COLLEGE ATHLETES of JENNINGS, STROUSS & SALMON The ATHLETES IN LAW SPECIAL ISSUEA ttorney at Law Magazine Phoe- nix has published many special issues over our 10 year history. We’ve told the stories of women lawyers and lawyer veterans. We’ve had frank profiles on diversity in law. This month, however, we went a little outside the box. This month, we’re shar- ing the stories of NCAA athletes turned lawyers in our first Athletes in Law Spe- cial Issue. Our cover feature shares the stories of six college athletes practicing at Jennings Strouss & Salmon. And, “In the Huddle with the MVPs of Gallagher & Kennedy” delves into the lives of five of the firm’s athletes-turned-lawyer. The highlight of this issue is the Then-And-Now collage fea- turing submitted photos from Arizona lawyers. Visit our web- site to view companion stories featuring these men and women. When we first started working on this issue, we were facing a different world. Today, we’re just starting to come out of shelter- in-place orders, and protests in the name of George Floyd have risen across the country. It is my hope that you take some time from your busy life to enjoy this issue. I hope that it is a reprieve in the storm. For more up-to-date stories, news articles and op-eds, visit our website. We also invite you to submit your own articles on legal issues or current legal events. Happy reading, Ken Minniti EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER 480-219-9716 KMINNITI@TMMPUBLICATIONS.COM FROM THE Publisher Attorney at Law Magazine is published by: Target Market Media Publications Inc. Copyright ©2020, Target Market Media all rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited. Advertising rates on request. Bulk third class (standard) mail. Although every precaution is taken to ensure accuracy of published materials, Attorney at Law Magazine & Target Market Media cannot be held responsible for opinions expressed or facts supplied by authors. Corporate Office : 5828 North 7th Street, Suite 200 Phoenix, AZ 85014 Phone (480) 219-9716 www.tmmpublications.com • info@tmmpublications.com Ken Minniti PRESIDENT & CEO Howard LaGraffe VICE PRESIDENT Caitlin Keniston EDITOR Jaqueline Dávila GRAPHIC DESIGN Susan Cushing Veronica Jauregui ASSISTANT EDITOR Dragana Kartalija ADMINISTRATION Randy Feldman Bill Gallagher, DC, CMVI Daniel W. Hager Dave Kinsey Emily Larusch Billie Tarascio CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Susan Cushing CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Andrew Paul PHOTOGRAPHY Northern Alabama | Atlanta | Chicago | Dallas | Ft. Lauderdale Jacksonville | Los Angeles | Miami | Minnesota North Carolina Triangle | Ohio | Philadelphia | Phoenix | San Antonio Salt Lake City | Middle Tennessee | Washington D.C. CONTRIBUTING Editors EMILY LARUSCH DAVE KINSEYBILL GALLAGHER , DC, CMVI RANDY FELDMANBILLIE TARASCIO DANIEL W. HAGER 4 ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · PHOENIX· VOL. 12 NO. 3PROCESS SERVERS WE HAVE TWO SPEEDS FAST AND FASTER!! SERVING ALL OF ARIZONA ASAPSERVE.COM 480.821.1552 Court Filing Record Retrieval Private Investigations Skip Trace/Locates TABLE OF Contents 7 What Do Lawyers Need to Know about Google My Business? By Dave Kinsey 8 Leading Your Law Firm Through Crisis By Billie Tarascio 10 The College Athletes of Jennings, Strouss & Salmon Cover Story 19 In the Huddle with the MVPs of Gallagher & Kennedy 2020 Athletes in Law 23 Planning for Disaster in the Modern Age By Daniel W. Hager 24 How to Start Your Law Blog (and Why You Should) By Emily LaRusch 25 So You Think You Have a Warrant? What Should You Do? By Randy Feldman 26 Attorney General Mark Brnovich Arizona’s Greatest Advocate 28 Mythology of Personal Injury: Pre-Existing Conditions By Bill Gallagher, DC, CMVI SPECIAL SECTIONS 15 Then & Now Athletes in Law 10 5W hen someone googles the name of your firm, the information from your Google My Business (GMB) record is used to tell people where your of- fice is, your phone number, and much more. Google’s two most important records for searches about your firm are generally your GMB listing and your website, in that order. Google has automatically figured out the name, address, and phone number of many businesses. Howev- er, as new businesses are created, or as they add or change locations, Google might not be aware of these develop- ments for a period of time unless you tell Google by updating your GMB record. If your GMB record already exists, you must claim it. If not, you must create it. CLAIM OR CREATE YOUR LISTING If you google the name of your business and see a listing with the question “Own this business?” at the bottom, click on that link and begin to claim that record. If you don’t see that question, it means someone has already claimed this record. Alterna- tively, if you google “google my busi- ness” you should see a link (google. com/business) that will let you locate and claim a listing. Additionally, this is the place where you can create an entirely new business listing from scratch. You must be logged into a Google account to claim or manage any listings. Google will require you to validate that you are the owner of a GMB list- ing by entering a code. This code will either be sent to you in the mail (a postcard) or provided over the phone by Google calling the number listed in the GMB record. Every business should manage their information in GMB. This includes the reviews of your business which are managed on Google My Business. MANAGE YOUR REVIEWS Every review deserves a response. Thank any five-star reviewers. Should you receive a dreaded one-star re- view, take a deep breath, perhaps sleep on it, then calmly and profes- sionally respond. Avoid disputing the review, since opinions are inherently personal. Sometimes a reasonable explanation helps, especially if this can manage expectations of future prospective clients. The shorter the response, the better. A larger volume of positive reviews will offset an oc- casional negative review. Where ap- propriate, offer to talk with the re- viewer to understand their issue to see if there is anything you might be able to do. Reviewers can change their review if they choose to. Avoid post- ing personal information and never respond with personal information not already explicitly provided by the reviewer. DESCRIBE YOUR BUSINESS Google My Business also allows you to describe your business. Law firms should describe their practice areas and highlight what makes your firm different from others. If this in- formation matches your website, this is a strong signal to Google validat- ing what your firm is about and you might expect better treatment in Google searches. Many firms leave these fields blank — don’t be one of those firms. KEEP INFO UP-TO-DATE As I write this article, the entire world is suffering through the COV- ID-19 pandemic. If you have changed your hours of operation in response, please be sure to have this informa- tion updated in GMB. Additionally, GMB created a special area for CO- VID-19 updates. Use this as appropri- ate. Don’t limit your posting to Face- book and Twitter, post to GMB as well. These posts may be displayed di- rectly within Google maps which can really help prospective clients connect with you. Allocate a little time each month to work on GMB. Even if it’s only 15 minutes or a half hour once per month, a little effort on GMB goes a long way. Review all the features and ensure that your GMB listing is com- plete and stands out. BE FOUND Lastly, there are two sides inher- ent to the art of “being found” with Google: 1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): This is all the information in GMB, your website, and all the other in- formation about you elsewhere on the internet. 2. Pay-Per-Click (PPC): This is where you pay Google to show advertise- ments. If you really want to be found, pay attention to both sides of the equa- tion. Have an awesome website, a great GMB listing, along with other information on the internet about you (with appropriate links). Boost this with at least a little PPC. GMB gives you a simple and easy way to get started with built-in access to Google Ads Express. Lastly, regularly review and improve the clarity of your website, your infor- mation on GMB, and any advertise- ments. No matter how clear or fuzzy your message is today, there is always room for improvement. Who is your ideal client and why are you the right person or firm for that ideal client? As your answer to this question gets clearer and clearer, you should be able to run your busi- ness better. And it will be easier for the right people to connect with you. DAVE KINSEY | Technology What Do Lawyers Need to Know about Google My Business? Dave Kinsey is the president and owner of Total Networks, the technology adviser to Arizona’s law firms. Mr. Kinsey is on the technology committee for the State Bar of Arizona, has presented at several CLE seminars on the top- ics of technology security and data protection, and his team is the first and only Arizona IT company to earn the CompTIA Security Trustmark, certifying that Total Networks meets or exceeds security best practices. 7L aw firms need leadership to thrive. This was true prior to the world shutting down. It is more critical now than ever. In the weeks leading up to the shut down and the following weeks of isolation, my law firm, made up of 12 very different people, experienced a collective iden- tity crisis. The firms’ technology platform was set up to work well remotely. We had been cloud-based and paperless for years. We needed to make slight tweaks to processing mail and gath- ering signatures, but the practical as- pects of running the firm from home, was the easy part. The real challenge was addressing the collective mental health and focus of the firm. We are a collection of individuals all with our own level of risk toler- ance, medical backgrounds, and gen- eral disposition toward optimism, pragmatism, or anxiety ridden dooms day predictions. People were anxious about the future of family law. Anx- ious as to whether the impending economic recession would render our prices too high or our growth plans too aggressive. They were anxious about getting sick, or their families getting sick, the possibility of losing a parent or not being able to travel to loved ones if they were to catch Co- rona Virus. They were anxious about losing their jobs. Our structure provides weekly meetings and quarterly retreats. These are the times when the twelve of us get together to address issues, check in on our performance, and communicate about key issues and future plans of the firm. We share information about judge rulings and celebrate individual wins. These meet- ings are the most critical aspect of having the firm operate as a cohesive unit and not a group of individuals all practicing under the same roof, or er… corporate structure. It’s been an adjustment to take these meetings virtual so that instead of breaking bread together we are instead some version of Brady Bunch talking heads. In the beginning of April, it was time for our quarterly retreat. This is a half day meeting to reflect on the pre- vious quarter, tackle large issues, and plan the following quarter. I get infor- mation about employee engagement, how each person is doing personally, how they feel about what’s working and not working within the firm, and it’s my opportunity to communicate and recommunicate a vision. This is the time for leadership, and not just from the owner. You will see leader- ship displayed from attorneys and staff. You will see people take on own- ership of problems and solutions. You will build loyalty and culture and you will reduce turnover. Yes, this is time you are not billing clients, you are do- ing something much more important. You are investing in your future. At our last retreat, anxiety was high. I thought long and hard before deliv- ering a modified vision addressing the elephants in the room. I addressed what our plan had been and how and why it was changing to address the shut down and impending economic recession. I explained how we would thrive through the recession and con- tinue to grow by changing strategies on target marketing and by improv- ing the quality of our legal services. I explained there would be no layoffs and how we could collectively ensure that everyone kept their jobs. This leadership strategy spreads the col- lective responsibility for achieving the vision. Each person knows what is expected of them to contribute to the overall success or failure of the firm. They left the meeting with some of their most significant fears calmed and addressed. They were given pur- pose, tasks and practical things they could do to regain a sense of control within the world where everything had changed. Every single person ex- perienced a sense of relief from the retreat as we found a way to support one another through shared purpose. Each meeting concludes with a “rate the meeting” section, one through ten. Since moving virtual, the collective weekly scores had been falling. Last week, near the end of our last Friday meeting, and some- thing felt off. People were quieter and more withdrawn than usual. I added a question: How is everyone doing? Mentally and emotionally? 1-10? It took a minute and then people start- ed opening up. They communicated what they were struggling with. They shared their feelings of isolation, frus- tration, and cabin fever. They shared the challenge of trying to teach their children, feed their families, stay safe and healthy at home and not go crazy. It was cathartic. You could feel collec- tive relief through voicing and shar- ing their struggles. Then it was time to rate the meeting and the Brady Bunch talking heads rattled off a host of 10s. BILLIE TARASCIO | Practice Management Billie Tarascio is the owner of Modern Law, a family law firm in the greater Phoenix area and Modern Law Practice, a consulting firm for attorneys looking to systematize and modernize their practices. She is the author of Decode Your Divorce, and co-author of Tiger Tactics, Powerful Strategies for Winning Law Firms. Find her on twitter @mymodernlaw. Leading Your Law Firm Through Crisis “They left the meeting with some of their most significant fears calmed and addressed. They were given purpose, tasks and practical things they could do to regain a sense of control within the world where everything had changed.” 8 ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE · PHOENIX· VOL. 12 NO. 3Attorney at Law Magazine Phoenix is pleased to introduce its first Athletes in Law issue featuring NCAA athletes turned Arizona lawyers. Visit the website to view more stories from these lawyers at https://AttorneyAtLawMagazine.com/ Athletes-in-law-2020.Next >