The Top 4 Pieces of Advice from the Most Successful Law Firm Owners
6 minutes to read
The slowest, most painful way to learn how to grow your practice is through experience. The fastest way is to utilize the law firm advice from the market-leading attorneys who have already done the very thing you are trying to accomplish.
With that being said, we’ll be showcasing the most important bits of knowledge from attorneys around the country who have cracked the code on smashing goals, making the most of their network, and scaling up their law firms.
In this article, we’re diving in to share the best law firm advice from the most successful law firms:
Revolutionize Your Marketing
Eric Chaffin and Roopal Luhana are the founding partners of Chaffin Luhana, a plaintiff-only national mass tort and catastrophic personal injury law firm with offices in New York City, Pittsburgh, and West Virginia.
Their genuine passion to improve the communities they serve — along with a hunger to win and grow — propelled Chaffin Luhana ahead for the first eight years of their history. However, by 2018, they were searching for something more to raise the bar.
They decided to focus on where their marketing was falling short.
“In the national mass tort space, we are up against law firms and marketers who too often are backed by venture capital firms that spend literally tens of millions of dollars on marketing,” says Chaffin. “In the Pittsburgh market, we are up against a brand leader that has been in the market since the 1980s and spends millions of dollars per year in Pittsburgh alone, as well as a newer law firm that is trying to undercut all firms by offering a reduced 25% contingent fee.”
To strategically overcome this challenge, they partnered with Crisp Coach to develop a 360º marketing campaign that is both broad and powerful and combined their message of “Doing Right by Doing Good” with stunning video portrayals that showcase the firm’s values, mission, and team.
“Our new video library has armed our intake department with videos to use with our clients to help develop that initial connection and close on retainers,” Chaffin elaborates. “And we have had attorneys with high-value wrongful death cases seek our co-counsel from our referral video alone.”
The strategic paid advertising campaigns they use to distribute those videos and spread awareness have also empowered Eric and Roopal to become more visible in their communities — increasing the recognition of their brand, and developing long-term relationships that culminate in elevated “knownness” — the key to becoming a household name.
“Our new marketing strategies have helped us increase our brand reach,” they say. “We are more visible among potential clients, and we stay in front of our referral sources with quality produced videos.”
Moral of the story? Don’t underestimate the power marketing has to change the trajectory of your brand, business, and growth.
Invest in Training & Development
John Martin is a partner at KJC Law Firm, a law firm that prides itself in representing people — not corporations, insurance companies, or the government. They have spent years going to bat in court for personal injury, criminal defense, and business litigation cases, as well as a variety of other practice areas.
While they had the talent and drive to grow their law firm, KJC lacked the resources and know-how needed to join the ranks of the most successful law firms and hone their skills in not just practicing law, but running a business.
“Our phones were not ringing. Our website was not being visited,” John Martin explains. “We just had no business coming in and had no idea where to find it.”
It wasn’t until John and his partners looked outward and decided to overcome their business dry spell by getting to the root of the problem and investing in training & development. The natural tool for this was Crisp Academy, an online training platform included in KJC’s Crisp Coach membership.
By leveraging the vast training library on Crisp Academy, John and his team were able to learn foundational skills they could implement in the firm to improve their marketing and other business proficiencies. This led directly to an increase in clients, and more:
“The results speak for themselves,” John Martin says. “Using the simple, practical advice learned from the Crisp Academy has allowed me to connect with my community and my potential clients in a way that is meaningful, sincere, authentic, and exceptionally profitable. I could not be happier with my investment in Crisp Academy.”
Hire Smart
Mark O’Mara is the managing partner of O’Mara Law Group based in Orlando, Florida. He and his team of criminal defense attorneys are dedicated to and take pride in helping good people through difficult situations with top-of-the-line legal representation.
At a crucial point in the growth of his firm, O’Mara realized his main pain point was hiring the right people to bring onto his team, which stemmed from his hiring process.
Instead of focusing on checking every box, a candidate needed to perform well in a role, oftentimes he made decisions based on a gut feeling — which didn’t have the best track record of working out in the end.
It wasn’t until he discovered the Kolbe and PRINT hiring assessments and supplemental on-site training offered through the Crisp Coach program that he revolutionized the way his firm grew their team.
Both assessments, taken by all O’Mara’s candidates throughout the hiring process, uncover the “how” and “why” of a person’s actions, attitudes, and motivations to discover whether they can fulfill the needs of the role they’re in the running for.
In a previous episode of the Game Changing Attorney Podcast, Mark explains:
“Picking an employee has to be based on metrics outside of your own gut feeling. Before using Kolbe and PRINT, I resisted them because I thought I didn’t have time for that. ‘Just get them in and I’ll train them to be who I want them to be’ is absurdly stupid. It’s like picking a juror without knowing anything about him. You have to use these metrics to get them in.”
Expand Your Network
Alexander Shunnarah is the founder and CEO of Alexander Shunnarah Trial Attorneys, a nationally-known personal injury law firm based in Birmingham, Alabama.
Although Shunnarah has sustained an incredible track record of success throughout his career, with multiple offices throughout the country and, most notably, his legacy as one of the first to advertise his law firm via billboards, he knows that growth has no end game.
With a hunger to always strive for more and the humility to seek guidance in other arenas, Shunnarah joined the Crisp Coach program in an effort to continue his path of legal industry domination.
What he discovered was an entirely new network of other attorneys whose vision aligned with his aspirations and goals.
“Crisp Coach has introduced me to hundreds of lawyers — the Game Changers Summit alone introduced me to 1,000 lawyers who have helped me learn how to manage my practice and team more efficiently,” he shares.
Shunnarah’s willingness to expand his circle to learn and connect with other seven- and eight-figure, successful law firm owners has allowed him to forge relationships that are meaningful to his business and beyond.
It just goes to show that you’re never too good to learn from other trailblazing law firm owners.
Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve learned key pieces of law firm advice from some of the most successful law firm owners, it’s up to you to put them into practice.
Remember, you are the sole captain of your ship’s journey to greatness — don’t skimp on the foundational factors that separate the good from the great.
Want to take the next step to kickstart your law firm’s growth? Learn more about Crisp Coach and inquire about program availability at www.crispcoach.com.
