More Clients, More Risk? Law Firm Growth, Referrals, and Reputation

Your marketing finally works, but that’s when the real risk begins. When a solo or small firm gets a surge of calls, referrals, and attention, weak systems do more than just slow you down. They create client frustration, professional exposure, and the kind of preventable mistakes that lead to grievances. In this episode, we break down how lawyers can grow with intention, compliance, and confidence, so their reputation keeps pace with their visibility.

I’m joined by Delisi Friday, a legal marketing strategist and founder of First Call Friday. Delisi has spent decades helping firms scale through relationship-based referral marketing, and she makes a strong case for a systems-first approach: fix operations before you pour fuel on your marketing. 

We dig into the three areas that can quietly decide whether growth helps or hurts: intake, marketing, and accounting. We're talking tracking referral sources and conversions, understanding what actually becomes a client, reviewing what you keep after referral fees, and using clean numbers to guide growth decisions.

We also get specific about ethics and lawyer advertising, including Texas Rule 7.03, what “nominal gifts” really means, and why referrals involving non-lawyer businesses can quickly become problematic. We unpack independent professional judgment, competence checks, and how joint responsibility on referred cases can put both lawyers at risk.

Finally, we move into visibility and reputation, discussing results-based marketing, disclosing co-counsel involvement, and the deceptive trend of “made-up awards” that can mislead the public. Delisi also shares practical guidelines for scaling, including client communication cadence, average time on desk, proactive hiring, and protecting IOLTA trust accounting as your firm gets bigger.

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Want to learn more from Delisi? 

Connect with Delisi through First Call Friday: 
https://www.firstcallfriday.com/

Explore the From Coffee to Cases podcast:
https://www.firstcallfriday.com/podcast
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Get more information, details and resources on Know Your Regulator - https://www.belolaw.com/know-your-regulator

Transcript

Welcome, Disclaimers, And Guest

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The purpose of this podcast is to educate and inform. It does not provide legal advice. It does not create an attorney-client relationship. While the host is not a lawyer, the content is overseen by licensed counsel. If you need help with a legal matter, you should always consult with a qualified attorney.

When Growth Exposes System Gaps

SPEAKER_02 0:15

For solo and small firm attorneys, especially, growth can feel exciting. You are getting more clients, more referrals, more visibility, more opportunity. But without the right systems in place, language, professional boundaries, that growth can also create risk. This is Know Your Regulator. I'm your host, Simone Murfrey, and my guest today is Deleci Friday, a legal marketing strategist and business development expert with over 20 years' experience in the legal industry. She is the founder and owner of First Call Friday, helping law firms grow through relationship-based referral marketing strategies. Delisi has worked in multiple seven and eight figure businesses, scaled a personal injury law firm from seven to eight figures entirely from attorney referrals, and played a key role in building a business from the ground up that generated$50 million in revenue within the first 18 months, supporting 17,000 small businesses nationwide, and led the marketing campaign, which sold over 27,000 copies of the book Profit First for Lawyers. Her podcast from Coffee to Cases with the Legal Podcast Network shows lawyers how to build sustainable growth through trust, visibility, and meaningful connections, regardless of their budget. So we're going to talk about how attorneys can grow without overpromising, how referral relationships should and can be handled thoughtfully, and what lawyers should be paying attention to as their practice becomes more visible. Delisi, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So we both know that obviously lawyers want more clients, they want more referrals and more visibility, but sometimes the marketing can work before the business is really ready to take on that growth and absorb that amount of growth. So, where do solo and small firm attorneys usually create risk when they are first trying to grow?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

I would say the first place that they usually create risk when they're trying to grow is trying to grow before they have the right operation systems inside of their law firm. So if you're trying to grow and you get so many cases that you realize, oh, hey, my case management system isn't actually doing all the things it needs to do to make it easy for me to record the status of all of my cases and make sure they're moving the way that they're supposed to. That's where it can create a lot of problems. Because if you have a smaller docket and then your marketing is so successful that it grows, that's when you're gonna start to realize where the holes in your bucket are. And you're gonna see all of these leaks and try to fix it when the problem is happening. And that's usually where I see the biggest mistake.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yeah. Oh my gosh. It's it is so much better to be proactive and have those systems in place, like you said, than to be reactive and have to immediately, you know, address all of these fires, put out all of these fires that are glaringly obvious, like you said. You'll feel those holes in the bucket. So, what kind of systems would you say should be in place before an attorney starts taking on a bunch of more clients, more referral partners, or really even just increasing their marketing activity? Because we know that you could go viral and you know, one video is all it can take, and then you've got tons and tons of people knocking at your door.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

That question could probably take the whole podcast.

unknown 3:39

Right.

Intake, Marketing, And Accounting Systems

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Um, because there's so many different places. So I'll tackle like the three different places where I see that becoming an issue. Place number one is intake. So if you don't have your intake reports set up in a way for you to easily monitor the cases coming into your firm and what's converting and what's not, you could have excellent marketing. And the marketing could work so well that your phone is ringing over and over. But if you don't have intake set up in a way where it's easy for you to monitor who's calling, where did they come from? Did we convert them? And someone's not monitoring that on a regular basis, then you have a problem because marketing cannot overcome a bad intake system. Now, on the flip side, you also need to have the second section, which is marketing, set up in a way for you to monitor what's working. So if I am a marketing director and I'm trying to find out which of those leads that came in from my marketing effort turned into clients, I need to be able to find that information out and I need to work with intake to find that information out. And so those two kind of go hand in hand. If you can't determine what's working and what's not, then you're just throwing money down the toilet. Right. Just flush it. Just flush it. And then the other place I would say would be accounting. Accounting would be one where I would be monitoring that because I want to know of the fees that are coming into my firm. How much of those fees am I keeping? And how much of those fees am I paying out in referral fees? Because I want to be able to monitor am I paying more referral fees and more referral fees and more referral fees? Am I making more money and making more money and making more money? Because I want to start to see those numbers change and then apply that information to intake and marketing so I can make smart marketing decisions.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

That's totally spot on. And you've you have to be really mindful of how you do that, how you grow, how you scale that responsibly and with compliance for sure. We know that, you know, you just kind of talked about referral relationships. They're a major part of law firm growth. For attorneys, kind of as silly as it sounds, it's really an area where you could open yourself to major risk, money, expectations, exclusivity, client choice, and they can raise questions about your professional responsibility. Deleisi, what can lawyers ethically do when building referral relationships? And what should they absolutely avoid when it comes to either creating or strengthening these relationships?

Referral Ethics Under Rule 7.03

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yes. So I do want to cite the rule because I think that's really important. So the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct has Rule 7.03, which talks about solicitation and other prohibited communications. And I think that's where we start to see a lot of our questions answered ethically by the state bar, and the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct addresses that in Rule 7.03. So I would refer to section E, which says a lawyer shall not pay, give, or offer to pay or give anything of value to a person not licensed to practice law for soliciting or referring prospective clients for professional employment, except nominal gifts given as an expression of appreciation that are neither intended nor reasonably expected to be a form of compensation for recommending a lawyer services. And I read that verbatim because it's so important, and because I see this a lot with referrals and creating relationships outside of the legal community. So I'll give you an example. Let's just say you're a criminal defense lawyer creating a relationship with a bail bond company. Let's say you are a personal injury lawyer creating a relationship with a tow truck company or a funeral home or a chiropractor or an urgent care. You know, you see it a lot in personal injury, but you can also see it in criminal defense as well, because those practice areas have people who need to hire a lawyer right away. So, what I would say in terms of the ethics there is reviewing that role and really thinking, okay, what are the nominal gifts and things that I can do that purely show appreciation and are not considered a form of financial gain because they are sending those referrals. And that's where you see a lot of those law firms who are creating relationships for referrals, hiring business development professionals. And those business development professionals are really going out and creating relationships with businesses, shaking hands, hosting a lunch and learn, dropping off pamphlets, dropping off some foods, buying lunch, things like that. Those are not going to be gifts that are going to get you in trouble with the safe bar, but they are signs of appreciation. And it's truly just nurturing the relationships. So, what can they do when it comes to nurturing those relationships with businesses like that? I would consider the business development actions where you're staying top of mind, but you're not doing anything outside of nominal and gifts of appreciation. And then when it comes to creating relationships with other attorneys, now that I think can be a lot more fun because that's where you guys can be, you know, going to a game together, seeing each other at a local bar, association happy hour, meeting for lunch, meeting for coffee. Again, it's not buying gifts that are going to buy your way into those referrals, but it's what I like to say, you're creating real friendships. You're creating friendships with your colleagues. And so those referral relationships are deeper, more personal, and so much more than sending a business development professional to go and create those relationships for you.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Yeah, it's got definitely more of a community element, more human element to it, you know, and and you can actually vouch for that person. You can say, Yeah, I've known so and so. We, our families, you know, play t-ball together, and he's a good guy, you know, and you're in good hands. I think absolutely it makes the client feel so much better too, you know, like they're not, you're not just kind of being tossed to this side or tossed to another person. And building these relationships, we know that we just talked about how careful you've got to be, and there can be different, like you said, a attorney-to-attorney relationship is gonna look a little bit different than, you know, a a bail bondsman to criminal defense firm relationship. When do these referral relationships start to look problematic to the bar or, you know, maybe another type of regulatory, disciplinary authority who could uh, you know, enforce the law?

Joint Responsibility And Competence Checks

SPEAKER_01 11:25

That's a great question because I see that in two different ways. So the first way is a lawyer has an ethical duty to exercise independent professional judgment in making referrals. So, what does that mean? I, as a lawyer, need to use my professional judgment to make sure the person I am referring that individual to is competent and capable of handling that case. Now, if I know that attorney is struggling, maybe they're struggling with the operations in their law firm, maybe they're struggling because they had a lot of turnover. Maybe they had a bar complaint recently because of client communication. Client communication or lack thereof is the number one reason for bar grievances in the state of Texas. So if a lawyer knows those things are happening, they have an ethical obligation to not refer those cases to the lawyer. Now, the other place where I see that becoming a problem is when, and I see this in personal injury on the civil side, when a lawyer refers a case to another lawyer and you are sharing joint responsibility. When you share joint responsibility, you have that client signing the consent to associate. You're acknowledging joint responsibility and the fee split between those two firms. And when the lawyer signs that contract and that and shares joint responsibility, that's exactly what they're doing. They're sharing joint responsibility. And the problem is I see is when that share of joint responsibility puts the other lawyer at risk because the lawyer on the other side isn't doing what they need to do. They're not contacting the client enough, they're not updating them on the case. Maybe they missed a deadline, a discovery deadline, statute of limitations, whatever it is. Those are things that have some real ramifications. And if you are referring a case to someone and you're sharing joint responsibility, that's where those can be really big red flags and actually put that attorney at risk.

Marketing Claims That Cross The Line

SPEAKER_02 13:36

And that just goes back to, like you said, you are going to want to refer or work with someone whom you know is competent, who you know is going to not let things drop through the cracks, not overwhelm themselves, not take on much more than they actually can. Um, it is really such an important part of law firm growth, but it shouldn't be more than the client's ability to make an informed, autonomous decision of their own, you know. Another way that that we see lawyers building visibility and credibility is obviously through online presence. It's huge in marketing, websites, social media, podcasts like this. Um, but legal marketing has a really unique uh boundary. And I think it's I think we talked about it's Texas Rule 7.01 and audience, don't quote me on that. Um, but it talks about lawyer communication and services and that um lawyer communications cannot be false, they cannot be misleading. You can't say I'm the best lawyer in Texas. Um, you they have to be truthful, non-deceptive. Um, and I really can see that, you know, maybe you would walk into that kind of it's a fine line, so you could probably walk into that very easily. What kinds of marketing claims are you seeing that are getting lawyers in trouble, even if they're just trying to build that credibility? Like we said, you can't say you're the best, but how are they um able to build that credibility and be careful with that language?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yes. So one of the things I will say is, and I don't have the rule in front of me, but I'm sure someone from your office could probably pull it and share it with the audience, is when, and this is again specific to personal injury because I had so much experience there. When the case is a personal injury case and the attorneys are sharing joint responsibility. And let's say that case has a great settlement or a great verdict, lawyers will obviously want to market that because it shows potential new clients they can obtain great results. However, where I see lawyers getting into a little bit of hot water is when they do not disclose or make it very obvious to that potential new client, there was a partner on that case. So let's say um you have a law firm that was handling the case in pre-litigation. They brought on another law firm once they knew the case was gonna go into litigation. Case went into litigation, had a great verdict, and the pre-litigation law firm is marketing that verdict on their website. That's where you're gonna get into some hot water if you're not disclosing you were not the attorney who tried the case. You were the attorney on the case, but you were not the one in the courtroom who obtained the verdict. I can see lawyers getting into some hot water there, and I have seen them get into some hot water there because you don't want your potential new clients to misinterpret that verdict as one that you obtained when in fact it was your co-counsel. Now, right. This is another area where I think you can kind of be proactive when you are creating your referral relationships. Because I used to do this when I worked in-house and I was um working on those contracts where I would ask the referral partner, hey, let's talk about what happens when we have a great result here. Let's discuss how we're sharing that information and the way that we're sharing that information. And so I think that's one area where you can see some lawyers getting into hot water. I think most lawyers know by now you don't want to say you're the best of, the best at. However, what I have seen, and this makes me very sad, is there are some law firms now that are creating their own awards and they're saying um this award for the best um divorce attorney for men in Bear County, and they make up their own award. And they don't allow other lawyers to submit for it, but they call themselves the best of because they created the award. Sadly, I have seen more law firms do that recently in the last two or three years. I hope that people start to figure out who those law firms are, because I think it's extremely deceptive. But again, those phrases best of, best at, number one, I mean, those phrases do really great with SEO. So I do see deceptive practices like that now.

Scaling With Client Updates And IOLTA

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I am so glad that you brought that up because if that is not just the 2.0 version of I'm the best, you know, if that's not just the loophole around it, that's how they is deceptive. It's misleading, it's not a official, you know. I mean, I guess technically it could be official, but by who? Um, if I was a client, that would confuse me, you know, to be like, what is this? How did you get this? Anyways, I'm glad that you brought that up because that is so big. And again, it just goes back to let's just follow the rules. And it says truthful and non-deceptive cannot be false or misleading. And then I think, like you said earlier, the working with a partner that that will absolutely get you in trouble if you are not forthcoming and truthful about it in your marketing practices. And clients want someone that they can trust, they want to see the proof in the pudding, and and I would say that you don't even have to lie about that, you know. So, how can I think I just asked you this, how can attorneys build strong reputations without overpromising? Well, I'll say this too. Another great place to start is just education, just educating your clients or the community about the work that you do and how they may be able to help themselves is a great start podcasting, you know, and working with your peers in the community to kind of create that visibility too. Once a lawyer is beginning to expand their practice, we've talked about in the beginning, they may notice what worked well in the beginning is not working so well with the increased volume of clients, team members, referral partners, and overall just public visibility. What would you say are the areas that lawyers should be paying attention to? Um, and kind of going back to being proactive, what could they put in place before they really ramp things up to be able to scale that growth and keep being successful?

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I would say first, making sure your legal operations is set up the right way. That is actually the one area where I see a bulk of law firms that I've had to consult with in the past struggle because there's a phrase new level, new devil. You reach that new level in your law firm, and now you have a new double because everything that got you from point A to point B worked. But when you went from point B to point C, something had to break in order for you to reach that new level. Sometimes it's your operations. You have more people, you have more cases. And the case management system that once was great isn't gonna cut it anymore. The other part's gonna be reporting. What you used to do for your reporting structure probably isn't going to work anymore once you start to grow. So, what I would give in terms of advice for law firms that are trying to grow and prevent having these issues that are gonna hurt them would be make sure your legal operations are working very well. Some of the key areas I would be considering are the places where we know you're gonna have complaints. So, again, number one bar complaint is lack of client communication. Make sure whatever you're doing, you have a system in place, a report in place that is letting you know. When your clients are not spoken to at least every 30 days because you don't want your clients to complain they don't have a phone call from your office, they have no idea what's going on in their case. Number two, I would be looking at average time on desk. Some people call it average time on desk, some people say how long it takes to close a case. There are different terms for it. But I would be watching how long does it take for you to close your cases? Because if you start to see a trend and it's taking you longer and longer and longer to close your cases out, that can be a red flag or an indication that your team is stretched thin. So I would be monitoring how many cases can the attorneys in your firm handle and still do good work? How many cases can the attorneys in your firm handle and still be able to communicate to your clients in a timely fashion? So if I'm monitoring those two things, I should have a pulse on is this working in a way that I can sustain this growth or do I need to hire before things get out of hand? I always want to hire before the need because if you have to bring on more paralegals, if you have to bring on more attorneys, you want to bring them on proactively, not when you're in a pinch, because then you're gonna hire the wrong people. Then you're not gonna onboard them the right way, and you're not gonna be able to set your team up for success. I would also be looking out for making sure your accounting department is growing as well, because one person might work for you when you are a smaller law firm. And then when you get bigger, if you have more cases and more financials to watch out for, that one person just isn't gonna cut it anymore. At some point, you're gonna have to hire a real CFO or transition to a fractional CFO. And what you never want to happen is you have issues with your ILTA. No one no, no, no. No one wants to have that. So I would really be making sure my accounting department is very strong. And if I need to get a fractional CFO and then hire a real CFO, I'm watching for that because I would never want a lawyer to lose their license because their ILTA has not had a three-way reconciliation and they really don't know what's happening with their operations account.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

I think that is such a great piece of advice because that one person may have been able to handle all of the, you know, the hundred, two hundred, three hundred cases. But then you start talking about getting some real growth, and that is just going to overwhelm that person and they're not going to be able to keep up with it. Such a great point. And something that's really often overlooked. You're thinking about the clients, you're thinking about the the attorneys, the paralegals, um, but the unsung heroes of the law firms, the the accounts receivables. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Well, and here's to tie it back to referrals, there have been times where I've been hired by an eight-figure law firm to come in and kind of clean up their system and make sure they're ready to scale. And 10 out of 10 times when I do that, because I'm going in there and checking everything, I can identify situations where an attorney fee check has not been cashed or deposited. And so when I'm going in and I'm saying, hey, Susan, you know, I just wanted to follow up with you on these cases. Here's the status. And they say, well, wait a second, we still haven't finished the Smith case. And I will look at a report and say, yes, we have. And we can identify, oh, well, this law firm cut the check, but she didn't actually cash the check. We have an outstanding check issue here. And not having the right accounting team in place is going to create situations like that. That's not good for you on the accounting side because it means your numbers are not accurate. You never want to make decisions on your law firm based on bad numbers. But two, now that's also impacting the relationship you have with your referral partners. And what I don't want is a referral partner to say, hmm, I referred a case to them and they didn't pay me. And I think I paid you, but I'm not aware that the check just didn't get cashed for whatever reason. It still happens every day. So again, accounting is so incredibly important, especially for attorneys, because we have that ethical obligation to our clients and to our law firms, and we never want to get into trouble when it comes to our IOTAs.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

No, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Well, as we wrap up, for anyone listening who wants to go and they want to do it the right way, what would you say is the first thing that they should review this week?

Referral Follow-Up And Saying Thank You

SPEAKER_01 27:00

First, I would start with who you already get cases from. Everyone always says, Delecia, I want to grow my list. I want to get more referrals. How do I grow my list? And I say, wait a second, why are you trying to grow the list without first looking at the people sending you business now? So the first thing I would do is run a report for the last two to three years and see who has referred you a case in the last two to three years. And then have a really honest conversation with yourself and say, what am I doing to nurture that relationship? When is the last time I reached out to my referral partners? When is the last time I told them thank you? When is the last time I did something to stay in touch with them? Because before you go create relationships with people who don't know you yet, you should make sure you're taking care of the people who do and who are already setting you cases because more often than not, if you just show a little extra care, you can generate more business from the relationships you already have.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Great advice. Absolutely. Start with what you have, you know, nurture what you have and it will grow. Is there like a turnaround time? Like, would you say it's so important to, you know, you get referred a client? And what would you say is like the best window of time to reach out to that referee, the referring attorney?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I would say as soon as possible. Obviously, that's the standard. If someone refers me a case, I want to call them, I want to text them right away and tell them thank you. Or I'm gonna do it via email because they made an email introduction. I always want them to know right away. The caveat there is gonna be if I don't convert that into new business, I might say thank you once that decision has been made. And making sure you're saying thank you for a case, whether you accepted it or whether you rejected it. Because I think sometimes we forget saying thank you is so important. If I accept the case, I should say thank you. If I reject the case, I should say thank you. Because if someone's referring you cases and you reject every single one, but you never say thank you, they're not gonna send you any other cases. They're gonna stop. And maybe you rejected it because it doesn't meet your case criteria. That's an opportunity for you to say, hey, Michael, just wanted to let you know I rejected this case only because I don't handle cases in this state. I referred it to a friend of mine, just a friendly reminder, I'm only licensed in Texas. I'm trying to get licensed in New Mexico, but it just hasn't happened yet. I appreciate you thinking of me. And so I would say right away or as soon as a decision has been made whether you accepted or rejected the case. Now, that's my dream. I would be crazy to think everyone can do that. I would much rather someone send a thank you a week later, two weeks later, even a month later, than not send anything at all. So the caveat to all of that is even if you forget, even if you get busy, please say thank you. I teach this every single day, and even I mess up. I had a lawyer who sent me a gift um in late January. It was an end-of-year gift, and it got to me late in late January. I told him thank you in March, and I apologized profusely because it wasn't until I was looking at my, looking at my list, making sure I'm nurturing all of my contacts, I said, Oh shoot. I did not say thank you to Taylor. And I apologized profusely when I said thank you for this gift. I'm so sorry I forgot to say thank you. And he said, I'm glad you did. Because this whole time I thought you were mad at me. And I was like, I wasn't mad at you. I just got super busy. This happened and this happened and this happened, and I traveled and blah, blah, blah. And I said, But wait, that's an excuse. There's no excuse for me not to say thank you. So was my thank you more than 30 days late? Yes. But I salvaged the relationship. We had a good laugh about it. He's gonna give me a hard time for years to come, as he should. I literally trained this and I totally dropped the ball. But I should say thank you even if it's late than not say it at all. Because if not, he would have thought maybe we were fighting or maybe we didn't have a relationship we did anymore. And I never want someone to think that. I would rather apologize and have my tail between my legs and say, I'm sorry, life happened. And I didn't say thank you, but I want you to know how much I appreciate you thinking of me. And sometimes that's still as important because it shows you even if I drop the ball, I'm gonna own it and I'm gonna you. And I think that kind of communication has a lot of value to it.

Final Takeaways And Subscribe

SPEAKER_02 32:14

I totally agree. And yeah, I think that as a professional, um, again, perfect world scenario, every professional would own it, you know, come with character and integrity. Um, but sometimes that can be hard and sometimes that's built along the way. But yes, owning it and just kind of saying it and better late than never, you know. I think absolutely to your point. A couple months later, now you guys laugh about it for a few years, but there's no ambiguity and great system you've got in place doing your checkups and follow-ups because that's how you found it, you know? So really just goes is a great testament to all the things that we've been saying, which are get those processes in place so that you can see those things as they happen. You're not being reactive. Um, yeah, you're protected. Exactly. Well, Deleace, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your insights today. And it's a great reminder, like we said, that law firm growth should be intentional. Referrals, marketing, reputation building, it's all incredibly valuable, but it's got to be supported by those strong systems. So thanks so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Absolutely. For our listeners, remember that growth is not just about getting more attention. It's about building a practice that can earn trust, protect clients, and sustain that success over time. If you want to learn more from Deleisi or connect with her work, her resources are included in the description below, including links to First Call Friday and her podcast from Coffee to Cases. For more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to Know Your Regulator so you get notified each time we release a new episode. Until next week, stay inspired and continue engaging with your regulatory agency.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Know your regulator, the podcast that inspires you to engage.