What would you do if you were diagnosed with leukemia just as your law firm was starting to take off, and your wife was seven months pregnant? James P. Joseph faced exactly that. In this episode, we dive into how he built a thriving firm, overcame life-threatening illness, and redefined success in the process. But the real story? It’s what he let go of along the way. What if the key to growth isn’t doing more, but learning to say no?

I mean, it could be all sorts of things. Some people are just political animals. What got you involved in the bar and what sort of benefits have you received along the way? I know once you get on that ladder, it takes many, many years to, to all of a sudden ascend to the presidency.

So I know you've it a long time.

James P. Joseph: Yes. So, I can speak from my bar association and I presume, you know, it's similar across the country. You know, and to the point that you just made about these different groups, Atticus and so many others, the value of these professional relationships and on so many levels and on the level that you're referring to where we get to see what other people are doing and we share and we learn from them.

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

Let's dive in.

So excited to welcome James Joseph today. He is the founder of Joseph Law Group, which is a matrimonial firm in Long Island, New York. And so he's done a bunch of other cool stuff too. We'll get into that, but James, why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us about your firm how many attorneys, you know, how long you've been doing it, that sort of thing.

James P. Joseph: Sure. Sure. So thank you Jonathan for the kind and generous words. I do really appreciate it. It was so great to finally meet you in person. You know, not only did we have the back and forth on LinkedIn, in the last year or so. But I always have been a big fan of your podcast, so feel really fortunate to be here and to have had that time that we got to know each other a bit.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you started five years outta law school? So, you know, I asked this question. I'm always very interested. You know, there are some folks that sort of knew, they're like, I'm gonna start my firm. It's just a matter of when, not if, and there are others. That said, I never thought about it. I just sort of fell into it. Which camp do you fall into?

James P. Joseph: So great question and ironically, my wife and I had this conversation this morning. So, if she were answering it, she would tell you, and she's probably right. And as a divorce lawyer, I'll say, she's always right. But she will say that I was in the camp of, this was my destiny. I would not have stayed as an employee in another firm.

And she said, absolutely not. You were destined to run your own practice.

Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, you know, that's a good point about, you know, a lot of firms start when a former firm implodes.

James P. Joseph: And, And this one didn't implode until years later, but it was on that path and you know, just was wonderful lawyers, smart, hardworking lawyers who just didn't know how to run a business and just couldn't turn a profit. And it was just not a great place to be an employee.

And it wasn't great for them either. And they ultimately all enjoyed a lot of success when they went their own ways.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Yeah. It's implosion can be a slow implosion or a quick implosion, but

James P. Joseph: Yes.

James P. Joseph: Yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: it?

And when I went in to ask my boss for a raise who, you know, remained a mentor, you know, until his death a number of years ago he said to me, you know, what, what, how much do you think I should be paying you? And I said, honestly, double. And he said to me, you're right. He said, but we have no money. You know, he is like, we can't pay our bills.

But she's been very supportive these nearly 30 years. And and here we are.

Jonathan Hawkins: so your wife's a lawyer too, right?

James P. Joseph: She is. Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: Does she practice?

I think it's not the passion of many matrimonial law lawyers. And so recently she went back to the district attorney's office where she couldn't be happier. So she's once again in, in doing what she loves.

Jonathan Hawkins: that's cool. So, so I wanna ask, so, to the extent you're comfortable talking about it, so, you know, you can learn a lot by mistakes of others. And so you mentioned that the other firm weren't very good business people. They weren't able to pay you. As you look back, I mean, what any lessons learned there?

What were some of the things they were doing wrong?

James P. Joseph: Countless lessons for which I'm very grateful. And so what did they do wrong? So I think the biggest problem was the matrimonial side of the practice had just started to grow when I joined the firm, and they didn't know anything about the importance of client selection of billing, of collecting.

And, And I, I later battled the same thing when I started my own practice. So I guess it took me a long time to learn the lesson. But one of the stories I like to share is I was two years outta law school when I started there. The senior associate was three years out of law school. And I said to him, I've never billed before.

How does it work? And he said, well, we're generally here 12 hours a day, try to capture four. So we would capture four of the 12 hours we worked and we worked hard. And then the boss, when he would bill, he was probably billing half of those hours. Maybe collecting half of that. So, so that was one of the really valuable lessons.

Jonathan Hawkins: keep coming. Yeah. This, this is, This is good stuff.

James P. Joseph: And, And they were invaluable. One of the, back in the day, we used to have when you get a message from your staff, a phone message, it was on a three part there was a book, a phone answering book, and you'd get these little, not many people, I guess will see us on the video more.

We'll probably listen, but you'd get the little, you know, three by five size message. And we would have a question for the partner. We being myself and the two other associates at the time. So we would go into his office and he'd be chain smoking because back then too many people did that, and across his desk would be literally.

50 of these three part messages, phone calls that he needed to return. And he'd be smoking and calling people back and we would sit there for two hours. And so he clearly was not good at managing his phone calls. And we would wait. And he wasn't good at managing our time. 'cause we would sit in the room waiting to ask our question.

And we would tell him, he'd say, I don't know the answer. You guys are lawyers. This is what I pay you to do. Figure it out. And it would be said lovingly. And you know, there's no criticism of him other than he, like all of us wasn't trained to run businesses. He wanted to practice law. And that was a problem.

So we, I learned a lot. he was very good. I was, had not been somebody who was a. All that networked kind of person, and he was great at that, and I would sit and get to listen to this. Man who was an expert in that arena on the phone for two hours most days, which is also why we weren't billing all that much.

And so. All day, we would put out fires. And I joke now, at the time I had been a volunteer fireman and I really enjoyed putting out real fires. There were, you know, as a fireman, and this may be terrible to say, but from the fireman side, there's never enough. You know, you never wanna see people lose their homes, but, you know, there was not enough fires to keep us busy at work.

All I did all day was put out fires, and that's terrible. And that was really upsetting. We couldn't, we would have motions and we, we could never respect the due dates because we didn't have, there was no time in the day because we were so busy because our caseload was unmanageable. And so, I, when I left, I, I knew that what we were doing was wrong.

And I thought with although I've never been accused of being arrogant, but with the confidence of a 20 something year old you know, who had a marketing degree. So I had a business degree. I was sure I was going to be a better business person. And then I started my own practice and we'll get to that.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I'll tell you, you know, doing a lot of work, working 12 plus hours a day and not getting paid, I mean, you're just stressing yourself out. I mean, if you're gonna work that hard, you gotta make sure you're getting paid. And, you know, I say this a lot, it's like, you know, there is you know, it is good to do pro bono work.

You can if you can, but do it on purpose, not on accident.

James P. Joseph: Brilliant.

Jonathan Hawkins: and

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: it's just so, yeah, and I get it too. I mean, the family law, divorce context, everybody's emotional. You feel bad. I mean, they're going through a tough time and you want to be helpful, but you know, if you aren't getting paid you aren't helping any of your clients probably.

James P. Joseph: Completely agree. You're not helping your clients, you're not helping yourself. It's not fair to your firm. You know, just a terrible I had, I had a similar to what you say, I had a. A wise lawyer say to me earlier in my career, choose your pro bono cases. Don't let them choose you. And as a result of that, we made it a habit.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

James P. Joseph: that was very helpful to me.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Okay. So five years after law school, you start your firm. Tell me about that. So, I assume, were you able to bring some cases with you? How'd you get the cases now back then? You know, 98 I guess I. The internet is starting, but you know, completely different world than it is today where everything's basically in the cloud and virtual.

So it's a different setup. You know, nowadays you just need a computer and internet connection really. And a

James P. Joseph: Right.

Jonathan Hawkins: and you can go, so tell me about getting it off the ground. What was that like?

And quite frankly, you know, it was probably frowned upon and that's how I was brought up as a lawyer that we're professionals and we don't advertise. And and there wasn't the availability to advertise like there is now. And so it was all word of mouth. So when I started my practice. You know, I think in the first month, I, you know, or two months, I, at some point I had three clients.

But again, I was making money. You know, I remember, you know, coming home to my wife and or calling her saying, I got a check for $3,500 we're rich. You know, I mean, it was a lot of money, right? I was making, you know, 4,000 a month before that, or not even. And so, you know, of course I had, you know, some overhead, not a lot, but, so I didn't have, I had very few cases in the beginning and, you know, worked hard.

I knew a lot of people I was at some point I got active in our local Kiwanis Club, another community service organization. So I, I had a decent circle of people outside of the law. And then when my wife started in the DA's office right out of law school, the class of attorneys that started with her, there were probably 30 lawyers.

And every week they, and myself, I, we were dating at the time not yet married. We would go out for happy hour, and so I got to know these 30 young lawyers who were criminal prosecutors. By the time I started my practice, the majority of them had started their own practices. And in the beginning, like many lawyers, when they start out, they take everything.

So, you know, I was able to develop a reputation pretty quickly. Which, which helped the practice grow.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, so I don't wanna circle back to that but first, so when you started your firm was it just you, did you have another attorney? Did you have a paralegal? What was the setup?

James P. Joseph: Just me. I don't recall when we first, when I hired my first assistant you know, at some point I hired a secretary, you know, but probably not, you know, I, I don't know if that happened in the first, you know, maybe in the first six months to a year would be my best guess.

Jonathan Hawkins: I guess if you have three cases to begin with you don't have much work

James P. Joseph: Right. You don't need a lot of help.

Jonathan Hawkins: So you know, run a firm. So, you know, I sort of look at it, you can probably divide it lots of different ways, but you know, there's sort of three big areas, right? There's the being a lawyer and delivering the legal part and that, you know, we learn that pretty quickly.

I mean, unless you're in some super area, you can learn that pretty quickly. And then you've got sort of the marketing, you know, how do you get your cases? And then the other part is running the business, all the other stuff.

James P. Joseph: Yeah. So, at first it, you know, it was the misplaced confidence that I had a bachelor's degree a business of BBA very quickly. I, I, I learned that. I couldn't find the time to run the business because I got busy and I, you know, I quickly got more cases and began to find myself drowning similar to what had happened at my other firm.

And I said, you know, Bob, of course, you know, I'd love to hear from you. And he said, you know, you're, you're really smart, you know, young lawyer, you're gonna do great. You know, you have a great career ahead of you. But the one bit of advice I'll give you, you need to return phone calls timely. And I literally broke out in a cold sweat.

I was, this was the one thing that I had sworn to myself, I would not. Put myself or my clients in ever again. And here I am. I've been out on my own for three years. And that's exactly what's happened. And it was kind of that wake up call. I'm doing exactly what, you know, I had left to build something better.

And so I signed up for that. And as they say, the rest is history went to this and it was life changing. So I can tell you a little bit of, if, you know, I'm happy to,

James P. Joseph: yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: and you know, it's amazing still, and I'm curious your opinion too, but even today you know, with a coach on every corner there's still a lot of attorneys that are just out there floundering. And they just don't know where to go. So, you know, something like that be very helpful for them.

For them. So, so you go to the seminar. Does it

James P. Joseph: Yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: you away? Tell me, Tell me.

James P. Joseph: Blows me away. So, so a couple things happened stories I, I've shared countless times because it was so powerful for me. And we just had an employee start yesterday, and I shared this one story in particular where Mark Powers the founder of Atticus said so there's a group, and at the time I'm, I'm one of the youngest in the group, so let's say there's 40 attorneys in the room, and he said, all right, let's take a couple of minutes and I just want you to jot down what do you like to do in your free time?

You know, that you would have no life outside of your practice, you know, and of course it was not. And then at some point later, over the course of the seminar, he said to us, I guess towards the end, so this is what, this is your marching orders. What I want you to do is, unless you have a trial coming up, stop working weekends.

And not only did he tell us to stop working weekends, but he said, I also want you to take once a month, take one midweek day off. And he said, he laughed and he said, none of you'll know what to do with your free time because you have no interests or hobbies. He said, so go to the movies, you know, just do something but get away from your office.

And at that point he had explained very clearly the benefits of doing that or at least a fair amount of them. But, but I still wasn't fully convinced. And so I pulled him aside at a break. I said, mark, I, you know, I want to ask you a question. I said, you have to understand I'm, you know, and I'll do that.

And he smiled and he said, James, let me ask you a question. He said, if you wrote another motion, would that make you a better lawyer? I said good point. You know, at this point, definitely not. He said, okay. He said, what if instead, you had time to strategize? What if you could, what if you had, you could really think about your cases and, and, you know, figure out the best approach.

And I said, gosh, mark, like that's a no brainer. Right? It makes total sense. And you know, in my firm, you know, we're really proud that we're proactive, not reactive and that we can only do that. That's not because we're brilliant that we can only do that because we run the firm. Right.

And we can only run the firm. Right. Because I've been coached for 20 plus years you know, through Atticus and now, you know, you know, with a lot of different resources that have become available to us.

Jonathan Hawkins: So I gotta ask did you take the weekends off and the one day a week, did you do

James P. Joseph: I,

Jonathan Hawkins: how long

James P. Joseph: you know,

James P. Joseph: great question. I, I can't imagine that changed overnight and not back then because I wasn't staffed up enough to, you know, and I was still, I still had too many. Cases that were not appropriate for my firm, you know, is the best way to put it. So, you know, there's a lot that goes into being able to do that.

It's completely doable and it leads to a better life and a better practice better, you know, we do better lawyering when we are careful with how we, who we led into our practice. So, I, so I don't recall I'd be making it up. It took a while, I'm sure, but it reached a point where you know when Atticus would do certain seminars and quarterly meetings, and they would ask some of us from the experience group to go in and talk to the new people and mark over at lunch, and Mark would say to us, do me a favor.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I'll tell you, you know, even if you didn't immediately implement it, it is a good goal to shoot for and you know, a good starting goal.

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Starting goal.

Jonathan Hawkins: so, so you got, you, you became more and more involved with the Atticus. You you know, your firm grew. It became more of a business you started operating.

It's more as a business now at some point. I understand you, you sort of became a coach or did some coaching for lawyers at, with Atticus or maybe elsewhere.

James P. Joseph: So,

Jonathan Hawkins: me about that.

James P. Joseph: so Atticus you know, I have such, you know, love and respect for the organization and for Mark Powers and Shawn McNalis, who was my personal coach and writes a lot of materials and, you know, if I start mentioning names I'll omit somebody. And I don't wanna offend because so many had such a great impact on me.

And I had been around so long and you, you know, for whatever reason, Mark and Shawn said, Hey, why don't we start training you, you know, would you have any interest? We'll train you to coach. You can help us run these meetings and, you know, work under dur us, work with us. And that was, you know, an incredible, you know, I.

Again, that they had such a big impact on my life. Shawn coached me. Maybe we'll have time to get to it, you know, through some really tough times in my life and very effectively. And so I was happy for the opportunity. So I began to help. I began to help them run what at the time was called a Dominate Your Market Program for matrimonial attorneys.

And not rocket science, but, you know, but powerful lessons I learned. And so they ended up developing a program to train other clients of theirs as coaches. So, and they, they still have that, it's very effective. Their APA program Atticus Practice Advisor program. So I became an attic. I did some more training with, they did some formal training, which was phenomenal.

Became an Atticus practice advisor. Coached a couple of attorneys along the way. I don't do it anymore. I'm at a different stage in life and I'm doing some exciting things with the firm and my local Bar Association. I'm about to become president next week. And it's a, a very big local bar association.

We have 3,700 members. We have our own building. We have an in-house caterer. So it's a lot of work, a lot of responsibilities. So, so I've put that part of my, that chapter aside for now.

James P. Joseph: You know, it's interesting, when I interviewed for my bar association board for the first time, you know, 15 some odd years ago we go before a panel of you know, at the time, you know, older, more experienced attorneys. And one of the past presidents, when he saw what I was doing, I was volunteering in, in a number of different charities.

And one would share how, you know, when the copying machine broke, you know, he was the younger guy, he'd fix the copy machine. And, you know, if and I remember when I started my practice maybe I'll tease our listeners, your listeners. Maybe they don't remember stamps, but you know, I used to go to the post office when I started my practice and I'd go buy stamps and I'd go back, you know, later in the week and drop off my letters.

And so what I learned was that really is inefficient and lawyers should do you know, what's their highest and best use you know, is practicing law. And in a hourly firm, you know, there's this very direct correlation and in a contingency firm, you know, ultimately that pays off too. And so early on through coaching, understood the value, understood that it wasn't a cost to hire staff, it was an investment.

And Atticus a amongst the countless lessons they taught me that as the firm owner, I can't adopt people. That's not fair to the rest of the firm. And it's not fair to those people because what I have seen is in firms where they. Where they would hire poorly and not fix those errors. You'd have people that have been working in a place for 10 years, they know they're not respected.

And that, and so the lawyers practice law and, we work very efficiently so that we don't spend 12 hours in the office regardless of how much we bill. You know, I'm, money has never been the biggest driving force in my life. Maybe to a fault. But it, it's really important that we have a life outside of law.

Mark Powers, you know, highlighted that even as a lawyer for me that's possible. And and it's, and so that's allowed me to do a lot of other things that other lawyers, you know that, had I not been exposed to this, I wouldn't believe is possible either.

Jonathan Hawkins: So just made a ton of good points, but I wanna maybe bring out two. One is, you know, the people. And it's really more, I mean, the people are what matters, you know, if you really want to go, you gotta get good people. Everybody knows that, I would hope. But the flip side of that is if somebody's not right, you gotta get rid of them.

And that's, it's not easy. It's hard,

James P. Joseph: Yes.

James P. Joseph: Right.

Jonathan Hawkins: but then the other piece is these groups like Atticus and there are other groups out there where you get to hang out and talk to other owners sort of a support system. And they can tell you that you may know it, like, I gotta do it. I probably shouldn't be, you know, keeping this person on. But they'll call you out on it and they say, next time I see you, you better have made your move or whatever. And then it sort of, it helps. I mean, I, I've been there and those groups are, you know really valuable. So anybody out there that's not in a group like this, you know, definitely encourage you to do that.

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: Let's talk about your, your, is it you're gonna be president of the bar

James P. Joseph: Yes, president.

Jonathan Hawkins: So tell me about, you know, your experience in the bar that, you know, some people view it as a they're giving back to the community. Some people view it as a business development sort of thing.

So I know you've

James P. Joseph: Yes,

Jonathan Hawkins: it a long time.

James P. Joseph: Yes. So, I can speak from my bar association and I presume, you know, it's similar across the country. You know, and to the point that you just made about these different groups, Atticus and so many others, the value of these professional relationships and on so many levels and on the level that you're referring to, where we get to see what other people are doing and we share and we learn from them.

So, we have we have a charitable arm of our bar association. We care, the bar covers all of their expenses. So every dollar they raise, they get to give back to local charities and they give out a few hundred thousand dollars a year. So we have a lot of lawyers involved in that. We have our, we run our academy of law, the continuing legal education we run out of there.

But then also there are attorneys that, that are part of our lab program that will come in and help them run their firms and cover cases and deal with the fallout if they have to go into rehab or whatever else it may be. So, so much good happens at many bar associations, mine included. So it, it fulfills that I.

That charitable side of things. And then from a networking standpoint at least for me as we discussed earlier so much of my work has always come from other attorneys and then has been representing other lawyers in their own divorces that it's a great place for me to be. And although I've been a member of my bar association, you know, probably for almost as long as I've been an attorney at.

I was very involved with Atticus, with, you know, coaching and being coached and said, you know, I'm out of balance and I'm not, you know, taking the ti kind of time off that I had become accustomed to. And the coach wisely explained to me, he said, James you can't do everything. You have to learn how to say no.

I have a funny LinkedIn post I did a year ago about the importance of saying no, and that's probably, you know, where it comes from. And he said to me, James, figure out where you, what organization will serve multiple purposes. Pick that one to put your time into, and the other ones put your money into.

And so, so it was for me, a bit of a no brainer. I will say it's a lot of work. And I knew that going into it when I when I began to interview for our executive committee is, is a ladder once you get on it, and it's really a six year ladder because the six year we're the immediate past president and.

Jonathan Hawkins: I hear that's the best year, by the

James P. Joseph: Yes, Yes. I, I, I, I do believe that, and I'd be lying if I said I don't, I don't look forward. I, as I certainly am looking forward to this year, and I certainly am looking forward to that year as well. And so it took several years of interviewing before you finally get chosen. So I was probably 48 when I thought this was a great idea.

I'm now 58 and I'm, I am honored to serve and I'm excited and looking forward to it, and I'm looking forward to being the immediate past president as well.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I wish you a, a good year. I know. It's a ton of work. I've not personally done it, but I've seen people, I've talked to people and there it's like, oh my gosh. Ton of work.

James P. Joseph: Yes, yes, It in front of you, so, so good luck.

yes. Thank you.

And you're there and you just, you never know what's gonna come out of the blue. But something almost always is gonna come out of the blue. So, how you deal with it is

James P. Joseph: Yep.

Jonathan Hawkins: You know,

James P. Joseph: Yeah.

Jonathan Hawkins: again you've spoken on this on, can find it. I think it's very powerful. But, you know,

James P. Joseph: Thank you.

Jonathan Hawkins: what happened.

Life is hard. And I think that's kind of a baseline and I think accepting that can make life easier and more enjoyable. We're all gonna get our teeth kicked in at some point. You know, I used to think that divorce law was economy proof. I figured if the economy was, was good, people would have money and they would cheat.

And if the economy was bad, they would fight. And, you know, I, I don't say that lightheartedly, you know, it's sad but I always, you know, thought we're fine. And then, you know, oh eight hit. And business dropped off for everybody. I hated going to court because all my adversaries were lamenting how bad business was.

My doctor, who was a friend, was very concerned. He had lost a, a friend who was, when they were residents to leukemia. So he red flagged it. My internist said, ah, don't worry about it. You've always had a white blood, high, white blood cell count. We did another follow-up test and my internist said, the other doctor said.

I'm sending it to a hematologist, and I was outwardly healthy. Life was great. I, you know, I've always been a relatively fit guy, and so I really thought nothing of it. My wife who tragically lost her father to cancer when she was a senior in college was, you know, a bit more concerned. But one Friday she went to work.

I had my own firm. I, you know, went to the doctor's office. And this young doctor who I ended up representing ironically, or coincidentally or not, I guess, did some blood work, came back a little bit later with tears in his eyes. He knew my wife was pregnant. He had just had a newborn himself, unbeknownst to me at the time, his marriage was failing.

And to this day it moves me, you know, this poor, you know, we were kids, you know, compared to where we are now. And she had our child inside of her, and she knew something was wrong and I, you know, did not, never saw this coming. And so I had, I was diagnosed with a chronic leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which a chronic disease is often slow moving.

I was fortunate within you know, six months to a year I was able to get to. The world renowned expert of CLL at the time, the staging system was named after him. This, the wonderful, beautiful man, Dr. Kanti Rai happens to practice, right, right in my, on Long Island. And I think he's still not retired and he's gotta be well into his nineties.

And so, so for the next four years I was in what's known as watch and wait. So no one knew. We told our closest friends, but of course who's hiring a divorce lawyer who has cancer. And I'll probably say it more than once, but I, I'm the poster child for perfect Outcomes. I was cured 18 years ago and I've been in perfect health ever since.

So for the next four years, every, you know, we would, I would compartmentalize it, but you know, of course it was a lot of stress on my wife and our, you know, young children and me too, you know, probably still in denial to a degree, but every three months you'd go and you'd be waiting for the shoe to drop.

That is still a very risky procedure. Back then, it was even riskier. But before we started chemo, he sent me up to Boston because back then it was not as common a procedure. So there were only a few really great transplant hospitals in the country. One was in Boston, and so we went to Boston and we did a consultation with a doctor up there.

And so for the next two years I had chemo on and off. And again, I was always, the poster child for, you know, it always was the best of the worst, I guess. And so I didn't know what was gonna happen. I had two trials coming up that September. I pulled both judges aside. I said, please keep this quiet.

And so, hair loss wasn't really an issue. And so I, so people still didn't know, and so from oh five to oh seven, I had periodic chemotherapy and it was just a scheduling issue. And on the light days, I would be, I would go to chemo at eight and I'd be in court at nine 30 and nobody knew.

And we just kept we had to tell my office at that point. But everyone understood, we, there's no need to tell clients, we're not deceiving them. I'm functioning fine, you know, under a lot of pressure, but functioning fine. And doing a nice job, you know, proud of the work we did back then. I had a couple associates at the time.

And then in, in oh six or right around Christmas time, it became clear and the decision was made. It was time to get a, a stem cell transplant. And that's, you know, you know, I could, you know, we could spend a lot of time talking about that. But the goal is to get to get as little disease as possible in me, the patient and to find a perfect match.

There's a couple of outfits that do it. I think one is be the match. You know, it's they would a cheek swab and you'll be saving somebody's life. And somebody saved my life you know, because, somebody who was, you know, the same match. So I got, I was found, got a perfect match. And, but it took time.

So from December through that July or that June, we were just kind of waiting for the stars to align, for me to be healthy for the, my donor to be healthy. And they flew somebody halfway across the world from Dana-Farber to pick up the stem cells. And and I said goodbye to my girls. We, I was told there was a two and seven chance as I recall, that I wouldn't make it.

I was told there was a. Two. And, And still, you know, is, is moving, you know, 18 years later,

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

They look like any other New York plate. You wouldn't know it unless I told you it's 7 5 0 7 the date of my transplant, July 5th oh seven. I'll be celebrating my 18th three birthday next month. Based on our filming. And so had the transplant, everything worked out great and, you know, and for years I would go back once a year for checkups, and the doctor and I kind of recognized that this was silly.

I'm cured. They don't like saying cured. But I, it became obvious after a number of years that there was no trace of disease in me. But I would, but I, I still felt good going because I could talk to the other patients and, you know, they could see that, you know, some people, you know, it works out really well for, so, so anyway, so, so here I am very happy and relieved.

And you know, the child that was in vitro now lives in la 23, 23 years old, doing great. She'll be flying back home for my installation in a week or so.

I don't know if, did it change? I'm sure it did all sorts of things to you, but how did it change, sort of your outlook on life, your firm you know, was it before and after? I mean, is it sort of like that?

James P. Joseph: You know, it took me a long time to recognize and accept the impact of it. And, you know, as a divorce attorney, we work with a lot of mental health professionals. And I've done some collaborative work, which involves at the table, the negotiating table, you'll have a mental health professional.

Became close with quite a few. And one day I was sharing my story and, and I. Once one of my friends said to me, she said, you know, you still have not dealt with this and you're not understanding the impact it had. And I, and for a long time I wouldn't talk openly about it because post-transplant, it takes a long time before you feel safe.

It's helped me a lot and that's, you know, I have the license plate because I think, you know, we all get caught up in the day to day and, you know, we wake up and we, oh, I got this to do and I have that to do, and oh, my life's so hard. And and that's all true. But we also woke up and I think.

I work hard to remain in gratitude. Atticus gives us hands out a nice card that I keep on my desk, which are, are there I, I'll show to, to the extent that people see this. And it, it's two parts, but it says, in daily life, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.

And so living with masks and gloves is something that my kids did when they were very young, five and seven, you know, so that I wouldn't get sick and something, you know, that I lived with. And so we were able to donate. We have a friend who you know, in the medical field, and we gave her literally a thousand N95 masks because we had them from, you know, 10 plus years ago at the time.

You know, so, so it taught us a lot. So I understand you know, we all understand it rationally. I think it's something that I try to, I try, I work hard to think about a lot, and I don't do it. You know, I do it because I think we should all hopefully live our lives that way because life is short and bad things happen to all of us.

But but we went and the first day was amazing and really had an impact us. And day two comes and there's 12 of us. There was one criminal defense attorney and 11 divorce lawyers. And the monk brother Curtis, with a twinkle in his eyes, says to us, something amazing happened this morning and I inch up in my seat 'cause I can't wait to hear that the impact that US divorce lawyers had on these monks.

And he got on the throughway and he got killed in a car accident. And brother Curtis had just, you know, undergone this really rough tragedy, and yet he's still able to be grateful every morning that he woke up. And I've taken that with me and I've told that story, you know, easily a thousand times.

I told it to my Uber driver when we were down in Florida. I had an Uber driver who clearly was in recovery. Hopefully he was recovered but really struggling. And I and I was excited to share that with him. You know, as he was lamenting how hard he works and he can't make ends meet. And so, so for me, I think, it's probably easier for me to be philosophical having gone through, you know, what I went through and my family went through and, you know, it's corny and, and, you know, if you're currently a cancer patient out there, you know, my heart, you know, goes out to you and you may, and you won't be ready to hear this.

It's impacted my firm and all for the better, you know, and just, and it's impacted, you know, I think my clients benefit from it, you know, from us recognizing what's important and you know, when I was a young lawyer I became a lawyer. I went to the try cases. And early on I knew that trials are generally not in divorcing clients' best interests.

There are times you need to do it. And I would tell the clients back then, you know, look, I enjoy that this isn't about me having fun. We have to do, you know, what's right for your family. We understand that I think here on a deeper level and are work hard to make sure that clients are doing what's right for them rather than being guided just by emotion and running up fees unnecessarily.

And I think all that kind of goes into this history that I had.

I mean, just really sort of amazing that you were able to do that. I

James P. Joseph: Yes, great observation. And I'm laughing. You know, we, we grew revenue wise, gross revenue, 40, and this is pre-internet, you know, this is referral based market, you know, we grew 40% a year, our gross revenue from the time I started through chemo, through transplant, stopping only after the financial crisis.

And, you know, so through it all somehow, you know, and, and again I won't, the only patting on my back I will do is that I was fortunate enough to find experts to give me guidance and, whatever adjective we want to use. Smart enough, humble enough, desperate enough to be ready to accept their guidance, you know, and maybe the cancer helped me accept that too.

But Maybe that's where I, I recognize for the first time that you need to find the best, you need to find experts, and then you need to trust them. And that's hard to do. You know what I feel for my clients, it's hard, you know, they're putting a lot of trust in us, and there are some clients that have a really hard time doing that.

But you need to find the right, the right people to, you know, there's a term called your, your rope team. You know, the people on your rope team. The I think this blind climber, I think I saw a great video of her. She spoke at an Atticus event. And I may get the story wrong, but you know, she needed a rope team to climb.

And you know, that's not reality. You know, we can't, and in the modern world, you know, flying solo in life is a big mistake and there's so much, and now with the internet, there's so much information and advice available. You know, it's incredible. So,

Jonathan Hawkins: So,

James P. Joseph: thank you,

Jonathan Hawkins: Yes,

James P. Joseph: you for bringing that, that connection up.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. And, you know, thanks for sharing. And so I've got a couple more questions that they may take a little while to answer, but you've dropped a lot of good stuff, but sort of wrap it up with you know, for other law firm owners out there that maybe, you know, several stages behind you, advice you would give them, you know, in terms of just, you know, getting their life together, getting their firm together.

And this is both from going through it yourself and from being a coach.

It's his fault. It's her fault. And I say, I understand that, but you know, you, you weren't trained on how to handle a divorce. And there's a lot of emotions that go with that. And you cannot get a, a therapist, but I promise you, your divorce is gonna take longer. 'cause the emotions are gonna cloud your judgment.

They're gonna make my job, my team's job harder. So get a therapist. So, so, and you may have to interview quite a few. You may need to, you know, you don't always find the right person the first time, just like we discussed earlier with employees. So find a coach. You know, I'm a fan of Atticus, of course.

You know, and there's a lot of outfits out there. You know, but speak to somebody. I think that, you know, is the biggest game changer. And out of coaching some of the big things that you'll get, you know, time management is a real thing. Although I'm a big fan, I think it's Oliver Burkeman, 4,000 Weeks he talks a lot about where time management is impossible.

I used to have a full case load. It can be done and it can make a difference. So time. So get a coach and from that coach, let them teach you techniques on time management. Learn about client selection. You know, you can't take every case that comes in the door, figure out what your ideal, you know, figure out who you like representing.

Figure out who you're currently representing and get those into alignment. And by like, you know, they also need to be profitable. You need to turn a profit. You know, this is not the place to do your charity. You know, do pro bono. I'm a big fan, pro bono, you know, do volunteer work, but you need to run.

A profitable firm now more than ever because it's going to get harder and harder to compete. And that's, you know, topics for different podcasts and, and perhaps people other than me. But you know, there, there's a lot happening in, in the world and in the, and in the legal, you know, in the legal world, particular to us.

And, you know, there's different coaching outfits, you know, some focus on marketing, you know, some, you know, focus on, you know, just making a lot of money and, you know, all those things are great and important and again, perhaps because of my history but I think that I. You know, at some point it became clear to me and Atticus did an exercise with us.

They call it My Great Life. And it's an exercise that I think isn't uncommon in the coaching world, but we start with how do you wanna be remembered? You know, what do you want written on your tombstone? And that for many of us, is a great opportunity to recognize that. I don't want my tombstone to say he was a great lawyer, you know, committed to his profession, who died at his desk, you know, at the ripe old age of, you know, 72.

You know, we you know, we take an oath and you know, that's a, you know, a solemn oath. And and we have power and we can influence and represent people and and we be, should be role models and role models for society, for our clients, for our children. And having a fulfilled life I think is part of that.

And for most of us, I think we can do more than just role model. I worked my ass off and I was at the top of my game. I think you can work really hard, be at the top of your game, but also have a great life and that great life, a great life, you know, maybe in the office. I, you know, I certainly don't use the word fun for the practice of matrimonial law.

And it's possible. So I think you need that vision. So I think creating that vision, because if you don't have a compelling vision, you're not gonna change. And if you, if your life sucks and you hate your spouse, and you don't wanna go home because you know, it's just miserable, then you're just gonna stay in the office all day.

But it doesn't have to be that way, you know? That's why I can, you know, I'm not an advocate for divorce in general, but by the time people get to me, I certainly am because it's an opportunity to have a better life. And I can't imagine I look forward to going home. I always did. I can't imagine what it's like dreading going home and life should be more than that.

So, so I think with coaching, you know, just to stay focused, you know, top things to do, get a coach and start thinking about these things because then life can be great, you know, and that's worth doing. It'll still be hard but it'll be great.

James P. Joseph: Yes.

Jonathan Hawkins: your vision? You've done a lot, but there's still a lot you want to do. So sitting here today what's your vision for your firm and for your life?

James P. Joseph: So, we feel we have, you know, something really special to offer. You know, we're proud of the work we do here. We think that we're having a positive impact. We like to say that we're part of the solution, not part of the problem. And unfortunately, like in every field, that there's a lot of people that, you know, don't help solve problems.

And so I really want to expand. You know, I'm a bit mission focused and feel that there's value in, if we could help a lot more people and I'm always happy to make more money, I'm not opposed to that. And I wanna make sure that I can pay my firm and my team members. Well, and so we're looking to grow a lot.

So, so I think we could easily triple in size. That's a nice new challenge for me. I feel like I'm, you know, I've done this for 30 years. I, in, in many ways I feel young and healthy and strong and you know, I have some friends who have been fortunate to be in positions to retire at relatively young ages and retire well and don't need the money.

And, you know, they struggle with what to do. And, you know, I'm working a lot right now because of the Bar Association. But when that's over, I'll go back to not working, you know, crazy hours and having a really nice, balanced life. And I'm confident that I can continue that and still grow the firm.

I say I, I can't call myself a CEO yet because I think the firm's too small for that. But I'll get there. So, so that's what we've been doing.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, well, I love it. Love having big vision and, and I mean, love the energy and I mean, we all need something to keep us going, so, and I know you'll do it, so,

James P. Joseph: thank you.

Jonathan Hawkins: to you. And you know, again, if there's any way I can help you if you ever wanted to expand down south, just let me know.

James P. Joseph: Thank you, Jonathan. You got, you have some big competition where you are.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.

James P. Joseph: of meeting some divorce lawyers with very big firms where you are but pleasure. You. You're, as you know, this is a, a wonderful service that you're offering the legal community. You know, I've learned so much, you know, from you and from your guests and, you know, appreciate the friendship and this opportunity.

James P. Joseph: Yes,

Jonathan Hawkins: The six of us were there. I mean, that was really just incredible little mastermind session.

And then the car ride to the airport it was like, that was really, I I, there was a lot of, we we're exchanging a lot of information there.

That was really

James P. Joseph: yes. Good stuff.

Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, thanks for coming on. It's, it is really been fun getting to know you. For people out there that want to find you, what's the best way I.

James P. Joseph: So our website. Thank you. Uh, Joseph law pc.com is our website. There, there have been times that I've been really active on LinkedIn and really enjoyed it. It's been a little while because of my bar activity but I enjoyed my posts and, and perhaps some of your listeners would like to see them.

So feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn. You know, I'm always looking to expand that community and so, and that's I think I'm James Paul, Joseph, Paul, middle name. So you should be able to find me pretty easily there too.

Jonathan Hawkins: Cool. James, thanks again. Thanks for coming

James P. Joseph: All right. My pleasure, Jonathan. Thank you.

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