Profit First for Lawyers

“If you’re not paying attention to core working capital, it’s like waking up one day and all of a sudden you’re in the middle of a shit storm. And you’re like, “How did this happen?!” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers In the final episode of our seven-part Financial Literacy Series, RJon introduces one of the most important concepts f...

“If your law school experience was anything like mine, chances are they taught you nothing in law school about the business of how to manage a law firm.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Sometimes the right book arrives at the right moment. For estate planning attorney Colleen Robinson, Profit First for Lawyers arrived in the mail just as she was in the midst of lookin...

“ The law firm that cannot function without its owner or owners being there every single day doesn’t really have a business. They have a job.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Do you dream of a day when you can step away from the daily production work inside your law firm? You’re not alone. Many law firm owners find themselves so immersed in the practice of...

“Entrepreneurially immature people won’t deal with unpleasant emotions, which is why they just end up trapped in this cycle of mediocrity their whole life.” – RJon Robins, from The Exponential Entrepreneur podcast This week we’re doing something a little different. Instead of our regular Profit First for Lawyers format, we are sharing a special episode from The Exponential...

“ When you’ve taken your profit off the top, like we talk about in Profit First for Lawyers, and you’ve only got what you’ve only got to cover expenses, it forces you to be more honest with yourself. It forces you to grow up as a business owner and make better decisions.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers What if the way you’ve been taught to thi...

“Someone in your office is stealing from you. They may not be stealing money and putting it into their own pocket, but they’re stealing time. They’re giving away work for free.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Many law firm owners focus on generating new business, increasing billable hours, and growing revenue. But bringing business into the firm is only p...

“One of the big problems that we see in your profit and loss statement is when your business is not paying you an appropriate normalized salary.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Many law firm owners know what they pay themselves, but few have stopped to ask an important question: What should the business be paying them? In part four of our seven-part financial literac...

“Happiness is not accounted for in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Neither is peace of mind, propensity for burnout, or the quality of your life.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Before you can build a roadmap for the future, you need to know where you are today. Evelyn Aucoin, Financial Literacy & Strategy Expert from How To Manage a Small Law Firm , jo...

“There are three ways you’re going to get compensated from your business. One is W-2 Salary. Two is K-1 distributions. Three is other benefits.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers How profitable is your law firm? The answer might be more complicated than what shows up on your P&L statement. In this third part of our seven-part financial literacy series, we revi...

“Accounts receivables are so much worse for a law firm than most lawyers understand or appreciate. So much worse.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers In this episode, How To Manage a Small Law Firm CFO and CEO advisor, Etienne Hardre expands upon RJon’s clip from Chapter 14 about the devastating mathematics behind accounts receivable. The Devastating Mathematics He...

“If we can develop good habits for you when your business is still in the first stage of growth, you’re going to bring those good habits with you into business maturity.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers A growing business requires a growing owner. During a Q&A session in part two of our seven-part series, RJon explains why financial literacy does not carry t...

“We are going to break away from the dictionary’s limited definition of profit and profitable, which only account for financial profits.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers For many law firm owners, profitability is measured by one thing: money. But what if profit gives you something even more valuable? Time. In this episode, Michigan estate planning attorney Rose...

“I want to expose you to a really cool world of financial literacy to empower you to be better, more confident business owners.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers If financial reports, spreadsheets, or business metrics have ever made you want to tune out, this episode is for you. In part one of a seven-part series on financial controls, RJon explains why financial liter...

“Your law firm is a business. Your business is supposed to work for you.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers For many law firm owners, profitability seems uncertain. Maybe there will be money left over at the end of the year. Maybe there won’t be. For years, that was exactly how Matt Loker approached business ownership. That changed when he implemented Profit First...

“The biggest challenge we have in helping someone go from zero to seven figures… is that they don’t believe it’s possible.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Why do brilliant lawyers struggle to build profitable businesses? That’s a question you’ll find the answer to in this episode where RJon explains the fundamental mindset shift that sep...

“I want you to feel empowered by the knowledge that GAAP is not the only way to manage a small law firm to profitability.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers In this episode, Pietro Canestrelli shares how following Profit First accounting principles helped transform not just his law firm’s profitability, but the way he thinks about ownership, decision-making, hirin...

“The firm is supposed to serve you. You are not supposed to live in service to the firm.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Is your law firm improving your life, or consuming it? This episode explores one of the most important mindset shifts a law firm owner can make: your business is supposed to support your life, not the other way around. In clips from a 2021 Profit F...

“Implementing Profit First in your law firm is a meaningful first step that you can take that will help you correct this costly and stressful misalignment between yourself and the clients of your law firm.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers For many law firm owners, profit feels uncomfortable. Maybe even selfish. But what if profit isn’t the problem? In this episo...

“To want your law firm to be anything less than all it can be, that’s abnormal. Especially when you consider that at least part of a law firm’s success is dependent upon the law firm helping more people.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Every law firm owner wants their business to be successful. So why do so many stay stuck in patterns that keep them from...

“To be called a financially successful business, a law firm must generate enough total owner benefit for you to live the way you want to live. Not just what you’re willing to settle for.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers If your law firm is covering the bills, is that enough? For many law firm owners, the goal quietly becomes survival. Making payroll, paying expe...

“We want to build a business that is sustainable and we want to build a business that can operate independently of you and your brilliance.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers Why Your Law Firm Needs a Plan (and the Math to Back It Up) If you wouldn’t take a case to trial without a plan, then why would you run your law firm without one? In this episode, we explore...

In a well-run law firm, there is really no reason to ever have any accounts receivables at all. Not if you are using the IOLTA Client Property Trust Account the way it was actually invented and meant to be used.” – RJon Robins, author of Profit First for Lawyers The Hidden Profit Killer In this episode, Ed Gegan reveals how he stopped the profit-eating cycle that was destroying his cash flow...

“The problem is most people don’t take the time to think about their definition of success. Which is kind of ironic considering that as lawyers, we are trained that the first thing you do when you’re drafting a contract or making a settlement agreement is you have to define the terms.” – RJon Robins , author of Profit First for Lawyers Welcome to the latest season of the Pr...

“If you implement what has been explained throughout this book, your law firm will definitely become more profitable. You will feel more confidence, and you will begin to experience the unique satisfaction that comes from being able to reliably put more of the revenue collected by your law firm into your own personal bank account.” – RJon Robins In this season finale, we come full circ...

“So there’s a mindset problem going on here. How the owners of law firms think about what they think about, the excuses they make, the excuses they accept, the unexamined stories that they accept as gospel.” – RJon Robins In this episode, we are joined by Erika Ferenczi, Director of Brand Promise at How To Manage Enterprises, to tackle the elephant in every law firm: the mindset...