Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] Welcome to Family Partner Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Hawkins, and I’m really excited about this week’s guest. He’s a long-time friend of mine, pretty big lawyer here, big firm here in Atlanta, big personal injury firm.
We’ve got Scott Monge with us today. Scott, why don’t you introduce yourself? Tell us about your firm, where it is, you may have more than one location now, how many attorneys, how many staff. Cause I know you’ve grown a lot over the years. So tell us about you and your firm.
Scott Monge: First of all, Jonathan, thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you this afternoon. I really appreciate that but looking forward to it. And in terms of my firm, our size is approximately 240 members which consists of 30 lawyers and we’re headquartered out of Atlanta.
We got approximately 30 offices across the country members that work in 20 different states and six different foreign countries. But that’s the current version in terms of it. Certainly didn’t start out that way.
Started out in the early days when I packed up all my [00:01:00] earthly belongings and which were in a 1984 Chevy Chevette, and I drove from Illinois to Atlanta and went ahead and set up shop with no clients, no contacts no nothing.
And you know, the great thing about that is if I would have lost everything, I would have only been out about 15 bucks. But the other thing that was great about it is, there was no real order of difficulty for me because coming in that way, everything was new, everything was hard, everything was challenging.
And so I did about every type of law that I could get my hands on. It didn’t matter much what it was it was all hard, but it wasn’t like there was one thing that was necessarily any harder than the other.
And so, in any event, that’s to answer your question. Those are gives you in a nutshell, as far as what’s going on with my firm now and where it started way back when.
Jonathan Hawkins: I want to go through this cause I think it’s a really cool and interesting story and it can be inspiring from other folks [00:02:00] out there. So let’s go all the way back.
What led you to become a lawyer? Do you have any lawyers in your family? What led you to
Scott Monge: I know I was the first one. It was a challenging decision because there weren’t any lawyers in my family. So it was an entirely new to me. At the time, I like some things that led in that direction such as history and politics, and so in terms of that led me to law school and I went ahead.
And you know I did that. And once I was finished with the law school process and I hung my shingle out.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you get school in Illinois and rap there, you didn’t get school in Georgia, did you?
Scott Monge: Correct. Yeah, that’s right. I went to school in Illinois.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay, so you get your law degree in Illinois you said you got in your car and you drove down to Atlanta, you didn’t know anybody here.
Why Atlanta? Why not, Chicago or California, or New York? What was it about Atlanta that made you come down?
Scott Monge: Great question, Jonathan, coming from a relatively landlocked state in the middle of the country in Midwest. I looked at the map and as [00:03:00] far as the distance from Atlanta to the ocean. It was about a few centimeters on the map. And then once I got here, I realized, of course, it was as much further than that.
But the other thing is I just viewed Atlanta is a city that had a lot of potential and be in a hot city and had a lot of growth. And, the city that I grew up in is, was in the area that sometimes is referred to as the Rust Belt. And at the time I was growing up, it was a family of six mom and dad four kids.
And early at that time, there was a very severe recession. Unemployment was 19% in the city that I was growing up. It was ranked in the top 10 cities with the highest unemployment rate in the country.
And so, it was challenging. At the time my, Dad was working as a realtor and I come from a family of six. I’m the only one that doesn’t have a real estate license. And going through a recession, interest rates at the time were very high, people were not buying homes. [00:04:00] And, raising a family of six on an income, which, at one time was $35,000 was quite challenging.
So in terms of looking at other opportunities at the time, when I finished school, I figured, man, there’s no better than no better time to fail. So let me go ahead and just take my chance and go someplace new and do the best I can to stake my claim and see what happens.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, it’s interesting. Atlanta, a lot of people nationally don’t view Atlanta as a quote, top-tier city, but were here, I think it’s great. There’s been so many people in businesses and whatnot moving in here.
The growth of Atlanta has been exceptional. It just never seems to stop. People keep coming here. And for what you do, we’ll get into this later. There’s lots of cars here too. So that’s probably pretty good too for you. Of course, when you came down, you didn’t know.
So you came down here, you didn’t know anybody. You wanted to go somewhere where there was opportunity. So you came here at that time, had you taken the bar or did you have your license?
Scott Monge: [00:05:00] Yeah, I had. So anyway, I, yeah, I came down and started doing court-appointed criminal cases and it was if you’re lucky you got in court too, two or three times a week. And at the rate of $50 a case, not an hour case.
And, so I was in court all the time between that and other things I was doing. I was just in court all the time. I knew the parking attendance by a first-name basis. I traveled, extensively, to the cases were.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so your early days you were doing criminal appointed work, were you just doing anything you could get your hands on?
Scott Monge: A rent law is what we call it. Anything to pay the rent.
Jonathan Hawkins: A lot of lawyers most lawyers get their business from referrals, people they know, etc. You come down here, you don’t know anybody. How did you start to work or how did you start to evolve out of the court-appointed criminal cases?
Scott Monge: Yeah. I guess we’re all the sum of the energy of the people that we surround ourselves with. And in terms of it at that time, there was a lot of different ways and I don’t think there’s any [00:06:00] magic silver bullet.
It takes a lot of different things in terms of basically in its most simplest terms, I would define marketing is everyone you meet, everyone you touch, everyone you come in contact with. Everyone’s a potential client.
And in terms of that aspect, there’s the people you meet along the way. There’s the connections you make with others that are in similar practice areas or connected in some way that what you are.
There’s the marketing to the clients that you haven’t met yet. There’s keeping in contact with the ones that you do. And there were a lot of different things, it wasn’t necessarily that there was one way. I think that there’s a lot of ways but probably some of the best ways, the best cases tend to go to the lawyers that market the best.
And so you want to have a message that’s going to separate you from what everyone else is doing.
Jonathan Hawkins: And when you came down, how many years ago was that?
Scott Monge: That was in 1993. So that would have been about 31 years ago.
Jonathan Hawkins: Okay. It’s pretty easy to [00:07:00] start a firm now. You just need a laptop, a bar license, and an internet connection, really, right? Back then it just wasn’t quite as easy to really have the setup.
It seems like you needed an office. You needed a fax machine, all that kind of stuff. How did you make do, how did you do that? And how did you figure out what to do?
Scott Monge: It was Winston Churchill said that courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. I tried a lot of dinner, tried a lot of different things and just so it’s just basically I think after a while you just get used to it in terms of trying to go in this direction. And if that doesn’t work, then go this direction.
So the key thing is to always be trying new things. And I tried a lot of different things and you just, keep a record of what works and you test it small, and then you go big and just repeat and do that again and again.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so through this series of experimentations that you were doing, you ended up in plaintiff’s work. So how did you maneuver and end up there? And then, once you got there, how [00:08:00] did you know this is what I want to do?
Scott Monge: Sure. I like the personal nature of it. The other thing too, if plaintiffs work is it’s contingency fee based. So it’s a great equalizer in terms of giving clients the right to go ahead and really hire any lawyer that they want without regard to having to worry about putting it up for a retainer.
And so I think that In terms of the soft skills are really important in terms of it’s never, I don’t think any client wakes up in the morning wondering, where did my lawyer go to law school or what was, those types of questions.
So it’s never a question of what, but clients knowing how much you care and, people want to do business with those that they know and trust. And it was evident to me at a very early time in terms of communication skills.
It didn’t matter how smart you were, but it mattered more in terms of your ability to really connect, interact, and give assurance to [00:09:00] clients so that they would feel comfortable with you. And then they’re connecting you and referring you their family and their friends.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you end up focusing on the plaintiff’s work. Your firm now is a big firm. You got 240 people, 30 lawyers, multiple locations, that’s a big firm. And it started with just you. I imagine, little by little, it’s like an exponential curve, in the early days, it looks flat. It just looks flat.
Why don’t you take us through sort of the evolution, at what was the growth? I also talked to others and the growth might be, really fast. And then all of a sudden you pull back, three steps forward and four steps back or whatever.
Take us through a little bit of the evolution of how you went from just you to now this really big operation.
Scott Monge: Yeah sure. It’s a process and, I think everybody has good luck and everybody has bad luck and it’s a matter of what you do. And, certainly, with me, there were a number of factors in terms of, there’s been many lotteries [00:10:00] that I’ve won.
And one of those, it’s just really being born in America, which I believe is the land of opportunity and you have opportunities here that just would not, Hey, you just don’t see other places in the world. And starting with that opportunity and trying all, trying a lot of different things. Also to working with a great lawyer named John Rolnick.
And at the time he was doing, television advertising and a lot of other kinds of marketing. And he became, much more religious. And so he went to Israel to study for a while, but he kept his marketing going with the television and everything here. And in regards to that, I helped with keeping that going while he was overseas. And, we continue to work in very close partnership and are still, very close friends to this day, nearly 30 years later.
Another factor I’d say was in regards to COVID if the COVID really brought around technological change, accelerated about [00:11:00] probably three to five years worth of technological change into a span of about three to six months.
And with that uncertainty, in the down markets, that’s always where I believe the growth is. And so when a lot of our competitors were pulling back or we’re not sure what to do, we really pushed on the gas. And so we were one of the few firms that we saw our business grow and expand during the time of COVID.
And I think the other thing too, is you always, there’s a value to being first, eventually ideas go mainstream, but the sooner that you can, when you find something that works the more that you have that opportunity for growth, Jonathan. And, in the law business, so far behind for so many years because marketing wasn’t legalized until 1976 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Bates decision.
And then even after that, it was taboo for many years. But in terms of starting it with the yellow pages at the time that those were really effective and using those and then transitioning to the [00:12:00] Internet when it became available, use of television, especially, all of these innovations, especially in the early days when everybody had a yellow book that was delivered to their home, everybody was using it as a source of information.
I can remember my first yellow-page advertisement and the attorney section. I was on page 26, there were 25 pages of attorneys ahead of me. And with television, I can remember the first ad that we did, it was like, boy, it was like, at the time you think, oh, man, this is going to win an award.
And you look back on it and it just looks like a bad home movie and you think, man, I hope nobody sees this. But at the time, there weren’t, you had three major broadcast channels and PBS. And if the president spoke that he was on all of them, but as a result that was something that was at the time worked really well.
And again, the same with the internet and the internet, I think more than anything, it really broke down and eliminated the barriers [00:13:00] that you had between the States. I can remember first starting and the scope of the geographic scope of practice was like, okay, it’s going to be this County and it’s going to be this adjacent County.
But with the internet, more than anything else, it just really, you know, it eliminated a lot of the geographic barriers that had been there before.
Jonathan Hawkins: I remember flipping through there looking for stuff as a kid. And kids today just, they don’t know what that is really. Although, I saw, there is still the Yellow Pages. I saw it at the gym. There was a stack of them. It’s really small. It’s not near the size that it used to be. And I was really curious. So I flipped through it. And there are some attorney ads in there. It’s crazy. Who knew somebody still doing it?
But yeah, the other idea I’ve got for you. So those old TV commercials, you got to pull them out, man, and put them on your YouTube channel and just let everybody see, come on.
So, it sounds like, you’ve tried a lot over the years in terms of your marketing, advertising and it’s evolved a little bit. Don’t give away your secrets, but what do you do nowadays in terms of advertising [00:14:00] or trying to get clients?
Scott Monge: I think that there’s In terms of ways to get clients, there’s first of the best way is starting with the clients that you have and, forming those bonds, having a great experience. So they’re going to tell their family and their friends because the best cases are generally going to come from referrals.
And the other way is keeping in contact with your past clients. They already know you. They’re already familiar with you by newsletters and other ways.
And then the third way that most people think of is marketing to clients that haven’t mentioned that they haven’t used your services and reaching out to them.
I think that’s what is important is to really take a look at every stage of the client experience and especially finding the friction points of what that is. And really zoning in on that, in terms of just just, every interaction.
My process has always been in terms of, what can we do that’s different. Maybe what everybody else is doing to try to better address that [00:15:00] and to have a better client experience.
So, we have a lot of touches and things that we do in regards to that with any client that comes into our office. They’re going to have a welcome monitor, it’s going to have their name on it, welcoming them to the office, if you’ve ever read Dale Carnegie’s book, how to Win Friends and Influence People, he talks about how a person’s name is the most sweetest sound that they can hear in the world.
So we’re going to do that. We’ve got a lot of personalized touches that we do with clients in terms of personal outreach, with personalized videos, and especially early in the relationship, just so we’re having as many touches as we can to really build that rapport and trust early on through the process.
And then also too, we have something that we call the Ritz Carlton treatment, and it’s inspired by the founder of the Ritz Carlton, who basically empowers all of his members of his team to solve any problem that they [00:16:00] encounter up to a limit of roughly $1,500 and not that it is necessary to go that amount each time but, all of our team members are empowered to go ahead and resolve any situation that they have that they encounter up to a certain amount.
So if there’s a situation where there’s a client that has a health challenge or surgery or something of that nature, we’re going to go ahead and send something special in that situation.
Or if there’s a miscommunication on something in terms of going through, I will go through and the client in that situation will receive a gift basket or delivery of something with a note from me indicating that I am placing them on my very important client list.
They are valued. They are appreciated. They’re important, providing them with my direct number, providing them my direct email as a point of contact.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’ll tell you, it’s good for marketing and that sort of thing. But, the other aspect of this is, in the, they’ve done these studies [00:17:00] for doctors getting sued and they said, the number one correlation on how to not get sued the doctors is to spend more time with the clients and talking to them.
They get to know you. I imagine it’s the same thing for, legal clients. The more you talk to them, the more they get to know you, they just feel better.
So you probably reduce your risk by doing that as well. And you increase, your marketing efforts as well. I remember, I seen, remember last time I was in your office, I think maybe my name was on that board too. It was a nice touch.
So what kind of response do you get from the clients?
Scott Monge: We’ll have clients that will take photos of it with their phones. And so the response has been uniformly positive.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about advertising a little bit here in Atlanta. My understanding is, and I’m not really in the game, but my understanding is that Atlanta is one of the top competitive legal advertising markets in the country.
So maybe you can tell us a little bit about that and then, what does that mean for you and others?
[00:18:00] Especially I would think any new entrant into the market is, it’s going to be a big commitment to try to break into that. Tell us about the Atlanta market and how competitive it is.
Scott Monge: Yeah that’s a great point. And a couple of points on that is one is, once you overcome that barrier of entry, then it does provide a bit of a security perhaps because it does take a lot of time, a lot of effort to overcome those barriers to entry.
But the other thing I think is what you said before in that there are so many different avenues available to lawyers in terms of how they want to market and connect their build their practice and connect and do things of that nature.
And I would also say the other thing too, is You know, when you come up in a market that’s competitive and then you go through and you go to other markets, for instance, that don’t have the same degree of competition, I think you’re better because of having that competition, it makes you sharper, it makes you look harder at finding things that work, it [00:19:00] makes you look harder at avoiding wasting resources or squandering resources on things that are not working.
And the other thing too is I’ve never if someone was to ask who’s our biggest competitor, I would say, our biggest competitor is ourselves because our challenge is always how can we be better versions of ourselves? What can we do?
So, for me, it’s never been a situation of really looking at others as competitors. I think, living in America, the land of opportunity. I think there’s lots of opportunities for everybody. But I look at it in terms of a lot of self-analysis as far as just constantly.
And now I’m looking at our systems, our procedures, and how can we be better versions of ourselves.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I tell you, you made a point earlier your current and former clients and really working that list or those lists, so to speak, I have heard of, plaintiff’s firms, plaintiff’s attorneys that do no advertising and they have a pretty big client, former client list [00:20:00] that they just market to through, emails, birthday cards, newsletters, whatever it is.
And they have a very successful sustaining practice. Just on that and then of course that list grows every year. And so for people out there that don’t have the advertising budget which most of us don’t, there are other ways.
It’s not easy and nothing is a silver bullet overnight usually, if you really work it and you’re consistent, I would think you could really grow a good practice and it sounds like you’re doing all of the above.
Scott Monge: Yeah. Everybody has their practice model and as long as it works for them, that’s all that matters.
Jonathan Hawkins: I want to go back. So when you move down here, you’re doing court-appointed cases. You’re in court all the time. You, Scott personally are doing all the work. I imagine now tell me if I’m wrong, you’re not doing really any legal work at this point, are you?
Scott Monge: I’m still very involved and engaged. So, in terms of regardless of the size of the office, my name’s still on the door. My main focus and responsibility is [00:21:00] leadership and management. And I think one of the jobs of a leader is when something goes right, you give the credit away to those that help make that happen and you celebrate that in a public way.
And when there’s an area for opportunity, you take responsibility for that. So with the nameplate that I have on my desk, it has the phrase, I’m responsible because the buck stops with me. And so that’s really, situation, someone’s reaching out to me.
Yeah, I’m still going to take the time. I still have a responsibility to clients, to my team, to their families, to those that are dependent on them.
So I think with over time, I think that the responsibility, it just gets greater and greater. It goes from being with you to your family, your team, and those that depend and rely on them.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s interesting as a position evolves from, direct client work to more CEO or leader [00:22:00] work, it’s not that you’re doing less work, you’re just doing different work and it’s not that you’re less stressed, you might be more stressed, right?
How did you maneuver that evolving role from client work to more leadership role? And how long did it take you to really make the complete shift?
Scott Monge: Yeah. When it started, I did every position in the firm. I was a receptionist, paralegal, accounting, lawyer, everything, human resources, everything in between by necessity.
So, I know what it’s like to do every position in the firm. And, over time with growth, it forces that in terms of the only way to really grow or scale any businesses, you know, you gotta have a good team to do that.
So I got to throw a lot of the credit back to my team. And that’s really what makes it all possible. It wasn’t for the team, there would be no me if there was not for the team. So I got to throw a lot of the credit back on the team.
And the other thing is just in terms of taking on clients and growing it just as [00:23:00] part of the process, and it really forces it because the only way to handle more clients is to have more people.
Jonathan Hawkins: So let’s talk about that sort of the growth and the evolution and building the team. I’m with you, the more that I’m in this and the more I’m scaling, the more and more it’s clear. It’s all about the people, it’s all about the team.
And that’s the hardest part, I think get the cases. I’m not going to say it’s easy, but I feel like that’s an easier puzzle to solve than the team and then the people.
And then on top of that, you have to hire them and take the risk, you’re taking them on and they and their families become your responsibility, so then you got to fill their plate. So you take on a lot of risks.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how do you balance the growth, the taking on the risk, and then also just finding the right people?
Scott Monge: That’s a great question. It reminds me of a story Richard Branson told, and he’s telling the story when he was growing one of his businesses in the early days, and he gives a piece of paper to his wife, and he says, Hey, honey, go ahead and sign off on this, will you?
And she [00:24:00] says, What’s this? Oh, it just means that if this deal doesn’t work out, we lose the house and everything we own.
And, so I think it’s just, over time, it’s just when you work out at the gym in terms of, the only way to really grow your physical muscles is to apply stress to them.
And so, I think it’s a fundamental question to ask Jonathan, like, when did stress become such a bad word? And because the only way to grow it, it really, it’s like in terms of questions.
The goal I see is the only really way to grow and be a resilient, strong person is you’ve got to constantly expose yourself to stresses, and by doing so, that’s how you grow into a stronger, better, more resilient version of yourself and circling back to the team in terms of the team, one of the great challenges past few years has been that, we have a labor shortage. And, every business is dealing with shortages, so that’s a challenge.
So one of the ways that we deal with that is, we source the talent from the best talent, [00:25:00] wherever we can find it. And our focus is really shifted from, where can we find the person to what’s more, what can they produce?
So the focus is not on where a person is. Doesn’t matter, it does not matter as much if they are onsite or offsite, but what matters is more of what can that person produce.
There’s two core values that we look at in terms of finding team members that are gonna be a good match.
One is positivity is finding the nicest people you can find. The other is productivity is finding people that are really good at what they’re going to do. And in terms of the process, I think that it really helps to have a mentality that this is going to be challenging work.
It’s not going to be easy. If it was easy, everybody would have this position. And finding a team that has a mindset that is one of very positive, but also one that’s just also has a mentality of [00:26:00] a very good solid work ethic as well.
And from what my experience where I see a lot of that is in regards to people that come to this country from someplace else, do not know the language, do not know the culture, do not know the alphabet, do not know anything. And they get used to going from struggle to struggle and successfully overcoming that.
And to me, that’s the American dream. In terms of, we have team members that are domestic. We have team members that are international. We treat everybody the same. And the goal is just to have, really the best talent that we can find.
In regards to culture, there’s a lot of ways that can be defined. And one of the great challenges, Jonathan, I believe for any law firm in the 21st century is how do you build a culture and in a hybrid environment, which consists of both on-site and virtual team members.
And also something I heard recently that really stuck with me is culture. Part of it is who you [00:27:00] hire, sure, but also the other part of it is who you fire because that really defines your standards because whatever you accept as the standard, that is the standard.
Listen, the standard is a standard and the easiest way to apply it is to apply it to everyone equally. But you know, when you accept subpar performance, that becomes the new standard.
Jonathan Hawkins: That is a good point. Everybody talks about hiring for culture, but you rarely hear about people talking about it explicitly, at least firing for culture, but I did have a question.
So it sounds like you’ve got a pretty big remote team and you’ve touched on a little bit, that’s gotta be a challenge to manage, you’ve got the onboarding, you’ve got the training, you’ve got the retention, and then you’ve got as you said, the culture part of it too.
So how have you figured that out? I’m sure there’s been some bumps along the way, but what is it that you do specifically? If you go hire a new remote person. Do you have a program that you put them through to get them ready and get them engaged?
Scott Monge: Yeah. So, we have an onboarding process for everybody. We have, leaders for [00:28:00] every department. So we’ve got different levels of leadership and middle-level managers and executive-level managers.
And in terms of keeping track of everything, we also, go through, we have morning huddles, we have weekly reports, we have monthly in-person meetings we have annual events. We have a lot going on in terms of those touches.
And so those are some of the ways that we would keep in contact as far as providing leadership opportunities and just in managing the flow of information and having specific standards that are applied consistently throughout the organization.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I know I know you’re a big reader. I know you’re a student of business. As you look back, who are some of your, whether you know them or whether it’s through books or whatever.
Who are some of the people that you, that really impacted you and your philosophy and growing your business?
Scott Monge: There are three that come to mind. I would say Jeff Bezos in terms of his first job was at McDonald’s and he makes references as far as the [00:29:00] systems and procedures that they had and really as the place that he really developed what he refers to as an obsession with customer service.
And he tells a story where once he’s in a meeting with Amazon of all these officials and the reports came through, which was how long does it take when you’re on hold to get through to Amazon in terms of measuring the customer experience?
And, so Jeff Bezos says let’s find out. And he picks up the phone and he calls Amazon and he’s on hold for a minute, two minutes, three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, and so on. But it shows a real hands-on attention obsession with customer service.
And the other I would say is Elon Musk. And the reason I mentioned him is for his ethic. And he talks about, you have got to be willing to do whatever it takes in terms of work ethic.
Scott Monge: And he tells a story after he arrived from South Africa of just being so broke and so poor that in [00:30:00] terms of the office where he rented, which he shared with his brother, it was like, they worked, they only had one computer, which they shared, worked at during the day and slept there at night, showered at the YMCA.
And to go from that to founding PayPal, to founding Tesla, to founding SpaceX.
And the third would be Steve Jobs in terms of coming up with innovation, in terms of teamwork, in terms of methods of how you drive teams to higher and higher levels of performance.
And the thing that would tie all of them together would be in regards to if you look at Elon Musk, immigrant from South Africa.
If you look at Jeff Bezos his father was an immigrant from Cuba that did not speak English. His mother was a teenage mother.
And with Steve Jobs, he was an immigrant from Syria that was adopted as a child by a family here in America.
And, so the common thread that I see [00:31:00] when I look at that is, as far as when you come from that type of background of adversity and challenge and you get used to overcoming challenges and you get used to doing hard things, it builds a resilience and it builds you into a stronger version of yourself.
So I don’t see it as so much as the goal is, are you happy? Or, that I think it’s more where when you get used to a mentality of overcoming challenges and becoming a more resilient, stronger person.
And so that’s why I applied to work, to the law world, it’s if there’s somebody that has a challenge, there’s always two choices, either they can try harder or they can quit.
And so, if someone is faced with a challenge. If you’re not empowering them and giving them the opportunity to overcome that challenge, if the opportunity is more just Oh, listen, just take it easy, go to the meditation room, and just become a snowflake that melts under pressure.
Is that [00:32:00] really helping that person become a stronger, more resilient version of themselves?
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m with you on that. And that’s a good segue. So I know that you had a I’ll call it a background of scarcity growing up. It was recession times, it was tough times and you’ve done really well. You got a big firm. You’re doing well.
What keeps you going? What drives you now? How do you keep the drive?
Scott Monge: Oh that’s easy, Jonathan. My wife’s shopping habits.
Jonathan Hawkins: Hear you.
Scott Monge: No, my wife her motto when we first met was she never pays retail, and then she does it. So no, I didn’t marry just, I didn’t marry up. I married way, way up. I’m my wife.
And what keeps me going? I would say in terms of, there’s a saying you’ve probably heard. It goes, something like this, times produce strong men, produce good times, produce soft men produce hard times.
And so, in terms of I think that you just always in life people respect the value of hard [00:33:00] work and you would look back on your life and you think you look at the things that you’re proud of.
And it’s usually something that over involves some type of challenge or overcoming a hardship or adversity or struggle. And, you don’t hear people say, Man, I’m really proud of that car that somebody just gave me, they just gave it to me. I’m really, man, I’m really proud of that.
And so I think it just comes down to a question of wanting to live a meaningful life of purpose and value. And that comes through a lot of discipline and a lot of hard work.
And at the end of the day the world just I believe it respects that. And there’s just not a lot of respect if someone is not living life to their fullest potential.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so, that leads to another question. This is a question that, I’ve thought a lot about for my own situation. I’ve asked others about it. We strive to create a good life for ourselves, for our family, for our kids. We want to give our kids, lots of opportunities and this, that, and the other.
And so [00:34:00] it’s a balance. And I’m not sure there’s a clear answer, but on the one hand, you want to give them a lot. But on the other hand, like you just said they need to be challenged. They don’t need to be just given everything. They really need to struggle.
So how do you I know you’ve got some kids. How do you Or how have you balanced those two interests?
Scott Monge: In a couple ways, in the book, the Prophet the author Gibran says, our children come through us, but they’re not us necessarily. In other words, they come into the world with their own personalities, with their own being, as far as who they are.
And going back earlier in terms of immigrants, I see examples of people that came to this country with nothing and through hard work and struggle and overcoming adversity have built incredible lives for themselves.
And it’s so rare that you see the next generation that really builds or exceeds on that. And yet the next generation is the one that grew up with all the supposed [00:35:00] benefits.
I think a lot of those things that are called quote unquote benefits, really, if you want to, sap a person’s discipline and their hard work and their initiative, then one of the ways of doing that is by giving them lots of free stuff that they don’t have to work for.
And in terms of that, you naturally wants what’s best for your loved ones, more than that, I want them to grow into be strong, resilient people that contribute to society.
Jonathan Hawkins: It is a challenge. Looking back over, your exceptional success growing your firm, are there a couple of big lessons maybe that you looking back and you say, yeah, these are a couple of big lessons I’ve learned along the way that maybe would help someone else that’s maybe earlier in their journey.
Scott Monge: Yeah. I say that the reason it’s called the practice is because everybody’s trying to get it right. And, there’s no finish line in regard to any of that.
In terms of lessons. Yeah, I’d say we’re all a slave to our habits. So you want to have good habits [00:36:00] and term.
I get up every morning at 4:30 a.m. And that time in the morning for me is sacred when there’s no distractions, no emails, no phone calls. And it’s whatever I’m going to get done for the day, I’ve got to get it done by about 8:30 because, after that’s when it just, it gets busier and busier after that time.
But in terms of advice, I would say, look at every point of the client experience and think what are the points of friction and, how can I do this differently than the way others are doing it?
And the other thing is I think you just got to constantly be beating on your craft and other whatever area that you’re in, you’ve got to be all in. You’ve got to know the latest trends. You’ve got to be current on what’s happening with your cases, with your firms, with your people, at least as best you can.
And those are some that I would just say, always be open to trying new things.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I’m with you on that too. I’m also an early person. I’m not quite a 4:30. I’ve done that at times I’m more of a [00:37:00] 5 more of a little bit. I get 30 minutes extra.
So what is your morning routine like? Yeah, so for me, I get up, drink some coffee, do some stuff and then you know go to the gym, I got, I make sure I get my workout in the morning, but what about you?
Do you have any meditate? Do work out? What’s your morning routine?
Scott Monge: Yeah. So my morning routine is I get up at 4:30 every morning, including weekends and immediately I go through and I get done the things that I need to get done for the day as far as work-wise and then I’ll go through. I’ll have 30 minutes of cardio in the morning and I’ll go to the office and spend the day there.
I’ll come home. I’ll do an hour of either of weight training and generally in the evening.
Jonathan Hawkins: Nice. Two days.
Yeah. two days.
Again you’ve done a good job on your firm, your multi-location lot of offices. What’s your vision moving forward next 15, to 20 years?
Scott Monge: Yeah. My vision would be to be a better version of ourselves. To, provide more and more opportunities to our people. [00:38:00] To build our leadership teams leaders, and to be licensed in all 50 States.
Jonathan Hawkins: How old are your kids? Do you foresee any of them going to law school? I’m curious.
Scott Monge: Yeah. They haven’t seen the light yet.
Jonathan Hawkins: Are you trying to steer them towards or away?
Scott Monge: Both still in school. So they’ve got ways to go. I’m not really steering, but none of them really expressed an interest at this point yet.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s funny before we got on, we’re talking about that old story about my dad steering me to a certain school away from trying to be a rock star and towards college which was funny. But I knew that early on when I said, I want to be a lawyer, cause he was a lawyer, I said, I’m going to be a lawyer.
And at first, he said, no, don’t do that. And part of it let me back up even before that because he was a lawyer. I did not want to be a lawyer. I was like, I am not doing it. I’m going to be my own man and all that stuff, but may have been destiny. I ended up saying, yeah, I’m going to get a law school.
He tried to talk me out of it. For a little while and then once I was headstrongly said I’m going then he jumped [00:39:00] in and he is very supportive and really helped along the way. He gave me a lot of good advice over the years.
So It’s funny how these things turn out. So who knows where your kids will be?
Scott Monge: Exactly.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, Scott if people want to get in touch with you, what’s the best way to find you?
Scott Monge: Shoot me an email. My email address is Scott@Monge.Lawyer Monge is spelled M like Monday. O n g e dot lawyer. So Scott at Monge.
Jonathan Hawkins: Scott, thanks again. It’s been fun to catch up. We hadn’t really talked in a while, so it was good to catch up on this and you’ve grown a lot since we last talked.
So that’s impressive stuff, man. I’m really impressed.
Scott Monge: Thanks, Jonathan. It’s always good to catch up with you. I’ve really been looking forward to it. And so it’s just the more you grow, the more the target on your back grows. That’s why it’s important that you do everything right.
Jonathan Hawkins: Just keep running. Run faster. Right? All right. Thanks,
Scott Monge: Hey, Jonathan, I appreciate it. Thank [00:40:00] you.
