The Sterling Family Law Show is where successful family law attorneys share the exact systems they used to build million-dollar practices.
Host Jeff Hughes scaled Sterling Lawyers from zero to $20M with 30 attorneys.
Co-host Tyler Dolph runs Rocket Clicks, the agency in charge of supercharging Sterling and other family law practices to success using revenue-first marketing strategies.
Together, they share the playbook for building the law firm of your dreams.
If you're looking to grow exponentially, generate revenue, and get good at business, this podcast is for you.
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.
Building Remote Team Culture Across a 2-State Family Law Firm
Launching a Virtual Law Firm Straight Into Covid
Hire for Quality Over Location: The Remote-First Edge
Rainmaker vs Operator: Finding a Complementary Business Partner
Growing Too Fast: The Law Firm Hiring Mistakes to Avoid
Remote Team Engagement When You Have No Office
knowing that it's the end of that era only to step into the unknown. It feels like a double whammy of like having to fight yourself every day to justify that it's worth it was terrifying. I don't think there's any other like, like way to phrase it, because if if you decide you can't do it, then what what next? Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. The podcast, designed to help family attorneys build the firm of their dreams. I'm your host, Tyler Dolph I'm also the CEO of our family law firm only consultancy called Rocket Clicks that was born out of our very own family law firm, Sterling Lawyers, Today we continue our owner operator series and I am featuring Bailey Vos who runs a PI and family law firm out of both Michigan and Texas. Pretty interesting how she got her start and why she has office locations in two very distant areas of the country. Bailey, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. I'm really excited to hear your story. Obviously, you have two offices in Michigan and Texas, which is kind of different and not the norm. Will you do us a kindness and introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about your firm, how you got started. You know why you're in two cities. Some of that. Yes, absolutely. So my name is Bailey Voss and I am from West Michigan, but did the last semester of my law school in Texas as an internship. I took the Texas and Michigan bar just because I didn't know where I would end up. I got a job at a big P.I. firm in Austin, and I met my best friend, now, business partner Jessica McKinney. Those big P.I. firms, there's a lot of great things that can come out of them. We got a lot of great experience, met a lot of great people. But, you know, the way that the model works, it's hard for the client to be an individual and get that individual treatment when it's at such a large scale. And so we really wanted to start a firm that focused on the individual aspect of personal injury. So in 2020, we started McKinney Voss to really focus on everybody's unique and personal experience. Didn't know Covid was coming. I was like, great, you're to start. Yeah, but you know, you survived Covid your first year as a as a new business owner. And you feel like you can you can survive anything. So it started growing after after Covid calmed down and we were doing really well post-Covid. Almost everything was virtual. My husband and I had a child and realized that it was really hard to raise kids without your village, so we decided to make the move back to West Michigan and continue my virtual docket because we were virtual anyway and just go back to Texas for trial. About a year ago, we decided that we wanted to help the West Michigan community as well, and the attorney that we really liked and trusted had experience with family law. So we decided to dabble into family law in the West Michigan space. And then that's grown. And so now doing family law in West Michigan and personal injury in Texas. And that's just how it's gone. Is the plan to bring a lot of Texas and P.I. to Michigan or. I think that, you know, because we started remote, we have always been able to hire for quality over location. Right. So we can hire the best person for the role despite the city they're in. And that that holds true for attorneys, which granted, they can't be fully remote because of appearances and stuff like that. But when we find an attorney who fits our business model and most importantly, the has the compassion for the clients that we need our attorneys to have. We will try to expand to fit the person. And so if that makes sense to do family law in Texas, then it's because a person came in that that would help it make sense. And so we'll see. But that would be that would be ideal. That's a really great approach that I think a lot of law firms miss, right? They think just and it's sometimes it's out of need, right. When you're starting a law firm, you're starting a business and you need revenue and cash flow. And so you got to take whatever you can get. But did you did you have that focus from the onset? You mentioned you work in the big P.I. firm. And so you have this kind of idea that, hey, we should really focus on a client first. It's funny because working together, when we decided to start our own business together, it was like it felt like such a secret, like we want to do this. And so I remember one lunch we went to Starbucks because it felt gross to do this, like at the business, even though we weren't on company hours, like we're clocked out at lunch and we were writing on a napkin because neither of us had our notebook, and we were writing the most important reasons why we wanted to leave, to try to come up with a mission statement. And it was so client focused that, you know, that napkin became like the center of everything with our firm. Yeah. And so we've just used that to, to propel us, and it's helped us become referral based. We haven't had to compete in the the Austin marketing, you know, fight that other P.I. firms have to because we are so client focused that we get the word of mouth clients, which has been wonderful. But yeah, it has been from from the start. That's really bring us back to the start. Right? You both had been practicing at a large, you know, very, I'm sure, well-funded law firm. And now you're going to hang a shingle and start your own business. What were some of those, like early lessons or. Holy shit, I needed to know this. Yeah. Well it was I mean, part of it is sad, right? Like that, that environment of being at that big law firm, having that mentorship, mentorship and like I understand everybody's experience is different. But like we learned a lot from our boss. It was you know, I enjoyed going in every day. I enjoyed the people I worked with. So knowing that it's the end of that era only to step into the unknown. It feels like a double whammy of like having to fight yourself every day to justify that it's worth it. And so it was tough. We were also, you know, obviously Covid hit. I was getting married that year. We had kids shortly after. There was a lot of life coming at us. Both Jessica and myself have very supportive husbands, so I don't think we could have done it without them, you know, kind of rooting us on. But it was terrifying. I don't think there's any other like, like way to phrase it, because if if you decide you can't do it, like then what what what what next? But it's also been like one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. So. What if your family law firm isn't behind on AI? It just never started on the right foot. A prompt that someone wrote, a tool on a paralegals laptop and SOP that nobody opened. None of it survives. The person who made it. The work still roots through you because nothing lives in a system. Because AI isn't something you buy, it's something you build. We built ours at Sterling Lawyers, which is a $20 million family law firm, and we're teaching the journey behind family law firm AI factory, starting with the four AI first that you need to know pricing policy, platform and progression links in the show. Notes below to know more. How about on the business side, setting up systems, figuring out what was that like? yeah. So the best piece of advice I could ever give somebody is to if you want to go with a business partner, find somebody who is your complete opposite. So I love talking to people. I love getting clients, making connections, really understanding somebody's story. Like, you know, finding those connections to to get clients essentially, which is what a business needs to, to run. My business partner does all the software, all the paperwork, all the everything. If something happened to her, I would have to shut down strictly because I wouldn't know how to do the things she does. So, you know, I was really, really fortunate in that I didn't have to touch any of that. She would tell me, you know, we're switching case software because this one doesn't work because of X, y, z. And I'd be like, okay, fine. Otherwise, you know, it's it works really well. So I can't I can't genuinely answer that part other than I know that she would tell you it was a very trying time figuring everything out, but I was just out meeting people, so I was having a great time. Yes. Love it. Oh, that's so good. But I think that your point is you need both of those minds to run successful business. You need the sales side, the revenue side, but you also need the system side so that you can fulfill the promises you're making. Yeah. And I can't imagine how somebody would do it both themselves. I know it's possible, but it would for me having to learn the side that's not natural to me. It would take a lot. It would take a lot of of research and learning and trying, which takes away from doing the things that I am good at and, you know, just kind of delays everything. So I feel for the business owners who do both themselves, because that sounds like a lot. Okay, so you have started on law firm. You have two individuals that are partners that are ready to take over the world. What evolutions happen throughout the journey that allowed you to to grow and add another attorney and some of that insight? question makes me laugh so much because my my business partner is she's very, like, realistic. I'm more of an optimist. She's a realist. So we planned for like, every issue that could arise. Right. Running out of money, not getting enough clients. Like everything that could happen. But what we didn't plan for is being successful as early as we were. And so, you know, that had its own drawbacks. It sounds great, but unfortunately, we we grew faster than we were ready for. And so they say to, to hire slowly and fire quickly. And for probably the first year of hiring, we did the opposite, just based out of like need. I like you. Yeah. It was it was just like, what is happening? We are so busy, we need help. Which again, sounds great, but in reality we made a lot of hiring mistakes because we we didn't have time to to do it right. And that's something that I wish we could have looked back and thought through more thoroughly and kind of taken a step, because at the end of the day, we are client focused. But every hiring mistake does affect our clients, right? And so you have this like feeling of like, we're not fulfilling what we want to be fulfilling for them. And so trying to to come back from that. But we're in a good spot now. So we've gotten there. We've learned just not quite as quickly as I would have liked. Talk to me about your culture. What culture are you building in your firm? How are you planning on doing that as you continue to grow? Yeah. Culture for us is really difficult because we are fully remote. So we've talked about having, you know, eventually having an office space. We do have office spaces, but our staff are all remote. And so we want to build that culture where, you know, they feel appreciated and they are bought in and they know that we trust them. And, you know, they feel empowered by the business and by their work. But we don't see them every day. And so we've done things virtually. It's kind of like, you know, the that short period of time that everybody was trying to figure out how to connect during Covid. We have extended that. So we've done like team happy hours, like remotely. We do firm lunches. You know, we're we're big on mail like we do a lot of mail because that's the the way that we send things to them. And then we do get together once or twice a year in person. But I will say culture as a fully remote firm has been something that we've struggled with, that we didn't anticipate because we opened in Covid. So that was that was the norm when we started. That's great, but it's got to be a focus. I think it's your point and that it can be elected even if you are remote. Yeah. And I think no matter what your circumstances are or like who's there or what issues you're facing, you can always find a way to prioritize culture as long as you're willing to think outside the box, like there are unique ways to do it. So it's just it's just whatever that might be. Bailey, as you've kind of navigated the last few years. How have you had to grow as a leader and as a business person running a law firm? That's such an interesting question. You know, I think that when we started, both Jessica and myself were very focused on, like for our law firm to succeed, it needs to be our priority. And I do think there's benefit to that. But I think that since then, what we've really learned is for our law firm to succeed, we both need to be the best people in our lives. You know, the best wives we can be, best parents. We're both parents now, you know, we need to make sure that we're giving every area of our life the respect it deserves, so that when we come and clock in, we can feel like we are giving this job what it's owed, instead of feeling like we're giving it all of ourselves. Which seems counterintuitive, but for us, that's really worked the best because you're more authentic when you show up. Yeah, being actually focused on being a great human will have ripple effects across your family and business and marriage and all the things. We finish up here. Help us share your wisdom and knowledge with our listeners. Is there any advice that you would give? You know, law firms that are your size are a little bit smaller, trying to continue to grow and build a great firm? Yeah. The best thing that I could say I did is doing McKinney Vos with my best friend. I know that's not everybody's option or possibility, but having somebody to bounce all of the hard things off has been invaluable. And, you know, I feel like when we started, I talked a lot about how difficult it was to take that leap, but I've never regretted it. It's the best leap I've ever taken, you know? So I think if anybody's on the fence, it's definitely worth doing and just seeing. That's going to work out. As there would definitely be days where you don't believe it's going to There will be there for sure will be. But there are more days that you're glad you did it. I really appreciate your time today. Wishing you all the best and look forward to watching you from continue to grow.
