Law firm hiring expert, Jay Henderson, joins us today as we continue our Spotlight on PILMMA series.

Having the right people in place makes all the difference when it comes to scaling your law firm. Obviously, each role requires a different skillset. Beyond that, each person has unique requirements to keep them performing at an optimal level. This can include management style, motivations, and overall corporate culture.

In this episode we discuss:

• The benefits of assessments prior to making hiring decisions


• The “Road to Money” process that helps unlock big profits


• Identifying revenue gaps that can be addressed through better hiring and management processes

This episode and the next several will feature PILMMA speakers in our “Spotlight on PILMMA” podcast series.

Visit Jay Henderson online here: https://www.jayhenderson.org/.

We’ll be at PILMMA Super Summit 2025: https://optimizemyfirm.com/pilmma-2025/.

See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.

Transcript:

Lindsey:

Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I’m your host, Lindsey Busfield.

One of my favorite quotes is hire hard, manage easy. This is such a simple concept, but makes a world of difference in the long-term operations of your business.

The same is true whether managing a CEO agency, law firm, or even a Dairy Queen. You simply cannot thrive as a business.

Without having the right people in place doing the things that need to be done. We are continuing our Spotlight on Pilma series with hiring expert Jay Henderson:.

At the upcoming Pilma conference, Jay will be discussing how law firm owners can earn new profits by unleashing higher performance from their people.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Jay.

Jay Henderson:

My pleasure. Thank you.

Lindsey:

Well, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your hiring agency.

Jay Henderson:

So, I’m in Raleigh, North Carolina. As I have just learned, you’re right up the street from me, which is awesome.

And I’ve been helping law firms for about 15 years make excellent hiring decisions. You know, get the best people in the door that they can.

Avoid the problems. That’s really where you start. If you can avoid the problems, you’re going to default straight into a better team immediately.

Right? So, yeah, working with law firms for about 15 years. And speaking of Pilma. But I got into working with law firms because of Ken Hardison.

So that has been a great, great connection and relationship. I consider Ken a good friend. In fact, he’s from Raleigh.

So I met him in Raleigh. So that’s that, you know, outside of business. So that’s how that worked. But yeah, so it’s a lot of fun.

I love working with my law firm clients. I pretty much only focus on working with law firms. And that’s it.

Lindsey:

That’s great. Yeah, we just had Ken on the show a couple of weeks ago. And what a great guy.

He’s got some great vision and a huge heart for helping out attorneys, clearly, as you do as well. And so what is it about the legal profession that drew you in and made you want to focus on that for hiring purposes?

Jay Henderson:

Well, it was a pretty selfish decision, actually. I, well, 2008, 2008. In 2009, I was doing a lot of management consulting work with Cisco Corporation.

They happen to have a big campus, as you know, right up the street from us. And so then the economy sort of went sideways, as we all know, a little bit.

And I stepped back and I asked, where am I unique and different, where I can add value in the world and be super helpful?

And in fact, Ken and I were sitting right here in this office, and we were talking about the different industries that are struggling and what people are going to do to, you know, pivot, which was a big COVID word.

But then it ended up, you know, that was going on, of course, in 2008, if people are going to pivot or not, whatever.

But I asked him, you know, how’s your industry doing? And he said, we’re flying, you know, and we’re going, we’re doing great.

And, and we really need what you do. And so thinking of it from a marketing perspective, I stepped back and said, you know, where, where would there be a unique industry?

That I could help from a niche standpoint to get really hyper-focused instead of trying to be all things to all people.

Where can I hyper-zero in? And I decided to work with law firms. And so that’s kind of how that happened.

It’s been a huge success in terms of the response.

Lindsey:

Well, think that there are some lessons in there that are highly applicable to law firms. And regardless of, you know, where the market is or, you know, the economy, there are always going to be people who need personal injury attorneys, which is, you know, it is a kind of a bulletproof industry here.

And so it’s a great industry to work with. And it’s one of the reasons that we chose to help personal injury attorneys is they have the need.

They’re always going to have the need to market, expand, hire. And so they also have the resources at their disposal to be able to hire the right agency.

These are right people and have the right tools in place so that they can continue to grow and to thrive.

So I don’t see that as selfishness at all. I think that’s a great business decision. It’s knowing your market and knowing how to build your brand while helping other attorneys build their firms as well.

Jay Henderson:

And so I think that that’s a great approach. Yeah, and I can meet my ultimate goals through law firms, which is to really be effective for people ultimately at end of the day.

So I can do that with law firms just as well as any other industry. So it’s been great for me.

I’ve enjoyed it.

Lindsey:

You can. And I see kind of my role in a similar fashion, where you’re connecting people, you’re connecting prospective employees with good law firms to work with.

You are helping good lawyers to grow their practice. And ultimately, through those relationships, you are helping your community because you have helped grow good practices.

And so it is an extension. Everything that you’re doing, it starts with having those right people in place.

Jay Henderson:

And that’s not to say that, you know, serving in this niche doesn’t come without its challenges. And so I want you to talk to me a little bit about what are some of the unique challenges that law firms face throughout the hiring process.

Oh, I mean, frankly, not much different than most other industries, to be honest with you, except that I find the law industry to have a much greater need for urgency and productivity in employees.

Now, it sounds crazy to say that as if any other business does not need productivity. You brought it up earlier.

But law firms are particularly, you know, process oriented and it’s almost like manufacturing and not literally manufacturing, but really focused on logistics.

You know, we know what to do when we get a client that says yes. We know what the steps are.

Now, let’s get from A to Z as fast as we can. I call it the road to money. You know, let’s get that client processed and happy and get the revenue in the door, disbursements happening as fast as possible.

So that’s very logistics and very production oriented. And so it is that is one of the challenges I find, though, is, you know, it’s finding people who are and I don’t do recruiting at all.

I’m not involved in that part of it. But it’s like when they bring people to the table, are they the right fit for the industry, which needs to be really production oriented?

There are 50 other competencies that are critical, you know, that are important. But that’s one of the big ones I find is how effective and how efficient are they?

Lindsey:

This is especially true with personal injury law, because you have people who are coming in the door who are in crisis mode and they have a case.

That they aren’t wanting to sit on for six months before they start to see some traction on it. So you need to have the right people in house that are in that productivity mode who are, you know, working towards getting things done, and keeping that that ball moving forward.

So finding the right people with the right mindset, as well as the right skill set, is definitely something that having some extra support, getting the right people in place is a huge help.

So talk