We were lucky to catch up with Rachel Schromen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Rachel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Talk to us about building your team? What was it like? What were some of the key challenges and what was your process like?

I did not have employees from day one – in fact, I was a solo practitioner for 6 years. A large reason for this was fear and anxiety around hiring. Coming from a family of business owners, I had witnessed a lot of problems and harm that stemmed from having employees – ranging from personality conflict to embezzlement.

My first employees largely found me. Admittedly, I did not have the confidence or skill set in my early days to recruit and interview, so as my business mushroomed and I needed employees, I worked to create positions and jobs that would fit the hires that fell in my lap. As you might imagine, there was a lot of learning and growth through this approach – at times painful!

Realizing that I needed to do something differently, I reached out for the support and guidance I needed to learn how to hire effectively. I identified the positions my business needed, and hired people who not only wanted that specific position, but fit my firm’s culture and values. I have aimed to grow my team based on attraction rather than promotion, meaning that I work to create an environment and culture that attorneys want to join and be a part of. My interviews are largely conversational – identifying a mutual fit of values, integrity, loyalty, work ethic and approaches to lawyering. I believe my firm is being interviewed just as much as I am interviewing a potential addition to my team.

If I were starting today I would not do anything differently because even though I can see an easier and more aligned path in hindsight, I know the initial mistakes made allowed me to grow and learn through them. I also believe that path and experience allowed me to experience gratitude for the team members I have now to a greater extent than I would have had perhaps not knowing the alternative.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an estate planning and elder law attorney, and founder of Schromen Law, LLC – a holistic estate planning and elder law firm. In addition to being an attorney, I am also an end-of-life doula, and have volunteered in this capacity in hospice settings. This experience and passion really informs how my firm approaches client counseling, and supporting clients as a whole as they navigate planning for life’s transitions and changes.

I am most proud of the creative approaches my firm is taking towards supporting clients holistically – ways that have not traditionally been seen in the legal industry. We offer grief coaching services to clients through a grief professional we contract with and we offer monthly “Curiosity Cafes” to create space for our clients to find support and fellowship. Our firm is also very active in the community, with most of our marketing happening through support of charitable or community events, or free educational events.

Everyone on our team works to break down the barrier, or perceived hierarchy, between attorney and client – meeting our clients as humans and focusing on how to support their needs and goals beyond just legal remedies.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson that I had to unlearn was largely how I “had” to act as an attorney. As a law student, my experience in learning how to be an attorney came with a good dose of “hyper-professionalism” that largely functioned to create an arm’s length, transactional client experience. I kept my personal life completely private, only sharing parts that I believed aligned with what others would view as in line with what they would expect from an attorney. I “acted” like an attorney when I was working, and truly felt (more often than not) like I was acting.

As I grew in my practice, and started my own business, I have unlearned those strict and rigid boundaries. Now, boundaries in an attorney-client relationship and important, but they do not have to be at the expense of empathy and authentic human connection, and that was something I needed to unlearn.

Additionally, I have become more open about my personal life and interests, and rather than it diminishing my reputation, it has promoted the growth of my business and network.

I recently posted a photo on LinkedIn, in which I was at Costco in sweatpants and Birkenstocks. I was actually nervous to post the photo because, in my mind, I was worried that I didn’t look like a lawyer. That post ended up being one of my most engaged with, and I even had a client hire me because she said she had received multiple referrals from her financial planner, but saw my “Birkenstock” post and she liked that I was a “real person”!! This was a good lesson to “unlearn” the false lesson that attorneys can’t be humans too.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

When I started my business, I only used my relatively small savings. Rather than incurring debt, I started with modest means and grew my firm as I was able.

For example, my initial business cards were not on thick cardstock, they were the cheapest option that I could get. I did not have embossed folders to put documents for clients in, I simply used manila folders that I bought in bulk. I did not initially rent an office space, I worked from home and a generous colleague let me use her conference room when I needed to.

It was scary to start a law firm, and my confidence was often shaky – so also starting a firm on a shoe-string budget was hard on my ego at times! However, I was able to build a successful quickly and without going into debt. I have watched colleagues launch firms that are very flashy and fancy, only to close the doors and go back to being associates within a year.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://schromenlaw.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schromenlawllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/schromenlaw
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-schromen-esq-037a772b/

Image Credits

Ali Hormann