Guest Victoria Collier: From Law Practice to Lucrative Business: Strategies for Building and Selling a Successful Law Firm

Ever wondered what it takes to turn a law practice into a thriving business? Get ready to unlock the secrets in our enlightening conversation with Victoria Collier, a seasoned entrepreneur with over 20 years of legal experience. Victoria reveals how she transitioned from law practice to business, built and sold her own seven-figure law firm, and ventured into the veterans benefits industry. She unearths her passion for teaching lawyers the art and science of creating turnkey law offices, sharing insights from her transformative 18-year law practice journey.

We continue our conversation with Victoria as she shares her top three steps for creating a firm that is irresistible to buyers: automation, team, and automatic marketing. Discover how you can amplify the value of your firm before sale and avoid common pitfalls. We also explore the best scenario for someone looking to fetch the maximum for their firm, the timeline for a successful sale, and the critical element of making the firm appealing to prospective buyers. This episode is brimming with knowledge and experience that can significantly aid lawyers planning their exit strategy.

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Transcript

Jennifer Goddard: 0:01

You're tuned in to the Marketing Lawcast with Jennifer Goddard. This is where estate planning and elder law firms turn for high-octane marketing strategies and powerhouse success stories. Brace yourselves for game-changing digital marketing tips, professional sales training and exclusive interviews with industry gurus and top-tier attorneys, smashing the six and seven-figure barrier. It's time to drive your practice to success. Welcome to the Marketing Lawcast.

Jennifer Goddard: 0:39

Good morning. This is Jennifer Goddard with the Marketing Lawcast, and I'm here today with my guest, victoria Collier. Victoria is a seasoned entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in the legal industry. In addition to building and selling her own seven-figure law firm, she's been coaching lawyers since 2008 on how to add value to their law firms. As the founder and CEO of Quidpro Quo, it is her mission to teach others the art and science to creating turnkey law offices, positioning to transition and selling for profit. Victoria holds certifications in exit planning and business valuations, so there's the formality out of the way. So, victoria, you and I have known each other for a long time. We've been friends for at least 10, 15 years, and when I first met you, you were working in VA benefits and estate planning. Can you tell us a little bit about your law firm experience?

Victoria Collier: 1:39

Sure, absolutely, and thank you for having me, jennifer. So I started my own law firm right out of law school in 2023. I actually graduated in 2002. Sorry, 2002, not 2023.

Jennifer Goddard: 1:57

I was going to say that 2002.

Victoria Collier: 2:01

And I knew I was going to start my own law firm. There's six months between when you graduate and when you actually get your bar license, at least in the state of Georgia. And so I found a person who was actually miserable at what he was doing, which was family law, and I said come work with me and let's use your bar license, but we're going to do elder law. And I chose elder law because I had been a nurse's aide in a nursing home when I was younger, just loved, loved, loved the population, and I could be with them all day long and not get paid for it. But then I found that hey, there's this somewhat new industry I mean, it really only came to fruition in the 1980s, 1990s, with the National Academy of Elder Law attorneys and so I flooded the market with my application, first, you know, as far as my resume, to see if I could work for someone else. But in Atlanta at that time, in 2002, there was only like five lawyers who did elder law and they were all soul practitioners. None of them really cared to add anyone to their staff. And so I opened my own firm, and I'm so grateful that I did.

Victoria Collier: 3:12

And then, a year later the partner that I brought in. He retired, which was good for both of us, and what I learned was that, while helping people in the traditional elder law firm which meant at that time Medicaid planning was that many people live in assisted living and they have to prematurely go to nursing homes because they run out of money. And that's where I really learned about the veterans benefits was that how can we keep these people in the assisted living and maybe even at home so that they don't have to prematurely go to nursing homes? Because I had worked in nursing homes and while I think it's a great place when someone needs that level of care, sometimes we don't need that level of care. We just are there because we don't have the money.

Victoria Collier: 4:00

And so that was what then started my career in teaching and coaching other lawyers was I had one particular client that said why didn't anyone know it? Why didn't anyone tell us about this benefit? And she had been, her mother-in-law had been in the facility for four years and they were dead broke. And I basically cried right along with her and said because nobody knows about it. And that's when I decided people are going to know about this and not just one-on-one individual veterans in the facilities, but lawyers as well, and so I started teaching lawyers about veterans benefits back in 2006, 2008.

Jennifer Goddard: 4:36

Yeah, I think that's kind of when we our paths crossed, we were really on the forefront, a real leader in that movement.

Victoria Collier: 4:45

I was on the pension side. Certainly, there's been lawyers helping service connected disabled veterans since the beginning of time, but this pension for wartime veterans, which is only available for people who served in a wartime period, who generally don't have service connected benefits, can get this, and that's why so many people don't know about it, because you know you've gotten out of the service 40 years before you have a disability that's not related to your service, and now you need this benefit. And so how I was able to help, primarily in addition to the veterans, was this is a whole segment, a whole new line of business for estate planning lawyers and elder law attorneys, and so that way they could not only help more and better in better ways, but it was a whole new income stream for them. And so you were right. It was, I was on the cutting edge, and as part of that, I was also on the butcher block. You know I mean.

Victoria Collier: 5:42

I had the coming down on me I had I mean seriously. I thought the VA was going to come and shut me down as a lawyer and still today I I co own a business that all we do is help veterans apply for veterans benefits, and every day I think they're going to come in and shut us down. Somebody's going to try to.

Jennifer Goddard: 6:03

So yeah, that's what, that's what they're good for. So you built this amazing law practice and then the kind of kind of the next thing that I heard from you was you were in a new in a new business. I would. I would love to hear the story of that transition.

Victoria Collier: 6:20

Yeah Well, I love my law practice. I had it for 18 years and again, I love, love, love the population. We serve seniors and helping them preserve what they had created so that they would not have to sacrifice their quality of life or their quality of care. And so bringing it back to veterans, you know, there were moments throughout having my law firm that I thought about exiting for various reasons, but the moment that stuck was when I was about to give a presentation on Veterans Day in front of veterans and there was a woman sitting in the front row waiting for the presentation and she started heckling me and I thought why am I doing this? You know, and I don't mean, why am I up here on this presentation? Because I love being on stage. You know that. And not, why am I talking about veterans benefits? Because I love that. I myself am a veteran, so I mean it's a natural connection. But why am I still doing this? Because it just wasn't right for me anymore. And when I realized that, then I knew it wasn't right for my clients anymore either. And so then I put in a strategic plan to get my office in shape so that I could sell it. I did not have the option of just closing the doors, like what has been the history and tradition of law firms.

Victoria Collier: 7:47

I was 48 years old when that decision was made. I was 50 when I actually sold it and I didn't have a huge nest egg. I still have minor children and I have a spouse that hasn't worked since my children were born, so I'm the sole provider, and so I needed seed money to fund my next two businesses. One was a farm, so I bought a farm and that was primarily for my children my daughter specifically and then also to help other lawyers be able to exit their practices. One thing to keep in mind is that, you know, when I was coaching lawyers from 2008, all the way up through you know now, most of them were much older than me. You know they were already in their 50s and 60s when I was teaching in 2008, 2009, 2010. So when they saw that I had sold my practice, I was getting a lot of calls saying, hey, can you help me do the same? Can you help me do the same? And so, while this business was going to be supplementing the farm, it actually turned around the other way around.

Jennifer Goddard: 8:56

I can imagine that there is a lot of demand. If you would please, victoria, kind of walk me through what you see. I know you've been coaching people on this. What is the common? Or if there are common threads, that where an attorney gets to the point where they say I would like to sell my practice, what's kind of that thought process? And I know there's probably more than one, right.

Victoria Collier: 9:20

What I hear most often, and what is surprising to me, is that the people are younger than I would have thought.

Victoria Collier: 9:30

They're actually my age, in their early 50s, and they're contemplating exiting their practice, maybe not this year, but within the next three, five, 10 years, and so people are starting to think about it sooner than I think ever before, and what I see a lot is I this is not the words they use, but I'm not fulfilled. I think this was supposed to look different than it is, and I want something different. I just don't know what that is or how to get there, but ultimately they're burned out, they're tired. They're soul practitioners in many cases, and so they want connection, they want collaboration, but yet they don't want staff members, they don't want to manage anybody. And those who do have team members many of them. What I'm seeing is I've built a great team, I want to take care of them, but I want something different. I want to be young enough to enjoy the next phase, whatever that is for me, and so that's what I hear more than anything.

Jennifer Goddard: 10:37

Right, right, you know, I hear that a lot as well. So when someone comes to you and they say kind of those words, or at least that's those subtitles, right, those are the subtitles what do you tell?

Victoria Collier: 10:51

them. Well, first we have to find out are you truly burned out or do you truly want to get out? Because we can get out from being burned out and keep our practice and fall in love with it again, right, and I don't want someone to prematurely exit their firm and then regret that decision in the future just because they're burned out, right. So how do we discover that and provide the self care that's necessary and provide the structure around the firm that they can love again, that they can love again and that may not be me as their coach, that might just be identifying. That is the real issue. Why don't you get to somebody who can help you with that, if they truly do want out, which I can tell fairly early on, because they have visions of what they would be doing afterwards, unless it's time to retire. I mean, there's sometimes people that are 75 years old that say it's just time I'm that age.

Victoria Collier: 11:44

I don't know what I'm gonna do afterwards, but that's different feel than the burned out feel. So if they truly want to exit, then and it would be right for them and we help them visualize the future, what that is Then certainly the first step of that is getting a valuation. So we see where are we starting from and where do you need to be for your next phase to be. So the first step is are you burned out or do you really wanna get out?

Jennifer Goddard: 12:13

So I think I have a client, that I may have several clients that are working with you, that I don't know everybody, but I know of one who's working with you and she's in that position where she's not unhappy with her firm but she's looking towards a retirement because she has other things she would like to do. So I know that some of the things that she's doing is just kind of like you said, getting her ducks in a row, getting her practice so that it runs better without her there.

Victoria Collier: 12:43

Right, right. And that is if someone wants to get true value paid to them. The more disconnected you can be from your firm, the more valuable it is to someone else, the more money they're willing to pay for that, because many buyers are not gonna wanna come in and be you as a lawyer. The buyers of today are entrepreneurial lawyers who want to own businesses that create passive income. What's not passive if they have to walk in and be the lawyer? And so, yes, automation, team, automatic marketing are the top three things that we would wanna put in place. And then we monitor that through looking at the data and the numbers. You gotta be on top of those numbers. Without that, you can't even begin to see what kind of firm you have, much less prove the value of it. Right?

Jennifer Goddard: 13:36

what are some of the biggest mistakes that lawyers make before they come to you? That kind of puts them in a position where it's very difficult to sell the practice.

Victoria Collier: 13:46

I would say that the biggest mistake is that they have decided that they don't have any options and they start winding down beforehand. And then now they're like oh well, somebody told me that I could sell this, let's do a valuation. I'm like but now you have no staff yet You've let them all go. You've stopped taking cases.

Victoria Collier: 14:04

So, where is the value? And so that's hard. And so the hard part is number one, saying you may not have value because of that. I mean, really what we're doing in that case is we're selling a book of business which is just your list, and now we have to see is it a hot list or a cold list? Right, Because those have two different values.

Victoria Collier: 14:25

And so then the question is what are you willing to do if you want more value out of it? Are you willing to hire people back up? Are you willing to take cases? Are you willing to put some work into it? If someone's burned out, they are not willing to do all those things. And then we have what we call a fire sale, and it just now, just in this very moment, just occurred to me burned out fire sale. They actually go together, but like the burning part of it. But if they have the mental capacity and they have the time, then some are willing to actually make some adjustments, and I would recommend that if they want to actually get a real buyer that's willing to put up some money.

Jennifer Goddard: 15:07

It sounds like it's a little bit like selling a house. So is your house run down and you just can't keep up with it anymore and you're going to sell it at a lower price, or are you going to be able to put some effort and money into it, fix it up, get it ready to sell at a top dollar?

Victoria Collier: 15:23

Absolutely. And then you still got the other options foreclosure and short sales with a house, which I think that are also comparable to law firms, right? So a foreclosure is you just pretty much let somebody come and take it and get the pennies off of it. That's the old, traditional way of just handing it to your buddy so that someone's taking care of those clients. A short sale is well, I'll pay you 50,000 and you go on your way, and so at least maybe now my debts are paid off and I'm happy about that. And then there's the top value.

Jennifer Goddard: 15:55

So, when things go really well, what's the best case scenario that you could describe for someone? If they really want to do this right and they're willing to put in the work, what's the dream scenario? Right?

Victoria Collier: 16:09

So the dream scenario would be I would like to sell my firm within the next one to five years, and I need to know what it's valued at, so let me get the valuation Great. So then now, based on the valuation and all the you know review of the firm, what's the top three things we could implement or change or just make different so to bring in value? And so, what kind of timeline do we have? If we have a year, what are we going to implement? If we have three years, what will we implement? And then, a year prior to actually wanting to transfer the keys is when we'd want to start advertising it for sale. Depending on the location, depending on the type of firm, like what services they provide will essentially dictate how fast or slow this process may take.

Victoria Collier: 17:03

I've had very good success with estate planning firms in selling them very quickly in most cases, depending on the location and the reasonableness of the seller. Let's always throw that in there too. But so so I would say number one get the valuation. Number two spend a year cleaning house. Number three, and cleaning house could be adding new programs. It could be adding staff, it could be getting rid of staff, it could be beefing up the marketing. It could be a lot of different things, and that's why every single firm is very different. And that's why you know when people say, well, you could just sell it for you know X amount of multiple on your revenue, they're not taking into account any of those other factors and whether or not someone actually will want the firm. And so that's what we do is is we are trying to help them become a desirable firm to sell, regardless of the value it's. Let's make you someone who's attractive for someone else to buy.

Jennifer Goddard: 18:04

Very, very good. What's the typical timeline? Is it typically a year, or does it just vary so much that you can't tell me?

Victoria Collier: 18:12

It varies greatly but I can tell you that, for example, the very first firm I sold, I was hired in February, we were under a letter of intent in May and we closed on it in September of that same year. That was the state planning. The very last firm that we sold. We went to market in December, we were under letter of intent in February and we closed in May. Those were two very fast ones. I represented the seller. I knew the buyer on both sides and I reached out to them and said hey, here's a firm, do you want to buy it? So those went very quickly.

Victoria Collier: 18:51

I had another one, another state planning firm, that we went to market. We had three offers within the first three months and we accepted one. The day before closing. My clients pulled out. Then we now are on the market again. We have one offer right now and we have some other people who are interested in seeing what it's all about. I would say, from an estate planning law firm perspective, if you're reasonable in what your asking price is, I think it can be reasonable to sell an estate planning practice within six to 12 months from.

Victoria Collier: 19:40

When you go to market. Other practice areas may not be as favorable, but estate planning is very easy.

Jennifer Goddard: 19:48

Very interesting. So how do you find your buyers and do you have a network that you work to develop buyer relationships?

Victoria Collier: 19:58

So there's very few businesses out there that do anything close to what we do, and I think that we are the only business out there that does it this way. What we do is I do have a staff of professionals that when we have a seller, we then build a list of prospective buyers. We are on the phone all day long calling, smiling and dialing people who could be prospects to buy our firm. Then we're also emailing and then we're also doing direct mail to this list. Then also, one of the things that we are going to start doing, which we haven't done yet, is we're going to list all of our clients on Biz Buy Sell, which is a database of just any businesses for sale, because we have seen some traction on there with a couple of our clients. So that kind of exposure. But really what's been successful is just picking up the phone and calling.

Jennifer Goddard: 20:55

Yeah, Nothing can replace that personal touch, and just that you can't get away from it. I think all those other things they help a lot, but at the end of the day you're going to be on the phone, sounds like.

Victoria Collier: 21:08

Right, right. Then what we do is another extra step, and that is we actually screen the prospects before we ever let them talk with our clients, because we're not going to waste our client's time, we're not going to waste their time. If they're not somebody who's serious and they're just trying, if they're just curious and not serious, then we're going to weed them out.

Jennifer Goddard: 21:30

Right, exactly so was this anywhere on your vision when you decided to exit your own law firm, that you would do this? It?

Victoria Collier: 21:40

actually was not. I was just going to be a farmer, and so I did farm for two years. But I also am an entrepreneur throughout, and I've been working with lawyers for ever, and prior to me selling my law firm, I did get certification and exit planning for my own estate planning clients who had their own businesses, and so when I was contacted to help sell the first firm that I sold, I thought you know, there is a need for this and I can do this and the farm at the same time. And then this business just grew so much, so fast. There's such a need out there that I actually stopped farming and this is what I do now. And no, it was not my original vision, but I can say it's very aligned with what my lifetime purpose has always been, my personal mission and why and that is to help people live the best life, no matter where they are in their phase of life, and that's what this does is.

Jennifer Goddard: 22:45

It helps lawyers, as I say, have a life after law, and we help them find that that is awesome and, as you say, it is so aligned with who the person is that I know in you. So if there are some of our listeners who are out there and they're thinking, boy, I really want to figure out how I can sell my law firm. What do they need to do?

Victoria Collier: 23:08

The first step really is to schedule a consultation with us. But if they want to learn about us first, we've got a private Facebook group called the Art of Buying and Selling Law Firm. Certainly, as you know, we've got our podcast called Smart Lawyers Position to Transition and I titled it that way on purpose. It is a positioning stance if you want to get value out of it. It's not just one day I wake up and say, hey, let me get rid of this. We need to position, but ultimately having a conversation with us to figure out what's the value and where do you want to go with this and what value do you need to get out of it.

Victoria Collier: 23:46

Are we there, or do we need to do some things to get there? So should they go to your website to schedule a call or yes, our website is quidpro-lawcom and on there the options is to if you want to buy a law firm, we can help you with that. If you want to sell a law firm, we can help you with that. If you just want to valuation, we can help with that, and so there's different scheduling links on there, based on what your goal is.

Jennifer Goddard: 24:13

Awesome, oh, terrific, wonderful having you on the show today, victoria, and great reconnecting and learning more about what you're doing. And I'm sure there are many attorneys out there who are saying, wow, this is exactly what I need. I need to make that phone call.

Victoria Collier: 24:31

Well, I appreciate that and you know what I mean. The people I like working with best are like people who come through your services, because they've already focusing on their numbers and they've got that marketing going on and I already know they're desirable from the beginning. So I look forward to hearing from anyone that has come through your network.

Jennifer Goddard: 24:49

Thank you so much and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks.

Jennifer Goddard: 24:57

That's a wrap on this edition of the marketing law cast. Thanks for joining us. Head over to wwwimsrockscom for more growth focused insights. If you're ready to skyrocket your firm's marketing, don't hesitate to book a free discovery call with our team right on our website. Here's to your success. See you next time.