Considerations For Adding a New Practice Area

In today’s episode, I cover the topic of adding a new practice area to your law firm. Covid-19 had various impacts on law firms, both positive and negative. Many legal professions were in retraction. However, many legal firms exploded in growth as a result of the legal ramification of quarantine. So a significant number of lawyers are contemplating seizing upon those opportunities by adding different practice areas, but they simply don’t know where to start. Tune in and find out about three criteria that law firm owners need to consider before adding a new practice area!   In this episode we discuss: The impact covid has had on the legal profession and society, both positive and negative. Considering the investment of time, education and dollars necessary when adding a new practice area. If and when it’s appropriate to bring in someone else to help cultivate a new practice area. Why you want a rising star if you hire someone for your new department. The importance of talking about money up front when bringing a person on.   Bio: Allison C. Williams, Esq., is Founder and Owner of the Williams Law Group, LLC, with offices in Short Hills and Freehold, New Jersey. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, is Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Matrimonial Law Attorney and is the first attorney in New Jersey to become Board-Certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy in the field of Family Law.  Ms. Williams is an accomplished businesswoman. In 2017, the Williams Law Group won the LawFirm500 award, ranking 14th of the fastest growing law firms in the nation, as Ms. Williams grew the firm 581% in three years. Ms. Williams won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.  In 2018, Ms. Williams was voted as NJBIZ’s Top 50 Women in Business and was designated one of the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs and Business Owners. In 2019, Ms. Williams won the Seminole 100 Award for founding one of the fastest growing companies among graduates of Florida State University. In 2018, Ms. Williams created Law Firm Mentor, a business coaching service for lawyers.  She helps solo and small law firm attorneys grow their business revenues, crush chaos in business and make more money.  Through multi-day intensive business retreats, group and one-to-one coaching, and strategic planning sessions, Ms. Williams advises lawyers on all aspects of creating, sustaining and scaling a law firm business – and specifically, she teaches them the core foundational principles of marketing, sales, personnel management, communications and money management in law firms.    Contacts – Social Media Contact Law Firm Mentor: Scheduler: https://meetme.so/LawFirmMentor   Reference:  The Science of Getting Rich (Wallace D. Wattles, 2016)    Snip-Its 00:16:46  (38 Seconds) There are some highly, highly entrepreneurial lawyers out there that are on a wing and a prayer will bring in a person, bring in a department and make it work. Right. So I'm not saying that it can't happen, but what tends to happen is if you don't know the practice area and the metrics and the numbers, you're often relying upon this new person and whatever their skill set is and whatever their knowledge base is in order to get you there. And so if talking to the person yields you numbers that don't make sense or don't leave you enough profit to really be able to monetize and grow the department, then what ends up happening is you bring in struggle to your business.   00:22:54  (30 Seconds) But when you're adding a new practice area, just by way of summary, we always want to make sure that unless it's your passion and you've got plenty of time and money, that you're not the one doing the work, that you're going to add a rising star to your practice in order to get that work done. And most importantly, that you're going to have conversations with people about joining your firm, talking about money first so you don't waste your time, you don't waste their time. And ultimately, you can get to a place of saying this is a viable solution before you start getting into the weeds of what it looks like.