That means leaving behind areas of practice you can do, but shouldn t because they don t lead toward your goals. This is an understandable anxiety in a lawyer starting a new practice, but it becomes a disabling myth in the case of an established lawyer. If you haven t run out of work for several years, you can confidently turn away inappropriate files and clients. I can fit it in. Sometimes you can, but usually you can t, except at the expense of something else that is more important.
Lawyers are capitalistic and entrepreneurial.
They repeatedly re-invent wheels instead of building practice systems that efficiently produce documents and services at lower unit costs. In addition, most lawyers are very risk-averse. Instead of seizing on an risky entrepreneurial ideas and running with them, they spend an inordinate amount of energy hedging their bets and keeping their options open. To succeed as a lawyer, I should find out what other lawyers are doing and do the same thing. This is a formula for mediocrity.