You don’t have to look far for opportunities to apply creativity in a law practice. If you’re itching to put your risk-taking abilities to the test and try on something totally different, start by focusing on one of these 8 pressure points. You know they are already creaking at the seams. Why not charge them up with a totally
new approach before they totally collapse?
Don’t wait. . . .innovate!!
Your desk. Just look at it! If you’re like 99 and 44/100ths of the legal profession, you have either piles of files or carefully filed piles all over your office. Do you long sentimentally for the forgotten color of your carpeting as you wade each morning through the shallows of your office? How do you even keep track
of what’s going on at your desk, let alone in your client’s business? Isn’t there some other way. . . .some elegantly simple solution to this catastrophe? Who might you involve in helping to re-invent it?
(sigh) that e-mailbox. How many hours do you spend each day scrolling through the detritus in order to find any messages that really matter? How many aerobic points to you rack up each week through the mere act of sighing repeatedly about that pile of . . . . um . . . spam that has become your inbox? This is not an unsolvable puzzle. But it’s going to take some real smarts to outfox it – the kind of smarts you bring to the table.
Client communications. How can you ensure that your clients feel they have timely and ample access to you while, at the same time, staying in control of your own life? What new mechanism can you put into place that will carve out some peace. . . as well as peace of mind for you? Explore every assumption ‘til you hit on the one(s) that no longer apply!
Collections. Well, actually. . . . maybe this area isn’t so much crying out for innovation as it is for improvement. Develop a rational process and STICK TO IT with no exceptions!! Eureka, there’s an innovation: Consistency!
Meetings. With clients. With your partners. With the lawyers you supervise. Your assistant. Admit it: they are a catastrophe. A mind- and money-suck in every day. No one arrives on time. The people who show up are the wrong ones. There’s tons of talking but nothing is ever really accomplished. There has to be another way, right? Figure it out. Or, better yet, hold a meeting to figure it out. ☺ Your last!
Fees. Beyond the Billable Hour: An Anthology of Alternative Billing Methods. Win-Win Billing Strategies: Alternatives that Satisfy your Clients and You. It seems as if someone has already innovated in this area,
doesn’t it? (His name was Richard C. Reed and he wrote the book(s).) Well, if he truly had. . . successfully innovated . . . would you still be using the same old 1-hour = 1-price routine? Take the problem apart and start from scratch. For you, there must be a more right answer.
Support Staff. Perhaps we’re still thinking wa-a-a-ay too far inside the box on this one. What sort of support are we talking about? Who does what? How much of that is necessary and how much is just traditional? Is it necessarily a staff responsibility? Must he/she be physically in your office? Must *you* be physically in your office? Who says you have to have support staff at all? Oh. Yeah. That same guy who said you have to charge for your work by the hour. I see.
Business Development. Chances are, you’re over thinking this one. Nearly everyone does. Stop assuming that the best answer to the question “How can I get more work?” is the most complex one. It’s simple. Just find people who pay lawyers to do the kind of work you want to do. Better yet, (and more innovative!) find something people would LOVE to pay a lawyer to do, but they just didn’t know that lawyers did “that”. Now you’ve really got something: A lock on the market!
Merrilyn:
Oh COME now!! Overdue for innovation? In a culture that thrives on precedent! You are putting the fox amongst the chickens...
But seriously, organisms must change to survive..Darwin taught us that...they must respond to the changing environment.
And the environment has never undergone such change! The internet, the growth of new competitors, the geographic, demographic, generational, technological and philosophical differences are just a few!
Encouraging lawyers to change and innovate? Oh sure you will get a few to respond..but Might you try to move the Rock of Gibraltar instead?
Cheers!
Dave
Posted by: David J. Bilinsky | June 06, 2008 at 12:16 AM