THE CRAZY IDEA

I’m going to do something on this page that I don’t normally do. I’m going to tell instead of show. I believe in showing, not telling, and I’ll spend the rest of my career showing y’all exactly what this firm is. But just this once, right here, I need to actually say it out loud. So here goes!

I read Shoe Dog the way some people read scripture. It’s Phil Knight’s book about how he built Nike, sitting at his kitchen table at 24 years old with what he called his “Crazy Idea.” Running shoes from Japan, no money, no real plan, just a feeling he couldn’t shake. I’ve read it more times than I can count. And every single time I close it, I feel the same thing.

I’m not crazy, I’m just early.

So here’s my Crazy Idea, out loud: I’m building the Nike of law firms.

I know what that sounds like. I’ve heard the laughs. I’ve gotten the texts, the phone calls, the pushback dressed up as “constructive criticism” from folks I care about. And look, I get it. The law is supposed to look one way, sound one way, dress one way, talk one way, behave one way, etc., right? Suits, ties, khakis and polos for casual Friday, right? Pound my chest and yell “we fight for you” and “we’ll get you top dollar,” and while I’m at it, go ahead and plaster it on every billboard and bus as far as the eye can see, right?

Naw. Y’all know that ain’t me. It never was, and it never will be. And I know with 100% certainty that I can’t truly serve my community by pretending it is.

So this is the page where I tell y’all what I’m actually building, and why.

So What Does Phil Knight Have To Do With Me?

Everything, man.

Phil didn’t set out to build a normal, run-of-the-mill sneaker company. He set out to serve athletes. He believed the regular runner, the everyday one, deserved better tools, better understanding, and better preparation than what the market was providing them. He’d been a runner himself and he knew the discipline of it. He knew the loneliness of the long workout, the specific kind of pain you feel in a foot that’s gone twenty miles in cheap rubber. He served his people.

Here’s Nike’s actual mission, the official one: “Bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” And then there’s the asterisk the whole company is built around. If you have a body, you are an athlete.

That asterisk is the whole thing.

Phil never saw “athletes” as the folks on the cover of a magazine. He saw the kid grinding out a run at 6 in the morning on some dusty back road. He saw the dad pushing a stroller up a hill. He saw greatness in regular people doing hard things, and he built a company to make sure those people had something worthy of the work they were putting in.

That’s what I read when I read him. And every time, my own work and vision cracks open a little wider.

Who I Actually Work For

I’m doing the exact same thing in my corner of the world.

My “athletes” are normal, blue-collar, hardworking folks. They’re not on the cover of any magazine and they ain’t starring in any movies anytime soon. They’re parents, roughnecks, teachers, welders, line cooks, crane operators, electricians, truck drivers, restaurant servers, HVAC technicians, ranch hands, bull riders, grandparents, etc. There’s no camera on them, no fanfare, no highlight reel.

They get hurt by somebody else’s bad choices, and they keep showing up anyway, because that’s just who they are and there’s always work to be done.

Those are my people. And the honest truth is that I’m a whole lot more like them than I am like the stuffy suit-and-tie crowd that I refuse to be like. I just happen to be a lawyer. That’s the only real difference.

These are honest folks making an honest living. And when one of them needs a lawyer, they don’t need somebody who’s going to look down on them. They need somebody who understands them at their core. Somebody from their same circle who celebrates them instead of judging them for where they’re from, how much money they make, how they dress, how they talk, or where they went to school.

They need somebody who’s comfortable in their own skin instead of somebody faking authority with a goofy suit and talking proper like a walking legal encyclopedia. I’m proud to be the guy (no pun intended) who sees them, talks to them, and relates to them eye-to-eye. And I’m honored every single time I get to shake one of their hands.

So I’m building this firm for them, and through their eyes. Real recognizes real. It’s a difference that’s going to speak to them specifically, and they’ll be the only ones who see it and feel it. That’s the whole point.

Why I Refuse To Look Like Everybody Else

If you want a traditional law firm, you can knock on almost any door in this state other than mine and find one. They’re everywhere. A lot of them are good at being exactly what they are, and that’s fine. I’m just not in the business of being them.

Respectfully, what I see in this profession is a whole lot of sameness, and that sameness costs the client. Same suits. Same templates. Same stuffiness. Same tired energy. Same chest-pounding “we fight for you” line that’s been said so many times it doesn’t mean much of anything anymore (all lawyers fight for you, that’s literally the job, what if a doctor ran ads saying “If you’re sick, we’ll fight for you!”… weird, right?). There’s a worn-out, stick-up-the-butt posture in this line of work that the public has been trained to expect, and most lawyers would rather go with the flow than risk being themselves, being different.

That’s aint me. And it’s not because I’m trying to be different for the sake of being different. It’s because I’m trying to be honest.

Think about who’s actually walking into my office or calling my phone. Somebody who’s already had a brutal week. Somebody who’s already been talked down to by an adjuster. Somebody who’s already been handed a stack of forms they don’t understand and been made to feel little. The last thing on earth that person needs from me is more of the same, just in a slightly more expensive tie.

What they need is a real person. Somebody who looks them in the eye and means it. Somebody who actually likes them. Somebody who’s prepared, who’s done the work, who’s read the case, who’s run the numbers, who’s already thought through Plan A, B, C, D, etc., and who can walk them through all of it like a true friend who happens to be an expert at what he’s doing.

That’s the firm I’m building. That’s the experience I want every single person who calls us to have.

The Part Where I Tell Y’all I’m Scared

I’ll be honest with y’all. This is hard, and I’m scared.

I’m not scared of the work. The work comes natural to me. I was made for this. I was the kid in the back of the classroom arguing about the vagueness of the teacher’s assignment, the punk kid on the soccer field pushing the boundaries of the game, arguing with the refs about the plain language of the rules and screaming “If it doesn’t expressly prohibit it, then it’s allowed, asshole!” while being escorted off the field after being wrongfully red carded (I’m still bitter 20+ years later). The work is the easy part of my day.

But for real, the scary part is doing this out in the open, in a profession that does not reward people who refuse to fall in line. The pushback comes daily. From colleagues, close friends, family, and people who don’t even know me but are quick to offer “advice.” Some of those hits land. I won’t pretend they don’t.

But none of them can get me to lay down.

So I keep going. And then I’m remind of Shoe Dog again, and I remember why.

Phil got every flavor of “you’re crazy” there is. From banks, his own father, the establishment of his own industry, which flat-out thought he was a clown. He nearly lost everything more than once. He wrote about the fear like it was a roommate that just never moved out. And he kept going anyway. Not because he was certain, but because he believed.

I’m not certain either, and I’ll say that out loud. The market might decide it doesn’t want what I’m offering. Folks might decide they’d rather have the suit, the tie, and the dust, and that’s their call to make. I’ve made my peace with the possibility that I’m building something the world either doesn’t want, or isn’t ready for yet.

But I’d rather be me, do this honestly, and find out, than spend a single second of my life cosplaying as somebody else.

I have to be me to be fulfilled. I have to be me to do my best work. And I have to be me to give the people who hire me what they actually deserve, which is a real person who’s all the way present, all the way in their corner, and all the way invested in their case because, at my core, I’m one of them.

Why This Matters Bigger Than Me

Let me get personal for one more minute.

I don’t think the point of any of this is the firm. I think the point is what the firm makes possible.

If I can do this, build it, and not break in the process, here’s what I’m really hoping for. I’m hoping some talented young lawyer, some entrepreneur, some artist, some kid sitting in the back of the classroom like I was, the one who’s already been told by family and friends and deans to just stick to the old way of doing things, sees this and thinks: Hey! Maybe I can build my thing too?!

You can. I say f--- the old way if the old way isn’t you. You do you. Build your thing.

Now, we all have to work inside real rules. This profession has ethical rules, legal rules, hard rules, and they matter, and I know them (intimately) and follow them. But inside those rules, the way you do the work is yours. You can study the greats and the folks doing it right now, take what works, keep what’s good, leave what isn’t, and then put your own thumbprint on it that nobody else on earth can copy. That’s actually what the greats all did. Phil studied his coach, Bill Bowerman. Bowerman studied the runners. Not a one of them won by wearing somebody else’s suit. They built one that fit, and then they earned the right to wear it.

That’s all I’m trying to do in my corner of this profession. Not because I think I’m those guys. And certainly not because I want to be those guys. But because I think the example matters. Because somebody out there needs to see it done in a new way and without apologizing for who they are.

The Invitation

If you want a traditional law firm, like I said, you’ve got your pick. No hard feelings. I’m at peace with it.

But if you want something different, something that feels more organic, more alive, more vibrant, something that treats you like the most important person in the room, because in my office, you are, then that’s my door. And it ain’t hard to find.

You’ll get a real human being who actually cares about your case. You’ll get somebody prepared. You’ll get a team built around you, the client, instead of around the comfort of the lawyer. You’ll get real connections and conversation, not a lecture. And you’ll get straight answers, even when those answers are hard.

I can’t promise you a result. No honest lawyer can. What I can tell you is that I’ll show up. The same way you show up. The same way the welder shows up. The same way the roughneck shows up. The same way the teacher and the line cook and the grandparent show up.

There’s always work to be done.

For the ones who keep going … we’re here, and we’re ready.

Guy Muller