Reboot Your Law Practice

The podcast hosts were both influenced in their businesses by Seth Godin’s book Tribes: We Need You to Lead. In his book and in Ted talks on the subject Seth Godin discusses that a tribe is “any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea.” This podcast talks about how Seth’s ideas can be applied to building your law practice by thinking of yourself as the leader of a tribe that will follow you by writing and talking about certain topics from a consistent, strong viewpoint. Scott and Oscar break down the steps a lawyer can take to try and become a leading voice in particular legal niche and by doing so, enhance their practice.

Development of a niche practice has been a key focus of Reboot your Law Practice since its inception. Podcast host Scott Limmer talks about his attempts to develop a practice in Cannabis Law. At a recent trip to a Cannabis Convention in Las Vegas, Scott realized it was time to pull the plug on trying to start that niche area and move on to something else and devote more time to his current practice areas.The hosts talk about what Scott learned in the process and why it’s important to know when to walk away from something that isn’t working. The hosts also discuss how even a failed endeavor can reap rewards for the growth and development of yourself as a lawyer and of your practice.

This week Oscar and Scott discuss how to decide how much to put into your marketing budget. While industry surveys report that law firms average between 1.5-3% of gross revenue for marketing, Oscar and Scott discus how the numbers can be deceptive. Firstly, the surveys usually involve big law firms so the numbers will not be applicable to solo or small firm practitioners. Before deciding how much to spend, you have to decide who your target audience is and where can you reach them. Spending money on marketing without a precise game plan as to what kind of business you seek to attract is just throwing money out the window. The hosts also discuss that you should take parts of your current budget that you may not consider to be marketing but which should be used to develop your practice so that the numbers involved are applicable to a marketing budget. For example: • Bar association dues• CLE classes• Tickets to certain fundraisers • And of course – your website costsAll of these items should be keyed toward developing business and are proper items to include in your marketing budget.

Oscar & Scott talk about the importance of remaining authentic to yourself and your practice in all of your social media outlets. Starting with your website, don’t pretend to be something you’re not or make promises you can’t keep. Your site is usually the first thing that will pop up when prospective clients search your name on the Internet. The hosts talk about some issues they discovered in lawyers’ websites and online communications that must be avoided at all costs. Examples include using a picture of someone other than yourself and giving wrong information on a substantive law issue. Remember that the Internet is forever and a poor social media presence can be devastating to recruiting business and referrals. Listening to this podcast will help you avoid some common and dangerous pitfalls.

This week we talk about tried and true big business ideas that you can use for your solo or small practice. Scott read a few business books and he and Oscar talk about how to apply the methods he learned about to your practice.They discuss the following booksThe E Myth by Michael Gerberhttp://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280The E-Myth discusses the differing, oftentimes conflicting, roles of a business owner as he must take on the duties of the entrepreneur, technician and manager of their small business. Scott and Oscar agree that you must wear many hats as a business owner and you must put time and effort into ll aspects of your practice.Traction by Gino Wickmanhttp://www.amazon.com/Traction-Get-Grip-Your-Business/dp/1936661837/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8What Scott took away from Traction is that the key to growing your business is to plan. Create a Vision statement. Identify Core processes. Create Measurable priorities.Zero to One by Peter Theilhttp://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804139296/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8There were two points in in Zero to One that resonated with Scott. The author wrote about the need to run your business like a franchise. Create systems so that your business could run without you. The author also discussed how secrets fuel businesses. Oscar and Scott discussed determining the secrets you know and translating it into value you can give to a client.

In this episode the podcast hosts talk about developing and transitioning into a new practice area. Scott has Oscar take listeners through how he made a transition into a new practice area when his main practice field –criminal defense - began to decrease. Oscar explains why the need arose and how he adapted and developed as he transitioned. The podcast hosts apply lessons learned from this experience into tools listeners can use and apply to their own practices.

Podcast Host Scott Limmer recently attended Above the Law’s Academy of Private Practice Conference and reports on some valuable insight and information he obtained at the conference. First and foremost, Scott mentions that lawyers have to get comfortable with the current and coming tech boom affecting lawyers and their practice. This has been a running theme on the show and the ATL APP conference just further solidified the need for practitioners to get up to speed – not just with tech for the office and staff but tech such as branded portals that put up clients’ needs and seek legal help for them through these special websites, like Upwork. Lawyers need to think about their practice areas as these sites proliferate and do things like wills; corporate start-ups; and document production. While these things will give people more access to legal services at a low cost – it will financially impact solo and small firms. Some tips to rise above the coming cyber-law-practice model:- Focus on areas where personal interaction is still needed and highly valued- Make sure you are marketing your expertise and giving confidence to prospective clients- Take advantage of your skills and experience to add value to clients who may be thinking about going cyber for their legal needs- Automate your documents and templates – following the Lean Law suggestions from prior podcasts – to make yourself competitive

The hosts continue talking about Getting Lean by discussing how Lean Law relates to your client management and development. Ken Grady, Lean Law Evangelist at SeyfarthShaw, discusses different pricing models for legal services and the price sensitivity that is creeping into the legal profession. Part of the way that we can provide quality of service at a lower fee is by getting Lean in our practice so that what used to take you 2 hours now takes you 30 minutes. That allows you to: • Use the extra 90 minutes to do something else that is profitable• Pass the savings onto the client which keeps them happy • Be more flexible in how you charge clients The Good News that Ken is helping us spread is that “Getting Lean” only requires basic tools: paper, pencil, post it notes, and some tape. It’s not a resource heavy activity. The basic method is to map out the sequence of things you do to fulfill a particular process – say preparing a complaint. Then create a checklist of those things to see which can be eliminated or consolidated. It also allows you to streamline the process by not having to cycle through the preliminary steps that are common to each complaint. This methodology Ken says can be applied to every process in your law firm to make you more efficient and more profitable. Ken’s evangelism on this topic extends to law schools arguing that law students should be trained in Lean Law before they graduate so that they can bring these practices into small firms. Surprisingly, Ken does say that solo or small firms should be cautious about investing in expensive and fancy software as the rate of return on that investment is slow and prohibitive to a small firm. In our discussion Ken recommends what software and programs solos and small firms should make parts of their practice to make them more Lean. In concluding our two part discussion with Ken Grady he tells our listeners to focus on spending time on the things in your practice that make you money and bring satisfaction to your clients. We can begin to do that by cutting out those inefficiencies and redundancies that bog down the various processes we all engage in.

This week Reboot Your Law Practice hosts Ken Grady – “The Lean Law Evangelist” in the first of two part episode discussing how you make your practice “lean” so that it can withstand economic downturns and be less of a monetary roller coaster. Ken is in charge of the Lean Law Practice at Seyfarth Shaw which helps the national, multi-faceted practice assist its clients in making their businesses leaner. Ken’s prior experience helped form his Lean Law Practice in that after being a partner in a BigLaw firm, he moved in-house to be corporate counsel for various Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 corporations. It was at these corporate positions that Ken first began to encounter “Lean Thinking” in the business world. He then joined Seyfarth Shaw where he serves as the consultant to their Lean Law Practice. “Lean Thinking” is a business process improvement brought over to the states by Toyota in the 1980s that focuses on efficiency; cost control; and quality improvement. About 10 years ago, Seyfarth Shaw developed it for the practice of law. These methodologies when applied to legal services helps the firm better serve its clients and helps the firm develop best practices for things like conflict analysis; document production; and time management. The focus is on an approach to make some things about your practice standard and organized so that you spend more time doing those things that are directly applicable to clients and which make money. The idea is to eliminate as many wasteful activities as possible to streamline the work you perform. While some software that is available in the market place can help you to do that, Ken advises that much of this can be done without buying expensive software. Ken reminds us that lawyers are not quick to change. The systems we use now are basically the same systems we used in the 1900s when most of law was practiced by solo practitioners or two lawyer firms. Relying on those antiquated systems now – without focusing on efficiency and time management will make it much harder to compete in the current marketplace. Next week Ken will finish his discussion with Oscar and Scott by talking about some specific things small firms and solo practitioners can do to get “Lean.”

This week Oscar and Scott discuss how solo and small practices can decide on when its time to bring on a new associate. Hiring another lawyer is a big commitment and not just because of the additional salary. It means you have to evaluate your space, your malpractice coverage and your time.There are some steps you can take before hiring a lawyer to make sure you are ready:- Will a non-lawyer addition help? Can you start by just adding a part-time paralegal or secretary to help with some of the administrative or lower level tasks that are taking up your time?- Is the current workload something that will be a steady presence or is just a temporary influx of business that can be alleviated by farming some of the work out?- Would my workload be eased by hiring per diem or project lawyers as independent contractors to help me with the work- Maybe even writing to a law school for some part-pay part intern basisThese steps will allow you to see if you are truly ready to hire a new associate and will let you operate on a “test-run” basis. Remember the goal of bringing on staff is to free up your time from tasks that are not profitable and to allow you grow your business. With that in mind, small firms and solos should also look for candidates that can understand the basics of the legal business and look for ways to develop their own business. Bringing on new staff especially a new lawyer is a huge commitment and it should always be done with an eye towards helping your business grow.