By Steve Fretzin and Brett Trembly
How Law Firms Can Spend to Grow
Smart hiring, professional intake, strategic delegation, and the mindset shift that helps law firm owners stop doing low-value work and start building a scalable, profitable practice.
Law firm growth is not always about generating more leads. Sometimes the biggest obstacle is what happens after the lead arrives and how the owner is spending their own time. Many law firm owners become trapped in the belief that keeping expenses low is the safest path to profitability, but refusing to invest in people and systems can actually keep the firm stuck. When attorneys spend their days answering routine emails, handling administrative tasks, chasing leads, or managing work that someone else could do, they are sacrificing the time that could be spent practicing at a higher level, developing relationships, generating business, and leading the firm.
Brett Trembly knows this challenge firsthand. As the founding partner of Trembly Law Firm and co-founder of Get Staffed Up, Brett has experienced the realities of building a law firm from the ground up and learning when to stop doing everything himself. His approach centers on a simple but powerful idea: law firm owners need to spend strategically in order to grow. That means hiring before you feel completely comfortable, building professional intake systems, delegating work based on value, and measuring team performance through meaningful KPIs rather than simply watching hours.
The Mindset Shift From Saving to Spending
One of the biggest barriers to law firm growth is the instinct to protect cash at all costs. For a new or growing firm, that instinct is understandable. Owners want to maintain a healthy bank balance and avoid unnecessary expenses. The problem comes when saving money means refusing to hire help, even when the owner is spending valuable time on work that could be handled by someone else.
Brett argues that doing everything yourself can actually prevent you from building wealth. If a lawyer is spending hours on administrative work because they do not want to pay someone else to handle it, the firm may technically be saving money while losing opportunities. The attorney could instead be spending those same hours on higher-value legal work, business development, client relationships, or strategic leadership. The question is not simply whether an employee costs money. The better question is what that employee allows the owner to accomplish with the time they get back.
This requires a fundamental change in how law firm owners think about expenses. Hiring should not automatically be viewed as overhead. The right hire can be an investment in capacity, allowing the firm to serve more clients, respond faster, improve the client experience, and give the managing attorney room to focus on activities that actually move the business forward.
Stop Doing $10-an-Hour Work
A recurring theme in the conversation is the hidden cost of low-value work. Lawyers are highly trained professionals, yet many spend significant portions of their days performing tasks that do not require a lawyer’s expertise. Administrative work, scheduling, document organization, routine communication, lead follow-up, and other repetitive responsibilities can quietly consume hours that could be used much more productively.
The problem becomes especially serious when the managing partner is the person doing those tasks. Every hour the owner spends on work that could be delegated is an hour that cannot be spent on practicing law at a higher level, meeting prospective clients, developing referral relationships, coaching employees, or improving the firm’s systems. Over time, those small decisions compound into a major constraint on growth.
Brett’s experience demonstrates why delegation has to happen before the owner feels completely ready. Waiting until the firm is overwhelmed can mean that the owner has already become the firm’s biggest bottleneck. The goal is to identify the work that does not require the owner’s unique expertise and systematically move it to people who can handle it reliably.
Why Hiring Earlier Can Accelerate Growth
Many law firm owners delay hiring because they believe they need to reach a certain revenue level first. They tell themselves they will hire when they have more clients, more cash, or more certainty about the future. But waiting for perfect certainty can create a cycle where the owner remains overwhelmed because the very support that would create additional capacity never gets added.
Brett’s story illustrates why strategic hiring can be a growth decision rather than simply an expense decision. Bringing in the right support can allow attorneys to spend more time on the work that generates revenue and builds the firm’s reputation. It can also create consistency around tasks that are otherwise handled differently every day.
The key is hiring for outcomes rather than simply filling seats. A strong team member should have clear responsibilities, measurable expectations, and an understanding of what success looks like. When firms combine the right people with clear processes and accountability, the managing partner no longer needs to personally control every detail.
Law Firm Intake Is a Growth Problem
Another major lesson from the conversation is that many firms do not necessarily have a lead-generation problem. They have an intake problem.
A potential client may find a law firm through advertising, search, referrals, social media, or another marketing channel, but none of that matters if the firm’s intake process fails to convert the opportunity. Slow responses, inconsistent communication, missed calls, unclear follow-up, and an unprofessional first interaction can cause prospective clients to move on to another firm.
Intake is therefore not just an administrative function. It is part of the firm’s marketing and business development strategy. Every interaction with a prospective client communicates something about the firm’s professionalism, organization, responsiveness, and ability to solve problems.
A structured intake process can create a much more consistent experience. When firms have clear procedures for responding to leads, gathering information, qualifying opportunities, scheduling consultations, and following up, fewer potential clients fall through the cracks. More importantly, attorneys can spend less time manually managing the process and more time doing the work that requires their expertise.
Creating a “White Glove” Client Experience
Professional intake also affects how clients perceive the firm before they ever become clients. Someone contacting a lawyer may already be dealing with a stressful business dispute, family problem, injury, financial issue, or another significant challenge. The way the firm responds during that first interaction can immediately establish confidence or create doubt.
Brett emphasizes the importance of making the client experience feel professional and organized rather than chaotic. A white-glove experience does not necessarily mean doing something extravagant. It can mean responding quickly, communicating clearly, knowing what happens next, and making the prospective client feel that they are being taken seriously.
This is where staffing and systems come together. A great intake process requires both capable people and reliable procedures. Technology can support that process, but the goal should always be to create a better experience rather than simply automate for automation’s sake.
Measure Results, Not Just Activity
As firms grow, another challenge emerges: how do you know whether your team is actually performing effectively? Brett advocates for using KPIs, scorecards, and measurable results instead of obsessing over every minute worked.
For remote and salaried employees in particular, measuring activity can become counterproductive. Watching whether someone is online or counting hours does not necessarily tell you whether they are creating value. A better approach is to define what successful performance looks like and measure the outcomes that matter.
For intake, that might include response times, qualified leads, consultation bookings, conversion rates, and follow-up completion. For administrative roles, it could involve turnaround times, accuracy, completed tasks, or service-level expectations. The specific metrics will vary by role, but the principle remains the same: establish clear expectations and measure meaningful results.
This creates accountability without forcing the owner to micromanage every task. It also gives employees a clearer understanding of how their work contributes to the firm’s larger goals.
Offshore Staffing Can Create More Capacity
Brett’s experience co-founding Get Staffed Up also provides a practical perspective on offshore staffing. For many firms, the goal is not necessarily to build the largest possible team. It is to create the right combination of people and resources so attorneys can focus on high-value work.
Offshore support can be particularly useful for repetitive administrative responsibilities that do not require an attorney’s physical presence or specialized legal judgment. When properly structured, this can give firms access to additional capacity while allowing attorneys and domestic staff to focus on more complex responsibilities.
The important distinction is that staffing alone does not solve a broken process. If a firm simply transfers an inefficient workflow to another person, the firm has not eliminated the underlying problem. The process needs to be defined, expectations need to be clear, and performance needs to be measured. Staffing becomes powerful when it is combined with systems and accountability.
Growth Requires the Owner to Become a Leader
Ultimately, Brett’s message is bigger than hiring or delegation. It is about the transition from being a lawyer who owns a firm to becoming an actual business leader.
At a certain point, the managing partner cannot continue being the person who does everything. The firm needs systems that operate without constant intervention, people who can take ownership of responsibilities, and measurements that show whether those systems are working. Otherwise, the firm remains dependent on the owner’s personal effort.
Growth happens when the owner’s role evolves. Instead of spending every day solving small problems, the managing partner can focus on strategy, relationships, business development, team leadership, and the long-term direction of the firm. That transition may require spending money before it feels comfortable, but the investment can create the capacity necessary to generate much greater returns.
As Brett put it, “Doing all the little things yourself prevents you from ever building up your money.” The lesson is not that law firms should spend recklessly. It is that spending should be intentional. The right investment in people, systems, intake, and accountability can create leverage that simply cutting expenses never will.
About Brett Trembly
Brett Trembly, Esq., is the founding partner of Trembly Law Firm in Miami, Florida, where he focuses on business law, franchise law, and commercial litigation under the firm’s mission of “Protecting the Economy, One Business at a Time.” He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Eastern New Mexico University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law. In addition to managing his legal practice, Brett co-founded Get Staffed Up, a virtual staffing company that provides offshore support personnel to law firms across North America. He is also the author of books focused on business growth, including 24 Months to Freedom and The Danger Zones. Brett has been active in the South Florida legal community and has served in leadership roles with the Miami Kendall Bar Association and the Florida Bar.
Connect with Brett Trembly
Website: https://tremblylaw.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bretttrembly/
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