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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ep. 202 – Permission to Retire Toward Joy with Daya Naef
In this first episode of 2026, Ben sits down with attorney-turned-coach Daya Naef, founder of The Success Partner, for a future-focused conversation about what solo and small firm lawyers need to thrive in today’s landscape.
Daya helps boutique firms (think 1 to 30 people) go from overwhelmed to optimized. Whether it’s succession planning, vision alignment, or AI implementation, she helps lawyers turn practices into platforms—and jobs into businesses.
They talk:
- The trap of accidental entrepreneurship in law
- Why lawyers delay vision work—and how to fix that
- How AI is impacting real law firms right now (and where the fear still lives)
- How Ben is using internal GPTs to extract years of IP from his LTD playbook
- Retirement as a creative act—not just an exit
If you’re building a law firm that serves your life—or hoping to exit one with grace—this episode is full of energy, strategy, and practical ideas to get you moving.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
When people come to me and the ship is sinking, the ship has probably already sank. And so that's a that's a bit of an issue. Um, most people come, they had a question about that. It's like, oh, we heard about this and we heard about that, and somebody saw something somewhere. And we decided to email you. And then when we had a couple of those exploratory conversations, then we got into what does what does this firm look like? You know, what do you want to do with it?
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, and make it. Ben brings you to real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_00:Hello, everyone. Welcome back. Happy New Year. This is the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. I am Ben Glass, and I get to interview some of the most interesting people inside and outside of legal. Today I've got Dea Naith. Uh, Dea is a coach who I actually met, I think, through Provisors. Dea I was looking back to my notes. I think it's been like six months we've been trying to schedule something like this. So we're both very busy. But uh look, folks, this is gonna be a great conversation. Again, um started off 2026. Hopefully, like you didn't start your planning for 2026 on December 31st. They actually, as soon as this podcast is recording, is over, I'm heading out. We have our uh annual law firm two-day offsite retreat. So my leadership team and our business coach are heading down to a lake house. We'll spend two days uh walk together, um, you know, having fun, uh getting to know each other better, um, creating plans. Uh in our case, sort of a transition plan for me as I um, you know, reach the point here shortly where it's like, okay, time to pass this baton on. And so that's why I'm doubly, doubly glad to um uh to be able to talk to you. It it is exciting and it is uh scary, not scary, but you know, like you don't want to just retire and go away. You want to retire towards something else. So Deia is a seasoned attorney, she's a coach. Um, interesting, I want to hear about this construction background that's in your in your DNA. She's the founder of something called the Success Partner, and that's a firm that specializes in guiding lawyers and small law firms towards growth and intentional career development. Before we went live, we were sort of riffing with each other about this, in that um she and I like we both like to help these uh I call them mom and pa law firms who are who are trying to build a practice that makes their families uh happy, uh, that they became law firm owners, um, where you can have a thriving life, first of all, because life is important. Um you can make money and you don't join the legions of lawyers in America who are stressed out, burned out, and um just don't like what they signed up to do. Um, so welcome to the program.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Ben. I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00:You said something as we went live about yesterday was a lamb, today it was a lion. Um as we have rolled into 2026, like I am curious, first of all, give us, tell us sort of where your business is, and then we'll go into some background and how you got there. Who you're serving, how do you spend your days and your weeks? Um, we're always curious about the entrepreneurial journey.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So my my niche market is very much like myself. You know, a small, a small law firm. So it could be one up to one one attorney wearing all the hats in the business, um, up to about 30 total employees is usually who I work with. Um, people that have sort of a boutique practice. You said mom and pop, uh, I like that. I like that. It's more of a specialized kind of practice area that I usually work with people, like trust in estates or family or you know, criminal with a little personal injury. So things that have a brand to them. You know, I don't mean brand in the marketing sense. I mean brand in the vision of the lead attorney or lead attorneys is still very present and palpable in the organization.
SPEAKER_00:Do you find that lawyers that most lawyers who come to you actually have a what you and I would call a true vision? Because so many my experience is that so many lawyers who start law firms are looking like it's the leaving the bad place where I am, right? And I need a job, so might as well be my job, versus going into it with a true entrepreneurial vision on day one of this is what I want to build. It's very rare. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's very rare. I find that attorneys are reluctant entrepreneurs. So I I grew up in entrepreneurship. It was the only path for me, but that is a major anomaly for people who've gone to law school. We go through like a very traditional training, we go into traditional practice, not a business. It's looked at as a practice, and then we get burnout in somebody else's practice, and then we're like, oh, we'll have our own practice. But it doesn't really, it doesn't work like that. So, so yes, they they they go out, they feel like they have enough clients to hang out their own shingle, and then a year or two later, they're just they have a glorified job that is 24-7, and it and then and then they're like, then what? So that's sort of where I find most people when I start talking to them.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and they may have a glorified job or something worse. Worse. They if they have exhausted the cases that they may have taken with them, the clients they may have who may have followed them to their new uh journey, uh, but they don't understand how to go out and attract the next client. Um, you mentioned a number of practice areas, you know, lots of lawyers. I in any practice, they have it's challenging. How do I differentiate myself? Um, especially today in practices like personal injury, where there's just so much money being spent um by big advertisers and people with giant budgets, and and then you know, the money that's coming from outside of legal, frankly, um it can be very it can be very hard, I think. Um if you don't have the education, like you don't have the business education about how do I tell a different story um and become interesting to people. So talk to us a little bit about your background because you this entrepreneurial family, I think, that you grew up in in the construction space. Um and then, but you then became a lawyer at some point, and now you are I I couldn't figure out if you're still running a practice at all or if you're 100% in the coaching space. Um, but talk to me a little bit about how how you've arrived at where you are.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was born into entrepreneurship. I've had businesses my my whole, I guess, adult life. I probably had a few when I was a kid too, but uh nothing, nothing that I turned over and you know uh to speak of. But really being able to have that gut instinct and that that being able to have sort of an on-the-job training of my entire life has been key in both my personality traits and my resiliency for being able to do this. And also knowing what a vision is and pushing that forward. Where, whereas again, you know, as an attorney, you think, hey, I'm gonna go to law school and then I'm gonna be an attorney, and that's just that's just what's gonna happen. You don't think about a framework. And there are some, there are some attorneys that I've met who are the entrepreneurs, and they're like, I'm an entrepreneur, and law is my service, or law is the conduit for me to have a business. I could just as well have a different business. Um, but those are those are few and far between. And just kind of growing up in that, and and that's actually what got me my specialty when I was practicing. And I I don't practice a whole lot, like you mentioned, mainly doing consulting work. But I landed, uh, I was in New Orleans and and I'm at my folks now, but I was in New Orleans and um right after Hurricane Katrina is when I started practicing. And so there was a need of someone with a construction background, someone with a law with a who was a lawyer, is a lawyer. And so there were people, there were people I could help, there was a community I could impact, and people had some money to, or potential of money, you know, for contingency, to get these things resolved. So it was sort of the icky guy principle. So I ended up becoming a construction lawyer and did that throughout my throughout that throughout my practice.
SPEAKER_00:And then um today you are coaching and running the success partner. Um so talk to us because you know, a a lot of entrepreneurs um uh do not go through life with one job, even one business, right, of their own. Um how did you uh walk me through the thinking of I want to stop this thing, being a lawyer, and I'm really curious about and would like to pursue this other thing, which is helping other lawyers succeed.
SPEAKER_02:I was at a I was at a pivot. I was at one of those crossroads that we all have in life, and I knew if I wanted to stay in the construction lane, I would have to become an expert. I have to become like a a very much detailed subject matter expert because I didn't like honestly the geographical limitation of being a lawyer. So I was a Louisiana lawyer, and so to branch out and to become known or to be able to consult or work on cases outside of Louisiana, I would have to be have brought in as a specialist and did some classes, did some additional construction, because I wasn't trained as a contractor, I just grew up to be one, practically. And so I took a lot of construction courses, I took some architectural courses, and I got to a plateau. You know, like most lawyers don't go to law school if they can do math, and that's sort of an old joke. You know, if I could do math, I would have gone to medical school, right? So I hit a plateau there and I said, okay, well, then the other shift would be going into something that's all what we call soft skills, or what we used to call soft skills, moving into the people part. So if I can't go all the way into the analytical part or tactical part, then I'm gonna go the 180. I'm gonna do the different direction. And so that's what I that's what I went with. So for good or for bad or whatever, you can't look back. Uh, I went that direction and I said, okay, well, I'm going to improve firms from the people perspective, since drilling down further in my practice area is not gonna work out for me.
SPEAKER_00:What I'm curious now about as you moved into consultant role, like did you did you f follow gurus? Did you go read methodology? Did you take classes? Like, how did you learn to do both the skills but also to run the business of the consulting side?
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh. Um, so as far as learning, so I I went coaching first, and so I did a uh course called accomplishment coaching in Washington, D.C. And so I went through there. It was a full-year program. And then I stayed on as a trainer coach, which was like an internship for an additional two years. So I've had three years of intensive coach training and working with a coaching company. I found though when I moved back into law as being my primary market, people were more interested in what I had learned from having a small law firm. And so then I would have to put take the coach hat off and put the consultants slash law firm owner hat on. And so it's blended into a morphing, if you will. And so we have a lot when I work the practical as it rules out, when I work with people, there's a lot of coaching, especially up front, to dig out that vision or create that vision. And then there goes into the consulting and implementation side, where I end up doing a lot of quarterback work, legwork um for the firm owners that I work with.
SPEAKER_00:So that's interesting. So tell us who you're who's your favorite new client? Like what is their profile, the avatar?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, good, good, good, good one. Yes. So right now I'm working with a criminal law firm, and they are, we are working on both AI, we'll get to AI too. So we're getting into AI systems. So we're we're systematizing things, we're digging into the technology that they already have, finding out the sweet spots and skill levels of all the people on their team, um, considering what growing the team is going to look like over the next couple of years, and then sort of rebranding and finding the niche, looking at the data to find out which practice areas or which specialties they are most interested in pursuing, both from a profitability and economic standpoint, uh, as well as in a passion, like things that they have a passion for and can make a name reputation for. So it's gonna be a pretty comprehensive project.
SPEAKER_00:And is were they coming to you looking to solve they understood the opportunity, or were they first coming to you, hey, we have a problem that we need solved, we need to write the ship or keep it from sinking any farther. Uh which was it?
SPEAKER_02:That's a good question. When people come to me and the ship is sinking, the ship has probably already sank. And so that's a that's a bit of an issue. Um, most people come, this particular client, um, they actually came in on like sort of an AI question. And then we had an exploratory conversation and it became a much bigger project. I do a lot of CLEs and public speaking. And so people then on for the last three years, it's been mainly on AI topics, using AI and the law firms. And so they had a question about that. It's like, oh, we heard about this and we heard about that, and somebody saw something somewhere, you know, that kind of thing. And we decided to email you. And then when we had a couple of those exploratory conversations, then we got into what does what does this firm look like? You know, what do you want to do with it? And some people are ready to exit plan. Some people are like, I have no idea. We just sketch this out on a napkin at the table. Um, some people are like, we're totally fed up with this particular practice area. We need to move over to this other one because we're just completely burned out and can't do this one anymore. Some of them will have uh people leave, like, oh, like three lawyers just up and left and took this entire practice area somewhere else. And so we have to decide, are we gonna build another one of those practice areas? Are we gonna let it go? Um, it can even get as granular as do we need to renew our lease space or we or we do need to renew our lease space and we need to decide are we gonna get bigger, are we gonna get smaller? Are we gonna move? What are we gonna do? And so those little, those little inflection points are usually when I when I get the call.
SPEAKER_00:So you you just gave us a really broad range of services or ideas that you can help owners um think about. And so that's awesome. So what is a typical? So this firm, this mythical, we'll call it a mythical criminal defense firm that came to you. Like, is you is your typical engagement that, hey, I'm gonna work with you for a year and we're gonna talk once a week or then once a month, or are you in there deep in their numbers and analyzing? What does that look like?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And it could go, it could go either way. So I work two ways, either on a project basis or an ongoing sort of fractional C-suite person basis. And then sometimes it's both. Sometimes we'll start with a project, we'll get everything set up, and then we'll move into the ongoing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I'm sure that that if they come to you with a project and you start asking them the other questions that no one has ever asked them and they haven't thought deeply about, and then a light bulb goes off, and then they go, Well, can you help us like solve for that or reach out for that opportunity? That that's that's great. I mean, that's that's uh that's mastery of your subject matter, number one, but also and then demonstrating trust and knowledge, right? And then they're like, Oh, I didn't even know, I didn't even know there was such a thing as visioning for lawyers because they didn't teach us that in law school.
SPEAKER_02:That's my favorite feedback is when somebody goes, I never thought that was possible. I'm like, you just never thought on that. You're thinking on this part of the pie. You didn't realize there was a universe outside of the pie.
SPEAKER_00:I was uh speaking to another uh young lady and she's an entrepreneur, and um she was uh she she she's been really good at one thing in the military and wanted to develop a uh a uh sort of a fitness coach consultant thing. And she used language like there's no playbook. And I said, there is a playbook. You just haven't been in the right room to see the playbook, right? There's the playbook for sure. And I think that happens to a lot of a lot of lawyers. Like, you know, the total, almost total lack, although now interesting day. I have friends in our mastermind group who are lawyers, practicing lawyers, who are teaching now in law schools, adjunct professors, programs in entrepreneurship, and building your own practice. And that's really cool. Now it's still relatively rare. Um but for most law schools, God bless them, like there's none of this stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Um I've hit up my I've hit up my alma mat several times, and yeah. They did have skills, they did have skills classes to their credit. They had actual skills credit, skills classes, but no entrepreneur or shipboard.
SPEAKER_00:It's always about skills, right? Because if you do really good work, they'll come and you'll be rich. Um, right, sure. Um, and then some some lawyer who figures out like TikTok or Twitter is like getting all the clients, or figures out AI and how to leverage uh AI, which we'll we'll talk about here um in a minute. Do you find like one of the things I find is when lawyers come to Great Legal Marketing, and they'll they're often coming because of the name, which 20 years ago, like Great Legal Marketing, right? We were teaching PI lawyers how to create a better yellow page out. Literally, this is what we were doing. Um but today it it's all about it, it, you know, it is the business. It's life first, and how do we grow a business that makes life great? Um uh and now I'm sort of lost my track, but oh, but they come for one thing. Like they come on, oh, I need more leads. I need more leads. I just need more clients. I'll be all right. But when you start to ask questions and you look under the hook. You're like, dude, you don't you don't need more leads. You need somebody who can answer the phone and follow up and be interesting and sell, sell, reinforce the sale that it's a great idea to call the ABC law firm today, and these guys and gals here are going to help you. I mean, is this do you this is what we find all the time.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. They're they're well, it's kind of always that way, right? You go, you go to the you go with a problem, the problem that you see. We do this when we go to the doctor, right? It's like, oh, I have a headache or I have a cough or whatever. This is the problem that I see. Uh in fact, this happened to a friend of mine recently. She thought she had a cold because she was coughing and she kept medicating it, and it turned out she had acid reflux. So she was doing the exact wrong thing because she was treating the thing that she saw and not going to the doctor and getting an actual diagnosis.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. We malpractice on ourselves all the time with YouTube and uh chat GDP and perplexity.
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh, yes. God, yes, yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But until, like you said, until you look under the hood. Uh I don't know how relevant that analogy is going to stay now that we're all going to these robotic cars. But anyway, looking at looking under the hood uh back when we could see what was going on is is true. And just taking the moment to stop the car and turn on the off the ignition so that you can actually look is just so rare.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And then, you know, you you you a consultant will often find like the seven leaks at the bottom of the bucket that if if attended to and fixed don't actually cost anything to fix. It may cost time, it may cost coaching and investment of that sort of stuff, but not like we don't have to go compete for more digital ad spend to drive more crappy leads down a crappy funnel where they just get get burned up. So I think that's I think, and you know, and the message that you, I'm sure, have, and you know, we have, is that having somebody else who's unbiased, who's not your spouse or your business partner, uh, who can look over your shoulder and as agnostic as to anything else, but can it really examine like where are where are the holes or the we call them the uh sort of the blockages in the process? Like where are the hindrances that we can remove? Um that's that's critical. And so one of the things I I don't regret anything in my life, but one of the things that had I done things over differently, I would have gotten a coach and exposed that coach to all the warts, you know, the of a of an early practice. And early practice has lots of warts and um just ugly things in it. Um but I would have done that um earlier. Now, to my defense, there weren't a lot. It wasn't a thing, yeah. Um I'm 42 years into the practice. Um, so we didn't actually have that. We had books from the ABA on, you know, three books from the ABA on how to build a wall practice. That was horrible. Um let's talk a little bit about AI, because you said you've been working in it and speaking on it for three years, and and you know, me as uh because I'm a slow learner, um, but we do a lot with it. It seems like it's been the last 12 to 15 months for us. We're we're really talking about it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I still say that's very very much ahead of the game.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're just we're just fascinated by my own view is as I go to conferences and there's all these AI for legal companies, that none of them can keep up with the um what sort of the big generic players are doing, and that the most important thing a lawyer could do is to learn how to ask better questions, um, and to really like take an AI product or tool and really learn it, really play with it. Um, but I'm curious about what you are seeing speaking on and where sort of the leverage is as we head head into 26, 2026, what the leverage is for us solo and small firm lawyers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a just a lot of misconceptions with it uh right now. And I I do think the big the big players came out this summer with a lot of products and a lot of marketing, and that's when I started getting calls. IP I've been sort of building brand awareness over the last couple of years, but not a lot of people were actually interested in having a follow-up and looking under the hood. You know, they were they would be they would be like, okay, come plug in the AI as if it were a widget I could put in the server crew. So that was that was the sense of it. Um, if they want to do anything, other people were like, I'm gonna wait until it passes over. I'm gonna retire before it actually gets here. Uh there was a lot of common misconceptions. And I felt like the tide had turned going into the fall because of all that marketing, because of people calling and saying, Hey, do I really need this? Wow, this is expensive. Oh my gosh, it says it can do everything. Um, what's going on? And then between sort of between October and December, I had November, I didn't have any speaking appointments in November, but there was a back turn, even um, all these sanctions opinions came out, all these cases came out, and some people got completely destroyed. And so by the time I put on my next round of speaking, I did three events in December, they were terrified of it again. And it was very interesting. Although I did have some people come up and say, You're spot on, and we agree that nobody else in the audience was, you know, that that interested. But things are trickling in, and again, it's the holidays, so I am starting to get a few follow-ups. But um, to get back to your point, you mentioned bottlenecks or holes in the bucket. So if we look at that from an AI perspective, uh at least from the bottleneck standpoint, that is a great idea for a pilot project with AI. Finding out where in the system of your firm, yeah, there's the bottleneck. And it may be you. It may be what we call the what is it, the short between the seat and the keyboard. That's your technical problem. Uh so it may be you. So you're gonna have to do some introspection there. But oftentimes it could be your intake process, it could be your your document filing process, it could be everything that you cut and paste over and over again, follow-up calls, tracking things. There's there's always room for improvement. And even if you save yourself a couple hours a week, wouldn't it be nice to have those couple of hours back?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, uh a hundred, a hundred percent. And so it's interesting, you know, because you mentioned about sort of the the fake citations, which which is like which is like the one percent of AI that got 99% of the rules of the of the uh news, right? But it's such a it's that's such a tiny slice of what AI is. And and and I I'll bet you that many of the lawyers in those rooms you were speaking of, they they think that is AI. Like AI is legal research.
SPEAKER_02:It's the thing, yes, it is the thing. Someone actually called it uh an evil sentient B-word, and I'm like, it's not, it's not that at all. Number one, it's not evil, and not it's not sentient, not yet.
SPEAKER_00:That's no feeling.
SPEAKER_02:That's no feeling. In fact, it's trying to help you, and he's like, it's helping me by making up cases. I'm like, yes, just like your your child would. If you asked them what they did today, they'd say, Oh, they played with fairies in the backyard and bring you a bud pie and tell you it was a cherry pie. Yeah, it's it's do giving you what you asked for.
SPEAKER_00:There's so many things. I mean, so one of the things, so we I practice in the ERISO long-term disability space and been doing that for 20 years. And we had developed all sorts of internal playbooks, right, to to train on, to, to keep track of what we had written in briefs and and what the law is and and all that. And you know, we just began feeding that um and developing our really our own, I would just call it our internal GPT, and on how does Ben think, or how does the long-term disability team think as we're analyzing a claim file, as we're dissecting and attacking the medical expert opinion on the other side. Um, gee, um uh Day Naif is uh is a doctor who's written a medical records review report badly for my client. Well, great. What else has she said on the internet? And go find me everything you can do a deep dive on and show me that her methodology is horrible. Yeah. And so, you know, for example, like we fed it, the um the whole Daubert jurisprudence in the fourth circuit. Like just Daubert really doesn't have a lot to do with ERISA, but but it is have a lot to do with scientific methodology. Like, is this even rational and making sense? And so we started just feeding it um, you know, actual cases and our briefs on it, and saying, here's a new opinion, like read it and tell me all the ways that this person's thinking, his sci his or her scientific thinking is wrong. Before we even get to conclusions, like like what have they not even talked about that are in the medical records? Um, and so I think that's a place that a lot of uh you know, lawyers that have been practicing, they they have a a buildup of a database of you know briefs or whatever is their their their practice area. They they have this intellectual property that's theirs that they typically they probably have been cutting and pasting from for years. But why don't we put it into a super brain that really doesn't forget, who's trained on that thing, right? Of course we're gonna double check everything, but it's our work that it's training on, excuse me, it's our thought process. Um, and so we've made a lot of, you know, as a contingent fee law firm in particular, like it's just um it's a way, and here's how I explain it, Dave is that our craft is is the creative thinking that we apply to a case. The faster that we can wrap our arms around the facts of a case, the legal theories, and be right on that, now we come and apply our art to it. And that's what we get paid for. That's what lawyers get paid for, right? We don't get paid for lawyers, don't get paid for billing hours. They get paid for solving problems or looking or helping opportun clients achieve opportunities, right? And so I don't know. We've been uh once I spent some time, and here's the other thing, so I'll be 68 like next month. So I'm an old guy, right? But once I spent some time this summer and cut out some days just to go learn and you know, watching YouTube videos and going on some of these uh platforms where they have classes that you can take, you can buy a class. I'm like, oh my gosh, look at me. I got how lucky I am. I lived through the revolution of moving from law books to online legal research in the uh early 80s, early to mid-80s. Then there was the whole internet. I'd live through that. And now it's AI. Like, this is the most exciting time in the history of the world for again, for an old guy like me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm glad you're embracing it. And and you you you looked at another another use case, which I think is is very pivotal. We do have a lot of people retiring right now. We have a lot of firm firm founders that are retiring just because it's you know, it's time. Um, but you know, you have a tech, a tech upgrade like this, and that also kind of does a little shift. So a lot of attorneys retired when email came out and e-filing and all that. They're like, we don't want to do that. We like having the secretary take the notes and write the letters, and we don't want to make that shift. That's fine. That's their choice. Yeah. But what bef so but before they leave the firm, which they might say that, hey, you know what, 2026 is my year, peace out. I've got grandkids, I want to travel, whatever. Before they leave, capture the institutional wisdom.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yes. This is what in and you know this, right? There's gonna be the greatest transfer of wealth or evaporation of wealth ever is boomers, as we retire. So many lawyers I speak to who are my age cohort, they don't have a plan. They don't have a succession plan, they they don't have anyone who's interested. And most importantly, as you've just noted, like they don't have organized, accumulated intellectual property. And um, you know, they have clients, they've had clients, but they don't have any real connection to those clients uh after the work has been done. And that's where the value is in these firms. Um, but I that there's a lot of sort of assets that are just gonna evaporate. And that's that's sad because you've worked for 30 or 40 years, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02:To build it.
SPEAKER_00:What uh um what are you thinking about in 2026 and maybe in AI, maybe because you are in this and you're watching? Like, what's the cool thing that you think if we had this discussion a year from now, like that was really cool. And it came, it it it got better in 2026. What are you hoping for?
SPEAKER_02:Oh gosh, everything's getting better. They as I say, it's the worst it could the worst it's ever gonna be now. And I've I've certainly seen it make leaps in the last two, three years. It's like products that I use now on the on the regular, like um gamma as a PowerPoint creator. It's like the first time I used it, I was like, eh, I don't like that. That's crappy. And then now it's it's amazing. It's a thought partner. And I have an idea, I put it in gamma. Gamma.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I have to go.
SPEAKER_02:Gamma. Yeah, when I have when I have an idea, because I'm very visual, I'm kind of an artsy person. And so I'll have an idea and I'll put it in gamma, and gamma will like illustrate it as it's also building me a PowerPoint or a deck or slides or whatever you want to call it now that PowerPoint is not the brand. And just having that thought partner, um, you know, I've also created myself a clone. So I have a GPT that's a clone of me with my own thoughts and methodology. And I, if I get stuck talking to somebody, I ask how me, mini me, how would Minnie Me answer this question? And then it, you know, or what questions did I ask?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, it doesn't the thing is, you know, you and I'm like, yeah, that's a great idea.
SPEAKER_02:Or run out of caffeine, or are you, you know, I get hungry and I'm kind of in the middle of a call, and I'm like, oh, look, let me let me just let me just hash this out for a second.
SPEAKER_00:The thing we so we we use Filevine as our case management tool. And Filevine, uh, we we were a beta user, and now they've released their version of AI. But it's really cool when everything about a case is in one place and you can simply query the database, like, hey, what's going on here? When's the last time we talked? Like, what's the status of this thing? You remind me of who this person is. And it's, you know, it's it's just getting information from its own internal your case stuff, and that's really cool. And then we've been demoed on a we're we're um we've invested in a phone system now where it's has instantaneous real-time um uh transcription. Oh, that's awesome. Which which then dumps it into Lead Docket or Filevine so that because one of the blockages in our firm was at intake, you have one great intake salesperson, non-lawyer salesperson. Um, but oftentimes there was a um, you know, a blockage with uh calls coming in, notes getting put into the platform so that the lawyer can call the person back or warm transfer and talk to the person. And now that's all going to be like just in real time. Yeah, yeah. And when I thought, like that's really, really, really cool. Um so that's that's one of the things that that we're looking at. Again, we've taken the long-term disability um brain, and it's almost scary because as we go through the GPT, and it was like, hey, start with step one, and then it does its thing, and then it goes, all right, it says step two is this. Do you want me to go ahead and do step two? I'm like, yes. And uh uh, do you want me to go look over here at the Daubert research and do step three? And that's kind of scary. And you still need a human being. Now, here's the cool thing it doesn't replace lawyers. You need human beings who can ask the right questions and understand the answers. And then for us, like tell the story. Like we're storytellers of two insurance companies uh telling the stories of clients to skeptical insurance companies. That's how we get that's what we get paid for. Um, and so that's that we find that um exciting. Um as I I think I I can't remember if I said it live, but um, you know, we're heading down for our retreat. We'll spend two days. Um we do EOS entrepreneur operating system, um do a lot of uh team health, um finding um, you know, where the improvements and opportunities can be, can be made. And then, you know, kind of working on a transition plan uh for me and my son, who's a 50% owner in the firm, um, to see uh what's next. Um so look, it's been great spending some time with you. If people would like to find out more and maybe have a conversation either about AI or a broader conversation about how the firm could uh maximize its opportunities, where should they go, Deya?
SPEAKER_02:Very easy to find. Um luckily I have a unique name. It's short, but it's unique. So Dea NAFE, uh, anywhere on LinkedIn, also the THE success partner. Uh success partner was taken. So we are the success partner, and I'm on every single social media. So TikTok, uh blue sky, LinkedIn, Facebook, um, Twitter, uh X, formerly known as Twitter, all of those um very easy to find.
SPEAKER_00:Are you you have someone else helping you manage that? Or is it just you, you, and all you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yes. I do, yes, yes, and yes. So I do have um some outsourced help and I use um I use Metrocool, which does uh multi-channel posting. And uh some of my some of my pictures and videos are AI generated and some of them are not.
SPEAKER_00:So I like to have to go all and work and see what I like to have a good mix.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I like to have a good mix.
SPEAKER_00:So it's day and if it's d-a-y-a-n-a-e-f, thesuccesspartner.com. Thanks for being our first guest for 2026. This is an awesome kickoff. If I can do anything for you, you let me know.
SPEAKER_02:I will. Thanks, Finn.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Dave.
SPEAKER_01:That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.
