How to Start a Law Firm 101

Interview Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:15:18
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
You have to hear the story of how a lawyer who spent 18 years at a big firm left and started their own fully focused family firm that has grown to over six attorneys.

00:00:15:17 – 00:00:18:04
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
An incredible story to come.

00:00:21:03 – 00:00:31:04
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Hi, my name is Stallard Off. I am the CEO of Rocket Clinics and welcome back to the Revenue Roadmap. We are continuing our interview series today

00:00:31:03 – 00:00:34:11
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
where we talk to family law firm owners and hear their story.

00:00:34:10 – 00:00:47:18
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Today we talked to Scott Ashby, who is an incredible attorney. He spent a number of years at a big corporate law firm working with large companies and just decided it wasn’t for him. After a

00:00:47:17 – 00:00:51:15
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
long time and wanted to do something new. And so he built the Pacific

00:00:51:14 – 00:00:54:27
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Northwest family law firm, did it from scratch.

00:00:54:27 – 00:01:02:21
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
He has a great origin story on how he came to this conclusion and what he’s done since. Make sure to check it out.

00:01:02:20 – 00:01:04:20
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Scott, thank you so much for being here.

00:01:04:20 – 00:01:06:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Thank you for inviting me.

00:01:06:14 – 00:01:09:00
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Absolutely. Give us a little background on,

00:01:09:00 – 00:01:11:15
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
your story, The Firm, how things got started.

00:01:11:15 – 00:01:12:09
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
We love,

00:01:12:09 – 00:01:14:08
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
the origin stories around here.

00:01:14:08 – 00:01:18:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Oh, sure. Well, I’ll. I’ll try to make it quick. I grew up on a farm in

00:01:18:17 – 00:01:20:10
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
north central Washington, and,

00:01:20:10 – 00:01:22:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
thought I would be a farmer and,

00:01:22:17 – 00:01:23:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
at some point,

00:01:23:23 – 00:01:27:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I really became attracted to the, like, a cousin who was,

00:01:27:14 – 00:01:29:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
an attorney. And,

00:01:29:14 – 00:01:30:02
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
so,

00:01:30:02 – 00:01:30:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I studied,

00:01:30:21 – 00:01:32:09
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I did not do well in high school.

00:01:32:09 – 00:01:36:18
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I did very poorly in high school. Near the bottom of the class. I’m afraid to admit

00:01:36:21 – 00:01:38:07
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Classic entrepreneur.

00:01:38:07 – 00:01:42:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Yeah, but when I got to the university, that got exciting, and I did very well there and,

00:01:42:17 – 00:01:43:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
ended up at,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
a good law school,

00:01:44:25 – 00:01:46:08
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
a really good law school,

00:01:46:08 – 00:01:46:24
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and,

00:01:46:24 – 00:01:51:13
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
got recruited to a very large firm in, Phoenix, Arizona.

00:01:51:13 – 00:01:58:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And I was there in Phoenix for, I think, 18 years doing commercial litigation for,

00:01:58:12 – 00:02:00:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
mostly fortune 100 companies

00:02:00:17 – 00:02:01:04
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and,

00:02:01:04 – 00:02:02:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
had a successful career. But,

00:02:02:26 – 00:02:12:01
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I don’t know. You know, the term burned out is not really very accurate, and it’s so broad, and I think it’s overused. So I’m not I don’t want to put that label on it, but I

00:02:12:01 – 00:02:15:04
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
thought there must be more and started looking around.

00:02:15:04 – 00:02:16:05
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I, you know, I was,

00:02:16:05 – 00:02:18:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, maybe it was a midlife crisis, but,

00:02:18:12 – 00:02:20:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
whatever. I started looking around and I thought,

00:02:20:26 – 00:02:23:16
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
there must be something more. And,

00:02:23:16 – 00:02:25:07
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
about that time, I,

00:02:25:07 – 00:02:26:27
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
found out that there was a,

00:02:26:27 – 00:02:30:28
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
an attorney who was getting ready to retire and had a small practice and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and about 3 or 4 people working for him

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
just decided,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know what?

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I’m going to resign my partnership, and I’m going to go,

00:02:39:17 – 00:02:43:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
go start doing some more consumer oriented stuff and see if I like that better.

00:02:44:01 – 00:02:47:01
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
And so, literally, like, on a whim, said. I’m going to get out of the.

00:02:47:01 – 00:02:50:16
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Well, it was it was it wasn’t a whim. I mean, I, you know,

00:02:50:16 – 00:02:56:11
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I’ll be very candid. I was going to counseling and trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and talking with my wife.

00:02:56:11 – 00:02:59:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
We’ve been married 45 years now, so, you know,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
she’s every bit of,

00:03:01:07 – 00:03:03:29
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
she she’s very much a life partner that,

00:03:03:29 – 00:03:06:13
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I talk things over with and,

00:03:06:13 – 00:03:10:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, Phoenix was expanding and continues to expand. Don’t get me wrong, we love Phoenix.

00:03:10:25 – 00:03:11:11
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
But,

00:03:11:11 – 00:03:18:05
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
boy, growing up on a farm and, you know, when I first moved to Phoenix, my commute was 20 minutes, and we bought a house.

00:03:18:05 – 00:03:27:22
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And by the time I moved away, it was an hour and 20 minutes one way. And so that starts eating into your day. You know, when you’re spending nearly three hours a day in the car,

00:03:27:22 – 00:03:29:20
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and, and with, with a,

00:03:29:20 – 00:03:36:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
2000, you know, trying to bill 2000 hours a year and then spending three hours a day in a car, started to be a little rough.

00:03:36:16 – 00:03:37:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so,

00:03:37:17 – 00:03:38:06
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
moved,

00:03:38:06 – 00:03:43:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
back to Washington where, where I grew up and, joined this very small,

00:03:43:25 – 00:03:46:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
largely consumer oriented firm. And it was,

00:03:46:14 – 00:03:50:15
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
for about the first couple of months, I felt I was,

00:03:50:15 – 00:03:50:28
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Felt,

00:03:50:28 – 00:03:57:05
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
how do you want to say it? I was always, like, almost like being a new attorney or new attorney all over again.

00:03:57:07 – 00:03:59:06
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
But but having said that, I had

00:03:59:06 – 00:04:01:18
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
very, very good courtroom skills that

00:04:01:18 – 00:04:09:02
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
thanks to the big firm and the training programs and all of those things I developed. And so I caught on pretty quickly and started,

00:04:09:02 – 00:04:13:03
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
having a lot of clients come to me. And after about two years,

00:04:13:03 – 00:04:13:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
at

00:04:13:14 – 00:04:17:29
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
working for somebody else, and that I’d been a partner at the big firm in,

00:04:17:29 – 00:04:18:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Arizona.

00:04:18:17 – 00:04:19:13
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so I was,

00:04:19:13 – 00:04:23:22
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I guess I was champing at the bit a little bit and regretting working for somebody else because,

00:04:23:22 – 00:04:29:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
This other person was not entrepreneurial in the same way that I was and didn’t want to.

00:04:29:14 – 00:04:31:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Didn’t want to grow, didn’t want to,

00:04:31:19 – 00:04:33:29
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
market very much. Didn’t want to,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
look for better and bigger clients.

00:04:36:05 – 00:04:42:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Mostly just had a big sign out front on a, on a busy street, and people would just drop in with all kinds of problems

00:04:42:19 – 00:04:48:04
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and the lack of focus and the lack of I mean, it just just started to drive me nuts. And so,

00:04:48:04 – 00:04:50:00
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
so I left that and,

00:04:50:00 – 00:04:50:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and

00:04:50:14 – 00:04:53:28
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
thought, well, here I go. And, and, opened my own firm

00:04:53:28 – 00:04:54:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and,

00:04:54:17 – 00:04:58:09
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I hired a paralegal who also helped me keep the books.

00:04:58:09 – 00:05:03:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And, you know, the one thing you, when you’re moving from a large, firm into,

00:05:03:12 – 00:05:06:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you decide, hey, I’m going to start my own firm, or you move to a smaller firm.

00:05:06:26 – 00:05:13:13
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
The big thing. And maybe you guys have found that out too. Probably is. What do you mean? I got to keep books. And how do you do?

00:05:13:13 – 00:05:17:03
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Trust accounting. You know, I’m a 20 year attorney, and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
like, oh, crap. If I get this wrong, I should get disbarred. I got to be really careful with my trust account.

00:05:22:15 – 00:05:31:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so I actually went and took. I don’t if you call them remedial courses, but, courses from the bar on how do you do trust accounting and,

00:05:31:14 – 00:05:36:07
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
in Washington, most bar associations I think have those available lots.

00:05:36:09 – 00:05:42:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Now they didn’t they didn’t then 15 years ago. But now they have those available,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
on demand,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
streaming and

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
so they’re easy to get. But back then I had to,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
travel and stay overnight and go take a course on,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, my undergraduate degree was economics, and so I’d had a couple of semesters of accounting, but

00:05:55:16 – 00:05:57:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
by then that was a long time ago.

00:05:57:16 – 00:05:59:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And, I had to figure out a trust accounting.

00:05:59:23 – 00:06:05:05
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Had to look at all of the different offerings. There’s a plethora of,

00:06:05:05 – 00:06:09:10
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
practice management software offerings and figure out what I wanted to do there. And,

00:06:09:10 – 00:06:12:29
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
there was a lot more than I had anticipated. At the same time,

00:06:12:29 – 00:06:14:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I must say, it was hugely enjoyable.

00:06:15:11 – 00:06:38:28
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
You got to make all the decisions. It’s so funny, Scott. Your story is is not a unique one, right? You go from working at a large firm where everything’s kind of done, and you get to just be a great attorney, which is awesome, and it’s amazing. And kind of. That’s the dream I’m sure you had when you were in law school and then just transition to, I now have to pay rent, I have to make payroll.

00:06:38:28 – 00:06:44:05
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
I have to understand accounting and excel and business management and all these things that are not,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Yeah. And my wife isn’t going to be happy with me if I can’t pay the mortgage right?

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so. And so,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, if I can’t,

00:06:52:02 – 00:06:58:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
if I can’t get a new car every few years, and if I can’t, you know, go on vacation, you know, my wife isn’t going to be happy.

00:06:58:26 – 00:07:01:11
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so I guess the next stage was is,

00:07:01:11 – 00:07:03:18
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I became very busy.

00:07:03:18 – 00:07:12:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I mean, I’m a good courtroom attorney, and so I became very busy. I got good referrals. I’d set up a network, and I think that’s important.

00:07:12:21 – 00:07:17:00
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And I wasn’t spending a lot of money. I mean, the most money I spent was I had a website

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
hired somebody to develop that,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
it wasn’t a great website, but it was just it was a website.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
You know, I was really busy, and I was making pretty good money.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Just,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
me and I had,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
two paralegals and an office manager who also did some paralegal work. Right. And we were busy. We were really busy. And after a while, I started feeling tired and a little exhausted.

00:07:39:16 – 00:07:42:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
It it is exhausting being a true solo.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I don’t know how people do it.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
That that is,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, I tried going on vacation and of course, they took my cell phone and,

00:07:49:05 – 00:07:57:15
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, you get calls from clients that need something, and, hey, you got to file this motion and you got to do this, you know, while I’m on vacation. Well, who’s going to help me?

00:07:57:17 – 00:08:02:15
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Oh, my goodness, I don’t know. You know, I can I can get to it next week. It’s just me.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so,

00:08:03:12 – 00:08:10:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
that that became really stressful and I couldn’t be gone for more than just a few days. It seemed like. I mean, one time,

00:08:10:23 – 00:08:15:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
my daughter was graduating high school. We decided to take a trip to London for,

00:08:15:17 – 00:08:17:29
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I think we went for ten days, and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
we go to London and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
the whole time was stressful.

00:08:21:26 – 00:08:25:01
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And I still have good memories from it, don’t get me wrong. But

00:08:25:01 – 00:08:32:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I did not expect the stress and the number of phone calls and emails from my office staff saying, what do we do? This happened, or what do we do that happened?

00:08:32:23 – 00:08:33:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
when I came back from that trip to London, I said,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I’ve got to do some marketing and I’ve got to hire another attorney.

00:08:39:04 – 00:08:48:09
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so that was the that was really the beginning. That was the coming to that realization was really set the stage. And it’s like,

00:08:48:09 – 00:08:58:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and I look back and there’s some turning points, but that was the big one when I decided, I don’t like not being able to take a vacation. I don’t like not being able to set my own schedule.

00:08:58:23 – 00:08:59:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I don’t like,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I like I like being in business for myself. I like making the strategic decisions. But, more and more, the firm is running me, and I felt like I was working for my staff

00:09:11:13 – 00:09:14:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
rather than the other way around. Right. And,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I can see some heads nodding. So I think,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you all probably experienced the same thing a few years ago.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And,

00:09:20:10 – 00:09:21:07
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
so I,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
took a deep breath and,

00:09:22:15 – 00:09:25:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
rented a larger space and,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
hired an attorney

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and, started to do some marketing.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so that’s the origination. It just,

00:09:31:02 – 00:09:33:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
at some point not too far into it.

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I had never done a lot of family law. I mean, being a

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
big firm litigator for large companies, I mean,

00:09:39:18 – 00:09:41:09
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, I was used to having

00:09:41:09 – 00:09:43:20
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
maybe two cases and,

00:09:43:20 – 00:09:47:23
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
as a, as a partner at a big firm running a trial team and,

00:09:47:23 – 00:09:51:09
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, it’s different when you start doing consumer oriented work.

00:09:51:09 – 00:09:54:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
You know, you have a lot more than two cases or you can’t pay the rent.

00:09:54:25 – 00:09:56:04
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And,

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Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
so I had to learn how to juggle a lot of cases. That’s one thing

00:09:58:09 – 00:10:00:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I did not have coming from big law. I could juggle two, three, four, five cases. But,

00:10:00:17 – 00:10:06:03
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, I think at one point when I decided to hire another attorney, I think I had 75 active cases.

00:10:06:16 – 00:10:07:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And,

00:10:07:14 – 00:10:10:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, I installed a big whiteboard in my office and I had them all listed, and I was doing it that way because I couldn’t even keep track of them with my computer system.

00:10:10:25 – 00:10:17:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And, you know, to make sure I didn’t fall through the cracks. And I wake up in the middle of the night and think, oh, man, with all these cases, did I forget anything?

00:10:17:21 – 00:10:18:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
You know that I forget somebody?

00:10:18:26 – 00:10:20:03
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Yeah, I mean, it,

00:10:20:03 – 00:10:22:11
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
it started to take its toll. And so

00:10:22:11 – 00:10:27:06
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
hired another attorney and got half those cases over to her. And,

00:10:27:06 – 00:10:31:02
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
started to see that. Okay. You know, maybe this isn’t too bad, but I ran into some roadblocks,

00:10:31:02 – 00:10:33:04
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, having 1 or 2 attorneys working with you,

00:10:33:04 – 00:10:36:26
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, inflation changes everything. Or just rough back of hand,

00:10:36:26 – 00:10:39:24
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
when I got close to $1 million in revenue for the firm, I started running into all kinds of issues.

00:10:39:24 – 00:10:40:10
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And,

00:10:40:10 – 00:10:42:24
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
actually hired,

00:10:42:24 – 00:10:46:02
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
a business coach, somebody who’s in the coaching industry. I joined a coaching group, and that turned out actually very, very good.

00:10:46:02 – 00:10:52:15
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Up until about $3 million. And at that point, we started running and just we started running into some different roadblocks.

00:10:52:15 – 00:10:53:16
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Right. And it was,

00:10:53:16 – 00:10:57:24
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
we started to have to add some middle managers. And so,

00:10:57:24 – 00:11:01:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I joined a different coaching group because,

00:11:01:14 – 00:11:05:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
I needed somebody who was not oriented towards

00:11:05:14 – 00:11:10:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
the coaching group I was first in was oriented towards getting you to seven figures, and it worked really well up to about 3 million. And then it didn’t.

00:11:10:23 – 00:11:14:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And so I got into a group that was oriented in further growth. And,

00:11:14:19 – 00:11:15:16
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
that’s where we are now.

00:11:15:16 – 00:11:19:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And yeah, we’ve, we’ve made the Inc 5004 times,

00:11:19:19 – 00:11:23:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
which as you know, it gets harder and harder every time because it’s

00:11:23:25 – 00:11:25:08
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
multiples. It’s a progression. And so,

00:11:25:08 – 00:11:27:03
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
yeah, we’ve been

00:11:27:03 – 00:11:28:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
it’s it’s been a lot of fun.

00:11:28:16 – 00:11:31:26
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Scott, congratulations on all the success. I can relate with so much of what you said.

00:11:31:26 – 00:11:51:07
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
I want to talk through a little bit about the power of focus. You know, we talk to a lot of firm owners and a lot of firms become very successful doing a lot of different things. Our personal experience at Sterling was that we were going to do one thing really well and create a factory, almost of repeatable work that that we can do at a very high level.

00:11:51:07 – 00:11:57:22
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
And it feels like you went through that same kind of inflection point of being hyper focused on family. Give us a little perspective on,

00:11:57:22 – 00:12:00:09
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
that learning experience and the benefit.

00:12:00:29 – 00:12:31:12
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Well, when I came out of Big Law, I’d done a lot of courtroom. I was very comfortable in the courtroom. And family law is has some differences to commercial litigation. I found out very quickly. It’s a court of, for, for all the lawyers, it’s a court of equity, not a court of law. And so it felt very, what’s the right word? It felt very squishy.

It’s hard. You know, you don’t go in and get summary judgment motions and you don’t make,
very few things are decided as a matter of law. They’re, you know, the the standards are squishy. It’s the best interests of the children. It’s equitable division of property. It’s those kinds of things, especially with no-fault divorce.

00:12:31:14 – 00:12:41:02
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
You know, not very much matters except what’s in the best interests of the children, what’s the, what’s fair and equitable. And, yeah, there is a phonebook-sized statute in Washington. But,

00:12:41:02 – 00:12:45:18
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
child support is fairly wooden, but a lot of it is, I would say guidelines, kind of squishy.

00:12:45:18 – 00:12:48:20
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
There’s case law that instructs the courts how to,
to deal with those and attorneys. But,

00:12:48:20 – 00:12:49:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, one of the things that I tell our attorneys is,

00:12:49:14 – 00:12:54:25
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
we have offices now clear across Washington state, and it’s very clear, all,

00:12:54:25 – 00:12:57:10
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
and I’m sure you all experience it too, which is that all family law is local.

00:12:57:12 – 00:13:01:19
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And it depends on the judge or commissioner. And that can vary even within a locality. And you really have to know.

00:13:01:19 – 00:13:06:20
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
How things are handled locally. So you have to know the local rules. But beyond that, you have to know the local people.

00:13:06:23 – 00:13:14:18
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
I mean, it’s local in almost every aspect, right? Even on the marketing side, when we work with firms, you know, we’ve realized that over 40% of leads come from the maps. If you think about just from internet only.
And that is all based around your location. It’s based on the the map algorithm and the drive time,

00:13:14:18 – 00:13:18:29
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
from your office to, to other places in that town and city.

00:13:19:02 – 00:13:19:27
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
All all marketing for family law. You know, when we started doing only family law, that’s one of the things that I learned. Just what you said, that all marketing is local. You can’t have a statewide website. I mean, our website is statewide, but it’s very geared towards,

00:13:19:27 – 00:13:22:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
localities.

00:13:22:21 – 00:13:33:17
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
And even people. You know, people are when you start drilling down, people are different from city to city, especially in the west. I mean, this side of the state is politically fairly conservative, and the other side of the state,

00:13:33:17 – 00:13:39:14
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
the majority of the the west side of the state (like King County, where the majority of our population is) is quite liberal. If you watch the news,

00:13:39:14 – 00:13:40:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
quite, very blue. And so,

00:13:40:21 – 00:13:48:04
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, all of that plays into marketing. Some marketing that works very well over on this side of the state. When we first went into the other side of the state, it’s like, well, we spent all this money and not

00:13:48:04 – 00:13:48:28
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
very good response.

00:13:48:28 – 00:13:50:06
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
What’s going on? And then,

00:13:50:06 – 00:13:52:02
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
you know, as we worked through it, we realized that we were,

00:13:52:02 – 00:13:56:21
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
the values that people have over here are different than the values that people have over there. And no judgment. People can have. I’m very libertarian. People can have whatever,

00:13:56:21 – 00:14:00:00
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
whatever values they want. But we had to shift our marketing to get a good response on that side of the state.

00:14:00:01 – 00:14:02:29
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Very locally focused. That’s so true and something that we see every day.

00:14:02:29 – 00:14:10:28
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Scott, I love your story. I love the the path it took for you to get to where you are today.

00:14:10:28 – 00:14:17:07
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
As we close up here, give us a little preview of what the future of your firm looks like. Are you going to continue to expand across the state?

00:14:17:29 – 00:16:01:13
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Yeah. We’ll continue to expand across the state. We are right now looking at expanding into Idaho. At some point, probably southward into Oregon along the I-5 corridor. We are, you know, I would say our biggest current block is that we really have our marketing dialed in. My son, who’s about, you know, a ten or 12-year attorney now, is a full partner with me and owner in the firm, and has really got the marketing dialed in.
So we’re very, I’m fairly tech savvy for someone of my age, as he would say, but not like he is. And he really gets how the marketing works and has worked with some good people and really understands it.

But yeah, the future is continued growth and also filling in. I mean, we believe that we have a mission. Our tagline, to use a marketing term, is that we help our clients become family heroes. And so what we want is to, when people come in for a divorce—which is our bread and butter, it’s the bread and butter of any family law firm—they come in for a divorce. Most of our clients are worried about what happens to my family, what happens to my kids. And our goal is to take a long term view. Our objective, we take a long term view. We help them.
A lot of them are in the fight mode still, you know, with their ex, significant other. And we say, “Where do you want to be in five years?” A lot of them haven’t thought of that. And that helps us calm things down, get the case together, find out a way for them to co-parent and move on and have a really have a better life. And so we really feel like we have a mission to help people going through that in Washington.

So, if we really believe that, my feeling is that if we really believe we have a mission and we can make a difference, we should expand so that we can help more people. And that’s what we’re trying to do.

00:16:01:16 – 00:16:05:18
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
That’s incredible. And having a mission and a focus where you’re really able to change people’s lives for the better.

00:16:05:18 – 00:16:08:18
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Why wouldn’t you expand? Why wouldn’t you want to continue to help

00:16:08:26 – 00:16:12:29
Speaker 2 – Scott Ashby
Well, you know, I loved for the first part of my career, working for billion trillion-dollar companies and flying all over the United States, and, you know, having a big office in a tall building with a great view and all of that. I mean, it was pretty cool, but this is better, because we are making intergenerational differences in the lives of our clients. And that’s pretty cool.

00:16:12:00 – 00:16:42:05
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
Scott, I so appreciate you and your story. I appreciate your time. Listeners, I hope you’re able to get something truly valuable out of this.
And we will see you next time on the Revenue Roadmap.

00:16:42:05 – 00:16:45:13
Speaker 1 – Tyler Dolph
If you enjoyed Scott’s story, you will love our continuation of our interview series where we interview the attorney and brother in law. Make sure to check it out right over here.