Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

Is it sacrilegious of me as a mostly life long Chicagoan to admit I’m not particularly impassioned about Sunday’s Bears-Packers NFC Championship game? Honestly, I’m as big of a jock as they come but to me sports passion is about sports I participate in and/or teams that I have a personal connection to such as the high school or various colleges that I have a personal connection to. For me, pro sports teams = equal private business = less passion.

That said I’ve always admired Lovie Smith’s low key coaching style from afar and never more than this year, particularly from a management perspective. He darn near got himself fired after last year’s 7-9 performance. And with due respect to the addition of Julius Peppers, the biggest change Lovie made in 2010 was the upgrading of his coaching staff. Historically he’s had pretty weak coaching staffs and he’s even served as his own defensive coordinator on occasion which to me is a big no-no for a head coach who needs to really be monitoring the team’s big picture. Yet this year he built a great staff with 3 former NFL head coaches as his assistants.

Big picture I’m focused HARD on 2 things this year:

1. Financial management/measurement.
2. Building a business that performs independently of one person (me).

For building a business I’m creating my law firm’s procedure manual so that no tasks are too reliant on one person but rather everything’s ‘on paper’ as we grow and personnel changes. The other sub-heading beneath the independent business heading is building a team and delegating aggressively. This is my initial sketch to implement over the first 3-6 months of 2011:

Legal assistant

• Client billing w/ follow-up (this has been her primary role for several years).
• Tracking/buying office supplies.
• Monthly financial input & measurement.
• New client intake/scheduling.
• Residential real estate.

Paralegal

• Pleading drafting.

1L/2L

• Client newsletter and general social media.
• Legal research.
• Cook County filing (yep, it’s still paper-based).
• Blog assistance and technology projects.

I intend to be focused on client meetings, court appearances, management, and final review/oversight of legal work product. So we shall see if 2011 is a ‘Super Bowl’ year for me.

President Obama and I both survived our Christmas vacations…his vacation plan and mine. It was a real vacation for me…9 days away w/ only a single afternoon spent at the Marquette, MI public library monitoring some office work/e-mail while overlooking Lake Superior. Of course the last two weeks since I’ve been home have been about as busy as possible but I suppose that’s to-be expected and not a bad thing. It’s nice to get up to da UP not just to see friends/family but also for some time of quiet analysis away from the day-to-day hustle and bustle of Chicago lawyering to ‘Look Ahead/Back’.

2010 wasn’t an utter joy but it was my Firm’s best financial performance in our 5-year history and I definitely learned a few things along the way:

• Specialize. I’ve always been too indecisive in really getting specialized in our practice areas but the real estate market crash did what I hadn’t and now we’re practicing family law and only family law.
• I found some marketing channels that work. CBA lawyer referral service, LeTip, and most importantly marketing regularly to our clients/former clients/referral sources.
• Too much me. I finally sat down and charted specific tasks that will be delegated to my legal assistant and also we’ll be posting a couple jobs early in the new year.

2011:  If we don’t get this right it’s hard to get anything right…”this” being financial management generally. One of my take-aways from E-Myth was to lock-down time every week for legal-business management. So I’ve been calendaring 5 hours per week that’s non-modifiable business management time and it’s already been paying dividends.

• Pricing/retainer agreement revamping. Considering how important these are to a legal services business I’m ashamed to admit I’ve hardly thought about these in 5 years. But I have spent some time on this over the last month and will roll-out some very specific language and pricing changes that we’re planning ASAP.
• New client meetings. This is another lawyer matter that hasn’t been given the attention it deserves considering how mission critical it is. I pretty much know how I want this to change and will draft a specific procedure for my legal assistant to follow.
• ‘To the cloud.’ Anyone heard enough of Microsoft’s Windows 7 commercials during NFL football coverage? Hey it’s planted in my head so I guess the marketers have accomplished something. And it’s also where we’re headed. I think we’re going to be incremental in how we move everything to the cloud, meaning, as new clients come aboard this year everything will be cloud-based but likely won’t move all of our current clientele to the cloud.
• Measure performance. I’ve done this well in fits and starts…that’s why I used to post our monthly $$ figures here but I clearly haven’t kept up as well as I should. So I’m going to do this for a month or two so it’s done how I want it done, create the procedure manual, then delegate.

And I want 2011 to be our best year yet! It’s not magic and I don’t intend to earn $1 million this year but I do want to grow by 10%…that’s How a Small Business Becomes a Big Business.

I just wanted to give a brief shout-out regarding the above which is a CLE I’ll be a part of put on by the IL State Bar Association on February 10, 2011.  It’s a midday (12-2pm) program in Chicago or online. The presenters are a law practice management consultant, both big/small firm attorneys who work in virtual law firms, and of course the requisite ethics speaker.

A good program for anyone looking to start a practice or maximize profits through cost-cutting. There are many, many things that lawyers used to really NEED that they Don’t NEED TO HAVE in 2011.  I’ll help you avoid some of the mistakes that I made.

Update

I ask again…why are you commuting to a single office location on a daily basis??

Chicago No. 1 in road congestion.

Checkout Part I in case you missed it…

5.  Don’t Make Estimates; Make Promises! Meaning move away from just tossing out some hourly rate since there’s “no way to control a client’s costs.” The advice is to compartmentalize your legal services into ‘a la carte’  chunks and charge flat fees for each chunk. In probably 70% of the typical matters I handle I’ve moved to flat fee pricing…estate plans, landlord representation, real estate transactions, and even a lot of predictable in-court family law stuff. I still struggle with bringing predictability to longer in-court matters like an initial divorce or parentage case where it might drag on for a year or more. An idea I’ve heard discussed for longer in-court matters is flat charges for each task like per pleading or for a deposition, etc…need to puzzle on that a bit more. You can still have caveats in place that allow you to charge an hourly fee if something doesn’t go as planned.

6.  Time Blocking/Management. Schedule a block of time each day/week to focus on building your business. Determine the true value of an hour of your time and if there’s anything you’re doing that could be delegated for less than your hourly rate then delegate it. Check email only a few select times each day and do the most important 2-3 items for the day first thing when you arrive in the office.

7.  Strategic work vs. Tactical work. E-Myth says that tactical work (busy work) is all the work attorneys find themselves doing in a legal practice to avoid doing strategic work. Yet if lawyers did more strategic work and thinking they’d have less tactical work to do. Tactical work is all about answers; strategic work is all about questions. This thinking is consistent with the idea of working on the urgent at the expense of the important or Peter Drucker’s old activity versus accomplishment comparison.

8.  Create Your Story & Organize Your Practice to Breathe Life into Your Story. “Your story should be an idealized version of your legal practice, a vision of what the preeminent attorney in your field should be and why. Your story must become the very heart of your practice. It must become the spirit that mobilizes it, as well as everyone who walks through the doors. Without this story, your practice will be reduced to plain work.” (Pg. 165). I’ve been thinking about this one a lot recently with regards to what areas of law I’m really PASSIONATE about and also what is the correct % of one’s worklife that it’s realistic to aim for real thorough enjoyment. In my personal example, there’s a practice area that I’ve been thinking about moving into where I have background in the field and there’s accessible clientele that I know I could tap into immediately. But I do not have deep personal passion for this particular field and it would not “mobilize” me to go work each day and I think I’m going to leave that money on the table for someone else. Finally, I think you want to be upwards of 50% in terms of worklife enjoyment or you may want to re-consider your story. I’ve heard others suggest 70% as the ideal, meaning, work isn’t a round of golf or reading a book on the beach (100% enjoyment for me) because there will be the meetings and administrative work and personnel challenges but the central driving goal or story needs to something you’re passionate about pursuing.

I think The E-Myth Attorney is book worth buying…time to return this overdue public library version. Most critically I want the book to spur me to take the following action:

• Know my firm’s revenue number & keep looking at it monthly/weekly even daily. Where I fail too often in planning and goal-setting is not in doing it but rather once it’s done too often it’s forgotten rather than serving as a year long guidepost.
• Create a Business Plan.
• Create my Macro ‘System’ Categories, then, the Processes within each System. I’ll likely begin with financial management because it’s the most important system and my assistant is actually most involved with it currently so it has the most processes in place already. There was a great quote from my pastor at church last week that applies to law firm financial management and it’s simply, “If you don’t get this right it’s hard to get anything else right.” It’s hard to be a great attorney w/o adequate resources.
• Written Service Guarantee. I’m going to roll-out a 100% service guarantee where if a client didn’t think she got the quality and value of services that she’s being billed for each month she needn’t pay us. Simple and this happens once we’ll make some changes and obviously if it occurs regularly then the relationship likely needs to end.

Today marks 8 years since I joined some 1,500 of my closest friends down at McCormick Place in getting sworn-in as an active Illinois attorney. It wasn’t the most memorable of experiences with such a large group…I rose from my seat, took the attorney oath and that was about it. Although I do recall a nice dim sum lunch in Chinatown with my parents after the swearing-in ceremony.

I wouldn’t say that “time flies when you’re having fun” applies here but the last 8 years of my professional life have included many high points and surely have been instructive and filled with constant learning. And frankly much of “Lawyerland” is pretty whacked!

So without further adieu, here are my 8 observations from 8 years as an Illinois attorney:

There are too many unhappy lawyers. I suppose this might be something like the chicken and the egg, meaning, what came first becoming a lawyer or the unhappiness but either way it can’t be too healthy. The work we do is serious work but too many lawyers take themselves way too seriously. If you’re working in a practice area that’s not meaningful to you, change; if you think being generally belligerent and treating everyone badly helps your clients’ cases you’re WRONG!

I observe too many lawyers who prey on clients during life’s darkest times. This bothers me greatly and motivates me to be different. Specific to my practice I see this a lot in divorce matters…the “simple” divorce that turns into a $30,000 lawyer debt. I had one of my contempt defense appointed cases recently for a young guy who had some clear mental illness and some of his past lawyers had just strung him along to the tune of many thousands of dollars in legal fees in a case where clearly he wasn’t going to be winning custody and there wasn’t much of a marital estate. BE DIFFERENT!

Client education & massaging client expectations may be the most important things I do. Plus, incessantly pushing clients to solve their own problems, particularly in domestic relations matters. Steering client expectations toward reality is probably the greatest wisdom that comes from my vast 8 years of experience. As with most things, you as a lawyer aren’t evaluated by some perfect/objective standard rather you’re evaluated against the client’s lawyer expectations (make sure they’re realistic).

The Circuit Court of Cook County’s antiquated technology = Injustice. I commented to my wife at dinner last night that if you want to experience information technology circa 1985 just walk into a Cook County Courthouse (seriously, where else would you see carbon paper?). I was looking at an archived 1985 divorce court file in Daley 1113 yesterday and it didn’t look any different than the 2010 version. But the fundamental problem is that the antiquated technology leads to unjust results as I’ve written about here & here.

What’s the deal with “Status Reports”? For anyone outside Cook County, Illinois, “Status Reports” are the most popular type of court date where ostensibly you’re coming to court to update the judge on the current status of the case. Plus, these are almost all set at 9:30 a.m. Problem #1 is that most judges I’m before don’t keep track of each case’s “status” themselves so what’s the point? A handful of judges are starting to have a computer up on the bench to keep detailed notes much like the minutes of a board meeting so at least their “status” is being measured. And there’s 8 hours between 830am & 430pm (hours courthouses are open) so why are 90% of cases set at 930am? The elevators at the Daley Center between 920am-1020am are the most needlessly stress-inducing part of my law practice.

Getting rid of a physical/permanent office (and associated costs) and going solo were my best decisions. These are 2 things I probably could not have envisioned 8 years ago that, currently, I’d have a hard time returning to their alternatives (single bricks/mortar location & being someone else’s employee). I’ve made the statement many times that the worst decision I’ve made as a solo practitioner was over-spending on office space…that’s still true. Using Regus for our client meetings allows me & them great flexibility and I’m never commuting somewhere simply for me to work at an office. And building a business is simply very satisfying (not easy, but satisfying).

Client payment security is my most critical issue. I was going to say something about too often allowing myself to compete on price and the negatives associated with that decision (which is generally a no-no). But even when I have likely charged a rate too low, I can make a nice living from the clients who are paying like clockwork. The practice killer is inconsistent income & I must solve this problem. Our early payment option to clients has been effective in 2010…clients get a 5% discount when they pay by a certain date. I think the other solutions to “client payment security” are using “Evergreen Retainers” (never allowing a client to have a zero retainer balance) and securing client payment plans (when necessary) firmly with a credit or debit card.

I need HELP with the business of law. Both law schools and bar associations are deficient. There is the occasional good program regarding “Law Practice Management” but there’s never adequate discussion about MONEY & PROFIT. I brought just north of zero business experience to my law practice when I began in April ’05. So I’ve finally retained an outside lawyer/business coach for year 9 & beyond.

Although I read a LOT (outside of work-related stuff) I must say that I take a generally dim view of business books. Why? 3 reasons:

First, too many business books are not engagingly written. If the 9/11 Commission Report can be engagingly written and nominated for a National Book Award more business books can be written like a novel too. Second, as a lawyer I find that most “business books” aren’t written for or are not particularly relevant to professional service providers. Finally, most law practice management-type books are unoriginal. I surely haven’t read everything and mean no offense but what’s the last LPM book you’ve read that really made you say, “Wow, that’s something new/different”?

The E-Myth Attorney confounds all of the above, written much like many of the Ken Blanchard books (The One Minute Manager, etc.), E-Myth is a quick and easy read using real world and parable-like examples. Also, the book is written with alternate chapters authored one by primary author Gerber (non-attorney) touching on more general entrepreneurial principals (the “E” in E-Myth is short for Entrepreneur Myth) with the next by two attorney co-authors who discuss the application of Gerber’s principles to their law practices and to lawyers generally.

These were the high points I’ll take away from E-Myth:

1. Your Legal Services Business’ Equity & McDonalds. Equity is the financial value placed on your practice by a prospective buyer of your practice. In non-legal circles it’s every entrepreneur’s dream to get the big buyout but you don’t hear much of that thinking regarding law practices. Yet, I think the majority of states (including Illinois pursuant to Rule 1.17 of Rules of Professional Conduct) allow for the sale of a law practice. The McDonalds reference ain’t about a Happy Meal rather it’s the broader concept of working ON your business more than working IN your business. Akin to McDonalds’ franchises, it’s critical that you build a legal services business that works every time and the value of your equity is the effectiveness of the processes and systems you have put into place (it’s the systems not the people that are critical).
2. Know Your Number. When I first heard “Know Your Number” all I could think about were ING’s television ads regarding retirement planning that seemed to run every 10 minutes during CBS’ golf coverage this past summer. The E-Myth meaning is the specific monetary goal you have for your business and then drilling down so that you have a specific, daily revenue goal…every day you’ve either hit your revenue goal or missed it. So set your annual revenue goal, decide the number of days that your business will be open each year and then do the simple division -  total revenue / business days & there’s your daily revenue number. This single number can become a rallying and focal point for the entire firm.
3. 3 Plans. The E-Myth suggests the use of a planning triangle consisting of…a Business plan, Practice plan, and a Completion plan. The Business plan is your firm’s constitution, outlining in business language your vision and laying out in detail the market and strategy you’ll implement as a business enterprise. The Practice plan addresses the “what we do”  and “how” specific to a legal services provider and the processes/systems necessary to get quality legal work done. Your Completion plan is the operations manual…it is a guide to tell the people responsible for doing that work exactly how to do it.
4. You NEED Systems. Buying into the book’s “systems” focus might be the best take-away from E-Myth. It goes back to the McDonalds example of some hard-copy operations manual that defines how everything gets done so even a place with high employee turnover like a fast food restaurant keeps quality consistent and measurable. And just thinking of my small firm this isn’t that big of a change…I have “systems” in place simply most of them are in my or my assistant’s head. But that’s the idea…first, get your processes (file opening, telephone answering, new meeting scheduling, etc.) on paper/electronic document, second, be consistently reviewing and managing these systems. Now there’s a legal services business beyond yourself!

Chrometa (a Greek word for accurate time-tracking). Because time management is critical to “Grow(ing) Your Practice.” And they’ve got to be doing something right if they had mentions in both The Economist & The Connected Lawyer.

Howtomanageasmalllawfirm.com…because I’m getting a tad tired of being a good lawyer who doesn’t maximize my profits. Checkout Rjon Robins October 15, 2010 in Seattle at the King County Bar Association.

Any Big Ten football fans out there?

It’s not the SEC grant you but as a Midwesterner I do watch a little Big 10/11/12 football. Plus, I’m married to a Michigan State graduate so I have a mild rooting interest for Sparty and have been following their progress as their head coach Mark Dantonio recovers from a heart attack suffered after another (ho-hum) win over Notre Dame. I really appreciate sports teams who can overcome the loss of a coach or a player’s injury because it really speaks to the overall core strength of the team.

But it’s not merely a sports issue. Here’s a great example from American History that I wrote about last year. And it’s an issue for your law practice too. Because what if you’re flat on your back violently ill starting tomorrow for 2 weeks?

What & Who’s Your Back-up??

Now, your longer-term solution should be a practice that “runs itself” meaning a business wholly separate from 1 single individual, but that may not be realistic in the early years. But even in the early years as a sole practitioner you must take necessary steps to protect yourself in the event of your involuntary absence.

Here are 4 Back-up Measures to Consider:

1. Your Back-up Buddy. This is an absolute MUST, particularly if yours is a court-based practice much like mine. The court dates just keep on tick’in, tick’in, tick’in regardless of where or how you are. And for me this is almost a 3-fold trap on *vacations, *day-to-day conflicts where I have multiple court dates in different locations, and if *I’m really ill or out for an extended period of time. I solved this one via a bar association mentor-ship program where I have a great friend who has served me in many ways with practice back-up being one of those ways.
2. Centralized Case List. I keep a spreadsheet list of all my active cases with case status notes and court dates listed. As much as anything this serves as a self-organization and reminder tool for myself. However, an assistant and my back-up attorney need to know where this file is located too because this does give an easy snapshot of all my active cases.
3. Thorough Calendering. Obviously some organized calendaring system is key or you’ll be missing a lot of things which I wrote about here. But I think thoroughness is my point of emphasis too particularly in the event of you as lawyer’s incapacity. Currently on our calendar we list a case name, courthouse/courtroom, and a brief description of what the case is set for. I think we can do a much better job of specifying what a case is set for so that a 3rd-person with zero knowledge of the case can view the calendar and have a pretty good idea of what’s up in court on a particular day. Also, why not list an opposing lawyer/party with contact information. What else would be useful?
4. Case Logs for ALL CASES. This is an expansion on item #2 that I’ve used with real estate transactions since my very first job out of law school. For our real estate transactions this is the “one-stop-shop” where anyone who is working on a deal can look and see the current status of the transaction. If anyone does anything related to the transaction they make updated notes into the log. These are helpful in residential real estate because you typically have several people working on the same transaction and there’s a good amount of coordinating logistics. I don’t currently use logs for non-real estate cases but shouldn’t I? My case list in #2 gives some case background but it’s not nearly thorough enough where another lawyer taking over say an involved child custody case could really be ready to dive-in and be effective as the client’s “new” attorney.

Finally, the over-arching issue is the creation of a legal services business that de-emphasizes any single individual. The above tips are critical sort of “fire insurance” that are still a bit reactionary in nature. Plan your firm’s long-term growth and fight the ego mind-set of placing everything on yourself that may heighten your perceived importance but in reality does not serve your clientele or staff.

I attend a weekly business marketing group where every member gives a little 1-minute marketing spiel each week about themselves and their businesses and oftentimes this one guy says something to the effect of when you call such-and-such business you’re really calling me John Smith a business of one. I know he intends to mean that you’ll get very personalized service but I cringe and think to myself what if you’re incapacitated for several weeks…then what happens to me as your customer? Don’t let that be you!

I don’t like to re-post the work of others too often but I saw a couple things recently that are too good to ignore….Never compete on price from LexBlog & Never Ever Compete on Price from Flourishing Business.

First from LexBlog:

That’s right. Any business can compete on two of three fronts. Service. Quality. Price. But not all three. And I’ll take competing on outstanding service and quality of product over competing on price any day. One because it’s the right thing to do when you’re looking to serve others. And two, because that’s what most people want – quality and service.

Second from Flourishing Business:

6 reasons to never compete on price…

• Don’t be afraid to charge what you are you worth.
• People like paying for quality.
• Take your focus off price and onto to value.
• Put the emphasis on quality and service and the experience.
• Use your price point to cultivate your niche.
• Ask what you can do to add more value and listen.

I have made the mistake of competing on price far too often during my career as a legal services business owner and hurt myself. For me personally I’d say it’s one of those things where perception is more important than reality. In other words, the highest cost product or service is NOT necessarily the best product or service…I know that to be fact. I’ve stayed and eaten at crappy 5 star hotels/restaurants and conversely had a wonderful meal just a couple weeks back eating some of the best barbecue I’ve ever had beneath a cheap party tent on a picnic table outside.

So it’s been one of those things with me where I’ve let truth and also my personal values trump the reality that for a pretty large population segment Higher Cost DOES = Higher Quality. I need to listen to the advice given frequently by the host of TLC’s Property Ladder which my wife and I enjoy about house flipping…take your personal tastes out of the equation, this is a business transaction where the goal is to make money.

Anyone enjoy reading obituaries?

I do actually. And it’s not some prurient fascination with death or anything like that, for me, it relates to my love of history and in this case the very personalized tale of someone’s life. And oftentimes a good obit. can be very instructive as to a persons decisions and accomplishments and I can learn from them.

Recently I was struck by the death and story of Theo Albrecht of Frankfurt, Germany, a co-founder of the Aldi grocery store chain. It wasn’t anything personal but rather some of he and his brothers business practices that jumped out at me thinking there’s some application to the business of law.  Here’s some of the language from the obit. (from the NYTimes) that I want to tease out a bit and wonder if there’s not an application to running a legal services business:

After being released from Allied prisoner-of-war camps following World War II, Theo and Karl Albrecht took over their parents’ small grocery in the bombed-out city of Essen and, out of necessity, sold only a small number of essential items. When the economy began to boom, competitors expanded their inventories to include thousands of items, but the Albrecht brothers realized they could operate more efficiently by limiting selection and keeping stores fairly small.

“The Albrecht brothers said, ‘Why do I need all these other products? I make most of my sales with these few products and have a lot less complexity and costs,’ ” said Matthias Queck, research director in Frankfurt for Planet Retail, a market research company.

Rather striking isn’t it, maybe less is more? Although there’s an Aldi about 5 minutes from where I live I think I’ve only been in an Aldi once in my life. My wife who is the resident “foodie” in our family and the person who also does the weekly grocery shopping has remarked that Aldi has great deals but she can’t complete the full weekly shopping there because of their slightly limited selection (consistent with the above). I didn’t realize that Aldi owns the Trader Joe’s chain as well which essentially uses a similar “limit selection” model for more higher-end foodstuffs. We’ll go to “Joe’s” more frequently but again you can’t quite do your total weekly grocery shopping there.

Is there “Aldi” application to the business of law??

• Sold only a small number of essential items. In lawyerland this is practice specialization, no? The opposite of this “Aldi” model would be a general practice where you may work in a limitless number of subject matters. Why is this practice area limiting concept so hard for me to pull the trigger on? At some level it just sounds counter-intuitive…the idea that limiting your market somehow would increase your business. Of course there is a ton of evidence inside the law and outside the law to support that premise yet I still hear subconscious whispers saying, “Don’t drop that 10% practice area because that might be the chunk that grows into my million dollar niche.” Yet I know that even I have a negative perception of lawyers (at least in an urban market like Chicago) who claim to be general practitioners or list a bunch of unrelated practice areas on their business cards because I KNOW she can’t be an expert in those many fields.

• They could operate more efficiently by limiting selection. These next two points are really the supporting points to the first point and what I need to use to argue with my own subconscious when it’s telling me to maintain small, unprofitable practice areas. I’d focus on intellectual efficiency and marketing efficiency particularly. It is HARD WORK to represent someone well if you practice in oh more than 5 practice areas. An example from last week, a friend asked me to review a commercial lease for him. I’ve done that before but it’s something that is in that 5% area of my practice and it took a lot of time to pull up some old leases and grab a checklist off the Internet and I still probably didn’t do an A+ job. Conversely if he had wanted to discuss the defense of an indirect civil contempt preceding within the domestic relations division of the Circuit Court of Cook County, I likely wouldn’t have had to do anything other than draw on my experience from the tens of similar cases I’ve handled just this year. With marketing I’m not sure I would focus on “efficiency” so much as simple effectiveness. I don’t use much paid advertising where I’m paying for multiple ads or something since I practice in multiple practice areas, however, in our e-mail newsletter and Website presentation I’m sure I have lessened our marketing EFFECTIVENESS by garbling our focus and likely leaving people guessing as to where our practice expertise lies.

• Make most of my sales with these few products and have a lot less complexity/costs. I’m reading a lawyer/management book now (I’ll likely post a review when I’m done so I’m not naming it yet) that says if you don’t have systems or processes for everything you’re doing in your law practice, then, all you own is a “job” you don’t really own a legal services business separate from yourself because too much is dependent on just you. McDonalds being the opposite example where it can have huge turnover of immature teenagers flipping burgers but continue to thrive because of its operational manual, i.e. their “systems.” I can totally see how I can cut complexity/costs by cutting practice areas and really systematizing my law practice. I have decent systems for billing and marketing but I’m SORELY lacking in my systems in the substance of my practice and it’s surely because I’m too broad.

Can you apply the above to your legal services business? Is this concept holding you back? Are you too broad, too general? I believe this “breadth of practice” challenge has been the #1 or #2 hurdle for me in growing a great legal services business. Why not give it a try for 6 months to a year?