In this episode of The Founding Partner Podcast, join us as we explore the entrepreneurial journey with Zach Anderson, a fresh face in the law firm founding scene. Zach shares insights from starting his estate planning practice in Huntsville, Alabama, and discusses the challenges and triumphs of building a business from the ground up.

Tune in to discover how niche practices can thrive and what it takes to navigate the early days of law firm ownership. Don't miss these valuable lessons for aspiring and current law firm founders.

Why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us about your practice, where you are and all that.

Zach Anderson: Yeah, thanks Jonathan. I'm Zach Anderson. I'm the owner of Anderson Estate Planning. We're located in Huntsville Alabama, which is in the north part of the state, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. We get hot enough in the summer to be the deep south, but we get colder in the winter. Then you might suspect if you're not familiar.

We do estate planning exclusively. Of course we do trust administration and things like that as well. But whatever the threats our clients have to their wealth, whether it's long-term care costs, whether it's a lawsuit particularly if they're a small business owner whether it's a child that needs protection perhaps from themselves or from a creditor that they might have.

We take all those challenges. We look at the assets that. Our clients have, and then we devise a plan to protect each of those assets in accordance with the client's goals. You know, some clients want to forego some asset protection to make it up a little bit simpler. And I lay out all the facts and let them decide.

Jonathan Hawkins: Alright we're gonna dive deep, but before we do, so you're in Huntsville that's on the north side of the state. I grew up in Mobile on the south side of the state, on the Gulf coast. I did get up to Huntsville way back when for Space Camp, but I really haven't been there in a long time. So tell us a little bit about Huntsville, how big it is.

It you know, what's the vibe of the city and then. To follow on that or where I'm going with that is how far geographically does your practice reach? Is it just sort of the Huntsville area or is it statewide or more,

It's really boomed in terms of. Population. We have a lot of government contractors that work on the army base called Redstone Arsenal. We have a lot of people that work in tech companies that whether they contract with the federal government or not, our population is a little bit older than one might suspect.

I have found that a lot of people move here. To help out with grandchildren. So we've got a little bit of a trendy vibe that you might see online or in social media, and certainly that's true, but I think our population does tend to, to skew a bit more older than people might suspect.

But.

Jonathan Hawkins: Is it growing? Is it continue to grow? I mean, is there an influx of people.

The whole metro area is growing. We are getting a lot of people from. From California. We're getting a lot of people from other states that you know, perhaps they're seeking lower taxes, perhaps they're seeking more land. Perhaps they're seeking humidity for some reason. I don't, no, I'm just kidding.

No we're growing pretty rapidly and we're struggling to keep up. I was talking with my office mate. Just a minute ago, we, he was like, I can't get an electrician to call me back. Well, the same is true for hopefully to not that extent with estate planning attorneys and people who work in restaurants.

You know, we're all business people, business owners the infrastructure, the services, whether you're an estate planning attorney or a plumber, we just really haven't been able to keep up with the population. So what a fun challenge to, to be able to tackle.

That's good. So how far geographically do you reach with your practice or do you want to reach.

Zach Anderson: Yeah, great question. Eventually I'd love to reach all across the Tennessee Valley, as we call it. The Tennessee Valley technically extends a couple of states, but largely it's considered the counties around Huntsville, Scottsboro, perhaps all the way over to Florence and the west part of the state. So I'd love to, to have a practice that spans overall to North Alabama.

But I really prefer to be in person for when I can. And if, you know, one spouse has to zoom in for their job, we can make that happen. So, sometimes when it's a forty-five minute trek. Potentially longer in traffic. You know, it's you know, you either take a bath on fees a little bit or you ask your client to shoulder that, and both of those I really don't love doing so I could see us going multi-office eventually, for sure.

Jonathan Hawkins: All right, so I don't know if we've covered this yet, but when did you start your firm?

So I, [00:07:00] I don't really know.

Jonathan Hawkins: So this is cool. So you are in the thick of it. You are in the thick of it. So is it just you? Do you have any help? You mentioned an office made a minute ago, but do you have any staff, any virtual staff?

Zach Anderson: It's mostly me. I have a part-time paralegal that I worked with at a previous employer, not my directly previous employer, but before that. When I was, I guess super young and inexperienced and she helps me out with some basic things. She's also made it clear that she's enjoying retirement.

And I thought, ah, well, oh, well I'll take you for what I can. But it's mostly me and that will change probably within three to six months. Because one of the things we'll probably talk about a little bit later directly or indirectly, is. I think I've, I have found that I've maxed out on what I can do fairly quickly.

We try and do a little bit more value add than that. When you do you, you know, the level of work that I do, you max out pretty fast. So, I'm learning that and I'm gonna respond and it takes investment, it takes mental toughness. Especially if you know, perhaps didn't grow up around entrepreneurs or maybe you know, not in an entrepreneurial family, but it will need to be more than me at some point.

Now what that looks like, I'm open to virtual, I'm open to in-person. I'd be open to a very young person in school or at our local community college. We have a terrific community college, Calvin Community College here in. In the Huntsville area. And maybe they just wanna learn about how a law office works.

So I don't know exactly what it's gonna look like, but I know it's gonna happen.

So this is gonna be great. So. Before you started your firm what were you doing? Were you at another firm?

Zach Anderson: I was at a firm that did a lot of estate planning a little bit of asset protection planning and did a fair amount of real estate as well. And I think that was good for me to get that background because sometimes with, particularly with estates and probates, sometimes titles can get a little squirrely.

And I think having a real estate background actually ended up. Ended up helping me. So yes, I did come from a private practice where I did mostly similar things to what I do.

Jonathan Hawkins: You did some real estate before and now you're not doing it. Did you sort of give that part up as part of your, as the formation of your new firm gave up the real estate piece?

I, I wanted to niche in what I do and let other professionals do the same.

Jonathan Hawkins: So did you always know you were gonna start your own firm or is this something that came to you after a few years of practice?

But while I, you know, I think every once in a blue moon I think about, you know, what if, but I think I made the right decision. But anyway, we don't need to go into that. I went in thinking I was gonna do that and then like most law students who are not 100% of what they want to do. I ended up afterwards basically taking a job at the biggest firm I could, and that was a good experience in that I met the professional who I mentioned earlier.

My my current helper assistant, I don't know, she wants to remain retired, so I guess we'll keep her retired, but she helps me out a good bit. I got to meet her and meet a lot of. Interesting people there as well. But you know, the road we take is is winding. And I actually had something else I wanted to mention about that, but I can't remember.

Jonathan Hawkins: Well, yeah. So just quick reminder. So I was asking you if you always knew you wanted to start your firm or if you were gonna start a firm

Zach Anderson: so yes. Okay. Just you saying that even though that's not directly related to what I was thinking, you had, you made me think of. It's a well done and thank you. Here's what I found. I started. Dipping my toes into LinkedIn kind of randomly. And I started meeting different people who not only had either started their own firm or owned their own firm, but they were very into the business side of law, which most lawyers I think are not.

There's estate planning lawyers, tech, Junkies that we talk about different. Practice management systems and things like that. And here's what I found. Here's what I found Jonathan. I think your listeners will find this potentially in insightful, dare I say insightful, as I started talking with people like that, business minded attorneys, entrepreneurial attorneys, business owners, people who had those aspirations, people who did that, or maybe their spouse did that.

Hard work gets results and thinking something and doing it properly can lead to really positive results. And mountains are meant to be climbed. They're not meant to be just stared at. I think you'll find that you become more like that. I.

Jonathan Hawkins: That is a great point. I love surrounding myself around growth minded people whether in the law or outside the law, and whether I know them personally or just the content I consume. And it definitely changes the way I think. So big believer in that. So, okay, so you surrounding yourself with these folks, you begin to think, Hey, I might want to do this.

How did you know you're ready to do it? How did you say I'm doing it?

And if you have in your subconscious mind this idea, whatever it is, whether it's getting physically fit. Whether it's moving across the country and starting a new life, or whether it's just quitting your job and starting a business, if you put it in your mind, you're gonna get it. And I said, you know what?

I haven't got that far mentally yet, but we'll get there later. So when I actually did that and sure enough, it actually worked, the tension between where I was. And where I was in my mind became so great that outweighed the tension of, oh, well what if, what, where are the clients gonna come from?

Jonathan Hawkins: I can relate to that completely. That sort of mindset or that tension is what has led me to, you know, take the steps to start growing this firm more than it. Was before, but let's talk about this. There are lots of people out there, lots of lawyers that say, Hey, I might wanna do this, but they never do it.

They never take the step. And so sounds like in your mind it was the tension and you just had to do it. You were compelled to do it. Is that right? Or how did you know the moment was right? Or did you just say, I'm, it's now or Never burn the ships. We're going.

And it took a few months of them positively infecting my mind for me to actually think about, one, could I do this? And two, do I really want to. So I would say the idea started in my mind to go out on my own. I don't know, a few months. It probably under a year. So it wasn't some five-year plan, but I did have a couple of timelines in my head and I moved it back once or twice.

But I said, you know what? We got a lot of holiday time coming up with Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I also know that just most estate planning offices are slower than two. So not only do we have the holidays, but you know, I'm gonna be. Not as efficient simply because we don't have as much during that season.

And I was the same way at my firm. I said, you know, I could take those and completely legal. But I said, you know what, I'm not gonna do that. I don't think it's fair. I, so, I did that and I moved it up and I got, like I said, when I kind of went there in my mind and I wasn't there, I got sort of almost anxious to do it.

I mean, I pay an accountant to do the QuickBooks. Like I don't know what I, you know, I know estate planning, but for the things on the business side that I don't know what I'm doing, you know, I pay smart people and that's capitalism I guess. But yes, I don't think there's a right time.

Or wrong time. But I think if you're starting to have the thoughts, think on it for a month, get around people who have done it, whether they're, you know, as you are further along in the journey or whether, you know, like I am and just starting out and just talk to 'em. What I found is that people who have an idea in their mind, a goal, and then they try to reach it or they reach it, maybe in the entrepreneurial context or maybe not.

You know, the people who, like people who listen to your podcast and people who are on your podcast. They tend to be disproportionately helpful. So I say for anybody thinking about it, go to the people that have done it. Either they're, you know, a baby in it, or they're a pro, and just talk to 'em. I bet they'll be willing to talk to you.

Jonathan Hawkins: I think that's so important. I think you fit on some good points there. I mean, definitely surrounding yourself with people that are like-minded people who've done it. People that can help you along the way. That's huge. So when you started, did you have clients with you or did you start at Ground zero?

Tell us about that. I.

It's worth noting in my practice, I work a hundred percent with individuals. So unlike many attorneys, I don't have corporate clients. Even my clients who are business owners, I don't represent the business because the matters that. We have with that, other than maybe, you know, succession planning for when they become incapacitated or pass away.

I'm just, I'm not an expert in that. So I have zero corporate clients. So for me, I didn't have clients per se, but I did have referral sources and I will not say that I started. You know, cultivating referral sources when I got outta law school with the idea of starting my own law firm. 'cause that's not true.

So I did start with that.

Jonathan Hawkins: So whether you did it by design or by accident, you did have referral sources in place, so you were comfortable that even if you didn't have clients you felt pretty, pretty comfortable that you get them soon. Is that fair?

Zach Anderson: That's correct. And you know, I went there in my mind, I imagined myself, I. Sitting in an office that wasn't, 'cause I didn't know, you know, a month, well, maybe not. Yeah a month before I started, I didn't know where my office space was gonna be, but I knew a fellow attorney. That had an office, and I apologize for the sound delay there, but I knew an attorney that had an office that had, she had like a spare room.

And it did not happen the way I expected to, and certainly the setting was not correct. But you know what? I ended up with a situation where my calendar's rather lit up with appointments and, you know, I'm not gonna take home a million dollars this year. But you know, for me, where I'm at with limited staff and just being in business two months.

Imagination is I didn't know until I became educated on it. It's not this thing for children to do coloring with, although that is a part of it. The imagination is incredibly powerful. I would imagine we're the only creatures on the earth that can do anything. Close to it. It's incredibly powerful and I learned how to put it to work for me and I'm, you know, one, I wanna do that 100 steps further, but you know, I'm on step one right now.

Jonathan Hawkins: Another piece. It's very motivating when you have zero clients and you're the one that has to put food on the table, right?

And not that he's not worthy of respect, most certainly is, but I realized after a few minutes, you know, he respected me because I take life seriously. And I treat his daughter well and certainly try to but when I told him I was doing this, his expression was like only about 70% on board.

He was like, oh, okay, let's, I said, you know what that's some motivation right there. You're exactly right.

Jonathan Hawkins: So, you know, I talk to a lot of folks that are starting firms or maybe. Are forced to start firms, whatever, you know, the big question they have or a lot of questions, what do I do? I don't know what to do, how do I set this up? You know, how do I get the right tech in place? Malpractice insurance, all of these nuts and bolts of a practice, they don't know what to do.

Zach Anderson: Oh, I'm so glad you asked this. So I'll say two things here. First. Do some research beforehand. I did that. I looked at practice management software and using the Facebook groups that I talked about earlier that, you know, are basically just lawyers who are more entrepreneurial inclined and try and use technology to have a better client experience and things like that.

I was always reading. Th things like that and still do in my spare time. I guess I'm I watch less college football these days. I'm, I suppose, but I'm always reading about either the business side of law or perhaps a new case that has come down or something like that. Of course in my world, let's see, we've.

Read about and dive deep and research things that you find interesting. And I certainly find my area of law interesting as well as the business side. That's the first thing I'd like to say. One other thing about this question, because someone from my law school class called me this week and said, Hey, I'd like to start my own firm and would love to just bend your ear.

I can't speak to that. I just opened it two months. I can speak to going from absolute zero to getting a website, getting my practice insurance, getting up and running, so to speak, and I will tell you, because a lot of your founders, this was 10 years ago and they don't, they may not remember. I will tell you the logistics of getting started and all those questions.

I think you're probably over blowing it in your head. You can find the answer, you can find somebody that knows the answer, and if you fail, you can fail forward and adjust. I, I learned very quickly, for example, and this is really not supposed to be a joke, although we will probably chuckle when you hear it.

Chris Berry, and this is the last thing I'll say on this. Chris Berry is a certified elder law attorney, I believe out of Brighton, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. I believe I, he's probably. Having a pretty good, well, I guess they lost on Sunday, but the Lions did great this year. I was gonna say he is having a good day, but I think they did lose, but they improved a lot from last season.

Chris, I wrote Chris a note and said, love your practice. You became certified as an elder law attorney really young, and now you're a financial planner. Taking your knowledge of the. Particularly public benefit side of the elder law space and you're using it in financial planning. I've never seen that before.

And I believe he was talking about investing in marketing and getting more leads in that he could help. And he said the first time he did it, he was very nervous, but he said, if you're thinking about doing something, you should probably just do it.

Jonathan Hawkins: So we'll get I do wanna talk about how you market, but before we go there, you mentioned the QuickBooks. When people come to me, I always tell 'em, just go get a bookkeeper. Don't do it yourself. I tried for like a month. I hated it. It just, it sucks. It's a waste of time. You're probably gonna make mistakes.

Zach Anderson: Yeah, I also lasted about a month on QuickBooks, so, that's funny. I would say my biggest challenge just in two months is juggling everything. And I know that's not where I'm going to be even in as little as three months from now. W I've already made adjustments with that. I am no longer the bookkeeper. I am I knew I didn't want to make the website. Some lawyers, you know, it's always a question of can you go get the knowledge and know-how and tools to do it yourself or you hire somebody just like doing something on your house. Really, for me it's usually always just pay someone because I'm pretty inept at manual labor.

But, you know, you gotta grow you gotta sacrifice to grow. Nothing nothing comes free. And nothing comes from nothing. So, I've already improved with being able to you know, juggle less and pay professionals to do it. But I know that there's a whole other level that we've gotta go to on that and I'm prepared to do that.

So I would say juggling everything at this point I.

Jonathan Hawkins: In the point you made about, I mean, it costs money to invest in these. Things. And right now an early founder of a firm may not have the money to invest in that or those things. And it's finding the balance of when to do it and when to wait. That's a common question. I hear it. You know, is it time for me to hire somebody to help me?

So, but usually when you hire somebody whether it's an assistant or paralegal or whatever, it starts to clear your plate a little bit. Now that first, you know, period of time, it probably doubles your work 'cause you've gotta train them and. Delegate and all that, but once they're going a little bit, then all of a sudden you have a little bit more time and then you realize six months later you're like, wait, I'm actually bringing in more revenue now.

And you see that the investment was worth it. So, so yeah, that's coming and you know, you're in the middle of it. Let's talk about the other big piece of starting a firm is you gotta make sure you get clients. So what do you do and how are you approaching the marketing, the business development for getting the clients?

And if you have more time, get that debit or credit card for the business. And buy everybody a cup of coffee because you never know. Some of my referral sources, I, you know, we met in kind of a really tangential way, for lack of a better way to put it. And then sometimes, you know, you buy a nice lunch for a financial advisor and then you do it again in a month, and then you know, send them something for free and.

But the point is, while you know, we don't have. 10 calls a day. Coming in the business, I am continuing to develop relationships, nurture relationships, try and provide value for free. Last week I sent an email to a few advisors, financial advisors that I work with, and said, here's a free temporary guardianship nomination for your clients with minor children under 19 in Alabama.

And they said, you know, before you. Yes you want to have paid marketing eventually, whether that's funneling to a seminar or Google ads or whatever, search into optimization. But there's a lot of things you can do for free. First one thing is to fill out your Google business profile and ask clients for reviews and make sure it's up to date, it matches your, you know, website and address and things like that. I've been doing that. I've been basically, I want to, you know, get the low hanging fruit, right? The things that don't cost money. It doesn't cost any money for you to go to a client and say, if you think I did a good job, would you mind posting a Google review for me so that I can get in front of more people and help more people if we're the right fit?

Now if you're gonna, if you're gonna miss something, you know, miss the hard stuff. Get the easy stuff. And then once, once I max that out, then we'll do whatever you know, the marketing professionals stay to do, whether that, and, you know, that will involve investment at that point. But at this point, let's get that low hanging fruit.

And if they really spent the time and the investment there, in my opinion, way better, investment, time, energy, money, then some of this other stuff. 'cause you know the other thing about SEO, let's just say, or ads, paid ads. You're gonna get calls, but you're gonna get a bunch of crap calls and you're gonna have to field the calls and then all of a sudden you're spending all this time fielding potentially, you know, let's just say at least half, probably more than that, are gonna be people you can't help or don't want to help.

So it just adds a completely different headache and you're probably gonna need to either hire somebody or things are just gonna slip through the crack cracks. So it's good that you started with the grassroot stuff. You know, we met, I don't know, maybe a year or so ago, I think came across each other on LinkedIn.

Zach Anderson: not as active as I once was, but I do try and get a couple of posts out a week and I do, follow a decent number of people, like, like you Jonathan, that I'm able to gain insights either on the actual practice of law or on the business side of owning and running a law firm that helps clients.

As far as other social media, other than LinkedIn, my Google page I do have a lot of free resources on my website. Andersonprotection.com, I just added a batch of. Free things on that website. It's not a blog, it's more of a static site, which, you know when we have 20 employees and things like that, you know, it won't be static, but static is fine for two months in, in my opinion.

And I, look I, you know, they've made mistakes as a company, no doubt. And perhaps maybe it wasn't as, as fun or as good as it was a few years ago, but it's also that thing that everybody still uses. I, I don't know. And I'm no exception. I'm like, oh yeah, Facebook, that, that was big in 2010. Yeah, but we're silently, you know, in the airport we're scrolling through.

So I should probably post more on Facebook,

Jonathan Hawkins: you know, I tell people starting a firm is easy. You need a law license, maybe an IELTA account, and an internet connection. So that's the easy part. But really getting it going is where the challenge is and it's, you know, it takes time, it takes consistent effort. What are some of the things and some of the daily habits that you are doing every day to try to get this thing going?

Get the flywheel going.

I think I do all the different ways to deal with that. So, you know, quality time with those who are important to you. And I'm gonna mention, I'm gonna mention have lunch. Now if you do intermittent fasting, you know, that's cool. You, y'all know what you're doing, but, a lot of people who are really busy particularly business owners, they're like, yeah, I don't eat lunch.

Intermittent fasting. I think take some time and eat lunch. That's just one one guy's thought.

Jonathan Hawkins: I like it. The other thing that's very important to me. Exercise every day, exercise at least five days a week. That's huge. You know, lawyers, what we do is stressful. Exercise is a really good stress reliever. So, so let's talk about your firm. You've just started, but have you sat down and thought about the long-term vision of what you want it to be and what do you want it to look like?

About seven concepts to them that they had never thought about and that's good. But you know, the professionals tell me, you know, in between that time that you meet with them and. You're gonna maybe have a follow up or something like that. They need some touches and you know, one, designing what kind of touch that looks like, whether it's an email or a text message, whether it's personalized or not.

Super personalized. One, knowing the path to do that, but the two actually executing it. That would be a really localized example of something that I am going to get help with within the next few months. So, I guess to, to make it more global, to answer your question, I'd like to eventually go multi-office.

Jonathan Hawkins: So when you say multi-office, do you mean within the same proximity or are we talking statewide or multi-state? What are we talking about?

Zach Anderson: I'd

Jonathan Hawkins: Dream big, baby. Tell us. Dream

Zach Anderson: Yeah. I'd love to, to span all across North Alabama. If I'm being honest, multi-state is, I haven't gone there in my mind yet. Perhaps that's mental weakness or perhaps that's not that's just not, that's not something that comes from God. A lot of people think that, and I won't belabor this, but.

So I'm willing to admit, I do, I want to go across. North Alabama. Yes. Bigger than that. Have I? Have I had that vision? Have I had that thought? Do I feel compelled to do that? At this point? I don't. I certainly I'm listening to people who are smarter than me and I'm listening to the man upstairs, so to speak.

But so far that hasn't come in. Into my mind yet, but I would love to go all across North Alabama. I'd love to have an office in each of the counties up here.

Jonathan Hawkins: So here's a question for you. If you were not practicing law or running a law office. What do you think you'd be doing?

He works with a lot of attorneys. He said his mentor told him that. Sales is something you do for someone, not to someone. And that really hit me because, you know, I don't know if it's some conspiracy or it's just lazy thinking, but sales is regarded as a dirty word, and I think it's wrong because if you believe in what you're selling.

Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so I want you, in your mind think about the people out there that. Or maybe three months behind you, or maybe six months or 12 months behind you they have an idea. They think they may wanna start their firm, but they're sort of on the fence. You have the benefit of being right in the thick of it versus somebody who's been at it for 20 years and may have forgotten what it's like right at the beginning.

What advice would you give the people that are thinking about or think they may wanna start a firm?

Zach Anderson: Go get the information now. We are so blessed to have basically unlimited information right now. In fact, we're actually going maybe too much of the widely availability of information. 'cause now we have computers who will, you know, just make up information. But I'm joking about that.

Go to those sources. LinkedIn, a Facebook group for plumbers who own their own business. A Facebook group for lawyers who are entrepreneurial inclined. That's called Maximum Lawyer. It's a great group. It's free to join. Free to join. You can go I internet articles following people like you on LinkedIn, like go do that.

Get your answers, that's gonna give you more clarity. It's going to give you more confidence as well. So start there. I mean, if you're ready to do it. In an hour. We'll, you know, do it in an hour. But if you're like most people and you know you have these thoughts and they keep coming back and you're not sure what to do with them and you're not sure where the clients will come from, and is this the right thing?

Jonathan Hawkins: So Zach, I want to tip my hat to you. You know, you've done it, you're doing it. I'm excited to see how far you take this over the next decade. Plus I think you're gonna do real well. So for the folks out there that. Wanna find you, tell us how they can find you. If they have questions about starting a firm, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

But if not, just head to the website, send me an email. Happy to chat with anyone.

Jonathan Hawkins: And if you're moving to Huntsville from California. Reach out to Zach, he'll give you a tour. So.

Zach Anderson: That's right. We'll show you all the great wildlife and all the bugs that we have down here. People are just it's really, the Gulf of Mexico is really quite an interesting geographical thing. We, everything grows in the summertime. And man, it's just, it's a lot of fun. Yes, our newcomers, we welcome you and thank you so much for having me on Jonathan.

Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, thanks for joining us. Again, excited to see where you go over the next number of years.

Zach Anderson: Thank you brother.