Building the 7 Figure Attorney Mindset and Reality with Craig Goldenfarb

business development business growth figure mindset Feb 03, 2022

Craig Goldenfarb discusses the importance of growing and scaling your business and having a positive work culture. Every year, law schools produce legal practitioners of great minds and integrity. However, the training and education they receive have little to do with business development. As a result, law entrepreneurs need to learn the fundamentals of how to grow a business from scratch — and the first step is shifting from having a lawyer mindset to how to be a business owner.

In this episode, learn how Craig Goldenfarb lays out the basic groundwork to make an enduring and successful law business.

If you want to learn how you can successfully make your profession into a successful business, this episode with Craig Goldenfarb is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

Discover how shifting your mindset can help maximize your personal figures and professional growth. - Craig Goldenfarb
Learn how to make your law profession into a successful business.
Find out the difference between growth and scaling and why they matter in running a firm.

Resources On How to Grow A Business

New! Download the Action Guide for this episode.
Sign up for a free coaching session with one of our coaches.
Join the Law Firm Growth Summit’s Facebook community.
Get any of the books mentioned in the podcast episode:

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Timothy Ferriss
The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman and Paul White
The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly

Connect with Craig Goldenfarb: LinkedIn
7 Figure Attorney Summit: Website | Register Now
Atticus Personal Injury Academy™
Atticus Advantage - Find more coaching programs on how to build your law firm

Episode Highlights

Craig Goldenfarb’s Early Life

Craig Goldenfarb’s mother was a criminal defense lawyer and the first female Harvard law professor.
Observing his mother’s work as a lawyer inspired him to pursue law.
Craig Goldenfarb went to Miami after finishing law school to work for his father-in-law.
Then, he moved to Florida and established his own firm of over 20 years.

How to Run a Law Firm - Craig Goldenfarb

The first step to becoming a business person is having the mindset of wanting to learn.

Craig Goldenfarb: “We think of ourselves as professionals instead of a businessman — businessman because we're taught from an early age how special we are, and we're not special. We just happened to have a good brain and happen to be lucky enough to go to law school and enter into a good career.”

Learning about business involves reviewing related books.
Joining courses, seminars, and organizations can make the right mindset.
Finding the right mentor and resources is now easier because of technology.

The Makings of a 7 Figure Attorney with Craig

Most people start the learning process not knowing the building blocks of becoming a seven-figure attorney.
Hiring the right people, cultivating a healthy work culture, and setting the ideal business organization are essentials to establishing a successful firm.
All businesses overlap in several fundamental qualities.

Craig Goldenfarb: “Once you get the same pieces [of fundamental qualities] for every type of business, then you’ll really start to be able to grow and scale to any size at all.”

The Curriculum of Craig Goldenfarb’s Seminar

The first part of the seminar focuses on shifting the mindset of only being a lawyer to also being a business person.
In EOS, the six components of every business are vision, people, data, issues, processes, and traction.

Craig: “Once you talk about the fact that you can shift your mindset, you’ve got to determine a continuum whether you want to be a lawyer, a businessman, or somewhere in between.”

After 10 to 12 years of legal practice, he became a business owner. Eventually, he discovered that he gravitated more toward the visionary element of a leader.

Craig: “The whole key to a successful career, in my opinion, is to find out what you’re best at. Surround yourself with people who complement or supplement your weaknesses.”

Moshe’s Math Computation

Moshe: “When you start looking at your role as the business owner, and you start looking at the potential revenue that a full-time attorney can bring, you can start to see how much you're holding your firm back.”

Moshe’s framework has three main components: plan, grow and scale.
Business owners need to understand the difference between growing and scaling.
A business owner’s motivation for their business should always be on maximizing their growth, then upgrading their scaling.

Growing and Scaling the Business

Tune in to the podcast to listen to Craig’s analogy on growing and scaling businesses.
The key is to document the process to minimize the chances of repetition.
Growth comes from finding out the rules to make the business successful.
Scaling is documenting the growth and turn it into a system.

Hiring Staff Members

Analyze the tasks where you spend the most time, and don’t be scared to delegate.
Failure to delegate means fear and lack of trust.
The staff members offload your administrative work so that you channel more of your attention to growing and scaling your business.
The key to effective delegation is to overcome the fear of it.

Craig: “When you hire that first person, you’ll be able to free up your time to either service more clients or get more clients through marketing, or do other things worthy of your time.”

Craig’s Revenue Goals

It’s important to set a certain revenue target and profit.
His firm has a 29 to 30% profit target because it is the golden standard for large personal injury law firms.
When you scale up, as long as you’re hitting your profit target, you’re going to gain a lot of money.

Managing People and Capacity

The maximum capacity for direct reports is six to eight people.
After hiring a manager, the next game to play is finding out when to get five or six managers working with their teams.

Craig: “I depended on other people to tell me — the people I respected. I actively sought out other mentors and other people who are personal injury attorneys. If you are shy and don’t ask those questions, you’ll never know.”

It is ideal to keep the number of direct reports small to prevent receiving an overwhelming volume of data.

The Importance of Culture in the Firm

Craig: “Everyone supports each other. There’s no backbiting. We’re a no-drama office space — that’s what we call ourselves. We’ve put a real focus on everybody being happy.”

Craig invests highly in employee satisfaction and happiness.
There are different types of employee happiness programs in his firm.
Create a safe workplace to reduce employee turnover.
Start thinking about what kind of culture you want for your workplace.

A Piece of Advice from Craig Goldenfarb

Examine your mindset: do you want to be a lifetime learner or someone who is closed off from progress?

Craig: “One piece of advice is really examine where you are mentally and what is blocking you from growing, and what is blocking you from learning if anything.”

About Craig

Craig Goldenfarb is the CEO and founder of Law Offices of Craig Goldenfarb, P. A. Since 2002, it has grown into a successful law firm with more than 80 members. It primarily focuses on personal injury cases, ranging from transportation accidents and premises liabilities to critical injury cases. To view their services, visit their website.

Craig is an active reviewer for lawyers and law firms regarding various topics including litigation and the justice system. He coaches for the Atticus Personal Injury Academy, a workshop for personal injury attorneys to grow their firms exponentially.

He founded and currently leads the 7-Figure Attorney Summit, a conference that helps provide insight to attorneys on growing their law firms and serve their clients better. The event will be held in New York on April 7, 2022.

For more information, connect with Craig through his LinkedIn account.

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