I sat down with Brian Lawler — founder of Pilot Law, October 2004. His firm focuses almost entirely on USERRA cases. Before law, Brian was a Marine Corps officer and F-18 pilot — he spent years flying fighter planes and teaching others how to fly them at Miramar. Pilot Law is 21 years old, his team of attorneys works across the country, and in 2017 they settled what was at the time the largest USERRA class action on behalf of commercial airline pilots.
I asked Brian what has shaped how he leads.
"Marine Corps training. That's one of the most fundamental things that the Marine Corps teaches is leadership principles, and they're pretty unforgiving about being able to do them."
One of those principles that runs through everything he does is the debrief.
"I like to tell people I'm never the smartest guy in the room, but I'm always the one that knows he's not the smartest guy in the room. I flew airplanes for a long time with some of the best pilots and aircrew that exist, and not one time was a debrief, hey, that was perfect, guys, because it's not, it's never perfect. And if you're not learning from your mistakes, you're going to repeat them."
That shows up in how his firm operates day to day. When a motion comes in, it gets downloaded immediately, the due date gets calendared, and Brian works backwards from there — when does he need a draft, when does the paralegal need shell documents prepped. Everyone has tasks, everyone can see the timeline.
"As the owner of the firm and in any leadership position, you've got to look at yourself first. What have I done that didn't make this work the most efficient manner possible?"
He also built a custom database for the firm rather than buying commercial software.
"I looked at getting commercial law firm management software. It is so expensive."
Instead, he hired a contractor who sat down with his attorneys and paralegals and asked them what they actually needed.
"She spoke at length with all the attorneys, with the then paralegals and said, what do you guys need? Basically, how am I going to make this fit what your firm does and how you operate?"
We talked about how he keeps his team aligned with attorneys spread across the country. The key is a central location for everything.
"We have case trackers, what has to happen next, timesheets for all the cases so we can see what we've billed to date and fees. We share a Google calendar that everyone can see and manage and our document repository is Dropbox. Everyone has access to everything."
I asked what he'd tell a lawyer just starting out.
"See if you can focus your attention on a particular area. Stick with it and then get good at it. And then find people who have been doing it longer and more successfully than you and pick their brains." He's never asked a senior attorney for guidance and been turned away. "I can't think of a time that I've asked a senior attorney for advice and they've said, no, figure it out."
Are you a pilot or service member dealing with a USERRA issue or employment rights claim? Connect with Brian Lawler and check out Pilot Law, PC.