More Streams Of Revenue For Your Law Firm

Recently, I introduced you to the first of three ways to build additional streams of revenue into your law firm and covered why it is so critical for the financial success of your business to do this.

Today, we are talking about how you can be providing additional services across several practice areas to increase your attractiveness to a broader market without coming across as a jack of all trades and master of none.

Most lawyers who are doing this completely and totally wrong. I don't want you to be, so let's begin by talking about what I mean by providing additional services.

The way most lawyers do this is to take any kind of matter that walks in the door because they are desperate for business.

Do not do this. Being a generalist is death for your business because you will not be able to systematize your business if you don't narrow your specialty, and you will not be able to effectively market and will not be seen as a trusted resource.

Instead, focus in on the person you want to reach and then become the trusted advisor to that person. It's far, far, far easier and less expensive to provide additional lucrative services to your existing clients than to find new clients.

So, let's say you have decided you are going to become known as the Probate Genius like Kevin Roy. He's niching his marketing to finding probate cases in his community. That's great, but once a family comes to him for probate services and he develops a relationship with them, it would be a huge waste of his marketing dollars and his energy if he did not have additional legal services in different practice areas to offer these clients.

What we teach our Personal Family Lawyers is to become THE trusted advisor to their clients and to train their clients to come to them before making any legal or financial decisions for their business or their family.

In fact, the Personal Family Lawyers put their clients on a membership program and their clients pay for the privilege of calling their lawyer for additional guidance!

Now, I'm sure you're saying to yourself, "But I don't know how to do any practice areas other than my own and don't want to learn new practice areas."

Of course you don't! And, the good news is you don't have to.

What you can do is create co-counsel relationships with lawyers you trust in your community who provide complementary services.

Here's an example:

Perhaps, you are a business lawyer and don't want to add estate planning services to your menu (although I can't imagine why you wouldn't!), but let's just say you don't. In that case, you could do one of two things:

1. You could find an estate planning lawyer in your community who will take your clients on a referral basis and pay you a referral fee (15-25% is a normal range)

OR

2. You could learn how to counsel your business clients about basic estate planning matters and then find an experienced estate planning lawyer in your community to handle the back office work associated with the estate plans you counsel, like drafting documents, transferring assets, etc.

In my office, though I was an experienced estate planning lawyer and had handled many, many ultra high net worth cases when I was in a big law firm, once I was in my own law firm, I actually co-counseled on all of my high net worth/asset protection matters because I wasn't doing enough of them in my own firm to trust I wouldn't miss anything important.

The benefit for my clients was that I was their legal concierge, their trusted advisor, the person they turned to whenever a legal issue came up and I'd either handle it for them (if it was within my practice area) or find the very best resource for them, whether it was a personal injury, a divorce, an asset protection case, charitable planning, or any other legal matter.

I'd then either refer them out and receive a referral fee (or pass on the referral fee to the client if they were on my membership program) or if it was a matter closely related to my practiced, I'd co-counsel and receive part of the fee for my counseling.

No matter what practice are you are in, you can become your client's trusted legal advisor.

Do it today!