#534: Core Values: The Secret Weapon Your Law Firm Needs, with Chad Fox

Episode Notes

Transcript

Zack Glaser (00:12): 

Hi, I’m Zack, and this is episode 534 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, I talk with lawyers coach Chad Fox about core values, the what, the why, and how Today’s podcast is brought to you by Posh Virtual Receptionist, and you’ll hear my conversation with them shortly. But first, I want to say we’re getting into the new year. We’re rolling up on New Year’s on the holiday season. This is a good time to, well, it was always a good time in my office to reflect on the year and to think about the things that I want to do in the year going forward. And I say it was a good time to do that. Wasn’t always great at doing that because quite frankly, sometimes setting goals in our office can be scary sometimes looking back on whether or not we hit our goals in our offices, these are our babies, these are our lives. 

  

(01:18): 

These are the things that we, I mean, we set core values inside of these offices, and sometimes it can be scary to look back and to think about, how did I do this year? How did we do this year as a team? And I will say, no matter how well you did, no matter how poorly you did, no matter what you did, it’s always good look back and to reassess. And I’ll tell you this, I listen to every podcast that I make and I make plenty of mistakes in my podcasts, but I listened to them to try to get better. Every single litigation matter, every time I went to court and I walked out of the courtroom, there was something that I could have done differently. There was something I could have done better, but because of that feeling that I could have done something better, I always still reflected on it and always still found ways to reflect on it. 

  

(02:29): 

And I think it’s good to, at this time of year, to reflect on what we’ve done this year in our offices and how well we’ve done. And I’m not always the best person to ask about what those numbers are, but we need to be looking at our key performance indicators, our KPIs, the things that drive our firm. And not only do we need to know what those KPIs are in order to measure them, we need to know what we need to be hitting. And again, I’ll say this, that is scary for people. That’s uncomfortable for people, not only to try to figure out whether or not they hit their KPIs, but to figure out what those KPIs are. And so we have an opportunity here coming up on December 11th, and that’s just a few days from now on December 11th, we have a KPI webinar with Stephanie where she goes through all of the common KPIs, the things that you’ll need to track, and she takes a lot of the fear out of it. 

  

(03:40): 

She approaches these things very matter of factly while still acknowledging that it can be scary to run your firm. But if you’re looking to make an assessment to figure out what you’re doing this year, or how you did this year and what you want to do next year, or you’re trying to figure out how to do better next year, what numbers you should be tracking and how you should be tracking them, I really would suggest that you go to this webinar and we’ll drop a link to the webinar in the show notes, but you can always, always find these webinars by sending an email to [email protected], and that’s on December 11th at 12:00 PM Central or 1:00 PM Eastern, and it is a live virtual webinar. Well, now here is my conversation with our sponsored guests, and then we’ll head into my conversation with Chad about core values. Hey y’all, Zack, the legal tech advisor here at Lawyerist, and today I’ve got Sarina Perez with me from Posh Virtual Receptionist, and we are talking why, how and when to use a virtual receptionist. Sarina, thanks for being with me today. 

  

Sarina Perez (04:57): 

Thank you for having me, Zack. I’m happy to be back. Yes, I really wanted to highlight the benefits of using a service. Whether you are a startup firm or you are a very large firm and maybe even have someone in-house handling these calls, it’s always beneficial to kind of loop in an additional safety net as we call it. In that sense, if you are a startup firm, the benefits of using something like this as opposed to hiring an in-house employee, the number one benefit being cost, right? Right. It is going to be the most cost effective option for you to have a virtual receptionist like Posh to do not only the incoming calls, but maybe the intake that scheduling the first impression, making sure a call is never missed. And when you’re, as a startup firm, having that impression off the bat, building that efficiency, it helps you keep that retention of your clients, especially starting from the beginning. It’s a great first impression to build the rapport that you want to have for your firm. 

  

Zack Glaser (06:10): 

Right. Well, okay. Yes. I think one of the things that people get into as startup firms, and I was a small firm when I practiced and I was like, I don’t want to spend the money to bring somebody else in, but I also didn’t want to spend the money to hire a person internally and all that stuff. But it is beneficial because if you don’t have the time to answer these calls, you don’t have the time to answer these calls, and then you’re not getting this intake in. So walk me through though, what it’s like as a small firm to connect with something like PTO to bring in a virtual receptionist. What does that look like? What does that feel like? 

  

Sarina Perez (06:53): 

Yeah, so if you are a smaller firm, especially a firm who’s never maybe used or heard of a virtual receptionist company before, because we are more tailored to the legal industry, we kind of will set it up in a way where we do most of the work for you. You don’t know what works the best. We will show you what we’ve done in the past, what works efficiently for our clients. Typically, we want to make sure that it fits within whatever goals you want to reach, and whether that is depending on your practice areas, based on the information that you need, or scheduling appointments on a certain calendar intake and everything like that, down to the scripting and how we answer the call is customizable. 

  

Zack Glaser (07:37): 

Okay. So on that intake, having a script, I connect with you guys and say, this is what I want to have happen when somebody calls my office. How can I connect with that? How can I figure that out? What if I’ve never done that before? 

  

Sarina Perez (07:54): 

Yes, it starts with a conversation. A simple call, typically around 10 minutes with a consultant here at Posh will be able to hit on the points of the different type of calls that you can expect and how you prefer each of those to be handled. And after that conversation, your consultant really takes it away from there, building out your script, providing that script to you as a visual representation of how everything is going to be handled. And that is something that you have complete control over, so you can edit it to your liking, you can add and take things away until you’re comfortable. Then we’ll proceed with programming. 

  

Zack Glaser (08:31): 

Okay. So yeah, I guess that’s the control. That’s another thing that I want to kind of talk about is how much control do I have over when a virtual receptionist answers my stuff for me? When I answer it, where can I answer the phone calls? I guess that’s another thing is where does this live? Where does it exist physically in my firm? 

  

Sarina Perez (08:57): 

Great question. So typically we integrate with either a preexisting business line or we can provide you with a phone number to use for your firm, especially great for law firms who have maybe not established a business line or a carrier they want to proceed with. We’re going to provide you with a posh service number that is going to be dedicated to you and your account only. So that is how you would control that. You would forward your preexisting business line to the posh service number when you want your calls to answer, when you want to turn posh on, and if you want to take those calls back for some reason, let’s say you don’t want the virtual receptionist to answer the call, you control that, you simply would forward your line and that would stop the service. 

  

Zack Glaser (09:39): 

And I’m spoiler alert, you can do that through your phone through the posh app, which also means that I can make phone business phone calls from my cell phone, right? 

  

Sarina Perez (09:53): 

Yes, the app is a great tool. It is a office on your phone, for example. You can turn on and off call forwarding through the posh app. You can also set your availability status for transfers and speaking with your clients. You can also make outbound calls and send texts through the app and through our client portal. So if you would like to keep the privacy of your cell phone, of your personal number, using the app is a great way to do that. 

  

Zack Glaser (10:24): 

Awesome. So I think that’s about all the time that we have to talk about this Sarina, but if people want to get connected with Posh, they can always go to posh.com and I think they can get a free trial there. 

  

Sarina Perez (10:39): 

And if you mentioned that you’re coming from lawyers, we offer a special two week, 14 day free trial, so be sure to take advantage of that. You may also give us a call directly at eight three three, get posh. That’s 3 3 4 3 8 7 6 7 4. 

  

Zack Glaser (10:56): 

Awesome. Well, Sarina, once again, thanks s being with me, and thanks for sharing this information with our listeners. 

  

Sarina Perez (11:01): 

Not a problem. Thanks for having me, Zack. 

  

Chad Fox (11:04): 

Hi, I am Chad, and I’m a business coach here at Lawyerist. I come from a background of franchising and had a couple different businesses, had some exits, and excited to be here at Lawyerist, helping law firm owners to turn their firms into well-oiled machines of businesses. 

  

Zack Glaser (11:29): 

Chad, thanks for being with me. I appreciate it. It’s always nice chatting with you. You and I have obviously talked a bunch since you’re one of the lab coaches and you play DJ at our lab events a lot, not because you’re just the only person that knows how to use a computer. It’s because you actually did some DJing before as well, right? 

  

Chad Fox (11:53): 

I did, yeah. For, yeah. Gosh, man, from when I was 15 years old, and even now, I still get booked for shows every once in a while and I go out and play a show, but for the most part, retired from that life. 

  

Zack Glaser (12:07): 

Fair enough. Well, the many previous lives of lawyers, lab coaches. 

  

(12:13): 

Right. And it’s that experience that plays into what we’re able to do for our lab members. A lot of times your experience as a, I guess is it franchisee, is that the person who is a franchisee? 

  

Chad Fox (12:27): 

Yeah, a franchisee. 

  

Zack Glaser (12:29): 

As a franchisee, I think really plays into what we do here. And your advice because it almost, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but it almost kind of doesn’t matter what you sell in that sense, you’re setting up a business to run. And I think that’s one of your superpowers here is looking at these things, looking at law firms as like, we’re setting this up as a business to run, and we’re selling widgets. Our widgets are law, but we’re selling widgets, and how do we do that? So you’ve got a lot of experience with setting up businesses and whatnot. One of the things that I want to talk to you about though, are some of the initial decisions that we make setting up our businesses. If we go to the EOS method, if we go to traction, Gino Wickman’s book, which we base a lot of our ideas off of, or if you go to our book, the Small Firm Roadmap, you’ll see in there determining your values, your core values. Lawyers has core values, affinity has core values. A lot of companies have core values. Why? What does that mean? How does telling the world what we value in our company? How does that matter? 

  

Chad Fox (14:01): 

And I’ll start by answering that by saying, it’s not easy to come up with core values, good ones that really speak to you and what your company is about, what your firm is about, which is the reason why a lot of business owners and law firm owners skip it and they don’t take the time to do it, or they come up with some list of table stakes, core values, the basics, honesty, integrity, hardworking, those kinds of things, and put ’em up on the wall. 

  

Zack Glaser (14:32): 

You should build that anyway, 

  

Chad Fox (14:34): 

Are on the website. These table stakes values are implied. I mean you, that’s expected of people that join our team is that they do work with integrity and they’re hardworking and they’re honest. So those shouldn’t need to be our core values, but it’s hard to actually sit down and come up with good ones. And the thing with core values is oftentimes they already exist within your business, within your law firm. It’s just really about taking the time to get ’em on paper, define what they mean, and then be able to use them for a lot of different important areas in running your business. And this comes up all the time in my coaching calls, oftentimes on a call with one of our lobsters, and they’re faced with some sort of a decision, should I do this or should I do that? I’m juggling with these two or three different ideas on how to address this. And so I’ll immediately go to their core values that we’ve built together, which is something that we do in lab. When you first join lab, one of the first things we do in the first couple of weeks is really take the time to dial in your core values. And so walk away from that. 

  

Zack Glaser (15:53): 

Let me take a step back, if you don’t mind, Chad, and I’m sorry to interrupt, but going with the, this is something that you have at your firm already most of the time, and I think back to running the firm with my father and I can after the fact define our core values, but we never defined our core values during what does it matter? If that’s our core value that’s already there, why do I have to define it? 

  

Chad Fox (16:25): 

Because by defining it, you can now use it. It might already be there in the ether of your business, but nobody really knows that it’s a core value. And because they don’t know that it’s a core value or can’t easily identify it, they can’t use it to guide decision-making, whether it be with wrestling with a business decision or how you can use core values to hire the right people so you’re not just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, which is what happens oftentimes with hiring. 

  

Zack Glaser (16:58): 

Well, yeah, let’s unpack that real quick. How do I use my core values in the firm? So I’ve defined them, I’ve got them, I’ve defined them. They’re not just table stakes things. How do I use my core values in hiring a VA or hiring a new attorney to help me or something like that, or a new paralegal? 

  

Chad Fox (17:22): 

Yeah. So one of the biggest reasons that hires don’t work out is because of a misalignment of core values. We don’t understand that. That’s why oftentimes as business owners, because we don’t really understand what core values are and how we need to find the right people to mesh with the core values of our firm, but ultimately, that’s usually what it is. When it doesn’t work out, there was something missing. It just didn’t fit right. Say we say that they just weren’t the right fit, 

  

(17:53): 

And that’s really what we’re talking about without realizing that that’s what we’re talking about is they didn’t fit our core values. And so what I have people do when they’re hiring is I have ’em do three interviews when they’re with their people. The first one is basically just can they show up every day? Do they have reliable transportation? If it’s remote, do they have a computer or solid internet, yada yada. The basics just to be able to continue the conversation. And then from there, it’s a full sweep of their resume, face-to-face, ask them questions and going through the resume and understanding what did they love about that job? What went well, what were they proud of, what would they change? Then from there, the third interview all about core values. Once you’ve identified that they can do the basics of the job, you’ve gone through the resume with them and feel like they’re a good person for the job, they have the right experience, everything kind of feels good. And then the last interview is core values. You’re asking situational questions to help uncover their core values if they have demonstrated the core values that you’ve identified in your firm in the past. 

  

Zack Glaser (19:17): 

So tell 

  

Chad Fox (19:17): 

Me about a time when blank, and depending on your core values, you come up with interview questions that will identify if they’ve ever been in those situations and how they handled it, and that can help you to identify people that are in line with your core values. 

  

Zack Glaser (19:35): 

Okay, yeah, that makes sense because if somebody had on their application, check the box, do you believe that act inclusively is a core value? Well, I’m going to check the box, but asking a question that kind of leads to that conclusion would make, Hey, a lot more. I mean, this is why you do what you do, and I do what I do. I ask questions, 

  

Chad Fox (20:02): 

And you’re not telling them, Hey, I’m going to ask you some questions about core values. It’s just the third interview, and they don’t necessarily know that that’s what you’re trying to uncover, and that’s what you want. I mean, you want honest, raw input from that person on the other end to identify if they are in fact in line with your core values or not, and then that can help eliminate a lot of hiring mistakes. 

  

Zack Glaser (20:26): 

Yeah, I mean, I can go back to hiring that I did and kind of placed that on top of that and go, yeah, I probably would’ve would’ve eliminated that hiring mistake. Well, okay, but core values aren’t just something that we use to figure out if we get along with people. I mean, what else can we use our core values with? 

  

Chad Fox (20:50): 

Yeah. One of the other times it often comes up in my coaching calls is with decision making. I had a client last week that he was struggling with communication with one of the partners in his firm, and communication is one of their core values. And so we went to his core values and I said, okay, let’s take a look at your core values, and it’s on Zoom. So we screen shared, and I pulled up the list and his descriptions of them and said, all right, which one of your core values is being challenged right now? He goes, well, it’s communication. And I said, all right, well, let’s read how you described what communication means to you and your firm and how you use it for decision making. So we read it and I said, all right, well, based on that, this is your core value communication, and this is how you describe that. You can use it. What would be the best way to move forward that leans into what the core value means to you and your firm versus leans away from it? And that’s one of the biggest ways that you can use it, use your core values if you have them well identified, is all of your decisions can be viewed through the lens of your core values if you get your core values right. 

  

Zack Glaser (22:04): 

Okay. Yeah. So saying our core value, again, let’s use be inclusive as a core value. You approach the problem and say, is this going to move us towards that core value, or is it going to move us away from that core value? And you’re not literally looking at it for the answer, but is the answer that I’m coming up with in line with that core value? Okay. 

  

Chad Fox (22:29): 

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And then even this today, you and I, we didn’t plan on having this chat today. This is an example of good core values at work here at Lawyers and at Affinity. Chelsea reached out and said, Hey, we need somebody for a podcast today. Do you have a topic? And my immediate thought is, this is a grab the marker opportunity. Somebody on the team is in a bind, needs help and grab the marker as one of our core values at Lawyer is. So this is an opportunity for me to grab the marker. And that’s what you want from your team, from your core values. You want them to know the core values by heart, know what they mean, and actually look for opportunities to exercise them when things come up. This is an opportunity for me to be inclusive. This is an opportunity for me to grab the marker. I mean, this is what you want out of your core values, and that’s really another way that you can use them. Decision-making hiring, but then also it helps to establish your team culture. 

  

Zack Glaser (23:37): 

That’s nice because that kind of brings us back a little bit to almost the purpose of using it when you’re hiring. It’s not just, am I going to get along with these people? Are the people that we’re hiring, are the people that we’re bringing into our company, are they aligned with us? Are they going to go out and say, well, I’m going to make my own internal daily decision based on am I leaning into my core values? I hadn’t really thought about that. It’s not just the leadership of the company that is making decisions based on core values, but we’re all making decisions based on core values. And that comes from hiring. 

  

Chad Fox (24:15): 

Yeah. Yeah. 

  

Zack Glaser (24:17): 

Okay. So we need core values. You’ve convinced me of this, Chad, you’ve convinced me of this finally. No, I’ve been doing this with lawyers for a while. So yeah, so we need core values. How do we go about figuring that out? You talked about table stakes, core values. How do I get past just the, we want to be good. People don’t do evil, obviously. 

  

Chad Fox (24:47): 

So what I usually do, so let’s say somebody joins lab as a brand new Labster, and one of the first things we do in the first couple of weeks of them joining lab is we take them through to establish their core values. So one of the first things we’ll do is just say, Hey, these are table stakes, or This is why you need them. These are the table stakes values. Let’s try to avoid these because these should be implied that people are going to have integrity and be honest and be hardworking and things like that. 

  

(25:19): 

And then we’ll go through and we’ll just have a conversation about identifying what are the must haves in people that join your team and even the clients that you work with, what are the must haves? And so we’ll go through and I’ll open up a Word document and we’ll just start brainstorming, just spitballing ideas. What are all the things that these people absolutely must have? They must be great communicators, and what does that mean? And they must be inclusive, and what does that mean? And we’ll just come up with all these ideas. And then from there, once we have a pretty nice list, I’m not really looking to put a cap on the list at this point, just as many things we can come up with. 

  

(26:01): 

Then we’ll go into deal breakers all, well, what are the things that they absolutely cannot be? What can they not have? And then oftentimes the deal breakers can help them dial in their must-haves, right? Because oftentimes can be the opposite of what you want. And so if there’s things that they didn’t think about on their must haves, they can uncover them through the deal breakers through going through the deal breakers. And then once we have those two lists, then we’ll go through and start combining things. All right, let’s start condensing it a little bit. Let’s look at the must haves. Let’s see if there’s any deal breakers that we need to maybe take the opposites of and move them up to the must haves. And then let’s go through and combine some of these concepts that are very similar. 

  

(26:43): 

Ultimately, you want to end up with four to six. I think that’s kind of the sweet spot, four to six core values. They can be a word, they could be a phrase, they could be a couple of words. We have this example, and when we take our new laps through the core values of a company that actually used movie quotes as their core values, that was something that was very interesting to them and something they were really into as a company. And so they did their core values as movie quotes, which is pretty cool, but that wouldn’t make sense if you weren’t into movies. But if you were, and that was your thing, then that could work out really cool, right? And so it doesn’t have to just be one word. And then from there, we just condense it down into four to six good solid core values that really speak to us. And then take it a step further. We want to define what do those mean so that if somebody on my team is faced with a decision, they can look at that core value and read the description, memorize it, hopefully, and then be able to actually use it to guide how they do their work, how they interact with their customers, how they interact with each other. 

  

Zack Glaser (27:58): 

So I guess two things out of that. One is that these aren’t just a set it and forget it sort of thing, box of, did I define my core values? We’re trying to actually define them and then use them. So where should I put them? Is there kind of a cheat code for where I should have them to remind people? Because this isn’t always how people will have worked throughout their lives to have worked with core values. How can I get everybody to be using these things? 

  

Chad Fox (28:33): 

Yeah. Well, one of the first things you want to do is actually tell your team about ’em, right? Doesn’t do a lot of good to come up with core values, and then nobody ever sees ’em but you. And unfortunately, that’s what happens. So step one, present them to your team after step one, get ’em created, get ’em solidified. Step two, actually present them to your team and have a discussion around how we can use these and how we will use these going forward. And 

  

(29:00): 

We even take a step further and think about decisions we faced in the past before we had these core values that maybe if we had applied these concepts that would’ve made those decisions a little bit easier, or maybe we would’ve made a different decision. Because oftentimes, lobsters come to us and they already have a business and they already have a team and they don’t have any of this. So we’re starting this. Now, let’s say they have 8, 8, 9, 10 people on their team already. And now you’re going to go and present these core values to your team. And likely you’ve had plenty of situations with a team of that size in the past where this could have been helpful and just have that conversation and get everybody on board. 

  

Zack Glaser (29:45): 

Well, if I’m doing this kind of retroactively, is it helpful to bring my team in to maybe even figure out what my core values are or define the core values 

  

Chad Fox (29:59): 

To a point? I mean, you can get ideas, but I think that this is something that the business owner needs to ultimately be leading the charge on. 

  

(30:11): 

But you can certainly do that. But then if you get too much input, then you end up with 20 core values and everybody has different ideas of what it could be. But you could certainly do a feedback session and then try to figure out how you can combine some of those concepts. So a lot of times when you get a lot of ideas, if we have a ton of must haves, some of the ideas can be part of the description of maybe the bigger, broader, more impactful title of that core value. So ultimately, I think it needs to be the business owner that comes up with the final list, but certainly getting feedback from others can be helpful. 

  

Zack Glaser (30:55): 

Well, so if I’m doing this retroactively, and I say it this way because I think a lot of people out there in podcast land probably already have a firm that they’re running doing this retroactively. I’ve got three people that work for me and I’ve come up with my core values. And what if they don’t fit everybody? What if I didn’t use them to hire? And what if they don’t fit everybody? Do I need to figure out values that fit my current situation, or could these be aspirational? 

  

Chad Fox (31:26): 

I mean, it’s a good question. What do you do if you find out that you have people working for you that aren’t in line with your core values? And so I guess it kind of depends. Maybe they are, and maybe if they’ve lasted this long and you’re not having any problems with them, but they’ve been there for a little while and everything is good, but maybe they’re not in line with ’em. And that’s where I think it could be helpful to get feedback from others. So you kind of include a little bit from everybody, whether it’s the actual core value or maybe it’s part of the description of it. But I think that, I dunno, let me think on that. I hadn’t really thought about that. 

  

Zack Glaser (32:11): 

So let’s take a specific example that I can think of that is kind of our coming off of Grab the Marker. I’ve got a paralegal, he’s been there forever. He’s been with me, maybe I inherited him from a practice that I got before. He has a ton of institutional knowledge, but he’s not going to go outside of his box and take any initiative. He doesn’t take any initiative ever, but he knows everything about how to get stuff done. What am I thinking about there? I know you can’t just say, we’ll get rid of him because we don’t know the full scenario, but what am I thinking about there? Should I change my value? 

  

Chad Fox (32:58): 

No, I mean, I don’t think you change your value. I think that it’s tough in a situation like that because 

  

Zack Glaser (33:09): 

I’m thinking the same thing here. Chad, I’m not asking this question because I know the answer to it and I don’t know that there’s, but I, I’m thinking of this as you can imagine this. I could describe this pretty easily, pretty quickly. I may have run across this type of thing before, and what I go to there is right butt, right seat. I don’t know, is this person contrary to our values? Are they actively fighting against our values? But I don’t know, maybe we get to our other values. Are we trying to have right butt right seat? Are we trying to be inclusive? Are we trying to be, I guess it doesn’t have to be one specific value that drives us at every time. But yeah, I mean, I think this is a real scenario, and I hate to say this, but in my experience, at the end of the day in this scenario, specific scenario, you have to figure out, it starts to make you question, is this person right butt? Right? And do I need to then, and this is my plug, and I know you’re big on processes as well. Do I need to go get that institutional knowledge out of this person’s brain? 

  

Chad Fox (34:34): 

Yeah, because I think about my experience when we bought our very first franchise, again, we didn’t have core values when we started, but we knew who we were and we knew what we were going to be about as business owners. We were stepping into a situation where the location that we were buying was about to have to close its doors because the previous owner couldn’t make payroll and nobody was going to come back to work if they didn’t get paid. And so we basically stepped in, took care of payroll, took over the lease, did the whole thing, but we knew who we were going to be coming in. And we did have someone that was not on board with the changes. And she had been there for a while and ultimately ended up quitting. It just wasn’t for her. She didn’t want to be a part of it. She liked the way that things were before and wasn’t on board with change. And it’s an unfortunate and sometimes necessary thing that happens where not everybody is going to be onboard with the new direction and having this stuff and having it kind of shake up their day to day. 

  

Zack Glaser (35:46): 

And I think that’s the thing, Chad, what you’re getting at here, and this aligns with my experience, is that I actually didn’t decide to get rid of this person to part ways with this person, but we did part ways it happened. And I think that’s the thing that I want to get to here is if they don’t align with your core values, it almost doesn’t matter what you think, but you’re going to save yourself a lot of time if you make an active decision. If I had made an active decision about this, I would’ve saved myself a lot of time, a lot of heartache. I would have already had that institutional knowledge built into the company. So kind of still along those lines are, should I revisit my core values? Can I revisit my core values? How often should I revisit my core values? Are these kind of a set it and forget it sort of thing in this way as well? 

  

Chad Fox (36:45): 

Yeah, definitely not a set it and forget it thing. And I think going back to what you said before about what do we do with them, once you present them to your team, it should be a part of your regular conversations in your team meetings. And then they can evolve during those meetings. You might decide that there’s something else that you need to add, that you need to add. Say you have four and you decide something that’s really a part of who we are as a team is being inclusive. That’s really important to us, and it’s not one of our core values. Then you can add that. Or maybe you decide that there’s one that two maybe that could be combined. I mean, it’s definitely not a static list by any means. And canon should be revisited, maybe not weekly or monthly. I mean, it should be a part of your regular conversations with your team and your decision making. And as the leader of the firm, that’s going to be the factor on whether this becomes a part of the day-to-day operations of the firm, part of the decision making, part of the hiring process. It’s going to be the leader that will have to be the one to make it stick. 

  

Zack Glaser (38:00): 

Yeah. Yeah. And it seems to me, I mean, nothing in our firm is an easy answer, but the core values can help us have a common verbiage, a conversation around things, a starting point, and as you said, a lens from which to view. Frankly, all of the issues that we have come in our office, all of the decisions that we have come in our office. 

  

Chad Fox (38:34): 

Yeah. Yeah. Well said. I mean, that’s really what it’s all about. Because so often we are struggling with what’s the right decision? Well, if we have our core values and and they speak to who we are and what we stand for, it should be easy to take a look at that list and figure out which core values being challenged and what decision to make that’s going to move us closer to that versus further away. 

  

Zack Glaser (39:04): 

I like it. Which core values being challenged and what decision of these are going to move us towards it versus further away? I like that a lot. Well, Chad, if people want to learn more about core values and how to use them, they can always pick up our book, the Small Firm Roadmap. They can go to lawyers.com and find it there, or I believe it’s on Amazon or various different places that you can get your books. And it’s in e format. It’s in hard copy. I’ve got my hard copy dogeared to the Dickens, and I’m sure you do too. Chad, thanks for being with me. I really enjoyed this conversation about core values, and it kind of got me a little reminiscent of running law firm with my father. 

  

Chad Fox (39:50): 

Yeah, yeah. No, it’s so important. And like I said, it’s been coming up often in our coaching calls here in Lab, and it’s really the foundation of how you kind of build everything else. So I thought it was an important topic. 

  

Zack Glaser (40:05): 

Well, and I feel like this is kind of one of those things with when’s the best time to plant a tree 40 years ago? When’s the second best time today? When’s the best time to have done your core values when you started your firm? Sure. But when’s the second best time today? Maybe get started 

  

Chad Fox (40:20): 

Today. Today. Yeah. And we can help too. We guide you through it. 

  

Zack Glaser (40:23): 

Absolutely. Well check us out lawyers.com. Chad, once again, thanks for being with me. I appreciate 

  

Chad Fox (40:29): 

It. Yeah, thanks Zack. Have a great day. 

  

Zack Glaser (40:31): 

You too. Take care. 

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