S04E160 Empathy, Culture, & Strength for a Successful Firm with Megan C. Kiefer

“All-gas no-brakes” sounds like a slogan until you hear what it looks like in real cases. We’re joined by Megan Kiefer, a Louisiana trial attorney known for relentless advocacy, a client-first philosophy, and a courtroom reputation that helps her team recover serious value for people who are having the worst day of their lives.

Megan shares the leadership story behind her firm’s growth, from taking an out-of-state job to escape nepotism, to traveling the world on a shoestring budget, to coming home and transforming a family practice into a thriving plaintiff-side personal injury and high-stakes litigation shop. Along the way, we dig into what actually drives results: preparing for trial at the beginning, pressing discovery, telling a client’s story with clarity, and earning the kind of credibility that insurance companies cannot ignore.

We also get specific about law firm culture, retention, and sustainable leadership. Megan explains why she hires for values, pays over market to keep A-players, and protects the client experience at every step. She’s candid about boundaries and lawyer mental health too, including taking real vacations, deleting email apps, and normalizing “I’m not available” so you can show up at your best in court and at home.

On the marketing side, we talk law firm branding, Google Local Services Ads, SEO feedback loops, and why “database reactivation” and an authentic newsletter can outperform louder tactics.

Reach Megan here:
https://www.kieferlaw.com/
Instagram: @kieferkieferlaw; @mylawyermegan
https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganckiefer/

Ready to level up your law firm marketing? Book a FREE Discovery Call with Marilyn Here: https://lawmarketingzone.com/bookacall

Leadership In Law Podcast with host, Marilyn Jenkins 
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Transcript

Intro And Megan’s Track Record

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Whether you're a statement leader or just starting your journey as a law firm owner. The Leadership in Law Podcast is here to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Megan Kiefer, to the show today. Megan is a trial attorney based in Louisiana who's built a reputation for delivering results and showing up relentlessly for her clients. She's tried numerous jury and bench trials as first chair, secured multiple multimillion dollar verdicts, and recovered more than $100 million on behalf of

Choosing Law On Her Terms

SPEAKER_02 1:25

her clients. Megan has handled thousands of personal injury cases as well as complex class actions and is known for her all-gas no-breaks approach in the courtroom while maintaining a deeply client-first philosophy. Her clients often describe her as a pit bull in a pantsuit, a title she's proudly embraced. In addition to her litigation work, she spent years teaching trial advocacy, negotiation, and mediation at Tulane Law School. Today we're talking about how she's built her practice, her approach to client relationships, and how her marketing strategy is rooted in trust, reputation, and strong brand identity. I'm excited to have you here, Megan. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

All right. Tell us about your leadership journey.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

My leadership journey. I guess my journey into law was a bit atypical, maybe begrudgingly done. It started off like maybe many lawyers start off, where we I majored in something that had no real life utility. It was a philosophy degree. And then wound up getting recruited to go to Tulane Law School right after Hurricane Katrina when there was a big push to recruit local like New Orleans to come back home. So I took a good deal to go to law school. They gave me almost a full scholarship. I'm forever grateful and indebted to them to that. But I was adamant that I was gonna go right into the legal practice. I wanted to travel the world. I was young. I don't think I really thought, oh, I'm gonna be a lawyer, even though I grew up around lawyers. Maybe that's why I didn't want to be a lawyer right at out the gate. But so I graduated, I wound up doing well in school. And so I started interviewing for jobs around New Orleans. And I my my grandfather, my father, my uncle, they're all lawyers, and New Orleans is a very incestuous city. Everybody knows everybody if you're in a community. And I just when I was interviewing, everyone was like, Oh, I know you're dead, I know you're gonna- I was like, Well, let's talk about me. Like, what I don't want to get a job because of nepotism, so I said, screw this. And I wound up taking a job in San Francisco because no one knew anybody that I knew out there and took a job at a very big firm. Long story short, the economy crashed and they offered me something I couldn't refuse, which is hey, they approached me, like, look, we've hired all these people. Would you possibly defer your employment? I'd accepted a job there and we'll pay you not to work. And I was like, Hell, you'll take that job. I don't even want to go to work right now. My parents, I told them and they told me I was terrible. I'm an idiot. I'm never gonna make, I'm not serious about anything in life. And I was like, whatever, I'll figure out life later. So I put a backpack on and I traveled the world, moved all my stuff into storage, and I lived off of $30 a day. And in a weird way, I don't know if you could say you f I I found myself. I certainly found myself, but I I think what I found was like how to look at people and their struggles and their differences and really re reflect on what binds us as human beings. And when you travel through yeah, the slums of India, I volunteered in Vietnam and just people with immense challenges and immense poverty. I think by the time I came back to start my journey in the legal field, I had changed and my perspective on life, who I wanted to be, the service I wanted to do, changed. And of course, I had to go and do my servitude at the corporate litigation firm in San Francisco, and I learned a lot there, but then wound up moving home to New Orleans after a couple of years because of a death that happened in my family and moved into my family law firm, which at that time they didn't even have an electronic calendar. The challenges persist and ensue. And after representing insurance companies with

Backpack Travel And Perspective Shift

SPEAKER_01 5:05

them doing a lot of defense work for a few years, I just didn't find that to be validating to who I wanted to be anymore. And had a rather uncomfortable meeting with my dad and my uncle and said, Look, I want to be a part of our family firm, I want to do this, but I want to leave if this is what the vision of the firm is going to continue to be because I want to represent people. I want to help people. And they said, Okay, let's do it.

unknown 5:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

It transformed our practice, and now I run a firm that's I don't know, 10x the size, to maybe 20x the size of where it started. And that's been challenging. So I don't know. That's a an atypical journey, but it's mine, here I am, and I love it. I love every single I say not every single day. I love 99% of my days as a lawyer, and the 1% you just hate. That's what the tagline of being a lawyer, I think, is.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

I love that. I love that it is interesting how the perspective changes when you travel the world.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Yeah. I think it should be a requirement. And travel the world poor, like not none of this luxe, Instagram travel. Right. Um get into the see how the sausage of the world is made. And I think that's the perspectives that a lot of people in the US are missing. We're just we're so spoiled here. We're born into such an advantage. And really, I think we need to recalibrate how we think in in this country about that.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

I agree. So looking at the fact that you've handled over $100 million for your clients, what do you believe is the biggest driver behind that level of success?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

I think that sometimes lawyers get caught up in this idea that this is their case or the clients are the means to an end of making money or something like that. I don't think I've ever lost sight of the fact that every single client that's hired me, they've trusted me with something that is so important to them. And I let them drive the ship of their case, right? The health care that they need. And then I get behind them a hundred percent. And I don't have any quit in me. So if I'm litigating your case, like I'm gonna stay up that extra four hours to go down every single rabbit hole. Whereas other lawyers, especially look, you're on contingency fees, we work off of not uh on an hourly basis. I know a lot of lawyers close the computer, go home, but it's easy to do. Every single case we go the extra mile to make sure that we're getting 100% value on every single client because that's what they deserve and that's what they expect. And there's no shortcuts here. And we've been talking a lot at our firm about an all-gas no-brakes approach to litigation, and it's not just like a fun little term that we created. It's just look, let's go file the suit, send the discovery, take the depositions, don't accept objections that are probably trying to hide things. Go get it, file motions, press, and then you'll you'll find the hot documents, you'll extract the value from the case, or you're gonna become so goddamn annoying that they're gonna be like, what do you want? What do you want to go away? And the other thing that everybody wants to say, I'm a trial lawyer. That is like this thing. And I don't even know if like people actually know what that means or why there's even value to it, which is why I think it's so funny that all the billboards are like, we're trial lawyers, and I'm a trial lawyer. And there is a lot of value and a beautiful thing about being a trial lawyer, but the reality is like most people are not trial lawyers. People market themselves as trial lawyers, they're not trial lawyers, and they're not fooling anyone because all of the defense attorneys, the insurance companies, they know who tries cases and who doesn't try cases. Like it, and so one of the things I think we get a lot greater value for our clients because we do try cases and we will try cases, not in a chest beating way. I don't use that as a threat, but it's look, if we can't come to a value that everyone can be satiated with to resolve your case, we'll go to trial. No big deal. We'll make it easy on everybody. Doesn't have to be war, but we'll do it. Really, once we started, we moved over to doing plaintiff work and we did a few trials, like our settlement values, not just for me, but for everyone at the firm, is is really substantially increased because I think they're

Coming Home And Rebuilding The Firm

SPEAKER_01 9:20

charting us in the background where it's look if you play around with this firm, they're gonna take your case to trial, and then you might wind up paying 20x what they're willing to accept right now. So that's not our goal for every case, and not tell every client, look, my goal for your case is to get it settled. If you have a client that wants to try their case, something might not be right. Like, yeah, exactly. It's not a pleasurable experience for any person. I enjoy it because it's my profession. That's not our goal, but that it's certainly on the table. So I think that's certainly like something that's really augmented the value of all of our cases and it has helped us to get really great results for our clients.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

I think showing that too, not to you're not afraid to go to court, that you are prepared and will be prepared. And then the insurance companies will see that that's great for your clients.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

100%. And a lot of times it's not preparing for trial at the end of the case. We're preparing for trial at the beginning of the case. Like you need to tell the story, like really what a client has asked you to do in by signing up a case for you in an injury context to litigate it, they're actually just asking you to tell their story and tell their story in a way that somebody will understand that they deserve to be compensated for what they've gone through. And I see a lot of lawyers, and I certainly saw on the defense side just go through the motions, hear the medicals or whatever. Like we meet with our clients to be like, look, what do you want from this case? How has this affected you? And who are the people who can talk to that and speak to that? And we're starting to show the insurance companies like, look, this is the journey, this person, this unique journey too, right? Because something I always say, look, a scar is a funny injury because a scar, some people are like, I love my scar. Other people are like, this is mortifying. It's the worst thing in the world. Until you visit with someone, you don't really know how they're affected by something that happened to them. And you're just not going to get that at these big sort of factory firms. It's not, they're not baked in like that. So how do you tell someone's story if you don't learn the person? I don't think you can. So we're doing that from the beginning of the case. And I think I know you want to get into marketing, but that's sort of dovetails because at the end of a case, once you've learned the story of someone, you've become close to them and become friends with them, you've learned who their family is. I'm going to their houses, eating dinner, bring your brothers, your sisters, I want to learn about you. All of a sudden, like you're you've become friends with somebody, you know? And at the end of their case, if you especially with a positive result, they're not gonna call somebody on the television that they see. You're their lawyer for life. And they become your best advertisers, if you will. It's not structured like that, but that's the byproduct of doing right by people.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Is that 745 reviews you have are the same? Yeah. It shows you guys care.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

We do. And if and that's I won't hire somebody that to work for me, whether you're a paralegal, uh, uh an attorney or a clerk that doesn't care about what we're doing. Like you need to get in. You need to get in on our worldview, our company culture, our core values, or you're not gonna have a role here. If someone's in our office bitching about a client or something, it's like time out. That's not how we are operating here. And if we get into a place where with a client, that relationship is so tenuous, we'll fire the client. You know, if that's where we're at, because we go to bed every night thinking, hey, we're adding so much value to the world and we're serving this purpose, and everyone that's working at our firm is doing that. And if we're not doing that, we need to back up and say, what's breaking down here? And do we really need to continue on with this relationship? Who's winning from this?

SPEAKER_02 12:53

I love that you baked that into your company culture

Client First Results And Trial Leverage

SPEAKER_02 12:55

because that's important that everybody's on the same page. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Because look, I this started with hey, I want to do plaintiff work, and I did every intake, I wrote every blog, I handled every case, I from nose to tail, I did every single thing. I was the paralegal, the lawyer, the receptionist, whatever for the plaintiff practice. And now, I guess you could say it's a beautiful thing. A lot of lawyers might say from a business perspective, it's a beautiful thing. Hundreds and hundreds of cases are resolving now without any work from me.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

And it's nice. Obviously, you could, I guess, say it's passive income. I'd just dispute that based on the amount of hours I've put in over the years. But what it actually means is I have to have such immense trust in every single person that's handling cases at my firm, whether it's a paralegal or a lawyer, because they need to execute the promises that I've made to to former clients, prospective clients. Like people are hiring me, and I'm saying, okay, look, I'm not gonna handle this case, but this person is, and they need to be executing like our core values over and over again. And that's an immense trust that I put in my staff, and they know that because I never shut up about it. Like, you know, so it's it's a great thing. And look, honestly, like I'm very excited to come to work. We don't do a lot of remote stuff, we have a company culture that's collaborative and in person, and you can feel it. There's been times at our law firm where that wasn't the feeling of like warm and fuzzies and collegiality. Like right now, we got a great thing going on. We've hired some great A players, and everyone I think is just really happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

I love that. Yeah, yeah, that shows a good company culture and that you're setting the stage. You've got good A players that are sticking around, retention is a great thing, and it's cost savings to the company.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

100%. And I I think one of the things we do is we pay over market. A lot of law firms are running this, let's maximize the profit at the top. I get it. Yeah, I think you if you want good talent, if you want to keep great talent, you gotta pay great money. Like people are not stupid, they see money coming in.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

They see the big numbers coming in, and if you give them a tiny piece of that big number, eventually that's gonna get under their skin.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Yeah, and you could learn that well, you don't have to work at a lar law firm to know that. You could work a subway, you know, like and there's there's some ignorance of anybody about what actually it takes to finance like an operation, and that's fine. I think if if you put yourself, and I remember being at my other firm and I was getting calls every day, all day. Hey, recruiters, I'm not stupid. I know that people in our firm are getting those same calls. I want to develop a culture where their instinct isn't, I want to leave. So that they're happy, they don't want to leave. But then the second thing is how are you gonna bait away somebody that's pretty happy if they're already getting paid more than what you're gonna offer?

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Pay and job satisfaction both. A lot of that plays in. The culture plays into it. You don't want to leave a place you're happy to go to some place you're not quite sure. The grass is not always greener.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yep. But maybe you would for an extra 10%. So I think a lot of people are in business owners in the legal sphere are always struggling with like, why can't I have good retention? And I would say, what are you paying? If you're paying market rates, unless somebody is happy as shit, if they get a call, they might, they might leave for an extra five grand, two grand, and you're gonna be like, oh my God, this is terrible. I just lost my paralegal, which is terrible, right? If you lose a good person at a law firm, it is somewhat catastrophic, right? To try to fill it. And so I would say, look, what is the extra 200k a year worth it to put in your own pocket versus retaining the good people that makes your life easier, your clients happier, your business run better?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

You get time off or whatever you do with your time when you're not at the desk.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah. I run out chase after a three-year-old is basically exclusively what I do outside of this law firm. But look, that maybe did change my kids three now, and that probably did change a lot of my perspective. I'm still a workaholic because I care, but I've allowed I've maybe built out a practice where I could step away a lot more because I'm not gonna miss mornings, I'm not gonna miss nights, I'm not gonna miss vacations because I can't there's no mulligan on a kid. True. So yeah, it's all coming to this place where I'm very happy with the people who allow me. How fortunate am I to be able to step away from a business and go on vacation with my family and not get a phone call?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yeah. Um, that's well, they always say that's the thing of a business owner, take a two-week vacation and you'll know what's broken. You can take that vacation and it's not broken, good girl.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

That's been amazing.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I find that like my best piece of advice is you have to go somewhere where it's a different time zone because, like, even for me, they got the tick where you're like, let me check my email really quickly, and then I can go from zero to a hundred anger stress on a wrong email. I do try to take vacations where I go really dark. So if anyone out there is struggling with that, I know. I one thing I do is I delete my office email off my phone as an app. And I and that was like, oh yeah, that was like one of the best things I ever did when I go on vacation. That's it. Otherwise, you can reach me almost 24-7. But deleting you we don't realize how much of a tick we have to like wake up and go check our email, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:29

I don't need to start my morning off with someone else trying to reach me.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

That's some like yoga stuff, though. Like people that have accomplished that, I'm like, oh my God, tell me about your meditation. Like, like it's like really incredible. I am too type A to have actually crossed over until the ultimate type A, which is a control of oneself. But when I go on vacation, if I delete that off my phone, I find that I don't even go. I might go for the first few days and be like, oh, it's not there. Okay, it's not there. I'm not checking in on this.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

I haven't thought about deleting the actual app when I go on vacation. That's because I always I have someone else managing it anyway. So you still have the the tick to go look at it, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

It's a tick. And look, everybody, they have my cell phone number. If something blows up, they're gonna get me. And it's look, we need to normalize telling people I'm not available.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I'm not available. And sometimes, look, you got clients that like will not accept that. And I have had to learn to say the if they can't accept me not being available while I'm on vacation with my family, then maybe we are not gonna be having a good relationship. Yeah. Now there's an emergency, I'll get on the phone. But they're not gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

It's like just a generic call on a Saturday or a Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Um, because look, and it's not selfish so much. I could spin that in a second to say, if you want me to be the lawyer that I need to be to get you full value, I need to take care of myself too. And maybe that was something that I

Hiring For Values And Protecting Culture

SPEAKER_01 19:55

started eating in my 40s, where it was like, I'm burning it at too many ends here, and I'm slipping, not in a way that I think anyone would notice, but I don't feel like I'm at my A plus game, and I don't feel comfortable in an A minus or an A for me, just myself. And so I've really tried to what do I need to fill my cup back up and focus on a lot of wellness too and mental health and lawyers don't do that. And no, you're not gonna be a good advocate for another person. I'm not gonna be a good parent or spouse or runner of a business. I'm not gonna be very effective at all those things unless I'm taking a break.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

It's good that you noticed that early, though, that you saw that something wasn't because some people just get completely burnt out before they notice. Oh my god, I'm burnt out.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Another hot tip for anyone listening is a therapy. Well, yeah, there's 10 years of therapy and I'm starting to spit really good mental health games. But therapy's thing everyone should be in. Our government should just have stations everywhere where people go get free therapy, and I think everyone would be better. But but yeah, look, this no this that's not a secret. Lawyers suck at taking care of themselves. We have disproportionate mental health issues, substance abuse issues, suicide. And it's easy to see why. We're like one of the very few professions. We're like literally professional boxers, but without the gloves. It's like the only prof and without the exercise, the only profession where it's like inherently adversarial, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:27

People come to you on their worst day.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Worst day.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah, when something terrible has happened, they come to you. So that's you don't get to see people at their best when they first show up at your office.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

I never do. I and uh sometimes I joke in the right spaces. It's just sometimes I'm just going through it. I'm like, girl, no one comes and talk to me about when how they're gonna No one comes and I'm just calling you because I've had the best day. No, everybody's calling. And I think people are like don't understand if you do what I do, like catastrophic injury litigation cases. There's days where I have five different Really emotionally taxing meetings where somebody's crying to me about the wrongful death of their loved one and I feel it. Right. I'm not, I don't know how a therapist actually do it, to be honest. I don't know how they go all day with other people's stuff because I wear that on my sleeve too. It it I feel it.

unknown 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

And I'm not gonna be like, all right, good meeting. I'm gonna go get a hamburger or something. Like I need a recovery time. Yeah, but that's part of advocacy is understanding how deep those cuts are and letting people have those moments where they can emote and express themselves. I think a lot of people don't understand that when someone calls you for a case, again, I've spent years doing all of our intake. Probably my law firm probably hates me a little bit because like no matter what job anyone has, I've done every job. I've worked here when I was a big one.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Well I think it's the best test of a boss. You could say I've done it all. Okay. So I'm not asking you to do something I wouldn't do or haven't done.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Like our clerk, our firm's clerk, I'm like, yeah, I did that job in 1998 all summer. Yeah, I know I know where everything is. I know how this printer, I know where to hit it. But look, I when somebody calls, a lot of times with the case, they go into a story for like 10 minutes. Like you say hello, and they're like, oh my god, and then 10 minutes later, maybe there's somebody that wants to like interrupt them. Look, I just want to know these things. But what I encourage my intake people to do now is it's okay to say, Wow, this sucks. Yeah, this friggin' sucks that you're in this situation because I think that's actually what people want to hear. They want to hear that you understand that this sucks, and it could just be like it sucks that your car is damaged. That's a big deal for people. And I think a lot of lawyers like, we don't really handle your property damage, we don't really care about that, so we're gonna move on. No, you need to tell people like, yo, this sucks, and

Paying Over Market To Keep Talent

SPEAKER_01 23:55

this isn't even your fault, and it sucks, right? And then you're empathy, empathy, like it's normal human desire. They want to feel heard, but then they want to feel seen. Okay, like they want to have an audience to tell you their problems. They want you to interrupt so that you go, no, I understand your problem. Let me explain your problem back to you. No, they want to tell you their problem, and then they want to feel like you're competent to fix it after they know that you're also enraged by it, right? Like it's not complicated stuff, but I again hire people that that's not a script, that has to be your actual response because you can't fake authenticity. And I know you can train your intake, you can do this, but you know what? I call bullshit on all that. I think that you can't fake whether it's an intake with meeting with clients, with oral argument, but certainly with trial work. You can't fake authenticity, and people can feel it, jurors can feel it, other lawyers can feel it. So you need to like what you do, you need to like your clients, and you need to feel their suffering, and then you can advocate for them. And then they trust you to do it. It's a beautiful thing, and it's a it's an immensely beautiful thing, and I think we have the best profession in the world, in a way.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Well, I love the way that you're talking about authentic empathy, and I know that you say part of the way you grow the firm is through your clients and their networks. Yeah. So it sounds like basically it's a big big package, right? Right. They know that you care, you fight for them, you've got a great culture, and they're willing to share their network if they know anymore. So this is you're getting great referrals, great business from referrals, and just continuing to grow the firm. And is that the way all of your attorneys are doing? You're all kind of cultivating clients' networks and clients because you've set the stage with how much you care.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Yeah. I think that's certainly encouraged. Like I I've read so many books about marketing and business and law firms. And I think I don't remember who said it at some point. It was like you can spend all of this money trying to target the new client, right? That's what advertising and branding and all stuff is. Or we have now thousands and thousands of clients that we helped satisfactorily. I was like, blow the whistle, let's target back those clients. They're already a foot in the door. Remind them of who we are, what we do. We're still here. We care about you. So this year, especially, we've done like a big push to retap that well and just remind our clients and their networks that we're still kicking it, who we're still doing what we were doing. We're still here to help you. And one of the things that I did was we had some sort of a brand marketing team that suggested I write like a newsletter quarterly.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

That's what I was gonna say. We call it database reactivation.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Most people do not do it. So they drafted the newsletter and sent it to me. And I was like, absolutely not. Like, I'm not sending this, it doesn't sound like me. It's cheesy. It was like, oh, this is Megan's shrimp skewer recipe. And I was like, no one gives a shit about first of all, this is New Orleans, and that is not a good recipe. So that's strike one. Like, we care about food in New Orleans and this shrimp skewer recipe sucks. Okay. But then the other thing is look, if I'm gonna send out a newsletter from our firm from me quarterly to our clients, I'm gonna write it. Okay. And I'm gonna write it raw. Like where, like, I'm exposing some of what we're struggling with, not just like we killed this case, and we're not just, oh, here's a case, we got three million dollars. It's not just like a hey, we're so awesome, but it's really just it's interesting. So I've been doing that for a couple of years, and what I've found, and I put my son in it because my wife doesn't like my son being really in anything, but that's the one thing I'll because that's how I'm

Boundaries Vacation And Lawyer Wellness

SPEAKER_01 27:45

growing, is as a parent, as a lawyer, and there's a lot of lessons that cross over, just happen to be that way. And I'm amazed at how many people like feel super connected to me because of that newsletter, even other lawyers, like the amount of people who talk to me about it is insane. And we've had a client call in, and one of our attorneys was talking to me, oh, this guy, and he was talking about you and Sam. And I'm like, dude, actually, Chris, that's just somebody I represented four years ago. He thought it was a family friend. That's how close the guy felt because of the newsletter and the authenticity behind it. And that's where I think brand, I think lawyers tend to do this thing where it's this lawyer is doing this, so I'm gonna copy it, and that must be how I have to advertise. I'm gonna get in a suit and stand on a truck and be like, we handle trucking cases. And look, you throw any enough money at anything, it's gonna work. But we spend less than 300K on all of our marketing from nose to tail a year, and that's including client outreach, our marketing person, social media, Google, local service ads. That's including all of our SEO, which is nothing come, you know. Somebody would be like, you should five X.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

Yeah, and maybe if you're successful, LSAs, you don't need PPC. And I know in New Orleans, PPC would be really expensive.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Yeah, look, we put a pole in the water on that, and it was just like our LSAs, we're doing great on LSAs. I think one of the reasons though, and you never know, but there's just not a lot of female injury attorneys out there, period. So my photos on the LSA. Um, and so it's like me and a bunch of like white dudes, right? Yeah, it's old white dude, like older white men, and no offense to older white men, but those are the ones on TV too. We get so many calls from people. And I'm very grateful about this because of what I feel like is coming in the future. So many calls from people that were like, I wanted a female lawyer. Men, right? Like old white men are calling. I want a female lawyer. I feel like they're going to be dead all and name all the things that we, of course, are right. And so I I literally was at a lunch last week with a bunch of women lawyers. I'm like, listen to a report from the future, because this is these are clients, right? And they're not thinking about diversity. They're not like like maybe corporations are. They're literally just look, I think women are doing shit better, and I want to hire a woman. And that mass of people is really snowballing and compounding, and it's really a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

So your intake is asking why, as addition to how did you find us, why did you pick us? I'm asking why.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

You know, a lot, yep. I call a lot of people or I try to meet with as many clients as possible, even if it's like when they're leaving out the door. My schedule's crazy right now because I'm still 150% litigation and 150% business running. But when I call back, especially the people like, hey, why did you hire us? How did you get to us? Because sometimes people like call you from a Google LSA, but really their friend recommended us. You don't know what to really attribute that to. I would say I would attribute it to both. But that's invaluable. So then I told my SEO team, I'm like, look, here, we're getting all this feedback, like maybe just incorporate those things more because we clearly have a standout. We have probably six women lawyers here. It's like completely unheard of, which is sad. But that's a thing that's working that I never really baked into my mind. It's working. But yeah, we're throwing parties this year for our old clients in different pockets of the city just to have that reconnection. So yeah, we're really get doing a big push to do that. I don't have any forecasted plans right now to say, okay, we're gonna 5x our marketing and start doing TV or radio. I that's a big brand. I'm very loyal and protective of our brand because it's been garnered and fostered over decades and decades of before I was even alive, like Kiefer and Kiefer was here. Our branding right now is very we're serious lawyers, we handle serious cases, we take you seriously. We have personalities, of course,

Authentic Intake That Builds Trust

SPEAKER_01 31:55

as well, but very refined branding. It's hard to keep that when you start going and I'm out of on TikTok. Yeah, true. Not saying never, there's probably a way to do it right, but right now I'm just hella focused on making sure that we're able to replicate the client service over and over again before we scale any further. We're still scaling, we're still growing organically 20% every year. Easy. I'm comfortable in that space. No.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

That's a good percent. What does so look looking at your um it sounds like you've got basically all your ducks in a row. If there was, if I could wave a magic one and solve any problem in your farm right now, what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Oh wow. I would love someone who could do manage all of our litigation. Like an older somebody like my dad should be this person. I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast. He's he was a fantastic attorney, great trial lawyer, but he's tired of all that. He doesn't want to do it anymore. But he was never the greatest mentor anyway. He he was like a just go do it kind of guy, come with me. So here's a deposition you should read. I really did a great job in it. It's okay. Yes. Um, not on purpose. He just, I think no one look, mentoring someone's hard and no one ever teaches you how to do that. Oh, I'd love it if he was like, look, I supervise all of our litigation, I do this, and he does that a little bit. But if I had a like an older, sort of really seasoned trial attorney who could heavily mentor all of our trial lawyers, I think I would chef's kiss that addition. But all the older trialers, they're like are grumbling out the door, like, I want to quit. I'm tired, I want to move to the beach and whatever. Play golf all day. Yeah. Play golf. I don't even golf, but but yeah, no, he's doing it, but begrudgingly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Hilarious. At least he's helping. And this this has been a great conversation. You've shared a lot of great things that you do in your firm to help your firm grow. And I really appreciate the time. I know our audience is gonna want to maybe connect with you. Where would be the best place to do that?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Yeah, sure. Look, I hear here's my cell phone.

Referrals Newsletters And Brand Strategy

SPEAKER_01 34:00

504-430-2159. Text me, call me. I am a big, like a rising tide, carries all ships person. I'll share data, info, fine, like financials. I'm good. And I'll probably ask you questions back. My email is Megan M-E-G-A-N at Kefer Law, K-I-E-F-E-R Law.com. Yeah, get with me.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

Fantastic. We'll make sure that those are in the show notes. And uh again, thank you so much for a great conversation. It's been a great show. Yeah, you too. That's a wrap on today's episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Before you go, I want to make sure that you know about something that could be a real game changer for your firm. If you've been doing the work, showing up, serving clients, but your marketing still isn't producing the caseload you know you deserve. That's exactly the problem Law Marketing Zone was built to solve. My team and I work exclusively with law firms, and we don't do cookie cutter. We build a strategy around your practice, your market, and your goals. More high-quality leads, better cases, less stress, and more profit. Head over to LawmarketingZone.com slash book a call and book your free case growth session today. The link is in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next episode.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the state to the best. Head over to our website at LawMarketingZone.com. From there, connect with other listeners,

How To Reach Megan And CTA

SPEAKER_00 35:30

access valuable resources, and stay up to date on the latest episodes. Or don't forget to subscribe and leave us to review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leaving with wisdom and keep growing your firm.