Building a Million-Dollar Firm: Alexis Austin’s Secrets

Do you dream of unlocking the true potential of your law firm? Imagine multiplying your achievements and creating a thriving, million-dollar enterprise. This is no distant reality; it’s the tangible future that Alexis Austin has mastered and reveals in the latest episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast.

Episode 53 of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast welcomes the formidable Alexis Austin, who turned her legal expertise into a staggering success story. Our host, Darren Wurz, sits down with Alexis to dissect her journey from a traditional law firm to establishing Right Law Group, a criminal law firm that she transformed into a seven-figure business in just three years. The candid discussion revolves around strategic thinking, leveraging strengths, learning from the experts, and the magic of the right mindset.

Listeners will uncover invaluable insights, such as:

1. The 80/20 Approach to Productivity: Learn how Alexis applies the Pareto principle in her daily operations to magnify results and streamline workflow.

2. Delegation vs. Abdication: Discover the delicate balance between trusting your team and maintaining control, a critical aspect for any leader looking to expand their firm.

3. Filling Critical Roles: Understand the key roles that spurred Alexis’s firm’s growth and how hiring a combination of experts, such as marketers and technical officers, can help scale your business effectively.

4. Continuous Learning and Mentorship: Hear how Alexis’s commitment to learning and daily strategic coaching granted her an invaluable edge in a competitive industry.

5. Embracing Weaknesses: Alexis shares her own journey of recognizing areas of personal weakness and how turning to the right support staff — including her husband — helped bolster the firm’s robust foundations.

The 80/20 Rule in Legal Practice Management

One of Austin’s key strategies is embracing the Pareto principle, which she expertly applies to her management approach. By identifying the 20% of tasks that yield 80% of the results, Alexis has not only maximized efficiency but has also prioritized her team’s efforts to focus on high-impact activities.

The Art of Delegation Over Abdication

Lawyers, often notorious for micromanaging, can hinder a firm’s growth, a topic thoroughly discussed in this episode. Alexis underlines the significance of trusting and empowering your team, advocating for the delegation of tasks rather than abdicating responsibility. Delegation allows associates to thrive, fostering a productive environment where growth is seen as a collective goal.

Training, Support, and Learning from Mistakes

An old adage says, “To err is human”; Alexis believes that mistakes are fertile ground for growth. The podcast delves into the necessity for robust training and support structures within a firm, ensuring that team members view mistakes not as failures but as stepping stones.

Learning from the Experts

As someone who initially traded legal training for services when funds were tight, Alexis understands the value of expert guidance. Hiring specialists, like marketing gurus and financial officers, played a crucial role in her firm’s scaling process. She emphasizes actively engaging with such experts to enhance one’s understanding and strategically grow their firm.

From Constraints to New Beginnings

Alexis shares her journey, which began with leaving a limiting old-school law practice to establishing Right Law Group. Through this, we learn about the value of mentorship and continuous learning – whether from podcasts or business coaches – and the decisive mindset necessary to tackle strategic growth.

Risk-Taking as a Business Strategy

Having embraced risks throughout her career, Alexis credits her risk-taking propensity and ability to process trauma as essential components of her business acumen. This episode offers invaluable insight into how calculated risks can lead to unprecedented business success.

Custom-Tailored Success Strategies

Alexis Austin doesn’t just consult; she transforms law practices by focusing on their unique challenges and helping owners create systems that resonate with their thought processes. three60strategicsuccess.com is a testament to her commitment to sculpting customized pathways to efficiency and success.

Conclusion

Listeners and readers looking to replicate Alexis’ success should not miss this episode. For more strategic advice and financial planning wisdom, visit thelawyermillionaire.com. Subscribe, leave a review, and connect with us to secure the financial future of your law firm with confidence.

Remember, whether you’re battling in the courtrooms or charting the course of your firm, the principles discussed in this episode can serve as your guide to building a powerhouse legal practice.

Resources:

Connect with Alexis Austin:

About our guest:

Alexis Austin is the CEO and Managing Partner of Right Law Group, a Colorado Springs criminal defense law firm she founded in June of 2018.

Before founding Right Law Group, Ms. Austin was a Deputy District Attorney in Pueblo and Colorado Springs. She left the D.A.’s office to become a partner in a well-respected criminal defense firm in Colorado Springs. During her time there, she learned what it takes to run a successful law practice. Armed with that knowledge and a desire to start a firm wired for the 21st century, she set out on her own and founded the Right Law Group. Right Law Group has since become one of the top criminal defense firms in Colorado Springs by specializing in enhancing the client’s experience through leveraging technology.

Ms. Austin has a passion for helping people get back on the right path and work towards bettering their lives. She also believes that clients should be treated as more than case files. They should be able to build a strong relationship and trust with their law firm as they go through the most difficult times in their lives. Ms. Austin has made that philosophy the cornerstone of Right Law Group. Based on her background in cognitive psychology and domestic violence research, Ms. Austin particularly enjoys working with people who are charged with domestic violence charges or who suffer from PTSD. Her knowledgeable and compassionate approach to helping clients see the light at the end of the tunnel is one of the things people love best about working with her.

Not only is Ms. Austin passionate about zealously representing her clients, she is also a dedicated businesswoman. Her leadership and vision have led the Right Law Group to consecutive years of increased growth and success, including during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since June of 2018, she has grown the business from a single employee (herself) to four full-time attorneys, and a staff of ten. She has also mentored local entrepreneurial attorneys who have used Ms. Austin’s example and advice to open and grow their own legal enterprises.

Alexis Austin’s expertise goes beyond her role as a lawyer; she’s also the founder of 360 Strategic Success, a consulting business focused on coaching and advising criminal defense law firm owners to effectively build and manage their practices. With personalized coaching and strategic guidance, Alexis empowers fellow attorneys worldwide to achieve their business objectives while maintaining the highest standards of legal representation for their clients.

Transcript:

Darren Wurz [00:00:59]:
What does it take to build and run a successful criminal defense practice? Well, get ready to find out. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire podcast, where every week we bring you insights, knowledge, and actionable advice to help law firm owners create extraordinary wealth. I’m your host, Darren Wurz, financial planner for law firm owners. Our guest today is Alexis Austin, CEO and founder of Right Law Group, a successful defense attorney and an expert in navigating the challenges of running a thriving law firm. Before founding Right Law Group, Alexis was a deputy district attorney. She left to become a partner in a well respected criminal defense firm in Colorado.

Darren Wurz [00:01:48]:
And in 2018, she set out on her own. And despite the challenges of a global pandemic, she has grown her practice into a thriving enterprise. Alexis, welcome to the show.

Alexis Austin [00:02:00]:
Thank you so much for having me, Darren.

Darren Wurz [00:02:02]:
Yeah. I’m excited that you’re here to tell our audience about the secrets to your success. And before we dive into that, I gave a little Reader’s digest version of your story. But why don’t you take us back to the beginning and tell us about your journey to where you are today?

Alexis Austin [00:02:22]:
Sure. I think the journey is really more about going with the flow. So I started out not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was an actress in middle school, and I met my first lawyers. I actually got the part of Annie and met my first lawyers, and daddy Warbucks was a lawyer, and they just seemed like wonderful people. So it was always in the back of my mind that being a lawyer was something I wanted to do. But I went into undergraduate and got dual degrees in psychology and philosophy. The philosophy degree was accidental.

Alexis Austin [00:02:52]:
I was just trying to learn about the world and myself, but I accidentally got two degrees, and with those, I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what you do with a philosophy and psychology degree. You could be a professor or you could be a lawyer. So I went to law school. Like everyone. Law school was not the most fun experience. It was tough, it was grueling, but I got through it and decided to join the district attorney’s office after trying a couple different things. So I was a district attorney for a number of years.

Alexis Austin [00:03:21]:
I was in a couple different counties, but I ended up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, at the fourth judicial district attorney’s office. And it was a little bit different there. It wasn’t the best work environment. It wasn’t something that I was feeling. I loved the work that I did, but just the environment was grueling and a little bit toxic. And it just got to this point where I wasn’t feeling like this was going to be a long term solution for my life. There was a local attorney in town. He had been practicing for, I want to say, 40 years, and he was retiring, and he was looking for someone to take over his law practice.

Alexis Austin [00:03:59]:
So he was going around talking to different people. He was looking to find someone who had litigation experience. And he and I worked opposite cases for a number of years, and he approached me and asked if I would be interested in talking about buying him out. Now, the interesting thing is, I was a government worker. I had no money to buy him out. So the way that I kind of operate is I just say, sure, let’s see what happens. Let’s try it. So I said, sure, let’s have a conversation.

Alexis Austin [00:04:27]:
And the more that we talked, the more that I realized that I could really make a difference. I never thought that I would want to do criminal defense. I was always hardcore prosecutor, but I got very upset and frustrated with my colleagues who would just arbitrarily throw people in jail without learning about their stories, without actually having sympathy. So I was kind of an on the edge prosecutor. I was doing what I thought was right, but not what the state necessarily thought was right, because they thought what was right was putting everyone in jail. And I believed in giving seconds chances. And amazingly, this attorney gave me a second chance. He gave me the opportunity to slowly buy in.

Alexis Austin [00:05:05]:
He gave me a payment plan for my buy in, which was unheard of. But he saw something in me, and I will never be able to repay him for this. He saw something in me and handed the reins over. So in 2016, I joined. I was partnered up with another attorney, who actually is a judge now. And it was a very interesting relationship because my partner, we were 50, 50 partners, and I was, at the time, I was 28, I believe, and my partner was in his sixties. So there was an interesting dynamic going on where I was coming in, and I wanted to change everything. I wanted us to go paperless.

Alexis Austin [00:05:45]:
I wanted us to text our clients and communicate at the level that they communicated. And the firm was still operating very much as you have to come in person. Every single thing is in a paper file. And it was a bit of a learning curve for both of us. What ended up happening is the more I got into it, the more I started digging. I was very blessed to have 40 years of data, and I’ve learned over the years that data is key for running any kind of business. It doesn’t matter if it’s bad data or good data, that is just data, but having that information helps you make decisions. So I had the fortunate ability to go through and look at 40 years of prior income statements and marketing strategies and everything that the firm had done and kind of gleaned from that information what I thought was the best path moving forward for us as a firm.

Alexis Austin [00:06:34]:
And I was able to pull us pretty quickly out of a little slump that the firm had been in. We started being seen on Google again. We started really making traction, making waves, but it reached a point where I was pushing so hard for innovation and new technologies, and I realized I was just stressing my poor partner out. It was just. It was a lot for him. So there was a certain point, too, where I was looking at some of our staffing, and I wanted to make changes. And the way that the firm operated at that time, and I believe it still does, it was very much this. I call it an old school idea, and I don’t mean that derogatorily.

Alexis Austin [00:07:11]:
I think there’s a lot of benefit to operating this way, but it operated in the old school way of, we’re a family. And it’s very difficult, because when your company is a family, you can’t fire your family, you can’t get rid of family members, you are stuck with them. And so this mentality was in the firm, that we had a family and not a business. And so I couldn’t make adjustments that I think the business actually needed. So instead of blowing everything up and causing all kinds of rifts. I told my partner, look, I think maybe it’s time for me to step out and build what I’m wanting to build and hand off the reins to someone who’s got more of the, I don’t want to say value systems, because I value family and I value that moral compass, but more of the same kind of mentality. So I actually reached out to a friend of mine from law school that I knew had his own firm. He was a solo practitioner.

Alexis Austin [00:08:02]:
I did the same thing. I decided to pay it forward like my mentor had done to me. I said, hey, would you like to buy my half of the firm? I’ll let you do it on a payment plan. We’ll ease it out, and I think this will be a really good fit for you. So he ended up coming in, taking over my portion of the firm, and I launched Right law group. And from the beginning with Right Law Group, because I had all of that experience at my previous firm, I was able to know exactly what I wanted to see happen. I just didn’t quite know how to make it happen. So I set out on my own, no one with me, and just started trying to learn everything I could.

Alexis Austin [00:08:37]:
And that’s where I discovered podcasts. I hadn’t really been a big podcast person, but there were so many lawyer podcasts out there that I was listening to. I was listening to every single morning, at least 60 to 90 minutes a day, listening and getting as much information as I could. And I would say, honestly, even before I launched the firm. So for the first six months, when I started getting this idea, I was doing at least 60 to 90 minutes a day of learning everything I could about what other people had done. And I think that really is the key, because when I came into my other firm, I got to learn from the firm’s history and learn what they had done and learn from my mentor. And then when I was launching my own, I just absorbed everything I could from everyone around me, even though they didn’t know. I mean, it was in the form of podcasts, but listening and digging in and trying to find anyone I could that had a criminal practice or just a solo practice, hearing what they’d gone through and trying to incorporate that into what I was doing.

Alexis Austin [00:09:34]:
So it worked out. We managed to get through the first bumpy year. Bumpy as in, you know, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to set up a phone system. And since that time, I have continually, every single morning, I still learn. I now work with a business coach, where I meet with that business coach every single morning, 07:00 a.m. Rain or shine, holiday or not. And this. This habit of continually learning and putting yourself in that right mind frame to attack your day in a strategic way, I think has really been key.

Alexis Austin [00:10:06]:
Our firm has done amazingly well. We were able to build a. I say we because I have a team now, a very robust team, and I added on members very quickly because I knew that I didn’t want to be in the grind. I wanted to run a business, not a solo practice. So the team has changed a lot over the years, but we have grown the firm. It reached a seven figure firm in three years, which is almost unheard of for criminal practice. We only do criminal law. There’s nothing else.

Alexis Austin [00:10:35]:
And we only do free conviction criminal law. So we don’t take appeals or anything that are those high dollar potential cases. We take just the people who need us, the DUI’s, the people going through the system for the first time. And it’s been a wild ride. But it’s been absolutely amazing to build this up and to be able to create something that’s truly wonderful.

Darren Wurz [00:10:58]:
Absolutely. That’s an incredible story and journey. You’re a savvy person. I mean, navigating buy ins and buyouts and figuring out all of that. To what do you credit your business savvy? Was it just an attitude of curiosity, or where did that come from?

Alexis Austin [00:11:18]:
Darren, I have no business savvy. I have no business background, no degree. What I credit it to is I’ve always had this slight edge of being a risk taker, and I think it comes from, I had a slightly traumatic childhood and some traumatic things in my past, so I. I learned to process trauma well. So I think I just always live on that edge. But it just comes from this idea of what’s the worst that could happen, you know, let’s try this. What’s the worst that could happen? It doesn’t work fine, you’ll get another job. The company doesn’t work fine, you’ll build another one.

Alexis Austin [00:11:52]:
If you are in the job and you’re working and it doesn’t work fine, they’ll fire you. It’s not the end of the world. The end of the world is only when you’re dead. And as long as you’re not risking death, which I think a lot of us conflate success with thinking, oh, if I’m not going to succeed, is basically the same as dying. But you’re not. There’s always another way. There’s always another avenue. So for me, it’s just jumping in and saying, well, what’s the worst could happen? Let’s try it and see.

Darren Wurz [00:12:17]:
Having the courage to try it. Yeah. Because going from a solo to bringing on a partner and having to place trust in that person and then expanding your business and allowing other people to take over responsibilities, that is a scary step for a lot of people.

Alexis Austin [00:12:37]:
It really is. And I’ll be very honest, I’m a control freak. I mean, I don’t know many lawyers who aren’t, but that has been one of the biggest challenges for me, is handing off the reins. For me, what I learned very quickly, it was helpful, because I don’t know everything about everything. No one can. And this idea, I really started embracing this idea of imposter syndrome being a secret weapon, because I think it takes a lot of courage and a lot of self reflection to identify where you are weak and say, yes, I recognize. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think what a lot of people try to do is they try to push through and make themselves that person that they aren’t. And I’m not trying to say you can’t grow and you can’t be more, but I am never going to be an accountant.

Alexis Austin [00:13:27]:
I just. I’m not. That’s not something that’s in the cards for me. I don’t want to be. I’m never going to be. So instead of trying to push myself and just doing a poor job, pushing through as hard as I can and giving my best, I learned very quickly to embrace this idea of, okay, I feel like I’m faking it because I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I can just recognize that place of insecurity as a place for growth outside of myself. So when I see an area where I am not particularly strong, even if I’m moderately strong, if I’m not at my absolute strongest in that area, I hire out for it. And I’m not just saying, like, throw money at the problem.

Alexis Austin [00:14:04]:
You have to find the right people to support you. But when I was going through and looking for financial help, I had a number of rocky starts where people didn’t know what they were doing, and ultimately it falls on me. But, you know, taxes were messed up. And so I reached out to a couple of people and found someone that I could trust who had a background in finance, who was able to do everything I needed, and I turned over the reins. Same thing with management. I’m not the best manager, but my husband is, and I convinced him to join the firm in 2021 because he has that. That team mentality. He’s able to rally a team and build up a group of people.

Alexis Austin [00:14:46]:
I’m not. I’m able to lead people, but I’m not able to do it to the level that he is. So I think the biggest thing for me was just realizing that just because you’re weak in an area doesn’t mean you are weak or that you have to be weak. It’s just shining a spotlight on the place where you know exactly what you need to do next, which is hire someone to fill that or just find someone to fill it. You don’t even have to hire. Because I didn’t want to do law all the time. I actually wanted to run a business. So when I first started, after a month, I reached out and said, hey, I don’t want to be the only one practicing law.

Alexis Austin [00:15:18]:
And I found creative ways to bring in lawyers to practice law in exchange for me teaching them criminal defense. So I didn’t even have money to pay them, but I paid them in knowledge. And eventually working on the cases with them, we got them to the point where they were getting paid. So it’s a long way to say, I think that the key is just finding, identifying where you’re not as strong and not taking that personally, but taking that as the target for your next place of growth.

Darren Wurz [00:15:47]:
Yeah, well, that’s good business sense to bring on professionals who can help you run the business in those key areas while you focus on your core competencies and where you can really drive the most value for your practice. Can you tell us some of the key roles? I think you mentioned them a little bit. But what are some of the key roles that you filled in your organization that may be non lawyer or not paralegal roles, but other support roles?

Alexis Austin [00:16:17]:
So early on, one of the very first people that I teamed up with was a marketing agency. Like many small law firms, I got burned by a number of marketing companies. And it’s interesting because the way things have happened in my life, and I think when people look back, it happens in everyone’s life. This way, things just kind of fall into place if you’re looking. So I was looking for a marketing person to help me really grow the firm. Even though Colorado Springs may not sound like a big town, it is wildly competitive in criminal defense. I’ve talked to numerous attorneys across the country, and the things that happen in Colorado Springs marketing don’t happen in normal towns, even in larger towns. So I had to find someone because I was not getting seen anywhere, I wasn’t getting traction in marketing.

Alexis Austin [00:17:03]:
And I actually reached out and I had a couple of groups that I was a part of, lawyer groups, and in one of those groups, I was asking for help on different marketing questions because I was in that stage of trying to do it myself. And someone reached out and said, hey, here’s an answer to your problem. And I, on a whim, just said, hey, can we meet? And I set up a meeting with them, and it turned out this person was just opening their own marketing company. And so I started working with them, and we actually ended up growing our companies kind of alongside of each other. Over the past couple of years, as my company grows, his company grows, and it’s just been this wonderful relationship where I knew nothing about marketing. Now, thanks to him, I feel like I’ve got a pretty solid grasp of it. But it’s because instead of just turning the reins over to him, I actively engage and ask to learn, because I think that when you’re hiring out and you’re hiring these positions, there’s a difference between delegation and abdication. I think that a lot of the times what people do is they will say, well, I have this problem.

Alexis Austin [00:18:01]:
Alexa says I should hire someone, so I’m just going to hire this person, and then they go, hands off, and they don’t ever look at it again. That is not managing your company well. That is not being a good business owner. That is abdication. That is saying, it’s not my problem anymore and it’s your company. It’s always your problem. So what I did is I bring in people, and then not only do I say, okay, you’re an expert in this area, but then I ask them to teach me exactly what they’re doing, and I do it in a way that I’m not threatening to leave them. I’m not saying I’m going to not pay you or not keep you doing this, but it’s so I can understand the value you’re providing me, and I can have a higher level conversation with you rather than asking you the same inane question over and over.

Alexis Austin [00:18:42]:
So in that particular instance, with my marketing, I call them my marketing guru. We started this habit of, we got into a rhythm of calls every other week. Now we’re a weekly call where we’re digging in. We’re always talking, and I’m always learning about what’s going on so that I am still actively involved, but I’m not the primary one responsible, same thing. The next person I brought on was my fractional financial officer. She understood the numbers in a way that I couldn’t even fathom. But because I actively engage with her, I meet with her monthly, and we go over everything. And she’s taught me what she’s doing.

Alexis Austin [00:19:19]:
It’s not just me handing the reins over, but I’m actively engaged in the process so that now I use the things she teaches me in so many other areas, including my personal life. I’ve gone in and overhauled my sister’s financial state using the things I learned from my CFO. So those were two of the key ones. The other one that I hired very early on is I had a paralegal that I worked with in the first DA’s office that I worked in. And she and I remained friends over the years. And she was a manager of all the staff at the DA’s office. That was her training. She managed people, and that’s.

Alexis Austin [00:19:53]:
She kept people on task, and she’s very task oriented. I’m not a task oriented person. I hate being confined in that box. And so when I launched, I knew that that’s the woman I wanted supervising my staff. I didn’t have a staff yet, but I knew that I wanted her on. So I brought her on and got her. I convinced her to leave the DA’s office after 25 years. It was a big leap for her, but she came on, and now she is the one that runs our staff and manages our staff, and she does it much better than I do because she keeps track of everything and everyone, and she does all the time off approvals and everything that I would never even get to.

Alexis Austin [00:20:30]:
Another key component that I had was bringing on a technical officer. So I knew that I wanted to be forward thinking. I knew that I wanted to be innovative in my approaches to my clients. And I knew that I didn’t want to use legal softwares the way that they’re meant to be used, because I like to break everything and make it my own, break it and then rebuild it, and then it’s wonderful. Um, so I was trying again. All these. These situations came from me trying to do something and then realizing I’m not the best at it and I need help. I was trying to learn Zapier, to integrate all of my different tools.

Alexis Austin [00:21:04]:
And I went to a conference. It was. They called it a zap a thon. I went to a conference for Zapier, and I dig in deep to whatever I’m doing, but at that conference, I met this man who was the, he was working for the person who was presenting, and what they were presenting was like bare bones basic lawyer. This is what a zap is. And I had gone past that. So I ended up pulling aside the second person in charge and saying, hey, I have this specific issue, can you help me? And we ended up, it was a two day conference. I found him at lunch the first day, and we spent the next half day and the following day outside of the conference room just working on building things together.

Alexis Austin [00:21:43]:
And from there, I was like, all right, I need this guy in my life. And I slowly convinced him to do some contract work and then finally got him to come on with us full time. And he has been wildly instrumental in our firm success. He’s our chief technical officer. He’s built the backbone of our entire firm, and we would not be where we are without him and without me saying, hey, I can’t do this on my own, please come help me. You are better at this.

Darren Wurz [00:22:07]:
That is fascinating. A technical officer, and I love that idea. I think it’s fabulous because there’s, things are always evolving, there’s always new things coming out. To have somebody that’s paying attention to all of that. And, Alexis, I can tell you’re a lot like me. I’m very hands on. Like, I dig into stuff. I want to know how stuff works, you know, and that can be, that can be like a great thing, but it can also be a fatal flaw.

Alexis Austin [00:22:36]:
Yes.

Darren Wurz [00:22:36]:
Have you experienced that?

Alexis Austin [00:22:38]:
I have. What I have realized is I have to approach it as a learning experience just for the sake of learning, not for the sake of doing. Because if I get in trying to learn how to do something so that I can do it, I’m going to get really anal retentive and try to fix everything and do everything. But there is. Have you heard of the Pareto principle, the 80 20 rule?

Darren Wurz [00:23:01]:
Oh, yeah.

Alexis Austin [00:23:02]:
So I try to live by that principle that, okay, maybe it’s not 100% of how I want it, maybe it’s not 100%. There’s. But if 80% of what I want has happened for me only having to do 20% of the work, that’s perfect for me, because that.

Darren Wurz [00:23:16]:
Can you, can you give our audience a little background on the 80 20 rule if they are not already familiar with that?

Alexis Austin [00:23:21]:
Sure. The idea is that when you’re looking at any kind of business or task or anything, really, 80% of the results come from 20% of the work normally, or 80% of your best results come from, you can apply it multiple ways. 80% of your best results come from 20, 20% of your people. And the idea is, when you’re the owner of a business, you want to give as much time as you can without overdoing it to get as high a result as possible. So if you’re able to give 20% of your time to achieve 80% of the result that you’re looking for, you’re only going to grow if you’re trying to give 100% of your time, and then you’re doing it poorly and you’re only getting 15% success at what you’re aiming for. It’s. It’s a negative inverse relationship where you’re just. You’re just pulling yourself down further.

Alexis Austin [00:24:09]:
Further in the bog. Yeah. So for me, with, with all of these positions, I. I can feel in myself sometimes a tendency where I want to step in. And there have been moments when I’ve tried, but I have realized over the years that a lot of this is based on faith and trust in the person that you’ve brought on. And that’s hard. It’s really hard for a control freak, but you have to just have faith and trust and say, okay, I know that you’re going to do your best. I know you’re going to do everything you can.

Alexis Austin [00:24:37]:
And at the end of the day, going very back to the beginning of our conversation and how I operate, what’s the worst that could happen if they fail, you find another person. So I think faith and trust is huge in the people that you bring on. You have to have the right people with you, and you also have to have the self awareness to understand. You don’t have to know it all. You are, even if you are a know it all, you do not have to know it all and do it all. You do need to understand what your team is doing, but you don’t have to know it enough to do it yourself.

Darren Wurz [00:25:06]:
Yeah. And sometimes, so often we fall in this trap of thinking that we’re the only ones who can do it best. And the reality is, as I have found, when you actually delegate tasks, you know, maybe you bring on somebody and they’re not great at it right away, and you train them and how you do it, but then they, over time, make it their own and they become expert at it and even better than you ever were.

Alexis Austin [00:25:31]:
Yes, I did that. And I think it’s most difficult, at least in my experience with lawyers in the practice of law. So I see this as. I’m sure we’ll talk about it later, but I actually opened my own consulting company to help other lawyers and criminal defense firms build up their firms. And a lot of what I see my clients saying is I have a block or difficulty bringing on an associate because I know the cases, I know the work, I know what the DA’s are wanting, I know how to work this case. And bringing someone else on is a huge block for them, because as lawyers, we are trained to do this one thing very well. And letting go of that reign, the area where we specialize, that’s difficult. But what I found is, number one, I’m a huge fan of systems.

Alexis Austin [00:26:17]:
You can, even though it sounds strange, you can systemize your practice of law, especially in criminal defense. There is a system to follow. It varies based on the individual, but as long as you create it and you trained the associate on how to follow your system, if they tweak certain things in there, that’s fine. They don’t have to use the same language every time they’re talking to a client. But you can create structure for excellence without having to be a maniacal, crazy control freak and making them like, read from scripts. And what I found is in doing that and bringing other people on and giving them the structure, you can’t just throw them out there and say, swim, kid. But giving them the structure, or the floaties, if you will, to make sure they’re propped up, they’re going to do a much better job. Because as a business owner, the lawyer’s mind is so pulled in multiple different directions and learning all these things that we weren’t trained to do, like business forecasting and marketing, that no matter how good you are as a lawyer, you’re never going to be able to dedicate your full attention to the job of lawyering unless that’s what you choose to do.

Alexis Austin [00:27:22]:
You need these people to come in and be experts in that area and actually give them the opportunity to shine. It may not be the same color of shine that you would do, but as long as it is shining, then you’re going to have a successful firm.

Darren Wurz [00:27:35]:
Yeah. And if they mess up or they make mistakes, most of the time, it’s not because they’re a terrible person. You need to get rid of them. It’s a matter of training. They haven’t had enough practice yet. They just need a little bit more training. They need a little bit more support to get to that level of expertise.

Alexis Austin [00:27:52]:
Exactly. That goes back to the abdication idea. A lot of the times people will bring in an attorney and say, okay, I don’t have to attorney anymore. Go and that’s never going to work. Even the most experienced attorney doesn’t know how your firm operates and how things need to work in there. So it’s that fine line between trust without completely abdicating.

Darren Wurz [00:28:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, by the way, I think that’s our quote for the, for the show today. There’s a difference between, what did you say? Delegation and abdication.

Alexis Austin [00:28:20]:
Yes.

Darren Wurz [00:28:21]:
Yeah. That’s fantastic. I love that. Well, Alexis, things have evolved and grown for you, and now you are focused on helping other law firm owners to be as successful as you are. And even further, can you tell us a little bit about some of that work that you’re doing?

Alexis Austin [00:28:39]:
Sure. So what I’m doing on that side, I opened another company. It’s called 360 strategic success. And the idea is success. We see all these people who we think have overnight success, or you see someone whose law firm just seems to blow up out of nowhere. And unless it’s a giant PI settlement, and even then, there’s work behind it. All of these success stories that we see actually have come from very strategic steps leading up to it. We just don’t see those steps.

Alexis Austin [00:29:07]:
We don’t see the background work. So what I do is I work with my clients on, number one, identifying personal steps that you can take strategically each day to make sure you’re keeping your word to yourself, make sure that I gloss over that. But that is huge, is keeping your word to yourself. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you’re not going to do it, do not say you’re going to do it, because you erode your own trust with yourself, just like an employee would erode trust with you. But learning those steps to make sure that you are being the best human that you can be in, leading your company, and then getting in and really digging in with them and their specific issues in their firm. So the unique thing about my consulting company is it’s truly consulting, not coaching, because what we’re doing is we’re tailoring it to the individual law firm owner. I’m not going in and saying, here’s how I built right law group do it that way because it’s never going to work.

Alexis Austin [00:29:57]:
People are people. Humans like to have their own individuality and build things their own way. And what works for me doesn’t work for someone else. So I get in with them and I look at what’s happening in their firm, where their biggest pain points are, and we start attacking that first. I have found, and I don’t I always worry about sounding egotistical when I say this, but I have found that my superpower in business is identifying places for growth and innovative or unusual ways to get there that other people may not see. I also have a really good ability to condense complicated topics down into very easily digestible little bite sizes. So what I do is when I’m working with my clients, I’m making sure that the path is very clear for them. They are leading it.

Alexis Austin [00:30:41]:
I’m not going to force them to do something they don’t want to do. But when they say, okay, this is my problem, let’s say they have a marketing problem, then I get in and I say, okay, let’s look at the numbers, let’s build everything out, let’s get the data. And I help them create that so that we can clearly see the issue as opposed to just making up stories about what it is or assuming things. There is nothing in business that you can learn from just assuming you know what’s happening. Even if you say, oh, I know what’s happening, unless you can give me hard data showing that it’s happening, we’re not going to believe it until we actually dig it and see that. So with my clients, what we’re doing is working on that very first thing once we settle that, whatever it is. So I had one client who, there was an issue where everything else was working wonderfully, but there was no accountability within the firm. They were all working well together for now.

Alexis Austin [00:31:31]:
But I kept telling them, once you bring on other people, you’ve got to have metrics to track how people are performing, because you trust, but verify, you trust your people to do their job, but you need to make sure you’re maintaining that. So we worked together for three months to build out a beautiful system, and it’s nothing like what I would have done, because the way that they thought was different and the way that their brain worked was different, but it worked so beautifully. And when he presented it to his team, his team actually breathed a sigh of relief, saying, oh, thank goodness. Now we have this accountability structure, and it’s not in an overbearing sense, but it’s, you know, exactly what’s expected every single day. So doing things like that really helps my clients, first of all, identify the issue, but also having that support and that little bit of push because you can identify an issue, but if you are pulled in all these different directions, going to court, going and trying to do all the marketing, you’re not going to focus in. So I help gently focus you in make sure we’re getting what you need done in a very timely fashion so that you can actually take those strategic steps to see the success that you want, rather than just putting it off until one day because of that. And I’m not normally a night person, but I work with clients at nighttime or over the weekend so that I’m not getting into their firm and disrupting their day. But actually, setting aside that time, it’s been really good.

Alexis Austin [00:32:55]:
The one thing I will say is, with setting aside time, it can be difficult because people think, well, there’s not enough time of the day. You do have to sacrifice something to get somewhere. So a lot of the times when you’re wanting to get to that next level, a lower something has to be sacrificed. Sometimes that lower thing is getting to just be lazy and have dinner and not think about it. Sometimes you got to dig in and actually, you know, work on your firm for a couple of months, but it pays off in huge dividends later on.

Darren Wurz [00:33:21]:
Yeah, yeah. Great stuff, Alexis. Um, a lot of times, we just need that, that gentle focus. I like that, that phrase, uh, that you coined there. Uh, well, you know, our time has just flown by here, and, uh, we’re, we’re near the end. I have a, just one more question I’d like to ask you. And that is, what is your millionaire mission? And what I mean by that is, what is your driving purpose? It could be a personal thing, a professional thing. What is it that gets you out of bed in the morning and makes you do what you do?

Alexis Austin [00:33:55]:
I’ve given this a lot of thought, not specifically for this podcast, but I’ve been trying to figure that out. What is it that drives me? And I think what I have come to is this idea of always finding the most efficient way to live the best life you can. And a lot of the times, I think efficiency gets a bad rap because efficiency has been deemed synonymous with cheap. And I don’t mean that at all, but finding the quickest path to exactly what you want. And I do that in my life. When I see something, I say, okay, what can I do to get there, exactly there as soon as possible? And the driving force in my law firm, in my consulting company, is, how do I help for my criminal, you, clients? How do I help them get to the result that they want as quickly and efficiently and constructively as possible, so that you’re not just waiting around your whole life, waiting to live life. For my consulting clients, I want them to get to the success that they want. They have to identify it, but get to the success that they want as quickly and efficiently as possible without going off in these other areas.

Alexis Austin [00:34:58]:
Life’s too short. You want to live the life that you want to live. So my big drive is stop putting it off. Stop putting off what you want. Find the quickest path there. And ultimately, when you get there, you’re going to see there’s another place you want to go. So it’s always driving to that next place as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Darren Wurz [00:35:15]:
I love that. Building the efficiency so that you can enjoy more of the things in life that you want to enjoy. Great stuff. Well, Alexis, if our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you, where can they go?

Alexis Austin [00:35:29]:
I’m all over the place. They can go to our criminal defense firm, which is www.rightlawgroup.com. Call anytime to talk to me there. They can reach out to me at my consulting company, my email there is alexis three 60 strategicsuccess.com. They can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn, literally anywhere they want. I’m always happy to hop on a call, especially for people who just want to break through something. I can schedule a quick strategy session. We jump on and see if we can get to the root of the problem.

Alexis Austin [00:36:01]:
So any way people want to reach out, I’m always there.

Darren Wurz [00:36:03]:
Awesome. Well, thank you, Alexis, for joining us today.

Alexis Austin [00:36:08]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Darren Wurz [00:36:10]:
Yeah, and we want to thank all of our listeners, of course, for joining us as well today. If you found this episode valuable, we encourage you to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And we also encourage you to leave us a review. Your feedback not only helps us continually tailor our content to your needs, but also helps other law firm owners find this podcast. If you want to continue your journey towards financial success, I also invite you to visit our website@thelawyermillionaire.com, dot. I’m Darren Wurz. Thank you for tuning in and I look forward to joining you next time on The Lawyer Millionaire.