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.

Not to get too Freudian on you all, but, sometimes one of the upsides to blogging and I suppose a lot of writing in general is that it encourages a degree of self-analysis and introspection. This last post (and perhaps some quiet time last week in the UP) and specifically the notion of a law practice broken down into thirds has got me thinking about two sort of macro-level viewpoints that often hold me back from greater success as a small law firm manager. And I’m guessing I’m not alone.

First is the pull or conflict between the “worker bee” mindset versus the business owner/rainmaker/CEO mindset. I’m nearing the 5 year mark of my own firm’s existence and I have not yet fully conquered the “worker bee” syndrome. Meaning I still have a twinge of guilt when I’m NOT getting very specific, currently profitable, legal work done. And what results is that the 1/3-1/3-1/3 model gets out-of-whack big time because I feel like I must be spending more time on the substantive legal work “third.” Inevitably what happens is my breakdown becomes something like 70% substantive legal and probably 15% each for marketing and business administration. Thus I’m too focused on present legal work versus creating future legal work & creating a better legal services business in the future. This is a big deal. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with the “worker bee” syndrome in general but if you know that’s kind of who you are then your/my place might be as another firm’s associate being the ultimate 2200 billable hour worker bee…ouch, that stings.

Second, and less specific to lawyerland, is the old ACTIVITY versus ACCOMPLISHMENT struggle given emphasis by the late Peter Drucker. This is rather self-explanatory but can be particularly challenging for the small firm attorney depending on your staff constraints. I currently utilize one, part-time legal assistant so on the days that she’s working most of my “activities” get shifted off of my plate…scheduling, logistics, reminder telephone calls, buying office supplies, simple banking, mail sorting, etc., etc. I’d include checking e-mail more than say 2-3 times a day in the category of “activity” w/o any substantive accomplishment too. And lets be clear, what I’m labeling as activities are different than sort of utter time wasting procrastination. The things I list above are things that must be done, however, they are not profitable accomplishments that are putting dollars in my pocket…they’re sort of tangential. A typical error would be me putting off spending several hours on drafting some critical legal document for a client and instead spending that time doing non-substantive activity-like busy work. Some easy fixes are proper delegation of work to staff and limiting your e-mail usage each day. The bigger mindset change is developing the mental discpline to differentiate between the important and the urgent. Or like former (future?) Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz used to preach using the W.I.N. acronym:

What’s
Important
Now

I’ve enjoyed participating in Ed Poll’s new forum’s site here. Several discussion categories and a treasure trove of Ed’s writing from over the years. I think the forums are fairly new and just starting to generate significant activity. I’ve gotten some good advice directly from Ed myself, and no consulting fee.

Rummy

Because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

–Donald Rumsfeld

Okay, you might not like the politics of our old Congressman in Illinois 10 but I saw this quote again used in the 1/09 Illinois Bar Journal and just had to piggy-back on it…it’s in my top 5 of personal over-used quotes to my family. And it’s critical for sole practitioners and a primary reason to make sure you have some able people around you and mentors to reach out to even if they’re not directly “in the firm” so to speak.

Because I don’t know what I don’t know BUT maybe someone else does know what I don’t know and that’s invaluable.