Focused - 12: Right Now It's Only Me, with Katie Floyd

Episode Date: January 10, 2017

Very recently David's Mac Power Users co-host, Katie Floyd, left her law firm and went out on her own. We ask Katie about making the move, her workspace and work habits, and the issues of adding support staff and partners versus staying entirely independent.

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they'd had enough. Now, they are independent workers, learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm Jason Snell, and I am joined, as always, by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hi, David. Hello, Mr. Jason Snell. Good to hear from you again.

We're back for episode 12. Yes, we are. It's a dozen. Got a stranger here today, though. We do. It's interview time, and it is a stranger, someone that you don't talk to very much at all. Yes. It's your co-host from the Mac Power Users, Katie Floyd.

Yeah, Katie Floyd, welcome to the Mac Power... No. Don't do it. Welcome to the free agents, Katie Floyd. I just thought we were recording Mac Power Users with special guest Jason Snell. So that's how I'm treating this. No, I tricked you. The tables are turned.

Katie, the reason you're here today is not because you're a Mac Power User. It's because you've been practicing law for 10 years, working for the man, and then you threw off your shackles and you became a free agent. And I thought you were just at such a unique stage in this because we have lots of people that we talk to that have been out on their own for a long time. Some people that are thinking about going on there, but not many people that are right in the throes of it all. So we thought we'd have you on today to talk to us a little bit about how things are going and how you pulled it off. Well, I'm excited to do it. I appreciate you all having me on.

All right. Well, why don't we start with the question, how are you feeling? Well, I'm sleeping again. So that's a good thing. You know, before I was having a lot of those, you know, wake up at 2 a.m. and just kind of toss and turn for a couple hours, nights, both in the planning stages and in the early first days. But I would say after the first month, after I got the first batch of bills out and people actually paid them, after that, things started going all right. You kind of realized that I was cautiously optimistic is

where I say I am now, but excited. Yeah, there's two things I remember very distinctly. It was the first time I made a billable entry for a client when I was on my own and the first time someone paid me money. Yes. How about you, Jason? Did that send home for you when suddenly you were actually making income off of this? Yeah, I mean, it was staggered a little bit where I was doing sort of trial balloon stuff before I left. But yeah, there's that moment when people are paying you. I think that first like sponsorship that I had for my website, you know, weekly sponsorship and there was a check. And it's like, yeah, all right, here we go. Right. You know, it's rolling now.

Yeah, I'm actually I know you'll get into the nitty gritty later, but you'll appreciate this, David. I'm using Harvest at your recommendation to do all of my billing. And so people have the ability to pay me with credit cards through Harvest. They accept online payments. And they actually have an Apple Watch app. And the first time I got a payment, I was sitting in an auditorium with my family watching rent. Rent had actually come to do a local production.

And so I was sitting in the middle of the play, and my Apple Watch dinged and said, you've just been paid and a little payment thing popped up on the screen. And I was very excited, but thankfully it was appropriate for applause. So, um, I think I pulled it off. It would have been really bad if it was like the, the really sad scene of the movie and you, and you just jumped out of your seat and went, yes. Yeah, that's true. The, um, Katie, I know, so I, we were joking, but you and I have been friends for a long time, and I know your

personality, and I know you're, by nature, a very conservative person. Oh, at least you didn't call me cheap. Yes. No, it has nothing to do with spending money. I'm just talking about you're conservative. I mean, you don't want to, and I don't mean that in the political sense. I mean about risk-taking. You're risk-averse. I am-taking. You're risk-averse,

I am too. I'm risk-averse, yes. And so, I know even when I told you I was going out on my own, you were nervous for me, and it was kind of touching. So, I was pleasantly surprised when you decided to do this on your own. But talk a little bit about, you know, leading up to this, as somebody who is, nature a little risk adverse. What, you know, what were you going through as you were making the decision? Well, a couple of things. One of the things that was comforting to me is seeing so many people who I respect, including you, David, making it and doing it on your own. And I admit, when you told me that you were thinking out about doing it and going out on your own, I kind of thought in the back of my head, we'll see how this goes for Sparky. And if it goes well, maybe I'll do that too.

See if he falls flat on his face, maybe not so much. But if it does go well, maybe I can learn from him. And much to David's credit, he has been very, very kind with both his time and his expertise and helping me get set up because our, although our practices are different, you know, a lot of the technicalities of, you know, what works for billing, what works for logistics, and those types of things were similar. So I appreciate that. But for someone who is more risk averse, you know, I always find with anything preparation is key. So I think you can definitely take some of the risk out of it by being prepared both personally and financially and emotionally to the extent that you can to minimize this. So find out, you know, what do you need to know and

then go out and get the information. So, you know, before I even, you know, talk to anybody about this, I went out and, you know, started pricing things. And I had a spreadsheet going about what are my base costs? You know, what does it cost me to live? What is my mortgage? What are my, you know, I had a budget and what are those types of things that I need to live? And then adding on top of that normal monthly budget for what it takes me to live my life, what are the things that I need on top of that for base overhead? What is insurance going to cost me? And lots of insurance, you know, health insurance, malpractice insurance, liability insurance, those types of things. And then I started talking to some professionals and, you know, starting to get quotes and figure out, you know, those types of things.

So now forgive me because I don't know all the background here. But so you worked in law firms and now you're on your own. Is your goal to be on your own or is your goal sort of entrepreneurial in the sense of building your own law firm where you would be working with other people in the long run? For me, that's hard to say. I don't know that I ever really thought, if you had asked me, maybe even five years ago, when I was kind of, you know, in the midst of the associate life working for somebody else, I don't know that I ever would have told you that I wanted to be out on my own or even build my own firm. Because for some respects, it's very comfortable. You know, you feel kind of safe and comfy right there in the middle, you know, working for somebody else and getting a steady paycheck.

But then I think as I rose up the ranks and was starting to have conversations with people about partnership and, you know, learning kind of how the sausage is made, you realize that it's not as much safety and security as you really think that it is. And so a lot of it is I, as I opened my eyes to those types of things was wondering, a lot of questions I was asking about, you know, do I really want to be in business? And who do I want to be in business with? And, you know, the one person that I was comfortable being in business with was me. And then I think you have to be very selective and choose about who you want to be in business with in the future. So, you know, right now I'm comfortable with my current business partner. And I think if I, could I see a day in the future where I maybe selectively add another partner or so? Maybe, but I would do that very, very carefully. I'm not looking to

grow at this point. I'm very happy where it is, but if the right pairing and opportunity came along, sure. But I'm not looking to grow for growth's sake. One of the problems, Jason, for lawyers is that we see partnerships gone wrong every day. That's like we work you know so it is hard to to look at those things positively because so often you spend a lot of your time unwinding those things that go wrong at least i guess with my practice that's one of the problems well it's just sometimes when we talk about these issues there there is a fine line i feel between um going out on your own and sort of starting a business with the intent of it being more than you. And I know that's a little distinction to make, but it's sort of like, I want the freedom to do what I want and chart my own course is not quite the same as I want to go

start something and turn it into something bigger. And, you know, I think a lot of us say, well, if it got big and I needed to bring on more people, then that would be great. But my goal is not to build a huge thing. My goal is to be able to do what I want to do. And that's why I asked. I think that's where I am now. I have no desire to build, you know, some big law firm with multiple partners and, you know, take over the world and that type of thing. I think if I needed to bring in extra people, I think I would be very careful and very selective about how I did that. My next step is probably bringing on support staff if that's what I needed to do. I think we can talk a little more law specific because we got a lot of guests here. I usually try not to get too much on the show. But in my opinion, a lot of the future of the legal industry is going to be more solo type specialists.

And it's going to I think the big law firm is not going to be as big of a thing, you know, 10, 20 years from now. So I think you're in the right spot. I hope so. So let's talk about some of the specific problems you had as you decided, hey, this may be something I want to do. I mean, what were the big questions on your spreadsheet and the things keeping you awake at night? Well, a couple of big issues. One was perception. And there's not a whole lot you can do about that. You know, one was, what are people going to think if I leave? Are they going to think that I'm

leaving because of a problem? Are they going to think that it's too soon, that I'm too young, that I haven't been doing this long enough? You know, and the one thing that I got some great advice from an elder attorney who just said, Katie, people don't care. You know, people care about what they're doing and how they're doing it and what's going on in their own lives. You know, you do good work, you have a good reputation, as long as you continue to do good work for them, they're not going to really care about the drama about it. And, you know, surprisingly, he's turned out, I mean, I guess it's not surprising, but it was surprising to me looking back at it at that moment. You know, he turned out to be right about that. I think it's important that you leave things on as good a terms as you can, because ultimately,

you know, probably the field that you're in is a relatively small field, and you're going to run into the same people over and over again. And so I certainly tried to do that. But that was one of the concerns. You know, the other concern is I looked at a couple of big picture things. In my type of business, I think more so than David's, I really found that I needed a physical office presence. I do estate planning and the type of work where you need to sit down at a table across from people, make them feel welcome, and have a space that is very inviting. The other thing that I need to have is I need to have bodies because anytime estate planning documents are signed, you have to have two witnesses and a notary. So those were two logistical issues that

I had to come across as I needed to find space that looks nice and comfortable and inviting and also have bodies available, even though I was out on my own, to be available when clients came in to sign their documents. And then the other big things that were on the list were logistics like insurance and finance and those types of things because, you know, the other big one that most people deal with is technology. And I was like, check, done. Well, let's go back to the location question for a minute. You knew you wanted an office and you needed a place with bodies to be signing off on these estate documents. What were your thoughts and where did you start looking? So, a were your thoughts and where did you start looking? So a couple of thoughts, you know, the least expensive option was obviously working from home. But for the reasons that we talked about, that's good for 80 to 90% of my work. But there is that

very important 10 to 20% that that's just not going to work for because I need people to come in. I need bodies and those types of things. And, you know, David, I know you do a lot of, you know, ride the circuit, go out to see your clients, but I really can't go to see my clients and say, oh, by the way, I need you to bring two neighbors and friends and do those types of things. Yeah. So, I looked at a couple of options. One of the options I looked at was kind of some of these co-working spaces. And I live in a much smaller town than you do. I live in a, you know, kind of a small metro area. We've got about 250,000 people.

And so our options are much more limited. We had one or two really kind of these dedicated co-working spaces in town. And I looked at them and, you know, honestly, they really didn't pass the smell test. And I mean that, you know, figuratively, not literally. Some of them didn't pass it literally, but, you know, those got messed off the list pretty quickly. But they just, they didn't feel good. You know, when you walked into them, they very clearly felt like, this is somebody who's doing this on the cheap and didn't have that feel that I was looking at. So I nixed those off my list pretty quickly.

Yeah, well, we've got some of our guests are people in the technology field, and those co-working spaces are a great option. But if you're a fancy pants lawyer, when people come to see you, they want the fancy pants lawyer office. And I have the same thing. When people come to see you, they want the Fancy Pants Lawyer Office. And I have the same thing. I don't go to the office every day, but I've got access to a very Fancy Pants conference room where we do board of director meetings and things. And I put on a tie, and I look legitimate for a day or two. Not too often, if I can avoid it.

But you need it even more often because every person that's coming to hire you, these know, these estate plans, it's not like it's a 20 year relationship that people that I represent I've known for years and they can see me in a pair of jeans and they don't lose their minds, but people are coming to hire you for a specific thing. Yeah. You needed an office. So what I started to do is I just started having lunch with people, you know, started with people that I knew, people who primarily were solos and i started talking to them and people love to talk about themselves so i just said well tell me a little bit about your practice how did how did you get started what do you think about your office how did you get your office how did you set up your office and you would be surprised that and then once i felt comfortable enough in that conversation i started saying well you know i'm kind of thinking about

maybe doing my own thing i haven't really decided decided yet. And right off the bat, I had like three people say, would you have any interest in renting office space for me? And so that immediately led me down the path of there are a lot of people who are solo or small firm practitioners who already have a lot of overhead. They already have a building and they have space available. And so that immediately, between people who just flat out offered because they're looking for a little extra income, and then through a couple of people that I selectively identified, then I started going down the path of finding somebody else

who might have some available office space and seeing what the options were. And by the time I was done with it, I had about three potential locations identified and just had to pick the one that was right for me. And so right now I'm in a shared space with another solo practitioner. He had the space already available. He used to have an associate and doesn't anymore. And it was a great relationship. He happened to have some office furniture available, so that saved me some time. He has a beautiful conference room, which he's allowed me to put some of my own things in,

so it doesn't look like it's just completely my conference room. I've got my own signage out front. The bar has a couple of rules about having to make sure that it's your space. The other thing that was really appealing to me about the particular attorney that I'm practicing with, number one, I just think we're very compatible. He also had great staff that I could use for certain client things like will signings and all. And he has a similar and a complementary practice area. So I also felt that if there was a client that I couldn't handle, or if I needed to bounce an idea off of somebody, that, you know, it's just nice

to have somebody in the office to shoot the breeze with or to bounce things off of. And he liked that too. So that was nice. Yeah. I think one thing to consider when looking for space, whatever business you're in, if you can get space in a building with people that can complement your business, that's a good reason to get space just for that reason alone. I've always felt like the best person I could rent space with as a business lawyer would be a room full of CPAs. They need business lawyers all the time. I don't want a bunch of other business lawyers. They do the same thing I do.

And, um, and whatever business you're in out there listening to this, think about that when you start looking for space and it's worked out really well for you, right? Yeah. And, you know, my biggest concern was, well, would we just automatically compete? I mean, would it be weird because we wouldn't be able to share clients at all? And that hasn't been the case. So I think it's worked out well. Let me take a break from our interview with Katie Floyd to tell you about the sponsor of this edition of Free Agents.

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owed or what's overdue. It's very important to you as a free agent that you get clear, simple information presented to you. And that's what Freshbook does. Guess what you get? You get a 30 day unrestricted free trial if you're a listener to this show. And guess what? You are one of those people right now. Go to freshbooks.com slash free agents and enter free agents in the how did you hear about us section. That way they'll know that we sent you and that's good for us and it's good for you. Thank you to FreshBooks for supporting this show and all of RelayFM. One of the things you do is you work from, you have office hours. You go to the office every day, right? I do. And part of that's number one, I kind of figure I'm paying for this space. So why not use it? I've got it all set up. It is a

ready, it's, I could have set it up and just said, okay, well, this is the space that I'm going to go to when I need it. But I've got a dedicated office. I've got a dedicated space. There's a computer there. There's a printer there. There's a scanner there. So I go to the office and work. I don't have to. I have set up my practice, and maybe we'll talk about this in the technology section, very intentionally so that I could work from anywhere. But I've always been a get up in the morning, do what you need to do and go to the office type of person, and then leave at night and then don't bring work home with you. And for me, having that separation has been nice. And I'm the kind of person who likes that because I'm introverted by nature and I kind of feel like if I didn't leave the house,

number one, I know myself well enough that I'd probably be goofing off and doing not what I was supposed to be doing. And number two, it would be really easy for me to not talk to anybody except you for a week. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Jason, do you miss not having a place to go to every day? What's your feeling now you've been in it a couple of years? Well, I do have a place to go to. I mean, that's the thing.

My workspace is behind a door in my garage, and I can go out into it and close the door and I feel like I'm in a place. But I understand that having a routine and being able to focus and being, it's going to work differently for everybody. I have days where I drift out here in my pajamas and work for a few hours. And then I have other days where I think, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get up, like I'm going out the door to take the bus and I'm going to get showered and get dressed and get ready to go. And then I'm going to sit down and I'm going to crank away. And it sort of depends on my mood. But regardless, I have a space to myself. And I think that's an important thing. If I didn't have it, it would be very difficult to do what I do. But the challenge is not having somebody to bounce ideas off of in person, but I've got enough kind of online community tools and Slack and things like

that, that I can, I can get by. I think. Yeah. I think that what Katie does make sense in the respect that you come home and you've left the work at the office. I have trouble finding that dividing line because I largely do work at home, but having been in the office for so long, I feel like I'm kind of post-traumatic stress or something. The idea of getting up and putting on a tie and going with a building full of lawyers every day makes me want to, you know, hurt myself. So I just couldn't do that.

I'm probably out and in court more than you are because a lot of my practice is probate and guardianship and those types of things. So I'm probably in court at least once, maybe twice a week. I'm, you know, probably out visiting somebody. So I think I'm out and about more anyway. And so I'm still getting up and getting relatively, you know, dressed up to go anyway. So. Gotcha. So what about retaining and getting clients? What did you do for that as you made this transition? I'm very fortunate. I have a couple of base clients that have been with me for years. And I spoke to them both before I made the transition. And they were both on board. And, of course, you have to be careful. In my particular situation, these were clearly my clients.

And they'd come with me from my previous gig to my current gig and so that was allowable but you had a great episode a couple of episodes ago about you know making sure that you you stay within uh parameters um and so i i felt good knowing that they were going to come with me the the other thing um i was actually very fortunate that all i think, if not most of my clients end up transitioning with me. In Florida, we have a specific rule and procedure on how that process is done. So you just follow the process.

In terms of getting new clients, I did a couple of things. Almost all of my business is referral-based. I did a couple of things. Almost all of my business is referral-based. And because of the type of business that I have, I tend to see people, except for the few clients who send me recurring work every month, I tend to see people once and then not again. So I've been taking, you know, a lot of lunches. I've been making a lot of connections. And I've had these before. One of the things that is helpful is that I was born and raised in this community. And I really didn't think about it until recently. But I know a lot of people, you know, between either people that I know personally or people that my parents or my grandparents even knew.

You know, there were a lot of people that I could reach out to. And while it seems a little old school, one of the things that I did, and it was one of the more expensive things that I did, is I sent out old-fashioned announcement cards when I opened my practice. You know, printed on linen paper, embossed in an envelope, addressed and mailed out. embossed in an envelope, addressed and mailed out. And I sent those to the attorneys and members of the bar in my particular area, and then a significant portion of my own personal address book. And that probably cost me about $1,500 between by the time that I was done and sending them out to people. But I have gotten more mileage out of those cards, just for people calling and

wishing me well and setting up lunches or even just people calling and saying, hey, I had your card sitting on my desk. And that reminds me, I have this thing that I can refer to you. And that has been great. So I'm still coasting on that right now. And I think it's just very important to cultivate those relationships. For example, I have a list of people that I try to catch up with, you know, every couple of weeks and kind of have a rotating lunch list. And the holidays are coming up, so I'm going to make sure that I do something special for everyone who has sent me business

or tried to refer a client my way. They're all getting homemade cookies this Christmas. I mean, I can't really afford at this point to do something super fancy and expensive, but I can spend a weekend making cookies. So that's what I'm going to do. You're going to send me any? I don't know, David. Have you sent me any clients? I have gotten a fair number of Mac Power users, clients through Mac Power users. So maybe I'll send you some cookies. All right. What about the rest of the business basics you were talking about,

the insurance and all those other bits and pieces? I have hired a lot of professionals to do that. And I use the word hire loosely because a lot of these people will work for you essentially for free because they get commissions based on what you've bought. I've longstanding had a CPA who has done my own personal taxes. And she's someone who I met through a rotary connection. And I had several lunches with her and told her what I was thinking about doing. And said, By the way, you're going to be doing my business taxes. So tell me what you want me to do. From the beginning, I told her, I said, I am going to be your dream client,

I am going to let you set me up so that my books are going to be exactly how you want. I'm going to use whatever you tell me to do. Tell me what you want to do, and I will do it. And believe it or not, she was thrilled because as you can imagine, she does a lot of cleanup jobs. And so by going to her beforehand, hopefully I'm set up correctly, and that will make it easier come tax time. I also have a couple of professional insurance agents. And, you know, these are people who I've known and worked with. When I left the old firm, I did not realize that they were working with a professional insurance agent to get their group policy.

And when I had to have a conversation with them, I was talking to them about COBRA and all. get their group policy. And when I had to have a conversation with them, I was talking to them about COBRA and all. And they said, well, you know, we have someone who also sells insurance to independent people. Do you by chance want to talk to them? And I did. And getting my own health insurance, although it's certainly not cheap because it's not necessarily cheap these days, but it was an extremely painless process. You know, I talked to this guy for 30 to 45 minutes, told him what my needs were, my concerns, my goals, kind of what I was looking for in a policy. And he then weeded through all of the other policies instead of making me do it. You know, I told him who my doctors were and what my priorities were, made sure, you know, that the policies covered what I was interested in and sent me some options.

you know, that the policies covered what I was interested in and sent me some options. And he got me covered and ready to go. And it was great. So he didn't charge me a dime. I'm sure he gets some kind of commission when you buy through him. But that was great. So, you know, working with professionals probably costs a lot less than you think and certainly can avoid a lot of headache and give you some peace of mind. Yeah, I mean, that's a smart way to do it. So you offloaded that problem, in essence. Yes, I like delegating. Well, I think one of the important things whenever you're doing any independent stuff is if you can find people whose expertise is in an area that, you know, yours isn't,

to pay them to do that part so you can focus all of your brainpower on the stuff you know how to do. It seems like can focus all of your brain power on the stuff you know how to do it seems like a pretty sensible decision to make and you know there's so much that goes into this that's beyond anybody's particular level of expertise right because we're none of us are experts in all of these different things especially if we're just starting out with a with a new business on our own and so getting people in who know what they're doing and even though there's some cost to that, to getting it out of your way, because you don't probably have the brain space left when you're trying to set yourself up to learn this other incidental

thing that's important, but not really what you're in business to do. Have you been happy with, I mean, are there any things you feel like with getting the initial basics, things you would do differently if you were to do those over again? You know, I don't think I really, I mean, I think everybody would tell you, I wish I'd done it sooner. I wish I'd done it at least a year sooner. Well, at first you had to see if Sparky failed. Yes. I was waiting to see if Sparky failed. But seeing, seeing that he didn't, I, I don't, I don't know. It's hard to say. I think I want to wait until I get through the end of the year in tax time before I can tell you whether I've made it.

That's the area where I really wasn't comfortable was with the finance end. I mean, I know how to balance a checkbook, but the whole QuickBooks thing, that is really new territory for me. And I'm muddling through that, but QuickBooks is hard, and we do not speak the same language. But I'm figuring it out. My CPA actually gave me some very good advice. She said, I will set you up. She said, but you have to wait at least six months before you hire anybody to help you with your books. And I said, why is that? Number one, because when you're starting a new business, you're going to have the time. She says, right now, you're going to probably have more time than money, at least when you're getting your business off the ground. So you can probably afford to do your own books through your first six months. And she said, more importantly, it's very important that you know how to do this process. Because if you want to hire it out later, you can, and I'll give you the names of some people that you can hire it out to.

But you need to understand this, because she said, you need to understand how your business works. Because if anybody, if you're going to turn this over to somebody, you ultimately need to be able to watch them and you need to be able to know if there's a problem. And that made a lot of sense. Okay, so you've got that problem solved. You've got your basic business coverage.

You've got your location. You've figured out how to get clients. And you've done technology. I want you to give us a short version of your technology. We'll do it on Mac Power Easy at some point, because I know that this could be a long discussion, and we're trying not to make these too long. But generally, what did you do with your technology? So I had three basic rules when I was setting up my practice. And so I'll give you kind of a rundown of those. Number one, you mentioned before, I'm pretty fiscally conservative. So my first rule was, I wanted to not add anything that I

didn't absolutely need. Because the problem is, is when you're starting your own business, I think it's very easy to just say yes to everything. And you want to do the exact opposite of that. You want to say yes very, very selectively. So I did not buy a practice management system. I did not buy a big research plan. I did not go out and buy a bunch of books. I did not buy a fancy office space. I was very selective about what I committed myself to. And I especially did not commit myself to any long-term contracts. I figured I can always add things later, but I don't really know how this is going to work yet. I mean, I think it's going to succeed. I don't know that it's going to succeed, but I think that it's going to succeed. And the

more important thing of that is I don't know yet what I need. And so I think I need to be doing this at least for four to six months before I really figure out what my needs are. And I don't want to stick myself with a long-term contract or get myself completely devoted to a particular product or a system that may turn out to be totally inadequate for my needs or I end up needing to go in a different direction. So that was kind of my first rule is to start as minimalistic as possible and then add on later. was kind of my first rule is to start as minimalistic as possible and then add on later. The second rule that I really set myself up with is even though I have this physical dedicated office space that is fully equipped, I wanted to be able to work from anywhere. And so I wanted to be able to work at home from my Mac. I wanted to be able to work from the office. I wanted to be able to work on iOS devices to the extent necessary, even though I have not gone totally as iPad as the two of you

have. But by being able to set myself up to work from anywhere, that meant that I was going to use a lot of cloud services. So I'm primarily cloud-based. I use Dropbox. I use Google Apps. I have everything backed up with Backblaze. And so I've really set up my practice so I can do my job from just about anywhere. I don't have to be sitting at my desk. I've got a VoIP-based phone system, and I can answer my phones from anywhere. So that works well. And then the third piece that was really important, kind of my three foundational rules, is I wanted to be totally paperless. And I still print out paper sometimes if necessary to go to court and do those types of things. But I don't own a filing cabinet. My business doesn't own a filing cabinet. I have a few filing drawers in my office if I need

to hold on to things temporarily, like for the conclusion of a particular matter. But being paperless just from the start eliminates a huge amount of overhead. I mean, both of the previous offices that I worked with, you know, had significant square footage in their office dedicated to filing systems and copiers and all of those types of things. And I just didn't have the time or the resources to be able to devote to that. And I just didn't have the time or the resources to be able to devote to that. So by starting paperless from the very beginning, I was just able to eliminate all that from the very start. All wise, wise stuff. I mean, I think one of the best pieces of advice anybody could get

starting a new business is don't spend a penny. You don't have to, because you just don't know how it's going to turn out. And there's no reason to buy yourself the latest and greatest everything if you don't need it. So now that you've been at it for a couple of months, how have the initial steps as an independent worker compared to your expectations? Well, they've gone well. I didn't expect to make money, honestly, the first year. And it's going okay. I've probably, you know, the first couple of months, I've probably built out about equivalent to what I was doing at the old firm. But the difference is I get to keep all of it. And that's nice. So, so far, I'm feeling okay. I realize, of course, that could change at any time. I'm happy. And I think my friends and family will tell you that I'm happy. I had dinner with my parents the other night.

And my dad just said to me, I wish you would quit your job a year ago. You are so much more pleasant to be around now than you were six months ago. And I said, really? I said, I wasn't aware that I was, I was that bad. And he said, well,

it's just a lot better now. I said, okay, well, that's good. But I, I feel, I certainly I'm,

I'm working harder than I ever was before, but I, I wake up in the morning ready to go and happy. You know, that's a very interesting angle. Jason, have you had anyone make comments to you like that since you went out? Oh, yeah. I mean, somebody asked, like, how's it going?

And I was going to say, or are you much happier or all that? And I was going to do what I always do, which is not go too far into anything. I was going to be like, yeah, it's better. You know, I don't want to overcommit. I'm reluctant to do that with anything I do. I always, I'm rarely going to say it's the best thing ever, right? Yeah. And my wife says, oh, no, it's better. You know, I don't want to overcommit. I'm reluctant to do that with anything I do. I always, I'm rarely going to say it's the best thing ever. Right. And my wife says, oh no, it's huge. It's incredibly different. Like she, she could see it. Right. Even if I couldn't see it or wouldn't admit it or didn't want to go too far down that path, she said, and this is like

within a month of me starting this, she was like, oh yeah, he's much, he's much happier now because she could see it from the outside. She could absolutely see it. I had lunch with the client and you know, I'm in California. So we're hippies out here. And he said, halfway through lunch, he said,

you know what? I think you added 10 years to your life with what you just did. And I'm not going to argue with him about it. So, so Katie, what are some of the biggest surprises in, as you're in the midst of this big change in your life? So, probably the biggest surprise for me has been the support and generosity of others and particularly my peers.

You know, I would always say that I think I've been very lucky in our particular area that we've had a very good bar. You know, we've had a very good group of attorneys locally, and we've always commented on that. But I did not realize until I went out on my own how much my peers value entrepreneurship. I have gotten so many compliments and so many just nice phone calls from other attorneys just who have called to say, I saw you went out on your own. Congratulations. Is there anything I can do to help? If you ever need anything, call me or tell me a little bit about what you do so I can, next time I have a case, I can refer it to you. I think just how many people have been excited about that because maybe they've been there

themselves and want to genuinely help. And sometimes we think of that, especially as attorneys, as very cutthroat and everybody's out for themselves. And I think we tend to have a little stereotypical. People think of us that way. But I have found the exact opposite. And that has been the biggest pleasant surprise. Yeah, and you're going to find that as the years go by, when you hear of somebody else doing it. Because I had the exact same experience you did in my community. And now I'm at the other end of it. Now I get to see people going out on their

own and I get to make those calls and I get to find clients I can send to them. And it really is very supportive. That's wonderful. What's the worst part so far for you now that you've gone out on your own? The worst part, and I knew this kind of going in, is right now it is only me. I do not have a legal assistant. I do not have a secretary. I do have a receptionist service that answers my phones. But that is it. If someone mails a letter, I'm the one who thinks it, types it, prints it, signs it, puts it in an envelope, and licks the stamp.

it, puts it in an envelope and licks the stamp. There is, and I certainly don't mean to sound uppity about that, but there is no one else who can do something for me. So if I'm out of the office at a personal appointment or doing something else, there is nobody getting any work done. So I've been very privileged the last several years of my career to have an amazing, amazing legal assistant who has now moved on to another job with another attorney. And I would give anything to steal her back, but I certainly can't afford her. She probably makes more than me at this point. But that has been the hardest part is not having any help. And so that's probably the next thing I'll look at is trying to maybe get a virtual assistant or something like that. But, you know, as you know, David, having a good legal assistant is very, very expensive. Sure is.

And it's interesting as a solo, what does that mean when you get assistance? Because I think that it's not necessarily the same thing that you have in a big law firm. So I'm very curious to hear how you solve that problem. Well, I'm planning on you solving it first, and so then I can figure out whether it works for you. So would you hurry on and get on that? Things in motion. Jason and I will be talking about that because as indies, we are looking at getting help. Both of us are right now, and I think we have some interesting ideas.

And I'm going to be actually trying some things out as we get into 2017. So stay tuned on that. Get on it. Yeah. So what is the best part of all this for you? We've talked about the worst part. What's the best part now that you're on your own? Without a doubt, it's independence. It's being able to choose my own destiny. And I guess I did not realize how important that was to me until I really did it. I have been very privileged that I've worked for some great attorneys and in some great situations and never really felt like I was too much under anybody's thumb.

But there were certainly some times when things did not always go that well. And the buck stops here now. You know, I get to decide who I want to work with and what cases I take and what cases I pass on and how I want to do things. And I also get to decide, you know, what computers we're going to use in our office and those types of things. So from the little minutiae details to even really big pictures, things like what is our philosophy going to be for our law firm? I get to figure those out now. And I did not realize until I had it how important that is to me. Well, Katie Floyd, I am, as your friend, very proud of all your success and really thankful that you'd come in at these very busy days as you're making this transition and kind

of give us a snapshot of how you're feeling and how things are going. Thanks so much for coming in. Well, thanks for having me, David. I kind of feel like the tables are turned a little bit here, but it's been fun. And so the real question, Katie, is who's watching you now to say, well, let's see how she does. And then I'll go out on my own. I've actually had, I think there are, I've had a couple of interesting lunches with a couple of other younger attorneys who have asked me some pretty interesting questions. And I was like, oh, I think I see what's going on here. Well, so I'm not the only canary in a coal mine on this podcast today. I think so. All right. Well, where can people find out about the Katie Floyd Law Practice?

So the law firm is at floydlaw.net. and that's where you can find all things legal related. And then of course, for all things technology related, you can find me at Katie Floyd.com. And, um, if you happen to be in the state of Florida, and if you happen to need an estate plan,

I can think of no one better than Katie Floyd for you. thank you. All right. Well, uh, thank you for coming on the show. It was a pleasure to have you. We are the free agents.

Um, you can find us on Twitter at FreeAgentsFM. That's it. You can also send us feedback on the feedback form over the website at relay..com slash freeagentsgroup that'll redirect you to a big complex Facebook URL. You have to ask to join because we want to keep spammers out. But if you ask to join, we'll let you in. And then you can talk to us and other people

who are currently free agents or considering to be free agents in the future. And we will see you all in a fortnight. Bye, everybody.