Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] Welcome to Founding Partner Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. Today’s guest has been a long time coming. He had me on his podcast a while back, maybe before I started mine, but really excited about having Josh on today. We’ve got Josh Stein. He’s a personal injury attorney here in Atlanta.
Josh, why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us about your firm, what you do, how many people you got, all that stuff.
Josh Stein: My man, Mr. Hawkins, appreciate you having me here today. I’ve been looking forward to doing this ever since you had told me that you’re gonna start your own podcast. So I’m proud of you’re doing it. You’ve got all sorts of good episodes out already. You having a good time so far?
Jonathan Hawkins: I am, I am meeting a lot of cool folks. It’s fun.
Josh Stein: Well, you’re a, you’re, you’re a pro at it already. So, but yeah, my name is Josh Stein. As you said, I’m a lawyer here in Atlanta, focus on personal injury work. I’ve got a real small firm. I’m sure we’ll talk about it, but came from a from larger firms and wanted one to have my own place to, to practice and have a small firm. I’ve got two kids, [00:01:00] 16 and 13. So. pretty busy with them. They’re pretty awesome ages right now. We handle all personal injury matters, car wreck, truck wreck, slip and falls, dog bites security cases, shooting cases, you name it. If somebody gets bad, badly hurt, then we’ll handle it. Except for medical malpractice.
We do, we do know medical malpractice cases.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’re 16 year old he or she driving yet?
Josh Stein: Yes. Newly minted driver. I’m talking within the last. Two or three months
Jonathan Hawkins: Scary as hell, right?
Josh Stein: Scary as hell, but pretty awesome. I mean, it kind of opens up your entire world, right? Like, you know, getting her to volleyball practice, she just goes. Getting her to school, you know, function, she just goes. She takes her brother to his places. So once, once we got past that initial, well, you never get past it, right? You never get past it. But now that we’re more comfortable with it, it’s pretty life changing.
Jonathan Hawkins: Nice. Well, congrats. You know, it’s, I [00:02:00] feel like, you know, there was a while there where the kids were like, not driving. They’re just, they didn’t want to drive at all. And I feel like maybe it’s coming back a little bit. You know, we were growing up, I mean, day of, I was there getting my license day of, you know,
Josh Stein: You nailed it. I mean, there was a minute there where these kids and still some kids, they don’t they don’t go get their license right away. You and me. I mean, day of man, we’re ready to go. But Isabella, my daughter, she was always somebody that one of her learners. You know, Dacia turned 15 and then, you know, you have to have it for 365 days now.
So once, or 366 and once that day came, we were at the DMV and she was ready to roll.
Jonathan Hawkins: nice. I guess they have all those rules. You can’t drive your friends around, something like that. Yeah,
Josh Stein: I’m using some quotations rules that the kids don’t seem to be overly concerned with, with the violating those rules.
But there, yeah, there’s certain curfews or a certain amount of people you have in the car. So all that is, all that’s good as an injury lawyer, you know, I understand that and respect that.
Right. I mean, you know, we see a lot of [00:03:00] defendants that are 16, 17, 18 and I’m making dumb decisions and you know, the last thing you want is to compound that with having three or four other kids in the car. Right. So I, I’m totally on board with all those things.
Jonathan Hawkins: that’s right. You up your insurance too, right? Make sure you
Josh Stein: talk, let’s not talk about the price of insurance now.
Jonathan Hawkins: plenty of coverage, plenty of coverage. Well, cool. Let’s, let’s switch back. So, so you got your own firm now you do, you know, plain aside, personal injury, but you didn’t start out there. You started out on the defense side, right?
Josh Stein: Yeah, right out of law school, I took a job working for progressive insurance company in their in house counsel firm. So all my cases were progressive car wreck cases, which I always tell people that, you know, if you want to do injury work and wanted, you know, wanted to trial work, I can’t think of a better place to start, right?
I mean, You know, the pay is not great. That’s, I guess, the big downside. But when you’re right out of law school, don’t have a family yet, the pay isn’t really quite as important. Your financial obligations aren’t as high. So why not start at a place where you get, you know, experience [00:04:00] right out of the box?
I mean, I remember day one, Jeff Shinsky, who, you know, You know, I’m sure he was, he was my boss and he came, he’s like, all right, here’s your five cases, 10 cases, whatever they are, it’s like, go I’m like, really, what do I do? He’s like, oh, you’ll figure it out. Now, he said it in a good way. It’s like, he just threw me the wolves.
But point being was that these cases were all pretty small. Right? They’ve got small injuries, and so you can’t really mess them up too terribly bad. So what better place to learn? You know, you’re taking depositions right away. You’re talking clients right away, getting trials experiences right away. And that doesn’t happen in some of these bigger firms where they just give you documents to review and, you know, briefs to write and all that is great experience.
But for the kind of work that I’m doing, I feel like where I started was was really, really helpful.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. I’m with you, you know, my dad was a lawyer and he. You know some of his advice was go to a place a small place where you’ll get experience quick You know and in my view there’s really sort of I mean there’s many many paths But you know the one that the law [00:05:00] school seemed to sell you is go to the big firm go to the big firm blah blah Blah and sure they pay you a ton of money, and you know you got student loans That’s that’s one approach, but that in my view.
That’s sort of a short shorter View of your career approach versus go somewhere smaller while you’re young. You don’t have all the responsibility and get just tons of experience. And I’m, I’m more in that camp. So, so yeah,
Josh Stein: Totally. You know, it’s funny. I mean, me and you were both at UGA law school at the same time. And you know, you remember those on campus interviews, everybody’s fighting for the King and Spalding’s and Trautman Sanders and Austin and Byrds. Like there’s the coveted jobs that pay the most and they’re so prestigious.
And they are, by the way, they’re great. But how many of our friends do we know that were there for a year or two years or less and go somewhere else? So it’s like, you know, you fight to get these positions and was it the best place for some people? Yes, it was and actually still is. But for me, it sounds like for you, you know, a smaller place where you can get more experience, I think in the long run is a fine way to go.
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, I went, I went sort of [00:06:00] the we, it was a med mal defense firm that I went to at the time. Your office make Goldner was there. And it was good. We got tons of experience. So let’s talk about you. So you, you got thrown out there. You immediately started doing depositions. Did you get a lot of trial experience?
We were able to do that.
Josh Stein: So we called it Thursday Night Fights. And what it was is Magistrate Court in DeKalb County. Every week at six o’clock, they would hold these big calendar calls and they’d call in 50 people and probably about 10 of them were some crazy neighbor dispute. You know, 10 of them were, you know, were a couple hundred dollars.
Cause master court, you know, is the 15, 000 limit. For which the amount in dispute can can can be in controversy and so they also had about 10 or 15 car cases, all of which had value less than 15, 000. Again, you can’t mess these things up. So, yeah, every Thursday, I’d have 1 or 2 cases on that calendar and it would be the same case.
It would be a rear end case. It’d be low property damage. It would be an ER visit with a couple thousand dollar hospital bill. It would be a [00:07:00] couple chiropractic visits or therapy visits, or maybe an orthopedic visit or two. You know, progressive was offering let’s call it 5, 000 plaintiff wanted 15, 000. So there you go. We were in an impasse Thursday night fights, go to the judge decide. Judges are smart. They get it. They figure out what that number kind of in the middle is. And that’s usually what they would award. And the case ends, but the experience being on your feet. every week was great. Kind of pain looking back.
I mean, I remember driving to DeKalb County at, you know, four o’clock to get there for the counter call before six. You sit there, you could be the last one called home at 10. Not very glamorous, but really good place to learn.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I love it. The low stakes is, is huge. You know, you got, and because you’re sort of, like you said, doing sort of the same case every time, so to speak, you can experiment and you said, well, last time I tried this and this time I’m going to try that. And then you can just, like you said, you’re on your feet.
You’re experimenting, you could do all this stuff and it doesn’t really matter. I mean, [00:08:00] right.
Josh Stein: remember driving him a few times and the judges, they understood, right? Like they could tell the person that was like right out of law school and had done this only a handful of times. And, you know, some will be very politely kind of, you Interject what kind of should happen or the arguments. I remember driving home a few times. I’m a freaking idiot, man. Like, I can’t believe I didn’t even think that that was going to be something that was important to the judge. But you learn every time, you know, and it just builds on itself. And then you start trying jury trials again, stakes, not that high. Maybe now it’s 25, 000 at stake. And then you just build yourself up and that’s, that’s just kind of how I went about it.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, so you got a lot of experience, got, you know, you got to pick juries, you got to cross examine, you got to, you know, prepare your client, all those sorts of things you got to do, getting ready for trial. So you got a lot of that, but, and you worked your way up you eventually made partner wherever you were.
But at some point you said, Hey, I want to do something else. So what was going through your mind there?
Josh Stein: Yeah. So I left Progressive, McGuffin, Lindsay and Johnson, defense firm [00:09:00] all across the South, Southeast. Great people, great firm, great lawyers, have not a bad thing to say about that firm. They, they taught me a ton treated me very well, gave me even, even more great experience. But it got to a point in time where. You know, I was, I was into my thirties and had made that decision, right? It’s like, is this where I want to be the rest of my life? And what I mean by that is this firm doing that kind of work because I wasn’t going to leave there to do the same thing somewhere else. It was just too good of a spot for me. But do I want to continue doing legal work? The answer is yes. So I can want to continue doing. Trial work and injury work. The answer was yes, but it was, I don’t really want to do it on the defense side forever, and I was kind of at that point where if I kept going another year, another year, another year, another year, it kind of almost becomes too late. And so I made the decision that I was going to, you know, make that move. And Andy Goldner, who you referenced you know, a friend of mine and he had. You know, we had kind of needs that were [00:10:00] kind of similar at the time and joined up with his firm as a way to kind of get into that world of plaintiff’s work.
And that was, you know, 7, 8 years ago. And when the best decision I’ve ever made. Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So let’s, let’s talk about sort of the, the transition from, you know. Steady paycheck hourly practice defense practice and then switching to the plaintiff’s side And I know that’s a path that a lot of the plaintiff’s attorneys take i’ve seen it You’ve seen it over and over and over But some try it and they can’t make it, you know, it’s a completely different mentality You instead of reacting and stalling and all that stuff.
You got to push push push push So how did you adjust when you made the switch?
Josh Stein: So I tell people there’s never the right time to make that move, you know, like there’s always going to be a kid in daycare. There’s always going to be some expense that’s coming up. You can come up with a thousand reasons why financially, I just can’t leave the steady job. And all of them are very sound reasons, but at some point you just have to make the decision to do it. And I think that’s the [00:11:00] hardest part, right? I mean, of all the things doing to get a successful practice, I tell people, yeah. Making the decision and following up on the decision to move is probably the hardest. I mean, you see tons of people that start their own firms and maybe you agree, maybe you disagree, but that’s my experience is just actually making that decision and acting on it is the hardest part.
You know, we’re all smart. Everybody’s hard work. Everybody’s motivated. But it’s hard to pull that trigger, you know, and it took me a while to do it. But once you do it full bore, like you said, the plans practice is totally different than the defense practice. Which is why I wanted to join up with somebody who could really teach me versus just kind of be on my own and figure out myself.
And that’s why Andy was such the perfect person for me to join up with.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, How did you bridge the gap? Did you, had you saved up money? You know, had, I don’t know if you had any kids at that point, you know, what’s, what’s your wife saying? You’re like, oh yeah, let’s do it. You know, how do you, how do you convince the family that hey, this is a great idea?
Josh Stein: totally. I mean, two [00:12:00] kids, my daughter is probably eight or nine or whatever the math is. They’re both in public school. So that helped. They wrote out of daycare. I had saved up some money. I told myself that, you know, I’d give myself a year and if I’m not able to do something in a year then I always have the old firm to fall back on.
I always have my law degree to fall back on, go somewhere else. So I felt like if I saved up enough money to live for a year, One or two things are going to happen. It was going to be great. I was going to be able to continue on down the path I want to go on. Or I say, you know what? I tried it. I have no regrets. We were able to live, eat, sleep, everything for the, for the year. Now I’ll go back and do what I was doing, which by the way I enjoyed doing. So that was my kind of mentality. I think I gave myself kind of a fallback by, by saying if I make 0 in the next 12 months, I’m It’s going to be okay. And then you just put your trust and faith that it’s going to be okay.
And fortunately it was,
Jonathan Hawkins: So when you went to law school, did you know that eventually you’d be opening [00:13:00] your own firm? Is that something you sort of always knew you might want to do?
Josh Stein: well, my dad my dad’s a dentist and so he always worked for himself and had his own practice. He was never one of these guys that worked at a, you know, corporate America. He never had to travel away from us for business. He never missed a baseball game or a, my, my sister’s cheerleading event. because of work. And that that was something that was that was not missed upon me. As opposed to my friends, parents who, you know, had obligations with their jobs in other cities or whatever it might be, and they couldn’t always be there. They weren’t always home for dinner, or they would get transferred from one city to the next because the job, you know, took them there. I guess somewhere in my brain, I said, I want to be in control of my kind of life as well. One way to do that that I know of is to have your own, your own company, your own firm. So I think that ultimately that was something I was going to do, but I had no, I had no visions when I’m walking [00:14:00] across that stage in Athens that like this is going to happen in two years or five years or 10 years.
I just. I think that it organically kind of fell into place.
Jonathan Hawkins: So another question. So when you’re in law school, did you know you want to be a trial lawyer? Did you know eventually you want to do plaintiff’s work?
Josh Stein: No. I mean, that’s where I got the job, to be honest with you. When I, you know, you interview after first year, after second year and I got the job with people at Progressive. They saw something in me they liked. I liked them. I liked the work. I knew I didn’t want to do criminal work. I knew I didn’t want to do bankruptcy work.
I didn’t want to do family law work. But outside of that, I probably would have gone anywhere where the right job was. was the right job. And then once I got there, I just liked it.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s funny how these things happen. I’ve told this story, but you know, my dad was an attorney, so I sort of knew a little bit about it. When I went to law school, I wanted to be a plaintiff’s lawyer, plaintiff’s trial lawyer. That’s what I was gonna be. And that’s I tried to get a job straight out of law school.
I was a little naive there. Cause [00:15:00] most plaintiffs firms don’t hire people right out of law school. There’s a couple, but not many. And so I ended up going to defense side and I’ve never done it. So I’ve just never happened, but I really wanted to do it at one time. And now, you know, it’s just my path went a different way and I doubt it will ever happen at this
Josh Stein: Well, the path you’ve gone down has been pretty awesome, dude. I might say so myself. So I think things do, things do work out.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So you, you, you, you sort of did a bridge time with, with Goldner. You joined him for a little while. And then eventually you left there to do, to straight up do your own thing. Right.
Josh Stein: Yeah. Yeah. So the, the idea with Andy I didn’t feel like I was very bonafide the right word. I wouldn’t bonafide to be a plaintiff’s lawyer without really ever done it ever, ever, ever having done it before. I had no clients, I had no forms. I didn’t really know how to do that part of it. And so I felt like, That sell to a client wasn’t really that strong, you know? But Andy one of the best lawyers in the state doing [00:16:00] plaintiff’s work. And so I’m like, well, you know, he has this need and, you know, I can kind of learn from him and I can use his reputation and his firm and his website and his results and all that he has to, to package this to a client that is pretty damn compelling, right? And so that, that was kind of the thought process. And he’s. guy and we knew we’re gonna have fun together and do a good job together. And so that’s what we did. I mean, I think both of us were under no kind of illusion that it was going to turn into some like lifetime partnership or we were going to be together forever.
I mean, I think that we both kind of had an understanding of what my, but my hopes were. And of course he was like, yeah, man, that’s great. And so, you know, it took me, I think three full years to really feel comfortable that. I knew what I was doing. I had enough success to finance myself exclusively. Felt like I had a pretty good source of referrals, other lawyers, pretty good, you know, prior clients, relationships that were sending me stuff.
[00:17:00] So, you know, we just went to have lunch one day and we’re like, yeah, now it’s probably about the right time. And it turned out it was January 2020, right before COVID.
So, you know, if timing can be anything, it can be that. And so there I was, you know, January 1st, like, Hey guys, here I am. And then the world stops. So
you can get through
Jonathan Hawkins: ever is the best time ever. Right?
Josh Stein: you know, I get through that, get through anything. That’s what I tell people. So yeah, that’s four years ago now, almost five.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. We’ll talk about that in a second about COVID, but sounded like with you and Andy is win win and you guys still sort of share some office space, don’t you?
Josh Stein: His office is next door to mine. You know, we were on a lease
together, my firm and his firm. We tried cases together. We probably have five or 10 cases. We were working on at any given time together. So yeah, I mean, we still are every day working on stuff together, involved together. It’s just now I’ve got my own firm.
He has his own firm still. And nothing really has changed, so to speak. I mean, we still do do do some more stuff. It’s just now I’ve [00:18:00] on my own.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that’s a good approach for people out there that may be thinking about it, that approach is, is find somebody that may have a need, have open, candid conversations in the beginning. Hey, this is sort of a, maybe a temporary sort of stop for me. And then sort of the thing you’re at, you’re out to lunch or whatever, like, all right, it’s time.
And so, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s a good approach. And it gave you, sometimes I say it sort of like riding a bike with training wheels. So you sort of had that bridge and then you’re like, all right, I’m ready. So let’s talk about it. So January, 2020, you’re like, hell yeah, I’m about to do it. And then the world comes to an end,
Josh Stein: That’s where all this website looks great. This letterhead looks great. This video looks great. And then it’s like, wow, this, this, this wasn’t part of the plan. What are you going to do? Right. What are you doing? You’re going to just quit. You’re going to just give up. I mean, that ain’t gonna work. It allowed me to really kind of have the time to work on stuff that were bigger than just the case itself. You know, I’m not a [00:19:00] huge processes guy. I’m, I’m very I’d say weak maybe in, in that, but, you know, To the extent that you have to have a process to run your firm, I could spend some time working on that, putting things in place and getting comfortable with, with how I was going to go about my business.
And so, if that, if you look at it that way, it’s kind of a blessing to give you a pause on the just grind day to day casework and actually work on your business, not just in your business. I’m sure that’s something that you talk to your clients about. That was the time to do it, which looking back was pretty helpful.
Hindsight,
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, when COVID came out, I mean, everybody was Just scared as hell. I mean, we all, we were going to die and I was like, everybody’s going to die. It was, it was really sort of a weird, weird time. But, and in some respects it was scary business wise, but in the others, you know, I got to spend all this time with my kids.
I mean, they got to, you know, the city streets of Atlanta are pretty damn busy usually, but there were no cars. I could ride their bikes everywhere. It was, it was actually kind of fun some respects.
Josh Stein: me in [00:20:00] 2020. I mean, there’s some things about COVID that I kind of miss, you know, which is wild as hell to say, but the truth, I mean, You know, like you said, like you see, you see your kids a whole lot more. I remember making a really nice elaborate dinner almost every night because that was a huge activity. You know, you’re not shuffling around every night to different practices and keeping up with, with crazy schedules. Traffic wasn’t bad. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not saying I’m going to go back to that kind of a world, but there’s some things about it that weren’t too terribly horrible.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. I remember I was I was. Coaching my son’s baseball team as head coach, first time I’d done that. And I think we had gotten three, maybe game three, four games in the preseason and we were undefeated. So we can say that we were undefeated when I coached the team, right?
Josh Stein: I remember when the email came out from Eastside baseball canceling the rest of the season. And that’s when I was like, Oh damn, like this is, this is [00:21:00] real. I mean like that, I remember I was, I’m like, whoa, Baseball season’s over, you know, and for a 10 year old kid or however old you’re in that, that’s a, it’s a big deal. So I’m like, all right, here we go.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So you talked about it gave you time to spend time with your family, get the processes down. Is it, is podcast too?
Josh Stein: Exactly. Right.
Jonathan Hawkins: right, let’s talk about that.
Josh Stein: Yes. Oh, thank you. I love talking about it. So that was a combination of the COVID. Obviously people were experiencing all sorts of different hobbies and toys. And also it was right when Georgia and the Braves were both at the same time making their run to titles. And those are my two teams.
And so, I started talking about the Braves like their playoff series, like giving my opinions about what’s going to happen or recapping the games, whatever, like on a Facebook video. And I enjoy doing it. I like to hear myself talk, I guess, and people seem to like it. And so like, oh, that’s great. And then same thing happened with Georgia and I’m talking about Georgia stuff [00:22:00] and then all that just came to an end. And I was like, well, I kind of want to keep talking about things. I kind of want to keep doing something like this. How can I do it and also have it be productive towards, towards my work and make it something that’s not just talking about the Braves or Georgia, but expanding it to include my practice.
And that was the idea. I listen to Tim Ferriss a lot. I don’t know if you, if you listened to Tim Ferriss, but I really liked his format of having guests on and kind of learning about them and teasing what their habits are and trying to see what made that person tick, what made them successful.
And so I just reached out to 5 of my close friends. I’m like, look, this is what I’m going to do. I’d love to have you on as a guest. I bought stuff. I did 5 episodes and I’m like, if this sucks. No worries. I just shut it down. If it’s, if it’s cool and I enjoy it, I’ll keep going. And I ended up liking it and people ended up liking it, I guess.
And here we are.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I love the name. You haven’t said that yet. So let’s, let’s, let’s get a plug. I [00:23:00] think people need to go check it out.
Josh Stein: So the name is sports and torts which is kind of a play on the two things that are my favorite, which is sports, any kind of sports, and then torts, obviously, is the type of work that I handle. It’s the civil version of committing a crime, doing something wrong, you could pin a tort on somebody. So I think it was my dad that was like, well, those two words rhyme. Let’s go kind of catchy. So came up with sports and tours. And that’s been the theme throughout is that, you know, my guests are, are mostly lawyers. But then we do a kind of a sports spin of whatever their particular sports interests are. I’ve had sports guests on there too. It’s not about sports law, which a lot of people will ask me. It’s kind of about those two things individually, but it’s, it’s, it gives me the opportunity to talk about the two things that I like the most. That’s what I do. I mean, people always ask me, like, who’s your, who’s your target audience? I’m sure you got that question about your podcast. Who are you trying to reach? And I’m like, I guess I’m trying to reach myself because those are the two things that I like. So I’m talking to myself and everybody else is listening to cool. If not, [00:24:00] at least I’m getting a bit of it out of it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I think that’s key. You got to do something that you enjoy. And if you’re not enjoying it, then you’re not going to do it. So, you know, I say go for it. So, and you’ve been doing it, what three, how many years now? Three,
Josh Stein: years now. Yeah. So we just went
over a hundred episodes. You know, which, which I’m pretty proud of. And I usually record from August to May and then shut down for the summer. I was just telling you I’m kind of itching to get going. It’s been a couple of months now and I need that to just kind of recharge.
And cause as you know, it’s a big commitment to do these and, and, and dedicate the time to do it. And, and I think, as I told, you know, to anybody who listens, if you’re going to do it, You have to do it regularly, right? There’s no, there’s no point doing it once every month or six weeks or two months.
It’s just, it’s just no point to that. In my opinion, at least. So you got to dedicate yourself to doing it regularly.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I’m with you on that. I’m with you a hundred percent. If you’re not going to do it all the time, if you’re not gonna be consistent, then you shouldn’t do it all. You know, I used to say you know, as I [00:25:00] thought about for years, I want to do a podcast and it’s gotten easier. just, there’s more resources back then.
It was like, yeah, I didn’t know what to buy. I didn’t know how to produce it. All that kind of stuff. You can outsource just about all that analysis way easier than it used to be.
Josh Stein: I think people are kind of unimpressed when I explained it in the process. Like they think it’s going to be a whole lot more of an in depth thing to do. And when I tell them like, Oh, that’s it. I’m like, yeah, that’s it. I mean, you can get really fancy. I mean, I love your setup that you got going on. But like you said, they’ve made it pretty darn easy to do it.
So there’s no excuse not to try if you really want to.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that said, you know, you know, I don’t know what’s what, who knows where the stats come from, but you know, they have that stat where most, you know, some huge 90 plus percent don’t get past three episodes. And then some even smaller percentage get to like 20. You’ve got to a hundred. That’s pretty, that’s pretty impressive.
That’s that’s consistency.
Josh Stein: Well, I had lunch with somebody last [00:26:00] week who had just started a podcast and they were on episode like 12 or 13 and they were kind of down on themselves about it. And I was like, look, man, I was like, you have done better than 90 plus percent of anybody that has tried this. And cause your number is dead on.
I mean, you know. I don’t know what the exact stat is, but getting past 10 is a small percentage of people that actually can stick to even that long. So, I told him, I said, be proud of yourself, man.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll tell you, you know, some days it feels like you’re just talking into the void. You just, you don’t know if anybody’s listening. You don’t, you don’t know if anybody really cares. What sort of feedback have you gotten?
Josh Stein: What a great question. That is because I cared a lot in the beginning about who was listening and I had that software that would track all sorts of metrics and you know what I did? I think I told you this before. I’ve shut that all off. I cannot access those numbers anymore because you know what? I don’t really care. I care, but I [00:27:00] don’t care if that makes sense. I was such a, I was so concerned with how many downloads is this episode going to get? Does that, you know, make it valid? Does it validate the fact that I’m doing it? And for me, that was the wrong approach because my idea was never to Get to a certain viewership number and sell ads or get sponsorship dollars or things like that.
Like that was never my goal. So then what do I care? If it’s 50 people or 5, 000, they’re listening. And that freed my mind up. To not worry about that part of it and just focus on, am I enjoying still doing it? The answer is yes. Do the guests seem to be enjoying the conversations, which the resounding feedback is, man, that was fun, Josh.
I’m glad we did that. Thanks for having me on. And do I hear from people just around town? Hey, listen to the podcast with John Hawkins, man. He was great. Didn’t know that about him. Now I do, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that really makes me feel good. When I go to Christmas parties, you know, work Christmas parties, like that’s the. [00:28:00] conversation that people come up and have with me. It’s about that. So that tells me that people are at least listening. They’re seeing it. And that’s good. That’s good enough for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I could tell you have fun. I mean, it’s an entertaining, it’s an entertaining show. So for anybody out there, Go find it. Sports and torts. Go listen. It’s a good one.
And you’re probably, you know, looking, looking for guests all the time. So, you know, you do yours a lot of times in person, which I’ve never done.
So that’s a different format as well. That’s I think it’s probably a little easier, a little more you know, the in person interaction and maybe a little more enjoyable. But
Josh Stein: Yeah, for me, that’s just something that I wanted to do. I mean, the first one I did was with one of my best friends from college. And he came over and we both poured a, you know, poured a drink just because. Like that’s what we thought we were supposed to be doing. Right. And we just talked for an hour and I’m like, you know what?
I kind of like the way this feels. So, you know, I do catch some, catch some heat for, you know, drinking and food being kind of a big part of, you know, what the podcast is, but the reality [00:29:00] is that makes it more fun for me. You know what I mean? Like when you come over to my office, it was four o’clock on a Thursday.
You pour a bourbon, you talk, and it’s just a fun experience. You know, I’ve done plenty of these. You know, online and that’s great too. There’s not one way is better than the other. It’s just kind of the way I’ve gone about
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So since, since you’re taking the summer off, we gotta, I’m gonna have to, we’re gonna have to talk some sports here now in the braves. It has been, oh my God I’ve, I’ve sort of stopped tuning in. You know, we were world series favorites to, to just everybody getting hurt. It’s just been awful.
Josh Stein: it’s been awful, man. I’ve been very, and this, this is a tough word to use, but I’ve been pretty uninterested in the Braves this year, if that makes sense. And that’s not like me. I love the Braves. I mean, I, I, I get the direct TV stream strictly so I can watch the Braves cause you can’t find them anywhere else on, on the TV, but I’ve just found them uninteresting this year.
It’s, it’s not anybody’s fault. The injury bug has just destroyed them. And now the team they’re, they’re trotting out there is just not [00:30:00] capable to, to compete, which is, which is sad. I mean, how they’re holding on to a, to a wildcard spot still, it’s just a testament to Snitker and the depth that AA has put together, thank goodness for pitching staff, but I mean, you know, it’s just, it’s not built to last at this point, unfortunately for this year. I don’t know what else to say.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, you know, we can always look back to the World Series title year where they had an awful first half and just turned it on right there at the end, you know,
Josh Stein: That’s what we’re telling ourselves, Right?
I mean, that’s the model. Acuna goes
down. We’ll see. You know, I don’t know when you’re going to release this podcast, but we’re right into July. And so, you know, we’ll see the trade deadline, what the moves are. You can make some arguments that, you know, maybe you become a seller.
I mean, as sad as that is to say, if you’re leading the wild card to sell, but you can, you can make the argument that Max freed is more valuable as a trade piece right now than holding onto him for the remainder of the season, hoping you can make a run, [00:31:00] probably can’t, and then losing the free agency. So I can make that argument.
I don’t want to see it happen, but I think it’s gonna be super interesting over these next week or so to see how this plays out from AA’s perspective,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. He’s been very, very good on the trade deadline for the last however many years. So, but it’s just in my mind, it seems hard to see that they could make any moves to try to make a run. But so yeah, you’re right. It’s like, maybe we get something.
Josh Stein: we’ll find out,
we’ll find out. I mean, I’ll, I’ll tell you though, the, the crowds are still going. I mean, the, the product down at Truist Park is still a very good product. And what I mean by that is just the overall stadium experience, the battery, the. In game entertainment and activities are still very good. The crowds are still very good. So I like seeing that.
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, the battery is awesome. I’ve not been doing game yet this year. We’ll see. It’s, it’s really hot right, right about now. So,
Josh Stein: Yeah, wait [00:32:00] till
Jonathan Hawkins: so, okay. So yeah, shift it again. So another thing you mentioned you said you were recording these videos. I see that you do a lot of video work and it’s, it’s all over social media.
At least the ones I’m on. And so, how long have you been doing that? When did you start that? Was that a COVID thing also? Had you start before?
Josh Stein: Before. I mean, that was something that I felt was my one marketing tool that I should and could easily do, you know? I’ve never been somebody who was going to be on a billboard. Nothing wrong with that. Just not me. I’m not advertising on TV, on the radio. I’m not trying to mass promote myself to just the entire city or state or whatever.
I’m focusing more on my network, on my community, people that frankly already know me and just keep, make sure that they keep me in mind and I’m top of their mind when something comes up. And so those videos were a way for me, I think. It’s as you said, just pop up and feeds like, Oh, there’s Josh again, talking about whatever.
And so the hope is [00:33:00] not the hope of my gets hurt, but if they do, or they know someone that does like, Oh yeah, I remember Josh talked about, you know, if you get, if your child gets hurt in a daycare, do this, or be hit by a truck, do that. And so, yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve enjoyed doing that again. The word that is consistency.
I think if you’re going to do it, you got to do it. So that’s the other thing I’ve just kind of said, okay, Josh, you’re going to do this. You got to, you got to keep doing it.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’re good at it. I mean, you’re good in front of a camera. And I’m, and I’m not just saying that, you know, there’s some people that are not very good at it. I’m not sure if I am, I haven’t really done enough of it. I keep telling myself I need to do it. So you got to coach me here. You got, you got to get me motivated.
So let me ask are you, are you just. A natural, or is this something that you had to learn or maybe a little both?
Josh Stein: I appreciate those kind words. I don’t know if I’m good at it. I think what I’ve come to the realization of the years is I can be relaxed about it. I think the beginning, a lot of people are so worried about make sure every word is right. Your message is perfect. Everything looks right. Do you think people really care if something is [00:34:00] perfect? They really don’t. I mean, what I’ve learned is that if I do a 60 second video, people are dropping off. 15 seconds, then 20 seconds and 30 seconds. And it’s not because they don’t like what I’m saying. That’s just the attention span of people that are out there. My goal, I don’t think needs to be to keep someone’s attention. With great content for 60 seconds. Well, that would be great. And it’s desirable. And I hope it happens. My goal is just, hey, let’s just see Josh again, you know, talking about this, talking about that. Let’s listen to 15 seconds. We’ll say something good and move on to the next. I think that should be the goal. And so if you look at it that way, there’s less pressure to put out, like, the perfect video, right? You can just be more relaxed and kind of go about it that way. So that’s, that’s kind of how I think about it.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let me, let me ask about your process. So, how, how do you go about doing it? And I mean, and I want to dive in some specifics here. So, and that, that includes sort of like, you know, how do you get your ideas? How do you script them out? How do you [00:35:00] record as, or do you batch them? I mean, is it, what’s your process on doing your videos and then how do you produce them?
That’s the other thing,
Josh Stein: Yeah. So Kayla Lamont, I will give a plug to her. I met her many years ago at a, at a at a, at a different job that she had that was working in the, in the legal space and we got to know each other and I started doing my own plans work. I found out that she was doing these social media videos and so I connected with her and I still work with her to this day.
And so what we do is she comes to my office once a month. We record 12 videos. This is kind of progressed over the years. We started out doing just four, one a week, and now we’re up to 12, which I think is the sweet spot. I don’t want to be an everyday guy. But I think three days a week is, is appropriate to these videos. So she shows up on whatever date, July 1st, and we do 12 videos. And my goal is for each one to be between 45 seconds in a minute. You know, he used to take me multiple takes. Now it’s usually one take, maybe [00:36:00] two. She’s pretty good at saying like, Josh, that’s, that’s good. Let’s just move on to the next kind of back to all the same beginning of it doesn’t have to be perfect. And then she takes all 12, she goes and does her magic and makes it look good and edits it and does the backgrounds and all those kinds of things. And then every few days she sends me the video that’s done. That’s done. And then I upload it to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, you know, wherever it is that I do. And I, you know, I do all the all the, not the comments, but the posts, but she would do that too, if I wanted her to, but yeah, I found if I just batch them all at 1 time, that’s the most efficient way to do it. I used to do good at like planning out my topics and as the month is going on, if I think of something, it’s like, put it down and, you know, get back to it and then keep adding now kind of day before I’m like, oh crap, tomorrow’s recording day.
I got to come up with 12 things to talk about and she’s pretty good to, like, she’ll send me a text. Like, Hey, here’s a couple of things I was thinking about. And [00:37:00] at the end, we just, we just get to 12. I mean, I feel like, you know, I’m going to run out of things to talk about, but there’s always something Current, something that happened on my cases, something I think is important to, to talk about.
And so that’s what we do.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, for me. It’s, it’s inertia and it’s inertia, you know, you just got to, you got to start. I think it probably sounds like it’s probably helpful to have someone come and actually do it. So you’re, you’re like, all right, she’s coming. I got to get ready. Where if it’s just me and my iPhone, I can come up with a hundred things to do instead of recording, so I don’t record.
Josh Stein: You just nailed it. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times we, she usually gets here at 10 30. I can’t tell you how many times it’s like nine o’clock that morning and I’m like tapping out a text to her. It’s like, Hey, can we push this to next week? Right? Because there’s always something that you can do or something you want to be doing. And I’m like, you know what? No, it’s on the schedule. It’s on the counter. Let’s do it. If she wasn’t [00:38:00] coming and it was just me, you better damn believe I wouldn’t have gone forward at 10 30 and knocked him out. So I’ve never thought about it that way. You just put it, but that’s, that’s, you’re, you’re exactly right.
I mean, she, she’s like my business coach for videos to hold me accountable to making sure that I do it right. And I think her being on the other side of the camera. Makes me more comfortable because it’s almost like not almost it is like I’m just talking to her like it’s a conversation where I’m looking at her versus staring blankly into a camera.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s a good point. I may have to get, get her info offline here when we’re done here.
Josh Stein: She’s great, man.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, yeah, so, so we’ve talked about a couple of things you do marketing wise. So you, you know, your podcast, that’s sort of for fun, but I mean, it’s got a marketing component to it as well. You got your videos. What other sorts of things do you do?
Josh Stein: Yeah. So I consider myself my marketing being community marketing is the word that I use. I don’t know if that’s a correct term or not, but I live in East Cobb. I’m from East Cobb. A lot of [00:39:00] connections in East Cobb. And so I just want to. foster all of those relationships that if anybody in these cob gets hurt or that is when it gets hurt, like I’m the first person to think about.
So we sponsor, you know, Walton’s our local high school. We sponsor their football team, their baseball team, their volleyball team. You know, the middle school when my son daughter there, we sponsor them with whatever they need. Same elementary school. Indian Hills Country Club is the golf course that everybody’s a member at.
So we sponsor that. We do the local fun runs, we do the local parades, whatever it might be because I’m not competing with, you know, the Morgans and the Morgans, Morgan Morgans, the world there or John Foy. Like I can just kind of focus on that little area and that’s enough for, for my firm. Right. And so I think that that is time, energy and resources that are better spent. And it makes me feel good. I like going to the Walton football game and hearing my name over the intercom. We thank our sponsors, Jay Stein law firm for whatever. I mean, it makes me feel good. [00:40:00] And, and, and it’s, and it’s. Helping my firm out at the same time. So that’s been my approach. I hope it remains my approach. Cause I think that for me it works pretty well. I hope it does at least.
Jonathan Hawkins: And that, that’s, that’s a great point for the people out there. I mean, you’ve seen it. If you’re on any social media, if you’re just around, it’s like there’s all these, there are all these gurus now. Scale, scale, scale, grow, grow, grow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You got to do this. Got to do that. You got to have a hundred internet ads.
You know, you got billboard, whatever it is. And it’s, you feel this pressure, or at least you’re like, well, maybe I should be doing these things where really. No, you don’t. It’s like, figure out what you want and just dominate sort of your space. It sounds like is what you’re doing. And I got to tell you, you know, your videos, for example they show up in my feed all the time.
And it’s, that is like a billboard. It might be better than a billboard, really.
Josh Stein: Yeah. Yeah. To, to your point it’s hard to ignore as you, as you correctly put out, like all the noise that people [00:41:00] do this, do that a hundred, this hundred, that scale especially the kind of work that I do, because. You know, it’s like if you’re not having the biggest settlement or the biggest verdict, or the biggest firm, or the biggest this or the biggest that, like, are you even relevant? And so that can be a hard kind of thing to just sit back and watch. So, you know, I think you got to be kind of comfortable in your own skin and comfortable in knowing that the path that That I’m choosing or my firm is choosing, whatever that path is, is the right one for you and really not try to get caught up with, you know, the old slogan, keeping up with the Jones is I think in the plaintiff’s world, kind of what I do, that could be a very dangerous game to play. You know, there’s, there’s no way I can keep up money wise spending with Morgan and Morgan or John can’t do it. So why even try, why why play their game? I’m never going to win their game. They can’t win my game. So let me just play mine.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, it’s I was listening to a podcast. I think it’s Dan Kennedy sort of a direct marketing guru. He said, you know, there’s no [00:42:00] value. It’s not exactly what you’re saying, but he’s like, there’s no value. If you’re going to be in the low cost world, there’s no value to being the second lowest cost provider.
If you’re going to do it, you gotta be top. And that’s the same with the advertisers. You gotta be. If you’re going to play that game, you’ve got to spend money like crazy. And at this point, I’m not sure that many people can get into that game. So don’t even play it.
Josh Stein: Yeah, if I ever spend 10, 000 a month on Google ads, which is a lot of money to me and my firm, what’s that going to do? Probably not much anything, right? So it’s like, why even try? At least that’s what I tell myself. I might be wickedly wrong on this, but that’s at least what I tell myself.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, this is a good segue. So we’re talking about growth a little bit and you are starting, you’re growing, right? So you’re, you’re adding an attorney here. So tell me about that.
Josh Stein: Yeah, so Derek Cooper from Weinberg Wheeler. It’s interesting that his background is extremely similar to mine. Both and he went to UGA started out doing defense work, became a partner in his defense firm and, you know, [00:43:00] about the same age that I was he was looking to kind of make the move and we got connected and, you know, the, the, the, Relationship that we formed was, is identical to what I did with Andy.
So it’s the exact same sort of setup where he is joining my firm as of counsel with the same sort of expectations about what each, what each one of us needs and wants. And really, really excited to get him started and excited to watch him do plaintiff’s work. He gives me a, a great additional lawyer to handle you there, we lose you.[00:44:00] [00:45:00]
Jonathan Hawkins: All right, my
Josh Stein: Zoom. You’re back.
It’s good.
Jonathan Hawkins: We’ll cut all this out. So real quick, I was doing this with Ben Mathis. I don’t know, a few weeks ago and we’re, we’re, we’re doing it. He’s in office. All of a sudden, you see the scaffolding come down the window right behind him and they’re not, it’s not window washers. They’re like going to be pounding the windows.
And so we had to just completely stop and then move to another. Anyway, so let me ask that again. Sorry. So,
Josh Stein: Sure. No problem.
Jonathan Hawkins: so you were saying that you You bring on an attorney in the exact same role that are the exact same sort of style that you did with with Andy,
Josh Stein: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s it’s great. He, his background is very similar to mine and he was looking to start doing plaintiff’s work. And we were talking about kind of how I got into it [00:46:00] and just like I told you, my start with Andy, I told him the same thing and I told him that, you know, that’s a great option for him if, if he finds the right situation and, you know, as things go, we start talking more about it. And, you know, my needs and his were aligned. And so, yeah, it’s super excited. He’s, you know, he’s a great lawyer. He’s worked on big cases. He can hit the ground running doing, doing pretty good, you know, doing really good work and allows me to, you know, cases that I would use to refer out or cases that, you know, it has somebody else work on with me.
Now he can be that person. So it’s a, it’s a big benefit to my firm. I’m excited for him to get going and, and he’s going to really do well.
Jonathan Hawkins: you’re paying it forward. Sort of like, like, and you did for you,
Josh Stein: I think so. I mean, I think that in a perfect world and in two or three years, he’s, he’s got his own firm and he’s still in the space with me and Andy like he is now. And he’s rocking and rolling and just continues on. And then maybe somebody else comes and wants to work with me or someone’s work with him or [00:47:00] whatever it might be.
I mean, that’s the beauty of doing the kind of jobs that we do. I mean, there’s so much flexibility and how firms are set up. I mean, I can only imagine. That you have seen every possible way a business and a law firm can be set up and run with the work you do. And it’s just really fascinating how, how many different ways you can, as they say, what, skin the cat and set things up. It’s really cool.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, the plaintiff’s world is also a collaborative, I would say part mostly in the legal industry. So, you know, you guys are co counseling all over the place with people from different firms all the time anyway. So it just sort of makes sense. So it’s a, it’s a good setup, I would think.
Josh Stein: I think so. I mean, I know he’s excited. Same things that was a benefit that were kind of appealing to me about Andy. He sees that about me, which makes me feel good, you know? And yeah, he started just this month and up and running. I mean, we’ve got, we’ve got two paralegals and then I contract out a lot of stuff.
I mean, I’m, I’m very big [00:48:00] on the, you know, not having necessarily somebody on my payroll do the work from accounting to. Payroll to marketing to, you know, you name it. If I can contract out that person, that makes more sense to me.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Let’s talk about that for a second. Just real quick. Sort of the structure. So you’ve got, you know, in terms of full time versus VAs versus contractors, vendors, whatever. I’m curious, sort of your setup and how over time you, you sort of figured it out. Maybe Andy helped you with some of this, sort of gave you some advice, but you know, when you started, when you started your own firm, how did you go down the chain of, all right, I need somebody to help me with this and, and that, those
Josh Stein: Yeah. So my, my over my over riding principle is low overhead. I just think that for a plaintiff’s firm, especially starting out, it’s just huge. You don’t get hamstrung with huge space expenses and, and, you know, you know, payroll costs and health insurance costs. If you can avoid all that best you can, [00:49:00] I just think that’s a good idea. I wanted to do as much of things on, in the beginning as I could. So I learned how to do it. I mean, I’ll be honest, man, like the first time I had to mail out a letter certified, are we in a, are we in a trust tree right here for you to say that I didn’t know how to do that necessarily.
Jonathan Hawkins: I,
Josh Stein: and that’s just a God’s honest truth.
It’s the first time I had to e file a complaint. I didn’t know how to do it, but I wanted to. And so, you know, I, it was just me for the 1st, you know, however long, then my wife joined to, to pick up, pick up some of that stuff again. Can you get a better. Employee that’s vested in the firm, then, you know, your wife or husband, wherever it might be, say she was the first kind of higher, I guess I would say I know that scares people off a lot of working with your spouse, but it worked for us.
I mean, she, she didn’t come into the office, which I think was a big a big help. She worked from home, but she had no legal background, but she’s smart. She’s good at computers. She can figure things out. She’s good at marketing. And so she was. Yeah. [00:50:00] Really instrumental in those that first six months to nine months to really get me going until I hire, you know, a paralegal who could really, you know, really start taking over and that’s Melissa.
So, there’s the two and then I’ve got a contract paralegal. Who focuses a lot on on getting medical records on getting out letters of rep. You know, she does not come to the office. She’s very task based stuff. Like I said, we have, we outsource all the accounting, we outsource all the payroll. Kayla does a lot of the, as I mentioned, does a lot of video stuff.
She’s not an employee of mine. And that’s, that’s the way I’ve gone about it. That’s why I want to keep it. I’m not looking to, you know, have, you know, 20 employees and a bunch of office space and all that kind of stuff. While that’s great. And it works a lot of people. I came from a world with lots of overhead and lots of employees and lots of TPS reports and lots of meetings.
And I don’t want to do any of that anymore. I want to just focus on practicing law.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s the world we live in, in some [00:51:00] respects, it’s, you know, more competitive and, and those sorts of things, but it’s so much easier to really start a firm and, and get the, just connect the pieces that you need and not have to hire them. I mean, even 10 years ago, it was just so hard. I mean, just with COVID accelerating, having the virtual thing, the overseas VA’s, I mean, there’s so many options you can, you can have
Josh Stein: Have you, have you gone the overseas VA route? You looked into doing any of that? No,
Jonathan Hawkins: started experimenting with that. You know, I’ve had a lot of people that have done it. They, they swear by it. And so I’ve started that. I had one and, and had to Get rid of her and we’re, we’re about to line up another one and it’s, you know, cause a lot of what we do can be virtual. I’m a big believer in, in office.
Not just to be there, but I just feel like there’s some value there. And there’s just some things that you can only do in person. I mean, frankly, like if I need to mail a letter, somebody’s got to be here to do it, right? You can’t, you can’t send that to an overseas [00:52:00] person. That
Josh Stein: I’m totally with you. I mean, I was one of these guys during COVID, I still came in every day. I mean, we had a small footprint, so it wasn’t like we had a big firm that they said, stay away. I mean, I just like being in the office. Could I do everything from my house? Yes. Do I want to do that? No. For many reasons, but I just like being in the office.
All my people are here in the office. I mean, of course I told you my wife is not, but Andy’s here every day. You know, Derek’s here every day. We’ve got another law, a lawyer, Chris Gunnels, I don’t know him, but he shares space with us. He’s here. I just like people being around
Jonathan Hawkins: it’s, it’s just more enjoyable for me at least. It sounds like for you too.
Josh Stein: percent
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’ve been, you’ve been going at it for a while with your firm. Why don’t, why don’t you you know, you’ve got somebody out there that’s thinking about maybe starting something you got, you got any advice for them?
Josh Stein: do it. Right. I mean, I think that’s, that’s the number one piece of advice I get people is if you want to do it and you’re thinking about it, just do it. I really truly think that’s the hardest part of it is just making that [00:53:00] decision. And I say burn the boats, be on the island and burn the boats. And what I mean by that is if you’re going to do it. Go all in. Don’t give yourself some, some, some hedges to get out. Don’t give yourself some things to some crutches to fall on. I think you’ve got to burn the boats. And the only way you get off that island is figuring it out. And I think that through that kind of a process, you force yourself to go that extra step or that extra mile or do the extra thing because you don’t have a choice. Right? To your point, it’s, it’s not overly complicated. In 2024 to get what you need to start a firm. I was just talking to Derek about really with a internet connection, a good a good computer, a telephone, an iPhone, you can make some, make some noise. You can do some damage with just those few things. And so just do it. So I say like, well, it’s an Ikea, just do it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So as you’re sitting here today what, what’s your vision? What, where do you see [00:54:00] yourself going with this? Have you looked that far down the road to see
what you, what you want your firm to be like five, 10, 15 years
Josh Stein: have such a lame answer to that question. But I’ll give you the answer because you asked the question. So I have one, I have repeating one year goals and that’s it. And the goal every year is not to hit a certain amount of revenue. It’s not to, you know, hire a certain number of people. My goal is on January 1st, the following year to make sure that my firm is in a situation where I can continue on. doing it how I want to do it for the next year, meaning I don’t have to go work for somebody else or go back and do it to a defense firm or do something I don’t want to do. So as long as every year I’m able to continue down the path that I’m currently on, that’s all I really care about.
Jonathan Hawkins: I think that’s a great answer. I think that’s a great answer. And again, we, we touched on this earlier, you know, some people want to scale, some people don’t, some people feel like they should scale. Some people, you know, don’t know what to do, [00:55:00] but it sounds like you’ve pretty much got a clear idea of what you want and you’ve sort of designed your firm to, to suit the life you want to live and, and give you the freedom you want.
It sounds like, and then that’s probably more important than anything.
Josh Stein: It is. I mean, you know, we went, we went out of the country for 10 days in July and I was able to pretty much not worry about other people like at my office, at my firm, if I had a big firm and lots of operations, I don’t think I could do that. Right? There’s always, there was always be some sort of issue coming up with somebody that I would have to deal with.
At least that’s what I think I could be wrong.
So
Jonathan Hawkins: I think you’re right. I think you’re
Josh Stein: Yeah,
so that’s that’s kind of how I look at is that I want to worry about myself. I want to be accountable to myself. If I fail, it’s because of me. I can’t make excuses. Anybody else. If I succeed, I know it’s because of me. Well, a lot of people help, but you know what I mean? And that’s that’s good enough for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: well, I think I think that’s perfectly respectful way to go and more people [00:56:00] should probably take that approach than Trying to pursue something that somebody else is telling them they should do right All right. Last question man. So if you weren’t practicing law If you couldn’t practice law, what would you be doing?
Josh Stein: I’d like to just record these podcasts with you all day. Get paid for that. That’d be pretty damn fun. I’m enjoying this. That’d be, that’d be a pretty good, pretty good gig is, is, is being able to be on a podcast or be on some kind of a show and just have people care enough to want to listen to what you have to say. Right. Growing up being a sportscaster was kind of what I, My parents tell me I always was trending to want to do. I didn’t end up going to school to do journalism or, or, or sports casting, but I think if I could pick, that’s probably what I’d want to do. If I’m not playing the sport, I think it’d be pretty neat to be broadcasting it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you’re sort of there, man. You know, you could, I don’t know. Have you had any actual, [00:57:00] like professional athletes on your podcast yet?
Josh Stein: I’ve had a couple of the Falcons came on. I’ve had, you remember Dr. Jack Llewellyn, who was the sports psychologist for the Braves back with Smoltz and all them. He’s been on so, you know, different people connect me to different folks for various reasons, but I have had, I have had a handful.
That’s, that’s been really fun.
Jonathan Hawkins: There, there you go. There’s your pivot. I mean, Atlanta is such a great place for athletes. I mean, a lot of them live here, even if they don’t play here. So they’re everywhere.
Josh Stein: Exactly.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I tell my son that that’s sort of it’s it’s unfair in the youth sports because you got some of these athlete kids that are Giants out there pretty scary
Josh Stein: Yeah, man. It’s it’s it’s size is, is the big determining factor and use force and there’s nothing you can do about it is what it is that the big kids at this age. They’re the ones that dominate, but you know, as you get older and get in high school, all that kind of levels out a little bit and you want to be [00:58:00] the one with the good fundamentals, the good practice principles, the good way of going about it.
And then when size, when size evens out, those are the kids I think that are going to really rise to the top.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, well cool. If anybody wants to get in touch with you, you know, I can find your podcast obviously But what’s the best way to find you?
Josh Stein: I’ll just cut out for a second. Sorry, I
lost you.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah If anybody wants to find you what’s the best way to get a hold of you?
Josh Stein: Yeah, thank you. So my website is www.jsteinlawfirm.com. J-S-T-E-I-N law firm.com. Phone number is (404) 418-6379. Facebook page is j Sine Law Firm. Instagram, I believe is Jay Stein law firm. LinkedIn is, is just my name. And again I will return the favor to you, compliment to you. Your LinkedIn game is the best in [00:59:00] the business, period, hard stop. You’re the best in business on LinkedIn. So kudos to you on that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I appreciate it. So when’s the when’s the season start for sports and
Josh Stein: So I, yeah, yeah. And, and yeah, podcast sports and torts. You can just type that in. You on Spotify, Apple, all of it. So I typically will do my first episode right before Labor Day, right before Georgia kicks off their football season. That’s kind of the first show. Typically we do, I might be a little earlier this year.
I’ve got a couple of guests that I’m excited about that on a little bit sooner than that. And again, I’m just kind of antsy to get going, but it’ll be, it’ll be mid to late August we’ll get, we’ll get up and run again and we’ll try to run through May.
Jonathan Hawkins: cool, man. We’re looking forward to it. Thanks again for coming on and I’ll be seeing your videos in my feed. So keep it up.
Josh Stein: proud of you doing this. You did a great job. I’ve listened to a bunch of your episodes and just keep going, man. Keep doing it. I love it.
