Finance

You’re Not a Banker: Don’t Extend Credit

You just signed up a bunch of new clients. January is good for divorce lawyers. Congratulations. Those clients (I hope) either paid you a fixed fee or deposited funds into your trust account. Life is good. A month or two from now, some of those clients will need to pay you some more. They’ll either [...]

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How Many Hours Should an Associate Bill?

We hear stories about big firm associates billing crazy numbers of hours. When I got out of law school back in 1987, the story was that big firm lawyers billed a minimum of 1,800 hours per year. They made it sound like billing that much resulted in a miserable existence for the lawyers. Since then, [...]

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How Do You Compensate an Associate?

Today, we’re continuing the conversation about law firm associates. I’m responding to the attorney who wrote about his 45 years of hiring associates and his recent realization that he hasn’t ever made any money from his efforts. Before we hit the compensation issue, let me say this. The guy who started this has a point [...]

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What to Do about the Holiday Revenue Slump

In my practice, where we charge fixed fees for everything, December can be difficult. Revenues are affected by the holidays. My revenue anxiety often disrupts my holiday sleep. I wake up dreaming of bankruptcy judges and debtor’s prison. Between prospective clients putting off the divorce until January, the days we’re closed, and the number of [...]

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How Much Should You Pay an Associate?

I get asked about associate compensation more than I get asked about any other issue. Everyone wants to know how much we need to pay to get and keep someone good. I just finished the latest John Grisham book The Litigators. It’s typical Grisham, and I enjoyed it. At one point in the book, one [...]

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Do You Need to Buy the Pocket Parts?

I’d like to be done with books. I’d like to have all our reference volumes online. Unfortunately, in the real world, that isn’t happening yet. Of course, a great deal of our reference material is available online, but much of what we need still comes printed on dead trees. One day that will change. But [...]

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Take a Banker to Lunch

It’s tougher than ever to get credit from a bank. Banks are stuck in a crazy place where they’ve got gobs of cash, yet they won’t put it to work. It wasn’t always this way. For the first 20 years of running my practice, I could walk into the bank, sign my name, and walk [...]

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How to Cope with the Double-Dip Recession

Here we go again: recession round two. It’s coming on fast, and the economy is headed for the dumper. Recession round two may not have officially started, but experts are reaching consensus about the inevitability of the next downturn. I don’t think there’s much argument about what’s happening. The question is, how will you survive? [...]

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