You Can Start Broke And Still Scale

We talk with Brent Stewart about walking away from a high-paying legal job for his sanity, then building a personal injury law firm from a spare bedroom into a six-location practice. We dig into the unglamorous moves that made the growth possible, from market selection and legal marketing to culture, tech bets, and staying present for family. 
• quitting a big firm after burnout and backing himself anyway 
• learning trust accounting and operations before hanging a shingle 
• copying proven branding and ads to avoid rookie mistakes 
• keeping old-case income while signing new clients at night 
• choosing fast-growing smaller markets instead of expensive cities 
• handling criticism for advertising and adapting to the internet shift 
• using experimentation with AI tools to avoid falling behind 
• building a real estate company around the firm for leverage 
• scaling locations to stay defensible against big competitors 
• retaining talent through pay, culture, and faster hard talks 
• balancing work with parenting, travel, and being more present 
everybody listening should go out and give him a bunch of fives and give him some love online 

How to Reach out to Brent Stewart:

Website: https://www.stewartlawoffices.net/attorneys/brent-p-stewart/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stewart-law-offices-llc

To Reach Jordan:

Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting

Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/

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Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://tidycal.com/m4j6dvm/breakthrough-strategy-session

Transcript

A Bedroom Firm Origin Story

SPEAKER_02 1:00

So, what do you do when your law office is a spare bedroom and your furniture is lawn furniture? My guest today, he started his firm exactly there: a bedroom, a lawn chair, and the whole thing running on credit cards. He kept his case, he kept working his cases at his old firm and signed up his own cases on the side just to make ends meet. 33 years later, that bedroom that he had is now six locations, 35 employees, and 10 lawyers. And he doesn't just run the firm, he owns the buildings. His firms pay rent to his own real estate company. Along the way, he became one of less than 1% of trial lawyers with a lifetime membership in the multi-million dollar advocates forum with verdicts as high as 3.5 million. Three decades going up against insurance companies for injured people, learning exactly how the other side plays the game. And here's my favorite part. He's 62, his son and daughter want to join the business, and he's still looking to grow. This is a conversation about betting on yourself, thinking about risk, when you can't afford to lose, and why building a business, not just a job, changes everything downstream in your life. Brent Stewart, welcome to the show. I'm excited to have you on Hashtag Clocked In.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

So thank you. And any and anybody that gives me an introduction like that, I'll come on the show as much as often. Thank you. Awesome, Brent.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

Awesome. And Brent, for you, you got to take us to that moment. What was going on for you when you're working at another law firm, you're trying to build your own? How are you thinking about that? Because this was way before side hustles and business was cool.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Well, it it kind of came down to like my mental health. Like I'd been working for a big law firm down in Charleston, South Carolina. And I was going from six in the morning to seven at night. And I did it for an entire year. And I remember I went home to visit my family in West Virginia over Christmas. And it took me five hours of driving just to come to a level, you know, just to a level, just be able to breathe. And I'd made this guy a ton of money, a ton of money. And I made a good salary, $110,000. And that was a lot back then. But I made millions for him. And I just decided when I went back, I was gonna say, you need to pay me X amount, and if you don't, I'm leaving. And so I got into my head, and when I went back after being home for Christmas, I went in and we had that conversation, and he kind of laughed. And I walked out the door, I got in my car that wasn't paid for, sat there for a minute and thought, you know, what did I just do? And then I had no choice but to start acting to go forward.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Absolutely. Because there's times in our life where we have, and a lot of people listening right now are in that situation where they're like, dude, I made the boss a bunch of money. Where's my money? And there's sometimes where you just gotta push the limits and just go off on your own and think about that. So, Brent, what what even got you into law in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Well, my parents, I grew up in West Virginia, and we had kind of a small cabin on the lake, and there was a lawyer that lived next door to us. And I talked to him a lot, and I just kind of saw what he did. And so I cut his grass and he had a riding mower, and so I used his riding mower to cut his grass, and then he gave it to me so I could cut other people's yards. And I was like, if this dude can give me a riding mower, he is doing well, and that's what I want. So it kind of he was very generous, and it just kind of stuck into my head that I want to be able to do that someday. Give a kid a riding mower so he can grow his back then my yard business. And so it just always stuck in my head, and I just from that day on I was a lawyer. I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

And have you always been entrepreneurial throughout your journey?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Originally, I wouldn't say that I planned on going out to start my own firm. My first job was with a big, kind of heavy-hitting litigation firm. And I saw that I could possibly make enough money there. And then something from my introduction is kind of why I didn't it. This law firm had two boys, and they were clearly aiming those boys to come back into the business. And I was like, I'm going to do well there until those two boys, and they were like 12 and 11. When they hit when they get out of law school in 10 years, someone's gonna go, and it's probably it's not gonna be them, it's gonna be me. And so that's when I started thinking I need to at least leave that job and start kind of angling in a different direction.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Wow. So so you saw the writing on the wall years and years before, because most people don't have that long-term vision.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Uh well, they were a family firm, but was already a husband and wife, and so they were clearly grooming the children to be lawyers, and and they, and in fact, they're the one is a great lawyer now, and he took over the firm. So my fear was realized. Just luckily, I jumped before it became a crisis for me.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Absolutely. And the interesting thing about lawyers, when I find a when I talk to them, I find that a lot of them are they're very good at the information, very good at their practice, very good at the operations. Let's go with that. The business side is another animal.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

We well, I think I think it's doctors and lawyers. Like 100%. We we know our craft. Every lawyer can put the pleadings on the paper and push them out, but the running the business is the rough part. When I worked for the last firm I did before I jumped, when I would finish a case, I would go into accounting to watch how the books worked. Oh, I remember being shocked because you don't have just one set of books as a lawyer. You have to have your escrow books, and that's where all the money goes until you earn it. And if you put that money into your account before you earn it, then the state bar who strangely monitors everything. Like they have access to your books. I didn't know that. Then you can get disbarred. So there's a lot, like I think some people just leave and put up a sign, and then it's like they screwed this up, they screwed this up, they screwed this up. I tried to start watching how the wheels turned in this firm because the lawyer I worked for maybe didn't go to court that much, but he knew the business aspect. My first firm really knew the legal part, the second knew the business. And so when I left, that's what I kind of decided to do, not be such a big firm like a machine, kind of be the trial lawyer side of it, but kind of put them together because I thought in the years to come, that's where everything was going. You couldn't just be a sole proprietor anymore,

Quitting For Sanity And Freedom

SPEAKER_00 7:43

but I didn't want to also be a machine.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah, and you gotta so I love that you did that because there's so many people that are thinking about like what is my exit strategy? And whenever I'm coaching people, I always ask them, what is it that you can learn from this organization? Good, bad, ugly, whatever it is. And then what are the takeaways you can have? Because when you're going off on your own, that can be very challenging.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

I I think that the one thing people don't do is what I think it just people wanting to paint their house, they want to get creative. Like I've always found the best thing to do is go find the house you like most of all, take the paint and use it. And so what I did with those two jobs is I took what the one firm did the best that I thought, and I took that. The other firm, what they did the best. Like the first firm I worked for, they had a gray house, they put their dogs in their yellow pages, and they had this. I loved their letterhead. It was like a kind of a parchment yellow with bold red. And I I stole that letterhead right down to the graphics, and so and I was doing work with them back and forth, and I was always afraid they were gonna say, give up your letterhead. But I like my ads were the same. Like, and then I did the marketing from the other firm. So I think what you do is you take what you know works, and you're gonna have to twist it up a little bit, but don't think you have to make everything new. Kind of look at what worked and take that, and that'll get you 90% there.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

A hundred percent. And I I like the fact that you went into it on your own. You know what I mean? You were like, I'm gonna try this out, see if I can make this happen, while also keeping the other role kind of going.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

It was the other role was a must because I had to make some money coming in, and it actually unraveled like I don't know that he wanted me there, but I had filed so many cases. They didn't do a lot of litigation in that firm, they kind of settled stuff, but I had filed like 40 cases, and so when I walked out the door, he needed to find somebody to try those cases, and so it was kind of he kind of needed me. So I for $25 an hour, which looking back on it, now people when they leave, they take their cases with them. I didn't want to start a fight with this guy, he was well established and I would have lost. But so I just charged him $25 an hour. I'd get my 40 hours a week that paid for my efficiency apartment. I would work for him in Charleston, then drive back up to Rock Hill, sign up the cases in the evening, and then the next morning go back and do my stuff in Charleston. So it was a lot of time on the road. How long were you doing that for? I did it for about I'd say about a year. And then it all came to a head when I got a call, and it was that lawyer, and they were like, he wants you. And I said, Tell him I'll call him back. And they said, No, he wants you. And I said, I don't know if he understands it, but I don't work for him anymore. And then that kind of blew the whole thing up, and I was on my own. Kind of perfect timing, it was ready to end. Like it wasn't a fight between us, but it was just kind of the now. I gotta stay up here, I gotta put on my big boy pants and just deal with what I'm doing up here. I've got enough cases, time to do it.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

Yeah, and that's the scariest point, I think, in anyone's life when they're like, I'm leaving this job that feels safe, not really safe, but it feels safe.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Yeah, there were like four or five scary points. Like the first was walking out the door and realizing this is it. I have no money potentially. Now, on the bright side, all I had was a lab. So I kept figuring, like, if I screw up, I just take my lab, I move back to West Virginia, go back to my parents for a while, and then regroup. I didn't have my wife, my kit, like everything now. So that was kind of a like I just kept my head clear by thinking that like the worst that can happen is I go home and regroup. All I have is my dog. My parents will take me home. Like, did I want to go? No. But I'm from West Virginia and it happens all the time. So it would have been what it was.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

So but I think that's a really healthy way of thinking about it of like what is the worst thing that can happen here? And the other really interesting thing is when you're trying a bunch of different cases or you have different client loads, you're like, wait, instead of one income, I have like eight incomes here. I just need to make them work.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Well, and it happened pretty fast because the one thing I'd realized going into it was I could not afford the Charlotte market. I couldn't afford the Charleston market. So before I started, I picked the kind of the bedroom communities around growing markets. I was a marketing major and undergrad. And so I did demographic studies, and the areas that were growing were Bufort, South Carolina. If I'd gone there, that's more family-oriented. There would be nobody to really date, hang out with, older people or military. Myrtle Beach, growing on fire, but everybody gets in Rex there. They move back home, and it's expensive to try those cases because the doctors are far away. Charlotte, growing, bunch of young people. It had Chester, Rock Hill, Lancaster. So the first thing I did was call the phone companies and I bought 328-5600 Rock Hill, 286-5600 Lancaster, 385-5600 Chester, and then I bought two more 5600 numbers, and so then I started coordinating all my advertising with that 5600 number, which I still have, and so I just kind of swallowed up those markets, and now Charlotte. I don't know if you know much about Charlotte. Of course, the whole area is Charlotte, massive, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

That's kind of how it worked. That's interesting. So you were very intentional before making that proper decision.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

I had decided that I just couldn't like stick out a sign and go. I had to have a plan. So as soon as I walked out that door, I hired somebody, and I think people need to hire somebody. When you're starting a business, the reputation matters. So I hired somebody to design my yellow page ads. I made sure they were professional, and I didn't do it too quick. I purposely took 60 days to make sure that I had everything, designed all the ads, I put everything together, I put all the checks in the envelopes and held everything, and then one day just went to the mailbox and threw it in, and I was like, Here it is, now it is, and that's how we did it.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Well, that's what you got to do because you got to sit there. And I love that idea of being professional in the marketing and then being kind of scrappy in regard to the business, not in regard like into spending too much, but you don't need the offices, you can just you're doing the work at home, like and that was when the marketing back then lawyers were either of the opinion that marketing lawyers sucked, and then there were marketing lawyers, and I was kind of of the impression that I didn't like marketing, but I realized sometimes you have to do what you don't like for the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

And if every lawyer that could try a case or valued the law didn't market, then good lawyers weren't going to be out there for the public. And so I started advertising. And when I first went to Rock Hill, there were a couple lawyers, like somebody I'd sent out cards saying, Hey, I'm here. And one lawyer wrote on the card,

Learning The Business Behind Law

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Well, we're glad you're here. Now, if you can please get your commercials off the TV and be a real lawyer, we'd appreciate it. So I got a lot of kickback, even from the bar advertising that early in '95.

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Well, because people don't realize that, like, when you're looking at a business and you're starting a business, it's not actually doing the operations. It's how are you going to sell the people? How are you going to market to them? How are you going to get clients? That's your first thing because you don't really have a business, so you have a client.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Well, the best lawyer with no clients is a bad lawyer. I mean, like, how do you how do you become a good lawyer? You have to have the clients. And in the olden days, when everybody just went to the local lawyer, that's how it worked. But and it's funny. So I was kind of on the front edge of the advertising. And then when the internet started, I kind of hung back on that. And that was my next fear. I was like, did I wait too long? And then I just had to go all in. Like I just didn't know where the internet was going. I kind of every generation before me, when you got the full page ads and the magnets on the yellow pages, you were set and you just rode that career out. And that's kind of what I wanted to do. And it just started moving and it moved quick. And I think I was a year or so behind what I should have done. Like I'm.NET. I wanted to be.com. It was gone. And I have been trying to buy dot com. And I actually thought I'd got it last year, but they wanted $40,000 before they gave me the dot com name, and I just didn't do it. So I'm going to stay.net. But like that's my that was my next fear. Like my third fear was did I wait too long to change this into a more social media online presence? And so that was a big makeup game that we had to play.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Well, that's how entrepreneurship is. You sit there, opportunities come up, they can be scary, they can be good, they can be bad. There's AI, all this stuff. How do we capitalize on this? Or how do we have this bring, or do we just keep doing what we're doing?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

I I think the thing with the internet, I was comfortable, I was doing well, I was newly married, I had my kids, and I was like, I'm doing fine, it doesn't matter. And I think that comfort is why I didn't jump. And that's why now with this AI, I spent the last six months 20 hours a week. If somebody sent me an email that said, we have an AI project, product, you can talk for 30 days, or do you want to go see our webinar? I tried to do 20 hours a week of every AI product out there because I was like, I am not falling behind again. Making up for time costs more money than just doing it. And so that's what I've been well.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

That that that's I think a really valuable lesson for the audience is that when an opportunity arises, you have to try to capitalize on that and leave allocated space for that. Otherwise, you're constantly chasing and you're behind the eight ball.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

If you don't do it up front, you can do it up front and decide you don't like it, but not trying it and keeping an open mind is the failure. Like doing doing a hundred hours of something and deciding it's not for you, that's a win. Not doing it at all and then deciding you want it and having to catch up, that's the lose.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

So just you've got to spend the time that's a much healthier way of viewing failure and viewing things because so many people sit there, especially when they're starting business in the beginning, and they're like, So, how do I make money? Like, like, what this is a waste of time.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Like, why am I wasting my time? You've got to take a chance. Like, you mentioned the buildings, and so I'd been buying some buildings to rent, and over COVID, when people when I was home, I kept people started marketing more on more different kinds of services through COVID. And I got a Facebook message from somebody down in Florida that said, if you pay five thousand dollars for the seminar, you will save $200,000. And I was like, I'm gonna get screwed over, but I'm gonna do it. Because I just started doing these people's this different things, trying to learn something. And it ended up, he taught me how to take my real estate company from a to an active, if it's an active real estate company, then you can start writing off your profits from your law firm. If it's $750, yeah, yeah. So we ended up getting lawyers to change the ownership. So my wife would own 10%, she manages it. That's kind of her thing, which took something. A, it takes work off my plate, and B, it lets us take the losses from there and take them off our income there. And that $5,000 has saved me a lot of money. If I had just said, I don't trust this guy, which I didn't originally, I'm not gonna do it. I would have like I probably saved a million dollars by doing something that's legitimate, it's there for people to use. But if you don't open your mind and try new things and listen to people, you're not gonna go any farther.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Absolutely. I mean, that's the whole reason I do the podcast to learn from people. It's it's how we do things. So, Brent, take me back to you starting the law firm, you getting some clients, and then how how does it get to this point of six six locations? Like, how does that even happen? Like, were you in survival mode in the beginning, or how were you thinking about that?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

It was almost accidental. I I got lucky in the very beginning, and I had met a couple big clients. And so in the first year and a half, I had some bigger cases. And the first thing I did was I'd met some people when I bought initial office building. I decided up front that it would be better to make less money and overstaff so I could overserve the client base. Okay, I think some people start making money, then they become greedy with the money. And I think the best way to do it is to, and lawyers are notoriously bad for this, overserve your clients. For every client you overserve, you're gonna get two more referrals because you treated them better. 100%. So that's kind of how that went. And then I just saw my goal was to only have two lawyers in

Picking Underserved Markets That Grow

SPEAKER_00 20:38

one office. I thought that was ultimate success. And then I just saw what was happening with firms weren't staying local, like the Walmart theory, the right aid theory, all in the olden days. If you had, but my kid was a really good with tools. I could have now helped him and Charlotte open a store to sell tools or like like a hardware store.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Now you can't, they're all black hawk. Like every every local hardware store has been bought. And I just even back then thought this is gonna happen with law firms. I either need to be big enough that they had to buy me, and I have to be not so small that they can just snuff me out. So my goal was to spread the practice out so that maybe I would lose eventually to some big national firm, but they would have to deal with me or buy me. They just couldn't kill me. And that's kind of why I started the growth.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

And that's why you started going with the different locations so that you weren't just exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

I just started I and I already had the roadmap of how to start the business. I knew what equipment I needed, I knew what the costs were, I knew where the locations needed to be. I was still staying in markets that weren't instead of going to Greenville, I love Greenville, South Carolina, it is a great city. I went to Spartanburg when Spartanburg wasn't as good as it is now. Spartanburg is on fire, it's wonderful, but I still picked kind of the backroom communities, and so I just kept running with that system that I had created when I started Rockville.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

So it's this idea of like going after specific niches, yes, instead of being all over the place.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Because even some of the cities that you're naming, I I mean I'm in Tampa right now, but I don't even know half the city, like I haven't heard of some of them because I'm not local, local to that South Carolina area. And it gets you thinking like, how many big businesses are running that people just don't know about? Like, because there's so much opportunity, because you're like, if I could feed this community instead of trying to compete with everyone in Charlotte or compete with everyone in Green, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

I I think another thing that lawyers and doctors have big egos, and everybody wants a big house in a big city with big restaurants, and I think that's great. And like I live in Charlotte now, and I love Charlotte. And I love the the other night, my daughter and I went to a great sushi place. But you still need to understand that there are markets out there that aren't Charlotte that need legal representation and they need restaurants. They need business too. And sometimes it's easier to go into those places and get your foothold and start moving around, and it's more cost-effective to do it. Don't let your ego make you work in a place where you have a great idea, but you can't afford it, and then you're out of business from a great idea because you just picked a place that wasn't financially possible.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I a hundred percent agree with that. I mean, I grew up in North Jersey, so a lot of my friends go to New York City, and it's very hard to be entrepreneurial in New York City because the costs are just so high for everything. So when I went down to Tampa, it was like, what? Tampa's picking up a lot, but like your costs are significantly lower, in which case you have a lot more runway. You don't have to build it up as much. And now as you start to see, there's more entrepreneurs in these other cities than in New York, because it's like, why would I pay $5,000 a month for a rent when I, you know what I mean? It just doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

And the funny thing is, like, so growing up in West Virginia, kind of a small town, I like the city, but I still, and this might have helped me too. I still feel more at home with those people than I do kind of maybe even more the people that are my neighbors now. Like it's kind of I think it's hard to grow up in eight, 18 years in one way. And even though I'm 60 now, 62, it's been a whole lot of years since I was in West Virginia. I still think those 18, those first formative years are as impressive as the next 40 or 50, just because that's what makes you. I think it's kind of I think change happens slower than we think.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

Absolutely. And then for you, how were you in this feeling of like building your law firm, trusting the lawyers that they weren't gonna do what you did to the like to go build all airport?

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Well, I kind of have a theory on that too. So I had at one point taken on a partner and I didn't like that, or I didn't think it worked out. And so I got rid of that and I decided I didn't want to do that. So, how do I keep the best lawyers there? Well, you pay them like a partner, you make it so if they left, they would not make much more anyway. And that's how I've kept my good lawyers. I've always been like, I don't, well, going back to overstaffing, if you try to take all the money, you're gonna have people run off. That's why I left that first firm. And so I kind of always think back like that's why I left. Why wouldn't somebody else do that to me? I've had so I had one partner that we split. I've had one guy that really wanted to be a partner, and I just didn't want that to happen. I don't like the makeup of it. I want to bring my kids in, I wanted to forever, and so I've kind of angled in that direction. Like he saw that happening, like I saw it with my first firm, and he went on his way. And I also think that if people leave and they take my cases and we work out a fee split, I'm still going to survive. You know what I mean? Like so I'm not gonna start a I don't want to say shit show, but a shit show over people leaving. If you want to leave, it's better than having somebody in your business that hates you. One bad person will slow the whole thing down. So if you want to go, let's talk about it. Let's if we can't negotiate it, we will litigate it, and that's just the way it goes.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

But that brings you down, that brings you to like a point of an abundance mindset and realizing that, like, hey, if you're if this isn't an opportunity for you, there's someone who loves this opportunity and would be happy to take it. So, like, because I know that to be true, I'm not super cutthroat, like where I feel like I'm gonna lose everything because this person's leaving.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Now, now that being said, like I've had a lot of my lawyers have been there forever. I had one leave, it was years ago, to go to another lawyer that he thought was a more of a known lawyer, and now he's back with me. And I have a history of people leaving to go to Greener Pastures to come back. It's maybe like a 70% rate of people that leave come back. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 27:20

So, how do you how do you think you do that? Like, because if someone's a business owner listening right now, how do they think about retaining people and then bringing people into that culture? Obviously, the high pay.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Well, I think that it's part of my strongest point and part of my weakest point, is why that works. Is I've still kept a lot of the culture from when we were 10 and un 10 employees and under. Like I know people's kids, I try to ask about where their kids are going to college, what's going on in their lives, what's happening with their dogs. Like, so I have that,

Advertising Backlash And Internet Catch-Up

SPEAKER_00 27:53

which as we've grown has created kind of problems. Like, you can't, the bigger you get, you can't accommodate everybody. And I've been trying to do it. And now my problem is I think we're big enough that I've got to kind of hold back on accommodating everybody because I found that with human nature, if I give somebody a new stapler, yeah, even if they have a perfectly functional stapler, they want a new stapler too. Like, I mean, it's one of those things, and so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

And they start to become reliant on it, you know what I mean? It starts to become this challenging thing where they're like, oh, if I ask Brent for something, he's gonna give it to me. Like, so I gotta ask Brent for everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

And they stay because we're friends, but that it makes it hard then to be a boss, and that's where and if that's kind of what I'm working on now is like, how do I transition? I don't want to be that that boss, but I have to have a little bit more, we need to be more streamlined than we were able to be in the past, and so now changing that culture is a challenge.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

So, what I've seen with clients who are kind of going through similar things, what the big thing for them to do is just, and it happens with all leaders where it's like, dude, I want there's a friend relationship on one side, and then there's business. Like, what is the role? What is the responsibility are we doing hitting the role? And when you have that high level accountability with people of like, this is what you said you were gonna do, you did not do this. I still like you, I still will go out to dinner with you, but like you're not hitting the role. That helps a lot.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

I I've part I have employees that have been with me 16, 17 years. That's incredible, that and that's where it gets it gets hard. Like when it gets it's almost like telling your kids or wife or somebody it becomes that kind of a thing. Like you really think it through too much, and then I think I think a bigger problem is when you wait too long to say something's wrong, then you kind of blow up and make a big mess out of it. Like, I think if I think this year I need to address the issues quicker rather than letting me get to the point where I'm just pissed off. I think that's a hundred of the problems.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

I mean, that comes down to having hard conversations, and this is just for anyone. Like, if you ever have a hard conversation, it's much better to have that hard conversation early than it is moments passing or they find out on their own and they're like, What is your problem here?

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Like that's that's another thing that I think is really important. I call it cut the bleed. And it's with starting businesses. If you start a location and it doesn't work, but you have a good idea, the quicker you cut that bleed and go on, the better chance you're gonna have a survival. So, with managing staff, with decisions you make, if if I'd hired an AI company and I really liked them, but it wouldn't integrate, and I was trying to save it. And so I woke up and I was like, nope, done, cut it. Like that's just what it was. I don't care if I lose 20 grand. If I keep going, I'm gonna lose more. And so you have to don't have analysis paralysis, don't think it over too much where you don't move, but then also don't have thought it over and then be afraid to be like, I was wrong. Don't be afraid to stop it and then go on.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Well, those are that's kind of like the stop loss fallacy where like we sit there and we actually have to analyze it and start to realize like, wait a second, like let me put myself in this situation before we even start. Like, what is the objective? If the objective is not hit, are we willing to cut this? And it's like, yes, because we want everything to be this marriage that's incredible and amazing and awesome. But the truth is, like, there was a while where you start seeing the person and then you start dating, and then you're like, This works, and people try to rush to like because they're so familiar with marriage, kids, all that stuff. It's like, how do I get to that immediately? And it's like, no matter what you do, you're not gonna expedite any of it. Like, you can't.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

No, you can if you try to move it too fast, it's gonna mess up. If you try to drag it too slow, it's gonna mess up. You just have to a lot of us just riding it out and just knowing when it's time to stop it, turn in another direction, but always try to keep moving it forward.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah, and I think that's the big objective is moving this stuff forward. So when you look at your businesses now, how do you think about the six locations? And how do you think about like, should I hire new people? Is the location being profitable? Are you comparing them against each other? Like, how do you think about all that?

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Now, with social media, there's a whole different thing with how like the maps are popping up online, and so I'm kind of analyzing each location and whether I need to move them in a different direction, and then that goes to the next step. If I move this 10 miles, well, I lose a staff member that I really like because of the commute. People are trying, people want to work from home, and I don't think it works for my business. Like, I think law firms want need to be staffed. We need people there to meet new clients. They there needs to be a place where they go. So they've got to be in office. So somebody that has to drive an extra 30 minutes may just as easy get a job that's remote or go to a different firm. So now we're like looking through locations, seeing if we move people, does that make a difference? Determining whether we should take the bigger areas, put more people in three locations, and have kind of branch offices we can run to. And so in today's world, if you stop thinking ahead, you are dead. You have to keep not that you don't necessarily have to keep growing, but you have to keep up with the market. So every day I try to think a few hours

AI Curiosity And Real Estate Leverage

SPEAKER_00 33:28

on what do I need to change, what do I need to keep, and I think that's important. Has that always been a mindset of yours? I've always had a problem with boredom, so I don't think so. I think I think I start my wife's like, if you have nothing wrong, you'll store something up to make it wrong. And so I think like that, I think I think most of my traits are my positives and my negatives. Like that's kind of how I operate. Like the things that are good about me, I overdo them to the point that they almost get bad. So like maybe I could sit back and not try to make as much change. And if I didn't try to change it as much, I wouldn't have so much, I wouldn't have to cut the bleed so much. But I think it keeps it going and it keeps it interesting. And so far, I haven't done so much that I've screwed up anything. So I don't know, maybe that'll happen. But you also got to keep it in your mind. It's better to try it and screw up than just not try it all.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

100%. I completely agree. And Brent, with you, how do you think about managing your big business with your family? And how do you think about that kind of stuff? Because I feel like that's very challenging for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

It's it's one of the biggest pluses I had with starting a business. When I worked for other law firms and I watched other lawyers work for other law firms, they're there. I was there till eight o'clock at night. Yeah. It's part of our culture and maybe why people stay. Like my staff, I always say, if you stand in front of our door at five o'clock, you will be injured. These people hurt out the door at five o'clock and they go see their family, and that's fine. Now, if we have something to do, well, they can they can work at home. We're also I also pay overtime. Uh a lot of law firms have people sitting there seven or eight o'clock at night, and they claim salary. Claim salary, yeah. But I think if you're gonna work over and you pay these people more, it incentivizes them to do it, and they like to do it, and they don't dislike you quite as much. And so I think that's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

I mean, it's true, it's true. You want them to want to work.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Well, like a lot of lawyers, you pull in with your big Mercedes and your staff member's late because they've got a flat tire, they've got to pay for that tire. If you don't realize that your life is different and they see you and you totally ignore them, they deserve to hate you, and you kind of deserve to be hated. So I think you have to be very aware of your lifestyle and you have to kind of share that with people around you. And if not, you're a jerk, and it's not gonna bode well for you.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Yeah, it's much better. Like if you're winning, then everyone starts to win in some capacity, which is I think what you're trying to get at there.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

You have to share the success, or that's the problem. But but back with family, I decided that when we had kids, I was like, I've got to spend time with these kids. My son, when he was 14, got recruited to play lacrosse at a school called the Holderness School up in New Hampshire. And when it first my wife went to boarding school, but when it came over my son to go to boarding school, she was pissed. And so I said, Okay, he can go. So at 14, he moved out. My daughter was still going to college and she was upset. So we ended up getting a small condominium in Vermont, and we have never missed a lacrosse game yet, and this is the senior year, and so I just made it a priority that well, I would have had to years ago. The priority is easier now with having the teams with the internet. Like I can work, like I get up in the morning, I still work as many hours when I'm up there. I work to the game, I go to the game on my phone. If something comes up, I can still do it. I wish I could be more attentive. Like, I have missed halves of games, but I'm there and I'm present, and that matters. My if I could do one thing over, I would have been fully present. But I'm not gonna eat you. Also, you can't kick yourself when you're making a value an effort and doing something partially right. You have to be happy with what you you got.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

Yeah, because there's always areas to improve, there's always things that we can fix. But I think the idea of I mean, especially with the phone and the cameras and the stuff, the presence for a lot of us is really hard. It's hard for us to sit there and have a full conversation with someone for an hour without being derailed from text messages or emails or that.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Well, I've decided that I'm not sure it might be too late to do it with my kids because they're almost through school, but I'm gonna totally have that part of me fixed for my grandchildren and I will be right on with them. I will be fully engaged, so I'll fix it next next life round.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Well, I think the the other thing you can do is, and I wouldn't even put it off as that much, but like even through the kids at senior year of college, you could still like you're having lunch, we're there together. You know what I mean? We're doing this stuff because people feel that presence, and that's honestly why I started doing the podcast because it was the one way I could talk to someone where it's like emails aren't popping up, things aren't happening. It's like we're talking here, and I think there's very healthy ways of having those conversations, and I feel like a lot of people miss that.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

So, luckily, my son just got recruited to play Lacrosse at Vassar. Oh, wow. So I will have a whole new school, and I'm gonna I won't wait till my grandchildren, I'm gonna make this the time that I'm fully present. And and AI is kind of helping that. AI, if you we're learning it and it's fixing some of the processes and helping do things that I used to have to do kind of instantly, it's helping me do that. So maybe by the time he gets there, he has one more year of high school, I'll have it all ready and I can hit that before my grandchildren.

SPEAKER_02 38:54

I love that. I love that because I think it's just so important for us to realize that like life is an ever-moving slope. There's ups, downs, and rounds, but like as long as we try our best, it's what we can do. You know what I mean? And there's always areas for us to improve. So with Edwards Consulting, there's five pillars, Brent. All right. The first pillar is mental health. So I ask all my all the podcast guests. I've been doing it for probably over 150 episodes, where it's mental health, physical health, then we have community service, philanthropy, then we have spirituality and relationships. So for you, Brent, I always ask them on today, mental health-wise, on a one to ten, how are we feeling? Because it really humanizes the guest. And I feel like sometimes we miss that.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

I would say I am probably a seven on mental health. I have some issues back in West Virginia that are kind of like hanging in my mind. So I'd say probably seven. How do you think you balance that? Well, the issues at home are stuff that my parents are older, and that's kind of what we're up against. And I'm kind of balancing out well, like there's a fear that a door is gonna close and it's scary. And I'm kind of balancing it with like what I said, I'm getting chills. My kid has got accepted to lacrosse.

Scaling Locations Without Losing Culture

SPEAKER_00 40:08

My daughter's taking her LSATs again on Saturday. There's doors that are gonna close, and doors that are gonna open, and I'm just kind of trying to keep it together like that.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Time is always going on, and there's nothing that we can control. And we start to realize that the only thing we can control is the support of being there for those people and having those incredible moments and making those memories, and it could be really challenging for a lot of us, especially as so many things are occurring. It's like, what are the things that we want to share? What are the things that we want to do? Because sometimes people go really quick, and that's a scary thing, too.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

It it is it is going to be an interesting next week to keep myself together. Like, so I'm actually going home, my dad's in the hospital, and so we're dealing with that. But then WV Law School, where I went, wants my daughter to take a tour, and the assistant dean has contacted us. So, like, I'm going back for a negative, negative, negative thing, and there's a positive, positive, positive thing happening. And so I'm just kind of like how do I handle the self? Just keeping them together.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Oh my god, I appreciate you sharing that because the vulnerability is really it's what's real, and it helps people show up authentically. Now, physical health on a one to ten, how are you feeling today?

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Well, I just went to the doctor two days ago, and we have adjusted my blood pressure medicine.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

So I think I'm getting back in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 41:27

I think we're trending in the right direction. I think I finally got the cuff that they've told me to get for the last five years, and I've played with it, so I think I'm I'm headed in a good direction.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Okay, I like that. I like that community service philanthropy. How do you feel about that? Any of that come up?

SPEAKER_00 41:44

We have done that this year, and embarrassingly, we've done it more with maybe writing checks and sponsoring thing than getting into the community, and I think that's just a product of my kids are at a busy point of their life, and we're trying to do that. And a lot of my lawyers are all having kids four to up. And I think that we have been more into the family thing, and so the way we can do it now is more donations than giving up time. But I think that charity starts at home, and I think it's important not to forget your family. I don't want to be one of those guys that's giving everyone else and doing that and everything else, and then my family is ignored. So I think I need to work on that balance a little bit better.

SPEAKER_02 42:29

I think it's a healthy balance, though, and I think you're bringing up a really good point because there's a lot of people sitting there going, like, I'm just trying to get through this family thing.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Like, and that's how you link these other things, yeah. And that's and if you give up the family thing and something the most important thing is for me is to make good human beings to go out into the future. So while I'm not donating my time, if I can keep my child from being a jerk and help the world, then I'm kind of doing some kind of social work.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

100%, 100%, and then relationships like if this could be a relationship with family, friends, whatever you want it to be. What about your relationships on like a one to ten? How do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 43:08

I think I have great relationships within my firm, which I love. I think um my family relationships are gonna get better in September when we kind of get the kids back to school because my wife and I are flying back and forth. My son, having gone to school in New Hampshire, he wants to stay up there. That's where his friends are. My daughter went to school in Charlotte, so she's she wants to be here with her friends, and so I think it's really important for the kids to be where they want with their friends. Like we kind of created this almost mixed family in some respects, and so this part of the year is always complicated, but I think it'll all boil down in September.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Absolutely, absolutely, and how do you think you keep good relationships at the firm for anyone who has employees?

SPEAKER_00 43:52

I think it's funny. Like, like so last night I got home and I was getting ready to go to dinner with my mother-in-law and my daughter, and I get a text from my paralegal Freddie, give her a shout-out. She's been with me for 16 years, and I think like we we communicate like friends, like it, we we joke around, and it meant so I have a lawyer that does the bigger you get, like I have an ethics lawyer that's on call, so anything I want to do, I run that by them, and I have an employment lawyer. My employee lawyer is just like, you need to not be as open because like being open is good until it's not, you know what I mean? And so I think part of the reason we get along is like we joke around and we do things, eventually will probably crack me in the it may eventually hit me, but I just think it would be so boring to just not be able to like I mean, I don't want to be offensive to people, but I think that I think that line of what's offensive is almost gone to a point where it's just almost boring. And so I think that the relationships are there because I might be setting myself up for a lawsuit sometime. I don't know because it's more fun.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

But people can be authentic, they can be real, they can be who they really are and stop hiding. I think that's what it is. Absolutely. And spirituality on a one to ten, how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Well, I am more spiritual than religious, for sure. My theory has always been if you treat people good and you're a good person all over, if I'm wrong in my actual beliefs, then if there is one being, they should accept me for being good. Like I think that's the basis of how everything works. So I've kind of like not done anything for a specific God

Family Priorities And The Five Pillars

SPEAKER_00 45:33

or reason. I try to do things in a way that if I were going to be judged to go to the good place or the bad place, my actions would get me there, not my getting on my knees and praying. So that's kind of my spiritual belief, and it's kind of what I do or try to do. And I'm not always good at it because I can be a jerk too. Like I'm I'm not a I can flip people off on they're cut me off on the road. So I've got the bad things too, but I try overall to follow my belief of spirituality.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

I like that because I don't think it and the reason it is spirituality instead of religion is because it's like, hey, it's what do you believe? How are we interconnected? Sometimes I use it as like I'm going on a run. Like I went on a run this morning. I just say morning to everyone. I'm like, I'm not gonna talk to them, but I just say morning because it's just like, how do you stay connected with people?

SPEAKER_00 46:20

That that is that hits home so much. Like, so my wife and I are totally different. Like her family is more quiet, and she'll be like, You can't get out of a grocery store without saying hello to everyone. And I don't see the reason that it's not painful for me to say hello. I think some people will just have more anxiety at that, but I think it's a muscle. I think you get rewarded for being that person that you say hi to five people, and three people will react to it and feel better, and then they have a better day. I think that's important.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

And I think sometimes that's spirituality, and sometimes we don't realize that, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 46:55

That's more important to me than going every Sunday and getting dressed up and going into a church, and that's just my belief. Am I a Christian? Yes, yes, but more importantly than that is just treating people right. And I think some people stand behind that they're a Christian and therefore they're good. And I think you have to be good and then therefore you can be a Christian. You have to be good first before you go to any next level.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

Absolutely, absolutely. And Brent, this has been awesome. I love hearing about the law firm. I love hearing about your story, bringing it all together. And so, where can people learn more about you?

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Well, like, first of all, I've enjoyed being on your show. I've watched it. I think you're great. I think all everybody listening should go out and give him a bunch of fives and give him some love online. It's really important. But if you want me, it's www.stortlawfices.net. And we also have 866 STORT as a phone number. And I changed it to.com. I got dot com on that and.net. And if you Google us, Alexa us, ask AI, call stort law offices in Charlotte. Any of those ways, I always give my cell phone 803-487-6446. I got two calls this morning from people that somehow passed it on from person to person. Keep me going. I have a kid starting law school, one starting college. Um, I will be doing this for a long, long time.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

I love it. I love it. I'll put that all in the show notes. Thank you, Brent. Okay, thank you. Have a good one.