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Are you looking for some new law related content? In the first live episode of 2026, Tyson reflects on a transformative 2025, highlighting major growth in law firm management, legal tech, and marketing. He shares favorite episodes, including a candid conversation with his wife, Amy, and discusses the launch of Becca’s List, a new legal vendor review platform.
Tyson shares some of his favourite episodes of 2025. One of them was with Hillary Billings, where they talked about how to turn stories into views. This conversation touched on tips to create content that can generate views and how to market your brand. Another episode was with Becca and it covered vendors who charge too much. For Tyson and his experience, working with vendors can be problematic because they can take advantage of attorneys. This is where Becca’s List originated from.
Tyson talks through some new changes to the Maximum Lawyer Association. Some include new coaches every quarter to help members work through different issues. They will run coaching sessions to provide much needed advice and expertise. There will also be different channels for different topics so people can focus on certain things. Some include AI and automation as well as billing for law firms.
Listen in to learn more!
Creators and Guests
Host
Tyson Mutrux
Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.
What is Maximum Lawyer?
Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.
Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.
If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:00:00 Good morning and welcome to the first episode and the first live show of 2026. We are streaming live in circle, which is our new platform for the association. We have changed the name of the Guild to the Association. It is going to reflect a much broader, approach to how we're going to be doing things, and much of that will be revealed as 2026 progresses. it's going to be a really exciting year. We've got some some awesome changes. We've made some massive improvements. so it's gonna be really, really good with 2026 that, with this being the first show, I actually wanted to take the time to reflect a little bit because 2025 was really an amazing year, both for Maximum Lawyer and both for the firm. we had we had amazing profits when it comes to the firm. Lots of lots of great growth. when it comes to Maximum Lawyer, we had massive growth. I mean, I'll be kind of frank with you. We had stagnant, stagnated a little bit, going into, you know, 23, 24, really 24, 25 and so we, we knew we needed to shake things up a little bit.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:01:21 And we did we we switched the, the format quite a bit. And that led to some, some really massive improvements when it comes to our, our views on YouTube with massive growth on YouTube. it led to, growth on our podcast channel and, you know, Apple Podcasts and all, you know, Spotify, all of those channels. So, really. So really want to start with by saying thank you. And that's, that's the the first part is, you know, I want to begin in gratitude and, and say thank you for, you know, all of your support, everything you've done. 2026 was really incredible. We brought back the conference. Max. Lorcan, we brought that back. That was a really massive undertaking. Beckett did a phenomenal job executing on that. we also launched Becca's list, which, you know, I guess I'll kind of promote that a little bit. Becca's list co it's a platform to review vendors. that's something that's missing in the marketplace. Yeah, sure.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:02:27 There's Google, but I mean, you have to Google every single platform. Becca's list takes everything. All of the different legal vendors, puts them all in one place so you can easily find them. so and that that came from, a conversation that Becca and I were having. And she it's one of the things where she really it really makes her mad sometimes how the vendors try to treat attorneys. And so that's that's kind of how all that started. But what I figured I would do with this being the first episode of 2026 is I actually wanted to reflect. I know a lot of people, what they do is they'll they'll do the end of year show. I kind of want to start with, I want to begin 26 with gratitude and go back and reflect a little bit on the shows, some of the shows, some of my favorite shows. I asked Becca for some of her favorite shows, which she gave me, and so I'll kind of go through hers a little bit and compare them to my list, but I thought that'd be kind of fun.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:03:30 And looking back, it's it's also kind of interesting. The transition from December to January is always interesting to me because from a recording standpoint, you know, we record these shows sometimes months in advance. And, I got a text from Hunter, Kyle Cavell, and, he's out of Cleveland. He texted me last night about an episode and a hunter. Hopefully you don't. You know I'm not going to. Actually, there's parts of the text I'm not going to read, but, he said he's halfway through the episode with Chris early. he said he feels this in his soul. my favorite episode by an order of magnitude. And it's interesting because, I mean, I recorded that episode over a month ago, and it's just one of those things that felt like an eternity ago. But it was a really great episode. It really was. I it did not actually make my top ten list. but it it meant a lot to me that I get that text from Hunter saying how much that that meant to him.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:04:37 but so it's also kind of one of those things where we will record an episode and I will sometimes I'll be like, that's a banger episode. That's amazing. And it won't get any views. You don't get very few views or listens. And then we'll record one that I, you know, nothing in my mind was super significant about it. But it will. It will. Someone will will listen like that. Like it'll have a massive impact on them. The Chris early episode was not one of those. That was one of those ones where I knew he was going to touch some people because it we do go pretty deep with it. And I and I have been I don't know if you've noticed, that is one of the things that I've tried to do with the new the new episodes. By new, I mean the last couple of years or the last 18 months, I was trying to go deeper on topics, and that's why we don't have a set time for for episodes anymore. It used to be 30 minutes or less now.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:05:36 I mean, I could go 90 minutes and when we do our recording days, some of the episodes, I could go three hours if if we had time, but we're usually recording six episodes in a day, which is a lot. It is. And the first time we did it, I was running over every single time. So getting a little bit better about about the timing of things. But if we had time. A lot of these episodes, we'd be going a lot deeper but don't have the time. And one of my concerns was, what is this something that you all will listen to? And you've proven that, yes, you will you you like the longer content. And so we're going to keep doing it. that I want to give you what you want. And if that changes, it's one of those things where we when we did the 30 minute episodes, that's what people wanted at the time. People no longer want that. People want things that we want. You know, it seems you want us to go deeper on things, and that's what we're doing.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:06:31 And so we'll continue to do that for sure. But let's get to I want to get to some of my favorite episodes of the year. These are not other than one, I want to rank one at number one. And it's my favorite episode ever. I will, I'll give you that one last, but let me go through, my list, which I have right here. one of them is, it's unlocking the secrets to viral videos. You may have seen a different title. We were, we have been changing the titles of some things on YouTube to test out some tweak, to tweak some things and see how how it changes the numbers. But on this was with Hillary Billings. So the episode with Hillary Billings, and how Hillary Billings turns stories into millions of views. And Hillary Billings is a, really interesting story. it goes really deep. We start really deep with that one. That was really kind of an interesting one, because we started going deeper than I thought we were going to go.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:07:34 I thought we would kind of go, talk a little bit about personal stuff and then get into, you know, more marketing stuff. And we didn't get to the marketing part until later in the episode, but it was really kind of an interesting one. one of the quotes from it, people don't share content because it's good. They share it because it moves them. that was a really I thought it was a really good quote. And, you know, some of those ones were, she is really, really she is a former she's not a not quite. News anchor. She's a news reporter. So she presents really well that that was part or part of what made the episode really good is that she can talk really well on camera. She knows how to. It's funny, the people that have the experience on camera, you can tell and usually from like a news standpoint because they, they their body positioning and how they talk to the camera and talk to you and and so it's it's a really interesting thing.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:08:34 She was really, really good. I thought that was a really, really good one. and my, another one of my favorites, it was a conversation with me and Becca, and we were talking about the, I don't know if we were talking about Becca's list on this one or not yet. We did a separate one about Becca's list, but the the name of the the the topic of this one was a frank discussion about vendors that charge too much. And actually, this was one we did not do. A we did not talk about Becca's list yet because we had not launched it, but this was sparked by a guild post. and it it really sort of became like a pressure release valve for, me and Becca because it was, you know, someone who had made a post about, you know, vendors and how they really do take advantage of attorneys. It is, I think a lot of you probably heard of it, you know, having the, like, the lawyer tax, that is a real thing.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:09:35 That's absolutely a real thing. And, but it's not only that, it is the approach that many vendors have is that this is our product. You pay for it, deal with it. and the customer service element of it is completely missing and they don't care. It's just like and a lot of times we're stuck. There's there where we at least the feeling is that we're stuck. Like this is the premier product. Deal with it. And, which I don't wanna get off in too much of a tangent, but kind of like, like with Westlaw, I think Westlaw probably is the best legal, research platform. And when their parent company bought, was it case text and then just killed it? Just that it made me so mad because I thought case text was the best. I thought case text was great. they had copilot, which was awesome. I think that's what it was called. And then they killed. It just frustrated the hell out of me. And so. But this that's why we have Becca's list now, Becca's list was created because of that post and because of that episode.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:10:41 That's how Becca's list was created, was so that we could evaluate vendors and level the playing field. That's why that's how that was. All right, let's get to the another one. This was the legal tech shakeup. This was in March. And this was with Doctor Kane Elliott from Valvoline. He is a legal futurist for Fall Vine. And it was really I remember leaving that episode. I remember I talked about that episode two people for months, and that's how profound it was. there's a quote from the every profession that thought it was immune eventually learned it wasn't. It's a really profound quote. And, that one is a I really recommend that you go back if you have if you want an idea as to how at least how how how Kane thinks the legal profession is going to progress. I highly encourage you to go back and listen to that. He kind of blew my mind on a few things I in. In hindsight, I probably should have taken a break. I should have taken a break halfway through.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:11:52 Collect my thoughts and then come back to it. Because he was he was dropping some bombs and I was like, oh my gosh. And not nothing in a negative way either. It wasn't like, these are bombs that are going to kill, kill the profession. that's not going to happen. I and I've given my thoughts on what's going to happen with AI, and I'm not going to go into those here. I'm going given those on other episodes. But Cain goes really deep with what he thinks, how he thinks things are going to progress. And I mean, that's what he's paid to do. I put a lot of stock in his opinion because that's what he's paid to do, right? He's I mean, he's essentially paid to think, you know, and he at the same time, we had had had him out for and him and Dan Schnur Bush, they came out and did presentations, but AI and it was really cool. He had done done like a live demo. So really cool stuff coming from from Kane.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:12:50 Another one. One of my favorites. It was interesting because this I think these three I'm talking about we recorded. Yeah. So the one with Becca, the one with Kane Elliott and then the one with Bryan Whitman. This is one of my favorites. We recorded all at the same place at the same time, if I remember correctly. Actually, no, that's not true. actually, no it is. I think we recorded all of the all of those, all out in Scottsdale, if I remember correctly. I may be misremembering a little bit, but I'm pretty sure we did. so really cool. great episode with Bryan. And that was really interesting about that one. Bryan's was we were in the middle. He was in the middle of a not really a merger. He was acquiring a firm in the middle of it. And he was on the it was in the final stages of it and he's pretty open about this, so I. He's he's okay with me talking about it because I've talked to him about it before, but I'm not going to go into too much detail that ended up falling apart.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:13:54 And if you really juxtapose how he was feeling about it and then you compare it to like what actually happened, it was really interesting and like listening, listening to the episode, really listening to the episode and then knowing that the that the deal fell through. He's kind of in the middle of it. And I remember him, he and I having some conversations afterwards. And it was just kind of an interesting thing. and he and I, we had a lot of fun with it. It was just one of those ones where I left. It was the last episode of the night, so it was a on the tail end of six episodes, really long day, I think it was two episodes after the Kane Elliott one, where we went really deep and I left full of energy. That's how great I felt about that, that episode. Awesome. Just a really awesome, awesome episode. Love that one a lot. The name of that one was Future Proof. Future proofing your law firm with Brian Pitman.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:14:45 Really cool stuff on that one. The another one I did that I think I flew down to Atlanta for this one. This is one where we, we since we did Hawaii last year, we didn't record in Hawaii, and that was on purpose. We we had to make up a recording day. I had to go and record somewhere. So I flew down to Atlanta. I'll go ahead and call out. Steven left. Steven left. Got Covid, so he couldn't record during that one. So you still owe me one, Steven. But, I flew down to Atlanta and we recorded some really good episodes down there. This one was with Jaden Doi. Oh my gosh. I really, really encourage you to reach out to Jaden and get to know Jaden full of energy. the the name of the episode was How Your money story is sabotaging your law Firm. there's really a mindset. Mindset episode, I would say. but also it's about staying grounded in the numbers and your behavior. So it's it's a good little mix.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:15:44 you can't outturn a belief you won't confront as one of the quotes from that episode. that's a really, really good one. so I highly encourage you to listen to that. When Jayden's just a ball of energy. just absolute ball of energy when we ran into each other at the conference. It's just one of those things where it's like, anytime you meet someone like Jaden, just you leave just with more energy than than you you entered the room with. So. Really cool. All right. This next one. one of my one of my all time favorites, and I it's one of those ones where I don't know if it'll age. Well, I just don't know. Some of them, some of these episodes will just, you know, they'll be good forever. This is one because it's about AI. It's like we're like, we're in the beginning. If you really think about it, we're in the beginning of AI. But Dan Schnur, Bush and I. So why your legal case management system is costing you cases with Dan Schnur.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:16:38 Gosh, I had a lot of fun with that when we were really nerding out. So if you if you want to hear a couple of people nerding out on AI stuff and Dan really knows his stuff, that's why we asked him to come out and speak. and, you know, speak to the guild about things. He really knows his stuff. But it was such a good one. And I remember being like, oh, that was a lot of fun, just because I was like, nerding out. and we were just talking about a bunch of different stuff when it comes to tech and, who we were, we kind of sort of came up with this analogy about, AI agents and carpenters and and all that. So it was a really it was a really fun one. I really, really enjoyed that one. but that was good. All right. So the next episode, it's really it was a really a series of episodes and it was the couple series, the now what I had in my head and what actually happened, two different things.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:17:29 To a certain extent, I thought there'd be more drama, and that's that in my head. I thought there would be more drama. There was, I wouldn't say any drama. There was I, I really wish. I really wish there was like a behind the scenes cameras after the fact of like, like sort of like a real world cameras where or big Brother where, you know, the episode one thing happens with the episode and then behind the scenes you hear like conversations about the episode. I would have really liked that. But what we did is we had couples on that were running firms together, and we asked them the exact same questions, and I had some follow ups that were variations, but for the most part, they were the exact same questions and we wanted to compare the two. And I think in hindsight, I probably would have given more time for the the bringing them together part of it, because we didn't really give enough time for that. That being said, it was a ton of fun for me, for me to do.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:18:29 Hopefully it was a fun one for you to listen to. because it was a it was a I will tell you this, it was a massive undertaking to do, to coordinate everything and I but it was just to me, it was a lot of fun. It was it was interesting seeing the difference, the different answers to the different questions. And it was funny. I think what took me the longest with those episodes was, was narrowing down the questions because we had to have we couldn't have, you know, 50 questions because we had to get them all done in a certain amount of time and because I think we did 50, I think it was either I think it was 1010 and 5 or 1010 and ten. I can't remember how we divided it, but we had a certain amount of time with each person and then a certain amount of time with them together. So I had to really narrow them down. And so Becca and I, we went back and forth. Okay. What, you know, what questions should we ask? And there were questions that I thought were kind of fun that I had to get rid of.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:19:26 And there but there we, I, we had to really sort of narrow it down to the best questions, the absolute best questions. And, I do think we nailed that part of it. I think we nailed the right questions. We got that. But it was one of those things, one of those things where if we had more time, it would have been we could have done way more with it. But it was just, you know, we're limited on time with some of these things. But all right, let's get on to the next one. All right. This is give me my number one. So I'm going to skip this one. the next one was with Evelyn, aka the real secret behind boutique firm growth. hint it's not marketing. And that's one you might see by different names. I know the specifically, I think I changed, that title on YouTube. If you're looking for it, just search Maximum Lawyer and Evelyn Acker. that was one. it was funny because if you don't know Evelyn, one of the kindest, nicest people you have ever made, full of just a ball of energy as well.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:20:30 but I told I told her, I mean, she's going through a massive transition in her life. And I asked her beforehand if I could, you know, ask about those. She's like, she's she's an open book about things. And we really kind of went deep with some stuff. And, I remember like, just us hugging you at the end and she's like, oh my gosh. She's like, you're like a therapist. It was, but it was just so much fun talking about, what it's really like to run a law firm while you also have personal things going on as well. And I'm not going to get into those here. You can listen to the episode. it's worth listening to, I promise you. It really is. And she's she runs an interesting practice because she is it's an international practice between Canada and the United States. She has she has an immigration firm. So we get into a lot of different topics. and it's it's a lot of fun. We get into the business side of things.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:21:23 We get into some personal stuff. a lot of lot of just, you know, mission sacrifice. get into her childhood when it comes to, you know, immigrating to the United States and or to to Canada, it was just a really incredible episode. But I really, really encourage that. All right, let's get into my number one, and then I'll get to to Becca's Becca's list. pexels.com. the my favorite one was with my wife, Amy. We did. the name of that one was Behind the firm, a candid conversation with Tyson and Amy. And it was really fun because she was the first time she'd been on the on the show, in almost ten years. Right. So we're this is our 10th year, so we'll celebrate. well, I guess we'll celebrate year ten, the anniversary this year. And, she'd never been on the show. Never been. And it was time. It was one of those ones that Becca. I don't know if she insisted, but she.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:22:24 She definitely wanted to have Amy on the show. And it was. It really was a lot of fun. I, I got more texts and messages and emails about that episode than maybe any episode I've ever gotten. that was so much fun to because we had a little bit of banter back and forth, but it was more me. She didn't know any of the questions I was going to ask. She kept asking me beforehand, what do you ask me? I'm like, you'll find out. Yeah. And I had, the way this, these episodes usually start is I have these inside briefs on everybody. and I'm part of the insight brief, and that gives me a lot of information about the person. You know, social media posts, quotes that they've they've had, episodes they've done with other podcasts, news stories, lots of I mean, I'm talking lots of things, with Tiffany Weber, in my insight brief, I had this was one of the first episodes of the new format we did.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:23:22 I knew her favorite type of ice cream. I had, Like really detailed information. I know that may be silly, but that was a, that was a I think it was, Texas sheet cake. Ice cream is her favorite. But, with Amy, I mean, already, I mean, we essentially have grown up together, you know, and so I know a lot about her, but I did have a list of questions, and I could have just thrown those questions at the door because we we got into a bunch of different stuff. But I thought it was funny because there was a moment. And if you go back and listen to it, you'll you'll see. I asked her a question and she didn't know if she if I meant one thing or another thing. And so she, she kind of gave me this look. And I thought it was kind of a funny that was a great part of the episode, where she didn't she didn't know how personal I wanted her to go with it.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:24:09 And I was just kind of like, you do whatever you want. You can answer that however you want when it comes to these questions. And so that was that was a lot of fun. And, I think that she was probably a little apprehensive about doing it, and, but it was ended up turning out to be just a wonderful episode, I remember. I listened to that episode almost immediately after it came back, so I wanted to hear how it how it sounded and how it looked. And, it allowed me to sort of, reminisce about the episode. It was it was just a really, really enjoyed that one. And it was also a really good, reminder of like the journey, the journey that we've had together, but with the firm as well. And so, love that episode. Excellent. Excellent episode. But all right, let me get to, Becca's favorite. so Becca hers. One of her favorites was also Jaden Doi. it was the, April 29th episode. How your how your money story is sabotaging your law firm.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:25:14 Kane Elliott. it was it was another one of her favorites as well. The, this was the best product and service review platform for law firm owners. This was the one about Becca's list. So my, one of my favorites was the one that really triggered the creation of Becca's list. Hers was the one about Becca's list. but she also listed the the frank discussion about vendors that charge too much. So that was it was interesting. A lot of hours are tracking here. And I, by the way, I created my list. Separate the hour lists were created separate from each other. We didn't know what the other person was choosing. So, she also put future proofing your law firm with Brian Whitman. good. another one she chose that I didn't choose. Why? Solving problems for your team just might be the worst idea ever. And that was July 26th, the July 26th episode. And then she had some runners, runner ups. Runners, runner ups, runner ups. how to treat your law firm like an asset.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:26:14 Not a job with Jonathan Hawkins. That was a really good one. I went on Jonathan's, podcast as well. He's. He's really good. another one was how Mike's firm eliminates silos and serves clients better with Mike pain. So that was that was a really, really good one. And then this was also great. This was on my this is like on my top 15. The cash flow fix no one told you about until now with Chelsea Williams. That was the May 6th one. That was a really, really good one. I really wish I could have done that one in person. that one was a remote one, but, still really good. you know, I highly recommend Chelsea. She's fantastic. So. But that is, my, top ten and back is top ten for, 2025. Those are our favorite episodes. Really enjoyed it. 20 2025 was just an incredible year. 2026 is just going to be so much better. I wish all of you the best of luck with 2026.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:27:15 the association will have much more coming to the association by maximum lawyer. Soon and so hopefully enjoyed this show. Hopefully you enjoyed the association. go to Maximum Lawyer if you are interested in the association. We are in circle now. That way it's a much easier format for us to track everything. you can if you have a question about billing you, there's a channel for that, right? if you have a question about AI and automations, there's a channel for that. So there's you can actually focus on different things. We've got coaches, so we've got coaches in there. So each quarter we'll have new coaches. so that is just actually I'll go and tell you who some of our, our coaches are for this quarter because I think it's a we have some freaking phenomenal, coaches that are in here. So Max and Martin from Swan's legal engineering team, they are in there for all your AI questions. I, I just forgive me, Martin, for screwing up your last name. But Kravchenko. I think I got it right.
No real name explicitly mentioned 00:28:25 I actually think I nailed that, So that's why I didn't. At first, I wasn't going to say his last name, but, they're just phenomenal. We had swans come out. Max and, And Santi came out and spoke at Maxwell Con that they did the night session. It was incredible. So you have questions about AI? You should definitely come check it out. Jeff Hampton, YouTube Rainmakers coach. he's in there for all your YouTube questions. He's freaking phenomenal. And Molly Cramer, she's a former big law litigator turned billing coach. So if you have billing questions, she's in there for any coaching questions when it comes to billing. So, those are we and we will be rotating coaches every single quarter. So hopefully you'll join us in the association by maximum lawyer. But have a wonderful week everybody. We will be seeing you.