Tara (00:57):
This is episode 25 of the Art of Estate Planning podcast. And Carrie, today, we are talking about what's involved in setting up your own estate planning law firm.
(01:09):
So this is a little bit different to some of our usual episodes, but I think it belongs on the podcast because so many of us are running our own estate planning law firm or in a senior position looking to branch out. And I just thought it was an interesting topic, especially because we just see so much inspiration daily of sole practitioner members who have taken that courageous leap and backed themselves and joined us in the TT Precedents club for a bit of community and support. And I honestly, watching those stories is the best part of my day and my week. So I thought, why don't we have a little bit of a chit chat about what's involved and our own experiences with setting up estate planning law firms.
(02:02):
So I guess before we dive into a list or something, I thought, Carrie, you and I should share our qualifications for talking on this topic. So Carrie, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey with setting up your own estate planning firm?
Carrie (02:20):
So I was an employee for several years at two different firms, and then I went out on my own into my brand. That was Law Yeah. And then only last year I decided to actually kind of merge all my client work into another law firm for different reasons, which I'm going to share later on. But I think that hopefully and should say too, when I was sort of having my own law firm, I was consulting to other law firms as well. So understanding that each law firm's a little bit different and the way people set them up is a bit different and the way that people do their practise is a little bit different. So I'd like to think that having a cross section of employee, self-employed contractor gives me a little bit of experience to share hopefully, but I'm certainly happy to show all the stress levels to show that I've got the right qualifications for talking today.
Tara (03:11):
Oh, totally. I mean you've set up a sole practitioner law firm from scratch. So big tick!
Carrie (03:18):
I mean, that's me. I want to talk about the why I started and the why I kind of decided to sort of merge later on, or I'm happy to share now, I suppose depending on what you wanted to talk about.
Tara (03:29):
Yeah, well do you want to share?
Carrie (03:30):
Yeah, yeah. So I think me actually setting up Law Yeah was almost a bit of a kneejerk reaction to wanting to leave the scenario as in before. And it wasn't really out of a desire to go and start my own law firm, so to speak. And I know a lot of people do that. They have several months or even years invested in this process. Mine was very much a knee-jerk reaction and plotted along was doing really well in many regards, but it was October, 2023 and I was just very stressed out of my mind and I sent a message to another practitioner saying, can I come join your law firm as a bit of a joke. And then in the start of 2024, I took a few months of very quiet work and then went to Law Biz Con, which is run by Caralee who runs Scalable Law, which we're going to talk a little bit about as well and was really inspired by that.
(04:22):
But took to that conference, the concept that I was struggling with where I was, I had too much work for just me, but not necessarily enough coming in to warrant another person. And I also really didn't like the numbers behind running a business. And so I kind of went in there with that, had some few meetings, and again, met with that practitioner about potentially is there a way that we can make this easier on me? And then my father had the audacity to pass away and I would say he was kind of the person I spoke to about business issues. My father has been in business since the eighties and I think it was the person who I went to speak about some of the things, just having that other ear, that non-judgmental ear as well and someone who loves you and will always be kind.
(05:13):
So after that I just went, you know what? There's got to be a better way to do this. And I decided to actually merge my client work into another law firm so that I could take away those parts of the business that I didn't really enjoy and focus on the stuff I did. So I think it was very different for me than a lot of other people who make a really conscious decision to actually set up a law firm and plan and put that in place. Mine was very much a knee jerk reaction and then I realised I actually didn't want to be where I was. I just wanted to do really, really good estate planning work. So that's me. I think that if anybody is thinking about setting up a law firm, we're obviously going to talk about things that can help you, but I think my experience is just to stress test if that's what you really want to do because it is a lot of work and it's a lot of work that's not necessarily law work. And in fact the bigger you grow, the more earn to understand that the law work is actually the smaller part of it and the bigger work is more the organisational business development style sort of stuff. That really is a numbers game, which is not my love language. So if you're listening and whatever your pathway is that you go, we are going to talk to you a little bit about both.
Tara (06:26):
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that story, Carrie. And I think already there's some really great gems of wisdom in there. I mean you sort of said maybe if you do it again, you would've been more strategic or mindful about how you went out of it. I do have to say I know so many TT Precedents club members and myself included, where our firms have been born out of really poor circumstances, mostly bad working environments or things that have motivated us to go, I can do this better in my own way or I just need a situation that has flexibility or something. So I don't want to, out of the negative cans come some really great things. But also, yeah, I think there's a lot of merit in a business plan and setting out what do you want this business to look like?
Carrie (07:24):
Any plan would've done me better, Tara, than I had. I think that's my point is that if you're going to do it, have a plan and we're going to give you the other bits other than a business plan hopefully. But certainly that helps get you on the front foot.
Tara (07:39):
And you mentioned Caralee Fontenele, so if you have been listening to a few of our episodes, you'll know that she came on as a guest for episode 20 and talked to us about her scalable law programme. And so I would encourage anybody to go and check her out. And I just think the programme there is such a worthwhile investment. I think when you're starting out often you feel like there's no money to invest in the firm and I have to do it all myself. A lot of what currently does is backfilling and fixing up things that ideally would've been done right at the very beginning and then auditing and going back and going, okay, well how can we bring all these areas up to speed to get our firm working optimally? I think ideally she'd love to help people just set it up correctly from the beginning without having to go fix things, kind of how estate planning lawyers like to work as well.
(08:42):
So I just had to give her a big plug because what she does over there is incredible and I think it will save you a lot of time in the long run. And one of the things Carly said, if you listen to episode 20 is that usually we are our own worst boss in terms of the hours that we make ourselves keep checking email and not unplugging, not planning holidays for ourselves. So going into things a little bit more intentional and strategic and factoring all of that time in I think can really help stop you from being the worst boss you've ever had.
Carrie (09:22):
I totally agree, Tara. I mean I was thinking and also love the flexibility of being your own boss. If I want to drop tools and go and get a facial, I could probably potentially do it depending on client meetings, but you've got to make up the time somewhere and so it's going to come from somewhere. And so when they say flexible, we really mean flexible, meaning that it could be at eight o'clock at night. So I think that having that realistic view of what sort of personality type are, can you switch off if you're not good at switching off, what tools are you going to put in place to make sure that you have that plan to do that?
Tara (09:58):
Yeah, totally. I guess in terms of qualifications to be talking about this, I've set up a couple of law firms as well. So the first one, I was one of four partners of a law firm around 2014, thanks Carrie. 2014 I want to say. And I set that up with three others. So today we're going to mostly focus I think on the sole trader or sole practitioner element rather than because the partnership issues is a whole other kettle of fish. But I did have the experience of all the setup with that, obviously a bit of shared responsibility, but also shared pressure of feeding four different families with our revenue. And then I left that in around I think maybe 2017. I set up another law firm this time as a sole practitioner of an incorporated legal partnership, which just means like a company with a sole director.
(11:07):
And that one was a little bit different because I made the conscious choice to actually become a principle of, I guess it was called Nexus Law Group, which is renamed now to Arch Law Group, which is a dispersed legal partnership. So they had a centralised, or they have a centralised back office where there's administration support, safe custody, billing, marketing, trust account, all of that stuff. And I just paid them a percentage share of everything I billed. Well, actually they paid me because they collected all the fees and then they kept their share and then paid me, me and through my company. And what that meant was I was responsible for bringing in all my own work. What did they say? You kill what you eat. No, you eat what you kill. Which anyway, I'm not even sure I like that phrasing, but yeah, you had to feed yourself basically.
(12:10):
So bring in all your own work, but they took care of the administration for you. So I actually loved that model because it really freed me up to what you said, Carrie, just focus on actually being an estate planning lawyer. Obviously still a lot of business stuff in terms of bringing in work, but I wasn't doing any bookkeeping or receding. I wasn't setting up my own matters or doing anything. I wasn't printing or binding or doing anything. I'd say I need these wills ready for signing and they would post them to me. I worked from home and the office I think was in Newcastle in Sydney, and they'd post me the beautifully bound up wills and I'd trot along to the meeting and get them signed and then send them back and then they'd put them in secure storage and do all the copying and all the posts and all that stuff.
(13:07):
So it was like, I loved it because I wasn't getting bogged out in the admin, but the compromise was I was giving away a decent chunk of the profit as well. So I've had a few, I think between us, we've had quite a few variety of law firms set up experiences, so hopefully out of today we can share a few little insights. I was just saying before we started off, I'm like, I hope we're not scaring people away from setting up your own firm, not really what we are trying to do. I guess this is a bit of a things you might not have thought of or a bit of a reality check or things we didn't do that we wish we had done or we didn't do right away that we should have. And also things that we are seeing a lot of our community members doing really well. That said, I guess we don't want to understate the gravity of setting up your own firm either.
Carrie (14:10):
Yes. Again, I think that having a plan is probably is mark number one, Tara, you and I are both structuring lawyers, I think is the term from of old. And so my kind of number one after having a plan is to get your entity. So having a conscious thought around what your legal entity is going to look like. Is it going to be you as a sole trader? Is it going to be you as an incorporated legal practise? And thinking about how that works both from a practical perspective and from a legal perspective. So if you think that you're just going to run out into a sole trader, have a think, is this something, do you want to scale up your law firm eventually and bring on another partner? Well, you're going to have to move it into an ILP or an incorporated legal practise in that sense. So when we talk about structuring, one of the biggest things that we see in the financial world of anybody setting up any business, one of the biggest regrets they always have is not starting off with the right structure. So obviously putting in place your plan, but my brain goes straight to get the entity right to begin with.
Tara (15:17):
Yeah, totally. I think a company is a no-brainer at this. If you are intending on doing this for the longterm, which why would you go to all this effort if you weren't, then get a company.
Carrie (15:31):
I'm also just like, I don't even write like writing Carrie Ann Payne trading as lawyer. I just don't like writing that. Just write lawyer proprietary, limited to dumb.
Tara (15:40):
Totally.
Carrie (15:40):
I think that that's my personal opinion. Obviously everyone's going to have their own, but I think that gives you the flexibility for growth moving forward.
Tara (15:49):
And then on top of that, you've got to get your principal practising certificate, your insurance sorted, your registration of the law firm sorted. So there's a lot of hoops to jump through your law society and getting the entity set up correctly like the right vehicle just saves you then having to go through that all again. When you decide to change from an individual trader to a company.
Carrie (16:20):
Yeah, you've got more options to, and this is something we're going to talk about, but from a succession perspective, if something happens to you and you're unable to act for whatever reason, if you've got a trust account in the name of a company, you've got easier methods of being able to get people to act on your behalf if you're unable to act for whatever reason. So we're going to talk later about having a succession plan for yourself, but certainly that's why we tend to prefer that company structure.
Tara (16:49):
Anything more on that legal setup, Carrie, or should we go into the financial? It's a nice lead on into the financial things you have to set up too, isn't it?
Carrie (16:58):
I'm going to let you go onto financial and I'm going to go and have a little break while you do that. We know how much I love numbers.
Tara (17:05):
Okay, well, yeah. They sort of go side by side, but I would absolutely get myself a good accountant and bookkeeper from the beginning to help set it up. We have in our podcast schedule, one of the topics that I proposed we talk about coming up is about what do you delegate and what do you do yourself? And this is actually quite controversial in the TT Precedents club because I am on team delegate your bookkeeping. Absolutely, they're pros. Free your time up to do your legal work genius and let the bookkeeping pros do their genius. But a lot of members still do their own bookkeeping. So that's something you can talk about with your accountant. At what point do you do that or how they can help you set it up. But it has to be done. Someone has to do it. You cannot hide from it.
Carrie (18:02):
And a plan on, I think Tara too, just to jump in there as well, get a bookkeeping software that integrates with your practise management system. So for example, I use Smokeball and Xero, so whatever you're going to do when it comes to the backend numbers, try and get something that integrates with what you're using to bill clients with. Because if they're speaking to each other, that's half the job done.
Tara (18:26):
Yeah, totally. That's it. You need invoicing software and if you talk to the accountant, they will go, okay, the accountant will guide you on all of this and be like, we want to use Xero or QuickBooks or whatever. I have definitely lived through the experience. We've got quite a few businesses going on, and one of my husband's businesses was just, let's try this and see as a side gig type thing. And he just started out on some free accounting software and I've migrated from that to QuickBooks to Xero. Migrating bookkeeping software is just a nightmare and a pain and a waste of money and it seems expensive, but it is so worth doing and having the right software set up from the beginning. So yeah, you need to get paid, so you need to be able to send invoices, as Carrie said, hopefully use a programme that integrates with your practise management system, which we'll talk about.
(19:26):
You also need a bank account set up just for your entity separate to you. You need to make a decision about whether you are doing trust accounting or not. And the trust account, that's a weighty decision because it needs to be audited and there's a lot of compliance around it and your accounting fees and bookkeeping fees will probably be higher. But the trust account gives you the freedom to be paid upfront, and you might find that actually it just makes life a whole lot easier. And I have to say, when I was with Nexus Law Group, we used their trust account. I loved it. I didn't have to do any of the compliance, but I made sure that before I started any work, the full amount for my invoice was sitting in the trust account and I knew I was going to get paid, so I didn't have to worry about chasing invoices or doing any of that. There's nothing worse than doing the work and not getting paid. That's heartbreaking.
Carrie (20:25):
I think too, Tara, just to jump in there as well, one of the things we did talk about, because I've never run a trust account, I trust accounting is not my love language, obviously, if I'm not a numbers person, if you aren't going to run a trust account, have a think about how that's going to affect your cashflow. So having a backup for cashflow issues, do you have a business credit? Do you have an overdraft facility? Have you let the law society know that you've got an overdraft facility? Apparently you have to tell them if you've got an overdraft facility. And also what are your mechanisms, if any, to help people pay on time? So for example, have you integrated Stripe into your invoicing so that people can pay on time? One of the things we talked about at Law Biz Con as well was when people weren't running trust accounts, what were some of the ways that we could make sure clients paid on time? And someone said a really great one, which I'll never forget, is do we have a small discount for a pay on time option? So I think thinking about if you are not running a trust account, what are you going to do about cashflow?
Tara (21:25):
Yeah, yeah, these are big decisions. Some of these, they're not forever decisions and some of them are. The other one is just remembering suddenly I think it could be easy to think, oh, I'm billing x, Y, Z amount each year when I'm an employee of a law firm. And feeling like you'll keep all of that when you go out on your own, but just remember you're going to have to register for GST unless this is a micro hobby, you're going to be successful enough that after a little while, 10% is automatically going to go off to pay for your GST. So you've got to increase everything that you're thinking of charging by 10% so you don't miss out.
Carrie (22:12):
Tara, just to clarify, is the GST threshold's still about $70,000?
Tara (22:16):
Yeah, I feel like it's 75,000, but I haven't looked at it for several years.
Carrie (22:22):
But just putting that in context for people, that's all you've got to learn to actually have to register for GST. So if you're thinking I won't be earning enough, that's the threshold.
Tara (22:32):
Yes. And once you hit it, it's not each year. It's like once you hit it, that's it. So I like to think of you get a little holiday, a bonus, say "Welcome to Business" gift almost. And then so I think if you do all your numbers, assuming that that 10% is going out the door, then you'll be all right. So just on that note, I've got to give a shout to our pricing toolkit package because yeah, if the money ain't coming in, you don't have a law firm. And so in our pricing toolkit, we deal with several things, but two things that are really important when you're setting up your firm is helping you work out what to charge. So we have guidance on what you should be charging in the market, comparing it all around Australia for your services. We have off the shelf plug and play pricing sheets like price sheets, price list templates, all of that inspiration.
(23:33):
We've got cost agreement clauses in there as well, which you probably sick of us talking about. But all of that infrastructure to just help you get it set up straight away and not agonise over, how do I even put my packages together? And that thing that I really love, so helpful no matter what stage of your firm you're at, is our pricing break even spreadsheet. So this is a spreadsheet where you can actually sit down and reverse engineer, how much money do I want to earn from this firm? What's my take home pay to feed myself or my family? And then it basically reverse engineers. Okay, well, we factor in the fact that you still have to pay yourself superannuation, your tax is not going to be withheld, so you're actually going to be receiving everything you bill. And then you have to make sure that you don't go and spend your tax bill because the PAYD system takes maybe 18 months or two years to catch up and start telling you to put some aside.
(24:44):
So a lot of people get stuck where they've gone, oh, I'm so making so much money, and they spend the money that really they should have set aside for tax, and then they get a big tax bill and they don't have the cash, and that is really scary. So this tells you how much to put aside for the tax, how much to set aside for your super and your GST. And then it looks at, well yeah, let's do a budget for your expenses of running the firm. And that will tell you, okay, what's the minimum you have to charge? Or how many matters do you have to do each month based on what you're charging to be able to take home that amount of money? So for me, I think we are not talking vibes here, we are not winging it. We know that this is going to be a viable business. So I just think that breakeven spreadsheet is so powerful and we keep hearing me and Carrie talk about how bad we are with numbers. We didn't make it. We got a beautiful accountant, Andrea from Dream Accounting to create it for our members.
Carrie (25:52):
I think that tax point's really interesting, Tara, this is again something you do from the setup is I spoke to my accountant about this from day one is I had two accounts. One of them is my tax account, which is anytime an invoice is paid, I'll automatically put the GST and a percentage of the invoice over into my tax account so that when the time comes to pay the tax bill, it's just a payment out of that. It's no stress, it's just there. I know that's the tax account.
Tara (26:17):
Yeah, I think that's so helpful. Segregating and having the different accounts as well. And that's something that I think a good accountant can if you are like, oh, we're not numbers people either the accountant should be able to help you on that. And I mean we just don't want people feeling surprised or stressed and going, oh, okay, I've got a five figure, a high five figure tax bill to in May, and I was not expecting that No one needs that. The stress.
Carrie (26:48):
So yeah, Tara, you were talking about there too having, I mean obviously we're talking about the pricing toolkit, but one of the things I've got down here is good precedent save lives. And so I think that when we talk about your service offering, again, I had to reverse engineer it quite quickly, but in hindsight, just buy a precedent. So get your documents in place before you to have to hit the ground running because that takes away so much stress of having to actually do the work required to build, to be able to build your business. So if you are opening and estate planning practise, don't waste the time. Don't waste your time trying to build your own precedents. We're here to help you. We have precedents available to buy for a very good price. You will make the price up that you pay all those precedents back within the first one or two matters.
Tara (27:42):
Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the plug, Carrie. Honestly, I think that ties into the next sort of limb of things to think about, which I think is marketing, because I'll be really clear, if you cannot bring in enough work, you don't have a law firm. There's no point having all these beautiful things set up if you can't bring in enough work. So for me, I just think what is your zone of genius that only you can do? And I think it's obviously the delivery of the legal work and the client engagement and the marketing, especially as a sole practitioner, I just think you can get help with the marketing, but I think this personal brand around you and clients getting to know and trust you, I really think that's where you have to show up. And as you said, Carrie, yes, you could sit there and write all your precedents from scratch and all the ones you've stolen and copied together from different workplaces and friends, borrowed and begged and all of that, and try and get it all together and hope you haven't missed something while you're also setting up everything else.
(28:59):
I think why not just take that pressure off and then you are free focus all your marketing efforts into bringing in new clients, getting the word out there, building referral, relationships, all of that. So I'm a huge fan of go hard on the things that only you can do and invest and get support in the rest. And if you are sitting there going, I have not got enough money to put into this firm, then think, just think about the timing and is it actually a bit better to wait until you have built up a little bit of money saved, decide to invest in the firm so you can really hit the ground running. Now, this is just my opinion and the way that I would do it, and so many people are doing it different ways, so take it as a grain of salt. But that's sort of my philosophy around it,
Carrie (29:51):
Tara, I can't say enough of how important marketing is, right? And I'm not saying marketing has to be the standard kind of boring marketing stuff that everybody's thinking about, but I've got down here marketing is the silent achiever, but also the time thief. You are not a marketing person, you're a lawyer, outsource that to someone else who knows how to do it better than you are. If you don't understand the exact dynamics of SEO and how that changes on a day-to-day basis and how algorithms work or anything like that, you are better spending your time on developing work with clients and doing other business development opportunities.
(30:26):
Get your personal branding or your branding generally done through a marketing person who knows what they're doing. Because if particularly as well, if you are not the sort of person that goes out there and physically drums up work. So if you don't like the networking stuff, if you don't like the relationship stuff, then you need traditional marketing services of everything from a great website to just a general approach to social media. And I cannot say it enough that I know it seems expensive when you start out, and I'm not saying it's not, but I'm going to tell you that if you don't have the money for it, how else are you going to bring in work to pay your bills?
Tara (31:10):
Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think we're saying the same thing, the same in terms of, I'm saying this is going to be a huge investment of your time, and you are saying invest in the professionals who know this. And I think we're still saying the same thing. I'm not here going build your own website or do your own SEO, but I think everything that you do needs your flavour. Even when you're working with a copywriter to create the website, you can't just be like, I'm an estate planning lawyer. Write the copy. You have to tell them the way that you like to work and your values and what's important and the way that you want your brand to come across. Is it focused on you as the individual or is it more focused as the firm name and not so much about you showing up every day and all of this stuff.
(32:04):
You have to have a heavy hand guiding the direction of it. So I think a marketing strategy is crucial, and as Carrie said, the elements of that, you need a website, a really good website. I think in this day and age, especially if you're not, I mean nowhere have we talked about premises? I don't even have that on my list. I've just assumed everyone is working from home. But even if you do have a storefront, the website is your virtual storefront. So I think a really good website that was functional on desktop and mobile SEO and all the Google ads and stuff sitting behind that, which I've been in business for years now and I still barely understand that stuff. I think socials are really helpful. Not everyone does them and that's totally fine, but I think we've got a lot of really inspiring lawyers in our TT Precedent's club who are using social media to just drive the growth of their business, which is incredible. You've got to write the blog posts, you've got to decide if you're doing paid ads and all of that. And then yeah, like Carrie, as you said, is it network? Is it coffee that the business referral network that you are in BNI, turning up to every business network,
Carrie (33:27):
The coffees and the lunches take a long time. So as I said, if your style of marketing is more direct with referral partners, you need to understand the time that takes as well and money.
Tara (33:38):
And Carrie, that's been your preferred approach historically, hasn't it?
Carrie (33:43):
Yeah, I am not good at the being online stuff. I know you are, Tara. Every time I open my Instagram, there's Tara up put number one. So I've got a face for radio, so I don't like being on social media. So my method is more one-to-one going and meeting these people, introducing myself, showing them how I can help them and keeping those relationships.
Tara (34:09):
Okay, firstly, that is not true about face for the radio. But yeah.
Carrie (34:09):
I do a lot of makeup, Tara.
Tara (34:11):
I've known you for a long time. Anyway. Yeah, it's a comfort level and I think do what works best for you because you've just got to do it. And if you don't like that method, then it's not going to happen. So do whatever you're going to do and choose that. I actually, with my little kids, and now I live quite rurally, I don't have time to go to coffees and lunches and we have dinner at five o'clock every night, so I can't go to a networking drink or I can't go away to, I mean, sorry, I'm saying I can't choose not to add that extra pressure into our lives and going away to a lot of conferences and all that stuff doesn't work for me. And so for me, I can do social media in my jammies and just use the pictures from the photo shoot where I looked a million dollars better than I usually do. And that works for me. So we're not saying you have to do all of the things, but I do think you need a marketing strategy, and I guess we're going through these in order of priority.
Carrie (35:21):
Our point is it's a conscious thought. It's not just like, oh, I'll kind of make it up as I go. Have a think about what works for you and then put your energy into that.
Tara (35:30):
And can we just do a reality check? Because you and I have both left employers where we had our own relationships with referrers through those employers, and it's really curious to see the people who say they're going to come with you or who you think are going to follow you, and then the people who actually do. And I think there's surprises all around in terms of upsetting those deep seated referral relationships and the politics around it. And then also the people who you didn't think they cared that much about you, but they do decide to follow you.
Carrie (36:10):
I truly believe, Tara, that if you're a good person and you work hard and you show that to the people that you're working with, most people want to work with good people. So give the community, whether it be other referral partners or the community at large, give them the part of yourself that shows them that you are a wonderful lawyer and you're going to help them. So when we talk about surprise to follows you, you shouldn't be surprised. If you are great, then yes, of course they're following you. If they've not followed you, it's not necessarily got anything to do with you not being great. It's that sometimes they're stuck in a system that they've already got built into their own systems and processes or their relationship is with the person above you, and they've had that for a lot longer than you've been around.
(36:55):
So if someone's followed you, you're doing the good job subject to your restraints, I should say. But also I think that if you're coming into open your own practise, you want to make a lot of money, you're in it for the wrong reasons, okay? Because number one, you're probably not going to make as much money as you think you are. And number two, people are going to see through that. So show these people as it is, whether it's the people that refer to you or the community at large, what you are going to do for them.
Tara (37:23):
Yeah, look, I think there's a few things I want to say. If you are relying mostly on referral partners leaving your current firm and following you, I think you need to revisit your strategy. And I would almost do all the numbers on the basis that no one follows you and what you think, how much you want to back yourself on bringing in new work, because then everything's a bonus because I just don't want people to think, oh, everyone will follow me and I'll bring in, I'll get all this work and I don't have to do any marketing. And then you are really stressed three months in because you haven't done enough work. So I guess that also, Carrie, I want to say I know lots of our members are making way more money than they ever did as an employee. So I guess part of this episode is to help people understand the things they can do to help make it as profitable and abundant.
(38:23):
And we talk about this all the time. We want you to have a profitable law firm. Absolutely. And I want you to make way more money than you made as an employee and also have the creative freedom to put your own personal stamp on how you do things and do things way better than your stuffy boss who has limited beliefs and won't let you try all these crazy ideas. That's what I want for you. And that is what brings me so much joy in the TT Precedents club, seeing all our members doing all of this stuff and trying it out. So I don't want to be negative, but also we do have to be just not naive going into it as well. And yeah, the marketing and the financial stuff needs a lot of attention.
Carrie (39:08):
Tara, I've got on my next list. So once we've kind ticked the marketing, the financial, and having the systems and processes, one of the systems and processes that we talked about a couple of times, I think it might've even been last year in the TT Precedents Club, was taking control of your diary.
(39:27):
We have a lot of practitioners that have come to us. I'm struggling, I'm this, I'm that. Do that from day one. So get in, set up your diary for months in advance so people don't sneak in and change your process, but set it up so that this is how you want to work. And the only person that breaks that is yourself. So take control of your diary in a way that serves you not only to continue on as a healthy person, but as a good practitioner as well. If you are fitting four meetings into a day, are you doing all the things you're supposed to after a meeting? Probably not. Or even if you do do that, what are you going to feel like at the end of the day to turn up for your family or your friends or even just your own mental health that's not sustainable. So one of the biggest things I've got on my list is just from day one, work out what's going to work for you in your diary, and once you've set it in stone, don't override it. When you're talking about that diary, one of the things we've got to do is allow time for doing non-billable work, which is things like precedent changes, development, attending CPD. If you don't do those things, you're going to see the effect long-term later down the track.
Tara (40:41):
Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, yeah, you are the boss now, the hours and yeah, if it's important to you to be able to go to your kids' sport lesson on Wednesday afternoons, then you are totally able to say, I am never working Wednesday afternoons. Yeah, I think it's really important. That's a great point, Carrie. And it also ties back into that breakeven spreadsheet. If you are like, yeah, I'm only going to do two client meetings a day, or I'm only going to do client meetings on these days and I'm going to have days where I don't have client interaction for my catch up, an admin, then that helps you work out, okay, well, so how many meetings can I possibly do a month and am I charging enough for these matters? And that helps feed into your process of are you actually charging enough as well on the system side of things.
(41:40):
I mean, I don't want to labour all of these, but obviously you need your email system. I think everyone's using Microsoft 365 for their whole operating system as a sole practitioner. And then you need to choose your practise management system, whether it's Clio, Smokeball, Leap, Action step. Actually, we get so many conversations in the TT Precedents Club about people's starting out on their own and just basically going, yeah, what practise management system did you choose? Tell me what you love and hate about it. This research is overwhelming me. So that's a huge one, and I think it kind of goes hand in hand with the bookkeeping accounting software. If you can choose the right one from the beginning and don't have to migrate systems, it will save you so much money and pain and boredom. And then yeah, you need an IT guide to make sure that your cybersecurity protocols and everything akay and compliant, you can tick off what you need to with the law society. You've got your emailing system going, are you doing safe custody? And if so, what's all your terms around that and your process... how are you...
Carrie (42:58):
Where are you storing them? Where are you going to fit them? If you're working from home, are you storing 'em at home? Where are you storing them? Do you have a compliant, a fire and waterproof safe?
Tara (43:07):
Yeah. What happens? Well, I guess we can talk into the succession plan, but if you get hit by the bus, how are people going to access it? How are you doing your printing and your binding? I mean, this is, oh, can I give a plug to my A three binding video? Tara has won't shut up about the A three method. Just watch it before you make a decision, please. Anyway, I'll put it in the show notes. If you're a sole practitioner, how are you getting your wills witnessed? And again, all of this staff, we talk about all the time in the TT Precedents Club community with little tips and ideas and things that people are doing, or even just like it's not dodgy, it's totally fine to tell the clients to bring their own witness if you're going to the house, things like that, your workflow management process systems. And I think that kind of ties into the customer journey steps as well. Did you have anything more on systems, Carrie?
Carrie (44:08):
No, no. I've got some stuff about what do you do to plan for when you are not there, which is, I dunno if we're going to roll into that one next.
Tara (44:16):
Yeah, talk about that and then I'll wrap up with the customer journey stuff.
Carrie (44:20):
Yeah, so I think the first one is, the nicer part of it is do you have a management plan for when you want to take holidays? If it's just you, are you going to be emails? If you're not going to be checking emails, how are you going to manage it if something urgent comes up? If you do have other people in the firm, have you allowed them to do access to things like trust accounting or pexa? If you're using Pexa as an example, do you have the ability for the firm to be able to continue if you're on holidays? And also just having the permission to actually take holidays? So I worked out this last year that I hadn't had more than two weeks off, and I don't count Christmas because Christmas is horrendous by the time you cut yourself around to different family members and with six zillion other people on the roads.
(45:05):
I hadn't had a two week holiday since 2018. And so that's not good for anybody I've worked out because after that I just felt so much more refreshed. And so I think that kind of working yourself because you absolutely have to and think you have to is not actually good for you. So a make a holiday plan, you can do it months in advance so that you know you're giving yourself the time and all your referral partners or clients make it really clear, I'm going on holidays from X to Z. So I think having a holiday plan is really important. And then having a succession plan. So as we talked about what happens if you're hit by the bus, one of the things that I found really interesting is Queensland Law Society require you to have a succession plan as a part of their appropriate management systems.
(45:48):
So if you've got a law firm and you don't have another lawyer that's able to step in and take over things, what's that say about you as a succession law firm? So I've got a power of attorney, I run incorporated legal practise, and I've got a power of attorney that appoints another lawyer to be able to step in and manage things because you need another lawyer to be able to do the lawyer's job. And even if it's a matter of just winding things up and transferring the clients over, that's still a really important task to be able to do.
Tara (46:18):
Yeah, really good point. I think most of the law societies have that requirement and so much so that we actually made sure that our corporate power of attorney precedent at the Art of Estate Planning has a specific section in there for law firm owners so that when our customers who are law firm owners invest in the precedent to use with their client succession, they can also use it for their own firm succession because it's so important.
Carrie (46:49):
Yeah, I mean, I had one firm that I've worked at that had a power of attorney in place to allow certain staff members, so senior staff members to sign documents on behalf of the firm while that person was on holidays at their written direction. So if they were out camping in whoop whoop, and something needed to be signed, they could send an email saying, yes, I confirm you can consign this document on my behalf. So I think those corporate powers of attorney are really valuable, not just for if you've lost capacity, but if you just want a holiday.
Tara (47:18):
Yeah, totally. I mean, in terms of the staff element, I don't think we should even go into that today because huge, and I personally don't have a lot of experience in hiring staff and managing hr, but that is its own thing.
Carrie (47:34):
Is that something that Caralee would be looking at in scalable law?
Tara (47:38):
Yes. She's got tonnes of guidance and tips and also systems and precedents on that as well. So go see Caralee. But I do think the last thing I want to talk about is just the customer journey. So really working through your onboarding process from the cost agreements to whether you're using some of those online intake forms through to is it easy for a client to book an appointment with you from the website and are you doing free first appointments or is there a price and is your price list going on the website or not?
(48:13):
And how do they even take action if they're watching your website or seeing your social media and thinking you are the lawyer for me. So all of that, Carrie, you already mentioned the importance of precedents and yes, you need your will templates and Powers attorneys and all that, but the letters, the file note templates, the cost agreement templates, there's a lot of paperwork and infrastructure that you will find that you need the safe custody release forms, all of that stuff. So the more help you can get with building that out, I think the better. And I guess the other thing I just wanted to mention is I find that one of the most intimidating things on going out on your own is that you might be losing your support network, that person or colleague who you can bounce an idea off or go and have a coffee with and just say, Hey, what would you do here?
(49:06):
Or even just the infrastructure around staying up to date with changes and everything like that. And that's why we made the TT Precedents Club. We've got over 220 Australian lawyers there now. A lot of them are sole practitioners and it is the most supportive community. We have the weekly live call where people can submit their questions and we'll answer them for you. So bounce your ideas off me and Carrie, and we also have our finger on the pulse. It's our job to stay up to date with everything that's happening in estate planning nationally. And so we will feed that out to you as well and also tell you, okay, this actually has consequences in this way and we need to update the precedent and we've done that update for you. So just make sure you get that filtered through to your precedents. We'll just take care of it for you.
(49:56):
So don't let the lack of support hold you back because the TT Precedents Club membership is really designed to do that, and it's probably better than the support you have now because we have such a broad and diverse range of members that you get the benefit of having 220 best friends who are there having coffee with you and telling you what they're doing in estate planning. So Carrie, that's everything I kind of had on my list. I mean, I'm sure we've missed so many things, but just in terms of a brain dump, hopefully this has given people some ideas or inspiration of different things to tackle and start working towards if setting up your own law firm is one of your goals for 2025. Anything else on your list? I'm wrapping it up, but I don't even know if you're ready to wrap up yet?
Carrie (50:47):
No, no. The last one of mine was just touch some grass, get outside. If you're sitting at home working on your own, and as Tara said, you don't have a community either come and join us in the community and or go out, just get a walk in the grass. There's been days where I just go out and sit in my yard where there's grass under my feet and just making sure that you are not just all about the law because the only way you're going to be able to turn up personally and professionally is if you're looking after yourself.
Tara (51:13):
Yeah, I think that's really important. So look, hopefully we haven't turned anyone off doing this. I just think setting up your own firm is such a bold and courageous step, and we are constantly inspired by the members of our TT Precedent's club who have taken that leap of faith and doing it and creating the most incredible environments for their clients, innovating so much that they couldn't do when they were within a traditional environment. And it is super inspiring. And if that is something that you are planning, then know that Carrie and I are cheering you on and everyone in the TT Precedents Club has got your back. So best of love. Hopefully this helped, and yeah, we'll be watching you and cheering you on.
