Practice on Your TermsWorkshop

Workshop — Founding Cohort

Learn It Once. Use It for the Rest of Your Career.

Practice on Your Terms Workshop is a one-time, two-day investment in the exact systems that lets you work fewer hours and earn more — not a membership, not a subscription, not another program you'll forget to log into. Learn the process once. Reuse it for every client, for as long as you practice.

Reserve Your Seat — Milwaukee, WI

One payment. No recurring fees.

Who this is for

This Was Built For You If —

  • You're a practicing estate planning attorney — often inside a larger firm — where estate planning isn't the firm's priority. It's not the highest-revenue practice area, it's not where partners are focused, and it can feel like an afterthought next to litigation or corporate work.

  • You don't want to litigate. You went into estate planning because you wanted meaningful client relationships, not courtroom conflict — but the firm's incentives don't always reflect that.

  • You're working 40, 50, 60+ hours a week and want that number to go down — without your income going down with it. Ideally, you want both numbers moving in opposite directions.

  • You already know the law. What nobody taught you is how to run the practice — the intake process, the marketing, the staffing, the follow-up — efficiently enough that it doesn't consume your life.

  • You're open to a single, focused investment in real systems rather than an ongoing monthly commitment you'll have to justify to yourself every billing cycle.

Photo needed — portrait of Dera
Dera · Facilitator

The story

I built my estate planning practice the hard way. Sixty-hour weeks. A gatekeeper I couldn't step away from. Consultations that ran three hours because I didn't have a system. Amendments that ate my margins because I hadn't set expectations up front.

It took years to fix that — not because the answers didn't exist, but because no one handed them to me. I had to find them one mistake at a time.

The Workshop is what I wish someone had given me on day one.

Over two days, I'll walk you through the exact systems that took my practice from a 40+ hour grind to a business that runs on roughly 30 hours a week — networking, marketing, client intake, staffing, case management, all of it.

This isn't a promise. It's a path.

What you do with these tools is up to you — but the path is real, and it's walkable. And once you've learned it, it's yours — no monthly fee to keep access to your own process.

This isn't a library of tips you'll half-remember. It's a repeatable process — learn it once during the two days, and use the same system with every client from then on.

What You'll Walk Away With

  • A referral network strategy that brings clients to you — instead of you chasing them

  • A marketing approach built for estate planning specifically, including how to turn Google reviews into a steady stream of new clients

  • A consultation framework that respects your time and the client's — under two hours, every time

  • A follow-up and booking system so the next meeting gets scheduled before the client walks out the door

  • A staffing structure where you're never one employee's resignation away from chaos

  • A case management approach that keeps amendments and follow-up work profitable instead of a time sink

  • A 90-day action plan built with your specific practice in mind

Plainly

This isn't a CLE seminar, and we don't offer credit — that's intentional. This is the business of practicing law — from someone who's actually run the practice, not just studied it.

Two full days. Real case walkthroughs — not hypotheticals. A room capped at 30, so it stays a real working session, not a lecture hall.

One Investment, Not an Ongoing Commitment

Most practice-growth programs are built as memberships — a monthly fee, a drip of new content, another login to remember, another subscription to eventually let lapse. Practice on Your Terms Workshop is the opposite: a single, one-time focused investment. You attend two days, you leave with the complete process, and it's yours to run for the rest of your career — no recurring charge, no content trickling out over months, no momentum to maintain on someone else's schedule.

The efficiency gains are the return on that investment: a shorter consultation process, a referral system that runs without your constant attention, a staffing structure that doesn't depend on you personally — the kind of changes that pay for themselves in reclaimed hours and higher revenue per hour, not in a subscription you keep paying for the privilege of using.

The Realistic Part

Q
Will this get me to 30 hours a week?
A
Honestly — that depends on you. What we're giving you is what it actually took to get there: the systems, the scripts, the frameworks. Implementation is yours. Some attorneys will move faster than others. What we can promise is that these are the real tools, tested in a real practice, not theory.

The partnership

Meet the Founders

Practice on Your Terms Workshop is the shared idea of two people who've already done what they're teaching. Dera lived it first — she's the one who built the practice, from a 40+ hour grind to a business that runs on her terms, and developed the “secret sauce” systems the Workshop is built around. Janis is the one who helped build the marketing machine behind that practice — as the agency owner who turned Dera's website, SEO, and Google reviews into a real client-generating system. Together, they turned what worked for one practice into a Workshop built to teach it to others.

Photo needed — headshot of Dera
Dera · Co-Founder

Dera Johnsen-Tracy

Attorney & Co-Founder

Dera Johnsen-Tracy is a shareholder and co-founder of Horn & Johnsen SC in Madison, Wisconsin, where her practice focuses on estate planning, probate, and adult guardianship. She's also the attorney co-founder of Practice on Your Terms Workshop — the systems she teaches are the same ones that took her own practice from 40+ hour weeks to a business that runs on roughly 30.

A 2008 graduate of Marquette University Law School, Dera brought 14 years of prior paralegal experience in Texas and Wisconsin into her legal career — a perspective that shapes how she thinks about running a practice, not just practicing law. She went on to spend more than five years as an adjunct professor teaching paralegal studies, and remains an active WealthCounsel member and a frequent speaker at national conferences for organizations including WealthCounsel, ElderCounsel, and AAII.

She is the author of Wills, Trusts, and Probate: An Insider's Guide to Estate Planning in Wisconsin, and is the featured estate-planning resource within the vetted professional network at Morgan's Caring Connection — the nonprofit co-founded by her Practice on Your Terms Workshop co-founder, Janis Strutt — where she supports families raising children with special needs.

Featured estate-planning resource in the vetted professional network at Morgan's Caring Connection, supporting Wisconsin families raising children with special needs.

  • Marquette Law, JD '08
  • WealthCounsel Member
  • Published Author
  • Shareholder, Horn & Johnsen SC
Photo needed — headshot of Janis
Janis · Co-Founder

Janis Strutt

Co-Founder, Marketing & Business Strategy

Janis Strutt holds an MBA in Internet Marketing from Full Sail University and spent eight years owning and operating a digital marketing agency — the agency that took on Dera Johnsen-Tracy's practice as a client and rebuilt her website, SEO, and Google review strategy into a genuine, repeatable marketing machine. That work is the real-world case study behind the Workshop's marketing curriculum: it's not theory, it's what Janis actually built for the practice Dera runs today.

Janis is also Co-Founder and Executive Director of Morgan's Caring Connection, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing special-needs estate and guardianship planning support to Wisconsin families — where Dera serves as the featured estate-planning resource. At the Workshop, Janis teaches the marketing side directly: how she builds a website that converts, the SEO approach she used to grow Dera's visibility, and the exact system for turning client relationships into a steady stream of 5-star Google reviews.

  • MBA, Internet Marketing
  • 8 Years Digital Agency Owner
  • Co-Founder & Executive Director, Morgan's Caring Connection
30Founding
Cohort

The Founding Cohort

A first-of-its-kind gathering in Milwaukee, WI. 30 seats. Direct access. The systems that took one practice from 40+ hours a week to roughly 30 — built by someone who's lived it.

As a Founding Cohort member, you're not just attending the first Workshop — you're helping shape what this becomes. Expect direct access to Dera Johnsen-Tracy, a smaller, closer room than future Workshops will offer, and recognition as a founding member in everything we build from here.

The Workshop teaches the systems that took one estate planning practice from 40+ hour weeks to roughly 30.

Dera Johnsen-Tracy · Attorney & Co-Founder

The day

Four sittings, one page at the end.

  1. 09:30

    The terms you never set

    Where your calendar, your fees, and your scope quietly got decided for you — and how to name it plainly.

  2. 11:00

    Pricing without apology

    Build a fee structure you can say out loud. Anchors, tiers, and the language that holds when someone pushes.

  3. 13:30

    The boundary drafting table

    Write the actual sentences: intake, scope changes, after-hours, and the graceful no.

  4. 15:15

    Your ninety-day terms sheet

    Leave with one page: what you take on, what you decline, what you charge, and when you review it.

Led by

Dera Johnsen-Tracy

Attorney & Co-Founder

Dera is a shareholder and co-founder of Horn & Johnsen SC in Madison, Wisconsin, where her practice focuses on estate planning, probate, and adult guardianship — the same practice the Workshop's systems were built inside.

A 2008 graduate of Marquette University Law School with 14 years of prior paralegal experience, she taught paralegal studies as an adjunct professor for more than five years, speaks nationally for WealthCounsel, ElderCounsel, and AAII, and wrote Wills, Trusts, and Probate: An Insider's Guide to Estate Planning in Wisconsin.

The specifics

What's Included

Format
2 days, 8 hours each day
Group size
Limited to 30 attendees — by design, not scarcity marketing.
Investment
$5,000 — one time. No membership, no monthly fee, no recurring charge. You pay one time and the process is yours to use for the rest of your career.
Breakfast
Provided by the venue each morning.
Throughout the day
Coffee, water, soda, and light snacks provided both days.
Lunch
A 90-minute break each day — our venues are chosen near local restaurants so you can step out, stretch your legs, and eat wherever you like. Lunch itself is on your own.
Materials
All session materials and worksheets included.
CLE credit
Not offered. This Workshop is built around practice-building content, not legal education credit.

The Hours Assessment

In Redline

How many hours could you reclaim?

Six questions about how your practice actually runs today. Answer honestly — this isn't a promise, it's a starting estimate for what's possible when the systems are in place.

Clause 01 — Current Hours
Clause 01Current Hours
50 hrs
3070
Clause 02 — Initial Consultations
Clause 02Initial Consultations

How long does a typical initial consultation run?

Clause 03 — Referral Network
Clause 03Referral Network

Do you have an active referral relationship with financial advisors, insurance agents, or other attorneys?

Clause 04 — Staff Dependence
Clause 04Staff Dependence

If your front-office person left tomorrow, what happens?

Clause 05 — Follow-up & Amendments
Clause 05Follow-up & Amendments

How do you track client follow-up and plan amendments?

Clause 06 — Marketing
Clause 06Marketing

Do you have a repeatable marketing system, including collecting reviews?

Estimated hours reclaimable

0 / week

Answer Clauses 02–06 to see your estimate.

These are the exact systems behind every clause above.

Reserve Your Seat

This is a directional estimate, not a guarantee. Results depend on which systems you implement and how consistently — the workshop gives you the tools; the terms are yours to set.

Questions

Before you reserve.

Founding Cohort

Reserve Your Seat

30 seats. Milwaukee, WI. [DATE — TBD]. One payment, no recurring fees — this isn't a guarantee of a 30-hour work week, it's the real path, built from what actually worked. What you do with it is up to you.

Founding Cohort — Milwaukee, WI

Reserve Your Seat

30 seats total. $5,000 — one time, no recurring fees. Complete the form below to reserve your seat — our team will follow up by email with payment instructions.

By submitting, you're requesting a seat in the Founding Cohort. Our team will follow up by email with payment instructions to finalize your one-time $5,000 registration. Seats are held on a first-confirmed basis. See our cancellation policy for details.