Jeremy W. Richter - Building a Better Law Practice: Become a Better Lawyer in Five Minutes a Day

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I n the same way good pastors exhort not only their congregations but also themselves, I am writing this book for both you and me. I aspire to be a better lawyer tomorrow than I am today. I want to work with good lawyers, but not entirely for altruistic reasons. I do believe our profession is best served when more of us deliberately improve our craft, but selfishly my job is made easier when opposing counsel are good at their job too.

To be a good lawyer, you have to put in the time and energy to continually improve your craft. You might be under the misconception that good lawyers encompasses the bulk of practicing attorneys, but that is just not the case. Think about average lawyersthey are not very good, and half are worse than that.

Not much is required of you to rise above the threshold of average. You will need some inherent ability, but more importantly, you will need to care. Your willingness to read a book like this is evidence that youre on the path to being a better-than-average lawyer. My goal is to propel you a little farther down that path. To that end, I have written about four general topics:

Managing Clients and Creating Collaborative Relationships

Practical Considerations for Your Practice

Improving Your Skills and Managing Your Caseload

Developing Yourself and Your Practice

Knowing how precious lawyers time is, I have written this in a daily reading format. I recommend that you read one topic per day. Each days reading should take about five minutes or so. Over the course of about seven weeks, at the time cost of about 0.1 hours per day, you will have collected dozens of practical strategies for developing an efficient and collaborative practice that will set the foundation for good relationships with your clients.

Not everything that happens in the course of a practice is heady and intense. Sometimes things happen that are just downright amusing. To that end, I want to start you off with a trial story. Try to enjoy it because it may be the only anecdote that isnt a parable.

On Monday mornings at the outset of trial, the lawyers and judge need to accomplish many things outside the hearing of the jury panel. Much of this happens before the panel is seated in the courtroom, but potential jurors often are stuck with some downtime while the lawyers and court handle procedural issues.

During one such session, in which the lawyers for both sides were conferring with the judge in a rural county in eastern Alabama, a potential juror popped out of his seat and began walking toward the back doors of the courtroom. The judge piped up, Son, what are you doing?

The fellow paused and, partially turning, replied, Judge, I have to pee and continued his exit. When he had walked out of the courtroom, the surprised judge smirked and announced, Let the record reflect the gentleman has to pee, eliciting nervous laughter from the other panel members.

Shortly afterward, we recommenced jury selection and then broke for lunch at noon. Most of the jurors exited the room, but our audacious prospective juror approached the front and laid his Juror badge in front of the court reporter. The judge inquired, Why did you lay that down?

Im not coming back.

Excuse me?

I dont have time for this. I got things to do.

Did you tell the other judge that when he was excusing jurors?

Yeah.

Did he excuse you?

Nope.

At this point, I was thoroughly impressed with the judges disposition. There are many things a judge will abide, but disrespect is not among them. The four lawyers in the room were just watching the scene unfold, astonished and disbelieving.

Well, then, youre not excused, and well see you after lunch.

The belligerent juror turned to walk out without retrieving his badge. For his benefit, the court addressed him one more time.

Son, I want to be real clear with youif we come back from lunch and youre not back here sitting in the third row, Im going to send the sheriff to your house to pick you up.

The potential juror continued his retreat.

When we returned from lunch, the juror badge was no longer on the court reporters table, and our potential juror was seated meekly in row number three. Unbeknownst to him, both sides had agreed during lunch to strike him. He wasnt going to be good for anyones cause.

L ike it or not, clients are the most important part of any business. Without clients, you are just a lawyer without any means or opportunity to practice your craft. Once you have clients, youre going to find it preferable to meet their needs and expectations so that they remain your clients. This section is designed to identify the needs your clients will have, the importance of collaborating with them while managing their cases, and the value of working within parameters necessary to resolve your clients problems without sending them to the poorhouse.

Im a litigator, and I like thinking of myself as such. I participate in written discovery, review and assess thousands of pages of documents, take and defend depositions, and try cases. Ive learned that every aspect of a case should be conducted in furtherance of preparing the matter for trial. Interrogatory responses, site inspections, party depositionsnone of them happen in a vacuum. Everything that happens in a case is (or should be) in anticipation of putting your client in the best position for final resolution.

As a trial lawyer, when I catch a scentthe plaintiff has a preexisting injury she didnt disclose, he went rock climbing after he allegedly tore his rotator cuff in the accident, or she has been in three subsequent accidents and has a different lawyer for eachI can be kind of like a hound dog. Everything else goes dark, and there is only where the scent is leading. I am not alone in this tunnel vision. Frank Ramos of Clarke Silverglate recently commented: