Hiring a Legal Administrator Can Increase Your Bottom Line, with Matthew Sullivan

Announcer:

Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys, building client-centered, and future-oriented small law firms through community, content, and coaching both online and through the Lawyerist Lab. And now from the team that brought you The Small Firm Roadmap and your podcast hosts

Jennifer Whigham (00:35):

Hi, I’m Jennifer Whigham

Stephanie Everett (00:36):

And I’m Stephanie Everett. And this is episode 397 of The Lawyerist Podcast. Part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, I’m speaking with Matt Sullivan about what roles professional managers can play in your firm.

Jennifer Whigham (00:49):

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Albatross Legal Workspaces, Postali and Posh Virtual Receptionists. We would not be able to do this show without their support stay tuned. We will tell you a little bit more about them later on

Stephanie Everett (01:01):

Jennifer. We have some exciting news here in the Lawyerist world.

Jennifer Whigham (01:05):

I’m gonna pretend, I don’t know, just for the moment, what exciting news do we have?

Stephanie Everett (01:10):

So we have relaunched our website and it’s completely redesigned with all new content and features and tools that can help you run your practice better.

Jennifer Whigham (01:21):

Yeah. And it looks amazing. It’s beautiful. That is a beautiful website.

Stephanie Everett (01:27):

Yeah. I’m pretty excited about it. It was a lot of work. I’m not gonna lie. Our team has been working behind the scenes for a long time. Our site is sort of a big monstrosity of a thing, but it’s big because it’s packed with so much useful information. Let’s be honest.

Jennifer Whigham (01:43):

 yeah. And we have new content So we had, you know, all those resources pages that people really loved. But now we have some new content for everybody too. Some updated content. We’ve done a lot of work there too.

Stephanie Everett (01:54):

Yeah. So if you haven’t been to the site in a while, for sure. Check it out. It’s pretty easy. Lawyerist.Com on the site, you’ll find new sections around our healthy firm model. What we think it takes to have a healthy firm, some tips for how you can start get started to building a healthy firm. You’re also gonna find a ton of guides. We have the complete guide to law firm, finances, the complete guide to law firm pricing, the complete guide to hiring and managing your team and so much more. So you’ll definitely wanna check out that section for all you podcast fans you’ll find pages for every episode with transcripts for at least the most recent ones. I’m not gonna say every episode has a transcript right now, but you’ll have find transcripts for a lot of the shows, show notes, links for things that you hear on the show. So that will be really easy. As you hear things on the show that you want and you wanna learn more about, you can head there. What else?

Jennifer Whigham (02:56):

Oh, one kind of fun fact about it is that some of the photos that look like stock photos are real people, which was really exciting for us. Yes. Cause we really, and they, we will continue to do that. But you know, for example, you’ll see Stephanie on there, you’ll see some of our lobster’s pictures on there that was fun for us because we always wanted it to be genuine and not necessarily all just pulled from a, you know, happy person typing,

Stephanie Everett (03:21):

I suppose, stock people are real people, but these are actually, they are real people. These are actually our people that we know and love and like that are on the site. And then of course you’ll still find all of our product pages. So if you’re looking to buy new technology or hire a new service, you can go onto our site. You can read reviews, you can see demo videos, just so much information. Whenever I talk about the website to people who don’t know, it really was designed and I think is a place like if you own your own law firm, it is the place to go to find out, not just like how to run your firm, but then when you’re ready, how to buy the services and tools that you need to run your firm. So, we’re really proud of it.

Stephanie Everett (04:03):

We’d love for you to check it out. Tell us what you think. Share it with your friends. There’s news articles on there. They get updated every week. So there’s good reason for you to come back and visit it and check it out. And if you haven’t subscribed to our weekly email newsletter, you can do that right from the homepage. We make it super easy. So if you haven’t been in a while, go check it out. And I don’t know, tell me what you think and if you wanna congratulate the team on a job well done. They’d love to hear that too, cuz they really did work hard.

Jennifer Whigham (04:33):

Oh they worked so hard.

Stephanie Everett (04:35):

Yeah. And we’re just, we’re super proud of it.

Jennifer Whigham (04:37):

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Next, Stephanie will be talking with Matt Sullivan.

Matthew Sullivan (04:43):

Hi, my name is Matthew Sullivan and I am the executive director of finance and operations at Sullivan Law and associates. And I am also a founder of Unravel Legal

Stephanie Everett (04:55):

Welcome to the show. Matthew, I’m excited to talk to you today cuz we’re gonna dig into really what you just said. The fact that you’re the executive director of a law firm, which might be a new term for some to even hear.

Matthew Sullivan (05:09):

Yeah. It’s a, what I’ve found to be a pretty unique role within law firms and especially smaller law firms. I get to handle the, the business end of our firm and it’s operations and finance.

Stephanie Everett (05:22):

Yeah. So before we kind of dig too far into that, tell us about your firm. Like how big is it? How many people?

Matthew Sullivan (05:30):

So we are a family law firm in orange county, California, and we only practice family law. We have seven attorneys. We have about 18 staff in all. We only handle certain types of family law matters and that’s our practice family law through run through.

Stephanie Everett (05:48):

And you went to law school?

Matthew Sullivan (05:51):

I did, yes. I graduated back in 2012.

Stephanie Everett (05:56):

Okay. But you’ve decided to take a different path and you are actually not practicing law in day to day in your role now you’re really just running the business of the firm. Is that fair?

Matthew Sullivan (06:06):

Yes. Yeah. I could handle all of the business end of, of the firm and that started in marketing and then it was a firm administrator and then it was the big leap to handling the, the money set of things on top of handling the, the operations as well.

Stephanie Everett (06:23):

Yeah. And so I wonder if you could kind of give us a little flavor of what you do day to day. So sometimes we say these words, you know, like you’re the executive director of finance and operations, but I think it’d be helpful if you broke it down and like really tell us what that looks like and what you do.

Matthew Sullivan (06:41):

So day to day can run again. I handle everything from marketing to HR, to finance, you know, finances is the bulk of what I do and running to business a sound business and making sure our business plan is, is going according to plan, we have many metrics and, data that we rely on for, for the finance end like yesterday, I had a couple interviews and I’ll be sending out offer letters today. I have to deal with hiring and firing, marketing plans dealing with our vendors as far as how those marketing plans are going and then from, from operations, with staffing and software. So it can be a lot of things all at once, but I like to try and focus on just a handful of things each day to be as productive as possible.

Stephanie Everett (07:32):

Yeah, for sure. Okay. So you said I’m gonna drill down even more so sorry for the, you know, but I do think people have questions around this. So you said a lot of what you do is in the finance piece. And I think that a lot of law firms probably have a bookkeeper and maybe the bookkeeper’s helping them with day to day, you know, coding of where should things go? Is this a marketing expense or is this a team expense? It maybe I think we struggle to see what kind of financial support would we need beyond that. And so I’m curious, like when you put that finance hat on, what types of things are you doing for the business?

Matthew Sullivan (08:12):

Well, there are a couple of different roles, at least within our firm. So we do have a staff accountant that handles all of the bookkeeping and, you know, putting things where, where we need our categorizing them. But I also work with our bookkeeper and trying to build a holistic plan for our firm and we do that annually. So she and I, we make a plan and we make that plan based off of primarily margins. We like to know where it is that we are profitable, not only hollistically as far as you know, after we pay everyone, including our owner, we then pitched that plan to our founding partner and he then approves or, you know, denies that plan. Or we will tweak that plan. That will be everything from, from revenue to cost. I like to break out our cost, both direct and indirect cost, direct cost being, what is it that we’re making on each individual employee with the hours that, that we want them to bill.

Matthew Sullivan (09:16):

And then we look at indirect costs, which are everything from paying your administrative staff and all of your other operational expenses. But that plan actually starts with, I ask our founding partner, but is it that you wanna make this year? And we build our plan around what it is that he wants to make. And we reverse engineer that to see if that’s a plan that we can actually achieve. And if there’s any tweaks that we need to make to our rates, our billable hours, our collection rates. So all of those things kind of are part parcel to that whole business plan, which we then revisit at least monthly, but we also do quarterly intensive through Lawyerist make sure our plans do in fact work. And if anything needs to change, cuz as, as we all know plans, don’t always go according the plan, we will tweak those and we’ll we’ll change things cause you know, we’re, we’re trying to achieve a certain outcome.

Stephanie Everett (10:14):

Yeah, no, I, I think that’s helpful. I think it’s helpful to hear sort of the detail in some of the day to day. I’m curious too, we talked about how many team members you guys have and I know your role has changed and evolved. And I know one of the things we’re gonna talk about is, is your vision for why law firms need, you know, someone sitting in this operational seat and finance seat and the business side of things. Do you have a sense or thoughts around at what point your firm really needed someone in your role full-time? And was that based on the number of team members you had or a revenue, like when did you guys make this decision about like, this is what we need for our business?

Matthew Sullivan (10:54):

Well, with this particular firm that I’m with, we decided to make a leap from another firm. And the firm that we were a part of was a much bigger firm. It was an international firm. We had 20 plus attorneys. We had offices everywhere and it was, there was a managing partner who was making a lot of those decisions who had then report back in partner meetings about what’s going on, you know, financially or otherwise. When we made this leap to this firm, we then just decided cuz our founding partner didn’t really wanna handle the, the finance or the operations that I would be someone fit for this role. As you know, I had some background and, and expertise in that. So it was, you know, both out of necessity and out of a plan on what our founding partner wanted to do and what he didn’t want to do and what my skillset, you know, then offered. And that’s kind of how that developed.

Stephanie Everett (11:51):

Got it. I mean, I think that’s really intentional because I think a lot of people listening might think, well, I’m not big enough to justify someone to just run my operations and finance and marketing piece. Like I don’t need that yet. But what I hear you saying is like, you guys were very intentional in saying it’s important that we have this role filled for our business. We’re gonna do it. And the growth and all the other pieces will come. Is that fair?

Matthew Sullivan (12:18):

Yes, lawyers are notoriously bad for not running good businesses. Unfortunately, when we went to law school, no one taught us how to run a business that was kinda left by chance. Hey, learn how to think like a lawyer, learn the law. If you’re gonna go start your own business, good luck. I hope it works out for you and people are in other areas and walks of life that have been trained to operate and run businesses. And you know, some lawyers may be interested in doing that and running that themselves, others just are not and are not good at it either. And it would behoove a lot of those people who either aren’t good at it or are not interested in it to have somebody in that seat to build a business plan for you to audit that business plan for you and to make sure your business is running successfully. Because if you don’t have all functions of your business as a law firm firing and firing, well, you’re not gonna have a successful business at the end of the day, you need to have good marketing. You need to have a good business plan. You need to be a good attorney as well. If you just have your firm with the world’s best attorneys, but no marketing plan and no business plan, it’s going to be hard to be as successful as you want to be. So somebody in that seat would be my opinion, a very good investment, not only for you lawyer, founder, partner, it will probably increase your bottom line and it probably will increase your bottom line very quickly.

Stephanie Everett (13:54):

Yeah, for sure. And so maybe this is a good point to shift part of the conversation that you’re doing. Some of this work really on the advocacy side and education side in, in your work with the ALA to really promote and educate lawyers about what these business roles look like and how to get someone ready for them. So I guess let me just take a step back and maybe some people might not know. So what is the ALA and, and what are you guys doing?

Matthew Sullivan (14:24):

The ALA is the Association of Legal Administrators. What it is. It’s a, it’s a community that administrators can go to better themselves, try and further their careers through some sort of education and, and further understanding. And the ALA does a great job of trying to further careers of legal administrators.

Stephanie Everett (14:49):

Yeah. And so I love this and would promote it. I have been a member myself. I’ve also spoken at a bunch of their conferences and it’s a great group with a ton of resources. And so I think it’s open, like if you are a firm owner and you have a, well, let me ask you, is there a level or a position that you have to have in order to be eligible for membership?

Matthew Sullivan (15:12):

No, my, my understanding it’s administrators of, of all walks and I know that some managing partners and attorneys are also part of the, this association because of their content and their exposure to, to different avenues of, of information and knowledge. It really is like a melting pot of, of the legal industry and meeting them one place and trying to merge both administrators and, and attorneys so that there can be a better understanding of what each does and how one can help the other as well.

Stephanie Everett (15:44):

Absolutely. Let’s take a quick break. We’ll hear from our sponsors. When we come back, I wanna dive into a little bit more about some of the work that ALA’s doing and how it can help our law firms.

Speaker 5 (15:53):

Zack Glaser:

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Stephanie Everett (19:10):

So we’re back Matthew. We were talking about the association of legal administrators, which is a great resource for, for administrators to go and kind of find their people and find resources that can help them as they’re thinking about running their firms. And I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about the work you’re doing to sort of define these roles for what it means to be a legal manager or firm administrator. Like we, I think maybe part of the, maybe what’s a little bit holding us back is we have all these words for positions and nobody really knows what they mean and what they do. And like, what’s the difference between a firm administrator and an office manager. And maybe the reality is there’s no difference, but maybe you’re gonna tell me I’m thinking about it wrong, but you know, we use these words and I think we confuse people.

Matthew Sullivan (19:58):

Yeah, there, there are many rules of being a legal administrator, you know, there’s everything from, you know, file clerks to legal secretaries, to office managers. And then, you know, there’s people like me that are handling finance and operations and everything in between what I just described as well. I, I think it’s, you know, more fit for a particular firm in whatever role you want somebody to fill as, as a legal administrator, but what the ALA does offer just all administrators across the board, there is a program and it is their Certificate of Legal Managers where you can go through the ALA and you cover make its between 18 to 20 topics. And at the end of this long and arduous process of being certified as a legal manager, you can walk out of the program with a certificate that you can, you know, show to your, your current employer, future employer saying, I know the essentials of being a legal manager, and this is a program that, that the ALA has offered for, for a number of years. And it’s been a very successful program for them.

Stephanie Everett (21:11):

That’s awesome and helpful because as, as I think about it, I think a lot of times you may be a lawyer that knows you could use some help and has an idea about what roles this person could fill. But it’s, it’s a little intimidating it’s like hiring for a role that I don’t know how to do. So my example would be like, if I wanted to hire a full-time developer to come do some code for me, honestly, I have no idea what that would look like. Like I would need to do some research cuz I don’t speak code language and I might be like, well, how do I know I’m getting the right person? And how do I know they’re gonna have the right skillsets to do the job I need because I don’t speak that language. And I suspect that maybe some lawyers find that to be true when it comes to this part of their, you know, building out their team is that, that maybe it’s a little intimidating because they might not be sure what to look for, what skillset they have or how they’re gonna manage ’em. So I’m curious since you’re sitting in that role, you know, what advice would you give to those lawyers as they are thinking about that process?

Matthew Sullivan (22:11):

To me, if, if I were sitting in their seat, as I am many times at hiring people for many different roles, you really have to think about what it is that you need. Cause each, each firm has its own independent need on, on how they operate. What’s great about the CLM through the ALA. So that Certified Legal Manager through the Association of Legal Administrators is it kinda gives you a baseline to, to work off of, does this person just have competency in these areas and they’ve been trained and, and educated there. It gives you a greater peace of mind, much like when you’re hiring an attorney, you can see, you know, where it is that they went to law school, that they passed the bar and maybe they give you some writing samples as well to know, you know, how it is that they write and you can see how they speak through the course of, of the interview as well. So this is, you know, kind of akin to that where you do have a baseline to go off of and know that they do have some understanding and some training on whatever position it is that you need them to fill.

Stephanie Everett (23:13):

Yeah. I think that’s great because I could see that as our profession continues to mature as business entities, this is gonna be a role that’s just sought after more and more. I mean, I think right now you probably feel like there’s not a ton of executive directors of finance and operations, you know, in smaller firms, but I can only imagine that this is just going to increase over time. And so I think it’s really helpful that you, people like you and the ALA are really of getting smart and thinking through and educating lawyers on these roles that they exist. I think sometimes people are like, I don’t even know where to start and ALA is a great place to start. Like I think you guys even have a job posting board.

Matthew Sullivan (23:59):

Yeah. I, that is a great place to go try and seek out administrators would be through the ALA. You can also just post on normal job boards. But yeah, my thought is that administrators are going to be a very important function of where legal industry is, is going. I sit on on a committee that advises our board through the ALA, it’s called the professional development advisory committee. And through our first handful of meetings, we get to talking about where’s the professional development going for administrators? And it was our challenge to the board to kind of think through what, what administrators might be doing and what they might be going through down the line here in, in the next number of years. It’s my estimation personally, that we are going to see these administrators start graduating towards a C-suite in the legal industry. And that is something that the ALA is gonna try and take on.

Matthew Sullivan (25:01):

In at least some capacity on getting people from a certified legal manager and getting some training in, in education that might encompass getting them to that. C-Suite where it’s really happening in big law. Now those Law firms where, you know, they’re starting to hire executives and I think we’ll see a trickle down of that happening to the more medium sized firms. And I think it would behoove the smaller and solo firms to at the very least start thinking about having an “executive” within your firm to handle executive functions and help your business run more professionally and you know, hopefully increase your, your bottom line as well. But that’s where we are preparing to go because that’s where these trends are taking us. It seems as though the time might be ripe for this to kind of all come together. As far as a legal industry, beginning to shift more towards the norms of conventional business and business practices and less towards the old guard, which is partners and managing partners, handling the finance and operations as they traditionally have and getting a more well versed individual or individuals in these executive functions where perhaps they are reporting to those partners, as you know, the partners acting more like a board of directors and perhaps there’s CEOs and CFOs and CEOs making recommendations to how their business can and should be run.

Stephanie Everett (26:39):

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And I would say to the small firm owners listening a couple of things, one, I think traditionally what, what we’ve seen in smaller firms and mid-size firms is you take that paralegal, that person who just gets stuff done in your office and you sort of just start putting these tasks on them, oh, you’re really good at getting things done. So they become like your marketing person and eventually they become your administrator. And that could be great if that’s the path that they want. But I think what you’re talking about is really identifying business professionals who are trained in these areas and who can come in and really add to the leadership team and help you run your business, not a knock against any of those paralegals. Who’ve been thrown into all the things cuz those people do amazing work, but I think we’re trying to just change the conversation a little bit or make sure they could go to ALA and get all the training they need so that you really have those thoughtful conversations happening at the executive level of your business.

Matthew Sullivan (27:41):

Yeah. And, and with small and solo firms, which is primarily, you know, this audience that’s listening to this. If someone is in that executive role because of the size of the firm, you’re able to be much more nimble. You can act more quickly, there’s less red tape and you can really make changes in a very rapid pace and manner that can really change your, your business as a whole in ways that you may not have seen before. Just because that person that is now sitting in that seat and the size of your firm pivots can be made very quickly. And, and I think pivots are going to be something that are gonna be needed here. Not only in the short term with, you know, what’s happening with the economy, but also the long term is the industry seems to be shifting. And, and that shift is happening on, on so many different levels, not only post-COVID with technology and how the courts are now operating the firms are operating differently now. And then also what’s going on with these sandboxes in different states in Arizona. And I believe Utah as well with non-lawyers becoming owners within businesses. I think there is extra stake involved where it might be smart for these business professionals to enter this arena where there are successful legal businesses being run. And there’s some equity in stake now.

Stephanie Everett (29:09):

Absolutely. And not to hide the ball like Lawyerist is a big fan of this. And as you mentioned, you’re part of our lab community. And I think that, you know, maybe this is an opportunity to share cuz we always talk about Lab as for the managing partner for those partners and business owners, which it surely is, but we have the ability for that firm administrator or if it’s more of a CEO or COO role to also join our Lab community and you guys are doing amazing work. I know you participate in our new integrator group where you guys get to meet monthly with other people who are sitting in positions similar to yours in your firms and talk through issues and think about because how you’re approaching the business. And I love coming to that group because it’s really interesting conversations are happening and I see this more as the future. So I love that we’re able to support you and the community of other people doing this very important work.

Matthew Sullivan (30:10):

Yeah. Lab has been great for me in that through Lawyerist, you can tackle so many different things. I needed to work on things from foundations, primarily getting, you know, visions out there, HR marketing finances is my go to, so I didn’t need a whole lot of that. But what Lawyerist has, has offered me is just somewhere to go with all of the issues that you, you come across day to day. You know, for me, I get to meet with Sarah who was one of the coaches at Lawyerist and we meet twice a month for 25 minutes. And the portal that you guys have created has been game changing for us is as laps where we now have a place to go to, to input all of our troubles, our issues. And it’s, it’s a very quick and efficient place to go to put those things down and then discuss those issues and really hash them out, talk them through and, and gain knowledge and perspective that I wouldn’t have gotten on my own. And I really think that’s the benefit of getting, you know, coaching or, or consulting is having those other, other perspectives that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

Stephanie Everett (31:23):

Yeah. Well, we love having you in the community. You add so much and as one of our administrators, our, you know, that’s the right global term, one of the business executives for your business, you bring a different flavor to those conversations that we’re having, which we love. And so I’m, I’m so thankful that you are able to come on and give us a glimpse of your day to day, because I know more lawyers in our community who are listening to this show are wondering, they’re thinking like, how could I add someone like that to my team? So I know that this is helpful just sometimes to hear from the person like this is what I do, and this is what it looks like. So thanks for being with us today.

Matthew Sullivan (32:03):

Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for having me on and happy to, you know, share thoughts on not only with what it is that I do or what administrators do across the board to help firms, as many attorneys would say, Hey, those type of people make my firm run. They make it go. I would just like to point out that there are different levels of, of administrators and depending on what it is that you need, there’s somebody out there that can help you. And it can be as sophisticated as a function, as a CEO or a COO or a CFO for your firm. And, you know, don’t let size dictate what it is that you think you need. Think about what it is that your skillset are and think about the things that you don’t want to do. And that, that you do wanna do and find somebody with strengths that could help you get to the next level.

Matthew Sullivan (32:56):

And also don’t think about it in terms of, you know, people in, in my industry are not doing this, but this is happening and it’s going to happen at a more rapid pace. And you’re gonna be well ahead of the curve. The more that you are thinking about having administrators or, or executives within your firm to help you be more successful. And that’s what they’re there for. They’re there to help you, the business owner be more successful and leverage you in your position. And hopefully have you help more people from the legal end, then grow your practice. If that’s what it is that you want to do. But if you’re thinking about for, you know, you’re contemplating Hey, I may need somebody in this role reach out to either somebody at, at Lawyerist. That’s a great place to go to see if it is that you do need that help reach out to the ALA. If, if you’re going to, you know, be hiring somebody as well, you know, you could post all sorts of job opportunities on job boards, not only through the ALA, but you know, indeed or any other platform. I think it will be a very worthwhile investment for you to get somebody in the door. Should you need that type of help that will help your business run in a way that that’ll help your bottom line and hopefully help you get paid more and make your business more successful.

Stephanie Everett (34:16):

Absolutely. I couldn’t have said it better myself. We’ll put all those links to all that and how to get in touch with Matthew in case you wanna learn more and talk to him in the show notes. Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was, it’s been awesome.

Matthew Sullivan (34:30):

Thank Steph

Announcer:

The Lawyerist Podcast is edited by Britany Felix. Are you ready to implement the ideas we discuss here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first two steps. First. If you haven’t read The Small Firm Roadmap yet, grab the first chapter for free at Lawyerist.com/book. Looking for help beyond the book? Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities, right for you. Head to Lawyerist.com/community/lab to schedule a 10 minute call with our team to learn more. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the lawyer’s podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys building client-centered and future-oriented small law firms through community content and coaching both online and through the lawyer’s lab. And now from the team that brought you the small firm roadmap and your podcast hosts.

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Speaker 5 (16:45):

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Speaker 5 (17:59):

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Speaker 1 (34:33):

The lawyers’ podcast is edited by Britney. Felix, are you ready to implement the ideas we discuss here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first two steps. First, if you haven’t read the small firm roadmap yet, grab the first chapter for free at lawyer.com/book. Looking for help beyond the book. Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities are right for you. Head to lawyerist.com/community/lab to schedule a 10 minute call with our team to learn more. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by legal talk network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you.