The Law Entrepreneur

Marc Cerniglia started Spotlight Branding because he felt that there really was a better way to do legal marketing. Marketing that focuses on SEO is expensive and can’t work for everyone because there’s only so much space on page one of the Google search results. Instead Spotlight Branding helps solo practitioners and law firms build their brand via referrals, email marketing and video.  Reso...

Holly Chantal helps businesses bring their brand, business model and marketing systems into alignment with their next level of growth. She believes in the power of messaging to help businesses connect with customers that are right for them not just because they have a pulse and a checkbook, but because of their passion, drive and desires. We talk about how what has gotten you to one point in your...

John Pontius is based in Rockville, Maryland, and represents individual and business clients before the Internal Revenue Service and state taxing authorities. Today he joins the show to talk about how solo and small law firms can set up their accounting and bookkeeping practices to save time, maximize their income and avoid costly mistakes.  Resources: Learn more: www.pontiustaxlaw.com Linked...

When he was 31 Joe Bernstein’s former wife asked him for a divorce and that’s when Joe realized he was really unhappy. He set about taking responsibility for his life, lost 150 pounds and stopped living his life through a lens of fear.  Now he helps others do the same. He coaches people, mostly men, going through transitions like divorce and custody battles. Many people resist or try to sabot...

Sam Mollaei started off as an employment lawyer. Then he read The 4-Hour Workweek and realized there was another way to leverage his expertise. He created a virtual law firm which has been so successful it has generated over 1000 Google reviews and made him the first lawyer to be a member of the ClickFunnels 2CommaClub ($1 million generated with a funnel).  At the heart of Sam’s business is a...

Marco Brown is a frequent lecturer on the process of getting paid as attorneys — and, as I’m sure most of you know all too well, getting paid on a timely basis and paid the full value of your services is a huge problem for solo and small firm practitioners. We also discuss Marco’s transition from an insurance defense attorney to a solo practitioner, and how he was able to grow his firm to a small...

Denise Blake is a brand new solo attorney, and in this episode, my goal is to capture the mindset of a new solo in today’s marketplace, how starting a practice today is different from even just a few years ago, and what she’s trying to accomplish with her practice. Resources: Learn more at www.blakelawllc.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/denise-a-blake-b996455 Facebook: www.facebook.com/BlakeLawL...

Matthew Trollinger is a solo practitioner attorney specializing in personal injury and workman's compensation down in southern Maryland. Today, we talk about his experience coming from a larger personal injury firm and creating his solo practice, how he went about that process, and all the trials and tribulations that went along with that. Resources: Learn more at www.trollingerlaw.com E-mail: mat...

Elizabeth Hill is a Texas attorney and an avid entrepreneur, both owning her own practice and co-owning the Burklee HIll Vineyard with her husband. Her practice deals primarily with commercial litigation, but with a robust and substantial variety of legal services for wineries and vineyards. So, today, we’re going to learn about how Elizabeth carved out her place in this niche, the legal needs of...

A couple weeks ago, we re-aired an episode with David Burkus, author of Friend of a Friend , and I received positive response from that episode that I wanted to share another one of my favorites from back in the archives. (But I promise this isn’t going to be a regular thing now.) Originally aired in April 2017, this episode features Ernie “the Attorney” Svenson, an expert in helping solo lawyers...

Lesly Longa Vaillancourt and I started our law careers together as associates in a small D.C. firm, and like myself, she’s since moved to start her own estate planning practice (although I only got as far as Maryland, she made it all the way down to Tampa). So, today, we compare notes on our transition from personal injury litigation to starting an estate planning solo practice, dissecting the goo...

Over the years, I’ve had a lot of people ask me what my best episode is, or which ones they should go back and listen to, and I never have a great answer for them — but I recently re-read the book Friend of a Friend by David Burkus, and I was reminded of the incredible value of understanding human networks. So, today, we’re going to re-listen to my episode with David Burkus because I think we...

Stephanie Everett is VP of Community Success over at Lawyerist, responsible for leading the Lawyerist community and Lawyerist Lab, and the co-author of Lawyerist's new book, The Small Firm Roadmap . Don’t let the name of the book fool you, though — it is anything but small. This is a very serious literary work about how to achieve growth and success as a small firm practitioner, and I think it has...

Gary Zalarick is the Principal behind The Legal Assistant, a practice management software for U.S. law firms, and a Partner at Sammarro & Zalarick. Gary and his team originally created The Legal Assistant as a way of leveraging technology to solve some of the problems they were experiencing in their firm — all the way back in 2006 — but it’s grown into something much bigger since then.  R...

Whether it’s as a coach and mentor or the founder and creator of the Attorney Master Class, Dustin Cole is dedicated to helping attorneys build more profitable and successful legal businesses. I actually stumbled onto Dustin’s work after reading an article he wrote for Attorney at Work called “10 Rules for Surviving as a Solo or Small Firm Practice.” That piqued my interest (for obvious reasons) a...

Hey there, fellow Law Entrepreneurs! We had a small snafu that forced us to pull down the episode that was supposed to go live this Monday – sorry about that – so I thought I’d take this opportunity to make a few announcements about what I’ll be doing and where I’ll be going over the next few months, as well as a guest appearance I made on The Lawyerist podcast. Resources: Join Neil at the Clio Cl...

If you’re anything like me, the idea of dealing with a bar counsel investigation of your practice fills you with the heebie jeebies – so, I want to do everything I can to make sure I’m not in that position! That’s why I asked Megan Zavieh to come back on the show and share how she helps attorneys help themselves by providing associated counsel assistance to self-represented attorneys. On top of th...

Tom Lambotte, co-author of Macs in Law: The Definitive Guide for the Mac-Curious, Windows-Using Attorney and CEO of GlobalMac IT, returns to The Law Entrepreneur to share three new products designed to help small and solo attorneys optimize and grow their law firms: BasicCare , How to Start a Mac Law Firm , and Optimize Method .   BasicCare is the suite of tools that GlobalMac IT has been usi...

Christopher Lyle is an attorney by day and tech entrepreneur by night. He created the first version of a really interesting platform called Law Hustle to meet the needs of his own law firm in managing the client experience, and he has since released it as a product that’s helping lawyers all over the country organize and automate their practice.   We also discuss how firms can create a compre...

Rick Piereck has quite a few interesting tidbits on his resume: he was in the Army before law school, worked in a few Maryland state attorney offices as a prosecutor, and claims to have listened to every episode of The Law Entrepreneur before opening his own practice.   Rick says he used the insights from our wonderful guests over the past 171 episodes as a roadmap to creating his law firm, a...

Daniel Mayer has a niche practice providing services and resources to healthcare and mental health practitioners, effectively operating as an outside counsel to practitioners in a heavily regulated industry. This is a vital service area that is getting a lot of attention these days, for a number of different reasons (not all of which are good), but Daniel provides a much-needed legal underpinning...

Elise Buie had to evacuate and leave her life in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina, leading to a winding journey across the country that ultimately landed her in Seattle, Washington, where she now practices family law. She’s had to reinvent herself a number of times through this process but she’s always been able to make it work because, as you’ll hear in this episode, she’s a very personal and...

There are questions that come up a lot among solo and small-firm practitioners: What do I do if I have a long-term illness? Or, how do I provide a legacy for my firm so that, when I have to or choose to exit the practice of law, what I built can continue, and even provide for my family?   To help us answer these questions, we are joined by Sofia Lingos, the managing attorney of  Trident...

Christy Zlatkus has been in family law for about a decade, but she just recently transitioned to a solo practice. She has a really interesting approach to creating an environment and practice that is conducive in the family law space, and it seems to be paying off so far.   So, today, Christy shares how she created an office environment that supports the family law practice, why she hired a P...

Margot Roberts is a solo practitioner who focuses on guardianship law – and I’ll admit that, after filing a petition for guardianship, I wasn’t really sure what the practice area entailed. So, this was an extremely enlightening conversation for me, in regards to what guardianship law is all about and how a solo practitioner can build a successful practice, and I hope you learn as much as I did. &n...