The Sterling Family Law Show

Tom’s Trek: How to Calculate Your Law Firm’s First Hire Cost - #182

• Jeff Sterling Hughes

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Law firm first hire and marketing decisions collide. When your agency says wait but your numbers say move—what do you do?


In this episode, Tom Hartin walks through the exact tension every growing firm owner faces: balancing expert advice against your own business instincts and financial reality. 


You'll hear how Tom analyzed his second office failure in Melville (competing against firms with 500+ reviews and thousands of backlinks using just 11 backlinks and 12 reviews), calculated his $25K break-even formula for his first hire, and made the gutsy decision to relocate his Google Business Profile to less competitive territory. 


This is law firm scaling strategy in real-time—complete with the revenue per attorney math, overhead calculations, and CEO transition mindset required to know when expert advice doesn't fit your situation.


📲 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 First Hire: When Marketing Advice Doesn't Fit Your Business 

3:00 - Solo Practitioner Growth: $150K to $250K in 13 Months 

5:43 - The #1 Startup Lesson: Work With a Marketing Team (But Think For Yourself) 

8:30 - Second Office Failure: Zero Consults After 7 Months in Melville 

14:44 - Overriding Your Agency: When to Trust Your Own Business Instincts 

17:12 - Hiring Risk Management: Finding the Right Associate Attorney 

20:26 - Delegation Strategy: How to Hand Off Client Files Without Losing Trust 

23:04 - Break-Even Analysis: The $25K First Hire Formula Explained


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opening new locations does take a lot of time. I think even at Sterling, we allow a year, before we really start seeing, massive results. And we have, you know, lots of reviews and lots of visitors, and we can pump those locations up pretty quickly. But this is something that it takes a while. And financially you got to make the right decisions for your business. So Well, hello and welcome to the Sterling Family Law Show. I'm Jeff Hughes, I'm your host. I have with me Tyler Dolph, my co-host. And today we are back with Tom Hartin. And as he is building his family law firm on Long Island. And for those of you who are thinking about starting a firm or you've started a firm, what do you do when the advice you're getting from your marketing agency doesn't comport with what you want to do with your business, how do you handle that? So we're going to hear from Tom how he's working through that right now as he's building his firm and thinking about how does he expand whenever marketing to the marketing teams, telling him one thing and he wants to do something different? what am I? Let's look at your numbers for the month of August here. So we're sitting here in September looking back at the month. And that was your 13th full month. I will point out that you have had your firm going, and we've been looking at your numbers and talking through your firm every month since then. So here we are again. And why don't you walk us through what? What happened? Sure. So things, remained pretty steady to the from the months before that. The only hiccup in August is that I did take a week's vacation so that, you know, me being a solo attorney obviously is going to result in my numbers taking a little bit of a hit. So in August, I did $16,227. So, you know, if we were to had I not taken that vacation again, I'm trying to hit at least, you know, while it's still just me working here. You know, that threshold in my brain is kind of. I want to hit a minimum of 20,000 each month. So, you know that, you know, I took the vacation. That was my choice. So, August, I, you know, I had to work, and, you know, had I been here the full month, I would have I would have easily hit that metric. So. Yeah. Good. Happy with the numbers there? I'm looking forward to the day where you can take a vacation and not see a dip. So that'll. That'll be fun. Might come sooner than we think. Yeah. Eight, eight leads pretty steady from what we've seen before. Five consults, three hires and, Yeah. Same bottom line profit. You know, given my total expenses in the range of 7000. So bottom line, profit around just over 9000. So. It's great. So, Tom, you mentioned this is, Jeff, you mentioned this is Tom's 13th month in business, and I was pulling some stats earlier for one of our other businesses. But, Tom, if you look at just the 12 months. So within your first year, do you happen to have your total revenue? I can pull that up live. Let's see, because I have. Yeah, we have this on an Excel sheet. So you give me 30s here. I've got $150,000 a. Yeah, that sounds right. And if I do, if I were to just do the last. Pro prorate that over just the last four months. So 883 of that was just over the last four months. So if you extrapolate that over a 12 month period, will that be. 49. Yeah, two. Just shy of two 5249. 756. So. Yeah. Good. That's a good rolling average I was going to say. again I'll temper that by saying I don't I don't like to stress this point too much. But I am still putting, you know, 20 hours a week doing contract work for that other firm. So this is, that's 250 K and top line revenue at a while. I'm both working in and on the business. Only about 30 hours a week. What's really cool is that there's hundreds of family lawyers looking to start their own practice right now. And they can easily go back and look at your last 12 months of podcasts where you've walked through the whole process and modeled what that looks like, and you've done it obviously working part time, and you've got a young family and there's a lot of a lot of stressors in your life right now. So I would say, well done. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. It's been it was, I would say, a little bit harder than I thought. It's a little more work than I thought. For people looking to do it. But, you know, as you can see, it's definitely doable. I think having for me, having that side income was, was a gigantic help, because if I go back to those early months where, you know, I'm looking at my first, you know, so my first six months, I'm seeing 5000, 4000, 7000. Well, scary. very thankful to, you know, my other employers for, you know, that just I don't know, it's a situation I'm very lucky to be in. So, because I, I don't know that that would have been a very hard six months to get through. So, you know, I'd say if you're, you know, you're young, in your early 20s and you can get, you know, live in a little studio apartment or something when you start. It's so doable. You know, if you have a family and, like me, your support, my wife, my wife's a stay at home mom. So I don't think this would have I. I would have been much more difficult. Not to say it wouldn't have worked, but definitely would have been much more difficult without that. I can also echo what you're saying. I've started ten ish businesses and every one of them, it was harder than I thought. It's so you're not I've never met anyone who said I started a business. It was easier than I thought. It's just that that person doesn't exist. That scenario doesn't exist. Tom. Total tangent here. But given the fact you got 13 months under your belt, if someone's listening to this and they're inspired by a story, they want to do their thing. What's 1 or 2 things that you would have changed, going into this, that that would have made it more effective, faster? That I would have changed to. To, make it grow faster. Yeah. Or avoided heartache or, you know, any, any benefit that someone could hear so that they don't make the same mistake you did. I mean, it's it's not a mistake I made, but I will say, you know, work, work with a marketing company, you know, particularly working with you guys with rocket clicks. And if even with my previous marketing company, I, I could say, you know, oh, all the technical stuff that you guys do, and I, I want to be clear, I have an engineering degree. I know I'm fairly well versed in computers compared to the general population, and even most of that stuff goes over my head. So, you know, I definitely would not be there, you know, be where I am right now without that. So, I think, you know, focusing, focusing on the local search and, you know, doing everything you can to boost those rankings. You know, thankfully, I had a lot of, you know, I was talking to Jeff before I opened my firm, talking to someone else local to me before I opened my firm to. So they gave me a lot of advice that I think prevented me from making a lot of mistakes. So what I think some, you know, some people might do is try to really reduce expenses. And obviously that's a smart thing to do. Don't. My advice is not to go out spending like crazy, but you know, it is worth it short term and long term to work with the team and depend on somebody that knows, you know, knows what they're doing. Because I could, you know, without without you guys and without, you know, that my previous company do I could still be at that 4000 a month threshold to. we do a lot of these. And overwhelmingly, when I asked that question, the number one response is ask for help. Have a mentor. When you find someone who's done it before. Yeah. And I had Jeff, before I even know pizza, which was awesome. Big shout out. That's awesome. Hey, family law firm leaders. My partner, Tony Karl's 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. What? Prior to coming on today we were talking about some challenges on the marketing side. And obviously marketing teams don't hit, don't bet 1,000%. So let's kind of talk about some of the stress or struggles or frustrations you're having right now with respect to mapping. Sure. So I have I have two offices. And you guys know I'm working working with Rocket Clicks here. So my first office that I opened was in Massapequa, and that was. So that would have been opened in, you know, when I started. So that's 13 months old at this point. And then I opened another office in Melville in February. So that would be my office number two. My first office, Massapequa, continues to continue to perform really well. I, you know, that is where, you know, these numbers that I'm reading off all of those, you know, all of 100% of that work has come from that office. Melville has Melville is a and I'll, I'll temper this by saying it's it's a very it's wealthy and and it's a commercial area on Long Island, which is you know, there's not too many of those long island's largely, residential, at least when you come out here to this part. So I, you know, when I first started working with Rocket Clicks, I, you know, one of the first things I wanted to do was open a second office to get more of that map ranking, because I knew, you know, if I could open a second office like Massapequa, you know, my goal was to always hire somebody as quickly as I could. I knew if I could get, like, a second location like this, I would have more than enough work to to give that person. So Melville has not exactly panned up. It has been seven months now, seven and a half, and I have not had a single consul in that office. So that's been a little frustrating. I think the, you know, I'm, I'm thankful that I opened Massapequa first because had that, you know, had I gone in the other direction and opened up in Melville first, I might, you know, we might be having a very different conversation here or not having a conversation at all, because my doors there always would be closed. But I think sorry, I tend to go off on tangents too. So the question was, map pack difficulty? Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I have just been batting around the idea of moving that Melville location, taking that Google business profile, and, opening it up somewhere else. And it is kind of like, a short first long term play, because I know the team at Rocket Clicks probably is. When I thought Melville focusing, you know, they're looking 3 to 5 years ahead and saying, hey, you know, if, if the if we give this office time, this can be, you know, it could be a money pit and they're they they're probably right. But when I look at the map pack rankings in Melville, there are I want to say five. And that that might even be being conservative. Other firms there within, you know, 2 or 3 mile radius, maybe even less than that. That, that have, you know, 500 plus reviews and, and when, when they did a analysis of their backlinks, you know, they're, they're all in the thousands. And here I am with like 11 backlinks and 12 reviews on that Google business profile. So there's, you know, there's no way I'm going to be competitive there. And I just think, you know, my obviously I need to find a balance between short term and long term. And I think if I, you know, want to keep going for now, I think, you know, my next office will be a little bit more of a balance. Like I think Massapequa was. It's good short term and I think it will be a good long term, you know, in Nassau County, is is Massapequa as good as Garden City? Maybe not, but I still think there's a lot of traffic here. There's a good population density of upper middle class people, and I think there's plenty of other spaces like that. I, I enjoy playing around with, with Google and doing searches like Divorce Lawyer near this town and seeing, you know, where people are, where those results are showing up and you know where the farms are. So I already have some other, locations in mind that I'd like to move that to, that I think, you know, again, if we open there and do 3 to 6 months of getting me some reviews and, and some backlinks and stuff like that, that I think that office could get pretty busy pretty quick. Do you have a sense Tom, as to why you're not getting the traffic. Like what's the biggest reason. Is it the competitive pressure of all these other firms. yeah. Again, there's, there's, there's only a few commercial districts and the tri garden city is one hot dog is one, Millville is one. So when I opened my first office, I intentionally avoided those commercial districts. I, you know, I found basically found a spot where the next nearest divorce lawyer is, is probably 4 or 5 months a miles up the road, and they don't even I think they're largely referral based. They have a very small internet presence. So my you know, most of my competition comes from these other towns that are like I think in even in Massapequa, which is a 20 minute drive from Melville, I think my biggest competitors in Massapequa are firms that are in Bellmore. They take their map pack Grant goes that far that it spreads 20 minutes into Massapequa. So when I, you know, when I open the office here and even, you know, had ten reviews and a couple of backlinks, I was popping up in the map already and I think it's, you know, even if I were to take this Massapequa profile and move it to Melville, I would probably be far from the number one spot to like number five. So yeah, I think it's just I think it's just Yeah. So what did Rocket Clicks advise you whenever you express this to them. I think at first their advice was give it some more time. I think maybe, maybe they didn't know how much time there was because I know that conversation I have with them last month was, you know, I need to slow down because we need to give this, you know, it's too soon to get any data. I was like, okay. And then they said, you know, we're not going to know anything until 4 to 6 months. And I was like, okay, wait a second and seven months and still hasn't haven't gotten haven't gotten a single console yet. So even if you could quadruple my number of consults in the next six months. It still, yeah, it's still going. It's a tough spot. Have you seen your rankings rise at all or are they just in the same place they've been for. Yeah. They've gone. I think when we started, I was like, in number 19, and now I'm in spot like 30th. So not, you know, I'm nowhere. Nowhere close to that top three. So have you formulated a plan on how long you're going to hold it out or wait. I think in my mind I'm already out of there. Physically I'm still there. But mentally I have I have two other spots I'm ready to open. One, you know, not at the same time, but two locations that I want to choose from. And I think and another reason, and we can kind of segue into this, that I want to move so that this is going further out east into Suffolk County. And the person that I'm looking to hire, lives like, lives further out there. And I think would have more of a preference for working. So even if, you know, that's just another added benefit to considering one of these Right. So if you kept the Millville location, your monthly cost is a grand to keep that lease going. Right. Now that one, that's my more expensive office. So I pay 1200 here in Massapequa. Melville. The office is 1600. Okay. So it's a $1,600 a month cost to keep it going. If you want to stay there. Yeah, I think I would rather and again, I'll probably pay that same amount, you know, 15, 1600 somewhere else. But I think if we can get there, I could pop in that map much more quickly. If I hire somebody, I just assume I'll pump some money into ads. So I know we talked about that last time and that's, you know, that's fine. So, you know, well, even though that location might not immediately pop up in the map, at least will have those ads as a supplement until, you know, until that comes up. And then I still have mass people also. So. Yeah. Yeah. Know. Just, interesting note here. And I think for anyone listening, opening new locations does take a lot of time. I think even at Sterling, we allow a year, before we really start seeing, massive results. And we have, you know, lots of reviews and lots of visitors, and we can pump those locations up pretty quickly. But your point is totally valid. And that, this is something that it takes a while. And financially you got to make the right decisions for your business. So I totally support you in that. Yeah. And right, I'm, I, I'm kind of like any startup. Right. Operating on tighter margins. I think if Melville was my fifth location and I already had a few associates, that's a Yankee. But let's just let's open another one and let's keep Melville because it is, you know, probably a good long term play. But, you know, given that I can't support three offices, especially when I'm I mean, I could but that plus hiring an employee plus considering starting to run some ads then then then I stretch my budget to that. So. So a moment ago you alluded to potential hire. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So I've had a referral and I'm actually meeting with her today. We've been we've kind of been in contact for like a month or two now. And you know, she was referred to me from someone I've gotten to know. He's actually have these opposing counsel in like three of my cases right now. But, you know, really nice guy. I happened to mention that I was hiring, and then like, a month later, he reached out. This is probably sometime over the summer. He reached out and and said, you know, I have to have someone in mind if you wanted to meet her. So I met with her and, and she's, you know, seemed really great. We talked for, like, an hour and, you know, the one thing. And we're actually meeting today. So finally it took, you know, between. I think I was on vacation, and then she she the want her one complaint, her big complaint at the firm she's at now that she's just way overworked and she has not had time to not even have time to, like, meet with me. And so let me ask this question. You're an average attorney in your firm. How many cases are they handling at once? Do you know that number? Mid 40s. Okay, that's what I thought. And for reference, I probably have somewhere around 2025 right now. She's handling. She's on me 107, Oh, wow. A lot. that. She doesn't have a paralegal. Wow. Yeah. So I I don't want to leave too. Yeah, right. And but, you know, the flip side of that is she's she's paid. She's paid very well. So, you know, I think she, you know, I think she's done. She wants to leave, and she knows. She knows she's going to be taking a cut. And I had that conversation with her. I said, you know, if you want quality of life, you know, there is going to be a bit of a pay cut. You know, I'm going to talk to her a little bit more today about, you know, working for me, who's more of a startup, you know, than this firm that's that's been around for, you know, decades. And it's probably, you know, has a lot more, you know, machines and, and technology and stuff in place that I don't. But, but other than that, you know, I know she, you know, like, the guy that referred her to me, said she, you know, all the clients love her. And this is someone that works with her. You know, clients love her, all the judges and stuff, and Suffolk County, you know, really respect her and everything. So I think, you know, I think she would be, you know, on the legal side, I think she'd be awesome. Just have to, you know, figure out what the what the numbers are and, you know, up. And hopefully we can So if you were on, what would be your. What are your thoughts on ramping up her caseload? Would you give her some of your files, or would you give her all the new ones coming through it? But I would give her there's probably a few that I would hang on to, just like ones that I've been working. There's still a few that I think some of my first cases that are still going through. Some of these cases last very long, as you guys know. So I have, you know, probably three of those cases that are you know, from like 2024 that are still moving. But I think, you know, anything that I've brought in more recently and, you know, obviously all new, all new cases that I signed, no matter what office they're in, would go directly to her and, you know, decide not to. That is me being fortunate and having this other income is that I can pick up Yeah. The the secret to handing off files as you as you hand off your files to hers is getting that face to face started as quickly as you possibly can. And doing something on the file. Immediate action. Like if you call up your client. Hey, Mr. Client, I'm going to be passing your case over to a new my my new associate. Here she is on the phone. Let's talk. And and then she's already got something going on. The case. So it's that that's that simple. Right. Yeah. And I, I think like I said, I, you know, I've met with her. She's just really, you know, really friendly and I know she, you know, it's probably has that courtroom personality that, that to an extent I don't I can be I've been getting caught because I know I'm, I'm not good about talking about myself, but I think I'm, I'm, I'm smart. I come in with the facts where, you know, and I sometimes attorneys that I've been practicing 20 or 30 years, they, they start talking and I'm like, are you talking about a different case because like, what are you talking about? I know, but I don't have that, like really aggressive courtroom personality that, you know, a lot of a lot of these divorce lawyers here, especially in New York on Long Island, they're they're all they all come in hot headed. And and my response is like, pump the brakes. You know, you're talking about something wrong. I think she has that a little bit better than me. So I would not even. I think sometimes senior people pass cases off to like, they bring in like a second year associate and past cases often probably in their own mind. They're like, I gotta you know, gotta watch this case myself a little bit on the back end and make sure things are going well. Like, that's not even a thought in my mind. I think if that's the case up to her, I would be extremely confident. And I think that would that would come through. And, you know, my conversation with the client but she's. Yeah, she's been actually been I think it's rare that, I don't know, maybe you can correct me on that, but rare that someone hires someone with more experience than that's significantly more experience. Well, Tom, I think you have the right vision, right? You know that. You know, long term. Want to be the attorney at your firm managing all the cases. You want to be the CEO running the business. And so you you have to make this hire at some point. I think we talked last episode about, you know, what's the right time and is it more about finding the right fit versus making the hire when it makes more financial sense? How are you navigating that scenario, especially given the fact that, you know, she's a very highly paid, competent, employee and that you're going need to take on some of that burden. So I think hold on. I'm going to just do a quick, calculation here. So we. Yeah, I was running these numbers through with, with Dani, when I was, for my like, I was talking about hiring somebody and trying to gather how much how much in total I need to have set aside to pay this, to pay this person. Right. So if I were to say, you know, I want this, this associate to cover, even if I'm okay right now at a break even I can't afford to hire somebody at a loss right now. But if I were to say, all right, come in at a break even point, because I know at this point I'm only getting busier. Her cover, her salary plus her benefits, plus my marketing, my marketing expenses, my office expenses. She would need to do about 25,000 a month, which I probably I probably already have that enough work for her to do that. And if we, you know, if I open the second office and, and start running some ads, and I think that that number included me running some ads also, you know, start running some ads, then, you know, she can cover herself and all my business expenses. Then, you know, again, I'm only only going to get busier this the second office is going to move and start running some ads. And it I don't imagine a scenario where I get slower. Big leap, though, for an entrepreneur. I'm impressed. Well, I mean just to help you kind of think, think it through. I've been following you obviously now for 15, 16 months we've been talking and I've seen how you analyze your firm, how you think about it, how you take risk. And I personally think this is a gutsy call, but I think it's the right move to make. I think you could I think you I think you should do it. Yeah, I think so too. I think if again a lot will come out of this conversation today. There's other things. I think one time she mentioned offhand, you know, when I first met her, she was like, oh, I'm not sure if I want to go somewhere else or start my own firm. And I immediately was I was like, well, like, if what if she comes here? Yeah, for like six months to a year and then decides that I should I want to open my own firm. But I think that that's a risk you take with everybody and family law, right? I mean, I don't think big law attorneys worry about that, right? That's kind of where my background and I think when they hire an associate, they're going to think, you know, no, no, 50 year associate is going to break off and start their own pattern litigation firm and steal this giant corporation from them. That's just not how that world works. But, you know, in family law, people do. People do that frequently? And then I think my other worry was that she does live very far East. And so again, I'm going to open the second office and I'll that all of my ads, I think I would focus out there if I hired her just two acres. That's a newer office and that's where she wants to work. But I do still have a number, a good number of cases here in Nassau County. And I know she said for her to get to the courthouse here in Nassau County is like an hour, 20 minutes or something like that. And so I want to make kind of that's like headache for her. And what I've said is, you know, in a year or so, you know, hopefully within the next year I'll be making a second hire and that hire, you know, thinking long term, I'll have like a Suffolk office and a Nassau office. So once I have enough work to make that second hire, she can handle the Suffolk cases. And my second attorney could handle the Nassau cases, but there is going to be that. And my second attorney could handle the NASA cases, but there is going to be that, you know, part of that is my my main office right now is still in. Nassau County. So that that'll be that'll be her call if she wants to do that. But. Well, we find next month here what happens? Yeah it is it is stressful but I, I agree, I think like you said, it's it's a risky move but it feels like the right way. And again, I, I'm thankful that I get to temper that risk where I can. If I have a meeting with her at 12, I can call it my other firm at one and say, hey, I want to double my workload and they'll say, yes, please. Yeah. That's That is a very nice thing to have in your back pocket. yeah. And then you know that I can work. I'm very efficient doing that type of work because I've been doing it for nine years. You know, I can work a 30 hour work week at that job and, and carry basically a full workload and then still spend a good amount of time if I'm not handling really any files directly, you know, that that's giving me, you know, 20 hours a week to work on the business, just growing things and getting maybe more involved in networking and stuff like that. So I think that that that puts me in a position that I would really enjoy being in. So. Very good. Tom, really appreciate your time and update today. Yeah. Thank you guys.

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