Practice Management

CNNMoney reports on the help being offered by Barbara Hanley, owner of the real estate appraisal company Golf & Land Economics, to save dairy farms in her area.  This from a lady who lives off helping to turn such farms into fairways.  But, her new goal is to see continue the family dairy farm survive for generations to come.

What does this have to do with the practice of law?

Well, everything because the general practices or advice by her to dairy farmers, who are having increased trouble competing in their current market, is essentially the same.

I know, I know lawyers, law firms, law schools and law firm consultants all like to think the practice or business of law is different.  They offer all of the bull (pun intended) that law is a "profession" and lawyers are "professionals".  Yeah, right. 

Do not get me wrong, I am not advocating that you as lawyers do not act professional or that you not be respectful to the Courts, the Bar or the legal system.  Or, for that matter, you do not provide your clients with competent, reliable service at a reasonable costs or fee.  If you do not the bar-tenders will be after you.  I am just stating that the business of law is not an anomaly.  It suffers like every other business and business model which is being confronted by the Third Wave and big box retailing.

Dairy farmers are being squeezed by competition, some of the lowest dairy prices in history and soaring taxes.  Many farmers are being forced out of business.  Likewise, lawyers are being squeezed by competition, the reduction by legislatures of ways to make an effective living, and by commodity brokers that want to charge fixed fees for unique or one shot litigation to the detriment to themselves and everyone else.  You cannot stop it, so you have to deal with it.  On top of this they are being squeezed by ever increasing overhead related to commuting, office rent, salaries, and the like.

What Barbara Hanley observed was that milk is a commodity whose price is dictated by giant buyers and government rules. Gourmet cheese, on the other hand, commands prices that might keep New England dairies in business.

Last year she, her husband and a farm family went to France to study artisan cheese making in Lyon and in the Alps. Hanley then wrote a business plan, and the brothers cashed in their life insurance policies to put $40,000 into a new venture, Shy Brothers Farm.

Using this project as a template, Hanley is on to a second farm in Middleboro, Mass., and has a $12,500 matching grant to target six to eight more.

So, again, what does this mean to lawyers and law firms?

Say cheese!  It involves the same ingredient the farmers were already producing, processing and selling in a different way.  Only instead of artisan cheeses, you need to think in terms of artisan legal practices.  (Hey, that even sounds good).

If you are struggling by practicing in a broad market controlled by big players or so many like minded attorneys that you cannot count them, then you need to think about niche practices in which there is some demand.

Instead of family law, you can now practice, let us say, cooperative divorces.

Instead of consumer bankruptcies, you can practice second chance bankruptcies, or family farmer bankruptcies, or fishermen bankruptcies.

Instead of foreclosure work and real estate modifications, you can concentrate only on SBA defaults.

Instead of selling title and closing services to Realtors and lenders, define the service and take it directly to the consumer.

Instead of talking any personal injury case, concentrate on just representing dog bite victims.

I do not know, but it seems to me that the possibilities are endless.

And, why would not Barbara Hanley think of this?  She does not compete by vying against other appraisers in the solicitation through Realtors and lenders to do general real estate appraisals.  She appraises golf courses.

(Pictured Barbara Hanley at Shy Brothers Farm)