The Wellness Esquire Podcast

Breaking the Billable Hour: How Subscription Law Firms Are Changing Everything - with Mathew Kerbis

• Ariella Cohen Coleman • Season 1 • Episode 17

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On this episode of The Wellness Esquire Podcast, Ariella Cohen Coleman chats with Mathew Kerbis, the founder of Subscription Attorney LLC and co-founder of Practi. They explored the  shift from the billable hour to the subscription model in the legal profession, and Mathew shared his journey from insurance defense burnout to building a sustainable, tech-forward practice that prioritizes time control and client accessibility.

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Guest Info: Mathew Kerbis

Founder of Subscription Attorney LLC and Co-Founder of Practi

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Host Info: Ariella Cohen Coleman

The Wellness Esquire: Creating a bold new path where wellbeing, happiness, and authenticity drive performance and success https://thewellnessesquire.com

Ariella Law, PC provides strategic legal support - from formation, contracts, and compliance to fractional general counsel - through project-based services and monthly subscriptions for entrepreneurs, growing companies, and mission-driven organizations. https://ariellaw.com/

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SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Wellness Esquire Podcast. I'm Ariela, and I'm so excited for you to listen to this conversation with Matthew Kirkus. Matthew is a lawyer, entrepreneur, and creator of a subscription-based law practice built around the belief that the billable hour doesn't work for lawyers or clients, and that there is a better way. I happen to agree. We talk about Matthew's path to law school and how his experience billing by the hour led him to recognize that the model wasn't allowing him to build the kinds of client relationships he valued, and that the model wasn't good for his own well-being. One breaking point moment he shares his wedding, he realized that he had just mentally billed his own dad for a phone call. As Matthew shares, while he didn't create the concept of the subscription law practice, it's certainly become one of the things he's known for, and he has certainly inspired others to create similar models that work for their practices and their lives. Matthew and I also dig into the mechanics of his business model, how he uses technology and transparency to offer legal services starting at just around 20 bucks a month, and why he believes that lawyers who don't embrace AI and new tools will eventually be left behind. And again, I agree. This conversation is about redesigning the practice of law, questioning old assumptions, and creating a career that actually fits your life instead of consuming it. I'm so grateful to Matthew for sharing his story and showing us what else is possible for the legal profession. Thank you for listening and enjoy. Hello, Matthew.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, hey. How's it going?

SPEAKER_01

Going great. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00

Good. Good. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01

Fantastic. We are currently in Hawaii. And uh so it it's this has been a strange time zone to be in, um, and not my favorite for having a lot of US conversations because I feel like my day is just starting when everyone else is like, yeah, I've been doing this all day. I prefer doing the inverse where I've been up for a while, and then everyone's like, and so I can feel ahead.

SPEAKER_00

Totally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. Well, I am delighted to chat with you. I think we were both on uh an Advos Pro event together. I think that's how I came across you, maybe um many months ago. And um and so I'm I'm thrilled to chat with you. I want to hear all about your story. And in uh sort of my awareness of lawyers working with the subscription model, I feel like you were one of the very, very first. And so I'm really excited to hear about how you got into it. Um but we've before we get into what you're doing now, I want to uh understand what led you to law school in the first place.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah, I I just um I want uh are we recording yet?

SPEAKER_01

Like I start and then we can edit it as well, but I find that when I don't record from the start, we lose magic, and then I'm like, wait, hold on, say that again.

SPEAKER_00

No, that that that's fine. No, I I I love it and sorry for for that uh for the editing and post.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, so so uh no for sure.

SPEAKER_00

I I went uh apologies to them. I I went to uh I went to law school in part because I uh I I I really didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to study philosophy in college. I just didn't think you can. So I actually went I actually went to college undecided. And um and then I found out, oh, I could I could major in philosophy, I could go to law school, and like hey, hey, I think I I think you can make money as a lawyer. So um so I'm gonna go ahead and try that and see if that works out for me. Now it just so happens that that was a really bad reason to go to law school, but it ended up all working out because I really do like being an attorney.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, fantastic. So uh, all right, so law school worked out, and w how did you spend the first uh kind of chunk of your legal career?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so when I got started, I actually had started doing uh foreclosure defense work. I don't think anybody ever goes to law school saying, hey, you know what I want to do when I graduate? I want to do foreclosure defense work. Now, at least I was on the side of the homeowners, right? Like I was helped keeping a roof over people's heads. And what I didn't realize at the time, though, I was always business model curious, is my my boss, like the law firm owner, because it was, you know, law offices of Joe Schmoe, which were the first two style of law firms that I worked for, actually third, if you include when I was a law clerk in law school, but he just charged a fixed amount every month that we could keep people in their homes. So while he didn't think of it or describe it as the subscription model, that's what it was. Um, and I did that for just a couple years before leaving to do more of a transactional and litigation hybrid focused practice in the real estate market for legal services and pivoted that uh from there to insurance defense work, which I did for over five years, and that was where I was billing by the hour. And within just a year or two of that, I was like, okay, there has to be a better way. Of course, it took me like three years to figure out how to do what I'm doing now to get out of there and do my own thing.

SPEAKER_01

So when you were in that you know, model of billing by the hour and you were like, uh-uh, this does not work for me. What did what did your recognition of how much it wasn't a good fit for you, what did that look like? How did you feel? How did you feel like it you know impacted your clients, your service, your well-being?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And and you know, when I saw the the thrust of the of your podcast, it reminded me of an episode of Law Subscribed where I had an attorney on there, and we talked about the four pillars of health that are necessary for all people. And I I that I'm not the expert in that, right? That's great about having a podcast, as I'm sure you know, is you don't need to be the expert. You just have the experts on to talk about the stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, fun competitions.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And and and so anyway, I don't remember what they all were, you know, sleep, diet, exercise, and like fun or like something like that, right? And and so he's like, you can't get all four, you can barely get two on the billable hour. And so we called the episode the billable hours bad for your health. Yeah. And what's really nice about like having that context of having that episode. Now that was that was over a year into me having my own practice, but I sort of felt that intuitively, even within the first year of billing by the hour, that like, oh, this is this is not good for me. This is not good for my family, this is not good for my clients. Like, the only people it's good for are the lawyers at the top of the pyramid. And that's it. And I was like, this cannot work. This must not work. Um, and and and yeah, but I just didn't know like other options because we don't, we're not taught it in law school. There's not a lot of education out there, which is also one of the reasons why I decided to start my podcast, is you know, there's just not a lot of uh information about the business of law. There's like how to get clients, right? There's like what technology to use, but not like the actual business model of law. There was there was a dearth of information out there.

SPEAKER_01

Isn't that wild? It it's truly as if we as lawyers are led to believe that the practice of law is somehow not a business because we're operating. I mean, they are, of course, you and I know, their businesses, but we're not looking at them in that way. It's crazy. And then, you know, sometimes I think people are surprised when it doesn't seem to be working out. But if you look at what's going on, it's like, well, look at what we're doing. How can it be sustainable?

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Not so secret, you know, it's not, it's not working out.

Why Mathew went to law school (and why "to make money" was the wrong reason).

SPEAKER_01

So when you, you know, you went through this, you were working with the billable model, it wasn't working for you. Was there a breaking point where you were just like, I simply cannot do this anymore? When uh what was that process for you where you realized I I gotta get out, I've got to do my own thing, and here's what it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, there wasn't really one single moment, right? I mean, it's like a series of events. Uh, but the first time I realized, oh, this is breaking me, is I had just gotten off the like a call with my father. I was like, okay, that's point three. And I'm like, gosh, what am I, what have I become? Right? Like, like even like talks with my with my father, and I'm I've come a long way since then. That was like that was a really long time ago. And I've come to like I don't assign a dollar amount uh like to like my time,

Discovering the "accidental" subscription model in foreclosure defense.

SPEAKER_00

right? But if I had to, like if I was forced to, it would be like, oh, well, you know, my time is worth like a million dollars an hour, right? And like the time that I spend with my family is worth 10 times that, right? So so like I just like but billing for it makes absolutely no sense. First of all, you're you're undercutting yourself, you're capping the amount of time that you could earn in a day or revenue you could generate for your firm. Billers, aka lawyers uh are expensive uh to hire. And so like your margins, what you could actually generate, if they actually bill, if the clients actually pay, right? Like, like it's all it's just a terrible business model when you start digging into it, which I which I started to do, which was also one of the things that was like, okay, this I have this this cannot work. And then the other side of it was my relationship with my clients. So like I would have clients who would not contact me until their problem was too big. Now, of course, that means I could bill a lot of time for that, but like also, what am I doing? I want to help people. And if they can't reach out to me until they have no other choice, I'm not really helping people. Uh, and then the and finally, like, there was moments where I my knowledge and expertise would help solve when they actually did call me before there was a problem, I would be able to solve it for them sometimes within a couple of minutes. And like just the time I would like we would have to pay the staff to open up the file, to bill the client, to bill the point two, or the point one, even, let's be real. It's like we will have lost money. So that as and like when that happened to me, I was like, what if they just paid me every month? And I can just answer questions like this, and I'm I'm providing value, I'm capturing some value from them. And then I really, really started to dig into the subscription model as a viable business solution. I couldn't give you an exact time frame on that, but I'd say around 2018 is where I really started to do my research on it.

SPEAKER_01

Your really spot-on description of how the billable model uh you know negatively impacts everybody involved is so well said that it it actually sounds comedic. Um and I think the sort of comedic side of it is, you know, anyone who's listening and who's done it is like, yep, it it's it's so sad, it's funny, and that's so spot on how absurd it is that we just have to look at it as you know something to laugh at once we can move on and and do it in a better way. Um so did you know anybody at the time that was billing in this way? Or did you have to look back at that first job that you have and realize, oh, that was a script subscription model? That's what I should do.

SPEAKER_00

You know, I I I probably go on 30 to 40 podcasts slash speaking engagements like throughout the year on this exact topic. And so I talk about it a lot. And in addition to like hosting a podcast about it, right? But I don't do the talking. My guests do. That's what's nice about being a podcast host. You let the guests do the talking. But I um it was in one of those conversations where I was being interviewed about the model that it dawned on me, right? So, like, and and I've been interviewed about you know mentorship and teaching and stuff too. And and one of the things I've learned being a mentor and being a teacher is you learn stuff when you teach. It's not just you imparting your knowledge, but like you're also learning as you're teaching or mentoring or whatever. So it's why every lawyer, everybody should be a mentor, because you you learn a bit about yourself and from your mentees, right? But I was I was talking, I and that's where I realized, oh my gosh, like my first law firm job as a lawyer was the subscription model. It just had never occurred to me. And I was like a probably almost a year into having my own my firm subscription attorney LLC, right? And and uh, and so like like at the time though, like back in like 2018,

The breaking point: Realizing the billable hour was damaging his relationships and health.

SPEAKER_00

I think it was maybe 2019, you'd still find it out there. There was an article published by the ABA Journal about alternative fees. And maybe three of the lawyers in there were doing subscription billing. Two of them, Kimberly Bennett and Jason Foscolo, have been on my podcast. And the other third guy who was quote unquote doing subscription billing was actually doing prepaid billable hours, which is not like really subscription billing. And we could go into why it's not if you want to. But um, so I reached out to Kim and I and I reached out to Jason and eventually had them on my podcast and learned from them. Uh, they were super generous with their time, you know, especially Kim. And uh, she does coaching and other things. Now she has a legal tech company, you know, that that helps with that stuff. And um, and and and so it was just like they they were so generous, and and obviously they're not billing by the hour, right? So like the way that they perceive time is different than than other lawyers. And and then I just I just kept deep diving uh on all other sort of subscription economy type stuff. So I've discovered Teen Joe and his book Subscribed. Uh now of course I've had Teen on the podcast too. He was episode 100, so that was like a major get for me. And um, and all the stuff Robbie Cumman Baxter has put out there and Ron Baker, they've both become you've been guests on the pod, and Ron's kind of become a friend over the last few years. Having he having discovered my podcast, looking for more stuff about subscription, which is just wild. And uh, and and and yeah, so I was just like consuming everything I possibly could about the subscription model and membership economy because there was I ran out, I ran out of stuff for legal stuff about hey, how are lawyers doing it? And so I just had to go to other industries and I learned about you know the SaaS startup world and and everything that I could about that. And I just extrapolate from that and I applied it to my own practice and and ultimately came up with a very different subscription model than all other attorneys who came before me. And and there were several, right? Like I found like dozens of attorneys, I've had them all on the podcast. Some have been doing subscription for over a decade. One has been doing it for like several decades, right? But he just keeps to himself and he like has a handful of clients and he's doing well, right? So, like, I'm definitely not the first. I'm just the first to claim the title of the subscription attorney. Um, I definitely stand on the shoulder of giants like Kim and Jason, and uh, and frankly, far more women attorneys and attorneys of color than attorneys who look like me. So um, so yeah, but I've I've really taken that tech style approach and applied it to my practice, which I really think has made my practice more sustainable and different from how I've seen it done. And I've had some attorneys straight up copy my model now, and I see that they're still using my model, which is great. I love that. I'm I have an abundance mindset. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01

So you mentioned tech. How do you incorporate tech and a really intentional, you know, set of processes and systems and tools uh into making your process work? Because I, you know, and part of the question about that is I think a lot of people would look at your pricing and think, how can that be done? How is that sustainable? So talk about that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And I'll say my my pricing is at subscriptionattorney.com. It's public for clients, but also for lawyers. And so is my engagement agreement. If you scroll down to the bottom, there was a hyper hyperlink to my engagement agreement. And crazy FC. I know, I know. Uh who would have thought transparency was like a good thing. So I uh I charge $20 a month and $50 a page, right? Like that's like the starting pricing, right? And then my the subscriber benefits change as you go up the subscription level, and we stop counting pages as clients begin to pay me hundreds or thousands a month, right? And at the end of the day, like my fixed operating expenses are around $11,000 to $12,000 a year, right? I'm a virtual law firm, I have software subscriptions, I have malpractice insurance, I'm probably overinsured, but you know, I'm a risk-averse lawyer, what could you say? Uh and uh and so like I don't have a lot of overhead. So when you realize what your what your expenses are, what your fixed operating expenses are, and you figure out what do you want to pay yourself, right? And then you you add those two things together, okay, and then you figure out, okay, how many subs like what do I need to charge? What kind of what's my ideal client? And how many of those clients do I need? And I've actually taken out, I I've totally revamped over the years my my model based on people who actually hired me and like what they were actually willing to pay. So I didn't just set pricing and forget it. No, I I like I adapted, I evolved my model, right? I got rid of prices nobody paid, or like a few clients paid, but for a short time. I got rid of pricing that uh I just didn't get clients like who are freelancers and solopreneurs. They just didn't hire me or they didn't stay subscribed, no problem. I still have a few, but like the majority were like, no, this is this was not a good fit for them. That's fine, whatever. Um, I mean, and I just found that my best client were people clients were people who completely own their business. They have a few employees, so they get to make all the calls, they're the king or queen of their business, and they're already in the mindset of outsourcing because they have employees. And so many of these freelancers and solopreneurs, like they were still doing their own taxes on turbo tax. They haven't, they weren't even outsourcing to like a CPA. And so they just weren't in the mindset of outsourcing. So they weren't, they didn't make good clients for me, even though I think I provided really valuable services. So I've adapted my pricing significantly. But the point is, is like, okay, now people know what my operating expenses are. I've talked about it before uh publicly, which I'm happy to. Um, you could guess what I maybe want to pay myself, right? Like, I'd like to pay myself six-figure salary, but it also doesn't need to be too high. It just needs to be enough to support and sustain the lifestyle that I want. So I don't burn out, right? Uh and and then, you know, like back in, how many clients do I need at $500 a month, a thousand a month, you know, two thousand a month. Even at $20 a month, if they're paying me $50 a page, I'll still like generate like two to two to five thousand dollars of income from that client over the over the year, right? Of revenue. So you don't need a lot of clients. And that's the other thing. I get inbound all the time, and and feel free to interrupt me at any time, but but I get inbound all the time, like on LinkedIn and in emails. Oh, we can help you scale your business, we could help you bring in a bunch of clients and like help with your intake and marketing. I'm like, I just need like 20 to 40 really good clients. Like, I'm not trying to grow, I'm trying to sustain and retain clients and get them up the subscription ladder to the extent it makes sense, and get them down the subscription ladder to the extent it makes sense so that they stay a client. So, like my whole like all this legal tech, all this marketing, all this, all these, you know, things that coaches teach lawyers, it just doesn't even apply in my world. Um, and the technology does play a big role. So there was a a long way to get around to not answering your question about technology. So I'll go ahead and let you ask it again.

SPEAKER_01

So I know that you're you're big on technology, which I love. And I love your your, you know, you're having discussions on LinkedIn and on your podcast and elsewhere about the role of technology and specifically the role of AI. And um, and I'm also very big

Operating with radical transparency: Pricing and engagement agreements.

SPEAKER_01

on that. On on my view at this point is we're either already at or close to the point where lawyers and firms that don't figure out the responsible way to integrate AI are being irresponsible. But you know, the the focus has to be on you've got to use it responsibly. Um, so how how what is your approach to the responsible use of technology?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. I I think that most jurisdictions have some version of Rule 1.5 on fees. And at least I think the model rules, it's comment five, but like every jurisdiction's got their own version of this comment. And essentially boils down to if you bill using wasteful procedures, you may be in violation of your ethics, right? And so my perspective on that, and I teach this in my CLEs, you know, not everything's for informational purposes only on this podcast. Um I think that that is the rule that implies we must use technology.

SPEAKER_01

I agree. I I so so strongly agree.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and so look, at the end of the day, uh, you know, technology does reduce billable hours, right? And and so I uh I came up with this framework called uh the visionary lawyers, the pragmatist lawyers, the conservative lawyers, and the skeptical lawyers, right? And so the visionary lawyers, we we ditched billable hours years ago, right? The pragmatist lawyers are sort of realizing right now, hey, AI is disrupting our business model. You know, we have to do something about this, right? And then the conservative lawyers are like, well, you know, it's letting me take on more work. I can maybe increase my billable rate a little bit, but like they'll maybe wait for a couple of years. You know, they you know, they know it's gonna come, but like they're still they don't feel the er the need, as the pragmatist lawyers do. And then the skeptics are like, you know, oh, you know, maybe I'm pre I'm I'm getting ready to retire. Maybe like, no, I I still think the billable hour is not going anywhere. And like, and and but realistically, in five years, those lawyers will not be billing by the hour, right? Like it's just not going to happen. And and AI is is the the force behind that, I I think largely. And and for lawyers who think, oh, they get it wrong or or whatever. Well, it's not a calculator, right? It's a probabilistic tool, which by the way, so are humans, right? Like, like our brain is just like like what what's the like it boggles the mind that lawyers don't like AI because it's not perfect every time. When what does a lawyer say as an answer to every question? It depends. It depends. That that is that means that that's a probabilistic answer. That means, okay, it depends on this, it depends on that. You know, it's a probability, right? And and and what are the factors and what's the context? Okay, now take that and apply it to AI and it becomes a superpower for us, right? Like, like it becomes our power tools and and like it's not gonna be perfect, it's not magic. And it doesn't make everything that we used to do uh Like just automated, but it takes the time that we used to do it significantly reduced. I mean, why do we hire associates coming from a solo practice attorney? But why do we hire associates or staff? We hire them so that they could do the work first and we could just review it, right? Well, one of the reasons I'm able to stay a solo is I have multiple AI tools doing the work and I review it. And it just doesn't take as long to review as it does to create stuff from scratch. And so whatever AI tools you use, I have my three preferences of my three favorite AI tools, but whatever tools the lawyer uses, just remember that. Treat it like you would treat an actual human. They're just going to do the work at super speed compared to a human. And you're going to get faster results.

SPEAKER_01

Do you mind sharing your three favorite tools that you're using right now?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. And so for legal specific things, I use Paxton AI. And Paxton, I've been using them for over two years. This summer of 2025, they did become a sponsor of my podcast, but only because they were like, hey, people are signing up and they're saying like they heard about us from you. You know, maybe we want to sponsor your podcast to get more people to come. So like I was already talking about them anyway, but I think it's important I disclose I am a paying customer of them, and they are a sponsor. I still pay them every month. Um and look, and I'll be real too, right? The reason I pay them every month is I might find a better tool and I want to be able to unsubscribe, right? And so I'm willing to pay a slight premium to just do a be a month-to-month subscriber. Um, I also use Perplexity, uh, Perplexity Pro as soon as, and and Paxton is 200 a month, by the way. Perplexity Pro is 200 a year. That

The legal ethics of technology: Why you have a duty to use tech.

SPEAKER_00

was like the easiest renewal I've ever done for like the value I get from Perplexity Pro. It's been over a year now. I think it was October of last year that I really started to just use Perplexity instead of Google for finding answers. I don't do search, I don't use search engines, I use answer engines, right? So Perplexity Pro lets me do things like vibe with it. And I use the comment browser, which is the Perplexities uh uh AI-powered browser. So I could like vibe in the sidebar with the with the Perplexity AI assistant on like some new uh survey questions or something, and or or for some sort of Google form. And then I could say, great, now go make the form. And then I go off and do something else. And I've got like an AI assistant, like anything you could do in your browser, it could do. Or like I went to this networking event, I got this spreadsheet. I could upload the spreadsheet and I could attach it. I could say, okay, go and do research on all of these companies. Here's my ICP requirements, I ideal client profile requirements. Go do research and come back and let me know which ones would be good. Uh uh, you know, potential clients to outreach to do a follow-up one-on-one meeting. Okay, okay, great. It's these people here. I want you to prepare a draft email and create a custom one-click use calendarly link that they could each schedule 30 minutes and we could do a follow-up one-on-one meeting with them. And it will like prepare all those draft emails. Now, I could also say send the emails, but I'm not going to. I'm still going to go in and review the email drafts. So, like, I just instruct it to do these things. It goes off and does it. And and it's just it's amazing. I I love perplexity. Um, is it perfect? No, but like sometimes you just have to, just like a real human, you're just like you nudge it and you say, Oh, you know you missed something here. Can you fix that? Or you stopped halfway through. Could you finish your work? And then it will. You just have to pay attention. It's not magic, right? And then the third one is notebook LM. And I do a lot of teaching and educating on Notebook LM. Uh, and I use the pro version because I'm in Google Workspace instead of Microsoft. And uh it, and I mean, I just I use it side by side with Paxton a lot when it comes to analysis of contracts or document data sets and other things like that. But then you could also do things like you could pull in YouTube videos, right? So, like if you're uh an IP attorney and you do copyrights and the the copyright office has released one of their like hour-long YouTube videos, you don't have to go and watch it, even at two times speed of 30 minutes. Instead, you could throw it into Notebook LM, you could tell it to give you the most important things related to your actual practice broken down, and it will do that in text, it will do that in audio, and it will do that in video, like a PowerPoint presentation. But instead of it being an hour, it's like five minutes, right? Or 10 minutes, right? And and so like you could just get to understanding materials so much faster. And if I was a student today, I would be using Notebook LM in everything I was learning about as a student, a hundred percent. I I mean, I and so I use these three tools almost on a daily basis. I don't always need to use Paxton, but I'm using Paxton multiple times weekly. I'm using Perplexity a hundred plus times a day, and I'm using Notebook LM every day. I don't really know quite how many times I'm using Notebook every day, but it is definitely every day.

SPEAKER_01

So now that you're you've been using this model for a a long time, how do you think about the value of your services?

SPEAKER_02

Meaning Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

Just, you know, we we come from a training where we're not thinking

Mathew’s AI "Holy Trinity": Paxton AI, Perplexity Pro, and Notebook LM.

SPEAKER_01

about the value of our services. We're thinking about, you know, the the time every minute, how much money that minute is worth or six minutes. And, you know, for me, the shift to the subscription model, I started to really think it it was a thrilling shift for me to think about the actual value I'm giving to a client and not, oh God, how much time am I spending on this thing? But how is this going to impact their business? It feels so how do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And and so I definitely just don't think about how long something's going to take, literally ever, right? Like I don't track my time, but I do control my time. So like I mentioned the calendarly links earlier, right? Like I whenever a client subscribes, I make a new calendarly link. Really, I duplicate an old one. I could probably tell Perplexities assistant to just do this for me now. But um, you know, it takes like two minutes. Um so I duplicate an existing client link depending on which level they're subscribed at. They get a custom scheduling link. And if they ever unsubscribe, I just turn it off. Like they can't get a hold of me, they can't get on my calendar again. And uh and you could set up limits like, oh, they can only schedule so many a month or whatever, but like realistically, like I want them scheduling time with me, right? Because when they schedule time with me, that means I'm helping them with a legal problem and they're bringing me business. Like, I so I'm not worried about them reaching out to me. And then some you know, when I I help teach lawyers and law firms how to like pivot from subscription, uh, from billable hours to subscription, and they'll be like, oh, well, what if this one thing takes longer than all the other cases? So what? It doesn't matter. You're not trying to maximize revenue in the short term, you're trying to maximize revenue in the long term by providing ongoing value to your clients, right? So it becomes a long-term play. And Robbie Kalman Baxter, her books do a really good job of like explaining this about the forever transaction and the membership economy. Those are her two books, highly recommend at a minimum. You know, buy them or download them and uh scan it and upload it into Notebook LM and like have it like, you know, create some cont some easier to digest content from there. But Robbie also posts some great stuff on LinkedIn, so how she's she's a follow-all post person for sure. And and then you you get you just get out of that mindset, right? So like you're not looking at the weeds, you're looking at the forest. And you just want to cultivate and grow the forest. You don't care if there's some weeds growing out, or this one thing took a little bit longer. Who cares? As long as you have capacity, that's all that matters. And these AI tools and automation tools just let us scale without more hiring. And and not to say that we don't hire. You will eventually need to hire if you want to scale or increase your pricing, but I could probably double my pricing, I'd lose some clients, and I'd make more money, but that's also not necessarily the point.

SPEAKER_01

So how does this model allow you to live your life? Like what does a a standard week look like for you?

SPEAKER_00

Well, you know, look, the first year was not like all rainbows and sunshine, right? Like starting a new business. Right. So my first client paid for my first year of operating expenses in the first like couple months, right? So like at least like I knew, okay, I don't have to go into my savings, right? Like we're we're paying for operating expenses. And then I was able to start to get more and more clients and um and and built it up a little bit. And within the first like six months, I had made enough that at least for that year, we weren't gonna have to touch any sort of reserves that funds that we had, right? Plus, my wife works a corporate gig and I'm on her benefits, right? Like, I mean, so there's there's something to that too, right? Like, like it's not magic. And and if she wasn't, I mean, I might have to start charging more on hiring and like doing some other things. But the reality is, is I'm the spouse that's available for the kiddo when she's sick and needs to be picked up early from school, right? Or there's a holiday and the school's closed and uh, you know, I could still get some work done, but I block off that day for scheduled client calls, right? So uh so like I'm the available parent in the relationship so that my wife could focus on her work and her family time and not have to worry about anything else. You know, she works from home now too, but she didn't used to. And so I would also take care of most of the stuff at home, right? And so, like not having to charge too much and not needing to get too many clients just to grow, grow, grow meant that I was able to steadily and sustainably start and grow a business to a reasonable threshold where I'm still able to sort of handle all these things. Now, look, like we outsource things like lawn care and clean house cleaning and other things, because you know, it is still more valuable time for me to spend in my business during the day than like handling stuff like that, right? So I think outsourcing even things like that can be valuable. Um, because like I said, I don't value my time as a dollar amount, but I still want to preserve and protect and could and control my time. So those are some of the ways that I that I do that.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. So I know that you you've been building this community of lawyers who, you know, they find out about this crazy idea of a subscription model, but then often are like, okay, but uh it sounds nice. How do I do it? And I think was it last night maybe you held your first in-person dinner or recently with bringing people together to actually kind of develop a community around how do how do we do this and support each other?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So we we had some interest in that, but it ended up not, we didn't have enough people to make it worth it. And and I will say part of it was the platform is called dinner, and they really want to do dinners on weeknights. And I was like, How about dinner for brunch on a weekend? And like, because like I I can't go to the city on a weeknight. And they were like, Well, this is what we find works. I was like, Yeah, but like my audience is our like parents, small business owners, they're not living in the city, they're living in the suburbs. So I was like, I I think we should can I can I like hack the platform and do dinner for lunch? They're like, no, we really want to test this out and try to do it for dinner. And we got like one person who registered and like six people who didn't complete the form. I was like, I don't want to reach out to those six people and like make them uh you know complete the form if they're like they were like, oh, this doesn't make sense for me, right? Because like it does it wouldn't make sense for me personally. Sure. So so I was in part, I know the founder of the company, and I was I wanted to give, you know, let her tap into my community to see if it could work. And and the other successful like dinner club people on that platform, they all are like targeted towards young people or singles, right? So it's like a hack for dating, and I'm like, oh well, I wish I would have known that before I like partnered with you and did some advertising and

Life as the "Available Parent": How the model supports family life.

SPEAKER_00

stuff to my audience. But but that's okay. Look, I there has been interest. I think dinner is not going to be something that we try again for my community, but I do also have a new tech company that um will probably be where I mostly try to push people towards if they really want to change their practice.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about that. So I know that you also you describe your law firm, which I I love and am delighted by as a tech company that happens to also be a law firm.

SPEAKER_02

Correct.

SPEAKER_01

We already talked about it. You're into you're into the you know tech and the role it can play. So what are you building? Yeah. What what's missing? So why why are you filling what gap are you filling?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So what what I've learned, and I'm curious to get your perspective on this. Actually, let me ask you some questions first. Um, for your tech stack, do you try to do everything with one technology solution, or do you still ultimately have like a bunch of different tech tools that do highly specialized things?

SPEAKER_01

My husband is building me a new tech platform because what's out there doesn't work. So I am routinely, and I was a person raised on the value of the right tools. So I I use a range of tools. There are a few, or there are some things that I like well enough, but nothing gives me exactly what I need, which is why we're building something new. Because it it's it becomes inefficient and things get slowed down, and uh I don't like that.

SPEAKER_00

And in my experience, things like your your legal practice, law practice management platforms that try to do everything for you, they they also slow you down because they have seven out of ten tools, not 10 out of 10 tools, right? And so like Calendly integrates with a lot of things, but even if it didn't integrate with anything, I would still use Calendly because it's easy to use, it's super affordable, I get way outsized value for it, and it just works. And all the automations I could set up, right, where people could easily reschedule things. Um, you know, I could I really could really control my calendar, right? So like there is no start your subscription or offer your subscription services. That's like the calendarly, right? Of that. It's like this is all it does. It's not trying to replace your whole tech stack. And uh you know, look like I mentioned Ken Bennett, she is a company Fadoo. Fidu's great. I I tried it, it just didn't work for me because again, it's trying to replace my whole tech stack, and I like my best of re tools. For some lawyers, if that's what they want, fine, go for it. That's your option. But I I think there's even if lawyers think they want an all-in-one solution, I think they're left dissatisfied and left wanting. Um I know because my most popular episodes are about technology on my podcast, right? Um, that's why I have a focus on that. And and so I you know, I I believe and I've gotten a lot of interest that that like that like we just need a tool that we don't worry about coaching, we don't worry about mindset, we don't worry about all these extra things replacing all your tech stack. No, it's just like okay, in five minutes, you're gonna have subscription billing and you can start generating recurring revenue, right? And so that's what I I think we've successfully built. So I partnered with uh uh an ex-Google um software developer to develop the thing. And it's only been a few months, but um but the product works. It's not everything we want it to be, but it works. And I have some clients through the platform. Oh, it's out of well, it's in it's in early beta, right? And so like you know, part of me is like, oh, do I give you the the link publicly to share? It's like, well, you know, if we get too many people that come into it, because we're you know, we're fit we're finding we're finding things and we're fixing bugs and we're making it more user-friendly, right? And and like it it works though. Like that's like the main thing is it definitely works from what it's supposed to do.

SPEAKER_01

That's so exciting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And and so we are letting some folks in. I mean, I don't know, you tell me, do you want me to share it with you publicly or privately? How many people do you think?

SPEAKER_01

It's entirely up to you. I mean, so I this is I'm launching the the podcast in a couple of weeks, and um, you know, and it's possible by the time we we put out your episode, and you can have a say in you know where to bring you out. Um, great. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00

I'll I'll share it with you. And then you could you you can maybe even sign in and play around with it and set up your subscriber benefits and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Um and it's so yeah, yeah, because then it in a what from what we're learning, and and and you know, to lawyers, this might be bumbo jumbo, but in the software development world, it's like you do you have what are called sprints. We have admired.

SPEAKER_01

I only know about this because my husband's in tech.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And so it we have my founder and I right now, we're we're we're doing my co-founder and I we're doing week-long sprints. And so we meet up every Wednesday and like, okay, what did we accomplish last week, right? So we're making improvements pretty rapidly at this stage because we're also still very small, right? And the product is very minimum viable product, although it does very much work. Um, and so the next big thing we're working on is having some default subscriber benefits put in, because right now it's you come in, our earliest users, they're already using the subscription model. And so they're easy that they could just sort of copy and paste from their website or their engagement agreement, which makes it easier for them. But um, but for other folks who are coming in that that they are not already doing it, they're not an advanced subscription users. We found that, okay, we need to give them default subscription pricing to at least have something to start with and default subscriber benefits. And so we're working on that right now. And so by the time this episode comes out, hopefully that's out there. But if it's not, my advice is go to Perplexity, go to Gemini, go to ChatGee, like go to one of your favorite AI tools and be like, here's all the services I offer. Um, I want to offer subscriber benefits and subscription pricing. Give me 10 recommendations on what I should offer and then what's subscription tiers, right? Give me good, better, best pricing, or give me done, done, uh, do it yourself, done with you, done for you style pricing, three-tiered pricing. And and so go in there, and and we're we're coming out with these like just PDF guides of like how to come up with your subscription pricing while we build this out. So maybe by then we'll at least have the guides, maybe even the tech built out. So okay, all right. That that's enough hold holding back on the URL.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for sharing that. And and congratulations. That's it's really exciting. And um, you know, uh I I never would have thought that you know, building tech would be part of my career. Did you ever anticipate that that would be part of your career?

SPEAKER_00

I I mean, even still, like I'm not really building it, right? My co-founder is he's the technical one.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but it wouldn't he be doing it without you? You wanted to and you're the one with the expertise. You're the one who knows this is how the business needs to operate, the model you know, needs to operate, this is what lawyers want. He can't build this without you. So I hate to tell you that you're building tech.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I I I know, I know, no, I I I agree. And and definitely being on the Wellness Esquire podcast, it's like um, you know, yeah, all I needed was one more, you know, hat to wear, you know, co-founder, CEO of a of a tech startup. So uh so the web the website is it's it's called the the company. We're still like in like stealth mode, which means like we're not like publicly marketing or whatever. The website gives away the brand, but that's okay. I'm still not gonna post it on LinkedIn probably for several months. Um, but your early listeners of your podcast will will learn it then. It's called Practi.

SPEAKER_01

Practice.

SPEAKER_00

As in practice, but you cut you stop at the I before the CE. So practice.ai is the URL. And you could just sign up. You could sign up right now, and it's you know, we're calling it our early beta. We we did have a wait list originally, but then we were just like, you know what, we're not advertising, let's just put it out there on the main website. And so it's yeah, P-R-A-C-T-I.ai, and you just you could sign up. And if you if you don't hesitate, you could have subscription billing and benefits set up in less than five minutes, and you can start generating recurring revenue for your law firm. I mean, you know, the rest is still on you, right? Like you got to make sure you reach out to your client after they subscribe, you got to make sure you do a conflict check, you got to make sure you have them sign an engagement agreement or do something that like we're still building out the platform, everything else is still on you as the law firm owner, but you probably already have those in place anyway. And and so all we're doing is we're replacing your invoicing, your billing, your time tracking. Like those are usually one piece of software or one tool in a soft in a stack.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's amazing. And I mean, to me, you know, the the the role of technology is to make your life easier. And so, you know, everything you just described that goes into this or the main pieces, that can be such a hurdle. And if that process is so, you know, just challenging for you to navigate through that it takes you two hours to do, you're either not going to do it or it's gonna take up more of your day than is reasonable. So if you every piece of technology just you know gives you energy back, that's a win.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, and and in the future, you know, we'll we'll look into integrating into other platforms and and probably Calendly integration is is high up on that list, right? But um but we're we're very early stages, right? Like we were started, you know, like really my like it was it was really started this summer, but the company was not founded until the fall, right? And we're at the end of fall right now. So it's still very, very early, but we're building such a specific product that it didn't take long to build it. Nobody's built this specific of a product in the history of legal tech.

SPEAKER_01

What do you think is the challenge with legal tech? The question is coming from this place. When I launched my firm, one of the things I was most excited about was having total control with the tech that I use. Because up until that point, I spent a lot of time wanting to throw my computer out the window. And and just feeling like I was wasting so much time and energy with whatever I was being made to use, because it it either made my life, it it sucked. It just sucked. And then I started, you know, I launched my own firm. I was so excited, I tried a few things, and I was like, this is not the Doing what I want it to do. This is so hard. And then especially because my husband's been in tech his whole career, he would look at some of these platforms and be like, why did they do that? They've got six different product managers. They're not talking to each other. Why are these products distinct? This doesn't make any sense. These don't go together. What is happening? And I would just say, I don't know. Help me.

SPEAKER_00

So so I have real answers for you. And by the way, they don't like the answers also don't offer a real solution, right? But um the first is you have lawyers building tech for lawyers. And if the lawyer owns the product, then it's going to be terrible because we don't know product, right? I think I happen to know product. And by product, it's I it's a very technical term in the software development space.

SPEAKER_01

But my husband's been in product. Again, the only reason I know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And and and so like when lawyers design products, they're just awful. Like they're just really bad. So it's like whenever I see on a legal tech platform site like made by lawyers for lawyers, I'm like, okay, this is gonna, this is gonna not be good. So we're definitely not advertising that at practice, right? Um and and I very much one of the reasons I picked my co-founder is he's very good at what he does on the software development product side. Now I have a million product ideas, right, and things that

Introducing Practi.ai: Building the "Calendly for legal subscriptions."

SPEAKER_00

I think will work, but I don't exercise control over what it needs to look like or what the interface should be. And so I'm I'm you know, lesson learned, right? So like I'm trying to solve that problem. And now the other reason legal tech sucks, although I think Paxton has avoided this largely, and I and I'll tell you how I think they managed to do it, is when you have people who are outside of legal, designed for legal, then it's not purpose built. And so it's not like something that lawyers want to adopt, right? Now, what Paxton did is like one of I think like one of their very early hires, one of their first like five or six employees, was a in-house counsel and head of legal product, right? And so like like they they realized they needed to make a legal hire early, and and I don't know if he's considered a co-founder or not. I I don't I don't know that, but he was a very early hire. And he's also something that is almost unheard of. A Harvard grad who had a solo practiced firm. I mean, like they all go into you know big law education, right? And so like they just found a diamond in the rough, I think, with him, with Eddie. Um, so like I think they managed to avoid it. And then the other place that I think is avoided it largely in legal AI tech is GCAI, Chichilia Zaninti, the founder of GCAI. She was an in-house attorney for the vast majority of her career, and she built a product for in-house attorneys. So she is the ultimate expert, and I really like their product as well. I think it's a little overpriced for social practice law firms, but then that's the other big flaw of legal tech, is they think, oh, it's lawyers, so we could charge ever anything and everything that we want. But what's great about these deep research tools, these AI deep research, and I like to use Perplexity's version of that, is you could actually do comprehensive analysis on what lawyers make at what type of law firm that they're at. Because there is a lot of data, though it's all disaggregated, right? So what I found is um of and and this this number varies, right? Like it's either somewhere between 300 and 500,000 of the 1.3 million US lawyers are solo or small firm attorneys, right? So it's like it's a little bit of a range there. But what I did find a lot of evidence that supported was 37% of solo lawyers make like they have like income of less than $150,000. And so first of all, that's you could you could live an okay life on that, right? And realistically, your spouse, if you're married, you know, probably has a similar income, right? So you could live a good, you know, lower upper class or very high upper middle class life with dual income at that amount. But if you're making $150,000 a year, that may I didn't ask, I need to ask if that's like just revenue or income, right? Um because if it's just revenue, then they're making even less, right? But that's before taxes income. Let's assume you can't charge more than one or two hundred dollars a month for technology. You just can't. And because especially if you're not going to be the only tech solution they subscribe to. And so in talking with like venture capitalists building a legal tech company now, like this is something I have to explain to them all the time. And it's like, no, this is the market we're trying to serve. And they're like, well, can't you sell into big law? Well, because Harvey is an anomaly, and and big law has the long sales cycle, and big law is less likely to adopt the subscrip subscription billing because they have institutional clients and they're a big giant boat, and it's easier to turn a small boat than it is a big one. And then they're like, Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense. So, like, like legal tech venture capitalists who are investing in all these legal tech companies, like like literally like a billion, over a billion dollars was invested in legal tech in 2024.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

And and like they they just they think like lawyers have a lot of money because they just don't know. But the reality is they don't. They're constrained. And so one of the reasons that even though we're not charging a lot, it's because we want to help lawyers make more money, right? And have a more balanced life. Um, and and help them serve clients that they've never that have never been served by lawyers before because that these clients they need pricing certainty.

SPEAKER_01

Right. Absolutely. I I love the way you're thinking about all this, and and we're we have a very similar approach with what we're building, is you know, uh when I was looking at all these options, because I didn't want to build something up. I do plenty.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I wasn't bored. Um, but you know, when you look at anything that's out there, and then you know, there are there are a number of platforms out there that have good reviews that people like, but you know, is it the right fit for a a solo or small firm? Often it's not. Um and you know, pricing wise, but also if it's if it's just built for something that's massive and you're not that yet, or you don't plan to be, it's also likely not to be the right product.

SPEAKER_00

So I'll I'll tell you a tool I think looks really interesting and I'd really love to use it. It's called Lawmatics, but they have minimum pricing of three seats, you know, at their lowest skew. And it's like, why am I gonna pay for two seats that I don't need?

SPEAKER_01

Right. It it it feels to me that a lot of people, you know, the way that a lot of people just assume, oh, you graduate law school and all of a sudden you're making, you know, a shit ton of money, and that's just not how it is for most people. Um, there's uh the stereotype that we just lawyers are walking around making a lot of money, that everyone can just, you know, that there's no financial challenges and you know, oh, it's minimum three seats, so just buy three seats, try it out. It's just not practical for for most people.

SPEAKER_00

And this is one of the reasons why, and I don't want to turn this into an ad, but uh we say it like on the website of Practice your first client you sign up to the platform is free, like minus process payment processing fees, right? If you take credit card or ECH payments or whatever, right? It's like it's like you we we want you to start generating money from the platform before we start charging you anything. Like that's the goal, right? And while we're in beta, that second client and beyond is just $20 a month. Well, if you have two clients at $20 a month, one of them's paying for your practice subscription, you know.

SPEAKER_01

I I love the way you're thinking about this because I I think you you and I share it in general um a vision of really transforming the legal industry. And you know, my angle is you're very focused on this, you know, I think the subscription model and what that means and and why it's better for both the lawyers and the clients. And I share that view. And in and in a you know, my my angle comes more from well-being and then therefore incorporates a subscription in the tech. Um and uh, you know, to me, okay, great, $20 a month. That means more people can do it. The more people we can actually help develop uh, you know, careers that fit who they are, that feel better, that are sustainable, that work for them. You know, a million people, 20 bucks a month, that adds up.

SPEAKER_00

It it it does. And and even then, it's like like we're not trying to sign up a million lawyers, right? Like our target to hit revenue goals is 12% of the market, right? Like, like that's really all we need.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, but it it you know, the the point can be about, well, let's reach the people who want us and want to do it this way and otherwise couldn't, otherwise wouldn't know how. And so let's help them out.

SPEAKER_00

And and look, I I think more players in this space the better, because then all of the marketing that we're all doing sort of helps just increase awareness that this is even an option, right? Like I I've had Fadoo on the podcast, I'd had Kim Bennett on the podcast once, and then I had her and her co-founder on the podcast as Fadoo, and I asked them, this was like years ago now, I was like, are you upset that Rally, which is now known as Spellbook, pivoted from helping law firms do subscriptions to a legal AI contract analysis and drafting tool. And they were like, Yeah, like we miss having competition because competition is like it just helps increase awareness, right? Like that's what it does. And it helps you bring out your best, like when there's competition. And look, there's you know, there's there's Nike, Adidas, you know, Puma, there's uh um, you know, Coke, Pepsi, and I think they bought all their competitors, but you know, there's like there's always room for at least two players, right? Like Apple and Microsoft, you know, you know, Google and Amazon, you know, Amazon and uh and Walmart, right? Like there's you know, there's you know, and then you've got your targets, right? And and as a as a as a law firm owner, I'm like, I want to be like the target or the Walmart, not necessarily at the scale, but at like the like, oh, it's a no-brainer to like go get your legal services at an affordable rate, right? So I think that there's huge market opportunity there for lawyers and also for providers of what I'm trying to do with Practice, and what Kim is trying to do with Vadoo, and whatever you know platform you're working on, if if subscriptions are part of it, what what the the what Gwen and um um Whitney Whitney are, you know, and Whitney's been on Lost Subscribe, but Gwen and Whitney are trying to do over at at Advos. Um, like I I have an abundance mindset. I think there's there's so much opportunity for all of us that the more of us doing it, I think the better.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah, and I think all of us knowing each other, the better, because we're we're all kind of moving in a in a the same, if not, you know, similar direction, and we just boost each other up. So you're doing lots of things. How do you uh, you know, then the subscription model helps you to to kind of have more control over your time and and your energy, um, but you're also you it seems very clear that you love what you do. It's meaningful for you, and it can be very easy to uh have a, you know, for it to it can be hard to put hard stops when you're actually really into what you're doing in a different way than when you're just doing the bill of hour and you have to keep going. This just feels fun, and then you don't stop. So, how do you take care of yourself with all this excitement and activity?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Really excellent question. Um, I try to always get at least eight hours of sleep. Like, like when if my kid is like putting up a fight and like my wife and I are like having trouble getting her to sleep, like I'll I'm like when she's finally in her bed. I mean, she's almost five, so she's good. Her delay tactics now are more like, read me another book. And like, what do I not want to read my kid another book? Right. Um, so you know, or I forgot the stuffy in the car, you know. Oh, okay, like you want me to go to the car to get the stuff you left that there on purpose. Um, I will like go to bed like right after her, right? So like nine o'clock at the latest that that kid's getting to bed. And even sometimes when we get her to bed at eight o'clock, I'm like, I'm going to sleep. Right. And so like I try I I some of my most productive hours are from like 8 p.m. to 11 a.m. or to 11 p.m. But um but I just I really think just getting sleep is like one of the things that everything else depends on how much sleep did I get last night. I drink buckets of water throughout the day. I mean, if folks are watching, I don't know if a video podcast is available, but like I've been like drinking like a you know 25 ounce water bottle here, and that's like my seventh one of the day at almost 4 p.m. central time, right? So like I'm I'm getting lots of sleep, I'm drinking a ton of water, which kind of makes everything else easier. And then with my schedule, I just I time block like crazy. I've standing meetings with clients, I've standing meetings with my technical co-founder. I I try to now what I do is I just sort of brain dump into a Google Doc, and then I have Gemini and or like my comet browser. Comet's really good at Gemini is good at reorganizing my mind dump of things I need to do. And then I use comet browser to go in and be like, okay, now time block this on my calendar for me, right? And so time blocking is like crucial to controlling my time. And I only time block at the end of every day for my next day because I let my clients book time with me, not within a 24-hour period. And so I know at the end of every day, all my scheduled calls from clients will be booked already tomorrow. So now I can schedule the remaining open space with other things I need to get done. And so the time blocking of it all like cannot be understated how valuable it is. And look, I'm a company of one. Like, do I always do exactly what I've time blocked? No. But I try to, right? And like what I want is I want that AI accountability buddy. I want an email every day at the end of my day when I'm about to do my time blocking that says, hey, did you get all these, did you get all this stuff done today? And I could like click like I still want the things I still need to do, and then it will automatically time block the next day. So I'm seriously looking for like a well-designed time blocking tool. And if I wasn't already building a software solution, I would love something like that. And I've paid for some that said they do that, and none of them do that.

SPEAKER_01

None of them do. And that's actually part of this like suite that we're building because uh I I use Morgan, which does that okay, but not to the extent that I want. Um, so if you haven't tried Morgan, you might it might give you a little of what you're looking, but not entirely. And uh yeah, stay tuned because I feel the same.

SPEAKER_00

But here my advice is I think that somebody building just that tool will always build it better than somebody who's building a suite of tools. Because you only have so many hours in a day, and you can only develop so many products and make them so good so much and do iteration.

SPEAKER_01

What I have started to feel is that um there are so many pieces to running a business and also running a set of businesses, because my husband and I both have we've got a few things going on. And the more every the more each um each product can then fit into the next, not everyone's gonna need the next, but if you do need it, you want it to actually work smoothly.

SPEAKER_00

There is a product called Sweet Dash that does that does everything. And I've I I used it for years. I still have some legacy clients on it. And it is so mediocre. It is just so mediocre because it does everything. But it does like if you want one thing to feed into the next, to feed into the next, to feed the next, it does it. And it's it's not expensive. And and you could turn on HIPAA compliant uh settings. And so just from what I've experienced as a uh consultant to legal tech companies over the last few years, too, is whenever you start to expand your product offerings, everything else starts to suffer and hurt. And so you focus, it's like the 80-20 principle, right? It's like 20% of your product will offer 80% of the value. So just develop that product and let the rest go away. Because there is another product that's going to do it better in the market than what you're doing, possibly. I mean, we we don't believe that we don't believe that product exists. That's why we're starting Practi. But like Google and Microsoft offer calendarly comp uh uh features, right? A side of your your mic's called Microsoft Bookings and I think Google appointments. I've tried them, they are terrible. I mean, and I know they're terrible because I've used Calendly. And so that's just look, I mean, you do whatever you guys have to do. I'm just saying I think if you're still early in development, pick, get some user feedback and see what's the most valuable thing that you're building. And frankly, if you just build a time blocking tool that's better than Morgan, I would subscribe to that, right? I would at least give it a shot.

SPEAKER_01

I'll keep you posted. I mean, the value of the way we build is it's us. So, you know, we're not hiring anyone. It's my husband doing most of the build. And so, you know, it's as we identify, oh God, this is so annoying. What if it did it better? We play around. If it's good, it's good. If it's not, we put it aside.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, absolutely. And it sounds like you're early, which is the only reason why I'm even bringing it, I'm bringing it up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's really, and it's, you know, and look, for some of these things, if we find something better, again, we got plenty to do. It's fun to do stuff. And also, as you said about the mentoring, you learn as you go. So if something we're building, we're like, oh, actually, we found something and it does exactly what we need. All right, let's stop what we're doing. We don't need to anymore. Fantastic. Let's move on. Um, anything, anything you want to cover that we haven't gotten to? Anything about your approach to subscription, anything about your your sort of well-being-oriented um practices that that keep you able to, you know, do this work and feel like you can do it in a sustainable way that continues to feel meaningful?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I I intentionally choose subscription pricing and member benefits where my clients don't even think of me as the put-out fires lawyer. I do not want to be in that space. So I choose not to be. For lawyers who don't mind being in that space, I think subscription is still an option for you, but charge a premium for something like that. Like I think if clients want to be able to call you or text you and you pick up your phone every time, I don't even offer that premium of subscription. I could, I have clients who would pay me for that, but I don't want to deal with that. Okay. So I choose to forego that revenue to forego that stress. But for lawyers, that they that doesn't empty their cup, that fills their cup, then just make sure you're charging the right monthly price for that.

SPEAKER_01

I love your point about that, because the the way I hear that is you're very aware of how you operate best as a human, what stresses you, what energizes you, what drains you, and how do you want your practice to look, and how do you want your engagements with your clients to look. And I think, you know, law school doesn't teach lawyers to think about those things, but it's so critical. And everyone's, you know, you can have a bunch of people doing the same subscription model. And I know you mentioned you've got a bunch of people who have just copied exactly what you do, which is amazing. But there's so many versions of it that can work for you depending on your practice area and the kind of clients that you want to work with. And first you got to tune into yourself and and recognize, you know, how do I want my days to look? How do I want my year to look? How do I want my relationships to look? And and then go from there. So that's I think that's really, really valuable insight.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and then if people want to reach out, uh LinkedIn's the best way to get in touch. That's where we uh connected for the pod. And so um, yeah, Matthew Kerbis or search the subscription attorney on LinkedIn and folks should find and follow me there.

SPEAKER_01

Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to hang out with me and and have this conversation. And I'm I'm really excited to stay in touch and uh check out practic what is it called?

SPEAKER_00

Practi.

SPEAKER_01

Practi, check out practi, and uh yeah, and just to keep in touch and and support each other. Amazing.

SPEAKER_00

Sounds good. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks so much. Thanks for listening. I hope you got a ton of value from this conversation, and that you will check out the links in the description to learn more about the guest and the wellness esquire. And I hope you take even just one minute to do something for yourself today. Maybe right now. Drink more water, say no, call a friend, do something that makes you happy, have a 30 second dance party, find something to make you happy. Also, be sure to subscribe and send the podcast to a colleague. And if we're not yet connected on LinkedIn, please fix that. I'd love to know you. See you next time.

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Ariella Cohen Coleman

Host
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Talya Drissman Woolf

Producer