Best Era Community | The room where law firms get smarter

Why join this one?

Running a firm is lonelier than anyone warned you, and it doesn't have to be. There are a lot of lawyer communities. This is the one where your people are.

The no-brainer part

$1.40 a day. First 7 free. (Our Director of Community is from Minnesota and physically cannot exaggerate.)

People answer.

Ask the thing you've been chewing on, and someone who lost the same motion in 2019 tells you what she'd do now.

The referrals are real.

Cases, candidates, the one vendor who actually calls back. A few times a year it spills onto a long table with good bread, and after that it's friends.

Firms get better. So do the people running them.

Intake gets fixed. The hire gets made right. The work gets priced like it's worth something. Somebody makes it to the kid's game.

We believe in unreasonable hospitality.

Welcomed by name, shown where to start, checked on when you've gone quiet.

Join us on Slack

What you actually get

Ryan and the team, answering your questions

Direct access to the top consultants in the legal space, in the channel most days and live at the monthly AMAs and biweekly office hours. Firms pay many multiples of this for an hour of the same people.

A referral channel that works

Members send each other cases, candidates, and the vendor who actually calls back. 48 referrals attorney to attorney in the last 3 months.

The content and recording library: two and a half years of it

Every AMA, workshop, and course we've recorded, in one library, yours the day you become a member. A bargain on its own before you count anything else on this list.

A Slack that answers

400+ owners, lawyers, paralegals, marketers, and ops people. Some of the brightest minds in legal, experts in their lane, and people in year one, all in the same room. Everyone asks. Everyone answers.

Conversations with a point

AI, marketing, intake, hiring, referrals, the win you need to tell someone about. Also music, pop culture, and a daily Wordle, for your sanity. Office hours are never recorded; what's said there stays there.

What's working, while it's working

Claude skills, prompts, tools, the shortcut somebody finally figured out. Shared casually, by us and by members, the day it works.

No brainer. I'm in. A one-year membership, $42 every 30 days. First 7 days free.

Settling in

Hospitality, in practice.

The short version

You won't be left to figure it out.

A real hello.

Zosia says hi by name and walks you in.

Personal guidance.

A walk through what's here and where your questions belong, based on what you do, so you never have to guess where to post.

A call with Zosia, when you're ready.

Fifteen minutes on the ropes and what you're working on. You pick the time; she'll make it work.

Your first post.

Somebody replies. Now it's yours too.

How we're different

Most lawyer communities trade tips. We're also here for the bigger question: what all of this is doing to the work, and to us.

In three words

Real. Rebellious. Useful. Usually in that order.

We talk about AI: the philosophy, the implications, the whole messy middle.

It's our busiest conversation. Half is tools, what worked and what broke. Half is harder: what to automate so people can do the human work, what we owe the people doing it, how a profession built on judgment should use a machine that imitates it. We're in awe of it, and we mean to build an ethical future with it.

We're pro-human, and we say so.

Fair pay. Hiring people who don't look like you. A firm that doesn't run on someone's burnout. If that sounds like politics, this isn't your room.

We share what's working, as it works.

A Claude skill one of us built. The intake tweak a member finally got right. The tool that turned out to be worth the money. Nobody packages it or saves it for a launch. It gets dropped in the channel, and then it's yours.

We're honest, a little unruly, and good company.

There's a rule about assholes and we enforce it. What's said here stays here. The people in the channel are the ones you'll meet in person, and that's where the friendships start.

Zosia and Brittany from Best Era, laughing outside

Who's behind this?

Best Era is a consulting and education company for law firms, built by people who ran one. What we teach is what worked.

Ryan McKeen co-founded Connecticut Trial Firm, grew it from 3 people to almost 40, and co-wrote Tiger Tactics. He consults with firm owners on the decisions nobody teaches you: who to hire, what to charge, when to stop.

Allison McKeen ran operations and finance there, which is why the growth didn't eat the firm. She builds systems that let a firm grow without wearing down the people inside it.

Brittany Green ran marketing there and grew wanted leads 82% in three years. She helps firms decide what to be known for, then builds the marketing to match, and co-hosts The Way podcast.

Marisa Rua spent ten years as a paralegal and now runs Para Era, training paralegal teams nationwide.

Zosia Whigham runs this community, and has spent six years building and running law firm communities just like it. She co-runs a nonprofit music studio in Minneapolis and builds elaborate backyard installations for birds and squirrels, which tells you how she treats guests. Join, and she'll know your name.

Ryan McKeen of Best Era, smiling outside

Ryan. Nicer than the rules sound.

The fine print (it's short, promise)

No assholes.
Lawyers and law firm team members only. Vendors, there's a door for you below.
What's said here stays here. Office hours are never recorded.
Say the hard thing. Help the person who said it.
Membership is for a year, billed $42 every 30 days. The first 7 days are free. The content and recording library isn't included in the trial; it unlocks the day your membership starts.
Not on Slack yet? Once payment clears, the invite lands in your email.
We don't poach from Jay Ruane's Criminal Mastermind, Lawyerist, Maximum Lawyer, or Fireproof. Keep those. Join this too.
Break the rules and we cancel your membership without a refund. The room matters more than the $42.

That's the whole list. The door's open.

The room where law firms get smarter.