Episode Notes

Labster Rebecca Ritchey from Sibus Law Group joins Sara to talk about how she has built a healthy business strategy in her firm—including a flat fee model, a flexible workplace, and opportunities to give back to her community. They delve into how Rebecca makes it work, costs and benefits, and suggestions she has for firms looking to do the same.  

To learn more about Lab Legacy, email Stephanie: stephanie@lawyerist.com

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  • 08:43. Flat fee model
  • 16:00. Setting up a flexible workspace
  • 26:35. Experience in Lab Legacy

Transcript

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 

 

Stephanie Everett (00:35): 

Hi, I’m Stephanie Everett. 

  

Jennifer Whigham (00:36): 

And I’m Jennifer Whigham. And this is episode 436 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, Sarah interviews Labster, Rebecca Richie about her business strategy. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:47): 

Today’s podcast is brought to you by Posh Virtual Receptionists, Clio, & Gavel, we wouldn’t be able to do this show without their supports, so stay tuned because you’re going to hear more about them in a few minutes. 

  

Jennifer Whigham (00:59): 

So doing podcast intros is kind of like time travel because we record them ahead of time, but things will have happened by the time we record them. So as the listeners listen to this, Stephanie will have been just finishing up her lab Legacy retreat, which is possibly a tier of lab that not many people know about. 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:20): 

Yeah, we started it last year. I don’t know that we’ve talked about it a ton. It’s sort of this next level. 

  

(01:26): 

If you’ve been in lab for a while, I mean it could be you’re ready to just join straight into that group. It’s for people who have a pretty good handle on what’s going on with their business, but they’re at that next level of issues. They’re thinking about their legacy, they’re thinking about what comes next in their life. They’re kind of going a little bit deeper and different in the issues, and so we take them away twice a year. That sounded silly. 

  

Jennifer Whigham (01:52): 

I was going to say, it sounds like you’re kidnapping them. Okay. Yes, keep going. 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:55): 

I do. I kidnap them and take ’em to an amazing resort. 

  

Jennifer Whigham (01:59): 

I would like to be kidnapped. Thanks. 

  

Stephanie Everett (02:01): 

Yes. But it is super great this time. We went out to the desert in Utah, southern Utah, and we went to this amazing retreat facility, which gives us time to go hiking and do yoga, and we do some guided meditations, but also we workshop our business issues. 

  

(02:22): 

It’s just a different way to get away. What all the participants agreed is that you need space as a business owner. Sometimes you don’t realize it. You’re so in the day-to-day, and it’s not until you give yourself space to get away from your friends and your family and your team and have a couple of days of uninterrupted time that you really get those big ideas to think about, wait, what am I doing with my life and where do I want this business to go? And so we have to create that space. And doing some of the physical activities I mentioned is kind of a part of that. It’ll be on the hike that somebody might have a realization about something because it’s like you let your mind, your mind’s still working, but you’re just gently walking and looking at beautiful things and being around other business owners who are in similar situations. 

  

(03:12): 

And it’s really cool. It’s a great experience and I just love that I get to be a part of it. 

  

Jennifer Whigham (03:18): 

And how does it come this compare to the rest of lab that we offer? Obviously I know the answer, but I’m going to act like I don’t. 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:24): 

I think it’s just different in terms of what this group of people are thinking about for their business. And so maybe if you think about our other event, which is Lab Con, we’re a little bit more in the weeds of thinking about how do I set up a marketing funnel? How do I create a document automation or create my intake experience? So it’s still very hands on, but really in your business, and maybe this is a little bit more thinking, bigger picture about your business, certainly there are times when we get a little bit in the weeds on people’s business issues, but they’re kind of in a different place where they’re thinking a little bit bigger about what’s my business vision? 

  

(04:05): 

What do I want out of my life? And are these two things getting me there and what am I going to do next with my business? So a lot of people kind of come away from this event having different ideas, maybe shifting where they thought they were going to go, or at Lab Con, you’re really kind of figuring out execution pieces. Does that distinction resonate? 

  

Jennifer Whigham (04:27): 

Yeah, no, that makes total sense. And to be clear, people in Lab Legacy have everything that people in the other tiers of Lab have. So they’ll also go to Lab Con, but they do have some extra coaching. They have these extra events that they go to a couple times a year to get away and have really meaningful conversations. 

  

Stephanie Everett (04:46): 

And so today’s show, Sarah’s actually interviewing one of our Lab Legacy members, Rebecca, so she was on this retreat with me. 

  

(04:55): 

So you’ll kind of hear what she’s doing with her business and maybe that’ll also give you a sense of what kind of work we do in Legacy. And I guess I would just follow it up by saying, if you’re hearing this and you think, wow, where’s this group been my whole life? I would love to talk to you. So the easiest thing to do would probably be just email me stephanie Lawyerist dot com, pretty easy and let’s have a conversation and I can tell you more about what this group is and where these folks are with their business. And I guess the good news is no matter where you are in your business journey, we sort of have a place and a community for you and help for you because sometimes you don’t realize it, but you can always benefit from that outside help. 

  

Jennifer Whigham (05:36): 

Now here’s Sarah’s conversation with Rebecca. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (05:42): 

I’m Rebecca Richey. My firm is Sivas Law Group. I’ve been in practice since 2009 in San Diego, California. We practice flat fee, family law, litigation. 

  

Sara Muender (05:54): 

So nice to have you on the podcast. Thanks for on and being willing to talk about all the cool things that you have built in your amazing firm. And I know that the audience is going to be super inspired to think about how maybe they can implement some of these things in their own businesses. So before we dive in, because we definitely want to talk about how you do flat fees and a shorter work week and what that looks like and being able to give back and volunteer and all that stuff. But just for context purposes, give us just a basic overview of what your firm looks like today, so team members, all that. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (06:34): 

So right now I have a team of three attorneys, including myself, and we all take on one role within a case. So we all work on every case. And so I handle the consulting services, I set the strategy and the direction of the case. Also, I handle most of the client issues and communications. And then Sarah handles all the backend, making sure everything we’re processing is perfect and the pleadings are well done. She does discovery, all the kind of backend paperwork kind of thing. And then Brit is our litigator. And so she is the one that’s always in the courtroom and that’s all she has to do. And then I have one main support staff and one intern. 

  

Sara Muender (07:21): 

Awesome. When did you start your firm? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (07:23): 

So CMAs Law Group, I started in 2014 after I separated from my former partner. So it’s been almost 10 years. But I actually have never worked for another firm. I’ve always worked for myself. So my prior firm, I was partnered with an immigration attorney, and we started that in 2000, well actually probably 2010. 

  

Sara Muender (07:43): 

So when you started, what was the vision for the type of practice that you wanted to build in terms of how it served clients and how it operated and things like that? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (07:56): 

Well, to be honest, I think when I started, I was mostly thinking about how I was supposed to make money as a business person more so than I was thinking about necessarily how to serve clients. And so in the firm where we had immigration and family law, immigration was primarily flat fee. And it was really nice to have those flat fees coming in every month to pay the bills and not have to wait for billing each month. And so when I started my own firm, I wanted to figure out how I could do that so I could make money as a solo. Because in my mind, as a business person, if you’re basing everything on the hour, then I needed more people to bill more hours. So if it was just going to be me, I wasn’t sure how it was going to make money. I had to bill by the hour. So that’s where Sarah came in and she joined me in 2015 and basically offered me a model where we could offer flat fee services in. Then I saw the benefits not just as a business owner, but I also saw who would benefit clients. And so that’s when I got really excited. 

  

Sara Muender (09:03): 

So tell us a little bit about the ways in which you’ve seen that model benefit clients from the very early stages of in the sales process when you’re converting them as a client and throughout the process of them being a client and how it can be mutually beneficial. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (09:24): 

So the biggest benefit is we get to answer the question of how much does it cost? So constantly, that’s one of the main questions everyone asks. And of course as attorneys, our answer to everything is, it depends. And so we actually get to say, here’s what it costs for those services. And they know. So sometimes that can be also challenging because if they’re litigating, litigation services are not cheap. It’s not like flat fee means cheaper per se. And so when they actually see the full bill upfront, sometimes they rethink their litigation route because they actually see how much it’s going to cost. So I think that’s sometimes a challenging, getting them signed up for litigation services when they see the cost. But I think that’s a benefit overall because then they have to think about, do I really want to spend that amount of money to get the result I’m looking for? 

  

Sara Muender (10:16): 

Yeah, yeah, that’s so true. So how does that conversation go? How do you overcome some of those initial maybe shock factors to the initial flat free price tag that, because I think that that’s what a lot of attorneys are worried about, but ultimately it seems to work out. So how does that conversation go early on? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (10:39): 

So what I like to do is offer them a range. So I say, here’s your options. If you want to go all in, you need to go to trial. This is the only option you want to look at as far as you want to judge to make this decision no matter what. These are the costs, but there’s also what I call, it’s not really sliding scale cause it’s not based on their ability to pay, but it kind of is. You don’t have 10, 20, 30 grand to go to trial. Well, here’s how we can help you still navigate the process with an attorney on board and get a similar result. So we offer consulting services where they can pay for individual sessions with me, prep them to go to court on their own, prepare paperwork and pleadings. And so the nice thing is for much less costs, they can still get the benefit of having an attorney in their corner. 

  

Sara Muender (11:31): 

Yeah, absolutely. So from a business perspective, what have been some of the implications things to think about and some of the benefits that, because I’m sure it really simplifies things and allows you to maybe project out further more accurately, but from your perspective, what has that experience been like as the business owner? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (11:56): 

Yeah, so one of the biggest benefits as the business owner is you can see exactly what you have coming in. The quotes we send out, you can see how much you’re closing, whether the services you’re offering are reasonable. And so it’s really easy to track your KPIs on that kind of sense. And then I think some of the things to think about is some of the challenges. We started this in 2015, it’s 2023 and we’re still tweaking. But you know what I tell people? And kind of what we did is just start with a service that you do all the time and so you feel really comfortable offering it. You feel really comfortable giving a range of time and resources it’s going to take, and then just throw that service out there and start with that one service. And then as you get comfortable tweaking that one either up or down as you use it, then you can start adding other services. 

  

(12:53): 

And that’s kind of what we’ve done. So for example, there’s in California family law, we have a motion called a request for order. It’s literally just a motion where you can request temporary orders from the court during the pendency of a divorce. So it could be anything. It could be requesting custody support, holds on property, those kind of things. And so some of those take three to five hours. Some of them can take up to 30 or 40 hours of work. So depending on what’s being requested, we notice that, oh, we can’t just have one request for order price because there’s not a tight enough range to make it fair both to the clients and to us. So then we started breaking out to the types of requests you’re making in the order that sentence sets the price. 

  

Sara Muender (13:40): 

Awesome. So you’ve developed kind of this menu of services that you can provide. One question that I get a lot from the Labster that we coach in our lab coaching program in thinking about how to implement a flat fee model is do you list the price on the website? At what point does the price come into the conversation? What do you guys do? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (14:03): 

So right now, the price comes to the client either at or directly following our strategy session. So the first meeting with the firm is called a legal advice and strategy session, and that’s an hour meeting where the client comes in, they get to ask all their legal questions, figure out what they want to do, and then I can figure out what services they need. And so then I create a quote at that meeting and it gets sent to them. Sometimes I do it as a follow up depending on what all gets done in the meeting. But in general, yeah, so they’ll see the prices at that meeting or directly after. One of the reasons is because we are still tweaking our services, but we do want to eventually at least publish some things. So uncontested are very simple. There’s not a lot of nuance, and so we want to be able to post that and maybe someday we’ll post the entire menu, but right now we are not posting it. We are presenting it to them. 

  

Sara Muender (15:06): 

Do you charge for your strategy sessions, your consults? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (15:09): 

We do. So that’s one of the things we’re hopefully tweaking in the future. Right now we charge a discounted rate for an hour to meet with me. 

  

Sara Muender (15:18): 

Okay. So let’s switch gears a little bit because that was one of the major things we wanted to talk about was everybody wants to talk about how to do flat fees, and for some practices it’s a little bit easier to implement than others. I think that you’ve done a really great job with this, but the other thing that we think is really cool that you and your team are doing is this idea of a shorter work week. And it sounds like maybe that has changed over time, but it sounds like it’s given you an opportunity to volunteer and give back to the community. So tell us what that looks like now and then I’d love to hear the journey to get there and what inspired it. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (16:00): 

Yeah, so right now I’ve created a block schedule that allows me to volunteer on Tuesday mornings and then allows me to essentially not have any client meetings on Thursdays. And so that’s how I’ve kind of set up my week. Getting there, yeah, has been a journey. I have tweaked the idea of a block calendar schedule so many times over the last 10 years, everything from trying to schedule blocks down to where you’re scheduling out every single hour of the day to larger blocks that are more general. And so I’ve kind of come with a balance. And so I see new clients a certain amount of hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I see current clients Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and certain hours. Some of those are in person. Some of those are only virtual hours, meaning you have to schedule a Zoom meeting. I have no meetings on Monday morning because I found that that is the time where you are catching up on email, doing admin, all that kind of stuff. So my first meeting is never before 1:00 PM on Mondays. Tuesdays, I volunteer at the Family Justice Center helping survivors of domestic violence get restraining orders. And then yeah, Thursdays are kind of my day, so I won’t say I don’t do any work, but I can focus on the business or if I have personal appointments I need to attend to take my dogs to the vet, whatever, that’s the day I do it. 

  

Sara Muender (17:35): 

So let me get this straight. You have built this firm that provides excellent client services and client experience that’s profitable, that is easy to track your finances and project. Everyone works as a team and you basically only work four days a week and you have time to get it all done. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (18:00): 

Yeah, I mean that is the beauty of the block schedule. Once you kind of put down on paper when it’s time to do certain things, it’s not that I don’t ever do anything outside of those things say like, oh, okay, Tuesday afternoon is existing client meetings from one to four. It’s not like I only do that, but if clients can only see me in that timeframe, if I don’t have any, then I also have my backup what I do in that time period. And so it kind of just allows me to keep on track so that I’m not just sitting around wondering or stressing, which does still happen, but what am I going to do right now? I have an hour. What do I want to do? And it’s like, well, if I go to my schedule, I can kind of see like, okay, will you set this time to look at your marketing plan? Why don’t we pull that out? Or something like that. 

  

Sara Muender (18:51): 

Yeah. Well, and it speaks to the added benefit of being on a flat fee model, which allows your team to work together. And you mentioned earlier that each of your attorneys has kind of their own role in a case and it all kind of works together harmoniously. Yeah, I was, I’m trying to think of the word that started with that symbiotically, one of those, yes. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (19:15): 

Yeah, 

  

Sara Muender (19:16): 

We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors, but when we come back, I want to continue this conversation and hear all about how you do that, how you all work together. 

 

Zack Glaser: 

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Sara Muender (22:05): 

I’m back with Rebecca, and I’m really curious to know how you got to a point where all of your roles were defined, especially between the attorneys in a case. How did you figure out what your role was going to be? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (22:23): 

So honestly, the roles were defined by the characteristics of the attorney that we had starting. So my characteristics in Sarah’s characteristics, and then we brought Brit in to fill the gap. So one of the first things that Sarah and I did when we were setting up this model is we created what we called the client journey. And so we said from how clients find out about us to offering the services, to implementing the services, to closing out the case and moving on to the next phase, what did we want that to look like? And so when clients first come in to affirm they’re nervous, they’re anxious, they don’t know what to do, they have all these questions. And so that’s where we came up with the strategy session as kind of the first step in the journey of, okay, let me get my questions answered. 

  

(23:15): 

Let me figure out what this divorce process even looks like. What do I have to do? And all while feeling really comfortable in taking care of. And then once they sign up for whatever the strategy is that we recommended and it’s getting implemented, there’s a lot of backend stuff that doesn’t require client handholding as much from the attorney. And so that’s where we came up with the client relations manager, and that’s my support staff, Melissa. And so she’s kind of the main point of contact for that. And Sarah can take all that information and make sure everything’s filled out correctly, no misspellings, make sure all the numbers line up and all that kind of stuff. And then when you get before a judge, you want to feel like someone is fighting for you. You always hear that fighting, advocating. You want someone who is really putting forth your position without thinking about all the other things that went into the case. 

  

(24:16): 

And so that’s kind of how we decided that we needed at least three attorneys per case because those are all three unique skill sets that most likely one attorney doesn’t have. Of course, a lot of solos know that they’ve probably worn all those hats at some point in time, but there’s always one area where they’re less skilled at than others. So when we found Brit, she loved being in the courtroom but was falling woefully behind on paperwork, doing simple things like getting out spreadsheets of scheduled and assets and debts and things like that. I mean, she would go months and months putting those things off when they’re supposed to be done within 60 days. And then of course, Sarah, she has an engineering background, so I always like to joke like you never put the engineer in front of the clients, so she doesn’t really love interacting with clients or a courtroom for that matter. And so she was really good for that role. And then my skillset has always been talking with clients, helping them feel comfortable, listen to cared for and all that kind of stuff. So that’s kind of why I chose and it’s actually what I like to do. So that’s kind of why I put myself in that role. 

  

Sara Muender (25:27): 

Beautiful. And then the clients get taken care of and the work gets done on time, I’m assuming? Yes. And everyone on the team is doing something that utilizes their best skillset and what they like to do. So it’s really a win. And again, how that all ties into the flat fee model is you’re not in an eat what you kill model. Everyone is on the same team and working together. So it’s beautiful. So you’ve been around our lab program for a while now, and now you’re even in Lab Legacy, which for those that don’t know is it’s our special group of lab members who have gone through the lab program and have done amazing things in their firm. It’s sort of like our mastermind. We do some awesome things in Lab Legacy, these retreats and things like that. So what has your experience been like being in a program like that where you have someone kind of guiding and leading you and what have been some of the big lessons that you’ve learned along the way? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (26:35): 

So I would say one of the biggest benefits both being in Lab and Legacy is having community. I mean, San Diego, while it’s a fairly large city, is an actually really small legal community, and especially in the family law arena is not as advanced as I would like it to be. So we haven’t found a lot of collegiality in the flat fee model and the trying to change the practice of Law Avenue that I found in Lawyerist. So being a part of Lab allows me to exchange ideas and get feedback from people that are of the same mindset. And so I think that’s been one of the best things that I discovered being a part of it. And then probably the biggest part of both being in Legacy and in Lab is the accountability and keeping yourself on track. So we’ve had many conversations of not just what are we doing today or how can we tweak today’s system or solve today’s issues, but what are we building for the future? And so I think that’s been, especially in legacy, I think it kind of says it in the name, what are we trying to create here? We’re not just trying to build a firm for ourselves, we’re trying to create something for the future. And so I think with us, our future is not just implementing this system, but allowing or creating a way for other attorneys to do the same and showing them this is possible and we don’t have to continue to operate the way we’ve always operated for hundreds of years. 

  

Sara Muender (28:10): 

For sure. I mean, it opens up so many opportunities for you and for the other attorneys and for your families. I mean, the options are endless of what you can do when you’re building something of value, but look at the ways in which you’re serving the community and expanding access to justice. I mean, that’s got to feel so fulfilling. I bet you feel really proud. What are some of the things that you’re most proud of that you’ve built in your firm? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (28:39): 

I think the culture in our firm is one of the biggest things I’m proud of. We work together. Everybody is very friendly, even though we’re not, it’s we’re all best friends, but we’re all working towards the same goal. So even when there’s discussions or disputes as attorneys to have, it’s still all with the final goal in mind that this is what we’re trying to create. So I really enjoy that, and all of my staff actually participates in volunteering, like Sarah’s on boards, Brit loves doing Bar Association events and mentoring. So that’s something that we all really value, and I’m glad I’m be able to create an environment that allows attorneys to do that. 

  

Sara Muender (29:22): 

That is something to be proud of. So what’s next for you? What are you working on now or what’s the next iteration of this long process? 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (29:30): 

So we just did another round of tweaks to our services. One of the things with California when you’re doing flat fees is you have to specify when certain parts of the fee are earned. So we just kind of tweaked that a little bit. So yeah, our goal from this point forward is basically to take that and start scaling up, start making it more transparent and start focusing more on creating access to advice and information for clients without having to pay a lot of money. So having that library of things that clients can use and go to when they have a question as opposed to always having to schedule meeting with me. Maybe they can go through our frequent last questions first or something like that. So that’s kind of our next phase so that we can serve more clients. My main goal right now is to see what is our capacity at the stage we’re at with these three attorneys and this support staff. We are looking to hire one other person, but with who we have, how many clients can we serve reasonably not just making money, but also still providing good services. Then we’re going to hopefully open it up on a larger scale. So our big, big goal is to be where the people are, and that’s always been putting, we call it the law firm in the mall scenario where people hang out and it’s just be another place where you can stop in at any time and immediately get services. 

  

Sara Muender (31:04): 

You never know when you’re going to want to divorce your spouse. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (31:08): 

We have a question to ask. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, well, one of the things with divorce is people who file for divorce oftentimes had been thinking about it for about two years prior to filing. So that’s a lot of questions, unknowns, not sure if you took that step, what it looks like. And so if you’re kind of where everyone is and that’s in the back of their mind, they can always stop in and get those questions answered even if they don’t actually proceed. 

  

Sara Muender (31:37): 

Yeah, good point. And I want to encourage you to go back to that client journey that you created because that is going to be an awesome way to look at opportunities to make the experience easier for them to get their questions answered and also take so much off of your plate. I’m really excited to see how this next project for you really opens up your capacity and makes it even better. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (32:04): 

And part of that is having access to information and services without just only being one-on-one attorney time. So those strategy sessions can start with maybe a video of here’s the process or here’s how you walk through this. We can also have stations where you can scan documents and print pleadings. The nice thing about California is a lot of it is form based, and so why not try to use an intake system and let them fill out their forms right there, maybe even having childcare services or whatever so that they can get questions answered without having to find someone to take care of their kid. All the inconveniences of talking to an attorney can be kind of eliminated by creating this open space and possibility. 

  

Sara Muender (32:51): 

You’re going to have to promise that you’re going to come back on the Lawyer’s Podcast and tell us how that goes and what that opens up and can’t wait to see you grow and scale. I mean, I’m so proud of you, and thank you so much for taking the time to come in and share the recipe with us. 

  

Rebecca Ritchey (33:08): 

Thanks, sir. 

  

Speaker 1 (33:11): 

The Lawyerist 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 Lawyerist dot com slash book, looking for help beyond the book. Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities are right for you. Head to Lawyerist dot com slash community slash 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. 

 

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, 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. 

Your Hosts

Sara Muender

As a Lab Coach, Sara works with lawyers to build healthier law firms through workshops and 1:1 coaching. She makes sure lawyers have the guidance and tools to implement their ideas and grow their businesses.

Featured Guests

Rebecca Ritchey Headshot

Rebecca Ritchey

After a short career in finance and sales in Pennsylvania, Rebecca moved across the Country to sunny San Diego, California to go to law school. Having a background in sales and business, instead of law, there were many challenges in opening her first practice with her partner, especially adapting to the billable hour. How is a person to make money when the currency is time? After separating and starting over on her own, she sought to answer this question. Then entered her legal engineer, Sara Kelley. Together they created a client experience that gave predictability in costs and profitability for the firm. The flat fee services model was developed and implemented at Sibus Law Group, APC. This allowed everyone in the firm to focus on his/her area of expertise while providing a wide range of legal services to clients in need. For Rebecca, access to justice means no one should enter a courtroom or sign a legal document without the advice of an attorney. 

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Last updated July 5th, 2023