Practice Management

Call it timidity, fearfulness, faintheartedness, or maybe even cowardice. It might be shyness in the sense people like to get lost in a crowd. It is apprehensiveness, I guess. But, for some reason people starting out in the practice of law tend to do two things that might not be the best.  

First, they tend to buddy up, which is to say they want to partner with someone even before they have one stick of business, any money, and nothing but overhead. It is harder to feed multiple mouths and families than one.

Second, they move into office space really for no better reason than to feel part of the bunch or congregation or horde.

They think by partnering up and/or becoming a groupie that they are bettering themselves and they think, for some strange reason, that they are improving their chances of success.

I doubt this.

How many actually got the work they wanted to get done while studying at the law library? I never did. I reviewed a little. Highlighted a little. But who likes being befuddled or confounded? Right? So, my mind would wonder. Maybe I would just read the newspaper or surf a little. That was bad enough, I suppose, but too often I would get help in my distraction. The library typically turned into a series of exchanges and detours with people who were more than willing to venture off course with me. They would leave, I would read another page, and then another distraction would appear.

I know we are all absent from the task now and then, but more often than not the buddy or the workplace ends up being more like the law library. It results in mutually assured distraction. You know, where we all act to distract each other in a manner assuring that nobody gets any substantive work done.

We are all prone toward cognitus interruptus, or the disruption of the normal thought process as a result of external distraction, especially where are mental focus is necessary. Social media is enough of a culprit really. Our own procrastination is bad enough without having an army of people to help us in our distraction.

I am not saying we do not need friends, mentors or a social network. I still believe in network marketing or relationship marketing. But, success does not require mutually assured distraction. It requires a sense of purpose and an effort to meet goals. Really it requires a sense of self. That is often lessened by others whose job seems to be to keep you focused toward goals that are not yours.

So, think twice about partnering up and placing yourself into permanent groups when starting out on your quest to practice law. You are probably better off all by yourself. If you think that is a recipe for loneliness, so be it. You do not have to be lonely all of the time, but you do need to stay focused like a laser beam on building your practice. You do not need to also deal with the goals, attributes and distractions of others as well.