The journey from operating a local law firm to establishing a national presence is fraught with challenges and opportunities. In Episode 72 of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, titled “Scaling Your Law Firm Nationally with Eddie Dabdoub,” our guest Eddie Dabdoub, founder of the Dabdoub law firm, shares his expert insights on navigating this complex transition.
Eddie shares his journey from a small firm to building a renowned national practice in disability insurance law. Eddie reveals the importance of carving out a niche, building an efficient team, and creating a growth plan with clear benchmarks. He offers a unique perspective on running a law firm like a high-end manufacturing facility, focusing on efficiency and quality.
Key Takeaways from this episode:
1. Consolidation Trends in the Legal Industry
Eddie Dabdoub begins by addressing the notable trend of consolidation within the legal industry, where larger firms acquire smaller ones. This presents a pressing challenge for smaller firms, specifically in competing with the significant marketing budgets of these larger entities. To mitigate the risk of being overshadowed, Eddie underscores the critical importance of developing a specialized niche within the market.
2. Strategic Transition from Local to National Operations
Moving from a local to a national scale necessitates careful planning and execution. Key considerations include:
– In-House Marketing and IT Infrastructure: Eddie advises that law firms should consider bringing marketing and IT operations in-house to maintain greater control over branding and functional efficiency.
– Specialized Case Management Systems: Implementing advanced case management systems is vital for managing increased caseloads effectively and ensuring consistent service quality.
3. Journey to Building a National Practice
Eddie shares his professional journey, detailing his progression from working at a small law firm to establishing his own national practice focused on disability insurance law. He highlights the significance of perceiving a law practice as a valuable, sellable asset, advocating for law firm owners to adopt a long-term, growth-oriented mindset.
4. Formulating a Strategic Growth Plan
For effective scaling, Eddie outlines a structured approach to law firm growth:
– Benchmarks and Goals: Setting measurable benchmarks for five years, one year, and quarterly helps track progress and inform strategic decisions.
– Recruiting a Skilled Team: Building a talented team is essential for growth. Implementing incentive programs ensures that employees remain motivated and aligned with the firm’s objectives.
– Transition from Micro-Management: Trusting established processes and capable employees is crucial for sustainable growth and maintaining operational quality.
5. Benefits of Scaling Nationally
Eddie details several advantages of scaling a law firm to a national level:
– Enhanced Branding and Market Awareness: A national presence significantly bolsters the firm’s reputation and market coverage.
– Attraction of High-Quality Cases: Increased visibility at a national level attracts more complex and lucrative cases, positively impacting profit margins.
– Self-Sustaining Operations: Developing a practice that can operate independently of constant oversight adds considerable value and ensures long-term sustainability.
6. Focusing on Tangible Assets
In preparation for eventual sale or valuation, Eddie emphasizes the importance of solidifying tangible assets such as cash flow and efficient processes. Creating a self-running entity not only demonstrates the firm’s inherent value but makes it an attractive acquisition target. Darren Wurz concurs, noting the significance of a law firm that can maintain operations independently.
7. Practical Recommendations for Expansion
For law firm owners looking to expand their operations nationally:
– Develop a Comprehensive Marketing Plan: Strategically target new markets outside your current jurisdiction, taking into account key demographics and clientele.
– Maintain Rigorous Quality Control: Adopting a high-end manufacturing approach to manage cases ensures superior efficiency and quality.
Conclusion
Scaling a law firm nationally is a challenging yet rewarding endeavor that requires meticulous planning and strategic execution. Eddie Dabdoub’s insights offer a detailed roadmap for law firms aiming to navigate this transition successfully. For comprehensive financial planning and business advice tailored to ambitious law firm owners, we invite you to subscribe to The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast.
Resources:
- Book a Call 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
Connect with Edward Dabdoub:
- Linkedin: Edward Dabdoub
- Twitter: Dabdoub Law Firm
- Youtube: Dabdoub Law Firm
- Facebook: Dabdoub Law Firm
- Website: Dabdoub Law Firm
About our guest:
EDWARD DABDOUB
Founding Attorney
Dabdoub Law Firm is led by nationally-known disability lawyer Edward Dabdoub.
Born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, he is one of five attorneys in his immediate family. Since becoming a lawyer, he has focused his law practice on representing people who are entitled to disability benefits from insurance companies.
Why Disability Law?
Eddie’s passion for helping people with disability insurance claims started when he was in law school.
As a law student, Eddie helped a man suffering from chronic pain get back his long term disability benefits after his insurance company wrongly terminated payments, even though he was still disabled. After handling that case, he decided to dedicate his legal career to holding disability insurance companies accountable, and he built the Dabdoub Law Firm for that purpose.
About His Practice
Eddie represents clients at all stages of disability insurance claims. He has extensive knowledge of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) since many of his clients’ long term disability cases are governed by the federal statute.
With such a focus on disability insurance, Dabdoub Law Firm has successfully taken on the toughest opponents and have won major disability lawsuits. Big disability lawsuit wins include:
– Ashmore v. NFL Disability Plan, in which the firm represented a former NFL player who was denied benefits.
– Bradshaw v. Reliance Standard Insurance, where Eddie successfully argued to a federal court of appeal that pregnancy is not a preexisting condition that caused a stroke.
– Kaviani v. Reliance Standard Life Ins. Co., in which Eddie successfully showed that Dr. Kaviani’s evidence of disability far outweighed Reliance Standard’s evidence for no disability.
– Kaviani Win in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, after Eddie won the lawsuit for a dentist with disabling cervicalgia, Reliance appealed the case. The firm won the appeal and Reliance was ordered to pay our client long-term disability benefits.
– Millis v. Ameritas, where Eddie fought against Ameritas and their specialty own-occupation disability insurance policies for his client who was a liver transplant surgeon in Illinois.
– Gimeno Win in the United States Court of Appeals, after our client lost in district court, Eddie took the case up on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court upheld our client’s right to equitable relief under ERISA.
Eddie has experience litigating disability cases in federal and state courts against all major disability insurance companies, including:
- Aetna
- UNUM
- Hartford
- CIGNA / LINA
- Mass Mutual
- Liberty Life
- Met Life
- Lincoln Financial
- Prudential
Speaker, Lecturer & Author
Attorney Dabdoub has participated as a guest speaker at law conferences both on local and national stages, discussing disability insurance benefits and ERISA for legal organizations such as the American Association for Justice and the Florida Association for Justice.
He has also authored articles on disability insurance and advises other lawyers on disability insurance and ERISA matters.
Education & Background
Eddie graduated with cum laude honors from the University of Miami School of Law. While at law school, he was the recipient of the Ambassador Sue Cobb Scholarship.
Before attending law school, he graduated at the top of his class from Florida International University, earning a Masters in Business Administration, as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Miami.
Awards
- Recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® in Insurance Law, 2022
- Florida Trend’s Legal Elite, 2021
- Selected to Super Lawyers list, 2019 – 2023
- Clients’ Choice Award – Avvo, 2015 – 2021
- Selected to Rising Stars list, 2014 – 2017
- “Top Attorney” – Avvo
Transcript:
Darren Wurz [00:00:15]:
Should law firms function like high end manufacturing facilities, and could that be the secret to scaling and growth? Welcome to the lawyer millionaire, where we deliver financial planning insights for ambitious law firm owners so you can enjoy more time, more abundance, and less stress, even if you’re still growing your practice, growing and scaling. It’s such a huge topic that law firm owners I work with are so interested in. And, you know, one of the aspects of growing is thinking about going from maybe a local law practice to a national practice. How can you take your firm to that next level? And more so, how can you turn your law practice into a passive, income generating machine? Well, today we’re talking with Eddie Dabdoub, who is the founder of Dabdoub law firm, and he’s going to tell us all about that. Now, Eddie, you have tirelessly advanced your law firm from a local enterprise to a highly respected national practice, Dabdoub law firm. In doing so, you’ve advocated for law firms to function like high end manufacturers. I’m curious about that. That’s a little bit controversial.
Darren Wurz [00:01:36]:
And, you know, some lawyers might be a little bit skeptical of that comparison. Why do you feel like this approach is necessary to scaling, I’d say most.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:01:49]:
Lawyers, or put off by the notion that you should run a law firm like a high end manufacturing?
Darren Wurz [00:01:56]:
Sure.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:01:57]:
I actually think that the structure where the old law firm business model is thrown out and you bring in more of that high end manufacturing structure bodes well, obviously. And I’ll talk about why for owning and running a law firm, but really well, for managing your clients cases. And I can name a few examples, a few reasons why. One, the cases are on a deliberate track, just like you would have a product going down the assembly line. And at every stage, as it goes on that conveyor belt, someone with expertise touches that part of the product. But as it were, for a law practice, the case works on the case with their expertise, do it efficiently, because this is what they’re doing day in, day out, and the case continues down to conveyor belt. One of the biggest complaints clients have about attorneys are, well, my case has just been sitting there forever. Doesn’t sit right at that law firm.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:03:03]:
The conveyor belt is always moving. No case sits. It just keeps moving. Now, I say high end manufacturing product, because in the end, the quality of the legal service has to be outstanding. And so when, when our cases get to that point where we’re at the end of the road. It is a solid, high end case, just like it would be if it was a high end product. And so you have efficiency and you have quality, both working together. And it bodes well for clients, and it does well for the firm.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:03:38]:
It generates fees faster, it moves the case faster, and you end up having a law firm that’s structured with a bunch of different experts who don’t need to know everything about every part of a case, they just need to be an expert about that part of the case that they’re tasked with.
Darren Wurz [00:03:58]:
Okay, very interesting. So can you give us, like, an example of how that functions in your practice, that manufacturing process?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:04:06]:
Yeah. So I specialize in disability insurance claims. Right. So just brief background on that. Right. My average client is somebody who is sick or injured, and they can’t work anymore, and they have disability insurance, and we need to submit a claim to the insurance company, and if approved, the insurance company will know pay a monthly disability benefit to that client. So if you are a new client at Davdo law firm and you just stopped working, your claim is at the initial stage of that manufacturing conveyor belt. It goes into what we call the claims appeals department, where we have assistants who are not assigned to attorneys.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:04:59]:
Right. Like the old business model for law firms are. We have attorneys, we have associates, and each attorney or associate, they have one assistant or two assistants. We don’t assign assistance to attorneys. We assign assistance to departments. And so a new client case comes into the first department, and this is where initial claims are submitted to insurance company companies. And so the case gets assigned on a wheel, a rotation wheel, to one of the assistants, and it gets assigned to an attorney, and the attorney and the assistant pairs up for that case. And then on another case, you may have that same attorney with another assistant in that department.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:05:46]:
So the case comes into the firm as a new client, and the claim has to get submitted to the insurance company. So this is the first stage of a case in its life cycle in my practice area. And so the case gets assigned to an assistant who is on a wheel, and an attorney is also assigned to the case, and they pair up on that case to work together, and that assistant knows exactly what are the tasks that need to be accomplished and by one, and what the rules and laws that apply to this case. At this stage, in this moment, that assistant doesn’t need to know everything else, just what is her role? And it’s very defined for that specific stage of the case. There’s attorney oversight, attorney involvement, and when that claim is prepared and submitted to the insurance company, if it’s approved, yay. Great job. That case gets transferred to another department whose role is to just manage an approved claim right now, if the initial claim is denied by the insurance company, the claim within the firm and the appeals department is in itself made up of specialists whose only function is to prepare appeals at that specific stage. And let’s just say the appeal is denied.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:07:20]:
The case then gets transferred to the firm’s litigation department. And so you can see that conveyor belt visually now. Right. Initial claim department handles it, does what it’s supposed to do. Okay, it’s denied. Move on down to conveyant very quickly. Transfer that file to the appeals department. Okay, insurance companies denied it.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:07:37]:
Okay, we have to litigate. Transfer down to the litigation department. As that case goes through its life cycle, every employee that touches it is within a specific department and knows exactly what they’re supposed to do. There is no confusion of, oh, I thought that person was going to do this next or they would do this differently. Everybody clearly understands what their rules are, what’s to be done and when it is to be done, and they become micro experts within a law firm that’s already specialized in.
Darren Wurz [00:08:12]:
Okay, that’s great, Eddie. I appreciate you taking us through that process and sharing with us how that works in your practice. I imagine this is great for efficiency, for improving productivity, and all of that good stuff. Can you tell us, how did you discover this process? I mean, did you always do things this way, or where did you learn that things needed to function in more of this manufacturing style method?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:08:47]:
So it’s hard to pinpoint when and where. I figured out this is how it should work. I always knew that the traditional law firm method just wasn’t efficient and it didn’t work. But I think there’s a part of this that just came to me innately. I come from a long line of attorneys in my family and business owners. As I look back at my immediate family and extended family, I can’t think of one person, beta, cousin, uncle, aunt, who doesn’t have their own business. So I grew up in an atmosphere of entrepreneurs, and that was my norm, you know, and then, so going to college, my mindset always was, I am going to build my own. And then before law school, I did an MBA.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:09:33]:
So that, I think, was where things started to become a bit more deliberate. I knew I was going to law school, but I knew I needed an MBA first, so I took a quick stop, did an MBA, went straight to law school, and then after law school, just started practicing at a firm where it was that traditional business model. And slowly, as my firm started to grow, I realized that there was a need to have more processes in place to function in the way that I described.
Darren Wurz [00:10:08]:
Yeah. So you had the benefit of having that MBA and a little bit of business background. I’m sure that was helpful.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:10:15]:
Definitely helpful.
Darren Wurz [00:10:17]:
Yeah. Well, as you’re growing your practice, this was obviously a key part of that in scaling from the local level to more of a national firm. Tell us about some of the other key things that law firm owners need to know about that process. How do you get from local to then national having systems and processes? Yes, absolutely. Are there other areas that are really critical to that transformation?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:10:51]:
I think the first thing is the mindset. Right. We hear a lot of entrepreneurs talk about mindset, and many attorneys don’t want to go national, and that’s fine. But if you do, you have to really have that mindset. It has to be something that you’re really setting out to do. I remember when I made that decision that I was going to move outside of Florida, and why not? I had the entire United States as a legal market that is mostly untapped when you’re talking about plaintiffs firms trying to scale and go nationally. I remember going on Amazon. This is years ago, buying the biggest map I could find of the United States.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:11:31]:
It shows up at the office, and I just plastered it all over the conference room. And I remember a bunch of employees in the firm walking by, looking at it, having no clue what we’re doing. And that was just kind of the stump of me saying, this is what we’re doing, this is where we’re going. So the mindset is incredibly important, but then you need a deliberate strategy. So I sat down and I wrote out a strategic growth plan, and I created benchmarks. I created benchmarks in periods of five years. Where do I want things to be in five years? Then I created it in one year. What goal do I need to accomplish in one year? Then I did it quarterly.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:12:09]:
Where do I want to be in three months? So what I did was with a five year plan. I had a bigger view of where I wanted things to be. With a one year goal and plan, it was keeping me on task to make these large incremental steps. And with every three months having set goals within that, it kind of forces you to focus on, what do I need to get done before the first quarter is over? Then, okay, I did that check. What do I need to get done before the second quarter is over. And then the next thing you know, you’re on your way to hitting that one year goal. And then as you hit those one year goals, you look back and you go, I hit the five year goal. So there needs to be some kind of strategic growth plan in place.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:12:54]:
And then I think you hear entrepreneurs talk about this, too. The other thing to me that was hugely important was a recognition that I will not do this on my own. I cannot do this on my own. I can be the brain, the mastermind, a visionary. But I need a group of really talented and smart people. And I went out and I’ve started hiring and finding really talented attorneys. I’ll tell you, I’m very proud to say that I think we’ve got the best group of attorneys in my practice here in the entire country, and we’ve got the track record of winning really tough cases in federal court, making really good law. Then we use that law to win more cases.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:13:38]:
So there’s a core, core group of employees in my firm of attorneys, as well as assistants and mid level managers that are core and fundamental to the firm. And everybody, Darren, everybody, not just attorneys, not just partners, but everybody has skin in the game. When my law firm grows, everybody grows with it. There’s not a person in my law firm, including an assistant, that looks back five years ago, and they’re in the same place financially. And that’s a message that has resonated through the firm. What we are doing is something special. We are helping people across the country. And in doing so, you’re going to grow a firm.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:14:22]:
And when that firm grows, you’ll grow with it. And so one of the things we do is we have an incentive program where everybody is eligible for a quarterly bonus, depending on the firm’s performance and individual performance.
Darren Wurz [00:14:37]:
I love it. I love it. That’s wonderful. I want to go back real quick to what you said about mindset. What is it about mindset that needs to shift or change? Did you recognize that there were some areas of your own mindset that needed to adjust to make that shift into from local to national?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:14:58]:
One of the shifts I had to make in my mind, and this was really difficult, was letting go of the day to day managing stuff. And I am somewhat of a perfectionist, to be candid with you. And so the challenge has been, how do I scale this law firm in a way where we can have sustainable growth without compromising the quality of the cases moving down the conveyor belt? I refuse to sacrifice clients, cases and quality for growth. And then as you are growing any business, but especially a legal practice, I think lawyers run into this dilemma where they feel they have to choose between growth or keeping it small and keeping control of the quality. And so I had to make a shift in my mind to say, I have to start trusting that the processes I have in place, that the people I have running those processes, have bought into the idea of how the firm is going to function. They get what needs to be done and they know there’s a certain standard. And slowly I was able to start just. It wasn’t overnight, Darren.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:16:15]:
There’s no way overnight I would let go. But slowly I started to, um, delegate, especially to the attorneys who have responsibility here. Um, and so that was one of the biggest shifts in my mind that I had to make.
Darren Wurz [00:16:31]:
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that can be very difficult to let go.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:16:37]:
Absolutely.
Darren Wurz [00:16:38]:
And to trust. For sure. Uh, from your perspective, why should law firm owners care or why should they strive for that national thing? I mean, what does it do? What are the key benefits of going national? What would it do for them?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:16:58]:
Probably the two biggest advantages that I think one is it creates this branding, this awareness, and it becomes almost a self fulfilling prophecy where as you scale and grow on your branding, especially if you have a niche practice area like mine, you start to see that there’s a snowball effect where people are like, oh, wait, yes, that firm, they specialize, they’re really good at it. And whether it’s online branding and the SEO wheels are turning, or the PPC campaigns with Google, or just word of mouth through a nationwide network like what we have, things just literally start to spread like a bushfire. Right? And cases start coming into you. And what that does is when you start, when your branding grows and the name recognition is out there, you start all of a sudden to have cases coming to you from all over the country. You get the pick of the litter, you get to say, hey, that case is okay, but I can’t take it on right now without sacrificing some of my other cases, and I’m not going to do that. But this one’s a real winner and there’s a bunch of fees to be made here. And so you start to cherry pick these cases, which improves your profit margin. And that’s where I’m going with this.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:18:15]:
You are able, through scaling, to start to get more and better cases. You get to cherry pick the cases you want, your profit margin starts to improve. That’s a huge one, for sure.
Darren Wurz [00:18:30]:
Yeah, that increases your profits, makes you more successful that way because you can choose. And I’m curious, in your practice.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:18:44]:
It.
Darren Wurz [00:18:44]:
May also, I’m assuming, give you a greater ability to attract some of those higher value cases, perhaps. Has that been the case for you?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:18:56]:
It’s absolutely been the case. I mean, we’re getting, as the years go by, more and more calls from higher end clients. I represented a liver transplant surgeon a few years ago. We won his case in federal court. He’s reached out. He reached out to us because of our reputation that branding, and he’s not in Florida, he’s in another state. And so we are seeing people contacting us say, we’ve heard of you, right, and they hear of us from other attorneys or from other clients. There is one other important reason, as I think about it, that one might want to scale a law firm to go national.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:19:35]:
If you’ve got a plaintiff’s law firm. One of the things we’re seeing now is somewhat of a consolidation of law firms into large, massive law firms. There are a few out there that are just like these law firms with 500 to 1000 plaintiff’s attorneys and have these massive marketing budgets and they’re just kind of spreading and gobbling up all these other small firms. And so it’s becoming increasingly competitive where it is the firms with the biggest marketing budget that has the lowest megaphone reaching the most people. And so if you are in your fifties and sixties as an attorney and you have a solo practice, you may be seeing it’s getting harder and harder to get cases like you used to 1015 years ago. One of the things that we’ve been doing is by scaling the law firm, that growth model that we have. That strategy is allowing us to get more cases, more cases gives us more fees. More fees gets pumped back into the marketing.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:20:39]:
The marketing grows, the cases grow, the fees grow, we grow the firm. And so what weve been able to do is carve out our place in the market where we cant get bullied out by the big firms anymore. Maybe we cant compete with the 500,000 lawyer law firms in terms of marketing budget, but that’s not who we’re competing with. We are offering a high end manufacturing product and we’re not so small you can knock us out. We’re a good size where we’re here to stay.
Darren Wurz [00:21:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Well, making that shift from local to national affects so many things in the structure and operations of your law firm. You’ve mentioned how you use this process and this thinking to ensure client quality and everything else. How about the challenges? What have been some of the specific challenges that you encountered during that transition, and how did you deal with those?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:21:39]:
Well, we always have some challenges with any type of business, I would say. I think it’s particularly difficult on the legal side if you are, as I was speaking to earlier, in maintaining quality. So we discussed that. I think some of the other challenges is as you start to grow, it’s wonderful if you have processes in place. It’s wonderful if you have the people in place and they have expertise. But there comes a point where you go, wait, hang on. Do I need to bring it in house now? Do I need to bring marketing in house? What kind of it infrastructure do I need to. To put in place? And so it is, when you are small, you don’t need to have.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:22:29]:
See yourself surrounded by it folks. You don’t need a marketing team on the ground. And so as we’ve grown, we needed to make shifts where we have solid it in place. We have marketing, which is now hybrid in house and outside. And then I think where we are now, and this is a big challenge, is finding case management or IT systems that are specific to how you’ve structured your law firm to run. And we’ve tried several case management systems. None have worked because we have a unique business model on the practice of the law firm, as well as the intake and marketing side of the law firm. And so we’re now in the process of building out our own IT systems for case management on marketing and handling cases.
Darren Wurz [00:23:27]:
Yeah. As you get more highly specialized, you learn more about what’s really unique to your particular clientele, and you realize that, you know, oftentimes there aren’t tools that are really specific to who you’re working with. And I have found that with law firm owners, which is one of the reasons that we’ve created our own, like, financial planning system for, you know, helping people to. Helping law firm owners to manage and grow their wealth more effectively, because there are so many financial planning tools out there, but none that really I love in particular. So I can definitely resonate with that, for sure.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:24:13]:
Yeah, definitely.
Darren Wurz [00:24:14]:
So tell me, I know you have a very interesting story in how you built your business and your practice. Tell us kind of the journey about how you got started and came into law in the first place.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:24:31]:
After graduating from high school, I came to Miami more than 20 years ago, undergrad degree, MBA, and then straight to, um, law school, University of Miami. Now, it was while I was at, um, law school, I said, I remember saying, well, I’m in a second year. I’d like to get some experience clerking at a law firm, because my goal was to go back to Jamaica to practice, because my family has an established law firm there, and I was just kind of going to go back and follow that path. But in my second year of law school, I started to work as a really small law firm made up of three attorneys that were handling these types of cases. And I just really started to like the practice area first and foremost. So after graduating from law school, they made an offer for me to come on as an associate. And I said, why not let me test the waters up here? I can always go back to Jamaica if I choose. And I started practicing here as an attorney, and by my second year as an attorney, I said, I’m staying.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:25:42]:
This is what I’m doing. This is my career path, and I’m going to build the biggest and best disability insurance law firm in the country. And that was me just kind of green straight out of law school. But the first two years as an attorney, I remember working six and a half days a week because. And I was not making a lot of money as a new attorney. And I passed up big law job offers because I wanted to take that path of being a plaintiff’s attorney with eventually starting and growing my own law firm. But those two first years, I just droned myself in the practice area to become really good as an attorney in that practice area. And then shortly thereafter, I think the reality was I was probably taking on the lion’s share of cases in that firm, and it created some conflict between the other attorneys.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:26:39]:
There’s this young kid, and he’s probably handling the majority of the cases on his own, winning a bunch, settling a bunch for good money. And so it created a rift within that law firm. And so I broke off with one of the partners, joined a partnership with him, trust me, and him and I stayed in that partnership for a few years, and then eventually I said, I’m going in a different direction. I have big plans. I’m going national, and I’m throwing out the way we’ve been practicing, and we’re going to put a whole new model in place. And I broke off and went off on my own at that point. It’s been history since. We’ve been consistently growing year in, year out, based on the amount of clients we get, the amount of fees we’re generating, and the people that we’re adding to the team.
Darren Wurz [00:27:30]:
Yeah, that’s wonderful. And one of the benefits of scaling and growing and going national is that you turn your law practice into a very real, tangible asset, a financial asset that can be one day perhaps sold. And we’ve talked a lot on this show before about succession planning and transition planning and thinking about your business as a business asset that has value. I’m curious what the future holds for you and for your business. And if you started to think about some of these long term plans.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:28:05]:
Great question, and I’m glad you mentioned that because I think a lot of attorneys do not look at their law practice as an asset that has some sellable value. I always have. And so part of my thought process is, as we build the firm, as we grow the firm, how do we do it in a way where we increase the value of the firm? If the time comes down the road where I say Im going to sell, Im about. So the firm is at a point right now where I do think it has inherently a lot of value. And it is very attractive to be sold, not just because its built. Now, where I can go, here are the keys. Everything’s running really well. We’ve got a bunch of experts.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:28:46]:
We have processes in place. We have marketing. We have a good intake department. We have a nationwide network around the country of doctors and lawyers. And so you have all of that stuff to tap into. We could literally turn over the firm and say, look at all that you’re getting that are tangible assets. Because you know this, one of the problems with law firms is if you sell the firm well, can you really sell it because the firm is you?
Darren Wurz [00:29:16]:
Yeah, yeah.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:29:17]:
The cases are coming in because of you only and you’re the one managing the cases. And so if you’re not handling the cases and you’re not getting the cases, what is there to sell? Who is going to buy? It’s like a shell. There’s nothing in it. Not the way my law firm is structured. I can be taken out. And if you get a CEO to step into where I am, the firm is going to continue running just fine. So there is tangible asset. And one more thing, I would say the way ive structured my law firms fees, we have accounts receivables coming in.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:29:46]:
So now I have cash flow coming into my law firm. I dont want to say its an annuity because its still tied to some legal things, but there is a monthly cash flow thats coming into my law firm that you can now run a valuation on when you want to sell it. And so you could accurately value the firm based on what you’re getting from the personnel, the it, the marketing, the network, the people, the processes and all of that. But then you can put another tangible value of cash flow that would be coming in if you bought the firm. What kind of cash flow will you for sure be getting in the next year? Two years, three years, five years?
Darren Wurz [00:30:26]:
Right. Right. That’s great. That’s great stuff. I love it. And, you know, these are great things to think about. If you’re solo and it’s just you, it’s your personal goodwill, and that is tough to transition, but it’s the machine. Once you’ve created this entity, you’ve got those processes in place.
Darren Wurz [00:30:45]:
You have a machine as self running as you can get that. You can make that a machine that runs on its own. Yeah. Now you’ve got something that is valuable and attractive.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:30:56]:
A well oiled machine. Yes. I remember many years ago, I took one of these rare time off where I was out of the office for, like, two weeks, just disconnected. And then I came back and I’m like, wow, we did that well while I was away. I made that much money when I wasn’t here.
Darren Wurz [00:31:15]:
That’s awesome.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:31:17]:
And so if you look at attorneys that are solo practitioners or don’t have a similar business model, if they’re not tethered to their chair doing work, they’re not generating fees. I’m not built that way. I can go to Europe for a month, and the well oiled machine is going to continue running and making a lot of fees.
Darren Wurz [00:31:36]:
Yeah, that’s a great place to aspire to get to for many folks. Well, Eddie, we’ve come to the end of our time here, and I’d love to have you share with us. One more thing, though. If you’re a local law firm and you want to take that next step and scale to the national level, what’s kind of the first place that you need to think about? Am I dealing with the branding, or is it opening a new office somewhere? Where should you start?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:32:05]:
I don’t think you start with a physical office. Because of our ability to work remotely, most of my staff are not physically located in Miami. A lot of them work from home. I have people in Michigan. We have folks, different places. I think the first place to start is to think about how do I get cases outside of wherever you are? So I think the first place then is to sit down and write up a marketing plan for getting cases outside of your state. You’re probably already good at getting cases in your state. Is that replicable? Whatever you’re doing in your state can you do it somewhere else.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:32:42]:
And so what I did was I found the next two to three states that I would move into. Right. I didn’t try, don’t try to swallow the entire United States. Pick one or two states. Figure out how you’re going to get the cases from those states. It really depends on your practice area, so I can’t speak to that. Right. But you know how to get cases going to one or two states that are close by.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:33:10]:
And one last point I would make here is, when you’re choosing those states, look at your demographics. Who is the target client? Right. In my case, I wanted to target individuals with disability insurance policies. They tend to be folks who are working for large corporations where they get insurance from work. Or secondly, they’re physicians who have their own individual disability insurance policies. So as I said, I wanted to target this state. I looked at the demographics and I said, well, there are a bunch of really good corporations headquartered. They’re employing a bunch of people, and there are a lot of hospital systems there.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:33:43]:
So there are a lot of physicians in that state. So be very deliberate about that first state or two you choose.
Darren Wurz [00:33:50]:
Okay? Yeah. Great advice. Well, Eddie, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been great talking with you and you’ve shared a lot of great wisdom for our audience. In closing, would you please tell our audience where they can go to learn more about you?
Eddie Dabdoub [00:34:05]:
Absolutely. www.longtermdisability.net.
Darren Wurz [00:34:12]:
Great. And we’ll make sure and put that in the show notes as long along with all of your additional information and so folks can reach out and go and learn more about you. So thanks again for being here today. It’s been great.
Eddie Dabdoub [00:34:26]:
Thank you. I had a blast. Darren, thank you so much for the invitation.
Darren Wurz [00:34:30]:
Absolutely. A big thank you to Eddie Dabdub for joining us on the show today and sharing his insights with us. Be sure to check the show notes for the link to Eddie’s law firm, Dab Dube law firm, if you want to learn more about that and a whole bunch of other links and things we have for you in the show notes. This was a great episode. Some great takeaways, I thought. I loved what Eddie had to share about mindset being so critical to that entrepreneurial journey and the business planning, the strategic business planning that it takes, taking those long term goals and breaking them down into smaller chunks and action items along the way. Well, here at the law, here at the lawyer millionaire, we’re all about helping law firm owners maximize their wealth, and we do that through holistic planning. And some of those holistic planning areas that we focus on are the money mindset and how you improve that and transform that into a winning, wealth generating mindset.
Darren Wurz [00:35:34]:
And business planning is a part of it, too, because for law firm owners, the personal finance and the business finances are so interrelated. But the challenge that we focus on helping law firm owners bridge that gap between profitability and true wealth. If you want to learn more about that and how we help law firm owners do that, check the show notes. I’ll put the link to my calendar in there, and you can go ahead and schedule a time to chat with me and I’ll tell you all about it. All right. Well, this has been the Lawyer Millionaire podcast. I’m your host, Darren Wuertz, here to help you navigate your financial complexities so that you can focus on growing your practice and living the life you dream of. Keep forging ahead and remember, as my dad always told me, you’re a winner.
Darren Wurz [00:36:24]:
Thank you so much for being here with me today. I’m already looking forward to our next conversation together.