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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I was having a discussion with a private consulting client the other day.  He is a very competent lawyer, but his law practice is not what he would like it to be.  He had paid me for a consulting day for us to discuss some marketing and practice management strategies for his practice.

As we started talking about his law firm and the challenges that he was having, I could not help but notice how frequently he took on a sort of “victim mentality.”  Everything was someone else’s fault.  He talked about how some other lawyer in his town was lucky because thus and so had happened in his practice, or how the staff would not implement his ideas (who works for whom anyway), or his clients just wouldn’t pay premium fees, etc.

This was a very accomplished and experienced lawyer.  But, he was not taking responsibility for his own law practice.  We had to spend a couple of hours just getting him to move beyond being the owner of his solo practice, to taking ownership (i.e. ultimate responsibility) for it.

Here are some of the questions that he and I worked through:

• How have you been responsible for your firm’s lack of performance in the past year?
• How committed are you to creating your perfect law practice?
• What must you change in order to create your perfect law practice?
• What in your law practice have you been pretending not to notice?
• What about your work habits do you know you need to change?

As you can imagine, this was not easy work for him.  But, it was both necessary and worthwhile.  I find that too frequently solo and small firm lawyers do not take any time to undergo this type of introspective process (it alone is a good reason to talk periodically with an outside consultant, mentor, or accountability partner about your firm).

As solo and small firm lawyers, I suggest we could all benefit form asking these types of questions of ourselves on a recurring basis.

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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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Jack was already getting leads. He was surprised to already be receiving e-mails from prospective clients that had found his blog on the search engines. Additionally, his referral system had already paid dividends when one of strategic alliance partners (a marriage counselor) sent him a referral. He was happy that things were already starting to happen. I assured him that this was only the beginning and that we needed to get follow up systems in place to take maximum advantage of each lead he received from his lead generation activities.

I explained to Jack that the next step was to put in place a systematic follow up system to stay in touch with those that contacted him as well as with his referral sources. I grabbed my Levenger legal pad and made a list of some of the different ways he might consider for keeping in touch with his prospects, clients and referral sources. They included the following:

1. Hand written thank you notes
2. Typed follow up letters
3. Personal phone calls
4. Printed (offline newsletter)
5. E-mail newsletter (e-zine)
6. E-mail courses
7. His blog’s RSS feed

As we began discussing these methods, Jack began to get a concerned look on his face. He finally admitted that he thought this sounded like a lot of work. I told him that some of them took more time than others, but that the return on investment of that time would be tremendous. I also pointed out that much of it could (and should) be automated, outsourced and/or delegated.

He was game. After we discussed the various ideas, he decided he would utilize his blog for constant communication with prospects (and to boost his search engine rankings). Additionally, he would offer an eCourse on his blog to capture prospects’ contact information and get their permission to market to them (by sending educational information on an ongoing basis). Because his is a divorce practice, he was concerned about his prospective clients’ spouse’s finding out about them communicating with him. We were able to work around that by writing some copy that would pop up on the site before they were able to request the eCourse which explained the importance of a “spouse proof” communication channel.

Additionally, we mapped out a monthly keep in touch program for his current and former clients which included a quarterly direct response newsletter, some holiday cards, and an occasional mailing of educational material. In all, the clients would receive something from him every month. Finally, he also decided to mail a separate monthly newsletter to his primary referral sources.

Note: Jack outsources his monthly mailings to his clients and his referral sources (including both newsletters) through Lawyer Profit Systems. We set up the eCourse on an autoresponder. Once it was all in place, his actual time involved would be supervisory except for an occasional personal note.

The fact that he would be in constant contact with his prospects, clients (both current and past), and his referral sources would give him top of mind awareness as well as a distinct advantage over his competition.

Links to the other articles in this series can be found at the Lawyer Marketing 101, et. seq. post.

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As most of you know, Grant and I are giving away a free copy of our Blawg for Profit course.  Well, we decided that wasn’t good enough.  We are also going to give away a free custom Wordpress blog.

You can get details on how to enter here.

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Grant Griffiths and I are launching Blawg for Profit October 15, 2007.  To celebrate, we are hosting a Pre-Launch Party by teleconference call October 12 at 3:00 pm Eastern.  Call details will follow.

And, we are giving away a free course.  Here are the details on how to enter.

Hope you make it to our party!

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If you don’t have a “keep in touch” system to proactively communicate on a regular basis with your clients, former clients and referral sources, you should have one.  But, that is the subject of another article.  Even those lawyers that don’t have such a system, will often send a Christmas or Holiday Card in December.

My advice is don’t.  Send a Thanksgiving card instead.  Why?  Well, how many Christmas cards did you receive at your home and office last year?  And, how many Thanksgiving cards?  That’s why.

You want to stand out.  You want to be different and unique.  And, it’s the perfect occassion to tell your clients and referral sources thanks for their contributions to your business.

And, lest you think I’m posting on this subject to early, note that you need to be mailing them in about five weeks!  Oh, and thanks for reading my blog.

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Grand Central is a cool service that I’ve previously included in the Recommended Resources section of my Profitable Pratice e-zine (sign up in the side bar if you are not already a subscriber-it’s free). One of the problems is that Grand Central is still in beta and you have to have an invitation in order to use this free service.

Well, good news - I’ve got 10 5 3 2 1 invitation to give away. (UPDATE: Sorry, guys they are all gone!) And, I’m giving them to the first ten folks that send me an e-mail requesting them. You can send the e-mail to msherman AT lawforprofit DOT com.

And, for those that aren’t familiar with Grand Central, here is a link to their site, and here is a brief exerpt that I ran about it in my weekly e-zine:

“GrandCentral does a lot of things. They describe themselves as the new way to use your phone. And, it’s definitely that. Basically it allows you to have one number that rings all of your phones. Additionally, you can manage your voice mail through it and listen in as caller leave voice mail so you screen your calls, taking the ones you want and allowing the others to leave a message.

GrandCentral is still in beta and you have to have an invitation to join.”

If you want one let me know quickly. I have a feeling they will go fast, and it is strictly first come, first serve.

UPDATE: The 10 invitations were gone in less than 24 hours.  Sorry if you wanted one and missed out.

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Chuck Newton recently posted an article title Price Competition is a Fool’s Game.  And, he is right.  Although Wal Mart may successfully compete as the low price leader, it is a losing strategy for law firms.

Subscribers to my e-zine received a an article I posted on the same subject back in early August.  For those that don’t subscribe (you can rectify that in the side bar of my blog today!), I will set out a redacted copy of the article here:

Your goal should be to charge premium fees for premium service.

As a young lawyer, I had difficulty quoting higher fees.  I was afraid that my prospective clients would not pay me unless I was right in line with what others with similar experience were charging.  As it turns out, the problem was not with my clients, it was with me.  The problem was a self image problem.

I have since learned that you will never get paid more than you think you are worth.  That may sound like psycho-babble.  Perhaps it is.  But, it is still the truth.

If you are doing the things in your practice that you should be doing (e.g. choosing a niche, being the expert in that niche, providing exceptional client service, etc.) then you’ve earned the right to charge more for your services.  But, unless you believe that, your prospective clients never will.

And, here is one more reason for you to believe it: you never want to compete on price.  There is no doubt that you can build a business entirely by offering the lowest price.  But, why would you want to?  Would you rather have 4 clients paying you $25,000 each, 100 clients paying you $1,000 each, or 1000 clients paying you $100 each?

Of course, the question is rhetorical.  But the answer is instructive.

Additionally, when you compete only on price, all someone has to do to take a client from you is to offer a lower price.  When you compete on EXCELLENCE, VALUE, GUARANTEED SERVICE, etc. it is much more difficult, if not impossible, for a competitor to steal your clients.

Of course, there is another point about price.  Your prospect believes “you get what you pay for.”  If that is the case, do you want to hold yourself out as the “low price lawyer”?  Put another way, do you want to be the Mercedes or the Hyundai of law firms?  The Nordstrom’s or the Dollar Store?

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