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Reflections on Systematizing a Small Firm Practice (with Kerry Wallis) | Otter.ai

Reflections on Systematizing a Small Firm Practice (with Kerry Wallis)

Ernest Svenson36min

Ernie Svenson

00:01

All right, Carrie. Well, welcome. Good to have you here.

Unknown Speaker

00:04

Thanks so much for having me, Ernie.

Ernie Svenson

00:06

Cool. I'm really excited because you are a lawyer with a small, firm practice, who I believe is kind of a good example of somebody who's been really thoughtful about trying to systematize streamline, improve your practice. And you've gone through a process and I've gotten to observe you go through that process. So what I'd like to do is maybe have you share some things that have happened to you so that other lawyers who kind of in similar circumstances can draw from your experience. So to kick it off? Why don't we begin by letting you explain what kind of practice you have, how many people you work with, and so forth? Sure,

Speaker 1

00:44

um, I am a family law, mediator and attorney, I do the kinder gentler, of the family law divorcing, I always say my goal is to help other people solve their own problems, so that in a few years, they can dance with their kids wedding together. That's always my goal for them. And I work with two other attorneys and a paralegal. That's our primary team. And we are here in Southern California LA area.

Ernie Svenson

01:19

Cool. And how long have you had your own firm and running your own firm? I,

Speaker 1

01:25

I'm at about seven years now. And prior to that, I was a boutique Family Law Firm. And prior to that, I was at a big national firm.

Ernie Svenson

01:36

Cool, how long? Were you at the big firm?

Unknown Speaker

01:39

Six or seven years?

Unknown Speaker

01:41

Okay, I guess the law clerk before then.

Ernie Svenson

01:44

Okay. And so you have faced the challenges. And I guess joys sometimes of being the manager, owner of your own firm? And I guess I you know, like to get into that a little bit, and maybe have you share kind of what are the challenges of running a small firm like yours? And what have been those challenges? And then how have you tried to address those challenges in the past?

Speaker 1

02:12

Well, one of the big challenges is, you've got to wear a ton of different hats. At the big firm, there were all these structures for the attorneys. But then you also had, you had your paralegal, you had your administrative system system, you have the computer, or just the typist, folks in the mailroom, and all of those things, that we're working together to have their own role in getting that to the finish line. Whereas for your small firm, a lot of times you were all of those roles, and you're doing all of those things. And so that was very hard for me to get used to. And to think about that it's it's overwhelming. Or at least it was for me, it was overwhelming and doing that. And so I initially only focused on what I knew, which was the legal part. And I did very little around the business and the process and all of that,

Ernie Svenson

03:14

right. That's the classic e myth thing, the book, The E myth. You know, Michael Gerber says that's what people do is they have this mythology, that they're going to be an entrepreneur and start their own firm their own business. And it's going to be great, because they know how to do the technical part of it, which was, was my son actually my scenario as well, I left the big firm, I thought, yeah, I know how to practice law. But then you realize, like, wait, there's the managing the business part. And then there's the marketing part. These are other elements. And when I did it, I didn't have any people to manage. I purposely didn't want to deal with that. Because I knew that that was hold on the challenge. Did you go straight to having other people working with you? Or did you start out solo?

Speaker 1

03:52

Well, I was super fortunate. Because I, I always say I am literally incapable of doing admin work. I just my brain doesn't think in that way. And I get so flustered. So I was really fortunate that my paralegal from my previous firm, agreed to still work with me, I always have on and then I added on our attorneys to assist on that. And what was really fortunate on that front is in doing the adding slow, I got to really pay attention to what it is that is kind of my highest and best, and what isn't, and so that I could as much as possible, be really clear on this is what I do well, and these are the ways that I fall down. And I would love it if I was working with people who had strengths where my weaknesses are.

Ernie Svenson

04:47

And that's really that's that's what one should do. Like that's the classic. Don't do the things you don't like to do with it. Other people can do better. But some people have trouble delegating those things. That was that challenge for you. Oh,

Speaker 1

05:01

yeah, so I was really bad delegator for a very long time. And, and that is because I would swing on both extremes. And I know, you know, Michael Hyatt, there's really five wit, forms of delegation. And I would go swing from micromanager, to the, I'm just going to hand you everything having given you no guidance whatsoever. And so it really has taken a long time for me to figure out, what are the parts that I need to break down really, really minute, Li, and what are the parts that I can give more broad range, and that has a lot to do with relationship and history, as well as then what it is when in doubt, I needed to have broken it down into smaller parts,

Ernie Svenson

05:53

right? So then you have to manage people and tell them what you expect of them. And then using Michael hyatts, five levels of delegation concept you define Okay, well, this is for a newbie. And so I have to tell them exactly how to do it versus level five, where they're like radar, O'Reilly mesh, and they know how to do the job almost better than you do. Right? So you had to figure all that out, and then manage that. And so what were your what were your strategies and tactics for doing that, to help ease the burden and make it more manageable.

Speaker 1

06:26

So a lot of times it was hit or miss. And I would do a lot of one offs, I would send a lot of emails. And but then when I was busy, I would be unresponsive. Over time on we learned that we definitely do best as a team, if we have a team meeting once a week. And we go over every single case, and everybody hears it. And it's quick for each case, but everybody hears that, that really helps to make sure nothing's falling through the cracks. That is one thing that I make sure to do. The other thing is, is we're very clear on the rules for how we communicate. And what I mean by that is we only do email, if it is outward facing that is what goes to the clients, we are not emailing between ourselves. Instead, we communicate mostly via slack. What I love about slack for us is it's all right there, whether it is the documents that we're talking about whether it is our communication back and forth, it's so easy to get a quick run through, I have a system where after all of my mediations, meetings, whatever, I always dictate notes. Even if I've taken handwritten notes, my handwritten notes are for crap. Um, and they don't do a very good job of conveying all the things. So after I always dictate notes, I don't even proofread them, it does not matter what got down on the paper, because almost always you can figure it out, they can figure it out. And if not, I can translate so that it's not worth it to me to go back and fix it. But it's enough to dictate and dump it into slack. So now, anyone who needs to, can look into my Slack channel on that matter and see, okay, this was the last thing that was done. Um, and it really has been a game changer on clarity of this is where internally we talk about what's going on with the client on slack.

Ernie Svenson

08:37

Have you tried using otter AI as a transcription tool?

Speaker 1

08:41

I did I actually find drafts was easier for me. So I try I didn't I grabbed I've do all kinds of different things. But then once I find something that I like, I tend to be someone that once I find something I like it's enough.

Ernie Svenson

08:57

Well, and that's what you should do you know it. I personally like otter AI, although I had a lot of trouble figuring out why I would want to use it. Because I put it in the category of a tool for dictation, when it turns out and I listened to a podcast interview with the founder. And his whole premise was to create to capture meeting notes in a way that was as useful as possible but low friction as possible to create them. And so that's why people use it is because it's kind of like loom which I know we'll talk about where you can create the the recording real easily really quickly. And then it has just enough features that enable it to be useful to people. But anyway, the point is, the larger picture is if that's not what works well for you, then you don't do that right so that it's there's no system that works best for everybody. And we will definitely be talking about systems in a minute. But before I get to that, I want to touch on one other thing which you just did, which I think is something really inspiring or will be to a lot of lawyers and that is you took essentially a sabbatical, although not enough Working sabbatical, but because of this whole pandemic thing, you traveled Europe and in the Caribbean. So tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 1

10:10

Sure. Um, we were like everybody else in the beginning of COVID, where things were just going away, left and right, we had had huge travel plans, actually for 2020. And they were cancelled, one after the other after the other. And we were really hanging on. I have four kids, they're ages 11, to 17. And all of their things were getting cancelled to their extracurriculars and all of that. And then we really felt like as a family, we were kind of limping through the 2020. And when we got the news that once again, the kids were not going to go back to school, it was going to be virtual again. And there is there was just a feeling of malaise in our family. And, um, we we were in the midst of that, my husband said, you know, can we do something different here, we've always dreamed. And one thing is we, my husband, and I had in the back of our mind, that once the kids were off all to college, we would start doing one month on one month off, we would be home for a month, and then we would be elsewhere for and we'd still work. But we've always put my practice in a way that would be paperless, so that we could be elsewhere. Well, when this happened, he said, you know, what? What do you think about us just doing everything elsewhere for a while and let the kids have the experience those life experiences, that we're not getting the same schooling experiences, but it would be pretty awesome if we could have some cultural experiences. And so we did, we, within about five weeks from that conversation, we were on the plane to Croatia. And that's where we started. And we traveled for about four months, going from Croatia, to Italy to Turkey, and then st Maarten all basically trying to avoid more shutdowns. So that was the randomness of our How could we get to Europe? That was three Croatia, then we could stay there. And then how could we on get avoid being completely shut down

Ernie Svenson

12:31

yet another travel version of whack a mole basically,

Speaker 1

12:34

that was exactly what that was, we had to be very, very, we had plans A through J. And I think we ended up you know, at q by the time we're in St. Maarten, well, we

Ernie Svenson

12:45

could definitely do a whole different segment that we should probably on this travel thing, because of course, you and I work together each week. And so I got to see it all unfold. And I'm sure we could, you know, regale, the audience with all of that for a whole bunch of time. But let's take it back to systems because in order to be able to do this kind of thing, traveling, stepping away, or just managing your practice in general, you have to have systems in place that are documented, so that you can easily hand off work and you are a believer in this. I don't know at what point you came to be a believer in this. But I'm glad you are because I I believe that is the the way the truth and the light for an efficient practice. And I try to help people find the way the truth and the light. Yes,

Unknown Speaker

13:31

I agree. I am

Ernie Svenson

13:32

I do. So so you probably like most people? And I guess I know this, the answer is because we've worked together, it did not find the truth in the way in the light all at once. You are still in the process of kind of putting it together. But what would you say? Some big aha moments were about this idea of saying, Yeah, I should document my systems somehow to like, now you're actually doing it in a very granular way, what was what were some of the milestone moments there?

Speaker 1

14:04

One milestone moment was the idea that it doesn't have to take that much longer. So in my mind, it was going to take such a huge amount of time, and such a distraction from all the things that were urgent right now. Um, and so you know, those four quadrants, I was living within the urgency quadrant, as opposed to stepping back from the important and I literally had to tie myself to see that it doesn't take that long, as long as you have a good system for creating the system. And so that was another part.

Ernie Svenson

14:42

So what we're talking about is documenting a procedure, let's say and that's kind of the term of art for this that we'll just keep using an a procedure would be a step by step workflow for a discrete task. And then you can bundle together as a group of tasks and make it into something else but you know, the procedure is the atomic level of describing work. And so when you're going to describe a procedure, the best time to do it, is while you're doing it, but of course, that adds extra time and attention. So you're saying you had kind of a resistance or fear about that, that might take too long.

Speaker 1

15:15

Right? Right. And honestly, it would have if I were taking screenshots, or if I were doing writing down what it is. But once, I think you were the one who introduced me the loom, once I saw that I could just kind of close caption or describe what I was doing while I was doing it. And then I could have someone else create those screenshots. That was life changing truly,

Ernie Svenson

15:47

yeah, because if you can, if you can create a system for creating the systems, then you can outsource that, you know, to other people are creating the systems because they follow your system. And the easiest, fastest way to do it is if it's something you're doing with your computer, which these days more and more of the stuff we do is that, then you just narrate yourself while you're doing it. So you don't have to stop and write down notes or type notes or transcribe them later or any, that's if you just narrate the video using loom. And like many people who have discovered loom you, you realize, wow, this is like a really cool tool. Tell us a little bit about what you like about loom.

Speaker 1

16:25

I love that it is super easy. I have all kinds of barriers to get me to do something. But this is it's right there. It literally lives on the top of my screen, I push a button, and it asked me what is it that I want to be filming, I choose what I'm going to film. And then I press go. And it's you know, it's so fast to get it out. So that's one of the things that I love. I also love that I don't have to download anything after I do it. It lives in the cloud, I can just it gives me an easy option for copy link. And then I can put it wherever I need. So for sometimes I put it into Slack, because I'm telling my people, sometimes I send an email to my client, because I just taught them how to do something that now I can have other people do. And other times I'm sending it on to the VA asking them, can you please watch this, break it down into screenshots and on to dues, you know, the bullet points, and and then send it back to me. And once they've done that I can have that uploaded into the central repository, which is sweet process

Ernie Svenson

17:41

for me. So one of the things just to make this super clear that makes loom so frictionless, because I also had a barrier to it like, Well, why would I use this, I already know how to use these other tools, YouTube, whatever fill in the blank. But the difference is those you record and then you have to upload was with loom it's streaming the recording to the cloud, as zoom does when you record a zoom, and so that when you're finished the recordings already there. And all you have to do is get the link and send it to people. So it makes it super easy, super fast and convenient. And you can store all the videos in loom if you want to save in there forever and organizing and do all kinds of cool stuff. But, but the fact that it's frictionless and easy is the key thing. And I don't know if you do this, but I use my phone to do it. Because there's a loom app on the phone, it took me a little while to wrap my head around how to do it with the phone. But some of the things I want to demonstrate are things about how to do something on the phone. So it's better to use the phone. Have you use the phone app at all?

Speaker 1

18:39

I have, I don't tend to use it to demonstrate what I'm doing on my phone just because my workflow doesn't require that very much. I tend to use that when I am wanting to tell someone something that is going to be faster than typing.

Ernie Svenson

18:54

Yeah. And I would say for lawyers who decide that they want to have YouTube videos, for example, if you do, loom would be a great way to do it. Because once you get used to using it for these other purposes, which is definitely good reason to use it. That's the same thing. You just record yourself without the screen just yourself holding it up and talking. And then later on, you can go download that video and upload it to YouTube or wherever you want to load it. So loom is a really good place for lawyers who aren't comfortable with video to get comfortable video. So I just wanted to make make that clear. All right, so let's talk about the biggest tool that I think is the game changer. And I'm glad you know that you're learning to use this with the other lawyers who are going to the systems workshop. And that is sweet process. So I don't you know, I think we kind of share the same struggle of like, oh, should I use Evernote? Should I use these other things or Google Docs? And I realized that personally, there had to be a good reason why Michael Hyatt, for example, or Lee Rosen or some other folks that I trust. Were using sweet process and I just I wasn't able to figure out why it was so beneficial until I just determined that I was going to use it, and also teach people how to use it. So we've been learning how to use it together. So tell me, what has been kind of the aha moments for you as far as using sweet process?

Speaker 1

20:15

Well, it's silly, but I really care about the way things look if it is, if it is cluttered, if it is messy, if it's unattractive, I'm honestly not going to use it. And it's a good user interface. So that's an easy and small thing, but it's helpful. Another thing is it because you have teams, you have other people who can be involved in it. What I love about that, is I had been recording things in Evernote, and then I had some stuff in Dropbox, and then I had some stuff in slack. And it was weird. Where is that thing, right? Um, and now having this one place, okay, this is where it's all gonna live. That's just a relief in that decision making tree. This is this is where it's going to live. And I know where to go to find that on that I really like and it allows for other people to then look at it, it allows for other people to add to to modify to change. So it's not all on me. Because before it was only on me. And now I can have other people go in there and stress test and try it out and make sure it makes sense on that. I also like that you can upload documents. Now I admit, I wish there was a thumbnail, because I think thumbnails are helpful in recognizing what you're going to look at and whether it's a desirable thing to open. So that's something I wish was there. But knowing that that as the document, whether that's the form the something else, an article that I may want them to look at, it's all right there in the central place, when we talked about that frictionless. I really think as much as you can do, so that there's not another step and not another place to go to, you're in a better place. And so having it all just right there in the central place is very helpful as well.

Ernie Svenson

22:15

Yeah, that's the key principle, the quick capture, you need to make it as frictionless as possible. And so sweet process definitely lets you do that it has a lot of power. That's kind of hidden, so it doesn't confuse you in the beginning. And so I think the trick with sweet process is getting some help if you're not the kind of person who likes to dig into software, because I was digging into it. And then I realized, like, Wow, it does a whole bunch of different things that I would definitely want to use, or at least teach lawyers how to use but you don't pick that up when you first log in. Because it looks pretty, it's simple, it's easy to get going. And as you said, we were talking about this the other day, he said, a real aha moment for you was when you realize that the trick to getting going is to just quickly create lots of processes, like not worry about going too deep in any of them, but just getting all of them out of your head. So at least you know what you're going to document long term. And you said sweet process makes that easy.

Speaker 1

23:16

It is easy because it it is going to you can drag and drop stuff in terms of just you know, the copy and paste and dump things in. And then you can have someone else make it pretty if you want to. Or you can have that but just that idea I was on at a continuing ed seminar. And there were these things that I was thinking, Oh, and often when I go to these, I think oh, I'll have to remember that. And then it goes by the wayside. But in this I just in the moment was creating procedures as they were talking about something. And and right now in my suite process, I don't have it divided between analysis procedures, and then and then more the process or or how to do technology procedures, but I will start breaking it down so that there's a here's my procedure for how you should think about initio. Right, versus here's the procedure for how to use our technology.

Ernie Svenson

24:16

Yeah, that's a that's an important distinction. And that's something I didn't think about until I was again, like working at this course I was thinking well, we keep talking about workflows as action steps. And yes, most things are action steps, but then there are decision steps where you have to decide do I go this way? Do I go that way? What are the factors to consider? So for knowledge workers, like lawyers, it's not just actions, it's thoughts. It's my decisions and you know, sweet process lets you have decision trees and stuff like that. But the more important consideration just thinking about some of the procedures are thinking through things.

Speaker 1

24:53

Right. And my goal is always I want to think about something really well. Once Yep, and then not have to reinvent the wheel or think about it again, I want it to have been figured out. So it's easy next time. Yep.

Ernie Svenson

25:09

And, and obviously, that's, that's our all of our goals. And I will say that what I discovered is that for some things, even things that are kind of mundane, like, for example, my procedures for recording the podcast and also said, it's very functional, it's not the not thinking of all and I tried to capture it all perfectly The first time I did it. And then I've discovered as I use it, to go through it, which was the first weird thing to me like, Okay, wait a second, I'm gonna like, go through this as though I don't know how to do this. And check off the steps. But then I discovered by doing that, that, that sweet process is pretty cool, and how it handles it because it'll hide everything you're not using at the moment. So when you check off one thing, then it frees up the next one. And then you can see all the steps and you check through. And in doing this, I realized, even for mundane things, I'd spot little things that needed to be optimized. And it makes it really easy to optimize it either by doing it right then and there. Or you can leave yourself a little note and come back to it later. Or, you know, if other people are doing it, they can leave a note, you know, you'll get the notes. So it's got everything you need for you to do this stuff and to do it with other people. So I definitely recommend people use a tool like, sweet process. Now, one thing that you had, so we might as well address this, because in the podcast, people may wonder about this, because you did is if you go to sweet process, it looks like it's gonna cost you $99 a month. Yeah. And you will, as I would said, I'm not paying $99 a month when it's just me and three other people. But in fact, that's not the deal. Like you can get it for $390 a year. Right? If you use that special link that the guy who runs the process gave me to give people because he wants people to learn how to use it. But he doesn't want to fool around with people in companies that have less than 20 employees or you know, that don't have enough employees. So I guess the trade off is he was certain consultants like me, he said, Look, if you're going to teach them, then you know, here's a special deal for them. So that's affordable, you feel like,

Speaker 1

27:11

yeah, that was I was unwilling having not used it before. I was willing to create a bunch of systems and then decide whether I wanted to dump it into sweet process or not. But I wasn't willing to spend 100 bucks just to try it out. Yeah. But then once there was the lower price point, I am a big fan of there's a dollars per per usage kind of thing that makes sense. And this could make my life easier. I was certainly willing to try it for a year at that price point.

Ernie Svenson

27:41

So some of the people that I've worked with talked about sweet processes say, Well, why would I want to do this? I'm just me. I'm truly a solo person. And that was kind of my mindset. And it's funny, because I reached back out to a friend of mine, and Craig Baer, who does document management consulting for lawyers. And he loves the process. He's been using it for now over five years. And he when we talked about it just recently, he said, Yeah, I'm really kind of the only person who uses it. I said, Oh, well, then what's your view of whether it's useful for just a solo practitioner? And he goes, Oh, no, it's useful for me, I'm, I'm the only one using it. I couldn't live without this. But when I want to hire virtual assistants, it makes it super easy for me to then just go Okay, well, I'm going to share this procedure. So you living with the procedures that you're going through and refining them to make them as good as they can be, sets you up for the success at the outsourcing or delegation level, which is where you are. I mean, you started there. But you've also explored virtual assistants. So can you tell us a little bit about that and sweet process?

Speaker 1

28:44

Yeah, I actually have been pleasantly surprised by what a good job they have done. But what it's done is made me get better at explaining things, have more clarity, and find out when I need to break things down. So I tried to jump a few steps. And that's part of the going back and forth as I tried to take a loom video and say, Hey, can you just dump this into sweet process? That didn't work? But if I took a loom video ad, asked them to create a Word document that had the steps, and then had someone else do the steps into sweet process. It totally worked. And I think just fine tuning and trying things out. That's another thing that's been really helpful is to go hey, this isn't this isn't so expensive, that this is not about the company and what I've actually really liked about both sweet process as well as using a VA team is that idea of some things are gonna work and some things aren't. They're all going to be learning experiences. So how can we optimize and I really I have been impressed with it. Fancy hands, I've been impressed with what they can do.

Ernie Svenson

30:02

Yeah, I mean it all it all of it breaks down that way. Like you have to isolate and modularize the tasks and the procedures and and wrapping your head around that, in the very beginning is tricky, because it's your whole practice, it's like literally everything could be a procedure, or a policy or whatever. And then you know, it's almost too overwhelming to us with the possibilities. But once you start chipping away at it, you realize that's all you're ever going to be doing, he's gonna be chipping away at it. And you'll have moments of great frenzy where you create a lot of procedures, and then other ones where you kind of in a law or you're busy, but as long as you keep chipping away at it over time, you will wind up with essentially the operations manual for your firm. Yeah, and then you could turn that over to somebody else or take an extended vacation and turn it over to somebody else temporarily to manage. So the possibilities are tremendous. But at the ground level, you do have to like describe the procedures that is a requirement. You can outsource that, unfortunately.

Speaker 1

31:06

But you cannot you can make it as frictionless as possible, right? And the more I have described things, the better I am at doing so and I actually even have kind of a procedure of thinking, how am I going to describe this, so that it's getting better and better as I'm doing it? Good?

Ernie Svenson

31:27

Well, that's what I was hoping that you would help people understand, because that's been my experience with all of this as well. And so, you know, I like teaching people because it helps me see more clearly how to do it myself. But once I started using sweet process, and it could have been something else like process Street, but you know, a tool built specifically to document procedures, I realized this is the holy grail, like you must have the right tool. And then you must learn how to use the tool and create your own system for creating systems, but you will now have it in a tool. And no, yes, that is where everything goes like you don't wonder like, Okay, I see so much stuff is Evernote. So you know, you don't want to have that that's a road to frustration.

Speaker 1

32:11

Right. And that is and the thing that helped me is when you look at an example, it's all done up nice and pretty and all of that. And it's actually that's a little overwhelming, because you can't even imagine that you can create that, right? But when you just go all I have to do is dump it in here and they'll deal with it later. And then at a different time you just move it and it can be that stuff can be brainless or other people can do it for you or what have you. It all it's breaking it down and making it I mean

Ernie Svenson

32:41

lawyers really shouldn't get overwhelmed or frustrated by this. Because if you think about it, it's no different than like, I mean, I'll think back to when I was teaching in law school, like you know, one of the things you had an ICICI moot court and legal research and writing. And the moot court was they had to write a 25 page brief. Well, these were people who had never most of them written any kind of structured document like that. But when they finished, it was like such a feeling of accomplishment, but all it was was break it down, create an outline, okay, flesh, this part out flesh, this part. And so every lawyer has created at this point in their lives, complex documents, it's no different. You're just creating documents that describe how to do things, or decide things versus how to persuade, you know, persuading a court or, you know, administrative body. So it's not with outside of your expertise. It's just an unfamiliar tool. Maybe an unfamiliar process. But I mean, wouldn't you say it's pretty much like writing a brief,

Unknown Speaker

33:40

it's easier, it's actually a lot easier.

Ernie Svenson

33:42

See, there you go. All right. So, um, are there any other things that you think people should know about this process that you've now started to understand better, that would encourage them or help them understand how not to be intimidated by it?

Speaker 1

33:58

Well, I'm a big fan of getting the help you need. So probably that would be the first thing to that I would say is if it is overwhelming, ask for help. Um, you know, like, I it's worth paying someone to guide you if that's, if that's what you need to get it done on. The other thing is, is that I actually think if you try, try the baby steps, so if you don't want to do that first sign up for sweet process because I don't know what to do, for example, that trying loom and just describe what you're doing on a few times and and try a few things and it's not going to be that big of a deal. Once you get some some of the tools under your belt. It's just not that big of a deal. It really isn't.

Ernie Svenson

34:47

And, you know, I think getting help is definitely beneficial. There was no one that I found that would teach me how to use these tools. So like I guess I could have paid somebody to do it. But that is Now what I'm doing for lawyers, I'm in the systems workshop that you're in now, that was my big epiphany was like, lawyers need to use it and do it, and then ask me questions about why they feel like something doesn't work. And then I can explain it. So it's a four week workshop. But the nice thing about it is after it's over, I feel like a lot of people are gonna say, Well, I still want help, well, then, you know, you can join the copilot program, and the Slack channel that we have in there, that's only for people that have been to the workshop is available for everybody who's ever been through it. So my goal ultimately, is to have all the people learn how to use sweet process and do all this stuff. We can help each other and answer each other's questions. Because I really feel like this is like where this is where it all comes together. I mean, it's all fine and good if technology and automation and outsourcing and text expander is great. And you know what, there's a lot of stuff. That's great. But what's the glue that holds all that together? To me, it's now documented procedures in some kind of tool. So I'm glad that you're, you're finding it beneficial, and that you're in our workshop and that you'll be in the slack group and that you've helped me explain this to other people. Because it is actually easier than you think it is when you start. Yeah.

Speaker 1

36:15

But it took me It literally took me two years of you saying that things needed to be documented and processes to feel comfortable like I'm actually doing that now fairly well.

Ernie Svenson

36:29

Well, I didn't know as much about sweet process are really I didn't, I would have forced you to use it sooner if I had forced myself to use it first. But now that we both realize that having the right tools is important. I feel like we're both making a lot more progress. And I'm excited about trying to help other lawyers. But thank you very much for helping you to explain this, and I look forward to continuing to work with you in the workshop.

Unknown Speaker

36:53

My pleasure. Thanks Jeremy.

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