How to add more text in the slider

I figured this out in case anyone else needs it.

First create a child theme so that you can change things without messing up the original theme. (There are instructions in the WordPress Codex)

Then copy the slider files into the child theme directory.
Ex. alt_homepage_blog_slider.php is for the post slider with widgets.

Then each time you see this line <?php echo attorney_excerpt(25); ?>
change the 25 to whatever length you want.

Ex. <?php echo attorney_excerpt(50); ?> will display the first 50 words of the post.