Criminal Defense Attorney’s Journey From Solo to 7-Figure Law Firm Owner | YPM Podcast
In this episode of Your Practice Mastered podcast, criminal defense attorney Adam Rossen shares his entrepreneurial journey of scaling his firm from solo to seven figures. He discusses key lessons learned along the way, including focusing on revenue early on, implementing EOS, building a strong firm culture, and enjoying both the journey and the destination. Adam's authentic, action-oriented approach is sure to inspire law firm owners at all stages of growth.
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Transcript
So, people to be able to hopefully love it. And if they don't check it off the box and now, you know, and go figure out the next thing that will, lead to your passion.
MPS: Hey, Law Firm Owner. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.
how. He's a rock star. He is [:Why don't you just tell everybody a little bit about yourself, who you are.
Adam_Rossen: Yeah, well, thanks for having me. I hope I deliver here today. So let's make it, you know, hopefully we'll have some fosting. So, I'm Adam Rossen from the Rossen Law Firm. We are in South Florida. Specifically, main office is in Fort Lauderdale. We have offices from Palm Beach to Miami. I own the Rossen Law Firm.
We are exclusively criminal defense. Anything from DUI to murder to sex crimes to complex white collar and federal work. We have seven attorneys right now. We have about 22 to 25 people. We've had some pretty big growth over the last few years, and I've been very fortunate enough to be a part of many masterminds and groups and have just mentors and really just want to grow the firm so we can help more people.
So yeah, it's just a little [:MPS: Literally, you're either moving forward or you're moving backwards, but there's no in between. I'm with you on that. For, thank you for that intro, by the way. And I remember, you know, getting to meet you at Ben Glass's event and that was awesome. And you were one of the, first in the closing room at that event.
So, remember that day and it was exciting and fun to work with your firm, but for everyone that doesn't know you, I know they got the rundown of an idea of your firm and what you do, but what's something that maybe not everyone knows about you?
Adam_Rossen: It's a good question. Well, let's see. So some other fun facts. I was a high school basketball coach for 10 years. I coached some extremely talented players. Never coached somebody who played in the NBA, but we've coached against people who played in the NBA, coached against Ben Simmons, coached against Joel Embiid, some other amazingly talented players and my players were amazingly talented.
years ago in:But then as a, coach, you know, I finally got to accomplish that. So I'd say, you know, That's one thing. The other thing is people who know me, but don't know me that well. I have two little boys, four and a half and one and a half. And I guess they're not really little. They're both, I mean, they're both massive.
They were both over nine pounds at birth. And you know, it's just. I didn't become a dad till I was 38 and that was deliberate. And a lot of my friends, you know, they were my, I always used to joke and say they were my birth control because I'd see them and go, yeah, that's not me for a while. And it's just changed my entire life, my entire world.
They are everything, them and my wife. And it's just so fulfilling to be. Now, everything I do is, is intentional about building the life and the law firm that I want. So I can, you know. Basically, do what I want and not have to put in 70, 80 hours a week and miss things.
t in the middle of the story [:So for that attorney, who's listening right now, maybe you also have young kids or, or maybe your kids are grown and now you're trying to reignite with your spouse, or maybe you're at the end of the journey and you're, chronologically accomplished, but you still feel like there's more gas in the tank and you haven't accomplished it all.
And you never really learned how to run it like a business this call today. We're really going to talk about that, like how to run this as a business. Cause Adam. Has now had to figure out, okay, I want to grow the business. That's great. But now I want to do it in a way that it can still grow, but I can build it.
So I can support the lifestyle that I want. And so Adam. That's so important. I'm curious as to MPS, where do you want to go from here? Cause I really want to hear this journey.
't you give us the, just the [:Adam_Rossen: Yeah, so, I mean, going back even just to my childhood, I, you know, I had on one side, my dad's side, which was the very smart, very technical side. And then my mom's side, which was the street smart, formal educated, but, you know, really entrepreneurial side. And I always kind of had that duality of both growing up.
I was a prosecutor for only 18 months and I didn't like, at one point I wanted to be a prosecutor. So, yeah. Lifelong prosecutor, my goal was to get to the homicide unit in 10 years or less, you know, be one of the biggest, baddest, you know, homicide prosecutors in South Florida within about a year. I was like, this place is not for me.
It's not what I thought it would be. I'm not getting justice for victims. I'm basically getting, you know, backing up cops when they're accused of violating the law. And I'm starting to believe that they actually do it. So I said, I'm out and started my own firm at 26 years old. And for the first seven years, I had a partner.
w, good lawyers. And we made [: And in:Most of it was marketing, marketing, marketing. Cause at that revenue level, you need cases. I didn't really care about building systems. I mean, Money, money, many cases. But then we grew to six people, two lawyers, a marketer and three in house Right, before COVID. You know, we had become maybe a top 10 firm in our area and then COVID.
ing. And so I said, Nobody's [:We're going to hunker down. I have money saved. I've always been a good, a pretty good saver, pretty good spender and a pretty good saver. And we just said, we're all going to be, we're all marketers. We're all going to figure this crap out. And we did. And we just, you know, we had, we wrote some. Amazing content for the website.
people from January:You know, the last four years have felt like 20 but it's been worth it.
ur mom's family that had it, [:And they're going through whatever they're going through. And, And by the way, every. season, there's some law firms that are up in some types of practice areas that are down. There's never a ship that lifts them all. And so if they're in a season that's down or they're struggling or whatever right now, and they haven't really done any of that consume information and they haven't even thought that was what they should be doing.
Although they're listening to this. So obviously they're, consuming some information. What's your advice? Where do they go? What should they do? What's the first steps they should take as far as like, you made an interesting statement at that size. I didn't need systems. I needed, business.
I needed clients. I needed cash. Right. You know, that was a great mindset. Walk me through how you thought about that, where you turned, how you knew where to turn.
culture index, which I love [:And I'm the visionary, I'm technically a trailblazer. So I have lower attention to detail, but it's selective. But, you know, when I was focused, you know, back then about when we split, it's like, I just need cases. But I know a lot of lawyers who have the high, Attention to detail the perfectionist, they're going to, you know, maybe they're at 200 grand in revenue, 150 yearly grand in revenue, 300 grand revenue, and they're focused on building all the systems and that's not me.
And I, kind of disagree with that because of that revenue. You just need cases. It's nice to have systems, but systems can't do anything if you don't have cases. And what we've done, and of course, now, you know, I, Love systems and I know the need for it, but the systems that you need at 300, 000 at 750 at one and a half million at 2 million at 3 million, 5 million are all going to be different.
low. But going back, the one [: end to me, I remember back in: your core values say? Right. [:Cause invariably there's going to be problems, right? So what are your core values and how are we, it's kind of like every lawyer knows the best. Smart decision is to have a prenup, right? But a prenup is the logical decision and marriage is a lot of times an emotional decision or same thing with a business agreement when you go into business.
And most, so a lot of people don't do those things. Those are some things that really, we really rely heavily on our core values, our mission, our vision to help us make decisions in good times and in bad times.
Richard James: Yeah. So first of all, Ben forgives you for not implementing it when you told when all it
Adam_Rossen: I know he does.
ur program and we've been on [: lot of people doing a lot of [:So we decided to allocate everyone's focus to solving that one problem. And. Like alchemy or like magic, it got solved, right? Because everybody's focus was on it. So Adam, I think that was, very wise to move everybody's attention to that during COVID. And I'm curious maybe COVID wasn't, maybe it was, but was there a particular low point in the firm and what was that moment and what were you able to take out of that?
Because inevitably they happen.
Adam_Rossen: Right, so I'll say, you know, no, I mean, the 1st, 6 weeks of coven was low, but I wouldn't consider that the low point because we had money saved and, you know, we were doing all these different things. We took on 13 interns that summer because. You know, and this is also a credit to Ben, You know, we're supposed to be community leaders.
bility to say yes to as many [:People lost on great internships with judges and all these different things. So we said, come on. Yeah. We'll take everybody. And we had fun projects with them and I've always loved to be a teacher. So we did a project on George Floyd murder where I said, we represent Derek Chauvin. Write me a legal memo.
I don't care if we get high school, college and law school. And some of the law schoolers wrote brilliant memos. Write me a legal memo, how we're going to win the case. Don't tell me how we're going to lose. Right. I picked the hard one and it was amazing. And we also had them write SEO content for us. So it was an amazing summer.
was kind of the start of it. [: h is interesting, I would say:Why didn't I make systems when we were at 300, 400 K in revenue, right? Why, you know, Adam, you're so stupid. You were focused on all the marketing, right? And so there's a balance between everything, but I made it. I didn't hire an office manager until we had 12 people. So the 13th person, you know, not employee number 13, but, you know, when we hit number 13, that was the office manager and no wonder everything was disorganized.
that right in the middle of [: And we thought it would be:It was one of those situations where we grew so fast, things were breaking, we didn't have the right people, our hiring process took forever, and then just the world changed so fast. So, although it was a great financial year and it was still one of those things that really, again, part of our journey and we got through it and we learned a ton, that was, I'd say, more of an emotional low point than necessarily a financial low point.
sed to joke that you came to [:Adam_Rossen: Amazing.
Richard James: That wasn't that wasn't our brightest moment.
Okay. That wasn't a, it's not something we were super proud of, but to tell.
Adam_Rossen: Like, it's like the
Richard James: Yeah. Hunger mean, it was brutal. So I, tell you that because you
Adam_Rossen: the audience actually choose? did they go through the whole process?
Richard James: they went through the process, but they politely declined to vote live. Like he wanted them to. So, uh, yeah. So I think at the end of the day I, think they're both, went one quit one got fired. You know what I mean? I mean, neither one of them wanted to be part of a culture like that.
[:I
Adam Rossen: Yeah
Richard James: tell to just illustrate the fact that you're right. When you start down this path there's going to be some disruption. And it's going to feel in the middle of the story. It's going to feel a little unhealthy. and it's, just part of the entrepreneurial journey.
As you're starting to change, you become a better leader. That's going to happen. And so thank you for sharing that. And for those that are listening. And I get this and you know this better than I do. I only know it third party Michael only knows it third party. We witness that our members in our community that we've been working with now for 15 years, they are wickedly intelligent humans.
They've been some of the brightest people in their graduating classes all the way through the society puts them on a pillar that they've been told they're the best. They are supposed to have all the right answers all the time. And they don't like being wrong and they don't like admitting that they're wrong.
at ourselves and we have to [:You know, Danielle McCraney and George McCraney up in Georgia, a criminal firm now doing multiple 7 figures at a high profit margin. She'll tell you in the early days, she had to have a backup for every position because she just knew. They just turned over so fast until she could figure out the culture, right?
And so she had to figure out the culture, but now what I love, that one of my favorite parts of your story is that you're starting to build it from a community perspective, but also self serving for the firm's perspective, this farm team of these interns that you're raising up and you're getting them ingrained in your culture.
You're getting them ingrained in your teachings. You're getting them ingrained in your processes and those who rise up and show themselves as a rockstar, you can simply tap them on the shoulder and go, you know what, we got a position for
Adam_Rossen: Yep
Richard James: I [:Adam_Rossen: Well, we haven't had anybody yet that has done that. We have 1 who started in turn, then became a law clerk and she's now starting at the public defender's office. And I would love in 2 or 3 years when she has enough trials and everything to bring her on. It'd be amazing. So, yes, that and that is part Of it.
And it's many different things, right? We are truly our givers and we want people to get an amazing experience. We do want people to fall in love with criminal defense, but if they don't, that's okay. And look, I wouldn't mind having five, you know, new prosecutors who are our former interns because connections and relationships matter too, right?
up and they're just blah all [:Obviously everybody knows miserable people and that's the extreme, but what about the people who just punch in and punch out and are just blah, Right. There's no feeling, there's no emotion and that's not us at all. You know, all of our attorneys and and all of our staff is, they were very passionate about helping others through criminal defense and most people just.
ob they got, you know, in, in:hot and bankruptcy. So, so many people went into that, and then when that dried up, what do you do? What do you know? Okay. You know, a little bit of real estate law, you know, a little bit of this and that, but do you have a passion for it or is it just there to pay the bills and punch in and punch out?
So people to be able to hopefully love it. And if they don't check it off the box and now, you know, and go figure out the next thing that will, you know, lead to your passion.
Richard James: Such great
m a tactical perspective, if [: ,: ight. But I figured it out in: r things. And Google, right. [:I'm going, it's eight hours. Nobody wants to be there. But the lady was funny. She starts talking about DUI and I raised my hand. I was like, you're wrong. You're wrong. This is what it is. You're wrong. You know, 26. I'm like, you're wrong. And she goes, okay, are you the class jerk? And I'm like, cause there's always one.
e questions. So for the next [:And he goes, why don't you talk to them about us lecturing there for free? I was like, you're brilliant. So we went and we talked and they go, wait, you'll come here for free and spend an hour. Absolutely. So we, I came up with a lecture and it was one of those things that, you know, there were Saturdays 20 single at 26 hung over where I didn't want to go at 10 AM on a Saturday, but I hustled and it was one of those things.
Even when we were small, very small. I mean, that was a big source of revenue generating, but I also looked at it as we were there to provide value. We, relationships. We gave them a service for free. There was no money exchanged. And if people had cases or, you know, or had cases later, they have my information and it just, it was good.
ere's money, there's revenue [:Everybody's culture is different. The firm has taken on my personality, my culture, and I just, the way I grew up is blue collar work ethic attitude in white collar skill and profession. And that's the way my basketball teams were, you know, we were white collar skills, we were very skilled players, but we worked hard and we were tough.
And to me, that was the most important thing. Is that toughness, that blue collar work ethic. So that's just, I don't know. it's been now doing the culture index. They say that your behavior patterns get set by the time you're 12 years old. And that's been me. It just is who I am.
James: what did you, I hope [:He's like, Oh my gosh, you are going to, Eat that town up because you know, you have grit and you know how to work. Now I found that actually Phoenix, Arizona has some pretty sharp people in it and there's some really great operators, but it was true that we tended to outwork everybody. And when you're young or you use what you have available to you, whe whether you're young and 26 or you're in your 40s or 50s If what if all you got right now you don't have any money If all you've got is your sweat. Well, then that's what you got to use. Right. And if you can come from the attitude that you just gave them, which is, how do we make this a win I'm going to give you some of my time and expertise in hard work and in return, if.
You have [:And you've now brought that fully into your culture. And so for those of you that are listening, you know, you don't have to be like Adam. You don't have to, you don't have to be the way he's big, but you have to be you and whoever you are, you need to be true to that. And if you could bring that truth to your business, to your practice, it's going to permeate throughout and your culture will be developed based on who you are now.
law firm to be built on the [:And surprisingly, it might actually work. Now I don't want to work with a guy like that or a gal like that. But that's okay. It still could work for you. Truth is just be who you are. Where do you want to go here?
Adam_Rossen: well, no, but you're right. There's, you know, like breeds like, and so although we're amazing, talented criminal defense lawyers, there's certain types of clients that just are better off with a different firm or a different lawyer, and we've learned that that's okay. It doesn't make them bad people, doesn't make us bad people.
It's just right. It's okay. And same thing with employees. We've learned, Hey, and we were now very upfront and say, look, this is our culture. We work really hard. We, you know, we talk about our core values, but we, we do have fun. if this is not you, you're going to be miserable here. And I want everybody to be happy.
somewhere else and learning [:And some clients have left other lawyers who are brilliant to come to us. And I know why but we talk about it and they're like, yeah, she's not nice. She. Tells me she doesn't care about me. She cares only about winning or whatever. And, but I need somebody to give me a Ritz Carlton, you know, treatment, white glove treatment, which we do for our clients.
Other people might go, I don't care if the lawyer is a total jerk. I just want to win. And that's okay too. There's somebody who, you know, we obviously want both in our firm. So yeah, I mean, it's, you know, and those having those standards and those principles and core values, I think is essential.
MPS: Absolutely I'm curious, Adam, first and foremost you've certainly lived up here in this episode. This is fantastic.
Richard James: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
MPS: yes, for sure. [:Adam_Rossen: Well, I'm excited to get home. So today I'm in a hotel in New Orleans. I'm at the Pilma conference and what I thought, you know, this was, I was kind of like a last minute addition to come in here. I've never been before. And I thought to myself, I'm like, look, I want to be where these big PI firms are doing, because, you Since there's so much money in PI, they're the ones that are the cutting edge of tech, cutting edge of all the new different things, you know, they spend so much money and getting better, incrementally better, right?
1 percent better to be a major swing for these firms. So I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to absorb and network and meet people. You know, when they go on their tangents about mass torts, those are the things that I don't think I can really bring to criminal law, but everything else and in between I was there.
conversations, which usually [:And, you know, I used to be a prosecutor myself but I've seen the light. And, you know, but my wife was in, yeah, but my wife's amazing. She's a prosecutor in Palm beach. She was in an attempted murder trial this week. She got a conviction. It was a very serious case. So it's me last minute trip to new Orleans.
My wife. An attempted murder trial, you know, going crazy on that and then two boys and just, you know, being a, nobody ever told us how difficult it is to have two professionals working and being, you know, being parents and raising kids. It's tough. So, for me, personally, I'm excited to get home.
the bus home from Lakeland, [:I celebrated for three, four hours. Now what's next, and that's not a good thing. It's just the way I'm wired. So. I'm, you know, we have all of our goals and things, but I'm really trying to slow, you know, once I hit my forties and had kids, life changes a little bit, right? I haven't hit had, haven't had my midlife crisis yet, but I'm thinking about, okay, well let's enjoy the journey, right?
Let's you know, right? What do all these things, or what's the purpose for all these things? So really just trying to enjoy the journey. Be self-reflective, and still hit the goals.
Richard James: Well, it's not abnormal for me to be the old guy in the room anymore. So here we got generation one, Michael and his wife just got married at 25. We got next generation you early 40s with 2 young
MPS: kids
runs my company with me and [:And so, I can tell you to both of you, it's great to watch both of you go through the process you're in right now. And I think you're both doing a great job of enjoying the journey that you're on. And yeah, moving the goalpost and not being satisfied with the win or not celebrating for long.
Sounds like it's a bad thing. And we've heard all the stories about the guys who win all the gold medals and who are miserable. But I think it's better than the alternative. I don't like the alternative, which is not having any drive at all. Not moving in the right direction at all. As you started this out, whether you can move forward, you can move backward, but you can't stand still.
And so Adam, congratulations to you for not standing still. And thank you so much for sharing your insights and some takeaways for those members that are listening out there of the, your practice mastered EA nation. And I know that they took a nugget or 2 away and hopefully they walked away inspired that they could build a life that they want to build.
d absolutely live up to your [:Adam_Rossen: Thanks.
MPS: Absolutely.
Adam_Rossen: Thank you. Thank you.
MPS: of course. And to the law firm owner listening, thank you. Thank you for investing your time into this. And look, if this isn't your first time around here, make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button, depending on where you're listening or watching, and then show Adam some love down in the comments.
I mean, this was fantastic. So make sure to share the love there. But Adam, thank you again for investing your time today. This was an awesome episode.
Adam_Rossen: I've had so many people be mentors to me. One thing I learned is just take action. You know, it's like now I'm like, man, you know how many times I wish I would have just asked cute girl out when I was a teenager. Well, I was so scared of rejection. Right. So there's so many great giving people in the profession.
Whether you're lawyers or. You know, in the profession, but not a lawyer, just go out. You know, anybody wants to talk to me ever, I will find a way. I will make time to talk to you. still have mentors. And even at this conference that I'm at, you know, some of these eight figure multi eight figure PI lawyers, I'm like, Hey, like, can you be my friend?
Can you be my mentor? [:Richard James: Hey, if everybody wants to get ahold of you, what's the best way? Is it social? Is it an email? What would you want
Adam_Rossen: Yeah, I mean, my, my email is adamantrossenloffer. com, social is rossenloffer, pretty much everywhere you can find us. we're easy to find Instagram, YouTube, email, call our phone number or whatever. Just, you know, hit us up. We're here to help.
Richard James: Awesome. Well, I appreciate you. MPS I appreciate you. that's the pod.
