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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. 123: Ditch the To-Do List: The Calendar System That Changed Everything with Bryn Poland

    Ep. 123: Ditch the To-Do List: The Calendar System That Changed Everything with Bryn Poland
    Jul 14 2026
    In this episode, Ruby Powers sits down with Bryn Poland, partner at Mayo & Poland and elder law attorney based in Houston, for a conversation about one of the most universal struggles in legal practice: managing time without losing your mind. Bryn didn't come to calendar-based productivity through a course or a productivity guru. She came to it through burnout — a growing personal admin load, a to-do list that kept rolling over, and the realization that her wish list for the day had nothing to do with the actual hours she had available. What she built instead is a fully calendar-driven system with no to-do list at all. And she's been running it for a decade. What we explore: ✅ Why the To-Do List Is a Wish List: The fundamental problem with task lists is that they grow without limit while the hours in your day don't. Why that mismatch is the root cause of most lawyer burnout. ✅ The Rollover Effect: How the scary, hard tasks keep getting pushed to tomorrow — and how that quiet procrastination compounds into deadline panic, stress, and lost productivity. ✅ Extreme Calendaring in Practice: What it actually looks like to put everything on your calendar — including the shower, the school run, the oil change, and the scary brief — and why that specificity is the whole point. ✅ The 15th of the Month Rule: How Bryn blocks one day every month for protected personal time, doctor's appointments, and margin — and why that one habit has given her back weeks of breathing room every year. ✅ Backward Planning for Big Projects: How to take a terrifying two-month deadline and break it into calendar blocks that make the whole thing feel manageable before you even start. ✅ The Micro Feminism of a Visible Calendar: Why Bryn doesn't mark her kids' activities as private on her work calendar — and what that choice signals to her team about what a full, sustainable legal career actually looks like. If your to-do list is longer than your day and you're tired of carrying it around — this episode is your starting point. 📣 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: 🚀 Law Firm Retreat: Design Your Future – August 2026: Stop the daily grind and start architecting your next era. Join Ruby in Denver for an intimate, 15-firm-only strategic laboratory. 👉 Secure your spot: https://powersstrategygroup.com/law-firm-retreat-august-2026/ 📊 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 mins
  • Ep. 122: AI Native Law Firms: Billing, Client Experience & the Future of Family Law with Anna Naidis & Igor Sheremet

    Ep. 122: AI Native Law Firms: Billing, Client Experience & the Future of Family Law with Anna Naidis & Igor Sheremet
    Jul 7 2026
    In this episode, Ruby Powers sits down with Anna Naidis and Igor Sheremet, co-founders of Aparti.ai, for a conversation about one of the most emotionally complex and operationally fragmented corners of the legal profession: family law. Anna and Igor didn't build Aparti from a whiteboard exercise. Members of their founding team went through the divorce process themselves and experienced firsthand what it looks like when a client is already emotionally drained, barely had the courage to make the first call, and then gets handed a PDF intake form and a monthly invoice they don't understand. That experience became the blueprint for what they're building: an operational layer that connects intake to invoice to payment, reduces the communication burden on attorneys, and gives clients the transparency they need to actually trust the process. What we explore: ✅ Why Family Law Is the Biggest Opportunity in Legal Tech Right Now: High case volume, emotionally intense clients, constant operational activity, and tools that are still fragmented across multiple platforms — the gap is real and it's large. ✅ The Billing Collection Gap Nobody Talks About: The industry average collection rate is 90%. For family law firms, it's 60 to 80%. That means up to 40% of billed work goes uncollected — and most firm owners don't realize how bad it actually is until someone asks the right questions. ✅ What Aparti.ai Actually Does: A client-facing dashboard that shows case progress, upcoming events, invoices, and billing history in real time — so clients aren't calling the office in a panic at midnight because they got a surprise bill. Plus AI-powered communication tools, trust account replenishment tracking, and workflow automation from intake to payment. ✅ The Operational Bottlenecks Attorneys Overlook: Communication gaps, stalled trust account replenishments, and the hidden cost of having attorneys spend hours each month chasing invoices instead of practicing law. ✅ What an AI Native Law Firm Actually Is: Built from the ground up with AI as its core — not legacy systems with AI bolted on. What that stack looks like today, what tools every growing firm should be considering, and why the firms that figure this out now will be positioned very differently in five years. ✅ Where the Profession Is Heading: Flat fees vs. billable hours, AI handling first-pass work, clients who expect their lawyer to use AI, and a future where access to justice actually improves because firms can serve more people more efficiently. If you run a family law firm — or any emotionally intensive practice — and you're still managing operations through fragmented tools and manual follow-up, this episode is worth your time. 📣 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: 🚀 Law Firm Retreat: Design Your Future – August 2026: Stop the daily grind and start architecting your next era. Join Ruby in Denver for an intimate, 15-firm-only strategic laboratory. 👉 Secure your spot: https://powersstrategygroup.com/law-firm-retreat-august-2026/ 📊 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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    49 mins
  • Ep. 121: Niche Down, Buy Up: Building a Law Firm That Lasts with Tim Semelroth

    Ep. 121: Niche Down, Buy Up: Building a Law Firm That Lasts with Tim Semelroth
    Jun 30 2026
    In this episode, Ruby Powers sits down with Tim Semelroth — Iowa's only board-certified truck accident lawyer, partner at RSH Legal, and adjunct professor at the University of Iowa College of Law — for one of the most operationally concrete conversations the show has had on building a law firm for the long game. Tim has had the same parking spot for 28 years. In that time, he's watched the firm go from three lawyers to 18 across three cities, bought out two founding partners, acquired three practices, and made the deliberate decision 10 years ago to niche down into truck accident litigation after two decades of general PI work. Every move was strategic — and he's here to walk through exactly how it happened. What we explore: ✅ The Power of Niching: Why Tim waited 20 years before specializing, how he identified what actually excited him about practicing law, and what becoming Iowa's only board-certified truck accident lawyer did for his referrals, his reputation, and his cases. ✅ Board Certification as a Business Decision: What the certification process actually involves, why it signals something different than general expertise, and how it put Tim on the short list for truck accident cases across the entire country. ✅ Buying a Law Firm: What the acquisition process really looks like — from the first conversation to closing — why four to six months is the minimum, and the one question that determines whether a practice is worth buying at all: where do the cases actually come from? ✅ The Cult of Personality Problem: Why some wildly successful firms are impossible to acquire — and what makes a practice replicable versus one that dies when the founder walks out the door. ✅ Staying Top of Mind: Tim's full retention and referral system — monthly print newsletters, twice-monthly emails, birthday cards, holiday cards, and a separate lawyer-specific newsletter — and why 25% of his firm's best cases come from other attorneys. ✅ Teaching What Law School Skips: How Tim ended up developing and teaching a legal entrepreneurship class at the University of Iowa, what the students built for their final project, and why this is one of the most important gaps in legal education right now. If you're thinking about niching down, buying a practice, or just wondering what it takes to build something that outlasts you — this one is worth your time. 📣 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS: 🚀 Law Firm Retreat: Design Your Future – August 2026: Stop the daily grind and start architecting your next era. Join Ruby in Denver for an intimate, 15-firm-only strategic laboratory. 👉 Secure your spot: https://powersstrategygroup.com/law-firm-retreat-august-2026/ 📊 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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    48 mins
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