Jefferson Fisher, BBA ’11, sits alone in the dark-blue GMC Yukon he bought used a few years back.  He’s in an empty parking lot in the small Southeast Texas town of Silsbee, still wearing his light-gray suit jacket and turquoise tie. He spent the day in a courtroom as a trial lawyer, working cases, but now he’s ready to make a case to an online court of about 10 million people. 

He begins speaking into his iPhone, which records a video that will get posted on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. “How to be more assertive in your conversations,” he says, repeating part of the title of the short clip, “How To Be More Assertive.”

“Number one,” Fisher says looking directly into the camera, “stop over-apologizing. That’s where you say, ‘I’m sorry’ in every single sentence. I know it’s a tic, I know it’s a habit, but you’ve got to stop.”

From the front seat of his SUV, Jefferson Fisher, BBA ’11, offers advice to a worldwide audience about how to communicate. “It’s important to me that the people who follow me feel like they’re part of the journey,” he says.

During the next 45 seconds, Fisher adds two more points to the advice: No. 2, stop undervaluing what you have to say; and No. 3, “NO” is a complete sentence—people should stick to their boundaries. His delivery is quick and crisp, and the message to his followers is clear: Stop undercutting your expression of ideas.

After uploading the video, Fisher will drive home, put his phone down, and eat dinner with his wife, Sierra, B.A. ’10 , who also works as a lawyer at Fisher Firm, and his two children, ages 6 and 4. He’ll try not to think about the comments, the direct messages, the 18 million views the video will get as it goes out to a social media universe full of followers around the world. First and foremost, he’s a dad.

direct works best

In late 2021, Fisher, who earned a J.D. in 2014 at Texas Tech University School of Law, left a partner position at a Beaumont, Texas, law firm to start his own legal practice in Southeast Texas. At first, it was Fisher, a fifth-generation lawyer, sitting alone in coffee shops with a laptop, working and signing up new clients. He thought it would be a good idea to use social media to promote the firm, but his first attempts felt too salesy as he experimented with platforms such as Instagram.

Then, he says, he decided to focus on what he knew better than anybody. He spent his childhood in rooms during depositions and watching his father and other lawyers in court, advocating for their clients. He watched master communicators express arguments that had life-and-death consequences. While his father taught him good judgment and accountability, his mother taught him kindness. His upbringing and helping clients through the fallout of perhaps the worst day of their lives as a trial lawyer gave him skills to help others. 

“I’m an attorney. I deal with people every day,” Fisher says. “I can help teach people how to communicate. Why don’t I treat it like an opening argument and condense it down?”

He made a video called, “How To Argue Like a Lawyer, Part 1” in the format that would come to define his online presence: from the front seat of his vehicle, talking directly to the camera, giving advice in three simple steps. At the time, Instagram videos were limited to a minute, so he kept the advice quick and simple.

The “How To Argue” series started gaining him tens of thousands of followers, then hundreds of thousands, including celebrities like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Video topics expanded to include subjects such as, “How To Take Control of a Conversation” and “How To Respond to a Liar.” 

As the videos grew more popular, the law practice also took off. It now employs 20, including 12 lawyers, with Jefferson’s father and wife among them. He also hired childhood friend Matthew Walters as chief operating officer.

Walters says the popularity of the videos has helped raise the firm’s profile. It regularly receives calls from as far away as Australia and England, with potential clients seeking legal advice. They’re a bit out of the firm’s jurisdiction, but Walters says the firm is working on ways to help them.

The COO says that Fisher’s authenticity has been key to his online success. “The videos are truly the way he is,” Walters says. “He’s good at giving advice. He doesn’t say anything without meaning what he’s going to say.” 

what businesses can learn

Many of Fisher’s video posts—there are more than 400—deal with ways to counter difficult people and situations, or how to defuse conflict. Whether someone is disrespectful or tries to gaslight you in the workplace, Fisher has done a video offering ways to respond and rise above negativity.

His followers take his practical advice to heart. Kaci Hansen, who runs a cooking website in central California, says Fisher’s videos on Instagram have become invaluable for dealing with situations in her personal life and in business. She says she appreciates that the videos are quick, honest, and gimmick-free.

“I’ve adopted saying, ‘It’s been a productive morning,’ instead of ‘I’m doing good’ when someone asks me how my day is going,” she says. “His insights have made me more conscious and self-aware in communicating.” 

Fisher’s side business in social media has brought him speaking gigs at businesses, online videos for LinkedIn and other platforms, a weekly email newsletter, and a weekly longer-form podcast that expands on video topics and answers questions from viewers. He brought on a couple of people to help manage the influx of messages.

His biggest project is a book to be published in March by Penguin Random House called “The Next Conversation.” 

Fisher says the book will contain more usable advice for conversations, framed with stories from his years as a trial lawyer. He says his growing media empire is all working toward the simple goal of helping as many people as possible improve how they communicate.

“It’s a wonderful blessing,” Fisher says, “and an honor and responsibility to make sure you’re helping the most people that you can.”

That tracks with what Fisher is like in real life. Over lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, he’s thoughtful, polite, and good at expressing himself without dominating the conversation. He asks questions and is curious. One big difference from his videos, however: In person, he talks much more slowly.

“That’s from being from the South,” Fisher says. “I think it’s just the culture. We speak slower. Maybe a little bit kinder.”

As he was growing up, Fisher’s peers and educators saw that he had the gift of gab. An English teacher put him into UIL scholastic competitions focused on prose and poetry, and mock trials. He gave commencement speeches in high school, law school, and at McCombs in 2010, where he told the audience, “It’s not about you,” a running theme in his videos and book. 

The podcast, which is also viewable as video filmed in the truck, has allowed him to relax a little, without the need to fit three important points into a one-minute clip. It also has been a way for him to bring his audience into the process. On a recent episode, a listener named Brian from Australia asked how to deal with a “serial interrupter.”

“This is somebody I work with and no matter what I do, they always interrupt. Do you have any tips?” Brian asked.

Fisher advised letting the person interrupt once, but on subsequent times, use the person’s name to get their attention and use this phrase: “I can’t hear you when you interrupt me.” Changing the mode of communication, such as switching to email or texting, might work with some people.

Viewers such as Brian from Australia, Fisher says, are being heard by the Texas trial lawyer and that huge audience. “It’s important to me that the people who follow me feel like they’re part of the journey,” he says. “They’re all part of the experience, and I get to take them along with me.” 

It’s hard to gauge how his words will land around the world, but Fisher gets enough feedback to know that viewers are sharing his videos. His favorite comments are often just one word, “This,” coupled with tagging a friend or family member.

“They’ll tag somebody and write, ‘This is what you and I were talking about this morning,” he says. It’s one way he knows that what he recorded in his truck after work has connected. “I love that kind of stuff,” he says. “It brings me a lot of happiness.

“The best thing about what I share,” he says, “is the hope of real change. It doesn’t matter what anyone has said in the past. You can change it, you can change your life, with what you say next.”