Why Christopher Earley Meets With His Intake Team Every Single Day

Welcome back to The Legal Intake Experts podcast! For more than a decade, Answering Legal has helped growing law firms ensure they never miss a chance to connect with new leads. Now, we’re pulling back the curtain to share our best strategies for strengthening your intake process and turning more callers into clients.

In our sixth episode, hosts Nick Werker and Tony Prieto are joined by Christopher Earley, a seasoned attorney and host of The Earley Show. Chris shares his journey and insights on managing legal intake, emphasizing the importance of creating a positive first impression for potential clients. Chris, Nick and Tony delve into strategies for effective intake management, highlighting the necessity of dedicated intake specialists, the significance of prompt and empathetic responses, and the role of technology in tracking leads.

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

The Legal Intake Experts and The Earley Show are part of the Answering Legal podcast network. Interested in learning more about Answering Legal? Click here to learn more about 400 minute free trial!

Check out the previous episode of The Legal Intake Experts here!

Check out the most recent episode of The Earley Show here!

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

Episode Transcript:

Nick Werker: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Legal Intake Experts podcast. I'm joined as always by my co-host Tony Prieto. And today, for the first time ever, we have a third host joining us. He's not a guest, he's a host. You've seen him speaking at lawyer events across the country, sharing daily advice on LinkedIn, and of course, going deep with top legal minds on his podcast, The Earley Show. Our good friend, my actual friend, Christopher Earley, is here. I'm pumped.

Chris Earley: Oh, I'm more pumped. This is awesome. Thank you so much, guys. You guys freaking rock and I'm so excited to talk with you guys. This is awesome.

Tony Prieto: We were talking about it before the show. You know, we're just like starstruck to be here. I'm a big fan of The Earley Show. So, I'm I'm like looking forward to this conversation. I'm so excited.

Chris: It's going to be awesome, guys. Thank you so much. This is great.

Nick: You've obviously been running your law practice for years. I have an unfair advantage in this conversation because I know so much about you because I read your book and I've known you for like a few years. So, you kind of get plenty of people reaching out to your firm because like you're established, you have marketing and branding and you're like a master networker. Can you sort of tell us what your current intake process looks like and maybe like what it used to look like, things that you've learned? How do you focus and make sure that you're continually creating a good first impression for people reaching out to your firm?

Chris: Well, I'm a master at nothing. And so, just like you, you know, we're just students here just learning in this, you know, challenging profession that we're in. So, I never really had an intake department. I didn't even know what intake meant, you know, intake. Like, had no clue. Um, you know, but now it's like that's where that's the oxygen of a law firm. So, we got to get that right. I mean, that's like that's how we pay our bills is by, you know, signing cases. We sign cases through intake. So, I I think it's real art form. And I'll tell you, for me, I think it's the hardest thing to figure out. Like, it's so hard to figure out intake and to plug holes. There's always some holes. I take it so serious. I meet with my intake team every day of the week. I'm going to meet with them right after this call with you guys just to go over activity. What how was yesterday? How was today? You know, keeping people accountable, showing them how important they are to me and the firm. And so to be honest, I think intake is so freaking hard. But if you keep at it, it gets a little bit easier and you figure some stuff out. You get traction, you get more business, your firm grows, but it's just critical, so important.

Nick: I am what is considered a knowledge worker, which means I can never turn my brain off, and this is all I ever think about. Um, and it is it is a little fortunate for Tony that I do have boundaries because otherwise I would send him text messages like pretty much all night about crazy ideas. But I was thinking about this. I swear on my way to work this morning that every law firm is so different and has different offers and then different demand capture. So, like if you look at law firm websites, sure, there's like a standard form fill, like get a case evaluation or or do this or do that. But I here's here's my my initial problem with demand capture for law firms and then why it's so difficult for law firms to actually do intake is how do you educate a consumer that has not spent their entire life looking for a lawyer or worrying about having to hire a lawyer who's now in this predicament and then they go to a website and they're like do I need a free case evaluation? Do I need this? Am I just submitting my contact info? What's going to happen? And it's so hard to set those expectations about what the the person is going to go through. So just because that's top of mind for me, I'm completely derailing the conversation already. How do you like work with your team and like what's people's expectations when they call in? You know what I mean? Or what's their expectations? They submit a form. What are they looking for?

Chris: All right. So two different things, right? A form fill versus a phone call. Like two very different leads. I call one sort of a cold lead on the internet. is, you know, um, low intent perhaps or lower intent as opposed to a hot live phone call. So, just quickly about a form fill in a website, you got to make sure you know the lawyer listening to this that your form fills actually work because they break. If your code in your website changes, if this is maneuvered by your your web designer, it could be totally broken. And so, I guarantee someone on this call listening to this right now has a broken form flow. So, let's, you know, let's let's get that figured out. Let's figure out that that's just to verify that's working first of all. So keeping on the form fill, what do they see after? So Nick, you go on my website, you put a form fill. What do you receive? Am I educating you? Am I giving you resources? Or do you get like nothing? Just blank space. It's like, did my form just go through or not? But I think it's incumbent to, you know, tell you, Nick, we we got your information. Thank you so much. And in a very subtle way, like you can stop your shopping now. You found the right firm. without sounding like an like a jerk like because they the it's easy to set up form fills to 24 law firms like just to try to get a quick response. All right. So, let's assume that you know, Nick, you put your info in. We make you feel like heard and seen that, you know, sorry you got this accident, we're get back to you. But then like promptness, right? This is what good firms do. They get back to you like instantaneously, as quickly as humanly possible. But if that's sitting in someone's inbox, they have no idea Nick reached out, right? So, Tony, we'll use your name, too. Don't don't be offended. We'll we'll get you.

Tony: No, I'm I'm I'm I'm listening. I've got there's some writer downers in here for sure.

Chris: So, you know about all about the writer downers, baby. So, so look, we could talk for like an hour about just form fills and how challenging that is to get, you know, to call them quickly. That's all. Let's say Nick, you call the office, right? I think that's where the representation starts and that's where we need to stop the shop. So, you stop calling the law firms. You've discovered, okay, I found the right firm. These guys are good. Like, they're hearing me. They're empathetic. They're not intimidating because I was in expecting intimidating arrogant attorney. I'm actually talking to someone who cares about helping me and I I feel good. I'm I feel I'm disarmed by that which is nice. Hopefully the client's feeling that. And then we go through a sales process, right? That's pretty, you know, elaborate and choreographed and structured. But this comes down to like making people feel good. So if you are not comfortable calling Nick, you just do a form fill. Got to make sure that you feel empowered. You know, Tony, right? you you call the firm and you have a case or make sure you feel important. That's important to us and I think it uh it shines through when people reach out.

Tony: Yeah, it's it's something that we talk about a lot is like when you are talking to a someone who's called your firm for the first time, they need to feel like the most important person at your firm.

Chris: Totally.

Tony: Cuz otherwise, you know, if you just give them a less uh polite welcoming, let's say, they can get that from any law firm. you need to to show them like right up front what your firm is about.

Chris: I agree. I think they're a little defensive when they call because they're expecting, you know, scary lawyer office who's out to screw me over and take advantage of me. So, it's like we have a lot of work to do to like change that in like pretty quickly with like care and concern on the phone and making them feel again seen and heard. But that's easy to do. Like we haven't even spent any money yet, right? Our website, you know, form fills accurate, the phone's answered correctly. But you're talking about sort of distracted intake, right? If a busy lawyer, busy parallegal, busy case manager, whoever is doing intake, and not even listening. Okay, Tony. Yep. Yep. And like banging out some type of like pleading on a case, you know, you're going to feel like I called the wrong firm. And then you're going to be checked out. So, how can we like dial you into the process that you're in the right spot? I really believe you should have an intake person doing intake and not an attorney, not a receptionist, not anyone except intake because that's the job. It's that critical. We just started the conversation about this is like mission critical for the firm to grow, for us to pay our bills, right? That's what intake is for. So, I really believe intake should be doing intake and nobody else. If you have a super small firm, you could hire someone offshore, you know, help you with intake. But I think it's really important.

Tony: That was actually going to be my next question was like who handles intake if you don't mind us taking a peek behind the who handles intake at your firm? What like what is that role like?

Chris: Sure. So we like to call it new client specialists just because intake is a little clinical and cold and like off-putting because again people are we have to assume they're intimidated. They don't feel comfortable. So let's you're in the hands of not an intake person which again clinical it's more we intentionally call it new client specialist. So we have um people here in the US abroad who are very well trained and they're more importantly just really good core values people like fit our core values. So intake is sales. Intake is not a legal job. It's a sales job, right? It's to convert. A lot of times you talk about like a um like a like a car dealership. If someone comes on that lot to buy a car, we got to make sure they don't go down the street to the next dealership. Be a sales professional, right? Handling that. And so that's how we we operate. But I just think it's it's a long it's a long process to figure out. It's taking me years and it'll take me many more years until I'm where I want to be with that.

Tony: Just that one realization, right? Like intake is sales. Some attorneys never get there.

Chris: It's sales. That's all we're doing is trying to help people out, right? But totally sales. I didn't know that for a while. That's all it is. That's not complicated. It's like you're selling services, you know, premium, good high level services so they don't need no they don't have to call the law firms they've called the right place I'm assuming we have a lot of reviews online right that people they vetted us they see some social proof because what we say is great what others say about us is 10 times more important it's so easy to screw up intake because I've done it for years but then again once you have a couple wins with the right people the right process we use lead docket we got to have the right technology you know guys I talked to so lawyers like, "Oh, man is great. It's all dialed in. Like, I don't lose leads." You're losing leads every every week because you're not you're not tracking this data and recording numbers. And, you know, I think you have to be kind of maniacal to be completely like pathological about not missing leads because it will fall through the cracks. I I've seen it. I've lost a lot of money that way. I know.

Tony: Yeah. But at the same time, like here you are successful and you are saying, "I screwed up intake for years." So, you know, if you're an attorney listening to this and you've been screwing up intake your whole career, you can still turn that around and, you know, it'll completely change the way your law firm runs, right?

Chris: Yeah. It's like rocket fuel, right? Because you're spending all that money, you're you're hustling, you're networking, you're spending your money on Google, you're literally losing so much money if you're not capturing every lead, following up. We could talk about followup. As I say, the fortune is in the followup. That's a whole another angle, but just dialing in. I think the practitioner just if there's no intake instituted there's no process like again you can't do this in one day is a process but like just get a little bit better today like dial something in we just checked our form fill is great they're working our phones answer is our receptionist cold is our receptionist warm right like let's be honest you should call your office that's cringe inducing to call your own office sometimes because it's you know we find things that's the whole point of doing it but I encourage you call your office and go through the experiences as a um pretend client and see what that feels like and sounds like for you. If you can't record your call…

Nick: I have a well yeah, you should probably record your calls. Call Rail, what converts. If you need help with any of that, reach out to us. We'll put you in contact with somebody, but look up those two companies and they will most likely help you implement as well. It's been a long time since I needed implementation cuz I run ours. So recently I was in contact with one of our customers, a law firm who had a criticism of the way that we answer phones for them and do and take. And obviously we're not doing like here's exactly what's going to happen in the process. That would be insane and would take an insane amount of manpower. But we do do preliminary intake and do a warm handoff to law firms. And one of the criticisms that I got from this attorney was that his customers were not happy with the amount of questions that they answered when they had to call in. And I found that very interesting because, and here's where I keep going back to, people don't know mostly how to hire a lawyer and what they're going to have to go through in order to get answers. So, it is this weird sort of like tightrope walk that you have to do of making sure you have enough information from the caller or the prospect to give them answers about how you're going to help, but also set expectations about why you're asking them these questions. So, can you give me a little info on like how you help educate people during the intake process about like why they need to answer certain questions, why you might need to know how helpful that is to you and like is that part of like a successful process? Cuz I know we could talk about we could talk about follow-up forever, but I think once you actually have them on the phone or maybe like like what you said right after the form fill like educate them about what's about to happen, like how does that how does that work?

Chris: I'm a big fan of education. So, let's go back to the website really quick. Right. We're offering you, Nick, free books, free resources here. Please, while you wait for the phone call, which is coming very, very soon to you. Download this free book, this this free report, this white paper that's going to help you educate yourself so you don't get screwed by the insurance company, right? Because, you know, brutal honesty here, people are more concerned with not losing something than they are with gaining something. So, people don't know what they don't know. So, let's educate them that you could actually get really screwed by not doing the right stuff. So, here's a book to hopefully help you out a little bit. So, that's the the website side of stuff, right? The cold stuff. Warren, someone calls, I think we need to qualify them as quickly as we can. So, let's not waste their time or hours. So, part of sales is qualifying, right? Is Nick a qualified lead or not. If he's not, we owe it to them ethically to just like let them know quickly, we're sorry, we're not the firm. Hopefully, we have a referral partner that can help you with your case and we can connect you. But if we don't, we're going to be brutally honest again and say, "Nick, I'm really sorry. We aren't able to help." But and to like sort of say it in a loving way so you feel heard and important and not pissed because if I piss you up, you're going to give me a bad review and you tell everyone how bad early is. So, it's like let's just This is like free stuff. Just be kind to people no matter what you do. Now, if we qualify you, Nick, you actually do have a case. Our intention is to get you set up quickly so we can start working for you quickly because again we're going to assume the insurance company sending you letters and doing all this stuff. So let's get you in our universe as quickly as possible so we can protect you and get going. Right. So sales yes but part of that is qualif… See that's a challenge a lot of times with intake is. that qualifying sometimes we get as you said we go sometimes it may seem like we're asking too much stuff. How do we strike that balance of just enough to determine whether or not we can actually help you with your case or not? Because that's you don't want to be on the phone for an hour and only find out that early can help you out, right? Let's just sort of like get people in the right, for lack of a better word, bucket as quickly as possible and out of fairness to them and their time.

Tony: Especially in in something like I mean it's true of most legal disciplines, but personal injury especially. Hopefully the person who's calling you has never had to deal with this before. Yeah. Right. So there most of the people calling you are strangers to this entire process. And a lot of times when you're an expert of any kind, it's so hard to put your head into the head of someone who isn't an expert because you've been living and breathing personal injury law for so long that it all seems so obvious to you. But in a way, you are kind of like a teacher. And if and if you you're a teacher of math and you just say, "Wow, this is so obvious." is your students just aren't going to pick up on it. And and a lot of times uh something that we talk about a lot is like the importance of intake even if the person isn't qualified. Like if if you're rude to them or whatever, they will leave you a bad review and those things add up.

Chris: Absolutely. Reviews can help can make or break your firm. We had a monster potential monster case call yesterday. Someone with a monster case potentially who said, "We called you because of your reviews or we're shopping at the lawyers, but we saw your reviews." Okay, now we're in the game. But if you don't have those reviews, like you're not in the game, right? God forbid you have really bad reviews. Not just like it's better having no reviews than I think really bad reviews. So let's just, you know, dial those in. So Nick, you called the case. Our job is to hold your hand, right? Assuming you've been we qualify you as a case that we can give value to and help you with. Hold your hand across that bridge, right? We're we're your we're your adviser. So, you know, cuz you feel that love and like these guys got my back. I called the right place. Those reviews are legit. Just like they said, they're taking care of me and they're not trying to hustle me and and just look at me as a paycheck like I'm actually human being. You're going to feel really comfortable. Now, we can't convert everybody. You know, we treat the way we're treating Nick on this call like that's how we treat everyone, but we can't make every, you know, person who calls sign. We want to but we can't about nine out of ten we can that we want and that's you should know your intake numbers like what percentage you got to get into this and it's hard as hell but you got to know your numbers like deep in I got to point I was getting too deep in this stuff I was like all right let's just come up for air let's not go too deep into stuff but you can definitely really move the needle with your intake when you know your numbers because they're probably not as good as you assume them to be if you're not measuring.

Nick: You can absolutely go too deep I used to work with uh a good friend of mine at Pareto Legal. Shout out to Jake Barufkin. This guy is a mastermind of like data analysis, CRM reporting, and what he does for law firms is like deep audits of intake and conversion rate. But he has experience doing this at like large places, right? And he was like, "You got to be careful because the more granular you get with this stuff, the more that you'll try to rescue people." It was important for him to not be negative, right? So, one of the things that he and I would discuss often was, say you have two new client specialists, right? and you know for whatever reason that when a form fill comes in, this person is better at calling up that person and having the conversation where they reached out and made the phone call and the other one is much better when they answer the phone call. Yeah. What are you going to do with that information, right? Um and so I think a lot of knowing your numbers like that really informs your intake at the end of the day. I think and and I I love to to say this because I think a couple years ago I remember I did a webinar with somebody and lawyers were like I love everything you're talking about but every time I get on the phone with somebody and I I try to be really salesy I feel like I'm taking advantage of them and you're not taking advant… Like if your intention is to help people…

Chris: Yeah.

Nick: Why would you not give yourself the best opportunity to help people? Because to me, I know you, right? And I'm a big Energy Vibes guy. I can tell you are a genuine person. Maybe flawed, right? Like we all are, but I think you honestly.

Chris: What are you talking about, man?

Nick: I said maybe. I said maybe. But like if you genuinely want to help people, it's not you're not the used car salesman who is selling somebody a car that they know is faulty, right? Like even car salesmen, they what? They get a bad rap. You went in, you want to buy a car. You're mad that this person wants to sell you a car and help you out. It It doesn't make sense unless they're underlying motivation is malicious. Let's call it that.

Chris: Yeah. They sniff it out immediately if this lawyer they're talking to or this intake person, whoever is legit or not and cares about them, is it is in it for the right reasons. I'm telling you, if you just look at this, if you're just, you know, the attorney listening to this, if you're just like hustling, trying to chase money, it's it's going to run away from you. It's it's not a good recipe for success. Seek to help people. And this isn't more about intake. It's part just like being a good person. I feel like and intake is part of that obviously and running a firm and all this stuff. How we operate in this world, but like doing good is going to like reward you with an with a abundance of good stuff. I I believe. But yeah, to your point, Nick, like they can sniff it out a mile away, right? Because again, they're so defensive when they call. To your point, Tony earlier, first time they've never they've never talked to a lawyer before, maybe in their life. They're scared as hell and they're ready to find a reason not to like you and it's easy. So if you drop the ball, if you're distracted that phone call and you're showing, you know, lack of concern, you eliminate an opportunity that came on a silver platter. Someone wants to work with you and you screwed it up. It's so avoidable.

Tony: And it's easy to get in your own head about it, too, because you know, you understand all of the work that goes into it, all of the the paperwork. And it's easy if you're sitting there doubting yourself to say, "Okay, well, what is this this case?" You know, even if even if as I hope most of you at most most lawyers at their core want to help this person, if you're sitting there doubting yourself, it's easy to go way too far in that and start to see like this person talk am I like and start questioning your own motivations, you know, and then, you know, that can have negative reverberations on the person you're talking to. Like it's so easy to especially a lot of attorneys are, let's say, cerebral, right? They like to think. They like to research a a lot of a lot of there's a lot of different reasons to get into the legal profession and that can have drawbacks on on you know your communication style let's say.

Chris: Absolutely. So if you are not good at that like soft skill stuff, you need someone who is and I think you know just listening to what you said reminds me like these soft skills like that's you want for your intake people to be and not everyone is like this but I do believe there's it's easier to hire for that position for intake new client special it is for other positions at the firm because there's a lot of people out there that can sell right now let's get even deeper like there's only there's there's fewer that can sell with with effectiveness compassion, empathy, because like we're in the problem business. People call lawyers because something bad happened or is about to happen or like the precipitating event that led to the call is is shitty. So, we got to like make sure they understand that they called the right place and and like this is like psychology just like being listening really listening, right? And it's hard because like we're intake people get busy and and things, you know, the fires are burning and the stove there's many pots, you know, overflowing. You have to like give that person your your strict attention. It's a really good experience. I mean, that's what it just comes down to. But really hang on the words listening. But I call it soft control. Tony, you call my office with a new case. I just can't let you go on for an hour about what we got. Like it's not fair to you. We got because you may be nervous. Maybe just like talking a lot and I give you space talk and you you know, you go deep. We don't need to do that. Just like let's get to helping you so that you can go on with your day. You don't have to worry about your case more. We're going to worry about it for you because you're you're all set now. you called the right place.

Tony: And that's the thing is that's exactly what someone calling a law firm is looking for. Maybe they'll talk. I, for example, would talk for an hour if you let if you just let me talk. I'm just keep talking. But but what they're looking for is to feel like their job is done. Now they've found the right person who's going to handle it for them and they don't have to worry about it anymore. And the more you can give them that experience upfront, the more likely they are to hire you. Just like at the bottom sort of uh what's the word? the bottom line level is like the that that's that's the experience that they're looking for. And the more you're able to provide that, the more successful you'll be.

Chris: You're going to get that sign client. You're going to get the the client to sign because you've already like won the battle of like convincing convincing them you're a decent firm who's out to help them. Supposed to screw them over. They can sleep at night not worrying about this stuff. They're probably going to sign. That's just the whole thing. So, we just got over the hill. Now, we got the case and we're make that client happy. They may send us 10 people in the in the course of our career. You may leave your Google review like only good things happen when we're good at this stuff. We really pay attention to it. I'm just, as I said, this is going to take this is a this is a hard hard slog of getting intake dialed in, but at least we're trying. You know, I think that's what practitioners need to do is always be optimizing your intake.

Nick: I like what you said about um like lawyers, if you're out there just chasing money, it's going to run away from you. I had this mindset switch maybe a couple years ago where like I'm a marketer. I need to drive as many leads as possible. Pipeline needs to be full. It needs to be moving. It needs to be efficient. That's really not the point of marketing. Market the point of marketing boils down to three things. You want people to know you want them to like you and you want them to trust you, right? When you do those things, you become attractive to people. You want to attract people. You don't want to force them to do anything. It's the exact opposite of what we're talking about here. So I think that same principle applies to intake, right? They already know you because of marketing, right? But when they call you, they have a semblance of like whether or not they like you. Like if somebody reads your Google reviews or sees your LinkedIn posts, you're a pretty likable guy. But it's important for them to have this experience with you where they do like you, where they do trust you, so that you can get to that point of they don't even need to ask those 20 nuanced questions that they researched on chat GPT. I think that's the difference between what lawyers are worried about not doing and actually doing, right? Like being become the law firm that you would want to hire if you were in that problem as opposed to trying to go out there and convince people to hire you because of your expertise and authority or something like that.

Chris: I love that. So, you're attracting business as opposed to chasing it because that's the way, right? Are you guys you familiar with Dan Kennedy? He's a business guru. He spoke at this great legal marketing event. I've learned so much from Dan. I encourage the the audience, you know, get into Dan Kenny, read his books, you will just have a better career, more profitable, prosperous. He's changed my career. He spoke live at this Ben Glass Great Marketing event a few weeks ago in Virginia and he described business this way. He said, "Suppose you're at a cocktail party and you overhear someone behind you talking about, oh, I think I need an estate plan set up." And then the turn said, "Oh, I can help you." Well, that's like chasing as opposed to like being the guy or the gal that people chase is the one who handles the estate plans at the party. like, "Oh, that's the guy or that's the gal you want to go to." There's no there's no real sales. Like, they're going to come to you and sign. But like, you know, yesterday the person who called it was a very serious case. If I sat there and like, you know, like, "Let's do it right now. Let's just get you signed up. You know, we're going to, you know, get you all this money. Come on, let's just let's go." Like, they're going to be freaked out. And so, my style is like, you have a big I was always like this, guys. I was that guy. I was like, "Hey, let's just get it done. Let's get and I was doing that for years. Now I say like, you know, this is a big choice. You have a massive decision which lawyer to hire. You you have to do what's right. I I'm not the right firm for everybody. My point, and I hope this is helpful to the audience, the less you need business, the more you get, the more you're going to use the word attract, right? When you're desperado, they can sniff it out. These clients are super savvy and smart. The phone is super, you can learn a lot on the telephone talking to somebody and pick up their vibes. If you're desperate, you're probably struggling, right, in some way to get to where you're trying to get to. This is a struggle for me as it is for everybody. But just the less you need the work, the more work you get, I find. So, it's a sneaky thing the universe provides.

Tony: That's a good life lesson in general, you know?

Chris: Yeah. I was desperate for work for years. I was hustling, chasing, like you said, leads leads and buying like that's a game that's just not worth playing. It's a small game. A bigger game is like helping people and being a magnet hopefully always, you know, let's like get we just talk about free resources. So Nick, you were on my website. You did the form fill. I'm g give you books, right? Like downloads. Maybe you like to consume video. Maybe you like books. Maybe you like this or that. But I'm going to give you options so you can digest that in the way that you like. And then you're going to hopefully I hope be attracted to hiring me. And that's the thing is like talking about like breadcrumbs, you know, Ben Glass, I've taken a lot of stuff from. He's been very helpful for my my career. Guys like that, Dan Kenny, just like establish yourself as the guy or the gal that can help solve the problem, right? And this isn't just about helping someone get a big check. It's about making them feel good. That's what they remember, right? The feelings that the experience I I was interviewing someone today for a position. I said, "We're not in the law business. We're in the le we're in the experience business and we handle legal problems. We are putting people through an experience and I'll be damned if it's not a really good one because then I fail with my team and my family and myself. So, we're in the experience bit just like you guys, right? You're in the experience, but make sure your customers have a good experience. That's how I see this stuff. You know.

Nick: I try to affect that end as much as I humanly possibly can. I do have I have I I love to pontificate. I have one story. I play on a Sunday morning sober men's slow pitch team and I have this good buddy who's really struggling and I try to help him out. I try to talk to him but it's it's one of those things where when somebody's really struggling you kind of have to let them come to you. Yeah. Um and just let them know that the door is open. But he's not a bad softball player. He's not a bad athlete. He's like average like the rest of us. We're not professional athletes. and he gets so frustrated at this game or event because he struggles and he wants it's so obvious it's so he wants to prove to us so badly that he is good that he fits in that he's worthy and and he's chasing it right too much right if you really if you squeeze it you're you're going to break it and so I tried to recently have this conversation with him where I was like hey listen we all think you're great. We don't even really care if you're good at this game or not because after this is over, like I'm going to go watch football and like eat crappy food and pretend that I'm not ruining my diet. I don't even remember where I was going with this, but it's it's this thing of like…

Tony: it's the classic southern rock hold on loosely by 38 special. You know, hold on loosely but don't let go cuz if you cling too tightly you're going to lose control.

Chris: Nice. Great reference.

Nick: Thank you, Tony.

Chris: It's true. 80s baby.

Nick: I have the worst. It my sentence will fall off here and then Tony goes, "No, I know exactly what you mean." And finishes it for me.

Chris: Trying too hard, right? It's like trying too hard, right? He's desperate, you know? Not in a bad way. He has a good intentions.

Nick: Exactly.

Chris: But you can't will yourself into everything. Let things happen naturally, right? But I can relate to him. I mean, totally, man. In many ways, it's a struggle, right? So, this is tough stuff.

Nick: Yeah, man. Well, we couldn't have asked for a better first guest host. Um, if you're not if you're not already watching the Earley Show podcast, I have no idea what you're doing. I watch and listen to passively. I would say most of them, but like I I wish I could listen to more. Um, you need to go check it out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or the Answering Legal YouTube channel which will be linked everywhere because we want to give you the opportunity to learn from a wise law firm owner.

Chris: I just want to say like I don't know when we hooked up like three years ago, two and a half or whatever. We started a conversation this gave me this platform. I'm just grateful for you guys. I think Answering Legal is fantastic. The vibe is right. I love it. It's a good partnership we have. I love the way you guys operate as people and in your business. Obviously, I'm just grateful you took a chance on me. You try to deliver and here we are. We're helping elevate the profession. That makes me feel super boosted and happy. So, I appreciate you guys so much.

Nick: I couldn't agree more.

Tony: You just plugged Answering Legal. So, now we want to give you the opportunity to plug yourself. Obviously, the early show, but you wrote a memoir, right?

Chris: I did write a memoir. I'd love to send it to you for free. Hit me up, you know, LinkedIn, reach out to me anyway. Hey, I'd love to say my memoir. I I wrote that to make impact, not make money. But a lot of us lawyers struggle and I'm I struggled hard for a long time struggling a little bit less now, but always, you know, it's always a struggle. We all relate to struggle. So, I would love to send you my memoir. Check me out online. Chrisley.com, e a r y. Call my cell. I'd love to hear from you. Have a conversation. Uh, again, I don't have the answers, but I'm willing to learn and and and learn what you know we can share together and help each other. My cell is 617-9562501. Call me. I'd love to hear from you. Definitely hit me up.

Tony: And that's how you know the guy is genuine because I just I got six spam calls this morning. I'm not putting my cell phone number on the internet for that.

Chris: Wait, can we delete that.

Tony: Yeah, the spam spreads like a virus from me. Uh but thanks so much uh for joining us, Chris. And just as a quick reminder for our listeners, if you'd like to learn more about Answering Legal and how we help firms manage their intake, visit answeringlegal.com and there's a link in the episode description to get a free 400 minute trial.

Nick: I think we did it. I think that's it. See you next time, everyone.