100 People Every Quarter: The Relentless Networking Strategy That Built Elise Buie’s Law Firm

Most lawyers try to grow their firm the same way. More ads. Better SEO. More hustle.

Elise Buie went a completely different direction.

Years ago, after her life was turned upside down and she had to rebuild from scratch in a new city, Elise didn’t have a big network, a fancy marketing plan, or a pipeline of clients waiting for her.

What she did have was a decision.

She was going to meet 100 people every single quarter. No matter what.

That simple commitment turned into something much bigger. It became a referral engine. A community. And eventually, a thriving law firm built around her life, not the other way around.

In this episode, Elise breaks down how that strategy actually works, what most lawyers get wrong about networking, and how she scaled her firm while raising six kids and refusing to sacrifice her freedom.

We also get into her philosophy of “people first, profit follows,” how she built a culture without “Eeyores,” and why unreasonable hospitality might be the most underrated growth strategy in law firm ownership.

If you are tired of chasing leads, burning out, or building a firm that feels more like a trap than a vehicle for freedom, this conversation will challenge how you think about growth.

Hit play and start building a firm that actually works for your life.

Connect with Elise

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-buie
Website: https://www.elisebuiefamilylaw.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elisebuiefamilylaw

____________________________________
Brian Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is passionate about living a life of his own design and looking for answers to solutions outside of the legal field.  This podcast is his effort to share that passion with others.

Want to connect with Brian?

Follow Brian on Instagram: @thebrianglass
Connect on LinkedIn

Transcript

Relentless Networking As A Growth Plan

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I was raised under the Lee Rosen method of networking 101. Like you go meet the people. So I set up this entire networking thing where I made a list of a hundred people. Of course, I did not know all of them. Many of them were related to my kids' school. So, like, you know, we had these six children, six different schools, I think, at the time. And so, you know, a lot of parents, just people and I got involved in things with the school. So I did this networking stuff where I would go meet my hundred people every quarter, and then I would try to touch them every quarter for the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Hundred people every quarter.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 0:38

What?

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Yeah. I was like relentless in my networking.

SPEAKER_05 0:42

Hey friends, what if the fastest way to grow your law firm had nothing to do with ads, funnels, or SEO and everything to do with who you sit down and talk to? Today's guest, Elise Bui, built a thriving multi-lawyer firm by doing something most lawyers simply won't do: meeting 100 people every single quarter. No shortcuts, no hacks, just relentless, intentional relationship building. But here's the twist: this isn't just about networking, it's about designing a law firm and a life that actually works for you. We're diving into how Elise went from rebuilding her life after massive disruption to creating a firm rooted in freedom systems and what she calls unreasonable hospitality. If you're tired of chasing leads and ready to build a practice that grows because of who you are, not just what you do, this episode is for you. Let's get into it. Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the show. Today I'm talking with Elise Bowie, just like the Bowie in the water, who is a family law lawyer from Seattle, Washington, in Seattle, Washington, not from Seattle, Washington, and we'll get into that in a minute. And we're going to talk about uh lifestyle design, building the kind of life that you want, and then the kind of firm that supports it. So, Elise, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Thanks so much, and thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_05 1:58

You know, you and I met at Lunch Hour Legal Marketing Summit. We happen to be sitting together, and I'm like, I think I know who

Katrina Displacement And Starting Over

SPEAKER_05 2:05

that is. Um but we've kind of been circling each other on social media for maybe a year, year and a half now. This is really our first or maybe our second in-depth conversation about life and the law, so I'm excited to dive into it.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_05 2:18

So I was um I was looking at your your biography on your website, and I know that you got displaced out of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and then ended up in Minnesota and maybe somewhere else, and then Seattle. Can you talk about some of the stops along the way and then building a legal career in a place where you're like Hurricane Katrina? Like I was in law school and there were a bunch of Tulane students that got displaced to Michigan State, where I spent my first year in Hurricane Katrina. But I can't imagine actually operating a practice and having clients and and then having this disruption, especially in the family law world, come into your life. So what was that like at the time?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Well, at the time that the Katrina hit, I was not um practicing law. I mean, I had my license, I had practiced, but I had quit to stay home. At the time, my husband and I, when I quit, we had two kids, then we had a third and then a fourth. And so I was home with four little kids when Katrina hit. And um, and obviously that was just a whirlwind of n nonsense. You know, we moved to Georgia initially, that's where my ex-husband's family was from. They were not expecting us to arrive on their porch. We actually did not tell them we were coming because he said they would not be really looking forward to that. So we just surprised them. And then we stayed in Georgia for a year, and my ex was an attorney as well. He was practicing in New Orleans. He was, you know, the sole breadwinner of the family. And so he had to get relicensed in Georgia. We thought we might stay in Georgia, but we didn't. We ended up moving to Minnesota for five years. Then, I mean, he and I had looked into divorce right before Katrina, so we agreed to stay together during all this upheaval, you know, which was that was its interesting thing in and of itself. But I think we did the right thing, really putting our kids front and center and really focusing on what was good for them. And and then when we decided, okay, we can successfully divorce now, like everyone's kind of settled again. Then we did that. And I moved out to Seattle and got remarried to my current husband, Doug, and and then David, who was still in Minnesota, he then moved out to Seattle too. And so I moved all the kids and then David came too. So then we all moved out to Seattle.

SPEAKER_05 4:31

There's so much sunback. And did you, when you moved out to Seattle, did you begin practicing again? Or were you still in the in the raising the children years?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Nope. I had to go back to work, you know, immediately. And I was working in Minnesota. I had started practicing in Minnesota. The kids all went to school because I used to homeschool the kids for years in New Orleans. So when we moved to Seattle, I immediately got a job. Literally, the first day I got there was kind of hilarious. I just got a job off Craigslist working for a mediator. I was just like the assistant in a mediator office while I had to apply to take the Washington bar because I had to take the Minnesota bar when I was there, and I passed that, but I didn't stay in Minnesota long enough to get reciprocity in Washington. So I had to retake the Washington bar. I was like, okay, after three bar exams, I'm good. Like I was good. So I studied, took the Washington bar, got a job immediately as a contract attorney, worked in a family law firm doing contract work and also did Guardian Ed Lightum work. And then that attorney tried to offer me a full-time job, but I was like, it it she was not paying me enough at all. And I thought, girl, I got four kids that I got to pay for college. Like, really, you know, that is gonna happen. And so I thought, okay, I can't do this. So I went to a different firm for a little bit. Um, and then we I went out on my own, kind of with that owner's blessing. I mean, it's kind of a long story. She kind of put two tiers of of work and she was like, okay, you go do that, and then I'll do this. Then we couldn't agree on she wanted to keep the name of the firm and keep it all trademarked with her. And I was like, Yeah, I can't do that. Like, I'm gonna build all this, you know. So I ended up totally going out on my own. I mean, really knew very few people, you know, here in Washington, had

Retaking Bars And Going Solo

SPEAKER_00 6:15

been here for maybe a year and a half, maybe two years when I went out on my own. And and here I am, 11 years later.

SPEAKER_05 6:23

So in and and in 11 years I've grown now to seven lawyers. Um I I don't know if if you talked about how many um how many support staff you have for those lawyers, but just hired a legal operations uh director or director of legal services to manage the team and help get you a little bit out of uh out of the doing of the legal work once again. So that's a real success story to come that far in 11 years. Can you talk about the early early days of like the first hire and the second hire and how you grew and where cases were coming from?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Yeah, it was well, I am definitely an old school kind of marketing girl. Like I was raised under the Lee Rosen method of networking 101. Like you go meet the people. So I set up this entire networking thing where I made a list of a hundred people. Of course, I did not know all of them. Many of them were related to my kids' school. So, like, you know, we had these six children, four of mine, two of my husbands, in six different schools, I think, at the time. And so, you know, a lot of parents, just people and I got involved in things with the school. So I did this networking stuff where I would go meet my hundred people every quarter, and then I would try to touch them every quarter for the whole thing. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah. I was like relentless in my networking.

SPEAKER_05 7:46

And this, I mean, this must have been before the age where EAs and VAs were ubiquitous, and and you could have somebody else arrange all the scheduling of those hundred meetings.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Well, I had this very unique person called Sandra who was at a company called Pursuit Concierge, and I met her as part of joining a BI group out here. And she had this company mostly for like Microsoft and Amazon execs to do all this work. Well, so she became my backup person. She taught me truly how to delegate. I mean, like none other. I mean, she would go through my calendar and be like, see, Elise, this, this, and this is you should not be doing. I could do that. She handled all our school-related things. You know, how like you when you have a bunch of kids, you're doing all these like auction drop-offs, cookie this, you know, sign up for this. Sondra managed so much of that for me. So I could just, you know, practice law, build the practice, and be a mom, like doing, you know, actual conversations with my children and, you know, spending time with them. So I mean, it was a, it was a wild, busy, busy time. But I mean, it worked. And I also did this weird thing where I found the 15 top family law lawyers in Seattle. I like made a little list and I went and took all of them to lunch. And so I got referrals from almost every single one of those people immediately. And because I was doing Guardian Ed Lightham work, that was another big plus for me because I was involved in these cases where there were two attorneys, you know, on either side. So I got to meet these attorneys and I got to meet them in a way, a professional way, where I was doing Guardian Ad Lightham work and obviously trying to do excellent Guardian Ed Lightham work. So then that helped too. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 9:30

Mm-hmm. So you're right. So you're putting yourself kind of in the middle of these relationships that already exist in a non-adversarial way, and just doing you doing good work and more work will come.

unknown 9:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Right.

SPEAKER_05 9:41

It's funny that you that you built the network in large part off the backs of your your kids' parents or kids' friends' parents, because m my dad did the same thing. One of my early jobs in the law firm was, you know, they used to back back before the days of privacy concerns, they used to send um home school directories with everybody's name and address and phone number. And so one of my first jobs

The 100 People Per Quarter System

SPEAKER_05 10:05

was to scrape the school directory and add everybody's name onto our newsletter mailing list.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Exactly. Well, and I got so involved with the kids. I mean, I'm, you know, a pretty active mom. Like I was the football mom, the treasurer of the booster club, the lacrosse mom, you know, all those kind of things. And so when you do those things, that offered me an opportunity. Like we would have the keg party for the parents at the start of the football season, or, you know, and I'm a good New Orleans girl. We love to throw a good party. And so, and I would host these parties at our house in Seattle. They were just, they would have random themes. But like the last one we hosted was a Mardi Gras party, you know, where we had invited, I mean, I probably invited 75 people to our house. And, you know, they would come and we'd have like a wine somalier there, you know, with some Washington winery. And there's a guy who caters New Orleans food in Seattle. And so he did that. And so those kind of things I think really helped build, you know, my network in the community. And when you do have that many kids, it's almost impossible not to develop some type of network around all those things. And our kids were, the three boys were super involved in football and they all were really good. And so that was kind of a thing, you know, like I would advertise on the football program. You know, we always were and have been for years, the back of the program. And it sounds silly, but those programs get handed out to every family for both sides of a big football game. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 11:36

Were you doing anything in that, you know, I don't know, a five by nine ad or whatever it was to stand out from the different the other advertisers that were on there? And I I know not everybody's the the family lawyer, but like how were you marketing or how were you presenting yourself differently than the car dealership?

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Aaron Powell Well, mostly just around the fact that we were family related. Like we were gonna help you with family-related things and people who are, you know, bringing their kids to football games, they're stepparents, they're parents who are getting remarried and need prenups. They need a lawyer who's gonna help them in the collaborative law way, you know, to try to keep their child out of the conflict. And so I was really the only family law attorney who would advertise. And I mean, my kids have graduated a long time ago. I can't even remember the actual date the last one graduated, but we still get referrals almost weekly from football programming still now. And um it's kind of funny how it works.

SPEAKER_05 12:33

The marketer in me won't let the uh the attribution question go. How do you track it back to the football program?

SPEAKER_00 12:40

People tell tell us. They'll be like, oh, you know, I knew Elise 10 years ago when her son was, you know, the offensive lineman on my son's team. And people will, I mean, they'll tell us, and I participate in the high school, like I provide resources for the high school's football program that they went to, you know, when when the kids were young, it used to bother me how some kids couldn't go to camp like because they couldn't afford it. And I was like, that is ridiculous. How do you have a football team if everyone can't go practice? So I would help fiscally support kids going to the camp. And so we've done that, and we support auctions. Like I've just stayed involved in some of those things, which, you know, I think I mean, I I sent my kids to those schools for reasons. I really like them and, you know, have always wanted to support them. And I'm a huge, huge fan of football and I mean other team sports too. But football in particular was game-changing for my sons. Just amazing.

SPEAKER_05 13:35

From a like a personal and tactical perspective, how did how did you manage all of these things and the six kids and litigating and running a family law practice?

SPEAKER_00 13:44

My husband is like the most amazing. I mean, I've I hate to even call him an equal partner. I would say he's like a 70% partner. He he has a big job. He manages the research vessels around the country, but his job is more, you know, like nine to five-ish. And so he can really schedule things better. And he was always helping with things. But also, I mean, because our kids, you know, six kids, you had older ones, always there was somebody assigned to the younger one to like go drop him at climbing or go drop him at rowing or whatever, you know, like all the different things. But I mean, my firm worked for me at

School Communities As Referral Engines

SPEAKER_00 14:25

least. I would get up early. I always get up early. Um, that's a problem now because I still do it. But um, you know, I got up at 3 a.m., not every day, and I would work from 3 a.m. till 3 p.m. most days, and then I would take off from 3 p.m. till 9 p.m., no work at all. So that I was, you know, dealing with the kids, being able to drive them to things, being home when they get home from school, that kind of stuff. And um dinner and all that. And then at 9 p.m., I usually would go back to work for a couple hours and then um go to bed at like 11, wake up again at 3, and there I was. I tend to only need a little bit of sleep. So that definitely helped too. Probably not great for my long-term health.

SPEAKER_05 15:07

Probably not, no. No.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

I mean, I've done a sleep study and they say I'm fine, but I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

Yeah. Well, you're gifting yourself another four hours a day, right? Because I completely I need my eight hours of sleep. And then as you as the firm began to grow, did you continue to do all the marketing yourself? Or or do your does your team go out and do the same kind of networking? Do you do you teach them? Do you enforce? Do you have KPIs around that? Like what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Well, I mean, as the firm has grown, absolutely, other people have done the marketing. And in the last few years, we've gotten involved in digital marketing as well. We were never involved in digital marketing at all. But, you know, one of the things for me is I think about how do I protect the firm, you know, succession planning wise. Like, you know, it's kind of a key man risk for me to be the driver of a lot of these things. So yes, I mean, now, you know, it's a completely different animal. I mean, now we have, you know, a marketing director, marketing vendors, marketing, a whole marketing team, social media people. You know what I mean? Like, there's an entire engine behind marketing now so that it's not just related to me. And uh But I mean, you know, I still am the face of the firm, you know, so I mean, still referrals come to me and, you know, and that'll probably be something we have to more intentionally, you know, move away from over time. I mean, right now I think we have a good we have good numbers on it. And so like my referral base isn't the majority of it. Do you know what I mean? So we're but I think, you know, and I'm sure your dad probably has had some of that too, you know, just how do you deal with getting out of something?

SPEAKER_05 16:51

No, the I mean, the number of times that somebody has asked whether Ben is going to be involved in their car crash case, and like he hasn't been involved in the car crash case in about a decade. So you probably don't actually want like why don't you talk to Brian? So that that happens. Who one of the things that you say either on your website or on LinkedIn, uh people first, profit follows. Who is a good fit for your firm as an employee? And what who uh what characteristics or traits have you found over the years are not a good fit for you?

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah, I mean, a good fit for us is somebody who is super growth mindset oriented. Like they are always wanting to kind of improve and and do better because we are not a static kind of place at all. I mean, we we track everything under the sun. And, you know, I'll like dig into something. I'm like, oh, check this out. We could actually make this better, you know, like and so we love people who are wanting to do better and also people who care, who deeply care about the clients we work with, because I think that one of the things that is, at least for me, so important is that we actually care about our clients, like individually, fundamentally, and we understand what a difficult time they're going through and you know, what can we do to help them? And we are we have a lot of KPIs around unreasonable hospitality. And for us, that's not only unreasonable hospitality to our clients, but also to our team. I mean, we very much have always been a remote firm. So, I mean, since I started way before COVID, you know, we always have been like a paperless, remote type office. And so it has always been important that we can act in each other's stead. Do you know what I mean? Like if somebody is out or if somebody gets hurt. I mean, I had somebody got injured on a horse one time and all of a sudden I had to transfer like 35 cases in, you know, an hour. Um, and if we didn't have all the processes

Delegation And A Sustainable Daily Rhythm

SPEAKER_00 18:45

we have, so we have to have people that are tech, you know, they're tech savvy, they understand why processes matter, and they see it as a way of protecting their team members rather than me trying to be some psycho person. You it's not me trying to just be psycho, it's me literally making sure that they could call me up in the night and be like, you know, Elise, my child just got diagnosed with something horrible. I'm not gonna see you for six months, and I'll be like, please go take care of your child. We got this. Like, I will never ask you a question. Do you know what I mean? Like, and that is kind of the thing that has been really important to me. And so people like that and then and people like that have to be collaborative. Like they have to understand how their behavior, how their performance on a case can impact somebody else if they're gonna hand a case over to somebody. So they have to be good team members, you know, where they're looking at things not just from a selfish standpoint, they're really looking at the good of the firm, the good of their team members, and the good of their clients. And so And then also I really, really enjoy working with people who are just like constantly striving to be excellent at their trade, whatever their trade is. You know, like I found a lot of times early on in my hires, I would be like pushing people, like, don't you want to go to this CLE or do this?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

And people are like, yeah, not really. And I'm like, why do I get 200 hours a year and y'all are like struggling to get 15? And so I love when people are like, I love to learn. I'm like, hey, that's like my favorite person.

SPEAKER_05 20:23

And and then actually demonstrate the interest and they don't just say it. How have you? I mean, it sounds like maybe you've solved this problem, but have you found a way to screen for that? We do past the job interview.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Yeah, we do in, I mean, one, you know, we do like the Clifton Strength Finders, Colby, some other things. I think we do Jay Henderson still currently on some positions, not all. But I mean, Clifton Strength Finders is a really big thing for us. Interesting. Because I mean, one thing that I'm a huge fan of, when you ask, like, who are, you know, how do we bring in the right people? I cannot handle working with Eeyores, like the grumpy people cannot do grumpy at all.

SPEAKER_05 21:01

I bet they don't like you very much either.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

No, I think I'm annoying as hell to grumpy people. So you really need a positivity in that top 10. Like, you know, somebody who's actually figuring out ways, like how can we look at things better? And and learner is a big thing. We look for people who like to learn, who demonstrated in past jobs where they have learned something to actually bring value to their past job. I mean, obviously it doesn't have to be in a law firm, you know, whatever it is. But I mean, we all know that type that'll literally they will try to do something and like fix something and see something and they'll try to learn it. I love when people ask me and they want to go to a conference in an area that's even a little outside of their lane. I'm like, absolutely, like go learn this because it offers career trajectory to do too, you know. So yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_05 21:55

You know, one of one of the biggest things that I hear complaints about, both within the master. Mind groups that we run, and and then if I go and I sit with somebody at a conference, is that we can't find people who are like us, you know, can't find employees who are like us. And and the thing that I've been repeating, which maybe is a limiting belief, is that if they were like us and they were learners and they were strivers and they would own their own law firm instead of working for us. But it's it sounds like you have found employees who are interested in going out and being great at the craft and either you know not necessarily being great at running the business or just not being interested in in becoming an owner and who are happy to be to be great trilogy or great mediators or great problem solvers, and quote, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Well, yes. And I mean, we have a huge culture of developing leaders in our firm. And so, I mean, we have, you know, a very robust leadership team that is constantly undergoing training, upping their leadership skills so that they are raising leaders everywhere. And I mean, we raise up people from our legal ranks, you know, like supervising attorney or supervising paralegal, you know, because they have gone through leadership work and we do leadership retreats with our team. Like, I mean, my goal is to have an entire firm of leaders, you know, because I think of a lawyer, especially in a family law arena, you need to be able to lead your clients and lead your pod. So, and to me, leaders really they do push themselves and they do try to get better. And I mean, sometimes that means people are gonna leave and they're gonna go on. I've had all kinds of people be like, Elise, I'm now going to law school or I'm

Hiring For Growth Mindset And Culture

SPEAKER_00 23:35

going to graduate school, or and I'm like, yay, you know, good. And so that to me, and I think that's something that sometimes people, I feel like have a limiting belief. Like they get people on their bus and then they get kind of upset when they leave. And I'm very different. I feel like people get on our bus and many people get on our bus for just a period of time. You know, like I don't expect my intake person to stay an intake person for their entire life. Like, you know what I mean? They likely have other things they want to do, and I'm always trying to find out what are those other things, like how can I help them develop those skills so that they can go on to their next thing. I mean, my COO now is going to law school in the fall. And she likely is somebody who is a big part of our succession planning, you know, whether she's gonna be the owner, but you know, so and that was something completely of her own, you know, she was like, I'm gonna go to law school. And I'm like, good on you.

SPEAKER_05 24:31

Well, that that piece where we get upset when people leave is usually accompanied by the the scarcity mindset of our inability to find somebody to backfill the position who's as good or better at than the person that's that's in that seat. Now, what have you done to maintain your pipeline of good employees and always keep the bench full?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

I would say that is like one of the biggest jobs of marketing is do you know what I mean? Like just getting out there, networking, meeting people, always, I mean, being super authentic about who we are and who we're not, you know, so that the right people come in our pipeline and um and also then just having backups, you know. We I mean, and I think of everything in football terms, you know, so we think of depth on our bench, you know, so like any position we have, we want one or two backups on our bench with those positions. So if we lose somebody, we're not scrambling to hire the first person. We're very systematic. We're never going to violate our hiring process to bring somebody in quick, ever. Like we have done that, made that mistake too many times, and we will not do it again. And we are relentless about turning people away. I mean, we could be looking for an attorney and we could interview 20 people and we will turn away 20 of them before we hire the right person. I mean, we do not get rushed by what we need. And so, and I think that by having contractors, you know, we often have contractors that work for us. They come in and out so they can backfill as things are needed. And I mean, that was something that I was taught years ago, kind of like always thinking about ramping up and you know, hiring a contractor when then they get to like 30 hours a week, it's time to hire a full-time person and then, you know, keep doing this over and over again. But having those contractors really helps. Yeah. And I just I don't know, I think that keeping our pipeline full has never been an issue. Like that has been something that we've been pretty consistent at. When we need to bring somebody on, we usually can do it pretty, pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_05 26:35

I think that makes you your firm pretty rare. Maybe just so you just so you know, because I think many, you know, the the two problems that I hear the most often are I don't have enough leads and I can't find any good people. Sounds like you've solved both of those. And so congratulations. You mentioned a c uh having KPIs around unreasonable hospitality both for for clients and for each other. What is that what's an example of of a metric that you can keep track of and and report on around being kind to each other?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Well, people we actually put it in Clio. CLEO is our practice management software, and so when somebody does an act of unreasonable hospitality, they tag it in Clio, you know, and they put you and so a VA will pull all those, you know, so they can track them. But things like, you know, whether it's, you know, helping somebody like we have a paralegal right now who stepped in and we had a trial this week and she like prepared all the binders and did whatever, even though that wasn't her pod. But, you know, because the attorney was going to be here in Washington doing the trial, and so she stepped up and did all that and got it all put together, like that would be something, you know, there she's like stepping in and doing. But then also just things like actually reaching out to each other and caring. Like people will send each other gifts, like we have a little budget, an unreasonable hospitality budget. Everybody has a certain amount they can spend. And so, and we do gift surveys, you know, people know like what's meaningful. Like the other day, I was in a leadership meeting, and our director of intake was just like gushing over her team. And so I reached out to two or three of them to just tell them how impressed I was and that it just sounded like they were doing a great job. And so then I looked at their gift surveys and sent out some gifts for each of them. Do you know what I mean? Just to like tell them thank you. Um and like my kind of top executive recently created this amazing scorecard for me. And I was literally like, this is the best thing that has ever happened ever. And so, you know, I send her like a gift card for a massage or whatever, you know, just things to acknowledge when people are doing good. And and sometimes it can be, you know, somebody is having a hard time and you know, they need help or something. But I think it just creates an environment

Unreasonable Hospitality Tracked In Clio

SPEAKER_00 28:55

where we're looking to find the good. We're looking where we assume good intent and we're looking to find good every opportunity we can. And by having KPIs on it, it encourages everybody to do that. And we put in our Slack channel, we have a celebration Slack channel, and people will celebrate when people, you know, help them or do great at something. And so all those kind of things. I mean, it sounds silly maybe, but I think it really helps.

SPEAKER_05 29:21

Yeah, it only it only sounds silly if it's inauthentic, right? If you you say all these things, but then somebody gets in and you're not doing them, then yes. But if that is the culture and people, you know, I think most people come in probably a little bit skeptical of that, but it's easy to see, I I assume once you're in the door. But it sounds hard to manage in a fully remote office setting all of these little touch point nodes of communication with all of your employees. So what's is there a weekly or a monthly, like a Zoom team meeting rhythm, or do you get together in person every every now and then? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Yeah, we do get together in person. Now, that can look like different things because it's not like we force everybody to get together in person because we do have people all over the country and we have people in the Philippines. And so, but we offer in-person things, and then when I travel, I go see people, do you know what I mean? Around. But but we do like a firm potluck that many people come out to my house, our property in Washington in the summer. And then I've had people, we have a house in New Orleans, and people come to New Orleans for conferences or whatever. And so Doug and I will go and, you know, take them out to dinner, do whatever. So we do that. But then we also have like we have connection hours. So every week we have a connection hour that you can just join, and it's just like a fun hop on Zoom, you know, chit-chat. Then we also have events, you know, we do all kinds of weird things like cooking classes, we've done yoga, we've done just, I mean, painting, I mean, just all kinds of things, like where we'll have just random events. We do vision board things together, but it's all voluntary, so it's all different kinds of people. You know what I mean? You can never really expect to see the same people at anything. It's just very different. And I think, I mean, and we just and then we have channels in Slack where like we have a recipe channel. I think we still have our murder channel for people who love crazy, you know, the court TV channel. Right, exactly, exactly. Stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05 31:24

What is what is the the major problem or the thing that you're striving towards solving in 2026?

SPEAKER_00 31:30

For me, it's succession planning because I have my COO going to law school, you know, and she's been with me like five plus years, so that's a big deal. And I am stepping away. We have somebody who is in like a CEO kind of training mode, like she's about to take over all of the things. So it's like those are two big, you know, institutional knowledge people stepping out kind of at the same time. So it's been kind of interesting. And I mean, in many ways, it's really good that we're doing it at the same time because we both have to think about well, am I the backup to you on that, or are you, you know, the backup? And so I would say that is our biggest thing in 2026 is making that work. And we've been really lucky to bring on, we brought on the she was chief strategic growth officer, and that's still technically her title, but she really operates in a CEO role. So we're finalizing that and getting that set up. And she has just been game-changing as far as like she is an amazing leader. She teaches the department leaders, you know, she's doing leadership training with them. She's just so, so good at operationalizing things and also keeping and holding like the long-term strategic things. And it's been pretty powerful to have somebody like her come

Remote Connection Rituals And Succession Planning

SPEAKER_00 32:50

in and I mean, she's just made my life so much easier.

SPEAKER_05 32:54

Will there be a rebrand, something to move away from the name or I don't know yet.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

And we, you know, it's something for us to think about. I mean, I have a daughter who is a a young attorney in Virginia in the Fairfax area.

SPEAKER_05 33:07

She's in my my neck of the woods, really?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah. Okay. She's a public defender in Fairfax. And um Does she want to work in an injury firm? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

I'll have to connect with you on that.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

But um, she, you know, so a part of me is like maybe one day she would come in, and I I have no idea though, and obviously zero pressure from me. She's got to, you know, go do whatever in the world she wants to do. So I don't know, but I mean it's definitely something that's on the table that we're talking about, you know, how to pull my name off of things. And, you know, does that make sense now? Because I don't expect that I'm gonna walk away anytime soon per se. You know, I expect to be in more of a strategic role. Do you know?

SPEAKER_05 33:50

For sure. Yeah, we're we're going through many of the same discussions around here. Like I wanna retire, but I'm not gonna I'm not going, I've got to convince everybody I'm not going anywhere because I really am not going anywhere. Not me, but Ben. And then, you know, what does that what does that look like as the as the cultural figurehead or the cultural leader of the firm transitions on and there's there's just institutional instability uh sometimes with those changes. We're gonna navigate everybody through it.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:17

We're doing the same, we're doing the same thing. We're just in different generations of this.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

Right. Yeah. Well, and it's a whole process. And we've done some, I think, really good work in this regard. We've had years where I've taken like a whole month off, you know, and we do these planning things where so every quarter I would take more and more time off and they would have less and less access to me. And so we've been doing those pretty regularly since 2023. So, you know, the firm really, really operates well without me. And, you know, but likely so many of the people in the firm don't necessarily realize that. Do you know what I mean? Like they're not necessarily in the back end of things, but we've done some real work towards making sure that I am not like a key man risk to the firm.

SPEAKER_05 35:03

Well, listen, this has been a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to seeing you in person at the next thing that we run into each other at. And when I'm in New Orleans, I'm definitely gonna connect.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Yeah. Well it's I will hit you up when I'm out in the house.

SPEAKER_05 35:16

When you're visiting your daughter, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Yeah, because I'm coming out there like multiple times pretty soon.

SPEAKER_05 35:22

Awesome. Where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 35:24

Just, you know, wherever. I mean, they can get my website address or LinkedIn, Facebook, and I'm sure you'll put all that in your show. You'll put all that in the show notes. Yeah. It's fine.

SPEAKER_05 35:33

All right, cool. Elise, thank you for coming on.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Thank you, and have a great day and enjoy your weekend.

SPEAKER_05 35:38

You too.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Thanks.