Alreen Haeggquist:
You can do a lot for with very little, but you just got to be smart about it, and you kind of need to have the determination or the grit to do it.
Chris Dreyer:
I don't need to advertise. I get all my business through referrals. I'm like, "Well, you pay a third or 50%, so you're not paying for your marketing. You're paying for their marketing."
Alreen Haeggquist:
By not marketing, not only are people not knowing who I am, but I was doing a disservice to people to let them know that they have a choice. You can go to a woman for these issues, and you can have a lawyer that, in my opinion, sometimes was better for certain types of cases. People have to know you exist in order to get cases and so that they hire you.
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want their rankings, traffic, and cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. Hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode. All right, let's dive in.
Starting your own firm comes with a list of challenges, and those challenges evolve at every stage of growth. Alreen Haeggquist has stepped up and met each challenge, never once backing down for over 15 years. A true trailblazer, the owner of Haeggquist & Eck started her practice out of her home. Over the years, she has grown to a practice of seven attorneys while staying true to her values, transparency, accountability, and grit, and has secured major wins and millions of dollars for her clients along the way. She shares what she has learned about scaling a firm and hiring the right team and why embracing marketing was the only way to grow. Here's Alreen Haeggquist, partner at Haeggquist & Eck.
Alreen Haeggquist:
When I was young, I wasn't able to stand up for myself against my father, who was very abusive. Now, with the law, I'm able to stand up for myself and for others using the law as power.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, that's amazing, and your guys' firm is growing like crazy, and you're doing such an incredible job. I want to throw it back a little bit. You went out on your own 15 years ago, so what was it like to start your own firm? What were some of those early thoughts of going out on your own?
Alreen Haeggquist:
Yeah, so, that's right. I went out on my own 15 years ago. I'm actually celebrating our 15-year anniversary tomorrow with a party. Back then it was not a hard decision. It was an easy decision, but hard because I was giving up a paycheck. I worked at a large class action firm, gave up a paycheck, didn't have any clients. I didn't have an office, didn't have a lot in savings, but I knew I didn't want to continue that. I didn't want to continue working in a very male-dominated structure, where there was limits set for me and limits set for what I was able to do and limit set to what culture I could establish and the clients I could see.
Going out on my own allowed me to pave my own path, make my own decisions. Since then, where it was just me in the back room of my house, now we're a group of 16. There's seven lawyers, and we do great work, and we represent amazing clients. We have a stellar reputation in San Diego. But going out 15 years ago, yeah, it's not easy in the sense that you got to build it from the ground up, literally.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, so let's talk about this. Your firm specializes in employment law, and so what made you choose employment law? Most of our listeners are personal injury, so maybe you can just briefly touch on employment law maybe versus the pros and cons versus say PI.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Sure. Employment law to me is social justice for profit. We're doing civil rights work every day, but we actually make money off of it. The laws that are there to protect people also have a provision for attorneys to get paid for their work. You're doing really important work on behalf of people, so just like PI attorneys who don't represent businesses, don't represent insurance companies, don't represent large corporations, the employment lawyers in the plaintiff's area are the same. We only represent the people who have been harmed by these large corporations to go get relief, and, at the end of the day, we also get compensated for our time for doing the work that we're doing. That was the reason behind it. I'm very passionate about social justice and always standing up for the people and not corporations, and so that was just a perfect fit for me, especially on behalf of those who have been discriminated against and victimized at the hands of big, powerful people.
Chris Dreyer:
Do you find that a lot of your prospects are just unaware that they even have a claim because I think most people, they see the billboards, they watch TV, and it's constantly in their face that, oh, if I'm in an auto wreck to go get an attorney. Is it a different... Maybe you have to educate the public a little bit more for employment?
Alreen Haeggquist:
I do. I think, one, people keep hearing we're an at-will state. I can get terminated for any reason. My employer can fire me at any time, and so how is that if they fired me, what can I do about it? Yeah, we're here to educate them that, no, the laws are there to protect you. Society has said you can't get fired for an illegal reason, so your employer can't fire you because you speak out against sexual harassment. Your employer can't fire you because you speak out about illegal conduct. Your employer can't fire you because you get sick and need to go to the hospital. Your employer can't fire you because you need to take care of your family who is sick.
I think when they come in here, they don't realize the rights that they have, and they're really coming in here is they know it's unfair and something seems wrong to them about what happened because a lot of clients, I mean, they try to work it out, I think, with their employer. It's the person they trust. They've worked with them. They've formed these relationships for a long period of time. They've been loyal, and so they want to work it out. Filing a lawsuit is not on the radar, but they come to a lawyer to figure out, well, this just happened. I did try to talk to them or explain to them what happened, and they wouldn't listen to me. So we're here to tell them you have rights, and this is what the process will look like.
Chris Dreyer:
Being a business owner... and where does HR play at this? How can that role be a really positive role for an organization?
Alreen Haeggquist:
I feel like the HR role is really... It is to help the employer. It's to help you as the employer to make sure you're doing certain things right. There are lots of employment laws across the country that are federal laws. Then we have our each specific state law. The HR is really there to guide you and make sure you're getting the proper advice, and then communicating that with the employees. When you grow, you can't talk to every employee about what's possible, and that HR is kind of that go-between to make sure your rules and your policies are being told to the employee.
But, unfortunately, a lot of employees think that HR is there to protect them somehow, and it's not. HR works for the employer and is there to protect the employer. As to your question as to when do you hire HR, when do you bring on HR, I mean, I think it's important for an employer to be doing the right thing, get advice early on, not even just from an HR professional, but from an employment lawyer who represents employers, making sure you understand the laws, and that you're implementing them your workplace. I think that will avoid a lot of problems. I think what happens with employers is they're small and they get big, and that carries its own host of some liability. So getting advice early, you can make sure you're setting yourself up for success in the legal realm.
Chris Dreyer:
Starting a business on a small budget is possible. Alreen launched with just 5,000 bucks. Like many attorneys who bootstrap, she made early money through hustle and creativity. I can definitely relate. I started Rankings with just 15,000 bucks from my sister. I remember I spent all this time... Everyone's telling you make a business plan, make a business plan. I went to a business incubator. I talked to my friends, my family. I made this 30-page business plan because that's what you did. I took it to the bank, and the bank looked at it, and they're like, "We'll give you five grand," and I was just demoralized. So I called up my sis, and she's like, "I'll just give you 15,000 bucks," just no questions asked, had true faith in me. That's how I got started. Anyone can do it. You just got to be creative. You got to look at your sphere of influence, and just think about how can I generate revenue at the very beginning?
Here's Alreen, she shares advice for making money in those early days.
Alreen Haeggquist:
So reaching out to my network, reaching out to the attorneys that know you, so you can start getting referrals from them. People will start giving you business and making those connections, I think, is really important. If they know your work and they know who you are, they're willing to pass on those referrals. Then when you have the cases, when the money comes in finally, not spending it all, putting it back into your business. That's kind of just like that slow growth of you get the money in, you invest it back into the business, and that will continue your progression.
I also think, like you just said. You had 15 grand. I had five. I mean, you don't need a lot of money. You can do a lot for with very little, but you just got to be smart about it, and you kind of need to have the determination or the grit to do it.
Chris Dreyer:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Actually, one of our values that are... We only have three. One of them is true grit, and it's just like you just got to roll up the sleeves and get it done. You're a managing partner and managing the transition from practicing law to running the business side can be difficult. What strategies helped you adjust to focusing more on the business side versus just the legal work?
Alreen Haeggquist:
It was difficult. We talked about why did I become a lawyer and I'm like, "I've been wanting to do it since I was a little kid. I have all this passion for it." So the thought of not practicing law a hundred percent of the time and becoming an entrepreneur and running a business, it was a hard transition. It was like, how do I give this part up that I went to law school for and I've worked my whole life for, but in order to have a practice, a law firm, I had to learn how to run a business, and so I got a coach. I mean, I use all the tools and techniques and people that I can to help me. So when I was doing the transition, I hired a business coach. That was really helpful to get into the mindset, not only of just the practical things of running a business, but just even the mindset of running a business and creating a team. That's one of the things that I did early on.
Chris Dreyer:
I kind of want to lean into one of the things you said. So not only maybe the tactical, but just the mindset. What do you mean by that, just what's possible and what's out there? What do you mean when it comes to mindset?
Alreen Haeggquist:
I think I had a lot of mindset of like "I can't do it. I'm going to fail." All of just the horrible things that could happen that kind of just permeated in my mind or that fear of failure was a very constant for me. And getting out of that, getting out of... "No, this is going to be fine. You can do this. You're going to be successful. Things are going to work out." It's kind of setting your intention of what it is you want to see and what you're going to accomplish as to how it's not possible.
The other kind of change... I feel like maybe we've talked about this before, but we implemented the EOS system. That was huge for our firm, just kind of coming up with systematically how to run a business, what are the steps, how can I do this step-by-step? And it was easy to follow. So that was just the mindset change of this is going to be great and everything's going to work out because you can see the future of how that's going to be as opposed to worrying about failing, and then creating a process of how am I going to do all of these things in very short little goals.
Chris Dreyer:
I think EOS is amazing. We're an EOS-based agency. It was transformational. I got to be honest, we tried to self-implement for a couple years, and I think we did okay. What was really changed the game is when we got someone to help chair and assist us, so we hired an outside party. Did you self-implement? Are you working with... I know Mike Morse and John Nachazel will have Fireproof. Is there an organization you're working with?
Alreen Haeggquist:
No. I think that's kind of where we're at right now. We did all of the steps, and that's the step I'm at right now is to find that role and find that person to carry us to the next level.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing, amazing. We can talk after. I got some ideas.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Yeah.
Chris Dreyer:
Amazing. You're retaining amazing talent. You're growing. What do you look for to find these very talented individuals, and then what's the key to keeping them?
Alreen Haeggquist:
Yeah, so one of the reasons I went out on my own was to create a culture of a place that I wanted to come to work at, so I have that going for me. But I would say the mission and the vision and the values and making sure that's aligned with the people that are coming in. If they're not, then it's not going to work out, so I think aligning those interests. Transparency, I think, is really important to keeping people. People want to know what's going on, and it's not under the hood. Having leadership where leadership is also accountable. I never ask anybody to do something that I wouldn't be doing myself or expectations on you that I don't have of myself.
Communication's really important. Making sure we're meeting as a team and talking about any issues that come up and solving them. That kind of goes back to the traction method, and we do that with the whole team, where we discuss issues weekly. We discuss it, and we figure out a solution. Everybody's involved in that, so everybody feels like they're part of the team. Having our roles, where everybody kind of knows what they need to do, but all know that they're working towards the same goal of helping the client, so everybody's working at the same time and not waiting for somebody to tell them what to do.
Then also seeing a future at the company, seeing a path forward that they can continue to grow and better themselves personally and also professionally. I think those are really important for getting great talent and having them stay.
Chris Dreyer:
In the beginning, Alreen was resistant to marketing, but her desire to grow eventually outweighed her discomfort. She knew she needed to embrace change, get comfortable with discomfort, and find the marketing voice that was right for her. She shares how her perspective shifted as the business scaled up.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Yeah, I mean, I was very resistant to marketing. I did look at it. This was 15 years ago when I started my practice. It seemed a little cheesy... or I don't know what the right word is... but I didn't feel good about doing it, and I didn't want to do it. My belief was, "I'm a good lawyer, I do great work, and my work speaks for itself, so what do I need to do marketing for? People know that I produce great results, and they're going to just want to come to me because of that."
Well, the thing was is nobody knows I exist, so how are they going to know I do good work when nobody knows that I even am a lawyer or that I do this kind of work? How are they going to hire me? I think the realization came to me when we were getting some calls from clients that had gone elsewhere and then were coming to us, or when I saw a case... I read about a case, and I'm like, "Why did they go with this attorney? Why didn't they come see me?" It was like, "Oh, because they marketed and I didn't. They don't know that I'm even a possibility."
The other thing was the people doing marketing were men. I mean, I was unique in the sense of starting my own firm, a female-owned firm 15 years ago. Now there's lots of women starting their own firm, but 15 years ago, there wasn't lots of us. Not only was I unique in I had a woman-owned firm, but the lawyers that my clients would keep seeing is like, "Oh, for this sexual harassment case, my only choice is these men." For me, I thought by not marketing, not only are people not knowing who I am, but I was doing a disservice to people to let them know that they have a choice, and you can go to a woman for these issues, and you can have a lawyer that, in my opinion, sometimes was better for certain types of cases. That's why I started marketing.
We still are building our referrals and networking and all of that, but going into SEO... We had a website, but like, oh, we have to optimize our website and then when social... We have to be on social. People have to know you exist in order to get cases and so that they hire you.
Chris Dreyer:
I couldn't agree more. Every time I hear this, it makes me think of Michael Mogill. He says the best kept secrets of someone that's broke because no one knows about them. The other thing, too, is I get... It's interesting on the PI side. The litigators are... They're like, "Oh, I don't need to advertise. I get all my business through referrals." I'm like, "Well, you pay a third or 50%, so you're not paying for your marketing, you're paying for their marketing." So it all comes around in some way that attention is paid, there's arbitrage, and it's amazing.
I think for those listening, you guys got to check out their website. Their website's amazing. It's one of the best websites in the legal space that I've seen. I love the video front and center, the colors, just everything, the photography. It's excellent.
I want to switch to-
Alreen Haeggquist:
Thank you.
Chris Dreyer:
You're welcome. You're welcome.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Yeah, and that also kind of goes with the sense of marketing of evolution. It's like, okay, we got to do SEO. Okay, that's important. Oh, we got to be on social. That's important. And, yeah, people want to see videos. My daughter watches a video for every Amazon purchase, she watches. People want to see who we are and what we do, so the videos became really important. Then it was like, well, what's our brand? Who are we, and what do we stand for, and making sure people understood that? And so working on our brand. Those were all how we evolved for marketing.
Chris Dreyer:
But the brand's very strong. It's very memorable, and I think it's great. You wrote a book, Fired Up: Fueling Triumph from Trauma. Writing this book must have required incredible courage and vulnerability. What motivated you to share your personal story so publicly?
Alreen Haeggquist:
I, personally, have gone through a transformation by sharing my story. The book is new, but sharing my story to others was very transformative, where I stopped being silent. My dad was terrifying. He abused me in all different types of ways, and I always kept that a secret. I never shared it with anybody. It was like I was never able to just live my best self and my full self and just show up as myself. I've been going through therapy and sharing my story for a bit now, and I wanted to share it because I want to help others share their story.
I want them to stop the silence because sexual assault, it's affecting 50% of women out there. That's a huge number. That stat blew me away, but we don't talk about it because there's so much shame associated with it. If we can get out of that, and we can just start talking about it, I think we can change those stats around. The book was motivated by me wanting to make sure I can help others share their story.
Similarly, with my marketing, I need to go out there so I can help others make a more informed decision of what your options are. My book is the same way. I want to share it so I can help you share your story and live your best life.
Chris Dreyer:
That's amazing. For those that read it, then they're motivated to make a change, and they're empowered. The title, Fired Up sends a message of empowerment. Tell us the meaning behind it and kind of the tone you wanted to set in the book.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Yeah, so that's it. I'm fired up on this issue, where there is such a high number of women that are getting sexually assaulted. I was sexually assaulted by my dad or sexually abused by my father at a young age. But people have this happen to them at some point in their life. Half of the women have this happened to them. I'm fired up to get people to start talking about it and stop being ashamed of it and letting it out and start healing yourself. I'm fired up about doing that because I know by doing that, you can triumph from something that was very traumatic.
Now it's like I run a firm where I help women stand up for themselves against those same practices, and that fire is in me because I didn't speak up when I was little. I didn't stand up to my dad, so that fire is in me of all the things I should have said when I was a little kid. It just carries over now on behalf of my clients.
Chris Dreyer:
Let's talk about the applications of the book. First, what was the process you went through to write it? I'm sure many of our listeners are like, ah, I've got a story for a book, or I've got this idea. Then, also, do you use it for your clients that come in? Do you give them the book so that you can relate and build that rapport? Maybe if they're going through a difficult situation. Tell me about just the process and maybe the application of the book, too.
Alreen Haeggquist:
I made the decision back in the fall of '21, and so all of '22 was getting your story out. Mine's a very personal story, so it was very emotional. Now it's like talking about it, writing something and now being able to talk about it with my clients. But it was important because I want my clients to know I understand what you're going through. My clients have to stand up in court, tell their story about their abuse, and be cross-examined about it. I want them to know I didn't go through the litigation process, but I understand how hard that is, and there could be consequences to it. But, at the end, by sharing it and by standing up for yourself, which is what you're doing, you will feel empowered, and you will be better off. You don't know it yet.
I'm sharing it with them because I'm telling them in a very vulnerable, authentic way what I've gone through, the steps that I took, and how I ended up where I'm at today to help them understand that they will also find a place where they feel the same or they're feeling empowered after sharing their story and standing up for themselves for the first time.
Chris Dreyer:
That's incredible. Yeah, that's incredible. That's incredible. How can our audience get in touch with you, and what's next for your firm?
Alreen Haeggquist:
They can get in touch with me by contacting our firm. We're at Haeggquist & Eck, so it's haelaw.com. As for what's next for our firm, I mean, I would love to do a podcast. I would love to talk similarly what you're doing is talking to other women who have triumph from their trauma and having them come on the air to share their stories because I do think there is so much healing for us to know that we're not alone. We kind of feel like we're by ourselves, and I'm here to tell you you're not. There's lots of us, so come and talk about it.
Chris Dreyer:
Thanks so much to Alreen for sharing her wisdom today. Let's hit the takeaways. Time for the pinpoints. You don't know what you don't know, and when starting or scaling a firm, employment law is probably one of those things you just don't know. Alreen recommends connecting with HR and employment lawyers early on regardless of the size. This sets growing firms up for future success.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Get advice early on, making sure you understand the laws and that you're implementing them in your workplace, and I think that will avoid a lot of problems. I think what happens with employers is they're small and they get big, and that carries its own host of some liability. So getting advice early, you can make sure you're setting yourself up for success in the legal realm.
Chris Dreyer:
Let those values guide you on. Finding the culture fit early on is key. Hiring people who share your values helps keep talent for the long-term. For Alreen, transparency and accountability keep her team engaged year after year.
Alreen Haeggquist:
Then also seeing a future at the company. Seeing a path forward that they can continue to grow and better themselves personally and also professionally. I think those are really important for getting great talent and having them stay.
Chris Dreyer:
Marketing is a must if you want to succeed. I know the very word marketing can leave some of you a little uncomfortable. Maybe you associate marketing with gimmicks that don't fit your personality, or you believe that good work will proceed itself, making it unnecessary. But if people don't know you, they won't hire you, plain and simple. Not every tactic will work for every firm, and it shouldn't. Marketing is about authenticity and how you connect with your audience. Alreen was initially resistant to marketing her firm, but her desire to grow quickly outweighed her initial aversion to self-promotion.
Alreen Haeggquist:
It started with I don't want to do it, and I'm not going to do it. So it was evolving just my own thinking and mindset of like, no, that's part of what you do and you have to do for people to know it.
Chris Dreyer:
Well, that marketing can look different for each firm. Who do you think does marketing really well in the space? Shout them out. Tag them in the comments.
For more information about Alreen Haeggquist and her firm, Haeggquist & Eck, along with her episode on LawHer, check out the show notes. While you're there, please hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io.
All right, everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I'm out.
