Why Solo Lawyers Need More Than A Strategy Session And A To-Do List
Effective strategy sessions for solo lawyers go beyond a to-do list. They involve diagnosis, urgent priorities, planning, implementation and accountability.
Running a solo legal practice involves more than doing legal work.
There's the business to manage, clients to deal with, fees to generate and collect, decisions to make, systems to maintain and, for some practitioners, staff or other resources to manage.
Somewhere in all of that, the lawyer needs to find the time to think about where the practice is heading.
That doesn't always happen.
It's easy to become so caught up in the day-to-day demands of practice that the bigger issues are left unattended.
Sometimes the problems become obvious. Other times they develop gradually.
Either way, knowing something needs to change is one thing.
Understanding what needs to change, and actually making it happen, is another.
Start With A Proper Diagnosis
For us, any meaningful strategy session starts with understanding the practice.
What's working? What isn't? What are the underlying problems?
Is the practice viable and genuinely profitable? Is the right work coming in? Are the systems, resources and workflow appropriate for the practice?
Is the practitioner in control of the business, or is the business controlling them?
What has already been tried? Why haven't certain things worked?
Importantly, what does the lawyer actually want from their practice?
There's no point developing a strategy without understanding the present position and what the practitioner wants to achieve.
We shouldn't assume we know the answers before asking the questions.
Deal With What Needs Immediate Attention
Once the problems have been identified, the next question is what needs to be dealt with first.
Some matters may require urgent attention.
There could be budget pressures, operational difficulties, client commitments, professional risks or concerns about the practitioner's ability to sustain the current workload.
Other issues may be important but not immediately urgent.
That's where triage comes in.
What needs to happen now? What can wait? What needs to stop?
Trying to fix everything at once is rarely practical, particularly for a solo lawyer already struggling with the demands of practice.
Priorities matter.
Develop A Strategy That Works For The Practitioner
The next step is to formulate a practical strategy.
Not a generic business plan or a collection of ideas that sound good in theory.
A strategy that reflects the practitioner's circumstances, the realities of their practice and what they're trying to achieve.
That might involve changing the type of work they accept, improving profitability, strengthening control, introducing better operational systems or addressing staffing and delegation.
It might also involve making some difficult decisions about how the practice operates.
It also must take account of the practitioner's wellbeing and the kind of professional and personal life they want.
The objective is to create a practice that's viable, profitable, manageable and sustainable.
The Strategy Isn't The End Of The Process
This is where we think there's an important distinction between giving someone advice and actually helping them change their practice.
It's relatively easy to identify problems and prepare a list of things that need to be done.
It's quite another matter to implement those changes while continuing to run a busy legal practice.
There will be obstacles. Some things won't work as expected. Other priorities will emerge.
Sometimes the practitioner will need to reconsider how they've been doing things for years.
That's why ongoing strategic advice and accountability can be important.
Strategy sessions provide an opportunity to review progress, work through difficulties, challenge decisions and make adjustments.
Not simply to ask whether a list of tasks has been completed, but to consider whether the changes are actually improving the practice.
Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation And Accountability
From our perspective, these are connected parts of the same process.
First, understand what's happening.
Identify and address what needs immediate attention.
Develop a strategy based on the realities of the practice and the practitioner's objectives.
Implement the changes.
Review what's working, what isn't and what needs to be adjusted.
Maintain accountability throughout.
That process won't necessarily be the same for every lawyer.
Different practices have different circumstances, challenges and priorities.
Nor does meaningful change necessarily happen in one or two sessions.
Sometimes the issues are relatively straightforward.
Sometimes they involve more fundamental changes to the way the practice is run.
It's About More Than A To-Do List
Ultimately, the purpose of strategic advice isn't simply to tell a solo lawyer what they should be doing.
It's to help them understand their practice, make better decisions and follow through with meaningful changes.
That includes the performance of the business, the way work is managed, the risks involved and the wellbeing of the practitioner.
Diagnosis, planning, implementation and accountability aren't ends in themselves.
They're part of helping a lawyer build and maintain a practice that's commercially sound, professionally sustainable and better aligned with what they want from practising independently.
That's what meaningful change is about.
It's also why a strategy session should be more than another to-do list.
