How To Make It Rain

Small Law Firm Management Tip: Bank's screw-up so you have to watch your money!

(Part 1 of 3) Here I'm about to go to Wachovia to resolve a problem with money missing from my law firm operating account. It pays to look at your cash position and law firm bank reconciliations. Go ahead & pay a bookkeeper to do the grunt work, sure. But looking at his or her reports is not only smart business, it helps you sleep much better at night so you can be a happy lawyer. You just cannot expect to build, grow and maintain a profitable law practice otherwise. In the next video in this series I'll share some tips about how to calculate the cost of running your own small law firm. To get it go ahead & register for the ezine now You like it? Want to get more like it? Go ahead and submit your application for the upcoming Mastermind Meeting in Chicago exclusively for solo lawyers and equity owners of small law firms.

Great, Free Virtual Assistance Services

OK, well maybe "free" could be open to misinterpretation.  Perhaps, Great, PROFITABLE Virtual Assistance Services would me more accurate.  Or maybe just "Why you're a jerk if you don't get yourself some help!" would be more appropo.  Let me explain. . .

I was first introduced to the whole concept of hiring a virtual assistant when I read Tim Ferris' book "The 4 Hour Workweek" like everyone else.  And I experimented with the $2/hour VA's in India, then moved up to the $5 VA's in other parts of the world.  Then finally I met @LauraLeeSparks back in 2006 who FINALLY taught me how to make PROFITABLE use of a VA.

So here are a list of just SOME of the things my current $25/hour VA accomplished for me last week when I made that post

1. Organized a Mastermind Meeting in Chicago
2. Fielded about a dozen calls for me to coordinate schedules and keep me profitably booked.
3. Tracked down a person I was trying to meet in order to schedule us for a call "Hello this is MJ calling for RJon Robins" seems to go over better than "Hi this is me, can we talk?"
4. Found me a new accountant.  Interviewed several.  Made recommendation.  Hired, managed provided everything he needed, hounded me for answers to his questions and is now paying him for me and making sure we get our returns back.
5. Prepared cash-flow projections for my review.
6. Initiated refund request for $200 sitting in elance escrow since 2007
7. Prepared & sent bill for $1,500 for some expert witness work I did LAST YEAR.
8. Nagged the shit out of me until I finally gave her some answers she needed in order to give some people the answers they needed from me that I've been dragging my feet on b/c I really don't want to do the work but I should still give them an answer
9. Handled EVERYTHING to do with my billings except final approvals

So let's see, at $25/hour and if you want to disregard all the "makes my life easier because that's crap I hate to do" type of tasks we're still talking about more than $1,700 in actual CASH which pretty much paid for her services and the rest was FREE.

Now, why do I say you're a jerk if you don't get yourself some help?  Because that's exactly how I felt every week knowing I had that money sitting out there but I was just too busy or it was too tedious to get around to collecting.  Not to mention that I am in such a better mood having all this off my plate that I am able to be a happier person for myself and my friends & family.

If you would like to learn more about how to find, screen, train, supervise and turn a profit on a virtual assistant be sure to sign up for my ezine and keep an eye out for a teleseminar on that topic if we get enough interest. 

Half the chairs are now spoken for. And I don't want you to miss out!

The first time I was in Chicago was in the year 2000 for the Association of Legal Administrators international conference.  That event attracted something like 3,000 professional legal administrators from around the World.  Not only was it an amazing learning experience for me to have early in my career it was also SO MUCH FUN that I have always had a special place in my heart for the Windy City.

So I will be returning to Chicago on July 26 & 27th to conduct a Mastermind Meeting & Coaching Strategy Session for a very limited number of solos & owners of small law firms.   

This will be designed to help you identify previously-overlooked opportunities for growth & improvement of your small law firm both in terms of financial performance and to make it even more FUN for you to be a lawyer! 

You will have the unique chance to have your law firm taken-apart and then see how we can put it all back together so as to:

• Increase your revenues
• Increase profits on those revenues
• Attract more clients
• Attract better clients
• Enhance your clients' experience so you can enjoy premium fees
• Identify systems & procedures to reduce attorney-stress
• Squeeze-out profits from your website in ways that might surprise you
• Identify your ultimate "exit strategy"
• Leverage staff more effectively based on "best practices" in  other small law firms around the Country
• And just generally get a Totally Unfair Competitive Advantage in your local market & practice area.

There is no restriction on practice area or years in practice.  But in order to be accepted you must be an equity owner of your law firm.  If you're a solo this is obviously the case.

To request an application send an email to MJ@HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com with the words "Mastermind Chicago" in the subject line

Due to the short notice, I will waive the fee this time around but you will be expected to cover your own expenses.  Details will be provided when you request your application.

Applications will be accepted until I feel we have the right "mix" for what I want to accomplish with this event.  If you miss-out on this one, your application will be held and you will be given priority-advance status the next-time-around.  That will likely be in or around Miami sometime in the Winter.

Hope to see you in the Windy City!

RJON

Creative Law Firm Billing Strategies Give Us An UNFAIR Competitive Advantage

If you like this kind of thing be sure to subscribe to my newsletter today!

What I Wish I Knew Then That I Know Now!

I Need Your Help!  I have been inundated with inquiries from lawyers seeking to open their own law firms.  And some of them are doing all the right things and have the right ideas about it.  But others are  woefully unprepared & worse, unrealistic about it.

So I've decided to create a totally FREE resource for them.  But I need your help to do it.  Let me explain. . .

If you are a solo lawyer or if you are the founding equity owner of your own small law firm I want to interview you.  Your name & identifying information will be edited-out to protect your privacy if you so choose.  I will ask you a little about yourself, your background etc. and then I will ask you to list the top ten things you wish you knew about opening your own law firm then, that you know now.

This will be given away for FREE to help others avoid the mistakes we made.  In other words to do for others what we all wish someone had taken the time to do for us when we were going solo.

If you are amenable to being interviewed please send MJ an email with "What I Wish I Knew Then" in the subject line together with a few of the best dates & times for you in the next week and she'll get us set up for a telephone appointment (MJ@HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com.)  Be sure to specify your time zone~!

And as a way to say THANK YOU for helping me help them, I'll give you a couple of months FREE Membership in my Gold Mastermind & Coaching Program (normally $497/month - and WORTH IT, I might add!)

I PROMISE I'll make it FUN for you!

Also, be sure to sign up for the ezine for updates on the status of this worthwhile project.

Thanks,

RJON

Exclusive Mastermind Meeting & Strategy Session

The first time I was in Chicago was in the year 2000 for the Association of Legal Administrators international conference.  That event attracted something like 3,000 professional legal administrators from around the World.  Not only was it an amazing learning experience for me to have early in my career it was also SO MUCH FUN that I have always had a special place in my heart for the Windy City.

So I will be returning to Chicago on July 26 & 27th to conduct a Mastermind Meeting & Coaching Strategy Session for a very limited number of solos & owners of small law firms.   

This will be designed to help you identify previously-overlooked opportunities for growth & improvement of your small law firm both in terms of financial performance and to make it even more FUN for you to be a lawyer! 

You will have the unique chance to have your law firm taken-apart and then see how we can put it all back together so as to:

• Increase your revenues
• Increase profits on those revenues
• Attract more clients
• Attract better clients
• Enhance your clients' experience so you can enjoy premium fees
• Identify systems & procedures to reduce attorney-stress
• Squeeze-out profits from your website in ways that might surprise you
• Identify your ultimate "exit strategy"
• Leverage staff more effectively based on "best practices" in  other small law firms around the Country
• And just generally get a Totally Unfair Competitive Advantage in your local market & practice area.

There is no restriction on practice area or years in practice.  But in order to be accepted you must be an equity owner of your law firm.  If you're a solo this is obviously the case.

To request an application send an email to MJ@HowToMANAGEaSmallLawFirm.com with the words "Mastermind Chicago" in the subject line

Due to the short notice, I will waive the fee this time around but you will be expected to cover your own expenses.  Details will be provided when you request your application.

Applications will be accepted until I feel we have the right "mix" for what I want to accomplish with this event.  If you miss-out on this one, your application will be held and you will be given priority-advance status the next-time-around.  That will likely be in or around Miami sometime in the Winter.

Hope to see you in the Windy City!

RJON

It's not your imagination. There really are forces at work against your success. . .

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

 

-        Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)

   26th President of the United States

Normally I tend to try & keep my distance from the crowd of lawyers and so-called "gurus" who feel compelled to make excuses for their unwillingness to do what is necessary or tell you in plain simple terms what is necessary to generate a lot of business for a law firm. 

Actually, in the case of the lawyers I may forgive them because in-truth, there are a lot of forces at work to try and keep that information hidden from you (us).  Not least of which are the so-called "gurus" who profit (at least in the short-term) by keeping you in the dark and the news media in general.  But more about that later.

Just this week I was on the line with my latest Gold Coaching & Mastermind Group and in the space of under two hours we uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars of new business opportunities for our Members.  And it wasn't by using some new and complicated technology.  Or by revealing some complex mystical "secret."  Instead we simply employed some good old-fashioned THINKING & CREATIVITY to solve the problem. 

Yes, we dared a mighty thing. . .we dared to think!

So about the forces at work to prevent you from winning your glorious triumphs. . . let's just take a quick and admittedly incomplete inventory as I don't have time at the moment to make a more complete inventory for you.  So howabout I just get you started and leave you to think some more on it:

First Of All The Law Schools - I don't know about you but despite something like 4,000 hours of education, my law school curriculum did not address anything about how to manage a small law firm, how to market a small law firm, how to manage a lawyer's trust account, client billing strategies, law practice management skills & techniques, etc. etc.   So is it any wonder then that in the face of alumni who aren't exactly enjoying a huge ROI on the cost of tuition, the law school industry is happy to let the general economy take the blame? 

FACT: 5% of the lawyers you graduated with, who also learned bubkis in law school about how to manage a law practice and how to market a law firm are making ALOT more money and having ALOT more fun than the other 95%.

Secondly State Bar & Local Bar Association's - Until very recently you hardly ever saw a CLE program about law practice management or law firm marketing.  Of course now they're all jumping on the band's wagon. 

But where were they ten years ago? 
Why weren't they teaching this stuff back when times were better so as to insulate and protect their Members for a rainy day? 
Could it be your State Bar or local Bar Association leaders were unaware that there is such a thing as an "ecomonic cycle"?  Were they too busy making speculative real estate investments of their own to look-up and try and adjust course for the educational curricula so as to help protect their Members?

Their current efforts are a little like telling you to put on your seatbelt after they have crashed the car you're riding in.  FACT: 60% of the Members of your State Bar are solos or practicing in small law firms with five or fewer lawyers and what happens to small law firms during cyclical economic downturns is as preventable as it is predictable.  So much so that lawyers who are prepared and know how to take advantage are doing GREAT.  And it's not too late for you too!


Thirdly, The News - I used to be a "newshound".  I used to have subscriptions to multiple papers including the Wall Street Journal, Daily Business Review, my local newspaper and usually I'd at least skim a couple of industry rags too.  But then a funny thing started to happen.  I stared to get busy making money.  And the busier I got, and the more money I made the less time I had to consume the news. 

You know what? 

Not only did the consumption of less "news" NOT adversely affect my income, it positively affected my general sense of well-being and allowed me to be more objective, I think, about what gets reported that is truly news-worthy vs. all the sky is falling bullshit the media thinks they have to keep feeding us to keep us addicted. 

It used to be I felt more "responsible" when I'd read the newspaper.  Sort of like you used to feel when you were a kid sitting at the kitchen table doing your homework.  But not anymore. 

Nowadays the "news" is really just one step above watching "The Real World" or "Survivor" or some other moronic show like that featuring pseudo-celebrities in entirely artificial situations designed to elicit a reaction, any reaction and if they happen to share some useful information that is releveant to my life well then that would be nice too.  So I count the news media in general amongst the forces who apparently have a vested interest in keeping you in a negative mindset instead of motivating you to get out there and do what is neccessary to build your business.

FACT: News media get paid for selling newspapers, or more precisely, ad-space in newspapers (and online).  They don't give a rat's ass about how much money you're making!

OK, gotta get on a scheduled call with a Platinum Member right now.  Will continue this rant later. . .


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IOTA Trust Account Tips That Will MAKE YOU MONEY!

Learn how to ELIMINATE A/R in your small law firm with these IOTA Trust Account Tips That Will MAKE YOU MONEY! Watch this video (>>4:57 mins)

The most DANGEROUS place for a rainmaker to be

An excerpt from an email from a Gold Coaching & Mastermind Group Member. . .

[Regarding where he's been doing his networking & making presentations]

"I figured a lot of people might be interested in hearing this information, including fraternities and sororities, employers (to their employees), chambers of commerce, rotary clubs, and anywhere else people meet."

My Response. . .

"and anywhere else people meet" – Now here’s the part of your question that REALLY worries me.  “Anywhere”.  That’s a dangerous place for a Rainmaker to be.  Because it tends to be populated by “everyone”.  And if your message is calculated to appeal to them, then it’s never going to appeal to “anyone” and certainly not the all-important “someone” who is the individual that will hire you to save their very personal reputation, relationship, job, future, etc.

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Should Lawyers Stop Marketing and Practice Law?

Gerry Oginski is an experienced New York medical malpractice and personal injury who posed this question in a recent blog post

Rather than steal Gerry's thunder I'll suggest that you just follow this link and be sure to scroll down and see my response/comments about the DANGERS of law firm marketing. . . 

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