3 Tips to Grow an Estate Planning Firm

Interview Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:12:00  

TYLER DOLPH  

Listen to how Andy Strauss went from working at his family business to being a manager at Xerox, to ultimately starting building and running a very successful  

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TYLER DOLPH  

family law firm.

00:00:16:12 – 00:00:28:26  

TYLER DOLPH  

Welcome back to The Revenue Roadmap, a podcast designed for family law firm owners who are looking to level up their practice, learn from experts, and take their firm to the next level.

00:00:28:26 – 00:00:38:17  

TYLER DOLPH  

My name is Tyler Dolph. I am the CEO of Rocket Clicks, a hyper-focused digital marketing firm that works exclusively with family lawyers across the country.

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TYLER DOLPH  

We also own and operate our own family law firm called Sterling Lawyers. That has grown to over 30 attorneys across two different states.

00:00:46:24 – 00:00:58:29  

TYLER DOLPH  

Today we are interviewing Andrew Strauss, the founder of Strauss Attorneys. Andrew’s story is an awesome one. He leveraged his prior business experience to own and  

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TYLER DOLPH  

build a law firm based on business principles and practices, and now is  

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TYLER DOLPH  

very successful.

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TYLER DOLPH  

He has a great story and I hope you enjoy it.

00:01:08:17 – 00:01:18:17  

TYLER DOLPH  

Okay. Welcome everyone back to another exciting episode of Revenue Roadmap. Today we are very lucky to have Andy Strauss with us  

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TYLER DOLPH  

of Strauss Attorneys. Andy, thank you so much for your time and being here today. We really  

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ANDY STRAUSS  

It’s a pleasure to be with you. Hope I can give you some, productive information that’s useful for everybody.  

00:01:32:28 – 00:01:43:29  

TYLER DOLPH  

No, I’m sure you will. Let’s kick us off and get started. Andy, will you tell us a little bit about your story, your background, how did you start out in this space and where are you today?  

00:01:44:26 – 00:02:16:24  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Well, I’d be happy to, where I started out and where I ended up was not part of a master strategic plan. I wish I could say, I wish I could say it was, I started out in a traditional law, track. I. But I worked for a federal judge and then worked for a very large law firm down in Jacksonville, Florida that, became, purchased by McGuire Wood out of Richmond, Virginia, a major law firm.  

00:02:16:27 – 00:02:44:03  

ANDY STRAUSS  

I did corporate securities work, and a couple of years into my practice. My father, asked me to come back and work in a family business. He did not have any successors in the family. And he said, you’re the one. And so my newly married wife and I, packed our bags from Jacksonville, Florida, and moved back to, Pittsburgh and where I grew up.  

00:02:44:05 – 00:03:28:11  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And, six months later, the family that, they are the, the owners of the business, my father included, sold the business to Xerox. And so I ended up working for Xerox for ten years. Not in a, yeah, not in a legal, position, but really kind of as a manager of a business, which served me well when I got into practicing law for myself because I had experience actually in accounting and managing a business, and real life, hands on, experience with good training from Xerox.  

00:03:28:14 – 00:03:57:24  

ANDY STRAUSS  

They ended up selling our business to GE, and I, was looking around for something to do while that transition was going on. And a good friend of mine from college, I went to a business school, Wharton in Philadelphia, and, a good friend of mine from that school, was a CPA, and he, was, assigned to a company down in Asheville, North Carolina, where I now live.  

00:03:57:26 – 00:04:22:13  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And he said, Andy, I think we could buy this company that I’ve been working on there. I’ve been cleaning it up for sale. And so we put together a venture capital group and bought the company. Yeah. It was, a $50 million manufacturer, surgical drapes and gowns and protective masks. And, we had a good story.  

00:04:22:13 – 00:04:45:25  

ANDY STRAUSS  

It was right when Aids was in its heyday, and everybody was coating themselves with plastic and protective gear, and we said we can produce some of that even though it’s kind of a commodity item. So I moved down to Asheville, North Carolina, where I had never been before. But it’s an absolutely beautiful place, and I’m so glad I moved.  

00:04:45:27 – 00:05:22:06  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And, at that point had a four year old daughter. My first wife had passed away, unfortunately, and I was a single dad, involved in a, venture capital deal down in Asheville, North Carolina. So we did. Sold that—long story short—a couple of years later to a company that had gone public and had lots of cash, and so we cashed out. And I went and I said to myself, I need to take some time off.  

00:05:22:06 – 00:05:52:23  

ANDY STRAUSS  

I have this young daughter. What do I want to do with my life? And I encourage everyone out there to take some time and reflect on what is it that you really want to do. And I’ve always had this romantic notion of being a country lawyer. And so I started my practice in the sunroom of my house, when computers were not as efficient as they are today and would break on me constantly.  

00:05:52:26 – 00:06:18:18  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And, and I started doing some partnership, estate planning, partnership work. I always loved estate planning because I had done that in my earlier career, with the big law firm, had done that corporate kind of work, and we still use partnerships and estate planning today, and LLCs. So that was a good background for me. But that was the beginning of the firm.  

00:06:18:25 – 00:07:01:29  

ANDY STRAUSS  

It was in my sunroom. I then moved and shared space with a, financial advisor. I then added an associate and today we have 35 employees. We have—it was not a master plan, I have to tell you. We have actually four offices: Raleigh, North Carolina, which is growing very rapidly; Asheville; Hendersonville; and we also have a small office in Landrum, South Carolina; and then a part-time office—so four and a half—in Durham, North Carolina.  

00:07:02:01 – 00:07:19:14  

ANDY STRAUSS  

So we have nine attorneys, and I have—and I’ll tell you about it when we get to it—I have started to transition my ownership to the new breed of attorneys that are owning the firm.  

00:07:20:03 – 00:07:40:06  

TYLER DOLPH  

Andy, I think you get the award for Most Unique Story before starting your firm. I mean, that’s unbelievable. So many law firm owners we talk to—this is all they’ve ever done, right? They graduated law school, worked at a big firm, decided to step out on their own. You had a whole life. You had a whole career before…  

00:07:42:05 – 00:08:09:18  

ANDY STRAUSS  

You know, and again, it was not part of the master plan, but it was very challenging, and I’ve enjoyed everything that I’ve done. I have to say, I enjoy practicing law the most. So I’m very happy today not being involved in the management of the firm. My ownership interest now is down to 20%. I’m selling out 10% a year.  

00:08:09:21 – 00:08:35:17  

ANDY STRAUSS  

So 2025, it’s down to 20%. And I can do what I like to do, and that is meet with clients, hopefully help them with their challenges. And many of my clients now are passing on, and I’m having to administer their estates, which in our particular practices comes with the turf if you’ve been practicing long enough.  

00:08:36:05 – 00:08:41:02  

TYLER DOLPH  

Incredible. Andy, take us back to the sunroom. And the, the old—  

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ANDY STRAUSS  

Yeah.  

00:08:43:10 – 00:08:58:20  

TYLER DOLPH  

I talk to a lot of law firm owners about the stage of going from a single employee—it’s me, I’m doing all the things, I’m running this business that I’ve started—to thinking, “I need to hire someone.” Tell us about that process.  

00:08:58:20 – 00:09:18:14  

TYLER DOLPH  

From being the one doing all the things, to then figuring out delegation. I’m sure you did that in your previous roles, but help our audience understand the importance of taking that next step and being able to delegate tasks so that you can become more efficient and a better operator.  

00:09:19:13 – 00:09:52:10  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Well, you make an excellent point. There’s only so much time. And even when you’re creative about your time, it’s very hard to create more time. You know the old saying, “You are your own worst bottleneck,” because it utilizes so much of your time, and the only way I felt I could leverage myself was to have other people do work that I could supervise and that I could profit on.  

00:09:52:13 – 00:10:23:17  

ANDY STRAUSS  

So it was really a multifaceted situation: I could free myself up to do the kind of work I wanted to do, have somebody else do the more background, technical work that was time-consuming, and I could make a profit on leveraging that. And so I found that in managing a law firm, you don’t have inventory; you have people.  

00:10:23:17 – 00:10:53:13  

ANDY STRAUSS  

People can be your product. Revenue per full-time equivalent is something every lawyer should be very hyper-focused on, because if you let your personnel and expenses get out of hand, you will find that you become unprofitable very quickly, and your overhead—or your nut, so to speak—will eat you alive. So you’ve got to be very careful.  

00:10:53:15 – 00:11:16:12  

ANDY STRAUSS  

It’s a hard thing to do, to say, “If I add more expense, am I going to get the multiple in revenue that’s going to pay for that expense?” That’s a leap many people have a hard time making, understandably, because if you keep your expenses low, you can drop a great percentage of your revenue to the bottom line.  

00:11:16:15 – 00:11:51:28  

ANDY STRAUSS  

But then you can’t maximize that top-line revenue. I found, for me, I needed not just other attorneys but paralegals, especially today with our estate administration and trust administration practice, which is about 35% of our practice. It’s very people-intensive, but we can get that done by non-JDs—by non-attorneys—and even potentially, and this is the new trend, by foreign employees or foreign staff that can do it a whole lot cheaper.  

00:11:52:00 – 00:12:24:16  

ANDY STRAUSS  

We have not done that, but I have colleagues who have utilized that offshore personnel pool and done it very successfully.  

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ANDY STRAUSS  

Yeah.  

00:12:30:06 – 00:13:03:26  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And that’s what’s causing the great demand, I think, for venture capital in the accounting area, because they’re able to leverage themselves dramatically by using personnel offshore, and they have whole sizable staffs offshore. We haven’t seen as much of that venture capital coming into the law arena, but it’s coming, too. I think young lawyers out there ought to be prepared for it. You know, the train has left the station, and it’s probably a good train to be on eventually—because you have to.  

00:13:03:26 – 00:13:12:10  

TYLER DOLPH  

We’ve actually been putting together a podcast on the alternative business structure laws that are changing. They changed in…  

00:13:12:10 – 00:13:17:21  

TYLER DOLPH  

…owners of law firms, which is going to make way for PE to come in and be able to scoop these law firms…  

00:13:18:18 – 00:13:19:28  

TYLER DOLPH  

Right.  

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TYLER DOLPH  

Exactly, I think D.C. has that as well. So yeah, I think accounting firms will do it. Venture capital firms will do it. This would bring a lot of liquidity to the law practices.  

00:13:28:19 – 00:13:45:05  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Exactly. I think D.C. has that as well. So yeah, I think that’s what’s coming—accounting firms will do it. Venture capital firms will do it. This will bring a lot of liquidity to the law practices.  

00:13:45:05 – 00:14:02:26  

TYLER DOLPH  

You know, it’s very interesting, going back—you went from one to two employees, and now you’re up to over 30. Tell us about some of the learnings as you were scaling your firm and being able to take it to a nice size. You are much larger than a lot of firms out there.  

00:14:02:28 – 00:14:09:21  

TYLER DOLPH  

How were you able to make that leap, and what were some of the processes or hires that allowed you to continue to scale?  

00:14:10:19 – 00:14:56:14  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Well, hires—you put your finger on a very important issue. You can make a lot of mistakes in the hiring process, or you can be lucky. But there’s a book written calling it “Hire Slow, Fire Fast,” and I heartily recommend that people look at their hiring in a very deliberate way, making sure it’s not only a good cultural fit, but that the people you’re hiring have the right technical skills and aptitude. I would do testing on that. We didn’t have to do that with lawyers, but you can certainly tell from their academic record and their past work experience.  

00:14:56:16 – 00:15:25:10  

ANDY STRAUSS  

You also want to make sure you get referrals. I have to admit, we have made many mistakes in the hiring process, but once you get to a certain size, you can tolerate some mistakes. But it’s very expensive to train someone and then have them not work out. So over time, we found we had to go through several people to get the ones who were really going to stay, roll up their sleeves, and be committed.  

00:15:25:12 – 00:15:49:05  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And that’s hard today because the generational culture is not the same as it was years ago—people are much more, let’s just say, mobile and less committed. So it’s a very difficult thing in hiring. I would just say, be very careful in what you do, because the cost of making bad decisions is quite high.  

00:15:49:05 – 00:16:08:25  

TYLER DOLPH  

Very high. I totally agree. Are there any key employees who really helped you get to the next level, and what made them so…  

00:16:20:14 – 00:16:57:17  

ANDY STRAUSS  

So I, over time, met people in our community who shared my same vision for client service, for excellence, for putting the client first, and for creating value for the client. What I ended up doing—and I think this has been one of my secrets to success—is hiring attorneys, and often giving them a set salary to begin with for a limited period of time.  

00:16:57:19 – 00:17:08:17  

ANDY STRAUSS  

But in our firm, we really had a more entrepreneurial “eat what you kill” culture, and that was a hard thing for some attorneys to embrace.  

00:17:08:20 – 00:17:35:08  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Once they got used to it—this “eat what you kill”—they realized they could make a whole lot more revenue for themselves, and it was every bit as secure as a salary, which is really only as secure as the next paycheck. It was a very good model. We attracted people who embraced that model.  

00:17:35:15 – 00:17:37:12  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And I think that’s what helped a lot.  

00:17:37:12 – 00:17:39:22  

TYLER DOLPH  

You’re all kind of rowing in the same direction.  

00:17:39:22 – 00:17:55:09  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Right, right. We had some who pushed back on it. I mean, they had to see that they could actually make more, and when they prospered, I…  

00:17:55:11 – 00:17:59:20  

TYLER DOLPH  

Right. Right.  

00:17:59:20 – 00:18:21:29  

TYLER DOLPH  

That’s where leadership comes in. This has been awesome—I really appreciate your time. One thing we like to do as we’re wrapping up these episodes is to get a few tips—two or three—for a young lawyer who’s maybe at a big firm or has just graduated law school and is looking to go out on their own and start a practice.  

00:18:21:29 – 00:18:35:00  

TYLER DOLPH  

It comes with a lot of opportunities for growth, but also means they have to be an entrepreneur. What are a couple of things they should be thinking about or reading or studying before going out on their own?  

00:18:35:17 – 00:19:04:07  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, don’t try to reinvent the wheel yourself. It’s not as intuitive as you might believe. Get good guidance from outside sources. You don’t have to be the pioneer here, and you want to learn from other people’s mistakes. It’s worth investing in that mentoring.  

00:19:04:09 – 00:19:46:28  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Most small businesses fail largely because they don’t know how to succeed. They don’t have the structure and processes—the roadmap—that they could develop if they went out and got good guidance. So that’s first and foremost. Secondly, think about what your unique talents are and how you’re going to be perceived in your market. You don’t have to be everything to everybody. You have the ability to choose how you define your market and how you approach it, and make sure you do so in an ethical, profitable way.  

00:19:47:00 – 00:20:18:28  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Focus, yeah. Hard work. It’s not going to be easy. No new practice generally is. Give it time, have a strategy, and work your strategy.  

00:20:19:01 – 00:20:27:15  

TYLER DOLPH  

I love it. That’s so great. Andy, thank you so much again for being on our podcast today. Everyone, if you’re listening—Andy, how could someone get in touch with you?  

00:20:36:28 – 00:21:11:09  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Sure. If anybody has a question, I’m happy to be contacted by my direct phone number, which is (828) 210-0506. And my email is [email protected]—that’s A-N-D-Y at S-T-R-A-U-S-S-L-A-W dot com.  

We used to have everybody just use their first name, but we’ve gotten big enough now where we have multiple people, so that hasn’t been able to be implemented fully.  

00:21:11:09 – 00:21:42:23  

ANDY STRAUSS  

But we try to make it easy for clients to contact us. And finally, I’ll just say one of our hallmarks has been—and this is true of almost all attorneys—is crisp communication with clients, with financial advisors, or referral sources. We have an A.M./P.M. rule: if we get a call in the A.M., we’re back to them in the P.M. If we get it in the P.M., we’re back to them in the A.M. at the latest.  

00:21:43:00 – 00:21:59:16  

ANDY STRAUSS  

And I instill that in everybody, because one of the big beefs people have is that lawyers don’t return calls, aren’t communicative. It’s so easy for you to stand out and be there for them if you really try hard to get back promptly.  

00:21:59:16 – 00:22:07:07  

TYLER DOLPH  

Time at our businesses—everyone is talking about AI and all these things, but customer service is still a—  

00:22:08:05 – 00:22:10:04  

ANDY STRAUSS  

Yeah, yeah.  

00:22:10:04 – 00:22:13:24  

TYLER DOLPH  

—and doing what you say you’re going to do. It’s unbelievable how much that—  

00:22:14:22 – 00:22:34:06  

ANDY STRAUSS  

There’s a book out there, on a service economy. I don’t know the exact title, but I recommend it, because we are in a service business—bottom line. If you can differentiate yourself through excellent customer service, I think it’ll go a long way.  

00:22:34:09 – 00:22:41:20  

TYLER DOLPH  

Hello, Andy, thank you again so much for your time. Everyone, thank you for listening, and we will see you next time on the Revenue Roadmap.  

00:22:41:20 – 00:22:50:18  

TYLER DOLPH  

If you’ve enjoyed this interview series, we are continuing on interviewing successful law firm owners. Make sure to check out our next one right here.