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The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
I am more convinced than ever that nothing that traditional bar organizations are doing is going to move the needle on the sad stats on lawyer happiness ...
The root cause of all lawyers' problems is financial stress. Financial stress holds you back from getting the right people on the bus, running the right systems, and being able to only do work for clients you want to work with. Financial stress keeps you in the office on nights and weekends, often doing work you hate for people you don't like, and doing that work alone.
(Yes, you have permission to do only work you like doing and doing it with people you like working with.)
The money stress is not because the lawyers are bad lawyers or bad people. In fact, most lawyers are good at the lawyering part and they are good people.
The money stress is caused by the general lack of both business skills and an entrepreneurial mindset.
Thus, good lawyers who are good people get caught up and slowed down in bringing their gifts to the world. Their families, teams, clients, and communities are not well-served because you can't serve others at your top level when you are constantly worrying about money.
We can blame the law schools and the elites of the profession who are running bar organizations, but to blame anyone else for your own woes is a loser's game. It is, in itself, a restrictive, narrow, mindset that will keep you from ever seeing, let alone experiencing, a better future.
Lawyers need to be in rooms with other entrepreneurs. They need to hang with people who won't tell you that your dreams are too big or that "they" or "the system "won't allow you to achieve them. They need to be in rooms where people will be in their ear telling them that their dreams are too small.
Get in better rooms. That would be the first step.
Second step, ignore every piece of advice any general organized bar is giving about how to make your firm or your life better.
The Renegade Lawyer Podcast
Ep. 235 – Build a Business, Not Another Job
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Building a successful law firm requires more than great legal skills—it requires leadership. In this episode, Ben Glass shares the four stages of business freedom and explains why the biggest shift for any law firm owner is moving from practicing law to leading a business that can thrive without them.
Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com
What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?
In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers.
One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.
There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.
Lawyers Can Raise Humanity
SPEAKER_00Here's more from the renegade lawyer Ben Glass. We have such a unique position to impact lives. Not and here's the thing, it's not just about the legal, right? Because we're good at that. We're all competent at that. And if you're if you're a non-lawyer supporting a law firm, like you're competent at that. But we are in a place in our lives, each and every one of us, where we can raise humanity. Mike's going to talk to you a little bit more about this, but every interaction we have is just a chance in this world that is so broken. Like it's it you can you cannot turn on the TV or the radio or CNN or any of these things and see anything but brokenness. But you are in a position where you can bring life and you can elevate the consciousness of the world because there's virtually no other business like ours where the barrier to entry is so high. Like we think, oh, there's so much this competition. Yeah, but the guy's got to go to college, then law school and pass the bar, curl this debt. Meanwhile, they're not teaching me anything about business or marketing anywhere there. So we're in such a special, we just forget, like we're in a special protected um occupation and position where we just have, we have so much, and we need to stop, and I don't think it happens much, but we need to stop whining about how hard it is. And when you go back to your local towns and communities, like you either distance yourself from these lawyers or you say, no, it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that
A Simple Practice Building Framework
SPEAKER_00way. All right. So let me give you the framework um for building a practice that will impact the world because there's so many strategies, tactics, and tools, and they're all good. Uh, but I want to I want to give you something you could almost put on a t-shirt and then make everything else that you do that's an activity towards building your practice like like focused. All right, but let's start
Four Stages Of Law Firm Freedom
SPEAKER_00here. I think there's sort of four uh four stages to freedom in a law firm. Many of us started at stage one. I'm gonna go start a law firm and I hope to God I can support my family. Like, how many are like you at some point in your life was like, I'm gonna go and do this, and I hope that I can support my family? Raise your hand, okay? Because we know it, like we've been there. Second is we still just have a job, but we realize that we need people to help us. We need coworkers. It's not it's scaling abom beyond myself a bit, but it's still not really a business. Third place is where a lot of us, and and so some of you actually may be in position one. That's fine. That's where you are, we can help you. Many of you are in position two or three. I don't actually know anyone who's position four, but that's my goal, right? So position three is on the uh stages of freedom is just leading. And it's and uh it's it's hard for lawyers, like you're good at something, like trying cases, um creating plans, um, working with judges. And you know, we we just come to understand that in order to build a real business, you either have to hire someone who can run the business, or you most typically for people like us, is we become the ones that run
Letting Go To Lead The Firm
SPEAKER_00the business. And letting go of the vine and releasing the legal stuff, I can't tell you how many members, especially at our masumine level, have come through swearing they will never give up lawyering. They just can't. I cannot believe anyone else could do this as good as I can. But it spent a couple of years with us, and many of us now are doing little or no lawyering, and I'm here to tell you that that's okay. You serve the world better when you build a team that can produce the same quality of legal results, a higher quality of customer service, when you get out of the way, become the business leader of the firm and get out of the lawyering. I know if you're not there, it's hard to believe that that's true or possible or even permissible, but I'm telling you it's true.
Keep Listening And Subscribe
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