How Law Firm Leaders Must Act on Data, Not Just Talk About It
You can’t manage what you’re not measuring.
In this episode, Robert Sartin, chairman of Frost Brown Todd, shares how his background in economics, finance, and distressed M&A led him to champion a data-forward strategy long before it became industry standard. He talks about why law firms can’t afford to delay their data journeys, what it takes to turn firm-wide strategy into execution, and how he built alignment around change in a partnership environment.
Robert also discusses the unexpected power of gamification in building a data culture, and how AI will reshape pricing, talent management, and long-term firm viability.
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Transcription
ENTEGRATA | OVERRULED BY DATA | ROBERT SARTIN
Episode Transcript
This has been generated by AI and optimized by a human.
[00:00:00] Robert Sartin: You can't manage what you're not measuring. If you're trying to make decisions about how do we wanna do something better, uh, or how do we wanna do something differently? You have to have the underlying data to help you make decisions about that. I don't think I'm a great visionary. I just think I have a, a basic understanding of it's really important to be capturing.
[00:00:25] Robert Sartin: The information.
[00:00:28] Tom Baldwin: My name's Tom Baldwin. This is Overruled by Data, the podcast for law firms looking to start their data journey or accelerate the journey they're already on. Brought to you by Entegrata. Today's guest is someone who played a pivotal role, not just in transforming his own firm, but in kicking off my own personal journey into legal data strategy.
[00:00:48] Tom Baldwin: Robert Sartin is the managing partner at Frost Brown Todd, and one of the rare law firm leaders who didn't wait for a crisis. Or a consultant to tell him the data mattered. He just knew it. Years ago, Robert actually came to us with a challenge. You know, he wanted to make data work for him, and at that moment became the spark that launched my own career into data, and he's super progressive, pragmatic, and deeply thoughtful about how to lead change in a traditional industry.
[00:01:11] Tom Baldwin: I'm thrilled to have him here to talk about what he did and where he sees the industry headed with data. Welcome. Thank you, Robert.
[00:01:19] Robert Sartin: Tom, it's nice to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:22] Tom Baldwin: Just a little bit of background. Obviously you've had a, a very successful career as a litigator in leadership and in firm management.
[00:01:29] Tom Baldwin: Uh, as you look across those experiences, what shaped your journey, uh, and interest in firm-wide innovation and strategic thinking?
[00:01:37] Robert Sartin: Yeah, I, you know, we're all sort of, uh, products of our environment. You become who we are over our own personal journeys and. Undergrad degree was economics and finance. Three year career in banking before heading into law and kinda preparing for this, looking back on it, I think the economic side has always had me be a little more big.
[00:02:02] Robert Sartin: Picture rights, studying supply and demand and its impact on price, particularly macroeconomics. So that helps you focus on, all right, what? What is the. Managing and using data to determine impact on strategy, what we're trying to accomplish from a business purpose. I, I think that's the background that sort of prepared me for moving into this role.
[00:02:26] Robert Sartin: As you know, in our parlance, I'm, I'm chair of our firm and my task is strategic direction, and then that in, in practice did a lot of work in distress m and a lot of time in bankruptcy. That's kind of the litigation side of it. So those backgrounds, you, you're, and then the banking piece, right? A lot of financial analysis work, so you're studying data.
[00:02:50] Robert Sartin: So that background I think, helped put me in a position to understand ultimately how important it would be for a law firm or particularly our law firm and what we're trying to accomplish.
[00:03:01] Tom Baldwin: So Robert, your firm's in a unique position. First off, having someone like yourself at the helm who has a business background, not every lawyer does.
[00:03:08] Tom Baldwin: Um, one of my favorite quotes from a partner at another firm, she said, I, I went into the practice of law because I was told there'd be no math. Clearly it's not your background. Uh, and you also have a leadership structure where it allow affords you the opportunity to focus strategically, and you've got another person on the team that can worry about operations.
[00:03:25] Tom Baldwin: Maybe you could talk a little bit about that.
[00:03:27] Robert Sartin: Yeah. Happy to. And, and just as a quick aside, I mean, I, yes, I'd, I benefit from having a business background, but you, you don't obviously have to have a business background to be a strategic thinker and under understand the importance of strategy, understand the importance of data and implementation or the tactical side of executing on your strategy.
[00:03:48] Robert Sartin: Yes, I do think I personally benefit and our firm benefits from. Having sort of a divide of roles and responsibilities, especially given our size. So as chair of the firm, I am tasked with strategy direction, strategic implementation, and then I have the benefit of Adam Hall, who is our CEO or in, in most big law parlance, managing partner.
[00:04:11] Robert Sartin: We operate as co-leads, and that is a benefit of our structure. So I can kind of point to the need for this and the need for that, and he and I can work together on how are we gonna get it implemented. And where are we gonna hire resource to or apply resource to help us accomplish our goals?
[00:04:28] Tom Baldwin: As you look at the industry, many managing partners tend to stick with traditional playbooks, right?
[00:04:33] Tom Baldwin: The whole industry is based on precedent, right? Which is a backwards look. What led you to take a more progressive data forward approach in leading Frost Brown Todd to where it is today.
[00:04:43] Robert Sartin: Yeah. Again, Dr. Drawing a little bit on my, my background both in economics and finance, and then the time in banking, and then the, the nature of my practice, right?
[00:04:54] Robert Sartin: When you're dealing with distress m and a, you're looking for solutions and what, what's causing the problem, uh, when you're headed to bankruptcy corps, what's causing the operational problem? All of that help position me. To be a, a bit of a strategic thinker back, like I said a minute ago, thinking, uh, strategically and externally and kind of at a macro level.
[00:05:13] Robert Sartin: So that background helped me. Now, you don't have to have that background. I think everybody has to understand that competing in law as a law firm, little bit different if you're a solo practitioner, right? That regardless of where you are in that spectrum of partnership to smaller partnerships, up to the larger partnerships.
[00:05:35] Robert Sartin: It is a hyper competitive environment, right, with ever increasing demands. We're gonna talk about this a little bit later as we go along, but technology is changing the landscape. So you, you have to have a strategy into, and that what I, what I mean by that is, all right, where is our place in the market?
[00:05:55] Robert Sartin: Do we like where we are? If we like where we are, what are we doing to enhance that position? Certainly protect it, but try to enhance it. If we don't really like where we are, we wanna be a better version of ourselves. What things are we going to do to change and where we are? And then data becomes a critical piece of this.
[00:06:14] Robert Sartin: You know, my partner sometimes joke with me. I do speak often with the kind of the NBA speak, they say, but you know, that's the old cliche. You can't manage what you're not measuring. If you're trying to make decisions about how do we wanna do something better? Uh, or how do we wanna do something differently?
[00:06:31] Robert Sartin: You have to have the underlying data to help you make decisions about that. So, you know, I don't think I'm a great visionary. I just think I have a, a basic understanding of you. It's really important to be capturing the information. What are, and so what is all of that, right? If you're trying to incentivize behavior and get people to work together on teams, well then you need to give them information to understand, well, who has expertise and how often have they done a particular litigation matter?
[00:07:04] Robert Sartin: Particular transaction? It would want me having them on their team. If you're trying to respond to an RFP in the marketplace and they're looking for speed, time is of the essence in those right. So all of that is examples of how important it is, and I just had sort of the benefit of seeing that and thinking that, and knew when I moved into this role in 18, we had to be better at it.
[00:07:27] Tom Baldwin: Speaking of sort of that move in 2018, if you go back to that moment in time when you had this sort of call to action, so to speak, well, for lack of a better term, and we started working together, what was the catalyst? Was there a specific instance or. Situation that realized like, okay, we've gotta really solve this in a more material way.
[00:07:47] Robert Sartin: Yeah. I don't know that it, I would characterize it as a catalytic event, if you will, but what was selected by our partnership into this role in January of 18 immediately began assessing, okay, where are we? Like I was talking about, uh, a minute ago in the marketplace. Looking back, we had a nice, you know, 10 year run parts of our firm have a hundred year history.
[00:08:13] Robert Sartin: Well, we're kind of a creation of combinations. We'd had this nice 10 year run. I'm, I'm seeing the market increasing in its competition. Alternative legal service providers are starting to work their way in the impact of technology, the fact that the larger firms were starting to move into secondary and tertiary markets.
[00:08:31] Robert Sartin: So assessing the marketplace where we were in the marketplace. But I knew we had to have a strategy as a law firm of which data is a component and right. To me, I'm a big believer in if you're trying to talk to your current clients about why they should stay with you or give you additional products, projects, uh, or you're talking about potentially new clients, why pick Frost Brown Todd with many other great choices?
[00:08:57] Robert Sartin: You have to have a value proposition. And to understand what your value proposition is, you have to really have an understanding from your data. Okay. Yeah. If we think we're an energy firm or if we think we're a manufacturing firm, just how much of it are we're doing? What is the nature of those projects, right?
[00:09:15] Robert Sartin: What's the right rate associated with that? Where are the margins on it? I, you know, I can go on and on about the things that you want to capture and analyze. So I. I saw pretty quickly we needed a more defined and targeted value proposition in the marketplace. And to be able to then put that in place and tactically execute on it, we were too dispersed in and where to gather information and where it was held within the law firm.
[00:09:40] Robert Sartin: Right? And we needed to centralize that, be able to better capture it, find a way. We'll talk about this a little later to capture historical stuff and then pull it into your proverbial data lake. Because that takes time and resource. So that, that's where we were in 18 and that's why I called you for some help.
[00:09:59] Robert Sartin: Yeah, that
[00:10:00] Tom Baldwin: amazing journey. So interestingly enough, we hear a lot about gen ai and a lot of firms are leaning into that, but it's still somewhat rare to see managing partners like yourself out in front of and thinking and leading the firm through a data transformation. For firms that are like, Hey, I, I think I wanna get into this, but I don't really know how to get started.
[00:10:20] Tom Baldwin: What advice would you give? To other law firm leaders, um, who may see the value in data but don't know how to get going.
[00:10:27] Robert Sartin: Yeah. Well, as a silly illustration to walk up a hill, you have to take the first step. So no matter what, you've gotta convince yourself of the importance of it and then begin to act on it.
[00:10:40] Robert Sartin: All businesses are, uh, both resource limited ultimately, right? Mm-hmm. We don't have infinite resource. And then related to that. Are the competition around resource and priorities and strategic priorities, and we only have so many hours in the day. So you, you have to make a decision. Is this important? I can tell you I believe it is mission critical to the execution of any form of strategy if you are not capturing your data and evaluating your data.
[00:11:10] Robert Sartin: And putting it in a centralized place where your partners can get at it and understand it, so it's capturing it and then being able to use it in a user friendly way, then you are not gonna be able to execute on your strategic plan. Again, I wanna reemphasize, I think every firm must have a very clear plan and a clear understanding of what they're trying to accomplish.
[00:11:31] Robert Sartin: From a strategy perspective, and I've said it a couple of times, data's an important piece of that. And then it's just a quick aside, and I know we may talk about it a little more later. Uh, the, the AI thing, you know, there and the bell curve, there are some people like, ah, this really isn't that big a deal.
[00:11:49] Robert Sartin: At the other end of the spectrum, they're gonna be winners and losers, and I'll get to where I think about this in a minute. The middle, everybody's trying to figure it out, right? It's in the headlines every day. I am convinced that this is more than just the introduction of the worldwide web. Or the introduction of the smart firm.
[00:12:08] Robert Sartin: That definitely changed the way law firms access information and practice. What I mean by that is here, I think at the end of the day, there will be winners and losers with respect to the use of ai. Our clients are gonna have expectations around how we're using it. Those expectations will include that they expect us to be more efficient, right?
[00:12:31] Robert Sartin: We all know they're trying to manage costs to typically, uh, legal expense inside of business as a cost. So they're trying to, to fix control and decrease that cost. They're gonna expect us to use technology and they're not gonna let us fully capture all of the profit or the opportunity side of it.
[00:12:51] Robert Sartin: They're gonna expect us to be partners with them and pass some of that along. In some ways, some of them may be unfair, where we don't get to keep any of that and they're gonna expect that entire benefit. And so all of that wraps together in a firm must have a technology strategy capturing its data, using its data, and then AI is gonna be a component of that.
[00:13:12] Robert Sartin: And I am one of these just, and I may be proved raw. But I'm out there on the end of the spectrum looking out 5, 6, 7 years from now. I think it's gonna completely change the pricing model and the leverage model of the AM law 200 and those that figure it out will be the ones that may not always survive, but pride.
[00:13:31] Robert Sartin: And those that are, uh, don't, I think will be left behind or will be here.
[00:13:36] Tom Baldwin: A couple things I want to just kind of double click on that you, you talked about, going back to your earlier comments, and I'm not saying this to pander to you, but having had a experience and exposure to a lot of firms, not a lot of firms have a written strategy, and you all did.
[00:13:50] Tom Baldwin: And it was a very helpful aid because we were able to align a lot of our initiatives against those strategic goals. So it wasn't done in a vacuum. The second thing that I really admired about your firm is the discipline around, like knowing where you were in the market. I can't tell you how many firms I've seen that, like I see, oh, tell me who you, you think your peers are, and I hate to say it, but they're grossly kind of like stepping outside of, of who their actual peers are.
[00:14:16] Tom Baldwin: It's aspirational. And you, you all knowing kind of where you fit in the marketplace and where you want to go with the things that you're great at, that you wanna double down on the things that you want to get better at. Being honest about that is not easy to do at a firm, but I think it helped really cut through a lot of the noise, and not just with our project, but I assume other things you do at the firm.
[00:14:35] Robert Sartin: Yeah. You have to conduct reflection activities and you have to be self-aware and it's okay to have some aspiration or think a little. Gather of yourself than you may actually be. But those aspirations have to be reasonably, reasonably achievable. And I, I will come back to it. I, I'm a big believer, you, you gotta have a strategic plan.
[00:15:01] Robert Sartin: It has to be in a writing. You need to go through a strategic planning process. And that's a world unto itself on hey, you know, your various stakeholders and buy in and build consensus around the plan. And, and we all know lawyers. Every lawyer's gonna think differently about an issue. So building consensus to get to a written plan that then you can begin to execute on.
[00:15:25] Robert Sartin: And then the final thing I'll say is, while that is ultimately probably easier said than done, I do tell our partners, anybody could draft a strategic plan. Very few people can actually execute on one. So you have to go through the heart process of putting a good plan in place, and then you have to have.
[00:15:45] Robert Sartin: Relentless discipline in the pursuit of your plan, and then you have to kind of poke your head up every three, four years and do an additional reflection activity and see what adjustments you're making to the way poise. My personal belief is you have a 10 year plan that you're assessing in the short term, midterm and kind of long term.
[00:16:03] Tom Baldwin: You went back to buy-in and consensus building in a law firm, that's difficult with a partnership model or any version of a partnership model. Right, and so looking back at this, I was looking at, at my notes, we were in 2021. 2020 when we started talking way before data and AI were at the kind of popularity they are now.
[00:16:21] Tom Baldwin: When you went back to the firm and said, Hey, I really want to like you, you made, your firm has made a substantial investment in people and technology and I, I have to imagine a ton of sort of political capital to get all these things pushed forward. When you initially presented this to the firm, how did you get buy-in?
[00:16:37] Tom Baldwin: Going back to speaking to other managing partners like yourself, how would you suggest they build buy-in to move forward with efforts like this? Were there skeptics and how did you kind of overcome that?
[00:16:48] Robert Sartin: Yeah, I've got the scars on my back to prove it's not easy. But, you know, first and foremost, anybody in a leadership position has to have a vision and have a plan.
[00:16:58] Robert Sartin: And it can't just be theirs pulled out of thin air. So you, you've gotta spend some time reflecting and talking. You, uh, pulling feedback in. From various stakeholders and they can't be just the people that think like you. So you've, you've gotta, gotta one ultimately come up with your own thoughts and plans and they test those and you do have to implement process.
[00:17:22] Robert Sartin: I'm a big believer in like we did with you and firemen and technology as an initial set. I'm a big believer in using outside resources and consultants and we had an advisor that did an effective job of not helping create a plan that was that person's plan. That we were then to implement, but help work with us to come to our own plan.
[00:17:43] Robert Sartin: And the, the just, you know, we've talked for hours about it. 'cause it, it took months and even a year really, it developed the strategic plan we were gonna use for the next 10 years. But you go out, you gather as stakeholders from different constituencies, you know, a mix of demographics, practice, demographics, age, demographics, geographic demographics.
[00:18:03] Robert Sartin: The art may be more than the science is. Hmm. You can't become unwieldy, but you've gotta ultimately get to a group that can be managed. And then you go through this reflection activity. Who are we? Where are we in the marketplace? Test that a little bit. Where do we want to be? What's reasonably achievable?
[00:18:20] Robert Sartin: If we want to have some aspiration, as I was talking about earlier, and then ultimately you start putting a draft together and that's where the really hard work begins, because then you have to go out. And convince the rest of the team to buy into this and to lead and to follow, and that, that all goes to change management at the end of the day of, that's a world unto itself, obviously.
[00:18:42] Robert Sartin: But the, the simple at risk of grossly oversimplifying change management is you have to build consensus and buy in. And then a little bit of how to do that is to show early returns and the value in it. So bringing it back to, you know, sort of your podcast here and data. In the importance of prioritizing the capture of data so that we can then use that data to make decisions as we go to execute on our strategic plan.
[00:19:09] Robert Sartin: The sooner you can pull some things together, make it usable, functional, showing how people are using and and applying it, and it's improving their own practices, you build consensus and momentum and buy into the plan. And then tying that back to the strategic plan at large, if you think about it from your macro plan.
[00:19:28] Robert Sartin: You have certain tactics, data being a part of the tactics, all of that same thing, executing on the strategic plan and change management. Showing them, Hey, because we're now doing this and we're tactically executing on this strategy, here are the early returns we're seeing promoting that. That helps you achieve buy-in.
[00:19:49] Robert Sartin: And that is easier sat than done, by the way. Yeah,
[00:19:51] Tom Baldwin: it is. It is. Easier sat, absolutely. Because even the best plans, you're gonna have skeptics regardless, right? There's no way around that. So if we pivot a little bit and talk about sort of the lessons lured, the things that went well, didn't go well. Pivots you made, you know, this might be surprising to you, we never admitted to this, but you were the first firm to ever come to us to do day strategy work.
[00:20:09] Tom Baldwin: So we were kind of coming up with it as we were going along. It was our first time doing it, and you were one of the very first firms that we know of on the planet that really took a, a measured approach to data. And so there was a lot of things that we all kind of learned together. If you reflect back on kind of those early stages, is there anything that you would've done differently?
[00:20:29] Robert Sartin: Maybe have spent a little more time in the early stages on thinking about what the outputs were and what do I mean by maybe a little more, a tighter discipline on Okay. Exactly. What are we intending to do with the data? Which would then have maybe better framed some of the early inputs and made us a little faster and more efficient.
[00:20:58] Robert Sartin: You know, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. You know, I tend to, you know, not trying to self law, but my, one of my strengths is a little more big picture, kind of having a, a general idea of where we need to go and some things we need to do differently. And then I want to just get it done and expect that we will get it done to get there.
[00:21:17] Robert Sartin: Right. And, alright, I knew we needed data. Let's capture it. Let's get it in the data lay, let's start figuring out little di uh, dashboards and things that we can create little more discipline on the front end of exactly what we're intending to use it for. I think in retrospect, would've made the entire process a little easier and faster.
[00:21:40] Tom Baldwin: It's interesting, Robert, that you came to that conclusion. 'cause in our business now, that is exactly the approach we take. We don't start an engagement until we know that there, what is the specific outcome that you wanna start with? If you're just doing data for data's sake, that's a really difficult place to be in.
[00:21:55] Tom Baldwin: Right? You right. And this goes back to sort of helping, you know, kind of ward off a little bit of the skeptics. If I can do a data effort and then turn around and show something meaningful and valuable, that's tangible. That that starts to show value quicker and you, you get the buy in sooner. It's an interesting parallel that we both came to the same conclusion without ever talking about in advance.
[00:22:14] Tom Baldwin: That's funny. So in a similar vein, were there any particular challenges you ran into, whether it was technical, organizational, or cultural, that if you were looking at advising another leader of a law firm that they should be prepared for?
[00:22:28] Robert Sartin: Yeah, that question goes a little bit back to the, the resource limitation.
[00:22:33] Robert Sartin: All businesses, again have finite resources and, and the flip side of that same coin, if you will, is the prioritization, right? So I definitely think you have to understand data is a component of a lot of things. And so you then have to value the priority of it. And that goes back to the prior question.
[00:22:54] Robert Sartin: You frankly on be a little more narrow than broad in, okay, what am I trying to gather so that, what am I gonna use it for? And then you have to lean into it. And that's back to the change management piece. You know, you have to commence your management committees or your different project teams. This is what we need, this is why we need it, this is what we're intending to do with it.
[00:23:15] Robert Sartin: And lean into that. And you do learn about your, your fund's culture and their comedian, who, lawyers tend to be a little bit resistant to change. You gotta then kinda give them the vision for it. So that's the culture piece and, and then building excitement and enthusiasm around it. Technical challenges will be what they'll be.
[00:23:36] Robert Sartin: Right. And that's ultimately. Address through either human capital or financial capital to improve your technical capabilities, but back to buy-in. If you're not bought in on the importance of it, no one else is gonna buy into the importance of it as a leader of a law firm or a Greek, et cetera.
[00:23:54] Tom Baldwin: Love that.
[00:23:55] Tom Baldwin: So we've talked about sort of lessons learned. Let's, uh, look at the other side of that coin again, candidly watching you and the firm evolve and the group you've put in place and the success they've achieved. What are you most proud of in terms of what Frost Brown Todd has done using data to this point?
[00:24:14] Robert Sartin: Yeah, it, it's definitely working that kind of joke with our colleagues, that I am not cocky enough to claim causation, you know, if the financial results or a direct cause of what we've done around strategy and what we've done around the use of data. I am confident enough to claim correlation. And fair.
[00:24:37] Robert Sartin: If you're looking at our results, there is a correlation to having the strategy and the use of data, and we are delivering better results to our clients, which is ultimately what it's all about as a professional service firm, particularly a law firm, and it's about client results, right? And so. Uh, how do you get to better client results?
[00:25:00] Robert Sartin: Well, better teams, well teams work better together when they understand, alright, just how many hours have we done this before? This type of project makes you better at project management, makes you better at pricing. So I, I'm very proud of the financial results we've achieved and what we're accomplishing around, uh, our strategy and the use of data.
[00:25:20] Tom Baldwin: And I know, uh, your team is very, uh, wisely. They're, they're always very vague when they speak at events to talk about specific initiatives. 'cause a lot of the work you've done is very much secret sauce. And we'll get to this in a little bit. Gen AI has been very work product focused, but a lot of the work you did up to this point, we weren't even touching documents.
[00:25:40] Tom Baldwin: It's been all the business data and there's a lot of secret sauce behind that as well. Because you've mentioned pricing and things like, uh, like that several times, but is there a specific project or initiative or maybe a new capability that stands out in your mind as something that you're really most proud of?
[00:25:56] Robert Sartin: Well, there's several things. I mean, there's a lot I'm proud of about our team and uh, and some of it may be is a little bit secret sauce, but one I think that we've talked about, if we haven't, I'm not afraid to talk about, but I alluded to this earlier, right? We, when you start a data oriented project, you are beginning to capture data.
[00:26:17] Robert Sartin: What you wanna do is capture. As much as you can that's immediately available and certainly capture everything going forward. Well, what about all of that historical stuff, right? So transactions or litigation matters that you're trying to evaluate how they are applicable or how it can make us better today?
[00:26:38] Robert Sartin: Well, how do you bring that into the system? And a lot of times, yeah, you can see the files and the papers of the files, but the human knowledge associated with that. Here's really the importance of that, what we achieve, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we, through our team, human nature to be competitive. I'm kind of a believer in gamification.
[00:26:58] Robert Sartin: We created and we, we sort of do it every year. We call it the Amazing Race, you know, off the, the TV show and we create teams and you advance by the number of. Historical matters that you put into the system. And you know, we have sort of a template of what the questions that we're looking for related to certain matters.
[00:27:22] Robert Sartin: And then it incentivizes everybody from our LPAs to our associates, to our partners. 'cause they want to, you know, in the background of what we're doing every day to deliver client work. They wanna see their team short of advance and be the winner and get the prize. And you do that over a couple of years and all of a sudden you've brought an enormous amount of historical context.
[00:27:42] Robert Sartin: Into your data lake. So that's one of the things I'm kind of proud about and it's been very useful. I mean, the res results are then when we're going into our, you know, what we call foundation and we're looking at what's our experience profile. It's made this better at all those things I'm talking to you about pricing, project management, response to RFPs, building, you know, as we're growing right?
[00:28:06] Robert Sartin: Yeah, we all know what's happening in the AmLaw 200. Everybody's growing either through combination or organically by opening in new markets and building. You're trying. If you're not growing, you're declining. Well. Integration's key to that, right? So if you're trying to deliver the best value to clients, you've gotta have a team oriented strategy.
[00:28:27] Robert Sartin: Well, for teams to know one another. You gotta create an opportunity for them to figure out, and I talked about this before by centralized place, for them to literally go see someone's true experience profile. And yeah, they say they're this type of attorney and they say they've done these transactions and yeah, you can talk to 'em and trust 'em and all that.
[00:28:47] Robert Sartin: That's a given. But to actually then see it in, in the data, it helps drive that. Or we all get the call for somewhat something somewhat unique. Right. Uh. Who's done this, who has this expertise, and instead of the broad, pardon the interruption email that's sent out across you, you can actually just go with the foundation and within a button or two, click you, oh, wow.
[00:29:09] Robert Sartin: Yeah, we've done this, and then this person's done it a lot, or we have it. And then it helps you evaluate, okay, if we have it, then what do we do about it? You can tell I, I'm a big believer, a hundred percent I'm my own Kool-Aid of the importance of
[00:29:23] Tom Baldwin: data and tied to strategist. Uh, one of the other data points that you could use, uh, looking from the outside in is you, you know, your point earlier, every firm, I don't care if your PPP is $9 million or $900,000 a year, you have limitations.
[00:29:38] Tom Baldwin: You, there's a threshold of how much you can invest in any one particular area. Right. And what I've seen you, again, from a distance, what I've noticed is your firms continued to evolve the team and invest and double down on resources in certain areas, which, at least from the outside looking in, tells me that it's working.
[00:29:54] Tom Baldwin: 'cause firms are not gonna continue to invest in an area they're not seeing a return on.
[00:29:58] Robert Sartin: That's generally Terry. You know, it depends on how long your lead time is or your expected return on investment, how long you're, but you're generally right. Yeah. If it's not working, two people can turn off the. The investment.
[00:30:13] Robert Sartin: Move on to something else. I've said it before. You need to be committed to it. You gotta take the first step. You do have to invest in it. It's basic business. You have to invest to grow. And that investment is a commitment to the investment in, you know, technology generally, and is part of what we're talking about data, and that's financial capital and union capital.
[00:30:36] Robert Sartin: And then you're trying to measure are we growing and are we achieving return on investment in that investment? You, I was joking about this earlier. You may not always see a direct line causation, but you need to be able to confidently draw some correlations. Is that helpful?
[00:30:53] Tom Baldwin: A hundred. Very helpful. Okay, so Robert, as we kind of look at the last section of our time together, I really wanted to get your take on the future.
[00:31:01] Tom Baldwin: And vantage point, you see where the legal industry is headed with AI data and analytics.
[00:31:06] Robert Sartin: Yeah. Yeah. I, in my mind, I sort of categorize it into at least two buckets. I, if not three and probably is three, where you're thinking about these issues. You've gotta generally be thinking about compliance. That's one bucket or vertical, right?
[00:31:24] Robert Sartin: Are we using it ethically, legally, et cetera. The spirit of your question then is there's the deliverable, the external, and how do we use this to deliver work, product, and monetize? We talked about that a little bit earlier on how I'm a believer it is gonna change value and pricing and all of that. And then the third is how are we using it ourselves internally to actually be more efficient?
[00:31:55] Robert Sartin: More productive in what we do every day. And that's, that's across functions. That's the use of AI inside your marketing departments, whether that's First cuts, said PowerPoints for pitch responses to RFPs. It's in the HR function and how can we better manage, capture, keep track of, and there, there's a lot in that, right?
[00:32:20] Robert Sartin: Within our. Our hiring processes, our whole talent manage with a AI is just unlimited in its capabilities to be more efficient than tracking results, doing analytics that can be converted to predictives. Yeah. We all have our models for who's the ideal hire for a function within FBT, but you can actually use AI to study that.
[00:32:44] Robert Sartin: Historically to them become predictive to make you better at, which then makes you more targeted in who you're going after and then what you're doing. I mean, I can go on hours and hours and that far, it's about mm-hmm. The ultimate opportunities here. And then just to be practical about it, you, you can't just get lost in all the what ifs and the why.
[00:33:05] Robert Sartin: It's back to the priorities and it's back to the limitation of resources. You gotta see this unlimited world of possibilities. And then pick the things that you think are gonna be the most important to you and your organization. And you gotta dial in on 'em and you gotta start making it happen.
[00:33:20] Tom Baldwin: And when you think about the future for you, we just talked about the industry, to the extent you can share sort of your vision for Frost Brown Todd, what?
[00:33:27] Tom Baldwin: What do you want the industry to think of when they think of Frost Brown Todd, five years from now,
[00:33:32] Robert Sartin: I think we aspire to be a national firm. Continue to grow. We, we are close to be building out, passing for regional to truly national. We are not looking to ultimately become an AmLaw 50 firm and grow around the globe.
[00:33:47] Robert Sartin: We're gonna build a, a national firm focused on more of the middle market economy. That's back to what we were talking about earlier, sort of self-awareness of who we are and who we're competing against. We wanna be respected. There's places for all sorts of law firms in the space, right? Ethically, clients are adverse and.
[00:34:05] Robert Sartin: So we, we want to be there with our peer firms and respect it. And most importantly, we're out to deliver great client service and then have a, a fantastic team oriented FBT way, if you will, culture. That's who we are and what we're doing. We're having a lot of fun doing it.
[00:34:22] Tom Baldwin: Absolutely. And so parting words here a little bit, a lot of firms are really interested.
[00:34:30] Tom Baldwin: And getting started, and they're going back to sort of the same place you were in 2021. What's one piece of advice you'd give another law firm leader? They understand the importance of data, but they just haven't started yet.
[00:34:44] Robert Sartin: Yeah, I made the job earlier in, in our conversation, the silly illustration. If you're looking at a hill to walk up, you, you gotta take the first step if you're gonna get the top.
[00:34:53] Robert Sartin: So spend some personal time reflecting if you're a leader in a firm. Where are we? Where do I think we need to go? Check that with a group of your core stakeholders and then, and then get after it. And you know, the other thing I said earlier too is spend some time specifically is in the context of data and use of data.
[00:35:16] Robert Sartin: Spend some, some real time thinking about, okay, what do I want to use it for? And am I capturing it in a way where I can use it for that? And tho, those are your first steps, right? What am I gonna use? Use it for and focus on the outputs that'll help you then, alright, how do I gather it through the inputs?
[00:35:37] Robert Sartin: And then you start getting to the, okay, what are we capable of today? That's the resource assessment. And then put it in the priority spectrum of other things, but. I, I've joked along the way. I think it's mission critical for anybody that's gonna continue to deliver great client service, have a strategy and a plan, have real self-awareness about their actual value proposition in the marketplace, and then they need to be executing tactically on delivering that value proposition.
[00:36:04] Robert Sartin: And use of data is a key piece of that assessment and that actual technical execution.
[00:36:11] Tom Baldwin: Robert, thank you so much for your time. Is, is there any other topics or thoughts that you wanna leave our audience before we, uh, disembark for the weekend? No, I,
[00:36:18] Robert Sartin: I always, you know, I, we've joked about this a little along the way.
[00:36:21] Robert Sartin: I, that's why I get out of bed in the morning. I like to think strategically. I'm competitive. I like playing on a team. And here a team, FBT part of my function is what, what could we do to be a better team? We more competitive in the marketplace. So I enjoy these conversations, is the point of that. I happy to have it with you.
[00:36:41] Robert Sartin: We've enjoyed our relationship along the way. I'm sure we'll find continued ways to work together.
[00:36:45] Tom Baldwin: Absolutely. Robert, really appreciate your time. All
[00:36:47] Robert Sartin: of these thoughts I've pontificated on somebody cares about, and if not, they can turn it off.
[00:36:52] Tom Baldwin: No, it's been great. You've been awesome. I really appreciate your time, Robert.
[00:36:55] Tom Baldwin: Thank you so much.
[00:36:57] Robert Sartin: All right Tom. See ya.
[00:37:00] Tom Baldwin: That's a wrap for this episode of Overruled by Data. If this podcast resonated with you, if you took one or two things away from it, you want to hear more from law firm leaders that have been there and done that hit the fall button.