Grow your business, dirt lawyers!

This blog is supposed to be about South Carolina dirt law, but I saw this great article entitled “Twelve Steps to a Profitable Law Practice” that I thought would benefit most South Carolina dirt lawyers. The author is Ernest Svenson (also known as “Ernie the Attorney” if you are interested in Googling his interesting blogs about technology, marketing and other topics vital for law firms but often overlooked by busy lawyers).

Mr. Svenson is the founder of Law Firm Autopilot, the stated mission of which is to help small firm lawyers transform their practices to improve their quality of life. Check out Law Firm Autopilot’s online courses and coaching services here.

The article is adapted from a chapter in a book I’m reading, The Secrets to Marketing and Automating Your Law Practice: A Lawyer’s Guide to Creating Systems, Getting Clients and Becoming a Legal Rainmaker by David M. Pitton (Practice Panther, 2018). You can download a free copy of the book at the end of the article linked above. This book is good. Chapter 1, entitled “The Ultimate Checklist for Starting Your Own Firm” blew my mind with its very specific, detailed advice about the technology a lawyer establishing a new practice needs. Most of what the author advised was extremely practical and extremely economical because he understands the financial pressures of a new practice. Example:  design a logo for only $99!

Why am I bothering Dirt Law readers with this topic? I know most of you are not thinking about opening your own practices. I’m troubling you with this because I believe marketing and technology may be two of the most vital components required to maintain healthy and growing practices in 2018. Real estate practitioners are always competing and are always trying to stay ahead of the quickly changing technology landscape. The lawyers who master technology and marketing are the lawyers who will thrive in the future.

Mr. Svenson does not suggest that you must master technology yourself. He believes in hiring experts to push the buttons for you. He says, “If you can follow a clear ‘process roadmap’—such as the rules of civil procedure—then you are capable of radically improving your practice with common technology, most of which you already own.” He believes that digitizing will allow you to simplify your practice and lower your overhead. He believes automation will exponentially increase efficiencies and result in cost savings. And he believes that you can learn to work virtually from anywhere with an internet connection.

Many of you know our staff was displaced in 2012 when our office building was involved in a fire. Thankfully, no one got hurt, and much of our furniture and equipment was eventually saved, despite the layer of soot that settled on everything. But we were displaced for a whole year! We rented a small suite in an executive space downtown, but most of us worked remotely (from home) for an entire year. And we didn’t miss a beat. As far as we were able to tell, we didn’t lose a dollar. The day after the fire, several of us were camped out in my kitchen at home disbursing funds for a large commercial transaction. If I was not a believer in being “paperless” before that catastrophe, I definitely am today. I call myself the poster child for business continuity.

(By the way, I am working in said kitchen as I write. I recently hired a new lawyer despite not having space for him, so I displaced myself instead of our new underwriter until we are able to move to a larger space later this year. Again, I am not missing a beat!)

This article says, “If you want to streamline your practice and reduce clutter and chaos, you need to stop managing information in paper form. Digital information is cheaper to store, easier to transmit, and can be automated more easily.”

And, of course, the author points out, and I want to emphasize, that the more we rely on digital information and automation, the more we have to pay attention to security. There are experts that are available to help with this issue. Use them!

Don’t be surprised if you see more blogs from me on related topics in the future. I’m on a roll, trying to read everything on these topics I can, so that my office and I will be in a position to assist our attorney agents as they grow and thrive. Grow and thrive with us!