#273: Elevate Your Law Practice

Elevate Your Law Practice

How does your law practice feel?

Hard?

Scary?

Anxious?

Nauseous?

Easy?

Calm?

Peaceful?

Joyful?

Pick one that feels the most predominant.

This feeling you have in your body right now comes from what you’re thinking about your law practice.

Remember this feeling because I’m going to tie this together in a second.

Think of your law practice as a house.

The foundation of the house needs to be solid, steady and level.

If it’s not, the walls will be crooked or not stand up at all. The roof will have gaps between it and the walls, so rain will leak inside the home.

The foundation makes the difference between a house that can be passed from generation to generation for hundreds of years versus a house that needs to be torn down next week.

That feeling you noticed at the beginning of this episode? That feeling you have is the foundation you’re building your law practice on.

Some of you are feeling pretty good right now because you know you’re on a path where you can see a vision for your practice in the next one to three years.

But there are others of you that might feel anxious, a bit worried, or feel overwhelmed.

I want you to know that’s okay.

Just because you feel that way doesn’t mean that you can’t turn your practice around.

And it doesn’t take tearing your practice down to address the foundation. Your law practice is not like a house in that way. You and your practice are a lot more flexible and malleable than a house.

In this episode, I’m going to walk you through how you can begin to think about what kind of foundation you want to build moving forward.

When I was thinking about this episode, I had law practice owners in mind, but if you don’t own your own law practice, I want you to listen in. Because the questions I ask you to help you elevate your law practice apply to you too.

You can change how you decide to practice the law moving forward.

This episode is just the starting point. I’m diving even deeper in my new Masterclass.

It’s called, “Elevate Your Law Practice: A Mindset Reset for Sustainable Growth.”

You can sign up for it at dinacataldo.com/elevate

In this Masterclass, I’m giving you the one-two punch of Mindset and Strategy to help you make your vision for your practice reality.

You’re going to get:

The mindset you need to break through the noise and create a pinpoint focused plan of action to make your vision reality.

How to prioritize actions in your plan to achieve your vision with more ease and less stress.

The game-changing mindset tip to help you take  sustainable action instead of hustling to make your vision reality.

You’re going to learn how to think about problems in your practice, so you can pivot to move closer to your vision. (This is something no one teaches us and lawyers desperately need.)

I’m also giving you the 3 questions you MUST ask yourself weekly to keep moving closer to your vision.

And when you show up LIVE, I have a special bonus I’m giving to action-takers. I love rewarding action-takers!

Designed to give you insight into your current mindset and to help you design a vision for where you want your practice to go — “22 Essential Questions to Grow Your Law Practice” is the cherry on top of this Masterclass as you take your practice to the next level.

And I’ll tell you how to get your hands on this beauty when you show up LIVE at the Masterclass on Friday, August 25th.

You can only get this special bonus when you show up live, so make sure you mark your calendars now.

Elevate Your Law Practice is happening August 25th at 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern.

Plan to spend 90 minutes with me and be prepared to focus. During our time together, you’re going to get what you need to up level your practice.

Sign up at dinacataldo.com/elevate

I love creating these Masterclasses for you, and this is gonna be so good.

Can’t wait to see you there.

Alright, let’s dive into this episode.

This episode is actually a slice of the Masterclass that will help you get some insight and perspective into what you want for your practice.

When you sign up for the Masterclass, I’m going to give you a Guide that will help you take notes, and the questions I’m going to pose here are going to be inside of it.

If you want these questions and you’re not in a place to take notes, you can sign up for the Masterclass, and the Guide will have all of these questions in one place for you.

You can sign up and get the Guide when I send it out at dinacataldo.com/elevate

The first question you’ve already answered for yourself, which is how does your law practice feel right now?

Remember your answer? Good.

No matter what you answered, these questions will give you clarity on the vision you want to create for your practice.

Visions are the guidepost. It’s from what we make all our decisions.

It’s the destination we currently have, and from it we build the map to get there.

This destination is always moving, and that’s one of the reasons you must attend the Masterclass, so you can build the best map possible for yourself.

I like to think about my vision 1 year and 3 years out.

There’s always something I can implement immediately to get me closer to the vision, but there will be long term actions you want to know about now, so you aren’t wondering why you’re not hitting your goals.

When you decided to be a lawyer, you knew you’d need to wait at least three years for the vision to become reality and that there were steps to get there. There was a map.

When you know the destination, that map is much easier to build and tweak along the way.

In this episode, think about you vision 3 years out, and then you can work backwards to decide what you want to implement now to be closer to your vision in one year.

That’s what I do.

Here’s the next question: How do you WANT to feel in your practice in 3 years? Brainstorm.

Do you want to feel at ease? Composed? Graceful? Grateful? Present?

Do you want to feel empowered? Confident? Organized?

If you had to choose ONE word to describe your practice in 3 years, what would it be?

Now describe for yourself what that word means to you and the way you’re practicing law.

For example, if your one word is ease, how are you and your law practice different?

Do you have more or better systems? Are you taking 3 days off a week? Are you less involved in your law practice?

Take some time and think through this question.

When I work with my clients, I have the opportunity to talk to them about what they think will be different, which is often NOT different at all.

They’ll say something like, “Well, if I my practice felt peaceful, then that means I wouldn’t be litigating cases or I’d have a different employee.”

I can be there to question thoughts like that, and I want you to do the same for yourself here.

If you want your practice to feel peaceful, you don’t necessarily need to stop litigating. What really needs to happen is how you think about and communicate with opposing counsel, clients and the courts. Litigating actually doesn’t have to feel stressful or overwhelming.

And whether you decide to litigate or not in the future doesn’t mean there won’t be other challenges in your practice that may initially feel stressful or overwhelming until you think them through.

Same goes for employees. Yes, your employee may not be the one for you, but it may also be that you haven’t learned the skills to lead your employee. You haven’t learned the skills to have difficult conversations with them or to track what they’re doing inside your business. Maybe you haven’t learned the skills to manage your time, so that you can have weekly meetings with them to touch base.

We’ll have another question that addresses what you may need to implement to achieve your vision, but I wanted to bring this into your awareness because we tend to think things are going to be better in the future being present with what is and addressing what is FIRST BEFORE making the change we want for the future.

Next question: Why do you want it to feel that way?

Why do you think it doesn’t feel that way right now?

Don’t let your brain tell you that you don’t know the answers to any of these questions. If you had to guess, why do you think?

If you answered that it doesn’t feel that way because of what other people are doing and how other people impact your practice in one way or another, I want you to ask yourself this:

What if you couldn’t change them? What would you need to change about yourself or the way your law practice is structured for you to make your vision reality? This is another way of saying, “what would you need to implement to achieve your vision?”

Here are some examples depending on the vision you have for yourself. None of these are mandatory. They’re just a starting place for you to get creative. Take time to brainstorm this on your own.

Some examples include:

• yearly planning including vacation dates
• What kind of self-care do I want to make a non-negotiable?
• Hiring an assistant
• Designing systems
• Getting additional trainings. Get specific: what trainings do you think would be helpful in achieving your 3 years vision for your practice?
• Re-training your assistant
• Hiring a coach to give you a fresh perspective on your practice and yourself.
• Taking classes to teach you how to use your case management system more effectively
• Checking where you or any of your employees aren’t billing accurately
• Creating a marketing plan and placing it on your calendar
• Creating time to work on your business
• That may mean delegating more, so you can make that time or letting go of a habit that doesn’t serve you
• Creating boundaries
• Having difficult conversations with staff you’ve been putting off

This is your opportunity to get creative.

When you look at this list, it may seem like a lot.

That’s okay.

You have 3 years to implement this.

Not all of it needs to be done right now.

For each item there will be decisions you’ll want to make.

For example, if you want to hire an associate, you’ll want to think through bonuses and pay structures, how you’ll track their time, how much time will they need to put into your business to make them worth hiring, what you need in an associate, what your associate will need to be successful. You see where I’m going here?

That’s why this is a 3 year plan and not a next month plan.

When I do this exercise with clients, I help them prioritize and break down the decisions they’ll want to make within each task.

Here’s a few more questions to ask yourself:

What is currently working for you in your law practice?

Which of those things you’re currently doing will NOT work in 3 years and why?

For example, if you’re currently relying on deadlines and dread to fuel your work, that’s not sustainable. You’ll need a solution to that problem before you can achieve your vision of a peaceful practice.

Which of these things that will NOT work in your practice in 3 years do you want to focus on shifting now? Is there one that you can see will have a domino effect on your quality of life and the quality of work you do within your practice?

These are questions you may never have considered before, so you’ll want to set aside time to think through each of these questions.

I will say that learning how to prioritize is something a lot of lawyers struggle with, so I’ll give you this tip.

Which 3 items on your list of tasks you need to implement to achieve your vision would have the biggest bang for your buck if you did them this week?

You don’t have to do them this week, but these will be the ones you want to implement first.

These usually look like having conversations or sending out billing you’ve been putting off, delegating work you know you don’t need to be doing, and making time for yourself to think about your law practice’s needs long-term.

Now ask yourself, if there were ONE thing I could do on that list that I think will set me up for achieving my 3 year goal with more ease, what might that be?

For me, it’s been asking for help whether that’s from fellow attorneys, coaches or friends.

For you it may be something different.

If you’re looking at your vision or your list, and it feels far away, I want you to know that’s normal.

Remember, we’re creating a lasting vision for your practice 3 years out.

Some of what you described will be implemented sooner than 3 years. You just want to create a vision that will help you stay focused. It’s the destination, and you’re building the map step by step.

From that vision, you’re then working backwards to create what you can create in one year. That’s your yearly goal.

If you want to create a solid vision for your law practice and a map that gets you there, let’s work together to create it and implement it.

This is work I do with my clients looking to grow their practice in a way that feels fulfilling and doable. In a way that expands them and allows them to take care of themselves.

We do the foundational work of helping them manage their current caseloads and employees, so they can grow their practice with the confidence that their practice will grow stronger and stronger.

We address their beliefs about marketing and what that might look like for them in their specific practice area as well as talk through their messaging.

We uncover any blindspots they have in their practice and problem-solve for it.

If this sounds like something you want to create for your law practice, book a Strategy Session with me.

We’ll talk through where you are now and where you want to be. You and I will also create a strategy moving forward. Once we do, you get to decide where you want to go from there.

You can book a Strategy Session with me at dinacataldo.com/strategysession

Hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and I’ll talk to you next week.

Bye.