As I talk about in one of my earlier videos, the greatest con ever that lawyers fall for is believing that people who have the ability to generate business and get clients, they’ve got some kind of magic that you don’t. I could tell you, as someone who didn’t have a ton of success in the large law firm environment, building up a huge book of business, that it is absolutely possible for most lawyers out there to get clients, certainly enough to make your practice viable for a period of time as you grow and develop and find your sea legs and get your footing. 99% of this is pure belief. You are just going to have to take me at my word that if you are a reasonably nice person, if you’re reasonably social, if you’ve got some friends and family, if you haven’t burned every bridge, if you’ve gotten along with your opposing counsels, if you’ve stayed in contact with your network, then many people out there who are not your close contacts are going to want to help you.

At least now, when it is still rare for a big firm lawyer to leap out on their own and say that I’m making a change, I’m making this entrepreneurial push, you will be surprised how many people who are not very close to you are going to want to help you. I was astonished that when I started my law firm, all the best projections about where my work was going to come from didn’t turn out to be that accurate, but the top 10 or 20 places that work came from, the top 10 or 20 cheerleaders out there that were there helping me and singing my praises and doing what’s necessary to spread the word and to send work for me. These were not people that I ever would have thought would be the ones who would be able to help me in that way because they’re just not that close to me.

And now that I am six years in a running my law firm and I’m like eight years or something like that from the time when I was projecting, am I going to be able to survive? Can I really leave the big firm partnership with just two clients and dig this big hole of credit card debt? I look back on that and it really is pretty simple. I mean, half the lawyers out there are below average. And I have met tons of small firm lawyers over the last eight years or so. I’ve met a lot of people that do work different than me. I’ve met a lot of people that do work that I wouldn’t be interested in doing. I’ve met a lot of people out there who maybe aren’t the best lawyers, but they’re reasonably good at understanding how to put themselves out in the world digitally through emails and newsletters and LinkedIn and YouTube and Facebook and all sorts of different places.

And there are lawyers out there that are much worse at what they do than you that are getting clients. And a lot of them are not just getting some clients. A lot of them are doing very well for themselves. My problem after about a year or so in business, wasn’t getting clients. It was what do I do with the fact that the way that I put myself out into the world was leading me to get nine out of 10 leads being people that I didn’t want. As soon as my network knew that I was the same high quality, big firm lawyer that I’ve always been, but I was out there on my own, everybody wanted to give me work. And it typically at the beginning tended to be stuff that they didn’t want to do, but I was thrilled to have it to start with.

And it was only a small period of time, 90 days or so before I had enough good stuff in that I started saying, “Listen, even though this type of work is what I do, even though it’s the client that I like to represent, the claim is too small, the contract is too small. I was able to start getting very picky about the work that I was taking on six months to a year into the start of my firm. And so you’re just going to have to take me at my word. 99% of this is pure belief. If you like me, didn’t have a lot of success in the large law firm generating your own book of business, just remember that at least for me, even though I love my job, even though it was a great place that I was for about 15 years before I started my firm, the big firm is like this stage weight around your neck.

There’s so much bureaucracy, so many layers of administration and different partners that a potential client would have to claw their way through to get to you, the conflict checks to get engaged. When people knew that they could get in touch with me and they could talk to me without a lot of that red tape, the floodgate’s open for me. And you will get business from multiple sources. Some of it will be from referrals, some of it will be from other places. I think that having an understanding about who your target audience is important. I talk about that in other videos. I think that there is a real opportunity to use digital marketing to create kind of a journey, to socialize the idea that you might be somebody that someone should hire over a period of time, and then to have multiple touchpoints and to try to pull them in through your website.

There’s a lot that you can do to cultivate people that if you are a business to business lawyer like me, to create a feeling that you have a subject matter level of knowledge that is attractive to people who might want to hire you later. And for me, there were a lot of people who are my new clients six years into starting my firm that I think they started to view me years ago as somebody who could teach them a little bit through my videos, through the content that I was putting out. I almost think that most of the clients that are sort of coming along now, they’ve been with me on my journey. They’ve considered my firm a brand, almost like a media company. And so you do not need to go out there and have coffee with a hundred people. You don’t need to go play golf with a hundred people.

You don’t need to market in the way that you have traditionally done it at the big law firm. As a matter of fact, it became very apparent to me that everything that I was doing to try to get work in the large law firm is probably exactly opposite what I needed to do to get work on my own. And so half the lawyers are out there are below average. I say jokingly, a lot of them are in small firms. A lot of them are gainfully employed. A lot of them do well for themselves. And so you are just going to have to shake off the idea that there are people out there that can generate business and you’re not one of them. It’s not as hard as you think. It’s not easy, but it’s not rocket science. And I would encourage you to believe in yourself.

There’s a lot more that goes into it than just pure belief, but if you’re otherwise ready to start your firm, but you’re thinking that I’m never going to be able to get clients, let me tell you, I have met dozens and hundreds of lawyers that are probably not as good as you that have lots of clients. And so you’re just going to have to have some element of faith. It’s a calculated element of faith. There is an element of planning and preparation, but it is not as hard as you think. And it certainly should not be an obstacle for you leaping out on your own and starting your law firm.