Okay, you (finally) agree that you can’t do it all and that if you want to earn more and not work yourself to death you need to delegate (more).
Where do you start?
You start with the philosophy that you should delegate everything, except “that which only you can do”.
That’s not as much as you might think.
If you have attorneys working for you, start there. Give them as much work as possible.This is clearly a “20% activity that yields 80% of your results”. It’s why the big firms are the big firms. It’s where you can take giant leaps in increasing your income.
If you have business clients, you can still be the “account representative”. You meet with the clients, hold their hands, take them to lunch, and keep them happy. Let your staff attorneys do the grunt work. Okay, you can show up for trial, but only if you must.
If you have a consumer oriented practice, you can meet with the clients on their first appointment and at their last appointment. Let your attorneys and other staff do the rest.
So, job one: if you don’t have attorneys working for you, get some.
If you don’t have enough work to justify that, set this as a goal. Get enough new business coming in to justify hiring your first attorney.
If you don’t want the hassle of hiring and supervising attorneys, set another goal–to bring in enough new business to justify hiring attorneys AND someone to hire and supervise them.
If you have other staff (secretaries, assistants, office managers, HR, IT, bookkeeper, etc.), they’re next. Make sure they are tasked with all other tasks, except two:
(1) Signing checks.
Call me paranoid, or call me a lawyer, but I always made sure that I saw and signed every check issued in my office. Today, with everything digital, you have to be even more careful.
(2) Marketing.
Marketing professionals services is about building relationships and you can’t delegate that. You’ve got to talk to people. Don’t relinquish responsibility for this. It’s the most important thing you do in building a practice, even more important than the legal work.
However. . .
There are many aspects of marketing that can be delegated. Too many to mention here. So get as much help as possible but make sure you have a hand in all of it.
If you don’t have any staff, or enough staff, hire people or outsource. Immediately, if not sooner.
Don’t let the absence of delegatees stop you from delegating.
If you want to get better at delegating, get this
