Small Law Firms: This One is For You

Originally published by Cordell Parvin.

Are you in a small or medium sized law firm? If so you will want to read a report I saw recently:

How Small Law Firms Succeed Under the Pressure of Today’s Challenges … or Fail: 2016 State of U.S. Small law firms Study.  (Note: You have to fill out some information to get the study).

In the study, small law firm leaders identified their top challenges:

1. Challenges acquiring new client business
2. Client rate pressure/clients wanting more for less
3. Spending too much time on administrative tasks

What are the most successful small firms doing differently?

In essence, the study shows that among “lawyer entrepreneurs,” simple goals allow each firm to fill in unique strategies to get there…

It is this same opportunity for entrepreneurship that will likely help position small law for greater growth in the coming years…

By contrast, successful firms are differentiating themselves – building a brand, leveraging it to win
new business, and investing in the firm’s future. Less successful or unsuccessful firms, on the other hand, are instead trying to cut their way to profitability.

If you are a long time regular reader, you know I believe:

1. About 10% of the business out there is “bet the company” and whoever is perceived to be the top lawyer/law firm will get that business.
2. About 30% of the business out there is price sensitive meaning clients will do it themselves or whoever is willing to do it at the cheapest price will get it.
3. About 60% of the work out there will go to lawyers the potential client knows, likes and trusts.

Small firms should be actively seeking that 60%. Attracting those clients is based on building trust based relationships.

When I practiced law, my clients were my friends and my friends were my clients. Recently, Nancy and I were on vacation in Cabo San Lucas. There were five couples. Three were clients from my law practice and the fourth was the brother and his wife of one of those clients.

Tomorrow  Nancy and I will travel to Phoenix where I will begin coaching lawyers in a firm there.

On Saturday, we’ll eat dinner with a lawyer I coached several years ago, her husband and three kids. Every time we go to Phoenix we see them. On Sunday, we’ll eat dinner with, you guessed it, a former client and his wife.

If you are a small firm, are you investing in your firm’s future?  If you are interested, I know I can help develop your next generation of rainmakers.

 

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