Join us on this episode of Your Practice Mastered Podcast as we dive into the journey of Attorney Luke Homen, a bankruptcy attorney who transformed his practice using strategic systems and pricing models. Discover how Luke navigated industry challenges, implemented key changes, and embraced opportunities like student loan discharges. 

Tune in for insights on building a successful, client-focused law firm while maintaining profitability. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation filled with actionable tips! 

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Atty. Luke Homen: I either had to reinvent the law firm or quit the law firm and go get a W 2 job, which I didn't want to do. I love running a law firm and being a boss and being an entrepreneur. I also have to feed my family. I also have to take care of my employees. you know.


Richard James: And I'm Richard James. MPS, it's not often that we get to see the results at the other end of the story, especially, when somebody comes in and they invest in our toolkit or consume one of our books. And then they go off and do their thing, and we may or may not talk to them for a while. 


But today, we get to speak with Luke Homen, who started in our world by starting to consume some information and then went off, and implemented this information, which is the most fun part for me, as well as you, MPS. And so, today, we're going to get to have a fun conversation with Luke about what he did, see his journey, and maybe give some nuggets about the things that were able to help him change the direction of his firm. So, Luke, thanks for being here today. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Yeah, I'm excited. I've been looking forward to this. 


Richard James: Nice. 


MPS: We're looking forward to having you here. And so, Luke, to break the ice for everyone a little bit, what's something that maybe not everyone knows about you? 


It's, the story behind the sports? And so, I found that that's my favorite thing about sports. How are they manipulating the system to put the players on the team who can hit the home run or shoot the three point basket or something? 


Richard James: You're a money ball fan. 


Yeah. 


Atty. Luke Homen: That's what I really like. 


Richard James: That's great. By the way, I think somebody is going to soon come and take my man card away. Because, I used to consume every sport all the time. I watched probably, 160 of 162 Yankee games as a young kid. And I'd watch every NFL game in Penn State College. And two weekends ago, we were home, I wasn't doing anything, and obviously, the NFL is on when we're recording this right now. 


And then I realized, as upset as I got about this, nobody was coming to me on Tuesday and writing me a check for my involvement, or even giving me a pat on the back for saying, thanks for being such a great fan. And all it was doing was wrecking me, so I don't know, somewhere along the line I've started to lose my zip for it. But I am waiting for the man card police to show up at my door and go, give it to me. You've lost it. 


MPS: I don't know about that far. I'm the complete opposite. Thursday night football, I'm already ready to go tonight. Sundays, I'm watching football all day, and Mondays, I love the fall for that. Three nights a week, I've got something on the calendar that I get to do. So, I look forward to it. 


Richard James: But your bride would rather watch a football game than a Rom-Com, right? 


MPS: This true. 


Atty. Luke Homen: That's what's on our TV, not Rom-Coms or sports. 


MPS: Understandable. Luke, I want to learn a little bit more about the journey. So, from a high level, the high strokes, walk us through your journey as an entrepreneurial law firm owner. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Yeah. I've been an attorney for about 10 years, decided to start my own law firm, things were going pretty well. And as a bankruptcy attorney, it just wrecked it. And so, I really had to start rethinking and looking deep into everything. As a bankruptcy attorney, you've got your Chapter 13 income, that's normally rolling in. 


And then you've got Chapter 7 income coming in, right? All the old Chapter 13 income dried up. And now, I had to start taking a hard look at everything and realized, first off, there aren't as many leads out there. So, we really need to batten down the hatches and examine everything. And I started realizing what I was doing wasn't working at all. 


How do I help people? You can't help people if you're losing money. so, I figured, there had to be a better way. There had to be another way to rethink what I'm doing to still meet those goals. Help people get out of debt, and not lose money. Those aren't big goals, but that was all I was trying. It was like, how do I do this? 


Richard James: That makes sense because there's many different types of laws we know, and bankruptcy is one of those practice areas that is very mission driven in many ways. And it is one of those practice areas that it's extremely rewarding, because you get instant gratification, like, every six months, right? 


My mentor used to call it like, you were paying attention to industry incest, right? Everybody's learning from each other and nobody was very good at it. And it was just getting a copy of a copy and everybody's getting worse. And so, what was that moment that flipped the switch for you that gave you some information? 


Atty. Luke Homen: Alright, I got your book. This is 


Richard James: Uh, okay. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Favor. And I read it, and there's a part in the book where you're talking to the fictional attorney. And you point out, look, most attorneys are losing money on every single Chapter 7 they file. And I read that sentence, and it just blew my mind because I started thinking about it and I'm like, it is so true. 


And there's always going to be some attorney who's charging rock bottom prices and doing terrible lawyering, right? going to be that guy. But I started looking around and realizing, even the good attorneys that I looked up to, they're losing money on every 7, and I can't do that. 


Richard James: Right. 


Atty. Luke Homen: do we make this work better? But also, I need to charge more money. we're delivering good quality services, I deserve it, we're worth it. But if I don't charge enough money to cover my overhead, I'm not going to still be in business very much longer. 


Richard James: By the way, thank you for the shout out on the book. But you had to implement the changes and so, you deserve the credit. That book was indeed a labor of love. It was the first fiction book I had ever written. And I'd written a bunch of other advice books and the fiction book was by far the most difficult challenge I've had as a business owner and author. 


I hired a professional writer to critique it, and his first opening line was, you officially broke every rule in fiction writing. And I'm like, Oh, I felt really good about myself in the first six months of writing that book. Anyway, thank you for reading it and I'm glad for you because I had to pick a practice area to be the focus of the character. 


Atty. Luke Homen: It's how do I take stock of what it actually costs to produce this legal service, and not just, price it based on what Joe down the street is charging? 


Richard James: MPS, that's huge. If they can make that leap and make that connection, I think that's really important, yeah? 


MPS: It's a massive leap and it's a completely different paradigm of looking at it. But I'm curious, so you recognize, you identified what it costs you for bankruptcy to get it out the door, and you recognize you needed to raise your fees a little bit. Was that easy for you? Did you just do it one day, you just came up with a new price? 


Here are ten or twelve or fourteen factors where, okay, this factor means, it's going to take a lot more staff time. Alright, that's irritating, but staff time costs less money. Here's a factor that costs a lot more attorney time. Develop a list, and this will be different wherever you practice cause things work differently, but develop a list. 


Okay, this is my base price that I'm comfortable with, mission driven, charging somebody, they can afford it. But at the same time, no matter how much I love that client, if they've got some of these upcharge factors, need to pay more. And so, first off, I had to raise even the lowest price. But then, I've gotten a lot more comfortable with, have these upcharge factors. 


It was still a good case and a good outcome. Because we had those upcharge factors in place to have a case specific price. And that's one of the things that drives me crazy in bankruptcy, right? And I just was looking at a case the other day, another attorney did it, where it's a tremendously complex case. 


The guy's earning nine grand a month, and the attorney charged $12.50. And I know the only reason he charged from $12.50 is because it probably says on the door. All bankruptcies, $12.50. a colossal mistake. Like, when you're doing that, you're basically subsidizing your practice on the low income clients, because those cases are easy and the rich clients are getting a bankruptcy that's far cheaper than is appropriate. 


And I'm like, I didn't even know that was a thing. So, we learned our limits, right? But what you spoke about, and this is a writer downer, you want to talk about a nugget that you just gave everybody. Cafeteria pricing, that's what we call it, right? This idea that, Oh, do you want a piece of key lime pie with that? Do you want extra fries with that? Whatever. And you could just take it off the shelf. 


And sometimes it's choice, but oftentimes, in a case, they really don't have a choice. This has to be done this way. And so, this work is going to cost this much, and they say, somebody else might charge me less. That may or may not be the case, but the end of the day, you're still going to have to do all these things. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Yeah. 


Richard James: The reality is, they have no idea what so and so charges with most of the time. Sometimes, you get the price shopper and you're the last call in the rung, that happens. But that's even beatable. But most of the time, they called you because you were the first number on Google or whatever. And they called you and you're the first person to get them in the door, and you met with them, and you closed the deal, and they had no idea that there was somebody that would charge $1,200 for less quality service. 


But every lawyer listening to this, I know for a fact, they have all had that client that they didn't charge enough for. And as you said, everybody in their office knows that client's name. They've called 12 times yesterday, right? And they said, I called you 12 times yesterday. 


Yes. But calling every other phone number on our firm, every other minute doesn't really count, right? It's not like, we didn't call you back, it's that, you just decided to call 12 times in 12 minutes. And my mentor told me, don't let the bad ones ruin it for the good ones. 


Richard James: But that Cafeteria style, MPS, is a nice way for an attorney to be able to raise prices without feeling like they've got to just raise their prices, do you agree? 


MPS: Yeah, absolutely is. And like you said, it's traditionally things that, a prospect that's gonna move forward with some of those needs it. And so, it's a nice way to build that in. And you also said, Luke, something and I don't want to just gloss over this either, you've got to be profitable to help clients. 


right? 


Atty. Luke Homen: absolutely. 


MPS: And not being profitable means, as a firm, you're only going to be in existence for so long. Because at some point, that was going to run dry. And so, I appreciate you for coming in with that mindset. It's a good mindset, allows us to deliver a better quality service. But, although the pricing is very tactical, I want to go to the systems a little bit. 


Atty. Luke Homen: I had two staffers in place who answered the phone. Travis, his job was new clients. And Patsy, her job was existing clients. And I had the phone system set up, where, if you're a new client, you hit Patsy, but if Patsy's busy, you roll to Travis. And then Travis, new clients, but if he's busy, you roll over to Patsy. 


But, what ended up happening is too often, they were answering each other's phone calls. Right so, one of that first simple fixes was, I got an outside answering service. So, if Travis is busy, it rolls over to the answering service. If Patsy's busy, it rolls over to the answering service. 


And now, Travis is never stuck on Patsy's calls, and Patsy's never stuck on Travis' calls, and just that simple fix of the phone calls come to the right person who's doing the right job and not overlapping was really huge. 


Let's have the right person answer the phone all the time. And so, we can have a person who's a specialist at converting leads into appointments. And we can train the answering service on the backside to make sure they follow some sort of script to not just take a message, and actually build rapport, and maybe, even schedule the appointment for you, and they can be his backup. 


And then let's have somebody who's an expert at understanding, what questions they have to answer for clients? Answer those questions, so that we're not having a salesperson try to answer questions, they have no business answering. Which means they either have to not answer them and get back to them, or put them on hold, or all the things that clients don't want. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Oh, absolutely, yeah. And so, mechanically, we gave the answering service, the ability to calendar the next phone call on Travis' calendar. And that phone call back might even be 30 minutes later, but it blocked it on his calendar. So, now, Travis and the client are able to connect, and they're not playing phone tag, and Patsy's not busy trying to connect Travis. 


And all of a sudden, everything just went so much more smoothly. That logistical issue of, where do the phone calls go? 


Richard James: What a cool feeling. 


MPS: really cool feeling. It and then you get to look and see that things work. Yeah, Like I said, a lot of times, obviously, there's clients we work with for years and I their journey. You're one of those clients and we have many of them that invested in a product, and took it and learned it on their own, D.I.Y. kind of thing. And I never know what's going to happen, necessarily. 


information. Because you were hungry for information and you probably, learned it from me. And now, you've plugged into other sources as well. So, you're always growing now as an entrepreneur, and you're learning to look for that next little secret that's going to make the hinge work a little better. 


Atty. Luke Homen: If we can make it flow better, then it works better for the client, it works better for the Yeah. I can make sure I've got highly talented staff, and I've got client satisfaction, and I'm not losing sleep because I can't pay rent. much winning. 


MPS: That was a perfect segue actually into my question, which is, believe it or not, for as many people as there are like you, Luke, that actually invest in information or resources, take it and implement it. There's equally the other side of that, that invest in resources and do nothing with it. So, my question for you is, what motivated you to actually take it and implement it? 


But I was on the verge of, I either had to reinvent the law firm or quit the law firm and go get a W 2 job, which I didn't want to do. I love running a law firm and being a boss and being an entrepreneur. I also have to feed my family. I also have to take care of my employees. You know, 


Richard James: have a, I have a question. You said the word entrepreneur, what, what, what's the backstory? Like, I know it was 10 years ago, but like, did you, was your, was your mom and dad an entrepreneur or 


entrepreneurs or 


Atty. Luke Homen: my dad's actually a worker's comp attorney in California. I'm from California. I actually worked for my dad for five years. My dad's the kind of attorney where he, it's him and a secretary, 


Atty. Luke Homen: And so it's so much more of a. Traditional law offices of Mark Coleman, right? And I worked for him and on the one hand, lots of great memories working for your dad, right? 


Richard James: Yeah. 


Atty. Luke Homen: the other hand, I think I always saw the practice of law as more of a business now. Okay, dad, how do we, how do we build this out? How do we get some advertising? How do we systematize these things? 


Richard James: Yeah. 


Atty. Luke Homen: he's much more of a, well, it's me and the secretary and the cases come on the door and we work the cases. 


Right. And so, I think it was that just like, this is not the way, right? I want to have a successful business. 


Richard James: Yeah. 


Atty. Luke Homen: so then I moved to Oklahoma and I worked for a bankruptcy attorney, discovered I loved it, but I did everything, you know, from intake to doc collection, to petition prep, to court appearances. 


How would I? Develop a person, a staff, a machine. You know, I don't want clients to feel like it's a machine, but we want the cases to come through smooth, smoothly and beautifully and with all the parts assembled correctly. So we get the right outcome. 


Richard James: Yeah. That idea that we can, you know, the, the word mill is a bad word in the 


bankruptcy world. Right. Yeah. But, but, but this, can we, can we bring clients in at volume, serve them well, make it so that our crew, our, our staff feels good and enjoys their job and allow the company to be profitable and the owner of the company to reap some rewards of that. 


MPS: Yeah, of course there's going to be both segments and one of the things that you said, which already kind of tip, tip the hat as to why you did implement is you just view things a little differently. So you actually viewed it as a business and that's very, very rare for attorneys. And so did you feel that mindset was you were born with that mindset or did you just adapt and adopt that over time? 


Okay. 


Atty. Luke Homen: I think I just adapted it, adopted it over time. You know, as I was deciding to. to start my own law firm, kind of looked around at what was out there. And there's some very talented attorneys in town, right? But those guys have a small firm that are only taking a couple cases. And then there was a mega firm. 


So, do, how do we build it? There's got to be a way. 


Richard James: Yeah. But you didn't inherently know the way, so you had to go find it. You had to 


go find it. And, 


And now you're, it's fun to watch you on this journey now. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Yeah. 


Richard James: So, so I'm just curious, just as a throw out question, NPS was asking some questions around other topics. And as we dive into the phones and you've got a you're using non attorney salesperson. 


I know you shared with that off camera. Do you, do you use scripts and structures on your phone room and on your consult room? Yeah. 


Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. 


Atty. Luke Homen: for the lowest price, right? So, one of the things my staff is, is trained to say is, well, we can't just quote you a price right now because we don't know anything about you. 


And then once we learn about you, we can tell you what it'll cost and then we have an attorney talk to you at the end so that we're complying with all of our bankruptcy code requirements. But yeah, we, and I've got an eight page set of questions that the paralegal will be asking them over the phone and so it's very process driven but it needs to be because as you're going through those eight pages, right, there could be something on page six. 


That changes what the attorney is going to have to tell you about page one. But, until you make it through all their facts, can't quote them a price, you can't give them legal advice. And so I just think it's so important, let's gather all the information that we can about this person, and then we can say, hey, here's what we think. 


Richard James: Yeah, that's great. 


MPS: It's 


Richard James: M. P. S. 


MPS: very, very important. Structures and script actually essential. Script structures essential. Luke, it's fun to watch. Fun to watch you actually take material, implement it, and get to reap the rewards of what you've implemented. That's exciting. But equally, I'm curious, what's exciting? 


What's got you fired up and excited today? Could be business, could be personal, could be both. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Yeah, so the biggest thing in our bankruptcy world right now that's just cutting edge is the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. Right? And so for years, I've just had to tell clients, well, unless you're a paraplegic and you'll never work again and you want to pay me like 20, 000, There's nothing we can do about student loans, right? 


You got a degree, but you can't make money in it. now you owe six figures and you're, you're working and earning 30, 000 a year. 


Richard James: Right. 


Atty. Luke Homen: know, the student loan debt crisis in our country is huge and it's real. And now all of a sudden we have an actual tool to deal with it and deliver tremendous value for clients and, and I'm super fired up about it. 


In the bankruptcy world, there is, you know, you guys suffered a pretty decent drought as 


business 


owners. 


Though some of you like yourself figured out how to make it work through those times. We have many clients that still grew through those times, but many of the, many of the bankruptcy attorneys were gone through, had gone through this drought. 


You're on an upswing, not just because The industry, the market is changing and and, you know, we're going to get closer to recessionary times again. Probably there's more debt now than there is savings again. And because there's new opportunities. To serve this student loan debt that that in and of itself for those that are out there. 


And if you can't get out from underneath that student loan debt, it's sometimes really hard to get that fresh start. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Yeah, and if you think about it, so you're 17, 18, 19 years old and you're signing up for 100, 000 of debt that's going to follow you for the rest of your life. 


Richard James: Right. 


Atty. Luke Homen: On the other hand, if you decided to be a big rig trucker and you bought yourself a big rig 


Richard James: Yeah. Yeah. 


Atty. Luke Homen: but the guy who did it the right way and went to college and couldn't make a living doing, I don't know underwater basket weaving or whatever thing you signed up for as an 18 year old. 


So, that that's going to follow you for the rest of your life that doesn't make sense to me. 


MPS: sure is. Absolutely. And Luke just want to take the time to thank you for, for being on today. This, this was an excellent episode, a lot of great insights, a lot of tactics that are, are extremely vital to, to each firm's success. So I appreciate you sharing that. And to the law firm owners listening, thank you. 


Thank you for investing your time and being here. Make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button depending on where you're listening and watching. Turn those bell notifications on so you don't miss content like this. And. Show Luke some love down in the comments below because what an excellent episode this was. 


Luke, thank you. 


Atty. Luke Homen: no, thanks guys. This has been a real privilege. 


It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Luke. It was also a joy for me to be able to witness what you did. Thank you so much for sharing today. 


Atty. Luke Homen: Well, thanks guys. I really appreciate it. 


Richard James: Yeah, that's the pod. 


MPS: That's the pod.