Starting a Law Firm | Time is of the Essence

I don't know if this is a common saying or not, but I find myself saying it a lot, "getting started is often the hardest thing to do." That statement resonates with me a lot because I repeat it to myself every day - right before I push off doing something I know I should do and I know will help my practice. So I wanted to talk a little bit about it today.

One of the fundamentals principles of starting a law firm is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of being specific, fear of being laughed at (particularly when you decide to pursue novel marketing ideas), and, often, the fear of being unsure that you can provide the service you are promising to people. Fear, at least for me, often results in procrastination.

"Let's just get started on that on Monday." "It can wait until later." Until it finally falls of the radar screen and never gets done.

My actions and this way of thinking came to the forefront of my mind this week as I was reading a book. It's a business book. It has nothing to do with the practice of law. The premise of the book is that the idea of making money slowly over time is outdated and ineffective for the most part. To attain true wealth one must build something that has either great scale (it can be sold to a lot of people) or great magnitude (it is expensive, so even though only a few want it great wealth can be obtained). Think "Angry Birds" on the iPhone (scale) and selling real estate in Malibu (magnitude) for examples.

I am hesitant to tell you the name of the book because it's extremely cheesy. If it weren't for a direct recommendation from someone I trust on such matters, I never would have picked it up. It's called "The Millionaire Fastlane | Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime." I know, cheesy. It's written by MJ DeMarco (and just so you know, I'm not getting any money from this book for talking about it - I just really like it).

But the content is great. You've already heard about the premise - it's the execution of that premise that brought to mind this idea that time is of the essence. The book points out time and time again that you get nothing for free. If you want to be successful, you have to work at it. In the beginning, that might mean turning off the television or staying in on a Saturday night. But the payoff is worth it.

Put into words, traditionally our goals are events, as opposed to processes. It is the failure to define and understand the process that gets people in trouble and prevents them from achieving success. I'll give you an example from the book and then I'll give you an example from my firm.

One example from the book was the guys own story. He designed an internet limo reservation service, much like the attorney services you now see. You type in where you are, where you want to go, if you have any special needs, and it sends the lead to a few limo companies that then get back to the client with their bids. When the bid is one, MJ got a cut of that. He eventually sold the company for a hundred million dollars or something like that. That is the event. People see the event and think "why don't I just do something like that." What they forgot to recognize was it took several years of hard work to realize the event. Most people won't or can't commit to that process.

My example is my search engine ranking. I'm young enough to know the Yellow Pages are dead. If you are relying on Yellow Pages to get clients, you better start looking elsewhere. I also knew the Internet is essentially the new Yellow Pages, but with a catch - you can have the prime listing (the number one position) for free! All it takes is a little elbow grease and time. It took me a year of about working on that goal 2 hours or so a day to make that happen. But it happened, and I'm benefiting greatly because of it. But when people talk to me they see the event (1st spot for my search terms) and not the process (busting my ass to make it happen).

That's why I'll typically tell anyone that asks how I got to where I did. I know there is little to no chance they will actually follow through (though if they did they'd reap the benefits).

If you're still reading, congratulations, because I've finally made it to the point of this post - COMMIT TO THE PROCESS. Understand you are going to have to bust your ass to be successful and get started doing it today. I can tell you from personal experience that the sooner you start and the more you do it the easier it gets. There are things you can be doing today to make your law firm successful - do them. Don't put off the process hoping the event will magically appear - it won't.

Reader Poll

Some of you will actually read this all the way down and some of you aren't afraid to ask questions, so I thought I'd take a reader poll to answer something I've been contemplating - writing a book about starting a law firm.

I love the idea of how to books. They can answer your questions, get you started down the right path, and more importantly, keep you from making stupid mistakes that are only the result of not having done it before. The book I just reviewed was a how to book - it doesn't tell you what kind of business to start but lays out very succinctly a method for making money quickly and then using that success to leverage success in the future.

I know there are already books out there about starting a law firm - namely "How to Start a Law Firm" by Jay Foonberg. I know this because I own the book. It's okay, but in my mind it's extremely outdated. Foonberg I'm sure is a great guy, but he simply doesn't have the familiarity with technology that most of us do - it's a generational thing.

My book would cover all of the subjects I talk about here on my blog and then some. But here's the key - it would be organized in a way that you could actually find and have specific questions answered. Where should you really start? That's in there, at the beginning. What factors should you think of when getting office space. In the office space section. When you should you expand? How should you go about creating a marketing plan? All in the book.

So, here's my reader poll. Would you be interested in that and do you think others would be? In my mind I'd create the book, slap it up here on my site and sell it for like 15 bucks or something. You pay for it and it's downloaded directly to your computer. No publication costs, no marketing costs. You find me, you can buy it.

What do you think? I'd really like your feedback. Answer by posting a comment.

Starting a Law Firm | The Most Important Lesson

Today I had lunch with a guy who was thinking about starting a law firm. He hadn't even started law school yet, but he was sure that he wanted to do his own thing when he got done. So I sat down with him over lunch and we talked about what it takes to start a successful law firm. And it was interesting where the discussion went, leading me to a bit of a light bulb moment that made me run to the computer and start writing this post. Are you ready?

To have a successful law firm you must have a keen business mentality.

By the way, I didn't intentionally write that huge revelation to be so murky and hard to understand, it just came out that way. And I'm too lazy to change it. So I'll just explain what I mean.

When I began talking about this guy one of the first questions he asked me was "what is the most important thing to know when starting a law firm?" I immediately told him to always remember that getting clients is the ultimate goal (now before you get to snarky let me explain). That if you are the best attorney in the world but have no clients you'll be a failure.

He said "okay" and then we started talking about what kind of firm he wanted to open. And in that instant I knew he hadn't really understood what I was saying. We talked it out and I think he got it, but the bottom line is this - a law firm is a business. If you aren't thinking like a businessman at all times when making decisions you are going to at best tread water and at worst lose ground to your competition.

And here's where most people mess up when they are starting a law firm. They fantasize about what it's going to be like to be a big time lawyer making a bunch of money doing the work that they love, like it's going to be all roses and stuff like that. Here's the truth of the matter - you've got to hustle your ass off to have a successful law firm. You've got to spend a large amount of every waking day doing things to make your business better.

I was driving in the car from court today and I was thinking about the lunch I had and I was trying to figure out how to say this in a way that everyone can understand. And this is the best that I could come up with: don't create your law firm because you want to practice law, create your law firm because you want to have a successful business. If I want to be just a great lawyer I can go do that anywhere. I opened my law firm because I want to do two things - I want to create a business in the mold I envision, and I want to make a boat load of money. Practicing law and the firm, while a part of each other, are not the same thing.

And don't take that to mean I don't treat my clients well. It's actually the opposite. I provide the best service in the state in all likelihood. I answer my own phones, I attend all my court hearings, and I have systems in place to make sure my clients and my former clients know how much I appreciate them. But in the end it's all part of a larger plan to create a successful business. Let me put it to you this way, you think Nordstroms takes back anything as a return because they like you? It's great for you, but it's also great for them.

Now, back to the talk. After a little while I learned this guy had already owned and operated a successful business in the past, and that he was trying to find something to do in his industry that he could start a business in. The reason he chose law was because he thought (as we all do before we become lawyers) that once you get that license people just line up to give you money. He liked what he did at his last job but the funding fell through and he was let go (it was a government position). And here's what thinking like a business person gets you.

I asked him what I thought was the best next question - "they still need that work right? Do they farm it out to private contractors?" He said the work still needed to be done, and that the few people they still had on staff could not keep up with the work. So, (and I know you all already know what the next question is) I asked him the next obvious question - "why aren't you that guy they are contracting with?" He couldn't answer that question, but I hope he explores that idea.

Here's the god's honest truth for all of you. I love being a lawyer. I love getting up in court and arguing. But I like business better. A lot better. And just like I told my new friend, I'm going to tell you. My plan's not to just start this firm, be successful, and rest on my laurels. In a couple of years my law firm will run like a well oiled machine. And then I'll start another business, build it up, and then start another. I don't know about you, but my goal isn't to work 10 hours a day for the rest of my life, it's to golf every day and spend the rest of my time managing my businesses.

I've got a couple of other things I'd like to talk about, but I think we're going to explore some of this a little bit more in upcoming posts. You can't just start a law firm and expect people to show up. It just doesn't work like that. So I'm going to pose a couple of questions to you and let you start to mull them over. Once you answer them, assuming you still want to start a law firm, you'll have a thousand times higher chance of success.

See you soon.