Rebooting Your Law Practice

I am not talking so much about leaving your practice and then finding out later that you have to come back to it.  You see this a lot with lawyers who move into other law practices or leave their law practices for paycheck-type jobs that do not work out for one reason or the other.  No, what I am talking about is the need from time to time to realize your law practice has become stagnant or is loosing momentum.  You reach a crossroad where you need to reboot it or restart it or you need to move on to something else.

This is the situation I see most often.  Attorneys who are chugging along in their practice or niche, and then over time the firm slowly declines.  The lawyers tolerates it for a good deal of time thinking it is a lull that will correct itself, but for an occasional blip in business it never seems to come back like it was.

Sometimes it is not even so much a gradual loss of clients or profits, but the need for the attorney to earn more money and the law practice is not keeping up.  The practice area has not so much retarded, or has been impeded, as it is simply not much accelerating as much as is needed, or as much as the economy requires.

This can of course happen for any number of reasons.  The law changes not making the practice area profitable due to a court decision or legislation.  The practice area can become acceptable to the extent more lawyers are venturing into the area.  The need for the legal services provided could be in a natural or prolonged decline.

Each of these things can, of course, be contributing factors.  But, generally speaking, in most situations, these issues are not the problem.  Competition is always an issue, but it most often seems to help than hurt, and most practice areas do not experience a catastrophic failure due to changing public policy or judicial decisions.

As stated, most of these reasons are visible enough that they get the blame.  It is just that they are not just substantial enough in and of themselves to hinder most practices substantially.  (As an interesting side note, I have noticed that when practice areas are most often in decline, those that continue to concentrate in the market see no decline in good business because the cat and dog law practices -- or the lawyers that do not concentrate in the area exclusively -- are exiting the practice area in faster proportion than the decline the quality cases remaining).

Most lawyers that I hear from about this issue have their assumptions, but it is simply easier to blame other factors other than yourself.  I have had several attorneys complain of late that their practices are in decline as a result of TV advertising attorneys in their area.  And, although it is true that the TV advertising attorneys have a good chunk of the market, the truth of the matter is that TV attorneys have always been there (at least during the time that I have practiced).  The advertising might be working better now that the market is increasing in size.  However, these TV attorneys are not increasing their market share as much as the market is increasing; most consumers do not chose their attorney based on TV spots; and, most TV spots only act to inform the larger public that the services are available.  In short, most TV attorneys benefit the overall market, while at the same time there is a substantial amount of the market they can never encourage to employ these TV marketers.  In other words, they are probably helping more than they are hurting, especially if your referrals are coming from other lawyers and professionals.

Over the many years that I have practiced, I have noticed that most attorneys, even successful attorneys, really do not have a firm understanding of how they generate business.  The truth of the matter is that their business is referral business, and they are not really certain what they have done in the past, and what they are not doing now, to get the business in the front door or on the phone or online.  This is probably true for all of us to some extent, but for most of us it is completely true.  The problem with a practice declining or becoming stagnant is that most attorneys did not know what they were doing in the first place to profitably generate the referrals.

A perfect example of this occurred to me in the early part of the decade.  I have always worked referral sources well to let them understand how important they are to me and how much I appreciate what they do for me.  But, when my practice niche became first stagnant and started to decline, I struggled to understand why.  What I finally realized is that in the 90s all of these preliminary-type hearings like management and scheduling conferences, and certain hearings on motion practices, started to decline.  I did not worry about it because, hey, it made my life a lot easier.  I did not have to get up each morning and decide what part of the State of Texas to get to.  As cases ramped up, bankruptcy judges started to be overwhelmed, and new judges started to take the bench believing they could streamline their dockets.  For example, these judges started instituting standard scheduling orders and conducting hearings over the phone.  Where I use to be in court several days a week, I was now in court once every few weeks.  What could be better than that?

I realized that most of my referrals came from bankruptcy attorneys.  What I failed to realize was that, unbeknown to me, the continuous, time wasting cattle calls in which judges line all of the bankruptcy attorneys up in a courtroom to decide on things like deadlines, timelines, and trial dates was my greatest source of contact.  At these hearings I got to keep up with my old friends, I got to reintroduce myself to my colleagues from whom I wanted referrals, and I got to meet the new attorneys joining the practice.  Court tended to run long, and I would almost always go to lunch with attorneys when I attended court.  It was not my intent, but what I have come to realize is that, more out of friendship and fellowship than out of an overt grab for business, I got to court early, I tended to stay for a good while, and I worked the room like a campaign event.  It was a continual example of association, friendliness, affinity, closeness, familiarity and sociability.

I guess it was the relationship marketing meltdown equivalent to attorneys that advertising in the yellow pages in a declining yellow page market.  In the past, you could place the ad and forget it.  Now substantially fewer people turn to the yellow pages, the price of placement has gone up, you are locked in, and the medium no longer works  What use to be a benefit is now, because of its contract terms, a liability.

The stark reality of this situation occurred to me when I spoke at a recent statewide CLE event.  In the past I would look around the hall and know most of the people to whom I was speaking.  Now, I noticed my old friends and colleagues I do know were in the minority.  They were older, like me.  The room was full of younger practitioners I have never seen before.  Many of them I have worked with, but have never met because of how my practice operates.  A good many I neither knew nor with whom I have never dealt.  As it turned out the CLE events use to more of a reinforcement of what I do and how I could help these attorneys with their practice.  Now, it was more of an introduction.  The cool realization after the event was meeting lawyers with whom I have worked but have never met in person.  The thought of how possible this is in this day and age is pretty amazing.  The detrimental realization is that most new introductions do not garner you new business.  It is only a start to the possibility of obtaining new referrals in the future, after more introductions.

The learning experience in all of this for me was that you must continually work to restart your law practice.  Both because of changing environments and our own apathy we lose the natural advantages we did not really realize that we had.  The practice starts a decline or starts to stagnate because the legal area in which you live has moved on and you have not.  That is the reason most practices end after a degree of success.

The problem with all of us is that as we find a level that is comfortable we become fat and sassy, and take what we do or do not do for granted.  What we need to do is continually work to rethink and to add to what we do, and how we do it; to get clients and referrals through the doors or on the phones or online.  Like a house we must continually work at refurbishing it, breathing new life into it, overhauling it and reconditioning it, or it becomes outdated and dilapidated.  The same thing happens to law practices even when you stick with your what you have always done and exert the same level of commitment.

In the early part of this decade when I came to the realization that I had to revitalize my practice and replenish my referral sources and revive my firm's upward trend, the question became how?  After all, I could not make judges turn the clock back to massive cattle-call-type hearings.  As it turned out the remedy was more comfortable and beneficial for me, but I had to learn to reach out in modern times.

For me, I started a practice blog because I could no longer share my thoughts and consult with my friends and referral sources at court.  In short, these people were no longer coming to me, so I was going to have to go to them.  I started a simple little database in which I started collecting all of their contact information, including their email addresses (which at that time were in little use), and fax numbers (which were in heavy use).  Then I started out sending them email and fax blasts regularly, as well as some targeted direct mail.  This worked well because I learned that attorneys tended to read their faxes and emails, and it was easier for them to share these with their staff, when they would otherwise forget when I simply handed them a card at court.  I followed this up with some targeted direct mail.  Admittedly, it takes longer for mail, emails and faxes to work, but it takes much less time as well than attending court several days a week.

I also started making it a point to revive the tactic I used when I started out.  Now, if I have to attend court or some event out of town, I make it point to take my old referrals sources to lunch, dinner or to just drop in unexpectedly to their office to thank them.  It almost always results in a referral if not at that moment, then shortly afterward.  "Look Bob, I don't want to keep ya'.  I just wanted to stop by and tell ya' thanks for your past referrals.  I truly appreciate it."  Often times I get this from the attorney or the staff - "No problems.  Say, I'm glad you stopped by, what do you think of this problem one of my clients is havin'".  Sometimes it is something with which I can assist, and sometimes it is gratis advice.  Either way it is building good will.

What I have learned is that these terms or slogans like "clients for life" or "endless referrals" are most often hype.  It takes continued work and effort to figure out both how you are reaching the people that matter.  What worked then, does not always work now.

Whether you are new to the practice of law, a particular practices area, you are well established, you wish to expand your practice into other areas and markets, or you need your practice to grow more profitable, you need to continue to ask yourself the same questions:

1.  Who or what are the groups, people , associations and organizations I need to know in order to encourage referrals;

2.  What is the message I need to continually reinforce with these groups, people, associations and organizations to encourage referrals; and,

3.  How do I stay in front of these groups, people, associations and organizations on a continual, repetitive, and everyday basis that encourage them to send me the referrals.

The message can change.  The groups, people, associations and organizations can change.  The deliver method necessary to affect these groups, people, associations, and organizations can change.  And, when you do not truly understand what has brought you success in the past, and you do not keep up with how the legal marketplace for your ideas and practice area is changing, no matter what the competition, your practice is going to be adversely effected in terms of growth and, possibly, decline.

There is always a need for all of us to re-inaugurate our practices and ourselves, to re-formulate our practices, to re-imagine our position in the legal marketplace, to forge again new referral sources or to introduce yourself again to those that already know you, and to redesign the method of delivery.

There is a need for all of us to reboot our practices from time to time.

The three rules of thumb, I have found, are really simple.  First, you do not need to stop what you are doing to try something else in this regard.  Second, if what you are doing is not working like it use to, it is time to take a chance with something else.  Third, if you ignore what you are doing and ask yourself the three questions above from time to time, with the thought of rethinking how to accomplish them, you will do well.

Ronald Reagan use to like to say about he becoming a Republican:  "He did not change.  The Democratic Party changed".  This ultimately might have been a good thing for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party, but I can assure you it does not work as well in continuing in your practice area of law.  If the legal market changes, ever so slightly, and you do not change to keep up with the work you love, you are going to see your practice area stagnate and/or decline.

You need to spend a little bit of time, all of the time, to enliven, stimulate, exhilarate, reanimate and boost your practice area.  If you do not, you will eventually see your practice area degenerate and depreciate.  If that happens, it is time to reboot your law practice.

Comments

[Jay Moffitt]

Chuck, great article as usual. As you know, I feel 90% of your writing is fantastic and 10% makes me blow a gasket. But it is 100% thought out and this one is a great reminder that even though the internet is not as personalable as meeting folks in person, with time and patience the results can enhance a de-personification of law practice. Thanks again for the volume of your posts, I always learn something.

[Chapter 13 Lawyer]

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