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Our profession has a long tradition of mentoring young attorneys. After several years of practice, you shift from mentee to mentor rather naturally. I believe in paying it forward, and I’ve been blessed to mentor some great young lawyers. And I continue to do because….
Every time a client makes the decision to retain a lawyer, they weigh the fee against the value of your services. If your fee is too high relative to the (perceived) value they will receive, they are not going to retain you. Therefore, if you don’t have a compelling value proposition, you must reduce your fee in order to get the client to retain you. And no lawyer really wants to do that, right? Because then you are competing based upon fees (cost proposition) and that is a losing game. So, what do you do?
Unlike my email, my office filing system works pretty well when I use it. However, in my effort to “get things done” for the past couple months, I hadn’t been as diligent with keeping things in order and felt the effective of that lack of maintenance on my productivity. So just like with my email, I set aside a few hours to get my files back in shape, and here are the steps I used to get things back on track.
Today I started thinking hard it would be if the lawyer actually didn’t really like many of his clients. If he (or she) just found them irritating. My point is this. Such feelings are normal in relationships of all types, so irritation is likely to be part of the picture in some attorney-client relationships. But here they are paying you for results. This makes it different. How do you manage the relationship?
Society as a whole encourages suppression of feelings. The legal profession, as a micro-culture, further encourages lawyers to suppress their feelings. What happens when feelings are suppressed to such a degree? This is a very powerful 32 minutes. We discuss lawyers and how they deal with (and don’t deal with) feelings in the practice of law. […]
We tend to choose to do immediate over important tasks because of the good feeling we get from a quick resolution. Getting an immediate job completed satisfies us. It is a subtle but important distinction in how the human brain works. But is it undermining your effectiveness as a lawyer? Find out.
Unless you are actively looking for non-English speaking communities you may not even realize to the extent they are present in your area. These are families that experience marriage and custody issues, these are workers that have employment and injury-related issues, and these are entrepreneurs that have business formation needs. In fact, due to language barriers, more trivial matters such as traffic tickets and ordinance violations are areas of concern for them as well. But you don’t speak (fill in any language). Learn how to tap these communities even if you don’t speak their language.
Don’t miss out on a good thing because your past is persuading you not to pursue your future ~ Alex Elle
It ends today.
Do you tell people you are ‘too broke’ to start your solo practice? Some food for thought.
We’re starting a new series of malpractice questions and answers presented by our faculty member, Allison Woods, who teaches ethics at Solo Practice University. It’s a quick, easy reminder to avoid making some serious mistakes. Look for them once a month. And hope you get an ‘A’. Can you answer our first question successfully?
Why Going Solo as a Young Attorney Could Be the Best Decision Ever with Susan Cartier Liebel from Solo Practice University®.
On this episode of New Solo from the Legal Talk Network, Adriana Linares interviews Susan Cartier Liebel from Solo Practice University® about how to stay motivated throughout the process of starting a solo law practice.
Motivation in life is very important. I share seminal moments which have shaped me as a human being and helped me become who I am today.
On this podcast from Lawpreneur Radio, Miranda McCroskey interviews Susan Cartier Liebel from Solo Practice University® about perceptions of fear, failure and other issues facing solos.
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