Maximum Lawyer

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE


In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson Mutrux sits down with Janice Dantes, founder of Pinay Law, for a conversation about building a law firm around community, identity, resilience, and the willingness to keep learning as you grow.


Janice shares why she intentionally removed her own name from her firm and how separating her personal identity from the business helped her look at the numbers more objectively. She also explains how she found a unique niche serving the Filipino community through divorce and family law.


She also opens up about one of the hardest moments in her entrepreneurial journey: being scammed out of $50,000 while other parts of the firm were struggling at the same time. Instead of shutting down, Janice kept her team, took risks, hired for growth, got back out into the community, and rebuilt the firm stronger.


Tyson and Janice also dig into money mindset, learning how to charge what your work is worth, the difference between scarcity and abundance, investing in your health, and building a business that gives you the freedom to actually enjoy the life you are creating.


It’s a conversation about getting knocked down, figuring out what isn’t working, asking for help, and continuing to build anyway.
Listen in to hear how Janice turned some of the toughest moments in her law firm into the lessons that helped her grow.

What You’ll Learn
  • Why Janice removed her own name from her law firm—and how it changed the way she viewed the business.
  • How identifying an underserved community can create a powerful law firm niche.
  • Why grassroots relationships have been so important to Pinay Law’s growth.
  • How Janice recovered after losing $50,000 to a sophisticated scam.
  • Why she chose to keep investing in the business even when cash was tight.
  • How scarcity around money can affect pricing, spending, and business decisions.
  • Why physical health and discipline can have a direct impact on your performance as a law firm owner.
  • How Janice thinks about building a firm that provides both financial opportunity and personal freedom.
  • Why generosity remains one of the principles she wants guiding her growth.


Timestamps
00:00 — Why Janice took her name off her law firm
07:00 — Building a niche around the Filipino community
15:00 — Growing through grassroots marketing and relationships
24:00 — Getting comfortable showing up on social media
31:00 — Building a law firm that creates more freedom
38:00 — How improving her health made her a better lawyer
46:00 — Money mindset, scarcity, and learning to charge your worth
54:00 — Losing $50K to a scam and rebuilding the firm stronger


Connect with Janice: 
Instagram
Facebook


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Resources:

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.

Tyson Mutrux (00:06)
So Janice, welcome to the show. Really appreciate you being here. Welcome to Chicago. It's a beautiful city. I love it. It's one of my favorite cities, if not my favorite. It's really cool.
Janice Dantes (00:19)
It's a great city. It's the winters that make it tough.
Tyson Mutrux (00:24)
But we have a day like today. It's 90 degrees right now, it's June, and it's really humid. So I can't imagine the winters are much worse than this.
Janice Dantes (00:35)
You'd be surprised.
Tyson Mutrux (00:38)
I did have my 21st birthday in February in Chicago, and it was really cold and miserable, so I get it. But it's a great city. It's very vibrant, which is pretty cool.
Janice Dantes (00:54)
It is. I consider it a small big city. It has that Midwestern feel, but it's still very cosmopolitan.
Tyson Mutrux (01:06)
Yeah, I could see that. I have a question I'll start with. So you started Pinay Law, right? Did I say that right?
Janice Dantes (01:17)
Pinay Law.
Tyson Mutrux (01:19)
Pinay. Okay. And Pinay means Filipino woman?
Janice Dantes (01:24)
Right.
Tyson Mutrux (01:26)
This is where I wanted to get because you didn't name it after yourself. Why did you call it that?
Janice Dantes (01:37)
That's partly why, but there was actually a rationale behind it. When I was starting my firm, it was called the Law Office of Janice Dantes.
When I would look at my finances or the numbers and they weren't good, I judged myself. Then I would avoid the numbers because I viewed them as a direct reflection of how I was doing.
I tied my value to my company because it was named after me.
When I changed the name, I could say, "No, I'm an employee of Pinay Law."
Janice Dantes (02:13)
It didn't have my name anymore, so I was able to examine the numbers and reports without the judgment because I didn't see my name staring back at me.
Tyson Mutrux (02:28)
What a smart and fascinating thing you did. Did you completely change it or did you make it a DBA?
Janice Dantes (02:36)
A DBA.
Tyson Mutrux (02:38)
It's still such a smart way of looking at it.
Janice Dantes (02:43)
I had to do little tricks like that because you can't just avoid things. You can't say, "I'm going to avoid my numbers because I don't want to judge myself."
So I thought, what can I do to make it not stare me in the face?
I changed the name of the firm. It's still me, but it's not me.
Tyson Mutrux (03:05)
Have you always been that self-aware?
Janice Dantes (03:09)
I don't think so. I've done a few coaching programs, and they've all told me I'm coachable. I didn't know there were people who weren't coachable, but there definitely are.
I didn't come from a family of lawyers. I never even worked in another law firm aside from my own.
So in order for me to learn, I basically had to remove the ego, remove the pride, ask for help when I needed it, and be okay exposing what I was weak at.
Tyson Mutrux (03:39)
You have a really interesting background. Are you from the Philippines, or are your parents from the Philippines?
Janice Dantes (03:47)
I was born there.
Tyson Mutrux (03:49)
Okay, so you're from the Philippines.
Janice Dantes (03:53)
Yes. I was born at Clark Air Force Base because my dad was in the service. I was there for the first three years of my life, so I don't really have a lot of memories.
But the culture is there. My mom still lives with me. She still cooks all the food.
And I speak the language. I didn't for a long time, but my job actually taught me how to speak it to a pretty high level of fluency.
Tyson Mutrux (04:24)
And it's Filipino Independence Week, right?
Janice Dantes (04:28)
Yeah. Philippine Independence Day is June 12th.
Tyson Mutrux (04:36)
I feel like Filipino food is having its moment in the sun. What is Filipino food? Because I don't think I've ever had Filipino food.
Janice Dantes (04:47)
If you see those purple ube things, there's purple everything now. Ube is very Filipino. It's kind of our version of a sweet potato. You can eat it savory or sweet.
Now it's everywhere. When I was growing up, it was weird.
Bubble tea was weird. We call it sago. Now it's everywhere.
Then we have lumpia, which is like a small egg roll or spring roll, and pancit.
Tyson Mutrux (05:24)
What's pancit?
Janice Dantes (05:26)
It's kind of like the Filipino version of pad Thai.
Tyson Mutrux (05:31)
I love pad Thai. Okay, I'm sold.
So you have a really interesting niche, and your target market is also very specific. Talk about that a little bit.
Janice Dantes (05:45)
I'm Filipino, and when I came into the office suite where I work, these were lawyers who had been practicing 30, 35, 40 years.
They told me, "You're the first Filipino lawyer I've ever met."
I thought that was really surprising.
A lot of Filipinos are nurses or work in the medical field. The ones who do go to law school often work in corporate environments or big firms. Not many are entrepreneurs like me.
So I started the firm, and my niche really became serving our community, specifically in divorce.
Janice Dantes (06:27)
I got all this business advice from non-business people saying, "Why are you doing divorce? You should do immigration."
There are a lot of Filipino lawyers who do immigration. There aren't many who do divorce.
And divorce is illegal in the Philippines.
Tyson Mutrux (06:43)
That was really interesting when I was looking at your background because I didn't know that.
So when you get married in the Philippines, you're married?
Janice Dantes (06:54)
Right. If it doesn't work out, you're still married. It really is till death do you part.
Concepts like divorce don't exist the same way there.
Tyson Mutrux (07:05)
What if one spouse is abusive? You still can't just get out of it?
Janice Dantes (07:11)
Not through divorce in the way we think about it here.
Sometimes someone just leaves and lives somewhere else, but they're still married.
It creates strange situations. Someone might be married, separate, then have children with somebody else, but legally the original marriage still exists.
Then you have inheritance issues and other complications.
Tyson Mutrux (07:40)
So let's say you're married, it doesn't work out, you leave and have kids with another woman. That new girlfriend can never marry you?
Janice Dantes (07:50)
That's right.
There are some situations where a foreign divorce can be recognized. A lot of Filipinos come here and eventually discover, "I can get divorced here."
Maybe they're green card holders or American citizens by then. They can divorce here and sometimes have that divorce recognized in the Philippines.
Tyson Mutrux (08:15)
How did all of that influence you wanting to build the firm around divorce?
Janice Dantes (08:22)
What I found was that there weren't resources or information.
There's not even really a Filipino word for divorce because it doesn't exist there in the same way.
When people have marital problems, a lot of times their resource is the church. They pray about it or talk to friends.
I wanted Filipinos who came here to know they had options.
If they live here, they may be able to get divorced here even if they were married in the Philippines.
Janice Dantes (08:55)
Some of the biggest things we handle are people who were married in the Philippines and want to build a new life in America.
They come here, maybe meet somebody new, and discover, "You mean I don't have to just be boyfriend and girlfriend with this person forever? I can divorce my spouse back home and eventually remarry?"
It can be life-changing.
Tyson Mutrux (09:19)
Let me ask you a fairly direct question. Does the Filipino community somewhat look down on what you do, or is it more relief because you're helping people who feel trapped?
Janice Dantes (09:32)
I think it's more relief. Like, "Thank God there's somebody."
I joke a lot. Most Filipinos joke a lot.
I tell people, "When I'm in church, tell them I'm a real estate attorney."
But I'm synonymous with divorce.
I actually thought about putting my office near our community center and decided against it because if you're seen going into my office, people are probably going to assume you're getting divorced.
Tyson Mutrux (10:06)
That's actually really smart.
Janice Dantes (10:09)
There's gossip in close communities. I didn't want somebody saying, "Hey, I saw so-and-so going into the divorce lawyer's office."
So I put the office downtown in a big building. Nobody knows who you're there to see.
Tyson Mutrux (10:30)
Did you experiment with other practice areas targeting the Filipino community?
Janice Dantes (10:37)
Definitely.
I still tell every Filipino, if you need anything, call me. If I can't help you, I can connect you with somebody who can.
When you first start a firm, you do everything.
I did food inspection tickets, utility issues, real estate matters, all kinds of things.
Then you start learning what your community actually needs.
Tyson Mutrux (11:02)
Did you start your firm straight out of law school or did you work somewhere first?
Janice Dantes (11:08)
Basically straight away.
I've never really worked at another law firm.
People ask me what my old firm was like, and I'm like, "This is the old firm. It's the same one."
Tyson Mutrux (11:24)
Did you know from the beginning you wanted to do divorce?
Janice Dantes (11:29)
I don't think anybody grows up saying, "You know what? I want to be a divorce lawyer."
It finds you.
Looking back now, it all makes sense.
But when I was going into college, I thought I was going to be a doctor because almost everybody in my family was in the medical field.
I was the first lawyer in my family.
Tyson Mutrux (11:59)
You paved the way.
Janice Dantes (12:01)
I did.
And honestly, I thought I was going to be an entertainment lawyer.
I wanted to work with celebrities and do music or copyright, something cool like that.
I took all these entertainment law classes.
Tyson Mutrux (12:21)
Why did that interest you?
Janice Dantes (12:24)
I'm what I call a frustrated musician.
I was a classically trained pianist. I sing.
I thought I could use those talents somehow.
And I grew up reading all those tabloid magazines. Now I'm a divorce lawyer and I basically live it.
People ask what it's like being a divorce lawyer and I'm like, "I don't have to watch TV."
The drama we see in real life is better than anything on Netflix.
Tyson Mutrux (12:59)
Do you deal with conflicts often because the Filipino legal community is relatively small?
Janice Dantes (13:06)
Not really.
It happens occasionally where a husband and wife both call, but divorce is still fairly uncommon in the community. There's still a stigma around it.
A lot of my divorces involve people who have been struggling for 20 years.
Tyson Mutrux (13:26)
That has to be tough.
Janice Dantes (13:29)
Sometimes you hear the story and think, "Wow. It's only now, after you've been cheated on ten times and he has children with three different women, that you're finally saying enough?"
People put up with a lot.
Tyson Mutrux (13:51)
I was in Lowe's a few weeks ago and saw this clearly older couple. They were probably in their 80s.
The guy was in a scooter and asked his wife to grab something off the shelf. She said, "No, you don't need that, you idiot."
They were calling each other idiot and dumbass.
I'm standing there thinking, "Why are you all still married?"
There was nothing endearing about it.
I'm sure you see that where eventually there has to be a breaking point.
Janice Dantes (14:27)
Absolutely.
Tyson Mutrux (14:29)
When someone has been married 20 years and comes to you, do they usually come together or is it usually one spouse?
Janice Dantes (14:39)
Usually one spouse.
A lot of times it's a woman who says, "This isn't working."
Then you hear the story. Maybe he's going to the Philippines every six months, seeing mistresses, has children there, and is spending all this money.
Eventually she'll say, "I'm done."
Then we approach the husband who's been cheating for decades and has children everywhere and he'll say, "I'm so hurt. I'm blindsided. Why does she suddenly want to divorce me?"
Tyson Mutrux (15:14)
Because you're a dumbass.
Janice Dantes (15:16)
Exactly.
And sometimes they still reconcile.
Tyson Mutrux (15:21)
How often do you get all the way to the finish line and then they reconcile?
Janice Dantes (15:27)
We had one person who was divorced for about 27 days and then they got back together.
Tyson Mutrux (15:35)
What?
Janice Dantes (15:36)
They filed a motion to vacate it and got back together.
I was like, "Well, you don't get a refund."
Tyson Mutrux (15:47)
No kidding.
I once had a client when I did criminal defense. I got the case dismissed on a motion to suppress, and the client had the audacity to ask for the money back.
I'm like, "No. Just because we didn't go to trial doesn't mean you get your money back. I got you the result you wanted."
Tyson Mutrux (16:15)
How do you market to the Filipino community?
Janice Dantes (16:20)
It's very grassroots.
I go to picnics. I go to events. You invite people to your house. You go to church.
It's very organic.
Eventually, you're a little bit of a celebrity because there aren't many Filipino lawyers in the community who speak the language.
Janice Dantes (16:43)
There's something interesting about it, too.
People like that I speak the language, but they also like that I went to school here and speak English without a foreign accent.
A lot of Filipinos, especially those with accents, have experienced discrimination.
So there's comfort in having a lawyer who understands the culture, speaks the language, and can also speak to a judge or opposing counsel the way they're accustomed to here.
Tyson Mutrux (17:14)
And you have a Chicago accent.
Janice Dantes (17:17)
I do.
Tyson Mutrux (17:18)
You definitely do.
How long did it take you to become fluent?
Janice Dantes (17:24)
I came here when I was three, so I was barely talking.
My grandmother lived with us, so I spoke a little, but I never went to school for it. I still can't really read or write it. I can speak it.
It probably took about five years of using it regularly to understand the idioms and jokes.
At first, people could hear an American accent when I spoke Filipino.
Tyson Mutrux (17:55)
They were probably making fun of you behind the scenes.
Janice Dantes (17:58)
They made fun of me to my face.
They'd say, "No, that's not how you say it."
But that's actually how I got better.
Tyson Mutrux (18:09)
That's really cool because they're teaching you while you're developing a bond with them.
Janice Dantes (18:15)
Exactly.
Now I'd like to learn some of the other dialects, too.
Tyson Mutrux (18:23)
Do you ever run into spouses at church whose divorce you've handled?
Janice Dantes (18:29)
I don't go to that particular church, but I've had situations where one spouse was seeing another parishioner and the other spouse still kept going to the church.
I'm like, "Can you maybe go to a different church? You're torturing yourself."
But in communities like the Filipino or Greek communities, your church matters. It's hard to just change that.
Tyson Mutrux (18:59)
You don't only represent Filipinos, right?
Janice Dantes (19:02)
No. We represent everyone.
Tyson Mutrux (19:05)
How big is the Filipino population in Chicago?
Janice Dantes (19:10)
I think it's several hundred thousand. It's a large community.
We have multiple Jollibees.
Tyson Mutrux (19:20)
Jollibee is basically your McDonald's?
Janice Dantes (19:23)
Yes. They have burgers, but it's really about the fried chicken.
We also have Seafood City, which is like our grocery store. People will come from out of state to shop because they don't have one in places like Indiana or Wisconsin.
Tyson Mutrux (19:49)
Is there a Filipino neighborhood, like a Chinatown?
Janice Dantes (19:54)
Not really. We're pretty spread out.
Tyson Mutrux (19:58)
Are there other attorneys competing for that same niche?
Janice Dantes (20:03)
Nobody really wants to do divorce in our community.
I've met a few Filipino attorneys who do it, and there's enough work to go around.
But a lot of lawyers would rather do something transactional.
We do have a Filipino lawyers association here with around 150 paid members, but a lot of them work in corporate environments or larger firms.
Tyson Mutrux (20:37)
I watched some of your YouTube videos. How does YouTube fit into your marketing mix?
Janice Dantes (20:44)
It doesn't.
I actually don't do a lot of social media.
I'm only now starting to put myself out there more because my employees keep telling me, "Janice, let's get you out there."
I have a fear of being judged.
Tyson Mutrux (21:06)
Which is crazy because you have really good stage presence.
You'd do really well, especially with the niche you have.
Janice Dantes (21:14)
I've tried, and then I watch myself and think, "God, I'm so robotic. I'm not natural."
But I have a new hire named Andrea who's basically said, "Janice, we're going to get you out there."
So we're starting to make plans for social media and getting my face and message out there.
Tyson Mutrux (21:42)
I wonder if part of it is that you've grown so much through in-person marketing that you never really needed social media.
Janice Dantes (21:51)
I think that's part of it.
I remember something my grandfather told me years ago.
I did the Police Memorial Run with my dad, and there were places where you could take pictures with police equipment.
I took a photo holding these huge semi-automatic weapons and put it on Facebook.
My grandfather said, "When you become a lawyer, I don't think you can really do that. You have to be careful about what you say."
And I thought maybe he was right.
So I came into my shell a little bit.
Tyson Mutrux (22:34)
But now people want you to be authentic.
They want to know you're actually a human and not just this big, bad lawyer sitting in an ivory tower.
With your entertainment law interest and your music background, I could picture you doing really fun videos at the piano, singing, whatever.
Janice Dantes (22:56)
That's actually where I started.
One of my business coaches said, "Why don't you put something out there that you feel confident doing and that you enjoy?"
I said, "Okay, I'll play piano."
I have a nice piano at home, so I started doing that.
Now I can't go to any event without having a piece prepared because if there's a piano, somebody will say, "Janice plays. Go play something."
Tyson Mutrux (23:29)
You're the piano lawyer.
Janice Dantes (23:31)
Exactly.
Tyson Mutrux (23:34)
Have you seen the LockPickingLawyer?
People send this guy locks and he picks them. That's what he's known for.
You could be the piano lawyer.
Janice Dantes (23:48)
There was actually a time when the business wasn't doing well and I thought, "I need another stream of revenue."
Then I thought, what do celebrities do when they need money?
They come out with a Christmas album.
So I literally thought about making an album of breakup songs.
Tyson Mutrux (24:13)
This is brilliant.
You can do it year-round.
Christmas breakup songs. Valentine's Day breakup songs. You could release a whole Spotify album.
Janice Dantes (24:26)
If you see some of my TikToks, I've been playing with BandLab.
I'll record something on piano, add drums and sing over it.
Then I look at it from the intellectual property side, too.
It's my arrangement. It's my music. It's my voice.
Tyson Mutrux (24:51)
You are so much cooler than when you first walked in here.
So what's your long-term goal?
Do you want to grow the firm into something really big? Scale nationally? Keep it small?
Janice Dantes (25:07)
That's why I call it Pinay Law Chicago.
Eventually, I could have Pinay Law London, Pinay Law Miami, Pinay Law LA.
I'd love for it to become a global brand.
And I want to do the fun stuff, too.
I'd love to write books and share my experiences.
I really love to travel.
That's one reason I'm a lawyer. I enjoy the work, but it also gives me the means and the freedom to live out these other dreams.
Tyson Mutrux (25:45)
What hobbies do you have now?
Janice Dantes (25:48)
I dabble in music. I'm the frustrated musician.
And I've gotten really into fitness.
My husband and I started this whole fitness journey, and I'm about 40 pounds lighter than I was last October.
Tyson Mutrux (26:06)
Holy crap. What's the key?
Janice Dantes (26:09)
People ask if I did GLP-1s. No.
I did it through diet and exercise, and it's mostly diet.
Eating well is not fun. It's actually pretty boring.
But it made me a better lawyer.
I don't have the same brain fog anymore. I have more energy.
I don't have to waste time deciding what I'm eating for lunch because everything is already pre-packed.
Janice Dantes (26:45)
My husband got into it, too, and we work with a trainer.
Now I'm thinking, what other fitness things can I do?
We've joked about creating a channel called Lawyers With Abs.
We'd collect lawyers with abs and get their tips.
What do you eat when you're hungry? What are good snacks? How do you stay healthy while practicing law?
Tyson Mutrux (27:15)
I might like Lawyers With Abs more than Piano Lawyer.
I got into fitness five or six years ago.
Hiring a trainer was a huge thing.
Changing my diet, drinking more water, cutting back on alcohol — all of those lifestyle changes matter.
Janice Dantes (27:38)
Absolutely. It's a lifestyle change.
Tyson Mutrux (27:43)
What made you decide you needed to change?
Janice Dantes (27:48)
Honestly, we had a lot of friends who were passing away.
People our age, in their 40s.
Maybe as you get older, you're more aware of it, but my husband and I knew people getting sick and dying.
I can't control whether I'm eventually going to get sick, but I can control what goes into my body.
I can control whether I work out.
I can do the things doctors are always telling us to do.
And as lawyers, we have the means to invest in ourselves.
What am I hoarding all this money for?
Janice Dantes (28:30)
The first two weeks were brutal.
I cut out sugar and started eating healthy, and I felt like an addict.
I was literally dreaming about chips and cupcakes.
I had headaches. I felt terrible.
Then it subsided and suddenly I thought, "Wow. I'm not tired. I'm not groggy."
I had mental clarity.
And that started helping the business.
I had the energy to say, "Let's fix this. Let's do this."
Investing in my health helped me on the business side.
Tyson Mutrux (29:08)
You start learning all these little things about your body, too.
Like caffeine and adenosine.
If you drink caffeine immediately after waking up, it can contribute to that afternoon crash.
Once you start paying attention to your health, you almost learn how to game the system.
That's part of why I use a Whoop now.
You start gamifying things.
Janice Dantes (29:36)
Exactly.
And it tests your discipline and your mental fortitude.
I use ChatGPT, and at one point I asked it, "How can I lose weight?"
It told me, "Apply the same discipline you use in your business to your fitness."
That hit me in the gut.
I'm succeeding in this area, but not this one. Why?
So I got a coach and started applying that same discipline.
Tyson Mutrux (30:08)
There's another interesting part of discipline.
People make judgments based on what they see, whether those judgments are fair or not.
If someone looks healthy and in shape, people often assume that person is disciplined in other areas of life.
That can affect business.
That's not the main reason I do it.
I want to live longer and be healthy for my kids.
But there are business benefits, too.
Janice Dantes (30:42)
And I want to be able to keep doing basic things as long as possible.
We handle probate matters, and you hear doctors talk about activities of daily living.
Can someone dress themselves? Feed themselves? Use the bathroom independently?
I'm thinking, "I want to be able to do those things for as long as possible."
Janice Dantes (31:07)
My grandfather actually passed away a few years ago in a way my husband thought was the most epic way anyone could go.
My family was horrified.
He was in his 80s, in a hotel room with a woman much younger than him.
He'd taken a combination of alcohol and Viagra and ended up having a heart attack.
It happened in a small town in the Philippines, so everyone knew what happened.
My husband was like, "There is nothing wrong with that. How do we do the same thing?"
And my grandfather had biked there.
Tyson Mutrux (31:48)
He biked there?
That's insane.
Was he still married?
Janice Dantes (31:55)
No. My grandmother had already passed away.
But they were one of those couples where divorce was never really an avenue, so they had lived fairly separate lives.
Tyson Mutrux (32:12)
Your husband's reaction sounds like every man's reaction to that story.
Janice Dantes (32:18)
He says if he's in his casket, he wants to have abs and no shirt on.
Tyson Mutrux (32:26)
I saw something recently about an 80-year-old breaking a record for the mile.
He was flying.
Could you imagine being 80 and still running like that?
That's what I want.
Janice Dantes (32:42)
Same.
Tyson Mutrux (32:45)
You have kids, right?
Janice Dantes (32:47)
I have three.
Tyson Mutrux (32:50)
Do you think about your health and your career in terms of setting an example for them?
Janice Dantes (32:58)
I do.
I can be a little judgmental sometimes.
I'll meet people and think, "You're living life wrong."
I have this idea that if they couldn't make a movie about your life, you didn't do enough.
Tyson Mutrux (33:17)
I like that.
Where does that come from?
Janice Dantes (33:21)
I love true crime, documentaries and movies about people's lives.
Sometimes you watch and think, "What a remarkable story."
And if you live a life where there's no story at all, I'm like, "What are you doing?"
Tyson Mutrux (33:41)
If your story ended tomorrow, what would the climax of your movie be?
Janice Dantes (33:47)
I don't know about the climax, but if somebody made a movie about my life, I want it to be a remake of My Cousin Vinny, except with Filipinos.
I remember my first trial. My mom came.
There are definitely elements of that.
Tyson Mutrux (34:07)
So is your husband Marisa Tomei in this version?
Janice Dantes (34:11)
Kind of.
We have a slightly nontraditional marriage because I'm the breadwinning spouse.
His brother bought him a shirt that says "Trophy Husband."
I joke that they have Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and Real Housewives of Atlanta.
They need Real Househusbands of Chicago about husbands married to successful women.
Tyson Mutrux (34:41)
You need to start that.
What's his name?
Janice Dantes (34:46)
Ian.
And to be fair, he's a lawyer, too.
He has his own firm now.
Part of how that happened is that I didn't want to do estate planning anymore.
It's hard to balance that with litigation.
I told Ian, "I can find someone else to refer these cases to, or do you want to try them? There's no timeline. Do it part-time and see whether you like it."
Now he loves it.
Tyson Mutrux (35:20)
Is it completely separate from your firm?
Janice Dantes (35:24)
Totally separate.
Tyson Mutrux (35:26)
How hard is it not to meddle in his business?
Janice Dantes (35:31)
Very hard.
Sometimes I hurt his ego a little bit, but eventually he'll say, "Yeah, you're right."
I'm trying to guide him but let him find his own way.
We actually share office space.
One of our suitemates asked him, "Ian, why do you have the smaller office?"
He said, "Because my wife took the bigger one."
Tyson Mutrux (36:01)
And his wife is crushing it.
There's nothing wrong with that.
What's his firm called?
Janice Dantes (36:08)
Sharping Law.
His name is Ian Sharping, so his logo uses the I and S together and it looks like a dollar sign.
Tyson Mutrux (36:19)
That's clever.
And Pinay means Filipino woman, right?
Janice Dantes (36:24)
Right.
Pinoy generally means Filipino or Filipino man, and Pinay is the female version.
I actually tried to get Pinoy Law first, but it was already taken.
It's such a common term that I wasn't surprised.
I was more surprised Pinay wasn't taken.
Tyson Mutrux (36:49)
We've been talking about a lot of different things.
What's something I should have asked you that I haven't?
Janice Dantes (36:58)
Honestly, I just enjoy having good conversations.
But my new obsession — because lawyers always seem to have a new obsession — is money.
Not money in a hoarding way.
I'm interested in understanding how money works.
How do you use credit? How do you use debt?
I've watched tons of podcasts about business and money because it's something I didn't grow up talking about the way business owners talk about it.
Janice Dantes (37:31)
I've done a lot of reflection on my own money psychology.
Do I have a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset?
That's become really interesting to me.
Tyson Mutrux (37:46)
Have you started implementing things like automatic payments, paying extra toward a mortgage, those little things that compound over time?
Janice Dantes (37:57)
Yes.
I follow different people who talk about money.
I think there's something unique about being an immigrant.
Your parents come here with very little, and then in one generation you're suddenly in a profession where you can be a top earner.
Then you have to figure out, "Okay, what do I do with this? How do I make sure I'm not wasting it?"
Because I've done some crazy things with money.
Tyson Mutrux (38:32)
Like what?
Janice Dantes (38:35)
The first time I came into legitimate money, I basically MC Hammered it.
We had one really awesome year.
It was the first year where I thought, "Wow, I'm making lawyer money."
I spent about $90,000 on travel with my family.
I said, "We're staying at the nice hotel. We're living the life."
Not only did I spend all the money, I ended up with around $50,000 in credit card debt.
Tyson Mutrux (39:09)
It happens fast.
Janice Dantes (39:11)
Very fast.
Then I had to stop and recalibrate.
I got out of the debt, but I had to figure out how to still enjoy my life without going through this binge mentality.
They don't teach you this stuff.
Tyson Mutrux (39:33)
I had a similar background in some ways.
I obviously didn't immigrate to the United States, but my parents didn't graduate from high school.
Money was always a big deal because we didn't have it.
I remember working at State Farm as a claims adjuster and thinking $35,000 a year was an incredible amount of money.
That mindset can become limiting because when you eventually earn more, you don't necessarily know how to think about it.
Tyson Mutrux (40:10)
Did that ever show up in how you charged clients?
Did you undercharge because certain numbers seemed huge to you personally?
Janice Dantes (40:21)
Absolutely.
The first divorce I ever handled, I charged around $500 because I didn't know what else to charge.
I regretted it about a week later.
But at the time, $500 felt like so much money because my first job out of college paid around $7.25 an hour.
Eventually you learn why lawyers charge what they charge.
Janice Dantes (40:52)
My mom still thinks I'm broke.
She looks at what I spend on my trainer, the office, our properties and everything else and says, "There's no way. You must be broke. Do you need money?"
I'm like, "Mom, don't worry about it."
Tyson Mutrux (41:12)
My dad used to do the same thing.
I'd say, "Dad, I'm doing okay."
I think it comes from that scarcity mindset.
They worked so hard for what they have that they're always trying to make sure you're okay.
Janice Dantes (41:30)
Exactly.
When I left my job to start my practice, my mom now says, "See? I'm glad you started your practice. I'm glad I encouraged you."
That's not what happened.
She said, "Why would you quit your job? You have a 401(k). You have benefits."
She thought I was crazy.
Now I'm like, "Mom, we offer benefits."
Janice Dantes (42:00)
After she and my dad got divorced, she was around 62 and didn't have benefits.
I told her, "I'll make you an employee. You'll get paid and have benefits until you're eligible for Medicare."
It ended up being a really good thing because she tore her Achilles and needed medical care.
Tyson Mutrux (42:25)
How did she tear her Achilles?
Janice Dantes (42:28)
She was climbing on something and fell.
She thought she'd sprained her ankle, but it never got better.
Eventually she found out she'd torn her Achilles.
Tyson Mutrux (42:44)
Do you ever stop and think about how far you've come?
Do you ever pat yourself on the back?
Janice Dantes (42:53)
Not really.
Part of that may be cultural.
I tell my husband, "I don't celebrate mediocrity."
It's a harsh way of looking at things.
He reminds me that I should be proud of myself.
He helps me celebrate the wins.
But I don't usually look backward and see how far I've come.
I'm always looking forward and thinking about how high the next mountain is.
Tyson Mutrux (43:26)
You've probably reached the peak of several mountains already.
You just immediately look for the next one.
When you think about all the peaks you've climbed since starting the firm, which one are you most proud of?
Janice Dantes (43:43)
The one I'm probably most proud of came from one of the lowest points in my business.
I got scammed out of $50,000.
Tyson Mutrux (43:54)
Oh my God.
Janice Dantes (43:57)
I've talked about the scam because I want people to understand it can happen to anybody.
These scammers pretended they were getting divorced.
They used a bad check involving what appeared to be a settlement.
It was during the pandemic. Everything was happening over Zoom. You weren't meeting everybody in person.
And I fell for it.
I remember feeling stupid.
I'm thinking, "I'm a lawyer. How did I get scammed out of $50,000?"
Janice Dantes (44:38)
That's why I tell people these social engineering scams are sophisticated.
It can happen to anybody.
And that wasn't the only thing going wrong.
I had hired a marketing company that wasn't doing anything for the business.
Things were falling apart.
I was out of cash.
I had to max out my line of credit to try to keep things afloat.
Janice Dantes (45:09)
We were taking risks.
"Let's try this. Maybe this will bring in business."
It didn't work.
Then we'd try something else.
That didn't work.
And it's $5,000 here, $5,000 there, just leaving the business.
Tyson Mutrux (45:29)
And you kept everybody on?
Janice Dantes (45:32)
I kept everybody.
At one point I told my finance guy, "I think we need to hire somebody."
He said, "We don't have any money. We're maxed out."
I said, "We need somebody who can help bring in cases."
So we did it.
We hired somebody.
We made different tweaks to the business.
And I started pounding the pavement.
Janice Dantes (46:04)
I was everywhere.
Every day. Every night.
Slowly, we came back.
Now we've added two more people.
And all of that happened less than two years ago.
That's something I'm really proud of.
Tyson Mutrux (46:25)
That's impressive.
Janice Dantes (46:28)
My son actually gave me a different way of looking at that entire season.
I told him, "It sucked because everything bad happened at the exact same time."
He said, "But Mom, isn't that better?"
I said, "Why would that be better?"
He said, "Because then you just fix everything once and move on."
Tyson Mutrux (46:50)
That's a wise kid.
Janice Dantes (46:53)
He said, "If all the problems were spread out over time, you'd have to fix one problem, then another problem, then another."
Instead, I fixed everything at once.
And I thought, "Wow. That's actually a really smart way to look at it."
Tyson Mutrux (47:16)
That's fantastic.
I want to go back to something because there's this connection between what you said about health, money and the business.
You talked about applying the same discipline you use in your business to your fitness.
Do you think learning that discipline in one area made it easier to tackle these other problems?
Janice Dantes (47:38)
Absolutely.
Once you realize you can change something, it changes how you look at everything else.
Whether it's health, money or business, you stop looking at it as something that's just happening to you and start asking, "Okay, what can I control?"
That's what I had to do when everything was going wrong.
Tyson Mutrux (48:05)
That's a big distinction.
You can sit there and say, "I got scammed. The marketing company failed. We don't have cash."
Or you can start asking what the next move is.
Janice Dantes (48:16)
Right.
And sometimes the move looks crazy.
Hiring somebody when your finance person is telling you that you're out of money sounds crazy.
But I knew we needed someone who could help bring in cases.
At some point you have to trust yourself enough to make the decision and then do the work.
Tyson Mutrux (48:44)
And you were literally out there pounding the pavement.
Janice Dantes (48:47)
Everywhere.
That's always been one of my strengths.
I know how to show up in the community.
I know how to talk to people.
And when I needed to bring business in, I went back to that.
Tyson Mutrux (49:05)
Which is interesting because earlier we were talking about social media.
Everybody feels like marketing has to be some incredibly complicated digital system.
But a huge part of your business came from relationships.
Janice Dantes (49:19)
Absolutely.
It's relationships.
It's being present.
It's people knowing who you are and trusting that when they have a problem, they can call you.
That's hard to replicate if you're only thinking about marketing as an ad.
Tyson Mutrux (49:42)
And because you have such a specific community, that trust probably compounds.
Janice Dantes (49:48)
It does.
Especially when you're dealing with something like divorce where people may already be scared or embarrassed.
They don't want to explain every cultural detail to somebody.
They want someone who gets it.
Tyson Mutrux (50:09)
That's really important.
And you've also built something bigger than just "I'm a divorce lawyer."
You're building Pinay Law as a brand that can exist beyond you.
Janice Dantes (50:21)
That's the goal.
That's part of why removing my own name mattered.
I want the firm to be something bigger.
I want it to have its own identity.
Tyson Mutrux (50:34)
And that's where the global vision comes in.
Chicago today, maybe Miami, LA, London later.
Janice Dantes (50:41)
Exactly.
I don't know exactly what it'll look like, but I like having the bigger vision.
I want to keep building.
Tyson Mutrux (50:55)
Do you think the money mindset work has changed the way you think about growth?
Janice Dantes (51:02)
Definitely.
I'm much more intentional now.
There's a difference between making money and actually understanding money.
I had to learn that.
Just because you have a great year doesn't mean you should spend all of it.
Tyson Mutrux (51:26)
The $90,000 travel year taught that pretty quickly.
Janice Dantes (51:29)
Very quickly.
I don't regret traveling with my family.
Those memories matter.
But I had to learn how to enjoy those things without creating another financial problem for myself.
Tyson Mutrux (51:51)
That's probably a struggle for a lot of law firm owners because income can change dramatically.
You go from not making much money to suddenly having a really strong year.
Nobody necessarily teaches you what to do next.
Janice Dantes (52:08)
Exactly.
And if you come from a family where money wasn't talked about, you don't have a framework.
You're learning while you're doing it.
Tyson Mutrux (52:22)
And sometimes learning with very expensive lessons.
Janice Dantes (52:26)
Very expensive lessons.
Tyson Mutrux (52:30)
Between the credit card debt and the scam, you've had some serious tuition.
Janice Dantes (52:35)
That's one way to put it.
But I learned from it.
That's the important part.
Tyson Mutrux (52:47)
Do you think you're better at celebrating wins now?
You said your husband helps you with that.
Janice Dantes (52:55)
I'm trying.
It's still hard.
My instinct is always to look at what's next.
But I'm getting better at recognizing that something was difficult and saying, "Okay, we actually did that."
Tyson Mutrux (53:16)
You should.
Going from being scammed out of $50,000, maxing out your line of credit and struggling for cash to adding employees less than two years later — that's not mediocrity.
Janice Dantes (53:28)
That's fair.
Tyson Mutrux (53:32)
I'll give you that one.
Janice Dantes (53:34)
I'll take it.
Tyson Mutrux (53:38)
There's something else I like about what your son told you.
Everything went wrong at once, so you fixed it at once.
There's actually something freeing about that.
Janice Dantes (53:49)
There is.
At the time it felt terrible.
But looking back, it forced me to confront everything.
The finances.
The marketing.
The staffing.
My own decision-making.
All of it.
Tyson Mutrux (54:14)
And that probably created the stronger firm you're running now.
Janice Dantes (54:19)
It did.
I wouldn't choose to go through it again.
But I know I'm better because I went through it.
Tyson Mutrux (54:30)
That's usually how these things work.
Nobody wants the lesson before they need it.
Then you get through it and think, "Okay, now I understand."
Janice Dantes (54:43)
Exactly.
Tyson Mutrux (54:47)
All right. The last question I want to ask comes from something one of our employees did during our morning huddles.
Every once in a while, we'll have an employee run the huddle.
One of our employees, Bella, had everybody turn their cameras off and think about one piece of advice they wanted to give themselves.
Something they could write down, keep on their desk and look back at a week from now, two weeks from now, three months from now.
Tyson Mutrux (55:28)
So when you think about that next peak you want to reach — not perfection, because perfection is asking too much — but that goal you're moving toward, what advice would you give yourself that could help you get there?
Janice Dantes (55:48)
That's deep.
For me, it would be: never be afraid to give.
Give what you can.
Never be afraid to give or help somebody else because it always comes back.
My mom used to tell me that.
She'd say, "No, it always comes back when you give."
Janice Dantes (56:16)
And I don't know exactly why, but I've seen it happen.
I've met people who aren't generous at all, and they never seem to get very far.
Then you meet people who are incredibly generous.
They're always giving.
They're always helping.
And somehow it comes back tenfold.
Tyson Mutrux (56:39)
Do you think that's part of how you've built the business, too?
Because so much of what you've described is community.
Janice Dantes (56:48)
Absolutely.
I don't want to be here just collecting things for myself.
I want to contribute.
Whether that's helping clients, helping somebody in the community, helping another lawyer — whatever it is.
That's important to me.
Tyson Mutrux (57:10)
And that probably ties back to your mom and the immigrant experience we talked about earlier.
People helping each other.
Janice Dantes (57:19)
Definitely.
You remember who helped you.
And when you're in a position to do the same thing for somebody else, you should.
Tyson Mutrux (57:33)
That's good advice.
Especially for lawyers, because it's easy to become obsessed with the numbers.
How much revenue did we make? How many cases did we sign? How much did we grow?
Those things matter, but they're not the whole thing.
Janice Dantes (57:50)
Exactly.
I want to make money.
I'm obviously interested in money.
But that's not the point of all of this.
I want to have the freedom to live my life.
I want to help people.
I want to travel.
I want to create things.
I want to leave something behind.
Tyson Mutrux (58:14)
Maybe something worthy of a movie.
Janice Dantes (58:17)
Exactly.
If they can't make a movie about it, I didn't do enough.
Tyson Mutrux (58:23)
And apparently we're getting the piano album, Lawyers With Abs, Real Househusbands of Chicago and Pinay Law London.
You've got plenty of material.
Janice Dantes (58:35)
I've got a lot of plans.
Tyson Mutrux (58:38)
I love it.
But that final point about generosity is really good.
You're not here just to collect for yourself.
Janice Dantes (58:49)
Right.
I want to always remember that.
I'm here to contribute to the world and to give.
I want to make sure I'm leaving this world a better place than it was before I came into it.
Tyson Mutrux (59:09)
That's really good advice.
Happy birthday again.
I really enjoyed this conversation.
Janice Dantes (59:17)
Thank you.
Tyson Mutrux (59:19)
And next time, we're getting into why they call you Apple because I still want to figure that one out.
Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.
Janice Dantes (59:32)
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Tyson Mutrux (59:37)
All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.