Solo Law Club

AI isn't going away. How do we use it effectively as lawyers? More importantly, how do we make sure we are not using it unethically or incorrectly? I give some thoughts on this in episode 35 here. Thanks for listening!

Intake is the most important contact your clients make with your firm. I'll talk about why that's true, I'll give you a 15 minute consultation structure, and talk about some tools that could help.

A quarterly review is one of the most important thing any business owner can do. Let's build on the last episode where I talked about facts not feelings, but I'll give you a template to review Q1 of 2026 so you can create some concrete, measurable goals for Q2.

It's too easy for us to use our gut to make business decisions. That case felt productive, I must have made money, and I'll keep doing future cases with the same process and fee. Here's the reality though - our gut lies to us all the time! That's why we need to use facts, not feelings, to make our decisions and set goals. Here, I spend a few minutes giving you a few facts you can start tracking in your practice.

Buy Back Your Time book: https://www.amazon.com/Buy-Back-Your-Time-Unstuck/dp/B09YMNQ5HF/

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How many cases should you actually work on? I'm not asking how many you can survive with or how many you can juggle barely keeping your head above water. Instead, how many is ideal for you?

In this episode, Tony walks through how to intentionally design your caseload instead of drifting into it and often drifting into way more work than you can handle. You’ll learn how to reverse engineer your revenue goals, calculate sustainable capacity, and determine the number of active matters you can handle without sacrificing quality or your sanity.

If you’ve ever felt like your practice “just grew” into something heavier than you intended, this episode will help you recalibrate.

This week, we talk about setting up WIP limits via a Kanban board to prevent overextension of lawyer time, which then backlogs cases and creates a scenario where it's really hard to get out of. For example, I keep an "ideal" non-settled case count in my Kanban system. Last month, I had taken in a lot more than usual new cases. I paused my consultations for 2 weeks to work on closing out the close-to-done cases. When I first started doing this, I would worry that I'm losing revenue but in reality, the reason I had to do the WIP limit pause was because I exceeded revenue goals last month...and I needed it for mental sanity. It's hard for a solo to do this because our natural human inclination is accept anything that comes our way, but that's never worked in a positive way for me.

We are almost at the end of the year. Let's reflect, analyze how things went this year, and then get some clarity on what you'll focus on next year.

In this episode of The Focused Solo series, Tony breaks down how to build your quarterly Rocks, otherwise known the three to five priorities that will actually move your solo law firm forward over the next 90 days. If you’ve ever set vague goals like “grow the firm” or “make more money,” this is the episode that shows you how to turn those ideas into measurable, actionable plans.

Tony explains the difference between outcome goals and process-based Rocks, walks through real examples of both, and shares how to break each Rock into smaller, doable Pebbles that fit into your weekly schedule. You’ll learn how to identify what really matters, block time for focused progress, and stay accountable week to week so you finish the quarter with results you can see, not just intentions on paper.

Related:

• How to Set Quarterly Rocks that Actually Get Done (EOS Worldwide)

• The Velocity Work Guide to Building 90-Day Goals

• The Difference Between Goals, Rocks, and Tasks

Before we get into setting quarterly rocks next week, let's reflect on what we did a few weeks ago. If you haven't done the Clarity Break session I worked with you on, check out episode 026 for the first episode in The Focused Solo series I am doing through the end of the year.

The Focused Solo is a 3 month series I am doing to help you set priorities for Q4 and do some annual planning for 2026. I aim to do some small bite sized exercises with you during these episodes to get us both straightened out for the last quarter of the year.

Links mentioned:

Velocity Work / Melissa Shannahan: https://www.velocitywork.com

Dan Martell's Buy Back Your Time: https://www.buybackyourtime.com