As a law firm owner, I had to stop wearing the $30-an-hour hats and start earning $3,000, $5,000, even $10,000 an hour. You might be thinking, “That sounds impossible.” But I’ve gone through this transformation, and I’ve helped my clients do the same—going from making $55.38 an hour to an astounding $3,358 an hour in just a couple of years. How? By following a simple yet powerful seven-step system. And today, I’m going to walk you through it so you can do the same.
Step 1: Set the Baseline
The first step to making more money is understanding how I currently spend my time. The truth is, I was wasting a significant portion of my day on low-value tasks.
That’s why a time study was crucial. It may not sound exciting, but it’s transformative. I remember when I was a young entrepreneur and hired a consultant. He walked into my office while I was assembling desks and immediately told me, “You’re not allowed to put desks together anymore.” I was stunned, but he explained that an hour spent assembling desks was an hour I wasn’t making thousands for my business.
A time study helped me break down my day into 15-30 minute increments. How many emails was I answering? How many meetings was I in? How often was I interrupted? Once I categorized my time, I saw the percentage spent on revenue-generating activities versus low-value tasks. When I did mine, I found that I was spending over 30% of my week acting as my firm’s Chief Technology Officer—fixing computers instead of growing my business. That realization changed everything. Don’t let low-value tasks keep you from growing your firm.
Step 2: Prioritize
Once I knew where my time was going, it was time to prioritize. I imagined my work as a pyramid—at the top was the highest-value work, and at the bottom was everything else.
For many attorneys, the highest-earning work is being an attorney. But that alone is limiting. If I wanted to scale, I had to move into the roles of marketer, salesperson, and ultimately CEO. These roles allow for leverage—building systems and teams that generate revenue without me personally handling every case.
Take Elon Musk. He doesn’t build cars at Tesla or assemble rockets at SpaceX—instead, he focuses his time on high-impact decision-making, identifying bottlenecks, and leveraging his role to drive massive growth. As law firm owners, we must do the same by prioritizing the most valuable aspects of our business and delegating the rest. Instead, he focuses on solving the most critical bottlenecks in his companies by working with key engineers to remove obstacles. That’s how he makes billion-dollar decisions. I didn’t need to be Musk, but I did need to focus on the highest-value tasks in my firm.
Step 3: Identify My “Who”
Delegation was key, but I needed the right people. I used to say, “I’ve tried delegating, but my team screws it up.” That was a leadership problem, not a team problem.
Instead of hiring top-tier talent at the highest level, I built a farm team—hiring quality people at lower levels and training them to rise up. Finding A-players is tough, but developing them internally is achievable. Many law firms function with 60-90% of the work done by non-attorney staff. I started hiring for character and work ethic, then trained for skill.
Step 4: Delegate Effectively
Delegation doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility—it means mentoring. I followed a simple process:
I did it while they watched.
They did it while I watched.
I reviewed their work and scored them.
Once they passed, I left them alone.
This ensured quality and allowed me to step back without worrying about mistakes.
Step 5: Inspect What I Expect
There’s what I wanted to happen in my firm, what I thought was happening, and what was actually happening. My job was to align reality with expectations.
The way to do this? Reports. Every role had performance indicators that tracked key results. By implementing a system that generated reports, I could inspect outcomes without micromanaging. This ensured my team was delivering while I focused on higher-value tasks.
Step 6: Time Blocking
The secret to maximizing my high-value time was time blocking—structuring my calendar so that every task had its place.
I blocked out time for emails and phone calls, so they didn’t interrupt deep work.
I blocked out time for client calls, instead of allowing random interruptions.
I blocked out time for staff, eliminating the constant “Hey boss, got a minute?” distractions.
Most importantly, I blocked out time for marketing, sales, and system-building—the work that actually moved my business forward.
Time is my most valuable resource. I had to protect it fiercely.
Step 7: Trust
At some point, I had to let go and trust my team. Attorneys are trained to mitigate risk and strive for perfection, but business is messy. Mistakes will happen. My job was to make sure they weren’t catastrophic, but I couldn’t let fear keep me from scaling.
If I followed the system—hiring the right people, mentoring them, implementing reports, and blocking my time—I had to trust that it would all work. Trying to be perfect would hold me back. Trusting the process was essential.
Bonus: Work On the Business (WOTB)
Most attorneys put legal work first and business work second. That’s the wrong formula. Here’s how I used to think:
Time Available – Legal Work = Work On The Business (WOTB)
But here’s the new, correct approach:
Time Available – WOTB = Legal Work
My firm’s growth depended on me working on the business, not just in it. That meant focusing on marketing, systems, and team-building first, and then allocating time for legal work.
I recently spoke to a law firm owner generating $160,000 a month but only keeping $6,000 in profit. Why? Because they were wearing too many $30-an-hour hats instead of focusing on the business. I refused to make that mistake.
Take Action Now
If you want to shift from $30 an hour to $3,000 an hour but aren’t sure where to start, I’ve created a free law firm time study tool to help. It breaks your work into categories and simplifies the process.
Go to MyLawFirmSecret.com and download it now. Countless attorneys have used this tool to identify inefficiencies, free up their time, and dramatically increase their earnings. Start prioritizing, delegating, and scaling today!
By following these steps, I built a thriving, profitable law firm where my time was worth thousands, not tens, of dollars. Are you ready to level up?
