48. Why Community-Focused Law Firms Are Winning in 2026

[00:00:00] Miriam Fisher: As far as the consultation fees, there’s a lot of disagreements amongst my colleagues about this. We set our consultation fee pretty low, but it’s always under $200. Sure. I’ve been practicing, you know, almost 20 years. I could charge $750 an hour for my time, but nobody’s gonna spend $750 for if they don’t even know if you’re gonna be their lawyer yet.

[00:00:21] Miriam Fisher: So I don’t view consultations necessarily as a a revenue generator. It’s more of a gatekeeping function to lock people in and also to make sure that they’re serious.

[00:00:39] Miriam Fisher: Hey

[00:00:40] Tara Lee: y’all, Tara Lee live from Miami Beach at NTL. This is Hot Docket Live.

[00:00:55] Andrew Nasrinpay: Welcome to the Hot Docket. I’m here today with Tara Lee and Miriam Fisher of Los AGAs. Thank you,

[00:01:07] Andrew Nasrinpay: and we’re excited to talk about immigration. Do you wanna give us your background on your, your journey to become an attorney?

[00:01:14] Miriam Fisher: Sure. Um, well, I’ve been working in immigration for a total of 20 years in some form or fashion. I actually started, uh, down in Miami at, uh, when I went to University of Miami Law School.

[00:01:23] Miriam Fisher: Um, I moved up to Virginia 17 years ago and started practicing. I did. Different types of practice areas, criminal family, but I’m bilingual and back then there weren’t a ton of Spanish speaking lawyers in Richmond. So that really kind of helped me grow my practice quickly. And I always did immigration as well.

[00:01:42] Miriam Fisher: And a few years ago I just decided to focus just on that.

[00:01:46] Andrew Nasrinpay: Alright. I, I went to Miami too. Oh, nice. Nice. So love to hear that. Especially when we had Ohio State, Florida, all these other big name schools. I’m happy to hear Miami jump up.

[00:01:57] Miriam Fisher: I, I loved it.

[00:01:59] Andrew Nasrinpay: So obviously there’s a bunch going on in immigration right now.

[00:02:03] Miriam Fisher: Really,

[00:02:04] Andrew Nasrinpay: and a lot of folks we’re seeing bigger firms kind of take over. That’s kind of been the theme for personal injury in immigration. We’re seeing the same thing where firms are like. Pushing in a lot of resources and growing really quick. But at the same time, we’ve also seen localized firms, uh, really lock down their markets.

[00:02:22] Andrew Nasrinpay: Can you tell us a little bit about your strategy on the marketing side and which of the perspectives you’re, you’re kind of looking at right now?

[00:02:30] Miriam Fisher: Yeah, absolutely. So we are definitely, we view ourselves as a, as a regional law firm. Um, we’re based in Richmond, Virginia. Our focus is Virginia. We’re very much, uh, community members.

[00:02:42] Miriam Fisher: Um, we’re an in-office firm, which I know is really crazy these days. But, um, our office is open full-time. Uh, about 85% of our consultations are in person. Um, and that’s been really important to us. That’s really authentic to us. That being said, I do think that there are lessons that, uh. More localized or regional law firms can learn from the bigger firms.

[00:03:04] Miriam Fisher: Um, as far as having operations, having systems, um, having, uh, a bold marketing moves. I think those are all things that are underutilized sometimes by the smaller regional firms. So we try to be the best of both worlds. One of the, uh, partners that my firm said, uh, we’re, uh, a small firm run, like a big firm, um, but uh, part of our brand is really built on trust.

[00:03:26] Miriam Fisher: Uh, being members of the community. And that’s been really, really effective. After the pandemic, when everybody started going virtual, we saw a little bit of a backlash. Um, and we were so proud of ourselves for offering this technology and client portal and Zoom meetings and people were calling and saying, well, actually, can I still come in?

[00:03:44] Miriam Fisher: ’cause I just wanna see you guys, or, you know, I wanna give this stuff to you in person, or, I’m kind of embarrassed about this and I I don’t wanna do it over the phone. Um, and so we. Really kind of decided to, to stay old school, uh, if, if you will. And, um, you know, as far as, uh, being part of the community, that’s just kind of how I came up.

[00:04:04] Miriam Fisher: I started off as a criminal defense attorney, like being at the courthouse every day, uh, you know, running into clients on the streets. And so that’s just what feels normal for me. Um, I live in, uh, a, a rural area, about 20 minutes from the office, and I have three kids in school. Uh, they ride the school bus and, uh, one day in the beginning of this school year, I walked my kids up to the school bus.

[00:04:27] Miriam Fisher: The school bus pulls up a window, rolls down, and a little kid hangs out and says, Hey, that’s my mom’s lawyer. And, you know, he recognized me from our, our picture or whatever. And that just really had such an impact on me because that’s our accountability right there. That’s. You know, we’re real lawyers.

[00:04:43] Miriam Fisher: We’re representing people in our community. We’re not just a face on a, on a billboard or on a digital ad.

[00:04:49] Andrew Nasrinpay: What do you think the big firms do well in terms of process that most smaller firms or firms that focus on being in person or being regional should do and copy?

[00:05:00] Miriam Fisher: Yeah. Consistency, um, systems efficiency.

[00:05:04] Miriam Fisher: Uh, you know, I, um, coming from the criminal defense bar, there are so many wonderful solo practitioners that are great lawyers, but they’re answering calls on their cell phone. Uh, you know, they’re returning their messages at night. They’re kind of, you know, wearing a million different hats. Um, and that’s really what we see with super small law firms.

[00:05:25] Miriam Fisher: The big firms, they have, uh, training, they have onboarding, they have large staffs that can accommodate, uh, emergency calls, uh, get back to people quickly and efficiently. Um, and they also track metrics, which for me is the owner, is something that’s. That’s really important and has been important to our growth.

[00:05:42] Miriam Fisher: So, um, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years sort of learning those lessons from the bigger guys and then applying it to our firm. Um, and that’s been really successful.

[00:05:52] Andrew Nasrinpay: You brought up an interesting one where it’s like missed calls. So overflow calls, where a caller calls in is on hold for, let’s call it 45 seconds.

[00:06:02] Andrew Nasrinpay: The big firms will push that to a vendor and they will handle the overflow or the after hours. Have you noticed that a lot of the vendors are more geared towards personal injury and it’s harder to find good partners, uh, within the immigration space? And how have you kind of navigated and solved those problems?

[00:06:18] Miriam Fisher: Yeah, absolutely, and I, I’ve always felt like there’s a lot to learn from the personal injury space because they were leaders in marketing. They were leaders in this, uh, system. Systemization, is that a word? Um, and um, but uh, like you said, a lot of the resources, a lot of the vendors are really geared towards that kind of pre-lit, lit type of, of breakup.

[00:06:43] Miriam Fisher: Um, we have had to invest heavily into our client service. Um, it’s not, there’s not a lot of products that were preexisting for us to use. And so, um, one thing that we’ve done is, um. Uh, utilize, uh, staff in other countries. And so not necessarily virtual assistants, but we have a company, I have a company in Central America where I hire people directly and we train them, and it’s been easy to scale large customer service teams that way, um, because of the exchange rate.

[00:07:14] Miriam Fisher: Um, but so we’re still providing like real live person on the phone. Of course, for our firm. Bilingualism is very important. Um, but having the calls answered, um, you know. Within three rings is, is our goal, um, having, uh, coverage because, uh, you know, missing a call is, is missing a case. Um, and I think that that’s really something that, uh, sort of the, the big players, the PI players figured out early on how important intake is a lot of small firms under undervalue intake.

[00:07:46] Andrew Nasrinpay: Yep. I I can even tell you from firsthand experience, some big firms don’t put enough emphasis on it where not only did you waste the marketing budget to generate that call, and it also harms your brand. Yeah. When you don’t pick up the phone. But then there’s the opportunity cost of the lost case and all of that.

[00:08:05] Miriam Fisher: Yeah. Look, I mean, I’m, I actually was trying to set up a consultation with a lawyer for a, a matter at my law firm, and so I’m like very motivated. I know exactly what I want. I’m gonna be an easy client. I’m willing to pay, and, you know, I call the firm and nobody got back to me. Then finally, the lawyer got back to me and said, oh, my first available consultation is like, you know, Wednesday the second.

[00:08:29] Miriam Fisher: I’m like, no, no. I wanna talk to somebody today, and that’s what we do. We offer on the spot case evaluations, and so all of our intake team are trained and we have appropriate coverage so that things are not going to voicemail. Um, we have different shifts and so forth, but um, the intake team is trained to do a case evaluation.

[00:08:48] Miriam Fisher: Not necessarily a consultation. They, they’re not lawyers. They can’t provide legal advice, but they form the relationship. They get information. They kind of start that connection, start that conversation, and then because they’re doing a little bit of that screening, we have capacity at the firm to handle a lot of consultations, and we can often do same day.

[00:09:06] Miriam Fisher: Or next day consultations with a lawyer. But you have to leverage staff. You have to, um, you know, have, have a system in place to accommodate that because when people have a legal problem, they wanna talk to somebody right now.

[00:09:18] Tara Lee: Exactly,

[00:09:19] Andrew Nasrinpay: yep. There’s definitely a level of urgency to it. Mm-hmm. Especially for immigration.

[00:09:23] Andrew Nasrinpay: Personal injury, criminal defense speed is probably one of the most important things for something like estate planning. You’re talking with planners by nature, they’re willing to wait a little longer. Yep. Willing to do the homework, but I, I totally agree. Um, on that note, I think it is tough when you want to, you want to get a lot of new clients, and one thing that’s going to be in the way of that is a paid consultation.

[00:09:49] Andrew Nasrinpay: Mm-hmm. Right? But at the same time. If they can’t afford a consultation, it’s probably not going to become a client anyway. Right. What is, where do you find that happy medium of, I’m sure. You have like the first call for free, but the consultation itself may not be, where do you guys or gals stand on that?

[00:10:11] Miriam Fisher: Yeah, that’s, and that’s a great point because that’s a, a difference with personal injury because, um, you know, if you’re doing something on a contingency fee, the client’s ability to pay is not a factor. If you’re doing flat fee like we do, it is a factor. Um, and so we, I try to remove as much friction as possible.

[00:10:27] Miriam Fisher: I want it to be easy for people to hire us. I don’t wanna assume that people can’t afford us. Um, because, you know, we provide an important service and people will find money that, that they need for something important if they’re convinced on the, on the value and the necessity. But I do wanna make it really easy.

[00:10:42] Miriam Fisher: And so that’s why we started doing the, the free case evaluation over the phone. It just shows them like. You know, we’re willing to give you some time. We care about your case, we wanna hear what’s going on. We wanna see if we can help you. It also helps us, um, you know, maximize the, the good leads, because if somebody is calling and they schedule a consultation and then they come in and it turns out that they have a question about bankruptcy, then that’s a waste of everybody’s time.

[00:11:06] Miriam Fisher: So. The case evaluation and the screening has been really important. As far as the consultation fees. There’s a lot of disagreements in amongst my colleagues about this. We set our consultation fee pretty low. Um, you know, we, we do different, different fees throughout the year, different promotions, if you will, but it’s always under $200.

[00:11:27] Miriam Fisher: And, uh, we kind of settled on that. We experimented with some different things and what, what I determined was the purpose of the consultation fee is one to make sure they show up. So it’s non-refundable. Right. And you know, different bars have different rules about how you explain that. So we follow all those rules, of course, but it’s a non-refundable consultation.

[00:11:45] Miriam Fisher: Then they’ve already made an investment into the firm. They almost feel in a sense like they’ve hired us. Um, it communicates to them that our time is valuable. Um, it prevents shopping around. Um, and so, you know, those are all ways to get people in the door. At the same point, you know, maybe, sure. I’ve been practicing, you know, almost 20 years.

[00:12:04] Miriam Fisher: I could charge. $750 an hour for my time, but nobody’s gonna spend $750 for if they don’t even know if you’re gonna be their lawyer yet. So I don’t view consultations necessarily as a, a revenue generator. It’s more of a gatekeeping function to lock people in and also to make sure that they’re serious.

[00:12:22] Andrew Nasrinpay: How, how did you settle on the number 200 though?

[00:12:25] Miriam Fisher: We it pure experimentation. I mean, we, we are, we were at a hundred for a while and then we went up to one 50 and we saw no change, and then we went up to 200 and people were, were asking why our consultation fee was so high, so we went down to 1 75. Um, and then we do promotions through throughout the year if.

[00:12:43] Miriam Fisher: We’re, you know, depending on kind of what our, our busy cycle is, sometimes we’ll do like, you know, over a holiday weekend, consultations a hundred dollars. Um, so kind of keeping it for us between, in that a hundred to 180 range has, uh, and that was just through trial and error.

[00:12:59] Andrew Nasrinpay: Okay. You recently went through a rebrand and those experiences can be super painful, but sometimes you come out of it, uh, feeling like, wow, this made such a big difference for us.

[00:13:12] Andrew Nasrinpay: Um, can you walk us through that?

[00:13:14] Miriam Fisher: Yeah. Our rebrand was, uh, 100% organic, uh, at least. Once it started and then when we got strategic, it was super fun and it really paid off. So, um, we were kind of your typical law firm for a long time. Arrington Law was just the last name and then law at the end of it, like so many lawyers do.

[00:13:34] Miriam Fisher: And um, as I said, you know, my own practice, I had different practice areas over time. So, um, I did criminal defense, we did some family, we did some plaintiff side civil litigation. But once we realized, uh, and, and. This didn’t come to me in a dream. I mean, we looked at the case numbers and the metrics and things like that, um, because I’m very, very big on metrics.

[00:13:54] Miriam Fisher: But when we isolated the different practice areas, we realized that immigration was just a clear winner. It was our most profitable, it was the one everybody liked the most. It was our most successful. It was the easiest to scale. And so we, uh, phased out of our other practice areas. So then it’s like, okay, well we’re an immigration firm now.

[00:14:13] Miriam Fisher: Uh, a general law firm or an immigration firm. Um, we also are all bilingual or trilingual. And so just because of the demographics of our city and because of our own language abilities, the vast majority of our clients speak Spanish. Um, and so, uh, another just thing that happens to be the case is that all of our lawyers are women.

[00:14:32] Miriam Fisher: And so we just started listening to our clients and they were all just calling us lass. That’s how they referred to our firm. They didn’t call us Arrington Law. Um, they called us Las AGAs. And we, uh, would be out at community events, doing festivals, things like that, and, and people would say, oh, it’s Lasa AGAs.

[00:14:48] Miriam Fisher: So we’re like, all right, we’re Las AGAs. Um, we tagged on RVA because we’re in Richmond, Virginia. Um, and we committed to that brand and, uh, it’s. You know, it, it’s been really successful. It’s simple, but it communicates who we are, what we are. And you know, there’s other layers to it too. I mean, the fact that it’s the feminine of the lawyers.

[00:15:08] Miriam Fisher: Um, our branding colors stayed the same. So it’s always been teal, um, which just is my favorite color. So that’s the color that I picked, you know, 10 years ago when I started the firm.

[00:15:18] Andrew Nasrinpay: I was gonna ask Yeah. But I, I like that answer. Like, I think that’s the right answer sometimes. Yeah. Just to be different.

[00:15:24] Miriam Fisher: Yep.

[00:15:24] Andrew Nasrinpay: And,

[00:15:25] Miriam Fisher: Nope, it’s my favorite color.

[00:15:27] Andrew Nasrinpay: So we did. A giant study where Bobby, uh, one of our, the co-founder, he ran a script that looked at all lawyers’ websites. We had a sample size of like 10,000 websites. Can you guess what colors people chose?

[00:15:45] Miriam Fisher: Um, I’m gonna, I wanna say like red, white, and blue.

[00:15:47] Andrew Nasrinpay: Blue. Okay. It was like 80% of lawyer websites were blue and then if it wasn’t blue and it was like 15% was red.

[00:15:56] Miriam Fisher: Okay.

[00:15:57] Andrew Nasrinpay: And then a very, very small amount. Anyone choosing any other color. So anytime we see a brand. That chose a color that’s not blue or red. We’re like, we love this.

[00:16:06] Miriam Fisher: Yeah. I mean it, I wish I was like a marketing genius, but it’s just my favorite color. It always has been. So, um, but it does kind of work because it’s like, you know, it, it has that sort of women lawyer touch, but it’s not hot pink.

[00:16:21] Miriam Fisher: Um, exactly. And which is, there’s nothing wrong with that. I know that there’s. There’s firms that use that, but that just wasn’t really our vibe. Um, and so we leaned into that and then a couple years ago we thought, thought some of it was like a little boring, so we added a little bit of coral in there. So now there’s like a little bit of coral in some of our stuff.

[00:16:37] Andrew Nasrinpay: I love it. Um, is there anything you wanna tell us about that journey of growing your firm that’s been like a huge difference or like the biggest thing, if you could give one piece of advice to other attorneys that are doing a similar path to you?

[00:16:52] Miriam Fisher: Yeah. Um, my biggest advice is to, to be authentic and to sort of, um, have blinders on to a degree, which is something that kind of comes naturally to me.

[00:17:01] Miriam Fisher: I can be a little oblivious. Uh, I’m internally motivated. So, um, when I was building my firm, uh, I came from the criminal defense world and I had worked at a phenomenal criminal defense firm with lawyers that I really admired. They were very much of the old school, so there was no marketing there. It was like, you know, gentleman’s agreements, handshakes, word of mouth, no systems.

[00:17:24] Miriam Fisher: All the institutional knowledge of the entire firm was like with within two secretaries. Um, and it had been working for them since, you know, this late sixties. Um, but, um, and a lot of, a lot of my, my other friends, if you will, in that area were similar, like small solo. Um, and I looked at, you know, other areas of law.

[00:17:47] Miriam Fisher: I looked at the big PI firms, the, the guys with the billboards, the, you know, the, the. Guys with four offices, or the girls with four office ladies with four offices. And I just looked at, you know, how can I do things differently? Um, and I got a lot of, uh, you know, pushback from some of my colleagues when we started social media marketing and, um, we do radio marketing.

[00:18:09] Miriam Fisher: Um,

[00:18:09] Andrew Nasrinpay: why did they push back?

[00:18:10] Miriam Fisher: Because that’s, that wasn’t the norm. Um, that wasn’t the norm, you know, that had a negative connotation. Um, and, uh, now I think that a lot of other segments of the legal profession have caught up. Um, but 10 years ago, um, you know, small law firms were not really marketing the way that they are now.

[00:18:28] Miriam Fisher: So, um, you know, kind of, uh. Um, drowning out the, the criticism a little bit. And then the second piece is really being authentic. And, you know, we’ve talked a couple about a couple of the ways that we’ve done that. You know, um, I mean, you can’t be oblivious to like market trends and what’s going on, but you know, as I said, a lot of law firms have been successful in going virtual.

[00:18:51] Miriam Fisher: And that just, you know, that’s not how I wanted to work. That’s not how, I don’t like to meet with professionals. I don’t like to do telehealth appointments. And, you know, when I meet with my CPA and my, uh, you know, financial advisor and stuff, I like to go into their office. So, you know, I just kind of stuck with what felt right to me.

[00:19:07] Miriam Fisher: I think that, um, in business, if you follow your gut and you do what, you know, what you would appreciate if you treat clients, how you would appreciate being treated, um, that, that you can go a long way with that.

[00:19:19] Andrew Nasrinpay: I think there’s. Like an important lesson to be learned on the brand side from that where what you’re doing doesn’t have to appeal to everyone.

[00:19:27] Andrew Nasrinpay: Mm-hmm. And it shouldn’t

[00:19:28] Miriam Fisher: Yeah.

[00:19:28] Andrew Nasrinpay: You, you are peeling out a layer of the market where that is way more attractive to them than the competition. Yeah. And I, I think you’ve done a very good job of it.

[00:19:37] Miriam Fisher: Thank you. Yeah. We’re, we’re working on it. We’re gonna keep going.

[00:19:41] Andrew Nasrinpay: Alright. Is there any. Anything you’re working on right now that you’d wanna promote a book, a course, or anything along those lines?

[00:19:48] Miriam Fisher: Uh, well I, uh, my book is coming up on its, or actually we just had, it’s past the 17th, right? Yeah. We had our. Three year anniversary of my book being published. And so, uh, when I started my practice 10 years ago, I was a single mom to an infant. Um, and, uh, my law firm job at that time wasn’t really conducive to that.

[00:20:08] Miriam Fisher: So that’s what, uh, inspired me to start my own practice. Um, at the time I really didn’t have a blueprint for how to just start a practice out of nothing. So I did things the hard way. I made a lot of mistakes, I learned a lot of lessons. And then kind of once the dust settled and after a few years when I had gotten things up and running and was profitable, um, I, uh, started hearing from other law firms and other lawyers that were interested in starting practices with just looking for advice.

[00:20:36] Miriam Fisher: So I put it all together into a manuscript. I submitted it, it was published in January of 2023. It’s called Mom’s a Lawyer. Um, how to start a firm and Take Control of your life. And it’s very much a beginner’s guide, so it’s not for somebody who’s looking to scale from 10 million to 20 million, but it’s for somebody who maybe they’re working at another law firm, they’re thinking of starting their own practice and they just literally don’t know where to start.

[00:21:00] Miriam Fisher: It’s like, you know, you could start a law firm in, in 90 days type of thing. And, um. That’s, uh. That’s, uh, the story of how my firm started.

[00:21:10] Tara Lee: I think so many women are so scared to take that elite women lawyers, you know, uh, in particular, uh, to do that feelings here, a single mom, right? Um, so I think that resource, I know a lot of women lawyers that could definitely find that helpful.

[00:21:23] Tara Lee: So

[00:21:24] Miriam Fisher: yeah, it’s been great. It, it was great to, uh, hear from people, you know, once it came out, I thought, well, maybe my mom will. Order a bunch of coffee or something like that. But, um, I started hearing from lawyers all across the country, Canada, um, just, uh, you know, saying that, uh, that, that they were looking for just that like a beginner’s guide.

[00:21:43] Miriam Fisher: Yeah. And so that’s, that’s very much what it is.

[00:21:46] Andrew Nasrinpay: When you did the analysis and decided to go all in on immigration, what areas were like the biggest losers for the

[00:21:53] Miriam Fisher: criminal defense? Why, uh, which it pains me to say because for a long time I really, it was a huge part of my identity. I, I should say I loved practicing criminal defense.

[00:22:03] Miriam Fisher: That’s what I wanted to do when I was a little kid. And it was a dream come true. Um, and the number one reason is, is because of the attorney time it takes. Um, there’s very little in a criminal defense case that you can delegate, um, and it makes it very, very difficult to scale. Um, the only way that you can make more money is by, you know, working more hours or charging more.

[00:22:23] Miriam Fisher: And so you reach a ceiling at that point. Um, and even if, even as you scale and you hire, um, associates, um, then you know you’re still talking. Attorney time that you’re paying for versus paralegal time or, or legal assistant time. So it, I shouldn’t say it’s impossible. I mean, certainly there are people who run very successful criminal defense firms, but it’s not an, an accident that criminal defense firms tend to be, you know, small, maybe a, a partnership of a few lawyers or a solo practitioner.

[00:22:54] Miriam Fisher: And it’s because of the demands on the attorney, there’s less that can be delegated and that just makes it less efficient and less profitable.

[00:23:02] Andrew Nasrinpay: And you see a lot of the firms that are larger, they’re using criminal defense as a loss leader for personal injury or another area.

[00:23:10] Miriam Fisher: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:10] Andrew Nasrinpay: Where they make more money from it.

[00:23:13] Miriam Fisher: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:14] Andrew Nasrinpay: Alright. Um, is there anywhere where you could tell our viewers where to follow you or if they wanted to reach out to you, how, how they could get in contact?

[00:23:22] Miriam Fisher: Sure, absolutely. So my name is Miriam Fisher. I’m on all the social media channels. Our law firm is Lasa Bodas Rva, uh, lasa res rva.com is our site and also our social media handle.

[00:23:34] Miriam Fisher: All of our, um, social media is in English and Spanish. And so even though we, uh, serve a largely, um. Uh, Spanish speaking clientele, all of our, uh, information and, uh, all the content that we put out about immigration law is available in English as well.

[00:23:50] Tara Lee: Awesome. Thank you so much, Miriam.

[00:23:51] Miriam Fisher: Thanks for having me.

[00:23:52] Tara Lee: What is your favorite podcast?

[00:23:55] Tara Lee: Hot Docket by me

[00:23:57] Tara Lee: P That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you for watching Hot Docket Live from NTL Miami.