Get to Know Justin Sisemore, Sisemore Law Firm (Ep. 1)

[00:00:00] Nobody wants to end up in family court. But if you do you want an honest, experienced family law attorney by your side, to help minimize the stress, mental anguish, and legal costs that divorce and custody matters bring. Welcome to in your best interest. Texas divorce attorney and entrepreneur, Justin Sisemore of the Sisemore law firm, entrepreneur, Andrea Jones, freelance writer, Mary Maloney, and guests share insight on what to expect and how to handle family law matters.

The changing landscape of family law and living the entrepreneur’s life. Now onto the show. This podcast is in your best day. In more ways than one. Not only is that the title, but it’s also what your host, Justin Sisemore strives for. I’m Patrice Sikora. And in this inaugural episode, we will learn about Justin from Justin.

So Justin, how are you today? I’m fantastic. Good morning. [00:01:00] Good morning. Now, how did you get into this industry in the first place? Tell me about. Yeah. So family law is always been kind of a unique industry for me personally, uh, both from a personal standpoint of my family background. I grew up in the non traditional home that unfortunately many Americans and many people throughout the world have to go through and suffer through.

Um, and then I developed my career by going to Baylor and getting my entrepreneurship degree and had several other majors as well. And just really found that I loved entrepreneurship, but I also love the courtroom and law. And then I moved into law school and went to nationals and moot court and found that, you know, I could kind of speak to people in a way that at least was slightly persuasive.

And, and I really enjoyed that. And it really led me to kind of follow in the footsteps of my parents a little bit. Uh, In that realm. But then in family law specifically, whenever I, I got into the practice, uh, I started seeing the needs of people. I started learning how I [00:02:00] could integrate business lifestyle, personal choices to really kind of motivate people, uh, going through tough situations and really get myself uh, in a dynamic career that they can move forward and constantly be changing.

So I just. And I’m here to help and serve people, uh, with my passion, you know, when you come right down to it and you’re thinking, I guess the characteristics of someone who is an entrepreneur and someone who is in law are. Absolutely. And especially in family law, you know, I mean, we, when we’re dividing up businesses and property and all kinds of aspects of that nature, you have so many dynamic problems that you have to attack.

So if you don’t understand business and you don’t understand valuation, matrix and accounting and. And various other elements like that. There’s just simply no way that you can tackle the, the larger cases. Uh, and so that, that allows you to quench that appetite if you will. But it also it also is very entrepreneurial business.

I mean, when you’re, when you’re running a law firm, you have to know business and, [00:03:00] and that’s why they’re successful in, you know, non successful businesses because some people know that aspect and some people don’t, and it really takes the good lawyer and the, the good business person to make a truly thriving.

What do you do exactly for your clients? Yeah, so, you know, the start of the consult is really not a chance for a sales pitch or shouldn’t be it’s really a chance to diagnose and figure out whether a they in fact have a problem and be teaming them up with the right staff and myself to solve the problem in an economical manner.

So I, I. I don’t just look at this, like, you know, let’s go and divide up toasters and whatnot. I really do take it from a perspective of how do I better the client. I mean, I have some clients that come in and that are great and are just in a really bad situation. I have some people that come in and need a lot of help.

They’re they’re very challenged, uh, emotionally, spiritually, or whatnot. So I do feel like the energy of this law firm. In and of itself and the people that are here enable that first feeling of I’ve got [00:04:00] somebody and a team that has my back, and then they’re going to help me, not just with the law side of it, but also the personal aspects.

You know, how do I get outside of my bubble? How do I start to exercise? Where do I go to meet people? We take it from a really holistic approach so that, you know, when they present themselves in a courtroom, they present themselves best. And I think that’s left out a lot, you know, And, and, and unfortunately in today’s world, I think, you know, business people, when you start out, it’s all about revenue and then it morphs into whatever the business Morrison too.

And ours was really how do we get past that revenue to the service-minded oriented business? And that’s really what we’ve evolved into. And I think that’s why we’ve been as successful as we have in this area in Texas. Right. Is that one of the reasons that separates you from other families?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, you get a lot of people calling saying they want this quote, aggressive attorney, or they want a woman, or they want a man. I mean, there’s all these, there’s all these stereotypical thoughts that go through someone’s head when they’re going through a tough time.

But, uh, you know, I always joke [00:05:00] and I say, we’re like the Baskin Robbins of attorneys, I’ll switch you. If you want strawberry one day, I’ll give you a strawberry, I’ve got, I’ve got eight different flavors of lawyers and myself. And if you don’t like the first conversation, what you see is what you get. I’m very blunt and very, to the point.

And I’ll tell you exactly how. Never never sugarcoated. And I think what separates us is the ability to be dynamic the chameleon in the courtroom. Not always beating your chest, but sometimes taking a very soft approach to get the responses that you need to then perhaps attack if you need to. And I think that’s really a dynamic, uh, version of, of what’s made us, uh, where we are, who is your ideal client.

And then on the flip. Who do you not work with? Yeah, so the point of the ideal client for us is I’m just, I’ve never been a fan of a victim mentality. And I know that gets overused sometimes, but I really, I I’ve, I’ve been in situations many times with clients that are in fact victims of very serious, uh, situations and issues.

Uh, but we have to get the mindset to how we move one step in front of the other. And it’s 24 hour increments, [00:06:00] uh, so that they don’t become overwhelmed and they can’t. Tackle some of these challenges in the case, because again, it’s not just the lawyer, uh, it’s the client, it’s the ability to assimilate, assimilate information, get evidence, gather evidence, and, and we have to be able to dance that, that dance together.

And so the victim mentality or the, or the person that’s the constant complainer the consummate Google reviewer, I guess, would be. Least favorite type of person is a deal with, um, mainly because, you know, not because I don’t like people’s opinions and I love client feedback. We have all kinds of internal regulations for that.

But I definitely think that someone needs to be able to nowadays even more than ever be able to pick themselves up and dust themselves off and we’ve got to move forward. So that’s my ideal client, the, the non victim person that’s just willing to listen, willing to. Cooperate and I’m willing to listen and they’re willing to talk in an effective manner.

Treat my staff. Well, treat everybody from the janitor all the way up. Well, that’s just the way I live. And you know, if you’re not that way fortunately for us, we can say by now we [00:07:00] do so. Yeah. That’s, that’s where we are treating staff is not an insignificant part of the. It’s not. And nowadays, you know, you hear all the complaints about waitstaff and airlines and it runs very deep in our business.

And, you know, I won’t tolerate that. And nor should anyone tolerate that, that’s not, it’s not right to treat people that way and people that do it and we’ll go find somebody else in my opinion. So, all right. What kind of client education do you find? You have to. In the beginning. Uh, it’s a lot of getting them organized in a summary timeline fashion to where the insignificant events that they may have been holding on to because of an emotional tie.

Uh, we, we kind of get them through that in, in the summary timeline. So I can cut through and get to the points that I know the court’s going to want to hear. Keep in mind. We have very different judges over here. Very different personality types. And some of them are long-term listeners and they want to hear the details.

And some of them were cut to the chase and some of them are asset driven. So we really move around a lot and you have to be able to get the client to get the [00:08:00] information down in date order so that then you can start gathering that evidence, uh, and getting it prepared for court. And, you know, we were talking about treating staff well or not so well, and that’s when you get rid of people, but tell us about the, yeah.

Um, so we started out again, 15 years ago. Um, and most of our people on staff, uh, when I started this firm have been with us ever since inception. Uh, obviously we have. You know, started out later in the game, but, uh, we really haven’t had much turnover and that’s, that’s really been able to benefit us from a point of consistency to know where our shortfalls, where our shortcomings were.

So, uh, but the staff, the energy here now is just next level. It, it, I had a few cancers. Uh, I will admit, you know, over time you have to get rid of those cancers cause they just infect the whole organization. And I’m really bad about enforcement, anything that has to do for myself or, you know, hurting.

Outside of our team. I was not always the best at, I will tell you that with my other businesses and growing in this firm you know, I’ve really [00:09:00] gotten a lot better about recognizing those cancers, getting them, getting rid of them. So the staff now the energy level is just way high you come in and it feels like an episode of TMZ in the morning.

Uh, and it’s just, it’s just a good vibe across the board and that transitions to the clients and, and, uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen a lot of comments over the years and I’ve watched the changes from the client’s comments and that’s one consistent message that we get a lot that the staff has just been fantastic.

And I can’t be more thankful than anything but that. Who do you, where do you find. Everywhere. I’ve found them on the river, floating the river. I’ve found them in random hotels. I’ve found them at U hall stores. I do not discriminate where I locate these people. I just know that I, when I see somebody that’s got a good temperament talent conviction and I feel like they’d be a good fit.

They get in for an interview. And I’ve always been very random about that, but I’m a very social person. So I just get out and about, and if we have a need, I plug them in. I put you know, are my favorite new hire or newer hire. She was our. At, uh, at a country club and she’s basically Jack of [00:10:00] all trades.

She was the Johnny on the spot with service and all that. And we, we trained her up. We sent her to some schools and classes and taught her to be a paralegal. And she’s fantastic. She’s got the energy of a, you know, a stallion and she’s just really detail oriented and you just knew it when you met her.

So yeah, those kinds of different ways. That sounds like it’s a pretty good part of your business philosophy being social and finding people wherever they are. They’ve got the skills you see them. Tell me more about your philosophy. Yeah. So as far as the philosophy of finding people, um, it, you know, I, I’ve been blessed in my opinion, uh, with intuition and that’s what that instinct and intuition is what I’ve really been good at in a courtroom.

Um, and I don’t like. Horn at all by the way. But, but I am good at that. And I can, I can honestly say that my intuition is usually right, uh, with people and judging kind of what their reactions are and seeing where they go, uh, without. And part of that comes with life experience. You know, I’ve had that life experience go crazy over times [00:11:00] with my childhood, just like many of my clients and I’ve adapted and conquered.

And my mother was a single mother and I’ve been through everything that many of my clients, I say all, everything, and that’s not always everything, but I’ve been through. Most of what many of my clients have complained about and come out, in my opinion, on the other side, with a great wife and kids and a good spiritual background and family and friends, and, you know, that’s all you can ask for in this life, I guess, and with the dynamic changes, we have to have those support mechanisms and we’ve, we’ve gotten through that.

So philosophy is just. Embracing that adapting to it. Uh, loving it. Moving forward, not worrying, not living in a state of panic 24 hours at a time. Uh, one step in front of the other and knocking it out. Then that day is going to be different tomorrow. When you’re not working. You mentioned a family. What do you do for.

Well, my three little girls and God blessed me with three girls because he knew who I was in high school. Hopefully there’s been some evolution since then, but they, uh, they’re a blast. So we, we constantly do [00:12:00] social activities together. I play a lot of golf do a lot of workouts in the morning and all that stuff.

Just things to keep your mind and body. Eat right. You know, just enjoy, just enjoy life with people. I I’m one of those people that can’t ride in the golf cart by himself, by the way. So I like to, I like to talk to people. I like to, you know, be around people all the time. And my staff knows, I said that my desk for this podcast for however long, this takes, and then I’m up and gone.

So that’s the fun part. What’s your idea of success? Yeah, it used to be money. Um, it used to be freedom and flexibility. It used to be all the shiny things. You know, now it’s, it’s a sense of inner peace and comfort. And I will tell you that’s, you know, that ebbs and flows. It’s not something that you achieve daily, monthly, weekly, but.

You know, if I, if I look at bank accounts and things like that, I could say that you’ve been successful, but then you wake up feeling not successful. And so success to me is making sure that the people around me truly get the real version of me, uh, that I’m being real to them. And, and that I’m projecting.

And an [00:13:00] image, uh, that is real and loving and caring and nurturing. And, you know, if I can do that and, and have some people reciprocate and have a little bit of money to eat and go around and do things, I think that’s pretty successful in my mind. Good kids raise them, right. Uh, get them off the, a meter, if you will, at some point and let them be successful and treat others well.

And I’ll know I’ve done my work here on this earth. What I made that change from the bank account to more of a holistic. Yeah, I, I think I will say it God blessed me with financial success pretty early in my entrepreneurial career. And it’s really easy for people that, you know, I always said, well, that’s really easy for that guy to say, you’ve got money.

So, how can you say. The evolution happened? Well, it did. It wasn’t always like easy money. It was really, it was really hard money sometimes. I mean, this business is not easy. I never sell a product that people love. So, so, um, you know, getting a divorce is like paying your tax accountant. You don’t, you don’t want to do it.

But you know, once I got, once I started seeing like, [00:14:00] The clients aren’t necessarily super happy. I’m not giving them the energy they, that I need. What’s going on. I did a full evaluation and that was about eight or nine years ago. And I, I S I shifted our bonus structure of all things from a revenue base to a client satisfaction.

Yeah. And so that, that really changed the way we started to think about things. You know, you used to come in and say, well, that person did this. They must be crazy. I stopped all of that in the culture of the business, because what I realized is a, I was probably the one that was not being receptive. I was not being a servant’s heart.

I was not listening to them. And how could I possibly expect them to be satisfied with our services, just by paying a bill for a service I provide when I’m not truly serving. So that was probably the biggest eye-opener for me. And then obviously people say this all the time, but you, you get money and it doesn’t lead to happiness.

It doesn’t lead to more successful ventures. You you’re not opening the doors and you’re not trying new things and you just making money. And if you’ve got it and you’re not trying to buy something that won’t satisfy anyway. Well, what do you [00:15:00] have? Hmm, name one saying that most people don’t know about.

Uh, I’m a pretty honestly, I’m a pretty open book. I don’t know that I’ve ever been quiet enough to not let them know. So I, uh, I don’t know that there’s much that I could. That was those kind of the Johnny on the spot question. I don’t know that there’s something out there that nobody really knows, nor that would be interesting, but, but now I’m a pretty open book, honestly.

So I don’t really have something that jumps off the page. Let’s take that a step further and say, what’s your Protestant. You know, but my proudest achievement honestly, is my marriage, my family. I mean, it really is. I mean, coming from a broken home, you know, mom was a single mom. Dad was, it was a loving dad, but he wasn’t around much.

You had adultery involved and all the painful things that happened, you know, and being able to overcome that, uh, still love my parents deeply. Both of them all sets all sides, uh, all walks of life. You know, so for me, like having a successful wife it’s [00:16:00] also an entrepreneur beautiful kids and a loving family from her side.

And my side that, you know, we’ve gotten over these hurdles and that’s what we preach is get over these hurdles. They will change things happen, things change, time heals. And so for me, that’s been that’s been, uh, just probably life’s biggest accomplishment next to spirituality and. Of that nature. Is that one of the things that you recommend most to clients, families, and friends, or is there something else?

Because that, that was actually pretty good. When you say, is that, what, what do you mean is the whole things will change. Time goes on and things will change. Yeah. I mean, you know, that’s why I keep a sound like a broken record when I say the 24 hours, but most people spend their lives looking. Huge vacuum that is just not capable of achieving all the accomplishments.

So you, you think you’re going to do or all the failures all Mount up and you know, I’ve never, I think everyone would agree that if you just give it a little bit of a moment to breathe, no matter what the situation [00:17:00] is, and you wake up just kind of going all right, one foot in front of the other, let’s tackle this task and not think of all of the terrible pitfalls that can happen.

I think what you find is time does heal and then. Issue you wake up and then, especially with business and divorce and anything else, you look back and you go, well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. And I’ve been able to overcome that. And then, and then all of a sudden, good Lord smacks you in the mouth again with another task.

It’s all over again. So it’s just the way it goes. And you gotta be able to, you gotta be able to ebb and flow with that wind, that blows. So it brings you right back down to reality. All right. Do you have a, a mantra, or a motto that you say to yourself to keep yourself up? You know, I, I don’t know that it’s a, it’s a one phrase motto or mantra.

I, I do think that patients in waking up and, and, and creating a habit of reset, whatever that looks like for you in the morning, uh, is my motto. So mine, for example, is getting up and doing a workout routine and just being very [00:18:00] routine about certain things, have an accomplishment for them. And I think that that puts you on the right path for whatever your tagline phrase may be.

And some people are motivated by tagline phrases, my tagline phrases change each day. So I have to be in the mindset to be able to tackle those. So I would say that just mine is just follow your habits and make sure they’re good ones. All right. You have two other people who will be popping in and out of the podcast with you.

Right? Tell me about. Yeah, so Andrea she, uh, she’s from Germany and she is my business development, uh, slash do everything for all companies. She’s uh, she’s been a former client of mine years and years ago when I first started practicing law. So we kind of. Process together. I hate to admit that to her, but we were kind of learning together in the beginning stages.

Um, and you know, she’s just fantastic. She shares a lot of life experiences she’s been through probably the nastiest form of divorce. You can we did a lot of things in that case that pretty much every issue you could tackle [00:19:00] fraud. And she lets me talk about it. So, fraud, uh, situations where there was money stolen, put him in jail, all kinds of things, and, you know, come out on the other side of this to a degree, but they have six children then she’ll share a lot of the experiences both inside of the law firm and the outer workings of divorce.

She did a lot of homework on our own. Uh, and so she’s just a fantastic resource in business. Um, and also inside of litigation and also inside of how you tackle these family, uh, roles. She’s done everything from cell therapy to, I mean, she’s, she’s just a savant she’s you’ll see. And you’ll hear from her.

She’s just ma magical in that regard. Uh, you know, she just reminds me of you. She has that very calming, nurturing voice, and she’s, she’s like, she’s like you and a person. And, you know, we got, we got on these, uh, we got on these sessions that went on for a while on all of our blogs and. What about the people that can’t read very well or don’t like to read, how do we reach them?

And Mary’s always been the nurturing, like, okay, Justin, you’re rambling. Let me bring you back to [00:20:00] reality. Here’s where the questions are. These are where the important points are. And you’ll hear from her. She’s just a very calculated question asker. Uh, she keeps us on task and the dynamic was so interesting to me and I, um, you know, I don’t interest super easily anymore.

The dynamic was like, I, I want to get this out there to people. And I, I hope people find it in. ’cause I, I find it interesting doing it. Um, and I want to help people that don’t necessarily have these resources at their fingertips and who should be listening to this podcast. This podcast is really for literally everyone.

I know people say that when they create a podcast 55% of people will be affected by divorce in some way, shape or form divorce and or child custody. The other portions that are not will be interested in the will. Part of this. I will be interested in the estate planning part of this, the business, uh, dynamic part of this, because we’re going to be going through.

We do valuation matrix. We’re going to be looking with entrepreneurs and how they’ve divided up property and how they’ve set apart their businesses, uh, to create [00:21:00] new ventures, uh, in the midst of property division. So it’s got an entrepreneurial feel to it. Uh, it’s got a touchy, feely feeling. For those that you know, are going through, uh, some of those emotional hardships, and then it’s got a personal human health aspect and growth aspect on that side as well.

So, just kind of a holistic approach to life and how not to get to the point of divorce, hopefully. And if you are, how to get you through it. And you know, for those of you have family members, how to talk to them about the. Right. How can people reach you? Yeah. So our website is www.lawyer, dfw.com.

That’s lawyer, dfw.com. Our phone number is (817) 336-4444. You can reach us at any time on our. Uh, Andrea’s done a great job of getting all of the different things that we’ll talk to you on the online version. So you might get a little inundated at the beginning, but there’s a great blogs on there too.

So just, just reading material, if you ever miss some of this Mary spends a great amount of time getting that tuned up. So, there’s just good resources out there, but that’s how you reach us. [00:22:00] Well, I’m, we’re located in, we’re sorry. We’re located in Fort worth, Texas. Uh, so 6 0 3 east Belknap downtown, been across from the family courthouse for over 20 years.

I’m looking forward to more of these conversations, Justin Sisemore, the host. In your best interest, follow the podcast. So you don’t miss any shows and share with others. Fill be glad you did. I Patrice Sikora. And let’s talk again later. Thank you for listening to in your best interest with Texas divorce attorney and entrepreneur, Justin Sisemore, the content presented here is provided for information only and should not be construed as legal tax or financial advice.

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