HeyCounsel Newsletter

A time to reflect.  Like it or not, the end of the year is a natural moment to look back at what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what needs to change. I’m always looking for ways to shed bad habits and pick up better ones. As a business owner and lawyer, that means recalibrating my goals and the direction of both my practice and this community. Pivots can be big or small, but either can have an outsized impact. A tiny shift in a ship’s course at the start of a voyage can mean landing on a different continent. And dropping a bit of baggage can help you get there faster. I haven’t written out any formal “New Year’s resolutions” yet, but these are the themes on my mind as Dec 31 approaches. I hope you’ll carve out a little time to reflect on them too.

– Brian Scherer, HeyCounsel Co-founder

In this edition. 20+ new opportunities including commercial tech transaction support needed for a Seed Series agentic AI for professional services company; are business cards still a thing?; and 25+ members are attending a Taxes and Bookkeeping Q&A session with Agate CPA.

How One Law Firm Made a Small Strategic Pivot Into a Big Opportunity

The Torrey Pines Law Group, headquartered in San Diego, was founded in 2013 with a focus on intellectual property. In the beginning, the majority of the firm's work centered around patents. For the next seven years the firm crushed it in this niche with a nimble team of around 4 employees. Then, in 2020, COVID hit.

Like everyone else in the legal community, the firm was hit with a massive amount of uncertainty. The good news was that they were uniquely positioned to provide additional services to their existing and potential clients relevant to the continuing crisis.  

Instead of remaining focused on a general patent practice in the life sciences, the firm niched down to emerging treatments and technologies specific to COVID.  In addition, the Torrey Pines Law Group added the element of speed to their approach for their clients (Fast-track approval is an area of law all its own).       

The result of this strategic pivot was incredible.  Torrey Pines Law group has since added new practice areas, while increasing their clients and revenue by 5X.  The firm’s willingness to embrace new but adjacent practice areas proved to be a winning strategy.

The ability to deploy a strategic pivot is an option for firms of any size.  You also don’t have to be in the middle of a worldwide crisis to take advantage of it either.  Curiosity is the key.

Purposeful Curiosity: AKA Low Stakes Preparation

The reason why Torrey Pines Law Group was able to pivot so effectively is that they stayed close to their core competency.  In other words they didn’t go from patents to insurance litigation, so the education bridge on the new areas of law that they pivoted to was small.  

If you are interested in expanding your opportunities for strategic pivots in  your own practice, the best way to begin is to “start where you stand”.  Begin by looking at opportunities that are natural extensions of what you are already doing.  For example, look at areas of the law that you refer out but are legally adjacent to your current area of practice.  From there, you can leverage your current network for guidance and input on something that would be simple to start with.  

(HINT: The HeyCounsel community is amazing at this.)

The key to this approach is that you are naturally curious about the topic.  This can be on the subject matter itself, although few people wake up in the morning saying “I can’t wait to learn about tax today!”, or an interest in areas other than your current practice area that impact your prospective clients.  Being committed to becoming a better advocate for your people is a great motivator to keep on learning.  Engaging in this process consistently will also lead to discoveries that you may have not thought about previously.

If you want to see what this looks like in practice, look no further than our own community.

A HeyCounsel Member Showing How It’s Done

Crystal Banse is the founder of Crystal Banse Consulting.  Based out of New York, she has a wide-ranging practice that includes Litigation, Employment Law, General Corporate, and Commercial Contracts.  This has not stopped her from looking  into other topics that may impact her present and future clients as evidenced by her recent post in #06-general in the HeyCounsel Community:

This type of purposeful curiosity will help her become a better advocate for her clients, while at the same time starting to prepare her for a small but strategic pivot in the future.  

In your practice, you may decide to never pivot for your entire career.  However, if the past decade has taught us anything it is that it doesn’t hurt to have the option if forces beyond your control necessitate a change.  The time to prepare for such an eventuality is before the crisis, not during.  Don’t be afraid to poke around in areas of law outside your practice.  Your future self may be thankful you did.

OK, now let’s take a look at some upcoming events and what’s happening in the community.

📆 Upcoming Events

CHECK THEM ALL OUT HERE

1. Taxes and Books - (12/12/25 1:00 P.M. EST) - Registration Link - Join us for Q&A with Agate CPA on everyone’s favorite topic.

2. Building an Unstoppable Law Firm: A Boot Camp for Attorneys (12/23/25) - Registration Link - What Top Lawyers Did to Grow Their Law Firm - and How You Can Follow Their Lead.

🌟 /Threads

1. This week members discussed how to generate LEDES invoices on a budget.

2. Anyone ever do a podcast deal? A member was asking…

3. There was a brief conversation on whether business cards were still a thing, weighing digital versus traditional paper.

4. Finally, a quick discussion on the perils of taking over existing litigation.

🚀 New client opportunities this week

Here are a few of our favorite opportunities that have popped up this week. Want the full list? Head to our #03-opportunities channel!

1. Commercial tech transaction support needed for a Seed Series agentic AI for professional services company

2. Need a patent expert to explore IP protections generally for international client.

3. Seeking a Michigan Landlord/Tenant attorney to assist client with breaking lease due to sewage issues.

4. Seeking Texas lawyer to assist with Austin, TX, partnership dispute.

5. California Real Estate Transactional Lawyer Needed for Los Angeles non-profit.

Have a great weekend!

If you enjoyed today's newsletter please forward it to someone who you think would be a great fit for our community.  We can accomplish more together than we can apart!

Till next time,

Brian

HeyCounsel Weekly Pulse