The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

You know what they say: good people are hard to find.  And, if you run a business, you know that it’s true.   The most difficult hurdle to law firm growth is staffing up.  Managing people is definitely tough; but, so is hiring the right people in the first place.  The good news is that hiring well can be a learned skill, too, just like becoming a good manager.   If you’ve never hired before, or screwed it up in the past, here are some tips for  getting it right the first time  . . .  or the next time:   - Build a candidate profile.   Most lawyers just draft a job description (or have someone else do it), and that’s that.  But, that doesn’t give you  a  complete picture of  what  you  want ; it’s just a snapshot of what you  need .  You’re more likely to find the perfect candidate  i f you have a notion of what that person looks like.  Drill down to specifics. ...

You’ve heard the phrase often from busy lawyers, law firm owners particularly: ‘If only I could clone myself’.  It’s wishful thinking; but, it gets to the heart of the one barrier to law firm expansion that you can’t fake: In order to grow your business, to scale it . . . you  have to  hire.   Of course, that’s a hard thing to do, especially for solos, who’ve never had an employee before, or who have only used contractors previously.   Lawyers, even lawyers who have started their own businesses, tend to be highly risk-averse.  They crave safety, surety, over all else.  But, there’s not a whole lot of surety in expanding a business.  And, that’s mainly why it’s so difficult for attorneys to move forward on this score.   Since most law firms bill on an hourly basis, the only way to increase your revenue beyond a certain point is to increase the numbers of hours you can bill, and there are only two ways to do that: become more effi...