"It Has To Be Me" and Other Myths in Law Firms

If you want to grow your law firm and be able to step away from it when you want or only handle the cases you want to handle then you need to change the way you think about your law firm. In today’s episode we are going to look at how to change your mindset about what your law firm has to be in order to allow it to transform into what you need it to be.  In this episode we discuss: Adjusting your belief system about who is supposed to do what in your law firm. Clients hiring you as the lawyer versus hiring the law firm. How your marketing message can be shifted to direct a client to a better or different option. How ego can drive how you decide to create and structure your business. How hiring additional attorneys can enhance your law firm’s skill set and strengths. Letting go of the fear of having another person do some of the work. Contact Info: SOCIAL LINKS & Contact Info -  Scheduler:  https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor  Bio: Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Wall Township, New Jersey.  She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney, and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law. Ms. Williams is a member of the New Jersey Board on Attorney Certification (NJBAC) – Matrimonial Committee, a New Jersey Supreme Court committee that determines eligibility of candidates to be certified as a recognized practitioner in the field of matrimonial law. Ms. Williams has been named a Rising Star Attorney by the New Jersey Super Lawyers franchise continuously from 2008 – 2013, and has been named a Super Lawyer by that organization for 2014 – 2019. In 2016, she was featured in the Super Lawyers publication (Williams v. The Rubber Stamp), she has been named one of the Top 50 Women Super Lawyers in New Jersey from 2017-2019 and in 2019, was voted in the Top 100 Super Lawyers in the State of New Jersey. Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.  In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University. In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers.  She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money.  Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.  She received her B.S., magna cum laude, and her M.S., summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She received her J.D., cum laude, from Syracuse University College of Law.  Snip-Its: 00:15:42 - About 50 Seconds OK, what I said to her was this, I believe lawyer that you believe this, that people come for you, and I believe that many people do come to a law firm for you. But I also believe that because you believe this, that you structure your business in a certain way. You communicate about your law firm in a certain way. Your marketing messages are characterized in this certain way. You speak to your clients about their cases in a certain way. You hire people to facilitate work in your law firm with this certain way in mind. Listen, people want what they want, until you show them that there is something better for them to want. So here's an example of that. 00:15:45 – About 57 Seconds If you have a desire for something greater than yourself and you are driven toward that ego gratifying activity, that's what makes brilliant trial lawyers. Right? I don't know any of them that do it for their health or do it for... Some of them do it for the contribution, but right there, there's also a very real ego component that goes along with it. So you have that desire to create. And as you create in your business and as you create in your profession, your ego is stroked. Ok. The ego stroking that comes from being the lawyer is a certain amount. It is a much bigger ego stroke to have a large entity of other people who are also exceptional, doing things alongside you, and only have that opportunity because you created what you created.