Dollars and Defense: A Conversation with Douglas Richards

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Linda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Steven Libhart.

Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. And this week we have a special guest. We're calling this one Dollars in Defense. And we have a special guest that's actually Steve's, one of Steve's clients. And it's Doug Richards. So I'm going to let Steve give you an intro, and then you can tell us about yourself too, Doug.

Well, thanks, Linda. And welcome, Doug. We're so So happy to have you here. Actually, Doug's not a client these days, but he and I cross paths all the time. And, you know, he'll call me up for advice or we just talk or whatever. But we go way back, probably 10 or 15 years now. I don't know. Yeah, we do. When Doug moved here to Colorado from Houston, right? It was Houston.

It was Del Rio, Houston before that. But, yeah, Texas.

Yeah.

From Texas to Colorado. And we crossed paths at the Colorado Bar Association. And I helped Doug get his new law firm set up. And I have been so proud of him over all these years because now he owns his building. He's got this incredibly prosperous and very well-run business in criminal defense. And it's such a unique practice of law that I thought Doug would be perfect to tell us all about all the nuances of it. And he's an incredible businessperson. He really is all about the numbers, perfect fit for this podcast. So, welcome, Doug.

Well, thanks, Steve, and thanks for having me, everyone. And thanks for those nice things that you've said. I do remember the day that we met. It was at this Hanging Your Shingle event for all like new lawyers in Colorado. And you gave this speech about trust accounts and it scared the crap out of me.

Yay, I did my job.

I realized I needed someone helping me to make sure that I wasn't getting in my own way. So, yeah.

Well, you know, Doug was sitting in this little tiny office in this, this high-rise downtown in downtown Denver. And I can remember on Saturday, a couple Saturday mornings, I came down there and the building's empty and I came to your office and we worked on setting up your trust accounts and all those things and just became friends over these years. And I've really just— it's been such a pleasure to watch you grow. You've just— you should be so proud.

Well, thank you. Yeah, it's been a lot of work, but it's been fun. It's really fun.

I have to say, the funny— do you see this? And I honestly, I see it with our own clients. They go through the mandatory requirement of any sort of change or update, and they come back and I'm like, why are you questioning things at this level? What happened? I took this class. Now they're terrified. I'm like, the cliff, we just haven't fallen off, guys. But it's very confirming of how to handle those dollars and why it means so much to us. So I love that that's the beginning of your relationship, really. It's like, all right, I'm going to get you set up right.

That's your goal.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was nice because like from the very start my books were very clean and, um, you know, I knew where every dollar was going. And it was important because when I was getting started, I didn't have anything. I was leaving, I'd left the government, so I didn't, I didn't have like really any savings at that time. And so I had to slowly add expenses. So once I started, my goal was to just get one client per month. And that was my goal. It's just let's get one a month and see how we go. And then kind of operating like on a shoestring budget, really. And then I'd add an expense. Okay, well, this month I think I'll add parking, and then next month I'll add Westlaw, and then the following month I just kept adding expenses as I felt I was ready to do it. And, um, yeah, now we have a lot of expenses.

Yeah, I imagine you own it. Congratulations on owning a building. And what a great start to your path. I know as business owners, I think we all probably had that little, okay, we're going to start here and the essential business expenses. I like that.

Add a client a month. It kind of sounds manageable. Did you have all your accounting in like a QuickBooks or did you start with the old side spreadsheet that a lot of the attorneys start with?

It was all in QuickBooks.

Yeah. We jumped right into QuickBooks Desktop.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Way back when.

Yeah, Steve would log into my computer using, uh, like Go to My PC. And, you know, I would come in, you know, some mornings because Steve would wake up and he would work really early, like hours. And so I'd come in and my computer would just be running and there's mouse going on in the background. And, you know, so, you know, it was just nice and it was very convenient to have Steve there. And, um, I mean, I also remember you know, spending hours at the end of the year trying to figure out deposits because I was good but not great about tracking how I was doing deposits. And sometimes I didn't, you know, totally account for where some money was going. And we would—

I remember that.

We would do these forensic reviews. I mean, it was a full-on, like, like almost like a criminal forensic review of my accounts. Trying to figure out like where these, where this like $5.86 came from and where did it go to. And we always unwound it. It was, it was fun to do, but it took hours.

Thank you for validating us because we seem like we're crazy and we're not.

No, it's, I mean, it was like you only have to do that once to then be like, okay, I'm gonna take a picture or, you know, scan in every single deposit slip and every check that's going in with it. So, because there's so much happening, and especially when you're on your own. I'm lucky enough now to have, you know, people that work for me, but I didn't then. It was just me. And so, you know, I had to learn how to do everything. I had to wear all that.

Mm-hmm.

And it wasn't until the end of 2015 that my law partner and I decided to open our practice, which we flipped the switch on in January of 2016. And so, that's just been been a game changer for us, both of us. Yeah. And we, in terms of the building, a couple of years ago we were officing with other law firms and paying rent, paying somebody else's mortgage. And we were looking for space because we needed to move. And I just started looking on LoopNet and thinking, we're going to kick ourselves if in 20 years we've just been paying rent to help somebody else, you know, make, you know, make their mortgage. So, it was really easy to do actually with the SBA and with our bank who we had a really good relationship. We still do have a really good relationship with. And I mean—

Because you had all the tools in place, all the financial tools in place to make it happen. Yeah. Yeah.

It was simple and we just did it. And I mean, we were at closing and, you know, we were giving our guarantees to pay and, you know, they're like, do you promise to pay? Yes. And then they gave us the key to a building and we look at each other like, all right, here we go. But it's been fun. It's been great to have our own space. And awesome. You know, we've, we've, we've got a lot of people here now. We've renovated the basement into— it was just storage and we totally renovated it, added HVAC and turned it into a mock trial room. So before I do a lot of trials—

How cool is that?

Yes, I do a lot of trials. So before every trial, we do mock trials down there. We bring in people from outside to, to, you know, do the focus group. And so it's really, for us, it's just, it's become home.

That's awesome.

It's so cool. I have a dear friend that is actually, um, she actually helps facilitate. She's not an attorney, but she's on the psychology side. She helps facilitate this style of the month because it is so intense. Your, your area of expertise, your practice areas.

It's hard. Yeah. And I mean, I've done it both ways where I've had a consultant and I've done it solo and I can do it pretty cheap by doing it solo. And so, you know, for clients that don't have a lot of money, that we're not some sort of blue-chip company that, you know, they can't spend $500,000 doing a mock trial exercise, you know, I can do it for about $1,000.

Wow.

Yeah, it's really— but, you know, I mean, the data is different, but it's, you know, I know what I'm looking for at that point, like what issues I want to test.

Yeah. That's pretty cool.

Could we talk about some of the specialty things that come with your type of law that you practice? What's unique about it? And where do the clients come from? And how do you handle retainers versus no retainers and all of that in the accounting flow?

So, I spent the first part of my career as a prosecutor. So, I was a state prosecutor in Houston, Harris County. Texas. And I did every kind of case there from little misdemeanors all the way up to, you know, murders. And so, then I left the DA's office and went to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Texas. So, I was a federal prosecutor and did all kinds of crimes related to federal jurisdiction. And so, that background, when I left, that kind of background brought in a lot of very diverse clients. So, I have clients that were just you know, with kind of your standard, you know, kind of violent crime that you might see in a state court. And then, you know, a lot of like so-called white-collar crime fraud that was in federal court that was coming to me as well. I had to learn very quickly what— and I learned the hard way about my time and how much time I was putting into cases and how much I was charging people for their retainers. And, you know, you learn pretty quickly that, you know, your client needs you at, like, at the very beginning of the case, and you have to really have a good assessment of what is it going to cost. And you have to be able to figure out not just your time, but maybe your staff and expenses that are going to come along the way and try to gauge as best as possible and try to get as much as possible as you can upfront or some sort of a commitment through a guarantor. Because, you know, they, you know, once, once you're on the case, sometimes clients kind of forget that they need to keep putting gas in the tank.

Yeah.

So, you know, that's, that has been something that is, I don't think any lawyer ever truly figures that out. You know, unless you've got corporate clients, I guess. But if you're dealing with individuals, You know, people don't have a lot of, you know, they don't have this kind of money just laying around when, you know, if somebody comes at you and you shoot and kill them and it's self-defense, you weren't planning on having to spend $500,000 on a legal defense at that moment. Who does that?

Yeah.

So, you know, there's— so you have to kind of understand how to work with clients, maybe get creative. in how you secure financing or, you know, secure their fee agreement through perhaps a deed of trust sometimes. You know, when you do that, I always bring in outside lawyers, make sure the client gets their own lawyer because there's all kinds of ethical issues that go into it. But, you know, at the end of the day, there's this tension because, you know, we're here trying to protect and save lives. And on the other hand, you, you know, you need to make sure you're you know, you're running the business. I mean, it's really no different than a hospital if you think about it. I mean, the big difference is that the surgeon doesn't turn you away if you don't have the money. I mean, for elective surgeries, sure. But like, you know, but if you are, if you show up with a gunshot wound, they're going to take care of you and they'll figure it out sometime down the road, maybe never, on how they're going to get paid. And, you know, but hospitals are different than like a small law firm like us.

Yeah. Wow.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Most people come to you, they're in crisis, right? So you have to— I'm sure you take credit cards, I'm assuming.

Totally. Yeah, they are definitely— you know, when I connect with people, it's usually, you know, on the worst day of their life or close to it. And, um, you know, trying to help them understand what's happening, what's going to happen, you know, that's, that's a unique part about doing criminal defense is that You know, you are dealing with somebody's liberty. And, you know, we really do not do a lot of misdemeanors. Our practice is a lot of mostly felonies. And so people are looking at, especially when we are talking about like a homicide case, you know, or shooting, where, you know, they are looking at mandatory prison time. So there is added stress versus, you know, when people are fighting over money or property or that kind of thing. So there is this added pressure on the client. And you try to help make sure that they feel present and heard in the process. But I'm not there. I mean, there's the attorney and counselor title, but they learn pretty quickly that I can't be their counselor or their therapist because they run out of their retainer.

Right.

Yeah, I imagine like that, that is such a fine line of, of distinction for that person. I, I'm just kind of envisioning how that, like, you go from everyday life, like you said, you had to defend yourself in this moment of time, to now you're at this new, like, it's like diving off the board of something. Like, there's like a whole new land.

Totally. Yeah. And sometimes I have clients who, you know, they come to me and they're like, I did it, you know, or just help me get through this and help me land softly. And, you know, and we try to do that. And then sometimes, you know, I've got clients who say, I didn't do it. And, you know, they got the wrong person or, you know, all those things. You know, you, regardless of what category they fall into, a lot of times family members aren't really sure how to react.

Mm-hmm.

They want to believe their family member, but sometimes they're suspicious. And so there's that tension. So yeah, it's— it can be tricky, you know.

Linda, doesn't it remind you a bit of the onstage moment at ClioCon when this really amazing case came forth and he ended up being— it's that group that helps free a lot of people that have been— I forget the name of the Innocent Project.

Oh, the Innocence Project. Yeah.

Yeah. So that— and there were attorneys in the audience that were like, similar to what you just said, how do you discern? You have a barometer in which you kind of feel like you're being presented facts that you're like, I can probably figure this out, or not figure it out, but like understand, like, are you, are you really in trouble? Did you really do this or did you not do this? And sometimes you just don't know and you have to go down that road and what that looks like.

So— No, totally. And then I have clients who, you know, everyone wants me to believe in them too, right? Especially the clients that are innocent. Um, you know, they, they want to convince me of their innocence. And, you know, I, I try to tell them, like, that's literally, like, the least relevant thing that you and I will ever talk about.

Right.

Um, the only thing that matters to me is whether or not there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that, you know, that they can bring, that, that, you know, that they can prove that you're guilty. And Is that proof, you know, something that they, that they obtained legally? You know, did they cut corners? Did they, you know, are they lying? Did they, you know, all those sorts of things, um, you know, those are— that all comes into our analysis. But whether somebody did it or didn't do it really isn't relevant to what I do.

Yeah, that's very interesting. And so here, here you have this side of your life, and you're obviously very good at it, or you wouldn't be where you are today. Something to be very proud of. And so, how do you— let's talk about the business side now. So, here you're off doing all these things with all of these clients, and you shared with me the other day, and of course, if you don't want to bring that up on the screen, that's totally fine, but maybe describe it. You really impressed me with how you're keeping track of your numbers and how your team reviews them together and how you have those key performance indicators all in place and you can monitor what's going on in the business. And what that means to you for cash flow.

Wow.

Sure. I mean, I think everyone suffers from imposter syndrome. I mean, you always feel that way and you find validation that things are working. And what I have found works for me is by surrounding myself with professionals and asking questions and getting a lot of information, especially on things that I don't understand. And I've never been good with numbers or math. I mean, it's embarrassing, frankly, simple math. I'm just not good at. And so, you know, so I've always leaned on people for help. And so, we— what I— one of the things that helps me sleep at night is, you know, understanding the data and knowing where we're coming from and where we're going. And so, we do a monthly meeting and it's a mandatory meeting that we do. So, it's me and my law partner and our controller, and then we've got some other people that consult with us as well. And they attend either the whole meeting or parts of it. But it is very, Some of it's high level where we're talking about bank balances, but a lot of it is getting really deep in the weeds in terms of our cash burn analysis so that, you know, if we didn't have another dollar coming into the firm starting today, how long can we continue paying salaries and rent and all of those things?

So smart.

We have— we've analyzed all of our attorneys. You know, we have a billable requirement for every year. And so, we can understand how profitable an attorney is. So we— it really helps us understand when, you know, understanding if the attorney is overwhelmed and working too much, or maybe they're taking a little bit too much time off. We can figure out who's profitable, who's not, and then break that down even further and look at if there's an attorney who's being— who's really profitable at a moment, start looking at their caseload and understand either the type of case or the client that they're working with. And maybe that's an area we need to focus a little bit more attention on and, you know, seek those kinds of cases. I mean, I do criminal defense and my law partner does all civil litigation. So we only do litigation at this law firm. So, you know, between the 2 areas, it's been fun to learn about how, you know, the accounting practices apply to each. But it's pretty universal in terms of, you know, the way that we have found that, at least for us, that works the best is through an hourly model, not a flat fee. For criminal, the only cases that we do on a flat fee anymore are DUIs, and it's pretty rare that we would do a DUI. It's usually only for a favor, but we do a DUI just because— we do it on DUIs just because it's pretty standard in Colorado that lawyers are doing flat fees on DUIs, so it's just easier to do. But for every other case, we do hourly, and I've found that it it makes a lot of difference for us because we get compensated for the amount of work that we're doing. And then we don't get some sort of windfall by coming in and getting a case dismissed. You know, early in my career, I did a flat fee on a first-degree— basically an attempted murder with a shooting. And I got— you know, I took a flat fee. It was a large fee. And I got the case dismissed really early on. And You know, I had a conversation with a client about returning funds, and they were so elated. They didn't even cross their mind. And they wanted, you know, they said, you earned it. You know, you got me my life back, which is fine. Great. But I still ended up getting paid, you know, a lot more than I would have been paid by the, you know, by the hour.

Yeah.

So, I've just found that it makes a lot more sense to bill that way. It helps us with projecting for, you know, future expenses, especially when it comes to our building, you know, that sort of thing. You know, we do a— we pull money aside and we budget for not just building expenses but firm expenses. So, you know, we do— we pull money aside every single month for bonuses. And we have like a whole account that we have, we call it our slush fund account, so that at the end of the year we have a fortune or small fortune in there.

Very smart.

Just for bonuses. So, bonuses don't ever hit our operating account and you can truly be really generous with your employees at the end of the year. And I always look at bonuses as, you know, facing in the rear because I know some lawyers don't like to give bonuses that are really large because they're like, well, you know, You know, people are thinking about leaving, they'll take the bonus and they're going to run and they're going to go. And I just—

That happens a lot.

I think you'll cripple yourself doing that. And I think you're going to end up getting— you're going to have employees that resent you because you're holding on to the money and not giving it to the employees. So, we've always bonused very heavy, especially at the end of the year. I mean, during COVID we were issuing bonuses to employees while other law firms were laying people off. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we just we've been very good about planning and budgeting, and it really doesn't cost that much money to do. I mean, you know, if you're a small firm and you want to have, you know, a bookkeeper, an external bookkeeper, it doesn't cost that much money to do by any means. And then as you get larger, you start to realize that you need somebody in-house just to talk to about, you know, financial planning or, you know, should we pay this invoice? Is this one good to go out? Those sorts of things. And those are fluid conversations that you want to have. And, you know, You know, you, you like, you realize when you are at that size, you know, there's not like a, there's not a, you know, oh, I'll do it when I'm, you know, 6 months or 12 months in. Like, you'll realize I need somebody here. And then again, it's just a, it's another salary. Now for us, it's a, it's a non-timekeeper. So, you know, all of our timekeepers, you know, I can really quickly figure out where our break-even point is. You know, I, I take their salary and I divide it by their hourly rate that we're billing them out at. Whatever that is, is the amount of hours they need to work before I start to break even. And I can, you know, it's really easy to start figuring that out where the profit is. And so for a non-timekeeper, like a bookkeeper or an HR person, all those things, it's hard to stomach that expense the first time. But then you just, it's like everything else. It was just like parking, Westlaw, all those other expenses. It's just another expense you add on and you're like, I couldn't imagine life without it.

And you have a billing software that you use, right, to track your hours?

Yeah, so we use Clio. Um, yeah, we've been using Clio for a long time, and, um, I really like it. I, to be honest, I don't know how to use it. Um, so when I was working with Steve, I knew, I mean, all the ins and outs of QuickBooks, and which has been actually really helpful.

Um, it's served you well.

Yeah, it's been helpful for my practice as well, because when I have a client who's like being charged with a fraud case And, you know, I kind of, I know my way around QuickBooks enough. I know enough to be dangerous, but I can get my way around. But with Clio, I really don't know like all the backend stuff like my paralegals do. And, you know, our controller, they know how to do all these reports that I don't know how to do, but I've seen 'em and they're fabulous and it's a great software and it's very easy to use. And we use LawPay.

Mm-hmm.

which is their credit card processing. So it's all integrated so that it's very simple for the client just to, you know, click a link and, you know, make a payment. So I found it to be really seamless. It's one of these things where like the business kind of is running itself in that way. And, you know, I just, I get these emails that, you know, payment was processed and the payment's available and sounds good to me.

Yeah.

So you mentioned the word budgeting and do you guys actually sit Do you sit down and do an annual budget and then monitor that throughout the year? And if you do, when do you do that?

Next question. We haven't done that. Yeah, at least I don't think we've done that before. We come up with an annual budget. Part of the problem is that I don't have any guaranteed income. So, we'll have cases that, and we do track. year over year and month over month track in like, um, history. It's really interesting to try to like predict why some months it spikes up and some months it goes down, or some years we have a banner year and some years we don't, or it's just like, you know, right off. Um, or like if, if, you know, if we're watching the, you know, if we're charting it over the year, why all of a sudden they, you know, they come back together. It's really hard to say because You know, our business is sporadic. You know, people come in and they hire us when they need us. And it's not like I'm selling a widget and I can plan on how many widgets do we sell every year. Some years, you know, we have, you know, an amazing client with a, you know, with a really serious case. And then some years, you know, we have a really serious case and a client who starts accruing AR. that we start getting like a year later, that money. So it's, I think that may be why we haven't done that kind of budgeting. It's a good question. Yeah.

I don't think, I mean, sometimes budgets make sense, but some people get so attached to wanting to do them and then make them these guides. And I'm like, no, the livability, like you're saying, what happens in that moment? So those snapshot windows, and I think the way that you're describing it, It's kind of how I even think, all right, I have a barometer. I instinctively know what this is going to do based on what I see right now. Like, you know, the caseloads, like right now you can know. And then you have— I think what you're doing is a smarter element to look, we're going to tell the cash where it's going to go so that we can meet these criteria for ourselves.

Right.

And I feel like that's a smarter way in a digestible way to managing a firm's money, we are finding that a lot of firms like yourselves in the, in the market of, you know, boutique, mid-market, those kind, they're looking for this outside lens to validate because there's been so much of an uptick of, you know, are my numbers actually right? Am I— do these actually tie out? Do I have this level of oversight happening because we're running into this of embezzlement.

Mm-hmm.

We're seeing that quite a bit. So it's interesting because there needs to be a good balance, I feel like. And you, you laid this out so, so well in the sense of like how you would do this from the scale that you started to where you are. And I really feel like people need to really rethink numbers. We often see Okay, it's year end, like, clear everything out. There's nothing left. All right, what happens on January when you pay all that crap again? You have a lot of things. It's not, it's not viable. You need to plan accordingly. And I like what you're doing. You're doing it in a way that meets your needs as, as a firm. And as you know, you have a business partner, you said, and, and you're inviting in a conversation So it seems like the firm is accountable. It's not just the owners. There's like an accountability with each other.

We're certainly not winging it. And, and there's a lot— we're, we're looking at the business through all of these different angles. And, and I think that's probably what has made it so that we didn't need to do a budget, I suppose. But like I was saying, for us, it really doesn't work for our type of practice. I think that's, that's all I'd say about that.

Yeah.

I have to, I have to wonder, do you, do you, do you have a marketing arm or how do your, how do your clients find you?

Yeah.

What's the cost of bringing them into the, into the fold there?

So, yeah. So, we have, we've kind of struggled with this. I think everyone does. So, we, I've got a website and that has really been a great source of business for us. And You know, the guy that does my website, he's been doing it since I started. We went to college together. And so he's got a, you know, while I was going to law school, he was actually working, getting a background in doing this for other law firms. So when I started my practice, I started getting cases right away. And I was actually even hired on a murder case 3 months after I moved to Colorado. You know, it was all off of the website. We have— we get a lot of business through word of mouth, just other lawyers referring us cases. So that a lot of that, a lot of business comes in that way, especially for my law partner. That's where a lot of his practice comes from. We've used like PR companies and marketing companies in the past, but I find it to be— so far I've found it to be a waste of money. I just, I haven't been able to sort of track like the money we're putting into any specific case. And the marketing companies, you know, there's a lot of kind of, you know, razzle-dazzle, especially when it comes to getting the invoices from them. And they're like, look at all these things we did. And, you know, I'm thinking, okay, well, you got me quoted in the Kalamazoo Press, but I don't take cases in Michigan, you know?

Right.

So I don't care. So I need to figure out, like, nothing against Kalamazoo, but just saying, like, I, it, you know, Well, you know, making it relevant to us has been difficult for us to find like real value in it. And every time we've had another call with somebody that wants to, you know, be our marketing or PR person, I just, I kind of listen to them and I ask questions, but it, it's all to me feels the same. I think the way that you would do it is, you know, if you had somebody in-house that was really managing your social media, Correct.

Yeah.

That kind of engagement, I think, would be the better person, and that would be a better use of money. You know, we were spending, I think, $5,000 a month, and we were like a nobody client to this company, and they were fabulous, and they had big, you know, law firms. But, you know, we just— it just didn't make sense for us to spend that kind of money for marketing. You know, there's lawyers here in Denver that are especially PI lawyers that spend millions of dollars every month You know, on their marketing and it's such a big—

Billboards everywhere and—

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I saw one last night. I don't want to say the lawyer's name, but as I was coming into downtown, he was advertising. It was like a perfectly placed billboard right as you come into downtown for people that are in Ubers telling you that most of the rideshares have a million-dollar policy, you know? And so, like, yeah, it's just a reminder, like, if you get hurt in a rideshare, Call me. You know, there's $1 million out there for you. Holy cow.

Yeah.

Yeah. So if you're coming in on 25 and you take Aurora, it's on—

I'll be— I'll watch for it.

It's on the right. You'll see it. You'll know. You'll know the lawyer too.

You'll have to take a picture and send it to Linda.

Yeah, I know.

Right.

Send it to Tia. Yeah.

Linda, that's your area for sure, is marketing.

Yeah. Well, I agree with the in-house because sometimes we look at how we would do it ourselves and it's outside and give it to somebody else, but they don't know what's up here and what we would want. So we just kind of keep it in-house. And yeah, there is Sarah on the internet, as you know, on social, because she stays off of social, but now she's a social butterfly because Tierra is in the background being her. So that way we get our name out there because we have to. But, um, yeah. And we're— you're more localized than we are. But for sure, it does make a difference in how you advertise. And that's a genius way to advertise if you're that type of— I would think that type of client. But that's fascinating.

Thank you.

Your practice area is fascinating because I think of the cases you must have and the stories you could probably tell, but you can't. But, you know, it must be exhilarating when you win something that you work so hard on and you really— you said you didn't really care whether they're Innocent or guilty, that's not as important to you, which is interesting to me because I can imagine every client comes in that wants to tell you, I didn't do it, I need you to help me, because they want you to believe that even if it's not true. Because you want to— you see it on TV, right? Everybody has the TV version of, uh, what happens in law. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it doesn't matter. Like, I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't matter whether they did it or not. Like, I will break my back for them regardless. So it doesn't matter. Like, it's an irrelevant thing for us to spend time on.

Yeah.

And like, I would spend time on like, did they, you know, did they search your car with, you know, and was it a valid search?

Mm-hmm.

You know, the DNA test that they're claiming shows that you did this or that, is that true? Or are the, you know, prosecutors sort of relying on these fallacies that are debunked by actual science? You know, and so that's where I've been, that's where I've focus my time and attention and my energy and my, you know, I mean, because you only have so much emotional bandwidth too, you know? And so, you have to protect that. You know, my dad was a physician. And so, I still remember him coming home at night. He was an oncologist. So, I can't imagine the tragedy that he was dealing with every day. But every time when he comes home, it was like you didn't know where he was all day. Like he never brought that home with him. And— I asked him once—

Your job's similar, right? Your job—

Yeah, I feel the same. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's something that I'm really proud of actually about myself is I'm able to, you know, at night, like, I don't take it home. And I asked my dad about it once. I said, you know, how do you manage this? And he's like, well, I come home every night and I, you know, I make myself a scotch. And he says, sometimes, some nights I have 2, you know. So he Just depending on the night. So, I mean, you know, we all have, you know, we deal with stress in different ways, I guess.

I think that speaks to your success, though, Doug. I mean, you have always, in the years that we've known each other, you have— it has always— I've always witnessed the great big heart that you have. You genuinely care about people, and that just emulates from you. And yet, You've got this business side of you that is so cool, and you're such a great listener and such a great orator. I just really admire you for all of that and that you can actually let go. I mean, health and wellness is such a huge part of what we all need to focus on, and you seem to have a hold of that. You can walk away and leave it at night. That's great.

Yeah, it feels good. It's nice, but not everyone can do it. And I mean, there's nights where I worry about people. But, you know, you have to be somewhat stoic and understand how to just say, I can't fix that, or I can't fix how they think, or those sorts of things. And yeah, I mean, it's part of, you know, part of what makes us able to do our jobs.

Doug, do you feel like nature versus nurture a little bit, I hear? And then also, I feel like your journey, has given you these opportunities to allow you to be in these places that give you that medium. I feel like it gives you that space to be able to probably do that invisible line, whatever that is. I, I do— what I think is really important, and you brought it up earlier with us off, off recording initially, was the piece that's sitting behind you. And the little mementos that mean so much, and the type of area that you practice, I feel like that's more valuable than anything. And I love this piece that's sitting behind you, and the artist, and the way that you described it to us. And that must be a mental because right now we're I feel like a lot of our country's in mental crisis. That must be a nice mental shift for you at times where you can just give yourself a few seconds, a glance. And allow you to have that moment.

Yeah, I mean, it does help you just sort of like reconnect and think about other things. And I mean, often throughout my office, I have art everywhere, not just in this space, but like throughout our building. I find it to be really important to have those creative minds around you. And so we have a lot of art here. I spend a lot of money on art. So, but I really, I really love being surrounded by it because it helps creativity. And I mean, it helps me think outside the box as well, and it helps me be a better person. Because one of the things that has happened to me, I feel like, in my journey to getting to where I am, is I've become pretty jaded about people. You know, I expect the worst in people and that people are going to think and do the worst, which has been, I think, helpful for me in, you know, cross-examining witnesses and, you know, understanding why people do the things that they do to each other. And so it has made me probably, you know, a little bit, yeah, just jaded and skeptical of people sometimes. And so, you know, I hope that maybe One day when I stop doing this, I'll stop being so skeptical of people.

I'm going to say it's maturity. I feel like it allows it. I'm going to repackage it because I know what you mean. And I feel like as business owners, and we're this way, we have to take what you're telling us, look at the books and say, is that right? Is that the picture we're seeing? We have to do the same thing in a reverse way. And I feel like you naturally become in a space that you're like, oh, okay, I see it through a different lens now. It's not bad. It's not wrong. I just have to do it differently. And it sounds like you've done that in a healthy way.

I—

the way I'm hearing it from your journey, and I love it.

Yeah.

I mean, it, it doesn't feel like I'm, you know, becoming unwound at all. It just feels like I, you know, I'm just very suspicious. And so when people tell me something, you know, I need to see the receipts.

Yeah, that's us. That's us. Yeah. Yeah.

See, I think there's this latent accountant. There's this latent accountant in this guy.

I wish. I honestly wish. I just cannot do math for the life of me. I just, I really wish that I could.

But you respect it. I mean, that's what's so cool about you. You respect it and it has served you so well.

Yeah.

We had an attorney tell us one time, she said, you all deal with numbers. I hate them. I deal with words. So we came up with a way to present financial statements to her with words and pictures. So it was less, it was less about the numbers. We had the graphs and she thought that was fabulous that we just— because she didn't want to look at a page of numbers. That was like her brain was going to blow up. Yeah, it's beautiful. And she thought that was wonderful. I'll never forget that day when that occurred. Never occurred to me because we live in it. We don't think that other people don't. And then I realized, I started researching like personality traits of different occupations and totally that's very normal for attorneys to live. They live in a world of words, so it's a lot different. And then your practice area, you've got a lot of emotion and you've got a lot of—

Yeah.

You'd get that kind of skepticism working around people. That it's good that you can draw that line in the sand at night and keep yourself accountable by saying, I've got this beautiful picture that reminds me of my dad behind me. And you got Frank Sinatra over there over your shoulder for anybody who's on YouTube watching this. Yeah. But it's— I mean, that's just— you start to bring it home, basically. It kind of keeps you grounded. I think that's the important—

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm a storyteller. And so that's what I stand up in front of juries and I have to tell someone else's story and explain, you know, what happened and why this is the way it is or not.

Mm-hmm.

And so I think that, you know, there are certain things about my personality that help me think about ways to tell a story or even to show it to people, because I use a lot of visuals. And, you know, throughout, anytime I am in front of a jury, whether I am doing an argument or I am cross-examining a witness, I have always got visuals just because that is how I learn. And that's how I think. And like, to what you're saying, Linda, like, I, when we have these monthly meetings and we get to the parts where, you know, I'm seeing a screen just of like a, you know, an Excel spreadsheet with just different columns, I just, I, I'm not even sure where to look first.

Yeah.

And I have to really focus. And it takes me, you know, extra time, I feel, to like understand what I'm Like what I'm looking at. So I, you know, you just kind of understand what you are good at and what you're not good at. And I think that's been also helpful for me in business in understanding that, like, I'm like, when I'm hiring a lawyer, like, what kind of a person am I looking for? You know, I want some— do I want someone that can stand at a podium? Because if that's the case, then I really don't care if they're a writer.

Right.

You know, and if they're not going to go to court, then they got to be a great writer or, you know, something in between. And, you know, some lawyers try to do it all. And I think that it can be difficult to do. I think, you know, I think you can be a good writer as a, you know, as a, you know, as someone that stands at the podium and argues. But I think you're much better at editing someone else's work product than coming up with it as an original thought. So, that's helped me, you know, sort of figure out how to, you know, staff, you know, just like, you know, creating a football team. I mean, you know, like, you know, Tom Brady can throw a ball, but, you know, you wouldn't want him to, you wouldn't want him to be your kicker. I'm sure he could do it, but you wouldn't want him to do it. And so, you know, it's kind of the same idea.

I think I could stand on a podium, but I need to stand in front of it.

Sarah's only 4'8. You can't tell. Oh, conference. And they had her up on this big stage and the podium was taller than her. So all you could see was the top.

All you could see was her.

I just— the funny thing, he's bringing it up and I'm like, oh my God, I could stand at a podium. I'm just gonna stand in front of it because—

Yeah, that's fine too. Yeah, you just gotta make the courtroom yours.

Yeah, there you go. I love it though.

This is really interesting because, you know, we're hearing, getting to know you and to know how you look at your practice, because we don't get to have these conversations with attorneys. We're always like, get to business about the numbers and talk about what we know, what we want to get out of you, and what was this expense or anything like that. And we don't really get to have the, to know the story part. So this was really great that you came on, and thank you, Steve, Oh, absolutely.

He's one of my favorite attorneys. So, love him.

Love him.

Yeah, the feeling's mutual.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know what was really cool too is he just— he hired a new controller, what, in the last 6 months maybe?

Or— Yeah.

Has it been about— and, and I was so honored that he called me and he said, hey, could you just give me a little bit of time? We, we do favors for each other. He's like, could you give me just a little bit of time with her? And I called her and she came from a completely different industry, had never worked in a law firm before. And I was so honored that I got to just sit with her and talk about law firm accounting and think of this, think of that, look at this association. This is how you answer this question. This is how you research and all. And she was so poised and so efficient at what she does. And I just was really impressed that Doug went out and found her because he's got this great big heart and he listens and he cares.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks. Yeah, thanks. She's been great. She's been a wonderful addition. She's great to have around here, but she's like picked it all up. Her background, the last 6 or 8 years, she was working for an aviation company and they had—

In accounting, correct?

Yeah, in accounting. She was their controller. She did, you know, all kinds of things for them. So, you know, it's, it's, there's been a lot of learning a new industry, but I always tell new employees, like, there's this kind of rule of 3s, like 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months. You know, in the first 3 days, try to, you know, get people's names, get your passwords. You know, in the first 3 weeks, try to get your hand on everything that's, you know, on your plate. For lawyers, try to touch all of your cases. And in 3 months, you should have a good feel for your job. And, you know, it's— I think it sort of Lets a lot of the air out of the room where people are so— they're like, I need to know everything right now. And it's, you just have to be patient and, you know, learn it. And so she's been doing great with that, especially with Clio. We were recently looking, we're doing some research on a client for an issue, and she was like running these reports, and I had no idea how to do any of this stuff. And so it's just very impressive how quickly she was able to Pick all that up.

That's awesome. I, I love the program.

So we're big Clio users. Clio is one of our preferred programs and it just works. It's, it's a really great platform for attorneys. So it's a, it's a good software. It works well with QuickBooks. It does a lot. I think half the time when we get, look at what a client's using in Clio, we're like, you're missing out on so many features. They don't really They just scratched the surface of what they can do on their side. So—

I love it.

I've, I mean, I've never— I use it for the time, you know, in entering that kind of data. I've never been able to get the iPhone app to work great, but it's not an issue. Like, I really, I mean, the times that I would need to use that are, you know, far and few between. But I just love that it's just easy to use and You know, you just hit the button and it just collects all the data. Yeah, simple.

Imagine.

Yeah, that's funny, Steve.

Yeah.

Well, Doug, we can't thank you enough for being with us today. This has been so enlightening. And to, to have a more of a deeper look into your business and how you approach it, I mean, you just— so proud of you.

Oh, thanks, Steve. Yeah, I'm proud of you. This is really cool that you— what you're doing.

And, uh, well, Linda and Sarah adopted me a couple years ago now, I guess, and we just, we've really hit it off and this podcast has really taken off. So we're blessed.

Well, cool.

I can't wait to watch.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Definitely. Thank you. It's a breath of fresh air to hear it in a perspective that isn't what we're used to hearing. And I appreciate it because I think it's, it cements on how we think sometimes. It's just getting out of the, like you said, out of the box. kind of a different way, but it's not, it's not wrong. It's just a different way. And it, it's really nice to hear your journey too. So appreciate you coming.

You're welcome.

All right, Miss Tierra, do you want to take us away?

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Thank you so much, Doug.

Thank you. My pleasure.

Bye-bye, everybody.