Do the leaders of your law firm know what you expect of them? Just expecting the leaders of your law firm to do their job provides no guidance. Your leadership principles should be crystal clear and guide the decisions of your leadership team. By documenting your firm’s leadership principles, your leaders will know what is expected of them.
Your firm’s leadership principles should be continually reinforced at every chance. Let your leadership team know that you have wildly ambitious goals and you won’t settle for being average. Remind your leadership team that constant improvement in your firm’s systems and policies is a guiding principle. Never accept mediocrity and when a team member violates your leadership principles, be brutally honest with them.
13 Leadership Principles for Law Firm Greatness
These 13 leadership principles are your guide to making decisions. If you follow these principles, our law firm will thrive. We don’t need perfection. We only need to get a little better every day. Always be ready to recite these 13 leadership principles. They are the key to our success.
#1:Think Big
We set huge expectations and our goals are big and wildly ambitious. We will never settle for being an average law firm. We are not timid about investing in the future of our law firm.
“Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Jeff Bezos
#2:Focus on Small Improvements
Focus on getting a little better every day. Even tiny improvements, when done on a daily basis, will lead to great results over time.
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.”
Pat Riley
#3:Take Action
We have a bias for action. Just act and use your best judgment. Do not ask for approval or permission. Time is our enemy. We need to move fast and with a sense of urgency.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”
Mark Twain
Failing as often as possible is the key to our success. Double your rate of failure.
#4:No Gossip
Do not be critical of another team member outside of their presence. Be brutally honest and tell them when improvement is needed. Whenever you are critical outside of another team member’s presence, we will respond by asking, “What did they say when you told them to their face?”
“You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you
lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it.”
Dale Carnegie
No one on our team is perfect. When you have to be critical, begin with praise and honest appreciation for the team member and talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the team member. Always let the team member save face. And then, praise even the slightest improvement.
#5:Embrace Failure
Make mistakes. Lots of them. With every failure, we will learn and get better. As long as you give your best effort, mistakes are okay.
“My life is based on a series of small mistakes.”
Jeff Bezos
#6:Be Fanatical about Client Communication
Give our clients an amazing experience. Always go one step beyond. Even when you have no update for our clients, call them just to say “hi”. These small personal touches build the relationship with our clients.
#7:Just Don’t Quit
What we do is really hard. There will be plenty of failures and challenges. As long as we never quit, we will succeed.
“Great works are performed not be strength but by perseverance.”
Samuel Johnson
#8:Brutal Honesty with Each Other
We are brutally honest with our clients and each other. Don’t shy away from conflict when you disagree, but always be respectful and kind.
“If I have to choose between agreement and conflict,
I’ll take conflict every time. It always yields a better result.”
Jeff Bezos
#9:Everyone is Equal
Each member of our team is indispensable to our success. No one is greater than others. Be humble.
“A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.”
Albert Einstein
#10:Know Your Numbers
We make decisions based upon data. You should be able to recite your key performance indicators at a moment’s notice.
“If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business.”
Marcus Lemonis
#11:Commitment to Excellence
We have high standards and we do not accept mediocrity. If we lower our standards, even a little, our clients will suffer. That is not acceptable.
“Aspire greatly; anything less than a commitment
to excellence becomes an acceptance of mediocrity.”
Brian Tracy
#12:Passion for the Disabled
We are passionate about the rights of the disabled. When one of our clients loses, it is a loss for every member of our team. We lose whenever our clients do not get the justice that they deserve.
“You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.”
Dale Carnegie
#13:Live by Our Values
We are idealistic and value-oriented, and we’re damn proud of it. Our purpose is not to make as much money as possible. “Stopping Medical Injustice” is the reason that our law firm exists and we will live and die by our firm’s 4 core values.
“Core values are essential for enduring greatness, but it doesn’t seem to matter what those core values are. The point is not the core values you have, but that you have core values at all, that you know what they are, that you build them explicitly into the organization, and that you preserve them over time.”
Jim Collins
Always be ready to recite our firm’s 4 core values:
- We limit our practice to catastrophic injury law;
- We are brutally honest with our clients;
- We do not accept cases that have questionable merit; and
- We NEVER agree to confidential settlements.
Our Rallying Cry
We have no Plan B. We will either succeed or fail. I will give every fiber in my body and every dollar I have to make us successful. I am asking you to fight with me. We can only go so far alone, but together we can move mountains. There is nothing we can’t achieve.
Photo by KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA
