I never wanted to be a solo lawyer running my own law practice.

Graduating from law school and passing the bar, the job market for those without guaranteed post-graduation employment was sparse. To pay the bills, I reluctantly rented an office across the hall from a law school buddy, set up a card table, and waited for the phone to ring.

During my legal career I have been a true solo, partnered with two other lawyers, was part of one of the first virtual law firms in the country, and was Of Counsel to small business law firm.

I have had to bootstrap and learn how to both practice law and run a law business on the fly. I have seen recessions, economic booms, and pandemics.

Now, in addition to running my own law practice, I help solo and small firm lawyers transform their law practices from something that causes stress and dictates their lives, to a business that provides them with the life they want. All while being a #LawyerDad to a 7-year old.

HOW I CAN HELP YOU

I offer 1:1 coaching to lawyers. I focus in the following areas:
▷ Personal transformation
▷ Law practice design
▷ Getting clients
▷ Running a law business

Looking for help getting your law practice to the next level? Send me a DM or email me at brad@newmodernlawyer.com.

Every week I get an email from our trash company the night before our trash pickup.

Nothing fancy, just a short reminder so we don’t forget to have the trash at the edge of the road ready to go.

Today I got an email letting me know that because 3 trucks went down last week they are running behind. So my trash won’t be picked up until this evening.

Again, nothing fancy.

Probably took them 5 minutes to write and send out to the affected customers using a pre-designed template.

And it was very self-serving, because it will likely save them from having to respond to angry calls and emails from customers this afternoon wondering why their trash hasn’t yet been collected.

But just that simple email built a lot of customer loyalty and goodwill. It did with me at least.

Shortly after beginning service with this trash company I sent a message asking them about getting a large wheeled trashcan like we had with our previous company.

Two days later there was a trashcan sitting at the end of our driveway.

This is what good customer/client service looks like.

Doing little things that show you care. Greasing the wheels to make working with them smoother.

You can do the same with your law firm clients with minimal effort and cost, too.

If you have a great example, share it below.

#NML

Bradley Miller

Helping Create a Better Legal Profession | Happy Lawyers → Happy Clients | Legal Counsel for Franchisees and Small Business Buyers & Sellers | #LawyerDad #LawyersWhoWoo

I woke up this morning to a landscape covered in white and a voicemail on my phone.

School was cancelled.

But there was no panic.

Because my law practice is designed so things like this aren’t a big deal.

I’ve decided that family is an important value to me.

And not in the “work long and hard to provide for my family through the money I make” way.

(which is the mindset I had in the years after my daughter was born)

But in being there to get my daughter on and off the bus every day.

Being able to be home with her on snow days.

Being able to coach her softball teams or drive her to and from other activities.

And just generally not missing out on her childhood.

Because she is only going to be this age once, and there are no do-overs.

Now I’m not saying you need to work from home like I do or even have family as a top priority.

But I do think it is important to know what things you value, and to be intentional about designing your law practice and creating firm boundaries around those things.

If you aren’t living out your values and enjoying life, what’s the point?

#NML

The irony of technology —

It makes you faster at tasks

But also gives you more and different tasks to do

Thereby actually taking up more time than before the technology.

#NML

Hourly cost plus 20%.

This is what many lawyers — and many law firm consultants — mean when they say flat fees.

You estimate how long you think the work will take, multiply it by your hourly rate, and then add a 20% buffer on top of that.

First, the good:

✅ For clients, it gives them a set price up front, rather than a surprise bill at the end. This means the client can budget for the cost and also decide if the work is worth it to them before they engage with the lawyer. Knowing the fee up front takes some of the risk away from the client that the fee will get out of control. There is also incentive for the work to be done efficiently and with less over-lawyering.

✅ For the lawyer/firm, it is a “safe” step from straight hourly billing. The fee is quoted up front but there is a buffer in case the time estimate is too low. If the time estimate was high or even accurate, the firm is coming out ahead of what they would have received if billing straight hourly.

Now the bad:

❌ For clients, the fee is still tied to the effort of the lawyer and not to the value of the services to them. If the time estimate was high or even accurate, the client is paying at minimum a 20% premium for the fee certainty.

❌ For the lawyer/firm, if the work takes significantly longer than estimated frustration and resentment are likely to set in. The lawyer may start to feel the additional work is being done without compensation, leading to both the quality of the work and responsiveness of the lawyer decreasing.

Yes, using a time estimate and hourly rate is one way to come up with the amount of a flat fee.

But it is really just hourly billing in drag.

And as AI decreases the amount of time needed to be spent on most tasks, the fees are going to keep getting lower.

Great maybe for clients, not so much for lawyers.

The solution?

Price your flat fee based on the value of the services to the client, not the time you think you will spend on it.

Is this much harder to do than using your estimated hourly fee plus a buffer?

Yes.

It requires trial and error and getting better at it through experience, just like any other skill.

But that time is well spent for a pricing method that benefits both you and the client.

#NML #DitchHourly

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-brown-and-black-floral-dress-4733357/

Apparently the way we now train lawyers to get “better” at hourly billing is to gaslight them.

We tell them that the reason they are unhappy, burnt out, depressed, etc. is because they have a bad mindset around time tracking.

That if they just change how they see time tracking, their problems will disappear and everything will be right with the world.

And to top it off, their bad mindset around time tracking is actually costing their senior partners money because of all the time they are failing to capture, to the tune of over $1300 a day!

This is all obviously the lawyers’ fault.

#NML

Today is the March “blood moon” lunar eclipse.

Anybody else feeling it? 🫥

Full moons, and especially lunar eclipses, are great times to release things that don’t serve us.

Here are some things I am working on letting go of during this blood moon:

1️⃣ Perfectionism — this is just fear in disguise. Everything is perfect, and simultaneously there is no such thing as perfect, just as it is right now. So just do whatever you have been putting off.

2️⃣ Over-analysis — there is no such thing as absolute certainty. Life is all about risks, and you can’t think your way out of them. Feel into it, make a decision, and take action.

3️⃣ Martyrdom — stop putting others in front of your own needs. If you keep doing for others without taking care of yourself, you will burn out. Maybe you already have.

4️⃣ Control — control is an illusion. What you actually have is choice: how you are going to respond to the world. Surrender and trust in the process.

#NML #LawyersWhoWoo

Sports necessarily includes a winner and a loser.

The one who gets the most (or least) points.

The one who finishes first, or who is left standing at the end of the game.

Sports are what Simon Sinek calls Finite Games.

But most of life is not a Finite Game.

The score doesn’t matter.

Just because you win doesn’t mean I lose.

The ending for all of us is the same.

Yet we still tend to treat it as such.

We compete against our neighbors for the biggest house and greenest lawn.

We compete against our colleagues for the most work done and the shiny promotion.

We even compete against ourselves, saying we aren’t good enough and that we have to keep fighting, keep hustling, keep scratching and clawing towards a goal that keeps moving away from us as quickly as we move towards it.

We’re playing the wrong game.

We aren’t in a Finite Game like chess or baseball or figure skating.

The Game of Life is an Infinite Game.

Where there are very few set rules, and the rest we make up as we go and change as they suit us.

There are no winners or losers.

There is no prize for finishing “first” or scoring the most.

The reward, the goal, the whole purpose is simply the experience of playing.

#NML

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/dices-and-wooden-pieces-on-game-board-278918/

It’s a new month (and an eclipse portal), so let’s do some hourly billing math!

Let’s assume your salary is $200,000 a year.

And let’s say your firm requires you to bill 2000 hours a year.

That makes your effective hourly rate $100/hour.

That is just time billed, not time spent at the office, commuting, or doing work that isn’t considered billable.

If you make less than $200,000 a year, your effective rate will be lower.

If your billable requirement is less than 2000 hours — say 1700 — then your rate will be slightly higher ($118/hr in this example).

When I first started practicing law as a solo out of law school I charged $150/hr with very low overhead.

I didn’t have 2000 or even 1700 hours of billable work, but that was also 20 years ago so if I had an hourly rate it would be significantly higher now.

And my overhead is still very low.

Look at what you are making and the work you put in; the time spent at the office or on the road; the soccer games and family dinners missed; the cancelled plans with friends; the memories you weren’t there for.

Is it worth it to you?

#NML

taplio

Bradley Miller's Linkedin Analytics

Bradley Miller

Performance ScoreBradley Miller's LinkedIn Performance

Bradley Miller's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

.css-6ytdur{background-image:linear-gradient(284deg, rgba(39, 43, 72, 1) 0%, rgba(33, 47, 183, 1) 100%);color:transparent;-webkit-background-clip:text;background-clip:text;}Bradley Miller's Linkedin Analytics

Bradley Miller

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Bradley Miller's LinkedIn Performance

Bradley Miller's Best Posts .css-1emoo84{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:400;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);}(last 30 days)

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Bradley Miller's Linkedin Analytics

Performance ScoreBradley Miller's LinkedIn Performance

Bradley Miller's Best Posts (last 30 days)