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What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team and systems, mastering money issues, and more; then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth-generating law firm? That’s what we do each week on the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. Hosted by Davina Frederick, founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer –– every episode is an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve (and will pay you on time), and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. The goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund, and still have time to enjoy, the lifestyle of your dreams.
Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more. Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams.
Intro:Now here's Devina.
Davina:Welcome or welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. I am your host, attorney Davina Frederick, founder of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, a company that works with women law firm owners to scale their law firm businesses. In our programs, we teach you everything you need to know to build your own wealth generating law firm without burnout. We've been producing the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast for over seven years now, and in that time, we've shared numerous gold nuggets that if you apply them, will transform your law firm. Some were so juicy that I decided to create an episode just to highlight them.
Davina:Let me know if you like this type of content, and I'll create more. First, I downloaded the 12 most popular episodes from the last twelve months, and then I selected a key takeaway from each. On the surface, they may seem disparate, but each applies to some facet of scaling a law firm. So without further ado, let's dive in. Number 12 in our countdown was from episode number three twenty four, the self managing law firm.
Davina:In that episode, I shared the story of a law firm owner we'll call Rebecca. Rebecca owns a personal injury law firm that generates high 7 figures, almost 8, per year. When we met, her team was still running most decisions by her, even though they were well trained. The issue was that she was still the only attorney at her firm. Essentially, she has built a successful wealth generating law firm, but not one that could operate smoothly in her absence.
Davina:In our first meeting, I told her what I've shared with many others. If you can't step away from your business for even a week without everything falling apart, you don't own a business. You own a very demanding, very stressful job. One of the first items on our checklist was to hire another experienced litigator and then another. We wanted to build redundancy in Rebecca's law firm so it could operate daily no matter where she was or what she was doing.
Davina:Rebecca also has other businesses, goals, dreams. She's a true visionary, and she needed the freedom to pursue those desires, fully confident that her law firm would support her lifestyle while also promoting her values. She's passionate not only about helping injured people get the resources they need to move forward after tragedy, but also about giving back to her community as a whole. Rebecca's issue wasn't that she wasn't willing to hire or improve her systems or operate her firm at a higher level. She just wasn't sure what that would look like and how to get there.
Davina:She also needed to realize it was okay if she didn't touch every case running through her firm, that her clients needed a problem solved by a competent legal team, not Rebecca personally. Once she allowed herself to have that moment, everything began to transform, not only in her business, but in her life. The gold nugget is this: If you want to build a wealth generating law firm that can operate smoothly even in your absence and still serve your clients at the highest level, you must be willing to replace yourself with a skilled, trained team. Number 11 in our countdown comes from Episode three thirty one, The Great Wealth Transfer. This episode was about the $84 T transfer that is happening in our country, much of which is moving directly into the hands of women.
Davina:In that episode, I shared that by 2030, women are expected to control a large percentage of private wealth in The United States, up to $30,000,000,000,000 That money has already started moving as the Silent Generation and early Baby Boomers begin to pass away, leaving their assets to their beneficiaries. This wealth is predicted to land disproportionately in women's hands. What does that mean to you as a law firm owner? It means that when those women look for an estate planning attorney, a business attorney, or a family law attorney to handle something delicate and expensive. You could be their top choice, but only if you are visible to them and correctly positioned in the market to target them.
Davina:The gold nugget I'd like you to take away from this episode is to start preparing now to serve these clients because they will need your help. That doesn't just mean up leveling your skills in certain practice areas. Preparing also means being visible so they can easily find you. It means creating a strong marketing message just for this intended audience. You'll know it's highly attractive if it also strongly repels all others.
Davina:Number 10 in our countdown is from episode three fifteen, The Automation Advantage. So much about systems and automation has changed since this episode aired, particularly with the introduction of AI into law firm systems. But the core principle I shared has not. That is while efficiency automation might save you five hours a week, revenue driving automation could generate five new clients a month. Most firms automate the annoying things first.
Davina:The calendar, the intake form, the reminder emails, tasks that improve efficiency. That's all great. And there's so much more opportunity. Consider for a moment this scenario. Picture a firm where 5% of the people who visit the website become clients.
Davina:That's normal. That's most firms. Now add automated nurturing follow-up that happens regardless of whether anybody in your office remembers to do it. In that scenario, 18% of leads could eventually become clients. Same traffic, same website, 3.6 times more clients.
Davina:The gold nugget here is to not just ask yourself, how can I automate my processes to improve efficiency? But how can I automate processes that attract, retain, and convert more clients, and capture more reviews and referrals? Gold nugget number nine comes from Episode three twenty five, How Much Income Should a Law Firm Owner Make? It seems many of you are curious where you fall on the income spectrum for law firm owners. My answer to that in this episode was, there is no right amount for a law firm owner to make.
Davina:There's only what you need to make to live the life you want to live. At first blush, it may appear that you'll make less money if you start hiring and paying other people. Consider this example I shared in that episode. A solo keeping 40% of revenue as profit needs to generate $1,000,000 to take home $400,000 Build a team and systems, and your margin drops to about 30%. So you need roughly $1,350,000 in revenue for that same $400,000 but you are working way less and freeing up more of your personal time.
Davina:Then there's the story of a woman law firm owner client of mine who added $1,000,000 to her revenue in just one year of working with Wealthy Woman Lawyer. At the end of that year, her take home pay from the business almost equaled her total revenue from the prior year. An increase in expenses does not always result in a smaller paycheck for you. In fact, quite the opposite over time. If you plan to own your own firm for years, investment in people and systems always pays off if you do it correctly.
Davina:The key takeaway from this episode is to, one, get clear on exactly what you want, not what others tell you that you should want, and then, two, to do the calculations to determine the likely financial outcome of investment. Most owners have never run the calculation backward from the life they want. They picked a revenue goal because it's what they think they should want. Ask yourself, what does the life you want cost? Not what's comfortable or enough, but what you really want.
Davina:And then ask yourself what you are willing or not willing to do to get there. Number eight on our countdown list is from Episode three twenty three, The $250,000 Mistake. The theme of this episode is, When you charge bargain basement rates, you attract bargain basement clients. Have you ever noticed that the most difficult clients, the ones who needlessly require too much of your time and energy, the ones more likely to file a bar grievance, tend to be the ones who want a good bargain and to negotiate your fees. It's a mistake I see often with women law firm owners, particularly solo attorneys, the tendency to undercharge and overdeliver.
Davina:Often the thoughts that run through our heads when we consent to negotiating our fees are something like, They won't hire me if I don't lower my fees because they think I'm too expensive, or I know how to do this and I can turn it around pretty quickly, or I know the answer. Let me just help them. The issue, of course, is the word I in those sentences. When it's just you, you can choose to do whatever you want. But the minute you begin to hire employees, the equation changes.
Davina:Not only are you throwing yourself under the bus, but you are throwing your team under the bus too. Because when you keep your fees low and your volume high but not high enough, you can't afford raises or bonuses or benefits, not for you or them. When we sit down with new clients and look at their fee structures, it's common to discover that they're undercharging by 30 to 50%. But low fees are not just about leaving money on the table. Your fee is a filter.
Davina:It decides who calls you, how those people treat your paralegal, whether you spend your day on strategy or arguing about a $200 line item, and how many clients you must take on to meet your financial goals. Simply put, raise the fee and you change the client. Change the client and you transform the firm. I know the objections. I've heard them many times before.
Davina:My market won't bear it. My clients can't afford more. Sometimes that's true. Far more often, the fee was set years ago by a version of you with less experience and less confidence, and it has never been revisited because revisiting it means having a conversation with yourself that you would rather not have. The gold nugget in number eight is to start viewing your fees not as fees that you personally would charge for doing the work if you were still operating as a freelance lawyer, but fees that are required to operate your wealth generating law firm optimally.
Davina:Next in our countdown is number seven, based on Episode three fourteen, Hiring Your Way to Freedom. Every woman law firm owner who tells me she can't afford to hire believes she is describing an expense problem when she really is experiencing a control issue. A mentor of mine once told me, Devina, you can control all the details or you can grow, but you cannot have them both. Yikes. That hurt my feelings at the time, but he was totally on the money.
Davina:It's the curse of high achieving women to believe that no one else can do something as well as we can because we know if it's in our control, we will get the job done. The issue is that we don't trust others to do the same. Worse, we try to hire and then blame the employee when we fail to train, lead, or manage them. But here's the hard to swallow pill. Firms that reach 7 figures don't hire when they can finally afford it.
Davina:They hire to create the capacity for the growth that then pays for the hire. It feels backward, but it isn't. Hiring can not only expand your capacity and give you back your time, but also make you much more money. But to get there, you must first stop delegating and then taking projects back when it's not done up to your standards. Instead, you must learn to be a better leader and manager of others so they can provide the results you require.
Davina:We teach you exactly how to do this in our Wealthy Woman Lawyer program, so reach out and schedule a call with us if you recognize this pattern all too well. Number six is from episode two sixteen, Scale Without Burnout. Some people have told me they went back twice to listen to this episode. The message is clear. Burnout isn't about working too many hours.
Davina:Burnout is about working too many hours on the wrong things. In fact, I just had this conversation with a woman law firm owner who has backed herself into burnout by working in a practice area that requires endless, urgent deadlines with very little relief. What she used to enjoy has become a burden, and her mental health is beginning to suffer from it. Delegation can be a wonderful tool to get out of the burnout trap if you know how to do it correctly, so can automation. But in her case, she needs a whole different approach.
Davina:She needs to shift to a different practice area, one where she and her team have more control over the deadlines. One owner I worked with was spending fifteen hours a week on the activities that made her feel drained. They weren't necessarily the hardest tasks, just the most boring ones, but they needed to be done. In her case, delegation was the answer. Not only did her revenue increase when she could focus more on work she enjoyed, but her job satisfaction increased as well.
Davina:The truth is that the methods that take you from zero to six figures will burn you out if you try to use them to go from six figures to seven. You cannot hard work your way to success. Something more is needed. So ask yourself, what particular tasks make you feel drained and which ones still light you up? I have seen women working sixty hours who are fine, and women working forty who are falling apart.
Davina:The difference isn't the total number of hours, but what they are doing with those hours. Number five on the list comes from episode three nineteen, The CEO Reset. The gold nugget in this episode is, You get to choose your uncomfortable. In that episode, I shared a story about a client who was worried because she had spent $9,000 on Google Ads over six months. That $9,000 brought in one client.
Davina:That client paid her firm $40,000 That's a $31,000 return she couldn't see because she was so focused on the expense line. Lawyers are trained to spot issues and imagine worst case scenarios and outcomes. That mindset serves our clients well, but as the CEO of our businesses, it's not always as helpful. CEOs generally are risk takers and think about returns, leverage, capacity, and profitability. We ask, is this a risk worth taking, and how quickly can I recover if it doesn't work out?
Davina:Neither way of thinking is right or wrong. You were trained to identify risk and minimize exposure. I'm betting you are good at it, and it is why clients trust you. Run a business through that lens for a decade, though, and you will systematically underinvest in the exact things that would have grown it. Staying where you are may not be the safe option you think it is.
Davina:It is the other uncomfortable option. One kind is spending money before you can see the return or raising a fee and waiting to find out what happens. The other kind is another year of stagnation. Both options, stagnation and risk, are uncomfortable. When you own your own law firm, the choice is yours.
Davina:Personally, I recommend betting on yourself. Number four on our countdown is episode three eighteen, Scaling Smart. This is one of our most downloaded episodes in the last twelve months. The key takeaway from that episode is that most successful law firms aren't necessarily the ones that do the most things. They are the ones that do the right things in the right order.
Davina:I've created a framework that serves as the foundation of all the Wealthy Woman Lawyer coaching programs. It's called the 1,000,000 Dollar Law Firm Growth Framework, and it is the exact roadmap I wish someone had given me when I opened my first law firm. In it, we cover everything from cultivating a wealthy woman lawyer mindset, to attracting better clients, to leveraging resources such as time, talent, systems, automation, and mastering your money. If you have been a fan of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast for some time now because you too are on a mission to scale your law firm, I encourage you to book an appointment with my team or me to discuss how we can help. Simply go to www.wealthywomanlawyer.com, click on the Apply button, complete our practice growth assessment, it's short, and book your Zoom call.
Davina:Number three on our list is from Episode three twenty one, Seven Tiny Habits. My favorite takeaway from this episode is email is other people's agenda for your life. Think about it. You arrive in the office or wake up first thing in the morning and grab your phone. You already have an agenda for the day, and then it happens.
Davina:You open your email and immediately start reacting to other people's priorities. From then on for the rest of the day, you are in reactive mode, not proactive mode. Email and messaging have become a constant source of distraction in our lives as business owners because it is human nature to answer immediately when someone asks you a question. But here's the thing. You don't have to answer someone else's email or message immediately.
Davina:Think of email as an invitation to a conversation, not a demand that requires an immediate response. Stop handing over your golden hours the time or day when you feel fresh and your mind clear to other people. Instead, use that time to work on tasks that require your full attention and concentration. Let me let you in on a few secrets. Number one, email and messaging are a game of hot potato.
Davina:People work through their emails or messages to get something off their plate and pass it back to you. That's great. We are making progress. But just because they pass it to you does not mean you have to pass it back immediately. Two Turning off your email notifications and closing your email is one of the most effective productivity tips.
Davina:Every time that email or message notification pings, your brain is startled and your concentration is interrupted. How can you ever do your best work if you are constantly being derailed? And number three, true emergencies will result in a phone call. The JA will not email you if you were supposed to be in front of a certain judge at that very moment. The JA will call your office.
Davina:If the building is on fire, someone will let you know in person. They will not email you. Yes, there are a few exceptions, like perhaps if you are in the middle of a hot negotiation that's popping back and forth quickly, But nine times out of 10, what's waiting for us in our email inboxes can be taken care of during the time scheduled on our calendar to answer emails. We are getting down to the last two gold nuggets on our list. Number two is from Episode three twenty two titled, Five Simple Steps from Solo to CEO.
Davina:If you take away nothing else from that episode, remember this, the gap between where you are and where you want to be isn't about working harder quite frankly, how much harder can you work? You likely are already working your butt off. Scaling from six to seven figures cannot be accomplished simply by working harder. You must start building systems and hiring and training other people to operate them. To get to seven figures and beyond, leverage is your best friend.
Davina:Okay, number one on our list of most popular episodes from the last twelve months is from Episode three twenty, Build a Client Attraction System. When you are first starting out in your law firm, most of your business comes from referrals from people you know who want to be supportive. Over time, most of us do some personal networking and think that if we do a really good job, our clients will naturally refer business to us. That's a great way to start. However, the larger you want your firm to grow, either in team or revenue, the more you will need a marketing system that can operate alongside your personal efforts.
Davina:In the beginning, the challenge is that as work starts flowing in from your networking efforts, whether that's in person or on social media, you then find yourself getting backed up on marketing because you must stop and do all the work. That's what we call the feast or famine cycle, and it's perfectly normal for brand new solos. It becomes not normal when you've been in business for years and you are still playing that same game. The busier your firm gets, the more you need a system to keep your marketing and flow of work steady. If you want to scale to 7 figures and beyond, your system likely will require a financial investment perhaps by hiring someone to handle your law firm's social media content or by investing in Google local service ads or Google AdWords or by hiring a podcast producer to edit and publish your podcast for you.
Davina:Here's my rule of thumb and what I advise my clients. If you have more time than money, it's on you to get out, meet people, and tell them about your business and how you help your clients. So that may mean you record your own social media content and post it, speak at luncheons in front of your best referrers, or attend networking events of some kind. But when you have less time, which you will once your business starts taking off, then you need to start throwing a little money at your marketing and let that do some work for you. The key is to be intentional and consistent with your marketing, not haphazard.
Davina:Okay, that's it for 12 gold nuggets from our most popular Wealthy Woman Lawyer episodes over the last twelve months. I do hope you enjoyed these reminders. If you want more of this type of roundup content, please email us at masterywealthywomanlawyer dot com and let us know. And finally, if you are beyond ready to get help scaling your own law firm business, then I encourage you to reach out to us at w w w dot wealthywomanlawyer dot com, click on the Apply button at the top of the page, complete our short practice growth assessment form, and then schedule a call with my team or me. This is not a high pressure sales call.
Davina:This is a call to discuss whether we are the right fit to work together and which options may be best for you. We will look at where your firm is today, your goals, and what is keeping you from achieving them. Sometimes that conversation ends with us working together, and sometimes it ends with you having a much clearer picture and knowing the exact next steps you need to take. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast so the algorithm will share it with other women lawyers who can enjoy it too.
Davina:And I'll see you back here next week with another episode created exclusively for women law firm owners who want to build wealth generating law firms without burning out in the process.
Intro:If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.