You hear it a lot in movies. The characters are having problems. Zombies are crashing through the gate. The bad guys are coming to take their stuff, and everything looks hopeless. Someone wants to give up and someone else says, “C’mon, we can do this. We’ll figure it out.”
And somehow, they almost always do. Although that might not happen until the next season.
There’s a lesson in less. No matter what you’re going through, whether you’re struggling to bring in business, your clients aren’t paying your bill, or a herd of zombies is coming at you, you just keep going.
Whatever the problem, action is the cure.
You can think. You can research. You can pray. You can ask others for help or advice. But at the end of the day, those zombies aren’t going to cut off their own heads.
Of course, building a law practice is very much like fighting zombies.
When I opened my own practice, I rented an office from an attorney who had an extra room in his suite in Beverly Hills. It was expensive but I had big plans and needed to look like I had something going on. Unfortunately, I didn’t. I had trouble paying the rent.
But I kept going.
After a while, I moved to another office closer to where my prospective clients lived. The rent was cheaper and gave me more breathing room. More time to keep going. And I did.
I continued to struggle and eat peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, but eventually I was doing better and got my own suite of offices.
It took years but I made it.
Some of my success came from improving my legal skills. Even more came from learning how to market my services. But most of my success came because I didn’t quit.
I had problems. I made mistakes. I lost money. Hell, in my first year I had to appear at a state bar hearing (without representation) to explain to a panel how I wasn’t violating ethical rules by running ads offering to pay referral fees to attorneys. (The law had just changed to allow this and when I pointed out that I was abiding by the rules, I won the case.)
No matter where you are right now, keep going. Nobody’s coming to rescue you. But you can get through this. Just keep moving and I promise, you’ll figure it out.
Need clients? Here you go
