The Sterling Family Law Show

Lawyer to Business Owner: How Working Less Actually Made Alex More Money - #192

• Jeff Sterling Hughes

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Lawyer to business owner—that shift changed everything for Alex. Here's why working less actually made him more money.


If you're stuck doing everything yourself, Alex's 3-box test shows you what to delegate, automate, or just eliminate. You’ll also realize why 80% good enough beats perfection, and how to stop being a worker bee in your own firm.


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📄 CHAPTERS


0:00 - Law Firm Delegation: From Worker Bee to Business Leader 

1:18 - Alex's Journey: Immigrant to 27-Person Firm Owner 

5:36 - The 3-Box Test: Love It, Great At It, Makes Money 

6:22 - Delegate, Automate, or Eliminate Framework 

7:17 - Why 80% Good Enough Unlocks Law Firm Growth 

14:59 - Law Firm Exit Planning: Don't Flush Your Goodwill 

18:59 - Understanding Clients on a Cellular Level 

21:47 - The Road Less Stupid: Where Are You Really?

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SPEAKER_00:

A lot of attorneys I talk to are really focused on duplicating themselves, expanding their law firm. They had to make their first important hire. They had to learn how to delegate, right? There's this whole evolution of going from an entrepreneur to a business leader. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. I'm your host, Tyler Dolph, and I'm also the CEO of our marketing consultancy for family law firms called Rocket Clicks that was born out of our own law firm that we've built over the last 10 years and have grown to over 27 attorneys, Sterling lawyers. Today we continue our owner-operator series. We interview Alex, who is a business and MA attorney in Cleveland who has multiple businesses. So maybe asking yourself, why is he on the Sterling Family Law Show? Well, he has some great insights as it relates to becoming a true business leader and not just a solo entrepreneur, as well as things to think about as you're expanding your law firm. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode. Alex, thank you so much for your time today and for joining us on the podcast. Really excited to hear your story and understand how you've built your law firm and other businesses that uh that you've built along the way. As we get started, give us a quick introduction, a little bit of backstory on the attorney side of things, and then we can dive into everything else.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah. So, Tyler, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I'll give you the short chronology of uh of my professional career, uh, but but to get there uh a few biographical notes. So I'm an immigrant. I wasn't born in this country. Uh I was born in Moldova, uh, which, if your listeners know where that is, that puts them in like the 1% of the planet because nobody knows where Moldova is. So that's next to Russia and the Ukraine. Came over when I was four. Uh it was the 70s. Uh my dad was an entrepreneur. I learned how to be an entrepreneur from my dad. Uh grew up in Cleveland. Um, wanted to be a lawyer because I used to watch a show that um I don't think you were alive when the show was on. It was called LA Law. Did you used to watch LA Law? Uh I never watched it live, but I've heard of the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh I wanted to be one of the lawyers on that show. His name was Arnie Becker. He was actually a divorce lawyer. Um, but uh he uh uh I wanted to be him and I imagined myself as a lawyer because of him, and so I went to law school, went uh to went to, well, first I went to college on an Army ROTC scholarship, uh law school in Cleveland, worked for a large law firm, a couple of large law firms after that, deployed to Iraq with my Army Reserve unit, came back, uh, went in-house uh for eight years to be a general counsel for a telecom company, came out of that and started my own law firm. That was in 2012, and I've owned it ever since. Uh, and so we're a full-service business law firm. Um, since starting it, I have merged it with another firm. Um we have about 27 people there total, half of whom are lawyers. Um, and we've got um clients all over the planet. I personally um went from being sort of a, you know, a worker being the firm, uh, well, wearing all hats in the firm to being more uh leadership and strategist in the firm to really just being rainmaker in the firm today, um, and really just kind of focusing on being an entrepreneur. And so we've got other businesses around the firm. One is called Cover My Six. It helps uh uh business owners optimize the six relationships that get them sued. You know, customers, vendors, employees, shareholders, the government, competitors. Wrote a book called The Lawsuit Free Company. Uh, we've got an MA brokerage, we've got an executive recruiting firm, and the newest company we have, Exit Path Partners, helps law firms buy other law firms and helps lawyers exit from their law firm. So that is the short version. That's the shit, believe it or not, that's the short version.

SPEAKER_00:

You're a busy man. First, thank you so much for your service. Uh what a path. A lot of attorneys I talk to are really focused on duplicating themselves, expanding their law firm. You know, they spent a lot of time as the guy or the gal. They had to make their first important hire, they had to learn how to delegate, right? There's this whole evolution of going from an entrepreneur to a business leader. You've done that as well as started additional businesses. What do you think has allowed you to take those leaps to um delegate what you needed to so that you could get out of the weeds and focus on some of these other endeavors?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great question, Tyler. So so I'm a member of this uh group called Strategic Coach. I don't know if you've ever read Dan Sullivan's books, but I've been in Strategic Coach for eight years. Um, the foundational principle of coach is build a self-managing company so that you are spending your time inside of your unique ability, meaning you love what you do, you're great at what you do, and it makes you money, right? It checks those three boxes. Um, if it doesn't check one of those three boxes, someone else should be doing that thing, or you should be doing it on the weekend because it's not making you money. And so through good coaching over the years, um I just, you know, pretty methodically started slicing off the things in my firm that I didn't want to do. And once I knew that it didn't check all three boxes, um, your choices are pretty simple. You either delegate it, automate it, or eliminate it. Okay. And so from there, I learned enough about myself to know that I actually am uh I love and I think I'm pretty good at, and I'm definitely more profitable as an entrepreneur than I am as the litigator that I was, as the deal lawyer that I was. Um, I still enjoy a lot of those things, but I don't love them, and I'm probably not great at them. Um and it was only through scaling the business that I saw how much more revenue and profit I could generate from my organization rather than just working in it.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think that is the big moment of insight that I want our listeners to hear that as you did less in your business, your business made more, your business grew. Oftentimes, as entrepreneurs, we think that only we can do certain things. And as soon as we get out of the way and we accept the fact that like 80% as good as I can do it is is plenty good enough, then our businesses really start to grow and scale.

SPEAKER_02:

Tyler, I can tell that you drank the same Kool-Aid that I drank. Because, you know, I remember really well somebody telling me, Alex, the best entrepreneurs make more by working less. And I remember thinking, that's bananas. That can't be true. That is contrary to every kind of work ethic that you were raised with, right? And it is definitely true. It is a hundred percent true. Um, and it requires imagination, it requires the ability to take risk and be comfortable with risk, getting out of your comfort zone, thinking like a contrarian. So I really appreciate that you just articulated my inner monologue there. Yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00:

It's uh it's something we all need to hear again and again. So you started delegating, you started taking things off your plate. The first uh endeavor outside of the law firm. Why'd you do it? What happened? Tell us a story.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh great question. So um I started my firm in 2012, and about three years in, I realized that I had, we were, we're, we were, we are and were and always have been a full-service business law firm. So that's litigation, that's uh uh corporate transactions, employment law. Uh we brought in family law because so many of our clients were needing those services and um tax, all that stuff. Uh so I what I realized was that we were doing a lot of MA deals for a small number of our clients, and it was a lot of repeat business. So we saw early on who was acquisitive, who was out there looking for deals, acquiring companies. And um, these were close friends of mine and and longtime clients. And uh I said, hey, listen, you're out there buying other businesses. Why don't I and my team find businesses for you to buy? And then just like you would pay a recruiter or a broker, you'll pay us. And we'll do conflict waivers if we're also your lawyers on those deals. Um, and eventually, so we started doing that. We so basically we got first look at who the acquiring companies were, and we started leveraging that into brokerage opportunities, and then we spun off a whole brokerage from that. And um, and then it was the same thing with um executive recruiting. So started that company, um, Gurzburg Executive Search, um, uh probably about two or three years after that. And it was for the same reason we saw who was hiring and firing a lot, you know, and we saw that they were paying recruiters 20, 30% of the first year's salary. So we said, man, we've got great networks, and I've got amazing paralegals. And so much of what recruiters and brokers do is um simplified into processes and tactics that can be done by really good paralegals. So from a law firm, we spun off a brokerage and an executive recruiting firm. And then cover my six was the next thing. Um, and that really was just kind of like this realization that there's only six plaintiffs who can sue a business. So why not just attack your systems in your company and your policies and your employee handbooks and your contracts and just flush out all the stuff that's getting you sued or that's not preventing you from getting sued and optimize those. And did that turn into uh like a coaching program or how does a great question. So uh we wrote a book called The Lawsuit Free Company, where we taught our clients how to self-implement this system. It turned into a process inside of our law firm. It turned into a subscription service. Um, and we are working on a series of technology enabled processes and with AI and with other automations to make cover my six uh more scalable than lawyers reviewing contracts for clients and things like that. So they're there, yes. So it's well, and I and I and based on what I know about you, Tyler, and your podcast here, I can share with your entrepreneurial listeners that you know those of you that know that you are more than just a lawyer, that you are a strategic thinker, a creative thinker, and an entrepreneur, um, creating space in your mind and in your day for generating ideas like that and and for building out ideas like that into new companies is super important. You got to create that space. If you are um, you know, if you're litigating from nine to five, you don't have that space five days a week, right? You need to you need to be intentional about where where you deploy your time and effort and energy.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey, family law firm leaders. My partner Tony Carls just released his book where he lays bare our precise blueprint for growing sterling lawyers from zero 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.

SPEAKER_00:

And you have to make that conscious decision. And I'm gonna start to sample it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Yeah. The um Dan Sullivan actually, um, when we when he asked me eight years ago, um, what do you do? I said, I'm a lawyer, I have a law firm. He goes, No. And that's the last time you're ever gonna describe yourself that way. You are an entrepreneur who knows how to practice law and own a law firm, right? Think of yourself, Alex, as an entrepreneur first. Those other things are skills that you've acquired, but you're an entrepreneur. And that identity shift, Tyler, was like seismic, you know? It was everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Because it gave you the freedom to go explore other things.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00:

So what are you most excited about right now? What what business are you really focused on? How are you dividing your time amongst all these different things?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so um, you know, it's it's a it's a whole lot of ADD, as you can probably tell, but um the the the the big current project is Exit Path Partners, where we we, you know, so as you and I were just talking about, there's across America, at any given point, there are tens, hundreds of thousands of lawyers who are just tired of their practice or are retiring from their practice. They just don't want to do it, they don't want to do the grind anymore for one reason or another, but they've spent a lot of time building their goodwill and their reputation, their brand, their relationships. And so there is a ridiculously high number of those lawyers who just shut their doors and send a letter to their clients saying, hey, it's been a great, you know, 30, 40 years. I've appreciated our relationship. Here's a couple names. I'm gonna go fishing for the, you know, in the islands from now on. Um, and what I say to those lawyers is don't do that. Go fishing, go do whatever you want to do, but don't flush all of that uh relationship capital and that goodwill down the toilet because it has value. Those those clients are gonna go find other lawyers and they're gonna keep paying those lawyers, right? Um, uh especially if you've got clients who um are referral sources, meaning they help you grow, especially if you have clients who are repeat clients, uh, especially if you have clients who are entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are in the business of growth. They will need lawyers more and more. So, what I say to those lawyers is let my company, Exit Path Partners, help you transfer your book of business to another firm. That firm will acquire it and keep paying you. Every firm pays origination to its lawyers or to referral sources, or both. So they've already baked it into their business model, right? Into their revenue model. It's already there. Be that originator and then go fishing. So that's how that's how we do it. And we've got a bench of um really great growing entrepreneurial law firms that are just falling over themselves for that business. So that's what I'm most excited about right now.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great. And and are you seeing a transfer or a change of mindset in these uh law firm owners who are like, oh, actually, there is a path to acquisition.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, our most our most common client is the one who um has been a craftsman, right? An artisan, and who has done one thing for 30, 40 years. It could be estate planning, it could be tax, whatever it is, family law. Um, and they have their own practice, they have their own law firm, but they have not monetized expansively. They haven't really been as entrepreneurial as they could have been. They've just been craftsmen, they've been doing their thing really well. And so when the time comes to exit, it's the same thing, right? If you've never bought or sold a law firm before, if you've never merged with a law firm before, this is new and it's uh intimidating and it's complex and it's stressful. So that is the most common conversation I have and my team has with exiting lawyers. They just don't know what to do or where to start. And so that's why they hire us.

SPEAKER_00:

Give us a, as we're kind of finishing up here, what does the taste of that initial conversation sound like, look like? You know, I know a lot of our listeners own and operate a family law firm, for example. What should they be prepared for coming into that initial conversation with Exopath?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, well, here's the process. Um, Tyler. Uh, and I know you guys help law firms too, so it may be similar to your process. Um, I don't go anywhere until I understand the person I'm talking to on a cellular level, right? Meaning I ask them four questions and we take 90 minutes to get to the answer. Okay. Question number one is um, where are you trying to go? What are you trying to do? What are you trying to be? What is uh your ideal day look like, right? One year from now, two years from now, at exit, at transition, right? So um I want to know how you want to spend your time, how you want to generate revenue, uh, how you want your relationships to look like, uh, your professional relationships to look like. So paint that picture for me. That is the goal. That's the target, that's the bullseye. The three questions after that are dangers, opportunities, strengths. Dangers. What are getting what's getting in the way of that vision? Right? Uh, what are the obstacles? What are your limitations? Right. So we list those out. Next, opportunities. Oh. What is out there that can get you there, but that you're not grabbing, that you're not exploiting? Okay. Um, so those are your opportunities and S is strengths or superpowers. Uh, what are you best at? What can you leverage to get to your goal? And once you have those four data points, Tyler, then you have, I believe, the algorithm for achieving your goals by eliminating your dangers, exploiting your opportunities, and leveraging your strengths. And so you then build from there a strategy for um basically reverse engineering your ideal outcome based on those three types of actions. Also, more things I learned from uh the the just the best coach I think I I've ever had, uh, Dan, um, he taught me those four elements, and I've used them with clients, I've used that uh of the law firm, uh, I use it with clients of Exit Path. It's just, I use it for myself, right? In December, when I plan my next year, right? Where do I want to be a year from now? What do I want that to look like? And then what are the dangers, opportunities, and strengths that I need to break through to solve for that?

SPEAKER_00:

It's so powerful. And step one in deciding what you want to do, whether it's expand your firm, grow your firm, shrink your firm, sell your firm, is have a vision. Understand what you want. What's your north star? Why are you doing this in the first place?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, you know, and it's interesting too. There's a really great uh book that I recommend to all entrepreneurs. It's called The The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham. So good. You love it, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh. Yes, one of my favorite books of all time. Yeah. Oh. Especially with the audio version, because you get a little flavor from the author.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, dude, it's so good, man. Um, I'm I I know I I can I can infer a lot about you, Tyler, by the fact that you love that book. The reason it um informs this process, that the that four element process is um once you know where you're trying to go, um, the next question is, where are you now? Right? If if you know what there looks like, what does here look like? And Keith says, that's the hardest question, right? We can all dream big, but we all, when we imagine when we think about where we are right now, we all have blinders on. We think that um, you know, uh we have problems over here while there are problems over here. You know, we think uh, you know, that that we're well on our way to achieving our goals, but we're not looking at these numbers over here, right? And so that's that's where I go next, right? Once you figure out the there, get really aggressive and objective and skeptical and intense about where you are right now, you know. Um, so yeah, yeah. Um that dude knows his stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, Alex, there have been so many great nuggets that you've dropped on us today. I think we could do this for another hour. So we're gonna have to have you come back uh because there's lots of gold in these conversations. I just appreciate your time. I appreciate your wisdom. Uh, a huge advocate of being able to expand your businesses and and delegate it and move forward so that you can follow your passions. Because ultimately that's what's going to lead to the most successful business outcomes.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. Yeah, Tyler. Thanks. This has been really fun. I really appreciate you uh asking me to join your your podcast. It's awesome. I love what you're doing, man.

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Jeff Hughes

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