Noticias de la Cámara

Developing the lawyer's potential | Francesc Dominguez

06/09/2022

What do lawyers need to do to reach their full potential? They need to stop working on autopilot and get out of their comfort zone. When you get out of the comfort zone, you can grow. Lawyers tend to make decisions according to present needs, they look for immediate rewards but, in doing so, they lose track of the medium and long term.

While we work putting out fires we lose focus on our personal growth, the process that helps us find and develop the best version of ourselves as lawyers and, thus, be better at serving others and achieving our goals, like becoming a leading lawyer or law firm in the market.

Lawyers tend to spend their professional life on solving problems rather than generating opportunities. But by focusing primarily on problems, they are in a potentially limiting frame of mind.

We grow when we step out of our comfort zone

When do we grow? When we step out of our comfort zone. The brain is often lazy, we are rarely aware that discomfort, or rather challenges, are the key to growth. We need to turn that key and make the most of it.

What does every law firm depend on? They depend on sales. Without sales there are no clients and without clients there is no business. That is why it is essential that the firm and the lawyer are committed to generating business, that is, suitable clients and cases, with a method. We all have commercial potential we can develop if we commit to it and learn how to manage limiting thoughts and beliefs that led us through our actions to our current situation.

Why do some lawyers, who were perhaps mediocre in law school, succeed in building and developing a law firm? Often because they know how to win the trust of potential clients, they know how to sell, or rather help the client hire them, and they surround themselves with partners that complement them, often more legally competent than themselves.

In other words, why do many lawyers have the knowledge and expertise, but not a legal brand of reference? Because they lack brand strategy and legal marketing strategy, have little commercial competence and lack the will to do so. They have limiting beliefs towards sales, which is reflected, for example, when it comes to convincingly present a proposal to the potential client or avoiding margin erosions when dealing directly with them.

The most effective and efficient way to achieve your goals

What is the most effective and efficient way to achieve your goals? Work on your professional development: discover your strengths, the distinctive added value you bring to the market, but also what you need to manage better or stop doing, because it can limit or slow down your development and progression and, by extension, also that of your firm.

External improvement requires internal growth

We tend to look for external improvements (obtaining a master's degree, studying another degree, attending a certain seminar) but we forget that external improvement requires internal growth, among other things, to better manage our mind, our thoughts and beliefs, the generators of our actions, which have led us to where we are today.

If we do not achieve our goals, instead of blaming external circumstances we need to look at ourselves. What beliefs do you have towards business development? Your beliefs can limit you, often unconsciously. Yes, unconsciously, because the unconscious governs many of the decisions we make, which we then justify in a rational way.

We are highly conditioned to accept general beliefs, even if market circumstances change. For example, many lawyers think that a client cannot become a friend. But take a look at big businessmen, the rich and wealthy, they do business with their friends; yet the poor-minded think it is not appropriate. They miss opportunities because of their limiting beliefs.

People differentiate law firms

What differentiates a law firm? People. If we believe that, we would probably agree that to empower the firm it is essential to find and develop the best version of ourselves as lawyers, in a manner consistent with the firm's values and strategy, and with loyalty.
The key elements are people and our determination to develop the best version of ourselves to achieve our goals with greater likelihood. Success depends on our commitment.