Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Dr. Random podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah, and here's the deal. We don't do boxes here.
Every episode is different, every conversation has its own flavor, and no topic is off limits. If you're looking for predictable, this isn't it. But if you want real conversations, honest takes, and a touch of intellect in the best way, you're in the right place. This is Dr. Random Podcast.
Hello, this is the Dr. Random Podcast. I'm Dr. Sarah, and today I have a guest that I'm really excited for, Nermin Jasani. She is an attorney, and she's a Chief performance Officer for law firms. So Nermine and I connected again through Behind Closed Doors. And basically, you know, I think that's why we do things like this. We want to network. And so I just think it's an. An amazing thing that happened. And I've been kind of diving into myself, wanting to do legal operations consulting. And I've been a paralegal for over 15 years, and I've kind of worked primarily on the plaintiff side of things, but I've also some done the defense side of things.
I joke around and. Sorry, I call it the dark side sometimes, but that's just coming from more of a plaintiff background, you know?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Sure, yeah.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: But, you know, I really enjoy the law. I love the law. Obviously, I went so far as to get my, you know, master's in legal studies from Pepperdine School of Law. And I just love what I think I love about doing legal work and paralegal work is like, you know, I kind of have a passion for our history, as people know, like the Constitution and kind of like how our judicial system was formed. I just think it's really strong, and it's a great system. And I think that, you know, when used the way it is speaking supposed to, and we follow the rules and case law and everything, I just find it fascinating. And, you know, it's. It's just a great thing. And I feel like, you know, it's also amazing what we can do to help people, too. And so, basically, as a, you know, legal operations consultant, you're the expert here. I'm kind of just wanting to dive into this, possibly into my career. I do kind of. I'll be honest, I would love to just take off as an artist, but see what happens with that. But, you know, it seems like law firm shareholders, when they're looking for a legal operations consultant, say it seems like from what I understand, they kind of. In a way, I feel like protection is a big Thing like protection for their firm and different facets of it. Right. In different layers of what they're doing. I think protection is probably a main word there. And trust.
And so I. I kind of want to give you the platform now and just kind of talk about, you know, what you do, what you offer, you know, and kind of. Let's just get into that, and then we'll kind of just go on with our conversation and let it flow as we go.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: Perfect. That sounds good. Well, I'm super excited to be here because I know that this is going to be an awesome conversation, and I know that whoever's listening is probably like, oh, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not into operations consulting. I don't know if this applies to me. I can tell you that if you run a business or you're working in a business, this does apply to you, because a lot of what operations work comes down to is making sure that there are processes in place that allow the office to be basically efficient. So if you are someone who's like, why is it taking so long to get this done? How do I make my job easier? How do I, you know, do 40 hours of work and actually feel, like, not overwhelmed, but appropriately challenged in those 40 hours? I would say that, like, a lot of that falls under operations. Like, what can you do to make the thing that you are doing have less steps? Right? Like, maybe it's for producing this podcast. You know, one way you could have done it was doing it through Zoom, which would have had six extra steps in terms of editing for your team or getting the file over to your team or whatever. But, you know, you're not using Zoom. You're using Riverside. And so that, in and of itself, has just cut out six steps. So when I think about, you know, operations and operations consulting and why do people need it and what are we doing here and why do you need an expert for these things? It's because we know how to take something and make it easier, right? Like, where it's sort of like, if you ever have tried to cook something, like, especially with baking, you need, like, a little bit of cinnamon, and you need a little bit of nutmeg. And it's like, we're just like, okay, let's just call it, like, allspice, and we'll just, like, put it together as, like, one spoon of allspice instead of, like, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, right? So it's kind of the same thing, which is we're trying to take the steps out of it. We're trying to make it easier, we're trying to make it more efficient so that you as the person who's working, who's doing this stuff on a day to day basis, aren't losing your mind and feeling like you're pulling out your hair.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: I will say one firm that I have done some consulting for, I help them with, you know, onboarding process hiring and found a, you know, basically a, a new paralegal for their firm and also another attorney for the office and you know, an associate attorney and also helping with just the overall appearance in a firm. Things that like maybe law firms don't think about that. I know, you know where you want to go in and just make sure that, you know, there's nothing confidential out place to see. There's so many things that you know if you aren't careful, you could miss and it could be a huge problem or a lawsuit for that firm. Like a malpractice suit, you know, for instance, like confidential information with clients or anything. Say the mail person or another client comes in and sees a file laying out things like that, which I know you're aware of ethics pretty much. And basically would you say, do you deal a lot with the financial impact on firms as a consultant?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of, you know, what makes an office efficient absolutely hits your bottom line, right? Because my philosophy is you can't just keep adding people to your payroll to do little things if everyone is only doing 60% of their job. Right. That just tells me that that's a very inefficient office.
And if it's taking too many steps to do something like sign a contract or get paid on an invoice, if that is taking too many steps and it's resulting in invoices not being paid or invoices not going out, all of that has an impact to your bottom line.
And you know this probably. But you know, as a firm grows, the owner ultimately ends up becoming a bottleneck. So you've got to figure out systems and processes where other people can do these things that you yourself don't then have to do. Because you know, what you might have done for the firm when it was just five of you is not going to be the same thing that you do when it's 10 of you or 15 of you.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Like you, you're not going to be going through every single settlement amount to make sure that the number matches up. No. Instead you might want to consider bringing someone in house as an in house bookkeeper. An in house, finance it, whatever title you want to give it. Right? Like you want to bring someone in house who can actually go through that. Because if you're settling 200 claims in a year and you're supposed to be the one who's reviewing the accounting on all of it, forget about it, like no one's going to get paid, nothing's going to happen and it's going to be a mess.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: And would you say that results with financial stuff like basically increasing profit per partner, improving collection rates. Like you touched on reduced write offs and write downs, optimized billing practices and pricing. I mean, you touched on all that.
And I guess the next thing I would think is a deep understanding of law firm economics for people. So like I think that as a consultant, a legal operations consultant, I, the firms want you to know and be knowledgeable about actually what it takes to operate a law firm. And you know, when you think about it like for instance, me being paralegal for so long, you know, I would say sometimes you touch on, you understand kind of like I would say a surface level of how that operates. But what would you tell people basically more on an in depth with your expertise on that?
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say for not just for law firms, but just businesses in general. You'll see a lot of businesses, especially if you're looking at law firms, product based businesses. Oh yeah, you know, we brought in 10 million of revenue, we settled $40 million in claims.
Congratulations. But how much of that did you actually keep?
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Right?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Like that's where the economics of things really matter. Because if you, you know, settled $40 million, right, you kept a third of that. You didn't actually get $40 million, right? You got a third of that. If you're lucky, right, you got a third of that. That's, that's usually how it breaks down. And from there then you have to pay out your people, you have to pay out your marketing budget, right? You've got to have percentages, budget percentages benchmarks of how much all of these things cost. Right. As a really rough rule of thumb, like you want to make sure that your people cost is like a third, right. And your operations cost is another third. And that operations cost includes like cost of software. You're looking at office space, anything else that sort of falls under that kind of operations, what it takes to run your business on a day to day basis, everything that goes under there and then the other third is basically going to be taxes.
And then you have like what's left, right? So taxes, ownership like all of that. So you want to make sure that you've actually got a plan in place and actual like, budget constraints of what you're going to spend. Because what I see a lot of firms doing is like, they'll sell something really big and, and they'll spend in one of two places. And this is true for most business owners. They'll make a lot of money and then they will either bring on a lot of people without actually doing a proper, like, budget analysis of can we afford this person? Do we have enough work for this person for a year? Not just right now, because everything's in a pinch and a bind, but can we keep them on for a longer term period?
And the second thing that they will do is they'll spend a whole bunch of money on marketing. They'll spend a whole bunch of money on radio ads, billboards, pay per click, Facebook ads. They'll spend all this money on these things hoping that they'll then have another jackpot case or another jackpot year that comes in, but it's not having the same ROI but as what's been invested. So those are the two big, like, things that I see a lot of firms doing when they get a really big check or they have a really big case or a really good year. They're not actually managing that money well.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: They're.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: They are putting it all back into the business instead of taking a little bit out for themselves.
And one book that I recommend, and Sarah, you've probably read this book, but it's called Die with Zero. Have you read it?
[00:11:32] Speaker A: I have not, actually.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Okay, so add it to your list. Add it to your tbr, however long your TBR is. It's a great book. But the big philosophy behind this book is, you know, we see a lot of people who make a lot of money and then they don't spend, spend it because they think that they're going to spend it in retirement.
And I see the same thing with business owners, which is I'm going to keep putting money into the business because it's going to give me a big bigger paycheck when I sell. I'm going to keep putting money in, I'm going to keep hiring people, I'm going to keep doing this marketing. And it's like, you're not paying yourself anything. You're not paying yourself enough for all the work that you're doing. And then guess what? They get burned out, trite.
So, and I'm so curious to know, Sarah, like, what do you like? Because you've led paralegal teams and you've led other teams. When do you start seeing people like feel that burnout? Whether it's the attorney or paralegals or even the admins that are on the team. What are you usually telling them? Are you telling them, hey, go home and meditate or are you saying like take some time off, you have time off. Like what are you, what are you recommending for them?
[00:12:35] Speaker A: I actually look at it like a team dynamic. I think that it's good to communicate because I feel like there are times when every paralegal is swamped to the brim. They're overflowing with tasks. And I think that one of the most important skills you can have, especially as a paralegal, is prioritizing your tasks. And you need to be good at that because as you know, you can be in the legal world, you never know. All of a sudden you could have an urgent filing that you have to run to court that morning and have the papers done and signed with your original plus three copies signed by the attorney, copied the money from, you know, the accountant office and you got to get there by say 9:00am or something or 9:30. You know, whether you're using a court runner or you're running your yourself. Like for me I used to keep a pair of what I call my court shoes under my desk. So if I was wearing heels to work, I could throw on my flats or my tennis and run to court if I had to. But you know, I think that when that starts to happen it is, it does trickle down from the top, I feel like though. And so that's when I think you need to re evaluate maybe how tasks are being dispersed or you know, more urgent, huge money making cases only going to one person other are going to somebody else. So I think it's a matter of.
That also has to do with smart hiring in my opinion, you know, having a big difference and say maybe experience between your team. You have to think about that when you're assigning casework, in my opinion. But I think that teamwork is a big answer with this. And just collaborating and communicating and being like open to a team needs to be like, oh, I'll take on this task for you. Like I'm a little slow right now. What can I do to help you? Or you know, do you want me to help you with discovery or you know, things like that. And that's of course on the paralegal team. Attorneys themselves, if they're starting to feel that way.
I feel like that is a What I would say, like a mindset, maybe. Have you taken a vacation? Have you taken some me time? What are you doing in your life on a daily basis? Like, what's your routine? Are you going to the gym? Are you spending enough time with family? Are you.
You know, I think that you gotta check in with that, especially, you know, with attorneys and make sure that they're, you know, allotting time for themselves so they don't get burned out. You have to have that balance.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: Sarah, I love what you said about smart hiring. And I think that that is something that I hear from a lot of my clients, especially right now, where they're saying they're having a really hard time finding good talent. And of course they want to hire smarter. It's not like they're going out there to hire not smart. Right? Like, so what do you tell them? Especially since you've helped hire for paralegals and associates and just everything in between to support an office, you know, of.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Course, people may agree or disagree with what I'm going to say, but I think it is important to hire paralegals who have gotten their paralegal certificate because to me, that shows dedication to the career. They're not just looking at as it is something that I'm going to, you know, do in between other jobs.
I feel like going and obtaining your paralegal certificate or having some kind of legal education is showing. I am dedicated to this career. This is what I want to do. And I, you know, will look at being with your firm as long term.
And, you know, I'm dedicated. And that's the thing that I always thought would show on my resume. You know, I had my American Bar association approved paralegal certificate through University of San Diego.
And, you know, that was important to have on my resume because then I'm, you know, a certificate certified paralegal. And I also had my BA in paralegal studies, and then I went and got my master's in law.
So obviously, when somebody looks at my resume, I would think, okay, she's dedicated to this career. This is what, you know, she wants to do. And I did that for a long time, you know, over 15 years up until, you know, recently, I'm kind of doing a change and wanting to get more into operations consulting, of course. But I think when hiring, you know, I think that that just shows having a certificate. And I'm not saying you have to have a bachelor's or a master's, but I think just the certificate or offering that to somebody can kind of Basically anchor them that they're going to want to stay with the firm long term. They're not looking at as something as like an in between career opportunity.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's a really good thing to be looking at. Now. I know a lot of attorneys who would say, oh my God, that's going to cost me like two times my budget that I put aside for it. How do you then help them understand why it's so important to, to make that financial leap?
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Well, also some courts require it. If you're going to bill hours for paralegals, a lot of times they want to see that it's an actual paralegal. If you're going to be charging a client and going to court and you know, showing it's, it's, it's a requirement, you know. And I think it also speaks volumes to your clients knowing that they have a paralegal who is certificate certified.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, That's a really good thing to, to note when it comes to paralegal hiring. I will say when I tell a lot of my clients when they're going through the hiring process, I usually start with the caveat of hiring's a shit show and you don't know what you're going to get. And our job with creating SOPs and standardized hiring is really to eliminate the risk. Because you could hire someone and after a month you could be like, wow, they cannot carry this caseload at all. Or it could be after six months you start to see like personality things that come out right, that you're like, wow, they really aren't such a great fit with the team. And I thought that they work. Cause they interviewed with like three people on the team and got, you know, a standing ovation from everyone on the team, you know, to come on board.
So what I usually say is like standardizing that as much as you can. Like if you have a role in which you have an A player already, let's say it's an A player associate.
Build the role around who they are. Like what made them an A, like put that into the job description to the role. And then any sort of fitness assessment that you do, I mean, I think that you have to do a project assessment. So anyone that you're bringing on, whether it's paralegal, admin attorney, like they should be going through some sort of legal test project, right? Like how do they actually issue spot, how do they redline things, how quickly do they turn things around? Like that way you'll actually be able to see Are they asking the right questions? Are they going to be a good fit? Did you. Did they see this big issue here where, you know, the client's name is Sam in one place and Scott in the other place? Like, did they catch that? Like, are they paying attention to the details? Right, so. So those are, like, the things that I say. Like, you need to have assessments in place. You need to have, like, actual, like.
Like a numeric score that you give someone anytime they're interviewing. Because what I found is that that will help you immediately see who's actually good and who's not good. And if everyone is, like, barely a B on your score sheet, then you basically need to go back out and find someone. Because what you're saying is, I'm going to bring on this B player, and then in six months, I'm going to have to find someone else.
[00:20:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Like, what do you. What do you do in those situations where you see a lot of, like, team turnover?
[00:20:24] Speaker A: I feel like if that starts to happen quite a bit, it's time to look at your internal team, too. You know, there could be things that you're kind of blind to or don't want to face because maybe it's a very senior partner or maybe there's something with budget that you can't, you know, fix or change or don't want to.
But I think with what you're referring to as far as that, I think also it's also on the job of the person that accepts the offer. You know, I feel like hopefully they have enough, you know, respect that they're not gonna, like, waste the time of a firm and bring them on, you know, to where, you know, they're not gonna be happy in a few months. I think that I myself have been in a situation which I learned from, which I could apply to legal operations consulting, where, you know, you take on a job and you saw some red flags just from the first day. And I think you just need to be honest with yourself.
If I'm not comfortable with this or I see some red flags, what is it going to feel like, a month down the road?
So you have to. I think you just have to be really honest with yourself as somebody who is out searching for your next career role in the legal field. And also when you're on the other side and you're the firm itself bringing on people or you have a lot of turnover, you know, if you see hints or things that maybe were from a past situation that didn't work out, and you see maybe that or you Sense it. Listen to that. You know, pay attention to that. Or figure out how can I make this from an operational, organizational standpoint, how can I make this person, you know, fit into our culture and environment?
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Yeah, well. So red flags. That's always really interesting when it comes to a law firm. Like, what are some of the red flags that, you know, as a paralegal, as an associate that you. You're smiling, you're laughing. I know you've got some good stories.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Some of the red flags I've seen. You guys wouldn't believe me, but, like, I walked into a farm one time and there was like, I'm not even joking. It was like clutter everywhere. Dust and mold in the coffee pot.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Wow.
Okay. Thin.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: And I thought, I don't know, me, knowing me, I was like, oh, I'm going to come in and just fix it all this and help. Oh, that was. That was a mistake.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: Mold goes deeper.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: Looked at that and ran.
So.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Okay, that's really good. That's. That's. That's a really good sort of red flag. I will tell you. My first legal job I ever had was in this really old building that the owner owned, that the firm owner owned. And it was like a little house that he was practicing out of that he converted into an office. And the ceilings had, like, those white tube lights. Do you remember those long white tube lights?
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: But it was covered with plastic. But then there were always bugs in there.
Always, like, just dead bugs that, like, got caught in the ceiling light. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. So, like, that, I think, was like. I mean, it was a great learning experience. Like, I learned more at that job than I did maybe, you know, the next three jobs. But, you know, just the. Definitely look around, around the physical space that you're in.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Like, does it feel like, like, kind of like maybe this is not the place? Because, you know, what I will say is, like, Google and all these tech places have these very sexy offices with, like, lots of food. And even, you know, Bloomberg in New York had, like, this amazing pantry, Food pantry area.
I will tell you that law offices don't necessarily do that. They don't have an entire floor dedicated to, like, just snacks. Come get whatever you want. There isn't a vending machine with MacBooks in it, you know, so. So law firms definitely operate a little bit more differently than that.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
Although I have been fortunate. I have worked in some law firms where they actually did have, like, snacks out all the time for us, which was.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And they, like, took care of us like we were their kids.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: See, then I think that that's a green flag that you have to look for is like, you know, how are you taking care of your team? Are there always snacks available? Yeah.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I would say, too, cleanliness is just.
I mean, you would think, like, why is that even talked about? But it's important. You know, it's like, I think most. I would say the majority of all of the firms I've worked for have been very clean. I think that law firms are very good with that. I think I just was in a strange situation with one.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: But there's always an exception, a fun little exception.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And I also was wanted to kind of touch on technology.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: And software as a legal operations consulting and kind of what, you know, you think are important decisions to make because that can be one of the most costly decisions for a firm is the technology and software that they use for their database management system or legal research or, you know, especially with all the options out there now, you know, kind of narrowing down how to make those decisions. How. How do you approach that?
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, number one, you should absolutely hire an expert when it comes to that. Because if you're spending $100 a month on a license and you've got 10 people in your office, you know, that's already a thousand dollars. You know, multiply that by 12 months, like that's $12,000. But forget about the cost of it. It's more. So is this going to make your office and your team.
Is it going to make them. Is it going to make it easier for them to do their job right? And what I find a lot of firms do is they won't update a system. So what that means is, you know, they've been using, I don't know, my case for the last 20 years, and they love it, but no one else on the team loves it. Or they're using Outlook and the team is maybe not comfortable using it. They don't like using it. They would rather use Gmail or, you know, Google Calendar or whatever. And they're just refusing to update their systems and the technology that they use. I think that those are definite things that you need to consider. So, like, and the biggest thing I say is, like, make sure you're actually using it. So I see a lot of companies will go out and they'll hire a tech expert to help them find a system, and then they will, you know, bring them three different systems and then they'll pick one and they'll have it, you know, in the office. They'll do one or two training sessions and then that's it. Then everyone goes back to using the old system. No one's actually using the new system or they're using the new system, but they're not using the system the way that it's supposed to be used.
And that is a bigger cost to the firm than the actual cost of hiring the expert and spending the money on the technology itself. Like, you've got to actually use the stuff that you are paying for. And if you know, and this is what I say across the board, like if you already know, that your team is not going to adopt a new system. Technology adoption is one of the most difficult things that a firm can do. One, because lawyers are not exactly known for being very like, technology proficient or even embracing technology. You know, I know lawyers who still use like a little Dictaphone to like record memos onto like a little cassette tape that then needs to be downloaded. I still lawyers who do that.
And, and that's fine if that's what you're going to do. But it's like you then have to make a decision as your firm, are you even going to embrace the new technology? Because everyone wants to talk about AI, Everyone wants to talk about how great it is and how much better it's going to make your job as a lawyer. But if no one in your firm wants to use it, don't spend the money on the thing. You're better off sending that money somewhere else.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Exactly. Like payroll.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Yes, exactly, exactly. Or in snacks for the team or in like, you know, a cool like thing for the office that everybody wants. Whatever it is, maybe it's a cooler coffee machine. Maybe it's a very fancy, you know, espresso maker. Whatever it is, right? Like, give it, use that money elsewhere rather than spending it on a piece of tech that you're not going to use. And then, and then you're going to get mad and say, oh, well, you know, the tech expert told us that you should do this. And so we did it. But it's like, no, no, it's not their fault.
100%. You guys use it, right? And when a package was offered, let's say a five training session package, you didn't take it. You just thought having it installed was enough. But it's not just the installation, it's the adoption through training that is so important.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Yes, and you're right on with that. I just picture so many things when you were discussing that and you Know, kind of for a couple things, I'll just kind of quickly say a few topics I wanted to touch on, but client facing, value, discretion, politics and cultural awareness, speed and efficiency, independent objectivity, and basically a clear value proposition. And I know that's a lot a mouthful I just through at you, but the other thing just I wanted to throw out there is applying emotional intelligence in the workplace, especially in a law firm, which I think is so important to the point where I think that I have almost thought of, like a liaison is needed sometimes for employees in a law firm between them and HR to have a softer approach to dealing with issues. Because I think there's just. How do I explain it within the culture of a law firm? It's very professional and it's very demanding. And I say it's one of the hardest jobs out there. I don't know if people understand how demanding and how hard it is to actually be a paralegal. You're dealing with deadlines, and the attorneys are depending on you to make sure that, you know, there's a lot riding on you in that position.
And it's a lot of responsibility and a lot of time management, timekeeping, making sure you're staying up to date on tasks.
And, you know, I just think that throwing in emotional intelligence and having the culture of the office is so key, and I think that it can really make or break an environment and a law firm. So I don't know if you want to.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Yeah, let's. Let's talk about that. Let me ask you something. And your listeners, I'm hoping, have. Have watched this show. So have you watched the Bear by any chance?
[00:31:04] Speaker A: No.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Not yet.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Add that to your list. Add that to your list of things to do. I'm just gonna keep adding to your list here. But the Bear, I think, is one of the most perfect examples of, like, workplaces that don't work, right?
And there are so many scenes every single season where no one has even an ounce of emotional intelligence. No one is being even baseline respectful to each other, right? They're all shouting at each other. They're all blaming each other. No one's taking responsibility, no one's taking accountability. And even, you know, in season four, they go through all of this, you know, training to become, like, Michelin star. And even then, they're still all yelling at each other, right? So. So it's. It's the perfect, like, recipe to make your work life miserable. And I think that having that level of emotional intelligence in a law firm is incredibly important because Law firms are dealing with people's money, people's health, people's, you know, financial situations. You know, like it's, it's. So what law firms do is so pivotal to how humans live and how their clients live that there is a lot of stress and pressure that gets placed on lawyers, paralegals, admin staff. Like anyone who's on a law office team is going to be carrying a lot of pressure. So you've got to be able to know that like it's okay to be upset, but it's not okay to like start throwing things and yelling and not taking responsibility.
Right. You do need a level of like, understanding of like, this is how our firm operates, this is how our firm treats each other.
This is how we, we communicate with each other. Right. Like whether that's like a values proposition that you just have that you do, like an annual training on, an annual reminder on, or it's something that like you have actual process to use for. That's like, hey, if someone is actually not abiding by this, you know, whether it's the liaison, the HR person or some other person on the team has the ability to be able to say, hey, I'm going to point you to this section of, of our office conduct code or whatever it is. And, and you really didn't follow that here. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that it's like an HR write up or anything like that, but I do think that there, there is a level of emotional intelligence that's sometimes missing with a lot of law firms. And I don't think it's malicious. Right. It's not, it's. I, for most people, it's not malicious, it's just a lack of awareness of. Oh, you mean I shouldn't have talked to you that way.
Okay, yeah, sorry.
[00:33:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And you also have to realize when it gets to borderline, possibly even bullying.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: Never want to have happening in the workplace. And I think also you need to really listen. If somebody comes forward to you and is scared, but does actually come to hr, to office managers or even to the maybe partner attorney, they support and opens up about something, I think they need to listen and handle it with care and caution, you know, because that's that person, they're obviously dedicated to what they're doing for you and they care enough to want to solve it instead of just quit, you know, or they, it sounds like they want to stay in their job, but it's hard for them to tolerate maybe something that's going on. And I think it's good to, you know, that's maybe when you can bring in a consultant or somebody to help with that, you know?
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:40] Speaker A: I think that that has to be.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: One of those situations where you have a consultant coming in. Because I don't know a lot of managing partners and partners who are like, I'm the problem.
I've, like, very rarely seen that happen, where they raise their hand and they're like, I'm part of the problem. Here are the. Here. Here's what I did in the last week to my team, right. I made so and so stay later. I made so and so revise something as seventh time and called them out in the team meeting about what they did wrong repeatedly. Right. Like, they don't necessarily do that. So having like a consultant who just is like a fly on the wall and is just like observing how you carry out your meetings, whether it's over zoom or it's in person or whatever it is, having that person just being able to, like, see this is how you're doing things goes a really long way. A really long way with cleaning up some of these workplace things that might result in, honestly, a lot people leaving. Right. A lot of people not staying on, people wanting more money to be able to deal to. To deal with such a toxic environment. Right. Like, these are the things that you have to be looking at. So I completely agree with you.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: And sometimes it could even be secretary to secretary, paralegal to paralegal is a problem too. It's big problem. But. And I think what shareholders, law firms, what I think they really want is probably just kind of a guess. More profit, fewer headaches, happier client systems that work, change, that sticks, you know, and also with, you know, the technology that we touched on and we've touched on a lot. And I think that, you know, you offer amazing services. I feel like we could talk more and more, but our time is kind of up now. But. And I feel like we should. I think we should do another podcast for sure.
We could go on and on with this stuff, but is there anything else that you would like to share before we close today?
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think my.
My biggest recommendation is a lot of times lawyers and firm owners don't want to bring in a consultant because they're scared of what's going to change. They are scared that it's going to. Someone's going to come in and completely turn their firm upside down.
And that creates a level of uncertainty and fear that results in a lot of people not wanting to even take that next step. What I will say is this. If you find the right person, they will work with you to make that change feel more palatable so that it doesn't overnight feel like 180 degrees. Like a completely different firm. You can work slowly to get there. And also that for firm owners who truly care about the bottom line, you need an outside expert. Like, you're not going to be able to do it. Your operations manager isn't going to be able to do it. Your office manager isn't gonna be able to do it. Right. Like, you're gonna need someone who's on the outside, who is completely unbiased, who does this time in, time out all the time, who can actually like look at this and say, yep, here's the issue.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's also a safer way to do it too, because I think if you were to put it on somebody who works for the firm, maybe there could be hard feelings and that could cause a problem. So I think bringing somebody in from the outside is the best way to deal with issues or a fire going on, you know?
[00:37:52] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And can you tell everybody, please, really quickly, before we close today, how to get a hold of you? What do you prefer? What's the best way if they want to utilize your services?
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the best ways to reach me is LinkedIn. So you can find me on LinkedIn. Nerminjasani. You can also just send me an email. Nerminerminesquire.com well, thank you so much, Nermeen.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: I feel like we can definitely do another podcast. We have so much we could dive into. There's so much more I could talk about with you. But thank you so much for coming on on today.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: So much fun.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Some points of legal operations, consulting. And yeah, as always, thanks for joining the Dr. Random podcast. And I will just say ciao.
