Wisdom from the Eighties

For most of the time I practiced law I kept a clipping from The Lawyers’ Weekly next to my desk. With adjustments for technological change, it’s as true today as it was then, and as true today for any profession or industry. Here’s how it goes:

The 1984 Michigan bar survey in question queried lawyers and law firms all over that state, and “revealed” what most professionals already knew. They found that low earners do not:

* budget
* keep time records
* bill on a regular or interim basis
* take time to detail accounts
* follow up on accounts receivable
* faithfully record office expenses
* have check lists, forms, precedents etc
* use word processing
* use legal assistants

Low earners also:

* do their own filing, banking, mailing, etc.
* file their own court documents

High earners billed at least 1760 hours per year and spent time cultivating the “business” side of the practice.

Forty years later we need to adjust for technology: “Word processing” is now so ubiquitous that the reference is almost quaint. Quaint, that is, except for those dinosaurs who still write it all out by hand and “give it to their girl to type”. Trust me, there are still one or two of these guys around, all too often found in a corner office. And today the old concept of “secretary” has pretty well been replaced by administrators, clerks, and researchers whose roles are much more interesting than “taking dictation”.

Filing? Paper files? Yes, and I could take you right now to a dozen lawyers’ offices where you still need to pick your way from the door to the desk through knee-deep piles of last year’s files waiting to be put away “when we get a chance”. And my informants tell me lawyers aren’t the only ones.

It’s not just technology or management. Not that many years ago one of my older partners bemoaned the changes he’d seen. “It used to be that lots of good work just showed up, but now you really have to hustle for it.” Well, the truth is he began practicing when there weren’t enough lawyers to go around, but those days are long gone. You can sit and wait patiently at your desk a long, long time if you don’t “cultivate the business side” of the practice.

Law, like every other profession, is a business, and if you’re not businesslike, you won’t succeed. But there’s more.

All of the foregoing is about the basics, but if you really want to succeed in law, as in any profession or business, what you need is high-value work, in other words, work which will maximize your value per hour spent at your desk. While efficiencies and good business practices ensure that you’re not losing money, your maximum value comes from getting the kind of work you love to do, at which you excel, and where your reputation acts as a powerful magnet drawing in even more such work. And the best kind, of course, is work which feeds and grows your reputation, a virtuous circle.

More about reputation building and management in coming editions.