Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner Podcast. I’m your host. Excited about today’s guest, cause he’s done some cool stuff. He’s got some interesting ages in his business model that he’s made over the years, and I really want to explore that. So, I’m looking forward to diving into that. And for anybody out there who might be thinking about changing your business, good episode to listen to.
So Brian Tully, welcome to the podcast. Why don’t you introduce yourself, tell us your name, where you are, what you do?
Brian Tully: Great. Thanks, John. It’s a real pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. I’ve been a follower of yours and learning all I can from all of your experiences. So the name is Brian Tully. I own Tully Law Group. We’re based in Long Island, New York. It’s an elder care and estate planning practice.
Started practicing Elder Law and estate planning 26 plus years ago. So it’s been a fun ride.
Jonathan Hawkins: So tell us a little bit about your stats. I know you’ve got multiple offices. You’ve grown a lot. Tell us, how many attorneys, how many staff, how many offices?
Brian Tully: Sure. So we’re at seven attorneys, total of 25 [00:01:00] employees, including the attorneys. We also have typical operations, marketing management intake, which is an important role, significant role. Paralegal departments, state planning, Medicaid side as well, and, but we also have care coordinators on staff, which is a unique part of our practice model, and that’s going to be a nurse, social worker, certified care coordinator, and that’s just, again, another avenue in which we’re able to help our elder care clientele.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I do know of, let’s say, MedMalFirms, they might have a nurse or somebody on staff to help them research, but this is interesting. So we will dive into that. So before you started your firm, what were you doing? Were you always doing elder care?
Brian, so you’ve been at it for at your firm 26 or so years. I think you said, before you started your firm, were you at another firm or did you go straight out and start your firm?
Brian Tully: So like a lot of Elder Law practitioners, we do it for certain [00:02:00] reasons. And once I was in law school and knew there was a subject in a practice area called Elder Law, it’s all I ever wanted to do. I was clerking for a law firm during law school, and they were not going to extend and stretch out into the elder care planning field. So we parted ways, just after me being admitted. And I joined a buddy. I studied with him every morning at Starbucks for the bar exam, and his dad had a litigation firm. So I joined them for three years, but I didn’t do the litigation work. They just let me have the conference room. So I started building the practice back then under their umbrella for three years.
And it was the only transactional work that they were doing. So it helped float and keep that business going because of their litigation model. And after three years of building with them and under them, I then went out on my own in 2001.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what got you interested in Elder Law? How did you know?
Brian Tully: I’ll give you the short story, John. The big Irish family. The Tully clan growing [00:03:00] up in Long Island. My dad came from 11 kids. So grandpa Andy and grandma Alice, they were everything to the family. And grandpa Andy was an attorney himself. So the reality was, went to a good high school, started to mess up a little bit in college. He sat me down in one of those periods of time and said, listen, Brian, we want you to go to law school. And maybe I was 19 or 20 years of age at that point. And that really gave me a direction that I never had before. So the idea to become a lawyer wasn’t something I always wanted, but again, hit me in my college days.
The idea of Elder Law, though, and elder care, and helping families with these care issues, that was just how I was raised. I grew up in the 80s, I was a teenager in the 80s. The best music. I know you love the dead, but there was some great music in the 80s. And what happened in the 80s is all four of my grandparents went through different issues and different [00:04:00] concerns.
In the meantime, my mom’s folks were living right next door to us. So I saw firsthand, what was going on in that whole situation as grandma was declining, grandpa was declining. And I was that little kid that was getting driven around in the back of the car to the dialysis center, to the different doctor offices, dealing with the home care issues, the canes, the walk, the wheelchairs, hospice concerns. So I dealt with all of that with these four grandparents that I loved more than life itself.
So again, when I was in law school and realized that there was a way to help other parents and other grandparents deal with these issues and help the caregiving children, it just clicked, and haven’t looked back since.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s interesting. I could be completely wrong here. So you tell me I’m wrong, but it seems to me that 26 years ago, Elder Care Law was brand new. It wasn’t even a thing. Almost, it was like you invent, it was the early stages.
Brian Tully: So the concept of Elder Care Law, I will respectfully submit is different than Elder Law, and we could talk [00:05:00] about that. Elder Law began probably in the 80s. And it evolved literally from the 60s, once the Social Security Act and the Older Americans Act all started, these federal program started rolling out, social security, etc, you needed attorneys to explain and digest how those laws worked and applied to people. But it wasn’t until the 80s that Elder Law actually started rolling out and I started in 98.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. And talk about a demographic wave that you’re about to ride.
Brian Tully: We are writing it for sure. Yeah, it’s the demographics are there.
Jonathan Hawkins: Perfect timing for you, I would say. Okay. So you always knew you want to do Elder Law or very early, you did. You built this. It sounds like you built it on your own, you didn’t have mentors within the firm you’re in.
You had to build it your own. So how did you go about doing that?
Brian Tully: Yeah. So it was just pure heart and passion and knowing that this is what I wanted to do and the natural God given abilities gratefully to actually be able to connect and care and have empathy for families going through these concerns, helped it all just to really [00:06:00] blossom.
But you’re right. I never worked for a firm that did it. Not to say I didn’t try. There’s large Elder Law firms on the island. Even back in the 80s, there were, so I tried and it didn’t work. So I had no choice except to just build it myself. So that’s really what I started doing.
Jonathan Hawkins: I love stories like that. That’s how I built my practice. No one where I was really did what I did, and it’s just brick by brick. And then all of a sudden you look back over 15, 20 years and you’re like, Whoa, that’s pretty cool. So yeah, for other people out there, it can be done. If you really have a passion for it.
Brian Tully: Yeah, you gotta put in the work, you gotta put in the effort. All the while making connections, because you’re doing everything at that point. You’re doing the books, you’re doing the payroll, writing yourself a check, basically. But you also got to do the networking, you got to do the work itself.
There’s areas of law within probably each of our practices that we hate doing. Like guardianship work is a big part of Elder Law. I did it several times when I first started practicing. It is a very difficult field and gratefully I don’t do it. Medicaid applications, here in New York, that’s a [00:07:00] significant part of our practice. But gratefully, I haven’t had to do it in a number of years.
It’s a difficult practice. But fortunately, I’ve got great attorneys now doing that for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. So let’s go back. Let’s take us back to, you started out at this firm, you built, you started building your practice. You were there for three years. How did you know it was time to go out on your own? What was the spark? How do you like, all right, I’m ready now.
Brian Tully: So it was another, I’ll call it divine intervention. I had a friend that was a financial advisor manager at a large insurance brokerage. And they were looking for an estate planning attorney to come in and help their guys, their agents with certain meetings and teach certain classes so that they could be well informed going out and into the communities.
And since I knew the manager, he approached me. And so in 2001, they said, listen, we want this and we’ll set you up. We’ll get you the office. And just help us. And so [00:08:00] in 2001, I was able to join this large insurance brokerage, see the real underbelly of the financial world and mostly the insurance world.
And so, they were able as a young lawyer for an insurance company or anybody for that matter to just help out with the overhead and the expenses. It made hanging the shingle a heck of a lot easier. I was going to do it anyway, but just having that covered really made things a little bit easier at that point.
So I did that again for three years.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you did that, and eventually I guess, again you went out. But so at that point, did you have a good base of clients or at least a good source of clients?
Brian Tully: The base of clients was starting to grow because in the first couple of years when I was just starting to build it in that firm’s conference room, it’s word of mouth. You do a good job, somebody’s going to mention you to the neighbor or mention you to their sibling. So you do the good job, you do the good work, it starts to grow organically.
And then that continued into my next phase, which again, which was helping a lot of these financial agents, insurance agents with their estate planning and their clientele. [00:09:00]
And again, it just kept spreading. But there did come a time when I was like, all right, enough of this, I really need to be my own practice and take that leap. And I did that in 2004.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so that’s when you moved out of the insurance office.
Brian Tully: Yeah. And I wasn’t in it per se, I was just next to it. But yeah. So in 2001, I actually started the Law Groups of Brian Tully. And I just moved from one location to about 20 miles away.
Jonathan Hawkins: All right. So I want to get to that but before there was something you said, the growing, your client base organically, the way I look at it is, it’s like compounding interest. And it’s this curve that for many years looks very flat, but you’re just putting in the work. But it’s doubling every year, but it’s just doesn’t look like it’s moving. And then all of a sudden, it starts moving up. So that’s pretty cool.
But all right, so you open up your office, who was with you? What kind of staffing did you have at that point?
Brian Tully: That point, it was a sister-in-law answering the phones.
Jonathan Hawkins: Wow. Yeah.
Brian Tully: That was it. Chef, chief cook, bottle washer, everything, that was me. I was doing my own phones obviously in the beginning. I did hire my first [00:10:00] paralegal about four or five years in, which was a part time deal.
Staffing, hiring, maintaining employees, keeping them, a whole nother conversation. But it started to grow. So I went from sister in law answering the phones, to paralegal, and then obviously, we just kept going. By ’05, I hired my first attorney, my first associate.
Jonathan Hawkins: Hiring as you said, that’s a whole different ballgame. You can read about it, you can hear people talk about it, but unless you go through it and make your own mistakes, at least, that’s the way I’ve learned. And I’m still learning every time you learn every time.
Brian Tully: Always. Hardest thing to do is grow with good people.
Jonathan Hawkins: You got to find them, you got to recruit them, you got to get them interested in coming, then you’ve got to onboard them. Then you’ve got to train them and retain them. So early on, how did you manage to do all that?
Brian Tully: Again, we’ve been fortunate. There’s only been a handful of employees I regret hiring and not being able to keep on staff. We’ve been fortunate in the people, we’ve been able to attract and to keep. What I’ll [00:11:00] say is we’re not a typical law firm in that, it is more of a family environment.
There’s a good, solid culture. You can call it a family environment if you’d like. I understand, there’s children, there’s activities, there’s coaching, and we’re not looking after crazy billable hours at all. We’re primarily a flat fee firm. And you do your work, you handle your affairs, I don’t get complaints, we’re doing all right. And we just keep on moving and growing. And when we have a need, we start searching. We’re in a very competitive market here in the Elder Law Estate Planning space. So sometimes, you have to use recruiters. And sometimes, you just meet people through connections.
The hard part is when you have somebody good and you’re losing them. Cause you’ve trained, you’ve taught, you’ve connected, you built that relationship.
Jonathan Hawkins: I would imagine too, for your particular practice area, empathy and ability to really connect and talk with the clients may be more important than maybe any other practice area, maybe family law, but maybe there’s some others. But that’s an [00:12:00] additional element probably that makes it even harder.
You get find somebody that’s really good, all these things, but they’re jerks, you’re not going to hire them because they have to deal with your clients, right?
Brian Tully: A hundred percent. It is about personality and character. I’m not that smart of a guy, I’ll tell you. I’ve surrounded myself with very smart people, great lawyers. And I’ve always described it this, and I always will, there are people, and there are paper people. And I’ve got a great combination of both in the right seats. Thank God.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s a whole nother thing you got to learn and figure out where to put everybody.
Okay. So you started your office in ’04, I think. And now, you’ve grown to 20 something people. You’ve got, I think you said four locations. So when did you open your second location? And what was your mindset? What were you thinking about that? I’m curious.
Brian Tully: So some things happened in between. I was on my own. I did bring in an equity partner, back in ’11, as a lot of us equity partners can say that gets a little complicated. So that [00:13:00] equity partnership ended in ’16. And then I basically moved down the block, gratefully kept the clients, kept the staff, and started rebuilding in ’16.
And so we’ve been in one location since ’16. We all know the pandemic
Jonathan Hawkins: So I won’t ask too many questions in there, but that is something we see a lot of, people try out a partnership. And sometimes, it works great. And sometimes, it doesn’t work. You may never go back or at least, your approach may be different at that point, but the partner you had, was it the same practice area? Was it something different?
Brian Tully: It was. Same practice area. It wasn’t a merger of sorts. It was somebody that joined and elevated rather quickly.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. And it happens. I won’t delve too deep because you may not want to talk about it. But yeah, so keep moving. So you started rebuilding in 2016.
Brian Tully: Yeah. Started rebuilding in ’16. I had at that point, I think about 10 employees being in the Elder Care field. We of course did estate planning work, but [00:14:00] probably, the majority was elder care, Elder Law work. It was years before that when I hired my first social worker, my first care coordinator.
So just briefly before that sitting as a transactional attorney, helping families with wills and trusts and Medicaid work to pay for long term care back in ’04, ’05, ’06, I was like, there’s something missing. So I started looking at the idea of, how do I make it more of a holistic practice? Because I was sitting with clients. And they’re talking about dad being in a nursing home, and I’m talking about a will and a trust. And it’s not jiving internally with me. I’m like, these folks need help with the care. So I came across the idea of what’s called Life Care Planning, which is the model that we practiced. And the reason I wanted to get this in here as we talk about it, because I believe that’s the reason we’ve grown.
The life care model is where it’s more holistic. And it’s an annual engagement. And you have not just the attorneys and the paralegals, [00:15:00] but you have what we call an Elder Care coordinator assisting with the care coordination, the navigation, the coordination of benefits and providers and the advocacy.
So we started that in ’09, and then gratefully, I do believe that uniqueness of that service and we’re still the only firm Downstate New York, practicing that model. I believe that service and that empathy and that ability to relate and help the families deep is what helped us grow. So from ’16 till 2020, we ended up adding two more an additional elder care coordinator.
So I believe we had two going into 2020, and then the pandemic hit. Most of us, took a nice vacation. Not us. The reality is that, I was in probably longer days. So we had the shutdown, but it was myself and my client relations manager, we were in the office probably 10-12 hours a day, while everybody was remote.
We got extremely busy. And I know transactional Elder [00:16:00] Law attorneys that took a long vacation. But when you’re dealing with the care efforts and advocating for clients and trying to get your grandmother and grandfather that have been married for 60 years to see each other because granddad is in a rehab and they won’t go face to face, there’s a lot of work to be done. Not to mention of course, the health issues and the transitions the families were going through.
Jonathan Hawkins: I remember, New York was like crazy ground zero back then. It’s like we’ve forgotten it. Did your business just explode with all that going on?
Brian Tully: It did. So I’d hate to say 2020 was a good year, but as far as revenue and clientele and business growth, it was. It was July of ’20, which was still a suffering miserable time when I took over another 2,500 square feet, because business went out, and we needed the space. We were growing.
So in 2020, we doubled our law firm size from about 2,500 and 3,000 to over 5,000 square feet. More staff, different new care coordinator, new attorney. We lost, we had a bunch of [00:17:00] turnover during the pandemic, which is a whole nother conversation. But the firm kept growing. And as far as other expansion in 2023, we opened up an office out east in Riverhead, which is about 45 miles east of us, just on the Fork.
So you’ve got the Hamptons, you’ve got Montauk, you’ve got the North Fork. It’s right there in the middle of all that. So we opened up that office in ’23. It’s a satellite. It’s by appointment, but we rotate folks, so there’s usually somebody out there. So there’s some activity. And then at the end of last year, we started to expand our main location again. And I took another 2,800 square feet across the hall.
And then this spring, I took on a new law partner with a specialty in estate planning, and he was based in another town called Northport. And so, we opened up a new office there in June. So it’s been four expansions in four years. And it’s trying at times.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yes. Let’s unpack that a little bit. That’s incredible growth, number one. [00:18:00] So congrats on that. But as you mentioned, you had turnover and then you still grew in the face of that. It’s expanding space just generally, even within your same building is a pain. But you’ve got these satellite offices and other places, how did you approach that? The first was a satellite office. It’s not like people are always there, but how do you manage that other office?
Brian Tully: Yeah. So it comes down to scheduling. At this point, I have two attorneys in addition to myself that do the consultations, and that’s our model. Generally, the attorneys that are doing the consultations have a primary job of getting us hired for their practice areas.
But then the team does the work, but not always. Sometimes, those other two attorneys are also carrying the substantive load as well. The scheduling of who’s in one, who’s in two, who’s in three, the client wants to be into the second location in the morning, but then we need that attorney back in the afternoon.
So it’s been trying. I think we’ve been doing it successfully because when you’re opening up another office in a town, you want that presence. You want those folks [00:19:00] to know we’re there. We’re not just drive-through. We’re not just here when you need us. We’re here continually. And you got to do that sincerely. It’s not meant to just be a facade.
So the satellite offices, as we call them, yes, they’re by appointment, but we try to have people there each day of the week. So again, there’s activity and we can meet walk-ins as they do happen. But it’s complicated at times, and it’s exhausting too.
Jonathan Hawkins: Even just getting ready, like signing the lease, getting the furniture, doing the build-out, all the getting the insurance, all just the
Brian Tully: Signage, computers, IT, phones, permits, yes, it’s a lot. And I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I can’t wait until the next one. But I think, Lord willing, if it happens, we got to get through, obviously, ’24. And I’d like to say, ’25 would be a year to just build that foundation, and then maybe we go a little bit further in ’26. I’ll let you know in ’26.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, we’ll talk about that. So let me ask, so you’ve opened 2 or 3 satellite offices now. Have you found you get better? Are you [00:20:00] getting better? The 2nd, or 3rd time?
Brian Tully: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s great. The marketing and the rollout for what I’ll call the third location, which is the second satellite was much more intentional because of what we did do and didn’t do for the first rollout. And in fact, what we’re going to do for this second rollout, again, the third location is we’re going to go now lay that template over the first expansion in that town. So it’s trial and error.
Jonathan Hawkins: You’ve got the logistics of actually opening the office, but then you’ve got the marketing component. You’ve got probably an internet, Google play. Then you’ve got a grassroots marketing play. You’ve got all these plays and you’re figuring out basically what to do. But then also the timing of it, and then seeing the results. The more data you have, the more the better the next one’s gonna be.
I’ve talked to some folks about, we’re going to expand eventually our firm and probably other states. And so, I like to talk to people who’ve expanded to other offices. And I’ve gotten lots of great advice and insight. What [00:21:00] one rule that the school of thought is try to open an office across town, same town first, so you’re at least close. Then maybe go to another city within the same state, before you go across state lines. Because you just keep adding complexity. You got the state laws, you got the regulatory environment for lawyers and just, you’ve got the distance. So it just makes it harder to coordinate. You’ve probably experienced that, right?
Brian Tully: A hundred percent. Now I haven’t done the out-of-state thing and that may be happening down the road, but that’s not on the plate right now. I agree with going with something closer, but we didn’t do that 45 miles away. You’re looking at nearly an hour’s drive, so that’s been complicated.
The last location that we just opened is only 30 minutes away, and at side road, so it’s closer geographically. But the beauty of it is, with the technology we have these days, I can just intercom anybody in those offices and it’s as if they’re sitting next to me, right? And they could be sitting in office two or three, and just [00:22:00] remote into their main desk here in the primary office.
Technologically, it’s pretty easy, once it’s all set up, and once you pay for the equipment and all the services. But then it comes down to the staff and the manpower, if you will, as to getting people there to actually do the work. That becomes the hard part.
Jonathan Hawkins: And like you said, once you set the technology up the first time, the next time, you’re just adding. So it gets easier and easier, just the first time, it’s a big lift. So I want to shift gears a little bit. Earlier, you mentioned the life care planning model. I really want to dive in that a little bit because it’s fairly unique, I think, generally. But even within the Elder Law space, I believe, I want to hear about that.
But then also, how you transition from maybe we’ll call it a traditional business model into this. I want to hear about that evolution, as well. So maybe start with explaining what the life care planning model is, and how is it different than a normal.
Brian Tully: Great. We’ll do. So life care planning, as I mentioned briefly before, to expand a little bit, it’s a [00:23:00] holistic practice model for Elder Law attorneys. And gratefully, there is a life care planning law firms association out there. I actually serve as the president of the association.
Now, I’ve got several more months in my term, and then we move on. But the life care planning model all began back in the 90s. There was an attorney down in Tennessee named Tim Takacs. And he was, as far as I know, the first person to bring a social worker on staff to say, all right, I’ve got these clients in middle Tennessee, and we’re having issues with the nursing home. So go get them. And that just evolved for several years.
And then, next thing, you have other attorneys that are connecting with him, different bar association events, and Nayla and so forth. And they’re saying, Hey, Tim, can I come to your office and shadow you for a day, so I can learn how you do this model?
And then one firm did it, another firm did it, another firm did it. Next thing you know, you have an association of law firms that practice this way. It is truly the future [00:24:00] of Elder Law. And because the care issues are becoming more and more prominent as the government programs tighten their belts and become more complicated to navigate, and not to mention, the demographics we said earlier.
So the model itself is where you have a typical Elder Law firm, dealing with planning issues, protection issues, government benefit issues, Medicaid, VA, etc., but you bring in an advocate, what we call ECCs, Elder Care Coordinators. And they are a social worker, registered nurses, gerontologists, care managers, somebody that has that empathy and heart to hold the hand of our clients, as they navigate the maze of long-term care.
And again, it’s what I truly believe has set us apart. I have, and I’ll say gratefully, I’ve finally started to see a number of firms, hiring social workers in my area. Now, they’re not practicing the life care model, but they have social workers on staff because they’re gratefully, again, recognizing the need for that type [00:25:00] of advocacy.
As an attorney, I’m not the one to deal with a nursing home resident that’s falling too much or rolling out of their bed, or bed sores. That’s not my job. And I’m not good at it, and I don’t have that skillset or that knowledge base. These folks do. There are some very successful life care firms nationwide, 30, 40 employees, and just growing revenue-wise, helping more and more families and more and more clients.
The reality though is, Elder Law is different than Elder Care Law. An Elder Law firm, that’s going to be a transactional model. That’s your will, your trust, your guardianship, your Medicaid work. An Elder Care Law Firm is one that specializes in these care issues. Now, we haven’t been able to trademark that because it’s a very generic term, and there are attorneys that use the phrase Elder Care Law that don’t practice in this more comprehensive model and that is what it is.
But Elder Care Law again is really what these are us as life care firms have been using more and more [00:26:00] to really demonstrate and emphasize that care approach.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s interesting, and I’m trying to think of other practice areas, not in the elder space. Are there ways that other firms, whatever their practice area is that could maybe borrow from this model and move away from just, hey, we’re going to do these legal project type things for you, and bring in some of the support staff, that’s not really legal?
Is there a way, I’m going to think through this, but it sounds interesting because then you’re selling more than it’s a full service, so to speak.
Brian Tully: Full service, they are not the nurse. I have a nurse on staff. She’s not practicing medicine. She’s an advocate. I have a social worker on staff. She is not providing therapy services. She’s an advocate. So we treat them as typical staff, whether it’s paralegals or lawyers or what have you. But they’re not practicing medicine. They’re not practicing mental hygiene. They’re not practicing law. They’re there to advocate similar to what a good solid paralegal would do, but just with a different knowledge base. And the beauty of the service is, [00:27:00] you really get to know the families because it’s not transactional.
So a life care plan isn’t for life. It’s for a year, generally. Any lawyer can create it for as many years as they want. I first started out in ’09 with a five-year life care plan, which didn’t work out business-wise. So most of us, most of the firms practicing this model focus on a one-year service. And it’s generally all-inclusive.
Whatever’s needed, we’re going to do for that family within this elder care, long-term care realm. And then, after that first year, they’re offered the opportunity to renew for a second year, and a third year, and a fourth year. So we’ve had families for five, six years at this point. And the benefit of that to the family is, they have us on call, so to speak.
And I know some lawyers just cringed when they heard that on-call part. But it’s again, I’ve got the staff to handle that. It’s typical business hours. We’re not doing weekend stuff or evening interventions if you [00:28:00] will. But as a mom, who’s in the nursing home is the client and, or let’s just say she’s in the hospital going to rehab. There’s an evolution there, and then we want to get her back home. But what happens if she falls again and we end up in a hospital and a rehab? That happens, there’s ups and there’s downs. That’s elder care.
Think of our own families, our own parents and grandparents. That’s what happens. So having a life care firm, the advocate, the experienced Elder Law attorney, assisting even the certified Elder Law attorneys that do this work, like myself, we’re in this for the long term to help these families truly for the rest of their lives.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I would imagine a one-year plan is probably more appropriate because, towards the end of life, a lot can happen in a year. And I bet, what worked last year is not going to work this year. I would imagine.
Brian Tully: That’s absolutely right. And the way that we look at it is, it’s not just legal planning. So we work on what we call the domains of aging, the care domain, the financial domain, and the legal domain. And the reality that a person’s long-term care can actually be [00:29:00] planned for. So you don’t need to be in a long-term care crisis to have the plan in place. As far as powers of attorney, backup decision makers, of having the asset protection, the probate avoidance, the advocate that already knows the family and your medical conditions, care can be planned for, and that’s what life care planning firms do.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about the scope of this service, and a little bit about the staffing part of it. Let’s talk about how you charge for it. What’s the billing model for this? How do you bill?
Brian Tully: Sure. So it’s not getting into specifics, but there’s flat fees. And the beauty of the model is people, firms and owners can do it any way they want. But when you look at a transactional model, you’d say, all right, we’re doing service A, service B, and service C. Here, it’s all service A.
And it could be the estate planning work, the wills, the trusts. It could be the Medicaid work as far as eligibility, asset protection, and the application itself. And it’s going to be the care advocacy.
The first year, again, you’re [00:30:00] looking at a pretty significant number and a fee so that we’re there and available to handle all these different affairs.
The second year, again, and subsequent years, are going to be those renewal years. And that’s, for us, it’s generally about a third in fees for the second year, third year, fourth year, etc.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is, this is the only way you bill your clients now, but this is not always the way you’ve done it. You used to do it old way. So talk me through the transition from the old way to how you do it now. How did you do it?
Brian Tully: Yeah. Cool. So, I was an Elder Law attorney, so we did transactional Medicaid work, which a lot of us nationwide do. Again, this life care model comes out. Yes, as a business owner, we’d be lying if we didn’t say we get fearful of different things. So when I started the life care work in ’09, I was afraid of doing that full bore.
I did not go 100% into the life care model because I didn’t think, New Yorkers [00:31:00] would go for that entirely. I wasn’t sure. I didn’t trust it. I was afraid of it. But I knew it was the answer. So I offered for the first 10 years, I actually offered clients, Hey, I actually said, Hey, do you want the long transition?
And a lot of firms don’t do that, but it took me that long. I offered, do you want the transactional medical Medicaid work, which costs X, or do you want the more comprehensive life care plan services that in their eyes just doubles the fee, basically? And not surprisingly, a lot of people just pick the transactional work.
So maybe there’d be one life care client that would see the benefit of that and go that route. And again, I did that for 10 painful years. There came a time in ’19 where I was, again, me doing every consult, literally, through from 1998-2019, I did every consult there was. I trained my associates, three different associates at that point, to do the [00:32:00] consultations for 2019, still with that bifurcated delivery model.
And what I noticed, unfortunately, is, since I wasn’t doing the consults, our engagements and our revenue started to decline a little bit. So I said, all right, enough is enough. I got to really fix this. So I took the consults over again and said, I’m just going to jump off the cliff, full bore. It’s a life care or nothing.
And let’s say, two associates at that point in time who are no longer with me, saying, it’s not going to work, Brian. Don’t do it. There’s naysayers along our path and our journey always. And I said, no. New Yorkers will do this. This makes sense. It just has to get laid out, appropriately. They have to see the value in the longer engagement. And they have to see the value in the advocacy services. And they did, thank God.
So we’ve been pure life care planning, since the end of ’19 or early 2020.
Jonathan Hawkins: Man, there are so many lessons in there. We won’t be able to hit them all, but there’s so many. I talked to a lot of lawyers. They’re [00:33:00] nervous. I mean, I am too. You’re like, this is the way, but you’re scared to go all in and you offer both. And when you offer both, they’re both watered down. You just gotta choose. And good for you, for actually just going for it. And another fear is that the clients won’t want it.
And it’s almost if you give them the choice, they’re probably not going to want it. You almost just have to say, this is the only choice. You either take this or not.
Brian Tully: It’s how you frame it in the meeting. And it’s not a sales thing at all. It’s just reality. Because an Elder Law attorney that’s not touching the advocacy doesn’t talk about that being as dangerous as it is. So us coming at it with the advocacy perspective, we’re like, no, we know what’s around the corner.
There’s going to come a day where you’re going to get a phone call and the rehab is going to say, you’ve got 24 hours to get your mom out of here. Then what are you doing? So we know the care part is going to be quite honestly, the hardest part. Because there’s also so much tied to it. The emotion, can mom go home? Can she not? Is this her last year? What’s dad doing? So we address all of those concerns. And again, expressing [00:34:00] that value during the meeting, in four years of doing pure life care work, I haven’t had a single client say, Oh, forget it. I just want the Medicaid application.
Jonathan Hawkins: And another thing you mentioned, you had the attorneys telling you, it’s not going to work. There’s a lot of firms out there that do alternative business models, and everybody tells them, it’s not going to work. And if no one ever tries it, it’s not going to work. And it may not work for those people, but just, you look at some of these tech companies, and text a different space. But people say, it’s not going to work. And then they prove you wrong. And then they look back and they say, Oh, it’s so obvious. Why haven’t I been doing this all along?
Brian Tully: Exactly. Yep. It was just so easy.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, that’s cool. It’s good. Congrats on taking the jump and making it work. So I want to touch on a couple other things. I don’t think we’re gonna have time to get through it all. But talk about growing in your philosophy on taking risks to grow. Cause you’ve grown, I know you want to grow some more, I’m sure. You’ve tried ways to do it. So we’re looking good here with taking some risks. What’s your mindset? How do you [00:35:00] get through it?
Brian Tully: That’s a tough one. And I’d love to say, it’s some formula and the numbers and it all works out logically. But a lot of it has nothing to do with logic. It’s really just your heart and your gut. And does it sound right? And not everything works out. Things can sound right, they can have a pretty bow on them, but as you take that bow off and you start taking that wrapping paper off, it’s not what you thought it was.
So your heart and your gut are what led me or lead me to look at other opportunities and to not sit still and be content. So then, it comes down to the logic and the numbers and the reality of it. And sometimes, that’s blinded by just the emotion of going and the excitement of going, oh, wow, I want to do this. I want that. So being able to temper that, and you can ask my wife in second thought, don’t ask my wife, the reality of it is, the ups and the downs and the excitement because it drains me. I go home. She’s, who are you tonight? It’s tiring. [00:36:00] But it’s so exciting to grow and put this together.
And I’m super excited for the next 10 years. And to answer the question, it’s heart and gut, and then it’s reason.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, and I talk about this a lot. I’ve experienced myself. I’ve seen a lot of other attorneys. I’m convinced. It’s a decision first. You have to decide, you’re open to it. And then the opportunities just start coming across your desk where, if you’re not open to it, magically, you’d see no opportunities.
It’s funny how it’s all in your mind. You got to be able to do it first. And then the next thing is, as you mentioned, you got to be careful. Squirrels are everywhere. You got to make sure, you’re chasing the right one, not the wrong one. You’re right.
Brian Tully: Absolutely. And if you look at maybe 10 great decisions I’ve made, there’s probably 90 that I’ve pursued. And it’s just that the 10 that we follow through with because they were the right thing to do. And yeah, distractions are huge, and choosing what’s important versus what’s urgent and all those things.
Jonathan Hawkins: So another thing you mentioned a little while ago is, I want to explore the role you currently have at your firm and how that [00:37:00] changed. Obviously, in the early days, you’re doing everything. Then you said, you were doing the consults and tried to give that up and then you went back to it.
What’s currently today? What’s your role? Do you do legal work? Do you do consults? What is it you’re doing now?
Brian Tully: So right now, it’s back to a little bit of, I won’t say everything because I’m not doing the substantive parts of the cases and helping the families. The idea of CEO and working on the business versus in the business is something that I’ve striven for, strived for, for years. Even going back to ’19, where I could spend more time on development and leadership and vision, and growth.
But it does come back to a reality that it’s my firm and people are calling because it says, Tully on the wall, and Tully is the name referred and I say that humbly, it’s just that, it’s my firm, and my values.
We’ve gotten to a point where, again, I said, I have two attorneys doing consults with me. Earlier this year, we were leading to a point where it was really just me doing focusing on less consults and focusing more on development and growth and vision and [00:38:00] team. But things changed a little bit, as they always do. Always have to be ready to turn and do what you were doing to write the ship, so to speak.
So at this point, I’m doing consults and CEO. I’m doing consults. Not all. We’re looking at 18-24 consultations a week. So I’m doing, I’d say, less than a third of them, gratefully. But it’s needed because it’s a more, it’s that life care work. So those consultations are primarily me.
That’s my heart. That’s my knowledge. And that’s how I want to help people. And part of me needs that. I truly enjoy connecting with people. I had a gentleman in here last night. He’s 88, his wife’s in the rehab. And I met with them in 2009. They haven’t been back. We haven’t seen them in 15 years. But it was so good to see him. And at the end of it all, he goes, Brian, I trust you. I remember the way you led us, years ago. And it’s those connections and that affirmation, I have to be careful not to seek that all the time, but it is [00:39:00] what keeps me going as a human and as a lawyer. So, I need that a little bit.
What I can do to free up my time more is, I’m currently working on bringing in an executive assistant to help with some of the tasks on the day-to-day. And working on also bringing in an attorney to these meetings, so I’m really just there for the substantive part of the consult, not all the paperwork part of it. That’s my day in a nutshell.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s interesting that the consult, I’ll call it sales. Lawyers don’t like that, but it’s the sales. And for founders of firms, they’re good at it. Most of them. You got to be, or else, you’re not going to grow a firm. And no one’s ever going to be as good as you, probably, ever. No one’s going to care as much as you do.
That’s really hard to give it up. You hear a lot of people’s, let’s say you can close 100% of the time you hand it to somebody else and maybe they do 60. And you’re like, damn, you’re losing 40%. But long term, you gotta get other people involved.
I get it. It’s hard. You like it, I like that part too. I don’t know if I’ll ever to that. So shifting again. So you’ve been at this for quite a while. You’ve gone through ups and [00:40:00] downs. You’ve grown. You got multiple locations. You’ve gone from technician to CEO role, all these things.
So looking back, I want to ask about if you can give us a couple of lessons learned. If other people out there, what’s a lesson maybe they can take on the positive side? Something that worked well or might work well for them. Maybe something on the flip side, watch out for this.
Brian Tully: I’ll answer that second part first. And mentioned it briefly. Watch out for the shiny objects and the distractions. Be clear on what your values are and what the vision is. Don’t dilute your services. Stay focused, because that niche is what you’re going to get and known for. And I’ve made some of those errors, and I’ve been stopped in making some of those errors, and gratefully.
And so the idea of remaining true to who you are, and what you enjoy doing, and what you want to become and do, yet stay in your lane and grow, that would be avoiding, again, those shiny distractions.
First part about it, one of the biggest [00:41:00] parts is to always continue to grow. No man, no attorney, no woman is an island. And the reality is that we all have places to improve. And I’m sitting here as a guy in my 50s, but listen, I’ve been alive for 50 years. There’s been a lot that’s impacted me.
Not to get into all of it, but it’s you get into childhood stuff. You get into parent stuff, and that’s who we are. That’s how we make our decisions. That’s how we judge risk. That’s how we create our confidence and our courage to handle different growth issues. So we all have work to do inside, which will help our business.
So work on the inside, get a coach, join a coaching program, get out there, and work through your issues so that you can grow and really become what you want to become.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so this question may be a little bit about what you just covered, but this is something that I experienced. I think everybody experiences. It’s the self-doubt. Done a lot, you’re going out there, how do you deal with the self-doubt? Especially like when you change business models, Oh, Brian, this [00:42:00] is not going to work, man.
It’s never going to work. How do you deal with that?
Brian Tully: So self-doubt, imposter, all of it is a daily struggle. And I’ll share this briefly, and this is pre-pandemic. So pre-pandemic, I’ve known that I’ve known that I’ve known that video is the way to go. I’ve probably spent thousands of dollars on engaging different videographers to create these video programs and bits that I want out there in the world. I couldn’t talk into a camera. That little silver piece, a little circular piece of glass would screw me up every single time.
And while I could go talk to a thousand people, that’s easy. I’ve done that. Hundreds of people, I can handle that. It’s easy. But talking to a camera became such an obstacle for me. Until COVID happened, because then everything was through a camera.
That’s where Zoom was. That’s where webinars started. And we’ve been doing webinars every month since 2020. So gratefully, the camera issue has gone away. And the confidence to overcome that has been there, but there’s still [00:43:00] that imposter syndrome, that self-doubt, it exists, but you still got to get out of bed.
I’ve got 25 mouths to feed. I got my own family looking up to me. So there’s, you can’t succumb to that.
Jonathan Hawkins: As you said, you just have to jump off the cliff. So you mentioned webinars. I do want to touch on this real quick. So marketing, that’s something that lots of ways to do it, lots of things work. I always like, from somebody like you, that’s been successful, especially selling an alternative type of service compared to others in your practice area, how do you market, you don’t have to give us the secrets, but generally speaking, what are some of the ways you market?
Brian Tully: Yeah, sure. We’ve come to the conclusion that we really have three different revenue sources. It’s professional referrals, colleagues in the elder care world or financial advisors, CPAs, and other attorneys, we have digital. And digital is maybe not big for some people, but when mom’s in a rehab, what’s the son doing? He’s walking around the parking lot, going to Google. What is this? What is that? What is a trust? What is Medicaid? So Google has [00:44:00] been a good thing. The digital aspect has been a good thing.
And then the third revenue is happy clients. And when you’re doing a good job, they’re talking about you. And when you’re not doing a good job, they’re also talking about you. So you got to be careful. So I’ve built up a team to help in each of those areas. So I have a client relations manager whose job it is to make sure our clients are happy. I have a marketing department that really focuses on the digital. They also focus on the events. So that’s what the marketing folks do.
When I say events, it could be joining up with a rehab center or a home care agency, doing an ice cream, or doing a luau talk like I’m doing next week at something. But there’s events out there to get to draw people in, whether it’s professional referrals or potential consumers and clients.
There’s a lot of pokers out there. Even my elder care coordinators, they’re the face of the firm. The moment they walk into a nursing home, they walk into a home care agency, they’re there, representing Tully Law Group. So a lot of pokers in the fire. And not all of them are always hitting at once, which [00:45:00] is why you need a lot of them.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned, the webinars, is that a digital play in terms of getting people to sign up for them? Or are they both digital in and in-person?
Brian Tully: Yeah. So webinars and events. So live events, in-person events, and webinars. So again, webinars started the pandemic. Early April of 2020 was our first webinar that started the current, monthly webinars, we’ve been doing for four years. People were home during COVID. So the way to get to them and talk to them and share information and help them was through the computer.
So webinars are still happening. They’re still popular. We can get a whole host of people to join us. Your webinars can be substantive and educational, and events can be as well, or an event can be more, call it salesy, or more directed toward an outcome.
I have this new partner who’s fantastic, and he comes at it as listen, we’re here to help these people. And they need to know about what we do and how we do it. But at the end of the day, we can’t help them unless they engage us. So there’s a young, a [00:46:00] newer approach to how I’ve been just giving free advice, free education for so many years.
So webinars are big. We’re still doing them. They’re purely, I’d say, mostly educational. The live events that we’re trying to host and put together, whether it’s at a restaurant or at an assisted living facility, those are educational as well. But again, there’s a reality here that we just can’t keep talking about what we do.
We need to get the people in front of us so that we can help them. They have to engage us to do that.
Jonathan Hawkins: So real quick on the webinars, have you experimented with the length and maybe the format? So is it just purely you speaking? Is it Q and A? Have you found a sweet spot on that, or do you know?
Brian Tully: Interesting. So we haven’t found a sweet spot on it. We do a combination. And they’re generally all under an hour. So 35, 40 minutes, and then some Q and A. A good portion of them are interview based. Similar to a podcast, where you’re dealing with those in the estate planning world or the eldercare world, and just trying to glean from them information that can help the [00:47:00] viewers.
And then a good chunk of them are also substantive. For example, I have a webinar next week, what to do when your loved one’s diagnosed with a chronic condition, estate planning for that type of a situation. So that’s going to be more substantive. That’s me talking and a PowerPoint.
And we record them, we put them up on our website, we put them on YouTube. Now, what some colleagues do that I know out of state, they actually have their potential clients view those webinars or at least a specific webinar before they come in. So they have that foundational knowledge. We’re working on that. It’s all about streamlining intake and consultations and so forth.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. So one more marketing question.
Brian Tully: Sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: And then we’ll start to wrap this up. Your past clients or maybe even current clients, what sorts of ways, when you’re not communicating with them about their actual legal stuff, how do you stay in touch with them? What sort of methods do you use?
Brian Tully: Great. So the busyness of life in a law firm, we haven’t done it as best as we could have over the years. We’ve done [00:48:00] e-newsletters, pretty consistently, paper newsletters, we did and then we stopped. We’re getting back into that. Paper newsletters are the way to go.
Jonathan Hawkins: Going to ask you about that. I’m mailing out my first one next week. You should get it. So I’m curious, why did you stop and why are you coming back?
Brian Tully: Sure. It was us creating the content. It was the pandemic when we stopped. It was the busyness, me putting an article in there so that the clients get my flair, one of the advocates talking about like the care, and then one of the other attorneys talking about a strategy or something substantive. It took time.
It took time to put that together. So, unfortunately, it fell off. But it is staying in touch with your product clients. They’ve already engaged you. They’re yours, and hopefully, they like you. That is probably the best ROI out there. It’s just a matter of doing.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s done. Yeah. Put me on your list. You’re on mine. I’ll keep you posted on how mine does. I’m really curious because I know a lot of people that do it and they swear by it.
So moving on. We’ve talked about a lot today. We’ve talked about what you’ve done, and where you are today. So let’s talk about the future. What’s your [00:49:00] vision? Where do you see this going? Where do you want it to go?
Brian Tully: Wow. I do see several more locations. It’s just the natural growth pattern that we’ve been on. We do have ties to another state that we’re looking at, and we’ll see if that evolves. But this life care plan and the demographic need is huge. And as long as we keep doing it right, people are going to keep coming to us and people are going to keep engaging us.
Are there going to be more partners in the future? Is there going to be growth that way? Are we going to get into New York City? Are we going to go north in New York State? I don’t know yet. But growth is certainly the answer. I don’t want it to be, like I said earlier, stunted growth.
I don’t want it to be distracted where just, oh, this looks good, let’s go there. It needs to be planned. It’s got to feel right, and it’s got to make sense. But yeah, I see several more offices over the next couple of years.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. The other thing that I’ve seen from others, it snowballs. You do one, two, then all of a sudden, you’re doing four. And you’re like, wait a second. And then you do an eight. So yeah, watch out, [00:50:00] man.
Brian Tully: Yeah, it can happen. Hopefully, it does. And it’s got to happen right?
Jonathan Hawkins: Cool. Brian, I appreciate you taking time to share all this with us today. So if anybody’s out there, they want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to find you and get in touch?
Brian Tully: Sure. So everything is Tully Law Group. So whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Tully Law Group, Brian Andrew Tully is my Facebook name. And there’s a business page, there’s personal pages. So then the website is TullyLawGroup.com.
We’ve been working on that, so everything’s consistent. But Tully Elder Law was the prior one. We’ve kept it, but Tully Elder Law, but primarily TullyLawGroup.com is the way to get us.
Jonathan Hawkins: Awesome. Brian, again, thank you for coming on. You’ve done some cool stuff and I’ve learned a little bit so I appreciate it.
Brian Tully: My pleasure, John. I’ll be back in a couple of years and tell you how it all went.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s right. We’ll get you back on.
Brian Tully: Good. I’ll see you soon. Thank you, John.
