I am pleased to announce my new Practice Growth System.  This program is specifically for divorce and family law attorneys only.  The program contains everything you need to run an extremely profitable divorce practice.  Some of the components include: referral marketing systems, keep in touch programs done for you, integrating value pricing into your practice, creating client attraction tools, developing your prospect kit, operating systems and much more.

This is an implementation program.  We do not just give you ideas.  We do them for you or walk you through doing them yourself (depending on the level of the program you choose).

If you are interested send me an e-mail for more information.  This is an AREA EXCLUSIVE PROGRAM.  Some geographic locations are already taken, so contact me immediately if you are interested.

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I was thinking today about the traits or behaviors that a solo lawyer trying to transition his firm from a startup to a growth stage should focus on.  I came up with a list of certain things which I think such a lawyer should do more, and certain things they should do less.

Do these more:

• Focus
• Manage proactively
• Delegate and outsource
• Establish systems and structures
• Trust your team members and hold them accountable
• Strategic planning
• Share credit
• Market the practice
• Spend a designated portion of every day or every week on the “big picture” not just the day to day operations

Do these less:

• Solve all of the problems
• Answer all of the questions
• Manage reactively
• Make all of the decisions
• Shoot from the hip
• Do all of the technical legal work in the firm
• Think short term

What have I left out?

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Yesterday, I posted an article about the poll in the recent ABA Journal on what I found to be the surprisingly high rate of professional dissatisfaction among lawyers. I proposed that I thought one of the reasons might be the fact that law schools fail to prepare solo and small firm lawyers for the business side of the law practice.

Then today Susan Cartier Libel at Build a Solo Practice posted an article in which a recent Harvard law grad asked the question, “Why didn’t law school teach me how to hang a shingle?” This quote below confirms my suggestion that this failure on the part of law schools to properly prepare lawyers to run a business contributes to the dissatisfaction that seems to plague our profession, particularly for lawyers practicing under 10 years.

The lawyer quoted in the post, Ryan Alexander, notes than some lawyers who want to hang a shingle do not. Instead they take jobs they don’t want at BigLaw and it end up “hating the law.” Here is the relevant quote from Susan’s blog:

“He further laments how law school fails the entrepreneur:

I wish more students considered “hanging a shingle.” I hope HLS will eventually offer a seminar in running your own practice to open up students’ eyes to the possibility. HLS students are too risk averse for their own good - there is a lot of demand for services that you can provide for people. Many students go to BigLaw against their conscience or interests and hate lawyering, because they are not true to themselves. There is another path. It is exciting, liberating and uniquely fulfilling to have your own practice. You can prepare for it and be ready.”

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I was catching up on some reading today.  I came across a  survey in the October ABA Journal which indicated that only 55% of lawyers answered that they were satisfied with their career.  And, that number is actually skewed up because of the respondents that had been practicing for 10 years or more, 60% of those reported career satisfaction.  If you analyze the remaining respondents (those practicing under 10 years) then about 47% reported career satisfaction. Less than half!  Is that not an alarming statistic?  Furthermore, only 44% of all respondents stated that they would recommend a legal career to a young person.

So, what is that cause of all of this dissatisfaction in the profession?  I don’t have the answer, but it is a question that intrigues me.  The general subject of this blog is marketing and practice management for solo and small firm lawyers.  But, if you’ve read the About page, then you know that the original impetus for this blog was to answer the specific questions of What is the perfect law practice?, and How do you create it?

We can obviously conclude from the aforementioned survey that the vast majority of lawyers have not created what they consider to be “perfect practices.”  I can’t help but think that some of that dissatisfaction demonstrated in the survey results is attributable to two of my personal pet peeves:

1. The billable hour, and all of the pressures, imbalance, and general stress and unhappiness it causes, and
2. the failure of law schools to teach lawyers how to run their practices as a successful business.

The  latter may be more prevalent for the solo and small firm lawyers with whom I am accustomed to interacting, but I think it has to be a contributing factor to the general dissatisfaction expressed in these statistics.

So, I’ve got three questions for you: Are you satisfied with your career?  Would you recommend a legal career to a young person?  And, if you answer either question in the negative, WHY?

I invite you to share your own answers in the comments section - do so anonymously, if you prefer.  And, for the record, my answers are Yes and Yes.

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I just finished meeting with a new client in a nasty custody case.  She is paying me $10,000 to represent her in defending the motion to modify filed by her ex-husband.  She has a good case, and the law is on her side.  The interesting thing is that she had another lawyer representing her.  I know this other lawyer - he is competent, and experienced - 30+ years in the business.  And, although he doesn’t practice family law exclusively, he has done plenty of it to know what he is doing.

So, why did she fire him and hire me (something I initially tried to talk her out of doing)?  Apparently, he told her no less than three times, “I’ve never seen anything like this in 34 years of law practice.”  He was referring to some of the underhanded tactics that the opposing party and lawyer were pulling to try to get custody and how the opposing lawyer would not return his phone calls.  I’m not sure why he told her this.  Maybe he really hadn’t seen it before (I’m not sure how that could be) or maybe it was hyperbole.  But, as she said, that is not what she wanted to hear coming from her lawyer.

Sometimes we don’t think about our language and how even the most innocuous comment might affect our client’s perception.  There is a lesson here (a $10,000 lesson).  Make sure you get it - act like you’ve been there before.

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Susan Cartier Liebel at Build a Solo Practice recently posted an article to her blog describing the billable hour as the cockroach of the legal profession. It is a good analogy - a pest that won’t die. Her broader point, though, is more important. She concludes her post by discussing how the internet as a communication tool may lead to broader acceptance (and demand) for alternative fee arrangements. I definitely believe that is the case.

In my recent white paper on Pricing for Maximum Profit I stated that I feel that the market will increasingly demand alternatives to the billable hour from professionals. You guys may tire of me writing on this subject. But, I will continue to beat this drum. Death to the cockroach!

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The most recent edition of Law Practice magazine contains an article entitled “Hours Expectations for New Partners.”  That article contains this quote, “Available information indicates that an average partner in an average firm should plan to log at least 2,500 hours per year (or 50 to 60 hours per week) in pursuit of the aims of his or her firm.”  Are you kidding me?  And, if that is the average, presumably there are firms that require more than that.  So, the average lawyer is working 50-60 hours per week?  No wonder they are so unhappy.

And, of course the most telling part of the quote is the last phrase which points out that these hours are logged “in pursuit of the aims of his or her firm.”  In other words, it’s not about the client.  Those hours need to be logged for the firm.  What if you removed any billable hour requirement?  What if the focus was on getting the job done for the client as efficiently and effectively as possible and doing so at a profit to the firm?

There’s a novel idea.

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What can we learn about marketing our law practices from the recent iPhone phenomenon?

First consider this quote from a recent Bloomberg news story about sales of the much hyped iPhone:

Apple Inc.’s U.S. debut of the iPhone drew thousands of shoppers over the weekend, emptying most of AT&T Inc.’s inventory and causing network glitches as the flood of customers began activating the device.

Shoppers snapped up as many as 200,000 iPhones the first day after the device went on sale June 29, according to Global Equities Research. While it was still available at all 164 Apple stores yesterday, AT&T said most of its 1,800 stores no longer had the phone in stock. AT&T is the only mobile-phone service that works with the iPhone.

“A lot of our stores have sold out,” said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for San Antonio-based AT&T, the largest U.S. wireless service. “We’re restoring our inventory as fast as we can.”

So, what can we learn about marketing our law practices from Apple’s example?  If you guessed that it has to do with supply and demand you are correct.  Later in the article, Jobs is quoted as saying that Apple tried to estimate demand and increased manufacturing. “We’ve taken our best guess, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it ain’t enough,” Jobs said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

There is a valuable marketing lesson we can learn from this Jobs quote.  It is subtle, but extremely important.  To get it though, you have to understand that when discussing supply and demand there are actually three different aspects to consider.
(1) There is the objective supply and demand - this is the supply and demand as it really is.  There really are x number of iPhones available to be purchased.   This is what most people think of when they consider supply and demand, but it is the LEAST important aspect of the supply and demand formula;

(2) There is your subjective perception of your own supply and demand - i.e. if you think “I’ve got so much time on my hands”, “I need more cases”, “I wish the phone would ring”, or any such other desperate thoughts then the demand for your services (at least based on your subjective perception) is far less than the supply of it.  This is not a position you want to be in.  You want Jobs attitude - the supply will probably not meet the demand.  Attitude does matter, and it not only effects you but it also effects your prospective clients and referral sources.  But, this is still not the most important aspect of the supply and demand formula.

(3) There is your prospect’s perception of supply and demand - now this is the one that matters most.  And, again Jobs gets this.  Do you think it a coincidence that he is quoted in the Wall Street Journal the week before the release stating that he won’t be surprised if the demand for the iPhone outweighs the supply?   Of course, it is no coincidence.

The question for you is what are you doing to foster the perception in your prospect’s minds that the demand for you outweighs the supply of you?  And, to be clear I am not suggesting you lie or deceive your prospective clients.  I am suggesting that you cultivate a particular perception.   I will get into this in much more detail in the e-book I am working on regarding Premium Pricing (there’s a hint right there about one way to cultivate that perception).  That e-book (ok, book is being generous-it’s really a report) will be ready in about a week.  I’ll post to the blog when it’s available in the resources tab.

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In my prior post on Premium Pricing I discussed the benefits of premium pricing in the law practice and I promised to revisit the specific strategies involved in actually doing it.

I was recently contacted by Stephen Gustitis of The Defense Perspective blog regarding that very issue.  I promised him I would move that article up my list of writing project priorities.  So, I sat down to start writing on the subject of Price in the law practice.  Specifically, I wanted to address how to command premium fees (i.e. how to get them and how to deserve them).

As I started writing, I realized I had much to say on the subject (my wife says that’s too frequently the case for a growing number of subjects!).  But, this is such a critical issue.  And, so many lawyers completely miss the boat here.  There is the whole value pricing vs. hourly billing issue on which entire books have been written (my favorite are the ones by my friend, Ron Baker - that guy gets it).  But, there is also the subject of presenting the price to the prospective client, how to desensitize the client about high fees, how to pre-screen prospects that can’t or won’t pay premium fees, and the list goes on.

So, I decided I can’t do the subject justice in a single blog post, and I don’t want to start another series (I’m currently posting a weekly series called Lawyer Marketing 101 et seq.)  So, I decided to write a free e-book on the subject.  I am going to do a brain dump of everything I know and do on the subject of pricing for the law practice.  The plan is to offer it in the resources section of this blog.  I am working on it now and will have it ready in 14-21 days.

Stephen, I guess I have you to thank for this new project - I hope you find it profitable!

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In this post at Build A Solo Practice, Susan does a good job of setting out the factors that lawyers should consider in deciding whether and how much to charge for the initial consultation.

Personally I do charge for consults and recommend other lawyers do the same. There are several reasons. Here are a few:

1. I do it for positioning in the mind of my prospective clients. I charge premium fees for premium service in my divorce practice. If I gave the consult away for free, it undermines that position.
2. People value what they pay for more than what they get for free.
3. You avoid the “tire kickers” who can’t afford you and are shopping for the low cost provider (which, even setting the fee aside, generally make the most difficult clients).
4. It makes it more difficult (though not impossible) for someone to get a consult for the sole purpose of conflicting you out.
5. It pre-qualifies the prospect. If someone is not able to pay my $300 per hour consult fee (which I apply to their flat fee if they hire me) then they will not be able to pay the fee to hire me. If that’s the case, it wastes there time and mine for us to talk for an hour.

In Susan’s post she makes a compelling case for new lawyers just getting started to give free consults. And, certainly you can make the argument that an hour spent for free with a prospective client is better than an hour spent twiddling your thumbs in your office. But, in my book, the sooner you can get to the point of charging for the consult, the better.

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