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Building a scalable business without burning yourself out may seem like a dream. The latest episode of High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson proves that it doesn’t have to be.
Tune in as we sit down with James Forrest, a renowned attorney and entrepreneur, to explore why listening to your clients matters more than talking and how building genuine relationships accelerates business growth like nothing else. Plus, the critical strategies for navigating M&A transactions, embracing AI without losing your competitive edge and creating sustainable success without burning out.
This conversation serves as a much needed reminder that balancing ambition with intentionality transforms not just your career, but your life.
Future-proof your leadership with High Octane Leadership, a place where business leaders—whether by title or aspiration—share cheat codes for unlocking workplace excellence, lessons learned along the way, and insider tips for future generations of next-level professionals. With a career rooted in building people and businesses, Donald Thompson is an award-winning CEO, speaker, and author who empowers leaders to scale with purpose. Over the last 25 years, he has helped startups and enterprises alike drive cultural change, unlock performance, and deliver exceptional results through strategic leadership.
Find him on LinkedIn, and listen here to learn how you can become future-proof too.
High Octane Leadership Ep. 176
How to Win in the AI Era with James Forrest
[00:00:00] James: AI, lawyers bill by the hour. So things that make us more efficient will decrease revenue by definition. So that's a tough pill for folks to swallow who've been a billable hour professional their whole lives. Right?
[00:00:15] Donald: Welcome to High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. This season, we're diving deeper with more solo episodes, where I'll share the experiences that have led to recognition by Forbes, Fast Company, and others. Not as a boast, but as milestones on my entrepreneurial path. From growing multimillion dollar firms to successful business exits and building high performance teams with a global perspective. I'll reveal the insights and strategies from my journey and share them with you so that we can win together. Alongside these solo episodes, we'll have industry visionaries and thought leaders who will explore effective leadership. Ready to empower your leadership journey with real success stories? Let's embark on this transformational journey together. Hello. My name is Donald Thompson, and welcome to another episode of High Octane Leadership. Uh, very encouraged today about our episode. We're here with a good friend of mine, mister James Forrest. Happens to be an attorney I've worked with for years, but more than that, just a real close personal friend and somebody I admire as a business leader, as a father, as a husband, and also somebody that is really impactful in this community. So we're gonna unpack a lot of different things today from the legal space, but more importantly, and this is really exciting, James has worked with hundreds of business leaders over the years. So we're gonna ask him some questions and get him to unpack from his perspective what strong inclusive leadership looks like, what strong engineering growth looks like, and how the legal profession can help entrepreneurs and enterprise business leaders chart their growth in a way that minimizes risk, but increases in in talent growth and revenue expectation. So, James, welcome.
[00:01:56] James: Thank you, man. That's the most encouraging part of my day, not close.
[00:02:00] Donald: It is good. One of the things that I wanna chat about is I know a lot of your story. But one of the things that allows us to kinda ease into the conversation is just talk a little bit about your background, how did you choose the legal profession, anything you wanna share personally so that the audience knows you as an individual, and then we'll kinda dive into some of the topics.
[00:02:19] James: That sounds great. I'm from North Carolina. I grew up in rural part of North Carolina. I went to Chapel Hill for school twice. I'm married to my wife, Julie. We've been married for twenty five years. We've got four kids, ages 20 through 12. The path to law was not a straight one for me. My freshman year of college, I was a pre med major until I slept through my chemistry exam. Then I pivoted to elementary education, uh, and then they told me, I think my junior year, hey. Look, man. You gotta get up at, like, five in the morning and go student teach this year. You're gonna do that. And I was like, I'm not sure. I wanna be a elementary ed major. So that was kinda put on the back burner, and there was a winding path. I was somewhat spiritual in college. Didn't really know what I wanted to do, so seminary was on the table. But, ultimately, I got married in May 2020, which was my senior year. It was like, oh, man. I'm thinking for two people. I really should determine what I wanna do with my life and make sure it's a path I wanna go down. And so I ended up working for a law firm during that year, and that's when things kinda really clicked. I felt at home there. I felt like my gifts were really utilized there, and, you know, here we are twenty some odd years later.
[00:03:20] Donald: Oh, that is fantastic. One of the things that I like to as I ease into a conversation and open up and we'll do this, when we talk about leadership because we're gonna talk about business, m and a, and all those things, but I wanna start out the context talking about leadership. What are some of the qualities when you think about leaders that you worked with that you admire, that you've seen in some of the clients you've worked with over the years?
[00:03:42] James: I love Patrick Lencioni's hungry, humble, smart matrix. Right? Those three in tandem because you find a lot of folks that are really talented or really smart. But if they're not hungry and they're not humble, that's not the whole package. So for me, I'm a big Lindsay only guy. I love that matrix. When I think about hiring, I'm looking at people through that lens. I'm also thinking about it with business leaders that I admire, clients that I work with, c level executives that I really admire their business acumen. It's usually some combination of those three things, and you can kinda rank people pretty quickly one to 10 on hungry, humble, smart. You get some really, really smart lawyers in my profession that maybe aren't super open to feedback. That's tough to deal with. You get a really smart lawyer who's not that hungry, doesn't wanna work that hard, that's tough to deal with. So it applies really across the board, all types of business leadership, but I love that matrix. And the folks that check all those boxes tend to knock it out of the park.
[00:04:35] Donald: Wow. That is awesome. You're a lawyer by trade, but when I view you, you're an entrepreneur.
[00:04:40] James: I take that as a compliment. Thank you. Right? No offense to lawyers.
[00:04:43] Donald: No offense to lawyers. That's that's right. And I've had the opportunity to be a part of small part of your story as a client and friend. Talk to our audience a little bit about working within a larger law firm structure early in your career, and then that mental model to where you pivoted to the Force firm, and then moved on to have your firm acquired, basically your entrepreneurial journey.
[00:05:04] James: You're actually a big part of that story. You were my very first personal client. Right? I work for a lot of institutional clients at my old large law firm, but you were the first person that called me. And then I answered the phone, and we started talking. It's like, this guy wants to talk to me about law, and I can name this guy. It's like my client in the system. It's a big deal. So I look back to that with a lot of fondness, but I did that for seven years. First, for part of my career, worked in big law, and I'm really grateful for that experience. I learned from a lot of really smart lawyers, and there are benefits of being in a big firm. I'm in a big firm now. Right? But I left in 2011 and started Forrest Firm. And the two impetuses for that was I wanted to see my wife and kids more. This is pre COVID. You know, everyone's at the office fifty, sixty hours a week. And so pulling out and saying, okay. Look. I'm gonna work out of my house, work out of my bedroom, and run a law firm. I could be proximate to my wife and children who were pretty my children were young at the time. So that was really, really important to me. And we did that for a little while, and it was great. The other part of that, and I would say it's equally important, was lawyers tend to not do customer service very well. Lawyers tend to do lawyering or the qualitative part of legal pretty well, generally, but but that's really a commodity. There are a lot of people that can do that. What really separates, I think, the best lawyers is layering in on top of that qualitative deliverable, all the soft stuff that clients care about deeply. Right? How can you make this bill predictable and as cheap as it can be without sacrificing quality? Make sure that you're responsive as a lawyer. Make sure that you're proactive instead of reactive. And let me add value outside of legal. Right? Let me make some introductions for you to other business leaders that might be synergistic for you. And so I just didn't really see a whole lot of that in my law firm, and I think that applies corporately to all corporate law firms twenty some odd years ago. And so those were the two impetuses for Forrest Firm is have a better quality of life, see my wife and kids more, but also really ratchet up the client service angle of what I'm doing.
[00:07:00] Donald: One of the things that I saw you do and I've been impressed with is you do a lot of coffees with folks. When you're talking about building a book of business as a lawyer or any really professional services, right, that you're working on to where you've gotta go out and get the clients before you can deliver to the clients, What were some of the things that allowed you to create kind of that gritty framework to now build that practice that was able to be exited?
[00:07:23] James: There's a book I read twenty years ago. Keith Ferrazzi wrote Never Eat Alone, and the premise of the book is never eat alone. Right? And I really took that to heart. As a young associate, I was building a lot of time. I was really the role of the associate in a law firm is typically to be behind the desk and just grind out hours. But there was a point maybe four or five years into my career where I was like, look. I went to my managing partner who was super cooperative, and I said, man, I'm gonna try to do a breakfast or a coffee or a lunch or some drinks or dinner. Almost a lot. Can I have a little bit of money for that? And he is sure. And I did, like, breakfast, lunch, coffee, almost, like, every day. So I'd have two or three touch points. And the idea was and I don't think I said it this way at the time, but but I look back what it takes to be a really good lawyer. And, again, it's back to that qualitative piece. You gotta be good at what you do. Mhmm. But what really separates some other folks from the the pack is you gotta be likable, which I think eliminates, like, half the legal profession, generally speaking. Again, no offense to lawyers. There's really good ones out there.
[00:08:19] Donald: I get it.
[00:08:20] James: Uh, but you gotta be visible. And that's, like, where a lot of lawyers miss. And I think a lot of business executives miss now. So fast forward, we're past COVID. Everyone's used to doing video meetings and different types of things. The idea of just sitting behind your computer and grinding, while that's important, back to the hungry, humble, smart stuff, it's not the only thing. You gotta know people. Right? Like, your value is in who you know and who are connected with and who you have relationships with because that's the infrastructure on which business is done. I did go a little crazy for a little while. Probably ten straight years of doing two or three touch points a day to build the network. And then once you're able to build that network, you can kinda take your foot off the gas. You and I both are at a place where we're not doing probably two or three business development appointments a day necessarily, but that's because we've put the time in to build that network.
[00:09:05] Donald: One of the things I'd add to that, and because our audience is pretty broad, mostly business folks, but broad in terms of the type of businesses, there's a point where you're gonna be a little out of balance in your schedule if your dreams are big enough. So when people talk to me about sometimes work life balance and integration and different things, I said, yes, these are important for sure, but that also has to map to where your goals wanna take you. Right. I'm working on an event where, um, Grant Hill, NBA superstar, is gonna be the keynote speaker in an event we're doing for North Carolina Central and we're raising money for their program. Grant Hill has waived his fees. But when I look at someone of that caliber, one of the questions I can't wait to ask him because we're gonna get a little time beforehand is what are the things it takes that people don't know or understand? It's a question that I ask of leaders whether I meet in athletics, sports, legal field, different things, and you just explained it. But in this world of kind of microwave mentality, you can't replace the foundation building layer, right, of building the business and creating that visibility like you described.
[00:10:10] James: It's just grinding, man. It's going to the gym. It's like getting in reps. I mean, you can't bypass it. Everyone wants a quick fix. And there's opportunities out there. It's kinda like catching light in a bottle, but those reps are irreplaceable. I mean, I remember about your story from your book, you know, selling Jolly Ranchers when you're little. I mean, you just gotta grind, man.
[00:10:25] Donald: You just gotta do it. So as you think about now being part of a big firm, having more resources and different things and all of those things, let's now start to talk a little bit about things you observe in the talented folks that you work with and represent. And I'd love to unpack a little bit deeper. I appreciate the model and the different things. What are some of the things you see as you work through with situations with employees or m and a and different things about the temperament, the focus, right, the commitment that you could share with our audience about some of the leaders that have done really well and that you admire.
[00:10:59] James: I appreciate that question. There are a couple different context. I would say I call it the been there, done that c level executive, which is you can't hurry that. You have to have been there and done that thing. Right? And so when I work with executives that are pretty new to the role, they don't really understand the function of legal. Right? I mean, the mentality is, let's make this as cheap as possible. Right? I'm focused on on EBITDA, which is totally understandable. Lawyers have earned that reputation of being unpredictably expensive. So if we just keep them kind of at arm's length, that's kind of the best play. We'll call them when there's an emergency, but let's just kinda keep costs down. That's kinda one zero one c level management, in my opinion. I get the reputation that lawyers have earned over the years, and and I get that mentality because bottom line really matters. But if they've been there, done that, they've been through a 6 or 7 or maybe 8 figure liability. Right? Whether it's an HR lawsuit that could have been prevented by a simple provision in a handbook or a non competition issue. We didn't really negotiate this customer contract provision as well as we should. Now we've got a 6 or 7 figure liability with a customer. And if you've been through that, you don't have to have that preliminary conversation about the value of legal. They just kinda get it.
[00:12:03] Donald: That's right.
[00:12:03] James: Now there's still the element of we're expensive or unpredictably so. We have to navigate through that. But that been there, done that aspect of a c level executive is really important. The other thing, you brought up m and a, and I do a fair amount of that work. Those transactions are high pressure. And every lever you pull, you're, like, taking from one side and giving to the other. So if you're selling, price goes higher, better for you, worse for the buyer, and conversely so. But there's, like, 50 or a 100 different variables other than the price that matter in m and a transaction. You can you negotiate the noncompete provision. You negotiate the indemnification provision. You negotiate dispute resolution provision. You negotiate the reps and warrant.
[00:12:40] Donald: Negotiate the earn out of theirs. Yeah. All these things.
[00:12:42] James: And every piece of territory that you take on behalf of your client or if you're the business person, every piece of territory you take is coming from the other side's pocket. That creates a pressure cooker type environment where, as a society, we like to other each other, whether that's politics, sports, or business. Right? Once we decide somebody's kind of the other, they're kinda dead to us, and that can seep into m and a, kind of this emotion of they're taking my stuff. So I gotta, like, ramp up and fight these guys. And then by the time you're ready to close the deal, everyone hates each other. They're like, why are we doing this deal again? But so the been there done that, if you've been through that a time or two, you realize that one plus one can equal three. But to get there, you gotta go through a little pain. These are high dollars transactions. This is not like flipping a house. Right? So there's lawyers and accountants and due diligence and and all these different meshing of personalities, which you gotta be able to distance yourself from the emotion of it or it will get the best of you, and it'll tank the deal.
[00:13:40] Donald: I think everything you're saying is right on track. The thing is you're answering the question, and then I was thinking through my personal experience. Right? And I'm usually, uh, I'd like to think I am. I'm looking at my team and different things. I like to I like to think I'm pretty even. If something's up, great. If something's down, great. You just handle it. But during m and a times, I'm not. I'm highly emotive because this is what you have been fighting for for a number of years, building something of value that somebody wants to create a multimillion dollar transaction with. And so it's a little bit scary. It's a little bit exciting. But all of those things meld together for a little bit unpredictable. So how do you manage the temperature of the entrepreneur you're working with?
[00:14:24] James: That's a great question. Um, I think about all the different folks we get the privilege of working with, and they're all wildly different. We've talked about hungry, humble, smart. We've talked about been there, done that, and not been there. I mean, they're all over the map. And then there's also kinda like the risk aversion scale that I have. I talk to our lawyers about this regularly. Like, we might have a client that's a 10 out of 10 on risk aversion. Right? And then clients that are one out of tens. Right? And you gotta be able to so I'd answer that question by saying listening really well is a really important key for the lawyer because we like to talk. We're pretty smart. We went to law school. Like, we we like people to listen to us and kinda we can talk for a while about various things because the clock's running. Right?
[00:14:59] Donald: Right, man.
[00:15:00] James: We're gonna keep going. But the really good lawyers listen well. They listen well to their client, what's important to them. Because what I'll go from video to video or meeting to meeting, and what's important to you is not important to the next person. Whether it's some legal provision, the price matters the most, the pace matters the most. Just listening. It's kinda any relationship. Right?
[00:15:21] Donald: That is correct. And they're listening, and I'm smiling because we have a lot of history. And so you've you know a lot about me, good, bad, and different things. But I remember this was during the iCubed days and iCubed was my first CEO role, technology firm that we grew and and exited and a lot of great things came from that. But I don't know if you remember this but I'll set this story and it just came to me and got me laughing. So we're growing and we're about 100 people now. So we've got a good little business now. And so we're looking at buying different companies. Anyway, we partnered with this company in Chicago and one of their employees filled out a job application for a role we had open. We talked to them and they wanted to come on board and and leave this other company. And so we hired them in and x y z, and so this partner calls me up and not in a partnering way. Right? Like, it literally the conversation started with a lot of f bombs, which if you know me, like, that's probably not the anyway. So so
[00:16:16] James: I've never tried that approach
[00:16:17] Donald: with you. Yeah. Yeah. Blah blah blah. You did this blah blah blah. And I said to the guy, I said, look, you were gonna lose them anyway. They were already gone. And so let's unpack why they left and we went through it. But anyway, long and the short, the conversation didn't go amazing. And so they threatened to sue us. So they sent us all this paperwork and different things and and all the different things. And so I'm on the phone with James, and again, I don't know if you remember this, and I'm like, I don't give two shits. I'm not giving them nothing. We didn't do anything wrong, x, y, z. And I'm going through this, and James, just as calmly as he's sitting there right now, goes, Don, he said, just relax. Let me respond with their legal counsel. And if at a certain point in the future we need to take on the temperament you're displaying, I will do that on your behalf. What I need you to do now is just focus on running your business and I've got this. Mhmm. And I remember at that moment just like taking it from 10 back to, like, a three or four and just going, okay. This is good stuff, and just put it in your court, and and it went away because there was nothing to it. But I remember you handling me and bringing me back to the appropriate emotional context, but also taking responsibility for what I wanted to accomplish, which was not being pushed around, not being taken advantage of, uh, but you took that responsibility for me.
[00:17:32] James: Thank you for sharing that. I do remember that. I don't remember how it worked out, but I do remember that. And sometimes it goes the other way. The client will talk to their lawyer, and they want somebody who's gonna go in there and pound the table and yell and scream. And the lawyer's just sending their draft and emails, and they're like, no. No. I need you to, like, go yell at somebody. And sometimes that's the play. Not often. Not often is that the right play. There's some is the there's lawyers on the other end of the spectrum where all they do is yell and scream. It's like That's right. That's not super productive, right, for anybody.
[00:17:58] Donald: In any relationship, and I do a fair amount of consulting and business leadership and all the things, the thing that you did well different than being a lawyer is you read my body language, my tone and temperament and you kept it focused on the goal I wanted to accomplish. And I always appreciated the things outside of the actual legal or contractual work a lot more than the commodity piece. Because when you would send me a briefing doc from your organization and some research or you would invite me to a lunch and learn with somebody I might not be able to get into the door of, These are some of the secret sauces that I would share with anyone in professional services that is talking to and working with CEOs. Those are things we value because we always feel like there's not enough time. So if someone can help curate people we should know and trust that can help our business along, we always appreciate that. Let's brag on Michael Best a little bit. I've gotten to know your new company and team. We've done some work with them and Yeah. And different things. You probably had a lot of opportunities to move your business in different directions. Why did you pick Michael Best? And now having been there a couple years, like, what makes you all different in this commoditized legal space?
[00:19:06] James: Thanks for asking. So we did the transaction with Michael Best three and a half years ago now, and it's been a great fit. There's really three big reasons why we did the transaction, and they snuck up on me, to be honest. One of my takeaways is you have to think about m and a earlier than you think you do, or maybe twenty one, three and a half years ago, or four years ago for the m and a prep. But we started to notice that our clients were outgrowing us. I mean, Foresterm was great, and we had 50 some odd people, 35 lawyers or so. And we had clients that were growing nationally and growing headcount to where it felt like they were starting to outgrow us and what we could do for them. So going from an organization of 35, 40 lawyers to an organization with 400 lawyers solves a lot of those problems. We've got lawyers across the country, licensure across the country. We've got experience in all these different industries, and depth and breadth and nichey legal areas that you might not have at a small boutique. So you think about the impetus for Forestfirm a long, long time ago was one of them was client service. Well, the needs of the clients are changing. Right? So sometimes, in organic growth year over year, let's grow five, ten, 15% a year is the right approach, but sometimes, strategic growth makes the most sense when you have client focus as your kinda your primary focal point. So that's a big bucket of why we knew we wanna do something different. And then two, this as an entrepreneur, we were talking about earlier, you know, talent is expensive and talent is not as loyal as talent used to be. Right? And you gotta really focus on culture and professional development and stickiness. And you can do all that right, and it's still expensive to keep and hard and difficult to keep really good people. So we saw some of that. We saw some people come in, make an impact, be a part of our team, be great employees, add value to what we're doing, and then they would just leave for whatever reason. You know? Like, and I understand. And there's nothing to do about it. Like, I mean, I and some of those were hard for me, but, I mean, you learn to kinda just don't take it personal. Right? Like, people have different interest in lives, and that's just part of the deal. And when you own the whole balance sheet as a small business owner, right, the impact of that financially and emotionally is, like, huge. But I have 80 some odd equity partners with me at Michael Best, and so one lawyer leaves, it's like, okay. We don't love that. And that doesn't happen a lot, but there's 399 behind them. Right? So the the risk profile is muted a little bit. So clients, the talent retention, and probably the most important piece and the most personal piece to me, I had one equity partner at Forrest Stearm at the end, good friend of mine, uh, named Andy Jones. And we sat down one day. It's the the summer before we did the deal, and he's like, man, like, how are you? And I'm like, I think I'm doing pretty good. You know? And I'm going a thousand miles an hour doing my normal thing, having coffees and breakfast and lunches and but, you know, then I called in to ask my wife that question. I'm like, how are we doing? Like, how am I doing? How are we doing? And it's like, I started to see some chinks in the armor where I think I was working a hundred hours a week, maybe. My name was on the door. All these clients had said yes to me. All these lawyers and legal professionals had said yes to me. And there's just something in me that was just driving for something, and I couldn't really figure out why. That was a hard look in the mirror to stop, get out of the hustle and bustle, and be like, okay. Like, am I working myself into a place that I don't wanna be? That's right. So I'm really grateful for some of those conversations, and it led me down a path of looking at I think all of us are somewhat enamored with kind of four buckets of things. There's power, pleasure, money, and affirmation. I'm borrowing those from Arthur Brooks, who's one of my favorite authors. But, you know, those are things we tend to chase, power, pleasure, money, and affirmation. I think, in many ways, I was chasing a lot of those things. And there's ultimately if that's the only thing you're focused on
[00:22:36] Donald: That's right.
[00:22:37] James: That it can leave you kinda empty at the end.
[00:22:40] Donald: I appreciate you sharing that, unpacking that, and being vulnerable with that. And I can both relate to that personally, but also to a lot of executive leaders that I talk with. It's the quiet thing we don't really talk about out loud. And really, it's like, what is all of the effort for? I will use this metaphor because sometimes it's just the most accurate when you're an achievement junkie, that becomes your identity, and you can lose the other slices and get it a little bit out of balance. And so as I've gotten older and more thoughtful and more measured, I still have that achievement junkie syndrome, and I love it, and I'm not hiding from it.
[00:23:17] James: Well, you and you're good at it.
[00:23:18] Donald: And I'm running to it. Right? But then I also now and and my wife, Jackie, is really helpful with this, taking time to slow down and just reflect and spend time with family to enjoy the fruits of those things and balance those a little bit better. Yeah. And I think as we talk about mental health and wellness more in the workplace and burnout and different things, I often struggled with talking to people about burnout that were working less than forty hours a week. I didn't get it. I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I literally, I was not a good manager, leader, or friend. I was like, I don't think you earned the right Get
[00:23:51] James: more done by non accruing.
[00:23:52] Donald: Yeah. Exactly right. I was like, forty hour, you know, I just didn't get it. But as you start to think about the stressors that people have, it's not just the hours of life, hours of work, financial impact, health and relationships. All of those things contribute to somebody's wellness, right, to go out and fight their fight in the world. Mhmm. And it took me a little bit more maturity to understand everyone's balance or integration's different, but everybody needs it. And the other thing that I learned too and as a high octane leader is a lot of times, it's lonely at the top as you grow in organizations. And so we all need people that we can talk to and that we can really be transparent with and just kind of unpack some things that we're working through. And so I appreciate your your comment on the pillars as to why you moved into a different business situation, and then that leads to other things. So I appreciate that. AI is a big topic these days, and it's touching every type of business. What are some of your thoughts on what you're seeing AI impact the legal profession? What are you all doing to make sure that you, uh, ingest the knowledge of it where it's smart, but how you're still gonna stand out in an area where now everybody with a laptop and chat g b t thinks they can give legal advice. How are you all unpacking that in in this environment?
[00:25:08] James: It's a very real thing. We're very, very focused on it from the top down at Michael Best, and that's one of the reasons you know, you asked me why Michael Best is so great. One of the reasons that I chose them out of the 50 firms that we talked to through our m and a process is how innovative they are and how ahead of the curve they are, And we've seen that play out over the last three and a half years. And so with AI, lawyers bill by the hour. So things that make us more efficient will decrease revenue by definition. So that's a tough pill for folks to swallow who've been a billable hour professional their whole lives. Right? The incentives are actually kind of off. Our economic incentives are to be inefficient. Lawyers don't commit fraud, generally speaking, but the economic incentives create inefficiency, which is, you know Yeah.
[00:25:45] Donald: Yeah. Longer memos. Yeah. And I went short of it. Yeah. I get it. Correct. Yeah.
[00:25:49] James: I think you have to say that out loud and say that that's a real dynamic. Okay. So then I think there will be a few first movers in the legal space that figure out, hey. You know, it used to take us ten hours to do this task. Now with AI, it takes us thirty minutes. Okay. Great. How do we package that for there's a win win win? We're gonna take the risk and say, we could just keep doing it ten hours a pop and then until we're obsolete, right, and AI takes over, our other law firms beat us. And there's a short window life shelf to that. That's a risky play. Or we can bite the bullet and say, this is happening. There can actually be a triple win here. We could take us a half hour and we charge half the price that it would have taken ten hours or four whatever. There's a range where we can make money at it. Right? Because if we can't make money at it, it doesn't make sense
[00:26:31] Donald: That's right.
[00:26:32] James: Right, to bring to the market, but it's a win for the client, it's faster for us, and the price makes sense. So we're really experimenting with that. I think you'll see a lot more of that in the future. And then, of course, all those economic incentives go away when you talk about the back end of a law firm. Right? So operations, billing, finance, ops, HR. There's lots of things where we can get more efficient and better of getting our timekeepers back to timekeeping activity as opposed to, you know, in the minutia of filling out a survey that's way longer than it could should it be? Or
[00:27:00] Donald: No. That's a great point. Um, Greg Boone, who you know and is the CEO of of Walkwest, which is I'm super excited about that hire and Greg and I doing something together. Yeah. Because Greg and I exited a couple other things together in the past. And so we hired Greg from an AI consultancy, was his last stop. And one of the reasons was because we saw a similar slope in the marketing and branding space. Right? When you think about social content and different things of that nature, where AI can facilitate things being done faster and change, really, the dynamic of your relationships with clients and cost. And so Greg, being super smart but also super aggressive in terms of how he does things, is going through a real transformation of Walkwest where literally we had a 100% of the employees that are AI certified in a manner that's helping them do their jobs better so that we can pass on that innovation to clients, but the basic work can be done faster. And so super proud of what he and the team have have done there, and I've taken my courses and passed through. Because look, Greg Colby is like, man, from chairman to intern, we're all doing this. I was like, alright. At first, I was like, no. I'm I was like, okay.
[00:28:11] James: What did you think of it?
[00:28:12] Donald: I'm a big fan because I'm trying to figure out how I can get more done in less time, number one. And then number two, back to the charging the value competition for hours, it's allowing me to start discussing with people the value of the output, not the time to build something. Because AI, as powerful as the tools are, you still need an expert driver. Because if you don't have an expert driver, you can create something that could actually hurt you. You create information that is not verifiable, not valuable. It's just academic bites of information that are structured in a way that you can have a conversation but they don't move your business forward. And so what I've seen with AI and a couple things, I was talking to a friend of mine, Bob Bachelors, my creative partner, and Bob is a PhD, 15 books. He would be the top person you'd think would be against AI, but he loves it because he's learned to train AI to work and speak in his voice Oh,
[00:29:05] James: yeah.
[00:29:05] Donald: So now he can bring his brilliance to market faster. And so it depends on your relationship with work, with how you view AI, but I would encourage anybody listening, it's happening, so so you've gotta figure out a way that you're gonna strategically structure it, right, in a way that advances your business.
[00:29:20] James: The adoption rate is crazy fast, right, faster than the Internet. I'm sure you've heard the stats. I heard something recently from one of my law partners that the chat g b t five, uh, just passed the California bar. Right? You said it in front of the bar exam, just passed the bar. So the gap between where AI is and where a lawyer let's say a good lawyer would be maybe it's here. And then every day that goes by, you know, it's getting like this. And so it's back to what we talked about earlier. Legal, in some ways, is a commodity. The base level analysis. That's right. The very base level of the writing, the research, the things are is a commodity. But what we like to say is folks in our shop are like, hey. We're gonna lose our jobs to AI. It's like, well, no. Not necessarily, but you might lose your job to a person who embraces AI faster than you.
[00:30:02] Donald: I believe as someone that's spending a lot of time on it, gone through a lot of the training, and now doing some training and education for others. And as I talk to experts like Greg, talking to an organizational psychologist today, PhD in behavior psychology, and we're talking about AI, what you just said is spot on. And so those that adopt AI are gonna accelerate their experiential learning to get to the answers that the client needs faster than those that are gonna stick to the tried and true. You just don't have the capacity to out research the machine, but then the machine doesn't do nuance. The machine doesn't do relationship building.
[00:30:41] James: That's right.
[00:30:41] Donald: The machine doesn't tell you always the tone and temperament with the way you've gotta deliver something. So you gotta figure out new ways to create value. And for those that do
[00:30:49] James: Well, take it back to the m and a conversation we had earlier about how that's a pressure cooker. AI engines can take an asset purchase agreement and say, you should do this, this, this, and this, and put a material qualifier here and put a carve out here and these kind of things. But back to the point of every piece of territory you take comes from the other side and the dynamic that creates, Like, getting on the phone to talk to the other side's lawyer about it or dealing with business owner to business owner when, you know, stuff's upside down, trying to get get to a yes, that's not gonna be replaced by AI.
[00:31:17] Donald: If I were talking to lawyers, if I were talking to professional service providers or the SKIR of AI, I would say this very simply, AI doesn't build trust. And so to the degree that you can spend more time with your clients and less time behind the computer to then give the client that value, that's the piece you embrace, and people are gonna still pay for that. Because I still want, at the end of the day, that certainty that what I'm doing doesn't create more risk than reward. AI can get me started, but I still want my lawyer to sign off on it.
[00:31:47] James: We're having clients now when When you engage with a lawyer, you sign an engagement letter. Every business level executive understands that. It's pretty benign. It's like, hey. We're establishing lawyer client privilege. You're gonna pay us our hourly rate, you know, yada yada yada. It's not binding. You can end the relationship at any time, those kind of things. And we we're having people, like like, literally send us comments generated by AI. Hey. Please change x, y, and z in your engagement letter. So it's like, okay. We'll talk about that. But, clearly, you're a pretty savvy AI user because, you know, you can tell by the font and the language. Right. Like, this didn't come out of this person's head.
[00:32:16] Donald: No. I appreciate your I wanted to get your take on that and and some of the things that that we're doing. As we look to land the plane in this discussion, and I always enjoy chatting with you, talk to me about some of the things that you've read or listened to. It doesn't have to be that have impacted you along your growth scale. And it may not be necessarily what you're reading now, because a lot of people say, Dom, what are you reading now? Well, that's for me in this journey. But what have you read at different clips or listened to that really helped you you jump the curve as a business leader?
[00:32:43] James: He talked about Grant Hill earlier. I read his biography. It was excellent. That's nice. And he's very good. I'll go back to Arthur Brooks. He's had a real impact on me. I don't know. Have you read any of his stuff?
[00:32:52] Donald: I haven't. So, I mean, I'm super interested.
[00:32:54] James: It's really good. A lot of his stuff is written towards folks that are in halftime or shortly past halftime in their career, which I think I'm well past. But but that that whole, like
[00:33:02] Donald: You're younger than me, so relax on how well past your so continue. I don't wanna
[00:33:07] James: I mean, I don't like you double my age, and I'm like, I'm not I'm not sure if that is well past the life expectancy. That power pleasure money affirmation thing, like, that's a really sobering thought for me, like, of, like, why am I pursuing those things as hard as I was? And I think people have different appetites for different pieces of that puzzle. Right? If you really set that aside and say, if you had to take one of those away, power, pleasure, money, affirmation, which one would it be? And then that gives you a ranking of, like, where you kinda focus. And then when I was able to kinda do that internally, it's like, okay. This is really important to me. To me, it was affirmation. So so where does that come from? So then thinking about, like, going backwards, doing some work, and I can look at my life and be like, okay. I'm not like the fancy car, multiple houses guy. I'm not
[00:33:48] Donald: You drive a truck.
[00:33:49] James: It was
[00:33:50] Donald: like, you roll up when we park in the same lots sometimes, I'm like, okay. That's a big truck.
[00:33:55] James: I like to think I'm one of the only Amelog 200 lawyers that drive a f one fifty. I mean, there's probably not that many. But and then I'm also not that's a one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum is the guy who looks at his banking app every day and sees the number go up, and that's, like, where the identity is. Right? And it's either, like, I don't think I'm that guy either. And so for me, it wasn't necessarily money. I don't think it was power. I don't think it was pleasure. I think it was affirmation. Now look. Don't get me wrong. I'm a big business advocate. Right? I did all the coffees just like you. We grind it, and we grind it hard, and that's what gets results. Right? At the same time, if you put all of your eggs in that basket where my identity is based on what you think of me and what that next person thinks of me, what that next person thinks of me, then I'm in trouble. Because that's when you end up working hundred hours a week because what all of these people think of me is where my identity is, and that is not sustainable.
[00:34:47] Donald: I really appreciate that because people Google you, they look at your career, by so many different measures, you are very, very successful. And I think it's really important for business leaders and the platforms that we have, and we all have different levels, but we have platforms to give people space to be their full selves and to chase their dreams for them. And the things that you're doing for other people when I've fallen into that, and I have not stayed there long, but I can relate. It's not enjoyable. You're chasing butterflies of affirmation from people that aren't even really thinking about you, like, versus slowing down. And I tell people that I'm working with and counseling and coaching, they've taken a few new clients. And I'll tell you about this in a minute before we end, but I just have people write down a blank sheet of paper. Right? What do you want? Why do you want it? When do you want it? And how do you think we're gonna get there? And then from that basic conversation, we're able to map out some really complex things. And, you know, one of the things in terms of and and we'll end the session talking about community a little bit, and I'll talk a little bit about some of my givebacks and I'd like you to talk about your view on community and and anything you wanna chat about. I've gotten to a place now that I'm really proud of that if somebody asks for counseling for me or coaching, it's $3,400 an hour and it'll continue to go up from from there. Sometimes $2,530,000 dollars a day to come in and do work and different things. And Mhmm. And so there's a value that's put on my professional presence and engagement that has increased. But what makes my granny proud is what I do for others. And when she was alive in that and I remember as I started to succeed, she reminded me of that. She's like, I'm very proud of the things you've done and things you're doing, but I'm most proud of the things that you do for others and for family. And so I've got four new clients that have businesses under $1,000,000 and they don't have $400 an hour. They don't have $25,000 per day. And I basically told each of them, how much can you afford? And so you write the number down and you be honest with that number. And whatever you write down, I'm gonna say yes. And they've written that number down, and we've gotten started with them. And I said, now, here's the deal. I said, now, when you go from $2,300,000 in your business and you're over 1,000,000, don't forget it, brother. Like, this isn't charity is a give back, but but if we succeed together, then we'll raise the scale of it as we grow. And I really enjoy that. And then the second thing is spending more time with students and young people, and I'm just getting great energy from that. And so you do a lot with church, with your community, different things. Talk to me a little bit about what that does for you and family and and why that's a big part of your your life. Yeah.
[00:37:16] James: I appreciate that. You know, lawyers have a high depression rate, high suicide rate, high alcoholism rate, and so you gotta ask the question of why that is. I think it's because we go really hard. And so you really have to be focused on, and and I don't think I did this well for a long time. You know, maybe twenty plus years, I would say up until three or four years ago, I did not do this well. Like, I was going a million miles an hour chasing something, which there's good parts of that, but it's not all great. And so, yeah, these last three and a half years, I mean, I've, look, I still work hard. I work at Amol two hundred firm, but it's more balanced. Right? I mean, like, I'm really focused on my wife and my kids and, like, taking in those moments. You know, that goes fast. I've got got four kids, two out of the house now, and two are still at home. And, you know, you can't get that time with the two that are gone back. It's gone. And so I get the rush of the $25,000 days and the, you know, $3,400 an hour, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's actually a really good thing if you're providing value, and there's dopamine that comes from that that's good. Like like, I think we're called to create and cultivate and do these different things. But if you put too much weight, it's all about holding an intention. If you put too much weight on that, if your whole identity is in that, that's where it becomes problematic. And so my faith has always been important to me. I'm really focused on kind of the vertical and making sure I slow down to do that and just slow down in general. In general, I have a good friend of mine who, in the last couple years, we would meet and he would say something like, you know, hey. The next time you leave, just focus on, like, walking a little slower. And I was like, like, what do you mean? Like, what are you talking about? Just I want you to be intentional about how fast you walk out of the room. I'm like, what is this guy talking about? But I started to pay attention to, like, how fast I move, like, how fast I walk out of here when we're done. And there was just always another fire put out, always something to chase. And, again, imbalance. Right? We don't want people that stay in bed all day. That's right. Because it's a hustle. It's a grind. It's high octane leadership. And that's a big part of it, but you can take that too far. And it's one of those things where, you know, it's unlike other things in our society where, like, whether it's pornography or alcoholism or gambling or these different things where, like, you kinda know. I don't wanna get too far down that path because that's gonna be bad for me. Like, working's like this thing where it's like, they'll celebrate you all the way to your grave.
[00:39:23] Donald: And cheer for you.
[00:39:24] James: Headlines, TPJ.
[00:39:26] Donald: Yeah. Yeah. And then you missed out on the important things. Yeah.
[00:39:28] James: That's right. So it's just taking the time to hold those things intention, the vertical, horizontal, starting with my wife who's amazing, my four kids, and then there's man, I got I'm so blessed with so many friends. You get this. Like, I used to think that the work hard, the money would bring community and more freedom and more more fun and more happiness. And, like, for me, when I got too far out of balance, it actually led to the exact opposite place. It's where I was actually I was actually more isolated and less happy, right, in that off balance place.
[00:40:01] Donald: No. I appreciate that very much. I think as we wind down our conversation, what you're describing is that balance between empathy and economics. Yep. And it's worth it to find that balance for you, right, for who you are, for where you wanna be. And, you know, I was talking with some leaders. I'm very blessed in the variety of people I get to interact with. And I was on a conference call. I was doing a presentation for workplace options, acquired my latest firm two years ago. And so I'm now the managing director for our center of organizational effectiveness. And in growing that new practice, which I like, they're smart. They're finding something I can build within this bigger company. And I was like, this might not be much longer, but anyway, I like to build stuff. So I'm on the phone with a company called Ubisoft, which does Call of Duty and all these big games. Right? They're they're globally recognized firm in the gaming space and some of their top leaders and we were talking about psychological safety. And in giving this presentation, and this is for legal firms, this is for but in giving these presentations, one of the quotes that I shared with them from Amy Edmondson, who's a a leader in the space, is that high standards can't exist without psychological safety. And so if you're gonna have a team that is going to do great work, you have to have an environment where the best idea wins. You have to an environment where people can push on ideas. You have to environment where people feel safe and secure in bringing their full self to work so that you can raise the standard of the goals they can achieve. And it's just whether it's today with you, it's I had a call before this with some two PhDs and me, and no degree d t hanging out on the phone talking about organizational behavior health and stuff like that, and I am a competitive learner. And one of the things that is great about our partnership and friendship is I've gotten a chance to learn a lot from you over the years. And so I appreciate your friendship and also your example.
[00:41:58] James: Thank you for saying that. I'm really grateful for you. I don't think you're my favorite client because you're my first. I really think you're actually my favorite client. What you've done is remarkable. I'm really happy for you, and thank you for having
[00:42:14] Donald: Thank you for joining us on High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. Today's episode is a step in our collective journey towards leadership excellence. Remember, every story we share and every insight we gain is a piece in the puzzle of our leadership journey. For more insight and detail, hit the subscribe button so that we can stay connected. For deeper information and more episodes, go to donaldthompson.com. Continue to lead with vision and purpose. And until we meet again, embrace your role as a high octane leader in the ever evolving world of business.