Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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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.

I’m sitting up here on the 29th Floor of the Daley Center getting ready for my afternoon trial and if I’m not seeing things, there’s free wireless Internet access at the law library…FINALLY. That’s a game-changer for us state court people who spend far too much time here and enjoy the nice lake view.

Whoopee!!

Meaning, get out of your office, meet people, and Grow Your Practice! This can be a real struggle for small firm lawyers generally and particularly for people who tend to be introverts…and if you don’t face the problem it can be a practice killer. Here’s an older post, Do You Make These Mistakes, describing the conflict between the “worker bee” mindset conflicting with the business owner/rainmaker/CEO mindset. And if you’re like me and lean a tad toward being an introvert, it’s often easier to do that great legal work than it is to get out and meet people.

But unless you’ve got a critical deadline tomorrow, you MUST put those social engagements and professional networking events ahead of your day-to-day legal work...because you never know who you’re going to run into.

Here’s a personal example and a true story:

Some two years ago my wife and I attended a 1st birthday party for the child of some friends of ours. Quite frankly they aren’t particularly close friends of ours and they live a fair distance away from us…but we went anyways. And I met another person there who was very personable who happened to be a financial planner and we struck up a conversation and subsequently got together for lunch. Shortly thereafter he referred a friend of his to my office to represent this guy buying a home (he’s actually referred several clients to me over time). Then at the closing I met several other colleagues who had also been referrals of the financial planner to the buyer…both the Realtor and mortgage lender. Interestingly, this Realtor who I met through the financial planner has also become a great referral source for me. I’d also expect that the 5 or so clients who I’ve worked with as referrals from the financial planner and Realtor have been pleased with our work and likely the sort of people who will get my name in front of their spheres of influence over time. This financial planner and Realtor are now probably among my top 5 business referral sources.

So one dumb birthday party has turned into some $6,000 in legal fees and likely considerably more to come in the future. One new client or new case or new professional referral source can literally change your life. How many law firms out there just sort of took off simply from the success of one individual client or business? It can happen. There’s always time to do more work, but you may never have an opportunity to meet that single person again if you don’t GET OUT THERE!

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.