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Introduction and Welcome 


Michael Jeffcoat: if I'm looking to expand a practice or make it stronger or I mean, my view is lean into, client service. 


Now, some firms might not be good at that. They might, not want to do that. There's so many ways to, go after this thing, but that was what came natural to me and was, again, playing to our strengths. 


MPS: Hey, law firm owner, welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. I'm your host. 


Meet Michael Jeffcoat 


MPS: MPS. And today, we're joined by attorney Michael Jeffcoat. Super excited to dive into the conversation with him and learn a little bit more about his journey. 


Michael, thank you for being here. Excited to chat today. 


Michael Jeffcoat: Thanks so much. Looking forward to this. 


MPS: Hey, I am too. And to the law firm owners listening, we're happy you're here. We're excited to jump into the material. Make sure so that way you don't miss any episodes like this, you hit that subscriber fall button, depending on where you're listening or watching. But let's get ready to jump into today's episode. 


So Michael, we like to break the ice a little bit, [00:01:00] just to give everyone an opportunity to learn a little bit more about you. 


Michael's Family and Background 


MPS: What's something that maybe not everyone knows about you? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Oh my goodness. I'm very, very focused on my family. My wife and I have been married for 27 years, and our three kids are one is a college graduate, one's in college, one's in high school. So they're all sort of, entering into the real world and their well being is really my whole purpose. in this law firm in the first place, And, that's really my focus. 


So, you know, A lot of times, I'm talking about this and that business and law firms and the practice and that sort of thing, but my head is, with my family. 


MPS: that's awesome. 


And look, I know college sports down in the South, you know, I know how they get. Are they all in one particular college or do they go to different colleges? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Our uh, older son graduated from Rice University out in Houston. Our daughter is a junior at Virginia Tech. Go Hokies. And our, son [00:02:00] is in high school. 


MPS: Cool. Awesome. Are you a Virginia Tech alum or just supporting her? 


Michael Jeffcoat: No, actually my wife and I both went to Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Go Terriers. And we both went to grad school. Of course, I went to law school at the University of South Carolina, so we're Terrier Gamecocks. of all 


MPS: love it. A good South Carolina duo. Wofford's got a beautiful campus, by the way. 


Michael Jeffcoat: It's a great place. Only good things to say about my alma mater. 


MPS: That's awesome. Well, I appreciate that. And, and to everyone listening, uh, yeah, I mean, Southern schools, Southern sports, whoever's into sports, it's a big deal. It's funny coming from either the West or the Midwest or you know, originally from. College football is usually your pro team. 


But down in the South, it's college football. right? it's your college football team and who you're going for, which is always interesting. But, my God, I love to just learn at least the high strokes. 


Michael's Entrepreneurial Journey 


MPS: Walk us through your entrepreneurial [00:03:00] journey as as a law firm owner. Where'd you start and how did we end up here? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Sure. So I started the practice in early 1999, just a couple of years out of law school. I had worked in a large firm, worked in a small firm. and decided I needed to have my own firm, pretty quickly. And so we started the practice in 99, and I was entirely happy to be a solo practitioner for almost two decades. 


And so, you know, we were operating at a much smaller level than in terms of the number of employees we would have two or three employees at any given time, that sort of thing. For the vast majority of those years, I was the only lawyer. I had an associate for a little while and kind of in the middle of there, but I was pretty much a solo the whole time. 


And so we didn't really decide to start growing until not quite eight years ago. And I would say that's really when the true entrepreneurial [00:04:00] journey began was when we decided to take on that, growth path. 


MPS: Well, first off, congratulations again on the success. That's awesome. I know we talked a little bit of pre show about that. 


But walk us through that. So 18 years about as a solo practitioner, and then deciding to scale 18 years in. what was the flip of the switch, If, you don't mind sharing? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Sure. I've always been really active in sss AAJ, American Association for Justice. And I would go to the conventions even when I definitely should not have been spending that money. couldn't afford it, but I would go anyway. and you know, I, I've always kind of tried to be the kind of person who's keeping my ear to the ground. 


So I understand, you know, what wolf might show up at the door. and so, you know, I'm looking for threats, things that could be problems, things that are opportunities, that sort of thing. Even Even as a solo, I mean, I think that's an important part of having your own shop. But at any rate, I [00:05:00] started hearing a lot of um, angst out of my colleagues in Florida about, Morgan and Morgan, about John Morgan. And as he kind of marched across Florida, it didn't take a genius to figure out that sooner or later, they were probably going to have their eyes set on going beyond Florida. And they started to do that. And if they didn't, somebody else would. 


The same time I saw in our area, it's Aspen dental buy up and open up a bunch of dental practices and, and competing groups like that, saw what was happening with the hospital systems, buying up doctors practices and so forth. 


And I just felt like if I was going to survive, I was going to have to do something. And it was better to have a larger thriving organization in order to deal with, that reality or what I believe to be the reality. I've turned out to be right about that. But you know, I just felt like I had to grow [00:06:00] or dies as I've heard many people say since then. 


And that was the beginning of it. 


Challenges and Growth 


MPS: So that leap, although I'm sure, yeah, obviously, now looking back on it, it panned out well, but I'm sure there were some obstacles. What was one of the bigger obstacles you faced going from solo practitioner to growing a thriving organization here? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Sure. I was a solo eight years ago, 10 years ago, during that time period, in the most conservative county and jurisdiction in South Carolina for plaintiff cases, very, very difficult jurisdiction. The home run hits were few and far between to put it mildly. All right. So you're lucky to get a single at that kind of place. 


So I was primarily focused on, that, but I had a lot of experience with some criminal defense work and also family court work. I had set aside the family court work because it was, for me, not what I wanted to [00:07:00] do. It was just kind of taxing on me to be delving into those kinds of disputes. It was just not what I wanted to be doing. 


So I was with about 85% of my small caseload were these really small PII cases. And then 15 or so percent were criminal defense cases. I don't recommend doing that by the way, But anyway, that's what I was doing at the time. And so how do you grow? What do you do? 


What I decided to do in the absence of a big advertising budget or access to capital like that, I decided to really, really double down on what our strengths were at the time and what I believe are is still a strength of ours, which are client relationships and really excellent client service. 


And we've always gotten more than our fair share of referrals from current and former clients. And that continues to be the case to this day. 


Michael Jeffcoat: And [00:08:00] so I decided, well this is my edge, I'm going to double down on that. And I started spending even more time calling clients, touching base with them and asking them for referrals and asking them to remember us down the road and all that sort of thing, staying in touch with them and all that. So like really, really basic stuff, really basic stuff. 


I then decided to hire a lawyer to handle all the criminal defense while I would handle the PI work. And so we still, to this day, we handle criminal defense cases and PI cases along with professional licensed defense. We have a strong presence in that practice area as well. 


But the idea was that I would really, really pour more of my time and resources into maximizing the value of PII PI cases, along with reaching out to clients and that sort of thing, while I would add this associate to handle the criminal defense cases. Hired a really, really great attorney. right [00:09:00] off the bat. He's still practices in South Carolina. He's an excellent criminal defense lawyer. He's no longer with us. I. 


I got lucky again. I hired another excellent criminal defense attorney who is still with us. right? And so, we simply started getting a little bit of a head of steam from that. I also made the decision to move our base of operations from the suburbs in the super conservative county right across the river from where I'm sitting into Columbia, into the state capital, which is in a different County. And that was a risk, man. That was a big risk to do that, because I was a known quantity over in Lexington and state Capitol. As you might imagine the home of the law school, home of the university, home of you know, state, local, federal government and all that, there are a lot of lawyers over here. So coming over here was a scary move, but I felt like that was the right move if we were [00:10:00] gonna, try to grow and survive with what was coming. 


And look, they still might take us out, right? I mean, I'm, I'm not done. I'm not, my hair is still on fire, right? So yeah, We'll see, But, we're working hard to make sure that we are lasting and that we have something that the people in South Carolina know and trust in terms of being with them when the chips are down. 


MPS: Well, that's quite amazing. 


Client Relationships and Referrals 


MPS: And what's really interesting about that story is especially what you mentioned regarding lead generation, which was so many law firms, I think, naturally believe, whether it's because the market tells them to, that you instantly have to jump in and try to compete in the paid ad world, which obviously there's value to that if you get it right. But you guys double down on the client relationships and the referrals. you have any best practices on, what [00:11:00] you did to really make that click? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Some people call what I was doing, a gas call, a give a shit call. Okay. 


Just calling client after client after client and checking in on them, That was kind of magic for me in the early days. And still is. I can imagine that sounding like, come on man, what were you really doing? 


That's what we were really doing. 


We were calling people back, same day, responding to their emails right away, and we were checking in on them left and right. And treating them well, that's what we were doing And if you're doing that you do it for a few years or if you do it for a bunch of years, You know those are free cases. Those are free cases. I mean, You have your time involved of course, but no, we did not have access to capital. 


I was doing fine. I was doing pretty well, but it wasn't like, we got some big hit or we got a big loan or we got, now there's money [00:12:00] from all over the place. It was nothing like that. It was very grassroots. And so, I mean, I believe in that stuff. And if I'm looking to expand a practice or make it stronger or whatever, my view is lean into, client service. 


Now, some firms might not be good at that. They might not want to do that. There's so many ways to go after this thing, but that was what came natural to me and was, again, playing to our strengths. And I'll say one other thing; I mentioned that my father was an entrepreneur. And one of the things that he did was he had a very successful insurance agency. 


And he never stopped asking for business from his customers and his non customers. 


Now lawyers can't really do that, but you know, lawyers can certainly ask their clients to think of them refer folks to us and all that sort of thing. So, you know, He was just like shameless with the stuff. And it was great. I mean, It wasn't bothersome or offensive or anything. People wanted to know, like, who should I call? [00:13:00] Or are you open to me sending people to you or whatever? And it worked so well for him. And I saw that example just by you know, being the little guy hanging out with my dad. 


MPS: awesome. And it's a good lesson and sometimes, You just got to ask because the answer will always be no unless you ask, right? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Look, if you don't ask, you don't get I mean, That's just how it is. That's a fact of life. 


MPS: of It's are absolutely right about that. And I love that you prioritize the client experience and you leaned into the client experience, and had those conversations you prioritize client communication, that sets you guys up in a good position to build referral partners really probably like you said, they still carry today. 


So that's now, one of the things you mentioned there, and I know we talked a little bit about this pre show as well. It's always a fascinating question for us is, most times when we speak with law firm owners, they go into a law firm and own and start their own law [00:14:00] firm, either knowing or identifying that they're opening a business. They see it as a law firm and it's, like, you know, I'm going to be a great attorney. People are going to come to me. Did you go into this knowing that you were starting a business and that your business just happened to be a law firm? 


Michael Jeffcoat: I don't think I would've said it that way. would've phrased it that way. I would've probably at the time said that you know, I was starting my. my own practice and we were adopting good business practices as best that we could at the time. But I didn't even know what that meant, back then. 


I'd never thought, Hey, I want to be a business owner, and so that's why I'm going to law school or anything. It wasn't anything like that. It was nothing like that. I wanted to work for a big law firm, and I went and did that. But again, I saw that it wasn't, wasn't for 


MPS: Yeah, no, no, I get that That's oftentimes what a lot of the law firms tell us. 


And listen, if you're a law firm owner listening to this and you're trying to fill in that business gap because law school didn't teach you business You could [00:15:00] go to a business, you could go to TheLawFirmSecret.com, gap. 


But what I'm curious about is so you started leaning into your client communication that started generating referrals, was that the breakthrough moment for you guys? Or was there another moment as you really decided to scale that was like, all right, now we're really throwing gasoline on the fire here and we're cook 


Michael Jeffcoat: Right. 


Scaling the Law Firm 


Michael Jeffcoat: So, you know, The next step was to lean into online and digital. So we've, done that since forever. We weren't super early and we certainly weren't dominant by any stretch of the imagination, but we leaned into that earlier than a lot of people did. Okay. So we've tried very hard to be quick adopters, early adopters of what's new as things come out, for example, LSAs on Google and, all that stuff. 


We've tried to stay ahead of the curve in terms of online marketing. and, those two things over the course of the last decade have [00:16:00] been good for us. It's It's not the whole picture, but that was a nice place from which we could start to grow. 


MPS: Yeah, I mean, that online sphere is a pretty vital part of most firms lead generation efforts today. And so it sounds like you guys were early adopters of that, you invested in that early. which helped the lead generation front. 


And by the way, what I'm about to ask next, I'm sure it can be its own masterclass and discussion in of itself. But as you're growing, you know, we talked about you, you're adding people. And you're adding people at a pretty big rate. So what was that like, to go from solo practitioner to now building out a team? What, what did that process look like? did that process 


Michael Jeffcoat: A hot mess. It looks, it looks, It messy. you know, anybody who has, I mean, We're not massive, by the way, we've got a little over 70 


MPS: It's a good size. 


Michael Jeffcoat: And we've got, yeah, 


We're about to hire our 14th lawyer, I think. 


Yeah, 14. but that's massive [00:17:00] compared to three. And so, anybody who's made that kind of a leap understands that it's a moving target and that there are unexpected problems and issues that come up, and that they have to be dealt with. 


And you know, ask me what it looked like. It looks. At times probably chaotic to some, but we've always had our eye on where we wanted to go and how we wanted to get there. Sometimes we adjust that, of course. 


And we have our core values that are our guiding principles around here. We take that very seriously, like obnoxiously seriously. 


MPS: Good. Yeah. Good. 


Michael Jeffcoat: So, you know, 


Having those guiding lights or that guiding light has been critical to know how to navigate through the messiness that is going to occur when you are scaling or growing or whatever the term of the day [00:18:00] is. And I would say, that's what it looked like, probably looked messy and it's been stressful as all get out. 


I mean, It is stressful. Anybody wants to do this thing, I'm telling you, it is a whole different kind of stress. People say that owning a business is the most stressful thing you can do. And then a bunch of other people say, practicing law is the most stressful thing you can do. Imagine doing both. You have to have a screw loose, at least one, if not a bunch of them. And to that, I guess I plead guilty, but it's incredibly tough at times. But I think it's worth it. It's been a fun ride. I want to keep riding, You know, we'll see how far 


MPS: gonna say hey, you've been through the ringer and you're still here still wanting to ride. So it's obviously got to be worth it to some extent, right? that's awesome. I would imagine the people building process as going through it on our end as well. It is It's messy at the end of the day. 


We're all people but people are messy. Um, what would you say you're talking to the law firm [00:19:00] owner here that is trying to get things on the right foot. Maybe they're, like I said, watching this at 2 a. m. or listen to this at AM They're just Trying Trying to AM, they got themselves into this mess, but more importantly, how do they get themselves out? 


What would be kind of your parting piece of wisdom for that person? 


Accountability and Leadership 


Michael Jeffcoat: Boy, I would say this; it is so important to hold both yourself and your people accountable for their production, for actually moving the needle depends on the position, but in terms of revenue or providing legal services directly or both. People need to be held accountable and you need to be held accountable. 


Right. When I was a solo, I had a lot more time to just kind of, even though it was tough and there were long hours and all that, I had more time to fool around every now and then, and you know, maybe phone it in sometimes. I'm not phoning it in these days, you know? it's an intense [00:20:00] thing. But I'm doing that because I'm holding myself accountable better now. I'm holding myself accountable because that is what is necessary to expand, grow, get better, refine, pivot, respond to new conditions, respond to whatever tour form might be coming down in your state or who knows what, or the competition. Whether it's John and his group or whomever else it is, if you're going to pivot, if you're going to respond, if you're going to thrive, you're going to survive, it's because you're holding yourself accountable and your people 


MPS: like that and do you have any i'm everyone's got their own way of doing this But do you have any practical tools or anything that you do personally that helps you hold yourself accountable? 


Michael Jeffcoat: Well, I have a great assistant now. 


MPS: Excellent. 


Michael Jeffcoat: I mean, that's, that's just being honest. you know, I'm a big believer in the book, Buy Back Your Time and time blocking that method, that sort of thing that has been extremely helpful for me, as I've made this [00:21:00] transition from solo practitioner to now effectively CEO of a 70 plus person 


MPS: I love it. 


Future Outlook and Conclusion 


MPS: Well, let me ask what's got you fired up and excited today could be business Could be personal could be both You 


Michael Jeffcoat: Yeah, well, I'm just excited to see if we can do this thing as, things change. you know, We've got a crop of new politicians coming in, we have a crop of new entrants into the market where the rules are changing with the rule 5.4 4 and etc., and ABS, the competition's getting better and better. 


It's an exciting time. It's a challenging time. And, I guess I could roll up in a ball or, retire, but I'm just not built that way. So I'm excited to see how we can navigate through this. It's a good time to be alive. It's a good time to take on a bunch of new challenges, 


MPS: It's a terrific time for that. And I think there's a lot of interesting things happening in the legal landscape that will be probably rolling out within the next few years. And it should be interesting to see how things [00:22:00] ultimately play out. But if you got that competition in you and you've got that business you in you it should be a fun drive in you, it should means there's a lot of opportunity on the horizon. So, I'm to see how that plays out. that being said. Michael, I being to thank you. Michael, this has been an awesome episode filled with lots of lessons, and I'm sure we can have you back and have a lot more conversations about that scaling cycle and what lessons look like in there. But I appreciate you being willing to contribute into the law firm owners. Thank And to the you for taking the time to listen, to watch, depending on where you're doing that. if you don't want to miss anything like this, make sure to hit that subscribe or follow button, but we appreciate you or follow Throw a comment down below, show Michael some love. I mean, look, he's got a great name, so that's a good start. but Michael, thanks for being on today. 


Michael Jeffcoat: All right. Thank you, my friend.