[00:01:03] Heather: Welcome back to Life in Law. And today we have our first guest of this season.

I want to introduce you to Shireen Hilal. Shireen is the CEO of Maior, where she helps law firms with strategy and business improvement. She founded her Co. After two decades in law and professional services, including and this is a long list y', all, practicing as a litigator in AmLaw50 firms, serving as the COO of a national law firm, leading strategy for a $1 billion division of KPMG and helping BDO build its consulting division. In addition to leading her company, Sherene writes columns for Law360 and today's managing partner for law firm leaders.

She's also our first guest for a reason. And I said this before we hit record, but I'm going to say it here. She piqued my interest when she reached out to me because she said something about.

I want to talk about why structure matters. And when we say structure, structure of your law practice, structure of your law firm and how it is key to giving you your life back. So today we are going to talk about why most attempts at balance fail at a systems level, not the willpower level. And we all like to blame willpower when that's not usually the actual problem.

How to stop being the bottleneck without dropping the standards that made you so.

I know this is a huge fear of the vast majority of lawyers out there, so listen up. And the handful of operational changes that buy back the most hours.

Welcome, Shireen.

[00:02:36] Shireen: Thank you.

How nice to kick off the season with you. I appreciate it.

[00:02:41] Heather: I know. Well, yes.

And it's actually we're starting a little late this year because I moved this summer.

[00:02:48] Shireen: Oh, fun.

[00:02:49] Heather: A bit of a mess, but we're in A new place, new season. And yes, you are the first guest. I'm very excited.

[00:02:57] Shireen: Awesome. Me too. And it's an important conversation. The systems 1.

Given what I do, I work with firms a lot that have this issue, and it's really whether they are very small or I even have firms that are as large as 150 lawyers that are still saying, wait a minute, we need to go back and put the infrastructure back in.

[00:03:22] Heather: Oh, no. This is a huge issue. And I think it's a huge issue for all lawyers. It's even a huge issue for. For law lawyers trying to build their own practice within a bigger firm. I think everybody needs to really step back and think about their systems, their structure, and how to better get the product they want without killing themselves and being the system. I think a lot of people think their system is them, and that that's just not a very good way to. To do it. So it's an important conversation.

[00:03:49] Shireen: Well, and to your point, it's not a good way to do it if you want to be able to step away. Right. And so if you're looking for any semblance of balance, it won't be found if you're at the center.

[00:04:03] Heather: Oh, absolutely not. And I think that is. It's funny enough, it's probably one of the biggest issues as to why most lawyers, I think, can't find that balance they're looking for. And it's really not finding, it's creating it as. That will become more clear as we talk about it today.

You know, we. We look at all these other reasons, and at the end of the day, a lot of it comes down to this.

So it's a great conversation that we're going to be having, and one that I think is going to open the eyes of a lot of attorneys today.

[00:04:32] Shireen: So hopefully.

And. And I think you're right. It's. So if you kind of look around you, I think what I've learned after moving out of law is the good news is it's. It's not just law firms. Other firms and other companies struggle with this too.

But lawyers do have, to your point, an especially difficult time. And it's not shocking. I mean, I grew up as a litigator, you grew up as an attorney. So we know you're wired to maintain control. And the cost of error is extremely high.

And when you look at what makes a great lawyer, it's like, I can spot the risk.

I use precedent. I'm the expert. Okay, well, now look at what it requires to build a good Business. I need to make smart bets. I need to innovate or write my own playbook. I have to let go of perfect control for homogeny. That's like a completely different skill set. And so the things that made you a great lawyer don't necessarily make you a great law firm leader.

[00:05:43] Heather: Correct. A law firm owner, leader, practice manager, all of those things.

[00:05:48] Shireen: Correct.

[00:05:49] Heather: And manager of other people, too. So. Okay, so before we get too far into the conversation, let's step back a little bit. So you started practicing, and now you are here, and you've been. You've gotten like, that's a long list of really cool stuff that you got to do.

[00:06:04] Shireen: Thank you.

[00:06:06] Heather: So why don't you. You know, I don't want to take too much time, but give people a sense of kind of what made you go to law school? When did you know, okay, maybe something else is my calling? Or this is a different. I want to take a different step. And how did you kind of like, get to where you are now?

[00:06:22] Shireen: Honestly, I'd wanted to be a lawyer for a long time. I. There were two paths. I loved fashion and I loved law. And it was clear that fashion was a lot about getting a lucky break, and law was more about working hard.

And that was something I could control better. So I went for the legal path, and I loved it. I mean, I practiced for 10 years in Big law, so I did not, you know, hate it. I wasn't burnt out, honestly. It was more for me.

I think in a way, maybe I chose wrong. And I say that because in law school, after going through sort of the OCI system of recruiting, you're sort of nicely pushed towards big law. And. And of course, selfishly, too. I mean, I. I wanted the Gucci.

I didn't want to struggle to make a. To make a paycheck, so I went in that direction. But big law litigation, wow. It's really slow, and it's a lot of documents and discovery and, in fact, years spent inside, sometimes, like MDL class action lawsuits.

And I'm somebody that's wired to move really fast. And so the piece I found more fun was always digging into the client's business and sort of, how did we get here? And what's going on? And we'll wait a minute. And why did you even market it that way? And what product are you building? And wait, is that even profitable? Which, by the way, is not the subject of the litigation. And similarly, in the firm, I was the person who cared a lot about, well, hold on a minute. These marketing Materials look to me unimpressive, like who cares that we have an alphabetical list of clients? Of course we do. Or you know, why did we staff it that way? It's not that profitable and can we try something different? And so eventually, when you're the person that likes that stuff, it finds its way to you because most lawyers do not.

And so when I was at the point 10 years in billing over 2000 hours a year and dumping another 4 to 500 hours into committees and non billables and all this other stuff, I finally realized if this is what I really want to do, maybe I should just go do it. And so long story short, after banging down a lot of doors, BDO gave me a chance. And so at the time they were building their consulting division, they had a very well established tax and audit practice. But consulting was really more the product of mergers that had been done for tax and audit. And if you can imagine, like what do we do with these two people in forensics and these three valuation people? Well, we'll just dump them into consulting. And so it was a really great opportunity. The role was called transformation and growth.

But it was made very clear to me, we have no idea where this will go or if there's any upward mobility in the role, but if you'll take a chance on us, we'll take a chance on you.

And so I was like, well, I'd rather take a pay cut and try that than go get an mba.

So I did. And so I helped them with building the go to market story, figuring out the lateral partner plan, helping with building the right tracks at the firm for, you know, talent and development and hiring and everything you need to actually make a firm work. Well, fast forward, KPMG sees what I'm doing and they say, huh, we have a 5000 person billion dollar consulting division that's way further ahead, but we have flat revenue and declining margins. Can you come over here and help us with kind of bringing some fresh energy? And I'm mouthy. So I said yes and went over there. Huge, huge firm, lots of bureaucracy. And so a couple years into that, when I got the opportunity to go be the COO of a law firm, I jumped at it and it was great. I was back with my people.

The firm had never had a CEO and that's where to kind of bring it back to systems. You see that while there are good systems in place and of course this was a firm that was very successful and had done a great job, there was a lot left to still be desired And a lot that could be tightened up.

And on the other extreme, I think you see firms where it feels like they're constantly running a fire drill. They're not sure what's happening. Why are we having AR piling up over here? Why can't we hire the right people over there?

And so I think the idea, what I've learned over time is you have to take that information and the decisions out of the one or two or three owners heads and build them into a way that the firm operates. And then make sure you hire people who understand that this is the firm we're trying to build. And so that's a different issue. And we can sort of put like drop a footnote for that, which is we could talk forever about how you pick the right people, not just looking at things like pedigree and the grades and actually looking for real indisha that people will succeed at your firm. But you know, there's got to be ownership. Everybody knows who owns the work. If not, it will default back to you. Hoarding lines. Everybody knows who actually manages them and answers questions, decision making authority. What can I decide myself? Where do I need to consult? Where do I need to go? Up to the owner or managing partner. Repeatable workflows. Do we have a process? Do we have a checklist? Or are we reinventing every time accessible knowledge? So where are our templates? How do we know what the client preferences are? Preferences are? Where do we find the matter information?

Where's the practical guide stored? Client service standards.

How do we feel at this firm about how quickly we respond? When do we update clients? Even if there's nothing going on in the matter, who's communicating and what do clients receive?

Management cadence. Is there a predictable place for questions to be raised or are you just interrupting the owner all day?

Right. And so if you build it right, your employees should be able to answer more of their own questions. Routine work can go without waiting for you, and problems can get surfaced earlier before they become huge.

[00:13:14] Heather: And if I'm hearing this correctly, it sounds to me like one of the biggest struggles lawyers have for, you know, as to why they have. A lack of balance really relates to the lack of enough structure, the lack of the systems that are in place. And we all have some, but we don't have enough, I think. And also sometimes we have some, but they're not very good.

We think they're not done well like so it's really having a lack of not just systems, but the right ones in place.

[00:13:45] Shireen: I think one mistake I see is people assuming that because something worked for another firm, it'll work for you. Or because it's like the thing everybody's talking about, like, oh, they said that. They said it's KPIs and dashboards, so we'll get KPIs and dashboards. Like, okay, hold up. Before you just go adopting what everybody else is doing, figure out how you and your team work, what you're good at, what you're not good at, because you want to build something that will actually get used and is digestible and kind of feels natural and intuitive for your firm. And so sometimes you're not going to get that just because it's like the new flashy thing everyone's doing. I would say the other caveat is, listen, you're always going to have to mind the shop. And so the other mistake that I see owners and practice group leaders and managing partners making is overly relying on system dashboards and numbers.

They're great, but the map is not always a terrain. There's just no substitute for checking in and being aware of what's going on. And so, very easy example, when I was the COO of the national law firm, I kept like an old fashioned printed directory on my desk and every day I would at random call three people and it was everybody from partners to assistants.

And by the time you've gone through a year, you've hit that entire list like at least three times. And, and so when you've spoken with everybody at the firm once every couple of months when issues happen, first of all, you have an inkling before it shows up in the numbers.

And number two, you can mobilize quickly because you know the players involved.

And maybe this is more important. They know you so they trust you

[00:15:51] Heather: more because you've actually bothered to reach out when there's not a problem.

That's a big issue. I think there's too many people out there in leadership who just kind of are above it all, above the fray. And they just have a couple of people coming up and telling them and it's like, but you're, you're relying a lot. On what? On those people's perceptions.

[00:16:12] Shireen: Correct.

[00:16:13] Heather: Getting out there and really seeing the lay of the land. And the fact of the matter is, in my opinion, that's how cultures change very quickly without the leadership knowing it. They start one way, they start to grow. They get into that position and they go, I don't have to do any of this anymore. And it's like, but the culture actually started with you. You created that over time. And if you're not a part of the activities and what's going on and staying abreast and staying in there with people, to some extent, that culture is going to change, and probably not in

[00:16:44] Shireen: a way that you want 100%.

And it is changing. Right. Because culture is not something that you get to like, cram down from the top.

It has the word cult in it. So it's like this is meant to be something that a group, like, adopts and evangelizes over time.

[00:17:06] Heather: That means if you want that culture to still have a particular core, you've got to actually be somewhat involved in who gets hired, how you determine who gets hired, the training that goes on, the way that people that other leaders manage that, you know, And I talked to a lot of lawyers, and I don't know if you see this a lot. I bet you do. Who, when they're starting out, the growth of a law firm, they have this pie in the sky thing, like, vision around how they're not actually going to practice law one day and they're. And. But then they don't really know what they're going to do and they kind of like just going to go off and do not much of anything, and somehow everything's going to operate perfectly behind the scenes. Yeah, no, that's. That's not likely to work out so well.

[00:17:54] Shireen: And that's the other problem. Right. Is this, this false assumption that if I just hire smart people and I throw them together in this, like, blender, obviously we're going to create a perfect smoothie every time, and, like, that's just not going to happen. And so to your point on culture, I think it starts with communication.

A lot of law firm leaders, I'm sure you hear this a lot, they get very frustrated that, like, why don't people do things my way or why don't they get it?

So everyone wants their employees to see the bigger picture. But, like, step back and ask, have you told them the big picture? Because a lot of times I sit in on a firm's all staff or town hall or whatever they have, and I'm like, we haven't talked at all about how the firm is doing, what we're trying to accomplish, what are the goals that matter?

And no one has any idea how what they're doing connects to the big piece. And then owners get frustrated that people are only focused on the work that sits in front of them. But no one feels engaged at a firm that operates like a black box. Instead of using those meetings I know it's tempting for like, well, we're closing the month on the 5th, so make sure you get the this and the that done.

And don't forget, if you don't clean out the stuff on by Friday at noon from the fridge, we're going to throw it out. Like, hold on. Like, housekeeping is important, but it's not helping anyone to understand what the strategy is. And so you don't have to share everything, you don't have to share all the numbers. But let's use a very easy example. Let's say it's, I want the firm to increase profitability. Say it. Say this quarter we are going to focus on profitability as a firm. It's very important.

And right now there are a number of reasons that we are working very hard and we are not always getting paid for that work. And so go down through your list. Partners, we need you to discuss scope and budget very clearly at the beginning of a matter. And we're going to take 10 minutes at the beginning of the next partner meeting to talk about how you do that. Associates, I'm going to need you entering your time daily and thinking more critically about the time entry. Are you describing the work in a way that tells a story of value?

And that's going to bring me to practice group leaders. I'm going to ask that at your next practice group meeting, you take 10 minutes out and walk through what a good bill looks like and what are the types of entries that your clients routinely push back on. And then if you're an assistant on this call, were counting on you to help identify and enter missing time earlier.

Say what you need, tell people how they can help you, and then let the communication flow back the other way too.

Because an open door policy is not the same thing as asking for feedback.

[00:20:58] Heather: Oh, yeah, no, an open door policy is absolutely not the same thing. And in fact, most people will tell you, oh, I have an open door policy. They should, they're not gonna, like, nobody is gonna come tell you when going wrong unless a, it's to the point where they're about to leave over it and they're just telling you, I'm out.

Or they're the gossipy type that just wants to let you in on all the bad stuff. Those are the people who come right to say something and they're not helpful. And by the way, it gets to that gossip point, it's really late in the game, like you, it's not a good thing. So an open door policy is not, you know, most People are just going to keep their mouths shut and go, I don't want to be the one to bring this up. I don't want to be the one that's the bearer of bad news. I don't want to be the one that's seen as not a team player, not collaborative enough. And so I'm hearing okay, there's two things though, that, that I think people need to pay attention to that you identified, although you didn't identify this way.

You've got to educate your people first and foremost. You've got to tell them what it is they need to know and probably even don't need to know, but would like to know in order to, to do the job you're asking of them. So you've got to educate them and then you've also got to train them as to how, how you need the job to be done. So you're educating them as to the what in the why and then you're training them as to the how.

Those are required. And I love, you know, we call people leaders just because they're in positions of power. You're not a true leader if you're not actually leading. Leading involves those things if you, if you truly want to lead.

[00:22:38] Shireen: Otherwise maybe you're a manager.

[00:22:40] Heather: Right?

[00:22:43] Shireen: Right. And even then like, are you managing or are you barely managing? Right. Are you? Right. And so to your point on training, teach people what good looks like.

And the way I usually do this if I go into a firm and I help them is I'm like, okay, let's put this into two buckets, separate. Where we give context and where we need perfect control. And so there are certain areas of your firm that have to be zero defect. Right.

Everybody has to take the sexual harassment training and sign off on it. We have court deadlines, we have to go through a conflict process. There's trust accounting for those. We have rigid process. There are checklists and there's no room for error.

But everything else, give people the context to exercise judgment and then let them rise up to it. And so easy example, we like to use words like be responsive or be practical. Be business minded.

I'm not sure anybody knows what that means.

Use real bite sized trainings. I say bite size because I think we're living in a world where the 10 minute attention span is, you're lucky to keep it.

So, you know, use part of that. All staff meeting, put an email on the screen and show how would I change this if this wasn't a general counsel and instead it was a Startup founder, what's the different kind of context that person needs? Or talk about why in one instance we sent a long memo and another time we sent a quick recommendation. Maybe we talk about when do we pick up the phone instead of sending an email and, and how do you make that determination and why. Right.

Like give real examples and then start giving responsibility. There's a reason we call it the practice of law.

And so maybe you let somebody junior prepare the invitation and the agenda for an upcoming client call. Great, they did that.

Next time let them give the routine update.

Next time let them explain one discrete issue.

Next time let them own the follow up. We kind of all tend, and I'm guilty of this to just be very all or nothing. Like just take this and go do it. And then we're like, why didn't it go well? Yep.

[00:25:05] Heather: And then we blame that. And then we say, oh well, I can't ever trust anyone to do any of this again other than myself because and we use it and it's like, wait, what role did you play in that going wrong? Because I guarantee you did.

And it is usually that all or nothing, it's just hand it all off. Because and I will say what usually I see happening is you do that when you are crazy busy. Yes, absolutely. Just can't handle it anyway. And so you just push it all off. And if you wait until that moment to do that, you're not going to be setting them up for success at all. You're not going to give them enough information, you're not going to be checking in with them along the way, you're not going to be giving them constructive feedback because you're not going to be holding those check ins. So what on earth do you expect back?

[00:25:57] Shireen: Like you're at that point, you're basically rolling the dice and taking a chance even. And then you're like, we hired this person and they're so smart, what happened? And you're like, well, they can't read your mind. Correct.

[00:26:11] Heather: They can't. They cannot meet standards you never set.

Right. Like there's always things that if you sit down and get honest, you realize, oh okay, yeah, that's part of that's on me, not on them.

[00:26:24] Shireen: Well, and so if you have a larger firm, I mean, look, it's one thing if you're the one, you're the one partner or you're the one lead attorney, but as you grow and when you get bigger, the other place that this really shows up and it gets pretty bad is just the fact that let's be honest, how the work gets done often depends on who's picking up the phone at these places. Right. Because we could both be equally competent partners. And I'm going to price it differently, I'm going to staff it differently. My work product is going to look completely different than Heather's. Wow. And so the other thing you can be doing that helps a lot is give the roadmaps of what engagements need to look like. And so you start in a place where people aren't searching for the right template, cobbling together different approaches, guessing what the work looks like, wondering if this partner is going to want it different than the last, reinventing the routine parts.

And so you start at the top, at the firm level with, how long do we take to answer phone calls and emails? Do we know whether clients understand who's doing what and who to contact?

And then you start moving to, is there a standard way that a piece of product looks right? Whether that's like, this is what a term sheet looks like when it comes out of this firm. This is what a brief looks like when it comes out of this firm. And so you start with the strong templates and examples, and then you bring inconsistent process.

And the point is not that everything will look exactly the same, but your team shouldn't have to reinvent the basic structure. And then they can start actually using their time to think about what's different about this client, what's different about this transaction, what are the real legal issues? And now you have more time and mental space for the pieces. Where it depends is like the crux of the answer. Right.

[00:28:32] Heather: And, you know, it's interesting that you, you talk about, you know, templates and, you know, all we started with structurally from a practice management, but then we get down into the work product itself, right? And a lot of times people say, oh, well, it all depends. It depends on the client, and it depends on the needs of the client and the specific facts. And yeah, it does, it does. But you still can start with templates for most things. I mean, I will say I.

So I practiced in two firms. One was a regional, pretty decent sized regional farm.

And we had templates for everything to start with for the practice group and across offices, everybody started with the same template.

It was interesting because when I went to the second firm, which was Bid Law, they did not have that interesting. And every practice group in every office was very different. Now, each office kind of had its own little groups that had their templates, but then they had 5 million different templates, which was Interesting to me because I felt like they could have done a better job.

And in fact, I know they could have done a better job. But what was lacking was there was nobody from above saying, okay, you corporate finance group need to get together and figure out what kind of deals, who's going to be in charge of what, how can we structure this in a way where we take some of that away? Because it was crazy how many different templates people worked off of and how different they were.

And it didn't have to be that way, right?

[00:30:12] Shireen: No.

And look, if you're. If you're at like an Amla 100, Amla 50 firm, okay, fine, you probably already have pricing power. But if you're not not, I'd be remiss. Not to mention, like, this is where you get pricing power.

I mean, if you kind of step back, If I say McKinsey, whether you've ever worked with them or not or seen their work product, you have an idea in your mind of positive or negative of how that engagement will go, how they'll structure things, whether it's expensive or not expensive, what kind of quality you get.

Can somebody say that about your firm?

Because when clients can trust that this is the firm's way of working, they're not relying entirely on one partner's personal reputation.

And so this is where it comes full circle right now. It's easier to involve the broader team. It's easier to maintain quality as you grow. It's easier to charge based on the strength of the firm instead of one person's individual time, which I will note.

[00:31:23] Heather: However, there are attorneys out there who are scared to hear, wait, it's not on me then they want to be that person. They feel like their brand, their reputation, everything is about them.

And I would argue, okay, maybe it is because that's what you've done, right? And it is scary to step back and help it become part of the overarching team and group.

But I guarantee you will be better off in the long term when you allow that to happen.

Like, I've seen it again and again. It's scary. It's horrible. You. You don't. You know, it feels that way, right? It feels horrible. Like you're just letting go of everything you've built.

And a lot of that has to do with the identity you've created for yourself and how you think of yourself. But if you decouple from that a little bit, step back and allow the team to grow, you can see that you actually have a bigger legacy that way for having given back to others, for having then you become known as the person who helped create the team, who helped create the group, who helped create the firm.

[00:32:30] Shireen: Right.

And also, I mean just because you codified it and gave it to others, I mean it doesn't derogate from your value.

Look like I love going to nice restaurants and if I buy Tom Colicchio's cookbook tomorrow, does that mean I'm never going to his restaurant again? Like no. And do I think I can cook like Tom Colicchio? Like I can't. I'm going to make it a little better. I'm going to now actually put the oven at the right temp.

But like I'm not, I am not a Michelin trained chef.

And so help your team just put up, put the oven at the right temp. You can never give away the true like secret sauce of who you are.

[00:33:20] Heather: I think that's such an important thing to understand. And I think one of the reasons so many lawyers are bottlenecks is it's really about that mental. They need to, they need a mindset shift. They need to accept this because that's they, they have all these so called reasons for not letting go. But that's ultimately the reason.

[00:33:39] Shireen: Well, it's like have an abundance mindset. Let's like, let's think bigger, let's build something bigger. And by the way, if you really think that you have the way of doing it and you're the best, maybe you should go start your own firm but then train everybody under your way and now you're the next McKinsey or whatever. You bring the brand gravitas.

[00:34:03] Heather: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:34:04] Shireen: Or perhaps admit others know, know something too and you're better flying with them.

[00:34:10] Heather: That's an interesting one too. I, I think we falsely often believe that if we admit somebody else is better at something, that means we're not good at anything, we're somehow worse off at all the other things we're actually very good at. And yet we all know if we just rationally step back and say, okay, I know I have strengths and weaknesses. They have strengths and weaknesses. We're all going to have different strengths and weaknesses and that's okay. But then when it comes down to what we're doing for a living, we have really hard time saying that and admitting it to ourselves, much less out loud to others.

[00:34:48] Shireen: I mean it makes me think even as I grow my own firm now with my own small team and it's, I mean look, it's hard, it's a Hard thing to do.

[00:34:58] Heather: And it really. You've got to get to the point where when I see people willing to, okay, I'm willing to do this. I'm willing to not be the bottleneck. I'm willing to let go. I'm willing to help others really achieve some of what I've already had. I'm willing to let others be the experts in areas where I'm also known as the expert. Right. I'm willing to share that. That's okay.

They sadly often have to get to a point where it's. It's really forced. It's, it's an. It's. It's. I either have to do this or I am going to lose a lot because I've gotten to a point where I just can't function anymore. Oh, gosh, I can't. Right. Like, I've seen that unfortunately, a lot.

[00:35:43] Shireen: And given what you do, I'm sure you do.

[00:35:46] Heather: I wish I didn't have to come to that, but for many it does. And my hope is that they hear this conversation and you can see, Oh, I could see where I can. I might be going down that path a lot earlier and say, okay, wait, let's not go there.

[00:36:02] Shireen: Well, build the legacy, build the help. And once you build the right pathways, too, you are that much less dependent on each individual person who works for you. Yep. Because it's not now all about these, like, super special who. I'm sure they're all special, but individual people who are the only person who can do the thing, because you have a process, you have a system.

[00:36:32] Heather: So how would you counsel an attorney who's listening and. All right, I, I'm buying in. I get it. But where do I even start? What do I do?

[00:36:44] Shireen: Good question. I think you start with defining what's the firm that you want to build, what's most important to you. And so I know in the beginning of our conversation, I noted, for example, that, like, hiring could be. I mean, that could be like 10 episodes. One of the biggest mistakes I see is people hiring other really great, smart people.

But that just aren't a good fit for your firm. And so be honest about who succeeds what, like, actually works.

And so super simple example. That's two extremes. I could be a firm that has very sort of methodical ways of doing things. Systems and process down to every single thing, approval matrix for everything. Or I could have a firm that's a little more, fine, we have a way of doing things, but we expect you to be very entrepreneurial. We Expect you to try it before you ask. We expect you to like, you know, look it up and figure it out. It's okay. Within this amount of parameters, just go try things and do it. You don't need to ask.

Neither of those things are good or bad. It's just a way of working. And a lot of that's going to depend on who you are and what you want. I mean, in my firm I expect, I give a lot of autonomy, I have process. But I expect people to kind of go the extra mile, think it through, think of something else, stretch themselves.

Well, if you hire somebody and I've made this mistake and probably we all have, who, but tell me exactly what I need to do. Yeah, they're just going to wilt in your environment. And so it's not that that person wasn't very smart.

She was extremely smart, but she wasn't going to work out at my firm. And I should have known that before I hired her.

[00:38:42] Heather: Yeah. I would say for the same reason I left my first firm, to go to my second. Even though the second wasn't as structured in some ways, which I wished they had been.

I liked the non structure of it overall. It's why I chose them because they were entrepreneurial and the first firm was overly structured in a way where I felt like, you know, wait, being put on me, I walk in and like you're underwater and it is a horrible feeling.

[00:39:09] Shireen: You're in a bureaucracy.

Right.

[00:39:12] Heather: Per se. Like it really wasn't a toxic environment. It was toxic for me, however.

[00:39:18] Shireen: Right.

[00:39:19] Heather: And I learned that and I learned what I needed and didn't need or want and applied that to where I went. Same conversation goes for. I had a conversation with an attorney the other day.

They, they have a spouse that just got a new job and it's all in person and they've been accustomed to working more remote. And I have a lot of clients who do a lot more remote work now. But I also have clients who, and I had to explain this like, you know, because they automatically thought bad. Why, why do they not allow. And I'm like, some people need to be in person. Some people need to see other humans on a day to day basis that they're working with.

Right. Like it's a personality thing, it's a pre. And they need that. So they've designed a culture around it. So maybe this isn't the right place for that person. Right. If that's. They don't want that, maybe it's not where they need to be. And it's not bad per se. But it could be bad for you.

[00:40:16] Shireen: Correct.

[00:40:17] Heather: Or someone else.

[00:40:20] Shireen: Honest. Be honest about what you're willing to train, what you're not.

Another mistake. I see smaller firms making, and by smaller, I even mean decent size firms picking up a lot of entry level people and then wondering why they're sort of like flailing around. And I have to remind them, if you're not willing to bring in a huge class every year and put them through the wood chipper of like, your training program and your boot camps and whatever, which why would you. You're hiring like 10 people a year that are spread across different practice groups. Ask yourself, do we even have the time and bandwidth to train properly for entry level? Because if not, maybe we don't hire them.

[00:41:12] Heather: So, okay, any other advice for that person who's thinking, okay, I need to know, I need to know what kind of firm I'm trying to build, right? I answer that question, where do I go next?

[00:41:25] Shireen: For me, I think one thing I see looked overlooked too often is thinking critically about the client perspective.

So what kind of firm are you building? Kind of moves you now to who do we serve and what do they need?

Don't fall into the FOMO trap of, you know, that other firm.

Somebody started a podcast. Maybe we need a podcast. They opened a Houston office. Do we need a Houston office? Wait a minute. Do we need a cannabis practice? They have a cannabis practice. Like, hold up. Not to say you can't build something from scratch, but take a look at your current client base and do a better job of serving them.

It's kind of the sure way to grow if you don't want to take a chance.

[00:42:21] Heather: And I'm thinking once you know who you are and want to be and then who you're serving and what they need, that should give you a list of things for. Oh, okay, clients.

[00:42:34] Shireen: Now you can build the strategy, right? Now, what kind of people do I need to hire that fit who our firm is and who we serve and what that demographic needs.

Now you can really start building that out. Then you can think about, how do we do our marketing? Well, again, it's not whatever everybody else is doing. It's again, empathy for the demographic, thinking about what they care about, how do they. How do they hire a lawyer?

What are the trust signals that they care about in that community, whether it's B2B or B2C.

So then you kind of go and attack it that way.

But now we've like turned this into a full strategy Conversation, which I love.

[00:43:20] Heather: Yeah, yeah, well. And it's like, you know, guys, you got to step back and think, not just so you answer the big picture questions. And then that gives you guidance on, oh, all the different things. Like a lot of things of, oh, well, what does that mean for how intake. How do we deal with intake then? How do we deal with. When we're billing and collecting and there's all these questions, then you can start answering the questions. And that's what helps you create the policies and procedures around it, which tells you where you need the structure so that everybody follows those policies and procedures.

So that's kind of like the step. You have to start at the big picture strategy and then move down and get more granular from there.

[00:44:07] Shireen: I think so.

[00:44:09] Heather: So, okay, so I promise this at the outset of our conversation.

What operational changes buy back the most hours?

[00:44:16] Shireen: I think having a really strict delegation matrix, knowing, you know, this is. This is what must get delegated to another person.

[00:44:27] Heather: That's.

[00:44:28] Shireen: That's a big one that's going to help in your firm.

The other one that buys back hours is I would say you need to spend more time kind of going back to the client point. Talk to your clients and talk to your people. There's just no substitute for knowing what's happening in the market and what your actual employees are seeing on the ground in their engagements. They know.

And so you got to get out of the corner office.

[00:44:55] Heather: Yeah, I think we don't. Especially when it comes to client feedback. We don't often get that. We don't ask for it. You know, we as individuals are. Are often asked, as consumers of other products for feedback.

You, as a lawyer also should be getting your client feedback. And don't ever assume. Right. Because the other thing is, oh, but we got a great outcome. Well, there were a lot of things that led to that outcome. There was also a billing and collections situation afterwards, which, by the way, can ruin, can ruin before, like, more than you ever know.

The camaraderie, the trust, everything that you've built through that outcome can get completely ruined if you don't bill in a way that they expected.

So, you know, it's good to get feedback, and I think sometimes we're afraid to get the bad feedback, but that is actually usually the best feedback because it is the feedback we learned from that can change something for the better moving forward.

[00:45:52] Shireen: And you're spot on. Nobody asks.

I'm going to tell you, actually, like a horror story. So I have, I have a decent amount of friends that Work in house, which is great because I get to anonymously stress test new ideas, like if I'm working with a firm on flat fleet, flat fee pricing, or you know, oh, we have a new go to market approach. We want to try something different.

I'll kind of ask around and get some thoughts on it. I have a friend who is head of contracting at a Fortune 50 company and she said to me, Shireen, you wouldn't believe it. I think we've worked with most of the MLA 100 at this point. I mean, as you can imagine being a Fortune 50.

And she said, can you believe not a single one that I know of has ever asked, Are you actually able to use the advice that we gave you and operationalize it, or do you need it differently? And she said, it's actually so bad that we've opened up more requisitions for in house help because it's so frustrating that we have to constantly take the extra step of translating generic legal advice into something that our business can actually use.

[00:47:20] Heather: And I was like, wow, actually that is a big issue with a lot of lawyers. And they think of themselves as, well, I'm just a lawyer, I'm not a business person. And that you are, as you're a business advisor to, like, you need to understand that the advice you're giving them actually needs to be usable within the business.

Well, and they need to understand, you know, that.

[00:47:44] Shireen: And yeah, look at where we are. I mean, I had another general counsel who said straight out to me, I spent 15 years in big law and I have AI too. So if you're going to spend a lot of, like, I'm not spending a lot of money on settled law.

I'm looking for advice in the gray areas and I want to know what's commercially reasonable and what I can do. That's what I'm willing to pay for. So, I mean, I think that's that.

[00:48:12] Heather: I used to be one of the rare lawyers, and I learned this as a baby lawyer from a really amazing attorney who did this.

And it made it very clear to me, this is how to differentiate yourself, Heather. And always, I did always be wanted.

I would tell them, okay, so here is, here's what the law says or here's the contract.

Here are gray areas. Like, I give them the background, right? That's my job to understand where we are. Here's how we got here, here are our options.

I always went the other side. Here's what I would do in this situation, and here's why they wanted to know that. Did they always follow my advice? No. 90% of the time they did, but they wanted that. And if they didn't, they'd stop me and say, you know what? I'm good. I don't need to know. Like.

[00:49:00] Shireen: Right.

[00:49:01] Heather: You clients, by the way, say that nowadays.

[00:49:03] Shireen: I think that's right. And by the way, you also kind of learn over time which of those clients, if you're, if you're with them all the time, you learn personality trait. Like, you learn people's love language. Like, who wants it? Who wants a phone call versus an email? Who wants the piece of advice versus who? Just who wants a long memo? And they're going to take a week to digest it. Like, okay, you can you kind of pick it up over time?

[00:49:26] Heather: Yeah, no, it's invaluable. Okay, so any last words that you would like to leave people with? Any, any little tidbits of advice before I let you go?

[00:49:37] Shireen: I think we covered a lot. I would just say have systems. Otherwise you're the system.

[00:49:43] Heather: It doesn't work very well. When you're the system, you're just the bottleneck.

[00:49:48] Shireen: Right.

There is a system and it's you.

[00:49:51] Heather: Yeah. Yeah. So where can people find you if they want to look you up?

[00:49:56] Shireen: I'm on LinkedIn and I also have our website. It's Mayor Consultant. M A I O R is how I spell mayor. It means bigger in Latin. And the idea is just think bigger about your firm.

[00:50:12] Heather: I will put links on where to find you in the show notes so that people can go find you very easily. Thank you so much for being here for this conversation. It was wonderful.

[00:50:21] Shireen: Thanks for having me.