BizGrowMojo Episode 5 – Business Attorney Kim Reeves

From Clothing Designer to Business Attorney: A Conversation with Kim Reeves

Introduction

Welcome to the Bisgrow Mojo podcast. The podcast where we get into real talk about business ownership, growth, marketing, learning lessons, and advice with real business owners. Here’s your host, Ryan Aean. Now, let’s get down to business.

I’m pumped to get this rolling. Let’s go.

From clothing designer to business lawyer. In this episode, we talked to business attorney Kim Reeves. Kim had her own clothing design business and an MBA before realizing that law was a substantial missing piece for her that can be the cause of many businesses success or failure. So, she went back to school to become an attorney. Now, she helps other business owners with the legal challenges they face in their businesses. We talk about some of these challenges she runs into, what marketing has worked for her, use of AI and law, and much more. Let’s dive in.

Meet Kim Reeves: Attorney and Business Consultant

Thanks, Kim, for coming on to the podcast. I really appreciate it. Um, let’s go ahead and get started. I’m looking forward to getting into the weeds with you here. U, let’s just start by if you can tell us a little bit about who you are and what your business does.

Yeah, so my name is Kim Reeves and I am an attorney out of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Um, I have a master’s of business administration from my life prior to law school. And so I as an attorney basically focus my practice on um helping people set up businesses uh advises kind of a general counsel, you know, especially for small to mid-size businesses that don’t um have their own in-house counsel. So, um, and one of the things that my clients love is that I’m able to bring my business background with, uh, a marketing and entrepreneurship emphasis during my my MBA and business consulting days. um to kind of give a holistic like, hey, here’s the legal, but here’s also some help in growing and practical advice on getting a businesses up and going and avoiding some of the really common pitfalls that end up um hampering businesses um years down the line, you know, or if you end up in a lawsuit, you know, what are those what are those things that are going to hurt you that you could have, you know, avoided if you’d set up a better process in the first place?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I bet that background is is really helpful for the particular field of law that you’re that you’re in. That’s awesome.

From Clothing Designer to Law School

So, what kind of inspired you to get into the legal industry?

Um, so I actually started out my career as uh I’m a clothing designer. I’ve been sewing and designing clothing since I was three years old and um hit summer 21 22 decided I needed to turn it from a side something I did to uh a real business. So um I actually went to college and got a history degree and uh that’s not very lucrative. Um it actually came back and turned out being really really useful when I went to law school. But um so I went back got a business masters of business to kind of help me learn what am I missing? What am I how do I turn this thing that I know like I I have the skill set to do this piece but how do I turn it from you know a shop in my house to something bigger.

Um yeah, and so that that was the first step. And then when I was um working on my MBA, I was just really struck that it was like all of these pieces. It’s like this giant jigsaw puzzle and you you have marketing over here and you have compliance and you have uh sustainability and HR and all all these pieces that they teach you in business school. And I was like, I feel like there’s something missing. Like it’s like this giant puzzle, but what’s connecting them all? And then um I you know I I I laugh that you know one day I woke up and decided to go to law school um which isn’t super far from the truth. Um it wasn’t something that I had really considered long term um or we’d been planning on but um kind of came up my husband and I were going to going through some medical issues and life changes and having that re-evaluation of what we wanted to be doing with our lives. and he says, “How about law school?” And I was like, “No, I don’t want to be an eighth grade. Are you crazy?” But then the more I thought about it, I was like, you know, actually that sounds really interesting.

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So I I did the things you do to get ready for law school, took the tests. Um actually did better than I thought I would. So I was like, “Oh, maybe this is a good fit.” And it was super fun because then getting into law school, um I was a little bit older. Um, and from from my perspective, that that puzzle thing in my head where I’m like, I’ve got all these pieces, but there’s got to be more kind of pulling them together. And I realized it’s the law. The law is the thing that’s kind of connecting all these pieces. It’s kind of the glue between the pieces. And then there and there’s more pieces now. There’s also like in my practice now um I do succession planning you know and helping people who have businesses pass them on to the next generation which is never something we talked about in business school but that’s where I see most businesses fight or fail or things like that is when they lose a founding member or when you have you know a a a spouse or children come in and take ownership that then have a different vision and so um so that’s one little piece you know that I kind of added there. So, yeah, I love it actually. I love being an attorney. I love working with businesses. I absolutely hate being in the courtroom. So, I do not practice litigation really at all. Um I will assist my partners um in their litigation cases when we’re dealing with uh business related cases and things kind of again as consulting is well the code sections and this is practice and this is you know how we do this. But um so I I I play enough to help advise people how not to get there, but I I try to avoid being in a corporate as possible.

That’s understandable. Yeah, that’s amazing that you, you know, went back and did that. I’ve actually kind of thought about doing that before, too. I’ve worked with a lot of law firms over the years, and there’s been times where I’ve thought, I should have just went into law, but what’s always stopped me is like, I’m already too far down this path. I can’t start over at this point.

It’s Never Too Late to Change Careers

You know, it’s funny that you say that. So, I went back. I was in my early 30s when I went back. Um, but in my class, there was a uh he was probably somewhere in his 50s and he a Catholic priest that had left. Oh, wow. That’s quite a quite a And um we Yeah. And at the uh and a lady too in my class who was probably in her late 50s, early 60s that was coming out of insurance and she was like looking at the regulatory environment at the time saying I’m not going to have a job here and I’m not ready to retire. So she went to law school and there there was a handful of us that you know were not your quintessential 25 to 28 year old you know grad. So, it it was fun and I my understanding is every year, you know, there’s always a handful of people that are like, “Screw it. I’m going back and doing following another path, following another love.”

That’s a big challenge to just um you know, tackle and go back to if it was just a couple years of school or something, it’ be another thing, but you know, it’s it’s law. So, yeah. Well, it’s Yeah, it’s a challenge to tackle. Yeah, it’s three years full-time. And so, it’s a lot, right? Like I don’t want to like just, you know, make it sound, oh, yeah, just decide to go tomorrow. It’s it takes prep and planning and finance. You have to get your finances in order and or have a plan. So, yeah, it’s definitely a big change. There are some online options now, which has actually been one of those silver linings of co Oh, yeah. that helps a little bit is there are now a handful of online um and part-time even online part-time um ABA accredited law schools which that’s uh always one of the hang-ups is that to sit for the bar exam you have to go to an ABA accredited school in most states. So um having an online option is um I think fantastic. I hope that doesn’t go away here as we’re kind of dealing with the the leveling out of the remote learning and remote work. cats out of the bag, you know. I Yeah, I hope that those don’t go away.

Early Wins and Learning Experiences

Yeah. So, how long have you been practicing law now? And, uh, you know, what were some of the some of the early kind of wins that that really got it going?

Okay. So, um, I’ve been an attorney, um, eight years now. Um, uh, early early wins. I mean, like I said, I was coming with a lot of business experience. Um, so I kind of was in a lot of ways able to kind of step right in and help in those areas. I actually ended up uh funny thing with an eviction my I was probably my second year out of law school and I um was dealing with a breach of contract case um for a client um again uh dealing with um an employment contract that they wrote themselves which is you know one of my my big top 10. Yeah. you know, pennywise, pound foolish, do not try to write your own employment contracts yourself, right? So, um, was dealing with this breach of contract, but this client of mine and this employee of his had like co-mingled a little bit more than just business and the employee was renting a house from my client. And because the relationship had soured, um, my client wanted to move on from that relationship as well because they were next door neighbors. Um, wow. And so, uh, there was no written lease, so we we gave them like six months, you know, no rent as part of this like, “Sorry, we’re letting you go kind of thing, but hey, we want you out.” Well, they’d hired an attorney to assist them with the contracts. Well, they’re actually the ones that sued my client. So, they had an attorney that was um doing the breach of contract, so they decided to not leave and we had to evict them and they still decided not to leave.

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Um, and because there was no written lease, which is, you know, one of those top 10, too, you know, always have a contract, always have a lease. Um, we ended up in a long-term eviction um, proceeding, not one of those quick couple week ones, and they fought it all the way to a jury trial.

So, here I am in my my second, third year out of law school, and we always joke about the fact that very few attorneys actually get to go to a full jury trial. Um, and here I am, full jury trial on an eviction case that they really had no grounds to stay in the house. And it was one of those things where it was really ugly. And um, my clients were very patient and fantastic because I’m sitting here going, I I barely know what I’m doing. The best part for us is that the law was on our side, right? And the facts, you know, didn’t contravene that. So that was huge in terms of um well one learning you know I don’t really love the courtroom environment but um but again seeing uh how an unwillingness to settle and compromise pushes you to this thing where I mean a jury trial I mean it probably costs my clients $30,000 um and and that’s mostly just that back side of that with the discovery and the and the actual trial prep and trial itself. And if that’s how much it cost us, that’s how much it cost them. And at the end of the day, um, we won. They had to leave. But, uh, because of the circumstances, the the judge decided not to award attorney fees to either side. So, I mean, my clients were happy that they were able to move on from there. Um, but at the end of the day, it was like so expensive. That’s an expensive savings on uh that contract that they could had written by somebody.

Right. Yeah. And so that’s where um you know again really that lesson always have your agreements in writing have an attorney do it you know especially that that employment contract had a really funky the whole core of the fight was a bonus clause that um was missing language that as attorneys we would normally put in there like things like it’s a discretionary bonus or something or you know it’s you know after expenses and so there’s ambiguities about what were the starting numbers? Was it mandatory? Is it quarterly? Is it annual? Like how should we be doing this? And that’s where they kind of got into a fight over it.

The Cost of Litigation: A Business Perspective

But at the end of the day, you know, I tell clients now all the time when we start looking at, you know, they’ve been wronged or some they feel like, you know, someone else feels like they’ve, you know, my clients wrong them and we start doing pre-litigation type, you know, headbutting a little bit, demand letters, things like that. You know, I’ll say, “Look, you know, we’re not you’re not going to jail. We’re not talking about criminal anything, okay? Um, this is business. So you got to take your emotion out of it. Ignore sunk costs, right? That’s, you know, something that’s hard for people that we learn about in business school is kind of avoiding that sunk cost fallacy of thinking, well, I’ve invested so much. I got to keep going. And we say, hey, look, this is how much this will cost you. And on top of how much it’s going to cost you, let me explain to you that the litigation process takes years. And it is emotionally trying, especially if you’re a small business owner. You’re you’re living, you’re breathing, you’re eating your business. You’re uh this is not something that you can pass off to a legal staff and just get checkups once, you know, once a month kind of thing and have it not affect you. Like if you’re that big of a corporation, you have your own in-house counsel. You’re not dealing with me. So, um and we talk about, you know, what is your peace worth? you know, your ability to sleep. Like, yeah, maybe it’s a nasty pill to swallow writing a settlement check, but in the long run, that’s the cheaper option. What’s what’s the lesser of two evils, right? You know, and that’s where I say, don’t make this an emotional decision. Don’t make this about right or wrong. Um, you’ve got to take a practical approach and say, what is best for my business? What is best for me? And sometimes the answer is we’re going to fight it, you know. Um and sometimes the answer is I just want this to go away.

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And so um that that’s a that was a big lesson for me. Um to uh I think early in that stage that case I was on there was a little bit too much of a well we’re right like and and my clients were right. I was right like I you know case law everything like yeah we had the law on our side. We were right on every issue, but at the end of the day, between the two cases, it still ended up costing them tens of thousands of dollars. Took a year and a half. Um, expensive expensive mistake to learn from.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, yeah, maybe you should have just written them a $30,000 settlement, you know, severance check and and called it good. Now, I don’t know if they would have accepted it. And that was also part of the the tension there is that um there wasn’t a lot of effort on both sides to settle for a reasonable number. And uh so that’s where you know again some of my advice is uh your case probably isn’t as good as you think it is. Um so when I have clients that come in and say you know we want $100,000 out of this and I you know my answer is like that’s really not reasonable. Like, you know, everybody always thinks they have a million dollar. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, we’re not dealing with personal injury here with ongoing medical bills. Like, I’m like, do you, you know, are you expecting $100,000 in profit, you know, from this if this thing hadn’t happened? And it’s like, well, no. I was like, well, then you’re not Yeah. You’re not going to get that. Like, that’s not realistic. So, um, makes sense.

A lot of people just don’t have that that realistic mindset when they they start seeing dollar signs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and a lot of people are really uh enthusiastic to jump into, you know, a legal process at the beginning. And usually by the time they’re six months in, they’re just like, I hate this. It’s expensive. And why are we doing this? I want this to go away. And if they’re the ones that started it, it’s a lot harder to make it go away. So um again it’s just where I come at it now where I’m like what are you good at like if you are good at designing if you’re good at engineering if you’re good at you you know you built the service industry business like focus your energies there and let’s just get rid of this other issue.

The Importance of Proper Documentation

Um, and again when we’re setting up businesses or sometimes people come to me after they’ve had a bad experience with an disgruntled employee and they’re like, “We need documents.” And I’m like, “Yes, yes you do. Let’s, you know,” and and even just standard ones generally are fine. I mean, it’s it’s not like every little business is needs, you know, every paragraph customized and everything like we’ve got pretty standard products now for employee, you know, employee handbooks. uh independent contractor agreements, employment agreements, um yeah, lease agreements, commercial and residential, you know, like you always want to have these things kind of in order. And and I do tell people that again that pennywise pound foolish like yeah, you can you can save a buck. Um maybe trying to do it yourself or some of the online resources are decent, but again, if you’re if you don’t know what you don’t know, Yeah. you might pull this document off the internet and it’s not quite right and it doesn’t meet your needs perfectly and so you might end up with an issue because now there’s a gap. I’m going to say it’s better than nothing. But um you know at least in my practice I’m really laidback about if clients want to bring me a document that they wrote or that they found online and just say does this work or can we tweak this? I’m like yeah sure. Like I I’m not I’m not kind of emotional about well I didn’t draft it. So, I’m not going to touch it. You know, I’m like, “Yeah, whatever.” You know, whatever works for you. I mean, some people actually enjoy it. They They want to kind of try to figure out the contracts and get in there and do the research and try to draft it themselves, and more power to them, but I’d always have an attorney review it.

AI in Legal Practice: Promise and Limitations

Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think about like utilizing AI to draft contracts?

Bad idea. So, actually, that’s a really funny question. So, um, we have adopted some of the AI tools in our office, um, especially as transactional attorneys. Um, and let me, and I’ll be 100% honest with you, I’m really impressed with what they do, um, and how clear they are, but I have never had an AI draft a contract or, you know, an initial anything that is what I consider complete. Um, so even though they are pulling from fully complete contracts and um things online, for whatever reason, the AIS don’t seem to get all the legal clauses in where they need to be. And I I can’t quite figure out if that’s like something that got written in um to try to avoid it looking like it’s, you know, a a fully fleshed out contract or not. But interesting.

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Um again that kind of that if you want to start with something and then have it reviewed. Um it’s a really interesting new area. We do see just in the last eight months I think since we’ve been using it I have seen it start hallucinating more which is really sad because I’m like from my use it’s like um I use it kind of like I would an assistant. you know, instead of having an assistant do an initial draft and everything, I can use the AI to give me, you know, the initial everything. And I can even drop my documents in and say, “Hey, use this format and adjust here.” And, uh, that’s better because now my documents have my pieces. Um, and so it doesn’t tend to get rid of them. But if I were I’ve played around with it, I’m like, “Draft me this,” you know, and it just to see what it spits out at me. Yeah. Um, so I think it’s a great starting point. I think it’s a great learning tool. Um, if you I actually am pretty impressed with its ability to analyze a contract. And so you can take an existing contract and tell like um, chat GPT you can say, you know, analyze this for strengths and weaknesses from this party’s perspective. And it’s pretty good. I will um, and I was pretty impressed. I was like, wow, this is pretty good. But yeah, it’s just like you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And and that’s where if you’re not an attorney, you can take the analysis and be like, “Oh, this is, you know, okay, here it’s good, you can ask it how you can make how it can be better.” And it will start kind of getting you there. But, um, again, I I’m shocked the contracts almost never have like a a dispute resolution clause, attorney fees clauses, termination um, clauses. I mean, so again, there’s some key things in there that at least in a lot of the contracts I deal with, they they are missing. Um, I’ve never thrown in like a lands lease or anything to see if how that pops up. But again, I that’s where the machine when you’re not an attorney, you don’t know what pieces should be there. Yeah. Yeah. So, when it spits a document out at you that looks pretty good, I’m going to call it like the 8020 rule. probably 80% perfect, you know, but it’s missing a few things that um cost you, right? Yeah. It’s missing a few things that that 20% might cost you in the back end um later on and and maybe not, you know, and you know, I tell people all the time, uh we’re under this kind of false notion as people that a contract has to be in writing and under our laws at least, um it doesn’t. A verbal agreement can be a fully enforceable contract in in most cases. Um what we do with the written contracts is we try to remove ambiguity and we try to remove um common law elements where we say okay here’s the traditional elements of a contract and how it’s interpreted. So if you just have a verbal agreement all of those common law from hundreds of years ago you know contractual concepts are coming with it. written contracts. Now, we get to be specific and say, “Yes, we’re we have an indemnity clause. We have a warranty clause. We have an attorney fees clause.” Because in most states, um the law is that the parties all bear their own attorney fees, but you can have a contract that says, you know, if I have to sue you because you breached the contract and I win, you have to pay my attorney fees. And if it’s in a contract, it’s enforceable. If it’s not, you don’t have it.

And so you how do you prove verbal agreements typically? Uh that’s part of that disco that’s in litigation. That’s the discovery process. So that’s uh witness statements. Um we we do um depositions in pre-trial where all of anybody who we’re planning on calling as a witness in in a case. we try at least to get them in and do a deposition in front of a court reporter with the other attorneys where we can ask them questions. Um that also kind of becomes a tool then that later if they’re testifying if they say something opposite you know we can be like but wait a minute you you said this you know um and so at the end of the day with a verbal contract I mean if you go all the way to a trial um it’s going to be about whether the judge or jury finds your testimony more believable than the other guys. Okay. Um because yeah, we we get to testify of what happened. You know, it can be like, “No, this was my understanding.” And they can say, “Well, this was my understanding.” And and then you start looking for other proof for actions to the parties to try to support your position, but it’s hard, right? And that’s why we like written contracts because we can be like, “Here’s the contract. See it.” Yes. Easier to prove. Gotcha. Makes sense.

Scaling the Business: From Solo to Firm

I I want to back up just a little bit and um uh get like back into your business a little bit. I was curious how you know what helped you kind of scale from where you started to where you are now.

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So um starting out well so I I’m with a firm um so I’m not a solo practitioner. So, uh, there were some, um, legacy clients and things. So, when I step in as a new attorney, I’m now working underneath experienced attorneys, um, for a few years, um, and, uh, taking over clients for retiring attorneys. So, so there’s kind of that baseline, um, that at least I was able to walk into. Um, but from there, um, we do a lot of networking. Um so for me I find um reaching out to uh financial advisors um accountants um is kind of kind of my bread and butter for working within the business and succession planning and and things like that. Um we have uh played around with a we’re on our third or fourth iteration of a website just since I joined. um just the older attorneys were not quite as you know into needing to change things as often. Yeah. So we’ve keep trying to update the website um getting into social media marketing and stuff like that. And honestly that’s like one of my top 10 advices too is hire professionals. Um we I don’t know how to do that. Like even though I come from a business background and have experience with entrepreneurship and e-arketing and stuff like that, my experience is more at like the management level where I know these things exist. I know how they need to get used, but I actually don’t know how to do them. Um, I personally don’t have much of a social media presence. Um, and never really got into that for myself. And so it’s kind of like I’m like, I know we need to have this. who do we hire to do this for us because I’m not going to be sitting here on my phone on Facebook trying to come up with ad campaigns. Yeah. You know, comes back to kind of the don’t know thing. You know, it’s just it’s getting pretty complex and there’s a lot of a lot of ins and outs to to anything.

Marketing Channels: What Works and What Doesn’t

Have you found any unexpected marketing channels that have performed well that you know maybe you didn’t think would or anything like that?

Um, I I would say I’ve found more channels that I thought would perform well that really haven’t as much for us. Um, again, law is a little funky because uh there’s regional constraints. Like I am licensed in multiple states, but at the same time, people generally want to come sit down with you. So, I’m not trying to market to people in Denver. I’m not trying to market to people in um Montana. you know, we try to focus our efforts to eastern Idaho um and area. If somebody comes to you, will you do business out of this? So, we have to be careful on how we do that. So, um if someone comes to me and says, “Hey, I want these business documents or things, um I can do them.” Um what I can’t do is I can’t go advertise in other states that I’m not licensed in. Um I can’t show up in another state and represent a client. Um, so I do um advising um general advising um with contracts. Like I can draft a contract and I can say, “Hey, this contract is going to be governed by the laws of Texas.” But then I disclose I am not a Texas attorney, so you probably should have a Texas attorney review this to make sure that there’s not any Texas law specifics that were missing. Um, so there, like I said, there there’s some nuance there. Um, and that all actually comes down to our licensing rules, um, and ethical rules. They’re about not practicing in other states. But generally speaking, if people come to me, um, I can help them.

Okay. Yeah, that’s good to know. Good to know for listeners today. So, what states are can you, you know, work in that you can like people can come to you and you can you can do things for them.

So, I personally have licensed in Utah and Idaho. Um, and in my office we serve Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, um, and Texas. Oh, okay. Cool.

Effective Marketing Strategies

So, is, um, is networking then kind of the main way that you you guys are finding yourself bringing new business in or, um, is there anything else that seems to be working really effectively?

So, our our, uh, media campaigns uh, seem to do pretty decently. Um and a lot of that’s like just the keyword search just even in in Google. So not even keyword the keyword search and paying being willing to pay for um those keywords has actually been okay massive yeah we can see massive returns on investment there. Um, networking is definitely big. Um, in terms of having, you know, I have accountants and financial advisors that send me their clients actually pretty regularly. Pretty decent referral network and that sort of thing. It seems like a lot of attorneys will lean pretty heavily on referrals and do pretty well with that. Yeah. Yeah. And and I find too, I mean, most people if you if you’re starting out, if you just have a business idea and you’re not already in business, um, that’s that that initial hurdle. it’s like who do I go to? Who do I um and that’s hard um for people. So, that’s where we see searches um bringing in new people. But, if if you own a business already um and you’re trying and you’re maybe having some issues, usually you have a financial adviser or an accountant. So, even if you don’t have your own attorney already, um you can ask your accountant, I need someone who can do this thing. And usually your accountant will know. Yeah. Um a handful of attorneys that they like working with that they can refer you to.

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Partnership with Legal Zoom

Do you find uh much business coming through Legal Zoom? I know that’s where we met. Yes. Um so my firm um has the contract with Legal Zoom for Idaho. Um and so we uh that’s one of So like Legal Zoom is one of our clients. Um and we do the uh legal consulting calls. Um and uh anything that a client needs that’s outside of the realm of what Legal Zoom can do for them um we can offer that we can take them on. So um Legal Zoom is a great service. Um I actually think their pricing model um for the getting those 30 minute attorney calls um I think is fantastic. Yeah. Um, and I have a lot of um, small business clients that actually choose to stay with Legal Zoom um, and pay Legal Zoom subscription fee just so that they can call a couple times a year um, instead of paying my hourly rates. And I’m all for it. So, yeah, we do get referrals there. So, I will have clients that are Legal Zoom clients and we’ll do a call and uh determine, oh, you need this thing and if it’s again outside of what Legal Zoom does for them, then yeah, I end up drafting contracts and things for that or they can pull from Legal Zoom’s document bank and uh I can review it and again, we can kind of go back and forth on does this really fit your needs, what’s missing. um Legal Zoom can provide them the word documents that then they can send me and I can make tweaks there. So, it’s a great relationship. We like working with Legal Zoom and it’s got some good tools.

I’ve been using for sending contracts and having them signed and that sort of thing and you know that was for any listeners that was how you know me and Kim met and um you know I’ve used Kim for some advice and done a few calls and she’s been really helpful as far as business formation questions go and I wish I would have known that um she was there before I actually signed into Legal Zoom because I would have liked to actually talk to somebody directly which that’s kind of the one thing I feel like is a little bit lacking in Legal Zoom just when you’re kind of getting started and going through some of the process. processes of business formation and stuff. It would be really helpful to have somebody to talk to a little bit more and walk you through some of that because there were some things I was not understanding% that it would have been helpful if we had talked before I started that process. Yeah, that’s true. With Legal Zoom’s business formation, they they like you to have a consultation with the attorney, but they do it at the end after your documents have been. So, that might be something they need to Yeah, exactly. maybe make make it clear that you you can talk to an attorney before you push the button to submit everything. Make sure you’re in the right business. You know, do you want to be an LLC? Do you want to be a CC Corp? Do you want to elect SC Corp uh taxation status? You know, maybe understanding the differences between single member and multimember. Yeah, that would be a lot of questions like that that would be helpful to have just somebody walking through a little bit, I think, before you kind of get into the process.

Tools and Systems for Business Management

Uh what other what tools and systems have helped you keep your business running smoothly?

Um so we uh use legal management software um that has been fantastic. We um we actually adopted um two suites. We’ve got Cleo and Faster Suite that we use. A lot of people using Cleo. Yeah, I really like it. Um it’s from where I came from. So I I came into this firm, they had systems in place, but they’re still using paper filing systems and things. And so um there’s kind of these old school um processes that we, you know, have been working out of over the last uh seven, eight, seven, eight years. And Cleo was a huge um leap for that, you know, in terms of just being able to have everything in one place instead of multiple systems. Yeah. Better time tracking, which unfortunately in the attorney world um billing by the minute, I mean we Yeah, we have to bill in six minute blocks. Um and uh unless we have a an agreement to do otherwise. And so that’s unfortunate. I actually really hate the billable hour model and what it’s done to the legal profession, but that’s kind of the default. So um

35:00

Alternative Billing Models: Flat Fees vs. Hourly Rates

flat fees typically or do you do you do very many things with flat fees? So I do almost all my work with flat rates. Okay. Um so that actually was when I was in law school my um capstone research was on alternative billing models and the ethical rules and constraints around them. Um attorneys again I’ve mentioned ethical rules. We have very stringent ethical rules to govern each other. Um, and and part of it is because, you know, when an attorney goes rogue, um, everybody, you know, everybody’s heard of the attorney that’s dishonest and awful and we all hate attorneys, you know, and it’s because there’s actually this very few, um, attorneys, but when when they behave like that, it’s it’s really nasty for the whole rest of the profession. Um, when most of us, you know, are really honest and um, just trying to help, you know, to some extent. I mean, that’s what attorneys do is kind of help. We’re our my job is to help my clients solve problems. Um, and I I love being a problem solver, not a problem creator. So, um, when it comes to the billing practices, you know, where there’s, uh, now decades worth of ethical lawsuits, you know, where attorneys have been sued for unethical billing practices that just really at the end of the day kind of narrowed us down into, you know, you have to charge, you know, you have to be able to show what you did, you know, by the minute. Do you know this, like we we can’t bill in 15 minute blocks. That’s too much. That’s too vague. We have to, you know, tenth of an hour, six minute blocks, you know, or kind of the standard now. So, and that all comes from case law um before.

But the good news is uh the rules do allow us to have alternative billing methods. The most common one is uh contingency fee cases. You see those mostly in personal injury cases. And really what that’s doing is uh from my perspective and what I found um again coming from a business background um and doing a research um even without saying it this way what the legal profession did is they ended up with um contingency cases on one side where the client bears none of the risk for um the fees in the case and the attorney bears the risk um all the way to the billable hour where the attorney bill has no risk really. Um maybe a little bit of risk that your client won’t pay, but usually we request retainers and stuff to mitigate that. So um on the billable hour, the client bears 100% of the risk that this is going to take a long time or versus a little time. On the contingency case, the attorney bears that risk. Is this going to take a lot of work or a little bit of work? So, um, we have these two billing things on the end of the spectrum that have been accepted in the legal community for decades now and very little in the middle and very little acknowledgement. That’s really what’s going on in fee shifting is you’re actually shifting risk. Um, and so with flat rates, what I like about flat rates is I can do a flat rate as long as it’s clear and it has to be, you know, rationally related to the time it’s going to take, but I’m allowed to come to my flat rates based off my historic. And um, I can set that rate where I can say, okay, I know this usually costs about this and so, you know, or traditionally this is how long it’s taken me. This is my billable hour rate. So, I can charge X amount for a flat rate. And what clients like about that is they know what they’re paying. Yeah. There’s no risk that I’m going to take a really long time, you know, that that they they know what they’re getting.

Kind of good for both ends. Does it allow you to get a little bit more scale? Yeah. Well, and it does. And so, like I found in my practice, again, I can say, “Hey, I’m going to charge you x amount of dollars for this kind of contract. I’m going to charge you X amount for this kind of contract. And then I can I’ll tell people too. I’m like, if you come back and you know with massive revisions more than twice, like we’re up in the the the cost here because what it means is you didn’t tell me what you really wanted in the first place. Um, but I’ve almost never I mean I’ve only had that happen maybe twice in five years where someone just kept coming back and back and back with the contract because they just kept making changes. Um, but it’s great. My clients love it. It makes them happy. Um, my flat rates are competitive. I know uh some practitioners charge kind of higher end rates or again go hourly and so you you know they’ll they’ll give you a range. Well, it’ll probably be around this much, but you really have no idea until you’re done. Whereas I can say, “Nope, this is what I charge and we’re done and this is what it includes.” And then for my part then if I can be more efficient, I get to keep that gain. I don’t have to discount it because I was efficient. Um or because I adopted software, right? So that’s the whole point. It’s like why would I adopt AI? Why would I adopt legal software, you know, if at the end of the day I’ve got so many minutes in the day that I can bill and that’s it and it will never be more, never be like, why would I adopt all these things? I might as well just write out contracts by hand, right? I mean, that that’s oversimplifying a little bit. We do um have a duty to um try to be efficient for clients. Um but actually in the long run, what it’s done is I’ve been able to be more efficient. I’ve been able to keep my rates um really competitive for what I do.

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s good that you’ve been able to find some scale like that and and it helps your your clients as well. Um, let’s not just it takes some stress off too where I’m not I don’t have to worry as much about did I grab every six minute, you know. Yeah, exactly. I still track um just in terms of data collection and and trending and stuff like that, but it it it does take some of that stress off and Yeah. makes

40:00

The Impact of Business Ownership

a little bit about um just how like the impact of being a business owner for you. How has running and owning a business changed your life?

Um well I it’s been astronomically different. I mean I get to uh set my own schedule. Um I you know when I was working as a business owner before law school um it was a very creative endeavor. Um but every and everything’s on you on me right um as the business owner. So there’s definitely a lot of responsibility, but um I you know honestly I can’t say there’s anything that’s quite as fulfilling um except maybe being a parent than building something. I mean and that’s you you get to build it from scratch. It gets to be part of you. I mean in some ways it becomes like a kid, you know, like you put a lot of effort into it. Um and there’s trial and error, right? Like it’s highs and lows, you know? You could you could have a project go bad. You could have, you know, suppliers um send you crap crop product that ends up costing you and and you got to learn and you got to pivot along the way, but at the end of the day, it’s it’s very freeing to be your own boss. Um now I’m a partner in my law firm, so I’m one of the owners. Um and we’ve got staff that we, you know, looking out for, taking care of, you know, we’ve got the business growth needs. We’ve had succession planning concerns as we’ve transitioned older attorneys out of the firm and um we you know making it through COVID um what was an issue and so all of those things you know I’m not going to say it’s not stressful. I mean it’s 100% it is stressful but at the end of the day at least for me um where I’m at I get to control my own schedule. Um, I get to be at all my kids’ activities and, you know, sports things. I get to ask for permission. No, I don’t. I just, you know, I just schedule, put them on the calendar and block my time out, say I’m not there. Now, I’m responsible to my partners to make sure that I’m still bringing in enough for my fair share. Make sure our overhead is taken care of, make sure that my assistant, you know, has the support that she needs. and um and uh everybody else. I love our staff that we have. We we actually worked really hard to make sure that our law firm would transition from the older attorneys leaving over the last five years just partially because we love our staff. Um and didn’t want to have to um see everybody go or or whatever. So um it’s always a learning. Um, I think if you reach a point in your life where you think you know everything, um, and you’ve got it all figured out, then maybe you’re being blind to something that’s going to, you know, come hit you in the knees a little bit. Um, sometimes it’s things that we do ignorantly and sometimes it’s something like COVID where we have no control over it at all. And I’ve got, you know, some great stories of clients and um co-workers who um were able to pivot in dark times and and make something work. And then we all know there were a lot of people who got dragged under and and sometimes it’s through no fault of your own. So I mean that’s where I look at lifestyle like if you can accept the risk of being a business owner and the responsibility um it is very freeing. um if if you’re very risk adverse and you want the security of a paycheck and someone who’s going to tell you what to do. Um being a business owner is not for everybody. Um but it it is scary. I mean there the way I think about it like I have lots and lots of clients. So if I have a client fire me, I can go get more clients, right? And if I’m super busy, I can scale back on my marketing and not worry about it. And if I need clients, I go start making phone calls and go start taking other accountants out to lunch or something like that. There’s always things that I can do. So, you know, if my again, if I have a client fire me, it’s it’s not the end of my world. Whereas, you know, yeah, if my husband’s employer fired him, it would be catastrophic stuff.

45:00

Advice for Future Lawyers

Would you ever go back to being employed again? Uh, no. I don’t I I mean I don’t think I could see a scenario where I’d want to do that. What would you say to somebody considering going into the legal field kind of like you were you were at when you decide to make that change?

Do your homework. Um make sure that you’re understanding the financial and time commitment. Um but then take a deep breath, jump in and enjoy the journey because um law is one of those fields where it is everywhere. Like I said, it’s that web that kind of com brings not only just business but society um together and a law degree is super marketable. Um even if you decide you don’t want to be a practicing attorney um there’s lots of career opportunities um lots of entrepreneurship opportunities out there. Um, and especially if you’re thinking about it as like a second career, um, being able to basically speak two languages. So like law is a language, right? Um, and so I come into law speaking business and so I understand what business people want when they’re asking questions. I understand generally speaking, business people are very uh risk tolerant and they want to try things, they want to do things, they want to they want to get to yes. Um, attorneys by nature, um, stereotypically tend to be more risk adverse. Um, we look to precedent. Um, that’s what we’re trying to do is kind of look backwards instead of forwards. And so I think that’s one of the reasons my clients really like me is I can look at it and say, let’s figure out how to get you to yes. Like um, and that’s one of the biggest complaints I hear um, is that when people talk to attorneys, it’s always no, no, no, you can’t do that, you can’t do that, you can’t do that. And so when you can come into law from a sec from another career field, it gives you the ability to speak two languages, which now means you can step in and be really fantastic counsel if you do want to be an attorney or, you know, uh I know people that have come to law from medical that then don’t end up practicing law, but they end up sitting somewhere in that space where um speaking the two languages makes them really lucrative. Um um and desirable, you know, in terms of consulting. Um, I’ve seen software developers, engineers, you know, everyone, every field, you know, kind of come in. And if you’re coming in from a an earlier career, generally speaking, you you naturally will see, oh, this is where this fits. This is where I can be um useful. Um, but law it like medicine, I mean, there’s a huge difference between being a heart surgeon and being an eye doctor and a foot doctor and a whatever. Um, I didn’t even understand that till I was actually in law school. Um, I just thought lawyers were lawyers. Um, but we’re not. Um, so many different Yeah, there’s different different paths. Um, if you find an attorney who says they do everything, um, that means they do everything a little bit but maybe not something well. um we we have a broad understanding of a lot of things, but like I don’t do personal injury. I don’t do criminal. I don’t do family law. I know enough about them to know kind of where they hit my fields. Um and I know enough about them to know that if I see some of these red flags coming, I say, “I’m going to get you in touch with my partner who does this because that’s a problem.” Um,

50:00

Ideal Client Profile

now I I know, you’ve talked a little bit about the type of law you do, but is there anyone in particular that’s like a really good fit for you that you know should come and and talk to you just, you know?

So, if you uh I like to work with um people who are ready to start a business, understand it’s going to cost them money. Um I do sometimes consult with people who realize, you know, I want to start this business, but they don’t want to invest. um in in doing it right. Um and and to some extent uh Legal Zoom has kind of broadened what people can do. They’ve made it a little bit more affordable for people to um start businesses um and get the documents. So like their governing documents. Um again, it’s they’re not going to tell you what you should be doing. They’re not going to tell you what’s the best fit. They’re not going to tell you um you know the nuances of hey, I’m in two states. you know, how does that work? Um, but you know, if you’re serious about starting a business and uh you want to do it right, I’d love to love to work with you. If you have an existing business and you want uh counsel on um maybe you want to update some of your processes and procedures um or get some of your documents in line, maybe you’ve got things that have been oral agreements for years and you’re ready to kind of take it to the next level and invest in that um happy to talk with you um and help you with that. It’s important to remember that sometimes legal work is something that you pay for that you don’t actually see how it affects you. Um because it’s really more like building a wall, right? Like we we build retaining walls so that you know when the floods come, the mud doesn’t wash away, right? We we bu we draft these legal documents that I would say nine times out of 10 maybe you don’t need, you know, or I’m not no you need, but maybe like they never get challenged um kind of thing. But uh when something happens, when you get a disgruntled employee, when you when you end up with, you know, a downturn in the market, co you know, acts of God, things like that, you know, you need to have things in place so that you don’t get sued. Um and so it’s kind of a protective, it’s a defensive, a lot of legal is defensive in nature. Um and uh if you’re ready for that, um that’s I’ love to help.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. Go talk to Kim. She’s been super helpful for me and I know she’ll help any other business owners um just as much if not more.

Contact Information

Where can somebody go to get in touch with you and learn more about what you do?

So, um my law firm is uh Hopkins Roaden in Idaho Falls. So, you can find us at hopkinsroden.com. Um you can give us a call. Um our office line is …. Um, and uh you can request an appointment um or a consultation call um and we’re happy to help you from there. Um you can find me I think my bio is linked um on our website and on Legal Zoom if you’re a Legal Zoom um customer. Uh you can uh find me there and schedule an appointment through Legal Zoom system. And that’s that’s kind of it.

Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you coming on, Kim. It’s good to learn a little bit about the the in the weeds aspects of your business and and hear about your uh your journey and successes and uh really appreciate your time and coming on. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Outro

You’ve been listening to the Bisgrow Mojo podcast with Ryan Aean. Make sure you like, follow, and subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time on the Bisgrow Mojo Podcast.