Today, we look at some of the common mistakes lawyers make when running a law practice. We’re all prone to making these mistakes, but they’re particularly troubling for those of us who practice in smaller firms or on our own. Why? Because most of us work in small firms, so the competition is really fierce. That’s why being effective and efficient is so very important for our success!

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Last week, Karen wrote about the downside and cost of cutting employees and the waste of not optimizing and harnessing the full brainpower and talent everyone on your team. And while that’s certainly a mistake we all want to avoid, the following three are perhaps even more fundamental when you’re looking to up your game and become more productive and profitable.

1. First, stop wearing all the hats. You can't do it all. Identify what you can and should be doing, and delegate what you absolutely should not be doing. Combine the delegation with some easy automation—use macros in Word, or your email signature blocks to create quick templates—and you’re off to the races.
2. Next, focus on the bookends of your legal practice. The most successful law practices onboard clients quickly at the beginning, and then bill and collect efficiently at the end of each file. You can’t afford to ignore them. Ask yourself: “Do I have a consistent process for these critical bookends in my firm?” No matter how good you are at practicing law, if you don't get intake and invoicing right, you're leaving money on the table with every matter you handle. 
3. And finally, you need to bust through the biggest barrier to action…which is not even knowing where to start initiatives to build a more productive and profitable law practice. Maybe you've built workarounds for things that don't work smoothly, or maybe you’re reinventing the wheel every time.

The key is to step back for a moment and look at your practice. Identify something that really frustrates you each and every time you do it, and then ask yourself, “Why, exactly, am I doing it this way? Am I working “smart,” or are there things I could and should do differently?”

Asking WHY you work the way you do will help you SEE your work through fresh eyes. You’ll get to the root causes of different inefficiencies and waste, which will help you identify where you should focus your attention, kickstarting your initiatives to create a more profitable and productive law practice.

80% of lawyers want to change...but most of them won’t. You can distinguish yourself from your competition by getting a few key things right in your law practice. 

If you want to learn more, reserve your seat to join Karen and me for our FREE Masterclass: Three Mistakes Lawyers Make When They’re Running Their Practice…and How You Can Avoid Them. We’ll be taking a deeper dive and teaching you strategies to tackle the three mistakes I mentioned above.

And that’s it for this week’s tip. Join us next week for more on building a profitable and productive law practice.

Thanks a lot everybody! See you next week.