We were lucky to catch up with Chere Estrin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chere, appreciate you joining us today. Early in your career, how did you think through the decision of whether to start your own firm or join an established firm?

Who ever thought as a child, that they would become a paralegal? That’s like saying, “When I grow up, I want to be an actuary”. Not going to happen.

I have always had an independent streak. It comes with the territory. My grandfathers and uncles were entrepreneurs. I figure it may be something you inherit.

I get very anxious trying to please a boss. Maybe it comes from always trying to please your parents. I don’t know. I do know, however, that being an entrepreneur is the best and wisest choice I ever made. At school, I always used to be the one starting clubs, the one who built the lemonade stand, the one who had to “be the boss of things.”

I was working as a Paralegal Administrator in an AmLaw 10 law firm – that is, one of the top revenue producing law firms in the entire country. I had been “poached” by this firm because they heard what I was doing with building a department at a rival firm. I had never been so flattered. So, I went. Yeah, great. I knew the first three days, I had made a monstrous mistake. But with things as they were during that time, it would never look good to jump around. So I decided to stick it out.

Unfortunately, while I loved the job and the building of a department, the job began to go stale. Part of my position was to interview and hire members of the team. As it was growing from around 10 to about 50 paralegals, I began to realize that as the candidate was sitting there in front of my desk (which, by the way, was in an office with a real window – a status situation in any law firm), that it was the same story, different face. Why do you want to work here? Tell me about your last position? What salary are you looking for? and more. I was actually starting to glaze over during interviews. I developed a neat little trick of not hearing anything but being able to nod in the right places. Not exactly someone on their toes.

So, I began to think. What would make me happy? Answer: Owning my own recruiting agency. The part of the job that I loved the most was building the department, giving a deserving candidate a great job and earning a very decent salary. Since I didn’t like reporting to anyone anyway, (The first day I was there, the Director of Administration took me to lunch, filled me full of pastrami, potato salad and French fries, and told me that if I were to succeed there, I would have to lose weight), I thought going it alone, answering to no one, would be best for me.

I stayed at the job and took the next year to build on the idea. Every chance I got, I would publish an ad for a new person on my staff and was sure the ads said in bold print: “Chere Estrin, Paralegal Administrator) over each and every title. I started to take on speaking engagements, I wrote tons of how-to articles that somehow, found their way to getting published. In other words, I started to grow a network so that my colleagues knew who I was. I was laying the groundwork so that when I did leave, I wasn’t an unknown commodity out there. People would have seen the name. That’s what I wanted.

When it became time to leave, I notified the firm. I had exactly $4,000 to my name and I was driving a Datsun B210. If you are anywhere under 40, you wouldn’t know what that is. I took $2,000 to live on (meat was cheaper in those days) and took $2,000 to open the business. What startled me was that the firm, instead of being grumpy that I was leaving, became my very first client. Not bad to have an AmLaw firm on the brochure as a starting point!

I rented an office (with a window) inside of an​ appellate firm. I had a phone, a desk and a fax machine and a very hefty Rolodex (Look, it was a long time ago.) I remember that on my first day I was walking in the parking lot and I felt like I was walking on air. What a thrill! I knew this had to be good.

I was right. I had no fear. None, Zero. Zip. I headed to my office every morning early and started dialing for dollars. I called the company, “Estrin & Associates”. When I contacted one of my Director of Administration friends, she said, “So who are the associates?” I knew she was teasing but she still gave me an order. I put ads everywhere I could and candidates called because they had seen my name over the past year.

Business started to roll in. I decided to start a temporary help division. I specialized in paralegals at that time. Holy, moly! No one had taught me about cash flow, profit & loss statements and how to read a balance sheet. I hired a very good consultant who was very inexpensive and learned step-by-step how to do it and began to build that division slowly. Gradually, I became one of the biggest temp divisions of paralegals in town. Sometimes, late at night, I sweated the payroll. I’ll admit it. I was bootstrapping the entire deal until my accountant took me to a bank where he had contacts and I got a $30,000 line of credit. Now, I was rolling.

I realized I was growing and needed help. So I hired a part-time recruiter who was a former paralegal. We literally turned the broom closet into an inside office. (So, the desk was a tad small, who cared?) From there, I grew to have three offices in California. The Big Guys came knocking at my door. They wanted to buy me. Now, that sure was tempting! So after 2 1/2 years from opening and $5million in revenue, I sold to a $5 billion dollar company. My new job was to start their nationwide legal staffing division. I had the title of Sr. Vice President reporting to the CEO.

Hold on there, Missy! There I was. I had a house in a fancy-schmancy neighborhood, a Mercedes in the garage (not the starter unit) and most of all, I had a credit card to Neiman Marcus. What’s not to love here? Drum roll. I was totally miserable. I had to answer to someone, albeit the CEO, but I had to go through hoops and lots of red tape to even get a check for a vendor for $1,000. I was absolutely miserable and crying in the shower every day. This wasn’t going to work. No amount of money would make me happy.

So I left! Yep! I left a whole lot of money on the table and walked away after a couple of years. I had a year non-compete agreement that I stuck out. The very day it was up – well, I was free, free, free. .

Now, that’s just Chapter One. There are plenty of chapters in-between. Today, I have had the good fortune of having a tremendous team, a thriving legal staffing business (only I do the whole spectrum of legal staffing from attorneys to legal staff) and we all work remotely. They are the best team I have ever had. I have just been interviewed by the Wall St. Journal (ok, so it was front page) and Fortune Magazine and named one of the Top Ten Women Leaders in Los Angeles. My scope is nationwide of both full-time and temporary staffing. I have written 10 books, hundreds of articles been interviewed lots and had many, many speaking engagements. But enough about me. Suffice it to say, I am one happy camper and I don’t report to anyone. To be continued……..

Chere, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My company, Estrin Legal Staffing, is a nationwide legal staffing organization providing attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants and legal staff to the top law firms and Fortune 1000 companies in the country. We staff full-time and temporary attorneys, paralegals and legal assistants primarily to first tier cities.

We also provide lots of educational content from webinars, books, articles, coaching, videos and more. We teach at law firms, associations, schools and more. The problem we solve is providing law firms with excellent candidates and offering opportunities to great candidates. We also offer temporary contract attorneys and legal professionals when the need arises.

What am I most proud of? My team. My team is the cog in the wheel, the engine to make the locomotion go, the, well, you get the picture. They are so very smart, able, quick and above all, passionate about what they do. I am also proud of being able to place hundreds of candidates into their dream (or almost dream) jobs and be just a tiny drop of what helps make them successful. It’s a thrill when someone comes back to me years later and says, “Do you remember me? You placed me at SuchandSuch firm.” I may not exactly remember them when I see them but give the name and chances are, I will remember the resume.

The main thing I want clients/followers/fans to remember about us is our dedication to the legal profession. My mantra is, “You have to get up in the morning and love it.” When you do, you invoke loyalty, professionalism, great work and the ability to help change someone’s career. It’s a thrill every time.

What do you need to do to reach us? Call us or email us with a request where you need to find a legal professional or send us a resume if you are seeking a job. We will do our very best (no small thing) to find what you are looking for. There’s no other job too important than yours.

Any advice for managing a team?

Advice for managing a team comes with a lot of experience – both 10 points in my success file and minus 10 points in my Hall of Shame.

I feel like that beauty queen of years past who has been asked, “Tell me about yourself” and she replies, “I love people”. It’s true. I love people from all walks of life because there isn’t anyone I have met where I haven’t learned something. Everyone is a teacher and frankly, there’s a lot of love out there if you just open yourself up.

Managing a team can really be easy. Sure. As an entrepreneur, you need to make difficult decisions. However, I have found the very best techniques that work are:

1. Let your employees have a voice in what’s going on. You may not be able to use every idea or swing every which way they want you to but letting them have a sense of ownership goes a long way in terms of loyalty and dedication,

2. Are you talking with them? I don’t mean the annual review. I mean, do you check in with them daily, particularly if you have a remote team? They won’t feel all alone or alienated. Employees need to feel that they belong

3. What do you do to reward “wins” or successes? Even a “good job, Suzie” goes a long way. An email announcing their success and acknowledging the team’s input brings the team together.

4. Do have regular, productive meetings that end with agendas and what the next step will be. You will be hiring smart, smart people. When smart, smart people do routine and repetitious work, they get bored and when they get bored, they leave.

5. Does this sound trite? Set attainable goals. Don’t just tell them the have to produce. Tell them what, when and how. That’s setting realistic expectations. And listen to them. You may have just set unrealistic expectations. Here’s a great way to lose someone.

6. Be someone they like. No, you don’t have to be a family. I don’t know one family that isn’t dysfunctional. But have empathy. You may not view some of their problems as important but they sure as heck do. Understand things from your employees’ perspective.

7. Give them the best tools they need to do the job. Don’t cheap out on software, equipment, support staff. You may have to limit what you do and build step-by-step but give them the best you can in your current budget.

8. No one quite understands the word “transparency”. That doesn’t mean you have to open your books and let them see your profits. It means that they know what’s coming down the pike, and most importantly, why.

9. Ask their opinions. I ask my staff whether they like a marketing piece before I launch it. I ask them about procedures and policies. If you give them a sense of importance, they will perform. Really, they will.

10. Allow them to participate in the hiring process. They will have insights you never even thought of. Instead of a new hire being forced upon them, they will take pride in knowing that’s their hire.

11. Scout out their talents that are not necessarily a requirement for their current job. For example, one of our recruiters loves to write. That’s not really part of her current job. What we did do was have her write articles for our blog. She gets the satisfaction of being published, learns a lot and gets her name out into the public. Someone else loves to teach. We gave that person the on-boarding and training process and they love it.

12. Don’t be afraid to make changes. So many entrepreneurs want to stick with what’s working. Learn to branch out.

13. Most of all, learn to delegate. Many entrepreneurs feel it is faster to complete a project if they do it, rather than take the time to try and train someone. Remember, all you have to do is invest in the time to train them and from there, you have freed yourself up to take on more meaningful duties and develop the company.

14. Lastly, have fun. You absolutely have to have fun. Will you sweat it out some nights in the middle of the night? Oh, yeah. Let’s not overlook that. However, when you are having fun, the people around you are definitely having fun.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Clients are the ones that pay our bills. They are the ones that make the business grow, keep us afloat and an eye towards the future.

These days, clients are no longer loyal. Someone will come along with a better product or service, cheaper, faster way of doing business or simply a nicer place to deal with. Your clients should be treated like gold.

In this day and age of content, we provide our clients with training specific to their jobs ie, HR can take webinars on staffing, recruiting, how to terminate, how to grow your staff, on-boarding, age discrimination and more. Attorneys and paralegals can learn substantive topics such as how to draft a pleading, prepare for trial. We give them “content-free” training: How to move up an invisible org chart; where do you go from here? How to negotiate for a better salary; how to avoid discrimination and more.

We always send a gift basket when we place a candidate at a firm. Additionally, we send the candidate a gift basket and wish them well on their new adventure. It turns into loyalty and lots of referrals.

We change as the market changes. We don’t do things the old way because it’s comfortable, We are always one step ahead of the market. Our clients know they can rely upon us for advice, suggestions or we can point them to the right resource.

We offer lots of content through eBooks and social media. They can rely on us when they need anything that pertains to staffing. If we don’t know it, we will find it.

We always congratulate them on their new hires (whether or not it is from us), wins, awards, and advances. Our name is seen by them over and over. We don’t want them to forget us.

We are available whenever they need us: weekends or after hours. They have enough sense not to call us for something unimportant but definitely can reach out for immediate needs. We are there for them.

Fact: We simply do a more thorough and better job than most of our competitors. Bragging? Nope. We just don’t take on every single client. That way, our workload is such that each recruiter can spend more time on each client, make the placement instead of spreading themselves thin over many clients and not making as many placements as they can. Clients appreciate the extra attention they may not get elsewhere.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.EstrinLegalStaffing.com
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.company/EstrinLegalStaffing
• Twitter: @estrin
• Other: Google Business Reviews www.EstrinReport.com (blog)