You Never Know Where Clients Will Find You: How Colleen Joyce Pioneered Lawyer.com - S10E24

0:00A typical day for me is you just never know. There's a piece missing. That was the community piece. And I think that that is so important. So what we did is we lifted our head up and we started doing 20 shows a year, meeting people, engaging, starting our own conference. And what I learned is that we grow together as a community more than I ever knew was imaginable. you never know where a consumer is going to find you. Go get listed everywhere because you truly never know how a consumer is going to find you. And if you're serious about growth, you can't be kicking one-off options. You got to get all in.

0:40And that's really what we say to lawyers still to this day. Do we think that we're great? Yeah. Everybody thinks that they have the best product. It's just getting yourselves out there, I think is the most important thing to do. On today's Legally Speaking podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by Colleen Joyce. Colleen is the CEO of Lawyer.com. She has experience hosting marketing courses for lawyers and helping launch new products. Colleen started her entrepreneurial journey at Popstar.com, a trusted celebrity online resource. Colleen is also the founder of the Lawyer Growth Summit. So a very big warm welcome to the show, Colleen.

1:13Hey, Rob. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's actually a pleasure to have you on the show. Really excited for today's discussion. But before we get into all the fun stuff, I have a couple of quick fire questions for you. Okay. What is your favorite beverage and what is your preferred choice of footwear on a workday? Okay. Favorite beverage is champagne, not Prosecco. I am a hard champagne only. Okay. Shoes, I will wear Uggs from probably May until winter. I like comfort. Champagne and comfort. We can go with that. The season seat. It's a nice blend, right? A very nice blend. And with that, we should move swiftly on to talk all about you.

1:55So to begin with, would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? Yeah, absolutely. So I started as an intern for our parent company, and I really got to understand how the domain world works. This is kind of early 2000s, right, when domaining was such a hot time, right after the bubble burst. And what we were doing is I was just learning, how do you handle a park page? How do you buy keywords? What's arbitrage, right? Like what are all of these things? How can you drive traffic? So I learned early on the importance of understanding consumer behaviors and then delivering them what you want for your desired outcome.

2:35From there, I love pop culture. And I said, Hey, listen, we've got this great domain called popstar.com. Let's do something with it. right? So I started writing articles, not really knowing much. And this was when writing was hard, right? You actually had to do it yourself. There was no chat, right? So I had to creatively come up with unique content. I'd write like 10 articles a day. And it was great, right? Like going to movie awards, going to cool events, getting free stuff in the mail, right? It was like, all right, this is awesome. But what didn't connect was you could get thousands of views.

3:12However, that didn't turn into thousands of dollars. So what we learned was while content is king and still is king, it's very difficult to monetize that. So then again, every step along, I'm learning more. And then when lawyer.com, it was like, all right, let's throw up this domain and see what's going to happen, right? We truly thought at that time, the internet wanted to be free. And very quickly, we realized that wasn't the case. And our story has been very organic, because all of a sudden, consumers would call us, then lawyers would call us. And then it would be like, oh, wait, I think I know someone who you could talk to, right?

3:52So we were manually matching people until we realized, I think we need technology at this point. Yeah, it always kicks in. Always. You know, you are the CEO of Lawyer.com. For folks who may be less familiar, tell us a bit about Lawyer.com and also where your interest in law stemmed from. Yeah, absolutely. So we run a double-sided market. The first is we help consumers find lawyers. Think consumer law. Anything that you would actually need a lawyer for, that's where we fit in. and we're serving hundreds of thousands of millions of clients a year that are looking for a lawyer. We then help law firms with marketing.

4:32Hey, listen, do you want more exposure or help? Do you need help with your intake, with growing your law firm? So again, very organically, we've been able to take both sides of that journey and match them together. No one here is actually a lawyer, which is the fun part. I don't have interest in being a lawyer, and I never did. I have interest in being a technology company and making decisions based on data. We just happen to live in the legal world. There we go. And the lawyer.com's mission, I like, it's to make legal help more accessible while empowering lawyers to grow their practices with confidence and purpose.

5:11So what specific barriers to legal access is lawyer.com trying to truly solve? Yeah, listen, it's hard to find a lawyer. It really truly is. You have to be a cold caller. You've got to get out the, you got to get to Google and start kind of pounding the phone, hoping someone answers, hoping they're not at lunch, hoping they're not in court. But if you come to lawyer.com, we then help match for you. So all of a sudden you have interested lawyers calling you or you can call the lawyer. So we take that pain out of it. We're also giving you access to talk to lawyers, right? When you're calling a lawyer, it's usually not on your best day and you're scared.

5:52You don't know what to do, but our team is there to help guide you through it. We don't do any legal advice, but that can't, that doesn't mean that we can't show compassion and empathy and help you along to the next step in your journey. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that because I think, you know, when people are in challenging situations, stressful situations, they need that support, right? And they don't need that additional challenge or stress on top of that. So could you explain a little bit more about the meaning behind Lawyer.com's core values? You've got accessibility, empowerment, innovation, community, which obviously we're really proud to be part of and here on the show and transparency.

6:29Yeah. So again, very organically, we started the company, which meant that our core values organically grew with us. It was really cool to be very simple. It was very cool to help people. And it feels really good when you're able to help connect a mom who's looking to get custody or you're looking for somebody who's fighting criminal charges. So we knew straight early on that our core value was, well, we truly just want to help people, right? This world is terrible and scary enough. And if every day we can come in knowing that we helped one or two people, that was truly amazing. Then we started to grow on that, right?

7:08As any business grows, it becomes a business, right? It comes from being a, this is a fun thing to do to actually, okay, we're making money, right? How does this look like? And that's where kind of your other values start to flow in because you need to make sure that the team is engaged and the team is ready to work and grow this. Absolutely. And look, we're pro-growth here and supporting organizations and businesses in and around law achieve that and making law more accessible and reducing also that general access to justice gap that exists. So sticking with accessible legal help there, what tools or features specifically at lawyer.com have you introduced to make it easier for users to really find the right lawyer?

7:52We're here as kind of, we view ourselves as the best matching engine. So we're not here to give any advice or any free information that would lead you to advice, because we strongly feel like it's great for you to talk to the lawyer. However, our tools are in that matching algorithm side of things. So if you know, you know, and you'll call and talk to our team, if you know that you need a criminal attorney, we'll make sure that we're matching you appropriately to that. And then we leave the law to the professionals. That makes sense. And it's clearly that you do a lot of diligence and want to make sure people get access to the right people.

8:28In terms of some recent PR and publicity, you recently made it on the morning news, I think on New Jersey. During the conversation, you explained lawyer.com helps consumers find lawyers using amazing matching engine, which you're touching on there. So how are individuals matched to the appropriate lawyers and the law firms? Talk us through that process. Yeah. So that's our secret sauce, right? So when we first started, we were manually matching people. So I'd have somebody from Chicago come in and I'd be like, oh, I think I remember we had a lawyer in Cook County and we were literally off of Google Drive manually matching until we sat down and said, hey guys, we're a tech company.

9:07What are we doing? Right? We've got to put some oomph behind that. And that's really where our secret sauce, our secret IP is, is behind that matching. But again, we've got the consumer on the phone, we know the lawyer profile and our matching engine is able to connect them. I love that. And you proudly say you come from non-legal backgrounds, the team, which I think brings fresh perspectives as well. I've seen industry innovators in the event space, conference space from non-legal backgrounds come in and do exceptionally well over here in UK and also globally. For you, in terms of what makes Lawyer.com different from other legal directories and platforms out there.

9:47It's so interesting. When we first started, I was in a room by myself, right? And the lawyers would call and be like, why shouldn't I be listed with Avvo, who had raised all this money? Why shouldn't I be listed at Martindale, which is a 200-year-old company? And I said, you should be listed everywhere, right? You never know where a consumer is going to find you. I'm not going to tell you I'm better than anyone else. I mean, we are, but I'm not going to tell you that, right? Go get listed everywhere because you truly never know how a consumer is going to find you. And if you're serious about growth, you can't be picking one off options.

10:23You got to get all in. And that's really what we say to lawyers still to this day. Do we think that we're great? Yeah. Every company thinks we're great. You know, everybody thinks that they have the best product. It's just getting yourselves out there, I think, is the most important thing to do. You can no longer be the world's best kept secret or rely on just true word of mouth or old, old fashioned manual. Um, in-person is great, but I think you have to be part of that digital presence and discovery to meet, you know, the, the modern and current people in terms of where they're at when they're looking for legal support.

10:56Okay. Uh, you are a CEO of a business for over a year or so now talk us through what a typical day looks like at the lawyer.com? Yeah. So it starts early. I have a six-year-old. So it starts with getting lunch made, fighting over brushing hair, brushing teeth, finding the right outfit. And then, um, I spend my mornings, um, working with, um, our woman who runs the whole call center. Um, we talk every morning, Hey, what's going on? What do we need? And then I go to the sales team at 9 30. I go to the tech and I just kind of bop down. I'm a huge list person. So every day, I know this makes me so old and it pains me to say this, but every day I come in and I write down all of my meetings for the day so that I could check, check, check, check.

11:42And, you know, every day here is different, which I love. I truly never know what I'm going to get into. We're going to find and create something amazing and fun, especially with the birth of AI, right? Right. So a typical day for me is you just never know. Anything's possible. Expect the unexpected. What I liked about that, though, is you're you're close to your team. I remember my late grandfather who ran a very successful law firm over here in the UK. And this is in 1950s. It was around sort of 40, 40 people in one office. He was always the first in the office, very traditional in that sense.

12:19But he would make a point every morning of going around and saying good morning to everyone in accounts on reception in sales the lawyers themselves etc etc and i think the point there is you want to be close to your people right you want to go and listen to your people you want to be present as that ceo and show that you're invested in them and just giving them that time and so i love that you are checking in with your people you know people at the call center people on the sales that are really the yeah really driving the business because without the sales 100 there's not much else happening So yeah, really like that.

12:49Thanks for that. Okay. Switching lanes a little bit now in terms of celebrity life. You were part of the team that bought Lindsay Lohan as a spokeswoman for lawyer.com. So what was it like working part of that team? Oh, it was fantastic. It was great to work with Lindsay. She was absolutely amazing, very kind and giving with her time. We had a great run. It was a lot of fun, right? Like everything. we thought at the time, hey, listen, nobody in the legal industry has a spokesperson. Let's shake it up a little bit, right? And that's truly what we try to do to make ourselves a little different is what is everybody else not doing that we could lean into to make ourselves a little different?

13:30So listen, we had a lot of fun, got to travel the world, see some amazing places and left with a really great friend. So all in all, it was a great experience. Today's episode is brought to you by Clio. If you're spending more time managing your practice than practicing law, it's time for a change. Clio is the intelligent legal work platform built for modern solicitors, combining context-aware AI with trusted legal research to help you work smarter, not harder. Switching is easier than you might think. Clio's dedicated migration teams handle your client and case data every step of the way, so you can focus on what matters most, your clients.

14:12Plus, award-winning support 24-5 via live chat, phone, and email means help is always on hand when you need it. Visit clio.com forward slash UK to find out why thousands of UK solicitors trust Clio. Now back to the show. Okay, back to missions now, because we talked about Lawyer.com's mission, but your mission is simple but very powerful as well, so I want to highlight it. to equip lawyers with the tools, knowledge, and connections they need to thrive in a rapidly evolving industry. I think we can all agree on that. So how are you ensuring the next generation of lawyers is ready for the upcoming changes in the industry?

14:47Yeah. And I'm sure that you've seen this as well, right? 500 episodes in. The change that's happening from even five years ago to now in terms of the willingness to dive into a business-focused mindset has really changed. And I think that that's so important because at the end of the day, we run a business. Yes, we happen to be a directory. Yes, we happen to run an intake center. But we're running a business and our goal is growth. How is that any different than a law firm, right? We struggle with morale, hiring, product, marketing, profitability, right? Those are all the same core functions that really every business runs.

15:31So what was very eye-opening to us is, okay, just because you run a law firm doesn't mean that we can't help you, right? We've been doing this since 2012. We've seen it all. We've got a lot more to see, but we can take what we've learned and help you grow a better business. Yeah. And it's sort of that whole collaborating piece that you're doing and going along with people. Love it. Okay. Very community spirited in line with your values. Let's talk about business infrastructure now because you've shared many lawyers struggle not because of skill, but because of business infrastructure. So what are some of the most common mistakes you see today?

16:09I still think we're still hot on intake mistakes. So step one is answer your phone, right? That's the hardest part. If you don't answer your phone, you're missing a client. If somebody answers your phone and they're not that voice, that front line, well, that's going to hurt your reputation, right? So I think that there's still a lot of low-lying fruit right now that will help you grow your firm, intake is still, I think, key in that. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I have a vested interest in an organization called LexiDesk, which is sort of AI client intake and voice reception. You know, the uptake we're saying from the firms that are willing to embrace technology to get that front door, that first touch point sorted.

16:55So, you know, people are seen, heard, and those intakes actually happening and also creating referral networks is super powerful. Okay. Something we both agree on as well is community, community over competition. You know, you're a strong believer in that, which I love. Could you tell us some of the benefits you've witnessed when seeing communities grow and support one another over the years? Yeah. I think honestly, I am like the shining example of that. We started the business 2012, as I said, and we started to go to conference. We hit the circuit. We hit it hard. We had some really fun, creative marketing materials, but it's hard.

17:30It's hard to be on the road and then be at your desk and making sure you're growing. And again, some of it is just, it's long hours, late nights, right? It's not really where you want to be. So I said, we don't need to be doing that. Let's just build the business, right? So I put my head down and we built the business. And then about three years ago, it was like, there's a piece missing, right? And that was the community piece. And I think that that is so important. So what we did is we lifted our head up and we started to grind doing 20 shows a year, right? Meeting people, engaging, starting our own conference.

18:11And what I learned is that we grow together as a community more than I ever knew was imaginable. I love that. And I say it all the time. We is greater than me. And I think you can really grasp that concept, your growth, the opportunities you get. And whenever I go on podcasts, I talk about that very, very openly. And it's having that mindset just to switch in your head into that sort of mindset. Okay. Marketing and visibility, something you know a lot about. You've highlighted previously that exceptional legal work deserves to be seen. So why do lawyers struggle with visibility and branding? I think it's difficult.

18:47I mean, this is something we've struggled with as well, right? Here we are as lawyer.com. Where do we fit in this social media world? Because even in the review world, it's not like if I got a DUI, I'm not going to post a review and be like, Rob was the best lawyer and got me off my DUI. I'm so happy, right? That's just not what's going to happen. So the problem with visibility is that it's such a private matter that you're helping people with that it's very difficult to shout that from the rooftop. Now, I think that what some really amazing lawyers like the Mike Moores of the world, right? He's gone in and he's built a brand around him, right?

19:28And the work that he does without calling out people. Or like Bob Simon, who he uses what he feels passionately about, right? The cases that drive him. And they're building brands around that. And I think that's how you're going to win right now, especially in an AI world. Brand is more important now than it has ever been. And you've got to figure out how to use your personal brand to then build your business brand. Could not agree more. You know, personal brands probably over 500 % more receptive to people, consumers than your own law firm brand. And ultimately the goal of your brand is to land, right?

20:08So if you're putting your brand out there, you're going to be landing it hopefully with the people that ultimately are going to be wanting to be part of your community, your future clients, referrers, whatever it would be. So could not agree more. So let's stick with marketing and visibility then and get some advice. What would be your top three tips for lawyers looking to develop their personal brand and expand their visibility? It's so funny because it goes back to kind of like that whole culture conversation, right? Like, what is your company culture? Because when I first started, I was like, this is our company culture.

20:39And I had a very smart coworker that turned to me and goes, that's not how it works. You don't get to decide the culture, right? You have to cultivate it. So I think that's very similar to with brand, right? You have to be very authentic, right? That's number one, right? So as you're creating your brand, who are you? What is the message that you want to put out there, right? So I think number one is, what's your message? Then you go to, well, how are you going to reach? What's your platform? For us, I do a newsletter once a week called the Fast Five. It's a lot of fun. It gets to show me. I write it every week.

21:19I research it. I have someone clean it up to make sure I didn't put any spelling mistakes in it or grammatical errors, right? But it's me. So that's how I've been using this. So my best advice to lawyers is find out what your message is and find the platform that you want to push it out on and start creating your community. I love that. Yeah. And, you know, again, people get a little bit antsy when I say this. You know, your message, sometimes your message, you know, and I mean, you don't need to share every chapter and verse of life there. but i think showing a little bit of vulnerability and some life lessons and actually the wisdom or the takeaways that may educate and inform or inspire or uplift others is super powerful and attached to your personal brand because people are craving this human to human connection now yeah so you know storytelling is super powerful and i agree go where your audience is right you know principally a lot of lawyers you know will be on linkedin a lot of their buyers will be there so that's probably a good place um to go and start on the world's largest professional networking platform where you can verify people as well.

22:18Love it. Great advice. Really enjoying the conversation, but I've got to go back to popstar.com. Yeah. So you started your entrepreneurial journey, as I said, there turning into a well-known and you touched on it before trusted celebrity online resource. What has been one key lesson you've learned during your time at popstar.com that you'll carry on or continue to implement today? That's a good question. You got some good questions here. I'll tell you that. Okay. What was something I learned? Well, we always love the rejection story, right? Because I would blindly send emails being like, oh, I need to interview Leo.

22:55And they'd be like, and who are you? And I'm like, oh, I'm Colleen from PopSci. They're like, yeah, no luck. So really understanding how to handle that rejection, right? And keep going, be persistent, I think helps to my current day, right? Because anyone running a business, anyone running a sales team, you're used to rejection, right? I like to say that I have like a memory of a fish because something will happen and I'm like, oh, that sucks. And then like five minutes later, I've moved on to something else. And I do think that the foundation of that started at Popstar because you learn really quickly, you're not going to get everything that you asked for, but you got to at least keep trying, right and i think that that it would be one of the best things that i learned early on um and the shorter you can forget the faster you move on and that's how i live my life i love that yeah and you had no time to dwell on it because that energy and where that attention is is where the energy flows so if you remove that straight away i think that's great and we always say like you know rejection is redirecting you rejection redirection somewhere else somewhere else where that energy could go and you know like stephanie boyce who was a former president of law Society of England and Wales comes on and talks a lot about push, you know, in terms of persevere until something happens.

24:09Right. And I think that's absolutely true in this scenario as well. So I love that lesson you shared and just love that story and your whole entrepreneurial story. So bringing it back to then the future of lawyer.com, how do you envisage that developing, growing over the coming years? What future plans do you have that you can share with us? Yeah, absolutely. So we're here to stay, which is great. You know, as long as people need lawyers, we're going to be here matching them. What we try to do is constantly stay on trend and evolve. So AI is a great example. Three years ago, we thought, okay, we have two options, ride this or get swallowed by this AI wave.

24:49So we wrote it and we're riding it and we're creating products that are AI based, right? For consumers and lawyers. And we're kind of always reinventing ourselves and saying, okay, what can we do next. And I think we're going to continue to do that because we love what we do. Every day is truly an amazing gift to be here. And why stop? Why stop indeed. And a couple of quick questions before I let you go. If you're starting your business again tomorrow, from what you know now, what would you do differently? What would be one thing you would do differently? I don't know if we have time. Well, now the beauty is I'd go to deep research and I'd have AI really put out a strong framework of what my future proof AI program would look like.

25:39That would be step one. Yeah. And always start with step one, right? Take a practical step and, you know, get that prompt right, get that into there, get the information right and take action on that. And then take the next step, the next step, the next step. Okay. Finally, what advice would you have for aspiring lawyers who are interested in pursuing a career in law coming from perhaps more of a media or marketing or alternative background? See, I think that if you have a business and media marketing background, you're going to crush it in law. Because right now, as we were saying, brand is bigger and more important than ever.

26:10You're able to take those core skills that you have and blow up your company in the best possible way. Love it. Yeah. And that attention economy is real, right? And if you can get that human capital, that social capital, all of that good stuff and put that into good campaigns and drive traffic and awareness, then you can have a thriving, successful business. This has been an absolute masterclass, Colleen. Really enjoyed having you on the show today. If our listeners, which I'm sure they will, want to know more about you or indeed lawyer.com, where can they go to find out more? Feel free to share any websites or social media handles.