Podcast

Building a Law Practice That Supports Your Life with Gordon Firemark

Episode Description

What if your law practice could actually support the life you want instead of consuming it? In this episode, I sit down with Gordon Firemark—aka “The Podcast Lawyer”—who’s proof that you can build a thriving solo practice without selling your soul to billable hours.

Gordon shares how his background in theater and TV led him to carve out a unique niche in entertainment and media law, and why niching down isn’t limiting—it’s liberating. We dive deep into his approach to marketing through podcasting, blogging, and video content, and how giving away knowledge freely has become his most powerful client development strategy.

But here’s what really sets this conversation apart: Gordon’s designed a practice that works for his life, not the other way around. His morning commute? One flight of stairs. His philosophy? “I have a law practice that supports my lifestyle, not a lifestyle supporting a law practice.”

We explore practical strategies for lawyers who want to break out of traditional marketing ruts, embrace new technologies without the tech overwhelm, and build genuine connections with potential clients. Plus, Gordon shares his biggest reframe on how to think about marketing your law firm.

If you’ve ever felt like the cookie-cutter law practice advice doesn’t fit who you are or what you want, this episode will feel like the permission slip you didn’t know you needed. Listen Now!

Episode Resources

Gordon’s Websites:

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Book Mentioned:

Episode Transcript

GORDON: [00:00:00] I have a law practice that supports my lifestyle, not a lifestyle, supporting a law practice, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

LAUREN: Welcome to a different practice. I’m your host Lauren Lester, and I’m passionate about helping solo attorneys build thriving practices after starting my own solo firm straight out of law.

School and building it to a successful practice that earns well over six figures while working part-time. I’m here to share the tools and strategies that made it possible. Think of this as grabbing coffee with your work bestie while learning everything they didn’t teach you about running a business in law school.

Pull up a seat and get ready to build a different practice. Welcome back to a different practice. I am so glad you’re here. Thank you for sharing some of your time. Do you ever feel like your legal career should come with a creative license? Like maybe just maybe your law degree could be used for more than endless hours of doc review and trying to remember why you thought this was a good idea?

Well, today’s episode is proof that your practice [00:01:00] doesn’t have to look like everyone else’s to be successful, and that creativity and lawyering don’t have to live in separate zip codes. In my conversation today with Gordon Fire Mark, the podcast lawyer himself, we dig into how he’s built a purpose-driven, profitable solo practice that serves creatives, podcasters, and digital entrepreneurs.

In our discussion, we talk about how his background in theater and TV shaped his unique niche in entertainment and media law. Why niching down isn’t a limitation, but actually a launchpad for growth. How he’s used podcasting, blogging, and video to market his firm and build trust with potential clients.

The real life impact of designing a law practice that supports your lifestyle, not the other way around. Plus, we dig into practical tips for lawyers who wanna get out of their marketing rut and start connecting with clients in a more human way. So if you’ve ever felt like the traditional law practice advice doesn’t quite fit for what you’re looking [00:02:00] for or for who you are, this episode will feel like the permission slip you didn’t know you needed.

Before we jump in, let me tell you a little bit more about Gordon. Gordon. Fire Mark helps creatives. Artists, entrepreneurs, and others achieve the dream of getting their messages out and making a meaningful impact with their craft. He’s been practicing media, entertainment, and business law since 1992 and is affectionately known as the podcast lawyer, a podcaster himself.

Gordon’s been behind the mic since 2009 with his Entertainment Law Update Show, and more recently, more, better, faster, which is a podcast packed with advice for creatives who want to achieve. You guessed it more, better, and faster. He’s also the author of the podcast blog and New Media Producer’s Legal Survival Guide.

He teaches law at multiple institutions and somehow still finds time to help s attorneys and creatives protect their work and grow their brands. Gordon’s the kind of attorney who makes you believe you can build a thriving practice without selling [00:03:00] your soul. Amen. So if you’ve been wondering how to stand out.

Speak up and stay true to yourself as a solo attorney. You will love this episode. Here is my conversation with Gordon Fire Mark. All right, welcome Gordon to a different practice.

GORDON: I. Hi, Lauren. Thanks for having me.

LAUREN: I’m excited to chat today. So I haven’t had a ton of lawyers on. I think that’s probably the reason that this podcast exists because we need more examples like you about how to run a practice in a different way.

So I’m excited for our conversation, but let’s rewind and get a little bit of history. So tell us a little bit about who you are and kind of what brought you to this point in your legal journey.

GORDON: Okay. Well, it’s funny, I think so little about my legal journey anymore, and now I talk about my podcasting journey a lot.

But so name’s Gordon Fire Mark. I practice entertainment, media and business law. I’ve been in, uh, in Los Angeles basically my whole career, my whole life. And I, I. I came to law sort of late in the [00:04:00] game thinking I was gonna be in radio, TV and film production. And it was only in my senior year in college that the idea of law school kind of reared its ugly head.

And I decided to, I, well, I didn’t get into film school as a graduate and I did get into law school, so that was a, a thing, but I actually didn’t do it right away. I, I started, uh, working in the television business and then there was a big strike back in the late eighties, and that’s what sort of drove me to law school, the welcoming arms of law school.

Yeah. And I’ve been in very small or solo firm pretty much the whole time my career.

LAUREN: No, that’s wonderful. And I similarly came to law kind of as a second career, like I was in the web development space. So similar to you, like around a lot of creative. Mm-hmm. Just a different medium. Sure. But was a project manager in that space and I always found that my history being in the business world for a bit, and then going to law school, I thought made a really big difference.

In the beginning. I thought, oh great, there goes that 10 years that I just spent, I’m gonna [00:05:00] have to close that door and not be able to bring any of those skills forward. So I’m curious for you having kind of a similar trajectory. And being in a different space, especially a creative space. Yeah. Which is not an adjective we use for lawyers very often, but how do, how have you found that that history and going back to law school a little bit, you know, quote unquote later, actually helped you become a better attorney or shape your path as an attorney?

GORDON: Well, I think for one thing. Even just a little bit of exposure to the harsh realities of the working world really makes you take a different approach to continuing your education and schooling. And I think that’s even true of someone who’s just taken a gap year or two out of high school before they start college.

They come at it with a little different intensity and focus, and some of that’s just growing up in maturing, but some of it also is, you know, being confronted with those harsh realities as far as as a lawyer. In my particular area of practice, which was sort of a given, given my background in theater and radio and TV and stuff like that.

Becoming an entertainment lawyer. [00:06:00] The advantage for me is that I speak creative and I, I understand the people and in fact, I love the people and the relationships and the kinds of energy and ego and all those things that sort of define folks in the entertainment industry. And so that’s been great because I.

I view my role as sort of bridging the divide between the business and the legal world and the creative world because those creative folks are so, I don’t remember whether it’s left brain or right brain, but you know, they’re using that side of the brain that doesn’t, I. Do well with rules and order and structure and things, and I do.

So

LAUREN: I found my, yeah, that’s such a nice way to be able to communicate to your client, especially that kind of, I don’t even know if I wanna call them niche, ’cause we always think of niche as being very small. But yeah, a very specialized type of client. They wanna know that you get it. And being able to kind of speak their language, I think mm-hmm.

Gives them probably such a good feeling of trust and immediately that you know, what they need. Um, that maybe some, you know, attorneys who don’t have that [00:07:00] background might struggle with.

GORDON: Yeah. I mean, I think I do have to catch myself because sometimes when I make those assumptions about what I think they need or want may I may not be right.

And so I, I, I do make it a point to ask and, and turn it into a conversation and not just a, a lecture. But I think that’s what most good lawyers do.

LAUREN: Yes. No, exactly. And you’ve certainly taken that creativity and expanded it just for yourself. So you’re also known as the podcast lawyer, which I just think is amazing.

So tell us a little bit about how you came up with that opportunity. Did you see something in the market and sort of what made you go down that path to kind of add that to your resume?

GORDON: Yeah. You know, it’s not actually the first and only brand of its kind that I, I adopted and owned. I, I was, I am am also known as the theater lawyer here in the West LA I

LAUREN: love it.

I love this branding. This is so good.

GORDON: Something about putting the article in front of the kind of practice you do, you know, Hey, it makes me feel like I stand out and you’re,

LAUREN: there’s an elevation to it. Yes.

GORDON: And really it, it was a [00:08:00] recognition that I was sort of occupying a big fish in a small pond, kind of an environment at, with theater law.

It was the, the West Coast Theater here in la There were only a handful of us that do this kind of work and, and in podcasting I was really the first lawyer to be, I. Talking to podcasters about protecting themselves and looking out for the creativity in the deals. And, and how that came about is interesting because I was marketing my own practice.

I had started a blog when I, I, I was one of the first lawyers in California to have his own a website, you know, just a billboard along that information. Super highway they used to talk about. And I just, early adopter, I’m a tech geek and I, I just like to play with these things and so I coded my own website and put things up and got into blogging before blogging was a thing as a way to.

Generate a website that had dynamic content for my, my audience and I started with a print newsletter and that became an email newsletter and, and the blog and, but blocking you sit down, you know, anytime you’re writing as a lawyer, you feel like you have to [00:09:00] be very, what’s the disciplined and rigid about it and lawyerly about it.

Something about podcasting. When I heard about podcasting was a guy named Leo LaPorte who was coming out of the, he was a radio broadcaster, but he was coming outta the tech reporter kind of world, and he had been on television, and when that show got canceled, he started his own podcast. It was around 2005 or six, early in the days of podcasting.

I heard what he was doing and I thought, that’s cool. I’ve got microphones, I’ve got toys, all computers, I’ll, I’ll try this. And I, I tinkered with it a little bit and then. By happenstance, someone asked me to be a guest on their show and that turned into a re just to answer questions about legal stuff for videographers.

That turned into a recurring thing and then it became its own show. He was the host and I was the, the expert, and we did, he got in trouble, but from his boss, from Moonlighting and they made him stop. But I was hooked, so I started my own podcast. I found a co-host using Twitter at the time to find people to [00:10:00] recommend and it, it worked out great.

Anyway, started the show and I. Realized I wanted to just do the due diligence, make sure I knew what the legal boundaries were for podcasts as distinguished from other forms of media and journalism and entertainment and things. And I found there were no such resources. So I dug into it and I applied my My Thinking cap and figured some things out and came up with some best practices.

And that turned into a small book that I wrote called The Podcast Blog in New Media Producers Legal Survival Guide. And. For those who don’t know it out there, if you write a book, you, you’re the expert on what you wrote the book about. So attended a conference shortly after publishing the book and someone there said, oh, you’re that podcast lawyer.

And I said, yeah. And I got the domain.

LAUREN: Brilliant.

GORDON: Yeah. And uh, so that’s sort of how that branding became a thing. And over the years, I’ve, I’ve managed to. Really focus, a big chunk of my practice on working [00:11:00] with, I’m gonna call them, I used to call it new media creators, but digital media creators, podcasters, YouTubers, bloggers, and the adjacent fields, and it’s been great and do niche down in your practice.

It really does help and work.

LAUREN: It’s easy, it’s counterintuitive. Because you always think, oh, if I get smaller, it’s less folks. But you really can become, like you said, an expert is a very loaded term, but you can become really good at what you do because you’re just focusing on something specific versus 10 generic things.

GORDON: And, and you know, if your, if your mental thing is I wanna represent everybody, then what you’re gonna be doing is settling for sort of the, the bottom to middle of everybody. And you have to be a generalist and. Not so much a master of of your trade. Once you niche down and you identify that ideal client and who you’re really talking to, it makes the marketing so much easier.

The communication so much easier. ’cause you only have to focus on what they’re worried about, the problems they’re confronting, and [00:12:00] how you’re gonna help them solve them.

LAUREN: And, and when you’ve had the problems yourself, like you said, you can even be that much more good at communicating about them because you’ve got, you get it and you’ve lived in it.

GORDON: Yeah. Well, I mean, I like to, I’d like to think that I can speak that way, but I’ve never been sued for copyright infringement. I don’t use, you know, those kinds of things because I know the rules and so I’m here to educate and, and inform and, and really that’s. That’s my new my, now my marketing approach is just to be visible as the guy who has the answers and is freely sharing them.

I don’t hold anything back. I, if somebody asks me a question, I give an answer. This is what I know and this is how I can help. And some of them try to do it themselves and call me later and some succeed, you know? And that’s all good. I think I’m, it’s a rising tide lifting all the boats.

LAUREN: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna circle back to how you’re putting yourself out there, like just what different platforms you’re using, but I wanna touch on before.

We leave it too far. The idea that [00:13:00] for you, and I’m the same way, but I think that we are in the minority, that something is exciting and new and I’m like, oh, like you said with blogging, like blogging was new, right? Oh, how can I use that for my practice? Let me try this thing out. And not a lot of lawyers have that switch on.

Mm-hmm. And it needs to be nurtured. So do you have any. Thoughts for somebody who maybe says, yeah, that sounds great. I would love to do that, but that is uncharted waters for me. That’s really hard to just sort of lean into. I don’t do that naturally. Is there something that you have found or working with other folks where they wanna be a bit more innovative and sort of take those quote unquote risks, but we’re lawyers and we’re not.

Trained to think that way that they can sort of get over that hump?

GORDON: Well, you know, honestly, if you’re not wired that way, it’s gonna be hard no matter what. Unfortunately, I think a lot of lawyers, most lawyers, at least the the rainmakers out there, the ones who expect of themselves that they’re gonna make it rain.

They are outgoing, type a gregarious. [00:14:00] At least or, or they’re able to switch those things on when they need to. And if you look at, you know, historically, how did lawyers get new clients and get new businesses by being visible as the, as that person with answers and solutions leave the technology out of it.

I mean, it used to be you’d go to, you know, people would join the Chamber of Commerce and be visible to other business leaders, or they would hold seminars at the library about estate planning, you know, or, or family stuff, you know, so. Using these technologies, whatever you your choice is, is really just a way of bringing those strategies into the modern.

Era, and it’s still possible to do the library seminar if that’s what works for you, and invite a bunch of people and pour coffee and cookies and talk about why they should have a family trust, you know, whatever. But a podcast, well, let me go back to, blog is just a, a way of publishing your ideas and, and demonstrating thought leadership.

Some lawyers have been sending out. Hard copy [00:15:00] letters of here’s what’s been developing in this area of law this week or this month, whatever. And so it’s just a matter of finding something that you can do that you’re comfortable with. For me, the technology was fun and so comfortable for me, and I recognized early on that I.

Rather than paying whatever it was for postage for two or three or 5,000 copies of a newsletter to go out, I could make a news, an email newsletter, spend maybe a hundred bucks a month to maintain and operate the equipment and the services, and it would go out to that many people. With a click of a button.

And you know, as Spider-Man says, with great power comes great responsibility, you gotta do it well or else you’re gonna make alienate everybody. But that’s, you know, I think we as lawyers naturally kind of know that and wanna cross the T’s and dot the i’s and put our best foot forward. So. The blog was an extension of that and just another way of doing that.

And then what the newsletter became was, Hey, look what I wrote on my blog last week, and kind of [00:16:00] shortening that thing. And then even that though, writing blog posts every week or more often felt like work became more of a chore somehow. Switching on a microphone and now a camera and doing a short video about something I’ve been thinking about.

It’s pretty easy. And I just sort of have an appointment in my calendar to do it every week. And you know, over the years I’ve developed some strategies for pre-planning and having a calendar so I know what I’m gonna talk about next week. And it often, that’s the hardest thing is, oh, what am I gonna write about?

Or what am I gonna talk about? But if you’ve planned it out in advance and you see a story arc over a quarter or a year, it gets a lot easier.

LAUREN: Absolutely. Yeah. That planning a little bit of effort upfront can make the whole process a lot smoother. Mm-hmm. And I heard too, you say, you know, really thinking about for folks who maybe are a little bit more nervous about sort of these new technologies, I liked your idea of that it should think about it as if it as if it was 1970 and we didn’t have all these technologies.

[00:17:00] Right. It is the same. Principle of how you’re going out and putting yourself out there. Yeah. It’s just a slightly different mechanism and so if you can think about, you know, doing a webinar might be the same as posting a bunch of flyers to say, Hey, meet me at the library to learn about this topic.

Mm-hmm. This is just a. Different iteration of that, that can maybe, I would wonder if that might help some folks who are a little bit nervous think, oh, it’s just a different, a different flavor of the same thing.

GORDON: Yeah. Well, you know, another thing about it that I think people get in their heads about, especially like with webinars is, what if I hold a webinar and only 20 people show up?

LAUREN: Yeah.

GORDON: Well, what if you had that room booked at the library and you put 20 butts in seats? Yeah, that would feel like an accomplishment. Yeah. So the technology does have the potential to sort of intimidate us around this stuff, but if you put it in perspective and reframe things that way, it’s, Hey, you’ve got 20 people who are hanging on what you wanna say.

I think that’s pretty amazing. And a podcast is taking that to the next level and being [00:18:00] there for them every week or every month. And one of my shows is a monthly show, and knowing that. Okay. There’s this group of people who wanna hear what I have to say every month. That gives you a kind of confidence to keep going.

LAUREN: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You’re not just kind of yelling into the void when you have actual, like humans on the other end, you’re like, oh, this is, this is working. Yeah. So outside of the, you mentioned video and podcasting. Are those the two mediums that you see the most return from at. This point in time or what do you see as kind of the most helpful when you are trying to market your practice?

GORDON: Uh, well, word of mouth is still the number one.

LAUREN: Always Number one? Yeah.

GORDON: Client referrals and colleague referrals. But you know, one of my podcasts, the entertainment law update, that’s the monthly roundup show that is aimed at other lawyers. And so that leads to that, that word of mouth referrals. Lawyers from other states who hear from someone in California or whatever, or don’t do the kind of work that I or my co-host do.

They’re thinking of us and they’re sending us their referrals. It’s nice, but also because that stuff is sitting on the [00:19:00] website. Someone comes to my law firm website, there’s a, oh, look at our latest podcast episode. Somebody who heard about us or Google searches, whatever. Oh, they hear us talking and they can immediately say, oh yeah, they’re, they know what they’re doing.

And that’s the know, like, and trust factor is built very quickly that way.

LAUREN: I think giving out that information, like you said, freely answering questions, I think attorneys have guarded that information or we’ve been taught to guard that information for so long that it really is shooting ourselves in the foot because the person sitting across from you wondering, should I.

Exchange my hard-earned money for this person’s services, which I think I need. Yeah. But in some cases, maybe you’re the only person who does it, but for most of us, right, we have competition. How do we get them to say yes? Right? Gordon’s the person for me, Lauren’s the person for me. And when we hold back that information that could help them see we get it.

We understand we have some ideas for solutions.

GORDON: Yeah.

LAUREN: That really kind of creates. It really hurts the relationship to start to build it from there.

GORDON: And, you know, [00:20:00] holding back the information might have worked 20, 30, 40 years ago better, but now Professor Google is always there to give you the answer to the things.

And with Theis it’s getting even more so. So the way you differentiate yourself now from the technology and from all this other available information is your ability to curate it and present it in a way that’s accessible and understandable and you know, with a personality that. Appeals to a certain segment of your audience that is going to be your, your clients.

And there are always going to be the do it yourselfers or the try to do it yourselfers out there and they’re gonna get the information one way or another. And I think it’s sort of part of, I don’t know, sort of a, almost like a nobles oblig, you, you know, those of us with the knowledge and the information and the experience sort of owe it to the world to help those folks so they don’t screw everything up for everybody else.

If no, if for no other reason. But, and also, you know, just. It just is an attractive quality to be able to sort of teach [00:21:00] this stuff and, and share and show you care.

LAUREN: And I even think for the DIYers, you know, I try and say like, I love y’all. Like I’m, I’m in the same boat, not with the law ’cause I know a little bit better, but you know, with my, like my house for example, I’m sure there’s contractors out there in the same boat going, okay, yep, you try it, you know, here’s a bit of information so maybe you don’t blow your house up.

But I think if I can get that from somebody on, let’s say a YouTube video, and especially if they’re local and then I do mess it up, which. More often than that happens, I’m immediately gonna go find that person because they didn’t make me feel terrible for trying to do it on my own. Maybe they gave me some information about, well, here’s the risks.

If you try and, you know, write this, will yourself, here’s things that I’ve seen happen that have maybe not gone as planned. That gives them at least some information and, but it still gives them a good feeling that you’re there to help without sort of demonizing them of like, why would you do that on your own?

You’re just. You know, totally gonna screw it up. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s, you know, not [00:22:00] half bad and you gotta give them credit for that.

GORDON: Mm-hmm. Hey, you know, even though most of us cook Mar cook some of our meals at home, we do occasionally go out to restaurants and if you’ve seen a YouTube video about how to make a great dish, that’s a little too much to do at home.

Guess where you’re going for dinner next time?

LAUREN: Exactly. Same idea. Exactly. Yeah. No, it all works. There’s space for everybody. So I, I very much appreciate your sort of forward, I think it’s forward thinking. It feels funny to say that ’cause it really shouldn’t be. It should just be what we’re all doing about kind of forward thinking approach to your practice and marketing and putting yourself out there.

Yeah. But I’m curious how that’s also benefited you personally and sort of building this practice this way, being really generous with your knowledge and information and kind of being out there. How have you. Notice that it has made the purpose drivenness of your practice and just your overall kind of life.

Different or better.

GORDON: That’s interesting. I’ve never really thought about that angle of it. I mean, it is sort of just who I am that I, I like, I mean, I do some teaching on the side as [00:23:00] well, and I like that. And I’ve actually created some online courses, again for the do it yourselfers that need a little extra guidance, but aren’t gonna hire me as their lawyer for thousands of dollars.

Well, maybe hundreds of dollars coming my way for a little extra advice and a template or something like that. And there’s legal, ethical things we have to be really careful about in that arena. But I just, I just like to share, I. And lead in that way, I guess you could say. But, you know, in my personal life, I’m, look, I’m a family man.

I’ve got three kids and a wife and pets that I love. And, and for me, I’ve created a, a, a practice sort of by accident. At the beginning I, you know, I was looking for that big law firm job and I wanted, or the in-house job at a movie studios. It didn’t happen for me because of timing and economics and the marketplace and all those things, but.

I was able to hang out a shingle and do my own thing, and here I am now after 30, almost 34 years in practice. My, my morning commute is unbeatable. It’s one flight of stairs.

LAUREN: Can’t beat that.

GORDON: And, and I’ve been doing this since long before the pandemic and, and [00:24:00] Zoom and things became a thing. I’ve been home office based, but I’ve got my little, you see my office studio here and, and, and I’m able to do my thing really well and then go make dinner.

Or go visit with the family and take breaks. And, you know, it works both ways. There are sometimes when I have to come back in here at 10 o’clock at night and do something. But, uh, I feel like my lifestyle is, the, the way I’d like to put it is I have a law practice that supports my lifestyle, not a lifestyle, supporting a law practice.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way. And it’s a small practice. I don’t make the kind of money that the, my, you know, the people I started with in the law firms are, are making. But I also have time to enjoy what I have created for myself. And, you know, so if I’m not going on that whirlwind two weeks in Europe every year, smaller vacations less often, but, but better quality all the other days of the year.

So, uh, for me, that’s really the, the great thing. And I get to focus on an area of practice that I really love. I get to choose my own. Clients, and I don’t have, I don’t have [00:25:00] senior partners breathing down my neck. I mean, I guess you could view my spouse as a senior partner breathing down my neck in a way.

But yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s just a, it’s a great lifestyle, really able to live by my own terms, on my own terms, I.

LAUREN: Yeah, I think, I don’t know, for you, maybe it has been the same, you know, for all of those years, but when I went to law school now more than a decade ago, it o, it only felt like the measure of success was money.

Mm-hmm. And I think that then we left that, and then we thought. Oh, I guess that’s just the culture. And so when we talk to other colleagues out in practice, that’s often what folks will use for the litmus test is, oh, well, you know, I’m not a million dollar firm. I wanna be a $10 million firm, or I wanna have X number of associates so I can get to this revenue stream or this level of revenue.

And I’ve just been finding and talking to more and more, especially solos who for whatever reason got into this space. Whether it was because of timing or just, you know, a big law job that didn’t work out. But they’ve really, I think, have [00:26:00] started to realize that there’s more to the benefits of it and more to a quality of life than just mm-hmm.

How much money you have in the bank, which is can be great, but if you don’t see your family Yeah. You know, seven days a week, like, is that really. At the end of the day, what you’re gonna hang your hat on. So I love hearing, right? Being able to have family dinners and take, you know, quote unquote smaller vacations, but great memories.

Mm-hmm. Those are kind of priceless. I think that we just need to, as a profession, talk about that more because it still feels a little bit in the shadows of not being able to say, well, yeah, I don’t, I don’t make that kind of revenue, but I still have a really successful practice.

GORDON: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s interesting.

Yeah, these, these inia of success, the, the yardsticks by which we really measure ourselves. I think, I do think there’s shifting, certainly within the last decade or so, but even before then, it was starting to shift a little bit and, and a, I know a lot of my, my contemporaries who have gone solo after a career in a big firm [00:27:00] and realizing that.

Yeah, all that money was great and, and hey, great to have it in the bank and sort of backing them up. It gives them a longer runway to get their own practice off the air, off the ground. But, but yeah, they, they, they traded all those years buried in a library and under loads of paper doing, who knows, you know, litigation work and, and discovery and all those kind of things, which, you know, some people love that stuff, but that was never mine.

My style anyway. I’m a transactional deal maker lawyer. So yeah, for me that’s what fun. Yeah. And you gotta,

LAUREN: you gotta know your strengths. Yeah. And what, what kind of brings you joy in that space. ’cause that’s gonna be a big factor to it as well. And also

GORDON: your, your know your zone, you know, you’re talking about.

I, I don’t wanna manage a big team. I could hire six other lawyers and paralegals and secretaries and have an office and all those kinds of things and, and run a multimillion dollar revenue generating machine. I would still probably take home similar to what I take home, you know, maybe those folks, but probably a lot more

LAUREN: stress.

Yeah. With all those, those folks with a lot more stress and a

GORDON: lot more just the, the kinds of headaches that. I don’t need in [00:28:00] my life. And yeah. And then, you know, all you’re doing is cruising. Okay, how soon can I retire? Yeah. For me it’s not, how soon can I retire? It’s, it’s when I retire, it’s ’cause I’m gonna have to stop doing this because something has prevented me at, at that point.

I think, who knows that my, my views may change once the kids are outta college right now. That’s the motivating thing.

LAUREN: Yes.

GORDON: Pay for the kids. But no, I mean, I, I just, I, I’m, I’m the captain of my own ship. You know, it’s a wonderful feeling.

LAUREN: Yeah. I love that idea of that. We are not running the race to just get to the finish line to go, oh, I’m done.

Thank God. I finished it where we’re like, you know what? We’re running in the Swiss Alps right now. I’m just gonna enjoy the run.

GORDON: Yeah, I mean, I do believe in having a team and I and I, I use a remote team for like creating the Entertainment Law Update podcast. I have five or six other lawyers and law students that help me do the summaries and spot the stories and put things together.

And I use a virtual assistant for some of my, I. Digital stuff, [00:29:00] websites and online stuff. And she actually helps me plan out the marketing strategies and where, what YouTube videos and what podcast episodes and things. And I do occasionally staff up for projects and things, but you know, that’s a different thing.

And a lot of that is just about sort of knowing what I’m good at and where I need, where I’m gonna do it. Okay, but I’m not gonna enjoy it or it’s gonna take parts of me I don’t wanna give. So there’s a concept called the Zone of Genius. Are you familiar with Gay Hendricks book, the Big Leap.

LAUREN: No, tell us about it.

Strongly recommend

GORDON: this book. It’s an easy read and it really talks about finding the things that you do the best and delegating or ditching all the other stuff so that it’s either it still gets done or it doesn’t, but that, you know, and really got my head on straight about. About how I live my life and run my business and, and helped me figure that stuff out.

And so I recommend that even though it’s not aimed at lawyers, it, it’s just good philosophical stuff to get in there.

LAUREN: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, any kind of, I think business mindset sort of book [00:30:00] and what is this thing that you’re. Building for what is the purpose, like what’s going to fulfill you is out there for any type of business, whether it’s a law firm or right.

A dentist office or the nail salon down the road. All of those entrepreneurs, I think, have those same thoughts and getting some sort of direction to just make sure that you’re not spinning your wheels. Yeah. And you can look back and go, wow, like I built this thing and I’m so proud, and like you said, it’s supporting this lifestyle that I want, which is most important.

GORDON: Mm-hmm.

LAUREN: No, that’s all such great information. I feel super inspired to just keep, keep on trucking and do all of the out of the box things, which really shouldn’t be out of the box, but, um, sticking back into marketing and really con connecting with potential clients in a way that’s going to make the most sense for them.

And right now we’re in a digital age, so we’ve gotta embrace it. Mm-hmm. Certainly if anybody sounds like if they want to start a podcast or get some resources about podcasting, you may have that, but. What else do you have out there [00:31:00] that folks can soak up here and learn more from you?

GORDON: Well, you know, I mean, most of my stuff is client folk, client facing kinds of stuff.

But, you know, find me@firemark.com or gordon Fire mark.com is where I have all that other client facing kind of stuff. I am doing YouTube and, and, and podcast stuff. Pretty regular, well, very regularly. And I follow me on YouTube, g Fire Mark, and right now I’m, I’m building, building up my Instagram strategy.

With the help of my virtual assistant, she’s, she’s been pushing me in that direction. Just shorter form video and, and simple calls to action that get people to do something that then it gets onto mailing list and we can sell them stuff basically. But you, something you said just triggered a thought in my head that you, you were saying, you know, you use the word marketing and I think a lot of lawyers.

Think of marketing as a necessary evil or an unpleasant part of the job. But if you change that, again, reframing marketing is really [00:32:00] just connecting with people. Not clients, not prospective clients, not leads, not prospects. Don’t think of them like that. Think of them as people. Some subset of all the people you meet out there have a problem that you can help them solve, and all you have to do is let them know that.

You are someone they like enough and trust enough to want your help solving it. That’s what marketing is. And finding an approach that just lets them feel comfortable about, oh, this is someone I can look to for, for help with this. I. That’s what a marketing strategy really is. When you think about it in marketing terms or advertising terms and using those words like lead in prospect, you’re sort of dehumanizing it.

And that’s fine if you’re selling a bazillion bottles of Coca-Cola every year, but that’s not what we lawyers are doing. At, at its root level, we’re helping people with their problems. And no matter how big the client company is, there’s a person who’s making that hiring decision.

LAUREN: Yeah. [00:33:00] We’ve gotta get back to kind of the humanness of it.

Yeah. I think we got got away from that for a while there. And we have to remember, yeah, we’re, we’re in the. People business, like we help people and so how can we connect with them? Mm-hmm. I love that idea of just thinking about marketing as a way to connect with somebody who’s sitting across from you or picking up a phone and watching your video online or however they’re coming across.

Um, and just really thinking about, I do this when I’m making content. Is ’cause you can get in your head like you said. Mm-hmm. Like what if 20 people show up to the webinar? I think, oh my gosh, what if I post this video and everybody goes, oh, it’s awful. Or it doesn’t have this flashy thing. And I just try and think of honestly my kind of target client and I sit down and think of her and just like I’m talking to her.

And I think that always can make better content, even if you’re not having a one-on-one conversation. But it’s that same principle of just remembering the humanness of it.

GORDON: Yeah. You know, and for those who are worried about, well, I don’t know what I would say in my marketing content or whatever kind of content, one great, easy, and this is not new, this is old, [00:34:00] old ideas.

But if you just sit down and make a list of the 10 or 20 questions that you receive most often from your clients and prospects and friends and family and everything else, and you gene us, you know, just. Take the specifics out of things and give the answers. Generally, whether you’re writing a blog post or a tweet or a, a Instagram short, or, I dunno what they call ’em, reels, you know, or making a long form YouTube video, whatever it is.

You’ve got the content there and you already know the answers. It doesn’t require you to go to the library and do the research and you know, you’re not writing a law review article. You’re giving a lay person a three minute, five minute short answer that gives them some hopefully encouragement or sometimes it scares them into taking some action.

Like, call me and I’ll help you with all of that works. And as you refine those strategies, and by the way, you can keep coming back to those same 10 or 20 questions over and over and over again. ’cause you’re gonna have a new audience for it.

LAUREN: Yeah, it really is when you break it down, it’s, it’s simple but not always easy and I [00:35:00] think folks get tripped up on well actually doing it and having folks out there like you who can be such a great example for us and we can get some inspiration from, and we can see that you’re out there being consistent.

I love that you have time on your calendar. I think that’s so critical for us as well, to make sure that we just show up consistently. But what a great idea to be able to make, you know, your first 10 videos next week is just answering those questions.

GORDON: And it doesn’t have to be hard. The technology’s in your hand stand outside or near a window and get the light on your face and just talk into the camera for a minute or microphone or whatever.

And that authenticity of who you really are actually really comes through and sells.

LAUREN: It makes a world of difference. So hopefully we’ve inspired some listeners to pick up their phone and hit record today and make a connection with somebody out there and be source of information and value in their community.

So thank you so much for joining us and sharing your insights and all of your wisdom. I found it super inspiring, so I really do appreciate your time.

GORDON: Well, me too, Lauren. Thanks for having me. [00:36:00]

LAUREN: Thanks for joining me on another episode of a different practice. If you found value in today’s conversation, subscribe to my Solo Success Lab newsletter where each week I test and share what actually works in solo practice.

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