Joe Stephens, founder of the Stephens Law Firm in Houston, Texas, was running what he considered to be a relatively successful personal injury law practice for many years. While he was getting amazing results for his clients, getting those clients was a problem. He’d get five to six cases per month from Google some months, and zero cases the next, depending on whether the Google gods were generous in putting his firm’s name out there. Joe freely admits that he “sucked at getting business.”
Things began to change for the firm when he attended a seminar Rob Levine was speaking at in California. He walked away from that seminar with a single piece of knowledge that he knew was meant for him and his business: you must work as much on your business as you do in your business, or your competition will eat you alive.
The challenge he faced was that he still didn’t know what to do with that nugget of knowledge. So he hired Rob Levine through Rob Levine Legal Solutions for six months of business coaching with weekly phone calls.
What Rob Levine’s One-on-One Business Coaching Addressed
Joe observes that Rob Levine’s coaching goes beyond one-size-fits-all business advice. Rather than offering generic recommendations, Rob focuses on the specific problem areas within each firm. With the Stephens Law Firm, he closely examined the firm’s processes, paying attention to operational details to eliminate inefficiencies and duplication while maintaining high-quality work. When existing staff could not be made more efficient, Rob also helped the firm identify and hire better-trained, more effective team members.
The coaching Joe Stephens received covered many aspects of his firm, including intake, his website, law firm referral marketing, and both his case management process and the design of his case management system. What he really appreciated was that the coaching he received wasn’t just Rob on the phone talking to him to pass the time of day. He could tell that Rob genuinely cared about his firm’s success.
“Rob holds you accountable,” Joe said. “For example, to get referral business, you have to be intentional about relationships, calling and following up, going to drinks and dinner. Rob holds you accountable for that, asking how many lawyers did you talk to? How many people did you call?”
The Results: How the Stephens Law Firm Dramatically Increased Their Caseload
While Joe Stephens acknowledges he is extremely happy with everything Rob has helped him do, the real test of those six months of coaching is in the results. The Stephens Law Firm went from 15 to 20 cases per year that Joe enjoyed working on to having 125 cases that he’ll sign this year. Perhaps more telling are the relationships he’s had to establish with other law firms so that when cases that are too small for him to handle come in, he can refer them out.
Rob also helped him streamline the details of how the firm handles cases, from the first contact to case closing. They strategically added or replaced staff to improve efficiency, clarified roles to prevent duplicated work, and ensured that every team member produced the best quality work possible.
The only change Joe Stephens wishes he could make?
“I wish I’d done this when I first started practicing law instead of 40 years later. It would have made all the difference in the world.”