#219: Be A Wealthy Lawyer

Heather:

Well, hello. Hello everyone. This is Heather Moulder, host of Life & Law. And today, we have a special guest I want to introduce you to: Jeffrey Lamont, who is the president and founder of Lamont Wealth Strategies and host of the Wealthy Lawyer podcast. With over 27 years of experience helping lawyers and their families simplify complex financial decisions, Jeffrey blends deep expertise with a practical approach.

Through his firm and podcast, he helps legal professionals protect their income, build wealth strategically, and achieve financial independence without sacrificing the life they’ve worked so hard to build.

Welcome, Jeffrey.

[00:01:51] Jeffery: Thank you, Heather. Thanks for having me.

Jeffery’s Background & How He Started Working With Lawyers (And Why That’s Relevant To Lawyers Choosing Their Niche)

Heather: Okay, so before we get too far, I have a quick question for you.

Everything that I’ve seen that you put out there is targeted very specifically to attorneys. So my question, and everybody will figure out in a few minutes why I’m asking this of you. But my question is, have you always just worked with attorneys and targeted them in your marketing?

[00:02:19] Jeffery: It didn’t start out that way, Heather. It is now. Of the people that have onboarded new clients this year, 100% of them are lawyers. Now, I have a number of clients that aren’t lawyers or never have been lawyers, but the majority of the people that I that I deal with are lawyers that make up more than 60% of my practice.

[00:02:41] Heather: So I’m curious to know, and the reason I’m asking you this is because I talk about niching all the time. I have a real issue with my litigation clients, especially who say, well, I can serve anyone. I can litigate anything. And I’m like, of course you can.

But from a marketing perspective, you need to target somebody, at least initially, so that they’ll listen to you. Because if you’re a jack of all trades, nobody will listen. You’ve clearly niched in, as far as your marketing goes into attorneys. So when did you make that decision? Decision, and how did that come about?

[00:03:12] Jeffery: Yeah, that’s a good question.

Funny enough, I’ve been dealing with attorneys pretty much since day one of my practice.

My dad, who I came in with or came in under, dealt with a couple of large firms in Toronto. So that was my first foray, Heather, into dealing with lawyers. And by hook or by crook, they somehow took to me and I took to them. We just had a. We spoke a similar language.

Heather: Oh, nice. Okay.

[00:03:39] Jeffery: Fast forward a lot of years, and we’re in the middle of COVID and I don’t know about how things were down where you are, but up in Canada here, it was locked down almost to the military type of lockdown. So I need to come up with a different way of reaching out to people and dealing with people. And a couple of my better clients that I have a lot of respect for kept telling me that I needed to reach out to younger lawyers, I needed to reach out to more lawyers, that they were like, you need to get your word out there more.

And so that’s when I decided to go into LinkedIn and targeting, really? And marketing to lawyers more more specifically.

[00:04:17] Heather: So that’s interesting, because one of the things a lot of my clients end up doing to figure out where should I start?

Who are my current clients? Who do I work with currently? Who do I enjoy working with the most? Why? And then choosing that space based on the who. And so that’s kind of what you did. Some of your better clients, they happen to be attorneys they were recommending. So I think this is a great lesson on niching and how to choose your niche. Initially.

[00:04:46] Jeffery: So I talked about COVID, but about six or seven years before that, I went through a whole rebranding and really figuring out who I wanted to deal with. And so I made basically lists that you’re talking about my top 20 clients, my favorite 20 clients, and then. Which might have had nothing to do with revenue or anything, just my favorite people to talk to. And then the 20 that were kind of up and coming.

So then I basically took those 20s, those three 20s, so 60 people, and created a Venn diagram and realized that right in the middle there was a commonality between a good number of those people and it was, they were attorneys. So it just seemed like a natural fit.

Financial Challenges For Lawyers

[00:05:28] Heather: That’s awesome. Okay. Most lawyers, and certainly the lawyers that you would work with make really great money, full stop.

Jeffery: Yep.

[00:05:37] Heather: And from the outside looking in, people think they’ve made it, they think they have it all. Yet you and I both know that many lawyers, and especially the high-earning ones, feel a lot of financial stress.

So what is going on there?

Lack of Time and Desire

[00:05:54] Jeffery: I think the biggest issue is that they just don’t have the time or desire. You know, they, they, they pour everything into their, into their practice, they eke out whatever they can for their family. So the last thing they really have to have time for is to deal with their own finances.

And one of the big things that I find, and it’s an easy trap to fall into and it starts really young actually, if we want to follow it right down.

But it’s the idea of I make good enough money that I can survive my day to day life, so I don’t need to think about do I have enough for the kids school, do I have enough for the car payments, I make enough, I don’t have to worry about that.

So they’ve got these blinders on that prevent them from seeing further out.

So they believe that their day-to-day is fine. So, therefore, I’m fine forever.

But as you and I both know, there comes a time where law will no longer be a part of their life, or at least a paycheck from law, in which case they need to be prepared for that. Now, along the way, you run into all sorts of issues that are really not indigenous to lawyers, but really any high-earning professional.

Lifestyle Creep

The number one thing is lifestyle creep.

So you look down the hall, you look at the office next to you, and you know they’re driving a great car, they just went on a fancy vacation and you’re like, maybe I should be doing that too.

And you start to feel the pressure about joining the right clubs, living in the right neighborhood, sending the kids to the right private schools, so on and so forth. And before you know it, you’re spending more money than you’re making, which makes planning really difficult.

[00:07:33] Heather: It does. So what I’m hearing is really there’s two things going on here and I think people need to understand.

The first thing you mentioned was the lack of intentionality because we make so much. It’s really easy to just spend it because we think we’re safe, because we make a lot of money, and we make more money than we probably ever imagined at some point in our life or even grew up with. I know for me, that was the case.

I did not have a lot of money growing up. We struggled. And so you start making all this money and you feel like, oh, I’m going to have enough. Like, this is so much. And then when you’re not intentional, you don’t pay attention to not just the big things, but the little things. Even that do add up over time. So there’s that aspect.

Why Mindset Is The Key To Being More Intentional

Then the second aspect, which I think is a deeper aspect, a bigger problem. The first one, the solution is to be more intentional. The second one is a bigger issue, and that’s a mindset issue in my mind, because what you’re calling out is this. Well, I have to keep up with the Joneses because there’s this perception of me within this law firm or as a lawyer or, you know, whatever. And I think that gets to something that really is true for a lot of lawyers, and I think it’s true for high achievers in general. I think it’s one of the reasons we’re high achievers. The more I work with not just lawyers, but then pay attention to doctors and others, too.

High achievers are fueled partly by what others think of them.

It’s part of what, like, fuels them to do more, do better. The problem is, a lot of us don’t realize that that’s a big piece of it. And when you care a lot about what others think of you, you are much more likely to fall into that trap of keeping up with the Joneses, spending money we don’t have, or at least spending everything we are making so that there is no, nothing there for the future.

[00:09:18] Jeffery: 100%. There’s really two words that come up in a lot of my conversations, and you already touched on one of them, Heather.

Intentionality

Intention, right? Being intentional about how you spend money, how you use money. I think there’s a lot of people that look at money from a different mindset than I would, than I try to get my clients to see.

And you have to look at it not as an end destination, but rather as a tool to get you to that destination, right? So rather than just using it as an example to feed your life today, think about what it can get you in the future. There’s an intentionality that goes with that, but for the vast majority, it starts with mindset, right? And changing how you think about money.

Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindset

And you know, we all fall into one of two categories when we, when we get, we either came from a life where, you know, a life of abundance where we saw that money wasn’t an issue.

And we tend, if you came from that sort of household or that sort of lifestyle, you tend to carry that through, especially as a high earning professional. Right. You’re making good money, money’s always going to be there. So you never think about what happens if the other side is the people that maybe didn’t come from a lot, that came from simpler means and they’ve, they’ve got more of a, a, a scarcity mindset.

The problem with that sometimes is that can create a whole other need to, to get all the things that they wish they’d always had.

Right. So you know, it’s like I got to get this while the getting’s good. So they go and they, they, they make the big purchases, they, they, they acquire things, things that they never thought that they, they could ever afford.

So it creates needless spending. So we end up with a lot of intentionality that comes into the equation. So.

[00:11:04] Heather: Right.

Solution: Give Every Dollar A Job

[00:11:05] Jeffery: I try to get any high-earning professional, especially lawyers, to think about money this way. We want to give every dollar that they make a job. And the job isn’t all for the future. It’s not all for protection.

We have a little bit of fun too. We have a fund account that we, that we try to save for, to allow for some purchases guilt free. Pur.

But you need to be intentional in how you set that up.

Solution: Create Structure Around Spending/Savings/Investments

Which brings me to the other issue. Most lack structure.

They make money, they spend money.

That’s not structure. So giving each seller a job creates some structure or becomes the scaffolding for the structure that we build for the rest of the plans. One of the things that I start with, every lawyer that I deal with is we don’t talk dollars and cents anymore.

We talk percentages.

[00:11:58] Heather: Good.

[00:12:00] Jeffery: You know, one of the things, one of the clients that I can think of right now that I started about maybe 15 years or so ago was making about $150,000.

Today, 10 or 15 years up the road, there’s a zero behind that number.

[00:12:14] Heather: Yeah.

[00:12:15] Jeffery: So when we originally got started, he was putting a couple thousand dollars a month away into his various savings tools.

If you stuck to that same number 10 years later, it wouldn’t be sufficient enough. So instead what we talk about is percentages. So I always say, Heather, and if your listeners don’t get any more from, from this call than this today, if they can save somehow by some way, shape or form 15 to 20% of their income in some tool or another, they will be fine.

But you have to think about saving first, spending later, as opposed to, I spend all my money and then I save whatever’s left, save off the top, and then go, go from there. So if I have a couple of clients that have stuck very well to the 20% rule, think about that. If you’re making 150,000, 10 years later, you’re making a million five or a million seven, that 10%, 20%, that can be a massive difference than simply doing $2,000 a month. So again, mindset, shift a little bit, percentages versus dollars.

Heather’s Example of Putting This Into Action

[00:13:26] Heather: I think that’s a great way to think about it. And I would say, and you know this, if you can’t, and there’s a lot of these people, but I have debt, I have this, I have that. Okay, no, like from the very beginning, if you can, and you should be able to figure this out, take that percentage as though it’s gone, you would be surprised how easily you can reorganize everything else around it. So, for example, my husband and I chose to live in an apartment complex the first year and a half of our marriage.

It didn’t have central air. It was fine. It actually felt fine. It didn’t have.

It didn’t have washing machines, it didn’t have like, there was a lot it did not have. It was adorably cute, it was big.

It met our needs. There were just two of us. There was no dishwasher either.

We were both making really good money, but we also had debt. And we purposefully did that because we knew it would force us to save. And we didn’t really give up much. It was an adorable place. It was very comfortable. It didn’t matter. None of that stuff actually mattered. It was really more optics than anything.

But that enabled us to start saving at a very young age and put towards our future retirement plans and do investments. And we did that so young that later on when we were contemplating, you know, do we. When I was contemplating stepping back, how are we going to afford this?

We were able then to more easily figure that out again and step back on the amount we put towards our retirement. Because guess what? We had a whole lot. And frankly, we have enough to retire off of without ever putting another penny in if we really have to.

It is doable. And I know you know this because you work with people all the time.

But it does mean trade offs and you have to be really clear mentally, to accept that there will be trade offs. You are either making a trade off now or a trade off later.

That’s where the intentionality piece comes into play.

Learning From Lived Experiences

[00:15:28] Jeffery: A hundred percent. One of the, one of the things, and I don’t know if I shared this with you before, Heather. My average client is 68 years old.

I’m 50. To give you some context, A lot of the things that I’m helping younger clients. So clients my age and younger than us understand is what I’m Getting from the 68, the 78, the 85 year old retired lawyer, retired judge, you know, what do they wish they’d done different? Right? A lot of these people I met in their 40s and 50s, and like I said, now they’re in their 70s and 80s.

I mean, it’s one of those things where I’m learning as much from them in helping impart that wisdom. And one of the things that you talked about is, and I think that what you and your husband is, what it sounds like you’ve done has been fabulous, is you didn’t care about the optics, right? We get so caught up in the optics of it all. Do I look the right way? Am I wearing the right suit, the right dress, the right this? Do I have the right watch? The right, you know, the right car.

If you can get beyond that and just say, look, I’m fine with being average, whatever that is, I don’t even know what that means. But you know, for sake a little bit for today, for tomorrow, you’ll be far better off. I know far too many people, in fact, I meet far too many people in their, even in their, like early 60s that want to retire, that can’t.

[00:16:54] Heather: Yeah.

[00:16:57] Jeffery: And that’s the worst thing to have to tell somebody. I know you want to retire in two years, but you can’t.

So, you know, it is being intentional. It is making some sacrifices. Not even sacrifices, choices.

[00:17:10] Heather: It’s trade offs. We did not feel like we were giving up much, honestly. We knew we were saving for our future. I was in Big Law. I built my own practice. It did not prohibit not worrying about keeping up with the Joneses, not buying the Rolex, not buying the fanciest car out there. I, for many years I drove a Honda Accord, then a Pilot. It didn’t hurt me at all. Like, I still made it, quote, unquote, made it, built a successful practice in Big Law.

Nobody cared. You care. Nobody else cares. If you can let go of that, it is the most freeing thing because not only will it help you financially, but it will reduce massive amounts of stress. Not just because you’ll have a financial plan, but because you won’t be worried so much about what other people think. Because guess what? They’re not really thinking about you. They’re worrying about them and what other people think about them too.

[00:18:00] Jeffery: I was speaking with a person that reached out from LinkedIn the other day. An attorney, mid-40s partner at the firm that he’s at is living beyond his. So he’s got his draws and then he’s got his distributions later in the year and he’s gotten used to spending every dollar that he makes.

And so one of the first things I said to him, Heather, is look, why don’t we live off the monthly draws that you get? If you can figure out a way to do that, right? And, and maybe for go, maybe it’s not three trips a year, maybe it’s one trip a year. The kids won’t care. Right?

Like having extra money doesn’t mean a huge sacrifices you’re talking about. It’s just subtle changes. And the way, the way that I try to help the lawyers out that I deal with is I want them to have their cake and eat it too a little bit.

That’s why we have this sort of the guilt free account that we religiously set money aside. That way if they want to go on that big vacation, if they want to buy that car, they’re not doing it on leverage, they’re not doing it on loans, they’ve saved for it.

Now, as you and I both know, unfortunately, you know, having, especially with, with kids, having kids, everybody wants everything yesterday. Yeah, right, everything. We want everything now.

But if you can delay that gratification even a year or two, make it a couple extra years to save before you buy the house or the condo, wherever you’re going to live, you know, wait a year and try and save some money so that your down payment on that car is not going to, you know, your payments aren’t going to be as high.

Subtle changes.

[00:19:39] Heather: Honestly, happiness is not created by all the things you amass. It’s created by the experiences you create. And if you’re not fully there because you’re too worried about your finances or because you’re out billing extra because you need it so that you guys can live, you’re not happy.

And you will be much happier letting go of some of that stuff. And it creates so much freedom and space within you and ability to be more present. This is part of the reason, I think a lot of lawyers can’t be present is because they’re always worried about these kinds of things, and this is big piece of it, and they don’t like to admit it.

If you can get to that place, you’re going to be so much better off.

Planning for Retirement

[00:20:18] Jeffery: Well, 100%. And I think a lot of that comes down to figuring out. You know, people talk about, number one question I got, how much do I need to retire?

It’s impossible to answer.

[00:20:33] Heather: Right. Depends on how you want to live when you’re in retirement.

[00:20:36] Jeffery: Well, God, there’s so many factors, so many variables. Right. But to me, to me, it’s about figuring out what’s enough for you to afford the lifestyle you want.

You know, you and I, we have similar families in terms of size and age and that I have different needs and probably different wants than you and your husband do. Right. So our plan look radically different.

We can’t. There’s no one paintbrush to paint the same picture for everybody.

[00:21:03] Heather: Right.

Determine What Enough Is For You

[00:21:04] Jeffery: So you have to figure out what’s. What do you want, what do you need? And what is a word that I’ve started using more and more, Heather, in the last year or two is figuring out what your enough is.

What does enough mean?

We work through things backwards. So we figure out what somebody needs to have in retirement to create the income that’s going to give them the lifestyle that they want.

Heather: Right.

Avoid Over-Saving and Burnout

[00:21:28] Jeffery: So that they don’t end up over-saving. Because you can do that, too. Because I want you. Because, look, I mean, I’m not a lawyer, but I deal with enough of them. You work hard for your money.

You need to enjoy it a little bit along the way. Otherwise burnout becomes an issue. There’s all sorts of, you know, strains that come with that. And the presence that you’re talking about, I’m fortunate. A lot of the clients that I’ve dealt with, or I’m dealing with now especially, are cognizant of that.

They. They understand that they need to be present today. We just talked about, you know, before we came on here, we talked about our kids in university.

You only have 18 or 20 years to deal to be with them.

Like, to be with them.

[00:22:13] Heather: Truly with them.

Jeffery: Yeah, truly with them. Before they’re off doing their own thing.

Sacrifice A Little Today To Have More Tomorrow

Why would I want to miss all that? So what I. My job is, is to help people understand how I can work, make enough to leave my life, live my lifestyle, but also to prepare so that up the road I can live that same lifestyle and not have to sacrifice.

You’re Gonna. For your listener, if they can be open to sacrificing a little bit today, that means less they’ll have to sacrifice in the future.

[00:22:46] Heather: Yeah. And a lot less stress, too. Right.

Jeffery: 100%.

Most Common Lawyer Financial Blindspots

[00:22:51] Heather: It’s super worth it. So. Okay, so you write and talk a lot about financial blind spots. What do you mean by that and what, in your opinion, is the most common financial blind spot for lawyers?

1. Not Knowing Where All Money Is Going

Jeffery: There’s a couple. I think one of them definitely is the idea of not knowing what enough is for sure. You know, understanding what they most don’t even understand how much they need on a monthly basis today.

So one of the first exercises I go through, Heather, with a client is have them detail whether it’s your credit card statements, their bank statements, or a combination thereof, figure out how much do they need on a monthly basis today.

Right off the top, once we go through that exercise, the number one blind spot is this.

There’s one line item that gets every, literally every person I talk to, they’ve got 10% of their monthly budget that they can’t account for.

Let’s say you’re making, I don’t know, $50,000 a month as an example.

Most of the clients that I meet will not be able to count for at least five to $10,000 a month.

[00:24:06] Heather: Wow.

Jeffery: It vanishes. So that’s the most giant blind spot, is that they have no idea where the money goes.

They know where it comes from, but not where it goes. So getting a good understanding of, you know, the comings and goings of your money is the first thing.

2. Not Protecting Your Income (For Those What-Ifs)

I think the other part is the what-if. This is a huge one for a lot of, you know, sort of attorneys our age, sort of in their 40s and 50s, where, you know, I’m making good money, I’m good, my health is good.

But what happens if it isn’t? You know, you’ve been through that. I’ve been through health issues. It happens when you’re young.

Heather: It does. I was 38.

[00:24:47] Jeffery: And I was, I was 23.

Like, I mean, things can happen. And so having the blind spot of, you know, protecting your income, you need to protect your income through disability insurance, through life insurance, through long term care insurance. These are important pieces that a lot of attorneys just don’t pay much attention to. They take what the firm provides them, maybe if there’s anything, and they think that that’s enough.

[00:25:15] Heather: My firm provided really great benefits once you were a partner. I was thankfully a young partner when that happened and was taking advantage of the benefits that were provided by my firm.

But we had had it on our own before that. We were able to drop some of the stuff we had paid individually for prior to that. And I am pretty sure we were some of the only people, if not the only people in my age group at the time, mid to up, you know, young to mid-30s, who had disability insurance, who had like all these things, like to just in case. And it was thanks to our financial planner, frankly, at a young age, going, oh, you don’t have this. You need this. Because you never, ever, ever know. And you don’t want to be in a position for. Because look at your salary. What if that’s gone overnight? Like, how would you afford, you know, all these things? And you’d have to sell the house. You’d have to. All these things. Right.

So I will tell you, you never know. I was 38. I had a six and a two year old at home. It was a brutal diagnosis. It was made very clear to me that I needed to take long periods of time off, that I wouldn’t be able to work very well. So I chose to go on disability because I needed to focus on my cancer battle and not work.

It was a lifesaver because having no income through the firm at the time was hard. Like, you know, you have to pay the mortgage. The kids were in a private school. Like, there are things you have to pay for that they can’t say, okay, yeah, you can take a year off, you know?

[00:26:53] Jeffery: Yeah. No, and it’s funny because along the way. So, you know, if you’re lucky enough to make it in your 40s and 50s without a health issue, God bless you. Right. That’s great.

Making more money, unfortunately, and is not always going to be the solution, though, to a problem that comes up.

Heather: Right.

[00:27:15] Jeffery: You know what it’s like if all of a sudden you have to take a year off for a treatment of one issue or another, that’s a year where maybe you’re not getting any income. Do you want to be delving into your savings?

No.

And this is a. That’s a huge blind spot. But it, it comes back to the word that you used at the very beginning. It’s a great word, is intentional. Right? Intentionality. And, and having that clarity that goes with being intentional on, you know, how do I use my money?

Do I have enough? If, God forbid, something happens to me? And being focused on, you know, not just the. We’re. We’re infinite optimists. Right. We don’t think we’re going to get sick. We don’t think we’re ever going to lose our job. We don’t think we’re ever going to be laid off for any reason. The, the, the, the fountain of money is just going to keep coming.

Heather: Yeah.

[00:28:07] Jeffery: It’s not always the way. And I think that a lot of successful attorneys that I meet do feel that way. They feel like there’s never. It’s just an endless printing press of money.

And it’s not, as you and I both, it’s not.

[00:28:20] Heather: And I think also something I’ve definitely learned as I’ve gotten older, we always think, well, later, later, later. And then all of a sudden that later comes and something I have become, really come to realize, truly realize over the last two years as I’ve gotten into my 50s now, you don’t see yourself the same way you saw people of that age when you were younger. You don’t feel as old. You don’t think you’re that old.

Yeah, when I was in my 30s, I thought 50 was old. Right.

Now I’m like, no, I’m really not. You, perception never change. It’s always later. It’s always later. And so that time will never come unless you choose it.

3. Not Starting Early

And you’ve got to force that at a young age, because starting young is the best way a, to plan appropriately, but then also to save, to invest. It does reap better rewards over time, and it gives you more wiggle room later, should you want to take that wiggle room.

[00:29:22] Jeffery: What you do, it’s, it’s no different than, than anything else. The sooner you can get started, the better the rewards are going to be. You know, everybody that’s listening to this knows what compound interest is and compound returns are. Right. Or the concept of what we don’t necessarily understand is just how much things compound.

Right. You know, you take our, our kids that we both have in university.

Right. And in high school, I mean, if they saved a couple hundred dollars a month from their paychecks, right. When they’re, when they’re working in the summer, that if they did that from 20. To 60 or 65, they’d have boatloads of money.

[00:30:06] Not because the money amount of money they put in, but because of the impact of compounding. So you’re right, Heather. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, most don’t start early enough. Everybody thinks that they’re just going to make more money and that’s going to be the answer to Their, to their, to their problems or their issues.

But a little forward planning and again, little intentionality will go a long way if you can get started early enough.

[00:30:29] Heather: Absolutely.

Mindset Differences Between Big Law vs. Entrepreneurial Lawyers

Okay, so I want to like, switch gears a little bit. We’ve talked about this before.

So I work with attorneys in all types of law firms. And, and I’ve definitely noticed some mindset differences based on the size of the law firms that these attorneys are in.

And I would put people into two very distinct groups. Now, this is just FYI, not everyone falls into these two categories because of where they are, but a majority, a super majority, I would say, do so. The most notable groups I’ve noticed are Group 1, which is the solo practitioners and small law firm owners who started solo and are in growth mode. They’re the more entrepreneurial group.

And then there’s group two, which is the big law lawyers. And not just big law, but the medium to bigger, bigger law firms that have always thought of themselves as law firms, the bigger firm lawyers.

I have noticed some distinct differences in their mindset around ability and willingness to spend certain types of money, willingness to get help, all these things.

I am curious to know what differences, if any. I’m pretty sure you have some. But what differences you have seen between those two groups that relate to financial planning and finances.

[00:31:50] Jeffery: I think you hit one of them. There is definitely a definitive difference between the two main groups. If we want to just section the two groups. When you’re working at a big firm, you’ve got a certain level of security, right?

The standpoint that you know that you’ve got, if, if you have an off month or an off quarter, hopefully the rest of the firm hasn’t. Right. And it kind of picks up the slack.

So there’s some security there or perceived security there that, that my monthly check, my monthly income is not going to change a whole lot. In fact, hopefully if I stay in big law, I’ll just keep making more money almost on a track.

The solo and the smaller firms, those attorneys, they get that maybe there’s going to be a month where they can’t take a draw.

Right.

They understand that I need to save when the money is good.

Right? Save a little extra.

There’s that part of it. There’s the straight money part of it for sure.

Not that there’s a scarcity. But I had one client in particular actually who was a partner in a large firm making really good seven figures for a long time.

His net worth when he left the firm at 48 was 4 or 5 million dollars. Okay. He left to start his own thing.

We got out of touch because he ended up moving abroad, comes back a couple years later, five years later to be exact, and his net worth was three times that.

[00:33:27] Heather: Okay.

[00:33:28] Jeffery: I still remember the conversation. I was aghast. I was like, how, where did, where did this change in mindset come in? And he said, jeff, the number one problem that he faced or that he saw is he goes, every month I was getting the same draw and I knew that if I overspent a little bit, I had my line of credit dipped into that because I knew at the first of the next month there’s going to be a big whack of cash that came back into it.

And he said it was just a continual hamster wheel that he couldn’t get off of once he started his own thing. And he realized that, hey, I’m going to have months where I make six figures or seven figures or more and I’m going to have months where I make nothing.

Heather: Zero. Yet you still have to pay bills.

[00:34:10] Jeffery: Zero.

I better, I better have some in my pocket from the month before when I made the six or seven figures. So got him thinking more intentionally, more clearly about, okay, money is a resource that isn’t infinite.

So when you’re at a big firm, there’s a mindset that this money is just going to keep churning out.

When you’re on your own, you understand, not that you don’t understand the value of the dollar and big law, but you understand that it isn’t an infinite tap that can turn off or slow down.

So with that comes a number of just changes in terms of how they think about retirement, how they think about their day to day spending. I find that generally speaking, most of the solopreneurs that I deal with, solo practitioners, they tend to err on the side of caution more what they want, they want freedom, they want to save money so that they can ultimately get out of their practice.

Big Law, for the most part, they just want to continue with security. They like the security of being in the big firm, having that paycheck and making sure it just continues along.

So again, it, because of that, that thought that it is just a continuing printing press or fountain.

They don’t really plan the same way.

So again, it goes back from, from scarcity and abundance for big Law. They think that there’s an abundance there that they don’t never have to worry about scarcity or money not being there.

And then you’ve got the, you know, the solos and the small, small firm where they don’t have that security.

So they know that they got to protect more, they need more money in their pocket.

[00:35:52] Heather: So what’s interesting to me about this is the issue I see a lot is the small law firm owners and the solopreneurs. If they have gotten to the point of reaching out to me, talking to me, it’s really about a fit.

And if it’s a no or not, I know this and I tell them, right. That rarely happens, by the way, because most people, they have the podcast, they have my LinkedIn, it’s pretty clear who I am and how I help. So 90 something percent of these people who reach out to me, they already pretty much are pre sold before they talk to me. They just want to confirm.

And then when I make the offer, they do not bat an eyelash around payment. Like sometimes it’s okay, I need a couple weeks or a month because that’s, you know, but they all pay it and they don’t have a problem with that.

The big law lawyers, him and ha. So much more. Now, not all of them. Again, they bought a lot more about paying money for coaching and I think it comes from.

Yes, they’re more risk-averse in some ways, but they, they understand sometimes you do have to spend money.

[00:37:03] Jeffery: Here’s the thing with solopreneurs and solo practitioners of any sort. They understand Heather, the idea and the need of investing in themselves.

They understand that they can’t do it all. Big law, I find, yeah, there’s a different mindset in a lot of cases. But I do see that changing though I see it different with some of the younger attorneys that I’m dealing with now.

Heather: I actually would agree. That’s the interesting part. I’m starting to get more and more of this, getting close to partnership, and they don’t think the same way. They are a little more entrepreneurial. They also think in terms of I may not be here forever in a way that prior generations didn’t. So I think that’s kind of good in some ways, like very good. It’s very good for them.

[00:37:51] Jeffery: Listen, I’ll tell you one of the first questions when I meet, you know, today I had a, right before we got started, I had a call with a, a couple 32 years, both. They’re 32 years old, both attorneys. And one of the first questions in their first conversation I asked them was do they plan on staying in big law?

Now obviously that’s really tough question to ask at 32. I mean they’re not looking 30 years up the road. But it’s amazing, Heather, and it sounds like you’re hearing the same thing. The amount of them that already know this is not going to be where I am five years from now or three years from now. Right. So, you know, whereas like you said, even. Even people of our generation or of our age group, I mean, the idea was you got into Big Law, you stayed in Big Law until you exited, until you were retired. Right. You were. You might jump to a different firm, but you’d likely stay in Big Law. My Average client is 60 years, 68 years of age. Right.

It’s amazing when you talk to some of them, when they. When they’re starting to retire at 60, 65, or some firms, it’s mandatory at 60, 63 to 65.

They have a hard time letting go.

So some of the work that I do is not just the monetary side, the financial side, Heather. It’s preparing them for the idea that, what are you gonna do with your life?

[00:39:06] Heather: Yes.

[00:39:06] Jeffery: Right. And they tie. And this is really true of the sort of the lawyers that are in their 70s and 80s or the people that were lawyers once they retired.

That was their identity. They were the lawyer that put on the suit and tie, that went downtown every day, briefcase in hand, worked 12, 14 hours, went home, ate dinner, went to the bathroom, went to sleep, woke up the next morning and did it all again.

Leaving and retiring is so tough for them because that is their identity.

[00:39:40] Heather: Yeah, it is their identity. And I. I’m afraid to say this because this is not my main business, but I do take on these types of clients upon occasion. I’ve had clients like that where I have, you know, had to work with them for 6, 8 months towards the end, as they’re retiring and getting out. Like, who am I? I have no idea. How am I going to move on and getting them to a place where they understand who they really are and that their identity is not tied to what they do.

Okay, so we are getting tight on time, but I have two more questions if you can stay.

Concept of Quiet Wealth

Okay, so you have used the phrase quiet wealth. I would like to know what that phrase means to you.

[00:40:18] Jeffery: It’s a couple of things. One, it’s about really, at the end of the day, it’s not about the flash, right? Like. Like, to me, quiet wealth is having money. Like. Like you and your husband, right? You made good money.

You didn’t have the biggest grandiose house. You didn’t drive the cars. You didn’t do those things. You had it quietly working for you young, so somewhere you had money that was saving, that was growing, that was compounding. So now you could retire and not, you know, and not have to worry about putting another dollar away.

[00:40:53] So that’s, that’s quiet, number one, I guess, if you will. Knowing that you can just. It doesn’t have to be all flash. It doesn’t, you don’t have to show it all off on the other side of it. It’s. It’s what you can do with it and what it can do for you.

Right. And I think that thinking about it up the road in the future and what it can do for you in the future versus today, you know, is a major mindset shift. So quiet money to me is just having that little bit set aside that you’re not worrying about that’s going to compound. It’s not flashy, it’s not sexy, it’s not very exciting, but it does its trick so that up the road you can live the life that you want so effectively. I guess if you want to sum it up, Heather, it’s like it’s having money that you’re dictating what is done with it rather than it dictating to you what your life is going to be.

Actionable Takeaway To Do Now

[00:41:45] Heather: Oh, I like that. Yeah. Okay, so final question. If you could get every single person, or at least most of them listening to the podcast right now to take just one action this week, that will improve their financial future, what would that be?

Jeffery: It’d be to schedule a 30 minute meeting with themselves, sit down and paint the picture for yourself. Take a good hard look of exactly where you are and be real.

You know, think about, you know, no errors. Don’t put on any errors for yourself. I mean, you’re only, you’re only hurting yourself. But spend 30 minutes and go through where you are today and where you want to go tomorrow and just create that bit of intention in what you’re doing.

And from that intention will come clarity with everything else.

But if you could do that once a month, Heather, once a month, like so it’s one, one, maybe you’re giving away a billable hour a month, but it’s going to be worth it in the long run. If they did that and just got really intentional with where their money is, where it’s coming from, where it’s going, what they owe and what they, what they own, and just see a steadily improvement month to month, they’ll. They’ll be in far better shape than they are today, regardless to where they start.

[00:43:13] Heather: Well, that’s a perfect place to end, I think. Before I let you go, though, why don’t you tell people where they can find you?

Jeffery: I am on LinkedIn quite a bit, Jeffrey Lamont and I. You can also find me on Instagram at Jeffrey Lamont. And corporately at Lamont wealth, both on LinkedIn on Instagram. And you can catch our, our podcast, which you’ll have to come on. I’m putting that on the, putting you on the spot here.

It’s the Wealthy Lawyer. The Wealthy Lawyer podcast. You can find that on YouTube.

[00:43:49] Heather: Awesome. Okay, so I will put links to all of those places in the show notes so that everybody can find you. This is a great conversation. Thank you.

Jeffery: Thank you, Heather. Appreciate it.