success – Page 2

The most important decision of your legal career

October 2, 2025 by David M. Ward

Ever notice that the most successful lawyers aren’t necessarily the best lawyers? If you’re smarter, work harder, and do a better job than those other lawyers, why do they earn more than you do?

It’s because being a better lawyer doesn’t mean prospective clients and the people who can refer them will notice you, trust you, and hire or refer you.

You may be a brilliant lawyer, dedicated, hard-working, and well-liked, but if you’re not good at the business side of your practice, you’ll always be a step behind.

The good news is that you can change that. It starts with a decision.

The most important decision of your career.

You have to decide to commit to the business side of your practice. That it is at least as important as the legal work and deserves your time and energy and money.

Decide to get serious about business and marketing. Study it, schedule time for it, and consistently and enthusiastically work at it.

Average lawyers don’t do that.

Average lawyers provide lip service to marketing and management, taking action only when something falls in their lap, there is a fire to put out, or they have a few extra minutes between appointments.

Unless driven by desperation, they don’t schedule anything, try anything new or otherwise work on improving the business side of their practice. They see it as a burden, an expense, at most a necessary evil, instead of embracing it as the path for achieving their biggest goals.

Why? Ego, mostly. They believe that to be successful, they shouldn’t “have to” do anything more than be a good lawyer. Or they don’t know what to do and aren’t willing to find out.

They might assume that the lawyers who earn more have the right connections, innate interpersonal skills, or just got lucky.

Excuses. And any excuse will do.

Don’t make excuses. If you want to achieve more, decide that you will do everything possible to make that happen. And do it.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Personal development, success

The real reason you’re not doing more marketing

September 11, 2025 by David M. Ward

You know you should do more marketing, but you don’t. Why?

It’s not because you don’t know what to do or how to do it. You’re smart; you can learn.

It’s not because you’re not good at it. You can hire people to help you or do most of it for you.

It’s not because you don’t have the time. If you’re bringing in a lot of new business, it’s worth it, and you’ll find the time.

How about this one: you don’t think you should have to? You’re a good lawyer, and good lawyers get all the business they can handle without doing a lot of (or any) marketing. Yeah, well, they might not do some things, but they do others.

No, there’s another reason you might not be doing more marketing.

Fear.

You’re afraid it won’t work and you’ll be embarrassed. Or that other lawyers will look down on you and you’ll be embarrassed. Or your clients will think less of you, and you’ll lose them. Or you don’t want to stand out from the crowd and do things other lawyers don’t do.

Or maybe all of the above.

It’s just fear. And it’s normal. But you don’t have to let it stop you from doing things you know you should. You can use fear to force yourself to do those things.

That’s what I’ve done over the years. I’ve used my fear to motivate myself.

When I was new and broke, I used my fear of failure and poverty to get to work.

When I was doing okay and got comfortable, I used my fear of mediocrity and failing to reach my potential to get myself to work harder.

And when I became successful, got a bigger office and hired more employees, I used my fear of over-extending myself to stay focused and try things I didn’t want to do.

At each stage, I used my fear to motivate myself and took my practice to the next level.

If you’re not doing what you know you know you should (and could), don’t let fear hold you back. Use your fear to pull you forward.

Fear protects us and helps us. We can use it this way. And we should.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Personal development, success

Successful attorneys do this more

September 2, 2025 by David M. Ward

Most attorneys are perfectionists. They do everything they can to make the right decisions, minimize mistakes, and maximize their results. Unfortunately, this is why most attorneys aren’t as successful as they could be.

Fear of failure stops them from trying new ideas and doing things in new ways. Their aversion to risk often stifles their creativity and leads to stagnation.

If you’re not as successful as you want to be, the most likely reason is that you’re not failing often enough.

Successful attorneys willingly take chances. They don’t let their fear of failure stop them from putting their ideas into action. They don’t dwell on worst-case scenarios or downplay the potential rewards of a successful plan.

Most attorneys play it safe. Ironically, this abundance of caution is the riskiest thing they can do because risk and reward are two sides of the same coin.

If you want to accomplish more, you need to embrace a different mindset. When you try something and it doesn’t work, you learn from it and apply what you learn to your next idea. Similarly, if you try something and it does work, even a little, you learn from this to improve your results.

Don’t be reckless, but don’t let your inner perfectionist stop you from taking risks.

Do this consistently. You’ll likely discover that the risks are never as great as you feared and the rewards are almost always better than you imagined.

Filed Under: success

Fake productivity

June 10, 2025 by David M. Ward

We all do it. Scroll through websites and call it research, update our task management system and call it productivity, try different apps and tell ourselves we’ll find one that’s better or faster than what we already use.

We’re not actually being productive, we’re having fun and distracting ourselves from our daily burdens. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes, all that playing and tinkering leads to ideas and improvements.

Go ahead, ask me how many task management and notes apps I’ve tried before landing on my current favs.

Don’t ask.

Fake productivity is okay. Unless we overdo it, or do it instead of doing things we really need to do.

I’m not talking about our regular work. We usually get that done, because we have to. Clients are waiting, deadlines are looming, and we do what we have to do.

I’m talking about the things we don’t have to do, but should. Big things that help us take our practice or career to the next level.

Otherwise known as “deep work”.

Deep work requires a lot of thinking, concentration, and hard work. We know we should do it but, too often, we can’t find the time or energy.

Marketing often falls into that category, unfortunately. Planning a series of seminars, writing a book, starting a blog or channel, for example, takes a lot of time and creative energy and are especially difficult when we try doing them at the end of a busy day, or on Saturday after a busy week.

Most advocates of deep work tell you to block out an hour or two each day, ideally in the morning when you (arguably) have the most energy.

Most professionals can’t do that. They have too much else to do.

There is a compromise. Instead of scheduling an hour or two every day, schedule an hour or two every week.

Chose a day. Choose a time. Put it on your calendar, and… do it.

You can accomplish a lot in one hour. Especially when you make it a habit. When you do anything regularly, your subconscious mind continues to work on the subject during the rest of the week while you’re doing other things.

You have other options. Instead of an hour or two each week, you might schedule a half-day every other week. Or a full day once a month.

Choose something, put it on your calendar, and… do it.

Because doing nothing isn’t an option.

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Law office management, Marketing Plan, success Tagged With: Deep work

One big idea

April 3, 2025 by David M. Ward

One big idea can change your life. Your idea could be a successful marketing method, a way to dramatically increase your productivity, a strategy for winning your current case, a transformative diet or exercise plan, or an investment idea that yields massive returns.

Big ideas are exciting. They motivate you to take action and often attract others who show up in your life at just the right time.

One big idea, YOUR big idea, is waiting for you to discover. How do you do that?

Yes, keep your ears and eyes open, read a lot, pay attention to what others are doing, and record lots of ideas, because having lots of ideas will eventually lead to your big idea.

In addition to “waiting and observing,” you can be more proactive about it.

Schedule a few minutes every day or several times each week for creating and collecting ideas.

I recently heard this idea from a consultant who has done this for decades and swears by it. He starts each day by writing 6 ideas. He says that by starting the day focused on generating ideas, “your mind is set on a more resourceful path, which fosters more creative thinking throughout the day.”

The more ideas you create, the better you get at creating ideas.

If you’re like me, you’re thinking this makes sense, but collecting 6 ideas every day sounds nearly impossible. And then you realize they don’t have to be great ideas or even good ones. They also don’t have to be your own ideas. You can steal them from books and articles and videos and blogs, like I did with this idea.

The key is to create the mindset and habit of regularly collecting ideas. Lots of them. Because quantity does lead to quality.

Try it. Tomorrow morning, you might go through my blog and write down 6 marketing or productivity ideas. Get your mind thinking about bringing in more clients or better clients, increasing your income or being more efficient with your time.

You may not use most of these ideas, or any of them, but you might use some. And who knows, one of those ideas might be your next big idea.

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, success

What are you doing today?

March 18, 2025 by David M. Ward

When your day begins, do you dive right in and get to work—going through files, making calls, talking to your staff, dictating letters—whatever’s on your desk, in your email, or demanding your attention?

Or do you work from a plan?

I suggest the latter.

I suggest your plan your day before it begins because a plan gives you clarity about what you need to do and, just as importantly, what not to do.

A plan gives you confidence that you are doing your most important tasks and have enough time to do them well.

A plan allows you to go from task to task without stopping to figure out what’s next, or getting distracted by whatever shows up.

Without a plan, you might become overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Without a plan, you might waste time working on things that don’t need to be done today, or at all, and make mistakes rushing to do things you suddenly remember.

A daily plan allows you to be more productive.

And it takes only 5 minutes.

Review your calendar. Prepare for appointments and meetings and calls. Go through your task list and decide what you will do today and what can wait until tomorrow—or next week.

When should you create your plan? Some like to do it at at night so they can start the next day without delay. Others like to prepare their plan in the morning (with a cup of coffee).

I usually make my plan the night before and review and update it the morning of.

More important than when you do it is that you do it.

And make it a habit.

One more thing. You also need a weekly plan. Take ten minutes on the weekend or Monday morning to review the past week and plan the week ahead.

And yes, make this a habit, too.

Filed Under: Productivity, success

You don’t need to be a brilliant lawyer to be brilliantly successful

December 12, 2024 by David M. Ward

Average is good enough.

If you’re reasonably competent, deliver value to your clients, and you’re not an asshat, that’s all you need to bring in a steady stream of clients and make a great living.

Well, almost.

You also need to be good at marketing.

Look at your competition. What do you see? I’ll tell you what you see. You see average lawyers with excellent marketing beating excellent lawyers with average marketing.

Your marketing doesn’t have to be amazing. You don’t have to write a lot of big checks. But it needs to get a lot of things right.

Your marketing needs to

Get the right prospective clients to find you
Get them to view your website and read your marketing materials
Get them to understand what you can do for them, and why you are the right lawyer to choose
Get them to contact you
Get them to meet with you
Get them to hire you
Get them to pay you in full and on time
Get them to hire you again (and again)
Get them to send you referrals
Get them to give you an excellent rating or review

It’s all about marketing.

So, in the upcoming year, do yourself a favor and pay more attention to your marketing.

Here’s a good place to start

Filed Under: Marketing legal services, success

Hold on to what’s working and let go of what isn’t

November 21, 2024 by David M. Ward

Most of what we do we do out of habit. We do the same things, the same way, and rarely think about it.

We evaluate cases the same way we always have. We use the same process to decide to take them, settle them, try them, and drop them.

We solve problems, draft documents, conduct depos and hearings and trials pretty much the same way this year as we did ten years ago.

We talk to friends and family the same way as we have always done. We buy the same computers and software, hire the same employees and vendors, and conduct our life and business very much the same as we have before.

Not much changes from day-to-day.

This is a good thing if everything is working well, but a problem if it’s not.

Which means at all times, we must stay alert and be prepared to anticipate and fix problems and take steps to avoid or lesson them in the future.

But even if all is well, we’re safe and profitable and growing and happy, even if what we’re doing is clearly working, we don’t know if there’s something we could do that might work better.

Unless we ask.

In fact, we should always assume there are improvements we could make and regularly look for them. Ways to lower costs, increase profits, and improve our systems.

We must examine, evaluate, and interrogate everything we do. Train ourselves to pay attention to everything and everyone. And ask lots of questions.

That means doing quarterly and annual reviews of our entire operation, in addition to our weekly reviews.

It’s how we know what’s working and what needs fixing. It’s how we can follow the sage advice to “Hold on to what’s working and let go of what isn’t”.

Effectively managing a successful law practice and happy life depends on it.

Filed Under: success

How to be the top lawyer in your niche

November 19, 2024 by David M. Ward

The top lawyers are different. Not necessarily smarter or more accomplished, they do things differently.

The key is their mindset about serving their clients better than any other lawyer could or would, and the reputation they develop as a result.

They make a commitment to their clients and to themself to be the best at every aspect of what they do.

Because they do, their clients unfailingly turn to them whenever they need advice or help.

It starts by letting their clients know that they (or someone on their behalf) will be available whenever they call with a question or to discuss a legal matter.

They aren’t just willing to do it, they are eager to do it.

Being the best also means being honest with their clients or prospects about what they can and can’t do for them. If they aren’t the best lawyer for the job, they don’t fake it, they tell the client. If the client insists that they handle the matter anyway, they say no, even if the client is happy to pay for it.

They explain that the client doesn’t need what they’ve asked for, or that they’re not the best lawyer for the job, and suggest a different solution or refer them to another lawyer who can help them.

The best lawyers are also proactive. They rigorously stay in touch with their clients, even when they’re not actively engaged in legal work for them. They go out of their way to

Share useful ideas, information, and resources
Introduce them to prospective clients or customers for their business or practice
Invite them to sporting or entertainment events they know would appeal to them
Educate them about how their legal services work so that the client will be better able to recognize when they need help or advice and be better able to work with them
And they look for ways to spend time with them (off the clock) getting to know them, their families, their customers, and their advisors

It all boils down to this: the most successful lawyers don’t just provide good legal services for their clients, they build strong relationships with them.

As a result, these lawyers never struggle to attract great clients or need to sell them anything. Clients seek them out, stay with them through thick and thin, and go out of their way to refer other clients.

It feels good to be the best, and it pays well.

Filed Under: Client loyalty, Client relations, Image, success

Start before you’re ready

July 16, 2024 by David M. Ward

It’s not new advice, but is it any good? If you don’t know how to swim, should you jump in the pool and flounder about, or should you take some lessons first or find someone to show you what to do (and stay by your side while you do it)?

Jumping in the deep end without knowing how to swim or doing legal work you’ve never done without some help or preparation is ill-advised, but for many things you want or need to do, getting started is often the best way to do it.

If you’re procrastinating because you overwhelmed with everything you need to do, or you are a perfectionist and convinced that you shouldn’t start because you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re going to mess up, you don’t need to take a course or hire a consultant. You need to start.

Before you’re ready.

That’s how you get good at marketing.

Go to a networking meeting and talk to some people. Take out your first ad. Write an article or blog post. Record a video, even if you don’t have a script, a decent camera, or know anything about editing.

Do something. Anything. You might be terrible at it (or you might be a lot better than you expected), but in either case, you’ve started and are on your way.

You don’t need to have experience to get experience. You get experience by taking the first step.

So, when in doubt, start. Before you’re ready.