Lem Garcia

Lem Garcia (00:00)
When you don't have a choice, you do things that are really uncomfortable and you're reluctant to do it.

Kevin Daisey (00:06)
What's up everybody. It's Kevin Daisy here with another episode of the managing partners podcast. Looking forward to sharing today about how to build a firm from scratch. So there's solos out there. those lawyers wanting to go on their own or trying to find their way, hang their shingle. we've got a cool story for today and Lem going to be here sharing his experience and what he knows. so I'm excited to get into that.

And first off, I always want to get a shout out to my friends and sponsor at Answering Legal.

Well, Liam, welcome to the show. Glad to have you on.

Lem Garcia (00:41)
Thanks for

having me. Honored and pleasure to be here.

Kevin Daisey (00:43)
You as well. It's, this is all about you. It's your show. I'm just here to look good. If you're watching on video, if you're listening to your car, I'm just here to sound really good. So, well, introduce yourself. You're coming out of California, right outside of Los Angeles, personal injury. But tell us, tell us your story. How did you get in the seats you're in today?

Lem Garcia (01:05)
Well, the firm opened 10 years ago and I really didn't have much experience in the legal field. I mean, I passed the bar 2012 and then I did kind of just whatever job I can get, a lot of temp jobs, just contract jobs, just odd things, whatever I could get my hands on. It was kind of a tough time back then getting a job as an attorney out here.

And 2014, I was newly married, had a kid on the way, unemployed, just collecting some unemployment checks, trying to get by. And I got a real kick in the pants when I had the kid on the way. So was like, let me open up a practice, just create a job for myself, market myself to the area. I'm from West Covina, California.

Like I was born and raised out here. I was still living out here, living with my parents at the time. And I had some connections out here. So I said, let me open an office out here and just reach out to everybody I know. Started out practicing workers' comp, estate planning, and personal injury just by myself. Just found some small space and just let everyone know I was open for business. And then just really...

Just helped out as many people as I could from the start and started out with, you know, just myself and the Google page and the Yelp page and just letting everybody know to leave a review when they had their service or just if I spoke to them on the phone. And that was really, I think, the key was just getting the reviews out there, helping people out. And at a time when that wasn't that popular yet. So since then, it's, you know, grew from me to now there's 20 people here, including myself.

Kevin Daisey (02:57)
That's awesome. Well, so to back that up, mean, that you were in a kind of a low point, right? I mean, you were, you were scrapping, you were, you know, doing what you could, but had a kid on the way that'll, a kid on the way will shake things up real quick.

Lem Garcia (03:10)
Yeah, I'm a little nervous.

Yeah, yeah, a little nervous, a little anxious about everything. How am I going to support a family, provide for my family? And I thought just open an office now. And I think if I just grind away, put a bunch of hours and just figure things out, it'll work out. really optimistic. I was really optimistic. I'm just kind of an optimist. And I thought, yeah, if I just pour myself into it, give it my all, why wouldn't it work out?

Just really thankful that it did. Really just blessed that everything panned out okay.

Kevin Daisey (03:46)
Well, you you got the drive, the desire, you know, that's a lot of it right there, right? You're gonna figure things out. And obviously you got some good advice or you just did a lot of the right things in the beginning. Working hard, doing good work, asking for reviews, even if you give advice, trying to build up that reputation is very smart. And I think obviously that panned out because that's still a big

you know, would be a big recommendation for anyone starting today. So nothing's really changed in that regard. So kudos on that.

Lem Garcia (04:24)
Thanks, thanks. And another thing that I did at the time was, you I didn't have any experience with website building, but you know, a website was used, I didn't have money, and I just thought, yeah, let me just create a website and just put a bunch of content online. And I would just grind away, you know, past midnight, just making content to show up. You know, I would see what's out there and, you know, the competition wasn't...

as it like how it is now. People weren't focused on SEO then like how they are now. And back then, if you looked up West Covina Car Accident and Attorney when I first started, nobody was really doing it. And then I did it and then three months later, it was just my face on page one for a long time. So yeah, I think just really hitting the SEO hard, creating a bunch of content online was just really instrumental in building the practice.

Kevin Daisey (05:20)
Yeah, well, you know, back then it was the wild wild west, you know, SEO and content and some of the things that you could do that I used to do for my clients to get them ranked quickly. you know, lot of the principles, a lot of things of that still apply, you know, doing it early, you know, just like anything, you know, the longevity, the consistency.

across, yeah, reviews, all that stuff is still pretty relevant, pretty important. so you, I mean, I guess the more of the whole story here today on this episode is that you've really had to like, just figure stuff out. Like you've just done it. Like you just, I'm going to do this. I'm going to figure this out and it's worked out pretty well for you. So, you know, excited to kind of jump into, you know, some of the intro workings there, like what you've done.

Once you kind of got your feet on the ground and someone that's listening now that's like, should I start my own firm? You know, breaking down maybe a little bit for like, you know, what are the major, some of the things that you did in place once you like, you know, got some success, you got some work, you know, what did that look like as far as when you hire your first assistant or person, paralegal, like those kinds of things, you know, what did that look like for you?

Lem Garcia (06:37)
Yeah, it was really difficult to just figure things out, just even hiring someone, the first person, because you have to figure out payroll. Like, how do I even do payroll? Or how do I make sure that I'm in compliance with employment laws? you know, just ask questions to the right people. I think that that was really important, too, in the beginning. I didn't really know that many people.

in the field. So I just reached out to anyone. Like I would reach out, I would go online and find attorneys and just email them and ask them questions. thankfully a lot of people are really, really just out there and they're so willing to help. Like just strangers. Like they can read my email, say this guy needs help. I was there before.

let me help out. And I think not being scared to ask people questions and not being embarrassed to ask questions is really important to figuring those things out when you're starting.

Another thing is, which I think was really important is just keeping overhead low to start. Like if you get a win, you're like, okay, this is great. This is, five, $10,000. Instead of, you know, taking that off the table and using that for yourself, for whatever expenses you have, just reinvest that into the firm. And that is a principle from day one is, you know, great, the money is here, but what's more important is using this money for the firm to continue to grow.

Kevin Daisey (08:05)
that's, that's huge. well, I liked your, I liked your tip, your first tip though, reaching out to people asking questions, you know, LinkedIn these days, it'll maybe a little, you know, you could connect with another attorney and ask them questions. You can message them and, know, people are very nice. most people are nice and a lot of attorneys that I know are very nice people and they give and they, they, coach and they teach. And so I think that's a great tip is reach out to others.

You'll be surprised with what you'll get back.

what you just said with the expenses. There's a good book that we follow here is called Profit First. But it's really just a way to pay for the stuff you have or run on a budget that allows you to take a little bit, but everything's accounted for. And me and my partner, we actually now at the point where we track our return on investment into the firm.

So if we ever leave money in the firm or put money back in the firm or the companies that we own, it's a better return than anything I've ever put money into. And so if we invest back into our companies, we were always going to be better off than if we take it out and buy something else or put it in a stock market. It's just for us, it's always been a better return. And so I think it's important. if you don't start out that way, like you're saying, you just go off the rails, you're buying stuff, expenses.

bigger, better offices way before you deserve to have it. And then you just get stuck in this machine, you know, with lots of overhead. So great, great tip, especially for someone starting out.

Lem Garcia (09:48)
Yeah, yeah, I've always just in my personal life just had a saying to just live below your means. So if I live below my means, I'm not gonna need to take that much money from the firm. I'm not gonna be stressed out, say, I need to close this case or we can't reinvest for ads or we can't take this risk. You can take more risk in your practice if you have like in your personal life less expenses. So just being able to do that and reinvest has been really important.

Kevin Daisey (10:17)
Yeah, I mean you could easily be a burden to your firm and then a threat to your clients that you took on and a threat to your employees and staff. If you have neglected, you know, those expenses or you require too much money, right? Then it puts a stress on whole company, which again, it's...

bad business and then it's not good for your team and staff if you're stressing out trying to close cases all the time. yeah, very good point.

Lem Garcia (10:47)
Yeah,

and I think if your staff sees, if you do live a luxurious lifestyle and they see where the money is going to fund that kind of thing, then, you know, I think that would build a lot of discontent.

Kevin Daisey (11:00)
it's, it's going to, mean, there's no way around it. It's like, I've had clients in the past that, because we do marketing for clients, but where the owners would, they like show up on like a, you know, a marketing call when they're tight on cash. Like, Hey, they're, literally taking everything from the company. Like I knew them enough to, cause they tell me, I took out this much for this month, like million dollars, you know, like, and

Lem Garcia (11:02)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (11:27)
Then they'd like, I need more money. It's like, well, you, you just blew a ton of money. you're so they, they, they kind of lived like that. Like, everything is great. Take a bunch of money out and then go crap. I need more money. And then they, they be looking at us and it was just a roller coaster. And the staff was always leaving and ups and downs and it, the whole company lived to put money in their pocket pretty much. And yeah, they never built a culture.

Lem Garcia (11:53)
Yeah, that sounds like

a toxic environment. Yeah, that sounds... yeah.

Kevin Daisey (11:56)
Very toxic, yeah.

Everyone talking behind their backs. I can see it, and there was, again, a client at the time, not anymore. You can see it, you can feel it. If you go to their office, always people turning out, stuff like that. It's just the client, the culture you're gonna create, for sure. So yeah, being responsible. Out the gate, I think it's hard, I think.

Lem Garcia (12:00)
Mm.

Kevin Daisey (12:21)
I think some of the Lawyers can get successful quickly, especially in your field. And it could probably be easy to splurge a little bit.

Lem Garcia (12:31)
Yeah, it gets pretty tempting, think. I mean, a small case for us is a $15,000 settlement, and that's $5,000 in attorney's fees. And a big case, there's, I mean, $100,000 at that time was a big case for me, and I got $33,000 from it. And it's just like, wow, I could, the first thought is, what can I buy with that? What kind of car can I get with that? I can get a nice used BMW with that. But...

that the best thing? that's not best big picture. Maybe right now it will be happy for a week or so, but big picture, you you got to reinvest that or just to make the practice grow, make the firm grow, make it better.

Array Digital (13:21)
Today's episode is brought to you by Answering Legal. Now I just switched my company Array Digital over to Answering Legal. And it's made my life a whole lot easier. If I can't get it to the phone, there are 24 seven virtual receptionists take the call and take them through a full intake process. So we never miss new business again. Now, Answering Legal has been at this for more than a decade.

and they specialize in answering phone calls for law firms like yours. They even have a brand new, easy to use app and they integrate with all the top legal softwares and platforms. So for my listeners today, we actually have a special deal of a 400 minute free trial offer of Answering Legal services that you can try out by going to answeringlegal.com forward slash array. You can also call

631-437-4803 and use special code DAISEY. That's my last name. D-A-I-S-E-Y. So go check them out and let's get back to the show.

Kevin Daisey (14:40)
Well, I love that. mean, I think, you know, it's, you know, the kind of the track you came on, like you, you came, you passed the bar, you're out in your own. decided, Hey, I'm just going to go do this thing. you know, versus lawyers that maybe they went, they've, spent 10 years to 15 years and they're kind of like slowly like, let me go start my own thing. you know, there's obviously different paths there that I see when I interview people on the show.

And so you really, you know, it was for you, it was kind of like...

You're all in, you know, there was nothing. It couldn't fail, I guess. So, which I think is a good, know, yeah, you didn't have a choice.

Lem Garcia (15:13)
Yeah, definitely cannot fail. had to do everything possible.

Yeah. Yeah. When you don't have a choice, you do things that are really uncomfortable and you're reluctant to do it.

I had to reach out to all my old friends and family I haven't spoken to in months or years even to say, I have a firm. If you need me, give me a call when it's purely just for me to grow my practice versus me reaching out genuinely to these people. So that's a weird situation. And then I have to reach out to strangers or people in my community and ask them for help.

Like, how do you manage this? in the case, how do you do this? And it's a really humbling experience, but when you have to do it, you do it. You put your ego aside.

Kevin Daisey (16:03)
Yeah, one of the things,

one of the things me and you chatted about when we chatted a couple of weeks ago, a couple of days ago, you're just putting yourself out there, right? Like you're literally like, Hey, I need help or I need business. If you, if you need anything, I'm here to help you. and I bet your friend's family didn't think anything bad about that. they wanted to help. So, but I think it, it sounds scarier. Like, I'm.

Lem Garcia (16:10)
Okay.

Kevin Daisey (16:27)
I don't want to do that. I'm above that. You know, it's just uncomfortable.

Lem Garcia (16:32)
Yeah, it's, especially at the time I was, you know, 32 years old and for me to hang a shingle and say, hey, come to me. I'm really good at what I do when I don't have that much experience compared to everybody else in the field. and I think they can see it I look back at my old pictures that I, you know, that I posted. I'm like, my God, I look like a kid. Right. Why would somebody call me? So yeah, dealing with that was, it was tough.

Kevin Daisey (16:55)
Yeah.

And so I started my own company when I was 23 and I've struggled with that because how do you take anyone serious? That's so young. And so I, yeah, I worked hard at that, like building a network, reviews, testimonials, referrals, because that was really the only way. If I walked into a room and was like, Hey, I want to do your website, your SEO or whatever. was like, who's this kid? You know what mean? So.

It was not so I was probably like 27, 28, 30. Like, like, people are starting to kind of respect me. But, but I, at that point had time under my belt and, but that's tough. If you're young coming right out of the gate, it's going to be tough. You know, it's, it's going to be hard to, to be taken serious or hire people that are older than you to be attorneys on your team. Right. So.

Lem Garcia (17:50)
Yeah, yeah,

that's hard. Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (17:53)
but you gotta bring in the expertise. So you're around 20, you said 20 some folks at this point?

Lem Garcia (17:58)
20, yeah, 20 including my wife and I. My wife is also an attorney and she's been a huge help too. She's a co-owner here. And yeah, without her help, we wouldn't be where we are today. She's taken so much responsibility off my plate where I can focus more on growing the business.

Kevin Daisey (18:18)
So was she an attorney before or was she going to law school or how that work out?

Lem Garcia (18:23)
We got married, she was already an attorney. Yeah, so I brought her on I think after two years of the office being open and I started getting some clients out like, hey, you know what? This is really going well, getting a bunch of clients, getting a bunch of cases. You can leave your job and come over here and this thing will really take off if we get that help from you.

So yeah, she came in early on and it's just been growing since. mean, there's of course, like during COVID was a little bit tough to grow because people weren't on the roads getting into accidents. But yeah, it's just been an upward trajectory since then. It keeps, you just keep going.

Kevin Daisey (19:06)
Well, so what are, yeah, COVID was definitely challenging for the PI space. What are some of the things that you focus on mainly there in PI's, car accidents, know, what's like, is there anything specialty that you focus on there that you see a spike in?

Lem Garcia (19:21)
We handle mostly car accidents. That's mostly the space that personal injury is involved in. mean, we take on other cases, know, dog bites and slip and falls are really popular too. There's some other just kind of odd ways that people can get injured. But generally it's car accidents, like 90 % probably.

Kevin Daisey (19:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So that seems to the majority. just figured I'd ask, if there's any, any, know, pedestrians or any things like that bikes like accidents, something like that. So, yeah, that seems to be pretty much across the board, but, so with your, your 20 folks kind of what's kind of the team dynamic over there is, like attorneys, associates, paralegals, staff.

Lem Garcia (20:04)
Yeah,

we have four attorneys total, including myself and my wife. And then we have four case managers. And then we have, after that, it's support staff requesting medical records, handling property damage, negotiating medical liens. Yeah, it's kind of just support staff handling those focused aspects of the personal injury space. Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (20:29)
That's awesome.

what, you know, so you were doing content and SEO and all that kind of stuff. what, you know, what marketing, I guess channel right now is, is working best for you guys.

Lem Garcia (20:44)
Definitely just from the beginning it's always been SEO. SEO is for me the most important aspect. Probably outside of referrals. haven't done the numbers exactly with referrals from previous clients versus SEO. But I mean we wouldn't have those referrals if it wasn't for SEO. In most situations it's not like it's mostly friends and family. These are people that stemmed from finding us online from Google or from Yelp.

But yeah, that has been the most important thing for us from the start. I mean, we tried everything just to kind of get a feel of what has the biggest return print. We've tried billboards, we've tried radio, church newsletters, and everything works a little bit. Like you get a client wherever you put money in, but the return isn't as much as SEO.

And I think organic SEO has been the best for us. Pay per click and the like is too expensive for me. Like I don't like it. I can't stomach the cost. Like it's 500 bucks for a click. I can't do it. Unless you do the right keywords and I, I I know you know, but I just, I can't.

Kevin Daisey (21:39)
and similar.

Hahaha, it could be.

Well, I can get very, very competitive, very expensive. so, well, yeah, it's good to hear. mean, I was, I was at a conference in, Phoenix. It was, Ben Glass, his group, great legal marketing. And it was actually funny. was sitting there, I was standing there with a few competitors of mine, Blue Shark and Hennessy and, some other agency owners just kind of chatting it up and, and we all believe in SEO. love SEO, but.

Lem Garcia (22:10)
Yeah.

Kevin Daisey (22:36)
Someone was like some other attorney was like hey, well explain SEO and this lawyer that was standing there with us actually answered the question Not the SEO people in the room And you know, he was just like well, it's everything it's Your whole reputation online like so whether it's reviews or LinkedIn or Facebook or your website content What people say about you talk about you?

You know, if a website's linked to you, if the news mentions you, it's everything about you instantaneously. And so you should always be working on building those things up and adding to the fire. so, you know, where radio and TV, they have their place. They might increase a little brand mentions, which does help SEO kind of. but it's just, are people saying about you? You know, what's your reputation? do you do good work?

Do people look your name up and search you? So SEO is a lot more than just content or a website. So I just like that because it's, it really is not just, you know, hiring a company to do it like us. Like it's you and your team have to be in the community. You have to be doing a lot of other things that help support all that. You know what I mean? So it's, it's truly being a good firm and doing good work and that

other people talking about you really is what SEO in my mind is. So good job on that.

Lem Garcia (24:06)
Yeah, thanks. I absolutely agree about that SEO is everything. I mean, it's your reputation. think two clients, I built a good rapport with them, potential clients, and they actually told me like, hey, I just had to go with somebody else because they have a better reputation online. And at the time, I did not have articles in different publications. I didn't have...

feature articles in newspapers and things like that, like nice little icons and logos from other publications or just newspapers that didn't have those things. So I said, you know, I need to get that because clearly people are looking at it and people were nice enough to tell me, hey, this is what you need to help improve on. So if two people told me that, how many people are thinking that, right?

Kevin Daisey (24:53)
Yeah.

Lem Garcia (24:54)
So I went out and did some PR and I think I have some, it's always looking for more, but yeah, that's part of it.

Kevin Daisey (25:04)
Yeah. Digital PR podcast,

right? this will go up on YouTube and he'll be tagged and, if you search his name in the future, you'll, you'll find this video, right? So it's, just one little more thing, right? This I've mentioned about the law firm mentioned about him. So, yeah, SEO is everything everywhere. So just be putting stuff out all the time. So yeah.

Lem Garcia (25:27)
Yeah, I mean,

I did some YouTube videos just myself talking about car accidents and I go back and I have, I don't know, 10, 30 views on it. And I'm like, OK, it's not really doing anything. But later on, I find out like, someone, we saw your videos. So that's why we called you. All right, that's great. It works.

Kevin Daisey (25:49)
Yeah, they might, you might've made 50 grand from that one person or, you know, a five grand at the minimum. it's, yeah, it's not about like, yeah, how, like this podcast, how many downloads did I get? how many views I got? it's, it's about the right people that see it and connect with you because they saw it or they read it, you know? So of course, yeah, you want to explode that and make it bigger, but,

Lem Garcia (25:55)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Daisey (26:14)
You can put one thing out there, someone goes, you know what, I connected with this, this is what I was looking for, I have this case. And so, yeah, just putting stuff out there and being consistent and having a good reputation.

Lem Garcia (26:21)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Kevin Daisey (26:31)
Yeah, I love it. Well, so you really, you know, from the bottom, scrapped your way, clawed your way into business ownership and did pretty well. So impressive story. And then COVID, of course, through a wrench in there and you still came out the other side. So.

good stuff. What is the best way for our listeners, other attorneys that are listening that connect with you? Maybe they don't have a resource in your area. Maybe there's some referral opportunities. What's the best way for them to reach out to you or connect if they have questions?

Lem Garcia (27:04)
I give my cell phone number to anyone that wants to use it. 626-252-2168. free to text me, texting me is the best. If you call me, I think it's just probably a spam call, so I don't pick up all the time. But if you text me, I get back to you.

Kevin Daisey (27:19)
Awesome. Well, Hey, if anyone wants to connect with him and you, maybe you didn't listen to that quick enough or you're driving your car, you know, just pop me a comment or reach out to me. I will totally connect you guys and, make sure that that connection's made.

Lem Garcia (27:34)
If they want to email me lem at lemgarcialaw.com, that's good too.

Kevin Daisey (27:39)
Okay, lemgarcialaw.com.

Lem Garcia (27:43)
Lem at lemgracielaw.com

Kevin Daisey (27:45)
Got it. Awesome. All right. Well, everyone reach out to him, ask him any questions, just say, if you're starting out a new firm, I'm sure Lem would be glad to tell you what he did. And, if you have questions like he had when he started out. So I think that's just a really good tip. You know, get uncomfortable, reach out to local attorneys that you don't know and say, Hey, how did you do this? Or, you'd be surprised. how many people are willing to help?

And, just talk shop. got, I got competitors that I actually go meet with for drinks in my local area. They're law firms. They're competitors in the same area. We go out and talk shop and I'm a marketer. I don't even run a law firm. So, yeah, there's a lot of good people out there. So if you look, you'll find them.

Lem Garcia (28:25)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's enough for everybody. We can help each other out. We'll make it together.

Kevin Daisey (28:32)
Absolutely.

That's right. Well, Lem, I appreciate you, coming on and sharing your story today and kind of what you've gone through and what you've built some important lessons in there. Don't go crazy with your expenses, your overhead reinvest into your company, to your firm. It'll definitely pay off. has for me and, SEO, you do it yourself or hire somebody, it doesn't matter. practice it all the time. So

Lem, will you stay on with me? Everyone else? We will see you on the next episode. We appreciate you listening. Thanks for tuning in. If you want to connect with him, let me know. I will make that happen. And then also, if you think you could be a guest or recommend someone else that you'd to see on the show, hit me up. Happy to have you on and, we'll talk some shop. So everyone, Lem, we'll see you soon.

Lem Garcia (29:24)
All right.