If you’re wondering where to start your research into buying laptops, desktops, phones, cameras and gadgets or creating a paperless office then the notes from the recent ABA General Practice/Solo Program are worth reading.(via Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips Blog).
Regardless of the size of your firm, every firm needs a managing partner.
If you’re a solo, there will be things that you do that are managing partner functions.
As a firm grows. it struggles to decide whether it can afford to have a partner work full-time (or even part-time) as a managing partner or whether to employ a non-lawyer CEO.
The managing partner role is one that is not taught at university. And where do you go with your career if you become a full-time managing partner for more than 2 years?
Patrick McKenna has produced an on-line book (a short 23 pages) on the first 100 days of a managing partner. It is worth reading even if you are a small firm.
In 7 Opportunities for Law Firms in 2006 Neil Oakes from FMRC Legal declares the boutique firm as the norm of the future.
Within five years boutique providers will, most likely, make up the entire top quartile of the high profit sample population in all FMRC Legal performance surveys.
These firms will out-perform the generalists in many areas, most critically in client quality and talent attraction.
Yes, some might regard the now-large Gilbert & Tobin as a boutique firm but the formation in the last few months of new firms by 2 or 3 partners breaking away from larger firms (even a large boutique firm such as Atanskovic & Hartnell) shows that the small firm has a solid future.
But if the facts and figures aren’t enough, turn your sound on and watch Declaration of Independence from Escape from Cubicle Nation and get motivated.
If clients complain about something, it is more likely to be service-related than the technical quality of your work: you don’t return their calls, you don’t explain things clearly, the bill was bigger than expected.
In Taming the Beast: managing client expectations in a 24/7 world Patricia Yevics has some suggestions on how to teach clients that faster is not always better.
David Maister is a consultant who has the ability to get to the heart of an issue in plain language.
So his recent interview in BRW on the state of Australian professional services firms is worth reading.
One quote on marketing:
What you need to do if you want to improve at marketing is to actually do something for the other person. Demonstrate your ability to help by actually helping.
When I go into firms to evaluate their marketing materials, what I look for is whether they are actually offering the prospective client an idea or a suggestion or a piece of analysis that they have never seen before. What is really surprising is how often it is not there. Prostitute marketing, or “once you start paying I’ll show you something”, is really ineffective. What a lot of firms have to learn is that the best way to market themselves is by doing and not by telling.
If you'd like to read, hear or see more go to his website.
As a small form or solo, should you discount? Is it possible to come up with a form of billing that is attractive to your client without being unfair to you?
I've previously written about value billing but how does it work in practice? Allison Shields has 2 separate posts on pricing and value billing.
The key is communicating with your client: don't be so quick to conclude what your client needs, give them the time to tell you.
Often what you think is your client's problem is not really their main worry. What they may be worried about may be a side issue to you but they won't be happy if you try to sell them a solution for a problem they don't have or work on a project that doesn't solve their problem, regardless of how great a job you did.
That's where pricing and value billing come in: you can price at a discount if you wish but you may be surprised to find out that your client is prepared to pay you at or above the going rate in return for your availability, empathy , knowledge of their business, not charging for phone calls, photocopies or many other reasons that are of value to them.
If you turn your relationship into a commodity, they will treat it like one. Give your clients a chance!
Here's a variety of links any one of which will be of value if you invest the time:
In this digital information age one of the best resources available to small firm is your Law Society, Court or local authority library: they all have access to online databases, report, journals and texts for no (or modest) fees and some will help you with your research.
Read Eight Reasons Solo Lawyers Should Use Law Libraries
and the list of internet resources in Gumshoe Librarian 2006 and Bond University Law Library Resources
Every time I have given a client the choice of paying me by time or paying me a fixed fee thay have selected the fixed fee. So why do professionals persist with the billable hour?
In Burying the Billable Hour (pdf) Ron Baker explains "value pricing":the main message … is that the customer is the ultimate judge of the value that we, as professionals, provide. It is in that spirit we should charge the customer for the value they receive from our services. If we don't add value to the customer, we have no business being in business.
Sound too theoretical? Isn't it too hard? What if we get the pricing wrong?: we could get less money…the clients might pay too much. What are our services really worth to a client?
Here are some examples of other firms that have done it.
But has any firm gone all the way and got rid of the billable hour? Exemplar Law Practice says it is the first US law firm to exclusively adopt fixed price billing. (via Adam Smith Esq).
What about in Australia? I'm sure firms give fixed fee quotes all the time for specific projects. But not exclusively.
And some firms like Block Legal offer retainer packages.
Even if you don't drop the billable hour altogether, it is possible to think creatively and find a costs agreement that suits both you and your client. Give them the choice.
One of the biggest risks any professional faces is procrastination: doing something other than the most important job.
If you are self-managing then the most important thing you do is stay focussed, deciding what you have to do and when: you have to make sure your day is balanced between fee earning work, administration, marketing and research. Add in some time for your family, eating and your health and the day has just disappeared!
So you need some tools to help manage your time: anything from a calendar like Outlook through to personal management systems like Getting Things Done or a full-blown practice management and time recording system.
The important feature of any system is that it gives you the confidence that things that need to be done are being done and that nothing is being overlooked. Yes you may wake up in the middle of the night wondering about whether A or B has been done but when you check the next day you'll be reminded that you are waiting for a reply and that there is plenty of time before the next deadline or that yes you had thought of that issue before and you have it covered.
Links: 43 Folders, Lifehacker
