How to Run Your Law Firm Without Burning Yourself Out feat. Liz Douglass

🔥 Stop Carrying Your Law Firm Alone. Elizabeth Douglass breaks down why so many law firm owners become the bottleneck inside their own business and how stronger leadership, accountability, and clarity can completely change the way a firm operates. From overwhelmed teams and missed expectations to constant firefighting and decision fatigue, this episode dives into the real reasons small law firms feel chaotic and what owners can do to finally create a business that does not rely on them for everything.

You can get in touch with Elizabeth here:
https://edengrowthconsulting.com/

If you want to strategize your firm's marketing, speak with our team:
 https://bit.ly/spotlightmarketingbranding

Copyright © 2026. Spotlight Marketing + Branding

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Many business owners, whether they're in the legal space or not, get to a point where their business is growing and they're the one holding it up. We want to get away from that. We want them to empower their own employees so they can get to a place where they can actually think strategically about the business and where they're going, not just how many questions do I have to answer today or somebody on my team.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome back to the Center Stage Podcast. My name is Danny Decker, and I've got a fun guest for you today. We're talking with Elizabeth Douglas. Elizabeth is a five facets integrator and consultant. Uh, and I've had a couple of conversations with Elizabeth, and she does a lot of work in the legal space and also some outside of the legal space, and so it's always great to bring sort of a variety of perspectives to these conversations. So, Elizabeth, welcome and thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Thanks, Danny. It's great to be here.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

So before we dive into it uh too deeply here, just kind of tell our audience about your background and sort of your business today.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Yep. Okay. Uh so I am a, as Danny said, um, five facets uh consultant. And I really got into this based on the fact that I had owned a few of my own practices and I had also worked at a couple of legal firms when I was younger. Absolutely loved those jobs. And uh so when I when I decided to move out of, I was in financing for a while, when I decided to move out of that and back into the business world, uh, it just made sense that I would that we would start with law firms, right? And so that's gone really well, and I absolutely love it. And um, so yeah, we just I come in, I help companies take the the five pillars of their business, so to speak, right? Stand those up, um assess, you know, what where we're at, where you need to be, where you want to go, and um, and really focusing a lot on the leadership coaching piece of that. Uh I find a lot of companies that just um, you know, at the end of the day, they want to change a lot of things inside their company, whether that be operationally, finance, um, marketing, um and leadership. But the truth is if we don't help the leadership grow, then the rest of it doesn't really we can fix all kinds of things, but we'll we'll always slip back into those habits, right? Without the leadership growth. So that's what that's what really comes along with the five facets, and that's a big, big focus for me because I learned real quickly that every time I'd come into a company, that that was probably the thing that they needed most right out the gate, even though in their minds they needed operational help or structure or help with finance or or whatnot. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Well, I love that. And and let's dig in there. And and so, you know, so we had we've had a couple of conversations. And for example, I know that you're you're super knowledgeable in like the intake side of a law firm, right? We've had a lot of conversation uh both both between you and I, and also I have this conversation a lot with with law firm owners, right? Because intake is such such a really important, obviously, area of the business and and and good marketing doesn't really mean much if you don't have a good intake process and vice versa. But what you said a moment ago really caught my attention, which is that if you don't have the leadership piece of this sort of dialed in, you know, the other areas of the business, it's kind of it just doesn't work as well. So let's honestly start there, even though that's not necessarily where I was planning to start. What do you mean by that? What why is that such a big deal?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Yeah, so um it's funny that you said that, Danny, because I would also say data, because we talked about that too. That's a huge piece for me, right? But I say leadership because, you know, I just got off a call this morning doing a discover discovery call with a leadership team. And funny enough, but everything that she told me, we were doing the causal mapping process, which is something we do within the five facets, which is to do these discovery calls with the leadership team and go through and just ask them, just candidly, what are all the opportunities and the struggles that you personally feel that the company has, right? And so, and they'll tell they'll say all kinds of things. They'll tell us all kinds of things that sometimes even I'm like, well, you didn't have to tell me that, right? But um, but they'll they'll be pretty honest. And when you go through that process and you realize that, oh, really a lot of the stems, not everything, okay. I'm not gonna say that, you know, obviously part of the five facets is the structure and the operations and you know, the finance and the marketing, like there all that's there. But most of the time, when you listen to somebody talk with inside of an organization, they will say things like, Well, I brought this to the leadership, but nobody like I've been saying this for two years, but nobody's really listening, right? Or I can't get people to do what I need them to do, and I can't do my job if those people don't do what they're supposed to be doing. And those things are leadership issues, right? These are I need the leadership to lead, and I need them to at the same time actually put some accountability in place, right? So underlying what she, you know, I'm thinking of this conversation I had this morning, she's saying like accountability, there's, you know, this problem, that problem, all these different problems. But at the end of the day, what that really comes down to is things like the leadership took takes too long to make a decision about a person who's really wreaking havoc within our department, right? It took them a year and a half to move this person on or whatnot, right? And so when we go in and we start to try to fix something like operations or or finance or marketing and the story of the company without backing up and saying, yes, but what are the root causes from a leadership perspective and ways that the leaders can grow, then you will just will fix it for a little while, but you'll just lapse back eventually, right? Because the actual issue that is underlying all of it is that the leadership needs to grow. And as the leadership grows, then everything else seems to start getting a whole lot better, a lot much faster and can stay. It can stick, right? The things that we do fix within the company actually stick, and it it's just everybody's a lot happier, let's put it that way.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

That that makes a lot of sense. So, Liz, one of the things you you mentioned it just a moment ago, and I've also seen it on kind of like your LinkedIn content and things like that, is accountability. And there was a there was a LinkedIn post you made that that jumped out at me, and you said, Accountability is the number one issue I see inside companies. Everyone talks about it, but very few actually practice it. So, can you elaborate a little bit on that? Because that's a really interesting conversation.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah, so I have my favorite example of all time, which is that I um I was doing a discovery call one time with a legal firm, and I asked this question. Now, the and when I say discovery call, this was not of the leadership team, this was actually with one of the um with the COO. And I said, Well, how do you hold everyone accountable within the company? And they said, Well, we we have everybody at the end of the week, each attorney has to email in their numbers to us, right? Like how many cases they had moved from in each step of the legal process. And this happened to be um a personal injury firm. And so I said, Okay, so what's that look like? So he, you know, breaks down for me, you know, cases that are entreating, and then going to MMI and then ready for demand, demand sent development, the whole process, right? And so they have to tell him how many in each category or each step of the process were moved to the next process process step. And I said, Oh, okay, well, that's good. Um, so then what happens? Like, do you number one, do you see the previous weeks? And he's like, Well, I mean, yes, if I scroll down and I thought, oh well, okay, that's probably not ideal. But um, and I am a big data person, so I'd rather see this on a dashboard, but email is fine, right? Like it is what it is. And then I said, So then what happens if, like, are there thresholds for what they need to be hitting? And he said, Yes. And I said, Okay, good. And then what happens if they don't hit those numbers? And he just kind of looked at me like, well, nothing happens. And I said, Okay, so we don't I'll tell you this. I didn't say this completely this way to him, but um, but I basically said, But that's not that's not accountability, right? Like you don't have to be mean and nasty to have some accountability and some teeth to the fact that if I'm gonna tell you that it's important for us to move this many cases per week or per month or per quarter into the next step, and I actually take the time to make you take the time to send me your numbers at the end of the week, then I should absolutely have a threshold and there's something should actually there should be a conversation that is had if those numbers are not being met. Now, I understand everybody's gonna miss numbers sometimes, right? That's normal. But for the answer to just be nothing, that's not accountability. And it made perfect sense because one of their biggest complaints when I first met them was I can't get my attorneys to move the cases like I want them to.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Yeah, Liz, this is such a great conversation. I think, okay, so I think it's tough, right? So, so, so I'll just our agency, right? We're we're a small business. Um, you know, we love every single member of our team. Um, and a lot of law firms, especially the folks listening to the to this podcast, we know are are solo small firms, right? Lots of them head count of under under 10, right? And so you really do develop those sort of relationships with people on your team where there's an element of of friendship as well, or or or at least, you know, I don't know if you want to call it friendship or whatever, but like you really care about these people. And so I think it's a super hard line to walk. And and I'm curious how you advise, like, how do you walk that line between yes, there needs to be accountability, like yes, things need to get done, um, you know, while while acknowledging the fact that like you still have a relationship with these people.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Yeah, so great question. Um, so I would say, number one, I always make this statement, but clarity is kindness. Most people in their heart of hearts actually want to do a good job, but half the time they don't actually know what that means, right? Like we just kind of have this general understanding of what you're supposed to be doing and whether or not you're winning at that, if that makes sense, right? Um, and most people don't actually like that. Like I think 99% of us would like somebody to actually say, this is the marker that we're trying to hit, right? Or that you need to hit in your personal day-to-day. And so in, and I'll come back to that in a second, but uh to answer your question, you're exactly right, especially in small companies, it's difficult if they have been running on a system for a very long time where it's like, well, we're we're friends. Like I can't tell this person, like, hey, you didn't hit your numbers, right? Like, I just can't say that, right? And so sometimes one of the things that um I will say is just be honest with everyone right from the get-go. Like, if you're gonna change this in your company, you can't just come in guns ablazing, obviously, and say, okay, everybody, like now you become the the mean, nasty person, right? Who's the bad guy all the time because you're the one holding everybody accountable? That's not what we want. Um, but there does have to be someone who's willing to say, let we're not hitting our numbers, right? Like, so what can I do to support you? And you can kind of broach that subject from the standpoint of like, hey, we're growing, our firm is growing. We want to get to this place, whatever that is, a monetary, you know, a revenue number or something like that, or a number of cases. Uh, and as we go through that process, like I know that we have all collectively contributed to the environment that doesn't really hold anybody accountable, right? So be patient with me. I'm trying to change this as well. I want you to have clarity around what it is that needs to happen. And then when you when you do that, when you have an honest conversation, and then at the same time, you can put some of the five facets, the operational structure, the meetings, how those are structured and how they actually take place, a lot of that almost goes, I wouldn't say it completely goes away because there will always be a few people who resist, right? But the average person probably will go along with it. And when you go through a meeting and you're just, you know, like here's all the numbers for the week, most people don't want to be in the red every week.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

So you may never have to have some difficult conversation that you're envisioning in your mind that's going to happen because it may not actually happen. It may just be that you now have a really good meeting structure in place, and that just gets done by default, right? And and you start to foster an environment where, yeah, these are the goals. This is where we're going to go. These are the these are your personal responsibilities within that. And we want to actually win and not come back around to a meeting every week and look at bad bad numbers.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

And and I'll share a tip for, you know, for for because I do think there is there's certainly uh listeners out there who don't have KPIs yet in their law firm and and maybe are are thinking about needing to roll them out. And I'm sure you would agree, like everybody, every everybody, every business needs to have KPIs for their team. You know, something I've done, and feel free, Liz, to say this is a terrible idea and and tell people not to do this, but I'd like your reaction to it, is you know, when you initially introduced KPIs for the first time, I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, hey, for this first quarter, like this is experimental. Like we are we are rolling this out, we are we are sharing these numbers. Um, I want to try to hit these numbers. Um, but listen, I understand that this is the first time you know we've tracked things in this way. And so like, you know, this is really just data gathering and experimental. And then in the second quarter or the third quarter, then you can start adding, you know, some KPI bonuses or some piece of capabil or uh, you know, um some accountability. Um, but like in my view, there's nothing wrong with kind of rolling it out slowly so you don't scare people.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah, a hundred percent. I would second that very much so, Danny, because you're right. It there is a certain anytime you're changing something or putting KPIs in place when you haven't really had them before, most people bristle at that because the the initial reaction is like, oh my, I'm gonna be measured now, and I was never measured before, and somebody's gonna see that I'm not doing as well as when you don't actually know, you might be doing perfectly fine, right? And so, yes, I I sometimes suggest, I have a um a firm right now that I I just told them the other day, I said, listen, I this the goal of all of this is not for you to show up and feel terrible about yourself every time you come to the meeting. These numbers, I as I always, as my my husband would would attest to, I like to win and I don't want to show up at a meeting and be losing all the time. That's not fun, it's not fun for me or anybody else, right? I want you to show up to the meeting and feel like you're winning. So, how do we make that happen? Well, we're gonna pick these numbers. Maybe we're gonna change them in a quarter because we realize that this particular number is just flat out not feasible. It's just not going to happen. And that's okay, right? This is not here for you to look at a chart and say, like, oh, I'm in the red every single week.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

And we always find version two is always better than version one and version three is always better than version two. But the most important thing is that you take that first step and and don't let it scare you because I just I just couldn't agree more that that is really important for law firms. So here's another question I want to ask you, Liz. I've heard you in the past talk about uh bottlenecks and how you know founders often become a bottleneck. And and again, you know, a lot of our audience are small or sometimes even true solo law firms where, you know, they're kind of wearing all the hats and maybe they have a paralegal or an assistant or maybe even an associate attorney. But how do you recognize as a as a founder when you are becoming the bottleneck and it's important to do something about it?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah, so um when we go through a that discovery call process at the beginning, whether you're you have a team of three people or a hundred and fifty, it doesn't matter, right? The I mean it does matter, but what I mean is small or or larger, from my perspective, what I'm looking for is sort of those underlying causal effects of what's going on, right? So sometimes when somebody is a bottleneck at the top and they feel it, they know it, but they don't necessarily know that everybody else knows it. And so as we're going through those discovery calls, you'll hear everybody say, Oh, well, I have to wait, you know, I always have, I always have to wait. Or they'll say things like, Well, I asked so-and-so, but I didn't hear back. Right. And so what you're really hearing is there's a bottleneck, there's somebody that everybody's relying on to answer them about something or make a decision about something, and they can't get to them fast enough. And it's very um heavy for the CEO or the the owner or the you know, the main attorney, if that's the who the bottleneck is, um, because they feel the weight of everybody asking them questions and them not being able to actually keep up, right? Um, and so what I usually say to that is we just just simply sit down. I like to use um the book, um what's his last name? Hardy, I think. Uh, but of Benjamin Hardy. Yes, yes. Ten times is easier than two times.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Um great book.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

I love that book. And I often feel that people assume that, you know, if you read that, well, okay, it's because you're gonna 10 times your business, right? And and I say, Well, I'm not asking you to 10 times your business. I just need you to do the exercise of if your business was 10 times the size it is right now, what things would you tell me? Well, I just can't do this anymore. I don't have this, I can't have this on my plate, I can't answer these emails, I'm not gonna be able to do XYZ. These are the top three things that I must do on a daily basis in order to run a business that size. And once I get that answer, then we start looking around at everything that that person is actually doing and figure out who can we delegate those things off to. Because obviously, many business owners, whether they're in the legal space or not, get to a point where their business is growing and they're the one holding it up, right? That's what's happening. And we want to get away from that. We want them to empower their own employees to to delegate all of that stuff that's on their plate so they can get to a place where they can actually think strategically about the business and where they're going, not just how many questions do I have to answer today or somebody on my team, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Love it. And so, Liz, for for the for the attorney who's listening to this podcast and is like, that sounds great. I want to achieve that in my business. How can you and your your business, how do you help make that happen?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, so um my favorite part of this entire process always is the very beginning, to be if I'm being completely honest, uh, because when somebody calls me, the very first thing that I do is do a discovery call with the owner, um, whoever that or or the person who runs the day-to-day, right? And I just ask them a whole bunch of questions. I just let them talk, basically, and say, what are all your frustrations? And it's sort of like that discovery call with the that causal mapping process with everybody else in the company, right? But especially when it's a smaller firm, I just let the owner talk and tell me everything that they can possibly think of that they think is wrong. And I also ask them for some positives. You know, what are the opportunities? What are the things that you wish you you could be doing with your firm, but you feel like you're not able to because of everything you're telling me? And from there, I pull the threads out. This is probably my um number one superpower, is the ability to digest all of that and be able to very quickly know instinctively, like, oh, okay, so these are your three main issues, and this is the order that we're going to correct them in. And in order to do that, we're gonna use the five facets. So we're gonna go through that process, right? Like once we start working together. But at the very beginning, it's prioritizing, right? It's it's knowing that well, you can't fix this thing over here if you don't first fix this other thing, right? And so if we can get my my goal always at the very beginning is to get somebody a quick win, right? Like, what can I do? with you? What exercise can I do? What um what piece of your business can we change or tweak a little bit that will get you some immediate relief within the first 90 days where you feel like, oh, okay, like I can I'm actually going to be able to make this happen.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Love it. Awesome. That that's great. Liz, I've I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I think there are a lot of takeaways for for listeners. So for folks that want to connect with you, um, what's the best place for them to go do that?

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yep. So you can go to my website, edengrowthconsulting.com, or you can just email me at contact at edengrowthconsulting.com and just, you know, if you need some help or you even just want a one hour strategy call, that's completely fine. Like I do those all the time with people. Sometimes they're not really ready to hire somebody like myself, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:49

And then other times they are but regardless, I just genuinely absolutely love helping companies get where they want to go and making everybody within that company thrive and you know put all as I I used to always say put all the chaos in order right because it is chaotic a lot of times it's normal right in a love that and we will uh put that information in the show notes uh so make it easy for people to contact you also I recommend if you're listening to this uh connect with Liz on LinkedIn there's some great content on there uh I just connected uh it's Liz Douglas with two S's at the end of at the end of Douglas uh so go connect with her on LinkedIn as well Liz this was awesome really appreciate your time your expertise thank you so much for joining us yeah thanks Danny great to be here