RJon Robins

I would love to start my own practice. . . Is this possible?

July 27, 2007 by RJon Robins

‘—– Original Message —–
From: “Luke Lxxxxxxxxx”
To: rjon@howtomakeitrain.com
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2007 8:37:59 PM (GMT-0500) America/New_York
Subject: Question from Law Student

Hi RJon,

I am a
law student in Minnesota
and would love to start my own practice right out of school. Is this
possible? I still have 2 years of school left, but I know this is my dream….can
you provide any advice?

Thanks!

Angie
Lxxxxxxx

—————————————————————————————————————————-
Hello Angie & thanks for the great question!

The answer is absolutely, positively YES. And I’m especially happy to
see that you are thinking ahead which distinguishes you from so many
other law students I have met over the years both back when I was in
law school and ever since who seem to think that the only “acceptable”
choice out of law school is to get an impressive job with a big firm.

Reality check: Across the United States, more than 50% of the lawyers
are actually solos! Click HERE to check out this & some other
interesting statistics in the Press Room section of How To Make It
Rain.com

The fact of the matter is that when the big firms come to
campus they’re typically only going to be interested in Top 10
Graduates who are willing to kill themselves “for the good of the firm”
in hopes of someday climbing to the top of the pyramid and being able
to leverage off of other top 10 graduates who will kill themselves to
support those at the top of the law firm structure. This is just the
basic economic structure of a large law firm and is shocks me that so
few law schools feel obligated to equip their students with a
fundamental understanding of how a law firm business actually works.

OK, but back to your question. . . yes, it is absolutely possible and
realistic to expect to graduate from law school two years from now and
open a successful law firm of your own. But you have to recognize that
your J.D. isn’t going to necessarily equip you to run a successful law
firm BUSINESS. It’s only going to prepare you to go to work for one,
and the traditional J.D. curriculum doesn’t even address some of the
more important skills you’ll need to thrive in a law firm environment
either! So the upshot of all this is that if you want to open your own
law firm in two years you are going to have to develop your own “shadow
curriculum” to equip yourself with the book skills and get some
practical experience too. Here’s what I suggest:

1. Read David Maister’s Managing The Professional Service Firm to get a
basic understanding of the various strategies available to you and not
inconsequentially to recognize the strategies being employed
consciously or unconsciously by your soon-to-be competition so you can
find your niche and compete effectively right away even amongst the
largest firms with the most experienced attorneys

2. Read Foonberg’s How To Start & Build A Successful Law Practice to get a practical overview of all the skills
you’re going to have to learn in order to run your firm effectively –
remember you’re going to spend half your time running the firm so you
better know how to do it well. And this classic gives a great overview
with lots of practical tips.

3. Read Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited. I actually prefer this
one on audio which is read by the author to get instruction on how to
develop systems & procedures for your law firm so that it doesn’t
end up eating you alive and making your miserable. Sorry to be blunt
but that’s the reality. . . a huge percentage of lawyers are simply
stumbling along hardly able to get out of their own way with a
completely screwed-up relationship with their business and consequently
with their families and themselves. Systems = Freedom.

4. Listen to my own How To Market A Small Law Firm – You can get it for
FREE when you subscribe to my Bronze Coaching program and even though
you’re not even graduated from law school yet, I highly recommend you
begin marketing NOW. How do you market legal services when you’re not
even a lawyer you ask? Go ahead & listen to my program and then
send me a follow-up e-mail once you have the basic foundation and I’ll
be happy to elaborate (That’s why I took the time to record everything,
so I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself)

5. If you can find it, read Mark McCormick’s “The Terrible Truth About Lawyers” It’s been out of print for about 20 years but Amazon can sometimes help you find a used copy. Read it. Re-read it. Remember forever that clients hire you for THEIR reasons, not yours.

OK, that should get you started on your book skills. Now here’s what I suggest you do about getting some practical skills. . .

A. Begin offering paralegal services to friends & family. Help
them fill out forms, help them by doing research on issues they need to
understand. Check with your local State Bar to understand how far you
can go as a “Paralegal” without violating Bar Rules and offer all the
services that are allowed but for a fee. That’s right, I don’t want
you to do any of these services for free not even for your family. I
want you to get them to sign an engagement letter acknowledging that
you have disclosed that you are not an attorney, that they will not not
rely on you for legal advice but only for providing the types of
services your State Bar says you can offer, and agreeing to your hourly
rate or negotiated flat fee. I want you to keep track of the time you
spend helping your friends & family. I want you to ask them to
give you a deposit for anticipated fees & costs and review my free
course entitled “A Simple System For Managing Your Trust Account That
Won’t Make You Feel Like A Schmuck“. Set up a filing cabinet in your
home or dorm room or wherever to keep your billing files, your
engagement files and your substantive work files and devise & test
a filing system that works for you. It’s ok by the way if you want to
give your Mom a bill showing the amount of time and the steps involved
in solving her problem and then to give her a “courtesy discount” to
zero-out her bill. But you MUST get used to doing all of these things
or else you will suffer when you get out of law school, pass the bar
exam and have to do all of these things for real or else miss a meal.

B. Get a job with a big firm as a clerk. It’s important to know what
you’re missing. And as I’ve said above, it’s also important to have
good systems & procedures. I don’t often have alot of great things
about big firms but they do tend to have great systems & procedures
that you can learn from and copy. Spend alot of time in their mail
room and file room to see how they do it. Study the architecture of
their computer system. Get comfortable with their file management
software, billing software and appreciate the dollars & cents value
of their documents and forms library so they don’t have to keep
reinventing the wheel. Absorb the essence of the place so you can
project the same level of professionalism when you open your own law
firm. Figure out who the Rainmakers are and make friends with them –
those relationships can be valuable to you in the future – but don’t
get sucked into the cult of personality you find in many large firms.
And don’t stick around if you find yourself in a big firm that’s poorly
organized. You’re there to LEARN.

C. Go to the courthouse and learn where everything is. Since you’re
a law student you can ask a million “dumb” questions of the clerks,
judicial assistants, and passing lawyers without feeling embarrassed.
Where do you go to file pleadings? Is there an after-hours drop box
& how does it work? How do you get an emergency hearing with a
judge? How do you know which judge to call if you need a TRO on the
weekend? Can you get a tour of the clerk’s office? Howabout sitting
in on motion calendar in a Judge’s chambers? Walk around, introduce
yourself and ask. . .the worst thing anyone’s going to say is “no” but
I suspect you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that alot of judges
and even the Clerk of Court him/herself will be impressed with your
initiative and go out of their way to familiarize you with the way
things work so it won’t be such a scary mystery to you. Then go to
another courthouse and notice that they are all organized pretty much
the same way.

OK, that’s it for today. Keep me posted on your progress!

RJON

How much is YOUR time worth?

July 23, 2007 by RJon Robins

I struggled to choose the right subject line for this post. In the end I decided to focus on asking readers to consider how much your time is really worth to you. Not how much you may charge for your time, but how much your time is really worth to you because we only get one ride through this life and we have to learn to cherish every moment. Part of cherishing every moment for me and my Rainmakers is figuring out what’s worth learning the hard way vs. what skills are better to learn from someone else’s mistakes.

Mr. Dxxxxx,

Thanks for the compliment! The answer to your question is that my Mom built her $1M/year web-based business by NOT
wasting money on hucksters who claimed to be able to do it all FOR
her. Instead, she invested in herself and learned how to promote
herself online. She did eventually hire a web company to manage her website
though not until after she already had a basic working knowledge of how
to do it all herself. This approach not only saved her a ton of cash
but more importantly, it prevented anyone from being able to hold her
hostage.

I’m not saying you can necessarily build a multi-million
dollar law practice all by yourself with only the skills you’ll learn
in my $39/month coaching program. But you can definitely build a solid
firm that doesn’t have you pinching every penny like you said in your
previous message that you have to do now. The fundamentals still work pretty
well and that’s what I stick to, no “magic formula” or any other kind
of b.s. “secrets”. In fact I’ll make you this promise. . . not only
will I NOT “reveal” any kind of big “secrets” to you, I’m pretty sure
once I lay everything out for you in step-by-step fashion each week in
the Bronze program, you’ll probably look back at it and see that if you
had thought enough about it and been organized enough and disciplined
enough and invested enough time making all the mistakes I’ve made over
the years you could have figured it all out by yourself.

THAT was the
point of the testimonial I shared with you. That lawyer had already
made enough mistakes on his own to have figured out what I had to say
so he didn’t need me to lay it all out for him. My materials are
designed to short-cut the learning process for lawyers who would rather
spend their time doing the RIGHT things instead of spending ten years
figuring out all the wrong things not to do.

RJON

3 hour call backs & how the pizza guy cost one lawyer alot of business

July 17, 2007 by RJon Robins

Hi Joe,

Have you received your How To Market A Small Law Firm audio program
yet? AFTER you’ve had a chance to listen to it, please send me an
e-mail if you still have those IP-specific questions. Not sure I agree
with your 3 hour call back rule though.

Have you seen an ezine article I’ve written about the so-called “sundown
rule” most lawyers try to live by? That is, they try & call their
clients back before the end of the day. In my experience that’s a
mistake. Puts alot of pressure on the lawyer and fails to give the
client what they want most which is to bring some measure of
predictability to what is for most a very scary and foreign experience
that’s way outside their comfort zone. Instead I’d suggest you try to
get in the habit of scheduling telephone appointments with your clients
rather than bust your butt to try & call them back within 3 hours
if 3 hours isn’t convenient for you, not enough time to find the answer
so you can resolve their question in one call instead of two and 3
hours may not even be convenient for them either. Better in my
experience to just schedule a call back appointment so everyone can
relax and maximize the efficiency of the phone time together.

The point of the pizza story is that our staff has as much to do with
our success as the quality of our substantive work. In that real life
example, the lawyer’s assistant lost her a good client who has alot of
business to give because the assistant was doing what was most
convenient for herself not what was most convenient (and most
respectful) to the paying client who was standing there like a jerk now
running late because the freakin’ pizza guy was more important to her
than me.

Let’s just balance out the priorities and look at this objectively. . .
I’m paying you $3,000. I hire lawyers for this exact same kind of work
on a pretty consistent basis. Between me and all the people I refer to
real estate attorneys I probably represent well over $50,000 of work
per year. My own time is easily worth a few thousand a day and after
having been jerked around a few times while the staff of this attorney
demonstrated to me that they really don’t give a crap about my time
they added a final straw onto the proverbial camel’s back and made me
stand there in my $1,000 suit with paying clients waiting for me to
call them back and myself waiting to pick up a settlement check for
over $70,000 so that they wouldn’t inconvenience the pizza guy for 5
more minutes because he has to make a living too!?! It’s not like the
guy stumbled in off the street and was bleeding or dying of a heart
attack. He was waiting for someone to make change for the cost of a
pizza he was being paid to deliver.

Rhetorical Question: How would you like it if it was YOUR phone call
that was being delayed and when I got on the phone I explained that the
reason I’m 20 minutes late to call you back is because I had to give
your time to make change for the pizza guy?

The purpose of writing the article was to make my clients aware of the
need to look at their practice from the client’s perspective because at
the end of the day, they get to cast the final vote on your success.

Thanks for your participation in my coaching program. I look forward to continuing to learn of your success,

Compare & Contrast Your Services

June 29, 2007 by RJon Robins

Below is a reply I wrote to an e-mail we get on a fairly regular basis: prospective new clients who want us to “try out” for their business by comparing & contrasting ourselves to the competition. In the past I used to spend alot of time on these type of “beauty contests”. And what I discovered is that while a few of the prospects were sincerly interested in understanding the differences between my law firm and the others they were considering to hire, most of the time it was just a foreshadowing of what was to come if I were to go forward with the engagement. . . lots of second-guessing, lots of calls for me to justify my services, and lots of complaints about the bill.

I’m not saying that “Joe” is one of those types. He could very well be sincerely interested in comparing his options before deciding how to spend his money and even more importantly, deciding whose advice to follow with his valuable time. But the lesson you can take away from the reply below (besides that you should focus on the basics & not waste time on all the hype out there) is not to get sucked into an audition and worse, not to get sucked into trashing your competition in the process – remember that when it comes to Rainmaking, there are no secrets!

————————————————————————————————————————-
Hi Joe,

Not familiar with William Hammond or the services he offers. I’ve known Alexis for years though and I think she’s great, though I’m not familiar with her $99/month program or what’s included with it. So I’m not sure I can answer your question directly as to compare/contrast what I offer vs. what they offer.

What I CAN tell you is that the Bronze program is a pretty simple program that takes you back to the basics. If you’re looking for some kind of secret “button” you can push to magically generate new business that no-one’s ever thought of before you may be disappointed with my programs. Instead I focus on introducing new Rainmakers, reminding experienced Rainmakers, and helping everyone in-between to brush-up on a variety of “old fashioned” Rainmaking skills, techniques & habits that have been working for tens of thousands of Rainmakers for many generations and which I don’t see losing their effectiveness anytime soon.

Reason I focus on the basics is because I have seen in my career of helping thousands of lawyers, so many who waste time, energy & money trying something new when all they have to do is brush up on the fundamentals and implement them with some consistency in order to boost revenues, avoid troublesome clients and reduce hours in the office. So that’s my focus: Make the most of what you’ve got before you start looking for something new. Know what I mean?

Hope that addresses your concerns and that you get a lot of value out of the $39/month fee for my Bronze program. If you have any questions along the way, be sure to identify yourself as a Bronze Member in the subject line of your e-mail so I can get to it ahead of the rest.

RJON

# 1 Reason Lawyers Should NOT Use E-mail Or Have A Website

June 6, 2007 by RJon Robins

Believe it or not I used to hear this alot as recently as just 6 years ago when I was a Practice Management Advisor with The Florida Bar’s Law Office Management Assistance Service. Part of my job when I was not out in the field doing onsite marketing & management consultations or doing seminars, was to field some of the 9,000 calls we received each year to the small firm management & marketing help desk. So I spoke to ALOT of lawyers. And as recently as late 1999 and early 2000 it was still fairly common to still get some questions we’d all probably laugh at today concerning whether or not (as opposed to “how to” or “which is best”) to get an e-mail account, or a website. And these types of questions weren’t all from old foggies either. In fact, I found the older attorneys who had been around long enough to have seen the dramatic changes in the legal industry/business were very often more receptive than the middle-aged attorneys who had been around long enough to feel comfortable, but not long enough to recognize that feeling was just in their imagination and the world in fact was passing them by.

Anyway the following new technology demonstration brought this all back to mind when a friend of mine sent it with the subject line: “Imagine 10 Years From Now”

RJON

When do two lawyers become a law firm?

May 23, 2007 by RJon Robins

—–Original Message—–
From: ********@********.com
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007 10:07 AM
To:rjon@howtomakeitrain.com

We are in
the process of putting together a small firm, so do I state I’m a solo until
that office is totally up and running? Right now, the marketing I’m doing is for that firm…meaning that I’m
the main rainmaker, and my partner is the one who will focus on back end. How
to proceed here?

————————————————————————————————————–

Response:

Technically, you can be a firm just by deciding you are a
firm. From a liability standpoint it
would be a straight partnership with no formal operating agreement which could
be a mess if you & your partner were to split up before taking care of that
bit of housekeeping. But I don’t think
you’d be misleading anyone if you made reference to your “law firm”
or even your “partner”.

And
you could parlay that into a pretty compelling marketing story when you’re
helping clients form their own business entities, and draft operating/shareholder
agreements and all the things they never want to bother with until it’s too
late. You could tell them you empathize
with the feelings of just wanting to get on with the business already, and that
you & your partner even made that mistake yourselves when you first opened
your firm together. But that you can
tell them from personal experience how much better you both felt and were able
to focus more energy on building the business once you got that housekeeping
out of the way. Sort of gives you a way
to push your clients into doing the right thing without making it seem like you
are judging them or making them wrong, if you know what I mean.

My partners & I operated How To Make It Rain on a
handshake for months in the beginning. And
it was really a relief to finally get everything down on paper, find out where
we had been operating with some different assumptions, understandings, etc. and
get them cleared-up. In my experience
with my own clients back when I had an active business practice, many of them
delayed taking the step of formalizing everything out of fear that they may
discover their partner is really on a completely different page. But once everything is clarified, the
business can really make progress because everyone can start rowing in the same
direction with confidence.

Anyway, I know this reply went beyond the scope of your
question but I hope it helps.

RJON

www.HowToMakeItRain.com

Helping Lawyers In Small Firms Make Alot More Money

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