Says Who? It’s Time to Question the Rules of Running a Law Firm 

Ask a room full of law firm owners how to build a successful practice and you’ll hear the same advice you’ve heard for at least thirty years. Bill more hours. Raise your rates. Hire more lawyers. Be available whenever a client needs you. Work harder than the firm down the street. 

I have a question about all of it: says who? 

I mean that literally. Who decided these were the rules, and when did we last stop to check whether they hold up? I’m not saying raising your rates is a bad idea, or that hiring another lawyer is always the wrong call. I’m saying that “it’s how law firms have always done it” is a habit, not a strategy, and most of us are running on habits more than we’d like to admit. 

We Inherited a Business Model 

Most lawyers didn’t go to law school to run a business. They wanted to practice law, solve problems, and advocate for their clients. Then, they opened a firm and needed a blueprint, so they borrowed one from the firms where they used to work, from advice other lawyers gave them, and from whatever they picked up at conferences along the way. They built what they knew. 

That’s how a handful of assumptions got passed down for decades without much scrutiny. The owner should be the busiest person in the firm. More billable hours mean more success. Clients expect immediate access to their lawyer. Growth means adding people and revenue. And if the firm isn’t performing, the fix is to work harder. 

I’ve watched firm owners follow every one of those rules faithfully and end up exhausted, with a business that depends entirely on them. So I’m asking whether some of these assumptions are the very thing holding us back. 

Three Rules Worth Questioning 

Rule #1: Want to make more money? Bill more hours. 

This one might be my favorite, because the math stops working almost immediately. There are only so many hours in a day. A business that makes more money only when everyone works more hours isn’t healthier or more profitable. It’s just busier. 

The better question is how to deliver excellent legal work more efficiently and more profitably. That moves the conversation to pricing models, delegation, process, technology, and cutting the work that doesn’t create value for anyone. It’s a much more interesting conversation, and it’s one that actually changes the economics of the firm. 

Rule #2: Great client service means always being available. 

Lawyers feel obligated to answer every email immediately, take every call, and stay connected to the firm around the clock. But I’m not convinced that constant availability is what clients are asking for. I think they want confidence that someone competent has their matter under control. 

You can build that confidence without putting the attorney on call. Set clear expectations about communication up front. Send proactive updates so clients aren’t left wondering. Use a client portal, and train team members who can answer routine questions without tracking down the lawyer. Clients get a more reliable experience, and the lawyer gets their evenings back. 

Rule #3: Growth means getting bigger. 

Somewhere along the way, headcount and revenue became the scoreboard for law firm success. I’ve seen firms grow revenue while their owners made less money, worked longer hours, and liked their businesses less. I don’t call that success. 

I’d rather measure growth by what it makes possible: better profitability, stronger teams, financial security, more freedom for the owner, and a better experience for clients. For some firms, the right answer is to get bigger. For others, it’s to stay the same size and become far more profitable. Growth should serve a purpose. It shouldn’t be the purpose. 

The Real Cost of “That’s Just How Law Firms Work” 

What concerns me most about inherited assumptions is that they shut down experimentation. If you believe there’s one accepted way to run a law firm, you stop looking for alternatives. You don’t ask why your intake process has seven steps, whether your weekly meeting accomplishes anything, or why the owner must sign off on every decision. You rarely ask whether the business you’re building is giving you the life you wanted when you started it. 

Instead, we keep doing what we’ve always done, only faster and with more technology on top. But automating a bad process doesn’t fix it. It just helps the bad process run at scale. Often the most valuable improvement you can make starts with asking why you do something in the first place. 

Try This: The “Says Who?” Experiment 

I don’t want you to read this, nod, and go back to running things exactly as you did yesterday. So this week, pick one assumption about your firm that you’ve never seriously questioned. It could be big, like your billing model, or small, like requiring every attorney to attend the weekly staff meeting. Then work through three questions. 

First, who says we have to do it this way? Is there a legitimate business, client, or ethical reason behind the rule, or is it simply something you’ve always done? Be honest about which one it is. 

Second, what if we did the opposite? Don’t worry yet about whether the alternative is practical. Just let yourself imagine it. What if you eliminated the meeting? What if clients got updates before they asked? What if the owner stopped reviewing every invoice? 

Third, what’s one small experiment we could run? You don’t need to redesign the firm by Friday. Pick one change, run it for 30 days, and measure what happens. 

Here’s what that looks like in practice. Say your assumption is that clients expect to speak directly with their lawyer every time they call. For 30 days, you send proactive weekly matter updates and train a team member to handle routine status questions. You track the number of status calls, response times, client feedback, and how often attorneys get interrupted. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t, adjust and try again. 

That’s how better businesses get built. Nobody waits around for the perfect answer. They question, test, learn, and refine. 

The Future of Law Firms Is Being Built Right Now 

I think we have a real opportunity to rethink what it means to own a successful law firm. Technology is changing what’s possible. Clients are questioning traditional service models. Employees want better places to work. And more owners are realizing that a profitable firm shouldn’t cost them everything else in their lives. 

But technology alone won’t build better firms, and neither will another conference full of good ideas. We must be willing to challenge the assumptions behind the firms we have today, and then do the work of building something better. 

That’s the thinking behind a big idea we’re bringing to ClioCon in Boston next week: BUILD DIFFERENTLY. We’re creating a community for law firm owners who are willing to question the old playbook. These are people who don’t just collect ideas. They test them, build systems, improve their businesses, and help each other do the same. We call them builders, and I believe the future of small-firm law belongs to them. 

If you’ll be at ClioCon, come find the Lawyerist team. We’ll be the ones in the ridiculously bright shirts, probably asking questions that make people a little uncomfortable. If you’re not going to Boston, you can still join the conversation. 

So here’s my question for you: what’s one rule about running a law firm that you think we should throw out? I’d love to hear your answer, because the next great law firm probably won’t come from following all the old rules. It’ll be built differently. 

Lawyerist Lab helps ambitious small law firm owners build healthier, more profitable businesses through strategy, systems, smart technology, and a community of people who believe there’s a better way to practice law.