Latest / Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love / Episode 337 | The Practice You Built vs. The Business You Want

Transcript

Episode 337 | The Practice You Built vs. The Business You Want · Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast, Helping you create a profitable, sustainable law firm you love

• 0:01
  Intro: 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.
• 0:47
  Now here's Davina.
• 1:01
  Davina: Have you ever felt like even though you have your own solo law practice or maybe even a practice with other people working with you that you are still doing too much lawyer work and not enough running the business work. If you've ever felt that way, you are not alone. In fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of small law firm owners who fall into the same trap. Welcome or welcome back to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast. If you are new here, I'm your host, Attorney Devina Frederick, and I've not only built two successful law firm businesses, but over the past thirteen years, I've helped hundreds of women law firm owners do the same.
• 1:37
  This podcast exists for one reason: to help as many women law firm owners as I can to build not just successful careers, but genuine, lasting wealth. Wealth that provides choices and options, wealth that provides true freedom, and wealth that continues to work for you even when you are off the clock and at the beach. In today's episode, I want to talk about the big elephant on social media that bugs me the most. Solo women lawyers, even those with a small team, who think they are running a business when what they really have is a law practice. And hey, lest you think I am judging, I am not.
• 2:18
  I have so been there, and it took forever for the light bulb to go off for me. I don't want you to have to invest years of your life to discover what I can share with you in just thirty minutes, the approximate length of this podcast. There's a huge distinction between being a solo operator and owning a law firm business, one that can continue to operate smoothly even in your absence, and one that becomes a wealth generating engine for your chosen lifestyle. If you are still the only lawyer in your law firm and most of your systems live in your head and you don't have a way of getting clients unless someone does you a favor and sends you a referral, I implore you to stick with me to the end. Let's get into it.
• 3:00
  Let me share the clearest definitions and distinctions I can offer. A law practice is what you do. A law firm business is what you own. A law practice produces revenue when you produce work. Stop producing.
• 3:13
  Stop earning. The asset is your time, your skill, your reputation, your relationships, all of which live inside you. A law firm business produces revenue whether or not you personally are producing. The asset is the system, the team, the brand, the intellectual property, the client experience, all of which live outside you, even if you were the one who built them. Both can be profitable, both can be respected, both can be deeply meaningful.
• 3:43
  I want to be clear about that. There is nothing shameful about running a solo practice, but only one of them is a wealth builder and a sellable asset. Here's how to tell which one you have on your hands. Ask yourself, if you stopped working tomorrow, if you stepped away for a few weeks and didn't come back, what would your firm look like when you returned? Would it still exist?
• 4:06
  Would it have revenue? Would it have clients? Would anyone notice that you were specifically gone, or would they think your law firm had closed down? If you cannot imagine being away from your law firm for weeks at a time, consider this. I've worked with more than one woman lawyer who received a serious health diagnosis and needs to step away to heal.
• 4:27
  I've also known women who've had to step away because of a child or an aging parent's needs. And, of course, I've worked with many women lawyers who love to travel broadly, and sometimes they are in locales where they can't easily be reached. Okay? Next question. If a buyer offered to acquire your firm next quarter, what would they actually be buying?
• 4:49
  Would they be buying you, your name, your relationships, your personal reputation, Or would they be buying something that exists independently of you that can run and generate revenue without you at the center of it? Guess which one is worth more? Third question, when clients hire your firm, are they hiring you specifically, Or are they hiring an organization they trust, one in which you happen to be the founder? Here's a hint: If you are always saying to yourself, my clients don't want to work with my associate, they want me, you have this issue. And fourth, if you removed every system, every process, every brand asset, and every team member that depends on your daily presence to function, what's left?
• 5:31
  Is there a firm, or is there just you? Here's what that looks like. If you can't be in the office and working without being interrupted every few minutes with a question, you likely have this issue. If those answers are making you uncomfortable right now, good. They're supposed to.
• 5:48
  That discomfort is the first honest data point most owners ever receive about what they've actually built rather than what they think they are building. Awareness is always, always the starting point for change. You might be thinking to yourself, okay. That's interesting, but I'm doing fine. And you might be doing fine.
• 6:07
  You might be doing really well financially. But let's talk about the ceiling. Law practices don't scale. They can't. Their growth is mathematically tied to your hours, your energy, and your willingness to keep producing.
• 6:22
  There is a ceiling, and the ceiling is you. Maybe you felt it, the sense that no matter how hard you push, the firm doesn't grow beyond a certain point because the bottleneck isn't your marketing, it isn't your fee structure, it isn't your team. It's that the firm's output is tied directly to your personal capacity. Law practices don't sell, or they sell for very little. Because what a buyer would be acquiring your expertise, your client relationships, your judgment walks out the door the day the deal closes, or worse, they require you to stick around while they build what you could have built, should have built, but didn't.
• 7:01
  Also, law practices don't become wealth, they become income, sometimes very high income. But income and wealth are not the same thing. Income stops when you stop. Wealth can grow with or without you. This is the part most women lawyers were never taught.
• 7:17
  We were taught to be excellent practitioners. We were told that excellence would be rewarded, and it is rewarded with revenue, with reputation, with respect. But we were not taught to build assets that outlast our personal effort. So we end up with 7 figure earning years and 0 figure exit options, with prestigious careers and no transferable equity, with the title of owner and the reality of a very expensive employee in our own building. That's not a failure of effort.
• 7:47
  It is a failure of frame. No one drew you the map, but I want to draw you the map. Let's bring this concept from the abstract to the concrete because I think it will be clearer that way. Let me start with a true story I heard very recently. I was chatting with a woman lawyer I'll call Annabelle.
• 8:07
  Annabelle had taken maternity leave and had engaged another solo practitioner, let's call her Jane, to help cover her workload in Annabelle's absence. Jane told Annabelle she was happy to do the work, but then she revealed she had been getting up at 3AM every morning to get it done. 3AM! Now both women are clearly hardworking, talented, committed attorneys, and I have deep respect for that. But what this story reveals is not a problem with work ethic.
• 8:33
  It's a structural problem. Both women have created well paying but high stress jobs for themselves. Neither actually owns a law firm business, one that can operate smoothly even in their absence, let them sleep through the night, and generate wealth without day to day involvement in all the details. Instead, they are cobbling together a work arrangement without fully committing to the growth, profitability, or sustainability of either firm. It's working, sort of, but only as a temporary stop gap measure.
• 9:06
  And because they are both bottlenecks in their own firms, the single points of failure, it's no surprise that neither has crossed the 7 figure threshold. The ceiling is them. And until that changes, the ceiling stays where it is. Now let me tell you about a client I'll call Maria, also not her real name, though the scenario I'm about to share is very real. Maria is an estate planning attorney who came to me wanting to transition her firm from a solo practice into a wealth generating law firm business.
• 9:39
  At the time, the firm was still co owned by her mentor, a man in his late 70s who was beyond ready to retire, ready to spend his days on the golf course, but who was having a hard time truly letting go. Maria was doing the lion's share of the work. She had taken over the firm's management. She had already made real progress by updating the case management systems, expanding the team, even hiring another attorney to help her. She built workarounds to cope with a partner who was unwilling to fully let go of how things had always been done.
• 10:14
  And yet, Maria felt like she was working more than ever, and she felt undercompensated for it. A personal financial challenge brought the situation sharply into focus, and she realized it was past time to make a significant change. But here's the thing, her biggest challenge was not her partner. It was not her associate. It was not her staff.
• 10:38
  It was Maria. Because Maria could not say no to anyone. Clients wanted to meet only with her, not her experienced associate. She said yes even though her schedule was slammed. Clients wanted same day consultations.
• 10:54
  She said yes. Clients called at all hours asking her to do things like rush to the hospital to get a dying loved one's signature. She said yes. Maria believed that saying no was something a good, hardworking attorney simply didn't do if she wanted to stay in business. As a consequence, Maria worked all hours.
• 11:13
  She sacrificed family time. She sacrificed self care, which she desperately needed and desired. She became the revenue and growth ceiling that her law firm could not surpass. When we started working together, we addressed the structure, we addressed the systems, and we addressed something even harder, the internal permission structure that kept Maria in the role of the sole indispensable practitioner. The results were transformative.
• 11:41
  Not only did Maria lead her firm to new revenue heights, she grew her team. She gave herself a raise. She helped her mentor and partner move into his well earned retirement without guilt. Most importantly, Maria began to set real boundaries, not just for her firm, not just for her team, but for herself. She's recently moved into her dream home.
• 12:04
  She's spending more time than ever with her husband and her young daughter, and her law firm is thriving and growing. That's what it looks like when a practice where you are functioning as a solo, even when you have people you've hired to help you, becomes a business. It's not just about numbers, it's about life. So what does it look like to transform from solopreneur to law firm leader and CEO of a wealth generating law firm business that can operate smoothly even in your absence. First, you stop measuring yourself by your billable hours and productivity, and begin measuring your firm's success by what you've built that produces and functions even without your day to day involvement.
• 12:48
  That is a fundamental reorientation, and it can feel destabilizing at first because up until now, you have been trained to define your value by your personal output and external feedback. I call it good girl, good grade syndrome. Throughout your academic life and career accomplishments, you've been rewarded by others based on your personal performance. If you want to be the owner of a wealth generating law firm business, that identity no longer serves you. You must begin thinking differently.
• 13:18
  Rather than being a people pleaser for accolades, it's time to ask yourself what you really want. As the owner of a wealth generating law firm, you have no boss to please. Yes, you want your clients to be happy with the services you provide, but the purpose of your business is to achieve profitability and support the lifestyle you want to live. And if you think you can't be profitable and joyful while also helping people, you are mistaken. Wealth is simply a magnifier of who you already are as a person.
• 13:49
  Also, revenue per partner becomes less interesting than revenue per system. Personal output becomes less interesting than firm output. Your name on a case becomes less interesting than a client experience that delivers consistently, regardless of which attorney handles the matter. As your identity changes, you stop focusing on being the best lawyer in your firm and begin focusing on being the best CEO of your firm. Those are different jobs.
• 14:20
  They demand different skills. They reward different choices. Many of the habits that made you an exceptional practitioner, Doing it yourself, staying close to every detail, being the only one the client trusts, can become liabilities when you're trying to build a business. This may come as a shock to you, but this transition from solo to CEO can be emotionally challenging because the practice version of you was good. People praised you for it.
• 14:49
  Clients loved you for it. You were rewarded for that approach for years. Letting go of being the best practitioner so you can become the architect of something bigger. That is a real loss. It's a real grief.
• 15:02
  I won't pretend otherwise, but here is what's on the other side of that grief. A firm that produces wealth, a firm that gives you back your time, a firm that supports you long past your days of working in the business and a legacy, a firm that can be sold or scaled or simply enjoyed in a way that no practice ever can, A life that looks less like Maria at the start of our work exhausted, overextended, unable to say no, and more like Maria at the end, in her dream home, present with her family, leading a firm that serves its clients well without requiring her to personally sacrifice. As we wrap up today's episode, here's what I want to leave you with. You are already choosing one of these paths right now, today. Whether you've named the choice or not.
• 15:55
  Every decision you make to take on the matter yourself instead of training someone else, that is a vote for the solo practice path. Every decision to keep the process in your head rather than document it, that is a vote for the solo practice path. Every decision to be the only face the client trusts, that is a vote for the solo practice path. Every decision you make to systematize, to delegate, to build trust in the firm rather than only in yourself, and to create assets that don't require your presence to function is a vote for the law firm business path. You don't get to opt out of the choice.
• 16:35
  You only get to make it consciously or unconsciously. Annabelle and Jane are making a choice. Maria made a different choice, and the trajectory of her firm and her life changed. I'm asking you to make your choice consciously, to name it, to own it, and to build accordingly, because you didn't leave the traditional path to recreate it inside your own walls. You started this firm because you wanted something different, something that belonged to you, something that could give you back as much as you put in.
• 17:07
  That's still possible, but it requires building a business, not just perfecting a practice. If you've been listening today and something inside you is saying, I'm ready for what's next, then I want to meet you there. Next week, I'm hosting a live training called the Wealth Generating Law Firm five Secrets to Create the Profits, Flexibility and Impact You Desire. This is not a class on how to do more. It's a strategic deep dive into what it actually takes to build a firm that scales beyond you so you can stop trading your life for your revenue and start building real wealth on your terms.
• 17:44
  We're going to talk about the specific shifts that move a firm from solo practice to wealth generating law firm business, the structural decisions that create lasting equity, the identity work that makes it all possible. Because here's what I know about you listening right now. You didn't become a lawyer to be someone else's version of successful. You became a lawyer and started this firm to build something great. This training is your next step toward that.
• 18:13
  Register at wealthywomanlawyer.com/webinar. That link is in the show notes. I would love to see you there. Thank you for spending this time with me today. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another woman law firm owner who needs to hear it.
• 18:28
  This is Davina Frederick, and you've been listening to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer Podcast.
• 18:33
  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 wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our clients create wealth generating law firms with ease.