Jonathan Hawkins: [00:00:00] Welcome to Founding Partners Podcast. I’m your host Jonathan Hawkins excited about today’s guest. Met today’s guest recently and gotten to know him and been really impressed with the stuff he’s doing. So, glad to get on here. It’s Len Spada, who’s a personal injury lawyer. I’ll say the Boston, Massachusetts area.
Jonathan Hawkins: He can explain exactly where he is, but he’s got multiple offices. We’ll talk about that. And another thing that I really want to explore is he’s doing a lot of really cool things that I’ll just call grassroots marketing. So I want to dive into that and find out some of the things he’s doing.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, Len, thanks for being here. Why don’t you introduce yourself, tell us about your firm and? You know, how many folks you got, how long you’ve been doing it.
Leonard Spada: Okay, well, thank you, Jonathan. I want to thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. We just met recently at a conference, so I appreciate the outreach. My name is Len Spada. I’m an attorney in the Boston market. My office is in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Which borders Boston.
Leonard Spada: [00:01:00] So when I tell people, you know, my office is in Boston, it’s in a city that, you know, is adjacent to Boston, but I can walk from my office to Boston.
Leonard Spada: In fact, I grew up in Boston and I can walk to my childhood residence from my office. It’s less than a mile walk.
Jonathan Hawkins: And so how big is your firm?
Leonard Spada: You know, in preparation for today, it’s like we’re growing and sometimes, you know, I have to take pen to paper and actually count. So all total, we have 19 people on board, four lawyers, five case managers, three legal assistants, three intake staff. We have two virtual assistants and we have a director of operations and an office manager.
Leonard Spada: So I counted that up and it’s 19 and I was
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s a big operation. I’m with you. No, I lose track. And then nowadays there’s so many of these sort of virtual assistant folks. And then, do you count them or not?
Jonathan Hawkins: Sometimes you forget about them. I think you should count them because you know, if they’re there and [00:02:00] you may have part-time staff as well, I don’t know.
Leonard Spada: No, I don’t have any part-time staff. But in thinking about whether or not to count the virtual assistants, they do such Important work for us, and the way we’ve incorporated them into the business with, you know, participating in meetings and Zoom meetings, we really feel like we know them and they are parts of the team because they are.
Leonard Spada: So I think I agree with you. We should count them there because if they weren’t there tomorrow, we would feel their absence. So, they’re important to us.
Jonathan Hawkins: And it’s, you know, I know I’ve got one a virtual assistant now, and she’s amazing. I mean, she’s really amazing. I know there’s some.
Leonard Spada: Yeah, they’re great. We have two of them. No, we can talk about that at some point, but we didn’t always have great luck, you know, we’ve had a couple of virtual assistants who didn’t work out for some very interesting reasons. But we have two that I really am excited about.
Leonard Spada: They do great work. They’re excited, great personalities and their client client-facing. [00:03:00] So, you know, clients are really reacting positively to the interaction. So I’m thrilled.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I think you’ve got recently, I think you opened a new location, maybe more than one. How many locations do you have?
Leonard Spada: Two within the last six months, we’ve opened two new locations. And one of them, you know, for the people who are listening, and they may or may not be familiar with the geography in Massachusetts, but Boston is obviously on the coast, and then, we opened up an office in Springfield, which is about two hours west of Boston.
Leonard Spada: And for someone like myself who grew up in Boston, you know, it’s a place we just didn’t go to very often. But we opened an office there because it has a vibrant and growing Latino-Hispanic community.
Leonard Spada: And we are doing a lot of work in that community. And it’s just being geographically present was important and we had a unique opportunity to present itself to us. So we took it.
Leonard Spada: It was both real [00:04:00] estate that we were in our wheelhouse financially and contacts that we had made that were very symbiotic and it just made sense. It wasn’t in my plan originally, but I saw an opportunity and we took it.
Leonard Spada: The other location is about 30 miles north of Boston. On the close to the New Hampshire border, the city is Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Lawrence is 80% plus Spanish-speaking Latino community.
Leonard Spada: So it was a natural. We service that community from our Boston location. But it’s not geographically convenient to clients. And there’s so much more opportunity for us there. And we got some great real estate.
Leonard Spada: I mean, commercial real estate these days around the country and in Boston as well you can get if you negotiate well, you can get some good rates on property that, you know, a few years back you prior to the pandemic, you couldn’t, so we got some space and now, there’s one more location in the back of my mind, but I promised my staff 2025 would be a breather. I did.
Leonard Spada: But [00:05:00] my goal is to be within a short drive of close to 90% of Massachusetts Hispanic communities, so that’s the goal.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, I want to dive into both of those things. One is the opening of the offices. And then also I know you do serve the Hispanic community. I don’t want to dive into that as well, but before we do real quick. So Boston, which is where you started. I’ll just call it the Boston metro area.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I know I’m down here in Atlanta, and for, I mean, personal injury period is competitive as hell. And I would imagine in the cities and it is too. So I’m curious how competitive would you say the Boston personal injury attorney market is?
Leonard Spada: Extremely competitive and getting more and more competitive by the day. Massachusetts was a place where, you know, when I’m in Georgia or I’m in Florida or even Arizona, you can’t drive two miles without seeing a lawyer billboard in any of those states.
Leonard Spada: That was never the case in Massachusetts up to a few years ago. It really wasn’t. We had [00:06:00] this sort of old school, more puritanical view towards lawyer advertising.
Leonard Spada: And I remember myself as a younger lawyer, really looking down and be like, I’m a real lawyer. I tried cases and my business will grow just by virtue of my skillset and people knowing about it and that changed.
Leonard Spada: Morgan and Morgan came to town several years ago and the advertise, they took no prisoners up on billboards. They did what they do and they did it in the Boston market and it changed it for everybody. Now Boston is in a lot of ways, like other States you drive. And if it’s not a cannabis billboard, it’s a lawyer billboard.
Leonard Spada: So whether you want to get higher, hire a lawyer, the billboards are everywhere. It really does seem that way, John, that seems like, you know, okay, there’s a new dispensary for cannabis and there’s another lawyer, so it’s become extremely competitive and there are a lot of people, a lot of lawyers who have lamented that.
Leonard Spada: I have had [00:07:00] a complete change of mindset on that. Like when Morgan and Morgan commercials would come on, my wife would like, Oh, those people are on again, you know, she’s protecting her turf, know, and business has never been better since they have come into the market. So whether or not it’s, there’s a causal relationship or it’s just anecdotal. We’ve never been busier. We’ve never experienced such rapid growth.
Leonard Spada: And so, you know, it might be because I responded to their presence and did things, but I also think there’s a part of it that people are much more aware that they may have a claim and more people are thinking about making claims that maybe didn’t in the past.
Leonard Spada: And then you have a chance if you’re a good lawyer and you have good reviews and you’ve been in the community and people start, they don’t immediately call Morgan. But Morgan may have brought the awareness to them that, Hey, maybe I do have a case. And then they start looking around and you better be good enough when they start looking around and you better be you know, present enough [00:08:00] online and in different mediums to have them find you.
Leonard Spada: So I think that’s what happened. It’s a combination, we were doing a good job for a long time and people starting to look. And then we also upped our marketing game considerably because you know, we had to react.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s interesting to see how it changed over the years. But let’s go way back. Let’s start at the beginning. I want to hear a little bit about your journey. So, I think after law school, you went and clerked for a judge for some period of time. Is that right?
Leonard Spada: I did. Yeah. In Massachusetts they have. You have the ability, the court system is broken up into the district courts where there are misdemeanors. And it’s actually the busiest court where you’re drunk driving and all of those.
Leonard Spada: Then you have superior court. Where the dollar value of controversies and the crimes are more serious and the civil cases have higher dollar exposures.
Leonard Spada: And then you have the appellate court and you have the supreme judicial court. That’s sort of how the system works.
Leonard Spada: So after law school, I had the [00:09:00] opportunity to work in the superior court system as a clerk and a law clerk, and the way it worked and when I was doing it was that you would be assigned a judge for a three month period and you’d get a new judge for another three month period.
Leonard Spada: So you go through, you’d have four judges as opposed to being exposed to just one and through sheer luck, two of my four judges went on to become federal court judges.
Leonard Spada: So they were really of a high caliber. And I got, it was a great experience. You work at the trial level, so I was always watching trials. I was always helping the judge rule on pre-trial motions, and post-trial motions, and I got the opportunity to unlike a lot of appellate work, I got to watch trials because I knew I wanted to be in the courtroom trying cases as opposed to arguing appeals.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, that was my next question. Did you know you wanted to be a trial lawyer? Sounds like you did.
Leonard Spada: Yeah. It’s an interesting story because I went to school for finance and accounting, and while I was in college studying accounting and [00:10:00] finance and business, I had an internship at a quasi-governmental entity in Boston called the Boston Redevelopment Authority. You can’t build any skyscrapers or buildings or do any development in the city without going through this agency.
Leonard Spada: So I worked there in the finance department. While I was there, my supervisor’s husband was the chief homicide prosecutor in Boston. He was always on the news. He was always giving press conferences. He was a superstar.
Leonard Spada: So I would walk across the street and catch some of his trials. Just because I was curious and I caught the bug while I was in studying accounting and I’m like I want to be like Jim Hamrock, you know, he not only was he a great lawyer. He’s a great person. He’s a high-caliber Ethical presence in court now six foot four three and big guy and he just tried great cases.
Leonard Spada: I really got the bug. I was like got back into my junior year of college. I’m like, I want to go to law school, but now I’m studying accounting, which isn’t the best prerequisite to get yourself [00:11:00] into law school.
Leonard Spada: So I knew I had to be near perfect grade-wise in order to get into a decent law school because they weren’t looking at finance majors and accounting majors. They were looking for a lot of liberal arts majors and poli sci and economics, stuff like that.
Leonard Spada: So I put my mind to it and I knew I wanted to go to law school. In my junior year, which was stuck because I was studying things that I didn’t want to study any longer.
Leonard Spada: But anyway, I got myself out and I needed money. I grew up relatively poor, so I needed money. So I worked for a year doing accounting for a Big Eight accounting firm. Strictly a fundraiser. Like I knew this is just a fundraiser. I worked 90 to a hundred hours a week. They grind you, but I saved everything.
Leonard Spada: So I only had to take loans out for my last year of law school, you know? So, then I went to law school.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. So you knew you wanted to try cases. So after your clerkship, then you went to the DA’s office, right? I guess sort of to follow, I can’t remember his name, but, Jim Hemrock sort of followed his lead, go into the DA’s office.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how was that? [00:12:00] You try a lot of cases, I imagine?
Leonard Spada: I did. I went to the same DA’s office that he was in. I was there while he was still doing his thing. I was so junior that I never actually got to, you know, he was trying to, you know, the most serious offenses, the ones that the public was aware of and I was just starting.
Leonard Spada: So, yeah, I did. I stayed there for three and a half years or so. And I tried a lot. I had over a hundred jury trials when I left.
Jonathan Hawkins: That is amazing.
Leonard Spada: And that was my plan too, because they paid crap. When I was in my most senior moments in the office, I had lawyers working for me and I was making $29,000 a year, you know, and it’s hard to get married, raise a family, you know, and you know, even back then I’m older, but even back then that wasn’t a ton of money. But I got it.
Leonard Spada: So my goal was to get in there and I tried everything. Give it to me. It needs to be tried. I’ll try. Give it to me. So I was very aggressive in taking on cases to try and I had fun. I tell people all the time. It’s probably one of the most [00:13:00] fun jobs I’ve ever had in my life.
Leonard Spada: You know, once you stop playing competitive sports for some of us, it’s in high school. Some of us are in college. Most of us stopped playing, you know, at a very young age. If you still have those competitive juices flowing through you, trial work really satisfies, and the intellectual battles in court and thinking on your feet and also knowing that you were working on the side of victims and doing some really good work. It was fun. It was really, really
Jonathan Hawkins: I would imagine too, I mean, 100 jury trials in three years, that’s a ton. I mean, you can’t prepare probably like to. So you’re going in there and it’s like old school Wild West where you just, you’re going in almost.
Leonard Spada: Well, again, I was trying, you know, at the beginning, drunk driving cases. Okay. And once you’ve tried five or six of them, it’s a pretty standard operating procedure on how are you getting these cases in.
Leonard Spada: The real craftsmanship came in making sure your closing arguments were getting [00:14:00] better each time making sure your cross examinations were getting better.
Leonard Spada: You’re right. You could not, I mean, now if I have a civil case, the level of preparation to try a complicated civil case is insane, so much more work, but you’re still thinking on your feet. The DA’s office was a great training ground for just getting up and making arguments and trying to be persuasive.
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, there’s something to be said. Just doing it to be comfortable. You know, civil cases. I don’t do a ton anymore, but, you know, typically, I imagine your cases too. I mean, you’ve deposed all the main witnesses.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you pretty much know what they’re going to say, pretty much where.
Leonard Spada: If you’ve done your job right., You do.
Jonathan Hawkins: But those cases you probably come in and you’re cross-examining. You’re not sure what they’re going to say. So.
Leonard Spada: That’s actually what produced the adrenaline in those cases too. I mean, I remember some cases that I had where I was prosecuting a drug dealer from one of the neighborhoods of Boston, and it was a big deal to the community, but still, I never forget a case I had where I had, Local [00:15:00] politicians, state representatives, who that was their district.
Leonard Spada: And this guy was a bad guy and they wanted to make sure the police did their job. The prosecutors did their job. And I’ll never forget it. I’m, I’m a young guy. And I have, you know, the press is in the back, police are there, the local politicians are there that, you know, and I’m thinking to myself, wow, this is cool and terrifying all at the same time.
Leonard Spada: Cool because it’s terrifying and really, and then, you know, you try this case for a week and then the verdict, the jury stands up to read the verdict in the first, there were multiple charges.
Leonard Spada: And the first two counts, they are not guilty. So you hear not guilty. As I was just saying that to you now, I still remember how I felt.
Leonard Spada: That I was, Oh my God, I’m going to lose this. And I’m going to have to give a press conference and I’m going to have to talk to my boss. And, you know, and so count one, not guilty. I’m like, Oh no, count two, not guilty. And they were the least [00:16:00] serious of the offenses, but I thought maybe it was a harbinger of things to come, but the rest of them were guilty.
Leonard Spada: And the guy ended up going, doing considerable time in jail. And I was like, Oh, God. You know, and but I mean, that was cool to be able to have those types of experiences as a very young lawyer, you know, cause you don’t get that like as you get old and you try these civil cases, you know, there are parts of it that are exciting, but there are parts of it that are really dry too, like really dry.
Leonard Spada: You’re talking about the building code and why a particular hand railing gave way and you have to try to keep jurors awake. When you’re an expert to testify. I mean, it’s like, it’s a little different than it was dark out. And the guy came in with a gun and gunshots rang out. And like, you know, people are like, they’re listening.
Leonard Spada: It’s not like that. It’s not like that in a slip and you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s cool. I mean, 100 cases that I’m in jury trials. That is huge. You just can’t get that. I mean, maybe,
Leonard Spada: Can’t get it in private.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, I can’t get that really nowadays. So all right, let’s move on. So you got all this [00:17:00] experience, really great experience. But we weren’t making much money and for some reason you said, all right, I gotta go make some money.
Jonathan Hawkins: So what’d you do next?
Leonard Spada: I had a wife and I still have her. She’s been around a long time. We celebrated 30 years of marriage and we met in college. We’ve been together for 30 years. She’s wonderful. But I wanted to, you know, we wanted to have a family. I needed to earn more.
Leonard Spada: There were people in the DA’s office and I envied them. They had either family wealth or whatever. I’m assuming it’s family wealth, we’re all in our twenties. And they could make a career out of being a prosecutor. And I think I might’ve done that if my money was not an issue, but I wanted to buy a home, I wanted to have children. I wanted to do what a lot of young couples wanted to do, and the salary that I was making just wasn’t.
Leonard Spada: So I left, I got a job offer doing civil litigation for its funny story is when I was leaving, contemplating leaving the DA’s office, I sat down with my wife and I said, okay. We want to make sure, you [00:18:00] know, I have some options and I remember talking to her.
Leonard Spada: She’s like, yeah, you gotta make sure it’s a stable firm. One that’s been around a long time, has a good reputation. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense because I had some offers from more entrepreneurial, like firms that are just getting going. They wanted someone who could try cases. Which probably would have been super fun.
Leonard Spada: But I didn’t know these people going to make it. Am I going to be looking for a job in six months or a year? So I go with this established Boston firm. The name of the firm was Parker Colter Daly White. And you notice I said was because I got there in nine months. This firm had been around for 92 years before I got there. Nine months after I got there, partner squabbling dissolved the entire firm.
Leonard Spada: I was like, you gotta be kidding me. You know, luckily a group of lawyers were taken by another big firm. And I was an associate. So the partner I worked for took me with him and the group to another really prominent firm in Boston. And I [00:19:00] landed well, our salaries automatically went up cause you know, and I enjoyed it.
Leonard Spada: And the partner I worked for was generous, he was a genius and he was generous with his time. So I learned so much on the civil side from him. He went on to become a superior court judge and a very well-known and respected judge, so I got really lucky with my mentors and then I worked there for four years and then I started my own firm.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, while you were there, did you get to try any civil cases or
Leonard Spada: I did. And I was just having this conversation with someone the other day, a young lawyer had lunch with a young lawyer yesterday, someone that I got my eyes on. I would love to maybe, you know, have them, like what I’m selling, and come on board. Somebody’s a great guy.
Leonard Spada: And we were talking about because he’s trying cases as a young lawyer and he’s losing his share of cases. I said, listen, when I was on the defense side, I did defense work at this firm. I represented a chain of supermarkets.
Leonard Spada: So I like every time there’s a slip and fall case that went to trial and I was winning them left and right. I thought I was Clarence Darrow [00:20:00] and I was like, you get this. I’m really the cat’s ass here. I can’t lose. And I was telling this young lawyer, I said, and then I went out on the plaintiff side and I got my butt kicked on the first few that I tried as a plaintiff’s lawyer, I was like, wow, this, did I lose my fastball or is this stuff just different?
Leonard Spada: And plaintiff’s work is harder. You’re telling the story, you’re not just trying to rip it apart. You have the burden of proof. It’s much harder. I’m not minimizing what defense attorneys do, some of them are great, but It’s eye-opening once you have to put the case together.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yes interesting you say that. Part of it is you got to craft the story and tell it like you said to not rip it apart. The other thing I’ve seen, the defense mentality if you’re there too long, it’s a delay and you’re probably overworked. So you just can barely keep things but you’re not pushing the cases necessarily we’re on the plaintiff’s side.
Jonathan Hawkins: You gotta push because if you don’t you’re not getting paid, right?
Leonard Spada: Yeah, your interests are not aligned. I’ve told defense lawyers who get too uppity and take [00:21:00] things too personally. I was like, you know, listen, this is a very symbiotic relationship. If I don’t file suits, you don’t have anything to defend. So let’s have some mutual respect for what we do.
Leonard Spada: Okay. And it’s like, there might be an area of a file or a case that we’re going to fight over when I say fight, we’re going to disagree and we’re going to go at it hard, but overall, you know, we both go home to our families. We were working long hours. And there are some, you’re right though, there are some defense lawyers who are rabbit defense lawyers and it’s a philosophical thing for them and I just don’t think they would be terrible plaintiff’s lawyers.
Leonard Spada: And then there’s another group who are really skilled lawyers who see it for what it is, resolve the claims that need to be resolved, try the cases that need to be tried. Be cordial with opposing counsel and just practice law the way I think the law should be practiced, you know, I’m not saying don’t be zealous and just saying, don’t be a jerk and try to keep your eyes open too, because a good plaintiff’s case is a good plaintiff’s case and a [00:22:00] good defense attorney should look at it.
Leonard Spada: Be able to evaluate it and be able to tell the powers that be, I’ll do what you tell me, but you have high exposure here. The plaintiff is a good plaintiff. The lawyer is a good lawyer. The facts are good. The law is on their side. This case is one that, you know, but, their interests are not aligned.
Leonard Spada: They get paid by the hour. Why would I want to resolve a case when I know there’s another $15,000 in bills that I could reasonably rack up, right? I’m thinking from the plaintiff’s point of view, efficiency is important. There’s no need to do that. There’s no data. There’s no information. There are no facts that are going to change what we have here, you know?
Leonard Spada: But then I think I’ve learned to accept it. Do what you gotta do, get all the discovery done as quickly as you can, and remove all billable hour options for them, and then the case usually.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah, so you were on that side for a little while on the defense side, but at some point, you decided to switch and go out on your own.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I want to hear, I guess the first thing is, you know, [00:23:00] why did you feel like you wanted to switch and then what was the spark, what pushed you to actually do it?
Jonathan Hawkins: Cause I know that’s a big decision and I know a lot of attorneys talk about it, but they just never do it.
Leonard Spada: Yeah. It’s a multifaceted decision for me. Doing the defense work, I practice at a high level. I’m proud of it. I’m not embarrassed to say I’m a very good lawyer. I really, truly feel that. I work hard and I think I’m really good at it.
Leonard Spada: When I was doing it, I was aware that I was getting better and better at it. I was also aware that some of the plaintiff’s lawyers I was going up against, not all of them, but some of them were of poor caliber and were not giving their clients a really good fight at all.
Leonard Spada: You know, they were allowing clients to be steamrolled by lawyers like myself at that point who were doing the steamrolling and I didn’t feel good about it. I also saw how much money I paid when I say, my clients paid to lawyers who I thought were well below [00:24:00] me on skill level.
Leonard Spada: And I see these lawyers who are clearly making more money than me, clearly providing for their family better than I am, having a better lifestyle than I am, who I don’t think is even close to being as good a lawyer as I am.
Leonard Spada: That was in my head. I remember I was a poor kid from East Boston. I definitely had in my mind, I would like to be a high earner at some point. I also was able while I was at this defense firm to begin taking some plaintiff’s cases. They allowed me to.
Leonard Spada: So I had a friend who eventually became my law partner who ran out of law school, didn’t know anything. Opened up his own shop. I loved him. We’ll talk about him in a minute, but he would call me up constantly. Okay. I got this.
Leonard Spada: What do you think of this? What is it? I was constantly taking calls from his name Vin. I was like, how does this guy get all these people calling him? He doesn’t even know where the courthouse is.
Leonard Spada: So I would give him all this. So he would send me things and I would ask the firm if I could keep the case. And I had a select, you [00:25:00] know, few cases that were decent traumatic brain injury cases, one sticks in my mind. So I was now preparing cases. Plaintiff’s cases in a 95%, 98% defense atmosphere.
Leonard Spada: And there were obstacles and barriers. I had to go through a contingent fee committee where I would present why this is a case the firm should allow me to hold and give them a budget on what my expenses look like.
Leonard Spada: It was a pain in the ass. Okay. Because there were times when, by the time I could get back to a client, say, yes, I can accept your case. They had gone to another firm in Boston. And on the ones that they did allow me to keep every time I needed an expert in order to prosecute a good, personal injury case, you need to have the financial wherewithal to hire experts.
Leonard Spada: They would give me pushback. Do you really need an expert? I’m like, it’s a traumatic brain injury case. How do you expect me to try this? I can’t get up there and talk about a brain injury or a neuro-psych exam. And I ran into it. And they [00:26:00] knew that because they did the defense of this stuff. And It became a complete pain. I got frustrated.
Leonard Spada: So I reached out to Vin who kept calling me, trying to send me work. And I made a decision. I was just a few months away from a partnership vote where I was on the ballot. And I would so I can’t definitively say I would have become a partner, but when I gave my notice to leave.
Leonard Spada: They told me to stay with the partnership votes coming so I can only read into that it was a done deal that I would have become a partner, but there was a breaking point, one of the partners called me into the office, we were talking about a case, and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.
Leonard Spada: My wife was pregnant, we were having our first child. I was excited and the partner had a picture on his desk of his son with a soccer ball. You know, those, you know, bring you it’s it’s picture day and cute little kid probably was like 8 or 10 and he had a soccer ball, big smile. And I was just thinking about I’m going to have a kid soon. I’m excited.
Leonard Spada: So I said to him, Oh, your boy, good-looking boy must be a great soccer player. [00:27:00] I’ll never forget. He looked me in the eye and he’s like, so I’m told what a straight face. I was like, what are you talking about? He’s like, when you stay in this business, you’re not going to watch a lot of soccer games.
Leonard Spada: That was it. I was done.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s sad.
Leonard Spada: Yeah. And he meant it. And it like, that was a long time ago. That was 1998. And I still can hear him saying that. And I was like, I’m done. I’m out. You know, and I made my plans and got some you know, an office space. And we started working on behind the scenes on doing what we did.
Leonard Spada: And my wife was eight, nine months pregnant. She thought I was, God bless her. She slept by month. There must’ve been moments when she was like,
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. I mean, that’s, you go from a steady paycheck to the plaintiff side where maybe your friend said, I’ll front you some money, but it’s you know, so you’re like, all right, I’m going from this money to zero, you’re about to have a baby and trust me, it’s going to be great.
Jonathan Hawkins: How’d you sell that?
Leonard Spada: From, from hero to zero.
Jonathan Hawkins: How’d you sell [00:28:00] that?
Leonard Spada: Well, fortunately, the wife was working at the time. My wife’s always done very well. She’s a very smart executive. And so I’ve had the blessing of having at least early on, you know, two incomes, so I could take a shot. I also had a lawyer who became a friend who was overwhelmed with the work.
Leonard Spada: So as soon as I stepped out, he couldn’t wait to dump smaller, somewhat crappy plaintiff’s personal injury cases on me. So I had some work to do and I was, you know, necessities the mother of invention, they say. I had never felt so full of hustle. And like, this has to work. There’s no plan B.
Leonard Spada: And I haven’t felt that way in a while. And there are times in my career where I wish I had felt more of it because I got into the fat and happy stage where you lose your innovation, you lose a little spark because life’s too full.
Leonard Spada: There’s money, there’s food, there’s housing. You mean you don’t have any deprivation in your [00:29:00] life. And it’s hard to recreate that feeling if it doesn’t truly exist.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, that point, that is so true. I’ve been at those moments in my life too. I mean, you’re comfortable, it’s great, but comfort is sort of the enemy of doing cool stuff sometimes, ’cause you’re not going to do it. And then, I also think about, and I’ve talked to other people about this, but my kids, so it’s like, we create this environment, you know, that is so comfortable for them too.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s how do you instill in them that grit and that drive and whatnot because it’s hard. And I’ve always found, I don’t like overwhelming stress and fear, but I like a little, you want a little, that’s going to push you to do things that maybe you wouldn’t otherwise do.
Leonard Spada: Well, you just said something that I have thought about a lot. My son will be 27 in January and my daughter is 24. And now know that I don’t have to worry about them having the grit and all that. When they were younger, I saw how I grew up and I saw what motivated me to really work harder than most people.
Leonard Spada: I was obsessed. And then I [00:30:00] saw how I was raising, my wife and I were raising our children. They grew up affluent, okay. They grew up in a beautiful home. They went to private schools. And so on one hand, I was this old school Italian first generation, you know, like I want to give my kids everything.
Leonard Spada: Then I’m thinking to myself, Oh my God, I hope they don’t become these soft wimps and have no, you know, drive. And you use the word grit, which is a great book, by the way. And we worried about it.
Leonard Spada: So I think I was kind of tough on the kids in a certain way and pushed them a little, maybe at times a little too hard in athletics and cause that was an avenue that they both pursued and there’s a lot of opportunity in youth sports and high school sports to push somebody to see what they’re made out of.
Leonard Spada: And fortunately I think you know, my wife mainly, but I think we both did a really good job saying, Hey kids, you’re not wealthy. Maybe mom and I are, but you are not, you know, the old Shaquille O’Neal, like his kids came to him and said, Hey dad, we’re rich and response was, we’re not rich, I’m rich, you know, which I think is a great way of [00:31:00] looking at it if you happen to been blessed with, you know, having a good living and, and, you know, being comfortable.
Leonard Spada: So definitely an issue. People think that, Oh, you know, you have no concerns when you don’t want to raise spoiled entitled brats, you know, you’ve done the world a disservice by doing that.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, it sounds like yours are doing well. So, kudos to you.
Leonard Spada: They are. God bless. Yeah, they’re doing great.
Jonathan Hawkins: So I want to get back. So you left and you went out with your friend. So you had, you started the firm, you had a partner. And I want to fast forward a little bit because I understand that at some point he passed away suddenly.
Jonathan Hawkins: And that has to be just a traumatic sort of experience. You’ve got your partner there and also, and they’re not, and then you’re having to deal with the emotions, but then also deal with the business too.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, take me back a little bit. What was that like in the moment? I mean, how did you handle it?
Leonard Spada: It was a seismic event. Okay. It was named Vin Zulu. The name of the firm was spotted in Zulu and we had been practicing for 18 years together.
Leonard Spada: And one Monday [00:32:00] morning we get a phone call. I saw him on Friday. I said, then, chat with you, have a great weekend, and we both had kids, similar ages, and we had a lot in common.
Leonard Spada: And we get a phone call, and it’s a crying, screaming woman on the other end of the phone. He’s gone, and I didn’t take the call, but I could hear Robin, who has worked for me, or others, Joan, saying, Ooh, what are you talking about? Who’s gone? And then I saw the look on their face.
Leonard Spada: Then he died. He had a massive heart attack on a Monday morning in his home and died. They couldn’t revive him. And he had a teenage daughter living home at the time who was trying to give them CPR. It was just, it was terrible. Okay.
Leonard Spada: So like the shock of losing someone that I loved and was like a brother to me. We had so many fun times together. Just think of a couple of kids from the city who started a law firm and they’re doing well and we had so much fun.
Leonard Spada: We had a lot of fun. It’s there always. We worked hard, really hard. And we had a lot of laughs. He was just [00:33:00] someone I loved him. Okay. And he was gone.
Leonard Spada: And he was a rainmaker. He was not the technical guy. Okay. That was my role. I was the one litigating the cases. He was making it rain. His family had strong ties in the area that we had our firm. They own businesses. They were very well known.
Leonard Spada: So we got a lot of business just because of Vin. Vin knew everyone. Vin was the type of guy if you saw him, everyone loved him. You know, he couldn’t go to a Bruins game or Patriots game without, you know, giving up 50 cards, call me and he was everybody’s friend. And I learned a lot about soft marketing and relationship marketing from watching him.
Leonard Spada: But he died and now I had a staff, I had to run the firm, and to make things worse, two weeks after he died, I was diagnosed with cancer.
Jonathan Hawkins: Oh man.
Leonard Spada: So now. You know, I can imagine the resumes were flying out of the, know, this ship is about to hit the iceberg and it’s going that worked out.
Leonard Spada: I got healthy. It wasn’t the [00:34:00] type of cancer. It was the type of, if someone says you have to have it, it’s the kind you want. So anything worked out, but I was terrified. Both from a business and a personal point of view, but we managed, we have great.
Leonard Spada: Some of the staff members are still with me today and I give them all the credit. They just like, put their heads down and like, we’re not leaving, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: Yeah. You know, so my last firm I joined and then within six months, one of the partners passed away. But we had, it was like six of us, six partners, and I think we had maybe eight associates. So we had a pretty big bench to come around it. And I frankly didn’t really know her that well ’cause I’d barely been there.
Jonathan Hawkins: But, you know, we were pretty diversified, I’ll say in terms of the different people that, so it was a little bit easier to survive and we could come around it, but with you, you know, like you said, the Rainmaker or one of the big Rainmakers gone your long time friend, just boom avoid.
Jonathan Hawkins: So how did you.
Leonard Spada: It was horrible.
Jonathan Hawkins: How did you carry it on? I mean, what and then of course, you know, you said you had your own [00:35:00] cancer scare. So I mean, how did you get through it?
Leonard Spada: Well, not without the support of, you know, it sounds like a cliche, but not without a lot of support from my wife and my family and my staff, I have to really give a huge shout-out to the rocks that are still there. I have two women who’ve, one who’s worked with me for 21 years and one who’s worked with me for 17 years.
Leonard Spada: And they’re amazing. Without them, I would not have been able to pull out of this spiral. Once the woman’s name is Robin. The other one is Jonah. And you know, I try to stay away from the whole where a family type discussion because business is business, but they’re about as close as family to me as anyone in the business world could be.
Leonard Spada: And they just refused. I mean, they worked tirelessly. It was not a nine-to-five job for them and they were committed to helping me. And what we did do is I think another shout-out goes to Ben Glass. [00:36:00] I didn’t know how to market. I never had to go out and, you know, it wasn’t, you know, people say, Oh, the expression, you kill what you eat.
Leonard Spada: Well, I was eating what somebody else was killing, you know, and I needed to go find my own customers and clients. So I joined Ben Glass’s Great Legal Marketing. Ben taught me, not just the nuts and bolts, which I did learn from him, but also a mindset, a growth mindset you know, he’s been an unbelievable mentor to me and without him and what I’ve learned from him and the confidence that he gave me that I could do this.
Leonard Spada: I think that’s the main thing you can learn marketing in different places, but without the confidence that, Hey, you can do this and we’ll show you how. And I started to learn how to market and I developed my own skill set for business. You know, I wasn’t just the trial lawyer, I was. I need to find the clients as well.
Leonard Spada: So knowing that I guess it’s a necessity, it goes back to necessity. I needed to figure out how to market, or I needed to hire someone to market for me, and that was never really a serious [00:37:00] consideration.
Jonathan Hawkins: So that’s a good segue. So you do some really good stuff. I’ll call it grassroots marketing stuff. And so it’s a good segue to talk about that. I heard you speak about that at the conference a couple of weeks ago. And You know, two things that stood out to me is you know, you’re very active sort of in the biker community. You get a lot of cases there.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’re active there. And then you mentioned earlier also in the Hispanic community. And the thing that’s interesting to me is and correct me wrong.
Leonard Spada: No way, I Know Know what you guys say.,
Jonathan Hawkins: You’re not a biker and do you speak Spanish? A little bit?
Leonard Spada: Poquito? Yeah.
Leonard Spada: No.
Jonathan Hawkins: So that’s really interesting to me. You know a lot of people that have, I’ll call it affinity marketing. You know, they have a connection to the group, either they’re in it or they’re sort of their, you know, it’s their culture, whatever, but you sort of, you’re there a little bit.
Jonathan Hawkins: How did you cultivate that and really get into those communities and make it work?
Leonard Spada: Well, I think I should begin by saying that what I’ve learned is [00:38:00] that whatever affinity group that you’re marketing to if they believe that you authentically care about their community, they care a lot less as to whether or not you’re a part of that community. Okay?
Leonard Spada: So you have to make sure anybody that’s listening if you’re doing something just because it’s a group that you think is, you know, target rich and you can make money off, it’s not going to work long term.
Leonard Spada: You have to really deeply care about helping that community. And then you’ll be accepted because any community that knows this person of people from really wants to help me, they open up and they trust you. And that’s the key.
Leonard Spada: So with the biker community I always, well, when I was very young, I rode briefly. Okay. When I was like my teenage years, I had a, you know, Honda 750 Super sport that I would ride. And, you know, my mother, old school Italian was just terrified I was going to kill myself.
Leonard Spada: If you’ve ever seen how I drive a car, you would agree that I should not be on a bike. Okay. [00:39:00] I’m not a good driver and I finally accepted that. But the community, the biker community. Is one that I got exposed to by handling cases here and there. And I got to meet, you know, people in the community and I’m really fond of the community.
Leonard Spada: They are for all the stereotypes that exist about bikers, some of them are true and some of them are not, okay. They’re not all one percenters. they’re not all got a criminal rap sheet, you know, just like every other community, some do, some don’t.
Leonard Spada: But one thing that’s true in that community is, they are a community, they care about one another, they come to each other’s aid when that’s needed, they love one another.
Leonard Spada: They’re dysfunctional to the extent that we all have some crazy stuff about us, but the way they stick together is both what I love about them and what has made it such a great group to market to, that if one biker tells another bike, you need to call them. They’re all calling me. Okay?
Leonard Spada: So it’s like, I’m a trusted advisor to a [00:40:00] community. So they call me for car accidents. I mean, it’s New England, they’re only riding their bikes for 10, 12 weeks out of the year, you know, so I’m getting car accident cases and workers comp cases and slip and fall whatever they need. They’ll call me Okay, so I love that group. They’re fun to hang out with too.
Leonard Spada: Now. Do I go out with them all the time? No, I don’t ride and some of them are younger and rougher and you know, I’m an older guy to go home at night, but they’re a fun group.
Leonard Spada: So when we have events, I love seeing them in one of my favorite events of the years, the rallies, the rides that we do. On the Spanish side that came to be because I was geographically, the original office in Chelsea is geographically in a community that has become predominantly Hispanic when I grew up.
Leonard Spada: We were predominantly an Italian community. My grandparents came over from Italy, immigrants, people weren’t speaking English, they were speaking Italian. It’s just changed over the decades, but my presence in this location was [00:41:00] a constant.
Leonard Spada: So I started getting some Spanish clients here, some Spanish clients there. And I quickly realized that the immigrant experience that I was seeing in front of me every day. With Latinos wasn’t much different except for the language than what I experienced.
Leonard Spada: And I always felt like, you know, God gives us all talents and things that we need to make sure we use those talents and give them away and help.
Leonard Spada: And as odd as it sounds, helping people through the process of a catastrophic injury or injury case where, you know, they don’t speak the language, they’re confronted with a legal system that’s foreign to them and us being their advocates. And sort of, you know, the David versus Goliath mentality. I love that.
Leonard Spada: I love sticking up for the underdog. I love sticking up for somebody that might be treated differently because the language is not English or then their country of origin is not the United States. So I like sticking up. I think I, I have that anti-bully [00:42:00] DNA
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s perfect for a plaintiff’s lawyer, right?
Leonard Spada: Yeah. Yo, it really is. And you know, one of our slogans is we make it a fair fight and we do, you know, you get some immigrant from another country comes here, it gets into a bad accident, we file a lawsuit or insurance companies, not all of them, I’m not trying to paint them all with the same brush, but there are definitely instances where I’ve seen.
Leonard Spada: Because my client had a Spanish or Hispanic last surname or they were a blue-collar worker or, you know, they were treated differently than if I had a white affluent client who I represent as well.
Leonard Spada: But I mean, the disparity of treatment is not going to happen on my watch and I’ve always sort of taken that city kid mentality to the courtroom, to the practice of law. So I love it. And I have found that if you treat the community, the Latino community with respect, and you give them a really serious, fair fight, they’re very loyal. Okay.
Leonard Spada: Then they’re not likely to go call another lawyer. I mean, you’re their lawyer. [00:43:00] I have one family with the last name I won’t mention for confidentiality. But from 1998, when I opened to today, you know, her family has come over, you know, in droves with, you know, all their cousins and I have so many.
Leonard Spada: So, when you’re migrating data from one case management system to another, I’m like, Oh my God, look how many, and that makes me happy that we’ve been a trusted member of the community for that long, that’s who you call and I have staff members who have been referred to me by this woman and really good staff members like gems.
Leonard Spada: So, that’s sort of how, and so I don’t speak Spanish. I’ve been learning, but I don’t know about you, I’m having a hard time having it stick. I’m so busy doing other things and.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, you almost just like go live somewhere for nine months.
Leonard Spada: Yeah. I was taking Spanish lessons every Wednesday online and I was getting a little better and then the summer came and I stopped and I get back into [00:44:00] it. But they do appreciate it when you make an effort.
Leonard Spada: So when they come to the office and I try, they’ll laugh at me if I, you know, but that’s okay.
Leonard Spada: I think they still appreciate the effort and our office. You know, out of the 19 people we have, there’s only four of us who do not speak Spanish. You know, so there’s, there’s 15 out of 19 Spanish speakers. It’s pretty cool. There’s not a lot of law firms out there that, you know,
Jonathan Hawkins: That is cool.
Leonard Spada: They can say that.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you also talked earlier about these new locations that you opened and that’s, I guess, related to the Spanish-speaking communities. But what’s it like? You know, I’ve talked to some other attorneys who’ve opened another location. Yeah. What’s the, I’ll just say sort of your process?
Jonathan Hawkins: I mean, all of a sudden you’re having to manage a remote office. I don’t know how many people are actually staffed there. And then you got all the, just the blocking and tackling, getting the internet in there and the furniture and all that stuff you have to do.
Jonathan Hawkins: How do you manage it?
Jonathan Hawkins: And what’s your thought process as you consider opening new offices?
Leonard Spada: Don’t open an office if somebody [00:45:00] calls and says, I want to come to do an intake with you. If you can’t accommodate, don’t just have a physical office for, you know, Google business profiles.
Leonard Spada: So I think having a physical office is very important. I do not think initially on day one, you have to have a staff, eight hours per day.
Leonard Spada: We don’t, we have our Springfield office. We have somebody. Full-time in the Springfield office. The Lawrence office is close enough to my Chelsea location that we man that a few days per week. Okay. With the goal of gradually adding people and time so that it’s a fully, you know, our Chelsea office has most of our employees.
Leonard Spada: But we do have employees who go to other locations. So, it’s also very important, like if you want to service a particular area, the way our marketing is these days, you know, I know the people that are listening to this, some of them might be well versed in, you know, digital marketing [00:46:00] and what’s the importance of having a physical location.
Leonard Spada: Well, when somebody in Lawrence is looking for a lawyer and they Google, like, I need a lawyer near me, or I need a car accident lawyer near me, or a malpractice lawyer near me, the signals, Google’s algorithm, and signals, they’re going to present people to this person that’s looking for someone who has a geographic location.
Leonard Spada: So I can’t have a meaningful presence in a community without a physical office, in my opinion. Okay. And in the Hispanic community, especially, that ability to go to your lawyer’s office to talk to somebody, to drop off documents that you may have received. They still like that much more and utilize that much more than the English-speaking community.
Leonard Spada: In our main office, the vast majority of in-person intakes, I mean, the vast majority, we’re probably 90 plus percent are Spanish speakers. They want to come in, they want to see an office. They want to meet their lawyer.
Leonard Spada: They want to meet people, whereas, my English [00:47:00] speaking new clients will do a Zoom. Do I have to come in? I don’t want to come in. So it’s, it’s a real stark difference between the two communities.
Leonard Spada: So having a physical presence, even if it’s not staffed 20, five days a week, eight hours per day is really important. Talked about like, you know, the nuts and bolts of like, Internet. That’s a pain in the neck. I’m not gonna lie. Okay.
Leonard Spada: You know, we have an I.T. person who sets up the offices and you know, it’s definitely work to get it up and running. And,
Jonathan Hawkins: So do you Len? Does Len go to all the offices or are you spending time at all the offices throughout the week, throughout the month?
Leonard Spada: I do. I’m next week. Springfield’s a ride. Springfield’s two hours. So I’ll go out there. My goal is to get there a couple times a month. Lawrence more, a little bit more than that. But yeah, I see my role evolving so that I was just having this discussion with my wife, like my goal is to be a day or two in the main office.
Leonard Spada: And then a couple of days in the other offices, you know, I like doing that. I think that’s probably a good use of [00:48:00] my time is to get out into those communities myself, to meet people in those communities. So it’s something I enjoy too.
Jonathan Hawkins: So you’ve been at this for a good long time. You’ve been through a lot of different sorts of iterations. Every career sounds like things are going great. You’re up in a new office. What’s looking down the road? What’s the long-term or the longer-term vision for you? Where do you see things going?
Leonard Spada: Well, longer-term vision is to be the premier personal injury firm in Massachusetts for the Hispanic community. So that it’s, you know, if you’re a Hispanic in Massachusetts and you need a personal injury lawyer, we’re a top of mind.
Leonard Spada: Obviously in the same conversation with some of the real big names, but we want to own that niche. We really don’t. Personally, my goal is to never retire, but not always work as many hours.
Leonard Spada: My wife is still working. So my personal goal is. Once we become [00:49:00] grandparents, which I’m hoping is soon. My son’s getting married in July. I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t wait too long, I’m really looking forward to having grandchildren.
Leonard Spada: And then when that happens I know my wife will be she probably doesn’t want to work anymore and she’ll want to spend a lot more time with the grandkids and what I want to be able to give her and my grandchildren is time.
Leonard Spada: So I would like to keep the firm but have a reduced work schedule so that my wife and I can do some personal travel. We put a lot of things on hold, raising kids, building a business while we’re still healthy, do some traveling, spend some time with our grandkids, but I will never be the type that I’m retired and I golf a lot and I like work like I get.
Leonard Spada: And people listening to this might be like, Oh, he’s full of crap. I wake up on a Monday morning. I really am excited to get started, to see my staff, to get involved in the business of the law. It is what it is. It’s like, it’s not for everybody. I love it.
Leonard Spada: So for me to wake up and not have, my firm, which is like another child to me, you know, I don’t [00:50:00] want that, you know, but I do want to be able to say I’m golfing today.
Leonard Spada: Well, my wife and I are going to Europe for 10 days and I know the firm runs without me, which it does very well right now. There’s a few components that I’m working on that once those are done.
Leonard Spada: My daily, the need for me daily in the firm will be almost zero. And then we’ll work on how does the firm grows without me, like the firm can operate without me, but it’s not at the point where it can grow without me. And
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s the last frontier.
Leonard Spada: It really is. And I need a lot of help with that. And I’m asking, you know, people way smarter than me for advice on how that because I’d like to back away, but still see it on a good trajectory. You know, I don’t want to see it die. You see some people, they leave their firm, or they start working part-time, and the firm sort of loses its culture and starts to fade away.
Leonard Spada: I don’t want that.
Jonathan Hawkins: I’m with you. It’s fun for me. And it’s like another child and you want to see the child thrive and grow and all that. So I’m with you [00:51:00] on that.
Jonathan Hawkins: So, you’ve got a few more steps. You’re pretty far along on the evolution of, you know, building a business, building a law firm for those that are sort of not as far along, or maybe just not getting started.
Jonathan Hawkins: Do you have any pieces of advice on, you know, going out and getting started,
Leonard Spada: Find a mentor. Find people that are already doing what it is you think you’d like to do and learn from them. Okay. It’s like I learned so much. I stagnated for so long because I didn’t take the step to get a mentor to sit in a room with people who are far ahead of me on the business journey and learn from it.
Leonard Spada: And there are people out there who are so willing to teach. I will be one of those as well. At some point, I loved mentoring, but that was what changed my life the most. Getting a mentor, getting into groups. Don’t think of joining mastermind groups or marketing groups or as a [00:52:00] cost on a profit and loss statement.
Leonard Spada: They are pure investments. Some investments have higher returns than others. So you may have to learn from trial and error, but into a room where you’re learning what it is you want to learn and what it is you need to learn. And do that as early on in your career as possible because it compounds. It really does.
Leonard Spada: And the things that I’ve learned sitting in mastermind groups is mind-boggling. Like I’m doing things now and people be like, Oh my God, such a great idea. I’m like, it’s not my idea. You know what I mean? That’s like some generous lawyer from Arizona sat down with me and took a Zoom call and I sent them a gift card for a restaurant.
Leonard Spada: Like, you know, it’s like people are willing to help people. That would be my, I have a son who’s an engineer and I keep trying to explain to him and my daughter now is entering the workforce. There are also other things you need to do like, you know, publish if you have an opportunity to get, you know, become a subject matter expert as quickly as you can.
Leonard Spada: You know, if you have an opportunity to [00:53:00] speak on a subject. It’s a lot of work. None of this, there isn’t a silver bullet, but there are things that you can do that will expedite your progress.
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, I’m all with you on the investment versus cost. A lot of lawyers have this mentality that it’s a cost, it’s an expense.
Leonard Spada: I had that.
Jonathan Hawkins: It’s interesting. We all took, most of us took three years out of the workforce, paid a bunch of money to go to law school, and you know, it costs money, but we all view that as an investment, and hopefully, it’s paying off, right?
Jonathan Hawkins: And then all of a sudden you get out of law school, and you’re like, I don’t ever want to invest in my career again. A lot of people have that attitude.
Leonard Spada: Yeah, I agree with you. The law school is a ticket to get into the game. Okay. Once you get into the game, you know, you need to learn the rules of the game. You need to watch the players who play the game well.
Leonard Spada: And you know, you need to be the backup quarterback for a while, you know, and learn and I just wish, and sometimes I have this regret, I just wish I did, like, I’m doing a lot of great things now, and I’m a little pissed that I’m 59 years [00:54:00] old.
Leonard Spada: I wish I was doing it at 39 or 49, you know, because my runway would have been a little bit longer, and I don’t get too crazy with that regret, but I’m doing some really good stuff now, and I just wish I had started earlier and anybody that’s listening I’m giving good advice on the get a mentor, learn it, sounds so trite, you know, get a mentor and like, but it’s how else are you going to learn unless you’re in a firm environment where you have fellow employees and supervisors and partners.
Leonard Spada: We’re prepared to train you, but if you’re an entrepreneurial type and you want to go out and venture out into, you know, on your own, I think that’s the way to go, nothing’s more exciting. Not knowing if you’re going to survive, it’s pretty exciting.
Jonathan Hawkins: And you know, it’s interesting, no matter how far along you are, and you are very far along, you always feel like you see people that are farther along and then sometimes you forget how far you’ve come and you’re sort of like.
Leonard Spada: That’s a great
Jonathan Hawkins: You know, you’ve done a lot, just like a lot of people have [00:55:00] to.
Jonathan Hawkins: And I know I look ahead at people like you and others and I’m like, damn, there’s so far along, you know, I gotta do more. I gotta do all these things to get there. And you know, I do, but everybody, there’s always more to do. But I think.
Leonard Spada: Well, that’s a great point. You’re going to celebrate the wins too. And I don’t do that nearly as I don’t look at other people farther along than me. With envy or I’m happy that I’ve gotten to this point in my life where I’m actually happy for people, but I am parasitic in the sense that, okay, I want to learn.
Leonard Spada: I mean, how did you do that? Like, you have to have that curiosity. And it’s not just older people that are doing better than me. I see some younger people who are killing it. And I’m really proud to see that. And like, I want to learn how they did it. And I want to, you know, sometimes generationally, some of us were older, like, damn, I didn’t even, you know, for example, just the digital stuff.
Leonard Spada: Like I see lawyers on TikTok. My eyes don’t roll anymore and ridicule. I’m like, Matt, that guy, [00:56:00] that woman’s got it going on. Look at the kind of business that he or she is developing. Might not end up, might not be right for me. Like, it’s not going to fit my personality to do a TikTok dance or something, you know what I mean?
Leonard Spada: It’s just, or you, whatever. But there’s so much to learn from people who are ahead of you that are older, people who are ahead of you that are younger, you know, somebody who’s 35. It was already so far along in the path and you, that’s pretty cool. They figured something out
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, the other cool thing, you know, with Ben Glass, you mentioned earlier in great legal marketing, there are people that are doing all these things and I think it’s cool.
Jonathan Hawkins: So like for me, You see, there’s all these things you can do and they all work. They work better when you do all of them together, probably, but you can’t do them all at once.
Jonathan Hawkins: And it’s sort of like, you just have to build brick by brick and, you know, you might be really good at TikTok and not good at something else or vice versa, and it’s like, okay, well, I’ll borrow a little of that. And maybe I’ll start building with those bricks too.
Leonard Spada: That’s something else I’d like to leave anyone else that’s watching this, that’s thinking about it. [00:57:00] When I first joined Great Legal Marketing, I came away from this summit and it was like drinking from a fire hose to use that, you know, an allergy that everyone talks about. And I did everything, but I did it too fast.
Leonard Spada: Like I never had a print newsletter. I had a print newsletter. you know, I implemented everything I could to the expense of cash. So it was like, Oh my God, I’ve done all of this. I’ve blown through all my money. Okay.
Leonard Spada: So, and it’s pretty simple. I was a finance accounting major. This isn’t rocket science. I had to know this could happen, but I didn’t give it enough thought. I was so excited about doing everything. You make a good point. When you go and you learn something, have a plan. Okay.
Leonard Spada: This quarter, would say live by quarters, have a 90-day plan. And implement something, not multiple things, don’t get yourself to the point where you’re overwhelmed, but pick one and then be obsessive about making sure that you get that launched in Q1, Q2, whatever quarter you’re in, [00:58:00] and then you’ll be amazed at how quickly If you live, you break your life down into 90 day periods like that, and you implement small.
Leonard Spada: I look back now and I think of all the things I’ve implemented it’s, you know, I had somebody that works for me, her name is Robin, who said to me, and it meant a lot to me, she said, she’s like, you know, you’re the captain of the ship and like, I’m amazed that she’s known me for so long.
Leonard Spada: All the risk that you’re willing to take and all the things that you’ve implemented, look at us, so made me feel good because I don’t Celebrate those small wins and she’s been around for the whole ride and she realizes that she’s driving a much nicer ship than she had when we first started, you know, and that made me feel good.
Leonard Spada: But I think if I had to go back in time, I would try not to eat the elephant in one bite, you know.
Jonathan Hawkins: Well, and that’s great advice. And we’ve been going a while. You’ve been very generous with your time. I appreciate you sharing your journey and you know, you’ve been through a lot and I think people can get a lot from this, so really appreciate you coming on and love getting to know you, man.
Jonathan Hawkins: Can’t wait to get to know you [00:59:00] more.
Leonard Spada: I want to thank you for having me. I appreciate it. I enjoy chatting about this. But, we talk about mentorship. And we talked about the importance of it, and I want anyone that’s watching it to know that I’m very serious, that if somebody’s watching this and has a question, or wants to ask me something more about some of the things I’ve done in the past, I’ll be more than happy to discuss all the failures as well, so they don’t make them. And I’m available. I enjoy that.
Leonard Spada: So if there is a younger or even older lawyer out there who wants to reach me I’ll give, I’d give my cell phone number to them. They can call me or, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s 617 256 4005. Call me, and say, listen, I heard you on the podcast. Would you mind answering some questions and I’ll give you some time and we’ll chat.
Jonathan Hawkins: That’s very generous. Other than your cell phone, what’s another good place online or wherever to find you?
Leonard Spada: My email, LSpada, SpadaLawGroup.com. That’s about the only [01:00:00] ways, if you call the office, you’re going to get my intake people. And you’re going to go through the process of being vetted.
Leonard Spada: I’ve put up some barriers between myself and the general public. So that just I could actually get work done.
Leonard Spada: But my cell number is, you know, I don’t hide my cell number. I don’t give it out to every client, but people say, how can I reach you? It’s my cell phone.
Jonathan Hawkins: We’ll end again. Appreciate you coming on. It’s been great.
Leonard Spada: Pleasure. It was nice to see you. I’ll see you again soon. Hopefully.
Jonathan Hawkins: Thank you.
Leonard Spada: Take care.
