She Scrapped the Office, the Hourly Rate, and the Old Playbook — and Clients Love It

Collin McKee

What if the law firm model that attorneys have been following for decades, the hourly billing, the downtown office, the reactive phone tag, intake process is the very thing that's keeping you from the firm life that you actually want. One estate planning attorney decided to find out. She scrapped the office, scrapped the hourly rate, she built a firm that was fully virtual, completely flat rate, and runs on automation and education instead of busy work and burnout. And her clients love it. The attorney is my guest today. And by the end of this episode, you're going to see exactly how she did it and what it could mean for your firm. Welcome back to the Endeavors AI Podcast. I'm your host, Collin McKee, and this show is where we walk we talk to attorneys and firm operators who are using technology and smarter systems to find to build practices that are actually sustainable. My guest today is Angel Latterell. Angel is the founder of Latterell Law. A fully virtual, flat rate estate planning firm operating across Florida and Washington State. But here's what makes Angel interesting to me, and what I think it's going to make her interesting to you. She didn't just use technology to do the same old thing faster, she used it to redesign the model entirely. Flat fees, virtual delivery, event-based marketing, automation that actually works, and she's done it while building. Genuine trust with their clients who are navigating one of the most personal decisions that they'll ever make. Angel, welcome to the show.

Angel Latterell

Thanks for having me, Collin.

Collin McKee

So before we get into your story, I wanted to set the stakes for people listening because I think a lot of attorneys are sitting with this tension right now. You got into the work because you care, you want to help people, you want to build something that lasts, but nobody told you that in law sch in law school that you are also signing up to be a billing administrator, a scheduler, a follow-up machine, and an IT department. And in estate planning, especially, you're doing something. of one of the most emotionally significant work that someone will do and you're doing it while burying buried in admin work. So the question I keep hearing from attorneys is how do I keep doing work I love without losing myself in the rest of it? And I think Angel has found out found the answer to that. So let's start at the foundation. Most estate planning firms look roughly the same office hours, hourly billing the retainer call, follow-up invoice, and you went a completely direct different direction with this. So walk me through Latterell Law, how it actually works on a day-to-day basis, and what you built and why you built it that way.

Angel Latterell

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the reasons why I decided to build Latterell Law the way I have, which I will share in a moment, is because my first experience out of law school was working in a large firm and I immediately knew that why I went to law school, which was to help people, and the practice of law in a law firm with hourly billing and the transactional approach didn't jive with my heart and how I wanted to practice law and counsel clients. I'd get in trouble in that law firm because I would call clients when I was assigned a folder and say the clock is not ticking. Please tell me your context so I can better understand and serve you. And so as a young lawyer that that law firm was like, you don't know anything about running a business, do you? Because I wasn't I I I wasn't about how many hours can I build this client, but how how can I better serve the client. And so when the time came for me to after many years of actually not practicing law full time, just doing volunteer work and side-gigging as a lawyer, but when the time came for me to launch my own practice, I was very set on if I was gonna go into law full time and run my own practice that I'd have to do some things very differently. and a hundred percent of like top Top thing I wanted to do differently is how do I not treat a client like a transaction? How do I get the time clock out of our relationship? And so that meant I needed a process where I could serve people in a model that allowed me to bill flat rate that would cover my costs, but also give people and deliver value and deliver the ability and space for us to have a long-term relationship where trust develops so I could be a long-term trusted advisor for families. And so when I launched Latterell Law, I had I was very particular. I had actually gone out and done quite a bit of research on different models and business. I knew how I didn't want to practice, but I didn't necessarily know how I wanted to practice. And so I took partially what I learned in my non-law learnings, 15 years as a project management and process improvement leader, and figured we could create standard work. and so

Angel Latterell

That's absolutely what we did. So that way we could actually bill flat rate for different sized packages. But within each of those packages leave us space for the time and energy that we need to spend each with each family, you know, uniquely. And so how it works at Latterell Law is is somebody finds us, either they find us through a education-based opportunity on a webinar or an in-person event, and they'll sign up for a life and legacy session. And or if they find us on the internet through either organic marketing or SEO, you you you name it, however they might come across our law firm, they can book a 15-minute discovery call of with our firm to find out if we're a good fit. and the point of that discovery call is not to sell them estate planning and say, this is why you want to sign up with Latterell Law, but to explain to them the value that they'll get from a life and legacy planning session, which is a two-hour consultative event that they spend. They come having done a whole bunch of pre-work so that one, they're more organized than they've ever been coming to meet with me and understand their own context, their own why. And then in the two hours, I have got that homework ahead of time. So then I understand where they're coming from. And then we start out by just getting to know each other and understanding their why, what's motivating them to plan at this time. and then when we have that clarity and context. I can share with them, okay, based under the laws of the state of Washington or the state of Florida, now that I serve in both states, this is your default situation. Like if you did nothing today, you know, did nothing and you died tomorrow, you know, this is the situation your loved ones would face in in that situation. And it's at that moment that the client gets the opportunity to choose if they want to go forward and work with us based on an outcome that they desire that's different than their default situation. So they would choose from a a a host of about roughly a five different standard packages that depending on the outcome their desire, they choose that package and then there's a flat rate fee that's associated with that package. And then that starts us on the path to design, draft, properly fund their trust or

Angel Latterell

you know, or make sure that their will plan is in alignment with the proper beneficiary designations if they don't go with a trust plan. and everybody goes down kind of a standard project managed route to ensure that we get to not only a complete set of documents but a complete comprehensive plan for them. And it no matter how long it takes. So as far as time, I'd rather people have lots of questions and we spend a ton of time designing it into the context of their family. than them worrying, well how much is it gonna cost me to have a whole, you know, all these different back and forth conversations with Angel or her staff to make sure that it's done right. So that's what allows us to do the flat rate. And then because we're virtual, we can do this in the context of the comfort of people's homes. And that was the other huge thing I I recognized in law firms, people didn't like being there. If the staff didn't like being there, I think some of the lawyers did, but maybe because they just didn't know what else to do with their lives. but I myself preferred to have the flexible model of working from the comfort of my own home, keeping that cost down and also being able to travel and and and see people I want, but still be able to work, have that flex. But ultimately it made me more accessible to people so that they're comfortable to have these conversations, these crucial conversations, and they don't have to worry about coming into an intimidating and expensive to maintain office that also people that the staff people don't really enjoy being in either. and as I've learned too, it's helped me have really great, amazing staff that aren't co-located that can serve and serve in the same philosophical manner that that we are that we're at.

Collin McKee

Right. Yeah, a whole new model. I mean, very very unique in your approach. So and even client acquisition was something that is very creative and and rare. You know, you go about educating your clients first. You've got these events, the wine and wills, paint your legacy. It's not your typical what you would think of the path to go into estate planning. So tell me about these, where where did that idea come from and Is that actually done for your business?

Angel Latterell

Mm-hmm. You know, I wish I could have thought of it myself. However, some of the some of the like wine and wills of that format either that combination of alliteration was was not necessarily my idea. However, the the the desire to educate people to get them to a state plan came from my heart because the kind of Venn diagram that fell into place before I opened Latterell Law is I had a very good friend who was running his own business and his unmarried partner, I was I was helping her do estate planning and I recommended to him that they do a dual plan together because they were choosing not to be married. and he said to me, Angel, don't worry, let the state take everything. There's there's nothing there. there's no reason to plan. and I gave him some reasons to plan, but he didn't. And so I, you know, I allowed that to well, I allowed that to occur and we can't make people do things. But he was dead two weeks later from a bloodstream infection and it was a disaster for her afterwards. And so and it spent nine months to a year doing pro bono support of her and and his family to get everything sorted to the extent that I could. And so that's when it I I made a vow at that point that I was going to get ahead of this. I was like, this is a place where I could actually do good. This is where I can help people by educating people about the importance of estate planning at any age and any amount of assets. because most people mistake estate, right? For the for thinking, I need to have a yacht and a big mansion, et cetera, to have an estate, quote unquote. But anybody who has a bank account and a you know, a a kid or any kind of responsibility has a quote unquote a state. and so that education forward approach was how the only way I thought I could actually really reach people, like the whole point, let me get out, educate people, even if they don't choose to plan with me, at least maybe they'll choose to put a plan in place in it with somebody. so being not non-attached, because honestly, not everybody's a good fit for Latterell Law in the flat-based model. and not everybody likes being me being as nosy as I am about their context, which is f fine, but I'm happy to get out there. And so but most of our client yeah acquisition is done through education-based modeling getting getting them the the good word out there

Collin McKee

Mm-hmm.

Angel Latterell

to educate, educate, e educate that every person, no matter how old or how how rich or or you know abundant they are needs to have an estate plan. And so we we try different models. Wine and wills is one that comes from the education and and lawyer group that I that I work with and That's great because here's the carrot. Come have some free wine, wine tasting, and meanwhile we'll give you education about, you know, what's the difference between why you need a will and what's the difference between a will and a trust and have open QA time with a lawyer when people are a little loosened up. we have recently switched to adding to our education is f free webinars so that we can reach people. You know, I'm I'm working on one with my alma mater Macalester College coming up for August. I I did one with KEXP in Seattle again for their planned giving programs. Just again, as much education as I can put out there, even if they're not gonna come back to me as a client, at least I'm putting it out there, the education. And then we are trying paint your legacy, because again, young people are actually my ideal group that I'm targeting with these because a young person. unless the information is in their face or they're faced with tragedy themselves in their own life, isn't gonna necessarily be motivated to plan on their own. And so if we have a fun activity like wine tasting or in this case a paint party, which is what paint your legacy is, come have a paint party. We painted angels, we painted mermaids the other day. We'll paint, you know, something else thematic of the time of year again for the next one. But come have a paint party and also while you're painting, get free education on the importance of estate planning. So it's something you can actually bring. I had a mother and daughter come to the last one, and she was a young person. She was ready at age twenty one to do her own estate plan, of which we actually discussed and were like, well, we can actually do your plan with moms and call it a young adult plan and you know, save you some money in the process because we have to go through all of it. But it was it was so motivating to her to hear the information and know, I need my own power of attorney. I I need a healthcare power of attorney, because even though

Angel Latterell

mom would be the one I want to make this decision as soon as I turn 18, it's it's not an automatic that your parents have access to that. So it was great that I was able to motivate someone that young through the education to desire to have their own plan.

Collin McKee

Yep. Yep. Seems like they would take ownership a little bit more of it in that case, 'cause it it kind of just spurs the seed and then they can say, yeah, this is a great idea for myself as opposed to someone else trying to force them in into, you know, thinking that far in advance. And you're right, the the younger generation they really don't think about it and even those in the middle in the middle age don't really think about it until they really have to. So that's that's great that you're, you know, making them be responsible with their their planning at a at a younger age. It's awesome.

Angel Latterell

Yeah. And we're ultimately trying to flip the script a little. Like we I don't plan like a normal estate planning attorney. Like I I don't expect people to come in and say, I need A, B, and C and then I just deliver A, B, and C. That's what you know, software's for nowadays. Like anything can go out and write your documents. I want people to come to me and share their fears, their hopes, their opportunities, and then be empowered through my process of kind of understanding how we can use creating these wonderful legal containers of protection to not only mitigate their fears and give them peace of mind, but have more hope and a more abundance in the future because they actually are empowered and understand how these legal tools can work for them to seize more opportunities in life. And the younger I meet people, the more opportunity we have to build and a stronger foundation we have to build their lives upon using estate planning. not just you know, putting a a band-aid on a On a patch on a thing like down the road, like so.

Collin McKee

Cool. So let's talk a little bit about the operation level of things of running a a virtual firm, because it it's obviously going to be a little bit d different than those who go into an office. You you told me that as far as automations, you've started to use GoHighLevel, GHL for for a lot of the people in my viewing audience. How does that actually look on a day-to-day basis as far as what have you been able to automate, you know, to to get your time back and to be able to run your office virtually with these new tools?

Angel Latterell

Yeah, and running a virtual office has there's aspects of it that make it very freeing and then there's aspects of it that can be very frustrating on some days because the even Google doesn't really understand yet a the virtual office model. If there's literally no physical address where people to go, it can it can cause little hiccups here and there. But we for the for the sake of our digital front door. that's one of the areas where you know there's there's various tools out there, but we've we've chosen to go with GoHighLevel because it is you know it allows for there to be very many doorways and and it's easy to track who's coming through which door. whereas other softwares we have experimented with, from everything down from a Google Sheet or, you know, an Excel spreadsheet, old school tracking to different CRMs that we've used over the years. we've we've we've used many actually, but we've GoHighLevel so far has been the best because it's the the honest ease and into into intuitiveness of its ability to track all the various sources that people are coming from so that we know we have ROI if we're putting out organic content or paid content in in different places where where are they coming from? Secondarily it allows us to have a really visual pipeline. for my staff to do follow ups because someone may call and we might miss the call. and then it sends them it sends the person who we missed the call from a text saying, Hey, we sorry we missed you. Would you would you like to actually schedule an appointment so we can call you? And that has been a game changer for that to actually work because also through the system we have now caller ID, which in a virtual office It's it's harder than you would think to actually have caller ID work so that when you're calling someone, they know it's Latterell Law calling them. It's a person they signed up to receive a phone call from. but when you don't actually have a physical location, there's a lot of software out there where they're like, sorry, it works sometimes, but doesn't other times, but we finally cracked that code. So that's been excited. and it that pipeline and the lead management, you know, we can

Angel Latterell

We can sort and sift and know, okay, did we call this person back? Okay, we did, we got in touch, but not right now. And then we can put them on a shorter long-term nurture. So that in that person's in their own time is in connection with us so that they can you know still set that appointment to get that discovery call when it actually you know works for them or you know, contact us in a year or so when a life and legacy session makes more sense for them at that time. So Yeah, lead management has been a total game changer for our sanity and for n you know, knowing we're not missing people that do desire to talk to us just because they maybe called on a weekend and we weren't manning the phones live at that time.

Collin McKee

Yep, that's huge. I mean, they don't always need to speak to someone, but they need a response. They need something. If not, it's gonna be on to the next number in the, you know, in the white pages or the Google search or what have you. So that's gonna definitely make sure that you're not completely losing a potential potential client. so that's great to hear. I did want to kind of go into you shared a wonderful story on our first call that that hit home hits home to me. Endeavors AI, we are an AI consultancy.

Angel Latterell

Mm-hmm.

Collin McKee

haven't had the pleasure of working with Angel, but there's a l you know, there's a lot AI is everywhere and there are a good number of people that are, you know, hopefully trying to do the right thing and helping people navigate it. That's you know, that's our aim. But you were nice enough to share your experience with kind of the good and the bad, spy verse spy of your AI consultancies. And we don't need to call anybody out. We're not we're not trying to, you know, give any bad press, but I did want you to share a little bit of your experience, you know, the first time through with someone trying to help you navigate AI, how that went and what you learned from it to get you to your experience now working with a consultant that's markedly a better experience, at le at least from what you shared. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Angel Latterell

Yeah, and it it's it's both a lesson in working with AI consultants as well as SEO consultants and just consultants in general and promises. and you know, we had navigated on our own for years and kind of we're we're failing forward but at a very slow pace and we kind of finally hit a wall and and so I I'd put my feelers out for the first individual and and they came in offering you know, like a savior, kind of like we can we can put on a on a on a platter, all of these things. SEO, better organic content, a a better website and a system for you to do callbacks and not lose any of these leads. and you know it should have been the red flag that this is too good to be true. All wrapped in with a bow and you know we'll manage your website and these things. And the level of control that they were asking for as well should have been a red flag. But you know hindsight's 2020, right? And so We we went into it and it and it did it it did help us transform how we were doing our work. It went from us having again very manual spreadsheet and and a total loss of a lot of automatic leads and and really really manual counting on a month to month basis of how many of these are converting and what is a a good use of ROI as far as where we're putting our marketing dollars. we had none of that data. We were kind of just totally guessing. So we started working with this individual and and it it did get systematized. The website did transform, we did improve SEO, but behind the scenes, and what I didn't know is they had built it in such a way as it made us completely dependent on them to manage the tech stack. there was there was hard coding literally built into the website that we found out afterwards. and you know, while they built in this dependency. And which was quite costly. and and we started tracking ROI when it actually reached the point where I I could say if I if I invested this much money, but I didn't see actually this percentage of ROI, we were supposed to get our money back. And I I wrote them because I I we s we invested a lot of money, we spent a lot of money on some Google SEO. And at the end of the day, the things that truly because I had that system, which was great, I could say.

Angel Latterell

the we only received actually this many new leads through SEO pure than we did just through referrals and education-based marketing. But she was always actually trying to discourage me from doing the education-based marketing. It's like it doesn't fit in the system. You don't need to just put it all in in in in SEO organic and otherwise. And I'm like, one basket isn't the best basket. We we reached that state and I I I wrote him a letter and I was like, here's the numbers. You know, thank you. I have the numbers, but the numbers say this isn't working, so I'd like my initial investment back. To which I got a really canned answer, which was essentially no. and around that same time we found that he had put some link backs in the back of the website that were linking off to what what look like paid sources and some other things that as an attorney are technically unethical. for me to do. So we had a double quandary of he's not being in integrity with what he said he would do for us. and also now we have these unethical things. And so we made the hard choice with a conver conversation with the team to to to to bring it in house and and shift gears. Well and that's when we found out how badly we were dependent on them because it essentially by firing them broke our entire website. and we had no education as to how to really fix these things. We just got kind of a data copy and then we had to go back to a former webmistress to help us kind of piece together. and it was a about a four and a half, five month process to get us back to square one to where we were before we had made the investment in that individual. and when I was having a breakdown literally one day. When we're at about month four and a half, I was like, This, yeah, there has to be a solution. It can't be this hard. I I luckily through some networking referral based mark marketing and met the fellow that is now helping us with our AI and I I I essentially called him in a in a in a panic, but to his integrity, he was like it was so calm and was like, There there are solutions to this.

Angel Latterell

and I'm not gonna sell you a perfect solution, what we're gonna work together is to build something and do it in iterations and get clarity so that and I'm gonna help train your team and you're gonna help train your team and we're gonna we're gonna get clarity together over time, to build the best system that we know is gonna also need to iterate and change and shift. and and what was most awesome about that, the different experiences is like he didn't try to sell me a magic. Pill, I said, no, this is an ever-changing, difficult landscape. we're in it together, but I'm gonna be here for you not to tell you what to do or build a dependency, but to essentially teach you how to fish, like educate and empower you all with the different types and levels of technology that are there to help you. But I'm also gonna listen to your processes and your unique way of being and how you are you know acquiring clients through education-based systems and other. unique ways and and help you build a system that's gonna help you track people coming in the front door that way. so huge experience.

Collin McKee

Right. Yeah. That's that's the way I take the positive out of it. But yeah, it it it's great life lessons, right? We all want to have everything all at once. We'd love to have all of you know, what AI has to offer to us, but taking it in manageable heights is probably a better idea. And especially when you're working with someone that has the potential to have so much control over your business, you know, give them a little bit of a time and see how that works. Well

Angel Latterell

Mm. Uh-huh.

Collin McKee

Sorry you had to go through that. You know, there's good, bad and ugly in every every industry, but the good thing is you you talked y you took the education out of it, you know. Medicine in in learning and then you can share and you thank you for sharing that with our our audience. I think it's it's timely advice that we should all kind of take is is just don't don't go for that magic pot of gold all at once, you know. go one step at a time. So with that, one step at a time, if you want to give our viewing audience some advice if if they're just wading into AI and maybe they haven't done much more than you know their own chat GPT or or Claude, what is one thing that you'd recommend? you know, a workflow, a system for to start building for for a small firm, a boutique firm that's trying to be virtual like you are.

Angel Latterell

Yeah, so I don't know how b far back in the world, garbage in, garbage out is the phrase. And I I I'd almost I'd share it back when I did project management. If someone was trying to create a new process, create a new project, build a product that they were gonna then turn into it being routine and operationalized, right? you you can you can have the next shiny thing off the shelf, but if you don't know what your internal process is and how you're gonna use it. it doesn't matter how expensive that product is, it's not necessarily gonna help you get to a better place. So anyone who is going to add any new thing, you know, whether it be AI-based or some other software or or even, you know, another consultant for something in marketing, first get really clear on on on your process and your end goal. What's your true north? Like, how do you, like, especially as lawyers, how do you wanna practice law? Like, How much time do you have to do this work? What's your goal with that? Getting clear on that first before adding the next thing. Because that consultant, that product, it's not gonna make better something that's an underlying process issue or an underlying time lack issue or an underlying, I don't actually like doing this work issue, or I do really like doing this work issue. because we wanna attract. the the work we want to do so we enjoy ourselves and have a work life balance, but again we need to be clear on what our work is before we automate it, so that the the you know the computer, the the software, the thing that it is can can help us do that. So

Collin McKee

That's such good advice. I mean it it and it can't be overstated. AI is a force multiplier, but it will multiply the force the wrong direction if it doesn't have the right direction to go from. So yeah, yeah, stop, take the time, write it out, you know, know what's your vision and where you're going before you try to try to go there faster. An Angel, that's

Angel Latterell

Yeah.

Angel Latterell

Sticky notes. That's what I tell people, you know, if you need to do a process map, like you know, sticky notes moving it around on the wall, you don't need to have a fancy software for that either. You know, draw it out, however it works for your brain, but figure it out manually first and then yeah, then bring in the automations.

Collin McKee

Yep. Awesome. well Angel, this has been a really good conversation. I really appreciate appreciate the time and sharing your experience with us. before we go, where where can people find you and more about Latterell Law?

Angel Latterell

Yeah, you can always find me at latterelllaw.com. now I'm I'm sure the spelling might show up in the notes of of this, so I don't need to spell that out. but yeah, that's always a great way to reach out to us. There's a contact form right there. And and anybody out there who's w wanting to know more about my journey, I'm happy to share. So just reach out there and and we'll we'll talk.

Collin McKee

Yeah.

Collin McKee

Awesome. Excellent. And for anyone that's got questions about implementing AI into your firm, that's what we're here for. you know, to have the discussion. We try to do some education work here as well and share people's stories, you know, you know, best best case scenarios, worst case scenarios, so that people can learn from other people's mistakes too. And if you enjoyed the conversation, you found value in it, please share it with someone else in your firm or subscribe. We have these conversations on a pretty regular clip, a few a week. So we welcome more subscribers and more engagement, you know, leave a leave a comment down below if there's anything that you'd like to get more feedback on. And with that, Angel, again, thank you for your time and we will see you on the next episode.

Angel Latterell

Absolutely. Thanks, Collin.