So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

What do you do when the traditional legal world no longer fits, but you still love practicing law?

For Brian Scherer, the answer was to build something new: HeyCounsel, a legal tech platform turned thriving community for solo and small-firm lawyers. In this thoughtful and often funny conversation, Brian joins Megan Senese and Jennifer Ramsey to talk about reinventing legal practice, one relationship at a time.

What started as a no-code marketplace turned into a vibrant, supportive community for solo and small-firm lawyers. Brian gets candid about what didn’t work, what surprised him most, and why relationships, NOT billable hours, are still the heartbeat of great legal work.

Learn more about our guest: 
Love So Much To Say? Let us know! Drop a review, give us 5 stars in your favorite podcast app, and tell us what made you laugh, think, or just go “yep, that’s me.” Every review helps us reach more awesome humans who want to make legal…well, human. 

Want to go deeper? Curious about 1:1 coaching with Megan or Jen? Or want the inside scoop on stage? Hit us up below, we’d love to chat!

Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People. Where we explore behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We're your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches, Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we're here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real struggles of balancing work with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. We're bringing you real stories, candid conversations, and smart insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer - what makes you human? So whether you’re navigating billable hours or breaking glass ceilings in a woman-owned legal practice, this legal podcast is for you. Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human). 

Brian Scherer: [00:00:00] The thing is, I think a lot of lawyers don't feel loved. Oftentimes we're pitted against either counterparties or clients who challenge us, and there's a lot of other professions you can go into and you feel more love. The happy path for a lawyer doesn't always result in smiles. The in-house legal role is a very kind of like thankless rule.
Brian Scherer: I just felt like there's, there's gotta be some way to make lawyers feel rubs.
Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work life and everything in between. Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we wanna know what makes you human. And with that, let's get started. What we usually do for our podcasts is that I draft up something that has a bio writeup that probably has a typo in it, and then Jen reads it.
Megan Senese: But this time. As I was put, I don't [00:01:00] know if you looked at what I, what I outlined Brian, but I was going through, you know, hey, council and Googling you and asking chat GBT about you. And I know I've read it before, but I was laughing my ass off reading like the q and a of like, what is, HeyCounsel and who is this person?
Megan Senese: And so I, because I was laughing, I just, just thought that it would be fun for me to just like straight up read what you wrote, which I don't know if anyone's ever done this to you, but. People do this to me sometimes with LinkedIn, and then it feels like people are reading my diary where I'm like, oh yeah, like, what did I write?
Megan Senese: So, um, sit through the embarrassment or maybe, maybe you like reading what you read. Okay, so this is what you wrote on the HeyCounsel, like about section. And it goes like, goes like this. Hey, lawyerly human. My name is Brian Sheer. I'm a tech lawyer turned founder whose new life goal is to make lawyers more loved.
Megan Senese: My hope is to give founders quick actionable insights into legal issues that you have either seen before or you will see in the future. That's [00:02:00] not the part that made me laugh. The part that made me laugh is that you go on and then you say like, oh, you want subscribers? Like. Sign up and have people send it on.
Megan Senese: And so you tell the reader if the content is boring, that they can email you directly, which I also find endearing. And then if they send it to 10 people, they would get an autographed picture of your dog, Dylan. Which is at this point now is where I'm like crying, um, because I think it's hilarious. So you ended off by, you know, saying that you are also the founder and CEO of HeyCounsel, a writer of the Legal toolbox partner at Davidson firm, outside general counsel of scale.
Megan Senese: And then you end it off with eater of peanut butter by the spoon. I thought your bio background was funny and a, a nice way to kind of kick off my impression of you that is light and caring and funny and lighthearted, and how does it feel for you? Does that capture it?
Brian Scherer: It feels like a [00:03:00] lifetime ago that I wrote that because I was like, wow.
Brian Scherer: I did write that, um, probably like three or so years ago. But yeah, because I, I, I, what originally when I was starting HeyCounsel, I wanted it to be very client facing. It was more like trying to help founders. Find more affordable boutique solo lawyers because they're hard to find. And to do that, I wanted to create a newsletter that was just full of like digestible legal tips that were like very approachable, uh, for somebody to have a, a legal background.
Brian Scherer: And so I actually envisioned like get, like creating this like really. I really shareable legal newsletter and, and the goal ultimately was one, get like my picture of my dog, uh, across the world with like autographs and hopefully that would've been viral, but nobody actually shared it with 10 people, so no one got an autograph picture.
Brian Scherer: But I also wanted to create merch around like, just the idea of people who loved lawyers. So like, I wanted, I wanted founders to wear shirts that say I love my lawyer.
Megan Senese: Talk to us about [00:04:00] HeyCounsels. For those, for those of our listeners who aren't familiar or like, I like to say prior to launching our business, I was like a big law snob, right?
Megan Senese: I didn't care about small solos. Obviously they're not as smart as big law to obviously, right? Because that's, you get indoctrinated, I think, in a lot of ways. But, so maybe there are people that are out there that don't know about solo options or even trying to find founder. Companies, um, and legal advice for founders.
Megan Senese: So, so talk to us about your background and, and where you saw the need for hey, counsel.
Brian Scherer: Yeah. Well, I, I'll start I guess with the, the, the background, which is I never practiced at a law firm and I started in-house at JP Morgan. I went from there to a bunch of other in-house roles at startups. So my DNA is less of a lawyer and more as like a startup operator.
Brian Scherer: So, so the background of me thinking about what, what HeyCounsel would be was I, I was at my, I guess my last [00:05:00] in-house role. I just remember having this visceral reaction to the bills we were getting when working with Big Law. And this was a company that, you know, at the time, companies when they, this was like, this was pre COVID month.
Brian Scherer: Money was flowing and so legal bills I think were like high legal bills were just part of the cost of doing business. So even though we would get like a $50,000 bill from an out outside counsel on something that maybe we could have negotiated down, maybe we could have done searching to find more affordable lawyers.
Brian Scherer: Um, it was still acceptable and we were like, okay, great. You know, 50,000 we were over budget, but, um, not, you know, it's not, not terrible, but I remember having this feeling, you know, there has one, there has to be more affordable lawyers out there who have similar levels of expertise, if not better. It's just we weren't doing the searching.
Brian Scherer: We were, we got a referral. We went with that referral. And that was that. I, I just remember thinking, I wish there was a marketplace, like there was an air Airbnb to find affordable lawyers, um, to [00:06:00] search law firms, uh, to, to really have like a great like user experience as a buyer of legal services. And that goes for both like an individual if you have legal trouble, but also um, businesses and startups and enterprises.
Brian Scherer: So, uh, I didn't think the options out there were that great and, and so I just thought one day I'll start, I'll start my own marketplace and that, and the, the origin story of, hey, counsel was not a lawyer community. It was a lawyer marketplace.
Megan Senese: And then how did it, how did it morph into the lawyer community piece?
Brian Scherer: So slowly. Before ai no. Code was, was the thing. There was this huge movement still is, uh, but, but now it's easier to write code. So, so not as, not as strong. But I, I was not technical at all and I had no technical co-founder. But when I left Blend and started the journey, I started learning how to use all these no code tools.
Brian Scherer: And then through that I started to figure out which ones I liked to use. And then I hired an agency for like, now when I look back, like it was a [00:07:00] decent amount of money. But, but it was cheap. Um, and they built this first version of, of a marketplace that was like very simple. Like you can filter for lawyers based on certain attributes.
Brian Scherer: Lawyers can post their profiles. And so yeah, it was like, it was like a very kind of simple way for. Say a new founder or an existing startup. We had some, some pretty far along clients and then we had some very brand new clients come to come through and like find their lawyer and then ultimately start working with a lawyer in our marketplace.
Brian Scherer: And we grew that marketplace to about a year and a half in, we were doing $50,000 worth of billing through the platform a month. The major kind of like problem. I hit well, one, like the marketplace, like the technical marketplace was crap and it was falling apart and I was stitching all these things together manually, and so it was terrible.
Brian Scherer: But, um, I, we also didn't, we also didn't take a cut of the transaction, so we were charging lawyers to be just on the platform [00:08:00] subscription. They could even boost their profiles is like, they all paid $99 a month just to be on the platform if they got a client. You know, their price wouldn't go up if they didn't get a client.
Brian Scherer: Their price wouldn't go down. It was just, for some people it worked. For a lot of people it didn't. But I started to think like two things. The, the first, which was overwhelming, was, I'm building nothing original, so I was being pulled in this direction of being just another. You know, you fill in the blanks, like the world didn't need another one.
Brian Scherer: So I, I started to look inwards at the lawyers who were part of our supply. So like, what do the lawyers want that I'm not providing? And a lot of that was community. They were all on our Slack group. They were all working together on things that didn't even come in through. So like they would ask questions about other client matters that they were working on, and I started to realize all these lawyers.
Brian Scherer: Really want something other than just business development. Business development is a, is a [00:09:00] piece of what maybe I could offer, but what are all the other things we offer? Whether it's events, networking, uh, an ability for them to collaborate better, maybe shared resources, um, more effectively. And so, hey, council kind of grew from the supply.
Brian Scherer: Like what can we provide with the supply side, not even thinking about generating demand for lawyers.
Jennifer Ramsey: Interesting. How'd you come up with the name Pay council?
Brian Scherer: Uh, literally the name was created before the business. I saw there was a domain available com for 19 a month.
Jennifer Ramsey: Yep. And I
Brian Scherer: said, I have to buy this and turn it into a business.
Megan Senese: Mm. Well I
Brian Scherer: love that. That's so cool.
Megan Senese: So hearing you right, talk about the, what problem we were trying to solve is very founder specific, like approach to business issues. Right. And it's so most of the people that we have surrounded ourselves with previously. If they thought about it, things like that. They [00:10:00] didn't share it.
Megan Senese: It wasn't about trying to find what the actual problem was and developing the solution. It was like, how do we shove this solution down? People, you know, we're get them to buy this thing that they don't maybe even need. Right. And so I love hearing you talk about. You probably could have continued down the path, the path that you were down, right before you changed it into a community-based approach, right?
Megan Senese: You could have continued down that way. You could have maybe hired someone to fix the code or, or launched a new software or whatever, right? You could have fixed it and, and instead of saying, you know what, we're gonna pivot and go this other way, and do you, do you think that's because of all of your, you know, experience with all these different scrap, like, I'm assuming there were scrappy, scrappy startups where you had to pivot quickly and, and, and turn around and change your approach.
Brian Scherer: Yeah. I mean, it was, it was weird because I, I didn't have, like, I was never given a mandate, so to speak, either from investors who were like, this is a great idea. Here's money. Go do it. Nor did I [00:11:00] like. I feel like someone that like validated my idea and because of that I felt like I had the ability to do whatever I wanted, right?
Brian Scherer: Like it was my business. I owned it totally outright and I, I could shut it down the next day if I wanted to. But, but I'm a firm believer in do, like, do what you have energy for. So the thing that I didn't have energy for was the marketplace. I started to run into this, into this wall that like, I, I was kind of building what I thought.
Brian Scherer: I should build because there was, there was this like very easy to explain tangible thing and people nodded their heads and were like, yeah, just build a marketplace in this area. And as long as you get enough like money flowing through the the system, then you can extract a certain amount and that's a business.
Brian Scherer: I, and I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I don't know, I just kept kind of like going down that path until I was like, I just don't have energy for this. This is not what I wake up for. And I also was practicing at the time and, and, and still, you know, um, to a certain extent still [00:12:00] practicing. Um, and so I just, I was like at a very like go, no go point in time where I was like, I need to try something else or shut it down.
Brian Scherer: Not from a viability standpoint. I felt like there's a viable business in. What did I be building 10 years from now? And for me, the community element was really pulling me and the marketplace element was not, I just followed, followed my heart.
Megan Senese: I love that. I'm actually thinking, so Jen and I have a like a.
Megan Senese: 2026 planning session scheduled for tomorrow. And I feel like what do we have energy for? Might be a, a good way to frame up a preview of our conversation tomorrow, Jen. Um, no. I, I love, I love that I'm tired. Yeah, I know. Well, that's, we can have a conversation about that too, how hard it is to be a founder and do all the fucking things.
Megan Senese: But that's completely different topic.
Brian Scherer: Yeah. That's why it's so important. Like you think about the people who had real success in life. I [00:13:00] think overwhelmingly it's people who be obsessed with something because. They loved it. And like, you can love, love is, you know, comes in many different forms, but you, you get obsessed over something and that's what causes you to think about it in the shower, in the car, um, and, you know, in your, in between times.
Brian Scherer: And, and if you're not doing that, then you're, you're swimming up. You're, you're, you're fighting a headwind and if you have the energy for something and you're thinking about it and it, it kind of consumes you, then it may still suck. It may still be hard, but you have the tailwind, and that's when I think people, you see people doing 10 years of something because they, they have the energy for it versus the opposite.
Megan Senese: Is that when you decided that you wanted lawyers to. To, to be more loved or to feel more loved. Is that, is that how it all came to be? That's an interesting sentence. I, I'd love to love to pick your brain on that. I'd love to know, like, know why, [00:14:00] like why that wording, why that phrase?
Brian Scherer: Well, the thing, the thing is, I think a lot of lawyers don't feel loved.
Brian Scherer: Oftentimes, we're pitted, we're pitted against either counter parties or. Who, um, challenge us and, uh, there's a lot of other professions you can go into and you feel more loved. You create beautiful things, whether you're like a designer or you're salesperson's like selling and everyone's smiling like you.
Brian Scherer: The end result, the good po, the good result, the happy path for a lawyer doesn't always result in smiles.
Brian Scherer: Other professions ends with like champagne bottles being popped, or a beautiful design or something you can show off and people clap. Like, we don't get that. And I think that's, I want, yeah. I mean I, I I, I always felt like in, in-house, um, the in-house legal role is a very kind of [00:15:00] like, thankless role.
Jennifer Ramsey: Yeah.
Jennifer Ramsey: And,
Brian Scherer: uh, and so that's what I, I just felt like there's, there's gotta be some way to make.
Brian Scherer: I love
Megan Senese: that goal. I do. I love that goal and I, and I think a lot of the reason why our podcast exists is to show. The duality of lawyers and to show the human side. And I think a lot of people you know are, feel underappreciated, but also feel like they're alone in that, right, or that they're the only one that feels that way, or they get to a certain point in their career and then they're like, oh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be.
Megan Senese: And then they feel un, you know, they feel unhappy and unloved. So it's a sentence that stuck out to me. So there's a, there's another thing that, now this was, again, this is going back a couple of months, but I'm just trying to show how much we're aligned. Uh, you videoed yourself. It's on LinkedIn, you videoed yourself of handwriting out every single card to your, um, hate council community.
Megan Senese: I think it was for the holidays, so maybe it was Thanksgiving of last year perhaps. And that's something that. Jen and I have done, and, but you also talked [00:16:00] about, you know, personalization and making people feel appreciated at this, at the risk of like scaling. Right. So talk, talk to us about like, why did you decide to do that when you could have just automated it?
Megan Senese: How important is it to you?
Brian Scherer: It's a good question. I, if, if I could automate something and still get the same sort of feel to it. Like if people received it in the same way that they received a non-automated handwritten letter. Then I would consider it.
Jennifer Ramsey: Mm-hmm.
Brian Scherer: But part of the charm of, it's them knowing that you sat down and wrote that thing with your hand and your eyes, you know?
Brian Scherer: So, yeah. I mean, and
Jennifer Ramsey: your heart. And your brain,
Brian Scherer: uhhuh
Jennifer Ramsey: feel.
Brian Scherer: There were no dashes in, in those, uh, on those handwritten, yeah,
Megan Senese: so one of the, our favorite thing is, is I think majority of our listen, well actually we don't really know, 'cause podcasts don't tell you exactly who's listening. So I assume the majority of our listeners [00:17:00] are lawyers. That maybe are not in-house, but I don't know.
Megan Senese: But my favorite thing to do is to bring people who have been in-house, who sat in a general counsel role so we can share perspectives. Because when, again, going back in the day when Jen and I were still in-house, the general counsel title was just this, like, you never knew what they were thinking. You had to impress them.
Megan Senese: And so I'd love, we'd love to get some insights of like, talk to us about how you would hire. When you were in house. Right. And talk to us about how that shows up now, because you're still practicing too, as well as running. HeyCounsel. Yeah. Talk to us. Talk to us about what it's like to be when you were in house and, and how.
Brian Scherer: I never got to be GC and I kind of put the GC title on a pedestal in the same way. Like I always wanted to, and I probably, you know, maybe I was five years away from, from a true GC role. One of the things I say, you know, a lot of the times to, to lawyers who join hate council is like, this is not a guru.[00:18:00]
Brian Scherer: I'm like, I'm leader and here's my 10 step process, and everyone who's here like follows that. Like, I'm, I don't have the answers. I have my experience and I think I've been very successful in selling myself and, and getting the job that I want, but I know how that translates. I'm learning it. I'm learning it from some of the lawyers who have created pro like the process, and a lot of them don't.
Brian Scherer: Instagram or LinkedIn or through a newsletter and, and sell their process to other lawyers. They're just in the weeds doing it. And then within our community, they'll say, here's how I did it. And everyone gets to learn from that. And then there's another lawyer who has a totally different process and a totally different opinion who's like, well, this is how I did it.
Brian Scherer: And, and then you learn from the multitude of opinions. And the big takeaway is. There is no right way, and you know this more than I do, it's what's genuine and authentic to you. That works.
Megan Senese: 100%. I think so much of, I don't know if it's because I just turned 40 [00:19:00] or we work for ourselves now, or I'm trusting myself, but I think you have to go through certain experiences, right?
Megan Senese: To to know, to come to terms with like there's no right approach, right? I think. Because we were always in this business development support role. Previously when we were in big law in the marketing and business development department, we just did whatever the highest ranking partner told you to do it to an extent, right?
Megan Senese: Like, not that I had no thoughts and feelings and didn't push back at some point, but you know, sometimes there would be other lawyers who would be like, well, I tried. What the practice group partner told me to do and it didn't really work or like we just keep kind of trudging along with the same thing kind of over and over again and not really seeing new results.
Megan Senese: And now having been in business for almost three years, we've been able to see like one, what works for us and how we get business in the door. But also between Jen and I, we have so many different individual lawyers who we are advising to grow their books that they have. I don't wanna say we have. In each individual's, um, approach for them.
Megan Senese: [00:20:00] But pretty much each of those people are so different and we're tailoring their approach to marketing and to business development and visibility and who their target is. And it's, we keep saying the very cliche, like, one size doesn't fit all, but it, it's cliche 'cause it's true, right? Like it's, there's a reason for that.
Brian Scherer: I imagine a lot of people come to you with a, what do I do, question. Onto, even if it isn't one size fits all, like what part of it is, um, repeatable. Is there anything?
Jennifer Ramsey: Yes, we are super duper, it's an official term relationship forward, and the one commonality across all of our clients is what is a one size fits all thing, but still unique to them is their network and their relationships.
Jennifer Ramsey: And so we go really deep into that because everybody's gotta, I can say a hundred percent of our clients have relationships. Sometimes they just don't know how [00:21:00] to uncover. Uncover some of them, maybe they don't know how to breathe some new life into ones that may have gone dormant. Maybe they are looking at a current client just as a client, whereas maybe they should be thinking about them a little bit different like a human right.
Jennifer Ramsey: So we use a relationship pipeline. And we call it relationship development. You said something similar to this earlier, Brian. Business development business will come. It is ancillary, it's tertiary. It's not the focus.
Megan Senese: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Ramsey: It's the relationships. The focus is on the relationships and building and nurturing and cultivating those through a very thoughtful, intentional relationship pipeline.
Jennifer Ramsey: And, and working with each of our clients to really understand their contacts and their network and how to make their networks feel love and the business will come. And so that is, that is the thing that is the key to the kingdom. That's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,
Megan Senese: I think. What's interesting [00:22:00] too is that people like to be put in this ni new position where people are coming to us and saying like, well, you're the expert.
Megan Senese: You tell me. I'm like, well, what is it that you're trying to achieve? Right? Because yes, you wanna grow your business, but how and at what cost and in which way? And those, when you can answer those questions, right? Like Jenna and I, of course we wanna grow our business. Sure. But for me, it's not at any cost.
Megan Senese: Like I still want a life. I still want a balance, right? And so then we have to justify and rectify what that looks like for us. And so that's, I think, where the pieces of the questioning starts to come in, right? Like it's not, I can say, well, you need to post every single day on LinkedIn and you need to.
Megan Senese: You know, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for LinkedIn ads, and you also have to be on Instagram and, and you gotta go speak at conferences and travel across the country. And you, you need to be sending out postcard, mailers and handwriting everybody's individual cards. Like you're not gonna have time for all that.
Megan Senese: Right? And so we try to lean into what is the end goal, right? Which piece of business? And then also [00:23:00] what are the things that you like to do? Can you invite people to like, participate in your joy? And so then it feels more. Human and natural to do those types of things. There. There's this like story I've, I'm sure I've told it before and Jen, you and I were still working together.
Megan Senese: It was in the height of the pandemic and it's a really great example of, at this particular moment, the lawyer not knowing the extent of the relationship that they had with this, with this client where we were sending out care packages. For kids, there were backpacks stuffed with stuff, and I had two kids under the age of four in 2020 of the height of the pandemic.
Megan Senese: So like anything that would entertain my children for more than five minutes was like a God's gift from heaven. So we were asking senior lawyers if they would be interested in sending these backpacks full of stuff to their client's kids. And this lawyer was like. No, I don't know if the general counsel has kids [00:24:00] or even wants this and like, I'm not interested in that at all.
Megan Senese: We're like, okay. And then like a week later, the person came back and said, so I decided to actually ask the general counsel. Turns out he, this, this person, this client did have children. They were grown, but they were potting. Remember that word at home in the general counsel's house with their grandkids.
Megan Senese: So I'll take 10 backpacks please. Or something like that, right? And it was this like moment where all of these ideas. Prior to, you know, the pandemic where we're like, can you talk to your client? Like, no, no, no. The general counsel's really busy. Or like, I don't, you can't bother them with that. Every thing kind of shifted, right?
Megan Senese: Like this more really diving into the personal side and bringing your full self to work. That's all, I think post pandemic, so I don't know how that is showing up for you in your, like in the community, how old is HeyCounsel?
Brian Scherer: I started the first iteration end of 2021, early 2022.
Megan Senese: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. For us, I think so much of like being authentic and people, uh, allowing [00:25:00] themselves to want more like real human connection, I think is all post my, my personal view is all it's post COVID, post COVID world where people want to feel connected.
Jennifer Ramsey: I wanna spend a little time before we, we end on, on the concept of fractional general counsel, because I, I do think it with what we're talking about. Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Ramsey: I've heard of fractional CFOs, right? Way like 20 years ago, there was a company in San Diego actually that would have CFOs that would go in to companies and, and they were like, I mean, you could even call 'em like a temp employee. Okay. But like, you know, they, they just, they weren't part of the company, but they did went in and they were functioning high level CFO.
Jennifer Ramsey: I've, I've heard fractional general counsel now more post pandemic, and I think a lot of people. A lot of lawyers who are more solopreneurs or boutique-ish, that they're gravitating towards this term. Fractional gc.
Brian Scherer: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Ramsey: And I, I'd like to hear your [00:26:00] perspective on it, Brian, like how you define it.
Brian Scherer: I mean, I, it's hard because I, I have two lives and one life is me selling fractional general counsel services, and so I'm on the phone pitching and it's all genuine.
Brian Scherer: It's real. I have a sales process for pitch about what it, what it entails, which is, in my opinion, and everyone has different opinions on a fractional gc. But for me, I do product and regulatory mostly. And then we have corporate capabilities and small firm, but it's slack. I am, I have my own email address with you, you all.
Brian Scherer: I look and feel like an in-house lawyer and you have part of my time on demand, meaning maybe it's not, it doesn't follow the, the traditional billable hour where like every 0.1 of an hour, I'm. I send you the bill for, it's more you're paying for, you're renting my time and within that [00:27:00] time, if I get a message, I'm on it and you can load that time up where I'm working across like all, all, let's say you have four hours a day.
Brian Scherer: I'm doing all four hours, um, you know, of work, whatever you send me during that four hours and then I shut it down. And that's that. And that works well for a lot of companies who need the consistency and need to know that you're gonna be very responsive when you're on. It's predictable. And then all of that is, is billed at a sort of like a subscription.
Brian Scherer: So I arbitrarily come up with a number that I think is fair. We negotiate and then ultimately that works or doesn't. And when I say it works or doesn't, it's adjust like three months go by, let's say. Three months go by and you're like, I feel like I'm only getting eight work from you. Then we have a conversation, um, and I have to prove why you're not, or, or maybe I'm, I agree with you, and I'm like, listen, capacity down.
Brian Scherer: Sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes I'm like, Hey, I did [00:28:00] $20,000 of work per month for you, and you're crushing me and I can't sustain this. Do we need to bump it up so we, I can give you more resources. There's definitely an E of flow there, but that's my version of fractional GC services and all the word fractional GC services means, or fractional counsel is part-time.
Brian Scherer: It's like, it's all, it's, yes, it's a fancier word to say part-time and then you kind of craft what your service level is. What? What are the expectations? What do they need? Um, some people call themselves fractional counsel because they do a lot of different things. So they'll, they can do, you know, on, at least on the surface, they could do corporate and commercial work and maybe some like, privacy stuff.
Brian Scherer: And so they're like, I can do all those things and I can, you know, give you one flat rate and I'm fractional. But that rate is, um. Maybe they do it hourly and they call themselves fractional counsel and you're, you're buying their time like you normally would. So there's so many different business [00:29:00] models.
Brian Scherer: You just gotta figure out what yours is. Like my, I guess I've, I've migrated to the, my real opinion of fractional GC when I'm not selling. It's, it's more like it is what you want it to be and you just gotta figure out what, what your offering is.
Jennifer Ramsey: Okay. I love that. And do, do you see this type of. Model or relationship picking up more and more steam going forward.
Jennifer Ramsey: We, we go from like hearing about mega mergers, right? Oh gosh. It's just so interesting the legal landscape and how much it's changed and, and so, you know, like the biggest firms are merging and then you've got these solopreneurs who are, who are like, they're entrepreneurial and they're putting up their own shingle.
Jennifer Ramsey: And then, you know, like trying to figure out, well how do I differentiate myself? As a solo or solo practitioner, and then fractional general counsel kind of started to have some lift. What else do you see? Like if you look in your crystal ball? What else do you see?
Brian Scherer: I can't predict the future, but I am playing for a, for a [00:30:00] particular type of future.
Brian Scherer: I'm building HeyCounsel because I'm trying to skate to the puck where the puck's gonna be, not to where it's, and I think where the puck is gonna be is a much more robust. Offering nimble, small firms that can execute at big firm levels of service. I think it's so whether you call that fra, there'll be some fractional council in there for sure.
Brian Scherer: We have tons of fractional in inside council. We also have a lot of what people call boutique firms. Those are smaller firms that do either something niche really well, or they're more full service, but they're small. There's, there's a, there's a lot of converging trends. Your ability to leverage yourself.
Brian Scherer: Accelerating exponentially right now. So that combined with the sort of acceptability of remote work, both from a client perspective and other lawyers taking you seriously, because that's also very important and uh, I think you [00:31:00] get those. Two things converging. I don't know, maybe add in like another sprinkle of like AI's insanely powerful.
Brian Scherer: And that's just, it's just mm-hmm. It's just wild to me. Um, so, so, so not only is it gonna help you on the, the legal, sort of like the legal work that needs to be done, it also helps you from running a business. Standpoint, you can promote yourself better and run the back office a little bit more effectively.
Brian Scherer: So all those things that make me feel like the future is definitely one where there's a massive opportunity in the individual solo, small firm world. And that does not mean big, big firms are gonna be here forever. They're gonna get much better at what they do, and legal services entirely are gonna get elevated like as a category.
Brian Scherer: But yeah, I, I, you can see where I'm betting, like I'm, I'm placing my bet.
Jennifer Ramsey: I love it. I'm gonna double down on that with you.
Megan Senese: So if people want to find you, become a member, get involved, like what should they do?
Brian Scherer: You know, if people are looking [00:32:00] to learn more about us, it's gonna be our site. Apply, apply. I mean, in terms of things to come, it really aligns with what I just said.
Brian Scherer: I, I do feel like the future is small, nimble, uh, powerful. Our mission statement is bringing big firm power to small firm lawyers. So we are dipping our toes back into how do we get lawyers. Work. I think that is, like, that's the, that's the gasoline for the engine. So we're trying to help lawyers figure out ways to market themselves better and to get more work.
Brian Scherer: And so BD is something that we're leaning heavily into. But part of it is like, how do we kind of re-sand up a public directory that's like a big part of our, uh, thing, but we don't want it to just be like another AVO or um, sort of like another legal directory. How do we make this directory fun to use?
Brian Scherer: Um, very accessible to clients who don't really know how to search for lawyers. And then how [00:33:00] do we make it something that lawyers actually wanna use outside of their website? Uh, how does it help their website? So we're ways which to use directory to their s on their site, off their site. All these really, really kind like cool features that we're, we're building out.
Megan Senese: That's it for today. Join us next time on So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People. Sharing is caring. Send this podcast link to someone you love.