Joseph Scone

I grew up in a home that wasn’t wealthy. I joined the military to get out of the trailer park. I served 25 years and retired with two core skills: taking care of my troops and planning (and winning) the fight. Those skills led me to law school. I wanted to help people, especially veterans and their families. But mostly, my mindset was focused on “the fight.” The Litigation Years I became a litigator. Courtrooms became my battlefield. Criminal defense, divorce, civil lawsuits, and particularly probate litigation. At $375 an hour, I fought for my clients like a legal gladiator. I thought winning would make people happy. But it didn’t always work that way. The people on the other side weren’t happy. Sometimes my own clients weren’t happy. The win wasn’t big enough. Or it cost too much. Or it took too long. Hourly billing made things worse. At $375 an hour, time was expensive. Clients avoided talking to me because every conversation was on the clock. I realized that the better I know a person, the better I can help them. The Breaking Point At one point, I was managing 125 cases at the same time. The push for more clients, more billable hours, and higher hourly rates was exhausting. It turned every consultation into a battlefield analysis instead of a caring conversation. I became argumentative, unhealthy, and unhappy. My family felt it too. At the end of the year, I quit. I took time off for medical reasons and started searching for a better way to use my experience — a way to keep people out of the fights I had spent years waging in court. I found a better way.