Leadership In Law Podcast

S02E52 Building Your Leadership Skills with Davina Frederick

• Marilyn Jenkins • Season 2 • Episode 52

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Your law degree prepared you for the courtroom—not for leading a team. In this compelling conversation, Davina Frederick, founder of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, shares the leadership insights that transformed her own practice and now help women attorneys scale their firms to seven figures "with total ease."

The distinction between management and leadership emerges as a critical insight for growing firms. While management focuses on daily operations and task execution, leadership requires vision-casting and inspiration. As Davina explains, "Your role as CEO is to craft a vision and inspire people who are excited about that mission." This visionary component often feels foreign to attorneys trained in technical excellence rather than inspiring others.

Delegation failures represent one of the biggest growth barriers for expanding firms. Davina outlines her two-step methodology: setting crystal-clear expectations and establishing routine reporting structures. The delegation breakthrough comes when leaders communicate not just what needs doing, but why it matters to the firm's larger mission. This context empowers team members to make aligned decisions without constant supervision.

Perhaps most surprising is how people-pleasing tendencies can sabotage leadership effectiveness. Many high-achieving attorneys developed their work ethic through seeking approval, yet leadership requires making difficult decisions that won't please everyone. This psychological shift represents one of the most challenging transitions for growing firm owners.

Ready to evolve from solo practitioner to true leader? Connect with Davina at wealthywomanlawyer.com and discover how her coaching programs help women attorneys build thriving, sustainable practices that don't lead to burnout.

Reach Davina here:

Website: https://www.wealthywomanlawyer.com
Free Training: https://wealthywomanlawyer.com/build-wealth-generating/
Davina's book: https://amzn.to/4ekwiPi

The Law Firm Growth Guild is designed to help you learn and use proven marketing strategies, grow your firm smarter, and scale your law firm predictably.

Visit https://checkout.lawmarketingzone.com to find out more and to join the private community.

My team and I are adding new content weekly so you can be intentional about your growth and development each week.

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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, davina Frederick, back to the show today.

Speaker 2:

Davina is a Florida licensed attorney, law firm growth strategist and business coach for women law firm owners. She's the founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, a strategic growth planning and coaching company that helps women law firm owners scale their law firm businesses to and through a million dollars with total ease. She's also the founder of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer League, a community and program designed to support women law firm owners who want to scale from solo to CEO of a thriving law firm business, and she's the host of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast, the top podcast for women in law in the US, and the two-time author of books on law firm management and marketing. Her quest learned all she could about creating and scaling a law firm business that would not leave her burned out, overwhelmed or overworked. Let her discover the impact of a good business coach could have on a business. For the past nine almost 10 years, she's devoted her time to helping other women law firm owners create their own wealth-generating law firm businesses. I'm excited to have you here, damina, welcome.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here, marilyn. It's great to be back.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I want to have a conversation today about leadership in law if I can speak today about leadership in law firms because I love the direction that you're going in and I'd love to know where your leadership journey started and how you use it to help other women law firm owners. Thank you.

Speaker 3:

Well, as I'm working with women law firm owners. One of the things when I was working with women law firm owners to scale their law firms, one of the things I discovered is that once you sort of learn how to start hiring people, how to start setting up systems, all these things that we do and we're growing and scaling our business, suddenly we're sort of thrust into this leadership position, whereas before we're solos, they're grinding away ourselves, now we have a bunch of people following us and looking to us for direction and leadership and we don't often consider that, oh, wait a minute, this is a whole different skill set. We're not. We don't just come out of the womb knowing how to lead people right. So and I think sometimes we sort of forget that that's a really critical part in your law firm career if you're working with other people, especially if you're leading other people, whether you're working in a firm or you're starting and growing your own firm.

Speaker 3:

So I discovered that, of course, the hard way, as I do most things in my life, and that is I had my own law firm and I hired people and then I was like wait a minute. You know, and of course the first thing that I think a lot of people do is we tend to look to the people we hire and go. What's wrong with you? How come you're not performing, how come you're not meeting my expectations, how come you know this isn't working the way I envisioned it would work? And I think the piece that we forget I know I forgot, didn't even occur to me until I got more deeply into business and running a business is that I really needed to take a look at myself. Am I being an effective leader and manager of people? Leader and manager, of course being two different things, but if you have a small law firm, you're likely, in both positions, a leader and a manager.

Speaker 3:

So I, at least for a while, and so that's kind of what led me down this path is just hearing, working with coaching, so many women law firm owners and realizing they were bumping up against this. And leadership in a law firm is very different from leadership in a community, so sometimes we'll get put in positions. I know I was always tapped for leadership early on in my career because you know, I joined these philanthropic organizations or or the head of this organization or whatever, and I really learned the hard way until I exposed myself to coaches who mentored me in leadership right. So, and it's a very different thing when you're leading in a volunteer organization or association versus leading a law firm business.

Speaker 2:

I think the big thing is it comes down to understanding and delegation right, and it's a security in ourselves that we can hand off jobs or tax. So how do you handle that?

Speaker 3:

Go ahead yeah no, I agree with you, and I think that's our first sort of encounter with this idea of leadership. We say, okay, I'm going to scale my law firm and I'm going to hire other people, and of course we hear all the coaches out there. We're saying delegate, delegate, delegate, right. And so we kind of just think, okay, I'm just going to delegate, and we don't really think about our role as a leader and how we're delegating. And I think the reason a lot of people are unsuccessful in delegating because I will have people come to me and they're like I've hired all the people but I still feel like a solo in my law firm because I'm still it's creating more work for me, not less work for me, because I'm delegating, and then I'm having to check up because things aren't getting done the way I want it or when I want it or the right way, and I could have just done it faster myself. And I think a lot of people fail in delegation because they don't look at the leadership aspect of it. And so I learned a two-step methodology for leadership, and the very first step in that methodology is setting clear expectations. And I think, as managers of people I'm using the term sort of interchangeably. Here there is a difference between leadership and management, which I'll get into.

Speaker 3:

But in terms of managing other people, when you go to delegate, you really need to set clear expectations right at the outset. And a lot of people think that they're setting clear expectations. But the way I test whether or not they're setting clear expectations, when they tell me, well, I'm being very clear. I say, well, did you give them a deadline? And most everybody are like, well, probably not, I didn't you know. And so you start looking at you need to give.

Speaker 3:

When you set clear expectations, what does that mean? What is clear, what's clear in your mind may not be clearly coming out of your mouth right In your clear expectations. So what does that? What are clear expectations? Who, what, where, when, why, how, like you know, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do it for? When is it due? What? Where can I go for resources? I mean there's all kinds of things that can be involved in setting those clear expectations. But first, before you start kind of jumping down somebody else's throat, take a look at yourself and say did I really communicate that as clearly as it? Did I really communicate that as clearly as it. You know, because we forget if we practice law for 10, 15, 20 years, five years even, or even if we're right out of college I mean right out of law school we have people working for us who don't have the depth of knowledge that we do, and what is so what we sort of assume everybody knows.

Speaker 2:

You didn't even know before you went to law school, right? I think that's the assumption. Right? I know how to do it in my head. Can't you do it the way I want you what I'm thinking?

Speaker 3:

Right, exactly, exactly. And it's because we don't learn how to articulate clearly what it is that we want and set those clear expectations for that task that we're wanting for them to get done. And then the second piece of that is routine reporting. We need some way for people who work for us to routinely report back to us. I mean, this is really getting granular when I'm talking about this, but getting people to report back to us, getting people to report back to us so one of the things that I see come up a lot with law firm owners is not defining what is routine, what is important and urgent and what's an emergency. So, emergencies require a call to 911, right, An emergency is places on fire. You know, there's a mass shooter in the area. Somebody's giving birth in the lobby. I mean, there's something that requires 911, right, Urgent and important matters may be.

Speaker 3:

What's urgent and important within your context of your law firm is different than what's urgent and important to a client. Right, A client is going. You know there's somebody at my door who's threatening me. My ex is here at my door threatening me. Well, that's an emergency for calling 911, but that's not urgent and important for you in that moment. Right, there's a routine. This is a routine thing for you. If you're a family law attorney who deals with these kinds of things, how do you handle such routine things? Right? So everything that we look at in our business, we need to classify for our employees what is routine.

Speaker 3:

A client's emergency or something that feels urgent to them may not be an urgent thing for us because it is part of what we do. We handle urgent things as a matter of business, right, so there's a routine way to handle such matters, right. So urgent and important for law firm owners or for lawyers is the JA is on the phone and the judge is wondering why you're not in the hearing you were supposed to be in or why somebody on your team is not in the hearing. Right, that's an urgent and important thing. A client who's irate, upset and says I'm going to fire you and write a bad review that's an urgent and important thing. You want to get the boss on the phone, Right, so that that routine reporting piece is how do I want things reported to me based on whether it's routine, urgent or emergency, Right?

Speaker 3:

How do I want things reported to me based on whether it's routine, urgent or emergency, right? How do. I want that information conveyed, and so for some people, that's Slack. They Slack all day. For some people, they want it emailed. Some people want it to go right in the client file or in some sort of manager like a project management system or something like that project management system or something like that. But that's an example of sort of that looking at yourself as a manager of people and saying am I using the right tools when it comes to managing people? I need to take a look at myself and if you want me to, I'll go with the difference between leadership and management, just so that it's clear to people what I'm, because I'm kind of like I said, when you're a law firm owner, a manager is a leader, right?

Speaker 3:

But a leader may or may not be a manager.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and so when you're talking about taking a law firm and taking it up to the million dollars with ease, you obviously are getting to the point where you are a leader and no longer a manager. So, yeah, I would like if you can explain it in a law firm. How does that transition or what are the difference of those two?

Speaker 3:

Right? So a leadership when you get out of law school and you decide to be a lawyer, you may have a leadership. You may get a job and there may be a leadership component in your job, most likely not right out of law school, but when you start your own law firm, you are stepping into that leadership and saying I am going to be a leader, I'm going to hire people to work for me and I'm going to need to lead them and I'm leading a movement I'm leading. I have a vision that is greater than me and this business. So let's say, for example, you're an estate planning lawyer. You have a vision for an estate planning business that is going to help X number of people move forward after you know, prepare for their prepare for what is inevitable for all of us, which is death, right, which is a very hard and challenging thing. So you have a vision for how you're going to do that in a way that is different from anybody else, right? That vision is something that you then want to hire people and you want them to join in your movement around your vision. To hire people and you want them to join in your movement around your vision. We are different because we provide a higher level of service to people. We give them an experience that makes them feel like they're seen and heard and their wishes are carried out the way that they want them to be carried out and there may be other law firms that are doing that. But this is your little point of view and corner of the world and you're going to do it in your unique way and you're going to want to attract people to work for you who want to join you in that mission, whatever that is. So this is leadership. Your role as the CEO of a business is to your number one role if you own a business is to craft a vision, have a vision and then inspire people who are also excited about that mission. Right, keep them inspired to perform and bring forth that vision in the way that you envision it. That's a leadership thing. So, whatever role you're in you have if you're volunteering with an organization and you're the leader in that organization, there's some momentum that has to be gathered around that mission of that organization and you, as a leader that your job is to sort of inspire people. So that's leadership, right?

Speaker 3:

Managers are more hands-on, daily operation things. So even when you get to a million dollars, you might still be doing some managing right. When you start getting into multiple millions, this is where we start to hire people C-suite type people, fractional people to come in and help us maybe do some of the more management functions. But management both of them are critical to the success of an organization. You're just growing right. You're growing and evolving in how you manage and how you lead.

Speaker 3:

And so, let's say, you get to a point where you're in the multiple millions two, three million, whatever and you're starting to hire other senior attorneys to manage junior attorneys. Now we've got a couple layers of management the senior attorneys report to you and the junior attorneys and the paralegals report on their team report to the senior attorneys, for example. So management is still going on. It just may evolve so that you're not managing everything and everybody right. So that's a different sort of thing. That's the you know how we're managing the docket and the cases and all that kind of stuff, as opposed to you know which is really vision-focused, core, value-focused. It's really something that says this is the larger part of what we're doing, beyond the making money piece.

Speaker 2:

Right. So you are always going to be the visionary.

Speaker 3:

You're just going to also be the integrator in the beginning and then you're going to transition out of integrator and stay being visionary and just keep the vision going, because you'll always have a bigger vision, you'll always have other ideas, you'll always have other things right, because you're the visionary that's your role in the business is to say, okay, well, we've done this way, now I want our. You know, we started with a little shop on the corner. Now I want our law firm to be all virtual and I want it to be in multiple states, or I want it to serve these people and these people, or you know. So your vision can be evolving.

Speaker 3:

That's the exciting part about it. Or you may be thinking about new ways to show, to bring your vision into the world and make it a reality.

Speaker 2:

That's right. I mean leadership does grow and that's the thing that you know. When people decide to be a leader or take that on, then you know you do grow as a leader, as you grow your dreams and bring people along with you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, and it's also. There's a dark side to leadership, just like there's this sort of, you know, exciting piece of leadership, and that is that we have to make hard decisions. The buck really starts with you, and I see this come up a lot with women. Law firm owners, in particular, is oftentimes high achieving. Women become high achievers because they're pleasing they're pleasing a parent or something they've been told as a child and you might have this with men as well. They've been told as a child, you know, to get good grades, to excel in college. All those they're high achieving and as they're moving along, they're always trying to please. So they go to law school, they're trying to please professors. They're college or prison professors, you know all through school we're taught that.

Speaker 3:

Then we get out and we go become lawyers and we were thinking we have to please the judge. Like you know, we were going to the courtroom and the judge is the authority figure there. The judge is the authority figure, yes, over the courtroom, but the judge is a colleague. The judge has a role to play and you have a role to play and the judge is not your boss in how you run your law firm business, right? So then what do we do if suddenly there's no boss, suddenly there's no supervisor, suddenly? It's only what we want?

Speaker 3:

And so a lot of us don't naturally have that sort of you know, ability or thought about creating a vision. And so we, you know, we start our own law firm because we think, well, you know, I'll make some money and this will be a good thing for me to do, I'll control my hours and it'll be flexible. But we don't think of the larger picture of the responsibility to what? Once we hang out the shingle, once we put ourselves out there and saying we're going to start this law firm, we have a responsibility to lead, it's a must, and we have to make really hard decisions sometimes. And sometimes we have to make decisions just constantly. Not even hard decisions necessarily, it's just a constant day of decision making, because that's often what leaders are.

Speaker 3:

We're the ones that are making decisions about things, because other people say well, it's your vision, so you know you tell me what you want, and that can be really hard for high achievers who are always accustomed to sort of earning appreciation from other people or earning that you know.

Speaker 2:

Because, I mean, I find that some people have known in the past they are that high achieving people pleaser, and then when they hire someone, they're trying to, they're pleasing their employee.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and they get into trouble fast. I just spoke with somebody yesterday who had that exact same thing happen. She had three people walk out and this has happened to more than one lawyer that I know. She had three people walk out and she was trying to be such an accommodating boss from her end, but the way they were receiving that was all negative and they went and wrote a bunch of negative things about her after they left because she had to fire one and the other two. So the person who had to be fired had become the de facto leader and these other people in the law firm were following this leader and this leader was kind of toxic to the situation and so. But when she left, the other people followed right out the door, no matter that. It cost them their job, Right. So it's really important that we step into leadership, and leadership is not really about it's not so much bossing people right, telling people and being dictatorial. It's really about inspiring people.

Speaker 2:

And I think it's like you know they say you get, you hire personality and train what you need. You know, because if you get that one person, that's bad. And I was in the same position. I hired to the person that was to be my 2IC, not realizing and not giving them enough management Right they can make the vision and realizing that they did a tremendous amount of damage to my business.

Speaker 3:

Luckily that was two years ago, but it's you know it was a long time ago, because there was somehow a, there was something that was a gap in your leadership right, that you, they were filling a void for other people, right? And you weren't even aware of it because it never probably occurred to you. Because that's the way it is with most of us when we start hiring people, it doesn't really occur to us that we need some leadership skills why don't you come?

Speaker 3:

back. You know how did I let that happen? Right, right, right, right and. And the truth, and you, you hit it on the head when you said how did I let that happen? Right, that didn't happen to you. Right, it happens, it happened to you. But there was something you were, you had your mind in something else and you weren't clear on your expectations.

Speaker 2:

Correct, I had right this is, this is your responsibility and you know you have the accountability for that. I have to do this with the vision and move this forward. And you know, when we came together, we had our little onboarding and stuff, but yeah, I mean there was. You know, when we came together, we had our little onboarding and stuff, but yeah, I mean there was. You know, when you start doing a little labor, you go no, no, no, no, no, that is not called yeah, it's the and it's the it's the connection that you have.

Speaker 3:

Are they? Are they aligning with your vision and spotting that earlier? If you had spun?

Speaker 3:

that earlier you maybe could have course corrected with that person. Maybe they had the skills. If you had spotted that earlier, you maybe could have course corrected with that person. Maybe they had the skills. But if you had spotted earlier that, wait a minute. No, this is the direction I want to go, and let me tell you why, and I think that's.

Speaker 3:

There's a book that I often recommend people. John Fisher should give me a shout out, because I'm always recommending his book. John Fisher's an attorney I think he's on the East Coast and he has more than one book, but his first book was called the Power of a System, and he's a personal injury attorney, so a lot of the book doesn't apply to people who don't do personal injury. But one of the things that I really love I recommend people read it, at least read the first part is that the way he wrote the book is when he started his own law firm, he said I'm going to sit down and write out what I want. He writes it as though he's writing it to his employee and he says this is what I want you to do and this is what you have the authority to do. This is what the responsibility is and this is why we do it that way, and I think that's such a powerful way to communicate what it is that you want Telling people why especially when you're turning over authority as well as responsibility, which is where a lot of us fail in delegations we don't turn over authority as well as responsibility, but we're not clear on our why.

Speaker 3:

Why we do it that way. Because why you do something a certain way, there may be another way to do it, but if you do it the other way, it may not fall into your why purpose, for why you want it done this way or that way. So it's often a critical piece of information that's missing. When we delegate to people, when we delegate responsibility and authority, we often don't say this is why this is the mission, this is the vision, right?

Speaker 3:

So why we're doing it this way is because I want to create this type of environment or I want this type of outcome. So this is why I want to do it this way, and I think that's a tremendous way of communicating those expectations. In addition to me telling you what I want done and conveying you the authority to do it up to this limit, right, I'm also going to share with you why I want it done that way. So you now can be a critical thinker. When we're approached with other people, you can say well, no, we can't do it this way, because he wants it done this way for this reason, right.

Speaker 2:

Well, we do. We've set everything out in SOPs that are very detailed and, you know, an SOP is standard operating procedure and, to tell you the truth, I don't think I've ever thought about the why, but we have the why built in in how it translates to the client. I found that once we got you know me, get the stuff out of my head and you know, I kind of avoided doing SOPs for the longest time, because it's like this big cloud how am I going to? It's a lot to approach, a lot to get done and I'm busy. And then it occurred to me you know, it's just recorded when you're doing it, right, you know, and then you can go back and say this is why I did that.

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And that has made such a difference, bringing in new people, getting people up to speed, and it doesn't slow down the growth of business.

Speaker 3:

You're teaching people how to think like you, right? You're teaching people how you think not to think like you, but how you think, so they understand. Okay, this is the way Maryland's going to approach it, or this is what Maryland would say, right? So if they're there, if they're able to say what you would say with accuracy, you're like okay, they get me, they get what we're trying to do here, Right?

Speaker 2:

Exactly Now. I've had a leader in the past, say and I found this really interesting If you can find someone that would make 85% of the decisions that you would make, you've got a winner. Yeah, 15%. You can teach them why they did it different, Not different, did it wrong, but they made a different decision than you would have.

Speaker 3:

Well, it's fascinating because my husband works with me. He's my business manager, so he handles a lot of the administrative things that I don't want to handle and we are such different communicators. The way we communicate is just. It's been a real challenge for us. Now in our marriage, in our relationship, it's fine, but when it comes to business, the way we communicate is very different.

Speaker 3:

Because he comes from a computer technology background, he worked with lawyers for many years before I became a lawyer or worked with lawyers, and so he thinks in a different sort of way than I do. He's a really technical sort of person and a lot of our language, the language that we use. So for me to be the leader of this organization and he's working with me in this organization, I still am the one who says this is what the vision is, this is what I'm trying to achieve, and I'm explaining why what I'm doing and also why what I want to do is this, here's why I want to do it. Then he goes oh, okay, well, here's the technical solution to the thing, as opposed to me saying, okay, I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this, because that may not be the best way, because I don't think that way.

Speaker 3:

And I want to bring his talents into it, right yeah, because the way that I go about doing things is totally different than the way he goes about doing things, which he thinks I'm, you know like no.

Speaker 2:

You know. So get work that way, Right yeah.

Speaker 3:

So you know it can't work that way, right? Yeah, so to get so to really, as he's a, he's a tremendous asset to my business and and he just he approaches things differently than I do. So I say, ok, how do I bring his way of thinking? Because it might be exactly what is needed, right, and it might be completely different on the execution, because he is I don't know if you've ever taken CliftonStrengths before, but I love CliftonStrengths. It falls you fall into one of four categories.

Speaker 3:

I ask all my clients to take CliftonStrengths to find out what their strengths are, and then we build on those strengths so you can have all different kinds of strengths and still be a leader, right. You can have a different strength than I have and still be a leader. It just will look different, right? And so he is an executor all around, like his top five characteristics are all fall under the executor category. So if I want something executed well and I am definitely the strategic thinker I'm somebody who's looking at, I'm the big picture, and I call myself an 80 percenter.

Speaker 3:

I've learned how to be an executor for years of being a high achieving woman and doing things myself and just push. I'm determined like Sisyphus to get the rock up the hill, you know. So I'm pushing it, no matter knowing it's going to come back down on me, but I call myself an 80 percenter. I get to about 80 percent, and so I'm pushing it, no matter knowing it's going to come back down on me. But I call myself an 80%, or I get to about 80%, and then I'm bored and I'm ready for somebody else to take over the execution. I'm like, okay, that was fun. I'm on to the next piece, the next vision, the next you know, exciting thing that was going to help us impact even more people and help even more women lawyers, you know, like it's that kind of thing. So it's important to know your strengths and then to have people on your team who have other strengths, and then you have to learn how to lead these people, even though they have different strengths than you do, because you need them.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and there's always things that we have. This thing I do I don't do it every Friday, but I used to do it is five questions to Clary, and it's the funny what did I do this week that I shouldn't be doing Right? And you get a list of those things you know as you, as you go through it, and there's people that love to do, the things you don't love to do or the things that should not be on your calendar.

Speaker 3:

You're going to be turning.

Speaker 2:

You should be doing processes that bill out at this hourly rate, not less, so you figure out what your hourly value is and you delegate what's not there. And there's people in this world that love that I have two of them on my staff that love to do all the boring stuff I have no desire to do. They just love digging in and getting stuff done.

Speaker 3:

So I was. I actually worked as a bookkeeper. I went to college for journalism and I took a like a gap year and instead of doing something fun like going to Europe because I was a poor girl, I worked full time. I worked as a bookkeeper and I don't know why in the world they hired me, but it was for an industrial park and they had multiple different parks and we had to do the bookkeeping for it. And this is back when bookkeeping was a little like there was some computer and there were some manuals. Still right I was. I so hated it Like it got me back into college so fast. And so in my business I love analyzing. You make me happier than give me a profit loss and let me look at it and see where the money's going on. I love that, but bookkeeping heck. No. I am looking for somebody else to go in and line those little numbers up like soldiers, so that I don't have to.

Speaker 3:

I can work with that yeah so many because that kind of detail I'm detail-oriented in the way that I've been trained as a lawyer to be detail-oriented. But when it comes to numbers, forget about it. You know that's my. I know business, math and I know what outcomes I wanted. Those types of numbers excite me, coins excite me, but doing the actual balancing of all that kind of stuff, so that level of detail, I have to have people on my team who you know, who do those things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I agree. So let's jump back to your program. If I am a woman lawyer and I've got, say, I've just hired my first front desk person, I'm getting ready to hire a paralegal, what can your program help me to make sure that I am moving into that leadership management and leadership role, as I bring some other people in to help me fulfill my dream or my vision?

Speaker 3:

Right, right. So I work with women law firm owners in two ways. One way is, if you're making over a half million dollars in revenue, I work with you as a private client to get you over that million dollar mark, because you're in a different, you're situated in a different place than you are. If you're still climbing that six-figure ladder in revenue, right. And then I have a program for those who are climbing that six-figure ladder in revenue. They are solos and they're like how do I hire people? They're starting to think about hiring staff, hiring that first attorney, all of that. And so we are working to get them that foundation, that business understanding and foundation and a part of that of what the materials that I've created in the league are around leadership and sort of transforming into that leader. How? Because now I'm hiring people and and then they're not performing and what's going on? Am I just a bad hirer and you know? And then you start looking at digging a little deeper into it and saying, well, I don't understand how I'm supposed to lead, right, and so we have. I have some materials and training in that program and obviously I do coaching, group coaching in that program to help people evolve as leaders. It's something that we grow into, just like we start out as a solo leaders. It's something that we grow into Just like we start out as a solo.

Speaker 3:

I tell people, if I gave you the keys to a multimillion dollar law firm when you're a brand new solo, you would you just would freak out, you'd be like I can't, because you have to grow into the person who can lead a multimillion dollar law firm. You're not just, you know, you just don't start that way fresh out of the gate. My people who are working with me privately, obviously they have access to all of that training, but obviously they're working with me one-on-one. So we're specifically addressing their particular leadership issues. So, as it comes up and they say, well, so-and-so just quit, or so-and-so is giving me a problem, or three people just quit, or I need to hire.

Speaker 3:

Who do I hire? Those were who do I make into a manager? I've got somebody I've made into a manager and I've realized that she doesn't have management skills. People don't like her and she's too much of a perfectionist. You know it was like so we we deal in a custom basis when I'm working with people one-on-one in that way. But it's definitely a part of it. It was something I added because when I first created the program I did the you know the mindset and the marketing and the systems and hiring and how to manage your money and understand KPIs and all those things and that's all part of the program because that's the business principles that you need to grow your business. But I realized as people were hiring I'm like, oh, there needs to be a leadership component here, because if you're going to grow your business, that's a critical part.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have to grow ahead of the person. Yeah, the people you're leading Absolutely Well, davina. This has been just eye-opening. It's been very good. Where can we reach you and get access to your group or talk to you about coaching? How is this way to reach you, though?

Speaker 3:

for a training that I created, which will provide some of insight into what I think it takes to scale a law firm and also offer you an opportunity to join our group program, if that's for you. Also, you can follow me on Instagram at Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and Facebook at Wealthy Woman Lawyer. Linkedin at Wealthy Woman LinkedIn is actually under my name. I have a company, but everything sort of goes under Davina Frederick on LinkedIn. And our YouTube is kind of pitiful right now because we haven't put a whole lot of effort into it before, but I've got somebody now who's managing the YouTube channel. So all of the podcasts for Wealthy Woman Lawyer, the videos of those, go on YouTube. So if anybody loves the podcast and they want to go see what the people look like I'm interviewing you're one of those lovely people then they can go over to YouTube and see that, because my numbers definitely need a boost over there. Fabulous.

Speaker 2:

All right, awesome. Well, we'll make sure that all those links are in the show notes and definitely anyone listening reach out to Jemena. She's an amazing coach and she can help you grow as a leader and grow your firm. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks, marilyn, thanks for having me. Thanks for joining me today for this episode.

Speaker 2:

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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