Michael Vater: Expanding Legal Practice with Non Traditional Methods and Partnerships

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Michael Vater discuss:

• Growth and networking beyond traditional legal marketing
• Leveraging legal tech and AI to enhance efficiency
• Building strategic partnerships for sustainable growth
• Effectively balancing leadership, operations, and legal work

Key Takeaways:

• Lawyers should build strategic partnerships with realtors, title agents, and medical professionals who connect with potential clients needing legal services instead of relying solely on attorney referrals.
• Generative AI tools enhance legal research by cross-referencing case law and statutes, helping attorneys find crucial precedents faster and more accurately.
• Zoom court appearances reduce travel time and create “bonus time” for attorneys to focus on business development and client acquisition.
• Law firms often let accounts receivable grow unchecked, but strict payment policies like upfront retainers or automated billing prevent financial strain and ensure cash flow.

“The world is constantly changing. If you fail to change with it, you will be left behind.” —  Michael Vater

Got a challenge growing your law practice? Email me at steve@fretzin.com with your toughest question, and I’ll answer it live on the show—anonymously, just using your first name!

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Episode References: 

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey: https://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-Powerful/dp/0743269519

About Michael Vater: Michael Vater, Esq., Managing Partner of The Ticktin Law Group in South Florida, has successfully litigated complex cases across the U.S. and abroad, including over 20 Florida counties, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Carolina, and Iceland, where his victory set a European Union precedent on consumer rights in aviation disputes. Since joining the firm in 2010, he has specialized in entertainment, personal injury, and real estate litigation, serving as lead counsel in over 1,600 cases and litigating 100+ Jury and Non-Jury Trials. Recognized by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star, awarded to only 2.5% of Florida lawyers, he has also been featured in Authority Magazine, Lawyers of Distinction, Business Daily Media, and PacerMonitor.

Connect with Michael Vater:  

Website: https://legalbrains.com/

Email: mvater@legalbrains.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ticktin-law-group-p.a./

Twitter: https://x.com/LegalBrains

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheTicktinLawGroup/#

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legalbrains/#
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Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Steve Fretzin: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, before we get to the show, wanted to share a question from Theresa in Toronto. She’s asking, I’m always networking, but it’s not converting to new business. How do I get new business or more business from the time invested? Wow, there’s a lot of answers I could provide here and probably spend a few hours with you on this.

The short version is many people are attending networking events. Where their targets are not there. So meaning the prospective clients you wanna work with and the potential strategic partners who could refer you business aren’t there. So I would say tip number one is always qualify. Talk to the person running the events to find out that in fact, you have those targets lined up and you know that they’re gonna be there.

And then even try to use the host to try to make some inroads to you, to those targets. And really think about how you’re going to meet them ask them questions, learn about them to qualify whether you want to continue the conversation or not. I. These kinds of basic level qualifications of attending, [00:01:00] meeting, qualifying people that are there and then deciding who you wanna invest more time in.

Those are really the keys to success in networking and converting to business. So hopefully that helps. Alright everybody, that’s my tip of the day. Enjoy the show

Narrator: you are listening to be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode you. Our host, author and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin, we’ll take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.

Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody. Steve Fretzin here, and this is the Be That Lawyer with Fretzin podcast. Hopefully you’re ready to rock and roll. Today. It’s another wonderful opportunity for you to learn business development, marketing, operations. Like anything about the business side of law, we’re not gonna talk too much about, how you’re gonna run your litigation matter.

We’re not gonna talk too [00:02:00] much about that deposition and questions you should ask. This is on the business side of things and we’re excited to continue to bring amazing guests. And how I get connected with them is a variety of ways. Many times referred to me sometimes through PR agencies and all different kinds of places.

And Michael, I’m not sure how we got together, but I’m excited that we did and we’re gonna have some fun today and we’re gonna help a lot of lawyers. How does that sound?

Michael Vater: Sounds great, Steve. Thanks a lot for having me on board. It’s always great to talk business especially someone like me coming from not only earning a jd, but also an MBA and implementing both in my practice.

Steve Fretzin: That’s interesting and we’re gonna get deep into it today. Let’s start off though, with our game. That’s our game changing book. That’s at the end. Let’s start with our quote of the show. I’m getting confused. All right. Too many podcasts. I think I’m coming up on 500, which is messing up my brain. Here we go.

This is actually your quote. Straight from Michael Vader. Everybody, the world is constantly changing. If you fail to change with it, you will be left behind. That sounds like a legal tech AI [00:03:00] induced quote. Is that the case or is it something else that inspired that quote?

Michael Vater: Oh, it’s absolutely the work with technology and seeing it with my law firm.

One of the things that we’re finding is that. Almost on a daily basis where having changes happen not only with case precedent, but also with the AI and the use of technology in the court systems. And it’s really if we just follow our old systems, we’re not actually going to be able to best benefit our clients and grow our firm.

If we stay stagnant, we’re gonna be, other people are going to be jumping ahead of us. So what we know is, we’re always looking at ways to innovate and to take advantage of these new technologies to really benefit our clients.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, and I’ve brought on some pretty, pretty amazing it.

Technology, AI focused guests. On the last, I think one of the last shows we did was, or maybe a month ago, was Jay McAllister who talked AI and really got deep into it. It’s really interesting [00:04:00] stuff. So everybody, this is Michael Vader. He’s the managing partner of Thetic Tin Law Group. And give us a little background because you mentioned JD MBA and now we’re thinking, Hey, here’s a lawyer with a business may understand the business side, which is always interesting and intriguing to us.

Michael Vater: Sure. So I’ve grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Did my undergraduate studies at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, and then traveled south to the University of Florida. Attended law school there. Joined the Tipton Law Group in April of 2010 after finishing up law school.

And I’ve been the managing partner here at the firm for the last three years, and it’s been a great adventure because right before I became the managing partner, I, decided to go back to school, went back to the University of Florida, did their MBA program. That really helped prepare me learning, hands on about marketing and advertising and finance and accounting to really help me build this firm now as the [00:05:00] managing partner where I’m not just looking at cases every day.

I’m looking at, the dollars and cents in terms of what I need to do and what our firm needs to do to grow and develop.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, just outta curiosity, what would you say is your favorite part about being the managing partner and your least favorite part about being the managing partner?

Michael Vater: Sure. So my favorite part is being able to help lead a team. We compare, our firm is very much similar to a football team in that we have different players on the team. And as a leader of the firm, one of the things I’m involved with heavily is coaching. So sometimes I wear my offensive coordinator hat and I’m setting up game plans for cases.

Other times I’m involved in working with other team members in terms of strategy and saying what can we do to improve our bottom line or be more cost effective as a firm? Then I’d say the flip side of that coin is my least favorite aspect is when I’m dealing with the minutiae of reading the spreadsheets and, doing, [00:06:00] crunching the numbers in terms of how much are we spending on this particular item or how much are we spending on that thing?

So that’s a little bit of the not so fun. That helps put me to sleep at night.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, you read those spreadsheets right about nine, 10 o’clock at night and knock you right out.

Michael Vater: Oh yeah. Yeah, it’s great. It’s better than any type of sleep medication.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. I get all of my statements from my bookkeeper every month and I go through them, but but I have a financial planner who’s fantastic, who like, looks at all my numbers and looks at my budgets and helps me figure some of that stuff out.

I’m like this big picture guy and it’s very hard for me to get into the weeds and look at the fine print on some of the paperwork. That’s for me, that’s an outsource. But I get for you at the top, you gotta look at the details. So let me ask you this question. Big part of managing a firm and leading a firm.

There’s the management stuff, there’s still, maybe the work that you’re looking at in the billable hour and all that, and then there’s the business development. How do you balance the different aspects of managing a firm? And have you decided like what to lean into and what to lean out of?[00:07:00]

Michael Vater: Sure. Absolutely. I think one of the biggest things right now for us is developing what I call the strategic partnerships. So what I’ve been doing is I’ve been looking at other industries that have synergy with what we do in terms of a business litigation firm or real estate litigation. And one of the things that I’m involved with is looking at, for example, realtors.

Realtors are great strategic partnership for us because oftentimes they may have a client that’s engaged in a trying to buy a house or sell a house, and. Unfortunately those things don’t always go as smoothly as anticipated. So there may be an issue where they need to have a quick lawsuit filed because there’s this improper lien on the title or some other aspect.

And finding those relationships and getting into those other types of areas is really helpful because we’re not just meeting with other lawyers. We’re meeting with the actual decision makers that have connections one-on-one with their clients, which are those realtors or maybe someone at a title agency.

I actually just had a lunch [00:08:00] today with someone from a title company all across the southeastern part of the United States, and we’re looking at ways in which we can develop the synergy between our two companies because although different one’s a law firm, one’s a title company, there is opportunities in which we can refer business to each other.

Steve Fretzin: Is it like when you find like a nugget of gold in the mine, then do you mine it deeper? Like you find an industry that really you found synergy in and then try to expand it? Or you just stay in with that mind with that one nugget and say, we’re just gonna partner with this one group because we think that’s where the business is?

Michael Vater: No, it’s definitely digging deeper and expanding because this goes back to my quote, you can’t just stay stagnant. Yeah. So we recognize that. United States has 340 million people out there. So we know we can’t cater all 340 million people, but what we can do is cater to a lot of those folks and provide them assistance in the legal realm and be able to really provide a benefit to them.

But how do we provide that benefit without actually selling ourselves? [00:09:00] And that’s by becoming a resource for them. And what I find as well is there’s a lot of interaction here because these folks also become a resource for our clients. I. So if we have a client that, contacts us and says, I know you’re representing me on this type of legal matter, but I have this problem where, or I need to sell a piece of property.

I have this condo on the beach that I’m. I want to get, offset and get rid of, I can say, oh, I actually know a realtor that focuses in that particular geographic area. Let me connect the two of you. And I’m doing that connection, not because I’m gonna get a benefit back from that realtor.

They’re not sending me a kickback or anything. But because I. I know that they’re gonna provide good quality services for that client and that client’s gonna remember that in the future and say, oh, I know that I could count on this, my attorney, to be able to make that connection. And then consequently, it’s going to lead to that building of the business relationship.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. But I think if we step back and we look at what the sort of takeaway is from this conversation so far, it’s that, lawyers in [00:10:00] different areas of law need to consider. Where the best strategic alliances are, is that within the lawyers in different areas, the lawyers within the same area, but maybe at different levels?

Is it, are there specific industries that you should be targeting that may need you or maybe in a better position to refer you? And I think most lawyers go through the day and go through the week in the year without really thinking about it, let alone isolating and targeting and obtaining those kinds of relationships.

Michael Vater: Absolutely. I think it boils down to two things. Primarily. The one takeaway is you gotta be able to find complimentary areas of law in terms of where your practice is. So for example, we’re we handle very heavily focused on litigation. So individuals that are involved in real estate transactions become a very good complimentary legal partner for us because I know in many states that you have law firms that need to be present at the closing, that work directly with title companies.

You have a law firm that acts as a title company, so that is a great [00:11:00] complimentary source within the law itself, where the lawyer can say, Hey, our services are a great strategic alliance to that complimentary area of law. But it goes beyond just the areas of law because there are other areas where clients become areas and industries where clients come from that are non-legal industries.

For example, medicine. One of the most, we’ve practiced a lot of personal injury law, help a lot of automobile accident victims and prosecuting their cases, and we get a lot of referrals from chiropractors, orthopedists that we’ve worked with in the past that say, Hey, I know that particular quality of care that my client’s going to get by being represented by this attorney.

By us making ourself known in the community, by us having those positive interactions with these other doctors in our community, the doctors then become a great referral source for us in terms of referring US cases.

Steve Fretzin: Got it. [00:12:00] So let’s go deeper into business development, and I think there’s. We would consider, traditional and conventional methods.

And then there’s non-traditional unconventional, and I think one thing that I remember from talking to you about was that you’re really focused on those non-traditional, unconventional methods. What would you say comprised that?

Michael Vater: Sure. So we’re looking at things, from a different paradigm and that is, there’s so much money that’s, that can be thrown out there for social media marketing, for SEO, for search engine optimization.

But the non-traditional method, you almost have to go back almost 50 years and say, how did lawyers and law firms connect with each other? Not in the age of social media, not in the age of this digital marketing campaigns. That was primarily through human interaction. Going out to different events, going out to different conferences, being involved in the community.

And that’s one of the non-traditional ways that our law firm has engaged in the [00:13:00] community is by going out to these different local events, going out to these different conferences and not going there as a vendor with a booth and selling ourselves that way, but just going up and interacting with people.

Having that conversation, oh, what do you do in the community? What are you doing? Tell us about your business. And by learning about the other people’s business and learning about how our and potentially work with those people that becomes a great way for us to build our own business because we’re a getting our name out there and we’re making that human connection with others.

Yeah. As each month we have basically an unwritten requirement for each of our lawyers to attend at least one event a month. Because it’s so critical to be able to get your name out there, to be able to have this interaction. And it’s not just amongst other lawyers, but it’s dealing with other field in the community.

So whether it becomes people in a finance field, people in the real estate field, people in the medical field, there’s all these [00:14:00] opportunities that where lawyers don’t often find themselves visiting. Everyone goes to the Bar Association event or the Bar Association picnic, and you’re just meeting amongst other lawyers there.

But our non-traditional way is to say, Hey, let’s just take a step back and look at, there’s all these other business sectors within our community where we can go and invest the time, and we make it a goal to meet at least one person at each of these events. So having those tangible goals of saying, Hey, we’re gonna go to at least one event per month.

If we’re gonna go and have meet at least one new person at that event, and then we’re gonna do, make sure that we do at least one follow up following that event where we have a coffee or a lunch. Because we, we encourage our lawyers as well, you gotta go out there and have lunch. You gotta go, have that break in the day and meet, have a follow up to build and nurture that relationship, potential referral source

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No fluff. Just actionable tips to help you work smarter and grow faster. You can subscribe for free@raisethebar.co. There’s business development, there’s marketing, and I think a lot of, we’re now calling the unconventional method, which used to be conventional, and now it’s unconventional because we’re moving to social media and other platforms.

But that’s business development 1 0 1. It’s going out, shaking hands, attending events, and maybe not. Attending events where all the lawyers are, if they’re your competitors, for example. But what [00:16:00] I like to do is I like to smash ’em together. So I like the idea of going out, hitting the events, developing strategic partnerships, and doing all that, on the ground work while you’re also doing the article writing, the publishing, the podcasting, the social media.

So you’re pushing them together and that way the relationships, like I know, like I have a lot of. Business development relationships that I have, and then they see me on social media and they pick up my podcast and they’re doing all those things and it just reinforces not just the thought leadership, but the fact that, hey, this is someone who actually knows something.

How do you feel about like that? I’m not talking about SEO and pay-per-click, that’s a separate law firm thing, but the idea that individual attorneys could or should be doing both.

Michael Vater: Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, one of the big things that our firm has done is. We’ve developed a YouTube channel, we’ve made sure that we’ve grown our social media presence.

And by doing we’ve even started a little bit of TikTok videos because we see that by doing those short videos what we’re doing [00:17:00] is we’re getting our name out there regardless of, especially when we’re doing, and it’s not just a lawyer ad, it could be an ad about. On TikTok about a holiday.

I can think one of our biggest promoted ones on the TikTok algorithm related to a Thanksgiving ad that we had, which was a humorous play on, being at the Thanksgiving dinner table, maybe in the thought may pop in your head maybe I don’t want to have Thanksgiving dinner with these folks next year.

So it grew. It was a nice little cartoon that we put together and it. And that short little 22nd video clip really got picked up and with the TikTok app. But those types of things I agree, are ways in which to enhance credibility and also enhance visibility beyond those simple events. Because people naturally, once they get, once they go check out your event or meet you at an event, they’re gonna do their research on you.

They’re gonna do their stocking of you and say, Hey, what’s this person’s social media page looks like? What’s their webpage look like? So I agree that [00:18:00] stuff’s absolutely critical, and it’s not just a one tiered approach. As we were talking earlier, you have to be able to look at things through different prisms and different paradigms, and it’s a multi-tiered approach.

But all these things work together holistically to really help build and grow a law firm. Which is what we’re in the here to do.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. I wanna spend a few minutes talking about legal tech and how it can help save time. Before we get to that, do you have one more tip on the something that really worked for you that hasn’t been mentioned yet on business development?

Just one other tip that you’d say, Hey, this is what I did and it really helped me bring in the business.

Michael Vater: Sure. I would say one of the biggest things that we were able to do as a firm was. Really look at expanding beyond our geographic reach and not being afraid to throw our fishing pole out there.

Further in, where we are in Florida has 67 different counties. What we weren’t afraid to do was go to all 67 counties and say, look, we’re the law firm that, that, [00:19:00] that can potentially help you out. Even though we’re located geographically and we have brick and mortar locations in these. With the advent of technology, especially with the court systems, we can make it cost effective for us to be your attorneys.

So it was making that conscious decision to say, Hey, I’m not gonna be limited by geographic boundaries or be limited based upon we did this. Before, because we focused on these 10 counties in Florida we recognized that, there’s potential clients that live in all 67 counties, whether there’s a few thousand people in that county or a couple million,

Steve Fretzin: and I’m assuming that was more of a marketing play than sending out people to 67 counties.

There was some marketing that you did to get that expansion in place.

Michael Vater: Sure. So a lot of it dealt with, making sure that we did that marketing through some, attending certain types of events or being, attending maybe let’s say a convention where the decision makers would be for a particular business type client in which there were representatives from each of the counties across the state of Florida.[00:20:00]

Okay,

Steve Fretzin: got it. All right, so let’s move on to legal tech. It sounds like that AI and legal tech are right in your wheelhouse of what you. Enjoy and see value in how it’s gonna make everybody more efficient. Are the two best legal tech systems, processes, ais, that you’ve installed or brought into the firm that have really made a difference for you and your people in efficiency?

Michael Vater: Sure. So one of the programs that we brought in was a generative AI program that allows us to basically have a communication, a dialogue with the AI software to answer legal questions. And what it does is it does a great job not just answering the legal question, but it cross references and provides us links to the cases or the statute in which it’s developing that answer from.

So we had a recent case where we were had an obscure situation in which, we were looking at is a, is an action for adverse possession and equitable inaction and [00:21:00] equity or an action in law. What we actually found out was we found this case from 1966 that said it’s actually an action in law because it’s all statutory based rather than an equitable action.

And that finding that it really helped find that needle in the haystack to help us with that particular court appearance. So using that type of technology has been really helpful for us and for all our attorneys to be able to maximize their time. Is that,

Steve Fretzin: is that a, but real quick, is that off the shelf or was that something that you had to get customized for your firm?

Michael Vater: No. This was an off the shelf program that we purchased licenses to through. So it was a really successful it and we’re still using it. It’s a really successful program for us. Okay. And it. What’s nice about it too is it integrates into Microsoft Words, so it has built-in proofreading capabilities and as well as built-in capabilities to cross-reference citations and check that as we’re drafting.

So it’s really helpful [00:22:00] in terms of making sure that our work product remains at a really high standard on for our client.

Steve Fretzin: Awesome. And then what was the second one?

Michael Vater: The second one is utilizing the Zoom technology in terms of court appearances. One thing, prior to Covid, what we saw was that, every court appearance was an in-person appearance.

There was very limited telephone appearances, and even if you did do a telephone appearance, you were at quite a disadvantage because you couldn’t see the reaction of the judiciary or the court in terms of how they would be reacting to the arguments that you were making. But now with the Zoom technology, especially for the court proceedings, it’s opened up the time for our attorneys to not be traveling to a court appearance for a couple hours.

Each day, but rather it opens up their time to do other things such as business development. And what I call it is, I call it bonus time. And I bore on my attorneys that I work with to say, take advantage of that bonus time to do things that you would’ve otherwise not do if you [00:23:00] were involved in the traditional quote unquote lawyering.

So do use that time to help look at ways in which you can build your own book of business. Look at ways in which you can, look at yourself as an individual rainmaker within the law firm. Because, we incentivize each of our attorneys for bringing in their own new business. So it’s not just a goal of the law firm as a whole, but it’s a goal for the individual attorneys that work with us as well, in which they receive financial incentives for bringing cases to the firm.

Steve Fretzin: Wow. So that sounds like things that are happening on the legal front that’s allowing you to save time. Are there any other softwares or anything else that you’ve added to that are maybe less about the law and more, or about court and the law that are more just about like for me I use Calendly, acuity for scheduling meetings.

Like little things like that just, they take so much time off my plate each day.

Michael Vater: Sure. So we’ve been involved in working with, software that has AI technology that reads our, court orders are [00:24:00] documents that come in from the court, and what it does is it does a nice job of integrating into our case management software system in that it creates auto, it populates the deadlines and the to-dos based upon what it’s seeing in that order.

That’s a really cool fail safe to make sure a, it eliminates the human error, whereas someone that would manually input, maybe there’s 10 deadlines in a court order to prevent that from coming in. And, but it also does the same thing in terms of improving efficiency at the law firm. In that what we’re doing now is we’re able to do a lot more because we have this software that.

Calendars are deadlines for us creates the automatic reminders and the to-dos based upon the orders that are being entered by the court. So I think that technology’s just absolutely fascinating.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Hey, how do you feel about a curve ball? I got one last question for you before we wrap up and get to our game changing book.

And I’m trying to ask this more and more because I feel like it’s helpful to lawyers. Feel like a, that they’re not the only ones making mistakes, but [00:25:00] also, it’s what we learned from them. That’s really the name of the game. So is there one big mistake or misstep that you made either in your career or in running the firm or anything that, geez, if I just had a second chance at that, or if I could have done it differently?

Anything come to your mind that just jumps out that says, geez, that was really, boy, I really wish I hadn’t done that.

Michael Vater: Sure. I think one of the biggest mistakes that I’ve seen is being, is not recognizing the importance in terms of ensuring that clients stay up to date with their obligations to the firm.

For example, it’s very easy to get into a relationship with a client or in that, you have that good rapport with your client and you’re like, oh. They’ll catch up on their payment obligations to the firm later on and, oh, don’t worry about it. They’ll hit you up at the end. Yeah, and what I notice is sometimes when that happens is you don’t see that return in the end and your accounts receivables grow.

So one of the goals that I have is to make sure that we’re more on top of ensuring that our [00:26:00] accounts receivable doesn’t grow so large and that we’re just. On top in a very timely basis and making sure that our clients meet their payment obligations that they have.

Steve Fretzin: Yep. Yeah, the ar that gets outta control can really be a big problem for many forms.

This is not for everybody, but that’s why I think a lot of people are moving to flat fee situations or they’re getting retainers or I have every single client that works with me. On either a CH or credit card. So every single month, like my AR is basically nothing unless someone’s like credit card number changes or like the date expires, I gotta reach back to them.

But that’s literally the only time that I have to collect, which is, that to me just takes away a lot of the pressure. And again, I’m not saying for law firms, that’s the answer, I’m just saying. You gotta try to figure out like how to get ahead of that so it doesn’t pile up. But that’s a great, thank you for sharing that, Michael.

I appreciate that. Let’s take a moment and wrap up with our game changing book. This one’s been mentioned on the show before, but I think it’s important to bring it back. It’s the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. So [00:27:00] talk to us a little bit about why you love that book so much.

Michael Vater: I love that book because it doesn’t just talk about what’s happening in the present, but it looks at how you can improve yourself in the future. So the way the book’s set up is there’s basically three techniques that are recommended for, getting your affairs in order at the present. And then there’s also three techniques set up for building upon those techniques in the future.

The last one, the seventh one is, continuing to sharpen your saw or continuing to. Build upon what you’ve learned before. But what I do is oftentimes when I have to make a decision in the firm, or I’m involved in a decision making process, I look back as to at the techniques that are listed here as a guidepost to say which path am I going to take?

For example, one that comes up almost on a daily basis of is under, there’s a section, one of the techniques about putting things first and it. Creates this quadrant where certain things are urgent, certain things are important. There are things that are urgent, but [00:28:00] not important. Or not important, but urgent, or neither of Bo of either.

So what we find is using that decision tree, because I always joke with people, I never have enough time in the day to do everything that I want to do because I have so many things happening. I, man, I’m, running a law firm, but at the same time, I’m involved in cases and I have other court obligations.

It’d be great to have a 36 hour day. Yeah. Instead of a 24 hour day to get everything done. But using that really helps me, keep things in order and staying organized to say, Hey, this is something that I need to do right now. Or versus, Hey, this is something that I can delegate to someone else and get back to.

Yeah using that, the lessons in the book has been very helpful for me whenever I need to make those decisions at the firm.

Steve Fretzin: Everybody check out that book. You know what else you gotta check out is our wonderful sponsors. Of course, we’ve got PIM Con coming up. In October with our friends over at rankings io.

So check that out. And then of course, if you haven’t heard the law, her [00:29:00] podcast, you’re gonna wanna find out what Sonya’s got going on over there. Empowering women and making sure, just bring it on. The best guests for that. And Michael, if people wanna get in touch with you, they want to hear more about your firm, they want to understand, they want to network with you send you a bunch of work, whatever it might be, what are the best ways for them to reach you?

Michael Vater: Sure. Getting going to our website, www.legal brains.com. That’s our main website, and from there you can check out our Facebook page. You can also check us out on Instagram and X and we’re the Titon Law Group, so T-I-C-K-T-I-N. And we’re happy to connect and see if we can help each other out.

Yeah. Really appreciate this opportunity, Steve, to be on such a great podcast. And it’s so cool that it’s been such a long running podcast that you’re hitting your milestone 500th episodes.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, it’s really, yeah, it’s gone by in a blink. We just celebrated five years, so 505 years is, that’s a pretty good clip.

And I just love it. I love meeting new people. I love the interviews. I love the idea that we’re trying to pull things out that are gonna really. [00:30:00] Help lawyers in the industry get ahead and be that lawyer confident, organized, in a skilled rainmaker. That’s the name of the game folks. Thank you so much, Michael, and thank you everybody for hanging out with us today.

Take care. Be safe, be well, and we will talk again soon.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.