Maximum Lawyer

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What if the way you think about time is quietly limiting your law firm’s growth? In this episode, Tyson sits down with Marc Karlin to explore how law firm owners can shift their mindset around productivity, leadership, and long-term business building. Marc shares how many attorneys become trapped in the constant cycle of urgent work, leaving little room for strategic thinking and true firm growth.

Marc explains that one of the biggest challenges for law firm owners is learning how to step out of the daily grind and intentionally create space for leadership work. While legal training focuses heavily on solving client problems, it rarely prepares attorneys to build systems, manage teams, or think strategically about scaling a business. Tyson and Marc discuss how developing better structures and routines allows firm owners to reclaim time and make higher-level decisions that impact the firm’s future.

Throughout the conversation, Tyson and Marc emphasize that building a successful firm isn’t just about working harder—it’s about working differently. By focusing on priorities, creating operational clarity, and making time for strategic leadership, law firm owners can move beyond constant busyness and begin building firms that grow sustainably.


  • 2:32 The difference between urgent work and strategic work
  • 5:02 Why law school doesn’t teach business leadership
  • 9:41 Developing routines that support firm leadership
  • 18:15 The challenge of balancing client work with firm strategy
  • 20:33 Why leaders must protect time for planning
  • 39:10 Why strong teams improve productivity
  • 45:08 The connection between leadership and firm culture
  • 51:32 Long-term thinking for law firm owners
  • 54:44 How small changes compound over time


Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 


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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 00:00:02 Okay. before I ask the first question. Did your dad pass in 2017? Okay. Yeah. Can I start there? Wherever you want. Okay. Yeah. So, Mark, your dad, he passed away in 2017. That's right. He was your law partner. you all were, I'm assuming, pretty close. Very close. And I wonder if. If I can pry enough to maybe get, like. What was it like behind the scenes? Not really like the public version, but like, what was like the private version. Like, for you while we.

Marc Karlin 00:00:41 Were working together or.

Tyson Mutrux 00:00:42 No. After after he passed.

Marc Karlin 00:00:44 It was, you know, I tried to put on a brave face because I had clients. I had a firm to run. It was very difficult. He had terminal cancer, so we both knew what was going to happen. And he, you know, he had his wits about him until the very, very end. So his last year, all of 2017, I pretty much ran the I ran the firm by myself because he was sick at home.

Marc Karlin 00:01:06 And I'm sure it came out to the public how I'm sure I was short tempered a couple of times or lost concentration. I got in a huge car accident, about 4 or 5 months before he died, which was completely my fault because I was thinking I would just had visit him at his house, and I was thinking about him and distracted. And luckily I walked away without a scratch. My car was totaled, but I luckily walked away. so it was extremely difficult. I and I always tell my wife I got through that year, 2017. I can get through anything. It really was the crucible for me. And it's amazing the strength you find when you have to find it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:50 How long had the two of you worked together?

Marc Karlin 00:01:53 About that time over, I'd say about 20, 23 years. It's been quite a while since the mid 90s.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:02 Yeah, I don't think we talk enough about like the other things that kind of bleed into our firms where we want to stay focused on the firms and everything, but there's these other parts of our, our worlds that they all bleed in together.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:13 Right? Right. And I mean, it had to be an extremely hard to to lose him. But then you have to still run the firm. Correct. What was it like being in the office, knowing that you still had to to do all of that?

Marc Karlin 00:02:26 You know, in a way it was a blessing because it kept me busy. But, you know, and I asked I had to answer questions about his health all the time. I had to let everybody know how he was doing. But, you know, he's still with me today. In fact, I was on a immigration court hearing, a remote hearing yesterday, and the judge knew my dad really well and mentioned it. And one lawyer who was also on zoom said, are you are you related to Philip Carlin? I go, yes, I am. So not only is it the firm Carlin and Carlin, but he's with me every day because not only do I see his name on old cases, but people constantly ask, constantly ask me about him.

Marc Karlin 00:03:06 But, it was very, very difficult, and I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:12 Was there any doubt ever that maybe you just couldn't you couldn't run the firm?

Marc Karlin 00:03:17 Yeah, I was thinking about that as I was coming into this morning. And my response, that is it's I'm glad Covid happened, which sounds crazy, but Covid saved the firm because I'm not sure I could have sustained going forward. We had two. Some background. We had two distinct practice areas. My dad was an immigration specialist. I generally did civil litigation and P.I. we were both very successful, but it was it was the same firm at two different practice areas. So after he passed away, I'm now having to learn immigration law and become up to speed. And it's, as you know, as a personal injury attorney has nothing to do with personal injury. Immigration there completely it is. It is oil and water and, Covid caused, you know, stopped everything because I'm not sure I could have sustained going forward. I don't know what it would have happened either.

Marc Karlin 00:04:12 Something would have happened to me where the firm would have dissolved. I'm not sure, but it was. It was. I couldn't sustain, managing both firms and really not grieving. I didn't have time to grieve. I had to move forward. We have clients. We have a business. We had 6 or 7 employees. All had to go forward.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:31 That's. That is, I guess it was fortuitous timing in a way, because you you could sort of take a breath and catch up.

Marc Karlin 00:04:36 Yeah. I mean, of course, at the time, as we all were, who knew what was going to happen? I remember the day we shut down, we got a message from our landlord saying, you know, we're shutting down. We're not sure when you'll be back in the building, when you'll be allowed back in the building. I remember calling my wife frantically and then scooping up, like all the firm checkbooks and financial records, because I wasn't sure when I would come back to the office, you know? Fortunately, all our work was in the cloud, but who knew what was going to happen?

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:05 Yeah, it's almost like leaving a burning building in a way, right?

Marc Karlin 00:05:09 I mean, I don't know how it was for you guys, but that's that's was the feeling.

Marc Karlin 00:05:12 We don't know what's going to happen.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:14 It was it was interesting because we had the two offices and you've got Saint Louis treated things way differently in Columbia, like Columbia. It's things pretty much stayed open for the most part. Okay. Saint Louis didn't everything closed down. And so you were it was really interesting for me when I would travel back and forth. It was like I was entering one world after I was living in another world. Interesting. So that was definitely different for me. Interesting. And I thought, I thought Covid was beneficial for us because we were able to put our foot on the gas whenever we saw everyone was pulling their money out of, you know, Elsa's and Google ads and all that. We were like, okay, let's let's put the pedal down. Right. So that was something that I thought was actually actually pretty beneficial for us.

Marc Karlin 00:05:56 I mean, we've talked about that before, but it forced me to kind of finally stop, assess what's going on. I got involved with the guild.

Marc Karlin 00:06:06 Now the association, I remember I think I joined right after Covid. I remember being on a we did the Friday morning or Monday morning calls.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:13 Right? Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:06:14 6:00 in the morning. And my wife said, what are you doing? So I got this remote call with these attorneys. And then I started listening to the podcast during Covid because I had a lot of time to go walk around, exercise, things like that. So, introduce me to you, introduce me to, you know, Jim, Brian Bittman, who remains a great friend of mine.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:32 Did you know Brian before?

Marc Karlin 00:06:33 I know Brian and I only met on, the the accountability calls.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:38 Interesting. I thought, you know, I thought the two of you knew each other for years.

Marc Karlin 00:06:41 Well, you know, it's like there's a thing called Jewish geography, right? So we obviously my daughter was going to Brandeis, and he knew she knew people that lived in his neighborhood. He knew people that lived in California and this kind of mutual connection to stuff.

Marc Karlin 00:06:54 So we actually first met in person at the first Max law convention post-Covid in Saint Louis. That's incredible because we because we and we talk a lot. So no, but that allowed me to. Covid allowed me to stop and get support. Yeah. And you know, the guild and the association of a great help to me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:15 When did you feel like you kind of got over the hump? You're like, okay, I can do this. This is going to be okay.

Marc Karlin 00:07:21 It wasn't until I'd say 2 or 3 years after Covid and we made some major changes in personnel at the office, and you and I had talked about this previously and, and when I, when people started recognizing me as, like the immigration attorney and not marked as, you know, the personal injury in the office, that's when I knew I could I could see the light. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I knew we were going to be okay, because at least I understand immigration law.

Marc Karlin 00:07:52 I'm practicing it. I've been successful at it. And now people come to me as the immigration attorney. And that was probably 2 or 3 years ago when I finally felt, okay, we're going to make it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:02 What was it like marketing the two types of practice areas?

Marc Karlin 00:08:06 That was very interesting. Yeah, and it was not clean. And that's why I made a decision about a year and a half ago to go all in on immigration, because L.A. is such a big market and it's you really can't compete with, you know, your sweet James and your Morgan and Morgan and all the other ones. And then people would say, oh, I see your your personal injury, but I see your firm practice as immigration. So, you know, potential clients would be very confused as to what we did. And unless it was a client referral, you know, our digital marketing wasn't really effective because we had two different practice areas. So that's when I decided to go all in about a year and a half ago on on immigration.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:48 So I think that a lot of people hearing that would think because, you know, everyone I think I think people oversimplify pie. They think I'll send a demand letter and I'll make a bunch of money. And I laugh whenever I hear that you. And so most people are probably going to be like, he chose immigration over pie. And I completely get it because I'm guessing it's easier to systemize everything. So tell me about your mindset and making that decision.

Marc Karlin 00:09:17 Well, come back to the association again. I was here at a mastermind about a year ago in Scottsdale, and Chris Nicholson and Kevin Cheney were my group, and I was having this dilemma, like, I really enjoy pie, but, you know, we're very successful in immigration. We opened this office in Las Vegas. It's doing great. And they looked at me and said, what are you doing? I understand you like pie, but you can scale Immigration. You can systematize it. You can manage it better because you know, Pi, if you get into a trial, even if you're not the lead attorney, it's it's all consuming.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:49 Absolutely.

Marc Karlin 00:09:49 There's no oh. Let me get let me know. Let me go check something else. You know, at or at 4:00. Let me get back to you. Let me talk to this client. It's all consuming. So it wasn't easy, but I figured I'm older now. You know, if I don't take another deposition, I'll be fine. If I don't argue another motion, I'll be fine. I mean, I'm doing motions now in immigration court, so it's a little similar, but it was. I could see the reward to me for a different type of law. I would say go more towards management than dealing with day to day. Sure. So it's much easier for me to scale, systematize and manage if it's immigration.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:25 You know, I was sitting in court, I don't know, a few weeks ago, and I was kind of looking around and I you you can see who the litigation attorneys are. They're wearing it, you know. Right. And I wonder if it's affected your health in a good way, kind of giving up the litigation.

Marc Karlin 00:10:40 I had my annual physical last week, and the doctor was a little, you know, getting older and and, have a family history of certain diseases. My blood tests and all my other markers were, I'd say, 10 to 20% better than they were of the year before.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:54 Nice. Congrats.

Marc Karlin 00:10:55 Is it giving up pie or is it just doing immigration? Maybe it's lifestyle change, everything else, but it's definitely, effective because, you know, I still have a couple of pi cases that I'm closing down. And they do they do take a lot of time inside your head when you're trying to figure out, you know, I've got a mediation coming up on one. I had a mediation last week. You know, they're all consuming. So it I'm happy with my decision.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:20 Do you ever get the itch where you see. Oh, such and such. You got $1 million. Like, do you ever get the itch?

Marc Karlin 00:11:26 You're reading my mind.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:27 Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:11:27 You know, you know, it's tough if you see, even if someone calls you and says, I want to refer somebody to you, this is a great case, right? I've had to.

Marc Karlin 00:11:34 Now I have a great referral source for my P.I. cases. A person that I trust and is very generous with. The referral fees, which in California are completely illegal, are completely approved if the client signs off on it. Wow. But yes, when I do see big verdicts or, you know, I was a P.I. lawyer for almost 30 years. Yeah. So it is it is tough to give it up, but I'm happy with my decision.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:57 So I think it's interesting in, in Colorado they don't have referral fees, which like, that's something Kevin Chaney's been having to deal with. He he's very he's very tight into like trying to get things changed in Denver or in Colorado and Missouri. We can we can definitely do referral fees and all that which is which is kind of nice, but it does allow you to since you have a good referral partner, that's good for you because you have this other source of business, correct, where you're not having to do all the work. That's kind of nice.

Marc Karlin 00:12:25 What did Brian call it? Mailbox money.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:27 Mailbox money.

Marc Karlin 00:12:28 Mailbox.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:28 Money. Yeah. You have to be able to trust the lawyer, though, right?

Marc Karlin 00:12:31 And I.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:31 Do. Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:12:32 And but I didn't really refer many cases out because I wanted to do it. Sure. You know, I wanted to be control and take it and do it my way and then just can't do it, you know?

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:42 All right, so I kind of visualize pie, you know, this. You really need a big machine to do it. There's a lot to it. And I wonder how much has it simplified the practice? Now, I'm not talking about just like pie versus integration. I'm talking about like, just like having to do all the work in pie versus all the work in immigration.

Marc Karlin 00:12:59 Well, it's you know, immigration only has so many different types of applications. So again, you can systemize it easier. It's also there's not a lot of lot there's not a lot of money coming out of my pocket for immigration.

Marc Karlin 00:13:13 It's a fee for service. So that's also a different change. Right. So yes. You know, not that immigration is easy, especially under the current administration. It's very challenging. But you it's much more predictable. Right. And you know, part of the thrill of pi is that it is a gamble. You don't know. It is a little bit of a gamble. I mean, you obviously make a calculated decision, but you're putting your time and your money into something that you may not get paid.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:36 Completely.

Marc Karlin 00:13:37 But when you do, it's a great feeling. And when you lose, it's a horrible it's a really bad feeling.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:41 It's a really I saw a guy. It was early in my career. They these two solos that they worked on these cases together and neither neither one of them were like dedicated p.I attorneys. One was like a trust attorney that did some stuff on the side, and the other guy was a worker's compensation attorney that did some P.I. stuff on the side. They had two cases back to back where they dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars zero zero.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:05 But I mean, it put both of them almost underneath.

Marc Karlin 00:14:07 I understand I don't know how that's that's that's way too tough.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:10 It's a it's a massive thing to absorb from a system standpoint. What is it. How is it when it comes to immigration versus pie. Is that is that something I'm assuming it's equal easier to sort of well.

Marc Karlin 00:14:21 You know, the the way the case management systems are now, it's it's a lot easier because most immigration cases have a relatively predictable, lifespan, if you would. You know, there's always hiccups in something, but so it's easy it's a lot easier for me to budget also out my time or allocate resources. Yeah. You can see okay. Certain cases are at this stage one need to do that. Certain cases are at that stage. You know Pi you don't know. You get dropped by a big motion. You get you get all of a sudden they find some witnesses that's they're going to take a deposition. I mean, it's just a lot.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:55 It's a good point.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:56 I mean, because like you, it's guaranteed money versus like the risk, which is that's kind of.

Marc Karlin 00:15:01 It's just different. It's just I was ready at my stage of my career to do this. Yeah. So that's I mean that's the I just it was it was time. And my dad had built up so much goodwill and and you know, reputation is great especially on the, on both sides. But my dad as I said people ask me now he's been gone eight years. Yeah. Ask me weekly. People ask me about, you know, how much my dad meant to them, how we helped them. so, both practice areas are gratifying. This is just a lot easier, right? A lot easier to manage and predict where we're headed.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:35 All right, so I've always had this question. I don't think I've ever asked it to anyone that's in your shoes. Okay. I've always wondered that lawyers that have their parent was a lawyer, especially a successful lawyer. Almost like what it's like to be feel like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:51 It's like, do you ever feel like you're in their shadow in the how and how do you how do you make sure you're not in their shadow?

Marc Karlin 00:15:56 You know, it's interesting because I didn't really practice immigration law for most of the time that I was with them. I didn't I didn't feel I felt like I had an advantage because I grew up with a father who was an attorney. So this world was known to me. And, you know, my sister is an attorney and my wife's an attorney. My brother is an attorney. My son just passed the bar.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:15 Nice.

Marc Karlin 00:16:15 Very cool working down in San Diego. I have a niece in law school. I'm probably missing somebody. I have an aunt who's an attorney. So we came from a family of attorneys, so I felt supported. But I didn't really feel in his shadow because we were doing different areas of the law. And what I feel now is really just a pride and just, you know, a really heartfelt sense that he did make a big difference in many people's lives.

Marc Karlin 00:16:38 And people, like I said, people to this day, once a week, ask me about them.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:42 That's really cool.

Marc Karlin 00:16:42 It's very sweet. I mean, it's sad because, you know, obviously you have to think back that he's gone. And I wish you were here. Now, I'd love to talk to him about a lot of things that have happened with the firm. I mean, Covid would have been really interesting with him.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:54 Oh, I bet it would have.

Marc Karlin 00:16:55 Really, I don't know, it would have been, but he's not. So that's that's what I miss.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:59 Yeah. All right. So you mentioned the current administration and I and I wonder because I mean, now you've you've worked through this administration Biden, Obama and you weren't doing immigration. I don't think whatever Obama was.

Marc Karlin 00:17:12 I mean, I was helping my dad at a couple of things, but not really, you know. And then he got sick during Trump one.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:18 Gotcha.

Marc Karlin 00:17:18 So that's I experienced Trump, Biden, Trump.

Marc Karlin 00:17:21 That's really what I when I was leading the immigration practice.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:24 So I'm a firm believer in being able to control only the things you can control and worry about, only the things you can control. How do you do that? Because the way that each administration handles immigration is completely is wildly different. Yeah. So how do you how do you stay in your lane?

Marc Karlin 00:17:41 It's not easy. And the hardest part is trying to explain to clients why something two years ago is this way. And now it's 180 degrees this way, right? Or why something that was available then is no longer available. So you really have to adjust. I mean, and as I say to my clients, I said, every day I wake up or something new, we're all on the fly and we're all learning on the fly, rather. And this is a common refrain in the immigration bar. We just we're learning it now. And how do we get we get policy changes by Twitter or by, you know, something on, you know, social media.

Marc Karlin 00:18:17 So it's been much more radical the changes and much quicker during Trump too than Trump won. But the law is the law. The rules of the rules. And so you try to just apply both the rules and the law as best you can and, you know, try to protect your clients.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:33 Have you found a way to like, systemize the chaos? In a way?

Marc Karlin 00:18:36 Yeah, because it's still forms. It's still it's still, you know, it's still it's still an administrative process. The chaos is coming where we've actually now have filed last week my first habeas.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:49 Oh, interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:18:50 In federal court in San Diego to get someone out of custody. But I thought they were wrongly detained and they were released. So that is kind of the chaos factors. People getting detained.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:59 Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:18:59 That in in prior years even under Trump one if they got detained they'd be let out on bond. Probably pretty quickly in that case would take a lot longer. Now we're getting, you know, people getting picked up at 7-Eleven parking lots or grocery stores.

Marc Karlin 00:19:12 That didn't happen under Trump one.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:14 What I find interesting about immigration in general is because immigration is not just immigration. You have people that do do different carve outs. They have different niches within correct immigration. So here's what I find really interesting. Let's say you are a deportation deportation, heavy immigration practice under Biden. Not good for you at all. Correct. So you have to find a different way of making money whenever you get to Trump and Obama. Deportation heavy both. Right. But the other stuff is harder to process. So how do you balance that part of it?

Marc Karlin 00:19:45 Really good question. You know, during Biden, we really we really didn't wind down. But really, you know, we didn't emphasize deportation or removal defense, what we call it, because it wasn't there. I mean, I had the training because I did do it under Trump one when I took over from my dad. But we always had a backbone of doing family based immigration. So I was able to ramp up.

Marc Karlin 00:20:07 And most of the lawyers that I work with, and I have a couple that I work, you know, as contract attorneys, they from Trump one and before they were used to immigration court. So we had to we had to, you know, put some, you know, oil like the Tin Man. We had to oil ourselves up, get, you know, get the joints working again. Yeah. And get those reflexes. But I mean, the amount of time in the last year that I spent in immigration court, compared to Biden's last year was probably 50 to 60% more.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:33 Oh my gosh.

Marc Karlin 00:20:34 Good news is again, thanks to Covid. And hopefully that'll keep this way. We do most of our appearances remotely. That's that's a real game changer. When I first started doing this, I would have to physically because my dad now is getting sick and he can't go to court. I'd have to physically go to downtown LA or Orange County, the immigration court. Like, just like like a normal civil court.

Marc Karlin 00:20:57 And now most of it is done remotely. So, you know, I have a practice now office in Las Vegas, and I've appeared the judges don't be quite well through Zoom in Las Vegas, because I can do 2 or 3 hearings from my desk, or another attorney can do them on their desk.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:12 So talk about the Vegas edition, because I think that that's really cool. That's something that you talked about in the hot seat, the last time I talk to you, and I don't I don't remember whenever we had dinner in New York, if we talked about it, it was really loud there, but we.

Marc Karlin 00:21:25 Probably talked about it. But, about my head. Paralegal. although she's from Los Angeles, a lot of her family lives in Las Vegas, and I've gone there for conventions and other things. Grew up in Southern California, so it's close by. But what I noticed was a lot of our clients or their family members were moving from Southern California to Las Vegas. Just kind of know this migration because of job availability, cost of housing.

Marc Karlin 00:21:49 And they would say, do you know anybody? Do you know any immigration attorneys in Las Vegas? And I really didn't. So just by happenstance, I got to know 2 or 3 attorneys in Vegas. I worked on a couple of civil cases there that were federal. It was like a federal malpractice case against the an Air Force hospital. So and I would ask who all these attorneys ask, is there anybody immigration wise? And no, nobody knew anybody. And my my head paralegals family, nobody knew anybody. And especially for the Spanish speaking community, which is a large part of our office, a lot of our client base. So about two years ago, I said, well, let's just open a little satellite office and see what happens, because there's an immigration attorney, I'm barred in California, but I can practice immigration law in all 50 states. It's kind of unique. I think it's Social Security is the same way.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:31 Okay.

Marc Karlin 00:22:32 So I don't have to be a member of the Nevada bar.

Marc Karlin 00:22:34 There's a lot of immigration lawyers in California who aren't members of the California Bar.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:39 It's interesting. Interesting. I didn't know that.

Marc Karlin 00:22:41 I didn't know that until I remember asking my dad, like, well, wait, he's a member of the Washington, D.C. bar? How how can he practice immigration law? Yeah. So so that's one benefit is I don't have to be licensed there. Although I am scheduled to take the Nevada bar in July just to prove that I can do it. I think it'd be a good benefit.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:59 To the whole team's counting on you, man. We got.

Marc Karlin 00:23:01 You. No pressure. Right? Anyway, back to. So we started and then started kind of like a small Facebook campaign, a social media campaign and word of mouth. Las Vegas is a very compact town, even though its 2 million people in the metropolitan area, it's small. And so word got out, our social media campaign got out, and our business has grown tremendously in Las Vegas, where it's a huge percentage of our business.

Marc Karlin 00:23:27 And I'm there probably 3 or 4 times a month, really. I've got to know the streets, I know where to go. And and, you know, luckily my wife and I are empty nesters, so I have the time to do it. Sure, if my kids were at home, I'm not sure I would have done it, so it takes a lot of time away.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:43 I bet that's I mean, that is a lot of travel. It's a quick flight though, right?

Marc Karlin 00:23:46 Yeah, it's 45 minutes. I live 15 minutes from the airport. You know, as long as they keep having pre-check, you know, which we have. It's easy. Yeah. But it's still you know, it's still and we're really busy there and I, you know, so that's how it came about. It came about it was like let's, let's experiment. Because just anecdotally, there didn't seem to be much immigration that was geared to the Spanish speaking community. But we in Las Vegas have clients from all nationalities, all languages, everybody.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:15 Do you think you could take what you're doing currently? Right? Document the process and then apply it to other cities that may be similar to Vegas.

Marc Karlin 00:24:24 If I had, I think if I had a, yes, but if I had a partner or somebody that I could really trust in those cities. Yeah. Because it's still tough to manage time difference and everything else. And, you know, there's nothing like being in person and seeing the operation. So, you know, like today I'm gone, but my staff is doing things. That's fine. A day or two. But but yes, I'd like to open eventually and we maybe could open other offices, but I think it would be with a partnership with somebody else.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:51 Do you have a staff in the Vegas office?

Marc Karlin 00:24:53 I have people that help me there. Yeah, but that's one thing. The challenges for 26 is getting a more permanent staff, because I did not anticipate that we would grow to the extent we've grown in Las Vegas.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:04 So that's a good problem to have.

Marc Karlin 00:25:05 It's a real good problem. I'm not complaining.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:07 Yeah. Have you thought about how you would how you would manage that? How would what it would look like?

Marc Karlin 00:25:11 That is a work in progress. Perhaps an associate will join me in Las Vegas, might have his own book of business, but kind of combine our own practices. That's realistically the way it is.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:22 You don't see, like, a some sort of office manager or someone that actually manages the physical, physical office itself. Right. Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:25:29 Yeah. And some of you can trust and, you know, verify everything and it's it's tricky.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:34 Here's, here's an interesting idea. So I didn't know that this was the name of the term, but do you know, do you know what an MSO is? I have no idea. Okay. So whenever you did P.I., you know, like, sometimes you have these these medical providers where they, you can go through them for like a chiro, an ortho or an MRI. So MSOs and so it's managed managed services organizations so that apparently.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:57 Chad Burton that's something that they're doing with a modern law. And it would be kind of an interesting thing for your setup where you've got this MSO that sort of manages the operations, but the legal fulfillments may be done by either that associate that you have there or someone else. That was kind of interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:26:14 I think that's.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:14 Interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:26:14 Yeah, that's that's the wave of the future. Yeah. Consolidation. And, you know, the nationalization of all these practices.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:22 Do you think that's actually going to happen? Because I've, I've been hearing about that for 15 years, and I've only recently seen some of it sort of starting to happen, you.

Marc Karlin 00:26:30 Know, listening to other podcasts. And anecdotally, I think it'll happen in if you have a practice that generates or a firm that generates this X amount of money, you might be a good target for at least consolidation. I don't know about, you know, venture capital or private equity, but I think I know like, for example, sweet James, the Pi attorney from starting in Southern California, he's he's big in Las Vegas.

Marc Karlin 00:26:54 He's big here in Arizona. I was in Atlanta about six months ago. And there's a sweet James on Billboard. Yeah. So I think he's consolidated. And that might be the way of the future. I haven't seen it yet in immigration, but I, I, you know, it seems to be the way things are going.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:10 Maybe Carlin and Carlin might be,

Marc Karlin 00:27:12 Might be the Morgan and Morgan of, immigration.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:14 Could be. It is kind of interesting watching Morgan and Morgan on one side of the country starting to spread west, and sweet James starting on the western west side and east. And what the clash is going to look like in the middle. It's interesting because it's going to happen. I mean, they're going to clash with each other. And I do think that sweet James is on the East Coast. It just, the the it's interesting watching the map sort of spread. And part of that I think is, is sweet James, the way that sweet James Morgan and Morgan they got.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:45 I mean, tort reform gutted them in Florida. So they had to find other ways.

Marc Karlin 00:27:47 That's what it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:48 Was. Okay. Other ways of making money. Sure. I mean, that's but it's also interesting. I've noticed with Sweet James. Right. They're going in and they're buying like the firms of, like, some influencer legal influencers. And then I just kind of notice that and I wonder, I would love to have their COO. We had their CFO on a year or two.

Marc Karlin 00:28:05 I remember that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:05 I remember that and I do. I would like to. I'm. I'd love to have them back on. Maybe I'll have them back on just to suck about like a little more of the strategy if they'll talk about it a little bit.

Marc Karlin 00:28:13 Yeah, if you will. Yeah I think that's obviously they come in. They market heavy. But you're right. You do a lot of social influence.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:18 You know immigration is ripe for something like that because it is so it is so form driven for a lot of things.

Marc Karlin 00:28:25 And it's nationwide. It's the same rules in Missouri as it is in California as it is in Nevada. So that's the benefit. There's no there's no I mean, you know, the circuits if you if you get into more complex areas of law, there might be a difference in the circuits, right? You know, the Fifth Circuit versus the Ninth Circuit. But generally it's, it's all the same.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:45 Because it is it is comes down to Social Security, which is I think it's too similar to pie. I think some of the VA benefits you could do, I think.

Marc Karlin 00:28:53 So I think you can do that as well.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:54 A little bit. there's the vaccine court, which there are some attorneys that do that. That's all in D.C. though, right? Right. And then then you have immigration. How do you deal with. It does seem like there's a lot of, there are a lot of immigration attorneys, but it's almost like it's a part of their practice. It's not their primary niche.

Marc Karlin 00:29:13 Right. And that's what we found in Nevada. In California, not as much because it's such obviously a giant immigrant population. So most immigration firms there specialize it. But we've seen in Nevada it's almost it's like the lost leader to bring in pie cases. So that's one reason I think we were able to be successful is that we were dedicated to immigration. But there were a lot of firms who did p.I criminal immigration, and they're still in California. But I can tell you as one who somebody who ran a two practice, you know, two practice law firm, it's not easy, especially when they don't overlap. Now, the demographics of your clientele may maybe have something in common, but those are totally, you know, three very different areas of law, you know, criminal P.I. and immigration.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:59 Yeah, completely. I wonder if you could. Let's say you did choose to take your same model and apply to other cities. Could you just do some of the I don't know, other. Another way of putting it, other than like some of the more form driven parts of the some of those niches where you don't have to appear in court.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:17 Is that something you could do?

Marc Karlin 00:30:19 We could, but it depends on who's in the administration. Right? Yeah. So then where's the need? The need now is we're getting, you know, people getting detained or, you know, you know, people that you wouldn't, wouldn't have never thought been. They don't have criminal records. They haven't done anything wrong. Other than here, they're in the country without authorization or they've overstayed. So as long as things stay remote with immigration court, as long as those appearances are permitted, I think will be okay. But yes, you could, but you'd be turning down a big part of the market, right, if you did that in today's climate. Who knows what's going to happen in 2 or 3 years from now? Who knows what's going to happen after the midterms? We don't.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:59 All right, so this is more of a legal question. I'm very curious about this. are you. Let's say you are, because there's no path to citizenship if you are here illegally, right?

Marc Karlin 00:31:10 Not generally.

Marc Karlin 00:31:10 I mean, there are ways through to get a green card, so that's not true. If you're through marriage or through family, you can. There are ways to get a green card, which is permanent residency. And after three years, if you're married to U.S. citizens. So there are ways or ways ways around it. What we see a lot of is, let's say someone comes here, they're undocumented. Then they have us citizen kids. There really is no pathway for those children who are now, you know, 26, 27 years old, U.S. citizen adults who are born here. There really is there's very limited pathways to help their parents.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:42 Okay. So here then, this is my question because I've always just wondered, this is more of a curiosity thing. And it's wouldn't it just make more sense for them to leave the country or pretend they're in another country and you wouldn't? This is sort of like this is an advice you tell your clients, of course, but at least pretend like you're outside the country and then apply to become a get a green card or a visa or whatever it is outside the country.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:06 Wouldn't that be? Wouldn't it be? It's cleaner for them.

Marc Karlin 00:32:09 There are. First of all, penalties. If you've been here for a certain amount of time without authorization and you leave. Yeah, as soon as you cross out of the US. Big penalties, including time, bars and things.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:18 Interesting. Okay. That's that's that answered my question.

Marc Karlin 00:32:21 Okay. That's your question. Plus the government knows everything. So you can't say, well, I'm living here in Phoenix, although I'm using an address down in Mexico. It's like they know everything.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:30 So they know that they're here. You can't just leave and pretend like you were never there.

Marc Karlin 00:32:34 Right, right, right. And I've had I've had clients say that ask or potential clients say, well, let's just say I leave. I go back to my home country. I don't tell them I was here for ten, 15 years. They said, you know what? They're going to find out. And when they find out, it's not going to be good.

Marc Karlin 00:32:47 So you can do that. Not with my help, but, you know, because it makes sense. Like I had never was caught. No one knows. I've never had any interaction with the police or immigration. I'm saying, but, you know, and you have a footprint here. If you've lived here for a certain amount of time, they know you're here and you'll find out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:03 See, this is this is how little I think the average person knows about.

Marc Karlin 00:33:07 Right. So it's not that easy because again, really harsh penalties apply, especially if you've been in the US without authorization for more than one year and you leave. Right. It triggers a lot of bad things that are going to prohibit you from coming right back.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:22 It's got to be kind of tough whenever let's say you've got like that worst case scenario where like, there's no real pathway, right? Yes. I guess someone could pay you to help usher them through this process, knowing that the outcome is not going to be fantastic.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:36 I guess, what is that like for you? Because that's got to be tough.

Marc Karlin 00:33:39 Well, we turn down people every day who contacts us to say we're sorry. You just don't have any relief and we don't want to, we're going to be we're going to act ethically and not, you know, have you fill out an application so maybe you can get a work permit for 4 or 5 years, which a lot of attorneys did. Especially back in the old days when it was was things weren't so digitized. we turned down people every day. We just we'd say, look, you just we don't see a pathway for you for any help. Yeah, no. We do. You know, obviously people are. If they're in custody, then we we use all available resources to try to help them. You know, even if we know that the odds are slim that at the end of the day, they'll get something. But we, you know, like, it's much like a criminal defendant, much like a criminal attorney.

Marc Karlin 00:34:22 You're going to use everything within, you know, within the law to help your client.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:26 Do you like change?

Marc Karlin 00:34:28 I can't say that I don't I can't say that I do, because I think I would have changed this a lot sooner than I did. but it's exciting at this stage of my career change. You know, my wife asked me, or I explained, like, why? You know, why Las Vegas? Because, you know, I really wanted to do something different. It wasn't that I was bored. It was just that I've done this for a long time, and it just. It was a challenge. Yeah. So I like challenges. I don't know about change, but a challenge. Sure.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:56 I like the reframing. I think the reframing is it's. That's that's a really I trick myself sometimes by reframing things. Like, I like I like the struggle part of things, you know, like,

Marc Karlin 00:35:06 Because it's easier to look at them like, oh, a challenge. I, you know, we're lawyers, we, we, we're used to challenging.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:10 Absolutely.

Marc Karlin 00:35:11 If you see change, you automatically kind of you kind of freeze up and think about all your my goes negative. Right? Absolutely. Need some you know need some in my you need to. So it's oh it's a challenge.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:21 Well the reason I ask is because there are a lot of challenges with things changing so much with immigration. It's probably the most challenging, changing niche in the in all of the legal industry.

Marc Karlin 00:35:33 Over the last year, 100%.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:35 So that's why I wanted to know, because you were always having to stay on your toes. And it's it's got to be hard to to make processes out of things whenever they're always changing.

Marc Karlin 00:35:45 But if you're nimble enough, you can you know, its adjustments around the edges unless it's, you know, if it's a big change, it's a big change. And obviously the staff is well attuned to big policy changes. So it's not that the process really changes is what can we do and what kind of relief is available.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:02 I like the I like the I like the wording nimble.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:04 I think nimble is the right way.

Marc Karlin 00:36:06 They have to be especially nimble. Yeah. In today's environment, today's, you know, political environment. And you have to be nimble.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:12 Have you been able to use any sort of AI to help with the processing of forms?

Marc Karlin 00:36:16 I mean, we definitely helps condense a lot of material in summarize. So I've had clients come to me and say, well, here's all my travel records for the last. You know, five years. And it's just like it's, airplane tickets or receipts.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:29 Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:36:30 And, you know, obviously you want to double check everything, but I helped me win a big citizenship case.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:34 Oh, nice.

Marc Karlin 00:36:34 That I think, you know, why don't I just feed this in and see? You know, and it took a while, but it gave an index of all the dates, you know, departure and return. And I cross-checked it, but it saved me hours and hours of time, and its AI is helped also on.

Marc Karlin 00:36:51 not really brief writing, but other kind of like organizing thoughts or organizing applications. So it still hasn't replaced the human touch, but it's really like taking a lot of data and making it into something that is comprehensive, you know, that is somebody can comprehend and is easily digestible.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:07 Sure. Do you think there's any with with the current immigration environment, even really under or under Biden, really under any administration? I, I wonder, is it something where you think the average person could do some of the immigration stuff on their own, or is it still complicated?

Marc Karlin 00:37:24 It's still complicated. No, we we've seen in the last several months, we know prospective clients have come to us already done their ChatGPT or search. But like anything on the internet, if you if it's not your area of expertise, you're not really going to understand it. And there are a lot of nuances in immigration.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:42 It's the nuance.

Marc Karlin 00:37:43 There's so many because immigration is run by, as you have said, policy changes. So okay, back.

Marc Karlin 00:37:48 You know, when Clinton was there, there was this rule, but then it changed in 97. And then when Bush junior came in and then, you know, 2005 had changed. So. And there's a lot, a lot of nuances. So we can tell that prospective clients have have looked at things up online or as ChatGPT. So we're going to have to deal with that going forward. But we definitely have seen that thinking that it's easier. But we've also had many people come to us trying to do on their own. And there's just one thing they didn't quite understand. And, you know, it's like it's immigration. It's like it's like the monopoly where you go back, do you go back to, you know, you started back. You get if you get denied, you go back to the beginning.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:25 Oh my gosh.

Marc Karlin 00:38:26 So it's it's expensive and time consuming.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:29 When it comes to like do you ever deal with like the citizenship interviews. Oh that's what they're called.

Marc Karlin 00:38:34 Yeah. There are their interviews.

Marc Karlin 00:38:35 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:36 Are there differences in does that one person that does the interview make the decision?

Marc Karlin 00:38:41 Pretty much. they make a determination. We have to pass civics and history test, and then, they can make a decision based on your background. If you have some criminal issues or other things in your home country. So the officers have a lot of power, whether to approve or deny our citizenship application.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:59 About ten years ago, I saw this Ted in Saint Louis, and it was a patent attorney. Right. And they kept track of the approval percentages based on the judge. Right. And so they knew who to avoid and all that. And I wonder if you could do something similar when it comes to immigration.

Marc Karlin 00:39:15 There are actually groups that track which judges grant asylum, which don't grant asylum. And if they do grant asylum applications from what countries do they grant? So there are those resources out there. Yeah. and so it's not easy. You just don't know when you when you go into USCIS, you just don't know who what officer you're going to get.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:36 Oh interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:39:37 You don't know until they call you. It's like go you go to like a it's like you're in a giant waiting room and they call your client's name out and they say, well, I'm Officer Smith, come with me. We're going to do your interview today. You don't know who your interviewer is.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:48 Interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:39:49 Until you until they open the door and call you in.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:51 Are you allowed to be in there with them? Yes, the whole time. Okay. So. And are you ever, like, making arguments on their behalf? Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:39:57 Well, I'm trying to explain things especially, you know, people say, oh no, my clients say, oh, I'll be fine. I'll be able to tell them, you know, people are nervous. Plus, this is my world. I understand I understand the jargon, right? So I don't really argue as much as try to explain, okay. If they have something, you know, they've had filed a previous application. Well, officer, here's what happened in that previous application.

Marc Karlin 00:40:18 Well, they had a criminal issue. Oh yeah. But we actually that case has now been dismissed. And here's all the papers.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:22 Is there a written opinion?

Marc Karlin 00:40:24 if they deny your application, they do issue a written decision.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:29 I would I would find it very interesting if you were to take all of the written decisions per judge. What do they call?

Marc Karlin 00:40:35 Well, those are USCIS officers.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:37 Officers. Right. Take all the written opinions if you can get your hands on them and then analyze them for what the denials were, that'd be.

Marc Karlin 00:40:43 And yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:44 You use the AI to do that, and then you can then be ready for whichever one it is.

Marc Karlin 00:40:49 That's a good idea.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:50 That is that that's not.

Marc Karlin 00:40:52 Not a bad idea. I mean.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:53 Especially.

Marc Karlin 00:40:53 The market, like in a market like Vegas where it's small. Yeah. You know, Southern California, there's multiple immigration offices and there's hundreds of offices. It might be a little more difficult, but that's interesting. Also, you can do it by maybe region like certain areas, you know, what is the what is the San Diego office doing versus what's the Phoenix office doing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:12 That'd be so interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:41:13 We do we do have, you know, Lyft serves and kind of scuttlebutt about what's going on. And yeah. Oh, you know, this happened to me today in Orlando. Is that happening in Dallas? So we we do we do crosstalk a lot.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:23 You could vibe code a website where you then it it could probably do it in real time where it tracks you, you create it and then it tracks the opinions and all that tracks the percentages and all that. That would be really interesting.

Marc Karlin 00:41:37 That's not a bad idea. Especially if the attorneys are willing to share that information. Yeah. Interesting.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:42 How long have you been practicing?

Marc Karlin 00:41:43 35 years.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:45 Did you ever think that we'd be in this position right now?

Marc Karlin 00:41:47 I mean, sitting here with the AI. And what are we doing now? I didn't think I'd ever be on a podcast sitting here. No, I mean, you know, I come from up when, you know, computers were like, you know, they were like giant, you know, like giant TV sets.

Marc Karlin 00:41:58 When I grew up as a kid. Yeah, yeah. I didn't think I'd have a computer in my pocket that is stronger than anything I've ever seen. So, you know, was always kind of Jetsons, you know, fantasyland era that things would be like this. So it's, you know, technology has made the practice. It's made it easier, but quicker. So when I was coming up, you know, you always could say, oh, I have to research that. I have to look into that. And people be at your law partners or your clients gave you time. Now everyone knows that you have immediate access to information. So I've seen a lot of changes, but it's still, you know, what kind of person you are, how well you advocate for your clients. You know, it's still the personal touch matters. But our, you know, our jobs as far as the technical aspects have gotten easier. But conversely, now much more is expected of us and quicker.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:47 It's.

Marc Karlin 00:42:47 True. So that's that's the downside.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:49 How do you deal with that with clients.

Marc Karlin 00:42:51 You just try to explain. You know we need time to do this and I want to do it right. And also, you know, last week we had four people detained. And we're a little you know, we got a little distracted I apologize. And that happens. So you just try to set expectations.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:05 Do they seem to understand given the current climate.

Marc Karlin 00:43:09 The overwhelming majority absolutely do. Interesting. Absolutely do. Because I think they want us to be on our toes on their case. And they do understand what we're up against.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:18 You have you have your clients for a long time right.

Marc Karlin 00:43:22 You do. especially if they get a green card then they become a citizen or you have family members. Yeah. So, yeah, we do. You do? It's like the family members, you know, be it siblings, parents, cousins. So you have families that are clients for a long time.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:36 How do you stay in touch with them and almost like keep them, keep their minds busy instead of like, wandering, what's going on? What's going on with my case? What's going on with my matter? Like, how do you keep them? How do you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:49 How do you keep them satisfied?

Marc Karlin 00:43:50 Yeah, my staff is really good. And we use, you know, we have a program which prompts us like at least every 30 days to kind of give this the staff give the clients an update. I have a great staff, very caring. And they're either immigrants themselves or grew up in houses with parents who are immigrants. So they're very, you know, they understand what the clients are going through. So we're real good at keeping everyone informed. And in immigration, there are periods much like pie where, you know, trial dates two years away. Once we submit a lot of things, they're there periods where the months happen. Nothing, nothing goes on. So we do try to keep our clients, you know, informed. But we do tell them at the beginning, first of all, you can reach out to us any time. And, you know, communication is so much easier now with texting and everything else. So. So my staff's pretty good at keeping everybody informed and giving them realistic timelines.

Marc Karlin 00:44:39 But it's always better. What under promise and overperformed. That's what we try to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:43 That's I mean that's that's always the goal, right? I mean it's definitely.

Marc Karlin 00:44:46 Not.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:46 Easy. No not always.

Marc Karlin 00:44:47 But and then one key thing about immigration is that a client can go look, it's publicly available. How long at this office. How long is immigration USCIS taking to process an application. So that's out there. So we're not hiding anything.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:00 Right.

Marc Karlin 00:45:01 But you know, it is it is frustrating for clients because sometimes one client's case will take three months literally from start to finish. Other 18 months just don't know. There's really sometimes there's no rhyme or reason to it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:14 When it comes to guiding a client on something like that. How do you I mean, how do you advise them and how do you prepare them? Because that that to me, that's such a stark difference. I mean, I can give you a general idea, but it's rare that I have a case the last three months.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:29 I mean, that's unless it's a wrongful death case that we can. We can get those wrapped up pretty quickly, but otherwise, not so much.

Marc Karlin 00:45:36 No, P.I. was much more predictable in that regard, because you kind of know when the trials are being set in your whatever you file.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:41 Exactly.

Marc Karlin 00:45:42 You know, like, what's going on with the courts? that's the problem with some immigration. Some cases go flying through, others take a long time. So we just try to condition them. And sometimes most of the time it doesn't mean anything. It's just that this office of USPS is more crowded or there's something going on with a technical issue. So yeah, you just try to temper expectations.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:06 All right. I want to step back. I want to go back to.

Marc Karlin 00:46:08 Back in.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:09 Time. I want to give you a little bit of a break from the transition, but I want to go back to the transition whenever you took over. Right. Okay. And the I mean, I'm assuming there was a change in leadership because your dad, was he the was he the one running the.

Marc Karlin 00:46:24 He ran his immigration practice. I ran a Pi practice. Okay. So he. Yeah, he was definitely in charge of the immigration practice.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:30 All right, so you took on his employees?

Marc Karlin 00:46:32 Yes. Which was not easy.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:34 Okay. That's what I wanted to talk about.

Marc Karlin 00:46:35 Very rough. In fact, there was one person who had been with them a long, long time who I knew would not work. We would not work well together. And, you know, my dad, we had law discussions about this, and he was he was worried that I would be lost or something, wouldn't I? Wouldn't be okay. Sure. And I was right. As soon as my dad passed, not shortly thereafter, we. I parted ways with this employee. And there's none of the employees that work with my dad then are with us now. Just. It happened. Yeah. I had to have my own style. And, you know, admittedly, when my dad passed, I can't say I was the best leader.

Marc Karlin 00:47:08 I'm sure that I was much more short tempered than I should have been. Sure. Not as nice a little bit. You know, I was grieving, and I. And looking back, it was a lot of grief and pain and and really fear of like, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this?

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:22 What advice would you give yourself if you could do it again?

Marc Karlin 00:47:26 Get help, get support. I was trying to do it. Not that by myself, but I was really, I think I was trying to, like. I'll muscle through this. I can do this. I've done other things before. I would have definitely, in hindsight, really reached out to people to help me more quicker.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:44 Was that. What does that mean?

Marc Karlin 00:47:45 That means, like, I mean, I can I really sit down and talk to you about, you know, I really don't know. What should I do about these employees? What should I do about this system? How should I address this? I just don't know what to do.

Marc Karlin 00:47:55 And and the guild was a big help to that. But it was that took about 2 or 3 years after my dad passed.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:02 Was there an actual succession plan in place?

Marc Karlin 00:48:05 This is a great story. My dad didn't. And you know, my siblings might hear this my. But he never really, he thought even though he knew he was terminally ill, he could not. It's tough to say I'm getting, you know, a little choked up. He just couldn't come to grips that. And I can't blame him that his time was coming. So we talked about it, but we really didn't sit down and write it out. We had some cursory conversations and, you know, we worked on financial things and like getting the paperwork done. But, we it was really tough to have that discussion. And we didn't have a strong succession plan. And that was part of the problem. He just thought I would I assumed I would just take over and there wouldn't really be any, you know, I would work it out.

Marc Karlin 00:48:45 I guess that was the assumption, right? And it, it I it just it's and it's, you know, it's something that not only it's my law partner is my father, so it's not something I can stay an arm's length and discuss. you know, getting I'm getting choked up thinking about it now, so it's not easy. So, no, there really wasn't I don't know, quite frankly. Would that have made a huge difference? I don't know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:08 Do you think it might have made a difference when it comes to the transition in the firm? So people had an idea. Whenever, you know, whenever your dad is no longer with the firm. Right. This is who's in charge. Here's who's going to be running things. Do you think that might have helped?

Marc Karlin 00:49:21 It might have. I think they knew the people that didn't stay with us. They kind of knew that we weren't going to work well together. I don't because they were there. We were in the same office for years.

Marc Karlin 00:49:29 So. And, I mean, just stories I could tell about stuff that I had to help with, but my dad was still around.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:37 How long did they stick around before they left?

Marc Karlin 00:49:41 most within a year. And then a couple, maybe like 2 or 3 years later.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:45 Because the ones within the year, I mean, that kind of sucks because you're still in that transition. You're still grieving.

Marc Karlin 00:49:50 I was we went through a lot of people, pre-COVID, we went through a lot of people that didn't work out. And I hope, I'm glad to say the last couple of years we've had a very steady, you know, roster of employees, a very, very, you know, you know, people come and go. That's just that's the nature of the business, but much more, much steadier the last two years or three years than it was the first three years after my dad died.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:15 So how old are you?

Marc Karlin 00:50:16 I'm 62. 63.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:18 Do you want to retire?

Marc Karlin 00:50:19 That's a really good question.

Marc Karlin 00:50:20 My wife would like me to retire at 65. I don't. I'd like to slow down at 65, whatever that is.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:26 Well, I wonder what sort of succession plan you could have. Even if it's not you stepping away going forward. Like, what would you do differently than your dad did?

Marc Karlin 00:50:36 This is a conversation that my wife and I. Why my wife and I have almost weekly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:40 Okay.

Marc Karlin 00:50:40 And I really, as I'm 63, have to start thinking about really what you know. Where are we going to go? I don't have a obvious successor. And that's something that was another goal for this year. In addition to I'm not really keen on expanding to different cities, but really figure out what are we going to do. And I think the ideal would would be to bring somebody in, have them work under me and then, you know, take over partial or all the firm when that time comes. I don't know when I'm ready to step away. So some days I wake up, I'm raring to go.

Marc Karlin 00:51:11 Other days I wake up like, what am I doing?

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:13 Did one of your kids. Yeah. One of your kids have any interest in joining the firm? I don't.

Marc Karlin 00:51:16 Know. Maybe in a couple of years. I think my son's doing. He's doing great down in San Diego, working for a major, law firm. And he's he's working. Working very hard. But so far, it sounds like things are going great for him. So we'll see.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:29 So my, my kids will tell. They tell me like, oh, you know, whenever I'm older, I'm going to join the law firm, all that kind of stuff. Well, you know, if that's something you want to do. And I wonder if that. Is that something you have lived that right? You've sort of lived that, you know, do you want it if.

Marc Karlin 00:51:44 They want it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:45 Okay. That's my thought too.

Marc Karlin 00:51:46 That's if they want it. I don't want them. I don't want anybody to do anything that they don't want to do.

Marc Karlin 00:51:52 You know my first five years I didn't want to work with my dad because I wanted I wasn't I was then you know as a college student law student and under in his shadow. Yeah. So I went to work in San Diego for a couple of years, came back to LA. I didn't want to work with him until I finally figured out, what am I doing? Why am I working for somebody else? I'd rather, you know, go work with my dad. And he asked me to come work with him. That's how we came. But I had a little bit of that, like, well, I'm going to prove myself. I'm going to I want to work with my dad.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:15 Is that is that how he looked at it, too?

Marc Karlin 00:52:17 I think he was probably a little hurt that I didn't come right away to work with him. Yeah, but we talked about that. But but I wouldn't have had to. I wouldn't have been able to be successful in P.I. had I come to work with him, because obviously I worked at an insurance defense firm for several years where he took depositions every week and did all the stuff that I learned how to do trials.

Marc Karlin 00:52:38 I mean, this is a defense attorney. Yeah, until I switched sides. So I would never have gotten that experience working with my dad, the P.I., immigration. Yeah, but I never would have gotten the P.I. experience ever.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:50 So from talking to you, it's I from the outside looking at it, it looks like you're a very proud parent. It seems like your your kids really love you. it seems like you've had it seems like you you actually have really good relationships with your with your kids. I don't know if that's true or not, but it seems like.

Marc Karlin 00:53:06 It is all true.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:07 How do you how do you manage that? Because parenting is a difficult thing whenever it comes to running a practice. So what are some advice?

Marc Karlin 00:53:16 It wasn't easy. You know, my wife during the high school and junior high and college, you know, was great. Very, you know, was was always there for them. I'm sure I could have been there a little bit more. But, you know, they're like kids who are adults now.

Marc Karlin 00:53:30 So it's a little bit different. And but we've always been close. And how do we tell we're close if we ever go on vacation? A lot of times I want to go with us. That's always a good sign.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:38 That's a good sign. Absolutely.

Marc Karlin 00:53:40 You know, we enjoy we you know, we're a very close family. So, it was not easy to balance when they were younger. Obviously. Now we're empty nesters, so. Sure. They're my daughter. My daughter is in graduate school back east, and I said my son's a lawyer in San Diego, so it's a lot, a lot easier to handle that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:56 Yeah. Is there anything you would have done differently.

Marc Karlin 00:53:59 As far as.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:00 Parenting?

Marc Karlin 00:54:02 I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say because I was I really was happy with my career. And I think no matter what career I would have chosen, I probably would have been the same kind of driven person. Yeah. So, you know, you can always look back and say, well, I wish I'd had done this.

Marc Karlin 00:54:19 I wish I'd have spent more time, but we did spend a lot of time together. But of course, I'm sure there's times I could have been there more mentally, because you don't have to work in 8 or 10 hours. As a lawyer, you're a little frazzled lot of times when you come home.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:32 Especially after litigation.

Marc Karlin 00:54:33 Litigation. So I guess I wish I would have been sometimes a little less frazzled.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:37 Yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:54:39 you know, I could say my I'm sure my wife would say that now, I wish I could be, I could come a little less frazzled. It's this job and running, as you know. And I think you and Jim talked about on the podcast, owning a law firm next to raising kids or dealing with, sorry, owning and running a law firm, you know, is one of the hardest things you'll ever do in your life. You know, other than raising a family or having health problems. And so it's hard to shut that off when you come home. Yeah, yeah.

Marc Karlin 00:55:07 We care. And then in addition to worrying about our cases. So it's a lot going on upstairs and it's tough on. It's tough to unwind. So long story short I wish I had found a better way, maybe to unwind either through exercise, meditation, yoga or something.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:24 But yeah, I didn't. So I the reason why I ask this is because I hear especially a lot lately, you either have a choice of having a really good career or being a really good spouse and a parent, and I wonder what your thoughts are on that.

Marc Karlin 00:55:38 I think I was able to do both. A lot of, you know, not always great, but I tried my best. But I think, that, you know, the example that I set for my kids, hopefully that they've that's like my dad said for me, you know, when I grew up, also, my mom was a nurse, and she worked quite a bit when I was in, junior high, high school and college because she, she was a nurse when she met my dad.

Marc Karlin 00:56:05 I think, you know, 15, 20 years of having kids. And then she she wanted to go back to work. So I grew up with working parents. So, I don't think I sacrificed one tremendously over the other. I really don't. And working with my dad gave me the benefit of setting. You know, had I worked at a big firm or with somebody else, maybe I would have had to sacrifice a lot on the family side. But here, like, no, you know, we're going to go, we're going to I'm going to take a vacation. We're going to go somewhere. I'm the I'm, I own I own my practice.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:37 Do you think you'd be a very good employer right now?

Marc Karlin 00:56:39 Oh, no. I'd be a horrible employer right now. Yeah, yeah. There's no way I'd be.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:42 I'd be terrible.

Marc Karlin 00:56:43 I'd be a horrible employee.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:44 Yeah. Oh, there's no way I can.

Marc Karlin 00:56:46 Am I too old? But I've run things for too long, you know, by myself.

Marc Karlin 00:56:51 And, you know, somebody telling me, you know, Mark, let's do it. We do it this way. Here. Yeah, that. I don't think that would go over too well with me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:58 I'm the same way. I'd be. I'd be ruined. Have you. So you've been doing this for 35 years. Has there been anything Similar to AI that is the that is been introduced into the legal field. That's anything even remotely close.

Marc Karlin 00:57:13 I mean, the internet and the way you could research things change dramatically even when, you know, when I was in law school and then, you know, versus lawyer and there were still books, but, you know, remember, Westlaw was really slow and things were really, really slow and hard. The the ease of getting information was maybe the internet revolution, but I have never been so excited and also worried about something as AI. Yeah. And even though I'm towards the tail end of my career, I'm obviously worried about my kids and I'm worried about, you know, the the people that work for me.

Marc Karlin 00:57:46 Now, if, if you know who who they work for in the future, it is a little scary. And it is scary how, you know, what's that thing on the Google notebook where you can navigate? So I was working on one of my P.I. cases for a mediation brief, and I put in my client's deposition and I put in and, you know, I'm listening to a 20 minute podcast on all the good things, bad things about this deposition. And it was creepy as can be. It was insightful, but it was listening to a podcast where unless you told me this is an AI generated podcast, if I was driving in my car, I would think it's just two people talking about this case I was working on.

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:23 I like using it to to prepare for mediations where like it gives me, it'll find things in medical records that I didn't notice like. Or it will interpret it in a way that's really beneficial. Then I'm like, oh. Or it'll say like the defense is going to really hammer on this thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:43 I'm like, oh, I never I didn't see it from that perspective. That's fascinating.

Marc Karlin 00:58:46 It is. I actually used it on the habeas, petition I filed because it said, well, you know, maybe there's this, but, you know, Mark's client has this going on. I'm like, you know what? Like the scarecrow from like, oh, well, you know, it. Light bulb went off. You know, that's a good point, that maybe I should overemphasize that. Really that I didn't really pick up on that. I mean, it was. It was in my habeas petition. Anyway, so I think that's exciting.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:09 Have you have you tried it where you can talk with it?

Marc Karlin 00:59:12 No, I haven't done it. You can talk.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:13 Back. You can talk and it'll, like, talk with you and stuff.

Marc Karlin 00:59:15 Haven't got. Maybe I'll try that one after I leave.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:17 That part's really interesting. Early on, I used ChatGPT the. Whenever the voice mode was first introduced to be like a hot bench for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, I thought I felt that that was really beneficial.

Marc Karlin 00:59:30 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:30 So there's that. It's way more advanced than what it was.

Marc Karlin 00:59:33 It's crazy. It's it's I can't even imagine like a year from now. Yeah. So yeah. No, the answer to the question is nothing as daunting as AI has come around. It's only been like improvements. Now we're talking about existential issues for the law. Maybe not. We'll always have a law of practice. People always needed a personal reaction. But how is it going to change it?

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:52 I mean, I've had my fears and I've talked about it on the show before, like I my prediction there's going to be a pretty big contraction. It's not going to replace the legal field, but you're going to see a pretty big contraction over the next five years or so. But like the.

Marc Karlin 01:00:06 Thing in all areas of law or just.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:08 I know, I think well, I think probably in all areas to a certain extent, but like the big ones are going to be like the ones that are like very transactional. Those are going to be the ones that are going to have a fence around them, are gonna be the litigation types, because you can't have AI in court.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:21 It's just not going to happen. Correct. So like that, that part's worried me and I, but it really didn't I wasn't super, super concerned until a few a few weeks ago. I started to see these massive layoffs happening in some of these law firms.

Marc Karlin 01:00:33 It was a big, big law firm, like like a thousand people.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:36 Yeah. And I'm like, oh, is wondering, is this the beginning of this? I don't know. I really don't know.

Marc Karlin 01:00:41 And will clients continue to pay, you know, hourly rates for younger associates to do all this work? That's how we learn.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:48 Right.

Marc Karlin 01:00:49 If, if they know like. Well, wait a minute. You know, no Google notebook can do all this, right? Well, why why am I paying anyway? So that's going to be interesting.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:57 Yeah. And there's You're you're that's even with those rates increasing for lawyers, which I found interesting. Yeah. And that that part's interesting. Do you think after nine over 11 that there was any, any similar comparisons where there was just the unknown?

Marc Karlin 01:01:12 You mean as far as, like the law?

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:13 Yeah, the law, because in the world in general, to me, that was whenever I was first starting college.

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:18 That's whenever that happened. So for me, it was kind of like, what's the world? How's it going to change?

Marc Karlin 01:01:23 911 obviously, the event was shocking. I was actually supposed to go to a court hearing that day when it happened, and I woke up to my, you know, old fashioned clock radio with news station, you know, that the World Trade Center. But now it was at day shocking. But if you remember, like the several months after anthrax and what's going on? I remember all.

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:41 This. Yes.

Marc Karlin 01:01:42 So that was everyone was on ease. No, not on the level of Covid level, because it still seemed a little far away. But like, what's going to happen? Right. You know, nothing compared to nothing compared in my practice to the disruption caused by obviously Covid was the top thing of.

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:58 That's to me felt like a pause. Button had been.

Marc Karlin 01:02:01 Looking.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:01 Back. Yeah.

Marc Karlin 01:02:02 The first year though was pretty tough.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:04 Yeah.

Marc Karlin 01:02:04 That's I mean I know it's it's and it's sometimes I have to think I go, did we really go through all.

Marc Karlin 01:02:09 Did we really do all this? You know, actually my son was living in New York. He he hadn't started law school. He came back to, you know, live with us, you know, in California. And we were all and my daughter was in was a graduating senior in high school, didn't have a graduation. We had we had her high school graduation at a drive in, literally drive in where, you know, we all put sat in our cars. Yeah. And it was it was crazy.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:31 Have you seen the movie night of the comet?

Marc Karlin 01:02:34 I have not.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:35 Okay. No one has ever seen this movie. I've heard about that we had when I was a kid growing up. We had this, this, this movie on VHS called night of the comet. I can't find it anywhere. I put it though. I think they have set in LA where this guy, apparently a comet hits the Earth, right? And then he comes outside and he's got. I remember he's got this big sliding door.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:58 It looked like that door, but it was a sliding door, right. Big massive door. And he comes out and there's no one around like no one around. And that's what Covid reminded me of. I remember going downtown Columbia whenever everything got shut down. Right. And because it was during a date night and Amy and I were like, we went and made some sandwiches and went and sat by the river and they were like, let's go drive downtown. Yeah. Nobody. Right? That was an eerie feeling.

Marc Karlin 01:03:20 Yeah. You know, I grew up in LA and L.A., infamous for its traffic. And I remember it was. My daughter was graduate. It was like we were doing something. They were going to put a big poster or a big sign in front of our house. Like, you know, Julia Karlin, graduate of Oakwood School. And we had to drive to a friend's house in Pasadena, which is probably 15 minutes away. Like on a Friday afternoon would take you an hour.

Marc Karlin 01:03:40 Yeah, I think we were back within like 40 minutes because we know we basically my wife and I drove over there. We met them outside, got the sign, drove back to our house. I think we were home in like 40 minutes. I'll never forget that on a Friday afternoon in LA. Incredible. Insane. Now it's back to. Of course. Yeah. Of course.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:57 That's the lack of traffic. Lasted for a little bit. That was kind of nice.

Marc Karlin 01:03:59 Did it last for a couple of years?

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:00 Yeah, it was kind of nice.

Marc Karlin 01:04:01 No. Not anymore. It's back to.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:03 Normal. Everyone's back and.

Marc Karlin 01:04:03 Forth. I think his remote work from home is has gone down a bit.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:07 Yeah. Are you all remote at all?

Marc Karlin 01:04:09 We, a lot of the staff works a day or two week remotely, and that's. That's fine. So I have to get the work done, and I'm. I'm the type of bosses. I don't really care about how you do it.

Marc Karlin 01:04:21 Just. I want I want to I want to have it done, and I want I want you to be responsive to the clients. Yeah. So if you're at home, that's fine. And, you know, with technology, everyone's together and I'm in. If I'm in Las Vegas, I mean, so it's I'm we're not we have an office, but several staff members do work remotely a day or two a week.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:40 Right. All right. Before we wrap things up, if people want to reach out to you, get in touch with you, ask your questions. Maybe it's about immigration. Maybe it's about running, maybe about succession. You never know. But what? What? How can they get in touch with you?

Marc Karlin 01:04:51 Well, it's Carlin and Carlin or Avogadro's. Carlin is our Spanish trade name. We're on Instagram. Facebook. email me directly. You can look up my email to state Baja California as my my direct email. Nice on there. So feel free to reach out. And it's Carlin with a K.

Marc Karlin 01:05:07 Who's he always tell everybody. Mark with a C. Carlin with a K.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:10 Love it. That's how I always remember it too, by the way.

Marc Karlin 01:05:13 Exactly right.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:13 Yeah. All right, so I'm asking this question because you've seen quite a bit. Right, right. You've been through quite a bit. Right. Right. And I wonder, what's your advice to new lawyers that want to start their firms. What what would you tell them if they were to start their firm today?

Marc Karlin 01:05:28 It'd be great to have a mentor if you could. Now, it's maybe not something easy, but definitely reach out again. Much like I should have done when my dad passed. Join some groups, be it the association. Something else. Have connections with people because it's just a little thing. Somebody will say, I'm sure of stuff that you and I have talked about, or Jim or Bryan or other people in the guild. You know, masterminds have connections. Make connections with people. And I'm not talking about just I'm not talking about.

Marc Karlin 01:05:56 For business. I'm talking about how do I do this? How do I operate this firm? You know, it can be business related. How do I market? Well, what things work. But, you know, make your circle as big as possible. That's my best advice.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:10 And I'd say I would just kind of add to that and, like, try to make it as deep as possible to, like, so not just surface surface level, but.

Marc Karlin 01:06:16 Yeah. No, no. Exactly. Not not. And don't think about what's in it for me. Think about what can this, you know, but this is really for support. If you, you know, if you have that goal of opening your own firm, think about, you know, your progress steps where you want to be in a year or two years, three years, five years, and then, you know, seek out others who've already done it. You don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:37 Mark, thanks for doing this.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:39 And I know you choked up a little bit. I appreciate you being vulnerable. I appreciate you flying out to do this.

Marc Karlin 01:06:43 I'll do anything for you.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:44 I really appreciate it.

Marc Karlin 01:06:45 Thank you. All right. Tyson, thanks.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:47 Thanks.