Streamlining Processes, Maximizing Income, and Embracing Authenticity with Jordan Ostroff (Ep. 30)

Welcome back to The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast! In today’s episode, we have an insightful conversation with Jordan Ostroff, a former prosecutor who has successfully transformed his law firm by implementing strategic automation, marketing tactics, and a deep commitment to authentic client service. Join us as Jordan shares his journey, revealing valuable insights and practical tips on streamlining processes, maximizing income, and building a thriving law firm.

Streamlining Processes and Building Efficiency:

During his tenure at the prosecutor’s office, Jordan witnessed fellow lawyers facing health issues and burnout due to long working hours. Recognizing the need for change, he implemented automation through a program called Lawmatics. This automation saved significant time by automatically handling tasks like sending customized contracts and emails to clients. With the streamlined workflow, Jordan’s firm significantly increased efficiency and client satisfaction while reducing the risk of burnout.

COVID-19 Pandemic and Remote Work Transition:

The pandemic forced many law firms to transition to remote work. Fortunately, Jordan’s firm was well-prepared with tools like Google Meet and Zoom. This smooth transition allowed them to maintain workflow seamlessly, ensuring uninterrupted service for their clients. In contrast, other firms struggled to implement necessary systems, such as case management tools, resulting in higher costs and disruptions.

Maximizing Income: Pricing Strategies and Average Case Resolution Time:

Jordan emphasizes the importance of carefully considering pricing offerings and hourly rates when determining income. By understanding various pricing models, such as flat fees and hourly retainers, and factoring in the average case resolution time, law firms can optimize their revenue potential. For Jordan’s firm, the average case took 246 days to resolve. Additionally, considering contingency fees, the time required to receive payment becomes a crucial aspect to assess.

Marketing and Networking Strategies:

Jordan openly shares his experiences and challenges while marketing and networking to grow his firm. His early struggles, including misguided attempts with marketing agencies, taught him valuable lessons. He emphasizes the need to identify the ideal client, adapt strategies accordingly, and seek guidance and knowledge sharing through networking with mentors and fellow lawyers.

Partnering with Spouse, Leveraging Strengths, and Delegating Tasks:

Growing their firm together, Jordan and his wife developed a successful partnership by focusing on each other’s strengths and delegating tasks effectively. They believe in hiring experts to solve problems rather than wasting valuable time trying to tackle everything themselves. This approach allows them to prioritize their time for more important tasks, serving their clients better, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Leading with Authenticity and Genuine Client Service:

Jordan’s commitment to authenticity and genuine client service sets his firm apart. Recognizing that clients seek their services during challenging times, he emphasizes the importance of empathetic and personalized approaches. By prioritizing client needs and staying true to their core values, Jordan’s firm establishes a strong bond of trust and loyalty among clients.

Optimized Website Conversion: Cloud-Based Systems and Technological Tools:

To ensure smooth operations and convenient accessibility, Jordan’s firm utilizes cloud-based systems like Practice Panther for case management and Lawmatics for intake and outtake processes. These tools centralize information and streamline collaboration within the firm, ensuring that team members can readily access files and serve clients efficiently. Through these optimized practices, the firm consistently provides exceptional service and maintains a competitive advantage.

Conclusion:

Jordan Ostroff’s journey is an inspiring testament to the transformative power of streamlining processes, maximizing income, and leading with authenticity in a law firm. By embracing strategic automation, marketing tactics, and leveraging technological tools, any law firm can revolutionize its approach, deliver outstanding client experiences, and achieve sustainable growth. Tune in to the full episode on The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast and start implementing these valuable insights to drive success in your own firm.

Remember, your law firm’s growth journey begins with a commitment to authenticity and a dedication to delivering exceptional client service.

Connect with Darren Wurz:

Connect with Jordan Ostroff:

About our guest:

Jordan Ostroff is a visionary entrepreneur, Managing Partner of Driven Law Fl, Host of multiple Facebook live shows, and a board member of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Florida.

From a young age, he knew that he wanted to be a lawyer, even when he had no idea what that meant. During college, he began competing in trial competitions across the country, where he was an award-winning advocate for fictitious cases.

After law school, he started his legal career as a Prosecutor for the State Attorney’s Office. There he cut his teeth in the trenches and learned how to truly be a “real” lawyer.

Today, he manages Driven Law FL, a firm focused on personal injury and helping injured victims get the recovery they deserve. His firm utilizes the latest technology and automation to provide top-level legal work, with a low volume of cases but a high touch level of care and compassion. The son of a postal employee and a substitute teacher, he is the first lawyer in his family, and with no business experience, his first few years of running a firm were incredibly difficult.

He was consistently taken advantage of by marketing companies because he didn’t get it and didn’t know what to ask for or what to look for. Having been faced with the prospect of learning how to run a successful business or close his firm and file for bankruptcy, he chose the latter. Now Jordan works 2-3 days a week, usually 20-25 hours each week.

Board member of his local Big Brothers Big Sisters chapter, a non-profit that pairs hundreds of underserved children with professionals who mentor them for most of their lives and help them achieve success.

Jordan’s life motto is that High Seas Raise All Boats – we are stronger together and we can make the world a better place.

Transcript:

Darren Wurz [00:00:01]:
Are you a law firm owner seeking the keys to success and financial prosperity? Well, listen up. In this episode, we dive into the incredible journey of Jordan Ostrof, founder of Jordan Law, who not only reshaped the legal landscape, but also unlocked the secrets to building a thriving law firm while achieving remarkable financial milestones. Welcome to another episode of The Lawyer Millionaire, where we delve into the minds of successful entrepreneurs in the legal industry. I’m your host, Darren Wurz, and today we have a remarkable guest joining us. I’m thrilled to introduce Jordan Ostroff, founder of Jordan Law, a digital first firm that has rapidly grown into becoming a prominent force in Central Florida. Jordan, welcome to the show, and thanks for joining us today.

Jordan Ostroff [00:00:56]:
Darren, thanks for having me, man. With that welcome, I wasn’t sure if there was another guest that we were still waiting on, but I’ll take it.

Darren Wurz [00:01:02]:
Yeah, I pumped you up real good here. Absolutely. Well, you are successful, and you have done some remarkable things as an entrepreneur, as a law firm owner that we want to hear all about. Let’s start with your journey. Can you share with us a little bit about how you came to launch your own law firm and how you grew it from a modest setup to a larger firm now spanning Central Florida?

Jordan Ostroff [00:01:26]:
Sure, man. So I wanted to be a lawyer as long as I can remember. There are home videos of me at four just being such an asshole and arguing with my parents in the Perfect Ultimate Lawyerness. And at some point, I decided I want to be a prosecutor. Not knowing what that was, not even knowing what a lawyer was. But I ended up starting there. And then my wife will tell you one day. I just let her know, like, hey, I put in my notice I’m going to start my own firm. But I recall us having a slightly longer conversation than that. She doesn’t. So left, started the firm, and then had to figure out all those wonderful business owner things, like how to get clients, how to build systems, how to put things together. And I did none of those things intentionally for about three years. At worst, we were about $200,000 in debt, working 70, 80 hours a week, miserable. And then that’s when my wife told me she was pregnant with our child. And so I knew how to do something else. And so that was really the impetus for us to kind of go back to basics. Let me rephrase that. Learn the basics, implement the basics, and then kind of rebuild a firm on top of what I had already done to actually do things the right way.

Darren Wurz [00:02:34]:
Yeah. Wow, that’s an awakening if I ever heard one. For sure. So what was it? What was the big thing that you were missing that you needed to go back and learn? What were you doing that wasn’t working.

Jordan Ostroff [00:02:48]:
Sure. Well, so I have an interesting story. So basically, I came up to Orlando to go to the University of Central Florida, and there I did the mock trial team at UCF. So we did fake trial, but we got to practice, literally practice our fake trial in front of real lawyers, real judges. And then I started there as my first year at UCF or my second year at UCF. So there were people that were older than me. And then I went to Barry for law school and did trial team there. And so same thing started as a one. L had three. L’s had judges, had real attorneys helping us through the process. So by the time I left the prosecutor’s office, I had been in town for about a decade. And so I had all these referral sources having no idea how to actually network, having no understanding what cases I wanted, having just ass backwardsing into this opportunity. And so I was like, oh, this is great. I’m generating $200- $300,000 a year in referrals. I’ll hire a marketing company, and, oh my God, I’ll be a million dollar firm next year. And I wasn’t. So part of it was me not knowing what I wanted. Part of it was marketing companies not making sure I had a sales process in place. Part of it was me not following up with cold leads the same way I did with the warm referrals. Part of it was trying a little bit of everything and not putting enough behind it. I mean, I made all the mistakes, but I learned from them. So that was what was really helpful was throwing myself into the deep end and then having to figure out how to swim after I was already drowning.

Darren Wurz [00:04:16]:
I can relate to that, that’s for sure, because I did a similar thing. I went from teaching and jumped into starting a financial advisory business. So I’m familiar with that struggle and not knowing and kind of expecting success to just kind of come easy. Was that the case for you?

Jordan Ostroff [00:04:35]:
That’s a great question. I can’t even tell you that I thought intentionally enough to be able to give you an honest answer. The way I broke it down was I was making 41 six at the state, 44 or something by the time I left. So I was like, oh, man, if all these attorneys are telling me they’re doing felonies for 4000, $5,000 a pop, I need ten cases to make the same amount of money. And so I think at the time I thought, I can’t be bad enough not be able to do that. I didn’t realize what other expenses would come out. I didn’t understand how to make sure those things happen the right way on every case. As I started adding employees, I didn’t know what the next step was. But I wasn’t really worried about the money for me at the time. For better or worse.

Darren Wurz [00:05:24]:
Yeah, absolutely. So you launched out on your own. You started your practice. Did you start with an employee? Did you start with somebody or did someone come along? And what was that like for you when you had to come to the point of hiring your first employee? Tell us about that.

Jordan Ostroff [00:05:39]:
Sure. So technically, my wife and I started the firm together. She’s also a lawyer, but she was teaching at the time. So part of the other thing was, like, she had the same health insurance through teaching, so even some of the benefits of being a government employee weren’t the case for us. But she had a full time like, I launched in October 5 of 2015, so she was teaching full time at that time, so it wasn’t a huge help along those lines. And, I mean, we had $0 to launch. I had somebody who was renting me space at a discounted rate and told me he would send me cases, which he totally did, which was helpful for a lot of the overhead stuff, but we did not put anything of substance into launching it. And so eventually, I would say I started in October. So let’s say in probably January or February, I hired a law student for $10 an hour to do the stuff I really didn’t want to do, like, hey, man, you need to learn e filing, because we never did this at the state, and I don’t know how to do it now, so here it is. And then actually, it’s funny enough, we actually ended up rehiring that law student as a lawyer once he passed and went through. So clearly he did a good enough job, and I did a good enough job for him to want to come work here as a lawyer after doing the grunt work for so often.

Darren Wurz [00:06:54]:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, congratulations, because you made it through that difficult time period. You learned the things you needed to learn, and you’ve built a great law practice, and you’re loving what you do. What would you say for those who are listening, has been or have been some of the secrets to your success?

Jordan Ostroff [00:07:11]:
Sure, man. The secrets to my success, I guess let me give you the quick answer, and then I’ll give you the in depth answer. I don’t have any secrets. I actively try and share all of it that I can online for people, because I had a lot of really good mentors and still do, and a lot of other lawyers willing to sit down and talk to me for an hour through so many of these problems. Not everybody has that. So I kind of feel responsible to not keep anything as a secret. So I’ll say in terms of specific actionable things, know your ideal client. That is number one for me. Know who you actually want to work with. What kind of case is that? What does that person sound like? What is that person actually concerned about. The more that you know that, the easier it is for you to say no to bad opportunities, the easier it is for you to identify who a good referral source is. I’ll use you as the example from the financial side. If you’re an estate planning attorney who wants to work with people who have a net worth of $5 million or more, they’re probably going to their financial advisor, they’re probably going to their business lawyer, they’re probably going to their divorce attorney to ask for a referral. But if you’re trying to look for that first time family who just had a kid who needs a cheap easy will now that it matters, they’re probably the ones who don’t have those connections. So they might be going to Google, they might be going to Facebook, they might not even know they need an estate plan. So really that same type of work becomes very different. Marketing strategies becomes very different pricing points becomes very different. What you say, where you say it, how you say it, because it’s two totally different kinds of people, even if it’s quote unquote, estate planning in that example.

Darren Wurz [00:08:51]:
Yeah, that’s great. And we’ve talked about that on the show for sure. It’s so critical in whatever business you’re in. I can speak for the financial business as well. It affects your marketing, it affects your processes, your procedures, everything you do on this show. We talk a lot about money and financial, and you mentioned being in debt. I’m curious, on the financial side of running a law firm, what are some of the financial strategies, practices, or metrics that you have found have been really helpful that you put into place to make sure that you are increasing your profitability and achieving the success you want?

Jordan Ostroff [00:04:15]:
Awesome. Great question, man. So most lawyers are going to get paid some sort of flat fee, hourly retainer, whatever it is. And so from there, the biggest thing you can do is you can look at how you’re pricing your offerings, what your hourly rate is, whatever. And so there you can talk about like, hey, if I’m working 60 hours a week, I might be able to bill 30. And at X dollars I can bring in this for flat fee. If the average case takes me 4 hours, I can do, in theory, ten a week. Although obviously if you can resolve ten cases every week in 4 hours, god bless you, let me know what kind of law you do, our cases last forever. For us now that we’re pi. And so it’s contingency fee. So I look at the cases that we sign up, but then I also look at our average case resolution number, but then I also look at our average case resolution time. And so for us, it’s like 246 days, I think. Don’t quote me on that, but I’m not that far off. Okay, so ten cases come in this month, I look at projecting the average case resolution, which is about $25,000 overall, so about 8300 per case to us in 246 days. And so by doing those things and then I split it up once we file suit. Now we know the different resolution number, the different resolution time, we can change some of the projections. But really, you’ve got to look at that time element for contingency fee, because the case now is not the money now. Whereas for flat fee, you might get half down for hourly, you might know that you’re going to bill 5 hours on average in the next two weeks, whatever that is. And that becomes, like, the most important thing I see firms missing is the time it takes to get the money just as much as the average money they will get per case.

Darren Wurz [00:11:11]:
Yeah. And you got to make it. You got to pay your bills until you get to that point where you receive the money. In your experience, do law firm owners sometimes fall in the trap of being overly optimistic in their financial projections? What can you tell us about that?

Jordan Ostroff [00:11:28]:
I don’t feel like any lawyer has ever been overly optimistic about anything. What does law school teach you? It’s like every time you get in the car, put on that seatbelt, you’re going to die, you’re going to get launched out the windshield. That’s everything we read about for three years in law school is like, oh my God, that open manhole happened to catch some whatever. But that being said, I think you’re totally right from a psychological standpoint. I mean, we as humans have the planning fallacy, right? Like, we come up with a plan and we think, there’s no way I could avoid this. So probably I’d like to think we do a better job of that. I have no backing for it, except every other lawyer I talk to being the Chicken Little, the sky is falling all the time, myself included on a lot of things. But yeah, probably. They’re still probably incredibly rosy projections.

Darren Wurz [00:12:17]:
Well, I mean, even if you’re making projections that are perfectly rational and reasonable, sometimes they don’t pan out as you expect them to. Have you ever experienced that? And what strategies have you used to deal with that?

Jordan Ostroff [00:11:10]:
Yeah, I think that’s a great question. So the thing that I see a ton is you get these law firm owners that are like, I want to be a seven figure firm. And you’re like, great, how many cases is that going to take? I have no idea. Okay. What sort of staff do you need to do that? I have no idea. Okay. Do you want to be doing the work that is required for you to oversee a firm large enough to be a seven figure firm? I don’t know what that takes. So there becomes this time where you sort of have to figure out what you really want, your role to be and then figure out what you can do in that time, in that role, as well as what needs to support you. And then you have to figure out how to use money to fill in those gaps. So I used to own a marketing company for lawyers, which is going to be funny for what I say. Now, we told so many of our potential law firm clients not to hire us for marketing until you have fulfillment down pat. Like until you can be a great lawyers on 20-30% more cases than you currently have. Don’t pay money to market for cases because then you’re constantly triaging them because now you’re getting two, three, four star reviews instead of five star reviews. And so when it comes time to make those financial decisions, a lot of times I think you need to do a great job first and then try and backfill with the cases, as opposed to thinking like, oh, I’m going to do this great marketing campaign and have people banging down the door and then not be able to handle those cases the right way.

Darren Wurz [00:14:01]:
Yeah, that’s good advice. And you bring up a really good point, which is not everybody needs or wants to be that seven figure firm. It’s really about what’s the ideal life for you? What kind of business, what kind of life do you want to create? Because you can be perfectly reasonably happy being a six figure firm, you know what I mean, and keeping your overhead low. So it’s really about figuring out and I do this with clients, is going through this process of figuring out their goals and vision and really getting clear about what do you really want your life to be? And you do some work with this. Besides just being an awesome lawyers, you also help other lawyers with their work life balance and improving their law practices. What things do you do to balance the demands of running a law firm with your personal life and what strategies do you use to maintain that healthy work life balance?

Jordan Ostroff [00:14:55]:
Yeah, another great question. So I go back to authenticity and genuineness. You have to figure out who you truly are, like, what are your core values, what really matters to you. The more that you have that, the easier it is to do these things. So for me, I want to never lose sight of the fact that people hire us in often their worst time of need. They just got into a car accident. They slipped and fell. They had their bedridden on some issue with a 16 week physical therapy treatment. And so from that, we need to show up a certain way. And based upon that, I know where I’m going to fall. I can only help so many people. So my job really becomes empowering my employees so that they can help more people. How do I give them the right systems, the right processes, the right training, the right support, the right payment structure, whatever it is, for them to do an amazing job for all of our clients in that moment while also being helpful. So I like that part of it, and I like hanging out with people. So I network my butt off to generate leads for us from a networking standpoint, doing podcasts like this from a personal branding standpoint, doing content creation from a social media standpoint, and don’t do any of the legal work. I can get enough of that to cover six or seven people over there to cover what was eight or ten before I got bought out of the marketing company and whatnot because I’ve gone back to what I genuinely enjoy, which is the business strategy and the marketing aspect of it. Too many times we get these lawyers who are like, oh, I’m the world’s best litigator. I’m a great brief writer, but I’m obligated to go to lunch, but I’m obligated to join this bar event, but I’m obligated to do this. And then they’re like, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m like, Right, because you made 100 decisions to subconsciously torture yourself into doing this thing that you don’t show up the right way for me, I’m rocking the Hawaiian shirt so that I know it’s that extra little smile. I show up nicer. I’m here on a podcast with you. I love talking or I love talking with people and having these conversations. It’s really easy knowing that I’ve got an attorney upstairs who’s on a meet and confer. I’ve got a paralegal who’s drafting a demand letter, I’ve got a legal assistant who’s answering the phone when a new client calls. I’ve got a social media person who’s going through our analytics, whatever else it is that goes on at the same time.

Darren Wurz [00:17:21]:
Yeah, you’ve got to figure out where in the business of law you fit in best. And not every attorney wants to be an owner. Not every law firm owner really wants to be an owner. I have some new clients. It’s a partnership. And the one owner loves being an owner, wants to do more of the marketing and the messaging and the visioning. The other one loves being in the court and loves working with clients and wants to just do legal work. And so that’s beautiful, figuring out what it is that you love and really aligning yourself with that, and you’ve been able to kind of move yourself more into the ownership role. How have you done that? And what advice would you give to other attorneys who are trying to make that transition into more of a leadership role and have a really powerful team working for them?

Jordan Ostroff [00:14:00]:
So I love the way that you because I was going to jump in on the two partnerships, but this question gives me the same answer. So my wife and I own the firm 50 50. She’s the lawyer. I’m the business owner. And so I always tell people, listen, you want to double down on your strengths for me? How can I network twice as much as I’m doing? How can I go out for breakfast meetings and lunch meetings and happy hours? Instead, I think too many people focus on minimizing their faults. Like, how do I read 7000 pages of case law to become a good lawyers? So when it comes time from a partnership standpoint, the two people you talked about, or my wife and I, we balance each other’s faults. Maybe faults is the wrong word, especially about my wife. We balance each other’s things we aren’t as interested in. And it’s the same thing from hiring. There comes a time where you don’t have enough money. You have time. So what do I need to learn to solve this problem? But then it becomes a situation where you have money, and it’s don’t waste time solving a problem that you can pay somebody else to do better, to do faster, to figure out. Last week I had a broken garbage disposal. I hired a handyman for $100. He fixed it in 40 minutes. And in theory, I could have built at that time, or I was texting referral sources or whatever and generated a $5,000 case instead of me going on YouTube and looking up how to do this and tracking one down. And going over here and spending the hour and a half and breaking it anyway and then having to call him when water is spilling out of as business owners, a lot of times we get stuck in that mindset because we didn’t have money at the beginning. But once you do utilize that for your own time, for your own focus, yeah.

Darren Wurz [00:19:57]:
You have to leverage your expertise where it’s best suited and in your time, where it’s going to be most valuable. That’s definitely true. And speaking of leveraging and making things more efficient, you’ve talked about being a digital first law firm. I’m interested and intrigued about what that means and what inspired that and how that has really improved your client experience.

Jordan Ostroff [00:20:20]:
So I was at the prosecutor’s office for a little over three years, and then when we started, we were the vast majority of criminal defense firms. So in those six years, we had more colleagues die by suicide, stroke, heart attack at way too young than who retired. And so there came this moment where, look, I’m not vain enough to say that I was on that path, just to say that I saw so many lawyers making these same decisions over and over again, to burn the candle at both ends, to work 90 hours a week, to do whatever. It was along those lines that we had to figure out, how can we still treat the client the right way, but save some of that time? And a lot of it goes back to automation. Putting together a program like Lawmatics that will automatically send these contracts. I fill out one form, the client gets a contract that is completely customized to their specific need because we built it that way. Then there’s 30 emails that will drip to them over the next 30 days. Then it will task people to call. And doing those things saves so much time versus manually editing every contract and then sending it and then asking them to print it out and whatnot. And so we started doing a lot of this stuff in 2018, 2019, as I made the switch. And then, holy cow, on March 11, 2020, COVID shuts so many things down. And literally, we had a meeting, whatever it was like that Friday. And we’re like, hey, everybody, take your computers home if you need them. We have the soft phones that plug in. Take those home. Do we need any extra printers? No, we’ve got enough to have one for everybody. Great. Do we need anything else? No. And we’ll see you back in the office. When we come back in the office, we had zero change from any of that other than not physically seeing each other. But we had the Google suite, so we had Google meet. We already had zoom. We had all these things lined up already that it became I don’t want to say easy, but certainly easier than, I’ve got some good friends at a firm that’s Caddy cornered to us that’s been around for 70 years, and they added a case management system in May of 2020. So they did that while nobody was around each other. And I’m sure they paid 20 times as much, because whoever helped them do it was super busy with everything going digital. And now if a client wants to come to the office, great. We’ve got 2200 sqft. That’s just ours. Once every three months, somebody wants to come to the office. But we have everything designed. We’ve got the location, we have it designed. They don’t have to. We have everything in place to handle it the way they want. And so my clients, who finally found a job after 13 months, don’t need to take off work to come to their lawyer’s office to look at a document, to sign a form to approve something. We can have it all sitting in their email at their convenience.

Darren Wurz [00:23:02]:
Yeah, that’s very convenient. And people are working. People are busy. It’s difficult to find time during normal work hours to do anything, go to the doctor or anything like that, see a lawyer. You know what I mean? So if I can sit in my office or sit somewhere and talk to somebody and not have to travel, that’s really fantastic. Are there specific systems that you use or processes? You mentioned one of them. Are there others that you have found really helpful to you in your practice.

Jordan Ostroff [00:23:32]:
Like from a software standpoint?

Darren Wurz [00:23:34]:
Sure, yeah.

Jordan Ostroff [00:23:35]:
Listen, the best software is the one that you and everybody else at your firm will actually use 100% of the time. If that is a Google Sheet that everybody edits, fine. That’s better than anything else. Personally, at my firm, we use Lawmatics for basically I call it intake and outtake. So once the case is closed, then we use practice Panther for some of the case management in the middle. Practice. Panther is similar to cleo or Smokeball or whatnot? Along those lines, I just go back to please find the one that everybody will use. There’ll be some slight differences in the user interface or in the features or whatnot, but the one that everybody actually will plug data into makes it easy because otherwise you have files in one person’s head. You have files only uploaded by one paralegal over here. You’re missing what the legal assistant did on it. And it becomes so much more of a headache because now you’ve got to look in four different places. Instead of really having that one cloud based system that you can log into anywhere. I talked about, we did a 13 month cross country road trip. So I have literally handled cases and logged into our system in like 38, 39 different states. And all the information was there because everybody in the team uploaded everything where it needed to be in the exact spot that it was for everybody. And it exists like zoolander. The files are in the computer. The files are in the computer. It exists in the cloud no matter what. So that would be my biggest thing, is have that to make it easier to find things and connect across whatever distance. If it’s 5 miles, if it’s 50 miles, if it’s 5000 miles, if it’s cloud based, you’ve got the access.

Darren Wurz [00:25:17]:
Yeah, you’ve got to use it if you’re going to pay for it and use it to its most advantage. Use all the features that come with it. For sure. A lot of attorneys I’ve talked to have time in billing software but aren’t using that. They have associates that aren’t using it, and it’s a waste of money if it’s not being used.

Jordan Ostroff [00:19:57]:
Yeah, and then you end up having 14 different programs, and then you stitch them together through Zapier, and then you’re paying way more money for all the subscriptions, and then one of them updates and it blows all the Zaps. And now I got to spend time with that. I mean, there’s just 80% done by somebody else. You should delegate it. If the system will do 80% of what you want, just have one system or two systems instead of 35. It’ll make it easier to train. It’ll make it easier. You won’t have that one program that goes out of business. And now you’ve completely destroyed your whole system because that’s the hub of everything. I mean, there’s just a lot of options.

Darren Wurz [00:26:14]:
For Sure. Yeah, this is great. So, Jordan, unfortunately, we’ve talked, we’re coming to the end of our time. Here and I just want to know for other attorneys that are looking for help that really want to grow, what advice do you have additionally for them or is there anything else you’d like to add for our listeners?

Jordan Ostroff [00:26:34]:
Yeah, I mean look, I’ll do like sort of shameless plug. Follow me on Facebook or LinkedIn. I post every day about specific things know I’m seeing in the industry about when Cleo releases their yearly statistics, when Martin Del nolo does put some of those things together in a way that’s actionable for people and just I genuinely want to help more lawyers because people come to us in their biggest time of need. And if you can show up well for them, if you can’t pour from an empty cup, if you’re not burning yourself down, you’re going to do a better job for them, which then gives every lawyers a better name, because you don’t have that. Oh, I had the one deadbeat who didn’t do anything on my case. Come to find out the attorney was working 100 hours a week, which is why it was too slow and whatnot from there so happy to genuinely help.

Darren Wurz [00:27:20]:
Great stuff. I’ve got one last question for you. What does you’ve built this great practice, what’s the future look like for you guys? And then of course long long term since we talk a lot about retirement, what does your dream retirement look like? I’m curious.

Jordan Ostroff [00:27:36]:
Yeah. So what does the firm look like long term? I don’t know. If we ended up growing more, I would want to just recreate the same stuff that we have. So instead of having one pod of attorney paralegal legal assistant, go to two pods, go to three pods, whatever, but still keep that same high touch, low volume type stuff. In terms of retirement, I was listening to this awesome thing that says you want to look at not what you retire from but what you retire to. And I am really lucky in that. I work three days a week. I get lunch with friends. I play golf or top golf or disc golf or something. I go to the movies with friends all the time. So I don’t know. My concept of retirement realistically is 90% the same thing. There like maybe I would take a week off instead of taking four days off at one point. I don’t know, I get bored. I feel like my brain melts away if I’m laying on the couch doing a Netflix binge or something like so right.

Darren Wurz [00:28:40]:
Well, it sounds like you’re living the dream and that’s great advice. Look at what you want to retire to, not what you want to retire. That’s really, really good advice and stuff I talk with clients about all the time. You can’t just stop working and sit around. You’ve got to have something that you’re going towards and maybe that is to continue working just in a different capacity. It is what it is for you and what aligns with your passions and your dreams and your desires.

Jordan Ostroff [00:29:08]:
Yeah, can I jump on that for a second?

Darren Wurz [00:29:10]:
Absolutely.

Jordan Ostroff [00:29:11]:
And the beauty of having a business is how often you can not monetize what you enjoy, but create relationships across what you enjoy. Retirement and playing golf, right? That becomes a hugely popular thing. But guess what? For the estate planning attorney, for the financial advisor, for the accountant, for the business lawyer, just go freaking play golf. And buy the rest of your foursome the tea time. And go with referral sources and have fun. And set that up every month or every week with 16 different referral sources. And golf now for a living, not because you’re that good at golfing, but because that’s how you’re building relationships with the people that you can share clients with, with the people who can give you some advice if something goes wrong with the firm, with getting retirement advice. As you get closer to whatever that day is, it’s amazing to me how much we put off what we enjoy instead of using it to build better relationships and connections with people who know, help us get there, and also that we genuinely enjoy spending time.

Darren Wurz [00:30:17]:
Sure. For sure. That’s great stuff. Now, one last time, Jordan, can you share with our audience where they can find you online to learn more about you?

Jordan Ostroff [00:30:25]:
Sure. If you go to Jordanostroff.com Ostro, F, you can sign up for my weekly newsletter. Or if you look me up on social media, it’s either Jordan Ostrop or it’s Lawyer with a Life. And there’s only two Jordan Ostrops in the world, so you’ll find the Hawaiian shirt wearing one pretty easily versus the upstanding salesman Jordan Ostrop in Boston.

Darren Wurz [00:26:33]:
Sounds good. Well, thanks so much for joining us. And thank you, the listener, for joining us today on The Lawyer Millionaire. If you want to learn more, check out our website, thelawyermillionaire.com. There you can find free resources and webinars and grab a copy of my book, or even schedule a time to chat with me about your own financial goals and creating a plan to make them happen. If you enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode packed with useful advice and expertise for law firm owners just like you. We also invite you to leave a review and share The Lawyer Millionaire with your friends and colleagues who might benefit from our discussions together. Let’s empower more law firm owners to achieve even greater levels of success and freedom.

Darren Wurz [00:31:32]:
Now take what you learned today and go make your dreams a reality. I’m your host, Darren Wurz, and I’ll see you next time.