How Preparation Turned a Lawyer Into a Million-Dollar Advocate

It was like $800,000. He put his whole life savings into it. So we followed all suit. After about two and a half years of legal battles and wrangling,

we ended up sitting on that case for $1.3 million.

So when you deliver those results, that's going to open up doors to get those types of cases. Chad Cannon is a bold, growth-driven attorney, entrepreneur, and the founder of Cannon Law Firm. Drawing from nearly three decades of legal experience,

he helps attorneys build thriving firms through legal excellence and strategic business leadership. You don't have to be the smartest. You don't have to be the brightest lawyer out there.

“I think really what you have to do is just show up,”

be prepared. The lawyer that shows up, that's more prepared, is going to be more successful. 90% of the time. What would you say is like the most difficult thing

about becoming a lawyer? You can one test. It's at the end. You either got it or you didn't. Ball school was very difficult.

It was very hard. You really got to want to do it. I always tell people... It spans the globe. Like a super high school.

Internet elders. In today, Apple is going to reinvent the globe. It's not over. I'm telling how we are. The living your legacy podcast for those who live

to leave a legacy. That's a strong way. That's a strong way. That's a strong way. That's a strong way.

That's a strong way. That's a strong way. That's a strong way. That's a strong way. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast.

I'm your host for today, Jason Tyler. Today I am joined by Mr. Chad Cannon, Chan. Welcome to the show. Thank you.

Glad to be here. Pleasure to have you. Now you just finished recording your episode of America's Top Lawyer. First of all, how do you feel now on the outside of things? Man, I feel relieved.

You never know what to expect when you come out here and do this thing.

But it was great. And I feel like it turned out well. I feel like a lot of times when people are done recording their episodes, like a weight lifted. My shoulders are less heavy.

I got everything out there. Yes, 100%. You don't want to stress about it. But you can't help but stress about it a little bit. You don't know what to expect.

But I think, yeah, I agree with you once you get through that. And you come in here and you feel relaxed and I think it's a good position to be in. That's what I like. That's what I like. So for the people out there, this is their kind of first opportunity to get to know you Chad.

Talk to me a little bit about what is the number one thing that you want people to be able to learn from your story. I think what you can take from my story is that you don't have to be the smartest. You don't have to be the brightest lawyer out there.

“I think really what you have to do is just show up.”

Be prepared, work hard, be dedicated, be consistent. I think if you do those things that you're going to be successful. You know, the old adage of you need to do uncommon things commonly well. And that's are common things uncommonly well. That's really what this is about.

It's just you don't have to be super bright. You just have to put a plan in place and practice and really it's more about the drive more than anything. Else. Be successful. You touched on something there that's like one of my favorite things in, you know, in business and life in general is preparation.

Right. Right. How important would you say it is to come into a situation prepared? I think it's everything.

You know, for me, I've always said that said this to my team.

The lawyer that shows up that's more prepared is going to be more successful. 90% of the time. You know, there's caveat there. A lot of it depends on the facts. But still, those people that show up prepared are going to do well.

And I think you do a disservice to your client if you don't show up prepared. So it's really your obligation to make sure that, and your duty, rather to make sure that you're doing everything you can, be prepared, show up, be consistent, and be dedicated to your work. And you know, as with anything in life, there are people that can kind of, you know, they're flying by the seat of the pants and they still are able to achieve a levels of success.

And that's where I think like luck comes in. What, what degree of, you know, how much of a factor do you think luck plays in being able to be successful in life? I think it does play a role in a factor. Some people are everything they touch turns to gold. I mean, I wasn't that guy, you know, but I have friends that are like that.

I wasn't that guy here. I'll be honest. And I always wonder, guy, they can do no wrong, you know, but for me, it wasn't like that. I had to, you know, get it through blood sweat and tears.

“And that's the only way I ever knew how to do anything because that's how my dad was.”

So he taught me that, you know, you have to get out there and grind, you have to earn it. You have to want it. You have to push through it and for it. So for me, I would say that luck can play a role into it.

Mm-hmm. Now, you mentioned your dad. So I want to give the audience an opportunity here to kind of just get to know Chad. So talk to me a little bit about your upbringing. Talk to me about where does Chad come from.

“How do we get to the Chad that's sitting in front of me here today?”

Right. So Chad's from Arlington, Texas. He played football out there at a very prominent high school in, in the state of Texas. So I went on to play some college football at Ablin Christian and Baylor. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, you know, became an attorney and worked hard to be a sports agent. Got to achieve that goal. Didn't, didn't make it a full-time goal for me or practice. But it was a reality that I actually achieved.

So I was impressed by that or glad that I did it. Didn't have any regrets when I hung it up. And that's really where I wanted to be. And that's where I come from. But my dad was fortunate enough to instill in me that a good work ethic.

That was probably the strongest thing that I took away from my upbringing is to, you know,

work hard, be dedicated, prioritize with something that he always taught me,

make goals, set goals. You know, people don't do that anymore. We were on the plane coming up here. We were sitting next to an anchor man from, and back in Dallas, a channel five guy, a former anchor guy, and he saw me taking notes on my inside success.

And he said, hey, what's going on? What's this inside success? You know, and I kind of gave him a little insight of what I was doing. And he said, you know, it's strange. I don't see people take notes anymore or really prepare for what they're going to go do.

That's admirable. And he, you know, he touched on that.

“And I was, it wasn't surprised because I think that too.”

But I've always done that, I've always tried it again going back to being prepared, showing up, delivering and taking notes, those types of things. So those are the kind of things and the kind of values that my dad instilled in me. And I think they've been a successful tool for me. Yeah, I grew up in the 90s.

And one of the things when I was in, when I was in my school, my school years, that I, I never understood the value I was taking notes.

That was, I was always kind of, I was kind of the kid where like, I can basically memorize anything that you're going to throw at me,

and then on test day, I'll be fine. Right. You know, I mean, I could just show up and I would be fine. I ended up, you know, graduating top of my class. I did, I did fine in school.

And then as soon as real life hits, then you realize, oh, I should have been taking notes. Yeah, I should have been doing that this entire time. And actually, I've done myself a disservice by not building that skill set, right, of being able to walk into a situation prepared. I mean, it goes back to everything we've been talking about, so far as preparation is better than no preparation.

Yes, yes. And I think you learned that at a young age or I did. You know, my dad was big on being successful in the classroom. He was a doctor and, and, and, you know, academics were important. And he made it important in my life.

And, and he basically taught me how to study.

“I believe it or not, you know, it's something that is kind of like you just touched on.”

It's sort of a law start in some aspect. People think they can just, they don't need to take notes. They just, I'm just going to chat GPT everything. Right, especially nowadays. But, you know, I read the cliff notes back when I was growing up.

That was our chat. Yeah, we should do it. What was our thing? We had spark notes. You're right.

Right. So, you know, it's easy to cut corners, but that's not going to make you successful in the long run. Mm-hmm. I totally agree with you on that. You know, as we, as we talk about, you're, obviously, you're on America's top lawyers. So, you're in law.

Also, I want to just go back and touch on this because this is really interesting. You were a sports agent. Yes. Was there anyone that you represented, you know, the people out there might know of them. We might not break a concerted into reality agreement by mentioning.

Well, my, my biggest client was a guy by name a Brandon Taylor. He played at LSU. He played for a very small time with the jets. And then hardest knee, he was, I think, up for a year or two.

Would have been a, he was a third round pick.

Would have been a long mainstay there. But represented him and his brother Curtis. He played for the Niners. Those were my top two clients that that I had when I was doing it. So, I was very blessed to have them.

They're great people. They come from a great family. And, in fact, I still keep in touch with them today. So. That wasn't even one of my scripted questions.

That was just a personal question for me because I was like, I'm, I'm a big, I'm a big sports guy. So, like, I used to, I ran a podcast studio a couple of years ago. And all of the heat players were all my clients. So I was working with Dwayne Wade Jack.

Yeah. Your Donna's has loom. So I'm big, big into sports. So as you said, you were a sports agent. I was like, for who?

Right. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, law is a very, my, my family. My grandfather was an attorney in Jamaica. He opened up his own law practice. All my aunts say I'll work for his law practice.

And then they were like, Oh, Jason, you're going to make a great lawyer. And I was like, No, I'm not. But it's a very precise practice, right?

and your own interpretation. What would you say is like the most difficult thing about becoming a lawyer? Well, for me, law school was very difficult. It was very hard. It was very competitive.

“You have to read and pay attention and stay on track.”

The thing about law school is, you know, when you used to school, going through classroom and taking tests periodically, they don't do that in law school. You get one test. It's at the end. You either got it or you didn't.

So, you know, either pass or fail on one test. And, and your, your whole, you know, law career rides on your performance on one exam. And so the, the pressure is immense and intense. And so it's, it's, you, you really got to want to do it.

Yeah, I always tell people, I wouldn't go to law school again.

And it did do over again. And my blessed that I'm an attorney. Yes, I'm, I'm a glad that I got it behind me and I'm able to do something good. Sure. I'm not so sure I would do it again just because it was very, very difficult time for me, for sure.

And, you know, we're on America's top lawyer. I want to take this opportunity to just kind of talk about fast forward to today.

“What are some of the big successes in Chad Cannon's career so far?”

Yeah, so for me, you know, I was, I was telling a story in there earlier about a case that I, I had about four or five years ago, where I represented a guy who, a builder built his house and it was defective. It was, it wasn't built, you know, according to specs and it was faulty. And so he came to me and it was an expensive house. It was like $800,000.

He put his whole life savings into it. And the house basically needed to be torn down. That's what my expert said. It was that bad. He didn't do anything right.

And so we ended up fortunately for my client this guy had insurance. And so we were able to at least tap into the insurance. We followed all suit. And we were able to also bring in the municipality government that was actually coming down and green light and passing these inspections for this builder that wasn't even legit.

So, you know, after about two and a half years of intense, you know, legal battles and wrangling,

we ended up settling that case for $1.3 million.

And that was a big turning point in my career. Not from the standpoint, just from the standpoint of the settlement, but also just because it wasn't a case that I had taken on like that before. It wasn't, I had normally had those, those types of cases. So for me, I was a little bit outside my comfort zone,

but I was confident enough in what I could do. Based upon the cases I had taken previously. And so for me, that was a big win and a big turning point for me. And when you say turning point, does that kind of push you in the direction more?

Because you're coming from this background of being a sports agent and representing your clients in that world. But now taking into account your current practice, are you more broad in the ways that you're representing people? Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think those types of cases when you start settling them,

you're going to get the hiring cases. When people realize that A, you can do it, B, you've delivered results. I think that that's going to open up doors to get those types of cases. One of the hardest things about being an attorney is getting those types of cases. You can go to work for a firm and you're going to get those types of cases,

a larger firm because they're able to to accumulate those because they're a group that've been around for a long time. But if you're trying to open up your own shop, be a solo practitioner, your chances of working those cases are very small. It's harder to get them. And so when you deliver those results,

your chances increase of getting the type of cases that you can actually deliver those types of results on. Beautiful. Beautiful. And guys, if you're still tuned in at this point in the pot, I want to just make sure to let you guys know to check out Chad's episode of America's top lawyer.

It'll be coming out shortly after this podcast episode dropped. You get a much deeper dive into his story. You know, all of the successes, all the wins, the losses, everything that builds up to Chad sitting in this chair next to me today. So Chad, every time we do this show,

I always like to ask one very specific question.

We're here inside success. What is your number one key for success?

“My number one key for success is probably consistency.”

Consistency is really what you need to have to deliver results over and over and over again. And in dedication, I'll piggyback that with dedication. And if you combine those two things with being well prepared, kind of like what we've touched on today, you will be successful. But you've got to want to be and it's got to be a priority to you.

But if you combine all those things together, there's really no limit to what you can do. You know, there's an interesting dichotomy when we talk about preparation, right? Early on in your career, what does preparation look like? Preparation looks like a lot of studying a lot of late nights,

really getting yourself ready for the day at hand. But as time goes on, preparation becomes the lessons that life has handed you over time.

or in an arena that you know nothing about.

And a little bit more time going back into your personal bank of experiences and memories and using that as your tool of preparation.

“And then as life continues to go on, that's what wisdom is, right?”

Right. You become wise or over time, you become more able to deal with,

especially if you remain in one career field, right, a long period of time,

your ability to prepare for stuff becomes far, far better over time, because you've kind of been, kind of been through it all, right? No, I mean, right. And so for you guys out there, if you're watching still at this point,

“preparation is the ultimate, I think, preparation and consistency.”

Yes. I think those are the ultimate keys that we're going to take away from today's episode. Chad, I just want to say it's been an immense pleasure having you on the show. Appreciate it. I can't wait to check out your episode.

“We'll see, I'll get a little sneak peek of it in the editing room,”

but you guys don't get to see that yet. Are there any, where can people find you on social media, Instagram, the World Wide Web at large? Yeah, so it's, it's canon law firm, Chad Cannon. I'm in Weatherford, Texas, and I just purchased a firm in Montana.

It's called Canon Law Group, I just named it that. So you can find me at lawfirmcannon.com, basically. We're lawfirmcannon.com. I'm making sure we put that somewhere on the screen here with our editors,

shout out to our editors, by the way, but again, this has been another incredible episode

guys of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host Jason Tyre, and I will catch you guys in the next one. (upbeat music)