Try telling your attorney that they aren’t great at something. I promise it won’t go over well, so I’ll do it for you. Lawyers as a rule are not fantastic at running a business, including the business of law. If you are a lawyer, you’re not either. Don’t take it personally. The issue comes from having to be great at the actual practice of law, then having enough time to focus on running every aspect of the firm. Lawyers too have limitations. We cannot be good at all things.
The biggest firms faced this challenge, and the best and brightest moved to non-lawyer management in the C-Suite. Imagine relying on a CPA as the CFO, and not an attorney with a particular interest in accounting software, or an MBA for marketing rather than the lawyer who presents the best when out with a group. That’s next level management, and it is all the rage in the largest firms.
Those services are available for small firms too. At Poole Huffman, we use CSR as our outside CFO/COO and Robin Hensley, marketing coach, as our CMO. Through those outside consultants, we get the specialty and experience without capsizing payroll.
I’d love to hear about other small law firms’ solutions. Feel free to shoot me an email or LinkedIn message.
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