Leadership In Law Podcast

16 From Lawyer to Law Firm with Elizabeth Miller

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 16

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Curious how a legal secretary transformed into a thriving business owner? Elizabeth Miller, the mastermind behind "From Lawyer to Law Firm," joins us to share her inspiring journey and indispensable strategies for law firm success. Elizabeth reveals her climb from the bottom ranks of the legal world to running her own firm, offering insightful advice on assembling the right team and overcoming staffing challenges. She also opens up about the critical car accident that spurred her unexpected career shift, and how it reshaped her approach to making law practices more efficient and enjoyable.

Elizabeth doesn't stop there—she dives into the nuts and bolts of law firm management, emphasizing the importance of ethical practices and consistent billing. Learn how having a second set of eyes can provide a well-rounded perspective and why timely billing is crucial for financial stability. With actionable tips from her books "Hacking Billable Hours" and "Delegate or Suffocate," Elizabeth offers a treasure trove of strategies to streamline your operations, improve client interactions, and ultimately, boost your firm's success. Whether you're a solo practitioner or part of a larger firm, this episode is packed with practical insights you won't want to miss.

Liz Miller is currently self-employed as a law practice management consultant. She has over 30 years’ experience working with the legal profession. She started her career in New York City, and in 1985 moved to Tampa where she continued working as a certified paralegal. In 1997, Liz segued her career into a law office administrator. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and then pursued her Master’s Degree in Business Administration with a specialty in finance. Through a series of career transitions, Liz opened her firm, From Lawyer to Law Firm in 2015, helping lawyers with the administration of their law firms including billing. Liz Miller is a member of the editorial advisory board of Law Office Manager magazine. She writes/blogs for the magazine and has also done several webinars including one on Billing/Collections and one on Trust Accounting. Her professional affiliations include the Hillsborough Bar Association, The Solo and Small Firm Practitioner Section of the HCBA, the American Bar Association and the Society of Human Resource Managers. In May, 2017, Liz wrote the best seller, “From Lawyer to Law Firm – How to Manage a Successful Law Business”. This book was #4 on the best seller list. In it, Liz details starting a new firm and how to hire staff, write policies and procedures, do trust account reconciliations and so much more. Currently the book is being used as a textbook at Cooley Law School.In February, 2022, Liz wrote “Hacking Billable Hours”. This book teaches lawyers – no matter what the firm size – how to contemporaneously enter billable time so that clients can receive bills once a month. The book was #3 on the best seller list within a week. Recently, she published “Delegate or Suffocate: How to Stop Doing Everything Yourself”.
Liz helps lawyers focus their time and energy on practicing law and taking care of their clients and the lawyer/client


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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, Elizabeth Miller, to the show today. I'm excited to have you here, Elizabeth Welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, I'm excited to be here. It's always fun to do these things.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Tell us about yourself and about what you do.

Speaker 3:

Oh my gosh, how much time do you have? I've been doing this for probably over 30 years now. I started out as a legal secretary and moved on up to law office administrator and for almost the past 10 years I can't believe it's been 10 years already I've had a business from lawyer to law firm. I've published several books and essentially what we do is help attorneys with the administrative stuff for their office. You know, billing, staff training, just anything that comes under administrative. My thought process kind of is attorneys should be billing their clients and we should be doing the other stuff. So that's pretty much it in the nutshell. I love what I do. I'll probably do this till I retire Very cool.

Speaker 2:

So you helped with setting up processes, hiring and trying to make it the business of their dreams instead of the job of their nightmare.

Speaker 3:

It's funny that you should say that you know. So many attorneys have called me and and have said that's it, I'm done, I'm throwing in the towel, I'm not, you know. And within two or three months that we work with them, suddenly they're like oh my God, I can't believe I was going to throw in the towel. This is wonderful, you know, but you can't do everything. I mean, you know, I know, you just can't do everything. Either you're going to be the lawyer or you're going to be the administrator, and you've got to pick which one. You're going to be True.

Speaker 2:

I mean finding the right teammates. You know, and building the right team would certainly make the difference. You know, hiring A players and you know, getting people in that can actually do the things that you don't want to do is hugely important oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

You know, and and it's really funny because in the last what, three, four, when did COVID come out? Like? In 2020, my gosh, it's been four years already and you know some of the people that are out there are just not a players, let's put it that way. So now, now, now it's harder than ever to find really good people and you need to know what you're looking for and you know that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

But you can still build that a team, yeah yeah, I mean just have the right assessments and and tests. And you know the old saying hire personality and train what you want exactly.

Speaker 3:

Well, what is it then? You know I can teach everybody anything except work ethic. You know, if you, if you don't have work ethic, if you're not devoted to your I I'm not saying like 24, seven, but at least in the eight hours that you're getting paid for, you know, if you're not devoted to your job or whatever, you know, I can't teach you that. I can teach anything else.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, unfortunately, I've had to struggle with that myself and building a team, and I'm just happy that we have an absolute team of rock stars now, but it was a grind finding some of those, so it, it.

Speaker 3:

It was rough for me. It took me a long, long time. You know, brenda Ross is is my colleague and she works with me and she's been doing this for over 20 years and I never thought that I don't know why. I didn't think that she would ever want to come in and do this, but she loves it as much as I do. But you know, and it's really hard to trust people. I mean, you're trusting people with your business. You know they screw up and you've got a bar grievance or you've got a lawsuit or you've got you know whatever. So it's just really tough.

Speaker 2:

It is. It is so you went from being a certified paralegal to running your own business. What gave you the idea to do that? I mean, what was your impetus to make that leap? You know it's really funny.

Speaker 3:

I'm not really sure what happened. In 2015. I'd taken a job in in montana, of all places, with a 500 attorney law firm up there. I mean, in the middle of winter I'm moving to montana, okay. So anyway, shortly after that I got into a car accident. I mean, it was a bad car accident. My car was totaled and everything. And I came home and I didn't realize how bad I was hurt and I got a job and then the doctor said, hey, you need some time off. And I gave notice and they said, well, if you need time off, that's great, but then we don't need you.

Speaker 3:

And so in that interim, I started thinking what do I want to do? So I went on a job interview after. You know, I was feeling better and it kind of happened by accident because the attorney said to me what hours do you want to work? And I thought, what hours do I want to work? I want to work all of them. What do you do? I want to work, I want to work all of them. What do you have? It turned out it was a part-time job and I said, well, you know, I'm the breadwinner, I can, you know. And the attorney said to me hey, if I get you more clients that you could do you know this kind of work for would you do it? And by the end of the month I had three more clients and I was on my way. So it was like being in the right place at the right time.

Speaker 2:

The writing was on the wall. Wow, that's pretty amazing.

Speaker 3:

It was. Yeah, I mean things took. You know. I started doing webinars. I have written several books. I've done speaking, engage like mushroom. I mean it was just amazing, so, but I'm really excited about it. Well, what?

Speaker 2:

okay, what about? Your experience? Makes you the exception at what you do?

Speaker 3:

That's, you know, the one thing that I really think makes me the exception and you can probably appreciate this, marilyn, because I think you're cut from like that same cloth. I really care, I really really care. I care about my clients. I care that they want to do a good job. I care if they make money, do a good job. I care if they make money. It's not just get in there and do the work, get my check, go home, I'm done. You know it's like this ongoing. You know I want to make sure that they're doing well, I want to make sure they're happy. I want to make sure their clients are happy and I will always go the extra mile, and I think that's the difference.

Speaker 3:

I see people out there advertising, you know, doing the same stuff that I do, but they just don't care. It's just a business to them and to you. It's more than that. You know. It's our reputation, it's everything. And one thing I always say about a reputation when, when yours is tarnished, that's it. You cannot. You can buy anything, but you can't buy a reputation. When your reputation is gone, that's it. I don't know how you make a comeback from that yeah, true, I agree.

Speaker 2:

I mean we personally, my team and I, we we believe in over communication, you know, making sure that people have the right expectations, and over delivering. And I think that people see that in the work that you do and the clients you have and you know, and the way you approach a project, you know that you do understand what is your process. So, say, a new attorney gives you a call, what kind of what's your process to get started with them?

Speaker 3:

Probably a meeting, you know, with the attorney. You know we review what their goals are, what they thinks the issues are and what the staff thinks the issues are are usually two very separate and distinct things. And the other thing I tell attorneys too is they will confide in me and say, well, you know, this is not the way this should happen, this is not the way that should happen Things that they would never say to the attorney but they're going to tell me. But I guess one big thing is that when I talk to the employees I always say you know, I'm not going back to Mr X and saying, well, this person said this and this person said that, my goal is to solve the problems. I'm not there to finger point. I just want to resolve the issues whatever they are, and that's usually the starting point. And then from there we make a plan.

Speaker 2:

So do you look at so say, now you've got your team settled and the issue is resolved, so things seem to be running very well. Do you look at like what is your revenue goal? What is your? So are you looking at the life goals of the attorney and then working backwards from what they currently have? Is it some type of process like that, or am I completely off base?

Speaker 3:

Actually, no, you're not completely off base. It's actually what things that we look at. You know, we look at everything. The first thing that we look at are what I consider would be the emergencies, you know. And then we go okay, now what is the plan out three years? What is the plan out five years? You know what? How do you plan to get new clients? How do you plan to get a better class of clients? You know attorneys can get people that will pay $2,500 for a divorce all day long. But, you know, wouldn't they rather have better clients, better paying clients, better, you know, whatever. So we kind of do things in order. Like I said, you know the emergencies first.

Speaker 3:

One of the big emergencies to me is billing. That's that's always. That's always a big deal. You know, we look at it and, and I'm telling you, I swear to you, marilyn, I don't know how they do it, but there are some attorneys that go six months and they do not bill a client, and I know how they're running their firm. While I do know how they're running their firm, they're running it off of retainers. They're taking on new cases, you know non-refundable retainers, and that's how they're running the firm. But in the meantime, all these other files. They're not being billed, they're not being worked. That, to me, is an emergency. That's something that needs attention, right.

Speaker 2:

Right, right. You need to have all the revenue in place before you start deciding to get busier and bigger.

Speaker 3:

Well, absolutely Either that, or they're independently wealthy and they're going to run the law firm off the money in their pocket and they're not going to worry about billing clients. You know yeah. I haven't met somebody do that though.

Speaker 2:

No, that sounds pretty amazing. So what are some of the biggest challenges that you've ran into in working with law firm?

Speaker 3:

The biggest challenge is probably one of them is that attorneys think that I'm their yes person, that I'm going to rubber stamp everything that they say. And, honestly, when I first meet with the client, I tell them right up front listen, I'm not your yes, ma'am, I'm not going to rubber stamp everything you say. I'm not going to agree with you, you know. But you know they need to hear the cold, hard facts, right, and if they want somebody to go, yes, yes, yes, then you know what they need to go hire somebody else, because that's just not me. I'm not. That is not going to accomplish anything. Six months down the road, they're going to be in the same position that they're in right now, only only now they got me on. You know they're paying me to say yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 2:

Well, that just doesn't work. Well, I think having a second set of eyes makes a difference. My friend of mine says you can't see the full picture if you're in the frame. So having somebody that's a yes person is only going to show you, keep showing you the part that you're seeing and not showing you the part you don't see.

Speaker 3:

Yep, absolutely. And you know what, for some attorneys, that's what they want. They want somebody who's going to yes them to death, and you know that's great. But I am not going to waste my time or their money. I'm not going to take their money when I'm not doing anything or accomplishing anything for them. I mean, yeah, maybe I should take their money. I don't know, but I just can't. You know I need to sleep at night too. I need to wake up when I look in the mirror. I need to go. You know you're doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay and not just collecting the checks, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, ethics, I agree. When a client hires you, how do you calculate the return on investment?

Speaker 3:

Well, first of all, with billing, we can calculate it almost immediately because of the money that's coming in. There's several different ways to do it. We, you know, building a client base, looking at the marketing, seeing, you know, what are we putting out versus what are we getting in, you know, and and attorneys need to understand all those things need to be looked at. We need to be looking at the marketing. You know. I know some lawyers that go, oh yeah, I'll try that. You know. I know some lawyers that go, oh yeah, I'll try that, you know, and they throw money at it and then they just let it go and do whatever and they never check on it and they never, you know. I mean, you know you're in the same business that. You know that I, you know that I'm in, and and it's amazing that they put out this money and they're not concerned with the return on investment. I mean, like, how can you not worry about that?

Speaker 2:

No, I absolutely agree. I had a client at one point that came to me because he's like I don't really know what's been going on. So we analyzed what was going on, what kind of processes he was having paying for and what he was getting out of it, and it basically spent for six months. And when we tracked it back he had gotten maybe maybe three cases in six months and it's like, oh well, I've been busy, but those cases aren't coming from all the marketing that he was spending. So analyzing each portion of your business is hugely important. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 3:

I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, you know, and not even you know going. Oh well, look at this in six months. You know I'm sorry, but I am on this stuff. You need to look at it every month. You need to see what's happening If there's a fall off. What happened, you know, is it a slow month? I mean, in my family law we know, you know, the summers aren't going to be busy, but when the kids go back to school it's going to be busy until the holidays come, and then it's quiet over the holidays because everybody's doing the holidays and then it starts up again. So, you know, knowing all of that, factoring that into marketing and everything, if you are paying attention you can really get your money's worth out of it, right?

Speaker 2:

Right, there are. There's a lot of practical theories do are cyclical Some are, of course, always, but yeah, I agree, knowing those things and then working with a marketing team that will change the marketing in your slow time. And also we do a database reactivation, which is huge and a lot of attorneys don't do that. You're sitting on a past number of clients all this email list.

Speaker 3:

Why not reach out and see if there's anything you could do for low hanging fruit revenue opportunity? Yep, oh, absolutely. I mean. They talk all the time about client retention and the best source of referrals are past clients. That you do, but nobody bothers with that. You know like they're done and you're finished and they get pushed to the side and there's never any thought process about reaching out to them or you know, whatever. I have a client that answers every Google review.

Speaker 2:

Nice.

Speaker 3:

Every everybody that gives a Google review. We write you know. Thank you for you know your Google review. We appreciate it. Please feel free to reach out to us anytime in the future. Whatever, everybody gets a response. I don't know too many people that say, yeah, go ahead and do that you know, but I feel you should.

Speaker 2:

Every review should be responded to good or bad, absolutely. It tells your future client that you care and how you respond to good and bad.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly Because it's nice to see the good reviews, but it's nice to see that the attorney took the time to respond to that good review. That to me would be real important to respond to that good review. That to me would be real important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, Exactly. So it sounds like you've helped on a lot of aspects of a business to get this lawyer into and law firm business. What is the sweet spot as far as team size where you would come in Is there. Should they have a team? Can you help a solo? What would be your ideal client?

Speaker 3:

My ideal client is anybody that pays me. I'm just kidding. Actually we help all size firms. You know I've worked with solo practitioners who wanted to, you know, grow a bit. I've worked with large firms. You know, right now we have a firm it's probably about 40 people. We're working with the personal injury firm with their intake department to get their intake department going and, you know, get things done quickly and and that kind of thing. So it all depends on what you need, but there's like not any particular sweet spot. And yeah, I like it that way because life is never boring. Everybody has different problems, so it keeps life interesting. I guess you know.

Speaker 2:

Right, right. So then, if an attorney could only afford to hire you for like one thing, what would that one thing be? That would be, say, the biggest impact you could have on them.

Speaker 3:

I would. If it's a client that does hourly billing, I would say their billing, because that is to me that is like number two. Number one is doing, you know, the lawyer doing the work, but number two is doing the billing, and if the money's not coming in, there's no firm. So I think that doing the billing, getting that going, will even give them the funds to go. Okay, now I can concentrate on this, now I can do some staff training, now I can do, you know, whatever it might be, but to me the billing is, is the most important.

Speaker 3:

And I see people on Facebook, I see all the groups and I'm sure you do too. You know, oh, I can't, I can't get people to pay. You know, people aren't paying their bills, people aren't this. And it's so funny because I think to myself did you send them a bill? Have you sent them a bill? Do you bill every six months or do you bill?

Speaker 3:

I have clients. I have a client that bills once a week, okay, once a week, over 200 clients once a week. But guess what, there's no AR, there's nothing owed, and they don't pay. He's out and that, that's it. And it works great. I mean, he's doing fabulous. Now would I want to do that for everybody. No, because there's there's an awful lot of time involved in that, but definitely every two weeks. I mean, if you send people a bill and they don't pay, you need to get out. I mean, I hate to say it, but unless you're running a charitable organization which I think very few attorneys are, you know you either need to get paid or you need to get out. And it's unfortunate, but that's how it is.

Speaker 2:

It is. I do find it mind-numbing that someone would not do billing, and I know other business owners. They're like well, we sent an invoice and then you did the work and then they didn't pay. So did you remind them? Well, it's in our contract that there's a fee, blah, blah, blah. But if you never send another invoice, you never send another bill, a past due bill. You've got to do that because some people, you know life gets in the way and they might have misplaced it or forgotten it. I'm thinking of them being honest, not just ducking out of your bills that billing is incredibly important.

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, I tell clients there's a reason why your mortgage is due on the 1st and your car payment is due on the 20th, and the water bill? Because you know that those bills are going to come due that day. So it makes sense to send out your legal bills on the 15th or on the 30th, because they know it's going to come and they know they're going to have to pay. You know, I mean, I was doing billing for an attorney one time. I swear I will never forget this and we were doing it every month. And I said to him OK, when is the next time that we're going to do billing? And he says, well, it'll be six weeks instead of a month, because I'm going on a trip to wherever, and you know. And I said, are you kidding me? You're going to build them in six weeks.

Speaker 3:

This is going to screw up the whole system. People are going to be expecting bills. They're not going to get them, they're going to spend that money. Then they're going to get a bill and they're going to go. I don't have the money to pay this. You just can't do that. People need to know when their bills are coming.

Speaker 2:

And why would you wait until you I?

Speaker 3:

don't know.

Speaker 2:

The desk and the bill to go out. I don't understand that.

Speaker 3:

I don't understand that either, because for most of my clients, when it's billing time, I just do the bills, send them out, you know, whatever, and they really don't have any involvement at all. I mean, I have a few people that want to see the pre bills, but you know other than that. No, you know, do the bills send them out. As long as the money's coming in, they're happy. Yeah, wow, you know I would be too.

Speaker 2:

If everything works as it should. Absolutely Well, elizabeth, this has been great. Tell us a little bit about your book. I do want to, and I want to put a link to your book in the show notes. But tell us a little bit about your book.

Speaker 1:

Which one?

Speaker 2:

I don't know which one Lawyer to Law Firm office.

Speaker 3:

You know how to hire people. It's kind of everything. Now it's a little outdated because it was seven years ago, but I'm going to be, you know, updating it soon, writing a new one. And we've put out a couple of other books to hacking billable hours for people that you know want to do billing. You know how to do billing, what not to do, what you know, whatever the latest book was Delegate or Suffocate, how to Stop Doing Everything Yourself, which that's a big deal. Attorneys think that they need to do everything and it doesn't work that way. So yeah, so anybody that wants a book, anybody that needs one, can just drop me an email or something and I'll be happy to send them, you know, copies of my books.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited about the newest book that's come out. It's just been recently released right the Delegator.

Speaker 3:

Suffocate. Yes, yes, it just came out in the last few weeks.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Excellent yes.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I really, I really like it because it also kind of it kind of explains how, by having you know associates and other people doing work, how how you can increase the income to the firm because you're not doing everything you know, and I and I think sometimes attorneys have trouble getting that concept Right.

Speaker 2:

Right, and it is a breakthrough when they finally get to delegating and it's a freedom you know. You want a lifestyle. You don't want to have to be chained to your desk, so I think that's an incredibly important thing to keep.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, absolutely. I wouldn't want to be chained to my desk either.

Speaker 2:

No, you know, it's like you have to get over the mentality I have, some people have the mentality I can only I can do it as good, right, I can, I'm the only one that can do this correctly and that you've got to get rid of that to grow a team and to grow the business that you want.

Speaker 3:

Well, to tell you the truth, I had to get over that a long time ago. Well, to tell you the truth, I had to get over that a long time ago. And once I got over it, then I was able to teach it because I had that mentality as well. Nobody can do it as well as me. They're going to screw it up anyway. So forget it, I'll just do it myself. But it took a while, but I had to get out of that mentality in order to make other people understand how it works.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, very good, Well, and so I'm going to get. Can you tell us where we can get your books and can we just reach out to you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, they can reach out to me. Hacking, billable Hours and Delegate or Suffocate is available on Amazon. But if they reach out to me, I'll be happy to send them copies. Also the original book from Lawyer to Law Firm how to Manage a Successful Law Business. I'll be happy to send it to anyone that wants one. Okay, great.

Speaker 2:

Well, where can we connect with you if we want to follow you?

Speaker 3:

Well, let's see, I'm all over Facebook, oh my God, and I have a page on Facebook. It's called From Lawyer to Law Firm. People can email me at Liz at fromlawyertolawfirmcom, or they can feel free to call me. The number is 813-340-9569.

Speaker 2:

Okay, great, I'll make sure that all of that's in the show notes as well. This has been very enlightening, elizabeth. Thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you, Marilyn. I'm glad we had a chance to catch up. It seems like it's been a long time since we've talked.

Speaker 2:

It has. It has Well, thank you so much. 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. 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. 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.