
Welcome to another enlightening episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, where legal prowess and financial acumen collide. In Episode 46, our host Darren Wurz sits down with the indomitable Brian LaBovick, an attorney who has transformed his hatred for bullies into a successful legal career and financial stability. This episode not only uncovers Brian’s compelling backstory and his battle against insurance giants but also reveals his approach to law firm growth, financial management, and personal development.
Listeners will unearth valuable lessons, including:
1. The foundational role of a firm’s vision, mission, and core values in creating a sustainable and thriving practice.
2. Approaches to stabilize and enhance firm management through effective communication rhythms like daily huddles and weekly one-on-one leadership meetings.
3. Critical insights into financial literacy for lawyers and guidance on how to understand and handle firm finances for long-term strength and growth potential.
4. Methods to strategically reduce expenses, manage debt, and judiciously leverage resources for the benefit of the firm’s progression.
5. The indelible impact of one’s personal story on professional objectives, where Brian’s history informs his present motives and commitment to societal and legal equity.
This episode extends beyond mere storytelling to become a masterclass in resilience, leadership, and financial strategy for law firms on the brink of transformation.
Shaping a Legal Titan:
Brian LaBovick’s early life was far from ordinary. Growing up with a father who insisted on standing up to bullies, Brian carried this fighting spirit into his career. Overcoming a tough upbringing and his father’s struggles with insurance companies, he became a prosecutor, directing his passion for justice towards holding insurance companies accountable and financially supporting those in need.
The Road to Law Firm Success:
Transitioning from being a courtroom advocate to a financial strategist, Brian faced the universal challenge of lifestyle creep, especially after purchasing a Maserati following his firm’s success. He candidly shares the financial hardships this brought on and how it reshaped his approach to business management by establishing a clear mission, vision, and core values for sustainable success.
Community and Camaraderie in Legal Practice:
The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast delves into Brian’s deep connection to his community, with initiatives in safety education, Hispanic unity, and support for organizations like the Pace Center for Girls. This, combined with his commitment to weekly one-on-one leadership meetings and daily huddles, exemplifies his belief in strong team dynamics and effective communication.
Brian’s Secret to Business Growth:
Listen closely as Brian recommends pivotal resources like “Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits” by Greg Crabtree to grasp the financial intricacies of running a business. He underscores cutting unnecessary costs, being debt-savvy, and initializing systems like the EOS for high-quality meetings.
A Passionate Path to Justice:
Track Brian’s progression from a notable presence in moot court competitions to a position in Janet Reno’s office of the United States Department of Justice. His experiences honed his legal skills, transforming his practice into a haven for civil justice prosecutors, despite the rocky journey through economic downturns and overinvestment.
Concluding with Personal Resolve:
As the episode wraps, Brian and Darren discuss the significance of finding one’s why. Brian’s personal experiences of growing up in a community influenced by the KKK, being a Jewish minority, and his strong sense of justice, propelled him to never lose sight of his goals, both personally and professionally.
Closing:
“The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast” delivers not just a biographical sketch of a fascinating individual but presents a blueprint for any law practitioner striving to fuse legal success with astute financial growth. For the full breadth of Brian LaBovick’s remarkable insights, be sure to listen to Episode 46, and don’t forget to subscribe for more compelling content from leaders shaking up the world of law and finance.
Resources:
Connect with Darren Wurz:
- dpw@wurzfinancialservices.com
- 30 Minute Chat With Darren
- Wurz Financial Services
- The Lawyer Millionaire: The Complete Guide for Attorneys on Maximizing Wealth, Minimizing Taxes, and Retiring with Confidence by Darren Wurz
- LinkedIn: Darren P. Wurz
- LinkedIn: The Lawyer Millionaire
- Twitter: Wurz Financial Services
Connect with Brian LaBovick:
- Linkedin: Brian LaBovick
- Instagram: Brian LaBovick
- Website: Brian LaBovick
About our guest:
Brian LaBovick is a lawyer and entrepreneur who has earned more than $400 million for his clients after establishing his injury law practice in 1991. As one of two students selected to the prestigious Order of the Barristers as the outstanding litigator in his class at the University of Miami, Brian was hired by the US Department of Justice Honors Graduate Program after graduation.
He is now CEO of the LaBovick Law Group, an advisory board member of Keiser University’s legal education division, a past president of the North Palm Beach County Bar Association, and former director of the Palm Beach County Justice Association.
Transcript:
Darren Wurz [00:07:19]:
Have you ever considered that the ethos of your firm or the way you conduct your meetings could be just as critical to your financial prosperity as your prowess in the courtroom? Welcome to the lawyer millionaire, where the world of law meets financial acumen, crafting the roadmap to prosperity for law firm owners and seasoned practitioners alike. I’m your host, Darren Wurz. Here to navigate the complex intersection of legal expertise and wealth management with you today, we welcome someone truly exceptional in the realms of law and business, Brian LaBovick. Brian’s not only a recognized lawyer and entrepreneur, and, as I found out today, an actor, he’s also an innovator in the legal industry. He has a great track record, securing over $400 million for his law clients. As the CEO of LaBovick Law Group, he believes strongly in the importance of having a clear mission, strategic marketing, and corporate culture in legal practice.
Darren Wurz [00:08:29]:
Brian, it’s great to have you here with us today.
Brian LaBovick [00:08:32]:
It’s wonderful to be here, Darren. Thanks for having me.
Darren Wurz [00:08:35]:
Yeah, certainly. And I heard you mentioning a little bit of your background before we got started here. I understand you did some boxing earlier in life. I’m curious if you could share with us what inspired you to enter the field of law.
Brian LaBovick [00:08:53]:
There’s a story that goes with that, right? Like all things that start, I grew up in Dayton, Ohio, for the most part. I went to high school in Dayton, Ohio. I had two very close friends. One of them wanted to be in mergers and acquisitions in New York City, a very bright guy, and the other one wanted to be a doctor. And I was caught between those two guys, and I leaned toward science. I leaned toward the doctor. I really like medicine. I like the human body.
Brian LaBovick [00:09:20]:
And so I was on my way to being a doctor. I was taking AP physiology, AP biology, AP chemistry in high school, and we were all doing relatively well. And I got a traffic ticket, and I went and I defended the traffic ticket. And in Ohio, I’m sitting there with my mom, and we’re getting ready to go into this traffic hearing, and in. And there’s a million people to walk in. They do these traffic hearings, like, ad nauseam. But in Ohio, with this traffic ticket, I actually had a prosecuting attorney who came over to me and said, hi, it was a young female. I’m whatever my name is, and I’ll be the prosecuting attorney, and we’re going to be doing this for you.
Brian LaBovick [00:10:01]:
And I freaked out. I was like, there’s a prosecuting attorney. Like, what’s going on here? This is crazy. I don’t understand. My mom is like, just relax. I’m like, we got to call a lawyer. Like, call one of your lawyer friends. No, you got to do this yourself.
Brian LaBovick [00:10:13]:
That’s the way it is. I went through that process of being my own lawyer in that right. And the judge kind of instructed me on what to do. I made a lot, like, immediately made a lot of mistakes. I tried to interrupt her opening statement. I talked over people. The judge was very instructive on wait. But when the prosecutor called her first witness, which was a police officer, I had a pad of paper, and I started writing down questions because he was wrong on the facts of what happened in the accident, which, in a traffic accident, it’s invariable that the police will not remember the accident.
Brian LaBovick [00:10:48]:
But I didn’t realize that as a kid. And I got up and I cross examined this kid, this person, this police officer, so well that at the end of it, he was so backwards that he admitted that the sign that was. It was a right turn on red sign, the sign that said no right on red was out of place, and that it was hard to see because there was a blocking stop thing in front of it. And so he admitted basically that there was reasonable doubt. And I got off. Right when I got done with that process, the judge asked my mom and I to go back into chambers with her, and she sat down and talked to us about what you’re going to be. And I said, I’m going to be a doctor. I’m going to go to college.
Brian LaBovick [00:11:26]:
And she goes, my friend, you are not going to be a doctor. You are going to be a lawyer. What you did in there with the cross examination, your ability to speak in public, your articulation, like everything about you as a high school student, was exceptional. You need to be a lawyer. That turned me on to doing this, and I never looked back. I never looked back. And from that moment forward, I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a trial lawyer.
Brian LaBovick [00:11:48]:
I wanted to be in court. I wanted to do that entire process of convincing six people to go my way, and I was a prosecutor. I wanted to be a prosecutor is what I really wanted to be.
Darren Wurz [00:11:59]:
That is such a great story.
Brian LaBovick [00:12:02]:
Thank you.
Darren Wurz [00:12:02]:
I love that. Yeah, really.
Brian LaBovick [00:12:04]:
And it’s been my whole life. I never have turned away from that. My whole life.
Darren Wurz [00:12:08]:
Yeah.
Darren Wurz [00:12:09]:
Cool. Well, like you said, you wanted to be a prosecutor. So how did you go from that to starting your own injury law practice? Tell us what happened there.
Brian LaBovick [00:12:21]:
I was a prosecutor. When I was in law school, I was very active in the moot court mock trial competitions. I pretty much signed up for every single thing. I was on all of the major trial competitions. I was even negotiations, like any competition I was into. So I was order of the barrister, which there are two people selected for order of the barrister in each law school class. So I was one of two. And that got me an interview with the United States Department of Justice.
Brian LaBovick [00:12:57]:
I had also been interviewing with Janet Reno’s office. My wife got a job, my fiancee at the time, but got a job with Janet Reno as a prosecutor. I ended up getting an offer in the honors graduate program at the Department of Justice. So I got to get in early with the DOJ and be a prosecutor. And then I was prosecuting criminal aliens for the first couple of years on my practice. And that’s how I got to be a prosecutor. And what I found out is that I didn’t just love being a prosecutor. It’s a great job.
Brian LaBovick [00:13:31]:
I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a great job. And if you want trial experience, it’s the best job you’ll ever have. PD is also a good job. But honestly, in my opinion, the prosecutor job is the harder job because you have the burden of proof. And when you have the burden of proof, there’s more of an onus that rests on you. When you’re the defense lawyer and you can poke holes, you have a lot of weight on your shoulders because you got a human being that’s going to go to jail if you don’t do your job well as a criminal defense lawyer, but you don’t have as hard a job in the trial. So I started out as a prosecutor. I learned that craft.
Brian LaBovick [00:14:09]:
And then I realized that I needed more independence. I needed more freedom. I was an entrepreneurial person. I’ve always been an entrepreneurial person. And so what I do now is prosecute civil cases. And I used to call myself, and I trademarked civil justice prosecutor because I wanted it to be clear the identity of who we are, that we are fighting for justice. I consider PI law the same thing as being a criminal prosecutor. We’re just civil justice prosecutors.
Darren Wurz [00:14:42]:
Yeah, in many ways, for sure. Very cool. A great transformation there. And so then you went out and you started your practice. How did you go from, in that moment, just starting out fresh, to today as the CEO of labovic law group? I mean, that’s been an incredible growth journey. How did that transpire?
Brian LaBovick [00:15:07]:
I’ll try to do this quickly because it was a three phase of my career. Right. When I first came out and I started the business, I was a trial lawyer, and I was failing up, basically, in my opinion. When you start your practice and you’re small, you don’t need a lot of cases or a lot of success to be successful. You can make a lot of mistakes. You can make a lot of business mistakes, and you think you’re successful. And we were successful being poorly run. And that’s really what happened, right? I had this great business model, which was trying cases and being an aggressive person and trying cases for people that would tell people.
Brian LaBovick [00:15:53]:
And then a little bit of advertising. And from 1994 until 2008, we shot up and everything was great. The world changed from, like, 2008 until 2012. We went through a really hard period of economic change in 2008, through hubris on my part. I was overinvested in everything that you could possibly be overinvested in. That was bad. I had real estate, I had leveraged the firm, and I thought everything was just going to keep rolling and it was going to be great. And the world came to a stop.
Brian LaBovick [00:16:34]:
But the need to pay that debt load didn’t come to a stop. And I didn’t have equity where I thought I had equity. And it was hard. I don’t know how I avoided bankruptcy, honestly. I think a smart businessman probably would have gone bankrupt. But we fought, and it took five or six, seven years to really get everybody paid off, get everything out of debt, come back into a place that was good. So there was that middle transition period, which was like the caterpillar in the crystallis and coming out and saying, okay, now I got to be different. So I came out of that experience realizing that not having any business background was a really bad thing to try to run an organization.
Brian LaBovick [00:17:16]:
And I jumped into education, and I tried to read every possible business book that was out there. I went to every seminar, I joined every mastermind. There’s probably no masterminds that I haven’t been a part of in some way, shape or form. And so I learned a lot. And as I learned, I changed. And as we changed, we grew back slowly. And I’ve got to give credit where credit is due. I’ve got some great people in my organization who helped me create a leadership structure that allowed us to really grow into a much more significant business system.
Brian LaBovick [00:17:57]:
And now I don’t try cases any longer. I only work on the business, not in the business. I have spectacularly good lawyers that work with me that I trust. And I’ve got great leadership. I’ve got a CEO, a chief marketing officer, a chief technology officer. Got a lot of infrastructure. Most firms don’t have it. And so I’m doing the field of dreams.
Brian LaBovick [00:18:20]:
Build it, and they will come type thing.
Darren Wurz [00:18:23]:
Yeah, I love that. Okay, so let’s unpack this a little bit, because there’s so much here I want to dive into. I think so many law firm owners are in that middle phase still. Liquidity is really tight. They’re pushing the margins everywhere they can. They really, really want to grow. Tell us about that transformation. How do you transform from that place where you’re, like, in growth mode, there’s very little reserves in the firm’s account, in your own account, to getting to a place where you have that infrastructure now and things are running smoothly now you can breathe a little bit more easily, right?
Brian LaBovick [00:19:05]:
Yeah.
Darren Wurz [00:19:06]:
How does that come about?
Brian LaBovick [00:19:10]:
I believe that there is magic in writing down what you are and what you want. The Simon Sinek why concept is really important, and I think that you have to write all of that down. And once you do that, magically the world changes for you. So there are things that you need to get clear on. Right. The first one is why you’re doing what you’re doing. What are you doing this for? What drives you? What’s the thing that you’re trying to do in the world that’s good? And you just keep asking why? To whatever you’re doing, like, I’m representing injured people. Why? Because I like making money.
Brian LaBovick [00:19:50]:
Why else? It makes me feel good that they’re doing. Go back as much as you can and get to your why. Right? And say, okay, so that’s why you want to do this. Okay, what do you want? What do you want? Get down to what you want. I want a firm of 300 lawyers and 700 staff, and I want to be in 52 cities. Write it down. Be clear about what you want to write down. And then, sorry, workers around in the apartment.
Darren Wurz [00:20:22]:
Yeah. So the why goes deep. It goes to personal. Sometimes when I’m asking clients initially about their why, it’s all business. It’s all money, it’s all business. And it’s like, okay, now let’s get down to the core of it. Like, for you personally, what kind of life do you want to lead? That’s really where it’s at. Tell us about your why.
Brian LaBovick [00:20:51]:
My why? It’s interesting. We all come from a place of where we grew up. Like, there’s a deep seated thing in our head about what motivates us and drives us. Right. I grew up, like I said, in a northern, small city in Ohio. I grew up believing and feeling the pressure of being a minority in a know. As a jewish kid in Northgateon, Ohio, where there was a group of kids in our school whose parents were all in the KKK. There was a real pressure about being jewish in that school.
Brian LaBovick [00:21:30]:
There was only a few of us. And I grew up feeling like the other in a big way. And we got bullied, and I didn’t like being bullied. And I grew up with this hatred of bullies, like, just a true hatred of bullies. And I had this experience growing up when my dad made me go out and get in a fistfight where he was just like, I don’t care. I don’t care if you get beat up. I will beat you up worse in here if you don’t go outside and fight.
Darren Wurz [00:21:56]:
Oh, wow.
Brian LaBovick [00:21:57]:
So I had this very tough dad, and my dad made me go out and do that. And that changed the course of how I felt about bullies and how to fight back about bullies. And even throughout high school, I had some kids that were not comfortable fighting in high school, and I fought for my friends in high school. So that’s what I grew up with. And I feel like my dad worked for an insurance company growing up, and he would come home upset because he would have sold somebody a policy that they were relying on, usually a farmer or a plumber. My dad didn’t sell high end insurance. He sold life insurance and he sold annuities, and he sold financial planning to middle income folks, normal folks who needed this for their life to be able to retire and have some financial security. And what would happen is that he would come home upset because they would have left something off in the policy unintentionally, and his company would be canceling.
Brian LaBovick [00:22:57]:
So, you know, Mr. X takes out a policy, and three years later, two years later, he passes away because of a heart attack. And then the insurance company says, oh, you didn’t mention that, like, twelve years ago, you had a headache and you were in the hospital, and they said that you might have an aneurysm. There’s something in your history that you left out, and they will look for any reason to bully you and not pay you. And I develop a hatred for those insurance companies for the way that they treated their people. Listening to him talk about when he would be frustrated with them. Now, I didn’t hear the good stuff. I never heard, like, oh, my gosh.
Brian LaBovick [00:23:35]:
Mrs. So and so is going to be paid for life because the insurance company paid off. He never mentioned that stuff. So all I heard was the bad stuff. And I really have a deep seated dislike of insurance companies in my head.
Darren Wurz [00:23:46]:
Yeah.
Brian LaBovick [00:23:47]:
So that’s why I made the transition from being a prosecutor into being bullying back. I like to bully back the insurance companies. I get a great pleasure out of knowing that I’m taking money from an insurance company and giving it to a human being.
Darren Wurz [00:24:00]:
That is deep. I can tell that you have really spent some time thinking about this and meditating on your own. Why? And I love that. I love that it’s so specific and it’s so real and raw. That’s really excellent. I want to ask you something else. This is another personal question, but it’s a question that’s been burning a hole in my mind recently. So I want to ask you this.
Darren Wurz [00:24:30]:
How has building a successful law practice impacted you and your family and your lives? And the background for this question is many law firm owners that I speak with struggle with lifestyle creep. As their businesses get more and more successful, they spend more and more money, and as a result, they are still on the struggle bus, like, still struggling to find ways to really save money and really even start to build wealth, the kind of wealth that they need in order to have that financial freedom and that time freedom that they really wanted in the first place, in spite of having a multimillion dollar business. So I’m curious, have you experienced this in your own life, either in real terms or being tempted to expand your lifestyle that way, or how has that shown itself for you, and how have you combated that?
Brian LaBovick [00:25:27]:
So I did that whole thing up until 2008 or nine, when things crashed. And I have this very specific recollection that at the end of a year, right at the end of 2007, beginning of 2008, when you got the feeling like things were kind of, like, too high in the market, and I had gone too far, and I felt like I had pushed a little bit too far. I purchased the house before I sold the house, thinking, oh, I’ll be able to sell that house for a lot of money, no problem. And that house didn’t sell. And then we got caught and it dropped, and it was terrible, right? I bought a building, a big 10,000 square foot building, commercial building, thinking that it was going to go gangbusters, and it went right un gangbusters. And this was the thing that would be. And even though I knew that things were kind of a little bit shaky, I always thought, oh, I’m going to work my way out of it. It’s going to be great.
Brian LaBovick [00:26:25]:
Way back then, I bought a Maserati. This is the thing that killed me, right? So I buy this Maserati, and it was because I put it on my vision board. Like, if I make a certain amount this year for the firm gross a certain amount, I’m going to get a Maserati. And we made that amount. And I felt like if I didn’t get it, I wouldn’t be following through on the dream vision of making things happen. So now I’m obligated. I kind of knew I shouldn’t get it, but I got it. So I get this car.
Brian LaBovick [00:26:57]:
It was the worst thing I’ve ever purchased in my life. Honest to God. Like, the very first thing that happened is that I drove over, driving it, almost driving it home. It was like maybe the first day or two I drove over a pothole. The pothole was this deep. I mean, it wasn’t big. It blew out the tire, dented the rim. It destroyed the car somehow.
Brian LaBovick [00:27:20]:
I don’t know how, but it was like a $3,000 fix on, just like, going over pop. And it was like a stab in the heart. And that car broke. Honest to God, that car broke every 300 miles, and you had to take it into Ferrari to get it fixed, because we didn’t have a Maserati dealership, so it had to go to Ferrari. The guy at Ferrari, Luigi or Giuseppe, or whatever guy they came over from Italy that would fix it would come out in a spotless white mechanic outfit. Mr. Lebovic, it’s a good thing I got it. It’s a good thing you needed an oil change.
Brian LaBovick [00:27:58]:
It’s a $3,000. I mean, it was like everything was $3,000. It could be like, I looked at your car. It’s $3,000. It cost me so much money. And it was like one of these things that said, you deserve this, because you knew you shouldn’t do it. You knew it was a bad decision. You overspent, and this thing is going to haunt you.
Brian LaBovick [00:28:18]:
And it haunted me for a long time.
Darren Wurz [00:28:21]:
Wow.
Brian LaBovick [00:28:21]:
And like I said, we crawled our way out of that hole, and when we did it, I swore to myself I wasn’t going back into that hell where the tail wags the dog. And so there was a lot of steps. I mean, there’s a lot that goes into building a business. And if people are listening, like, what are my first steps? Your first steps are find your vision. Find your why and who you are and what you want to be. Get a mission. Know what your mission is. Make it clear.
Brian LaBovick [00:28:53]:
Know what you want your mission to be. Our mission is to maximize justice by aggressively fighting for our clients rights. Like, there’s no human being on my team that won’t say it that fast, that easily. We start every single meeting with it, and then you need to know your core values, like, get to who you are, know what you want to do, and then behave within those core values. So we have four core values that are very clear. Fight to win, passion to serve, relentless innovation, and own it. And when people buck us, I can almost invariably tie it to one of those core values that they are not exhibiting. Right.
Brian LaBovick [00:29:26]:
And that makes it easy to teach your team how to do things. So that’s kind of behaviorally getting everybody moving on the bus in the same direction. And then you’ve got to get really good on your numbers, which I didn’t realize beforehand. I had no concept that a balance sheet and a profit and loss had any meaning at all beyond how is it red? Or how is it black? And that was it. I looked at two numbers. I had none of that. And if you want a good book that really gets to the heart of that, it’s called simple numbers. Straight talk, big profits by Greg Crabtree.
Brian LaBovick [00:30:01]:
And that small read. I’ve read a gazillion books on money and finance and good, great and culture, as well as business systems. There’s great books out there. Great books. Vern Hardish’s scaling up is great. Gino Wickman’s Eos is great. I’m like, there’s a lot of great books out there. But this particular thin analysis of how to run a business on the numbers was the first thing that hit me over the head hard and said, you can do this if you follow this plan.
Brian LaBovick [00:30:34]:
When we got clear on that and I started cutting things out that were unnecessary, we started to get clear on what we were going to spend our money on. We got everybody clear on the mission. We got out of 100% of our debt. Like, we got down to zero debt. And now we accumulate debt strategically, depending on what we’re doing, in a very clear, very organized business plan, where no one’s stepping out of line to chase a shiny object over a hill, which is my biggest problem. Right? Like, I’ve always wanted to chase a shiny object. I’m the dog in up squirrel there.
Darren Wurz [00:31:14]:
Yeah. Wow. That was a great story, by the way. I really appreciate you sharing that with us in what you learned in 2008 and going through all that, the whole experience, especially with your car. How do you maintain that balance? There are things on our vision board we want to achieve. We feel like we should have them. But how do you strike the balance, and how do you make sure that you are staying where you should? You know what I mean? And not extending yourself too far. What’s been the secret for you?
Brian LaBovick [00:31:51]:
Team consensus and relying on other good people to keep kind of the vision of where we’re going in check. Right. So five years ago I came out with a very clear vision of where I wanted the firm to go to get people there. I detailed out every year, like every year, what we would do each year to get to that vision. And because I could do that because I had that for them, they could envision it with me because until I did that, I could say, oh, we’re going to be $25 billion firm in five years, let’s go do it. Right? You can say that, right? But then one person runs this direction, one person’s running that direction, you’re saying, charge, and everybody’s going their own way, right. But if you say, okay, here’s the plan, this is what we’re going to do, this is what we’re going to do. Do you guys agree to that? And you get consensus and then you say, okay, let’s detail out how we’re going to do it.
Brian LaBovick [00:32:46]:
Like everybody’s role, everybody’s job, everybody’s thing. And what you said at the beginning of this, right, what you said at the beginning of this was so important because once you do all of this big vision, kind of high level, 300,000ft above the world, looking down vision stuff, you need to be able to execute it. And that’s meetings. And people say, oh, meetings, how many meetings you need? If you don’t have great meetings, you aren’t going anywhere. You can have all the vision you want in the world, but you’re not going to keep people moving forward in a way that’s productive. And we continue to push the efficiency of those meeting structures in the firm to continue to push forward progress. And as you get better at meetings and as you get more organized with meetings and as people learn their role in the meetings and what’s going to happen after the meetings, as you create accountability systems from the meetings, so that in the next meeting you’re accountable to fix what was done in the previous meeting, you get that forward flow. I mean, the concept of running meetings is what makes things go forward.
Brian LaBovick [00:33:54]:
So create a team that you trust, have a vision, have them rein it in so that you know where you’re going, get good direction and then plan it out and have the meetings to make that action happen. That’s the secret.
Darren Wurz [00:34:06]:
Yeah. Tell us about the meetings. What are some of those key aspects that people could implement right away that make meetings more successful?
Brian LaBovick [00:34:16]:
So you need to pick a system and you need to read and learn the system. There’s like ten systems out there on meetings, but the one that we use that worked for us is the EOS system. I find it to be a really good, moderate meeting amount or systems. It’s not as many as Vern Harnish’s. It’s not as few as Cameron Harold’s, but it’s this middle ground of very efficient reading. So you can read a book called Traction by Gina Wickman or a book called get a Grip by Gina Wickman, which is kind of the Pat Lyncione allegory tale of how things come true in the system. Right. You can read the advantage by Pat Lyncione.
Brian LaBovick [00:34:58]:
That’s another meeting system that’ll give you a really good structure. But our meetings are built on that EOS system. So the key for us right now are two systems of meetings. So I’ll just tell you my meetings, all of our meetings, our meeting cadence, because that’ll probably be okay.
Darren Wurz [00:35:17]:
Yeah.
Brian LaBovick [00:35:17]:
So biggest meeting is every year we have an annual all hands on deck meeting. We bring everybody in from around the United States. We’ve got almost 80 or 90 people. We had a little over 100 people, but we’ve been down, so now we’re like 97 people. Brought them all in, sat them all down, and told them what the next year is going to be about and got everybody on board. So that’s a one time a year big meeting. We have quarterly leadership meetings. So quarterly, the leadership team goes off site to plan big things and make sure that that quarter’s goals, which we call rocks, that the quarter’s goals are clear.
Brian LaBovick [00:35:54]:
Right. Because we’ve gained in size. We have a second day, all day off staff, off site for mid level management. We call it mid level management. So we have the leadership meeting, then we have the mid level manager meeting, which we have all of our directors of all the divisions in the firm come in. If you’re managing people, you’re in that meeting. It’s a big meeting. And we tell them, this is what we did yesterday.
Brian LaBovick [00:36:19]:
You guys are going to help execute this plan. Let’s all get everybody on board. This is what we’re going to do in the next quarter. Let’s talk about it. We also have them do a book club. So everybody reads a book, a quarter. Leadership reads a book. Management reads a book.
Brian LaBovick [00:36:33]:
Usually they fall down so that leadership will read it, then management will read it, and then we can talk about it. And everybody keeps moving forward in the management education system. So that’s big picture. Then we have weekly meetings. Our weekly meetings are. The first one is our leadership meeting. We have what we call a tactical meeting, and that’s an EOS derived level ten meeting. So we go through a very clear analysis on that meeting.
Brian LaBovick [00:37:02]:
The structure is every year we do identity. Like I said, every meeting starts with vision of who we are, mission statement, we all say it together, core values. Then we move to Elizabeth. Now, the CEO runs these meetings. So we do KPIs. So we have our KPIs. We see who’s doing KPIs. We look at quarterly rocks.
Brian LaBovick [00:37:23]:
Who’s on track for their quarterly rocks. Anything that’s wrong in those first two areas falls down into issues and to do so then we have a to do. Last week you were supposed to do this. Did you get it done? If you didn’t, why not? Are we going to keep it on? Are we moving it off? Is it a bigger issue? And then bigger issues drop to the bottom. It’s a 1 hour and 30 minutes meeting. You grade every meeting, zero to ten. You want your meetings to be nine or ten right at the end. And if you’re not getting there, then you got to figure out why we’re not.
Brian LaBovick [00:37:51]:
So that’s how we move those issues forward. And then leaders all have weekly one on ones with their direct supervisors. So everybody, if you lead a person, you’re going to have a one on one with that person once a week. And if you are led by a person, so you might have two one on ones. One where you’re a subordinate, one where you’re a superior. And that makes sure everybody’s on board, staying happy in the firm. What we don’t do particularly well is a daily huddle. That’s something that I think is really important for teams to do.
Brian LaBovick [00:38:26]:
I like the teams to have that daily huddle just to get your group together, at least your small group, whoever you lead. And every day say, okay, guys, good morning. How is everybody? How y’all checking in? We’ve got a lot to do today. This is what we’re know. Joanne, you’re doing this, right? Andy, you’re doing that. I’m going to do this. All right, we’ll talk at the end of the day. Talk to you later.
Brian LaBovick [00:38:46]:
Just keep communication flowing. That’s our meeting.
Darren Wurz [00:38:50]:
Great. You know, a lot of people hate meetings, and I think they hate them because there’s no structure and there’s no system. So I think that what you outlined, there is a much better approach, for sure.
Brian LaBovick [00:39:02]:
I think they hate them because they don’t have trust. I think that when you’re with a bunch of people and you’re afraid to speak your mind or you think something or you don’t like the person next to you, it makes meetings foolish, and no one wants to say the truth, no one wants to express, no one wants to have the fight unproductive. And then you have the meeting after the meeting in the bathroom. Then three men go into the bathroom and they’re peeing, and they’re like, I’m not doing this. Are you doing this now? I’m not doing this, right. Or three girls are in the bathroom and they’re talking about whatever.
Darren Wurz [00:39:32]:
Well, that’s great. I feel like we have a whole conversation on all of that, but that’s some really great insight there, Brian. Unfortunately, we kind of come to the end of our time here. It’s been great having you. I would ask you about your millionaire mission, but I think you already outlined that for us, which is great, your core vision there. But in closing, would you please share with us a little bit about some of the other stuff, some of the other work that you do? You have some books out, and then tell our audience how they can learn more about you.
Brian LaBovick [00:40:05]:
Okay. You can learn about me at my name, Brian LaBovick. If you type that into Google, you’ll come up with everything that I pretty much do. We have two foundations that we run. One is called Safety for Life, where we teach high school kids about safety items that are very important. Human trafficking, police interaction, traffic safety, and Internet safety. That’s the mission of safety for life. We also have, through my wife, Cuban, female attorney, runs a foundation called Hispanos Unidos in Palm Beach county, where we take all the siloed hispanic communities, the Puerto Ricans, the Argentinians, the Cubans, and we all put them into social structures so that the businesses can all get together and learn about each other and grow the hispanic community.
Brian LaBovick [00:40:48]:
So those are two of the fun, cool things that we do. We’re very involved in the pace center for girls also. If you want to know about that, look up pace center for girls. Yeah, we’re out in the community. One of our things is passion to serve, and that’s serving our clients, but also serving the community. So we talk a lot about that in the firm. And I wrote a book. It’s called not a good neighbor because I don’t like any of the Allstate or state farm people.
Brian LaBovick [00:41:19]:
I was going to call it Snake Farm, but I thought that was too aggressive, and it’s about how to settle your own PI case so that if you don’t want to hire a lawyer or you have a small case that was like, I can’t help you. We give that book to our clients. You can buy the book on Amazon. It’s in spanish and English, and it’s on audiobook if you need it. And it’ll teach you how to do your own personal injury case, because not.
Darren Wurz [00:41:40]:
Everybody wants to hire a cool, very cool. Well, Brian, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been great talking with you and hearing your ideas.
Brian LaBovick [00:41:49]:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is a lot of fun, and it’s good psychotherapy. You got right in my head.
Darren Wurz [00:41:55]:
Absolutely. All right. And thank you to our listeners for joining us today. We hope that this episode has offered you knowledge and strategies that you can implement in your own practices. If you found this conversation enlightening, please consider subscribing to our podcast and leaving a review. Your feedback not only supports us, but helps other professionals like yourselves find us. Finally, for those of you who are ready to take a closer look at your financial future, I invite you to visit our website and book a call with me. Darrenwurz@thelawyermillionaire.com we’re committed to not only addressing your immediate financial questions, but also helping you law a steadfast foundation for your ongoing financial journey.
Darren Wurz [00:42:40]:
Together, we can work to ensure your financial strategy aligns seamlessly with your professional goals. Until next time, keep advocating, keep growing, and remember, here at the lawyer millionaire, we’re more than just a podcast. We’re your partner in building a financially secure future.