Do you often feel trapped in the never-ending cycle of managing every detail of your law practice? If you’re struggling with owner dependence, where your constant involvement is stifling growth and personal freedom, you’re not alone.
On this episode of The Lawyer Millionaire Podcast, host Darren Wurz. dives into a transformative approach that was inspired from Dan Martell’s book, Buy Back Your Time, to help law firm owners delegate effectively and set their practice up for long-term success.
5 Steps to Replacing Yourself in Your Law Firm
Darren details a five-step framework to delegating responsibilities and elevating your practice:
- Administrative Tasks
- Client Delivery
- Sales
- Marketing
- Leadership
1. Administrative Tasks
Administrative work such as scheduling, billing, and email management are repetitive and time-consuming. By hiring a virtual assistant or administrative assistant, you can free up your valuable hours. Implement tools like Clio and Practice Panther and empower your assistants to manage these tools effectively.
2. Client Delivery
As the owner, you might be heavily involved in client interactions and case management. Consider hiring associates or paralegals to handle routine casework. This incremental approach requires setting clear standard operating procedures (SOPs) and providing ongoing training.
3. Sales
Sales processes like client intake and business development can also be delegated. Consider hiring a dedicated business development manager or sales team. Implement a CRM system like Salesforce or HubSpot to manage client leads effectively. Develop sales scripts and procedures to ensure consistent client interactions.
4. Marketing
Marketing activities such as social media posting and email campaigns can initially be handled by hiring a marketing manager or working with an external agency. Utilize tools like Mailchimp, Hootsuite, or GetResponse to automate marketing tasks. Higher-level marketing tasks can be addressed once administrative, client delivery, and sales functions are effectively delegated.
5. Leadership
Replacing yourself in leadership is the final step. Effective leadership involves setting the vision for your firm, making strategic decisions, and fostering a positive work environment. Develop and empower your team members to take on leadership roles, establishing a strong governance structure and providing leadership training.
Conclusion
By advancing through these steps, you can create a more efficient, scalable practice, reduce owner dependence, and prepare your firm for greater growth or a successful exit. Darren challenges you to identify one area to delegate and start making these changes today.
Transform your law practice by implementing these steps and setting yourself up for a more liberated and successful future.
Resources:
- Book a Call with Darren
- Wurz Financial Services
- The Lawyer Millionaire: The Complete Guide for Attorneys on Maximizing Wealth, Minimizing Taxes, and Retiring with Confidence by Darren Wurz
- LinkedIn: Darren P. Wurz
Transcript:
Darren Wurz [00:00:00]:
There’s a proven way to break free and transform your practice into a thriving, self sufficient business. Stay tuned. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire podcast, where we deliver financial planning insights for ambitious law firm owners so you can enjoy more time, more abundance, and less stress. Even if you’re still growing your practice, have you ever felt stuck in a never ending cycle of managing every detail of your law practice? If you’re struggling with owner dependence, where your constant involvement is stifling growth and personal freedom, you are not alone. And today we will explore how delegating key responsibilities can not only lighten your load, but also set your practice up for long term success and scalability.
Intro [00:00:51]:
We are on a mission to help lawyers and law firm owners maximize wealth and achieve financial independence. Welcome to the Lawyer Millionaire with Darren Wuertz from Wuertz Financial Services.
Darren Wurz [00:01:05]:
Hey, law firm owners. I’m Darren Wuertz, and this is part three of our five part series on grow your firm, business growth for law firms. I’m so happy that you are here today with us because we’re going to tackle an area that so many law firm owners struggle with, delegation and how to replace yourself in your practice. So many law firm owners struggle with this, and if this is something that you struggle with, you are here in the right place today because we’re going to dive into that topic. In part one, we explored the four c’s of intangible capital, intangible value, human capital, structural capital, customer capital, social capital, and how these intangible assets can set you up for long term success and growth. In part two, we talked about the five essential steps of effective business growth de risking strategy, efficiency, growth and culture. And today we’re continuing our focus, our series, with a focus on a framework that comes from Dan Martell’s book, buyback your time. And Dan Martell, if you’re listening to this, I would love to have you on the show to talk about it.
Darren Wurz [00:02:17]:
I love his book because he gives us a wonderful way of thinking about, in a very systematic way, how to replace yourself in your practice. So hopefully by the end of this episode, you’ll understand how to delegate some of these key roles and responsibilities so that you can enjoy more freedom, reduce owner dependence in your practice, and set yourself up for maybe a successful exit. So let’s dive in. Before I even talk about this, I just want to address kind of a key area. I’ve had a lot of law firm owners push back on this idea. They can’t scale, they can’t grow, because who wants to come work for me so that they can just free me up to do more fun things. Well, yes, I get that. I understand that struggle.
Darren Wurz [00:03:08]:
But let’s think about this. I mean, let’s just go to the extremes and I want to talk about Microsoft. Let’s think about the company Microsoft. Okay. Do the employees at Microsoft care that the CEO is making? I don’t even know how much the CEO of Microsoft makes. Maybe hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Do they care that Bill Gates is a billionaire? No, actually they love it. Probably, I imagine.
Darren Wurz [00:03:39]:
I haven’t talked to many employees of Microsoft, but I would imagine the employees of Microsoft love that their boss is a billionaire. They love it. And why they’re not complaining. Maybe they’re complaining. Maybe they want to make more money. But guess what, I’m sure that they are probably very happy. I would assume in my dream world they’re very happy to work at Microsoft because they get to work at Microsoft. Holy crap.
Darren Wurz [00:04:05]:
They get to work at one of the top tech companies in the world. And you can do the same thing with your law practice. You can elevate yourself into higher levels of leadership in your firm, eventually freeing yourself up to be an owner who is less involved in the day to day while other people are managing things for your business, allowing you to live the dream life that you want. And how are you going to be able to do that? By creating a business in an organization that people are like, holy crap, I have the best job ever. I get to work at this law firm and it’s awesome. That’s how you can do it. I just had to put that in there. I just wanted you to feel that energy because you can do the same thing.
Darren Wurz [00:05:00]:
You can build a company that people love to work at and they won’t leave. It can be done. Well, let’s talk about replacing yourself. Replacing yourself in your law firm is not just about freeing up your time. It’s about creating a business that can thrive without you and that’s critical for growth. It’s also going to be critical if you ever plan on selling your business, which you should think you should be thinking about, that many law firm owners find themselves bogged down by daily operations. This creates dependency. This limits growth.
Darren Wurz [00:05:37]:
It also limits you. It limits your personal freedom. Oh my gosh. I’ve been talking to some law firm owners lately that just work insane hours. One lady I was talking with, she said she gets up at 05:00 a.m. and she works until 08:00 p.m. does that sound like a life you want to live. I mean, maybe, maybe you just love what you do, but I can’t imagine that that’s the way that you want to live, right? By implementing a structured approach to delegation, you can transform your practice into a more efficient and scalable entity.
Darren Wurz [00:06:14]:
This ties back to what we talked about before, understanding the intangible value of your firm employing effective growth strategies. All of those are foundational steps to achieving the next levels of growth. Let’s face it, many law firm owners struggle with this. It’s a common problem. But owner dependence is so important to solve, it stifles growth. It limits what you can do. If you’re constantly doing the admin tasks and the client work and the sales and the marketing and the leadership, how can you grow? And by the way, you’re not alone in this. You’re not alone as a law firm owner because so many law firm owners struggle with this.
Darren Wurz [00:06:58]:
But you’re not. You’re also not alone as a business owner. And I get a lot of pushback from law firm owners like, well, you know, I can’t think about my firm as a business and entity and you know, all of that because law firms are different. No, they’re nothing. Every single small business struggles with owner dependence. That’s just a common issue among small businesses. So you’re not alone. And that should actually give you so much hope and inspiration and motivation because other businesses have solved this problem.
Darren Wurz [00:07:38]:
Here’s the good news. Replacing yourself can have a profound impact on your firm. Delegating effectively is possible. It will allow you to enhance your efficiency, increase your value, and give you more flexibility in your life. There’s a lot of great reasons to think about this, okay? And I love this concept so much because I have experienced this in my own practice as a business owner myself, working with clients, I’ve seen this firsthand. It’s a transformative way of thinking about things and we have actually implemented this in our own business. I started by hiring an executive assistant to take over a lot of the admin tasks and giving her my email to manage. I don’t check my own inbox until my assistant has gone through and organized and categorized my emails.
Darren Wurz [00:08:40]:
And then when I go into my email inbox and my email inbox is at zero and everything’s put into folders, oh, it’s just amazing. I’ve done this. And then hiring people, hiring advisors, bringing advisors into the team to do client work. And here’s the beautiful thing about that, delegating client work to other advisors. At first it was challenging, right? Cause it’s like, ooh, you know, is my new hire going to do things the way I would do them? Well, actually, they did. What I found is that things are getting done better, you know? Cause here’s the thing. You are not excited about every part of your business. There are, there are aspects of client work that you hate.
Darren Wurz [00:09:27]:
Admit this to yourself. What are they? Think about them. There are some things in your business that you hate doing. I guarantee it. And there’s somebody else who loves it, and they can pick it up and they can run with it, and they can just do an extraordinary job with it, and you can actually elevate the client experience. And so, you know, I know as business owners, it’s so hard to think about this because we have our ego, and our ego makes us think that, you know, no one is as good at this as I am. Well, when you actually give somebody the work to do, they’re not going to be as good as you at first because they’re not going to do things the way you did them. They’re going to have their own ideas.
Darren Wurz [00:10:10]:
And actually, that’s going to be really, really valuable, because as a business owner, as business owners, we get tunnel vision. If you’re all alone making all the decisions all by yourself in your office, in your little corner, you are missing things. You are not seeing things. You have blind spots. I guarantee you, you’re not. Oh, this is a pill. This is a tough pill to swallow. You’re not the smartest person in the room all the time.
Darren Wurz [00:10:40]:
It’s humbling when you bring people into your firm and they do certain things better than you. It’s a humbling experience, but it’s also a powerful experience because it dramatically improves the value to the client. So let’s talk about this. There are five steps to replacing yourself in your business, okay? Administrative work, client delivery, sales, marketing, and leadership. And if you read Dan Martell’s book, you will understand all of these. I encourage you to go get a copy. You know, go buy a copy. Go get the audiobook or the real book and dig in deep.
Darren Wurz [00:11:26]:
I’m going to cover just, you know, what they are. And I want you to go and read about this. Step one, your administrative tasks, these you should not be doing. You should not be checking your own email. Oh, that’s a tough one to give up, right? Especially with client confidentiality rules and privacy rules. Guess what? We have the same rules in the financial world, but you can put in place safeguards, right? My executive assistant has to sign our code of ethics has to sign. Our privacy policy has been through background checks. Right.
Darren Wurz [00:11:58]:
Is is vetted and everything that needs to happen. Right. So that we are making sure that we are safeguarding confidential client information. It can be done. Right. These are things like scheduling, billing, document management, other routine tasks. It’s the $10, $15, $20, maybe even $50 an hour work that you should not be doing, someone else should be doing, so that you can be doing the $500 an hour work, the $1000 an hour work. That’s the work that you should be doing.
Darren Wurz [00:12:38]:
Administrative tasks are often time consuming and repetitive, and they consume your valuable hours. When you delegate these, you free up your time. So one of the first steps here, and Dan talks about this in his book, is to hire a virtual assistant or an administrative assistant. And I can’t tell you the number. I always use that phrase. I got to think of a different phrase. A lot of folks struggle here. I have had law firm owner clients and non clients tell me I can’t hire a virtual assistant.
Darren Wurz [00:13:13]:
That would be demoralizing to our firm. Well, okay. Wake up and smell the roses. There are really, really qualified people out there in the world who could step into your firm and be a part of your firm, and it would be really, really powerful. You need to maybe open yourself up to the possibility that maybe these people are not going to be local. Maybe they are located in other parts of the country. Maybe they’re located in other parts of the world. So I want to encourage you to think a little bit outside the box, and maybe there is someone else that can be handling a lot of this stuff.
Darren Wurz [00:13:55]:
There are professionals that can help you manage your calendar, handle client communications, process bills, and handle a lot of your software stuff. So there’s a lot of tools you can use, too. And you’re sure you’re no stranger to those tools, like Clio, practice, panther. Implement these tools and then give your admin the power to learn, empower them to learn about these tools, to get trained on these tools. We switched email systems few months ago, and I just gave it to my admin, my executive assistant. I said, I am just giving this to you. Right? Learn. Build the hours, learn that.
Darren Wurz [00:14:39]:
Spend time learning about this new system. You’re in charge. This is your project. And I really don’t know how the new system works, but she did this. She went in, she learned all about it. She was extremely effective and efficient in getting it all set up and getting us set up on this new system. And it was like, for me, oh, my gosh, that was something I was always wanting to do, but just really not looking forward to. It was like, oh, really? Oh, new email system.
Darren Wurz [00:15:08]:
Oh, this is just dreaded work that I didn’t want to do. Someone else can do that a lot more effectively now. After you have offloaded and delegated those admin tasks, now it’s time to replace yourself in client delivery. Actually having other people do the client work, ooh, that’s scary. Right? And for many law firm owners, client work is still their primary focus. And this is kind of a problem, right? It’s not a problem when you’re young and you’re small and you’re still growing and obviously you still want to be really, really involved in a lot of the client work. But guess what? If you want to grow a business, you have got to get out of doing the client work and you’ve got to have other people doing the client work. Client delivery is the actual legal work being done.
Darren Wurz [00:16:02]:
It often takes up a lot of the law firm owner’s time. As the owner, you might be deeply involved in client interactions and case management, but there comes a point where you need to delegate this responsibility. To delegate client client delivery, consider hiring or promoting associates or paralegals who can handle a lot of the routine casework. It doesn’t have to be all at once. It can be incremental, it can be slow over time. That’s going to be the secret recipe to success, is to do this in a slow, deliberate, incremental way over time. It’s also going to be critical that you have very clear, standard operating procedures to ensure that the quality of work remains consistent. And by the way, Dan talks in his book about how to create those sops very, very effectively.
Darren Wurz [00:16:57]:
So make sure you have those and also make sure that you’re providing ongoing training and support for your team. It’s not going to be overnight. You’re not going to be able to offload client delivery overnight. It’s going to be something that takes a lot of time, takes a lot of training. And that’s, I think, the frustrating part, that not a lot of people understand how much time is involved and how difficult it is, but it can be done. So you just have to stick with it over time. Slow and steady, implementing new things, offloading new aspects of the client delivery, until finally other people are doing all the work for you. So administrative work, client delivery, then we come to sales.
Darren Wurz [00:17:44]:
Sales is another critical area where many law firm owners are still heavily involved. Now, if you’re a high volume practice you might have a whole intake team that’s doing this for you and you should. By the way, sales is client intake consultations, business development efforts. Where this is going to be harder to think about is where maybe you are in more of a high value arena, where you’re dealing with only a small number of clients and each client has a high value. That’s going to be a more difficult sales process to offload. But you still have to think if you’re going to elevate, you’re going to continue growing. How can you replace yourself in the sales process? Well, you’re going to, somebody else is going to handle that. You’re going to bring somebody in to do that.
Darren Wurz [00:18:36]:
Sales processes are obviously crucial to growing your practice, but it can become a bottleneck. Let’s think about this. If you’re handling, you know, the intake, if you’re doing intake and you’re doing admin work and you’re doing client delivery work, when are you going to do sales? That’s why you have to elevate to grow, right? Get out of the admin work, get out of the client delivery work. Now you’re doing the sales. Now you’re focused on the sales. Now you can be in a position where you’re training somebody else to do the sales, delegating the sales function so you can go to the next higher level to delegate the sales. You might consider hiring a dedicated business development manager or a sales team. These can be attorneys who are more focused on the intake process.
Darren Wurz [00:19:21]:
You should not be doing the consults, right? Somebody else should be doing the consult. Somebody who is more skilled at the sales process. Also making sure that you have a process for tracking and managing leads. Do you have a CRM system that you’re using and using effectively? So here’s what you can do. Implement a CRM system like Salesforce or HubSpot to manage those client leads. Develop your sales scripts. Take all the knowledge that’s in your head, put it on paper, get those standard operating procedures in place, have scripts, have outlines. Here’s how the meetings should run.
Darren Wurz [00:19:58]:
Have training materials so that you can have consistent client interactions. And then of course, make sure you have your KPI’s so that you can measure the effectiveness of your sales team and review their performance and then make adjustments as needed. Step four is to replace yourself in marketing. Obviously, marketing is very, very critical. How can you do marketing? First of all, if you’re focused on the lower levels, this is how it all builds on itself. Once you’ve offloaded the sales work now you can move into more of the marketing realm. What I have found for my firm as a financial firm, offloading a lot of the marketing tasks does happen a lot earlier. A lot of the repetitive marketing tasks like social media posting, blog writing, there’s a lot of marketing tasks that are really more administrative tasks.
Darren Wurz [00:20:51]:
So you may want to think about marketing things you can offload in the marketing world earlier. But when we get to stage four, this level of marketing is more like bigger, higher level thinking. It’s more the messaging and it’s more the bigger picture ideas. Right. When the owner is responsible for all the marketing activities, it can limit your ability to reach a broader audience. You’re a lawyer, right? You didn’t go to marketing school. Probably. Maybe you did, but you probably didn’t.
Darren Wurz [00:21:32]:
You went to law school. Somebody else is going to be a lot better at this. And this is definitely what I have found right now. I’ll admit there are some marketing folks I’ve worked with and I’ve been like, man, I could do that a lot better. So there’s, there’s some great marketing people out there and there’s some not so great. You’ve got to sift through it and find someone who’s great to be a part of your team. Consider hiring a marketing manager if you’re the one posting on your social media. Hmm.
Darren Wurz [00:22:03]:
Problem? Delegate that task. Right. Consider working with an external marketing agency. How can you automate marketing tasks where possible? Social media is a great example of that. Email campaigns, automating those email campaigns. So here’s what you can do. You can utilize marketing tools like Mailchimp, Hootsuite. I actually like.
Darren Wurz [00:22:25]:
There’s a new email system I like called get response. I like it a lot better than Mailchimp. Automate those email campaigns and social media posts and find people to partner with to offload those responsibilities. Finally, once you’ve moved, and you are the one who’s moving up these ladders right now, you’re moving into leadership. You’ve offloaded marketing. You’ve stepped into leadership. And this is the last step. How do you offload leadership? This is where you’re going to hire your CEO or your cooze.
Darren Wurz [00:22:59]:
This is where you’re going to hire a leadership team. Now that’s going to drive the bus. And you’re the chairman, right? You’re the owner who comes in, who sets the vision, who reads the reports, who’s managing. But you’ve got the team in place that’s doing all the work as the owner. You’re likely the driving force behind your firm’s culture and decision making process. This last step, replacing yourself in leadership, is often the most challenging, but also the most rewarding. Leadership involves setting the vision for your firm, making strategic decisions, fostering a positive work environment. Effective leadership is essential for long term success.
Darren Wurz [00:23:42]:
Focus on developing and empowering your team members to take on leadership roles. Once you’re at this stage, establish a strong governance structure. CEO, COO, CFO right and provide leadership training to ensure that your firm can operate effectively without your constant presence. You may even have a CLO, a chief legal officer who’s in charge of all the legal operations. That might be something that’s kind of unique as a law firm. So that’s the last and final stage. And then once you’ve done that, not only is your firm just ready to grow exponentially, it’s also positioned to maybe sell in the future. You have built a truly valuable asset as an organization that is self sufficient, that can run on its own.
Darren Wurz [00:24:34]:
You’re enjoying your time, you’re having more personal freedom, you’re achieving more and more levels of financial success. Doesn’t that sound great? It really does. Okay, so today we’ve talked about the five key steps to replacing yourself in your law firm. Admin tasks, client delivery, sales, marketing, leadership. By advancing through these levels, you can create a more efficient, scalable practice, reduce owner dependence, and get your firm ready for much greater growth or a successful exit. One key takeaway is the importance, of course, of replacing yourself in your law firm to achieve greater freedom and stability. Delegating all of these tasks not just lightens your load, it will transform your practice. So my challenge for you today, identify one area you can delegate as you’re going through your day today or tomorrow.
Darren Wurz [00:25:40]:
Think about this. And everything you do, think to yourself, is this something somebody else could do? Is this something I could hire somebody else to do? Take that. Write it down. Okay, this quarter, this is going to be your big rock. You’re going to delegate that task. Okay, you’re going to do it. You’re going to free up your time. You are going to create a foundation for growth and success.
Darren Wurz [00:26:05]:
If you find yourself constantly overwhelmed by daily operations, now is the time to make a change. If you need help implementing these changes or want to discuss how this applies to your needs, don’t hesitate to reach out. To us. Here at the lawyer millionaire, we do so much more than just financial planning. Financial planning is all about creating wealth, one of the biggest pieces of wealth for you as a law firm owner is your business. So that’s why we’re here, to give not just advice on your retirement funds and budgeting, but also growing your business. If you want to know more, you want to keep hearing these great tips, follow us on Instagram. We’ll put the link to our Instagram down below and connect with us there.
Darren Wurz [00:26:58]:
Follow the podcast, share, subscribe and get the word out there. Help us get the word out there. Well, this has been the lawyer millionaire podcast. I’m your host, Darren Wurz. Thank you for joining me on this journey to expand your business, maximize your profits, and secure your financial future. I can’t wait to connect with you next time. Once again. Until then, take care and keep pushing forward.
Outro [00:27:28]:
Thank you for listening to the Lawyer millionaire. Click the follow button below to be notified when new episodes become available. This content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. This content is not intended to represent investing or tax advice. Always seek the advice of a qualified employee, investment, or tax advisor with any questions you may have regarding your own financial circumstances.