Sticky Lawyers Looks Back: The Architects & Builders

[00:00:02] John Reed: Hey, everybody. This is the next episode in our special series of compilations where we're looking back at the traits and mindsets of past Sticky Lawyers guests. These have been a lot of fun for us to put together, and we hope you're enjoying the series, too. 

One note, though... we're going all the way back to some of our first guests when maybe the recording production wasn't where we wanted it to be. So please excuse the technical issues.

What separates lawyers who wait for opportunities from those who create them? Some lawyers build doors when none exist, then go on to frame the houses where only empty lots stood, and design entire neighborhoods where future generations will practice.

Today on Sticky Lawyers, we're featuring eleven remarkable attorneys who didn't just succeed in their fields; they invented them. They saw gaps in the legal landscape and filled them with innovation, creativity, and determination. From creating new practice areas to launching platforms that train thousands, these architects and builders didn't wait for evolution to occur. They forced it.

Christopher Anderson treats law firms as laboratories, testing business models before scaling them. His firm, New Leaf Family, has pioneered a new no-billable-hours pricing structure, and he's taking that structure and those learnings to build out additional practices.

[00:01:32] Christopher Anderson: Our law firms are the crucible through which I feel I earn some credibility to work on Sunnyside. Sunnyside Legal Services is the branch, the division in which I help other law firms achieve their goals. We come up with innovative new ideas. How are we going to use AI? How are we going to generate the marketing? Like at New Leaf Family, we invented four years ago a completely new no billable hours way of billing our clients.

I had no idea whether that was going to work. I used my 30-plus years of practice to inform that answer. But until I tried it, I had no idea. And, you know, the common knowledge was that particularly in family law, that flat fees will bite you in the butt because you can't control the complexity of the case. You can't control the chattiness of your clients. Before I would bring any of that out to my clients, I try it on myself and see if it works. I only bring the successful stuff back to the clients.

Everything to me is an experiment. Everything is scientific method. I've been practicing family law since 2004, I think that's right, and law since 1996. We started New Leaf Family as a completely new experiment. Clean sheet. We started a law firm. So, what were the criteria I needed in order to prove that this model was successful? One, I needed to do it somewhere where I had no clients, no referral sources, no colleagues, no anything. So we went to a completely new state, to us, one we actually want to live in.

So, we're really excited and proud to have made the move to Colorado, but I knew nobody. Nobody. And we'd launched this brand and launched this type of firm and this business into a place where we had zero advantages that might have colored, if I just transformed my firm, that would've been taught different lessons.

With what we've been able to achieve, like we believe that most of our hypotheses have been confirmed. And so, what's next is we're taking this on the road, right? We're going to be bringing this both to new firms that we launched, but also existing firms that want to do business our way. Which is why I said you may not recognize as the New Leaf brand. There'll probably be something else that'll kind of connote to you that it's mine, and that it's this method. And so, I'll say watch this space, but that's what's next. I believe our main mission is to empower families across the United States to make the best decisions for themselves and their families, and in the bigger consumer law area, but to solve legal problems efficiently and with less drama. We think we know how, and I think we've got the evidence now to take it on the road. That's what's next.

[00:04:22] John Reed: By bringing the scientific method to the practice of law, Christopher builds repeatable systems that other lawyers can implement and replicate.

Melody Kramer created infrastructure for a career path that didn't exist. She launched freelancelaw.com in 2006, then founded the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals.

[00:04:46] Melody Kramer: I asked the temp agency where I worked, and this is before even legal placement agencies were few and far between, and there certainly weren't any in Nebraska. But I asked the temp agency I was working for. If you get a call in from a law firm, I don't care if it's emptying the trash, put me there. I don't care. I just want to make those connections. They eventually did, and I took a week off from my other temporary gig at a software company and took a week at this law firm and was receptionist for a week.

And it was such an amazing experience working with this law firm. And they loved me so much that they offered me a job of sorts. They weren't looking to hire an associate right then, but they did have some overflow work, some cases they could do, and they offered me a deal where I could do that.

Pay was a lot less than for than associate you get paid. But I was getting experience, I was building my resume. I worked with them off and on, and at one point, I was doing work in exchange for office space while I built up my own small practice. And it was a great sort of relationship. And I also did work for other law firms like writing appellate briefs, making court appearances. Law firms that didn't have a need to hire someone but had extra work, and I needed the work, and it worked out well.

But it was something that people didn't really do. And it wasn't until later on that I sort of got this sense of bigger than me, that there were a lot of lawyers who were working in sort of those capacities, kind of in basements and dark corners, and thinking they weren't real lawyers. No, this actually can work out to be a real career choice or certainly a bridge from one thing to another. 

It allowed this flexibility of time. So, when I started having too much stuff to do, which is a good sign for your law firm, instead of just working yourself into the grave, you can hire another freelancer to help you out on a project, on a case. And so, it gives that sort of balance and flexibility that solo practitioners usually don't have.

So, in 2006, I believe it was, I started freelancelaw.com, and this was before really the growth and emergence of websites like Upwork and Fiverr and whatever. What I designed was something to connect law firms with freelance attorneys and also freelance paralegals. We had 1,200 people on the website at its height, and what I found was we needed more than just a website because there was already this environment in the legal industry that nobody knew what a freelance lawyer was really.

Like I said, hiding in basements. They weren't out like networking and out at CLE events, saying, Oh yeah, I'm a freelance lawyer. No one knew we existed, really. So, a friend and I started the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals and started trying to find them around the country.

And we did. And it was very interesting to see their stories. And there were a number of freelancers who had been working in that capacity for many years and were just sort of stunned to see some sort of organizational framework around what they were doing. But it was very much the tip of the spear there in trying to give visibility to this and to try to educate both the freelance side and law firm side, how all that worked, why they needed each other, and so forth. So, it was a very interesting process.

[00:08:23] John Reed: Melody transformed freelance lawyering from fringe concept to recognized career path through infrastructure building.

Doug Noll's blueprint started with a letter from a woman serving life without parole, asking to teach inmates to become peacemakers. With zero prison experience, Doug and colleague Lauren Kaufer built Prison of Peace, now operating in multiple state prisons in the US and even overseas.

[00:08:52] Doug Noll: Neither one of us had any experience with the prison system. So, we put together kind of a proposal, and then we started at the bottom of the food chain, and the prison administration. And it took six months before we finally got to the acting warden, an incredible woman by the name of Velda Dobson Davis. And she said to us, Yeah, let's do this. It's not costing us anything, right? I said, No, it's just costing you your time. We'll do everything. Okay. Let's do this. 

Now we had to put the program together and curriculum. Well, we're both good at curriculum development and both very experienced teachers and trainers, but we made some assumptions. The first is that none of our incarcerated students were to have any skill whatsoever. The reason they're in prison is because they lacked certain skills. Before we could teach them how to be a mediator, we had to teach them like hundreds of different skills. And we started with listening.

I had developed the skill of affect labeling, de-escalation, reflective listening. And so, we started with that skill and said the very first thing we're going to start and teach them restorative justice principles. This is not a restorative justice program, but I understand that what we're trying to do is work with fights and arguments before they get to violence in a restorative way. That was the underlying philosophy. The very first thing we taught them is how to engage in reflective listening. And then from there, we slowly build their skills over a year until we finally get them to a place where they're ready to learn mediation. And then we take them through a 24-hour mediation training over three days. And we teach them interest-based mediation. All through this whole process, it's all experiential. We come in, and we teach them, and they have to go out and do it and write reports and come back with homework and tell us what they've learned and so forth. 

So, we started with 15 women in March or April 2010. The prison at that time had 3,600 inmates. That prison was designed to hold 2,200, I mean, it was horrible. By the time, I think we were into week eight of what was then a 16-week program, we had 800 women on the waiting list wanting to learn this stuff.

We taught our first cohort and found the leaders. They became mentors. Watched the second cohort. We trained the second court. By the time the second court was done, now we had some people who could be trained as trainers. We taught them how to do what we just did. Then they started teaching the women under our supervision. When we had enough people trained at the peacemaker level, then we moved to the next level, and that's how we just developed the program. 

We started in that prison. It was repurposed to a men's prison in 2013. We were asked to go into the men's prison - we said no a bunch of times until finally we said yes - and started working with men. We had no idea how that was going to work. It worked out. 

We were pro bono for like six years and gave up our practices and gave up everything to do this work. I mean, we took huge financial hits on this. But we went into the men's prison and then the women, leaving Valley State Prison For Women, went across the street to another prison called CCWF, Central California Women's Facility, and then down to the California Institute for Women, CIW, down in Chino, California.

And so, we followed them into those two prisons. We had a lot of problems with CCWF at that time. Now we're back in it. And people we trained 15 years ago are still in there, and now they're training Prison of Peace again, which is really cool.

In 2015, we finally got some grants from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and that allowed us to expand. So today we're in 15 California prisons, roughly. The entire state of Connecticut, their entire system is going to be teaching Prison of Peace. They're training their staff, and then they'll be rolling it out to their 10, I think they've got 10 or 12 prisons, maybe, maybe not even that many. Five prisons. So, they'll be rolling it out in Connecticut. We've got a colleague in Greece who's running it in 15 prisons in Greece, and colleagues in Italy now running Prison of Peace in three Northern Italian prisons. So, it's slowly expanding into the European zone.

We've had remarkable results here in California. We've had over 700 life inmates released on parole, basically because of changing of the laws. And to our knowledge, nobody has reoffended. I mean, it's remarkable. They're all out there doing amazing work in the community, and they take these skills.

[00:12:57] John Reed: From 15 women to thousands trained across multiple states and countries, Doug built self-sustaining infrastructure that continues without him. 

Julie Fershtman created equine law when it was barely a thing. She researched every horse case in law libraries, wrote hundreds of articles, compiled them into books, and sold 12,000 copies through speaking engagements nationwide.

[00:13:23] Julie Fershtman: I owned my first horse, thanks to my parents, as a 10-year-old. I had a couple of other horses after that until I was ready for college. So, it was years of riding and working with horses, but never ever in my life had I met a lawyer who had a law practice dealing with horses. Nobody to look up to. No, no real mentor. 

I got the attention of one insurance company that sought me out. They found out about me from something that I had written or listed in, and had a case for me. And it occurred to me that I could make this grow and I could try to do as good of a job as I could, which you need to do as a lawyer, clearly, to grow a practice. It's not just marketing, it's developing and having a product worth marketing, but I thought I could make it work.

[00:14:07] John Reed: You've got this knowledge that you've acquired. How do you get your brand out there at that time? How are you promoting what you do? 

[00:14:16] Julie Fershtman: My business plan was to make my name, to the extent that I could, a household word, and that meant to get myself in front of people, with minimal expense, by articles. Taking the information that I had developed through my research and making it understandable not to lawyers. I wasn't marketing to lawyers. I was marketing to the people who might need them, and that generated an article every month, sometimes four or five every month, in a variety of publications that ended up going all over the country.

Also, back then, because we were more reliant on the paper and the publications, one would contact me after having read my article in another and asking if they could use it. And of course, the key is you write it, and you want a good byline to be able to let people know how to find you. 

Just about every article that I did in the beginning, and it's pretty much continued through a lot of them since, is I'll talk about a legal issue such as loose livestock, loose horses on the road. Then the last part of it is, what can you do to avoid these liabilities? Talk about insurance, for example, that you can purchase on horses, and that's a big part of my practice now. It's one thing to educate about it as I did. These are the types of insurance, but also here are the disputes that people have, and here's how you can avoid them. That became a huge part of the article writing that I did.

But what ended up happening as I began writing articles every month, as I mentioned, sometimes multiple articles a month, and also always retaining the copyright if I wrote it for a magazine and got a certain payment, I began to gather these articles. This was all pre-internet and write books. Put together books. And I was a big fan of self-publishing. If you do it right, the book that you can self-publish looks just like a book that you would find at a major bookstore or even Amazon. And it got to the point where I was getting speaking engagements around the country, knowing that people probably didn't want to pay for me and a local lawyer so that we would stay within unauthorized practice of law limitations.

But what they could do is they could buy one of my books that would explain all the things my articles covered, legal issues, how to avoid liability. The books did very well. I wrote one in 1996, just as the internet was really starting to take hold. The second book came out four years later in 2000, and the book sold quite a bit—12,000 books sold from online sales. Actually, I had an 800 number to sell the books, but in person, it was tremendous that nobody else had done this. Yeah. And so, the volume at conventions that I was able to sell was huge. ABA just published my newest book. Last year, it's called Equine Law and Horse Sense, which combines a lot of my material over the years.

So, I'm a big believer that if you can't serve people yeah, because they don't have the ability to pay for you if you're out of state, in addition to a local lawyer, there are other tools that you can do to educate and to help pay the bills.

[00:17:11] John Reed: Julie designed the playbook for equine law, authoring the literature and creating the infrastructure for an entire practice area.

When he was in-house counsel, Shane Mulrooney's experience with traditional alternative dispute resolution not only failed to impress, it failed to save time or money. He and his co-founders built New Era ADR, a cloud-based platform designed for the 90% of disputes that don't need extensive discovery and prolonged courtroom litigation.

[00:17:49] Shane Mulrooney: I do not come from a litigation background, but when I was tasked in-house with dealing with litigation, I was actually shocked and surprised when advised by my outside counsel that you have arbitration in this contract, but it's not going to really save you any money or probably time either. And so, think about whether or not you want it in there. And I would say, well, think about what? Like, what am I doing here with this if not to make things more efficient and save money? And over and over, I was just advised that, well, it's private, so there's an advantage, but that's it.

And then after going through the process, finding out that that was in fact the case, I felt like it was inordinately expensive and very process and procedural-driven, when for at least the cases that I was handling, if we could just get to the point and make our arguments and move on. I felt very confident in our ability to win, but there was so much to deal with leading up to that point, and so much money to spend on outside counsel in order to get to that point.

I felt like I might as well have been in court, and at least that way I wouldn't have to pay the arbitrator. And so, in my experience, in the traditional process, I felt like it was not a true alternative. And that's what led me and my co-founders to say, enough is enough. We need to actually create an alternative for that process.

[00:19:21] John Reed: All right, so here I'm going to give you the elevator to make your pitch. Talk to us about New Era's cloud-based platform and the advantages that it offers.

[00:19:32] Shane Mulrooney: Sure. Not being so subtle, we created New Era ADR in order to actually provide for a streamlined, cost-effective, and efficient manner in resolving— and were particular about this—but in resolving most of the disputes that many companies and individuals face. And I say most because we have created this streamlined process, we recognize that large, high stakes, extremely complex company type disputes are better, not off, not on our platform, but there are tons of other, and in fact, 90% of disputes fall within the cost of doing business and run of the mill and not document heavy and not discovery heavy, where both parties just need to be able to make their case, get a decision from a neutral, intelligent and subject matter expert party, and then move on.

Yeah. So, I think I always wanted to be in that industry and to be a part of the entrepreneurial process and growth and exiting and all the excitement and building and having your hands in the thickest of the weeds tactically, and at the same time thinking strategically. Like, I loved all of that, but I didn't really, to your point, I didn't really have all these ideas on companies that I could begin. And I didn't fancy myself as the entrepreneur, but more of the assistant to.

It was really when my friend and co-founder called me and said, 'Let's do this.’ Because I was hesitant, you know? I was, like, hey, this is a big risk, and this is, you know—there were four co-founders, so it wasn't me out on my own by any means, fortunately. But still it was being one of the founding team and needing to fundraise and needing to grow the business and not just be the legal and administrative and other things. It was scary, and I was hesitant, but boy am I glad we did it, because we've made it this far, continuing to grow.

I've learned a ton on what it's like to run a business and grow a business in addition to, frankly, the legal space and in particular ADR that I didn't know before. And so, I feel like a much more well-rounded lawyer and individual as a result of this process.

[00:21:52] John Reed: Shane built technological infrastructure to solve a systemic problem, creating a modern alternative to traditional ADR.

Christopher Melcher built his celebrity divorce practice methodically: 200 continuing legal education programs, 50 articles, countless bar committee meetings. Every presentation was an opportunity to fail publicly, forcing deeper mastery.

[00:22:19] Christopher Melcher: So, when I was practicing, before I went into family law, I tried a lot of different things, advertising and marketing, and a little bit of networking, and it was very difficult. Originally, I was thinking, well, I'll just go into court, and I'm going to win these cases, and people will see that I'm winning these cases, and then they're going to hire me.

Well, that was a ridiculous plan because number one, you don't win that many cases. And number two, uh, there's not a lot of people looking at those results. When I got into family law, Peter Walser had followed in his dad's footsteps, which was write articles on family law to show that you are a thought leader in this area, to provide good information to other family lawyers, and speak at CLE events to show again that you're a thought leader on this, and people see you as an expert.

And then join bar committees so you could meet other lawyers who are doing the same thing. Learn from them and expand that network. Over time, you'll learn family law, and you'll meet a bunch of people. And you'll start building your resume. And that's what I did, and it works perfectly. Anyone can do it.

Now, I've done 200 live CLE programs. I've written probably 50 articles. Every one of those was an opportunity to fail. I don't want to look bad. I want to think about this. I want to see what other people are saying or writing about this topic so that I can provide complete information and not look bad.

And so, you do that a bunch of times. You will learn your field, you will become an expert in the field just because of the homework that you've done. But now you're out there publishing and speaking on this thing, and now other people associate you as an expert on this. Even if you weren't before you started. So, it becomes self-fulfilling. You learn the stuff, you meet people, build your resume, and you're getting attention outside your little friends and family circle.

What was surprising to me when I started working with Peter, he said, Well, all of our work comes from other family lawyers. And I, it made no sense to me, like, why would another family lawyer refer work to us? Well, it comes in sometimes from other lawyers in LA County if they have a conflict, or they just see the case is too big for them. But it's mostly from lawyers outside of LA that are doing family law. So, San Francisco. San Diego, other states, Chicago, New York, Florida, and then a lot from London.

Those folks end up getting called when we have interstate international disputes or disputes within the state, and they're not going to handle the case. They're not even licensed, probably in California, so they're going to have to refer that out. And that's how we're getting all of our work.

I don't go to Hollywood parties. I would never do that. I have no interest in it at all. It's all through developing a specialized practice. Pushing myself out there to speak and write, serve on committees, and this is all in my free time and nights and weekends when I'm not billing hours. 

The key there, though, is it's also being likable. When we're interacting with these other lawyers who are really the referral sources for me, that I'm listening to them. I'm not bragging about myself. I want to know about their lives and their kids and what's going on in their practices. I want that experience to be good for that person. So, they're like, Wow, I really like this guy. Yeah, he knows what he's doing and he's a good guy and I would refer work to him is what you want those interactions to be.

[00:26:09] John Reed: Christopher built his experience and his networks through relentless education, proving thought leadership sustains practices for decades.

Donald Simon convinced his law firm to become America's first green-certified firm. He co-founded the Northern California Green Building Council chapter and created a practice group organized around values rather than legal specialties.

[00:26:35] John Reed: So how entrepreneurial were you at this point? Was there crossover already, or were you the one that was saying, “I can bring these things together within this firm”? And then secondarily, how big was the circle of practitioners out there that were doing green building law, environmental, and construction together?

[00:27:01] Donald Simon: Well, the second part of that question is easy. There were zero. None. 

My firm at the time, you know, they kind of humored me, because it started with getting them to clean up our own act. So, I just remember saying, “Hey, look, guys, let's clean up our own act and let's look at what our environmental impact is. And I want to change us to recycled paper. You know, where the paper's made from paper instead of from trees.” And they humored me. And they switched up the paper supply, and I said, “ I've got this idea where we could create, be the lawyers that we kind of lead this whole green building movement and take it up to the next level, and be the lawyers to the companies that are playing in that space.

Nobody was doing it. There was nothing online talking about it. Just around then, I was interviewing at another firm, and they were desperate for a construction lawyer. I was interviewed by, I think there was like 10 partners there, because they needed someone STAT to fill this hole in the construction practice.

And I said, 'You know, I can do all that stuff, but let me tell you what I'm really into.’ And so, I started talking about green building, what it was. How I wanted to engage with it, how I thought it could lead to a practice. And pretty soon, I was explaining to like two of the different partners that were remodeling their homes, how they could do a green remodel.

And the interview turned in like a two-hour discussion where they were fascinated by it. And at the end, they said, “Look, what you want to do sounds really cool. And we're down with that. What do you say you come over here, and you build it here.” I was just a young associate at that point. But I said, “Heck yeah.”

I showed up, and they were open. They basically said, You go do you, Donald, and let's see what happens. I quickly found two other attorneys that were quite a bit older than me. One had represented some of the early solar energy companies. Another one had represented food companies that were focused on organics and sustainable agriculture. And we hatched the idea of creating a legal practice group that wasn't formed around a specific legal practice area, rather around a set of values that was driving entrepreneurs to use business as a vehicle to effectuate positive environmental and social change. And that was the birth of our green business practice group.

I got the firm to become certified as a green business because they were willing to go far beyond changing our paper that we ran through the printers to actually changing every aspect of our operations. And that's when things really took off. 

I started a number of organizations around green building to help put in place the pieces we needed to grow that sector. And then I joined some organizations that were already in existence working with these folks that owned and ran businesses, and they saw those things in me. And so, they pretty quickly decided, I think I like this lawyer better than my current lawyer. Or, I don't really have a lawyer that's doing much for me. This is the guy I want, because he's smart, I like him, and he cares about what I care about.

And so, it forged a relationship that went from shared passion to friendship, to lawyer-client relationship. And that's how I build a lot of my book.

[00:30:04] John Reed: Donald constructed green building law from absolute zero, creating organizations and infrastructure for an entire movement. 

Leah Stigler built her employment practice around a seemingly proprietary methodology, using humor to help people retain important information. Despite being told this wasn't appropriate for lawyers, she persisted in building her distinctive approach.

[00:30:30] John Reed: How do you use humor when you're talking to people about sensitive topics? Also, where's the line?

[00:30:37] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, that's a great question. So, you're asking me to give away my proprietary secrets?

[00:30:41] John Reed: Yep, absolutely. Please do.

[00:30:43] Leah Stiegler: For you, I will do that. I think I've naturally just found that humor helps people retain information. So, whether you're doing something like a management training or a workforce training, if people are laughing and enjoying themselves, they're going to pay attention and retain information and not zone out. But in dealing with this sensitive topic, I think at times you really have to know that it's okay to laugh about the stuff that happens in life because nobody is perfect. There are things that you thought you'd never see that you end up seeing, especially in the workplace.

But then, where is the line? That's a good question, and that was posed to me very early on as an associate. I had just done a speaking engagement. We sent out feedback surveys, and someone wrote back that they thought I misunderstood the task, and I was trying to be the class clown. And so, one of the senior partners came to my office and had to have a mentor conversation with me of, "Look, you're really young. People aren't going to take you seriously, number one. So don't try to be a clown. And then number two, this isn't entertainment, this is law." I can't tell you that I necessarily listened to him, but things have worked out okay for me.

[00:31:51] John Reed: Boy, what a buzzkill.

[00:31:52] Leah Stiegler: Exactly. I was like, 'You're just listening to one person.’ There's always going to be one person in an audience who's offended by something.

[00:31:59] John Reed: You handle employment counseling, employment compliance, the regulatory space, employment litigation, and also labor law. That's very unusual to have that breadth. How did that come to be?

[00:32:13] Leah Stiegler: Yeah, that's a great question. I didn't realize that a lot of other firms didn't, that they did have attorneys who maybe specialized a lot more, like attorneys in today's world specialize in general. You rarely see someone who does a little bit of everything. But even under the umbrella of labor and employment law, I didn't realize that a lot of firms just did, for instance, employment litigation or just did employee benefits issues.

So, it's kind of the nature of the way my firm operates is we are all, we all do everything under that sort of umbrella. Now, naturally, we gravitate towards the things that we enjoy because I think our culture is that we want people to enjoy what they're doing. And if you're happy doing it, you're going to create a better product for clients. 

My real passion is working with clients on the day-to-day aspects of their workplace and their culture that they have. And so, whether it's compliance questions or dealing with an employee performance issue or an investigation, something that's going on in the workplace before it turns into confrontational litigation. That's really my specialty. But the benefit is that I have other colleagues who don't like that sort of off-the-cuff compliance work. And so, when we get a lawsuit, we are a really good team, right? We always have staff, our teams with two or three attorneys. We know what we're good at.

[00:33:37] John Reed: What's interesting there, you have the entire risk spectrum, so you can take preventative measures, but if there's a problem you inherit and you have to go to dispute resolution or traditional litigation, you've got that awareness, too. It sounds like that's a real leg up.

[00:33:57] Leah Stiegler: I would think so. I hope other people see it that way. I'll give you an example of that.

With Charlie Kirk's murder, I've received so many just general compliance calls about, "Hey, this customer sent us these posts that our employee posted. They want us to terminate this employee." Or "Hey, another employee saw that this employee was reposting these things. We think this is offensive. Do we have to terminate? What should we do?" It would be really easy if I just went back and I said, " You know, if you're a public employer, here are the elements for how you address this under the First Amendment. And if you're a private employer, here's this." But I do think having some of that litigation background to show a client, what would your worst-case scenario look like?

[00:34:41] John Reed: Leah differentiated herself by building a comprehensive service model, using humor as her competitive advantage.

Jill Baxter McBride represents athletes and coaches, but she scaled her expertise through digital infrastructure, creating virtual academies and automated onboarding systems that help hundreds without requiring hundreds of hours.

[00:35:05] Jill McBride Baxter: I'm into solving problems. I would get, let's say I get five emails a day from a player that wants me to represent them, which is not unusual, especially right now, but they've been out for a couple years. Well, I don't want to represent somebody who's been out for a couple years. The chances of them making it are really slim. But I do have Virtual Sports Agent Academy that they can buy, and I can tell them exactly what they need to do, and then the NFL will tell them whether or not they're good enough or not. So, I just tell them, this is exactly how you do it. Here's an online course for that.

So, the number two question I get emails on: I want to be a sports agent. Everybody wants to be a sports agent, okay? I didn't have a mentor, but I was pretty good at figuring out who to call if I had a question. So, I thought, well, I'm going to create Sports Agent Academy, and then I will also jump on calls with them if they need help and teach them how to do it.

Because I have a process, follow my process and, you know, start doing this, this, and this. And you can have a successful business; I call them right away. Once they sign up for Sports Agent Academy, I call them right away, and I find out where they are on the process and I say, Okay, go to this module. Start here. And, okay, if you're going to do basketball, I'm talking about NFL players here, but just apply the same process to basketball players.

It's the same; apply the same thing to baseball players, or esports is really big now, so I'm really encouraging people to do esports. The gamers. They're on Twitch. They’ve got the sponsors. They're getting tips. I mean, there's tournaments everywhere. It's another, so I'm encouraging them to go into eSports. So, I create things that solve problems.

Now, with my coaches, I have a coach's consulting package. So, once they do join that, you know, they decide for me to represent them for the year, they automatically go into my online video where I introduce them, they get a PDF, they get a workbook, they fill out the PDF. We then have a one-on-one call, and that takes about three or four weeks just to get to know who they are, what they represent, and why they do what they do. Like I said, my brand is protection, advocacy, and trust. That's what I'm about. It's an Irish logo, and if you look at the Irish logo, it's got little the shape of football's in it. I treat my clients like a family, which circles kind of is, represents family. So, my logo represents really who I am, who I am to my core. And I try to do the same thing with my coaching clients and even my football clients. They're not always as ready for it as my coaching clients are.

We set up a plan, but again, I have it all on the back end, so it's more automated, so I don't have to send everybody an individual email. I already have it all done, and every time I get a client, they're onboarded into that process.

I think it's just allowed me to help more people quicker because I can't spend all day on the phone telling someone how to be a sports agent.

[00:38:07] John Reed: Jill built digital academies that systematize 32 years of knowledge, scaling her expertise far beyond individual representation.

Steve Schindler stumbled into art law through one case, but he built a practice methodically: articles in major journals, regular speaking appearances, the popular Art Law Podcast, and teaching positions at Sotheby's and New York University.

[00:38:33] Steve Schindler: When I decided that I wanted to try to expand the practice of Schindler Kleen Hockman into the sort of art world and an art practice, I started writing some articles about current topics and had them publish in the New York Law Journal and other journals as well, just to try to make the name for myself in this area.

Just like in any other kind of business development, you start to try to identify who the players are, and then you try to network, you try to get introductions, you take people out to lunch, you speak at conferences. I became pretty regular on the speaking circuit, and those are some of the ways that we started spreading the word.

It was a number of years later that we started the art law podcast. My partner Katie Wilson-Milne, who runs the art practice along with me, she and I decided to start the Art Law practice, which is now, uh, in a sixth season. But I also started teaching art law first at Sotheby's Institute for Art and at NYU, where I still teach art law. So, I think that's how we did it and continue to do it.

But it's a continual process because, as in any area, the people who are active change; it's not the same people from year to year, and you have to go out and continue to show people that, to tell them that you're here and tell them about what you do.

[00:39:53] John Reed: As busy and successful as your practice has been, you've found ways to share your knowledge and give back. And you mentioned teaching, but you're also involved in nonprofit leadership and, and volunteering. And I'd like to have you tell us more about those.

[00:40:08] Steve Schindler: I've always thought that it was important to be involved in causes that you thought were. The good causes that help people in different ways. My wife and I have both been very involved with Human Rights Watch, a fairly large organization involved in exposing human rights violations around the world and trying to advocate for changes to protect human rights. And that definition of human rights has, has expanded greatly. For example, now Human Rights Watch is very active in Ukraine and is issuing almost daily reports about the atrocities that are going on there.

So, a very important organization closer to my practice era, I became involved with a nonprofit organization called Artist Space, which is approaching its 50th birthday. It was initially started by artists who were somewhat successful to provide resources for artists who were just emerging. And over the years, it has become both the source of resources for artists, but a tremendous exhibition space for less commercial art. And I have been on the board of that organization now for probably over 10 years, and the president of this board for I can't even remember how long now. But I love the organization, and it's really a privilege to be involved in it.

And the other nonprofit that I've also been involved in on the board for a number of years is something called the New York Lawyers for Public Interest, a nonprofit in which law firms contribute to a staff who are engaged in other kinds of social justice projects, mostly here in New York City. And so, another incredible organization that I've been lucky to have been involved with over the years. 

[00:42:00] John Reed: Steve took advantage of multiple platforms—podcasting, teaching positions, nonprofit leadership—to create institutions that sustain and grow art law.

Trisha Rich saw lawyers whose wellness problems led to disciplinary issues, but found no organization that could specifically help them. So, she created the Attorney Defense Initiative, the first privately sponsored, pro bono organization addressing both disciplinary and wellness challenges.

[00:42:30] Trisha Rich: Practical Ethics is my ethics column. I write for the Chicago Bar Association's magazine, The Record. I actually just got tapped to do this. I am so excited about it. The Chicago Bar Association Magazine has been going since I was in second grade, that's not hyperbole.

And so, I, uh. I am the third person to write this column and the first woman, and I was just beyond thrilled to have my own, like, monthly column where I can talk about whatever ethics issue I want to talk about.

And then the Attorney Defense Initiative. I started this a few years ago, and it was the first. It is the first privately sponsored pro bono organization in the nation that really attempts to help lawyers with disciplinary problems who also have wellness problems.

One of the things we've seen in the practice of law is that we know lawyers suffer from alcoholism, anxiety, depression, et cetera, in rates not only higher than the general population, but higher than all other professions. In fact, I just was at a conference last week and I heard somebody reference a study that said, out of 104 professions, the legal profession was the only one that showed a positive correlation between being a pessimist and being successful. It's a really alarming statistic.

But one of the things that you see in the practice of law is that the things that make us have emotional or mental problems are also the things that drive success, right? You are a perfectionist, you are a pessimist, you are extremely competitive. And all of those things are not great personality traits, but really good for keeping you at your desk and finding extremely small details or being very aggressive in a case or whatever.

It's interesting, that correlation. But one of the other things we see in the practice of law is people turning to drugs and alcohol to help cope with the stressors of the profession. What we end up with is just a whole lot of lawyers that have mental health issues or substance abuse issues. When that happens, we see people's practices start to suffer.

I help lawyers in those situations when their practices suffer to the extent that they have bar complaints, and I often will help them for free if our workload capacity allows it. When a lawyer truly does have a problem, taking away their license, often in my view, is not going to solve that problem.

If we can help lawyers get into treatment, if we can help lawyers figure out the root cause of what's going on and help them fix it in conjunction with a lawyer assistance program, or some other wellness program, I think that a lot of times if a lawyer can maintain his or her license, that is going to offer them more stability rather than also losing their livelihood at a time when they might be suffering from some sort of mental impairment or substance abuse problem.

[00:45:40] John Reed: Trish built infrastructure supporting lawyers in crisis through ethics columns and a first organization of its kind addressing discipline and wellness together.

What separates these architects and builders from other practitioners? Architects see what doesn't exist and build it anyway. They don't wait for permission or perfect conditions. They test hypotheses, they create infrastructure, and they establish organizations that serve thousands.

Some built by writing, turning library research into subject matter expertise. Others built through teaching. Some built technology platforms serving disputes that traditional systems ignored. Others built academies that systematize decades of experience into digital coursework.

The pattern isn't in what they built. It's in how they thought. They saw gaps and filled them. They identified communities in shadows and brought them into light. 

Here's what they teach us. Don't wait for your field to evolve. You evolve it.

Because that's what architects and builders do. They envision what doesn't exist yet, draft the plans, lay the foundation, and build infrastructure that serves not just themselves, but everyone who comes after.

Until next time, I'm John Reed, and you've been listening to Sticky Lawyers.