The article very nicely lays out the realities of the workforce in this country and how solos in many professions will keep growing, recognizing this is the future path for millions of Americans.

Today, with unemployment rates hovering at 10%, and all our worries about the job market rooted in the moment, we are in danger of failing to see an important longer-term trend: More Americans are working as consultants or freelancers, either having given up or been forced out of the salaried world of 9 to 5.

It’s a trend that began after the economic downturn of the late 1980s, as many laid-off professionals became consultants. Then it seemed temporary, though, tied to bad times. Evidence now suggests that this is our new economic condition. Today, in fact, 20% to 23% of U.S. workers are operating as consultants, freelancers, free agents, contractors or micropreneurs. Current projections see the number only rising in coming years.

And for those who would still like to blame law schools for the unemployment in their profession this is what this solo cheerleader has been shaking her pom poms about:

We can rightly bemoan the loss of security, the shifting of economic risk from institutions to individuals. But crying foul will not change the circumstances that many Americans find themselves facing. Righteous indignation will not turn back time. We can, however, better prepare ourselves for the future.

Enough on that.

The article continues to lay out points regarding the attitude one must sustain through this transition and you should read the article in its entirety.

What I would like to emphasize here is something else.  As these economic realities and professional changes take place for the lawyer as well as every other micropreneur, so will the services provided to us to make our jobs even easier.

We have often emphasized that the cost of entry into business today for the solo lawyer has gone down appreciably because of technology.  As the general work place shifts to greater numbers of self-employed, the overall services and products market will shift, too.  We will see companies and service providers start catering to our bottom line and in a more competitive fashion. If large companies can no longer just focus on other large companies to sell their services in order to prop up their bottom lines, they will have to design programs that are cost-effective and easily implemented for hundreds of thousands of micro-businesses such as the solo lawyer.

We are seeing this already in malpractice insurance where companies are offering low-cost ’starter programs’ and even starting group health insurance plans for individuals who create groups.  And we will see it more and more across all type of services.

What it also means, though, is these same solos need to take advantage of these services in order to keep their overall costs down because they will also be servicing a larger population of people similarly situated who will be looking for alternatives to the traditional dispensing of legal services.  And they will be looking for value. I discuss this here and here.

What thoughts do you have on this coming shift in the balance of power?  Of course, this is how I see it, the tail WILL start wagging the dog.

There is a lot of discussion about unbundled legal services, the breaking down of a given legal process into ‘parts’. Each part can be delegated to a lawyer to handle and paid for by the client or the client can handle themselves based upon their desire and/or budget. A lawyer’s ability to offer unbundled services can change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and by practice area.
Many lawyers see the unbundling process as minimizing the value of their services and taking their profits.  Still others see it as hampering a lawyer’s ability to do a thorough job if they are only offering counsel for one or two segments of the process.

But this is where worlds collide.

“Most private practice lawyers today provide customized solutions for individual clients at high hourly rates, which is expensive for the client and unscalable for the lawyer. The democratization of information and forms on the internet, client demands for more cost effective solutions and the increasing encroachment on the profession by non-lawyers using new technologies will result in significant changes to the legal profession.”

In the beginning there were only lawyers and those who chose to go pro se.  Lawyers felt they had it locked up as the processes became more difficult and onerous.  And there was no middle ground.  Over the past decade or two, we have looked derisively at operations such as Legal Zoom and those who would purport to take business from us by helping those ‘en masse’ with delivering forms, doing the minimum processes clients wanted done, instead of hiring the local lawyer to do it.  The person inclined to go to a company like Legal Zoom or any forms company assisted by non-legal staff is known as the ‘latent legal market’ – a type of Do It Yourself -er who understands they need legal assistance but wants to do it on their own, for the most part. And they accept the ‘good enough’ solution at the price they can pay instead of the ‘best possible outcome’ at a price they believe they can’t afford.

This latent legal market has always existed.  They just were not thought about much except by those companies like Legal Zoom.  Now that there is more competition for clients, technological intrusion into knowledge that was once protected behind castle walls, and an economy which is making clients think twice about legal services they perceive as optional, lawyers have to look at becoming, in effect, mini-Legal Zooms.  They have to start considering unbundling services (if practicable for their practice area) as an option to penetrate the latent legal market.  At the very least, they should consider offering unbundled ‘a la carte’ legal services (as permitted by their jurisdiction) in order to compensate for potentially reduced traditional compensated work.

There is an added benefit to considering unbundled legal services.  There are many ‘new’ Do-It-Yourself -ers born out of troubled times who will feel more secure exploring doing work themselves while still working with a local lawyer holding their hand.  If they believe they are over their heads or want to change their minds, you are right there to catch them and continue with paid work. The clients become clients for life.  They spread the word to their DIY friends.  You’ve now gained traction in a market you once closed the door to or never realistically considered before.

Food for thought…and hopefully consumption.

It was reported by the ABA that “About 19 percent of lawyers experience depression at any given time, compared with 6.7 percent of the general population. About 20 percent of lawyers have drinking problems, twice the rate of the general population.”

Now with the economy making employment for lawyers even more challenging, one has to be even more aware of the effects of this disease. In the New York Journal there was an article, ” Employment Woes Fuel Uptick
in Lawyer Depression.”

Depression increasingly has been recognized as a major problem among attorneys, members of a high stress occupation vulnerable to anxiety even in good times. And these are not good times.
“There is anxiety and depression over being underemployed or unemployed, or marital difficulties if they lost their job and the question is, how do they handle the anxiety,”

Occasionally, there will be an article on the subject, but it seldom gets much play in the social media circles, even the blogs.  But it is here, it’s real and it’s time it is discussed.  One can’t responsibly discuss building a solo practice if they don’t discuss the pervasiveness of depression, and how lonely it is, maybe more so for the solo.

Why does depression seem to be more prevalent amongst lawyers?

Some of the more specific work qualities that make lawyers particularly prone to depression are long work hours; the competitive nature of the work; the adversarial nature of the work; the requirement for highly focused attention to detail; the extreme repercussions of professional errors; the need to be pessimistic and skeptical, and to be prepared to deal with “worst case scenarios;” responsibility for assisting clients and others who are in crisis or dealing with tragic situations; constant scrutiny of your work by employers, judges and opposing counsel; the reality that your work will directly impact the client’s financial, relationship, liberty and quality-of-life interests; the pressure of deadlines and the potential consequences of missing deadlines; rigid and particularized rules and procedures that must be followed carefully and completely; the need to perform, both in terms of achieving results and being “on-stage” and observed by others in public arenas; the need to advance or defend a position that might conflict with your personal values.

This may be even more intense for the solo. You can read more here.

There have been a few blogs popping up which do a very good job on the topic, some written by lawyers who suffered from depression and now are looking to help other lawyers.

Within the next four weeks I will announce a guest lecturer at Solo Practice University (this lecture will also be available for free on our SPU Fan page) He will discuss his 18 year history as an attorney, his slide into depression,  his subsequent suspension, and how he got help. His goal is to help other lawyers recognize the signs and to take care of themselves now.

The disease is insidious  but there is help.  Coming from the proverbial ‘horse’s mouth’ may help others who are highly stressed to avoid his professional fate.

Look for the announcement shortly on the Solo Practice University blog.  If you haven’t subscribed to the RSS yet, you can do so here and you will be notified.

I hope those reading this will take the time to circulate this post.

The word ‘goal’ is often overused and generally misunderstood. So, let’s define goals in the context of what you are trying to achieve, moving forward in your legal career, quite possibly building a solo practice.

What is a goal? It is a specific measurable event that is realistically attainable within a defined period of time.

As a handy reminder you may have seen the acronym SMART. The SMART goal setting model is being used by technological innovators to child psychologists to sales motivators.

SMART stands for:

S       – Specific
M     – Measurable
A      – Attainable
R      – Realistic
T      – Timely

An example of a poorly defined goal is: I want to lose weight.

An example of a well defined goal is: I plan to lose 25 pounds by Labor Day, 2010. I have 25 weeks to lose one pound per week. I will go to the gym three times per week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I will replace my lunchtime burger and fries with a salad.

In order to be a SMART goal setter you recognize you have strong aspirations to achieve something which is important to you. It also means you have a willingness to invest the time and energy required to achieve both your short and long term goals. A SMART goal setter therefore relies on: DESIRE

D      – Drive
E      – Eagerness
S      – Spirit
I      – Incentive
R     – Resistance to distraction
E     – Energy

Research supports those who set effective goals tend to achieve higher levels of success than those who don’t. But, like anything, you need to learn how to set goals and follow through with your commitments.

Start by:

1. Selecting what you want to achieve: This can be anything from first starting your solo practice to pursuing your ideal client to earning gross sales of a specific number annually to changing your practice areas.

The more specific you are in your actual wording, the easier the goal will be to achieve.

For example: I want two DUI’s and three new divorce retainers each month for the next 12 months. The total new inflow of cash shall be $18,000 per month.

2.  Apply the five P’s of goal-setting:

a. Make it Personal – You can not control the actions of others, only the actions of yourself. Therefore, ‘I will pass out 300 business cards this month’ is not a personal goal because you cannot control what the recipients do with the cards while ‘I will collect 300 business cards this month, input the contact data and follow up on 6 per week for the next twelve months with at least one new business lunch per week’ is!
b. Make it Possible – Your goals should be something you can achieve in a relatively short period of time without a large sum of money (unless you have unlimited sums to work with.)
c. Make it Planned - Plan out how you are going to achieve your goals from start to finish. Working backwards is a very effective way of figuring out the steps and identifying potential obstacles.
d. Make it Present – Ask yourself, “what can I do TODAY to make it happen?”
e. Make it Positive – Effective goals must focus on what you want to achieve, not on what you don’t want to achieve.

4) Watch out for the 3 Ps of failure!

a. Procrastination – Don’t put things off until another day.
b. Pushback – Change is difficult. Be persistent and change those patterns which have held you back in the past.
c. Projection – Blaming failure on others or on particular circumstances will only hinder you efforts. You are in control of your law firm.

And remember:

Goals have to evolve with you. They should be neither absurdly out of reach nor easily within reach. In either case, your motivation will be stalled by the uselessness of your goals.

Keep your goals far enough away that you can someday reach them. David Niven, Ph.D.

Your goals for your solo practice may change with the ebb and flow of your life and your career. That’s perfectly OK. It is the practice of goal setting which should be unchanging.

Work with a five year plan of what you need to do and what you want to accomplish. Follow it even if you have to take some detours and you will end up where you want to be. Make your career plan an integral part of your life and you have a much greater chance of meeting with the success you set your sights on.

There is a lot of discussion about unbundled legal services, the breaking down of a given legal process into ‘parts’. Each part can be delegated to a lawyer to handle and it is paid for by the client. Or the client can handle it themselves based upon their desire and/or budget. A lawyer’s ability to offer unbundled legal services can change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from practice area to practice area.

Many lawyers see the unbundling process as minimizing the value of their services and cutting into their profits.  Still others see it as hampering a lawyer’s ability to do a thorough job if they are only offering counsel for one or two segments of the process.

But this is where worlds collide.

“Most private practice lawyers today provide customized solutions for individual clients at high hourly rates, which is expensive for the client and unscalable for the lawyer. The democratization of information and forms on the internet, client demands for more cost effective solutions and the increasing encroachment on the profession by non-lawyers using new technologies will result in significant changes to the legal profession.”

(Read more at SLAW)

In the beginning there were only lawyers and those who chose to go pro se.  Lawyers felt they had it locked up as the processes became more difficult and onerous.  And there was no middle ground.  Over the past decade or two, we have looked derisively at operations such as Legal Zoom and those who would purport to take business from us by helping those ‘en masse’ with delivering forms, doing the minimum processes clients wanted done, instead of hiring the local lawyer to do it.  The person inclined to go to a company like Legal Zoom or any forms company assisted by non-legal staff is known as the ‘latent legal market’ – a type of Do It Yourself -er who understands they need legal assistance but wants to do it on their own, for the most part. And they accept the ‘good enough’ solution at the price they can pay instead of the ‘best possible outcome’ at a price they believe they can’t afford.

This latent legal market has always existed.  They just were not thought about much except by those companies like Legal Zoom.  Now that there is more competition for clients, technological intrusion into knowledge that was once protected behind castle walls, and an economy which is making clients think twice about legal services they perceive as optional, lawyers have to look at becoming, in effect, mini-Legal Zooms.  They have to start considering unbundling services (if practicable for their practice area) as an option to penetrate the latent legal market.  At the very least, they should consider offering unbundled ‘a la carte’ legal services (as permitted by their jurisdiction) in order to compensate for potentially reduced traditional compensated work.

There is an added benefit to considering unbundled legal services.  There are many ‘new’ Do-It-Yourself -ers born out of troubled times who will feel more secure exploring doing work themselves while still working with a local lawyer holding their hand.  If they believe they are over their heads or want to change their minds, you are right there to catch them and continue with paid work. The clients become clients for life.  They spread the word to their DIY friends.  You’ve now gained traction in a market you once closed the door to or never realistically considered before.

Food for thought…and hopefully consumption.

One thing my mother always told me, “The day a hand with a fist full of money comes through the telephone is the day you can stop meeting people in person to close a sale and just hang out on the phone.”

Well, it’s fair to say this has changed somewhat with online shopping, electronic payments, SKYPE, VLOs and all the other technological wonders of the 21st century that can actually allow interaction and payment without ever meeting.  However, the principles remain. Until a person can meaningfully connect with you, there is no sale online or off.  And, by extension, there is very little referral work.

I was reminded of this recently when I had an electrician and a painter at my home.  I had worked with both before, was pleased with the quality of their work and their pricing. One I’d met by referral through a builder; the other,  a father of my son’s Tee-Ball team mate who handed out business cards at the team pizza dinner. I didn’t shop around for this new project.  I knew I wanted to work with both of them, again, and that was their goal, too.  The electrician was very clear. “I know if you’re happy you are a client for life. I want you to be happy and I want to do all your electrical work.” It was a simple and unrehearsed and a stated mission.

What struck me was this. Both said they get all their work from word-of-mouth.  Neither advertises.  They only have business cards and cell phones.  They do not have a website, Twitter account, Facebook page or blog. They don’t go to electrician’s or painter’s conventions, retreats, marketing seminars. They don’t do educational marketing.  They leverage satisfied clients over and over and over, again.

So why did it strike me?  Not because I don’t know the fundamental truth I just wrote about.  But because this fundamental truth has gotten lost in all the social media platform hype.

Yes, I know lawyers and the profession in general are different in many aspects and some of their marketing efforts must be handled differently so as not to offend the advertising police. But they are also the same in just as many ways. Let’s not let the differences obscure the point of this post. The point of this post is this:

Nothing takes the place of happy clients who talk about your services.  Nothing.  Nothing will take the place of meaningful (and quite often) face-to-face, interaction.

This is what troubles many established lawyers when they try to tell new lawyers the best marketing for their business is word of mouth for a job well done.  Concentrate on your skills and your clients and the work will come.  While I would have to qualify this statement as being somewhat over simplistic, these past weeks I’ve started to see much I’m disliking about how the proponents of social media have seemed to cast a spell on lawyers. (Don’t get me wrong.  There is much benefit to be found personally and professionally in the effective use of social media as part of an overarching marketing program.) There is an almost maniacal fervor building and it’s disconcerting to say the least.

A recent BTI study came out reconfirming, again, the power of a personal or peer referral.

Summary of Findings

• A peer referral is the most direct route to hiring consideration. Fully 57% of corporate counsel will consider hiring a new attorney based on a single peer referral. BTI research shows that superior client service (and achieving a reputation for it) drives referrals.

• “Credentialing” activities are second only to peer referrals and scheduled in-person meetings in their effectiveness in moving lawyers into the hiring zone, and are nearly twice as effective as advertising. Corporate counsel find an attorney’s participation in these credentialing activities (defined within as being quoted by the media and other market authorities, speaking at small seminars, and authoring articles in trade publications) as credible indicators of an attorney’s potential to be a valuable advisor. The fact that a trusted third party has “screened” or “vetted” the attorney’s qualifications in each of the credentialing activities is, in large part, what makes them legitimate indicators of value to corporate counsel.

• “Credentialing” activities—unlike lower-scoring “awareness” activities—enjoy a “cumulative effect”: being quoted several times in the media, for instance, has a greater positive effect on corporate counsel than being quoted once. Further, credentialing activities generate content easily shared directly with corporate counsel to back up a referral or establish the credibility of lawyers on sales calls, and more broadly with the general market through today’s numerous information channels (social networks, attorney website biographies, etc.). This easy distribution and networking of credible information makes credentialing activities’ “cumulative effect” relatively easy to realize.

• BTI research showed that with the “cumulative effect,” an attorney quoted three times in the media can achieve nearly the same trust factor from the quotes as they would from a single peer referral.

• Appearances at large events, feature profile articles, advertising, and casual in-person meetings have the least effect on moving lawyers into the hiring zone. None of these awareness activities imply an endorsement from a third party. Further, the activities in this third group require great expense to repeat and do not have a comparable “cumulative effect.”

When we look at findings, however, one can easily draw other conclusions from what isn’t being said: ‘lower awareness activities’ such as those derived from social media interaction  places as third to the referral.  Yet it can clearly lead to greater ‘credentialing activities’. So, should you develop your social media presence?  Yes.  And this is your blogging activity, social interaction on Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn.  Will this lead to the all important credentialing activity and then in-person connection?  If you have a goal in mind to do so, yes.  That’s the point.  Social media awareness activities are not the end game. It is part of the journey and several steps removed from being hired as a trusted advisor.

So, if someone tells you having a web presence and being on Twitter will bring you tons of new business alone, refer them to this blog post.

“Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the nonpharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.”
John W. Gardner

There was a recent opinion piece in the L.A. Times called ‘No More Room At The Bench’ which created some minor discussion on Twitter and got a mention on Legal Blog Watch. Basically, the author is of the opinion that too many new law schools are opening, there are no jobs for those who are graduating and the ABA plays a significant role in this imbalance and won’t do anything to shut the flood gates on new law schools or sufficiently regulate the information provided by law schools on the reality of employment.

You might be surprised to learn I disagree that opening more law schools will hurt future students or lawyers.  And dare I say that the average consumer of legal services actually wins.  Competition allows for change. Competition allows new programs to be devised, innovation in the delivery of legal education including online programs, and forces those law schools which cling to the old ways and the high tuition costs to suffer a major blow. As costs go down only the fittest and most responsive law school will survive and the students will ultimately determine this.  It very well may mean that older, more established law schools will close for failing to change. Lower debt for loans ultimately allows greater access to justice for the general public because lower debt allows the lawyer to make choices, who to service and at what cost. It brings back opportunity for those who get their degree because lower debt means they can choose NOT to practice, too, but utilize their law degree in other ways without feeling as much distress.  When you are suffering from crushing debt your choices are few.  In addition, if you stop law schools from opening leaving only those which currently exist to have a monopoly on the market, you will make law school the exclusive province of the elite and the existing law schools hold all the cards, along with the ABA who regulates their existence.  With an educated consumer of legal education and more choice, the law school marketplace will weed itself in a natural selection process leaving only those schools the students can afford and with an education they can use. The USNWR will have less and less sway as these newer schools opt out of this pointless and ruinous pageant.

Quite frankly, there isn’t a law student or lawyer today who doesn’t know the abysmal job most law schools do.  There isn’t a law student or lawyer today who doesn’t know that law school has their own agenda which has nothing to do with placing the majority of their students.  God only knows I’ve railed for years ad nauseum on this blog and in newspaper columns about it, especially about career placement offices, false employment numbers and lack of practical training in law school.

Law students should be able to get the whole pie, not half the pie when spending the money they do on their education.  They shouldn’t first have to go out and get a job to learn how to be a lawyer.  They shouldn’t have to first participate in a mandatory additional one year state mentoring program.  They should have the option to immediately practice law because they were given the skills.  Whether or not they choose this option, whether or not they feel secure with this option,  the option should still be made available to them.  But it doesn’t exist.  What does exist is unemployment and lawyers out there who want to make use of their education and don’t know how.  And when they try without guidance, that’s when costly mistakes are made. Sadly, it won’t exist within law schools for a very long time even with the pressures placed upon them today and even with new schools opening with a mission to be different.  Their agenda will always be different than the students’ agenda. That’s a fact.

Don’t try to change the market.  Market yourself to be current.

If Wal-Mart or some cultural shift has turned what you do into a commodity, don’t argue. Find a new place before the competition does. It’s not easy or fair, but it’s true. You bet your life.

Which brings us to those who would rail against and demean lawyers, mentors, law students, the legal profession, legal education and any one in any incarnation who tries to help those who ask for help while doing nothing to help themselves. They themselves are the victims of the victim mentality.

There are a few benefits of the victim mentality:

• Attention and validation. You can always get good feelings from other people as they are concerned about you and try to help you out. On the other hand, it may not last for that long as people get tired of it.
• You don’t have to take risks. When you feel like a victim you tend to not take action and then you don’t have to risk rejection or failure.
• Don’t have to take the sometimes heavy responsibility. Taking responsibility for you own life can be hard work, you have to make difficult decisions and it is just heavy sometimes. In the short term it can feel like the easier choice to not take personal responsibility.
• It makes you feel right. When you feel like the victim and like everyone else – or just someone else – is wrong and you are right then that can lead to pleasurable feelings. (Full post here.)

Almost half of all private practicing attorneys today are solos.  These lawyers generally have evolved on their own, some with major success, some with moderate success, some with minimal success and some with failure.  But they are no one’s victim. That’s the way it works in law and in life.

In today’s economy there are no sure things.  There are no handouts. There are no free rides. The only lawyers who will succeed, BigLaw or solo, are those with fortitude, self-reliance and NO victim mentality despite too many law schools, too many graduates and false employment numbers.

An increasing number of civil cases go forward without lawyers. Litigants who cannot afford a lawyer, and either do not qualify for legal aid or are unable to have a lawyer assigned to them because of dwindling budgets, are on their own — pro se. What’s more, they’re often on their own in cases involving life-altering situations like divorce, child custody and loss of shelter.As the economy has worsened, the ranks of the self-represented poor have expanded. In a recent informal study conducted by the Self-Represented Litigation Network, about half the judges who responded reported a greater number of pro se litigants as a result of the economic crisis. Unrepresented litigants now also include many in the middle class and small-business owners who unexpectedly find themselves in distress and without sufficient resources to pay for the legal assistance they need.

The piece is so well written I refer you to it here.

Once, again, it forces me to ask the following questions, “Have you looked at what you are offering to your clients from the client’s perspective?”  Are you just looking at what you need versus what they want?  And how are you positioning your business practices in order to meet the needs of the client all while protecting your bottom line?

If you haven’t asked these questions at the beginning of the new year you may be positioning yourself for difficulties.  This is not a question you want to be asking yourself after clients decline to retain you.  These are questions you need to address proactively before the next client walks through your door.

Are you considering ‘unbundling’ your services as an option?  Do you know how?

It is essential that we promote other efforts to close the “justice gap.”One such effort involves the “unbundling” of legal services. Forty-one states, including California and New Hampshire, have adopted a model rule drafted by the American Bar Association, or similar provisions, which allow lawyers to unbundle their services and take only part of a case, a cost-saving practice known as “limited-scope representation” that, with proper ethical safeguards, is responsive to new realities.

Unbundled legal services will be a mainstay of many a solo practitioner and it will prove essential to learn how to ethically and responsibly unbundle.  Those  most capable of embracing this quickly and being able to build a thriving practice around this concept are the solo practitioners.

Lawyers have argued if the courts embrace this type of delivery of services it undermines the need for a lawyer.  I beg to differ.  A lawyer’s value lies in their ability to counsel.  Effective counseling can convert a  do-it-yourself -er into a paying client.  The foresightedness to offer these services makes you more attractive to those on the fence.

I’ve recognized this reality for a long time and it is why we have two faculty, Richard Granat and Stephanie Kimbro,  teaching how to unbundle your practices at Solo Practice University.  Their bios speak volumes about their ability to educate today’s solo on ethical delivery of unbundled legal services.

Unbundled legal services will play a large role in the future of the profession.  It would be wise to understand it and learn it soon.

What do you think?

The other night I was listening to talk radio and I heard something which was both dismaying yet exhilarating at the same time. Bear with me. The show was discussing how two great professions, the medical field and the legal field, were now closing in on the least desirable professions to pursue. For the medical profession what was sited was the massive intrusion of the insurance industry dictating how one should practice in order to earn a respectable living. Next, an overall disrespect for doctors by patients who now believe they know so much more than the doctor after just one hour on the internet. And last, a massive drop in admissions to medical schools. Why? Because the average college student today does not want to invest tremendous sums of money or endless years of poverty and exhaustion before they can earn a modest profit and start ‘building’ their lives. Yes, those who are truly committed to the profession will do so regardless and we may be better for it but will the reduced numbers be capable of servicing our population after the current population of medical professionals  leaves the profession for greener pastures or retire?

What was said about the legal profession? The number one upset by lawyers is lack of opportunity. The radio station quoted the Wall Street Journal and various ABA studies which I am paraphrasing: There is little opportunity for employment at large law firms, minimal opportunity for the partnership track. In addition, forty-four percent of lawyers would no longer recommend the profession AND one out of every five lawyers will suffer major depression.

This isn’t stunning to me. This is obvious. This is the same old tired perspective and it is this perspective which is crippling the legal profession. Forgive the broad analogy but to me today’s legal world is the same as the oppressed leaving England to discover America, free enterprise and capitalism sans the horrific caste system. For lack of opportunity to be highlighted as the reason not to be in the profession and using partnership track as ‘the’ defining opportunity is flat out wrong, but typical. It is now when there is the GREATEST opportunity for the legal profession to be rebuilt as the legal ‘caste’ system is crashing. And like the medical profession, lawyers don’t want to run the gauntlet known as the ‘partnership track’ before they can start controlling their lives. Some may argue it is a necessary price to pay and they have their supporters but it’s simply not a feasible model any longer. Now if we follow the analogy through, the settlers in America suffered harsh winters, hostile natives, famine and death and quite frankly, some simply didn’t know what they were getting into. It was not easy, but it was apparently believed to be better than what they left behind and were no longer willing to tolerate. This great country grew on the shoulders of these pioneers. And it was during this historic time in our country’s history that ninety percent of all those in business were entrepreneurs.

Back to the future: 2010. What I’ve described in the preceding paragraph is exactly where the legal profession is heading. Opportunity is everywhere because today lawyers have the tools they never did before to go small firm or solo and actively compete with the big boys both in quality and demographic reach. The economy is deconstructing and reconstructing. The clients don’t want ‘business as usual.’ The clients want something more and it is why we are ripe for massive change during this economy turmoil. Some may call it the perfect storm. The internet is making almost every client a shrewd purchaser even with misinformation. Why? Because even with misinformation they will come to you challenging you on what you know and why they even need you. After all, like the medical profession, one hour on the internet and a phone call to a friend and they believe they know just as much as you.  So, you had better be prepared to educate and be creative in both delivery of your services and pricing.

Large legal services companies are crossing the moats and storming the castles of those who would shackle them to archaic methods of advertising and marketing…and they are winning.  While we may not all agree this is good, our opinion is ceasing to matter.  The fact is it is happening.

Opportunity truly abounds. In fact, it’s unlimited. The only thing limited is the thinking. But beware. As these nuggets of opportunity are strewn across our professional paths, these paths are ever more populated with carpetbaggers, thieves and opportunists who will peddle you useless wares while relieving you of your hard-earned money.

Yes, in many ways we are entering a brave new world in 2010. And it is very exciting. At least for those who realize this upheaval presents tremendous opportunity for those who don’t choose to be victims of a system gone awry.

On January 12th we will be having a special guest giving a teleseminar on the future of the legal profession. It will be brilliant, I promise.  If you are a student or faculty at SPU you will be able to listen live.  However, if you are not ready to become a student but would like to listen to this important teleseminar, you can do so for free by becoming a fan of Solo Practice University on Facebook.  Just log in to Facebook and click here.  After the teleseminar is recorded we will post to both SPU and our fan page shortly thereafter.

Enjoy your holidays and start thinking about where you want to be positioned in the New World Order. I’ll be back to regular posting after the New Year.

]]> http://buildasolopractice.solopracticeuniversity.com/2009/12/21/2010-will-be-a-brave-new-world/feed/ 3 http://buildasolopractice.solopracticeuniversity.com/2009/12/14/price-the-value-to-your-client-not-the-cost-of-the-service/ http://buildasolopractice.solopracticeuniversity.com/2009/12/14/price-the-value-to-your-client-not-the-cost-of-the-service/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:30:11 +0000 Susan Cartier Liebel http://buildasolopractice.solopracticeuniversity.com/?p=182 Every once in a while an event happens so perfectly if you scripted it you couldn’t have written it any better.

We hear lots of verbiage out there about alternative fees, fixed fees, value billing, value pricing, open pricing, call it what you will.

As Ron Baker says:

“Discounted and blended rates are just hourly billing in drag.”

There are few concrete examples one can point to of a lawyer (specifically a solo) transitioning from the billable model and the concurrent fear the lawyer feels – ‘I’m going to lose clients’.

This is the story of one of my clients.  We met three years ago.  He got so busy so fast he literally didn’t have time to utilize my services fully so I can’t take any credit for his launch other than encouraging him to do it.  Three years later he calls me rather frantic because his expenses went up twenty-five percent to handle the increase in the volume of clients.  But his gross revenues only went up ten percent. He knew there was something fundamentally wrong with his business model.

Background: Let’s call the lawyer John.  John left a small firm where he was the rainmaker in simple wills, trusts, disability trusts, conservatorships, etc.  He realized he was making the firm way too much money and not being compensated for it.  He wasn’t sure if he could make it on his own so he hired me.  He clearly was capable and opened his solo practice taking home $.75 of each dollar he brought in. Keeping overhead low was not an issue for him.  His practice flourished and he eventually took on five part-time individuals, three virtual and two within his office.  Practically all of his business is word-of-mouth.  He started blogging almost immediately after he opened his practice.  He enjoyed it immensely and created a personal hobby blog which also fed him more business then his practice blog!  However, last week I get ‘the call.’  He doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong.  His net income has dropped by a third but he’s busier then ever.

John was trapped in a psychological mindset most lawyers are trapped in – selling their time rather than the value to the client.  John priced his wills and all his services based upon his cost to produce rather than the value he imparted to the clients.

I shared the story of when my husband and I went to have our wills done, how I came to choose the lawyer, why I paid his fee and why it was worth it to us.  I wasn’t measuring his time to deliver the goods. I know full well he’s done it a thousand times, would be a copy/paste by his paralegal. His value to me was in the counseling. I wanted the experience of his counsel and to know the end product I was receiving I could rely upon. If it wasn’t good it would prove much more costly to me down the road.  And based upon the above, I found this attorney’s fees reasonable for what I was going to receive.

I paid three times MORE than John charged for the exact same thing.  And I was paying the going rate! Now John is not stupid.  John is frugal. But he didn’t value his work beyond what he would be willing to pay.  He was measuring the value of his work product based upon the time and cost for him to produce the end result as the sole criteria for pricing, not the end value to the client. He did not consider his efficiency and expertise or the value of his counseling.  Nor did he value his reputation – 95% of his business is from word of mouth.

When we did the math, saw the number of clients he serviced and what he should be charging, John was leaving more than $100,000 on the table.  That’s right.  And this was just for the simple mutual wills, POA, Health Care Directives portion of his practice which comprises sixty percent of his business.

We discussed what he should be charging and how he was the only obstacle to charging the right price (not premium pricing as some call it) because he had to digest the philosophy he was pricing to the client, not the cost to produce his services.  It’s not a perfect science.  He has to feel his way around this.

Now, the thing about John, he’s a willing pupil and a quick study.  He wanted to put this philosophy to the test right away.

I had this consultation last Wednesday.  The following day, Thursday, I get this e-mail from John:

Bless You!

Holy sh%$, it worked!

I just met with new clients who had stumbled onto my blog and they wanted a living trust package, which I normally charge $2,000 for.  So, at the end of the meeting I gripped my legal pad very tightly and calmly informed them that the fee would be $4,000 (with the ongoing “tune-up” plan included, of course) and the husband immediately replied that that sounds reasonable and let’s get started!

I’ve been smiling from ear-to-ear ever since!  Thanks!!

P.S.  This is an honest to goodness true story – unscripted