Creating a business strategy for your practice can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Business strategy is about setting your family law firm’s business goals, creating a simple plan to achieve those goals, and then being intentional about sticking to the plan to reach those goals.
By Alistair Vigier, Clearway Law
Building a law practice is somewhat unique in the business world in that a lot of lawyers seem to eschew some of the great business principles that work in so many other industries. When talking about business strategy, though, lawyers need to be students of business principles. Just as they had to study to become a good lawyer, they also have to study to become a good businessperson.
This gets various reactions. Some lawyers say they get it, they understand they have to study business like they’ve studied law and want to become an expert. But many react with skepticism, claiming it’s intimidating and say that they just want to be a lawyer and move on. Others, meanwhile, say they want to study business, but they’re simply “buried” in legal work, writing briefs, and hitting deadlines.
They just can’t be an expert in both lawyering and business, they say. Believe it or not, I’ve had people stand up literally in the middle of my seminars and say, “Who do you think you are – bringing all this business stuff into the legal profession and undermining the sanctity of this beautiful thing that we have built? Don’t call it a legal industry: it’s a profession. Who do you think you are?!”
After that, I run everybody through a simple test: I ask them about their business cards. It’s not called a law firm card, it’s not called a lawyer card – it’s a business card. You have a business license, you pay business taxes, and you run a business. That’s why it’s important to be an expert in business strategy.
Creating a Business Strategy for Family Lawyers
Creating a business strategy for your practice can seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Business strategy is about setting your family law firm’s business goals, creating a simple plan to achieve those goals, and then being intentional about sticking to the plan to reach those goals.
Regarding simplicity, I just love this quote from Richard Branson, who said, “Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It’s hard to make something simple.”
We, especially as lawyers, get so caught up in this because sometimes we get paid when we make it a little more complicated. Don’t do that. What your job is in business is moving all the muck out of there and saying, “we would like to reach this point in the future and how do we do that in the simplest way possible.”
That brings me to some important analogies and metaphors. One is about building pyramids, but the next is about ice cream, which we’ll get to first.
How many times have you been offered a free sample of ice cream that blows your mind? You just ran into a business strategy. Very simply, someone wanted you to buy their ice cream and gave you a sample knowing your brain is going to explode and you’re going to buy more. The sample drew you in, then you opted for a double scoop cone with all the extras like hot fudge and sprinkles.
Moving Clients Up the Pyramid
This strategy doesn’t only work for ice cream, though. For example, take the online service Dropbox, which many law practices use.
It’s also super simple. It gives you a free account and allows you to upload your documents. Then you become somewhat addicted, and that might lead you to buy a premium Dropbox account because of its convenience. Like the ice cream sample that prompted you to buy a double scoop cone with hot fudge and sprinkles, now you’re suddenly a huge customer of Dropbox and its so-called “freemium” account business strategy. They’re great examples of taking you from Point A to Point B.
Whether it’s ice cream or Dropbox, what they realize is that there are a large number of people into their products or services, but they just want to dip their toes in the water. They take the sample or the free account without knowing how much they actually need or want it. That’s where the concept of the pyramid comes in. The premium version of the double scoops is at the top of the pyramid. The challenge is building a business process so the pyramid of demand drives clients upwards toward the top.
In the legal industry, a similar situation with consumers exists, for example, for people who wonder if they need a prenup before getting married or a will after having a kid. Nobody wants a really expensive and complex will. Everybody just wants a free form or a simple will on the cheap. But maybe they want to amend their will after the fact and decide they need a full-blown estate plan instead of a simple will. That is the pyramid of demand that you are pushing as a lawyer, trying to grab people at the bottom and push them up all these steps.
Start Building Your Pyramid
Working on complex issues drives revenue and allows you to interact with clients and build something for them that’s beautiful. Your artistry as a lawyer happens at the top of the pyramid. You’re trying to get people to the top of that pyramid – but the bottom of the pyramid is where you have the greatest demand. As you drive for the top, that is where you have the greatest complexity, the greatest income, and the greatest margins.
There are plenty of issues involved in building the metaphorical pyramid. Most lawyers didn’t go to law school to work for free. They don’t want to hire and train employees or think of their work as a “commodity.” They don’t want to provide forms for free or do other peripheral work to draw people in without having to sign a retainer.
The more that you can start building your own pyramid – without relying on intermediaries like Google and others to drive traffic to your website – the more you’ll be able to build lifetime clients and referral sources. Look at Tesla and other brands that go direct-to-consumer (B2C) instead of relying on intermediaries to make sales – they’ve realized they don’t need intermediaries to drive business.
The goal, the business strategy, therefore, is to become someone’s go-to lawyer for all present and future family law issues. That’s where your practice can thrive. Most of us went to law school because we wanted to help people, right? We can help more people and build fruitful relationships at the bottom of the metaphorical pyramid – then employ tried-and-true strategies to push people up the sides, improve our law practices, and ultimately build a successful and sustainable business.
This article has been adapted from a speech delivered by former lawyer Mark Britton at the recent Clio Cloud Conference in Nashville TN. A businessman on the cutting edge of legal technology, Britton works with several companies – including Clio and trade secret software platform Tangibly.
Alistair Vigier, LL.B., is the CEO of Clearway Law, a proprietary database of legal professionals which is powered by a custom web interface designed to help the public identify and connect with appropriate legal representation. The platform allows people to leave ratings for lawyers as well as to find a lawyer based on their legal needs and budget. www.clearwaylaw.com
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