3 Ways to Grow a Community Law Firm FAST | Revenue Roadmap with Thomas Winslow

Discover how an unexpected layoff transformed one attorney’s career, inspiring him to launch a thriving, 8-lawyer community law firm.

Join Tyler Dolph, host and CEO of Rocket Clicks, and Thomas Winslow, owner of Winslow Law, as they unleash the power of embracing fear, leveraging local connections, and creating a full-service practice to better serve clients in your community. 

Hear proven strategies for expanding your community law firm fast—while staying true to your vision, values, and expertise. 

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📄 CHAPTERS  

00:00 - A Layoff Sparks a Firm’s Launch  

02:27 - Building a Multi-Practice Community Law Firm  

04:08 - STEP 1: Standing Out Through Niche Branding

10:21 - STEP 2: Know Your Community Better than Everybody Else

11:54 - STEP 3: The Rapid Growth Formula for Community Cases

14:08 - Key Advice for Aspiring Law Firm Owners 

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Chapters

• 0:00 A Layoff Sparks a Firm’s Launch
• 2:27 Building a Multi-Practice Community Law Firm
• 4:08 STEP 1: Standing Out Through Niche Branding
• 10:21 STEP 2: Know Your Community Better than Everybody Else
• 11:54 STEP 3: The Rapid Growth Formula for Community Cases
• 14:08 Key Advice for Aspiring Law Firm Owners

Transcript

0:00

Tom went from being laid off to building a hyper successful community law firm in South Carolina. His story is incredible. Welcome back to The Revenue Roadmap, the podcast designed for family law firms to learn, grow and build their firm to new heights. My name is tailored off. I'm the CEO of Rocket Clicks, a hyper focused digital marketing agency that works exclusively with family law firms around the country. We also own and operate our own family law firm called Sterling Lawyers, that has grown to over 30 attorneys across two states. Today, we interview Tom Winslow of Winslow Law. Tom went from being laid off to building his community full service law firm in South Carolina that now has over four locations and multiple attorneys serving a lot of different areas of law for his community. He's taken a unique approach and built a very successful firm. Make sure to check out the episode. Welcome back, everyone to an awesome episode of Revenue Roadmap. Today we have Tom from Winslow Lawyers. Thomas. Gracious enough to hang out with us today. Tom, really appreciate your time. Excited to have you here. Why don't you introduce yourselves to the audience and tell us a little bit about your firm? Thank you guys. I appreciate y'all allowing me to come on and allowing, the firm to be, I guess, spotlight a little bit on your, program. I am Tom Winslow for the Winslow law firm. We are located down in South Carolina. We have practiced in, actually, 29 states, three countries. But, primarily focused on South Carolina, with offices in Columbia, Myrtle beach, Surfside Beach and Pawleys Island. Incredible. And, Tom, how long have you been, at your firm? When did you started? Give us some background on the auction. Absolutely. You know, a lot of times, as I'm sure you you might have some of the same stories, you get thrust into things in life that you don't necessarily plan on. Right? Your life is not necessarily how you planned it. And so, coming out of law school, I was offered a position in a little town called Georgetown, South Carolina, which took me out of Columbia, which is the capital. It took me towards the beach. When I was presented with the opportunity, I went to my girlfriend at the time, my fiancee, and I said, you want to stay in Columbia or you want to move to the beach? And obviously because of, her sway, we moved to the beach. And so that's. Easy. Answer for I am, I was working with that firm. I actually got laid off from that firm. They did not necessarily agree with my political, positions, and I went and partnered up with a guy. Roughly about 12 years ago, who had his own political persuasions. And about three years ago, he decided to pursue politics full time. Turning the law firm into simply Winslow Law, which is where we were. We were, at that time, roughly five attorneys in one location. And over the last 3 to 4 years, we've grown to eight attorneys in four locations. And so sometimes you just follow the course that's laid out for you. Not necessarily what you planned. That's how it goes, right? I mean, I think, I feel like we all have so many opportunities in, in this life. And the most successful among us are the ones that freedom is opportunities. And and run down that path to keep going. You know, it's funny because a lot of times and there's books out there that say, you know, just say no, and, you know, no is an important word. And to me, people that say no closed doors, I'm always a yes person. I always like walking through those doors. And I have the understanding that I might fail. I heard a while ago that if you're not willing to lose a million, you'll never make a million. And so I'm always willing to fail. I'm always willing to, go bankrupt. It's not mine. It's God's. And so if he wants to give it to me, he'll give it to me. If he wants to take it away, he'll take it away. I love it. That's so great. It feels like since you took over the firm entirely, you guys have experienced some great growth. Opening new offices, adding more attorneys. Tell us about that. Did, did it spur that moment, spur an opportunity to take your firm to new heights? Or was that always. You know, it's it's amazing sometimes, as we were saying, and you know, this and you run a law firm is all about embracing that adversity. It's almost like litigation is right. Every case you have is, you can't run away from the facts that you have. You have to embrace them and try to turn them into the path you want to take. And so, when that situation occurred again, like 3 or 4 years ago, it was not something that was planned. It was not something that was ever on my agenda. As a matter of fact, owning a law firm was never on my agenda. That was sparked by being let go. Right? So, with roll with the path we have. And I was blessed to find a multitude of good team members and with good attorneys who helped facilitate the direction of the firm. And the firm's a little bit different, at least in my mind it is. There's so many law firms nowadays that are niche law firms. They focus on one task. They do one thing right. Family law. Right. You do one thing and you and you pass out the other cases or refer out the other cases. And what I learned from my experience in my community is that a lot of people here are really embracing and really wanting that community law firm. Right. And so with us, we always put in our brand and we never market. We always brand. Because to me, marketing is trying to get clients. For me, branding is trying to tell people who you are and they get to choose how they want to work with you. Because as attorneys, we build relationships, right? We want to have a relationship because even in the family law department know, many of my cases are 3 to 5 years long. I've had cases that are 12 years long, but you got to have a pretty good relationship with somebody that last 12 years. That's longer than some marriages lie. So and, you know, in the day it is what it is, you know. And so we want to build a community law firm where people could come to us, as we always say, we're attorneys and counselors. And honestly, it's more important for us to be the counselor than the attorney. And so they come to us and each one of our attorneys has a department, so we always work in collaboration with each other, not in competition with each other. So I have one attorney doing family law. I have one attorney doing estate planning. Right. What we're trying to do in civil criminal real estate. Right. And so when an issue comes up for a client or community member, they have one law firm to come to, but they have people in each niche that know what they're doing. Right. So it's a niche attorney in a community law firm. I love that approach, and it is definitely different than a number of the firms that we speak with and obviously different than the firm that we own and operate. You know, Sterling has made its calling and being a family, exclusive family and even niche down in family, we only do divorce and mediation, you know. So for us it's like building a factory, right? And being able to be really great at a single thing. But the ideology around having a community based firm that can serve the community and whatever it needs from all the different facets of law is really cool. There was that pro plan. Did you want to create that or did it just happen based on the lawyers that you hired in their specialty? I'm gonna go with both. I'm very, at least personally, I believe I'm very community oriented. I get yelled at because all I do is help, you know, and obviously, as attorneys, sometimes all we do is help free, and we all get paid for it. And so we want to be they were very involved in the community. We try to make it so that no matter what happens around us, we're gonna be a part of that. Someone's house burns down. We're there to offer them a meal, right? If someone has a need. And so we're known in our community as a as a member of the community, not just as a business in the community. And so it has really garnered a lot of, I believe, mutual respect between us and our community members in our community. And so that's really fed into who I believe I am as a person. But I can't do it alone. Right? We currently have 25 members of the firm on this team, and so without someone that has that family law expertise, that someone has that real estate expertise, I couldn't facilitate that because I can't possibly know everything. And so we found the right people that know those niches can really step in and help the members of this community, both right from a counselor standpoint, but from that advocacy standpoint as well. You gotta be good at your job. 100%. Yeah. You can't just offer everything and not be very exactly right. So I think that's a great distinction. Tom, I'd like to take us back to the beginning a little bit. You know, as I mentioned before, we started, our listeners are young lawyers. They're law students. They're thinking about what's next. Give us some perspective. When you had moved to the beach and decided to, you know, you got laid off, was your mindset, well, now I'm going to start this firm or was it I'm going to go get a job somewhere and create some security, give us some, some perspective there. I feel like, a lot of younger lawyers learn the law. They get passionate about the law, they get excited to be a lawyer, and then they are thrown into this, entrepreneurship journey, realizing that they have to do so many other things other than just practice law. And it it takes a while, right? There's a lot of key learnings during that period. Give us some perspective, in your circumstance. So mean you've hit on so many things that I just love. And so feel free to jump in. I love the word perspective. I mean, that's my favorite word in the English language, because it's impossible for you to appreciate what you have and understand what you have. Let's get perspective from from both around you and above you and below you in everything. I just literally got back, I had a client that made me go to India, and so I literally just went to India. I got back a week ago. And to be able to have the perspective of India compared to the United States being doing law and work with people in India compared to the United States, and really is, mind jarring so that your perspective is so important and it's so important for young people to have because it's really, honestly hard for them to have it. You got to have experiences to be able to have perspective. And so for me, going general to the specific right there generally with young folks. Yeah. And you might be the same way, I know if you are not, I was this way. I want to go to that school out of Loyola Law School. I want to be the best in my class. I want to do anything. And I'm completely changed my perspective. If you ever went to law school, I don't care what school you go to, go to the community you want to practice, right? Get to know the people. Get to know the judges, get to know how they do the law there. Because I promise you, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina versus Charleston, South Carolina versus Columbia, South Carolina versus Costa Rica or India, it's different everywhere. How you practice law. And so go where you want to practice law. I don't care what you do in your undergrad. If you want to be a dance major, you'll be the best dance attorney in the world, right? It doesn't matter. Like focus on what you love, what your passion is, and go where you want to practice. I don't care where are you going? I'd rather hire someone, honestly, from Columbia, South Carolina prosecutor than Harvard or Yale. That's that's me. I don't have someone that's in my community and knows how my community is. That's one that's coming in not knowing and thinking they know better than everybody else. So that's just very general guys, very general for me. And terms I love that. Right. In terms, in terms of the, of the firm for me, I, you know, I was I was fired out on December 23rd. I was actually looking up the directions to my firm Christmas party, and I had a voicemail. And so I, every night, and no matter what day it is, every night, I make sure all my emails are checked, all my text messages are checked, all my voicemails are checked, and I call them back. Every day does matter for this area. Sunday, right? Is part of that being a part of the community, you make sure you, the people that you are working for, know that you appreciate them. And so I check my voicemail. It's like a Saturday night game. It was December 23rd, 2011 or 12, and it was basically a boss saying, don't bother coming to the Christmas party. I know, right? A voicemail, right? Come on. My wife is four months pregnant with our first child, obviously had a home and a mortgage. I was relatively innocent. And so by January 1st, I partnered up with this other gentleman, and we had started the firm within seven days, and I had a choice to make. Right? The choice was either I wallow in my pity and I get food stamps, or I guess our firm and I make something out of it. Right? And so. So I called this guy up on literally December 24th. Right. Like I go December 23rd, call him up. December 24th said, hey, it's Christmas. I know it is. Y'all think about it over the weekend and let's talk next week. We made it happen. It was the two of us as attorneys and one paralegal, and we pushed forward 70 cases that when I walked in, 70 cases we had by the end of that first year, we had over 170 cases out of that first year. And obviously it's catapulted up to this point now. But now at this point, we have roughly 1300 open cases in the firm, and we're averaging give our take about 15, what we call packs, potential cases a day. Right? We get about 15 potential cases coming in a day. And we got over a thousand open cases currently. And that's what's manifested in over, you know, just last 12 years. Just because we keep putting ourselves out there and keep being available for people. Tom, that is incredible. It's so inspiring to hear that. Like the only option was to keep your tax. You attack you if you if you fall down. Look, we all feel like honestly, I plan on failing. I want to fail every day because if I'm not failing, I'm not pushing myself hard enough. Right? And I'm going to fail, I know it. It's how do I respond when that happens? And that's what we have to remember. You always keep moving forward, and sometimes you take a step back to move forward and somebody move forward half a step and that's okay. Why don't you keep going? We have, we have the saying in our office, and I have this mug, and you. Didn't send me a mug. I don't have a mug. I have a water bottle. You should send me a mug so I. Would have it. Yes. We have a saying in our firm. And it's be the buffalo right in the river sewer in Buffalo, in a cow in a storm. Is the cow runs away from the storm and the buffalo runs through the storm because it knows instinctually that's the fastest way to actually get through is. So that's like people driving on the side of the road with their flashers on me while I'm barreling ahead to get through the storm. That's for everybody. You all do the same principle. I think that's that's so inspiring. Time to hear how you were able to overcome that adversity and build the firm that you have today. Talk to us about the future. Where's your firm going? What do you hope to continue to achieve? Is it more communities? More. Like, you know, it's amazing. It's almost the converse of where we started, right? When you first start off a law firm or start off as an attorney, right. We have a lot of young listeners maybe listening that are in law school. You're trying to embrace as many opportunities as you can. You're trying to grab audience because you're like, what can I do? You might not have things presented to you because of your age, right? And we both know this running a law firm or practicing law and being a law student and learning the law completely different things. But truly different things. I mean, learning the law is, is a precipice for modifying your mind and your brain, but it has nothing to do with actually practicing the law at all. Until you get into a courtroom and get yelled at by a judge, or a client yells at you for a fetus feet or something like that, you don't even understand what the law is. And that just again, that's perspective, right? That just takes that time to get those experiences. But now on the on the opposite side of it that we've been going for about 12 years, we're not trying to grasp the opportunities that are coming to us, which is a real true blessing. It's something I truly believe in. You know, you'll get you'll be able to handle any that's given to you as long as you're willing to embrace it and allow God to give it to you. So the problem, the problem I have now is we have so many opportunities of locations or attorneys where every week we're getting an attorney or a paralegal to send us a resume asking if we have any jobs available. Right. So do I hire more people? We have three different locations. I want us to come to our communities because there's people down there that want us to work down there. But do I have the right people in place to do I have enough cases to facilitate another location? And so the truth is, right now we're trying to manage our opportunities. So that way we can, move forward with our future right as they move for the future. But, but not bankrupt our present. Right. We want to make sure we take care of our present and our team. I love this team. We we really facilitate and gel together. And I love our community that we're in. So do we grow within our community. We grow outside our community. We bring more people in. Is that managing of presented opportunities now and how do we use those to behoove our community? How do we bless our community or other communities? But truthfully, I don't know the answer that we're we're working on that as we speak right now. Over the next month, we got some big decisions to make. I love it, and you're in such an advantageous position where you can have the confidence to make that decision, knowing that, you know, today is going to be okay. As you build for, you. Know, we're blessed, you know, and that's one of the things you'll learn. And I always I try to tell my kids, you know, I got an eight and 11 year old. I said, look, I can't spend everything I have on on one trip or one shirt or one pair of shoes. I've got to say that moving forward. So we've been able to build up our war chest, build up our reserves, allows us to facilitate these opportunities. And the bigger case is, as you know, we could easily spend I do a lot of medical malpractice and complex litigation. You know, real estate might cost you 400, $500,000, but if you're going to do a medical practice, it might cost you $100,000. And if you don't have the assets and the funds in reserve to handle that, it puts you in a real detrimental position versus an insurance company who has unlimited resources. And so you can't go and just spend it all. Yeah, at one place. And so we've been able to build that up over the last 10 to 12 years. And so now we have the funds that we can do that. And hopefully the economy will allow us to do that. We'll find out that's we. Well from this is incredible. I really appreciate your story. You have an awesome firm. What a great community story. I'd love to end our interview with, how we normally and which is talk to our audience, give them 2 or 3 pieces of advice that they should be thinking about as they're starting their own firm, going out on their own, thinking about joining another firm. What, what would you want to leave them with? Yeah. You know, if I'm looking for and I'm looking at a younger attorney, right. Law students, one that's going to start as entrepreneur. The key is allow your fear to be your drive or force. Right? You're going to be. I'm still scared. I still have fears that you have heard. I still have decisions to make. And I've been doing this now. And I was forced into this now for 10 to 12 years. So don't allow that fear paralyze you here when you make no decision. That's the worst decision you can make. Make a decision and choose a path and it might be the wrong one. And then veer when you learn that decision or fail and try again. But if you don't make a decision and you don't keep attacking, then you fail. And what I've always told my team is don't focus on the problems. Focus on the solutions. Always find a way to move forward. If you focus on the problems, that's all you'll ever see our problems and it creates a negative attitude and it creates a cancer within a culture. Always focus on a solution, always drive forward and always attack and never be afraid to move forward. Ever. And that's so good. The buffalo, the buffalo. Now, thanks again for your time today. I really appreciate it. I hope you have an incredible rest of your day. And thank you everyone for listening to, another episode of Revenue. And thank you all for your time. I hope you're enjoying our interview series here on Revenue Roadmap. We have lots of great interviews to share with you. A family law firm, owners who are building their practice through lots of different means and mechanisms. There's no one way to do this. There are many ways, and we're hoping to showcase that for you here. Make sure to check out our next episode right here.