“It’s not the people you fire who make your life miserable. It’s the people you don’t.”
Dick Grote
Some relatively random observations might give readers a few nuggets they can use. Fire Clients Before They Fire You. All lawyers have clients who can be very demanding. Maybe they are hard to manage or are always quick with criticism and short on compliments. That’s just part of the business and a lawyer’s management challenges. There’s nothing wrong with those clients; hopefully, they’re few and far between in your practice. But some clients are downright abusive. That abuse can come in many ways. They don’t pay you on time or extract unfair discounts. They have no respect for your personal life or the personal lives of your colleagues. Or behave in ways far worse that need not be listed here. Any lawyer who builds a substantial practice will encounter such clients in his or her career. When you do, fire them. Because they will eventually fire you. You can count on that. And keep in mind that for your own personal health, you can tolerate just so many tough clients. It makes no sense to make your life worse by tolerating abusive clients.
Feel the Love. If you’re lucky, you’ll find clients who appreciate your work. Or better yet, what your partners do. Clients who are a pleasure to work with and who return repeatedly. Clients who are happy to refer work to you and who speak your praises time and time again. Obviously, you’d like more of those kinds of clients than the abusive ones. Think about that for a minute or two. Are you thinking? Good. Because if you are, you should immediately see that the more you tolerate abusive clients, the less likely you’ll grow clients who appreciate what you do. Life is too short for that result. Get it?
