Episode 338 | Inside Wealthy Woman Lawyer: A Tale of Two Women Law Firm Owners

Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more? Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love.

Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams. Now, here's Davina. I want to tell you about two women. One of them was a solo attorney brilliant, hardworking, successful by every external measure.

She'd been building her law practice for nearly two decades, 6 figures, a thriving referral network, a reputation that was the envy of every lawyer in her small town, and she was running herself into the ground. Her body had started to give her warning signals she couldn't ignore. And somewhere underneath the busyness, a quiet, terrifying question had taken root. What happens to all of this if I can't keep going?

The second woman was also a solo, a single mother, juggling high conflict litigation cases and a daughter's busy schedule with the kind of quiet grit that women in this profession know well. She needed help. She knew she needed help. But the fear of what it would cost to get that help kept her paralyzed.

Two different women, two different circumstances, two different fears. Same result. They were both stuck. And today, I wanna tell you what happened next because what happened next is the reason this podcast exists.

Welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, attorney Davina Frederick. And whether you're joining us for the first time or you've been here from the beginning, welcome. I'm so glad you're here.

This podcast is built on one foundational belief. Women lawyers work too hard, serve too many people, and sacrifice too much to not be well compensated for their efforts with the profits, the flexibility, and the impact that you deserve. In every episode, we're talking about what it takes to scale your law firm from where you are now, whether that's $200,000 $400,000 $600,000 or more, to a true 7 figure wealth generating business, one that serves your clients exceptionally, runs without depending entirely on you, and builds real, lasting equity in your life.

Today, we're going deep on the human side of growth. The fear, the doubt, the moments where women like you stood at a crossroads and had to decide, Do I keep doing this the way I've been doing it? Or do I finally choose differently? I'm sharing two real case studies from women who came through the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Programs.

Their names have been changed, but their stories are completely real. I hope these resonate with you. So let's get into it. Before I share their stories, I want to spend a few minutes on something that I think gets missed in the conversations women lawyers have about growth.

On this podcast, we talk a lot about revenue, systems, and hiring, delegating, and team building. All of these matter, but it's not the full picture. The question that no one is saying out loud but that most of us ask ourselves at one time or another is, what is your law firm costing you? Not in dollars, but in your body, your health, and your relationships, in the things you keep saying you'll do once things settle down and things never settle down.

I remember when I first asked myself that question. I had a law firm that looked fantastic from the outside. I had a great law partner, a team of other attorneys, systems and processes, and plenty of work coming through the door. But something was off.

How could I tell? Because I'd gained 30 pounds, my blood pressure was skyrocketing, and I felt like crap. Through the years, I have worked with hundreds of women law firm owners, and I can tell you the women who are most at risk are not the ones who appear to be struggling. They are the ones who appear to be succeeding.

But behind the scenes, they are succeeding in a way that is slowly, quietly, and unsustainably draining them. They've built something real and impressive. They've become breadwinners of their families. They likely have more than a few accolades and awards in their names.

But what they've built also sucks up too much of their personal time, energy, and health. While they feel something needs to change, they don't know how to do it without breaking everything they've worked so hard to build. If you've ever had the thought, I'm successful, but I feel trapped by my success, then you know what I mean. The good news is that the trap is escapable, maybe not easily or without discomfort, but completely, absolutely escapable with the right guidance, the right strategy, and the courage to act upon it.

Let me show you what that looks like. Let's start with Diane. When I first met Diane, she told me she joined the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Group Coaching Program because she felt desperate. Dianne had built what looked from the outside like a thriving solo practice.

She lived in a rural town, the kind of place where everybody knows everybody. She had an excellent reputation, a steady referral network, and nearly two decades of consistent work behind her. She was earning mid to high 6 figures in annual revenue, and she had a staff, just not other attorneys. She also had side hustles.

Because the law firm, while successful, wasn't paying her what she was worth, she'd found ways to supplement. Nobody could accuse Diane of not working hard, but Diane's body had started sending her a message she could no longer ignore. A serious health diagnosis had made one thing undeniably clear. This life she'd built, the law practice, the side hustles, the constant output was not sustainable.

And here was the conundrum. The same small town culture that made her successful also kept her playing small. While a few attorneys offered the same services she did, they were all solos too. That meant the pool of available talent for hire was slim.

It wasn't impossible to hire an associate attorney in the area where she lived and worked, but it sure felt that way at the time. So, she kept going as she was, and her body kept asking how much longer. So, Diane joined the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Program and started doing the work. Week by week, she watched the materials, attended the coaching sessions, and began applying what she was learning.

The changes felt slow at first. She made some hiring attempts that didn't go as planned. And even when she did start bringing people on, she ran into something many women in this program discover about themselves. She struggled to let go.

She had been doing everything herself for so long that passing work to someone else felt wrong, like a loss of control, like a risk she wasn't sure she was ready to take. She worried, Would her clients trust these new attorneys? Could she trust them? In a small town, reputation is everything.

What if a new associate damaged the name she had spent twenty plus years building? These are not irrational fears, by the way. The fears Diane had were understandable. They were the fears of someone who cared deeply about the quality of her work and the trust her community had placed in her.

But they were also fears that were keeping her in a position where her firm could not survive without her and her body could not sustain the pace. Fortunately, Diane persisted. If you knew her, you would not be surprised. She began to challenge her viewpoint and reassess her options.

A few hires did not work out, but the process helped her gain tremendous clarity. Her goal was to own a wealth generating law firm that could operate even in her absence. And with each challenge, she became more convicted that she could have exactly what she wanted and deserved. Today, Diane owns a 7 figure, wealth generating law firm.

She has a team of four attorneys, including herself and a senior managing attorney. She has a new office building on a main street in town. She has an excellent staff, and she has all the work they want to handle. But what moves me most about Diane's story is not the revenue number.

It's this. She and her husband have taken more bucket list vacations than they ever dreamed of. She's bringing home significantly more personal income and investing to build true wealth. She let go of the side hustles and got her time back.

And when she feels like it, she works from home or an Airbnb in another state with complete confidence in her team. She's also done something that very few lawyers ever do. She has built a business asset she could pass down to her children or sell when the time is right. Diane's health forced her to ask the question that changed everything, but the answer the answer was a choice.

Now let me tell you about Astrid. Astrid was a true solo when she joined the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Group coaching program with no staff at all. She is also a single mother, which means she was not just running a law firm. She was running a household, managing a growing daughter's busy schedule, and handling high conflict litigation heavy cases for demanding clients.

If Diane's story is about a body that finally said enough, Astrid's story is about a mind that kept saying not yet because Astrid knew she needed help. She wasn't in denial about that. What she was in was analysis paralysis. She was afraid that if she hired someone, she wouldn't have the money to pay them, not because of facts, but because of fear that money that came easily could also go easily.

I want to pause here because this fear is among the most common I hear from women law firm owners who are in exactly the right position to grow. They can see the need. They can see the solution. But the fear of the financial commitment keeps them exactly where they are.

Here's what I want you to hear. The cost of not hiring is almost always higher than the cost of hiring. Almost always. But you must be ready to see it that way.

And Astrid wasn't not yet, at least. What shifted for Astrid was something I believe deeply in community. The Wealthy Woman Lawyer Group, other women law firm owners who had been where she was, who had felt the same fear and who had taken the leap anyway, encouraged her. They shared their own stories.

They held space for her fear and then gently, persistently invited her to step past it. And eventually, she did. She hired a paralegal to assist her, and it wasn't long until she realized she had made the best decision ever. She couldn't imagine going back.

But then came the next threshold, and it was a bigger one. Hiring an associate attorney. Paying a paralegal was one thing, but bringing in another attorney felt like a whole new level of commitment, a whole new level of risk. What if it didn't work?

What if she couldn't sustain it? In the meantime, Astrid kept doing the work. She built her systems. She tackled her collections, a significant challenge, and made real progress.

She raised her fees. She set boundaries. She retrained her clients to call her assistant and make appointments instead of calling her personal cell phone at all hours. She learned to withdraw from cases with clients who refused to pay promptly.

Every single one of those actions represented a shift in how Astrid saw herself and her firm. She was moving from the mindset of a solo practitioner who was grateful for every client, no matter how demanding, to the mindset of a business owner who knew and valued her worth. And with each shift, the fear of hiring that associate attorney got a little smaller. When the time came, the perfect candidate never appeared.

What appeared instead was a young associate with potential, not ideal since Astrid didn't have much time to train a newer lawyer, but promising, Astrid took the leap anyway. Because she understood something she hadn't understood before she joined the program, staying stagnant was also a choice, and it wasn't one she was willing to make anymore. Today, Astrid has enrolled in private coaching with Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and she is well on her way to her first seven figure year. A true solo, a single mother, a woman who was terrified to hire someone because she didn't know if she could pay them.

On her way to seven figures, I share these stories together intentionally. Because on the surface, Diane and Astrid seem very different. Diane was well into a twenty year practice. Astrid was still in the early stages of building.

Diane's catalyst was a health crisis. Astrid's was a coaching community that wouldn't let her stay comfortable with her fear. Diane struggled to let go of doing. Astrid struggled to take on the financial commitment of growing.

Different women, different stories, different obstacles. But here is what was the same. Both of them knew on some level that what they were doing wasn't working. Both of them had fears that were keeping them from acting on what they knew.

And both of them needed support, a framework, a strategy, a community, and coaching to finally move. Neither of them did this alone. I want to name that explicitly because there is a cultural narrative in the legal profession, especially for women, that you are supposed to figure it out on your own that needing help is a weakness that asking for guidance is somehow an admission that you're not good enough. That narrative has kept too many brilliant women exactly where they are for too long.

The women who scale successfully are not the ones who figured it all out by themselves. They are the ones who found the right guidance at the right time and had the courage to act on it. They hired before they felt ready. They raised fees before they felt comfortable.

They let go of work before they fully trusted the people they'd hired. They made decisions that felt risky and discovered on the other side that the risk was worth it. That is the pattern. That is the path.

So where are you in that pattern right now? Are you in Diane's story, building hard for years, feeling the unsustainability of it but not sure how to change what's working, even when what's working is also hurting you? Or are you in Astrid's story, knowing exactly what you need to do but afraid of the financial or operational commitment required to do it? Maybe you're in both stories at once.

A lot of women are. Wherever you are, here is what I want you to know. There is a path forward. It is not a mystery.

It has been walked by women who were right where you are. Women who were just as scared, just as uncertain, just as busy, but committed to transformation and built something extraordinary on the other side of that fear. Okay. Depending on when you are listening, here's what I recommend you do right now if you resonated with either of these stories.

If you are hearing this podcast the morning it was published, I want you to join me today at 10:30AM mountain time for a live masterclass. It is called the wealth generating masterclass, five Secrets to Create the Profits, Impact, and Flexibility You Desire. This is not a rehash of surface level tips you've heard before. This is the framework the real one the one that Diane used to go from a solo practice running on her health to a 7 figure firm with four attorneys and bucket list vacations.

The one that Astrid is using right now is on her way to her first million dollar year. The link is in the show notes. Join us this morning at 10:30AM mountain time. I would love to see you there.

If you're listening to this after the fact, no problem at all. Head over to wealthywomanlawyer.com and click the apply button. Book a call with us.

We'll have a real conversation about where your law firm is right now, where you want it to go, and how we can help you get there. If you're a woman law firm owner who is ready to stop running on empty and start building something extraordinary, I want to talk with you. The link is in the show notes. Go to wealthywomanlawyer.

com and click Apply. Thank you for being here today. I'm Davina Frederick, and this has been the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us wealthywomanlawyer.

com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.