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“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey We’ve all had them. No matter how much we might love what we do, we can all usually think of one or two clients that made our job feel like a nightmare—far more trouble than they were worth. A bad experience with a client can steal […]
As the new year comes upon us, one of the greatest gifts you can give your law firm is to establish some clear goals for 2019. A well-defined set of goals, according to Inc., gives you benchmarks to measure your success, helps you learn which actions help or hurt those goals, and gives your team […]
“Your best teacher is your last mistake.” –Ralph Nader Just as we seek to capitalize on and replicate our successes, we have a duty to ourselves to learn and grow from our mistakes. Hopefully you’ve already identified your greatest triumph from the last year; now it’s time to move the opposite direction and try to […]
I’m a huge proponent of end-of-year reflection, both for myself and for the law firms I work with. Specifically, we should try and learn something from both our successes and our failures—the former, so we can find ways to replicate success; the latter, so we can find ways not to repeat them. Singling Out […]
In case you hadn’t already realized it by now, I’ll state the obvious: You can’t please everyone. Not every client is right for you. As a lawyer, you simply can’t be all things to all people, and the attorneys who try to do so will eventually crash and burn. Your key to success is not […]
If you spend any time with me, including reading my books or this blog, you’ll hear the mantra repeated over and over: Your law firm is first and foremost a business, and you need to run it as such. That makes you more than just an attorney—you’re also taking on the role of an entrepreneur. […]
In almost every job or career—even the ones we love—there is usually some aspect of the job that we would rather not deal with, something that frustrates or annoys us. The same holds true with lawyers, even those who have their own firms. Fortunately, we can often find creative ways to mitigate those issues somewhat. […]
“Boy, they sure didn’t teach me this in law school.” How often do we hear these words from the mouths of rookie lawyers? Like so many other professions, the difference between law school and the “real world” is almost like being on two different planets. Most law schools train their focus so heavily on the […]
In running your law firm, do you feel like you’re burning the candle at both ends? Do you feel like the harder you work, the less you get done? You’re not alone—a lot of overworked attorneys share your plight. But the fact that this problem is common doesn’t mean it’s right. Much of your stress […]
When treated as a strategic tool, Continuing Legal Education (CLE) can definitely create a revenue boost for your law firm. However, there may be other problems restricting your cash flow that CLE will not solve—and deferring to it in those cases basically amounts to procrastination from dealing with the real problems plaguing your business. Let’s […]
Continuing Legal Education (CLE) is frequently a double-edged sword for attorneys. Some states require lawyers to take a certain number of CLE courses to keep their licensing current. In other cases, we need CLE if we want to focus on a particular concentration or to remain current. Even so, going back to school—even a little […]
In a previous post, we began debunking the notion that an overly busy attorney is a happy attorney—let alone a successful one. Lawyers who are too busy to enjoy life, by definition, are not enjoying life. The same holds true with any profession. Yet while productivity does lead to greater fulfillment, the science clearly shows […]
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