Build your life, not just your law firm. An attorney and founder of an immigration law firm in Washington, Greg McLawsen has found a way to combine his love of travel with his professional life. Join Greg as he offers his top tips on how to work virtually from anywhere in the world, even with an infant in tow.
At a 15,300, Zero Point is literally the end of the road for Western travelers
Just a stone’s through away from the Indo-Chinese border this was as far as we could go
Travel in this part of India means a slow journey by jeep
Through steep valleys inhabited by Tibetan/Nepalese herders
Across bridges strewn with pray flags
Questionable bridges
And into the high country of the Himalaya
Roads in this rugged landscape are in constant need of repair
And are maintained by the Boarder Roads Organization
Whose adorable acronym is what you would expect
Bro!
This trip to India was my fourth, this time to the Northeastern Pradesh of Sikkim bordering China, Nepal and Bhutan
But the biggest change was our young travel companion
Traveling with a 4-month-old in India is not just easy
It’s 100 times more fun
If I’d been Jon Bonjovi we would have received less attention
Nobody cares about Bonjovi in Sikkim
Today I want to share the personal story about how I came build a practice that allows me to work from Asia two months out of the year, and to steer the ship from anywhere in the world with an internet connection
I’ll share four a few travel hacks around the way about eating in India
I’ll start with the personal story behind what became Sound Immigration
After law school I worked briefly as a ghost writer for a legal treatise, then took a judicial clerkship in Washington State
In case you think I’m Mr. Fancy pants, this was a humble clerkship at a state trial court
And so my wife and I began a pretty standard trudge along the path to middle class professional-dom
We bought a house in the “good” part of town and started renovating
Over the course of a year we took a kitchen from this disaster zone
To this
Meanwhile I had opened my own immigration law practice
Much like the endless house projects I poured endless time in to launching and sustaining the firm
At home I was the demolition guy, plumber and carpenter
At work I was the marketing department, sales, C-suite… oh, and I had to practice law
Any small practice attorney knows what I’m talking about here
Every hour of every day was spent building the house or putting out fires at the firm
And there was no time for this!
(This is the Coleman/Demming route up Mt. Baker… an awesome climb)
Most of all, I felt like I wasn’t in control of my own time, and really of my own life
At the time I was transitioning to this new professional life I had a sad and life-changing event
My father was one of the most brilliant computer programmers of his generation
He worked on the first Windows platform and later build an application to transcribe musical notation
In February 2010 he took his own life
It’s so easy to get bogged down in the minutia
Whether it’s a home or work, we lose track of the big picture
We choose a job. We start a law firm.
When we do this we’re deciding how we will spend this life of ours.
What are the beautiful moments in your life?
For me, they tend to look like this
Skimming long the backwaters of some far-off place
In a dirty train compartment, on a hard seat… maybe with a cup of chai, with my son on my lap
Not because we’re going anywhere in particular
Just to be there. Moving though this new space.
With the delicious smell of spice, and wood fires, and rice paddies pouring in the open widow.
My wife and I sold our house
We sold or gave away most of our belongings
And we moved in with my mother
We both agree it was the single best decision we ever made
My wife and I decided that it was important to have the flexibility to travel two months out of the year
To make that a reality, I needed a business that could be operated with total control from anywhere.
What came out of this is the firm we call Sound Immigration
We are America’s web-based immigration law firm
Our job is to help families build new lives in the United States
I’ll talk later about some of things we do, but to give an idea:
We are fully paperless and cloud-based
Our attorneys and support staff are all decentralized.
We’re one of the first immigration firms – at least in our state – to get it right with legal process outsourcing
Our scaleable support team in Bangalore, India allows us to deliver work product literally overnight
I’ve spoken about my love for travel
But like everyone else in this room, my primary passion is to be of service to others
Any one of us could quit the practice of law tomorrow and have a much easier life
But we do this work because is fucking important
At Sound Immigration we unite families and literally change they lives forever
We are a compass for our clients during a transformative moment of their lives
Well, more than a moment… takes a while
Let’s now get back on the road at talk about what it looks like to run your firm from India
Travel hack: eat the street food
Bites are a fraction of a dollar
Often safer than kitchens in higher-end restaurants that you can’t see
Turn-over is (should be) very high