Damn, I hope not. Because chances are pretty good that you’re lying.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across the phrase, “we are a full-service law firm.”
Really? REALLY????
So you can handle my brother’s divorce, my bankruptcy, my friend’s DWI, my aunt’s murder trial, write my will, handle my wife’s complex estate plan, do a real estate closing for my house . . . and for my office building, collect the past due rent in landlord-tenant court, prosecute my personal injury case and my medical malpractice case . . . as well as my friend’s medical malpractice case, AND then defend my doctor friend in HIS cases? And while we’re at it, you can incorporate my small business?
Oh, come on!
If you’re a solo and you bill yourself as a “full service law firm” you are either lying or spreading yourself too thinly. Either way, not a good face to put forward to your clients and the public in general.
Listen, here’s the thing:
If you position yourself as jack-of-all-trades then you’re going to be seen as the lawyer who will take just about anything that walks through the door so long as a check for legal fees is attached. Success, which is shaped at least in part on the appearance of success, will elude you.
The solution? Be a jack-of-one-trade. Do one thing, do it very well, and leave the rest to the others.
Your profit-and-loss statement will thank you.
