Jared Correia on How Lawyers Can Thrive in 2025

Main takeaways:

1. Year-End Financial Planning is Key: Reviewing your 2024 budget and actuals helps identify gaps and ensures your 2025 financial projections are rooted in reality.
2. Set Goals to Drive Results: Revenue projections for 2025 are just the beginning. Law firms must define clear metrics for the firm and individual team members to encourage accountability and efficiency.
3. Prioritize Focused Time for Planning: Dedicate a full day to build projections and workflows, ensuring uninterrupted focus for maximum impact.

As the year comes to a close, are you ready to make 2025 your firm’s most profitable year yet? In this episode of The Optimized Law Firm Podcast, Patrick Carver sits down with Jarred Correia to uncover the essential year-end activities every law firm should prioritize.

From budget reviews to revenue forecasting, learn how these steps can cascade into improved workflows, incentivized teams, and better client outcomes. You’ll also hear advice on establishing firm-wide KPIs, setting individual metrics, and why specialization matters. Stick around for a lightning round of fun questions about legal trends, challenges, and even the World Series!

Timestamps:

Budget Reviews and Revenue Projections

00:00:23 – 00:02:56
Discussing the importance of reviewing 2024 financials and setting revenue projections for 2025 to guide strategic planning.

Establishing Goals and KPIs for Success

00:02:56 – 00:09:00
Breaking down how firm-wide and individual KPIs improve accountability, align workflows, and enhance efficiency.

Lightning Round Insights

00:09:00 – 00:15:10
A lighthearted Q&A covering the toughest legal practice areas, the biggest trends, and a bold World Series prediction. responsibly and stay ahead in the legal industry.”

Transcription:

00:00:05:23 – 00:00:23:07

Patrick Carver

So what are a couple of things that, you know, you kind of advise at this time of the year, whether it’s like as part of kind of the end of the year process or just planning for something in like January that they should, you know, run with, you know, or, or sprint sports.

00:00:23:08 – 00:00:59:13

Jarred Correia

I yeah, I hate this whole notion of like let’s hibernate for the end of the year because that’s a great time to be planning for 2025. And so two things I would say like if you’re a law firm right now and you’re thinking of doing the big sleep from Thanksgiving until January one, I would be looking at. So first thing I would do, I would review like budget to actual over the course of the last year and maybe that is from January one to December one, because like, everybody projects things, but nobody goes back and looks and says was that correct?

00:00:59:15 – 00:01:15:29

Jarred Correia

In what I was projecting, you may be largely correct, but everybody misses things and projections are always educated guesses. So that’s the first thing I would do. And if that’s something that you’re uncomfortable doing on your own and you have an accountant that you work with as economy, do it for you as well.

00:01:16:06 – 00:01:24:00

Patrick Carver

So you’re just you’re mostly talking about like financial projections or I just basically we expected to make this not I’m not.

00:01:24:00 – 00:01:48:18

Jarred Correia

Talking about that yet just budget now but but that’s the next thing I want to talk about. So the first thing I would look at is like budget to actual like, what did what did we say we were going to pay out in terms of costs and what did we actually pay? Yeah. And then the second thing is, to your point, I’m spending time building revenue projections for 2025, which is a highly beneficial activity that most attorneys don’t engage in.

00:01:48:18 – 00:02:08:04

Jarred Correia

And I’m also looking at like if I did revenue projections last year, how close was I? Did I hit my expectations? Was I wrong on certain things? The reason I like law firms doing revenue projections is that it forces them to do other things. So to be able to make projections about what you’re going to do in the new year, you have to have a rate sheet.

00:02:08:09 – 00:02:28:03

Jarred Correia

So you need to know what you charge or what you’re going to make on specific cases. You have to build a marketing plan because if you try to make more money, get more clients, you have to know how you’re going to do that. You may have to develop metrics to incentivize people to make more money by bringing in more clients to get them to do what they need to do.

00:02:28:07 – 00:02:56:15

Jarred Correia

And sometimes that’s just like, Hey, maybe we need a new workflow so that we can process our cases faster. So this whole notion of figuring out like if I’m going to make 20% more in 2025, how does that functionally happen? That has this massive cascading effect about all the things you should be doing in your locker. So those are two of the activities I would be focusing on in November, December if it were me and I was running a practice.

00:02:56:18 – 00:03:24:20

Patrick Carver

Yeah. How how much time do you think? Like I think would you allocate to like an activity like that just in terms of creating a forecast? Because I feel like I’ve, you know, in my head when I hear that, I’m like, okay, well, where would I even start? You know? And I mean, I kind of I mean, now you know, because I’ve I’ve gone through it with, you know, accountants and, you know, people like, who love that stuff and specialize in it.

00:03:24:20 – 00:03:38:00

Patrick Carver

But like, what’s a, you know, kind of like practical amount of time that you would you would suggest doing that or, you know, how how would you go about that with like with an accountant just kind of ball rolling or at least knock out, you know, kind of one of those?

00:03:38:03 – 00:03:55:12

Jarred Correia

I like to I like people own the process. So I don’t think this is like you hand it over to the accountant. It’s like, all right, whatever you say, buddy. I checked out this thing on my list. I did it. Yeah. Even if you’ve never done it before, I might do a first draft on my own. And if it’s not something you do in your practice regularly, I might take it.

00:03:55:12 – 00:04:22:03

Jarred Correia

I may take a retreat day. Right. So I might consider like getting an Airbnb for myself on a Saturday. Just hanging out there in the hammock and just working it out and like having like heavy focus time. So this is not I’m going to work on my revenue projections while simultaneously watching something on Netflix or simultaneously responding to emails like, really think about it and spend some time on it.

00:04:22:06 – 00:04:40:00

Jarred Correia

And I would probably I would probably take a day, could do it. And even if you’re not figuring out what other ramifications spinoff of that immediately, like you are getting the revenue projections down and then you’re trying to think about, okay, what other things do I need to accomplish to actually make this happen? And then you can figure out those other things later.

00:04:40:06 – 00:04:41:16

Jarred Correia

That’s perfectly fine.

00:04:41:19 – 00:05:14:27

Patrick Carver

That makes sense. Okay. I think that’s really helpful. And what is once once you kind of get that squared away, is there anything else that you would kind of you’d want to tackle as you go into 20, 25, maybe even just general, even less process oriented and kind of continuing with our, you know, a little bit of the kind of discussion we had previously, which is like what maybe are what’s a big trend that you you kind of see.

00:05:14:27 – 00:05:30:13

Patrick Carver

I mean, I think is is a big one. So I mean, would you say like, yeah, well I mean I advise all my clients to spend one hour a month kind of getting to know a guy and like playing around with it, you know, trying to figure things, you know? Yeah, right.

00:05:30:16 – 00:06:01:09

Jarred Correia

Yeah. It’s interesting. So, like, I don’t I generally don’t do that in terms of like, I don’t have like a program that I run out for everybody per se. Like I’m very much into like trying to take clients where they are and being like, Okay, what are your needs for this year? And like in terms of this topic, like, I don’t even think we need to go back to I like the thing I would be thinking about is, you know, do I have any goals or metrics in the firm that I’m using aside from like just base revenue?

00:06:01:16 – 00:06:16:14

Jarred Correia

Like everybody wants to make more money. And if I talk to a lawyer and they’re like, Well, I am like, what’s your goal? They’re like, I want to make more money. I’m like, Well, oh, tell me something I don’t know. Shock. You want to make more money out of your business? Wow, what an insightful way to address this.

00:06:16:20 – 00:06:39:24

Jarred Correia

But I’m talking about, like, specific goals. So, like, do you have other goals for the firm that can relate back to revenue? And do individuals have goals for the firm as well? Yeah. So this could be okay. We want we’ve done our revenue projections. We want to get five more clients from our website each year. Okay, so what do we need to do to make that happen?

00:06:39:24 – 00:07:00:09

Jarred Correia

Doing the change our website in some way? What are the functional things we’re going to do for that? So that’s a potentially a goal. Okay, We want to increase our revenue by increasing our case volume. So what do we need to do to make us to allow us to move through cases faster? Yeah, we need to get through the disbursement phase quicker.

00:07:00:11 – 00:07:18:27

Jarred Correia

If we’re a personal injury firm, do we need to get somebody from a signing meeting to a design meeting faster if we’re a state planning firm, how do we do that? And then who owns that process? Like, is that me, the attorney who’s moving that ball forward? Do I have somebody who’s a paralegal in the firm, who’s a case mover, who’s going to do that for me?

00:07:19:00 – 00:07:44:21

Jarred Correia

And are we tracking that information? Who’s responsible for tracking the information? Who’s responsible for reporting on it? Like, that’s the kind of thing I would focus on creating universal KPIs for the firm and individual KPIs, because I’ve seen this too. Like you can’t you can’t have firm KPIs and and also no KPIs for individuals because what happens is like everybody’s like, Oh yeah, we had to do that.

00:07:44:21 – 00:08:07:18

Jarred Correia

But I don’t think that was my job because it was not assigned to me. And if it’s nobody, if it’s if nobody’s assigned a job, it doesn’t become everybody’s job, which is what a lot of people think. It becomes a nobody’s job. So I’m a big believer in like firm, wide KPIs, individual KPIs. Yeah. If you don’t like the term KPIs, call them metrics.

00:08:07:20 – 00:08:26:29

Jarred Correia

But that’s the other thing I would be developing once I’ve done the revenue projections, once I have a budget, once I have a sense of what my profits going to be, that that year, once I look at accounts receivable, like let me get the financial stuff done and then put some goals on top of that, like actual discrete goals to move forward.

00:08:27:01 – 00:08:49:28

Patrick Carver

Yeah. And I think the one thing I would just tack on top of that is once you have an idea of what what those are a couple that you want to look at, go ahead and put a recurring calendar event on your calendar, right? Yes. So even when we have it on a calendar, it’s still a challenge because maybe we’re putting, you know, kind of like putting out a fire or like, you know, something else kind of demands the attention.

00:08:49:28 – 00:09:00:27

Patrick Carver

And so it’s you know, it’s so easy to set those and then forget them. You know, if you don’t have that kind of locked in time where you you’re forced to with it.

00:09:00:29 – 00:09:03:03

Jarred Correia

Yes. A discipline question for sure.

00:09:03:06 – 00:09:17:28

Patrick Carver

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Very helpful. Do you have 60 to 90 seconds for a lightning round since you you gave me a fun one when I was on your when I was on your show. So.

00:09:18:00 – 00:09:20:15

Jarred Correia

Yeah. I love Lightning Round. Set me up.

00:09:20:18 – 00:09:38:08

Patrick Carver

Okay, so we’re we’re now entering the lightning round portion of the podcast with Mr. Djerrkura, so. All right, Number one hard hitter right out of the gate. Who is the bigger legal influence, sir? Kim Kardashian or Jared Correia?

00:09:38:11 – 00:09:45:14

Jarred Correia

Oh, me, Clearly legal. Yeah. Have I told you about my fragrance? Now? I don’t have fragrance.

00:09:45:17 – 00:09:53:23

Patrick Carver

Be cool. Yeah. She’s doing a lot of like, you know, so I don’t know much, but, you know, she’s getting into jail. She’s, you know.

00:09:53:23 – 00:10:03:04

Jarred Correia

I had no idea if Kim Kardashian is actually doing something in the legal space. And she’s absolutely more influential than I am already.

00:10:03:07 – 00:10:11:27

Patrick Carver

No, she’s actually, like getting she’s been a big advocate for like prison reform and, you know, stuff like that. Check it out. All right.

00:10:11:27 – 00:10:13:14

Jarred Correia

So I amend my prior answer.

00:10:13:20 – 00:10:17:15

Patrick Carver

It’s a good redeeming quality, you know, for her. So.

00:10:17:17 – 00:10:18:28

Jarred Correia

Good, good.

00:10:19:00 – 00:10:24:12

Patrick Carver

Okay. What practice area is the biggest pain to deal with?

00:10:24:15 – 00:10:54:05

Jarred Correia

Oh, from a consulting side. Yeah, it’s a great question. Nobody’s ever asked me that before. I’m a thrower. I’m going to say immigration because it’s really complex. There’s an absurd amount of forms and sometimes there’s language barriers with clients, sometimes it’s cultural barriers with clients. And there are a lot of ethics complaints in that space. That is really tough practice area to be in.

00:10:54:08 – 00:11:04:00

Jarred Correia

So but there are a lot of people who are very successful at it. And simultaneously it’s like a really tough area to consult and but I enjoy a challenge before saying.

00:11:04:03 – 00:11:19:04

Patrick Carver

Okay, I go P.I., I would say P.I.. Well, all right, that’s fair. That’s fair. They’re all like riverboat gamblers, you know, And and like, want to pay like, 50,000 bucks and get like, 2 million in in payoffs.

00:11:19:06 – 00:11:22:01

Jarred Correia

So that is true. That is true.

00:11:22:04 – 00:11:28:00

Patrick Carver

Okay, who’s worse? Legal marketers or legal consultants?

00:11:28:02 – 00:11:53:29

Jarred Correia

Oh, man, that’s a tough one. I’m going to say legal consultants. I’m going to throw myself in the boat here. I just hate like I mean, I’m not a fan of like, the Tony Robbins style of stuff, man. I don’t like my mindset. Like, everybody’s overpromising. It’s just like not in my wheelhouse at all. And I don’t like it.

00:11:54:02 – 00:12:16:04

Jarred Correia

Like everybody’s got like, Oh, you know how many people are like the eight figure law firm? The seven figure law firm? Like to me, as somebody who’s been doing this for a long time, my whole posture is like every law firm is different. I said before a lawyer is an I’m special and the practices aren’t necessarily special, but like every lawyer is different, every managing attorney is different.

00:12:16:06 – 00:12:35:01

Jarred Correia

They have different ideas about how they want their practices to run, what they want to achieve. And this whole notion of like, you know, we get your mindset right and you’re going to be a billionaire like that doesn’t actually work for most people. So I like to really dive into like, what is your what are your goals? Let’s try to achieve those specific goals and move forward on those.

00:12:35:01 – 00:12:59:04

Jarred Correia

And I yeah, I’m legal legal consultant. So I would say by far like legal marketers like yourself, I know a lot of good legal marketers, I would say especially legal marketing firms that focus like marketing firms that focus on law. I generally have really good experience with those folks, but the consultants are. Some of the stuff is just nauseating that goes out online.

00:12:59:12 – 00:13:19:00

Patrick Carver

So I don’t know. I may start a branch where I help lawyers rehabilitate after other marketing experiences because that’s about 99% of every conversation I have with the new prospect is like, Well, let me tell you about how you know, how these guys did me did me dirty.

00:13:19:00 – 00:13:23:02

Jarred Correia

So maybe we’re just telling on ourselves. They’re.

00:13:23:04 – 00:13:23:16

Patrick Carver

You know.

00:13:23:21 – 00:13:25:05

Jarred Correia

We each picked our own industry.

00:13:25:12 – 00:13:38:08

Patrick Carver

Yeah. Okay. What’s the biggest scam or kind of red herring that lawyer should steer clear of in this next year?

00:13:38:11 – 00:13:53:05

Jarred Correia

Oh, that’s a good one. Okay, so let’s go back to the I think like, yeah, if you’re getting a pitch and it’s like it’s going to solve all your problems, you don’t have to work anymore because that’s that’s happening. That’s coming down the pipe in your law firm.

00:13:53:12 – 00:13:54:20

Patrick Carver

Automate the whole thing.

00:13:54:22 – 00:13:56:23

Jarred Correia

That’s not a thing.

00:13:56:25 – 00:13:57:12

Patrick Carver

Yeah.

00:13:57:14 – 00:14:18:09

Jarred Correia

And I’ve been telling people this for years, which is like, nobody wants to talk about managing their business. Nobody wants to have deep conversations about process management. But that is that it’s a nonstarter. If you don’t do that, you’ve got to understand and own your processes. You got to understand and own your technology in a real way. And there is no like gift wrap solution.

00:14:18:09 – 00:14:29:15

Jarred Correia

Like it’s very similar to what I was just talking about, which is like, Oh, do these seven things and you’ll make $1,000,000. Like, that’s not how it works. And it’s the same thing with like, these tools are not a panacea.

00:14:29:17 – 00:14:36:09

Patrick Carver

Yeah, it makes sense. All right, last question. Who’s going to win the World Series?

00:14:36:11 – 00:14:40:22

Jarred Correia

I was so I picked the Rangers last year. Believe it or not.

00:14:40:24 – 00:14:42:14

Patrick Carver

I don’t believe you, but.

00:14:42:16 – 00:15:01:09

Jarred Correia

I it’s it’s on a podcast. I picked the Rangers, like, three months before the season ended. It’s out there this year. What I am going to say I’m going to. All right. Phillies are breaking through this year. Okay. So I’m going to say yep, Phillies.

00:15:01:12 – 00:15:09:01

Patrick Carver

Okay. Well, we’ll check, maybe check back in a few months to see if that’s accurate. Probably not.

00:15:09:01 – 00:15:17:08

Jarred Correia

So let’s do it. Yeah, it’s probably going to be right, though. Don’t bet on that. But that’s what I think.

00:15:17:11 – 00:15:37:07

Patrick Carver

Well, all right. I really appreciate your time. I think this was awesome. So really appreciate it. If you happen to be familiar with Jared, I haven’t looked him up through the course of this. Check out Red Cave Legal. What’s the what’s that URL for? For the folks at home.

00:15:37:09 – 00:15:40:15

Jarred Correia

Right. Keep legal dotcom pretty easy easy.

00:15:40:17 – 00:15:52:29

Patrick Carver

Easy stuff You might see them around it your your state clean is lots of lots of opportunities to see him see my video. So thank you.

00:15:53:02 – 00:15:55:27

Jarred Correia

Thank you, sir. This is a pleasure.

00:15:55:29 – 00:15:56:12

Patrick Carver

Always.