hiring process

56 – Marc Whitehead – Build Your Lifestyle Law Firm: Optimizing Your Practice, Strategy, & Mindset

In this Trial Lawyer Nation podcast, Michael sits down with disability attorney and business coach Marc Whitehead. The two discuss disability law, running a firm using systems, marketing strategies, case selection, building a great team, finding opportunity in chaos, and how to run a “lifestyle law firm” that works for you.

Michael and Marc begin by discussing disability law, which Marc defines as representing disabled workers and veterans for disability benefit claims. Marc began as a PI lawyer and decided to make the switch to disability law after referring out a lot of disability cases. He realized how much he enjoyed disability law and stopped taking PI cases altogether. Marc’s “5-Star” cases are disability insurance claims for dentists and doctors, but he notes how veterans seeking retroactive benefits can be very lucrative as well. He also refers to social security claims as his “bread and butter” because of their quantity. And he encourages personal injury lawyers to be mindful of clients who will have continued medical issues, as those clients may have a disability case and need additional legal help. Marc sums up his goals in disability law by stating, “If you haven’t been hugged by your client this week, you’re not doing your job.”

The conversation then shifts its focus to business management and running a law firm, which Marc coaches other lawyers on. Marc shares a story sure to resonate with many young lawyers, describing a cycle of winning a large verdict, then going broke again three months later. After stepping back and evaluating his business, he decided “The practice should serve me, I shouldn’t be serving the practice.”  Marc believes you have a duty to yourself and your clients to be profitable so you can do your best work for them.

On the note of profitability, Michael asks Marc what he did to make his firm profitable. Marc emphasizes the importance of time management, which he refers to as “focus management.” Marc chooses to live in his calendar instead of living in his inbox, which lets him dictate his own day instead of “constantly putting out fires.” Doing this allows you to focus your productivity and prioritize the best use of your time as a business owner.

Marc then shares his experience of learning to delegate tasks to other people. While Michael and Marc both agree this can be difficult at times, Marc insists learning to do this will allow you to spend your time where it’s most valuable. Marc practices delegation in his firm by developing checklists and flow charts for every task. This implements consistency throughout his firm and allows Marc to spend his time where it adds the most value.

Besides his law firm management and coaching prowess, Marc is well-known for his newsletter “The Successful Barrister.” Marc’s strategy is not to advertise his firm or bore lawyers with updates on disability law. Instead, he aims to provide a funny (he and his lawyers are shown as caricatures), informative resource lawyers will actually read and enjoy. Marc sends the newsletter to a list of 4,000 lawyers and has found great success in this, which leads Michael to share his experience sending a magazine to 1,600 lawyers and the challenge of accurately identifying its ROI. Michael and Marc discuss other successful marketing strategies and how to tailor your marketing approach to a high-volume firm vs. a “high-end, niche” firm.

Choosing to accept or reject a case is a complicated process. Marc has streamlined this process by establishing a separate intake department and removing lawyers and paralegals from the process. This intake team uses a set of checklists and flow charts to determine acceptance or denial of most cases, so Marc only has his hand in dictating the most difficult decisions. Michael agrees with this strategy and finds if he is involved in all the decisions, he will take on cases he shouldn’t because he knows he could find a way to win the case. Upon more reflection, Michael has found accepting these cases leads to unhappy clients and disappointed referral partners. Marc and Michael discuss letting go of the “hero mentality” and not accepting every case they could win. Marc now only accepts strong cases which work with his systems and workflow and refers out many winnable cases to other attorneys. Michael agrees with this strategy, saying, “All the time you’re working on that case, you’re not working on another case where you could add real value.”

Michael then asks Marc how he manages time between running a practice and coaching. Marc describes how he’s built a high-quality team to run his systems, which grants him the time to focus on marketing the firm and coaching. To build this team, Marc invests money into his hiring process. He utilizes an extensive interview process and two personality tests – the DISC Assessment and the Hiring MRI. While searching for the perfect candidate, Marc uses temp agencies to fill the vacant positions and strongly believes in the “hire slow and fire fast” mentality. Even though temps will cost him more money in the short term, Marc says it’s worth it to find the right candidate in the long run.

This transitions Michael and Marc into a discussion of COVID-19 adaptation. While many firms are laying off employees, this gives other law firms an excellent opportunity to hire previously unavailable, top talent. Marc describes COVID-19 as a great pressure test for your firm’s systems.  This will expose any weaknesses and allow you to fix systems that are not working. And he firmly believes, “Where there’s chaos, there’s opportunity.”

Marc has put together numerous resources for business and marketing in a way that builds a law firm that serves your life. He offers all of them for free because, as stated so many times on Trial Lawyer Nation, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” To receive a free copy of Marc’s marketing plan template or subscribe to “The Successful Barrister,” email him at marc@marcwhitehead.com.

This podcast also covers case management software, the differences between a high-volume firm and a niche firm, running a more efficient intake department, book writing, and so much more.

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Marc Whitehead is double board certified in both Personal Injury Trial Law and Social Security Disability Law.  He dedicates his practice to disability law, specializing in long-term disability insurance denials, Social Security Disability and Veterans Disability.  He has authored multiple books on the topic of disability benefit claims and litigation.  Based in Houston, Texas, Marc runs a national practice and has successfully litigated disability claims in 44 states and counting plus Puerto Rico.

Marc is the editor and publisher of the bi-monthly newsletter, “The Successful Barrister–Marketing, Management & Life Skills that Probably Won’t Get You Disbarred.” Marc is an adjunct practice advisor for Atticus, through which he advises and coaches other lawyers on running successful practices.

Mr. Whitehead is a past president of the Houston Trial Lawyers Association (HTLA), and a member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA). He is actively involved in the American Association for Justice (AAJ) where he was a past chair of the Insurance Law Section. He was also a member of AAJ’s Marketing and Practice Development Committee among many others. Mr. Whitehead generously donates to AAJ as a PAC Eagle and his firm is an AAJ Leaders Forum member.

 

26 – Jack Zinda – Success by Design

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In this Trial Lawyer Nation podcast, Michael Cowen sits down with an accomplished trial attorney, Jack Zinda, for an inside look at his bustling personal injury law practice. Built from the ground up in a county where seemingly no one wanted to start a law office because the juries are so conservative, Jack has built his practice up to include 3 offices with 63 people on his team, 23 of which are lawyers.

Jack’s humble beginnings working in his father’s restaurant washing dishes and waiting tables, contributed to him becoming a great trial lawyer by teaching him to learn how to talk to people, which he says was “great training.” Michael admits that he actually looks for “waiting tables” on the resumes of his potential lawyers as he understands that such experience comes with being able to deal with people, even when they are being unreasonable, among other reasons.

As they dig in deeper to Jack’s practice, he directly correlates the growth of business to an exercise he did after reading the book “The E Myth” where he laid out a plan for where he wanted his firm to be in the future and worked backward from there in order to develop a plan of action. He also made sure to account for his core values and not giving up practicing law seeing as one of his top motivators for getting into Personal Injury law was to help people, and he never wanted to lose that. Michael and Jack also talk through their views regarding the use of consultants and how egos sometimes get in the way of success in this industry. Jack makes it extremely clear that “none of what [he’s] done is original” and that he’s simply taken what he has learned from others and built upon it to become successful. It also, from Jack’s perspective, comes down to the systems that get put in place and following them consistently; an example being that each lawyer in his firm is highly encouraged to attend two networking events per week in order to continue to build relationships.

As Jack reflects on the continued growth of his practice over the years, one of the most important decisions he discovered was who he hired to work at his firm. To prove his point, he describes the scenario where if you hire the most brilliant and amazing people to work for you in every aspect of your business and you have poor systems in place, chances are that you will likely still be successful. Whereas, even if you have the most robust and well-oiled systems in place, if you hire people who are unmotivated and don’t want to work hard, you are likely to fail. He goes on to say that even experience can be overrated when looking to hire someone. At the core, when looking to add people to your organization, people need to be hungry and driven, they need to be smart and organized, and they need to be hard working. Michael and Jack also talk through their hiring processes to get the “right people” into their firm. Surprisingly, the interview has very little to do with it and sometimes… neither does a candidate’s aspirations of working with your firm!

The conversation shifts to internal systems where Jack has gone so far as to hire a developer to create their case management system to his specifications. And not only has he found it to be a great way to customize his practice to run the way he wants it to but also works as a great training tool for everyone in his firm, even the most seasoned attorneys. Jack points out that even the simplest of things go into the firm’s checklists and procedures such as “read the local rules,” which, as easy as that might sound, he points out that it can be vital when working in as many jurisdictions as his firm does. Jack has also raised the bar on training and development within his firm by creating a position that solely focuses on it. Listening to Jack’s description of how he came up with and implemented this position is likely to deliver shock and awe to anyone who runs a firm, as it did for Michael during this podcast.

Michael wraps up the podcast with the question that is likely on everyone’s mind – How much of a “life” do you get to have, running a firm of this size and as successful as yours? Jack boils it down to really deciding what success means to you, first and foremost. What do you want to get out of the practice (note the sentiment of beginning with the end in mind)?  Jack explains that he sets hard and fast rules on family time and personal time and has become VERY intentional about it, down to the alarm on his phone that goes off at 6 pm that reminds him to “go home.” Michael points out that there is also a difference between being in the room with your kids and being present with your kids. Jack goes on to describe how he turns off his phone when he gets home and puts it in a drawer, making it harder for him to somehow “find” it back in his hands, IE: working when he shouldn’t. “Willpower is overrated. I think you’ve got to set yourself up for success by setting the atmosphere to do what you want to do in order to be successful,” which is certainly a great mantra for us all to take away from this conversation with Jack.

 

John C. (Jack) Zinda is the founder and senior trial lawyer at Zinda Law Group.

Jack has served as lead attorney on a wide range of complex catastrophic injury cases across the United States, including:

  • Fire death cases
  • Gas explosions
  • Wrongful deaths
  • Governmental torts, including wrongful death cases caused by law enforcement
  • Federal tort claims act cases
  • Traumatic brain injury cases
  • Commercial litigation
  • Motor vehicle collisions
  • Premises liability
  • Interstate 18-wheeler collisions
  • Product liability

As a trial attorney, Jack takes tremendous pride in giving a voice to individuals and families who need help battling Fortune 500 companies and large insurance conglomerates. His firm balances aggression with a strategy to maximize the outcome for clients, and every case is handled with a focus on getting ready for trial. He also knows the importance of communicating with his clients and ensures that they are part of the process. He is dedicated to always putting the needs of his clients first.

A native Texan, Jack graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business and political science from Southwestern University, where he distinguished himself as president of the Interfraternal Council and as a member of the Student Congress, the Student Judiciary, Phi Delta Theta, and the Pirates basketball team.

Jack went on to earn his Juris Doctorate from the prestigious Baylor University School of Law, which is perennially ranked as one of the top law schools for trial advocacy in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. While there, he was one of the finalists in the Bob and Karen Wortham Practice Court Competition.

Over the years, Jack has earned a reputation as a thought leader in the legal industry, and he has been featured as a speaker for numerous groups across the country, including the Brain Injury Association of Texas, the Williamson County Bar Association, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Jack has also benefited his professional community through leadership positions in a variety of legal organizations. He has served as president of the Capital Area Trial Lawyers Association, as a member of the board of directors of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and as a member of the American Association for Justice, the Texas Bar Association, the Austin Bar Association, and WCBA. He is also involved with a number of consumer advocacy organizations.