RJon Robins

Not as obvious as you think: Ohio Lawyer Suspended for Billing More than 24 Hours in a Day

August 28, 2010 by RJon Robins

NOTE: Normally I avoid wasting time with this kind of nonsense but for some reason I was moved to comment on this one…

OK, so big “news” this week is Ohio lawyer Kristin Ann Stahbush who has been suspended for billing more than 24 hours a day on three separate occasions. The Ohio Supreme Court said Stahlbush failed to keep adequate records of the hours
she worked, submitted inflated fee requests, and sometimes “merely
guessed at the time she had spent on a case.” She had no prior
discipline, however, and was known as a competent and hardworking
lawyer. Result: 2 year suspension.

If you want to know why I am very selective as to the lawyers I admit into my coaching groups (and why I encourage all my Members to be very selective as to which and what kind of lawyers you expose yourself to) all you have to do is look through the list of self-righteous commentary & “analysis” which follows the above story and mostly misses the point.

To spare you the trouble of sifting through all that “noise” I’ve cut to the chase for you below and copied what I posted there for your direct consideration.

Comment by RJon Robins:

Let’s all stop making Ms. Stahlbush the butt of all these jokes and recognize that her predicament does not appear to be entirely of her own doing. Here’s what I mean…

The Ohio Disciplinary Committee did not revoke her license, they merely suspended it. Presumably this is because they determined that the mistakes were not intentional. So let’s not just write Ms. Stahlbush off as a “bad lawyer”.

The sad fact of the matter is that law schools do a generally poor job of preparing graduates to deal with the practical realities of managing the business-side of a law firm. And there are very few CLE programs offered which focus on the practical realities of managing a law firm in the real world.

That is a world which exists with a hundred different demands, distractions & demands that a solo lawyer or owner of a small law firm function as both an effective advocate, counselor & adviser AND ALSO an effective owner, operator and manager of their business too.

Florida was the first State in the Country to create a formal Law Office Management Assistance Service program as both a benefit to Members and to prevent practice management related disciplinary complaints. Perhaps if Ms. Stahlbush had been properly trained to start,, effectively manage and even profitably market her law firm this situation could have been avoided.

RJON ROBINS
“Because Happy Lawyer Make More Money”

p.s. Lawyers who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Think about how many hours you’ve invested learning how to be the best lawyer you can be, and compare that number to the hours you’ve invested learning how to be the best manager/operator of your law firm’s business that you can be. The difference between those two numbers is how much room for improvement there is likely in your own practice

The connection between our patron saint & your iolta trust account

August 27, 2010 by RJon Robins

Note: This is taken from a discussion over at www.LawyerControl.com. Suggest you check it out if what you read below sparks your interest.

The connection between our Patron Saint and our IOLTA account is that Moore was known to be so committed to his aspirations that he would occasionally self-flagellant. That is, in an effort to demonstrate his commitment he would physically harm himself.

Next time you go to a Bar Mixer & you’re standing around with a group of lawyers try this experiment. You just find an opportunity in the conversation to sigh & mention that you spent fifty hours in the office last week. Then see if some other lawyer doesn’t try & out-do you by announcing he or she spent MORE time in the office than you did. 9 out of 10 times this experiment will work.

So why do you suppose lawyers are going around taking pride in how many hours they’re spending in the office instead of how efficiently their offices run so they can invest more hours with their family & friends? Isn’t spending time at the office the modern lawyers’ way of demonstrating his or her commitment, albeit to a different deity?

Don’t lawyers find all kinds of ways to make things MORE difficult for themselves than things have to be? And then take pride in how hard they work, instead of how efficiently we run our practices?

A ritual is any prescribed code of behavior regulating social conduct. For self-flagellants it’s the ritual of beating themselves upon the back with a leather whip until they tear the flesh to demonstrate solidarity with Jesus. For lawyers its the ritual of “working hard” for our clients instead of working smart for them and for ourselves. There are partners of law firms who half-way-brag about the number of divorces they’re on because of their commitment to the law firm!

Of course we don’t use a leather whip to demonstrate our commitment to helping our clients but we allow ourselves to be surrounded by other instruments of pain. Like our IOLTA client property trust accounts.

Think about how ludicrous this is: We graduate from law school and we’re told over & over & over again about the heavy weight of responsibility we have for managing & accounting for our clients’ money and property. That if we don’t we’re going to lose our bar licenses (akin to going to hell). But then those very same people who tell us about how bad things are going to go for us if we screw-up our IOLTA’s…they don’t bother to ever actually teach us a simple system for how to set-up, manage & reconcile a law firm client property trust account?!?!?

And hundreds-of-thousands of lawyers simply accept this arrangement without question, no they actually take pride in how many hours they have to spend in the office???

Our patron saint certainly gave us plenty to aspire to. But going out of our way to make things harder on ourselves than they have to be shouldn’t be one of them.

An example of law firm marketing in action

August 21, 2010 by RJon Robins

OK so here’s an example of what law firm marketing looks like in action. I sent the following email to several lawyers I know in & around Atlanta. One of them responded and at the very bottom is my explanation of what law firm marketing looks like in action:

MY INITIAL EMAIL:

On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 11:11 AM, RJon Robins <rjon@howtomanageasmalllawfirm.com>
wrote:

Hello Hxxxxxxx,

I’m writing to ask if you or anyone you know is
active with the Atlanta local bar association?

And if so would you be willing to do me a favor
that I think will be good for both of us?

Background: Microsoft (yes that Microsoft) is interested
in featuring me in a series of small law firm management & marketing CLE
seminars they are going to sponsor around the Country.

They’ve asked me to select five local bar associations to support with a
Microsoft-sponsored CLE event. The subject matter will be geared for
helping to grow more profitable, more predictable and more manageable solo
& small law firms.

But to get Microsoft’s support the event must take place before the end of
this year.

They’re prepared to be quite generous in
terms of picking up the expenses, matching marketing dollars, supporting the
event with an event-specific website for registrations and promotions, lots
of door prizes and letting the local
bar association keep all the revenues. PLUS OF COURSE THEY’LL BE
SENDING ME!

Since you’re in Atlanta I’m wondering if you might have an interest in being
the one to bring this golden CLE opportunity to your local Bar Association
for their consideration?

(Note, this is NOT available for State
Bars; Only local county and city Bars).

I’ll have more details in a couple weeks but at this point we’re at the stage
of deciding which are going to be the lucky 5 local bar associations to get
this program & you’re literally one of the first people I’ve presented
this to as I just got the green light from Microsoft yesterday.

Please reply to let me know what you think.

If you agree this would be great for your local bar association let’s act
fast because I know that next week many more than five others will be
presented this chance and the spots will be awarded on a
first-come/first-served basis.

Thanks,
RJON

THE RESPONSE:

From: Hxxxxxxxxxx Bxxxxx [mailto:hxxxxxxxxx.bxxxxxx@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 2:46 PM
To: RJon Robins
Subject: Re: Atlanta Bar Association?

Hey. Wouldn’t you want to contact the Bar assn direct?
Speak with the CLE director

of the Atlanta Bar.

THE LESSON:

Hello Hxxxxxxxx,

Thanks for the suggestion. If none of our Members in or
around Atlanta wants the opportunity that’s what I’ll do.

But since it
doesn’t ‘cost’ me anything and may help a member of that bar association by
being the one to bring a fully-sponsored Microsoft-endorsed event to them on a
silver platter I wanted to share the wealth so-to-speak.

Sort of like if
I was going to hire a law firm and I happened to know a lawyer who worked there.
All things being equal I’d always rather get an introduction from a mutual
acquaintance especially when making the introduction helps the lawyer and
doesn’t hurt me at all.

~RJON

Quick social media marketing tip to grow your law firm faster

August 16, 2010 by RJon Robins

Here’s a quick video with a law firm marketing tip for you to help grow your law firm right away. Seriously, as soon as you implement this law practice marketing lesson you’ll begin to see almost immediate results. Don’t make the mistake alot of lawyers make and discount the power of this marketing tip for your law firm marketing, just because it seems so simple. Would you prefer I make it sound more complicated?

Law Firm Marketing Lessons From The Patron Saint of Lawyers

August 12, 2010 by RJon Robins

St. Thomas More

(Patron Saint of Lawyers) (1478 – 1535)

The more things change, the more they stay the same (no punn intended). We can learn alot about the modern practice of law from our Patron Saint Sir Thomas More (Beatified1886, Rome by Pope Leo XIII).

Nowadays most solo lawyers and lawyers who own small law firms tend to feel isolated. Maybe it’s because they don’t realize that throughout history solo lawyers have always been and for reasons discussed below I believe always will be in the vast majority of lawyers in the World. Certainly that has been the case here in the U.S.

Back to Attorney More...

Our patron saint was born in London, on February 7 1478, He was the eldest son of a successful lawyer and educated first at St Anthony’s School, then considered one of the finest schools in London, and later spent the years 1490 to 1492 as a page in the household service of John Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury and lord Chancellor of England. Morton was an enthusiastic supporter of the ‘New Learning’ of the Renaissance, and thought highly of the young More. Believing that More showed great potential, Morton nominated him for a place at Canterbury College, Oxford, where More began his studies in 1492 and became proficient in both Greek and Latin. He left Oxford in 1494, after only two years at the insistence of his father, to begin his legal training in London at the New Inn, one of the Inns of Chancery. In 1496 he became a student at Lincoln’s Inn, one of the Inns of Court, where he remained until 1502, when he was called to the bar

Interesting isn’t it?

Five hundred and fifty years separate us from Thomas More and yet his path to becoming a lawyer is remarkably-similar to the path so many the rest of us followed.

Let’s see what other similarities there may be. . .

More once seriously contemplated abandoning his legal career in order to become a monk and although he deeply admired the piety of the monks, he ultimately decided on the life of a layman upon his marriage and election to Parliament in 1504.

Lots of lawyers today struggled with other career opportunities and the path not taken haunts most lawyers I know. Like More we also tend to bring with us to our profession a sense of a higher calling, don’t we?

Despite of his choice to pursue a secular career, More continued to observe certain ascetical practices for the rest of his life, including occasionally engaging in flagellation (1) & (2).

I’ve already written extensively about the “Doctrine of Sacrifice” which has seeped into our profession and how it has lawyers (mistakenly) believing that sacrificing your happiness is an inherent and noble part of “serving” clients. This way of thinking turns you into the servant and clients into your masters – and adds insult to the injury by saying you should find happiness in the sacrifice!

Gee, imagine that! Our Patron Saint was given to self-punishment as a form of religious obedience. And nowadays lawyers go around taking pride in how MANY hours they work for their law firms seemingly oblivious to the self-destructive nature of selling hours when our clients and our families would much prefer us to deliver results efficiently and get home in time to enjoy our lives.

Yes, in fact, most lawyers DO have a big hole in our education when it comes to the practical realities of law firm marketing and even worse when it comes to law office management.

But the BIGGER PROBLEM, I eventually realized years-ago, which prevents so many otherwise-capable and intelligent lawyers from taking the tools I gave them and using those tools to make big improvements in terms of revenues and personal and professional satisfaction, was that they were not-yet ready to believe that they DESERVED to be happy.

Sadly for them, the fact of the matter is that most lawyers are not-yet-ready to let-go of this old familiar pain. Notwithstanding the fact that it leads to too many days spent worrying about cash flow, too many hours of self-sacrifice in the office, and service to clients and on cases that those lawyers don’t have any passion for.

Instead, with the right law firm marketing and law office management skills you don’t have to choose between happiness, cash flow, or the ethical practice of law. You really can have all three. In point of fact, notwithstanding the example set for us by our Patron Saint, for hundreds of years lawyers have been learning, improving-upon and enjoying the benefits of professional, ethical and profitable law firm marketing & law practice management skills, tools & techniques.

And you know what? If you strip-away all the technology what worked hundreds of years ago for the lawyers who came before us is STILL working for those of us who take it upon ourselves to learn How To Manage A Small Law Firm.

Right now, but for only a little while longer you can learn how to master a critical law practice management skill that can contribute to more professional , ethical and more profitable law firm marketing too. Or it can feel like self-flagellation and turn what SHOULD be a profitable law firm management tool into an instrument of intimidation and torture.

Visit www.LawyerControl.com right now and register to watch the FREE training “A Simple System For Managing A Law Firm Client Property Trust Account That WON’T Make You Feel Like A Schmuck”.

I certainly have no ambitions of being Canonized as the next Patron Saint of my fellow lawyers.

But I am on a mission to combat the Doctrine of Sacrifice and help all my fellow lawyers experience for themselves that Happy Lawyers Really Do Make MORE Money.(this time the punn was intended 🙂

————————————————————————————————————————-

(1) Rebhorn, Wayne A, editor. Utopia. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics. 2005. Introduction, pg xxi

(2) The Flagellation refers in a Christian context to the Flagellation of Christ, an episode in the Passion of Christ prior to the Jesus’ crucifixion. The practice of mortification of the flesh for religious purposes was utilized by some Christians throughout most of Christian history, especially in Catholic monasteries and convents. some Christians throughout most of Christian history, especially in Catholic monasteries and convents.

Don’t Be Fooled. EVERY Successful Rainmaker Is Out Here Marketing Our Law Firms!

July 31, 2010 by RJon Robins

One of the biggest problems that holds alot of lawyers back from effectively marketing their law firms is this notion that “if you’re a good enough lawyer the clients will find you”.

Of course this little ditty doesn’t hold up to even the slightest scrutiny does it?

First of all we can be the best lawyers in the world but if no-one knows about it they’re going to bring their business elsewhere. And how is a client who didn’t go to law school, who has never attended a CLE event, and who may not even know a lawyer (which describes MOST people in this Country)… how is that person supposed to go from just barely recognizing a need for legal help to suddenly becoming an expert at devising an appropriate criteria for judging expertise and then being able to also frame their own legal issue well enough to actually find their way to the best lawyer for that particular need.

Anyway, I was recently interviewed by the Legal Broadcast Network and one of the questions posed to me was exactly on this point. Instead of writing it all out for you, just watch the video below:

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