#528: Building a Law Firm from Scratch, with Allyson Kitchel

Episode Notes

Transcript

Zack Glaser (00:11): 

Hey, y’all. I’m Zack. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:13): 

And I’m Stephanie. And this is episode 528 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today I’m talking to one of our lab members, Allyson Kitchel, about marketing on a shoestring budget. 

  

Zack Glaser (00:25): 

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Collbox and stick around and you’ll hear my conversation with Matt a little later on. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:32): 

So Zack, we’re on site. We are here in the flesh together in the same space, breathing the same air, which is a little unusual. 

  

Zack Glaser (00:39): 

It is, but not as unusual as we’ve had another intro like this with Jennifer and I. But it’s nice. It’s nice to see everybody in person. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:50): 

So if you can’t tell, we’re actually at the Clio Cloud Conference here in Austin. If you’re not here, by the way, they’ve announced the dates for next year in Boston. I’m looking forward to that. 

  

Zack Glaser (01:00): 

Yes, that’ll be nice. Looking forward to seeing a new city. So yeah, what have we learned here? Stephanie? They released the legal Trends report. Jack has done his keynote. What’s going on? What have we taking away? 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:18): 

Some of it is saying we’ve heard AI is a part of the discussion. It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s continuing and it’s like, guys, it’s coming. It’s here. You need to be using it. So I think we’re hearing some of that, but it’s like new. How are we using it? What’s the next level of use? So I think that’s a big message. One of my takeaways is an old reminder of how great it is to see people. 

  

Zack Glaser (01:44): 

That’s a good point. 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:45): 

If you don’t come to these conferences, come, you’ll just meet people and you’ll meet colleagues and new friends. And sometimes we only see these folks every year at these conferences, but it’s a good little community of just having, I mean, it’s like what we do in lab week in and week out, if I’m being honest. Being able to talk to other people. What are you learning? What are you hearing? What’s working for your practice? What’s not? That’s so important. 

  

Zack Glaser (02:10): 

I think it’s beyond the water cooler effect too. When I was practicing and I thought about coming to conferences, I thought, well, I’ll meet some people. There’ll be some ideas thrown about, but you literally meet new people that blow your mind. I was interviewing somebody yesterday and one of the answers to my question shifted how I thought about the topic. So just meeting new people, getting out of your comfort zone is helpful. But I do think this at con, the thread that goes through the whole thing, and it is, we’ve been talking about it’s kill the billable hour. Oh, for sure. The billable hour is not long for this world. There are things that are going to shift people that are still doing the one for one. I am billing you for my time. That practice is going to fundamentally change. 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:06): 

Yeah, I mean, again, AI is here and things that used to take us a long time and just aren’t just the report. Jack shared a study from the, I think it was Harvard Business Review, and they took a group of consultants. I may have the study reference wrong, but we’ll get it. 

  

Zack Glaser (03:22): 

Yes, we’ll put it in the show next 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:23): 

As well. Yes, we’ll be accurate. But here’s the deal. They took a group of consultants, one used ai, one didn’t. The group that used AI did the work faster, they did more work, but more importantly, their work quality was 40% better. And so this isn’t a secret that’s going to stay boxed up. It’s not going to be because clients are going to see this and they’re going to demand it. Why would you want someone to do something that’s 40% worse, slower and lesser? It takes longer. 

  

Zack Glaser (03:55): 

Yeah. 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:56): 

So yeah, I mean AI’s here, but it only works if you change your whole business model. If all you do is adopt AI and you keep filling by the hour. We know the ethics opinions are already coming out saying, if it used to take you an hour and now it takes you 0.2, you can’t charge someone an hour because you used AI and did it in 0.2. You can only charge the 0.2, which is part of the fundamental problem. And there’s lots of reasons we hate the billable hour, but that’s one of ’em is it’s going to change. You’re not going to be able to capture the value that you’re providing to your clients if you continue with this business model. 

  

Zack Glaser (04:31): 

No, you’re not. And if you’re adopting artificial intelligence into your practice, the other path you can take other than going to flat fee or an alternative fee solution is that you can continue to increase your rates. And that is not something that Lawyerist like to do to their clients. And quite frankly, the pace at which AI is advancing it is going to be an untenable rate of us increasing our hourly 

  

Stephanie Everett (05:01): 

Fees. Yes, we did this math for one of my presentations last year at Tech Show, and I can’t remember the number, but you’d have to bill like $5,000 an hour for something that takes, I don’t remember the math, but it was crazy if you’re going to spend the 0.2 versus the 500, $300 an hour at a whatever at the same time. 

  

Zack Glaser (05:22): 

And then we have to increase the velocity of our clientele coming through. And there’s some benefits to increasing the velocity of the clients coming through our practice, but it’s just unsustainable. And I keep saying that you can’t retire fast enough to not have to deal with artificial intelligence. That’s just not where we’re at. You can’t just coast through this. It’s going to hit your practice. You need to prepare, 

  

Stephanie Everett (05:48): 

And here’s the good news. I think people are ready to help you prepare it is actually the most fun thing about, if I’m being honest, I love taking someone who’s like, okay, I’m ready. I want to not bill by the hour. How do I do that? And sometimes we’d have a conversation and I help you understand the value that you’re bringing to your clients, and we explore other ways to capture that value. That is my favorite thing to do. So we help Lawyerist all the time transform their business model and use these tools. It works. It’s good. You can do it too. There is hope. 

  

Zack Glaser (06:24): 

Well, speaking of people that you talked to about their practices, let’s listen to your conversation here with Allyson Kitchel. 

  

Stephanie Everett (06:32): 

After your conversation with Matt. 

  

Zack Glaser (06:34): 

Absolutely. Hey y’all. Zack, legal tech advisor here at Lawyerist.Today, I’m here with Matt Darner of Collbox and we are talking accounts receivable for attorneys. T 

  

Matt Darner (06:44): 

hat’s right. Thanks for having me, Zack. I appreciate it. 

  

Zack Glaser (06:47): 

So Matt, people that are seeing us on video can probably tell that you and I are here at ClioCon. People that can’t see us on video might be able to hear all the buzz in the background and the music and everything. When I come to ClioCon, I always get hit with, obviously this is law as a business, heart of law as a business is accounts receivable, collecting money, charging money, the fun part. But Lawyerist are not always great at that. The legal trends report over the years has always been telling us there’s a problem in the billing process, much less the collections process, 

  

Matt Darner (07:31): 

Right? Absolutely. So last year in Nashville when the legal trends report came out, Joshua and his team debuted the lockup stat, right? Yes. I feel like that was a pinnacle for me. Obviously I’m biased and in this world of accounts receivable and for law firms, but it’s just so important that we now have tools and words and terms KPIs to track talk about this, right? Because I think before we went off of an intuition or a feeling of like, am I getting paid fast enough? Am I billing fast enough? No. Now we have terms for this. We have terms of art, we have metrics and an ability to actually measure this over time. And I’m just really thankful that the team at Clio made a point to get that into the trends report. Now we can actually have productive conversations, but with real data, right? 

  

Zack Glaser (08:17): 

Because one of the things that comes out of that is that not only are attorneys bad at collecting their fees, they’re bad at sending those fees to the clients. They’re bad at billing for those fees, and then they’re bad at capturing the billable hours all the way down the pipeline, 

  

Matt Darner (08:39): 

Right? Absolutely. I mean, there’s so much emotion wrapped up in a lot of the things you just said too. I want to treat my client well. I’m here to do great legal work. I want to be a great attorney. I want to run a great law firm. But then the less fun, frankly, parts of the business, and frankly, sometimes the most frustrating and emotionally complicated parts are asking for money. This is a human thing too. This is not to pick on attorneys. This is like if I lend you 50 bucks and I know you’re good for it, and I go to ask for my money back, I’m going to feel awkward asking for it back. That’s a silly example. But it runs all the way down to just the human approach to things. And I feel like it’s no different. We’re doing great work for our clients, but yeah, there is this struggle around asking for payment. There’s something intrinsically uncomfortable about that, 

  

Zack Glaser (09:26): 

Right? Well, and then there’s the aspect of do I even have time to do that? So if it’s uncomfortable and I kind of don’t have time, I’m going to kick that down the road. So how I solve those problems typically is that I buy back my time. That’s right. I get a third party to come and do this. And obviously this is why I’m talking with you, Matt from holbox, is I bring in a third party, but this specific problem for me, I did collections when I was practicing this specific problem. For me, I see attorneys not wanting to put a third party in their financial discussion relationship with their clients because it just feels so delicate. How can people approach not having quite as much of a hands-on relationship in that area? 

  

Matt Darner (10:25): 

I have sort of a firmer stance on this that might be different than others. But I mean, obviously I come in from a particular lens, a particular view, but I’m a strong believer that the attorney should be divorcing themselves from that part of the conversation. And why I say that is think about the last time you went to a doctor’s office, right? Okay, I am going to go dramatic. You need your appendix removed or you need some major thing. Even though we all know the cost of medical can be high. So I think this is a really good analogy. Well, you go in and you’re consulting with the doctor who is the expert, right? They’re giving you their opinion, the years of their wisdom to determine what is the treatment plan for you, not unlike legal work. Well, I’m sure we’ve all done this though. Okay, I need X, Y, and Z treatment. How much is that going to cost? Of course, the doctor never engages in those conversations. Think about that for a second. I know we know this. 

  

Zack Glaser (11:14): 

Right. I’ve never asked my doctor, Hey, hey doc, how much is this visit. 

  

Matt Darner (11:19): 

I have and they deflect masterful. Oh, that’s the billing team, the coding team. There’s all these things that go into it, right? It’s not just to say, oh, be like a doctor or anything like that, but they’re focused on being the expert in their craft. And I think that’s what I want to take that back to is if you try to take on everything our solos, I know this is going to feel, but even those who’ve been there are grown their firm. Look, I’m a business owner. I’m one of the owners at Collbox. And so the more I try to take on, the less I can specialize and bring my unique talents down and ultimately for the service of our clients, 

  

Zack Glaser (11:52): 

Right? Yeah. Well, if somebody wants to learn how to maybe hit that 40% stat, they can always go visit you guys over at Collbox.co at C-O-L-L-B-O X.co/Lawyerist and they can talk to you guys. And That’s right. Figure it out. 

  

Matt Darner (12:11): 

We’ll get you fixed up. We’ll clean it up and keep it clean. 

  

Zack Glaser (12:13): 

Fantastic. That’s the thought. 

  

Matt Darner (12:15): 

Well, thanks for being with me, Matt. I really appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (12:18): 

Hi, I’m Allyson Kitchel. I am a personal injury attorney practicing in Northern Virginia and Washington DC 

  

Stephanie Everett (12:25): 

Hey Allyson, welcome to the show. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (12:27): 

Thank you for having me. I am very excited. When I became a business owner, I binged this podcast and learned so much. And so the idea that I have something to share now is pretty exciting for me. 

  

Stephanie Everett (12:44): 

And that’s part of the message. People always come up to us and they’re like, the show was helpful or I got ideas. I mean, that is the whole point, is that you could be sitting here listening right now and thinking, that’ll never be me. And you’re here to show them. Actually it could be. And a lot sooner than you might realize. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (13:04): 

Here we are. 

  

Stephanie Everett (13:05): 

Alright, so take us back. So you started your firm. When did you start and give us the short backstory of you basically started from nothing. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (13:14): 

Yeah, I did. I started from nothing. I spent my whole career as a defense attorney doing personal injury, medical malpractice defense, and I did that in various law firms and a variety of life. Things happened and I thought I need to do my own thing. And so in the fall of 2019, I became Kitchel Law and founded my own firm doing plaintiff’s side work. I thought that really tapped into my innate caregiver persona, and I started with nothing. I had zero clients, zero website. I was writing my phone number down on Host-It notes for a while until someone was like, you really need business cards. So started with zero. My very first client came when I had an electrician at my house and a guy called me on the phone and it was a scam. It was one of those scam. He wanted me to cash a check for him. And as I was untangling that and rejecting him, the electrician asked, how did you or what is it that you do? And I was like, oh, I’m a personal injury lawyer. And I ended up representing his brother-in-Law as my very first car wreck client for my firm. So that was fall of 2019. It’s been five years now. And we are a team of five with a docket of over 80 clients at this moment. So things are going great. 

  

Stephanie Everett (14:49): 

And you really had to start at the beginning when you’re starting on that with a limited budget and limited clients. And what did you do to stand out and to differentiate yourself? 

  

Allyson Kitchel (15:01): 

Oh man. I mean, I really started with nothing and I had no idea how I was going to find clients. So I started by going to CLEs in my practice area. I looked for every opportunity to just get out and tell people what I was doing. And I remember distinctly this first CLEI went to on medical malpractice in Washington DC and I went up afterward and spoke to the speakers speaker, and I knew all of them in some capacity. And one of them was a defense attorney and she ignored me. But the other two both went to women, went out of their way to help me and help me network and introduce me to people. And so that was really the first thing, telling everyone what I was doing, started spreading the word that I was available. And then I started getting a little bit of success when other Lawyerist would send me cases they didn’t want. I think Stephanie, with your Labster, you get to a point where you have more clients than you really need, and there’s some that just really aren’t fitting your profile of what you’re looking for. And so letting everyone know I’m willing to do anything. I will take any case. And just slowly bit by bit started to build my portfolio. 

  

Stephanie Everett (16:22): 

And as you began to build a portfolio, that’s when the opportunity really comes to then start defining what you want. Because eventually you’re going to get into that same situation where you have enough clients and now you need to be a little bit pickier. So how do you make that transition? 

  

Allyson Kitchel (16:39): 

Well, I think for me, there was a longer road than that. I am at a point now where I can’t help everyone that calls me, but for a while I knew I needed more clients. And I mean, I’m in the Washington DC market, right? There are big firms and great Lawyerist and how is little me going to compete with any of those big firms? And so I was like, well, I need to be out talking about something. What am I going to talk about car wrecks? That’s what I do, but how do I talk about that? And what was different about me is that I rode a bike. My husband and I dense urban city, one car. We rode bikes and if you’re popping to the grocery store for coffee, so I started talking about, or I started thinking about bikes being a niche that I could focus my practice on. And I was reading the Small for Roadmap, a book you may have heard of, and the book was talking about, there’s a chapter where you’re talking about figuring out your niche and your ideal client. And there was in there that said something like, don’t just be a personal injury lawyer, be an urban personal injury lawyer that represents cyclists. And that’s when I was like, yes, that is. Somebody else thought of this also. 

  

(18:04): 

So that is what I did. And yeah, that’s what I did. I started focusing on that area. 

  

Stephanie Everett (18:12): 

And then I guess you got those kind of cases they started coming in. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (18:17): 

Yes, yes and no. What talking about bikes did was let people know that I handled bike cases, but it also let them know I handled car wrecks also. Right? Love it. Just because I was talking about this one ideal path or this one client for me, it didn’t exclude everything else, and it gave me hooks, it gave me, it’s so hard to think of what are you going to post on social media? What are you going to write about? What are you going to publish about? How are you going to engage in the community and focusing on bikes? Let me do that for me. I did a couple of things there. So Twitter was really big in DC at the time on a local sort of level. And so the hashtag bike DC was huge and very robust active conversation on Twitter all the time. 

  

(19:15): 

Lots of like, Hey, is that bike trail clear? Y’all watch out for this pothole. Hey, there’s a city council meeting reviewing this new infrastructure issue. A lot of conversations. And I jumped in there and it was really interesting. I would write these blog posts and be really thoughtful about legal issues facing cyclists. That’s not whatever got the big traction there. It was like darn Amazon. And posting a picture of an Amazon truck in a bike lane, just putting myself in that conversation and shooting the breeze about it really established that niche for me. And it’s interesting. So that hashtag on Twitter is no longer particularly active, but I still get clients from it because people now talk about me on Reddit where I am not. And people call me all the time and they’re like, there’s a sub Reddit for bikes in DC and it’s helped me establish a reputation I think, as being good at what I do. And so that reputation as being kind and compassionate and thoughtful and caring for people in a crisis that is spread into other practice areas for me. So yeah, absolutely. Lots of car wrecks. 

  

Stephanie Everett (20:41): 

Well, there’s a couple of points in your story that I think people sometimes just forget or gloss. And so one is you did have a specific story to tell. You didn’t have to just talk about personal injury in a generic way, but you were like, I’m going to focus in on cyclists. And it doesn’t mean you can’t take car wreck cases or even you won’t get car wreck cases. It’s just you, like you said, this was your hook. You can’t be all things to all people. So you picked your lane, feels appropriate in this case, like a little bike lane. And then you had that path and you experienced this too. We talked to attorneys. They’re so scared to do that, but it really does work. So I think that’s kind of the first point I heard. And then the second piece that I think is equally as important is you showed up as your true authentic self. 

  

(21:32): 

In this case, you’re a cyclist and you and your husband ride bikes around dc. You know what it’s like if there’s a pothole or the Amazon truck is in the bike lane, if I were to pick this up and to try to make that my practice area, I wouldn’t have that. I wouldn’t have that insight. I wouldn’t have that knowledge. And so it wouldn’t work for me. I couldn’t show up as my true authentic self in the work I do now. I have ran a small foot law firm, so I know what it’s like to be in your, I think that’s why my voice can be what it is similar to you. Not that you always have to do the thing for the practice area, you practice, but I think in this case, it really probably helped give you that voice and differentiate you in a really smart way. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (22:17): 

Thank you. But I think Stephanie, you and I, you wouldn’t even remember this, but we had conversations years ago when I was new to lab and I was like, well, anybody could be my client. Really. Anybody could. And what finally clicked for me is that the phone rings and you answer it, what kind of client is it that you’re most excited about? Is it whatever it is? Is it this type of estate planning? Is it estate planning for older adults? Is it business for tech, startups? Whatever client type of client makes your heart skip a beat. Lock in on that. And I think it’s too hard as a startup, as a small firm to have more than one ideal client. I just think there are only so many hours in the day. And if you’re going to go after a market, you need to get known for one thing. So just pick one. And it doesn’t mean that the other things you know how to do go away. 

  

Stephanie Everett (23:21): 

Yeah, I think that’s great advice. And sometimes in your case, you are even differentiating within personal injury. The other mistake we see attorneys make is like, oh, I do personal injury and divorce and estate planning and real estate. And by the way, I’m a solo. And I just look at that and I’m like, no, you cannot do all those things. Well, that’s four different businesses. So stop. Because even the way we serve clients within each of those areas is completely different. So if you’re listening right now and you’ve got four practice areas and a team of one, sorry, but don’t do that. You can’t. And I 

  

Allyson Kitchel (24:00): 

Would say to that person, aren’t you tired? Yeah, right. Aren’t you tired? You can’t keep going if you’re exhausted and burned out and trying to do everything and it doesn’t feel good to do things halfway. Exactly. Quarter of the way. 

  

Stephanie Everett (24:17): 

Yes, 

  

Allyson Kitchel (24:17): 

It’s a lot more sustainable way to be. 

  

Stephanie Everett (24:21): 

And then once you hone in, you can have a lot of success, which is what you were able to do. And I want to make sure we also talk about your recent win. So tell us about that because that’s brag worthy. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (24:36): 

Thank you. So as a personal injury case, it involved a wrongful death claim against the District of Columbia government. A DC firetruck blew a red light at 54 miles an hour and killed a man named DeAngelo Green. And DeAngelo was not an educated man. He was not a wealthy man, but he was a father of six kids. And when you get kids involved, mama bear comes out, right? You’re a mom. I’m a mom. And fighting for those kids whose only dad was taken from them has been the most gratifying thing I have done since they started a firm. We recovered almost $14 million in a jury verdict for them earlier this year. So thank you. It was a big win. And we’re excited. 

  

Stephanie Everett (25:29): 

Yes. I love hearing about y’all’s wins because I feel like I don’t represent clients directly anymore as a lawyer, but I feel like I get to share in your success because it’s like I helped you build your business and you are then getting those wins for clients. And so that just allows us to multiply the win factor around here. So we are just as excited for you and your clients and those kids. I mean, it’s a terrible story. Nobody wants to find themselves in that situation, but that’s what Lawyerist do. We help solve problems and make messes a little bit better. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (26:05): 

Yeah. Well, I’ll tell you. So I went to trial in February of this year and last year at Lab Con. So that was in August of last year. I cried regularly all summer because I was working constantly. I worked through vacations. I was absolutely miserable and so unhappy and felt really scared about I can’t afford to hire, I can’t afford help. I don’t know when the next dollar is coming in. And I made a lot of progress during those few days with the coaches helping me realize that I could actually project cashflow in a way that I had not really appreciated was possible with a contingency practice. Do I know that when I issue a bill I’m going to get paid? No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t predict. And one of your coaches helped me realize that I had unhealthy profits in my firm, that I had money sitting there, that I needed to be working for me. 

  

(27:11): 

And so I hired a lawyer, I hired a virtual assistant. And so when that case went to trial in February, the wheels didn’t fall off around here. I had a team who was taking care of the other clients that I can fully look. Sometimes a client gets all of my attention and everybody gets their turn when they need it. And it was so nice to finish that trial and not have 500 emails, not have a stack of phone calls to return. So share that win too, helping set people up for success with the business skills that, I mean, you don’t learn that in law school. 

  

Stephanie Everett (27:51): 

So one last thing I want to make sure we connect on, because I think it will be helpful for people, which is you’re in a pretty busy area, if we’re going to be honest, there’s a lot of personal injury Lawyerist out there, or at least it feels like it because I don’t know about anybody else, but I can’t drive anywhere in my town without seeing what feels like a Cazillion billboards. My kids are always asking me, mom, my kid, why I said that in plural. My one child is always like, mom, do you know that person? Mom? Do you know that one? And so we always talk about all the billboard Lawyerist. 

  

(28:27): 

So it’s a very competitive area when it comes to advertising and marketing. A lot of Lawyerist are at least a small group of Lawyerist are spending a lot of money there. So as a solo, smaller firm lawyer, I think it can feel a little intimidating. And so I’m kind of curious how you are tackling the digital marketing space. You talked about your referral marketing in the beginning, but now that you’re a little bit more established and you do have more resources and you’re able to shift, where are you focusing now when it comes to marketing? 

  

Allyson Kitchel (28:57): 

Yeah, I think it is so easy to get sucked into all the big, bright shiny things and companies that promise to deliver you the world. Well, I never had and still don’t have $5,000 a month to spend on SEO marketing. One decision I made that I was really happy with is I spent real money on a high quality, very well-built website. And it runs fast. And the goal is that I’m blogging there. And so my marketing people were just, or the people that built the website were just do a little bit, don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. Yes, we want you to blog twice a week. If you could do it twice a month, we’ll take it. So I did. And just bit by bit, I started to actually get some traction through my website. And I think it was two things. It was one just making a little progress, but also it was Google reviews, like good ones, they’re free, it costs nothing. 

  

(30:01): 

And in my practice area, I have figured out that people are the happiest when we reach that settlement before we have to go start fighting about liens and before other things come up. And so when people are thanking me, I ask them for a Google review and almost all people say yes, they’re happy to do it. So between those two things, a little bit of blogging and those Google reviews, I couldn’t believe it when people started telling me they had found me on Google. And so I was like, well, I need to just do more. I can do this. Apparently I am different enough. I can play in this sandbox, so what do I do? And for years I’m like, I just need to work on more blog. If I could just do once a week if I could just, well, the reality is I’ve got three kids and I’m running a business. 

  

(30:58): 

There’s only so much time in the day. So my brother is an entrepreneur and he says to me, I’m so sick of hearing you complain about needing to get more blog posts out. You need to just hire someone in the Philippines to do this. He’s like, there are so many skilled people there that I think you could really find someone great for your team. And that just sounded wild to me. But I wrote a job post, like a very detailed job description the way honestly I’ve learned through Lawyerist and put it out there. And I found someone terrific. And he is on my team full time and he does my SEO. He writes blog posts, he does keyword research. He makes sure that all of my webpages are SEO optimized with the H ones and the H twos and making sure photos are uploaded correctly. 

  

(31:54): 

And he does my social media work. I take raw photos and send them over, and he makes them funny or informative. Either one of those. And I won’t say that I have this all figured out. It is not perfect. The phone is not ringing off the hook, but my goal is to build organic traffic. Like I’m not doing the pay-per-click or the local service ads, but I’m seeing more traffic to my website, like a lot more traffic to my website. And we’re doing some fine tuning to do a better job getting the people that come to the website to convert. Or I got a call recently for trust and estate services, which I don’t do at all. So I don’t know how that happened, but we’re making some really good progress. And I will tell you, I’m spinning a fraction of what a lot of my friends are paying for some of these big agencies to do their SEO. 

  

Stephanie Everett (32:54): 

Yeah. Well, I love just the idea of thinking outside the box a little bit. And I think you’re right. It sounds intimidating to think, wait, I could go to another country and hire somebody and what does that even look like? But those opportunities exist now in a way that they didn’t 10 years ago, and it’s so easy. And so I love that you’re experimenting with doing that and now working with this person. And like you said, is it all figured out? No, but you’re on a path and you’re laying that foundation and groundwork for your digital presence and the results will come. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (33:26): 

Well, I really think people get hung up on this thing that someone remote that wouldn’t work. I need someone here. I just couldn’t possibly, I will tell you, he feels like he is a part of our team. We use teams in my firm for communicating. I see he’s on, he’s saying Good morning. We have a team meeting. He pops right on. He may as well be across town. We use A VPN. So everything works smoothly for him. It really works nicely. And my entire team is remote, I will say. So we just have that culture here, but I think it’s really more doable than people think it. It’s 

  

Stephanie Everett (34:11): 

Awesome. Well, what’s one piece of advice? What’s one thought you want people who might be listening know? We started the show by saying you started out as a listener and here you are now being the guest. Congrats. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. What do you want people to know that they might be thinking right 

  

Allyson Kitchel (34:30): 

Now? I would say if you are thinking about going out on your own, go for it. It’s scary, but it is doable. And I think you need a little cushion to pay your bills in the bank, but the business is out there. And the world I think needs more small, nimble, creative Lawyerist because there’s a lot of need out there. And people can’t afford the $700 an hour lawyer at the big law firms. And people need to be served. Businesses need to be served and truly bit by bit the business. The business will come and the startup costs for a law firm can be really, really small. My goal was to keep my overhead low. I had zero income and I was going to get an office later. It’s five years now. There’s no way I’m going to go rent an office. It’s just not necessary. With $3,000, you can start your law firm. It truly is a lot easier than I think people think it is. 

  

Stephanie Everett (35:43): 

Awesome. Well, thanks for being with me today, Allyson, and sharing your story, and we are excited to continue to watch you flourish and do all the things you’re doing. So thank you. 

  

Allyson Kitchel (35:53): 

Thank you so much, chief Stephanie. Thanks for having me. 

 

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