When I started practicing, my goal was to build a high volume law practice. Lots and lots of smaller cases and clients.
Why?
Because there are more of them. I figured I had more chances to get small cases simply because there were more of them.
And because when I was getting started, I wasn’t good enough to handle the big ones.
But even when I was good enough, I still focused on small cases. My thinking was that a high volume of small to medium size cases would scale. As I brought in more business, I could hire more employees and get a bigger office. Or, as I later did, I could open a second office. And, if things didn’t work out, I could just as easily scale down.
Small cases meant smaller risk. Big cases require a big investment of time and resources and with only a handful of those cases, I could suffer some big losses if one or two went south.
The other reason is that a high volume law practice would make marketing easier. More clients meant more opportunities to get referrals from those clients. 500 clients meant 500 fishing lines in the water.
And I was right. I got lots of referrals. And life was good.
I always thought my exit strategy would be getting one or two monster cases that would allow me to cash out and be “done”. In law school, we heard that’s what our torts professor had done and it sounded good to me. But it never happened. I got some decent sized cases, but no monsters.
Many attorneys turn away small cases. They want bigger cases, with a bigger potential payoff, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
They probably don’t get as many referrals as I did, but the referrals they do get are bigger. If they’re really good, they get referrals from other attorneys who don’t handle big cases.
Some attorneys do it all. Small cases, medium cases, big cases. Bring it! The small cases allow the firm to finance the bigger cases. That works, too.
There’s no right or wrong way. You have to find your way.
If you aren’t (yet) a great attorney, be a prolific attorney. If you are a great attorney, you’ve got options.
If you want to get more clients and increase your income, learn The Formula.
