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NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
[00:00:00] Joseph Reece: Law firms can be horrible places to work. It does not have to be, first of all, have excellent work, product, recruit people that are going to fit in your culture. We have the no jerk rule here. People can take hard coaching if they know you care about them. Truly, genuinely, it's not a ploy. It's not some corporate slogan.
We care about you. I love you.
[00:00:34] Cameron Clark: Well, Joe, thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me sitting here in the r and p office in Johnson, like one of the most beautiful buildings. Oh, thanks. And, uh, in northwest Arkansas, we wanna dive in, talk about the story, give us 3000 square foot overview. What's r and p? As far as, you know, a law office, the practicing attorneys, what do y'all do?
[00:00:54] Joseph Reece: We're a full service law firm. There's a few areas we do not focus on. Um, you know, we [00:01:00] don't, we don't do a lot of domestic relations, you know, divorce and that kind of stuff. We don't do a, a lot of, uh, criminal law. But outside of that. We started out, we're very focused in tax and estate planning. Mm-hmm. Uh, because that's where Lee and I were, you know, which, you know, wealthy people have tax problems and they do deals.
Yeah. So you do a lot of transactional stuff, a lot of m and a stuff. Uh, you know, we, we cover pretty much the entire gamut of, uh, clients that are in business, Sue, and they get sued. Yeah. So that led to litigators and so it's just kind of been an organic growth. The hub of it being that Lee and I started out, and Neil, Neil Pentegra as well.
Um, uh, Lee is the m in RMP, I'm the Reese. And, uh, and, and I wanted to give you a, i, I go down rabbit trails, so you guys will have to bring me back. Okay. Yeah. But, uh, people are like, boy, you must think you're pretty, uh, important that you [00:02:00] demanded your name. Be first. And I was like, no, I didn't do that. We were first started out, we were gonna be more Reese because Neil hadn't really made a decision when we started out.
And Lee said, no man, people are gonna think we're called Maurice. They're gonna be asking for Maurice. Like it's one. So that's how, so it's Lee Moore's fault, but, uh, we've branded ourselves just RMP and we started out, we were just estate planning attorneys, and now man, we have litigators and m and a attorneys and, you know, securities and all sorts of stuff.
It's just been very organic, but it's grown out of the hub of mm-hmm. We, I really consider, I was at the right place at the right time. I got to northwest Arkansas in the late nineties and mm-hmm. Had the blessing of just being trained and being around some really stellar attorneys and working with people out there in the financial community and CPAs and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm, I was at the right place at the right time.
[00:02:55] Cameron Clark: Well, and I know there's different schools of thought, like with, with attorneys, you know, stay small and kinda have a, you [00:03:00] can do as much work as you wanna do. It's billable hours. Like why grow to, like, why scale?
[00:03:08] Joseph Reece: I'll be honest with you, um, we didn't start out going, oh man, we want to grow.
I, I, I, I'll be honest with you, it's, it's, I'm not saying the growth has been accidental because it's been a little more intentional than that, but it's, it's always been like, oh my gosh, we need help over here. You know, it's been growing because of the pain of need for more help getting the workout. Yeah.
That's really what it's been. And to a certain extent also. You know, there's a, there's a Bible verse that says, but the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. And so it's, it's, I don't ever wanna like, try to sit here and take credit for the growth of RMPS, though I'm some mastermind, uh, I mean, the, the guests you guys have on are probably like, forgotten more about [00:04:00] managing a business than I know.
But, but for me it's been, there's been growth of just, Hey, we've got a need over here, man. We, we need a, uh, commercial litigator. Hey, we need a tax litigator. Hey, we need someone that's, uh, you know, m and a that, you know, does a lot of contract stuff and all that kind of stuff. And then there's been this side of, Hey man, I like this person over here.
It'd be fun to practice with them. Yeah. So a lot of our growth has been lateral and then our growth has been. Recruiting good kids. You know, you got these kids that come outta law school and they clerk for you and you, you know, they're so bright. They're doing a
[00:04:40] Cameron Clark: great job. Yeah. And they,
[00:04:41] Joseph Reece: they hard, they're hardworking, you know, you know, like one of the fallacies about you, you, when you get old, you guys will learn this someday when you get old, you just become just a crabby and you just grip about everything.
And so that's part of the joy of being an older person is you get to grip about everything. But, you know, one of the [00:05:00] things that is just ridiculous to me is when I hear people talk about, well, this generation, they don't know how to work and all that, man, these kids I see, it's like they're getting after it.
Just like the rest of us were, you know, they have career goals and they, they, they have ambition and yeah, they're smart and they're hardworking, and so you just naturally go, man, these people are good people would be awesome if we could make a place for them. And so that's how the growth has happened.
Mm-hmm. I. I do like to plan and I do, um, when I say I'm meaning the ones of us that are up here kind of setting vision and all that. Yeah. But, um, it's not like I started out in 2005 when we opened this place Yeah. And said, okay, our goal by 2025 is to have 40 something attorneys and be in, you know, in the offices where we are.
Mm-hmm. It's really just kind of just happened. It's been organic, you know. And, um, so let's talk
[00:05:58] Cameron Clark: about, let's go, let's go to the [00:06:00] beginning. I wanna, so you're from a very small town.
[00:06:04] Joseph Reece: Oh, it's not even a town. Ozo and Arkansas.
[00:06:08] Cameron Clark: Uh, yeah. Talk, talk about growing up and like. When did you know you wanted to be an attorney?
Um, and you had the journey getting to northwest Arkansas?
[00:06:16] Joseph Reece: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, the youngest child of Louis and Nancy Reese, uh, grew up in Ozone, Arkansas. My daddy was a, my clients in East Arkansas, say, Joe, you did not grow up on a farm. Quit saying that because, uh, you grew up on a, maybe you'd call it ranch.
We had beef cattle and Yeah, you know, pigs and all that good stuff. Like people that grew up in the country, out in Arkansas during the eighties and stuff like that. Um, had three older sisters and, um, I really hit the lottery guys as far as we were poor. Everybody in Arkansas was poor. Um. My parents, my, they were so hardworking and man, they really experienced the American dream.
My father built up his business. My mother is [00:07:00] an author. She's had multiple books published and received awards out the wazoo. And so my parents were the type of people, if you said, Hey, the Super Bowl's happening over here, uh, you know, out here in the lot by your house, they'd have been like, eh, what? I don't care.
But if you, if it was academics, my father and mother, just, their, their desire was they wanted their children to have an education. I mean, and that education to me, that's just been so ingrained in us. It, it is the, it is the thing that will break the cycle of poverty. And it's, and they employed it in their own life.
My, my mother went to college at the same time I went to college. And, and so, you know, we just big believers in education. So now I'd go watch the Super Bowl if it was on the lot next to me. I, I love sports, but my parents don't. So, um, well tell you, you were saying earlier, you wrote. You bus an hour and a half to school.
Oh, I rode the school bus three hours a day, got on at 7:00 AM and got off at 5:00 PM So, um, my kids [00:08:00] will be rolling their eyes if they ever listened to this. It'd be like, oh, great. You know, the uphill both ways still thing all you old guys, you know, wanna do. But no, I, when I say I hit the lottery, you know, when I look at the people that, that I see overcome and are successful and, and, and, and those things, and I'm not trying to count myself in that.
I look at people who have really just overcome so much. Maybe, maybe they've lost a parent or maybe there's been some childhood trauma or all that. I didn't have any of that. Hmm. I had two parents that love me. They disciplined me and told me to not be dumb when I was being dumb. And they just worked. We just worked all the time.
I, we worked. When you grow up like that, you just work. And so, uh, we worked every day except Sunday morning when we went to church and after church we ate some lunch and went back to work. And so that was childhood and that was, that's been a great thing for me that my parents gave me as well, is there's just a lot of things in life you can overcome.
Just is a little bit of suffering with it. And it doesn't [00:09:00] feel great sometimes, but just roll out.
[00:09:02] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:09:02] Joseph Reece: You know, I've said to my kids, just show up. Yeah. Show up a little early. The same old things our great grandparents were telling us. Mm-hmm. Show up a little early, you know,
[00:09:12] Cameron Clark: have a good attitude. Have a good attitude, and
[00:09:14] Joseph Reece: get after it.
Get after it. Mm-hmm. Just look at the people that are the closest around you and outwork them.
[00:09:19] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:09:19] Joseph Reece: And then find a new group to outwork and you just keep on doing it. And, and, and, you know, let the good Lord take care of the rest. Sure. And so where'd you go to college? Where was the I went to the University of Ozarks, uh, in Clarksville wasn't my, uh, original plan to go there.
I'm so glad I did, met my wife there and we've been married for 32 years now, have four kids. And, um, but wow. It was in Clarksville. Uh, my parents got in a bad car wreck my senior year of high school. Mm-hmm. And, uh, my father, uh, traveled. He was involved in, uh, you know, he, he was, he was involved in heavy construction.
He was an iron worker and he at the time was [00:10:00] working with a company and they would like redo steel mills and all that stuff. So he was these guys kind of like these, these people in the oil and gas business that like. They go out on the oil derricks and the, the Gulf and they'll be, they'll work a month on and then be home for three weeks.
It was that kind of thing. Yeah. And so we had the, we had the livestock and all the different stuff that had to happen, uh, you know, and home. And so I intentionally said, I'm gonna go to college close to where my home is. 'cause my mom couldn't do all that stuff by herself. And my sisters were all gone.
Yeah. And so that was my choice. And it was great. It was great. I've, I've served on the board of trustees down there, uh, in Clarksville. That's a wonderful school. And man, I've never regretted going there. That was, that was a, a great experience. And as I said, I met Mrs. Re down there. My wife Elise. Can't discount that.
Yeah. No. And so law school was after that, right after that. Right. We, uh, so I graduated from. Um, Ozarks with an accounting degree, and I'll go back. My father just [00:11:00] loved education and he really started saying to me, he, my dad didn't allow you to be one of these people that are like, eh, I don't know what I'm gonna do.
That wasn't good enough. So we were the very traditional family. Like, we would eat dinner and we're sitting at the table and, and my dad would, was just a very intentional, good man thinker. Loves to, uh, not a bully at all, but just, Hey Joe, what do you wanna do? Why do you wanna do that? Have you ever thought about this?
And he was like, you know, I think, and I'm serious when, when, when I say this, one time I was, was interviewed by Arkansas Business and they were like, how did you come up with, and I had forgotten this. And then later I remembered it. But my father specifically mentioned tax attorney to me.
[00:11:46] Cameron Clark: Really?
[00:11:47] Joseph Reece: Which is so unusual because.
I don't know that my dad had ever met a tax attorney. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like, I don't know. And that's one of those things where you start, I don't know, you start wondering, [00:12:00] well, was that God's plan or what, you know, did he Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, and so, but my dad really did a great job of, of challenging me with a vision and saying, Hey man, you know, what are you, you know, what do you wanna do?
And he really wanted his kids to have professional careers and all that good stuff. And so I went and got an accounting degree because honestly, I didn't really like accounting. I still, it's not that, that interesting to me. You know? I mean, there are people up here, they love it. And I, I love that. They love it.
And as a matter of fact, to all you CPAs and accountants out there, if you love it, come love it with us. We, we, there's more room. We want you to be here. I won't make fun of any of y'all. But it was, it was like, I just sort of said, well, what am I gonna major in? And, and, uh. I just said, well, you always gotta read financial statements.
Mm-hmm. That's how I picked my undergrad career. But then I knew I wanted to go to law school. Um, my wife and I got married right after, that's about 94 mm. And, [00:13:00] um, moved to Macon, Georgia, and, uh. Went to law school down there and, uh, Mercer University. Mm-hmm. Had a great three years there and then went on to, to, uh, the University of Miami to get my LLM.
[00:13:13] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. And so is an LLM kind of like a residency for a doctor or fellowship or how would you, uh, a little bit,
[00:13:18] Joseph Reece: it's a master's. So law, you do the Juris doctorate first. Mm-hmm. And then you do the master's, but it's just an year, generally a year program. Okay. Some of 'em may be a little longer than that or whatever.
I'm not positive today, it's been so long since I've been in those, in, in that environment. But, um, you know, you just, you just have some intensive study, um, in, in a very focused area. Mm-hmm. So, you know, there's, there, it's not just estate planning where you have LLMs, you have LLMs and tax, you have LLMs and, and different, and I think, don't hold me to this.
I could be wrong, but I think. U of A has an LLM and ag law now. Oh, wow. I think, yeah. I may be wrong, but I thought I read that. So just some intensive study and [00:14:00] so, uh, down there, and that's when the call from, you know, that I was telling you guys about came in,
[00:14:06] Cameron Clark: uh, and Yeah. Say that again. So, who, who called and what was the, and this was getting you to Northwest Arkansas?
Yeah, so there's
[00:14:12] Joseph Reece: a, there was a great, um, uh, CPA, uh, we've lost him a few years ago. Mm-hmm. But he's a great CPA and, and a good dude. His name was Reese Perham. Sandlin Perham out here. Uh, and they, they've just had a presence in, in northwest Arkansas for a long time. Great group of folks over there. And, uh, my brother-in-law was a CPA down in Russellville.
Mm-hmm. And so CPAs do peer review audits, and it's a part of their self-governance and all that stuff. And I'm sitting in Coral Gables, Florida. And, and, and down there in law school, and I get a call from my brother-in-law and said, Joe, you need to call, uh, this Reese Parham guy in Fayetteville because my wife and I, we didn't have kids at the time, and we were like, oh, where are we gonna live?
And you could live anywhere, you know, we could've picked and, and she said, no, I wanna live in [00:15:00] Fayetteville. That's where I wanna live. And, uh, she just, even though she grew up in South Florida, she just wanted to live here. Yeah. I wanted to raise kids here. And, uh, she's loved it, still loves it, and just wouldn't wanna live anywhere else as, as many other people are, are doing.
Mm-hmm. So, uh, we, I call Reese and he started telling me about a guy who, uh, just a legend of EJ ball. Yeah. And he started talking to me like, there's this attorney EJ ball, and he's got a law firm, and man, they're, they're really trying to get attorneys up here. And so I called and I started talking to a man named Kenneth Morton.
Yeah. A great attorney and just, uh, legend in his own right. And, uh, started a conversation. The man that interviewed me, that came down to Miami and interviewed me was named Lee Moore. And if I would've had known the impact he was gonna have in my life, because not only friendship, um, Lee is just, he's an astounding human being.
He is an unbelievable [00:16:00] practitioner. I, I, I think Lee is one of the brightest human beings I've ever met, just intellectually. Mm-hmm. You know, one of the things when you're not that intelligent, which I'm not being self-deprecating, I'm just kind of an old middle of the road guy myself, but, but Lee is just, he just, God blessed him with a mind and you just, he is so skilled at what he does and I've been the beneficiary of that because Lee really coached and, and trained.
And, you know, one of the things I credit Lee so much for with RMP is because of Lee's reputation for excellence. And it's a national reputation. It truly is. He gave us credibility when we were tiny. Yeah. You know? Mm-hmm. Wow. Um, and, and, and I've, I just am so grateful for that. So Lee interviewed me to go on with the story, came up and interviewed, went to work at Ball and Morton, and just, uh, man Neil Pendergraph.
That's where I met Neil Pendergraff. Yep. And, uh, they were, that [00:17:00] was just an excellent firm and, and got some great training there. And then transitioned after four years. This is my personal journey, but, uh, worked with an another wonderful attorney. Wasn't a tax attorney at all. A man named Walter Cox.
Gotcha. Just legendary, uh, attorney in Arkansas. And Walter, I was like looking for a place to practice and, and, and, um, uh, Lee was originally with a law firm in Pine Bluff, great law firm called the Bridges Firm. And, and they're still down there. And, um, Lee had kind of gone back. He had some, some, you know, family, uh, health issue type thing that he had to deal with and his family.
And so he was back in Pine Bluff and I was up here. I had left B and Morton. Um, I was working with Walter Cox, and Walter was a wonderful man. We've lost him as well. And just no person with better integrity, just, just a, I mean a titan, you know, and Walter had such an [00:18:00] impact on me as well, just. You know, Walter was the, the epitome of you do not have to be a jerk to be a good attorney.
You don't. That's just in popular culture. I think a lot of times people, they take a kid that's the most obnoxious, or at least this is what happened with me, and they say, you should be a lawyer. Uh, but Walter was just a gentleman and, and cared about people, and he was just awesome, you know? Mm-hmm. He just, just great with juries.
And so anyway, watching him, that was inspirational. You know, you just learn from the people that are, uh, you know, above you. And, um, you know, Neil Pendergraph was, was a great influence on me as well. Just, um, a man that has done so much for his community and just, I don't know anybody that doesn't like him.
And, uh, it's, that's, that's a testament to, to, to him. So all of that led to me where I'm sitting today. I mean, there's so many people that have. Helped me [00:19:00] and yeah, built this thing.
[00:19:01] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm. Well talk about forming the partnership between y'all, y'all three. So was it, I think you were saying before we started it was maybe it was just you and Lee to begin with, and then, and then Neil, Neil kind of came on.
[00:19:14] Joseph Reece: What was the It was really all kind of rammed in there together. So when I was, uh, winding down at, at, at, with Walter Cox and, and, uh, and, and he had a, a, a couple of, he had his son there and then he had, uh, an attorney named Jamie Estes, just great attorney, um, as well. He's still here in Northwest Arkansas.
But while I was there, um. The deal flow and the client stuff had just gotten so burdensome that I was having to have help. Well, those guys were litigators and, and as a result I was having to get help from attorneys all around. 'cause I'm a one man show. Yeah, okay. I mean, it's hard to do, you know, m and a type work and tax litigation and, and, [00:20:00] and, you know, um, high level estate planning and, and all this stuff and not have a team of people behind you.
Yeah. So Lee was helping provide those bodies through his firm and there were some other attorneys that I was associating with at the same time that were, that were great, that were helpful. And so that lead that, that whenever it was clear that. Man, I, it was just necessity. Walter and I never had a crossword with each other.
It was, uh, Hey man, I gotta have a bunch more bodies. And, and I don't think that was Walter's vision for Yeah. What he wanted. And I don't blame him, you know? Mm-hmm. It's like, Hey, we're kind of heading this way. And I'm like, man, I don't have any choice. I'm gonna lose these, these, I, I've gotta have a bunch more bodies.
And so as a result, um, I started saying, I've gotta just, I'm just gonna have to build something. And there were a lot of talks and there were people saying, Hey, why don't you come over here and why don't you do this? And even Lee and Neil and I were having different [00:21:00] discussions. And then, uh, finally Neil, I mean, Lee just said, I'm, well, I'm gonna come to Northwest Arkansas and I'm going to help you.
Mm-hmm. And it was in the midst of that, he came up here. This guy has been so sacrificial for me. It's why I love him. He stayed in an apartment up here for, I don't know, months without even going home. And we were working hard. It was intense. And finally we just said. Let's just do this. Let's just, let's just open an firm.
And so it was just Lee and I, and then after that, Neil and his family, they're not only, uh, you know, great partners and everything, but you know, Neil's, Neil's been a great client of the law firm as well. And, um, and his mom and, you know, just his extended family. So, um. I said to Neil, Neil, I want you to, I want you to be part of this 'cause you always liked him.
And again, when you're young and you're, you're trying to brand yourself and you all that, you know, you're also wanting, you know, [00:22:00] that credibility and, and stuff with people and. Man, you know, Neil, it was again, like Lee's expertise and name gave, gave credibility to us. And then Neil, you know, as well, because he's such a good man and, and a great attorney in his own right.
And then just all, all of the stuff he's done in, in northwest Arkansas, he and his family just, just beloved and respected. Why would you not wanna be associated with that? Yeah, you know, I'm not the brightest guy in the world, but I. You know, if you want to have a successful business, surround yourself with a bunch of great people and you'll be successful.
Try not to get in their way.
[00:22:35] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. That's awesome. So that was like roughly 2005 around there. Yeah. Okay. And what, what were, I know you talked a little bit about each of you, but like, what were each of your fields of expertise as it relates to Law?
[00:22:48] Joseph Reece: Lee and I, it's practically identical. So our fields where we do large client estate planning.
Okay. And so, uh, it's not an, you know, it's like, now this is not [00:23:00] all we do. You know, you might be doing, you know, aunt Betty's simple last will and testament mm-hmm. And she's just, or there might be a pensioner over here. We'll, we'll help anybody. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But what we, what our sweet spot is, is. People that have large taxable estates.
Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And, uh, and, and, and that, that have na that need national level expertise and strategies on dealing with everything from business succession to, you know, working with money management, to taxation, to, you know, government, government, you know, corporate governance and those sorts of things.
You know, regulatory type help. All those things, all points in between. It's not just, Hey, we draft trusts. So it's a, it's a, it's kind of a broad, broad field. And that's what Lee and I and Neil did historically. Well, guess who likes to attack those people? The IRS? Yeah. So then you're like, you're [00:24:00] doing a lot of dispute resolution on stuff and, and with the IRS and all that.
Well, when I was at, at Walter's Place kind of winding down, I had this brilliant clerk. Over there. And his name was Denny Woods. And I've probably had a horrible effect on Denny's life because I convinced him too to become a tax attorney. And as bright as this kid was, he's a, now I'm all, all ki all seriousness.
Denny's brilliant. I mean he was like Lee just academically off the charts good man, hardworking kid. And so when Lee and I got started said to Denny, Hey Denny, go get your LLM and, and you know yeah. Mm-hmm. We, we want you to be part of us. We were still needing so much help 'cause we had so much work. So Denny's down at Florida getting his LLM which is one of the best programs in the country.
And we have a lady who's an attorney here in northwest Arkansas and, and she called and said, Hey, there's this kid here, he is [00:25:00] originally from Jonesboro and he's. He, uh, is out at San Diego getting his LLM in tax and would you want to talk to him? Heck yeah. We wanna talk to him. And Alex Miller walked through the door.
Oh, wow. And, and Alex Miller and Denny, um, they've been with us from the beginning. Mm-hmm. I mean, literally from the beginning. And so, uh, you know, man, Alex, I say this to people a lot of times, I don't think people realize the incredible impact that Alex has had on growing this business. For one reason is when we started.
Know, you get, you get, you get more gentle as you get older. But I was pretty intense. Yeah, I'm pretty intense. You know, every, anybody here, people are that have worked here that I've given PTSD to are laughing, intense is probably like, but Alex was so beneficial in this sense. Alex is good with people and he was just, he's wise, [00:26:00] he is, um, he's just real, even Kell.
And he was someone that really helped me, uh, to say, Hey man, this isn't that big a deal. Or Hey, how about we handle this this way because man, one lemme tell you, one of the things that's astounding to me is people that are exceptional managers, I just, my hat goes off to 'em. Yeah. It's like you see people and you look at these stars, you know, the Sam Waltons and the, you know, the Don Tysons of the world and the JB Hunts and all those people that you look and you're like.
Man, they just had some mm-hmm. God bless them with some talent. You know what I mean? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and, uh, uh, I just, I didn't have that, you know, uh, uh, I learning how to manage people. Um, boy, that is, that is been something that's been, uh, uh, probably the biggest challenge for me in the sense of, but [00:27:00] Alex, Alex was so great at that.
Yeah. And so as a result, you know, he's helped me run this place. And Lee, um, man, I mean, he's been here for nearly 20 years. I
[00:27:14] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:27:14] Joseph Reece: 18, 19 years somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. In there. And he was just very instrumental besides just being an excellent attorney, like Denny, uh, woods is just top of his game. And Denny does what Lee and I do, you know, estate planning deals, all that sort of stuff.
He is exceptional. Um, just has developed just an amazing practice. Alex also exceptional attorney, but he, he helps me also with just a lot of day-to-day
[00:27:44] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:27:44] Joseph Reece: Hr, that kind of stuff here.
[00:27:47] Nick Beyer: That's good. Well talk dive a little bit more into that. 'cause I think your field, specifically when we talk about legal, the legal industry, it's, it's probably an industry that has a little bit more of like the, [00:28:00] you're in your lane, you're, you're, you're billing your hours.
Like how do, how do you fit into a larger firm? How do you keep people cohesive? How do you keep them like bought in on the mission of the firm?
[00:28:11] Joseph Reece: Those are challenges and you do it with, you know, sometimes you're doing it well and sometimes you're not doing it well. Um, I, one of the challenges of growing a, a firm from a, from a tiny firm to a bigger firm, because when you use the word bigger firm and you're talking about a firm our size.
It's like, you know, there are firms with 3000 attorneys. Sure. You know, they're, they're outside of, of Arkansas and they're like big, uh, you know, if we're in Chicago, we're a boutique. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. And so, so that's certainly true. But it's a great question. And the challenge is, Hey, I've gotta work for these clients.
I've gotta get my workout. It's demanding at the same time trying to do [00:29:00] administration and trying to make sure that you equip the people that you have, uh, so they can succeed. Well, you know, Lou Holtz, uh, famously said one time they asked him, how do you have a motivated football team? And he said, well, you get rid of the unmotivated ones.
Uh, the people that have moved here laterally, they're winners. They were winners before they got here.
[00:29:21] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Mm-hmm. They don't
[00:29:22] Joseph Reece: need Joe Reese to win. Yeah. Uh. But one of the things that you try to do is you try to allow them to run at their maximum, you know, RPMs and you have to do different things for different people in order to do that.
Mm-hmm. And that all comes down to personality. Mm-hmm. It comes down to ego or some people. I view my role here as primarily trying to identify vision and trying to, uh, as best I can. Sometimes I'm good at it and sometimes I'm not. Of, uh, making our [00:30:00] people think about what is our culture, what is it, and, and our culture.
What I've said, and I've said this many times, is I want our culture to be a culture of sacrifice so law firms can be Bless you. Thank you. Law firms can be horrible places to work. You go out and you start talking to, to lawyers and stuff, they can tell you war stories of, man, this is, this is such a, ah, this is awful experience I had, you know, um, you know, there's an old saying that you, you used to hear old attorneys say, when I was a kid, and that was the practice of law as a jealous mistress.
And there's all these, these things about, well, you know, lawyers have ruined their families and become alcoholics and drug addicts and, and they, it's just an awful, you know, environment and blah, blah, blah. Well, it doesn't have to be. Yeah, it does not have to be. Mm. You can practice law at a high level and, and be at all [00:31:00] your kids baseball games.
You can be a good daddy and a good mama, right? Mm-hmm. So one of the things that we've tried to do is, first of all. Have excellent work product. Mm-hmm. Because no matter how shiny or how much of a sales pitch you make to people, ultimately you're gonna deliver results for 'em, or they're gonna go somewhere else.
Yeah. So clients drive it.
[00:31:24] Cameron Clark: Yeah. And
[00:31:24] Joseph Reece: you have to meet your customer's needs or they're gonna go hire somebody else. That's just logic. So the next thing though, after that is recruit people that are going to fit in your culture. Yeah. And the people that don't fit in your culture. It doesn't mean they're bad, but we are not for everyone here.
Yeah. Okay. And when I started out, I was talking to Don Soderquist, who's just legendary, wonderful man. We've lost him. And I said, Mr. Soderquist about to start a [00:32:00] little law firm here. You got any advice for me? And he said. You know, the problem with law offices and doctor's offices. And I said, no. He said, nobody knows who the boss is.
He said, they're inefficient. And I was like, really? I thought about that. And what that did is that led us to our, the, our management. It's a little, it's a lot. It's actually quite a bit different than a lot of law firms. And so we're not operated like the United Nations. It's uh, yeah. It's not like the United States Congress.
Uh, uh, we tend to have a much more, uh, focused centralized management. We wanna hear from people, but the decisions that we do, there's a group of four of us, and, and we make those decisions, hiring, firing, all of that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. Now, financially we are generous. That's the next thing. Don't be greedy.
And a lot of people say they're, they're, they're generous and they're really not. But like, man, the reason that our [00:33:00] growth has been driven laterally is we just let people keep more money. Yeah. And, um, and so that certainly people, everybody's trying to support their families. They're trying to have their, their best life.
And, and so money is just, it's a motivator. Yeah. And so if you want good people and they're superstars before they get to you, and our laterals, I believe, are that way. They've had a long track record of proving themselves. Mm-hmm. I mean, you know, Paul McNeil and our Jonesboro office is a legendary litigator in the state of Arkansas.
Mm. Paul McNeil does not need Joe Reese to succeed. He was already a success. Okay. What Paul McNeil needs is for Joe Reese to help him, helps, helps surround administratively, but really primarily just don't get in his way. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Yeah. He was practicing a lot of high level, long before I started, you know, uh, being involved in his life.
So there's that. There's also, uh, [00:34:00] from when you said, how do you have cohesion? One of the things is you communicate. We tell people we have the no jerk rule here, because if now there are people that would probably say, yeah, well that, because you're the jerk, you know, it could be, but my point is, everybody's gonna have a bad day.
Everybody's gonna have, yeah. Trouble at home, everybody, everybody's gonna have a sick kid. Everybody's gonna have something going on in their life. That's, that's, and you, you, you're, you're not trying to, to operate a business like Chairman Mao Okay. Where everyone must, but by the same token, that it is good to have a hand that comes along and says privately and as gently as possible, Hey, we don't do that here.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. This is who we are. And to just, most of the people know it, or they wouldn't be here in the first place, but just to [00:35:00] refocus. So there's, there's some of that. And then, you know, the other thing dealing with is attorneys have egos. You may not have picked up on that, but attorneys have egos me as well.
And so, uh, pe there are people, it's amazing to me, but there are people that you could cut their pay. If they feel important to the mission and they feel included, and they are, you know, it's not like you're lying to 'em, you're not manipulating. But if they feel that they'll run through a wall. And you know, I've always said this, I was watching, and I don't care who your team is, so all you chiefs fans out there don't come at me.
But I like the New England Patriots and I, I I, I, I started watching them whenever Tom Brady was up there and just watching this, this dynasty unfold. And I was watching, [00:36:00] you know, where they mic 'em up after the Super Bowl and stuff and it was that Atlanta Super Bowl where they came back from being down 28 3 uhhuh.
What I started noticing is they have all these tough, huge, you know, intense pro football players and I started noticing saying something. They'd be like, man, we've gotta, you know, we gotta have a drive. And they were saying, I love you to each other now we don't hear, I love you. We hear a lot of reference to love in society now, but man, it's like, I started thinking about that.
I was like, you know, and this is not, I'm not particularly a touchy-feely person, but I started going, you know what, that's the key. If people know in a genuine way, I mean the way your grandfather loved you or should have loved you of, hey, he may have been a tough old bird that discipline and growl at you or whatever, but you know, he loves you.
Right? You know, he cared about you, your [00:37:00] family, your children, and all that. People can take hard coaching and a demanding boss if they know you care about them. Truly, genuinely. Yeah. Okay. So part of our culture has been. Sometimes I've been good at that and sometimes I haven't. I think Lee was a lot better at that.
Alex was a lot better at that probably than, than, than I was in, in, in making people aware of, it's not a ploy, it's not some corporate slogan. It's, we care about you. We love you. Yeah. And we want what's best for your life. And it's like, so for example, we've had some people leave, they had great opportunities and what we always said to 'em is, you know, 'cause people are always anxious, like, oh, we don't wanna tell you we're leaving and all this, man, if you've got a better job or a better thing for your family and I begrudge that, what in the world?
What kind of person would that be? If you're working for me and it's beneficial for me, and all of a sudden I look [00:38:00] up and you go, man, I've got this awesome opportunity over here. If I really care about you, I should be like, cool man. Good for you. It might hurt me a little bit, but I should care about you enough to want your betterment.
Mm-hmm. Over mine. Yeah. But the world, and especially the practice of law, it is dominated by selfishness. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So try not to be selfish. Now, have I been selfish in my life? Of course. You know, I'm not trying to come off as like some pious, you know, whatever. But in general, if you're talking about cohesion, you're talking about our group.
Mm-hmm. Recruit good people, sacrifice for one another. Don't treat people like they are widgets to be expended. Okay. And then I'm going go with the flip side over here. Don't put up with a bunch of nonsense.
[00:38:50] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:38:51] Joseph Reece: One of a young parent once asked me is like, uh, what's your best get, what's your best advice for raising kids?
And I was like. [00:39:00] I really, this is, this is Joe Reese's, guide to Parenting. Do a bunch of, ah, cut it out. That's just hush. Quit. There's a lot of that, and there's a lot of that as a, as a leader of an organization, just quit. Yeah, okay. What's wrong? Tell me what's really wrong. Okay. Are you struggling? What? And so there's both of that, and I think that's been our cohesion and we've had very little turnover.
Thank God we've got wonderful people. And another thing too is you don't have to be liked by everybody. Yeah. I, I guarantee you there's people here don't like me rightfully so, you know, it's like, so what if you're good and you're honest and you're great at your job? Why can't we work together and achieve the mission?
So try to keep the ego stuff all out of it as much as possible. The [00:40:00] one thing you cannot do here, it's the kiss to death. You can't lie. Mm-hmm. You cannot lie here to each other. We gotta be real. And you can't, you know? So that's really been, it's, we kind of tried to keep it simple, treat people with, with dignity, understanding we're gonna have some grace and some mercy towards people.
And, and, uh, we need you to have grace and mercy towards us. We're all gonna work hard. We're gonna be committed to our craft. I mean, when I say this, I mean it, this law firm, when I think about our litigators, okay. Tim Hutchinson, Larry McCready, Chris Plumley, Paul, uh, Wendy Johnson. Uh, you know, uh, and I'm gonna miss some names.
We have, I'm spread out. We have 18 lawyers that are on the best Lawyers in America list.
[00:40:52] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:40:53] Joseph Reece: And I'm humbled and grateful for that. These people are talented. They are good at what they do. [00:41:00] And so if you have good people who are good at what they do, how Even Joe Reese as bad of a manager as I am, can't mess that up.
[00:41:08] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:41:08] Joseph Reece: Hmm. So,
[00:41:10] Cameron Clark: well, and, and with, with the people. So I know at the, just outside looking in, it's like every lawyer's dream, make partner, you know, be a part of the Yeah. The thing, I mean, it sounds like y'all have, like, you know, you got your core, your core team is making decisions, and then like what's the, what's the rest of that process like, you know, maybe compared to re regular industry and for someone who's not in, you know, in your world.
Yeah.
[00:41:31] Joseph Reece: So in the legal world, historically it has been, you come outta law school, you go into a law firm, you work like crazy. Yeah. And you still have to do that. You normally eight, some eight to 12 years is, is kind of the track to be a partner.
[00:41:56] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:41:58] Joseph Reece: And when you [00:42:00] become a, you know, a partner, some law firms have buy-in where you actually have to pay into the equity and all that kind of stuff.
Um, and so, you know, they want you to. Hit your billable goals. They want you to do all these things and then you come in. But even those law firms, a lot of times management is divorced from ownership. So it's about how you divide money. Hmm. And um, what we do is we take our young attorneys, uh, we try to tell them, Hey, here's what we, we want you to do.
Uh, we want you, like all law firms, we want you involved in the community. We want you making good decisions. We want you, you know, collecting this amount of money. We, we, you know, we, we, we do a lot for, uh, development, you know, trying to develop our associates and all that. And then once you become a partner here, then you.
You get to keep an X percent of what you, of what you make. Mm. And [00:43:00] uh, it's a, it's a, it's a very generous percentage, uh, compared to, uh, I think a lot of people Sure. Uh, out there across, uh, nationally and stuff. And, uh, and then, uh, we have a bonus system, you know, that where people are rewarded for, we try to reward conduct.
Like, for example, you've got to reward your rainmakers Yeah. Your people that bring in business. Yeah. And then you gotta reward the people that are working hard. Yeah. Okay. And what you can't do. This is something I credit Lee and I and Alex, uh, and, and, and Neil and, and, and Tim Hutchinson's also part of our, uh, executive.
Tim has had such a huge impact on this law firm. He's, he's, uh, sort of oversees our, our litigation side and stuff. And Tim's just a brilliant lawyer and an even better man and is a dear friend, and he's just an exceptional guy. But that's the core group of Yeah. Of, of, of our executive, kind of what I [00:44:00] call our executive committee.
And, um, so, you know, and, and, and, and what we do is, is that we go out to the broader partnership and we really ask their advice. They need to, people need to feel that they have skin in the game and are included. And we really do want them to have that. Yeah. Um, so if you go out and it's. Three of you and you got a group of 20 people that are bright, good people, and they're like, this is a bad idea.
You better listen to that. Yeah. So even though they may not like have a veto, you, you need to listen to your people. So that's sort of, it's pretty straightforward. Mm-hmm. It's nothing. What we want with our, with our young people is not just money. Yeah. Okay. We, again, I, I'm, I'm so protective of this culture.
So if you have a young associate, and let's say they're great, man. They bill and they produce money. They just cause [00:45:00] problems. You know, they're, they've caused fights and, you know, or, or let's say they're real selfish. Well, what partnership is, and I've said this to young people before, partnership is not a merit badge.
Yeah. Partnership is co-ownership of a business that I started. Okay. And Lee started, so we're talking about we're, we're getting married here, kind of. Yeah. You know, business speaking. Yeah. Well, who you wanna be married to. You wanna be married to a selfish person. I don't, you know, so you want people that are gonna be, you know, giving, hardworking, honest, but also at the same time, you gotta be those things as well.
Mm-hmm. And so you've got to, again, care more about those people than you do yourself. And that's a challenge. That's a challenge now. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, I'm a Christian. I'm a very [00:46:00] imperfect one. But again, that's what made Jesus special. He cared about people more than he cared about himself. Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, as, as key there, yeah. It's hard to do, but again. These young people, man, they've got options too. It's like they're so talented and they're, they're, they're really, uh, exceptional human beings. I told our people up here, I'm dead serious. I told Bo Renner, who's in charge of exceptional, uh, attorney for us young attorney downstairs, and he does a lot of our recruiting and, you know, interviewing and all this stuff, and we're so fortunate to have him.
But I said, Bo, I'm not sure I could get a job here. You know, and he was, I'm dead serious. It's like these kids that you bring in here, they're so academically, I don't think I could have gotten an interview here. I don't know. You know, so you've also gotta look for, hey, maybe this person over here, maybe they're not as academically strong, but they may be great at bringing in business.
[00:46:59] Cameron Clark: [00:47:00] Yep.
[00:47:00] Joseph Reece: Because you find in the law, Lee has always said this, there's finders, minders, and grinders, and you gotta have all of them. Yeah. People gotta get business. People gotta run the shop. People gotta turn through the work in a very, you know, efficient and way effective manner. Yeah. You gotta produce good work.
[00:47:17] Cameron Clark: When, and talk about, so you said like the good work's, kind of the core of like build, building the business. Mm-hmm. Let's talk about, so when you, you know, you started, three of y'all, Alex Miller comes on and I mean, you're, you're, you're building this business. There's a lot of the, the core growth in northwest Arkansas.
Are you doing work outside the state, across the state and how, how does that evolve?
[00:47:38] Joseph Reece: It was really, it's, it's really more Okay. Certainly we've benefited from the boom in northwest Arkansas. Yeah. There's just no question. Mm-hmm. And because this is our, this was our home base early on. Yeah. Um. What has happened with this economy and, and this area of the country, [00:48:00] it's, it's spectacular.
Mm-hmm. You know, we've been so fortunate. The people that I went to school with, you know, that are on Wall Street or out in LA and they're like, where are you living? What? But now you don't have that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You don't, I don't go anywhere. And people are like, Northwest Arkansas. What? So you don't have that, uh, you know, you think about places like here, Omaha, Nebraska, you know, fly over country, but people know there's a thriving business community here.
Mm-hmm. And we have benefited from that. But Lee and I specifically, we always had represented people from all over the state. Okay. And you know, even going back to the days when we were with EJ and Kenneth and, and those people, we represented people all over the country. Yeah. Estate planning. Here's how you grow a tax and estate planning business.
You do really good work for client A and client A goes and tells friend, Hey, this guy, he did a good job. Or This gal, she did a [00:49:00] great job. For me, it really is word of mouth. Yeah. There is no, now marketing, I know for a lot of businesses is really, that really is important, but man, in our business it's word of mouth.
You gotta execute, you've gotta execute. And so I can say we, we represent people. You know, we, and now we've grown to the point where it's, it's not hugely international. It's not uncommon for us to be representing someone from Germany or Wow. You know, somewhere like that. You know, they usually have some, there's some connection, you know, they're in the vendor community or Yeah.
You know? Mm-hmm. Or they have farmland, you know, there's a lot of, of, there's a lot of people, Argentina and different places that are, you know, buying land in Arkansas. And so, you know, you end up being involved with some of those folks and stuff.
[00:49:52] Cameron Clark: Give us a hypothetical example, like of, of someone who, you know, in the, a complicated estate or like complicated family [00:50:00] business that like, that y'all are providing, you know, the immense value to like, that they're not getting anywhere, anywhere else.
[00:50:09] Joseph Reece: Well, now, you know, it'd be presumptuous to say they're not getting it anywhere else because they're certainly great estate planning and tax attorneys, you know? Yeah. Around, yeah. Uh, what we do is. As what we, I'll just give you an example of what we do for families. So, so a lot of, and I'm gonna obviously be speaking more for the estate planners mm-hmm.
And the tax attorneys and the business lawyers than I am the litigators. And so I just, you know, you know, you speak about what, you know, we take. High wealth families. So let's say you're worth $500 million. Mm-hmm. And you have, uh, a real estate portfolio over here. Uh, you have aviation, uh, you may be involved in, uh, you know, technology, different technology plays, you know, you've [00:51:00] got different businesses in different places and all that.
But at the same token, normally those wealthy families, um, they have, it's not just a couple of people, you know, their, their children and grandchildren and all that. Mm-hmm. And, uh, um, maybe they have, uh, a big financial advisory team, sometimes two or three of them. And so what you become is you try to help them build, uh, is is the sort of become, not the hub, but sort of you try to really help those folks build out what is called a family office.
And that's a very common term. People generally know what that is. Really that is designed, you don't come in and plug a family into something you've already designed. You go build it for 'em. I tell people there's nothing wrong with buying cabinets from a big box or whatever place, you know? Yeah. But there's custom cabinets and we build custom cabinets here, and that's what, you know, it's what we're doing.
So you may need help with [00:52:00] aviation. Uh, and if so, we, we know how to help with that, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You may need, um, you know, there's a lot of very wealthy people that say, maybe you've made a lot of money in, in real estate. Well, you may know next to nothing about, you know, it, security and those sorts of things.
Okay. A lot of folks, uh, say, Hey man, you know. We need help with our, uh, tax reporting or, or we need somebody to help us understand, uh, and, and, and work with our financial advisors to know what all we're in. There's a lot of asset protection. We do a lot of that work. Mm-hmm. Um, and so what we're doing is we're just kind of being, and we don't care if we're, if people consider us the boss or whatever, you know, we don't care if the CPA is the main, uh, person in charge or, or, or the, the financial advisor.
What we wanna do is just always be ready [00:53:00] with the answers.
[00:53:01] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:53:01] Joseph Reece: Okay. And so, if there's a man, we got a problem, we wanna, so it might be mm-hmm. Well, we need an in-house CPA. Well, we'll go recruit that for you. Yeah. We'll find that person. Uh, you know, we can enter into seconding agreements, uh, with families where we recruit and then place people.
And that person, they may be an employee of RMP, but they're going to work at that business and they report to that family and et cetera. You see what I'm saying? Yep. So that's, that's, I don't know if I'm doing a good job of answering your question, but that's what we're, that's what we're doing Yeah. For these families.
[00:53:34] Cameron Clark: Yeah, that's exactly. Just trying to like Yeah. Understand what is that like fully, fully encompass, and I think you did and talk about, so the, the different offices build, you know mm-hmm. Opening each office. Why, why did you do it? Um, and when, you know, when you did it.
[00:53:49] Joseph Reece: So one of the things is, is we'll start with Bentonville.
It is because Fayetteville is just where we were. And then of course we moved out here because our folks wanted to [00:54:00] build a, a, a building and, and that, you know, we had, we had some good partners that we, we teamed up with to build this building and, and, um, you know, uh, wish we'd built it a little bigger, I'll be honest with you, had, it's like we didn't know we were gonna fill this thing up that fast.
But, um, so Bentonville, there was an attorney, legendary attorney up in Benton County named Jerry Dawsey. Any of you guys ever know, know the name Jerry? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Jerry was just a wonderful guy. We've lost him. He passed on several years ago, but, uh, Jerry came to us and just said, Hey, I really care. I want, I don't know who's gonna take care of my clients if something happened to me and I retire, or whatever.
So we're like, okay. That's where we got started up there. Hmm. Jerry then passed away unexpectedly and, um, we had a young man who worked here named BR Price, still does partner here. And you talk about somebody that took a bullet from me, he went up there and started working. [00:55:00] That Bentonville office really saved it for us, and it's flourishing.
And so I'm forever grateful to be, and uh, that is a place that it's just like, you don't have to be a genius to know we need to, it's ahead. Yeah. We need to continue to focus up there, that market and all that.
[00:55:17] Cameron Clark: And where's that, where's that located? Like where in Bentonville?
[00:55:19] Joseph Reece: It's, it's right off the square up there on a street.
It's, it's, it's, uh, it's, you know, block or two down, you know? Yep. Yeah. And real
[00:55:27] Nick Beyer: quick, when you talked about Dawson,
[00:55:29] Joseph Reece: Dawsey.
[00:55:30] Nick Beyer: Dawsey, okay. Is that in, in the law world? Is that an acquisition? Is that a merger? That's a great merger. That's a great
[00:55:37] Joseph Reece: question, yes. Okay. Okay. It's both. Okay. It's, it's, what it is, is really Jerry, and we've had other attorneys that have done this.
We didn't buy his business. What we did was is he came and he donated his, you know, his clients and stuff. Mm-hmm. [00:56:00] Um, and just, we just started helping take care of it. We just started working together. Yeah. And, uh, you know, John Ell down in Little Rock, I mean, John is just a stud. He was, he's retiring, kind of semi-retired, but John, uh, when he came to us is just, Hey man, I need help.
I wanna make sure that these clients that I've built up over the years are gonna be well taken care of. And so we were just like, okay, let's go. You're a good man and you're a great lawyer. You fit our culture and let's go. And so we. Changed the name over the door, but the furniture or nothing else changed and the people kept coming and, and then, you know, you recruit, uh ha have a exceptional attorney that we, we, uh, God blessed us with that.
Moved here outta California named Adam Flock. He's a deal lawyer. Just exceptional mean. This guy's done, uh, transactional stuff everywhere. Well, he came in with John and then recruited two young ladies down there that are just brilliant, uh, LLMs and mm-hmm. [00:57:00] And so, you know, it's just growth like that. It's not like we go and go, okay, we want to, uh, buy your practice.
Legal practices are hard to sell. Okay. Because it's about relationships. Yeah. Look, your clients, if you're a lawyer here, and you could say that about anybody here, if, if Seth Haynes, one of our great litigators here, decided to walk across the street. Seth Haynes's clients are gonna go with him. Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. They love him. Yeah. Yeah. That's what the practice of law is. So you have to get really big, in my view, to have something that you could wind up and market and sell.
[00:57:40] Nick Beyer: Sell.
[00:57:41] Joseph Reece: Okay. So you say, well, is it a merger? It's much more of a merger, but we just kind of say to people, Hey man, we we're willing to learn, but we really think we have a good system here.
Why don't you just come plug into it?
[00:57:56] Nick Beyer: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:57:57] Joseph Reece: And that's how it's been. So it's more of a [00:58:00] merger.
[00:58:00] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:58:00] Joseph Reece: Uh, but but it's not like a purchase. Okay. Like you would a, has a traditional business. Yeah.
[00:58:06] Cameron Clark: Yeah. That's good. Um, no, I was just, I was just, uh, kinda listening to what you're saying. So, and then Jonesboro was same, similar thing.
[00:58:14] Joseph Reece: Jonesboro was Paul McNeil, who again I say is legendary attorney. Uh, just known across the state. Yep. Just master litigator. He and Lee were buddies in college, uh, and I think they were in the same fraternity. And Lee would talk forever about, man, this Paul McNeil, I'd love it if we could practice together.
He is such a good man, and he is, and, uh, blah, blah, blah. And I'd be like, okay, I didn't know who, you know, who Paul was. And, and then one day I'm watching in the south end zone of Razorback Stadium watching the hogs, and Lee sits down beside me and says, I've got him. He is gonna come and join us. And he's like, all euphoric.
And I was like, okay, good. And it has been, man, I had no, I mean. As I've learned about him in the, in, [00:59:00] in the, the years since. You know, what a blessing for us Yeah. To have him. Yeah. And, uh, and so that, that Jonesboro man, I'm really, there's, there's places across the state that I, I just, I'm really excited about in the future, and Jonesboro is one of those.
Mm-hmm. Um, just, we just, I, I really want to continue to serve that community mm-hmm. And grow that, um, you know, uh, Bentonville certainly, you know, I, I've, I've been astounded at how our little rock, uh, office has grown. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's, it's, it's grown faster than any other, you know, office and, I mean, super quick.
We've added a bunch of great attorneys down there, and so we're super excited about that.
[00:59:47] Nick Beyer: And talk about that. That was March, right? Of this year?
[00:59:50] Joseph Reece: Yeah, it kind of started in the fall last year. And again, we have an attorney here. Um. That a guy named Collier Moore, and I've [01:00:00] said to my wife, if I could have a thousand Collier Moores, I'd take over the world.
Okay. You know, he's so Collier's one of these guys. He is an exceptionally good attorney. He does a lot of elder law and kind of leads our elder law practice. But Collier, he's just one of those people. He's just beloved. Everybody loves him. He's a great guy. He's just a good man and, and. Collier had a, a friend, uh, from all the way back in Wasaw when they were in college down there.
And, uh, uh, her name's Mary Carol Young, and she's her daddy. And Lee knew each other. And anyway, so he, he just started a con, we just started a conversation and, uh, we just started talking about, hey, uh, she had some partners that were interested looking for a, a home and, and we said, okay. And man, it was a lot of meetings and figuring out if their culture fit our culture, and it did.
They're wonderful people and just have exceptional practices. Uh, and, [01:01:00] and, and then throughout that, uh, Sarah, um, one of, one of, uh, the attorneys that joined us, she just mentioned to me, Hey, I know you need to also talk. To Perry Wilson and, and, and Perry was, was at another law firm and, and had a group of lawyers with him that were also looking for a home.
Hmm. Uh, I did not see that coming. I mean, it was literally, it went from a conversation in the parking lot with a nice lady about, Hey, you know, uh, how you think this work to just full blown kaboom. We, you know, tripled in size down there in Little Rock all at once and it's been exceptional. And those folks, it's like logistically that's been a tough Yeah, yeah.
Deal. They have been so patient with us because again, we're kind of learning as we go. Everything, you know, we're not used to doubling in size. And so that was, we've just got wonderful management people. We've got people that are willing to, that have been with us for years, like our, like [01:02:00] our IT people, and that I trust them with my children.
You know what I mean? It's like these are good people. And they literally went down there. Adam Flock went down there. Now this will show you, this guy is a highbrow transactional attorney with a great practice. And he didn't sit, he's down there washing windows and went and found, got all the office furniture ordered, and one weekend is up there putting it together.
Uh, you know, it's like, how can you not succeed with people like that? Mm-hmm. You know? And so one of the things that we're told, and I'm deeply proud of this, that I am told all the time by people that come and join us, is I think at first they think it's fake. And it's like, wow, y'all actually care about each other.
Wow. And we do. And that is something that we all have to remind ourselves to do every day because, you know. In our flesh, in and of ourselves. That's not a [01:03:00] lot of times naturally who we are, we're we love me. Yeah, me, my mind. And, uh, and so what we want to do is, is just have those people like Adam. It's just, they just sacrifice like Collier.
Mm-hmm. They sacrifice. You know, it's just, we just, I, everywhere I look, we have people like that. Yeah. And I'm so grateful. So this isn't me sitting there being like, oh, shucks. You know, and really thinking, wow, what a good manager I am. These people. I'm not a good manager. These people are exceptional. I have been blessed in an unbelievable way.
To have people that are exceptional Yeah. Around me. And I'm grateful for 'em.
[01:03:45] Cameron Clark: Well, and talk about, so yeah, all, all the, all the people. Now talk about right now where the business is at, how many attorneys you have, you know, total number of offices. Five. Five, four offices. Four offices. Mm-hmm. Four offices.
Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. And what's the focus right now [01:04:00] collectively in the company?
[01:04:01] Joseph Reece: So, uh, I don't, hold me to this guys. I think it's 44 lawyers. Okay. I don't hold me to that. Yeah. Um, we have offices in Bentonville, you know, Fayetteville Johnson, Springdale, whatever you wanna call this, where we're at, um, little Rock and Jonesboro.
Um, there are some communities I would like to, and, you know, I would be interested in, in moving into. Mm-hmm. Um, but our vision going forward is number one for me. That is primarily my role of where, where, where are we trying to get to, and sort of communicating that. It doesn't mean that everybody's gonna accept every crazy idea I have.
Yeah. But one of the things that I believe my focus going forward is really gonna be, and that's what I've been thinking about for the last few years, is efficiency. Mm-hmm. And efficiency and, and, and leverage. And, and, and [01:05:00] how do we, uh, you know, have you noticed, uh, all these stores have you bagging your own groceries now?
Yeah. And it's amazing. They got you to go to work for 'em and they're not paying. But anyway, so it's, but so when you, when you talk about client communication and how you take in data, that's really important in, in our business. Mm-hmm. Especially on the transactional tax side. Yeah. And how can you interface that using AI and different things in including, you know, your people.
How can we do that so that we, our output is, is more efficient?
[01:05:38] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[01:05:39] Joseph Reece: Okay. Because practicing law and doing estate planning, it's, it's not as, at least for us, maybe someone else has cracked the code, but, but it's not the delivery of those services, the number one complaint that people would tell you. Well, they, I don't wanna say what the number one complaint about me would be, but what you hear about estate planning [01:06:00] attorneys and tax attorneys is, golly, it takes so long for me to get my stuff.
Hmm. Yeah. And we haven't, we haven't cracked that code because there's so much work and so much need, and it's hard to turn because it's very, it's so data specific. Mm-hmm. So for example, if you have a 401k and you're an executive and I'm doing estate planning for you, okay. Uh, and you've, your primary, your wealth for the future is in your retirement plan or any kind of qualified plan.
Alright. And then let's say. You have, uh, a blended family. You got children from, from, you know, two sides that came from previous, you know, marriages and or whatever. That estate plan is fundamentally different if it's done well than somebody that has a plumbing business. And we've got two kids and mom and dad that have been married for 50 years.
[01:06:54] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:06:54] Joseph Reece: That's fundamentally different. So, so you have to, [01:07:00] when working with clients, it's like going to the doctor. Okay? There's a lot of tests a doctor can give you when you go in and get your blood work and all that stuff done. There's a whole lot of the doctor looking at you when you're saying, Hey, I got this pain over here in my inner ear.
And he's like, okay. And you're trying to, you know, you're trying to analyze all that stuff. It produces sometimes an inefficient flow. And what we've always been chasing, and obviously technology is how you primarily chase this in. How do we, how do we shorten that mm-hmm. From the time of, you're telling me your problem till I'm giving you a, a, a solution.
[01:07:39] Cameron Clark: Yeah. You
[01:07:40] Joseph Reece: see what I mean?
[01:07:40] Cameron Clark: And is that, I mean, in figuring that, I mean, does that bring on, you know, more it staff or what is it? Just, I just kind of constantly, right now what I'm, what I'm
[01:07:48] Joseph Reece: trying to do is, is that I'm trying to talk to some consultants, uh, that are, that are out there in the legal space because law is a, is such a unique, uh, business in [01:08:00] the sense of you have to be very careful about sharing data.
Mm-hmm. Protecting data. Mm-hmm. You know, I can't just. A lot of businesses could go out and be like, well, we have this, uh, vendor over here and blah, blah, blah. Well, you can't talk about your client stuff.
[01:08:14] Cameron Clark: Yeah. You know? Yeah. And
[01:08:15] Joseph Reece: so it's a real challenge. And, um, and, and so what, what I'm doing right now is I'm not a techie person.
Okay. Yeah. I am not. And, uh, we have attorneys up here that are, they love that stuff, but I am intrigued by how this artificial intelligence is really gonna shake out in our, in our business world, because, um, if you were able to do a thousand tax returns, you know Yeah, yeah. In a quarter of the time, because you are, you know, now so efficient.
Mm-hmm. I mean, CPAs would tell you. [01:09:00] Tax season. It's brutal. Yeah. I mean, mean they are just all hours of the day just trying to get data input and your proof returns and all that kinda stuff. Well, if you were able to do that, what do you need to focus on? You need to focus on getting more tax returns in the door.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Okay. You see what I'm saying? So the efficiency with which you can handle work is gonna tell you what markets you, you attempt to go after. Yeah. You know, in other words, if you're super efficient, uh, it changes overhead and it changes where all you can have an office and it changes. I mean, it changes everything.
Yeah. So, I, I, that is the part of my job, I gotta admit. I love it. Mm-hmm. Like if I'm riding a lawnmower, I just love to think about things like that. I don't know why, but to think about where do we want to be 20 years from now? What does this wanna look like? What is it? You know, how are these services? And I don't think anybody really knows because.
I [01:10:00] do believe the technology we're gonna see that's, it's already here. Mm-hmm.
[01:10:04] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:10:04] Joseph Reece: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's printing press level significant. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's internal combustion engine, be it, you know, how it changed society and how it's gonna, you know, affect. So I will, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I will tell you what I overheard without revealing anything confidential.
I, I was recently working with a, you know, there's been a big move in the medical and dental and all these, uh, different, uh, uh, industries or whatever professions to have these, uh, you know. Management type groups, these MSOs and all that kind of stuff that are gonna come in and they're rolling up these individual practices.
So maybe you've got a practice that's over in, in this little town in Alabama, and it, it's kind of your way to leverage, uh, to be able to market your practice because you're in with a bunch of other practices and a bigger [01:11:00] outfit owns you and they can sell and you can realize your retirement. You can cash out.
Yeah. Okay. Without going and trying to find somebody that wants to own your practice in Littletown, Alabama. Yeah. So the group that I was, was working with, they, they represented about 650 practices and, uh, they were, they were very aggressively trying to find practices and we were working on something completely different.
It was, it was looking at a deal whether this was, it was a deal that, that I'm providing legal guidance on. Yeah. And these doctors are talking, and this one guy says, well, in 10 years, uh. AI is going to replace all primary care physicians. And you know, people are talking and I'm over here and I'm like, after a little bit, I'm like, what did you say?
And he was like, what? And I don't know if these guys know what they're talking about. They treated me like I was an idiot. I mean, they were like, you don't know that. And I was like, all primary care [01:12:00] doctors are gonna be replaced by ai. And they're like, yeah. And I, I don't know whether that's, there are probably people in the medical community that'll probably like, that guy's an idiot.
And I can affirm I'm an idiot, but I don't know whether those guys really know what they're talking about. But that shocked me. I'm like, what? How is that gonna interface with the public? Are you gonna just walk into, uh, an office and put your hands in a machine and it's gonna draw blood and scan your eyes and all that?
So if it's gonna happen there in some degree. The people that are thinking about their legal businesses and, and accounting and all that, they need to be thinking about that. What's that gonna do here?
[01:12:35] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[01:12:35] Joseph Reece: And that's my primary focus right now.
[01:12:39] Nick Beyer: And it sounds like you're excited about it.
[01:12:41] Joseph Reece: I don't know. I don't
[01:12:42] Nick Beyer: know whether they'll
[01:12:42] Joseph Reece: be
[01:12:42] Nick Beyer: excited or not.
Well, 'cause I mean, from some of the people I've talked to who are younger, they're like nervous. Like, if I can plug in a 300 page document and it can assess it, what is, what am I gonna do? Right. Yeah. And so how are you, how are you [01:13:00] talking to attorneys in your practice? How are you talking to other attorney?
I mean, I know it's, well, I'm not so much is to come. I
[01:13:06] Joseph Reece: haven't, I haven't talked to a lot of folks, uh, about this. I just, I, you know, it's like, it's something I'm really just trying to learn about. Yeah. Figure out and figure out how is this gonna work. You know, the founder of LinkedIn, Reed Hoffman guy I was reading this morning and he was like.
Anytime a technology rolls out, people are like, this is gonna replace mankind. Okay. Yeah. Well, no, I don't think so. I agree with him. It's like people said PCs were dead when mobile came out. Is what he was making the point. PCs are still here. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So in our business, and I say this to our young attorneys, I'll test you guys, see how insightful you are.
Okay. What are people buying from us experience? That's a close one. Good. I
[01:13:55] Cameron Clark: trust
[01:13:57] Joseph Reece: y'all are very close. They're buying our wisdom. [01:14:00] Yeah.
[01:14:00] Cameron Clark: They're
[01:14:01] Joseph Reece: important for us to be wise. They're buying our integrity. Mm-hmm. They're buying our experience, our, that's what they are seeking. That's why lawyers have historically been called counselors, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And people. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think computers or artificial intelligence ever gonna replace, look, natural intelligence has enough flaws with it. Okay.
[01:14:34] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[01:14:36] Joseph Reece: I mean, the idea that man is gonna go create some perfect system out there to address all human need, I just think it's preposterous.
We can't do that now. Yeah. Right. And, uh, the guy that created, uh, our intelligence is, uh, is, you know, god almighty in my view. And so, you know what I'm saying? So I, I just, I don't, I don't have this doomsday view of the future. Yeah. You know, I, [01:15:00] I've, I've always had a, a pretty optimistic, okay, let's go attack this problem, you know?
Mm-hmm. It's gonna be, this is a challenge and it's gonna be an amazing tool. Now, what I do believe is gonna happen is I believe that we are going to have to change our thinking about employment. So let's say I could eliminate your job. Do I, do I need to eliminate your job? I
[01:15:26] Nick Beyer: don't
[01:15:27] Joseph Reece: know.
[01:15:28] Nick Beyer: Well, I think if, if you could, if I could do my job more efficiently and I could produce more, that would, that'd reduce it.
Correct.
[01:15:35] Joseph Reece: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, it would. All right. But what if you're my son or my best friend? Do I need to reduce, eliminate your job then? No. You know why? Because I love you. Yeah. Now that say, I may sound stupid and that's fine. People can make fun of me and all that. So [01:16:00] corporate America, in the corporate world, it's like the number one thing.
Capitalism. Rewards is efficiency. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Okay. And that's great. And there's gonna be a lot of that, and I believe in capitalism and all that good stuff. But if you care about people, what's, how are those decisions? I got these people that work for me up here and they're wonderful and they got great families.
Okay. And you know what? People need jobs. So the worst thing at being a manager, you know what the worst thing is? It's the worst. It's really sucks, is ever having to fire somebody. Yeah. And anybody that says, oh, I like firing people, they're, they, they got something wrong with them. Okay. Because you've got human beings that depend on mama and daddy bringing a paycheck home and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. And you know, I grew up, uh, with two parents that were working their tails off, but I've seen some shutoff notices sitting on the coffee table. Yeah. And that [01:17:00] is not, that's not a pleasant thing to go through. So the, the fact of the matter is, is that just because let's say I could eliminate, uh, uh, cost by using, uh, ai, does that mean I need to do that?
You know, just so what I can make more money. You know, it all, who you are affects how you're gonna answer that. There's a bunch of people out there be like, yeah, heck yeah. I want a place in Tuscany. Yeah. But I don't, and I'm not acting like I'm such a virtue signaling, you know, whatever. I, I, I, I think that that our profession writ large, it's really gonna have to think through those things.
[01:17:44] Cameron Clark: It's wild west right now, I mean, yeah. Mm-hmm.
[01:17:46] Joseph Reece: It's like if I'm McDonald's and all I can do I is I'm gonna just have a bunch of robots that work for me that I can understand. It may not be good for [01:18:00] society if all only robots are making hamburgers, but my primarily business model is to get hamburgers as inexpensively and efficiently to the public of who all's wanting to buy a hamburger.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. As I see it in my simplistic Yeah. Mind. I don't know. That's our model. Mm-hmm. I don't know. That's what we're doing. Again, how you view what you're trying to build as an organization is gonna affect these answers. What's gonna be right for, for a person over here, it's gonna be very, if I don't answer I to a group of stockholders, you know what I mean?
Mm-hmm. How I would think about employing technology if I did, is gonna be fundamentally different than little old Joe sitting down here at RMP in Johnson, Arkansas because it's like, Hey man, if we could increase our profit margin, that's great, but if I have to destroy somebody's, uh, uh, financial future in to do that, that that's something [01:19:00] that's gotta be.
Way more careful at. Mm-hmm. So that may be, that probably sounds like a bunch of nonsense, but that is truly what I'm,
[01:19:07] Cameron Clark: yeah. Thinking about processing, thinking through. Yeah. That's good. And so are you still, are you uh, obviously visionary managing? What, are you practicing a lot right now to too? Yeah. So you kind of holding back.
Yeah.
[01:19:19] Joseph Reece: I, my personal practice, it's, it's, it's, it's in some transition. I'm really focusing now for me personally on, um, sort of more of a practice group model just because of time. The law firm has gotten to the point where, man, it takes the administrative side. It's, it's a tiger by the tail and it's just takes so much time.
You know, we also had a real tragedy hit our, our law firm earlier this year with, with the passing unexpectedly of John Ni house. And, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention John. In the early days of the law firm, John was just like Lee and I, I mean just, he, he had a amazing practice. He [01:20:00] was a good man, and, and we just tragically lost him.
And, and yeah, he, he absorbing that and taking care of his clients and stuff. That's been some added challenges that's, that's, that's caused some of us that are a little gray headed to, you know, we, we have bright, bright young attorneys and they have skills, but, you know, just as you get older, sometimes you're better at handling, you know, maybe a, an older client or something like that.
Sure. Yeah. So we've had, I've had to do all that over time. My practice side will, it'll, it'll continue I think to, to, there's some families I'm always gonna represent. Yeah. I've just been with them too long and I like practicing law. Yeah. I love doing this. You know, I, I think I was, I joke and, and, um, it's not a really a joke with me.
I think I was. A DD when it wasn't cool. And, and, and I love the variety that is produced by practicing law. Hmm. You come [01:21:00] in with a unique problem. Now it may be similar to a lot of problems I've dealt with,
[01:21:03] Cameron Clark: but it's unique. Yeah. But it's
[01:21:04] Joseph Reece: unique and I love that part of the practice. Mm-hmm. I love the personal interaction with people, and I just think it's a, it's a great way to make a living and a great way to help people and all those sorts of things.
Um, and I don't think that's, that's another reason why I don't think AI is ever gonna fix, ever gonna replace us. Yeah. You know, and, um, but I, I just, the management side has just taken on such an increased role. Hmm. One of the things that I am, uh, trying to do is, is, is trying to figure out are there other services that are ancillary to our practice here?
You know, that. I heard Mr. Lindsay, Jim Lindsay one time say, and I thought it was brilliant, he said, our goal is we try to make money off of a piece of property multiple times. Same piece of property. Mm-hmm. We wanna make money when [01:22:00] we, you know,
[01:22:01] Nick Beyer: build it, buy
[01:22:02] Joseph Reece: it, build it, manage it, sell it. And I was like, man, that is awesome.
Well, why can't you do that with clients? Yeah. So thinking of, of as far as, so for example, we haven't done this yet, but uh, business valuations are something that we really, you know, have to, that's very important in our world. Mm-hmm. Because of reporting to the IS Yeah. Uh, and it's, I've thought before, man, maybe we should recruit.
Have some, you know, valuation experts, you know, and stuff like that. Yeah. Anyway, they're just stuff like that, you just brainstorm a lot. Yeah. And, uh, and that's certainly what our clients have demanded certain things. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, Parum, the, the CPA firm that's, that's, uh, uh, under RMP and, and those, those those guys and gals are doing just great work.
It's, that's really growing. It's just [01:23:00] came from clients going, we don't want to go get our tax returns done somewhere else.
[01:23:05] Cameron Clark: Please do
[01:23:06] Joseph Reece: them do this. Yeah.
[01:23:07] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:23:07] Joseph Reece: Okay. There's great accountants and CPAs across our region and it's like, we're not trying to be HR Block. We wanna work with those folks and we don't wanna be a threat to them and their business or anything else.
[01:23:21] Cameron Clark: Yeah, yeah.
[01:23:21] Joseph Reece: But we just have clients that are like, we're gonna go somewhere where we can have somebody that does our corporate work. Does our estate planning and does our tax returns and we're gonna go to one spot. Yeah. And if there's somebody to choose to get chewed out, we're gonna shoo you out. And then we want to cut one check.
And that's just how it is. And you know, I really think that the big box store sort of mentality that came on, I think that led to that. Mm-hmm. People just going, no, I'm gonna get my hair cut and my eyeglasses. Yep. My carrots and my banking. Yeah. And I don't want go [01:24:00] a bunch of different places. Mm-hmm.
[01:24:02] Nick Beyer: So, but have you seen that lead to happier clients or better results?
I mean, I assume if you, if you're doing their taxes and you're doing their strategy, there's gotta be some excellent product that comes out of that. I think. Yes,
[01:24:15] Joseph Reece: I think so. Now, obviously you're always looking and going, well, how can we do this better? Mm-hmm. You know, we're not perfect and, and, and so obviously.
RMP is much more efficient today than it was in oh five. Mm-hmm. Way more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. RMP is way more able to handle a large transaction than it was in oh five and all points in between because as you add bodies, so on the tax reporting and those sorts of things, the, the, the product, here's where that is such an advantage.
Uh, the product is getting more efficient is what I was about to say. Hmm. But the advantage is this, it's hard for John Q Citizen out there to go and get his information from his [01:25:00] business and get it to his CPA and then let's say we're doing gift tax returns for him. 'cause we're doing estate planning over here and, and there's all this coordination that has to, to take place.
There's a bunch of that, that for a client, they're just, they're just happy when it's happening behind. They don't need to see how the sausage is made, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's like what it's happening behind. Now we may be having five meetings over here about, well, is this company passive? Or is is what, you know, what's the activity over here?
What's the tax ID number here? You know, all that kind of stuff. But the client, they just got a life to live, and they're just sort of like, go take care of that. Yeah. Mm know. Mm-hmm. And that's really, I think why that has grown is just the convenience of it, because it can't be the cost 'cause it's more expensive.
[01:25:46] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[01:25:47] Joseph Reece: You know?
[01:25:48] Nick Beyer: Yeah. That's good. So, is Perim Peridium, Parum, Parum, is that the only other kind of business off offshoot of r and p, or
[01:25:57] Joseph Reece: It is now there's, there is, uh, [01:26:00] there's a, uh, a business that we have over here, uh, to the side that Lee and I and Alex, it's, it's primarily Alex and I, but Lee and Collier and Alex and I started because some clients ask us to, and it is a, it's a, uh, private trust company, uh, that just deals with clients that are needing a, you know, fiduciary help.
I, the way I describe it is it's a family office support company. Mm-hmm. Okay. So if a family comes to us and says, we may not need you for a bunch of different things, but we do need help, here we go and solve that problem for 'em.
[01:26:41] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:26:41] Joseph Reece: And uh, you know, it's like some people. Maybe, uh, they've sold their business, they've had a cash out event, and they're all of a sudden they've been wealthy in a number sense, but they've really not dealt with, they've never gone and purchased a private jet or that, you [01:27:00] know, that kind of thing.
And we provide that. They, they've never had to worry about any more than all people have to worry about their, their IT and their data security and all that. Maybe they need an in-house CPA. And they want one, they have no idea how to recruit one or train one or what software needs or all that kind of stuff.
You know, we had a a, a family that we work with and a long time, uh, family and you know, they had a CPA and she was fantastic and she got pancreatic cancer and was gone and like, it was amazing to me how fast that was from diagnosis to her passing. And it was just tragic for this family. 'cause they were sitting there trying to pick up the pieces.
So they said never again. We're not doing that again. We have to have someone in house, but we're going to have, if something happens, a car wreck or anything like that. So what we do is, you know, we work [01:28:00] with that person in-house. Yeah, the software overlaps. We're looking at the tax returns. This person probably prepares, I don't know, 65, 70 tax returns a year.
We're, we're looking at 'em and working with them, but if, if something happened, God forbid there's at least a backstop. Yeah. So it's really a la carte, you know, how people are, are doing this stuff. Um, a lot of what we do, uh, that families really respond to is data management. And so we build, uh, for lack of a better word, dashboards where, oh, I need my tax return from eight years ago.
And it's like, you click on this company and it's like, oh, I need my articles, uh, I need my operating agreement. I need my minutes mm-hmm. From three years ago. I need the buy sell agreement. I need the, the key person insurance. I need the business license. I need this. And so it's, it's like peeling an onion and, and it, you know, people [01:29:00] even I need my child's birth certificate and you know, it's super important that stuff is secure.
Yeah. But we build those systems for people and, uh, have had. I mean, just amazing response to that. Mm-hmm. We've been doing that for years and a lot of times people are like, I just want you to do that. Yeah. Because people that are in business and they're trying to do, let's say that you are, uh, let's say you have a lumber company, you're worried about selling lumber Yeah.
To the co, to the, to the public. You may be great at that, but you're worried about trucks and logistics and fuel and, and, and people power and all that stuff. And then somebody walks up and says, where's that contract over here? And they're just, oh my gosh. You know, and they're, they're digging through file cabinets.
We try to answer that problem for 'em. Yeah. So that's been something that has really been effective over time. Hmm.
[01:29:53] Nick Beyer: Well, one of the things I think would be cool to share, and I don't know if you can share it, but are there things, as you've worked through highly [01:30:00] complex estate plans with, you know, ultra net worth families that you're like.
They did this. And I thought that was really interesting way to, to set up, you know, I think we were talking to the Lewis guys last week and they were talking about there's 80 Lewises here and, you know, their grandfather set up a succession plan for the business and they have to touch every part of the business and have an external board of directors who votes on if they, you know, can be in the, I just thought it was really interesting.
So I imagine you've seen some very complex mm-hmm. Things and are there ever a few that come to mind that you're like, this is really interesting?
[01:30:35] Joseph Reece: Yeah, so we, we ha uh, we do a, uh, set up and design and, uh, work through a lot of that stuff and work with other people across the country on a, on a lot of that stuff.
Um, and it is, it's, it's, first of all, it's not uniform. Mm-hmm. So every family's gonna be a little bit different, et cetera. But there's a couple of things that. We really believe in. Mm-hmm. [01:31:00] Number one, and by the way, whoever's listened to this, I'm not giving you legal advice. I'm not your attorney. Yeah.
That's my disclaimer. Yeah. Um, one, you don't need to own an asset to enjoy it. Think about that. What if I said to you, I have a house in Martha's Vineyard, Nick, I'm going to, you get to use it for your life. You can do anything you want to with it. You can bulldoze it, you can have it as a Airbnb. You can decide who gets it.
When you die, you can do anything. I can do. How is that different than ownership? You don't own it, but you have that level of enjoyment.
[01:31:38] Cameron Clark: I mean, there's none from, from an experience that it's not, there's zero. There's not, there's zero. Yeah.
[01:31:41] Joseph Reece: You can sell it and use the money from the sale for what you want.
Right. It smells like you own it. It tastes like you own it. It looks like you own it, but if your wife leaves you. That you don't own it.
[01:31:53] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:31:53] Joseph Reece: Well, guess what? Your wife can't take something that you don't own. Yeah. Joe, the sleazy plaintiff's attorney, [01:32:00] you know, that can't sue you and take what you don't own.
Mm. So one of the things that we want to do is we want to combine, uh, tax planning with asset protection planning. And so what, what we, we concentrate on is getting your assets packaged if you're a a, a large wells family, packaged in such a way where we can meet multiple objectives at once. But one of the things we try to do is get people where they have maximum enjoyment Yeah.
But not ownership. Okay. And you say, well, who owns it? Well, a lot of times dynasty trusts, companies. Yeah. These different strategies. And there's a bunch of different of those. Okay. But like you talked about succession when you were talking about the Lewis family mm-hmm. Succession is, it's very important.
In other words, if you are looking at a family and somebody says, well, I'm [01:33:00] going to, I have four kids, and my daughter and I are the ones who've already run this company. We've run it for 20 years, and she's crucial to the business, I want her to run the business. Well, you better talk to daughter and make sure she's willing to work for her siblings.
Yeah. Who may not be doing anything because they're getting more of the money potentially than she is. Mm. Okay. So you gotta think through all those issues. And so that's where you look at also, besides just asset protection and getting assets valued so that you can transfer them from one generation to the next as tax free as possible, but you're also needing to talk about.
In that situation, possibly liquidity or replacing one asset within, maybe she gets the business, but the siblings get insurance money. So that requires people [01:34:00] with insurance advice, you know, that are, that are really skilled. Um, because, you know, just sitting there going, well, I want my kids treated equally, or I, I, you know, that, that kind of simplistic thinking is not, not the best for a lot of families.
Yeah. And that's why it takes a long time to design and develop these plans. Mm-hmm. And that's why if you're going to people and you go, I need an estate plan, and they just get some sort of package and go here, this will, you know, this will answer all your problems. That's not very sophisticated work.
Okay. Sophisticated work for you and your family is, we're gonna have a lot of conversations about, okay, what do you own? What are you doing? Mm-hmm. Who's gonna run it? What happens when one spouse dies? What happens when another one dies? You know, there is a, it is huge. Uh, all the things that you have to consider in order to effectively deal with, with high net [01:35:00] worth families.
[01:35:01] Nick Beyer: That's good. That's a great, that's a great example too. Um, we'll talk about, we are kind of going to current, so around 44 attorneys. Is there another 20 in support staff or how, how do you, how's the,
[01:35:15] Joseph Reece: you're putting me on the spot. I don't know the total number. Okay.
[01:35:19] Nick Beyer: But it sounds like y'all are kind of already, this office is pretty full.
Yeah. It sounds like.
[01:35:23] Joseph Reece: Yeah. We got a, we got a few places that we could, we could, we could stick people, but yeah. Yeah, we're pretty full here.
[01:35:29] Nick Beyer: And then a lot of growth at Perdium happening right now. Mm-hmm.
[01:35:32] Joseph Reece: We recently, uh, over here by Willow Creek Women's Hospital got just, just this week opened up some new office space over there, so we're excited about that.
Congrats. Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, yeah, we just continue to grow, uh, uh, the, the, the private trust company, dynastic Wealth Management, that's, that's growing. And, um, we're really, really excited about that as well. And so it's a tiger by the tail. [01:36:00] Yeah. It's like, uh, the old gray mare ain't what she used to be. As the saying says, I'm starting to wonder how much, you know, bandwidth I have and, and so.
I don't know if there's anything else.
[01:36:12] Cameron Clark: No. So like, looking in the future, you kind of said a few things, Hey, you know, possibly some other offices, um, becoming more efficient, you see outside of Arkansas becoming mm-hmm. Yeah.
[01:36:22] Joseph Reece: Yeah. Not, not on the immediate radar, but we, we already have attorneys that are licensed in multiple states around.
But, um, but yeah, there's some, there's some business relationships that, that, uh, in the, in the coming years, we'll, we'll have to have some offices. Sure. And it, it, right now it's primarily southeastern related.
[01:36:45] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:36:45] Joseph Reece: But, but, uh, yeah. That'll be necessary for us. Um,
[01:36:50] Cameron Clark: um, well, that's, that's amazing. There's, uh, I don't know if there's anything else about the future you wanted to touch on, but I was gonna kind of wrap us up here.
Yeah. Um, the, so there's two questions we ask at the end for every [01:37:00] guest. One, so, Northwest Arkansas. Northwest Arkansas Founders. Why build a business, uh, here in northwest Arkansas?
[01:37:09] Joseph Reece: Oh man. I mean, why not? I mean, this is so I, I'll, I'll use my kids as an example. My kids, it's like unlike me when I was growing up, my kids, they, they've been able to travel and with us and see a lot of different places and they all wanted to be at U of A, you know, it's like when I was a kid I was like, I wanna go somewhere and see the, you know, and my kids are just like, oh no, it's awesome here.
It's great. We wanna live here. You know, you see the evidence of people moving in here. So number one is the people of Northwest Arkansas. It's just a really hospitable, awesome place to live.
[01:37:49] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:37:50] Joseph Reece: It's beautiful.
[01:37:51] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:37:52] Joseph Reece: Clean great schools, you know, we've got, we've got, we got no, you know, or there's some infrastructure, you know, traffic [01:38:00] flow.
I don't like this intersection and that kind of stuff. Obviously there's challenges. But we're go live somewhere where that's not the case. Yeah. Low crime. Uh, we, we, we have, you know, I think the relationship between government and business North Arkansas is so pro business, you know, it's just, it, it is, it's, that's been its legacy.
Um, so it's a place where if you are dreaming of building a business, you can do it here. Mm-hmm. You know, another thing is the resources. You know, I, I, you can't say enough about just having the University of Arkansas here and what that brings to our region, you know, what's going on with the medical, uh,
[01:38:46] Cameron Clark: yeah.
It's crazy. You know,
[01:38:47] Joseph Reece: the medical world and that's going on. I mean, you just, you just have a lot of resources there. Mm-hmm. And I don't know, man, I, I, I think it is a perfect blend. [01:39:00] It's, it'll be one, it'll be interesting. I, you know, throughout the rest of my life if, how well we'll be able to maintain it.
'cause you can already feel sort of, man, it takes a while to get to drive. It takes a while to drive, you know, from here to there it's like dog gone this traffic and stuff. But then again, you know, you live in Atlanta and Yeah.
[01:39:19] Cameron Clark: That's what you get. It's
[01:39:20] Joseph Reece: all relative. So, but I just think there's a perfect mix.
There's, there's great people here that you have this, uh, you, you have this wonderful corporate base of, of, you know, these just all different sizes, but certainly headlines by the big three, you know? Mm-hmm. Of just, you know, Walmart, Tyson, JB Hunt, and just all that. It just produces a synergy. Yeah. And I think we've seen that through, I, you know, I've lived through a few financial crises mm-hmm.
Uh, nationally and man. Northwest Arkansas has been really resilient. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, that's, to me is exciting. [01:40:00] But, you know, people build businesses, people have kids, great place for your kids to, to grow up and um, you know, there's all sorts of just activities and schools and all that stuff. And we've, my wife and I, we've lived that out.
So I, I've never been somewhere and anywhere in the world that I've been and went, man, I wish I lived here. Mm-hmm. That either I'm stupid or northwest Arkansas really is an amazing place to live. And I, I hope I'm not completely stupid, you know.
[01:40:35] Cameron Clark: Oh, that's great. Um, so last question. How do you define success?
[01:40:51] Joseph Reece: Uh. Boy, that's, that's a big question. I don't think there's one definition, I guess I would say for [01:41:00] me, yeah. Personally. Oh, you mean organization?
[01:41:03] Cameron Clark: Yeah. For you. For me.
[01:41:04] Joseph Reece: Okay. So I believe one day I'm gonna stand before the Lord Jesus Christ. And, and I, that's not fake with me. I believe that I like this table sitting here, and I believe I'm gonna give him an account of how I spent my life.
And if he looks at me and says, Hey, you are a bit of a knucklehead, but good, pretty good. You know, you know, he was perfect. So I don't have to be, so my point is, that would be success for me. Now. I know you're asking for it in a business sense. So success would be, I certainly think sustaining, you know, just, just continuing to grow and, and those things.
Um. You know, I, I think, um, seeing your people individually succeed for me. Mm-hmm. And, and, and I really mean that, like mm-hmm. Just watching when we have these young [01:42:00] people. I look at Denny Denny's not young anymore, sorry, Denny. Uh, but man, I knew that guy when he was in his early twenties.
[01:42:10] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:42:10] Joseph Reece: And he's a superstar.
Okay. Mm. He's a superstar now. He's not a superstar because of me or Lee, he's a superstar. 'cause he decided he was gonna be a superstar and he went at it Yeah. And has worked his tail off. But when I see him and his family and what he's built and what we've helped him build, and, and same thing with Alex and, and Bow Renner and all the different people.
I just, I'm, I just, that is, I really take a lot of joy in that. I really do. Yeah. So that to me is successful because. I wanna see these, I wanna see these people flourish. Now, make no mistake, I wanna flourish too. But that to me, I guess would be, that's probably not a good answer of what's success. I wish I could say something inspiring, but I don't have it.
[01:42:59] Cameron Clark: We, [01:43:00] that's good. We, we love all the answers that people have been giving. It's, it's, uh, it's pretty incredible. 'cause I mean, I, there's a lot of ways you can answer the question. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[01:43:08] Nick Beyer: Well, one of the things we do at the end of every episode is talk about what we learned from you, what we think small business owners, entrepreneurs, seasoned business professionals are gonna learn from you.
And I think the, the one thread kind of going through this whole piece about your growth is that you just kept filling a need. And there's one other episode that ca comes to mind. Um, Kim, Hannah and ci, Cindy Watson. And si similar way. Their organization just kept growing because they were just filling needs in the community.
And whether it's different types of law or, um, whether it's, you know, just meeting needs that your clients want, like peridium, I mean, just kind of time after time. You, you went back to, well, we're not just, it's not just some grand master strategy. Yes, there's been intentionality in our growth, but we are truly just meeting the needs of our clients and we're [01:44:00] doing an excellent job.
And I think if you're a business owner listening, if you're focused on meeting a need in our community, you will be successful. And so thanks for teaching us that, Joe. I think the second piece is just all about talent, all about talent. And the two things that you really talked about with your talent was integrity and excellence.
And I think excellence kind of comes down to merit. But if you only focus on merit, you don't focus on people's character. You know, you're gonna get sideways really quickly. And I think you, I agree with that. You did a great job of highlighting, you know, names of employees and you know, how they exhibit their character and integrity and are just really excellent at their craft.
And there's
[01:44:42] Joseph Reece: tons of stars here, I'll tell you that I did not mention. Yeah. I mean, and so if I, I didn't, I I should have, that's my fault.
[01:44:50] Nick Beyer: No, but I think that that's just, that was really, you know, if you're building an organization and you want growth, you have to start with the right people. And, and [01:45:00] you, you guys did that from the beginning and you guys are doing it as you build the plane.
And so just really cool to see that. And I think the last one that really sticks out, Joe, is the word care. And you know, you talked about your faith a lot. You talked about your family a lot, and then you talked about the attorneys and the staff in this office, and maybe not all of 'em by name, but I think it was very clear that more than anything, and you just said it in your last answer.
How you see other people in this building succeed, like that's success for you. And I think organizations that have leaders like that tend to grow because when you are getting cared for, you want to give, you know, you talked about sacrifice and those, one of y'all's core values here. If the leaders doing that and all the people are doing it, everybody's, you know, swimming in the same direction and it's really, really hard to fail.
So I think those are just, when we think through this conversation, things that stick out about r and p, those are really, really clear. So thanks for sharing with us. [01:46:00] How can people learn more about r and p? How can they reach out to you or any of the attorneys here?
[01:46:04] Joseph Reece: Yeah, so, you know, obviously we go to our website.
Uh, you can, you can call up here if you, you wanna talk. We're, we're pretty, we're pretty laid back, pretty easy to, pretty easy to reach. You can, uh, you know, uh, contact us, phone, web, whatever. Um, and then, you know, a lot of our attorneys, they also go and speak. So if there are, do a lot of CLE, I've, I've done a lot of that, A lot of just going and speaking to groups about at least what our ideas.
And what's awesome is when you go to those, those things is you hear other people's ideas and you know, it's just all about networking and learning and, and mm-hmm. You know, that kind of thing. And so, uh, we do a lot of that. If people, if people need us to do those sorts of things. We're speak down to school and different stuff.
Over the years, we've done quite a bit of that.
[01:46:53] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm. Well, cool. Well, thank you so much for your time. Yeah, Joe. Yeah.
[01:46:58] Cameron Clark: Thank you for listening to this episode of [01:47:00] NWA Founders, where we sit down with founders, owners and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas. For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at nwa, founders@gmail.com.
Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, then please consider leaving a rating, a review, and sending it to someone who you think would benefit from it. We'll see you in the next episode.