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.
Speaker 1 00:00:02 This is maximum lawyer with your host, Tyson Matrix.
Speaker 2 00:00:11 Today we're bringing you something a little different. We're featuring an episode where Tyson recently was a guest on the law subscribed podcast with Matthew Kirby, who you'll also see on stage at Max con this year, presenting latent legal marketing opportunities with AI and subscriptions in today's episode. Tyson and Matthew get into the evolution of legal podcasting, law firm branding, and how technology is reshaping the profession. They'll cover lessons from content creation to the value of niche marketing, and what makes Max location such a collaborative space for law firm owners. Let's go.
Speaker 3 00:00:44 Tyson, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me, Matthew. This is awesome. This is really cool. So it's been fun just chatting with you beforehand. So but really cool. I know you and I were on a panel a couple of years ago. It was. It was ever since I met you. It was kind of. I followed you a little bit. so thanks for having me on. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 00:01:01 You know, friends of the show answering legal. You know Nick Walker, right? I think that's off the top of the head. So I'm pretty sure it's Nick. And with the answering legal team. Yeah, something about law firm management or something or other. They do things every year. Yeah, yeah, I I'll have to take your word for it, cause I don't remember. It was. It was a long time ago, but. Yeah, that sounds right though. Yeah. Yeah. So so yeah. And I had been listening. I came across Maximum Lawyer before that, but it was the first time I was on a panel with you, you know, when I. So I launched my practice. Just for your information, Tyson, a little over three years ago. I've been practicing for around 11 years. Nice. Congrats. And so. Well, you know, like. Well, the thing is, when when you're, when you're getting ready to go solo or start your own practice, you do a search.
Speaker 3 00:01:40 I mean, this was before AI, right? I did a Google search. Now I ask perplexity, right? Like, give me a step by step instructions on how everybody's an expert too, right? Like, there's so many experts out there too these days. So it's it's a little combination of both. Yeah. Yeah. But it was like it was like bar associations had stuff that was dated and old and not useful, like literally ten years old. Like at the time that I was thinking about going solo like over four years ago. And then there was Carolyn Oliphant stuff, my shingle and like Maximum Lawyer and, you know, there was there were some other podcasts and some other things out there, but not. And I remember because you and Jim, your audio game was mediocre back then. I mean, it was beginning. It was. No, it was beginning. It was terrible. That is what it was. Yeah. Yeah, it was awful. Yeah. And so, I mean, okay, so let's say Max Lorcan is coming back.
Speaker 3 00:02:26 It's maximum lawyers, you know. Well, you do you do a few things throughout the year, but it's like a big conference where you have a lot of speakers coming out. I'm a speaker, so I don't want to hide the ball too much. For those of us joining live, because you and I could probably just chit chat for 130 minutes now. So. So anyway, yeah, so the big conference coming up. But I remember I mean like when I got started like my video quality was terrible. My audio was good because I did some podcasting and some voiceover work, but my video game was really bad and I keep them all live. Like, do you still have those old episodes, like out there? If people wanted to go see how terrible you used to sound there. Also, it's funny because all of the beginning ones were only audio, so I'd say the first maybe two, two years. We're all audio because we're I think we're at like 900 episodes or 800. We got a I don't know how many, we got a bunch of episodes and the I think the first ones, the first recordings we had were on Skype.
Speaker 3 00:03:18 We had to download some. We paid for some little widget that would record it, and it was, you know, the audio quality. But we didn't record the video. It was just audio. And then we went to like a conference, like conference line that we would call into. And it was just the audio was terrible. It really is. If you go back, the audio was terrible. And then we eventually at some point we're like, okay, let's get let's get serious about this. So we went to video and like now we're like, I, I do a lot of them in person. So it's which is a which is completely different than looking at a screen. It's I enjoy it a lot. It's a lot of fun. But it's it's it is interesting. I do sometimes think about like like how we started and where we are now. It's way different. Way different. Well, this is what I'll say is a little bit of an audio snob. I was not happy when it was bad audio quality, but it was like I was like, this is such good content.
Speaker 3 00:04:11 Like, I need to keep listening despite the bad audio quality. So I like huge improvement. Like it's just for me as a listen when when you made that change, I bet you know, I've not thought about this. What we could probably do is go back, use AI to clean up all the audio, and then it would price down a lot better. You know, I, I definitely go back sometimes and I'll remaster old episodes and release them, like, rerelease them, like, if they're good ideas. Yeah. Yeah. Really good idea. Yeah. And, you know, it's still not as good as, like, recording with the high quality equipment. But the AI does wonders these days. It is like if I couldn't have even if you had told me back in 20, I think 2015, 2016, whenever we started that. All of the tech would advance as much as it has in nine years, because we just celebrated nine years last week and it was like, I wouldn't have believed you.
Speaker 3 00:05:03 I just wouldn't have believed it because it's like, you know, you can you can plug a lot of this now into AI and and all the editing is done. You can do the clips like usually opus one to like do all your clips for social media. And it's, it's, it's a different ballgame. It's, it's a, it's fun to watch. That's what I love about it to me. Like you're a tech person. I'm a tech person, I love I love how the AI is advancing and all the different tools we have available. It's it's such a to me, it's a really neat time. Yeah, yeah. But but I want to even bring it back to just the point that the, the content was so valuable that despite the bad audio quality, you and I can talk tech all day I know. Yeah, absolutely. And we will like and there's going to be tech talk like you guys talk tech on the maximum podcast and the Facebook group and and we're going to be talking tech at Match.com.
Speaker 3 00:05:49 Mexican. But like the the point is, the content is valuable. Right. Just like whether you're a paid member of the, you know, of the guild, right? That's what you guys call it or. Yup. Max. Law guild? Yup. Max. Law guild or you're just a listener of the podcast, or you're in the free Facebook group. Like all the contents, super valuable, whether it's bad audio quality or not. No kidding. So so my question for you that is like how do you how do you keep it high quality? Like what? I can hopefully expect that myself as a speaker and the attendees of the upcoming Max lock on this October can expect similar quality. Like like, how do you keep doing that? It's a it's a great question because it was something that Becca and I, we we focused quite a bit on it where we a lot of it's about being current. That's a that's a part of it. But it's not always about being current. A lot of times whenever the the we try to focus on things that people are going to want to hear, because there was I it's one that when you've done it this long, you kind of go in these different ebbs and flows.
Speaker 3 00:06:43 I think there was a time where we like some of the content wasn't super great, just because the sometimes we would have people on, they would just pitch. We were talking about pitching like people kind of pitching. Sometimes we'd have people that would kind of picture in the podcast. And so we a little bit this over learn over time the types of guests that our people want a lot of is about listening to our people and what they want. I've always kind of joked about how Maxwell's been this, like this crowdsourced thing over times, whether like, that's why it's always evolved. It's like went from just the podcast in a Facebook group, the conference and the guild and all that, and then the quarterly masterminds. It's really evolved over time. Love is just like listening. But what I really try to do going into episodes now is we have something called Insight Brief, where we have all this information on the guests. I mean, a ton of information. We I mean, we used to just show up.
Speaker 3 00:07:34 We used to just show up. What are we gonna talk about? You know, it was, but now I what I do is I show up, I've got a full brief on them. I've got a list of questions, and I don't always I don't always use the questions I use. I mean, I'll use them a little bit as a guide, but if the conversation is interesting to me, it will go down that route. Like it will just there's been episodes in the last six months where we talked 30 minutes about something unrelated to the law. It was just because I thought it was really interesting. I think people would find it interesting. So I think a big part of it, though, was just being being prepared, but listening to listening to people, what they what do they want. But and then also just by being curious, I mean being curious is a good part of it too, because usually, if I'm curious about it, I think that the listeners probably can be curious about it too.
Speaker 3 00:08:20 Well, you're also a litigator. How many depositions do you think you've taken? I couldn't even begin to tell you that I have. I have zero idea. I couldn't even guess within 100. You know, it's. I have no idea. That's a good question, I don't know. I have no idea. But, look, I mean, I've, I've taken I've probably taken around 100 because I was a litigator for eight years, but I didn't always get to do the depositions in the first few years, you know, and I'll tell. Like lawyers will ask me, like I want to start a podcast, or I've got a cleat called podcasting for lawyers, right? And I was like, well, if you're if you're a good litigator who conducts depositions, like, you're good at listening, you're good at asking questions, you know, take an interest in, you know, you're the deponent, you know, and like, you could do it. Just just don't don't be as adversarial.
Speaker 3 00:09:04 In a in a podcast interview. Well, what do you say that because I, I think being doing the podcast has made me such a better do such a better job on the on my depose. It really has improved because it has taught me a lot about that, like that listening part of it and waiting and going where the conversation takes you, as opposed to like being stuck to an outline. You know, that's that that has helped me tremendously. And just being able to think on your feet is help quite a bit too. In both ways, too, with the, with, you know, litigation to the podcast, podcast litigation. So there is a lot of crossover into. Yeah. And I bring that up also because, you know, some of my listeners might not know, like we just talk about maximum lawyer, your practitioner, whether you're practicing, you own your law firm, you know, you're running a legal practice and you have maximum lawyer. But and my, my listeners are also the more business minded attorneys.
Speaker 3 00:09:56 Right. And so they are thinking like about the business structure. So you're not I mean you're you're very involved. You could tell us about your exact role with maximum labor. But you mentioned Becca, you know, she's CEO of Maximum Lawyer, right? She's you know, she runs she runs the company. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And and so you're not like, like this is not your full time job. Maximum your full time job. Practicing attorney, owner of a law firm. Right. So I just want to make that distinction there. And personal question for me because I like with law subscribed, you know, for going strong for the last three or so years. People ask me, well, why are you why are you still practicing like you should just be you should just be teaching lawyers how to do this. Because I do like I, I've limited time to teach lawyers how to do what I do. But but but I do a little bit of that. But for me, like, I feel like I would lose all credibility the moment I stopped practicing law.
Speaker 3 00:10:46 And so I wonder if that's maybe part of the reason why Maximum Lawyer is still as high quality as it is, is you didn't give up practicing law to just coach lawyers on how to be better law firm owners. I have pretty strong feelings about this. So yeah, I think that's a that's a big part of it. One, I mean, I enjoy both. Could I give up one over the other one and still make a good living? Yes. But I don't want to I enjoy I enjoy thoroughly both of them. I enjoy them a lot. I love talking to law firm owners, but I also love the litigation side of, you know, injury law. So but that is a big part of it. I think that that's what probably differentiates like you like people like you and me versus non-lawyers that that have their podcast and all that. Not that there's anything wrong. I think there's a place for all of us. I've got like, yeah, I've got the rising tides, you know, mentality.
Speaker 3 00:11:33 But I do think that that is what differentiates us. And so there's that. I think that does give us a lot of credibility. I also but also it's interesting because I've evolved over the years when it comes to the practitioner running the firm, too. I have evolved a little bit. And it's I do think, I do think you can successfully run a firm and say, let's say you have like a you're successfully running the firm and then you've got someone else's, like litigating files and all that. I do think that that is it's definitely possible you do a good job. But I also think that I use this example just the other day. So I'll use it again, like Steve Jobs, like Steve Jobs understood the tech, he understood the tech, he understood what what people wanted. And I think it's really hard to run a firm if you don't understand your niche and you're not in the trenches at least a little bit to really do a great job. I, I do think you're going to have that disconnect.
Speaker 3 00:12:27 And it's hard to run a, a highly successful firm. I mean, I use John Morgan like I did the other day. John Morgan, he he still he still understands injury law. He still understands it. He thoroughly understands it. He he runs the business. You're not going to see him in a courtroom, but he's still thoroughly understands injury law. Injury law. Now, do you think sometimes people they they think, oh, I'll just run the firm and I'll just do the business stuff that they don't need to understand what it's like to be a really good practitioner, too. And I think that that's I think that's flawed thinking. But to back to your your original original question, that is a big part of it. I think it's important that I stay tapped into my firm still practice to really maintain what, what we want to do with Max law. No, no, I know you've got injury lawyers in the firm name, but your your name is also still part of the brand of the firm.
Speaker 3 00:13:19 So what have you been thinking about in terms of like a non you know, you talk about having a niche I call it niche you know. Yes. Why have your name. You're having your name a person's name in the firm doesn't help with that. It's really funny to say that. So I mean most people don't know the story, so it's fun to tell the story. Sure. All right. So we had I had a partnership before. So I had a I had my firm had a partnership. We split up and I had my firm again. And I had I kept all the IP and I wanted to keep the logo and it was MF right. So it used to be matrix law firm. And then we, we had a, I had a partnership and the the name was MF, the, the firm name with, with the, the last names. So that's where we went to matrix Firm injury Lawyers and we put it injury lawyers because we wanted to be able to use that in Google.
Speaker 3 00:14:08 Of course. Of course. Exactly. Yeah. But to your more on point, we have we have a name that we are going to test out that is not that is not does not have my name in it. I have run it by a branding person. And so we're going to test it out. I will not close the current firm until we've tested that out. But if it works successfully, then that will. Most likely it'll. It'll take over the current the current day. But because I do think I think that that is a smart decision having more of a trade name than, than using the the my actual name. Yeah, yeah. And I think finding like a niche trade name too is valuable because at the end of the day, my firm is Subscription Attorney LLC. And like, it doesn't really tell you anything other than you may subscribe to this attorney and it which is true. And I have gotten clients who they think, oh, I specialize in subscription businesses, which I don't, but if you're in Illinois, I could still help you even if you're in a subscription business.
Speaker 3 00:15:11 So I don't say no to those clients because it gives off that vibe, though. It definitely does. Yeah, yeah. And like I, I am not a subscription compliance legal expert. In fact, I, I, I know some lawyers who are and I do follow those updates, you know click to subscribe, click to unsubscribe FTC regulations and all that stuff. Right. But like even when like, most subscription businesses that want to hire me are services based, not products based. Right. And so and to that extent, I know that that part very well because I am in that industry myself personally. You're not selling a subscription box or something like that. Right. Which I've had one of those clients. But but I have found and I'm curious to know about your experience with the Guild and the Facebook group, like good trade names for lawyers. Like I always point to Matt Stevens, provider legal. Right. His he's just subscription based legal services for medical and dental providers. Provider legal.
Speaker 3 00:16:04 Boom. There you go. Like that's that's a prime example. Yeah I want to it's funny you say like because I actually want to I'm trying to pull this up because I want to make sure I got the name right. And I'm glad you asked because I actually wanted to give these names. So there's two people that came immediately to mind. And one of them is Jordan Ostroff down in Florida. And then the other one is Josh Rausch. And so I give me a second, I'll pull up there because I know I've got Jordans up here. I think his is freaking awesome. It's to me it's the best one. It's it's called it's driven law. And all they do is car crashes. And I think it's a beautiful day. So driven law now I think if I think if I probably put driven injury laws probably what I would do but driven law. And then the other one is Josh for his is onward, onward injury law. And I really love that one. To his Brandon looks beautiful on it.
Speaker 3 00:16:57 I think that both of those two really. So his his onward accident and injury law is the name of it, the full name of it. And but driven there. There's a lot though. Jason Foscolo has the food law firm and he's the lawyer, the food law firm, I see. I like that one. But now here's what my my question is. I don't know what that means, though. What does that do? What does he do? He a lot of like like food stuff. He does subscription based legal services to if you're on the supply chain for the food, you know when people are buying and selling food, you know. Yeah. Ingredients. Other things. You know, the farms. Farms. You probably could call it the farm law firm, too. Probably. Yeah. So there's. I had someone on the show. It's a family law firm. it was so forever after. What is the phrase to say? Well, that makes me think of estate planning, right? Forever after their state.
Speaker 3 00:17:43 Well, no, it's not. That's not the full one, though. Okay. So it's it has to do so happily. It's happily ever after. Is like the term. So then. But the name of the firm is happy. Even after is what the name of it is. It's for. It's for divorces. Yeah. That's. And. Yeah. So. Yeah. Happy even after I think is the name of it, which I thought it was a, I was like, what a beautiful, wonderful way to do it. I thought that was really cool. Although I asked her why she didn't do happily even after, and she just said she wanted it to be happy. So I personally I would have wanted it to be happily even after. Well then there's there's you have to type more then every time. That is true and people may struggle with typing out happily and spelling it correctly. So she's probably right about it. But I for my it was like my own personal edification.
Speaker 3 00:18:31 I want to be able to say happily ever after or even after, but cool. It's a beautiful name either way. Yeah, yeah, just just looking at some of my past lists. 360 Estate Planning, right? That tells you what it is learning and legacies, law seed counsel. You know. So like, you know, there are some good trade names out there. You and I aren't using them right now. No, not at all. I do wonder what you think about. So Paducah has a firm, a really successful firm out in North Carolina, and it's very estate planning is the name of it. And so it's for Carrie, North Carolina. I wonder what are your thoughts on that name? I, I think it's genius. And here's why you don't. How many clients does he actually need? Depending on how big he wants his firm to be, for the revenue he wants to generate, for the money he wants to put in his pocket. Right. Because, like, for me, I could practice law in the whole state of Illinois.
Speaker 3 00:19:22 80% of my clients are pretty local to me because people hired you because they know, like, and trust you especially stay subscribed to you. And so, like, based on the nut that I want to hit. Like. Like local is great. If you could tap, if you have a niche market, you could tap into it. I think it's phenomenal. So I do too. I was wondering if you had a different thought, because a lot of people think that, oh, you're going to do a trade name or it must be more of a national thing, but I love it too. I'm I'm surprised no one had it, actually, because Carrie's not like a it's not like it's a super small town. It's not not huge. But. So I thought it was I thought it was a great name. But then also it is something that you could expand with nationally if you had to, if you if you really were wanting to go national with it, you could use that to go with national care.
Speaker 3 00:20:01 It's Carrie estate planning that could apply to people could think that's a name. There's probably the city. Carrie is probably in a lot of different states. So that was a I thought it was a brilliant name too. And he was his very first day of running. His law firm was he was on the podcast. So I was I always kind of monitor, monitor Paul to see how he's doing because he's always crushing it. He's just killing it. Yeah, well, focus, focus, focus. Right. Like, if you're focused and even on, like, a geographic region, I think that's incredibly powerful. And, you know, just a reminder, this is a live show. Emmet Naughton just chatted in, in LinkedIn saying naming is hard. It is things hard. Yes. You know, it's funny because Jim Hacking. So we mentioned before. He's awesome at naming things. He's really good at naming things. It's it's some people just have a knack for it. And it's I do I think it's really difficult.
Speaker 3 00:20:49 And you especially there's ego part of it too. People want to put their name in it because of the ego. But then also you want something that's different. You want people to know what you're going to do. Like subscription like like sending with yours. Right. It's, it's hard to come up with something when in the legal space. I think people want to have it professional and they want their, their peers to, to, you know, not make fun of the name. I think that's part of it too. But it's there's a lot of there's a lot of things that make it difficult. I have two domains that I don't use, but they redirect to my to my firm, which is Kirby's legal service. Because what if I did want my my name in the brand, right? Right. So it's good to have that as a backup, just in case for the right clients, particular clients maybe want an attorney's name in the firm. Right. And then I have offload legal. Com.
Speaker 3 00:21:37 Oh I like that one a lot. And what would you do with that one though. Well so the reason I got that is I found and I think, you know, this is depending on the type of lawyer that you're on, I think we could all benefit from networking with local chambers of commerce, like I do a lot of in-person networking. And I'm like, I'm always giving a pitch of 15 to 30s, depending on the group to, like, give a pitch and like, say who you are and what you do. And I found myself using that offload your legal services to me every month so that you could get back to what you enjoy in your life and your business. And so I was like off load legal, like there's there's something there. But then I, I did do a little bit of market testing with it and it's like like like offload like you're an, like a, like a freeloader offload or free like, so you know. so there's some negative connotation. And, you know, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3 00:22:20 Like like what? People who post pictures of their dogs on their website and they're like, if you don't think that that's fun and cool, like you're not a good fit for us as a client, right? So I get that. But I don't know, I just didn't want to go all in on that brand, but I, I still keep it. I pay for the domain, so we'll see. I was going to ask you, so I'm trying to pull up my GoDaddy account because I've got them through. I've got multiple I've got they used to be host monster HostGator and I've got GoDaddy as well. Yeah. How many how many URLs do you actually own? I think I'm in the 40s right now. Yeah. Because I, I don't know how many I it's a ton. I, I'd say I probably have at least 40 because I started just collecting them. I'm like, oh I use this at some point though my I don't know if it's the I don't know if it's the best, it's my favorite then I have because it's, I think it's funny and I have a redirected to my site.
Speaker 3 00:23:06 And David Haskins had told me to get it and I think it's hilarious. It is big time lawyers.com. Oh that's great. He's like. He texted me one day. He's like, hey, big time lawyers is available. You should get it. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna get it. And then he said, also big time baller come. So I bought Big time baller is I own that one as well. Which is funny I don't know okay. So that reminds me, I wanted to say sports teams are inherently local geography but national international brands. Right. So could totally be done. Right. Totally. Yeah. Absolutely. I have 66 and GoDaddy is what I have. Okay. I'm at 48. I just checked it. Yeah. Here's one I just did tell you. It's probably waste of money for most of them really. I mean, look, it's like 30 bucks a year or whatever it is, you know, it's like and it's expensive. You know, it's a business.
Speaker 3 00:23:52 Absolutely. So. So I got just recently my most recent domain that I purchased, which was available because I did a series with Lauren Lester called How to Run a Law Firm in 2025. Oh, nice. So I got how to run a law firm.com, and it redirects to those 18 episodes that was available that was available. How to run a law firm.com I know, I know, that's incredible. Yeah, yeah. So I was good on you. I was thinking I did that. How to run a law firm series with Lauren. I gotta, I gotta do that with other attorneys who are into that topic. So maybe future joint series for me and you. Tyson, how to run a law firm. Well, I like it. That's the episode. That's a lot of fun. We bashed it. So we did like five recording sessions that netted 1930 ish minute episodes. That's pretty cool. That's a great idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So then. Yeah, I mean, I have things like blockchain legal hub, crypto legal hub, law on the metaverse, law on the meta.
Speaker 3 00:24:42 Like I know when the metaverse came around, I just grabbed up a bunch of those domains and they're all worthless. Now, can I ask you about the meta stuff? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, sure, sure. All right. I never got it. I never thought it was gonna work out. Like, do you think in, like, 20 years, like we're going to be, like, in the metaverse, like hanging out and stuff? We are right now? Tyson. It's just not virtual reality. This is metaverse, baby. Like what we're doing. Okay, well, I don't count this. This to me, this is different. Like this. You know, I'm talking like you put on the goggles, you're walking around. Do you think that that's going to be a thing? So so I don't I don't know if that is. But like if we do this brain computer interface thing like there'll be might be some like version of that. Like I always liked mixed reality more than I liked full virtual reality.
Speaker 3 00:25:23 Right. Like the Google Glass now the Ray-Ban meta products. Right. Like, like I never even met us. They're pretty cool. That's metaverse. I really think mixed reality is like a it like counts as metaverse, but where the blockchain and crypto stuff comes in, which I mean, look, Bitcoin is on a tear. I, I only own some through like some like, you know, I did some thing a while ago where if you spend money on here you get rewards in Satoshi's. Oh that's cool. It was it was a long time ago. So I have a little bit, but I've never actually bought it up. So I'm not really into that crypto space from a cryptocurrency standpoint. But I think with AI and and copyrights and like IP ownership and stuff, you can tokenize, you know, NFTs is not like a good term anymore. It's a toxic term. But you could have like non-fungible tokens. You could tokenize fractional ownership and intellectual property that is pulled and leveraged in AI to generate images, text, whatever.
Speaker 3 00:26:17 So I actually think the underlying technology fused with AI might be a way to handle royalty payments in the future. And so that's the only reason I'm keeping some of these domains for crypto and metaverse stuff. Yeah, that's I would love to hear more about that. So all right, because you don't have to explain to me how that works. And I kind of understand it. But it's so right now let's say like we're going to use like the NFTs for an example. Right. If someone were going to do something with that NFT to pay that royalty, like you'd have to, it's kind of like the honor system, right? Is that how it works? No, no, I don't think so. Because, like, the idea behind blockchains is that it's verifiable and it's not like multiple servers, right? And so the idea being that and this is also like I'm a total novice at the underlying technology, right. Like just like with AI, I understand it at a high level and I understand how to use it.
Speaker 3 00:27:05 I don't necessarily understand the underlying technology completely, but but like what separates a cryptocurrency which is fungible, like a Bitcoin could be exchanged for Bitcoin, a dollar for a dollar versus a non-fungible token, or just tokenizing in a unique format. Like anything, a fractional sized anything is, it's wholly unique unto itself, right? But it can be identified wherever it's it's plugged or pulled from or seen on, because it's kind of just like these are just like complicated spreadsheets, right, with like long hashes with unique configurations. So, so the idea would be that, oh, this AI art that, you know, whichever model you're using, I like to use. I'm actually I've tried to use a lot of them. I could only generate good images the way my brain works inside of Gemini's image creator. Like, yeah, like that. Like, so I'm using Gemini for that stuff. Like if it drew from some sort of training data and it was from multiple different artists. You know, I'm paying Gemini, whatever I'm paying a month right now it's $14 a month as a Google Workspace user, which amazing.
Speaker 3 00:28:11 Like, you know, some percentage of that goes, you know, pro-rata to, you know, whatever amount that that token that's attached to that art was used in this artwork. And it's all it's a little bit on the honor system because it's going to be like, you know, the algorithm determined it was used, you know, so it's a fraction of a fraction of a cent. But if people are generating these AI images all the time. Right. And like, you know, fractions of a stat add up, it's not going, no one's going to quit their day job and make royalties from AI generated art. Well, maybe, you know, I think it's a great that's a great explanation of it. I think that's really cool. Have you ever used Google's Flow? It's an open tab that I've been trying to get back to. It's it's really cool. I mean, yeah. So you let the upgrade, it's like, I don't know, I think it's like 200 bucks a month.
Speaker 3 00:28:53 Whatever it is, I feel like they're all getting like 200 bucks a month. Yeah, but it's really cool. Now it's only going to give you because it's giving you the audio plus the video part of it. That's the That's what's really cool. It's like an eight second clips. And so you can't do a lot with it. And it screws a lot of things up. But it's pretty impressive. Yeah I'm using Vo three actually. Yeah. And and I'm, I'm, I'm so I think it might be the same underlying tech. And what I did is I made I did a CLE for Legal Geek. And in there I made up a, a legal tech company because it's mostly it's a lot of legal tech companies at legal. Yeah. And I made up this ad of this actual human like saying, you know, are you using this legal tech product you should be or. No, it's like, is your lawyer using this legal tech product? They should be. And the reason I came up with it, I'm curious to get your perspective on this.
Speaker 3 00:29:41 Pharmaceutical companies, they can't sell most of their drugs direct to consumers to to the people of that will take the drugs. So they say ask your doctor about our product. So why isn't any legal tech company like advertising? Ask your lawyer about this legal practice management system. Right? Like, hey that's interesting. It works. It obviously works. The pharmaceutical companies are killing it. Right? Because when you have patients going to their doctor saying, well, what about, you know, Lipitor or whatever? Right. She's like, can you put me on that? Okay, so that's interesting. But I think I guess maybe the difference would be is like the legal tech companies don't have that same barrier that the that the pharmaceutical companies do. So they can go and they can hire, they can pay someone like you to, you know, you push their product and you know, you use the software, then you push it, which I think would have more influence is that, I don't know, I don't like it, but I like client of it.
Speaker 3 00:30:37 Yeah. Have you ever had a client say, are you using, you know, Clio or my case or like, have you ever heard them? No one's ever even asked me what I use. They have. They. They probably assume I use paper files. I don't know, I mean, someone's asked me if I use litera before. It's actually. Really. Yeah. Litera sounds like a pharmaceutical drug. It totally does. Ask your attorney if La Terra is right for you. It sounds just like a pharmaceutical drug. I just I think there's something there, so I don't know. I know you, you you know, maybe you you have, you know, connections with legal tech people. So keep that in mind. It's I think it's funny either way. but but I did it in Vo, and it's amazing and it's totally realistic. You know, you give it instructions. You know, person of this particular ethnicity is walking away from the camera, turns around and says this line, but you have to spell it out phonetically.
Speaker 3 00:31:21 So they actually say it the way you're supposed to. And like, like in a city, you know, and it's perfect. It's like it's unbelievable. So I and I've done quite a bit with Vo three and I have you found a good way like one of the, one of the cool little tricks I learned when it comes to just prompting in general was to like the, you know, don't make things up, that just one little sentence has been pretty effective. but have you learned any, like, little tricks when it comes to generating video that has been good for you? Yeah. I mean, you have to get in the mind of a director, right? Like, you have to think like a director, right? Like you are. You are now director. Right. And you're shooting an eight second video. So you have to think of all the things that go into that. And so if you're not sure what that that includes, I would go to Perplexity Pro and I would say I want to make an eight second video.
Speaker 3 00:32:11 Video. I have to get in the mindset of a director. What are the what are the questions I should be asking? What are the like? I would just use perplexity. Whatever your AI tool of choice is to that, your thought partner is to help you come up with what you want to give. Vo three I still find less is more, and I said once because I was experimenting and I said they should not turn around simultaneously because I tried that same example with two people where one person says half a phrase and the other does. Oh, interesting. And it made them turn around. I said, don't make them turn around simultaneously. And it did. So like like just like with the text based stuff, sometimes you just said, don't do something. It makes it do it. I think the video is still catching up with that. Yeah, I, I, I'm pulling a perplexity pro because that's I prefer that too. I think it's awesome. And do you ever have you used the labs at all? Yes.
Speaker 3 00:32:57 And I'm not a fan. I'm not because I'm. I'm not either. And it's one of those things where. That's why I want to ask you, in case you knew a better way of using it, because I was like, it's I'm like, okay, whatever. Like, I don't really. It doesn't really fit any purpose for me. And maybe it would work for someone. I even try to have it script out a commercial for me. I didn't feel like it did a very good job, but otherwise I love perplexity. That's my of all of the AI llms. That one's my favorite. I definitely use it the most. Right. Like as it's replaced Google I I what I a way that a good way to use perplexity may be the labs feature is you do a bunch of questioning back and forth in pro or or research, and then you tell it to turn it into a slide deck. Right. And it's going to do an okay job. It's not going to be perfect because it's coding.
Speaker 3 00:33:40 It's like coding PowerPoint from scratch. And then like giving you the slide deck. You know, you could tell it what colors you want and all that stuff if you really want to go that far. But I wouldn't even go that far. And then I would take that slide deck and I would put it into gamma app. Yeah that was great. And then gamma could like take that and turn it into an amazing slide deck. Gamma is is they might be like the industry standard when it comes to slide decks right now. I'm about to pay to subscribe. Have you been paying? I have been paying. Yeah, that's really good. The now, I will say the thing about labs is what it's kind of cool is it will. Like, if you were to ask ChatGPT something and it's a pretty let's say it's a pretty detailed prompt and you're asking for quite a bit, which is not the best way of doing it. But let's say you were it's it's going to spit out just the information.
Speaker 3 00:34:29 But what's cool about Labs in perplexity is it will give you the slides, it will give you the pictures, it'll give you diagrams. I thought that was pretty cool. Now the outputs are not fantastic right now. So maybe this is one of those things where we're just early days and in a few months it's going to be awesome, but I do I do think that that part is really cool where it does give you those outputs. It's just not quite ready yet. Yeah. And I was literally giving a presentation to some law students on how to use perplexity when I, like, refresh the page or I opened up a new tab and open up perplex again and labs all of a sudden appeared and I was like, wait, this is this is a new button. And I went back to my other open tabs and it wasn't there. And so like, I was there literally when labs launched and I and I so it's just so cool. So yeah, it's not going to be perfect, but it's cool to experiment with.
Speaker 3 00:35:14 I'm sure it will improve. You know, part of me wishes they wouldn't do that because I want them to just focus on search and answer, which is what they're really, really good at. But I know they kind of feel like they have to compete with all the other features. Like in Gemini, it's called canvas. Have you used canvas at all? No, I've not a big I've used Gemini. I'm not a big Gemini user though, so I don't even know what canvas is. It's just labs, but it's in Gemini. It's the same idea. Yeah. So I think that came first. So I think perplexity copied canvas in Gemini for for their tool. So you know how Google. So it's interesting like how Google started and how the route it took. And I don't know how much you know about the history of Google, but they basically. I've listened to the acquired podcast episode on Google. Okay, fantastic. And how recent is that? That's pretty recent. That was like the like that might have been their last episode or two episodes ago.
Speaker 3 00:36:00 And, you know, it's like three hours long. Okay. So my knowledge is from something, you know, I think it was from a Google or like a podcast episode I listened to a while ago, but they had come to this fork in the road where they decided, okay, we could either charge for this like a subscription base or we can go the ads route, and they chose the ads route. And a lot of the a lot of the conversation was about how things would have been so much different had they gone the paid route, and probably maybe how much better it would have been. I think it's interesting because now if you compare it now, everyone's gone the other way. They've gone the subscription route for the most part. They've got a free version. It's almost like Tyson. The subscription model is the best business model on the show and the last subscribed podcast. I like the way you did the full circle. But yes, maybe you're right, but I do find it. I do wonder who's going to gonna win? Because Google won that race, right? They they toppled Yahoo! They toppled being, you know, only anyway ever used Bing.
Speaker 3 00:36:55 But Yahoo was like the king before they toppled everybody else. But I do wonder who's going to win this race. One of them's going to win the race. There's going to be the other ones that are going to be still around. Probably the ones going to clearly win right now. ChatGPT is. But I do wonder who's going to ultimately win this race. I actually think ChatGPT is going to be the Yahoo and AOL of 000 and right now, unpopular opinion. But I think that now, don't get me wrong, it's still going to be incredibly valuable underlying technology. Right. But it's a foundational it's like so so yeah, whenever I see somebody who's like using ChatGPT, I'm like, oh, that's like seeing like an at Yahoo or at AOL email because like I'm using all these other AI tools that are not not. Now, perplexity does let you pick to use the foundational GPT models from opening if you want to. Right. So like I think that tech will always be available because it's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 3 00:37:46 I just think that there are so many interesting specialized tools that are more useful for their specialized purpose that it's just like like the law practice management softwares, right? Like, do you want an all in one solution that's mediocre or maybe even pretty good at like some things, but not everything that it does? Or do you want the best breed? And if it's price right, like you're going to go best of breed every time I think, yeah, I think you're right. I think it's it's funny. I'm very curious to see if you're right about being the Yahoo, but I'm smiling because you touched on something that's always bothered me about legal tech, is that there is not an all in one. It is. There is nothing. That's all in one. And that has always driven me crazy. And I understand the reasons why. I completely understand the reasons why we don't need to get into all of it, but I do. It really is annoying to me that as lawyers, we can't just come in, log into one software and everything we need is in that software.
Speaker 3 00:38:40 I it drives me absolutely crazy that that doesn't exist. I understand the reasons why, but it still drives me crazy. So? So I believe what you're asking for though, like like what I would ask for is a Roku, but for legal tech or SaaS solutions. Right. Where? Yes. Fine. Yes. Perfect. Give me that. Because you still maybe want to use Calendly and you maybe want to use, you know, Paxton or whatever your preferred, you know, legal AI tool is. But they're not gonna they're not building an all in one solution, but they're best of breed. Right. But if I could sign into one software solution that I could bring in my favorite tech and maybe even have them interact with each other inside of that Roku, like for SaaS solutions. So you don't have to use Zapier. You don't have to use make for this best of breed tech. Is that what you're saying? That's probably why I like Zoho so much. That's why we use Zoho, because Zoho is kind of like the that's a great, great way of putting it.
Speaker 3 00:39:31 The. That's kind of like the Roku of of softwares, because it's got everything that you need to run a business inside of. We don't use everything that has, but we do use a big part of it. Can we talk about legal AI? Like the the legal research for a second? Well, so we got about ten minutes left. Okay. But again, you touched on that. I want to ask you about it. Okay. So so I mean, it's hard to get the podcast host out of the podcast headspace, right? Because it is. I'm sorry. No, no. It's okay. And I will say we missed it from Emmett. He said my understanding of the NFT could be used to get a ticket for Max Lacon, so thanks for that Segway, Emmett. We missed it. Excellent way to bring it back. We'll come back to Max Lorcan before we wrap up, but sure, let's ask away on the legal stuff. Legal title. I was so mad. I used to love case text.
Speaker 3 00:40:16 Case text was great. They had co-counsel and then that that other big nasty company bought it and then killed it. And it makes me so angry because it was a superior product. Now you can't use case text. So it's like, I've got to the point where I refuse to pay that other company. So do you. Is there a legal research platform that you or any of your listeners recommend. So. even before they were a sponsor of this show. And by the way, link in the, in the show notes to make sure they know I sent you. Paxton. Like, really has. Oh, I thought you were gonna mention the other company. No, no, no no. Paxton. I, when I went solo, I pivoted from litigation to transactional, and so I actually didn't need legal research as much as I used to. And so I was using Fast Case through the Illinois State Bar Association when I really needed to, which was like 2 or 3 times a year. Sure.
Speaker 3 00:41:11 Like, let's be real. Right. But then when Paxton came around, now it's like, it's it's not intuitive to the way we've learned to do legal research, but it is just so much easier. Right. We have we have we use Paxton. That's that's something we use. But you can't do traditional legal research in it though, right? Like like it's not designed to like, look up this specific case. It's just not built for that because I think that's the old way of practicing law too. Yeah. Realistic. Well, it's funny, our younger attorneys are asking for the old way. It's it's kind of interesting to me that they. That's how law school like. Like Dennis Kennedy just had this like LinkedIn viral of Kennedy. He's a Saint Louis guy. Loved it. Yeah, yeah. And so he just had this viral post about like like which will change first, legal education or the law firm business model. There's this great debate in the in the comment section because like legal education is slow to change.
Speaker 3 00:41:58 They have to go through the accreditation process. Right. But at the same time, lawyers who just came out of that system, even the young ones are like, it's not like the way I learned to do it in law school. Well, those companies are like the pharmaceutical companies where like, they'll go they they dictate what happens in the law schools because they give some money and then they have the representatives there and all that. So that part will have to change before everything else changes. That's what will have to happen. Here's what I think Paxton is doing. That's really cool. And I've seen some other legal tech companies do this, and I'm in the process of hiring my first law student as a legal extern. Is is they have the student pricing on there. So like the student could sign up with Paxton, but I could pay the $35 a month, which is way more affordable than 200 a month, right? So, like, you know, like, I like that student pricing that's available, you know, but but like I the law firm, you know, will pay on that student's behalf as like a form of not really not really compensation but as a software expense for that student to use it.
Speaker 3 00:42:57 But it's their account, right. Like they're signing up because it's an externship. So it's only for a few months anyway. But then they get access to it to play around with it and use it in a full featured environment, which is what I need for them to be using. Right? Yeah. So it's better than nothing. But I would say I think it would. To me, a smarter move would be just give it to them for free. And I know that that would that would suck. And they will. There will be a few that would use taking advantage of that law firm owners that would take advantage of that. But I think because you have to really I mean, a lot of a lot of law students are going to say that I don't have money to do that, so I'm not going to pay for that. So they won't. And I think the smarter move would be okay. Just give it to him for free. You were going to basically train them in this.
Speaker 3 00:43:39 That's why so many law students want it like, you mean, you get it in their blood. And then that way, by the time they get out there, they'll they'll want to use it. Yeah. I know like Paxton and some of these other legal AI companies have raised tons of money, but I don't think it's that much money. Like, not compared to the big ones. There's just not even not even close. But but I don't know. Our Lexis and Westlaw are they like, are they giving away the AI products fully for free? I don't know that they are. I don't think I think that the law is expecting them to pay them a think. Yeah, yeah, it's too expensive per token to give it away for free. I think so, so yeah, like maybe they could strike up deals with the law schools then that might. That might be an option. I mean look for me if I like I do talk to my alma mater, DePaul law in Chicago once a year, every year to the new incoming one else about AI and legal tech.
Speaker 3 00:44:23 And I tell them I'm like, you know, it's not now everybody could afford it. But if you've got 20 bucks to spend, you know, or 200 a year, Like like you got to start using the paid version of these AI tools. Like, don't go out. Like when you go out, like to, like, you know, bar events or whatever events like, and you might pay like 20 bucks or, you know, 40 bucks for drinks or food or something, you know, don't and spend that money instead on like the paid version of these AI tools. It's great. It's great advice. I don't know how many of them will take the advice, but I think it's great advice. They don't even know what AI is. Most of them like three people raise their hands that they're using AI. It's unbelievable. Well, so we got about five minutes left. Let's talk about Max Lokken. How about Tyson? So I know completely derailed because I know you want to talk about it earlier, but I, I think that people might enjoy this the other stuff a little bit more.
Speaker 3 00:45:10 Yeah, absolutely. Well, so I was going to say, if you liked this conversation between me and Tyson, think about coming to my actual icon because like, this is an example I have to imagine about the types of conversations that people are going to have, whether it's on stage or in between speakers or at the guild programming the day before. Right. Like this is the type of thing that people can expect to experience, right? Yeah. It's what if for anyone that's never been. It is. The feel is way different. It would then than any other conference I've ever been to. The closest I've ever been to is the closest conference I've ever been to that's similar is was icon with Infusionsoft where like, there's just like this very positive field everyone's trying to everyone's looking to, you know, you know, bring each other up either talking about okay, what's working for you, what's not working for you kind of a thing. It's not it's not a conference where we let people just pitch from the stage.
Speaker 3 00:46:03 We don't let them pitch from the stage at all. They're short, focused presentation. So you cut out all the fluff. So it's more of like the Ted style in a way where you have with like, I'm looking at the agenda right now where they, you know, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes. That's how long. That's the longest that a lot of them have. We do have a couple speakers that have got a little bit longer. I think 45 minutes is the longest we have, but we we keep it nice and tight there. Most of them are law firm owners or, you know, marketing people or management people that are going to come talk. I look at one of the ones I'm, I'm looking the most forward to is I don't know if you've ever had Jeff Hampton on, but his title is How to Double Your Law Firms Revenue by Building a Brand on YouTube. And it was funny because we had at the same time that we were booking Jeff and I didn't I didn't know back I was booking Jeff to come on the show.
Speaker 3 00:46:57 I had watched a video of Jeff I because he was I was on YouTube and I looked it was a cool video. It was I watched, it was 20 minutes and I watched all of it. And then I saw, you know, it was like a week later I had Jeff on. I'd never seen him before. I didn't connect the dots. I was like, Holy crap, I just watched your video last week and it was. But it's things like that. It was just really cool. But yeah, the feel is just it's a cool feel and we have a lot of cool things planned for the conference, which I'm pretty excited about. Is, Is that the guy who says he doesn't worry about what his episode notes say in YouTube? Was that is that what he said on the episode? I think Jeff did say he was like the same, like the same for every single, because, like, he's not focused on that. He's focused on the long form content. Right? Like, I really liked that.
Speaker 3 00:47:39 That's the approach I've been using. So when I heard him say that, I was like, great, I just gotta keep doing what I've done. Not worrying. I was shocked by that. I mean, so like he he gave. So he presented it in the guild a while ago and he gave like there's like ten things you focus on. It was funny because we've been doing that with Max law and it's made up an amazing difference. So like I think a lot of it is just simple stuff and it's not some of it's not so simple, but some of it's just simple. But like apparently the video description is not one of the things you have to focus on. Yeah, just here's how to buy from me. That's pretty much pretty much if you liked the video, here's how to buy from me. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are some phenomenal speakers, like you said, even going back to our earlier conversation about us still practicing law and doing the things that we're doing that help law firm owners.
Speaker 3 00:48:22 There's a lot like I'm looking at. Some of these people have multiple businesses, right? Like they're they are managing partner at a law firm, and they're running some other business that's related to improving your business or your law firm or something. So they are still practicing. Like, you just there's so much to learn and gain from being a practitioner and eating your own dog food and like actually doing the things that you coach people to do or suggest people do. And then the people who are not law firm owners are still super relevant to being a law firm owner, like with the subject matter expertise that they have that are not like some of them might be former lawyers. But I know like Chelsea Williams, for example, has been on the podcast who's been on law subscribed, you know, financial. Like you gotta have somebody there to talk about law firm finances, right. And it's absolutely essential. So really sweet line up. And I do say that myself included being there. Yes. Yeah. Because you're me on day one.
Speaker 3 00:49:10 It's interesting. So I think one of the the ones that can be really fun is we're going to have it's going to be the spouses that we have 3 or 4 sets of spouses that are going to be on the stage, and it's going to be a panel that we're going to have a lot of fun with that one. So kind of think dating game in a way, or kind of tease a little bit. So that one's going to be kind of fun. There's a lot like Heather Wilson. She's going to be doing Turning Swag and Swagger, which is a great title. I know you're going to be talking about some AI stuff, which is like really cool, but the CFO part you mentioned with Chelsea, it's there's there's something that lawyers like law firm owners, they don't like to talk about that they don't like talk about the financial part of it, which is like the most important part of it was the time. So I think yeah, I think Chelsea, she's fantastic. So that's gonna be a really good one.
Speaker 3 00:49:52 Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah a little small small tease for, for my talk. So it's called I want to make sure I say it right here. Well of course like we're doing this live and I, I'm trying to pull it up and, and it's not coming up but it's, it's essentially it's the latent legal market opportunities with AI and subscriptions. Essentially what it boils down to when I'm really excited about giving a talk at Max Lacon is years ago, when I was just launching my firm, when I was just launching the podcast, I actually applied to be a TEDx Ted fellow and put together a Ted talk based on this idea. And now I've learned so much and we've had the AI revolution, and I'm updating that talk. So, like, I'm ready to go. I'm so pumped. I'm so excited. If people want to meet Tyson and myself in person. And Maxwell icon you go to Maxwell icon Comm. Amazing. It'll be really hard. Really hard to get it. I mean, you talk about domains.
Speaker 3 00:50:43 That's one of the many domains. We got that one early. We got that. Oh sure. I'm sure. And like Khan is in conference Maxwell Khan. And but if you want Tyson and the Max maximum lawyer folks to know I sent you use if you're watching live on LinkedIn. There's the comment in the comments. I put my link and in the podcast episode look at the show notes and then I sent you. It's okay if you just go to max com, it's okay. But but at least that way, that way I could be invited back to future years. Tyson well, no, no, not only did he give a great presentation, but he helped send us, you know, 10 or 20 attendees so well, make sure you go to the link, because I want to make sure that, you know, we can we can thank Matthew you for, for, you know, supporting us and everything for speaking. So make sure you do use the link though because yeah, Mexico con is easier that you know, that comes easier to say and remember.
Speaker 3 00:51:25 But use the link it's easier. You're probably listening to this if you're watching on LinkedIn just click it right now. But if you're like listening you can go to the show notes. It'll be in there. All right. So and then if remember to stick around for LinkedIn lag. But if people wanted to follow up with you or reach out, listen to stuff, subscribe. Where do they do all the thing? Tell them all the links. either they can go to Max Miller or Max log com, or just you can follow me at Lawyer Tyson on all the social medias. So I'm on LinkedIn as well. So Tyson Matrix but I'm on at Laurier Tyson and all the other stuff. But really maximum lawyer comm is the easiest way to find me. Sounds good. All right, well, we'll stick around. And thanks again so much for coming on law. Subscribe live. Thanks, man. Thanks everybody for watching. It's awesome.