Trial by Fire: Lawyers Don't Have to Be Perfect, When It Comes to Business Management

Running a business, really, is conducting one big experiment.  You’re continually testing hypotheses, and seeing whether they work.  You need to make frequent adjustments, to tweak things, for the better.  You could say that a business owner is like a scientist – perhaps a less glamorous analogy would be that it’s like owning an old car, that you constantly have to fix. 

 

In any event, no successful business owner has a perfect record.  Though, that’s not a bad thing, necessarily.  Making mistakes, iterating on them, and improving – is basically what business owners do. 



Of course, that can be a difficult thing for law firm business owners to get their heads around.  That’s because most of them are lawyers – and lawyers are trained to be perfect, to never make mistakes, with the ever-present threat of an ethics claim hanging over their heads.  But, running a business is not practicing law.  It’s okay to make mistakes – in fact, it’s encouraged.  So, if you’re a lawyer trying to run a business, you almost need to bifurcate your risk-averse and risk-taking sides between the roles of lawyer and business owner.  Obviously, that’s difficult to do.  But, if you can manage the trick – you can crush it, in both aspects of your personal life. 

 

If you’re looking for inspiration on this score, check out this podcast, where an actual lawyer admits to making mistakes, and talk about how it benefitted him, and his practice. 

 

. . . 

 
And, if you’re looking for a boost for your business management – just reach out, and contact us! 

Through a unique partnership between the bar association and Jared Correia's Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, National Creditors' Bar Association members have access to experienced law practice management consultants at a special discount rate.

To get started, visit Red Cave's NCBA landing page, and start running your law practice like a business.

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