Seven Things That Skyrocketed Christopher Earley's Law Practice

Welcome to episode 45 of The Earley Show podcast, hosted by personal injury attorney Christopher Earley!

Check out the episode below. You can also enjoy it on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

In this solo episode, Christopher shares seven key strategies that have significantly advanced his career in recent years. Christopher delves into the benefits of writing a memoir, starting a podcast, utilizing LinkedIn, sending out email newsletters, public speaking, writing columns, and engaging in coaching/mastermind groups. He explains how each strategy, while challenging, has provided him substantial returns in terms of professional growth.

About The Earley Show:

For nearly 20 years, Christopher Earley has successfully led a personal injury law firm in Boston. On the Earley Show, a new podcast launched in the summer of 2023, Christopher and other standout attorneys will be sharing their secrets to success, and discussing the law office management habits that have allowed their practice to thrive. If you’re looking to make better use of your time, increase daily productivity or even just spend less time answering emails, you’ll definitely want to tune in to The Earley Show.

Learn more about the Earley Law Group here!

Check out the previous episode of The Earley Show here!

The Earley Show is a part of The Answering Legal Podcast Network.

Interested in learning more about Answering Legal? Click here to learn more about 400 minute free trial!

This podcast is produced and edited by Joe Galotti. You can reach Joe via email at [email protected].

Episode Transcript:

Christopher Earley (Host): Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Earley Show podcast sponsored by our friends over at Answering Legal. I'm your host Chris Earley, a personal injury lawyer in Boston. And today we're mixing things up. I'm going to do a solo uh episode, a solo cast. This is my second time doing this. It'll be shorter than our usual podcast duration, probably 15, 20 minutes.

I just want to give you some quick hitting that I hope is valuable to you and something you can take and implement in your own practice. What I want to do is share seven things I've done in the last three years that have really catapulted my career. I'd say three to four years that have really moved the needle for me. Now, these seven things all are hard. They all require time. Some of them require money. They're all an investment of some sort. None of them are free, but the common denominator amongst all seven is they're difficult, but they're worth it.

So, what would be successful for me and outcome um from this would be you take one or two things and you implement them, right? You don't need to do seven. Take one or two things and implement and see what happens, right? And I'd love to hear your feedback. So, let's get into it. Without further ado, seven things I've done the past three years to catapult my career.

The first is writing a memoir, writing my story, writing a book. The book Scaling the Wall is available on Amazon, Kindle. I wrote the book Not to Make Money. I wrote the book to tell my story so my kids when they're old enough can read my story. And I leveraged the hell out of that book. There are many marketing opportunities for that book. I send that book as part of our package that we send to all clients. You should be doing that. Sending a nice welcome package in the mail, a nice box that arrives to your new client's doorstep once they sign or a couple weeks after they sign up, they get a nice box from you. Well, we have a bunch of stuff in that box. And the main thing is my books. I want people to understand the lawyer they hired, the man I am, the person I am, and so that's going to create affinity for some people and for some some people they may not like the story. That's okay. I'm not trying to appeal it to everyone out there, but it's just supposed to open myself up to clients so they get to know who's this guy I just hired as my lawyer and hopefully they can see that, okay, he's a, you know, he's on my level, right? He's got flaws just like I have. So, just try to relate to clients more. When I go to conferences, I I give the book out constantly to lawyers. I mail the book out to lawyers constantly, always getting that book out because it's a way to establish my authority, not just as a personal injury lawyer, but as a person injury lawyer who wrote a memoir and has created so many opportunities. So, whatever your story is, you've got a great story. I'm sure you've succeeded. You've gotten to become an attorney. Share your story with the world. You can share it on social media. You don't have to write a book. Just be willing to be a little vulnerable and see what happens. If it doesn't resonate with you, I respect that. I just can speak to my personal experience that it's been very transformative. And just real quick, I did have a coach. I wrote the book myself from start to finish, but I did have a coach holding my hand helping me. So, with all things, if you're trying to, you know, do something like write a book, I encourage you don't do it on your own. Don't wing it. Get some professional help. It's all worth the cost.

Number two, I launched this very podcast. A lot of love, respect, and admiration for Answering Legal. They're good people who gave me this platform. They took a chance on me years ago. And I told them I'd do my best to deliver. I've tried to make good on that. Our first guest out of the gate was John Morgan. And then we never looked back. We've been able to attract some great guests on the show. And what has that done? It's broadened my reach, right? It's broadened my authority. Now I'm a podcaster. I've got some you know fairly high level attorneys coming on the podcast and I'm able to share about see the book is great but this is a different medium as well. This is a podcast where I can while interviewing people share some things about me so the interviewer or the listener rather even if they've never read my book scaling the wall they can still get a little bit of glimpse to who I am and how I'm writing my practice the struggles I face and growing my practice growing my firm because we're all hustlers have the same problems I promise you that. And so the podcast is really not about that. It's about to elevate others to get guests on the show to reveal and to be open and candid. You know, I've had some high level guests practically crying on the show. That's not by design. That's just when you get real with people and you askthem real hard questions, they they get raw and real in return. So I encourage you to start a podcast. It's not that complicated. A podcast is a tremendously powerful marketing medium. You should at least consider and don't over complicate things. Us lawyers, we overthink things to death, analysis, paralysis. If you're interested in getting a podcast going, reach out to me. Happy to discuss. It's not that easy, but I encourage you to get started. Because it will be a tremendous opportunity to get your name far into the um consciousness that people are trying to get in touch with.

Number three, LinkedIn has been massive for three to four years. I've been heavy, heavy, heavy on LinkedIn. And I post every single day, many times twice a day. Here are some things that have worked for me. I like to pre-schedule my posts. So I like to batch write. So on a particular day, I'll write three or four posts, schedule them out. I like to personally post 6:30 in the morning and generally 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. A little inside baseball. If I have a post that kicks ass and performs well, I'll post that again maybe 6 or 12 months later. Sometimes I'll edit the post to improve it, sometimes I won't. But that's been super successful for me. It's the consistency that wins. The consistency wins on platforms like LinkedIn. The algorithm rewards those who put in the time and the effort. This isn't easy. It's not easy to write content on LinkedIn every single day for three, four years. But you get better at your craft. You get a little bit more seized in terms of what resonates, what doesn't. Photos, big fan of photos. Photos are impactful. I do now put at the end of my post some type of postscript. I'll have a link to my email newsletter for attorneys I'm going to talk about shortly. I'll have my slogan. I'll have a message. Hey, we're always looking for great team members. We're always hiring. Reach out if you're looking for work. I always have a message now that I've recently started to do to add to my post as sort of like a PS to remind people what I do because as my audience, I have about 16,000 connections now. I'm hitting a lot of people. So, I like to leverage that and reach that audience in different ways. So, I always like to have some type of different message towards the end of my post. It could be, hey, just reminder, I'm Chris Earley, personal injury lawyer in Massachusetts. Love to connect with you. Or, hey, I'm personal I'm Chris Earley, a personal injury lawyer in Massachusetts. If you're looking to refer a case, I'd love to have a conversation with you. Just really honing the the craft, getting better on the platform, and reaching hopefully more and more people, but always giving value. It's not about Chris Earley thumping his chest how great he is. Actually, it's about how Chris Earley is so screwed up and how I have so many challenges and setbacks just like everybody else. So, the best content that I have found resonates on LinkedIn is stories of um inspirational stories. How can you inspire people? How can you share insight that will help people going through things that you're going through? Um I ran into a lawyer last week at a conference. He said, "Hey, your post about, you know, having your iAltA account defrauded or whatever I wrote about getting sued by client, right, that really resonated with him and that's just proof positive that people resonate with your with your lessons you can share." So, you're super smart. Share your lessons that you've learned. It goes a long way in LinkedIn. But I encourage you, post every day. Literally post every single day. Do it for a year and see what happens. You will be massively surprised. the algorithm will welcome you, will give you a seat at the table the more that you post good content to LinkedIn. So, leverage it.

Number four, I started three or four years ago. It's called practicetipoftheweek.com. I encourage you to sign up for it now. It's completely free. It's my way of every Friday morning at 6:30 a.m. Eastern time, hitting your email inbox with one practice tip of the week that I have found to make my practice more prosperous for me to be happier and for me to to grow. Um, it could be about time management, how to maximize profit, how to hire, how to fire. It's not legal advice, but it's my perspective on things I'm doing or learned about at a conference that I want to share, a book I've read. Um, I have, you know, again, we're we're trying to maximize our resources. So, in my email newsletter, again, sign up, uh, today. It's free. Practice tip of the week.com. Head over there, get on that list. I have over a thousand attorneys on the list. I started with zero attorneys on the list, but the content I've refined and honed and gotten a little bit better. So, I have a practice tip of the week. I have a link to my podcast, The Earley Show, which I just referenced. Always leveraging our marketing assets. I have a quote in there. I have links to my firm social media, things like that. Like really just trying to tie things together this web of activity and try to interconnect these things because some people they like different types of medium. So I like to um or media like to you know share a podcast, share a video, share you know an article I wrote for the ABA, things like that. Just really trying to put as many different types of media without over overwhelming the viewer, the opener of that email. trying to give them different formats of information to consume different information. So, you should be sending out an email newsletter. So, it's hard. There's another thing. We're all talking about hard things today. This is not easy, but it's kind of simple. I send this email and I have for years, like I said, on Fridays to attorneys. On Thursdays, I send a more personal email that's to my non- attorney list. I think there's some attorneys sprinkled in that list. But on Thursdays at 6, 6:30 Eastern, I hit thousands of non-attorneys with a more personal email about what I'm doing. It's more, you know, inspirational. Sharing about what's new in the office, books I'm reading, you know, things like that. Inspirational quote. Again, I like to share quotes. I'm a big quote guy. I'll share a video that a YouTube short that I posted, right? I want to drive people to YouTube. I want to again have all this web of activity, just constant activity and constantly utilizing these marketing assets. And so that's been super helpful. So yeah, it's hard like to come up with unique content because unlike LinkedIn, if something does well, I don't repurpose that or repackage that six, nine, 12 months later. Every email is unique that I send either my practice tip of the week for attorneys on Fridays or my Thursday more personal email that I dispatch to my not attorney list. It's all unique content. But like this week for my personal weekly email, I'm writing about my wife's volunteer efforts. My wife is a devoted volunteer in the community. She is raising awareness for people in need when it comes to food scarcity. Just things like that. Like just trying to prop up my wife, shut her out because that resonates with people. Like who wouldn't like that story of my wife helping people? I think that resonates. So you should be emailing your list. It's again hard to do but simple as well. You should have an email database. If you have to start somewhere. I started with nothing with my email list. Now it's big. It's a high leverage, easy lift off the ground to be emailing your database. But give value. Don't talk about how great of a lawyer you are in your big settlement last week. No one cares about that.

Back to LinkedIn. back to the podcast, back to the book I mentioned. Just be real. Give value to people, help people out, share something that's going to help them. Number five, I've done a lot of public speaking and I never was a public speaker. The past three to four years, I've really gotten a lot of speaking gigs, some national stages, local stages. I'm always hustling for public speaking opportunities because I leverage that. I'll post a picture from a speech on LinkedIn. I'll talk about it in my email newsletter, right? Just always, again, I keep talking about this web of activity. Just yesterday I pitched the Rhode Island Bar Association. They have a big annual meeting every June in Providence. I just pitched the decision maker on who speaks yesterday. Ask, "Hey, can I speak there?" I spoke there a couple years ago trying to get that opportunity. I just reached out to Maximum Lawyer podcast, right? Tyson Mutrux, he's doing um great things on that podcast. I reached out, hey, I'd love to be on your podcast. They said yes. like always asking for public speaking opportunities both national and local as well as asking others to be on their podcast because the podcast interviews create further exposure. You can tap into other people's people as an Kenny likes to say. It also gives you a backlink hopefully from that podcast uh show notes to your website that sneaky valuable SEO juice for your website. That's helpful. And so just always just try to get opportunities. I'll speak to any group. Doesn't have to be attorneys. I'll speak to any group. But I do love speaking in front of attorneys. I was able to speak at PIMcon last month. That was a big room. Create big opportunities. What did I do at that conference? I gave my book out to probably 10 people. I mailed my book out to 10 people following the event. I had video for my presentation. I post on LinkedIn, my email newsletter. Again, once again, the web of activity. So public speaking or just getting on podcast, other people's podcast, super helpful to get your brand out there to the masses.

Number six, I got a column for the American Bar Association a few years back. Again, this is three or four years. This all kind of all this stuff kind of started around the same time, right? The only reason I got the column is I asked for it and they were kind enough to give me that call and I'm speak writing to attorneys throughout the country. So it's like what can I write about? How can I give value to attorneys, ABA attorneys, ABA members? And so that's that's like a lot of work, but it's like a thousand words. That's not that bad. So I'll bang a column out on the plane or on my phone when I'm in between my kids, you know, sports practices. You know, one thing I do a lot is I write down my ideas. I'm sure you do that. I like evernote.com. Evernote is an app I have on my phone to help me with my ideas. But yeah, the ABA article gives me SEO juice. So you get a link back from the ABA. That's a high domain authority link. I get authority. I'm always trying to elevate my authority, right? If the ABA is nice authority elevator, right? We're stacking these things, right? Author, podcaster, speaker. These are all things that you slowly but steadily stack up on top of each other. Creates a lot of momentum. Um I've talked about I try to be a tsunami. Create a tsunami of content all the time. Just boring content out there. Um an inspiration for me has been Gary Vee. Gary Vee, right? He's not worried about being perfect. Some of his stuff falls flat. Most of his stuff resonates because he's built authority through the years. So, he's someone I've uh been inspired by. But yeah, get a column. It doesn't have to be for the ABA. I wrote for for a couple years the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly and that column would get shared to Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly, Minnesota Lawyers Weekly, North Carolina, South Carolina Lawyers Weekly. It's crazy when you publish things out there. they spread. So, you should ask for a column for lawyers, for non- lawyers, like what do you like to geek out about? What are you passionate about? I am passionate about the business of law, about growing a law firm, and it juices me up, if you don't know by now, right? It gets me excited. And so, I like to write about that. So, write about, you know, if you're into chess, write about chess. You're you're into, you know, refurbishing furniture, get a column about that. Like, just you should be writing producing a lot of content, you know, videos as well as written word. A column is a great vehicle to do that. But again, all this stuff is challenging. There's nothing easy about this. So, but again, it's easy. It's hard, but also simple.

My final tip, number seven, that's really moved the needle for me massively, coaching and mastermind groups. I started getting coaching three or four years ago. That just completely changed my whole deal. And then I slowly, I segwayed into a mastermind, leveled up. Out of that mastermind, gone to another mastermind, leveled up. Now I'm in my third mastermind. Just you shouldn't be in the same room for for a long time. You should be leveling up. For a time I was doing coaching and two different masterminds. It was a lot. It was a lot of travel. It was hard. It was hard my wife because my kids were a little bit younger. But definitely everyone, lawyers, non lawyers, everyone should have a coach. If you're trying to achieve great things, if you want to take that up a level, a mastermind is a wonderful opportunity. But this is hard. You've got to travel. It's expensive. You get what you pay for. If you join an inferior mastermind, it's going to be cheap as hell. You're going to get what you pay for. If you join a high level premium mastermind, you're going to pay a lot. You're going to get more. And there's a sacrifice, but I try to condense my work travel as much as possible for my masterminds. I like to just get in, get out as quickly as possible. I like to stay a couple days just in and out. And coaching is great. You can do it obviously through Zoom. But I encourage you, coaching or mastermind will do wonders for your career.

These are things that anyone can do. I encourage you just try one or two of these things, hopefully more, but just one or two things I'm sure will move the needle in your career. Reach out to me. I love talking with other lawyers. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Um, I don't have it all figured out at all and I'm never going to, but I'm a student. I love to get better and better. So, we get better by talking with each other, sharing with each other what's working. Reach out to me. Um, call my cell. My cell is 617-956-2501. 617-956-2501. Reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you. Make sure you sign up for practicetipoftheweek.com so we can stay in touch.

That's it for this episode of the Earley Show. Be sure to check out more episodes of our show on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and the Answering Legal YouTube channel.