Un-Billable Hour: Business Management Strategies for the Busy Lawyer

6 episodes scanned. 29% of ad slots promote the show's own products.

Recent Episodes

1. The Most Expensive 20 Seconds in Your Practice

   Oct 27, 2026

   Maddie Martin, general manager of legal at Smith.ai, discusses how law firms lose potential clients when phone calls go unanswered or handled poorly, and how a hybrid of AI and human intake can improve conversion. The episode covers how to tell whether a firm has an intake problem or a marketing problem, how to secret-shop your own intake line, and how to handle edge cases such as crisis calls, legal questions, cost questions, existing clients, and potential conflicts. The discussion is framed around the Clio Legal Trends Report and Smith.ai's booking data.

2. Seat at the Table: Cash Flow Practices That Support Firm Growth

   Oct 13, 2026

   Brooke Lively, founder and CEO of Cathedral Capital, joins Joy Lutz (CPA, aligned CPA) and Amira Hasenbush (managing attorney, All Family Legal PC) for a panel on cash flow management at law firms. The discussion covers why a firm can look profitable on paper and still struggle to make payroll, how utilization, realization, and collection affect cash, and how to use trust accounts, retainers, and payment policies. The panelists also address what to do first during a cash crunch, why owners should not starve their own pay, and which ratios reveal leaks such as payroll and marketing spend.

3. Want To Delegate But Don’t Know How? Let’s Break It Down.

   Sep 22, 2026

   Gina Cotner, founder and CEO of Athena Executive Services, discusses delegation challenges specific to law firm owners and attorneys. She explains why hiring staff doesn't automatically free up time, and provides a practical framework for effective delegation based on clear expectations, ownership transfer, and gracious follow-up. Cotner shares how she scaled her own firm from full-time involvement to working just 10-15 hours per week by systematically delegating entire processes.

4. Seat at the Table: Firing an Employee Without Causing Collateral Damage

   Sep 8, 2026

   A roundtable discussion among four HR and legal management professionals examining best practices for terminating employees in law firms. The panel covers recognizing when termination is necessary, preparing for the conversation, executing the termination meeting professionally, protecting clients and firm culture, and mitigating legal and organizational damage. Key themes include the importance of early performance feedback, documented improvement plans, having a structured process, treating departing employees with respect, and communicating clearly with remaining staff and clients.

5. Law Firm Growth Doesn’t Happen by Accident, Tips You Can Use Today

   Aug 25, 2026

   Colleen Joyce, CEO of Lawyer.com and founder of the Lawyer Growth Summit, discusses why law firm growth is intentional, not accidental. She shares insights from building the country's leading lawyer-client matching platform, focusing on critical growth bottlenecks: marketing spend tracking, intake process optimization, and leveraging AI to enhance (not replace) human connection. Joyce emphasizes that law firms investing heavily in marketing often fail to convert leads due to poor intake experiences, and that community and collaboration among competitors drives sustainable growth.

6. Seat at the Table: Understanding and Building Your Firm’s Culture

   Aug 11, 2026

   Christopher T. Anderson hosts a roundtable discussion on firm culture with three experienced professionals: Hannah Hembree Bell (founding attorney, Henry Bell Law), Ben Hakama (founder, Illuminate Wealth Management), and Lori Brown-Simmons (founder, Fractional Firm Advisors). The panel explores how law firm leaders can intentionally build and protect healthy firm culture as their business scales, distinguishing culture from personality, defining core values, and addressing the difficult question of managing high-performing employees who don't align with stated cultural values.

7. Cybersecurity and Your Firm: Where Do You Stand? You Need to Know.

   Jul 28, 2026

   Nick Martin, cybersecurity expert and founder/CEO of File Science, discusses critical data protection strategies for law firms. The episode covers the shared responsibility model in cloud platforms, the gap between perceived and actual data security, real-world scenarios of data loss through accidental deletion and ransomware, and practical backup and recovery solutions. Martin emphasizes that law firms relying solely on cloud providers' built-in backups and SLAs are operating under a false sense of security and need independent, tested backup strategies.

8. Seat at the Table: Success at Every Stage of the Hiring Process

   Jul 14, 2026

   A roundtable discussion on successful hiring practices for law firms, featuring HR consultant Jeff Levin, HR director Laytoom Wiggins, law firm coach Rob Leitner, and fractional advisor Lori Brown Simmons. The panel walks through the complete talent acquisition lifecycle: defining success and role requirements before posting, crafting compelling job postings with transparent compensation, conducting behaviorally-based interviews with objective scorecards, and onboarding strategies post-offer. The conversation emphasizes the substantial cost of bad hires (0.75 to 1.5x salary) and the importance of structured processes to reduce turnover and maintain firm culture.

9. Growing Isn’t Scaling. Why Law Firms Need to Know the Difference.

   Jun 23, 2026

   Lori Brown Simmons, founder of Fractional Firm Advisors, discusses the critical difference between growth and scaling in law firms. She explains how mid-sized firms (15-100 attorneys) experience a "profit squeeze"—facing the same sophisticated client demands and operational costs as big law but without the pricing power or revenue leverage. The episode explores cost levers (compensation, real estate, technology), staffing strategies including fractional executives and offshoring, and how firms can identify when growth has outpaced their infrastructure.

10. Seat At The Table: Getting an “A+” in Client Satisfaction

    Jun 9, 2026

    A roundtable discussion on achieving client satisfaction in law firms, featuring immigration lawyer Ruby Powers (Powers Law Group), family law attorney Amira Hasenbusch (All Family Legal), and legal marketing entrepreneur Guy Sakalakis (Attorney Sync). The panel explores how client satisfaction differs from competence alone, emphasizing empathy, clear communication, and expectation-setting as key drivers of an "A+" client experience. Speakers discuss the importance of first impressions, managing client expectations through transparency, leveraging technology to enhance rather than replace human connection, and building firm culture that prioritizes service.