Take the Blame

I Blame Hipsters

“Clients just don’t want to pay what they used to pay.”

“The judge is an idiot.”

“The client screwed up the case, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“The paralegal dropped the ball, and it didn’t get filed.”

“The witness was terrible.”

You can blame others when things go wrong. That makes you feel better.

Or you can take the blame. You can say “I dropped the ball; I should have done a better job of [fill in the blank].”

You Can Feel Better, Or You Can Make Things Better

The only way you can make things better is to take the blame. It’s when you take the blame that you take responsibility for the problem. That’s when the improvement starts to happen.

  • “I should have made more of an effort on marketing.”
  • “I should have vetted the delivery service.”
  • “I should have been better prepared.”

You get the idea.

Once you acknowledge your role, you’ll start making progress. As long as you keep blaming something outside of yourself, you’ll be stuck.

Go ahead, take the blame. Things will start to change once you do.

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Saving Time on the Phone

Take a look at any lawyers at any time, and you’re likely to see them talking to a client on the phone. We’re all used to sticking our heads in the office of other lawyers, and the first thing we do is check to see whether they’re on the phone. It’s like the phone handset [...]

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How Badly Will You Be Hurt by the Emergency?

It’s morbid, but I’d suggest you assume your assistant is going to be hit by a truck sometime today. She survived, but she won’t be coming back to work. For purposes of my story, let’s assume that she’s in a coma for a few months. Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. You can’t talk to her. [...]

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There are times when you’re really going to need a client. Those are dangerous times. It’s in those moments that we make the biggest mistakes. It’s in those moments when we make decisions setting off events that nearly always result in trouble. Sometimes the trouble lasts long after the client is gone. You’re worried about [...]

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I keep running into the same scenario that holds lawyers back from achieving the big goals they set for growing their practices. I’m talking to lawyers about their practices constantly. These conversations have become a big part of the work I’m doing on a daily basis and, except for one thing, it’s a lot of [...]

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Workshops in Asheville, NC Plus San Francisco

Today, we’re announcing an additional Divorce Discourse Workshop in Asheville, North Carolina on June 14, 2013. This program is in addition to the San Francisco Workshop (July 12, 2013) announced a few days ago. When we went live with the San Francisco program, we had some overload on the registration system. We’re all good now, and we [...]

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13 Easy Ways to Make Your Assistant Happy

It’s shockingly ironic for me to give you advice on how to make an assistant happy. I’ve burned through some assistants—big time. I’ve left more than a few of these relationships as smoldering piles of scorched earth. I have not always been good to the people who work for me. Irony aside, I’ve learned a [...]

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Can You Ride on LegalZoom’s Coattails?

In my state, North Carolina, we have an ethics opinion prohibiting a lawyer from bidding for pay-per-click advertising using another lawyer’s name. For example, I can’t buy Google AdWords ads that pop up when someone searches on my competitor’s name. Specifically, the 2010 Formal Ethics Opinion 14 (dated April 27, 2012) “rules that it is a violation [...]

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