Jim Pattillo | Scaling a Litigation Practice Without Losing What Makes It Work

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. Most law firms say they care about developing younger lawyers. Far fewer create an environment where associates are given meaningful responsibility, trained intentionally and prepared to become trusted advisors and trial lawyers.

In this episode, we talk about what it actually takes to build a high-performing litigation practice and a strong law firm culture at the same time. We explore the relationship between talent development, accountability, client trust and profitability and why law firms that want sustainable growth need to think differently about how they train, support, and invest in their people. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the coaching team at the Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the Lawyer's Edge coaching team is a trained, certified and experienced professional coach and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

My guest today is Jim Pattillo, a litigation partner and litigation practice group chair at Christian & Small, a law firm based in Alabama and Mississippi. With more than 20 years of trial experience and over 70 trials to verdict, Jim represents insurers and corporate clients in high-stakes litigation and is frequently called in for complex, high-exposure matters. In addition to his practice, Jim plays a key role in the firm's growth and talent development efforts, with a strong focus on training younger lawyers, building high-performance teams, and creating a culture of accountability and excellence. He's also a frequent speaker and writer on litigation strategy, trial readiness and law firm leadership. Jim, welcome to the Lawyer's Edge.

Jim Pattillo: Thanks for having me, Elise. Looking forward to our discussion.

Elise Holtzman: Same here, Jim. I'm delighted to have you. So let's just kick it off with talking a little bit about associates, right? Most firms say that associates are their most important resource, they're investing in associates, but many are still treating them primarily as billing units, which in some ways is understandable, right? We all know how we make money and how we get paid. But from your perspective, what do you think real investment in young lawyers looks like in practice and how does it ultimately benefit the firm and not just the firm, but its clients?

Jim Pattillo: One thing that comes to mind is what I sort of call a false dichotomy between work-life balance and culture and profitability. You know, we talk about sometimes having a focus and I think this generation of younger lawyers wants culture and wants opportunity to live the life and the lifestyle they want and that is antithetical to being profitable and growing. And I don't think that's the case at all. I think young lawyers need to understand the practice of law is a calling and a profession and it is not a nine-to-five job and that has always been the case. But at the same time, we need to, as law firm leaders, invest in the place they work and allow it to be somewhere where they feel like they are learning and growing, in addition to contributing to the business of running a law firm.

Elise Holtzman: I think that's a hard concept for a lot of people in leadership these days to digest. As you and I were discussing before we started recording, I was just down at the Managing Partner Forum Conference in Atlanta and it's all managing partners. And this is one of the things we hear over and over again, is like, we really, we want to invest in these people, but they simply don't want to practice law the way we did, right? And there are valid reasons for that. Their generation has experienced life differently and will experience life differently than those of us, who are old enough to be in leadership roles, have. But how have you come to that determination? Because I think that in many ways, you're unusual in viewing it that way and being willing to lead from that perspective.

Jim Pattillo: The practice of law changed significantly after COVID. We went home for a period of time and then the way we conduct our practice changed after that, much more reliance on remote hearings, remote depositions. We made an intentional decision to get everyone back in the office, particularly for the younger lawyers. I have a very strong belief that you cannot learn to practice law remotely on Teams or on Zoom, or even in a hybrid setting. That said, we do have flexibility for lawyers who have a practice that keeps them on the road, that keeps them in different places and we take advantage of that technology. But for the younger lawyers in our firm and it's a gradient, but it's three years or less, we need them to be in the office, so someone can knock on my door and we can sit down and talk about a question, or a motion, or a report, so we can go to lunch together. It has the purpose of teaching them how to practice law and investing in them personally, but also getting to know them as people. So going to lunch and talking around the coffee in the morning and those things are, in my opinion, being lost in the transition. And the way we hang on to that is to be around each other. And that's important for the growth of any team, particularly if you're running a group of young lawyers.

Elise Holtzman: So let's talk about that a little more. Christian & Small has grown. Your firm has grown significantly over time and you've already started talking about some of your philosophy, but what do you think has driven that growth? How intentional have you been about the growth and then what have you put into place so that you can do it successfully?

Jim Pattillo: So I got here from a small insurance defense firm, in 2018, with my practice, which needed some manpower and some help to it. Then we all went home for COVID. During that time, I and another partner, when everyone was sort of backing off business development, marketing, relationship development, we sort of put our foot on the gas during those six months. So when we came back, we had a lot of work we needed to help with. So we went, I think, and I'm going to get the exact numbers and you're wrong, but from about 2021 to now, we went from three associates to, I think, we're at 15 now, in three offices. So a lot of that has been an intentional effort to do some business development, relationship development, network development, but to do it well and do it intentionally. Which for us means, the people we're bringing on board, either as young laterals or lawyers right out of law school, baby lawyers, we need to spend a chunk of our time investing in them, being intentional with them, teaching them the priority of reporting, priority of doing excellent work and not overloading their plates with just tons of billable hours, which we have a billable hour requirement, but we've got to help manage their workload. I always tell some of my partners, I kind of had an epiphany about six or seven years ago that I've never pushed work to a younger lawyer, to an associate and given them responsibility and not had enough to do myself. So I'm sort of blessed to be able to say that. I realize that may be not the case with everyone, but if I'm doing that, I got to make sure the people that I'm working with know how to do, what we're called to do and what we're asked to do, with excellence. So that's sort of our thrust and our growth is, you know, we need to grow, but we don't need to just hire people, shove work off on them and then let them figure it out. If we're going to maintain our work product excellence, which is our best business development tool at the end of the day, then we've got to make sure we're teaching them that priority in the process.

Elise Holtzman: I'm curious, Jim, whether the training that you're doing for the younger lawyers falls primarily into the category of apprenticeship and kind of everyday conversations, or whether there's also a more formal education component there. Because, and it's coming up for me for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I recently did an interview for this podcast with two people, who were talking about the concept that the apprentice model is largely dead at this point. That the world of law has changed so dramatically that we can't just expect lawyers to come in and have them, as you're pointing out, just sort of by osmosis picking up what it means to be a good lawyer.

Jim Pattillo: So two things we do, and I think that's a valid point. I think there are some functional limitations depending on where you practice. If you're in New York or Chicago or even Atlanta, sometimes you better live pretty close to the office, if you're going to be in the office. But here we have a little more accessibility to getting downtown from wherever you live in the Birmingham area. I have my team meet every Monday morning at 8.30 and that sort of serves two purposes. And I've never told them this, so if they're listening, they've probably figured this out already. It does make sure we're in the office and getting our week off to a good start and not strolling in at 9.30 and being behind the eight ball on getting a full day in. So it serves that purpose, but it also serves a chance to connect, ask questions and talk about cases and bounce ideas off each other. And the key to this, the meetings really are literally sometimes five minutes, but we're all in seeing each other's eyeballs, getting the day off to a good start. And oftentimes that'll parlay into some side conversations after we break up. The second thing we've implemented in the last two years is an associate lunch, once a month. So we have a short topic, it could be anything from time entry to business development. One of our most popular ones is one of the partners came and talked about the 401k plan we offer at the firm. Sort of fatherly advice to a group of young lawyers, which was very well received. So put a plate of food in front of people and let's talk about what we do a little bit, without eating into your billable day too much. It's pretty well received.

Elise Holtzman: So obviously you, yourself started out as an associate, as we all did and you've gone from associate to trial lawyer to practice group leader, managing a significant book of business, right. So, you've gone through all the phases that we think of, when we think of a successful lawyer and a successful leader in a law firm. What over time has changed for you, in terms of how you thought about your role and responsibilities at each stage of that progression? And one of the questions I'm going to ask you to think about is, did you feel like you knew what you were doing? And did you feel like you knew what the next role was going to require?

Jim Pattillo: I'll start with the last part of that question. The absolute clear answer is no. We've learned a lot by doing in our growth and we've made some mistakes, but early in a lawyer's career we talk about this with associates. I talk about it all the time, the quality of your work is your best business development tool. It's the best thing you can do with a firm and you can market yourself to current clients and your reputation grows from there. So take care to cultivate your reputation as you move through those stages. But the very earliest stage that I've sort of been in and I try to emphasize this, is that our job as lawyers, especially litigators, is to distill complex information into something digestible, identify decision points that the clients need to make and provide them options, analyze the risk of each option and then provide a recommendation. So that's kind of at the associate stage, what we're focusing on is delivering actionable work product and in addition to courtroom skills, which we're attempting to cultivate.

Elise Holtzman: I want to pause there for a minute.I think that this is a really important point. What you just said is really, really critical, which is that it's not about just giving associates work to do and saying, hey, you know, write this brief, write this affidavit, do this thing. But it is about helping them develop the judgment and the advisory skills. And I know that that's always been something that we need to focus on. And today, I think it's becoming even more critical in an age where AI is going to start being able to do some of the things that we've trained associates on. And so I've said this a million times on the podcast. I know, my daughter is going to want to hurt me, but she's graduating from law school right now and she's going into a large law firm. And I just keep asking the question and I'm talking to professionals about this as well, is how do we take first through fourth year associates and turn them into fifth year and sixth year associates, who have that sort of judgment? So I love that that's something that you're emphasizing, Jim.

Jim Pattillo: Yeah. And in our discussion about what AI looks like for our firm, I think there is a fear out there that AI is going to replace some perfunctory, perhaps, tasks that associates are doing, answering interrogatories and medical summaries and writing reports. But it's not going to replace intuition and it's not going to replace experience with venues and judges and relationships. So we're fumbling through how to use associates in this new era. I think the answer is somewhat they're going to have more tasks that they can handle, more volume, more caseload, because of the tools that are available to them. But they still got to go take a deposition and ask questions and there's still going to be court hearings. So I think there's got to be a recognition of that's not going away and we need to give them opportunities to stand up on their feet and talk and use their personality and use their soft skills. In fact, because the functional aspect of being an associate may be becoming less, they may have more opportunities to expand some of those soft skills that move them, back to your original question, move them from associate to, hey, I'm running a file to, hey, I'm developing my own class. So we're learning, figuring it out and would love to hear from anybody that's doing the same thing.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, and I think a lot of people, certainly in the AI situation, are doing the same thing and as you say, fumbling through and struggling to figure it out. As you've moved into leadership roles, what's changed for you? And was it intentional on your part, or do you think that you were kind of thrown in there and had to figure it out? What did your leadership journey look like?

Jim Pattillo: Specifically, I came, as I mentioned before, in 2018, from a small firm, where I had more work than I could do for myself. I think when I first came to Christian and Small, I brought a year-round clerk with me. That was my help. So it's sort of a constant pull between, I've got to be a producing lawyer, I've got to bill hours and collect for clients and I've also got to be a relationship partner for a lot of clients and develop those relationships. So it's the ability, I think going back to our original topic, is the ability to create people that you can have a trust relationship with, to do some of the work and give them independence. At the end of the day, we're here to generate profit and generate revenue for the firm, but we can't do that if we don't invest in the people that are doing it for us, because then the work product goes down. And your work product is your reputation, that is your business development, that is your marketing.

Elise Holtzman: I know that for you, this investment in your people is very important. And I also know that you talk about not just the individual lawyers that you're developing, but what that looks like across teams. How do you develop consistency across your teams so that your clients know what to expect and are getting what they expect on a regular basis? So regardless of who's handling the matter, how do you build that culture and a litigation practice across teams, rather than just looking at individually, we're looking at Sally and John and that sort of thing?

Jim Pattillo: Yeah. Well, when we talk about teams, I think there's two ways to look at it. One is the team for this particular client. So I've got four people, including myself, that would do work for a large client. We've got to know their guidelines. We've got to know what they ask of us and do that well. We've got to understand what their job looks like and who they're reporting to and help make their job easier. But I've also got a larger team that's Jim's team with five associates and a couple of paralegals. And I've got another partner who has his own team. And we get together and talk. Matter of fact, we had a marketing trip yesterday and we spent the whole trip talking about a lot of things. But part of it was, how can we continue to make our brand and make our reputation consistent across the entire firm? So that sort of led to our monthly associate lunches, because it does need to be a firm-wide reputation. It doesn't need to be just Jim's reputation. So the partners talking to each other about this and knowing that my partner down the hall has the same priorities I do, is important.

Elise Holtzman: So you came from a really small firm and now you're at a firm, I'm not sure we said this, with about 40 attorneys. If you were to magically be dropped into the leadership of a mid-sized firm tomorrow that wanted to grow strategically and become more profitable, what are the first few things that you might be looking at? What would you evaluate and change? Because to your point, as an example, you're thinking strategically. Not every lawyer does that. It doesn't mean lawyers aren't capable of doing it, but often we're not naturally doing that, because we're so busy running around with our hair on fire, trying to serve the clients. The example that you used with your partner down the hall, you're thinking strategically like, hey, Jim's running a great practice here. We've got great people. We're developing those people, but my partner down the hall is trying to do something similar. How do we codify that, let's say, across the whole firm? So what are a couple of things that you would be looking at, when you get into this mid-sized firm to evaluate or to grow or change?

Jim Pattillo: Great question. I think one thing from the equity partner level is that everyone at that level has to have an understanding of not just revenue, but also profitability, revenue minus expense. This is not our firm necessarily, but I find in talking to colleagues around town, not every lawyer who has a great reputation as a lawyer understands that. So you can't throw up some massive origination number and expect that to drive compensation. You have to understand that there's an expense side to it and there's a leverage that you have to focus on as a business. So that's one of the things I look for. The second thing I would look for is do associates understand what I said earlier, sort of a false dichotomy. They have to understand that, yes, you can have a good culture at a firm, but you also have to be a productive lawyer, both in terms of work product and in terms of the revenue you're generating for the firm. I didn't learn much about the business of practicing law in law school, but one thing I learned stuck with me is that I, as an associate, had to understand that the money I generate sort of comes in thirds. One third of it goes to my salary, one third of it goes to general firm overhead, and one third of it goes to firm profit. So I've always sort of kept that in my younger years looking at, all right, am I contributing not just to my own existence, but am I actually a benefit to the firm? So that's something that I think that helps younger lawyers understand that they're an asset to the firm.

Elise Holtzman: I'm sort of shocked that anybody mentioned that to you in law school, because I find that I certainly didn't hear any of that. And I think most of the lawyers, I'm kind of excited about it, most of the lawyers I talk to never heard any such a thing. And we see it in the results that you've seen, which is that partners who have supposedly tremendous books of business, don't even know what their realization rate, they don't know who their best clients are, who their most profitable clients are. There are some clients that they should probably have dropped a long time ago, in favor of clients who maybe are more profitable and pay their bills on time, that sort of thing. And so how do we, to your point, expect the associates to understand this stuff, right? That they say, well, hey, I'm working really hard. I want this sort of salary. I don't want to work these kinds of hours. Are you people insane over here? I think that really educating all lawyers, from the most senior to the most junior on law economics, is really important. And what I do know is that when people start paying attention to the law firm economics, all the rest of it starts to make a lot more sense. And they're able to understand the value that they deliver to the firm and what they can keep doing more of and what they should be doing less of.

Jim Pattillo: Yeah. And just again, coming back to this dead horse I'm beating, they need to understand that, but that's not exclusive to having a good culture. And I think that's sort of been our secret to some of our success the last few years. We've had associates who are hard workers, who are profitable for the firm, but who are also culture positive people. They are assets and move the culture forward. And that creates a great place to work and a great team to be a part of.

Elise Holtzman: In terms of culture, Jim, how intentional are you and perhaps all of your partners, in identifying to people what that culture is? Culture is one of those terms that everybody's been talking about for years now, particularly post-pandemic, because that's something that came to the fore during the pandemic. Are you very clear about articulating what that culture is and then making sure that the people that you have are a good fit? Or is it just more of a, we just want to like each other, we want to feel good about it. We want good, hardworking people here.

Jim Pattillo: Culture is a buzzword that is perhaps co-opted to someone's own desires, or their own things they want to see happen. So it's a good exercise to define that. And for us and this is me speaking, I think, the culture I want to create is that an associate here, or even a non-equity partner who's come over laterally, feels like, you know, the reason I went to law school, I'm getting to do that and do it well and do it with excellence and I'm doing it in a profitable way. You know, they've got to show up to work today to know that I've got a full plate of work to do. And while the practice of law is certainly a grind and we all have days that, you know, that are not as good as others, I generally feel like I'm doing what I felt called to do and the reason I went to law school in the first place. So we want them to take pride in their work, take pride in who they are and who are they becoming as a lawyer. And that's, you know, that's reflected in how they feel coming to work and how they're treated as people here.

Elise Holtzman: So you've talked about a couple of things in terms of building a successful litigation practice, right? They've got to have skills and you want to have the right culture fit and have them understand how important that is. I'm curious, what are some other things maybe that are part of this? Like, are you, and the reason I'm asking these specific questions is, I think so many lawyers who are in leadership roles, who are trying to grow successful practices, whether they're litigation or something else, who have been put in a situation where they're expected to figure this out and bring in the right people and train the right people. I think they're often looking for practical suggestions that they can use. And so this is work that you are intentionally and actively doing. What are some of the other things that come under the heading of associate training? And I'm sort of thinking along the lines, although I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'm thinking along the lines of things like, you know, them stepping into leadership roles or, you know, being able to communicate across generational and personality differences, or being able to manage their own tiny little teams, or even associates managing junior associates or paralegals. What are some of the things that you like to emphasize with the people with whom you're working?

Jim Pattillo: First thing that comes to mind is, you know, we're all gifted with different personalities, different assets, different skill sets. And you need to find, as a young lawyer, a way to employ the way you've been gifted. You can't, as a trial lawyer, a defense trial lawyer, replicate someone else's personality in the courtroom. So, and that's the same with business development. So my first message is, you know, I need to identify people that are comfortable in their own skin and have some of those soft skills we talked about before and then encourage them to be who they were created to be, who they were made to be, how they operate with friends from college, with colleagues, with family. Those relationships and the ability to cultivate relationships are sort of an indicator of success to me. So as part of our Clerk program, we look at some of those soft skills and who we want to bring on board, who we want to ask back and who we may want to hire out of law school. The second thing is and perhaps this is just an obvious oversimplification, but someone whose work product speaks for itself, because that is the best business development tool, as we've talked about. So someone who does quality work, quality reporting, you know, uses the hard skills that law school teaches that perhaps, you know, we may need to evaluate the future utility of some of these things. But if they can produce something in front of a client that the client says, this person understands my job, they understand what I need and I will absolutely hope next time I send a case to Jim, I'll ask this associate to be on the case with me. So those are two things we look for.

Elise Holtzman: For other law firm leaders who are, you know, we're kind of stuck in our generation, right? We think about things a certain way. We know that the younger generation thinks differently than we do. What do you think? Because you've mentioned a bunch of different things, but if there's something else, I'm curious to hear what it is. What do you think younger lawyers today really need from their firms that they're not often getting, right? Like, so rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater and just saying something along the lines of, well, this person just isn't for us, because they can't hack it, or they can't figure it out. What do you think that the law firms can be offering these associates to help grow them into the kinds of people that can become the future business developers and leaders of the firm?

Jim Pattillo: Yeah, I think the short answer to that is time with more experienced lawyers. Having a relationship, whether you call it mentoring formally or not, but knowing I've worked with this, you know, I've got a couple associates that have worked with me for several years and they've been able to, I think, hopefully they would say this experience growth, because I'm accessible, my partners are accessible to them and that's a hard thing to do for some older lawyers, but they've got to realize that, you know, 10 to 15% of your day that you don't get the bill for is an investment in the people that work for you. And I think a lot of firms miss that, because we have people come over here, from other firms, that practice with us, that had no relationship with the partners. They just got an email with some work and were, maybe they had to go ask another associate how to figure that out or even a paralegal, how's this partner like, this sort of thing. So you've got to make yourself accessible to the people that work for you.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. Leadership means actually leading, managing, right?

Jim Pattillo: Yeah, go figure.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. It's like delegation is okay, but abdication is not. So Jim, as we wrap up our time here together today, there's a question I want to ask you that I ask all of my guests at the end of the show. 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 other people. When it comes to growing a team, growing lawyers, creating the kind of culture that you want and being able to put the right team in front of your clients, so that you can be proud of what you do and you can grow the firm and the clients keep coming back. What is a principle or piece of advice that may seem obvious to you, but you think is important for other people to hear?

Jim Pattillo: The most obvious thing, I think, that has become second nature to me, that maybe it wasn't at first, is you need to plan intentionally your investment in other people. It does not happen without you making a plan for it and tracking it and measuring it. So hopefully at the end of this year, I can tell you we've had 12 associate training meetings on these 12 topics. And then I've asked the associates, all right, what else? And when we do associate reviews, for example, our review process is a question to them telling us what they think they need. It's not us telling them what they're doing right, wrong, or indifferent. It's them telling us, how is it going in this practice area? Where do I think I need investment? What do I think I've done well this year? Write it down, be intentional. And one of the best things I've heard as a piece of advice in running any business is, if you want to improve, you need to track it and measure it. So we'll sit down at the end of the year with each associate and look at their hours, look at their financial productivity. But also if we have a time set aside to talk about what they think is going well, hopefully they feel free to offer criticism to me about what I can do better to help them. But just be intentional about it. It doesn't happen unless you sit down and plan it.

Elise Holtzman: That's great, Jim. There's so many nuggets there. I mean, being intentional and not planning it, because we know that lawyers are so busy. They've got so much on their plates and it doesn't necessarily have to happen today. So sometimes it just doesn't happen at all, because there's always a today, where something more urgent seems to need to happen, tracking and measuring things. And then I love this piece about your review process. That is something that I think is probably very, very unusual among law firms. And I think that people should write this one down and see about implementing it. I mean, certainly don't stop telling people, I guess, if there's something that they can improve, or you catch them being good, but certainly ask them, because they know what it is that they're missing and what it is that they need and what it is that they want. So that's really great advice. Thank you so much, Jim. Thanks for being here. It's been a real pleasure having you on the show. And I want to thank our listeners for tuning in as well.

If you enjoyed today's episode, 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.