Family Lawyers, Practice Management, and the Peter Principle
In 1969, Laurence J. Peter published a book about the “Peter Principle”: a management concept stating that employees in a hierarchical company tend to rise to their “level of incompetence.” As a skilled, knowledgeable, hard-working lawyer, you may have risen through the ranks from junior to associate to managing partner – or you may even have gone on to found your own law firm..
Unfortunately, your skills and experience as a successful lawyer are unlikely to help you deal with new technology, billing, and marketing to attract new clients. Hence the Peter Principle: you may now have to spend more time managing your practice (a task for which your successful legal career did not prepare) than you do practicing family law.
This can be a big problem for small firms and solo practitioners, who may lack the client relations, management, and marketing skills and support to build or maintain a thriving law practice. If that describes you, then take a look at:
- Video Marketing Your Family Law Firm (page 6)
- Podcasts: the Perfect Practice Promotion Tool (page 10)
- Best Practices for Family Lawyers (page 18)
- How a Time and Billing Software Can Increase Your Billable Time (page 20)
- Does Your Family Law Firm Have a Cybersecurity Strategy? (page 22)
- The Legal Consumer Has Changed – Are You Keeping Up? (page 28)
- CRM: Energizing Your Law Firm’s Marketing Strategy (page 49)
If you are a practice management savant, you will find plenty of other interesting articles in this issue – from courtroom strategies to legal and financial issues to life outside the office. Speakers from the May 2019 AAML/BVR National Divorce Conference offer reasons to bring your financial expert to mediation (page 32), tips on how to cross-examine an expert witness who has used the transactions method to value a business (page 34), and six key takeaways on the TCJA and alimony (page 48).
Since the practice of law is innately stressful, this issue also offers two articles to help you care for your physical and mental health: “Take a Trip to Texas” (page 40) and “7 Meditation Techniques to Increase Productivity & Reduce Stress” (page 42).
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