10 Ways to Use Leverage in Your Law Practice

Think of leverage as getting the most “bang for your buck”.  With a little effort you maximize your results. It might be investing a few dollars to get more but there are other ways to leverage your efforts. Here are 10 ways to use leverage in your law practice:

1. Leverage your time – One way to leverage your time is to create something you can use over and over.  An example of that might be creating and saving templates for documents you use frequently.  Another might be the creation of an operations manual so that staff and all the attorneys know how all the systems in the practice operate.  I wrote a list in 2004 on ways to leverage your time.  You will find it here: http://www.asparker.com/ppts0604.html
2. Leverage your strengths – What are the skills you enjoy using?  These are the ones that are usually easy for you and the ones you excel at.  Find ways to use those skills to benefit your practice.  For example if you are someone who enjoys  meeting and talking to people you will  do well at networking with people and speaking to groups of people – two great ways to develop your business.  Others who excel at writing can find ways to write articles and books to attract business.  In either case with a minimum of your effort you get big results.
3. Leverage your network – It is said that everyone knows 250 people.  Now is the time to use those connections to develop a powerful network.  Ask your current network to introduce you to people who are well connected and have the ability to refer multiple clients to you.  With 20 powerful connections you will get the referrals you need to run your practice.
4. Leverage by using strategic partnerships – Partner with someone who also comes in contact with your target market for example a real estate attorney might partner with an appraiser and/or a real estate agent in doing a workshop for the purpose of educating new home buyers.  You can leverage your time by doing the same workshop for new buyers multiple times.  You can leverage the relationship with the partners by sharing leads and referrals.
5. Leverage your client’s good will – Stay connected with clients who know, like and trust you.  They know your work and are likely to refer to you if you are in the top of their minds when someone asks them for a referral.  Connection can be by phone, email, or snail mail.  In fact a mixture of all three keeps it interesting.
6. Leverage your knowledge – Use your expertise to create several different products from one.  If you have written an article to be published, give a workshop on the same topic.  Use a synopsis of the article in your email newsletter.  Include a link to your article in a Tweet and/or on your LinkedIn page.
7. Leverage your technology – Once you have bought into software or hardware and mastered using it then use it in as many ways as you can to get the maximum benefit.  Use QuickBooks for your accounting but then generate reports to see how you are doing.  Compare month against the financial goals you set and then compare with the previous year to see the growth.  Check what your expenses were to find waste.  Make a plan for the next month to stay on track or make up for past performance.
8. Leverage your money to invest  in support services for your practice– This will free up your time to do what you do best (the legal work or practice management and strategy).  If this is a strain on the budget then use the time gained to do some business development so that you can more than afford the service. A Practice Advisor can help you to set attainable business development goals and will insure that you achieve them.
9. Leverage your money to invest in education and training – Courses for you and/or your staff have many benefits.  For you gaining expertise in an area can bring new business into your practice either from new clients or current clients.  Adding to the knowledge of the staff increases their productivity and enables them to take on new responsibilities.
10. Leverage your staff – Delegate all the work to them that they are capable of doing.  The more work you delegate the more time you have to work for your clients or to develop more business.   Train the appropriate members of your staff to do all the administrative tasks.  Initially this takes a lot of time but it will save you much more time than you invest if you train the person well.