Episode 278 Most Popular 2024| 5 Mindset Shortcuts to Become a Better Law Firm Leader

It's December, and you know what that means! It's holiday time, and between moving into my new house (yes, again!) and celebrating, I'm one busy gal, so I'm taking a much-needed break from writing and recording the podcast. This year, we are celebrating our FIFTH year of the Wealth Woman Lawyer podcast by sharing with you the most popular episodes in 2024, starting with number three on our list of the top episodes. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have and that you are ending your year on a happy note.

******

In this week’s episode, I delve into what is perhaps the number one challenge law firm owners face when they are attempting to transition from solo attorney to CEO of a law firm business, and that is cultivating a high-performing legal team.

Once we overcome the fear of hiring that first associate attorney—which is a huge obstacle in and of itself for most solos—we often are then faced with what it REALLY means to cultivate, train, and manage a multi-person legal team including attorneys, paralegals, and legal administrators.

The transition from a solo lawyer or boss of one or two staffers is drastically different from leading a legal team. And most law firm owners are not only NOT prepared for the transition, but also have no idea what’s coming.

Listen in as I share:

• 15 challenges law firm owners face when attempting to hire, train, retain and grow a high-performing team (or any team).
• Why I think it’s important you begin thinking about these challenges before you even have a big team.
• 5 “mindset shortcuts” I use and teach my clients that help to overcome overwhelm and fear around cultivating a right-fit team.
• One way you can get help to grow your right-fit team faster.
• And much more!
  
  

Links to Love:

*** Is 2025 the year you want to make more money in your law firm business without being overloaded with “hard work”? Register for my *new* free training and watch it now. It’s called: How to Build a Wealth-Generating Law Firm: 3 Strategies for Women Law Firm Owners That Double Your Revenue Without Doubling Your Workload.

What is Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love?

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.

Intro: 00:01

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 2 to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Davina 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.

Intro: 00:31

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. Now here's Devina.

Davina: 00:51

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Devina Frederick. And today's topic is about dealing with the team growth struggle. Perhaps the number one challenge law firm owners face when they're attempting to transition from solo attorney to CEO of a law firm business is cultivating a high performing legal team. Once we overcome the fear of hiring that 1st associate attorney, which is a huge deal for most solos, we often then are faced with what it really means to cultivate, train and manage a multi person legal team, including multiple attorneys, paralegals, and legal administrators.

Davina: 01:31

The transition from a solo lawyer or boss of 1 or 2 staffers is drastically different from leading a legal team, And most law firm owners are not only not prepared for the transition, but also they have no idea what's coming. So I thought today it would be a good topic for us to discuss. Here are just a few of the challenges that law firm owners may face when attempting to cultivate a high performing team. Number 1 is hiring the right people at the right time and in the right order. Number 2 is putting together competitive offers to attract those right fit employees.

Davina: 02:09

Number 3, effectively training new team members. Number 4, keeping good employees once they've been trained. Number 5, dealing with problem employees such as employees who are underperforming, making many mistakes or negatively influencing others on the team. Number 6, dealing with ghosters, quiet quitters and sudden quitters. Number 7, dealt developing daily management and team leadership processes and procedures.

Davina: 02:39

Number 8, triaging when when one or more person leaves at the same time. Number 9, balancing vacations, maternity leaves and PTO without negatively impacting the firm. Number 10, establishing career paths within your organizations, so employees are less susceptible to poaching from other organizations. Number 11, managing work from home or remote employees that may be in different time zones and have different, software requirements or, policy requirements. Number 12, learning to trust others who now handle details that you don't know anything about.

Davina: 03:19

Number 13, reviews, raises and bonuses. 14, tracking billables, expenses and profits. And 15, much, much more. So I could go on and on and on, but I suspect just hearing this list that I've already shared is probably giving some of you anxiety. My purpose in sharing this list is not to make you feel even more nervous about hiring, but to help you prepare yourself so you're not surprised when challenges you may face as you scale and hire more team members.

Davina: 03:51

If you can't think about these things now, how are you actually going to do them? Let me repeat that. If you can't even think about these things that I've just mentioned, how are you going to actually do them? So before we can begin to do what is necessary to scale our law firm business to 7 figures or more, we first must be able to visualize it and prepare our minds for what is coming. Here are some of the mindset shortcuts.

Davina: 04:17

I'm gonna share these with you today. These are shortcuts that I teach, I use myself and I teach my clients to use to help them take action more quickly as these types of challenges that I've listed arise in their business. And these mindset shortcuts can also be applied to other, other things within your business outside of your team, but I've written them in that context. So number 1, the thought if they can do it, I can do it. So I invite you to look around you at all the law firms out there that have successfully hired, trained, and cultivated high performance, not perfect, but high performance legal teams.

Davina: 04:56

Depending on the size of your town, there are likely dozens or 100 or even 1,000 of law firms that exist in your market offering the services you provide. And many, if not most of them, have teams of attorneys, paralegals and associates. Like you, they started out with a dream, a law license and enough capital to open their doors. If they can build a profitable, sustainable, wealth generating law firm business operated by a team running on systems, then you can too. When I was a legal intern, I used to sit true story.

Davina: 05:28

I used to sit in the back of the courtroom and I would watch attorneys at work. And as I would watch them, I was kind of flabbergasted, quite frankly, by some of them. But I would repeat to myself, if they can do it, I can do it. And I really encourage you to do the same when you observe others around you creating what you desire. So if you're wanting to have a law firm that is a multimillion law firm run by a team, with sis good systems and automation, just know that if other people have done it, you can do it too.

Davina: 06:01

So always keep that in mind when you start to feel intimidated or feel like this is never gonna work for you. Number 2, mindset shortcut here is what is the next baby step? This question has helped me become a master executor and take fast action to advance all my goals, and it is how I guide my coaching clients through making continual progress toward their goals. Once you learn this technique, you'll realize it really is the best way to approach big overwhelming goals like cultivating your law firm's right fit team. If we look at the whole enchilada, all that needs to be done to hire, train, retain, and report good employees and correct hiring mistakes, it could feel like too much to even think about it.

Davina: 06:45

But if we ask ourselves, what is the next baby step? We quickly quickly realize how doable that step is. So let me give you an example. Let's say you wanna hire your 1st associate. Your baby step may be to simply write down what you envision that person taking off of your plate and what that would mean to you in terms of the amount of additional revenue they could generate for the firm and the time that that would be able to, read that you would be able to redirect to other high value activities.

Davina: 07:15

It could be that you begin to set a little money aside every month so that you can create a financial cushion, a, to prepare your first attorney for your first attorney hiring within 6 months or so, and b, to help you see that you can easily afford to pay them if you can afford to set aside money every month. Or it could be that your first baby step is you make a list of all the things you love to do and all the things you dislike doing in your business, and you begin to think about who else could take those things you dislike off your plate. The baby step implementation method tamps down those feelings of anxiety and overwhelm, and it makes taking action much easier. Once we take the 1st baby step toward our goal, it's easier and easier to take subsequent baby steps. If you are trying to implement and you start to feel really overwhelmed, you likely are trying to do too much too fast.

Davina: 08:10

Overwhelm is paralyzing and it keeps us from moving closer to our goals. When you find yourself in this state, take a mental step back and ask yourself, what is the next tiniest action I can take to move closer to the outcome I desire? And then go do that and only that. And then once that is done, you can focus on the next baby step. Alright.

Davina: 08:30

Number 3, mindset shortcut is this too shall pass. So I'm gonna share a little story with you. This last week, one of my clients, who's a law firm owner, very successful multimillion dollar law firm owner, had one attorney quit while one attorney was out on maternity leave. Another attorney was out on a month long vacation and another attorney had an emergency maternity leave and is now on bed rest for a month or 2 before her maternity was supposed to start. So just like that, my woman law firm owner client was down 4 attorneys.

Davina: 09:06

Fortunately, she has 2 amazing, partners and 3 good paralegals, and they were able to step up and triage. Now she could have immediately jumped to this isn't working or I'll never hire attorneys again, or I obviously have no idea what I'm doing or I can't trust anybody. Whatever negative thought she could have had about this. And of course, you know, she did have some feelings about it when it first happened, but she didn't do any of those things. What she did instead was she acknowledged that she had no plans of quitting her law firm.

Davina: 09:38

She faced something similar in the past, and she overcame it. And she thought this too shall pass. The attorney currently out on maternity leave will be back soon. The attorney who quit was going to be fired anyway. And she hired the one attorney knowing she was already that she already had a bucket list vacation plan.

Davina: 09:55

The law firm owner trust herself and her team enough to know that her law firm is not going anywhere just because there are a few bumps or in this case, big potholes in the road along the way. She knows for certain it will pass because something similar happened to her law firm a couple years prior when 3 attorneys left within a few weeks of each other, all for different personal reasons that had nothing to do with the firm. And after that, she very quickly assembled an even better team of attorneys and has continued to grow steadily over time to become a multimillion dollar revenue generating law firm business and one that is very profitable, I might add. As a law firm owner, you must have a mindset that no matter what happens, there is no plan b. You are in it for the long haul.

Davina: 10:41

You're in it for as long as you find owning and operating a law firm enjoyable and desirable. And what other people will do will not deter you from achieving your goal. People are going to come and go. If you have a law firm that's going to be around for 10, 20, 30 years, people are going to come and go. Those days of people staying someplace till they got the gold gold watch just really don't exist anymore.

Davina: 11:05

So you have to mentally prepare yourself. And one of the ways that you can mentally prepare yourself is to keep in mind that whatever you're going through in this moment, it shall pass. And there will come a time when, believe it or not, you will barely remember it. And I say this from personal experience because I've had multiple businesses and I've had people come and go through those businesses. And there are some people that I don't even remember now.

Davina: 11:29

So, this too shall pass. Alright. Mindset shortcut number 4. What are the alternatives? So stay solo.

Davina: 11:39

Here are the alternatives to growing your law firm and hiring people and cultivating a team. 1 is stay solo, never being able to leave the office for any extended period of time without a reduction in your income or worry that things will fall apart during your absence. Another alternative is you can quit and go get a job working for somebody else. Often when I'm faced with a growth challenge, I ask myself, what is the alternative? And if the answer would result in something I do not want, then I know what I must do.

Davina: 12:09

Stay the course and keep working toward my goals. So the next time you're facing a conundrum with your team, ask yourself, what are the alternatives? In other words, let's say your paralegal quits and you only have one legal assistant and he isn't very good, and you're feeling hurt because you thought your paralegal would be with you forever and it feels like she's betrayed you by leaving, or maybe it's an associate who's left and you feel betrayed. What are your alternatives? Continue to stay in your feelings and blame the person who left, not taking action to hire a new one because you're kind of sulking that the person left and you feel burned and you don't wanna take another risk.

Davina: 12:49

Hiring a new one quickly, even if they are not the right fit, that's an alternative. Hiring temporary help from a contract paralegal or attorney until you have the right fit employee to take over and take o the the old firmer employee's place. You also have the alternative, hire an attorney who can do everything a paralegal does not for you, but they can also go to court. Right? So it doesn't have to be that you have to replace the paralegal.

Davina: 13:16

Maybe you hire an attorney. When you look at all the alternatives, it really broadens your mind and gets you out of that narrow focus thinking and gets you out of those feelings. There are many alternative solutions to your problem. Which one benefits you and your law firm the most? So always think about that.

Davina: 13:34

Always consider all the alternatives when faced with a team issue or any issue, and it likely will be that one is highly preferable over the others. Now I do have a caveat here. The caveat is the key with this process is not to stay stuck analyzing all the alternatives instead of just listing them, picking 1, and moving forward to take action on that. You can very easily get stuck overanalyzing. And as a common thing that we lawyers do is we say, well, I have to look at all the pros and cons of everything and analyze it and think about it and sleep on it.

Davina: 14:08

That will keep you from moving forward quickly. What you wanna do is consider the alternatives. Maybe talk to a couple of people that you trust, your coach, a partner, somebody who, knows what they're talking about, and then move forward in selecting an alternative. So this leads me to my last mindset mindset shortcut shift that I'm gonna, share with you today. And number 5 is very powerful.

Davina: 14:35

Decide to make every decision you make the right decision for you. It is not uncommon for high achieving women to get caught up in the need to make the right decision. Often because we are perfectionist, we would prefer not to make any decision at all than make the wrong decision. The result of this is analysis paralysis, staying in analysis mode for far too long instead of making a decision and then making the decision right regardless of the outcome, making the decision right regardless of the outcome. Once you make a decision, the decision is made and there's no going back.

Davina: 15:13

But that doesn't mean that you can't make another decision in the future. You can make a decision completely counter to the decision that you made, but you can't go back and unravel something. Whatever decision you make in the past was the right decision for you at the time or you would not have made it. You made the best decision you could with all the information you had at the time. If more information reveals itself, you may make another decision.

Davina: 15:39

Do not beat yourself up by looking back and judging yourself for making a wrong decision when obviously it was the right decision because it led you to where you are today and it taught you something you needed to know to get to where you are today. I hope you've enjoyed this week's episode of the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. If you have, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. For every 5 star review tells Apple that more women law firm owners should hear this podcast, or you can always share it with a friend. I encourage you to do that.

Davina: 16:09

Currently, we are the number one podcast for women in law in the US, and it's all thanks to you, our listeners. We appreciate you so much for liking, reviewing, and sharing Wealthy Woman Lawyer. Also, if you'd like help growing your law firm business, hiring the right fit team for you, and skyrocketing your revenue and profits, getting back some of your time, schedule an appointment to chat. The link is in the show notes. I I will be back here next week with more great content, and I so appreciate you being here and listening to another episode of the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast.

Intro: 16:39

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.