Starting a Law Firm | MasterMind | Printers | Nolo.com

As you can see from the title of this post, there has been a lot going on around here lately. And, there is actually more to come (I just don't have all day to write on this blog, so I'm going to break it up). There's a lot of good information in here, and I hope you enjoy it.

Printer Review - HP OfficeJet Pro 8000 and HP LaserJet P1102w

I may have written a printer review on here before, but I am required to do so now. My printer quit on me on Monday, and as luck would have it, it was at a time when I really needed it. The printer I used to have was an HP OfficeJet Pro 8000. I think I've probably had it for about 16 months. It had been acting up nearly the whole time, failing to recognize paper in the chute, not knowing which tray to print out of (I bought an extra tray) and generally being a pain in my ass. But I'm not paper heavy, so I dealt with it.

Finally on Monday it just quit working. It told me it had a paper jam, but it didn't. It told me to do all of this stuff to fix it and it didn't work. Then I got online and found out that many other people had been having exactly the same problems I was. So, this is a negative review of the HP OfficeJet Pro 8000. Stay away from it if you can.

In search of a new printer, I knew I wanted two things - ease of use and reliability. Believe it or not, one of the major pains I had with my old printer was having to take the paper out whenever I needed an envelope and inserting an envelope. I wanted to avoid that time suck with my new printer. So I did.

I've only had the HP LaserJet P1102 for about 3 days, and so far it's working like a dream. It's got a wireless set up, and so far I've had zero problems. And it has a letter feed built into it, so every time I need a letter I just slide one in and print away. I'll update the review later, if necessary. But it looks like this one's a keeper (and it only cost me $100).

MasterMind Session in Seattle

If you read my last post (and I know you did!) then you know that a colleague and friend of mine, RJon Robins, was in town doing a CLE on starting a law firm and law firm management. I'd actually never me him before, though I'd spoken with him many times via email and telephone, so we decided to meet up, and while he was here, we decided to do this mastermind thing. I must say I had a great experience.

We did the mastermind session over dinner with two buddies of mine, RJon, and his wife. A mastermind session is in essence a meeting of like-minded business owners who get together to discuss, without reservation, their businesses and how to make them better. When you're in it it kind of feels like you're facing a firing squad. A lot of your empty assumptions are questioned and put to the test. But when you emerge from the session you have not only a fresh outlook on your business but some real world ideas and solutions to help your business flourish and grow.

Want more details? Okay.

The three of us (RJon didn't face the firing squad, only my two buddies and I) started out by writing down the top three problems we have with our business right now. My top three were: (1) too much time doing administrative tasks; (2) no working system to effectively manage cases/time; and (3) increasing the regularity of potential client calls. I told the group this, and then we dove in.

But the key here is that we didn't start with solutions. We started by diagnosing the problem. Why am I spending so much time doing administrative tasks? Because I don't have anyone else helping me? Why don't I get help (obvious)? Because I'm afraid of expending the money on help and then not making the money to pay for that person. Why am I afraid of that? (and this is where the real breakthroughs come in - changing your business and way of doing things won't happen unless you get to the root of the problem and work on that) Because I have an idea in my mind that money is something to be held onto tightly, not parted with easily, and I want to make sure I'm getting value for what I'm paying. Ding - light bulb moment, because this isn't the most beneficial way to think about money and your law firm.

After identifying the underlying potential problems, we talked about what our relationship with money should be like. And, to be honest, it's something I know, but not something I can easily put into practice. And this is something we can all be cognizant of (which is why I'm writing about it here). We should think of money like a drug dealer does. Yeah, I said it.

How do drug dealers think of money? First of all, I'm not talking about the guy selling dime bags on the corner. I'm talking about your higher ups. Think Johnny Depp in the movie Blow. He got into the drug business as a low level drug runner. But, instead of taking his money and stashing it away (or blowing it on drugs) he used it as leverage to make more money. Then he used that money in the same way. For him, money wasn't something to be hoarded, it was something to be put to work.

And that's what I need to do. Put my money to work, to free up my time, so I can make more money. Think about it like this. I can have someone help me out administratively for $15/hour. If someone is doing this work, I can do work that brings in at least $100/hour. That means by spending $15 an hour I can make $85 an hour. Those are numbers I like to see.

I bet you're wondering what I'm doing about this aren't you? Don't worry, I'll talk about it tomorrow.

Nolo.com Update

By the way, if you've made it this far in the article, thanks. I appreciate the reading. Up next, as you can tell from the headline, is an update on my experience with nolo.com. I'm writing this because I received an email from them probably a month ago inquiring as to the status of my subscription to them. They wanted to know if I'd noticed any more leads coming from them.

Sadly, I have not.

Here's the thing about using services like this, though. It's impossible to really know exactly where your leads are coming from. If you ask people, they rarely remember ("the internet" is a common response) because it's not that important to them how they got to you, unless it's a referral. In a different market with a different kind of practice it might really pay off for you.

But here's another thing to think about - and this goes to the mastermind session. If you are paying $130 a month (which is about what I'm paying) and that gets you one case a month (which it might), then you've potentially paid $130 to make $3000 or whatever your fee might be. Is that worth it? It probably is. Every law firm marketing tactic doesn't have to hit a home run. A bunch of singles will still get you a bunch of runs.