We recently connected with Sheila LaCivita and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sheila thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. So, we’d appreciate if you could open up about your growth story and the nitty, gritty details that went into scaling up.

My business started as a side-hustle where I thought I was the best person to perform the services I provided. I wore all hats from CEO, answering phones, sales, to data entry and bookkeeping. I was a perfectionist and did not trust anyone to work for me. One day after looking at my business model, a Harvard MBA friend told me that my business can make “millions of dollars.” At that time, I could not fathom that, because I knew making millions could not come from my own two hands; rather, that it had to be accomplished by a team of people whom I dreaded and would not trust. It was not until we got a lucky break and took in a large case where I was forced to hire people. In a desperate attempt to fulfill this big clients’ order, I was forced to let go of being a paranoid perfectionist and let go of my big head in thinking I was better than my new recruits. In reviewing their work, I found that some of them were doing work better than I was! So I knew it was time to shrink my head and hire more skilled workers and not be so picky in order to scale. But I had no time to hire or conduct interviews. Another CEO suggested that I hire a recruiter to do this for me; which I did, and the rest is history.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I was a 25+ year trial lawyer paralegal. I was working for a law firm and my attorney wanted me to work overtime every night to summarize depositions. I told him I would not going to unless he paid me overtime. He said it was a contingency fee case, and he was not getting paid either. When I pointed out that he would get paid after the case settled, and that I am not his partner, he finally agreed to pay me overtime. Although I was happy about that, I thought that my sitting there, summarizing depositions on overtime pay was causing a huge overhead expense for him in a contingency fee case, so I felt his pain. I then created a company that can solve that problem, where our services can be considered a case cost that the client or opposing side pays for rather than attorneys eating up all of that overhead expense. Fourteen years later, we have become the #1 Deposition Summary Service in the nation, and we know that because not only we are paralegal owned, but our clients constantly tell us so.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’ve had to “wing it” all my life, and the most rock-bottom time for my company was a Thursday afternoon when I could not make payroll the next day. My account was empty, and living in California, this is one of the biggest fears for employers. I was driving home from the office, pulled over to the side of the road because I did not want people at home to hear my phone calls to all my credit cards trying to do a cash advance to my general payroll account. I was able to scrape up enough to pay my employees, but not enough to pay me. After breathing a sigh of relief, I went back into work full force working ten times harder to make sure this would never happen again. When people say “You must fail to succeed,” this is one of my stories that turned into success.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

With my background and experience as a 25+ year certificated and seasoned trial paralegal that has prepared for hundreds of trials, we are able to properly vet all of our workers to have the same background, experience, and work ethic as mine. Working for trial lawyers for that long, I understand the needs of trial lawyers, and our clients appreciate our superior customer service in that regard. Not only do we take care of their needs, and are passionate about their cases, we show up to their offices to make sure everything is running smoothly, and that is why attorneys love to use my company, 4 Corners.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.4cornersdepo.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4_Corners_depo
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4cornersdepo
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/4corners/
• Twitter: twitter.com/4cornersdepo
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@4cornersdepositionsummarie546
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/4-corners-deposition-summaries-el-segundo

Image Credits
4 Corners Depo