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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 to me a little bit about what it is that you do and what your relationship looks like with the law firms that you help.
Jay Henderson:
Well, I have a unique system that measures how people can make decisions. Everybody likes to say unique, but, you know, 99% of the assessments out there measure behavior, measure behavior.
And I don’t measure behavior. I measure how people think and how they make decisions. It’s an objective mathematical measure.
I can’t, like, just met you. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t know your thinking style at all. All from our conversation.
I can’t do that. You I’ve crashed a couple of parties where I walked in the door and they all knew there’s the profile guy.
And like the music stops, you know, nobody wants to. But yeah, so I measure how people think and make decisions.
And because of that, I can reveal risk. And so when I can tell you, hey, here’s why not to hire Jay or some other person.
If you’re, know, and that, by the way, doesn’t always mean you don’t hire them. But just being clear about who the person is, going in with your eyes wide open, right?
Understanding what the role is and the connection to how they think and make decisions, comparing that to the role and the clarity of judgment and the quality of their thinking.
And it’s not IQ, you know, it’s not IQ. And it is not even, you know, honesty is not something that I measure, but I do see markers.
But anyway, ultimately, at the end of the day, quality of judgment and the right types of focus for a particular job.
And that’s what I do. I measure people all day long. Hundreds of profiles come through every day. And I’m able to, you know, clients call me and I’m able to let them know, here’s really what you’re looking at when you make this decision.
And so that’s how I’m helping.
Lindsey:
And with that, you have to have a solid understanding of what each role is bringing to the law firm and how they function within the law firm and what risks you are willing to take with each role within the law firm.
And so to have, you know, that kind of expertise is not something that, you know, just average Joe, mean, average Joe lawyer has.
So to be able to lean in on that expertise and really understand what risks you’re taking and what strengths each candidate has as they fill particular roles would be a great asset.
Jay Henderson:
Yeah, mean, you’re right. And it’s like, you know, does the person fit the role and do they fit the culture?
So there’s three questions that I try to answer all the time. One is, can they do the job? And that’s the question everybody asks.
Duh. Everybody wants to know, you know, can this person do the job? Well, that’s what all the interviewing is designed to do.
That’s why we read resumes. That’s why we look at the background. want to know, like, do they have experience that fits and can they do it?
And that’s really the easiest one to answer. The next one is, will they do the job? And, you know, no one knows how to figure that out.
I do, because I measure it, but not everybody knows how to figure that out. And the third one is, will they do the job for you?
I mean, we’ve proven that just because people have done the job successfully in one place does not mean at all that they’re to be successful doing it in a different place.
So those are just little nuances that are important, but being able to see deeply and understand what’s going on, super helpful.
I’ve done over 50,000 in the law firm industries, in the law industry. So I’ve got a really good, like you’ve brought up the role piece and understanding the role.
I’ve been through pretty. Every role, and I can’t think of a role that I haven’t seen or talked about or interviewed around.
Lindsey:
Well, and every role is bringing something clearly unique and different to the law firm. It serves a particular function within that.
And so it would be natural to assume that every role comes with different needs in terms of how they make decisions, how they process, how quickly they work, and all of these different pieces working together.
And then you get a holistic picture from all of these roles working together to keep the law firm moving forward.
And I want to go to that last piece that you said in the third question, which is, will this person do the job for you?
Jay Henderson:
And that sounds like it might come down to perhaps corporate culture or the law firm’s culture. Is that kind of what you’re getting at there?
Yeah, yeah. And the more measurements that I do within a client, the better able I am to see that.
Sometimes the owner or owners will complete the exercise. I understand how they think and make decisions. And I’m able to say, hey, you know, Betty is going to be great at this job.
And here’s what you’re not going to like about her or him. And so, you know, either you manage that in yourself because you know, you know, one of the biggest problems I find is the gap between what someone says they can do and will do and what they actually do.
And that creates a big frustration for owners. But understanding the owner or the leadership team and understanding the role and then helping fit them into the right role.
Yeah, really a big deal.
Lindsey:
Well, and then keeping them motivated to actually perform at that level and, you know, creating an atmosphere where they’re able to thrive and where it’s all working together towards the ultimate objectives for the law firm.
And your presentation is all about how lawyers can unlock new profits by unleashing higher performance. So how does this fit together?
What does higher performance mean? Is this a productivity piece?
Jay Henderson:
Does it involve time management? What’s it all about? Yeah, great question. So, and, you know, how does it all fit together?
Well, part of my presentation may, it might touch on the assessment piece. There is definitely an aspect of that as it pertains to performance.
What does performance mean? To me, it means results. And getting those results in a way that you like, which is what we were just speaking about a minute, about culture, you know, getting along, teaming, and things like that.
So to me, I take that word performance and connect it straight to results, because that’s what we want, you know.
And that’s what it means, in my opinion. And there is knowing how someone thinks and being able to understand that when you hire them and then be able to manage that or work with them.
Thank you. You understand how they think. It’s like performance does come down to individual levels. We can have KPIs all day long.
We can have processing systems all day long. And I know we do. But that doesn’t mean that, you know, Betty’s going to do it better than John or that Fred’s going to be able to meet those KPIs, even though you’ve given him those of the KPIs and you think he can do it.
I mean, maybe he’s even done it before. So it’s like, what is it that drives performance and what blocks performance?
So there’s understanding in person. And then there is managing them in a way that is powerful that works for them.
And that’s not easy to do. And so it requires the kind of clarity that a measurement like the assessment can bring.
Doesn’t mean you have to have that. But it’s certainly much more powerful to have that. I mean, I wouldn’t try to do it without it, really.
You know, it’s like, if someone here, you and I were talking a little bit before, you have children, I have children.
I don’t know about you, but, you know, my oldest child is the same person she’s been since the day she was born.
I recall when she was born, I held her in my hands, and I literally said out loud, oh my gosh, this girl is intense.
And she is still intense, right? She has not changed in that way. And they’re all the same person that they’ve always been.
And so they’re just taller and a little more educated, right? And so it’s like, who are these people that are in the business?
What do they need in order to perform at a high level? And so the one size fits all broad, a constant focus on leadership and KPI doesn’t always get her done.
So how do you unlock profits? It is about efficiency and speed. I call it the road to money. How fast are you on the road to money?
And that is, you know, there are 17 triggers that drive high performance. And I maybe could find even a couple of more.
Though there are 17 triggers that drive high performance, there might be 75 things that are blocking it. And so what is your management style or leadership style or your manager team, leadership team?
You know, we’re always either driving performance or we’re blocking performance.
Lindsey:
Yeah.
Jay Henderson:
And so every conversation matters. And knowing how to have those conversations makes all the difference in the world.
Lindsey:
Absolutely. And this kind of goes back to that assessment piece where you need to find people that have the right chemistry, both in terms of, you know,
How they, how productive they are and what they’re bringing to table, but being able to meld well with the management that you already have in place.
So bringing those two entities together so that they aren’t consistently butting heads. And one of the questions that we always ask in our interviews is, you know, how do you like to be managed?
And do you need to have collaboration? Do you need to have somebody that you can be a creative pair with, you can bounce ideas off of?
Or do you want to be left alone, so that you can do your own work. And so in different roles within our organization, require different things, because there are some roles that are more collaborative.
And then there are some roles that it’s like, I’m going to give you a to do list of 25 things, I’ll see you next month.
And so it depends on the role within the organization, it depends on the management style that’s already in place.
And so all of those things have to absolutely be working together. If you’re going to have people who are going to want to stick around long enough to help see your firm.
So I think that that initial assessment piece is really important. And also asking these questions during an interview isn’t even necessarily the most helpful objective way.
I mean, I think we all know ourselves to some extent, but I don’t know how much self-reflection or accurate reflection we have because we paint our own judgment of who we are and what motivates us.
And sometimes we aren’t really honest with ourselves about what motivates us because I can say, oh, if you just tell me I’m doing a great job, then yay.
But really, if I’m like, no, I need some bonuses to keep me motivated, not everybody is willing to admit that about themselves.
So if you can really assess who these people are, how they like to be managed, and how to keep them motivated, I would think that that would be a huge component to having a successful, thriving operations where you’re unlocking the potential of the employees that you have in place.
Jay Henderson:
It is. You’re exactly right, actually. It’s a couple of things. One of them. Fathom is potentially using an assessment.
I would do it. And the other part is what you just said, is that people think they know who they are, and they do, but you’re right.
There’s, you know, a person’s image of themselves is not always matching, doesn’t always match up with who they really are at the end of the day.
They’re different. They can be different things. Sounds weird to say that, but that’s the case. And there are gaps, you know, there’s an awareness gap.
There’s a pressure gap. And there is an expertise gap that causes these, you know, flux in performance and lack of performance.
I mean, you know, the importance of performance, like easy to say productivity, it’s easy to say efficiency, you know, and those are easy things to say and to talk about.
But when you don’t know when you’re getting in the way or what the problems are, and you have no idea that they’re happening or what to do about them.
You’re leaving tremendous results on the table, right? Speed is a big deal, and that’s driving revenue or it’s costing you.
Hiring the wrong person, costing you. Hiring the right person, driving revenue, but if you’re mismanaging them or you’re not driving performance and you don’t understand how to get the difference.
So there’s a 30% to 40% gap I find all the time. I mean, it’s like every business, there’s no money being left on the table.
There’s revenue that could be had that is not being had. There are expenses that are happening that don’t have to happen.
It can really make a significant difference. You know, if you make $10 million and you’re able to go to the beach you want and drive the car, don’t care.
But, you know, if you want to optimize, you know, and you want to really maximize and you’re striving for excellence and you want to…
Minimize turnover, like you kind of alluded to earlier. It’s not difficult. It’s actually quite simple when you really understand what’s driving it and what’s blocking it and what the simple steps are to, you know, drive it.
Right.
Lindsey:
Absolutely. I mean, you can hire the best person in the world, but it’d be like buying a 3D printer and only making wisps if you aren’t figuring, if you aren’t reading the manual and using your people to their full potential in the ways that they need to be used in the way that they, you know, feel like they can be doing their job well, contributing and feeling appreciated.
So let’s talk a little bit about PILMA for a second. I know I’m excited to get out there next week as I’m sure you are.
So tell me, what are you looking forward to most about the upcoming PILMA conference?
Jay Henderson:
Well, I’ll wait to see my clients, first of all. I’ll have a bunch of clients to be there. So I’m pumped to see my clients and to, you know, make…
Mix it up with my friends out there. And I’m excited to add value by presenting my presentation and to help everybody there, you know, get some great value out of it.
And yeah, pretty much that’s what I’m excited about.
Lindsey:
Well, it’s going to be a great time. And I know that everybody is going to be excited to learn from you and hear how they can help unleash the power of their own people.
Jay Henderson:
So thank you so much for joining us today, Jay. Thank you much for having me. appreciate it.
