Watch or listen to this episode below.

Brief summary:

Our podcast guest for this episode is Scott Levine, Founder of AEGIS Law, a non-traditional corporate M&A and ventured law firm based in St. Louis, Missouri. Scott shares the story about realizing his legal business model needed to change beyond the traditional one and how his personal evolution spurred on a decision that would translate into the 10x growth of AEGIS Law. A strikingly unique story in an industry, not known for innovation. 

Key insights from this episode:

• (at 4:07) Scott explains what he means by “I had a nice business, but a really crappy job.”

• (at 8:19) How Scott’s shift in strategy led to more growth and a better bottom line.

• (at 15:00) Scott’s view on core values and what they have to do with business.

• (at 18:48) Biggest lesson Scott learned during the Covid epidemic.

• (at 20:41) Scott shares his source of motivation.

• (at 34:05)  Where to learn more about Scott Levine.

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TRANSCRIPT
FUEL Podcast hosted by Leila Ansart
SEASON 2 Episode 11: Staying True to Your Core Values in Business with Scott Levine, Founder at AEGIS Law

GUEST INTRO:

Today's guest on FUEL podcast is Scott Levine, an entrepreneur and successful leader of multiple businesses. Scott's main business is a law firm with a fierce entrepreneurial spirit called AEGIS Law.  AEGIS is a non-traditional corporate M&A and ventured law firm based in St. Louis, Missouri. In addition to AEGIS Law, Scott has co-founded two other companies: a venture fund, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in early stage companies and a commercial real estate company. 

Scott is also the incoming president of the St. Louis chapter of entrepreneurs organization, the largest peer network of entrepreneurs in the world. In our conversation, Scott shares the story about realizing his legal business model needed to change beyond the traditional one and how his personal evolution spurred on a decision that would translate into the 10x growth of AEGIS Law. A strikingly unique story in an industry, not known for innovation. 

In addition, Scott and I dive into the topic of both personal and organizational values and how they drive meaning and motivation in both big decisions and everyday moments. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Well, Scott, welcome to FUEL podcast. I'm absolutely thrilled to have you with us today, and I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. 

Scott Levine, Guest
Thank you. Great to be here. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself and let the listeners know who you are and what you bring to the business world table at this stage in your career? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Oh, that's a great question. So I'm a recovering attorney.  I'd like to say it that way, but I introduced myself as an entrepreneur. It's been kind of a transition over the last six or seven years, even though the business I'm running right now is almost 20 years old. I truly didn't embrace the idea of being an entrepreneur versus being a lawyer until recently. So I'm an entrepreneur. I run a law firm, AEGIS Law, that I started almost 20 years ago, close to 35 attorneys and a number of different cities. I'm located in St. Louis, Missouri. We've probably have experienced a 10x  growth in last seven years in large part from a shift in our approach to what is a very traditional industry. A very big shift occurred, which we can talk about later. But first and foremost, I'm an entrepreneur. 

I feel like my responsibility is to support other entrepreneurs and to help others learn and grow as people and as leaders and as lawyers and staff people, both in my organization and outside of our organization. 

Leila Ansart, Host
That's wonderful. Congratulations on such a track record of success and the level of growth that your business has achieved. 

We talked a bit when we were speaking previously about this journey that you've been on and you've kind of made a point here. I feel like I've had to just dive right into it on identifying as an entrepreneur rather than an attorney, which is a bit rare in this type of a business. Someone who's got that particular hat that they wear, and then they scaled the business. You don't often hear that transition. Would you share with us about what that means to you and why that transition was necessary? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Yeah, it really started, I want to say seven, eight years ago. I joined a peer learning organization and I was put in a room on a monthly basis with nine other entrepreneurs. There was a question like is revenue up or down, profitability up or down. It was like a standard question we would all answer and I wouldn't know, like, I'm not sure. I think we're paying people less than what the clients are paying us. And so I think we're good. For a good six or seven months, I'm listening to what they were doing with their time, how they were learning. They had this thirst for learning and strategic planning and buying other businesses and selling and scaling. I was just like, we're a law firm. We add clients, we add lawyers, repeat and  frankly, I was very much responsible for being a lawyer. 

I loved it. I loved supporting entrepreneurs.  We do venture work and M&A work and general corporate work. Our clients are emerging businesses. We're often dealing with the entrepreneur and I really identified with that. At some point I'm like, well, what is my business? This is not a business.  

I had a nice business, but a really crappy job. I had to be the entrepreneur, had to originate legal work for me to do and others to do. I had to do legal work. I had this moment like, well, what is my business going to be? It's not going to be just finding clients and servicing them. I had this light bulb moment and I realized I can't be a great entrepreneur and a great attorney. I had to pick a path. 

I shifted my focus from attracting and retaining clients to attracting and retaining lawyers and shifted our mission to helping lawyers learn and grow as people and professionals. That mentality was attractive to attorneys because most attorneys, many attorneys are miserable. They're  stuck in antiquated environments. This is particularly true post COVID, they're just not great at running their businesses. They're stuck and at every stage of their career. I saw an opportunity to bring attorneys on and say, look, you have no responsibility for running a business. Let me do that. And you just be a great lawyer. At this stage of their career, usually mid plus career attorneys, they get it. They're like owning a business is dilutive to my profit and my happiness. So, if you can solve for that, then I'm all in. 

We created a model that made that work. We started to attract lawyers from around the country and we've been acquiring small law practices ever since.  And I have sort of re-identified or redefined myself as an entrepreneur because that's what an entrepreneur does - finds an opportunity to do something, to help people and to create value. And  instead of finding clients, I'm finding attorneys. Instead of making clients happy, we're trying to make lawyers thrilled with being a part of our firm. That has created a lot of energy and attraction. And it's fun. 

My job is to coach and support people that are dynamic and interesting and culturally aligned. Now after all these years, I can point to all these people that can be testimonials to our experience. That's like Nirvana, when I don't have to sell anything, I can just say here, talk to these similarly situated people and let them share their experience. As a business owner and entrepreneur, that's just an incredible place to be. 

Leila Ansart, Host
It absolutely is. Hearing your story reminds me so much of the workplace culture work that I do, talking to leaders about how to attract and retain fantastic talent. The fact that it all translates back to the bottom line, that you get better results, you get better performance from people who are happy in their workplace. Curiously, from my standpoint, I want to hear the evidence of that being true. How would you say the shift you made translated to the client experience for your clients? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Well, that's a great question. One of the things that we measure both from our lawyers, our staff and our clients is this: you're familiar with the net promoter score, right? The NPS. But you can measure that with your employees as well. Every one of our employees, at some point in the month, they get a survey from us just like you would send to a client and we want to be judged. How are we doing? Are we serving your needs? When we have reviews, we do one-on-ones with people. It's not about how they're performing. It's how we're performing in support of that. If you bring the right people in that align with our core values and ours are not that complicated, right? It's trust and respect, a thirst for learning, making a difference, thinking big, being bold. I mean, these are common qualities of high-performing good people. 

If you bring the right people in and then you engage with them and making sure that you're meeting their needs, as you integrate them, well, they're going to be happier. Of course, that's going to translate to client satisfaction. We're a business law firm, call it that. We do very high level competent work that you would often find only kind of in a larger law firm environment, but because we're able to attract talent and we're not a big law firm, there's an alignment with our clients that's just different. The way we make our clients feel about themselves and their projects and their invoices is really effective given how our approach is to make happy lawyers, right? I'm sure if I said, do you know any unhappy lawyers? Probably 10 of them jump into your mind. 

The traditional model is, let's hire early career people, exploit them so that the late career people can have a different experience. That's just not sustainable, not in this day and age. And it's very hard for those organizations to change because the power structure rests on the top of that pyramid. We'd have developed a flat organization. Everyone is paid exactly the same. It's not a partnership. They have the same model and it's sort of an  economic model. We share our profits with everyone, from the person answering the phone to the person who's one of the most impactful attorneys with the idea that we want people to care about our bottom line, because we care about theirs. That formula seems to be working.

Leila Ansart, Host
That is so refreshing to hear, especially in your field. I mean, it's just really in the minority. Obviously, you mentioned you've scaled the business 10x since 2014, I believe was the year? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Yup. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Is that when this transition occurred? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Yep. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Okay. Let me dig into this  a little bit Scott, because this sounds wonderful. I would imagine those listening are like, hey, if I'm in a position where I could do something like that, how hard is that change? Share with us, was this an easy shift once you had this light bulb moment or was it complex? 

Scott Levine, Guest
I had to convince late career attorneys to join our firm and that if they did that, the resources would be there to support them. It would lead to a better experience for them and their staff if they were coming with staff. I had to believe that, and my team had to believe that. And it's like if you're the Kansas City Royals, no offense to the other side of the state, and you don't have a great team every year like the St. Louis Cardinals have a great team every year. It's very easy to attract talent in the St. Louis Cardinals because the stadiums are full and they win every year. If you want to attract someone to Kansas City Royals, you have to convince them about where you're going. And we did. And we got lucky at some level, I met people at the right time in their life and the right time in our life, and we hit it off personally and they believed in me. 

So once you kind of get there where you say, I'm going to bring in these high performing people. I'm taking them away from something that is traditional and safe. And they took that bet. Well, that was the platform. Then, when they joined the firm, then I have a reason to bring in other support resources that I couldn't otherwise justify. When you have all this team in place, and it's easier to attract other senior lawyers and professionals, and it just kind of snowballed, and now we're at this place where it's like, okay, everyone is engaged at a high level of engagement, good cultural alignment. Now what? How do we go from $10 million to 20 million? Is that the same companies at the same strategy? So those are fun conversations we're having. Of course there's this kind of looming economic reality that's in the back of our minds. 

Like, what will that mean to us? Our business survived through ‘07, ‘08 ish. But at the same time if you're really got something special and we've grown because of that, then, there's opportunity to have an impact on -- we've got 45 people that work for us and we feel like we've been so accommodating to their individual needs and their career goals and personal goals and side project goals and all these things that flexibility that our model brings, I think we're poised for more growth, right? And post pandemic, obviously, there are a lot of people revisiting what is true about their needs. We're just starting, like we've been at it for awhile and our model that seems to be post pandemic friendly has existed for a while now. 

There's so much opportunity, but you also don't want to lose the reality that if you're not aligned with our core values, we're not just looking to grow revenue. We want to grow the culture because if there's no alignment with our core values, then we will go nowhere. We're going nowhere. 

Leila Ansart, Host
It's so true. Interesting that you navigated the recession of 2007, 2008. Now you're two plus years from the start of the COVID pandemic. In terms of the lessons that you learned, let's say most recently with COVID, what do you think was one of your biggest lessons that you came out of that experience with? 

Scott Levine, Guest
I'm sure you, and a lot of people watching this, like there was a panic, like what does this mean? Is this going to be like a recession? What is this unknown mean? And I stopped the growth idea. I was like, I'm done, we're not adding people. There's too much uncertainty. I looked inward and I said, well, what needs to be true? What does our team need right now? And what do our clients need right now? I decided to say that they needed to see us as leaders. The team needed to see us as leaders and confident. We're leaning into this. We're not looking to exploit it. What I did is we began a weekly call and sometimes it was gathering entrepreneurs. It was to create a space for people to talk about what they're doing to learn from each other. 

Scott Levine, Guest
They kind of grew, and it was a weekly thing.  I started bringing in some speakers. 20 people grew to a hundred, grew to 200. I reached out that moment when everything was shut down, were all just home. I thought, well, every CEO in the world is home, right? Everyone's available. I started reaching out to some of the most impactful CEOs I could get to. I said, hey, could you jump on the zoom call? I've got hundreds of entrepreneurs that are just kind of looking for some examples of leadership and what they should they be focused on right now. And the last event that we did, we had 6,000 people from around the world. 

Leila Ansart, Host
That's fantastic. 

Scott Levine, Guest
The message to my team and to our clients, and to everyone was that we are relevant. We are confident. We are still innovating. We are being leaders here, whether that translated to any practical decisions people made. It created an energy that I think, as I'm thinking about what's coming, who knows, but like, how do we get there again? How do we become very visible to our team, to our lawyers, to our staff, to our clients, to our referring sources, how do we help them leverage? We've got a huge database, we've got opportunities to communicate seminars, webinars, events, creativity. 

That inspires me. Whether we're looking at the moment to be inward again, remains to be seen, but that's one of the things I learned is that in moments of stress, you've got to leap. Because even the most senior people, even people more senior than me, were nervous. You got to kind of rally.

Leila Ansart, Host
You've spoken so much about your values, about alignment with values. About this desire that you have to serve people and to better their experience, whether that's in their work life, whether that's for your clients and their business success. I don't want to put words in your mouth, of course, but theme of this podcast is really trying to identify and crystallize and encapsulate the fuel that each of us holds that helps to push us through when things are crazy, when they're volatile. How would you describe that source of motivation for you? 

Scott Levine, Guest
I was reflecting on this the other day, and every challenge that I've created for myself, for my family, for my children, my partner, whatever, it originated from not doing something that was aligned with our core values. 

We can't always be perfect, right? We can't always be living a life aligned with our core values in every minute. There's just spontaneous decisions, reactions to things, being defensive, not being collaborative, like we're human.  But almost all of my challenges relate to those moments where I've deviated from my values, where I haven't demanded of myself or the people around me that they need to be aligned with our core values in order for us to function together. 

It's not complicated right? There  are universal values, hundreds of universal values, and you can score yourself.  I do this exercise, how am I doing with this?  Or are the people that are serving me well have these values? For instance, my values are belonging, co-creation, collaboration. These are things that are very important to me. 

I want people to approach me with curiosity instead of defensiveness. When I don't feel like the people in my life are approaching me with curiosity, it takes a moment not to be defensive, but, to say back, this is how I'm experiencing this.  This is how I would prefer you approach. Don't assume I'm doing something that's not aligned with core values or not aligned with the plan. Please ask me where I'm coming from, because ordinarily it is part of a plan. 

So demand that of people around you, just kind of lift them up. How do you lift every group from wherever they are, everyone's coming from a different place, but lift up the people around you and help, as a leader, help them be a better version of themselves, but also stay true to what your core values are. 

Leila Ansart, Host
You talked about the challenges that you've experienced in your life have come from times when you didn't align with those, would you mind sharing a story with us? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Yes. A number of years ago, one of my business partners, he left the firm to go work full time on a business that we had started together. It's worked out great for him and for us, lots of reasons, but he left a hole. We were much smaller then, and he was doing a lot of work for my clients. He was a very competent attorney. I started interviewing and I met someone who on paper was like, oh my gosh, this is the best. I can't believe this person has shown up. And I was so happy about it. 

The references she gave me were two people that I knew really well. One was a mentor and the other was a woman I dated randomly. It just so happens that, I mean, she didn't know about my connection to those two and their response was, “Scott we know you, we love you. This is not a good fit. Run, don't walk, away from this. This will not be a good fit for you or your culture.” 

Not that this was a bad person, but just in terms of how we were set up and the way we were functioning. Despite the fact that her track record of success checked all the boxes in terms of professional skills. 

But I did it anyway, and it was an ill-fitting relationship for the lawyers and the staff. It affected everyone in the firm that I made this decision. And then I didn't make the decision to separate from this person fast enough. There was a lot of, I could just feel it, like a lot of distrust forming with me and is trust and respect truly a value that we have. Eventually she left but there was an impact of hiring someone who's a great person in many ways, but just not a good fit for us. 

Years later, not that many or a few years later, I was copied on an internal email. I scrolled down and I watched the exchange between the senior lawyer in a subordinate staff person. And I was just taken aback. Like, I didn't know it was serious.You can't speak to someone this way. I learned that this was a problem. Like this was a ongoing problem with the way this particular attorney was managing his relationships in the firm with the people doing work for him. It was all professional, not unprofessional in terms of crossing a boundary, but just culturally not aligned with the way we want people to be treated. 

I called a meeting with our office manager, my partner, this attorney, and the support person. I later learned the support person thought I was just going to say, hey, you got to figure out a way of getting along, and thought that I would take the moment to do that. What I did instead was I made it clear that this attorney couldn't continue to work for the firm and do this and behave this way. The behavior was not aligned with our core values. Granted it was like putting a softball on a baseball tee.  But I saw an opportunity to really bring our core values forward. The staff person was crying, she just wanted to work for the firm that I was exhibiting. There was this history of not solving a problem quick enough. And it was wonderful. I mean, it just reverberated around the organization. 

It was an inflection point as far as our value, our culture alignment with our values were still seen. I don't think I could think of a more clear example of two sides of the same point, right? Just one handling it right, one handling it wrong. The difference, the impact was equal in terms of a negative or positive. 

Leila Ansart, Host
So interesting. I think companies like yours that are so intentional with values and with culture, this is obvious, but to so many who aren't, it's the difference between core values or mission statement being on a wall or in a binder somewhere in HR and really, truly being about the kind of behavior that's rewarded and tolerated in the day to day. That's an awesome example. Thank you for sharing that.

I think what I appreciate about the story too, with the business partner you took on for a while, is that I'm sure there was some humility there in thinking, I was given this advice by people who knew this individual, that it wasn't a good fit. I decided to go for it anyway. Then, ooh gosh, there's a rub.

Scott Levine, Guest
Yeah, they knew me really well. It wasn't just knowing her and I called a reference. They knew both of us. I've learned to come to value more the experience like when people share their experience with me, I learned from that when they share their opinions, it's harder for me to learn from that. They really do know that about myself. 

Leila Ansart, Host
That's a great thing to share. I think we can all see those opportunities for that same insight for ourselves. 

What do you want to be known for Scott? 

Scott Levine, Guest
You know, it's interesting. I'm taking on a leadership role in a local chapter of a global nonprofit, and there's about 160 members of the organization. We, the members run the organization, a board is selected, and there's about 20 of us that serve on a board. And it's a pure learning organization. It's called that. We had our strategy summit last week. It took me a while to really define the vision and set the priorities for this coming year when I'm going to be in this leadership role. Eventually, where I landed with, who am I?  Why am I going to create a vision and priorities that are not aligned with who I am, because I won't be motivated and inspired by that. The vision for our year is to be among the most influential chapters in the world. We are one of the oldest and one of the largest, but I really want to be in that status. 

I want to have that impact because that inspires me and inspires the rest of the board who are also running companies. But our priorities for the year, are growth, inclusion and innovation. Those are the things that we're going to work on as a board.In answer to your question, those are the things that inspire me.  I have a growth mentality. I'm still inspired by growth, personal growth, 10x in my life, 10X in my business, because I know that if I do that it has an effect on so many people. We can't go on forever, right? I'm inspired by that. I'm inspired by inspiring people who are inspired by that. We had this incredible summit and the reaction was energizing for everyone. The idea of inclusion, like everyone in my world, everyone in your world and our world should feel safe, trusted, respected.

 We don't have that everywhere. We know that in some places it's not even honored. If people in our life don't feel included, they don't feel safe to express themselves and who they really are and what they feel and what they believe. That's not a good place to be. I'm inspired by inclusion. And then innovation, that's just fun.  I surround myself with people that are thinking big, change makers. 

I was approached the other day by someone who - we are just not aligned politically. Just not aligned, but I'm inspired by the work he’s doing, like anyone who gets off the couch and off of social media and is going to protest something or stand in solidarity with others, like good for you. We need more of that. Even if we don't agree with what they're yelling about, if they're doing it in a respectful way, and they're energized. I'm energized by people that are trying to make change and doing it from a place of, I want the world to be more aligned with my values that can be done in an inclusive way, then that inspires me. My business, my volunteer work, my home, those are the things that inspire me. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Awesome. So powerful too. I think each one of those points is a really good prompt for some reflection, if that resonates with us. Really good to take it from the wall, take it from the binder and think about what it actually means on a day to day basis. 

So thank you for sharing what's impacted you and the vision that you've created for your own life and your values. Scott, this was an awesome conversation. I really enjoyed it. We didn't even get to all the topics we had talked about before. You have so much to share, but I think we're out of time. If the listeners would like to learn more about you, the organization that you're leading, your firm or the other organization, how can they learn more about you? 

Scott Levine, Guest
Well, the law firm is aegislaw.com. I can put a plugin for the Entrepreneurs Organization, that's eonetwork.org. There's definitely a chapter in your city, if you're in a major city somewhere in the world.  Surrounding yourself, creating your tribe, whatever that is, the people that share your values and can support you. Can't do it alone. 

Leila Ansart, Host
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Scott, it's been a real pleasure. 

Scott Levine, Guest
Wonderful. Thank you for having me.