My friend Steve tells a story about the loss of his uncle at age 58, when Steve was 18 years old. While Steve’s parents were aghast at the tragedy of losing their relative at such an early age, Steve remembers thinking, “what are they talking about, the guy was 58 years old. He had a good run.”
I whine a fair bit about the legal profession. Occasionally someone asks me what I would have done differently if I could go back and start over. Of course, the trite answer is “be an optometrist.” (Some neat things about being an optometrist: (i) you get to wear a white coat; (ii) the hours are fairly regular; (iii) you rarely have to worry about getting sued for prescribing the wrong lenses; and (iv) according to Dr. Google, your average salary will be higher than the average salary of a lawyer.)
The magic of a franchise system is that someone brilliant develops a business system and then documents every step that must be taken to permit someone less capable to follow the system and replicate the results. So, wherever you go in North America, someone much less accomplished than Colonel Sanders can sell you a bucket of chicken that is just as tasty and unhealthy as the original.
In 1639, John Clarke said, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
I go to bed early and like other older folks I can no longer sleep through the night, so I suppose I wake up early. So, I should have it made. But I don’t.
Back when I started practicing law, fax machines were just coming into vogue. This was an extremely useful development, especially since email had not been invented yet.
The timeline for the introduction of fax machines into law offices had two distinct markers.
I am of the opinion that, generally speaking, lawyers are not particularly good businesspeople. I attribute this to the following:
One of the most intelligent lawyers who I ever met tells a story about the early days of her marriage as she adapted to the daily routines of domestic life while balancing the pressures of law school. One of the chores which she attended to every week was defrosting her freezer and throwing out the meat that was past its best before date. Yes, from the freezer. Every week. Then, one day, she was chatting with her mother on the phone and lamented the time and money wasted doing this every week. Her mother’s response was one of incredulous laughter. As my friend tells the story, she simply did not know what she did not know.
On a clear summer day, my father carefully drove his car out of his narrow one-car driveway past the retaining walls on either side and onto the street. He then turned to the right and parked the car in front of our house. Or so he thought.
After he exited the car, he found out the hard way that rather than put the car in park, he had actually left it in reverse. The car retraced the path from whence it had come until it crashed into the retaining wall on one side of the driveway.
Some lawyers are killing it marketing their practice through social media. Some are not. When it comes to marketing, there are different strokes for different folks. This is important for young lawyers to know, because they sometimes look at what the partners are doing to generate business and cannot see themselves doing those things. They do not understand that there is more than one way to win a client.
Abraham Lincoln said, “Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.”
In the many years since, some lawyers have heeded Lincoln’s sage advice, and many have not.