SPEAKER_00: 0:00

When I was in the army, I read a lot of books on entrepreneurships and how people kind of created businesses. And I always thought that was interesting. And there's never like a perfect time to start. It's going to be a little bit scary. And after eight years, it's gotten much more stable. But you have to sort of have that faith in yourself and bet on yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 0:21

John, you've built a career across several very

different worlds: 0:25

an army jag, big four, international tax, boutique tax controversy, and then launching your own firm. When you look back, what did each chapter teach you that you couldn't have learned with a different route?

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

It all starts back in law school. There was a lot of really smart people at Widener Law School, and not too many of them wanted to get into taxation. So I liked that experience. My second summer, I worked at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Arlington, Virginia, there and got to go running at lunchtime with a bunch of retired Army judge advocates. So I kind of thought, well, I want to do tax, but maybe try the Army. And while in the Army, I got the opportunity to run a Vita volunteer income tax assistance location in in Wiesbaden, Germany, where I would station. So me and a team of people helped prepare literally a few thousand tax returns in a couple of weeks. From there, I applied to Georgetown and was able to use the GI Bill. Georgetown was a great place for me to sort of connect with similarly minded people, just like at Widener. There's a lot of really smart people that were all going to do the more traditional tax pads. And I kind of thought, you know, we'll see where this takes me. And then I got to get to KPMG and did the international corporate tax, which was fabulous. Got to see how world-class business gets done. And then I pivoted over to smaller firms. You know, I was in a smaller firm in Rockville, another one in Annapolis. At that point, I decided to start start my own firm. It's now been about eight years.

SPEAKER_01: 1:59

John, when you look back, does it all feel like it was connected and intentional through line? Or is that only in hindsight?

SPEAKER_00: 2:07

So I thought after getting out of the army, I would just work for the IRS, USA jobs, leave that what it was back then, was just a bit of a cumbersome and slow process, ended up sort of finding another job somewhere else, and then just kind of just moved on on the private side. So that was sort of one big thing there. And then DPMG, I thought I'd be here forever. It's sort of a dream job to work for a large organization. KPMG was wonderful, but I felt that was sort of a smaller piece of a much larger hole there. Then I was in smaller firms and I thought I'd just stay there. But then eventually I got to the point where I was able to bring in some cases of my own. And I thought, well, maybe I could try to do this on my own. And I always really liked the smaller firms that I could take a case from the beginning to the end and really make a difference. For you listeners, if one can bring in work and keep clients happy, one could start their own firm. But that's not for everybody. It's kind of a a 24-7 lifestyle of bringing in work and doing the work, but it's very rewarding.

SPEAKER_01: 3:04

How did your entrepreneurship change when you decided to hang out of shingle and start your own law firm?

SPEAKER_00: 3:11

At at prior firms, there I'd kind of get to see different styles of the way people work and do things like that. It was very humble beginnings. I'm originally from grew up in Rockville, Maryland. So I just got a regis office out there in Rockville and uh only had about five clients. And, you know, it was very humble, but uh from those clients I knew I could could grow it and I would sort of spend as much time as I could trying to get in front of organizations, try to write little articles, things like that to get the name out there. I was very involved in the Montgomery County Bar Association tax section, which was a chance to sort of get out there and meet people. And then just I got involved with the American Bar Association, the Federal Bar Association. And I would say those groups back then before COVID and the DC Bar as well, a great chance to meet people. And those were um some relationships that still have the day. And uh it's great to be able to refer bigger type of cases to other people and be able to accept cases that are in my wheelhouse that are usually smaller, that bigger firms, um, economics don't work for them.

SPEAKER_01: 4:09

Yeah. You mentioned you grew up in Rockville. Did you always know growing up that the route you wanted was law school and Jag Corps and then tax law?

SPEAKER_00: 4:20

Both my dad and my grandfather uh went to law school, but for different reasons, they didn't graduate. Grandfather, it was the Great Depression, and my dad, it was sort of the Vietnam War there, and he pivoted to do uh a PhD at the University of Southern California and then spent his career on Capitol Hill. And I just kind of thought, well, I should think about this. So I was at American University in my junior year doing a semester in DC studying economic policy and worked at a large law firm. And I thought I could do this. When I was in the army, I read a lot of books on entrepreneurships and how to win friends and influence people and how people kind of created businesses. And I always thought that was interesting. And there's never like a perfect time to start. It's gonna be a little bit scary. And after eight years, it's gotten much more stable, but you have to sort of have that faith in yourself and bet on yourself. There's the big firms that don't want to handle the small stuff, and there's the clinics, and there's this little middle market there. And if you can mine the retainers, mind the clients who are sometimes, you know, nervous or scared about what's going to happen. And then also just mind the economics. You can definitely help people solve the problem that I'm always trying to think of in my head is number one, you know, can we fix the problem? Is the cost benefit worth it? And third, you know, can the client pay for it? And if all those three things work out there, that's kind of the classic wheel wheelhouse case for me.

SPEAKER_01: 5:38

It's such valuable advice too for our listeners, our younger listeners, especially, about you're never going to feel 1,000% ready to take on such a major business risk as starting your own law firm, but you had faith in yourself. Can you talk a little bit more about that process?

SPEAKER_00: 5:57

Yeah, just thinking back on it, just you know, what does one want to do? And I think just when I left Georgetown, there was a whole bunch of smart people, and every year there's less people practicing, I would call it straight only tax law. Some people branched out to trust in estates or contracts or real estate with a little bit of tax. So they're able to use that tax experience, but it's just it's it's harder and harder. So I just kind of thought, you know, if if I could just sort of add on myself and just do it. Other people have done it before, and it just takes sort of a certain attitude. And in the last couple of years, we're able to sort of scale up a little bit and delegate because at first it's can be really challenging to bring in the work, uh to do the work, issue the bills, and most importantly, collect on those bills and do it uh with more than just a handful of clients.

SPEAKER_01: 6:45

Right. And those are not skills that they necessarily teach you about in in law school either. The business side of the practice of law. So for listeners who might be considering starting their own firm in whatever practice area, because there are parallels regardless of the practice area.

SPEAKER_00: 7:01

Yeah, I think just bringing in the work is is is challenging. It's just a matter of just getting out there and letting people know what I do and that I could be a resource here. And while I tell everybody it's confidential and don't tell anybody what advice I've given you, the human side is people do kind of kind of talk out there. So for me, it's sort of just building trust and reputation and ultimately competence. And over a period of time in this modern world, there's things like Google reviews or people just sort of asking their friends and family who they think, and eventually it kind of just percolates to other people, and then sometimes it points to me, you know. So the other thing would be just in this modern world as well, is just one's online reputation. Going back to sort of you know the Bible, you want to try to do good to everybody, you know, the golden rule, but it uh to kind of scale, you kind of have to let people on the internet know that because the internet is where a lot of people find their professionals these days. So trying to sort of have a voice and a message and a way of just sort of reaching people without it being too technical. I think my first website, I probably wrote it, they said, more for a tax attorney versus writing it for someone who's just only got about five minutes of their stress for looking at four different law firms and just trying to just figure out who's the best fit.

SPEAKER_01: 8:12

To them, it's the most important thing perhaps that is going on in their life and that maybe has potentially ever gone on in their life as far as their uh their finances and they're entrusting you with that major responsibility. And it's a testament to you that the word of mouth strategy has worked out so well. Um, and having that dual strategy too of your online presence, because if people don't know who you are, they can't hire you. You have to give them a reason to know who you are. John, switching gears, what did the military teach you about decision making under pressure? Uh and where does that still show up when you're handling those high pressure, sensitive tax matters?

SPEAKER_00: 8:56

The army, it's uh it's a different onboarding process than I would say a law firm in terms of its, you know, it's it's basic training. You know, for the Army, it's it was an officer basic course in in in Charleston, Virginia, adjacent to the UVA law camp. And so it's probably a little bit lighter than the the infantry folks or other people in other branches of the military, but it was it was it was pretty intense. It was a good group of people and the JAG school in in Charlestville there was a great chance to sort of just learn a lot because the military, almost like tax law, has massive amounts of rules and regulations combined with the culture and a way of doing things that was all very new to me. And it took several years of experience to kind of figure that out, and then ultimately sort of the point that I had to crit Iraq with First Armor Division, kind of it all started to make sense why they're so particular about all this training, because you can plug and play all these units and put them in a war zone, and they all can pretty seamlessly communicate and operate despite never meeting these other units before. And and when I was in Iraq, I did sort of the Foreign Claims Act. So in today, you know, there's stuff happening in Iran and people are getting injured and things are getting blown up there. So that was my responsibility in Iraq there. And it was it was a challenge. I think part of it in terms of the the small firm and solo firm is you kind of have to have a lot of empathy, but at the same time, you kind of have to push back sometimes with boundaries and sort of say, well, you want this issue to be solved. I'm just a claims officer. I can't stop the bad things from happening, but I can help you with this small piece. And then from my small piece that went up the chain to some staff judge advocate who went to the commanding general. And I kind of got to see how everybody did their things and how it all worked. Uh so got to see a lot of different leadership styles from the classic movie level military people to very calm people, very cerebral people to people that you know you sometimes learn from bosses how you maybe don't want to be, but it was all a good experience. It's hard to go solo or small firm right out of school. So going to a large organization will be a chance to kind of just learn the substance of what you want to do. So for me, I didn't necessarily learn a whole lot of tax beyond just tax preparation before Georgetown. It did teach me a lot about leadership and what I sort of wanted, and it sort of confirmed that I wanted to pivot a little bit and go into tax. There's probably only one or two of us in the entire Jag Corps, I would say, which is about 1600 active duty people, another 1600 reserves and National Guard that went into tax. Uh this this example that I am uh may be very limited, but for other people, you could go to the Department of Justice or IRS, other places where it's big organizations. So you don't have all that pressure of trying to get that legal answer right. And then eventually you kind of figure out a wheelhouse where you can figure it out or become competent during the representation.

SPEAKER_01: 11:50

What's the leadership style that resonated the most with you? Is there any particular person or experience you saw that you were like, this is this is right for me as well? And then you you embody that now?

SPEAKER_00: 12:01

Yeah, I mean, I felt that there was a couple of 06 colonels in the Army Jag Corps that were that were pretty amazing and and they were able to sort of just keep their calm, you know, despite all this stuff and realize that, you know, the sun is going to come up tomorrow and not get so amped up on whatever the issue of the day is and try to just take it in stride. And they're also just really smart people. But I think a lot of the best leaders just had the ability to sort of connect it and read the room in terms of how you need to react and not be the same for everybody. So for me, I try to just see where it hurts with people and just try to figure out whether I can fix it or not fix it. And a decent amount of times I'm on the phone with people, it's just this is a small matter, and you do these four or five things, and this should resolve it, and we just move on. And then sometimes it calls you back a week later and it didn't work, and they need they need to hire someone. I'm like, well, okay, well, now at least you know one spouse thinks this is not gonna be a problem, it'll just go away, and the other spouse can't sleep at night, and then trying to sort of say to both of them, I hear you, but this is my experience. And I think for me with tax, it's just having I've done hundreds or maybe even a thousand cases, sort of in terms of the resolution, to be able to sort of say, definitively, I've handled a lot of case in this area, and this is probably where it's gonna go within some bandwidth there, it changes. And I and for me, it's a matter of just trying to build build trust in the first couple of minutes with someone because you only get sort of one shot to make that first impression with clients and with other other people as well.