Solo Practice University® » Debra Bruce

Six Essential Traits of the Successful Legal Solopreneur

Debra Bruce — Thu, 23 May 2013 11:58:34 +0000

Sometimes lawyers in solo practices get so focused on honing their legal skills that they don’t recognize themselves as entrepreneurs. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” A solo lawyer has to be a solopreneur piloting the enterprise while also producing the legal service the law firm sells.

Very few law schools have classes that actually teach a lawyer how to run a solo practice. How can you know whether you will be any good at it? What if you aren’t graduating in the top 10% of your class? Does that mean you have limited potential for successfully running your own law firm?

Inc. magazine online shared advice from Steve Blank about entrepreneurism in a commencement speech to engineering students. It’s good advice for lawyers, too. He said:

“[G]reat grades and successful entrepreneurs have at best a zero correlation….You don’t get grades for resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. You just get successful.”

In this post I want to talk about why those qualities are essential for a successful solo legal practice.

Resiliency. Practicing law requires overcoming failure almost daily. In our job, there are people out there who actually get paid to get in our way, to find our mistakes and to make us look bad. We never get everything we want in negotiation. In the courtroom we win some arguments and we lose some. Some of the clients we want to serve choose instead to hire the very people who so often try to thwart us. We use lots of technology, and some aspect of it malfunctions or befuddles us almost every day. If we weren’t resilient, we couldn’t make it through the week!

Solos have to develop even more resiliency, however, to survive the inevitable lean months, the occasional irrationally unhappy client, the departure of indispensable employees, the deadlines and long hours, and the burnout. All lawyers need resiliency, but solos need an added dose because they usually don’t have a lot of staff to delegate their problems to or partners to share the responsibility with.

Curiosity. Many lawyers have to consciously develop and maintain this trait. Our attraction to the certainty, the black and white finality, of the law tends to stifle our curiosity. The law tells us what is right and what is wrong, and particularly if it is on our side, we cling to it rigidly. Life and the actual practice of law rarely fit neatly into the black or white spaces, however. Even when the law clearly applies to the situation at hand, we have to deal with someone who claims otherwise, and sometimes that someone is our client.

Curiosity helps us understand our clients’ needs and goals better. It allows us to find a new and acceptable path to get them what they really want when the strategy they developed for achieving it is illegal or objectionable to another party. Curiosity helps us uncover the clue that unravels our opponent’s case. Curiosity makes room for compassion, which softens the resistance that blocks the resolution of conflict. Curiosity leads us to innovation that reveals an unconventional winning strategy or opens up a whole new market for our law practice.

Agility. We need agility to develop a new theory when it turns out that our client’s version of the facts wasn’t exactly accurate. It takes agility to quickly trim expenses or find a new market when the economy takes a nosedive or new legislation renders some aspect of our practice untenable. Our mental agility lets us literally “think on our feet” as we respond to opposing counsel’s argument before the judge. It helps us switch gears from drafting a complex instrument to answering a client’s question on an unrelated topic when the phone rings. A solo’s agility allows her to adopt new technology or embrace new trends that create competitive advantages against hidebound larger firms.

Resourcefulness. Usually solos have smaller budgets than firms that can pool the resources of multiple lawyers. We find free or less expensive avenues to conduct legal research and manage administrative tasks. We figure out how to resolve minor technological glitches ourselves because we don’t have full-time IT staff. We unearth and hire employees who can juggle a lot of balls, or we liberally engage outsourcing and virtual assistants. We broaden our range of knowledge and we develop mutually supportive relationships with solos in other practice areas because we can’t just walk down the hall to ask our partner a question. We learn how to make the coffee, unblock a paper jam, electronically file a document, balance the budget and manage personnel. When you have personal responsibility for the success of the firm, you just find ways to make things happen.

Pattern Recognition. Most of us recognize patterns unconsciously. It’s what helps us suddenly discern what the other side is trying to hide from us. It guides us in choosing the argument that is more likely to persuade a particular judge. When we engage in pattern recognition consciously, we can identify the pivot point of a recurring problem, such as why we keep coming to the end of the day without starting on the most important project we needed to work on.

More importantly, we can use pattern recognition to predict the future. By way of example, in 2009 many lawyers experienced a painful decline in their practices. Which firms recognized that they could rise above their competition by using social media to reach potential clients? Who started developing new practice expertise in advising clients on how to handle the legal issues emerging from social media? Solos led the charge. The pattern was readily visible, and even had some clarions announcing it, but only a small percentage of lawyers recognized what was coming.

Tenacity. All surviving solos have tenacity. That’s just what it takes when problems, roadblocks, breakdowns and disappointments are inevitable, and you’re the one who has to steer the enterprise past them. Solos have to keep asking questions and searching for different routes to their goals. Sometimes tenacity and faith in our vision may be all that gets us through. Those who lack tenacity wind up leaving the practice of law or resign themselves to working in an environment where they trade autonomy and control over their destiny for increased security. That’s not wrong. It’s just not entrepreneurial.

I close this post with some wisdom for all solopreneurs from the illustrious entrepreneur and scientist, Thomas Edison. He counseled,

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Written by Debra Bruce

How I Snagged a Great Domain Name

Debra Bruce — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:00:26 +0000

Is there a website domain name that you wish you could get your hands on for your law firm? Have you wondered how to do it? Perhaps someone owns it, but they don’t actually have a website up. That’s the situation I found myself in. The owner had a multi-year registration, but hadn’t posted a website there for years.

About 7 years ago, I successfully snagged the www.lawyer-coach.com name when the previous owner didn’t renew the registration. I just happened to check up on it at the right time. To my delight, it was available and I bought it immediately. That’s all there was too it. Times have changed, however…

Why It’s Harder Now to Get the Domain Name You Want

I knew from 10 years of watching my coveted domain name, that its registration was about to expire. It was on my calendar. No website had used that name for over 3 years. I feared that this time I might have a good bit of competition for the name I wanted, however. And not just from business competitors. Now people make a living from buying and selling domain names on a regular basis. Additionally, domain registrars like GoDaddy and Network Solutions try to stir up a bidding war on names registered with them. The process is convoluted, and I couldn’t find a clear, plain-English explanation of how it works. Fortunately, I started researching the subject online months in advance of the expiration date, so I knew how dramatically the domain game had changed.

Attempt to Buy the Domain from the Registered Owner

With all my confusion, I didn’t want to compete for the name with someone far savvier than I. So, I considered approaching the existing owner to purchase the name. I worried that my contact would cause the owner to wake up and either (i) pay the renewal fee, (ii) demand a significantly higher price from me than I wanted to pay, or (iii) decide that there was enough value in the name to make it worth drumming up additional bidders. I often receive unsolicited emails from people doing just that respecting desirable domain names.

I ultimately decided that contacting the owner was safer than trying to negotiate the labyrinth process of a domain name auction. Unfortunately, the phone number and address in the WHOIS lookup were no longer valid. The email I sent didn’t get a response. The owner didn’t seem to have an internet presence either. I went down many rabbit trails before giving up.

What Happens at Expiration

If a domain owner allows the registration to expire, the registrar (Network Solutions in this case), usually allows a grace period (typically around 30 days) in which the owner can pay a redemption fee (read: penalty) and the unpaid renewal fee to the registrar in order to reclaim ownership. That’s called the Pre-Release period. At the beginning of the Pre-Release period, the WHOIS registration for “my” domain name changed to a Network Solutions affiliate, increasing my concern. I assumed that meant that Network Solutions would try to create a market and auction off the name, if it didn’t get redeemed.

Placing a Back Order

I ascertained that I needed to place a backorder on the name in order to be able to participate in the auction. But which of several companies should I place it with? Should I place an order with multiple companies? When should the order be placed? At what price should I set the backorder? I had already placed a minimum backorder with GoDaddy for the domain name in 1999, and GoDaddy never even alerted me that the name registration had not been renewed. Some commentators said that GoDaddy backorders were worthless.

I kept researching and found out that NameJet.com had been acquired by Network Solutions, and NameJet was the exclusive auctioneer of Network Solutions’ inventory of expired domain names. I scoured the FAQs on NameJet auctions. Other buyers had lost their opportunity to capture a name because they didn’t understand the byzantine process. It was clear that I couldn’t bid in an auction if I didn’t have a backorder placed before the auction started. But, did it matter whether I placed it in the Pre-Release period or the Pending Delete period? What was the difference? I’m still not certain, but I think that if I placed the only backorder during the Pre-Release period, I would be deemed to have won the auction at the end of the Pre-Release period. When there were about 15 days left in the Pre-Release Period, I placed a backorder at the minimum price of $69. There were no other backorders. Yippee!

About 2 days before the end of the Pre-Release period, someone else placed a backorder for $69, too. Together we rolled into the 30-day Pending Delete period. I was deemed to be the high bidder because our bids were the same amount, and mine was first.

Pending Delete

I checked back every day, and there were only our two bids for $69. I was daring to hope and crossing my fingers. I read that a lot of bidders hold off until near the end. About 5 days into the Pending Delete period, a couple more bids for $69 came in. The next day there were 4 new ones. After that, more and more showed up each day. Ultimately 114 backorders appeared, all at $69.

NameJet closed the Pending Delete period and sent me an email saying there would be an auction in which the 114 backorders could participate, but they didn’t state the date of the auction. I hunted through my emails, my NameJet account, and the auction section of the website, but I couldn’t find a date. I bit my fingernails.

I must have checked the website 10 times and my email 50 times before a notice finally came out 2 days later that the auction would run for 3 days and close at a specified time and date. Oh no! The auction was scheduled to end on a date when I was already fully booked with telephone coaching appointments. To make matters worse, under the NameJet auction rules, if any bids come in during the last 5 minutes of the auction, the auction gets extended another 5 minutes, to prevent auction sniping. The extensions continue until there are no new bids in the last 5 minutes. Therefore the real end time of the auction is unpredictable.

Auction Day

After discussions with several advisors, I determined the maximum amount I was willing to pay for that domain. On the final day of the auction, I charged my assistant, Karyn, with keeping an eye on the bidding screen while I coached clients. I instructed her to bring me a note if any significant action occurred. The day started with all 114 bids still at $69. Since I had been the first bidder, I still had the “winning” bid.

After a couple of hours, someone placed a bid for $79. Karyn came running in with the news. As soon as I got a break, I put in a bid of $80 to try to determine whether I was dealing with a live person or a proxy bid. Instantaneously a response outbid me by $10, the proxy bid increment. We still had hours to go, so I let it sit while I went back to coaching calls.

At lunch break there were less than 2 hours left to go. I tested out the proxy bidder some more, and found that it topped out at $100 and things quieted down again. When it was almost time for my next coaching call, I was still holding the lead at $101. I debated whether to enter a proxy bid, and how much to make it. I was willing to pay a lot more, but I had seen forum discussions in which participants expressed the opinion that the auction systems ran the bid up to proxy ceilings unnecessarily. I held off.

Things stayed calm until the last 30 minutes of the auction. Karyn burst in to my office with a panicked look on her face and a note that 2 new people had outbid me and they had some activity going. Suddenly I couldn’t hear a word my client was saying. Fortunately, this was a long-standing client with a lot of goodwill toward me. I explained that I had a small crisis, and she graciously rescheduled to a cancellation opening later in the afternoon.

I didn’t want to risk not getting the high bid in at the end, so I entered a proxy, knowing it would keep responding quickly. It fended off the two challengers, and they dropped away. Before I could relax, however, a brand new opponent appeared. Bids flew back and forth, but I had the top bid when time ran out. Karyn and I thought an extension period was about to start, but nothing happened. I had hit my opponent’s proxy ceiling and my last bid was 6 minutes before the end. No extension. I won!!

We yelled and danced and broke out cold beer in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. I acquired a domain name that I sought for 10 years. And the price was less than my proxy bid and less than I would have offered the original owner, if I could have located him. Who says you can’t get no satisfaction?

I hope that, if you decide to buy a domain name, now you’ll have a better sense of how the process works than I did.

Written by Debra Bruce

Will the ‘New’ Domain Names Make or Break You?

Debra Bruce — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:00:06 +0000

There’s a big shake up going on in the world of internet domain names. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is accepting applications for new generic Top Level Domains (TLDs). Top Level Domains are the second half of your website name – the part that follows the “dot,” such as .com, .net and .info. Historically, ICANN authorized only 22 generic TLDs and 248 country code TLDs, like .ca or .fr. Recently, however, ICANN began accepting applications for the issuance of new descriptive TLDs, such as .book or .auto, .cloud, .movie and more.

So why should you care about all this mumbo jumbo?

Because this might be a chance to snag a more useful domain name for your firm than XYZLaw.com. Some of the new extensions applied for are .law, .lawyer and .attorney. By way of illustration, the domain RealEstateLawyer.com appears to be owned by a real estate developer, not even a law firm. Now you might have the chance to register “RealEstate.Lawyer” and take back that territory.

Domain names can be so valuable that, according to The Wall Street Journal, big companies like Amazon.com are vying over the ability to control the issuance of new TLDs like “.book” or “.author.” On March 26, 2013 some of the new generic TLDs will begin rolling out. Owners of trademarks will get priority opportunities to register their related new domain names at that time.

Get the details here.

If you want more background on these new developments, Texas intellectual property lawyer, Heidi Williams, provided some guidance to useful resources. A list of domains that have been applied for can be found on the ICANN website, as well as an ICANN guidebook to usher applicants through the process. Williams also points to a wealth of information about the process on the website for the International Trademark Association.

How does a good domain name make a difference?

Here are some reasons to try to get the best domain name you can for your firm, and what to strive for:

1. More memorable. A memorable domain name will help a potential client find your website after meeting you at that networking event. It will also be easier for referral sources to mention when they meet someone who has a problem that you can solve.

2. Search engine popularity. If the domain name contains keywords that your potential client searches on, search engines may give a slight boost to your website in the search results. I’m not a Search Engine Optimization expert, but my internet research suggests that domain names still matter in SEO, although not as much as they used to.

3. Keyword domain names. Even though we know that it may not be true, we have a tendency to assume that a website with a keyword-rich name has been around since the earlier days of the web, especially if it has a .com extension. It just seems to give the website more gravitas, and may subtly imply that the lawyer at that website has a lot of experience.

4. Some internet users type in a domain URL directly. If they can remember a domain name, some don’t bother to search for others. That means they won’t be getting exposed to your competition on the way to your website. Some people even enter a complete domain name, such as “EstatePlanningAttorney.com” into a Google search.

5. Search engines give a little extra weight to old domain names. Google gives preference to sustainable websites. They don’t want to send their search clients to fly-by-night websites that just popped up last week and will soon be gone. The age of the domain name provides some indication of longevity and sustainability, even if it was previously owned by someone else.

Don’t skip the fundamentals.

Despite all this hoopla about domain names, search engines still primarily look for the existence of plenty of relevant website content to determine search result ranking. So don’t expect a good domain name to work miracles on your law firm’s malnourished website. That’s the good news, however, if someone beats you to the punch for your favorite attorney domain name, again. You can still work your way to the top of the list by continually adding new, relevant content to your site.

Please come back to the comments and tell us about it, if you get one of the new domain names when they come out. Remember that you don’t have to abandon your current domain name. You can have both of them pointing to your website.

Written by Debra Bruce

How to Properly Shorten Client Meetings That Drag On

Debra Bruce — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 13:00:27 +0000

In my last post, I wrote about how to recognize bad clients before you make the mistake of taking on the representation. Among the responses I received, there was a request to discuss how to deal with basically good clients with a few unappealing behaviors. These are clients you want to keep, but you just wish that it was a little easier to deal with them in some respect. In this post I’ll make some suggestions on how to wrap up meetings with clients who take up too much of your time.

As a good lawyer, I’m sure you have genuine concern for your clients and make time to answer their questions. However, some clients take up an inordinate amount of time in conversation that doesn’t advance the ball. If you work on a flat fee basis and have other business you could be working on, you may sense your profits draining away as the minutes tick by. Even if you bill on an hourly rate, you don’t want your fees to mount up without a concordant measure of productivity and value. If you deal with a lot of elderly or retired clients, some may seize on your meeting as an opportunity to have some social interaction that is lacking in their lives. If you handle divorce or personal injury cases, your client may be seeking some sympathy for their situation. In the corporate world, if you deal with middle managers or third or fourth tier executives, some of them may prolong the meeting with you as an escape from the daily grind. Others do so because they feel more important when they meet with lawyers.

Ideas for Handling Clients That Dawdle

Remember this is a service business. First, make sure you aren’t just feeling impatient because you’re treading on familiar ground and 10 steps ahead of your client. Clients may need to ask the same questions several times in different ways, as they juggle unfamiliar vocabulary and complicated concepts. (Just remember how you felt when your doctor or dentist asked you to choose among several different courses of treatment.) Your legal services involve more than document production. The hand-holding you provide may keep you from being replaced by Legal Zoom in the way that TurboTax usurped the business of many tax preparation services. Clients appreciate a lawyer who demonstrates patience and respect for them as they deal with a situation that feels foreign and daunting. Your compassion may also be rewarded later by referrals to other clients.
Specify a start and stop time for appointments. If you use Outlook or some other calendaring software, you can send an email appointment invitation or reminder to the client with an indication of the duration. Train your assistant to make appointments by saying, “Okay, Ms. Jones, your appointment is next Tuesday from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.,” instead of leaving it open-ended. If the client gets a specified stop time, she will be more prepared to wrap up in that time frame, and will probably expect that your time is committed to someone else at 11:00 a.m.
Streamline your own processes. You can help move the meeting along by documenting common instructions, answers to frequent questions, and an agenda for the meeting. Put FAQs on your website. Send them out in advance of an appointment, and have your assistant offer a copy of them to clients when they arrive at your office. You won’t have to spend as much time on the same old questions. An agenda can help you keep the clients on track, while putting them more at ease by helping them know what to expect.
Give clients a handout to take home. Before clients leave your office, provide them with a checklist or explanation of the steps they will be responsible for taking and documents they need to send to you. You might have a standard list prepared, with their relevant items marked. Knowing that they can peruse the FAQs and checklist later may provide clients with the security they need to wrap up the meeting more quickly. Some will feel a need to leave so they can get into action on their part of the matter.
Make your assistant an integral part of the client service team. Introduce your assistant or paralegal to your clients at the first meeting. Let them know that this is a respected and valuable member of your legal team, who will be able to shepherd them through much of the process. When it comes time to wrap up the meeting, you can say, “The next step is to get a few more things we need from you. Would you be kind enough to follow me to Allen, so he can work with you on that?” This allows you to escape by handing the client off to someone else.
Book a succeeding appointment. If a particular client tends to repeatedly drag out meetings, consider booking the next client appointment to begin around the time you expect to be able to complete your business. Have your assistant courteously inform the dawdling client before the start of the meeting that you will need to wrap up promptly due to another appointment. Your assistant might say something like, “Mr. Client, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time, but I wanted to let you know that Ms. Attorney has her next appointment at 11:00am. I’m just giving you a heads up, in case you want to prioritize your most important discussions for the beginning of your meeting.” Alternatively, you could ask your assistant to briefly and apologetically interrupt your meeting with the dawdler to remind you that your next appointment starts in 10 minutes, and to knock on your door again in 10 minutes.
Set a timer alert. If you are a solo-solo, without an assistant on hand to rescue you, set an alarm on your computer or smartphone to go off 10 to 15 minutes before the expected end of your meeting. When it goes off, you can snooze it and say, “That’s just a reminder that we need to wrap up in the next 5 minutes or so.” You can then ask if there are any final questions, and begin to stack your papers, close your folder, etc. If the snooze alarm goes off again before your client begins to exit, stand up and tell the client how helpful they have been. Then open the door for them to depart.

Please share what has worked for you, in the comments. If you experiment with any of these tips, we would love to hear about that, too.

Written by Debra Bruce

Picking the Wrong Clients? You Can’t Blame the Wreck on the Train*

Debra Bruce — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 13:00:40 +0000

* Lyrics from the song “You Can’t Blame the Wreck on the Train” by Terri Sharp:

“When the gates are all down
And the signals are flashing
And the whistle is screaming in vain,
And you stay on the tracks, ignoring the facts
Well then, you can’t blame the wreck on the train.”

Almost all lawyers have rued their decision to take on some client, and with hindsight can recognize the warning signs that they disregarded. Many of us learned our lessons the hard way, but you don’t have to. Well…you probably will learn the hard way that a difficult client can cause you a lot more harm than the lost fees you wind up writing off. But after one such experience, if you ignore these warning signs, then you can’t blame the wreck on the train. Here are 10 flashing signals that your new potential client may be a train wreck waiting to happen.

1. The client contacts you right before the deadline. Often this fire drill is just a harbinger of more fire drills to come. If he didn’t even try to find a lawyer before it was almost too late, will he be likely to utilize better time management habits throughout the representation? How much extra effort will you spend reminding him to provide essential documents to you, to make important decisions, to communicate his decisions to you, to sign something, or to pay your fee? Your good clients or your family will get short shrift because you will find yourself working unexpected hours in order to deal with emergencies he creates. When this kind of client walks through the door, be very vigilant in your assessment. There is a strong risk that the urgency produced by the client’s procrastination can lead you to disregard warning sign #2 listed below.

2. The client tries to get you started on the matter without signing the engagement agreement or paying a retainer, promising to send them later. The client may claim he doesn’t have time to read the agreement right now, or forgot his checkbook. Make it very clear that you are not his lawyer and will not begin work until you have a signed engagement agreement and a retainer in hand. Offer to let him pay by credit card or use your phone or your computer to instigate a wire transfer or online payment, if he wants you to start right away. It is amazing how many times some clients can forget to send the retainer.

3. The client tries to bargain with you about your fees or the retainer. That’s a sign that the client doesn’t respect your work or believe in its value. You will likely experience second guessing, argument and fault-finding from this client. He may skip out on any balance of the fee remaining unpaid when the work is completed.

4. The client can’t afford to pay your full retainer at the start. I frequently see attorneys make the mistake of accepting a reduced retainer, then struggling to get invoices paid. It seems particularly common in family law cases. If your client can’t come up with the money when trying to hire you, do you really think his financial condition will improve after you have already given him your services? Transactional lawyers may believe the client will have the money when the deal closes. They often find that the deal falls through because it was a desperate plan or a poorly conceived idea by an unrealistic client. If you decide to roll the dice with your client anyway, then at least your risk should be compensated with a higher fee structure.

5. The client fired his last attorney. Unfortunately there are attorneys who take engagements they aren’t competent to handle, or who unduly delay in taking action. Your potential client might have been the victim of such behavior. However, you should ask a lot of questions to vet this story, and consider contacting the former attorney before taking the engagement. Many lawyers can tell a regretful story about the representation they took on after a client fired the previous attorney. Here is a case in point:

A trial lawyer took on a plaintiff’s car accident case involving a disabling injury, after the client had fired previous counsel. As the case developed, it turned out that the client had failed to mention a prior accident that the defendant claimed caused plaintiff’s back injury. Defendant offered a $20,000 settlement to avoid trial, which the client declined, believing the case to be worth $1 million. At trial, plaintiff’s lawyer was so effective in cross-examining defendant’s expert that, to the lawyer’s delight and relief, the defendant upped its settlement offer to $100,000. The client still refused to settle. The jury came back with a verdict of $6,000, which did not even cover the expenses incurred by the plaintiff’s attorney.

6. The client seems suspicious of you. If a client does not trust his lawyer, he may withhold information, challenge the lawyer’s strategy, cite contrary opinions from other lawyers who don’t have all the facts, argue about the bill, pay slowly, and otherwise make the representation unpleasant for the lawyer. If your potential client seems unduly suspicious or untrusting, consider saying something like, “You don’t seem entirely comfortable with this process or my representation. Do you have some concerns that we haven’t discussed yet?” If further conversation does not result in a change in attitude, you can say, “It just doesn’t seem like we are really a good fit for working together. Thank you for considering me. I hope you will find other counsel more to your satisfaction.”

7. The client tells you this is a simple matter or a slam dunk case. The “cousin” of this type of client is one that tells you what the law is. Once again, these are signals that the client has unreasonable expectations and doesn’t really know what is involved in the representation. It may also be a warning that the client is a cheapskate. Make a lot of inquiries into the client’s understanding and experience of the matter. Spend some time educating the client about the processes and risks involved. If the client doesn’t seem to have an “aha” experience as you explain things to him, he will probably be disappointed with whatever you do, and complain about the bill.

8. The client brings in an agreement he created, for you to review. This kind of client is trying to minimize fees, but reviewing his document will probably take more time than it would take you to completely draft a new one. It will most likely consist of a hodgepodge of language pulled from different agreements with irreconcilable terms and provisions.

9. The client hasn’t bothered to read the FAQs on your website and didn’t bring the documents you requested. Get ready for lots of headaches with this client. You’ll have to make multiple requests for documents, and you’ll wind up spending time doing what he should have handled himself. Then he’ll complain that your bill is much higher than what his friend paid for similar representation.

10. Your client exhibits a lot of anger or a strong victim mentality with regard to his case. This situation can be difficult to judge, because the client may have been genuinely injured, cheated or otherwise harmed. Excessive blaming or outrage hints that the client tends not to take personal responsibility for his choices, however. He may discount his own accountability for the events leading up to the case. If he doesn’t get results he likes, you may become his next object of blame and attack.

Conclusion

Sometimes, just one of the above facts should be enough to sound the whistle and bring down the crossing gates for you. Certainly, the more of these traits your client evidences, the riskier it is to proceed. Ultimately, the most important warning comes from your own gut. If something just seems off, or you feel uneasy about the client, pay attention to your own flashing signals, and get off the tracks.

Written by Debra Bruce

Keep a Success Journal to Be a Happier and More Productive Lawyer

Debra Bruce — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:00:56 +0000

It’s that “rubber-meets-the-road” time of year again. When solos start closing out the books on their law practices for the year, it spurs them to look back and take a little personal inventory. Some law firms and law departments ask their lawyers to summarize their accomplishments in connection with their annual performance review. I ask my clients to scrutinize their successes and their disappointments for the year that is ending, before setting their goals for the year to come.

As I assist lawyers with these processes, I notice that, although they may remember their shortcomings and disappointments with all the gory detail of a train wreck, they often forget significant achievements from the first half of the year. They also forget the heartfelt note of appreciation they received from a client four months ago and the midnight oil they burned for weeks to meet an important deadline. Sometimes when they master a skill or change a habit, the new behavior becomes so natural that they don’t count it as an achievement. They forget the awkwardness of their first attempts and how daunting the hurdle initially seemed.

A Success Journal Can Help Your Memory

I coach attorneys to keep a file where they record even their small achievements, and to personally acknowledge those little wins when they analyze their year. For some of us, keeping our desktop clean for a whole month takes a lot of effort, but we rarely give ourselves credit for that achievement. When wins are viewed together, not only does your progress become more evident, but patterns emerge that reveal the keys to your success. The success journal review can also come in handy if you need to summarize your efforts and results in order to persuade a boss, a judge or a compensation committee about the value of your contributions.

Reread Your Journal When You Need a Lift

Everyone has bad days. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes a prospective client chooses our competitor over us. Sometimes we don’t get the results we hoped for. Sometimes clients aren’t satisfied, even when we “pull a rabbit out of the hat” to get a win for them. Sometimes we just lose sight of why we do what we do. A bad day is a good time to go back and review your success journal. It can remind you of why you practice law, that you actually are pretty darn good at it, and that clients appreciate you. Revisiting even small victories can point to your strengths that may help you triumph against the odds now.

Now Research Proves It

From my own experience, I discerned value in keeping a record of my wins. I began by saving thank you notes from clients and friends, which I reread on my gloomy days. Recently, I learned about research that provides even more illumination on the subject. Teresa Amabile is author of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, and a professor and Director of Research at Harvard Business School. She says a “small win looks so incremental that it seems almost trivial.” However, Amabile’s research demonstrated that by taking the time to capture and reflect upon small wins, people experience more engagement, enjoyment and even productivity at work. Making progress in meaningful work, even in small increments, is critical to enjoyment of your work life.

Ways to Capture Your Successes

Amabile extolls the benefits of journaling, even for only 10 minutes per day. It can help you (1) celebrate small wins, (2) plan your next steps, (3) foster personal growth by spotting patterns, and (4) cultivate patience and perseverance as you’re reminded that you have overcome difficult circumstances before. For those who feel resistant to the idea of journaling, however, here are a few alternate ways to make sure you don’t lose track of your successes:

Create a folder in Outlook or another email program into which you drag all emails with complimentary language about you.
Open a word processing file to capture quotations and dates of verbal compliments you receive, especially about your work.
Purchase a notebook with pockets in which to write down compliments and achievements. Paste in copies of any letters, emails, article clippings or other written evidence of your achievements, or put them in the pockets.
Scan any documents that evidence your accomplishment and save them in the same folder as your word processing file of complimentary quotes.
Flag your time records, calendar and social media postings for the dates of meaningful events in your work, such as closings, trials, your first jury argument, a particularly effective negotiation, being selected to run an important deal, bringing in a new client, etc.
Save thank you notes and positive letters in a redweld folder or a shoe box.
Save digital copies of heart-warming and ego-boosting voicemails you receive.
Use an online/smartphone app like Evernote or IDoneThis to record and celebrate what you got done today.

Choose any combination of the above methods that you find comfortable. Ideally you’ll create a method that keeps everything in one place for easier review. As long as you are consistent, however, even a hodgepodge system will work.

Review Your Captured Wins Periodically

Make it a point to peruse your captured wins now and then. You can scan previous entries whenever you add a new one, for example. Of course, the end of the year is a good time to inspect your collection, but you might benefit from a more frequent examination in order to take optimal advantage of any patterns that emerge.

To quote Amabile, “Small wins can accumulate to big breakthroughs, but unless you occasionally look back at where you’ve been, it can be hard to see where you’re going.” For help in looking back over this year and setting goals for next year, download our free Year End Evaluation & Goal Setting form (PDF).

Written by Debra Bruce

How to Give Thanks to the People Around You

Debra Bruce — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 13:00:28 +0000

“Karyn, thank you for working so steadily from the time you arrive at our office to when you leave. Your dedication demonstrates that I can trust you to play fairly with me. Trust is important to me, and it is a relief and a time-saver not to have any concerns about your attitude.”

That’s a message I want to convey to my assistant in this month dedicated to expressing gratitude. I know she’ll receive this message, because she’ll publish this blog post for me. I’m hoping she’ll relish having the world (or at least this corner of it) know something that I appreciate about her.

I’ve written previously that studies have found various ways that expressing gratitude can enrich your life and increase your enjoyment of your law practice. I wrote about the value of acknowledging a job well done, which is a form of expressing gratitude, and how to give an effective acknowledgment. I’ve also written about the importance of demonstrating your appreciation to referral sources. Are you starting to get the message that I think having an “attitude of gratitude” is important?

Recently I came across some interesting writings about how to express gratitude by Marshall Rosenberg, the author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg suggests that an expression of appreciation should have three elements:

The action that has contributed to your well-being;
The particular need of yours that has been fulfilled; and
The pleasurable feeling engendered by the fulfillment of that need.

Your appreciation doesn’t have to be expressed in that sequence, and you can mix the elements together a bit, as I did above. It doesn’t have to be perfect. When you convey that kind of information, however, your message will ring with sincerity. As Rosenberg points out, you’ll give your recipients the gift of knowing how they enhance the quality of your life. At our core, we all want to know that we matter because we make valuable contributions to the world around us.

Rosenberg says many of us have difficulty receiving appreciation graciously. He advocates writing down some gratitude toward ourselves for things we have done that enriched our own lives or the lives of others. I think that by giving to ourselves, such a practice can also make it easier for us to give sincere appreciation to others.

In the 1980’s when I started practicing law, the legal world was more collegial. Clients seemed to trust and appreciate their lawyers more, too. On a number of occasions I received a gift of appreciation from a client at the close of a matter (in addition to prompt payment of the bill). Perhaps you can restore a little of that collegial atmosphere to your practice by incorporating Rosenberg’s tips into your relationships, even with opposing counsel. One of the most disarming comments I have heard from others begins with, “That’s what I appreciate about you.”

I challenge you to use this month dedicated to gratitude to experiment with expressing it to clients, co-workers and employees about them, and with regard to life in general. If Rosenberg’s tips don’t resonate with you, choose another way that feels right to you. Write a note. Leave a voicemail. Say it face to face over lunch. Just do it. I am certain that positive differences in your law practice will emerge if expressing appreciation becomes a habit. If you take up this challenge, I invite you to share your experience with me in the comments.

Written by Debra Bruce

How To Get Remembered

Debra Bruce — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:00:50 +0000

Years ago at an early morning meeting Jimmy Brill, a veteran estate planning lawyer and the founder of Solos Supporting Solos, asked each of 30 lawyers to introduce themselves and their practices. I didn’t know any of them, and they all faded into a blur, except for one tall gentleman in a straw hat and seersucker suit. He said, “I’m a proctologist in the courtroom.” He got some chuckles and my attention.

I often ask the attorneys I coach on business development to analyze their client list to determine how they obtained their previous clients. Most of them report that the majority of their new clients come as referrals. If your business depends on referrals, your success depends on the likelihood that others will remember you when someone has a problem you can solve.

A couple of months after that morning meeting, I asked someone in the group, “What’s the name of that guy who’s the proctologist in the courtroom?” “Ted Hirtz,” he responded immediately. Ted’s introduction stood out and triggered the memory of enough people for me to locate him again.

What made Ted memorable? Chip Heath and Don Heath, the authors of Made to Stick, would say that one reason Ted stuck in my mind was that his description “broke my guessing machine.” I anticipated that he would say he was a trial lawyer, a real estate lawyer, or something else predictable. Unexpectedness grabs our attention and enhances memory.

In their book Made to Stick, the Heath brothers analyzed what makes stories, events and sayings memorable. They distilled it down to six factors that create “stickiness,” which they express in an acronym that (almost) spells success: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotions, and Stories.

Ted Hirtz used concrete words that created an image in my mind. (Let’s not go any further with that.) We remember concrete images more easily than abstract concepts. He also kept it simple. He conveyed one straight-forward message: that he is a tough trial lawyer.

Ted’s statement also evoked some emotion. Most of us either winced or chuckled. Studies show that people remember longer the thoughts paired with emotion. No wonder we remembered Ted’s statement. In one sentence he utilized at least 4 of the stickiness factors.

People also remember what you do if your description triggers them to imagine that you can help with a problem they struggle with or know someone else who does. So keep those legal concepts simple and easy to understand, and try to illustrate the benefit of using you. Don Graul, a lawyer who handles family law mediations before attorneys get locked in battle, says that he helps parents get divorced with less pain for themselves and their children.

Sometimes Don says he does “early intervention mediation,” but he recently remarked that often even lawyers don’t seem to get it. That approach doesn’t employ the principles of simplicity and concreteness. Big words often float right over our mental retention pond. It also lacks the emotional depth of Don’s other description.

What if what you do is just naturally complex and difficult for a lay person to understand? Boil it down to the most basic issues, or the most meaningful concrete benefits. Kevin Maguire switched from saying that he is a condemnation lawyer to saying he helps resolve land disputes. His listeners responded with questions about his work, which means they were intrigued. Lisa Thorp, a public finance lawyer, said her descriptions of what she did bored people. Now she speaks with pride about helping communities build hospitals and schools. Chris Kotlarz, a tax lawyer, says he helps keep the government’s hand out of your pocket. Who doesn’t want that?

Notice that none of the previous examples started with “I’m a lawyer.” Most people already have in mind an image of what it means to be a lawyer. Unfortunately, today that may not be the image you want to invoke. Once you stick a concrete image in their minds of the benefit you provide, however, you will often get a follow-up question like “How do you do that?” There’s your opportunity to tell a brief success story, illustrating the point and strengthening your listener’s memory. It might start with, “Well, I’m a lawyer and, for example, when my client had a problem with X, I helped him by doing Y.”

How will you know when your introduction works for you? Here are some good signs. One: you get a follow-up question indicating curiosity about how you do what you do. Two: Your listener asks for your card. Three: You hear other people repeating some version of what you said. An acquaintance may introduce you to a third person using your words, or even better, someone may call to hire you because they heard you can help with whatever you said.

By way of example, Steve Scholl got trained in a specialized form of mediation called peacemaking. He began introducing himself as “a trial lawyer and peacemaker.” I knew he had achieved stickiness when someone at my church remarked to me that she met a man who is “a lawyer and a peacemaker,” with a certain tone of surprise in her voice.

If these ideas sound effective to you, but you keep drawing a blank when you try to apply them to your practice find a buddy to brainstorm and experiment with. Test it out on family and friends. They can be your best focus group.

Written by Debra Bruce

Should You Put Yourself on Probation?

Debra Bruce — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:30:41 +0000

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Walt Kelly in Pogo comic strip

Last month we explored some ways to uncover obstacles to good performance by our office talent. We looked at whether they have the necessary training, the optimal equipment and clear instructions, among other things.

What if you’ve made sure your subordinate has all the equipment and information needed, but you’re still getting poor performance? Is it time to terminate him? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Have you had difficulty finding anyone who could perform these job responsibilities well? Have you had trouble keeping the talent who did perform well? You might first verify that you are paying a competitive salary. If you are underpaying the market, talented personnel may not be attracted to the position, or they may parlay the experience and training they get in your office to a higher paying job.

Once you have verified that you’re paying market rates, however, you have to face the possibility that the problem could be a management issue. That’s right. You could be the problem.

Could any of these management styles describe you? Are you confident enough to show this article to others in the office to ask their opinion? Are you reading this because it mysteriously appeared on your desk?

The micromanager. He believes there is only one right way to accomplish the goal. He gives too many instructions. Although he is not in the trenches himself, and perhaps has never been there, he assumes he knows the issues and decisions to be faced there. He checks back frequently and makes a lot of mid-stream corrections. There is no room for the subordinate to make judgments or to capitalize on her natural talents. She begins to shrink and contract. She doesn’t think things through on her own, for fear of being corrected again. She loses the agility to respond in the moment to whatever develops. I hear the same manager complain that his people don’t show any initiative.
The deluger. This lawyer relies too heavily on the strong performer, and doesn’t balance the workload. Strong performers learn that the reward for working efficiently and well is getting more and more work dumped on them. Weak performers get weaker because they get fewer developmental opportunities. Strong performers burn out, or resent the easier life of the slow or sloppy worker. They join their ranks or move on to another job.
The efficient commander. She interrupts. She speaks in curt bullet points. She discourages questions with her impatience. She is already working as she walks into the office in the morning and doesn’t bother to say hello as she passes. She is so focused on the target that she doesn’t notice the people in between. They get the message that they don’t count and she doesn’t care about them. So they stop caring about the job.
The disrespecter. This “professional” behaves unprofessionally toward his subordinates. He does not control his temper and gets frustrated easily. He may or may not recognize that he is actually angry at opposing counsel or stressing about a deadline. His subordinates just know they feel disrespected and abused. He may be a “screamer and a thrower” or he may just speak with irritation, condescension or sarcasm in his voice. Dogs who have been abused tend to cower and have “accidents,” or growl and attack. People respond similarly, but if they need the job, they may hide their mistakes or hide their sabotage until the damage can’t be undone.
The nice guy. This lawyer has a hard time giving negative feedback to subordinates. The feedback he gives may be so vague, muted or off target that the subordinate may not even understand that he has been reprimanded or his work criticized. This manager tends to be overworked and stressed from doing work he should have been able to delegate or redoing work he did delegate. I know of associates who got “shape up or ship out” talks who didn’t grasp that their job was in jeopardy, and people who actually got fired, but didn’t know it.
The blamer. She is disorganized and procrastinates. She creates crisis and chaos wherever she goes, but when she misses a deadline, loses something, or sends out a sloppy document, it is someone else’s fault. Her staff learns never to give her the original of anything, and they spend time daily helping her find something. She complains about their low productivity or their backlog. No one is fooled by the “computer errors” and “admin mistakes” but herself.

Support staff will attest that these are not imaginary characters. Even if you only engage in some of this behavior some of the time, you may not benefit by discharging your poorly performing subordinate. You may just train the new hire to cause similar problems. If you just can’t find good help these days, you might need to stop looking at resumes and start looking in the mirror. At least that would be a personnel problem that is in your control!

Written by Debra Bruce

Poor Performance by Employees? It Might Be You!

Debra Bruce — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 12:00:12 +0000

Do you have an employee who just doesn’t seem to be performing up to snuff? Is there a way to rehabilitate that employee? Or do you have to choose between termination and tolerating inferior performance? Employee turnover is time consuming, disruptive, costly and often bad for office morale (including yours). Before jumping to the conclusion that the employee just isn’t working out, it’s worth making sure that the problem does not lie elsewhere. If you don’t eliminate that possibility, you may be doomed to experience the same song, second verse with the next employee.

Managers often think that employees don’t do what they are supposed to do because they don’t want to, don’t care or are incompetent. That would lead to the conclusion that the manager must terminate the employee or settle for poor performance. However, in his bestseller Why Employees Don’t Do What They’re Supposed to Do and What to Do About It, Ferdinand Fournies points out that managers sometimes unwittingly create situations that cause the poor performance they complain about. What if getting better performance from your employee were as simple as changing your own behavior or restructuring something in the office? Would it be worth it?

Begin by determining the answers to the questions in this article. You should not assume that you know the answers, but rather, make inquiries of the employee designed to elicit evidence of the answers. For purpose of illustration, I may use some simple examples involving administrative staff, but the same principles apply to more difficult and complex performance and to lawyers as employees.

Does the employee really know what you want? Often managers give vague instructions that leave out a lot of details, perhaps because the manager has not taken the time to think through the issue herself. Do you really know what you want? When I was a baby lawyer, a partner sent me back to the library again and again to research the res judicata issues on a case, but he still wasn’t satisfied with my product. Finally, we discovered together that he meant collateral estoppel. Have you made clear the desired result that you want? If you are particular about how the desired outcome is achieved, have you described the specifics of the process? Is the performance measurement clear? For simplicity, I’ll use a mundane example. If you tell the receptionist to answer all calls promptly, does he know what you mean by “promptly?” Does that mean as soon as he finishes talking to the current caller? Does it mean on the first ring or by the fourth ring?
Does the employee know how to do it? If not, is there training, CLE, a book, a video, a form or another learning resource available? Continuing with our example, if the phone rings while the employee is talking to another caller, are you sure he knows how you want him to handle that? We lawyers seem particularly inclined to expect employees to already know what to do, or to learn by the “sink or swim” method. Perhaps that’s because many of us got tossed into the deep end without floaties in our first few years out of law school. Before you doom yet another person to learn by the trial and error method, however, think about what their learning errors and insecurities may cost you. The time and money you invest in training pays off with higher quality work product, greater efficiency and more client satisfaction. Although only you can provide the specifics of what you need and expect, some bar associations or independent companies offer training programs for law office staff that you may find helpful.
Does the employee know why it is important? If you want the phone answered by the second ring, explain how that helps to foster an image of responsive service to clients, which gives the firm a competitive edge. Without explanation, it may appear to be an arbitrary, unreasonable and unnecessary requirement. When employees don’t understand the reason for something, they may assume it is not important and skimp on performance. Knowing how their role is important to the client and to their co-workers can give them pride in their work and a sense of being an essential member of the team. (If you don’t view them and treat them as essential team members, why were they hired?)
Does the employee have all the tools he needs to do the job well? This can be a sore spot for law firms. Every year our budget for technology and equipment swells even larger. Equipment, however, is cheaper than manpower, and up to date equipment (and the requisite training to use it) allows us to get more done, or do a better job, with fewer people. For a simple example, if you can’t read the messages taken by your receptionist, does he have a good headset so that he can have his hands free to type the messages? Does he have the ability to give the caller the option to leave voicemail? Is your office using outdated software or computers that lack the RAM or processing speed to run today’s programs well? Ask your employees whether there are additional tools that would help them do a better job. You may be surprised at how they have been “making do.”
Is there anything in the environment impeding peak performance from the employee? Some people are distracted by a noisy environment or have difficulty dealing with interruptions. Some get headaches or can’t see well in fluorescent lights. Some are too short to reach high shelves, or can’t bend over easily to reach low ones. Often desk chairs are not ergonomically suited to the sitter, causing bodily discomforts. Some lawyers use their speaker phone a lot and the person in the next office hears everything they say all day. Some people don’t get along well with the person seated next to them. In our example, if the copier is near the phone, perhaps the receptionist has trouble hearing the callers. Just ask.
Can the job be restructured to better fit the strengths of the employee? Do you have the right people in the right jobs? If you have a brilliant strategist whose work looks sloppy due to typos, can she be teamed up with someone with an eye for detail? If someone has a tendency to chat too much, perhaps he would be perfect using those social skills in a client relations position. Are you asking someone who would prefer to work alone doing research and analysis to play a role that requires frequent interaction with others, while someone who loves teamwork feels isolated stuck in front of a computer all day?

In short, before terminating a poorly performing employee, consider trying to save the investment you have in them by substituting curiosity and questions for your assumptions. These are the easy questions. Next month we’ll take a more in-depth look at how your own behavior may cause the performance problems you experience.

Written by Debra Bruce