2026 Goal Setting for Lawyers Part 1: Why Your Plan Gets Hijacked | Ep. 165
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Release Date: 01/05/2026
Building a Great Law Firm Team Part 1: How to Find Great People with Chris Murphy & Aaron Rothert | Ep 181
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Finding great people is one of the biggest challenges law firm owners face. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with Aaron Rothert and Chris Murphy to tackle the constant complaint: “There are no good people out there.” The truth is, great talent does exist, but many firms miss it because they hire reactively, define roles too vaguely, and approach the process with the wrong mindset. Aaron and Chris challenge that thinking and share practical ways to hire with more clarity, strategy, and confidence. Together, they share six strategies for hiring more...
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Law Firm Marketing in the AI Era: How Lawyers Build Trust and Stand Out with Robert Rose | Ep. 180
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Robert Rose returns to Great Practice, Great Life for a timely conversation about one of the biggest marketing challenges lawyers face right now: how to build trust when AI has made it easy for every firm to sound the same. In this episode, Robert and Steve Riley explore what AI cannot replace: wisdom, human judgment, lived experience, empathy, and the personal story that makes a lawyer truly distinctive. They talk about why law firms need to move beyond generic content and start communicating the real perspective, credibility, and humanity that clients and referral sources are actually...
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Vulnerability Without Losing Authority: Leadership Lessons for Lawyers with Craig Ritchie | Ep 179
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Most lawyers feel like they have to be the superhero, but what if taking off the cape is what actually makes you a stronger leader? In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with Craig Ritchie, a family law attorney and pastor, for a conversation about leadership, delegation, and the danger of the “superhero” mindset. Craig shares how learning to lead with more vulnerability, trust, and grace changed the way he serves clients, works with his team, and manages the demands of a full life. Along the way, he offers practical insight into the structures that make...
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The Relationship Advantage: How Attorneys Build Trust and Grow Their Practice with Barb Betts | Ep 178
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Relying on ads, SEO, and AI tools but still want stronger referrals and deeper trust? In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley welcomes back relationship expert, keynote speaker, and author of The Relationship Advantage, Barb Betts, for a conversation about one of the most overlooked drivers of law firm growth: trusted human relationships. But building those relationships is not about networking harder or simply asking for more referrals. It requires a different approach, one rooted in authenticity, consistency, and genuine engagement. Barb shares how attorneys can...
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What Lawyers Can Learn from Elvis: 4 Surprising Lessons on Success, Marketing, and Burnout | Ep 177
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Steve Riley did not expect to learn anything at Graceland, but a December trip up the Mississippi, ending in Memphis with his wife and close friends, turned into an unexpected lesson in law firm growth, marketing, and the cost of success. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve shares four surprising lessons from Elvis Presley’s life that apply directly to attorneys building a practice and trying to protect a life worth living. From Elvis’s personal code, TCB, “Taking Care of Business in a Flash,” to Colonel Tom Parker’s brilliant content marketing machine, Steve...
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Why Attorneys Struggle With Business Development (and How to Fix It) with Sean Callagy | Ep 176
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
What does it really take to build a thriving law practice when the odds are stacked against you? In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve sits down with Sean Callagy, a legally blind entrepreneur, attorney, and founder of Callagy Law, whose firm has collected over a billion dollars for clients and produced two top 100 national jury verdicts. But this conversation goes beyond adversity. It’s a conversation about how most attorneys misunderstand business, avoid business development, and unintentionally cap their own growth. Sean breaks down his “money, time, and...
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How to Know If a Team Member Is Ready for a Promotion in Your Law Firm - 3 Promotion Traps to Avoid with Patti Paz | Ep 175
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
What’s one of the real ceilings on your firm’s growth? Often, law firm promotion is one of them because the moment a firm owner wants to elevate someone and a team member wants to grow, the conversation can quietly break down before either side knows how to move forward. In this episode of Great Practice, Great Life, Steve Riley sits down with Patti Paz, coach and facilitator of the Atticus Team Leader Certification Program, to unpack what they call the promotion trap. Patti brings both law firm experience and coaching experience to the conversation, having worked her way through...
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You’re Working Too Hard on the Wrong Problem in Your Law Firm with Dre Baldwin | Ep 174
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
What if the strategy that made you successful is now the very thing holding you back? In this episode, Steve sits down with returning guest Dre Baldwin—author, founder of Work on Your Game University, and fearless thinker—to unpack why high performers, especially lawyers, default to outworking every problem…and why that instinct eventually stops working. Dre and Steve dig into one of the most common traps for attorneys: misdiagnosis. You assume the problem is what you can see; clients aren’t paying, leads have slowed down, billing feels messy, the team can’t keep up. But those...
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Stop Chasing “The Best” and Beat Yesterday with Jake Thompson | Ep. 173
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
Stop Racing Someone Else’s Race and Start Winning Yours! That's the message Great Practice, Great Life has today. Steve Riley welcomes back Jake Thompson, the Chief Encouragement Officer at Compete Every Day and an Atticus community favorite, to deliver a wake-up call every ambitious attorney and firm owner needs to hear. Drawing fresh inspiration from his two newest books, The Line, a compelling story about touching the line and claiming that extra inch of excellence, and Beat Yesterday, the research-driven guide to outrunning your own yesterday, Jake reveals why the relentless pursuit of...
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SYSTEMology for Law Firms: The 7 Steps to a Systems-Driven Firm and the Champion Who Makes It Stick with David Jenyns | Ep. 172
Great Practice. Great Life. by Atticus
David Jenyns, author of SYSTEMology and Systems Champion and one of the leading voices on building systems-driven businesses, joins Steve Riley on Great Practice, Great Life. Having helped thousands of business owners break free from day-to-day operations, David brings a proven, practical framework that law firm owners can apply immediately. Too many law firm owners become the hero at the center of their own business. Every question, approval, and client issue lands on their desk, and while it feels necessary, the firm is not scaling. It is orbiting you. And that quietly limits growth,...
info_outlineMost lawyers don’t struggle with setting goals. They struggle with protecting them.
As a new year begins, many high performers find themselves frustrated, tired, and wondering why carefully written plans never quite survive real life. In Part 1 of this two-part series, Steve lays the groundwork for designing a stronger 2026 by first assessing what really happened in 2025. Before you set new goals, you need a structure that can actually protect them.
Using a simple driving metaphor, Steve breaks goal execution into four core elements: your map, your steering, your windshield, and your lane. Together, they explain how distractions, interruptions, and cognitive overload quietly pull lawyers off track, often without them realizing it until months later.
This episode is a strategy session, not a pep talk. It invites you to take a rearview mirror look at how you actually operated in 2025 so you can build a more resilient plan for 2026 that will not get hijacked the same way.
Next week, tune in for Part 2, where Steve helps you set your 2026 goals and build the lane to protect them.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Goal setting versus goal protecting and why most plans fail
- The difference between writing goals and actually doing them
- Map, steering, windshield, and lane as focus fundamentals
- How cognitive overload quietly derails execution
- The four “Ds” that hijack attention during the year
- Why 2025 wasn’t a failure but was a teacher
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Supporting Resources:
- Steve Riley: atticusadvantage.com/team/steve-riley
- Download: 2025 Rearview Mirror Check worksheet
- Limited-time offer! My Great Life Focus: Get a one-year supply (4 quarterly focusers) for $99.90 (50% off) . Valid through January 31, 2026. https://mygreatlifefocus.com
- Distracting adults during task makes them behave like children (Wan and Sloutsky study): news.osu.edu/distracting-adults-during-task-makes-them-behave-like-children
- Ep. 166: 2026 Goal Setting for Lawyers Part 2: Design Your Lane and Stay Focused
If there’s a topic you would like us to cover on an upcoming episode, please email us at steve.riley@atticusadvantage.com.
Curious about growing your own practice without burning out? Contact Atticus to see whether our law firm coaching can help you strengthen attorney success, refine your law firm business strategy, and build a practice that actually supports your life. This podcast for lawyers is part of our broader legal podcast library, offering practical insights on how to grow a law firm through stronger law firm leadership and management, smarter marketing, intentional hiring, efficient operations, healthy law firm culture, and sustainable profitability, all while addressing law firm burnout and the realities of modern practice.
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