I walked down the block this morning to a coffee shop. My plan was to order some coffee, plug in my laptop, and hang out there for a couple of hours while I drafted some emails and this article.

I get energy in coffee shops. I like to watch the flow of people coming and going. I enjoy counting the piercings on the barista.

I walked through the doors, which were unusually propped open with doorstops, and stepped inside. I immediately realized that the air conditioning was broken.

It took me all of five seconds to formulate a new plan as I spun around and left.

Broken air conditioning, at least on a hot, humid, eastern North Carolina morning, is a deal breaker. I’m now sitting in a much cooler spot.

There are several deal breakers for a coffee shop. It’s got to have pretty good coffee, air conditioning on a hot day, heat in the winter, comfortable seating (at least in some places and for some people), and fair prices. There are probably a few other conditions that apply to some customers and not others.

What are the deal breakers for your practice?

What is it that, if missing, makes the client spin around and walk away?

I’ve been observing our practice as we’ve made changes to some of those core elements that might be deal breakers. I’ve been watching closely and nervously.

I’m pretty certain that a phone, or the lack of a phone, would be a deal breaker. Clients insist on having the option of reaching you by phone.

At the outset of a case, not having an in-person meeting is a deal breaker in many, if not most, cases. Sure, you can get someone to hire you for a small fee by phone. In fact, you can have someone hire you in a large matter by phone if it’s the client’s choice (almost always driven by the client’s lack of proximity to you). But the lack of an in-person meeting will almost always kill a big case. Clients want to see your eyes and shake your hand.

Does the meeting have to take place in your office?

I used to think it did. I used to think that the office was an essential element and that failure to have a nice office was totally a deal breaker.

In fact, I used that thinking to rationalize $24,000 a month in rent. I paid that for years and years.

Then I tested that rationalization.

Turns out that a nice office isn’t deal breaker.

We’ve moved to small conference rooms for our client meetings. We no longer have attorney or staff offices. Our people work from home.

The conference rooms are in space we lease for ourselves in one location and in rooms we lease from Regus in others. The Regus locations have minimal branding and, to the extent there is any branding at all, it’s for Regus.

Of course, the Regus locations are very nice. The company does a good job of creating a professional environment.

However, the Regus locations are not ours, and that’s very clear to anyone who pays any attention at all.

Does it matter that we’re using borrowed rooms in an office space that clearly belongs to Regus?

Nope.

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Our clients in Charlotte, Durham, and Chapel Hill are as happy as our clients in Raleigh (where the office is branded with our firm name). The revenues are good in all of the locations.

I’ve learned that office space is not a deal breaker. You need to meet with your client. You need to do it somewhere comfortable and professional (with air conditioning), but it doesn’t need to have your name in big gold letters on the door. It doesn’t need to be full of your staff and your papers. It doesn’t need a hall lined with your art and shelves filled with your books.

Office space is not a deal breaker for a family law practice. You can take that, and the money you would have spent on rent, to the bank.