Leadership In Law Podcast

15 From Large Firm to Her Own Successful Firm, AI, Automations, & Happiness with Miatrai Brown

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Ever wondered what drives someone to leave a large, established law firm and start their own boutique practice? Join us on Leadership in Law as we sit down with Miatria Brown, founder of Direct US Immigration, to uncover her inspiring journey. Discover how Miatrai's passion for connecting people and her entrepreneurial spirit led her to pursue a career in immigration law, and learn about the pivotal factors that motivated her to break away from big law firms. Listen as she reveals how AI and automation have become game-changers in her practice, enhancing efficiency and supporting her team to provide unparalleled immigration services.

But that's not all—Miatrai shares invaluable insights on the intricacies of growing a law firm, from nurturing client relationships at various stages of their journey to leveraging social media platforms like TikTok for unexpected success. We delve into the importance of team diversity and innovative marketing strategies, including the effective use of hashtags to reach a global audience. Miatrai's practical advice on embracing continuous learning, clear communication, and building a strong, innovative team is not to be missed for those aspiring to start their own firm. Plus, don't forget her top recommendations for essential reading and tips on positive self-talk for personal and professional growth.

Miatrai Brown began her legal career in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area exclusively practicing immigration and nationality law as external immigration counsel to large U.S. corporations in the high-tech industry and to trillion-dollar financial institutions. Throughout her career, she also worked with fast-moving start-up organizations in a wide range of industries including film, marketing, healthcare, aviation, and security, to name a few. After many years at top immigration firms working on matters relating to employment-, investment-, and family-based immigration, risk management assessment, and regulatory compliance, she opened her practice, Direct U.S. Immigration. She saw this as an opportunity to increase access to those in need of a high level of immigration support. As a thoughtful and strategic advisor on immigration and related matters, Ms. Brown has earned regional and national Top 40 Under 40 awards, including Northern Virginia’s Top 40 Under 40 and National Black Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 awards. She also earned the Emerging Women Leaders in Law award, and several pro bono awards, teaches legal education to U.S. licensed attorneys, and regularly provides expert analysis for top legal outlets, including Bloomberg Law and Law360.

Reach Miatrai here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miatraibrown/ and https://www.linkedin.com/company/directusimmigration/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuRtxhgkLAPlDuxAV5z8jhg
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@directusimmigration
Instagram:


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Leadership in Law podcast with host Marilyn Jenkins. Cut through the noise, get actionable insights and inspiring stories delivered straight to your ears your ultimate podcast for navigating the ever-changing world of law firm ownership. In each episode, we dive deep into the critical topics that matter most to you, from unlocking explosive growth to building a thriving team. We connect you with successful firm leaders and industry experts who share their proven strategies and hard-won wisdom. So, whether you're a seasoned leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner, the Leadership in Law podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, matreya Brown, to the show today. Matreya Brown began her legal career in the Washington DC metropolitan area, exclusively practicing immigration and nationality law as external immigration counsel to large US corporations in the high-tech industry and to trillion-dollar financial institutions. Throughout her career, she also worked with fast-moving startup organizations in a wide variety of industries. After many years at top immigration firms working on matters relating to employment, investment and family-based immigration, risk management, assessment and regulatory compliance, she opened her practice Direct US Immigration. She saw this as an opportunity to increase access to those in need of a high level of immigration support. She designed her organization to mirror the structural excellence of top-tier law firms, but with the individualized attention characteristic of boutique establishments. I love that. I'm excited to have you here. Welcome, thank you. Thank you for having me. I love that. I'm excited to have you here. Welcome, thank you. Thank you for having me. Absolutely, so. Tell us how you got started. Yeah, so.

Speaker 3:

I've always had an interest in just, you know, connecting people you know from the US and abroad, and also I've always been interested in business. My parents were entrepreneurs, so I think it's just something just within me that I can't, you know, kick. So that's kind of how I started, just that interest. And then, you know, from going to Virginia Tech for undergrad, you know, and getting a degree in international studies with a business concentration, and then heading off to law school, graduating from American University, I kind of brought my love of culture and intellectual exchange, as well as cultural exchange, to my profession.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that sounds very exciting and I love the fact that you started with a very large firm, but now you've started your own firm. Can you tell us why you made that switch?

Speaker 3:

firms. Can you tell us why you made that switch? Yeah, so again, my background is working with boutique law firms, but then also working in very large, in big law, in very large law firm settings, and I saw things that worked in terms of processes with larger clients, smaller clients, individual clients. I saw things that didn't work, such as internally as well as externally, which includes employee burnout, and then I saw an issue with access, in terms of access to immigration, to a high level of immigration support. So that's pretty much how my firm was born.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So then the larger firm, they have more people to throw at you, so you're getting a lot more service. Have you then have modeled that? So when you started your new firm, I know we hit a little bit on AI and that sort of thing what helped you get your new firm to succeed and what's your team like and Sure.

Speaker 3:

So processes and AI automation are extremely important to me and really it just comes down to breaking it down into the simple things and doing that correctly. So, for example, you know, each position you know within my firm has a procedural manual. Each division within my firm has some level of automation. So, for example, you know simple, you know simple things, from a consultation appointment setting to a contract creation to. You know communication. A lot of our, a lot of our communication is actually automated in terms of lead generation as well, as you know, sending emails after a consultation has taken place. Even within our finance department, there are reminders that we use AI for. And then, of course, in our case, management systems, there are reminders there as well. So, making sure that our processes are streamlined and making sure that we have automation in place where we're monitoring it really allows us to, I guess, allow the firm to succeed and continue to grow, to not only have clients in the US but also clients abroad.

Speaker 2:

That's great. That's one of the things that we really push for our clients and any coaching or clients we work with is automation. Yes, you shouldn't be writing the same email all the time. There should be an automated sequence to remind people of their appointment Text and email, that sort of thing. Obviously. Text with permission, yes, but I absolutely agree. It makes a huge amount of difference. I love the fact that you have a small firm yet you have clear employee procedures for each position. Absolutely, and is that something that's obviously something you brought from the larger firm?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So what is very important to me what I saw, not only in larger firms as well as boutique law firms is that there is a lot of burnout in this industry because it can get very busy. Companies need to hire a lot of individuals fast, similar to the accounting industry. There are certain seasons that are just very busy for immigration, on top of just immigration being busy in general. So it's very important for me at least to not have my team burnt out, because if my team is well taken care of, then my clients will be. Our clients will be taken well taken care of.

Speaker 3:

So, ensuring that there are procedures and automation so procedures in terms of if they can't remember how to do something, or if they forget or if they don't know, there is a, there's a you know procedure in place, manual in place that they can, you know, review and look and understand. You know what they need to do. If they have additional questions, you know. On top of that, then you know they can speak to their peers, their manager, me, you know whomever. So that's always been very important to me.

Speaker 2:

That makes a lot of sense. We use SOPs all the time standard operating procedures and one of the things that we've recently started doing is, every 90 days, making sure they're up to date. Yes, so you know like you're using a lot of technology, so are we. You know you want to be able to have any member of your team take an SOP and process and do it Right. So the person who actually prepared the SOP will go back in 90 days to see has anything changed Exactly Because you don't want to hand that off to a new employee and they're like OK, there's a step missing, it's not working Exactly.

Speaker 3:

And then also, you know, allowing the, you know your employees to have a lot of maybe not too much autonomy, but enough autonomy where they feel comfortable to say, hey, I know we do it this way, but I believe that you know it might be more streamlined if we do it this way. You know a different way. Can we try this? And you know I'm always like, yes, let's always try. You know different things to see what works. You know some things only work for larger you know clients that we have, while other things work for. You know, the family clients that we have are the individual students or individuals who are just, you know, looking to apply for visitor visas. So ensuring that there are processes in place that work within the firm but then are also tailored to each type of client is extremely important to us.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great. So you give your team members basically responsibility and accountability, but enough flexibility to be able to streamline the process if they see it work. Absolutely Awesome. That's a great way to lead and that way you're not having to be involved in every little decision and you can continue to grow.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, absolutely, because I, you know, as an entrepreneur, of course you have to, you know, be an octopus and have so many arms, but there are but so many arms you have.

Speaker 2:

That's right, that's right. That's right Now, when you're talking about automations, now we do that through our CRM. Did you connect AI a booking bot type thing or a chat bot to your CRM to help with that, and does it help write some of the conversations that's going on? How else are you using AI?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so our AI is through our CRM, it's through our SharePoint and it's also through Zapier.

Speaker 3:

Zapier has been wonderful for us because we've been able to connect certain systems that don't integrate with each other so that it works well together.

Speaker 3:

So, for example, if I get on a consultation, I will immediately receive an. You know, don't forget to follow up with the consultation after the call. And then there's a link, and when I click on the link, it takes me to a list of immigration topics that we could have, you know, talked about, and I click on the list of what we spoke about and then it will create, basically, an email. Of course, you know you can't just take the email and just send it to the person. You have to edit it because every client is unique and you want to make sure that it's, you know, really tailored to that person's needs. But there are just certain things that are just the same amongst, you know, all clients if you talk about a specific type of visa. So there are certain things that can be automated, and being able to not only use automation within your CRM but also being open to trying out other companies that assist with automation and AI, I think has allowed us to grow more than we would have if we didn't use automation.

Speaker 2:

I love the idea of getting the email right after a consultation, with reminders, so that you know that your note and it helps you with your notes as well in the contact form. Absolutely so, yeah, exactly. So that's that makes a lot of sense to be able to do that, and that means your communication with your clients and your team is very streamlined.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, and it's quick.

Speaker 3:

It's much easier to oversee automation that's just doing it, of course, automatically, versus having to copy and paste a message or to slowly type out a message 10, 20 times.

Speaker 3:

So not only does it allow us to also, you know, be lean in terms of, you know, employee count, but also you know our employees aren't, you know, very tired. They're not burnt out. And then even you know, in addition to you know, our processes and our AI automation just ensuring that there are individuals that are always available to assist the client, and that doesn't mean employees that are staying up in the middle of the night drinking caffeine to stay awake because they're absolutely exhausted. I'm talking about hiring individuals not only on East Coast time zone, but West Coast time zone on the other side of the world, just ensuring that the individuals are working, you know, good hours, have a work-life balance and just enjoy what they do. You know, nine times out of 10, you're going to get individuals who are applying to jobs who actually love to do it, but you don't want to hire that person and then work them so hard that they just don't like the industry or the field anymore. You want to make sure that you know you've got processes in place that support them.

Speaker 2:

Right, exactly Like I think it's the EOS policy that says you know, there's always someone that loves doing what you don't love to do, finding them, they'll be happy. Yes, exactly, but it sounds like you've got some great processes. So what was what was difficult when you were growing your firm?

Speaker 3:

So what was difficult for me was understanding that you not only need to, I guess, market to individuals who are ready to buy. You also need to foster and create a relationship with individuals who might not be ready. So there are different levels of buyers. You've got individuals who are just thinking about it, individuals who are information gathering, individuals who are price comparing and then those that are just ready to buy.

Speaker 3:

A lot of companies, especially starting out, and it makes sense because when you're starting out a company, you want sales, but a lot of people focus on that top percentage that's ready to buy and it's much smaller than the base of individuals who are open to it, who are thinking about it. So not only do you want to target that top group, but you also want to nurture each stage and of course you know the marketing to each stage is a little bit different. So I would say that was probably one of the most difficult things, that for me, because I yeah, it was just something that I had to really understand and think about and I didn't major in marketing, so it just wasn't top of mind for me.

Speaker 2:

So you've dissected the buyer's pyramid that we all use? Yes, and that top 3% to 7% are the ones that are ready to buy now. Yes, they are problem aware. They're looking for a solution. That's very good. Are you using social media for any of your marketing?

Speaker 3:

Oh, absolutely. So this kind of ties back into listening to what your team says, listening to their ideas. Team says, you know, listening to their ideas. So of course, you know we were on your typical social media channels LinkedIn, facebook, instagram, youtube and some of my younger team members were like why don't you get on TikTok? And I was like I don't want to get on TikTok. They're like, no, just do it. Just do it. Finally get on TikTok.

Speaker 3:

And that channel has exploded compared to the other ones, and this is a channel that I I mean, I was fully aware of it, but I just didn't realize the potential. And it's so important to have diversity of thought. I don't want individuals within the firm who just agree with me and say, yeah, that's great, you know and just you know, do their job. I want individuals who love what they do, who have great ideas. I don't even care if they're wrong, you know, we test it out. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we move on. So that's so important to me. So yeah, that's.

Speaker 2:

So now are you. Are you focusing your TikTok on specific hashtags that are going to be more immigration related or other country related? Are you focusing on specific countries? How are you reaching outside of your home country, because I know TikTok likes to locate you on your home country.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So what I can say is that word of mouth is so strong and with the clientele that we have, as well as the followers that we have or subscribers, followers, whatever you want to call them they're not only in the US, they're abroad as well. In terms of marketing for our firm, I've noticed that we get know we get more hits on, you know, family-based immigration versus business immigration, and so it's been interesting seeing the trends. You know, during certain months of the year, business immigration is up and family immigration is still high, but maybe not as high.

Speaker 3:

In terms of hashtags, you know you always want your generalized hashtags and then your niche specific ones and then hashtags. You know you always want your generalized hashtags and then your niche specific ones, and then, preferably, you know, hashtags that are specific to the firm. So we those hashtags they always change and I'm definitely not the expert on it. The marketing team does that, so I'm not going to act like I. You know, completely understand what they do, but I do know that that is a process that they really dig into to make sure that, you know, our hashtags are SEO friendly and basically get the job done of spreading awareness of. You know, the options that individuals have in terms of US immigration.

Speaker 2:

Very cool. It sounds like you have a great team behind you. That I do love that. I foster the same thing in my team is you know, bring ideas, we'll see. You know, I don't ever want you know, yes, people, I want A players that are going to be a part of the team to help everything grow and over deliver for our clients. So I love that you do that Exactly. So anybody that's listening that is in a firm maybe a large firm and they're thinking about opening up their own farm. What kind of pointers would you offer anyone considering that?

Speaker 3:

Sure. So, first and foremost, it's very important to understand the problem. Obviously, you work in the field, so you don't think that it's a problem, you just think this is what I need to get done. But it's super important to understand the problem and understand that it needs to be solved. So when you develop a solution, you want to lean into your educational background, your professional work experience background, but you also want to lean into your professional network from time to time for feedback and, more importantly, your customer base or your client base for feedback as well. So, for example, you know if you're selling, you know legal or you know consulting services or solutions. You know you need to market to that audience correctly. So not only do you need to state the problem and the solution, but you also need to ensure that you're not speaking in your industry's jargon. You know it's very easy to just kind of, you know, fall into that. You know path, but it doesn't resonate with a lot of people. It's not something that individuals can easily speak about, so therefore, they're not going to share it with other individuals. In addition, you know so. So, like I said, you know the marketing needs to be easy enough to understand, but explained in a way, so that the prospective client or customer understands how much is involved, so that they can make that determination as to whether they want to figure it out themselves, despite there being, you know, proverbial landmines, or if they want a professional that does this, you know, day in and day out, to do it for them and to pretty much handhold them, you know, throughout the process.

Speaker 3:

Another important thing is you really need to think about marketing and you know anything you sell, you know for the most part, there is an audience who wants to buy it, who is interested. So if you are promoting your services and you are not closing clients or selling, you need to go into a different stream. You need to find the stream of clients, of individuals who are ready to buy. So, for example, say you want to sell golf clubs, you're not going to go to a basketball team and say, hey, buy my golf clubs. You're going to go to the country clubs, the organizations that put on golf events. That's your stream, that's the area that you want to sell to.

Speaker 3:

So I would say, in terms of you know pointers to opening up your own firm, first and foremost, make sure that you really think about how to market yourself because, also, you know individuals, you know can look at your firm and you know if you've just started, maybe they're used to you, you know just providing. You know free legal advice because you work for a firm and you're just like, yeah, sure, yeah, and of course not, you know, as a client. But just like you know, yeah, you know here's something you should look at. You know here's, here's, you know my informal advice. But when you switch to actually starting your own business, you need to limit the free advice because you will run yourself out of business advice, because you will run yourself out of business.

Speaker 3:

I met somebody one time who opened up a law firm and basically ran himself out of business because the clients were like you know, this is expensive, I can't afford it. So he just kept doing pro bono cases, pro bono cases, pro bono cases, to the point where he was just like you know what? I'm going back into the law firm setting. This is not working for me. So just be very mindful of understanding that you took a lot of, you know, time and years to study the law, to practice the law and now to provide it, you know, to the public. So charge for your work.

Speaker 2:

Know your warrant. Yeah, exactly Exactly that's been. I love. I love the perspective of where you started and where you are and and the way the things you brought with you from the very large firms down to making your team a really good team and, obviously, over delivering for your clients and and using AI and automations to help you build a better team and actually service your clients better. That's been absolutely incredible. Now, obviously, you're a great leader and your team looks up to you and you're helping craft a really good team. What are you reading right now? Most leaders are readers. It's right.

Speaker 3:

Next, to me actually One of my colleagues from an old law firm that I used to work with. He told me about this book. It's called how Clients Buy. So that is the. I haven't heard of that one. Yeah, so that's the book that I'm reading right now. I like it so far, but generally in the past, you know, any type of book that is, that is, you know, professional development, emotional development, anything like that is super, you know, interesting to me. Or you know, having to allowing yourself to, you know, be more efficient with time. So, like the four hour work week, love that book that I feel like that was the book that really sparked my love of you know, trying to see what can be automated, but not to the point where it's annoying or what can?

Speaker 3:

be. You know what AI systems can I use that are great, but will also allow us to ensure each individual has a very unique experience and very personalized experience. So there, yeah, there are so many books that I love reading about this stuff, but right now, how Applied Spy is the book that I'm reading?

Speaker 2:

I'm going to have to check that one out. I haven't seen that one. The four-hour workbook I like and the oh my gosh, the one I recommend my team is have you read what to Say when you Talk to Yourself? No, it's incredibly good and it's written, if I'm saying it right, what we say when we talk to ourselves. So, building a team and a team mentality, I find that one of the things we have to do is realize, you know, if we talk to our friends like we talk to ourselves, we wouldn't have any friends. So you know, when I come across really good books like that, I share them with the team as well. So I'm going to check that one out.

Speaker 3:

I appreciate that recommendation, that in that recommendation, of course, and so then, go ahead and there are also certain types of companies that you know they'll basically read the book for you and kind of outline what it talks about. There's one app that I use that I have downloaded onto my phone that I generally listen to before I go to sleep, which I know you're not supposed to, you know, be on your phone before you go to sleep but I do. There it is, but it's called Headway and it allows you to kind of tell the app what types of you know books you want to read or want to learn, and you can go through so many books in you know in a week. Granted, you know it doesn't give you the full experience of you know having a book that you're, you know, flipping each page and it doesn't go into.

Speaker 2:

No, but it lets me know if you want to go grab the book and actually do that. Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3:

And, but it doesn't go into as deep of detail as the books, but it's a great, you know, high level, you know type of thing to listen to, to keep yourself, you know, motivated, and on top of thinking about, you know, what can I, what can I do to make the business better or make myself better. So I think that's that it's also something nice to fall asleep to to, I guess, have the brain working, you know, while you're sleeping, to kind of think of things like that.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're we're constantly improving, so I'm I'm going to check into the Headway app. Definitely. I want to have a look at that. Awesome. Well, this has been absolutely fabulous having you here and I love the information. I hope everybody has something to take away from it. I know where people are probably going to want to reach out to you or stay connected with you. Where can they find you?

Speaker 3:

Sure, so you can find us on a lot of different social medias, but you can visit us at our website at wwwdirectusimmigrationcom, and then our social media channels are pretty much, you know, the at sign and direct us immigration. We're on TikTok, youtube, facebook, instagram, twitter, I think. I think that's it. So not Pinterest, yeah, no, no, not Pinterest. Or you can Google us. You know direct US immigration and we're happy to help. You know our email address is very long, so I figured the website might be the easiest way to, and you've got a great domain name.

Speaker 2:

We're a great company name, yes, and it's so, so simple of what you do. It's great.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So it was either going to be, you know, the law offices of Maitreya Brown, which, you know the spelling of my name is just very difficult, or DirectUS Immigration, which is really easy to spell. You know, seo friendly tells you exactly what we do. So I was just like you know what? Well, let's do DirectUS Immigration, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I love that yeah. Well, direct us immigration. Yeah, so love that. Yeah, well, fantastic. Thank you so much. I'll make sure that those links are in the show notes so people can reference that. Thank you, and this has been, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on and talking with us today. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4:

Thanks for joining me today for this episode. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, you can connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take the next step with a digital strategist to help you grow your law firm, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to lawmarketingzonecom to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, thanks for listening to Leadership in Law podcast and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same success. Head over to our website at lawmarketingzonecom. From there, connect with other listeners, access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leading with vision and keep growing your firm.