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Profit First: Hiring Your First Associate Is Law Firm Rocket Fuel

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If you’re a solo attorney – whether that’s a true solo (just you & no team) or a solo, with non-attorney staff help – it’s definitely a scary proposition to hire your first attorney .  Some solo lawyer s , in fact, never do it .  They just can’t get past the fear .  But, if you can make that hire, and make it successfully, that’s like adding lighter fluid to the fire of law firm growth.   Since law practice is a service industry, that means that you need people putting in hours, in order to make money .   If you’re a solo, the ‘people’ of which I speak are: ‘you ’.   Without attorney staff, who can bill on your behalf, your income is limited to what you yourself can bill.  And, that’s a fairly low ceiling.  But, if you can bring one other attorney into the mix, and generate a certain amount of work for that lawyer – you can calculate a profit margin: by defining what you pay that person, and what they can bill out .  Since attorneys bill more than any other employee you
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Giant Steps: Raising Your Rates Doesn’t Always Have to be a Big Move

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I feel like I can safely say that – even though I have no idea what your rates are .  In my experience, most law firm rates are far too low .  That’s especially true if you bill hourly .  Hourly rates for attorneys don’t even keep up with inflation.   But, maybe you already knew that .  And, perhaps you may even really want to raise your hourly rates .   Though, you may also be thinking: I haven’t done that in quite some time , so I have to make a huge change , in order to make up for that .  And, that is where you would be wrong.     Smaller, incremental increases to hourly rates, can be massively impactful – plus, they won’t send up alarm bells for legal consumers (including your existing clients, if you don’t want to grandfather them in) .     So, let’s say you raise your rates by just $25/hour .  If you ca n bill & collect 1500 hours each year, you just created $37,500 in new revenue, literally out of thin air .  You’re not doing anything different; and, y
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Evenflow: AI is Great for Building Workflows

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Artificial intelligence has fast become a fact of modern life – as it has perhaps been adopted more widely, more quickly, than any previous technology .  Yet, lots of attorneys still haven’t had any substantive experiences with AI, to date .  But, the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of use cases for AI, in law practice; so, it may be easier to get started, than you think.   One such use case, that artificial intelligence tools excel at, is project management .  Lots of business owners, including law firm owner s, tend to struggle with managing large projects – whether that’s building an administrative process, or optimizing a case workflow .  Now, if that is an issue for you, in your law practice: AI may offer a solution point.     If you want to build out step-by -step work flows , simply ask a generative AI tool (like ChatGPT, or Google Gemini, or Claude), to do it for you .  Make your request in natural language .  Then, because you’re able to iterate with a ge
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