Ben Sessions: [00:00:00] Lawyers love to think they make such a huge difference. We all want to be like, Oh no, it’s picking the jury. Oh no, it’s your charisma and doing that. No, let’s be real about this. The most important thing is really good facts. I think one of the main things that I experienced was I didn’t shoot big enough.
Like I, I didn’t aim big enough. I didn’t even know what to aim for. I didn’t know like what I wanted life to look like and what I wanted my practice to look like and all those things. And as a result of it, like I didn’t give myself a shot on the trajectory of things and like, I didn’t give myself enough time to really compound over time, like little things I was doing.
I didn’t know which practice areas had higher margins. I didn’t know that, but like there were lawyers out here who. made dramatically more money in certain practice areas than the ones that I happened to land in.
Welcome to the Founding Partner Podcast. Join your host, Jonathan Hawkins, as we explore the fascinating stories of [00:01:00] successful law firm founders. We’ll uncover their beginnings, triumph over challenges, and practice growth. Whether you aspire to launch your own firm, have an entrepreneurial spirit, or are just curious about the legal business, you’re in the right place.
Let’s dive in.
Jonathan Hawkins: Welcome to Founding Partner Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins. I’m excited to have our guest on today. It’s a friend of mine from here in Atlanta. He’s a criminal defense or mainly a criminal defense lawyer. He can tell us what else he does, but Ben Sessions from Sessions and Fleischman here in Atlanta.
So Ben why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell me what I got wrong. tell me what you do. what do you do and what does your firm do?
Ben Sessions: First, thank you so much for having me on Jonathan. I’m really looking forward to it. My name again is Ben Sessions predominantly criminal defense firm, Sessions and Fleischman. I’ve been doing criminal defense, almost all criminal defense since. [00:02:00] 2005 or so. And I went out on my own about 10 years ago and then Andrew joined up with me a little over two years ago.
We handle a little bit of personal injury cases, not a huge chunk of our practice. I did some insurance defense whenever I was in law school and then for about a year and a half outside of law school. So I had a little bit exposure to that. And That’s sort of the overview the 30, 000 foot view of what our practice looks like.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’re, in Atlanta, since you tell me where I’m wrong, but criminal defense lawyers, often they’re just sort of riding a circuit almost you’re going to county to county, you know, in the greater Atlanta area, maybe you guys statewide, I don’t know. And, then the other question is, do you do federal work also?
Ben Sessions: Yeah So my practice is I’ve got primarily based in Atlanta in this area. I’ve heard rough figures of 75 percent of criminal cases are in Fulton County. that’s a statistic that I’ve heard judges tout before So whenever you think about criminal defense, it mostly is located in Metro Atlanta. And so [00:03:00] anybody who’s trying to stay really busy with numbers is probably going to gravitate towards this area.
I have a satellite office that’s in Macon, a satellite office that’s in Milledgeville and I go a lot farther than a lot of lawyers do. And a lot of lawyers feel comfortable with. I mean, I take cases pretty regularly in Savannah, for example. In Columbus, I did have an office there. I feel comfortable doing that and primarily I feel comfortable doing that because I like to make money and you can still make money and travel around to some of those jurisdictions if you’re just and paying attention to the cases.
I know some lawyers don’t feel comfortable doing that, but I always have. And so my sort of swath that I hit, it could be really wide at times. I have lawyers who bring me in on vehicle homicide cases that are really in rural jurisdictions and that kind of thing, just to handle like particular issues that they don’t feel comfortable with and stuff.
And I love doing that. It’s a great experience for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, again, tell me where I’m wrong, but my sense [00:04:00] of at least some criminal practices, you’re in court all the time. So like, you know, you’re going to rain it here, going to the thing here, you want to hear thing.
Or another thing in another court. So you’re like on the road in court all the time And so then the question I have is how do you deal with the intake? You know Most other civil lawyers are in their office a lot and they’ve got a team and you know They can meet with clients in the middle of the day, but you’re in court all day, right?
And then all of a sudden it’s at night and then is that when you start calling clients or do I have it wrong?
Ben Sessions: It’s funny, Jonathan. I would say like over the last 10 years, I. Have more cases than I used to and I progressively spend less time in court. And what I mean by that is I’m paying more attention to the cases outside of court and as a result of that, like the more that I’m able to work the cases outside the less time that I have to actually spend there.
I can deal with a lot of things over email. I can deal with things a lot, a lot more things proactively. I can continue cases whenever I’m looking ahead whenever I don’t have the [00:05:00] things that I need. So for whatever reason, like the time that I waste just sitting around in court and so much of court time is literally just waste of time.
I find that I spend so much less time now than what I used to. Also having Andrew definitely is a huge help because I can say, Hey, I, I need help doing this thing. And, and so he can help me cover some of that stuff so that I can be in the office to do the stuff that I need to do in terms of intakes.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, it’s you know, it’s I’d always heard at least from some and this may be dated a little bit, but from some criminal defense lawyers are like, yeah, I’m, I’m like going from court to court all day. Then I get back at the office about six and then I’m meeting with clients till like eight cause they’re in the lobby just ready to, you know, meet and take the cases in.
I don’t know if that was ever. Describe your practice or not,
Ben Sessions: It used to be. And it used to be that you would, that clients would only hire you by virtue of meeting with you in person. Like that was a very common, common thing in our [00:06:00] business. Like I always like to think of whenever I was little and I grew up in Thomas to Georgia, there’s a really great criminal defense firm.
That’s in Pike County. They’re still there. It’s Virgil Brown’s office. They run a great, like It’s actually like travel everywhere throughout the state. I think they’re one of the phenomenal sort of diamonds in the rough law firms. But if you ever go by their office on a Saturday morning, you would see they had a pew out front outside of their law office.
And it was like the best advertising that you could have. All the clients would be lined up there on a Saturday morning and waiting to go in. So you would say like, Oh, they’re clearly the folks to go see because everybody’s lined up out there to wait and see them. They only met with clients on one day a week.
And every criminal offense lawyer used to be in that way. You would. people would only hire you by coming in, sitting in your office, and meeting you. I mean, I have, I would say probably 70 80 percent of my clients hire me over the initial phone call. They’ll, we’ll have a conversation, we’ll talk about their case.
They won’t even have seen me [00:07:00] except for through the internet or whatever it is they use to research. And, They will make a higher decision and say, email me the contract and the invoice over.
Jonathan Hawkins: you know, the other thing, which you don’t have to speak to, but the other stories I’ve heard is, you know, when they’re meeting with the clients, you know, when they come in to pay their fee, it’s, a bag of cash, you know, as opposed to a check or a wire or credit card, it’s probably all credit card nowadays, but yeah.
Ben Sessions: I mean, I would imagine that the amount of taxable income for criminal defense lawyers has increased dramatically over the last 15 years. I mean, we, whenever we started, like it would, you would get some credit card payments. And you would have some online processing and stuff, but it was very rare. I mean, you would, you know, people were running like PayPal then for online processing for payments.
You weren’t sending out an electronic invoice through your case management system to a [00:08:00] client and getting paid that way. I would say like probably it’s sort of just, it’s just off the cuff guess, but I would guess in excess of 85, 95, 90 percent of payments are received through online processing.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I’ll tell the story. So I’ve never done criminal work. I’ve only done civil but years ago, many, many, many years ago, I had a client that, needed to pay cash. I’ll just say and she came in. I mean, it was like 60 grand. It was all hundreds. We had three people in this room. We let three of our staff go in and they’re over there counting that stuff.
It took them like an hour. It was crazy. I’d never seen so much money. Yeah.
Ben Sessions: getting cash payments. Like you’re sitting there going, all right, is it, is it good? Is it, you know, what am I going to do with all this money? I’m going to carry it into the bank. And it’s just like, it’s sort of creates more stress on us.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.
Ben Sessions: payments. I don’t get it.
Jonathan Hawkins: I think I better call Saul, you know, he’s got his little, his safe and his little [00:09:00] wall there.
Ben Sessions: Yes,
Jonathan Hawkins: So you mentioned you started out in insurance defense. I didn’t know that. So yeah, tell me about that. So your first job out of law school, you did insurance defense.
Ben Sessions: I sure did. Yeah. And I worked there all the way through law school. Like I got introduced to them. I was first before my first summer of law school, I was like walking around Thomaston going into like law firms. Go in and see the lawyers that I knew ask him for a job. And I went into Bank of Ups in there, went to go see a lawyer who I knew who worked in there.
And she said, Oh, you need to call my brother. He works at an insurance defense firm, runs, he’s a partner there in Griffin. She’s like, you would be great. It’d be a great match for you. So I went up there and saw him, I got a job, and I started working like almost immediately there. I didn’t start working in the summertime.
I just did clerk work for them and whatever projects they wanted me to do. And I would do everything for them. I would do like carrying boxes to the basement, I would do drafts of motions, whatever it is that they wanted. And I really [00:10:00] enjoyed it. The only problem is then, like pre graduated in 2004, and then, I mean, in those small towns, you just didn’t make any money.
And I had student loans and those things. And I just couldn’t, the finances just didn’t work for me. So, I would have stayed there and I would have stayed there longer. I loved it there. I love the people there. It’s just the money just didn’t work in that community then.
Jonathan Hawkins: so then you went straight to criminal.
Ben Sessions: I did. Yeah, I
Jonathan Hawkins: so why, and why did you go to criminal? Why didn’t you go to another, like, civil firm? What, was the thought process?
Ben Sessions: Honestly, Jonathan, I didn’t have anybody good that would guide me in terms of, What life looked like and in sort of getting my foot in the door to any of those firms I didn’t really know how to do that thing. I didn’t have like an entrance into those I felt like I mean, I tell people this all the time, whenever I went to my first interview in law school campus, I didn’t have a suit to wear.
Like I didn’t have any sort of real [00:11:00] introduction or preparation for getting those jobs. So I had also done some clerking for a guy whenever I was in law school, just part time sort of one off projects. and he called me one day, I was like, Hey man I really need some help. Would you be willing to come up here and, have a conversation about it and just see if it’ll, work for you. Obviously criminal defense is a little bit easier if you’re going to, if you’re breaking into that market, because one, you get paid immediately. there is no lag time that’s there, which I really needed because I didn’t have any and so it was an easy entrance for me.
And honestly, I don’t feel like it’s that difficult to start doing low level criminal defense work, to be honest with you.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, let’s talk about what you do. So, I mean, criminal means, it could, I mean, lots of stuff. I mean, you know, from misdemeanor or whatever to, you know, possession of drugs, to DUIs, to murders, to, you know, sex assault, to whatever. So, what, what do you cover? Do you do it all? Do you specialize?
Ben Sessions: Oh man my criminal [00:12:00] defense practice is very I would say very niche. It is mostly DUI defense. I do a ton of. I say, relatively speaking, a ton of vehicle homicides and serious injury by vehicle cases. But my bread and butter is your garden variety to you. I Jonathan goes out with his wife tonight, has three margaritas, drives home and gets pulled over.
I mean, that’s that’s sort of my standard case that that I deal with and that I’ve been dealing with for 15, almost 20 years now.
Jonathan Hawkins: How’d you know I like margaritas?
Ben Sessions: I’m here, man. Right. Who doesn’t
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s like lemonade for adults.
Ben Sessions: That’s right. This is like, right. Um, it’s that practice area, like whenever you. It was one that I sort of was drawn to when I was like interested in it a little bit like once you start actually Digging in a little bit you realize there’s a lot of legal and science issues that are in there And it was just kind of interesting and it also was one that There’s not a lot of barriers to entry to it and [00:13:00] there’s a lot of those cases that are out there.
You start off taking them for not much money and then you realize like, oh, I can start sort of niching up in this thing and getting a little bit more price and power.
Jonathan Hawkins: So some people go into criminal because they want to be trial lawyers and you can get that quick. Was that something you wanted to do? Is that, did that have any impact? I’m sure you’ve tried tons of cases, I mean.
Ben Sessions: I’ve tried 65 plus jury trials and I’ve tried them all over the place. And no man, whenever I started doing this. I didn’t have any inclination whatsoever that I wanted to be a trial lawyer. Whenever I like entered the practice of law, I’ve sort of have a lot, I know a lot of people are like, Oh no, I knew whenever I was 15 years old, I wanted to be a trial lawyer.
Like, no, I didn’t even know what a trial lawyer was. I had no idea what that life would consist of or any of those things. I didn’t, I didn’t have like a family lawyer who talked to me about, this is what being a lawyer looks like or any of that stuff. It was just, I just sort of fortuitously fell into this and got [00:14:00] lucky that I was decent at it and got better over time and was willing to really stink at first and then improved over time. But yeah
Jonathan Hawkins: Go ahead. Go ahead.
Ben Sessions: No, As I was thinking about this in preparation for it, sort of thinking about like how it was that I ended up trying those cases and stuff. I didn’t think that that was something that I would, I didn’t have like a drive to go do that thing with my life.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you know lawyers go I mean Partners, it’s litigation partners at the big firms will go their entire career with never trying even a non jury case. Let alone a jury trial You’ve done 65. I mean, that’s good nowadays. I mean, that’s a ton
Ben Sessions: tried two jury trials in January.
Jonathan Hawkins: But. I mean, yeah
Ben Sessions: yeah, my partner tried one this week and I had tried to in January it’s, and you know, they kind of go in spurts. There was a, there was a year where I tried more than 20. And I had a period of time where I had [00:15:00] three trials in one week.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let me ask as a trial lawyer, this trial on jury trials, what do you think is the most important part? Is it picking the jury or is it openings, closings? I mean, what would you say, you know, is the hardest part, maybe the most important part?
Ben Sessions: Lawyers love to think they make such a huge difference. We all want to be like, Oh no, it’s picking the jury. Oh no, it’s your charisma and doing that. No, let’s be real about this. The most important thing is really good facts.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah.
Ben Sessions: Like. We all like lawyers love to be like, Oh, I made the difference in this.
And they look, we love to go back and let me Lord knows there’s all these businesses that have grown up around the practice of law that help lawyers get better at all these different things. The one thing they cannot change is how good or bad your facts are. And. The law is going to determine what’s admissible, admissible in the case.
Sometimes you can develop some wiggle room that’s in there, but at the end of the day, whatever the, how good or bad your case is [00:16:00] going into a trial is going to make a huge difference.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, so maybe, you’re selling yourself short a little bit, but I mean, I would imagine picking a jury now for you is a hell of a lot easier than it was, you know, 10 years ago. Yeah.
Ben Sessions: It’s so much less stressful. Also, like, part of what made it less stressful is that I realized, like, how little control that you have over that. And obviously, you’re just, like, de you’re choosing out people. You’re deselecting people more than anything else in that process, and I don’t put as much pressure on myself as what I used to in trials.
I realized like, hey, I go in there, I have a conversation with them and whenever I’m at my best, I’m really open to people that are really bad. Yeah, I tell the story all the time about me and a buddy brought me in to handle like a super specific DUI related issue in a case that he had that he knew that I was handling a case that was on appeal and so he wanted me to go in and make sure it’s preserved right and then we could take the case up on appeal.
And we [00:17:00] went in, we were our. Full intent, Jonathan, was to go in, set the case up for appeal, argue the motions issue, and then set it down for a bench trial whenever the judge denied the motion. Well, obviously, best plan, best laid plans, right? So we go in there, we try to set it down for a bench trial.
Prosecutor objects to the bench trial. So we have to jury trial the case. Well, we’re both in there just like, why do we have to jury trial this case? It’s a breath test that’s well above the legal limit. Like, come on, this is just all just a foregone conclusion, right? So we go in there, the first juror who starts talking, she is horrible.
She is we ask this generic question in criminal cases. Do you have any reason whatsoever to believe that my client did anything wrong in this case? And she goes, yes your client wouldn’t be here if he didn’t do anything wrong. Law enforcement officer charged him, obviously did wrong. And I just, I don’t know what it was that morning, Jonathan.
It was like the whole thing just sort of hit me wrong. And I was like, I can’t believe [00:18:00] you said that. Like that is offensive to like everything that is American. And I just like. laid into her for whatever reason. Like I was, it was just me and that juror just sitting there just going back and forth at one another.
And I regret it so much and I’ll never ever let it happen again. But it was like, Oh, I’m in here trying this case that I shouldn’t even be having to try. And I’ve just wanted to bench trial. So my guy would get convicted. We have this bill. It was funny that One of the jurors we became like Facebook friends and stuff like that after the fact, and she, they wanted to acquit our client, like they were all put off by that juror and juror selection who was in that way.
And I like talked to her. As a matter of fact, she was like, no, it didn’t bother me at all. Like it didn’t bother any of us at all. Like we were sort of offended by that lady as well. And you were just like being honest about it. And it’s so funny, Jonathan, that why we all think that. we’re all so sensitive to like being so friendly and that sort of thing in jurisdiction.
I’m not sure [00:19:00] that it matters all the time. I don’t think that it matters that much. I think that there’s a lot of lawyers I see who are real jerks who have great cases and who still win. It’s kind of like in spite of. Our actions a lot of times,
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ve seen some that they’re jerks, but when they go into the courtroom in front of the jury, all of a sudden they’re the nicest guys in the world. You’ve seen that. Yeah.
Ben Sessions: I think that jurors can see Sorry, the bullshit to like I can see that I think that they realize like whenever people are being authentic and whenever they’re not as well. Like, there’s a lot of prosecutors who in jury selection, they will, they do this thing where they say, like, they don’t drink, they don’t make any mistakes.
They’ll say like, we’re not here in judgment of you. Prosecutor last month who was doing this thing, who said, we’re not, I’m not judging you. Nothing that you say here will be, this is a judgment free zone, is what he called it. And like, I just, one of the first things I did when I was stood up in front of the jury was go, this is, I don’t know why it is that we’re playing this, this [00:20:00] game where we’re lying to you about what it is we’re doing.
You’re judging me right now. I’m judging you right now. And just a minute, we’re going to pass a piece of paper back and forth where I’m literally going to strike you down on this list. So like, I don’t need to lie to you throughout this process. In fact, I want to be genuine with you throughout this process.
Like I want to be honest with you about what’s going on. And it’s a, I think that people in that process, they can tell more about whether or not you’re being authentic or not. Anything else?
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so another cool thing about criminal practice that’s different than civil from somebody who’s never done criminal it just seems like you have more like constitutional issues, I mean like real constitutional issues that come up. Versus, you know, civil litigation is usually contracts and, you know, whatever statutes, but you know, you’re dealing with, with the real stuff and I did come across uh, one of your an argument you did from the Georgia Supreme court, which how many times have you been able to do that?
Ben Sessions: Let’s say four or five times.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s pretty cool, man.
That’s pretty cool.
Ben Sessions: Yeah. That’s pretty good. [00:21:00] you know, I didn’t realize whenever I first did it, they’re like, Oh, people don’t do this thing. I did not realize, I didn’t appreciate it like the first time. I remember feeling like overwhelmed doing it. Cause I’m, I’m not like an appellate advocacy person.
I mean, I’ve like grown to really, And like, that part of it and understand the issues that I’m doing and what, how I go through that process. But whenever I first did it, I thought that everyone had to go through this. Every lawyer did it. And then I learned later on that, no, a lot of people never do this thing.
Jonathan Hawkins: it’s true. I mean, I don’t do as much litigation anymore, but you know, I did it forever. I mean, oh four and I think, and I appealed cases. I never, I don’t know if I ever. Got to the Supreme court or not, but you know, most things go to the court appeals here. And I think I’ve only had one oral argument and it was during the COVID zoom time.
And the only reason they did it was because they have that rule that if an attorney is less than five years out and you ask for it, they’ll give it anyway.
So that’s the only reason. So it didn’t really feel like it counted cause we weren’t in the [00:22:00] big, you know, courtroom and all that stuff. But I did see it.
So I saw one of your arguments. It was pretty, pretty good. You’re very good by the way. I thought you handled really well, but I really liked it. Apparently. There was a case with a similar issue before yours and you got up and you said that, you know, I had the benefit of
Ben Sessions: Yeah. Yeah. I remember this.
Jonathan Hawkins: Seeing you guys ask all these questions blah blah blah. And then you said it doesn’t mean I’m gonna be any better
Ben Sessions: No, I remember this. I remember like it was yesterday. I was like, okay, it was kind of, it was kind of funny. The lawyer who did it before me is actually a really good lawyer and I had disagreements with what some of the concessions they made. But at the end of the day, I was like, oh, this is a little bit harder because if someone’s already done this thing, but also like a huge benefit preview and all the questions.
Jonathan Hawkins: So yeah, so it’s cool. So you get to do. You know, jury trial work, you get to argue from the spring court. I mean, you get to do a lot of cool stuff. And again, from the videos I’ve seen, you’re just really good at it. I mean, it feels like you’re a [00:23:00] natural at it.
May, maybe you would say it’s just cause you’ve done it a lot, but I think you’re pretty good at it, which is leading me to the, to the next thing I want to talk about, and you’re pretty active on Instagram, maybe some other. Platforms too, and you do a lot of video stuff on Instagram and you just look real comfortable doing it.
So yeah question I have so how long have you been posting videos? And is it only on Instagram? I guess answer those two questions. I got lots more
Ben Sessions: So I tried to think back like when it was I remember doing some like very rudimentary videos that were like 11 like if you go back in like YouTube channel, there’s some really old videos Like I hate I like go back and delete them sometimes whenever I see them And then some of them still get traction.
It’s so weird. I started doing them on YouTube I still don’t really have an idea what I’m doing, to be honest with you. Like I’ve, I’ve, been making a more concerted effort to be consistent with the videos and I post them to [00:24:00] Instagram and Facebook. And I’m also posting them to YouTube. YouTube, if people are just posting to like Instagram, for example, I know some people get some traction off those things.
YouTube far and away gets more traction and YouTube is. I don’t mean to like give away the farm here or anything, but YouTube definitely is a leader in terms of the flow of potential clients. Like a client who watches your video on YouTube is so much more inclined to actually like call you as opposed to a client who watches Instagram or Facebook.
They just, for some reason, like those people who are, who hit it on YouTube, they’re so much more engaged in like, I want this content kind of thing. And it just that’s been a, I wish that I’d been more consistent about the content that I put up there. But I, I kind of, I’ve enjoyed making those little videos.
I noticed that my voice gets better over time. it gets easier for me to do it. And the more consistent that I post them, the easier it is for me to hit publish. One of my [00:25:00] friends has this thing about posting puke. don’t watch it again. Just hit publish. I know whenever I’ve like, I’ll mess up and delete a bunch of versions and that kind of thing.
But generally speaking, once I get to a decent version, I just go ahead and post it without watching it again. Cause if you watch it again, you’ll never post it.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s so true, man, you know, I’ve had that experience with just about everything I’ve done like, in this sort of arena. So for a while I had a many years ago, I had a blog when people had those, it was own standalone. And I remember before I told anybody about it, I just posted for a long time for a couple of reasons.
One is because it was, I was like, man, I don’t know what people are going to say. And two, I want to make sure there’s a lot of content. So it wasn’t just one post. So it took me a while. Then then I started sending an email, weekly email. And I still do that today. And I remember the first time I sent it, I was just like, Oh, cringe. You know, what are they going to think? What if I misspell a word, whatever, what if it’s stupid? And now I just, I don’t care. I don’t care. And [00:26:00] then I started posting on LinkedIn, same thing. I was like, Oh man, this is weird. Now I don’t care and I’m to the point where I know I need to start doing some videos But I just can’t get over the hump man.
So coach me. How do I get going on this?
Ben Sessions: All right. So there’s not anything that you can post up. One, it all goes away so quickly. Like it vanishes through people’s minds. And so few people are going there to actually watch the things. let me kind of just first, I would say to anybody considering this, do not you know, I’ll work with a great.
Like videography service and stuff like that for a period of time. My firm, the economics of it, I know that there’s a lot of people who are in PI practice who make ridiculous amounts of money and that sort of thing that they can afford to go and like, Oh, I can accrue this cost every month. No big deal.
And my experience from a criminal defense practice is that it is very difficult to incur an additional five, 10 grand a month. And. a recurring expense. [00:27:00] Those services can be really, really pricey and they’re just so it’s so hard to get the return that you want and they look great on your feed and stuff, but this just is really hard to make the economics of that expense work in my practice.
At least I know for some people, like that’s not a thing. They don’t care and they can do that. And you know, have somebody else post in their 32nd clips. cut ups of that on a routine basis. But for me, I just think starting to just talk about the things that you like, what concerns that you have in your life.
What concerns that you have in your practice, like the troubles that you’ve had. I think people love to hear about other people’s troubles. And I get more reactions from whenever I post up and go, man, you know what? I did a video today that was just like, for some reason, as I was thinking about this podcast, I was like, man, what would I change about the things that that I’ve experienced throughout the last 20 years.
And I think one of the main things that I experienced was I didn’t shoot big enough. Like I, I [00:28:00] didn’t aim big enough. I didn’t even know what to aim for. I didn’t know like what I wanted life to look like and what I want my practice look like and all those things. And as a result of it, like I didn’t give myself a shot on the trajectory of things and like I didn’t give myself enough time to really compound over time, like little things I was doing.
And like just starting to like talk about those problems that you’ve experienced. I think you’ll get so much engagement from.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ll challenge you there, man. You still got time, man. You still got time. absolutely. You know, you are uh, I won’t age you exactly, but you’re close to my age. I mean, you were, you were a year behind me in law school. I took a sort of gap between, so we’re pretty close. But, you know, I’d always heard that the, you know, sort of the, the glory or the golden years of a lawyer in their career is like age 45 to 60. And I think it’s just a function because I’ve had others That maybe are a little younger and others that are a little older. And I think it’s sort of a function of how long have you been out of law school? Probably just because your classmates and [00:29:00] the people, you know, you’ve built up this foundation of contacts and sources, referral sources and experience.
And then all of a sudden you. Around 45, it might be a little early. It might be a little later, boom, it starts happening. And then you can ride that wave. And by the time you’re, you know, 60, 62, you know, you’re sort of tired and whatever. So it’s like, you’re in the middle of it, man. So you got, you got it.
Ben Sessions: I would talk to this there’s this old I’ve had really been fortunate, like over time, like you kind of meet some older people who give you great advice. And there’s this older lawyer who I talk, I talk to him practically every day. Like we just like talk whenever I’m on the road, in the office, or going to court, or whatever.
His practice is very similar to mine, except he’s more like a small town, like country lawyer. And uh, he just talks to me about like, just keep throwing as many hooks as you can in the water. And over time, like you keep throwing those hooks out, you’ll catch something, but it’s a slow thing for sure.
And definitely uh, gradual progression of it
Jonathan Hawkins: [00:30:00] So let’s get back to the video. So do you have like a habit or do you’re like, all right, I’m going to do one a day, or is it one a week? Or is it just like, Hey, I feel like it now. I have an idea now. Do you, what’s your process?
Ben Sessions: promised myself about a month ago that I was no longer going to skip a day. I don’t care what it is. I’m going to post something up on the Instagram, Facebook every day. And I’m going to do it until I just can’t do the thing anymore. I’m going to figure out like as well as I could tell from viewership, and I don’t know what the magic is to it, but as well as I can tell from viewership, it really picks up.
Just by virtue of continuous posting and if I could post more than more than one time a day if I could Bring myself to do that. I would do it, but I don’t think that there’s a limit I don’t think there’s like a saturation to that. You shouldn’t post any more than this I you know, I hear some people like oh you shouldn’t post every day.
Your viewers will get tired of it I’m like, I don’t see anybody leaving and all I do is see the numbers of viewership. Keep going So best thing you can do [00:31:00] is just Pick that phone up
Jonathan Hawkins: So that’s, my next question. You just use your phone? Is it just, do you have any special equipment or a good studio or what? What do you do? You just sit down at your desk and
Ben Sessions: Oh, I’ll show you. I’m I’m so professionally designed here I got this thing a little tripod
Jonathan Hawkins: holds your phone.
Ben Sessions: I put it up on my windowsill because I don’t know anything about lighting or anything I’m like, oh this looks like decent lighting for me here and Just hit the video button and start going at it.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, you know, I think you’re right, man. The consistency and I’ll say I’m a huge proponent of. Just checking the box, doing like, it doesn’t have to be, and it’s easier. It’s like, you know, how to eat an elephant kind of thing, you know, just one bite at a time. Right. And it’s, I have seen over and over and over in my life and my career that you just got to stick with it long enough.
And it’s like. It doesn’t seem like anything’s happening and it’s not working, but it’s, happening. It’s happening. And all of a sudden, boom, the [00:32:00] result comes. So like when I decided to do this podcast you know, I made the commitment to myself. I was like, before I have any judgment of whether I want to keep going or any decisions about it, I’m going to do it for three years minimum. and so that. Way I know I have to do it every week. For three years before I can stop and I’ve done it. We’re a little over year in year in, I don’t know. You know, we’re we’re in the sixties or seventies. we’re getting up there. And then we’ll see, because a lot of this, it’s the compounding, sort of like you said, I mean, number one, hopefully I’m getting better in terms of interviewing and maybe it’s more entertaining, whatever. But a lot of it’s just having that content out there that’s just like a content bank. Which is maybe what you’re seeing a little bit, too.
Ben Sessions: Absolutely it’s funny to like how We’ll do things and we’ll start getting some success and then we’ll somehow like drift away from it. Like I’ll I mean one of the things that I’ve experienced is that I got like the biggest case that I’ve gotten. I got a lady with a neck was [00:33:00] broken in a car, a rear end or car accident with great insurance and the other side, all this stuff.
I got it from sending out letters to old clients and I got it. And then I got super busy and I stopped sending out the letters to the old clients and it’s like why I stopped doing that thing That was so successful for me. I have no idea and it’s like go back to what worked for you and just keep doing that thing
Jonathan Hawkins: So have you started that back?
Ben Sessions: It’s actually in the process now Yeah,
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s so true. I mean, you know, I say this a lot. I don’t know if I’ve said it on the show or not, but you know, I think there’s like, there’s two keys to marketing a law firm or your practice. Two things to remember. Number one, Most people don’t know who you are. And number two, the ones that do know who you are have forgotten you. So it’s like, you just got to constantly be out there and, you know, in my view, it doesn’t matter if they actually watched the video. Or read the letter. [00:34:00] They just need to see your face or see your name or whatever. And they throw it in the trash and skip on, but they just see you every day. Right.
Ben Sessions: and one of the most dangerous things I heard whenever I was so whenever it was a period of time, whenever I started handling criminal cases where sort of like running in a circle and like a little bubble of lawyers and amongst those lawyers, like it was very looked down upon for you to do anything outside of criminal defense.
Like if you’re a DUI lawyer, DUI, like so niche specific, if you are a DUI lawyer, you shouldn’t be handling a personal injury case. That was like a common perception amongst lawyers and as a result of that, and I bought into that idea, I don’t truly believe any of those lawyers were like, Oh, if that person comes into my office, I’m not referring that client out and making money off of it.
But I didn’t know any better. Like I didn’t know how this business worked or any of that stuff. So there was a period of time where I would just focus on those niche cases. [00:35:00] Jonathan, I can’t tell you the number of clients who I talked to during that process, during like that phase of my life. Where they’ll be like, Oh, I got him, I got hurt in this accident. And I’m like, so they’re going, how did you not call me? Like we went to a, we’ve had motions hearings. We’ve like done like real litigation in this case. How did you not call me whenever you got involved? I didn’t know you handled those cases.
I didn’t even know Ben, I would have called you about it. And I was like, after hearing that a few times from clients, I was like, never again will this be a problem. That clients don’t know that I handle those things.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that, that reminds me of the story. I heard Bobby Lee cook, give this talk years ago. And, for those who don’t know who Bobby Lee cook is you know, just renowned Georgia. lot of criminal work. They you know, modeled after he’s telling, he’s tellin if it’s true or not, but he’s like, I was in my of [00:36:00] Talking to my assistant or my secretary. She said I need to see Mr. Cook. I need to see Bobby Lee I got a big divorce. I’m divorced my husband and she said he doesn’t do divorce work anymore. He doesn’t do divorce work She said you don’t understand. I got to see Bobby. So she gets through the secretary comes in his office.
He stands up He’s like, how you doing? She’s like Bobby Lee. I got this divorce case. You got handle it for me. He’s like, I’m sorry I don’t do divorce work anymore. She’s like don’t understand you got a Gotta do it. And he’s like, I just, I don’t do divorce anymore. She’s like, you don’t understand, my husband’s worth a billion dollars.
And he said, take a seat, Oh,
Ben Sessions: He had talked me into it.
Jonathan Hawkins: yeah, exactly.
Real quick. Thanks for listening. If you’re getting any value out of this podcast, please take two seconds to hit the subscribe button and leave a five star review. It would really mean a lot to me. Now back to the show.
Jonathan Hawkins: so let’s get back to uh, YouTube again. So you [00:37:00] start with YouTube and I’m fascinated with YouTube. I, I think there’s something there. So how many followers do you have there, I guess,
Ben Sessions: I don’t have, I probably, I was like, look at it today. I have like 800 followers.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay.
So you don’t even nearly enough.
Jonathan Hawkins: you don’t even have that many followers. and you think it works for you.
Ben Sessions: I know that it works for me.
Jonathan Hawkins: Because the other thing that fascinates me you know, the monetization of YouTube. So you can get clients out of it. But if you, if you meet the minimum stats, I don’t think you have enough subscribers, but then all of a sudden they’re sending you a check if you know, which is interesting to me.
I don’t, it’s probably not a very big check, but it’s for nothing.
Ben Sessions: Hard to get those numbers. I’d love to know like how to get those followers on YouTube. And like, I have seen it like slowly start to pick up, but like for lawyer practice, generally, like unless you’re doing like life advice stuff. you’re in like a little niche pocket here that you don’t get like those big pop trends numbers kind of thing. We don’t really post about topics that would really [00:38:00] grab like the public’s eye. There are some, I did see like a, you remember that guy, that swimmer who sexually assaulted that person in California? Him with like Brock something? Something he did, it was a weird case. And I remember doing a video on that and I got huge viewership on it.
And I was like, maybe there’s like something to the idea of just like posting about these sort of highlight trials and stuff like that. Maybe you could like, because you’re on those trends and those hashtags and stuff, maybe you could get some real viewership, but I never have dramatically picked up viewers out of anything.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I think, you know, I’ll say this, maybe you think about it, but I think they call it like news jacking or something like that, where you. You’ll do a video about something that’s in the news and then they’ll search for it and you get it. You know, this just, this idea just popped into my head, but you’re very good and you, present well, you have, you know, whatever. I mean, you do it enough. I mean, shoot, you go on TV. Do you go on TV? Are you ever on any of these?
Ben Sessions: I did court TV and stuff a [00:39:00] few times. Yeah.
Jonathan Hawkins: You didn’t like it. You didn’t like it.
Ben Sessions: lot of time Jonathan, Jonathan, you’ll go there and you’ll be there for like three hours and you’re like, how do I, how do I block off an afternoon to go do this thing? Like on pretty short notice to, it’s not a lot of notice that they give you those lawyers who do it consistently.
I’m like, this is what this you’re making, trying to make a life out of this
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s their job, huh? Do they pay some of those people or is it the exposure is it?
Ben Sessions: They definitely didn’t pay me.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, you tried it, you know, maybe you just you weren’t you weren’t you didn’t check the box enough You need to do it every day for you
Ben Sessions: That’s exactly right. They were like, you need, you sir, need to keep doing this for a year. Let us know
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, yeah, exactly I’ve never wanted to be a TV lawyer. I don’t think I’d be very good at it but yeah, I think you would be so maybe it’s your second career
Ben Sessions: It was tough to man like a court TV, for example, there’s a, it’s a three person panel. It may be like a [00:40:00] judge, a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, or maybe like two defense attorneys basically come in. You’re commenting on this stuff that you really don’t know anything about. Like, I don’t, I haven’t been continuously watching this trial.
So like, I’m just seeing this clip and they’re like, and now tell us what you thought of this evidentiary rule. And you’re like, Really? Is this what we’re doing? Like, is this what my wife is?
Jonathan Hawkins: That is funny because I remember I’ve seen some lawyers. I know on there that I know personally and I and I know They don’t do that kind of work and they’re like giving opinions about whatever criminal trial or whatever You don’t do any criminal work. What are you what are you talking about? So all right, so I saw some of your videos man.
I want to ask you about some of the stuff that I saw so because I thought there’s a lot of interesting you get a lot of interesting videos And so people out there that I think they should find you on instagram linkedin Facebook i’ll later i’ll get you to Tell people where they can find you but
Ben Sessions: I struggle with those channels too, man. I struggle with like what the [00:41:00] identity of the channel channel is.
Jonathan Hawkins: And they’re all
Different. They’re all different
Ben Sessions: they are Instagram. Like if you look back on my Instagram feed, it’s all basically like there was a period of time where it was like, If you have a DUI and then it turned into like, Oh, here’s just my family stuff.
Cause I was like, I’m going to stop doing this. And then it will like gradually like moved back to like very polished professional videos. And now it’s back to me just in front of a camera. And I’m struggling with like, I’m going to consistently do this and see if it turns into something, but I don’t know whether or not it will
Jonathan Hawkins: Well keep me posted, but I did like some of your videos So one of one of your videos was about dealing with mad clients, which is something if you practice law enough It’s gonna happen. So tell us about that sort of what your strategy is and especially I would think in criminal I mean that is a stressful Situation these people are potentially going away for a long time.
[00:42:00] So how do you deal with mad clients?
Ben Sessions: So one of the most common conversations that criminal defense lawyers have. Whenever we’re sitting around in a jury box and we’re sitting there talking, usually it’s a lawyer griping to another lawyer about angry clients that they have. Like it’s just an, it’s a conversation that we’re all continuously having.
A lot of lawyers think that they’re going to fix the problem by better client. Selection on the front end and truthfully you can’t have I don’t believe any practice area Are you going to be able to weed all those people out? It is such a small percentage of your actual practice Usually I mean it’s five percent Like there’s sort of a running joke of like five percent consumed twenty percent of my time kind of thing those squeaky wheels are going to be there if you’re I mean if you’re practicing law in any area That’s the way that thing is going to go But for me, I think the best thing that you can do is to really lean into them heavily whenever you’re having, starting to have [00:43:00] problems, meet with them.
And I would say meet with them in person. Meet with them in person. Let’s sit down. Let’s talk about it. If you got a gripe, like I won’t, I just want to listen to you. Don’t be defensive in those conversations. You’re there just to listen to what their concerns are. Tell them that you’ll do everything you can to try to address it going forward.
if that’s possible. I mean, sometimes. They have a gripe that they just want to get off their chest, that you don’t have any control over whatsoever. But I would say like during that conversation, that probably isn’t the time that you tell them, I don’t have any control over this. You just say, Hey, I’ll meet with you and I’ll listen to you and just listen to somebody.
Usually whenever somebody is in a really bad situation, they’re upset. they’re upset because they don’t feel like their voice is being heard throughout that process. And if you can be there and listen to them, that will go a long ways to where they feel respected in that process. And if you give that to them, then you’re usually in a better spot.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I’ve been there [00:44:00] again not criminal clients, but you know I’ve done a lot of business breakups law firm breakups and I’ve had Clients, lawyer clients uh, get on the phone and just, it feels like they’re chewing me out, you know, they’re like, and really they just, they’re not mad at me, but they just need somebody that they can just yell at when it’s really they want to yell at the other person.
But I’m just, I just happen to be the audience that they have and they get it off and then, and I don’t react. Cause I understand, I mean, it sucks. And then usually they’re like, yeah, sorry about that. I’m not mad at you. I just, I needed to scream at somebody, you know.
Ben Sessions: And it’s really hard. Like lawyers have such a hard time accepting getting fired. Obviously, if you’re on the P. I. side of things, like getting fired is like, it’s weird clients don’t fire you in the P. I. side of things either. Like it, it takes a lot to get fired in that side of the business from my, my experience.
But in terms of like criminal defense lawyers, they will that you get you’re going to get fired if you’re in that business [00:45:00] enough And you just need to know like hey Sometimes clients don’t want to accept bad news from you and you need to be able to communicate bad news to them and be honest With them about it.
Like it’s just part of the part of the deal and they’re gonna get upset with you and
Jonathan Hawkins: And that leads to another, post that I came across and it was, is, you know, not to take things personally. And this could be both from clients, from opposing counsel, probably from judges, you know, and it’s, you know, that’s part of what as lawyers, I mean, you know, we’re in an adversarial occupation. We are going to lose. Some of the time hopefully not hopefully we win more than we lose But you know, you’re gonna lose and people gonna yell at you and you’re gonna tell you’re stupid or whatever So, how do you deal with that?
Ben Sessions: so it’s If you’re in a criminal offense practice and you’re arguing motions routinely, like the pretrial litigation, you better buckle up because you’re going to lose like 90 percent of the motions, particularly if you’re arguing like probable cause on a DUI stop, you’re just going to lose. Like you’re supposed to lose [00:46:00] that motion.
That’s a motion that is supposed to be unsuccessful the vast majority of time. And you’re doing it not to win. You’re doing it just to set it up for the longterm, which is ultimately a trial advantage is kind of what you’re using that for. For me, I’ve always had like a very rational perspective on like, am I supposed to win this thing?
Like, does the law favor me in this position? And once I go in and I have that sort of perspective, it means that I’ve kind of insulated myself from taking it personally. I have, sometimes I’ll get upset about things that happen, but on the whole it’s just like, Hey, this is, I can’t control those things outside of there.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let let’s go back to your law firm So, you know you you were a solo for a while you had your own firm and then you added a partner you know, I get calls all the time from folks that are thinking about new partnerships and you know, there’s, some are, wary of it. Some are really excited about it. but it’s something that I think [00:47:00] at some point, most lawyers are going to come to that decision and they’re going to say, do I want a partner or not? So take me through what happened with you and, you know, why did you decided to have a partner and not stay solo? And, and how’s it been?
Ben Sessions: Yeah, I would be your nightmare client, Jonathan. Like, no writing, no contract, like all the things that a lawyer is not supposed to do. Like, whenever I read and, and watch some of your materials that are out there, I’m like, man, you would really hate me if you, like, dug in on this. So first I was looking for someone who would be, who brings something different to my practice than what I have.
And I didn’t think about it in terms of money. And I know that, I know that that is like for any other law, most lawyers who are out there who were kind of thinking about like what they’re looking for in a partner. The arrangement that Andrew and I have, like Andrew is, he brings a totally different skillset in terms of lawyering than I do to the practice.
He’s so great on so many different things [00:48:00] that I just thought like, Hey, this is sort of a no brainer for me. And I don’t know that like, I don’t know that for a lot of people that would work because so many lawyers are just like, Hey, what’s the, what’s the business financial arrangement? How is this going to make us more money in the longer term?
I didn’t really think about it that way. I just thought of like, Hey, he’s a great guy. who’s a lot smarter than me, who focuses on some different things than I do. And I just felt like there would be like sort of a great symbiotic relationship between us. I don’t know, like how that Lord, how that looks in like 10 years, I may be completely different and like angry and go, Hey, I need to make more, make some more money.
But like so far, it’s been a really healthy relationship that I think he makes me better. I think I probably balanced him out in some ways, those kinds of things
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I think, you know, that is one thing that I always say going into a partnership, you know, I sort of say one plus one equals three is sort of, and that can be a lot of different things. and it could be different skill sets, it could be different practice areas. It could be, you know, lots of different things different [00:49:00] roles, different personalities. And it sounds like. You sort of had that I mean he brings you said different things at the table That you wanted or felt would complement what you have and I think that’s really important and how long you guys been together now a little over two years.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. Yeah, so I mean it’s working so And again, you know you can help cover, if you’re in court somebody’s back, you know back of the office and vice versa, right
Ben Sessions: Yeah I mean, everybody’s always constantly evaluating, like, what’s, how’s the partnership look and those kinds of things. that’s a natural part of being in a partnership. I just think it’s really important to have, like, sort of some overarching, like, principles, guideposts that you have in terms of, like, what is it that I’m trying to focus on here?
And for me, I know that there are a lot of lawyers out there who don’t really care about the lawyering. Like that, I know that they don’t want to say that out loud, but that’s the silent part is that they don’t really care about like the quality of the work. They care more about like, what’s the bottom line, like on the P& [00:50:00] L and that sort of thing.
I get it. I’m concerned about it. It certainly is a worry that I have on a monthly basis, but I also, it still really matters to me what it is that we do. And how will we do it? And he’s, he definitely is a net positive in that regard for sure.
Jonathan Hawkins: so there’s another question. I think I saw a post on this from you But and this is related to bringing on a partner and not having a partnership agreement, etc it’s that you know What’s what’s your philosophy on taking risks because that’s another thing that a lot a lot of lawyers have problems with You know, they’re they’re so risk averse as a class And they think many times that staying put or doing what they’re doing or continuing to do what they do is less risky than doing this other thing, when my view sometimes looking at it is, I think it might be more risky to not do the other thing.
And so, I don’t know, what’s your philosophy or approach to taking [00:51:00] risks?
Ben Sessions: So I always think about risks in this way. If, if the thing won’t kill me, Then I’m willing to try it. like if a marketing effort won’t sink my ship, so to speak, then I’m willing to probably to take that lead to do it. Like, and I’ll take, for example, let’s say that you are, you were locked into a 20 or 30, 000 a month.
Ad spend for a yellow pages or whatever. And you locked in that thing. And then that, that business just sort of went away. I could see how a lot of law firms went under with those Sonic, those kinds of contracts that they were locked into. So like, whenever I think about like whether or not I’ll take a risk in terms of a financial advertising spend or taking on a partner or anything like that, like one, is there sort of a pressure release valve from that thing?
Can I get out of that thing if it’s not working? And two, like, will it sink my ship if it doesn’t go well? You know, I, I hear, I think I saw like a post where a previous guest that you had on was like, you gotta [00:52:00] like burn the boats. like you gotta, you gotta jump all in on this thing.
Well, truthfully, hardly any of us can afford to completely burn the boats. Like if that is the risk that you’re taking, then I don’t think that you like you’re hedging your bets properly. And I don’t think that that’s necessarily the approach that I could ever take. I got like all good for a person who could completely burn the boats and whatever it is that are doing.
But if you were truly taking a bet that completely exposed you and your family to like complete financial devastation, I would say, don’t do that thing. Like, I just wanted to take. Marginal bets that are big enough that I can improve my life, improve my practice, and hopefully be able to survive the loss that would come if it didn’t work.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I’m with you. I, the way I say it is flesh wounds, not mortal wounds.
Ben Sessions: Absolutely.
Jonathan Hawkins: but I do think you got to take risks. You got, You got to take risks. You gotta be willing to take risks.
Ben Sessions: Gosh, man. Like, in DUI defense, for example, lawyers who who [00:53:00] have just stayed niche to that area, I think over the next 15, 20 years, if you are entering that practice area at 30 years old, and you are going to make that your focus over the next 15, 20 years, like you have to realize, like the tide of society, the tide of cases, the tide of the law, all those things are all variable.
Going against you and you better be niching outside of that practice area like you can’t do that thing And you would have you have to take the risk of learning something new Exposing yourself to some higher margin cases those kinds of things because if you don’t you I don’t know how you can make a good Life out of it.
The margins are we’re already pretty tight for criminal defense lawyers But whenever you’ve got the number of cases shrinking, you’ve got more lawyers entering into the practice area I just don’t know How that would work,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Unless all the Uber drivers are just getting drunk.
Ben Sessions: right? Yeah. And unfortunately like, the Uber drivers are not your clients that you [00:54:00] want. Like they’re, they’re the people who don’t, I mean, you wouldn’t be out there driving Uber, generally speaking, if you had a great paying job that you could afford to come hire us.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, yeah. Well, so we’ve been going a little while now and I want to be respectful of your time, but you know, you’ve been at this for a while and I’m just curious, you know, you’re very thoughtful in your videos, you think about things and you talk about them, so I’m sure you have a lot of thoughts, but as you sort of look back, I’m always curious, I’m not one personally that I ever have regrets and that’s not what I mean by this question, but as you look back on your career. Is there anything that you did that you’re like, I wish I hadn’t done that just in terms of advancing your career or is there anything that you eventually did? And you said, man, I wish I would have done that earlier.
Ben Sessions: I was first, I’ll give you the non serious answer. If I had to do all over again, I’d be a plumber. I’ve been, I would have been a great plumber. And I like, I did some moment job stuff in high school and I’m like, Oh, I should have stuck with that thing. Cause I [00:55:00] see how much those guys make now. But seriously I didn’t choose anything.
I always let it come to me. I did, I was not purposeful in the route that I took. And that’s because I just didn’t know Jonathan. Like I didn’t know I didn’t know which practice areas had higher margins. I didn’t know that, but like there were lawyers out here who made dramatically more money in certain practice areas than the ones that I happened to land in.
I didn’t know that on the front end and like no one, they, you would seem that it would be obvious, but it’s not always so obvious to us. Whenever we’re first starting into it, but whenever I first entered into it, I didn’t have that sort of perspective. I wasn’t even really thinking about those things.
I wish that I had been more thoughtful in talking to lawyers about the ones that would actually talk to you about it and be honest with you about it. I wish that I had been more willing to go out there and ask people questions like, Hey, what is it that I should be doing? If I want to have a good life later on, how much money [00:56:00] do you make doing this?
How much do you have to work doing this? and sort of what does life look like for you? I just wasn’t very thoughtful about those things. And I, it’s only been sort of the last seven or eight years, I think that I really started trying to be more intentional about those things.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, that’s one lesson I think you’ve learned, but for anybody out there who’s, you know, behind you in terms of, you know, fresh out of school, thinking about starting a law firm early stages, any pieces of advice? One or two pieces of advice other than that, maybe that, you know, you’d give them,
Ben Sessions: Yeah. I would definitely say whatever it is that you’re doing that advice that you give about using every single marketing channel, try to, I know it seems like, man, I can’t do any one of them good. If I’m trying to do all of them. But you got to try to move, get all those balls, at least roll in a little bit, like start building some momentum.
I mean, in terms of marketing to your old clients, [00:57:00] marketing on social, marketing on the web. I do a ton of SEO work and actually like really, it turned out that I really enjoyed SEO work. Like that’s kind of going through that doing traditional channels in terms of mailers and letters to clients and stuff like that and constantly trying to like throw those hooks into the water is so important.
And I would tell anyone like keep trying to throw those hooks over time. If you want to keep trying to grow your products, like you, you just can’t stop marketing. I’ve never have been good at like. Lunches and you’re great at like coffee meetups and those kinds of things. I’m not that great. I didn’t realize the value of that early on.
And like, I didn’t really try to do those things. I wish I had focused on it so much more.
Jonathan Hawkins: well, I’ll tell you your example of the mailers to your former clients is a huge one. You know, I talked to, I mean, there’s so many lawyers that once they close the matter, they forget. they move on to the next one. And I tell them they’re sitting [00:58:00] on a gold mine that their former client list is a gold mine, and it’s just waiting to be, you know, worked in mind, but you got to work it, you know, sitting there, it’s not really worth anything, but you know, you send the letters or you, you do the birthday cards, whatever it is you do, lots of things you can do, but you just got to do it.
And you’d be surprised at. The work that it just throws off and it’s a lot easier, cheaper, and faster probably to market to the people that already know you than the ones that don’t.
Ben Sessions: Yeah. They, they trust you and they already have that relationship. Like, a simple thing that I do that’s pretty useful is I log all their birthdays into my phone and I just shoot them a text on their birthday. Hey, Jonathan, I was thinking about you. Happy birthday, man. Like that’s, and it means the world to them just to know that like, Hey, you took time on a Saturday morning to do this thing.
I also think that like, it’s a great idea to every now and then on the weekends, just like drop a line to five or 10 clients and you don’t want to [00:59:00] do it to your whole, your whole address book or anything. But just to do just a handful of them and just sort of cycle through it. It’s a great thing. it’s just sort of rejuvenate that connection that you have there with them.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that’s a hundred percent, a hundred percent agree with that. Well, Ben, it’s, we’ve been going a while now and I know you’re a busy man, so I don’t want to keep you, but I want to thank you for coming on, man. It’s been real fun and I really like your videos and I’m going to start doing, I promise. I promise it’s
Ben Sessions: Thanks, man.
I really enjoyed it. Like it was, it was so well structured. It was it’s a great time.
Jonathan Hawkins: But for those out there who want to get in touch with you, what’s, what’s the best way to find you?
Ben Sessions: Instagram Ben sessions or Facebook Ben sessions. Just drop me a line. I look forward to it.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. Check out his videos, man. They’re good. All right. Thanks Ben.
Ben Sessions: Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the founding partner podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to stay up to date on the latest episodes. [01:00:00] You can also connect with Jonathan on LinkedIn and check out the show notes. With links to resources mentioned throughout our discussion by visiting www.lawfirmgc. com. We’ll see you next time for more origin stories and insights from successful law firm founders.
