How This Law Firm Owner Built a 6-Attorney Practice at 26 - #198

Keaton Frieberg runs Texas Suits PLLC—a six-attorney business and real estate litigation firm in San Antonio. He launched right out of law school, merged with another firm within a year, and has built a sustainable practice.

In this Sterling Family Law Show episode, he breaks down how he built a six-attorney firm starting at 25 with no book of business. Door-knocking property managers. Speaking at investor meetups. Turning those early relationships into a referral engine that still drives clients three years later.

If you're trying to figure out how to actually get clients without a big marketing budget, Keaton's playbook is worth studying.

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📄 CHAPTERS

0:00 - Law Firm Merger: How Keaton Combined Two Firms Into One

1:07 - Meet Keaton Frieberg: Texas Suits PLLC in San Antonio

2:02 - Starting a Law Firm at 25 Right Out of Law School

2:51 - Building a Law Firm Clientele During Covid With Evictions

3:25 - The Law Firm Merger That Accelerated Growth for Both Sides

4:10 - Law Firm Business Development: Door Knocking & Investor Meetups

5:08 - Referral Strategy: Speaking at Real Estate Investor Events

14:09 - Law Firm Equity Split: How They Divided Roles at the Table

14:31 - Visionary vs Integrator: Finding Partners Who Complement You

16:38 - Law Firm Partnership Agreement: Documenting Obligations in Detail

18:21 - Niching Down: Why Texas Suits Is Narrowing Its Focus

19:45 - The Sterling Lesson: Every Time We Niched Down, Growth Got Easie

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Transcript

Welcome And Keaton’s Background

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Have you ever thought about merging your law firm with another law firm after you've gotten started? Keaton did just that. He runs a very successful business law firm in San Antonio and has an awesome story to tell. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. I am your host, Tyler Dolph. I'm also the CEO of our hyper-focused law firm-only consultancy called RocketClix that was born out of our own 26th attorney law firm called Sterling Lawyers. Today we continue our interview series. We have Keaton, who is a law firm owner. He does a business law as well as litigation in San Antonio. He's built his firm to over six attorneys. He has a great story. He went from starting the firm on his own to growing a little bit and then merging with another firm and now has a thriving business. Keaton, thank you so much for joining us today. Really excited to have you on the show. Do me a favor, introduce yourself and your firm to our audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Absolutely, Tyler. Thanks. Happy to be here. My name is Keaton Freeberg. I'm a real estate and business attorney here in uh San Antonio, Texas. My law firm is Texas Suits Law Firm. And um yeah, we're we're located here in San Antonio. We practice a little bit in Houston and Dallas as well. But yeah, that's us. Love it. Uh how about so practice areas, is it just business and real estate? It is, yep. Um you know that you got the occasional client that needs help with something else, but for the most part, our primary practice area, uh, we're working either business litigation, real estate litigation, and or on the transactional side of both of those. So we'll help. Um we'll help individuals buy real estate, buy new businesses, sell real estate, sell businesses, and then we litigate over it if it goes wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Awesome. And you mentioned you have six attorneys, two paralegals. That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Awesome. Uh, how'd you get started?

Origin Story And COVID-Era Launch

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Tell me about the origin story. Yeah. So I started right out of law school. Um, right out of law school, I um partnered up with two other uh individuals who who passed the bar with me, and we we really niched out and worked only with real estate investors. So the age of 25 started uh Freebergmorton PLLC, and we we worked with property managers and real estate investors doing LLC formations, you know, helping convey title. We worked um it was actually during the right smack dab right outside of COVID. And so uh a lot of our investors were experiencing cash flow issues as a result of um a lot of tenants that weren't uh weren't paying rent at the time. And so we did a ton of evictions, and and that's that's how we got started. And then about a year into starting Freeburg and Morton, we partnered with another firm here in San Antonio. We merged our firms together. Um, I think it accelerated growth for both both firms. Um the client base at the at the firm that we joined with was a little bit it's a little bit bigger. And rather than doing a lot of volume, which is what we were doing at the Freeberg and Morton, uh working on some bigger cases together. So we had a nice mixture of of volume and then and then big cases that we could that we could build into and whatnot. And that's that's how we started Texas Suits.

Winning Early Clients And Meetups

SPEAKER_02 3:28

That's awesome. Take me back to the beginning. So I'm just thinking about this. You graduate law school, you're young, hungry, and and now you're dealing with you know very wealthy businessmen or real estate developers. How are you able to do the business development side? You know, I I imagine you're just a young kid, and please, you know, please give me a chance. How was that?

SPEAKER_01 3:51

No, this is a great question. Um, I I was really confident. I I did evictions for years. I did evictions uh all throughout law school. Uh here in Texas, it's interesting. You can practice in a in a what's called a Justice of the Peace Court without being licensed. So um I was I knew I was fairly familiar with the court process. I already knew a lot of the um big property management companies and big investors here in San Antonio and New Bromfels, which is just north of San Antonio. And so um I and I'm always kind of of the opinion if you're gonna start a business that you should already kind of have a clientele to work with. So um I felt pretty comfortable just right off the bat jumping into the the clientele that I already knew. Um, but other than that, you know, we we door knocked, kind of. We went to big property management firms. We said, hey, look, here's what we do. Just so you know, here's our here's our here's the services that we have that offer, um, and here's how we can help you. And believe it or not, a ton we got a ton of business that way. So one, just going to property managers, talking with them, letting them know how we can help them out. And two, we went to what what are called real estate investor meetups. So there's just big groups of investors who are who come together usually once, twice a month to talk about real estate, talk about things that are going good, things that are going bad, what they need. And so I would go and put on presentations. I talked to I spoke a lot on the series limited liability company, which is just a great for real estate, uh, real estate investors and protecting their assets. So I I spoke at a lot of those events, and I have clients, I have so many clients that for you know, so it's been three years that are still clients to this day that I picked up from those real estate investor meetups, and then they just branch off via word of mouth. So primarily right now, that foundation that we built of going to meetups and approaching uh big property management companies directly has really kept us kept us going pretty strong for the last couple of years.

Sales, Cash Flow, And Setup Hurdles

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Love it. Yeah, it's uh that's a big moment, I think, in in every entrepreneurial journey, right? You go to law school and you want to be an attorney, which is amazing, but you also have to learn how to sell. You got to learn how to sell yourself, you have to be able to get clients, and then you also have to learn how to build a business. In those early days, what was the most challenging part? Was it the business side of things doing the entrepreneurial thing, or was it the business development side of things having to go build the relationships and create cash flow?

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Probably the latter, just because um, well, I I had started a few companies before um starting Freeberg and Morton. I started a moving company a year before that while I was waiting on bar results with a friend, and this moving company is still doing great. I'm not I'm not involved with it as much anymore. But uh so that that side comes a little bit more naturally. Um but but when anytime you enter into a new market, you know, figuring out how do I accept payment from from these from these new clients, you know, and do I want to do it flat fee? Do I want to do do I want to have an ILTA account? And do I want to manage that IOTA account? All of that stuff was obviously new to me and and uh was a little I guess it was a little bit of a learning curve.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Any uh anything you would do differently today that could help our our listeners in in their journey?

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Yeah. Um I would I would go work for a firm for a year before I branched off and and opened up. I mean, it was a great, it was a great experience. Uh money was definitely tight in the beginning. I mean, the it when I look back on it, I just don't even know how I how I survived off the off the nominal cash flow that we had. But I would go work for somebody. I would build up a little bit of a a little bit of a nest egg and then just learn a little bit about the way that a law firm works and particularly the business side of how a law firm works and what you do and don't like. I think that that would be uh if I did it again, that's what I would do. Although, with the caveat, because I I I am a little concerned that had I done had I gone that route, maybe I would have I wouldn't have branched off. I don't know. And I'm very happy with the decision to branch off. So I don't know, speaking with a grain of salt.

Mentors, Niching, And DIY Learning

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah, it's a great point and probably a huge discussion topic because you need security, you know, right? Like coming out of law school, um, and to take that leap without the experience, knowledge, whatever. Did you have a mentor or anything that early on that that you could bounce ideas off of?

SPEAKER_01 8:23

You know, not necessarily. I had I worked at a firm previously that did that uh before I graduated law school that handled evictions. So we did. Um, and that in and that individual was definitely a mentor to me. He taught me the power of niching, which I think is the most important thing that lawyers probably can learn. Um, and so he taught me that, and and he he did, I knew how the business, uh at least how evictions worked and the business side of evictions from from him, and that was great. After starting our own practice, I felt a little I should I probably shouldn't have, but I felt a little uneasy about reaching out and asking him for advice when I started a firm that kind of was in the same area, you know. I didn't know how he would feel about it. Turns out super cool, did was super happy to uh, you know, what I was doing and and happy to help. And I I didn't reach out at that point in time, but I but I probably should have. So everything that we did was watching YouTube videos, watching other uh, you know, business gurus really for the most part, um, to figure out how to run this business.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

So you had enough grit and like do whatever it takes mindset to to just figure it out.

Sponsor Note And Growth Mindset

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah, and you know, at the time being 25, I I didn't really have a lot of obligations, right? Like I I had a I had a little bit of rent that I had to pay, I could eat whatever. So I think at that point in my life, I was totally okay with taking a ton of risk because it didn't, you know, I didn't Yeah, exactly. And so I was I was okay with taking on the risk and and yeah, just grinding through it.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

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SPEAKER_02 10:32

So you told me that you ended up merging with another firm. Talk us through that story, right? You you have gotten off your feed, you got some cash flow coming in, you're building your business. How did you go through that experience of meeting another firm and then ultimately deciding to come together?

Testing Collaboration And Combining Resources

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Yeah, absolutely. So I guess another way that I started to get business was I would go to um networking events, or uh I think this one was called uh like a BNI or something like that. But basically you meet with other professionals in the area and you you you give referrals to one another was the was the point. And so um I was in a I was in a BNI and um another uh attorney uh Garrett was in another BNI and we had both asked to meet other attorneys because I I I want to uh meet other attorneys, so when referrals come in, I can I can give um I can provide my clients or or other individuals with great resources. And so um building your building your this is a side note, but building your connection of of attorneys, I think is one of the most important things in in the practice of law. But anyway, uh I asked for attorneys, he asked for attorneys, and this lady was like, hey, I have a friend who wants to meet more attorneys, and I have another friend who wants to meet more attorneys. She linked us up and we started started chatting, and we we worked a couple cases together um just because uh it worked out well. And I um would actually go into the office sometimes and and see the staff and and and work with the other attorney on these cases, and um that firm was was called Shumway Van, and they were actually they were multi-state firm and they were breaking up. And so uh and this was at the about the same time that that I had met Garrett, and so I saw that Chumway Van had a ton of resources that we didn't have right now, we didn't have paralegals, um our back-end um CRM or client management software wasn't phenomenal. And um also Garrett has 10 years of of litigation and and attorney experience, and so I I thought that that would be great. And obviously he saw that we were young and hungry, and um I think the that's that's how the that's how the combo formed. And so when Shoumway Van wound down, um we decided that we'd work together for a little while, just still separate entities, but but kind of together. And then eventually we decided it just made sense to combine resources and and ultimately create Texas suits.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Yeah, okay. So now for our listeners who are in this uh maybe in this same situation or thinking about working with another firm, take us into the weeds a little bit on the logistics involved. Like how did you actually combine what did it look like from an equity or ownership standpoint? You don't have to give us, you know, intimate details, but how'd you work through that?

Equity, Roles, And Exit Planning

Visionary Vs Integrator Dynamics

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah. Um, well, we sat around a table and we talked about value and um what kind of value each party was bringing to the table. And we also uh we also discussed what long-term looks like. So um, and I think that's really, really important long-term and what an exit would look like if for some reason things didn't work out. Because I will say that the the partnership occurred kind of pretty quick. Um, and so I think it was very important to make sure that everyone, one, understands their obligations to one another, and two, that um, if for some reason things don't work out, that there's an easy exit plan for everybody, which you know comes in the form of an operating agreement, and it's what we it's what we preach to our clients every single day. So um we sat around a table and we we discussed what everybody was going to bring to the table, and that's how we were able to figure out equity um and also roles within the company, because obviously if everybody's doing the same thing, that's not really beneficial. And and what I what I learned in in our time working together prior to joining the comp merging the companies, um, and also on that round table discussion was that you really want to make sure you have a partner that or partners that complement your skill set. Um and so I was looking for somebody who was more granular, who could actually develop these systems and processes and and put them into place because I had I have a lot of great ideas, but sometimes it's hard when you have all these ideas to actually facilitate them. And so that is what um Gary brought to the table and what I really loved, and what some of my other partners bring to the table is that they are really, really granular and really detail-oriented and can can build out some of these processes that that ultimately um facilitate the the growth of our company right now.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Have you heard of the entrepreneurial operating system? I have not. Okay. It's a business system, might be worth looking into, but there's the idea behind this. Uh they call it a visionary and an integrator.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Oh, I think yes, I I I've definitely heard I've definitely read this in a book somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Yes, yeah. So that's it's EOS. Um, but what you're describing is right, you you have a very visionary mindset. I'm the very I'm the same way. Um, lots of big ideas, want to move fast, ready to go. You're thinking about tomorrow, not necessarily here today. But we need to surround ourselves as leaders with people that can get this stuff done, that can build the process. Otherwise, it's just chaos.

Operating Agreements And Accountability

SPEAKER_01 15:55

You're 100% right. Yep. Yeah, it is, it can be chaos. And and um, those other individuals that we surround ourselves with also slow me down a little bit too, which is good, which is good. I need it. Need some breaks. Yes. But yeah, that's that's um, did that answer your question about what it looked like, what it actually looked like to come together? Yeah, no, is that and actually put this in our operating agreement. When I when a new client comes to me and they say, Hey, look, I'm I'm gonna work with or I'm gonna form a company with so-and-so is friend, or this is how I know them, it's acquaintance, or whatever, and we we're gonna design the operating agreement that's gonna govern the obligations, rights of the individuals in the company. I have a exhibit now that lists out everybody's obligations to one another, and we try and go into excruciating detail about what everybody's gonna bring to the table because I've found that the there's a ton of business divorces happening nowadays, and I think it's because there's a a lot of people jumped formed LLCs, it became easier to form LLCs or form businesses, and so they did so with with friends or people that they thought we're gonna we're gonna work out together, and two years down the road it didn't work. So I now list out everybody's obligations to one another in in as excruciating detail as we possibly can, so that everybody can look back on that and reference it and say, hey, look, you told me that you were gonna do this, that, and the other. And you know, if we go and look at this data, it's gonna show us that you're not, or maybe maybe, hey, look, I'm doing that. I I said I was gonna do this, but now I'm having to take over your roles too, or something like that. And I guess the main point that I'm trying to get at is that just make sure that everybody understands what they're bringing to the table.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

100% agree, right? You got to create clear expectations because you don't want to have a moment where there's gray. Well, I thought you were gonna do it. Oh, I thought you were gonna do it, and then there's no clarity there, and now all of a sudden, you know, you're at odds with each other.

Clarity At The Top, Calm For Staff

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Yeah, and I think that especially for law firms, if you have partners, if there's no if there's not clarity, your staff suffers as a result of of of the gray areas because then they don't know what to do. And then you can't facilitate, you know, a well-oiled machine when there's when there's gray area and and you and you have staff that can't make decisions because they don't they don't know what to do, you know. So I think it's kind of trickles down from the top.

Future Plans And Deeper Niching

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Yep, 100%. Love it. As we're kind of finishing up here, can you tell me about the future of Texas Suits? What are you building towards? What are you excited about as uh you're continuing to build your firm?

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah, thanks for asking. I that's it's uh your favorite topic, right? Yeah, it is. It is. Um, I'm actually working right now to go back a little bit to our roots, which is kind of interesting. So as I explained, we started off with with uh primarily evictions and LLC for formations. That's what I was doing, a lot of it came really, really good at it. I'm I'm uh I'm authoring the um Texas Business Organizations Code, a section of it on the LLCs this year. And so I'm super duper excited. And it's all and I feel like I'm able to do that as a result of niching down. And so we niche down, we expanded a little bit, and we started working with with a wider variety of clients. And my goal right now is to actually retract and um consolidate the amount of the types of claims and the types of cases that we're handling right now. So that's what I'm super duper excited about. And just just so you know, I'm I'm I work primarily with with real estate investors, and so I'm reducing our scope of claims to just fit what they really need and just really focus on making sure that we have a product that um satisfies them and what they what they're going through.

Closing Wins And Takeaways

SPEAKER_02 19:45

If I've learned anything during our experience building, Sterling, uh, we started out having you know multiple practice areas and trying to be everything to everyone. And and the same is true actually at the agency we run. Um every time we niche down, every time we focus, and now at Sterling, you know, we're exclusively family law and at Rocket Clicks, we exclusively work with law firms. It becomes so much easier to be successful because you're you have an aligned North Star and you're refining the same process for the same avatar. So you're continually getting better as opposed to going wide, you're going deep. Uh, and so I love that narrative, Keaton. I think it's gonna only mean great things for your firm as you continue to grow and scale. Totally applaud that. Uh, really appreciate your time and the journey you've been on. I love hearing entrepreneurial stories. You know, you started out talking about how did I survive, you know, taking all this risk and the cash flow issues and and eating your peanut butter and jelly probably uh to where you are today. It's a true testament of success. So really applaud that and look forward to continuing watching you grow. Well, thanks a lot. It's been great meeting you and a great learning more about what y'all do.