How AI Took Missed Calls from 23% to 1% (And Doubled Clients)

Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

AI is no longer a futuristic idea for law firms — it is already reshaping how firms capture revenue, manage staff capacity, and compete in the marketplace. In this conversation, Billie Tarascio shares how implementing AI tools such as automated intake and billing capture is directly increasing revenue while reducing missed opportunities. She explains how even small workflow improvements can significantly impact a firm’s bottom line.

The episode also explores the real challenge leaders face when adopting AI: managing change without overwhelming their team. Billie explains how thoughtful implementation, daily communication, and focusing on higher-value work helps teams adapt successfully. Rather than eliminating roles, AI is shifting expectations toward stronger judgment, better client relationships, and more strategic thinking.

Beyond AI, the conversation touches on innovative hiring strategies such as legal clinics that help firms develop talent early, as well as data-driven decisions about expansion and office locations. She shares how investing in systems, people, and technology today positions firms to grow faster and smarter in the future.

0:02 AI is transforming legal tech faster than expected
0:42 Using AI across the firm to improve efficiency and profit
1:12 AI intake ROI and increased revenue opportunities
2:14 AI billing tools that capture missed billable time
3:43 Leading teams through rapid change and AI adoption
5:28 Which legal roles are most impacted by AI evolution
6:31 Hiring strategies and developing future lawyers
7:30 Creating a legal clinic to build talent pipelines
14:11 AI voice systems improving lead capture and conversion
16:10 Missed call rate drops from 23% to 1% with AI
26:37 Expanding law firm locations using data insights

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


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Host

Tyson Mutrux

Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

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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.

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Tyson Mutrux 00:00:02 Kelsey Bradshaw, and he sends me this text. and I won't use the exact language he used. he says you effing around with AI coding on all your stuff yet? it's wild. Sass is dead. Which I think is interesting. And you, you and I are both really into AI. We love AI. What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2 00:00:39 Well, I.

Billie Tarascio 00:00:42 We're using it pretty aggressively everywhere we can. I'm worried I might be breaking my people with, maybe too much all at once, but they're fine. I think it's fine. it's making a huge impact right now in our bottom line, and I think there are opportunities to invest in more and more tools. And I think it's the tools that can eliminate busy work or make you more money.

Billie Tarascio 00:01:12 So, for instance, the two that I'm most excited about, I've already been talking about AI intake and did an analysis from January of last year to January of this year. And the ROI is massive. Just massive because if you can increase sales, you will you will make more money. Like it's a no brainer. The other one that I'm excited to implement is AI billing time capture.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:36 All right. So that does that mean you have not done that part yet.

Billie Tarascio 00:01:38 I have not.

Tyson Mutrux 00:01:39 Okay. Tell me about what's the plan.

Billie Tarascio 00:01:41 Well, there's a software that I've heard about for about a year and a half, a group of lawyers that I meet with, several of them use it. They have talked highly of it. Its name is Ajax. I'm sure there's others, but I know Ajax from others who've used them. And I did a demo and it's just pretty great. You can put in your billing guidelines how you want your bills to look, what you want to capture, what it doesn't, and then it screen records and pops up for you suggested time entries.

Billie Tarascio 00:02:14 And it integrates with Cleo. So it finds the client, it suggests the client. And so if we can capture 20% of lost time, which easily happens in my firm, it's 20% revenue.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:28 Yeah that's massive.

Billie Tarascio 00:02:29 So small tools I think can make huge impacts.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:34 Does it do something like let's say that I'm just going to make up a scenario, let's say your law firm, your lawyer, you're working on an answer to a to the divorce procedure, the lawsuit. What do you do. You call a petition or a complaint. What do you call it?

Billie Tarascio 00:02:47 It's a petition to start.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:48 So we call a petition in what in Missouri as well. So you're you're you're drafting an answer. Does it read the computer the like the and say like, okay, this is what this person was doing, this is how long it took. And then automatically, automatically add that to the bill. Does it do anything like that?

Billie Tarascio 00:03:03 Sort of it reads what you're doing, matches it to the client, and pulls up a suggested time entry with the time that you spent based on its time tracker.

Billie Tarascio 00:03:12 And you can adjust the time and you can adjust the entry. And then you click a button and it pushes to Clio.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:17 That's incredible.

Billie Tarascio 00:03:18 I don't know why I haven't done this yet. Honestly.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:20 That is really, really incredible.

Billie Tarascio 00:03:22 I know, and it's using AI so you can tell it do this different. I don't like the way you wrote this. Use different language.

Tyson Mutrux 00:03:30 Yeah. All right. You said something at the beginning that really caught my attention. You said you're worried about breaking your people. Yeah. What do you mean? I'm curious what you mean by that.

Billie Tarascio 00:03:43 So our team is probably 50 people now, and everybody has their own capacity for change. And one of our biggest jobs as a leader is change management. And I have historically not been great at understanding how much time, attention, reminders, instructions, directions people need in order to feel comfortable. And I've had people quit before who were like, you change things too much, too fast. I don't want to do that.

Billie Tarascio 00:04:23 I want to be sensitive to their needs. I also want adoption. I'm not going to get adoption or buy in unless I am intentional enough not to push too much too fast.

Tyson Mutrux 00:04:34 Okay, so with the adoption and then maybe some things to avoid, what are some things, some tips you have for lawyers when it comes to AI adoption and then some things they should avoid?

Billie Tarascio 00:04:44 I think it depends on what you're doing. So we've gone through several transformations. The first was our intake team got completely revamped with AI intake. And that's a small team, you know, compared to the 50, that's a group of five people. But I needed to meet with them every day, every day to get feedback, to make tweaks, to reassure them that their job wasn't going anywhere and their job hasn't gone anywhere, and their job has gotten easier and better. And, I did need higher quality people, which I think we talked about before. And I think that that's going to continue, like the people who are not interested in doing the higher value work, you're not going to have a use for them because AI can do that job.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:28 Okay. Let me I'm not going to push back. I just I am I am Chad Burton and I were just talking and we were talking about how the firm, the people that are at most risk are probably the non-lawyers, like the legal assistance and all that, which is a little bit contradictory to what you just said. Sure. So what are your thoughts? I mean, do you agree with that or I wonder what you think?

Billie Tarascio 00:05:51 Well, yes, I agree with it. But also let's just take intake for an example. I still need intake people. I just need better salespeople. Yeah, I need people with better judgment. They're still valuable. So I bet the lowest level lawyers who who are not exceptional, I bet they get replaced. Yeah. And I bet the low level paralegals gone. But those high level paralegals that really invest in the client relationship, that take their skills to the next level, that use AI to make themselves better, I don't think they're going anywhere.

Tyson Mutrux 00:06:31 So in some of our previous conversations, you had, you talked about a little bit about the struggle with hiring specifically lawyers, and I wonder if that's still an issue.

Billie Tarascio 00:06:43 It has gotten a lot easier, but that has been a years investment. So we have to really start thinking about how we were marketing to lawyers. And we have a legal clinic that starts marketing to law students. We really try to make our lawyers absolute rockstars and brag about them and put them online and show them visibly. Like, I think it's like the whole thing. If you want to attract great lawyers, you have to level up your own lawyering and then make it a place they want to work. So currently we are attracting lawyers. It's just great.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:25 Bragging about the legal clinic. That's really interesting. I don't think I knew about the legal clinic. That's really cool. Talk about that.

Billie Tarascio 00:07:30 It is cool. I stole it from another lawyer with, I mean, cooperatively. Oh, sure. You know, but Brian King, I don't know if you know him. He he has a firm with 60 lawyers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and they have a model where they expand into rural areas, and they're kind of like the dollar store of law firms a little bit interesting.

Billie Tarascio 00:07:55 I don't think I came up with that somebody. So they're like Main Street lawyers in in small towns. It's very cool, very cool concept, but getting lawyers impossible. So they started a intern program, and they recruit heavily for law students who might be from these small town areas so that they can raise up their lawyers. So our version is a little different here in Arizona, you're allowed to have law students become rule 39 certified even if they're working for private companies. So usually that's only for government or nonprofit. But we can do it. So I can get rule 39 certified law students. And then we have a legal clinic where we offer lower cost services to the public under the supervision of a legal clinic director. And the goal is really to get lawyers who become great lawyers for the firm.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:46 Any affiliations with local law schools?

Speaker 2 00:08:48 No.

Billie Tarascio 00:08:49 But there's only two law schools here in Arizona U of A and ASU. And ASU does not have a legal clinic for family law. So in Phoenix there is no student legal clinic for family law.

Billie Tarascio 00:09:03 So we definitely have a real advantage by creating that program for those students at ASU who want to practice family law and want to be local.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:13 Is there any special certification that the firm needs to do this?

Billie Tarascio 00:09:16 No. the student and their supervisor have to fill out affidavits and forms.

Tyson Mutrux 00:09:24 Okay. Is that. That's also because I know that this will probably work in other states. I don't I don't know if it would work in Missouri only because I think it does have to be through one of the law schools. I might be completely wrong about that. That's something I'm going to look into after this, because this is an interesting idea. Who funds it? Is it the law firm or is it? Is it set up as like A501? See? Whatever. C3.

Billie Tarascio 00:09:45 Oh, no, it's the law firm. So these are just these are just hired law students who are allowed to work directly with clients. Everything they do is still supervise. So even if we didn't have the rule 39 certification, and we have had the legal clinic at times where we don't have rule 39 certified law students, it doesn't matter.

Billie Tarascio 00:10:02 You can still offer their services to the public. You can give them an opportunity to engage with the public. You just have to spend money on the supervision. So that's what I found is like, I really if you want to grow, you have to invest in management and supervision.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:18 You know, this makes me think of like a marketing idea that you could do with like, like a P.I. firm where you've got law students that want to work. You can call it a clinic. And you, they want to work in the P.I. space. And you say, all right, we'll bring it on, we'll pay you, and then you can lower it. You actually charge a lower percentage contingency for for higher risk cases, right. Listen, we're going to take on your case, but just know you're going to be working directly with the law student under our supervision. I think that that could. I actually think that would really work. Yeah. And you're developing, right? The talent. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:52 Hopefully they will come and work for you.

Billie Tarascio 00:10:53 Right. And it's much cheaper to figure out if the law student is going to be a great fit than it is to hire a lawyer.

Tyson Mutrux 00:11:01 Yeah. And they're working on the most difficult cases, too. So they're not working on the cookie cutter ones that are easy. They're working on the tougher ones that are hard to prove. Interesting. I really like this. This is fantastic. I, I really because I know Adam Rawson, he's got his down in Orlando. I think it's Orlando. It's either Orlando in Miami if he's down in Florida and his is more of like a structured seems like a structured like intern program. I like yours and Adam kill me. You can shoot me a message if I'm wrong about this. Shoot me a text and tell me if I'm wrong. But, because this is, like, more like educational base. basis. Seems like yours is more clinic based, which is I think is really cool.

Billie Tarascio 00:11:40 I think it's really cool.

Billie Tarascio 00:11:41 I think it's cool to offer to the public. I'll tell you, the downside is it's difficult to brand yourself as experts and high level and the most professional and and also the law firm that's accessible to everyone. So that's the that's the branding struggle.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:00 Talk more about that. Why is it such a struggle.

Billie Tarascio 00:12:03 Well your best cases are the highest value cases. I don't care what area of law you're in, what city you're in. That's the bottom line. The bigger the case the more valuable. So you want to attract those types of cases. You're not attracting those types of cases by, touting your legal clinic.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:29 Then why wouldn't you just create like, a separate entity for it?

Billie Tarascio 00:12:35 That has been proposed. I mean, and it might be the way to go. Other marketing companies have said have a separate brand. we just haven't done it yet. I almost think about each lawyer, though, as their own separate brand. So I don't know. I don't know if you can be all things to all people, but we're trying.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:56 Yeah. And I don't necessarily think that, it's true. I think the public perception might be different than what you think it is. Because if I think of and I'm a lawyer, I think of like, okay, if they're doing well enough where they can, they can actually fund this separate clinic. That is that means that they're doing really well. That means they're doing really, really good things. And I think you could make it part of your marketing that you could even say a portion of each one of each case is going to fund this clinic where, like the branding, it does fit in it. Like if you're like, think about this like you are, if you have the money, you're usually the ones that are able to donate to charities and that kind of stuff. But poor people generally are not, you know, donating to charities. Law firms like you are you're you're creating this special service for people that have, you know, don't have the needs to pay for for an attorney.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:49 So I actually think that might work out really well with the branding.

Billie Tarascio 00:13:51 I like that a lot. I do think there's nuance and messaging matters, so it's worth thinking about.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:57 Yeah. All right. Since last time we talked, we talked a little bit about the, the AI conversion with, like the phone service and all that kind of stuff. You probably have more data now since we talked less. So what's going on with that?

Billie Tarascio 00:14:11 So. I use Lexi desk, which I stumbled upon and found in September and was like, yeah, let's turn it on. Not a lot of thought. I was like, this is bom. and then I went to Clio Conn at the end of October and and, their announcements convinced me that I needed to get all of my stuff into Clio and work. I was fragmented, like, get get my documents in, get all the communications in, go here because they're building in AI. And so if we want AI to start, doing work on behalf of our cases, all of the context for those cases must be in the same place.

Billie Tarascio 00:14:55 Okay. So I kind of broke my system, sure. And said we have to get everything into Clio. That includes Clio grow, and that means my data for my intake got broken there. So just this last weekend, a friend of mine was like, you know, we're looking at using Lexi desk. They have a big firm. They're like, listen, if if our intake performance goes down by 1%, we're going to lose $50,000 a month. So tell me that this works. Show me that this works. And I'm like, whoa. Okay, so, Claude and I a big fan of Claude. Have you moved to Claude yet?

Tyson Mutrux 00:15:31 I have been using Claude way more than what I used to. Right. Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:15:35 Okay, so, Claude plus that legal plug in. We should talk about that too. But I was working with Claude to say, like, how do we figure out this ROI. so I exported all the data from zoom phone systems from Clio Manage, which has all of our new client data, from the contact form versus the chat, and was able to get a beautiful report showing what what the impact is.

Billie Tarascio 00:16:04 The first of all, our missed call rate went from 23% to 1%.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:09 Wow.

Billie Tarascio 00:16:10 Yeah. So immediately we're capturing more leads because nobody hangs up. Nobody hangs up. Everybody who calls gets their information captured. So that's a huge, huge factor. The other huge factor is that the number of self scheduled appointments has gone through the roof, because the system does follow up and tells you to book an appointment and pitches specific lawyers. So hey, based on your case, based on your case, this is going to be the best lawyer for you. And here's why. Here's a link to book. And then if they don't. It just keeps following up. So our self scheduled appointments have gone from 30 on average because we offered that before to 90. And so the number of clients that I am getting has doubled doubled. It is now 69 last month and it was 24 last January. So like that's that's the amount. And then not all of that is Lexie desk. It's also hiring. It's also marketing.

Billie Tarascio 00:17:10 But Lexie Desk is without a doubt or some type of voice sale system. You have to do it. If you're if you're not doing it right now, you are leaving money on the table.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:20 This seems to me like the, if you go back ten years ago, maybe a little longer than that 12 years ago. The chat on the website. This seems like the current version of that.

Billie Tarascio 00:17:31 Yeah. Like you have to do it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:33 Yeah. Interesting. And I'm guessing the price wise. I mean, is it. Is it cheap? Is expensive. Like, how would you. And the reason why I'm asking this question. Yeah. Because to me it doesn't. It doesn't matter if it's expensive because you doubled. But there's gonna be people say, well, if it's super expensive, I don't want to do it. I am wondering, like, where does it fall? Like on the price range? Is it super expensive? Is it cheap?

Billie Tarascio 00:17:56 They're trying to figure that out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:58 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:17:58 Because the real question is not if it's worth it. It is undeniably worth it. They could charge a lot more, but is it than cheaper to build?

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:09 Oh. So okay, so this is this goes back to the text I got right where like I don't we talked a little bit about this before. And I don't want to talk too much about it because we've talked about it in the past. And I talked about Chad too, about like legal tech and how they're in trouble. Yeah, but how much of this are you going and trying to build yourself?

Billie Tarascio 00:18:26 Right. so the value is not. You can go turn on voice AI through call rail or zoom.

Tyson Mutrux 00:18:38 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:18:39 The value is in all of the add ons, the text follow ups, the integrations with your practice management software, the plugging it into your intake workflow. So then you you have to look at am I willing to hire a developer? Do I want to maintain that developer for ongoing changes? Do I want to build out all the integrations myself? So it's kind of a difficult.

Billie Tarascio 00:19:03 I think it's too early to determine whether or not people will decide and at what price point people will decide. It's cheaper for me to, to build it. At this point, it is inexpensive. Like most law firms are paying about $1,000 a month. and you're making a lot of money.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:24 How are you dealing with the waves of changes in AI right now?

Billie Tarascio 00:19:30 I don't know that I'm doing that. Well, I think we are. So we signed up for ChatGPT teams maybe a year ago. and I think I'm going to get rid of it because Gemini is built into our Google Workspace.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:49 There's no need for it.

Billie Tarascio 00:19:50 And a year ago, I don't think Gemini was where ChatGPT teams was, but now it is. So I think I need to get rid of ChatGPT teams.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:59 I think Gemini might be ahead of ChatGPT at this point. ChatGPT I was this may be TMI for people listening, but I was in the shower just this morning thinking is ChatGPT are they on there? They're not going to be on their way out, but like they're sliding.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:16 It seems very unless. Because you've had massive announcement. The big last big announcements have been from Gemini and from claw or not claw anthropic and not necessarily from like perplexity and and ChatGPT. Both seem to slid a little bit. Right. And the last big update from ChatGPT was kind of a flop. So it makes me kind of wonder about that.

Billie Tarascio 00:20:41 Yeah, I'm using it a lot less. And, you know, everybody is starting to sound like ChatGPT, which is that can't happen. So you have to stop using it for that reason alone.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:51 Absolutely. Do you ever use perplexity?

Billie Tarascio 00:20:54 No, I have not.

Tyson Mutrux 00:20:54 So I've got the paid version like the max. It's. I think it's Max Pro or whatever they call it. I think it's it's like perplexity pro perplexity. Max pro, you know, it's kind of like iPhones and how they do things. I think people sleep on perplexity a little too much. It is, it does. It's got these advanced capabilities. Where it goes, it goes like give up.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:15 Give me a give me a prompt that you might put into to Claude. Like something that is like anything. Like, what would you do?

Billie Tarascio 00:21:24 well, it depends on the problem I'm working on, but, like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:26 Let's see. You can go. You want to find a good restaurant? Oh. What would you put in there?

Billie Tarascio 00:21:30 I am looking for a restaurant. I live in this area. This is the type of food I like. Find me the best.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:35 Okay. And what? Like, what kind of result would Claude give you?

Billie Tarascio 00:21:39 A list of options.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:40 Okay. Perplexity. What's kind of cool about that? I was hoping you were going to say that. Yeah, because I'm not used Claude for that. But perplexity will go like and actually give you the list of options. But it'll go like a step further. Like, here are pictures of food items. Here's here's specific reviews from like it goes a step further in what it does. And that's what's kind of interesting to me.

Tyson Mutrux 00:21:59 I think the problem is that maybe perplexity uses the other models, and that's why calendar people sleep on it. I think that that's and I may be wrong about the answer to that question, but, but I do I do think Claude is in the lead at this point.

Billie Tarascio 00:22:12 So Claude has blown my mind. So. And I've been comparing it to Clio work. So Clio work is an AI legal research tool, and I really like it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:26 That's one where they bought it was the big acquisition last year.

Billie Tarascio 00:22:29 They bought that case and which had already merged with Velux. And so you've got a closed database of actual legal documents and treatises which we need. so I had to do an oral argument, and I got the case law and the output from Clio work. And then I bought Claude and turned on their legal AI plugin, which, like, crashed the stock market. You know, like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:58 All of these.

Billie Tarascio 00:22:59 All of these values of legal tech went way down when Claude brought out this legal plugin.

Billie Tarascio 00:23:04 So, it was better than Clio work.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:09 Really?

Billie Tarascio 00:23:09 Yes. Way better. Way better. Now it doesn't have the database, but it it did tell me. I can verify these cases. I can't verify these cases. You need to look elsewhere for these cases. Its reasoning was better. It's an easier interface. It's better to interact with. The output is really good.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:32 All right. So we will go and we will have every case checked manually just because we're so paranoid. And you should. Is Claude good enough to just upload the pleading and have it double check the pleading, the actual the source, the citations?

Billie Tarascio 00:23:50 No, because it doesn't have a database. Okay. So it is looking for, you know, Justicia and other like public sources to say, can I verify this exists?

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:00 Right.

Billie Tarascio 00:24:00 But it flagged for me. I can't verify these cases. And they were unpublished memorandum decisions. So they were real decisions. But, It can't replace Westlaw or Nexus Lexis, but I think if I just get the information and then move.

Billie Tarascio 00:24:21 That's the better way to go.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:22 I have a dumb question. Maybe why can't they just replicate the database? It doesn't seem like it would be that hard to replicate the database.

Billie Tarascio 00:24:28 There's all these lawsuits about that. And somehow companies like, I mean, Fast case, just one one where somebody had used their model, they had a license and they used their model to train using that data. And it was it was copyright infringement. Yeah. Because they had purchased the materials.

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:47 So and this is something I just don't know about how this works. Do these companies like Westlaw, Lexis and Fast Case, they go to the states and buy the cases from them?

Billie Tarascio 00:24:57 I don't know, I don't know why they have a monopoly on the law that is public, I don't know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:02 Yeah, because that doesn't make any sense to me. Like it's these are published opinions. A lot of times you can just get them online, like you can go and pull them from the actual I mean, the, the online court databases that you can lot like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:15 State of Missouri. A lot of the Supreme Court decisions are published like via PDF. So like why couldn't they just pull from that? That doesn't make any sense to me.

Billie Tarascio 00:25:22 I think it's only a matter of time. Right. And probably like a year.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:25 Yeah. Because like there there's got to be a way. I'm sure that they're already probably trying to do this. Maybe going backwards. The database is a harder, harder to get. But going forward they probably just have. AI is just scraping things and just putting it into a database right now. Right.

Billie Tarascio 00:25:40 And the Claude plugin was real good. Was it, you know, can I count on it the same way as the legal research tools? No, but it was really good.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:51 Yeah. The we've already seen this with these, these legal tech companies, the, the, the research ones like Westlaw and Lexis, they will buy a product and then kill it. They will. They did that with what was that case text. They did it with case text.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:06 They had that awesome AI that helped you. It was like one of the early ones and then they bought it and killed it. They will. They'll eat their own.

Billie Tarascio 00:26:13 They're the worst.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:15 They really are. They, They're. Listen, we have to be very careful because they might come after us. They might try.

Billie Tarascio 00:26:21 Like, this is just our opinion.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:22 There's, like, the legal mafia is what they are. All right, so what are you working on right now that you're, like, really excited about non AI related? I'll push you outside of AI world. Like let's say you're working on whether it's the firm or modern law or whatever.

Billie Tarascio 00:26:37 Yeah. So well, we started buying buildings and, remodeling them and opening locations and that's happened.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:47 Is that related to the law firm at all?

Billie Tarascio 00:26:49 Well, they're not in law buildings. So.

Tyson Mutrux 00:26:52 Okay, how does this fit into your strategy? This is very interesting.

Billie Tarascio 00:26:55 Well, locations matter. even though we are mostly remote, locations matter.

Billie Tarascio 00:27:01 I'm. I'm gonna pay rent anyway. The tax code is written in a way that buying is almost free.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:11 Sure.

Billie Tarascio 00:27:12 So, you know, if you put 10 or 20% down, you get enough deduction from bonus depreciation to wipe out that payment. You're either going to pay the money down on a building or to the IRS.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:28 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:27:28 So I've been doing that every year for the last three years and it seems to be working.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:35 All right. So give me advice on this. I'm very interested and I would love to be able to I will. I'm sure my landlord doesn't listen to this, but, I would love to buy the building that we are in for the Columbia office. I don't know if it'll ever come available. It's owned by a couple a couple doctors and a couple of lawyers. But I'd love to buy it. And if not, I mean, it's I think it's it's not going to go on the market. It's a nicer building, all that kind of stuff. So are you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:58 Give me some advice. Are you looking for nicer buildings or are you looking for buildings that are aren't as nice and you fix him up. Like, what is like, what's the strategy here?

Billie Tarascio 00:28:07 We are. Mostly in office parks and condos, so office condos and have to remodel every one of them. But we have this contracting firm that we're working with, and they know, you know, we're using all the same materials. We're just rinse and repeating. Nice. The remodel.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:22 Like McDonald's or change.

Billie Tarascio 00:28:24 A little.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:24 Bit.

Billie Tarascio 00:28:25 And, we've done three in the last year and I have a, I have one in Scottsdale, but it's too small. So we might buy a different one. And we're looking at that now. So the location game is an interesting one. You have to be able. Another thing that I have done is a lot of data analysis on where which counties have the most money in the fewest lawyers.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:53 Okay.

Billie Tarascio 00:28:54 Because that's a real thing here in Arizona. I don't know if that's a thing where.

Tyson Mutrux 00:28:58 You're it's in Missouri. Yeah, it's a it's a I think it's probably a problem in every room.

Billie Tarascio 00:29:01 It's probably a problem everywhere. And that's an opportunity, especially post-Covid, when most things are done online. So, we're expanding geographically based on that data. And part of the analysis has to be do we get a building or not? Do we get a physical location or not?

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:22 How do you make that decision?

Billie Tarascio 00:29:24 How many clients are we getting from that area? And do I have lawyers who live there? If I don't have lawyers who live there? It doesn't really make sense to get like for instance, Yuma. Really? We have a lot of work in Yuma. We don't have a lawyer in Yuma. I haven't found a lawyer in Yuma. We have a lot of calls from Yuma. We have a Google My business and a virtual space. So I think I've proven Yuma as a concept. And if the right like factors came together, I would buy a building there.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:54 Okay, so here's an interesting problem.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:56 How far is Yuma from, like, the biggest city center. Like, what's the biggest city it's closest to?

Billie Tarascio 00:30:02 It's it's right. It's between here and, San Diego. So I think it's okay. Three hours.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:10 Okay, so it's a ways away.

Billie Tarascio 00:30:12 Three hours to San Diego and maybe two hours from Tucson.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:15 Okay. So that's okay. Here's what's interesting about that. And I'm glad that it's where it is because Missouri has got a problem. Not it's not a problem, but where you'll see the areas around the city centers. So that's Kansas City, that's Columbia, that's Saint Louis and that's Springfield. Those areas, those counties around there, they want to hire the big city lawyer. Okay. and even in Columbia when I hire the Saint Louis lawyer. Right. So it's that's an issue. So for marketing, like, we want to make sure we're marketing the right way to attract those people. But if you go up north, there's no major cities in northern Missouri at all. Like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:49 And so they're hiring the local lawyers. So I wonder if you've done any research on how far out you have to go to have to be able to put an office before they'll start to hire you.

Billie Tarascio 00:31:01 Well, I think it's a cheap. And I think you should set up as many locations on Google my business using, co-working spaces as you possibly can.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:13 Even is. Are you worried at all with, like, the Google juice being stolen because you've got multiple law firms in one office? It used to be a problem. I don't know if it's an issue anymore.

Billie Tarascio 00:31:24 I don't want to be in a co-working space with another family law attorney.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:30 Gotcha. Okay.

Billie Tarascio 00:31:31 But that hasn't been a problem so far because most people are not doing this. Most people are not expanding everywhere they possibly can, and setting up as many Google my business as they possibly can, but each one of those is free clients. Every month Google is going to send you clients.

Tyson Mutrux 00:31:45 Right?

Billie Tarascio 00:31:46 Based on your Google My business. So you should probably have as many as you possibly can.

Billie Tarascio 00:31:49 Sure. And then you have to manage that and you have to manage reviews. But once you're getting a certain number of clients, they'll tell you whether or not they're willing to hire you. You know, so they're going to call you, let's say let's say, I've got to Google my business up in Flagstaff, which is, you know, Coconino County and two hours north, and they have lawyers up there. So are they willing to hire lawyers that don't live there? The only way to find out is take the consultation and see if they want to pay for it, and see if they want to hire.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:12 Well, the thing about Yuma, it's like it's if you compare it to like, the Missouri fault, the Missouri problem, you got Yuma not you said you don't need anybody in Yuma. Is that right?

Billie Tarascio 00:32:21 I think I do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:22 You think you.

Billie Tarascio 00:32:23 Do? Right before I buy a building.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:25 Yeah. Well, like, are you getting clients from you? Yes. Okay. I wonder why they're they're so far away from any city center.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:34 Makes me wonder why they're calling you all.

Billie Tarascio 00:32:36 They don't have lawyers there. There's no lawyers.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:39 Is there a database to track? Yes. How do you know? I mean, how? Like so. Like I'm like. You want to do this for yourself? Yes, I do, I definitely do.

Billie Tarascio 00:32:47 So the ABA put out a legal desert report, I think 2021. Maybe. Interesting. Yeah, the date is not going to be that old. It gives you a lawyer per county, okay. And then you can do the cross research and figure out population and income per.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:07 Zip code and do this a lot easier. Exactly.

Billie Tarascio 00:33:09 Yeah, exactly. And you can figure out who's not served.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:13 And then you can run you can serve a series of like tailored Google ads. Right. right. Specifically I mean you could, you could do some Facebook stuff too, but it's I'm not having as much luck with Facebook as, as some people are. But that's an interesting idea. And I do I noticed that some P.I. firms are doing this.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:31 But what about LSA? I mean, LSA will work in those areas too.

Billie Tarascio 00:33:35 Yeah they will. And there are going to be a lot more effective than competing for LSA in the in the main areas.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:41 You know, I don't know the answer to this. Does do Lsat do you get priority if you have an office in that area?

Billie Tarascio 00:33:48 I don't know.

Tyson Mutrux 00:33:48 I bet you do. Because I know that there are, We'll run the ads in certain areas, and we don't have an office there, but it seems like it's like us just rotating with other Saint Saint Louis firms. But I bet if we had a local office there, we would take precedent. This is, this is this is smart. Really? Really. That's really cool. That's really any no knows like anything we should know. I should know about that. I shouldn't be doing with it.

Billie Tarascio 00:34:16 I think each one needs attention. So you need to have a strategy for maintaining your Google My businesses. How do you make sure you're getting reviews? You have to do that.

Billie Tarascio 00:34:28 And it's not easy, you know. And if you have ten Google my businesses, which I think we do, making sure that each one of those is getting enough reviews and posts and, you know, products and.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:42 You have like at least like I say, probably 30 thing that's like that, like the bare minimum, probably ten or something like that. But you could have something, but.

Billie Tarascio 00:34:49 You have to get them on an ongoing basis, like every month. You need to be getting some if you want, you know, to be the best. And if you want Google, if you don't want to fall behind others.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:00 Right. I have noticed I because we keep track of other law firms. I have noticed that it seems to be like all firms have not put as much effort into it the reviews as much as they agreed to.

Billie Tarascio 00:35:11 I agree.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:11 It's like I've all kind of stagnated.

Billie Tarascio 00:35:13 I agree, and I think it's because it's hard. It's really hard.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:17 People have stopped giving reviews as much.

Billie Tarascio 00:35:19 Yeah, because they're asked too often, too much from everyone. And there's NPS fatigue. That's real.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:27 Yeah. And we we're guilty of that. It's one of those things where we do we do all that. And yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:35:32 Because you need the data.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:33 We need the data. We gotta know. I don't know if something's going on with the client. Right. And and so we can address the issue.

Billie Tarascio 00:35:39 Yeah. It's this is taking some creativity. So I'm I'm thinking about like, how do I redo my system, how do I and I think I got to too involved gifting. And if AI could help me do gifting, that's a lot more personal and strategic and automated than I know I can get more reviews.

Tyson Mutrux 00:35:56 Sure. The gifting. Have you tried that yet?

Billie Tarascio 00:35:59 Yeah, and it works.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:00 Okay, tell me more like what's what's something.

Billie Tarascio 00:36:02 Like if you ask a client to give you a review, it's a good idea to send them a gift.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:09 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:36:11 Not like tit for tat.

Billie Tarascio 00:36:13 Sure, but sort of.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:14 After the fact. You're not saying I'll give you this gift for.

Billie Tarascio 00:36:17 Before they might actually write it, because you ask, and then they may not get around to writing it, and then they get a gift saying, okay, I loved working with you so much.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:25 It's interesting.

Billie Tarascio 00:36:25 And then when you remind them that they were going to give you a review, they're a lot more likely to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:29 Are these personalised gifts?

Billie Tarascio 00:36:30 I think they should be okay.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:31 How do you make them like you're using AI to make them personal?

Billie Tarascio 00:36:34 No, I'm just trying. That's just something that I'm working on. I haven't I haven't figured it out, I bet.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:39 Well, I guess the problem would be, well, you know, you could do this because you can get with your. You ever use Atlas the browser atlas. Okay. You can log in to all your stuff, and then you can even give it access to your log logged in websites. You could give it access to that and say go and find these people and go research.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:57 My bet.

Billie Tarascio 00:36:57 Yeah. Well, I, I, I mean, one of the best parts about using Cleo is all the integrations they have gifting companies that integrate. And some of those gifting companies are saying we're now using AI. And so if they can read what's going on with my client and maybe suggest for me some good gifts so that I can just press a button now, I think I can win the review game.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:18 What is the date that major gifting company went out of business? I can't remember the name of it. Sen. Sen. Or I remember what it's called, but we're like, what are the good gifting companies now? There's like given Lea I think is one of them.

Billie Tarascio 00:37:29 You know, I was just I was just researching last night because this has just kind of been on my mind recently. but there are a few. I don't know what their names are.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:36 Yeah, but, like, do they all I always wonder, do they actually integrate with other things? That's the other problem because that was the one that, I wish I could remember the name of it, because integrated with Infusionsoft back in the day, that's like early on stuff.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:47 Or like you would buy things and then.

Billie Tarascio 00:37:49 Send out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:50 Cards. Send out cards. That's what it was. They had Gibson's.

Billie Tarascio 00:37:52 Old school Infusionsoft.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:54 As well. Yeah. But it was a it was really it was awesome.

Billie Tarascio 00:37:57 Yeah. It was.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:58 Like brownies. It would send like, yes, name the gift. Right. It would send it, although it wasn't super customized. It wasn't. You couldn't be like Sally Jo likes, you know, sewing. So send her a sewing kit. You couldn't do anything like that. But you could. You could pick your select things and it would send those things. Surely there's other products that do this. Yeah. Like we send out we still send cards through handwritten. What and those are automated. So like they're like you know thank you cards or whatever. Nice. Have you, have you seen those? They're like they're written with a computer. It's an actual.

Billie Tarascio 00:38:31 Pen.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:32 Yeah, it's kind of cool.

Billie Tarascio 00:38:32 Oh, that is cool.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:33 Yeah. It looks it looks real. Yeah, it's real ish. I don't know if.

Billie Tarascio 00:38:36 I like.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:37 That, but I got I get one every year because we have. I get our firm stuff. So like, I get, like I get a text message for my birthday, got a, you know, got a card in the mail, you.

Billie Tarascio 00:38:46 Know, did you like it or you like it? This is.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:48 Good. I was like, oh, this is cool. Yeah. Nice. That was kind of fun. Yeah. That feel good.

Billie Tarascio 00:38:52 Yeah, I like that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:38:52 Yeah. So what else are you working on? I'm very excited about, like, because you seem like you have a lot of things going on. You and I are very similar in that we run multiple companies. And so it's, it can be kind of difficult at times. So how do you how do you manage your time?

Billie Tarascio 00:39:13 Well, currently we're in a busy season. You know, where everybody is kind of got a level up.

Billie Tarascio 00:39:21 I need more managers. I need more oversight. Like, the tech changes have sort of necessitated looking at the whole system and look at the structure. And so, I kind of, I think and I am a little bit in the weeds on every department, okay. Because in my firm, I may have screwed this up. I don't know how you you know, I don't know if there's a better way to develop leaders within your firm. I have been able to develop managers who can maintain, who can follow the playbook. Sure. But I have not been able to develop people who can go into a department and blow it up and make it better.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:08 Interesting.

Billie Tarascio 00:40:09 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:10 How often do they have to come back to you to get to, to get, you know, their questions answered?

Billie Tarascio 00:40:15 Well, it depends on if we're maintaining a system or building a system. And if we're building a system, I have to be involved.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:23 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:40:23 And I wish that that wasn't the case, but I don't know a way around it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:29 Okay. Interesting. What if, like, what if you're maintaining the system.

Billie Tarascio 00:40:32 Then they can.

Tyson Mutrux 00:40:33 Do it. And what does that mean? Tell me. Explain what it means between building and maintaining the system.

Billie Tarascio 00:40:40 so if we're changing softwares, we're blowing up the system and building a new one. And we have to decide the workflow. And it doesn't necessarily make sense to take the old workflow and just continue it. It makes sense to take a look at the old workflow and challenge it and say, can this be done better? That's not something that I've been able to find anybody else's willing to do.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:05 It is hard to find people that are especially the tech space that know your practice area and then can actually go and implement the tech. That is really difficult.

Billie Tarascio 00:41:16 So developers absolutely like you can't, they can't they don't have any context. Yeah. but even like, you know, if I'm looking at my. We're, you know, looking at redoing operations and I've specifically been spending a lot of time with my paralegals, and we did a paralegal retreat, and I really, really think that their mindset has to change, because their jobs are changing and getting that group within my firm to understand and see it that way and want to, adapt and implement things new ways and has been very hard.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:59 What's their pushback that they that they give?

Billie Tarascio 00:42:01 I just don't think they want to like they don't, you know, they're process people and routine people and they don't want to they don't want to use the new cool templates that we built or the, you know, they don't want to systematize and make things necessarily more efficient or easier. And, you know, we have new billing guidelines. And I'm like, you cannot bill for clerical things. That's always been the case. But people still do and you can't. You're not supposed.

Billie Tarascio 00:42:33 To do that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:34 It's funny. I didn't know this. I like because I don't bill like you. Like, there are certain things that have to be done on a case like clerical wise, right? But you can't bill for that.

Billie Tarascio 00:42:43 Correct.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:44 That seems kind of. I guess you just baked that into the the the the hourly rate, I guess. Is that how you.

Billie Tarascio 00:42:50 Yeah. You bake it into the hourly rate or you, build that, automate that task, which is kind of what I'm trying to do.

Billie Tarascio 00:43:01 It's like, okay, let's and or you delegate it down to somebody with less skills because if we're charging paralegals out between 180 to $220, no client should have to pay that hourly rate for sending a order, a court order, to the other side or to the client. That's true. So you could push that down to an hourly employee who's not billing who, or is billing it like $100 an hour, but you shouldn't bill your clients out at that higher amount. And that is also like one of the things that really makes people dissatisfied with legal services and can lead to bad reviews. And all of this is related. Like if we want our clients to love us and have a great client experience and lead to the best reviews, these are all things we have to keep in mind.

Tyson Mutrux 00:43:51 What are your views on billable hours versus like flat rate?

Billie Tarascio 00:43:54 I would love to be flat rate. Yeah, and we are experimenting with it. But that's one of the things that almost broke my people.

Billie Tarascio 00:44:00 Like what do you want to do? What?

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:03 Really? Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:04 They don't they don't want to go flat. Right. Why?

Billie Tarascio 00:44:06 Because they feel like their time won't be valued or they'll be taken advantage of. Which is crazy because they're making the same amount of money.

Billie Tarascio 00:44:13 Right?

Billie Tarascio 00:44:13 I would be the person.

Billie Tarascio 00:44:15 Interesting.

Billie Tarascio 00:44:15 But they they feel very tied to, you know, this is how much I build today or whatnot. And I also think we've gotten to a place this happened in my firm. We got to a place where I hadn't spent a lot of time with the paralegals for years. This was not something I had spent time on. And post-Covid, I think everybody got really comfortable not meeting clients in person, not talking on the phone, maybe not even liking our clients, maybe failing to bond with our clients.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:48 Yes, yes.

Billie Tarascio 00:44:49 And this whole paralegal retreat and this whole concept that I've been working on that is very difficult currently has been about trying to convince them that, like, as we move forward, the only thing that matters is your client relationship.

Billie Tarascio 00:45:05 It is your only differentiator.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:09 So this is a problem in the legal industry. And we I noticed something similar a couple of weeks ago. And I we it was during our huddle I noticed it. And there was a couple people that were kind of super negative about a particular client. And I said. And I just kind of piped in, I said, and they're generally very good. And that's why it caught my attention, because something like, well, that's I don't like I don't want this to be a thing. We're not going to make this a thing. So I said, you know, it was an issue with a client who had actually fallen off the wagon recently. We're like, he started drinking. He was he's an alcoholic. He had been sober for like 12 years. Okay. And I've had a previous case with him. So he had previous car crashes. He came back to us and I said, hey, like he's going through something right now. He's a human being.

Tyson Mutrux 00:45:58 He's going through a lot of issues. The person you're talking to is actually not the person he's, he's he's probably intoxicated when he's talking to you. So let's give him a little bit of grace. And so I said more things, but it was like and people are like okay. Like they kind of like brought it back to, okay, we're dealing with humans here because I do think that happens. But I'm thinking part of that problem might come back to like, blame it on the legal industry a little bit. It's like we are told how amazing we are as lawyers. You know, we're paying each other on the backs. We send each other awards and all these kinds of things, and we think it's about us. And what's funny, whenever I was like when I went to Mizzou for like marketing, it was like, it's all about the customer, it's all about it. And I was like, so shocked whenever I became a lawyer, like, oh, they like, it's all about you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:42 It's it's all completely about you. It's a bunch of chess beating. And I like when we went through like we kind of had this issue, I'd say like 2015 where we like I was saying everything was like everyone was a number. It was like it wasn't. This wasn't like client based. And so we we revamped everything. And one of the things we talked about is like, we are not going to be we're going to be the, the, the firm that doesn't beat our chest. That's why we don't you don't see us post a bunch of like, settlements and we just don't do that. It's not we make it about the client so that that part I mean it frustrates the hell out of me. So I like the fact that you had a retreat on it. How do you get I mean.

Billie Tarascio 00:47:22 It wasn't successful.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:24 But then how do you how do you solve the problem? That's a big problem.

Billie Tarascio 00:47:29 It's a big problem. So what I found out when I did this retreat with 15 paralegals is essentially, you know, we went around and had everybody talk about, like, why they do family law and what, what they love about it.

Billie Tarascio 00:47:44 And I had seen this done in another firm with lawyers, and it was super powerful. And people were talking about like the impact they made on people's lives. And the consensus from the table of 15 paralegals was like, I love that I have flexibility, I love my coworkers. This is the best place I've ever worked. It's not toxic. Nobody liked the clients, and that was the thing they were not liking. And I. I left this retreat, you know, because I went in thinking, like, we need to talk about how AI is going to change your job and you really got to level up. And I left thinking, like seeing like I have a culture problem I didn't even know about.

Tyson Mutrux 00:48:28 Yeah. I wonder if it's like a hiring problem where, like you were, you're attracting that type of a person.

Billie Tarascio 00:48:37 Well, that's what happens. What happens is like when you step out, when you're not paying attention and you hand over things to other people, understand they're not.

Billie Tarascio 00:48:47 Doing it the way that you.

Billie Tarascio 00:48:49 Would necessarily want them to do it. And then so the other thing that happens is people who gravitate towards management want to work with people in the firm, and they're great at that. They're great at training there, but when they do the hiring, they're hiring more people like that. Yeah, not people who want to engage in the messy, you know, client work or level up their legal skills. This always happens. Like we hire people like us. So whoever's in charge of hiring, they're going to hire more people like them. And if that's not the position that.

Billie Tarascio 00:49:21 Needs to be filled, right, if they're.

Billie Tarascio 00:49:23 In a different role a little bit, like eventually you're going to have a problem.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:27 Okay. So, I do wonder. I'm curious, like what the profile looks like whenever you're hiring a person because we're looking for I've mentioned this hundreds of times right at this point on the show. Like we hire peeps. So they've got passion, they've got energy, they energize other people, they've got edge, they execute like so.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:45 There's the last piece is just lowercase p. It doesn't mean anything. But the whole idea is I didn't want to call them P's. I want to call them peeps. Right. So but we have like this profile where it doesn't matter what your position is like. This is what we're looking for in the person. So you have a passion for what we do. Like usually those people come with like a story, like I had a family member that was injured in a car crash, or I was injured or my my husband or my wife. They were like, they have a they usually have like a story. And I wonder if like, you are missing maybe an element like that where like you are you don't you have like the scorecards and the this is what the job looks like. I wonder if you're missing like that. Like that profile for sure.

Billie Tarascio 00:50:24 You know, it's it. You know, I probably need to take a step back. And culture is hard, and.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:30 It's really hard.

Billie Tarascio 00:50:31 You know, we have a great culture. Everybody loves working here.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:35 Yeah, that's what's wild about this.

Billie Tarascio 00:50:37 Everybody loves working here. We have a great culture.

Billie Tarascio 00:50:39 There's no toxicity, but we've still missed something. And I don't have this figured out yet.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:45 Maybe, like, it's almost like what you said. Maybe we just hired too many managers and not enough. I think.

Billie Tarascio 00:50:49 So.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:50 That's interesting, I know. How often have you heard great culture? They hate the clients. Never, never.

Billie Tarascio 00:50:59 I didn't know what to do with this. I kind of still don't. So I'm now going to every paralegal meeting, and I'm really kind of like, trying to just be really present and learn because I don't have this figured out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:13 You know, there was this, orthodontist. Is this another Infusionsoft story? Actually, no. He wasn't. He wasn't an Infusionsoft guy. He may have been, but I don't know.

Billie Tarascio 00:51:20 But did you work at Infusionsoft?

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:22 No, no, but I loved it as a product whenever it was good.

Tyson Mutrux 00:51:25 Not anymore. But it was great at one point. But I was at a Dan Kennedy event. Jim, Jim and I were at a Dan Kennedy event, and there was this orthodontist that he had this thing where every morning the all of his, his entire team would get a a it was a review from a past patient. I guess he was an orthodontist. So and it was like talking about how the, the, their practice had changed the person's life, basically. Like, you know, I really your team was amazing. Like, I can now look in the mirror and like, see, see my smile and not be ashamed. That kind of a thing. Right. And I wonder if something like just little bitty things where you're not. You're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Little bitty tweaks like, okay, let's tweak this. Let's just slowly shift the culture.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:11 Because these are good people.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:12 Yeah. Because especially because you have the culture, right? Right. You don't want to really shake that up.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:18 Right.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:18 Especially if they're doing a good job.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:20 Or doing a job.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:22 Kind of.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:23 Right. Exactly. Like a little.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:25 Like. It's weird. Like they're doing the work. I wonder, have you have you been tracking the NPS to see if, like, if that has been trending in one direction or not another.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:34 NPS is good. although I'm going to change up the way I'm doing it. So for years and years and years, we've asked every closed client at the end.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:45 Interesting.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:45 And what's nice about that is you get, they're going to give you more true feedback.

Tyson Mutrux 00:52:51 True.

Billie Tarascio 00:52:52 Because they don't have to worry about offending anybody at this point. And also you have consistency. So I'm going to change it up and ask more frequently. Different question. I'm done asking would you refer us to your family and friends. People are just getting asked that too much. Yeah, but different questions at different stages that go out. And then if they if they fill that out, I'm going to give them like a $50 invoice credit because I want it.

Billie Tarascio 00:53:19 I want the feedback. Nice. Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:21 Do you have who asked the question whenever they call, is it a phone call or is it a text.

Billie Tarascio 00:53:26 It it was.

Billie Tarascio 00:53:27 Or is under the old system. We're still under the old system. A client advocate, which is an intake team member, calls and asks, we will change it to being automated and written and explain, you know, you responding to this will result in a $50 credit. And we would love your honest feedback so that we can improve our products and systems for you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:50 The person that calls, are they like a paralegal or they who.

Billie Tarascio 00:53:53 Are an intake team member?

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:54 Okay, that's that's exactly what we do. We actually have the but we actually call throughout the case. We have their schedule throughout and it changes based on the case, the phase of the case where like if they are let's say they're we're just waiting on a trial. The frequency is far less sure. Like at the beginning of the case when there's a lot more hand-holding and all that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:12 So. But we've noticed that because that's where we can head off issues. But we ask, we ask us. I think it's six questions. We? One of them is, how likely are you to refer us to a family or friend? But the another one is like, are you ready to give us a Google review at this point? Basically, what is what it is? They've got the the CARES team has the ability to not ask that question if it just doesn't feel right because so it doesn't feel forced if they but if they're like, oh my gosh, Stacy is absolutely amazing. I was like, then, then that's the time you say, you know what? Stacy would really love it if you gave a Google review and mention her name. That would really brighten her day. So you wait for the opportunity? Oh yeah. But we ask, like, how well have we communicated with you? What's the professional, how would you rate the professionalism of the firm? and then like, there's like five others that we ask, but those really kind of get to the heart of the issue.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:07 It allows them to ask the question enough to then like ask follow up questions and then make notes on it, because you're not going to get that with like an automated text.

Billie Tarascio 00:55:16 No, no. Yeah. We're really going to have to look at how we do this and everything's experiment.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:22 Yeah. I wonder if part of it is like with family law. It's like everyone's like are fighting each other. I wonder if that's part of it for sure.

Billie Tarascio 00:55:31 And it's also part of why my people are burned out on our clients. You know, you were talking about your client who's not the best version of himself, who's not showing up like himself. He's diminished capacity. Every single one of our clients is experiencing that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:46 Everyone. Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:55:47 Everyone. And that burns. How are people supposed to have unlimited empathy? Unlimited patience?

Tyson Mutrux 00:55:55 They can't. I mean, they can't have unlimited.

Billie Tarascio 00:55:57 So what? How do I. I have to figure.

Billie Tarascio 00:55:59 Out how to support them.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:00 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 00:56:01 I don't have.

Billie Tarascio 00:56:02 This figured out.

Billie Tarascio 00:56:03 So if you have suggestions, I'm open to.

Tyson Mutrux 00:56:04 Well, I do have I do have another suggestion where it's I think it's just small. These are small things, like. So we did a training last year. I may have been maybe been two years ago now, one of our, case managers at the time, she's now in law school. She. But her mom is a, she's a professor at Clemson. And her her whole thing is, like, on trauma, so. Which is perfect for what we have, like, what we do. And she, she actually came and, talked about how some of the, like, how some of the things people do might re traumatize someone. And the reason why I bring this up is it was actually very effective in like showing our people, like reminding our people like what our clients are going through sometimes. And it allowed us to notice like change how we're doing some things because I, we were re traumatizing our clients over and over and over again with some of the things we were doing, like asking questions.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:00 We just decided to scrap. We thought we were just getting more information. So and we're trying to keep it fresh in their mind, which is not a good idea. Whenever you're like, someone's gone through massive trauma. So like but like we we put them through what we call like a fact finding call and then an injury impact call, which like during those they are usually bawling because we're asking these very detailed questions we ask about like, are you religious? Okay, what what church do you go to? Has this affect, have your injuries affect your ability, go to church? Has it affected your religion? Like that's just one small subset of what we ask them. And so by the end of it they're it's like some of the calls have been like three hours like so we're like we're.

Billie Tarascio 00:57:40 Who does these.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:41 We have attorneys that do them. And so because we want to know for for us it's really powerful stuff because we can use this when negotiating to drive the value of the case up.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:54 But we're forcing them through all this trauma again. So we've we've pulled back on a lot of that. All this to say is it may be doing some some sort of training like that and more like without calling it empathy training. Right? You, you call it something else and maybe, maybe that would help.

Billie Tarascio 00:58:13 Will you pass that?

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:14 Of course.

Billie Tarascio 00:58:15 Okay. Thank you.

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:16 She she was it was fantastic. You will do it. And she probably would do the same. Use the same slides as my guess. Just tailor them to your friend. Right? She was really good. Really, really good. So, this is maybe one of the most interesting problems that I've heard on the show. Because you don't you rarely see a situation where you've got, like, just the the great culture and then the other stuff not working. It's it's usually starts with like bad culture. How is this forced you to like reassess leadership?

Billie Tarascio 00:58:47 You know, I am reassessing leadership. big time. You know, and there's somebody on my leadership team who was recently removed.

Billie Tarascio 00:58:57 She's gotten in trouble with the bar. and she was with me a long, long, long, long time. And most of the time we find ourselves promoting based on seniority and not really based on what does it what does it take to be a good leadership team member? You know, judgment standards, maybe people who think differently than you, who have different strengths than you do, who are willing to like and want to put in the time to. So I think I really am rethinking what does it mean to be on a leadership team and who should be my leaders? And also, I don't have anybody right now in that paralegal world who is ready to be on leadership, but they need representation. So how am I going to handle that? You know, it's important that every group in your firm has representation on that leadership team. So developing leaders I think is something that I really need to work on.

Tyson Mutrux 00:59:59 What is your role in hiring?

Billie Tarascio 01:00:04 It depends on the position and the timing. So I'll tell you.

Billie Tarascio 01:00:10 2024 was like a perfect year. Everything went perfect. We crushed our budget.

Billie Tarascio 01:00:15 Nobody left.

Billie Tarascio 01:00:17 We hired.

Billie Tarascio 01:00:18 Great people.

Billie Tarascio 01:00:18 It was like this perfect year. And so I became pretty hands off. And I don't even think like, we had lawyers that got hired that I didn't meet. We had lots of paralegals. I never met them. That happened at every level. And I think it was a mistake.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:32 That's true. Okay, I say more.

Billie Tarascio 01:00:34 Well, I think until I figure out how do I make sure the people who are hiring are seeing things the way I'm hiring, seeing them or looking at things, and I haven't given them any criteria because I don't know what it is. So I have to rethink, like, what are we looking for when hiring? It can't just be. I get along with the managers who are hiring, and we're better at it with lawyers because we've had a lot of bad lawyers and good lawyers, so we've got that part down. But, you know, my intake team before Lexi desk was probably not personable enough, probably more technical than personal interest, because the person who was hiring the manager was very technical.

Billie Tarascio 01:01:18 And so she hired people like her. And so that didn't really work. And I needed extroverts. I want people who babble and talk on the phone. And honestly, I don't really care if you make a ton of mistakes because the job is to put consuls. It's not to make sure that every T is crossed and I is dotted. But that wasn't what the hiring person was looking for. So how do we make sure that we're aligning what's important at any given moment with the people who are hiring, so that you don't have to be involved?

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:47 I'll share this in case it might help you. The best thing? I don't know if we've talked about this with the two of us, but we went through the whole top grading thing. Several years. Did you like it? And it was fantastic. Really hard. The probably the most difficult thing I've gone through, because you see people that you truly, you know, think are fantastic people and they, they're either getting you're either having to get rid of them or they're, you know, opting to leave because they it's the it was the whole thing.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:18 The people that get you here are not the ones that are gonna get you there. Right. That was really, really difficult. Right. But the best thing I did during that, I kind of got lucky. So you got I knew I knew the exact kind of person I wanted to hire. I, I had the, I had that person completely locked in. That's the hardest part. If you know who that person is, like what that person looks like, then you can go out and try to find them. And I when I did for that, that one time, I took over hiring completely. Yeah. And I went and I found that person. Right. And I did all the interviews and we, we used to do, the, you know, assessments to see if she was going to be a good fit. And then during the hiring process, I told all the candidates and I told her her name's Krista. And I said, here's what we're doing. We're about to do something that's very difficult, and we're hiring only a players.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:05 And this is the whole here's what we're doing. Like, this is something you can handle. Okay. Yes. Great. She was right. Then she we did the next hire together. And then I turned it into her, and Amy took it over. And I've not done it since. And that's how we were able to put, like, kind of backfill really is what we're having to do, backfill people. Because part of that process is so painful is you are getting rid of people that are had been there for a while. They're very integrated into the firm. And it's it creates a pretty big gap whenever you're, you're kind of escorting them out. So. Right. But having that person like really having that that right person do that hiring going forward made a massive difference.

Billie Tarascio 01:03:48 What was that role that you hired for.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:50 That was the way we called it. We made it up. It was an office administrator, so I didn't want it. I don't want to call it office manager.

Tyson Mutrux 01:03:57 I think the the word manager is misused too many times. So we used office administrator. If I'm being honest, I got it. I stole it from the office. Pam was the office administrator, and I was. I was like, we're going to use that. We're going to use that as what we're going to use. So. Office administrator although the way we use our office administrators way different than what they did in the office. But so people are not confused. But that's the role. So office administrator so it and it's she's great because she doesn't have the term manager in her name or the title. So she is like a liaison between us. She's on the leadership team, but she's like a liaison between employees and leadership team, where people truly trust her and they go to her. I think if she had the title manager, it would not be the same.

Billie Tarascio 01:04:42 What were the characteristics that were most important?

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:47 Oh. Let's see. I'm trying to think back then as to what it was.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:51 So she had to meet the whole the whole profile. she had to be in a position to actually make really, really difficult decisions. when it comes to, like, getting. Because she's responsible for firing people, too. she had to stick to our very specific scorecards when it comes to hiring, which we were not doing before. It was it was it was very strict. Like, you have to do this, this, this. You have to follow our game plan. and that's where I kind of got lucky, because I think a lot of candidates would tell you that, yes, they would do these things. and they won't do them the other. Another thing that I really liked about her in particular is, is that we've we've been scaling for several years at this point. She was that's something that's like really caught our attention. She was leaving a chiropractic practice that the, the main guy had wanted to scale and then he kind of like has plateaued and kind of like, you know, like scaling is hard, right? So he had kind of gotten, I wouldn't say bored with it, but he had kind of gotten tired and she would become bored.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:57 And so part of her, like what she really wanted was she wanted to continue to scale and continue to grow. She had that growth mindset. And then the other thing was, is that, she's very task oriented, where, what I mean by that is she is driven. We got this from Tallahassee, where it was. She is driven by accomplishing that goal, right? She's also very empathetic, too. But she so you have the task. So the task is one thing, but her what drives her is actually getting the the task done, which I think is really interesting. So she's driven she's like an engine that's a little bit different than that. I think that than most. So, those are some of the technology. Yeah, it is, it's there's, it's one of those companies that will actually assess a person, assess an employee, and then they give you a report and then they meet with you and talk to you about it. We haven't used them since though. It's funny.

Tyson Mutrux 01:06:51 We used them the one time and then she also helped us re revamp the hiring process which we already had. We've had a hiring process for years, but we have completely revamped the whole thing when it comes to assessments and when we do things and all that. So, Yeah, she's she's great.

Billie Tarascio 01:07:09 Nice.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:09 Yeah. Very good. all right, so I feel like you were interviewing me for a second. let's let's shift gears a little bit, and I wonder, how do you how do you divide your time between the companies?

Billie Tarascio 01:07:23 Well, I think we talked previously about when without law school, did we? Maybe not.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:33 I don't remember.

Billie Tarascio 01:07:34 Okay.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:34 So did you say when with that law school?

Billie Tarascio 01:07:36 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 01:07:36 So I don't think we have talked about that.

Billie Tarascio 01:07:38 Okay. All right. So one of the companies that I recently, kind of stopped running is called Women Without Law School. Okay. And this concept was, Help people all over the country who need help representing themselves, which is something that I've always been super passionate about.

Billie Tarascio 01:08:04 So it was an online support group. Online courses. We had office hours with lawyers where you could get coaching. Wow. Yeah. super, super cool concept. We actually offered office hours, like 4 or 5 days a week where you could come on, if you remember, you could come get, you know, talk through whatever your current issue is because a lot of family law, I don't you don't really need legal advice. You need brainstorming. You need, hey, check this out. Or you could even flag an issue for them and be like, you might want to find a lawyer in your area to talk about this. That would be an issue here. You know, you could you could do that, but it didn't. It was something that I was very, very committed to and passionate about, and it didn't grow and it didn't have an ROI, and it was taking a lot of time and resources.

Tyson Mutrux 01:08:49 Out of a passion project.

Billie Tarascio 01:08:50 Yes, definitely a passion project. And my team really believed in it, and we spent a lot of time on it.

Billie Tarascio 01:08:55 And then it got to the end of last year, and I think I'd read the book on scaling. I don't remember the name of what it is, but it's essentially like the whole concept is okay. If you took your goal and you shrunk your ten year goal into a one year goal, what would you need to stop doing to get there? And it's quite clearly like this passion project that isn't making any money, that has all this potential. That's not like working has got to go.

Tyson Mutrux 01:09:21 That's a really interesting exercise. I did something similar, a couple of years ago, and it was I wrote at the top of this. It was one of my black books. And I wrote, if you wanted to accomplish all of your dreams by doing these things in the next six months, what would they be? Right? And it was like really hard coming up with the things. Do you remember, like what some of the things were.

Billie Tarascio 01:09:46 That I needed to stop doing?

Tyson Mutrux 01:09:47 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 01:09:48 Well, I mean, that was that was a big one.

Billie Tarascio 01:09:51 I think there were also. Oh, yeah, we had a bunch of. So I told you 20, 24 was amazing. And then I kind of like, you know, was a slacker in 2025 a little bit because that's kind of what happens. It's the same as like parenting where like you're on it and you're like, you've got your routines and you're really coaching your kids. And then they're they're doing amazing. And you're like, I can breathe. And then if you don't keep.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:15 Doing that, no, you get back to where.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:17 So 25 was I didn't do enough. We let people hang on too long. We allowed people like we.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:27 Have.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:27 We have requirements. And we were just.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:29 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:30 You know, and, so got to the end of 2025 and we hadn't met our goals, which.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:37 Is not something that.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:38 Is really okay. And it's it's really about failing to make the right decisions. And it really falls on me. So I didn't hire soon enough.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:46 We had all these lawyers that were like almost licensed, like they're going to get there in like a second. You know, these are out of state people who are waiting and a couple of people who are taking the bar. And so I didn't hire because I had this bench.

Tyson Mutrux 01:10:58 Oh, yeah.

Billie Tarascio 01:10:59 But it didn't the bench, it didn't work. And there were too many people on my team who were not hitting their numbers, who were not doing a great job, who were not a players. And it was time to take a look at that and be like, what are we doing? So that's that was kind of a big deal.

Tyson Mutrux 01:11:15 What do you think is a reasonable amount of time between the point that the attorney starts and when they're fully up and running? How long do you think that takes?

Billie Tarascio 01:11:23 This is interesting because our probation period or I don't even know what we call it, but like onboarding is 90 days or it was. And I don't think that's the right timeline.

Tyson Mutrux 01:11:35 Why?

Billie Tarascio 01:11:36 I think some people are onboarded in 30 days.

Billie Tarascio 01:11:41 They are crushing it. They brought in a caseload. They're a part of your culture. They're going in your meetings like you're 45 days in, and you know that this was an amazing decision. And then there's other people who can get by for 90 days and are crappy. And if you don't look hard, okay. They got by, they met the metrics, but they're not crushing it. Or as soon as you stop, like looking really hard, they stop working really hard.

Tyson Mutrux 01:12:11 I've noticed like one of the red flags for us is if they get through the the training modules too fast. They usually end up not working out well because they, they're not taking it seriously.

Billie Tarascio 01:12:21 Right. And that's a hard one because who wants to watch training modules.

Tyson Mutrux 01:12:25 Right. We try to we try to mix it up to where it's like okay you have some in person. You have some via video. You have some that are like reading, some you're watching, some you're listening to. So we try to mix it up.

Tyson Mutrux 01:12:36 We're like, it's different mediums, but I know the ones that are they, they're just clicking buttons because we know we can see because we can see the progress. How the how did they get all that done that quickly. That doesn't make any sense. Right. You're just skipping things.

Billie Tarascio 01:12:50 Totally.

Tyson Mutrux 01:12:52 that or you are like such a phenomenal reader that you can or like, you can't watch that 30 minute video in ten minutes. No, I'm sorry. You can't do it right. It's just not possible. Right. That's kind of an interesting thing. so the the hiring or the the training part of things. Yeah. So you said like, sometimes it's 30 days, sometimes gonna be like 90 days or whatever, like the onboarding part of it, like what is like what is the onboarding. What does that entail?

Billie Tarascio 01:13:23 I mean, your first three days are pretty intensive in office. You're being trained. Hands on for each of those three days by different people on different things. After that, it's more.

Billie Tarascio 01:13:36 You're getting projects. You're working under your managing attorney. You might start taking consultations. You're going to be going to trial with other people. You're going to be watching and shadowing and given projects. And, and then it goes from there. I think we may have a tendency to ramp people up too quickly. but that's just a hard line, you know, like you gotta allow people to be successful and get a caseload and go do their thing. But also supervision is real.

Tyson Mutrux 01:14:05 So when you say 90 days to onboard, let's say you go through the full 90 days, are you fully expecting them to do their job at that point?

Billie Tarascio 01:14:11 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 01:14:12 Wow. That to me that's way too soon. Really? Yeah. I think it's like six months.

Billie Tarascio 01:14:17 Well, yeah, I mean absolutely. And and also, are we talking about a brand new lawyer or a lateral.

Tyson Mutrux 01:14:22 Oh, good. Good. Good point. I let's talk about new lawyers.

Billie Tarascio 01:14:26 Sure. A new lawyer is going to need 18 months, right, to be fully self-sufficient, but can.

Billie Tarascio 01:14:32 Should they be? You know, and they should. They be mostly should they mostly have a caseload? Maybe 10 or 12 clients? Yeah. They should.

Tyson Mutrux 01:14:40 Yeah. Like so like we have a, we have a, a lateral hire that we just hired. And I told him six months like so I think, I think 18 months for a new from a newbie is I think that's more.

Billie Tarascio 01:14:50 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 01:14:51 You can give him some pretty big some pretty hefty things at like a year. or like some are like just super competent. Like, they maybe they had some really good internships, like, there are those that really competent that like the firm that I worked for in law school. And then right after law school, I thought that their training program was pretty damn good, where like, I would hire a lawyer, right? If they were, if they would work for them in their internship, I'd hire them, let them like start doing things almost immediately.

Billie Tarascio 01:15:18 Yeah. If I can hire from big law, which we've done recently, I would do that all day, every day.

Billie Tarascio 01:15:25 They are high achievers. They are disciplined. They didn't get in without meeting criteria. it's a good idea.

Tyson Mutrux 01:15:35 Yeah, I think that's a that's a good idea to like where you're picking from, like, where are you? Where are you fishing? Which fishing holes are you going.

Billie Tarascio 01:15:43 On when you hire solo attorneys who've been out on their own? Like, it's almost always a disaster, right?

Tyson Mutrux 01:15:51 That is such a good point. not to. And a lot of the people listening probably are solos, but let's be honest, I'll just tell you, I. I would be an awful employee. Oh, right. And so, so would. So with all of you. Right. You'd be a terrible employee. Most likely. Right? Is my guess because we've done that. And there was, I'll tell this story. I don't know if I've said this on the show before, but we had there was this guy we loved. He was a solo, and he he had the experience. He'd worked for another another big P.I. firm and like, a good one.

Tyson Mutrux 01:16:21 And we're like, okay, he's me. Great. And I just happened to call a buddy of mine who there was some crossover. I can't remember what the crossover was, but I thought he might know him. And he's like, it's so odd that you called me and asked him about this guy because I just spoke to a clerk yesterday who called me and asked me the same thing, would I? Because he his pleadings were so awful and want to know if they knew, if I knew it. And I was like, oh, and I guess the guy was like crazy. Like it was so nuts. So like, sometimes you'll have these people that look really, really good, but I think solo, you should look really hard. I'm not saying all solos are not going to be good hires, but I think it's one of those things where it's it's going to be a red flag, at least.

Billie Tarascio 01:17:06 More often than not. I mean, I don't know if that's ever worked out for me.

Tyson Mutrux 01:17:11 Yeah.

Billie Tarascio 01:17:11 Like if I look at my current team, I don't know that anybody came over as a solo. They came from other firms or they came up out of law school.

Tyson Mutrux 01:17:21 Yeah, because I think part of that is like the, the, the ones that they come from solo. They're so used to that extra freedom. They don't want to be told what to do. Like the ones that are like really hard chargers. They're they're going in, they're scaling. They're firm. They're doing, you know, way more than what? Than what the solo firm that's been there, you know, doing it for ten, 15 years is going to be doing it.

Billie Tarascio 01:17:39 Yeah. I mean, I might be absolutely open to like a merger with another firm or some consolidation. Like if, if the goals were similar and the firm was similar, I think that's a different story.

Tyson Mutrux 01:17:51 Yeah, I totally agree. Are there any you mentioned big law? Are there any other areas that people should be looking or like? Have you done headhunting or anything like that?

Billie Tarascio 01:17:59 I have not.

Billie Tarascio 01:18:01 it's kind of like the same way we've treated marketing where, I don't know, we've we've wanted our messaging to be specific to us. Right. But I'm not opposed. You know, sometimes you just need lawyers. And last year's problem was not hiring lawyers. And sometimes maybe you use a headhunter. Sure, but I haven't had great success with that.

Tyson Mutrux 01:18:21 Yeah. All right. Before we start to wrap things up, because we're getting close to time, if people want to reach out to you to ask you questions, pick your brain on things. What how do they get in touch with you?

Billie Tarascio 01:18:29 I'm super easy to find. I'm on all platforms. Nobody else has my name. You can just DM me.

Tyson Mutrux 01:18:36 It is a very, very unique name. Are you still on TikTok? Are you still doing that? How's that going?

Billie Tarascio 01:18:42 It's going great. I actually have two accounts now, so I started a business of law one, because I really wanted to talk about this stuff. I like this stuff.

Billie Tarascio 01:18:51 Yeah. so I've got that account and then I've got the modern law account, which has, I think like 140,000 followers.

Tyson Mutrux 01:18:59 Wow. That's incredible.

Billie Tarascio 01:19:00 And that's been really good. Like, I've pivoted a little to talking about local issues. and I fell into that. It wasn't my intention, but it's so well received by my local community, and it turns into clients, So I would highly recommend you think about that. Not just the Q&A, but also like what's going on in your community, especially drama.

Tyson Mutrux 01:19:26 Yeah. All right. Last question. All right. Let's say you were to start the firm today. So and you're just just starting the firm, nothing else. I limit you to one company. How do you start? What's the what's the first thing you do to make sure that. And the whole idea here is like, this is the number one thing you should start with to really set yourself up for success.

Billie Tarascio 01:19:48 Yeah. You need clients. Start with marketing. I don't care where you're at.

Billie Tarascio 01:19:54 I don't care if you're huge marketing and hiring. The the systems in the tech are easy. It's marketing and hiring. My opinion. What do you think?

Tyson Mutrux 01:20:03 I agree. You can't do the great work unless you've got clients. Yeah. Well thanks, Billy. Appreciate. I appreciate you doing this. This is our third time in the last three months.

Billie Tarascio 01:20:12 We've been hanging out.

Tyson Mutrux 01:20:12 I love it, I love it's great. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it.