Bill Reynolds: Flat-Fee Appeals, Contingency Litigation, and Escaping the Billable Hour Trap

Voiceover: Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer, the show for attorneys who know the old model isn’t working anymore. The billable hour, the 12-hour day, the expensive office no one visits. Your hosts, Ron and Rebecca Bockstahler, are here to question all of that and more by exploring smarter, healthier, more flexible ways to run a law firm. No more burnout, no more outdated expectations. Just real conversations with attorneys who are proving there’s a better way. If you’re ready to build a law firm that’s profitable and livable, you are in the right place. Now, here are your hosts, Ron and Rebecca. Welcome to the 1958

Ron Bockstahler: Lawyer, the podcast about the business of law. I’m your host Ron Bockstahler, joined by my co-host RB. This show is named for the year the Billable Hour was born, and today we’re talking about one of the decisions that scares solo attorneys probably more than any other: what to charge. The average U.S. lawyer now bills around 349 an hour. Yet solos consistently price and collect below their larger firm peers, not because the work is less worthy, but because most of them set their fees by guessing. Today we’re going to fix that. Our guest is Bill Reynolds, founder of Reynolds and an ERISA practice here in Chicago. Bill has seen pricing from every seat at the table. He was a shareholder at a respected Chicago litigation boutique. He spent two years running Chicago Kent’s Independent Practice Initiative, coaching new solo and small firm lawyers on the business of law, and then he took his own device and went back out on his own with one of the most transparent pricing models we’ve seen: flat fee appeals and contingency litigation, no hourly billing at all. Bill, welcome to the

Bill Reynolds: show. Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate this.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, we’re pretty excited to have you on the show. And yeah, I never thought about that when you got into this topic. That 1958 lawyer that came from the beginning of the billable hour back when the ABA released a pamphlet. So this is like kind of full circle stuff. Well, without

Unknown Speaker: the

Bill Reynolds: billable hours on the street here, right?

Ron Bockstahler: All right. So first, before we get the first question, I want to set the table for our listeners. Very few lawyers have priced legal work at a big firm as a big firm partner, taught pricing to brand new brand new solos, and then had to set set their own rates from scratch. You’ve kind of done all three of these things. Let’s start with, you know, walk us through the arc of shareholder at Dubovsky, then leaving practice to run Chicago-Kent’s Incubator. You know, what pulled you into that role? Sure. So I was practicing, sort of practicing probably about eight nine years, and you know, in our our area of law is the risk of claims and litigation. So under ERISA, there is a fee shifting statute, which always helps. So the judges weigh in on what a reasonable hourly rate can be. But the reality is that most of my clients don’t pay that. We work on a contingency fee model. We’ve always worked on a contingency fee model, and that allows us to the flexibility

Bill Reynolds: to take all different types of cases, the question always becomes, how do you price that? I think the traditional contingency is a percentage, and I’ve had the opportunity through a couple different iterations to reimagine that and to think what works best for my clients, knowing where the bulk of the work is, where the bulk of the money is earned. I think that that really helps inform how you get the best cases and how you make your client happy, and you know, and ultimately, if the client is happy at the end of litigation, then you’re not going to get, or at the end of the resolution of the case, you won’t get arguments about the fee when it comes time to pay the bill, and that’s the best thing in the world because that’s a that’s an added cost that generally you don’t recoup, and it only hurts everybody. So, yeah, I don’t know. my My story is a little bit different. After being in private practice for a while, I taught at Chicago Kent College of Law in their clinic for four years, and I’ve recently gone out on my own again. Chicago Kent’s clinic is fee generating, so I’ve had the you know I had the chance to reconsider my pricing model then. Different type of work atmosphere with students working on the cases and managing the caseload that way, but essentially running it as a solo practice and now having a solo practice on my own without the students, a little bit more time, but a little bit less work to pass around.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Well, it’s interesting. So you spent a couple of years inside the Independent Practice Initiative watching brand new solo and small firm lawyers build their practice from zero, and when it came to money, setting fees, quoting clients, getting paid, what patterns did you see over and over? And if there’s anything that you would say new solos consistently get wrong about pricing, what would that be?

Bill Reynolds: I mean, I think the biggest question is always, “What is my fee? How do I set it? What am I worth? And that varies significantly across different practice areas. In the incubator program, we help student, we help recent graduates launch their own law firms. That was part of you know Chicago Kent offered services and with affiliation with. Vendors and and then mentorship as well and you know I I helped graduates win open immigration law firms estates and trust law firms boutique law firms that dealt with trade issues and the fees that you can charge in those different areas I mean they’re across the board some can work on a contingency others have to work on an hourly basis. Some, you know, probably should work on an hourly basis, and I think that the best way to do that is to see what you know what your clients are willing to pay versus what the going rate is. The problem is, is that generally when you’re starting off, you’re undervaluing your services, and so you’re worried about losing cases or taking cases, undercutting your competition, setting your pricing lower. That quickly generally rectifies itself when you realize six months in, oh, I’m worth this and people are paying it, and I’m not disputing it. If you’re doing, if you’re providing good services, but I think that’s the biggest stumbling block, and you have no idea what that number should be, especially if you’re brand new to it. Most lawyers, in my experience, aren’t starting as solos right away. But for those that do and don’t have experience in the in the field, it can be almost impossible if there’s not transparency. Where do you get that information? I mean, you know, I guess that depends on on how active you are in your bar associations, but it really just comes from talking to your peers and you know communities like this and the Chicago legal community overall. I found is is very helpful in that sense. They want everyone setting their rates at a reasonable rate so that it it kind of sets the market where it should be, but you won’t know unless you you kind of reach out and you develop those relationships.

Ron Bockstahler: You you what 810 years of practice before you started working within the Chicago Kent program, and then I was thinking that saying is the student becomes the greatest teacher. So you got the opportunity to really probably get exposed to a ton of opportunities that maybe you wouldn’t have seen with not being in the school, so you become, you know, far more experienced than the four years you spent there. Yeah, I mean, I was-you probably did eight years of experience in four years with everything you got exposed to. So, now my thought is, how was how hard was it to set your pricing as you’re taking Reynolds and back out on its own.

Bill Reynolds: I think the hardest part for me was knowing that the rate that was being charged by attorneys in the open market was higher than I was comfortable with. There’s my appeals, so I’ve I’ve set a structure, a fee structure for appeals that’s a flat fee that doesn’t depend on how much money is coming in. It’s not a percentage, and what that allows me to do is take all kinds of cases and then focus on the strength of the case versus how much money potentially is coming in through it. In my world, I deal a lot with, you know, for example, disability insurance, right? And so, if you’re working as a partner attorney at a big law firm, and you’re entitled to $25,000 a month in disability insurance, that’s a potentially way higher fee if I’m charging a percentage against someone that was sweeping the floors and you know and only earning $2,000 a month. That doesn’t mean the case is stronger or that I can potentially make more in the long run with the stronger case at the lower value, because we do have a fee shifting arrangement in litigation, and so I’m going to get paid no matter what that is if I’m successful in court. I think what that also and so trusting the process of knowing how much work is each appeal, and you know, and it’s the same process. Whether you’re, you know, no matter how much is at stake, and then knowing that you can set a fee for those appeals, these are internal pre-litigation appeals that would then set you up in litigation to to be successful either way. And then it opens up as well that you know your cases are stronger, and and I think you appreciate the work a little bit more too-that you’re not just chasing those higher value cases, and you’re not in competition with everybody else that’s chasing those higher value cases.

Ron Bockstahler: But I’m going to go a little bit off our script because I’m just kind of thinking out loud: is as you’re building your practice and you’re talking to a younger attorney who’s listening to the show right now, and you’re kind of you built your model based on two different, ERISA. appeals with a flat fee and then contingency work. Did you build your model saying, “Okay, I’m going to do 50-50, or I think I’m going to do 40, you know, 60? Did you have an idea of what you would be capturing?

Bill Reynolds: It’s they’re all part of the same process. So the way that the claims work, there is a required internal appeal process, much like an administrative law claim, that you would have to exhaust. If we’re successful in that, then the case, you know, the claim gets approved and and we’re fine. If we’re unsuccessful, then we can file our lawsuit. And so, I what we the traditional model and the way that I, you know, the old firm that I worked at is that. It’s a percentage of what you recover. It’s the same percentage whether you’re successful at the appeal or successful in litigation. I split it up because I felt the appeal process is much more standardized and and it’s the same amount of work. And if we’re unsuccessful and we get into litigation, then we can talk about what does a what does a fee look like and and how do we price that out. And and for the most part, my fees are contingent, and the percentage contingent in litigation, but it’s it’s all part of the same kind of litigation process. But it’s just separated out, you know. And what that does too is it allows us to get our head around the case as well, and to not file lawsuits that you don’t you know you don’t have a good understanding of the facts, or they haven’t been developed as well, or or just you know, just knowing that the lawsuits that you do file are the strongest ones, and that sets you up for success.

Ron Bockstahler: So let’s throw some numbers out. Clio, which we get a lot of our data off these studies, right? Clio’s latest legal trends data puts the average U.S. lawyer at about 349 an hour. I clearly am hiring the wrong attorneys personally. That’s out about that’s up about 4% year over year, but depending on the study, solo practitioners average somewhere in the 282 90, so about $50 less. There’s a gap between you know solo small firm attorneys and some of the bigger attorneys, but that’s interesting. That’s out there.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah, and I mean let’s talk about that gap for a second. So, if a solo solo practitioner is listening and they generally don’t know if they’re underpaid, underpriced, overpriced, if they’re fine, you mentioned that often people don’t necessarily jump into being a solo initially when they start being an attorney, and that having their network and people that they can ask for information is valuable. But let’s just say somebody is starting off really green and they don’t really have that network to ask. Where would they look to find out if they’re priced correctly? Is there benchmark data, or do they get competitor quotes, practice area adjustments? Where would they find that information if they didn’t have that network to go to.

Bill Reynolds: I think. I mean, there are there are always networks that you can join, right? With whether it’s the Chicago Bar Association here in Chicago, different specialty groups. I mean, there’s nationwide. The ABA probably has a subsection for any area of practice, that type of stuff, where you’re going to find lawyers that are used to and willing to share information about how they operate. I think it may make a difference the practice that you’re in versus you know how competitive it is. But I do. But I also think I mean just generally lawyers around here, at least, which is only my experience, are willing to talk to you about the business side of it because that’s the side that’s the hardest to kind of get your head around, and it’s probably the side that causes the most aggravations as well. And so, you know, any any anywhere where you’re able to kind of bounce ideas off of people, you know, I think is you should seek that out and look for that. But there’s certainly, I you know, in my mind, nothing wrong with if you don’t know how your competitor is pricing, call and ask, right? I mean, or or ask your clients that have called around and say like, well, you know, I’m offering you this, and if they seem shocked at that, think about why. I mean, I can you can kind of rationalize anything where, hey, if I’m priced a little bit lower, I’m going to get more clients, and I can escape people from my competitors. But also, what does that do to the value, your own value too, right? And how do your clients look at that, right? I want the best lawyer. I’m willing to pay as much as I can for it, or I’m, you know, it’s it’s not, or I’m willing to pay pay this, and and you can kind of set yourself up in a different lane, or if your area of expertise is different, right? I’m in family law, but I have a specific area of family law or of immigration law, but I’m focused on these types of visas or these types of issues, right? Like within that, is that a specialty that you should then value differently, ERISA? I mean, I’m I’m above that median hourly attorney rate because there’s just not a lot of attorneys that practice in this area. It’s considered you know highly technical. It’s the only thing that I know, so I don’t. You know, I I can’t compare it to anything else. But certainly, our market rate is higher than that, and so I know to price myself there, even if it feels kind of weird. It sometimes to say like, oh no, I’m I’m worth this amount of money per hour. But you know, I guess you get over that. It’s only weird when you say

Ron Bockstahler: when you say it to your family when you’re like, hey, right, exactly. Your brother or sister is like, no, you’re not. Yeah, go look. You kind of just hit on this: the market versus the market rate versus your value. It’s not the same thing. And we got a blog coming out this week. It’s how to set fees that reflect what you’re worth. So, just how do you? I mean, besides talking to other people, I mean, you guys should have the self confidence. I don’t know. Maybe I’m answering that for you, but you got to believe in yourself. And then I always think of like real estate when you’re going up per floor. So say I’m on the 10th floor, but I go to the 12th floor. It’s gonna probably cost me another 5075, cents because it’s one floor higher. Is it? Do you think of it like I got 10 years versus. I got 12 years, so my rates are going to go up. Do you raise your rates with inflation? You know, my 20-four years of running a mod, I’ve seen so many attorneys not raise their rates year to year, and then they’re just undervalued. So that’s my question: is what’s the right? How do you address this over time?

Bill Reynolds: I mean, I think you have to look at it as every year of experience you get, you’re adding more for your clients that are coming along, right? Like it’s just you know it’s you’ve learned something through all of that experience, and you know once if you handle five cases versus when you handle 50 cases versus when you handled 500 I mean you’re just going to know more, and you’re going to know the expectations and where these cases can go awry, and you know you know more about the opposing counsel and the the defendants, perhaps and or whatever, and it just adds to your value. We’re unique in that, right? We’re not we’re not professional athletes with where you know your shelf life is is 10 years, and you have to if you’re lucky, and you have to earn as much as you can during that time. I mean, our you know, in theory, we will continue to get better and better and better until the day that you turn the lights out, and and that all comes from the experience. And so it’s a natural reflection. Even you know, money gets less valuable and everything else over time. Like you need to raise your rates just to kind of you know continue on with the economy, but also you are getting better at this. It’s interesting because of the fee shifting provision under our statute. We consider that a lot because the judges, when you if you’re successful in your case and you make a fee petition, the judges are looking at this right. Are your are your hours reasonable and is your hourly rate reasonable? And that’s it’s reasonableness within your market, your area of expertise and your level of experience, and that’s one of the factors that they use. If I ask for 500 versus 600 versus $1,000 an hour, I mean, the judges are going to compare me to other lawyers with how much experience does he have? What did we award last time? What you know, what all that kind of stuff, and so it’s you you get to think about that, and then the the flip side of it is, well, look, you know, you get your hourly rate is twice as much as your associate, but you should be expected to do things quicker, or you shouldn’t be doing all of the work in the case at that rate because you know that’s that’s only that’s associate time, or that’s you know junior pardon time, or paralegal time, and and so there’s there’s always this kind of like built-in mechanism for us to consider our rates as well that you may not get in a you know in an area of practice that doesn’t have fee shifting, but I don’t know it’s it’s it’s something that you need to keep on top of because ultimately if you don’t price it right then either you’re you’re losing out or you know you’re losing to competition, being overpriced, or you’re just underpaying yourself. And I think most of the time you’re just underpaying yourself.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah. Well, that’s interesting. Well, you’ve leaned all into it at Reynolds and with the flat fee, $5,000 for the ERISA appeals, and then the contingency on the litigation, not hourly billing. So, and I know that you’ve talked about the provisions because of the type of law you practice. But how did you land on that number? And I think more interestingly, as have you seen a way that maybe this flat fee model has changed maybe the clients that you’re getting or what clients are saying yes to you as opposed to those who might be choosing someone else.

Bill Reynolds: I don’t know if clients choose me because of the model. I certainly know if they’ve contacted other lawyers and then they hear with the appeals, “Oh, it’s a flat fee. That sometimes is more attractive to them. A lot of people they just hire the first lawyer that they call too, so you never get that competition, or at least that response. But what I’d say is that it allows me to. It’s a much easier conversation to have with everyone. I don’t have to come into it with the first conversation. Hey, how much money are you making? How much is this claim potentially worth? Like, what’s it to me? And valuing whether or not I’m going to take the case versus you know how much you’re potentially you know going to get paid and and my my cut of that, it’s easy to say hey look everybody pays the same amount and I think there’s a little there’s a level of trust in there that you know from the beginning that you can kind of engender with your clients to say like I’m I’m just as equal as anyone else, and if that model works for you, then perfect. And if you want to be special and and you want you know priority attention or whatever, well, there’s other law firms out there that will give you that. However, you know they’re probably going to charge you more for it, and it also kind of shifts my focus away from the potential collection in the case, right? What the fee may be to just the merits of the case. So I found more so. I mean, maybe the clients appreciate it, but I’ve I’ve certainly appreciated it a lot more in just value in your initial kind of snap judgments. Right, when you’re working on contingency, is this the case I want, or is this a case that you know it’s not going to be worth my time because I don’t think I can win it? And it focuses your attention on that. Yeah,

Bill Reynolds: I think the the scary part is when you start chasing fees, right? And and a case walks in the door, and you’re like, wow, this is you know this could be a million dollar case for me, and you start to overlook the warts. And you know that one of the best pieces of advice that I ever got from my my old partner, attorney, my mentor was that a case never looks as good as it does the day it walks in the door. Right, it always goes downhill from there, which is not always true. But it’s a good rule of thumb to live by because you know your your clients want they want to get high. You know they want to hire you. They want you to select their case, and and when you’re not putting that, you know you’re not asking for any money up front or any guaranteed payment, then certainly they really want you to, and they’re going to pitch it in a way that you know makes you take the case. And you’re not going to you’re not going to learn what’s you know the downfalls until you’re you’re into it. And I think that chasing a giant fee is certainly one way where you can overlook those things to your detriment.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Yeah. Well, and it’s interesting too because I think you’re highlighting the importance of remembering that you don’t have to take every case, and so it’s really what cases you’re choosing to take, not necessarily hoping that you’re chosen.

Bill Reynolds: Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s a that’s a lesson hard learned sometimes too. That comes with the experience too.

Ron Bockstahler: I remember 24 years ago starting a mod. I was I do anything for every possible client, and then make five years later, I realize I don’t need every client. Yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: we got to be smarter about what we’re doing. You know, it’s you brought up most clients actually take the first train they talk to. We had a show maybe a few weeks ago, and we talked about that very thing. It’s stats out there like 60-7% of them first person they actually talk to. That’s who they’re going with. And I think about myself as much as I think I’m a great shopper. I really am not. I should probably work on that personally. Well, let’s let’s kind of close the loop on this theme: the pricing courage. The lawyer who who they they know they’re underpriced, but they’re terrified to raise their rates. I mean, I’ve been in this position before. They’re afraid the phone stops ringing. They’re afraid existing clients walk. What do you say to that lawyer? How do you actually execute a rate increase? And what happened the first time a prospect pushed back on your your fees? How do you handle that?

Bill Reynolds: I mean, I to answer the last question first. You just have confidence in yourself, and just to say, well, this is what it is. And there’s, you know, they don’t have the yellow pages anymore. But right, you know, it’s you go, you get Google exists, and there’s other lawyers out there, and you can give them a call. I have I’ve encouraged clients to call around. I’ve encouraged clients to you know potential clients to call around and say you know get back to me and I’ll be here and I’ll keep this open for a week and if you you know this isn’t what you want or if you find someone that’s willing to to meet what your fee demand is that’s fine. I you know I think that you can be flexible and and you can certainly you know adapt based on the case, and and and also asking the client. And I mean, I think the bigger question now is, and we’re just learning what the expectations are going to be with you know the assistance of something like you know AI LLMs, really. You know, something that can write something for you, and being cautious of the of the client who has his own pocket lawyer, and and arguing with the computer at the end of the day, and knowing too that like you know that’s free, but also you get what you pay for. But I think if you’re if you’re worried about raising your rate, I think you know the market will tell you whether or not you’re overpriced, and you know, and if if the phone does stop ringing or if people don’t get back to you, then you know it’s never permanent, right? You can always go back to where you were and and realize that. And what you may find is that there are pluses and minuses too, right? And you may it may kind of narrow your practice area, or you may realize like, hey, I’m really good at this one area here, and I can start to advertise on that, and then people will find me and are willing to pay a higher amount because of my specialty here, right? Or or something along those lines. So it’s it’s just good. I think it’s always good to to kind of have that self reflection. And as lawyers, we’re bad at that, especially when you’re you’re knee deep in whatever else you need to be doing. Yeah, it’s the last thing you want to do is focus on the business, but of course, it’s important.

Voiceover: Yeah,

Bill Reynolds: and I say that to remind myself as well.

Ron Bockstahler: You kind of opened the door to AI, so let’s like we got a little stat that you know Clio estimates lawyers who stick purely with hourly billing could put up to 27 could lose up to $27,000 of their revenues just because things are changing so much, which I found that’s a very interesting stat. If if you stick with the hourly billing only,

Bill Reynolds: yeah, I I don’t know. I I think that may just be shifting expectations from clients, right? I mean, it there was a day where they had no access to legal research tools, right? You had. To be a lawyer, and that was the only way you could even research a case. That’s not true anymore.

Voiceover: Yeah,

Bill Reynolds: but are those are they reliable? Does it matter for a client? I mean, they don’t they don’t know the pitfalls of fabricated cases and hallucinated citations and things like that. But they’re going to find out. Unfortunately, I can’t see the the judiciary letting them slide on it, and certainly the defendants that have to you know spend their own time and money defending cases like this are are going to push back, and so maybe the pendulum swings from where it is now. But I don’t know. I I can see I can see the arguments both ways, and I’ve certainly had lots of conversations with clients that want to utilize those tools and saying like, well, hey, look, you know, you’re hiring me to do this job, and I want to do it the way that I’m comfortable doing it. And if you’re going to pay me, then why are we arguing about something that you’re only you’ve learned five seconds ago through through Claude? Like it’s just, yeah. But but I also you have to be respectful too, right? It’s their case at the end of the day, and and so I don’t know. I we’re balancing that, and it’s it’s it’s unknown at this point how that is going to affect it, but it certainly will affect it one way or the other.

Rebecca Bockstahler: Well, at this point, have you taken AI and and people’s perceptions of how they can use it or how they are using it? Have you taken that into consideration when you built your own pricing model, or at that at this point, is it not really that concerning to you?

Bill Reynolds: I I haven’t changed my pricing. I’ve certainly I’m certainly aware of it now, and I think more so what it’s doing is it’s increasing the work. Not every client, but the clients that use it and and and rely on it as like a second set of ears and eyes to consider anything, any you know, and anything that you’re suggesting to them. Well, let me run it through this and see what that says, or any written product, right? Like I can improve this, I can make this better. There’s a lot more work that goes into it too, and so maybe there is. I think more so. You have to just consider clauses in your retainer agreements or otherwise that say, like, “Hey, look, you know, you’re hiring me to do this, and you know, and my pricing is built on me being able to do this on my own schedule, and you know, and so I can’t argue with the computer, however you write that out or whatever you you know conditions you want to put on that. I have clients that use it, and are and it’s extremely helpful, right? I mean, I deal with medical records and things like that. And if they’re willing to use a product that summarizes it, and then they know the records well enough to say, like, yeah, this is good, this is accurate, then maybe you can rely on that, right? And maybe that’s something the client can offer to you, and and if that cuts down on your time, is it fair for the the fee to be lower? Potentially, yes. Contingency is a little bit different than hourly, but if it’s hourly and you’re not spending the time doing it, that’s great. I think the trouble comes in where it’s like you know, hey, I made this thing, this argument. I want you to submit it, and it’s like I, you’re just doubling my time to review this, to take out the things that I don’t like, to to argue with you that this is not a good strategy, stuff like that, and that’s that. Those are the questions that are still open to me. I don’t know how best to to resolve those yet. Yeah, yeah.

Ron Bockstahler: 222 points I want to make. I was at a meeting this morning with a bunch of attorneys and a couple non-attorneys, and one person stood up. They were saying the New York Times recently released the 40 living 40 greatest songwriters, which I got to go look that up, by the way, because I thought that’s going to be really interesting to see where they put Eva. But the one thing he said was, AI can never replace what these songwriters do because AI can’t generate original content like they can, and I kind of take that and you flip it. Like AI can never replace the work and original work because what you’re doing as an attorney is very original. You might be going and looking at laws and case, you know, case law, but coming up with what you’re going to say and how you’re going to present is like it’s unique each time. And I think that’s where AI falls short. And I think,

Bill Reynolds: yeah, and I mean, ultimately, we are we’re problem solvers, right? And and either we’re resolving that directly with another person, or we’re asking a judge to rule in our favor. But either way, we’ve got to make convincing arguments to a person, not necessarily a computer. We computer can aid in that, but what’s effective and what people you know perceptions and narratives and storylines and in the stories you know that you tell, I mean, can a computer do that effectively? I don’t know. I mean, I guess that’s some people believe it can. I think a lot of people, it’s don’t believe that, or there’s there’s something missing with that. And I think as well, like we’re we’re training it now on 100% or almost 100% information that was generated by a human being, but at some point it’s going to start training itself on its own output too, and I think it’s going to you know it’s so it’s going to learn and it’s going to kind of homogenize every. And if everything is homogenized, then I mean, how effective is it, right? I mean, where are your outs, where your thinkers outside the box, and where does their innovation happen, and everything else? I mean, yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: yeah, no originality. It’s kind of close that point. Yeah, quick question. And I’m bringing this up because standard. You’ve having a niche, you got a very, very niche practice in risks and benefits, and you’ve said that specialization is part of your strategy. I know we had offices in small towns down in Indiana before. We had a bunch of attorneys, and they were, I would say, more specialists. I remember one telling me he was going to do an immigration case, and I just thought, what? You know nothing about immigration, but because there’s no, there’s not exactly an immigration attorney. You know, there’s a specialist. But but how much is specializing? Does that give you? Does it give you pricing power being a specialist versus being more of a generalist? I

Bill Reynolds: mean, in Chicago, certainly, because that’s where all the lawyers are. I mean, you can’t survive as a well. Technology allows us to survive as a specialist anywhere. I suppose, right? I mean, I generally don’t meet in person. I don’t have my clients come down to the office. Everything is done remotely, and representation can be done remotely, and and so that’s great. And that opens up within your areas of practice. You know, licensed in Illinois and several federal courts, and I can practice there. You know, if you’re down in in rural Illinois, downstate, and there’s no attorneys in the entire county, I think it benefits you to be a generalist, right? And I think that they are they’re very desperate for any attorneys down there, and that your ex the the expectation is that you know you’re you’re good at a lot of things, but maybe not great at any one thing, and that’s okay because you’re still you can still have an active and successful law practice. But in Chicago, I mean, yes, I mean if I were practicing something, you know, that’s there’s much more competition, like personal injury or you know family law or immigration, and an area of specialty within that, I think is certainly going to benefit you, I’m the brain injury guy, or I am, you know, I’m the dad’s rights family law attorney, or I, you know, I, I deal with H 1b visas and not everything, and it’s just like, you know, that that allows those people to find you and say like, okay, they’ve done this before and they can do my they can handle my case successfully, and maybe your pricing goes up a little bit too.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, I know we’re running out of time, but it makes me think that if you’re downstate Illinois and you got a RISA case and you’re not a specialist, do you get many calls to say would you co-counsel with me on a case like that?

Bill Reynolds: I think so, or referrals. I think generally, you know, and I certainly kind of practice this way as well. It’s like things that are I’d rather send it to someone that can handle it correctly, than try to take it myself and make a mistake, right? And I’ve as I’ve gone into different areas of law, I’ve tried to do that alongside someone with a lot more experience, and saying like, “Hey, may I co-counsel with you, or can we work on this together, or can I learn with you? And you can, you know, and sharing the fee accordingly, and knowing that like I I would like to do this type of work later on, but I’m not quite there yet. You know, I think that we can all kind of get over our skis a little bit with you know thinking we know how to handle something, and then you’re in the soup. And certainly these cases are can be the same way, and that’s where it also helps to kind of keep your network large, right? And so, you know, if there’s only a handful of attorneys that handle the type of claims like I do, making sure they at least know where to find you, and you know, and maybe that’s and and that they’re comfortable referring the case to you as well. That’s helpful too.

Ron Bockstahler: Well, on that note, we’re gonna we’re gonna put if it’s we’re gonna think we put your contact information, Reynolds, and in our show notes, if you want to tell everyone best way to reach you, I’m gonna give them a quick shout right now for the firm.

Bill Reynolds: Sure, yeah, I appreciate it. It’s Reynoldsand.com, R-E-Y-N-O-L-D-S-A-N-D, and handle ERISA claim appeals and litigation. So individual claims, disability, life insurance, health insurance, retirement plan issues, that type of stuff. So I appreciate that time. Thank you. Yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: absolutely. We’re gonna have Bill’s information in the show notes. Please reach out to him if you got anything in ERISA case, anything in that field. You just want to get some insight. He’s been he’s he’s taught, he’s helped a lot of attorneys kind of move along in their career, and he’s got the experience to put it together. Bill, thanks so much for everything. We appreciate you opening up, coming to the show, talking about numbers. I know it’s a hard thing for many attorneys to talk about, but things are changing, right? So, 1958’s over, and we’re moving on to the next thing. Might have to change the name of our show sometime, RB. If today’s conversation got if the today’s conversation got you thinking about what you can change, whether it reflects what you’re actually worth. I hope you’ll take one idea from Bill and put it to work this week. You can find Bill and his team at ReynoldsAnd.com. Let’s see what the rest of my notes are here. If you if you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe, leave us a review, or share it with a colleague who could use it. The 19. 50-eight lawyers brought to you by Amata. For more than 30 years, Amata has helped. I love this. I got to. I got to record this thing instead. I read this every time. This is ridiculous. Amata has helped law firms of all sizes do more with less. Built on five pillars: fractional support, staff, virtual office options, office space, legal community, and marketing support. Whether a sole practitioner just starting out or an established firm looking to right size your overhead, Amata gives you the infrastructure of a big firm without the big firm price tag. Learn more at AmataCorp.com. Until next time, work on your firm, not just in it.

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