Stephanie Everett leads the Lawyerist community and Lawyerist Lab. She is the co-author of Lawyerist’s new book...
Zack Glaser is the Lawyerist Legal Tech Advisor. He’s an attorney, technologist, and blogger.
Bernadette L. Harris has a B.S. in Accounting, a Master of Business Administration degree, and an MS...
| Published: | October 29, 2026 |
| Podcast: | Lawyerist Podcast |
| Category: | Marketing for Law Firms , Practice Management , Solo & Small Practices |
Your law firm is growing. So why does your workload keep growing with it? In episode 643 of the Lawyerist Podcast, Stephanie Everett talks with Allison Harrison, founder and owner of ALH Law Group, about the leadership changes behind growing to a team of 12.
Allison shares why adding employees creates new responsibilities for the owner, how she recognized that she was carrying too many roles, and the retreat exercise that helped her team start redistributing the work. She explains why delegation needs regular attention as the business evolves and how developing other people has become a bigger part of her job.
They also explore how openly embracing the firm’s LGBTQ+ identity helped clients find them, why hiring requires clear expectations about change, and what happens when a growing firm outgrows its original processes.
If your team is getting bigger but your days are getting harder, this episode offers practical ways to rethink your responsibilities and prepare your people for the next stage of growth.
Listen to the previous episodes on Law Firm Growth, Leadership & Building Stronger Teams.
Have thoughts about today’s episode? Join the conversation on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X!
If today’s podcast resonates with you and you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap Revisited yet, get the first chapter right now for free! Looking for help beyond the book? See if our coaching community is right for you.
Access more resources from Lawyerist at lawyerist.com.
Chapters / Timestamps
00:00 – Introduction
01:27 – Halloween Costumes, Candy Corn & Neighborhood Traditions
06:02 – Meet Allison Harrison
06:45 – Winning a Reisman Award for Diversity and Inclusion
07:24 – Growing to a Team of 12
08:00 – Building a Brand Around Your Identity
09:55 – Letting Clear Values Attract the Right Clients
11:20 – The Hidden Management Work Behind Law Firm Growth
12:38 – Moving from Doer to Coach
13:20 – The Exercise That Made Delegation Urgent
15:24 – Helping Your Team Grow Alongside the Firm
18:53 – Managing Constant Small Changes
19:33 – Using AI to Simplify Your Software Stack
20:24 – Hiring People Who Expect Change
21:32 – How Growth Changes Team Roles and Relationships
23:21 – Rebuilding Processes as Your Firm Expands
24:20 – NAMWOLF Certification & the Next Growth Opportunity
25:05 – Closing Thoughts
Special thanks to our sponsor Lawyerist.
Bernadette Harris [00:00:01]:
Hi, I’m Bernadette.
Zack Glaser [00:00:03]:
And I’m Zach, and welcome to The Lawyer’s Podcast, one of the many ways that we help attorneys build healthy firms, better, more sustainable lives, and, you know, better businesses. So today, Stephanie talks with Allison Harrison, one of our Labsters and one of my favorite people in the world, frankly. She’s pretty amazing. About winning the Riceman Award. at Clio Con. And, um, this is a, this is a pretty cool award for her entire team, but Allison does— Allison and her team do some amazing stuff, um, at their, their firm, the ALH Law Firm in— where are they? She does the CBUS. Columbus. Columbus.
Zack Glaser [00:00:48]:
Yeah. The— she does her own podcast. They do some amazing Instagram and LinkedIn and, and social media, but she also does some really, really great I could talk about it. Thankfully Stephanie did the interview because I would just geek out talking to Allison, you know, basically fanboying, which I’m doing right now. So yeah, but stick around and listen to that conversation. Bernadette, Halloween is coming up in like 2 days. Do you dress up? Do you celebrate Halloween? Do you, like, I’m always curious about this with people. Like, do you, you know, have you classically like gotten costumes? What do you do for Halloween?
Bernadette Harris [00:01:27]:
Probably not.
Zack Glaser [00:01:28]:
Eat a lot of candy corn?
Bernadette Harris [00:01:30]:
Oh God, no, I do not eat wax.
Zack Glaser [00:01:34]:
I made candy corn ice cream one time. My wife loves candy corn.
Bernadette Harris [00:01:39]:
Ew, ew, ew, ew. Zach, now I am questioning our friendship.
Zack Glaser [00:01:44]:
I understand. I would think less of you if you didn’t.
Bernadette Harris [00:01:49]:
Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. So I don’t eat wax. Um, but I do occasionally dress up. So let’s see, last— I’m trying to think of— I don’t know if I’m gonna dress up this year, but, um, last year I was— oh, what did I— what was I last year? I can’t remember. I remember the year before. That one was really funny. I was a bumblebee. Nice.
Bernadette Harris [00:02:15]:
So I had a bumblebee costume. I mean, it was a total bumblebee. I had the little stinger on the back and the The things that just hop around. The antennas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was a bumblebee. I can’t remember what I was. I think I was something like a cowgirl or something.
Bernadette Harris [00:02:34]:
I think I was a cowgirl last year.
Zack Glaser [00:02:36]:
Okay,
Bernadette Harris [00:02:36]:
now I have to go look at the pictures. But yeah, I, I like, I like to, to dress up for Halloween more so now that I am like an adult and I don’t have to take a kid trick-or-treating or anything like that. I like it more as an adult than I did as a parent. So yeah, like an empty nester adult. I guess I’ve been an adult for a long time, but you know what I mean.
Zack Glaser [00:02:58]:
Yeah, I used to— I’ve gone through phases of like how much I dress up. Most of my costumes have been relatively simple though. Like I have a flight suit in my, in my closet where I’m like, you know what, if I gotta go to a party, I’ll throw that on and some, some Ray-Bans and, and we’re good, you know, whatever. Um, a couple of years ago, uh, I, I went as, uh, Ted Lasso. which was relatively easy for me because I just shaved most of my beard and put on like a blue polo. That one was relatively simple. But my favorite part of the Halloween experience is actually the kids coming by our house. We do a lot of decorations in the front yard and then we have, we’re the people, we don’t have kids ourselves.
Zack Glaser [00:03:42]:
So we’re the people in the neighborhood that give out like the full-size candy bars.
Bernadette Harris [00:03:47]:
Oh, wow.
Zack Glaser [00:03:48]:
You know, we’re like, just—
Bernadette Harris [00:03:49]:
Everybody loves your house. Yeah, take handfuls.
Zack Glaser [00:03:53]:
We bought a ton of candy. Take handfuls of it because we’re going to eat it afterwards if you don’t.
Bernadette Harris [00:03:59]:
Exactly.
Zack Glaser [00:04:00]:
But I love seeing all the kids come along with their little
Bernadette Harris [00:04:04]:
costumes.
Zack Glaser [00:04:04]:
That’s where I learn about the new characters on Disney, right?
Bernadette Harris [00:04:09]:
Yeah. Yeah. I could see that. I could see that. I guess because I was a parent, or I guess I’m still a parent. I keep saying it in the past tense like it’s going away, but you know. We’re going to tell your daughter.
Zack Glaser [00:04:21]:
Yeah, I know. My daughter’s going to be like,
Bernadette Harris [00:04:22]:
Mom. You know, are you— yeah, are you trying to tell me something?
Zack Glaser [00:04:28]:
Yeah.
Bernadette Harris [00:04:29]:
But yeah, when I was parenting and it’s just different, you know, I’ve, I’ve taken her trick-or-treating and just watching it and watching the little kids and all of that is different. Now going to an adult party with costumes is way, way more fun. Uh, yeah,
Zack Glaser [00:04:48]:
yeah, yeah. I mean, I, I would imagine, again, not having kids myself, that like the first couple of years you’re like, oh, this is cute. This is amazing. And then they’re like 12.
Bernadette Harris [00:04:59]:
Yep.
Zack Glaser [00:05:00]:
And you’re like, uh. This is work. Yeah, I still have to drive you around. I have to stay up later than I wanted to stay up on Halloween. Yeah.
Bernadette Harris [00:05:08]:
And then I have to monitor this candy because, yeah.
Zack Glaser [00:05:12]:
Yeah, because there are people out there just giving like whole handfuls of whatever.
Bernadette Harris [00:05:16]:
Like you.
Zack Glaser [00:05:17]:
People like you. And full-size candy. You’re like, what is the deal here? Why are they doing that? I gotta inspect this. Yeah, that’s fair.
Bernadette Harris [00:05:24]:
Yeah.
Zack Glaser [00:05:25]:
My wife gives away a potato every year. She puts it— she puts a raw potato in the bucket and somebody grabs it every single year. And I’m like, this is very odd. Halloween’s a weird holiday.
Bernadette Harris [00:05:38]:
Yeah.
Zack Glaser [00:05:39]:
I could talk to you about how excited I am about Halloween forever, but really, let’s— I’m excited about this episode with Alison Harrison, so I want to hear it. Let’s pop on over to Stephanie’s conversation. With recent Reisman Award winner Allison Harrison.
Allison Harrison [00:06:02]:
Hi, I’m Allison Harrison, founder and owner of ALH Law Group. We are estate planning, probate, and business litigation firm in Columbus, Ohio, servicing Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
Stephanie Everett [00:06:18]:
Hello, Allison. Welcome back to the show.
Allison Harrison [00:06:22]:
Yeah, it’s good to be back. I think this is number 3.
Stephanie Everett [00:06:25]:
And we might have to get jackets like Saturday Night Live eventually.
Allison Harrison [00:06:29]:
Yeah.
Stephanie Everett [00:06:30]:
I’ll, I’ll put Zach on that. Well, you’ve had a big week because you— we were at the Clio’s conference earlier this week at the time that this episode’s coming out. And you got some pretty nice awards and recognition there. Do you want to tell us your big news?
Allison Harrison [00:06:45]:
Yeah, so I got the Reisman, I learned how to pronounce that word during this process, for diversity and inclusion, which is amazing. And I got to share it with my team. I had team members go to Clio Con with me, which was phenomenal for so many reasons.
Stephanie Everett [00:07:01]:
Yeah, I love that. Congratulations. It’s fun. And as I was thinking about it and watching you get this award, It’s been nice to really watch you as a business owner grow. Your firm’s grown a whole bunch and you’ve grown a whole bunch. And I wonder if we can like share that little bit of that story, because I think it’s really awesome.
Allison Harrison [00:07:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been in Lab for 5 or 6 years, somewhere in between there. And it really has been the time in which my firm’s had all this growth and really built our brand. And so, like, 2 things happened kind of at the same time I was in lab, which has been really fun. I think when I joined, I was a team of 3 or 4 and pretty much everyone had left. And now we’re a team of 12.
Stephanie Everett [00:07:49]:
Well, let’s talk about your brand too. So not only has your team grown, I mean, I think they’re related because I think once you got really clear on who you are and who you want to serve, probably a lot of that growth happened.
Allison Harrison [00:08:00]:
Yeah, I mean, 100%, right? I’m an LGBTQ-owned and women-owned law firm, and there’s not very many of us out there to have one of those, let alone be gay and queer or queer and LGBTQ-owned. And so, and just leaning into it. I think, you know, when I started Lab, I was just like, yeah, I’m gay, but like, that was it. It wasn’t part of the brand. And we really leaned into it, and it’s been incredible, the response. There’s so many clients who are like, yes, I chose you because you are very clear about who you are online.
Stephanie Everett [00:08:27]:
Yeah, I think— I feel like I was there, and I remember the day that this epiphany sort of hit you, and we pressed you on it because We too knew. I mean, you came up with this great tagline. We’ve probably talked about it on the show before because you say, um, estate planning for the theys and gays. Did I get that right?
Allison Harrison [00:08:44]:
Gays and theys, but close enough.
Stephanie Everett [00:08:46]:
All right. I have, I have the shirt too. So, you know, and it’s so great and people hear it and love it. And we were talking about hiring and I was like, you know, anyone you hire, like they gotta be, you gotta be willing to own that. Like, and at the time it felt like that was your brand, but maybe y’all just weren’t really leaning into it all the way. Does that feel right?
Allison Harrison [00:09:07]:
No, it’s 100%. It was just like, yeah, we have this, it exists, but we just really, really leaned into it. And it’s very clear in any of our marketing that that’s who we support. Um, and it’s the, it’s had this other effect too, because we support the LGBTQ community and we’re loud and clear about it. We’ve also found a lot of minority business owners, minority estate plans, like Just kind of anyone who doesn’t fit the mainstream has come out and found us and we’re like, oh, we really want to work with you because you’re open or you’re willing to talk to us. Or we answer the phones and no one else does. It also helps we have a couple people on staff, one person in particular who’s trilingual or multilingual, and so we can help clients who don’t necessarily have English as a first language. And so it’s kind of been this snowball effect.
Stephanie Everett [00:09:55]:
Yeah. I think sometimes people are worried about being that open and being that transparent and what if it turns some people away? And I think that’s kind of the point.
Allison Harrison [00:10:06]:
Yeah, it is. Because you want to work with the clients you want to work with who live kind of your core values and being very transparent about them, it helps those people find you. And, and for the people you don’t want to work with, just move on to another firm. And I think you see that if you went to Clio at the Reisman’s, because myself and Zach up in Nebraska, he’s really leaned into his queerness as well. And he’s the fastest growing firm or was awarded that by Reisman. And so I think both of us having the award and both of us having leaned into who we are speaks leaps and bounds for how powerful that is.
Stephanie Everett [00:10:42]:
Yeah. Let’s shift a little bit to the growth that you’ve had, because, I mean, I’m sure as people are listening, they’re like, what, 2 to 12 or 14? You know, like some of the numbers that you’ve had in terms of your team growth. the number of cases you can take. Um, that doesn’t happen overnight and it, and it doesn’t happen without some, some growing pains.
Allison Harrison [00:11:03]:
So many. Um, which, which one would you like to talk about?
Stephanie Everett [00:11:07]:
Well, I mean, put yourself back in the shoes of where you were when it was 2 and, and which one do you, would you have liked to have heard the most? Like which, if you, if you could go back, what do you know now that you wish you knew then? And what would you say to that person?
Allison Harrison [00:11:20]:
You know, it’s so hard to think about what the firm was like when we were only 2. I mean, I know kind of the people that were there. We didn’t have a roadmap. We weren’t necessarily goal setting. And I think that’s the difference right now is like, I know what I’m trying to achieve this year, next year, in 5 years, and that’s just wildly different. The other thing is how hard it is to manage people. Like, I had this idea for growth and as I get more people and I love my team, my team’s amazing. It’s just, it takes time.
Allison Harrison [00:11:51]:
And so really understanding as you add people, how much time as an owner and a manager is that going to take up? Which means you have to delegate more stuff so that you can help develop talent and handle those things that pop up, whether it’s a client that’s being really difficult or a billing issue, or just getting someone logged into their computer because they didn’t do their 2-factor authentication. Like, there’s just so many other things that come up that I don’t think anyone really prepares you for.
Stephanie Everett [00:12:18]:
That makes sense. So, um, managing the people is a job unto itself. And I think sometimes we think, well, I can just grow, hire more people, and there’ll just be more people to do the work. But they don’t realize that your job actually has to shift into a different job as you hire those people.
Allison Harrison [00:12:38]:
Yeah, it’s a huge difference of like, you become a little bit of like the mentor and the coach. Not the athlete, um, is the way I think of it. Because you go from being a doer to an overseer, and that’s sometimes a hard mindset shift. I know some attorneys, they don’t want to do it. They want to be the doer because they enjoy the legal work. And so taking yourself kind of out of that, or at least making it less of your priority, can sometimes be difficult. I love it personally. I like being kind of the quarterback or the coach, not necessarily— Um, in the nitty-gritty of the legal.
Stephanie Everett [00:13:14]:
Was there a moment where that transition that you needed to make was really apparent to you? And what did that look like?
Allison Harrison [00:13:20]:
Yeah, we did a retreat last year and, um, this is not something I like to admit, but like my hair was falling out because I was so stressed from trying to do all the things. Uh, and so my team, we sat down and listed all the hats everyone wears and we were writing out mine and we ran out of room. on the piece of paper. And so, just that visual activity of writing down everything I was doing was just like, holy smokes, something’s got to give. And then, we worked on delegating it. And we’re in the process of needing to do that again because we keep growing. We added 4 people this year. And so, there’s just a lot more hats that are getting worn.
Stephanie Everett [00:13:59]:
One of the things you said there is so important that I want to highlight. The exercise isn’t a once and done, right? You have to keep doing it. You have to keep reevaluating what should your role be next? And now what do you get rid of? And now how do you shift the team?
Allison Harrison [00:14:15]:
Yeah, I think it’s in one of those books that I’ve read. I can’t remember which one. And it’s like, you have to figure out like what’s taking up 80% of your time, but what’s giving, like, what’s the most that you’re valuable? It’s like the 20% you do is what you’re most valuable. And it’s how do you get rid of the 80%? I think that’s the analogy, Stephanie, correct me if I’m wrong on the numbers. But redoing it, I think it’s something that I personally need to do about every 6 months, just because of, you know, how quickly things change.
Stephanie Everett [00:14:41]:
Yeah, no, I agree. I think that makes sense. And I’ve talked about it on the show before. You’re right, that mindset shift of, I’m not the doer, I have this new role, and my job is— and we talk about this, we just talked about this with Debbie in our book, A Next Level Leader, right? It’s like going from the expert to problem solver to multiplier and architect, because now you’re going to You’re going to build the people and the systems to allow the work to happen, not just do it yourself.
Allison Harrison [00:15:06]:
Yeah. And it’s kind of fun because I’m starting to see that with my attorneys because we’ve added more paralegal and admin support. And so watching them go from, oh my gosh, I have to do everything, to, oh, I— that’s— that isn’t actually what I need to be doing. I’m— I have a better value add doing this task and letting my paralegal do this. And that’s actually been really, really fun.
Stephanie Everett [00:15:24]:
Let’s talk about that for a second, because one of the things you were mentioning to me before we hit record Is that you, for years, you’ve, you’ve been in Lab, you’ve been coming to LabCon, going to conferences, going to other industry events, reading. I know you read a lot of business books like me. And so your development has been on this trajectory and now you’re realizing that you’ve got to figure out how you do that with other team members. And I wonder, um, if you could talk about that and what you’re thinking there.
Allison Harrison [00:15:53]:
Yeah, it’s harder than you think. It really is. We started off the year having book club. It was really, I made everyone read a book and we had a lunch and they had to talk about it, but it was really helpful. We follow the Traction and EOS model, and so I had everyone read What the Heck Is EOS? And it was really fun because we’d been running the Level 10 meetings, which is like a core staple of EOS, but no one understood why they were called Level 10, what any of the agenda was. And then I was like, it’s sometimes hard because I’ve read so much to realize they haven’t. Um, but I think with that kind of spurred this desire to keep learning. And so after that, I probably pulled 10 books off my bookshelf and handed it to different team members to address something that was a question that they had.
Allison Harrison [00:16:37]:
Um, and by and large, they’ve read them. And so I think also finding these conferences like Clio Con and looking for other national opportunities, um, because I am Always a little disappointed in what’s available at the local level for this type of growth.
Stephanie Everett [00:16:51]:
No, I hear that and I agree. Um, the book club idea, love that. And I just read this post and so I don’t know what you think, what anybody would think about this, but it had this list of books and this person was like, I’m going to pay my teenager $100 to read and discuss all the, this, this list of books with me before they go to college. And it was a lot of the books that you and I’ve read, like business books and personal development books. And I was like, hmm, I wonder if I can bribe my kid to read these books because they are good. Like, there’s some good principles in there.
Allison Harrison [00:17:25]:
Yeah, I had a couple people who complained about like reading it and I was like, I need proof that you read it. Whether you read it or you use Claude to give you the salient points, I’m not, you know, I’m not going to track your time to make sure that you read it. Um, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea because some of the things, like, you want the key takeaway. It’s not that you need them to read 300 pages. You just want them to get the core concepts.
Stephanie Everett [00:17:46]:
Exactly. And let’s be fair, a lot of business books, um,
Allison Harrison [00:17:50]:
are repetitive.
Stephanie Everett [00:17:51]:
Yeah. You, you get a, there’s a key chapter in there that, that talks about it and then there’s a lot of fluff. So I, I don’t know. I hope, hope people don’t say that about our books, but you know, I, I try hard to be like, okay, are we delivering throughout? Because I’ve read a lot that I’m like, I’ve got this one. Onto the next.
Allison Harrison [00:18:07]:
Well, and it’s hard because there’s a few authors that write several. And so you buy multiples and you’re like, well, this is the same as the last one, except for this chapter.
Stephanie Everett [00:18:15]:
Which, by the way, good marketing note, right? Like you can, we talk about that all the time and we, and I know you like repurpose your content because that’s what everybody else is doing. So you should do it too.
Allison Harrison [00:18:25]:
Well, it’s, we started just republishing old blogs because we’re like, no one remembers what we put out 2 years ago. And so that’s a very easy social post. It’s on brand. It talks about what we do. And
Stephanie Everett [00:18:35]:
I love that. So you’ve grown a whole bunch. Love that. You’ve had to grow your team. Now you’re having to think about How to manage your team, how to get, make sure they’re developing and growing in their new roles. Yeah. What, what, what else? Anything, other big topics we should cover?
Allison Harrison [00:18:53]:
I think managing change. That’s probably one of the other things that I’ve been having conversations about is how much are we changing on a regular basis? And it used to be these big changes, new tech stack, new whatever. And now there are these, all these micro-adjustments. That’s, that’s, might even be harder to manage.
Stephanie Everett [00:19:11]:
Yeah. And, and, you know, something you saying that reminds me, like, as a leader, you’re changing because you’re trying to improve your firm. But if we just look out into the world, the, the pace of change in the world right now is faster than it has been. And probably, I think they’re saying like, today is the slowest day of change you’re going to experience.
Allison Harrison [00:19:33]:
It’s insane. I mean, just trying to keep up with like everything that AI can do, let alone anything else, it’s really difficult. But the thing I, I will say that I’m taking away from all of it is it’s really reducing the number of systems we have to use. Mm-hmm. Um, one of the things that my team had complained about for years is I kept adding new software and new systems, and now we’re just like, well, can we get rid of that? Can AI do that? Can— and so like, It is streamlining a lot of the work we do.
Stephanie Everett [00:20:02]:
All right. Well, that’s good. So that’s a positive.
Allison Harrison [00:20:05]:
Yeah. But it’s also changing the way we do everything, which are those microchanges everyone’s struggling with.
Stephanie Everett [00:20:11]:
Well, and I think that’s, that’s part of it as a leader too. Now your job is about managing that change and managing your people and the, and the why and the expectations and explanations of, of what’s happening.
Allison Harrison [00:20:24]:
Yeah. This came up on my coaching call last week, actually, it was like, I need to be clear when I do hiring posts that we will change. The way that we did it today is not necessarily the way we’re going to do it in 4 months. And I have to be very clear that if you work here, that has to be part of, like, your DNA versus hiring folks who, like, change sounds great, but they don’t really want change. Mm-hmm. Because that is, to me, natural. I always want change, but I have come to find out that a lot of people, like, The same thing and consistency.
Stephanie Everett [00:20:59]:
Yeah, for sure. We had a— we added it as one of our core values. So, drive change is now because we were like, we need to be upfront that not only are we going to continue to change, but we’re trying to drive change in the legal industry. Like, it is literally part of our, our mission. And so, we made that really explicit. But I think too, one of the things you mentioned to me that I think people probably will resonate You may have hired, the person that you hired when you were a team of 4 may no longer work and fit now that you’re a team of 12. And I’m curious if you could talk about that.
Allison Harrison [00:21:32]:
Yeah, that’s something that’s kind of hard because as we grow, the needs change significantly. And it’s, you know, as a team of 3, we have a lot of one-on-one time with each other. As a team of 12, I don’t get to give the same level of attention to every single person. Uh, and so there’s a little bit of like a hierarchy that starts to form just because I only have so many hours in the day. And so making sure that folks are understanding and willing to move kind of in that direction is really important, but also understand like our clients have shifted. I, when I started my firm, I primarily represented, uh, car dealers. I still do a lot of that work, but we are also doing a lot of trans, you know, representation of trans folks, of LGBTQ couples. Mm-hmm.
Allison Harrison [00:22:19]:
just people who had someone die and minority business owners. And so, it’s just like the complexity of what we’re able to do now is so different. And so, making sure that folks can stay up on, on the change that happens in your firm as you grow, um, is somewhat difficult.
Stephanie Everett [00:22:37]:
Yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense. And I totally appreciate, like, yeah, you, if people were used to, I get Allison time all the time, and now they’re like, They don’t. And, and they might— people will respond personally to that, like, wait, what happened?
Allison Harrison [00:22:52]:
Yeah. And it’s not that I don’t like you any less. Like, it’s just, I literally don’t have more time in the day. Um, and I also have a lot more responsibilities, uh, which sounds ridiculous, right? I hired more people and I have more responsibilities, but there’s just all of these other like HR things that come up that you didn’t have when you had 2 people and, um, the banking gets a lot more complicated. You know, just, it’s these little things that, um, just start to snowball and take up a lot more time.
Stephanie Everett [00:23:21]:
I think a lot of people listening will really respond to that and resonate, and that will resonate because, and sometimes we wonder, I think it helps when we name it and people hear, oh, I thought it was just me. And I remember when I had my firm, you know, we started with 2 lawyers and a legal assistant and grew to a team of 20. And I often said that I had to rebuild my firm, I think, 2 or 3 times because even like the process that works when you’re 2 or 3, it doesn’t work for 7 and it doesn’t work for 20. So you kind of have to get in there and keep working on it.
Allison Harrison [00:23:51]:
Something you have to know what’s going to break. Like you just have to be prepared for a system or a process to break every time you add someone. That’s kind of just my approach that I’m not shocked, I’m not thrown off, it doesn’t derail my day. I’m just like, okay, cool, that’s the thing that’s going to break. Let’s fix it. And then, you know, when we hire the next person, we’ll figure out what breaks and fix it.
Stephanie Everett [00:24:10]:
Yeah, I love it. So, any thoughts on, on what’s next for you now that you’ve, you’ve, you’ve racked up more awards, national awards, all, all these fun things?
Allison Harrison [00:24:20]:
Um, you know, the thing that I’m excited about is we recently got, um, the NAMWOLF certification, National Association of Women and Minority Law Firm Owners. Somehow that says NAMWOLF. I, I, Don’t remember all the letters. And I’m excited to try and leverage that for some bigger clients because that’s, you know, really looking at big corporations, which would be an interesting growth opportunity. And then, you know, I don’t— we keep growing. And so I had a 5-year plan and one of my wonderful attorneys was like, you know, that 5-year plan said we were going to hire 4 to 6 people and you already hired 4 in year 1. And I said, thanks for the reminder. Um, so I don’t know, you know, I do all this planning, but either we achieve it or it changes before we get there.
Stephanie Everett [00:25:05]:
I love it. I love that we’ve gotten to be a part of your journey. And I especially love that I got to be with you in Boston to celebrate your award because I know it’s, it’s so fun. And I feel a tiny little part of that. Like, that’s my little heart on stage. So I’m so happy for you.
Allison Harrison [00:25:22]:
Lawyerist was a huge part of getting me there. The coaching calls, keeping me motivated, and LabCon giving me like the tools and the tech to, to make it happen. So thank you, Lawyerist.
Stephanie Everett [00:25:34]:
Aw, thank you. Love you. Thanks, Allison. It was always great talking to you, and I know we’ll have you back, so we’ll look forward to that next conversation. We’ll see what you’re, what you’re tackling next.
Allison Harrison [00:25:44]:
Thanks, Stephanie.
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Lawyerist Podcast |
Lawyerist Podcast is a weekly show about lawyering and law practice hosted by Stephanie Everett and Zack Glaser. https://www.lawyerist.com