The Happy Lawyer’s Guide to Running Your Firm like a Business (Sponsored)

Look, no one wants to be miserable at their law practice.

It just kinda happens.

Because most attorneys get out of law school wanting to do good and make their mark, especially when hanging their own shingle. Unfortunately, the realities of owning a firm swoop in and make the day-to-day not just challenging, but downright frustrating.

Working Hard, or Hardly Working?

Unfortunately, that old saw holds all too true for many solo and small-firm attorneys. There’s no doubt they work hard; too many just don’t seem to get a lot done without a great deal of stress and doubling back on tasks that didn’t get completed the first go-around.

It’s easy to blame all the typical small-firm hat wearing, distractions, lack of office support, and “not enough hours in the day,” but those are just symptoms to the overall problem that most of them face: they don’t run their practice like a business.

The Cure for the Underearning Blues

Practice management guru and ABA-published author Ann M. Guinn, Principal of G&P Associates in Seattle, teaches attorneys what they don’t learn in law school—how to build and maintain high-earning, client-centered, and satisfying law practices.

“Underearning is about making choices in your law practice – either actively or passively – that cause you and other members of your firm to feel stress about not having enough money,” Ann notes.

But she says there’s always a bright side to every firm’s story: “In my 30-something years in the legal industry, I’ve never met an attorney or law firm that I didn’t believe could make more money.”

And during those years as a successful practice management consultant, she’s seen it all.

Like the attorneys whose offices look like a bad episode of “Hoarders” (but honestly, are there any good episodes?).

Or the attorney who logged his activities for a week and had multiple entries that read “stared out the window.” (Yes, that really happened.)

And plenty more whose biggest mistake was thinking that owning a law firm was about practicing law. Ok fine, of course it is, but it’s just as much about running—and growing—a business.

“Great,” you may be thinking right now. “I operate like a lawyer, too, not a businessman.”

But before you start beating yourself up because you didn’t get that combo JD/MBA your mother kept not-so-subtly mentioning at every holiday meal, take hope.

Because Ann has come up with nine tricks that any attorney—from the new shingle hanger to the seasoned litigator—can use to turn the tide and go from feeling overwhelmed and underpaid to becoming Master of a Profitable Practice.

Free Webinar, and Of Course a T-Shirt

On September 1st from 2-3 p.m. EST, Ann will share her best tactics for running your own successful legal business, including:

• How to craft a vison for your law practice
• How to set billing rates that reflect your true value
• Maximizing existing profit centers—and finding new ones
• Growing your firm, automatically
• Losing those underearning behaviors once and for all
• And more

Those who register (and attend—nice try) will also receive a free “Happy Lawyer” t-shirt, courtesy of the webinar’s sponsor, LexisNexis Firm Manager^® online practice management.

So get off the hamster wheel and start practicing—and earning—like you should.

Sign up for this free September 1st webinar now.

Can’t make it? Sign up anyway and we’ll email you a link to the recording. Sorry, no free t-shirt, though.

The Happy Lawyer’s Guide to Running Your Firm like a Business (Sponsored) was originally published on Lawyerist.