Ten Disciplines of Law Firm Leadership
Recently I released an audio program titled “Ten Disciplines of Law Firm Leadership.”
It is now, the most popular program I have recorded to date.
Make no mistake, this is not an over-produced audio with lots of special effects.
It is you and I having a conversation about how you can build a business, your law firm, while living a great life.
Your mission is to master each of these disciplines.
Listen to the podcast on the enclosed player or download it by following the link below it.
Here’s the link to download and save the audio program:
Ten Disciplines of Law Firm Leadership
In case you need you need more information before you listen to this amazing audio program, here are the ten disciplines and a brief summary of each of them. I provide these summaries to whet your appetite. For more complete information, listen to the audio program.
Discipline 1: Self Awareness
The first order of business when you become a leader is understanding your strengths and weaknesses. This exercise, while initially discomforting, is valuable. The goal is to leverage your strengths (do more of the things you are good at) and use your weaknesses as opportunities to build systems.
This probably sounds different from anything you have ever heard or were taught. That’s good.
Think about the premise: If an activity is a strength, more focus on that activity will help it become a competitive advantage for you (and your firm). If something is a weakness, you need to develop a process to ensure success.
Discipline 2: Talent Selection and Management
The second discipline goes hand-in-hand with the first. Hire talented people who can augment your weaknesses. Then help those people succeed by removing all barriers that could potentially derail them. Select great talent to initially augment your weaknesses then manage talent based upon needs of the firm and the clients.
As your law firm grows, keep one eye on the future and prepare your people for their next role/challenge.
Discipline 3: Communication
Communication is the cornerstone of any relationship. Your relationships with clients, partners and employees necessitate your mastery of direct, accurate and frequent communication.
The words you choose and the style and frequency of your communication will either inspire trust in you or polarize your team.
Discipline 4: Vision
As the law firm leader you must chart the course for your firm. Start with the outcome in mind and work backwards.
There are also two types of people who work in your firm: Those who share (see) your vision and those who trust in your vision. People who do not fit into either of these categories should not work in your firm.
Discipline 5: Operational Excellence Through Accountability
Your goal is to be the law firm of choice for every practice area or every market niche you enter. You must do everything you can to achieve this goal. This best or bust attitude must permeate your firm. Everyone must have this attitude.
Discipline 6: Financial Acumen
You don’t need to be a financial analyst to be a successful leader but you must be able to review your financials frequently and effectively. You must also be able discuss the financials with members of your team who can have an impact on them.
Discipline 7: External Orientation
You need to lose your ego if you are going to be an effective law firm leader.
You are third in the order of importance. Your clients come first, the shareholders of your firm and the employees of your firm come second and you come third.
Discipline 8: Decisiveness
Emotions are the enemy of good decisions. Examine the facts and make rational decisions. As a tool, I provide you with five questions to ask about any situation and any decision. Ask these five questions and focus on the facts.
Discipline 9: Positive Personal Association
The people with whom you associate define you. If you associate primarily with successful people, you will become successful. If you associate with people who were once your contemporaries, and have not achieved the same level of success as you, or do not aspire to the same levels of success as you, it will have a negative impact on your future.
Discipline 10: Continuous Improvement
The entire process of working toward mastery of the ten disciplines is a process of continuous improvement. Your growth must continue beyond a focus on these disciplines and invest 10% of your time and money in personal improvement.
This journey begins now with a dedication to each of these disciplines and to your growth as a leader.
Join me in this conversation about your future and how you can chart a course that will help you make a great living and live a great life®.
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EmailBuilding a Law Firm That’s Also a Business
If you take a moment and glance around at the law firms in your practice area or in your local community you’ll notice two different types of firms (from a management perspective).
The first type of firm will have an attorney who handles all the cases. One guy. Everything goes through him. The most difficult cases are handled by him. He meets every client. Has every difficult conversation and works, in some way, on every case.
When the business dries up, the owner (that same guy) goes out and finds new clients.
Essentially, this law firm is built around this one attorney and his skills and expertise.
The second type of law firm is a business.
There are several lawyers, a couple of paralegals and a legal assistant. The person who owns the firm focuses on one thing and one thing only, being a business owner.
This means he continuously creates value for his shareholders (if he is the only owner, he continuously creates value for himself). The attorneys, paralegals and staff, exist to do the work.
There is never a shortage of work because the owner is focused on keeping the employees at full utilization.
The owner of the second law firm is a Chief Executive Officer. He heads up a firm that has value beyond his own ability to create client relationships and work on cases. The owner of the first firm has a job he created for himself.
Do you have what it takes to be the second guy?
You probably don’t know the answer to that question.
You may not want to answer that question. And if you don’t, fair enough.
Just know: The difference between making $350,000 (in a good year) and multiple millions of dollars EVERY year is the difference between being the first guy and the second guy.
Now $350,000 is nothing to sneeze at. It’s good money. But you have the potential to make so much more.
Below is a podcast of a presentation I deliver to leaders of law firms in the second category. These are chief executives. And I challenge them to focus on excellence in ten personal disciplines.
If you want to build a business that will support you regardless of your level of involvement, and then have something you can sell when you’re ready to exit, listen to this podcast and rate yourself in each of these ten areas.
Listen to the podcast on the player below or download it by using the link below the player.
Ten Disciplines of a Law Firm Leader
Regardless of the type of law firm you are building, mastering these ten disciplines are the key to success.
Things You Should Not Care About
People come to me for advice.
My clients receive direct, customized advice, as they need it. Those who read my articles get indirect help.
For both groups this guidance is based upon my experience working with hundreds of lawyers and business leaders during the past 24 years, personal experience starting and growing several businesses, and my work developing professional service firms since 2002. I also have extensive advanced education which informs my approach to business strategy.
I like helping people but that’s not why I’m in this business. I do what I do because I have a unique ability to review a situation, analyze the variables, and develop a solution with a high probability of success.
That’s my talent.
Some people play the piano. Some people are outstanding athletes. Some people are phenomenal singers or dancers. I figure things out…quickly.
But I don’t want you focusing on my unique ability as the subject of this article. I want you to focus on your unique ability.
Each of us can recognize our own talent and leverage that self awareness to make a great living and live a great life®. The key lies in maximizing the time we spend leveraging this talent and minimizing the time we spend doing things at the opposite end of the spectrum.
Learning what you should not care about, worry about and focus on, is a huge component of law firm leadership.
The Essence of Self Awareness
The most important quality for any leader (and if you are a partner in a law firm you are a business leader) is self awareness. You must understand what you are really good at and you must understand what you should never, ever do again.
I can look at a business issue, analyze it, and formulate a solution quickly. The more I work on issues in a specific industry, the faster I can develop a solution, and the more likely I am to develop a winning strategy. (That’s why I am called to handle some of the most difficult issues in working with law firms - I have significant experience in that industry).
I do not get involved in the implementation of the solutions I prescribe. I help develop systems to make certain the implementation is smooth but I do not personally implement those systems. There are others more qualified to deliver that service.
Why Self Awareness Is Important to Law Firm Leadership
Knowing what you can do exceptionally well and knowing what should be delegated is the essence of self awareness for a business leader. Ninety-eight percent of all activity in your law firm must be executed by someone else.
Law firm leaders have a difficult time with this concept.
You may be the greatest trial lawyer since Clarence Darrow but the minute you become the leader of a law firm, that part of your career is over. You cannot grow a law firm beyond the $5 million mark and hope to spend time working in a courtroom or on a contract.
A leader must lead and that is a full time job. Practicing law is also a full time job. In a growing law firm, a lawyer cannot serve two masters - either you focus 100% of your time on the leadership of your business or you focus 100% of your time on the practice of law.
You can be a part time lawyer and a part time law firm leader and have $200,000 or even $2 million in billing (depending upon your practice area). But if you want to build a multi-million dollar law firm and consistently and predictably increase that billing number, you must be a full time law firm leader.
If your unique ability, your talent, lies in law firm leadership, you must “retire” from the day-to-day practice of law.
This requires self awareness.
What You Should Do Now
If you have designs on turning your law practice into a law firm (a business), you must have total mastery of self awareness. This is just one aspect of being a law firm leader.
There are ten disciplines of law firm leadership. Self awareness is one of them. If you are ready to take the next step and build a law firm that will have value beyond your lifetime, you should give me a call. 888.444.5150
Creating a law firm that has equity and can be sold for real economic value is a process that takes place over a number of years. You and I can discuss the ten disciplines law firm leadership and determine if you are on pace to achieve your goals.
They don’t teach this in law school. In fact, most of the seven demands of law firm leadership are not taught anywhere.
Call me to discuss your law firm and take control of your future.
888.444.5150
Here are three other articles you will find valuable as you grow your law firm:
Three Commitments of a Law Firm Leader
Not surprisingly, law firm leaders make commitments to themselves and to others. Here are three commitments you must make.
There are some people you really should not work with. If you do, you regret it. This article helps you make the distinction between a difficult client and a client that should be fired.
The CD That Will Help Give You Clarity
This is an invitation to receive a CD about making a great living and living a great life as a lawyer. Follow the link above and I will send it to you f-r-e-e. I even cover the cost of shipping it to your doorstep.
What You Don’t Say Speaks Volumes
Some lawyers will say anything to get clients.
“What are my chances of a favorable outcome?”
“Will we win?”
“Am I going to get $1 million?”
Those questions are being asked of lawyers all over the world, right now, by clients who just sat down in a chair across their desk.
Honest lawyers say:
“There is no way to know. Every case is different. Here are the aspects of the case that work in your favor… and here are the aspects of the case that concern me…”
Now we all know lawyers who promise the client the moon and the stars and then shrug their shoulders when the case doesn’t go well.
I want you to think about three things the next time you get ready to answer these questions:
First: Think about the promises made to you throughout your life. Think about how you felt when people did not live up to the expectations they set.
Then think about the person who told you the unvarnished truth about something unpleasant. And think about your reaction when in spite of the herculean effort on part of the service provider, the negative prophecy became reality.
Who were you more likely to recommend?
Oh yeah, and when you are honest in setting expectations, and you meet or exceed them, you have a client for life.
Next: Remember, the truth is not a competitive advantage. Telling the truth is the minimum expectation your client has of his lawyer.
As a lawyer, getting clients by lying, even if it’s a lie of omission, is going to end up biting you in the ass at some point.
Some lawyers will tell you that clients lie to them all the time.
Some criminal defense lawyers will tell you that most cops lie all the time too.
Do you really want to be included in that company?
Finally: If your competitive advantage is so weak that you need to make false promises to win clients, you don’t deserve high quality, ethical clients. You deserve to preach to the congregation impressed by those who handle snakes.
You can tell the truth and still get great cases. In fact you can get great cases BECAUSE you tell the truth.
Getting clients requires TRUTHFULLY differentiating yourself from everyone else who does what you do.
There’s no room for deception in your profession, my profession or any profession that requires the trust of the client.
Want to know how to get clients? Start by giving people straight answers.
In case you missed it, I recorded an audio program designed to help you get clients ethically, affordably and without the need to hire anyone.
You can listen to it by following this link.
How to Get Clients as a Lawyer
More Resources for Lawyers
I’m excited to share some news with the readers at RainmakerLawyer.com:
Our company has expanded its focus. In addition to working with attorneys, effective immediately, we will also be working with doctors and business owners.
The Rainmaker Lawyer name will continue to be the hallmark of educational internet content for lawyers but the new name of our company is Valtimax Consulting.
Our focused initiatives for lawyers will be delivered under the LegalMax brand.
The work we do with doctors will be through our MedMax brand.
Products and services for business leaders will be shared by our SuccessMax and ExecuMax brands.
The most exciting thing for me personally is the fantastic information I will now be bringing to a wider audience.
Each week we will be delivering educational content in three different forms of media on http://www.Valtimax.com:
Monday: The Valtimax Podcast will deliver the latest radio show on business strategy.
Wednesday: The Valtimax Minute will provide professionals and business leaders with an update on marketing and productivity maximization.
Friday: Valtimax Video will deliver hard hitting management messages in powerful videos.
I sincerely thank you for your support and friendship as my business has evolved over the years and I’m thrilled that you will be joining me on this next leg of our journey.
Visit the new website: http://Valtimax.com
As always, we will be routinely posting great info and updates right here at http://www.RainmakerLawyer.com
