The holiday season, the period between Thanksgiving and New Years, is the best time of the year for marketing your law practice. During this time business is more likely to  be slow at the law firm.  For most attorneys there are fewer cases to sign up as many prospective clients wait until the holidays are over to hire a lawyer. This lull in legal business can be a blessing as it provides you with the time to market. With the seasonal marketing techniques available, a wise attorney can sow the seeds for future business. Are you using the holiday season effectively for your legal marketing? If not, you should be. Here are 3 tips to help you make the most of this special time:

1. Holiday Cards. Everyone likes to be remembered. Mailing holiday cards to your past and present legal clients is a wise investment of the time and money you have left in your marketing budget. First, gather the contact information. You should be maintaining a data file with contact information for all of your past and present clients. If you are not, setting one up is the first order of business. Next, select a suitable card. A more politically correct card will not focus on Christmas, Hanukkah or have any other religious affiliation. There are plenty of appropriate cards with general holiday themes. Don’t be cheap, this is not a big investment and a quality holiday card will infer that your law practice is prosperous. Having the firm information printed on the card is nice but not necessary. Personally sign each holiday card. This is very important, the client needs to feel that you are taking the time to personally connect to him. If you remember anything about the client that will allow you to add a short note, do it. Again, the client will appreciate the connection. Lastly, send the cards out during the first week of December. Holiday cards have a limited shelf life. Be sure that yours are in your clients’ hands for as long as possible.
2. Referral Sources. Show appreciation to those people who refer you business. They may be clients, former clients, fellow attorneys, business associates, accountants, therapists, judges, your neighbor, your mechanic etc. Having a steady referral source is an extremely valuable asset and one a wise attorney will work to retain. How you acknowledge a referral source will depend on the circumstances of each relationship. Gifts are nice, of course, but the most important factor is making a personal connection.  Face time solidifies the relationship. Take the time to connect with each referral source over coffee, lunch, drinks after work or perhaps stopping by their office with an appropriate gift.
3. Networking opportunities. The holiday season provides more networking  possibilities for lawyers than other times of the year. Make a point of connecting with people as much as possible. Often there are bar association functions, state or federal court functions, government related celebrations, other law firm’s and other professional’s parties. There may also be parties at your church, civic club, fitness club or local non-profits. Read the paper, search online and ask around. If you have the opportunity, attend. Who know who you might meet that needs a good lawyer or knows someone who does. There’s not really any downside and you might even have fun.

Be wise. Use the holiday season to sow your legal marketing seeds and have a good time as well.

Have a great law practice!

Daniel Roberts

Professional Lawyer Coach

www.coachingforlawyers.com

Thankfulness can be a useful tool in building your law practice. In our efforts to make improvements in ourselves as lawyers, in our law practices and in our personal lives we necessarily focus on what changes need to be made. My coaching work with attorney clients is about helping them make those changes that will make their law practice and their legal careers more satisfying and more rewarding.  In making changes it is necessary to focus on the glass-half-full-what we don’t have. But to concentrate only on the negatives, the lacks, is to deprive oneself of a valuable tool-thankfulness.

To be thankful for what we have and appreciate our blessings is a reliable old maxim and wise advice. It makes us feel good. But there is another advantage to thankfulness. By focusing on what is going well with our law practice and legal career we alter our perception of ourselves. Instead of lack, we see accomplishment. Instead of seeing only what we need, we see what we already have. Our acknowledgement of the positive, our successes, influences our self image. We see ourselves in a better light, more successful, more accomplished, more on track, more in control. This change in our self image can be very powerful.

We human beings are limited by our self perception. If you believe you won’t pass the bar exam, develop a successful law practice or make partner you most likely won’t. By shifting our self image through thinking about what we have accomplished and what is going well we open ourselves to taking on the changes we want to make with increased confidence. We set the bar higher because we feel better about our abilities. We are more confident in making important career and business decisions. We make it easier on ourselves to make the changes that will increase our professional success. Our self confidence is increased and our self image is enhanced allowing us to achieve more. It is a wonderful cycle: success increases self confidence which results in success which increases self confidence which results in success……

In order to achieve more success in your law practice and legal career, take a well balanced approach. Determine what changes are needed, of course, and develop and follow a plan to make those changes. But, in addition, take the time to acknowledge what you have, what you have accomplished and what is going well.

Have a great practice!

Daniel Roberts

Professional Lawyer Coach

www.coachingforlawyers.com

As discussed in Part 1, “People do business with people they know and they like.”

Therefore, “Prospects hire lawyers they know and they like.”

In addition to getting to know you, a prospective legal client needs to like you. How does this happen? Ask yourself why you like someone. Isn’t it because of the way they treat you? The interest, respect and courtesy they show you? A legal prospect may admire an attorney’s skill and accomplishments but what generally goes further in making the hiring decision is the connection the prospect has with the attorney. In general, clients believe that if you have a law license you can do the job they need done. What matters is how they size you up as a person; whether they like you. Here are some simple tips that will make you more likable to a prospect.

1. Don’t try to sell yourself. We are all pretty good at knowing when someone is trying to sell us something and it’s a real turnoff. If someone senses that you are trying to sell them on your legal services, they’re out of there. I recommend that you do not give out your card until the prospect requests it or it is appropriate within the context of the conversation.
2. Don’t talk too much. A general rule is to pay attention to the number of people in the group. For example, if you are at a networking event and in a crowd of three, don’t talk more than 1/3 rd of the time. Too much talking is also a turn off and it is hard to talk a lot without talking too much about yourself.
3. Listen to what the other person is saying. Haven’t you been at a function where the person you are talking to is scanning the room, looking for the next conversation? He didn’t make a very good impression, did he? As I pointed out in Part 1, your focus should be on deeper conversations with fewer individuals. To have that deeper conversation you need to listen to what the other person is saying in order to ask intelligent questions and keep the conversation going. Also, by asking questions about him, he will feel the need to ask you questions. This is a perfect opportunity to talk a bit about yourself and your work without being pushy.
4. “The more people talk about themselves, the more they like you.” Remember this rule! Give your prospect an opportunity to talk more than you do. To tell you about himself, his business (*his business challenges and problems), hobbies, interests and so forth. The more you get to know about the person, the better you will be able to evaluate whether he is a good prospect for legal work, a referral source or even possibly a friend.
5. Help. From listening and paying attention to what is said you will likely learn of something this person needs or wants. What you do could be as simple as providing a recommendation to a professional or service provider, referring him to a helpful website or perhaps sending him a white paper you have drafted. This is a great way to follow up with the prospect as discussed in Part 1. The point is that you are taking your time to help him. We all appreciate these thoughtful little actions and chances are he will remember and want to help you when he can.

There is a lot to legal marketing and a written marketing plan is very important. But, if all you do is apply this fundamental principle of lawyer marketing to your contacts with prospective clients, you can go a long way toward building the law practice you want.

Have a great practice!

Daniel Roberts

Professional Lawyer Coach

www.coachingforlawyers.com

Lawyers hear so much hype about marketing. What’s the latest and greatest way to attract clients? Is it the new flavor of the day: social networking? Or should you start a  law blog,  join another organization or maybe even advertise? A lot is  involved in marketing to attract legal clients and there can be many moving pieces. But one fundamental principle should be the basis for all lawyer marketing:

“People do business with people they know and they like.”

Too simple? Not really, think about it. Who do you do business with? People you know and you like, right?

Therefore, as applied to lawyers, the principle is: “Prospects hire lawyers they know and they like.” It’s universal and it’s human nature. If you want to attract legal clients, first they have to know you (not just who you are) and they have to like you. Let’s talk about the first part this in this blog post: “Prospects hire lawyers they know.”

Do your prospective clients, your prospects, know you? I mean really know you? Not just as that lawyer who handed out his card at the Chamber of Commerce mixer.” Let’s see, what was his name and what did he say he did?  I don’t remember.” For prospects to really know you they must have more than a cursory contact with you.

A well known marketing principle is that prospects must have multiple contacts with a product before they are ready to buy. The same holds true for legal services. Handing out your card to someone without following up is virtually worthless. If you are at a networking event and would like to make some marketing hay, don’t try to see how many cards you can had out. Concentrate on making a deeper contact with fewer people. Then follow up with those contacts repeatedly.

How much follow up? Some sources say seven times. I believe that you should have three follow ups at a minimum.

Over what period of time? The first follow up should be soon after the initial contact; within a few days or a week. Then, depending on the relationship you have developed with the prospect (see part 2), you should schedule regular follow ups over a relatively short period of time. You need to stay within your integrity but, at the same time, be a bit assertive in following up. It is necessary to be organized about your follow up. Put follow up dates on your calendar or to-do list.

How do I follow up? There are numerous methods for following up depending on what was said during the initial contact (see part 2). Regardless of the method used in your follow ups your focus should be:

1. What do I have in common with this person? or
2. How can I help this person (not just as an attorney)?

Have a Great Practice!

Daniel Roberts

Professional Lawyer Coach

www.coachingforlawyers.com

We lawyers often quote a fixed fee for handling a legal case. It is easier for the client to commit to an amount certain than to agree to an hourly rate and the uncertainty of how much the total attorney’s fee will be. It helps in getting the legal work but, if care is not exercised, the attorney can lose money on the file.

Using a building contractor as an analogy, if the price the contractor agrees to does not cover his cost of materials, labor, permitting and other costs as well as providing a profit, he loses money. Therefore, he has to be very careful to accurately estimate those factors that contribute to his costs. He also needs to build a cushion into the bid to cover unexpected expenses.

It would seem that the same would hold true for attorneys who quote fixed fees. However, that is often not the case. Many attorneys will quote a fee without sufficient consideration of all factors contributing to the time expenditure and costs for a case. Perhaps the “going rate” for a legal service is generally known and the lawyer feels that if he charges more he won’t be retained. Or the attorney is overly optimistic about the time involved in handling the case or does not factor in unforeseen costs and additional time requirements.  The fee may be fixed but the time required is not. Have you ever been in court on a simple uncontested matter and been one of the last on the docket? What did sitting in the court room cost you? Was the case still profitable?

If you handle fixed fee cases, review your fees vs. costs and time expenditures. I often work with clients who complain about working too hard yet not making enough money. If the client handles fixed fee cases, I request that they keep accurate records of exactly how much time they spend on each case and document all direct and indirect costs. In many cases the amount of time expended is in excess of the estimated time involved in quoting the legal fee.

Here is an example:

• A probate attorney charges $250 per hour.
• He quotes $2500 for probating an estate.
• The time expended ends up being 15 hours.
• The attorney was not working for $250 per hour. His effective billing rate was $166 per hour.

Ouch! If his business plan requires more than $166 per hour to make a profit, he lost money on the case. If he does this long enough and on enough files his practice will fail.

Take Away Points:

• Don’t charge what everyone else is charging for a fixed fee legal service. Unless it is a loss leader, charge what you need to make a profit.
• Carefully analyze the amount of time you spend, on average, on this type of case and set your fee accordingly.
• Build in a cushion of fee to cover unexpected time expenditures and costs.

You’re better off going to the beach than working hard, exposing yourself to professional liability and losing money to boot. Pay attention to those fixed fee cases. Be smart, make them pay off for you.

Have a Great Practice!

Daniel Roberts

Professional Lawyer Coach

coachingforlawyers.com

“A lawyer’s time is his stock in trade” But…

The passing of Steve Jobs has given us all an opportunity to consider what is really important in life. He had money, success and the satisfaction of giving great technological gifts to the world. What he didn’t have was enough time. None of us know how much time we have left but, in reality, our time is all that we own. The money, the material possessions, even fame and professional recognition can come and go and they do.

How are you spending your time? Are you focused on making partner, developing new legal business, preparing for the next trial, getting the billings out? All of that is fine and a necessary part of practicing law. However, the wrong focus can get a lawyer into trouble. It is a fact that human beings spend their time and energy pursuing what they are focused on. And, if what we are focused on is not really how we want to spend our time, there is a problem.

It is important to take a comprehensive view of how we allocate the time that we have. If work and professional success is all you want out of life (and for some attorneys it is) that’s fine. But for most lawyers, their law practice is only a portion of their life. They want time to pursue other interests, hobbies, sports, learning… And the time we spend with our families is often the most important use of our time. So what gives when that doesn’t happen? The answer is that we are out of balance, we are focusing first on our law practices with our private time coming in second (and sometimes a distant second) place.

My recommendation: “Play Yourself First”. By that I mean that, just as financial advisers recommend you “pay yourself first” by putting aside retirement and investment money before you address other expenditures, you should “play yourself first” by allocating in advance, before other time commitments, the time you want to spend on your personal and family life-your “play.” Put the focus where it needs to be; on carefully planning how you spend the only thing you really own, your time.

How to do it: Make a personal time budget. In working with my clients in developing a legal marketing plan, I insist that they commit to a marketing time budget; the minimum amount of time they will devote, on a weekly basis, to marketing for new legal business. It is very effective. The same principle applies to your personal time. Ask yourself how much time you will commit to spending with your family, your children and on your personal interests. Come up with a number, the number of hours per week that you will devote, at a minimum, to those important parts of your non-lawyer life. The actual number of hours you commit to is not as important as faithfully adhering to your personal time budget. Consistency counts. Tip: It is a good idea to keep a written record, at least at first. This will help you track your time and also keep your focus where it needs to be.

Are you ready to put first things first? It’s your life and your time, spend it wisely.

Daniel Roberts, J.D.

Professional Lawyer Coach

Coachingforlawyers.com

It’s been a while since  I’ve made a blog entry. My excuses are that the website was down for a while (WordPress challenges) and extended visits from family. I could have made an entry or two but I didn’t. Guilty. In a law practice, there are ample opportunities for procrastination. For me it was usually one or two files that I just didn’t want to work on. They lingered until reaching urgent status, then required too much concentrated time and effort. But procrastination is a treatable malady, I have coached a number of lawyer clients to become more productive.

We lawyers procrastinate for a number of reasons:

• It’s rewarding. If some things are put off long enough, it may become unnecessary to do them.
• Fear of failure. We are afraid that the quality of our work will not be up to standards (ours or theirs).
• Fear of success. We are afraid of what will happen if we are successful (fear of the unknown).
• Fear of lack of business. As long as we have files to work on, the law practice is going great, right?
• Improvement needed in basic time management and organization skills.

Below are seven tips that have proved valuable in overcoming attorney procrastination:

1. Organize the project. Often we don’t want to get started because we are not sure of exactly what to do. Whether it is a complicated trial brief or a detail heavy business transaction, an important first step is to think it through. Make an outline of what needs to be done and by when. If the project seems too overwhelming, just commit to an initial planning session. With the project organized, it will be much easier to get started.
2. Break it into pieces. The size or complexity of a project often is a cause for procrastination.  Like that term paper or law review article, divide the project into chunks and work on them one at a time. As the completed pieces start adding up, momentum will build and less effort will be required to keep going.
3. Partner up. Who can help you with part of the work? Another lawyer, a clerk or paralegal? Chances are that there is someone else you can work with. Partnering on the project gives you less to do personally. It adds momentum and creates an environment of mutual accountability that moves the project forward.
4. Calendar it. If everything else feels too difficult, simply put the project on your calendar for a date and time certain.  Forget about it until then. All you have to do is show up like you would for a court appearance, client conference or anything else. When the time arrives you will honor your commitment and get started.
5. Visualize success. Visualize the project being completed on time and turning out better than expected. Imagine the relief you will feel in having the project behind you. Feel the satisfaction of a job well done.
6. Motivate yourself. Instead of negative incentives such as what will happen if you don’t get it done, give yourself some positive reasons to complete the project. Nothing vague or indefinite, rather a reward that is real and immediate. Tickets to a concert, a getaway weekend, that new sport coat or purse you’ve had your eye on. Choose something you want but couldn’t justify otherwise.
7. Just start. Commit to only a small time investment. Tell yourself you will spend only 30 minutes on the project, set the timer and go. At the end of the 30 minutes you can stop or, as is very often the case, you will be in the groove and want to keep working. Give yourself some open time at the end of the 30 minutes in case this happens.

The next time you are procrastinating on a file or project, try one of these tips and see if you aren’t able to break through the impasse.

Have a Great Career!

Daniel Roberts, J.D.

Professional Lawyer Coach

CoachingforLawyers.com

I recently read a commencement speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005. It was a good speech among other good speeches he has made. One portion in particular struck a cord with me, here it is:

“When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainlybe right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “no” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

In addition to the humor he makes an excellent point: if you are not enjoying what you do it’s time to make a change. But change is hard, we are hard wired to stay the course and resist change. As attorneys we have invested a lot in preparing for a legal career and we have worked hard to have a successful law practice. But are you enjoying what you do every day?

It’s a old story: if you don’t know what you want to do when you graduate from college, go to law school. Many of us became lawyers just that way. The practice of law is a good fit for many law school graduates. But for more than a few the law is an uncomfortable fit. Smart people can do many things well but that does not mean that they enjoy doing them. Many young lawyers are disillusioned with the practice of law. Some  of them tough it out, pay their dues and advance. For others the price is too much to pay and they leave the law often feeling like a failure.

I want to make two points. First, you are more that what you do for a living. You have a law degree, great, but that doesn’t mean you have to wear a “lawyer” tag for the rest of your life. You are a person first and a person who deserves to be happy. If you do work you don’t enjoy you will spend a major portion of your life without professional fulfillment and you will find it a struggle to put in the time and effort it takes to become successful. It is hard to be successful doing something you do not like. If you are unhappy practicing law, consider whether there are practice areas within the law that appeal to you. So many young litigators are not well suited to the litigator lifestyle. They would be much happier in another area. And if you want to leave the law altogether, do it. Don’t waste precious time. Many successful people have started their career as a lawyer and gone on to great accomplishments, you can too. Just do it!

The second point I want to make is that sometimes an adjustment is all that is needed to make a legal career satisfying. I worked with a litigation partner a few years ago. He was ready to throw in the towel, quit the law and open an antique shop. The reason was the stress and pressure of his practice. He would prepare for one trial, putting in long hours, and when that trial was over it was time to gear up for the next one. He never had enough time to decompress and spend time with his family. In our sessions it became apparent that he liked practicing law and didn’t want to quit, he was just burned out. We formulated a plan for him to approach the managing partner, explain the situation and let him know that he was ready to leave the firm unless changes were made. The firm did not want to loose an excellent litigator. An agreement was reached whereby my client would receive time off after every trial equal to the time he spent nights and weekends preparing for that trial. The client now has a law practice he enjoys and the work/life balance he needed. So, have you been answering the question “No” too many days in a row? Is there is an aspect of your practice that makes you not want to go to work?  Perhaps the practice area, firm dynamics and politics, billable hours expectations, etc.  It may be possible to make a change that will work for you. Give it some thought.

Daniel Roberts

Professional Lawyer Coach, Coaching for Lawyers.com

I want to tell you about a great little productivity tool for lawyers (and the rest of the world). A problem most of us have is organization around our to-dos, our tasks. Attorneys especially have so many tasks to juggle, differing priorities, due dates, importance, etc.  that it is difficult to manage it all. As a lawyer coach I am always on the lookout for tools to help my clients be organized around the goals we are working on. I have found an excellent tool: Toodledo.

Toodledo is an online task management  system. With it you can set up folders for different projects, for example one for marketing, one for administrative tasks, one for a particular case you are working on, one for your bicycle fetish etc. In the folder you add tasks, give each one a start date and end date, set the importance, add notes, estimate the time to complete and other great stuff. For a mere $15 per year you can add subtasks to each tasks plus the ability to give someone else access to any folder you choose. I highly recommend this upgrade.

You can view your tasks by folder, importance, due date, past due, due today….. so you can easily keep on top of what you need to do and when. Get this, if you have a specific amount of time and want to use it most effectively, Toodledo will make a recommendation for you based on a combination of estimated time for the task, due date and importance.

With my lawyer clients it is very helpful in organizing each goal we are working on, the tasks to complete in order to achieve the goal and the necessary sub-tasks. The folder sharing feature allows me to view my client’s progress prior to our coaching session. We can even work together on the Toodledo website in real time creating or modifying the tasks.

I have looked at a lot of systems and this one is a winner. It is powerful, easy to learn and feature rich. The one feature I wish it had is a Gantt Chart bar chart for measuring progress toward goals. I’ve suggested this to them. There is a gadget for it so if you use iGoogle as your desktop you can have your tasks right there looking at you. There is a smart phone app too so wherever you are your tasks are with you. Especially good for checking your personal errands folder while you are out.

No, I am not an affiliate or have any financial incentive for recommending Toodledo. I just like it a lot and think that you, as a busy lawyer, would find it helpful. So take a look. And the best part is the price: Free.

Daniel Roberts, Professional Lawyer Coach, Coaching for Lawyers.com

A good work and life balance is critical for a lawyer both professionally and personally. To be successful over the long run you must have the right balance between your law practice and your personal life. Too much work on the law practice at the sacrifice of  you as a person is counter productive.You probably know a lawyer so focused on his career that his life outside of his work and his wife and children have suffered. Divorce and estrangement of one’s children are often the result. We are more than lawyers, more than just what we do for a living.

For a lawyer to be successful he must be accessible to his clients at all times, right? Wrong. Yes, it is important to be available to clients, but it must be reasonable availability. In our modern environment we sometimes feel the pressure to be available 24/7. The trap is that if we are that available our clients will come to expect it. And, most of the time for most of our clients, it is just not necessary. Sure, if you are in the middle of a high stakes transaction or preparing for trial on Monday you may need to be accessible. But otherwise it can usually wait for office hours.

You need to train your clients to work on your schedule. Say you want to talk to your doctor. You call his office and his secretary tells you the doctor returns calls between 4:00 and 5:00. That usually isn’t a problem, is it? You understand that he is busy and knowing that you will get a call back at a time certain is OK,  you can plan to be available. So why can’t you do the same in your law practice? A lot of lawyers are “in court” every morning. Their clients have been trained not to expect them to be available in the mornings so they do not call then. A great deal of office work done while the lawyer is “in court.”

The same principle applies to your personal time. For adequate work-life balance there must be times when you are not at the beck and call of clients. There are a couple of ways to do this.

One way is to not give out your your home or cell phone number. If you need to, let your clients know that you will be checking your messages over the weekend.

Another way is to give clients your cell number but make a big deal about it. Let them know that you are there for them in the event of an emergency and, if there is an emergency, they can call you at that number over  the weekend or after hours. By presenting it in this way you have raised the threshold for what is an acceptable call. Most clients, the ones you want anyway, will respect this.

Email is another intrusion on personal time. You can train your clients by letting them know that you do not check your email after hours or on the weekend. If they understand that you don’t check it, it is hard to get upset when you do not respond to their email. If this feels a bit challenging for you, try telling your clients that you do not check your email on your off time but, if there is an emergency, they can call your cell phone. I have a friend that does this and he tells me that he almost never receives a call. Again, you have raised the threshold and effectively trained your client not to disturb your personal time unless it is extremely important.

Balancing your law practice and your personal life is an ongoing challenge but one worthy of continued effort. Build a fence. It’s your life, it’s worth it.

Daniel Roberts