Atty. Edward Bartholomew: [00:00:00] I actually met my wife around the time that I purchased the business. And I told my wife at that time, who was definitely not my wife then, but was an interest. I said, look, I'm going to purchase a law firm, and she looked at me like, you're nuts I had no experience in business of my own before I bought this firm. And I think a lot of lawyers have business experience before they get into the business of being a lawyer, and that's a double edged sword, because you are not only a lawyer, you are a business owner,
Welcome to Your Practice Mastered Podcast
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MPS: Hey Law Firm Owner, welcome to the Your Practice Mastered podcast. We're your hosts, I'm MPS.
Richard James: And I'm Richard James. And MPS, today, we get to have the luxury of having a conversation with Ed Bartholomew. Who has going to tell us his journey about how he went from working and being mentored by a firm, and having the opportunity to purchase that firm, and what he did to go from that [00:01:00] initial purchase and what he walked into. How he unwound it and how he turned it into what we consider a success story today.
And so, Ed, thanks for being on the call today. I appreciate that you're being here, got to talk to you off camera a little bit. I love your heart. I love your spirit. Can't wait to have this conversation today.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: I'm looking forward to that as well, Richard. And I, appreciate the invitation to be with y'all today.
MPS: We're equally excited to have you. And Ed, one of the things we like to do is break the ice a little bit. So, why don't you kick us off by giving us something that maybe not everyone knows about you?
Meet Ed Bartholomew: From Kitchen to Law Firm
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: So, I spent almost 20 years in the kitchen before I became a lawyer. I started working in kitchens at the age of 13, and I actually worked as a cook in a kitchen after I became a lawyer even. I worked at a firm in Raleigh 2 years after I worked at what was now my firm for a year. And unfortunately, my first quote unquote big boy job was not really a well paying lawyer gig.
I was paid $36,000 a year there.
So that was not going to [00:02:00] pay all the bills. So, I went back into the kitchen, and I was working night shift, closing the restaurant down 2 o'clock in the morning, and then getting up 6, and being back here working from 8 o'clock till 6:30.
I certainly know what it means to burn the midnight oil in both of those situations, and then after I purchased this firm, that midnight oil situation never went away. We're in a situation now where the midnight oil is only because I have a case that I need to keep myself up, and do the research or, oh man, I have trial tomorrow, I have a little bit of anxiety going on.
Which, if you don't have anxiety going into a trial, are you really a trial attorney? but that's basically sort of an icebreaker way of saying that that was my entree into a high pressure low reward situation. But the nice part about being in a kitchen is that, when the door closes, it's over. being a business owner, you don't get to do that, it goes with you wherever you go.
Richard James: So are you a fan of the bear or not a fan of the bear?
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: I love the bear.
Richard James: Yeah.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: I think it is very accurately portrayed what a high end kitchen is like. And I've worked in a couple high-end [00:03:00] kitchens. And I have to say that, most of the time, they really jack it up on film and the bear does a really good job of showing just how raw the emotions are.
Now there's a lot more drama in the bear than there is in a real kitchen, but there still is a lot of personality that is clashing in kitchens.
People that think that they're better than they are are constantly being put down by people that are not. And the same is true in our profession, You a lot of people that consider themselves high profile, and they don't want to be heard by the person that's lower profile. So, they talk over you, they talk down to you, they intentionally misspell your name in emails. It's all for posturing and it's all for peacocking but end of the day, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't actually help the client anymore. If you're being a on the other side, all it does is feed your own stuff.
Richard James: The only experience I really have in a kitchen was I was 15, 16 years old, I got my first JOB where I got a W-2. I worked for my parents grocery store for many years. But, I went and got a job in a kitchen, and was a dishwasher, and the chef was kind enough to take hot pans out of the oven and turn them handle first [00:04:00] way, not telling me they just came out of the oven, and I turned and grabbed them as the dishwasher and sizzled my fingers.
that was a good lesson learned from that point forward. But yeah, kitchens can be an interesting place to work. They are very high energy, they're oftentimes very long hours, and it's a great segue, as you said, into the hard work you realize you're going to have to put in into the turnaround for this firm.
MPS, I think that's a great segue your next question.
MPS: Yeah. which is, I mean,
The Journey of Purchasing a Law Firm
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MPS: walk us through that a little bit. So, from kitchen to firm, walk us through that journey in the firm to purchasing the firm. At least from the high level.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: Absolutely. So, I graduated from law school in 2013, I was licensed in 2014 in the state of North Carolina. It's my only license right now, not planning on getting another one anytime soon, because C. CLE hours are way too expensive. But regardless, I could not find a job to save my soul after I was licensed.
So, I called up one of my friends who was a longtime prosecutor and I said, Hey, what can I do to find a place to work? I don't even care if they [00:05:00] pay me, I just need to figure out what this lawyer thing is all about. School teaches you theory, it doesn't teach you practice at all. And once you get boots on the ground, you start learning a lot about what they didn't tell you in law school. About how hard this job really is on the ground.
Richard James: Yeah
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: And how it it be on the ground too, depending on the situation. So Joel Avery, is the person that I purchased this firm from, heard my plight. And because he has a huge heart, or had a huge heart as well, he invited me to come and work for him. And the offer was, come work for me, I'll pay you a hundred bucks a week, and I'll pay for your lunch.
I was like, cool, even the hundred bucks, I just want the lunch. So, He was a large guy just like me, and we both did. Did very well for that situation. And I worked for him for a little over a year. Once he saw that I was competent about two weeks in, he actually started paying me a very fair wage.
I worked with him for quite a while, but it wasn't really enough to fully fix issue of having a second job. So, every time I would leave from here, I would go directly to my second job and [00:06:00] work all night, and then come back here and work all day. So I was working off of three to four hours of sleep a night, and I continued to do that same thing after I left here and went to work for a criminal defense firm in Raleigh.
I did that for about 2 years and I was getting worked ragged there. I was working about 60 to 65 hours a week there and then another 40 hours a week in the kitchen, leads only about 30 hours a week to sleep, which that's not really enough to sleep. So, I finally decided, I needed a change. So called Joel back up and said, Hey, can I come back and work for you?
He goes, yeah, come on back, I can't afford to pay you as much as I was paying you before. But if you bring in some cases, you can keep what you kill. I said, Okay, that's fair. So I came in and he started giving me some of the cases that he had coming in. And then I started generating some of my own through connections that I have in the community because I'm from this community.
And eventually, he started getting paid pretty well for doing this job. And then he dropped the bomb on me that he wanted to go and be a prosecutor. And that was his lifelong dream was to be a prosecutor. So he asked me, he said, Hey, [00:07:00] would you be interested in purchasing my firm?
Lessons Learned in Business Valuation
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: We started the conversation, and about 2 later, after we did due diligence, after I did all the money, looking at it, I really should have hired somebody to value that because that was dumb.
doing it by by myself and I really know what I'm looking at. And I would have advise any person that is buying any business to hire a independent third person to look at that, because you're thinking emotionally, you're not thinking Logically, when you're doing this type of thing. and a third person can bring you back to ground and say, Hey, that of money that you're trying to pay is way too damn much or, Hey, maybe you should offer some more because the business actually has really good whatever inside of the area and people know the business.
So, if you're going to keep it the same name, great. but as we know, law firms are routinely named after the people who own the firm, and that's what chose the after, named after him. Right. Obviously, I'm not Joel O'Leary, so I can't the law firm in the name. So I did the the simple thing and named it after myself.
And, now we're looking [00:08:00] at changing the name and turning it into a trade name. And that is solely for the purpose of helping us build a brand. I don't
want the brand to be me. I want the brand to be its own thing.
And that way, when I try to sell the firm at some point, because it's not my goal to be a lawyer until I die.
So at some point, when I go to sell the firm, I actually have goodwill that I can sell it because the the business is not connected only to my name, it's connected to the name that I've created for it.
Richard James: Ed, there is so much to unpack there, right? First and foremost, congratulations on taking the leap. I remember when I bought my first business, I was 25 years old. I bought it from my uncle. We came up with the price together, I think, he was generating about $350,000 000 a year in gross sales. and I think we came up with a price somewhere around $400,000 and so, I'm not sure exactly how we came up price or what made a lot of sense, the logic made sense at the time.
And of course, he held most all of the paper, I didn't have to really put any money down. And the moment I bought the business, my income went up. And so, all good things happen. But [00:09:00] some point, I rebelled as young people do. I'm 25, 26 years old, and I accused him of selling the business to me at too high of a price because I had gone and learned a bunch of things about business valuation.
But the reality is, is by making that leap and purchasing that business, I learned a whole bunch, I made a whole bunch of money and it gave me the opportunity to do what I do today. Now, conversely, when MPS bought our business or 50% of our business this last year, we actually went and had the business appraised. Because having lived that story, I didn't want him to feel like, was getting the wool pulled over his eyes in any way that I was just creating this price. MPS, I assume that you feel like that valuation process was important, yeah?
MPS: But
Yeah, it's important, and it also gives you a third party to offer different perspective on different sides of the business, and things to consider over and above just the valuation of the business itself. as well
Richard James: how much should you get paid?
MPS: Right, as much, As well as [00:10:00] how much did you get paid, deal structure, the whole nine. So, I think, having that independent third party is an important part of the business acquisition or buying process, for sure. And I'm happy we did it.
Richard James: Yeah. So,
that's a great Lesson for anybody listening, right, MPS?
MPS: That alone is a very good lesson, is to do your due diligence, and find the experts in whatever it is that you're looking to find the expert in in this case, business valuation. And that will save you a lot of time and money down the road.
Challenges of Owning a Law Firm
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MPS: Ed, made the transition, you guys found number, went for it, what was the first year like owning the firm?
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: The first year was extremely stressful. So, I actually met my wife around the time that I purchased the business. And I told my wife at that time, who was definitely not my wife then, but was an interest. I said, look, I'm going to purchase a law firm, and she looked at me like, you're nuts.
And that [00:11:00] the appropriate response if you didn't know any better about what the person was. But I've always been a person that's not risk-averse, I'm absolutely willing to jump in with both feet and then figure it out later. that's essentially what I did here, I wish that I had done more due diligence on the front end like you guys did in your deal.
because if I I had had third party tell me, Hey, you're paying too much or, Hey, you're not paying enough, then that would have been good information. of like the old adage we have in the law where, you as a lawyer have yourself as a client and you have a fool for a client. And I think the same is true, in any type of business arrangement, if you're trying to buy or sell a business, you shouldn't be the one that is buying or selling it alone, somebody else appraise it.
lawyers are really terrible at math for the most part So Us being the ones that comes up with the valuation, I mean We might as well just throw a dart at a board and say, whatever number that is, add a few zeros and we're good to go.
Richard James: But the good news is you did take that you did go forward. It was around that time that you were meeting your bride or your future bride, that maybe you [00:12:00] didn't know that at that moment. And then you guys had to start on this journey somewhat together. What did that journey look like, Ed?
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: But
Balancing Personal Life and Business
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: that journey was difficult. My wife, when I met her, lived in California. So, we were flying coast coast to to see each other. So, one of us would go to California, for, I'd go to California for a weekend, where she would come here for a weekend. she a school teacher before she became my wife and the mother of my children.
And worked in Southern California with some really at risk youth. So, we have very similar desires in life as to what we want to do and how we want to serve people. So, that was a beautiful thing. But, the number of hours that I was working was insane. and I think, any person that either purchases or starts a law firm is going to realize that there's going to be things that were really good about that business, and there are going to be things that are really bad about that that business too.
In my case, part of our deal was that I had to keep the three salaried members of the firm that were assistants on staff for at least three 3 afterwards. each one of those people were [00:13:00] making money. One of them was never in the office because she had health issues, but we were were still sending her a every the end of every week. which that was just dead weight at that point, because I'm paying you to literally do nothing.
We did not have a VPN set up at that point, so we had no way for her to access files from home to do any work from home. We didn't have virtual phones at that point, so she had no way of answering phones from afar. We have since implemented all of those things but our VPN is not as great as it should be, so we're looking for new options on that.
But back then, I started digging into the books, I started digging into our case files, and I just found mess after mess after mess after mess after mess to try to fix and clean up. up. really what I did first is I came in, I looked at the database that we had, and I literally pulled every file out.
I looked at every single file, saw where we were in each individual file, made myself notes, made notes on the database to know what needed to be done, and then prioritized, these are high priority, these are mid priority, these are low priority, [00:14:00] these are no priority cases. And started working from there, and worked sort of backwards, forwards On that situation, from most important, to least important.
the
Transitioning Clients and Building Trust
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: other is transitioning from one lawyer to another is also difficult, because you're going to lose a percentage of your clients when you do that. we sent out letters to every single person that was a client of Joe's when I purchased the business.
And I was very grateful and very blessed that almost all of them, I think, we had 3 that decided to go with different lawyers out of the over 300 that were cases at the time. So that's a damn good retention rate, but At the time, nobody knew me. These were all new people to me and I was a new lawyer still.
I I mean, I'm going back to doing civil law when all I had done was criminal for the last two 2 years. So, that's a lot of trust that you're putting in somebody that hasn't done this work for a couple of years.
Richard James: So, first of all, the good news is most people don't know the difference between civil law and criminal law. They think a lawyer is a lawyer, they think every lawyer came out of a John Grisham book. So [00:15:00]
uh
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: truth.
Richard James: Yeah. So, that's good, I mean the regular layman doesn't understand that. So, gives you an advantage. just being lawyer, it was a win for them. Now, I'm curious, So, follow up question to MPS, when you made this decision, and I'm trying to speak to the person out there that might be thinking about buying in somebody else's practice or, they're in the middle of the process or whatever.
Reflecting on the Decision to Buy a Firm
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Richard James: Looking back now, so we're going to get to success story in a second.
I'm sure MPS will lead you there. So, we know the end of the story is that we have some success, but the process that went through looking backwards, not regret, do you think
You were happy that you bought the business and still to clean up all the messes and everything that it taught you and you learned? Or do you think would have been better off taking that energy, and effort, and money, and just building a new practice on its own?
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: That's a great question. I've thought about that a lot over the years. bet. Yeah.
and the drawback of buying a firm is [00:16:00] that, you take what you get. Which means, you get all of the beautiful parts of the firm and all the lipstick on a pig parts of the firm too. I had a lot of lipstick to wipe off that pig, and then I had to sell the damn pig. But That wasn't as bad as it could be from other situations.
Richard James: Okay,
So, I'm hearing you say that the good Outweighed the bad. And even though the bad was there, maybe there was a lot of it. You learned from it, you grew from it, it taught you a lot about what not to do if anything else, and you became a better business owner because of it. Is that a fair statement? fair
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: I would absolutely say that. I had no experience in business of my own before I bought this firm. And I think a lot of lawyers have business experience before they get into the business of being a lawyer. and that's a double edged sword, because you are not only a lawyer, you are a business owner.
and you
Balancing Lawyer and Business Owner Roles
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: have to remember, that both of those things have different hats that you're wearing. as a lawyer, you're obviously really [00:17:00] focused on making sure that each one of your clients gets the best representation possible for whatever their situation is. But as a business owner, you have to make that practical.
Which means, that not every case can have 100 hours invested in it, unless you're only taking two or 2 or 3 cases. And then, how do you price that case to make it worthwhile for you to put that kind of effort in? in?
Transparent Billing and Flat Fee Model
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: we at our firm have a different kind of model where we usually do a lot more smaller cases, But we do everything on a fixed flat fee.
and the reason for that is, I believe in transparency. the way that the business of the law has been for so terribly long is that, the lawyer holds all the cards on how to get paid. That's a thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing and that the lawyer can definitely tell you, Hey, you're down to 1000 and we absolutely need you to read up your, your retainer amount with us until we can get to what we're comfortable with, and then we'll build off of that, and go from there.
And that's a good thing and a bad bad thing. The way that I look at it is that creates a [00:18:00] situation for lawyers to overbill, it is a great way to pad things. Thanks. And I don't believe in that, I believe in doing the work for a reasonable fee for the people that need that work, especially being from a small rural community, there's not a lot of people that can shell out 5, 000 at the drop of a hat for a family law case or or $20,000 at of a hat for a major criminal felony charge.
Client Communication and Payment Plans
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: But if we structure it in a way where you can do a down payment, and payments over
over time at a percent interest rate, then we can get more clients through the door that are paying at a smaller amount, but over time, and for those people to pay us through that time period. And so far, that model has been pretty useful for for us.
Richard James: Yeah, that's really bright, especially, coming from somebody who never really owned or ran a business before, and figuring that out, whether through your own research and study or just thinking about it and having it be like, this is how I'd like to do business with me, it was very bright. And and it gives you a unique competitive advantage in your marketplace when you bill flat fee and have transparent billing.
And we're all for that model [00:19:00] Model, and we see it very successful, and allows the firm to maintain its profitability. MPS, if we could crack out a snippet of what Ed said, that whole piece there where he talked about having two hats, and the lawyer needs to know that they're going to have to wear two hats, and they're different types of hats, being the lawyer and being the business owner.
Boy, if we could just grab that little snippet and use that everywhere to help lawyers understand that this is an important thing for them to know, I think it would help everybody. Don't you, Michael.
MPS: Absolutely. That was like the headline of the podcast right there, right? That snippet was gold, really. So, I do want to transition to the success, right? Because you went through, you bought the firm, you had some challenges, you had to overcome, and now you're here, so walk us through the rest of that story. What did it look like? What were you able to accomplish?
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: I
Training and Sales Strategies
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: try to do things with the kids' mentality, keep it simple, stupid. And the way I look at it is, I want to be able to train somebody in in 5 or less on how how to do their job. Now, obviously, [00:20:00] that's not going to be really useful for a paralegal, but I can train a receptionist in about 10 minutes, five 5 minutes on how to do their job appropriately.
And reception at my firm is not pick up phone, transfer to ed, It's pick up phone, and potentially do sales, potentially land a client, potentially then transfer a hot lead to me to close. So, a lot of what my people do is through a script that they develop. I give them sort of the hot topics on how I want them to sell.
And
Service and Enforcement in Legal Practice
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: then, what we, a lot of lawyers forget is that this job is a twofold job. The first portion of it is sales. The second portion of it is service. So if can't fulfill the service that you're selling, then you're not selling anything anymore. So you have to be able to do the service After the sale. And if you can't do the service after the sale, then you shouldn't be selling. And that's way it is in our business.
Richard James: My man, you are speaking my language, right? You are in a sales driven, client focused business, right? And [00:21:00] so both have to exist, if we're great at sales and bad at we're just going to speed up the pace everybody figures out you're not very good at what you do. If you're great at service and bad at sales, you're going to have very major cycles of feast and famine, because you're just going to starve because you're not closing deals as good as good as you should. So, both have to exist equally. Well said, my man.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: would say, there's also a third portion of that, and that's enforcement. obviously, all of our clients sign a retainer agreement with us.
And because of our model where we do a flat fee paid over time, that means that my clients have a little bit more hands on experience than they normally would with a lawyer, which means that either myself or my staff is reaching out to them on at least a weekly to monthly basis to check in and say, Hey, how are you doing? Can you make your payment this month? If you can't, Tell me how much you can pay. If you can't pay anything, all right, let's talk about if we need to restructure our deal together.
and my guys up front are phenomenal. [00:22:00] We are an all male law firm. So, I'm obviously a male. My two assistants are also male, have a paralegal that's a male, and interception person that's a male. and the reception person to mail previously worked at another law firm where all he did was sales. So he's darn good at closing people, especially, for lower ticket items, like traffic tickets.
And significant traffic practice where I am, because that's obviously bread and butter for any criminal attorney is a robust traffic practice. That gets people back when they have other charges later. If they have other charges later, hopefully they don't. My goal, whenever I do a criminal case, is to never see that person in my office again.
So, my goal is to fix the problem that led them to me, not just fix their criminal issue. most of the time, that means that there's an addiction issue. That means that there's some other mental health issue. Sometimes, that means that there's just a financial issue. And if I can put them in in contact with people that can help them, either for free or for a low amount of money, then we can fix the problem that led them to me, rather than just fixing the issue that's in front of them [00:23:00] in court.
Richard James: that's special.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: And
that's what we try to do here is fix problems. if that's biblically based, if it's monetarily based, if it's mental health based, if it's some type of societal pressure based, then we try to do whatever we can for the person that leaves our office to feel better than they did when they got here. And, that's hard to do in a criminal practice, because nobody comes here On a good day.
Richard James: Yeah. But the fact that is your focus allows for the possibility of that happening. A lot of firms don't have that as their focus, so it's impossible for that to happen in that firm, simply because they don't pay to it.
But MPS, what Ed said, without maybe realizing he said it, was that, proactive communication rather than reactive communication will help maximize your collectability on these payment plans that you give. And that's something that you teach as well, MPS, yeah?
MPS: Maximize collectability and obviously, just maximize the client experience. People don't like to hear, after they've got an issue, they'd rather you be [00:24:00] proactive and avoid the issue to begin with. Proactive communication is essential.
Improving Business Systems
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MPS: Ed, what's got you fired up and excited today? Could be business, could be personal, could be both?
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: we're finally getting into fourth quarter, which is, make or break time for any business. It's the time where you are putting the pedal to the metal, or the time where you're letting up, depending on how you've been going throughout the year. the year. This fourth quarter, I am already claiming that this will be the best fourth quarter of my business ever.
ever. And the reason I'm saying that is, focused on improving all of the systems in my office to make it even easier for myself and my staff to be effective and efficient at what we do. I don't want too much time on anything, but I also don't want to spend enough time on anything.
So focused on finding new ways to market to the individuals, new ways to engage with customers, A different layout to our website so that it's more user friendly, a different experience with our texting app that we use. We use Kinect, which is an incredible [00:25:00] app. And I would advise any lawyer that does not have the ability to text clients to get in on that.
It's only about $400 bucks a month, and it will pay it for itself within the first the weeks 2 weeks of Cause they can, they link with link with LawPay. if you're already using using LawPay to get they link with it and you can send text messages with an invoice to your clients. We made over over $2,000 today off of text messages. which that's awesome, I almost paid for an entire year of connect in one day. day
MPS: Yep.
Richard James: Well, we should cut that little snippet out and send it to Connect, because they'd love it for a testimonial, for sure. But that aside, I think, you're absolutely right to be excited about uh, what you've put out there at manifesting your best quarter ever. believe that Ed, because, I've been doing this a long time, about 15, 16 years working with owners of law firms.
And I've watched many new owners, just like [00:26:00] yourself, not do what you're doing. Not pay attention to the systems that run your business and the people that run your systems. Not pay attention to be a service first practice that really has a holistic approach to the overall client service. And not pay attention to transparent pricing with good quality cycles to get your AR coming in.
And so, you're doing all the right things. And the fact that you just want to make everything a little bit better, is exactly why you're going to reach your goals this quarter and every quarter thereafter. And I got to tell you, I don't know if you're fired up or inspired, I'm fired up and inspired we don't even know one another.
Like You didn't necessarily come from our world. You're not a client of ours. You just in, and saw the ad, and said, let's do it, and we're having a conversation, and we never know how this is going to go. And I got to tell you, this went really well. There is somebody out there listening today, or whatever, they're listening to this, and they're going through [00:27:00] something, and you just gave them a tactic, or a strategy, or a little bit of hope, that yeah, maybe you will have to work a hundred hours a week for the first couple of years to get through But on the other side, there's a practice that you can grow 200, 300 percent and yield profitability that will feed your family, and allow you to serve your clients, and then go ahead and work on your business to get better. So, congratulations to you, and thank you for being a part of the show today.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: Absolutely. if you
Success Story and Future Plans
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: guys want, I can put some numbers on things and give an idea of what that looks like. So, when I purchased the firm, the gross receipts of the firm were between $175,000 and $200,000. it was approximately $180,000 the year that I purchased it, and was was between $175,000 and for the for the past years before that. So there really was some stagnation in what had happened at that firm on the books.
Richard James: We
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: came in, we looked at it, and I said, there are ways that we can maximize profits right now, even without me being a person that is purchasing the [00:28:00] business. So I asked Joe, Hey, if I can throw some systems in here that make you more profitable in a quarter, can we talk about a different price at the end of this? Because the initial price to purchase the business was higher than what I paid.
So, I implemented some systems on my own when I was just an employee here and said, Hey, look, let's do this, we'll transition to a more user friendly version of law where we're giving us flat fee for everything. And that way, we can tell the client upfront, you will only pay this amount, this is the maximum you will ever pay.
If I screwed up my pricing, that's my fault. It's not on you to fix my pricing issues. I'm going learn what prices are as time goes on. I'm going to figure out what's a good price for certain things. So, I'm probably going to grossly underprice myself at the beginning.
And that's okay. You're learning. That's part of business. You're going to make mistakes. It's okay to make mistakes if you learn from them, If you don't learn from them, then you're bound to repeat the same mistake and create more problems for yourself instead of solutions to the problems that you're [00:29:00] creating.
To that note, we created a solution to that problem of how to increase revenue. So the first month that we implemented my system, we went from a a $15,000 a
month to a $35,000 a month. We more than double the profitability of the firm in a month, which insane.
Richard James: So cool.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: That's not something that is normal in business. You're not normally two X X-ing out the door.
Richard James: No. But it's, well, I'll say this, it's normal for somebody who has some intuitive knowledge or intellectual property knowledge that they can apply to the business, right? So, if I walked into a law firm tomorrow, or MPS walked into a law tomorrow, I think both of us feel very comfortable in many firms. We could instantly double that practice in a month, but it's because we have some very, very deep rooted institutional knowledge of how this stuff works. Well, You had a gut instinct and intelligence and just good old common sense that said, Hey, I think we're not doing it right, and if we look to improve the system, we might be able to [00:30:00] see a change.
And so, I it, it maybe feels like this unbelievable difference And it was, but but the lesson I want everybody to learn here, right? From you, not to diminish what you did, cause what you was amazing. But is that, if they could just find that one system that they could fix, amazing things can happen. that We call it the phenomenon. And so congratulations to you for figuring it out. And congratulations to selling the who sold you on the business to give you the opportunity to do that in return for lowering the purchase price. MPS, that's a cool move right there.
MPS: It's a very cool move. And Ed, I appreciate you being willing to share everything you have today. You should be super proud of the growth that you've brought into the firm, it's awesome to watch. And again, I appreciate you sharing your insights, and to the law firm owners listening, thank you.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for tuning in to Ed. Make sure to hit that subscribe, or follow button depending on where you're listening or watching. Turn those bell notifications on. You don't want to miss episodes like this. And show Ed some love down in the comments [00:31:00] below. Let us know if any questions come up, but very valuable today. Thank you very much, Ed.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: And
Streamlining Operations and Final Thoughts
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Atty. Edward Bartholomew: guys, just to put a end cap on things, we also started streamlining other systems in the business. So Joe's practices were ones that created a lot of front end work to make the back end easier, because he had automated documents, but the way that you did it was enter everything into Microsoft access.
And then use mail merge To put all information into documents. I have actually found that I'm a lot faster at typing the documents old heart, like pull cloth rather than putting all the information into a database, and having the database fill it in and then we edit. because I feel like I'm not as connected to the document if I'm not drafting it. So I would take a template. fill things in, and go from there. So we completely rid of Microsoft Access. We now use our database as a Google Sheet. And that Google Sheet tells us every single person that's on the firm, their address, the phone number, the way that they like to be connected with and and they would they [00:32:00] prefer when they prefer us to contact them them. that way, we can know that we are not going to bother somebody by sending them a text message at noon. And cool part about.
Richard James: And you know,
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: you can
Richard James: the.
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: messages, which is cool.
Richard James: The most valuable asset in any business is the business's list and its relationship with that list. right? And so, you just nailed it, man. You just nailed it. You identified that that's what you guys needed to focus on, and that's, another reason for your success.
So, congratulations for today. I think, we need to have you back because I think there's so much more for us to talk about. Because it sounds like, you've done a lot, and and I don't think we even scratched the surface on all the little things that you've done that someday we can continue to unpack.
But for those who want to learn more from you, if they wanted to reach out and contact you, please don't give your cell phone. What's the best way for them to reach out to
Atty. Edward Bartholomew: You can actually text my law firm at 919 at 919-853-7467. those text messages all the time, And I have access to that from anywhere in the world because it's a, an [00:33:00] app on my phone. So another plug for Connect. Or you can send me an email. It's ed Ed@EdBartLaw.com, Or you can also contact us through our, work in progress, I'll call it, our website, which is which is EdBartLaw.com.
Richard James: nice, Ed, thank you very much again. We appreciate the time. And that's the pod.