"x x x.
Warning: This Isn’t For Everyone
I’ll end with some thoughts as to what type of lawyer can use this approach. Again, it’s not for everyone, and again, you can’t be unreasonable with your fees. There are limits to how much you can charge.
But pricing yourself out of the market, so to speak, is great for the following type of lawyer:
- You’re at the top of your game (or intend to be). Great lawyers know that true mastery is never really won. And the true master knows that there’s always more to learn. So to be at the top of your game, whether a greenhorn or not, means you price yourself, not everyone else. It’s how you value the kind of service you know you can provide.
- You care about your clients more than anything else. Pricing yourself as I describe isn’t about money or getting rich. It’s about having the time and resources to do a bang-up job on every case for every client. There’s a difference in any given month between 20 misdemeanor DWI cases at $500 per case and two felony DWI cases at $5,000 per case. Both approaches have you taking in $10,000 that month. But only one has you spending a lot more time on client service (and a lot less time running to the courtroom).
- You do not possess a “lack” mentality. If you think there are only so many cases, but so little time, and so much competition in the form of other lawyers ready to snap up all the business, this isn’t for you. You’re too afraid to look like you don’t have all the answers and to say “I don’t know” when you really should. Unfortunately, it seems to me, in conversations I’ve had, that many lawyers possess the lack mentality, the kind where lawyers are all a dime-a-dozen, and the future of law is in doubt, and “how are my kids gonna eat,” and it’s all just doom and gloom so let’s head to the safe room now while there’s still time.
There’s nothing wrong with being a businessperson who happens to be a lawyer. If you want to run a business, and the actual law practice is somewhat secondary, that’s fine.
But if you’re at the top of your game, you care more about your clients than the money, and you’re not afraid to compete on a higher level, pricing yourself “out of the market” might be one sane approach to the practice of law as we head into the future.
x x x."
