Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus

Just when you think you're getting comfortable with AI, something new comes along. How are you supposed to keep up while running a law firm? AI is changing how attorneys research, manage cases, and serve clients. The opportunities are exciting, but so is the pressure to adopt new technology before you fully understand what it can do. And with so many tools promising to save time and improve effici...

What problems in your law firm have become so familiar that you no longer notice them? Maybe it's the same communication breakdowns, recurring mistakes, or frustrations that keep slowing your team down. You've learned to work around them, but that doesn't mean they're not costing your firm time, money, and opportunities to grow. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down...

Krista Nash had what many law firm owners work toward: a busy practice, plenty of clients, and strong revenue. But behind that success were 18-hour workdays, mounting responsibilities, and little time for her family. She was making good money, but the way she was running her firm wasn't sustainable. After attending the Atticus Summit in 2022, Krista recognized how much needed to change. Through on...

What if the reason your new hires aren't meeting expectations has less to do with who you hired and more to do with how you onboarded them? Hiring the right person is only the beginning. How you prepare, train, and support them can determine whether they become a valuable part of your team or another responsibility on your plate. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley talks wit...

Your law firm needs your attention. So do your family, finances, health, relationships, and everything else that matters to you. Trying to keep each part perfectly balanced can leave you feeling like you are constantly playing whack-a-mole and waiting for the day when things finally settle down. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, entrepreneur and One Big Life author Elaine Ralls joins...

Twenty-five years advising attorneys. Twenty-eight years of military service. Glenn Finch has spent much of his career learning what it takes to perform at a high level without letting every demand dictate your time. And after decades of working with law firm owners, he's seen which lessons tend to matter most. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with Glenn to talk...

"I can't find good people" is one of the most common frustrations in law firm management. But what if the people aren't actually the problem? Rushed work, competing priorities, poor scheduling, and broken workflows can make capable team members look like they're underperforming. And when the work starts falling apart, who usually steps in to fix it? The law firm owner. In this episode of Great Pra...

Imagine getting a call from someone who thinks they hired you, paid you, and trusted you with their legal problem. Except you've never spoken to them before. That's what attorney Angel Leal faced when scammers began using his name, image, voice, and law firm to impersonate him online. What started with fake social media accounts quickly became something much bigger, leaving Angel and his team to d...

If you stepped away from your law firm tomorrow, what would stop working? For Dr. Ruth Mannschreck, that question became very real when her daughter's traumatic birth forced her to cut her dental practice from five days a week to two and a half. She could have accepted that working less meant earning less. Instead, Ruth and her team changed the way the practice operated. They returned to their pre...

AI can help you get legal work done faster. But if you bill by the hour, that creates an uncomfortable question:  What happens when the work that used to take three hours takes 30 minutes? And billing is only part of the conversation. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Jennifer Felten and Fred Felten join Steve Riley to talk about what they're actually doing with AI inside their law fi...

What would happen if one of your most important employees was suddenly out for three weeks or three months? For Sam Price, a team member's gallbladder surgery exposed a problem many law firm owners don't recognize until it's too late: too much of the firm depended on what one person knew. Sam joins Steve Riley on Great Practice, Great Life to talk about reducing key-person dependency through bette...

You return from a conference or coaching session with a clear plan for your law firm. Then the emails pile up, a client emergency takes over, your team has questions, and the change that felt so important starts slipping away. Why is it so hard to make meaningful change stick? In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley welcomes Rich Bracken back to share the thinking behind his boo...

You know your clients and referral sources are on social media. You know you should probably be there, too. But what are you supposed to post? How often? And is any of it actually going to bring business into your firm? In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with attorney Angel Leal, who went from a zero-dollar marketing budget to building an audience of more than one...

What would you do if you discovered two trusted executives had allegedly stolen nearly $1 million from your law firm? In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with attorney Craig Goldenfarb to discuss one of the most challenging moments of his career and the leadership lessons that followed. Rather than retreating into micromanagement, Craig rebuilt his firm with strong...

Do you ever feel guilty no matter what you choose? You're at work thinking you should be home. You're home thinking about work. You grow your firm, but somehow the success doesn't feel the way you expected it would. Attorney Jennifer Felten knows that feeling well. When Jennifer first joined Atticus, her law firm was struggling. Years later, she has a team of nearly 30 people and has grown her rev...

Attorney Kent Berk thought he'd reached the other side. His firm was thriving. He'd built a great team. He was finally enjoying the freedom he'd worked years to create. Then, within days, three key employees were gone. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Kent returns to share what happened next. Together, he and Steve Riley unpack the hard lessons that followed, why the setback forced K...

From the outside, Jennie Bretschneider's law firm looked like a success. Revenue was climbing, new clients kept coming, and her reputation in the community continued to grow. Behind the scenes, it was a different story. Working 80-hour weeks with no systems, no team, and no clear path forward, Jennie found herself trapped by the very practice she had worked so hard to build. In this episode, she j...

Starting a law firm is one of the biggest decisions an attorney can make, but the real skill isn't deciding to open your own practice. It's knowing how to make that decision, and every one after it, without losing sight of the life you actually want. In this episode, Steve Riley sits down with attorney, entrepreneur, and Atticus Practice Advisor Jordan Ostroff to unpack his framework for making ha...

The goals you set at the beginning of the year didn't disappear. They just got buried beneath client demands, constant interruptions, unexpected challenges, and the daily realities of running a law firm. In this episode, Steve Riley offers a practical mid-year reset for attorneys who feel like they've lost momentum. Using memorable stories, simple frameworks, and actionable coaching, Steve explain...

Some of the best referrals Steve Riley ever received came from the last place most attorneys think to look: opposing counsel. In this solo episode, Steve shares a simple but powerful strategy for turning professional adversaries into long-term referral sources. Through the story of a high-stakes real estate negotiation and an opposing attorney named Richard, Steve reveals how professionalism, emot...

Steve Riley sits down with attorney Kent Berk this week, on Great Practice, Great Life, to unpack a case every lawyer needs to understand: United States v. Heppner . A former CEO who used a free Claude account to draft thirty-one documents before he was indicted, and prosecutors seized every one of them. The judge ruled none of it was privileged because no attorney directed the work. The bigger le...

Most attorneys don't lack ambition. They're drowning in small, unresolved issues that quietly drain their energy, focus, and peace of mind. The overflowing inbox. The postponed difficult conversation. The underperforming team member. The health goals that never happen. Individually they seem minor, but together they create constant overwhelm. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Ri...

A law firm's culture is not built by slogans on the wall. It is built by the standards people live every day. Scott Pioli built championship teams around three deceptively simple rules: be on time, pay attention, and work hard. In Part 2 of this conversation, Steve Riley and Scott unpack why those rules matter more than any mission statement, and why living them consistently is harder than it soun...

Most lawyers are not lazy. They are overloaded. Most lawyers are not afraid of hard work. They stay late, care deeply about clients, and push themselves constantly. But eventually many firm owners hit a frustrating reality: despite all the effort, they still feel stuck. Lots of motion. Not enough progress. In Part 1 of this two-part conversation on Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down...

What if your law firm's growth no longer depended on you doing everything yourself? Most law firm owners hit a point where working harder stops working. The calendar gets fuller. Decisions pile up. The team depends on you for everything, and even though the firm is growing, life somehow feels smaller. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with attorney Marc Schneider...