In this, the fourth and final installment of our discussions with RJon Robins on the seven essential parts of a law firm, we move to the 5th and 6th essential parts of a law firm: physical plant and financial metrics and controls. The topic of physical plant naturally brings up the question of “whither physical law firms in the time of COVID?” We also discuss how intellectual property may be the most significant way that you can add value to your law firm. We wrap with a discussion of financial metrics and controls and the one metric that you as a law firm should be tracking.

Have you ever considered the role of profit in a law firm? No, I mean, really thought about what it is, why it exists, whether it should be a part of your firm, and/or how to grow it. If so, then this episode is for you.

Brooke Lively is the founder and CEO of Cathedral Capital. Her mission is pretty simple: make law firms more profitable. And she’s written a book for lawyers all about it: it’s called From Panic to Profit.

In this episode of Financially Legal we talk with Brooke not only about profit but about how every firm - yes, even flat fee and personal injury firms - needs to leverage the billable hour. We discuss accounts receivable (AR) at law firms, how AR problems begin with the engagement letter, how saving a client credit card changes how you think about your law practice, and much more.

Download the 5 Pieces of the AR puzzle from Brooke and Cathedral Capital.

In this, our third installment of our discussions with RJon Robins on the seven essential parts of a law firm, we explore the 3rd and 4th essential parts of a law firm: production and people. While we begin with production, we quickly veer into a conversation about people involved in production and whether every solo or small firm lawyer should try to be an entrepreneur. Of course, we discuss the role of non-lawyers in the delivery of legal services and how you should go about figuring out who should do what in your law firm and what lawyer entrepreneurs should and shouldn’t spend their time on.

In this, the second installment of our discussions with RJon Robins on the seven essential parts of a law firm, we dig in on the first and second essential parts (of the seven essential parts) of a law firm: sales and marketing. As a reminder, in interview #1 we discussed the eighth and final part of a successful law firm, the owner. In this episode, we discuss what marketing is and how you can and should hold your law firm marketing vendors accountable. We pause quickly to ask whether you’d rather have an incompetent marketing vendor or a dishonest one before launching into a discussion about sales and how, if done right, it’s both boring and a loving and kind act.

RJon Robins is the CEO and Founder of How To Manage a Small Law Firm, the largest provider of fractional executive (CEO, CFO, COO) services for small law firms in the country. This episode is the first of a four-part series with RJon on the seven essential parts of a law firm. These seven parts are sales, marketing, production, people, physical plant, financial metrics and controls and, finally, the owner. In this first episode, we start with and talk only about number seven, the owner. This episode begins with a throw ALL THE WAY BACK to Thomas Aquinas and proceeds through to a discussion of why many lawyers fail to achieve their potential and the first step lawyers can take to start building something amazing.

How can a lawyer represent criminal defendants and abuse survivors? Judie Saunders represents children and families victimized by powerful systems *and* criminal defendants. Check out this week's episode of Financially Legal to find out how Judie built a practice representing the marginalized against powerful entrenched systems.

Small law firm owners may not be familiar with the terms "docker," "container," or "Kubernetes." They may even be a bit fuzzy on the definition of “the cloud.” But most firms know that, along with significant opportunities, new technologies often present security risks, interoperability challenges, and significant costs in terms of time and money to vet, test, and deploy. What’s a firm to do? Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet for the solo and small firm universe - at least not yet - but, as today’s guest explains, that is precisely what Christian Lang, Chief Strategy Officer, and his team at Reynen Court are up to. As part of Gravity Legal's announcement of inclusion in the Reynen Court solution store, I talked with Christian about what he and his team are up to and how it applies to the solo and small firm landscape.

We all know the cliches and the tropes: Lawyers are terrible business people, lawyers went to law school to avoid math, law firms aren’t businesses, etc . . . .  Many of these statements are true in some pretty fundamental ways. But they’re also really damaging.  Super accountant-to-law-firms-extraordinaire, Chelsea Williams, has the remedy. Combining her dozen-plus years of accounting experience Chelsea developed a course called “Law Firm Money Mastery.” While the course is designed to help all small firm lawyers it's particularly aimed those just getting started up to those with $1M in annual revenue. The goal? Not only get their financial houses in order but to help them figure out how to make the money in their law firms work for them

One of my lawyer mentors once told me “if you don’t like to sell, don’t be a CEO.” Many solo lawyers set out to make a difference or have an impact - not to be a CEO. But whether you want to call them CEOs or managing partners, or partners, or business owners - the fact remains that they are heads of their respective businesses - effectively, they are “CEOs.” And if you want to be a CEO, you need to get comfortable with selling.

In this bonus episode of Financially Legal we dive in on sales, sales strategy, and sales psychology. If you are or want to be the leader of your own firm this is an episode you should tune into.

Sales can be an uncomfortable word for many people. The feeling of being "sold to" can be awkward and uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be “always be closing” from Glengarry GlenRoss at your firm, but if you’re not closing in one way or another - whether it’s with employees, vendors, or, of course, customers - your law firm will probably not last long.

I jumped on a Zoom call with Jaimee Hall from Legal Back Office to talk about our experiences selling to lawyers and, more importantly, ways that we think lawyers can evolve their thinking about sales to improve at it and use it to grow their firms.

What started as conversations between two friends - actually a law professor and his student - evolved into a movement. Maximum Lawyer boasts a 5000 member Facebook group, over 200 hours of podcast content, two sold-out conferences, a paid community, and a course to help lawyers and firms grow. Oh, and did I mention that the prof and his former student both have successful law firms in their own right? Jim Hacking, the law professor, and Tyson Mutrux, the former student, are the leaders of Maximum Lawyer. Listen on to hear how they're helping lawyers to build strong, resilient practices.