Effective Growth Tactics for Estate Planning Law Firms with Guest Kevin Horner

What are the strategic foundations to growing an estate planning law practice in a sustainable, profitable, and enjoyable way?  In this enriching episode, we delve deep into the world of estate planning law firms, revealing impactful strategies and profound insights with our guest, Kevin Horner of The Galligan Law Firm, which has served the Houston community since 1997. 

Kevin shares invaluable advice on crafting a flourishing estate planning law practice in this episode and provides a comprehensive resource focusing on the subtle art of managing the human aspects of legal practice.   Emphasizing the necessity of meticulous work processes to ensure staff longevity and firm stability, Kevin focuses on three pivotal growth pillars:

1. Enhanced Client Experience and Efficient Communication
2. Active and Consistent Marketing 
3. Cultivation of Client Reviews and Constructive Feedback Management

Whether you’re just stepping into the estate planning arena or are a seasoned professional looking to refine your practice, this conversation is laden with practical insights to help you align quality, efficiency, strategic marketing, and client relations as the cornerstone of establishing a successful estate planning law firm.

Watch the video version on YouTube: youtu.be/ozZfs_P258k

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Transcript

Jennifer Goddard: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to the Marketing LawCast. I'm your host, jennifer Goddard, and I'm here today with my guest, kevin Horner, with the Galligan Law Firm. Galligan Law Firm and the previous iteration, which was Galligan Manning, have been clients of ours for years and years and years. It's always a pleasure to visit with Kevin and with the folks there at the law firm. I've asked Kevin to come on the podcast today to talk a little bit about what it's like to have this very successful law firm. They're located near Houston, texas. Where exactly are you, kevin?

Kevin Horner: 0:45

Very in Houston. We're in the Galleria area for those who are more local. There's an inner-side loop and we're inside that loop.

Jennifer Goddard: 0:53

Great. They're in Houston, basically in the Galleria area. Their practice focuses on estate planning, algebra, probate to the state administration. They've been at this, like Mary Galligan and Tammy Manning started this in 1997. This is a long-term firm. It has a terrific reputation in the area. I'm going to turn it over to you, kevin, to tell me a little bit about the firm and then a little bit about how you ended up in Houston, texas.

Kevin Horner: 1:31

It was an excellent introduction, by the way. Yes, we are the Galligan Law Firm. We have been around since exactly 1997. We're one of those firms that has been always specialists in estate planning and estate administration and then I brought in an elder law component. We've been focused as a boutique firm in this area for the whole 25 years or so.

Kevin Horner: 1:54

I specifically joined the firm Just shy now I think about five years ago when I moved down to Houston, Texas. You can probably hear from my accent, I am not from Texas, I came from up north. I'm from Pennsylvania originally, where I had my own firm. Then. What happened is as many people moved to Houston for this reason. It was good work opportunities. My wife is a bioethicist and she works in a hospital setting in the Baylor College of Medicine. Here in Houston was one of the best places, at least in the country, if not the world, to do what she did. Someone there was an opportunity seemed too good to pass up. Then for me, of course, everyone needs lawyers everywhere. I could be fairly transportable at that point and I already had been working at that point for five or 10 years, I guess it was. It was a fairly easy transition to come down to a place like this and eventually wave in and start working here.

Jennifer Goddard: 2:53

You've been there about five years. You haven't picked up a Texas drawl yet. Probably won't.

Kevin Horner: 2:59

It's actually very selective. It depends on who I'm with and what I'm saying. But every now and again, depending on the subject matter, I either slide back into my hard Yankee accent, my Pennsylvania drawl, or I will occasionally hit a little bit of text. I'm not going to do it upon requested demand, just kind of flowed out naturally. But every now and again, yes, it does come out. I'm picking it up a little bit.

Jennifer Goddard: 3:25

So tell me a little bit, Kevin, about your particular practice area and what makes it a little bit unique.

Kevin Horner: 3:32

Sure. So the nice thing about what we do with estate planning and estate administration and then I do elder law as well and then we do some things that are ancillary to that like I do a little bit of real estate and some business law too, but for the most part those areas it's kind of unique for us in the sense of we're a firm that's focused on that and we try to move beyond just doing what people typically think of, like when people want to do an estate plan, what they're really thinking of is they need a will, they need to plan to die because of course, we all do someday and it is that. But one of the nice things that we have are unique things about a firm that focuses on this, for so much is that we can do more holistic planning than that. We can do things that people need as they age. We can do incapacity planning. We can, of course, do wills and plan for when people pass away.

Kevin Horner: 4:23

But we like to talk about in our firm is legacy planning. It's taking everything that you want to pass on to the next generation, whatever that means for you or your next loved ones or whomever you want to leave things to and help you leave that legacy to those next people. And so for some people, what that means is tax planning. It's being really efficient in how we do it. For some people it's with as little fighting as possible. For some families, that is the focal point. And so we do estate plans that help lead to the next set of beneficiaries while avoiding conflicts or maybe I shouldn't say avoiding, that's not really true. We plan for family conflicts and help us get through them.

Kevin Horner: 5:03

Or we do things for options like elder law, which a lot of times is long term care planning. It's investigating options of staying and living and retiring and aging in place, or maybe it's looking for a suitable facility to live in, or maybe it's paying for that suitable facility to live in, be it through private pay or insurance or Medicaid planning. And so what I think maybe makes us unique is we really can do all of the legacy planning. Whatever those issues is really the key one for that particular client. We can do it and deal with a tailored solution to whatever that person's situation happens to be. So that's probably really what makes us unique and maybe what makes us special, if I may say so, in terms of how we can help clients in all of those different areas.

Jennifer Goddard: 5:50

Sure, you know that's having that perspective is so important and you have a little bit of a twist. Coming from the Northeast and now practicing in Houston, you bring sort of a wider spectrum that sometimes is very valuable to some of your clients. You want to tell me a little bit about that?

Kevin Horner: 6:11

Sure. So, as I said, I had my own firm when I was in Pennsylvania, so I'm still admitted in Pennsylvania, I still have to work on Pennsylvania issues, and we lived in New York for a while where I practiced a very good, sophisticated firm there that deals very much in these particular kind of issues. So we dealt with everything from really high end tax planning to a lot of Medicaid planning and, of course, all the planning in between those things, and so of course now I'm down here in Texas and I'm comfortable thinking for that matter, I'm also admitted in West Virginia, which I'm good to use too much anymore, but I am, and so the thing that's kind of made that helpful from my perspective as a planner is I've seen a lot of different ways of handling a problem. There's absolutely a philosophy, not just different laws, but there's different philosophies on how to handle problems, and sometimes it's helpful to be able to troubleshoot problems from a variety of perspectives, including ones that you may have gained in certain other areas, and then basically be able to help clients because you can see it from a variety of different perspectives.

Kevin Horner: 7:13

It's interesting too that you would think, being in Texas, that I would maybe only be doing Texas planning and those other states laws or those states wouldn't really come in and touch this. But that really isn't true. I mean, I was working on a New York matter earlier today and we still have the occasional client who comes from one of those places and so we have direct relationships or direct need to do those kinds of areas of law. So, in short, it helps us do things like plan for what it's going to be like when a person is elsewhere. Actually, I'm probably a really good example of this right.

Kevin Horner: 7:48

We live in a very mobile society and so we don't just have Texans who have to plan for living in Texas. We have people who are married or maybe say older. They're doing planning for their adult children, but the adult children are all alone in Texas. They could be in New York because of a job or school or whatever. They could be in a Pennsylvania, they could be a wherever, and so having the perspective that I've had of having to figure out planning in different places from different perspectives, and having the portability, the ability to kind of move and take these things to new places, has been helpful. Planning here because you're planning for people who are not to stay in Texas or their beneficiaries won't just be in Texas, and so to have a broader perspective and maybe more tools in the toolbox has been really helpful in solving problems for clients, even here.

Jennifer Goddard: 8:37

Well, you know that's so important to realize that even if the parents or the people who are doing the planning live in Texas, their heirs, their children, certainly you know further on down the line probably don't you know Because we are so mobile. I know like in my situation, between my husband and I we have five children and they are in Connecticut, florida, washington you know they're all over the country. So, having that perspective that you know it needs to be something that can be acceptable and work across the board.

Kevin Horner: 9:15

I've had this situation where so coming I'll give you a really, really quick version, because this is a much longer conversation Tax planning. So a lot of people are at least considering tax planning. Not everyone is blessed to have that as a serious problem, but most clients are aware of they'd rather maximize what they leave to their loved ones compared to pay it to the state or to the federal government, depending on the case. So one thing that I found interesting is where I practice in Pennsylvania, we had an inheritance tax, so every estate was taxed, not a huge amount necessarily, but it made taxes relevant in all estates, not just ones that were super wealthy.

Kevin Horner: 9:52

In New York there was a state estate tax and so we had to do planning that was maybe more estate tax focused than we do in a place like Texas, where there isn't an estate tax, but where it even still comes up to us today is we have the situation now where, like you, could be a taxing and not really have to worry about serious tax problems for the most part, at least, nothing that was Texas based. But you have a child who lives in New York because they moved to New York for a business Opportunity there in New York City, where the cost of living is really high and the state has a state state tax. Sometimes the way that can inform our planning is that might impact how you leave your your assets to your loved one you know, there are different.

Kevin Horner: 10:36

There are different options. You might just leave it outright so that it's in their pockets when they die, but if that's true, then what you left them becomes taxed in their estates. Sometimes you can pre plan for that in your own estate plan on how you leave it. So those kinds of Awarenesses help impact the way we can do a state plan here.

Jennifer Goddard: 10:55

Being located in Houston, in you know, in Texas, houston's a pretty major metropolitan area. What are some of the unique aspects of the clients that you deal with? Some of their complex issues, or, you know, tell me a little bit about your clientele, so I think quite a few do have what I was already kind of saying.

Kevin Horner: 11:17

And there's the issue of mobility, because there are very few it feels like we have very few Houstonians. I mean people who live here, obviously, but not like born and raised. That just doesn't happen because so many people who've moved here because it's been a city that's done financially pretty well in recent years, so a lot of people have moved here for work opportunities or for business opportunities. So a lot of those multi-state issues or actually, quite frankly here, international issues too, because people come for oil and gas, A lot of those do repeat in the States. There's no doubt about that. But beyond that, a lot of people that we work with I would say is a fairly common issue is because it has been economically successful. Here it's clients who have a fairly substantial legacy buildup. They're usually looking towards retirement. They're maybe thinking about things like federal state tax, or at least it's in their conversation, even if it's not really a danger to them. They might have kids, as I said, who have moved elsewhere. They might have kids who are maybe still in the area, but they tend to be mobile.

Kevin Horner: 12:20

So a big part of it here is figuring out the right way to leave legacy, after accumulating like that, to whomever the next loved one is.

Kevin Horner: 12:30

As I alluded to before, that can be done in many ways. So a lot of times what we're trying to figure out is tax efficiency. Or sometimes there's always the question of when you're doing your estate planning you're talking about property that you're leaving to whomever. Sometimes there's a question of are you going to use a plan that would necessitate probate? Would you use a will that's going to go through a probate process, which means a Texas process, or do you try to do something that enables you to be maybe more mobile for yourself or very quick in how you pass assets to other people? So a lot of estate planning, I'd say, is driven on at least locally. For us is dealing with clients who have a fairly substantial legacy build up and want to be able to transfer very efficiently, very cleanly, if I can say it that way, with minimal work on the back end and minimal difficulty for their beneficiaries or for their loved ones.

Kevin Horner: 13:21

So that's definitely number one, I will say actually is an interesting number two because and this is, of course, true for everyone but because so many people have moved here recently, it's very interesting that incapacity planning is a big focus here, because you might have a situation where the general term for this in your estate plan is you have fiduciaries appointed, you have an executor appointed, an agent or whatever the particular hat might be.

Kevin Horner: 13:49

You appoint these people to fulfill roles in your estate plan. One of the ones we struggle with here is when it comes to incapacity planning specifically. People lack a good choice for that, or they maybe don't have someone local who they want to do it, or their kids have dispersed, or perhaps they moved here for work and so they're not as close to relatives of wherever they came from, so those individuals aren't great choices for it. So a lot of it here too is, I'll say, thorough incapacity planning and figuring out who could be a fiduciary, what kind of fiduciaries to use, and basically brainstorming solutions, the kinds of problems that can sometimes create. So I'd say those two definitely are very big issues here, certainly.

Jennifer Goddard: 14:36

That's really interesting, as you said. Interesting number two, as you brainstorm with people and you put some plans in place to protect them in the event of incapacity. That's got to be a huge sense of peace of mind for those clients.

Kevin Horner: 14:52

I will say that it is definitely a peace of mind, because all clients what they really want is they don't want to set a documents, they want peace of mind, they want the relief of knowing things are taken care of, which, in the end, is all of them we're hoping to be able to give to people, and it's interesting that, particularly with the incapacity planning there really are, as I was saying before, you need a lot of tools in the toolbox to solve that, because there really is no one-size-fits-all solution.

Kevin Horner: 15:17

Like it's a common perception, I think, in what people like I do, that this is a form-based practice, that I have a stack of documents in my office and I take one out, I just fill in the next names and I keep passing it off. I'd work a lot less if that was the case, but it is not. So you really do kind of have to dig sometimes deep with these kinds of incapacity issues because you have to figure out everything from being really creative and finding the appropriate person to do it. Putting the right powers to that person is also a big question. You know, if your agent is somebody who you trust in a true emergency but maybe don't really want them involved in all of your business. There's a balancing act that has to be done there. So it really is a challenging aspect of what we do to be able to both figure out the solution, figure out the right tool for it and find something the client can be help, can be satisfied with and feel good about.

Jennifer Goddard: 16:12

You guys have been doing this in this community for a very long time. You've been there for about five years, but the firm has been there for as we talked earlier, about 25. And when we have chatted about this, it seems like to me, as an observer, one of the keys to your guys' longevity has been the stability of your staff. Can you tell me a little bit about you know what your staff turnover looks like and how important that's been to your success there?

Kevin Horner: 16:47

Our turnover has been very little, thankfully. So we actually this is true. It's very nice that we have had a lot of stability with our employees and in fact this actually just happened earlier this week that we had a client from years ago. It was a longstanding case that we had with the client that went on for, I want to say, over five years. It was a challenging litigation matter. So it was sort of the nature of that kind of problem.

Kevin Horner: 17:16

But the client called and basically, other than me, everyone here remembered that client by name, you know, because we have had the same people as we did essentially over a decade ago and that's actually been quite a good thing.

Kevin Horner: 17:31

So I mean we did have, like Tammy Manning, who's one of the founders she retired just in the last couple of years but we don't tend to have in all of our key positions, much turnover, which means we've built up good processes, we're practiced at the processes, we don't have a lot of the difficulties that the turnover generates.

Kevin Horner: 17:53

It is a true statement in law and I know I've certainly have seen, interacted or heard from clients even though not our clients but people working with lawyers a common frustration is the amount of turnover at a firm, which means they always feel like their case is now being handled by somebody else than it was before. And you know, I have definitely worked on matters where I'm the third or fourth attorney and that is not a good start. It's a necessary but not a good start with a client. So it's really helpful for us to be able to have a client who calls. Like I said, we all remember the person from in my case five years, but everybody else's case 10 years later. So it's good for the client, it's good for our efficiency, it's just good in developing a good relationship with clients.

Jennifer Goddard: 18:37

Right and you avoid all of the costs and the drama and the chaos of having to replace people and interview people and fire people and you know it's just. You were able to really focus on the client work and what you guys do best by having a solid team like that.

Kevin Horner: 18:52

Somebody a law school professor of mine said something akin to no lawyer wants to be a business person, which is not quite right. But also we did all this training and all this work to be able to focus on a client problem, a legal problem, and provide solution to it. So, yes, I think you, I'll speak for the entire profession when I say the less hiring we have to do, the less human resource management that we have to do, the better for everyone.

Jennifer Goddard: 19:21

Absolutely, absolutely. So, kevin, when you're in a firm that's kind of been around you know for two and a half decades, what, how do you see it in the next three to five years?

Kevin Horner: 19:33

I see in terms of where we take our firm.

Kevin Horner: 19:37

Hopefully more of the same, Hopefully no serious need to be doing more hiring, and just more of the stability would be great. I do think it'll be interesting and this is maybe a little bit beyond our firm and maybe more to just where the practice in general would go. But I think in the next three to five years what we've been working on in recent years is maybe utilizing to its full extent technology, everything from client management to during COVID. We all had to get very creative about how we did this kind of practice. At least in Texas, actual signed documents originals when it comes to wills are still the norm. Other states are developing the options to do things like electronic wills and different kinds of all digital state planning documents. So, other than things like that, where I think we'll have to keep finding ways to bring in technology, to keep bringing this kind of expertise, as there's maybe practical changes to what we do, Hopefully it's just continuing to build the practice while honing our ability on that to help create good outcomes for clients.

Jennifer Goddard: 20:50

Along those lines as well. If there's someone listening to this podcast today and they're a lawyer and they're practicing in this area and they would like to grow that practice in a sustainable and profitable and enjoyable way, which it sounds like you guys have been very successful at doing that, what is some advice that you would give to somebody else?

Kevin Horner: 21:14

So this actually is quite timely. Not that long ago at a conference, I was talking to a young lawyer about the same thing. I would say first, the first one is definitely to focus on client experience, and I mean in the sense of it's more than just doing a competent job for an attorney, because really, why we do this is to actually serve the needs of customer. You want to say it that way, so, and there's been business studies done on this but essentially, where people have good outcomes with a provider of any service, like we would be, it's where the experience is good. It's where things are easy on their end to have efficient meetings, to be able to quickly and easily get through things, where there's communication and just to have them feel like their needs are taken care of, where you get that good outcome I mentioned earlier of feeling the relief of having things done or the peace of mind of knowing these things are done. You want to get clients through easily, efficiently and simply, if possible, so they can get to that. Because, really, client experience is both the best way of growing your practice I mean, truly it is because you need people who will be willing to say this was good experience in that, but also just because then you get other people interested in it. They share that good outcome and honestly, it's better for our peace of mind where we can have that good relationship with clients and then only do they become repeat clients. But you just simply don't have to divert your energy to difficult relationships and then you can just keep focusing on providing the service. So it's probably easier said than done, but good client relationships and focusing on client experience probably definitely the number one.

Kevin Horner: 23:01

Two and I think this comes for me because I had my own firm so early on in my practice but the marketing aspect they always be looking for new clients and a little bit that's because of the transactional nature of what we do. But also, you know, I think, as I said before, clients they really want to be their attorneys, didn't really want to be business people, but they also don't always think about the fact that we're not doing this just for ourselves. Right, we're not doing Ironically, I did just do my own estate plan update last weekend but like we're not really doing this for ourselves, you know what I mean Like we need to do this for other people. So to constantly be generating opportunities for marketing, to constantly be able to promote what your services are, to help people find your services, is definitely number two, because it doesn't matter how good you are at this If you do not have a client to do it for it's a waste of talent. So to constantly be finding opportunities and good opportunities to market and sort of expand yourself are always good things to do.

Kevin Horner: 24:06

And then number three in this I guess really doesn't start too different than to tie into the first two or maybe it's the fruit of the first two but get client reviews. I have found that to be an extremely beneficial thing in our practice, both for growing. You know we have lots of good client reviews that are either hosted on our website or sometimes a third party services. Google reviews has been outstanding honestly, quite frankly. For that it helps with your SEO. It helps when people actually look at that. Before they've talked to a soul, they don't have to know somebody who went here, they just see all the positive reviews and experiences and then they know that hypothetical client knows all of these people had that good client experience and then know they should expect the same when you work with them. That's half the battle right there. And so being able to do the reviews and get that feedback has been great from a growing perspective and then quite honestly it's the less positive aspect of it, but a necessary one.

Kevin Horner: 25:03

If you get a negative review, there's also potentially a learning experience there, or at least something you can keep building, and the feedback you can use to improve your own practice to some degree. So definitely, reviews is both worth getting to develop your company and just to get those new clients that you would want to come through the door.

Jennifer Goddard: 25:24

Well, I couldn't agree more with all 3 aspects of those tips that the focusing on the client experience, making sure that you are investing in and getting your marketing dialed in, and then you just bring those 2 together Client experience, great marketing, great reviews and lots of them. Kevin, as always, it has been an absolute pleasure to visit with you today. For those of you who are listening, we're very proud that we hosted, designed and hosted their website. So if you want to reach out to Kevin, learn a little bit more about their law firm, their website is wwwGalligan-lawcom and you can look and see what their marketing looks like and what their branding looks like. And if you have any questions for Kevin excuse me, for Kevin specifically you can contact him through that website. Thank you, thank you, kevin, and we will be talking to you again soon.

Speaker 3: 26:26

Thank you very much. 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.