Resolutions for Lawyers, Day 7
Review the look of your normal invoice. Then ask a seven year old to do the same. Are they readable and easy to understand? Do they have all of the information your client wants or needs? It also wouldn't hurt to call a few of your best clients (or the people in charge of paying those clients' bills) and ask them if there is anything you can do to make your bills easier to read and understand.
Resolutions for Lawyers, Day 6
I got this one from The Nub:
1) Take any issue you want to consider. E.g: your relationship with your kids or partner; your relationships at work; your project; your time; your stress -- ANYTHING.
2) Now create a sentence stem that focuses on your issue. E.g. If I want to improve my time effectiveness by 5% I must...
3) Then complete the sentence between 6-10 times. Don't get fixed too long trying to say the right thing, if in doubt, invent - just make sure the ending is grammatically correct.
Example endings could be: If I want to improve my time effectiveness by 5% I must...
...get up 30 minutes earlier
...set deadlines
...get to bed earlier
...organise my desk
...stick to my decisions
...accept that I can't do everything
...keep in mind why I am doing somethingWhy only 5%? Because that's not overwhelming. Try it out...There are tons of possibilities with this technique - I've just scratched the surface.
Resolutions for Lawyers, Day 5
Who is your perfect client? Old or young? Rich or poor? Male or female? Once you've decided, go shopping. Go to the kind of stores your perfect client frequents, and look around. What draws your perfect client to the store(s) he or she shops in? Is it price? Is it selection? Is it quality? Is it atmosphere? Go back to your office and compare your office's "look" with the look of your ideal customer's favorite store. Could you make your office more inviting or accommodating?
Then think about what you sell (and how you price it). Are you Wal-Mart, Target, or Nieman-Marcus? Which one do you want to be?
Resolutions for Lawyers, Day 3
Pick your five best clients and ask to meet with each of them before the year is over. Make sure they know they won't be charged for the meeting. At the meeting ask them, "What do you want to accomplish in the next twelve months, and how can I help you to do it?"
Resolutions for Lawyers - Day 2
Every time I see an advertisement for a time and billing "solution" for lawyers, it almost always has some variation on the theme, "If you could recapture just ___ more minutes per day, you would make $____ more per year." When lawyers are tied to billing clients by the hour, so much of what we do (and how we are paid) depends only upon the time we spend that is directly attributable to a client's file. And as the advertisement suggests, every extra minute we can recapture makes us more money. Or does it?
Regular readers of this blog know that I am no fan of the billable hour, and apart from its destructive impact on the relationship we wish to have with our clients, billing by the hour has a more insidious effect on our business' bottom lines: We fail to take the time to think about the business itself. Every time I meet with other lawyers and share some of the ideas about how my partner and I are changing our law practices, they invariably ask, "How do you find time to think about all of this stuff." Though I hold my tongue, I am thinking to myself, "How can they afford not to?"
That brings me to my resolution for the day:
Take 30 minutes per day to seriously think about your business. Are you doing the work you like to do? Are you working with clients that respect your efforts? If you answer "No" to either of those questions, are there ways you can change your practice to get to where you want to be?
For those 30 minutes, get away from the phone and the computer, and commit to writing down 25 ideas. File the ideas away, and look at them again at the end of each week. Out of the hundreds of ideas you'll generate each month, there will certainly be a gem or two that will help you become the lawyer you want to be.
Trust me, if you work on your business for a change instead of just for your business, you will reap amazing dividends for your practice and your life.
Resolutions for Lawyers, Day 1
Identify your least favorite client -- you know, the one that you hope doesn't call, the one that pays their bill late, berates your staff, and/or makes outrageous demands on your time -- and fire them. They don't deserve your hard work (and probably aren't getting your best work anyway if you hate doing it for them).
As an added holiday bonus, let your secretary pick a client to fire too! It is a great moral boost to everyone in the office when that one (and you don't have to limit yourself to one) client is gone.
Resolutions for Lawyers, Introduction
Because we all want to become better lawyers, make more money, work less, spend more time with our families, and generally retire rich, happy, and healthy, the dawn of every new year is the time we finally decide, "Well, now I'm going to do X,Y, and Z to improve my _______, stop doing ________, and be a better ________." And even though we never have any problem filling in those blanks, I'm going to complicate matters by starting a new, limited-run series titled, "Resolutions for Lawyers."
Until January 1, I'll be posting a number of Resolutions. Basically, it will be a collection of quick ideas and simple suggestions for things we all can do in the next year to become better lawyers and run our businesses better.
I would love to hear your resolutions for the next year. Leave them in the comments to each post, and I'll compile all of them at the end of the year in one giant post. Until then, look for one of my resolutions each day until December 31.
Life Laundry for Law Offices
I don't get BBC America at home, but have heard about the show Life Laundry, and thought it had an interesting premise:
In Life Laundry, storage expert Dawna Walter helps people streamline their internal and external lives by cleaning out their clutter and offering advice, insight and top tips – while antique dealer Mark Franks help turn junk into hard cash – all in 48 hours.
But this is more than just a home makeover show. For some it's an incredibly emotional experience as they struggle to come to terms with the past.
Faced with rooms too full of junk for their owners to use, to broken computers and washing machines that have sat idle for years, Dawna and Mark take drastic action, emptying the offending rooms on to the closest outside space.
Step-by-step they take the homeowners through their belongings sifting, sorting, and slinging out the clutter that has taken over their homes – and in some cases their lives.
From people who have allowed their possessions to take over as a result of trauma, to sentimental hoarders, over-zealous collectors and people and families whose relationships are under strain from the amount of junk cluttering their homes – the Life Laundry experts are on hand to help.
What would the Life Laundry experts find in your office? Old computers, printers that don't work, dozens (hundreds, thousands) of books that you don't use anymore? Piles of trade publications and legal magazines that you've set aside to read someday? Get rid of all of that stuff and be amazed at how little you really needed any of it.
Idea Garage Sale.
I've been spending the last two weeks doing some housekeeping around the office: closing files, throwing stuff away, reviewing every open file, and generally organizing the stuff I have sitting around. One of the things I've noticed is how easy it is to accumulate things on the computer. For instance, I have over two-hundred items in my "to blog" folder on Bloglines alone. Add to that the hundreds of articles and web sites I've book-marked over the last four years and you start to get the picture of some of the electronic cobwebs in my office.
I have finally recognized that I have too many ideas sitting around cluttering things up. For the next week, I'm going to have an "Idea Garage Sale" on this blog. I'll be throwing up tons of links, blurbs, and thoughts that I've found laying around for you to take if you want. If there is anything left at the end of next week, it will get shipped off to Goodwill.
And as for my fellow bloggers, I know you are in the same predicament as I am. Everyone knows that when the whole neighborhood has a garage sale, more people show up to buy and more stuff gets sold, so join me and have your own Idea Garage Sale, too.
Enjoy your shopping!
Draw the Red Line
I continue to be amazed by Hugh MacLeod's How to be Creative series on his Gaping Void weblog. His most recent contribution is this gem:
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not. Art suffers the moment other people start paying for it. The more you need the money, the more people will tell you what to do. The less control you will have. The more bullshit you will have to swallow. The less joy it will bring. Know this and plan accordingly.
Hugh is the guy who draws cartoons on business cards. Though I love the one that accompanies the post, the one here has this bit of wisdom, "If an ordinary person can understand what you do, you're already half way to becoming a commodity."
A procrastination fix.
I've recently read "The Now Habit" and I've been having a great time this week implementing its cures for my procrastination. I've spent most of the week cataloging all of my to-do's (ala David Allen), and using the Franklin Covey Plan Plus software with my TabletPC. However, the best thing I've done is retreated to an abandoned conference room in my office building for two or three 30 minute blocks of time each day. I set my watch alarm for thirty minutes, take it off, and set it face down on the table. I start the project I need to work on, and work straight through for the 30 minutes. No telephone interruptions, no e-mail, no secretary asking me to fix her computer. The focused productivity has been absolutely amazing. I admit I got much of the idea from former Five by Five contributor Michael Cage, who writes:
The bulk of my income is derived from writing, and it has proven to be slow-going for me to write in my office. I’m an easily distracted person (the classic “hunter” profile a la Thom Hartmann). Ordinarily, I’d set about changing a trait that was an annoyance, but, in this case it is responsible for a large part of my success. I don’t want it gone, I just want better strategies for focus.So, I bought an iBook.
It does not have E-mail set up and never will. When it’s time to work on important projects, I carry it into another office (that doesn’t have my stuff in it) to work; or strut over to Starbucks and down enough caffeine for the entire state of Virginia while pumping out the copy. In a sense, I’ve “ritualized” the entire process of writing including the tools I do it with. I’ve finished 3 major projects in the last 3 days that were dragging on for weeks. My productivity has soared. It’s great!
Like Michael, I've gotten more done in the last four days than in the previous two weeks. I'll have a review of the Plan Plus software up soon, but right now, I've got thirty minutes set aside to get some real work done.
Ways to Reduce Stress
The Nub picked up this list from a Philipine Newspaper. Titled, "Christian ways to reduce stress." There are a bunch of great ideas and tips here (no matter what your faith). These are my favorites:
1. An Angel says, "Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice."
5. Say NO to projects that won't fit into your time schedule or that will compromise your mental health.
6. Delegate tasks to capable others.
8. Less is more (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.)
9. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.
10. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump the hard things all together.
11. Separate worries from concerns. If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety. If you can't do anything about a situation, forget it.
14. Have backups: an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc.
15. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut) This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.
16. Do something for the Kid in You everyday.
20. Get organized so everything has its place.
22. Write down thoughts and inspirations.
23. Every day, find time to be alone.
30. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.
31. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).
32. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most.).
34. Talk less; listen more.
36. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.
37. Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never been grateful for before.
Inspiration at Work
Anita Sharpe at Worthwhile wrote about an interview with Kevin Carroll, a creative guru at Nike, in HOW magazine. Kevin was asked in the interview to quickly name six things that inspire him. Go to Anita's full post for his response, but Anita wrote:
It's a fun exercise, and if you do it quickly, you might surprise yourself, or, like me, you might produce something that sounds like a personal ad on Match.com: "Magazines. The Beatles. Great dinner conversations. Spontaneous adventures. Billy Crystal movies, or any humorous book or movie that also has a point. Views of water (I bought my house because a creek runs through the property; my office window has a view of a swimming pool and I count that, too.)"
My six things off the top of my head:
My daughter's laughter.
My wife's smile.
Being the first golfer to walk the course early in the morning.
The Missouri Botanical Garden
Having a client say "Thank you."
Having a full day to do nothing but read.
Sometimes we need to step back and realize that work helps us live our life, and shouldn't replace it. Now, back to our regular programming ...
Great Productivity Tips
Legal Coach Ed Poll has five productivity tips on his Coach to Lawyers Weblog from a presentation he attended by Nido Qubein. Nido's tips:
1. Call or write 4 people every week (Monday to Friday).
2. Get the "clean desk" habit -- do today what you can, don't leave it for tomorrow.
3. Return all calls on the day received (still the number one complaint against attorneys in State Bar Disciplinary Boards around the country!).
4. Read one hour every day.
5. Read the newspaper at night (it's faster because you've heard some of it already and you'll know what's important ... and you won't start your day depressed by the murder and mayhem reported daily).
I met Ed at the ABA national convention in Atlanta about ten years ago. He writes some great stuff for lawyers and has started posting more to his blog. He needs a link from his blog to his main website though.
The Silver Lake Group, Ltd.
Well, the Silver Lake Group, Ltd. is open for business. My partner is Jeffrey Mollet, a lawyer with expertise in agribusiness, real estate, and banking law (I'll post his biography here in another post). Jeff shares my passion for innovation and we both recognize how important it is to get our new venture off on the right foot. To that end, I'm shutting down my legal practice for the next month to concentrate on everything we need to do to start fresh, and most importantly, start right.
To be sure, I'll still be here for client calls and meetings, and the occasional motion or hearing, but I have no trials scheduled and will be taking on no urgent matters this month. On June 1, we will be meeting with every client and sharing with them our vision for our practice -- and more importantly, learning from them how we can better serve their interests. Some things on my agenda for the next four weeks:
1. Complete our Satisfaction Guarantee.
2. Prepare our announcements and finish our marketing materials.
3. Settle on our slogan/tagline. Right now, "Innovative Lawyers - Guaranteed Service - Uncommon Value" is the one we like best.
4. Revise our Mission Statement and draft our Client Care Agreement.
5. Interview for our Client Concierge Position.
6. Talk to the Placement Offices at St. Louis University, Washington University, and Southern Illinois University Law Schools about a first or second year student for some research projects.
7. Work on the SilverLakeLaw.com website.
8. Finish our migration from Word (him) and WordPerfect (me) to OpenOffice.
9. Introduce Jeff to blogging. He's going to be starting a Farm Law/Agribusiness Blog soon as a service to his existing clients. We will use weblogs as an alternative to newsletters for clients in specific industries.
10. Keep blogging (though a bit sporadically).
I've never had more to do and been more excited about doing it. Look for updates here and thanks for your support.
The New Firm Begins
It's official. As of May 1, 2004, Homann Law and Mediation officially becomes "The Silver Lake Group." The biggest news is that another lawyer will be joining me as I officially leave the land of solo practice. My new partner, who is now winding up his present partnership (on good terms), will be formally announced here next week. There are over one hundred things on my "to-do" list, so my blogging may be a bit sporadic, but here are some highlights of our business plan that I'll flesh out in individual posts on this blog.
1. No client will be billed by the hour. I'll unveil our Service Pricingsm plan in more detail next week.2. We will guarantee each client's satisfaction with our service or refund their money.
3. We will hire a "client concierge" who will be responsible for one thing: keeping our clients happy. The client concierge will contact every client weekly, organize monthly seminars of interest to them, write topical newsletters, send birthday and holiday cards, solicit client feedback, and manage our firm's master client to-do list.
4. We will set up the "Silver Lake Small Business Foundation" and contribute ten percent of our profits to it. The money in the foundation will be used to teach entrepreneurship in local schools, donate books to public libraries, encourage people to start small businesses (with micro-loans), establish mentoring programs, and fund scholarships and work-study programs for local students.
5. We will share our methods, forms, letters, and experiences with others to encourage all of us in the legal profession to move away from the billable hour and toward a saner, customer-centered way of practicing law.
6. We will have a hell of a good time.
To say that I am excited is a massive understatement. I started this weblog to write about transfoming my practice, and I feel that I am almost there. Look for more details here over the next two weeks.
What is your purpose?
Tom Asacker has a wonderful post on his Rebel with a Cause weblog. Tom starts, as he almost always does, with a quote, this time from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." Tom writes about "branding" and "marketing" in his blog, but read the rest of his post and imagine he is talking about being the perfect lawyer:
The same is true of business and of work. Because after all, it's still life isn't it? And I'm talking about purpose . . . not mission. Not vision. Not money. Purpose. I keep coming back to this critical aspect of one's brand, because it seems to differentiate the best from the rest.Now, reread #2 and go home and play with your kids.1. Useful - Is you business helpful? Is it enjoyable? Does it improve the lives of your customers and employees? Or are you simply filling the world with more noise and more stuff and lining your pockets in the process? If you're not sure, take a good, long look at the faces of your constituents. Are they smiling and serene? Do they feel good about themselves and their decisions in your presence? No? Then wake up! This is your big shot at making a difference in people's lives and in the world.
2. Honorable - Are you honest, straightforward, trustworthy? Do you play fair? And if not, whom do you think you're fooling? I'll tell you who. You're fooling your kids! You are not doing them a favor by providing for their financial security through your Machiavellian methods. That's simply more b.s. self-talk to make you feel good about yourself. What they need during these chaotic times is a role model to teach them what's truly important in life. So for their sake, get real!
3. Compassionate - If you think compassion is a wishy-washy concept in business, think again. Compassion is the deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. Isn't that the key to innovation? Developing a deep understanding of the problems people have with their present life situation and developing products, services and business models to eliminate those problems? Of course it is. The days of make and sell are SO over. Sense and respond is the new branding mantra.
My First Week
OK, it has been a bit longer than one week since I wrote my first post here at "the [non]billable hour" and I want to thank everyone who has been so kind to read my musings, comment on them, and even link to my stuff. Special thanks go out this first week to:
David at ethicalEsq who has driven a lot of traffic here and engaged me in spirited debate on the ethical issues of value billing.Evan at Notes from the Legal Underground encouraged me to start this weblog. Evan is a friend and fellow Madison County Illinois lawyer who has a really unique take on this "judicial hellhole" we call home.
Carolyn at MyShingle for giving me a kind plug and setting a great example of how solo lawyers can blog for fun and recognition.
Thanks again. Matt
Resolutions vs. "Ideal Scenes"
David St. Lawrence left this comment about my focus on business planning:
I'm glad to see that you include business plans as part of your overall strategy. You may already have done this, but you can gain an entirely different perspective by writing up the ideal scene for your business and your personal life before going much further. An ideal scene can give you a view of your future from the 10,000 foot level.
David pointed me to his post on how creating an ideal scene in you mind can be far more effective than making a traditional "resolution." His tips:
1. Write with all the certainty that you can muster. If you feel that this is a useless exercise, don't bother wasting your time. Go back to watching TV. Do not write anything that you have doubts about. This is not a wish list. This is a description of things that need to happen and you are willing to make happen.2. Write as though it is happening and write those things you know you can do: For example, "I network until I find a new job." "We work out a plan to home school our children." "I find extra work to pay off my loan."
3. Do not allow anyone to belittle your ideal scene. If this is a scene that others in the family must share, you must let everyone contribute to the description of this future state that we call an ideal scene. If you can't get agreement, then you will have to work out an ideal scene for yourself.
4. Be aware that achievement of your ideal scene depends on the intentions of those involved. An ideal scene that involves getting your spouse to give up smoking, or your boss to act more decent, is unlikely to occur unless they participate in the process.
5. Take a look at how your ideal scene will affect others. You may wish to rewrite it so that others will not be negatively impacted when your ideal scene occurs. Otherwise, you may feel guilty which will produce intense counter-intention to your predicted future and can prevent it from happening.
6. If there are known barriers, try not to use conditional statements about overcoming them. Rather than, "We move to Vermont, if we can find a good home for Lassie, or Grandfather," write something like, "We work out a way that Lassie, or Grandfather, gets to live where he wants and then we move to Vermont."
David's suggestions are very timely for me. In my innaugural post, I set forth my resolutions. I'll try to recast them, as David suggests, as my "ideal scenes" this weekend.