Wildly Successful

November 22, 2025

No. 4: Letters from Nermin

1. Ask Nermin

Questions from the No. 22 Community (my lifetime advice community for lawyers)

Question:

I'm feeling very frustrated. I've tried to hire a few people in the last 3 months, associates and paralegals, and none have worked out. I've had to fire them after a month and another after just a week. What am I doing wrong here? Do I need to go through a recruiter?

Nermin's Answer:

I can sense your frustration and trust me, I've been there and so have many other firm owners. Here's what I would do. Take 10 minutes and figure out what an A+ employee in that paralegal role and associate role looks like. Be as specific as possible.

For both of these roles, I imagine you want someone who:

Can take a matter from start to finish with very little involvement from you
Owns deadlines like their job depends on it
Can keep clients calm and put out fires when they happen
Takes responsibility and accountability for mistakes (rather than pointing the finger at you or someone on your team)

You can create each bullet point on a grading scale of 1-5 of what makes someone an A+ employee. If they score 5, that's an A, if it's 4, that's a B, and so on.

This does 2 things:

1) It helps you get clear on what an A+ employee means for you

2) It helps you get out of the emotion when hiring and make it a scoring system to see how they performed

Even if you choose to go through a recruiter, you should still be clear on this measuring system and rank each candidate.

I'm also a big fan of bringing multiple people on for a trial week or 2. Yes, it costs more. But you have no idea how people perform until that trial week.

I've had people kill it during interviews and assessments, and then when we bring them on for a trial week, we can quickly see that they can't handle the demands of the job and need a lot more hand holding than we initially thought during the interview.

Why:
You can't possibly figure out if someone is a good fit for your team after a 1 hour interview and briefly glancing over their resume. It's silly to think that.

Do Next:

Pause and write out what an A employee looks like for you. This is a great place to use ChatGPT or another AI tool.
Anyone you interview should be taken through that assessment and given a grade. That will help you pick better candidates.
Once you decide who you want to hire, start them on a trial basis for a week or two, paid.

Deadline:
Before year end.

Proof:
When you create your "A+ employee template" let me know and I'll tell you my thoughts.

2. The Playbook

Strategy bits + easy action

Have you written out your marketing strategy for 2026 yet? How about your budget? Have you done any financial projections for the upcoming year?

Too often, I see attorneys who have all of these ideas in their head and they say yes to these questions.

But the reality is that a strategy cannot live in your head. It needs to be on pen and paper and have some space to breathe.

You cannot assume that if you made $100k this month that next month you'll make the same amount. Where will that money come from? What cases will settle? What clients will sign on and make payment?

You need that mapped out if you're truly going to hit your annual goal for 2026. Otherwise, you're just coasting on a wish or a prayer that you'll make $2 million.

If you haven't gotten your copy of the Lawyers Annual Planner yet, then now is the time to do so. All of the pages in the back are dedicated to annual planning for your firm finances and your marketing strategy and there are videos to take you through completing each worksheet.

Funny story, a while back I shared my planner rough draft pages with another lawyer to ask for feedback. And she said "Wow, that's a lot of work to do." I was slightly offended at the time, but honestly, this stuff is A LOT OF WORK. You are running A BUSINESS. You need to strategize and have a game plan. Do the foundational work and everything else becomes easier after that. The firms that take the time to do this and don't get overwhelmed by it are the ones you are comparing yourself to. They're creating a marketing plan and executing it. They're checking their finances every single month.

Click here to buy the Planner bundle now. Yes, you will want the bundle.

3. In the Margins

Unfiltered thoughts that are sometimes unhinged.

I think every lawyer has that moment where they realize: I have got to stop working with X type of client.

Who was that client for you?

For my clients, it's been:

"I have to stop working with client who says they'll pay on Monday if I just start today," only to end up working over the weekend, and Monday rolls around and that client is nowhere to be found.

Or "I cannot do DUIs anymore, it's just not worth it."

Or "No more asylum cases where I have to travel to the other end of the US."

I've had that moment recently where I realized, "I have got to stop making templates and ebooks for lawyers."

In 2022, I created my first ebook guide "0 to 1 million, How to Grow Your Law Firm." In 2023, I created intake templates that were built in Airtable. In 2024, I created Instagram templates.

As someone who is Type A and doesn't believe in rebuilding the wheel, I love templates. If I can take something someone else made that fits 80% of what I need and spend an hour to add the other 20%, I'm in.

If you want templates to help you with 2026, I'm doing a template/ebook fire sale because I won't be making anymore of these.

It includes everything I ever made (template and ebooks), as well as lifetime access to the podcasts that are now private.

Guide: The Top 35 Questions Lawyers Ask Me and the Answers
Guide: Law Firm Tech Manual
Guide: Lawyers Don't Say This
Template: Intake Form (specifically for TM, PI, Business, Family, Immigration)
Template: Instagram Templates (specifically for Criminal, Estate Planning, TM, PI, Business, Family, Immigration)
Template/Guide: Million Dollar Newsletters

Buy it here. This is the lowest price it will ever be.