“Newish Solo,” After A Year Or Two On Your Own, What Next?

Episode Notes

Transcript

So if I was starting today as a New Solo, I

Speaker 2:

Would entrepreneurial aspect,

Adriana Linares:

Change the way they’re practicing

Speaker 1:

Leader,

Speaker 2:

What it means

Speaker 1:

To be,

Adriana Linares:

Make it easy to work

Joanne Martin:

With your clients,

Speaker 5:

New approach, new tools, new mindset, New Solo.

Speaker 2:

And it’s making that leap. Making that leap leap.

Adriana Linares:

It’s time for another episode of New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I’m your host Adriana Linares, and today I have a great guest who’s coming back on the show for a second time. She had emailed me, I forget about what, and I said, oh wow. By the way, do you want to come back on and give us an update on how your law firm is doing? Joanne Martin is an attorney in Victoria, British Columbia, and she was on the show back in October of 2022. So I encourage you to go back, listen to that episode, especially if you’re at the point of your law firm where you’ve been open for a year or two. What do I do next? How am I doing? You can go back and see where Joanne started and I’m going to ask her to give us a little bit of an update, but then we’re going to see how she’s done for the past year and a half, and I think all of you and including me, I haven’t gotten the whole story, are going to be incredibly impressed. Joanne, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on New Solo.

Joanne Martin:

Thank you for having me.

Adriana Linares:

It’s absolutely a pleasure. Do you want to remind everyone, just real quick, don’t go back and repeat everything from the first episode. They can go listen, but one of the main reasons I had asked you to come on the first time was because this was a second career for you. You had had a whole career in film and television decided to become a lawyer and tell us a little bit real quick on how that ended up coming to fruition.

Joanne Martin:

I had always wanted to be a lawyer since I was a teenager, and it was always this thing that was in the back of my mind that I got married young and we had our family right away. I think I had four children by the time I was 28.

Oh my gosh. And I had only one year of university at that point. And so the idea of going to law school just seemed like a distant dream, but I kept it in the back of my mind and I chipped away at my education while I continued to work in film and television and raising our kids and being the overachiever that I was, also the PTA president and really involved my kids’ activities, but I was able to get a bachelor of commerce, a business degree in entrepreneurial management when I was about 35 and I did really well and I had the grades then to go to law school and one day my oldest son, who was I think in grade 11 at the time, had a couple of friends come over and these two girls and they were talking about their plans for university and after they left I said to my husband, that used to be me. You got

Adriana Linares:

Jealous.

Joanne Martin:

Well, not so much jealous, but just a reminder. I said to him, I was the smart girl who had the whole world in front of her and I could have been and done anything and now it’s too late, I’ll never be a lawyer. And he said to me, no, it’s not too late. Let’s figure out how to make it happen. Awesome. And so I started studying for the lsat, it was my job, and applied to and got into the University of British Columbia and we sold Amazing. Yeah, sold our house on the outskirts of Vancouver, moved into family housing with all of our kids.

Adriana Linares:

I remember that.

Joanne Martin:

And and just kept chipping away and in the end I got a job back in the city that we had moved from and it was really great to go back there. Our kids continued school and then I built my practice there. I always worked in family law, but when my youngest was graduating from high school, it was in the middle of the pandemic and it just seemed like a really great time to move back to Victoria, which is where I had met my husband and where our first two kids were born. And so it was a great time and I also knew that if I moved, I didn’t want to work at a different firm. I wanted to start my own firm. And so in the midst of the pandemic when people weren’t meeting in person or doing anything like that, we moved and I started my firm and in the beginning it was just me with a contract paralegal I had for 10 or 15 hours a week and slowly built up my business and that was where I was. When you and I met last,

Adriana Linares:

You decided to call your law firm Align family law, and I love the story behind that. Do you want to just tell us real quick why you didn’t go with Joanne Martin Family Law or something pretty descriptive?

Joanne Martin:

Yeah. Well, I didn’t want it to be something that was about me. I wanted something that potentially I could be able to sell at some point down the road. I didn’t want it to be a bunch of names As people came and went, I wanted to build a brand around a name. Also, because we work with people all over the province, British Columbia is a huge area. I didn’t want it to be Vancouver Island Family Law or something like that. So I chose Align because I wanted to have a business and a firm that aligned with my own values. I wanted to do things differently. And also too, in family law, we’re often taking people’s ideas about what should happen and we’re kind of aligning them and coming up with something that works for everybody, hopefully in a way that helps ’em to move forward to the next chapter.

Adriana Linares:

One of the things that I commented on the last time we chatted was what a nice attorney you are and how your approach had been to be nice. And you said, well, I’m not a pushover, so don’t make me sound too nice. And I agree. So I’m just wondering, after a year and a half, almost two years, are you still as nice or have you hardened up at all or do you still try really hard to make it a really nice experience and even be as cordial, as nice as you can to the other side as often as you can? Is that still one of your values?

Joanne Martin:

Absolutely. In fact, I think it’s strengthened over time. Another thing that’s happened is that I’ve been able to be really selective about the kinds of files that I take. I think it would be difficult to practice that if I had a full litigation practice. Yeah, I’ve opted to have an out of court practice as much as I can. I have some files where a court action’s been started, but the majority of family law matters are solved outside of court anyway, so it’s been great. It’s worked really well and we’re collecting fantastic Google reviews and people are happy and feel supported and I think it’s really working.

Adriana Linares:

So when you launched, it was just you and this part-time paralegal. How did you get the word out and do marketing?

Joanne Martin:

I joined the collaborative practice group in Victoria and I became a member of the executive. So I’m actually on the marketing committee for that.

Adriana Linares:

Is that like a bar association would be in the United States?

Joanne Martin:

No, it is a group of family law professionals, so not just lawyers, but also financial specialists and

Child specialists and divorce coaches who work together in a team-based approach to family law. I joined that and through just being a member of that organization met a lot of like-minded lawyers who started referring files to me. The demand for family law is so high that it wasn’t difficult to do it without much marketing in initially. I have tried my hand at Google Ads, which I have found to cast a pretty wide ad and to be quite expensive. So I’m not currently doing that, but people are finding us and we continue to book initial consultations and open files.

Adriana Linares:

So you did mention Google Reviews, and let me just see if you think I’ve got this story. You started by networking, joining essentially a networking group that would refer you work a very specific type of networking group for the profession that you’re in, and that led to clients that probably led to more clients. But it sounds like you’re also very systematic about capturing positive reviews from your happy clients.

Joanne Martin:

Yes. It’s part of our workflow actually when we’re closing files to ask for Google reviews.

Adriana Linares:

And I think this is one of the things that is hardest for attorneys. They don’t want to ask for those. Can you tell an attorney, all the attorneys listening why they should, how they should, and then remind them that typically a happy client is thrilled to be able to do that for you?

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, it usually happens pretty organically. We’ve wrapped a file up and the client is thanking me and telling me they’re really glad that they were able to work with me. And then usually I’ll say something to them along the lines of, if you wouldn’t mind putting that into Google Review, that would be really helpful. It helps us to build our business and it helps people to find us. Not everyone does it because it’s something that takes a bit of time, at least not really that big of a deal, but it makes a big difference. So in our marketing efforts it has

Adriana Linares:

To,

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, they’ll see the firm name and then they’ll have a look. And I think we live in an age where people don’t really buy things without looking at reviews. Amazon’s trained us for that,

Adriana Linares:

That’s for sure. Do you have any other platforms that you gather reviews on? No, that’s it because Google is everything. I want to remind everyone that we did a full episode with GI acus earlier this year on the importance of claiming your Google Business profile and getting those reviews. So if you’ve not listened to that episode, go back and listen to it. Next question for you, because this is one of the things you and I emailed about was that you had done an update on your website. So I’m curious if, and you asked me to look at it, what do you think? Of course it looks amazing. What was the impetus behind updating or changing your website? It’s been a year and a half, but also the website ties into those Google reviews because somebody might find you on Google Maps or see those Google reviews and then come to your website. What ideas did you have for making that website more friendly and really making it easy for people to contact you through the website if that’s how they chose to do it?

Joanne Martin:

I really wanted to strengthen our SEO. That was the main reason. When I had done my earlier website, I did it myself and I didn’t really know what I was doing. There was a lot about my website that I really liked, and so I had written all of the content for it, and a lot of that content got repurposed and reused in the website.

Adriana Linares:

So you did a full redesign of the website and repurposed. Okay, great.

Joanne Martin:

We also did a photo shoot with all of our team members, so that was great and found a fantastic photographer, and because we’re not all in the same place, I didn’t want to do it in an office because we don’t all work in the same office. And so I found a location in Vancouver on a website that’s sort of like VRBO or Airbnb, but for photo shoots.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, smart.

Joanne Martin:

Yes. So I found this really great apartment in Gastown with brick walls and lots of white and it really fit. It didn’t look like an office, so it didn’t feel disingenuous to use it, but it was a great space and we had a fantastic photographer who made us all look amazing, and I even hired a hair and makeup up person, so used a bit of my film and television background to kind of direct and produce our own.

Adriana Linares:

Brilliant. Shoot. I love it. Tell us, and again, thinking about lawyers that are building their website or getting ready to launch or thinking about a redesign, what are the most important parts of your website that make clients want to contact you or they just visit on a regular?

Joanne Martin:

There’s a lot of information on our website. I think when people are facing separation, they’re often really overwhelmed and they don’t know what the process is. And so our website really spells out for people what our process is at Align family law. There’s lots of practice pages that have information on divorce or separation and how that works in British Columbia. And I think that that allows people to educate themselves before they come into an initial consultation. Also, our branding, we updated our branding. The whole thing I think is just a more sophisticated, polished version of what we had. That’s great. And the team I worked with was at Legends Legal Marketing. So they only do websites for lawyers, and they were amazing to work with. And in fact, I’m now signed a contract with them to do marketing, so they’re doing our marketing now on an ongoing basis.

Adriana Linares:

That’s wonderful. We have a lot to hear about and how you’ve grown. So thank you for giving us some tips and tricks on the website. I find that a lot of times what I’ll tell an attorney is just get something out there for now so you have a presence when you’re handing a card out or someone refers you, and then you can make that website better later when you’ve got more money to spend on it. So I think you’ve pretty much supported that suggestion, and I think attorneys will appreciate hearing that.

Joanne Martin:

There were times in the process where I thought, this is a lot of money and I don’t know why I’m spending it. My current website is fine the way that it is, but then seeing the two side by side, it’s like a thousand times better and so much more of what we want to present. It just really fits our image, and I’m really, really thrilled that we made the effort and that we worked with the team that we worked with.

Adriana Linares:

Well, I love hearing that you spent the money and you’re happy about it because I can’t tell you how many times I have to say, don’t be cheap. These are important business assets, whether it’s your technology or your marketing specifically your website. I mean, that’s your real estate for the world to look into your house and see how you live. So I think that’s really great advice and I’m super happy to hear it. We’re going to take a quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors, and when we come back I’m going to ask you about how you grew in a year and a half to become six people, which is pretty amazing. We’ll be right back. All right. I’m back with Joanne Martin. She’s an attorney in Victoria, British Columbia. I don’t know, I guess I want to keep saying Vancouver. I always think about Canada and Vancouver and where one of my favorite jewelry shops is, and the only place I can actually buy it is in Vancouver.

It’s Fry Va. In case you’re wondering, they do painted enamel bracelets, kind of like hermas bracelets in Fry VA is one of my favorites. And the only store is in North America is in Vancouver. Oh, love to check it out. I know. Please do. It’s beautiful. So I always have Vancouver on my mind, in my mind. You’re on the west coast of Canada and that’s what pops up, but you are on the west side of Canada, you’re just in Victoria. Yes. Which sounds beautiful. And you have grown your law firm in a year and a half and added five people. Can you tell us about your first hire? When did you decide it was time and how did you decide? And then I’m going to ask you about all the work that kept coming in, which obviously required to hire more, but I get a lot of questions about how do I know when I, and what do I need to know? So just give us the basics on that first hire.

Joanne Martin:

So my first hire was another lawyer, Spencer, who I had worked with at the previous firm that I was at, and he approached me and liked what I was doing, wanted to change indirectly. Actually, my first two lawyer hires were more convinced I think, to come and join me because of this podcast. They both listened to the episode.

Adriana Linares:

Really?

Joanne Martin:

Yes,

Adriana Linares:

That makes me happy.

Joanne Martin:

And so Spencer came and joined me and really I didn’t have an intention at that point to really expand. And so it happened. It’s not like I went out and I was trying to recruit people. Spencer’s actually based in Vancouver. And so then it sort of became this thing of, well, am I going to expand into the Vancouver market? And so he has done a mix of Victoria and Vancouver files and his practice is growing. I keep on harassing him and trying to get him to move to Victoria, but we have a moratorium on that because he’s getting married in June and can’t think about anything other than the wedding until then. Fair, fair. But they do want to move out of Vancouver at some point. And so yeah, I’m really rooting for Victoria because it’d be great to have him over here.

Adriana Linares:

And I should have asked you this, does everyone work from home or do you have any brick and mortar offices?

Joanne Martin:

I work from a brick and mortar office in Victoria. I’m back in the same office share that I was in when I first started, and I’ve maintained that address the entire time. So all my mails always gone there. And there was a brief period where I was working from home and if I was meeting with clients in person, I would do it at the office.

Adriana Linares:

So Spencer said, Hey, I’d love to work with you. And how far into the launch was that?

Joanne Martin:

So you and I spoke in October, 2022, and he approached me at the end of December of that year and then started in March.

Adriana Linares:

But you had launched your law firm. We talked in 2022, but you had launched when,

Joanne Martin:

It’s hard to say because there was a long period of time, and maybe we can talk about this. I think this is something that a lot of people go through. I had a big period of time where I was in my own head and really needed to get out of my own way. I may have been building my business, but I spent so much time on the systems and on the backend things, which in retrospect was really good because it allowed me to have the foundation for Spencer and then Arianne and all the other people that joined me after to be able to scale up quite easily because those systems were in place. But there was a lot of time where I had a lot of self-doubt. And

Adriana Linares:

You had the old paralysis by analysis problem.

Joanne Martin:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

So trying to sort of erase or meld all that time, how long do you think it was before you had enough work and felt comfortable and give TA walked in the door at the exact right time? How long do you think that was? A year, a year and a half

Joanne Martin:

Before Spencer came? It was probably about a year.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. So within about a year after launch, you were in a position because you had the right technology, the right systems, the right processes, and enough work because of your networking to look at someone and say, yes, I think I can make this work and you won’t starve.

Joanne Martin:

Yes. And to be fair, he really took a huge leap of faith and he was willing to ride it out and he could see that there was great potential in it. So that’s great. We’ve been on a process of him building his book of business as well, and to the point now where he’s quite busy and it’s going great.

Adriana Linares:

That’s awesome. So how did number 2, 3, 4, and five come along?

Joanne Martin:

So next step was Anne, and she is a lawyer who is in the K, which is in the eastern part of the province. So I’m on Vancouver Island, which is the very west part of bc. And the Kunis is sort of where she lives is right on the Alberta border. And so she had been working at a firm for a period of time and it was disbanding and she was looking at her options and she was thinking about starting her own firm. And so she had looked at various websites for inspiration and she came across my website, liked what she saw, and then subsequent to that was listening to New Solo and her podcast.

And she said, wait, I know that woman. I looked at her website. And so she actually reached out to me through my website, fills out the form and just said, I’m a family law lawyer. I heard you on New. Solo would love to talk to you. I am someone who will tell anybody anything. I’m not gatekeeping any of this information that I have. I’m happy to share because I think it really, especially with other women, I love building other people up and I get so much of that out of that, and I’ve learned so much from other people as well. And so we arranged to have a Zoom call and immediately I knew she was fantastic. I said to her, no pressure, but if you really like what I’m doing rather than recreating that, why not come and work with me? Wow. She

Adriana Linares:

Was probably hoping you would say that the whole time.

Joanne Martin:

I’m not sure. But she had just had a baby, so she was a new mom and probably not a great time to start her own firm anyway. And so we had lots of discussions about how it would work. And then she started in August. So Spencer came on in March and then she came in August. And then I was still working with a contract paralegal, but my former legal assistant from the firm I used to work at was on her maternity leave. And she and I had kept in touch and I loved working with her. She’s just such a fantastic person. Her name’s Emma. And so she reached out to me and we talked about how it might work, but she lives in Abbotsford. So again, someone else who’s not in Victoria. So our entire team is remote, no one is where I am

Adriana Linares:

And it works and you’re killing it. So it goes to show you you can have a distributed workforce and still run a successful law practice.

Joanne Martin:

And so then she started in November. Around the same time my son, my youngest son was trying to figure out what he wants to do. He’s 20. And I hired him just to do some basic admin work. And I had a VA from El Salvador working for me at the same time who was really great, but Liam, my son, ended up doing such a great job that it just became apparent that he was a better fit. And so he actually came on, works full time for us, and he’s our client intake coordinator.

Adriana Linares:

Unbelievable. Okay. That’s number four.

Joanne Martin:

Yes, number four. And then Christie, so I mentioned before in the last episode that we have a thing called icing In Canada, you don’t go straight from law school to being a lawyer. There’s a 10 month period where you article. And so you get hired at a law firm and you work under a principal lawyer who basically guides and trains you. You’re like a baby lawyer and you get lots of experience during that time. And at some point during that year, you take the professional legal training course and you write your bar exam and you have to do some other exam test kind of things as well as part of PLTC, where Arianne is a city called Kimberly, where’s the town actually called Kimberly. She had a mutual friend who had a friend who was in law school or had been in law school who wanted to move to Kimberly, and she was icing. And so she approached Arianne and then Arianne and I interviewed her and she was fantastic named Christie. So she is the second career for her as well. She was a paralegal for seven years.

Adriana Linares:

Oh,

Joanne Martin:

Wow. So she has a background in law already. She went to the University of Alberta and then she was articling, and so we actually took over her articles and she moved to Kimberly.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, amazing.

Joanne Martin:

So we have a brick and mortar office in downtown. Kimberly and Christie and Arianne work out of that, and sometimes I’m really jealous they’ve got a great coffee shop next door and actually a chocolate store next door as well. So sometimes I wish I didn’t live in Victoria and I was in Kimberly, but then I remember that it snow is a lot of the air, so I don’t want that.

Adriana Linares:

No thanks. So they zoom meet with you from the coffee shop while they’re eating their chocolates. Tell us about meetings and communicating and how do you stay caught up on all the different cases? Are y’all on teams all day long? Do you have, what do they call it in the mornings when you do a

Joanne Martin:

Huddle?

Adriana Linares:

A huddle? Yeah. Is there a huddle? Tell us how y’all stay collaborative. Communicative.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, so we have an all team huddle on Monday morning and Wednesday morning the whole team gets together via Zoom and we talk about what our priorities are for the day. Sometimes we’ll bring up things that are happening on files that we want to talk through. It’s just a really great opportunity for us to connect. And the fact that we’re not on Zoom hasn’t lessened that ability to really connect and to get along probably because I make sure that we are not just chatting about business. There’s time for us to talk. Both Emma and Anne have really young kids. There’s a real human side to it too. I really recognize that we have lives outside of work and really want to be respectful of that. I just adore everyone on my team. I really do.

Adriana Linares:

I was just going to say, and you all really like each other, so you care about each other and you want to hear about how everyone’s doing and all those milestones that happen in their family lives. It’s really nice.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

Because the nicest lawyer, I know,

Joanne Martin:

I’m just Canadian, we’re all like this,

Adriana Linares:

You and Liz McCasland actually who is not Canadian, but now that I think about it, she should be are the nicest lawyers. I know. That’s

Joanne Martin:

Funny. We actually met in person for the first time. We had our whole team together when we did our photo shoot in Vancouver. Christie hadn’t yet started with us, but she was moving from Vancouver to Kimberly the next week. So we arranged to have the photo shoot we all met in Vancouver. The location was in Gastown. I flew Arianne in for the meeting. We had our photo shoot and it was just fantastic. We were there all day talking when people weren’t having their photos talking, they were in the kitchen just chatting and it just felt really great. So I do miss that in person

Adriana Linares:

Contact.

Joanne Martin:

I’m an introvert, but I’m quite social as well. And I would like to build the team in Victoria. Actually, that’s my plan is to potentially buy commercial real estate. So we have an office space and build our team in Victoria.

Adriana Linares:

That’s amazing. Was it weird to meet them in person or was it perfectly normal? After all this communications and working together remotely? It just felt like, it felt like you’d been meeting for the hundredth time.

Joanne Martin:

And that happens as well with clients. I have a lot of clients where all of our, oh, sure. I guess, yeah, all of our interactions are via Zoom, and then I’ll have to have a signing meeting in person with them and they’ll come into the office and I’ll realize like, oh, this is the first time we’ve actually met in person.

Adriana Linares:

What a time we live in. I mean, just think about how weird that would be to have said to attorneys in the mid twenties, this is how you’ll be working and it’ll be normal, but it’s so comfortable. It’s so normal. It’s so weird to, I mean, if you stop to think about it, that’s the weird part.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, I think the profession would’ve been really slow to adapt had it not been forced to with the pandemic.

Adriana Linares:

I couldn’t agree with you more because I’ve spent a lot of time aggravated with the slow progress we made. Then I feel like that two year time period was just so accelerated. We were just rocketing. And to be honest, I feel like we’re back to where we were. Let’s take a quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors, and when we come back I want to ask you about lessons learned. I do want you to give us a tech stack update, what you’re using, what you’ve added, what you’re thinking about for the future. So when we get back, I’ll give you a minute to think about that. We’ll be right back. All right, we’re back. This is our last segment with Joanne Martin, a Victoria based attorney with a team across the province. Tell us, all of us about your tech stack. What are you using for time, billing, office Suite, anything else that lawyers should know about? And especially if there’s something that you think they aren’t using and they should.

Joanne Martin:

I continue to use Clio Grow for our intake and Clio manage for our practice management software. So we do all of our billing and communicating with clients and document storage within Clio Manage.

Adriana Linares:

Do you have any integrations or add-on partners with Clio that help you?

Joanne Martin:

No.

Adriana Linares:

You do the payments through Clio and everything?

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, so I’m now using Clio Payments, is that what it’s called?

Adriana Linares:

Yep, yep.

Joanne Martin:

I’m just trying to squeeze everything I can out of that subscription. I really don’t want to spend money on things that I don’t need. And as it is, I feel like I’m spending a huge amount of money every month on our tech stack.

Adriana Linares:

Are you using within Clio, like the document assembly tool?

Joanne Martin:

Yes. So that’s a big project that I’m using right now. So I don’t use Clio Draft formally log yet. I might, I’m not opposed to using it, but I’m again trying to squeeze everything I can out of Clio, managed regular Clio manage.

Adriana Linares:

But can I just interrupt you to say that is a great tip and a lot of subscribers to Clio and other practice management systems don’t do that. They immediately start adding on tools and services where there’s often things that what you’re already paying for can do. And I say that a lot about Microsoft 365, but go ahead.

Joanne Martin:

So I worked with a consultant to really build out custom fields and custom field sets within Clio manage. And so we really have integrated that within Clio Grow, so create the custom fields and Clio manage, push them over to grow. We have forms that we are collecting information through the intake process when they become a client. After they sign a retainer agreement, they fill in a new client intake form, which is different depending on the kind of practice area they’re hiring us for. And then that information gets pushed over to their file when it’s opened and manage. And so we have at our fingertips under the custom fields tab, all of this amazing information like children’s names, relationship information, like data separation, which is a big thing to know within a file. Everything is just at a glance. And so my next step now with a consultant I’m working with is taking this massive separation agreement precedent that I and another lawyer at a different firm collaborated to create. And now we’re working together on this project where we’re paying, we’re sharing the cost of this consultant smart who’s building out and doing a lot of conditional logic as much as she can within Clio, regular Clio so that we can really use this process of filling out the custom fields as we’re talking to the clients and getting instructions. And my dream is that we’ll be able then just to press a couple of buttons and create the entire 30 page separation agreement with very need for little custom drafting.

Adriana Linares:

And can I just interrupt you to say out loud to listeners who might not be fully understanding what you’re saying. This is the dream where when the client information comes in for the very first time, whether it’s through a form on your website or through a phone call, you’re capturing that inside your client relationship manager, which for you is Clio grow, that initial intake is done. Then if the client decides to hire you and you decide to hire them, you just move them on to the client side versus the potential new client. And that data moves with it. You keep adding data, you only add it once. You’re reducing errors that get made. You don’t have to double entry. And then all that data from those little minuscule pieces of information that you just mentioned can go into documents that easily build your documents. But there’s an important thing you mentioned when you said all this information is at our fingertips.

You have a client dashboard that when you open up the matter, you’re calling it a file. When you open up the file for that client, right in front of you are things like, how are your children, Bob and Susan? Oh, and it looks like you’ve separated a year and a half ago. And so you have that information in front of you, not only for your own information for you, your attorney and your admin, but also to then put into these documents that makes the document assembly really easy. And then I’m assuming that if it’s a document that needs to be signed by the client or shared with the client, you can send it out through the signing tool that your practice management system has. And do you use the client portal?

Joanne Martin:

Yes. Great. That is a huge thing. We set that expectation very early in the process of when clients retain, Liam will set up a client portal after he opens their matter, and the very first message is, hi, I’m Liam. This is the client portal. We do all communication within the client portal. I despise trying to find things I’m looking for in emails. What’s great about having client portal is that I can see at a glance the things that we’ve talked about. I can confirm instructions in there, so there’s a record. If they tell me to do something, especially if it’s something that I don’t necessarily think is advisable, I can include that in the portal. So there’s a record, and at any point you can export all of that to A PDF and you have a chronological view of everything that happened in the portal. I can see when clients, I can upload documents for them and I can see when clients open it, they can upload their documents to the portal as well. And then it all stays lives within their matter in Clatch. Love it.

Adriana Linares:

That is the dream. What other tools do you have that are important

Joanne Martin:

In Canada? We have a software called Divorce Mate, and we do all of our spousal support and child support calculations within that also has a function of exporting different court forms, which we kind of use a hybrid of our own system. And then some things that we get through Divorce Mate, they kind of have a lock on the market.

Adriana Linares:

That’s kind of a funny name for a divorce tool by the way. It is Side note divorce mate.

Joanne Martin:

One thing I’ve added is a voiceover IP phone system that we all have on our computers.

Adriana Linares:

Does it integrate with Clio?

Joanne Martin:

It doesn’t integrate with Clio, but we have different chats. So we’ve created a lawyer file chat, an all team chat, and then you can message with individual people as well on the team. And so it’s a great way to stay connected

Adriana Linares:

Without having to email each other all day long.

Joanne Martin:

Exactly. You’re in

Adriana Linares:

The chat in the voiceover IP service

Joanne Martin:

And it’s secure and it’s great too because if I need a document quickly, Emma can just drag it into the chat and then I can download it from within the program as well. Excellent. So that’s been a really great addition to assist us with our communication within the team.

Adriana Linares:

Anything else that we should know about?

Joanne Martin:

I really haven’t added much more good other than the phone.

Adriana Linares:

You kept it lean.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, it doesn’t feel lean. When I look at the bills every month, it feels like a lot, but Adobe as well. Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

Sure.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah. Adobe

Adriana Linares:

Acrobat for everybody.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, Acrobat Pro I think we got and we continue to use Microsoft Office.

Adriana Linares:

A lot of good tools in there. So as we near the end of our time together, which won’t be the last, tell me about lessons learned, advice you would give to other attorneys doing what you’re doing, maybe things you wish you had known. What’s one of the best things you did?

Joanne Martin:

I did a lot of work on myself and my thinking. Did a lot of thought work. I realized that a lot of it was, a lot of my resistance was just a fear of feeling uncomfortable maybe.

Adriana Linares:

I think that’s human, normal human behavior.

Joanne Martin:

And so I kind of developed a bit of a mantra, which I like to look at. It’s actually on the home screen on my phone, and it says I am willing to lean into all of the discomfort and it takes to scale my firm and build a life I want to live. I’m at a really unique position because 49, I’ve raised my kids already for the first time in my adult life. I have all of the time to really dig into my career and I’m at a time in my life where I can prioritize this and I love the mix of business and practice of law that I’m getting to do. So I don’t think I would be satisfied if I were just working in a firm. That business piece really lights me up. And so to be able to do that and to build something, I’m really proud of the team that we built and the people that I work with and what we’re doing for people.

So I guess that would be my advice would be to really think about what it is that you want, what is the end goal? And if it’s money, that’s fine, but be honest about it. And when you can narrow in on what your priorities are, I just feel like it’s a real gift that I have now where I just really constrained so that I’m just doing the things that I want to do and you can build the firm that gives you the life that you want. A big part of that for me is the business coaching program that I’m in.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, tell us about that. I think this is another area where I think a lot of attorneys don’t consider, don’t think about, they think about the cost of what it might add to the monthly cost or annual cost of building that firm that they want to have and leading that life that they want. So tell us about that.

Joanne Martin:

So I found Melissa Shanahan at Velocity work through Ernie, the attorney.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, Ernie has mentioned her to me. I think she’s been a guest on his inner circle and I’ve been Oh, that’s great.

Joanne Martin:

Yeah, she is amazing. She is so supportive and kind and just knows her stuff. She’s a fantastic business consultant. She’s not a lawyer, but she’s built this whole program that is just for law firm owners.

Adriana Linares:

Hey, some of us who are not lawyers can be very helpful.

Joanne Martin:

Oh, I think absolutely you guys know more. Yeah, I appreciate that. She’s brought her knowledge and understanding of working with all sorts of different types of business owners, and now she’s narrowed in a niche on law firm owners and the whole program, I’m in a group of 10. She has two different levels. There’s Mastery Group and then there’s a group called Syndicate. So I was in Mastery before and then she opened the invitation to syndicate, and I’m in that with nine other lawyers and I’m the only Canadian, everyone else is in the States and I love them. They’re such a great group of people. I’m in the blue group, so there’s five of us in our group, and we’re actually all going to meet in Colorado next week for an in-person event. But what we do in that is just basically identify what your priorities, what is it that you’re aiming for, and then to do regular quarterly strategic planning so that you are establishing what your rocks are, what your priorities are for the quarter, and then on a weekly basis, calendaring to make sure that you are putting time in your calendar to work on the things that are really important so you’re not just always working in the business, that you’re also working on the business.

Adriana Linares:

The old E myth comes through again.

Joanne Martin:

That is right. That is right. And so just basically to make sure that you know where you’re going and you’re taking thoughtful and consistent steps to actually achieve it. And that has just everything for me.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s so refreshing and wonderful to hear. I mean, Joanne, it sounds like you’ve got it all. You’ve done it all, but you have so much more to do. What are your plans? What’s the future look like for Aligned law firm? Is Liam going to be become an attorney?

Joanne Martin:

He’s thinking about it, but he’s actually going to become a legal assistant first. So he’s going to spend a bit of time doing the admin things so he won’t just be doing client intake. He’s been looking at some administrative programs at a college nearby.

Adriana Linares:

How wonderful. Yeah. But what about the rest of the line law? What are you going to do? What are we going to talk about a year and a half from now?

Joanne Martin:

I would like a year and a half from now to say that I have grown my in-person team in Victoria, that we have our own office space for line family law and that we are continuing to help people figure out their path forward through separation and divorce and that we’re doing it in a respectful and kind way. I hope also to say that I’m building my mediation practice. I’m also an accredited mediator, but I haven’t really focused on that because I’ve been so busy with the business, but I would like to do mediation work.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, well, you put it out there in front of the universe and all of us here in the New Solo family. So in a year and a half we’re going to check in and see how you’ve done. I jokingly say, but I sort of mean those are wonderful goals, but sometimes some of us have to hear that goals are for losers because if we don’t accomplish them, then we feel you have that sense of, oh, I didn’t accomplish my goal. So I will give you an out to say, I expect to hear all those things to be true, but just in case they’re not, we’re still going to be supportive and in total awe of you.

Joanne Martin:

Thank you.

Adriana Linares:

All right, everyone, I want to thank you, Joanne, so much for coming back on and giving us this really great update. I know listeners are going to appreciate hearing this, and you are very kind and generous with your time. So if people want to find friend, follow you or keep an eye on what you’ve done, where do they go to do that?

Joanne Martin:

Our website is aligned family law.ca. I’m on LinkedIn, Joanne h Martin. We are starting with our marketing team to launch an Instagram and Facebook, which is not my, I love Instagram, but anyway.

Adriana Linares:

Well, I can’t wait to hear how that goes. In a year and a half from now, we’re going to say, all right, so you tried Facebook and Instagram, what’s the update? And I’ll be very curious to hear how that goes. I have a feeling it’s going to be positive, but you just never know if that’s the right place for the right message. But you’ll let us know.

Joanne Martin:

Yes. Yeah. And so if people want to look at Instagram in the next little while, it should be going live and it’s the handle is the Line Family lodge ca as well.

Adriana Linares:

I love it. Well, thank you so much and thanks to all our listeners for going through another episode of New Solo with me. It’s always wonderful to have such great conversations. I want to thank everyone that emails me, connects with me on LinkedIn and tells me how helpful this podcast has been. And that’s only because of guests just like Joanne.

Joanne Martin:

Well, I have gotten so much out of this podcast as well, and I thank you for all the work that you do, and I think you’ve been a big part of my success as well because I’ve just really felt supported by you and the help that you’ve given me both through this podcast and also on my tech.

Adriana Linares:

Thank you. That really, I mean, I’m almost going to cry and I don’t cry that often, but it does mean a lot to me. So thank you. Okay, everyone, we’ll see you next time on New Solo. If you like what you’ve heard here, please give us a five star rating on Apple Podcast. Of course, you can always reach out to me through my LinkedIn or my [email protected], and you can send an email to New Solo at legal talk network.com. Good luck out there, everyone. You can do it. You can grow your practice and you can have that life that you want and own that law firm that you dream of.

Speaker 6:

I’ve been running from nine to five my for all this time. Anyone clock? I was thinking this was the way to go and you put up your, I say.

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