Michael Mogill

Michael Mogill (00:00):
I think it's attracting a certain type of mindset. We're not for everyone, but we cater to somebody who's very driven, very ambitious, very entrepreneurial minded. Legal, in general, it's just not known for its excitement. When we started doing our first events, I mean, we had these massive screens and we had a DJ playing music. We had David Goggins, a Navy SEAL, screaming at people, and that was very different from your traditional legal conference. You have to have a level of humility and an open-mindedness to consider a new approach.

(00:27):
Where I see a lot of big players get scared is that many of them are a lot of big traditional advertisers. They became big traditional advertisers because they hit a big case early in their career, poured that back into billboards or TV or what have you, and then their success at the margin become from just being able to outspend marketing. So when they're no longer able to have that competitive advantage, it's like, well, what do we do? Because they weren't prioritizing customer service and client experience. They weren't practicing law. They weren't taking the cases to trial. They weren't maximizing value for cases. That wasn't a priority. So this actually creates that competitive pressure to run a great law firm.

Bob Simon (01:16):
Welcome to this episode of Bourbon of Proof, where we interview those in the legal space who are both successful at law and life, and we do so over several spirits. A lot of these are brown alcohol. Today we're actually doing ones that have no alcohol in them as their first or second, we've done three or four of these, right, Mauro?

Mauro Fiore (01:32):
We've done where people had someone else with them that drank it, that actually drank the alcohol, and we've had people drink the non-alcoholic. So this is very rare, though.

Bob Simon (01:41):
And in bright red we have our esteemed co-host today, Mauro Fiore. Junior. Esquire.

Mauro Fiore (01:46):
Hello. Mauro Fiore Junior Esquire. That's my handle.

Bob Simon (01:50):
And we're very, very honored to have one of the pillars in the legal industry. Michael Mogill.

Michael Mogill (01:56):
I'm honored to be here. Thank you.

Bob Simon (01:58):
A true mogul. I mean that's a bless to have a last name like this.

Michael Mogill (02:02):
Well, I think now it is. When I was washing dishes at Taco Mac, right, and just working at a dive bar, I wouldn't say so much. They're like, "Mogul man. You should make something of yourself, right?" My family immigrated here. They came over here with nothing. They invest in their son. They say, "Hey, doctor or lawyer." I go all the way through college. I took the MCAT, I get into medical school and then decided not to go. 2008 hits. That obviously was an interesting period of time. So that's where I found myself at the dive bar. So I had the cool last name, but didn't have much to show for at the time.

Bob Simon (02:34):
You certainly lived up to it, my friend. And a lot of people here. So we're filming today, live in Atlanta, and we're at the Crisp headquarters, which this building is absolutely stunning.

Mauro Fiore (02:44):
It just keeps on going. From the street, it just goes back like a block.

Bob Simon (02:49):
I mean, there's 200 some lawyers here today.

(02:52):
Today. I mean the parking lot had 300 cars. What's going on here at the HQ?

Michael Mogill (02:59):
So we've got a couple workshops. So we've got every quarter, our attorneys in our communities, we have about a thousand firms, they come in for their workshops and there's the different programs that come in. So, for example, we've got two going on today, another two going on tomorrow. A couple of weeks ago we had another set of four. So they fly in from all over the country. They come in here and learn about leadership culture, how to develop their teams. And the advantage of saying, "Hey, there's a lot of lawyers here," is that nobody really messes with you. I just got LASIK eye surgery and when the guy was about to, my doctor was about to operate on me, he's just trying to spark up conversation. He says, "What do you do?" "Oh," I said, "We work with about a thousand lawyers," and I thought that would make him more careful, just during the surgery.

Bob Simon (03:39):
Oh yeah.

Michael Mogill (03:39):
So, here I'm a week later, LASIK ...

Bob Simon (03:42):
Do you know your eyes are two different colors?

Michael Mogill (03:45):
Are they? They must have messed up?

Bob Simon (03:47):
No. It's fine. [inaudible 00:03:48], but I always do that every time I go to the hospital to a doctor or something, I always casually drop that, "Hey, I'm a lawyer," but I don't sue doctors, yet.

Michael Mogill (03:54):
It makes them real nervous. My wife had knee surgery a couple of years ago and when the surgeon asked us what we did and we said we worked with lawyers, it made him a little uncomfortable. He's like, 'cos he was about to go into a deposition after our appointment.

Bob Simon (04:11):
This is a Free Spirits.

Mauro Fiore (04:14):
How'd the LASIK work out? Is he good?

Michael Mogill (04:17):
So I got checked yesterday. 20/10. Now, prior to this, people were telling me that they said LASIK was the best thing they ever had done in their life. Married people told me that the best decision they ever made was LASIK, not marriage or kids or whatever. So I'd say it's probably a top 10 decision. I don't know if I'd say it's the best, but it's just nice to be able to wake up and see and ...

Mauro Fiore (04:36):
I had it done about 15 years ago and I would say that it's in my top 10 of things I ever did. I could see the same day. It was amazing. And I was blind. I could see shit. So it is a pretty amazing process.

Bob Simon (04:49):
I can't see close up and Mark can see like eagle vision, far.

Michael Mogill (04:52):
It doesn't help you with close up.

Bob Simon (04:54):
Well I can see this bottle because this one's a Free Spirits. Now we've got those specifically for you, because, now listen to this. I know you're big into health and wealth, so this is a rich alternative to bourbon with B vitamins and other functional ingredients to help ignite your energy and elevate ... Okay?

Michael Mogill (05:20):
I've never tried any of these, but I can tell you right out of the gate, I really appreciate the level of respect because this stuff's probably going to taste horrible to you.

Bob Simon (05:27):
It's probably going to taste horrible to me, but maybe. But I know you have a speaking, you have to actually be strong to open this bottle apparently.

Mauro Fiore (05:33):
I tried to get my dad to drink some of this non-alcoholic stuff when he was pretty old and he was drinking booze. I tried to sneak it in one time and he is like, "This isn't booze, this isn't liquor." And he threw it in the garbage. That's my dad.

Michael Mogill (05:50):
It'll probably still have placebo effect.

Mauro Fiore (05:52):
Let's see.

Bob Simon (05:53):
Let see.

Michael Mogill (05:53):
We get a little buzzed off it.

Bob Simon (05:55):
Let's check this out, Mauro. All right.

Mauro Fiore (05:57):
Smells good.

Bob Simon (06:00):
Cheers.

Michael Mogill (06:01):
Cheers.

Bob Simon (06:01):
To a crisp start of the morning.

Mauro Fiore (06:03):
It's interesting.

Michael Mogill (06:10):
What's your assessment?

Bob Simon (06:12):
I mean it does not taste like whiskey. No.

Mauro Fiore (06:14):
Tastes like, kind of like a watered down Coca Cola.

Bob Simon (06:17):
It does. Watered down whiskey with like a ginger hint to it. I don't feel bad chugging it, so that's fine, that's fair.

Mauro Fiore (06:24):
No, it's not bad.

Michael Mogill (06:25):
I bet whoever made this, the problem is that was like the 30th formulation. We perfected it.

Bob Simon (06:32):
How many tastings they think that they went through this?

Michael Mogill (06:35):
I mean, I don't know, hundreds. Probably.

Bob Simon (06:36):
My wife does consumer goods and drinks and they go through so many back and forth and ingredients and formulations and taste tests and, this is what they came up with.

Mauro Fiore (06:46):
Caramel kissed, non-alcoholic blend. I mean it's okay.

Michael Mogill (06:50):
Five calories.

Mauro Fiore (06:50):
I mean it's good.

Michael Mogill (06:51):
It's amazing.

Bob Simon (06:52):
Well, five calories per how many pours if you drink the whole bottle?

Michael Mogill (06:56):
It is deceiving.

Bob Simon (06:57):
So Mike, everybody thinks you have all of this wealth. I mean, you rented out, you did an event at the Dome here in Atlanta. I was there doing the Dirty Bird. I mean it was incredible. You had Arnold Schwarzenegger. I remember you had Goins, Shonra who we interviewed yesterday, was on there. John Morg.

Mauro Fiore (07:16):
The dirty bird?

Bob Simon (07:17):
You don't remember the dirty bird with the Atlanta Super Bowl?

Mauro Fiore (07:19):
I remember the Icky Shuffle.

Bob Simon (07:20):
That was Cincinnati.

Mauro Fiore (07:21):
Maybe I'm a little older than you.

Bob Simon (07:22):
Stop it, but I remember the Icky Shuffle, too. So I mean, everybody thinks that you must have had all this money to start this massive empire, but it's not true?

Michael Mogill (07:32):
I wish it was an immigrant trust fund somewhere, if there just was that opportunity. It's interesting. In the early days of the business when I started, so I started the company in 2012. I had $500 to my name. I reached out, I mean, to try to get investors and just go to banks and no one wanted to loan the money to someone running a service-based business for the first time with no track record of success.

Bob Simon (07:54):
What was your vision in 2012? What was your pitch to these people turning you down?

Michael Mogill (07:58):
So initially, in 2012, we were purely focused on short-form video. So video for the web, and this was really before YouTube and a lot of the social media platforms were predominantly video in terms of the content that you see. But most businesses would advertise on TV and we worked with a lot of smaller firms that just didn't have the resources to compete with big players. They couldn't do a lot of traditional advertising like billboards and radio and TV, but with the barrier to entry on social media on a Facebook or YouTube or Instagram, Twitter at the time was much lower. So I looked at it as this video content could really help firms differentiate and stand out. I used to, every meeting and every call I had, I'd talk about the power of video and people look at me, I know it seems like now obvious, but then ...

Bob Simon (08:45):
But it's so crazy 'cos we've had one of the bigger tech founders, they're multi-billion dollar companies, and they were telling stories around the same time, talking to firms about going on the cloud and people laughing in their face.

Michael Mogill (08:57):
They laughed. They're like, "I don't think anyone's going to watch these videos, especially on the internet." And we said, well look, because at the time the big agencies Ogilvy's so on, I mean they were running these massive campaigns, largely for Fortune 500s. So small business really didn't have a great option. And this was also around the time where there was a shift from on the photography and video side, from film cameras to digital cameras. And then there's a whole movement of purists that just did not want to go in that direction. They didn't want to shift to digital. Most of them are not in existence today. But I remember at the time people just laughed. They're like, why would anybody want a video for their business who would watch a video online, like a short form video? We were saying two to three minutes.

(09:35):
They literally laughed at me. And it's interesting because every call I would have, I'd have to say, well, a picture's worth a thousand words, but a video we're talking about ...

Bob Simon (09:44):
Multiple, multiple.

Michael Mogill (09:45):
... 30 frames a second. And they didn't get it. But it's interesting because I was looking at how people were consuming content and it was only a matter of time. YouTube was already starting to kick off, but at the time, platforms like Facebook and Instagram and so on, it was still primarily just either sharing links or sharing images. It wasn't video yet, but I just looked at it and look, inevitably it's going to go here. So it's obvious now. You don't really have to sell anybody on the value of video when it's 90% of the content they consume. But then, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Bob Simon (10:19):
I mean this is 2012, so now you offer a whole heck of a lot more than that and you have Chris Ventures and you have a lot of stuff going on. I know you're doing development of products and these things, but it came from just knowing the market was going to go to short form video in 2012.

Michael Mogill (10:38):
Because it was really about, at the time, you're looking at let's say the legal industry, which again, that one happened completely by accident. We started broad working with big brands, like Coca-Cola and Verizon and Red Bull. And there's nothing special about that. I know if it sounds like a big brand, every agency in Atlanta was working with Coca-Cola, right? That wasn't anything unique or special, but what I saw really was that you've got a super competitive market, let's say legal in particular, super saturated, very commoditized from a consumer standpoint. How do they even tell one law firm from apart from another? If they visit their websites, they see they're all the best. They're all super lawyers. And when you ask somebody how do you find a lawyer? They say, well, I just either get a referral from a friend that somebody had a previous good experience with, or outside of that they just do a Google search and they see who either comes up or at the time there was a lot of the legal directories like AVO and so on.

(11:29):
But there was not really a good way differentiate one law firm from another.

(11:33):
So the idea behind the video was, "Hey, let's tell your story. Let's showcase why you became an attorney. What sets your firm apart?" And initially it gave a lot of these small firms, leveled the playing field. We say the best cases go to the best marketers, which is an unfortunate truth. It's not something I like. Our aim is to help the best cases go to the best attorneys. So video is a way to level the playing field. And then, I mean, I say this today, it seems like a natural progression, but I actually feel I did this backwards, but we expanded from video to marketing. 'Cos you produce the content but then our law firms didn't know what to do with it. They're like, I play at cocktail parties and I put it on my website. But like, how do people find me?

(12:09):
So that's where we started pushing the content on social media. And then from there, let's say you get the phone to ring and the next challenge we saw is that some law firms just didn't have a great intake process or just didn't have great systems in place at the firm. There wasn't really a business there or any way of actually supporting the marketing. They wouldn't live up to the marketing. You can get the phone to ring, but then when it came time to deliver ...

Bob Simon (12:32):
And is that a lot of what you teach here, like business skills, how to actually operate a profitable law firm, these types of skills?

Michael Mogill (12:39):
So we teach everything outside of how to practice law.

Bob Simon (12:43):
That's probably the most valuable thing for lawyers.

Michael Mogill (12:46):
Everything from how to hire the right people, how to attract the best people. Every law firm I come across, they say, look, we want the best trial attorneys. I say, "Well, you're not alone. Why would the best trial attorneys want to work at your firm? Because I mean, they have a lot of options. A great trial attorney can go anywhere. They can be well compensated. They're usually in many cases even happy where they're at. So it's like how do you attract somebody like that? And it's building the type of culture and the type of brand that gets somebody into your ecosystem. And beyond that, it's like how do you develop your leaders? How do you get your team onboard? We're all about culture. I know there's a lot of business organizations that are very focused on the financials and the P&Ls, and they're almost like CPA-focused. And we believe that ...

Bob Simon (13:27):
I mean, talk about culture and I want to open the next bottle.

Michael Mogill (13:30):
Get the people right.

Bob Simon (13:31):
Michael, you got to ...

Michael Mogill (13:32):
Oh, I got to drink this.

Bob Simon (13:33):
I mean, you got to finish it. That's the only rule on the show. This is another one ... Just talking about culture, I'm going to pour, oh man, this is called Spears Kentucky 74, and it's a spiced non-alcoholic cinnamon ...

(13:48):
Man, I have not, but because I think Cinnamon's usually fire and I think the, wow, this smells, it all smells like olive-like juice, which I do love olive juice, but I like a dirty martini.

Michael Mogill (14:08):
You never mix these, do you?

Bob Simon (14:10):
Just finish it. You can mix it. You want to mix it?

Michael Mogill (14:11):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (14:12):
Oh man, this'll be fine.

Michael Mogill (14:15):
There we go.

Bob Simon (14:15):
Because talk about culture and things that you've done. You're not worried about the P&Ls. You held an event that I rumored that you spent $8 million on renting out the Superdome and having probably the biggest event any lawyer's ever put on.

Michael Mogill (14:32):
So that was, I don't know if I'll ever do that again. And I don't actually know if anybody else is going to do it again. People ask me why were we doing this? Because we'd done a few of our events before and our conferences are like ...

Bob Simon (14:45):
This is actually pretty good. This is way better than it smells.

Michael Mogill (14:47):
This way better than the other one.

Bob Simon (14:48):
This is way better than it smells. This actually tastes like fireball.

Mauro Fiore (14:51):
This is better than the Free Spirit, for sure.

Bob Simon (14:52):
Oh yeah. I'm shocked at this one. I could actually drink this.

Michael Mogill (14:56):
And this one's 30 calories.

Bob Simon (14:59):
Oh fuck.

Michael Mogill (14:59):
So you got six times as many calories, but you probably got six times the flavor, too.

Mauro Fiore (15:03):
Well, you know how I watch my calories, Bob.

Bob Simon (15:05):
Oh yeah. Watch them go down your, into your mouth, down into your system. So, I know you're big on health right now, too, and I know I see from cold plunging to all the other stuff they're doing. And you're fucken ripped, dude. I mean, did you touch his guzz muscles? Not in a creepy way, but did you?

Mauro Fiore (15:22):
No, but I'll do it later.

Bob Simon (15:23):
Okay. He'll pall at you. But look, I mean, ...

Mauro Fiore (15:27):
Is he hairless? Is he hairless?

Bob Simon (15:28):
I don't know.

Mauro Fiore (15:29):
Is he clean?

Michael Mogill (15:30):
We could probably get a deal. Maybe the suit's too small.

Bob Simon (15:32):
Just a small suit, little jacket. But yeah. What are some things that you think are working well for you? Because like me, your a girl dad, right?

Michael Mogill (15:40):
Oh yeah. Two daughters.

Bob Simon (15:42):
And beautiful wife, Jessica. I know you guys spend a lot of time together, work together. But what do you do for health? What's the new thing?

Michael Mogill (15:50):
So I know we were talking about this even before we started rolling and that I struggle with moderation, anything. I get obsessed with things. And I mean, you guys know, I mean, after years of growing a business and you know what the hours are like and what the sacrifices are like, and it just, I'm still relatively young, but I got some blood labs done. This was back in, I think towards the end of 2022. And I was just not in great shape. So I was at the time, I think I was what, 36, 37. And they said, "Look, your labs look like a 50-year-old, right? Everything's out of whack." It was just stressed out, exhausted. And I've known numerous colleagues of mine that, and we all know people that had a heart attack too early or neglected their health. And I saw the writing on the wall and I was like, "Look, if I don't pivot here, if I don't start to change things, I want to be here from my girls."

(16:40):
I also look at it from the standpoint of can I be the best leader for my team? Can I be the best husband and so on if I don't have the energy, the vitality to keep going. So yeah, I got obsessed. Everything from getting diet, getting exercise right. I'm exercising probably four or five days a week.

Bob Simon (16:58):
What kind of exercise do you do?

Michael Mogill (17:00):
I mean just weight training. Weight training. I'll do some rowing or cycling. I hired a trainer and he said, look man, can you get 10,000 steps a day? And I'm like, all right, challenge accepted. Now I average 30,000 steps a day for no reason other than I just wanted to do a higher number because just give an idea of how I approach things. And I've got, I'm kind of in a privileged position a few years ago where I was able to really, I mean I believe that you don't have to do everything alone. And if you're able to bring on help and some sort of just resource to help guide you along the way, because look, I tried it on my own. I was working out before, but my help was what it was. And everyone knows what they're not supposed to eat, and yet we still eat it.

(17:39):
Anyway, so I brought on a whole health team and this was everything from a chef to a trainer to a nutritionist, to even a functional medicine doctor. So we do blood labs quarterly and he's like, here's what we got to do to dial things in. And when you make that kind of investment, I mean one, it's like you have accountability, but you don't have to do it alone. So here I am probably what, a year, almost a year and a half later, dropped about 20, 25 pounds, but that probably wasn't the main thing. I think it's more so around sleep improved. We started tracking everything. I was wearing one of those whoops, you got the eight sleep. It's no different from growing a business. It's like you can't really improve what you don't measure. And actually I enjoy it. It doesn't necessarily even feel like work. It just became a part of my day-to-day.

Bob Simon (18:27):
You got to invest in your health and we were otherwise, so me, my wife and a bunch of our friends, Nick Rowley, who we all know, we go to this place in Colorado, the Boone Heart Clinic and this anti-aging thing called resilience code.

Michael Mogill (18:38):
He's obsessed too.

Bob Simon (18:38):
He's obsessed. And we were just with him last, did you go up there to Santa Barbara? I was with him last weekend.

Mauro Fiore (18:41):
I couldn't make it. I was switching T-ball last Saturday, but I wanted to go.

Bob Simon (18:46):
We're good friends with them and they're big on longevity and stuff, and I think you got to be healthy like that. So, for me, I actually ran my panels many times and they checked my liver many times. They're like, it's pristine, acid.

Michael Mogill (18:59):
You serious?

Bob Simon (19:00):
Check it again, I'm 100% serious. I asked my doctor, they're like, he's like, "You can have a couple of drinks a day, no problem." And I get it checked every time, but I think that's just genetics. This guy's never gone to see a friggin doctor, ever. So we have to drag him. Nick's going to send his plane for Mauro to take him to Colorado, the next couple weeks.

Mauro Fiore (19:14):
I was supposed to go April 11th.

Bob Simon (19:16):
He's making him go.

Mauro Fiore (19:17):
I've had this thing where, the last time I went to a doctor, I was 36. And so I'm 49 so I'm figured, I feel fine. The fuck I need to go to a doctor for? I'm fine.

Michael Mogill (19:31):
But here's the whole thing about this longevity movement. And initially I was listening to podcast, then I get obsessed and I start reading PubMed articles and there's this whole movement. You are shifting from sick care to healthcare and preventive medicine, and you can find the right clinic that'll get MRIs done and CT scans, you can catch things early and you can treat them. You can treat almost any cancer if you catch it early enough.

Mauro Fiore (19:52):
So now Nick has basically badgered me and bombarded me with texts and phone calls for the last three months to where I'm actually going to this resilience code place.

Bob Simon (20:05):
He put us on a text chain. It's like our wives, his wife's shaming him.

Mauro Fiore (20:07):
Shaming me.

Michael Mogill (20:09):
This is going to be up there with LASIK. I'm telling you. When you know, imagine you catch something, like a stage one cancer and you can handle it, now. And there's so many people that, they check out your blood vessels and they check out all the arteries and everything like that, and they're like, you know what? If we make this change right now, I know countless people that have done these types of labs and assessments and they find out that something bad was about to happen. They were right on the verge of a heart attack. They catch it early.

Bob Simon (20:36):
They caught it through this and they're good. They put on medication, they cleared all plaque. It's crazy what can be done.

Michael Mogill (20:42):
It's like the greatest gift I think you can give somebody.

Bob Simon (20:44):
I love that shit, man. By the way, we put up here Pappy Van Winkle 23, which is one of the hardest to find bottles. So if you ever want to take a pool while you're here, I know you have a TED talk right after this and you're really healthy, but that's good for you. This one's actually very medicinal. And your friend Alex Shinara actually gave us that bottle.

Michael Mogill (21:04):
He's got a whole collection.

Bob Simon (21:05):
He went through the story, how they do those things.

Michael Mogill (21:07):
Have you seen his collection?

Bob Simon (21:08):
No. He's taken pictures. I've never been in his house, though. But he was one of the original folks with you, right? Like Chris, right?

Michael Mogill (21:18):
This is where, I think it was John Morgan who said at one point when he and I spoke a number of years ago, and he said, "Life is luck." And I said, "Well, John, what about, like, free will?" And he's like, "Obviously hard work is important and you have to take advantage of opportunity." But he's like, "The longer I do this, the more I realize life is luck." And at first I challenged him on that and now that I reflect, I'm like, I think luck plays a much larger role than many of us believe.

(21:42):
And in the case of Alex, for example, the way Alex and I even met for example, was that we were at the National Trial Lawyers, and I was supposed to fly out early, but I decided to change my flight so I could stay later with the team and help them pack up the booth. At the time, we flew with our booth and we would pack everything up. We stayed at a different hotel because I believe you got to stay hungry, right? Couldn't afford to stay at the Lowe's. So we'd find some other hotel in Miami and I was like, we're going to walk. Even after we were able to afford the Lowe's, we still would stay at other hotels.

Bob Simon (22:10):
Why do that? Just to not be away from everybody?

Michael Mogill (22:12):
Well, that's actually a great reason, too.

Bob Simon (22:14):
Peace of mind. I never stay at the hotel where the ...

Michael Mogill (22:16):
So I changed my flight and then that flight gets delayed three times and we finally fly back into Atlanta and it's like midnight, almost 1:00 A.M. And we happen to be a baggage claim and I bump into Alex. That is the way Alex and I met. Now in that situation, had I taken my original flight, I don't know if Alex and I would've ever connected.

Bob Simon (22:34):
You know how I connected with Alex? At your event in Atlanta?

Michael Mogill (22:39):
There you go. There you go.

Bob Simon (22:39):
He came and we had, and people's like, "You got to meet this gentleman. You guys speak a lot and think a lot of the same." And another friend of mine was looking for a new opportunity at a new firm and he ended up working for him and he's excelling right now. We were with him last night. It all comes full circle.

Michael Mogill (22:53):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (22:55):
I mean, it's funny how small this industry is, but a lot of people came up through your masterminds. The Matt Dolmans of the world, all these people were together, and a lot of the people don't even realize that they started with them. Do you ever think of it as a coaching tree, like the people that you helped in ...

Michael Mogill (23:14):
I think it's attracting a certain type of mindset, right? I think we are not for everyone, but we cater to somebody who's very driven, very ambitious, very entrepreneurial minded. I think that person is attracted to it. We also took a unique approach. I mean, legal in general, when you look at how a lot of the conferences have been run and what they look like, it's not known for its excitement. It's not known for its community. It's not known for really driving any type of emotion and movement. And when we started doing our first events, I mean we had these massive screens and we had DJ playing music. We had David Goggins, a Navy SEAL, screaming at people. And that was very different from your traditional legal conference. So I think that that attracts certain individuals. It probably repels a lot of other individuals, and that's okay.

(23:57):
But I think it's been a privilege to work with the number of firms that we have. And it's great. But I also think there's people drawn to, I think you have to have a level of humility and an open-mindedness to consider a new approach. And it is just recognizing, I mean the big thing we've always been pushing is that at the root of any problem is people and at the root of any solution is people. If you can get the right people into your firm, you can create the right culture. It'll solve every problem. So I know we were talking earlier about, it's not saying P&Ls don't matter. They matter a lot. The metrics matter a lot. The revenue matters, the profit matters.

(24:29):
But I don't know that you solve that by looking at the line items and saying, cut this, cut that. If you have the right people, I mean, think about it this way. If you could have the absolute best trial attorneys, the absolute best paralegals, the absolute best intake staff on the planet, you would solve every problem. You wouldn't have any problems. You'd be done. Right now, obviously the road to getting there is challenging, but it's like if you had the right person in the right role and you were able to create the environment, they can all work together. I mean, this is how championships are made.

Bob Simon (24:57):
And you have championship runs. You keep the team together. And I think I've been big at culture at our firm and we've hired the best people. And I would do the same thing. I don't care about resumes. I don't care where you went to school. And I would know you're the same way. We interview a human being. That human being has a culture fit and picks up the team and that's what it's all about.

Michael Mogill (25:17):
How often do you ask if, let's say you're interviewing a lawyer, how important is it to you where they went to law school?

Bob Simon (25:21):
No, I don't think we ever even asked that question. Unless it's like [inaudible 00:25:25] who went to an unaccredited law school. And that is a surprise that Gary Dordek, one of the best trial lawyers, didn't even go to college, went to an unaccredited law school. That's the only time we ask.

Michael Mogill (25:34):
It's fascinating. It's like I look around my office and I couldn't even tell you where they went to college. I found out the other day, I was like, you know what? We have some MBAs and PhDs here, and I started to feel inadequate. I only got a bachelor's, right? So I was like, what? These people are here? So it's just wild to me. But I tell you that, you're right. You're looking at the individual, you're looking at what are their skills, their capabilities, what's their mindset? What's their attitude day to day? And if you can, it's such a challenging thing. It's simple but not easy. Imagine you have 10 people at your firm or 50 people or 100 people. The idea of bringing it together, different backgrounds and different personalities and different skill sets, and getting these human beings to work well together because that, I mean, you could attract very talented people, but it doesn't mean they're all going to work together. We've seen this with teams all the time.

Bob Simon (26:18):
We try to deal with, I mean, I have 25 lawyers at our firm and we got maybe 60, 70 staff, and we do it all virtually. And I try to, it's ...

Michael Mogill (26:26):
That's amazing.

Bob Simon (26:26):
And you have, it's an art of building culture virtually and do some in-person stuff when you can. But I also found a lot of the run-of-the-mill HR issues went way down after we made that pivot because people weren't arguing about leaving the toilet seat up in the bathroom and all these other things that would just bog people down for no reason and just whatever. But, I have another pour here for you.

Michael Mogill (26:50):
I'm loving this one.

Bob Simon (26:51):
This is great.

Michael Mogill (26:52):
[inaudible 00:26:53] you seriously impressed by this.

Bob Simon (26:53):
I think we're going to be very impressed with this. 'Cos this is from that Pappy Van Winkle 23. Pappy. This is the granddaughters, or great-granddaughters of Pappy. They're triplets. And they started doing their own marketing, doing own thing. So this is non-alcoholic one that the triplets of the Pappy Van Winkle family do. And this is a bourbon barrel aged old-fashioned cocktail mixer. Non-alcoholic. We got this ...

Michael Mogill (27:19):
This is an non-alcoholic. Is it really non-alcoholic?

Bob Simon (27:20):
It is.

Michael Mogill (27:21):
You just said that three times. I'm just confirming that.

Bob Simon (27:24):
You got LASIK eyes.

Michael Mogill (27:26):
I'm going to get tricked on the third one.

Bob Simon (27:28):
We got this in Birmingham at a liquor store called Linnell's at an ABC store. Very happy to find this.

Mauro Fiore (27:35):
Very thick.

Bob Simon (27:35):
This is, it is thick. We're just going to do a little pour. I think you're just supposed to be mostly be a mixer. This is like maple syrup, dude.

Michael Mogill (27:43):
Wait, is this blasphemy in the Pappy family, for them to do something like this?

Bob Simon (27:47):
It's only blasphemy if you think it is, right?

Mauro Fiore (27:50):
Smells good.

Bob Simon (27:51):
It's got to be good. It is pretty thick. It's supposed to be a mixer, but it make an old fashion with this. Oh, that would be fucking banging and was ...

Mauro Fiore (28:02):
It would be a good mixer. I like it now.

Bob Simon (28:06):
It would be blasphemy ...

Mauro Fiore (28:08):
It does taste a little bit ...

Bob Simon (28:08):
... to take the Pappy 23 and mix it with something like this.

Mauro Fiore (28:10):
It does taste a little bit like bourbon.

Bob Simon (28:12):
Mauro tried it for his first Pap. He tried to mix it with Coke.

Mauro Fiore (28:17):
And Sprite.

Bob Simon (28:17):
And Sprite. He would've got struck down from the gods. So how do you find balance in, I know you were on the conference circuit a long time. You started off as a vendor selling all the stuff you're doing, and then you pivoted to, I mean, having this Mogill empire, right? But now you have little girls, you got your wife and you told me before that you're going to take off, maybe do one conference this year and have it just be yours. How are you able to flip that? How are you in a position to be able to do that, and how do you balance?

Michael Mogill (28:49):
Math? It's a loaded question. I don't know that I've fully figured this out. I will say that I think the advantage that I've had is that I get the opportunity to be around a lot of people that are further ahead in life than I am. And I can learn from them and learn from their experiences. And when I hear a lot of people's regrets saying that, I wish I would've spent more time with my kids and I wish I would've spent more time with my family. And I see this with a lot of entrepreneurs initially when we're getting started, it's like, I'm doing this for my family. You're putting in those long hours and on the weekend, you're telling everybody, it's like, I'm doing this so we can provide. And then you get to a point where you've hit that mark and everyone is taken care of and you're still doing that stuff and you're still saying, I'm doing this to provide for everyone.

(29:30):
And if you ask your kids, you're like, what's the ultimate currency with them? And it's just time with you. So I never thought I was a parent type, right? My wife and I originally, I don't know, we, I couldn't say we wanted kids. And we had the first one we're like, this one's pretty good. And then we had the second one, that was the exact opposite of the first one. But that being said, I realized, man, I love these kids. We interact with adults and helping like to develop them, the coaching program, that's one thing, right? It's like you can get mad at them because they've been around for a while and they're adults, but kids, you got a blank slate. It's like, what do they know? So you want to set up these kids to just be able to stand on their own and be people of value.

(30:09):
But for me it was just being able to prioritize and say, look, why are we doing all this? Obviously we want to help people, we want to impact people. But at the same time, it's like, what kind of example do I want to set? I don't know that people want to see somebody's working still 80 to 100 hours a week, stressed out and exhausted. I don't know if they're like, "Hey, this is what I'm going to aspire to be like."

Bob Simon (30:26):
But you seem like the type of person that loves to work.

Michael Mogill (30:30):
Oh yeah. I love it and I'm obsessed. But what I've done is, especially this year and even last year, it's put all the things with our family and our kids on the calendar first and then fill in the rest. So we've got example soccer tomorrow, right? Our girls, they just started soccer. Or we're going to Disney in a few weeks. So we planned those trips last year and rather than trying to find time on the calendar to be there with the family, another thing is every morning I'm dropping off our girls at school, and both my wife and I are, it's rare that I ever see both parents doing drop-off, ever. And I mean, obviously my wife could just go or we've got a nanny, she could take them. But I like doing it. We have some really interesting conversations on the way there.

Bob Simon (31:13):
They're the most fun conversation. I like picking them up and ask them, so what was your most fun part of the day? And just to hear the shit that they say.

Mauro Fiore (31:20):
Being a dad is probably the most important job you have. That's the most important job I have, I think.

Bob Simon (31:25):
Absolutely.

Mauro Fiore (31:26):
And they say that, I think I probably said this before on one of these podcasts, but by the time your kids turn 18, you've spent like 90% of the time you'll ever spend with them.

Michael Mogill (31:38):
I heard that's the 18 summers thing.

Mauro Fiore (31:41):
After that ...

Michael Mogill (31:42):
18 summers, I never thought ...

Mauro Fiore (31:44):
... exactly, I have a friend of mine, he lives in LA, his parents live on the East Coast. He's close to his mom and dad, but I know for sure, but I know this guy for a long time that he sees his parents four days a year. He'll go out there for Thanksgiving or Christmas or something for three days and then maybe his parents will come out for a weekend and that's it. And he's close to them, but he sees his parents four or five days a year, and he's been doing that for as long as I know him. 10 years. Imagine? So your time with your kids is so limited once they fly on their own that you have to take advantage of it now, when they're small. My kids are five, four, and then I have a 20-year-old, and I try to take advantage of all the time I can.

Bob Simon (32:32):
But your point is good. And we have, I forget the name of this product, but it is the family calendar thing where we enter it all in different color coded so we walk in and you can visualize the year, the month, the week, and be able to see everything, all the kids calendars, all the stuff I got to do, my wife has to do. But we pick, I always do before the new year is I'll go put all the kids stuff that I know we're doing, plan the vacations and plan it around and just like you do. Here's the conference I know I got to do. Here's a trial that I know I can't move, and that's in a certain color. And then you plan. But you also, I noticed recently you have where you take some of the people in your club on, on a cruise, but you bring your family.

Michael Mogill (33:11):
We went on the Ritz Yacht in January, which is, by the way, if you do that, it's going to spoil cruises just forever. Because it's funny, we went on a Disney cruise last year with our family and everyone was like, man, it's the best thing in the world. But we've been on the Ritz Yacht before. Don't get me wrong, it was nice. But you're on a ship of 3,000 people and you go out on the pool deck and you're like, it's rough. You're never going to find a seat. The Ritz Yacht, there's like 200 people. You can go around. There's nobody there. It's amazing. But it's hard for us to be away from the kids. And we were going for a little over a week. It's like, you know what? Let's just take them with us. And they had a little Ritz kids club there and spend time with them every single day. So it's great.

(33:52):
I guess my goal in the years ahead is just to get them involved, right? To get them as soon as I can take them to the office with me and they can start being unpaid interns, we're going to do that.

Bob Simon (34:03):
We should pay them for tax purposes, right?

Michael Mogill (34:05):
Of course. They may not know that, right? But, that being said, it's like I don't want it to be a mystery of we just go away and they're like, where do they go and what do they do? It's like, well, let me take you with me, right? Let's get the whole family involved.

Bob Simon (34:17):
So do you find, because we bring our kids to a lot of these legal conferences, too. Sometimes it's hard to be present with them because if you know everybody there, you're pulled in a million different directions. Everyone wants to talk to Michael. Especially if you're there with all your people in your group that you're bringing up. How are you able to actually have you time, to turn it off?

Michael Mogill (34:39):
So this is what we've done. I can't say this is the right way, and this is also a privileged thing to say. And again, I have to remind people that 13 years ago I had $500 to my name. So, just my answer to that is bring help. So we fly in our nanny with us and she'll stay in a room with our girls. So we will go and we'll have breakfast with them. Sometimes we'll have lunch if we're going to be hanging out, but it allows you to have some degree of separation. I don't know if your kids need you around 24/7, right? They don't need you that much. But it's important that, at least for us, that we are able to spend time with them every single day, that we're doing things together. But then it's also important that you can go get some sleep. And if you get one hotel room and you got your kids there and we have a five-year-old and a 2-year-old, and you need to be in peak state the next day, good luck.

Bob Simon (35:30):
If you're in the same room.

Michael Mogill (35:31):
If you're in the same room. Just get two rooms, bring the help with you.

Bob Simon (35:34):
We do two rooms or a suite and it's fun. But, I agree 100%. What I found good is when you travel, when we're going to Europe is we now have it dialed in where you find a local nanny that knows the area very well and they become like your kid concierge service where they know all the local parks.

Mauro Fiore (35:58):
Petting zoos and they know everything.

Bob Simon (36:00):
So that's been a very good, when I tell people how do you travel's? Like first thing, pick your location and find your support that's local. You bring somebody else with you, too. But if you have that local person that knows everything about the area, the safe places, little dangers, the little hidden gems for kids, it's the best.

Michael Mogill (36:15):
Awesome, too.

Bob Simon (36:16):
I'm telling you, man, so you learn something new every day. Just took it over spirits. So we're getting towards the end of the episode here. And before we do I want to ask you, because you've been seen as a visionary in the space, you predicted a lot of things that happened well before they did. You said for many times that non-lawyers owning law firms is coming.

Mauro Fiore (36:33):
Yeah.

Bob Simon (36:34):
You said that PE venture funds are coming into law firms. You predicted short ...

Mauro Fiore (36:38):
What's PE? For people who don't know.

Bob Simon (36:39):
Private Equity. And what's the future look like now? What are things that you see coming?

Michael Mogill (36:49):
So this could either be absolutely terrifying for someone listening, or this could be incredibly exciting, and it's the same thing, just two different perspectives. So, I mean, non-lawyer firm ownership is here, and whether we fight that, whether we agree with it or disagree with it, the reality of it is is that, and however that exists sometimes in the form of a lead gen company, and someone might say, well, this isn't legal in my state, but okay, fine. So they incorporate in Arizona and they could market for cases in any city or state. There's really no jurisdictional lines that way.

(37:21):
So, that introduces itself, private equity coming in and offering capital. Somebody could see that and saying, how do I compete with that private equity money? Another person looks at it and says, well, what a great opportunity to be able to inject capital into my firm. They don't have to acquire me. They could just buy in. And I'm getting money to invest back into the practice, hire people. And it's at a rate that's, I mean, I say respectfully, that's a lot more competitive than a lot of the funding companies, right? So it provides lawyers opportunities to grow.

(37:47):
So there's a lot of great opportunities there. I think just AI, of course, in driving more efficiency and more effectiveness. I don't think AI is going to kill law firms. I think it's the lawyers using AI that will kill the lawyers not using AI. It's looking at it as an AI assistant of the ways in which you can be more efficient and more productive and more effective. All these things in so many ways are good for consumers. I know there's the opposing argument of saying, well, private equity comes in and non-lawyer firm ownership. Then it's going to turn into the same thing we saw in healthcare, and it's going to be one of these things where the mob is going to be gone, and that's not what we're about. We prefer the lawyers hang onto the ownership. But let's say you're somebody who has built a great practice, you've worked for many years, and what's the exit strategy?

(38:31):
Today, if you decide you want to sell that practice, your only buyer is another lawyer. And if you're a decent-sized firm, there's not really many options, particularly in your market. Who's going to buy your firm? Now with private equity, now you can actually really sell this thing. You can get a legitimate valuation and you can get a strong multiple that can set you up for retirement. So that's something that previously really didn't exist. So I look at that as there's a lot of really great opportunities, but more importantly than anything, and this may sound self-serving, I'm not saying anyone has to even work with us, but I think the business side of law is becoming increasingly more and more important.

(39:06):
I remember when we started in 2012, people were still looking at lawyers that advertised as just blasphemous, and they were just an abomination to the profession. And then the lawyers that were running businesses, they said, well, they don't care about their clients. And I don't think anything can be further from the truth. I think when you run your practice like a business, you are prioritizing the client experience. You were making sure that you have the capacity. Your team is just on point and trained and well-developed, that you have the resources to take on and support really great cases. And if you look at it as saying, well, you've got one sole attorney who's spread thin working 100 hours a week, or you've got the resource attorney that's got a great team, provides great service, is super responsive, provides an amazing client experience, who's better for the client?

(39:45):
So I think that's where the movement's heading. I don't know that it's the same thing where lawyers that ignored advertising, eventually, they came around, the phone would ring a little bit less year after year, and they said, okay, you know what? Maybe I need to do something. And it's the same thing with running your practice like a business. You could say, look, well, you could always look at an example being like a Mark Linear and saying, well, Mark doesn't really run it like a business. And I don't really love that type of example. Because if you're banking on being a super well-known trial attorney that hits a billion dollar verdict, that is his marketing. And that doesn't apply to 99% of attorneys.

Bob Simon (40:18):
We know a lot of very successful trial lawyers that are broke, that have had huge verdicts, but they have no idea how to run a business.

Mauro Fiore (40:24):
Running the business of law and being a lawyer is so separate, are so different. And they don't teach you the difference in law school. And a lot of lawyers never adapt. And those are the ones that don't make it.

Michael Mogill (40:34):
So I'll close out by saying this, what is this really all about? Is it just helping a bunch of lawyers make more money? I think initially you can tell somebody, "Hey, it's all about leading a better life and serving your community and so on." But for someone who's struggling to support their family and support their team and can't pay their bills. Money, yes, that's first, right? Help them solve the money problem so they can realize that really it's not about the money. And if you can set somebody up to have that freedom of, well, money's not the number one focus anymore because the people in their life are taken care of, they can invest in their team. They can help their team members be successful. You're big on this, of just helping others win. Well, now they're like, okay, the money's handled. What am I going to do now?

(41:10):
I'm going to make a huge impact. I'm going to serve more people in my community. I'm going to actually do things that give rather than take. And I think that's better for everyone. So, helping somebody become a better leader is not just about helping the law firm be more successful. It's about helping them really lead a better life where they can spend that time with their kids and their family. And our aim is like, look, I think the best thing you can be to anybody, because you don't want to just tell people things. You can be the example. You can say a bunch of things, but I always say this about the team and the culture. We can talk about culture all day long from stage, but it's not until somebody interacts with our team whether they find out that's something real or not.

Bob Simon (41:50):
You can't spell culture without cult.

Michael Mogill (41:52):
That's right.

Bob Simon (41:53):
That's right. You're always building a mini cult, right, at the end of the day. But I do think that the number one thing to take away with all of that is the client wins.

Michael Mogill (42:02):
Yes.

Bob Simon (42:03):
If you have people that have confident team leaders with great culture that are happy and love what they do, they get a better experience, they get a better result. And I do agree with the non-lawyers coming into the space can be a very good thing if, like the marketing firms, have a quick and easy way to send those cases to the best lawyers. 'Cos I don't like the lead gen companies that sell it as a lead.

(42:26):
'Cos they're selling as a lead to somebody that can buy the lead and they're usually maybe that don't offer the best lawyer that just send them to a chiropractor, right? But if they're able to get a percentage of the deal, what do they want to do? They want to get the best return of their money, so they go to the best lawyer for that specific case and the client should win.

Michael Mogill (42:41):
Yes.

Bob Simon (42:41):
So those lawyers on one end that are doing short-form content with you 'cos that's where they want to compete, can now get cases directly from these people that are great at marketing and let lawyers be lawyers.

Michael Mogill (42:52):
That's right.

Bob Simon (42:53):
I think I agree a lot with what you just said. Mauro, how do you feel about all this?

Mauro Fiore (42:57):
Well, I think that, for me, I run a smaller firm, I don't do tremendous amount of marketing. I don't spend a lot of money in advertising or anything like that. But I've been successful because I have my niche, and knock on wood, I am a good lawyer and I have a mid-sized firm. I have like seven, eight lawyers and 40 staff. So I'm not running a mom and pop shop, but I'm not running a giant firm. The people that are running the big firms that advertise a lot, that are spending millions of dollars advertising, the ones you see the billboards all over the country, those are the ones that I think are scared of the non-lawyer ownership.

Bob Simon (43:34):
Well, a lot of them got bought in by that, but whatever happens is they end up getting on this treadmill they can never get off, some of those folks.

Mauro Fiore (43:40):
So they're scared of it because it's a lot of money that's going to come into the space that can compete with anybody or crush, they can crush people in the markets with the money they have behind them, right? The non-lawyer firms that can come in, they have it now in Arizona, Washington DC, I think in Washington State, it's going to be coming in soon. But it doesn't scare me. I think it just helps. I think it'll probably get rid of ...

Bob Simon (44:06):
Some bad players.

Mauro Fiore (44:08):
... some bad players.

Michael Mogill (44:09):
Yeah.

Mauro Fiore (44:10):
That's what I like.

Michael Mogill (44:10):
I love that you said that, because I know we're probably way over on time. This is bonus time. But the interesting thing about that, where I see a lot of big players get scared is that many of them are a lot of big traditional advertisers. They became big traditional advertisers because they hit a big case early in their career, poured that back into billboards or TV or what have you. And then their success have largely come from just being able to outspend marketing. So when they're no longer able to have that competitive advantage, it's like, well, what do we do? Because they weren't prioritizing customer service and client experience.

Bob Simon (44:43):
They weren't real practicing lawyer.

Michael Mogill (44:44):
They weren't practicing law. They weren't taking the cases to trial. They weren't maximizing value for cases, that wasn't a priority. So this actually creates that competitive pressure ...

Bob Simon (44:51):
I love it.

Michael Mogill (44:53):
... to run a great law firm.

Bob Simon (44:54):
And the great thing about what Michael and his team do and is doing here today live while we're filming at CRISP HQ, is they're training 200 lawyers right now on how to have that competitive edge to make sure that they're either insulated or, how would you say that they're able to be married in this situation if they wanted to, so that they're set up on the right path.

Michael Mogill (45:16):
I love what you do at Justice HQ, because I'm a big fan of collaboration. There's, of course, things that we teach at the workshops, but then there's the community that's established where you can learn from other people. They become referral partners with one another. I mean, they're sending cases back and forth. It's like, it's interesting because as the community grows, the value that everybody receives from being a part of it also increases. So I think it's hard to do it alone. I mean, whether we're talking about fitness or we're talking about growing a business ...

Bob Simon (45:40):
It's just not fun to do it alone.

Michael Mogill (45:41):
When it's just you on your own and you're having to deal with private equity, competitors in your market, whatever, that's tough. But when you've got hundreds, if not thousands of other firms that are also equally committed and they want to help you win.

Bob Simon (45:56):
And it's also inspiring because everybody's researching new stuff. We learn so much. But yes, we are at the end here, man. We could probably do this all day. I know we got some other things to do here, but we do this thing at the end called where you got to pick your Bourbon of Proof. You gottta pick which one of these three that you like the most and why? Okay?

(46:15):
So what's your bourbon of proof, Michael Mogill?

Michael Mogill (46:19):
Definitely not the first one.

Bob Simon (46:21):
No.

Michael Mogill (46:21):
I would say that that Spiritless tastes the most like Fireball, but the Pappy one is probably the best, at least to me. I know you guys were saying it could be used as a mixer, but that one had, to me, probably the, it tasted the most like a bourbon.

Bob Simon (46:37):
It did. Yeah.

Mauro Fiore (46:41):
Yeah, it did.

Bob Simon (46:41):
100%. Actually, I'm such a fan of Fireball, 'cos my Dungeons and Dragons nerd part of me you would always would start with a Fireball shot Fireball spell.

Michael Mogill (46:47):
Were you part of that lawsuit?

Bob Simon (46:48):
Which lawsuit? The Fireball thing wasn't there.

(46:50):
Oh yeah, I would've, because that's not real whiskey. They rip people off. When you get those little things, there's not real cinnamon whiskey.

Michael Mogill (46:55):
Yeah,

Mauro Fiore (46:56):
Yeah. There's no whiskey in it.

Bob Simon (46:57):
There's whiskey. What a rip off.

Mauro Fiore (46:58):
It's like cinnamon flavored alcohol.

Bob Simon (46:59):
I actually got that letter that you get says you should be part of this class action. They must've known. I bought a lot of it, but I didn't join. Well, Michael Mogul, thank you for coming on. Thank you for what you do in the industry. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for listening to this episode of Bourbon of Proof.