Richard James: [00:00:00] Has there been one that you've enjoyed more, one step of the journey you've enjoyed more?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: That's a great question. I honestly think Overture has been the most exciting and fulfilling what we're working on most recently. You build a lot of companies and everyone says, Oh, that's really cool. But the one thing about what we're building with Overture is, I talked to attorneys all day. I'm still in the trenches as we talked about talking to the clients.

I still talk to the end users, the attorneys, I get them on the platform. I show them what we built, and you get the same response from people. How can no one's done this before? Oh I, we needed this. And I joke and I say, well, somebody has to be that person to stop and say, Hey, let's see what we can do to make this work, to build this for each other.

And I think the fact that it's not just an outsider saying, Hey, we're building this because we think it's cool. We think that, you know, building some AI, this is great. Or CRM is great. We're building this because we need it. My firm is a user of the product. My firm sends and receives referrals and to see people as somebody actually just told me this [00:01:00] morning, and I'll never forget it.

The worst thing that you can to solve a problem for what this attorney told me. The worst thing you can tell your client is I don't know who to send you to, and you're solving that problem. And that really even just today resonated with me where, you know, as a solo, small firm attorney, you are isolated.

And if I can give you this broader network that you can turn to when you need it without taking away your independence, that's to me, really exciting.

MPS: Hey, Law Firm owners, welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts. I'm MPS.

Richard James: And I'm Richard James and I can't wait till we have today's conversation. I got to tell you for years, I've been trying to work with law firm owners to connect them all across the country. You know, we've worked with over 900 firms throughout the years and trying to get law firm owners to connect with one another in a way that they can ethically and make sense to refer each other business has been [00:02:00] a challenge.

And so I'm excited about today's conversation with Arya because he's got a brand new company that's going to share what they're doing to help other law firms facilitate that process of referrals. Michael, this is going to be a pretty cool conversation. Don't you think?

MPS: Yeah, I'm super, super excited about this. Something that's been needed for a while. So Arya, welcome on. Super excited to have you.

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

MPS: Absolutely. I know you mentioned, you know, you've heard a, few episodes here. So, so you know what I'm going to ask, you know, what's something that maybe not everybody knows about you to break the ice a little bit?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Yeah. I've been, a fan of the podcast since I met you guys, been listening to a lot of the most recent ones. Ryan is a good friend of mine. So it was a pleasure to listen to all these. Yeah, I mean, what's new about me. I was thinking about this as I was listening recently.

The funny part is I think my wife forgets that I'm still an Attorney. And one thing that I really miss, frankly, is now that I'm in the legal tech side. I'm And I spent all my time there is just conversing with the clients. And [00:03:00] when I get glimpses of what my team and from the legal tech side and from even my law firm side, the attorneys chat with the clients and their conversations, I get a little jealous.

So I always joke with my co founders that one day we're going to go back and just get in the trenches too, because I truly just miss that interaction with the clients now that my clients are other attorneys as the same world that you guys operate in.

Richard James: Yeah. Arya, you know, it's funny you should say that. So, as I've been doing this now since 2008 ish. And so the early clients that I have, they're now moved to the, almost to the investor, definitely to the CEO level where they don't spend a lot of time in the trenches and they miss that interaction because most Lawyers, quite frankly, didn't get into law as a business.

They got into law for some other reason and they ended up owning their own practice, you know, and they didn't realize what that meant. And then of course they saw the opportunity to build a business and it got excited about it. But then it took them away from that [00:04:00] client interaction. And so some of my clients actually.

They purposely schedule like consult days for themselves or consult hours for themselves so they can still step back in and have those interesting initial consultations and make sure they're still, you know, filling that need that they have to feel like they're serving their clients. Do you find yourself doing that too?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: You said it, you took the words out of my mouth. Just last week, I saw a referral come through the platform for life insurance denial, which is what I used to do. And I love that because you took these people who are in a very terrible spot. You know, someone passed away, unfortunately, and then they go to the insurance company and they don't pay for whatever reason.

And so being able to jump in and provide that assistance was always a great feeling for us. It was almost like We were filling our cup a little bit while serving our clients. And so this referral came through and I told Curt, my co founder, I said, I can't resist. I got to jump in. And so we jumped in and we're seeing what we can do to help that client with my firm behind me.

But yeah it's one of those things where I think every business owner, and I know a lot of your, [00:05:00] the folks that you work with transition to becoming business owners rather than attorneys. I think it's always good to put that time aside to always jump back in and talk to a client or two, have a client or two.

Not only because you want to experience that client and go through that experience of what that client goes through with your firm, but to see it from A to Z so that you can be a better business owner and say, Hey, what can we do to fix these problems?

Richard James: But I've got a clarifying point and I want to kill Michael's thunder here of asking more questions. But I want to make sure like you wouldn't give up being a business owner to spend full time working with clients. Would you?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: No, I think, there's some freedom that comes from being a business owner. And I think the benefit of doing it is that you have choice, meaning I can choose the clients that I want to work with. I don't have to work with every single matter and every single client cause I've great attorneys and great folks to assist with those specific matters.

But I have the luxury [00:06:00] of choice where I can decide, Hey, I want to work with this client. I want to take on this matter. This is enjoyable to me. That's the beauty of being the owner and a good business owner of a law firm.

Richard James: Yeah. Michael. I mean, I think you would suggest that's why you became a business owner too, right? You

MPS: Oh, absolutely.

Richard James: want freedom. Yeah. Yeah.

MPS: Oh freedom is the, I mean, the ultimate, I don't want to say drug, but it's the ultimate drug that you seek as an entrepreneur. And then a lot of people think, you know, money's that, drug. And I would argue that money is a tool to help achieve the freedom that you want.

So that's the game plan behind entrepreneurship there to achieve that. But I'm curious, Arya so they've heard attorney, they've heard legal tech. So why don't you tell them a little bit about the journey from attorney to legal tech and what that's looked like.

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Yeah. Yeah. That's the convoluted story. That's me. I was practicing for a couple of years after law school, two, three years in the insurance, bad faith world. I realized that was a world where people [00:07:00] just didn't know how to find attorneys and the fact that they could do it on contingency. So I reached out to a buddy of mine from law school and even undergrad, Curt Brown, who's still my co founder.

He still sits right next to me most days, which is a testament to our friendship and him putting up with me all these years. But we said, Hey, why don't we build a connection between helping great clients who have these insurance denials, helping them find great attorneys to assist them and we can collect a referral fee along the way.

So that was really the basis of a lot of our learnings on referral fees and how we can do those. We ended up partnering along the way with. Brian Liu, who's our third partner who started LegalZoom and we built that up to help injured victims of accidents and employment issues. And we spent some time in all these other areas of law connecting them.

That ended up morphing back into the business world where Brian knew so well with LegalZoom. And we built a company called Biz Council that services small businesses. And we built that up to service thousands of folks across the country. [00:08:00] And then, of course, the pandemic happened and our clients spread out all over the country, had needs broader than what we could service.

And we reached out to our colleagues and we said, are you guys having issues finding homes for these clients when they have matters that are not in your neck of the woods or in your practice area? And I'll remember that the answer was always the same. We've always had this problem. It's just gotten worse now.

And so we said, all right, well, you know, why don't we Start yet another company to help solve our own problem, which is helping great attorneys find homes for clients that they can't service and allowing them to monetize it through referral fees, which we've been in for so long. And so that was the basis of what we're building now, which is Overture.

Richard James: I'm curious. And maybe this is never an issue, but it just occurred to me, you know, having worked with small and souls for so many years and read so many articles about the small and solo world. If I'm honest, there was a number of times that the legal zoom conversation came in as a competitor or a threat to the industry.

And I [00:09:00] honestly never saw it that way because I believe that the service that you provide as a law firm is very niched in to your geographic area, and probably the services that people are buying off LegalZoom are not the services you are or should necessarily be selling as a mainstay product or service to be able to maximize your monetization in your firm.

That being said, Thank you. Do you guys ever have to overcome that challenge with the fact that the founder of LegalZoom is in your firm and you have to have that discussion or is it just never a discussion point?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Yeah, I think probably maybe 10 years ago, it would have been a bigger discussion point. I think everyone's accepted it by now, but I think to your point, Richard, the truth is exactly as you said it, right? Those clients that are going to LegalZoom to pay a hundred bucks for an LLC, those aren't the clients that are at the point yet to require the services that most lawyers want to give.

Right? And so most of those businesses are, Hey, I got an idea for something. Let's start and see what happens. And LegalZoom is a great avenue to get them off the ground, to get them off the [00:10:00] couch, to try. And then as those businesses continue to grow, the truth is they become clients of most lawyers out there and most solo small firm lawyers.

So I think the confusion, as you said very eloquently is those probably aren't clients that you want to get at that point in time. You got to wait for them to grow and expand. And at that point you can offer all these other great services to them.

Richard James: I've always said LegalZoom is doing them a favor. They just don't realize it yet. They're servicing these clients in a way to let them grow and they're convincing them that working with a law firm is actually a good idea. And, you know, so I always saw it the other way around. I'm glad we addressed that.

So, by the way, congratulations on that journey. Has there been one that you've enjoyed more, one step of the journey you've enjoyed more?

And if I can give you this broader network that [00:12:00] you can turn to when you need it without taking away your independence, that's to me, really exciting.

Richard James: Yeah, Michael, you and I talk about the importance of the law firm being the authority and the centralized place for them to get the advice they need, regardless of the legal issues. And when a law firm doesn't have an answer and the best answer they've got is I can't help you. That's not a good thing in the lead conversion and sales process, is it?

MPS: Not quite. It doesn't necessarily fulfill that authoritative spot in the industry. That's for sure. It screams you know, I don't really know. I'm not really the authority in anything other than what I'm the authority in. So I totally agree with you on that. And so Arya, you know, a journey is a journey, right?

So there's ups and downs. Did you have a challenge point in your journey where you took something out of it?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: That's a great question. I think the challenge that we've been talking about is that, one that happened a year and a half ago, where we were constantly running around calling firms in Connecticut for real [00:13:00] estate and said, Hey, can you help with this client? And then they wouldn't call us back and we would be shocked and we would call other firms and they wouldn't be responsive to the client and we would be shocked. ?

Richard James: I'm chuckling because,

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: we've all gone through that

Richard James: Oh, it's crazy, right? You just think to yourself, how could they not return a call that we want to give them business?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: The funniest thing in the years of running Biz Council and the thousands of small businesses that we service there, I could tell you 99 percent of the issues we ran into were all client service issues. Hey, is this attorney going to return my phone call? They said they would call me back. They told me he was going to send me an email.

He didn't do it. That's what remains with the client. They don't know the quality of your legal work truthfully. And frankly, even from other attorneys, it's sometimes hard to tell what they're left with is the feeling that you give them and they're in a vulnerable spot. They come to you in that moment and you need to give them that assurance that I'm going to take care of you.

And that comes across in the demeanor in the way that you, those soft skills, right? The bedside [00:14:00] manner and that was shocking that we struggled so much to have that. And so actually, when we started Overture, when we said, okay, we're building this platform to make referrals easy. Referral fees as easy as we can, but it's nothing if the people in it don't trust each other.

And so we said, we're going to vet every member. We're going to have them not only Submit an application, look at all their website reviews, bar, that's the easy stuff where we're going to interview every single person to see, are they cut from the same cloth that we are? Are they responsive? Are they client centric?

Do they show up 15 minutes late to their call with us? Because I can guarantee you if they do that to us, they're going to do that to someone else's client. And I don't want that. So it's it's an interesting balance because you're not only building this platform, but you're building a community of people that we'd frankly want to work with.

Richard James: Yeah. My grandfather used to say the way you do all things, the way you do some things, the way you do all things. Right. And so if they're late, sometimes they're late all the time. They're going to be late for your client. And, you know, he also taught me that you may not know this about, maybe you do, you've heard the podcast, but [00:15:00] I own funeral homes for many years.

And so he taught me that. He's like, Richie, call me. Richie said, you know, what do you really want to look for when you open up this envelope with the check in it, isn't check. What you really want to look for is the thank you note. And that's how, you know, you're doing a good job.

The money is just the transaction, right? But when you get a thank you note and that family telling you how you affected their life during that process, that's when you know you got your services right. And I think so many law firms, they miss that for lots of good quality reasons.

They're too busy. They grow too fast. They weren't taught how to manage it. They don't have the system, whatever, fill in the blank. There's lots of great reasons, but you hit on such a big pain point that, you know, the number one complaint to bar associations is the lack of client communication, right? So if we could just fix that, like if I could own a law firm, Michael and I can own a law firm, we would go in and the very first thing we would fix, Michael, is what?

MPS: [00:16:00] Well, I'd fix sales.

Richard James: Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. So the second thing.

MPS: what you were looking for, you really set me up.

Richard James: Second thing we would fix, second thing we would fix is the phones. Fair enough? So.

MPS: Yeah, the phones. Just client communication as a whole and the phones is part of sales.

Richard James: No, you're right. We gotta fix sales and you're right. But I would also fix, like, I would fix the phones, right? I want to make sure that we're getting, if we can't get to them on time, tell them we can't get to, like, don't just do nothing. Don't just completely ignore people's requests. It's unbelievable to me. And it's not me judging. say it's unbelievable. But now I've worked with so many law firms. I know why they are where they're at. I mean, I know it.

And so, it doesn't mean it doesn't have to be fixed. And so it does need to be fixed. It doesn't need to be solved. So when you are putting together a platform whereby you're my gosh, You know, you're not a small entity that's looking to have a few lawyers.

You're having to have a large number of firms that fit a certain [00:17:00] criteria. And for you to have to say, to have the chutzpah to say, I'm going to interview everybody and make sure they fit my profile. That's quite the statement. And so you guys better make sure you have your systems in place on your end, or you could quickly outstrip your ability to manage that promise. Agree?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: No, you're a hundred percent right. And I think, you know, I looked at the numbers prior to this call. I think last month we brought on 37 percent of people who applied. It's not a joke when we say we're vetting.

Richard James: Only 37%. So for every hundred applicants, you only took 37 of them, which means you turned away 63 applicants who wanted to be on your service so that fundamentally your firm could make more money. And you said no to 63%.

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Because here's the thing. If I let them on. To your point, exactly. If I let them on and I know that this guy has a terrible client review about responsiveness about he, you know, you've seen those reviews that is just scathing reviews on this attorney and I know [00:18:00] what happened. The attorney was doing a great job.

They were writing the brief, they submitted it, they did, but they didn't communicate that to the client. Right. And I see that I can't let that person on because that person is going do that same thing with someone else on the platform that we love and we were excited about. And that experience gets ruined.

And if you're going to be on the platform and refer clients to one another, of course the platform has to be easy to use. That's great, but you have to be a hundred percent confident that this attorney in another part of the country that you've never met in person is just as quality as you are.

And if I ever break that promise with folks, then you're going to see everyone run away. So, it's not a choice on our part. Really. It's something that I think of course, you know, more users is better, more users is great, but it's the right type of users that we're looking for.

Richard James: Yeah. Well, Michael, we've vendors and people through the years that sell, what we call swamp juice, and perfume bottle. Right? And so, It's nice to hear somebody who's doing it right, and thinks along the lines that we think. [00:19:00] I didn't mean to derail you, Michael.

MPS: Yeah, no, well, I just even think that's such a powerful point. I mean, to just think that, you know, you're creating such a great vetted community of these people that you turn down 63 people. I think it just really goes to show how serious you are about that vetting process. And I think that's so important.

And I think it's only going to build a stronger community. I'm curious, Arya, for you you know, success habits. What do you do on a consistent either daily or weekly basis that help continue the sustained success here?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Yeah it's I'm somebody who needs to exercise. I exercise every day. Granted, not as much as some of the your other podcasts, or I've been listening to folks who wake up at four or five in the morning to to train, that's not me, but I do some

Richard James: didn't hear me say that. That wasn't me either. So, yes, no,

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: You know, seven days a week, it's 50 percent for the body and 50 percent for the mind it's time to be able to, I exercise at night, let go of whatever's been aggravating you that day be appreciative for the [00:20:00] ability to exercise the ability to be healthy, it's kind of my gratefulness moment and prepare myself for the next day.

I think discipline and everything we do is key. And I think exercising reminds me that growth and success is not overnight. It's not just one random thing that you've accomplished. It's daily showing up when you don't feel like it, pushing every single day to get a little bit better.

And you look back six months later and you say, wow, I can bike longer than I have a run farther than I have lift more weights than I have. But in any given day, you don't look at it and say, wow, I feel so much stronger. I can run so much faster. That's a lot of what, you know, building a business, building a law firm, building a legal tech company.

That's I think something that's easy to forget on a random Wednesday. Right. But I think exercise really grounds me again into those principles.

Richard James: You know, I know we've only got a few more minutes, Michael, but Ed Milet just had a great podcast on the echo effect. And what he basically [00:21:00] talked about is, when you don't do things, right? The residual effect is pretty instant. Like, if you don't do something, A, B happens pretty quick around the corner.

The problem is when you do the right thing, like exercise. Be the success factor that you're looking for takes time, whether that's building a business or exercise or anything else, doing the right thing over and over again. If there's a building that echo takes a lot longer to come back and it's the willingness and the discipline, as you said, Arya, to be able to stick with it until you win, not just until you think you should win.

And so I love the fact that you recognize that about yourself, that this is something you're going to do every day. And that you're disciplined to do it, to maintain your trajectory towards your goal. So kudos to you.

kudos to

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: And And one final note I wanted to point out, you, I've listened to so many users on your podcast and they talk about their success. Oh, we went from, you know, this offices to this offices, this, you know, this much revenue to this much revenue, this much profit. And I think it sounds easy on the surface.

Sometimes you listen to that and you get lulled [00:22:00] and say why can't I do that? But we're not there for those Tuesdays at 4pm, the Fridays at 3. Every one of those hours and days contributes to that. So when you look in hindsight, it says, wow, that sounds simple. You just do a couple things and make it work.

But it's the commitment to improve every single day that gets them to that point. So anyways it's something that I've heard from many of your guests on the podcast, and it's, even I have to remind myself sometimes that it's the day in, day out work that gets you there.

Richard James: it's hard.

MPS: Look, I know there's a lot to be excited about with everything you got going on, but what's got you fired up today? What's got you excited?

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: You know what? I went to a Cleo's conference just a couple weeks ago, met a lot of great folks there. The honest truth is the state of legal tech. I think the truth is maybe 5, 10 years ago, the legal tech wasn't too hot. I don't think anyone would argue against me on that. I think legal tech is really [00:23:00] adapting and growing and getting better and attorneys are being more willing to accept it.

And it's making their lives easier. It's giving them more time to serve their clients, be on the phone with their clients, provide more access to legal services. And so I think it's a really revolutionary time and it's fun, frankly, just being in the mix of that world. But seeing how, you know, everyone's talking about AI, how that's going to affect lawyers and their practice is exciting.

I think we shouldn't look at it as a bad thing. We should look at it as another tool in our toolbox to be able to do what we do.

Richard James: Completely agree. By the way, as somebody who built a law firm in 2008, 2009, 2010, legal tech was like an oxymoron. It didn't like, it didn't really exist. I mean, the way I used, you know, as my great, my uncle would say, Rube Goldberg, like some duct tape and spit and glue to hold this thing together, you know.

So, now it's so much better and so much easier. And so, you know, Arya, I know that we're coming to the end. Why don't you tell us if anybody wanted to [00:24:00] learn more about Overture or you, how would they get ahold of you? Please don't give your cell phone. We get a fair amount.

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: No, I think the easiest way to go is to go to our website, overture. law, they can check out the platform. Any attorney can create a limited account and see what it looks like. I wanted people to see that this is something that's free to join. We're just looking for great attorneys who believe in the mission and want to be able to refer their clients and accept clients from other great attorneys.

So, go to Overture.law, check it out there. If anyone wants to email me personally, you can email me at af@overture.law. I'm always happy to meet other great attorneys across the country. So

Richard James: Awesome. Well, Michael, this was a great show. Yeah.

MPS: It was some powerful punches throughout here in terms of value bomb. So Arya, I appreciate it. And to the law firm owners listening, thank you for taking the time to listen. As you know, around here we put our time, money and resources into this. All we ask for in return is if this was not your first time listening or watching that you hit that subscribe or follow button, depending on the platform you're listening or watching on and [00:25:00] show some love to Arya down in the comments.

So let's get a few love comments down there. Hit that like button, but we appreciate you for taking the time to listen or watch. We really enjoy doing this. And Arya, it was a pleasure to have you on today.

Richard James: Yeah. And

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Thank you so much.

Richard James: I was just going to say, I can't wait to see your team and the upcoming event that we have when Michael's off chasing the sun on his honeymoon. And I can't wait to spend some time with them and introduce your world to our world. And so I look forward to a long lasting relation, looking forward to what you guys are bringing to the table.

And congratulations to what you've done.

Attorney Arya Firoozmand: Thank you so much. Thank you again for having me. It was a pleasure being here.

Richard James: Absolutely.