Do you ever feel stressed out, burned out, or trapped, when all you really wanted to do was enjoy your own business and do it on your own terms?

Not that long ago, even though I had a successful boutique corporate practice -- that’s exactly how I felt. I was over-worked, under-paid and trying to do everything myself.

Going For Broke – Literally

When I started my practice in 2002, the way I figured, only as an independent lawyer could I build the practice that I wanted to build, work with the clients I wanted to work with, and decide when, where and how I wanted to work.

I quickly realized, however, that my unwavering commitment to being independent caused me to run my business as a “lone ranger”, which was becoming dangerous and I couldn’t continue to do everything all by myself.

In 2005, I strategically moved my office from a sublet situation with non-lawyers, to an office share arrangement with eight other lawyers where I could get support around growing a law practice.

That’s when I realized - there was a way for me to get help and support, without giving up my independence!

Feast and Famine… or Get a Job?

This shift in my perspective (and environment) started to generate fast results. Before long, I couldn’t keep up with new business. I was now working 60 and 70 hour weeks. I found myself in this “feast or famine” vicious cycle where I would do heavy marketing activities, then got busy with client projects as a result, and when the work was over, I had no more business because I didn’t have time to market. I ended up spending my life being alternatively flush with cash, and broke and (once again panic stricken).

By my third year in practice, I was making more money. In fact, I had surpassed my annual salary at the firm where I was working before I started my practice. But I was working harder than ever before and the constant battle with the three-headed monster of marketing, servicing clients and firm admin, was killing me.

By the fourth year, I was so burned out that I wasn’t turning work around fast enough, I wasn’t returning calls timely, and there were days that I didn’t even have the energy to show up.

I quickly realized that unless I started working smarter, it was a mathematical certainty that I would never make more money than what I was currently earning (and perhaps a lot less). That’s certainly not what I signed up for when I took the biggest single risk of my life to start this practice.

The stress was getting to be too much and I even started to question whether I wanted to continue working independently. I called a few recruiters, and I seriously considered accepting an offer from a colleague to join his firm, which would mean the end of my dream, and career freedom as I currently knew it to be.

I had to make a decision. I either had to change the way I was doing business, or get a job.

The Incubator That Saved a Law Practice

At that moment, I recommitted myself to staying independent and achieving some kind of life balance. I went on a mission to ‘reengineer’ my practice and I began to put systems in place to move towards working exclusively “on” my business, not “in” my business.

I started to employ “out of the box” tactics to market my practice more efficiently, get the best staff possible without breaking the bank, and obtain the highest quality office space that would generate a high return on investment, rather than be my firm’s largest expense.

In a short period of time, I was on the path to achieving unprecedented growth. I learned that building a business is easy if you can simplify and automate marketing, and systematize and leverage so you spend time doing only the most productive things and focusing on what you enjoy, rather than what you do not.

I now spend 90% of my time working “on” my business (marketing and strategic planning), rather than “in” it (processing billable work for clients and completing administrative tasks like billing and bookkeeping)

When I “figured it out”, I decided to help other successful solo and small firm lawyers get on their path to true career freedom and financial independence. That’s when I established the Law Firm Incubator Suite (LFIS).