Success Tips for Solo Law Firms: An Interview with Adam Sherwin

Adam Sherwin

Attorney at The Sherwin Law Firm

In this episode of the Law Firm Accelerator, we speak with Adam Sherwin, a specialist in real estate litigation based in the Boston area. Adam emphasizes the benefits of working independently, such as freedom and a balanced work-life dynamic, while acknowledging challenges like the lack of immediate colleagues for consultation. He highlights the importance of dispute resolution, efficient administrative management, and leveraging technology. Sherwin shares his marketing strategies, stressing a well-maintained website, consistent content updates, and robust networking. He advises new lawyers to prepare meticulously before starting their practice and warns against over-reliance on AI for legal writing, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and reliability.

New Lawyer Should Prepare Thoroughly Before Launching Their Practice, Focusing on Both Initial Setup and Gradual Growth.

- Adam Sherwin

Attorney at The Sherwin Law Firm

Takeaways

01
Importance of Dispute Resolution: Relevant laws and regulations reduce the adversarial nature of disputes and foster more cooperative and practical resolutions.
02
Efficient Administrative Management: Setting up protocols for client intake, agreements, and payments in advance can help in Administrative management.
03
Leveraging Technology: Sherwin emphasizes the significance of utilizing technology to streamline processes and enhance efficiency.
04
Caution with AI: Sherwin warns against over-relying on AI for legal writing, stressing the importance of maintaining authenticity and reliability.
05
Advice for New Lawyers: He advises new lawyers to thoroughly prepare before establishing their own practice to ensure long-term success.
06
Networking Importance: Building and maintaining a strong professional network is essential for business development and client acquisition.
07
Feedback Utilization: Actively seeking and utilizing client feedback can help improve service quality and client satisfaction.
08
Client Management: Efficient client management strategies are necessary to handle multiple cases and maintain a high standard of service.
09
Need for Self-Discipline: Working independently requires a high level of self-discipline to manage both caseloads and administrative tasks effectively.
10
Client Retention: Personal interaction and utilizing client feedback can enhance loyalty and lead to client retention.

Viktoria Altman (00:00)
Adam, welcome to the Law Firm Accelerator. So nice to have you today.

Adam Sherwin (00:04)
Yes, thank you so much for having

Viktoria Altman (00:05)
I appreciate you coming on. Let’s get right down to business. Can you tell me a little bit about your practice? What do you do?

Adam Sherwin (00:12)
I handle real estate litigation. So I handle any sort of real estate dispute. My focus is the areas of landlord-tenant, property disputes, zoning matters, boundary disputes, and issues like that. I’m based in the Boston area. I’ve been running my practice for the last 10 years.

Viktoria Altman (00:29)
10 years and why did you go into the field of real estate disputes? What led you here?

Adam Sherwin (00:36)
I’ve always been very interested in real estate. I’ve always found it very interesting and just very relevant. I think everyone is impacted by a real estate issue at some point. And I’ve always really kind of enjoyed working in areas of law that I think affect people as a whole. So I’ve always found real estate very interesting. I enjoy litigation. I enjoy the problem-solving and the challenge and the different issues that arise with it. So it’s been a good fit between the two.

Viktoria Altman (01:00)
It makes sense. When you see litigation, are you ending up in court a lot or are you just doing dispute resolution?

Adam Sherwin (01:05)
I do end up in court a bit, dispute resolution is built into that, I think. I always try to look for opportunities to resolve the case, as many of them do resolve, and most of them, really all of them should resolve at some point. Usually trial is not the best outcome in most scenarios. Dispute resolution is a very big part of any litigation practice, I certainly mind.

Viktoria Altman (01:28)
Do you tend to represent landlords, tenants, or third parties?

Adam Sherwin (01:31)
I represent more landlords, I do represent tenants as well. I think it’s a good balance between the two to have perspective on both sides of the issues, both sides of these claims.

Viktoria Altman (01:41)
And what are the hot cases right now? What would you say is the biggest kind of dispute between landlords at the moment?

Adam Sherwin (01:49)
I mean, tends to be the most for a tenant, the bigger issue is usually a situation where a tenant isn’t able to pay rent. That’s probably the biggest, the biggest scenario that brings people into cases. But there’s also the different scenarios of, you know, problems with conditions of apartments or tenants not receiving a security deposit back or disputes like that. We tend to see a lot of the same issues kind of pop up in different, different scenarios.

Viktoria Altman (02:14)
That makes sense. So why did you decide to start your law firm? Why not work for somebody else?

Adam Sherwin (02:19)
I had worked as a staff attorney for a nonprofit organization that eventually had to shut down. So I was in a position where I needed to kind of make my next move. And I had been looking at it while doing my practice. I’ve always kind of enjoyed working for myself and thought it’d be a good fit. And it’s been a really good ride so far. I enjoy it. It has a lot of challenges at times, but it’s been very rewarding being able to do my practice areas, find my clients, and kind of work on my terms.

Viktoria Altman (02:47)
Yeah, the freedom is nice, right?

Adam Sherwin (02:48)
It was very nice. Yeah.

Viktoria Altman (02:49)
So a lot of people I talk to are interested in growing their firm and having more people under them. And in our pre-interview, you mentioned you’re quite happy with where you are. Tell me, how did you get to that point? And why the a difference between a lot of other people and yourself?

Adam Sherwin (03:05)
I think some firms grow too quickly, in my opinion. Think there’s always a push, and I hear it a lot when I’ve gotten to a lot of different bar events and social events. Usually, that’s when the first people ask, when are you gonna hire associates and bring people out? I think there’s always an expectation that a solo practice has to become a medium-sized firm or a large firm at some point. But I think it changes the dynamic of how you practice when you start bringing on staff and attorneys, your overhead increases, which means your rates to some have to change, your equipment, your subscription services, and your office space. It changes the dynamic and in turn it also kind of changes what kind of cases you’re taking on in some respect. I think that when you become too big, some cases aren’t legitimate, they’re not viable.

For a solo attorney to take on. And I think it changes the practice of that. And I’ve kind of decided over the years that I was comfortable, comfortable where I was. It was a good life, work-life balance. And I was getting what I wanted out of it too. And I just decided along the way I wasn’t ready to make that leap. I know some people who have, know some people who have grown their practices and are very happy about it. I’ve also met people who have grown their practices and it’s kind of backfired. It’s changed the kind of lawyer they want

Viktoria Altman (04:19)
Yeah, there is a lot of freedom and upsides to practicing on your own. And I know many of our listeners have their solo practice. What are some of the downsides of being on your own like this?

Adam Sherwin (04:29)
I think that when you’re on your own you don’t necessarily have someone in the office to always kind of bounce ideas back and forth on. I think I have a network of people I could pick up the phone and ask questions about any time that I want. But you don’t necessarily have someone in the office to work on cases or bounce ideas around all the time has its challenges. I know for a fact that there are times when having a second opinion would have been helpful in certain matters. So I think that kind of isolation can be a real challenge at times.

Viktoria Altman (05:00)
So what do you do for lower level work like receptionist type work or do you do that yourself or do you outsource it?

Adam Sherwin (05:05)
I do it myself. I try to take advantage of as many services that can help with that. I use a calendar service that kind of replaces the need for a secretary. I have an answering service that goes to my cell phone, so I don’t need a landline or necessarily someone answering it. And I found different mail services and print services that kind of help with that.

But I do think when you don’t have staff, you do have to take on some of that administrative stuff yourself. And that can be a challenge. Before a trial is usually the most stressful. Trials, oftentimes, you’re putting together trial exhibits, you’re getting exhibits together, which would normally be the work of a paralegal. But when you’re on your own, you do it yourself. And it has its challenges. It’s not the easiest to do, but I think it’s very manageable. And I think if you take advantage of technology and build systems and work on it, I think you can make it work for you.

Viktoria Altman (05:58)
Yeah, that’s a good point. By the way, Adam, if you’d be willing to share some of those resources, I’d love to post them in the comments because I know many of our listeners are looking for a good answering service or a good paralegal service or a good bookkeeping service, all that stuff. So I’d love to have any resources you’re willing to share.

Adam Sherwin (06:18)
Yeah, I use a service calendar. I don’t know if I’m saying I always think I’m always butchering the name. I think it’s a calendar, but it integrates with your calendar. So if you need to set up an appointment, you send someone a link and then they can go ahead and schedule a meeting with you. And to me, that saves an enormous amount of time. Enormous amount of time and scheduling matters. I use a service letter stream. You could mail it from your computer. So if you draft a letter, you can upload it and send out, sent out right away.

I tell all lawyers to get a scanner. If you can go paperless as much as possible, that saves quite a bit. I use SnapScan, which I think a lot of lawyers do. A high speed, it’s expensive, but it’s a higher end, but it’s a high-speed scanner that’s worked wonders. I’ve had it for over 10 years and I use a Microsoft Surface for my computer. It functions as a tablet. So when I’m in court, I can pull it out and I don’t have to print out necessarily all my documents to take to court. I can bring them to my computer. I can also do work in between sessions or on the road. So it makes getting work done much easier.

Viktoria Altman (07:22)
Yeah, that, you know, it’s funny because people think, well, those are such small things, but when you’re putting together a team or an office or even you by yourself, having, you know, a service like Calendly using it is going to save you hours. And it’s those little details that I think make a big difference in terms of the quality of life you can have as a lawyer. So I appreciate you sharing them.

Adam Sherwin (07:44)
Yeah, they add up quickly. Small things like that make a very big difference.

Viktoria Altman (07:48)
They do, yeah. So, you market yourself very well. You’ve mentioned that you do very well and you work on your own. What are the top marketing strategies that you are using to kind of get your name out there?

Adam Sherwin (08:00)
I usually tell them when newer lawyers ask me about marketing, usually say that don’t think marketing is very hard, but marketing is just a lot of work. It’s something you have to be consistent about. The rule that I kind of follow is on occasion I ask myself if, you know, what’s the last thing I’ve done to market myself? And if I can’t think of that answer very quickly, it’s been too long. So I try to make sure that I’m building it in regularly.

The advice that I kind of follow over years I think is very, you know, pretty straightforward. It’s worked out very well. I have a website. I put a lot of time into it. You know, when I started, I worked on it off hours on weekends and at night. And from here, I haven’t had to do as much work on it, but you know, I still try to update it as much. But I try to put out blog posts and fresh content. What I’m doing on interests, topics, I think people, clients that I’m looking for are searching online. And I found that over time that’s become incredible.

Incredible marketing matter. Get calls now from all the time from very interesting clients. I’ve received interviews, I’ve made media appearances, and I met a lot of people just through my website alone, just people who’ve been searching in the topics, the areas that I work on. So I found the website to be a very valuable tool.

Viktoria Altman (09:10)
Yeah, you mentioned before that you like to write and I mentioned that most of my clients don’t. have one who also loves to write. What would you say to the lawyers out there who maybe feel like their website is not benefiting them? What do you think they should be doing differently in terms of just your pure experience?

Adam Sherwin (09:29)
I think the first thing I think is you need the bare minimum for a website. It doesn’t make sense to promote something that isn’t a good product to begin with.

So if you have a website and it has broken links, if it’s out of date, it has a bad picture. But it’s not a good website to begin with. It’s not worth putting time into trying to promote a bad website. So get a good website. If you can do it yourself, there are plenty of tutorials and resources out there. If you can’t do it, I would find someone to get the bare bones going. Once you’re at that point, then I think it’s just a matter of putting content out on a basis. I heard this from a marketing consultant that I heard years ago, you know, and made a great point that if you write 500 words a day on

If you do a blog post of 500 words, 500 times $252, 352 days a year, you do the math, that’s enormous. I think it’s over 10,000 words of fresh content, and Google’s gonna pigment up very quickly over time, over a couple of months of doing that. So I think consistency and just putting in the time for it is the trick. So I’d say start writing, it takes a bit to get going, but in a couple of months, I think you get the hang of it very well.

The rewards of doing so really speak for themselves.

Viktoria Altman (10:40)
Yeah, it’s unique when lawyers are writing for themselves. I love it when my clients write for themselves because, know, we could take the blog post that you made that’s not like anything out there, and then we can promote it by creating backlinks and doing all this work and making a PR. And I can take a unique piece of content, right, and make it so much more powerful than, you know, a piece of content that was written to be similar to many other pieces of content out there.

So having that unique advantage is huge for you and for a couple of other people I know. That’s cool.

Adam Sherwin (11:13)
Yeah, yeah, no, I’m doing the, you’re gonna know, you know the SEO, the marketing, the kind of the real in-depth parts of what I’m doing. I’m doing the bare minimum. You know, I’ve learned just enough to get by, but there’s an infinite number of ways to market yourself online. And that sounds like, you sound like the real expert for that. That’s fantastic. It’s a great resource to have.

Viktoria Altman (11:35)
Yeah, well, you know, we all have our jobs we’re good at. This is mine. But I don’t know much about real estate law. Okay, so you do a lot of writing, which is amazing and hard, I think as well. What else do you do to promote yourself to make sure that your one-person firm succeeds and you get the best kind of cases?

Adam Sherwin (11:51)
I try to keep in touch with other lawyers. Mean getting to know other lawyers I think is critical. The longer you practice the more known you are.

You have a book of business and you have people who are coming in and no one can do all the possible cases they’re always getting. Lawyers are always looking to refer. I refer all the time, I get stuff that I can’t do and I’m willing to send it out. So the more lawyers I know, the more I can send out on my end. So I think getting to know other attorneys is invaluable and I tell that to anyone starting is get to know attorneys. Mean, focus on anyone who has a law degree. Focus especially on the attorney who’s been doing this for a while. Focus on someone who has 15, 20, or 25 years of experience, they’ve got a book of business. They know exactly what they wanna do and they probably have easily dozens of different cases they don’t wanna do. And they’d be more than happy to help someone out by giving referrals. So I think just getting to know other attorneys over time works out very well.

Viktoria Altman (12:48)
What are your strategies for meeting lawyers? Are you going to conferences? Are you asking for email introductions? And how do you keep in touch with

Adam Sherwin (12:55)
I think the bar associations are a great way to do that. If you join the bar association, I’ve been involved in two bar associations and chair of different committees there. Anytime I’ve been involved, we’re always looking to do events, we’re always looking to get people involved. So if you show up there very quickly, you’re gonna get to know people and get put into doing something. And that’s a great way to meet other attorneys. It’s also a great way if you’re looking for a job, if you’re a newer attorney and you’re trying to market showing up to bar associations as much as possible.

Viktoria Altman (13:26)
That’s a really good point. Do you do anything special to keep in touch with people? Do you email them on occasion? Sometimes it’s easy to meet somebody, but it’s a little bit more difficult to build that relationship. Do you have any tips for new lawyers on how to build relationships?

Adam Sherwin (13:40)
I’ll be honest, I’m not the greatest about that. I’ve always struggled with that too. Think it’s the hardest part is how you keep a relationship going. So I’m not the best at that too. I think when you’re in a bar association, you’re kind of forced to do that. You come to events, you come to meetings regularly. So that’s something to be said about that. You’re constantly in other people’s eyes. I use LinkedIn as well. I try to put out a post every week or so just to kind of remind you.

Remind people what I’m doing regularly. Think it’s pretty easy to meet someone you don’t know a lot about them. It’s kind of easy to forget what they do regularly. And I think that if you generally remind them what kind of work you’re doing over time.

Viktoria Altman (14:21)
Yeah, LinkedIn is a good idea. It’s just that sometimes it feels so spammy, like, you know, everybody on there is trying to spam someone, you know, trying to sell you something.

Adam Sherwin (14:28)
Yeah, that’s the truth. So I think you have to try to put out original content on LinkedIn.

Viktoria Altman (14:35)
So you’ve gone back to the writing stuff.

Adam Sherwin (14:37)
Yeah, I think it was a short blog post of, you know, 10, 15 minutes, a quick post about what’s going on.

Viktoria Altman (14:43)
Are there any other social media you like to use to promote

Adam Sherwin (14:46)
I’m, I mean, everyone’s on Facebook. I don’t promote myself on Facebook. I mean, I’ve heard of some people who’ve had luck with it. I don’t think it works well for me, at least for what I’m doing. So no, I’ve tried, I tried YouTube for a while. I think YouTube’s a little too much work for, you know, for, marketing. I think it’s a great marketing idea for certain places, but I think, I think creating YouTube videos is just too much time, too time intensive for, at least for, my purposes.

Viktoria Altman (15:14)
Yeah, it certainly can be. So we’ve got, you do a lot of writing, you do some LinkedIn posting, you do some networking or a lot of networking it sounds like. Is there anything else that you would say is a good way to market somebody like yourself, you know, for other folks out there who are looking for new pathways to market?

Adam Sherwin (15:31)
Yeah, I would say I’m trying to do online reviews. I do Google, think because Google is the biggest name around. I mean, some people do Avvo and they do different customer services, but I think Google is the best. So I’d set up a Google account, and Google listing, and just start encouraging people to give you reviews. And I think it takes off very well. I don’t have any math about this. It’s just my kind of observation. But I think once you start getting past for

You start getting past six or seven good reviews, that’s when it takes off. People start noticing. Every account has at least one or two.

Or two out there, a couple of reviews, but when you start getting six or seven, that’s when you get noticed. You know, if you have an account and you’re not encouraging people to put reviews, the bad reviews kind of show on the top. And I think that you can crowd that out because there’s always going to be someone, a disgruntled, you know, a potential client who wants to put up something on there or some bad experience. And you can crowd that out very easily by getting good reviews, getting good reviews, encouraging people to do

Viktoria Altman (16:37)
That’s a great tip. Certainly have good basic SEO knowledge that a lot of people don’t. You mentioned before that you ask everybody who you work with for a review. So I’m going to share a little tip with you and our listeners. According to Google’s terms of use, you can ask for a review from anybody who’s had a professional interaction with your company. So if somebody called you for free, yeah. So if somebody calls you for like a free, consultation, you can ask them, you know, even though I can’t handle the case, if you felt that this was helpful, please leave me a review. You can ask for a review from your colleagues, anybody who’s had professional interaction, they don’t have to be your client, even if they just, you know, spoke to you for five minutes, technically, they can give you a review. So that gives you a whole new source of reviews, especially if you are probably getting a lot of calls from people just asking for free advice. I’m sure that happens a lot.

Adam Sherwin (17:29)
Yeah, it certainly does. The other tip I would give too is I think all the time, you know, a friend or family member will have someone who has an issue and they ask you to spend a few minutes on the phone. You go ahead and oftentimes I’m able to help them and answer the question. You know, they very graciously always want to pay and I’m not going to take their money. But the quick follow-up to that is if you could leave me a review online, that’d be passing. They’re thrilled because they want to help you somehow. They’re going to write you a perfect review. And actually, it’s better than payment because a five-star review is worth its weight, you know, 10 times over.

Adam Sherwin (17:59)
worth its weight, you know, 10 times over.

Viktoria Altman (18:01)
Yeah. And so your guess about the algorithm is correct. I estimate about 65 % of the algorithm on the Google My Business List, the Google Business Profile is due to the review. So most of it is due to your proximity to the searcher, but more of it is, not most of it like about 35 % is due to your proximity to the searcher. And then probably 35 % is due to how many reviews you have and good reviews. Yeah. So the other thing that a lot of people don’t realize is the keywords that somebody uses in the review, such as let’s say real estate attorney or, you know, foreclosure attorney or whatever the case may be. When somebody searches for those keywords, you’re much more likely to come up with those keywords that are actually in your review naturally, of course.

Viktoria Altman (18:51)
So yeah, you can, if you ask people to leave more specific reviews, that can kind of help, that can help you show up more.

Adam Sherwin (18:58)
Interesting.

Viktoria Altman (18:58)
Okay, so what are your goals for the future of your practice? I know you’re happy. Are you just looking to stay where you are? Are looking to do something different? Are you looking to grow?

Adam Sherwin (19:09)
I’m very, very happy with where my practice is. Everyone got hit during COVID, but I came out of COVID in very good shape and I’ve had very good years after. So I’m very happy where I am. I’m just kind of hoping to continue as is and see where the future leads.

Viktoria Altman (19:24)
I gotcha. For folks out there who are trying to figure out, they venture out on their own or, you know, stay in a firm or maybe, you know, they’re just graduating. What was your process like for deciding to open your loan law firm? What was the decision? What was the sort of, you know, the negative and positive behind it? And why did you end up doing it yourself?

Adam Sherwin (19:46)
I built up to it slowly. Thought that was where I was headed. I got a logo, I got insurance, and I kind of started setting it up. And that’s one thing that if you’re looking to go out on your own, you can do a lot of those things in advance. If you see yourself heading in that direction, a lot of the buildup for that can be done off hours, can be done weekends and evenings. And I think getting the bare bones together can help you later on.

Determining, for example, what practice management system you’re going to use. If you’re going to take, when you take on a client, what’s your fee agreement going to be? What’s your protocol for payment? All that can be determined ahead of time, and that makes it very expeditious because when you hit the ground running, you have to get into the marketing. You have to get into the running of the practice, but a lot of that can be done in advance. So I started that out, and I was in a position where I had to kind of go out on my circumstances. Having that in place is very helpful. So that’s what I would say is if you’re in a position where you can kind of gradually lead up to a launch, that’s very helpful. If you’re in a position where you could actually start your practice on the side and start it out slowly, that would be even better. It may not be practical in some cases, but if you’re a brand new attorney and maybe you have a side job and you’re kind of working to get the practice. I think that’s even better if you’re in a position to do that.

Viktoria Altman (21:05)
Make sense. What would you say sounds like you did a lot of things right? What would you say is the thing that you did wrong? The one failure that you’re like I wish I didn’t do that.

Adam Sherwin (21:14)
I think I didn’t focus on growth as quickly as I wanted to. Got out, I had a good stream of cases, but the kind of work I was doing in the beginning years wasn’t really, it wasn’t bringing in the kind of income and it wasn’t the work that I wanted. And I didn’t focus as much on really getting to that next level. And I think in the last couple of years I’ve done that, but I wasn’t focusing on getting the kind of clients and getting that. So I think you have to focus on growth as well at different points of the stage.

You can hit a plateau in running your own business. And I think at some point you have to look at that and decide when you’re ready to take that next step.

Viktoria Altman (21:49)
Who is your ideal client?

Adam Sherwin (21:50)
I think a tightly-detailed client, I enjoy working, I guess, with a lot of property management companies and different businesses where I can kind of build a relationship, and when legal issues happen, they know me. It’s a matter of just kind of sending the file over. So I enjoy that. I enjoy the institutional guys. I enjoy all my clients, but I think that that’s in particular, that’s kind of a fun role. And when you’re representing an entity that has ongoing legal needs, you can build a rapport with them. You have kind of a good, two-way relationship.

Viktoria Altman (22:22)
And that’s a really good client to have, right? Because still, you don’t need to be doing outreach or you don’t need to be like trying to get the client. They already become your client and then they come to you and it’s very, it’s almost like a passive way of continuing to earn, you know, the client’s trust, which is cool.

Adam Sherwin (22:37)
Yeah, it works out. It’s not feasible for every type of law, but if you can get those clients, it’s something to look out for.

Viktoria Altman (22:45)
And did you meet those folks at conferences or the bar association meetings? How did you come across them?

Adam Sherwin (22:53)
Just online. Mean, just online through my online marketing. Some of the, you know, some major businesses and corporations and the very large entities, I don’t know how they find lawyers. Maybe word of mouth, maybe just, you know, years of practice and just custom or what have you. But I think people would be surprised to know that, you know, small, medium-sized businesses and other large entities look for attorneys in some cases, just as you and I do. I think there’s kind of a stereotype, I think, for smaller attorneys that we don’t serve larger businesses or corporations and larger entities, and I just don’t think that’s the case.

Viktoria Altman (23:31)
Yeah, there is no reason why you can’t. You can always get more help if you need it. Is there any marketing trick that you could share that I didn’t ask you about? Anything that could be of help to people?

Adam Sherwin (23:34)
Yeah, absolutely. I think if you’re going to try any kind of marketing that you do, you have to kind of stick with it for a little bit. We all kind of dabble. Like I tried the Facebook ads. Think we all have. I’ve jumped on Google keywords. I mean, we all dabble a bit, but I think it’s rare to find a marketing area that doesn’t require some time to pull off. Whatever your marketing plan is going to be, I think you have to stick with it for a couple of months to make it worthwhile.

Viktoria Altman (24:09)
Stay away from shiny objects syndrome.

Adam Sherwin (24:12)
There’s a lot of them out there, that’s for sure.

Viktoria Altman (24:14)
Yeah, it’s funny. You are like the fourth of the fifth lawyer to mention that in a row. I think because there are so many products that are oriented to attorneys and there’s so many people trying to sell you and there’s a lot of good salespeople out there. So they’re like, try this, try this. And it’s hard not to get excited.

Adam Sherwin (24:31)
Yeah, exactly you can very quickly spend a lot of money on marketing. It’s a blink of an eye. You can be committed to quite a bit of

Viktoria Altman (24:38)
Yeah, I think that’s a very valuable tip. I sometimes have people come to me and kind of say, well, I want to do ads and I want to do SEO and I want to do this. And I’m like over here going, okay, one thing at a time. If we try to do everything, we’re going to get nothing. You know, so you have to have your branding first. We have to understand your unique value proposition and we have to be able to have a website that represents your unique value proposition. We have to have the right content and the right pictures. You know, even things like colors make a difference in terms of presenting yourself. But yeah, it’s difficult not to get overly excited.

Adam Sherwin (25:11)
Yeah, absolutely.

Viktoria Altman (25:12)
Especially when things are moving quickly. And let’s talk a little bit about AI. Are you using AI? What are your tips for folks out there on how to use AI to its best capacity?

Adam Sherwin (25:22)
I don’t use AI. I do use several services like I’m helping writing. I use Grammarly. I don’t know if I might be butchering that name.

It’s an editing software that kind of makes suggestions as you write. It’s a little more than just spell check proofreading or grammar check. So I like that. I find that very useful, but I don’t use, I don’t use AI. I think AI is a bit hyped. Think it’s, you know, I think there’s a lot of emphasis on that. I would tell lawyers to be a little, a little careful about getting into it. Here in Massachusetts, there was a story about an attorney who used AI and write a brief and got sanctioned for it. AI was pulling out sites and stuff that and he got in a lot of trouble for it. So I would be careful. I would be careful with AI. The same goes with blogging too. I could very easily see an AI post for a blog that just doesn’t sound authentic.

Viktoria Altman (26:10)
Yeah, I have a story about that. Had a client right after he came out, he sent me this article and I’m like, and I don’t normally check clients, you know, sources, but I was like, something about this doesn’t feel right. And there’s all these, there’s all these cases cited and I’m like, and I’m clicking on it and it’s not working. And I’m like, let me go Google this. I’m like, did you check these cases? He’s like, wait, don’t post that.

Adam Sherwin (26:29)
Yeah, don’t post it. Yeah, exactly.

Viktoria Altman (26:33)
Because it sounded so good. It was a perfect case. It was perfect case law for what he was writing. You got to be careful with the technology. Okay. I appreciate you joining me today, Adam. This was super helpful. yeah, I’d love to, if you can think of any additional sources for our listeners, I would love to hear them. Stay with me because we need to finish uploading this and I will see you guys next time.

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