What does it take to grow a law firm without losing sight of its people? Eric Gros-Dubois shares lessons on taking entrepreneurial risks, adapting to AI and outsourcing, hiring thoughtfully, and making career paths transparent.
In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Eric Gros-Dubois discuss:
- The “Man in the Arena” and starting a firm
- EPGD Business Law’s growth and partnership
- AI, outsourcing, and changing legal roles
- Recruiting, referrals, and hiring for fit
- Transparent career paths and associate retention
Key Takeaways:
- Trying, learning, and making mistakes can be more valuable than waiting until you feel fully prepared.
- AI and outsourcing are changing entry-level legal work, and the staffing mix firms need.
- Build a recruiting pipeline before a staffing crisis forces rushed decisions.
- Look for candidates whose work history suggests commitment, while asking about the context behind short tenures.
- Put advancement expectations in writing so employees can see what partnership requires.
“[Hiring] with wrong intentions or for the wrong motivations [results in] bad decisions.” — Eric Gros-Dubois
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About Eric Gros-Dubois: Eric Gros-Dubois is the founder of EPGD Business Law, where he leads the firm’s corporate, estate planning, and tax practices out of the Miami office. Holding both a JD and an MBA with a concentration in finance, he combines commercial acumen with a hands-on, solutions-oriented approach to act as a strategic advisor for business owners. With prior experience spanning commercial litigation, private equity, and tax court representation, Eric focuses on building long-term client relationships and delivering practical solutions to complex personal and business challenges.
Connect with Eric Gros-Dubois:
Website: https://www.epgdlaw.com/team/eric-p-gros-dubois/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericgrosdubois/
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Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:01]
Before we jump in today’s show, if you’ve been listening to the podcast or reading any of my books, the Be That Lawyer community is clearly the next step for your growth and development as a rainmaker. Learn proven strategies, connect with ambitious lawyers just like you, and put new ideas into action. Check it out at bethatlawyer.com/community. Build your book, own your future, and be that lawyer.
Narrator [00:30]
You’re listening to Be That Lawyer: Life-Changing Strategies and Resources for Growing a Successful Law Practice. Each episode, your host, author, and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here is your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:52]
Hey, everybody! Steve Fretzin here, and welcome to the Be That Lawyer podcast. This is the only show in the history of the world dedicated to legal business development. It was nothing before this, and there’ll never be anything like this again, right, Eric? This is it. This is the show. All right. Thanks for coming back. Good to see you, man.
Eric Gros-Dubois [01:09]
You just reminded me. It’s been over three years, so I guess a lot has changed in our world since then. I don’t think any of us had heard of AI.
Steve Fretzin [01:18]
Yeah,
Eric Gros-Dubois [01:18]
like the Terminator, but we
Steve Fretzin [01:20]
were all like COVID. Oh, COVID changed everything, and all this virtual stuff, and now
Eric Gros-Dubois [01:25]
fallout. And my law firm, professionally, we were dealing with a lot of things that feel very specific to COVID. So our intake from people who found us on Google sitting on their couch during quarantine went through the roof, but then the quality of the leads and the quality of these people was way lower. So we’re having to sift through. What’s the expression? We had to kiss a lot more frogs to find a prince, and then we had the Amazon store e-commerce scams. We had a lot of people taking their PPP money and setting up. God,
Steve Fretzin [02:04]
who even remembers PPP? That seems like a million years ago.
Eric Gros-Dubois [02:08]
Yeah. Well, they were taking those checks. Some of them were complete fraud. Yeah. I remember they were like, “Oh, I just told the government I had 100 employees. I’m like, “Well, did you? And they’re like, “No. I’m like, “You go to jail someday. That’s probably ever get their act together. And they were taking that money and they were buying exotic luxury cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis and they were doing the Turo car rental businesses here in South Florida.
Steve Fretzin [02:30]
So
Eric Gros-Dubois [02:30]
definitely an era because all of those things are gone. All of the all of that’s over now. Here we are in 2026.
Steve Fretzin [02:36]
Now we got a whole other world of problems and potential, right? So yeah, but listen, it is not the critic who counts. The credit belongs to the man who’s actually in the arena. Is our quote of the show? I’m happy to have you back. Tell us why you love that quote so much.
Eric Gros-Dubois [02:50]
Well, start with the man. Teddy Roosevelt’s an incredible individual. If you ever get a chance, I’ve read four of his biographies, and he was just, you know, they don’t make him like that anymore. He was a commissioner of New York City police. Then he was a governor of New York. Then he founded the Rough Riders and went to Cuba and volunteered to be a cavalry guy in the Spanish-American War. Then he runs for vice president, wins. McKinley gets assassinated almost right away, and he steps up and becomes arguably a great president, even though he was an elected vice president who stepped up after an assassination. Then he gets elected in his own right. Then at the end of that term, he kind of decides he’s like, you know what, two’s enough. I basically had two full terms, and he he takes a step back, and then he comes back. Or in the meantime, he goes and explores Africa. He then explores the Amazon, and they like went to unexplored areas of Brazil. Then there’s the famous time that he actually got shot while giving a campaign speech, and he didn’t stop the speech. And they’re like, “Sir, do you need to go to the hospital? He goes, “No, I’m not done yet. And he finished the speech. So, no, but the
Steve Fretzin [03:59]
Russell dirt on it
Eric Gros-Dubois [04:00]
from the quote is, it’s kind of part of a management philosophy. My partner and I have it’s okay to make mistakes because at least you’re trying something, right?
Steve Fretzin [04:08]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [04:09]
And you know, I remember before I started my firm, I was talking to a friend and I hadn’t made up my mind to do it yet. And he goes, “Well, why don’t you start your own firm? And I said, “Well, I don’t have any clients. I don’t know how to run a business. I don’t know marketing. I don’t know sales. I don’t know how to run a law firm. I’ve never had an entrepreneurial idea. I don’t have. I don’t speak Spanish. I’m not dating a Cuban, and I’m down here in South Florida. And he said, “Eric, those are all just excuses you tell yourself, so you don’t even bother trying. And I was like, “Wow, that was
Steve Fretzin [04:40]
punch the punch the head.
Eric Gros-Dubois [04:41]
Yeah, he got me right there. And so now looking back, you know that’s probably one of the most important conversations of my life.
Steve Fretzin [04:49]
Wow, was that’s incredible. Was that and you’re and you and you’ve built something truly incredible. Especially, I want to say the last five years, like you’ve doubled or tripled your size. I mean, tell everybody your background, everybody. Eric Gros-Dubois, the founder of EPGD Business Law, and give everybody like this the story here.
Eric Gros-Dubois [05:06]
So it was a little bit of a of right time, right place, or wrong time, wrong place, depending on how you look at it. I was working at a firm and was really having a hard time. Was looking to make a change. A recruiter told me that his professional advice was that I learn how to suck it up, and so then I had this friend who said, “Eric, I have an empty office. I can teach you how to do what at least what I’ve done. And he was-he’s seven years older than me, so he had already had his own firm. He had a couple associates, a couple employees. So it was a-it was a real going concern. He was supporting his family. I think even at the time, his wife was working for him, so you know it was. If he didn’t do what he had to do, his family was going to be homeless, right? And they were going to foreclose on his mortgage. So, I took his advice and I followed his lead, and that was in 2013. So, first three years was definitely the school of hard knocks, like making a lot of mistakes, but getting lucky and being blessed every day to have wonderful people in my corner, and including my wife. I met my wife around the same time. She was on her own. I think she’s been a guest on your podcast.
Steve Fretzin [06:15]
Amazing,
Eric Gros-Dubois [06:15]
Andrea Niro of Niro Immigration Law. Recent update is she actually moved into our firm, so separate entity, but down the down the hall.
Steve Fretzin [06:24]
I know you like broke down a wall to double your space, right?
Eric Gros-Dubois [06:27]
We did that a year ago. Yeah, we just had the one year anniversary.
Steve Fretzin [06:31]
Amazing.
Eric Gros-Dubois [06:31]
So double the space. She’s in that new call it the new annex or the new wing, and so first three years, I got us up to about 10 employees. I think we’re three or four lawyers, and then serendipity came knocking again. An old colleague reached out, and I’ll say this about him: a couple years younger than me, but like you know, we’re relatively the same peer group. And I knew when he reached out because we hadn’t spoken in a few years that he was reaching out because he wanted to go off on his own, and I I said to my wife, I said, you know, I bet this guy is going to pick my brain and he’s going to ask me 100 questions on how he can do what I did. Well, we met for a beer, and I said to him, don’t do it. I said, don’t do it, and I’ll tell you why, because you and I have exactly complementary skill sets. You’re a lawyer’s lawyer. You love to be in the law and the nitty gritty and the regulations. You want to be in court. You want to be in front of judges. I want to build the business and I want to be at the networking event and I want to be at the job fair and I want to be interviewing and recruiting. And so that was our 10 years. In fact, I meant to wear the watch he got me for our 10 year anniversary because it was August. He engraved it with the most sentimental thoughts on the back, and truthfully, you know, my wife said to me, “Well, why would you want to bring on this guy? And eventually, he became a partner, and then he became an equity partner, and now we’re 50-50. And then she’s like, “Why would you do that? And I’m like, “Because he and I can have a pie this big versus when it was just me, it was a pie that big. Now you, I had to sacrifice, right? Now I, I have, you know, even though I’d like to say that I work for myself, I don’t. I have partners that I have obligations to, and I have employees that I know I’m beholden to. And by the way, I say that because I have a best friend. I’m about to go on our annual boys’ trip. We’re going to Sri Lanka, he has a solo solo, so he doesn’t have an assistant. He even doesn’t even have a remote assistant that works for like a company like Salvo in Colombia. Yeah, because he doesn’t want any overhead. He’s like a zero overhead guy, which I guess is on the one hand you can sleep maybe sleep better at night, but on the other hand, like when he goes on vacation, everything grinds to a halt. Like there’s no revenue generation when he goes, and so you know, I I know there’s a trade-off, right? The opposite is I have we’re 65 people now, 30 lawyers, 31 or so, and then you know not without its setbacks. I lost so this opportunity for us to chat is very timely because this week I am offboarding a junior partner who is leaving to start his own firm, a marketing director who had just graduated with a degree and was going to go pursue whatever that degree. I think she’s going to go become a social worker, and a mid-level litigator who’s changing firms, right? So just this week we’re offboarding three people, but you know by the end of the month we’ll probably onboard three or four people. So you know it’s how to see those as opportunities and how to not let them be total setbacks. Yeah.
Steve Fretzin [09:40]
Well, maybe it’s maybe it’s a good entry to the conversation we’re going to have today because with that kind of growth, you you’ve seen it all, and so I guess I would ask right now, like, what’s the state of of legal right now in the solo small firm world? Like, is it it’s never been busier and harder? To find good talent, is it easy to find talent? Like, what’s your like? I’m seeing most of the managing part, and you know, because you were in the roundtables with me, that you know that was sort of the number one thing is like, how do we find good people right now? Because we’re all overwhelmed.
Eric Gros-Dubois [10:13]
So let me break it down by kind of division. Okay. So our entry level administrative people, like the the non lawyer, non paralegals, it’s being outsourced. We are having tremendous success in Latin America. Most no,
Steve Fretzin [10:26]
I remember when you kind of up that that the next level and
Eric Gros-Dubois [10:30]
people down there. So those are seven human beings that they’re about half the price. That are you know, and by the way, it’s seamless. They are one Zoom call away. They were on the WhatsApp chat, I mean, it’s almost like they’re down the hall.
Steve Fretzin [10:42]
Yeah,
Eric Gros-Dubois [10:43]
but those are seven jobs that are not in America anymore. So that that’s happening, and that is it’s going to continue happening. We’re going to get to the point where we’re going to have a skeleton crew in the office. So I need someone who can provide, you know, make photocopies and get coffee. But especially with how everything’s digital, anyways. There’s less photocopies, and I have fewer in-person meetings than ever before, because my clients there’s like, yeah, why would I get in traffic and go across town or across the country when I can just? I mean, you’re in Chicago, I’m in Miami, and it’s like you’re sitting next to me. Yeah. So then, paralegals has been a real struggle because if you’re a really talented paralegal, you go to law school and become a lawyer. So it’s really hard to find a good paralegal, and then the good ones are as expensive as lawyers now. Then junior attorneys, I gotta tell you, I think AI is gonna really. It’s a. I know speaking personally, we’re cutting back our summer associate class because we don’t need as many bodies to do a lot of the entry level researching and first drafts, and so you give you give a second or third lawyer an account with Claude or one of these other AIs, and they’re doing you know the work that we used to have law students do so. The way it used to be five years ago was the law students would do the researching in the first drafts, then the junior attorneys would do the final draft, and then the senior people, partners, or senior associates would approve it and file it.
Steve Fretzin [12:14]
Yeah,
Eric Gros-Dubois [12:14]
that’s just getting streamlined. And then I’ve heard of firms even having success with paralegals also in South America, where they’re taking, in my example, Colombia, they’re taking Colombian lawyers, training them. They have to be bilingual, obviously, but training them on entry level paralegal work. And I’ve heard of firms having tremendous success, especially firms where they’re doing a lot of the same type of work over and over. So if you’re a personal injury firm, and you’re doing the same car accident discovery over and over and over again. You get your set of templates, and then you can train the Colombian lawyer who’s working as a U.S. paralegal, and they’re making more money and they’re happier, which again is threatening the the jobs here in the in the United States.
Steve Fretzin [12:57]
Right,
Eric Gros-Dubois [12:58]
and then we’re scaling back our junior associates, we just are, and it’s not a drastic scale back. We’re not going to go from starting with four junior associates to zero, but we’re going from four to two. And then what it’s really doing is then the senior people. There’s much more of an emphasis on them sharpening their AI skills and them getting up to speed and making sure that they’re using the resources we have, and so it’s interesting from a business perspective. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for us to serve more clients, make more money, and have less overhead.
Steve Fretzin [13:33]
And the lawyers who are, you know, in law school or that are first or second years right now, how do you see them making it? Is it that they need to learn AI? Is it that they’ll just have a ramp up to get to higher level work faster?
Eric Gros-Dubois [13:48]
I think that’s probably right. I also think that there’s a real emphasis on the client experience and the bedside manner and the emotional intelligence and the communication skills. So, for example, oh, you mean the thing
Steve Fretzin [14:01]
most most younger people don’t have at all?
Eric Gros-Dubois [14:03]
Right. No, no. If you’re applying and you’ve never worked anywhere, you’ve never waited tables, you’ve never worked at a hotel, you’ve never done anything. Yeah. And all you’ve done is made straight A’s through school, but then you have no personality, and the job that you used to get hired to do has now been replaced with computers. I don’t know if that job exists for much longer now. Yeah, I think we’re exaggerating.
Steve Fretzin [14:24]
I know we’re we’re playing around a little bit, but it it is you know when I think about you know the the kids that these kids today is is what my father would say, right? And
Eric Gros-Dubois [14:33]
it’s today,
Steve Fretzin [14:34]
but it’s true that when you’re staring at a phone and when you’re you know COVID and and just the lack of social activities and things that that a lot of the teenagers and and young adults are having like they’re not going into bars and getting rejected they’re not you know able to handle jobs that have you know difficult bosses or the things that we came up with that we had to deal with and and you know thickened our skin. And so, if the if the job is going to be all right, we don’t want AI. We want people that are human and emotionally intelligent and can communicate. That’s great, but is that that’s not really what we’re building in in our younger generation?
Eric Gros-Dubois [15:14]
Well, for sure, our education system is behind, right? And you know, you got to remember these are teachers our age who are maybe just starting to think about how to use AI, and we’re trying to then plan how to train the next generation for a world we don’t even know? I mean, you. I actually, I want to ask you: Isn’t your son is in undergrad right now? Right? Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [15:36]
he’s at. He’s a sophomore at Colorado State.
Eric Gros-Dubois [15:39]
So, what type of advice are you giving him?
Steve Fretzin [15:41]
Oh, he won’t take any of my advice.
Eric Gros-Dubois [15:43]
So I the other thing that’s that’s why my wife. The best advice I
Steve Fretzin [15:46]
give to him is when I don’t say anything and wait for him to ask Dad a question. But if I was to give, let’s assume that he he was open to it, and I, you know, like he did say to me, Dad, I want to get on LinkedIn, and I know you’re the guy. And then he had all summer to do it, and I think I brought up three times I gave up. But he gets like that social media and LinkedIn, and like this is how you get a job, and like you know, being a good communicator is going to be important. And you know, I think being out on his own has been the best teacher, a better teacher than the things that we try to teach him that he shut us down. He is using, and he is like repeating back things that we’ve said and done, and how he handles his day to day. It’s just you can’t see it when he’s with you. It’s just got to be when he’s away living his life, which is you know. But that, but he’s got to interact with teachers, and if a grade comes out he doesn’t like, he’s got to engage the teacher and say, “I don’t like this grade. What can I do to improve it? And we could tell him that till we in the face. He’s got to actually do it and either come up with it on his own or execute.
Eric Gros-Dubois [16:47]
You said he’s a sophomore, right?
Steve Fretzin [16:49]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [16:50]
Oh well, you know. Listen, when I was 20, I wasn’t taking much advice from older people. So
Steve Fretzin [16:54]
yeah, no, it’s it’s fair. And you know, I think if there was a teacher or a different adult or a counselor or a friend, you know. I think there there’s an age that we get to where our frontal lobes are completed. Like they’re like my dad, Larry the lawyer. I talk about him on the show all the time. You know, there was a time where Dad, I need to ask you a question, or Dad, you know, I’m heartbroken from this girl, or Dad, you know, I um I need uh you to review a condo I want to buy. And so there’s a there’s a time I think in every parent’s life where the kids come around and they realize, hey, we’re all we’ve done is try to be in your best interest your whole life. You just didn’t just couldn’t see it, and that we actually know a few things. But it’s got to be like upon them to come back.
Eric Gros-Dubois [17:35]
Well, like your dad said, these kids today, you know, I’m sure that they said the same thing about us, yeah, right,
Steve Fretzin [17:41]
yeah,
Eric Gros-Dubois [17:42]
and I’m sure that their parents were saying the same thing about them,
Steve Fretzin [17:45]
yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [17:45]
And since the beginning of time, like first caveman was saying that his son was a good for nothing, you know. So I actually I’m not going to be totally pessimistic, and I think that at some point, you know, they’re gonna have to take the safety net away, and people are gonna have to learn new things, and
Steve Fretzin [18:00]
Yeah. Before we jump in today’s show, if you’ve been listening to the podcast or reading any of my books, the Be That Lawyer community is clearly the next step for your growth and development as a rainmaker. Learn proven strategies, connect with ambitious lawyers just like you, and put new ideas into action. Check it out at bethatlawyer.com/community. Build your book, own your future, and be that lawyer. Let me swing this around because there are lawyers looking for different types of jobs for different types of reasons. Yeah, you know, is it about you know the the culture? Is it about the comp? Is it about the freedom and flexibility of working from home x number of days and having that balance or what they consider balance. So how how should a law a law firm owner think about recruiting and hiring today maybe different than five years ago?
Eric Gros-Dubois [18:55]
Truthfully, I don’t think I’m treating that process differently. Okay, using recruiters, I’m using LinkedIn. I’m using Indeed. I’m using word of mouth. We’ve actually developed internally almost like an internal recruiting structure where if you recruit an associate or an employee, you get a bonus on their one-year anniversary, almost like a recruiter fee. Okay. I actually got that idea from a friend in New York,
Steve Fretzin [19:21]
but that tip alone-I mean, how many law firm owners, you know, have thought of that or have done anything and executed where they’re actually like-that’s where the best people are going to come from. It’s the people that I know well that I think are unhappy, or I know have told me they’re unhappy, and I know they’d be happier over here. Come on over, and then I happen to get a bonus. You know, win-win-win.
Eric Gros-Dubois [19:42]
Yeah, I mean, and by the way, for the longest time, we weren’t offering a bonus, but it was like you know that would be considered part of the Attaboy. You’re in it for the team culture, and this will be remembered someday.
Steve Fretzin [19:53]
Okay,
Eric Gros-Dubois [19:54]
but we’ve had up, we’ve you know, we had an opportunity, or we had a situation where we needed to fill a couple positions. And I literally asked all my attorneys. I’m like, “Hey, if you’ve dealt with a counterpart on the other side that you thought was good and respected, give me their name and number. I’ll reach out and see if they want to grab coffee.
Steve Fretzin [20:10]
Okay,
Eric Gros-Dubois [20:11]
and that has actually worked.
Steve Fretzin [20:12]
Oh, I love that idea too. That’s really good. That’s really good because I don’t think people in a day to day it’s like business development in a day to day you’re just grinding away, and you’re not. Your head is down, and you’re not really looking around. And when you think about business development, it starts to like percolate that hey, I’ve got a client that just complimented me. Maybe now’s a good time to ask for a quality introduction to someone they know that I could help in a similar way. Or this this friend of mine who’s a CPA that works with all the same type of companies that I would want to engage, that I’m going to bring up. Hey, I may be a good person to help them with employment or help them with real estate or whatever the the area is. And I think hiring is a similar thing where if you can get it in people’s head to just have their antenna up when they’re in their day to day, that you might end up finding some gold.
Eric Gros-Dubois [21:03]
So a really nice thing about where we’re at, which is about 30 lawyers, is I can lose or gain a lawyer, and I won’t really feel it.
Steve Fretzin [21:11]
Like
Eric Gros-Dubois [21:11]
I won’t notice my payroll went up. You know, if I add another $150,000 employee, I just won’t even notice it. Or if someone leaves, like you know, so I think if I did the math, what’s one out of 30? It’s it’s not that much. It is 3% So you know, most of us can’t really feel a 3% change in temperature.
Steve Fretzin [21:31]
Yeah, maybe a little bit. My wife can,
Eric Gros-Dubois [21:34]
but you know, I I think an idea that we have is to first of all, we’re recruiting for the right people, right? So at 30, I’m never desperate to hire. So what we’re doing is, even if we’re not hiring and we meet the right person, we’ll create the position for
Steve Fretzin [21:50]
them.
Eric Gros-Dubois [21:51]
So we’re we’re more on the lookout for great people rather than the opposite, which is where you need to fill a role and you fill it with the wrong person, which we’ve done. Yeah, you know, we do. You remember when they were talking about the Great Resignation?
Steve Fretzin [22:04]
Yeah, sure.
Eric Gros-Dubois [22:05]
The Great Resignation was q3 2021. So what happened is COVID happened in q1 2020, and then nobody quit their job for the rest of 2020 because we were all afraid the the sky was going to fall on our head, and then middle of 2021, and so then by the end of 2021, people were like, “Well, the world’s not going to end. You know, the sun’s going to come up tomorrow. And so, all of the natural turnover that the company just naturally has, and and that’s the other thing. My firm is mostly people younger than me, so a lot of them are still. They’ll marry someone who gets a job in another town. You know they’ll have kids and they’ll need to move somewhere else for the school or or whatever. So it’s like you know a lot of younger people, and so there is just a natural amount of turnover that didn’t happen for 16 months, and then all of a sudden we lost six lawyers in six weeks, and that’s back when we were probably closer to 15
Steve Fretzin [23:00]
lawyers. Yeah, but then you really feel it. Yeah, yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [23:02]
Going from 15 to nine, you’re definitely feeling that.
Steve Fretzin [23:05]
Sure.
Eric Gros-Dubois [23:05]
And so then we did everything wrong. We were hiring in a panic. We hired a bunch of people that were the wrong fit. I think of all the hires we made in that next six months, only one of them is still with us, and we just got lucky that that was a great person who’s now my partner Ben. But when you hire, I guess with the wrong intentions or with for the wrong motivations, like I feel like our desperation made us made some bad decisions.
Steve Fretzin [23:28]
Yeah, is there something that for your firm in particular that you hire for? Like I know for some law firms and managing partners that I work with, they go, you know what? I’m, you know, yes, you got to have a person who’s not an a-hole, but I’m really hiring for work ethic. Like they need workhorses, not people hemming and hawing about you know nine to five or this or that or work from home. But everybody’s got to have their own jam. What’s your jam? Like, what are you hiring for that you know is someone that will work out with you and your firm?
Eric Gros-Dubois [24:01]
I want to see someone who’s got a resume that shows that they stick places. Okay,
Steve Fretzin [24:04]
loyalty.
Eric Gros-Dubois [24:05]
If you looked at my resume, I had a place that I was only at for a year. Now I will tell you, I could have quit after six months, but I actually said to myself, I got to stick it out for a year because I was getting ready to have to answer that question in a future job interview.
Steve Fretzin [24:20]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [24:20]
So if there’s anything less than a year, I I even ask why are they putting this on the resume?
Steve Fretzin [24:25]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [24:26]
Now you know I give them the benefit of the doubt. What happened here? What happened there? But if you’ve been eight places in eight years, I mean, come on, you’re the. I see
Steve Fretzin [24:34]
that. Yeah, I see that. Simple time for.
Eric Gros-Dubois [24:36]
And again, it could be. And once upon a time, we had this guy. There was eight places in eight years, and my partner said to me, “God bless him. I love him to death. But my partner said to me, “Maybe he just hasn’t found the right home, maybe, or maybe he was just a lazy prick, or just or just
Steve Fretzin [24:56]
difficult, right? Just difficult people that just don’t.” Those are people that I think sometimes should just go out on their own. I know that might be challenging, and they may not be an entrepreneur. But if you’ve been in eight places in eight years, I think there’s there’s something to be said about about you know being on your own, right? You don’t play well in the sandbox. I’m
Eric Gros-Dubois [25:15]
talking about is now on his own. When he there, he he opened his own shop. Oh my god! I keep a list. So funny. So I keep a list of everybody who’s ever left to start their own shop. Oh really? Working for
Steve Fretzin [25:30]
why do you keep that list? Is that for future assassinations? Tabs
Eric Gros-Dubois [25:33]
on them. I keep tabs on them. But I’ll tell you what. The interesting thing is there’s 1112, now. Oh no, I had this guy. I had this guy.
Steve Fretzin [25:41]
Okay. So
Eric Gros-Dubois [25:41]
now there’s 12 of the 12. I think only two have built enterprise level businesses.
Steve Fretzin [25:49]
Okay.
Eric Gros-Dubois [25:49]
Where it’s a type of thing where they can go out of town for a month and the lights are going to be on and people show up and do their job. Like I can go out of town for a month and my COO is going to keep everything happening.
Steve Fretzin [25:59]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [25:59]
Right. And my associates know how to do their job, and everyone we have departments and management. I think last time I looked at this, nine of the 12 are living off of a spouse, where they’re solos working from home, and they’re lucky to have a spouse with us.
Steve Fretzin [26:16]
Hey, you know what? You know what would be a good idea is to is to hook them up with this show, so at least they get some in some insights as to what they probably should be doing.
Eric Gros-Dubois [26:24]
Well, put that out there. Show on all of my social media and my email blasts. So if they are still on my, if they haven’t unsubscribed, they will know about
Steve Fretzin [26:33]
- All right, you know, I sometimes when I when I I see a nugget of goal, I mind it. Anyway, all right, Eric, I got one more very important question for you as we wrap up, and that is, what’s yes, you know it’s coming. What’s Eric’s big mistake?
Eric Gros-Dubois [26:45]
You know the cliche was that I should have done it sooner, right? But I’ll actually give a more specific mistake. So I I ended up I was very blessed, very organic. A client referred their daughter in law. She was in law school. She was looking for an internship. I hired her. She was a super high performer. She became a junior associate. Then she became a senior associate, and then of course she asked for partnership. And I had never faced this dilemma, so to speak. I’d never confronted this situation, and so I kind of sleepwalked through the next couple steps in the relationship, and we came up with it on the fly. Hey, how about we make you a junior non-equity partner, and we’ll figure out the equity down the road. Well, down the road was only about six months later, and we were completely not close to having a meeting of the minds. And she’s like, well, I’ve been holding on to this in my back pocket. One of our clients wants to hire me as our general counsel, so I’m leaving. Just a quick side note: Thank God she didn’t go and start her own law firm because she was such a high performer; she would have stolen all of her clients.
Steve Fretzin [27:53]
Oh boy!
Eric Gros-Dubois [27:54]
So instead, she only stole one.
Steve Fretzin [27:55]
Yeah, yeah, in house. Okay, which
Eric Gros-Dubois [27:57]
is okay.
Steve Fretzin [27:58]
Yeah,
Eric Gros-Dubois [27:58]
but the mistake was I didn’t have a plan.
Steve Fretzin [28:01]
Yeah,
Eric Gros-Dubois [28:02]
I had never thought through how do I take a high performer who’s obviously going to be asking for partnership, and I didn’t have a path to partnership. I didn’t have a roadmap. So what did we do? We went back to the drawing board and we created a path for partnership, which is now a published document that is updated every year and is given to all the associates. And these are the seven categories that you need to to be successful in in order to be considered for partnership. And then we had the second step of the path, which is from junior partner to equity partner, and it’s all laid out. Which then you have to live with it because now he’s written it down.
Steve Fretzin [28:38]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [28:39]
So we’ve had the guy who the next partner, his name is Papo. He made it all the way through, and then when Papo was like, “All right, guys, where’s my equity? It was like, “No, I I wrote it down, so I’m here to live
Steve Fretzin [28:49]
up to it.
Eric Gros-Dubois [28:51]
And the good news is that once we created the path, it has become a good retention tool. It’s not a perfect retention tool. I mean, I I just told you I I just lost a junior non-equity partner, so obviously the carrot of him getting the equity step was not enough to keep him around. But he also worked here for nine and a half years.
Steve Fretzin [29:09]
Well, and it’s and it’s better to have that transparency. I think I think the lack of transparency that that gives the firm the ability to shift and maneuver any way they want hurts them when it comes to retention, because people feel like there there’s backroom conversations that they’re not a part of or privy to, and and it ends up hurting the relationship and their ability to really know, like, hey, what is next? What is my path? And that’s why I think it’s so important you did what you did.
Eric Gros-Dubois [29:35]
You know, the black box for the bonuses, the black box for the performance reviews, the black box for the path to partnership. I think that really hurts a lot of businesses, a lot of law.
Steve Fretzin [29:47]
And it’s not really the way business is done. I mean, that’s just not. That’s just not. Yeah, it’s not. It’s old school. I remember I used to work for a company. This is great, and I will wrap up. I was their number one producer. One year, and I went. We had our like company retreat, and this was like what they were known for, like their 1970s and 80s tactics. I sat in a chair with four guys at a table, basically yelling at me for it. Went on for three hours. They basically yelled at me, told me I was horrible, terrible. I could be doing so much better, unleash potential, all this stuff for three hours. Then they gave me a big bonus and sent me off, and I knew that they were laughing. Like this was their management joke was to like put me through that as they did everybody in the company, and it had become their their culture, which was horrible, horrible culture.
Eric Gros-Dubois [30:34]
I pledged the fraternity that sounded exactly,
Steve Fretzin [30:36]
and then they made maybe eat a raw onion and chunk it with with vodka. No, no, that was rushed.
Eric Gros-Dubois [30:41]
Like, let’s yell at the kids, and then once we’ve yelled at them enough, let’s give them a
Steve Fretzin [30:46]
right, right, right. Give them a party. Give them a party. Ah, all right. Listen, let’s take a moment. Thank our incredible sponsors, of course, Lex Reception and lawyer.com. and Rankings.io. Eric, people want to get in touch with you. They loved everything you said. They go, I want to work for this guy, with this guy, how do they get in touch with you?
Eric Gros-Dubois [31:03]
Thanks for Steve. Thanks for the opportunity.
Steve Fretzin [31:06]
Yeah.
Eric Gros-Dubois [31:06]
Remember, I’m always interviewing and I’m always hiring. So if you’re if you’re a candidate in the market, just reach out. Eric at epgdlaw.com. Our website is epgdlaw.com, and I think I’m probably on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook,
Steve Fretzin [31:20]
LinkedIn,
Eric Gros-Dubois [31:20]
all the good ones.
Steve Fretzin [31:22]
Yeah, and we’ll make sure all your digits are in the in the show notes as well. So anybody that wants to reach out, I just you’ve been a great a great friend, a great lawyer contact, supporter of the Rainmaker Roundtables. I mean, it’s been an incredible relationship, and I want to make sure if I if and when I next time I come down to Florida, we get. Are you still sailing the boat?
Eric Gros-Dubois [31:42]
I’m gonna go. Well, assuming I don’t have to go take care of my wife in her car accident, right? Go sailing this afternoon.
Steve Fretzin [31:48]
Okay. Oh man, that’s so great. Good for you. Good for you. All right. Well, thank you for coming back and and being a guest on the show again. And and I I want to you know keep in touch with you. And I want to thank everybody for hanging out with us for the last 30, listening to us yak it up about, you know, entrepreneurship and recruitment and loyalty and retention and all the different things that we covered in our time today. So I appreciate you coming back,
Eric Gros-Dubois [32:11]
Steve. What I really love is how broad your topics can be because you really handle so much of this world, this life.
Steve Fretzin [32:18]
Yeah, I mean don’t don’t get too deep and heavy into me, and it’s some of that finance and operational stuff. I can talk with somebody about it, but it’s not, it’s not really my jam. But, but yeah, everything that’s going to help a lawyer or a law firm grow is on this show. That’s what this show is. You know, be that lawyer. You know, grow that, grow your practice. You know, own your future and be a lawyer, everybody. That’s what it’s all about. Thanks, Eric. Thank you all. Take care. Be safe and well. We will talk again soon.
Narrator [32:48]
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.
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