Brett Spooner is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Managing Partner of Gravis Law, PLLC, the Inc. 5000 #1 fastest growing law firm award winner headquartered in Richland, Washington with satellite offices spanning the continental USA. As an angel investor, tech enthusiast, and serial entrepreneur, Brett merges his skills and interests to solve access-to-law problems.
The Brief
Brett earned his law degree from Gonzaga University School of Law in 2013 after four years working in the legal and tech sector. At Gonzaga, he focused his studies on Business Law and Securities Regulation, working in the Business Law Clinic, and organized joint entrepreneurial and startup efforts across the community. teaching about business and law at Launch University, Fuse, Washington State University Tri-Cities, and Columbia Basin Community College, where he lectures on topics such as entrepreneurship, business development, board development, millennials in the workforce, and private access to capital. Brett’s goal is to solve accessibility issues in law, entrepreneurship, and economic development across the nation.
Brett has a gift for vision and aims high in his goals. Like many owner-operators, Brett was struggling with having enough time to accomplish his many missions in life. As a husband, father, invested community member, and CEO of Gravis Law, Brett often felt as if everyone always needed him and he could lose control of the pace.
As many entrepreneurs, Brett understands the value of strategy, but realizes that truly great law firm growth strategies require a dedicated talented team to bring them to fruition. Law firms, unlike factories, do not make their profits by selling tangible widgets; they make profits by providing excellent services. To grow a law firm means to grow its talent base, and that talent base needs to be managed. Brett specifically identified the need for talented mid-level managers who could work harmoniously to achieve the leadership team’s vision.
Brett first met Rocco through the Fuse Community and Business Accelerator, located in Richland, WA. Rocco gave a talk to the start-up community about the local entrepreneurial climate and offered free business strategy consultations to any emerging business. Like Brett, Rocco also believes in capitalism for cause and that to fully embrace the opportunities of a modern economy one must play directly as a business owner-operator. Brett decided to try a consultation. The steps were easy enough. He completed a brief assessment on-line which took less than ten minutes and then was guided to an online scheduling tool for him to pick a session time of his preference.
The Approach
Drawing on his engineering and process optimization background, Rocco knew what needed to be done and shared the four steps to optimizing systems.
- Measure the Current State
- Reduce Variation
- Hit a Target, Any Target
- Maximize the Output
Rocco sent a link to his own proprietary assessment which measured Brett’s current state. The assessment was in fact a cocktail of instrument-grade personality, mission, team player, and other diagnostic assessments delivered in a single online, mobile-friendly link. Once the assessment was completed, they kicked-off the first of a three-month series of weekly meetings where they took the steps to align Brett’s stated missions with his actions. This key early step assures that the client is no longer measuring themself with the yardstick of who they used to be. We re-baselined priorities, and decided which tasks needed to be dropped. When you are shooting for greatness, you need to stop doing good things to make time for great things.
With the stated goal of growing Gravis Law into a nation-wide practice, we needed to chart a course. In addition to the weekly session, we took a long-weekend executive retreat with Brett and his founding partners in a beautiful estate on the vineyard covered hills of Walla Walla, WA. There the early owner-operators established the Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV) of Gravis Law through a set of guided facilitations curated by Rocco to maximize creativity, engagement, and impact. Establishing the MVV early, collaboratively, and in writing acts as the compass, guiding the firm through the uncertain waters ahead. We then selected a SMART goal, in this case it was a specific and ambitious annual revenue goal, which if achieved, would represent a massive jump in the firm size, reputation, and impact.
Starting with the goal and working backwards is another key of product and service optimization and represents the fundamental tenet of Lean production and project management. With the goal in mind, we took one step backwards and asked, “To achieve this, what would have to happen right before?” We covered a large table with a wide sheet of butcher block paper and placed a sticky note with the goal written on it at the right edge and started building backward toward the present day. How many satellite-offices would be required? Which practice areas have the best chance at stable law firm revenue growth? Which are more volatile but profitable? Who could we hire, acquire, and attract from our networks to fill these offices? Incrementally, we worked our way back to the current day and generated a law firm growth strategy with clear milestones, metrics, benefits, and challenges. When the parts were added they totaled an annualized revenue equal to the ambitions goal, plus 20% to account for unknowns. The partners were ready.
Building a smart law firm growth strategy is no different in principle than any other, but the specifics are. Which practice software to use? To which states should we expand and in which practice areas? These questions are all critical but answering them will not achieve a goal unless the strategy adds up to the final, ambitious total. Additionally, I chose this method simply because it works; I have seen it in action and have the data to support the claim. It is the system I had learned over my decades of experience in business spanning all of the major economic zones of the world, and a few minor ones, in large corporations and small start-ups and because it is the one I use in my own businesses. It works.
The Results
How is Gravis doing now? Look for yourself. In 2020, Gravis made the Inc 5000 list for fastest-growing companies for the second time in as many years. This time climbing to number 174 of 5,000 (96.5%) in the general grouping and more importantly, #1 for Law firms with a 2,267% three-year growth rate. You read that right, two-thousand-plus percent!
The project turned out so well for myriad reasons. The partners are coachable, ambitious, and focused on growth. Brett himself is an accomplished entrepreneur and business attorney who understands that the results we desire, in this case growth, are the output of consistent work. W. Edwards Demming said, “We cannot control the outcome, we can only control the process.”
Companies are made up of people, and people are complex and emotional as opposed to the comparatively simple gears and cogs of a machine. Nevertheless, if a large and growing firm is the desired outcome, it can be achieved more reliability by following an engineered process to optimize a complex system, including one made up of people.
“How can you possibly coach lawyers? We’re the worst!” said one of the Gravis attorneys to me during a session, and it’s a question I have heard before. I think it comes down to the fact that attorneys and engineers share some similar DNA. We are logical and linear. We are educated and licensed in our professions. We gather evidence and look closely at matters to spot problems. And yet for all our similarities, we do not compete – I never need to tell any client that they are a “doing a bad job as an attorney.” As a business engineer, I analyze your firm, your plans, and your performance, and compare those results to your goals.
If a gap exists at that point it will be clear because the numbers show it. Then I will mold my optimization system around your goals and show you how to pivot to achieve the goal. To the greatest degree possible, I will connect you to people, companies, or organizations to help get you there.
Then we do it again and again until we reach the goal. I adapt my analytical and mathematical skills to optimize the process of growing a law firm, and then there is one more part. Unlike most engineers, we can communicate clearly and enthusiastically – a necessary skill in the business of optimizing businesses.
Wrap that all up and you have the formula for how to grow an award-winning law firm. Will every firm reach these kinds of numbers so quickly? Of course not. Could you follow a proven strategy and commit the time and resources to grow your firm? Only you can answer that question, and please remember, we have a plan that works, and we would love to talk with you and learn just what you want to achieve.
“Scales & Compass founder Rocco is easy to talk to and very experienced. In [my first] hour, I had three big action items for my strategy that were perfectly on point, high impact, and more importantly, felt absolutely achievable. I highly recommend Scales & Compass.” – Brett Spooner, CEO and Founding Partner | Gravis Law, PLLC
Rocco Luongo is a father, husband, business leader, TEDx speaker, and engineer. He has owned, operated, and developed businesses in the US, Europe, and Asia and works extensively helping ambitious lawyers grow their law firms with the goal of improving access to law for everyone.