The Sterling Family Law Show

From Homeless to Lawyer: The Law Firm Owner Mindset Breakthrough - #190

• Jeff Sterling Hughes

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Law firm owner mindset isn't something they teach in law school. Deidra went from homeless to running a thriving family law firm.


Pretty wild how she got there. After leaving a big firm and spending three years in seminary school (yeah, she thought she'd become a pastor), nobody would hire her back. So she did what any law firm entrepreneur with the right mindset would do—she sat in courtrooms every single day with a notebook, relearning how to litigate from scratch.


Deidra then started her firm on $60K in public defender contracts. She hired before she felt ready and paid herself less than her first associate. That's the law firm owner mindset shift most of us miss completely.


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📄 CHAPTERS


0:00 - Law Firm Owner Mindset: From Homeless to Thriving Practice 

2:10 - Why She Built a Fathers Rights Niche (Personal Story) 

3:48 - Leaving Law for Seminary: The Unexpected Detour 

5:00 - The Notebook Strategy: Relearning Law From Scratch 

16:05 - First Hire When Income Was Zero: The Sacrifice Play 

17:33 - High School Dropout to Attorney: The Full Backstory 

20:01 - LSAT Score of 121: How She Still Got Into Law School 

22:40 - "Tell Me I Can't": The Mindset That Built Everything

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Deidre started her firm after not having a job and sitting in courtrooms for months. Reteaching herself how to be an attorney. She was homeless at one time. She was without income, and that perseverance and spirit allowed her to grow her firm into a thriving family law firm in the Indianapolis area. You're not going to want to miss this one. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show, the podcast designed to help family law firm owners build the firm and the practice of their dreams. I'm your host, Tyler. Dolph. I'm also the CEO of our law firm, focused marketing agency, Rocket Clicks, that was born out of our own law firm, Sterling Lawyers, that has grown to over 27 attorneys and $18 million in revenue Today we continue our law firm on our series, and I speak with Deidre, who is truly inspiring. She worked at a large law firm. She then left and went to seminary school and was thinking of becoming a preacher and serving the Lord, and then decided to build her own practice. After having a lot of chance encounters and amazing events that happened to her. Her story is truly inspiring. These are. Thank you so much for being with us today. We are excited to learn more about you and your law firm. Could you, introduce yourself to our audience and then also give us a little history on your firm? Yeah, absolutely. My name is Deidre Haynes. I have a family law. Law firm exclusively family law. We focus on fathers rights. 90. About 95% of our clientele would be fathers, husbands. The male species. We do represent women. Of course. We don't discriminate. We are, a house full of women. We only have one male, employee. He's one of our attorneys. But we are a house strong of women who represent men, so that they have an opportunity to see and spend time with their children. Yeah. Located out of Indianapolis, Indiana. That is awesome. Why did you decide to go after husbands and fathers? Yeah, sure. I never knew my biological father. Growing up, I didn't meet him until I was, like, 41, 42 years of age. And because of that, I went through a lot of rejection and abandonment issues. And so I know as a little girl and even growing up into my adulthood, how the importance of a father being in their children's lives because of what I experience. And so I said, you know, when I was I got a law school, I was going to be able to fight for those baby girls or baby boys. So they won't have to experience what I had to experience. amazing. It's, Thank you. that you've been able to turn that kind of difficult past into something positive for future generations. Yeah, Which absolutely. really passionate about here. So I commend you for that. Take me back to the beginning. You mentioned when you graduated law school. You want to do this? So did you start your firm right out of law school? I did not, right out of law school. I went and worked for, a large law firm and, worked for bars and Thornburg in Indianapolis, Indiana, which was one of the largest law firms at that time, in Indianapolis. And I did employment discrimination during that time. I just felt like, I really wanted to be in the courtroom and and fighting. But as we all know, new graduates do not get in the courtroom. And, it was killing me every day. So I did resign from, that position and started working for the state of Indiana. Well, that was a little different because it was administrative law. And so, of course, I still wasn't getting in the courtroom. And then I thought I just gave up on law altogether. Surprisingly I did. I stopped practicing law for three years and went to theology school, decided that I want to be a pastor and just fight for Jesus. So, I did go to theology school for two years. I did not graduate from theology school because I figured, the saints they just didn't want to. I just didn't want to act. Right. So if I was if I was going to deal with people who didn't want to act right, I might as well deal with clients. Who's going to pay me? Oh my goodness. What a journey. Yeah. Absolutely. did you decide okay, now I'm going to start the law firm. Yeah. So, after I dropped out of, theology school, I decided, well, I should probably go back into the law, but I was out for three years, so I was submitting my resume. And, of course, there's this huge gap, which is not a good look on a resume. And so no one would hire me. So I decided, well, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go back into the courtroom. I'm just going to sit there so I can learn the law. Right? Because I really had to learn it. And so what I did was I got up every morning faithfully, as if it was my full time job. And I went to the courtroom and held in the Hamilton County, which is Noblesville, Indiana. And I sat there and I would sit there with a notebook and I would take notes and I would watch, you know, the prosecutor, I would watch the defense attorney. And I was retraining myself how to litigate. But at that time, I was noticing something. And what I was noticing is that there was no African-American lawyers in this particular county who were representing African-American or Brown people. So I began to handwrite a note to the law firm administrator, I mean, at the law firm. But the courthouse administrator, and told them what I, what I saw, what I noticed, and asked them if they need a contract attorney to assist their public defenders or even private attorneys. I was open to to do the job and, immediately walked it upstairs. Didn't know I was handing that letter to the head court administrator and, got a text message from him. And he said, you know what? If this is the young lady who shows up in court five, which is just in the jurors court every day, I want you to come back upstairs. I think I have something for you. And I got a private contract that day, and it wasn't much. I think it was maybe, if I'm not mistaken, somewhere between 25 to $30,000. Right. But at that time, I was at zero income, so anything would help. And so, what happened? Tyler, is I decided let's try this same concept in Marion County. The Marion County is in Indianapolis, which is our our mega county, right? Indianapolis, Indiana. Marion County. Now, I couldn't use the same argument, in regards to no diversity, because that is a very diverse county. But I wrote Bill Hill, Bob Hill, he was the chief public defender in the public defender's agency. And, you know, I told him, listen, I am going into private practice, and if you have any contract work, I would be more than happy to assist. Now, there was a little twist with that particular contract, which I did get is because that contract was in 40 family law court only dealing with child support. So I had a Hamilton County contract, Delaware criminal law and a family law contract. Dealing what? Just child support. And so I think they offered me somewhere between 2530 as well. And so now I have $60,000 to start my law firm. And I did that. And that's really how I started, a law firm under private practice. And, that it started from there and eventually gave those two contracts back because my private practice itself started really growing, and I really wanted to focus on family law. I really love that part of it, of the law. I was just thinking about, like you saying. Okay, it doesn't matter. I'm just gonna wake up every day and I'm going to go to court. I'm going to listen. I'm going to learn, like, the dedication and sacrifice that that takes is, is something that I think, people don't understand, like what it takes to really be a true entrepreneur. And that's the sacrifice and the time and all the things. I love that. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. So you start your own firm, you Yeah. these contracts, and then you start, you know, getting more and more leads. What was it like in those early days? Because you're learning how to lead your own business that you haven't done in the past? Were there some fun kind of lessons learned there? Oh, absolutely. It was, it was. It was horrible, actually, because, I had forgotten how to practice law. Right. I was already kind of new in the law, new graduate and things of that sort. But what I did learn is that I was never a person who was afraid to ask questions. And I was never afraid to be mentored. So during that journey, I made sure that I got a lot of mentors, and I got a lot of coaches, on my side. So if it was a simple how do I draft an appearance? I was not afraid to say, I know this is simple. I know as an attorney I should know how to do this, but I do not. And so I didn't have to reinvent the wheel because I was able to humble myself to ask for the assistance. And because of that, I grew quickly. Because what individuals don't realize is that people really do like to help people. You just have to open up your mouth and ask if you if you ask a question. Always say you have not because you not is a biblical scripture, but it is absolutely the truth. And, I grew by many mentors and coaches helping me along the way. That is the number one overwhelming piece of advice that we get on this show every week is that you just have to ask. You got to be willing to be to be humble enough to to just ask. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. That is that was a big part of the growth. Yeah. That's really awesome. So what about on the business side of things? What did you learn about being an entrepreneur, or putting systems in place, or realizing that you got to, you know, do billing and ask people for money and payables and all that? Well I learned that from actually I learned that from Bob Hill, who was the former public, chief public defender in Marion County. Indianapolis, Indiana. He sat me down. And he said, listen, I want you to be able to put a 30, 33 and up there for your tax, for your operating account and for yourself as well. Right. And so he sat me down to teach me just, the very minimum, knowledge that I needed to be an entrepreneur. And I did that. I did that until I felt like there's something greater out there. And when I realized that there was something greater, I knew I had to go to the next level with actually probably paying an organization to teach me how to be an entrepreneur, because we don't learn that in law school. And most lawyers are not entrepreneurs, and they learned that very quickly. I was both, and became very successful at it, but not because I was a brainiac, but because I knew how to listen, take the information that my coaches and my mentors gave me and to apply it. And so, I believe it was and, about four years ago, I discovered this organization called SMB, and I joined with Andy Stickle and Bill Houser. And I'm sure if you know them or not, but they I saw a Facebook ad, that was scrolling on Facebook that we can help, law firms grow into multi-million dollar law firms. And, you know, I didn't have a lot of money, right? But that seminar, that WebEx was just a dollar, so I had a dollar. And that was the the first roadmap to my success. And I attended that seminar for it was a five day seminar, and I thought that they were going to dive right into how to grow the law firm. But they didn't. The first three days, Tyler was all about mindset. Now I am frustrated right now. It's not like I had a lot to do because I didn't have a lot of clients. I'm like, get to the money. I'm on here because I want to know about the money. And I think I said something to Bill Houser and he said, it's just you're never going to get money if you don't know how to change your mindset. And the first three days was really about changing the mindset on how to grow the grow your law firm, how to bill, how to ask for money, and how to grow your your firm by implementing people into your firm. Which was one of the things he told me, is that you will have to hire before you think you need it. I did not listen the first time and I was so overwhelmed. But I've been with them for years and I've been doing it ever since. Yeah. It's so great. And so it's really it was, first having the courage to ask for help finding a mentor or someone who's been there, done that, even if it's dumb and easy. Or you should already know it. Yeah. graduating and say, okay, now I need a program. Yes. Yes. And that program that they provided for me was business training, entrepreneur training. And also marketing. So I didn't have to do my own marketing. And many lawyers do their own marketing, which takes away from them growing the firm. And so they taught me SMB taught me how to work on the business instead of in the business. Because, you know, the first two years I was still I still had a caseload, I was still litigating, I was still hiring, I was doing everything right, and I didn't really have a solid team, but they taught me how to develop a solid team, how not only to invest in myself, my personal growth, but also to invest in the individuals that I wanted to help grow the firm. So, for example, I have a, an individual now she's the CEO of the law firm, but she started with me just as a paralegal, and she climbed the rope with me. And so I had to put her through, with my own money. Of course, I had to put her through training to, so she can sit around like minded people up close. And she did that. And we just started growing the firm together. That's so great. 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. At what point during your journey did you decide to, like, let go of the reins a little bit and hire your kind of next attorney? Yeah. It was about a year and a half into my journey where, because I have you. I still had the private contracts, with the Hamilton County Public Defender Agency and the, Well, they don't have an agency. They just have private, private attorneys. I'm sorry, but I also also had the Marion County public Defender contract and private clients that were coming in. And so the caseload was just too heavy. I knew I couldn't do it all. And at that time, I hire, my first attorney, and she's still with me. She's a stellar. I like to call her little Deidre, but she has a spin on how she litigate. And her name is Stephanie Colombo, and, I took her under my wing. And at that time, many people don't know, but I was making less than her. I didn't pay a lot. Because I didn't have a lot to to pay her. And she. Never mind me telling how much I started or off what? I think it was, like $40,000 or something. Very, very low. But I settled down. I said, I said, Columbo, if you trust me and helped me grow the firm, I promise you that as the firm grows, your salary will grow. And at the time, I needed her, And she needed me. And so we entered into this this friendship, colleague type experience where she began to work with me and every little dime that I could get, although my income was almost zilch. She was she was the big money maker at the firm at the time, and she didn't know it, but she was. But those are some of the things that I had to learn, that I had to sacrifice my own income so that I can bring in help and it's been such a successful. And she's one of our top litigators. We give all of our hard cases to her. And she's I mean, she's still teaching me things. You mean because I have gotten out of the practice of law, and just operating the law firm, so she's a rock star. But I did that about a year and a half into my private practice. Your story is one of sacrifice. One of. Yeah. to figure it out and I'm not going to make any money. And that's okay because I I'm betting on the outcome. You always kind of have that mindset. Like I think that's that's very unique and not something you hear every day. Right. Some most of the time if someone's starting a business, it's because like they want to make money and they have to make money. And so they do what it takes to do that. It feels like you take on a much more long range approach. Well, you know, I've always been like this because I was a high school dropout. I was a homeless teenage mother. I was in and out of juvenile detention. I have a criminal record. Because I was always fighting. Because I was very angry. Because I didn't know my biological father. So I was so angry towards the world. I lost my scholarship for college, and so I became homeless again. So I always had that go getter attitude that whatever I need to do to overcome poverty or being homeless, I'm going to put, you know, the metal to the pedal, and I'm not going to lift my foot off that gas tank until I get where I need to go. And so I learned how to do all of this through adversity. And I wouldn't take my, you know, my my story back. Being homeless or being in juvenile detention or even being in, incarcerated. Never been to prison. Let me make that clear for all of your listeners. But I did go to jail because I was a fighter. But, you know, Tyler, what I did during that process is that I really did depend on my faith, and I. I remember one day I was in, a homeless shelter with Salvation Army homeless shelter located in Peoria, Illinois. And I sat on my cot and I told the Lord, if you teach me how to live life according to how you want me to live, I'll promise I'll fight for you. And so I learned how to fight the the appropriate way from out of the streets to in the courtroom. And I think I took that same tenacity that I had. I've been that bad child to the same, you know, heart and passion and compassion that I had. And I just applied it the right way and decided to fight for those who I know needed a voice. And so one of the things that we always say at our, law firm is that we are a voice for the voiceless, because that's who God was for me. To get me back into college and to get me past the, the bar examiners, because they, you know, they had to look at all of that. You can't you can't expunge it if they're not, you know, because it never happened. So, you know, you had to be very honest. And I had many professors, Professor Roy's men at IU School of Law and, Professor Carlson, he also was a voice for me when I wasn't a voice for myself to help me to get into law school. Yeah. I'm like speechless just thinking about everything that you've been through Yeah, it was a struggle. as a testament to your faith and to the opportunity that, you know, all of us get and take advantage of it. Absolutely. Because many people don't know that, it was a struggle to get there, you know, when you take the Lsat. I was never a really good test taker. Standardized test taker. And so trying to get pass the Lsat, they give you 120 just to sit down to put your name on the paper. And my Lsat score, I only scored 121. So no law school is going to get you in the door, but 121 now looking at least 155, 160 and higher. So I said, you know, I'm going to study again. And, I did, and I got a 123. So I just gave up. I was like, maybe law school is not for me. Although in my heart, Tyler, I knew that I felt like I heard God say law school. So I applied anyway. And, somehow the the individuals at the law school decided that they would give me an opportunity to go in and, you know, see if I could be successful. And the dean of the law school, Dina Potter, she's not the dean anymore, but her name's Angela Spada. She caught me up one day, and she said, Deidre, I have good news. I have bad news for you. I'm like, what could this possibly be? And she said, well, the law school has rejected your application. Because of your your Lsat score. But the Indiana Supreme Court justice, Randy Shepard, he was the, the chief justice of Indiana at that time. Overruled our decision and decided to give you an opportunity, but under a condition. And that condition was you had to obtain at least a 2.0 to stay in the law school, and you'll be kicked out. Well, that was never a problem for me because I graduated with honors from Illinois State University. I knew how to study. I knew how to sit my butt in a chair. And I'll study any student in that, in that, classroom. And so I felt like, oh, you guys messed up. You guys gave me the lowest GPA requirement ever. And, you know, I graduated with a 3.4, out of law school. And that's when I started working for Barnes and Thornburg as well. Yeah. obstacle that was thrown at you, you just figured out a way around it. So I figured out a way around, and I. And I know that, you know, it really was to help, my faith in God using people to say, you know, let's give this girl a chance, but we're gonna put some conditions on it, and I never mind conditions. I always like to be challenged. In fact, Tyler, if you tell me I can do something, I probably would do it. It probably took me a longer time to do it. But if you tell me I can't do something, I'm off to the stars. And people in your life. You said it gets you like. Oh, well, I just got to tell. I just got to do it. I know, I tell all my friends. Just tell me I can't do it. And then we'll be the best law firm in the state of Indiana. smokes. I'm so inspired. I'm in awe of your journey and and your ability to overcome challenges. I'm so grateful that you gave us the time and and and the lessons today. I've been thinking about them for a long time. Thank you so much. I appreciate you guys giving me the opportunity to speak on your podcast. Absolutely. Have a wonderful rest of your day. And again, thank you so much for your time.

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Jeff Hughes

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