Building a Successful Law Firm: Strategies and Mindset with Attorney John Fisher

Atty. John Fisher: [: 00:00:00

Well, you know, I say to them, how long have you tried a newsletter? And they'll say four months, I'm like four months? You've got to give it at least a year before you see any return on any marketing. They just don't understand the goal in life, the key to success in anything that you do is consistency, doing the same thing over and over again.

consecutive days, [: 00:01:00

newsletter every month since: 2010

And all I'm really doing Rich, is I'm building content for the next book, the power of a system, the law firm of your dreams. I just had a legacy book that came out this year called Win Today.

​

MPS: Hey, law firm owners. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts.

Richard James: And

that John and I met and he's [: 00:02:00

To other attorneys to learn how to grow their practices. He's got two amazing books. I highly recommend that you read them. And today we're going to unpack some of what John has to say about running a law firm, attorney mindset, all the things that are important to getting things done. So John, thanks for coming on the call that I really appreciate you.

Atty. John Fisher: Oh, my pleasure. I'm a big fan of yours, Rich, and I appreciate what you do for our profession. It's been invaluable because I can tell you this. So many lawyers are in the weeds every day. But they're misguided because the most important thing we can do is focus on the development, strategic planning goal setting stuff that they're not doing because they're too busy being in the weeds.

. You do. And what you teach [: 00:03:00

Richard James: Well,

Well, thank you for

that.

MPS: Yeah, knowing.

Richard James: Michael, you've learned as you've now been in our world for a minute that as you, you, I think, oh, you should tell me, I'm not going to put words in your mouth. Did you find yourself surprised that as you started working with lawyers, how little many of them knew about business?

MPS: Yes mainly because a lot of the circles I hung around prior to that were so vastly different you know, and so it was quite surprising to see how lawyers thought the complete opposite direction. And so it was, it was very intriguing to see. So I think John brings up a great point. John, one of the things we like to do to kind of open up the audience to get to know you a little bit is what's something that maybe not everybody knows about you.

ave a tree on your lawn that [: 00:04:00

One other thing, strange thing is I'm really good at arm wrestling. It's the strangest thing. Now, unless someone can crush my hand, I can pretty much take them down fast. It's weird, but it's just a thing that I have. And so those are three things that are very unique to me. I don't brag about them, but if someone ever wants to be tested, I'm ready.

Richard James: That's gardening.

MPS: is thrown.

Richard James: gun has been thrown down gardening cutting down trees with chainsaw and arm wrestling. I would not have guessed. I promise you that would, none of those would have been my guest. I know some of this, cause I read your newsletter and you throw some of this color in there every now and then, but I did not know about the arm wrestling.

. Well, next time we meet in [: 00:05:00

Atty. John Fisher: That's usually not something people want to be tested on, but it's always fun. When I get somebody who's young, who's into weightlifting and they'll be like, Oh yeah, I'll, I'll arm wrestle you. And then it's a fun thing. Because they're like, how, how the hell did that

Richard James: right, right, Yeah. I mean,

I don't know how old you are. I didn't ask, but

I,

I'm 53 now. So I feel like if I do too much arm wrestling, something might break.

I don't,

I don't know. It's the older I get.

So, anyway, thrilled to have you here today, Michael, where do you want to take it from here?

MPS: Well, I've got the pleasure of the landscaper being right outside my window. So,

Richard James: great? Hey. So John, why don't you, why don't you

MPS: yeah, so I'm gonna do

Richard James: and give us a little piece of your journey. So when I met you, you had just left the firm that you were at. I think that was, I think that was 13 years ago, if not more something like that. Is that right? And how long has it been since you've

Atty. John Fisher: Yeah.

t fired. I, I spent my whole [: 00:06:00

nd,: 2010

system and policy I had for [: 00:07:00

It wasn't intended to be a book. That is not actually a book. It was intended to be the sort of the road map for my firm. I put it all out there. I gave everything I had and the goal of this would be simply so that it's not enough for me to know what to do. The people who work on our team need to know what the, because I'm not going to be here all the time.

So it needs the goal of any law firm. In my opinion, is to have a self managing law firm that can function just fine when you're not there. If you want to go away. Okay. For 30 days or 2 months, your law firm is not only going to still be there. It will thrive in your absence and people are not going to be called contacting you for advice on what to do.

ike, you wouldn't believe. I [: 00:08:00

For And what I've looked, what I've learned looking back on this is the biggest mistake of my career was I didn't start my own law firm 10 years before I did. I should have done that because when you work for your own yourself, you're working for your family. Now, I already have a partner. It's called the IRS, so I don't need another partner.

Right? But the reality, the reality is that when you work for yourself, and if you're working late hours, it's so fulfilling when you work for a firm. You're really working to make someone else rich. So I got away by that, but not by choice. They forced it on me and going out on my own is something I should have done much

d in an entrepreneurial home [: 00:09:00

Did you learn it? Did you digest it out there in the world from others? Or did you, were you born with it and saw it? Like, cause Because that is not, I will tell you, it's not natural for me to run into a lawyer and that says, oh, I'm going to open up my own firm and then I'm going to document all the systems and put it into a pamphlet so other people can use it.

Like that's the last thing they think about. Right. So that came natural to you. What, why did that happen? Do you think, where did that come from?

Atty. John Fisher: Rich, we see it right here with your son, Michael. It's like, he watches you, he sees what you do, and it's not what you tell him to do. It's how you act. And when he sees you doing certain things, he's like, oh, that's going in my memory bank. And I'm going to use that in my future. So he learns by how you act, not by what you say.

y father was a lawyer. He he [: 00:10:00

And so my father's coach, one of the Yankees coach said to my father, do you want to buy a few of these? My father said, I'll buy all of them. He bought sixty thousand seats at Yankee Stadium. So get this, my father finds some friend of his who's got like multiple tractor trailers. He just pulls up to Yankee Stadium.

They take all these crappy wooden seats out of the stadium, dump them into the, the tractor trailers, the tractor trailers drive up to upstate New York, go to a ski resort. And he has a friend who owns a ski resort. They dump sixty thousand seats into the, the, like the mountain. Mountainside, right? And they're all just sitting there and my father's got no idea what he's going to do with them.

lar. People started calling, [: 00:11:00

Israel, Middle East, Jordan, [: 00:12:00

And it's so fulfilling, Rich, because I think in my life. Americans are so spoiled. They don't realize how lucky they are to live in this country. It's an amazing place. And I say that for one reason, because you and I can go out onto the street right now. And we can, yell at the top of our lungs.

Anything that we want to say. You can't do that in other countries. It doesn't work. They arrest you if you do stuff like that. You know, if I go to Turkey and I speak against the president of Turkey, they come and arrest me and then they probably torture me. You know, it's terrible, but that's the way it is.

This is a great country. And I love the fact that we live in a place where there's no limits, that we can do anything that we want in life. And all we have to do is be brave enough to take a chance, roll the dice, knowing that in almost all cases, we're going to fail at what we do. Who cares? In building a law firm, Rich and Michael, I can tell you, Almost everything I do is failed.

I try all this [: 00:13:00

Well, you know, I say to them, how long have you tried a newsletter and they'll say four months. I'm I'm like four months. You've got to give it at least a year before you see any return on any marketing. They just don't understand the goal in life. The key to success in anything that you do is consistency, doing the same thing over and over again.

utive days. I'm almost at day: 1000

It's, it [: 00:14:00

And all I'm really doing rich is I'm building content for the next book, the power of a system, the law firm of your dreams. I just had a legacy book that came out this year called win today. And by the way, if any of your listeners email me, I'm happy to give them a signed copy of any of the books there.

it's with my love and. And I so much appreciate what you do rich and looking and when I say that, I mean it because it's, you're focusing lawyers and teaching them on business, not the legal stuff, which is frankly it's important to master that. But if somebody comes to you rich and they haven't mastered the legal stuff, then it's too, early for them.

hat stuff first and then get [: 00:15:00

Richard James: sure. By the way, we've done a newsletter for now 14 years as well. And, and it's every month. And I've written four articles for every month for 14 years. And I, and sometimes it's like, Oh my gosh, I got to do the articles. Right. I have fun doing it to a certain extent, but you know, it's been consistent.

Right. And so I'm a consistency, not myself. I have an app. That I read the Bible on. I'm on 265 weeks in a row you know, that, So I'm a streak person as well. I like to, I, you, you will find me sitting in the same chair every single morning and the exact same breakfast and drinking of the same coffee cup at seven o'clock every single morning.

And that's just how I am. So I, I relate to this idea of streaks. Michael, are you as a, are you a streak oriented or no?

d, right? I, I, I'm the same [: 00:16:00

And just understanding failure is going to happen. What makes that just so natural for you?

Atty. John Fisher: Well, I, I do different speaking events and and this is what I would say to other attorneys. Let's say that no one wants you as a speaker. Who cares? Do your own speaking events. You don't need somebody's authorization to do this. So I set up a speaking event in New York City about Internet marketing and I plastered ads to all the lawyers in New York City.

I've got everything all set [: 00:17:00

And I said to them, where are you going? They go, well, there's no one here. Okay. I said, what, what do you mean? We're still going to film this. So they, they spent about an hour filming this in this big conference room overlooking Midtown Manhattan. It was gorgeous. And, and I took that video and I sent it to our video editor and they chopped it up into little pieces, sent it out into social media and we had a really nice work product.

So it's being okay with failure means that if you have a speaking event and 1 or 2 people shows up, who cares? Those could be bonds and relationships that will serve you the rest of your career. So it's not about volume. Our firm has 599 referring attorneys, but of those 599, it's really about 4 or 5 firms that send us all of our work.

of our revenue [: 00:18:00

Richard James: pareto

pareto

Atty. John Fisher: but, but knowing Oh, yeah. So knowing who is going to send you a pipeline of referrals is the key and being okay with discomfort.

So, the way I met the biggest law firm, personal injury law firm in New York City was, I told them, I do this event called the jury project. It's a, it's a CLE. We put on a focus group and we work on one of their cases to help them prepare for trial. And they said, well, why would we want to come to this? We already do focus groups.

ng to put yourself out there [: 00:19:00

One of my lawyer friend its Greg Goldenfarb said that he built his law firm. One lunch at a time. He has one lunch a week with a referral partner, one lunch a week with a prospective referral partner. And he just built it that way. He didn't spend money on billboards or ads or anything else. He was building relationships and that is what is so critical and rich.

I can share this with you. Whenever we do a marketing seminar, I'll ask people, what is the number one source of your, your best cases? And about 90 percent of the room will say referrals. That's across the board. Wherever you go, they'll say referrals. So it's not necessarily the Internet, although it is for some, but it's primarily referrals.

rom lawyers. How many of you [: 00:20:00

Not a single hand will go up. And it's like, so they think just by doing good work, they'll get more more work. And that's partly true. But isn't it more effective if you're most of your income is coming from lawyer referrals who prescreen cases for merit for you that you have an actual system to get those leads.

But unfortunately, very few people have it. It's it's crazy in my

Richard James: opinion brother. I mean, listen, at the end of the day,

It's it, but this is very refreshing conversation, by the way, because everybody

else wants talk about,

Internet marketing and Facebook marketing and lead generation. And Michael and I are sales driven people, right? So We work with a lot of non-contingency based firms that have to charge fees and have to get real dollars collected during the initial consultation.

So our, one of our superpowers

is,

is setting appointments and closing those deals

into,

are great conversations, but [: 00:21:00

If,

if a law firm owner is struggling on what to do next. If they would just invest a certain percentage of every single week on focusing on referral based marketing, it'll take time, but that consistency over time will pay off forever.

As long as you're in practice. And as long as you're a good human, you'll keep getting business from those referral relationships that you've built through the years because people like to do business with people they like. And when you build relationship. And when you have a system and you can track it and you throw it on steroids and you start thinking about giving free content and all the good things that you've been doing.

I mean, you're not just teaching this out of theory. You're teaching this now out of, you know, 14 years of doing it, right? I mean, that's the reality. And so,

I, I,

right now, that's wondering,[: 00:22:00

Not that I'm poo pooing these things,

but,

but rather than pay attention to which new marketing agency have, how about, what if we just spent a percentage of our time focusing on building a referral development program for your practice?

Atty. John Fisher: Rich. I mean, one of the things when people say, well, how do I do this? What do I say? If I got you don't talk about business. You talk about their family. You talk about sports. But most importantly, you talk about delivering value to their business, helping them with their business. And you, let's say we go out to lunch and this is a common occurrence.

We'll go out to lunch with another attorney. The other attorney says, John, I don't want to refer this case to you. I just want to pick your mind about what I should do with this case. It's really big. And I'm like, no problem. We'll sit there for two hours and they'll tell me and I'll give them everything.

I've got share

every,

t rich? Tell me, what do you [: 00:23:00

Richard James: Well, they say, you know what, John, why don't we work on this together?

Atty. John Fisher: That's exactly what happens. They said, you know what, this is more complicated than I thought. Why don't we co-counsel on this? We'll split the fee and that's it. And it's like, Oh, because I'm delivering value. If I was just trying to hound the guy to get the case, it wouldn't

Richard James: you've

you've

Atty. John Fisher: the

Richard James: created an environment that that can happen like you purposely have created an environment for those lunches to happen. So the first lunch usually sometimes is, but usually isn't the lunch where they're talking to you about the case. They want to refer to you about. Usually the first iteration of it is having a cup of coffee where you get to know you.

Who the man or woman is in their marriage and their kids and their school or their sports or their whatever. And then we start giving them content. And then the next thing you know, you have a lunch and then before you know it, you're somewhere down the road and then they call you about a case. Right.

ed an environment where that [: 00:24:00

Don't try to sell, just be a giver. And it's amazing what happens. Givers get, and I just love your spirit and I love your heart around it. Not only because it's good lessons and what I'd love everybody listening to this to learn, but because it works.

Atty. John Fisher: Well, I'll, I'll share this. There's an attorney who sent us work for about 15 years. Super nice guy. We never accepted one of his referrals and every time he would call us, he'd be apologetic and say, you know, I'm so sorry. I realize this is probably not a case. I shouldn't be bothering with you. I said, no, you're honoring us with your referral.

ny together, I don't care. I [: 00:25:00

It was a rough time. If you're a trial attorney, it was. And so, this guy's decided he's going to take all of his cases, give them to our law firm, and during the pandemic, You know, we made good money during the pandemic because of that attorney's referrals because we were patient enough to ride at it out for about 15 years.

Other attorneys may have said, ah, screw it. I'm not interested anymore, but we just kept being consistent and what I do every day. Rich. I'll update a referring attorney on the status of a referred case. Here's what we're doing. This is our analysis. This is the expert. Other lawyers never do that. And why does that separate us from them?

now, what's going on. But if [: 00:26:00

The lack of communication, you will never have a complaint about over communication. Over communication is not a problem. Under communication is the problem in a referral based firm. And I want to share this one quick story with you, Rich and Michael, because my first book, The Power of a System, people say to me all the time, is it worth it writing a book?

ll, when I wrote that book in: 2014

back an hour later. It's too [: 00:27:00

when I arrived near their room, there's a line of attorneys. With all their hair slicked back these fancy suits and it's a line of them and I'm in the back of the line and these are guys more experienced, bigger name than I am the whole thing. And I'm like, I got no chance. So finally, my turn comes.

I meet with the family. I just have a really low pressure conversation with them. And at the end of the conversation, I give them a copy of my book, the power of a system. I leave the room and on my expectation is there's no way in the world. I'm getting this case. Yeah. Two days later, one of the family members calls me and said, we're hiring you.

n staring us in the face. We [: 00:28:00

That book got that, you know, that's a multimillion dollar case. That book did all the selling that I needed because the book is an asset that you will have for the rest of your career. I really think that it's so important for us rich. Like I wrote that book when today the legacy book, it's got nothing to do with the law.

I wrote that for my kids because I think what we tell our kids is quickly forgotten. But I think that when we put it in paper, then it's on granted. And if I die today, my kids will have that book, and they'll be able to reflect on the lessons in life that I have my faith. Personal fitness nutrition.

share my faith openly in my [: 00:29:00

It's this is who I am as a person. And, you know, I'll go to masterminds and many of the people, if not the majority are not Christian. That's okay. I'm good with all of it, but I do feel that I wasn't put on this planet to be shy and quiet. I was put on this planet to speak what I believe and what I want to share and the value that I can impart to other people.

And no one really rich in my view does that better

m walking in the back of the [: 00:30:00

And one man came up to me and said, I just want to thank you. know, today was the day I decided to give my life to Christ. And I go, wait, what? And like, how do I know that God didn't have me do that just for that one person? Right. And I had no idea. And so from that moment forward, God made it really clear that.

He wanted us to include a conversation about him throughout our business. And, we do, I mean, he started us with Saturday Bible studies at our events, and now we have Bible studies every Wednesday for our clients that who want to show up, you know, and look, I, think 40 of my clients are Jewish and10 or like something other than Jewish or Christian and you know, but everybody shows up and they just participate in it. It's really beautiful. It's wonderful. And, and I, and thank you for the kind words about it, but I get zero credit other than being obedient because it was left to my own. Devices.

licans. We bury Protestants. [: 00:31:00

Right? And so I thought we shouldn't touch upon those subjects. And so it was, it was really God that made it clear to me that that's not how he wants me to operate. So, uh,

Atty. John Fisher: well, rich, I mean, one of the things I can tell you is what you did in that situation. Is you weren't listening to your fear. you're asking for guidance from God and God gives it to you when you ask in most cases, I have three adopted kids from Russia. And I can tell you that when my, wife and I went to Russia, we were going there to have two children to get to two kids.

And it turns out there were three beautiful babies that came to us in the orphanage. This isn't the. Near the Republic of Georgia in Southern Russia. And so we got these three babies and my wife and I were like, what the hell do we do now? And I went back to our, home that we were staying in that night.

ought with God. I said, God, [: 00:32:00

And it was clear to me at that point, what I was meant to do, the adoption, the whole thing, and God led me down because I asked, and I was listening just like you were that day when you say, I really don't want to do this. But you were listening to God and, you know, people could, this is not a Moses moment where God is like talking to us, but we're listening to our

Richard James: No burning

Atty. John Fisher: and looking for guidance.

And sometimes that guidance is very clear. So I appreciate that you share your faith because I do

Richard James: Michael. We, we haven't been letting you say much here. We've been,

MPS: No, I, it's

Richard James: forth.

been enjoying as a listener. [: 00:33:00

Richard James: great

MPS: So this has been good. This has been really good. It's been a really refreshing conversation. And I appreciate that, John, because I we, we don't always get this style. We, we don't always have these types of conversations.

So it's nice to be able to change it up a little bit. I, I guess I, I'm curious what, what's got you excited. What's got you fired up today. It could be personal, could be business.

Atty. John Fisher: Well, you know what? It's interesting you bring that up because we are in the process. This is the first time I've done this. Yeah, we're a small firm. We're, we're, we have a phenomenal, I'll give you a little inside information too. This is bizarre. I've never expected this was going to happen in a million years, but we started working with members of Jehovah's Witness.

time in the Northeast, rich, [: 00:34:00

Everyone's happy. And I'm like, damn, I'd love to work in a law firm. That's like where everyone's happy. Because we can count our blessings or we can look at the things we don't have and in strategic. Well, I work in a program called strategic coach and we always talk about measuring backwards, looking back at the last 3 or 6 months at what you've achieved and documenting that.

And then you look back at that and you're like, holy cow. I've come a long way in the last 6 months. This is crazy. So we, we work, we have an amazing intake team of five people who just do intake. The one thing I've learned, Rich, all the lawyers talk about marketing. No, you got to, you got to master intake before you get to marketing.

astered intake. So we have a [: 00:35:00

They are the best people and rich. It's so great. When I need someone else to work at our firm. I'm just like, you know, I go to our members and they're like, oh, yeah, we'll bring in someone else. Don't worry about it. And I don't have to worry about them, you know, showing up on late or anything. It's just amazing.

And so the pandemic, Michael, what I've learned from the pandemic is people don't have to be in our law firm. That's that's old school thinking. So we've got people all across the country who are full time workers. We have a paralegal in Knoxville, Tennessee, who makes about 120 grand a year. She's phenomenal.

She and every weekend. She's like, can I work overtime? You don't have to ask just work, you know, and she'll send me at 25 hours over the weekend. I'm like, that's crazy. Good. When you have people, people talk about culture, but you know what really culture is? It's when people are aligned in the thoughts and beliefs that they have.

a good fit for our culture. [: 00:36:00

So we're expanding our law firm to an office in the Bronx. New York City is a market that. That we always want to, it's just, it's just a tiny market for us now, but we want to expand that. I want to think bigger and the marketing got the second in command. We'll do all the stuff. I don't want to be bothered by the little stuff.

Don't bother me with anything. Interruptions and distractions are the worst thing for a productive workday. So I've given myself that gift. We're expanding the firm into Long Island, New York City. We're in upstate New York, but we're going there in a, in a very aggressive way. And I love the practice a lot.

upstate New York. And I see [: 00:37:00

That's the reason I practice law. That's it. It's not for the money. It's for that very reason. And, you know, I think sometimes rich, we hear a lot about people talking about. Different, you know, expanding revenue and all this and all of that's good. Knowing the metrics is good. I'm not pooing any of that. But I also think we have to remember the reason we went into this profession in the 1st place.

And if the reason was, we want to make as much money as possible. That is a very shallow existence. In my opinion. We want to serve other people. And if somebody calls me or they call our intake team and somebody has died in their family, I said, spend all the time that they want on the phone with them.

them because I want to show [: 00:38:00

I don't want to be like every other law firm. I want to be completely different from other law firms. And so, you know, like, today, I went to see a doctor on one of our upcoming trials. I brought her a copy of my book when today and she's like, what's this? I'm like, no, it's just a little gift for you. They appreciate that Michael.

one of our clients. I met with her just before Christmas and I looked, she just moved. She, she had little kids. And it's a single mother. She had nothing in the fridge and I went home to my wife and I said, I feel really bad that this mother just doesn't look like she has any money and she's dying of cancer.

And so my wife, unbeknownst to me, calls this company that does these huge things of food, like this enormous plate and sent it out to her. And I think that little gesture went a long way with that client. We build relationships. And one other thing, Richard, we talk about values. What is, what are the values that really make a firm run?

And a lot [: 00:39:00

Like, for example, one of our values is that we never agree to confidential settlements. Back in November, I had a trial and the case settled and the, the young defense attorney said to me, we want, we're going to have to have confidentiality. I said, no deal. We're not agreeing to it no matter what. And he goes, your, your clients.

Christmas is really going to suck this year. And I said, maybe so, but they don't celebrate Christmas. So anyway, the just about a week ago, this guy emails me, goes, my client has reconsidered, we are not insisting on confidentiality. It's like, I could predict that. So I've never agreed to a confidential settlement.

in the sand. And you, place [: 00:40:00

I mean, that doesn't boost the bottom line of your business, right? But what it does is shows people. That you are value oriented faith based business. And you know what? That's awesome. And, and for law firms, if they are faith based, that's a great way of showing other people. Don't hire me necessarily because that, but if you have the same values that I have, then maybe we are a

good

his waiting room, his lobby.[: 00:41:00

This was

pre-COVID

and he goes, I put them out. He goes, I put five out and he says, I came in like the next week. And I happened to look and I realized they're all gone. And I said to my receptionist, I go, where did the Bibles go? She goes, Oh, people take them. He goes, really? And so he went and bought cases of them and now he just stores them and he keeps replenishing them even today because he still does some business in person, actually a fairly considerable amount of business in person when in their office, they keep Bibles in there all the time and they just people take them and it's conversational.

So he goes, yeah. He goes, Richard, I never thought I'd be in a consult having a conversation with somebody about their faith as opposed to about their case, he goes, I never thought it would ever happen. And he said, because I put Bibles out there now, all of a sudden asking me to pray for them. And he goes, I had no idea.

y're not. They're not like a [: 00:42:00

So it's not just. Look, if you, we believe what we believe and we have our belief system around Christianity, but this conversation is not limited to just Christians, right? This kind of, this is just the right way to be. This, bringing God into the conversation has just taught me. And I think I can't speak for Michael, but I.

Think I can, I mean, this is just the right way to run our business. And, we do look no shame, shame, non shamefully. We measure dollars and cents. We measure conversion. We're all about the numbers in the KPI's we know what our profitability is. And we teach that, right? We think that's important, but it, not be only about that.

you want to grow, you can't [: 00:43:00

And so you can serve more families and that's it. Now we can't just say, Oh, I want to be profitable and forget about the other side. Because if that happens, all things go badly. But if we can be profitable in order to be able to serve more families, because we got great systems, we've got a great tool that's going to really affect people with the practice area that we have.

Now we've got our alignment correct. Right. So anyway, again, Michael, we've started talking and not letting you share, but here we are.

Uh,

MPS: again, once again, very valuable conversation. So, John, what's the best way for people to reach out, learn a little bit more about you or what you do?

[: 00:44:00

And he said, okay, so I'm going to be in New Jersey. I said, no problem. I'll meet you at a diner and we ended up talking for about 2 hours. And I can tell you that I really didn't learn much at all except for one thing. And he said that the people who thrive and make the most money are the people who devote at least 50 or more of their time to business development and marketing.

It is so true. The, the lawyers who are thriving in the world of personal injury are those guys who and girls who never see a courtroom, they wouldn't even know where to stand or sit in a courtroom. The last time they tried a case was probably 30 years ago. It doesn't matter. Because they've mastered business that is so critical and they go to masterminds with incredible people like Richard James and they just suck in all that wisdom.

f other people and you learn [: 00:45:00

But people, if they want to get in touch with me. I'll give you my personal email because I don't check. I'm not embarrassed to say this. I have not checked my work email and years. Hey, other people do it for me. They come to me if there's something that's urgent. So I don't look at email period. And I don't want to have a distraction like a phone call either.

rLawyer@gmail.com or myself. [: 00:46:00

And I'm so grateful for the work that you do. And I think Michael, your father is just an amazing example for you in taking chances, trying, admitting that failure's okay. And I, I, am a huge disciple of Warren Buffett. And one of the things, my biggest take away from Warren Buffett. Is, do you know that 98 of his wealth, he was generated after the age of 65.

What does that show you? What does that say? I mean, of course he was wildly rich before 65, but when he said 65, 98 of his wealth was generated. What that shows you is consistency. He had a partner who was different than Charlie Munger. And this partner was like, we got a great business. We got to make as much money as quickly as we can.

get wealthy slowly. So when [: 00:47:00

Improve your law firm a little bit, document a new system develop a new policy for your firm. Go to a mastermind like Richard James partners group and go to that. Learn from the wisdom of others. And I know, cause I know many of some of the members of your partner's group, they're amazing lawyers, amazing people.

And there's so much wisdom to learn. Don't, don't recreate the wheel. Learn from people who have already created the wheel and are doing it better than you are.

years. Thank you [: 00:48:00

So, let us know how get, we'll email you to get, make sure we get signed copies of the book. Cause we would love a signed copy of your latest book. and for anybody listening, man, you got, you got some. I mean, this was, this was action packed. I, I just looked down. I'm like, Oh my gosh, we're at 47 minutes.

We never go 47 minutes. And it felt like it went in a blink of an eye, John. So congratulations on great great today. Michael, how do you want to wrap us up?

MPS: Well, hey, time flies when you're having fun. To the law firm owners listening, thank you for taking the time to listen. Thank you for investing that time into the show. So, look, we got the gentleman's agreement around here. If this isn't your first time listening or watching, you got some value, you enjoyed it.

of just saying thank you in [: 00:49:00

We appreciate you listening and John, thank you very much for all of the excellent wisdom you parted on all of us today.

Atty. John Fisher: Well, keep doing what you're doing because I'm a big fan and, I'm still following you and I, I'm, grateful for our relationship and friendship.

Richard James: feeling is mutual. My friend, our best to you and your family prayers on wherever you're going next. My friend.

Atty. John Fisher: Hey, thank

Richard James: All right.