How I Rebuilt a Successful Law Firm After a Devastating Fire and Armed Break-In | YPM Podcast

[: 00:00:00

Atty. Travis Christiansen: We were in my mom and dad basement because of the effect that burglary had had on my business.

there for three years. So in: 2016

Introduction and Welcome 


MPS: Hey, Law Firm Owner. Welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS. 


Richard James: And I'm Richard James and MPS today. We have a story of transformation, right? 


Meet Travis Christiansen 


Richard James: Travis Christiansen from St. George, Utah is our guest today. He's been a longtime member in our world. And most importantly, he is extremely supportive of all of our other members. He is oftentimes a mentor to the new people coming into our world. 


But I'm excited to talk about his transformation today, not only as a law firm owner and watching the transformation he and his team have made, he's got an incredible team and that's probably one of his biggest strengths, the team that he's built. But also he had a transformation physically. 


Like he just took the whole thing seriously and transformed himself. So Travis, welcome to the call today. Thanks for being here. 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Glad to be here. Looking forward to having some fun. 


Richard James: Yeah, Let's have some fun. 


So MPS, where do we want to go from here? 


MPS: Travis, I want to give everyone an opportunity to learn a little bit more about you. 


Early Jobs and Work Ethic 


MPS: So what's something that not everyone might know about you? 


Travis Christiansen: So, my [: 00:01:00

I would do that two days a week after school during the school year. And each night we would artificially inseminate about 2, 500 turkeys. And I first shared that in great detail in second grade to a first year, and the teacher was their very first year. And needless to say, my dad got called by the principal. 


What are you teaching your eight year old son about reproduction and various things? So that is an interesting thing about me that not a lot of people know that has made for some great experiences. And I've had a lot of fun with that over the years. 


still shocking every time I [: 00:02:00

MPS: It's a first for me and yeah, it's 2, 500. 


Richard James: There's all sorts of questions that come up that I'm not gonna ask on this episode, but yeah. But anyway, that's interesting. Okay. So that was your dad's business or he had a job doing that for someone. 


ved a lot, but this been like: 1979

So one thing I learned from my dad was just the work ethic, and that's helped me a ton as an attorney, as a student and everything I've done. And but it was a lot of fun. When I was 12, it was 1983, I had $1,500 in the bank. Which great. 


Richard James: Your dad taught you how to hustle. 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Yeah. Yeah. How to hustle, how to work, how to never stop and just keep at it. 


Entrepreneurial Beginnings 


. And, I was,: 1982

Because they had me open the store. They had me close the store. I opened the store on Saturdays, open a store on Sundays. I went shopping with my father. It was like a full time gig in addition to school. 


video games. So I didn't have: 1500

And I used to take where my first foray into business was, is I would take a 25 pieces of penny candy, and I would put them in those little brown paper bags. [00:04:00] I'm not sure if you're familiar with what they look like, but they're really miniature brown paper bags. 


And I would put 25 different pieces in them and I would box a whole bunch up and I would take them to school and I would sell them from my locker for 50 cents. 


So, I made a 50 percent margin in my first business. So, yeah, I, problem is I ate a lot of the profits. 


MPS: I love the early on side hustles. I've been there. I've done that. In fact, the telltale sign that I grew up in an entrepreneurial household was when I was probably 12 and wanted to go on vacation, had to find other friends to cut lawns for me. 


So, that was part of that journey. 


Richard James: Our first telltale sign that you were, was when Michael came home and said to his mom, Hey mom, I need eight dozen, 10 dozen chocolate chip cookies. And she goes for what? He said for the neighbors, they want to buy them. She goes you're going to have to sell them first. He goes, no, I already did. 


I just need the cookies. Now [: 00:05:00

Atty. Travis Christiansen: No, actually, one of the things that, you know, that I've overcome quite honestly is I'm the first entrepreneur in my family ever. Both of my grandfathers, had work. My dad had a government job. And so actually up until about five, six years ago, anytime there was an ad that my mom saw for a government attorney job, she would call me, say, Travis, so and so is hiring. 


If you apply to this county or that county or this city or that city, cause you'd have a steady paycheck and, And to humor her, I would go, look at the ad and say, yeah, mom, the pays. Yeah, it's okay. 


Family and Work-Life Balance 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: But gosh, the freedom I would lose, today it doesn't matter, but it's 2:15 where I'm at. 


[: 00:06:00

And I'm going to go and watch my girls play tennis and leave early. That's one of the blessings of being an entrepreneur, owning your own firm is you can give yourself permission to be a family person. I chewed out one of the associates who'd worked for me. We're doing a case review today. And I said, just ask out the family. 


Oh, my wife's in a well child, their pregnancy checkup. And I said, why are you here? Go! Be at the doctor with your wife. That's way more important than sitting here reviewing our 120 cases we're reviewing right now. And he was like, really? Yeah, I need to work. Work until 5 30 today or six, but go be with your family. 


Anyway, [: 00:07:00

MPS: Very well said. 


Richard James: Yeah, I tell you, that comment you made to your team. I think our team would tell us that we feel the same way about them, and we encourage that behavior. But I was raised that you're supposed to get every single drop of blood, sweat, and tears out of every single employee, every single time, every hour of the day. 


And for many years, my management style was just that. You were to be at your desk at 8:50, not 9 o'clock. Ready to go to work. If you took too many cigarette breaks, I had an Excel spreadsheet to show you exactly how many you took and how much it costs the company. so I was bad at this at first, Travis. 


Michael, you were never really bad at this. Maybe you saw it in me and saw the change, or I don't know why, how did you learn it? Cause you've always been a good leader and a good manager and been fair. You don't try to drill it into people. Why do you think that that is? 


understand what that does to [: 00:08:00

Because that means they're happy. We're happy. Their work is done. And none of us are stressed out all that much. It's just not worth it. And so I think I just recognize that in people. But Travis, what I would love to do is hear a little bit more about the journey. 


Law Firm Challenges and Resilience 


MPS: So from artificially inseminating turkeys to a law firm owner, the high points how did you move from there to there? 


ey turned me into a guard. I [: 00:09:00

It's a division three school, but I played and started as a guard for three years, ended up first team all conference offensive lineman, and I was 215 pounds my senior year doing that. At the end of that, my college football coach Joe McDaniel is in the college football coaches hall of fame. I've got to give him props. Amazing man. 


He sat me down and said, all right, Travis, he'd been coaching for 45 years at this point. You are in one of the top five most competitive people I've ever met and coached. So, if you want to have a successful marriage and personal life, you've got to find a career that you can compete at. 


appy go luckies. Anyway. And [: 00:10:00

Law school kicked my butt. It was really hard. I got a job from a guy that was about five years older than me that had actually given my dad his job at the high school my dad was at for 31 years. And worked for him for about eight months. 


,: 2000

He says, Travis, I can't afford to keep you on, but you're welcome to stay in that office. You're in for free for a while until you get figured. Get it figured out. I said, Thanks. I'm gone. I called my wife. Hey, babe, guess what? I just started my own law firm. 


robably remember. So what it [: 00:11:00

So I had a, got a business line that rang at my home phone with a distinctive ring pattern. So when your phone rings, it would, ring. Market expansion did ring. So you knew. 


So when that happened, law office of Travis Christensen, whether it was my wife or I, closed the phone, that's how we answered the phone. I had my computer set up at the dining room table. We ate on the couch. And if I needed to meet with a client, it would be, I've got court on Tuesday. They've got a great conference room. 


n assistant. We do this until: 2013

Guy was shot. Attempted arson, [00:12:00] tried to light my desk on fire, wrote death threats on my law school diploma, and borrowed mitten certificates on the wall. I'm giving you the highlights, guys. This story is 45 minutes in and of itself. 


,: 2013

My wife and kid did not leave the room. I would go down and get breakfast, take it up with the death threats and everything. Crime unsolved still to this day. So that's November. By April of that next year, I am out of money. 


moved into my mom and dad's [: 00:13:00

He comes to me and says, I got a file of chapter 13 bankruptcy. I saved this much money on the plan if I live in this house. But I got to leave here for two months. So we put all of our stuff in the garage. He moved in. We were in my mom and dad basement because of the effect that burglary had on my business. 


there for three years. So in: 2016

And there were a couple of guys, And the guy I decided I wanted to be with the guy that had time to do a lot other than be an attorney. And so 2016, I think, is when I first encountered your practice mastered and the tool kit back then. 


Building a Successful Practice 


n: And there was and started [: 00:14:00

So that's the cliffsNotes version of a story. MPS's eyes if you're on the video are huge. Rich is like I've heard some of this but hearing it all in one thing. Okay. This is a lot man anyway. 


Richard James: Which one was it? Your parents or your? 


st of: 2014

No one has been calling. And, it, just, anyway. So it took, it was a journey. I was grateful for some of that. Yeah. 


er that's listening to this, [: 00:15:00

When you're a business owner and things go bad sometimes they can go really bad and sometimes it's out of your control, and sometimes it's things that we make mistakes with. And the good news is that no matter how bad it gets, it can be survived. Now, that's not to say that the difficult times don't stink because they do. 


I'm sure Travis and his family were filled with all of the emotional fears and everything that came along with the threats that they had received, but also the financial fears and the financial cancer that came from it. 


to look at his associate and [: 00:16:00

And built a business that doesn't fear that happening because it's run now on the base of systems. So Travis, just like a real quick pause, pin in it. Congratulations, brother, because there's a lot of people that would have quit. There's a lot of people that would not have made it through that journey. You already mentioned you're competitive by nature. So that competitive nature kicked in and obviously brought you through that fire metaphorically and literally. And, so congratulations to you. 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Thanks. Thanks. It's been a journey. 


MPS: I am curious because so you arrived at that point. We're out of money. What to do next. So what was the tactical thing that you did next? 


rketing. And so we're talking: 2014

So that was one thing. And then just I had built a good enough reputation that some of my colleagues started referring stuff to me. And so I was able to get enough to keep going and just by force of will, the relationships that I had built, build it back up. And like I said, I got to that point right back to me and an assistant. 


a marketing standpoint, and [: 00:18:00

But it was really just having that mind shift, quite honestly, from being an attorney trying to learn how to become a business owner that one of the services I offered happened to be legal services I also started offering more financial services with some other licenses that I had and hadn't really used much that allowed me to more affirmatively pursue business where sometimes there's an attorney, we have to take this passive or the jail mail thing. 


is when they work for me and [: 00:19:00

And so, I was just saying 16, I wanted to make that shift. So I started doing research and looking for various places to do that. And that's how I met you you guys. 


Richard James: Travis, that mind shift change is huge. But one tactical thing I think I'll point to how many team members do you have now? 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Right now we've got three staff, three other other attorneys. 


Richard James: Yeah. So will tell you, I don't know your other attorneys very well, but I know your staff. And boy, they're rock stars. What do you think your secret was to finding just great team members? Did you know them? Did you cultivate it? Did you like, cause, you really have great team members, right? 


So how did you make that happen? 


Hiring and Team Building 


y managing three hotels. And [: 00:20:00

Who do we know when she's trying to sleep at night? And the, front desk is calling her when she's running a hotel. So I focused on finding people that had the personality. Qualities or just the personal ethics and work stuff more than I was worried about that they could type 100 words a minute and they had a bunch of legal experience. 


It was higher for those intangibles really more than the tangible skills because you can teach somebody how to draft a petition. You can teach somebody how to do those sort of things, you know answer the phone. 


that you know we could throw [: 00:21:00

And then it's just loving on them and giving them good training that's created what it is. 


Richard James: I love, you want to talk about dropping a bomb there, man. That knowledge bomb for attorneys to pick up with. They think oftentimes they have to go find that experienced paralegal or that experienced person of legal assistant or whatever. And that's not the case. 


lock in the morning by their [: 00:22:00

We're really looking for some great talent. That, they're just sick and tired of where they're at and maybe want to make a leap and you'd be surprised who's going to show up, right? And if you just start paying attention out there to the server, the waitress or the waiter that gives you amazing service and go in the extra mile for you and having a conversation with them, and you'd be surprised where you can find this amazing talent. 


I tell people all the time, go poach from Chick fil A, go through the Chick fil A drive through. And they're excellent trainers of talent, and you could amazing how you can find great talent and most of them are happy with their jobs, but some of them have gotten to the point where they're sick and tired of smelling like chicken. 


So you never know if they want a job at a law firm. And, the one thing about owning a law firm is there is, even though we all know the inside secrets of what a law firm really is like and the down and dirty secrets behind the scenes about how hard it is and all that stuff. 


that, right? And so somebody [: 00:23:00

And so, law firms have a real marketable job position if they'll do it correctly. And MPS, you find that when you're recruiting non attorney attorney salespeople, right? 


MPS: Absolutely. It, A, there's a few things. For most law firms, they don't have to go out there and do their own hunting, right? For a sales role, right? So they don't have to do their own hunting. They have consults that get booked on their calendar for them, and they just got to show up and close deals. That's a closer's dream job right there. Two, they have consistent working hours. So they're not hammering door to door, doing whatever they were in the sales world before that. 


scoop of what the law looks [: 00:24:00

So yeah, I love that you just said it. You said it so Yeah, you know I did something a little obscure, but that one piece of information right there could be super game changing for any law firm owner that actually takes that and takes it to heart and implements it so I appreciate that Travis. 


Travel and Personal Life 


MPS: Outside of tennis coming up here today what's got you fired up and excited could be business could be personal could be both. 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: My wife and I, one of the things that systematizing the business has helped us do is we've gone on some absolutely amazing trips. I think in the last four years, my wife and I have gone to Scotland in London. We went to Spain. We've been to Paris. We've been to Costa Rica, Hawaii a couple of times. 


er the moon, having fun with [: 00:25:00

And, I've just decided that I'm a Christian. And in the Bible, it says something to be affected by the sweat of thy face or by that, shout thou eat all the days of thy life. But I take that personally. I've decided that's a positive admonition from our creator that the human organism isn't designed to retire. When you do that, you die. 


My partner, Alan Boyak, who passed away about a year and a half ago, was working up until the week before he died. And then he just, so I just decided retirement, probably not in the cards for me. So we are spending all of our extra money trying to give our daughters great experiences and showing them the world where we're talking about, fall break. 


We're talking about maybe London for Christmas. There's some of those kind of things were no decision, but it's just what adventures can we give our family? That's what we're looking forward to and just continuing to build a great law firm. 


it a lot when our kids were [: 00:26:00

Maybe in hindsight I realized we didn't have that opportunity and I haven't been to London yet. I'm excited to go, but we are going to Turks and Caicos in for Christmas this year. And and as you said, your family and my family. My wife and I were in Spain together. 


ing to head out to Montana in: 2025

How am I going to travel? What would you say to them, travis? 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: I've done court from Costa Rica. 


Richard James: Okay. 


sen: And that's the thing is [: 00:27:00

The times when I've been with you guys in different parts of the country. At events you slip out for a half hour run upstairs put on a coat and tie and do a court hearing. So, you can do that It just takes a little bit of planning with your judges if you're in litigation or whatever say judge I'm going to need a beer wipe by video that day. 


And so, that's the thing is take advantage of some of the things that we learned from Covid and the technology that's there. And yeah, if you've got a couple of things still travel, we when we were in Virginia Beach, we took two weeks. 


of Virginia, Jamestown, and [: 00:28:00

Conclusion and Final Thoughts 


Richard James: What a great way to bring this conversation to an end. This idea of, if you just change your mindset a little bit. You actually can have it all, and you can have some balance and you can raise your kids and you can travel and you can still run your business, and you can still earn, you can do all those things. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It can be a little bit of everything. And that's such a great lesson for everybody to learn. What do you think What do you think, MPS? 


think this was an absolutely [: 00:29:00

But thank you for taking the time to be here and to the law firm owners that are listening Thank you for taking your time to be here. We love doing these and so your way of showing in return that you enjoy listening or watching is hitting that Subscribe or follow button depending on where you're listening or watching and showing some love down in the comments for Travis What an episode value bombs left and right around here today. 


So thank you again Travis for being on 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Thanks so much. It was fun. 


Richard James: Yeah. 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Got more stories if you ever want to. 


Richard James: Appreciate you always. If there's anything we can do for you, we're here for you. Thank you so much. 


Atty. Travis Christiansen: Thank you. Okay.