The Sterling Family Law Show
The Sterling Family Law Show is where successful family law attorneys share the exact systems they used to build million-dollar practices.
Host Jeff Hughes scaled Sterling Lawyers from zero to $17M with 27 attorneys.
Co-host Tyler Dolph runs Rocket Clicks, the agency in charge of supercharging Sterling and other family law practices to success using revenue-first marketing strategies.
Together, they share the playbook for building the law firm of your dreams.
If you're looking to grow exponentially, generate revenue, and get good at business, this podcast is for you.
The Sterling Family Law Show
$14.5M to $17.5M: How Non-Attorney Law Firm Leadership Works - #176
Non-attorney law firm leadership grew us $3M in less than 2 years. Here's how we hired a manufacturing exec to run Sterling Lawyers.
Jeff Kerlin's journey from manufacturing leader to law firm president proves non-attorney firm management works when you prioritize leadership ability over legal credentials. His approach to law firm culture building strategies and one-on-one leadership development transformed our operations—implementing law firm executive team coaching, speaking candidly in law firms, and delegating law firm operations so attorneys could focus on legal decisions while he handled business decisions.
The results of hiring non-lawyer law firm president talent: $14.5M to $17.5M+ revenue growth, stronger metrics than manufacturing companies, and a high-trust culture where leaders collaborate without asking permission. This law firm business leader recruitment approach proves that business expertise in the legal industry drives sustainable growth more effectively than traditional attorney-led models.
📲 Subscribe Now: https://www.youtube.com/@jsterlinghughes
📝 Get your FREE Law Firm Growth Guide: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
📚 Order the Waterfall Method Book Now: http://www.RocketClicks.com/pre-order
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📄 CHAPTERS
0:00 - Law Firm Leadership Without a Law Degree: Jeff Kerlin's Manufacturing Background
3:47 - Why Hiring Non-Lawyer Leaders Transformed Our Family Law Firm Growth
7:45 - Law Firm Operations Management: Better Metrics Than Manufacturing
10:45 - Building Trust in Legal Teams Through Law Firm One-on-One Meetings
14:08 - Delegating in Law Firms: The "Say the Thing" Culture That Drives Results
16:55 - Law Firm Business Management: The 60-70% Delegation Rule That Changed Everything
18:51 - Scaling Law Firm Operations by Letting Go of Control
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Follow these steps:
1. SUBSCRIBE TO JEFF'S NEWSLETTER: https://jsterlinghughes.com/
2. BOOK A FREE 30-MINUTE AUDIT WITH US: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/
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4. TELL US WHAT YOU WANT:
Tell us in the comments if you liked this episode and what other kinds of episodes you would like to see.
I'm a one on one person. I got really close with key people, just met with them constantly and just really tried to get close to them because from the get go, I believed in Jeff and Jeff and Tony's vision for this company. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. I am one of your co-hosts, Tyler. Dolph. I'm also the CEO of our hyper focused family only law firm marketing agency called Rocket Clicks that was born out of our own law firm, Sterling Lawyers, that has grown to over 27 attorneys. Today we have a very special episode, and we have Jeff Hughes, who is our, other co-host, as well as Jeff Curlin, who runs our law firm. Day to day Sterling Lawyers. And today we're going to talk about the transformation that Jeff Kerlin has done to the law firm, focusing on culture and one on one relationships to really help us thrive in this wonderful environment that we are in. Jeff Kerlin, It's amazing to have you here. For our listeners. We have two Jeff's on the podcast today. We have our co-host Jeff Hughes, as well as the president of Sterling Law, Jeff Kerlin. So you may hear us reference some last names as we're calling on people. But, we want to talk through Jeff Kerlin's story here today. And Jeff Kerlin has been a, a guest on Jeff Hughes's former podcast, the J. Sterling Hughes Show. But now that we've migrated to the Sterling Family Law Show, we wanted to have Jeff Kerlin back on because he's done such an incredible job implementing, best practices and helping Sterling Law really grow into the firm that we all know and love today. So, Kerlin, I was hoping we could start with just a little backstory for maybe the listeners that haven't heard the previous episodes. Give us, a little history lesson on you and how you came into Sterling Law. Yeah. Happy to. Well, like most people, I spent 33 years in manufacturing to prepare for running a law firm. So, I, ran at a high school. I went in the army, out of the army. Went to college a couple years in the college. I started working in a printing company. And then stayed in printing for 33 years. I had throughout those 33 years, I had three different presidents that, for whatever reason, just put their arms around me and groom me and kind of mentored me and made them, made me their number two. And I learned a ton from those three gentlemen and, really owe a lot to them, to the mentorship, to this day. And worked in, from a $5 million company to a $1.5 billion company. Big corporation found out pretty quickly. I cannot stand corporate America. I like smaller teams and being shoulder to shoulder with people, to running my own company with a partner that we then sold to a fairly large, pretty firm tailored labor products and that's where I spent, about half of my career running, that that company, just here in Menomonee Falls and learned a ton the hard way, went through 2008 and Covid and what have you and learned a lot about, team and the power of team and the power of focus and simplicity and what have you. And, and while I was doing that, I was doing some executive coaching on the side moonlighting. And that's where I met Jeff Hughes and Tony Carls, two founders of this firm. And, they asked me to join after a couple years of doing that. And I came on board and, have been here now a little over three and a half years, and I've just loved the transition. Jeff Hughes, what did you see in Jeff Kerlin, that really made you think, I'm going to I'm going to take this manufacturing guy and have this law firm. This printer, we teased that he printed stickers, but they were actually much more sophisticated than that. It was it was real obvious that Jeff has a way of just connecting with people, building teams. He had been successful everywhere he had been from a standpoint of team building and culture crafting. And while printing is way different than professional services, family, law firm, the core skill of being able to lead others was what mattered. So is all leadership had nothing to do with the actual competencies of the job. Had to do with leadership and and leading people. So for Tony and I, it was an easy ask. We got to know Jeff, obviously, because he coached us and we got to know a little more intimately there because we would kind of lay on the couch and tell him all of our woes, and he would fix them for us. Now, I wasn't like that, but it was similar, from a standpoint of just dealing with human issues and how he analyzed human teammate problems. And I know this is it's a little different than a lot of family law firms out there. And the fact that we have a non attorney leader of the firm, we started out with Tony, right? Tony was kind of the firm's first president as well as head of marketing and co-founder and all the things. So we were a little bit used to that. But do you feel like that played into your willingness to kind of look outside the box into another non attorney leader? Yeah. Well, I come from a leadership bent anyway. So to me, everything rises and falls on leadership. And so that's where I'm predisposed to look for that first over the actual skills. But as our most of our listeners know it. So Tony is a not a lawyer. We started the law firm together, like you said. And so we had already had, you know, eight years of history on with that, with Tony leading a firm. And so, you know, we also understood the challenges of a non-lawyer leading lawyers, so that we because we had seen that with Tony, so we knew how to kind of maneuver around some of that. But it was all leadership. And so, so Tony, actually moved out of the law firm about a year and a half ago. Is that right, Tyler? And he started to run rocket klicks and, and then Jeff took over about a year and a half ago. And so we have seen significant improvements and growth since he has taken over the law firm. So, Jeff, I think you were, when you took over, we were at about, what, about 15 million? You know, for two. Thank you. 14.5. And then this year we'll close out the year sniffing 17.5, I believe, or in that range. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Closer to 18 even. I think it depends on how our, our third quarter goes, which is usually our strongest quarter. So since Jeff has taken over, we've seen nothing but upward and to the right from a revenue perspective, from a profit perspective. And I'll let him speak to the cultural shifts that he's, he's led us through. Yeah. Jeff Kerlin I think it's really important for listeners to understand that, you were able to be in the firm for some time with, Tony and Jeff Hughes running the firm. You're able to, to understand kind of the inner workings and get get close to some of the personnel and then when you took over, you were able to really institute kind of your own culture and vision. Would you say that's correct? Yeah, I think so. One of things when I took over, the metrics that were already in place, the waterfall things and whatnot, I almost immediately was bragging to my, my fellow CEO friends running manufacturing companies, like, they have better metrics here, running this firm that we had in manufacturing. And we thought we were really good at metrics. So the metrics, the foundation was already outstanding. The culture, a little lean for improvement. I think a lot of the the attorneys here felt like they were almost an afterthought, like we were just this almost corporation, and we just happened to be doing family law, and we could have been plumbers or anything else. And that was something I really kind of doubled down on, like, no, let's, let's really focus and be proud of family law. And that was never an intent by Jeff or Tony or anything. It just was. I think it was felt that way. And we really beat that drum hard. Like, let's just be the best family law firm that there is out there and be really proud of that. And we've, I think have grown since then. But then as far as culture, to me it's everything, it starts with the leadership team. The culture of the leadership team needs to lead by example. If you get culture right, I think everything else just falls into place. Things like process and, even profitability and whatnot just adds to that. But it all falls on culture, and culture is just being really honest with people made cases. It's getting some bad apples, or people just aren't a fit for the culture. You want other other play or try and raise them up or get them out. And we did a little bit of that. We did both. We we moved some people on, some people opted out and then some other people just really flourished. Our two managing partners absolutely flourished. And, they are just in heaven doing a great job leading our legal team today. It's awesome. I'm thinking about, listeners who are leading teams, who are thinking about instituting or revamping their culture. When you went through this exercise, could you take us back a little bit on some of the initial things that you thought about? You know, okay, Jeff Hughes and Tony Karl started this firm and they have a vision for where they want to take it. And you're kind of shepherding that vision, but you're doing it in your own way, through your own culture and your own leadership team. How did you leverage that to to rebuild the culture? Yeah. Well, first of all. Want me interrupt here first? I think it's okay for you to. It'd be great for you to talk about Tony, and I really had to get out of your way. So let's just call it what it is. We had been running the firm for eight years, and it really required us to literally get out of your way, and so you could have the space to lead there. So maybe you can kind of develop that line too, because that's important. Yeah, well we are we were three alpha males all wanting control of, of the, the steering wheel and, and, you know, we probably all three had hands on the steering wheel and that wasn't working. So, any one of us, I think, would have done well, all three of us. It was it was not going well. So, Tony and Jeff graciously stepped out of the way and let me have that. And that was both, I tell you what trepidation and excitement was like, okay, I've got this, and I better do a good job with it. As far as what I did about it, I'm a one on one person. I got really close with key people, just met with them constantly and just really tried to get close to them and find out who is really kind of drunk on the sterling Kool-Aid, because from the get go, I believed in Jeff and Jeff and Tony's vision for this company. I just I bought it immediately, with vivid vision, rather. And, I just ran into, someone new that just started today, and I believe it wholeheartedly. And it gets my heart pumping. And I wanted to find out who else believed in it, who didn't. If they didn't, why didn't they? And what can we do about that? And then who's in? Who really wants leadership? To me, leadership isn't the person who raised their hand, says, I want to be a manager and they want to be a manager because they just want to get more money. Leadership from the people that are already leading. They're already helping their cohorts out, even though nobody knows about it. They just can't. They can't help themselves, but to help other people. Those are the people I want to give the ball to more and help them. Leadership. For the people that are already leading, they're already helping. meetings, just trying to identify who or who's on my team. And then get them together. Who plays nice and not just, you know, I think pointing out the booger in someone else's nose is is is nice. You know, a lot of people, they listen. And I know that actually is nice. And you know who is able to do that? Speak with a critical mindset. But do so. And not being a jerk about it, you know, we kind of have a no jerk policy here. But we also have a policy. You speak what needs to be spoken. Let's just tell the truth, but let's do it in love. And some people are really good at that. And and some people weren't good at that either. They just never would speak up or they would do so in a way that was really damaging to the whole culture of the meeting. Hey, family law firm leaders. My partner, Tony Carlson, just released his book where he lays bare our precise blueprint for growing sterling lawyers from 0 to 17 million. This is the blueprint that we still use daily. And Tony explains it in very simple terms. The truth is, this is not simple to do. Success requires and demands hard work. But if you have the patience and the work ethic to do it, your family law firm will succeed. Well there one thing I want to add here to what Jeff's saying about meeting one on one with individuals. So last January, February timeframe when Jeff Kerlin, came in and took over and Tony and I took a kind of a back seat to what was going on, I immediately stepped out of our monthly, our weekly meetings, and I got to see how the the when I would kind of come into meetings, how people had grown and in their leadership over that week or two or a month or so that I had since I had last seen them. So I'd seen a lot of that. And I every time I tried to schedule with Jeff, I could see how busy he was with one on ones with all of these individuals. That is meaningless. So it really he did go super deep, one on one with all of the reports. And the key thing, Jeff, that I've observed is that you focus all your time and energy on your top leaders and just put your arms around them, figuratively, so to speak, to really raise them up. And in the last year and a half, I everyone on our executive team will tell you how much they have grown in the leadership because that one on one time that Jeff invested in them. When leaders get it right, everybody benefits. The whole team benefits. So it's to me, it's the most important thing to do. You said something that I thought was really important, which was being able to speak candidly and directly, you know, at ranking clicks, we say, say the thing and it sounds like, you know, you guys have your own saying for it at Sterling. And I think that I believe that that's a muscle that has to be built. Right. There has to be high trust and high confidence that if you do say the thing, you're not going to get reprimanded or it's not going to become a rumor mill. Did you experience some of that and helping your team members develop the trust and confidence that they could be real and transparent with you? Yeah, definitely worked on it. And we had. So I'll be candid. We had we had it probably certainly one person, possibly two in fairly senior leadership positions that would say the thing, but they would do it in a very destructive manner. And I had to have a lot of hard conversations with them until they had to be removed. And then other people rose up. We had we had our, our head of H.R. Right now is absolutely killing it. She's a strategic advantage from for us. Not too many years ago, she was a paralegal here and she was just not even seen. And then she moved into kind of a generalist role. And we took a gamble on her, and we provided her some outside help. But she has embraced it and grown, and it just killing it. Our two managing partners were they were decent. They were amazing attorneys and highly, highly respected, but they probably weren't super strong leaders at the time, and they weren't really good at speaking up. They have grown so much. I'm so proud of them. So yeah, just being a very intentional and having hard conversations. But be nice. Same time. It's definitely not an overnight fix, right? It really sounds like this takes time and and methodically meeting with your most important team members over and over again until they can really start to to build that confidence. Yeah. And I think, you know, what I love to see is love to see too. And I see it all the time now. But two leaders getting together and I have no clue what they're even working on, and they're just getting stuff done. And they feel like no need to go get permission to be working. And they're just doing it and they're doing it. They're having fun working together. And maybe in some cases, as folks that just really never even talk to each other previously, but now they are. Collaboration increasing big time. So is is I'm thinking about this and I'm thinking about young leaders or young attorneys or young family law firm owners who maybe have spent their career being the guy or the gal via being in control of everything, having to be in every single meeting. What advice do you have for a leader like that to take kind of the first step on learning to delegate or having, instituting some high trust where they can be with their team and allow them to kind of step back the way Jeff Hughes and Tony were able to. Yeah. I've asked my leaders to read the book Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel. Just I mean, if you don't delegate, you're just stifling the growth of everybody, especially yourself, the firm and your leaders. Giving people things to do and just being okay with it. If they just do it, it even 60, 70%, it's better than it not getting done at all. And a lot of people just they just have such trepidation over that. And some people are perfectionistic and that's a problem because they get one thing done perfectly, but they get so many other things just never get done. And other people just they, they're insecure about handing things away. Like, I've just always done this and, and we really promote always try to work yourself out of a job if you can delegate everything away. So you have nothing to do and it's getting done, that's awesome because you're going to take on other things. And if you're even a and middle manager, are you going to get let go because you do that? No, you're going to get promoted because you did that, because we were to give you more responsibility, because you did that. Cuz I'm sure you've seen this across the firm, and you can relate to how it feels to having things taken off your plate. Oh yeah. Yeah. There is some insecurity and I felt it when Jeff took over like, oh I'm not going to our weekly meetings anymore. How's the firm going to survive. You know obviously it thrived with removing me. Yeah. Let me add one more thing to what what Jeff was saying there about delegating and letting go. I think that for many of our listeners who are family law firm owners that want to grow their practice beyond where they're at right now, I would encourage everyone that once you get to a certain size, that first leader, that is the one reporting in to the owner, so to speak, to look first to non-lawyers. I think you the law of numbers tells us that there's a lot more business leaders out there that are not lawyers than are lawyers. Right. And I think that there is a wealth of talent out there that can run law firms that are not lawyers. And so getting past that mindset of, we have to have a lawyer run in the firm, I think is a complete fallacy. Now, for that to work, that leader has to let go that law, that lawyer has to let go and let that non-lawyer lead. Now, they can't obviously, the non-lawyer cannot get involved in making legal decisions. Right? You can't do that. Leave that to the lawyers. We do that in our practice. We leave that to our managing partners. But outside of that, Jeff makes 100% of the decisions, or he approves 100% of the decisions that go into the firm that are business oriented, which are the majority of them. Right. So Jeff's not making decisions that relate to how we serve clients. He's letting the the lawyers do that. So you have to be able to do that. If you can't do that, if you know that about yourself, you can't do that, then either fix that or just be happy with to start with the size you are, because you're going to grow beyond that. You're able to do it. Yeah. And I just, quick call it here to one of our clients, James Hansen at Genesis, Legal in Arizona is another non attorney, law firm leader who is, a good friend of ours, good friend of the show and is doing the same thing. So we promise it's not just a sterling thing happening out in the, in the environment. happening a lot too, in the in the fractional capacity for like financial, fractional marketing, fractional, I think it should happen more in the the president role rather than just individual departments. It's great to have really appreciate your time, your insights today, loving the culture that you've built at Sterling and excited to, continue to watch us grow. Thanks. I appreciate being here.
