Marjorie DiLima overcame addiction to move on and earn multiple advanced degrees in business and law. This marathon runner is now the managing partner of a thriving family law firm, and she shares her journey and the lessons she’s learned since her days as a “true solo.”

We talk about how she handles the administrative side of her law firm… and ways she lightens her workload when needed. We also discuss what she’s learned about hiring and training. The first step towards success is to find the right people, and she shares how she meets and vets potential star employees.

And that’s just the start. We also chat about…

Why resumes only tell you part of the story
The benefits of a work/life balance
An unusual hobby she uses to relax
The #1 thing you can do to free up your time for more important work
And more

Listen now…

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcript

Davina Frederick: Hello, and welcome to the Solo to CEO Podcast, where we provide a mix of powerful thought-provoking and practical information to assist you in your transformation from solo to CEO of a high-impact, high revenue-generating business. I’m your host, Davina Frederick. And I’m here today with Marjorie DiLima attorney and managing partner of Fait & DiLima. Fait & DiLima is a family law firm located in Maryland. Welcome, Marjorie. It’s so good to have you here on the Solo to CEO Podcast.

Marjorie DiLima: Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Davina: Great. So I want to start out by talking about how your journey to becoming a lawyer, because one of the things that I noticed, you know, you and I’ve talked about and I’ve noticed in some of my reading and research about you, is that you’re quite educated. So that was that had to have been taken a little bit of time to do that. And so I’d love to know, like, if it was your intention from the beginning to be a lawyer, or if, you know, what made you decide to take the route that you did to becoming a lawyer?

Intentions and Incentives to Becoming a Lawyer

Marjorie: Well, I have a kind of a lengthy past. And I actually when I was a kid, I remember saying to my mom when I grow up I’m going to be a lawyer. And I think that’s just because I heard her say that she wanted to be a lawyer. So I’m not sure where it came from. But I was very good in school. However, I had an issue with drugs and alcohol. And I could not seem to get my undergrad degree. I kept going to school and getting I got a two-year degree and then I dropped out, go back and forth.

And I finally got sober and have been sober since. And this was back in 1987. So I was out in Minnesota, and I wanted to finish my bachelor’s degree. That was the most important thing to me. And I was always a very good student. So I did finish it in Minnesota and a friend of mine, then I thought, now what do I do? I’ve been waiting tables, or acting as you know, a receptionist like, what do I do with this degree? My friend said you got to go to law school. I said that sounds like a great idea. So I applied to law school, and I went to law school.

And at my law school in Minnesota, they had a sister program with St. Thomas University to get your MBA kind of along with your law degree, except it was an extra year. And so I went to law school and I went to summer school and night school for my MBA. And then I decided to move back here where I’m from and I was always interested in tax law. I had for some reason just had a knack for numbers.

And I’m sure you’re going to ask me how did you get family law but not for numbers. And I understood taxes and I always did people’s taxes as a favor. And so I went to Georgetown Law for my tax LLM hoping to work first for the IRS and then go on my own or with a private firm, but it didn’t work out that way.

Davina: Wow. So that Yeah, when I was when I was reading about your different degrees, and I thought, Wow, that is dedication and hard work to go to law school and get your MBA at the same time from summer school and night school that I’m sure that you were just working around the clock.

Marjorie: Pretty much. I pretty much was.

Davina: And then your masters in taxation to follow that. I mean, you know, you, as you mentioned, you’re a family law attorney and you hear all of a lot of attorneys in general say, but particularly, you’ll hear a lot of family law attorney say oh, you know, I don’t do math. That’s why I do what I do. You know? And so it’s very interesting that you have this Master’s in taxation, and you’ve chosen to go into family law, so tell us a little more about that.

Marjorie: Family law chose me, I did not choose family law. I didn’t even take it in law school, I had no interest in it whatsoever. When I finally graduated and took the bar exam, and I was barred in December 1995. And I was searching for jobs, and that’s when we had a mini-recession. And I could not, I couldn’t even get my foot in the door. Even with all the education, a little bit of experience. They were hiring people only out of Harvard or Stanford where I come from.

So I just, I have to hang up a shingle and I don’t have money for an office, so I’ll work out of my house. So I got I turned part of my house into an office and started work in the Gazette newspaper that was bigger than any of the other legal ads on purpose because it costs a lot of money. But that’s how I got people in the door. Plus people I’d known and, you know, grown up with and so I was doing general law at the time. But what came to my door was Family Law, DWI, and bankruptcy. Those are the three that I kind of ended up with. I did have a couple of tax cases. But

Davina: Interesting, and you know, that’s so interesting. When you’re talking about, you know, opening an office in your home and everything. That is so common now for lawyers to work virtually. To work out of their home or work out of some other location where clients aren’t visiting or that kind of thing. But at the time you did it, it probably wasn’t quite as common because we didn’t have a lot of the tools to make it easy like we do now. What was that like for you? Did you get a lot of pushback from that from people or judgment from people about opening a law practice out of your house?

Working From Home Before it was Cool

Marjorie: Oh, yeah, I was. And this is, I was judged. Well, you must not be a very good attorney if you’re working from your house. You’re not serious. But I also kind of in the back of my head judge other people I knew who were working from their house. So I was kind of a hypocrite like, Oh, well, they must not be, you know, very good. And if they’re working out of their house, so I don’t blame people for thinking that.

I don’t think the clients felt that way. I did very well actually, working out of my house. It really got me going. I could finally pay all my bills, I could pay. I had renters in my basement, I could get rid of the renters and didn’t need rental income anymore. I was very self-sufficient. And I had to hire someone to help me because I got so busy. So it actually worked out well. I did that for about seven years.

Davina: And then what changed?

Marjorie: So I had met my current partner, Dorothy Fait. And I had heard her name, and just through the grapevine and how she was so good and blah, blah, blah. And my dad had an altercation with his second wife. And he needed a lawyer and I sent him to Dorothy. That’s the name I knew. And I came with him. So I met her but she wouldn’t let me sit in on the initial comp consult. She said attorney-client privilege, you can’t sit here.

And okay, but I’m kind of almost an attorney. So then I had since I finally met her, I saw her again at one of the CLE, continuing legal education program. She’s on the panel. And I approached her and said, You know, I work alone. I’m kind of in a vacuum. I never had a mentor. I don’t know sometimes, you know, answers the questions I have. Would it be alright, if I called you if I needed to ask something? She said absolutely. So I had a case. And it was a very wonky kind of issue that I won’t bore you with.

But I was trying to get it done about six months earlier than it should have been done in the court. And I asked her out to lunch and asked her to read the motions in my strategy. And I think it really impressed her because shortly thereafter, she asked me to join her firm. And she had kept telling me get out of your house, get out of your house, get out of your house. It’s not good. Get out of your house. So I joined the firm kind of as of counsel in 2003.

Davina: Wow. And so now you are It’s a family law firm. Yeah. So now you’re deep into family law. And what do you guys offer other types of services? Or is it strictly family law?

Marjorie: So I also do some wills and estates. And some trusts, and, you know, medical directives, that whole package type of planning. We do domestic violence cases, the prenup, we do postnup. And usually when you get divorced, you should redo your will right away. So that’s the service we offer.

Davina: That’s a natural fit.

Marjorie: Yeah. And other than that, not really, there’s not another area that we go into. If something criminal comes up, we go to a criminal lawyer, because that’s, a criminal lawyer will know more how to deal with the criminal system, or if something civil like suing the business, the family business or something like that. It depends on how complicated it is. We want our clients have better representation, and it’s not always us if it’s not family law.

Davina: What, now you became a managing partner. What was that? How did that come about? Because, you know,

Marjorie: So in 2003, I came here as of council, and we had this deal on my pay structure. And in 2006. There, it was another partner used to be here, they were realizing that this pay structure was really benefiting me and not so much them. Because they had to pay it sometimes even if their client hadn’t paid it if I had worked on the case. Just like you would pay your associate and a salary regardless. The case they worked on and got paid. So they said you need to become a partner. And I kept saying no. I didn’t want the responsibility.

I was like no, this is like really good for me. And they’re like, No, no, you should become a partner and since you have an MBA, you need to run the firm. They weren’t running the firm. They didn’t really know how to run a firm, not that I’m going to say to you that I know how to run a firm, I’m so wonderful at it. But I’m trying, you know, yeah. So I said, Alright. I’m going to be managing partner, I’ll become a partner.

And my assistant at the time, who is my assistant before, said I never saw you work so hard till after you became managing partner, but then it was, you know, everything was my responsibility. So um, and it’s just been that way since. And that’s not to say I make all the decisions because we make them jointly. This, I don’t want to put that. Because sometimes the managing partner makes all decisions. That’s not the case here. I’m just, I have a really, really, really good assistant the last 10 years who helped me a lot with a lot of the managerial parts of the business.

Davina: Yeah, yeah, I want to get into that a little bit more about your role as managing partner, because you know, this is the Solo to CEO Podcast. And we really focus a lot on the journey that people take from being a solo to that transformation that has to, that they have to go through to really run a firm. To be the CEO of their firm, right?

And when you’re managing partner, it’s quite different from, I’m imagining, being if managing partner of this law firm is a lot different from when you were working out of your house, and it was just you right? The thought processes you have to go through and how much you’ve grown as a business person. So tell us about, tell us more about that. Like, what are some of the things that you really recognize that the skills that you needed to be able to do this? And what was that like in the early days when you first started doing this? And how do you think you’ve grown over time?

Marjorie: When I was a solo, I didn’t really manage my business, so to speak, I practiced law. And I paid my assistant, that was pretty much the extent of it. You know, and coming in to manage the firm, we never were a small firm, we’ve never been a large firm. But there was a very, how do I say it? It was a long learning curve for me to really separate managing the business and practicing law as two totally different things.

Because I will get, I have a full caseload just as much as anyone else in the firm. So but somehow I was blending that and that wasn’t good. That wasn’t right to blend managing the firm and practicing law, and I’m not sure I can articulate it clearly. But I finally kind of figured out, okay, this isn’t working like the business has to be totally separate from the practicing law aspects. So pull it out. And one thing is, I am good in math. I am good with numbers. My favorite thing is do a forensic accounting through bank accounts to find money. I’m pretty much a nerd, you know?

Davina: That’s a hobby for you, right?

Tranquility in Bookkeeping

Marjorie: Yeah. Well I mean, not in a but I mean, in any case, it’s just a case. Defined, you know, like, where’d the money go? And it’s particularly fun when there’s 20 different accounts. But I, so with managing the firm, it was like, okay, we need marketing and advertising. But we have to figure out what we need and what the payback is. I also joined the entrepreneurial organization for the chapter of BC, which has helped somewhat. It’s just full of entrepreneurs. Some of it doesn’t apply, because I’m not selling widgets, you know?

Not sales, but some of it does. So it’s been, I also keep the books, I pay the bills, I keep us up on the health insurance. Our 401k I got put in. When I came here they didn’t have any retirement. So I created, well I didn’t create the business, I mean, the law firm that did the 401k helped this create it. We have a 401k. I put together manuals for policies and procedures for the office because there wasn’t any. But it was it’s a lot. It’s just it’s, it’s a lot of administrative work, really, and trying to, you know, where are we so what we’ve done lately is we want to increase our income.

And we decreased our office space, because we had two or three offices that weren’t being used and our landlord let us like, cut them off from us, and it saved us a ton of money per month. And I, myself and my partner been going through each bank statement and saying, okay, where’s all the money going? Where’re the expenses going and trying to create a budget. So it’s a lot more work almost on the side, like, I can’t do a lot of the work while I’m in the office. I do it at home. Because in the office, I’m doing my cases mostly. To take a break I’ll actually do some bookkeeping, which is funny, but that’s calming to me, you know?

Davina: Oh, that’s so interesting because most attorneys I talk to that’s like the bane of their existence is any sort of bookkeeping. And, you know, it’s it’s one of the things I’m always recommending, the first thing they do is get a bookkeeper.

Marjorie: Well, you know, we did someone recommended it. And, you know, the EO organization, and we hired a consultant CFO, and it just did not work out. And they said you have to have a bookkeeper. You have to. We had a bookkeeper that they recommended, and she really messed things up. I had automatic payments on things.

And she closed, it was a mess. I had one vendor 12 grand when they got paid, you know, 11 grand, 1100 a month because you didn’t pay them for so long because it wasn’t on recurring payment, blah, blah, blah. Just that kind of thing. And I was like, Okay, I’m not doing that again. My partner,

Davina: Yeah. I’m sure automation really helps you a lot too. Like you said a lot of the process is

Marjorie: Oh, yeah. I depend upon it greatly. Anything I can put on recurring, it’s on recurring. Anything, I can make automatic I make automatic. Anything. It just makes the load much lighter. And then we just have software that downloads from our bank, so.

Davina: Right. Tell me about your staff. Your team. Because it appears that you, are you an entirely woman run and woman, you know, is it only women in the lawyers in the law firm and staff? It is. I thought that was interesting,

Marjorie: That wasn’t purposeful. It’s not like we’re not hiring men. That was not anytime that was, in fact, I wouldn’t mind having a male in the office.

Davina: So any men listening to this in Maryland,

Marjorie: Right? If you need a job as an associate. It just turned it just, you know, worked out that way. We have had a male, we had a male paralegal for a while but he took another job in Virginia closer to his home. But I have, there’s Dorothy and I and then we have, now we have one associate. We had two. And the other one got married, moved to California, which I thought was rude. I’m just kidding.

Davina: How dare she get married and move?

Marjorie: I know. How dare you move to California and get married? And we have three paralegals, and one of those paralegals is also my assistant. My like, right-hand person for all the office stuff. Like she commandeered this whole move that we did, getting rid of the other offices and some of the construction that happened.

And then we also have a receptionist. So I’m looking for another, and we have an of council associate, who’s also a professor at Hood College, I believe. So I, you know, my opportunity to grow is to have another associate. And then we also own a building a very, you know, one of those row houses in Frederick, Maryland, that we have an office. And I want to get that fully staffed, which means two people, an attorney and an assistant and have it full-time run. Because right now we just use it kind of as a satellite office.

Davina: So you’re definitely growing.

Marjorie: I’m hoping to.

Davina: Yeah, that’s the plan right? That’s, yeah that’s wonderful. So what are some of the, have you had some, you know, you mentioned the bookkeeping and all that. But one of the biggest issues for any, really any small business is when they start firing staff and expanding and everything like that. You know, finding the right people and training people and keeping good people. What are some challenges that you’ve experienced with your staffing and growth? Or have you? I mean, has it all been smooth sailing?

Using Discretion While Hiring

Marjorie: I wouldn’t say it’s been smooth sailing. There’s been some blips along the way, like the male paralegal that was just starting to kind of ramp up to speed and then decided to get another job in Virginia. We go through this is my assistant handles going through the service. How does she do this? Or she goes on, where does she go? I don’t even not even sure where she goes. But she gets some applicants and resumes and goes through them. And then she’ll come to me, and I’ll look through them. But resumes don’t tell you a lot.

They tell you a little bit. And she will interview whoever we’ve chosen to interview first. And then Dorothy and I will interview them if they’re going to come back for a second interview. Now even that turned out, we hired one paralegal that it turned out she didn’t know what a paralegal was when she started working. Then the other paralegals, we had to let her go. But we’ve had my assistant slash paralegal for 10 years.

Second paralegal for I would say, four or five years, and the third one for going on two years. So they’ve been really steady right now. Our receptionist has that position is kind of hard to keep, but we’ve had our receptionist for quite a while, but she’s in the military and goes on active duty every now and then. You know? Okay. So, but it is, it really, you know, like the woman that we hired, and then she was, it was all lies. She didn’t know what she was doing. I mean, she didn’t know anything she was doing.

She just came across well. It’s really hard to tell. We’ve also used agencies. They’re very expensive. We’re a small firm, and they’re not always good either. They sent us the guy that dropped out and moved to Virginia. So it is difficult, difficult to tell. But we also have ways to do background checks now. So we did that. And one male who was looking for a paralegal job, we did a background check and he was a registered sex offender. Not in a family law firm. Sorry.

Davina: Yeah, I have encountered, I had a business once where I encountered that it’s not, it’s shocking. Yeah. So, you know, then I asked you about that because staffing is one of the biggest issues that so many small firms talk about. You know, struggling to find the right people. And so, any, you know, it sounds like you’re to interview, sounds like you have a really good person who does a lot of the screening before they get to you. And then you guys do, so you have a key person there in that assistant and paralegal who’s been with you for 10 years.

Marjorie: Absolutely.

Davina: And then you have a good, you know, two-step sort of interview process plus background checks. And that’s kind of helped you pick the right people. Once you have people, are you doing any sort of, you know, ongoing training with them or leadership stuff or anything like that, or?

Marjorie: As far as ongoing training, I think it’s learning, I believe in law, even in family law, I’m learning things all the time. There’s always something will come up that I don’t know, or I don’t know how to deal with or, so I think there’s training kind of like on the job training. We haven’t done leadership retreats, but we are planning to do one. More of a it’s all connected retreat. I don’t know what you would call it. But team like teamwork,

Davina: Like a team-building kind of thing. Yeah,

Marjorie: Exactly. Exactly. Thank you. Couldn’t think of the word. We’re looking into that right now, actually, to do that. And we also require less hours than most firms. So people normally are working 40 hours, not 50, 60, 70, 80 hours, and they have time off. And they have, they can ask for a personal day. And we believe that they have family and friends when they have a life.

You know? So I’ve seen other attorneys I know from other firms stressed out because they can’t meet their hours. Or if they go to a, even a legal function, they have to go back to work and make up the hours they miss. That I think it’s very attractive in our firm, that we’re, I mean, we’re not making as much money as those firms but we don’t want to kill our people.

Davina: Right, right. And you are. You’re a very busy lady. I mean, you’re involved in a lot of organizations, in addition to managing the firm, doing full caseload. You are a mom? Right?

Marjorie: Yeah. Yes.

Davina: Tell me about your, your child how, you have one child or?

Marjorie: Yeah, she’s 17 years old. Going on 35 as all 17-year-olds are.

Davina: Yeah you’ve gone through the teen years.

Marjorie: Right? She’s a senior in high school. She’s big into volleyball. So there’s lots of volleyball in my routine, which is fine. I love it. I love the other moms. And it’s, you know, it’s calming. And I used to play volleyball. So it’s fun. And we’re doing the college thing, the app right now and the fast. All that fun stuff. Narrowed it down to 11 colleges.

Davina: Oh, wow. Oh, good. So you’re narrowing it down really nice and tight.

Marjorie: I know, right?

Davina: That’s exciting. That’s an exciting time, though. How do you keep up the level of energy that all of that takes to be on the go? Like, I mean, you’re somebody who says it’s relaxing to do bookkeeping, so I don’t know. It’s questionable anyway, what you’re doing. But

Marjorie: I’m weird. Well, I’m tired all the time. I’m just tired all the time. I always feel a little tired. I just came from the gym this morning. And I thought the gym just killed me. I mean, I was limping into work today.

Davina: You work out regularly, though.

Marjorie: Well, I’m trying to start getting back into it. Yeah. And I need to. And I’ve got some physical restrictions because of my shoulders and knees that make it really difficult. But I got it. I don’t want to get worse. So I’ll go early in the morning and my daughter leaves early in the morning. She has her own car. So she’s, you know, I just try to take it just a day at a time. And I try to just take it sometimes a moment at a time. Sometimes we’ll just get up from my desk and walk around, or go outside, or just take a breath.

Sometimes I don’t because I’m in the middle of prepping a trial. And it feels like Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up with getting the work done. I don’t know. I just, you know, like she had a game last night. But it was at 6:30. That was easy to get to. I came, I went right after court. So I usually bring my dinner, because I’m hungry. So I mean, I don’t know, I just I do feel tired all the time. I do. I don’t fall, I don’t bustle around like this bundle of energy, you know?

Davina: Yeah, I know that you run some. You were a runner at one point, right? Did you run some marathons?

Marjorie: I did. I ran two of them. I actually ran three of them. But the first one wasn’t a, it was a 26.2-mile practice run. So for the Marine Corps marathon. That was back in 06 and 07. So my knee now is just a mess. So I can’t run anymore, which is a problem. Which is why now I’ve gone back to try to go to the gym to try to get fit again.

Davina: Right. So you are a very driven and ambitious person. You’re driven to achieve and to accomplish, obviously, from all the things you’ve done. Because there’s a whole lot of stuff to that you’ve done in participating in professional organizations and community organizations and things like that. What is it that you, What drives you to achieve to accomplish?

Marjorie: In one way, I feel like, I’ll never have enough time in my lifetime to do everything I want to do or to get good at things. And to get good at things you need to do them, practice them. Or to be a part of something. And so joining these committees or working on these committees, or being on the section law council for the state of Maryland for Family Law Section. To work with people and team builds for myself, just for myself.

Not for them necessarily just to be a part of something. And I don’t mean, I can’t say I don’t like sitting around and watching TV. I like that too. You know I like people. I like to be around people to a certain extent. I also like my alone time, but what drives me to achieve, I’m not. I’m satisfied where I’m at, but I can do more. And so I’m gonna try to do more.

Davina: It doesn’t sound like you are, that you really think of yourself as a high achiever or somebody who’s always but, you know, yeah, when we’re sitting here looking at all that you’ve accomplished, and, you know, all the crazy have in the marathon running and the participation in professional organizations in the community. And being a managing partner and being of having a full caseload as an attorney and having a teenager, you know? So to other people. You know, that’s high. That’s a lot of achievement.

Marjorie: Thank you, my partner and I also read a book. It’sn on Amazon. Divorce in Maryland. Of course, it’s Divorce in Maryland.

Davina: That’s wonderful.

Marjorie: Yeah. That was fun.

Davina: Yeah. How was that working on, that, how was it writing it together? I would imagine like, I’m a writer. So I don’t know how I would do writing as a team, you know?

Marjorie: Well, we did. Well, the publisher wanted it a certain way, because they have a book divorce and every state. So Divorce in Nebraska Divorce in, you know, South Carolina, Divorce in Maryland. They have their own sort of protocol and setup. And then you write about what it is and Maryland, and it’s kind of based on the FAQ basis. So we just split it up. Like she said, the last half or I took the last half.

And she took the first part, whatever the question, you know, whatever. Not so much the questions because we could write those as well, but just the topic. So we just split up the topics. And then we reviewed each other’s to make it so that they were a similar writing style because we have a little bit of a different writing style. So and now it needs to be updated because the laws have changed. We’re not sure how to do that. But it was fun. It was, yeah that felt good.

Davina: Yeah. What do you think the key to, we’re almost out of time here, we’re gonna wrap up in a minute. But before we do, I want to maybe share with some of the, you know, the audience listening to this podcast you were on, the solo to CEO journey, and maybe a little behind you on the journey. I’d love it if you’d share some, you know, maybe lessons you’ve learned along the way. Or, you know, something that you think may have been the key to the success of your firm so far. Things like that. What do you, what comes to mind?

Do What You Love and Delegate the Rest

Marjorie: First is to delegate. Absolutely delegate work and give it to someone else. Free up your time. Go to the expert if you don’t know something. Like you had said before, lawyers don’t like to do bookkeeping. So they hire a bookkeeper, I just happen to like it. And to absolutely network. And network sometimes isn’t only with other people in your line of business. It can be like, with other people in other businesses that are indirectly related, or not related. Like entrepreneurial organizations which is all types of businesses. Just to learn from other people, and don’t be afraid to join committees and clubs.

Because if you think, you know, I always felt like I don’t belong. And I was like, Well I’m going anyway. Because they can tell me I don’t belong, and I’ll be like, I belong. So if that makes any sense. It’s just self-doubt. And you have to talk yourself out of that self-doubt because everyone’s got it. But I would say definitely, and have compassion. That’s how I feel our firm is. Very compassionate for the clients and our employees. And delegating is that I mean, I can’t tell you what a great thing that is.

Because I think a lot of CEOs, or what have you, are just kind of like if you want to get it done right, do it yourself. And there’s something to that, but I can’t do everything. So having that, and having my paralegal and having people help me that I can do other things. And you know, I went to a marketing expert. We hired a marketing expert. And we went to, you know, who helped us with our website. I can’t create a website. I wouldn’t know what to do. Right? You really just employ the people that are smarter than you in that issue or that way.

Davina: Right. Right. Great advice. Great advice. Well, I really appreciate you being here. And I enjoyed so much our conversation. So tell us how we can find you on the interwebs. You mentioned a website. Where else can we find you? Give us a web address and tell us where else we could find you.

Marjorie: The web address is F as in Frank or Fate, D as in DiLima, family law dot com.

Davina: Great, great. And do you do very much social media are you on?

Marjorie: Yeah. See, now here’s where I don’t know very well, very much about social media. I mean, I’m on it kind of, but I pay other people to do it. So I know we’re on Facebook. And I know we’re on LinkedIn, and I know we’re on I think we’re on Instagram, but I’m not positive. And I know I sound silly that I don’t know.

But I’ve got someone else handling that. I mean, for example, I have someone that I went to law school with writing my blogs and my newsletters, because I have no time to do that. You know, I just don’t have time. And I don’t have an interest to do it actually. So. And she’s excellent. So and she got an award for it in the blogging industry for writing our blogs. It’s crazy. So I had to like check with her. Like, where are we again? I can’t keep up with everything all the time.

Davina: I love, I’m so sorry to interrupt I love that you have, that you talk about really the thing, knowing really clearly what you like and what you don’t like. I mean, you know, it’s not just a matter of outsourcing things and outsourcing everything. I mean, like with you, you like the bookkeeping, so you keep that, but you outsource the things that you don’t like. And you know yourself well enough to say, Yeah, I could probably do it. But why?

Marjorie: And I don’t have time, like, it’s not something I would want to try to make time for is a better way to say it. Because, I don’t, you know, I like to write, I would love to write a fiction novel, or somebody said I should write an autobiography, but I don’t think it would sell. I just yeah, I outsource everything I can that I don’t want to do. Gives me time, I rather do what I want to do in this business, and enjoy what I can because family law is very difficult. Very hard. It’s very emotional, very stressful. It’s very frustrating. So I need to have something that I like, something to look forward to. Make it worth it to me.

Davina: I do appreciate though, what you’re saying. I think that absolutely makes a lot of sense. Um, so I do thank you for being here. And thank you for having shared so much great insight into what it’s like to go from solo to managing partner and you share a lot of great advice for our listeners. So I really appreciate it. And of course, I’ve enjoyed listening to your story and having this conversation. So thanks again.

Marjorie: Thank you.

Marjorie DiLima | Overcoming to Overachieving to Overseeing