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Power Up Your Practice

Power Up Your Practice

By: Ruby Powers
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Welcome to Power Up Your Practice, the go-to law practice management podcast for law firm owners and managing attorneys working on the business, not in it. Hosted by Ruby Powers, your guide into the heart of law practice management. Each week, learn insights from leading legal minds, trailblazing attorneys, and expert guests who provide you with actionable advice, out-of-the-box solutions, and a fresh perspective on running your firm more effectively and efficiently. Prepare to open your mind, be inspired, and power up your practice to the next level.Ruby Powers Economics Leadership Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Ep. 135: Build Your Own Legal Tech: No-Code, AI Research & What's Next with Chris Hammond

    Ep. 135: Build Your Own Legal Tech: No-Code, AI Research & What's Next with Chris Hammond
    6 Oct 2026
    In this episode, Ruby Powers sits down with Chris Hammond — immigration attorney, founder of Chris Hammond Law Firm, and creator of Passim AI — for one of the most exciting origin stories in legal tech right now. Chris didn't set out to build a company. He set out to make his own immigration practice better. In November 2025, he downloaded Claude Code, built a database of Texas native plants for his garden, and realized he could do the same thing for immigration law. Nine months later, he's a legal tech founder being recognized as an innovator by the American Law Institute, running a product used by immigration attorneys across the country, and still practicing law. What we explore: ✅ The No-Code Revolution for Attorneys: Why the barrier to building your own legal tech has essentially disappeared — and why domain experts, not software engineers, are now the ones building the most useful tools. If you can describe what you want in plain English, you can build it. ✅ How Passim AI Works: A legal research tool that plugs directly into your Claude or ChatGPT subscription and gives your AI access to a comprehensive database of immigration law — BIA precedent decisions, statutes, regulations, USCIS policy manuals, unpublished BIA and AAO decisions, and more. At $29/month versus $400/month for Westlaw or LexisNexis. ✅ The Research Math: A brief that used to take two to three weeks of associate time and billing can now be researched overnight, with a memo waiting for you when you wake up — with clickable links to the original sources. Everyone wins. ✅ Why Build for the AI Agent, Not the Human: The key insight that separated Passim from other tools — designing the database and the tooling to be searched efficiently by an AI agent, not a human with a search bar. ✅ Start With Your Hobby: Chris's advice for attorneys who want to get into these tools but feel intimidated — start with something low-stakes and personal. Build something for a hobby. Let the machine teach you how to use it. Then bring it into your practice. ✅ Where the Profession Is Heading: Why AI native law firms are already here, why solo and small firm practice is about to get a major upgrade, and why the attorneys who use these tools to provide better service — not just cheaper service — will be the ones who thrive. 📌 Connect with Chris Hammond: Website: passimai.com Note: Search for "BIA Edge" in ChatGPT or Claude connectors until the Passim AI rebrand is complete. 📣 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: 🚀 Law Firm Retreat: Power Up Your Practice Into Reality – January 2027 in Austin, TX. More details coming soon — stay tuned! 📊 We Love Your Feedback! Help us design the next year of the podcast. Take this 2-minute audience survey: https://forms.gle/EgMgxd3tbXCsmqgp9 📌 Join the conversation in our Power Up Your Practice community! Hosted by Ruby Powers, your guide into the heart of law practice management. Each week, learn insights from leading legal minds, trailblazing attorneys, and expert guests who provide you with actionable advice, out-of-the-box solutions, and a fresh perspective on running your firm more effectively and efficiently. Prepare to open your mind, be inspired, and power up your practice to the next level. Watch more episodes of Power Up Your Practice on: 🌐 Website: powersstrategygroup.com 📺 YouTube: @powersstrategygroup 💬 Join our Skool Community - Power Hub: https://www.skool.com/powerupyourpractice Connect and learn more from your host, Ruby Powers: 🔹 LinkedIn: /rubypowers 🔹 Facebook: /poweruppractice 🔹 Website: rubypowers.com 🔹 Ruby's Book: Power Up Your Practice on Amazon Trusted Resources from Our Toolkit: Stafi https://calendly.com/d/csbk-3y4-35w/staffing-strategy-session-stafi-ruby-powers?month=2025-07Filevine https://www.filevine.com/partner/powers-referral/CandleAI https://www.trycandle.ai/powersVonage https://share.vonage.com/zones/friend_landing_experience_microsite?extole_share_channel=%5C%22SHARE_LINK%5C%22&extole_shareable_code=wzq4f&referral_id=wzq4f&source=%5C%22direct%5C%22&utm_source=Power+Up+Your+Practice+by+Power+Strategy+Group&utm_campaign=a7c6feafe9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_13_07_58_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b4d3388ea-a7c6feafe9-746189731
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    42 min
  • Ep. 134: Buying a Firm, PE Trends & Vaccine Injury Practice with Jon Groth

    Ep. 134: Buying a Firm, PE Trends & Vaccine Injury Practice with Jon Groth
    29 Sep 2026

    In this episode, Ruby Powers sits down with Jon Groth — founder and managing partner of Groth Law Firm in Milwaukee, trial lawyer, and host of the Groth Law Firm podcast — for a wide-ranging conversation about where the personal injury space is heading and what firm owners need to be doing right now to stay ahead of it.

    Jon started his firm in 2010 in his basement with his dog running overhead. Today he runs an eight-attorney practice that grew through smart hiring, strategic acquisition, and a relentless focus on running the firm like a business. He's been to the conferences, read the books, done the deal — and he's here to share what he actually learned.

    What we explore:

    ✅ Private Equity Is Already Here: It's not coming — it's already buying family law firms, personal injury practices, and everything in between. Jon breaks down what he learned at the Vista consulting conference in Baltimore, who's getting approached first, and what the timeline looks like for small and mid-sized firms.

    ✅ How to Prepare Regardless: Whether you ever want to sell or not, the playbook is the same — run your firm like a business, understand your numbers, know your EBITDA, separate the law from the back office, and build systems that don't depend on you. The firms that have done that work will have options. The ones that haven't won't.

    ✅ How to Win Against PE-Backed Competitors: More advertising spend, more cases, more scale — but less personal service. Jon's answer is unreasonable hospitality, white glove client service, and becoming the hometown hero that a Morgan & Morgan never can be.

    ✅ Buying a Law Firm: How Jon acquired a Milwaukee practice through a firm broker, what the due diligence actually looked like, how they valued cases before any money changed hands, and the one surprise that came after closing — and why it wasn't the firm's fault.

    ✅ Vaccine Injury Practice: The practice area most lawyers — and most doctors — have never heard of. How the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program works, what on-table and off-table injuries mean, why billions of dollars sit in a fund waiting to pay valid claims that never get filed, and where COVID vaccine injuries currently stand.

    If you're a PI firm owner trying to understand what's coming, thinking about buying a practice, or just curious about a niche that almost nobody knows exists — this episode covers all three.

    📌 Connect with Jon Groth:
    Website: grothlawfirm.com
    Podcast: Groth Law Firm Podcast

    📣 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:

    🚀 Law Firm Retreat: Power Up Your Practice Into Reality – January 2027 in Austin, TX. More details coming soon — stay tuned!

    📊 We Love Your Feedback! Help us design the next year of the podcast. Take this 2-minute audience survey: https://forms.gle/EgMgxd3tbXCsmqgp9

    📌 Join the conversation in our Power Up Your Practice community!

    Hosted by Ruby Powers, your guide into the heart of law practice management. Each week, learn insights from leading legal minds, trailblazing attorneys, and expert guests who provide you with actionable advice, out-of-the-box solutions, and a fresh perspective on running your firm more effectively and efficiently. Prepare to open your mind, be inspired, and power up your practice to the next level.

    Watch more episodes of Power Up Your Practice on:
    🌐 Website: powersstrategygroup.com
    📺 YouTube: @powersstrategygroup
    💬 Join our Skool Community - Power Hub: https://www.skool.com/powerupyourpractice

    Connect and learn more from your host, Ruby Powers:
    🔹 LinkedIn: /rubypowers
    🔹 Facebook: /poweruppractice
    🔹 Website: rubypowers.com
    🔹 Ruby's Book: Power Up Your Practice on Amazon

    Trusted Resources from Our Toolkit:
    • Stafi https://calendly.com/d/csbk-3y4-35w/staffing-strategy-session-stafi-ruby-powers?month=2025-07
    • Filevine https://www.filevine.com/partner/powers-referral/
    • CandleAI https://www.trycandle.ai/powers
    • Vonage https://share.vonage.com/zones/friend_landing_experience_microsite?extole_share_channel=%5C%22SHARE_LINK%5C%22&extole_shareable_code=wzq4f&referral_id=wzq4f&source=%5C%22direct%5C%22&utm_source=Power+Up+Your+Practice+by+Power+Strategy+Group&utm_campaign=a7c6feafe9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_13_07_58_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b4d3388ea-a7c6feafe9-746189731
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    47 min
  • Ep. 133: Vicarious Trauma & Resilience: What Every Lawyer Needs to Know with Jenny Hughes

    Ep. 133: Vicarious Trauma & Resilience: What Every Lawyer Needs to Know with Jenny Hughes
    22 Sep 2026
    In this episode, Ruby Powers sits down with Jenny Hughes, PhD — trauma psychologist, founder of the Brave Trauma Therapist Collective, and creator of the Brave Method of Vicarious Trauma and Resilience — for a conversation that most lawyers have never had but desperately need. Jenny started her career in child trauma and infant mental health, then became the trauma psychologist at a Level 1 trauma center in New Orleans — where she went from zero-to-five-year-olds to gunshot survivors overnight. That experience is where she first encountered vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and burnout up close, and where she realized nobody was helping the helpers. She's spent her career since then building the tools and the language that helping professionals — including lawyers — need to keep doing their work without losing themselves in it. What we explore: ✅ The Definitions You Never Got in Law School: The difference between vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and burnout — what each one is, how they're different, and why you're likely experiencing at least one of them right now. ✅ You Cannot Avoid Vicarious Trauma: It happens through the same empathic engagement that makes you good at your job. The goal is not to avoid it — it's to normalize it so you can actually work with it. ✅ Vicarious Resilience: The counterbalance most people have never heard of. The same pathways that absorb trauma also give you access to the transformation your clients experience — and learning to notice and install that is one of the most powerful tools a lawyer can have. ✅ The Soft Transitions Exercise: A two-to-three-minute practice Jenny developed that can be integrated into any existing team meeting — no new meetings required. Ruby walks through it live on the episode, and it's worth pausing just to try it yourself. ✅ Community as the Most Protective Factor: The very first thing Ruby named when Jenny turned the interview around on her — and the research backs it up. Why peer groups, consultation calls, and even happy hours with colleagues who understand the work make a measurable difference. ✅ What Law Firm Leaders Can Do Right Now: Why the change has to be top-down, how to create space for lawyers and staff to talk about the weight of the work without shame, and why this is a retention and turnover issue as much as it is a wellness issue. If you've ever walked out of a client meeting carrying something you couldn't put down, wondered if something was wrong with you, or just needed someone to name what you've been feeling — this episode is for you. 📌 Connect with Jenny Hughes: Website: braveproviders.com Free resource: Soft Transitions Exercise — braveproviders.com Podcast: Vicarious Trauma and Resilience Podcast 📣 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: 🚀 Law Firm Retreat: Power Up Your Practice Into Reality – January 2027 in Austin, TX. More details coming soon — stay tuned! 📊 We Love Your Feedback! Help us design the next year of the podcast. Take this 2-minute audience survey: https://forms.gle/EgMgxd3tbXCsmqgp9 📌 Join the conversation in our Power Up Your Practice community! Hosted by Ruby Powers, your guide into the heart of law practice management. Each week, learn insights from leading legal minds, trailblazing attorneys, and expert guests who provide you with actionable advice, out-of-the-box solutions, and a fresh perspective on running your firm more effectively and efficiently. Prepare to open your mind, be inspired, and power up your practice to the next level. Watch more episodes of Power Up Your Practice on: 🌐 Website: powersstrategygroup.com 📺 YouTube: @powersstrategygroup 💬 Join our Skool Community - Power Hub: https://www.skool.com/powerupyourpractice Connect and learn more from your host, Ruby Powers: 🔹 LinkedIn: /rubypowers 🔹 Facebook: /poweruppractice 🔹 Website: rubypowers.com 🔹 Ruby's Book: Power Up Your Practice on Amazon Trusted Resources from Our Toolkit: Stafi https://calendly.com/d/csbk-3y4-35w/staffing-strategy-session-stafi-ruby-powers?month=2025-07Filevine https://www.filevine.com/partner/powers-referral/CandleAI https://www.trycandle.ai/powersVonage https://share.vonage.com/zones/friend_landing_experience_microsite?extole_share_channel=%5C%22SHARE_LINK%5C%22&extole_shareable_code=wzq4f&referral_id=wzq4f&source=%5C%22direct%5C%22&utm_source=Power+Up+Your+Practice+by+Power+Strategy+Group&utm_campaign=a7c6feafe9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_13_07_58_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3b4d3388ea-a7c6feafe9-746189731
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    48 min
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