What can a personal injury lawyer teach you about negotiating with insurance adjusters, running a mid-size firm, going viral on LinkedIn, and flying first-class to Europe for $500? In this episode, I sat down with Matt Long — a lawyer who’s just as comfortable in the courtroom as he is at the poker table. His story will make you rethink how lawyers build influence, avoid burnout, and even travel the world. Would you run your practice the way he does?

Are you getting cases from your LinkedIn stuff?

Matt Long: Right. So the referrals that I've gotten from LinkedIn are from lawyers. And so,

Jonathan Hawkins: But you have?

Matt Long: I have, yeah, and it's mostly, it hasn't really been in the PI world, it's been in the partition suit world. And so to your listeners who don't know what a partition suit is, I didn't even know what one was four years ago.

And at this point, I probably handle more of them than anyone in Richmond right now. And I can say that confidently, like, 'cause I've seen the metrics from the marketing people and where people are clicking.

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 talk to law firm founders and owners hear about their journeys and lessons they've learned along the way. And today's guest is a guy that I met on LinkedIn. Really like his post. He's got some really interesting things to say and some cool stuff I think that everybody's gonna wanna learn, especially these you know, five figure vacations to Europe that he only costs him, you know, a couple hundred bucks.

So we're gonna talk about that too. So, welcome Matt Long to the podcast. He's a personal injury lawyer in Richmond, Virginia. I think he does a few other things as well. But Matt, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us about yourself and maybe about what you do, about what you know, sort of about your firm as well.

And then we have lawyers who kind of do some other things as well. And that's me. I, like you said, I do a lot of plaintiff's personal injury work. I also do a lot of, you know, complex civil litigation business litigation. Lately over the last couple years I've been doing a lot of partition suits, which your listeners may not even know what that means, but I've been doing a lot of those.

And then, you know, your normal breach of contract type civil litigation that's, that's the stuff I really started when I was a baby lawyer. So baby lawyers, you know, a lot of times they start doing criminal work, traffic work you know, court appointed work. I got thrown to the fire doing like complex business litigation when I was 10 minutes outta law school.

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so I've got questions about that. So, I assume that's hourly. Is that an hourly practice?

Matt Long: Yes. So the, you know, the contingency fee work is just personal injury. Everything else is hourly. I think there are lawyers out there that would take, you know, a business litigation case on a contingency fee. I would advise you not to do that. I think that's a really bad idea. But uh,

Jonathan Hawkins: it. Don't do it.

Matt Long: maybe if you're suing Amazon. But even then but no, it's all hourly.

You know, there's some folks I've talked to and you either gravitate one way or another, you sort of have a tendency to do that. You're like, well, the hourly stuff, you know, they're gonna pay me this month, so I'll just go ahead and do that, and this contingency may take years. Or it's like, I just rather do the contingency work and not the hourly. How do you balance that?

Matt Long: Yeah. So if I could wave a magic wand if I'm being perfectly candid, I would just do the personal injury work. You know, but the reality is that unless you know, for most lawyers. Unless you are at, you know, a high volume, big billboard, personal injury law firm, your PI work is gonna be kind of like this.

But you know, that's just the reality of it. You know, just like everyone else who isn't at a high volume billboard, personal injury shop, you know? That's where most of the cases go. Right. You know, we just asserted law firm out of Florida that may or may not spend a billion dollars on marketing a year.

Jonathan Hawkins: So I was looking at your firm too. You mentioned it sort of the bread and butters of family law. It, your firm from the outside looks sort of like an old school firm to me where, you know, it's, it's like multi discipline practice areas. You know, nowadays more and more firms are just, you know, have niche sort of practices, maybe one or two sort of practice areas you know, Richmond.

I mean, it's not that small of a town. It's not, you know, New York City. But I'm, I'm curious sort of the history of your firm and how these practice series sort of came about and how you guys have stuck together and how it works.

And you know, for the first maybe 5, 6, 7 years of the firm, it was mostly just family law. And that was the sort of where the brand was focused and where the, all the marketing was focused and that, 'cause that's was all the lawyers that were here. Like, that's mostly what they did with a few outliers.

And then I guess over the last four or five years, you know, as we've added, lawyers practice areas have kind of expanded. And so that's, we work with a fractional like chief marketing officer, which is really a company. And that's part of what they advise us on is, you know, sort of going forward, how are we gonna. What do we want to do? Because when you say like, to an outsider's perspective, like this is what I see, like, that's important. I'm gonna go back to my marketing people and say, Hey, you know, I had this podcast and this is what Jonathan told me, like, you need to know this. Like, it's, you know, you need to understand this.

And so, you know, it's sort of figuring out, you know, what are the three, four, maybe five things we do well and just focus on that. But you're right, it's when you're a small law firm, you know, and you have smart lawyers that have been around a long time and there's someone who calls and says, I need help with X.

You know, that's the challenge. Do you send them on their way? Right. Even though you can help with X or do you not? And you know, this is something I think all law firms kind of debate

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so, so lemme circle back. You said you used to do criminal and bankruptcy.

Matt Long: the firm did.

Matt Long: Combination of the two. So the lawyers that did it did leave, but we do have lawyers here now that do know how to do those things. But it's just not really it doesn't really make sense from a dollars and sit standpoint. 'cause those are volume based practices for the most part. Unless you're representing murderers.

Right. Or drug dealers for the most part. You know, criminal law and bankruptcy law is gonna be a volume-based thing. Like, you know, one of our partners, she does estate planning and she's great at it and that is volume and she has a lot of volume. But it's hard for a law firm to, to make money on criminal law if, unless you just have tons and tons and tons and tons of criminal law clients, you know.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, it makes the marketing message easier when you have fewer, that's for sure. As

Matt Long: Right, right. And,

Jonathan Hawkins: Ago.

And that's awesome. And that takes a lot of time to do. But at the same time, you know. Most of the lawyers here have been practicing longer than I have, and so there's a lot of referrals coming from clients, ex-clients, other lawyers. You know, as you know, I'm real active on LinkedIn. I do get referrals from LinkedIn, from other lawyers.

I think most lawyers who get LinkedIn referrals, it's probably from other lawyers. I don't know how many clients are going to LinkedIn to find a lawyer. I don't know. I haven't met someone yet. Maybe they're out there. But you know, so it's, it's interesting how business comes into a law firm, so,

And that's probably true. I don't know. But you're a B2C. I know of others you know, PI attorneys who've gotten cases, I mean, they're referrals like you said, but so yeah, I wanna come back to that. But first, so, you know, I've talked to personal injury lawyers who, you know, part of their story is, you know, we were, we represented insurance companies.

We were on the defense side. And now I know the inside and I can help you on the plaintiff side, blah, blah, blah. Well, you've got a, a different version of that story that's really interesting to me. And that is that your mom was an adjuster for insurance company. And I came across some article you wrote, or I don't know if it was on LinkedIn where you said, yeah, if you practiced PI work in Virginia for a while, you probably encountered my mom.

So what was that like having your mom there and then you switch it to, or you coming to the plaintiff's side, you know, what did she think about that?

And you know, I meet colleagues and they're like, oh, that was your mother. Like, you know, I don't know what they mean when they say that. I don't know it, you know, but and so yeah, when we, when I was eating Happy Meals, we used to talk about underinsured motorist coverage, you know, when I was eight years old, which is insane.

And so, you know, when I graduated law school, I already kind of spoke the language, I guess. But to be honest with you it's never something that I thought about, like doing either from the plaintiff or the defense side. It was just like, that's something my mother does, you know, I wanna do something else.

And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, I think that's what my, that's what my mother does. And I remember calling her and she's like, you should learn how to do that, Matt. Like, that was, that was what she said. She's like, really? She's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And but she never steered me towards the defense.

Like, she was like no, no, no. You do plaintiff's work. Like, don't do defense work, do plaintiff's work. And so.

Jonathan Hawkins: see some of the checks we're sending out. Matt, you should see

Matt Long: So, so that's, so like the next person that called in, like I kind of took the file and then, you know, called my mother and I was like, what do I do? You know, and so she, 'cause she's my mother, you know, assuming it wasn't an Allstate case, I mean, she was happy to talk to me about what to do and, and I spent more time talking to her in my early career than I did other lawyers about how to manage these files.

So, and we still talk all the time, so it's been great

Jonathan Hawkins: you know, that's really interesting. You know, you know, part of your job as a rep, you know, PI attorney is I think make it easy for the other side to want to resolve the case. And there's a variety of techniques I guess, or approaches. One, you can be a raging asshole and just be so obnoxious that they're like, I don't wanna deal with this guy mad anymore.

Matt Long: Yeah, and I, I think there's a philosophy too that you have to buy into. So, I mean, I was, I guess, sort of taught this from an early age. 'cause she used to come home and be like, oh, you know, so and so a, am I allowed to swear on here?

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Long: Okay, so and so asshole at X, Y, Z law firm, you know, was rude to me on the phone today and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you know, they don't understand their case and they, you know, they're just sending me a whole bunch of medical records and it's not organized and I can't ever get 'em on the phone. I can only get their paralegals. So it's like, these are the things I'm hearing now in my teenage years, right, where I'm older and I understand it a little bit more.

You know, they never even for, you know, 'cause now they're dealing with the defense lawyer and now the case is resolving, you know, one to two years later. But, you know, that's just a philosophy a lot of lawyers have. But, you know, one of the things I guess I learned from my own mother was that most adjusters.

Don't care. What does that mean? Like they, they aren't like the TV commercials. They're not sitting there trying to figure out how to not get your client money. They just have a job to do and they're not emotionally invested in it at all. Like, they just wanna close the file and go home and go on vacation.

Like they are not sitting there twitching their mustaches, figuring out like, how do I railroad Matt's client? Like they don't care. If it was up to them, they would give me a million dollars every time. And so really the secret is figuring out a way to get them to care so they can go rattle their boss and ask for big checks.

Jonathan Hawkins: And I assume that's served you well in your

Matt Long: It has served me well. I mean, it doesn't always work like that, obviously. 'cause sometimes you have bad facts or sometimes you have, you know, just, you know, cases where the, you know, it's just, it is what it is. But I mean, I, you know, I, and I've been, this is something I've talked about on LinkedIn quite a bit, and a lot of people have agreed with me.

A lot of people have disagreed with me. But I feel that a lawyer's highest and best use is what I'm gonna call social engineering. So that's getting other people to do what your client wants and it's, it's kind of tricky, you know, and it's, it's, you know, so it's. And some might say it's sort of, I don't know, shady.

So if you're a family law attorney and you're fighting over custody, it's a little bit hard to social engineer your outcome, right? But if you're just dealing with money and it's not even that person's money. It's a little bit easier to social engineer the outcome you want through mirroring and, you know, language and building trust and forming relationships.

Like where do your kids go to school again? Like, you're in Philly, are you an Eagles fan? You know, like that type of stuff gets people to like you and trust you a lot quicker than, you know, firing off lawsuits. At least that's been my experience. And so with, and then with other civil litigation where you're just fighting over money and it's not as emotional.

And a lot of people, Jonathan, just wanna be told what to do. Right. And that's lawyers also, in my experience and that's just the way I've always practiced, is like, how can I engineer the outcome the way I want? And typically that's controlling the narrative, controlling the room, whether it's with an adjuster or another lawyer, or even with the judge or you know, the jury or whatever.

So,

Jonathan Hawkins: So how did you learn this? Did somebody teach this to you? Is this something you just sort of figure it out?

I'm gonna try to say this in a way that doesn't sound arrogant. So I've always been a very organized person almost to the point of OCD, right? And that's worked well for me as a lawyer, right?

So in any case, you know, I, I've got, I'm very organized. And more often than not, more often than not, the other side is not. And this is, you know, this is something every lawyer knows what I'm talking about. You know, lawyers don't return phone calls, right? They don't return emails. They don't. You know, so if you are on top of your case more than they are and you're and you've got the lay of the land.

And I didn't learn that anywhere other than just experience because I encounter it so often, at least in my little neck of the woods. Now, maybe if I was at a big law firm, right, an AM 100 firm and I was dealing with AM 100 lawyers on the other side, like who had an army of associates and an army of paralegals, it would be different.

Right. But when you're at a small law firm and you're dealing with other lawyers at other small law firms, you get a wide range of people out there. And I don't know if I'm explaining that well or not, but it's just something that I've learned on my own and by listening to a lot of podcasts and going to conferences and paying attention to sort of the psychological negotiation part of law, you know, the language, part of law, like why words matter, if that makes sense.

Matt Long: Yeah. And I try to, I mean, I go through phases and you know, it's funny, I remember last year around March, my paralegal, who's great. You know, she told me, she's like, Matt, you need to slow down. I was like, what? She's like, you're driving me crazy and you're driving one and everyone else in the office crazy.

Like, she said those words to me. And I was like, okay. Heard. Heard. You know what I mean? Like heard and she's right. I was at capacity and so I would, my temper was shorter. I was more stressed out, you know, and I was driving everyone nuts and I'm glad that she told me that. So I scaled it back.

I scaled it down. I took less work and sort of reset to even, which is, you know, where you wanna be, I think, right.

Matt Long: Oh yeah. No, I am, I'm very open to constructive feedback from everyone in my life, almost to my detriment, you know? So I, I take feedback from everyone here at the office. Well, and listen to what people are saying. And, you know, I want people to feel comfortable telling me that. 'cause if, if I'm stressing everyone out, that's a problem, right?

I don't want people to be stressed out. And that's, you know, one thing that's important for us as a law firm is to not have any like door slammers, you know what I mean? Like someone that's, oh no, like that person's angry today. 'cause that just ruins everyone's day at the office. And so I, I was. Turning into that person and I got called out on it and I'm really glad she said something.

'cause I don't wanna, I don't wanna be that person. I don't wanna be the Oh, Matt's angry. Like, stay away from that guy. 'cause no, no one likes that person.

You post a good bit, you know, what's

Matt Long: yeah. So I'm gonna give, and I'm gonna give someone a plug. Is that allowed?

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I do it.

Matt Long: Okay, so, I had worked with a consultant named Wendy Merrill. She now owns her own company called Strategy Horse.

Jonathan Hawkins: know Wendy.

Matt Long: she, yeah, so she, she's great. And she was the one who told me, she's like, Matt, you know, you, when she say, she's like, you know, you like running your mouth, you're funny and you're self-deprecating.

You need to get on LinkedIn. Like, I think that was literally what she said. And I was like, LinkedIn isn't that like, like what's LinkedIn? You know, isn't that like, I think I have a LinkedIn account. I'm not sure if I've

Jonathan Hawkins: resumes, just

And you know, she has her opinions about it. And I was like, that isn't that for salespeople and recruiters, right. And marketing people. And so. So, you know, she was the one who sort of inspired me. She's like, no, just go on there. Be authentic, you know? And just start yaking away your thoughts. It's like, start yaking away my thoughts.

So anyway, that's what I did and it seemed to work out well for me. And, you know, it took time to figure out like, what do people care about? You know, because, you know, there's a lot of, here are five steps, you know, here are five things that you know you need to do to improve your law firm or fi you know, people don't care about that stuff.

Like, not everyone can be self-deprecating. And so I try to mix in some self-deprecating stuff with some more serious stuff. But my process now is I work out three times a week. I finish my workout, I get in the car, something comes to my mind, I voice to text an email to myself. I edit it. I upload it to ChatGPT, and I say, can you edit this for grammar and spelling?

And then I copy it and paste it, and that's my routine. And I do that three, four times a week. And I've been doing it for like a year now.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So when did you get started? About a year ago or before that?

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I'm trying to think back. 'cause I met Wendy on LinkedIn um,

Matt Long: oh, okay. Yeah, Yeah,

Jonathan Hawkins: and I'm trying to think back when I started. I've been doing, you know, maybe it was three years ago or so, three and a half. I don't know. I'll lose track of time. But it's, it's interesting just my own experience, how it's sort of changed. I mean, more people are there now.

They're always tweaking that algorithm. It's harder, I think, to get lots of reach compared to three years ago. And then you go through these phases where it's video and now you gotta do these pictures and you gotta do this. And there was that time when it was all AI generated photos. And I mean, you go through these waves and then there's some people that are on there that's just slow and steady.

It's like Frank Ramos or same, I don't know if you follow him. Same kind of post. For decade. Yeah, he's been on there for like forever.

Matt Long: And

And you get a little more bold as you do it longer. I think I.

Matt Long: Yeah. And it's, it's funny 'cause I on, you know, the only two social media I use are LinkedIn and Facebook. And I use Facebook a lot more. Like it's fun. I mean, I mainly, I like reading about sports travel and seeing pictures of people's pets. Like that's really my social media. You don't really have that on LinkedIn.

And so for me it's difficult because I'm not really that engaged in like my feed because it's not as interesting to me, you know? I mean, some people are, but, you know, but what I've learned is that if I try and be like my, my, my authentic self on LinkedIn, which is what I am on Facebook, that's where I get the engagement.

Jonathan Hawkins: Nice.

Matt Long: and it was. I had just got an email from someone that was like, here's my offer. I need to hear back from you. Or in four days the offer's off the table. That stuff drives me nuts. And so I went on this rant about how like lawyers do that are horrible lawyers and how I don't even like give the offer to my client, which is of course a lie.

'cause you have to do that. But anyway, I went on a rant and I used a lot of hyperbole, but it created so much engagement, you know, people being like, I feel the same way. You know, I, you know, let me tell you about what happened to me last week. You know, and it just, it hit home with so many lawyers like that little.

Not just with lawyers, but with other people. And then of course, a lot of lawyers chimed in. It's like, I can't believe you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I'm just kidding you.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, there was a post you did fairly recently, I thought was hilarious and just was great. But I, I wanted to get the follow up story to it. It was the one, I mean, if you know anybody that's been on LinkedIn for a while, you just get flooded in your dms with all these you know, solicitations, AI stuff.

It's just, it's obnoxious and it's, you know, the AI stuff, they've gotta clamp down on that. But you went out and posted this thing about, okay, this is my autoresponder message. Here's my email. Just email me instead.

Matt Long: Right, right,

Jonathan Hawkins: what was the response to that? Did it fill your inbox

Matt Long: So

Jonathan Hawkins: or what happened?

So when I posted that, I can't really sit here and say it increased 'cause it was already totally obnoxious. However, enough people said. Matt, you need to get rid of your email that I changed it to just say, please email me. But I didn't give my email. But yeah, ever since I've been using LinkedIn in a way that generates impressions and engagements, all of that stuff ramped up already.

And you know, I, I was just in the audience in the Zoom but you know, that was one of the questions that was asked by one of the people, like, you know, what do you do with all that? And they both said the same thing. I just ignore them. You know, which is what I do, but I get it. You know, like I said, my wife is in sales and she's very good at it, and you know, she doesn't do that.

But has she been in roles where she's had to do that? Yeah. You know, 'cause that's just how sales and marketing works. You know, these blast out on LinkedIn to people, you know.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know, it's a shame. I mean, I'm not sure it works for anybody, you know, I feel like,

Matt Long: Right, right, right,

And then they do that, and then they do it for a while and they're like, yeah, it doesn't work. And so they never do it again. But then there's somebody new that tries it and it's just over and

Matt Long: Well, it's,

Jonathan Hawkins: it's just highly ineffective.

But it, it doesn't bother me anymore. It's kind of a joke. But the reason I did that though was because I do get the legitimate messages, but I don't ever see them because I'm never checking LinkedIn Messenger. So if a lawyer's reaching out to me to refer to me a client or someone else is reaching out to me, I'm never gonna see their message.

'cause I don't ever check LinkedIn Messenger, which, so that's why I put that on the nurse.

Are you getting cases from your LinkedIn stuff?

Matt Long: Right. So the referrals that I've gotten from LinkedIn are from lawyers. And so,

Jonathan Hawkins: But you have?

Matt Long: I have, yeah, and it's, it's mostly, it hasn't really been in the PI world, it's been in the partition suit world. And so to your listeners who don't know what a partition suit is, I didn't even know what one was four years ago.

And at this point, I probably handle more of them than anyone in Richmond right now. And I can say that confidently, like, 'cause I've seen the metrics from the marketing people and where people are clicking.

And so, you know, two, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend buy a house together, right? And then they break up.

They haven't talked to each other in 30 years. That's a partition suit. And so I yak away enough about it on LinkedIn that other lawyers are like, oh, that's what Matt does. And so I'll get referrals from, you know, and the intake team will say, yes. So-and-so Called, they were referred to you by John Smith, Esquire.

I don't know John Smith, Esquire, but I look on LinkedIn and he follows me on LinkedIn. And so that's where it's come in. And then also on the PI side it's, it's happened too. I'll have, you know. People may be from law school or college that I haven't talked to in a long time who are either lawyers or come across a PI situation that, you know, this all comes through intake and they'll tell me, yeah, called.

I don't really have a plan. He said that hopefully I'm allowed to repeat what he just said. I'm just posting and seeing what happens at this point. 'cause I don't think I've been doing it long enough to sort of formulate a plan like Brewster has, because his, you know, his, everyone knows who he is and he gets lots of cases because he's built this brand.

Of, you know, this is the work I do. I'm one of the few people that do it. I do it well. I do it all over the country, and he gets a lot of business. I'm yaking away about cats and travel, so I haven't, you know, I'm haven't gotten to that point yet. You know what I mean? I'm talking about a whole lot of stuff, whereas he's just focusing about these things, if that makes sense.

Jonathan Hawkins: It does. We will talk about the travel in a second,

but

Jonathan Hawkins: you know, I want to hear your experience. So your referrals are they primarily from sort of local, semi-local people? Are they from around the country?

Matt Long: Because everything I do is local, so Yeah, it's all local stuff. Yes. I mean,

Jonathan Hawkins: you're not getting referred a partition case from a lawyer in California.

Matt Long: no, no, no, no, No. Now I have there's a company I work with called with my personal injury work, and I, I'm, I'm a big fan of theirs and I talk about them a lot. A lot of lawyers will reach out to me about them, like, oh, I heard, you know, you talking about them. I'm thinking of using them.

Can I talk to you? I probably have one or one or two of those of a week. And, you know, foreseeably, if that lawyer ever has a PI case in Richmond, you know, maybe they'll remember me. But yeah, it's mostly local.

There's no evidence that they exist. And then I'll bump into them, bump into them somewhere, and they talk about, oh yeah, I see you on LinkedIn all the time. So it's, and I tell people, you know, I tell people that when I encourage them to get on there, it's like you know, you've got people that interact and they see you, but there's this huge population of lawyers that are lurking and they're seeing you and it's like going to a bar event or sending them a note or sending 'em an email.

It's like you're constantly in their face. So why not do it? I mean, I, I know we're busy, but figure out a way to do it.

But with LinkedIn, you know, you can be both and you know, I think having a personal brand is real important in 2025. You know, and so that it allows you to do that and have a platform for doing that, where there's people out there who care about that stuff. 'cause if I were to go on Facebook and talk about lawyer things, no one cares.

No one cares, you know, no one cares at all, so,

Jonathan Hawkins: so you mentioned a minute ago you talked about travel and, and this is something I, I came across and this came across this the other day, and then I was digging, I found you two of these at least. So you, you did a post the other day. You did an $80,000 trip to Europe, and your out-of-pocket cost was 500 bucks.

And then there was another trip, 16 day trip to Italy. $40,000 cost. It only cost you, I don't know, 250 bucks.

Matt Long: So, 15 sec, second synopsis of how I did it is, you know, so, and this is just a, you know, really dumbing it down. So you know, you're on an airplane and you see a little brochure in front of you in the seat, and it says, sign up for this American Airlines card and, you know, spend $3,000 in the next four months and we'll give you, you know, 80,000 American airline points.

Well, you do that and then you do it again, and you do it again, and you do it again until you die. And that's how you do it. And, and it's, it's, it's that's, that's

Jonathan Hawkins: So what do you, you, you canceled the card and then reapply later or

Yes. Everyone's gonna take that deal. The real analysis is in year two, right? So in year two, you either. Downgrade to something without a fee. Right. Or a lot of these cards will give you what's called retention offers, where they will give you a, basically a new signup bonus or you just cancel. And so, you know, if I were to, I have an app that tracks all this stuff for me if I were to pay every annual fee for every card my wife and I have right now, it would be, I think $11,500.

We're not paying $11,500. We're probably paying close to 150 bucks. So, that's the real challenge is dealing with that year to year. But yeah it's, it's really that simple. I mean, it's not that simple, but that's the simple explanation, so.

Matt Long: I am writing a book, sit.

Jonathan Hawkins: points people out there, but are there any points people out there for lawyers, you know,

Matt Long: how I got into it is, you know, I, I kind of got into it a little bit on the cashback side, you know, so, you know, I just had a debit card and then I had a friend who worked at Capital One, and she told me about this, like, you know, 2% Capital One cashback card. I was like, oh, that's interesting. And then I got a travel card.

They're now number two. So they've gone from zero to almost 200,000 members in like. Six years, and they're really geared towards beginners. And so I joined the group and I asked a lot of questions, and that's really where I learned. And I've reached, sent a lot of other people there who have learned there too.

And so I got on I learned by going to that group, specifically asking questions, but then also just kind of learning on my own because it became a hobby. It became something that I got into, you know, like people get into cryptocurrency, right? Or whatever. Like, this is my hobby. But with that being said, I do believe that most of the content out there is confusing.

So that's my goal.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so, so these trips, I mean, obviously you're paying for your tickets. Do they pay for the hotels too? I mean, is

Matt Long: Yeah,

Jonathan Hawkins: paying for meals? I mean, how, how are you

Matt Long: No, No. So like when I say that I took a, so we talked earlier about the hyperbole. So that would be hyperbole. It tossed way more than $550 when you include food and you include gifts and you include all of, and, you know, tours, I'm just talking about the flights in the hotels. So that's all the flights in the hotels cost me.

I still had to pay for everything else, just like everyone else does. But flying over first class or business class with the live flat seating or the suite, you know, and then the five star hotels. I mean, that's all it cost. So,

Jonathan Hawkins: so when is this book coming out? Man? I need a copy.

and I don't, I don't care enough to do that. Like, that works if you're trying to save the universe, right? Like if you wanna write a book about saving the whales, like maybe you self-publish that, but this is not like that. Or you can, pitch it to sort of low like independent publishing houses, right?

That don't really have the reach of the larger ones. And then if you really wanna do well and have it pop, you've gotta pitch it to, you know, bigger publishing houses. And they only work with agents, which is what I learned. And so I'm in the pitching to agent part of this process, and I'm, I'm working with a, an entertainment lawyer who knows a lot about that.

But enough people have seemed interested in it that I think it's going to work out. On the other hand, you know, I use the analogy of cryptocurrency a lot. You know, I have a lot of friends that are really into crypto, like really into it. And according to them, they've made some money with it. I don't know if that's true.

That's what they tell me. And so, kind of like the idea of traveling for free is something most people are interested in. The idea of making money is also something most people are interested in. And so when I asked my crypto friends, Hey, how did you make money with crypto? After about 10 seconds, I tune out and I was like, I don't care.

And that, that's what we gotta figure out. Right?

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, it's interesting you, you gotta, you gotta, you know, you got these gatekeepers, you gotta pitch to the, the agents first, and you're getting turned down probably left and right, and you finally find one. Then they're gonna go pitch to all these other people. You get turned down everywhere.

Matt Long: So that the advice that I got from experts is, don't do any more work until that happens. You've written 40,000 words. Stop working. Let these people do their job and then circle up. And if it works. If it doesn't, don't be one of those people who spin their wheels and pitch a book the rest of their life.

You know, don't worry, don't be, don't be that person. I was like I won't be that person. Don't worry about that. So.

Jonathan Hawkins: If you hit nothing but dead ends, then maybe reconsider the self-published 'cause I will buy it for sure.

I'd be interested in going on someone else's. And then and that's kind of how we connected. But but yeah, no I, I'm interested in, and it's, you know, it's funny 'cause you know, everyone at the office knows I'm into it and we've got 20 people here. How many of how many people here are really into this?

I don't know, two out of 22. So I mean, that, that, that may be enough evidence right there, you know what I mean? I got 20 smart people and only two of them have taken the plunge. The other 18 are like, I don't care.

Jonathan Hawkins: true. But they want it. They just don't wanna work for it. You're selling the dream. You're

Matt Long: right,

Right, right.

Jonathan Hawkins: and you're giving 'em the playbook. You know, only two outta 20 are actually gonna do anything with it. But you just, you know, I would be one of those, but

It's like I, this platform is not the type of platform where I can engage in the back and forth that we need to do to answer your questions. You know, about your trip to Rome, so,

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, that's really cool stuff. So, another thing I came across, you're a poker player, so,

Matt Long: yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: how serious of a poker player

Matt Long: I mean, I'm not that serious. I play, I, there's a, I mean. I live in Richmond. The closest real casino is the MGM National Harbor in Maryland. It's like an hour and a half drive. I go there once a month, spend the night and play poker. So, so I guess I'm that serious.

Jonathan Hawkins: are you, are you one of the sharks taking, taken advantage of the, the tourists or you are you

So, you know, Virginia legalized sports gambling, you know, and I am not a reckless gambler person, but I am into football and I am into sports. So I started messing around with that and I was like, oh, that's kind of fun. And then I was like, you know, I used to play a lot of poker when I was younger. Maybe I should start doing that again.

And then I just, I kind of got into that. So that's been kind of my new hobby maybe over the last, you know, nine months to a year. So,

Jonathan Hawkins: Are you a, Are you a math guy?

I mean, I don't, I'm not an expert, you know, there's people that, you know, are professionals. I, it's just really something I do for fun, and the stakes are really low. So if I lose, I'm not gonna lose a lot of money. I'm not really gonna make a lot of money either. But maybe that's the next thing is sitting at the high limit table and seeing what happens.

I'm sure my wife would love that.

Jonathan Hawkins: Honey, I put the house

Matt Long: Right, right, right, right,

Jonathan Hawkins: put the keys in in the pot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's cool. So, so let's switch, switch back to the firm. So, are you president of the firm? Is that your. You know, you're a partner, but you're also president.

Matt Long: as of January 1st of this year. Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: So what does that mean? What kind of stuff do you have to do as president?

You know, it's smaller firms, you know, or the fragmentation is more like the individual lawyer paralegal teams. Right. And I don't know how it is at other firms. I just know how it is here and I know how it was at my last firm and at that firm and this firm. The lawyer, paralegal combo teams are almost kind of like their own mini law firm, so to speak.

And that's kind of what I do. I've got my eye on that. You know, I work closely with our office manager who's got his eye on that, sort of the day-to-day, making sure all the pieces are fitting together the way they're supposed to. I don't know if I explain that well or not, but that's what I spend a lot of my time doing, is making sure that pieces are fitting together.

So the law firm itself as a whole is plowing forward and doing what it's supposed to do, and things are going well, while at the same time, everyone's kind of siloed in their own little universe. And I don't know how common that is at other law firms, but that's the way I've always seen it, everywhere I've ever worked.

Jonathan Hawkins: it's, I think it's pretty common. So, I mean, managing lawyers is not an easy task. So you've been doing it for a little while now. What have you learned and what kind of advice do you have for others out there that may have be in the.

same position

And it's really hard to get them off that wheel. And so my advice would be, recognize that. Right? recognize the reality of what you're dealing with. And that these are highly intelligent, highly capable people, right? Who went to law school because they're smart. And most importantly, they wanted to have a job where they weren't micromanaged and weren't told what to do every day.

You know what I mean? They like to argue. They're very smart. They see loopholes. So respect that, right? And figure out a framework that works for them and puts them in the best position to be the best lawyers they can be. And part of that is your own responsibility not to do the bad habits that a lot of partners and a lot of managers do.

You know what I mean? Don't offload your client's procrastination onto your other lawyers. You know, people do that too. Like the client comes to you with like a last minute thing, you know, you need to own that yourself or you need to tell the client to go to hell with their last minute request one or the two.

But what you don't wanna do is then offload that to somewhere else. And I, I see that being a big mistake that a lot of lawyers make is the offloading of others' procrastination because there is nothing that will get your lawyers to hate you more than that. And that's the best advice I can probably give.

Matt Long: And, you know, with and with staff, you know, it's different and, and, you know, staff, they can't ever be promoted to lawyer, right? So they can come here and work as hard as they possibly can every day. They're never gonna get promoted to lawyer. They're never gonna get promoted to partner, I guess, unless they're in Arizona or DC Now, where that's allowed, but not allowed.

In Virginia, we still have the non the prohibition, non-lawyer ownership. And so, you know, you've gotta put. Processes in place that, you know, make their job easier, but also make it so they enjoy coming to work. So when they go home and talk to their spouse about how their day was, they're not like, my day sucked.

So that's the type of world we live in now, where there's so many options for people working from home, you know, doing things that are totally different than the way things were 20 years ago. You know, someone who's gonna get in their car and drive to an office and work at a law firm, you've gotta make that a positive experience for them.

And I think lawyers need to respect that and understand that is their reality and [00:58:00] do everything they can. To make sure, while at the same time, balancing the fact that you need rules, you need processes, and you need accountability. And that's sort of the challenge that comes with being a manager or a partner is, you know, letting people, not micromanaging people, but at the same time making sure there's accountability.

And as you get old, as you get larger, of course that becomes even more challenging. It's really easy when it's just you and someone else. But when there's 20 people, 30 people, 40 people, that's when it gets challenging. So

Jonathan Hawkins: That's great advice. Really great advice. There's a ton that we were not able to get to today. We talked about a lot of good stuff. There's a ton we didn't get to but I appreciate you coming on and I am looking forward to that book. Seriously. Seriously. So for anybody out there, you know, and I encourage everybody to find you on LinkedIn, gi, give Matt long a follow really good funny stuff and interesting post.

Matt Long: Well you, assuming there aren't any marketing people from strange companies listening, you can email me at MLong@btclawva.com MLong@, and our URL is btclawva.com. I am really easy to reach by email, probably easier than any lawyer out there. Not the best with the telephone, but very good. If you email me, you will hear back from me within 24 hours, top, probably within an hour.

So LinkedIn and email are the best ways to get in touch with banks.

Jonathan Hawkins: Awesome. Matt, this has been fun, man. Thanks for coming on.

Matt Long: Absolutely. Thank you.