Richard Garriott

Kevin Daisey:

All right. We are live. Welcome everyone to another live recording of The Managing Partners Podcast. I’m Kevin Daisey, and I’ll be your host. I’m also the founder of Array Digital, where we exist to help law firms grow using digital marketing, helping them get more cases and phone calls. Today, I’m joined with a special guest. Actually someone I have ran into a few times before. We’re actually been part of a business club together here in Virginia Beach, so I have a local guest today and I’m excited to have Rich Garriott on the show.

Richard Garriott:

Thank you, Kevin. I’m glad to be here. Very excited.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah, yeah. Again, we’ve ran into each other quite a few times. You were with a different firm at that point, and you have gone off on your own, started your own firm. And so, that’s what we’re excited to learn more about. What that process was like, where you are at now. And for anyone out there that’s thinking of going on their own, starting their own firm, hanging their own shingle, whatever you’d like to call it, committing suicide, there’s different ways we can explain it, but… And just excited to learn more about what you’re doing and what that’s been like. So I’m excited about that. So, first off though, I’d like to ask you the most important question of the show in my mind is, your story about yourself and what made you become an attorney and decide to go that path and kind of give us a little bit of that story, and the story that got you to where you are today, what that journey was like.

Richard Garriott:

Okay. Well, I’m one of the few, I think, true natives of Virginia Beach. I was born and raised here, went to high school here in Virginia Beach. Mainly come from a family of engineers and land surveyors. But I think I have a recessive gene in our family that I can’t do math. So, that was out of the question. And I’ve always been interested in the law, even from the time I was in high school here. While I was in college and then I went to graduate school, I thought about going on and teaching at the collegiate level. And then decided that two years at master’s program at Ball State University in Indiana convinced me that I did not want to stay in the Midwest in the winter time and decided to come home. So, on a limb, just last minute decision, I signed up about 48 hours before they were offering the LSATs. Took the LSATs, did well. Applied to schools in Virginia and went back to the University of Richmond where I got my undergrad, and haven’t looked back since. I came out, came back home, practiced law with an old Norfolk firm for a while doing mainly business litigation and workers compensation defense litigation.

Kevin Daisey:

Okay.

Richard Garriott:

Always did a little bit of guardian ad litem work. Guardian ad litem is a lawyer that represents children in custody cases, in abuse cases, that sort of thing. Started out just kind of as a side, and that began to build. And I started doing an occasional custody case and then an occasional divorce case. And frankly found that I liked representing people rather than insurance companies. So, practice really. I never expected I would be a family lawyer, but my practice kind of developed into that. Was with that firm for about 15 years, and then switched over and went to another large firm, a larger firm, about 50 lawyers here in Virginia Beach that was a multi-practice firm. And was there for about 12 years.

Richard Garriott:

And then last year… Now a year before last in 2020 during the pandemic, my partner, Pat Maurer, and I decided to leave and start our own firm. People thought we were insane that in the middle of a pandemic, we were going to try to start a new business. But then we opened up Garriott Maurer a year ago on New Year’s day. Opened our firm here in Virginia Beach. We’ve got four lawyers.

Kevin Daisey:

Excellent.

Richard Garriott:

Pat Maurer, my myself, Jennifer Fuschetti, and Naveed Kalantar. And we exclusively do family law. I think one of the things that people have asked me, “How’s it going the first year?” And I said, “It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made.” I mean, it’s been great. I mean, people talk about what a chore it is to run your own law firm, but it has just been… I don’t know if we just had a lengthy honeymoon phase, but it’s been very rewarding for the first year and almost wish I had done it many years ago. I think a lot of things held me up about, but it’s pretty daunting if you’re in a firm and you’re thinking about going out on your own. There are a lot of things that you got to think about on the administrative side, insurance.

Kevin Daisey:

Oh, yeah.

Richard Garriott:

Making sure you’ve got your professional liability insurance. Making sure you’ve got workers comp, taxes, all of that.

Kevin Daisey:

Payroll. Yeah.

Richard Garriott:

Exactly. But it turned out to be… With the software that’s available today and the other companies that can handle payroll and that sort of thing, it was a much easier transition than I thought it would be.

Kevin Daisey:

That’s excellent. And so everyone listening, it’s Garriott Maurer. Is that how you say it?

Richard Garriott:

Maurer.

Kevin Daisey:

Maurer.

Richard Garriott:

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Kevin Daisey:

Garriott Maurer, and that’s G-A-R-R-I-O-T-T M-A-U-R-E-R.com if you’re listening to the podcast, but go take a look, navigate to the site, see what they’re all about, and just get a closer look at what they’re up to. So, a couple things you mentioned there. One, you moved away from Midwest and tomorrow it’s going to snow.

Richard Garriott:

That’s right.

Kevin Daisey:

So, which is odd for us here in Virginia. Once a year maybe. Another thing is you mentioned people thought you were insane. Well, you have to be insane to start your own business, but I think that’s kind of what it takes. You have to be willing to take a chance and the rewards are great. Now, of course, it’s challenging. It’s not always easy, but that’s just part of it. So, same way. I wish I would’ve done even sooner than I did it. And I was pretty young when I did my own business, but best way to learn. Jump both feet and you start learning real quick.

Richard Garriott:

Yeah, you do. You really do. I think like you said, it’s like anything else in life. It’s a lot of responsibility, but with it comes a lot of freedom and frankly, I’ve got the hardest boss I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s me.

Kevin Daisey:

[inaudible 00:07:22] going to say your wife.

Richard Garriott:

Well, I’m not going to say that on the podcast. I want to be-

Kevin Daisey:

“Did you make any money today?” “No, I spent more.”

Richard Garriott:

That’s right. That’s exactly right.

Kevin Daisey:

I’ve recommended this book on this here a few times, but on our newsletter, for anyone listening or for you, Rich, is we have a newsletter we send every week and we recommend books, and we have a lot of attorneys that have written their own books mostly to help run law firms, which is… And this one actually, You Can’t Teach Hungry, John Morgan, Morgan & Morgan. It’s a big PI firm, but a pretty good book on how to run a law firm very successfully, which I’m actually reading myself. I don’t run a law firm, but our clients are law firms. But I think anyone can read this that owns a business, and it’d be helpful. So, I’m happy to share that with you when I see you next, if you want.

Richard Garriott:

No, that’d be great. I think that one of the things I’ve done this year more, or at least last year, I should keep saying this year, is I’ve read more books on managing law firms, how to streamline and be more productive and efficient in your law practice, use of technology. Things that for years I just relied on whatever the firm was doing, whatever their culture was. So that it’s been a real education for me.

Kevin Daisey:

That’s excellent. For anyone listening, is there a particular book you would pick that you could recommend someone starting their own? And also, you mentioned some software. I think it’s always nice if we can share some takeaways, people go, “Oh, I’m going to check that out.” So, what’s a book that you would recommend?

Richard Garriott:

Well, there’s a book that it’s ABA puts out. It’s basically how to start your family law practice and manage your family law practice. And I should have had it right here. [crosstalk 00:09:19]. I’ve actually given it to one of my other attorneys to read, but it’s a lawyer out of Mississippi that’s been doing it for years and basically takes you step by step. Little dated. I mean, a lot of it is… I’ve used a lot of his forms and checklist that now you can really do. With practice management software, takes care of a lot of that, but it really gives you some good guidance on how to really change the process.

Richard Garriott:

Lawyers are interesting because we’re not business people. We’re professionals. And I think there’s a reluctance on a lot of lawyers to look at our clients and cases like a project. I mean, if you’re an engineer, you’re an accountant and you get a job that comes in, there’s a specific goal for that project. And they work through all the process of “How are we going to get from point A to point B?” I think a lot of lawyers come in and it’s, “Okay. Here’s the case. Let’s file this. Let’s do our discovery.” And they just kind of muddle through the process, get it done. But I found through some of the different research I’ve done over the past year that the more you treat each client and each case as a project and set it up with, “Okay. Here’s the beginning. Here’s what our goals are. Let the client know what their expectations are. What our expectations are.” And it’s a lot easier to keep the client’s expectations reasonable, and to keep the client informed about what’s going on in their case. The biggest complaint I get, and when I was president of the Virginia Bar Association, we would get… And we talked about professionalism and that sort of thing is clients saying, “I never hear from my lawyer until we get to court.”

Kevin Daisey:

I’ve heard that over and over again on this show.

Richard Garriott:

And my goal is to make sure that the client knows what we’re doing because basically we’re shepherding them through the process. I mean, they’re the ones that have a situation. They’ve got a problem. They’ve come to us to either help them solve the problem or help them mitigate the damage that they’ve got with that problem. And I’ve found that the more you can set up a process, a timeline, a template, the better it is and the easier it is to keep the client informed as to what’s going on. And even if the outcome is not the best for the client, I found that the client would say, “Okay. You did the best you could. I knew what was going on. You told me ahead of time what to expect.”

Kevin Daisey:

100%. And that’s a huge tip, I think, for everyone that is communication, having a process. And if you lay that out too with the timelines or process for what you’re going to do for the client, they’re less likely to call you every day and go, “What’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on.” You’ve told them here’s what the process is. A good experience I would think I have. For one, it’s very frustrating with any sales process or interaction with someone that you’re just like, “I have no clue what’s going on. They haven’t called me back.” Like mortgage. So refinance or new homes I’ve done recently. It’s a company called CapCenter. They’re actually based here in Richmond and in Virginia Beach too, but they have this awesome process and they send out emails and it’s like a checklist like, “We’re here. Now we’re done with this. We need something from you. You need something from us.” They’ve done a great job at that process. And I think I hear that a lot too with attorneys is… The biggest thing is that the clients aren’t really sure what’s going on.

Richard Garriott:

Well, I kind of laugh. [inaudible 00:13:30]. I hired a contractor to do something at the house and signed the contract, gave the deposit, and I said, “Well, it’s a classic contractor. I’m not going to hear from him for a month.” And then-

Kevin Daisey:

Were you surprised?

Richard Garriott:

No, I wasn’t. But that’s one of the things we try to avoid with the clients because we have clients that come in who have been with other attorneys and they say, “Well, I never heard from them. I don’t know where my money. I don’t know…” So, our goal is to make sure there’s always open communication and really try to make the process as painless as possible for the client. To make sure that they know that we’re here as we’re collecting their information. We’re not just handing them a 30-page packet of questionnaires. We’re saying, “Okay. We need this information.” But kind of assisting them to get that information to us so we can use it and make it easier for the client.

Kevin Daisey:

Excellent. Love that. And just another quick tip, I think here. If you’re starting a new firm, to have a process in place and have that going into it because I think everyone has good intentions and then you get a bunch of clients, a bunch of cases, and then now you have chaos because you never had a process in place. One, two, three clients, you’re like, “Oh, we’re going to take care of them. They’re the best clients in the world.” Because of the few clients you have.

Richard Garriott:

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey:

But once you get busy, that’s when things start to slide and then you really never had a process in place. It’s hard to go retroactive and sit your team down and say, “Hey, we have to have a whole new process.” So, it’s harder to do later. I’ll say that because I’ve been through that myself.

Richard Garriott:

And what we did this year… I mean, we kind of set up some expectations for inside the firm on how we were going to transfer because luckily… I mean, we brought a significant amount of work with us when we moved over. We had a process set up, but in November, we sat down, did an entire mini-firm retreat right here in the office. Staff,-

Kevin Daisey:

Love it.

Richard Garriott:

… all the attorneys, everybody. And we kind of went over. “This is how what’s been working. This is what we need to improve. This is what we might be able to do differently going forward in 2022.”

Kevin Daisey:

Excellent.

Richard Garriott:

We’ve already set up. We’re supposed to have tomorrow afternoon an all attorneys meeting to kind of look at the goals for this year. We’ll see if that happens.

Kevin Daisey:

[inaudible 00:16:10] together.

Richard Garriott:

And so in this book, You Can’t Teach Hungry, it actually lays out all the meetings you should have with your staff and attorneys through the year. And it’s got some really good stuff in there, but what you just said there, little retreats, the partners’ meetings, and there’s some other stuff in there too, but Traction’s another good book. I always recommend that. But lays out those meetings that you can implement on a weekly basis, monthly basis, quarterly, and annual. And I think those are important. Kind of see, “Hey, we said we’re going to do this. Where are we? And where are we fallen short here?”

Richard Garriott:

And it’s hard for lawyers to take the time to do that because we are so ingrained on… They’re 24 hours in a day. I’ve got between eight and 12 hours that is billable time, especially if you’re in an hourly billable practice.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah.

Richard Garriott:

Even before starting our own firm, and even here, you get some pushback saying, “I’m not billing for this time.” And really takes some explanation to say, “This is just as productive as working on the cases.” And because it’s going to… You’re basically paying it forward. Setting those expectations internally are going to bring you the dividends later on rather than just continuing to just churn out and bill on files and work on the client’s issues. Taking that time out, I think, makes you a better lawyer, makes you more productive, and allows you to service the clients better.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah, no. 100%. I love that and I agree. And I think if everyone’s just got their head down siloed, going in their direction, and we never stopped to go, “All right. What are we doing? And are we going the right directions here? Let’s reset. Let’s talk. And then back to work.” Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. You don’t want to clutter your attorneys up with just random meetings that go nowhere.

Richard Garriott:

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey:

So you got to be careful with that. Honestly, for my firm, we need to do a little bit better job of just when we have them and arranging those, but it’s hard when you got lot. I’ve got 20-some people, so it’s hard to find the time to schedule some folks and get them all in one [inaudible 00:18:43].

Richard Garriott:

We’re easy now because we’ve got six. We’ve got six people in the firm; four lawyers, two staff members. So it makes it easy. I think as time goes on, as we start to grow, it’s going to be. And that’s why I think it’s so important to set the expectations now because-

Kevin Daisey:

Yes.

Richard Garriott:

… if you do get bigger, it’s part of the culture.

Kevin Daisey:

Another thing in the book this guy, John Morgan, recommends is… Yeah, those meetings are set and you don’t miss them unless… And any assistance or anyone that’s setting meetings for the attorneys knows not to set up anything during those times. And it’s just built in. That way if you’re at 20 attorneys, there’s no question of about, “Hey, should I be at that meeting or not?” Like “Yeah. It’s on your calendar. You’re going to be there.”

Richard Garriott:

Yeah.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah. I love it. All right. Let’s go into some different topics. I want to cover kind of… Now, you’re a year in. It’s a little bit more than a year.

Richard Garriott:

Just over a year. Are over under with six months. And so, we’re on the over.

Kevin Daisey:

Nice. All right. Awesome. So I know it’s a little soon, but… And I know you brought some clients over. You probably got a lot of good referrals. You’ve been doing this a long time, but outside of referrals, I know you got the website, what… If you’ve done any marketing. Any kind of outbound. Anything that’s generated any traction for you at this point, or just new things that you have planned for this year from a marketing advertising perspective?

Richard Garriott:

Well, I think the majority of our outbound marketing has been pretty… We’ve handled everything pretty much in-house so far. And it’s been… Really the effort we’ve had this year is just trying to get content out on the web. Just any type of content. And that’s been semi-successful. I mean, the biggest issue is, like I said, it’s getting myself included. The lawyers to say, “Okay. I’m going to now take time off to do non-client work to put together a small article or a blurb,” but that’s been mainly… Are putting content out on our Facebook page, on our LinkedIn page, our personal LinkedIn pages, that sort of thing. As far as advertising or things like that, we really haven’t looked at that at this point. Our kind of-

Kevin Daisey:

[inaudible 00:21:24].

Richard Garriott:

Right now, our marketing strategy is really quality over quantity. We’re a small firm. We do a lot of complex divorce issues, business valuations, high conflict custody cases. And I think over just my practice over 25 years, I found that you really… As much as the client is vetting their potential lawyers, the lawyer is also vetting the potential client. And that’s kind of been our mantra. As far as this year, I won’t know till tomorrow afternoon because we’re going to discuss it. It’s on the agenda firm [inaudible 00:22:13].

Kevin Daisey:

[inaudible 00:22:14] get you back on the show after this.

Richard Garriott:

That’s right. That’s right. I’d love to come back.

Kevin Daisey:

Well, that’s… Yeah. And I think that’s… I think what you just said there is very important and hard for most people to do is to be selective with your clients. And we do that. We try to do that. Sometimes I feel like we have some clients come through the door where we’re like… We want to bring this client on, but are they the perfect fit all the time? But I think it’s good when you’ve be in a place where you say, “Hey, we don’t… Not a fit.” Or “We need to let a client go.” “Hey, this has been great.” But you’re not a fit or we’re not a fit for you in a nice way. But it’s just powerful when you can do that. It took me years and years to ever get to the point where I would turn down business.

Richard Garriott:

It’s so difficult to do because… I’m sure the majority of people listening to the podcasts are just like myself and I’m assuming you. I mean, I’m paying a lot of tuition. And you’ve got expenses, you’re taking care of your family, and it’s very difficult to say, “No, I’m not going to take this business.”

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah.

Richard Garriott:

[inaudible 00:23:33] because… But I found in the years I’ve been doing this, the times I have tried to nicely not take a client and they’ve come and they’ve hired me and I’ve taken the case, it has been extremely difficult and I’ve been unsatisfied, and the client ultimately is normally unsatisfied because…

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah.

Richard Garriott:

And my niche, those types of clients, are not going to be happy with anybody they hire.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah. No, I think that’s very important. And I think, again, very difficult to do, especially if you’re starting your own firm. But I think maybe you start out by taking what you can get and some referrals, but you got to start working towards, “Hey, what are we really in this for? Who can we really help? Who’s the ideal fit?” And start working towards that if you can. Yeah. Difficult thing to do though.

Kevin Daisey:

All right. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. And I think what you guys are doing with the content. I mean, a year in. Website looks great. You got content going out. It’s difficult to get attorneys to write anything. Trust me.

Richard Garriott:

Yes, it is.

Kevin Daisey:

Because sometimes we work with our clients, so sometimes they write, we write, they Start Today to write, but it’s like pulling teeth when they want to contribute. But it sounds like you guys are on the right track and you’re moving forward and you’re doing some of the right things. You’re investing in some of the social media and things like that. LinkedIn, your personal profiles, I think they’re strong. Company ones [inaudible 00:25:18] usually do very well, but they want to know you, right, and connect with you. And I think those work best.

Kevin Daisey:

Now, I know you’re having a meeting tomorrow. Maybe this question’s not as relevant, but what are your plans for growth? Do you have any major milestones, second office, certain amount of attorneys, maybe a certain structure mix? What’s some of the goals you have?

Richard Garriott:

I think right now in our discussions is we’re looking at kind of… As far as size of office and staff right now, we’re kind of holding the line on that probably at least for another year. We want to get at least two years in. I think right now we’re looking at probably three to… By year three or four, I think we’re going to be looking at a larger office. Probably expand some staff before we add some other attorneys. But frankly, right now, we’ve got… Out of the four of us, the least experienced of the attorneys has 10 years of practice. So, we are at a position where I would think in the next 18 months we might start looking at trying to bring in some younger attorneys. And as the younger attorneys here, as their business model starts expanding, we’re going to need to get some additional folks in. But right now it’s kind of… We’re focusing on fine tuning our internal processes, making sure that we can give the best service possible to the clients. And then after that start looking at expanding. In the 25 years I’ve been doing this, Kevin, I’ve seen many law firms expand incredibly fast and about 80% of the time, they implode. And so, we are going to… Our mantra is slow and steady wins the race.

Kevin Daisey:

Tortoise.

Richard Garriott:

That’s right. That’s right.

Kevin Daisey:

I think that’s great. And I think it’s important. And I think that is wise to do. You’ve already done a lot in one year. So to kind of recap, improve and get prepared to scale.

Richard Garriott:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kevin Daisey:

That makes a lot of sense. Because like I said, once you get a bunch of people, and you’re trying to change things… I know for me and my business partner, we got 20-some people. We get a lot of pushback. Hey, me and my partner, we came up with all these crazy ideas. And everybody’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” The people are the technicians, right. On the ground, on the front lines, they’re like, “Wait a minute. You guys got to slow down here. We need some process in place or…”

Richard Garriott:

That’s exactly right.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah. Yeah. Very wise. To everyone listening, if you’re starting a firm, a lot of good tips here, I think, that rich has to share. Slow and steady, process, take care of your clients, communication is key. Be selective if you can with which clients you take on. And I think that’s a good exercise too. Who is your ideal client? What do they look like? How they act. What kind of case? As much as you would know about them and be on the lookout for those folks and connect with those folks. Yeah. All good stuff. Well, Rich, anything else you’d like to share? Anything else you’re working on that we should know about?

Richard Garriott:

I think the only other project I’m working on, another non-billable issue, is I’m a member of the Virginia Commission on the Needs of Children. We’ve got a continued legal education coming up in March, and I’ll be working on a panel and working on an article to go with that on how to utilize expert witnesses in custody cases that involve adverse childhood experiences. So we’re working on that right now and we’re just plugging along other than that. And like I said, the only other project I’ve got going is to go meet the riot at the grocery store since everybody panics in Virginia Beach when it’s going to snow.

Kevin Daisey:

Yeah. I’m going to be joining you here in a minute.

Richard Garriott:

That’s right.

Kevin Daisey:

So, yeah. We’re going to get some snow today. Obviously by the time you hear this episode, it may be getting warm out, but either way, that’s what we’re dealing with right now. But Rich, thanks so much for coming on and sharing all this with us. You’ve done a lot in one year. You got the experience, but I think you’ve done a lot of good things to start in the right way and take care of those things before you do grow. And so, kudos to you on that. And I think it’s just a lot of good tips here if everyone’s trying to start their own firm, for sure. Website address is below, again, on your screen. Go check out his firm. Connect with Rich. Rich, is there any other way if someone local, attorney, or potential employee, or maybe just another fellow attorney across the country. If they wanted to connect with you, is there another way they could reach out?

Richard Garriott:

Yeah, I would say the best way is by email, which is at garriott@garriottmaurer.com.

Kevin Daisey:

Okay.

Richard Garriott:

And then there anybody [inaudible 00:31:02] welcome to call us at 757-530-9595. And I’ll talk to anybody like helping lawyers. I spend a lot of time involved with different bar associations trying to improve my practice and also help other lawyers improve theirs. So I’m happy to talk to anybody anytime.

Kevin Daisey:

Excellent. Well, I appreciate that. I’m sure everyone else will as well. All right. For everyone listening this episode and others, we have 170 plus I think on the site at the time of this recording. So quite a few… You can go to thisisarray.com/podcast. We also have a way to filter. So if you want to hear attorneys that are in your practice area or state, we have two filters. One, location; and one, practice area. So if you’re a family attorney as well, you want to hear a bunch of other family attorneys talk about their business, you can filter by that. So, there’s tons of these interviews who you can learn from. And then we have the newsletter as well, which we can pile a lot of this cool stuff and tips and marketing tag is from us. We recommend books. So if you’re interested in a newsletter, you can also sign it for that on our website.

Kevin Daisey:

And then obviously you need any help marketing, advertising, growing your following, getting in front of more clients? That’s what we. You go to thisisarray.com. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn or any other platform. I’ll respond and answer any questions you might have. So, that’s all we got. Rich, anything else?

Richard Garriott:

No, it’s been great. I’ve enjoyed it and you ever want me back, I’m here.

Kevin Daisey:

Oh, absolutely. Well, I appreciate it. And definitely [inaudible 00:32:43] to catch up soon. And since we are right down the street from each other, and we’ll go to lunch and do something like that, but everyone else, thank you so much for joining us. We will be back soon. And Rich, appreciate it. We’ll say bye to everyone. Rich, you’re staying with me. We’ll talk a little bit backstage.

Richard Garriott:

All right.

Kevin Daisey:

Have a great day. We’ll see you guys soon.