Ken Vrana | Banking and Financial Strategy for Law Firms That Want to Grow

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer's Edge podcast. Welcome back for another episode.

Law firm leaders spend years mastering the practice of law, but when it comes to financial strategy, many are flying blind. From managing cash flow to preparing for growth and expansion, the business side of law presents challenges most lawyers were never trained to handle. Today's guest works closely with law firms, legal tech companies, and alternative legal service providers to help them make smarter financial decisions, reduce risk, and set themselves up for long-term success.

In this conversation, we're going to explore the financial realities of running a law firm and what legal leaders should be thinking about now to build stronger, more resilient practices.

Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator, a nine-month business development program created by women lawyers for women lawyers. Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers and supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession. To learn more about Ignite, visit thelawyersedge.com/ignite.

I am delighted to welcome my guest today, Ken Vrana, Senior Director with the Juris Banking Group at Western Alliance. Based in New York, Ken works with law firms, legal tech companies, and alternative legal service providers to craft customized banking and capital solutions, from partner buy-ins and startup loans to operating and fiduciary account structures. With more than two decades of banking experience, Ken advises clients on everything from fraud prevention to cash flow management, helping them strengthen operations, reduce risk, and position their firms for growth.

Ken, welcome to The Lawyer's Edge.

Ken Vrana: Thank you, Elise. Great to be here.

Elise Holtzman: I am really happy to have you here today because you are somebody who has a lot of knowledge and information that I think a lot of lawyers don't have. And I know as a practicing lawyer, a former practicing lawyer myself, I never really thought about this stuff.

I think that law firm leaders are often thrown into their roles, "Hey, you're a great lawyer and you care about this firm and you've been here forever, and now we want you to run this place. Isn't this a great feather in your cap?" and all of that sort of thing, then they suddenly realize, "Oh my gosh, I'm running a business here, and I haven’t really done that before."

So you've been, as I mentioned, embedded with law firms and legal tech companies for more than 20 years. What are some of the challenges that you see law firms facing from a banking perspective?

Ken Vrana: Thanks, Elise. Yeah, I mean, obviously there are many. The biggest challenge is really to keep bad actors from accessing either firm or client funds. Cybercrime, just in all different industries, is a huge, huge issue. It’s a trillion-dollar-a-year industry, and recent statistics show that eight in ten businesses across the U.S. are victims of fraud attempts.

Law firms are ripe for the taking because of the large balances, both on the operating side and the fiduciary side, and they're squarely in the crosshairs. I would have to say making sure that funds are protected, both client funds and operating funds, is probably the biggest key and something that gets completely overlooked, especially at the smaller firms and the regional-sized firms.

I guarantee you that there’s no worse feeling than waking up to a situation where the firm's operating or IOLA balances have been completely wiped out, and having really no clue what to do next. So, first and foremost, I would say protecting and making sure that nobody can access those funds from a fraudulent perspective is the biggest challenge that firms really have.

Elise Holtzman: Do you see particular sorts of firms being targets more than others? Because I think I had this conversation with somebody, perhaps a year ago or more, on another podcast episode, where in my mind it was like, "Well, aren’t the smaller law firms less likely to be targeted?" And the answer was something along the lines of, "No, the smaller firms are almost more likely to be targeted because the bad actors know that they don’t necessarily have the robust systems to protect them that the larger firms have."

What’s your view on that? What are you seeing?

Ken Vrana: Absolutely. The larger firms, I would say Am Law 200 and up, typically have robust banking departments. So the smaller you get to the firm, the fewer people involved, the less manpower or womanpower to be able to put toward other services. The smaller firms are the ones that don’t have those resources to protect themselves.

So absolutely. I’ve worked with a couple of smaller personal injury firms where there might be three lawyers, a couple of paralegals, and some office staff. They are targeted on an ongoing basis. One person I was just talking to last week, four separate check fraud instances on their IOLA account.

And IOLA funds, you can replace them, but the reputational risk is just paramount. Even if the bank gets the money back, if you lost client money, you’re dead to rights. So those smaller firms really don’t have the luxury or the resources internally, so they really should be choosing to work with their bank to set up systems and structures to protect them, protect their client funds, to make sure that they’re here today, tomorrow, and can allow them to operate for themselves and their clients.

Elise Holtzman: Do most banks have those sorts of things in place to be able to protect their clients?

Ken Vrana: Yep. If you’re walking into a bank branch off the street and say, “I want to open up this bank account,” a lot of times, those branch bankers, they’re great to work with, they’re going to get your account set up, you’re going to get open, you’re going to be able to deposit, but they don’t have that experience, that level of expertise of knowing what firms and businesses need to operate.

And you might not get that, “Hey, have you thought about this?” or “Have you thought about that? These products and services are available, would you like to take advantage of them or hear more about it?” Unfortunately, there’s a lack of expertise that gets lost in translation.

Elise Holtzman: You’re in Western Alliance’s Juris Banking Group, and so obviously it makes it clear that this is specifically for legal organizations. What does a group like that inside of a bank do? As a lawyer, as a law firm, if I’m just starting out or if I’m a growing law firm, why would I come to someone like you? What are the things that you know more about than the local branch of your trusted bank?

Ken Vrana: So at Western Alliance, we go narrow and deep in our industries. I have former clients, and before I came to Western Alliance, I was a little bit more general. I had a lot of professional services legal, but I also had some construction, healthcare, real estate, which is beneficial from a development perspective. So I know how all these other industries operate, but here, we only do legal.

So if somebody comes to me who is a personal injury attorney or they do a lot of eminent domain work, and they work on a contingency basis, we understand that. We’ve done what we’ve needed to do to incorporate those types of fee arrangements into our credit policy to be able to offer solutions on the case cost side, on the working capital side, that a lot of banks just won’t do. They don’t understand it. They don’t understand how to value the case inventory. They don’t understand the duration. They get really scared. And when banks get scared, they withdraw. They just won’t move forward.

So that’s one key area. Another area is having a bank that has a lot of expertise. We can set up debtor-in-possession accounts in all 21 UST regions for our firms that are typically under the gun, having to open up these accounts in 24 to 48 hours. You walk into Bank ABC off the street, they’re not going to be able to do that. They don’t have that area of expertise that somebody at Western Alliance that has built this division specifically for legal has.

Incorporating into different legal softwares, the API integrations, firms are saving time and not having to enter in entries over here, over here, over there. Setting up those capabilities for our clients to make their days and their jobs easier is important to us. And it’s what separates us from a lot of our competitors.

There are some other banks that are out there that say it's legal banking, but it's their same bankers just with a title in front of their name. There's really no differentiation between products and services. Whereas at Western Alliance, we have built this for legal and we're going to market and we're making a difference for our clients.

You know, somebody like Western Alliance, we're engaging with state and local bar associations to allow their members to bank more effectively and set up different affinity programs to promote thought leadership and really be involved in the industry, and not just, “Hey, we have accounts. You want to come bank with us?”

Elise Holtzman: Based on what you're saying, there are so many different life cycle events, I guess, that we could say that law firms go through. Some of them are going to be common to most law firms, and some of them are going to be specific, as you pointed out, depending on the practice that they have.

What are some of the mistakes that you see law firms making? So first of all, we're talking about this idea of choosing a banking institution that has the right setup, that has the knowledge, that can maybe teach you things that you don't even know about. But just in general, what are some of the top mistakes that you see law firms making so that they can start thinking about, “Hey, I never thought about that before. This is something that maybe we could be doing better.”

Ken Vrana: First and foremost is making it as easy as possible for your clients to pay you. I feel like a lot of times, firms get bogged down in, “This is how we've always done things.” You know, we're going to send out this paper invoice and we're going to get a check back. And it's that process that they don't customize and make it as easy as possible to collect, because you and I both know firms don't do a great job collecting on their receivables, and it impacts their bottom line.

So that would be first and foremost, setting up an easy process for your clients to pay you. And that might be including some type of a digital invoice with the paper invoice that links back directly to your website, where they can type in their payment information and make that payment via their checking account, their debit card, their credit card, whatever the case is. But incorporating technology and different types of payment methods to be able to get money into your accounts faster.

Now, I also hear, “Well, I don’t want to pay the two or three or four percent that it takes.” Okay, well, would you rather just never get paid? I'd rather take that 3% discount or build that into the pricing a little bit so that I can get money into my accounts faster.

And then, when money comes in, what are we doing with it? Are we maximizing the earnings credits that we have to set our various different wire fees? It’s very expensive to run a firm that has a lot of wire transactions and bank costs associated with it. So what is your bank doing to help you offset that cost or provide you with a large interest, or a nice interest rate so that you're earning funds while it's sitting there, but also protecting those funds so that nobody can access them?

So it’s really paying attention to that cash flow cycle. How do we get money in faster? What do we do with it while it’s here? How can we maximize our cash positions? And then how do we slow things down on the way out so that our payments are made effectively, efficiently, and we have a process around that?

Larger firms have integrated payables where they're uploading a file to the bank once a day and we’re doing all their wires, we’re doing all their ACHs, and we’re cutting all their checks for them so that they don’t have to worry about that. There’s a cost and expense associated with that, but it’s all tied in together to this clean, crisp operating and cash flow cycle so that you can focus your days on growing the firm, on acquiring new clients, on marketing, on all the other things that you need to do to make your firm successful.

The banking stuff should be simple. And it’s unfortunately not.

Elise Holtzman: What I find interesting about this conversation is that I think for many lawyers, when they think about technology and when they think about making things easier, it's more about, “Well, we have to keep up with technology or we’re going to be left behind.” We know that lawyers are often slow adopters. We want things to be easy for our clients. We want to appear to be a modern firm.

But what I'm hearing you say—and what I think a lot of people forget—is that this really goes to the bottom line. To your point, a lot of time is spent trying to collect bills, and they're getting frustrated, and they're writing things off, and they're wondering why their profitability isn’t where they want it to be.

Something as simple as having a bank help you set up these systems in a way that, yes, is easier for your clients and yes, is easier for you, it isn’t just about feeling good and being at the cutting edge of technology. It’s about making more money. And I think we forget sometimes that some of these things that we just view as operational stuff—“Oh, that’s just operational stuff”—it really does go to the bottom line.

Ken Vrana: Yeah. And something as simple as the firm’s payables in and of themselves—vendors, vendor management, making payments on a corporate card, on a payment card—so that maybe if you’re spending... or even your marketing expense, right?

You're spending $50,000 a month in marketing, $100,000 a month in marketing, why is that not on a corporate card so that you can better track and manage those expenses, as well as push those payments out 30 days before your cash is actually being put on the street?

That could be turning a payable into a receivable. You might be able to get one and a half or maybe even two percent cash back for making those payments, driving further revenue to your bottom line. “Oh, it’s two percent.” All right. Well, two percent of $100 isn’t much, but two percent of a million dollars—if that’s what your expense is on an annualized basis—that’s nothing to sniff at. It’s money back to your bottom line for doing something pretty simple. You just need to have a system behind it.

Elise Holtzman: Let’s talk about law firms at different stages for a moment. Let’s say we’re launching a law firm. What are some of the things that you talk to new law firms about—and presumably some of the things we’ve already been discussing—but specifically for new firms, what are some of the blind spots that you think they have, where you try to fill in the blanks for them and give them some solid advice about how to start on a solid footing?

Ken Vrana: First and foremost, talk to your peers and see who they’re using. See if they’re happy. See if they have a relationship. See if that person’s calling them on a regular basis or interacting with them on a regular basis.

If they were working with them during COVID and during the PPP loan process, whether or not that person picked up the phone, or if they ran underneath a rock and hid, because banks were just not getting capital out onto the street fast enough to the program, because of all the different complexities there.

So find yourself somebody that you can depend on and that you can trust, first and foremost, who’s going to pick up the phone. Because chances are, that fraud situation that I mentioned earlier today is going to happen at some point. And if you have to call five different 800 numbers and explain yourself five different times and then get disconnected halfway through the call and then have to do it again, you’re just costing yourself time, money, and aggravation when your banker should be the one that’s taking that and running with it.

So first and foremost, find yourself a banker that you can trust and depend on. And find yourself somebody that’s been in the industry for a long time and that has seen these things and knows what it entails to set up a proper depository relationship. So your operating accounts, your fiduciary accounts, whether or not you are going to need any type of bankruptcy or qualified settlement fund type of relationships. Because again, those are really niche type of products that not every bank is going to be able to have.

So match what your firm needs up to the capabilities of the bank, first and foremost.

The next conversation that I have with firms is really setting up that fraud protection, the fraud protection services. What I do find a lot of times is, “Oh, it’s going to cost me $100 a month. It’s going to cost me $200. I don’t want to pay that.” Well, you pay your car insurance, and chances are you’re not going to wreck your car.

Pay your deposit account fraud protection insurance for $200 a month to make sure that you don't have to go through that headache. Most times, firms do get their money back, but it could be two months. It could be three months. And by then, your clients might have left you. And some of your employees might have left you too, because you might not have been able to pay them either.

So those are the first two things. Set up the credit card portfolio so that you have a payable solution. Set up all the different methods to receive funds quicker and easier, like I mentioned before. Spending time today doing that is going to make it a lot easier down the road.

Making sure that all of your systems talk to your QuickBooks. If you're doing your books yourself, I would also suggest that you don't do your books yourself. I would bring in a bookkeeper that is experienced with professional services and the legal industry so that they're setting things up upfront properly. They're putting you on a proper cadence to have month-end reporting pulled.

I usually wind up introducing new firms to CPA firms that have experience working with the legal industry. Not every CPA firm has a level of expertise working with law firms. Most times when we're talking to law firms, when they're coming to us for credit, they don't have quality financial statements. They don't have quality balance sheets. They might not even do a balance sheet.

And if you're coming to somebody like me for credit because you're looking to buy real estate or set up different types of facilities for practice expansions or acquiring, and you don't have quality financial statements—which goes all the way back to day one when you're hanging up your shingle and setting up your systems—you might not be able to, A, get the credit that you're looking for, or B, get it at the speed or velocity that you needed. And that opportunity might have passed you by.

So setting up those key systems upfront will make your firm operate so much smoother and allow you and afford you the opportunities that you might not have if you don't take the time upfront.

Elise Holtzman: What you're talking about is making me think back to when I first started practicing law. So this is a little bit, I guess, of an analogy that popped into my head. But what they were doing was they were going to new Biglaw firm associates—this was in New York, and it was a very long time ago—and they were giving us these private banking accounts. They were making these available.

So the banks were working with Biglaw and saying, “Hey, we want you to give us your associates and we'll give them private banking accounts.” And I was mortified. I mean, I didn’t have 12 cents in my bank account. I actually had to take an advance on my salary from the law firm to go buy professional clothes. And I thought, “Why on earth would this private bank want me? I don’t have any money in my bank account. I don't know what they're thinking.” It was embarrassing to me almost to be in private banking.

And so I'm wondering, for some people sitting there thinking, “Well, I'm starting my own firm. I'm starting with one or two or three people. Why on earth would this bank want to be working with me?” I mean, it seems obvious to me now, but what's the answer to that? How do you guys view these startup firms? Do you view them as, like, “Oh, these little piddly firms,” or are they valuable clients to you?

Ken Vrana: Listen, everyone deserves to have somebody that they can turn to from a banking perspective. So whether that's the solo, the boutique, for me personally, it doesn't matter.

I support—I’ve been doing this small law firm symposium at the New York City Bar Association for the last four or five years. You never know what's going to happen in the future. So I will spend just as much time working with a solo as I will with a large 50-partner regional firm, because again, you just never know.

I like working with folks. I like setting people up for success. In college, I flipped majors a few times, but education was one of my areas of focus. And I've always gravitated towards teaching and helping. And again, it's always easier upfront. So let's do it today, because ten years from now, this small personal injury firm might have morphed into a very large player in the mass tort space.

And banks make money on deposits. If we're not there today, we're not going to be there ten years from now. So it’s just always easier for us to work smarter, harder upfront with a firm and be there for them, to follow along in their journey to success.

Elise Holtzman: Let’s talk then about another phase of a law firm's existence, perhaps a law firm that is trying to grow. They've made a decision—a strategic decision—to grow in some way, whether they're growing a particular practice area or they want to open a new office or they want to focus on something that they've never done before.

What are some of the things that you think law firms who are interested in growth and pursuing growth should be paying attention to? And I think you mentioned already making sure that your financial statements are in order. So let's talk a little bit about that and some other things you think they could be doing.

Ken Vrana: Sure. Yeah. So usually, growth requires capital. And there are two ways for capital. Either you're going to utilize funds that you've saved—either personally or within the firm—or you're going to use credit, or a mixture therein.

So one of the most important things is having that one-year, three-year, five-year time horizon and having your goals properly laid out. So that if you didn’t take the time to set up the firm’s financials in the right way upfront, it gives you enough time to work through, correct any issues from the past, and put yourself on a plan moving forward to have financials that banks can trust.

Depending on the different levels of credit depend on the different levels of financial review. So if you’re looking at a credit facility for under a million dollars, we’ll use management-prepared financial statements, it’s really not that big of a deal. But if you need $5 million and you're not doing reviewed financial statements, you're going to have to moving forward. So you might as well start them in advance.

So it’s super, super key to have your tax returns, your financial statements, your personal financial statements, all prepared and ready to go in advance of having to go to the well with the bank if you're going to be looking to acquire credit.

But I think one of the main things that is a big miss—especially when firms are either merging or any kind of M&A activity when it results in legal—is just the culture fit. I've seen more deals go south from mismatching cultures than not having access to credit or not enough credit.

So having somebody to really be the glue for the two sides of the transaction to stick together, setting up a proper cadence of partners—it could be as simple as a weekly conference call that goes to biweekly that goes to monthly—so that people are talking and you can work through the issues. Which firm's dominant culture is going to be the one that moves forward? Which partners are in charge? That everyone feels heard.

So it's really the culture match that I would think people really need to be mindful of, outside of the financial aspect of it. Because if you have two firms that are getting together and it's just not a culture match, that merger could be six months before people start heading for the exits because it's just a mess. And then nobody wants to see that.

If you're doing these, it’s a lot of time-consuming, a lot of financial commitments. It’s not just the firms merging, it’s people, it’s cultures, it’s families, it’s livelihoods. So we want to make sure that this is happening in a well-run fashion. And having someone to take the reins and manage that part of it is super, super critical. Because again, I’ve seen more mergers fail from a cultural perspective than anything else.

Elise Holtzman: Is this the advice that you find yourself giving to law firms on a regular basis? Because I think that—it’s interesting for me, at least—to hear somebody who's on the banking side of things talk about things like culture, and say, “Listen, you can have all the financial stuff in the right place, but if your cultures aren’t meshing, you may have a big problem.”

Ken Vrana: Most bankers are not going to speak about this because they really just care about the deal. I have a different approach. When I left college, I wasn't sure exactly where I was going to be. I was a history, political science major, minor in psych. I was thinking about maybe going to law school.

But I got licensed and got my 63. And I was like, “All right, well, this financial stuff, I like it. But how does it work? How do I impact somebody?”

It was really that planning, that due diligence, that financial analysis that I bring to the table today that maybe some other bankers don't. I want to look at the whole picture. Because if you're not looking at the whole picture and it’s only a piece of the pie, you're doing everyone a disservice.

For somebody like myself, I spend a lot of time growing my network and sitting in on panel discussions so that I can really be a very broad individual and bring things to the table that maybe somebody else would miss or firms don't think about. And that's really the value that I bring as a banker and as an individual and how I differentiate myself from Joe Schmo on the corner that has another checking, savings, and IOLA and wants to do business with firms.

Elise Holtzman: When you see a law firm that is trying to grow, they've made a decision that they're going to grow, who are some of the players that you think that they should get involved, other than the lawyers at the firm?

You know, you talked about this idea of having someone who's going to help shepherd the culture conversation. And so you presumably are involved in a lot of these things. What are some of the recommendations that you're making to the clients about, “Hey, you should bring these people—these sorts of people—in if you don't already have them to help you go through this process and make sure that you're executing properly and on the right things”?

Ken Vrana: A fractional chief operating officer is key. And that really goes to that culture, who’s going to be the referee and make sure that we're getting off on the right foot?

So having a fractional COO involved, at least maybe for six months or a year, to make sure that the kind of integration is happening and it's working well. And then having marketing professionals come in—because Firm A is doing their marketing, Firm B is doing their marketing—what are the synergies? What are they doing the same? What are they doing differently? How do we mesh the two and re-strategize as a go-forward as one? And how do we do that and get the best ROI for our buck?

And the same thing from—you have two firms, you have two accounting methods and systems. Which one is the one that survives? Or does it make more sense to say, “Hey listen, now we're together as one. Let's start maybe a new relationship as one.” And who are those key CFO partners that I can bring to the table that I know do very, very good work and are good matches for the firm's leadership and how they like to work?

Because again, you can’t have those clashes between individuals. It'll cause things to blow up. So not only does the firm need to mesh, the firm needs to mesh with its outside partners as well. They have to have good respect and good relationships there, or things are going to be off-kilter. There needs to be balance in everything. And that’s one of the other areas that we like to bring to the table and advise when firms are coming together.

The COO stuff, the CMO stuff, the CFO stuff, where is it going to be today? Where was it? Where is it now? Where does it need to be in the future to make this successful?

Elise Holtzman: At the risk of stating the obvious, if you're bringing two firms together, you're acquiring a practice group or something like that, they may also have different banking situations. I'm wondering, I know from your perspective, you would probably like everything to be in one bank, preferably yours. But I’m curious, is there ever a reason that a firm would have multiple banking relationships? Does it get too confusing? Is it a good idea? A bad idea?

Ken Vrana: Never really a hard and fast answer, fortunately. So in New York here, we have a lot of firms that have not only domestic but international exposure. When you have a firm that’s doing business in New York and in California, there might be a situation where there’s a split relationship because Bank A might not have IOLA privileges in—maybe they have it in New York but not in California. So there might be a need for a secondary or even a tertiary banking relationship to be put into place just to handle and facilitate the deposit account transactions.

And then from an international perspective too, there are a lot of banks that are good here domestically but not very strategic from an international perspective. I was talking to a firm recently that has Bank A for their domestic business and Bank B for their international business. Well, Bank B charges them full boat on the funds that are coming over from Europe. They're paying basically 300 basis points on all their incoming conversions.

So again, $10 million a year coming over from overseas, 3% of 10 million is quite a bit of money. If we can change that to 2% or 1%, again, that’s bringing the costs down and providing bottom-line revenue back. So again, a lot of firms will have these different types of relationships because maybe their bank doesn’t handle international transactions, so they had to go to another bank.

But did they go to the right bank? I know that wasn’t really the point of the question, but at the same time, it’s very important to understand that. Because not all banks have great international capabilities as well. So finding these different institutions for each piece sometimes is important. Sometimes you need to bifurcate the relationship.

But when you’re doing that, making sure that you're paying attention to all these other areas is super important, because you could be leaving revenue and income on the table where you don't even realize it.

Elise Holtzman: That’s the follow-up question that I wanted to ask you, because while you were talking about this, it occurred to me that many law firms are probably not reevaluating their banking relationships on any regular basis. It’s like, “Well, we opened up this account in 1987, and we've been using this bank forever, so we're just going to keep using this bank forever because we're comfortable with it.” And it's the path of least resistance.

How frequently do you see that? And how often do you think law firms should be evaluating whether their banking relationship is a good fit for them?

Ken Vrana: Me personally, I feel that clients should be evaluating all their vendor relationships, at least, is annually too frequent? I don't know. Is biannually too frequent? It all depends on the size of the firm, the number of full-time employees that you can put towards some of these projects, and stuff like that. But biannually, you should be looking at your vendor relationships to make sure. Nonprofits have it written into their bylaws that they're doing it at least annually, biannually, or triannually. So why are for-profit businesses any different?

But I do see this all the time. I'll be introduced to a firm, referred to a firm, or reach out: “All right, Ken, we're good. We've been banking with Bank ABC for 10, 15, 20 years. We're good.”

Okay. That’s fine. You know, I know in the back of my head, probably not. But I usually stay in touch. And eventually, something is going to happen where they’re not all good. They’re not okay. And my phone is going to ring.

And I love the challenge. I like fixing problems. That’s probably one of the things I love most about what I do is coming in there and fixing a problem, offering a solution, and coming to the rescue.

Elise Holtzman: You're probably very much like a lawyer in that respect. I think a lot of lawyers, we’re there to solve problems. That’s what we like to do.

Ken Vrana: Exactly. But it happens all the time. And one of the ways I like to go in and say, “All right, I understand it.” Because it is a heavy lift, especially with how automatic and automated everything is from an automatic deposit, automatic debit perspective, vendors, it is a lot to make the change.

But it’s not a bad idea to look at it. Because interest rates from a credit perspective, interest rates from a deposit perspective, costs for wires, costs for all your different various banking services, not every bank is going to be priced the same. But not every bank is going to offer you the same level of service.

So, what is that sweet spot? You know, there are some people that when they get sick, they just use urgent care, right? Because they don't want to go in. They just want to get it done.

A lot of times, those are the people that are going to just use whatever bank, and they’re going to call an 800 number, and the relationship’s really not that big of a deal.

But most people, they have a primary care physician that they're going to meet with at least once a year, or a couple of times a year, depending on what their health plan is, right? Why should your banking relationship be any different?

Why aren't you having an annual checkup with your banker and speaking to them on a regular basis to be able to diagnose potential issues and get in front of it and mitigate that so it doesn't snowball and become a bigger thing in the future?

Elise Holtzman: I have two final questions for you. One of them is, do you think that law firms that are larger by definition are better at this? Or do you see even larger law firms falling prey to some of these things, where they're not really paying attention to the relationships and they're not evaluating their vendors on a regular basis for fit or for cost or whatever it may be?

Because I think a lot of what you're talking about—we're talking to smaller and mid-sized firms—but I'm wondering whether the large firms are also not immune to this thing.

Ken Vrana: They're not immune to it either. Because at the end of the day, everyone’s working like mad to bring in clients, to close matters, to impact their clients in some way. So naturally, the banking portion of this is going to go to the wayside, especially if there's no, “It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But sometimes, people don’t know that it is, that it might be broken, when they think that it’s not. So they’re not immune. They just have more resources. They typically will have that director of finance position filled, or a full-time CFO—somebody that is mindful of this on a day-in and day-out basis.

But again, those regional firms up to the AMLAW 200s and boutiques, that's where I see this more so on a day-to-day basis. But large firms are not immune either.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. And so if you're not ready to have a full-time CFO or somebody like that, having the right banking relationship can help bridge that gap between “We don't have anybody,” and “We aren't ready to have a full-time somebody.”

So, Ken, as we wrap up our time here together today, there's a question that I ask all of my guests that I'd like to ask you as well. There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them is not at all obvious to others.

When it comes to banking support for lawyers and law firms, what's a principle or piece of advice that may seem obvious to you but is important for people to hear?

Ken Vrana: It's important for people to understand the value of the relationship. I have to say that it’s probably the most important thing.

Because I mentioned this before, just harping back to PPP and COVID, businesses had never experienced that before. So to not have a dedicated person that you could pick up and call and get on the phone and speak to and talk through, and even if it’s not to have anything else than, “Listen, I understand your concerns. We’re working on it. I’ll be there for you with the solution as soon as it’s available,” it’s so critically important to have that person.

You know, bankers are financial professionals. We should be looked at in that same class as that CPA or as an attorney. We have that power and we have that impact. We have those networks. So it’s often overlooked how important that relationship is because so much of our world has been commoditized.

But having that dedicated relationship to call and get somebody on the phone when things have really hit the fan is super critical. Or if things have, “Hey Ken, we got this great opportunity. One of our competitors is retiring, and they want us to acquire the firm. What can we do? Because this is going to sunset in a week.”

Okay, well, we had that relationship. You’re not starting from square one. We know you. We’ve been working with you for a number of years. It’s going to make that transaction and that opportunity go a lot smoother than if you didn’t have that relationship up front.

Elise Holtzman: I love this advice because it reminds me, at least, of two things. One is that there are people out there, lawyers get tunnel vision, and it’s not a criticism; it’s simply an observation. As you pointed out, lawyers are busy serving their clients, and they need someone to serve them.

And also to remember that we, as lawyers, are trusted advisors to our clients, and you, as bankers, can be trusted advisors to us as the law firm. So we are, as lawyers, the problem solvers, the solution providers, the helpers with opportunity. And as bankers who are paying particular attention to lawyers and law firms, you can be the trusted advisors for lawyers, no matter how small their firm is or how large the firm is.

So this is great stuff. Thank you so much for the advice. Thank you, Ken, for being here today. I really appreciate having you. And you’ve educated me a lot today.

Ken Vrana: Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, this was great, being able to share this and speak to the broader community. Super important, and I really appreciate the opportunity to be here.

Elise Holtzman: Absolutely. So thanks again for being here. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. If you’ve enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We’ll see you next time.