The Scalability Code

EOS and the Legal World: Building Trust and Structure in Law Firms with Brooke Lively

• Matt Haney • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Yes, even law firms need business systems and processes.

On this episode of The Scalability Code, Matt Haney sits down with Brooke Lively, a seasoned EOS implementer and fractional COO, to explore the intricacies of transforming law firms and other businesses. 

Brooke shares her remarkable background, growing up in a family of lawyers, and her unique insights on managing and scaling law firms using EOS principles. Discover invaluable tips on leadership dynamics, running on EOS, and fostering trust within teams. Whether you're a lawyer, entrepreneur, or business enthusiast, this episode is packed with practical advice and real-world examples to help you achieve exponential growth. 

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Welcome
00:40 Background
00:57 An Affliction for Attorneys
05:29 Humility and Accountability
08:17 Recurring Issues
11:47 Matt's Client Story
12:56 Brooke's Seattle Story
15:06 The Unique structure of Law Firms
19:46 EOS Trust Building
22:40 Different People Need Different Things From Management
28:28 Dynamics Between Integrators and Visionaries at a Law Firm
33:42 The Last Fun Trip and the Next Fun Trip

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Welcome to The Scalability Code, the podcast that helps you get out of the sh*t show and start growing your business. A few times each month, you'll hear stories and commentary from visionary entrepreneurs, EOS implementers, and fractional COOs about how they've taken businesses to Level 10. And now for your host, Matt Haney.

Matt Haney:

Brooke Lively, thank you for joining us in the Scalability Code. I'm your host, Matt Haney, and I'm really excited to dig in with Brooke and, uh, her background and what she's done. So, let's kick it off by telling, uh, the folks on the podcast here where you're from. A little bit of background. Uh, and we'll kick in for after that.

Brooke Lively:

I am Brooke Lively. I live in Fort Worth, Texas, and. I don't know how to describe it. I'm a nut for attorneys.

Matt Haney:

You're probably, you're probably one of the few people that can say that and, and actually mean it. Right?

Brooke Lively:

I really am.

Matt Haney:

So tell us how, how you have a, you have a, a, an an affliction for attorneys. Tell us, gimme some backstory

Brooke Lively:

I do, my father's an attorney. My brother's an attorney, two of my uncles. I can't even tell you how many cousins and virtually every guy I've ever dated. Is a left-handed lawyer who's six one and wears glasses.

Matt Haney:

my God. That's hilarious.

Brooke Lively:

I know, isn't it, even the guys I dated in high school grew up to be six foot

Matt Haney:

Did they grow up to be left-handed? I think there's a, there's something to be said that you can zone in and find the lefties.

Brooke Lively:

I know. I mean, they're, they might be missing one of those things, like they might not have been 11 years older or they might not have been left-handed, but they

Matt Haney:

That's hilarious. So yeah. So you grew up in a family and still live in a family of lawyers, man, that makes for some fun conversations around the dinner table.

Brooke Lively:

Let me tell you, I'm great at debating and I will always take the other side of an argument just for shits and

Matt Haney:

Just to be devil's advocate here, I'm like not really just to argue with you because I'm really good at it.

Brooke Lively:

Just because I can

Matt Haney:

That is so funny. Oh man, you, you should meet my spouse. She would say, sometimes I just stir the pot just to argue, and I'm like, no, I just think there's another side of everything. She's like, can you just agree? No, that's not who you married

Brooke Lively:

but it's so, it's so interesting because when I'm in a session room with my clients and I only work with attorneys, I say, alright, I'm gonna take the other side of the argument for a moment.

Matt Haney:

Right,

Brooke Lively:

And they're like, they're gearing up.'cause a lot of them are litigators and they're like, all right, bring it on. And I can make the point. And all of a sudden they're like, oh, wait. Huh, that's interesting. And I'll, you know, they kind of open their mind some, and that's, that's really rewarding.

Matt Haney:

that's awesome. So you obviously know a ton of implementers. You've been doing this. How long have you had your practice? How long have you been implementing EOS in? In any capacity?

Brooke Lively:

About three years. I've been running on EOS for 10. I own a fractional CFO company

Matt Haney:

and what's the name of that

Brooke Lively:

CAF Cap.

Matt Haney:

CAF cap.

Brooke Lively:

yeah, we started initially just working with law firms because did I mention, I've got this freaky thing of lawyers. Um, and then we did expand. Beyond the legal industry, but we started running on EOS, you know, more than 10 years ago. But we also looked at our clients and, you know, we're a bunch of data-driven chicks and we divided our clients into three buckets. The clients that came to us and didn't seem to be improving at all. The clients that came to us and were making slow and steady progress. And then that third bucket of people who just were having hockey stick results and like, what are we doing with, with the third group that we're not doing with the first?

Matt Haney:

All right. Something's different here. What is it?

Brooke Lively:

Yep. Turns out wasn't us.

Matt Haney:

Yep.

Brooke Lively:

It was them. And it was execution. We were giving all three groups the same tools, the same type of advice. We were doing everything the same. It was a matter, and, you know this, Matt, you are in the company. You are helping them execute. If they execute, if they take the advice, if they complete their rocks, if they do it. There's change, there's, they make progress. And every single one of the clients in bucket C in that third group did every single thing we told'em to do. And they had those incredible results. And we dug further and found out they were all running on EOS, and it became our number one outgoing

Matt Haney:

So you built a, your, your v your, uh, calf cap towards, EOS driven businesses. Or, or was there There was a, not built it, but there was an overlap. I have the overlap.

Brooke Lively:

There. we didn't build it towards that, but we recommended that all of our clients get on EOS and whether they knew it or not, the way we ran them was on a loose EOS kind of. You know, we ran in a 90 day world. They had rocks,

Matt Haney:

And that's where I see, uh, a lot of people that, you know, I don't, that don't come to me from the EOS space. They're, you know, that's sort of my entry. As I was mentioned to you before we got on, it's like I see a lot of these opportunities where folks are coming in and they really just need structure and support. And I sort of dropped some, some soft principles in, and then after we're, you know, in it for 30 days, I'm like, we really need to bring an implementer in. I tell the whole story, we bring the implementer in and they're like, oh, it's so, so it's like. Using the fundamental foundation without, you know, going straight into the 90 minute meeting and jumping right in. And, um, it, it tends to work. So I wanna roll back and ask you a couple questions about, um, my, my two of my favorite words are humility and accountability

Brooke Lively:

Okay.

Matt Haney:

Humility, I think is something I try to mirror and practice and don't take myself too seriously. I know you share that way as well, but you work in a practice almost exclusively focused around lawyers who may or may not stereotypically be the most humble people in the world. Tell me about working in session rooms and challenges with, you know, less than humble leaders.

Brooke Lively:

Oh, um, well there are a couple of things. One, can I cuss by the way?

Matt Haney:

more the better.

Brooke Lively:

Alright. If they're total ass hats, I'm not taking'em on as clients.

Matt Haney:

Yeah. At the bottom of my website, I literally have, did I mention we have a no asshole policy like it is written right there El but it's, it's a nonstarter.

Brooke Lively:

if, if I don't like you. Um, so in my CFO company, we have what we call the the yes but rule. And if any potential client during a sales call says yes, but three times

Matt Haney:

Right?

Brooke Lively:

we won't work with them

Matt Haney:

Yeah. Tell me more. Why do you say that? I mean, I know, but I wanna hear more,

Brooke Lively:

They, they have told us that they're uncoachable

Matt Haney:

right?

Brooke Lively:

and we have no desire. I have no desire as a CFO or as an implementer to bang my head against the wall all day,

Matt Haney:

Yeah, to try to help you with an outcome. You hired me for

Brooke Lively:

right? This, this is what you say you want. So if you're not open to it, I'm out. So

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

first of all, we do that. Second of all, I have no problem going toe to toe with them, and I will give as good as it as I get.

Matt Haney:

Mm-hmm.

Brooke Lively:

So, you know, if they're an asset, I'm gonna screen'em out. If they just wanna argue and if they're not being an asshole about it,

Matt Haney:

Yeah. Then

Brooke Lively:

know? Then I'll, I'll go toe to toe or I'll make a partner go toe to toe with them.

Matt Haney:

yeah. Yeah. That's gotta be so hard. It's like I, I see all, you know. 17, 18 times, I've done fractional engagements with various clients. You start to see a lot of different, uh, a lot of different personality types, and the writing gets on the wall a lot more quickly. Um, but I've never worked with a law firm as a fractional integrator. And I was mentioning to you earlier that I, I have a prospective client who is a, a husband and wife team in the law space with a third partner. And I just, I, who knows what I'm walking myself into, but I'm really interested to see. Kind of where it goes. So, um, give me, give me some of the biggest hurdles that you navigate in session. Like, what is, what are some of the things that recurringly come up that are, that are always issues that you're like, I got this one. I've heard it and seen it. Tell me about it.

Brooke Lively:

I, I think the biggest one is partners who don't end up on the leadership team.

Matt Haney:

Oh, that's fascinating. So you've got a partner in a firm, but they're not involved in making the strategic decisions on how the business operates. Wow. So do you, do you have ex, do you, do you engage with said partners or are your, are your leadership team talking about the strife that causes

Brooke Lively:

So yesterday I did a focus day with a firm in Buffalo. The only people that walked in to the focus day. Were the three partners. I was warned beforehand that one of the partners very valuable to the firm. Great guy. He wanted a particular position, but he didn't have the skillset to deliver on it. He didn't GWC the job.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

And so we went through and we built it out. We built out the whole accountability chart, and when I build out an accountability chart, I build out those three basic boxes, sales and marketing, operations and finance. And then before I do anything else, I build the owner's box before the integrator, before the visionary, I built the owner's box because that has to be incredibly important. And I talk about the board of directors and how important that is. And then I put in the integrator and then I put in the visionary. And, so when we had built out their accountability chart and we started putting names in, we put names in the owner's box first, and he wanted, he, he thought he was marketing, but by the time we had put those five roles in there. He knew he didn't gwc that job,

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

so we filled all the leadership positions and his name wasn't up there.

Matt Haney:

Oh wow.

Brooke Lively:

And he was like, you know, okay. And he was really pretty good about it. Now, he will keep coming to the quarterlies because he sits in that

Matt Haney:

In the owner's box. Yeah, yeah.

Brooke Lively:

and those owners come as part of that board of directors.

Matt Haney:

right. Wow, that's fascinating. Fascinating. And this was during focus day.

Brooke Lively:

Focus day,

Matt Haney:

You, that's fascinating. And, and did it

Brooke Lively:

but I kicked them outta the weekly leadership. They were already doing

Matt Haney:

Yeah. Good. Well that's Good. But yeah. Yeah. No, I, I, I, listen, I, I see that often. I inherited a client who was with an implementer. They had left their implementer and I caught'em, you know, two or three quarters after, and they said, will you come help us facilitate the quarterly? I said, I don't, I don't do that. That's not my thing. They're like, well, we're gonna do it without you. Will you just at least come? I was like, all right, I'll come. So I come. Brooke, I'm not kidding. There were 12 people that showed up. 12, 12 people. I was like, are you freaking kidding me? What are, what am I gonna do with 12 people in a room? Like how do we even, so it was, and we, but we quickly had to like re and, you know, and when you take people off the leadership team, you know better than I do. It's a serious thing. Right. You're impacting their emotions. You're, you're certainly affecting the, their ego. And you're certainly, uh, changing their day to day and it's a tough place to be in. But ultimately, I'm sure you'll see with this client and you have seen with previous clients that really getting intentional and focused about what the leadership team looks like just eliminates a lot of noise and a lot of chatter, and a lot of contentious conversations.

Brooke Lively:

I was working with a firm in Seattle and we started the day with like eight people on the leadership team. We started focus day with eight people on the leadership team. We finished focus day with five people on the leadership team.

Matt Haney:

Did three of'em leave the room?

Brooke Lively:

Nope. They all stayed Actually, one person hadn't come because she couldn't get into town, so we started with eight, seven of'em in the room. We finished with five. Five of them, and all five of those were in the room. Okay. We started VB one with those five in the room and on the leadership team. By the end of the day, we had added a six person to the leadership team that was not in the room. That was one of the ones we had kicked off.

Matt Haney:

Originally. Wow.

Brooke Lively:

Yeah.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

She was like, am I in? Am I out?

Matt Haney:

What is it? You crazy to make up your mind? Yeah. That is so, so, so funny.

Brooke Lively:

But you do, you've gotta work through it. You've gotta figure out and. And you know, one of the people we kicked off was heart wrenching

Matt Haney:

Hmm.

Brooke Lively:

because he was the person who had been at the firm the longest

Matt Haney:

it's, that's hard. I've seen that before as well, where you've got a really seasoned tenured person. Generally it's in an administrative seat in some capacity from what I see, where it's like they're really, they're a great human and we wanna make a room for them, and we, we wrap our arms around them. But they're not, they're not, they're not in this, they're not here, I

Brooke Lively:

And such a cornerstone of culture, right?

Matt Haney:

right, right, right. is so

Brooke Lively:

And, and only, but. He doesn't manage anybody.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

There's no one reporting to him,

Matt Haney:

Yep.

Brooke Lively:

and he's not actually a big part of the production process,

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

and he actually needs to be managed. I'm like,

Matt Haney:

Yep. That's so crazy. Law firms are such a unique structure. It really is so unique. I mean, just talking with my prospect who's in the legal space, just trying to understand the reporting structure and you know, I feel like for whatever reason in the service businesses and the types of companies I've worked with, there's really a clear delineation of skill. Right. You've got, you know, the executive team, the leadership team, and, and the, you know, kind of the ground level team. You don't really, I don't guess you have that as much in law firms because everyone is a lawyer, or not everyone, you have paralegals and some admin stuff too. But majority of the firm, I would say are income producing, highly educated individuals that are t Is that fair? No, it's not fair. It's not true. She says no folks. She says no.

Brooke Lively:

here's the thing. There are paralegals out there that are smarter, better, and more efficient than the attorneys,

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

especially a tenured paralegal versus lawyer.

Matt Haney:

Yeah. An associate or something. Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

So, I mean, there paralegals in this world that train attorneys.

Matt Haney:

That's so true. I just immediately think about a, a partner level person. But you're, as you know, not everyone starts a partner. Most people don't

Brooke Lively:

everyone starts a

Matt Haney:

Yeah. So I hear

Brooke Lively:

and,

Matt Haney:

are, yeah, that's a good point.

Brooke Lively:

and there are some firms, depending upon the type of law they practice, where there may, there may be 10 to 12 paralegals, legal assistance per attorney.

Matt Haney:

Wow, that's a big firm,

Brooke Lively:

My, my immigration firms run that way

Matt Haney:

right? Because so much of it is administrative and, and task focused, not litigating in a courtroom or trying cases. Yeah,

Brooke Lively:

We need someone gathering documents,

Matt Haney:

Compiling information, organizing, delivering. Yeah. That's

Brooke Lively:

filling out forms, doing things that way. And, so. It's really interesting because you have some really skilled people

Matt Haney:

Right.

Brooke Lively:

that may be running a big team and that, interestingly, she'll probably be in charge, but there's an attorney on that team

Matt Haney:

Yeah. A subject matter expert, but not

Brooke Lively:

and they've got the graduate degree

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

and they don't wanna answer to a paralegal.

Matt Haney:

Right. Interesting,

Brooke Lively:

So we're very often working through, in immigration firms and in personal injury firms where most of the cases settled. It's called a pre-lit firm.

Matt Haney:

Sure.

Brooke Lively:

you know, pre-lit, you can have one attorney running. I mean, it's on the edge of malpractice, but you can have one attorney running a thousand cases.

Matt Haney:

Holy cow.

Brooke Lively:

Mm-hmm. It

Matt Haney:

Well,

Brooke Lively:

12 paralegals to do

Matt Haney:

I mean the, just a pure organization and, and keeping up with all the information. And at that point the lawyer doesn't necessarily know what the case is. He's, he's just going, he or she's going through and

Brooke Lively:

They're just signing documents.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

Um, but that's like what Morgan and Morgan does. But so, how do we arrange it to balance the way we need it to run and the ego.

Matt Haney:

Yeah, right. Ooh, it's not easy. There's probably a lot of conversations. There's probably a lot of chatter. Do, do you find them, do you find lawyers being more honest and, and honest is not the right word. Forthcoming with, with opinions. I mean, stereotypically, I mean, obviously if you're working with litigators, you would, you, they would throw that out there, but you know, I feel like sometimes I'm in a session or at a quarterly or in an L 10 weekly with someone, and it's like. I really just want you to tell me what you're thinking, because I know you're withholding information for one reason or another. Do you

Brooke Lively:

Um, no. They withhold information.

Matt Haney:

Okay. For fear of like upsetting the other people or leadership team dynamics or I.

Brooke Lively:

attorneys are taught in law school never to ask a question if they don't already know the answer. So they will sit there and try to figure everything out and, and game every outcome. I'm like, can you just tell me what you're thinking and then we can game it out loud?

Matt Haney:

right, right. As

Brooke Lively:

let's let's

Matt Haney:

a, yeah.

Brooke Lively:

it as a group.

Matt Haney:

Yep.

Brooke Lively:

And, the trust level has to be pretty high. When the trust level is high, everything moves so much faster as it does it Any company.

Matt Haney:

I see that every, I mean, I mean, it's like that aha moment. It's like, but if someone said to me. You know, what would be one of the top three attributes you'd have on a leadership team member? And I would say number one would be that I can be open and say what I need to say, not hurt someone's feelings and trust them. Like if you trust is the the ever bond in a leadership team and you see it all the time when the trust is there, you set it. It's amazing when it's not. It's just like two people know what needs to be said, but they don't wanna say it'cause they're gonna upset the other person or they're gonna offend them or they don't trust her.

Brooke Lively:

Okay, so the team yesterday where we kicked the partner off the leadership team, right? What was truly amazing was about lunchtime. So I give all of my teams the EOS animals, and I explain what they are, you know, the little squishy animals, and one of the partners grabbed the elephant. And he said, okay, I've gotta use the elephant,

Matt Haney:

Oh, good. Good for him.

Brooke Lively:

gotta talk about the elephant in the room. And I'm like, all right, where are we going?

Matt Haney:

Yeah. So

Brooke Lively:

And he turned to the partner that we, I don't think we had kicked him off the leadership team yet, but he is like, I feel like you're upset and you're not saying anything

Matt Haney:

In the session or in general?

Brooke Lively:

in,

Matt Haney:

Meaning Upset. Is and, and,

Brooke Lively:

into the session upset and that the

Matt Haney:

things.

Brooke Lively:

making it better.

Matt Haney:

Right. And how did it go? Tell me, tell me.

Brooke Lively:

it went so well.

Matt Haney:

Isn't that great? That's how it should go.

Brooke Lively:

and after, you know, the session was over and we go around the table and, you know, how are you feeling? Were your expectations met? Scale of one to 10, how do you, how do you rate our work today? They then looked at me and they're like, okay, so how did we do?

Matt Haney:

Ooh, I love that.

Brooke Lively:

I'm like, okay, yes, I'll take a couple of minutes and I'll kind of stroke your egos and, and boost you up until you did a good job. But really what it was, I was like, the moment you picked up the elephant,

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

that was huge.

Matt Haney:

Yeah. And that's a story, Brooke, that we need to continue to tell, and I'm glad you picked, you brought it here because we don't tell that story enough. I mean, it's almost like segueing into a session. It would make sense to say, Hey, this is the story that just happened. In this, you know, referencing that immediately disarms people and it's like, okay, if we need to do that, we know we can use the elephant. Or if we can pick up the jackass and show people, it's like those tools are so, I mean, in the dozens of sessions I've been in, I think they don't get utilized enough. So I love that. you, you,

Brooke Lively:

Oh, are you kidding? I will grab the squirrel and put it on my head because

Matt Haney:

that's

Brooke Lively:

I gotta say I squirrel sometimes. So I will like, I'm like, okay, I gotta squirrel for a minute and it will sit there on top of my head while I squirrel. So I gotta squirrel faster. It's gonna

Matt Haney:

Yeah. That's right. That's so funny. That's so funny. in our, in the information I asked you to put together some, some thoughts and conversations and, and one of the things you said, which I'm gonna lead you to this, and then you can, you can take through it. We'll cut it out. But the question I ask you is, in your mind, what's the hardest people about man, the hardest thing about managing people and your response was develop EQ enough to understand different people need different things. So that was your response. So I'm gonna tee that question up for you and I'd love for you to expand on it. So Brooke, I'd love for you to tell me what you think, uh, are some of the thing hardest things about managing people or if there's a number one thing that you come out with, which it's like, I see this thing often. What is the hardest part about managing people in, in your mind?

Brooke Lively:

I think it's really figuring out what everybody needs because. We tend to manage the way we wanna be managed, right? we give people what we need. The fact of the matter is we don't all need the same thing,

Matt Haney:

Mm-hmm.

Brooke Lively:

and it becomes frustrating to the people you're managing. So this team yesterday, I, okay, they're just really fresh in my mind, I

Matt Haney:

Yeah. No, it's, it's happens every time. The last session you go through is the one on your mind. That's the best part. Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

So we're sitting there and, it was while, while they had the elephant and they're, you know, going back and forth and they're talking about it. And I could just see I've done a lot of work with the DISC assessment in the past, and I could just see that we had two high Ds. And a C

Matt Haney:

Yep.

Brooke Lively:

and I was like, okay. And, and so I, I finally said,'cause they were talking about how the one partner didn't participate in the discussions as much and,

Matt Haney:

Surprise with two high Ds next to them. Yeah. Duh.

Brooke Lively:

And he would like, he would kind of forget about conversations that they had had and decisions that would make that were made. And he would kind of like.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

Bring them up again later on and wanna talk about, they're like, we talked about that

Matt Haney:

We already solved that problem. Why weren't you helping us? Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

Right. Why weren't you there? where was your head when we were doing that? And, and so I had to stop and say, okay, guys, you all make decisions really fast. And they're like, oh yeah, lightning fast. I'm like, and you, you make that decision by talking out loud. They're like, Uhhuh. Yeah. Back and forth. He never participates. I'm like, mm-hmm. I'm like, and you like to listen to all the information? He's like, yeah. I'm like, are you ready to make a decision? As soon as you hear it? He's like, no, I'm really not. I'm like, you need to go home and sleep on it, right? And he's like, yeah, I really do. I said, and then the next day after you've kind of thought about it and processed it, then you kind of come back with your answer. He's like, yeah, then I'm ready and I know what I wanna do.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

I was like, guys. Y'all have made the decision and he hadn't even heard the question yet,

Matt Haney:

Yep. Yep. I I always say, um, people process, I, I process with my mouth open and there's people that process with their mouth closed. And we need to understand that there are people in the room that process differently. And, and I love the way you said you, you did. Was that an aha moment? Obviously they knew that, but they didn't know it the way you said it.

Brooke Lively:

Yeah, they didn't. Uh, they didn't understand that they needed to change the way they worked

Matt Haney:

Hmm. Yeah. Or at least be aware of it. Geez.

Brooke Lively:

might, here are little things. If you are going to discuss something in a meeting tomorrow, let'em know today.

Matt Haney:

Ah,

Brooke Lively:

That way he can think about it overnight. So when you guys show up and you start processing out loud. He's ready to jump in

Matt Haney:

Right. So what does that look like? Review the issues list ahead of time or like, what was that like, add to, you know, physically everyone has to have the issues list done by Thursday. If the meeting's on Friday, just make sure that there's a chance for that's, it's a good idea. It's a good

Brooke Lively:

so, so that was exactly what it was. I'm like, when will you go into an L 10? I turned to the one partner. I'm like, you have to review everything the day before. You've got to look at those issues. You have to think about it. You have to look at the scorecard. You have to look at what rocks are off track and decide if you think you're gonna need any more information about any of those

Matt Haney:

Yeah. In order to have a meaningful conversation,

Brooke Lively:

you also need to be prepared that if any of your stuff is off track, that you need to be prepared to talk about it.'cause somebody might ask, and I said. The software, most of the software will allow you all to take notes about your conversations. Take when you, IDS make notes about the discussion and they go out after, after the L 10, and then he's on a record of the conversations and the decisions that were made.

Matt Haney:

Or summarizing it or asking. Yeah. All the note taking platforms out there. You can,

Brooke Lively:

yeah, because then he, then he sees it again. It reinforces it. There's some time that has elapsed and he can process it better, and they're like, oh. I'm like, everybody just needs to, there's stuff that y'all need to do for him, and there's stuff that he needs to do for you all.

Matt Haney:

Absolutely. Let's talk for a second about the integrator seat. Obviously as a fractional integrator, that's what I do every day and what I love working alongside, you know, visionary entrepreneurs and visionary implementers like yourself. and, and if we can, you can use yesterday's session as an example or you can think back through it. I'm curious what the integrator position looks like in a law firm. and I don't have a ton of, I mean, I know a lot about law firms, but I haven't led, you know, law firm companies or law firms previously. What's the, what's the dynamic between and is there, are there big visionary leaders in the law firm side compared to these integrator pieces? And sort of give us some color and some stories around what you've seen good integrators look like in a law firm. Mm-hmm.

Brooke Lively:

he has a mind that works at the detail.

Matt Haney:

Mm-hmm.

Brooke Lively:

And he sees the interplay between things and understands how things work. And when you pull lever A, this is what's gonna happen over here.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

And, and that's fabulous because he can see the big picture and he can see the impact.

Matt Haney:

Right.

Brooke Lively:

You know, when marketing does something, how that's going to affect production.

Matt Haney:

Sure.

Brooke Lively:

I have other integrators that aren't attorneys that know nothing about the law at all, but again, have that same ability to see the detail and see the interplay

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

and, and look for the bottlenecks and the problems, and figure out how to make it all runs. Smoothly.

Matt Haney:

Do you, do you find it sometimes easier when there's not a lawyer in that seat? Or is it, I mean, I guess every company's unique, but I always wonder like how much is subject matter ex, how much is subject matter expertise relevant in that seat?

Brooke Lively:

We always need a head of legal.

Matt Haney:

Sure,

Brooke Lively:

So, and that 99.9% of the time is an attorney because if we have a non-attorney, head of legal. We got some cranky lawyers.

Matt Haney:

because they don't know law.

Brooke Lively:

They

Matt Haney:

Yeah. Yeah. But is that, is that head of legal generally the integrator?

Brooke Lively:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Haney:

Not always. Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

Not always.

Matt Haney:

Interesting.

Brooke Lively:

but, but they represent legal on that. You know, the head of legal represents legal on that leadership team

Matt Haney:

right. I,

Brooke Lively:

and is often, but not always a partner.

Matt Haney:

yeah, that would make

Brooke Lively:

In fact, most of my partners would like to get out of the head of legal

Matt Haney:

Yeah. Sounds like a lot of work. a lot of

Brooke Lively:

I don't know. That's not true. I have one, I've got a team in North Carolina and there is one of the partners is a total visionary. They've got a non-attorney integrator and the head of legal. Is the other partner and he doesn't want to do anything

Matt Haney:

Yeah,

Brooke Lively:

but teach and train the younger attorneys

Matt Haney:

dang, that's kind of cool. I mean,

Brooke Lively:

and go to trial.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

He loves it that, that's his jam. I'm like, good. He's like, I don't have to work about, he's like, I don't have to worry about the marketing anymore.

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

that's

Matt Haney:

if No, that's so great. That's so great. I love people that have that passion for teaching and growing and building. Um, I, I do that all, probably more than 50% of my job is growing up. Next level of leadership. And leveling up them up to a place where they understand what success looks like and they're building good habits and they're establishing their voice and, and they're becoming a leader themselves, so that they're taken seriously by that senior partner who, will trust them and, and, um, you know, believe in them.

Brooke Lively:

Well, and that is something that is very often missing in law firms is kind of that, that middle management,

Matt Haney:

Mm-hmm.

Brooke Lively:

and not just missing in attorneys, but missing in in the staff also because. You need people to lead the paralegals. You need people to, to lead the, the different offices and, and things like that. And

Matt Haney:

Yeah.

Brooke Lively:

you know, very often someone's given a secretary or a receptionist a title, no power and no training.

Matt Haney:

That's exactly right. I see that often too. The, uh, the accounts P clerk turns, CFO, it's a that's a that's a hard one. Yeah. And I mean, I see it so, so often, Brooke. Yeah. Well you said for fun, you like to travel and you're happy place is on an airplane.

Brooke Lively:

Yeah. I was on an airplane this morning.

Matt Haney:

You were on one this morning on your way back from Buffalo, I think, which is less desirable than probably some of the places you like to go. No shame on Buffalo. But what's the next, what's the last trip you had for fun? And what's the next trip you have planned? Either with family, without whatever, the last one and the next one.

Brooke Lively:

Well, I've got, two family trips planned. One to the mountains in North Carolina and one to the mountains in Colorado, but those aren't the trips I'm really excited about.

Matt Haney:

All right.

Brooke Lively:

The trips I'm excited about in, the beginning of October, kind of beginning to mid-October. I'm going to Italy with some friends

Matt Haney:

wonderful. Where are you going?

Brooke Lively:

and we're going to Bologna. And we're going to bologna for the cars. So we, get to drive Ferraris for two hours up in the hills. We were supposed to have a private tour of Maserati and Maserati of the Maserati factory, and Maserati decided that they were going to close. They weren't supposed to be closed, but now they've decided to close while we're there. so now I'm working on a private tour of the Ferrari factory. We have booked a private tour of the Paani factory, which is, I don't know if you know about that.

Matt Haney:

I know.

Brooke Lively:

23 cars a year.

Matt Haney:

there are a zillion dollars in Uber. Yeah. Supercar the whole thing. Yeah. Now I'm familiar. So what's your connection to cars? I mean, I mean, what's the story

Brooke Lively:

I'm going with five guys and

Matt Haney:

cars and no cars?

Brooke Lively:

yeah, I totally thought that that would do it. And I am drawing the line at the, at the Ducati factory.

Matt Haney:

Yeah, but that'll be kind of cool. I don't love motorcycles, but I love the Ducati brand and I love their, the colors and well, that'll be an exceptional trip. I've been all over Italy. I've never been to Bologna.

Brooke Lively:

I haven't either. I am gonna make all the guys go to the largest pasta factory in

Matt Haney:

oh my gosh. The food in Italy is, it's Italy's, I've probably been to Italy six times. And it's my favorite place to go. And I'm actually leaving on Saturday to go to France with my wife to go the Burgundy wine region of France, which I've never been to. I've actually never been to Paris. I've been all over Europe. Been all over Europe, but I've never been to Paris. So we're gonna go have dinner in Paris and then drive down to the the burgundy region with two other couples and drink wine. And

Brooke Lively:

Okay. Wait, Wait, wait, Do you only have one meal in Paris?

Matt Haney:

I only have one meal in Paris. Well, we land, we overnight on, we overnight on Saturday. We land Sunday. So we're there like Sunday morning and then we leave. Yeah, one meal, one, one meal.

Brooke Lively:

Okay,

Matt Haney:

we'll find another I, I don't know.

Brooke Lively:

because you, you probably have your one restaurant

Matt Haney:

My wife does. She has one place that she really wants to go to. She's been to Paris before. But I will take your suggestion. If you have a place.

Brooke Lively:

I have

Matt Haney:

Okay. I'm,

Brooke Lively:

places ever.

Matt Haney:

I'm, oh, she loves chicken. Don't tell me this. Alright. What is it?

Brooke Lively:

It is. It is so good. I will send you the

Matt Haney:

Okay, please send it to me because I, uh, if I come out of this meeting that we're in now with the chicken place in Paris that we need to go to, I'm instantly gonna be starting the trip out on the right foot.

Brooke Lively:

Okay. Here's how good it is. I was going from Amsterdam to London. I went from Amsterdam to London through Paris,

Matt Haney:

say that, that that math doesn't work, but you wanted to go? That's so good. Well, you'll absolutely have to send it to me because I, um, I'm excited. I'm trying to be optimistic. I don't love, I don't, I've never been to Paris, but I don't love the idea of Paris. But what I do love is, is getting three

Brooke Lively:

I love that place.

Matt Haney:

What's that?

Brooke Lively:

I don't love Ferris, but I love that chicken.

Matt Haney:

But I'm excited to get out and see, I mean, like being around craftsman's an artisan and the artists who make things and being in a small city where there's a family that's multi-generation, that's run the vineyard or run this restaurant. It's like that is the, the purest form of entrepreneurship. That wasn't called entrepreneurship back then. It was just called living and surviving and, and keeping multifamily generation businesses alive and. So I do love, you know, shaking hands with the people that are, you know, continuing their great-grandfather's legacy. It's really cool. Well, great. Well, listen, this has been a lovely conversation with you. I've loved getting to know more about you and law firms. and just wanted to say thank you for joining us in the scalability code and sharing some knowledge and wisdom you've gained for, uh, working with these firms.

Brooke Lively:

Well, thanks for having me, Matt. I really appreciate it.

Matt Haney:

We'll talk to you very soon.

Brooke Lively:

All right,

Matt Haney:

Take care.

Thank you for listening to The Scalability Code. If you made it this far, please follow the show on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get out of the sh*t show together. We'll see you next time on The Scalability Code.