The 3-Step System for Law Firm Referral Consistency - #230

Law firm referral consistency isn't random—what you do now hits 3 months later. Slack in June, your fall pipeline dies. 

This is the 3-step system Janice Mattingly uses to keep referrals flowing year-round during the first 20 years of her firm when she’s still running it solo.

📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughes

                                https://www.youtube.com/@TylerxDolph
📚 Order The Waterfall Method Book here: http://rocketclicks.com/the-waterfall-method/
📝 Get your FREE Law Firm Growth Guide: https://jsterlinghughes.com/

📅 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit

---

📄 CHAPTERS

0:00 - Law Firm Referral Consistency: The 90-Day Lag Most Solos Miss 

1:04 - Why Janice Built Carmel Family Law After Personal Tragedy 

5:34 - The 6-Month Cash Flow Plan Before Going Solo 

6:53 - Self-Imposed Billable Hours: Your Referral Pipeline Foundation 

7:17 - The June Mistake That Dries Up Your Fall Referrals 

12:48 - Hard-Won Lessons From 20 Years as a Solo Family Lawyer

----------------------

Ready to find the accountability partner you need to build your dream family law firm the same way we grew Sterling Lawyers? 

Follow these steps:  

1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/  

2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/  

3. CONNECT WITH US: 

LinkedIn: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls, 

Facebook: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls, 

Instagram: Jeff Hughes, Tyler Dolph, & Anthony Karls

4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:  
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.

Transcript

0:00

in family law at least my experience has been a lot of it is referral based. And so if I'm not working for a period of time, then the referral base it will start to dry up. you got to be on it all the time. Janice, thank you so much for your time for our audience. We tried to record this a week ago in Lost Power, and so it's so gracious of you to come back on our show. I'm going to kick it from the top. If you wouldn't mind introducing yourself and your firm to our audience. And that would be amazing. Yeah. My name is Janice Mandla Mattingly. I'm an attorney in Carmel, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, and I've been a solo practitioner for just over 20 years. I had a little stint with another firm while I was working between Nebraska and Indiana, and then came back to my own practice. And we are known as Carmel Family Law based in India, you know, based in Carmel, just downtown Carmel, basically, it's a suburb of Indianapolis. Beautiful. Looks pretty outside today. Talk to us about the why. I think I remember a family situation that allowed you to or incentivize you to to have your own practice. Is that right? right? Yes. Yeah. So I had before I went to law school, I was a paralegal for several years, only worked in firms and never considered working on my own. I worked for a law firm and in the north side of Indianapolis and was enjoying it. I was doing family law, and I also do some probate and guardianships and things like that too. So but my husband was sick. This was 25 years ago now. My husband was sick and I had three young kids, and when he passed away, then I couldn't work for firms because I couldn't give them that much time. 8 to 5. I had to be available for the schools. I had to go to doctors, you know, I had to do all those things with my kids, and it just wasn't going to work. And they couldn't, you know, this was then, you know, we couldn't work from home. I did work from home, some old whiz, because I set up a computer as soon as I could and worked from home after kids were in bed. I think all lawyers do that right when we're first starting out, especially. So I've always had a place to work from home, but I was never at a point where I could have that freedom working in a firm to say, okay, I'm going to be working remotely this afternoon, that that just wasn't wasn't an option. So I really investigated it, picked an office. My office is a renovated home in Old Town, what we call Old Town. Carmel then and I contacted the the guy who owned it, and I've been running from him for over 20 years, and he renovated it to to meet our needs. And we had other people in other lawyer first we started out with all lawyers. Now we have other professionals in. So that's that's where I got started. And then I did have the freedom because I worked for myself. Of course I have court calendar and mediation calendar and all those things too, but definitely able to have my kids in. They felt welcome to come in if they if somebody was sick and I needed to have them in the office with me for a little while, for whatever reason, I didn't have to worry about those kinds of things. So that's that was the impetus as to why I started my own practice. I'm I'm inspired by your ability to adapt. Obviously, losing your husband so early is tragic. And, you know, you making that sacrifice to support those three kiddos is so admirable. As you were going through that transition and building your practice, did you leverage kind of this mindset of like, I just got to make this work, right? This is this is what I have to do. No choice. It has to work. And that is, you know, I am a person. I was luckily a business major in college, so I had some sense of business. But I also am really good at watching other people and saying, I like that. I don't like that. I like how they do that. I like how they do that. The other thing is, I was I've only ever really worked in law firms. So I started out in high school as a co-op student, running, typing, sorting, anything like that. And then I was a legal secretary and then a paralegal for eight years and then went to law school. So I've pretty much done it all. So I had that, I had some of that background as to staffing and what it takes and what answering the phone is like and why, how I want the phone answered and how I want this done and how I want that done. So I had some of that. I had a lot of that background, which I'm very thankful for. That's awesome. And it allowed you to maybe accelerate getting up to speed and getting some cash flow and. Right. So in Indiana, we are allowed to take cases with us. Our our the client dictates where the case is going to go. The firm doesn't own the case. The client is the one who dictates that. So I don't think I lost any or if I lost very, very few. So I started out with an established practice, which is great, but that doesn't start the money coming in. Right. Because they had to pay back my other firm, and that firm had to be fully paid off before then. Or they had to be set up a payment arrangement for them before they started paying me. I couldn't take obviously, I couldn't take that other firms money. So I had a budget set up for six months of no pay for me. So I took a line of credit and set up a budget because I had employees. And so I had to set up a budget for to make sure my employees got paid, my rent got paid, my utilities got paid, my computer guy got paid. And then I set up all of that and then was able and it it really was about six months before I was able to generate the kind of income that, you know, that I really needed to. And I've never been sorry. It's it's always been a really good, good thing for me. And I think we talked briefly about this, but last time that when you work for a firm and you have like a billable hour goal, that is the great thing about working for a firm first because I always had a billable hour goal. So even if I didn't, even though I worked for myself, I still had a bit of our goal. I still expected myself to build this many hours, and if I didn't build that many hours, then okay, what am I going to do? Okay, I had I, I worked evenings, I worked, you know, I, I would, I could manage my time, but I always had those billable hours and I always check my hours every month while I check my hours every day. But I made sure I was on that track to make my billable goal, even though I was working for myself. And I think that's very important. I think that's where some solos or some or some small firms, they think, oh, it's June, I don't have to work so hard. I'll make it up in the fall. Well, the problem is, if you're not working in June, you're not getting referrals in the fall. So if you're not calling people back, if you're not taking cases, if you're not working that, then in family law at least my experience has been a lot of it is referral based. And so if I'm not working for a period of time, then the referral base quickly doesn't quickly, but it will start to dry up. And then so you got to be on it all the time. I think you said a lot of really important things there. The first one was establishing a budget. You know, if you're going to start your own firm, you have to be ready to not not be paid. You have to create a budget and have a line of credit or whatever it takes for some period of time, which I thought was really, really important. And then the accountability piece, right, you're on your own. That doesn't mean that you can just slack off. You still are in charge of the business even more so you have more responsibility now now and people relying on you. So I can't say to my employees who take a risk and come to work for me, oh, after three months, oh, I'm sorry, I can't pay you. You're going to, you know, you know, I didn't want that. I had this, this thing going. And so I really wanted to make sure. Obviously when you have employees, you have to make sure they're taking care of first. You have to make sure your building is taken care of. You need all of those things. Premises, insurance. And, you know, now cyber insurance and all of these things, you know, worker's comp and and all of that stuff. You just can't just say, okay, I'm going to go practice law because when you're a solo or a small firm or like what you do, you manage a practice or you own a practice, then you're also an entrepreneur and a business person. So you you can't just I think there's some lawyers who say, oh, I'm just going to go practice law that I yeah, I practice law, but I also run a business. I'm also an entrepreneur. I also have to do the marketing. I also have to do the I have to see somebody doing social media. And now you know that that wasn't then. But I have to make sure all of that is happening. It's such great reminders. If you want to just practice law, go join a big firm. firm. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And then you got to take what comes with that. that. Right. That's right. You got Yeah. Yeah. So Well said. Do your kids understand the sacrifice made for them and are they proud of their mom? I don't know I think I think they're proud of me. They're all very successful. So I think they're very proud of me. I'm very proud of them. I think they have a work ethic, that maybe a lot of kids don't have, I don't know. And and I like to think that they I have some of them are. I have a couple of my kids are very entrepreneurial in ideas and things. They work for people, but they're they're more step, you know, they they have ideas and they and so I'd like to think, you know, I was in my mid 40s when I went when I started my own business. And they're not there yet. So they may be they may follow in my footsteps that way. I am really proud of my kids and I. So after my husband died and I was a single mom for a while, then I married again and I have four stepdaughters that I raised. So we had we have seven between us and they're all super kids and they're all very highly motivated, very educated and and doing very well. So I think that I'd like to think that it was in my, my first husband as well as my husband. Now, we have always worked hard and we've always but we've always played hard to we've always tried to build relationships and build community and faith and and so I think all seven of them have just great attributes that I hope they got from us. But I'm sure, you know, we can't take all of the credit. But the three older kids that are that went through it with me, it is interesting because, you know, you're going through this life change. You're going through a grief process. You're I never signed up to be a single parent. So you're going through all that and yet trying to make sure everything stays the same for them. You know, they're there. I had never talked. The muffler repair guy, my my son's car, the muffler camper. I'm like, what? Finally I said, I don't get mufflers. Tell me, explain this to me. Because I've now fixed this muffler like three times. You know, I had to learn how to talk to people in that way to. So anyway. Yeah, yeah. When you're a business owner and an apparent you're you're running a couple of businesses, I'd say I'm going to go home to my other job now. Yes. It's just it's so commendable what you've done. And I'm, I'm so appreciative of your willingness to share it with us. I want to end on just a quick question on lessons learned. You know, you've been doing this for a long time now. You've been a solo for a long time. You're able to control your schedule and you've built an amazing life. Is there anything that you would have done differently, maybe in the early years of the middle years that you can give advice on to maybe our listeners? I think as family lawyers, I tend to I tend to take too much to heart. And it it interrupted my my personal life a lot in terms of I would wake up at night, I would, you know, and I and I think on one hand that made me a good lawyer because I did have that empathy, I did have that sympathy. And I was I would try to relate to my clients. But I think in the long run it it has caused me, you know, I mean, excess stress probably. The other thing is that I wish I would have done and this is that's the personal end of it. This is the business end of it. I wish I would have been better at collecting my bills. I am excellent at it. Now that took a minute because I was in especially 20 years ago. It is scary and when you're so referral based and you're getting referrals from your clients that oh, you money, but then you have to stop and think, okay, I'm getting money. I'm getting referrals from people who aren't paying me. Are they saying to their friends, you know, she'll work out a payment plan with you. Don't worry about it. She's really fair. And so I wish I would have been a lot better at that. I think I would have, I probably would have made more money, but I know I would have had just just not had those chasing people from any, chasing people from any. Because I think if you give them the impression that you don't have to pay or that you can pay, they can pay something. They'll pay everything before they pay you. They'll pay. They'll pay their doctor, they'll pay their rent, they'll pay their kids soccer fees. They'll pay. They'll go on vacation. I had I've had people who told me I can't pay that bill, but because we're going on a Disney cruise. No kidding. Why can't. I can't do that. You know, we get we're going on this Disney cruise for spring break. But then when I get back, I'll set up a payment arrangement. I had somebody else just say, I had somebody who said, well, I just can't pay that. And I'm like, oh, well, let me call Indiana University until I knew that I can't pay my bill because so-and-so can't pay their bill, and then I'm sure that they would understand. So I just think it takes you have to be a little bit harsh. And what I also found is that I was the better collector. I have a staff person who's really good at keeping keeping people on task, but there comes a point when I have to be the one. So the attorney has to be the one to make that hard call I don't want it. Jess, appreciate the insight. I appreciate your time. Wishing you all the best. Have a wonderful fall season and we'll look forward to hearing from you again soon. soon. All right. Thanks, Tyler.