Sarah Persich: Buying Back Your Time Through Systems and Automation

 In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Sarah Persich discuss:

• Investing time instead of just spending it
• Fixing systems before layering on automation
• Building a connected tech stack that talks to itself
• Using AI strategically while managing risk

Key Takeaways:

• High-performing firms focus on building systems that multiply their time rather than endlessly grinding through tasks. Automation, documented workflows, and thoughtful process design “buy back” hours every week. The goal is long-term leverage, not short-term busyness.
• Most lawyers do not have an automation problem first; they have a clarity problem around roles, processes, and workflows. Undefined responsibilities and undocumented systems cause time leaks long before software can solve anything. Strong foundations make automation effective instead of chaotic.
• A solid CRM, practice management system, and an integration layer like Zapier allow firms to eliminate repetitive manual work. Open APIs and thoughtful integrations turn scattered tools into a coordinated system. When payments, contracts, intake, and follow-ups connect seamlessly, administrative drag disappears.
• AI becomes powerful when prompts are specific, voice is clearly defined, and systems are documented with tools like Loom and structured SOPs. Custom prompts or GPT setups help maintain brand consistency and save substantial time on drafting and research. At the same time, firms must weigh confidentiality, compliance, and ethical considerations before deploying AI at scale.

“I still stayed in my comfort zone for a little while, and I finally allowed myself to accept being uncomfortable… the big mistake was not going out on my own sooner, and staying in that safety zone and accepting the uncomfortability. And it’s been really, really great ever since.” —  Sarah Persich

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About Sarah Persich: Sarah Persich is a law firm automation strategist and operations expert known as “The Automation Lady.” With nearly a decade of experience inside a small law firm, she began her career as a legal assistant. She grew into the integrator role, serving as the operational second-in-command responsible for systems, technology, and process design.

Her hands-on experience managing IT, workflows, and firm infrastructure gave her a front-row seat to the inefficiencies that quietly drain time and profitability from growing practices. Over time, she transitioned from internal operations leadership into marketing and automation strategy, helping firms move beyond reactive task management and toward intentional system design.

Today, Sarah works with law firms to implement CRMs, streamline practice management systems, build automations, and document scalable processes. She helps attorneys distinguish between high-value strategic work and repetitive administrative tasks, enabling them to reclaim time, improve client experience, and build firms that operate with clarity instead of chaos.

Connect with Sarah Persich:

Website: https://www.automationlady.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahpersich/

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Narrator  [00:00]

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’s your host, Steve Fretzin, hey everybody.

 

Steve Fretzin  [00:27]

Steve Fretzin, and welcome, welcome. Welcome to the be that lawyer podcast. We are, you know, six years in, we’re 380 plus shows. We are just here for your amusement, your pleasure, and for your education as a lawyer who never thought you’d have to deal with any of this crap, right? Business development, marketing automation, technology, not what you signed up for when you went to law school, and now you’re stuck. You got to deal with it. So I’m here to try to make it as painless as possible. I know I’ve got Sarah waiting in the wings, who’s going to help me with that? How are you? Sarah, I’m doing great. Steve, All right, fantastic. We’re excited to have you in. Stephen Covey, he’s been brought up on the show a number of times. Let’s talk about his quote, and then we’ll dive in. The key is not spending time, but in investing time. So again, I’m happy you’re here and tell us why that quote.

 

Sarah Persich  [01:15]

Yeah, well, Steve, it’s an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I mean, that quote just really speaks to me, because time is the one thing that you know, where it’s a finite resource, it’s relative for many people, but how we spend that time, what we’re doing with our time, whether it’s, you know, working in our businesses or spending time with our families, we’re not going to get any of that back. And I don’t know about you, but when I look back at, you know, say 20 years ago, it feels like that. 20 years has been just a blur, and so it makes me really value my time more, and it makes me want to invest that time and doing the things that I love, that I know are going to be good for other people too. So that’s why that quote means so much to me.

 

Steve Fretzin  [01:56]

Yeah, I was talking to an attorney who’s interested in my in my program, and he said something about, you know, spending time, and, you know, have this is going to take so much time, and he doesn’t have the time. And I was like, well, you’re investing the time. And I use that word, and I also brought up the fact that we’re trying to work this show and generally, like automation, what we’re going to talk about today. It’s all about time, and it’s all about efficiency. And so whether it’s business development, marketing, whatever like, we have to figure out how do we things efficiently, and sometimes we have to go through a program to learn that stuff so that we can be more efficient with how we do things, in order to then save time for the remainder of our lives, or whatever it ends up being. So I totally get it, and I think that now is a good time for us to make an investment. People are spending 30 minutes with you and I to invest in themselves, so we’ll make it worth your while, everybody. Sarah Persich Is the automation lady, and how do we meet? I don’t even remember.

 

Sarah Persich  [02:54]

I feel like it was through Ernie Svenson. Ernie the attorney, like the attorney and I, Ernie is a phenomenal resource for all attorneys out there. He’s the the AI guru when it comes to the legal world, but very great, right?

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:09]

The attorney, yeah. And I feel like you introduced me to earn the attorney something like that anyway. And then we found out that you live in Mandeville, down in the New Orleans area, and that’s where half my family is. And so we’re like, oh my god, what are the chances people don’t know that I have a lot of southern blood in me, and I love that part of me, because I feel like that’s the, like, fun, affectionate, like, crazy side of me, and then, like, my dad’s side Larry the lawyer, that’s like, the analytical, you know, brainy side of me, or whatever. But I, I love to go down there and visit with them, and I like to, I don’t like to call them batshit crazy anymore. I’ve kind of stopped that a little bit. But they’re, let’s just say they’re out there,

 

Sarah Persich  [03:46]

yeah, well, I mean that both of those track, I think that those are really great descriptions. But I love Louisiana, I love all the people here, and it is very, very fun.

 

Steve Fretzin  [03:55]

Yeah, just take off your watch. Go down there and take off your watch. Talk about spending time, investing time, like there is no time, right? Like, I remember, I know if I told this story before, but I I went, my cousin was going to make us dinner, and it was like, I’m like, on the clock, dinner at 536 o’clock. He goes, come to the dinner. Come to our house at seven for dinner. And I go, seven. He goes, Yeah, come to the house at dinner. At nine o’clock, we’re at the grocery store, like, getting dinner, and I’m like, starving, and I’m like, Are you like, this is like, he’s, I think he did it just to drive me absolutely insane. Which Mission Accomplished like that that will take me over the edge, just I’m in bed by 930 I’m not at the grocery store at nine o’clock. Anyway, I love my phone. Love my Southern family. All right. Well, listen, let’s talk about you, Sarah. Give us a little background on how you came to be and how you ended up getting into legal into legal automation.

 

Sarah Persich  [04:43]

Yeah, so I worked at a law firm for nearly a decade, and I say nearly a decade. I still work with the that law firm to this day, too, but I started out as a legal assistant, and we were a small firm, and they needed somebody to really help, you know, learn the systems figure. Out what we need to do to actually grow. And so I started out as a legal assistant. I ended up being the integrator, which is, if you’ve ever followed any of the EOS traction stuff, that’s kind of the number two position. And so I was making sure that everything flowed seamlessly, that every all the systems, everything was followed by everybody in the the firm. And so it was kind of like hands on learning. Like, hey, we’re going to try out this new system. And so I was like, alright, well, let’s do it. And so I was the IT department for a little while. I was I wore many, many hats, but I loved it. And then I started to work for a also worked for the owner’s wife for a few years, and then I worked for a marketing agency that she had worked with for a few years. And just realize how much I love the automation side of things and helping build that, and also realize that not everybody likes to know how to do all of those things, all those nitty gritty details, but I loved it, and so that’s how I came to be the auto you’re the weird one. Exactly. We all need a weird

 

Steve Fretzin  [05:56]

one in our lives, and you’re that. You’re the weird one that loves that stuff. I tell you, people get into details with me. Man, I’m out like, I’m out fast. Like, in fact, I did, I sort of know how I learned. And so, like, if you were to teach me something about automation or using a new software, and I did this because I’m building a circle community, and I had to learn it. So I told them. I said, basically, like, I’m going to pull it up on my screen, and you’re going to tell me where to go and what to click and what to do, because I can’t, you just show me on your screen, like, I’ll never remember any of it. Yeah, so maybe getting into a point there, like, there’s a lot of lawyers who they’re just doing everything, quite frankly, like they’re not, you know, just deciphering between what they should and shouldn’t be doing. They’re just, it’s in front of them. They do it right? It’s kind of like a doer mentality, problematic. Absolutely.

 

Sarah Persich  [06:46]

That’s where that’s a loaded question, maybe, right? I mean, I do, I say that’s the nerdiest thing about me, that I love the automation. And there are a lot of people out there who can get in there, and a lot of attorneys, law firm owners, that can get in there and learn the systems. But like, why you don’t need to do all those little, those details, you can focus on building the business. And, yeah, we need to focus on those systems, but the the nitty gritty stuff, no, there’s some people that can help you

 

Steve Fretzin  [07:10]

with that. Yeah. So how do lawyers, just like, determine what’s the nitty gritty and what’s like, the, you know, the big strategic work, like they’re, if they’re doing everything, how do they start to figure out, like, what I shouldn’t be doing, what’s automatable, what like, what should I be delegating? How do they what’s, is there a process for that?

 

Sarah Persich  [07:27]

Yeah, so typically, as the automation lady, people usually come to me and they’re like, Hey, I think I want to create some automation. That sounds good. Like, let’s create these systems, or build, create some automation to help with this. Because I think, you know, maybe this one area in my business is, could perform better? Yeah. And so then the more I talk to them, and the more we’re kind of working through things, we start to dig into a lot of it sometimes ends up being more of a systems related issue, where it’s like, hey, not all of your team knows what they should be doing through this. Or we don’t know who’s responsible for what we don’t. It’s not consistently, like a clear process. So we dive into that, and we kind of fix those things, and then that’s where the automation comes in to really, really help boost everything. That’s where I’ve seen the most, most of the success. But it always ends up being, I start talking to somebody, and as the automation lady, I’m like, I love automation, but we kind of need to dig into the the nitty gritty, nitty gritty details a little bit first, and then we go the automation route.

 

Steve Fretzin  [08:23]

I feel like it’s best for people, not just lawyers, but people to, like, look at their day and 15 minute increments, and lawyers can do this in six as well as 15, and start looking like, what are you doing? Like, I am saying, like, here’s what happened to me. Like, I find myself writing the same email over. And it might only be three or four sentences, but I’m writing this email over and over and over now, I could save it as a draft in my Gmail, but then I have to go to my draft, find it, highlight it, put it in a thing like all of this. Well, I went to and I just asked around JCI, so I’m not I’m not promoting them, and I’m not saying I’m a hero at it yet, but it’s automating. It’s, you know, it’s automating all of my responsive emails exactly the way I’ve done it before hundreds of times. It reads all my emails. It knows, and it’s saving me. I’m just gonna throw out, like, right now, maybe 30 minutes a day, maybe, maybe an hour a day. And I only, I’m only at the tip of the iceberg with it. Okay? So it’s like, I think we lawyers need to think about writing down everything you do in a day, as small as it might get, so that you can start thinking about, all right, there’s one thing, but it’s five things, but it’s 10 things. And if we add up those 10 things, it’s two hours a day. Well, two hours a day, we start doing the math, you know, 10 hours a week, 40 hours a month. Well, it’s an extra week a month you’re getting back if you could figure out how to automate it or delegate it. So I think sometimes we just don’t realize how things pile up. So maybe getting it all on paper is a start.

 

Sarah Persich  [09:56]

Absolutely, yeah, going through, going through your day, and you nailed it like. Like, attorneys, know, six minutes a day, or six, you know, six minute increments that what they’re doing, what they’re spending time on. And, you know, a lot of times we’ll look at like, if they’re billing hours, it’s like they think about, you know, billing three hours a day feels just like, very, very cumbersome, or four hours a day, depending on the attorney. But like, let’s look and see what you’re spending the time on. You know, maybe we can make things easier. And look, I bet just, not only is Jace helping to maybe save some time out of your day, but like the headache of also just you feeling much better, knowing like, oh, I don’t have to go dig for this. Like you just probably feel it makes you feel lighter, knowing like, oh, wow, what a breath of fresh air that this is just being done for me, rather than me having to go look it up to figure it out. Well.

 

Steve Fretzin  [10:43]

And then you can start setting up rules, like, anytime this happens, then this is the email that’s going to go out. And then it happens. And then automatically, it gives me email. I edit it or I don’t, and I just hit send. So now I’m just, I’m a one button, you know, email guy, which is amazing because it isn’t giving me an AI generated email based on what it thinks. I should say it’s actually looked at every email I’ve put out that’s been in a similar situation. So obviously, with lawyers, you got to look at, you know, the ethics and the legitimacy of certain software. Well, maybe that’s a question for you. There’s a lot of AI and software and things that are for legal tech and all that. But, you know, the concern would be, hey, is this keeping, you know, the client privilege? Is it keeping up with ethics? Is it, you know, state mandated? How do they, you know, what’s the game plan there?

 

Sarah Persich  [11:32]

Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I feel like AI has been changing so much too, and it’s evolving that I think it’s a very real not concerned, but just something that people should be aware of. And I don’t have the best answer for that just yet, just because it has been changing so much, I know that there are some resources out there that I’ve heard about. I can’t even name them right now, that kind of help to answer that question a little bit more closely. But it’s something to be aware of, and the way I like to look at it too, is, you know, if it’s relating to your emails, I do like to try to dig into, you know, if, anytime I’m working with any kind of software, kind of understanding what the safety regulations are there. And then also, like for some people, they need to make sure that they’re HIPAA compliant, all of that. And so those are concerns that are things to be aware of and to question anytime you’re using any kind of new software. Okay, hey everybody.

 

Steve Fretzin  [12:24]

Steve Fretzin Here and@lawyer.com They don’t just market law firms. They help them grow from connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers, to smarter intake and industry leading events, they’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake, events, growth. That’s lawyer.com Check them out today with proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io. When they want rankings, traffic and cases, other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver. Get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free consultation@rankings.io today. Hey everybody. It’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling, chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch, it’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you, and let’s make this your breakout year. Well, let’s keep things a little bit light and broad, and let’s talk about what are some of the most relevant tools that lawyers and law firms should be thinking about right now to save time and get things done. Yeah.

 

Sarah Persich  [13:44]

So I like to, it’s, so there’s so many different softwares out there, right? And it’s, can really be hard to choose one. So I am a, I was a serial, I’ll say demo, or I would go, I would be the person who was sitting through the demos, and I was asking all of the questions of like, I want this to happen? How do you do this? How do you handle this? And so there are certain tools, though, that I think every firm should really have. One is a CRM if you’re and I’m sure your audience is familiar with that, but a client relationship management software, something that’s going to allow you to nurture the leads coming in, how to keep track of a pipe, pipeline of sales, and all of those things that’s really, really important. And there’s a lot of things that you can automate, typically in those systems, depending on the one you choose. And I would always say, if you are choosing a CRM for legal, legal CRMs, there’s lawmatics. There’s a lot of people are using HubSpot. A lot of people are using go high level. A lot of people use Clio grow. And so it’s, I like to say there are, there are a lot of options out there. Yeah, choose one that has an open API. That’s always something that I think is a really, really important detail for any software you’re choosing. And that’s. We call as the other tool, I would say you probably need to have is some type of software that’s going to allow your your other software’s to speak to each other, which is Zapier is my favorite tool. Zapier make is another one. Those are tools that will allow your softwares to basically speak to each other. A lot of them don’t have direct integrations, and so you can use Zapier to create that integration which is a really, really important piece a practice management software. Again, you got to choose whichever one works best for you. And again, I would also choose one that has an open API, because it allows Zapier to integrate it with other things, which allows more automation to happen. And then, you know, an AI tool. Now it’s like, four years ago, I probably would have not said that that was, like, so important, or I just didn’t know the everything about it. But now I’m like, I can’t imagine not using it, so choosing the one that you resonate best with, too. Yeah.

 

Steve Fretzin  [15:54]

I mean, I’m partial to lawmatics as a non lawyer. I’ve been using it for four or five years, and it’s allowed me to automate so much. I mean, I have all of my contracts automated. I take in no checks. Everything is automated ACH or credit card, so I have no ar. So, like, think about that as a lawyer. Like having things automated to where you just don’t have to collect money anymore. That’s one thing. The other is, you know, just automating emails to go out to different groups. You could send it to 100, 200 500,000 people, where it looks like an email, but it’s not, and it’s individualized. I mean, there’s, there’s just a lot there. Also shout out to David Ackert, who’s got pipeline plus, and that’s more for like, I think individual lawyers or small law firms, but still, maybe mid market. But I think, you know, he’s put together a good product. So, CRM, as a way to keep track of your pipeline. Follow up, I love it. What else you got?

 

Sarah Persich  [16:48]

Yeah, so, CRM, again. Zapier, you need to have a software that’s going to speak to allow them to speak to each other. And then, you know, the the practice management software’s the other piece, where I would say you want to make sure that it has an open API, because it’s going to allow you to automate more with your other systems. Anytime I hear somebody saying, oh, yeah, well, we have to copy that information from this system our CRM and then copy it into or paste it into our practice management software. That’s like a red flag or, like, it’s just dinging in my head.

 

Steve Fretzin  [17:17]

Yeah, we’ve got lawyers that are at big firms and solos and everything in between. So let’s get into like, automation tools that are going to be really relevant for the masses.

 

Sarah Persich  [17:25]

Yeah, okay, so I would say Zapier. Zapier has a ton of options for you. They have agents that you can build within Zapier. It’s it’s going to be that tool that allows you to do so much more. It allows you to take your automations to the next level. For instance, Steve, you were mentioning Jace. Jace does a really, really great job with, you know, coming up with ways to or, you know, auto coming up with a draft for your your whatever you want to send. So I’ve also set up agents for other people where, anytime they receive an email from a, let’s say it’s a form, they get a form, or they get some type of an email, and I can, I can filter that inbox to say, Okay, any email that’s related to this. I set up an agent inside of Zapier, and Zapier reviews that email error or that form or whatever, and then I give it a certain prompt to say, Okay, if they say this, then I want this email. If they say this, I want this email and customize it based on their responses. And then from there, I can, I can have it draft and reply in my Gmail, and I can have it send me a message in my communication software. So let’s say I use Slack, or let’s say you use teams. You can have it send you a message to say, hey, you received this new lead or this new form. Here’s the draft reply. Here’s a link to the reply that I drafted, and then you just go to your Gmail, review the draft, make sure it looks good. And he clicks end. And so all of that is happening, and it’s customizing that reply, and that’s all within Zapier so it allows you to really take things to the next level.

 

Steve Fretzin  [19:02]

Okay? And what about AI? I mean, obviously every AI is changing all the time. People have, you know, you’ve got chat GBT, and you’ve got Claude, and you’ve got, you know, half a dozen of these that that are out there, but maybe there’s some that are better for lawyers and for law firms than others, and some that are going to integrate better. Everybody’s sort of interested, but also hesitant. You Have you found any, any sort of like, anything that’s that stands out as, as you know, easy to use or or relevant?

 

Sarah Persich  [19:30]

Yeah, so I, I kind of toggle between chat GPT and Claude myself. Um, one thing that I like about chat GPT and Claude might be having, it might have this ability too, but chat GPT allows you to create what’s called an MCP server, which an MCP server, hopefully I’m not boring you with all these details, but it is really, really interesting. It will allow you to kind of connect your your different software applications, to a server. Server. And so then you can go to that server through chat GPT, and chat with it and say, Hey, I’m looking for this information, and it’s pulling the data and all the information from your different applications.

 

Steve Fretzin  [20:12]

And a server could be a hard server. It could be a cloud.

 

Sarah Persich  [20:15]

Yeah, it’s it, well, I don’t know if it could be a hard server. That’s a good question. Typically, it’s like, a it’s going to be the clouds. It’s typically a cloud, okay, yeah, love that one. And then Claude. I use though sometimes I will, I’ll toggle between the like both chattoopathy or Claude. I also like perplexity. Perplexity has done a decent job of giving me sources and things if I’m looking for that kind of information. But I also think it’s you have to find whichever one you resonate with your life, I find that that is something that’s really important.

 

Steve Fretzin  [20:46]

Are there any particular prompts that you found to be super useful to get better results with using chat, GBT, or with cloud, or anything cloud, or any of it?

 

Sarah Persich  [20:56]

Yeah, so I, I will, I draft some pretty detailed prompts. I will give it examples of what I like, examples of what I don’t like. I will be so, so particular and specific in my prompts, so that I know that it’s understanding exactly what I’m looking for. So like, if I’m looking to draft an email, and I’ve sent emails in the past. I’m like, This is my voice. Or I’ll say, go review this, this article or this website and review all of this. I don’t like this kind of content. I want it to be colloquial. I want it to be more conversational. And so I I’m really, really particular with my prompts. And you’ll find it’s like, you know, they all say that it’s garbage in, garbage out, right? Like, if you’re not putting in the good stuff, then you’re not going to get the good stuff back. So it takes time to kind of build that and write those prompts, but the output is so, so helpful. Yeah, something

 

Steve Fretzin  [21:57]

I asked chat GBT to help me with was to create because I heard that this was a good thing to do. I didn’t come up with it on my own. So it on my own. Surprise. Surprise was to create a master prompt. And so I said, help me create a master prompt for my business. Be that lawyer, blah, blah, blah. And then it did. And I worked. I walked through like, what the questions it wanted me to answer, and all of that. And now I’ve got this one page master prompt that really tells it exactly what I’m you know, what I’m up to, and what I’m looking for in the content I create and everything. And so what I do is, every time I put in something into chat GPT, that’s a new like a new post or a new something new that I’m creating, I just add as an attachment the master prompt. And I can’t prove this in a court of law, but the answers come out pretty, pretty much in my voice, and pretty much like along the lines of everything that I would want to say, it’s saying. And so I think maybe that’s, that’s an idea for people that are looking to get a little more out of chat. GPS, create that master prompt.

 

Sarah Persich  [22:55]

Yeah, that that you can also build custom gpts. So a custom GPT will allow you to customize. It’s really like a master prompt, but you can have it to customize the response that you want, like, if you want, if you’re looking for like, let’s say content for marketing. Then it could draft a blog post for you, but it could also give you some ideas for social posts around that blog post, and so you’re customizing that that GPT based on, you know, the information that you provide it, and then it just spits all that out for you. So that’s really, really helpful too.

 

Steve Fretzin  [23:31]

Okay, I think we have time for one more, any other sort of hacks to get more out of AI or to get more out of our day, yeah.

 

Sarah Persich  [23:40]

So I know that it’s not fun to dig into the systems all the time, but I do think it’s really, really important to have all of your your your your process, your processes documented, you know, all of your standard operating procedures, all of those things, but you can use AI to help you with all of that. So I like to my favorite thing is to use loom. I record a loom video for everything, and then if I’m actually going over a process, I’ll record it as I’m, you know, speak to what I’m doing, or if I’m training somebody, and then I get the transcript from that loom. I plug it into chat, GPT or Claude, and I say, write me a process for this, and then I’ve got that documented, and I can save that into my processes, and I can save the video to that process as well, so that it’s a really, really great way to make sure that your team is always has a resource knowing how to find something, how to do something with automation And with the things that I like to build using like Zapier, again, it’s not something people always like to learn or like to do. And so they have a video there of me kind of walking them through the process. So if something does break, when inevitably, there can be errors, at times, they know where to go to kind of troubleshoot that. And then. Have the process to help understand the why behind everything. So that’s another really, really great way that I like to to use AI, okay, and for automation too.

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:09]

I mean, not to go to a dark place, but I mean, do you see AI in our future as nothing but helpful, or do you also see a darker side to it?

 

Sarah Persich  [25:18]

I That’s an interesting question. You know, they there are different controversies around how it affects the environment. There are controversies around, you know, the safety of of all of our data, all of that. I think it’s something to be aware of. I’m still using it, though, right now, because it’s so helpful for me. Yeah, but yeah. I mean, those are, that’s a valid question of,

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:42]

you know, seeing all the movies so we know, kind of,

 

Sarah Persich  [25:45]

I try not to watch this because it, it just scares me. So, yeah,

 

Steve Fretzin  [25:50]

well, listen, I think, I think, you know, like, use it while we have it, and, you know, take advantage. And then whatever, you know, we’re not really in charge of, like, what ends up happening in the grand scheme of things, although lawyers could be right regulations and putting laws in place. So you guys get on that right away. All right, let’s wrap up, Sarah, we’ve got your big mistake. What’s Sarah’s big mistake?

 

Sarah Persich  [26:10]

My big mistake was, let’s see, I went out on my own a few years back, and this was to do like consulting, because I wanted to spend my time more wisely and to spend my time more purposely, which is why that time quote is so important to me. But I still stayed in my comfort zone for for a little while, and I finally allowed myself to accept being uncomfortable, which is, I think, something that entrepreneurs, business owners, you know, the growth even it’s it’s hard to accept that, that uncomfortable feeling, and even as a business owner, you know you it’s a different kind of pressure that people don’t always realize. Whether it’s you know you have employees and you are you know you’re not necessarily responsible for their livelihood, but you feel a certain kind of pressure, and you don’t feel that until you kind of step into that position. And so anyway, the big mistake was not going out on my own sooner, and staying in that safety zone and accepting the uncomfortability. And it’s been really, really great ever since, yeah,

 

Steve Fretzin  [27:18]

that big leap of faith that sometimes we need to take, and, you know, we also take things on our own time. I mean, big mistake, or maybe it was like the death the time you needed, you know, to get prepared for it.

 

Sarah Persich  [27:28]

So I also did learn a ton during that time too. Okay, and so it’s all, I mean, it was all very, very helpful. But yeah, yeah, all right, well, let’s take

 

Steve Fretzin  [27:38]

a moment. Let’s thank our sponsors. Now, by the way, everybody, if you haven’t heard of the legal Broadcasting Company, LBC, check them out. It’s a new legal podcast syndication. So I’m up there and also up there with the legal Late Night with Jared Korea, who’s amazing, super funny, much funnier than me. I’m barely funny. He’s like the master of funny, but it’s like a late night talk show for a podcast and and there’s no holds bars with Jared, that’s for sure. Of course, we got rankings. Io continue to crush it for his clients, their clients, and pimcon coming up next year. And then lawyer.com so everybody check that out, great directory for lawyers. And again, if you’re thrilled with this show, give us a kind of review. We’d love to have that and know that you’re sharing the love with other lawyers. Sarah, people want to get in touch with you. They want to talk to the automation lady, what are the best ways for them to reach you?

 

Sarah Persich  [28:26]

Yeah, you can go to automation lady.com, and you can book a call with me if you just want to chat and see what ideas that I have for you, or that’s gonna be the best place, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to see you, and, you know, comment on all of your activity and all of that fun stuff. I like to get to know people that way too.

 

Steve Fretzin  [28:44]

Yeah, we got all your digits in the show notes, so we’re good with that. Well, thanks. I appreciate this, and I’m just so happy that we were able to kind of hash out a number of good ideas for lawyers on the show. And I know that you and I’ll keep in close contact, because, quite frankly, this is like the time we need to keep the automation experts close to us right. Awesome.

 

Sarah Persich  [29:03]

Well, thank you so much, Steve. It’s been really fun being here.

 

Steve Fretzin  [29:06]

Awesome. My pleasure. And thank you everybody for hanging out with us for the last 30 hopefully you got, you know, two or three, four good takeaways from every show, and this one included helping you to be that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care, everybody, safe. Well, talk to you soon.

 

Narrator  [29:26]

Thanks for listening to be that loyal, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website, fredson.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.