In this episode, it is spring cleaning time. After a long winter of accumulating clutter, is it time to open up the windows of our law practice and see what we actually need and what we might get rid of; what is vital to our practices, and what is no longer serving us.

If you have stacks of paper on your desk, or if you spend precious minutes each day looking for particular files on your computer, your practice could use a good cleaning. Grab a broom, a trash bag, and your client list, and let’s get cleaning.

I have noticed more and more solo and small firm lawyers starting to use scheduling programs. You know, the link they send you that takes you to a webpage with their calendar, where you can pick a day and time to meet with them or have a phone call or whatever you are trying to connect with them about. My barber uses a scheduling program, and it works great for him.

While I think that using a scheduling program in your law practice can have benefits, it’s just not for me. Having a practice that works for me is important, and part of that is being able to control my calendar.

In this episode I talk about some of these benefits and explain why I won’t use a scheduling program myself. I would love to hear from you whether you use a scheduling program in your law practice and why or why not. You can send an email to [email protected] and let me know.

This episode is titled “Lessons from a broken website” because I want to talk about some of the things I am learning about myself right now, and things I personally need to work on internally. As I record this episode the website for my New Modern Lawyer is down. If you type in the address in your browser, you get some sort of ominous-looking error message. And while it is not a situation I would have chosen, I am actually very grateful it has happened, because of the lessons I am learning from it.

I am a believer that what is most personal is most general, meaning that if one person has a particular problem, then there are many others out there experiencing the same problem. So my hope with this episode is that the lessons I am learning from this experience are lessons that you will be able to take apply to your own life.

In this episode I want to talk about what it means for you to have a successful law practice. Because I think the term “success” and “successful” get banded about a lot, but we often don’t take a moment to consider just what that means, for our law practices to be successful.

The first thing that probably pops into your mind when you think of your practice being successful is making lots of money; maybe having a steady stream of clients, or closing a certain number of cases a month. And those things do go into and are part of a law practice being successful. But they are only one part of a truly successful law practice.

TAKEAWAY: there are three components to a successful law practice: business success, happy clients, and happy you. Unless you have all three in place, you will never feel that your law practice is successful.

When I started my law practice, I made a lot of mistakes. I mean, a LOT of mistakes. Things that I look back on now and wonder, what the hell was I thinking back then? Cases that I took on, clients I worked with, other lawyers I partnered with. And money that I spent. Many mistakes I made involved money.

This episode is centered around 3 mistakes I made involving money; things I spent money on and ultimately got little benefit out of.

Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Apple Computers introduced the slogan: “Think different.” This slogan became iconic of Apple, inviting people to look beyond the beige Windows PC that most everyone associated with computers at the time.

If you look at most of the law firms out there today, a large majority of them all look the same. They have the same internal pyramid structure of partners, associates, and staff. They bill their clients the same way: by the hour. Pre-pandemic, they all had formal offices with conference tables and in-person meetings. Their lawyers work long hours, including evenings and weekends. They all make the same claims about being client-focused and doing things differently. But realistically, most law firms are the same.

In this episode I am going to talk about my law practice, which has been described by some lawyers as “different” than most.

TAKEAWAY: you can design your law practice however you want – the only thing holding you back is you and your imagination for what is possible

In this episode I want to talk about ways of thinking. And these are probably not terms you think of in relation to your law practice. You are more likely to find two of them in the context of computers or electronics. These terms are inputs and outputs, and benefits.

If one of your goals is for clients to enjoy working with you – in otherwards, for your practice to be client-centric, then how you think about your law practice is very important. Because your way of thinking impacts the decisions you make in important aspects of your practice such as pricing and marketing.

In this episode I am going to go through these three ways of thinking and help you decide which is going to make your clients happier and ultimately your practice more successful.

TAKEAWAY: to attract the clients you want and make them enjoy working with you, focus on benefits vs. inputs or outputs/deliverables

As lawyers, we never seem to have enough time. There is always something else that needs to be done. We are always busy. And typically, we think of being busy as a good thing. Having work to do is usually equated with making money and being successful. But what if that’s not the case? What if being “busy” is actually preventing your practice from growing and thriving? What if being “busy” is keeping you from being successful?

This episode is all about what it means to be “busy” and how being “busy” is actually being lazy. If you are constantly finding yourself “busy” and wondering why your firm isn’t as successful as you’d like it to be, I think you will find a lot of value in this short but powerful episode.

TAKEAWAY: stop being “busy”

What is the difference between a typical chain restaurant and a 5-star restaurant? One that you go to when you want something cheap, and one that you rave about to your friends and can’t wait to eat at again? Both serve food and can satisfy your hunger. But one focuses on serving food while the other focuses on the dining experience.

Most law firms are like the chain restaurant, focusing on solving their clients’ legal issues. And these firms can be fairly successful. But it is the 5-star firms that have raving fans, that get repeat clients and client referrals, and that are able to really grow and thrive.

TAKEAWAY: the little things matter when it comes having happy clients

This is part 2, talking about ditching hourly billing, and in this episode I am going to address some of the concerns that solo and small firm lawyers have about pricing that might cause them to hesitate to do so and switch to flat fees. All these concerns are built around one thing though: fear. The fear of pricing too low. The fear of pricing too high and scaring away prospective clients. The fear of unforeseen things coming up after the fee has been quoted and agreed to.

If you want to ditch hourly billing but are afraid of pricing your services, this episode is for you.

TAKEAWAY: the only way to get past the fear of pricing your legal services is to do it