Solo Practice University® » Lurie Daniel-Favors

Think Like A Lawyer. Speak Like a Fish.

Lurie Daniel-Favors — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:30:10 +0000

“Think like a lawyer.” This phrase is pounded into our heads during three years of legal education like no other. In fact, so much emphasis is based on acquiring this skill set, that we spend the first few months of law school seemingly learning a new language. When we observe classmates suffer through formulating their responses in exactly the right way, we learn that just being right is not enough. You have to be right and you have to be able to phrase the right response in a lawyerly way. Otherwise, you might end up on the receiving end of a probing Civil Procedure professor’s seemingly unending list of questions on something like the Erie doctrine.

When we enter the profession, this phrase, “think like a lawyer” is repeated ad nauseum by colleagues and co-workers. We spend so much time learning to think like a lawyer that it is easy to forget that lawyers do not think like other people. In fact, lawyers tend to think in ways that non-lawyers may find confusing – if not down right obnoxious. What’s worse is when our highly lawyerly thoughts take over our voice and come out in the way that we speak.

I have yet to find anyone who actually likes to listen to “lawyer speak.” But if you spend all of your early years in the profession learning to think and talk like a lawyer – it can be very easy to lose your own voice.

You know what voice I’m talking about. It’s the voice your clients use when they call and ask for advice. It’s the voice your friends and family members may use when they pick your brain for legal tidbits. It’s very likely the same voice that you used before you bought wholesale into the “think like a lawyer, speak like a lawyer” mandate.

The challenge with learning to think and speak like a lawyer is that it can alienate you from the very people you want to serve.

I learned this first hand when it came to designing my website. My first website was a “think like a lawyers” dream. It was full of legalease, accolades and footnotes that I thought would make me more appealing to my audience. And if my audience were judges for a moot court competition – then I would have had no problems whatsoever.

But that was not my audience. My audience was full of working class people who needed to talk to someone who was able to speak in a voice to which they could relate. My audience did not have time to check my cross references and confirm the accuracy of my citations. They needed answers in plain English.

I knew this intuitively, but when it came to my website – I was pulled in two directions. On the one hand I wanted to attract clients. But on the other hand, I was concerned with how other lawyers would see me if my website did not use legalease. In a profession that is highly image driven, I was concerned with what other lawyers would think if I did not demonstrate my “think like a lawyer” skills on my website.

Classic rookie mistake.

When we spend our formative years in the profession surrounded by other attorneys in the making, we want to seem…well…lawyerly. For people who are caught up in thinking like a lawyer, using legalease is a surefire way to pull off the “I’m a lawyer” presentation.

We don’t often realize that there is a subtle hierarchy at play when we learn to “think” like a lawyer. We tend to place a higher value on that skill than on our ability to translate those thoughts into a communication style that works for our clients. Typically when I speak with other lawyers about this issue, they think I am advocating for “dumbing down” the conversation. They miss the point.

Thinking like a lawyer is important. But speaking like a human is key to your ability to attract and keep the type of clients that you want. Instead, focus on the words your clients use to describe their issues. Take note of the phrases and lexicon so that you can begin incorporating them into your own voice. When clients (or prospective clients) call with a question – write down the way they phrased it so that you can use similar phrases in the future.

When you write a blog article – remember who you are writing for and include those phrases and terminology in your article. Try to describe legal concepts in a way that might infuriate your Civ Pro professor – but that would make your parents proud.

I recently heard the phrase that in order to get good clients then you have to “fish where the fish are.” That may be true – but the end of the day – if your clients speak fish, then being where they are is just the first step. Growing and keeping a successful practice will also require that you to learn to speak fish.

Written by Lurie Daniel-Favors

Why Education is Everything

Lurie Daniel-Favors — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:30:42 +0000

One of the highlights of being a solo is the ability to choose your niche. Picking an area of law that you can actually enjoy instead of one that you simply tolerate is a huge bonus for me. After all, I like what I do and I want it to stay that way.

For lawyers who want to do good by doing well, picking a practice area is also about 1) identifying a need in whatever community you find yourself and 2) finding a way to meet that need. As noted by A.G. Jackson, part of your goal as a business owner (and yes, even do-gooder attorneys are business owners) is to:

“find a need and fill it. [Because] successful businesses are founded on the needs of people.”

However, in order for that relationship to work (i.e. for attorneys to use their skills to meet the needs they identify) – the community you are targeting has to 1) recognize that the need exists and 2) see you as someone who can help them meet that need.

But what if your client base is comprised of people who have grown accustomed to not having that need met? What if you’re surrounding community has adjusted to the injustice that gave rise to the need in the first place?

I encountered this first hand when I began speaking with my target market. Quite frankly, when I spoke about issues like consumer rights and debt collection abuse – prospective clients looked at me like I had two heads. My target market had become so accustomed to the machinations of unscrupulous payday lenders, interest rates that would make Satan blush and other types of economic abuses, that it was commonplace.

When I began talking about the fact that debt collectors are prohibited from treating people like criminals because they owe money – people literally laughed out loud. When I described the protections afforded by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and other consumer rights support systems – people in my community literally did not know how to respond. Many thought the FDCPA was some new legislation written into law by President Obama’s administration. Once I told them the law was more than 30 years old – they thought I was joking.

Now here is the dilemma: no matter how passionate you may be about your practice area – if your client base hasn’t a clue as to how you can help them then your practice will be short lived.

Before I could effectively serve my target community I had to first educate them about what the law could actually do. Shiny brochures and glossy pictures were not going to cut it. Like all distinct communities, mine speaks a particular language and processes messages in a particular way.

My first step was to create a community specific marketing campaign that was two fold. Before I could offer a solution I had to provide information that educated them about economic rights in general. Only after they understood their power and legal options could I begin talking about how the law could help.

I started by joining in the conversations that my target community was having about debt. I took off my lawyer hat and began frequenting the places where those conversations were taking place, like churches, libraries, schools and community forums. I didn’t join as an “attorney-with-the-answers” but as a fellow community member who shared many of the same issues and fears that they did.

Once I better understood where my target market was coming from – I began translating those conversations into an educational marketing campaign. My goal was to provide as much informational material as I could offer with an eye towards empowering prospective clients.

I started with a blog that addressed many of the issues I uncovered in those conversations. Next came an online radio show designed to tackle some broader economic justices issues that couldn’t fit into a blog space. Recognizing the need for more substantive education, I created a workshop series that targets churches, community organizations and other groups where my prospects are located.

At the end of the day your community is simply better off when its members understand their rights. And if your community’s legal needs have gone largely unanswered for an extended period of time – educational marketing can be both your best friend and cheerleader. Being passionate about your practice area is a great place to start. But you have to be able to translate that passion in a way that has practical implications for your audience.

In addition to literally helping you to tap into a market that was previously neglected, educating them about their power makes for a more energized and self-determining community. Once they begin to recognize that they have rights they will come to know when those rights are being violated. And if you’ve done your job as an educator your market will come to see you as the person who can help them in that time of need.

Regardless of how you define your community when it comes to choosing your practice area, one of the most important things you can remember is that successful law practices are founded on the needs of people. Finding the need is just the beginning. Helping your community understand the need and how you can help fill it will determine your ability to grow.

How are you finding and addressing the needs of your community? Please share in the comments.

Written by Lurie Daniel-Favors

Back to the Root of Things: The Role of Servant Lawyers

Lurie Daniel-Favors — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:17:12 +0000

I'm very excited to introduce Solo Practice University's newest columnist, Lurie Daniel Favors. Lurie just celebrated her second anniversary as a solo. She is truly exceptional on many levels as you will discover. Her column is going to be geared toward building a 'community-based' practice – a practice driven by the needs of a select community (in Lurie's case, geographic and ethnic) and in helping your clients… your community prospers. Through her column you will learn how you can do the same. If you'd like to learn more about Lurie, please listen to her Savvy Solo guest-teleseminar.

Back To The Root of Things: The Role of Servant Lawyers

If you are like many attorneys you may spend a lot time mentally vacillating between two competing streams of thought. On one hand many attorneys state that they’d gone to law school with a sense of purpose. Many of us acknowledge wanting to use our law degrees to “make a difference,” however that may be defined. We frequently start out as do-gooders, bright eyed and perhaps a tad naïve. But in any event, many a legal career started with a desire to both do good and to change the world.

Yet, if you spend any significant amount of time in the legal profession the definition of “success” can begin to shift ever so slightly. Instead of dreams about helping the less fortunate, improving social policy or otherwise making that difference, somehow success in the law starts to take on an opposite meaning.

This process usually starts in law school and can be so gradual that you can’t quite remember how or when it happened until it is too late. Somehow, between the day we start law school and wherever we happen to find ourselves in our careers at the present moment, “success” soon becomes more about getting the “gold stars.”

As opposed to dreams of changing lives and serving our respective communities, success becomes defined as making partner, winning headline garnering cases or getting speaking engagements on major news network as a legal commentator. For far too many of us, “making a difference” inevitably gets squeezed into the few volunteer hours we manage to devote to pro bono work.

Sadly, try as we might to find some semblance of peace with this newfound path, the traditional symbols of success in the law often ring hollow. One of my favorite sayings from law school was that success in the law is like a pie eating contest where the first prize is just more pie. We break our back to get on partnership track, only to learn that we work longer hours, feel more stress and have even less time for connecting with our family, friends, and community.

For a while we convince ourselves it is enough. For a short time we can almost fool ourselves into thinking that we have arrived and try to bask in the glow of our newly defined success. But every once in a while we get an abrupt reminder that this path, this narrow definition of “making it,” was not how we started. Ever so often we see a flash of passion that reminds of why we went to law school in the first place: to serve people who need help.

When I worked as an associate in a big law firm, I witnessed one such moment. One of my colleagues had just landed her dream law job. Though we’d only been practicing three years as corporate associates, she’d successfully interviewed for a position at a boutique law firm. Instead of spending days reviewing contract for cross border asset purchase deals or getting staffed on the next big IPO – she was going to spend her days working with artists as she developed a practice dedicated to theater law.

Aside from the fact that until that point I did not know theater law was an actual practice area, one thing was clear: here was someone who was actually going to follow her passion. Here was someone who was going to give up the big salary and the trappings of big law in order to live out her dream according to her own definition of success. What was also clear was the fact that she was incredibly happy about it.

As was customary in big law tradition, her departure was cause for a late afternoon celebration complete with cake, coffee and speeches in the conference room. After a few associates voiced their appreciation for all that she had contributed to the firm, either the head of the department or some other senior partner she’d worked with would get to say a few closing words.

As the selected partner spoke it was clear that he was proud of my colleague. He spoke about the wonderful opportunities that awaited her and was all around congratulatory.

But then…he began to reveal a bit more than the traditional “good bye and we’ll miss you” type of speech. He confessed that he was actually a bit jealous. As it turns out, more than two decades prior he too had wanted to work as a lawyer for the arts. He too had once sought an opportunity to follow his passion and to use the law to live out his dream. But unlike my colleague (and just like so many other attorneys) he’d turned his back on his dream in exchange for the trappings of “success.” And it was clear from the way that he spoke that it was a decision he continued to regret all these years later.

The room fell into an awkward silence as the magnitude of his confession washed over us. Here was someone who had taken the path many of us were currently on. Like so many of us – he had traded his dream for someone else’s definition of success and in the end it was a trade that he lived to regret.

There are probably countless stories like his. We’ve all heard the tales about never meeting an attorney who was actually happy in their practice. We grimly resign ourselves to the idea that we can’t both be fulfilled and gainfully employed in the legal profession. I know this is so because for a brief period I believed it to.

But as I stood in that conference room and listened to the regret that simmered like a palpable wave buried just beneath the surface of the partner’s voice, I experienced my own “aha” moment.

Here’s the thing: for a lot of us, going to law school was not about making partner. It wasn’t about office-supplied blackberries, year end bonuses, car service home on late nights and working successive weekends for months at a time so that our client could just buy another company or spin off a subsidiary. It wasn’t about getting trapped in practice areas that we never really, liked for reasons we can’t really remember for clients that we don’t really enjoy working with.

For a lot of us, law school was about that feeling. It was about that vibrant feeling that filled us with a passion. As I recently said in a separate blog post, it was about finding that feeling of “happiness one should feel when you are engaged in work that helps to fulfill your purpose.” It was about finding that sense of “joy that comes from helping people who truly need it – and who have few other places to turn.” It was about finding that “peace that comes from working to serve and build one’s own community; to make it a better place than it was when you got there.”

Before so many of us traded in that dream for some artificial notion of success we had dreams and passions that were so strong we just knew that not only could we change the world. We believed that we actually would change the world.

Because let’s face it: When you think about the sheroes and heroes of the legal profession – do you think of the named partners of the AmLaw 100? Do you dream about those partners in corner offices who earned enough in profits to buy a yacht or send their kids to the private school of choice? When thinking about those who dedicated their lives to using the law to improve the world for someone other than themselves – is it the lawyers who closed the largest deals or won the latest round of some obscure securities litigation matter? Probably not.

I’d be willing to bet that when you close your eyes and think about who you consider a sheroe/heroe of the profession, they likely have one thing in common: they were the greatest servants. They are the attorneys who were committed to their passion and even more committed to helping the people who needed them. It is this spirit of service that makes them stand out in our minds as people who got it right.

Now obviously, this may not apply to all of us. But if you are one of those who desire that “feeling”, if you are someone who got into this profession because you believe that a lawyer can do good and can change the world, then it is up to us to redefine success. It is up to us to declare that we can do well by doing good for others – and then go out and make it true. Whatever your passion is, whatever it was that drove you to see the law as a tool to empower those who need it, you need to hone that. Nurture it, meditate on it and then try to figure out how to make it a reality. Because in order to find the true success that we knew awaited us when we entered this field, we must first find a way to serve those who need us.

Written by Lurie Daniel-Favors