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Creating a Membership Program That Drives Clients with Steven Lefkoff
Episode 116th February 2024 • Founding Partner Podcast • Jonathan Hawkins
00:00:00 01:07:11

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Join us on The Founding Partner Podcast as we dive into the journey of Steven Lefkoff, the founder of Lefkoff Law. Discover his transition from working at a small firm to establishing his own and the growth that followed. Steven shares insights on the challenges of starting a law firm, the importance of understanding business operations, and his plans for future expansion. Don't miss this enlightening conversation on legal entrepreneurship and the evolving landscape of law firm management. Tune in now for valuable lessons and inspiration!

Transcripts

Jonathan Hawkins: [:

Steven Lefkoff: So it was just me doing it all. And the timing was interesting, because it wasn't like an overnight decision. I really spent a lot of time thinking about it, wondering and determining what my firm would look like, what kind of work I wanted to do, how I wanted to market it, everything from brand and logo and the logo competition, which was pretty cool. Just colors, fonts. I really over, like a lawyer does, I guess, I overanalyzed everything about the decision, including the timing. And what I wanted to do was we had some debts, personal debts to pay off. And I was like, all right, I don't want to, I don't want to go jump off the ledge here and take that plunge and risk.

hat just let all that go and [:

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Welcome to the founding partner podcast. I'm Jonathan Hawkins excited about my guest today. We got some really cool stuff. We're going to dive into we got Steven Lefkoff. Steven, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us about your firm and what you do.

out further ado, I guess now [:

Jonathan Hawkins: So, your firm now, we're going to go back to the early days, but now how many folks are at your firm? Is it just you or who do you got?

ney. And virtually we've got [:

Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. That's a lot of growth. I'll tell you. So last year I tripled the size of my firm. That sounds crazy, but it went from. One and a half to four and a half so and even with that growth, you know, it was quite a lot It was quite a lot everything changed and you know adding you're basically going to more than double yours That's going to be quite the adventure, but that's awesome.

I like it

We're sort of matching each [:

Jonathan Hawkins: So I want to get into the growth, but let's go back to the beginning But you know, when did you start your firm and what were you doing before that?

Steven Lefkoff: Sure. Great

question.

Jonathan Hawkins: you didn't come straight out of law school and start your firm, did you? Or

y of Georgia school of law in:

ng that my focus. And then in:

Jonathan Hawkins: did you always know you were going to start your firm?

I walked into that place and [:

saw there.

And I'm

like, I

Jonathan Hawkins: your wig. Come on.

Steven Lefkoff: I didn't have a wig. I didn't bring a wig. I, it was, you know, I mean, those magistrate courtrooms, let's say they lack the pageantry and the decorum of certainly of what I saw in London. It was a rude awakening to what I had signed myself up

got to do it all by myself. [:

But yeah, I have a similar story. So my dad was a lawyer and I did not want to be a lawyer. Yeah. You know, I want to do my own thing. I was like, I'm not going to be a lawyer, but here I am ended up being a lawyer. Different path, but yeah, exactly. Okay. So you didn't know you're going to start your firm, but at some point you said, Hey, I want to be my own boss.

You went out and then was it just you? Did you have any help with you when you did it?

olors, fonts. I really over, [:

Jonathan Hawkins: And when you started, did you have clients came with you? Did you have a base clients?

And so I went out on my own. [:

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. You know, folks that are starting the firm, their firms, that's. Obviously a huge issue without clients, it's hard to make money. So tell me a bit, a little bit about, we'll get into some of the details, but how do you charge your clients? Is it I know there's some different things you do, we'll get into all that, but are you sort of a traditional, let's call it hourly type firm?

Or do you do contingency, flat fee work, combination of all the above?

tly flat fee model. And I've [:

And that's not everyone has, not every business owner has a 20, 000 retainer that they can drop on a piece of litigation, right? That really hurts their cashflow. And so we really reduce those to try and grow the relationship because. Another thing, as you know, in your firm, we're not, because we're a business firm, we're different than like your PI or your divorce.

that's a problem, right? For [:

Jonathan Hawkins: So, it's you, an associate, and an assistant how long have they been with you? Was it was you last, was it about a year and a half ago you said you added those folks?

last summer, year and a half.:

Jonathan Hawkins: So what, you know, here's a question, it's interesting you've already mapped out your org chart, I think that's awesome. I think, you know, that, that's an exercise that a lot of law firm leaders don't do. I think, you know, thinking ahead, thinking. Where you want to go and then going to do that as opposed to just sort of letting things happen Which seems like a lot of firms do there's sort of just go where the tide takes them

You know, you know where you want to go and you know what box you want to be in on that org chart Tell me about sort of your typical work week or work day now first You know in the business on the business doing client work versus not now versus where you think it'll be Or hope it to be in a year or so from now.

e time and be able to devote [:

strategy in the case, what's [:

And so it is, it's a training exercise as much as anything else. So that's our Monday morning meeting. Then I spend Tuesday, Thursdays in the afternoons answering client calls. And the reason for that, and we batch those. is so that I can spend time in other days of the week on work on the business. Instead of in it, right? If we just take call and we can talk about how I handle email too. It's the same idea Is that we batch everything and I set up specific times when i'm dealing with that Because it's too often the case that you go through a whole day and feel like you got nothing done Because you spent this hour on an unscheduled call you spent that hour dealing with some other issue You spent this 30 minutes dealing with an hr problem and you haven't Scheduled the time right to where now you've wasted a whole day, right?

iness and on the business at [:

Jonathan Hawkins: You mentioned email. Huge issue for me and every lawyer out there. We're sitting there trying to get something done and then the bombs just start dropping in the email, you know. It's not our doing. They're just coming in and it's a tendency we have to just. React and deal with them along the way.

I, the way you handle email is very interesting. Why don't you talk about that? I reached out to you via email and I got this automated response. Talk me through that and taught me how you got there. This, how did you figure this out and how did you plan it? You're a planner. Where did you figure out how to address your email that way?

t's not an emergency without [:

assigned to me. Anthony, our [:

ame. So someone can't figure [:

Steven Lefkoff: It should be.

Jonathan Hawkins: We got to make it your nickname. So how did you figure that out? Did someone teach this to you? Did you read it in book? Did you, is it trial and error? How did you figure this system out? I think it's pretty unique. I've never. I'm sure other, there are folks out there that do it, but I have not encountered it except with you.

you like and don't like. And [:

tarted doing this. Actually, [:

Then we got to set up the billing. We got to build, like, we wrote through all, it was a big mess, right? But we wrote out every step of the process. And then we assigned to each person, okay, whose role, this goes back to that org chart. Right. Whose role in the firm is it to do each of these things? And so the email is the same way.

Like it gets back to what we're talking about with email is how do we make that better? And then how do we then get truly granular and determine, okay, who is doing what, when, and how are they doing it? That's for us, that's what everything comes. You talk about working on the business and it's another long answer, but I'm a lawyer, right?

We get paid hourly. So [:

right? And you don't take that moment, right? To go, okay what's working, what's not working, what could be made better? What is unnecessary? You know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And so we've found that we just have to turn off for a while. There's no other way to do it for us.

Jonathan Hawkins: I think that is a great idea. I've not heard of anybody else doing that, but you know, you take the workshop day, you get to work on the business. The other good thing about it is you're include, you're including your entire team to get input from everyone. So they all feel like they're contributing as opposed to you coming in one day and say, this is it.

o see a year and a half from [:

But, you know, the fact the mentors, very important for younger lawyers, really any lawyer, particularly an owner it's one thing to get the advice, but you actually act on it. That's another very important piece. And then I'm sure you've given back and now you are the mentor to a lot of folks because you've done a lot of cool stuff.

That after hearing it and learning it and implementing it so that's really cool. So let's shift real quick. So you talked about your firm is one niche area, sort of the, I'll call it the, what do you call it, the car industry, the auto industry, how do you? How do you describe it?

Steven Lefkoff: I say that we represent car businesses.

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay.[:

Steven Lefkoff: That's how I described that.

Jonathan Hawkins: So I'm a huge believer in niche, niching down. I think it's probably easier in a city versus a small town practice. I acknowledge that. But I'm a huge believer. I think people are very scared of that oftentimes. What's been your experience in just going I wouldn't say all in but you've gone pretty deep into the car industry, right?

very interesting path. It's [:

And the reason it really works is because we're able to market towards those businesses, right? If you think, I mean, your law firm GC, right? It's the same idea.

know, the earthquake people [:

right? Where your

Jonathan Hawkins: but if there's a hurricane you're gonna go in you and Jim Cantore are gonna go in

Steven Lefkoff: I hold

Jonathan Hawkins: location.

Steven Lefkoff: I'm going to hold the pole. My jacket's going to get blown in the wind. But I'm going to have the cameraman there to make sure everything goes okay.

Jonathan Hawkins: you know, but you're right. I like what you're what you've done. It's similar to what I've done You know, it's You can dive down on an industry, but you get to do a lot of different things in it. So you do some transactional work, you do some litigation, you do some just advisory work, I'm sure. And it keeps it in stream, but you're also able to really learn the industry and learn what keeps your clients up at night.

And that, that for me, it's super helpful.

ck on that real quick, we're [:

We can talk about consumer complaints. We talk about rescission and revocation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

o many hours in the day that [:

So, you came up with a pretty. innovative approach to I guess try to capture some of that and deliver value and leverage your time. So talk about that.

d the defendant, her friend, [:

And I don't mean 5, 000 attorney fee. I mean, 5, 000 in dispute, right? It doesn't make sense in the business of law. And so I took a step back and same idea as what we were talking about before. I thought about, okay, how can we make this better? And COVID hit and all the courts shut down. And all of a sudden I had a whole lot of time on my hands. And so between sleeping in and going for walks with my kids. I recorded a ton of videos and created a course on how to handle small claims yourself. And I had this grand idea where we were going to sell this course. I'm going to give you the whole story. We're going to sell this course to thousands of people all over the state of Georgia and everyone was going to love it.

tent. I spent too much money [:

I have one sale, one, one that's, I don't know if I've ever told anyone that, but I had one sale in a year and a half. And the reason was because people, A, aren't paying 500 and B, aren't spending five hours in front of a computer screen to learn something. They're just going to roll the dice and go. So what we did was we greatly reduced the price.

so what we started doing was [:

helping them prepare some of [:

It's been the source of a lot of our five star Google reviews because so many attorneys don't do this. And just they hear the value of the case and they say, sorry, we can't help. And they hang up and it's a shame, it's a shame, but we've stepped in there.

Jonathan Hawkins: So the Small Claims Academy, is it still, I wanted to go now and buy it, could I do that?

Steven Lefkoff: You could you could, yes. Nobody has for a very long time. I haven't been promoting

Jonathan Hawkins: So here's an idea. I don't know if it'll work. In order to get the consult, they have to buy the course and watch it first, or at least buy the course. Then

they get, yeah, then they get a little, maybe they get a little discount on the consult. I don't know.

re the course sits. It's its [:

Jonathan Hawkins: That was going to be my next question. Yeah.

Steven Lefkoff: Yep. And so we like that took me, by the way, as interpreting ethics rules generally do way longer than it should have for me to figure out what the moving parts on all of that.

But I ultimately decided, okay, if I don't give legal advice. And I create a different entity. I don't know if you're going to crush me on this. If you're like, no, Steven, you're completely wrong. But my, what I had, the research I had done and what I concluded was if I don't give legal advice and I create a new entity that eventually I can get investments, I can sell, I had this. You know, grand plan, that so far hasn't happened, but it's

Jonathan Hawkins: all disclaimers ding,

gal advice. You're providing [:

It does a couple of things. Number one. You protect that asset, you can, you know, pass that on to your family, you can go get investors, you can do a lot of things with that so yeah, I think that was a really smart move, that was cool and I would not give up on it, I think there's something there I would not give up on that, you just hadn't quite cracked it yet, sounds like, but, you know, this is something I talk to a lot of law firm owners now, you know, we talk about selling their firm, and they ask, you Well, my firm's not worth anything.

Well, it might not be, but maybe it is. And one of the things I encourage folks to do is to build assets within the firm or ancillary to the firm. And this is one example of that. You're, you've built an asset that has value. And you know, you've still got 20 plus years to see how much value that thing's going to generate.

So. So,

his. I think about this too. [:

And then there's the other approach that I call the bottom up approach. That's when customers or clients come to you and they say, Hey, I want this. I want this. I want this. And then when you get enough of those and you say, Hey, there's demand out there. I'm going to build something to meet the demand.

The next thing I suspect might be more of that, or you tell me, but you've got this other cool thing that most law firms don't do. And it's called the driveway. Is it? How would you describe it? I call it maybe a membership platform. How would you describe it? Tell us

about

ealers and finance companies [:

like. And do is actually run [:

Jonathan Hawkins: All right, we're gonna, we're gonna dive deep here.

You're gonna coach me here. So I've got, lot of questions. So, I have toyed with something like this for my lawyer, law firm clients. And I, go out, I sort of market test it. I ask, you know, most people I meet with is, would you be interested in this?

And the response I've gotten overwhelmingly has been. We're not interested. They just say, we'll just hire you when we need you. We think we're skeptical of subscriptions, et cetera, et cetera. So right now I have not been able to figure out, I think there is something there, but I hadn't been able to figure it out from my practice area.

e value proposition, what to [:

package?

Steven Lefkoff: Lots of trial, lots of error. Like everything else. We started with two tiers. What was the base and the premium? And the base was 6. 49 a month. Premium was 16. 49 a month. We created as part of premium. No joke, thank God it saves with each answer, but a 500 question, like questionnaire. And the whole idea

behind premium was, I want to take care of you as the business owner.

Everything about, do you have a financial advisor? Oh, you don't? You don't know where you're putting your money? Well, I'm not a financial advisor, but I'm going to refer you out to somebody who is. Right. What's your, I don't know your mortgage interest rate at the time when mortgage interest rates were very low.

out to a mortgage broker to [:

And now they send us a ton of business. Or B, used an attorney that wasn't innovative. And in an industry where if you don't innovate, you die, right? The car industry. And so they wanted somebody who was flexible, who knew the business, who cared, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And have actually, we have a number of clients that have since left their old firms to come to us all because of this program.

It kind of puts you on the map as hey we're doing something different.

Jonathan Hawkins: it's really, really cool. So Fidu is that the software, the backend that sort of hosts this platform for you?

ing. Don't raise your prices.[:

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So take me through. Okay. So I'm a member. Okay. So I've signed up for your whatever package. I don't know what level it is but I have a question and I need something from you guys. So I send in an email or a call in, how do you handle the inbound inquiries? When you have this membership and where do they go internally on your end?

So let's say you had a hundred people in this and you've got calls coming in all the time. How do you handle the inbound traffic and put it in the right place to get their questions answered? How do you go about that?

Steven Lefkoff: is my favorite part of the whole program because everything is scheduled. So if you want, so first off it all goes through Fidu. Okay, so there's a there is a portal in Fidu. So everyone has access to the portal. And if you want to send in a question that is an unbilled answer, then you send it through your portal, send it by email.

the risk that we're going to [:

but it also says what isn't [:

It's

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. So it sounds like part of the way you control the flow of inbound inquiries and control. Really, the cost on your end is if they go through the portal, submit the question through the portal, or schedule a call through the portal, for all intents and purposes, it's covered under the plan. But if they just send you an email or call in independently outside the portal, the risk is they're probably going to get billed hourly.

Is that loosely?

Steven Lefkoff: exactly

berships or subscriptions or [:

But they're always asking that one more question that's outside the scope you told them and if you don't

Steven Lefkoff: Every time,

Jonathan Hawkins: you don't stick to it If you don't stick to it, you're screwed. I mean, you know, you've got you as the lawyer Is that this is the scope we if it goes past this, you know, we're changing the relationship I know a lot of lawyers have trouble with that.

I've had trouble with it I think it's just human nature probably but that's really cool. I like how you're doing this Let me ask this. The driveway, there is a legal advice component to it, but is it owned within the law firm or is it also sort of broken off or elements of it broken off into a different entity or something?

Steven Lefkoff: No, so that one's owned by the law

he driveway you want to tell [:

Steven Lefkoff: Well, I can tell you how we attract people to it

Jonathan Hawkins: do you market it? How do you get people there?

map as the law firm for that [:

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. Now that's pretty cool. So let's unpack that a little bit. So where do you host the 90 videos? Do you have a special platform for that

or is it

Steven Lefkoff: I do.

Jonathan Hawkins: okay. Tell me about

we record all these videos, [:

It's really cool. I can't, I wish I had an investment in this company. So it's really cool about dub. And I think there's some competitors out there that I'm sure some of your listeners probably know about, but you can create your own. video page. And so what I mean by that is we use it for way more than just Georgia Car Law.

Like, let's say you referred me a client or you and I had a strategy session. I could record a video on Dubb that recaps our strategy session and send it to you. And when you click on it, there are all these action buttons underneath the video. Sign up here, pay your retainer here, check out the Georgia Car Law here, whatever it is. And if you referred me a client, or a potential client, I might record a video, right, and say, John, it was so great to talk to you about Sarah Smith. as I understand it, this is the issue. Feel free to forward this to her. She can click on the new client button and book a strategy session whenever she wants.

The close rate on [:

Jonathan Hawkins: I'll be following up with that for sure.

Steven Lefkoff: Absolutely.

Jonathan Hawkins: okay. So you've got 90 videos, you know, I assume it's you know, FAQs that you hear from clients probably. Is that. And do you add to it or are you constantly adding to this thing, the 90 videos or is it sort of

Steven Lefkoff: we we are adding, and there's a table of contents and it's divvied up into, I think, nine or 10 different sections. There's like a litigation section. There's a finance section, a repossession section, et cetera, et cetera.

hever videos are of interest [:

Steven Lefkoff: They can go, they can skip ahead as much as they want. They get access to the whole thing.

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so they have access to it, but then on top of that, you send them the drip campaign and you send them a video from the library every week anyway, or whatever, however frequently you do it. Is it a link or is it, do you embed the video in the email?

Steven Lefkoff: So it's a link, but it's like a GIF or something from the actual video.

Jonathan Hawkins: Hopefully we're not, boring the audience, but this is some really innovative stuff that, you know, lawyers don't do. They just, I mean, most lawyers don't do this kind of thing. Now, a lot of lawyers are at bigger firms and it's a nightmare to get. The committee or whatever to approve these sorts of things you do have the benefit of You own the thing and you can just sort of do what you want to do here But still this is really cool stuff The drip campaign is I mean, that's incredible.

ing notes here and on all of [:

Steven Lefkoff: Oh, it's been,

Jonathan Hawkins: let me say, at least releasing version 1.

0. Let's say that.

Steven Lefkoff: it took, I would say probably seven or eight months to record the videos, create the table of contents, create the website, the drip site. And go through that whole process. It really did. It took a long time and I screwed up if I can give the listeners any advice. I messed up on this one by thinking that it had to be too professional.

watched it and went. That is [:

Nobody's going to watch that. Nobody's going to be interested in that. I mean, I was a robot, right? I wasn't myself. I wasn't myself. And that's what you really have to, if you want to create a relationship with your clients, you got to be yourself. And so I went back to the drawing board, made the table of contents, trusted that I knew the laws I was talking about because I'd been doing it for a good bit of time.

And then just started going on a webcam. Like you're watching me right now. I just recorded it at my desk. That's all I did. It turned out much better.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that's another obstacle, I'll say, to a lot of lawyers, myself included. It's just, you just got to start. You just got to do it. Quit making excuses. Just do it. You know, the lighting may not be the best you're gonna be at your desk or whatever, just do it. So you've got these 90 videos hosted on dub behind sort of an email wall.

know that's there that they [:

Steven Lefkoff: So we do, yes, we have a YouTube page where we've been dripping out the videos there as well. It's one of these, like, I've recognized that hiding them behind a name and email, people get skeptical. So I want you, when you search the law firm's name, you're going to see this stuff everywhere. And then you're convinced, okay, these folks are trustworthy.

They know what they're talking about. I'm going to give them my name and my email address because. I trust them to give me information. So yes, we have it on YouTube. A lot of our marketing is through the car dealer association. So we actively market. I write an article for their magazine every month and we put a little blurb about the car law there.

w can I put this in front of [:

And for us, because we're again, a, an industry specific practice, I think about, okay, how can I get in front of that on for a PI lawyer, it might be a billboard because anyone driving is a potential client for me, anyone driving is definitely not, I've got to get in front of the people I want to get in front of, and for us, they happen to have a trade organization.

And so we're very active in their association because that's a captive audience for us.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you're here in Atlanta. Is this a Georgia based practice or do you cover other states?

Steven Lefkoff: It's Georgia. can I go real quick on that? Cause I have a funny story. So, I got, this was like two or three years ago. I got an email from a dealer in Utah out of the blue. Hey, Steven, I'm so and so, I've got a lease here that I need reviewing and I can't find anyone in my area who knows anything about cars.

can do? And entrepreneurial [:

I know I can't sit in front of a judge there, but can I, you know, what can I do? I'm doing all this stuff. And I'm talking to a buddy of mine, Ryan McKean, who if you don't know Ryan, he's somebody that everyone should Google. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. He's an injury attorney in Connecticut. One of my favorite people.

I'm telling him this story and he says to me, Stephen, have you maximized your client base in Georgia? And I said, what do you mean? He goes, I don't know. Do you have every car dealer in Georgia as a client? Are there any car dealers going to another attorney? Like, well, yeah, of course there are. He goes, then why would you start expanding your bandwidth?

nging fruit. Oh, I can get a [:

And what he did was really grounded me. Back into the Georgia world. So, yes, that's our focus now is we're a Georgia law firm handling clients with Georgia

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that reminds me. So I know you're a big Waffle House fan like I am. So I went to Georgia Tech undergrad and Waffle House is sort of a Georgia Tech, you know, at least the early days, a bunch of Georgia Tech guys really helped grow that thing. And I remember years ago, I want to hear some executive give a little presentation at Tech.

othing. Nothing. It was just [:

Why aren't you in California? Why aren't you in Washington? And he said, you know, same thing. He's like, we want to dominate our backyard. He's like, we have, you know, when I moved here to Atlanta, I remember being blown away when there was a waffle house on both sides of the exit of an interstate. They had it on both sides.

It's like, Oh my God. And he said, look, how many Denny's do you see around here? He's like, they're scared. I mean, basically they know not to really come here and put much effort here. And so that was one thing that stuck with me. And the other piece is, you know, as you start to get very far afield, it becomes harder to manage for sure.

So I think that was good advice. Although long term, I think you do have. A lot of open ocean to go, you know, you can go to South Carolina, Tennessee, pretty easy

that. We're doing it at the [:

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I think what you're doing is really cool. I'm glad that you took the time to talk through that. I'm going to have a ton more questions that I'll, we'll cover offline. I'll take you to lunch. Maybe we'll do some Bart, some bartering here. So, so yeah, so, you have a podcast too, right?

Steven Lefkoff: do.

Jonathan Hawkins: it's for lawyers, right?

It's let me back up. So our audience is primarily lawyers. So tell us about your podcast. Well,

Steven Lefkoff: so my podcast is called lawyers with lives and it's because I'm curious about people. It's the same thing about my law firm. I love the relationships we create, and I know lawyers tend to be type a folks. And I had this idea, like, what do people do when they're not sitting at their desk in their law firm?

anything that's not being a [:

It's not, they're not dabbling, right? I interviewed a guy about treasure hunting. And he's been on multiple trips looking for treasure. We did beer brewing and it was like all this equipment. And I did all these things and I make all kinds of different beer and one was snorkeling. And it wasn't just like, yeah, I just, you know, we went to Tampa.

I took a boat out into the Gulf and snorkel. No, no trips dedicated to snorkeling. And it's fascinating to me. Not many things that I'm particularly personally interested in or going to do. But it's cool to hear what people do and how they do it.

Jonathan Hawkins: that's cool. So yeah, I encourage folks to check it out and if they've got some cool stuff to talk about, maybe they'll reach out and.

Steven Lefkoff: Oh, I'd love that.

Jonathan Hawkins: [:

I would not probably encourage people to start with that, but what would you say to a new law firm owner?

Steven Lefkoff: I can tell you one thing I think a lot of new law firm owners mess up on if I'm in a position to give advice and it's this. When you start your firm, spend money getting the foundation right. Get your books in order, your processes for how you do, how you run your accounting. Find a good bookkeeper, find a good CPA.

o follow, whatever. And then [:

You put one line here and one thing here and you add it up and then you gotta subtract something. It's a mess. And that was my biggest fear starting my law firm, was that, yeah, it's easy now, it's just me and a handful of clients, it's not that much work, the administration of the firm was very simple back in the day.

But if you don't get your processes right at the beginning, then it's going to get a lot harder as you grow. And if you don't want to grow, more power to you. Do it how you want. I do. And I want my firm to grow. And in order for that to happen, We really have to have the right things in place so that as we add on another person, as we add on another source of revenue, as we innovate and change and redesign, the base is in place to be able to, from there and not have to rewrite our tax code.

done with your firm. I think [:

I love big vision I like being around people at big vision. So we need to check in with each other periodically see how things are going, but last question here If you weren't practicing law, if you weren't running your law firm, what would you be doing?

Steven Lefkoff: It depends on whether I needed the revenue, because I can tell you this, I can tell you this, my two dream jobs. Are to cut grass on a golf course. I would just love to put headphones in, put my head down, and just cut grass. All day. I like the smell of it. I like being outside. The other one, and I don't even smoke cigars, but I think it would be cool to live on a boat and sell cigars to other people on boats.

Tuesdays I'm at this marina, [:

my boat.

Jonathan Hawkins: Just hang out with Jimmy Buffett or the the upcoming Jimmy Buffett, just sail the Caribbean, right?

Steven Lefkoff: Any day I would do that in a heartbeat.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, cool. I appreciate you really diving deep with me today. That has been enlightening. I think what you're doing is really cool. So if folks want to find you, how, what's the best way to get in touch with you to get through the the email. Remember you got the email. You got to get through, but how come folks find you?

Steven Lefkoff: That's right. Well, they can email me directly. Steven S T E V E N at Lefkoff law. com. L E F as in Frank K O F as in Frank F as in Frank L A W. You'll get the bounce back, the auto reply, but don't worry about it. It'll still get to me and I'm happy to help anybody. It's one of my very favorite things to do is to help people.

ke I'm still working towards [:

Jonathan Hawkins: Thanks again. And I encourage folks to go check out your website, see some of these cool things that you've got small claims Academy driveway, maybe you can borrow some of these ideas and you know, maybe Stephen will hit the road and do some workshops for the rest of us.

Steven Lefkoff: Thanks Jonathan.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right. Thank you.

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