The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Broadly speaking, lawyers take on too much.  You know: at work, emotionally.  They’re probably also trying to carry too many grocery bags into the house at one time.  You know how it is.     This, of course, leads to a whole host of problems, including that attorneys have higher incidences of alcohol and drug dependence, as well as depression, than does the general population .  Maybe you already knew that.  But, the fact is that this also has a direct effect on how much a lawyer can make. Hear me out: Because lawyers try to do everything, and to do everything perfectly, they’re also more prone than the general population to take on more work than they need to.  For example, they’re unwilling to delegate, including to paralegal and administrative staff, but also to other attorneys.  That means that lawyers end up being chief cook and bottlewasher, rather than focusing on the high-end work (strategy , client engagement), that they get paid the most for.     That’s why developing proces

Some lawyer s get burned hiring staff, whether it’s legal assistant s , paralegals or other attorneys .  But, just because you miss out once, in trying to hire somebody, doesn’t mean you should give up forever .  There are distinct advantages to bring ing on employees, including increased control over work product + improved revenue generation models.   In my experience, I’ve found that law firms connect on a successful hire (across all employee categories) about 40% of the time .  That may seem like a low number , but it represents about a 50% hit rate, meaning that every other hire should yield a viable staffperson , who’ll stay on between 3-5 years – which is not too bad, in the modern economy.     Putting that into baseball terms, which folks often do when trying to rationalize failure : your hiring batting average as a law firm, is about equivalent to Ted Williams’ 1941 season , when he was the last baseball player to hit .400 over a full seasons . . . over 80 years ago.