7 Steps to Building a Resilient & Client-Centric Law Firm

Building a law firm that can weather any storm and stay focused on its clients is no small feat. In this episode of the Revenue Roadmap podcast, Gerard Virga of The Virga Law Firm, which has offices across Florida, shares his incredible journey. He explains how he built an intentional, client-centric culture from the ground up, starting with only $500 to his name and an office above a bail bondsman.

Gerard discusses the importance of having a strong "why" and how it's the key to recruiting and retaining top talent, especially in a demanding field like family law. He also shares how his firm overcame major setbacks like Hurricane Michael and the COVID-19 pandemic by staying resilient and adapting quickly to new challenges. This episode is packed with valuable insights for any law firm owner looking to build a successful and lasting practice.

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📄 CHAPTERS

00:00 - Cracking the Code of a Client-Centric Culture 

02:16 - The Origin Story of a Florida Law Firm 

08:52 - Cultivating an Intentional Culture 

10:51 - Why You MUST Filter Your Hires 

17:30 - Leading by Example for Your Team 

20:38 - The #1 Rule for Law Firm Client Communication 

26:10 - Why You Should Rethink Everything in Your Firm 

28:57 - Avoiding the Scars of Bad Ideas

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Chapters

• 0:00 Cracking the Code of a Client-Centric Culture
• 2:16 The Origin Story of a Florida Law Firm
• 8:52 Cultivating an Intentional Culture
• 10:51 Why You MUST Filter Your Hires
• 17:30 Leading by Example for Your Team
• 20:38 The #1 Rule for Law Firm Client Communication
• 26:10 Why You Should Rethink Everything in Your Firm
• 28:57 Avoiding the Scars of Bad Ideas

Transcript

0:00

Do you have a culture at your law firm? Is it intentional? You have to hear Attorney Vargas ideology around asking for his attorneys. Why and how he's turned that in to an incredible culture at his law firm. Welcome to the Revenue Roadmap podcast. The show that is all about helping family law firms grow revenue, implement team alignment, and ultimately increase profitability. My name is Tired Off. I am the CEO of our agency, Rocket Clicks. We also own and operate a 32 attorney law firm called Serling Lawyers. And today we have an incredible guest on the show. Today, attorney Gerard Virga of the Virga Law Firm, who has offices all across Florida, tells an incredible story about how he bet he built an intentional culture based on his attorneys, why and the success stories along the way. Make sure to check it out. just really appreciate your time. Happy to have you here. Would love to have you introduce yourself and, your firm, and then, we can jump in. I'm Gerard Virga. I'm the owner of the virga law firm. We have offices in Panama City, Panama City Beach, Fort Walton, Pensacola, and an office in Orlando. We also have some remote attorneys servicing, South and Central Florida as well. So we're a family law law firm that covers pretty much the entire state of Florida. That is incredible. Did, Jared, when you were starting out, was that always the goal? I'm going to take over the whole state of Florida. Or give us a little origin story on how you were able to to create your great firm. Well, the goal every day is to survive, right? That's that's the hope of any lawyer. How we started out was, in the very beginning, I was working for a lawyer. I was not enthused about how he handled his practice. He's entitled to handle his the way he wanted to, but I wanted to offer a more customer service oriented, client oriented services. I can remember that I got in trouble at that firm for my cell phone bill because I was talking to clients, and it wasn't personal. You know, because I wanted to be the guy who was available. I know family law is very personal. You know, you have to have a lot of empathy. And if you need to call me and it's after hours or there's an incident, I pick up and drop off with the kids on the weekend. You know, I've never really been one to put up walls. Your problems or my problems is my philosophy. And your client, you know, your client comes first. So I went all my separate ways. You know, and and honestly, I started out with about$500 to my name, and I had to borrow a little money to even get some office furniture. And I had a really classy office on top of a bail bondsman. And then the attic and, you know, I kind of grew that practice, and, I went through a divorce. I was married to a lawyer, went through a divorce, and we went our separate way. So I kind of start over again in 2015. And when I started over in 2015 with the Virgo law firm, at first it was snow here and just Panama City, and I started to get calls from Fort Walton, Pensacola, out that way as well, which was kind of shocking to me because those are kind of bigger cities compared to Panama City at the time. And I just was the natural progression to start opening up offices. Where it would be more convenient for those individuals, to come meet and ultimately, you know, fully staffed them out with attorneys. And got to have gone from there. And then, you know, we kind of took the natural progression. We kind of covered all of it in that we thought we were going to cover. And I started thinking about I-75 and, we have an office space in Orlando. We have a remote attorney who works in Vero Beach. We have another one down in the West Palm area. Now. You know, since pandemic, it's not so much geared toward office space and those areas, but just being able to provide services because I think we all had to adjust our businesses to zoom and remote activities. And so far we've been able to do that and handle that just as well, with some remote attorneys covering those areas. That was a good way to offer the services, expand the footprint at the same time. Of course, like any business owner keeping the cost at a minimal while, you're trying to explore new markets, and that's worked out well for us. It's incredible. Congratulations on your success. Being able to start over really a couple different times and. And adapt with the current situation. To be able to expand your business. Well, are you challenging? Start over. I which I left out was in, 2018. We got hit by Hurricane Michael and, you know, we thought it was going to be bad, but it ended up being a category five hurricane. I think it was the third or fourth strongest at that time to ever hit the United States. So our office in town in Panama City was just totally annihilated. The roof was barely hanging on. The walls had separated from the structure. And, you know, it was about a day or two after the storm, and I knew that what had happened to the building had already had a little recon. Of what? How bad off it was. And my wife asked me, like, where are you going? You're getting in the car. I said, I have to go get a small office space. And she's like, what are you talking about? You're leaving me here with the kids at your sister's house? And. And I said, I'll be back. And, you know, I had to go rent a new office or find a new office. You know, because I knew that not only our clients were working, you know, or were eating us like they were going to need us more now than ever. After that chaos. And then our staff, who need their jobs more than ever. And so that was another rebuild that life threw us. But, you know, I kind of thought it was one of our, our darker moments. But to be honest with you, it turned out being one of our brighter moments because the whole team came together and because we maneuvered very quickly, we were able to offer services back to our clients within 3 or 4 days. And, by doing that, believe it or not, this is a kind of a podcast about revenue and growth. I was shocked by the number of attorneys who just sat down in the area, refused to move their offices. And, you know, 2 or 3 months later, they were still waiting on just getting internet, you know? So that was honestly, it was one of our better months in history. And, you know, I thought we might have been going bankrupt, but we actually did very well because we were willing to be maneuverable and be resilient and rebuild as quickly as possible. And the, The attorney crowd has a. The perception is, you know, they're slow to adapt, right? They were like some of the last advertisers in Yellow Pages. And so I think that your ability to move fast was absolutely key to that success. Yeah. It's, I kind of think of, you know, you always want to be ethical and stay within the ethical boundaries. But as somebody in business, you know, always, trying to stay ahead of the curve and then seeing what the needs of people are because they're always changing. You know, I remember we were one of the first family law firms in our area that adopted a case management system, and now almost all of them have a case management system. I went to a seminar the other day, and they were talking about giving your clients a two week update every two weeks to get an update, and that was good information, but it was something we had been, you know, doing or striving to do for about 3 or 4 years, but always trying to stay ahead. You know, as a job in and of itself. And I think even some of the attorneys that work here with me think, oh, he's he's not working on this, he's not working on a case, but I'm working on what we have to do next to stay ahead or to offer the better services. That is, That's a huge point, and I can relate. Our firm, the the we have Sterling Lawyers. Our founder, Jeff Hughes, has in practice law in a number of years. He's our he's our CEO, right? He's leading the vision and building the culture of the company. As we've grown our attorney count, there's got to be that that leadership presence that's looking out ahead. That's trying to develop. You know, what's next? Can you tell us a little bit about your experience and going from a single attorney, you know, above a bail bondsman to having multiple attorneys in multiple offices? How is your culture and your own leadership changed? During those those evolutions? You know, at first, I don't think there was a culture. And I don't think I understood what culture really was because you assume everybody has your work ethic or everyone has your vision. And it's not something in law school or, you know, or wherever really taught. But, you know, the more I, you know, have developed this and the more I've looked at it as an institution, you know, like, where are we going? How do I motivate people to stay aligned with that vision? You know, sometimes I think, you know, my job is herding cats to try to get them all in the same page. And what motivates one person? It's not, you know, I can motivate one person with an extra day off. The other person wants to see an extra zero in a paycheck. Everybody has different things that motivate them. So you have to learn the team. And then I think, you know, with us, we kind of had such rapid growth that we brought in more people and more people, and we were bringing in the people. I think the biggest thing I've learned is you're the filter, you have to be the filter because just because you're growing and you get the leads and you get in the cases and your geographic footprint or your revenue stream is growing, letting the wrong people in will undo years worth of work toward the positive culture. Because I think it's Nick Saban, you know, said it a players don't like mediocre people. Mediocre people don't like players. It will inevitably result in a players leaving the organization because they feel like they're having to carry the weight of a mediocre player or somebody is not living up to the culture standards. And so that's something that I've really had to work on. And we've kind of developed a hiring funnel and to try to create a funnel of, does this person really, you know, sincerely fit our values. And then with family law in particular, you know, anybody who's done it, it's highly emotional. It's not maybe as glamorous as personal injury or some of these other types of law. But, you know, it's taxing is very stressful. You have to be able to put your problems aside, deal with someone else's problems, and you're dealing with people who have emotions and are running high financial issues that are very serious to them, issues about their kids and, you know, their relationship with their kids is really life altering. So what I have really come up with is the key thing is, I don't know where you graduated from law school. I don't know what you did last year with for a job. I don't really know what your GPA's. If you can't give me a why within 30s why you want to do family law, that blows me away. Then we're not the right place for you. But if you have that. Why I really want to help somebody. I'm really here, you know? And I like hiring people who have gone through the experience, whether it was when they were kids, they came from a home like that, and they want to make a, make the world a better place for people who are facing these challenges. Or maybe they went through their own divorce case, but give me that. Why? Because, you know, paychecks are good, days offer good, other incentives are good. The company party is good. But if you do not have the why, the rest is not going to follow for you. You're going to quit because it is taxing. You have to have that North Star. Yes. Oh, at all times. And that's what you have to wake up in the morning and and look at that. I was speaking with a gentleman the other day was a Navy Seal and he gave us a great story. He did seals. He now trains people, or coaches people who want to go through butts in the Seals program. And it was very similar. I think he he kind of reached the same conclusion I did. He said they'll inevitably start with how much they can bench press, how fast they can run. They say, shut them down. He said, I want to know why you want to be a seal, a sniff, that why does not blow me away and impress me. And they can't come up with it like 30s he said, I will not offer them my services because I have a high success rate and I know that, you know, he said you could be the fastest runner, the biggest weight trainer, whatever he said, you know, he said, water is the great equalizer. They lay you down and water to the point where you're about to hit high. Hypothermia get you up, warm you up, puts you right back in the water, he said. None of that matters. The only thing that's going to matter in your head is that why? And that's why. You know, that's what I try to remember. And when I, you know, try to do in my processes the why, you know, when you're in trial and you're backs to the wall, you're going to need that. Why when you got to do one more consult or one more phone call or return a client's message, you know, is that why that's going to drive it more than any paycheck or anything else? So and I can't give you that and the culture can't give you that. You have to come to the team and the culture with that already in you. Do you feel like the wise and need to be somewhat aligned? Or does it not matter? As long as that there is an overarching why for each individual person on your team, and they can gravitate towards the vision, then, you got some special. I think the why has to deal with the topic of family law, obviously, and usually some have a personal experience or a personal goal. I got to tell you my whys because I want to help people. Well, you can help people doing personal entry. You can help people doing wills. If the why is you know, for instance, I heard a why the other day that was I was, a child when my parents went through a divorce. The divorce lasted for five years. I think these people were in litigation. I want to make sure that no child goes through that by either wrapping the case up or guiding these people toward, an amicable resolution. I think it was a strong why I interviewed somebody a few days ago, and you could tell that their why was, I'm looking for something outside of medical malpractice and, and, you know, I have a wife, and we got a house, and, you know, his wife was a paycheck. And, you know, you can get a paycheck from anybody. You know, you could switch practices from medical mail to family law to personal injury. You know, you lawyers or anything. You get another paycheck. But, you know, and it when it's, you know, late at night or a weekend and the office manager says, hey, we have an emergency phone call. You know, someone needed someone to get their kids back. You know, I don't know if, though, the paycheck y is going to be enough, you know, like, for me, my wife will give me. My wife will give me grief sometimes. Christmas Eve, a lot of times I'm on the phone and, you know, you're normally every Christmas or Christmas Eve, I'll have a parent who that their kids didn't come know a spouse cap, or an exchange didn't occur like it was supposed to. And, you know, you you gotta have that y, you know, like, if not, like, you're going to. I don't want to talk to him as Christmas Eve, but, you know, you have to know their pain and you have to want to do something about it. And that's what fulfills you and that's what drives you. Another, funny story is, I don't know if anybody's ever seen the commercial. The Jake, it's State Farm commercial. The wife wakes up and the guy's on the phone, and she thinks he's cheating, and he's talking to the insurance company. So it was like the night. It's a night? Yeah, it's a night. Night after Thanksgiving. And, she's already gone to bed, and I'm then up working and, you know, an emergency call came through, and I took it. And so she's walks out, you know, in her robe and kind of wiping the sleep from her eyes and kind of just gives me the death glare. And who are you on the phone with, like, mouth in and out. And then she's now here's. Have you been a resident of the state of Florida for over six months, and how long have the kids been a state of Florida? And is there any prior court orders? And, you know, she's she's like, whatever, I'm going to bed. You know, so it's so funny. She's heard it so many times now that she can go over the questions in her sleep. But, you know, if you don't have the why, you're not going to do this thing. So the why has to be the starting point of everything. It's really cool to hear you still have a ton of passion as it relates to your why. Your ability to still take those phone calls. You know, we see firms all the time where if the founder or co-founders had that at one point, but, you know, maybe they've been beaten down or it's been too long and they push that onto their team. Well, I think from a culture standpoint, some of that gets lost if you're not willing to to continue to drive towards your why as a leader, you know, how do you expect your team to follow you? That's true. I think that I tell people here that there's not anything. And I'm going to ask you to do that I wouldn't do or haven't already done, or probably still not doing. You know, and I think people sometimes, you know, they, they think because you own the law firm, that, you know, you may have lost some of that. And I do joke around with the younger attorneys who, you know, been doing this for a few years. And I tell them, like, you need to get this, you know, you need to get, you know, in here and get, you know, two trials this week or whatever is coming up. I've had my I've had my two, three trials in a week. I've had my experience with that situation. But, at the end of the day, you know, if you're not leading them by example and you're not in the office and you're not doing that, you know, it's it's not going to work out because you can preach values all day. But if you don't try to live up to the values, then you're a hypocrite, right? Like we were looking at billable hours today at our team huddle. And the first person I picked on was myself because my we're not so good this week. So I mean an example out of myself that I went down the rest of the list and we talked about, you know, what our goals were and what we need to do to get there. But, you know, you can't be above your rules and you can't be above your or below your standard. Or if not, you're just a hypocrite. The whole team falls apart. So, like today, we had to do some case management. Everybody needs to get caught up. I'm doing all the consults for all the offices for mine, all day to day to make sure that they have the time. Because, you know, if I sit back and tell them you have to do this, and I'm not willing to put into a sacrifice to make these things happen, then the whole team is going to fall apart. There's no culture. It's just, empty motto, right? 100%. Yeah. You, You got me deep in, in the fields as I'm thinking about ROI and and listening to, I really appreciate the motivation as, you know, our listeners are thinking about developing their own culture and their own. Why any any best, best practices or tips or tricks you learned along the way as it relates to helping a law firm owner integrate more of that? Why based culture do you have? Yeah. I mean, I had a lawyer a few years back. We were in a meeting and he said. And I explained to him in my lawyer brain kicks in. I was like, shut that off. People don't like lawyers. I think we're, like, the most despised profession. Like next to used car salesman. Be a person, be a human being. Go through the entire process of your firm, not with what's easy for you, not what makes the paralegal the happiest aren't what you know. Obviously, you you know, you want to have professional ethical standards when you do it, but what's going to be the best for the client? Are we going to have a portal where the clients can message and you can get real time responses? Is it hard to keep up with real time messaging and real time responses? Yes, but we live in a world where people, you know, especially younger people, they're used to real time messages and real time responses. It's not the good old days where you would get a letter and you would respond to your client by mailing them a letter, and it would take six days, you know, I mean, before, you know, they want real time response, you know, going through that and then adapting and asking if this process not only strengthens the, you know, every, every lawyer should have the goal of wanting to win their case for their client and be the best advocate possible. But, you know, does this process align with our why and how does it affect the client, not just simply, you know, the dollars and cents or the, you know, but how does it affect them on a personal level? Does this take away anxiety? Because I can get a real time answer? Does this make it where they don't have to miss work because they need to have a quick meeting with you? Can you do it by zoom, or can you implement other techniques? And, one of the things that we really are working on and trying to develop here is something that, you know, it's taken me a long time to get there, to even think about this as an option, but I feel I can frame a lot of our calls or anxiety driven calls. It's the unknown. I just want me to tell them it's going to be okay or what's the next step so that they have something to talk about or digest. So we're kind of going on a new process of, you know, part of our job as educators. And I never thought about that. How can we educate the clients? What mediums can we use? How can we educate them earlier? How can we turn them into better clients that are more prepared for these events, whether it be court mediation or what have you? And how to do that and educate them proactively. At least the clients are more discerning and we'll take that lead. And, you know, do it from the beginning with them, whether it be, you know, through video, through, audio, through more literature throughout the process and making them more of an active participant rather than, you know, if you think about it, like your first day at law school, they were speaking a foreign language. And, you know, we think about the client, they're coming in here, you know, they're they're hearing the foreign language. So if I can take you day one, we can start to teach you that language, teach you the dance moves, teach you the steps, do those things, then, you know, hopefully it leads to a better experience. You have less questions, less anxiety. And you're in a focused position where we're our values between client attorney are more aligned because we're on the same page and they have a better experience. Yeah. That's, you know, have lots of clients. Sometimes they think that you're not on their team because you're telling them something that the law requires and they don't like it. But I think, you know, maybe through education in early education, you know, you can kind of get things aligned and keep clients from you making mistakes when they don't call you and ask for advice and they just do something that maybe they have developed a little bit of logic. I know my lawyer is not going to like that. This is not going to work well, and trying to do that early on and make them part of our culture and part of our team, you know, and, and hope that we can align them to our goals and our goals, you know, and their goals obviously need to align to ours. So I think that and I think another thing you know too, that I've been looking at, all growth, you know, there's a there's a thing that, you know, in people's mind that all growth is good. And, you know, and we are in business just to grow. And of course, you need to grow and it needs to be financially viable. But I also think that, you know, aligning the clients in the beginning with the values of the firm, you know, we have a funnel for hiring people, you know, but when we take on new clients, do we always have a funnel? Is this person going to ever be satisfied with what I can do for them? Is this the type of client who's going to listen and study and prepare and work with me, or are they going to be a person that fights me every inch of the way? And so I think, you know, with maturity and age, you know, I'm doing this for 20 years now. I've reached the point where, you know, that needs to be, you know, something that we're going to be working on to you and developing is really in the beginning. It's great that you have a case. It's great that you can pay me. What damage are you going to do to our culture as a client by not listening or our reputation, you know, and as a somebody that we can we can truly work with or just maybe, maybe they would be a better fit for a different firm. So that's, you know, those are all things we've been working on developing and last year or so has been really a self-reflective year on, you know, what new things we need to be doing and trying to get back on that, because I think that sometimes when you kind of like you've reached the top of your game complacency, let's say complacency kills and you get complacent and they know you need to be able to break away every couple of years and just say, I'm going to rethink the whole darn thing from top to bottom and nothing sacred. Nothing's untouchable. Let's, you know, let's question it all and do it again. Some people think you're crazy and you're always you're always changing things to art. And I'm like, well, if you don't change them, you don't experiment them with you don't try new things. You will be out of business. That will be the only thing I think I can guarantee in this is stay stagnant. If I was still advertising in the yellow Pages, I'm pretty sure I would be out of business. You know, you have to change and you have to adapt and you have to look forward to it and enjoy it. You know, if you don't enjoy the change and tinkering and, you know, like it's I know opening your own practice is probably not for you. If you like the change and you like that, you know better. And hey, we got it to this level. How much better can I get it? You know, than you know, it's probably, you know, good indicator, I think, of success. I love it. It's so true. You have to change and continue to evolve and. And iterate based on the success. Because if you're not, you know, the whole additive. You got to live your life thinking there's somebody working 1000 hours a week just to. Just to get by and just to be you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. can focus. There's always somebody out there who will try to outwork you. And then honestly, the older you get. And I think this a lot. There's a young kid out there who's, you know, got his office right above a bell bondsman who just got his first break, and he's going to try it on his own, and he's going to work his butt off, and he's not going to be afraid of new things because he doesn't know any better. The new things are just, you know, part of his generation. So like, you have to be there and you have to also always have to be scouting the talent out for those people. Because if you you'd want to bring those people into your organization, if you can, you know, and there's not many of them who have that drive, but if they have that drive and they're a team player, you know, offer them a future if you can. And I'll said try. This has been eye opening. It's been motivational. I find myself being very introspective after your comments and the success that you've built. I really appreciate the learnings that you've shared, with myself and with our audience. And we'd love to have you back on to do a deep dive. I think there's a number of topics that we could kind of spend hours on. Based on, on your success and, and experience there. I would love it. I would love it. Any time you guys want to talk about any topics related to family law or running a law firm, I'd be happy to. I have the, you know, if I could prevent some of the people out there to have having some of the scars I yield from bad ideas, I'd be happy to share those too, because when you, you know, when you tinker, you're going to have bad ideas and you're gonna have good ideas, you know? And every time that you fail as a one, one step closer to success. But I've shared, you know, my, my I would be happy to share, you know, my, battle scars and failures because, you know, if you can avoid them, avoid them. 100%. Yeah. We, you know, our team of entrepreneurs here. We've we've started nine different businesses, and thankfully, three of them have been, pretty successful. But there's a lot of scars and a lot of, you know, lessons learned. And I think that's why we have this opportunity in this show to to share our lessons learned. So again, really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. And we'll look forward to having you back on soon. All right. I appreciate you. Love it. Thank you everyone for listening. We will see you next time on the revenue roadmap. Thanks so much for listening to this podcast. We hope you enjoyed Attorney Virga Story. What an awesome law firm he has built in the intentional culture really, really got me in my fields today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to continue to check out our series where we interview successful law firm owners. The next episode is actually available right here. Go and have yourself a wonderful day and continue to grow your law firm.