Shared Spaces, Separate Firms: How Conti Moore and Barbara Leach Built a Unique Solo Partnership | First Flight #8

Episode Notes

Transcript

So if I was starting today as a New Solo, I would entrepreneurial Aspect, change the way they’re practicing Leader, help young lawyers what it Means to be fulfilled. It easy to work with your New approach, entrepreneurs in your tools. You said something really interesting in another interview, New Solo. And it’s leap making that leap, Making that leap, making that leap.

Adriana Linares:

Hello and welcome to New Solo on Legal Tech Network. I’m Adriana Linares. I’m a legal technology trainer and consultant. I help lawyers and law firms use technology better. I want to thank our partners in developing the New Solo first flight series for solo attorneys presented by ALPS Insurance. They’re interested in helping solos and small firms get the best start to their practices. We’ve curated the best 12 episodes for new solos in partnership with Alps. Today we’re highlighting a portion of this episode with my longtime friends, Conti Moore and Barbara Leach. They talk about how their solo practices successfully shared some resources, but maintained their individuality. I hope the discussion gives you a few ideas about how you can create some partnerships while staying solo. Stay through to the end. When I sit down with Rio Lane from ALPS Insurance, we’ll get into things like what gives Rio the heebie-jeebies about practice management systems and sharing stuff, how employees and printers are different from one another and covering your tail if your shared relationship moves from roommates to more of a marriage partnership. Now my interview with Conti Moore and Barbara Leach who shared office space in Orlando but didn’t cross the line into partnership practice. I’m back in Conti’s Office because Conti has a really neat arrangement with a dear friend of hers and a colleague and another solo practitioner named Barbara Leach. So we’re going to talk to them about how they share office resources and office space and how they help each other out through networking efforts and referrals and all kinds of good stuff. Hello, Barbara.

Barbara Leach:

Hello, Adriana.

Adriana Linares:

It’s nice to have you here in Conti’s Office or wait, I don’t know. Am I in Conti’s Office or in Barbara’s office?

Conti Moore:

You’re in our conference room.

Adriana Linares:

I love it. So Conti Moore, introduce yourself. We got to chat with you last time in our last episode, but tell our listeners in case they weren’t there or haven’t listened to it yet, but they should. A little bit about yourself and your practice.

Conti Moore:

All right. My name is Conti Moore and I have a practice here in Orlando, Florida, and I handle family law and criminal defense.

Barbara Leach:

And I’m Barbara Leach. I have a practice here and I do predominantly family law, consumer bankruptcy, and some civil litigation.

Adriana Linares:

So the two of you are solos sort of because Conti you have an associate.

Barbara Leach:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

So you’re like a solo plus one.

Barbara Leach:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Barbara, do you have an associate?

Barbara Leach:

I work with contract attorneys, so I’m a solo solo plus 0.25.

Adriana Linares:

It’s a whole nother episode. And you have your trustee mascot, your office mascot that I’m so lucky to be petting right now and remaining very calm and sweet. This is the Chihuahua?

Barbara Leach:

Yes, the Chihuahua. She’s our number one greet resource.

Adriana Linares:

She’s your greeter. She’s your copier. She runs errands, she brings coffee. So I’m excited to talk to you both because well Barbara, you’re a dear friend of mine and Conti and I are becoming close friends because I keep stopping by your office to say hi to you. And you and I were chatting one day about, I walked in and the sign outside says Conti Moore Law. The sign outside says Barbara Leach Law. And I was really curious about how the two of you came to share office space together and you and I chatted about it. It was very interesting and I thought lawyers should hear about this. So tell me a little bit about your backgrounds, how you all met and how you came to this arrangement.

Barbara Leach:

Well, today actually November 11th is my fourth anniversary of my law firm launch party.

Adriana Linares:

Wow.

Barbara Leach:

I opened Congratulations. Thanks guys. I opened my office four years ago, but prior to that, Conte and I had actually gone to law school together and we had known each other, but we practiced, we had different paths. I was working for a large farm in Orlando, decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do, that I wanted to be out on my own. And I had had my firm for probably about six or eight months by the time Conti and I started deciding that we were both in a position where we were growing large enough where we didn’t want to just rent offices out of other law firms. Instead, we thought it was time for us to hang out legitimate concrete shingles. And so we just started talking about maybe we should share space

Adriana Linares:

And Conti. What were you doing at the time when Barbara was at a big firm, but I think you had a small firm maybe?

Conti Moore:

Well, I actually started out in Las Vegas at a large firm for

Adriana Linares:

Vegas. Interesting.

Conti Moore:

At first, and then I moved out here and started a firm with three other friends from law school. So at that particular time, Barbara was actually of council sharing an office with us in that office. So I decided to leave the firm and then Barbara and I decided to share a space together.

Adriana Linares:

And the two of you have a beautiful space in prime location in central Florida. Was this the first space you actually got or had you moved around a little bit?

Conti Moore:

My other firm is right next door. Oh, so you

Adriana Linares:

Didn’t Not very far.

Conti Moore:

Yeah. I knew that this was a good, we liked the landlord. It’s a good location. It’s two blocks from the courthouse, so we wanted to stay here.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. So, so the two of you decide, okay, we’re going to go out, we’re going to do this together, but we’re still going to be solos. Right? So you didn’t decide to join forces as one law firm. Why did you decide to stay separate technically?

Conti Moore:

Well, for me, I wanted to have my own firm. I didn’t want to have to consult with anybody else about decisions.

Adriana Linares:

You wanted to be the boss.

Conti Moore:

And so it works out great because she’s her boss. I’m my boss, but we share expenses, so you don’t have to really, we consult about expenses, but that’s really it. So it’s really two separate firms, but we’re able to share costs and to save money, and we even share some staff members.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, tell me a little bit about that.

Barbara Leach:

Well, since we are a full time law firm, but it’s expensive to have somebody obviously answer your phones 40 hours a week. So we have one person who works 20 hours a week for me and then 20 hours a week for Conti, but they’re answering all of our phones whenever we’re open.

Adriana Linares:

So are there two phone lines and she can tell which is the Conti Moore line and which is the Barbara Leach line.

Conti Moore:

So we have VoIP, voiceover ip, and so you can add a tag so that when someone calls in from my line, it has Conti or cm, when they call in for Barbara, it has bl. So they know how to answer the phone.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s good.

Conti Moore:

We

Barbara Leach:

Think it’s really important to have that personalized greeting. So many times you call a law firm and they say law firm.

Adriana Linares:

Law office.

Barbara Leach:

Exactly. Really what’s really nice though, our team members are so well-trained that if they are away from the front desk and they have a wireless headset, so they don’t know what line’s being caught on, they say, thank you for calling our law office, how may we help you?

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s very good. Alright, so you’ve got a shared receptionist phone line, and then does that person also do task work and administrative work as well?

Conti Moore:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Is that the one that does 20 and 20 hours?

Conti Moore:

We have two people who are actually doing well. No, we have two people who are doing 20 and 20. So for me, I have a discovery paralegal, and so she works 20 hours for me. And so we know that on Monday she’s with us in the morning, Tuesday in the afternoon. So it works and they also, they do tasks. It’s not just answering phones. They have assignments

Barbara Leach:

Regarding the discovery paralegal. It’s really nice to have someone who I can give a job to anytime I come up with the need for a job, is she going to work on it right then? No, because she might be working for Conti during that particular time period, but I can say, Hey, Venus, can you take care of X, Y, and Z when next you’re working for me?

Adriana Linares:

I got it. So do they ever say to you, all right, well I’ve got to finish this project for Conti, it’s going to be three or four hours or it’ll be on Tuesday, I’ll get started on this. Or is it a very specific time schedule?

Barbara Leach:

It’s a very specific time schedule that they work for us. Sometimes if there’s an emergency, that person will swap out and work for me when she’s scheduled work for Conti. But one of the things that’s I think so awesome about how successful our relationship is is that we’re very fluid and sympathetic. We come from big firm backgrounds. We understand that you have to share resources and that some things are just greater priority than others.

Conti Moore:

And I mean it’s also helpful. The copier lease, we get to split that, the postage meter split that. Then we have with our copier, I I’m sure that most copiers have this ability, but we put in client codes, Barbara, we can run a report and they can add Barbara’s copy expenses to client’s bills and mine as well. So it is really helped. I mean, I can’t imagine doing it without you because we use a lot of technology, a lot of expenses, and we’re also able to share information and ideas. But one thing that’s important is that we also rent out one of our offices as well to another attorney.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s right.

Conti Moore:

But what we included in our fee agreement was language that states that, hey, you acknowledge that you’re not presented by any of the other firms within this office and that you’re only presented by Conti Moore Law or Barbara Law. So to avoid any confusion that’s in the fee agreement.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s very good. And actually, so you mentioned the copier lease and you obviously split the rent, the lease lease and the VoIP system lease and everything else. How do you pay each other? Do you pay some of those? How do you guys actually work that out?

Conti Moore:

Barbara pays some bills and I pay others. And then at the end of the year, we’ll try to figure out if anyone owes the other person money. But for the most part we try to say, okay, the copier is two 50 a month. You’ll take on that, you’ll pay for the postage and then we’ll work it out at the end, but we really haven’t had a problem.

Barbara Leach:

Well, part of that is because we’re big picture people. We don’t get caught up in the minutiae of, Hey, you owe me an extra three 50, meaning $3 and 50 cents this month. So it really works for us. I think that if any of your listeners out there are contemplating such an arrangement, they really need to identify how they are and then have that kind of candid conversation with the person with whom they’re contemplating a shared relationship. Because if somebody is down in the weeds in the minutia, the other person’s big picture, that may or may not work.

Adriana Linares:

Right. Well, it helps that the two of you are very good close friends. So if there’s an issue, you can probably pretty candidly say to the other person, Hey, you owe me, or I don’t like this. But you’re right, that’s definitely something. And maybe that’s even harder sometimes among friends that decide. I’m sure you have friends who’ve had this problem.

Barbara Leach:

Well, as it relates to the close friends, I’d say yes, we have become really close. We call each other our work wives, and I was in Conti wedding when she got married in New Orleans and it’s been fantastic, but it didn’t start out that way. We actually didn’t know each other that well when we entered into this agreement. The reason that we decided we wanted to share space together is because of two primary reasons that I think everyone needs to consider. Number one, we have the same work ethic. So when we shared space at the office next door, we were the ones there late at night coming in early in the morning. We recognized that about each other.

Adriana Linares:

That’s

Barbara Leach:

Good. Number two, we also had a candid conversation in terms of the value we place on intangibles. Even though we’re separate firms, we both dedicate a certain amount of money each year we host an annual Valentine’s party that we pay for on an annual basis. If someone more frugal than Conti or shortsighted, they wouldn’t see the value of us investing in that really fun party.

Adriana Linares:

Well, from talking Conti, in the last interview I mentioned, we talked to her about her commercials. She’s obviously very savvy with marketing and branding. And Barbara, I know that you are as well. I mean, you’ve got your whole marketing and brand. You’re pink, she’s teal. It’s very separate, but you’re constantly working on that branding and the Valentine’s party to me is brilliant. I mean it’s a no frills kind of holiday. There’s no political stuff involved. And the fact that both of you could have a lot of fun with that. You’re right. Those little things make a big difference. So you get along personality wise, your work ethics are the same, your practices are a little bit similar. So is there ever a feeling of competition or is this helping each other out and how do you actually help each other? Referring each other business or giving each other help?

Conti Moore:

I refer a lot of cases that come in. Barbara charges a consultation fee. I do not. So when I have someone that calls me and I’m like, eh, they might waste my time, send ’em the Barbara. They don’t pay a hundred dollars. So lately I thought you were just being generous, but hey, if they’re willing to pay the a hundred dollars, make the money, go ahead. Do you

Adriana Linares:

Get a referral fee? No. How

Conti Moore:

Does that work? No

Adriana Linares:

Referral fee. This is just all goodwill between Goodwill two lawyers sharing resources. That’s good.

Conti Moore:

I mean, but there’s really, we don’t get a lot of walk-in clients. And if they do, they may not be the client that either one of us really wants, honestly, because we’re downtown Orlando. But I mean there’s not a lot of competition. We work together on some cases. Instead of me referring it out, I’m like, Hey Barb, I need help with this. Are you in? Yes. And then we make sure the fee agreement reflects that both firms are representing that particular person. I mean, it really works out really well.

Adriana Linares:

And do you bounce ideas? And a lot of times solos get worried or someone who’s thinking about going on on their own is worried that they’ll be lonely or who am I going to walk down the hall and talk to? So that must be a benefit.

Conti Moore:

Oh, absolutely. Hands down, we are always bouncing coming this email for me, does this sound okay or what do you think about this? I mean it really, it is helpful to have someone near you and close to you to help you think through some of these issues.

Barbara Leach:

This is actually a really good point. When I said there were two things to discuss. Oh

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, we didn’t get to your second one. I’m sorry.

Barbara Leach:

No, I went through the second one, but this is actually a third one. The idea of when you’re contemplating going out with somebody, meaning out on your own is

Adriana Linares:

Not on a date, that’s a whole different episode.

Barbara Leach:

We do that too.

Adriana Linares:

We could do that one. You and me,

Barbara Leach:

We do that. We should. The idea of what is that person’s approach to working. So Conti and I are both very similar in that we’re a little bit a DHD, and if she comes into my office and interrupts me with a question, then I will jump in with whatever she’s working on and needs help with. Vice versa, if I have a question, she’s the first one to stop what she’s doing to help me. That’s great because we’re the same. We both have lots of lawyer friends who would stroke out if someone came and tried to talk to them during an unallocated time to do so? Right.

Adriana Linares:

This was not scheduled.

Barbara Leach:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

I cannot help you. I cannot look at your email for you. This is not scheduled. Want to go back a little bit and just talk a little bit more about employees? Let’s start with how do you pay them? Is there one paycheck, two paychecks,

Conti Moore:

Two paychecks. So they get paid 20 hours from my payroll and 20 hours from Barbara’s payroll. So we keep that separate.

Adriana Linares:

What about overtime? If they

Conti Moore:

No overtime.

Adriana Linares:

No overtime.

Conti Moore:

No overtime.

Adriana Linares:

Got it. And why did you decide to do no overtime?

Conti Moore:

I mean, if you can’t get what needs to get, I mean we don’t need them to do overtime.

Adriana Linares:

Good.

Conti Moore:

We make sure that the task, that they can get that done within there. A lot of,

Adriana Linares:

Well the two of you, I’ve been around your firm a little bit now. You run very efficient firms. So do you have certain systems in place, procedures? How do you train people when they come in, your employees on how to run those systems?

Conti Moore:

Barbara gets

Barbara Leach:

To take credit for all of this. Tell them

Adriana Linares:

She’s an animal.

Barbara Leach:

I am the queen of the checklist. If you’ve never met read either the checklist Manifesto or the E-Myth, those are really great books that say you should have checklists. Yes. Adriana,

Adriana Linares:

Did you do regular E-Myth or the E-Myth for lawyers?

Barbara Leach:

I actually did both. Okay. Because kind of nerdy, but the idea, I’m nerdy, but the idea is whatever task you have, somebody should be able to walk in off the street and accomplish that task by following a procedure or a checklist. The chihuahua has a checklist

Adriana Linares:

And she’s performing it perfectly right now if it’s take a nap while we discuss business.

Barbara Leach:

Yep. See that’s the

Adriana Linares:

Checkbox. Checkbox,

Conti Moore:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

How about bonuses? Do you do bonuses?

Conti Moore:

Yeah. So we discuss for our joint, our joint employees, what we’re going to get them for bonuses. So we kind of talk about that and we discuss that. And

Barbara Leach:

So

Conti Moore:

Pay half.

Barbara Leach:

But even for the ones who aren’t joint, like my paralegal or your associate and a paralegal, we discuss when we’re going to give it and do it at the same time so that there’s no ill will. No one left felt like they’re being left hanging or the like.

Adriana Linares:

So you have a couple separate of your own employees and then they’re the shared resources. So obviously you must interview together and then if you have to let someone go, that’s something you do together. Is that right?

Barbara Leach:

Yes. Fortunately it hasn’t happened that we’ve had to let.

Adriana Linares:

That’s good.

Barbara Leach:

A joint

Adriana Linares:

Person go. Oh boy. If our listeners could just see Conti face right now. Conti tends to disagree.

Conti Moore:

Yes, I disagree. I disagree with you. Joint, yeah. We’ve had a couple of interns

Adriana Linares:

That were joint, those were interns. Those

Barbara Leach:

Weren’t employees,

Adriana Linares:

But you still had to hire or bring them in together and then decide that they weren’t working out. Has there ever been an occasion where one of you got along really well with an intern or someone and then the other one didn’t and you had to decide, oh no, what do we do? This person works well for me, but not for another.

Barbara Leach:

No. We have had this come up a few and in that circumstance we’ve both been kind of heading down the path. It’s just that one person has wanting to make it happen quicker than the other. And actually it’s usually me.

Conti Moore:

Yeah, no, that’s true. And Barbara’s not allowed to hire anybody. Now Barbara,

Adriana Linares:

Miss

Conti Moore:

Checklist. So can I tell a story?

Adriana Linares:

Oh yes, please

Conti Moore:

Tell a story. Lemme give you an example of why Barbara is not allowed to hire anyone by herself. She hired someone named Passion.

Barbara Leach:

Okay.

Conti Moore:

Passion. Because

Adriana Linares:

Barbara believes she was going to have passion for her job. Her name was passion.

Barbara Leach:

Okay. No,

Conti Moore:

I

Adriana Linares:

Wonder what

Conti Moore:

She did in the evenings.

Barbara Leach:

We are not telling this story.

Conti Moore:

I don’t know. I don’t either. But what can you do with the name Passion? You can’t work here. So anyway, Barbara again is not allowed to hire anyone, but it’s good to be able to say, are you crazy? She always pulls me back when I’m doing something crazy, I pull her back. But it’s really good to have a partnership without a real partnership because we’re not talking about money or whatever else, or we just are talking about expenses and who to hire to answer our phones and who not to hire.

Adriana Linares:

I love that.

Barbara Leach:

I think the biggest argument we ever had was what color to paint the accent wall when we built out our conference room. Yes, that’s good one. And your thing in the back that I hate,

Adriana Linares:

Well being in your conference room, however you all decided on these colors, they’re very nice. So good job. I mean maybe it took a mediator. Maybe you had to call Liz Calls Lin in here to do some mediating for you two between your paint.

Conti Moore:

Yeah, we didn’t need a mediator

Adriana Linares:

Colors. So I have another question for you. Going back to the employees. So I bet and Conti, I don’t know you quite as well, but I know Babs, you must have employee meetings on a regular basis, Barbara?

Barbara Leach:

Yes, we do. Actually, it’s funny that you say that because we just instituted a couple of months ago and monthly staff appreciation, celebration, lunch and informational meeting. Well, I was going to turn that part over to you.

Adriana Linares:

So the two of you, the two offices do it together because you have some shared, but some individual, but everybody’s kind of like family here. Okay, tell me a little bit more about it.

Conti Moore:

Well, actually today you’d be very proud of us. We went over a technology item.

Adriana Linares:

Wow.

Conti Moore:

Yes. We went over how to use contacts and outlook, how to create a template, email and outlook. So it’s really a good time. This is very advanced. Yeah, it was a good meeting, but it’s a good time for us to get together, celebrate birthdays or anniversaries, and then also talk about how to be more efficient, how to use technology because it’s so hard to try to go over those things throughout the month, but it’s easier to do it to sit down, have lunch and talk about how to use certain technologies that we have

Barbara Leach:

In addition to having a wider staff because we’re almost like to, we also have a bunch of law clerks. So there are so many people coming and going. It’s easy for us to lose track of birthdays. So one of the reasons why we had this was so that we could say, oh Adriana, well your birthday was last week, but we’re celebrating that we didn’t forget monthly party. So that’s really been a great resource that we’ve implemented.

Adriana Linares:

Absolutely. And I’m sure your employees really appreciate that. So what about, let me go back just a second. You did mention technology, and I didn’t ask you this earlier, Barbara, you use what? Practice management program?

Conti Moore:

Clio

Adriana Linares:

And then Conti. What do you

Conti Moore:

Use? Firm Central.

Adriana Linares:

So how does the receptionist, does she have two computers? Does she log in, log out? Do you have both? Clio obviously is web-based. It’s easy to pop over there. Firm central. Firm

Conti Moore:

Central web-based

Adriana Linares:

Too. So do you have them use two separate brows? How do they just manage hopping between the two firms?

Conti Moore:

I mean basically Barbara and I have agreed to certain, except for our management systems, the same technology for Outlook. I think there’s two profiles, two inboxes, right? Yeah, there’s two inboxes, one for Barbara Leach and then one for Conti Moore for our calendars are shared on that computer for the receptionist. So she’s able to calendar and schedule things for both Barbara and myself.

Adriana Linares:

Perfect.

Conti Moore:

So I mean it works out very well. We have pop-up drivers for our printer, so we can actually put in client codes so we can bill our clients. But for technology, it’s not Barbara’s thing as much as it is mine. So she lets me take the lead on that, figuring out the technology. You’ve done a great job, but she takes the lead on checklist and everything else to keep us organized. So for us it’s really like what she’s not great at. I’m good at what I’m not great at. She’s great at it. It

Adriana Linares:

Sounds a great match. Well, and to Barbara’s credit, she did spend two full days at the Clio Cloud conference, learning about technology and practice management

Conti Moore:

And she convinced me to change our phones to Vonage. So Vonage is saving us. We’re going to save at least half, right?

Barbara Leach:

It’s like 200, $300 a month. We are going to save by switching the Vonage for our voice over ip.

Adriana Linares:

That’s awesome.

Barbara Leach:

I got that from Clio.

Adriana Linares:

No, that’s great. Well that’s why those conferences are so useful sometimes because you can really get some great ideas. So speaking of phones and the new Vonage whenever it comes in, how do you choose phone coverage? Who opens the office? Who close? Who closes the offices there? Wait, let guess a schedule that Barbara made

Conti Moore:

Pretty much. We have a handbook for our receptionist that details everything from how to water the plants or how to water, how to water the orchids in the office. No, seriously. Barbara is insane when it comes to these. Lemme tell you a story about this. So Barbara’s on the floor in our handbook for our receptionist. Barbara thought that it was important to be so detailed as to explain how much water you should pour into the orchid thing. You missed the orchids. You missed the orchid. So she’s Barbara. Oh, you missed them, missed him, missed the orchids. Barbara is in Super Lawyer magazine and so she only had one copy of this magazine and it’s right next to the orchid. And so one of our receptionists, I guess she didn’t read the directions thoroughly, and she started to really pour the water into the

Adriana Linares:

Orchid. I know where this is going.

Conti Moore:

And then it spilled out into her only magazine, the only one that she purchased, that one magazine. So the magazine is just flooded. And so Barbara comes out of her office and her face is red, and so she’s just furious. And so she shuts the door, she comes out the direction, said to missed the orchid, missed the orchid. I’m like, oh my God. And sure enough, she pulled up the handbook. No, no, you pulled up the handbook because you didn’t believe it is said to miss the orchids. And she did not miss the orchid and she ruined Barbara’s magazine, the

Barbara Leach:

One

Adriana Linares:

Super lawyer

Barbara Leach:

Copy, the one super lawyer copy. Not so super. Not

Adriana Linares:

So super.

So yeah, checklist, checklist and perhaps signing off on the checklist that it has been received and acknowledged. Well ladies, this has been one of the funnest and definitely most insightful interviews I’ve done in a really long time and I can’t thank you enough. I know how busy you both are. Tell our listeners, let’s start with Barbara, how they can learn more about you, find out what you’re doing. You have a lot of extracurricular activities that you do. You’re very involved, involved with the Florida Bar. I know you’re working on a book. So tell our listeners how they can keep an eye on you or learn more about your practice.

Barbara Leach:

Well, I’m Barbara Leach. My website is bleach law.com. We like to say we clean up your legal messes and thanks to Big Al Adriana Ez, I am now on Twitter at Pink Lady Lawyer.

Adriana Linares:

Ooh, pink lady lawyer.

Barbara Leach:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, because that’s right. That is your color.

Barbara Leach:

That is my color.

Adriana Linares:

And Conti is teal. Okay. Pink Lady Lawyer

Barbara Leach:

And [email protected]. And I’m also all over Facebook, so come be my friend.

Adriana Linares:

Excellent. You’re just telling us a little bit about yourself, Conti, and I’m thanking you.

Conti Moore:

All right, well if you want to find me, you could find me on my website, conti moore law.com. I’m on Twitter at Attorney Conti, that’s C-O-N-T-I.

Adriana Linares:

Well, I just want to thank you all one last time for everything you’ve taught us and told us in the good laughs we’ve had today. Thank you so much. That was fun to hear. My good friends, Barbara and Conti again. I love those ladies. I hope you picked up some ideas about how you might collaborate creatively with another attorney without compromising your individuality. This episode is part of the New Solo first flight series presented by Alps Insurance. I’m joined by my friend Rio Laine. She’s the director of strategic partnerships at Alps. Hi Rio.

Rio Laine:

Hi Adriana.

Adriana Linares:

So again, you like me, have seen a lot of solos, do a lot of things. What do you think about folks sharing spaces the way Barbara and Conti did and sort of blending the practice into one while actually not practice blending the practice into one?

Rio Laine:

Yeah, yeah, I’ve got lots of thoughts. I’ve got lots of thoughts. Obviously there’s always, plus it’s always great to get to work with your friend and to have someone to bounce ideas off of, but also there can be certain risks kind inherent in sharing practice space. But ultimately at the end of the day, I think if you can navigate those and just be aware of them, it’s a good approach to take.

Adriana Linares:

So obviously each of them is going to have their own policy because they’re still individual law firms, but is there anything that can be added to or included in when you’re working in an environment like this again, what do we have to consider when we’re wooing our malpractice

Rio Laine:

Company? Yeah, absolutely. So I think obviously it is really important that they have firm independence. They do draw a line when they are coworking and if you are talking to your insurer, it’s important to make them aware of the arrangement. They’ll likely ask or inquire what’s your working setup. So it is really important that you at least let them know. It may not negatively affect your premiums or anything like that, but definitely something for your insurer to be aware of.

Adriana Linares:

Here’s another practical question. Let’s say Barbara and Conti were shopping at the same time. Would it be wise of them to shop the same providers at the same time so that one provider could understand both of their scenarios and then tailor their policies to be very suitable for a shared environment?

Rio Laine:

That’s a really good question. And I mean, yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah. Honestly, I don’t think that would hurt. I mean it could be a little complicated to align your schedules, but definitely

Adriana Linares:

They shared an employee, which was what made me think of this. They split her hours and they gave her two paychecks and that worked for them. Are there any pitfalls we should think about when sharing payroll, sharing a human versus a printer?

Rio Laine:

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So first and foremost, making sure her role for each firm is clearly defined because role confusion equals risk. If an employee doesn’t have clear boundaries on which firm they’re working for and when this can really lead to, a lot of it can lead to misfiled documents, confidentiality breaches, or even malpractice claims tied to the wrong firm, which is kind of messy. And it’s also important to consider that employment liability applies separately. So each firm needs to ensure that they’re individually compliant with wage laws over overtime, policies, proper classification, even if the employee themselves is shared, they still need to maintain separate compliance, keep separation of church and state, if you will.

Adriana Linares:

That sounds very, very good advice. And hadn’t thought about role confusion. Let me just say this out loud to listeners. If I was working in this environment, I would have one laptop that employee used for Barbara’s work and a separate laptop or device that she or he would switch to when they were working for Conti. I mean, that’s such an easy way to help mitigate risk and prevent confusion. I’m on the Mac, I’m on the pz, I know I’m working with Conti. I actually do that just with browsers. I use multiple browsers and I put all my law tech work in Chrome and then I keep all my other stuff in edge so that mentally I separate even my own workload. I can’t imagine being a human working for two different humans. You might even have different systems. Maybe one attorney prefers a case management system over a different, and maybe that even helps the employee mentally break from the grind they were doing over here with the grind they’re doing over there.

So we’re talking about shifting brains and being able to put them in one practice versus another one project versus another. And now let’s talk about the heart. The heart. So it seems nice, Barbara and Conti are still friends today, not just friends. They’re best, best friends. Barbara is a judge today, by the way, and Conti continues her good hard work in family law. She’s an amazing attorney and Barbara is actually amazing. Judge. Let’s talk about emotional ties and what do you see or what do you try to have attorneys guard against when it comes to arrangements? This seems like it could be emotional to bond and then if something comes along, one of them has to leave the arrangement. Seems like it could be feelings

Rio Laine:

Hurt. Absolutely. And I mean we’re humans feelings are hard and they’re a natural part of our lives. As much as we try to not let them get in the way, they definitely can. Particularly when you’re working with a friend, you’re working with somebody that you care about, that you have an interpersonal relationship with. It can definitely be a challenge to kind of keep work and those kind of emotions separate. I mean I think one of the kind of pitfalls can be that emotions can often cloud your judgment, particularly professional judgment. Decisions about staffing space. Costs can get awkward when friendship is involved and tensions can often bleed into firm operations if they’re not carefully managed. You hear plenty of stories about people just having big blowouts about something seemingly small because there’s emotions operating and big emotions operating in the background and building up over time.

Adriana Linares:

It sounds like it’s just important to make sure you have the formal structures in place that will override any bad judgment that is made because of emotions that might arise. Let me ask you the opposite. So let’s say Barbara did not decide to pursue a future on the bench and they decided actually merge firms. It was going so great that we’re like, oh, we should make this official. We’ve been dating long enough, let’s get married. What are the considerations solos or small firms like this should think about if they’re merging?

Rio Laine:

Oh, I love this question. I love this question. So obviously they’re now going to be experiencing shared liability, whereas before they were separate. But now if they merge, each attorney is jointly responsible for all the firm’s legal work past and present. So unfortunately that also means that malpractice exposure can multiply.

Adriana Linares:

Sounds just like having a baby.

Rio Laine:

Yeah. Yes.

Adriana Linares:

See you two were fine when you were unmarried. Now you’re married, you had a baby, now look what you did.

Rio Laine:

Yep, yep. Exactly, exactly. So this is really a time though, if you are merging your firm when you want to have tail coverage. So tail coverage will help protect you from basically anything claims arising from prior work that you did. Right? So it’s kind of like an extended reporting period. So if a client comes a year later and they’re like, oh, this work you did for me under your old firm was a problem, you’re still going to be covered for that. Because typically when you cancel your plan and then you move to your firm’s plan, any new claims that arise from your old plan wouldn’t be covered otherwise. So tail coverage, very, very important.

Adriana Linares:

Cover your tail. I like Yes, cover your tail. You guys have a sense of humor. We try. You do with your terms. So this sounds like something we should put on Netflix actually. Yeah, absolutely. Alright, well Rio, as always, it’s been very fun talking to you. Are there any other last tips or suggestions you want to give us when we’re shopping for coverage and when it comes to shared spaces, shared employees, or even merging Affirm?

Rio Laine:

I think when it comes to shopping for coverage, don’t wait until the last minute. Yeah, particularly if your firm has special considerations, you have previous claims, et cetera, et cetera, it can take time to underwrite a policy that is tailored to you. So don’t leave it to the last minute. That is definitely the best piece of advice I could give. And if you are sharing office space, make sure there is a solid line of distinction between who’s doing what and how each firm operates.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. Well, again, Rio, thank you so much for your time. It’s always a pleasure. And we will see you on the next first flight series and listeners will see you on the next episode of New Solo.

Announcer:

I’ve been running from nine to five my all this time. Let anyone clock. I was thinking this was the way to go and you pulled up your puppet show. I say.

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