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Becoming One of the Fastest Growing Estate Planning Practices in California (Ep. 185)

Becoming One of the Fastest Growing Estate Planning Practices in California (Ep. 185)

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On this episode of The Lawyer Millionaire, my guest Ellen Cookman, founder of Cookman Law, shares how she built a rapidly growing California estate planning practice by combining specialization, smart marketing, disciplined financial management, and effective delegation.

Darren and Ellen discuss:

  • The business side of running a law firm
  • How creating relevant educational content can build your firm’s marketing engine.
  • The mindset behind paid consultation.
  • Why Cookman Law hired an intake specialist to filter prospects.
  • How to discover your niche instead of trying to serve everyone.

Resources:


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About Ellen Cookman:

Ellen Cookman started Cookman Law in 2015 to help families of all shapes and sizes plan for the future and utilize available resources. Ellen is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law from the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. She received her J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and her LL.M. in Estate Planning, Trust and Probate from Golden Gate University. Ellen lives in East Palo Alto with her husband, two middle school boys (her older son has high-functioning autism), a husky mix named Rosie, and a kitty named Skittles.

 

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How Much Should a Law Firm Owner Pay Themselves? (Ep. 184)

How Much Should a Law Firm Owner Pay Themselves? (Ep. 184)

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On this episode of The Lawyer Millionaire, Darren Wurz explores one of the most important and often overlooked questions for law firm owners: How much should you pay yourself?

He argues that many law firm owners make the mistake of paying themselves whatever is left after covering payroll, rent, marketing, software, and other expenses. This can create the illusion of profitability while the owner is actually subsidizing the firm’s growth by underpaying themselves.

Darren discusses:

  • Why you are an employee of your own business?
  • How to think about owner compensation.
  • Why you must not confuse revenue with wealth?
  • Why you cannot simply make your salary artificially low to minimize taxes?
  • How to structure your firm for success?

 

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Pricing Legal Work in Points: Billing That Beats Hourly and Flat Fee (Ep. 182)

Pricing Legal Work in Points: Billing That Beats Hourly and Flat Fee (Ep. 182)

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On this episode, host Darren Wurz speaks with Whitney Harper, Co-Founder of ADVOS Pro as they explore why law firms need to rethink traditional billing models especially as AI makes lawyers faster and more efficient. Whitney explains how her firm has successfully operated for more than a decade without tracking or billing by the hour.

Darren and Whitney discuss:

  • Billing by the hour is becoming increasingly difficult to defend.
  • Why flat-fee pricing is difficult for legal firms.
  • Why ADVOS uses a points based pricing system.
  • How AI can become an advantage instead of a threat.
  • Why lawyers need to change the way they think of their business.

Resources:


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About Whitney Harper:

Whitney Harper is the co-founder of ADVOS Legal and ADVOS Pro, where she helps law firm owners leave hourly billing behind and build practices they truly enjoy. In this conversation, Whitney shares how her small-town upbringing and strong family roots shaped her confident mindset, how she navigated career changes with intention, and how she is rewriting the rules of modern legal practice. Her story will encourage you to rethink how you work and remind you that more joy and freedom are within reach.

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Five things your SEO company is missing that cost you cases (Ep. 181)

Five things your SEO company is missing that cost you cases (Ep. 181)

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On this episode, host Darren Wurz explains why investing heavily in SEO does not necessarily translate into more signed cases. The central message from this episode is simple: more traffic through a broken conversion process only creates more wasted traffic. Law firms need to optimize the entire journey from being discovered online to becoming a paying client.

Darren discusses:

  • Why law firms must think beyond Google rankings?
  • The importance of clear positioning and niching down on a website.
  • High value KPIs you should be tracking.
  • Why your website must show visitors the next action.
  • H0w to create content from existing client questions.


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The Hidden Reason You Won’t Hire, Raise Your Rates, or Take a Real Vacation (Ep. 179)

The Hidden Reason You Won’t Hire, Raise Your Rates, or Take a Real Vacation (Ep. 179)

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On this episode, host Darren Wurz explores why smart, capable law firm owners often fail to take actions they already know they need to take. Darren introduces the concept of “immunity to change,” explaining that procrastination is often not caused by a lack of discipline, time, or knowledge, but by a hidden commitment that is competing with the desired change.

Darren discusses:

  • Why smart people don’t do what they need to do?
  • Procrastination can be protective behaviour.
  • How lawyers can balance risk awareness with business judgment.
  • Immunity to change and how to get unstuck.
  • The Four-Column immunity to change X-ray.

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Profit is a Team Sport: What the Great Game of Business Teaches Law Firm Owners (Ep. 177)

Profit is a Team Sport: What the Great Game of Business Teaches Law Firm Owners (Ep. 177)

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What if the key to growing your business isn’t finding more clients but helping your team understand the numbers that drive success?
On this episode, host Darren Wurz uses insights from the principles of open-book management and The Great Game of Business to explain how sharing key financial metrics with employees helps them understand how their work impacts the firm’s success.

Darren discusses:

  • Why profit is a team effort not an individual responsibility meant for only the owner of the firm?
  • Common objections to financial transparency.
  • How to identify your firm’s most important financial metric?
  • A simple change in his business that boosted profitability.
  • Benefits of financial transparency and open-book management.
  • How to empower your employees to think like owners.

 

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7 Reasons Law Firm Owners Keep Hiring the WRONG People (Ep. 176)

7 Reasons Law Firm Owners Keep Hiring the WRONG People (Ep. 176)

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On this episode, Darren Wurz explains why so many business owners especially small law firm owners struggle to make successful hiring decisions. He emphasizes that hiring the wrong person can cost far more than salary alone, leading to lost productivity, revenue, morale, and valuable time.

Darren discusses:

  • Why hiring for attitude matters more than hiring for skills?
  • How to create a structured hiring process.
  • Practical strategies for spotting red flags in potential employees.
  • Avoid hiring out of desperation.
  • How to avoid mistaking similarity for culture fit.

 

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The 10 Most EXPENSIVE Mistakes Law Firm Owners Make (Ep. 175)

The 10 Most EXPENSIVE Mistakes Law Firm Owners Make (Ep. 175)

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On this episode, host Darren Wurz outlines the ten most expensive mistakes law firm owners make and explains how avoiding them can save hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars over the lifetime of a practice. Rather than focusing on doing more, he argues that long-term success comes from eliminating costly financial and operational mistakes.

Darren discusses:

  • Why you need to separate your personal and business finances.
  • The consequences of poorly managed trust accounts.
  • Why more firms need to adopt flat-fee pricing instead of hourly pricing.
  • How to significantly reduce tax liabilities.
  • Using delegation to reduce administrative work so that you can focus on higher-value activities.
  • How lead management can improve your marketing ROI.

 

Resources:

 

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How to Forecast Your PI Firm’s Income and End the Feast or Famine Cycle (Ep. 174)

How to Forecast Your PI Firm’s Income and End the Feast or Famine Cycle (Ep. 174)

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On this episode, host Darren Wurz explains how contingency-fee law firms can eliminate the feast-or-famine cash flow cycle through financial forecasting. He shares a practical framework for predicting future revenue by calculating the expected value, probability, and timing of each case, while also accounting for case costs, litigation timelines, and cash reserves.

Darren discusses:

  • Why contingency revenue is difficult to predict?
  • How to create a pipeline report for Case Management
  • Managing Pre-Lit Pipeline and Litigation Pipeline
  • Why you need to forecast beyond current cases?
  • How to monitor cycle time.
  • Use financing as a forecasting lever not a panic button.

 

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The Simple Law Firm Habit That Turns Profit Goals into Profit Earned (Ep. 173)

The Simple Law Firm Habit That Turns Profit Goals into Profit Earned (Ep. 173)

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On this episode of the Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, host Darren Wurz explains why forecasting rather than budgeting is the key to building a consistently profitable law firm. He argues that too many firm owners only discover whether they hit their profit goals after the quarter has ended, when it’s too late to make meaningful changes.

Darren discusses:

  • Why forecasting is more valuable than budgeting?
  • Major insights from Clio’s legal trends report.
  • The financial metrics law firms must monitor regularly.
  • The differences between profit and cash flow.
  • How to start forecasting with a simple spreadsheet instead of waiting for expensive software or a CFO.

 

Resources:

 

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