We recently connected with Greg Adler and have shared our conversation below.

Greg, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

I think I may be a bit of an anomaly because so little of what I do professionally defines me as a person, and I like it that way. Yes, I’m an attorney, and that is often one of the first things people ask when they meet you, right? “What do you do for work?” But, for me, practicing law is a means of funding my true mission: philanthropy.

I’ve had the privilege of working in corporate law environments for much of my career. I couldn’t tell you how many millionaires (and a few billionaires) I’ve met. Let’s suppose my net worth is a million dollars. Is a billionaire a thousand times happier than me? No. Ten times happier? Nope. Twice as happy? Probably not. So it’s pretty easy to see that there is a weak correlation between how much money you have and how happy you are. And yet people spend absurd amounts of time and effort trying to accumulate money and possessions because they think it will make them happy. In the short term, sure, it can. But in the long run it never does because someone else always has more, you can’t take any of it with you when you die, and none of those inanimate objects can ever love you back. The only thing that has ever brought me long-term happiness is doing things to help others and make them happy, and there are three main categories that are most important to me.

I’ve been dressing up in my homemade Transformers costumes and visiting DFW children’s hospitals for over a decade. Seeing the kids’ and their families’ faces light up and knowing they’re able to forget their troubles for a while is worth more to me than any amount of money. I think my desire to cheer up sick kids stems from my childhood. I have a younger brother who was in and out of the hospital quite a bit. I remember how much stress and sadness it caused my parents and how doing small things to make them laugh lifted their spirits. I don’t get to see what happens after I leave the hospital room and go on to the next one, but I’d like to think I left them better than I found them.

The second important thing to me is giving to the homeless. Several times a year during the winter months I pack my Jeep full of sleeping bags, gloves, socks, beanies, snacks, and five gallons of hot soup and drive down to the Dallas homeless encampments and give out everything I have. There is a somewhat common sentiment among the general population that homeless people deserve their lot in life because they got into drugs or crime. That is certainly true sometimes. But most people don’t realize that a significant portion of the homeless population found themselves in that situation by no fault of their own. I’ve met people who were disabled, and when their parents passed away and they had no family and their money ran out, they had nowhere to go. I met a woman who was out jogging and was struck by a hit and run driver. She spent four months in a coma, and when she woke up she had no job, no home, and no way to work anymore. To me, it doesn’t matter if they ended up homeless because they made a bad decision or were dealt a bad hand. They’re people too. I could have had a really bad day and it would still be better than their best day living under a bridge. They’re cold and hungry and feel forgotten. So I make an effort to let them know they’re not forgotten and that strangers still care about them. I think this compassion and empathy for the homeless was instilled in me at a young age by my parents. My dad was a cop and my mom was a dental assistant. We weren’t rich, but they taught us to be grateful for what we have and that compared to most of the rest of the world, we have really, really good lives.

The third and most “day-to-day” thing I do is dog rescue. I currently have a pack of tiny Chihuahuas and Pomeranians. I work with a couple of small dog rescues and I adopt the dogs, rehabilitate and socialize them, and take care of all their veterinary needs. I give them a home where no one will ever abuse or abandon them again. I try to adopt the senior dogs that no one else wants. Most of them were used as breeding dogs at puppy mills and then discarded when their little bodies couldn’t handle it anymore. Sometimes I only have a few months with them before they cross the Rainbow Bridge, but it makes me happy knowing they spent their golden time in a place where they were treated with respect and gentleness, and they were never cold, hungry, or hurt. It’s a lot of daily work feeding, walking, and grooming them, administering their medications, taking them to the vet, etc. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. They make me laugh 20 times a day.

That’s the short version of the story behind my mission. I plan to do as much good as I can, for as long as I can, and I hope when the curtain closes on my show, I will have left the world a little better than I found it.

Greg, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a solo practitioner based in Frisco, Texas, but I also practice in California because I’m licensed in both states. My primary areas of practice in Texas are personal injury and defamation law. In California my focus is civil rights.

The most common complaint clients have about the legal process is that the attorneys fail to communicate. The attorneys don’t return phone calls, ignore emails, etc. Why? It’s because if you throw enough spaghetti against the wall, some of it will stick. In other words, many plaintiffs’ firms operate on a high-volume, quantity-over-quality basis, which means the attorneys often have such an overwhelming caseload that they simply cannot get back to clients in a timely manner, or at all. Everything is handled on a triage basis.

I don’t work that way. I don’t try to balance hundreds of cases at once. Instead, I am very particular about the cases I take, and focus on quality over quantity. This approach allows me to give each case the attention and diligence it deserves and provide a level of service and responsiveness to my clients that “churn and burn” law firms often don’t. It’s also less stressful, I think, because law is very deadline driven and you’re bound to have one of those weeks where several deadlines all fall in the same week. That’s doable if you have a lighter caseload of higher quality cases.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

I have been extremely lucky that virtually all of my clients have been through personal referrals. I’ve never had to advertise or join any networking organizations or anything like that. I think once you get a reputation for being ethical, hard-working, and responsive, people actually feel good about helping you by sending new clients your way.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A few years ago I partnered with another attorney that I had known for over 15 years. We had met each other’s families, gone on group vacations together with other friends, etc. I trusted him. He was a named partner at a successful firm, but he was experiencing some fairly serious health issues and wanted to back off his practice so he could spend more time with his family. He wanted someone he knew and trusted to take his spot at the firm, and he approached me about it. I agreed to begin working with him, and in short order the vast majority of my work hours were for his firm. Long story short, over the course of about a year I kept asking him to put our agreement in writing, but there was always some sort of excuse. So, even though I had put pretty much all my eggs in that basket, I pulled the ripcord. Basically, it was like completely starting over again. It was a frustrating lesson, but it made me stronger and took me in a direction that ultimately made me happier overall.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.adler.law
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-adler-5a91204a/