Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

As someone who was a professional writer (and life long bibliophile) long before I was a licensed attorney I’m constantly amazed at both the dearth of writing I see undertaken by lawyers and the poor writing skills that I observe in my colleagues. I’m not sure where the fault lies, a legal writing course is part of the typical 1L curriculum. However, my recollection of my first year legal writing course is that it focused mostly on teaching the format of various legal documents (legal research memo, client letter, appellate brief) and not on writing mechanics. For me, a couple years working in a newsroom, reading for pleasure constantly, and William Zinssner’s On Writing Well have under-girded any writing skill I’ve developed. Alternatively you might just might spend a year reading the works of Oak Park’s own Ernest Hemingway.

But why write more?

Because a single, well-written article can pay huge dividends for you from reputation building to client marketing. I’ll steal a phrase from Julie Fleming’s, The Reluctant Rainmaker which I just finished (review and maybe author interview to come), “Repurposing Material”  or simply writing once and using your work product many, many times. Sure, an outside publisher isn’t going to want to re-publish something that has appeared elsewhere but you can manufacture plenty of “downstream” uses from referral source mailings, blog posts, client newsletters, and more. Let me talk-thru a personal example and then list some ideas that you might pursue…

One Article:  Multiple Benefits

This tale is a bit more lawyer rather than client focused but I think the principles are universal and I’ll touch on another more client-related article I wrote a bit more below. FIRST, In January 2008 my article, I Hung My Shingle:  What I’ve Learned in 2 Years of Solo Practice, was published in the IL State Bar Association’s General Practice, Solo, and Small Firm Section Council newsletter. It was a several thousand word piece with 10 tips on starting a solo practice and that publication has a subscriber base of some 7,000. SECOND, in March 2008, the Illinois Bar Journal wrote an off-shoot piece picking out some highlights from my original piece. The Bar Journal goes out to some 30,000 members of the bar association. THIRD, on 5/5/09 I posted a slightly revised version of the article on this blog, What Worked and Didn’t Work for Me:  A 2-Year Synopsis. Obviously getting something out of the Web really kick-started things. Although some of the more “prestigious” legal publications are great for a resume line, those publications generally aren’t freely available on the Web which hurts their marketing benefit to you. Currently, the blog post has 11 comments (likely one of our more popular posts) and I’ve gotten innumerable personal contacts from people with follow-up questions and more importantly relationships formed. FOURTH, the director for continuing legal education with the ISBA specifically referenced the blog post in asking me to host, Brick by Brick:  Building a Law Practice in Challenging Times. This was great fun and in terms of personal marketing brought great prominence to me and the program is still being sold today. FIFTH, The ISBA also included the post as part of its New-Admittee Virtual Coffeehouse program which brought even more traffic to SIC. SIXTH, although harder to specifically define, all of the above has and continues to pay huge traffic dividends to this blog and to my Internet prominence in general.

How can you use this general “repurposing” idea to grow your practice? Or, simply, how can you start with a single article and use it over and over and over for more clients and clients and more $$ and $$?

One Article = More Clients

If your goal is to attract more clients, think about the breadth of potential audiences when planning your “base article” topic. Is there a topic that with a little “repurposing” could be attractive to lawyers, referral sources, and clients?

In February 2007, I wrote an article entitled, Pay Yourself in Residential Real Estate Transactions, published in the ISBA’s Real Estate Section Council’s newsletter. I of course posted a version of this over at Closing Chicago Real Estate and I did get a re-post from a local real estate agent. Further, I mailed copies of the article to some 50 real estate professionals and referral sources. I also used a version of it in our Firm’s client newsletter. Sure, the original writing and research is hard work, but then the re-packaging and re-use of your writing is easy and the potential for business generation is BIG!

Easy Action Points

• Write better & write more.
• Distribute your writing to clients & referral sources.
• Get your writing on the Web (on a non-password protected site) for traffic-building and Web prominence.
• Use your articles again and again (break it up if need be) via client newsletters and blog posts.
• Consider paid writing sites like Ezinearticles.com to expand recognition even more (and put a few bucks in your pocket).

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).

I was honored to be interviewed recently over at GAL radio. Hopefully I gave you all a few take-a-ways to help Grow Your Practice!