Episode 001
Laura Salerno-Owens
What does it take to bring in $1 million in business in a single year? Attorney Laura Salerno Owens joins Alice Tang to reveal how she transitioned from a new lawyer to a powerhouse rainmaker in just 10 years—all while taking two full maternity leaves. In this episode, Laura breaks down why your biggest competitor isn’t external bias, but your own self-limiting beliefs.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
– How to turn “rainmaking” into a daily habit.
– Why delegating to a trusted team is the secret to scaling.
– The liberating philosophy of making high-stakes decisions without regret.
“ One thing I've enjoyed most about my network is that it's filled with people that I genuinely admire and because of that, the rainmaking is a joy and it comes easily.”
[00:00:00] Welcome to women’s million dollar conversations with Alice Tang, where we share stories from successful business women on how they built their success and insights to help you achieve your goals. Now let’s join the conversation.
[00:00:15] Alice Tang: Were very happy to have my good friend Laura Salerno Owens, who is a powerful attorney among us today.
She’s international too. She’s going to come get you with our today’s women’s million dollar conversations. To be on this show, our guests have accumulated either a million dollars have made a million dollar annual income or have strike a million dollar deal. Hi, Laura. Welcome.
[00:00:42] Laura Salerno Owens: Hello. Hello. Alice said, I’m Laura Salerno Owens and I am an attorney and I’ve been practicing law for 15 years in Portland, Oregon.
[00:00:52] Alice Tang: Awesome. Laura, how long does it take for you to get to your million dollars and tell us, is that asset is that income or everything? [00:01:00] You hit all the marks.
[00:01:02] Laura Salerno Owens: So for today’s conversation, when we’re talking about million dollars, for me, it’s bringing in a million dollars of business in one year. So that’s the mark that I’m using.
Because for lawyers, a big part in addition to the technical skills, Is the skill to actually develop business and bring in business. And so I had been practicing law for about 10 years before I hit the million dollar mark. And it was a huge goal for me when I had always set. And it was one I set when I first started practicing and thought, I’ll never be able to do that, and what, in fact, I did hit that goal. It was such an incredible experience. It was really. Really remarkable.
[00:01:44] Alice Tang: Excellent. So you feel remarkable. What else did you feel?
[00:01:48] Laura Salerno Owens: Honestly, the overwhelming feeling I had was gratitude. And a fun tradition at my firm where we really try to encourage each other’s wins.
And so one of my mentors is my firm’s [00:02:00] co-founder Dave Markowitz, and he was sure I was gonna hit a million dollars, and so he told me, Laura, when you hit a million dollar. We’re going with our spouses to Vegas. And I was like, okay. And so when, in fact that happened, what was so great about it is not only was it me and Dave and his wife and my husband, but I also brought my legal assistant and her husband and my marketing director and her husband because of this, I just knew there was no way that I got to that million dollars. Yes, of course I had Dave helping and guiding me, but it also was my legal assistant, keeping me organized, keeping me motivated my accountability partner, my marketing director, helping me with ideas, helped me put things together. And so we had a celebration, we had a dinner at a private room and it was just an opportunity to look around and just look at something that we all, as a team built together.
It was a real. Really special time.
[00:02:54] Alice Tang: What I have heard from you is yes, I did it, but I did it with a lot of [00:03:00] people running with me. There is a African saying, saying that if you want to run fast, run alone, if you want to run far, run together. You’re demonstrating that, although you might not like running or …
[00:03:13] Laura Salerno Owens: I have a personal saying, I will, run. If I’m being chased.
[00:03:18] Alice Tang: By a lion or something in Africa, that’s why it’s African saying.
[00:03:24] So on your path to success in this journey, what is the biggest bias you have faced? I’m not specifically talking about gender and a lot of my guests talk about gender, but any bias, internal, external.
Would you share with us and how you overcome that?
[00:03:40] Laura Salerno Owens: Yeah, I think a bias. Obviously there’s the obvious external bias of, oh, you’re a woman or, oh, you have young children, so you can’t go out networking. You can’t do these things. But the one that I think is the biggest and most insidious bias is your own self limiting beliefs.
And so in this path, and this 10 [00:04:00] years, I went from just starting to practice law to bringing over a million dollars at this. During that time, I had two children and I took two full maternity leaves. So that was six months that I was out of the market, and I think some women would tell themselves, oh, if I disappear for three months, people aren’t gonna see me at events.
People are gonna forget about me or, or if I have these children and I want to be a good mom, then I can’t focus on rainmaking. And so those are the biases that I tried to tell people that I mentor. It’s your self limiting belief as the biggest bias, you absolutely can do it. And so the only way to do it is to do it every day.
Just a little piece and it, and I think one of the biggest things about rainmaking is you have to do, it has to be a habit. It has to be the same way that every day brush your teeth and, do your other habits. It’s just something, it can be small, but every single day, no matter how busy you [00:05:00] are, it’s just part of your habits, part of your DNA.
And then you get incredible results you really do.
[00:05:06] Alice Tang: I love it. So you basically covered the next question.
[00:05:07] What is the number one piece of advice you would give to other women? Looking to reach the million dollars is to put it in a habit and believe that you can .
[00:05:19] Laura Salerno Owens: Absolutely believe that you can put into a habit. And then going back to, I talking about with my team, get a team in place.
So for example, I know I have many strengths, but keeping track of details is not necessarily one of my strengths. Whereas my legal assistant, Abby is brilliant with that. And delegating the things that you’re not good at empowering others because she is so good at it. And I also, I just, grew up playing team sports.
I love winning as a team, creating a team atmosphere. I think for a lot of women, we are collaborative. If I can generalize a bit, so I’d say that too, you don’t have to do this alone and make it fun. Another thing I do with my business development is I often include my [00:06:00] husband. And so for many years and legal community people thought my husband was a lawyer because he was at all the lawyer events.
And he was like there’s free food and drink. Why wouldn’t I be here?
[00:06:09] Alice Tang: So I had the pleasure of meeting your husband and he really can fake to be a lawyer because he’s so astute and of course he’s handsome, but don’t tell David.
[00:06:19] Laura Salerno Owens: Well, and I think a lot of times we against self-limiting belief, we think, oh, this has to be hard. Or this has to be like, okay, I have to go out and schmooze and not be myself. And that actually doesn’t have to be the case. One thing that I’ve enjoyed the most about my network is it’s filled with people that I genuinely admire in and because of that, the rainmaking is a joy and it comes easily.
And I think that translates when you’re with people that you care about and people that you want to help, they feel that, and then they want to send you business and then you give them a Sterling experience and then they tell your friends about it and so on and so forth. So that’s a piece of advice I would give.
Is find [00:07:00] a way to make it fun and make it part of your life.
[00:07:04] Alice Tang: Excellent. Excellent. It is good to transition to how does Laura make a decision? How do you process and get to make a big decision? Especially when the stakes are very high. Some people say I collect a lot of information. I analyze and do all these.
I’ll talk with the right people. Some people will say I use my gut. How do you do that?
[00:07:23] Laura Salerno Owens: So definitely I’m one being a lawyer. I like to, know my options, get my evidence together, to get all my information. But what I would say on this piece about how you make a decision in a high stakes environment is use the same skill sets you use when you’re just making a decision that’s not high pressured. And let me explain what I mean by that.
I have a friend who’s a very successful in real estate and she always says. Luxury is not a price point. It’s a service, right? It’s a service standard. And so in her mind providing a luxury experience, it’s not because it’s a $3 million house.
She brings the same [00:08:00] rigor to a sale for $3 million house that she does for an $80,000 condo. And I think that mindset really applies when you’re making high pressure decisions. You know how to make decisions. You’re smart. You have experience, you’ve been in your field. Just bring that same rigor, that same analysis to any issue, whether it’s a small.
So my case with my clients, a small matter or a multi-million dollar class action, right? Either way gather the information, weigh your options. And then ultimately this is sometimes the hardest part, make the call. And on that piece, I would say make the call because no matter what happens, you can rebound.
And so when you free yourself of that fear of making a mistake and know that there really aren’t mistakes, there are decisions that have consequences that then have other consequences, you can deal with it. And when you’re free to have that fear, you’re able to make much better decisions. [00:09:00]
[00:09:00] Alice Tang: So free from the fear.
And I think as a lifetime lessons for women and men, because anytime when we were contemplating for longer than needed time I heard a clutter is postponed decision mental and spiritual clutter, because you thinking around something that you should make a decision and make you never made the decision.
[00:09:26] Laura Salerno Owens: Yeah, paralysis by indecision. And so it’s important to be decisive and to be confident. I don’t believe in regret. I don’t regret any decision I’ve made. I don’t regret anything that’s happened to me because everything has led to where I am now and who I am now. And so once you come to that realization that there really isn’t a bad choice, a bad decision, the wrong thing.
It’s incredibly freeing and allows you to be really innovative and do great things.
[00:09:55] Alice Tang: This comment has really freed me up. There’s no regrets. [00:10:00] Just keep going.
[00:10:01] Laura Salerno Owens: Yep. I think that is one of the key things to being a rain maker. There’s some people can wring their hands. Oh, is this the right thing or, oh, I should’ve landed that deal or all that went sideways and it’s wasted energy.
You have to just keep moving forward and even the quote, unquote, bad things that happen, present a gift and opportunity. And so you just, once you change that mindset, that there’s no such thing as bad news. There’s no such thing as a regret, a bad thing. These are only gifts and opportunities, then the world’s your oyster.
[00:10:39] Alice Tang: Wow. Wow.
[00:10:41] Wow. I don’t know if the next question pertaining to you, because what is the one thing you would do differently knowing what you know now, because a lot and every single thing you say is quotable in a nugget.
[00:10:55] Laura Salerno Owens: It’s interesting.
Obviously, so I’ve changed jobs. This firm is my third [00:11:00] firm, and so some people might say don’t, you wish you joined Markowitz Herbold right away. And of course I love Markowitz Herbold, but again to what I was saying earlier, I really think that every experience you have enriches you.
And so I don’t regret things. I don’t look back and think, oh, I wish I had done this differently. What I do say is I do look at experiences and think. Okay. I wasn’t happy with the way that turned out or that didn’t land on me in the way that I wanted, but I’m glad that happened because now I know what to do differently going forward.
So I think it’s just it’s a similar idea. But rather than treating it as a static place of that happened, and I feel regret. It’s more of a a moving thing of this happened and so it informs me about where I want to go and how I’m going to move forward. And that to me feels more liberating and more empowering and energizing of
okay. It’s a lesson that my life has taught me versus it’s a burden I have to carry.
[00:11:59] Alice Tang: Oh my [00:12:00] goodness. You made, my day.
Play What’s the one thing you wish you could have done differently
[00:12:03] Last question. What is one piece of good, very good advice or very bad advice that has made a humongous impact on you.
[00:12:14] Laura Salerno Owens: When I was growing up there was one person in my life who would always say, it has to be somebody, why not you?
And I love that. I love that idea. It has, for any given thing, you, whether it’s in your company, there has to be someone who’s the number one rain maker, in any given company, why not you? For an award, they have to give the award to somebody in the city. Why not you? And I love that. It really, it has to be someone why not me?
And I think when you ask yourself that question, when there’s an opportunity in front of you, someone has to win this bid. Someone has to win this case. Someone has to get this recognition. Why not me? That to me has been very liberating and something I very much embrace.
[00:12:56] Alice Tang: Awesome. Thank you so much for spending time with us today and a lot of great nuggets.
Good luck in achieving your next $10 million dollar deal. Or billion dollar deal
[00:13:11] Laura Salerno Owens: I will say, when I was talking about the team and whatnot, you’re one of my team members, Alice, you really are. Honestly, you are so inspirational, not just for me, but for so many women in our community.
And so thank you. And thank you for showcasing this. This is awesome.
Laura Salerno Owens is a trial lawyer, skilled advocate, and President of the Firm. She is the go-to lawyer for clients in high-stakes employment and business disputes due to her strategic approach and proven track record of success. Clients describe her as “fearless and powerful,” “extremely bright and practical,” and a “fantastic litigator.”
Laura successfully represents employers and employees in disputes ranging from single-person contract matters to multi-thousand-person class actions. Her employment expertise includes wage and hour disputes, discrimination, trade secrets, noncompetition agreements, and executive transitions. She has significant first-chair jury trial experience in state and federal court and has served as lead counsel in notable cases, including defending the State of Oregon in multi-million dollar class actions and serving as lead plaintiff’s counsel in an equal pay and gender discrimination class action against Nike, Inc.
Recognized as a legal leader, Laura is a Lawdragon Top 500 Civil Rights and Plaintiff’s Employment Lawyer and is recognized by Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, and Super Lawyers. She has also been honored as a Woman of Influence and Forty Under 40 by the Portland Business Journal.