Saturday, February 6, 2010

Define Yourself, Define Your Practice

Merrilyn Astin Tarlton has a great piece in this month's Law Practice magazine. The article is titled, The Future of Law Practice: Figuring out your place in the race.

When I first started practicing, the number one advice key I continually heard was, "specialize." Every mentoring attorney told me that the key to keeping and attracting clients was to break from the mould and provide a unique service/specialty.

As Ms. Tarlton's article stresses, difference is the key to success. I think the money quote is this:
Face it, there are way too many lawyers for the shrinking universe of clients who are willing to pay what those lawyers want to earn . . . Competition can be a wonderful, exhilarating thing to those who understand how to compete in this world. For those who don't, or just choose not to, things could get very dicey in the coming years. And that's why - instead of twiddling their thumbs and trying to figure out how to tweak the pyramid - some enterprising lawyers are busy reinventing themselves and the way they practice. Shouldn't that be you, too?
 The article goes on to provide some very useful outlines to consider when remoulding or forming a practice. I'd suggest that you review some of the models and decide how you can implement one, some, or all of the techniques and outlines in your practice.

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