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 $20M with 30 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.
Law firm profitability in the US isn't about billing more hours—here's what actually built an 8-attorney family law firm.
Michael Gjesdahl realized that raising your hourly rate keeps shrinking your market. He shared how he scaled without pricing himself out in this episode.
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.
Law Firm Profitability: Building An 8-Attorney Firm In A 200K Market
The Inflection Point: Why He Picked A Lane In Family Law
How Mentorship Accelerates A Young Attorney's Growth
The First Hire That Doubles Your Firm—The Scariest Leap
The Marketing Regret That Slowed His Growth
Billable Hour Vs Flat Fee: The Next Profitability Hill
when you bring somebody on, you need to take care that person. You need to pay attention. You can't delegate, set it and forget it. It's not one of those deals. You better very well involved, both in the instructions that you give and the follow Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show. The podcast, designed to help family attorneys build the firm of their dreams. My name is Tyler Dolph. I am your host as well as the CEO of our family law firm only marketing consultancy called Rocket Clicks that was born out of our very own family law firm, Sterling Lawyers, that has grown to over 27 attorneys. Today we continue our owner operator series, and we have a friend of the show as well as a client of Rocket Clicks, Michael Gjesdahl of Gjesdahl Law in Fargo, North Dakota. He has an eight attorney firm. Michael, thank you so much for your time today. so this episode might sound a little bit different because we actually know each other quite well. But Michael, for for those of us that don't know you. Would you please introduce yourself and your firm to our lovely audience? Well, good to see you first of all. Yeah. My practice is located on the border of North Dakota and Minnesota. We're in Fargo-Moorhead, which is a market of about 200,000 people. So I guess I regard it as sort of a mid-sized market sounded or surrounded by a lot of rural. And I think my practice is uncommon in a market like this and that it's presently eight attorneys, all of whom practice exclusively family law. You know, we have friends down in Minneapolis, which is about three hours away from us. And I, I look around at that market and I do not see other eight attorney firms. So I'm sort of proud that we've grown to to that size. Family law for us is, is, you know, broad spectrum adoption. We do. We're one of two, two firms in the state that handles assisted reproductive technology cases. And of course, the bulk of our work is divorces of every stripe. We will represent people from the deepest, darkest recess of the trailer park. And we have the wealthiest people in the state of North Dakota. And little known fact, there's plenty of wealth in North Dakota with the oil fields and the farm. Every farm divorces 10 to $15 million. And we're we're the firm that those folks come, come to see. I love it, Michael. How did you get your start? Why? Why North Dakota? Why? Family law. Give us some backstory. Well, I was born and raised right along the borderline of Minnesota and North Dakota. So this is home territory that probably explains more than any other reason why I'm here. Why family law? It wasn't intentional. It was more desperation than anything else. Fresh out of law school, I. Well, while I was in law school, I clerked in a downtown L.A. products liability firm. Wonderful experience for a small town I was going to say going to LA. And then fresh out of law school, I went to San Francisco and worked in a medical malpractice, mostly defense firm during the Aids years. And so it was medical products cases involving the makers of a product that Hemophiliacs used for clotting purposes. And so it was the height of the Aids litigation, which is now ancient history. But at the time sort of went by, it was time to come home, had some family issues that had cancer, and it just seemed like God was saying, go home, it's time to go home. So came back and threw out a shingle and I did anything and everything that came my way. As it turns out, I like to buy groceries and eat. And so if it came to the door, that's that's what I. That's the kind of attorney I was. And after a couple of years went by, I just noticed that my cabinet was full of divorce cases. So it's not that I intentionally became a divorce attorney or family law attorney. It sort of happened. And and as it turns out, it was I think there might have been a little bit of faith that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. so good. I love it. Was there a inflection point? You know, you had started your firm. You were doing everything for everyone to pay the bills, which is totally understandable. Was there a moment when you said, okay, I'm going to double down and I'm going to go exclusively family, I'm going to change my website or change the narrative. Like, do you remember? Do you recall? Like, was there a pivotal moment or was it it happened over a series of Well, I'm going to tell you, Tyler, that I've been doing this long enough that I was pre website, you That's right. Yeah, sure. it wasn't a computer world. It was a book world. And so my inflection point sort of coincided with very early websites, early cheesy, poorly done cheaply manufactured websites. So I had I had one of one of those, but it was still a Yellow Pages world, which, you know, to somebody starting a firm today just isn't going to relate to that origin story very well. But but there was a time where I just decided I'm going to commit, I'm going to pick a lane instead of being a generalist. And you know, where you're jack of all trades and master of none. I was in an office share arrangement, and the people that I was with, they were the kinds of people who were doing everything and really mastered nothing. And so early on, I decided, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to develop a depth of expertise and focus on excellence as best I could. And in those early years, it was really hard because, you know, I didn't have a mentor. So looking back on those days, I learned lessons the, the hard way. And. The application is that today I don't want my, my associates to to learn by mistakes. I want them to be well mentored and have the benefit of borrowed wisdom as much as they can. And so I think by having a mentor, you can sort of accelerate your learning curve. I will tell you that it is not hard after you've developed some experience to identify in your opponent, whether they are a mentored attorney or an mentored attorney, it is apparent, and judges will will say the same thing, that they they can easily spot the people who have somebody to to lean on and learn from, and the others who are just out there floundering and on their own. It is that obvious. What do you what do you believe the power of a mentor does? And why should someone. Why should a young attorney think about getting a mentor right now? I don't know if this is the most direct answer to your your question, but I have a son in law, for example, who is in his residency right now down at at Mayo. And I look at the, the, the, the learning model that the medical industry provides and always has, you know, there's a couple of years of intense classroom learning. And then very quickly, the the medical model is to put people into a practical I mean, they're in clinics and practices and hospitals and for years they are out with in a real life environment learning their their craft. And it's sort of the old school. If you went back to the 1700s and you were a candle maker, you know, you would sit with an experienced candle maker and you learn how to make candles. But that's that is not our, our model. You know, we go through our, our classroom learning and then we are released into the wilds and, and, you know, every, every law school graduate passes the bar and then they start their practice and they have that epiphany that, holy smokes, I don't I don't know as much as I thought I knew. So I don't know, I think we're sort of missing out a little bit on that experience passing of of wisdom. A lot of other industries take advantage of. I have to believe that your time in LA, in San Francisco gave you some context before you ended up starting your own firm. It. Maybe not in the way that you think, but I worked in LA and a pretty big firm. It was 60 attorneys or so, and the one in San Francisco was 15 to 20. So in from a Fargo, North Dakota perspective, those were big, big firms. And those environments, they were maybe boutique. But your early lessons are ingrained and stick with you. And so all I knew was how to practice in a firm that had sort of big, big firm formalities, procedural formalities. And I think today that's one of the things that has always set me apart. Even when I was a solo, I practiced a model that reflected more of a big, firm approach than a small town approach. And there is a difference. So I've always respected the formalities that big firms have learned. So you were solo, doing everything to anything that would come in the door. You then decided to pivot and say, okay, I'm going to focus on family law. At what point did you end up hiring your first attorney, and what was that experience like going from kind of a me leader to having to duplicate yourself and become more of a we leader? Again, I was in a just because it was the cheapest, easiest way to get underway. I joined in an office share and the other five attorneys in the group didn't did not have a growth mindset. They were just guys who sort of kept their heads down, and they did the daily grind of practicing law, and they weren't thinking about growth. I don't think I'd even practice a year before I, I'll say, hired my first half time paralegal, and that was a big stretch to have a half time and went from there. I was probably a couple of years in before I hired another attorney, and I always think of of that leap as like a single cell organism, you know, doubling. So your first hire is a oh, boy, it's a it's a big reach when you're doubling the size of your firm. That's a hard leap today with, you know, with eight attorneys, I can bring on a ninth and hardly, hardly notice it. It's hardly a blip on the bottom line. But that first big leap is a hard one to to make, you know, and you can do it in different ways. You could do it as a hire or maybe easier to do as a partnering, but that comes with a different, different set of issues. When your partner, you're you're marrying, That's right. Yeah. You're signed up for forever. That's right. So what did you learn in those early days of of having to delegate and build process that didn't involve you having to do everything? You know, one of my favorite words or overused words is intentionality or being intentional. And so when you bring somebody on, you need to take care of that, that person. You need to pay attention. You can't just delegate, set it and forget it. It's not one of those deals. You better be very well involved, both in the instructions that you give and the follow up. I think aligning in values is something that I may have missed in the early years, and I have learned over the course of time that to there's. There's something to the cadence that you derive from values and an alignment and just the sinking up with somebody. That eliminates a lot of problems. And I wish I had had that understanding much, much sooner. And a little bit of that is knowing yourself, knowing who you are. It involves some introspection and examination. In recent years, we've been able to hire leadership mentors who come in and have helped us understand ourselves more than I was able to at a younger juncture. But even without the the resources to hire somebody like that, you can just give it some thought. And it is worth the thought that you give to to just know, am I, am I? For example. Am I just in this for the money? Do I do I want to make all of my decisions with that as my my lead thought, or am I missional? Am I doing this for the betterment of humanity and for the the feeling that it gives my heart? And that's a pretty easy question to ask yourself and find direction in. so good. We talk about we use the term shared fate a lot around here. We we we attended to more of a sports analogy, right? If everyone is aligned on winning the championship this year, then every piece of feedback we give each other, as long as we all understand that we're trying to get to the championship, then the feedback isn't personal. It's in an effort to help us get better so we can we can get to the playoffs and go to the championship. And having that shift or that lens has really helped our team grow with each other, because now we have this shared fate. We're all in it together. Yeah, I just a a believer and a strategic plan and a vision and values and the things that you, you read about and in leadership books and you can and you can sort of slough them off, that just is, you know, I don't know if that really matters to to me, but believe me, it does. 100%, I totally agree. So you went from hiring your first part time associate, doubling your firm, you know, to now having eight attorneys, which is amazing growth for where you are and the focus firm that you have. Or there a few things that you've learned along the way that have really helped you take that that leap, you know, to go from a single to two attorneys, three attorneys now to eight. What do you think has allowed you to be successful? My very sort of blinder kind of focus when I go back to, to my origins was I just want to be the best at this. I just want to be the best. I want to be the best. And so my focus was was very narrow. Just learn, learn my craft and and do this job the best that I, I can. I wasn't really marketing that intensely or well. My thought was just, you know, if you do it well, they will come kind of. And it worked over time. But I think a more intentional marketing approach would have been an accelerant that, in retrospect, would have helped my growth happen faster. Not that I don't really have any regrets for, you know, I've been at this now for 36 years, so it's taken 36 years to go from one to to eight, and that's just fine. But it could have been faster if that had been a goal of mine. It's really been more evolutionary that, you know, as as people have come, as the business has come, I've grown with it. So yeah, it's been more evolutionary than intentional, my growth. But I always have had a growth mindset. So the guys that I was in with 36 years ago, those five guys, they not one of them ever took on an associate or ever a partner. They were the kinds of attorneys that just showed up. They had some cases, they worked their cases. And that's that's where their focus was. They never wanted to to to grow. I've always wanted to to grow. I still want to grow. You know, in ten years, I hope my firm is Yes. Yeah. I was going to say as we're closing up, tell us about the future. But that's I mean, you said it, right. It's continuing to double down on what's working and and continue to grow your firm, which is awesome. Where I think we're going and I think we're probably late to the party, is that my firm is still a billable our firm, and we haven't jumped on the flat fee approach yet. So I think that's the next hill that we need to to climb. And I think if we can, you know, crack the code of flat, flat fee, profitable flat fee. Practice, I think that's going to really fuel the fuel, our growth. I think that's where where we're going to be heading and, and where the demographics of our industry are heading. It's harder and harder for people to afford us. And so my model really points me towards a smaller and smaller segment of the market. As my hourly rate increases, there are a few people, fewer and fewer people who can afford us. So I think a family law practice needs to to get on the bandwagon with flat fee billing. I'll tell you, we at rocket Clicks and since we have Sterling and built flat fee there, we've worked with a few billable our firms to help them institute flat fee and the amount of changes required is is surprising to them because everything in your firm has to change the way you talk to people, the way you do intake, the way you sell, the the way you manage the case. Everything is built on efficiency to do it right. And so yeah, I would love to to continue that conversation as you go through that journey and, and watch, watch the evolution continue. It's intimidating because flat fee doesn't really fit our our values so much that, you know, we we have concerns that it's sort of a mill approach where you're just, you know, pumping them through as fast as you can, which is not necessarily our identity, but our hope is that it doesn't sort of overtake our entire culture, that we can fold it into who we are. Sure. I love that. Thanks. I really appreciate your time today, your story, your insights. Wishing you all the best and I look forward to seeing you Yeah. It's good to see you. Take care.
