Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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Although my interest in the NBA has waned a good bit since Jordan’s game-winner over Byron Russell and the Jazz back in ’98, it was difficult to avoid the media circus surrounding LeBron James’ announcement that he would sign with the Miami Heat and the fallout therefrom. I was just the slightest bit surprised and disappointed that he left Cleveland because personally I most admire those coaches and players who’ve stayed with a team or location for the long-term and really built a meaningful and successful legacy, through the highs and the lows…Paterno, Wooden, Bird, Magic, Jordan.

Isn’t it a bit like the lawyer who jumps to big law for the money, security, and anonymity instead of building a practice that involves going through the lows and highs yet in the end having birthed a living company?

I like this nugget from the Washington Post’s Micheal Wilbon:

Something my friend Charles Barkley said on NBA TV the other day resonates with every single old-school player I’ve talked to. “In fairness, if I was 25 I’d try to win it by myself,” Barkley said. “Not technically ‘by myself,’ but I would want to be the guy. LeBron is never going to be the guy.”

Kinda like an “Associate” at Biglaw, no? You’re never going to be the guy. Being a follower and not wanting to be the centerpiece in your career isn’t always bad, right. Good money and employment security are powerful draws, just ask LBJ. Just be sure it’s what you really want.

Sure, the early years for a legal entrepreneur aren’t too glamorous earning $20,000 per year for a year or 2 but if you learn, grow, and stick with it there’s some serious accomplishment at the end of the rainbow. You’re building something; you own something; accountability…the buck stops with you; you’re a job creator; and, you’re a Leader!

Here’s a reminder from my 12/19/09 review of Small Giants:

The book concludes with an inspiring chapter, The Art of Business, and profiles the founder of Inc. magazine, Bernard Goldhirsh and his quotation…

I kept thinking that the entrepreneur is like an artist, only business is the means of his expression. He creates a business from nothing, just a blank canvas. It’s amazing. Somebody goes into a garage, has nothing but an idea, and out of the garage comes a company, a living company. It’s so special what they do. They are a treasure.

A Reluctant Retailer Decides to Open Her Books. Just substitute “law firm” for the word retailer in that headline and I think this article could be hugely impactful to you firm’s bottom-line. I think the key “take aways” from the article are really unlocking the unused intellectual value of your lawyer and non-lawyer staff alike and really building a business team. I haven’t done as good a job as I should over the years but I’m amazed at the ideas we generate when my legal assistant and I really dig into the business issues we’re confronting. The sort of all-knowing lawyer or CEO concept is stupid primarily because it so under uses the strengths of other employees.

Supreme Court Rules for Student Seeking Discharge of Student Loan Debt. Although not a fan of financial irresponsibility in lending and I am someone who does have moral qualms with bankruptcy discharge, it’s nice to know there may be some options for students. Here’s SCOTUSblog’s take on the opinion.

Staying Ahead on Retainers. This was part of the ISBA’s Illinois Lawyer NOW, Best Practices column recently. Likely a problem for many over-stretched sole practitioners. I definitely like the **get larger retainers and **actively push the use of credit cards ideas. Personal example with me is just comparing a handful of our clients who are on the “automatic credit card charge plan” versus the more typical mailed monthly bill people…the credit card folks I KNOW I’m getting paid that day we close our billing cycle whereas the regular mailed monthly billed people it’s more of an I THINK/HOPE I’m getting paid sometime sort of feeling. BIG DIFFERENCE! Here’s the link to the Illinois Law NOW Best Practices page with a bunch of free, useful practice management columns.

The Danger of Domestic Relations as a Practice Area…see here, here, and here. One piece discussed a lawyer’s alleged assault on an opposing party in an Order for Protection case…not surprising to me sadly. I haven’t been a part of any assaults but I see way to many lawyers losing their cool and even making harsh verbal attacks on an opposing party. Then there was the jailed deadbeat dad who tried to egg the judge…how’d he get the egg if he had been incarcerated?? And then the rash of religion/custody disputes that I’ve seen lately in domestic relations land. I think the divorce/religion package is more combustible than politics/religion.  I tend to view this litigation as attempts by custodial parents to over-intrude on the non-custodial parents’ parenting/visitation time.

Are You CEO of Something? This relates a lot to the first item above and really just getting more out of your people by being a good manager. And it’s a double-positive…you delegate and make your legal assistant “CEO” of certain areas of your business really empowering/growing him or her and it lets you focus on more important things. So far my part-time legal assistant is CEO of client billing, office supplies, and post-closing real estate file/mailing procedures.  Here’s a bit from the article:

We had this really motivated, smart receptionist. She was young. We kept outgrowing our phone systems, and she kept coming back and saying, “Mark, we’ve got to buy a whole new phone system.” And I said: “I don’t want to hear about it. Just buy it. Go figure it out.” She spent a week or two meeting every vendor and figuring it out. She was so motivated by that.

Saw a great bunch of videos from ABA’s Techshow with the full article here and all 16 speaker presentations here.  These are 6 minute presentations that answer the above, so, what is the future of law practice…

I honestly have no idea who Jack Newton is but the presentation is, What a law firm can learn from Zappos.com. The take-away…customer service. You can differentiate yourself as legal services become more of a commodity through providing great customer service.  His last slide tagline:  YOUR LAW FIRM IS A SERVICE COMPANY THAT HAPPENS TO SELL LEGAL ADVICE.

And from our friend Carolyn Elefant, The Lessons of Tommy Supreme.  That’s a great lawyer/entrepreneur/blogger story that I was not familiar with at all. So this sole practitioner Tom Goldstein built a niche appellate practice that eventually was bought-out by BigLaw’s Akin Gump. Some take-aways:

• Power of Free – he did lots of pro bono work to raise his profile up front…could you do this? Or give-away a free publication?
• Boot Strap – he started as a home office guy…don’t throw away money on “fluff.”
• Niche Practice – you standout & marketing is cheaper because you’re only trying to reach a niche & you’re the expert not just some generalist.
• Hustle – you’ve got to go get those clients and be unconventional sometimes.

Alright, so perfection is in the eye of the beholder but a couple weeks back I had what for me was a darn near perfect week.

What do I mean by “perfect”? Well, bottom-line was cold hard profit (for us meaning $3,000 in a single week) but more broadly I’m talking about a week where there was a wonderful mix of attention paid to past, current, and future income which occurred partly due to certain timing issues but also resulted from very intentional planning decisions. So how can I (and you) make sure we have more PERFECT WEEKS?

1. Perfection Requires (lots of) Planning. When I say this I’m primarily talking about planning/managing your calendar. What’s the old Lincoln adage…time/advice is a lawyer’s stock-in-trade? You and your legal assistant should be constantly looking at your office calendar so no time is wasted. Take a look at the daily schedule of candidates for high political office sometime with days scheduled down to the minute…that might be a bit extreme but for the success of your law practice your time is similarly important. Control your calendar!
2. Income Diversity or Create Past/Present/Future Income. Here I mean spending time collecting/concluding past cases, working on present cases, and selling/marketing for future cases. During my ‘perfect week’, we were effective in collecting past income and I had a couple of real estate closings where you sort of “collect” for all the work leading up to the closing. As for present work, I had some nice chunks of in-office work time plus four cases in court which were a mix of quick “status dates” but also two substantive hearings. Lastly, I had three new client meetings, my weekly marketing breakfast, and a media interview that all might add to our future income.
3. Create Intentional “Office Hours.” This generally goes back to the planning issue but flat-out I think you should plan for 1-2 “office days” each week. In my experience there’s a tremendous efficiency difference between the days when I can just get into the office early and be around the office all day compared to the days when I’m pulled in several directions and then just get back to the office for a few hours in the afternoon. In my opinion you need to create those minimum 3/4 hour work chunks (if not full days) to really be productive…avoid 1-2 work chunks because by the time you check e-mail and return a couple of telephone calls that time is up and you’ve accomplished nothing substantive.
4. Free Fridays. And I don’t mean take too many long weekends, nope, but I do think if you can keep court stuff and most meetings off of Fridays it will help promote perfection for 2 weeks…the current week and the next week. During my perfect week, Tuesday was fairly busy but the real money days were Wednesday and Thursday with a lot of court stuff, a new client meeting, and a real estate closing Thursday afternoon…great profitable days. But then Friday I had nothing scheduled and just worked around the home office. This allowed me to catch-up on “busy work,” get the post-court letters out, enter any billing from the last day or two, and get planning/organized for another (near) perfect NEXT week.
5. Location, Location, Location. Until we get a more virtual court system (I’m not holding my breath), if you’re a lawyer who appears in courtrooms frequently managing the location of your court appearances is critical. Roughly, you should never appear in court unless you have 3 matters set in court that day in the same courthouse and you must always anticipate court delays and be able to be productive anywhere. For example, on Wednesday I had a couple quick matters in court in the morning, then a full hearing at around 130 pm, then finished my day with a new client meeting in the downtown area. On Thursday, I had a couple quick matters from 9-10 am and then a full hearing at 11 am, had some unfettered work time from noon to 2pm and then a real estate closing at 3 pm. So a couple great days all just steps away (of course those Daley Center elevators are another story for another posting).

The phone ain’t ringin’…it’s Christmas Eve! So I decided to skim some articles I’d been wanting to get around to reading…the highlights:

1. Some news for those of you on the front lines of lawyering in the Circuit Court of Cook County. First, here’s the piece announcing the creation of a new domestic violence division within the Court.  My understanding is this will primarily impact the life of judges (and less that of me as private lawyer) over at 555 W. Harrison since previously the judges over there had been split between the criminal and domestic relations divisions.  As a citizen of Cook County I was a tad saddened to see this proposal regarding the closure of 4 suburban courthouses over the weekend to save $$$. Am I missing something or isn’t there an obvious compromise to close a couple versus the only choices being close 4 or none?

2. The Double-Edged Sword of Suing a Client. A nice analysis from our friend Ed Poll with an analytical process to undertake before suing a client…first, there’s the loss of future business/referrals; second, possible negative publicity; third, possible negative press/perception. Remember regarding these sorts of matters, client communication is key. And I must say I’ve frowned a bit of late on using collection agencies who can be as much of a pain in the butt for creditor or for debtor.

3. One Lawyer’s Definitive Guide to Video Marketing for Lawyers. It’s hard to think of reasons NOT to do this as any cost barriers to entering the camcorder/video market have virtually disappeared. I’m going to make a big push here in 2010.

4. How to Market Your Business with Facebook. Well, since I only use FB to criticize Notre Dame football, converse about golf, and for the occasional political rank this blog ain’t the place to learn about FB marketing. But I WILL have a Facebook Page up shortly! As a non-expert on all things “social networking” it sure seems like FB and Twitter are where the buzz is. A separate link on 21 small to mid-sized Chicago businesses using social media effectively.

5. Total Attorneys:  For-Profit Lawyer Referrals? I honestly had never heard of Total Attorneys until the Tribune ran this piece a couple weeks back (it is a Chicago-based company). It doesn’t sound that different than LegalMatch that I used a couple years back although the article makes it sound like Total Attorneys directs the prospect to a single lawyer whereas LegalMatch merely allowed me as one of 5-10 lawyers respond to a prospect’s fact pattern. Far from being a legal ethics expert, I would only ask why it’s okay for bar associations to have referral services but not private, for-profit companies? SOME of the bar referral services are fairly lame w/o that profit motive.

6. Far From Field, Lawyer’s Blog a Player in N.F.L. A little off topic but I liked this piece because I am more jock than lawyer & it does emphasize a point that I and likely many lawyers should open their eyes to which is something to the effect that social media – Internet business likely has much better business potential than merely providing traditional, bricks/mortar legal services. Florio, 44, an erstwhile Vikings fan living in Steelers country, began his blog in 2001 as a sideline to his law practice. Is 2010 the year your blog income exceeds your lawyer income?

7. And to close with some “light” reading…a primer on international child abduction. Because if you’re a domestic relations lawyer like yours truly one of these IS going to walk into the office sometime…likely sooner rather than later. It’s got something to do with the Hague Convention, no?

The headline comes from a fascinating book I’ve been working through the last couple of months, Small Giants by Bo Burlingham. Published in 2005, it might be my favorite business read of the year thus far. It profiles 14 small businesses (a relative term…I’d only heard of one, Clif Bar, prior to reading the book) and the subtitle is, Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. I’ve tried to really keep up on my outside business management reading this year because it’s just a fact, if you’re involved in managing a small law practice you have more in common with non-lawyer business owners than your typical lawyer/associates and in my opinion reading only within the legal media doesn’t give you the breadth of expertise you need.

The concept of “mojo” is introduced upfront…a sort of elusive quality that these companies have related to their passion for being. Clif Bar’s founder, Gary Erickson labeled it as “something about the brand, product, and way of being in the world that was different. I realized that mojo was an elusive quality and needed to be tended carefully.” I think of this as some connection between your business to some bigger goal/purpose beyond the narrow product or service you provide.

Another characteristic of the businesses profiled is the intimacy of connection with the communities in which they’re located…i.e. it’s hard to imagine them being located anywhere else. Some of our Midwest readership might be familiar with Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a good example of a business with a very intimate relationship with its location. On one side this is reflected in the inherent style/culture of the company (think Bentonville, AR w/ Wal-Mart as an example) but it’s also the direct financial support of community organizations through the business/profits. I’m attracted to making this a BIG goal of mine. The broad framework might be connecting my firm with a nonprofit or two consistent with our values and possibly practice areas. For example, the bigger local passion might be eradicating domestic violence and that’s what your legal services business is about through your practice, direct financial support, volunteerism, board service, and depending how you feel about this aspect, this could be part of your marketing plan too. Particularly with a law firm, I think this can also add a bit to your “mojo” and general employee morale because lets face it, part of lawyerland is just dealing with unhappy people at life’s lower points but if you’re connected to something larger this might really give your firm culture a boost. Creating your own foundation might be another way to accomplish this purpose. In Chicago, I’ve been impressed with what I saw being done by real estate company Baird & Warner and their foundation when I had a closing recently down at its headquarters at 120 S. LaSalle.

A chapter is titled, A Culture of Intimacy, discusses mostly the intimate relationships between company and employees. A lot of this chapter is a discussion of the great fringe benefits that go to the employees of these firms from education reimbursements, health insurance, retirement benefits, and flexibility of schedules. The underlying premise being to remind people in unexpected ways how much the company cares about them. I aspire to this too…with all the people who are just miserable and unhappy in their jobs, wouldn’t it be nice to create a great environment for people to spend those 8 hours each day & to really be part of something larger than oneself?

A way to think about your business:  “An attempt…to reorder the world in some way.” Could you develop a “Direction Statement” for you firm like Reell Precision Manufacturing? Not the businessy-type document that a business or marketing plan should be but rather guiding principles discussing company values, management concepts, and ideals to guide everything that your firm is going to be about.

And you’ve got to get the money/profit right to do all these great things. A good quote from dressmaker Selima Stavola, “If they call up on the phone and ask me how much I charge, I say, you can’t afford me.” I can relate to this myself when focusing on the level of paranoid, thoroughness that I try to bring to the table as a lawyer…the documents must be right, that’s my work product. I don’t want to have any thoughts in the back of my mind asking, will I get paid for this level of attention to detail. Remember, a company without profit is dangerously close to not being around at all.

The book concludes with an inspiring chapter, The Art of Business, and profiles the founder of Inc. magazine, Bernard Goldhirsh and his quotation…

I kept thinking that the entrepreneur is like an artist, only business is the means of his expression. He creates a business from nothing, just a blank canvas. It’s amazing. Somebody goes into a garage, has nothing but an idea, and out of the garage comes a company, a living company. It’s so special what they do. They are a treasure.

That’s what you can do! You can reorder the world in a way that you value, having a great impact on the people at your firm and your clients. It doesn’t just have to be the drudgery of reviewing another contract…make it about something BIGGER. It’s your blank canvas.

These are the 14 companies profiled:

Anchor Brewing
CitiStorage
Clif Bar
ECCO
Hammerhead Productions
O.C. Tanner Co.
Reell Precision Manufacturing
Rhythm & Hues Studio
Righteous Babe Records
The Goltz Group
Union Square Hospitality Group
W.L. Butler Construction
Zingerman’s Community of Businesses

A good biography with some good psychological history in a recent WSJ profile of U.S. Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. I like this quote and think it’s very applicable to legal entrepreneurs:

“In so many areas of life, you need to be a long-term optimist but a short-term realist. That’s especially true given the inherent dangers in aviation. You can’t be a wishful thinker. You have to know what you know and don’t know, and what your airplane can and can’t do in every situation.”

That’s very consistent with what Jim Collins labeled the Stockdale Paradox in Good to Great. The idea that you should have long-term faith that you’ll be successful but you also must have the day-to-day discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.

I got contacted by another young attorney recently seeking my advice regarding her obtaining employment (not the first such contact I’ve gotten). The story was a common one, essentially she’d been hopping from contract position to contract position over the last few years and currently she had recently become unemployed again. Is this your plight?

Wouldn’t hanging out your shingle on a full or part-time basis be a better long-term plan?

I will not sugar coat the start-your-own-firm process…it’s tough and not always the most lucrative endeavor. But even during this recessionary year the income has kept coming and I know I’ve got something that can be built upon in future months/years. The contract job to contract job to contract job to unemployment attorney has about zip.

And it’s right down from Daley Center at State & Washington. Here’s OfficePort’s site and some coverage recently in the Trib.

A place to work for the home office and self-employed crowd…Website says $400 per month but no extended leases get signed. I’d like to see a shorter than monthly option.

Nope, that’s not a description of hallucinogenic drugs. Actually, it’s a funny quote from this NYT’s blog post:  Lock the Law School Doors, it’s actually meant to describe the allure of the big money and prestige of Big Law.

As you might guess from the title, the artilcle is a warning of the less-than-great job prospects that face law school graduates currently and likely into the foreseeable future. Interesting that the U. of Miami’s law school dean wrote to members of this fall’s class with a similar warning and asking that students defer entrance into law school this fall.

Of course this isn’t a new story, this was the best analysis I’ve seen in recent years discussing the legal job market and here’s a piece from the last month, Downturn Dims Prospects Even at Top Law Schools. I think we’ve seen the recent highlights because as often happens during a recession, many with poor job prospects or laid-off workers head to law school and many schools have seen increased class sizes this fall.

My take, you can’t argue with the economic reality and the dwindling (temporarily or likely permanently) of the $150k+ gigs for BigLaw associates. Hopefully law schools will use this time of economic change to broaden their career services viewpoint (make the PIE bigger). During law school I felt that there was very much an institutional preference for large firm private practice both indirectly through the comments of faculty and more directly in terms of the on-campus interviews being almost exclusively large private practice law firms. Why not increase that pie significantly by getting government/business beyond private practice on-campus…from the FBI/CIA to nonprofit management to think tank type places. Also, as quoted in the orignal piece:

“Students may just have to make it in a more entrepreneurial fashion.”

Welcome!