Leadership In Law Podcast

23 Core Values & Leading From The Heart with Sarah Soucie Eyberg

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 1 • Episode 23

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Join us as we explore the inspiring journey of Sarah Soucie Eyberg, a leading light in social security disability law and the principal attorney at Soucie Eyberg Law, LLC. Sarah candidly shares her path from law school graduate in a challenging economic climate to the founder of her firm, emphasizing the power of authenticity in legal practice. Her story is one of resilience, where embracing her unique qualities has allowed her to connect deeply with clients who share similar values. Sarah also gives us a glimpse into her personal life, celebrating the joy of family, her passion for Doctor Who, and the importance of aligning one's values with professional ambitions for a rewarding legal career.

Discover the transformative power of technology as Sarah details her experience creating a tech-forward virtual law firm. Uncover the surprising benefits of moving away from a traditional office setting to a remote practice, especially in a field where accessibility is critical. We discuss the convenience of virtual meetings for clients with chronic pain and fatigue and the role of virtual assistants in enhancing day-to-day operations. Sarah highlights the significant positive impact that dedicated remote staff can have on a business, sharing her story of overcoming initial reluctance to expand her team.

We wrap up by tackling the intense issues of mental health and substance use in the legal profession, with Sarah offering personal stories and advice on embracing vulnerability. Her contribution to the "Law Moms" book project showcases the strength found in confronting fears and stepping out of comfort zones. We also focus on building a supportive community through the Leadership in Law podcast, encouraging listeners to stay connected, subscribe, and engage with fellow law firm owners. This episode is packed with insights on leading with vision and growing your firm while maintaining authenticity and balance in life.

Reach Sarah here:
https://disabilitylawmn.com/
https://www.facebook.com/mndisabilitylaw/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-soucie-eyberg-1014a642/
https://www.instagram.com/mndisabilitylawyer/

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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:

Hello everyone, thank you and welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law podcast. I'm your host, marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, sarah Susie Iberg, to the show today. Sarah is the principal attorney of Susie Iberg Law LLC, practicing exclusively in the area of social security disability law. Her dedication to professional excellence, development and service knows practically no bounds. Just ask her husband. She is a member of several local and statewide legal organizations and serves in leadership roles in nearly every organization. She is a runner, knitter, deer hunter, mother, wife and attorney, living just outside the Twin Cities with her husband, jason, and four children Esme, mina, roland and Walter. Hopefully, I said all those correctly are cat and chickens. When she's not working, she can be found at home with her family trying new recipes or passing on her love of reading to her kids. She's also passing on all of her nerdy fandoms to her kids, including Doctor who, the Marvel Universe, all Things, halloween and more. I'm excited to have you here, sarah.

Speaker 3:

Welcome, Thank you. Thank you so much. I always, you know, we write the bios to kind of get across a little bit of who we are, but it's really I don't often like listen to somebody read it out loud right next to me. It's hard to listen to sometimes.

Speaker 2:

I loved it. I love it. It's so interesting. So not a lot of Americans are into Dr who, so I loved hearing that you're into Dr who.

Speaker 3:

So that's the one I actually had. I did have clients say we hired you because you mentioned Dr who and you're mild. It works when you're authentic that way and I just, I really like, I think, any ways that our clients can find us more like humans makes the whole process better.

Speaker 2:

I absolutely agree, and I would have added Taylor Swift to all of that. But anyway, we'll see.

Speaker 3:

Yeah for sure. Sometimes when, like I helped teach a lawyer as business owner class at our law school here, mitchell Hamlin, and one of the things that I tell students is like, really lean into your authenticity and sometimes clients if if it's not something that like people are always afraid oh what if I like somebody who doesn't like that, I'm like good, you don't want them with your client If they don't like things you know, like that about you or things that are important to you. That's true.

Speaker 2:

Like, like, exactly. You want to have people that have the same values and type of thing with you and and I know that that customer service and authenticity is important to you. So let's back up and talk about how you got started. I know that you focused your niche down right away, which is very interesting and should be something that a lot of people look at. How did you get started?

Speaker 3:

So I have kind of a winding path to having my own firm, because I think that's a lot of people end up that way. I graduated law school in 2011 for anybody graduated around then or between 2008 and 2011. It was tough, right. There were not a lot of jobs and the economy was really bad and it was very hard to find actual practicing law work. I was very fortunate that, through one of the organizations that I was already a part of as a law student, I met an attorney with a social security disability law practice, and I met him in August after I graduated and started working for them in, I think, october of that year, and I had never had a single administrative law class in law school.

Speaker 3:

If you had asked me that would have been at the very bottom of my list. I just it wasn't something that I had planned on at all, but it was the job that was available I really liked. I really liked the work. It allows me to help people who can't afford legal services because we work on contingency, so I don't have to worry about charging retainer or billing people hourly or not being able to help someone because they they couldn't pay pay. And then I also you know, I grew up with an attorney for a father who owned his own practice.

Speaker 3:

He practiced in the area of personal injury, and so helping people through, you know, really catastrophic and painful times is something that I was pretty familiar with and very interested in, and so that's kind of how I ended up doing social security disability. It wasn't a great fit at that law firm, which is something I am fairly open about and something I think that is a little bit hard for new lawyers starting out to determine, because we just, you don't know what is maybe a toxic work environment versus what is just hard work in a challenging profession, and I ended up walking away from that job without, without anything else to do, and that was probably the scariest thing I've ever done besides, until I started my law firm.

Speaker 3:

But for Were you were you a mom at that time? Were you married? No, I was married, I married we. I married a fellow law student. We met in spring break our our third year in law school, which I don't recommend if anybody's listening, like that's just a bad idea. If you're a law student and you're listening, just you know, give yourself some time. So we got married, graduated, took the bar, you know, got those first legal jobs and we were kind of off to the races races. After I left that law firm I started working for the State Bar Association in their recruitment and retention and like marketing section and it was there that I trained it with twins and that really changed the course kind of of my career.

Speaker 3:

For I think a lot, a lot of reasons. I think most parents can relate that you just don't know until you get there what kind of impact that's going to have for you and we don't have great supports, not just in our profession but kind of society for working families. Childcare for two infants was essentially my take home, you know, and so after about a year at the bar association we had some, you know, my mom was helping us when the twins were really little. We had a part-time nanny, and that didn't work out. Then we had a friend who also had a baby, taking care of our kids, and I'm eternally grateful for that because we just we wouldn't have been able I wouldn't have been able to work otherwise, because she was just really affordable for us, but that didn't, you know, at one point stopped working for them when my twins were, I think, maybe 13 months old, and so we did the math, and the math was not mathing to get us to. I just I didn't want to work 40 hours a week for someone else to take care of my kids. And to, you know, and that's no shade on anybody who would rather like continue their career, because if you think about some of the financial penalty, if you're, if you're leaving the workforce to stay home with kids, you know you're not paying into social security, you're maybe not paying into retirement. Things like that can have a really negative impact.

Speaker 3:

And so I was not thinking about 60 years from then, I just was thinking about what my family needed in the moment, and that was for me to step back. That was also terrifying, because I spent years getting to this point where I had a law degree and and I always planned on working. My mom was a stay at home mom and took care of us really wonderfully. But I I was like, well, I'm pursuing education, I'm going to get this professional job and I'm going to be a working mom. And then when I got there I was like, man, this sucks. Well, I felt torn, like I felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job for my babies. I felt like I wasn't doing a good enough job at work and it just it was hard. So I stepped back and I left the workforce, but I still continued to do some work on the side. So I wasn't I wasn't necessarily a working mom and wasn't really a stay at home mom, because I did both and so that was a weird liminal place to be too.

Speaker 3:

I was doing contract work for other social disability firms, so I would show up to the hearing for them, do the hearing for their client. I do the thumbs up again. Sorry, I told you I gesture a lot. It's going to be hard. So I would do the hearing. I would get paid a flat fee and then I would go home and I didn't have to do some of the. I didn't have to have any firm infrastructure. I didn't have to do a lot of the handholding for clients and things like that. So it was just other than the travel to get there and then reviewing the file and things. It was a pretty, pretty low, pretty low intensity in terms of the work. That was great and it worked really well for our family, for I think I did that for seven or eight years.

Speaker 3:

Oh, wow, the pandemic came and and all of the all of the in-person hearings shut down like overnight. And the, the company that I had been working for for all those years and I was, you know, I was an independent contractor, I was not an employee they had this policy where if a hearing doesn't move forward for any reason either the claimant doesn't show up or the hearing office can't do it I still get paid my fee because I showed up, I was ready to go, I did all the prep and it wasn't my fault, so I fulfilled all the parts of my contract. I still get paid. If there was a hearing that canceled, like within a week, I still got at least a partial payment because of course, I've still done some of the work.

Speaker 3:

When the pandemic came along that company, I had probably three, probably like it was more like five hearings, I think, that week and everyone was scrambling. Nobody knew how hearing offices were going to do this. It's Social Security and they were not super organized and not communicative. We're going to do this. It's social security and they were not super organized and not communicative. So I continued to do the work and show up to make sure that if the hearing could move forward it would. I did extra work to try and get clients to e-sign documents, to consent to telephone hearings, all these kinds of things, and then most of those hearings didn't go forward and then the company put out a statement or whatever that they were not going to pay for hearings that didn't go forward and that felt really unfair to me and I got really angry and like just pissed and I looked at my husband. I was like you know what? I'm just going to start my own firm. I'm not going to let my compensation, you know, be at the mercy of anybody else anymore, like I'm done.

Speaker 3:

I'm fed up with it. Nice yeah. So I like to say I started my law firm out of spite.

Speaker 2:

I just need that little push to make it happen, you know.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, Absolutely. And it is terrifying. And I didn't know how to run a business. Nobody teaches you how to do that. In law school I was terrified, mostly to fail. I was really, really afraid to fail and I'm sure that that is a feeling that a lot of people listening. I mean, if you, if you've gone all the way to being a lawyer, you're probably also afraid to fail and used to being successful and it's imposter syndrome.

Speaker 2:

I mean all of that plays into it.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I didn't realize until I started my own firm how little other people who had firms knew about running a law firm. They just also were just doing it. So that helped a little bit. And then I joined the lawyerist, which is a really popular great small firm business coaching organization, and that was like the best investment that I made, because then I was getting, I was being taught how to do some of these things and I felt like I had, I felt like I had trading wheels on a little bit.

Speaker 3:

And also, you know it helped to be in the pandemic where, okay, every all the other obligations have fallen away for a little while, other than online schooling my kids. You know there wasn't anywhere to go or anywhere to be because everybody was staying home. So I was able to really intensely focus on putting together a firm that is tech forward and really client centered.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's interesting. A really positive outcome of the lockdown.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it felt weird and after. You know. So my kids were in first grade. When the twins were, walter was not yet in school, so the twins were in first grade. My oldest, esme, is my stepdaughter, so she she was doing a lot of her schooling at her mom's and and was with us part of the time. But you know, they sent them home on spring break and I remember being like, oh, this is this, this is going to stink, because you know, what am I going to do with these kids for their whole spring break? We usually go to a zoo, in the museum. We can't do all this stuff. What am I going to do with them? For a week at home. And then they just never went back.

Speaker 3:

They turned into three months right, it was months and months and then we elected for their second grade year, as in Minnesota, they were doing like a hybrid like go a couple days, come back, you back, you know, home a couple of days. So they could like keep people in smaller pods and clean every day and whatever. And I was just like I don't want to, I don't want to add that stress, so we kept them home. So in in my office where I am now, we had desks and their little like all their stuff.

Speaker 3:

So I would be like doing zooms and and meetings and things like that, and they would be doing school in the background, so that was a little bit harder, but still I'm really thankful because it was really like a crucible to try and get a lot of this stuff done and for a lot of women I don't know I would never go back now Like I can't imagine working for somebody else and I absolutely love so much about building a business. Sometimes I love the business of law more than the practice and that is a real big surprise to me because it was just never something I wanted to do.

Speaker 2:

And that's interesting that to know that you like that part of it. Yeah, yeah, so now you're, you're, you're from, you're completely virtual, except you actually actually have to show up to sign documents and stuff, and you were talking about that. You did set up a tech forward firm. Can you elaborate on what you? Obviously Zoom is a big part of it, but can you elaborate a little bit more on you know how you get clients and what you do for your clients in a virtual environment.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely so. In a disability practice, sometimes having the technology and people not having to come into an office, it makes the services more accessible to them. Because they have bad pain days, they can that we can do phone conferences from their bed. They don't have to feel like they're on right. For folks who have chronic pain or chronic fatigue or things like that there's. Are you familiar with the spoon theory at all? No, so there's this theory that you can divide their energy up, maybe like five spoons a day, and once those spoons are gone, they are gone and they cannot function after that and you can't save up spoons really to go into the. They don't roll over very well and sometimes you can get away and sometimes you can borrow from the next day, but then it just continues on. So there's just it's this finite number and once it's gone it's gone, and so with that, if I can lessen the spoons, it takes to meet with me, that's really helpful for my clients. I use case management software. Obviously Most of us do. It's very helpful, but within that are automations that help us run our firm better. I have two VAs that are both based out of the Philippines, and one is full-time and the other is part-time and I actually am looking into getting a third full-time VA, just because we just have a lot to do. We have a lot of clients, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And when I started my firm, I was like I'm going to be a true solo. I don't want to. I don't want to manage staff. I don't want to like be responsible for that. What if I do fail and then they're out of a job too? You know just all the things.

Speaker 3:

But I really I can't imagine doing it without my assistant, aki. Now she is like a huge part of the team, and the other fear with hiring people is I never have the expectation that someone else is going to care about my work and what I'm trying to do as much as I do. It's just, you know, like, especially like my business, like I. That's not their responsibility. I expect them to. You know, I want them to have the same values and care and for us all to be pulling in the same direction. But almost immediately, aki had that for our firm and she deeply cares about the people that we're helping and what we're trying to do. And I I am forever grateful for having met her, for having her on, and I will, I would do just about anything to make sure she stays with us. So that's what.

Speaker 3:

I call an A player, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've found that there's some really amazing A players in the Philippines and I have two of them. I have team all over the world, two from the Philippines, and you're right. I mean know. There's two things that I realized when hiring is there's always someone that wants to do the thing you don't want to do, and then you know, hire personality and drive and teach the job.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, because you know, and I think that attorneys fall into this, especially people with brick and mortar offices it's hard for them to conceptualize how they could be, how they could have a like a true helpful assistant. That's remote and it's just. That's just not my been. My experience it's been, it's been really, really helpful, and and the other thing is that you're able to find people who, who are invested and like care about the mission, as long as you're hiring in the right way. So, but I did all the wrong things, you know, like I had been, I had been really psyched. I probably needed somebody.

Speaker 3:

About a year before I finally hired Aki, I got like a list of people and I looked and I was like, well, I'll interview this one and this one. And then I interviewed Aki and like in the interview I was like, well, when do you want to start? Just like I already had this thing about it. Don't do that. That's a bad idea. You're supposed to hire slow and then fire when it's not a good fit. Don't wait, you know. So I just I there's some divine intervention there or something that that may not work well, or actually, I'm trying to be better about this too. I am creating an environment where I'm attracting that kind of that right fit. You know, and I do think that, especially for never having been a boss before, I think that I do a good job. Part of our client centered piece and our core values as a firm is to to empower our clients. But I also I also feel that with my staff, like Aki is really good. If you look at my firm social media, that's all her. She does all of those things.

Speaker 3:

When I was, I was I didn't ask for her help getting a slide deck for a presentation that I did on Monday because I was. I just didn't do it until Monday morning. I was like on a different zoom with the law student for that class that I helped teach and trying to work on it. Also while I'm talking to him about his final business plan and then all of a sudden I could like see in like the little like slide previews, like different things moving around. She was like in my presentation she's like let me help you with this, because that's so bad. I can do the substance, but I like the design. Stuff is not, it's just not. You know my forte like I really obviously I like bright colors. I like I have like style. I do not have graphic design talent whatsoever.

Speaker 3:

I see that in Canva when I'm trying to do something in Canva and then they're like on it and then I'm like, okay, I'm going to do something else, because it's better than me not a good use and so so one of the things that we try to do is really make good use of our time and our talents, and when I Aki, I made a list of stuff that I didn't want to do and that's, and then I that's what I handed off to her. When we hired the second assistant, I said what are some things that you don't want to do anymore Because you're doing so much other substantive work? Like? She's essentially a paralegal at this point. She does initial applications. I think she could easily do appeals and that's all permissible under our practice rules for social security. It doesn't have to be an attorney doing those with the clients. She has a lot of client contacts. She does a lot of our automations, which is part of being tech forward.

Speaker 3:

Before I had people, I put in place some automation, so email templates and things that would just go out for people listening that maybe haven't done this yet. A calendar scheduling app like I use Calendly, but really any of them. I saved immediately five to seven hours, probably just not replying back and forth with people trying to find gaps in my schedule, right, and then potentially double booking yourself or giving someone a list of times and then by the time they get back to you, they're all gone. You know all of that immediately off my plate. That was a huge kind of game changer for me, right, and I also previously have had I had Smith AI to answer our phones for a while, and then Aki took that over, because it was it was less expensive. We don't have such a call volume that we need to worry about. A receptionist in our, in our firm can also be doing other things, so she just she answered incoming calls and then and then would do other work as as as calls weren't coming in where we. The reason we got a second assistant, though, is because, for social security with the field offices, I mean, you're waiting on hold sometimes 20 minutes just to talk to somebody, and so we really needed somebody who could do those outgoing calls. I wasn't worried about doing other work or having to answer incoming calls as well.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, the thing that I really like, just on the tech forward piece, is Trello. It's T-R-E-L-L-O. It is a project management sort of software. I was trying to make the task management in Locus, my case management software, work for me because it was in there. I don't like adding on tech if I have something that will already do that same job.

Speaker 3:

But and I tried, I tried, I tried, like through automations, I tried through my own discipline to make it work for me. But I felt overwhelmed. I was feeling like I was, my day was controlled by my email inbox and that I wasn't able to plan ahead. I didn't feel like I had my arms around everything that needed to be done and I was very anxious about things falling through the cracks. Trello helps us visualize everything and we're able to move things around. Both my assistants were in it all day. They log phone calls in there, we log appeal deadlines, we log contacts with clients, we log all of our hearing preparation, medical record requests. Everything lives in Trello, and then the actual like client information lives in. Everything lives in Trello, and then the actual like client information lives in, in our case, management software.

Speaker 2:

So you have like, you have like stages on your board and you have a card per client and Yep, yep, yep.

Speaker 3:

And then Trello also allows us to do multiple boards. So we have one for KPIs, so we keep track of our income and other KPIs.

Speaker 3:

There we have one that's like goals and, and we have one for KPIs so we keep track of our income and other KPIs there. We have one that's like goals and and we have one that's celebrations, so that we're making sure we're acknowledging those things. We have one for our social media marketing as well, so I can say, hey, I want to do. You know, I want to do an Instagram post for indigenous people's day, and then Aki will draw it up and I use. She used to send it to me for approval first, but now I'm just like, just post it. I don't like I know you're going to do good, we also. So there's that.

Speaker 3:

And then loom is another one that really helps with remote staff, cause I'm able to screen record whatever I'm doing and then send it to to them, and then they can screen record to show me things that they're having trouble with. It's super easy. I have, and then it just lives in a library. So now when we have new people join the team, we can say watch these videos to know how to do these tasks and let us know if you have any questions.

Speaker 2:

So you're using loom to create SOPs, that sort of thing. So I've used that as well with my team and then but you're talking about the things you don't want to do. We have a thing that we do on Fridays because we call it the five questions to clarity, and you know, and it's the exact same thing what am I doing that I like to do? What am I doing that I shouldn't be doing? That I like to do? What am I doing that I don't like to do? You know, and if you keep track of what you're doing each week, then it's easier to offload what you don't, because there's always someone in life that likes to do what you don't like to do yeah, yeah, and it might surprise you who that is.

Speaker 3:

I love, love that I might. I'm going to steal that, I think, and start doing that on Fridays.

Speaker 2:

It's great, it's a good idea to you know, to kind of, and especially if you're getting to the point where you're ready to grow and you want to replace something Aki's doing or something you have her do the same thing. Compare notes Now you know exactly what your next person is going to be doing.

Speaker 3:

Job description is already written. Already written. Yeah, I love that. I think we're going to start doing that.

Speaker 3:

I, I, I think that checking in on on what we're doing it's it's really easy to lose sight of where you want to end up if you're just constantly in the trenches and I think that a lot, especially small firm owners, are in the trenches all the time Cause cause, not only do you have to practice law, it turns out you have to do all these other things to keep your law firm going, and it's really hard to balance and find time for all of it. And and it's it's hard to make that time for checking in on your goals. Checking in on you know where everybody is, temperature wise, but if you don't do that, then you'll start to have problems Like you're saying, like you get staff that are like unfulfilled by their work and they're going to start looking for something else. Or you you know you have potential interpersonal problems between people and you miss it because you're just too busy with your head down. So and you also, like you can't see where you're going if you have your head down all the time.

Speaker 3:

And I am always surprised at how much things shift for me from a goal setting or, you know, interest perspective, like when I even when I started my firm, I wouldn't, I did not think about growth. I wanted to make enough money to keep my family comfortable and do a good job for my clients and keep the firm going, and that was it. And now that we're a few I mean I guess almost five years in now, I feel like my britches are getting a little bigger and like I'm kind of ready for that next challenge and I think that for people who have that entrepreneurial spirit, you need to be having that challenge that you're trying to reach, cause once you get to a good place, a plateau, you start to get bored maybe, or uninterested, and so having that kind of vision to look forward, it's really helpful but it's not going to happen.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, I think what you're saying is is having enough time, or specific time, to work on your business, as opposed to in it, so you can see the future and decide where you want to go. Yes, yep, that makes a huge difference. So now, being virtual and you're and I love the way you've got your system set up how do you get new clients? I know that you do your networking and all this kind of stuff. What is it that you're doing to grow your firm.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so a few different things. Networking is a big piece of it. I'm a member of the plaintiff's bar in Minnesota, which is mainly personal injury and work comp attorneys med, mal, wrongful death, those kinds of cases. Really any civil attorney or people who represent people can join, but it tends to be very personal injury heavy. I consider social security disability to be PI adjacent is what I call it, because we're so. We have, we share a lot of the same clients and a lot of the same issues and a lot of people who are injured in accidents later on aren't able to return to work. The same goes kind of for for work comp attorneys. It helps to have an understanding of that and we share a lot of the same clients again. So that's a really big referral source for me, especially because those guys they do a lot with their clients and they spend a lot of time with them and they really they care a lot about the people and their. Their businesses are based on on that good client service and referrals and things like that. So when they hand off a client to an SSDI attorney, they want to know that that client's being taken care of and I'm able to offer that most of the SSDI firms.

Speaker 3:

There are some of us that are solo or small firm owners, but lots of the people that are in this game are huge national firms with. There are some of us that are solo or small firm owners, but lots of the people that are in this game are huge national firms with thousands and thousands of clients and you're they're not going to get that personal experience going to that and so from a you know, one of the things that we talk about, especially with the law students as they're developing their business plan, is the marketplace need and then differentiating your offerings. And so I happen to. Most of the even solo and small firm owners in my area are older white men, and so I kind of differentiate just by existence. So like that works for me and I kind of you know like I'm very.

Speaker 3:

Like you can see on my website, I am very intentional. There's a lot of pictures of me and it's very obvious that this is a woman owned firm. A lot of the design of my website is meant to get away from the kind of stodgy columns and gavels and, you know, scales of justice. Like we don't want that and I was very intentional about choosing colors that were softer. I really. I mean, I love purple, so that's why I did purple, but softer, and and fonts that were a little bit softer too. I think when I was having this discussion with the logo designer, I said I want it to be feminine but powerful, because I wanted to lean into who I am, and so a lot of marketing is aimed at that authenticity.

Speaker 2:

And then we have the colors. Yeah, I mean the colors. It was just great to see the bright colors. It does have a completely different feel.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, and so we have. We have a lot of that in our social media marketing as well. We're just really pushing for this sort of feminine kind of strength, because you know, if you don't want an attorney who's a woman like just I want you to self-select out early. You don't want an attorney who is younger than I think self-select out early. Also, because I'm not, I'm not gonna. I don't spend a lot of time trying to convince potential clients that I know what I'm doing you know, and cause.

Speaker 3:

I think that that's important and I'm very good good at establishing trust in a like in a quick manner, but I'm also not I'm just not going to beg for your business. There's a lot of other firms out there that you can talk to and I already have a lot of clients. So I do invest in the Thompson Reuters like super lawyer profiles because I was recognized for that and clients care about things like that, about things like that. But the big piece that, the reason that I make that investment and that's about my only marketing spend at this point is because they do a lot of the Google SEO that I would need to worry about anyway, I I get, I track. This is the other thing, too that's really important.

Speaker 3:

If you have your own firm or if you're in charge of marketing in any sort of way, you've got to ask people how they found you, because it doesn't make sense to spend, you know, $2,000 on on ads If you don't know if they're working, and I think that some people get nervous and put the money out there and then forget to look at what's coming in. So the majority of our, our we get referrals in Google and I know that the Google piece is that Thompson Reuters super lawyer profile which is, you know, people have different beliefs about it. The PI attorneys really care about it, so that helps you know with the referrals also and clients really care about it. I'm less concerned about being a super lawyer, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Well, it makes sense that they handle the SEO part of that. Now, I did see that you have a Google business profile and, being virtual, you don't have your your address on there, which is fine. Are you using, like Google tag manager on your website and your Google business profile, that so you know what's coming through there and what? Okay, so that's part of your, your reporting and tracking.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yeah, it is. And also so like when, when folks you know some, we have a line in our intake that asks everybody, and then I get the reports from the Google, my business and and keep track of like who's going to the website, who's actually clicking through and try and see like who's engaging with us. That way I do get people who want an attorney cause, cause I'm in Andover. So for people who don't know Minnesota geography, we've got know Minneapolis, st Paul, very big, very urban metro, but my practice is statewide, and so for folks looking and they see that I'm not in Minneapolis, they actually prefer that because they don't want to go downtown. Even though I don't offer in person and I make that pretty clear at the very beginning before we get anybody signed up that, like in order to serve everybody really well, we don't do in-person appointments except for very rare circumstances, and so but they, but that is attracted to them, not that city, that's not St Paul or Minneapolis, so that helps too.

Speaker 2:

I think that one off chance that they might need to meet you.

Speaker 3:

They don't want to drive downtown, yeah exactly, exactly, and they just they like having an attorney that feels like it's in their community.

Speaker 2:

Right, so let's let's jump over to law moms. So you know we've talked a lot about your, your business. I think you've given a lot of great information as far as helping new people and what they should think about in certain firm. But I saw on Amazon law moms is a great book by Point Taken Books. Tell us a little bit about that and how that project came about.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so Law Moms was a really it was something we did. It came out in the spring last year, it was. I've kind of had a year and ever since I started the firm I feel like it's gotten more. I've gotten more brave, or I'm just more comfortable with being uncomfortable. I really like if I feel scared of something, I'm going to do it because, like that just feels like an area of growth.

Speaker 3:

So I was approached by someone who I knew through the lawyer's lab. We had worked together, we were both kind of working on our firms in the same way and made great connection and she said I think you would be really perfect for this. I'm doing a chapter in this book and you want to try it. And I was like, no, like I have no designs on being a writer or an author and who's going to care what I have to say and what would I even talk about? I mean, I have a lot of feelings I'm really passionate about, especially women in the law and making the practice of law easier and better.

Speaker 3:

I think that women, especially when they become mothers, suffer more penalties and have like just have a harder time being successful in their careers or you just need to sacrifice yourself in order to do it. And so I I do feel really passionately about that stuff, but like what, you know what kind of experience or education makes me an authority on that? And so I was very like cautious and reticent. And then, when I found out a little more about it, they were like, yeah, we're going to start like the week of Thanksgiving and I'm like what, why would we start like this, this book for professionals and mothers, like in the holiday season? That seems like the worst time of year to do it.

Speaker 3:

But then I I remember thinking to myself well, what if I could suggest the timeframe for this, like six week process, what would that look like? And there are no good times of year when you're a parent and also like a working professional. Everything's busy all the time. And so I kind of leaned in and a student press who does the books did a really great job. They offer coaching, they get kind of hold your hand through the whole process. So I really looked at it as an investment. I can try it and if I fail, you know whatever. And then I can. I can try this kind of new cool flex with training wheels, because I'm not responsible for doing any of the publishing and like that. You know they they handle it.

Speaker 2:

All of that stuff. Published offer without, without all the the counterments.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So all I had to do which turned out to be harder than you know I thought was come up with something to talk about and then write it. I had a lot of ideas right away. Like I said, I'm really passionate about women and the law and especially motherhood and the impact that that has on your career. Having gone through what I did and stepping away from work, I thought I had something to say about that that people could relate to. One of the I had like seven or eight things on my list, and then the one that was the scariest to me was writing about my relationship with alcohol and why I stopped drinking and the impact that that had both on parenting and my career, and that was scary for me.

Speaker 3:

I'm very open about it because I think, well, I know, and we know from the National Task Force on Lawyer Wellbeing, that we have like a crisis of mental health and substance use in our profession, and it is scary and it is dangerous. Right, there are people losing their lives because they can't manage, you know, and so I knew that it would be important, and so I've always been like, since I quit drinking, I've always tried to normalize that for people and try to make it easier for other. You know, the next person who might need to make that choice for themselves too, and I even spoken about it in sort of a informal capacity Did some advocacy through the state bar. I always mention it when I'm talking to groups of law students, because there's a huge number of law students that are questioning their relationship with alcohol or struggling with alcohol use and substance use. So I definitely am out there about it.

Speaker 3:

But I had never been so candid about that last time that I drank and what really was enough for me and I was really afraid.

Speaker 3:

A lot of the same reasons that I was afraid to give up alcohol at all was like what are people going to think and what if they judge me, and you know all those kinds of fears, and so a lot of that came back in a really ugly way when I was sitting down to write this that I was unexpected for me and I was still carrying so much shame that I didn't even realize was still there and yeah, so writing the chapter, I talked to my husband about that kind of last night, I talked to a couple of friends to get their perspective and and then I finally sat down to write it over, like past the deadline probably.

Speaker 3:

You know like just doing it very last minute and just kind of pounding it out, and I, if you read the chapter, I really put the readers in like my shoes and kind of, and then I kind of talk about that night and then I kind of go back to some of the other things like leaving, leaving working full time and some of the pressures, and I include some of the stuff about the task force on lawyer wellbeing so that I can kind of explain that this is like not a Sarah problem, it's like a profession problem.

Speaker 3:

And then I just I really take people through some of that decision-making and my experiences and it was so cathartic and therapeutic to actually put it out there that I was so so I just I didn't realize how much I was still carrying in the guilt and the shame from that and how much of it I was able to let go just by putting that out there. And then the response that I got has been so gratifying and I think that is really. It's really helping people and that's that's what matters to me you know?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're reaching people.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and there are some others, so I'm only one chapter. There's seven other authors and they're all so. These women went so just like deep and raw and very, very personal and very authentic and it just I'm so proud of that work and the way that we're trying to normalize these things that we keep in the dark, right, I can't, I can't handle this, I am struggling, I am not enough, like all these feelings that we really internalize and feel like no one else must be feeling or there's something wrong with me because I'm, I'm struggling with this, I they just put it all out there and I am just so in awe of that power and that grace and that, you know, desire to make things better for other people Like I. Just I am so, I feel so gratified to be in that group and I'm very proud of that book.

Speaker 2:

That's very. That's excellent. That's it looked like a great book. I haven't read it yet, but it looked like a great look to ground. It's good to hear. This has been absolutely wonderful. I've loved what you've been able to share and I hope people have gotten some good information about it. If you want to think about what are the biggest takeaways, what do you hope that the listeners take away from this?

Speaker 3:

I hope that. I hope that people feel seen or can relate to some of the things that I've said and I hope that, if nothing else, that you feel like you can show up as yourself a little bit more in your work, because it's hard to do, because it makes you vulnerable and that's scary. But my experience has been overwhelmingly extremely positive and I have had, I have attracted clients that are that want to work with someone like me because of who I am and that makes it so much better. I tell the law students and I'll tell like this will be the last kind of lesson I put out there for your listeners. But I never hear from attorneys who regret firing clients. I always hear from attorneys that regret hanging on to clients for too long and then you know, like, just make sure that the work that you're doing is fulfilling to you, because life is too short and especially if you have kids and they're young and you're missing things like it's, it's, you'll never regret spending more time with your family.

Speaker 2:

Fantastic, Fantastic. Now I know my listeners are probably going to want to connect with you. Where would be the? Where'd be the best place for our listeners to connect?

Speaker 3:

with you. Our website sends us an email that gets right to me, right to my assistant, aki. So if you go to disabilitylawmncom, that is probably the best way to find us, but you can reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook as well. The MN Disability Lawyer, I think, is our Instagram handle. So, yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

And I'll include that in the in the show notes for us. So thank you so much Again. This has been a great conversation. I know that we've gotten a lot of great tidbits here and I hope everybody enjoys today, and thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you for reaching out. I'm super happy to be here and you're just. You're awesome. I love what you're doing. I love the podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, 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. 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.

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Marilyn Jenkins

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