applies to everybody and, and sort of the way I view it is it's almost like a filter through which you see the entire world and you, it it's a filtering mechanism for all your decisions as you mentioned.

So it's like, you know, if, if your, if your vision is to, for example move. To be a regional firm and cover lots of states, then you're gonna make decisions to start opening offices in other states where if you say, no, I want to be the biggest, baddest in this city, then you're, you're gonna make different decisions to, to, to realize that.

Tim Mckey: It applies, it actually applies to any business. You know, I, I, you know, Stephen Covey wrote a book, which wa one of my favorites, and it's old, the Seven Habits of Highly Affected People, and the very first habit is begin with the end in mind. Which means, okay, what is that vision? And you know, I say there's actually two construction projects when you're building a business is you build a, you create or build a blueprint first. And then you get the hammers and, and nails and you say, okay, this is what we're gonna do and how we're gonna build the firm. And I propose to you if you don't have that blueprint you know, I don't know if the house is gonna stand. Okay.

So, yeah. Anyway, that I, I, I, again, I, I think that is, you know, common with all businesses as, as well as the other thing that, that the top perform.

And I see there's one common characteristic of, of good operational people or a team, is that they're, they're, mentally sound and I've got a [00:13:00] definition for that. Uh, it is, they don't allow drama.

They squash drama. Which kind of ties back into culture, it ties back into working on the business. But, you know, I know that most of your listeners don't have any drama in their businesses, but sometimes it, it crops up and to have people that don't ramp it up. But squash it and handle it, you know, at a level before it you know, escalates is extremely important. And the top performing firms do that. They did. It's almost a no drama environment and quite honestly, it's a little bit rare, but, but the good ones do it, so

Jonathan Hawkins: And I'll, I'll say this too. A good operations person knows how to put up with the the leader of the firm that's always throwing 'em some new idea.

Tim Mckey: no,

absolutely.

Jonathan Hawkins: how to say no. They know how to, how to gracefully say no, not yet.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned earlier there's four ways to grow a law firm. I do wanna circle back to that. I want to, I wanna, I wanna hear to you that.

Tim Mckey: I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna let it go. You know, and look, I mean, I, I hope that all of you, the people listening are grabbing a pencil and getting ready to write these four down. But to be honest, they're not rocket science. They're four and I'm gonna name four, but two of them are actually subsets, so have to get more cases. Okay? That's number one to grow, affirm. And the second one is you have to increase the resolution value of those cases. Okay. Those are the two biggies.

And then the last number four is to make sure that every system and process within your business is as efficient and effective as it can be. You know, and I, I don't use one of those words without the other. To be fast, for fast sake is not what you really want to be. There's a lot of times that cases need to be actually slowed down. You need to take another depo. You need to get an expert. You need to dig deeper and make sure that client is getting the proper treatment in the personal injury world and those kind of things.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so I want to maybe shift a little bit, but I think you, you, you mentioned it a minute ago, you said, you know, gotta know your numbers, you know, we call it metrics, whatever. And so, you know, I think that sounds great. But to somebody who's not doing it, that can be overwhelming. They're like, where do I start?

What do I look at? What, what are, you know. And I know, I know I've talked to owners that have, they track 200 metrics, you know, and it's like, but that's a ton and no one can start there. So do you have advice on, you know, where do you start? What, what do you look at first? What's low hanging fruit on the metric side.

Okay. And then of the ones you want, what's your conversion rate? How many of those actually become a case? And knowing those numbers put you in a place where you can. Work to improve them. Okay. We know, you know, from being in those, you know, almost 300 firms, that the good firms, they actually convert 93 or 94% or above of the cases that they actually want. And if you ran your numbers and you're

getting 80.

Jonathan Hawkins: That, that's strong.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so, you know, I wanna hear your, your thoughts on this. You know, I, I've heard lawyers out there and they're like, we close every case that comes in, we close every case that comes in and you're like, show me the numbers. And like, we don't track it, but we just [00:19:00] know what have you found? I'm sure you've had a conversation with somebody that said that, and then you went in and actually started tracking it and it wasn't a hundred percent I'm guessing.

Tim Mckey: You're right on all accounts that we have talked to people that we get every one we want, but. 98% of the people who tell us that don't track it. So we then say, look, we're not arguing with you, but let's track it. And then all of a sudden we realize without fail that they don't get 'em all and it is some other number and they don't have a chase procedure because they don't know who to chase.

One, it helps you get more information because obviously you have a set of questions that you want to hear from that client. Are you still in treatment? Are you any more pains? Have you seen a new doc? There's a lot of things that you go through. And also if you are able to convince the majority of your clients that you're gonna call them. And let's just say for that, we have firms that use different timeframes. Let's just say it's every 14 days or every 21 days, and you say, look, we want you to call us if, if something's hot, but know that we're gonna call you every 14 days and we're gonna, we'll even try to narrow it down between this time, et cetera.

So if I only had two metrics, those would be the two to track. There's a lot of other ones though.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it's just that last point you made about. Proactively reaching out will reduce them reaching in. I've never heard that. I think that, and it seems obvious now that you've said it, but that is huge. You know, there's a couple other things too about the proactive contacting the clients. You know, one it reduces bar complaints.

It's like one of the biggest. Reasons of a bargain complaint is my lawyer's not calling me. The other thing, especially in the PI world is that clients are fickle and they will, you know, kick you to the curb and move to another firm if they think you're ignoring them. And you know, it probably helps you keep the clients as well, I would imagine.

And you know, those are the kind of things that we teach obviously, but they're not secrets. You can tell your people to do it, but if you don't have an accountability system to [00:24:00] know that it's being done and that not gonna go into the details of how that's done, but it's important. It's very important.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that's part of what I'm thinking, you know? You can have the system, but how do you make sure it's being run? And I'm sure that's something you help

Tim Mckey: Yeah. and then again, it's not rocket science either, Jonathan, it's, it's using case management systems, it's using other reporting mechanisms. And I had a client just last week said, well, what if my team doesn't tell the truth on that? That is the one thing that is a capital offense. If you're not, they're not gonna tell the truth on their reports, then they can't work in your firm. You know, I'm, I'm sorry. You know, there there's very few things that I am that harsh about, but that's one of 'em because all of a sudden you've got bad information and anything, and, and the one thing that's worse than making decisions off of no information is making decisions off of bad information.

So,

Jonathan Hawkins: And it's certainly a, a, a trust issue, which you know, that that's a huge issue.

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.

Jonathan Hawkins: so I wanna shift again. So another thing I'm curious about you know, in your, you know, dealing with all these law firm owners and, and leaders sort of the, the question of mindset what have you found is sort of the, the good mindset or the good attributes and maybe the things that are, maybe I'll call it unhealthy,

And I propose to you there's not, it is, you know, [00:27:00] identifying the problems. Correcting them through modifying behavior or getting good reports. That I don't think that's changed in a millennia, but there is, there are owners of businesses, and I'm not gonna put it just in law firms that think there's a magic bullet and, and you know, or pixie dust, it's not, it's work. So, and the ones who realize it. And buy in. You know, and, and one more thing, and I know you want to wanna jump in here, is that the owners that, that are, their firms are doing really, really well. They're looking for that next little incremental bit. Those are the ones that are, are number one, they're the funnest for us to work with because they understand this, they and what got them there, which is really hard work.

Jonathan Hawkins: And so, so putting in the work. Absolutely agree. I want to get your, your take on this. So I'm a law firm owner. I'm just drowning and I'm just, I'm hurting and I'm like I just don't have time to put in the work. Do you have any tips or advice on how to sort of put in the work to get there? And then I think the answer probably is you do that for a while, then you can sort of get to the other side.

But you know what, what is your advice

And again, I'm not trying to make fun of them or be flippant or arrogant, but tho that's the truth.

Jonathan Hawkins: I heard, I heard a lawyer, a successful firm owner, a, a year or so ago, speak and you know, he said that the, the thing that he attributed it to was taking one day. A week to work on the business. And he said, you know, looking back, that's the one thing that moved the needle the most. And he said, don't do it on a Friday because you'll, it'll turn into a three day weekend.

So, so No, I like that a

But it's in, you have to be, in my opinion, you have to be intentional about that. And if the bomb drops and you're busy for a period of time. I think you just say, look, that's fine. So next week I might take two days to do that strategy. What, you know, it, it reminds me of, of what people talk about work life balance and those kind of things. Work life balance. I, I like the concept and I think it should be lived, but it's not in, you have half day of work and half day of not, and it's like work is bad. You know, it's like you might have three weeks of very intense things that needs to be done and you take three or four days to, to regroup. You know, that's still balance.

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so I've got a question that I personally am interested in. I wanna get your take on it. So, and I think probably people in the audience would be interested in this as well. It's, it's you know, you've got a firm and you want to grow it. You've got the vision and you're like. I want to get there.

But you know, and if you had $10 million drop in your lap and you can just hire everybody and spend all the money and do all the stuff, you could do that really quick and get there. But most people don't have that. They're bootstrapping both with cashflow and with their time. So, what's your approach or how do you advise law firm owners that have the vision, the big vision, and they want to get there and grow fast?

How do you balance and allocate resources and figure out how to do it and not get ahead of your skis, so to speak?

And we start, you know, we listen, you know, I mean, we can provide input, but what are the pain points? Where do they see them? And so we get this list of things. And then based on what we've known with what we've already talked about, you know, the metrics and the, you know, having mentally healthy people work with you and those kind of things. Where does this fit in?

So we kinda meld what we see as best practices and what the owners have as kind of their, their pain points.

Jonathan Hawkins: I agree with that. You know, you hear people say you, you're gonna invest the money and the time whether you're trying it on your own or with help is the question is how quickly are you gonna get there? And maybe if you're ever gonna get there, that, that's part of

Tim Mckey: Well, But, I wanna, I'm gonna challenge you a little bit on what there is because even people who have very clear visions, that vision gets modified. The closer you get to the initial one, it's always that next little bit of carrot. And again, that may be, that may be a, a sale or just more profit or. You know, more clients, which then yields more profit.

Jonathan Hawkins: I agree with that. There's always another peak. There's always another peak to go after, for sure. Well, so I wanna shift, oh, I got one more thing I, I want us to, to talk about and, and then we can start to wrap up. And that is what are you seeing? You know, I. You mentioned private equity earlier, so, you know, and, you know, we did that deal last summer.

I'm, I'm curious, what are you seeing out there in terms of private equity? I know I'm seeing some things and then even the, the MSO structuring and, and you can explain what that is if you'd like, or you know, what, what are you seeing out there? You said there's lots of disruption. We, we, we will leave ai AI to the side.

I really wanna focus on sort of this outside investment

Jonathan Hawkins: It is, you know, one thing you, you mentioned that, that I tell, I tell everybody you know, you know, it used to be that if anybody, you know, at least the ones I see are for a long time saw it's somebody that's like, yeah, I'm ready to hang it up in six months. It, that's just not enough time number one.

And I think you're right too, on the, either at the table or, or on the menu, I, I think you can put your head in the sand. And pretend this is not coming. But it's, it's here and I think it's coming even more. You know, my view has been that, or at least what, from my perspective, it's been focused initially on the PI space, but I'm seeing it now in non pi and I call 'em, I call 'em traditional style firms, hourly, broad practice area type firms.

Tim Mckey: I agree. The board that, and again, that goes back to why systems and processes are so important. You know, it's, it's a little bit counterintuitive for, for us guys that actually have egos that, Hey, we wanna be the man. You know, being the man and trying to sell is, is incompatible almost. You know, you need to not be the man.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I'll tell you, I mean, stay tuned. This, this, it's, it's, it's here and it's coming more. So everybody out there, you know, don't put your head in this sand on this one. So, so Tim, before we wrap up, I do wanna sort of ask, o one more sort of broad question if you can answer it. And that's for, for law firm owners out there.

Do you have, you know, we've talked about a lot of things today. Do you have maybe one, two, or three sort of action item practical steps that they can take today? You know, beyond theory, like, do this.

The other thing is know your numbers. Go find out what that data is, you know, and we talked about intake case management. There are others and, you know, call me if you wanna know what the others are, but, but don't, again, be bound by trying to gather every bit of information that you're not gonna use. Okay? So you know, getting that vision or mindset of this is how I'm gonna work on my business. I'm gonna set a vision, I'm gonna learn my numbers, and we're gonna and work from there are probably the two biggest that takeaways. And you can start the process of getting your numbers today.

You know, talk to your operations people.

And, you know, that's, that's part of our role. But do it. You can do it. And that's actionable. You go do it today.

Tim Mckey: Let me see if I can do this right. I'm sharing a screen. Does that work?

Jonathan Hawkins: There it is. Yep, I see

Tim Mckey: There it. is. That's uh, and that's, um, that's my cell number up there. Feel free to call or text me and, you know, I'm pretty, obsessive about returning calls. That's not, I'm not gonna ghost you, whoever you are. Leave a message if I can't get it. And there's my email address and again, I'm looking, yeah, there's the website, vista ct.com.

Jonathan Hawkins: And this, you know, for those, watching this on YouTube, wherever the information's there for those listening on audio. I don't know if you wanna say your cell phone

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, Tim, thanks again. It's been really informative for me and I, I've got some things I gotta go do. I wanna get off the phone here, so.

Tim Mckey: Well, thank you Anytime. And I, I appreciate you very much ha, having me on and looking forward to you. Uh, Vista has a podcast and want you on there, so we're gonna do it.

Jonathan Hawkins: Awesome. Well, I appreciate it.

Tim Mckey: All right, my friend. Take care.