199: Meet the Comic Con Attorney - Cecilia Amo on Her Authenticity-Driven Marketing Strategy

When it came to creating my firm and figuring out who am I marketing to, that's when I, when I just started thinking, well, why don't I just do the same thing I did with ministry and just step into my authentic self, and strangely it was more terrifying for me to to be authentic in front of other attorneys and in my professional life than it was in my faith life, which was surprising.

And being your authentic self, does that mean just talking about your passions, or you're not going to court in costume or anything?

No, no, definitely not that. I'm just being more open about things, so what I started doing was I created social media content, estate planning lessons from Star Wars or from Harry Potter. I did some pamphlets, and then I just set up at a local convention and started talking with people, and what I found was potential clients understood what I was what I was there for. Faster, they understood what the importance of estate planning was. Fear dropped, their trust increased, and it wasn't so much that I was building a brand for my firm, it was more of an exercise in self acceptance.

Welcome to the 10 golden rules of Internet Marketing for Law Firms podcast featuring the latest strategies and techniques to drive traffic to your website and convert that traffic into clients. Now here's the founder and CEO of 10 Golden Rules, Jay Berkowitz.

Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the 10 golden rules of internet marketing for law firms podcast. We have a great guest today. It's not too often that your guest is exclusive in their field, and they do something entirely unique and brand new to generate law firm clients, so we're going to meet Cecilia in just a minute. First, I just wanted to give you a quick commercial for 10 Golden Rules, as I always do, because 10 Golden Rules is my company, and I guess default de facto sponsor. And one of the really cool things we're doing at 10 Golden Rules these days is we're figuring out how to get companies on Chat GPT and AIOs, the Google AI overviews, and by the way, the AIOs are about 90% of the marketplace, so don't don't get too caught chasing after Chat GPTs and clouds and perplexities, because Google is still going to drive the vast majority of the traffic in AI search results, but we've got a proprietary method of determining how you're performing in the AIOS. So, if you want to know how you're doing an AI search, just reach out to me at 10 Golden Rules or LinkedIn, I'm Jay Berkowitz. All the socials, I'm Jay Berkowitz, and be happy to take you through your AI SEO or AEO visibility, and with that, Cecilia Amo. Welcome to the 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing for Law Firms podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

Cecilia, I mentioned off the top, has a really unique journey, and I like to call her the Comic-Con attorney, because she's the only one at Comic-Con, and a lot of these incredible conferences who has a booth for lawyery, and so I already stole her headline. But Cecilia, why don't you start at the beginning? Tell us a little bit about your journey, and how you became such a unique character.

Thank you. Well, I'm a lifelong nerd. I mean, I've been going to anime conventions and comic con since I was a teenager. Then, when I became a lawyer, I think I did what a lot of young lawyers do - is I, I was like, I can't be this person that I am during the weekends, I have to be lawyer mode, or else people won't take me seriously, especially me as a female and Asian with very good genes. When I passed the bar 20 years ago, I looked like I was in high school, so and I had started in civil litigation, so my first job was actually with Johnny Cochran's law firm in Los Angeles. Yeah, was it fun? No, I had.. I was hired right before he passed away, so he was already towards the end of his life, so I never got to meet him. I was hired by the only female attorney on the OJ Simpson defense team, Sean Chapman Holly. I went to her law school, and she was looking for a summer clerk, and she hired me as a summer clerk, and they kept me on, and the day after I got sworn in, they threw me into a deposition.

Wow, so what's the real story? Did OJ do

it? That was before my time, before my time. Good answer.

Good, very good answer,

but yeah, so I think I did what again a lot of lawyers do is in order to be taken seriously, especially I felt a lot of pressure in my community, being the first Asian attorney at this prestigious law firm, I'm Filipino American, so I was on some Filipino news shows, and in the media there, and just having to,

did they gin up media for their own publicity, and you had extra pressure, that's great.

Yes, yes, yeah, exactly. As a new attorney, yeah. So I just, I just felt this pressure to be a certain way, and then at some point, you know, how did I actually get here? I just started being myself. It was very long journey, actually. I would say it started in my church when I started an anime outreach ministry, and I just started to blend the Christian part of me with the fan part of me, and then I kept the lawyer professional part of me somewhere else, but I had some success there. And when it came to creating my firm and figuring out who my marketing to, that's when I, when I just started thinking, well, why don't I just do the same thing I did with ministry, and just step into my authentic self, and strangely it was, it was more terrifying for me to be authentic in front of other attorneys and in my professional life than it was in my faith life, which was surprising,

and being your authentic self, does that mean just talking about your passions, or you're not going to court in costume or anything?

No, definitely not that, but just being more open about things. So, what I started doing was I created social media content, estate planning lessons from Star Wars or from Harry Potter, I did some pamphlets, and then I just set up at a local convention and started talking with people, and what I found was potential clients understood what I was, what I was there for faster, they understood what the importance of estate planning was, fear dropped, their trust increased, and it wasn't so much that I was building a brand for my firm, it was more of an exercise in self acceptance, and as I just became more human, my business grew, and I think that was really just what it's all about, and I've just, I've gotten a lot of, I don't know, satisfaction of just being able to be my whole complete self and connecting with clients who are in this niche community, who I'm already a community part, a part of that community, and it's just.. it's been wonderful.

Just to complete some of the timing on the timeline, so you, 20 years ago, you started with the Cochrane firm. Yes. When did you start doing the church project? And when did you step out on your own?

So I started my anime outreach ministry around 2012 and around 2015 was when I left full-time practice, and I started doing some nonprofit work, and then around the pandemic was when I made the full pivot to estate planning and started my firm.

Congrats, that's awesome. People always ask me, what do you do in terms of your social media, and I guess there's a billion prongs to it, but clearly you find your authentic self is of value, and for me it's, it's beneficial, like when you own your own firm, particularly when you're starting out, your personal brand and your firm's brand are very closely linked, and so I've always treated Jay Berkowitz and 10 Golden rules is somewhat intermixable. When we do this podcast, and we post it on YouTube, we will, what we call, cascade it, so like it starts on with a YouTube post and goes on iTunes and Spotify, and all of all the podcast distributions, but it also go on our blog on our webinar, but it'll go on Jay Berkowitz is LinkedIn and 10 Golden Rules LinkedIn, Jay Berkowitz is Facebook and 10 Gold Rules Facebook. So, my answer has always been I can intersperse, but you know, like if you're an attorney, you know, maybe you're a more controversial category, I'll just think of like sex abuse attorney or something at work, you know, you're one person, and then maybe in your personal life you're into, like, I don't know, the Anaheim Angels baseball team or something. They might not be as easily intermixable. What counsel would you give folks on how you handle that part of your, your personal branding? Journey.

Well, I think when I say niche, or when lawyers think about niche, they think about practice area, right? What you do, but I think the branding journey that I would encourage people to go on is, who do you do it for, what tribe are you already in, and where are those connections that already exist that you can just strengthen, and then because what I found is by being in the community, which I love, I've connected with a lot of people who I get and they get me, and the can the connections come faster, like I said, the trust builds quicker, and it's the tribe, not necessarily the practice area.

So, I haven't actually been to a comic con, but I have partly attended an anime kind of convention, so I don't understand it very well. So, I'm going to explain my limited knowledge, and then I'm going to ask you to explain this world a little bit, because I'm sure a lot of people, anime doesn't exactly mean something to them. Comic, you know, maybe a little small meaning. So, my first-hand knowledge is very limited. So, first of all, I think in the TV show Entourage, where there was a TV star and his entourage, his agent, and his brother, who was on some of his shows and stuff like that, they went to Comic Con, and there was either one or two shows where they were on stage, and then the hijinks that ensued at the parties and stuff like that at Comic-Con. So I feel like I went to Comic Con because I saw it on TV, and they had backstage, and they had the history and the story. The other personal experience I had, I went to a conference I was speaking at a lawyer conference in Orlando, and about, I don't know, maybe 25% of the of the conference was the lawyer conference, and 75% of the convention center in the hotel was an anime conference, and so there was people in superhero costumes and furry costumes, and really get dressed to the nines looking fantastic as their favorite characters. So, I definitely experienced a lot of it in elevators and hotel lobbies, and folks getting dressed up looking fantastic. So, tell us a little bit about what is a comic con? What is an anime conference? What is the community give us anime characters 1010

my goodness, wow, that's tough. Well, I mean, a convention, I mean, it's just a gathering of people who like a certain thing, and it's like a subculture, you know. Anime is one distinct thing, the animation that comes from Japan, which 15 years ago was no one really knew what it was, and actually when I told my church I wanted to do an enemy outreach ministry, they asked me if it was porn, so that was interesting, but you know, now you see it everywhere, the cartoon stuff is older people would probably categorize it, and then the comic book conventions, there, the comic cons are more around the Marvel, the DC, and those kinds of things, Star Wars, and that stuff. So, I'd say the anime convention scene skews a bit younger, and then the comic con scene is a bit more elder millennial Gen Xer,

and there's an overlap, right? So, like, a big comic con will have a maybe an anime stream, or yes, you know, I was just at a lawyer conference speaking last week, and there was like the main room, and then the next day there was three breakout rooms, so you might go to a, like, the entourage stars were on the main stage, and then breakout room might be anime, and might be,

yes, video games, those kinds of things. There's

even like old 60s shows and things like that. So, I guess there's little niche opportunities for different fandoms, right?

Oh, absolutely, and that's where my strength in it is, is because I've been a nerd all my life, so I, I like a lot of different things, Doctor Who, and see the Tardis in the background, and you know, anime and comic books, and when I was 10 years old, I was mailing cash to my local comic book store to get comics mailed to me, which, because my parents wouldn't take me to the comic bookstore,

so you found a workaround that's great, and so they also, some, some of these shows have booths, and so you discovered an opportunity to have a booth at the show. So, tell us, like, what does your booth look like, and what are you selling at the booth?

Well, it's definitely undergone an evolution, because for anyone who's been to a comic con or anime convention, it is a lot of visual simulation. There's a lot going on, people are selling a lot of cool things, and then lawyer, so I had to make it a little bit more interesting. Interesting. I've got a lot of visuals to help stand out, not really stand out, actually just more not fade into the background, you know, animated things on my screens, the artwork, superhero type themes. The cover of my book is also in the style of like a RPG kind of thing, you know, the artwork is very in line with the community, gets people interested, they come over and they think, oh, what is what is this fantasy novel? Oh, it is not a fantasy novel, it is about estate planning, that's interesting. So, yeah,

it's not like you're. I don't know what kind of law you do contract law for Hollywood, which would be closely aligned with Comic Con, so you do estate planning, so but you said young folks at the conference are very receptive to you as their estate planning attorney, so that's great. How do you find outfit?

I love it, because you know, I get to connect with people in the community, and they share things with me that they would never share with an additional lawyer that they might feel doesn't get them, and, like, one of the things I mentioned in my book is, I had a client who was a big Star Wars fan, and we were talking about end of life stuff, very heavy, serious topic, and he shared with me that if they ever had to pull the plug on him, he'd want someone to say, 'May the force be with you' at the end, which is something he said he would probably never have shared with the typical attorney that you would imagine to do estate planning, yeah,

cool. And then, of course, there's the May the fourth holiday, Star Wars,

yes, yes.

Okay, so, and for those of you on the audio only version, Cecilia just held up her book, and the books are a little bit unique too, because it's called Your After Credit Scenes Planning Guide. guide. Right, go ahead and give us the correct title, and then explain to those of us who aren't nerds what is the after credit scenes.

So, the book style is your after credit scene, a nerd's guide to Will's trust and legacy, and I named it that because when you watch a movie, the credits roll, and sometimes you get that after credit scene. And so I've analogized the estate planning is basically how you write your after credit scene. What is your after credit scene going to look like? So I've taken what I do as a lawyer and I put it into the language of the community, into the language of my tribe.

So that's like when you go to see an Avengers movies, yes, after credit scenes, and there's always like a whole other little mini one or two minute movie that sets the next movie right,

exactly. It's that bridge of the movies not quite done yet, what happens right at the end before the next movie starts,

so this is your after credit, is planning for obviously the end of your life, and planning for your family, and planning for maybe even your retirement, and your disability, and stuff like that. Yeah, that's awesome. So that's great. So, what are two or three things that everybody should develop for their after credit scene?

Oh, wow. Well, definitely don't use Chat GPT to write your estate plan, that's what I would say. But your after credit scenes, it's.. it's your legacy, right? Where it's something that we don't like to think about, because death is not a fun topic, and our society, really, we're not very.. we avoid it, right? But I've found that when you actually think through your legacy and put it in writing and make everything enforceable, you get this peace of mind, once you've taken care of it, there's a society with one of the highest happiness rates on the planet, and they have a daily death meditation that they do, so it feels seems counterintuitive, but if you actually confront the idea of death, you get peace of mind after you've handled all that, so yeah, when you think about your after credit scene, what matters the most, and it's really about what is the thing that you would want to happen that would give you peace of mind today as you write your after credit scene. How do you make sure that you have peace of mind, knowing that, okay, I put that in writing, that's taken care of, my dog isn't going to get sent to a shelter. My kids aren't going to wind up with that crazy relative of mine. All those things,

yeah. Take care of the important stuff, for sure. You're a relatively young attorney, or when you started, what advice do you have for folks who are just stepping out on their own for the first time, in addition. Into finding their true self and finding some branding and some unique positioning, which is so important. We talk about that a lot on this podcast and on our webinar series. But what recommendations do you have for folks who are taking that big step to go out on their own?

Wow, that's a good.. well, I actually have some young attorneys or some law students come up to me at comic cons. I've had that happen where they go, oh my gosh, I didn't know that I could still like what I like and be an attorney. I thought I'd have to give all this stuff up. So I would say, what is the thing that you feel like you have to give up, and maybe that is that is where you need to be. Maybe that's the community that needs your services, and that's an untapped market for you.

That's cool. How about branding? Like, what recommendations would you make for creating the website, creating the socials?

Yeah, that's so not to do my own horn, but I do, I am a little bit more artistic, I think, than most attorneys. So, if you are an attorney who you know you're not very artistic, find someone to help you develop that vision, and don't just try to do it on your own, because you don't want to have something that looks low quality compared to everything else that's out there, so if don't hesitate to get that professional help to really elevate what you're trying to present your brand as, so like I said, I think it's because I grew up as a big fan of this niche and I'm very visually attuned to what I think looks good to the community, so but I still need help, and I have still hired people from that community to help create content for me, and some of the content I'm just like, are you sure this is going to work? Recently they had me do a video speaking to women who, who are fans of Japanese street fashion, because it's something that I did when I was younger. I dressed up in Japanese street fashion on the weekends, and I thought, okay, sure, I'll do this thing, and then I got 10,000 views within the first few hours, and I was like, oh, okay,

found my niche. Yeah, niching is so great. You've explored your true self and brought your passion to your brand and your positioning. What's one piece of advice you would give someone who's trying to blend their passion and their purpose?

What is the thing that you try not to let people know about yourself when you're presenting yourself as an attorney, as long as it's not illegal, right? Okay, we're not on something illegal, because I know that when I was an attorney, a young attorney, I never told anyone that I was going to like comic cons or anime conventions, I would take, you know, a day off, and my boss would say, "Where are you going? And I'd say, "I'm going to a Japanese media conference. There are some musical performances there, you know. I try to make it sound smart and lawyerly,

so they don't know. Oh,

yeah, yeah. So, what is that thing that you actually don't want people to know about you, that might actually be the thing you need to tap into.

Great answer. Thank you. So, as I mentioned, always on these podcasts, for now over 15 years, we've been asking people, the short one liners, I love to ask smart people what apps or techniques they use for personal productivity.

I actually have an app blocker on my phone, which, which limits my access, because I have a, a bad habit of doom scrolling. So that was a game changer for me. Is

just so the productivity app is to block all apps. Yes,

it's

no one's ever given me that,

really. It's called, I think it's called Screen Zen, and you can, you can block certain websites, you can block certain apps, you can, you can write a little message to yourself. So every time I am on Instagram for more than 10 minutes, it pops up a message that says something like, hey, you can procrastinate and do this later, like procrastinate on this instead of whatever you're procrastinating on.

I'm a bit of an efficiency nerd. What do you use for, like, your to-do lists and getting things to done?

I use Clickup, so that's my project management

one. The firm uses Clickup, or use it.

Oh, well, I use.. well, as far as, okay, so I'm more of a bullet journal person when it comes to my personal task list. I'm very analog, so I was using paper. Now I'm using a remarkable tablet, but the bullet journal to-do list is basically you write out your to-do list. You do things, whatever you don't do, it migrates to the next page. So that's how I do my personal tasks.

I love it. I'll check it out. Do you have a personal wellness and or fitness routine?

No, I should, though. I'll be honest, I really, I really should. Your

wellness is finding your true self,

that's true. So, mental health, I would say, yeah,

smile is the biggest when you're talking about about that stuff.

Oh, thank you. Well, yeah, so mental health, yeah, just just doing what I love, I guess, is it does wonders for your, your health.

What would you recommend as the best business books?

Business books, I actually haven't read one in quite a while, to be honest. I read tons when I first started my firm, and I read read tons when I was serving nonprofit boards, when I was trying to really figure things out. I don't really have a particular book, but I think there's a point I think where you have to move from solo to staffed, and the books that really teach you about leadership, I think, are important. There was this one book, Nonviolent Communication, which someone recommended to me, and I was like, what is this? What is this weak stuff? But it, it was actually really great, because it, it helped me when I'm talking to my staff and also to clients. It helped me understand how to communicate in a way that creates connection better. So, I think something like that, I would recommend that, not necessarily business focused, but I think the ability to communicate in a way that creates connection can do a lot for your business.

Yeah, our leadership team read that book this year. I'll just throw one more in there, because I pulled this out today for someone is hiring a new executive assistant, and so Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time has a great chapter on EAS, and I'm going to reread it, so that's why

to check that out, because I'm kind of in that transition of now I have a staff practice, I'm not just on my own, I've actually got a couple assistants, and it's, it's, it's different.

Yeah. No, buy back your time. Awesome. And he has great videos too, blogs, podcasts, and YouTubes. What do you subscribe to? And when it hits your feed, you stop everything and listen to that or read that.

Oh my goodness, so I actually, I subscribe to a daily motivation podcast. There's an ad-free one on Amazon Music, and I love starting the day with it. Just sometimes I'm not even fully listening to it, but it's just having that push in the morning is really a great way to start the day, and actually, around this time of year,

is it just called daily motivation?

Have to look at something like that, like daily motivation, but it's the one that's ad free, because I hate when you've got the little ads on it. But let me just check real quick, it is. I think it's Motivation Daily, Motivation Daily, so that's what it's called, Motivation Daily by Motiversity. I try to start mornings with that, but around this time of year, I actually really - this might sound weird - I really like listening to graduation speeches.

Yeah, there's a few popping up.

Yeah, something about this time of year and graduation speeches that gets me energized, because it's that time in your life where you graduate and you were like, oh, all the possibilities. Then you get older, and then you just kind of start thinking, oh, I'm older. It's nice to have that feeling again.

Tom Brady gave the commencement speech at Georgetown the other day. Look that up, it was.. I only got through the first part of it this morning at the end of my workout, and I'll just.. it'll be next up on my Q, and I didn't stop it, and he was saying 99.7% He said, imagine if you had a 99.7% chance to lose, and he went on to tell the story of the Super Bowl, where they were, I think, they were down like 28 to three at halftime, and they went on to win the game. So that's pretty amazing. Who is your NFL or sports team?

It's a fictional volleyball team in an anime. I'm going to be quite honest, and I think I did a video about this, a social media video, but basically, I've never really been into sports. I'm a total nerd, but there's an anime about a volleyball team, high school volleyball team in Japan. I would say that's my, my team. A random, I know.

So, if you were presented in front of the sorting hat, which house would you be selected for?

Oh, it's good. One

question,

I appreciate it. I am.. we take a guess, or

I forget. It's definitely not Slytherin, because that was those were the bad guys, and what was the house Harry Potter was in?

He was a Gryffindor, because they were brave, and then Ravenclaws were smart, and Hufflepuffs are helpful, and

you're a Ravenclaw.

I'm actually a Hufflepuff,

because you help,

which is, yeah, just I love, I love helping people.

Can you do the four houses as a disc profile? Is it consistent?

Oh, I'm not sure.

So, here's the easy way for disc, and actually, this is one of our best podcasts. Merrick Rosenberg wrote this great book called Taking Flight, and I'm showing it. I'll explain it graphically, but most of us can't remember, like, what's a D, what's an I, what's an S, what's a C in the disc profile. And Rosenberg was teaching this, and then he come back six months later, and people wouldn't remember which one was which, and so he had this insight that just popped in his head. I like the Harry Potter stories, is the same thing with the Harry Potter author. She was like dozing on a subway ride, and the whole thing came to her. But the D are the eagles, they're dominant, direct, and daring. The I are the life of the party, they're the parrot. The C are the conscientious, the wise owls, and the S are the doves to support them, so I guess the which house would be which, the helpful or the helpful, they're the dove, definitely

that would be dove, and then what is the scene,

what's that called again, Hufflepuff,

Hufflepuff, and then C, what was C,

C are the conscientious, they're the wise owls. So almost every attorney has some owl in them, and you know, owls attorneys and CPAs are accurate, precise, analytical compliant.

So I would say Raven claws for C's, and then I's not just by default, because Slytherin is all you have left, because Gryffindor would definitely be the DS, but I think Slytherins probably would, would know how to have fun, because they could, you know, get around rules and things.

I love that. I'm going to have to do another edition with Merrick Rosenberg and Harry Potter, fascinating. Okay, great. Well, thanks for uncovering that with me.

Thanks for that's a totally up my alley.

So, who's your favorite Quidditch team?

So, I. so the other thing about myself is I write fan fiction, and my favorite Quidditch team is actually a fictional Quidditch team that I made up that is an American one, so the the New York Sally Dacher, some something like that,

that's awesome, and Quidditch is a sport they play in Harry Potter, where they ride on brooms and they catch, yes, and in my

fan fiction I say that in America it's called Sky Ball, because Americans would absolutely change the name of something prestigious sounding like Quidditch, and then just call it Sky Ball, and change a lot of the positions, too.

Love it. Well, this was a lot of fun. I knew it would be. Last two questions, what's a great introduction for you?

Well, great. Well, I'm an estate planning attorney in California, so obviously anyone who would like to work with me to create a life and legacy plan is a great introduction for me, and that tends to be most, most people you know, almost 70% of people don't have one in place. So I can basically work with anyone in California, but I do have a network of estate planning attorneys nationwide, so if anyone wants a referral, I actually don't get a referral fee. We don't, I know we do, we do that in, in trial work. I remember that world, but in estate planning we don't really do that so much. So I'm not, I'm not getting cut just because I'm referring people out.

Great. And last question, where can people get in touch with you?

Amo dash la w.com is my website. And then you know, I also wanted to mention that my book, Your After Credit Scene, yes, it is an estate planning book, but I think for you attorneys out there who are thinking about, like, what is my tribe, what is my niche, you can, you can definitely look at it in not for the fandom sense, but like how I meet my audience where they are, and then. I also kind of go into the authenticity piece, and they're like, how a little bit more about my journey of authenticity, so you know, if you want to pick it up, it's on Amazon, you're after credit scene, and you can kind of see what you can take from that in and apply it in your own practice, and how you can meet your tribe where they are, speak their language, make those analogies, and all that.

Cecilia, this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm, I'm glad it was fun. It was, you know, five years ago, I would never have thought that I would be talking on a podcast that other lawyers would hear, and actually being honest about writing fan fiction and following fictional sports teams, so I really appreciate the opportunity to just be my nerdy self and show people that you can be this, you can be yourself and be yourself in your practice.

Awesome. Have a great day. Thanks so much.

Thanks so much. You too. Have a wonderful day.