Episode 312 | From Lawyer to CEO: Making the Mental Shift That Unlocks Seven-Figure Growth
Welcome to the wealthy woman lawyer podcast. What if you could hang out with successful women lawyers, ask them about growing their firms, managing resources like time, team, and systems, mastering money issues, and more? Then take an insight or two to help you build a wealth generating law firm. Each week, your host, Devina Frederick, takes an in-depth look at how to think like a CEO, attract clients who you love to serve and will pay you on time, and create a profitable, sustainable firm you love. Devina is founder and CEO of Wealthy Woman Lawyer, and her goal is to give you the information you need to scale your law firm business from 6 to 7 figures in gross annual revenue so you can fully fund and still have time to enjoy the lifestyle of your dreams.
Intro:Now here's Davina.
Davina:Welcome to the Wealthy Woman Lawyer podcast where we help ambitious women law firm owners scale their practices from 6 figures to multiple 7 figures while creating the freedom and impact they truly desire. I'm your host, Devina Frederick, and today we're diving deep into what might be the most important conversation you'll hear this year. We're talking about the mental shift from lawyer to CEO, the transformation that separates law firm owners who stay stuck at the same revenue plateau year after year from those who break through to 7 figure success and beyond. Now, if you're listening to this, chances are you're already successful. You've built a practice, you're serving clients, and you're making a good living.
Davina:But here's what I know about you. You're not satisfied with good enough. You have bigger dreams. You see other law firm owners scaling to multiple 7 figures, you're wondering, What do they have that I don't have? The answer might surprise you.
Davina:It's not necessarily better marketing, though that helps. It's not just better systems, though those matter too. The real difference is what's happening between their ears. It's the mental operating system they're running as the leader of their business. Today, we're going to unpack exactly what that looks like, and more importantly, how you can make this shift yourself.
Davina:Let me start with a story that might sound familiar. I was working with a brilliant attorney, let's call her Rebecca. She'd built her employment law practice to about $400,000 in annual revenue. Not bad, right? But Rebecca was frustrated.
Davina:She was working sixty hour weeks, handling client calls on weekends, reviewing every document that went out the door, and frankly, she was exhausted. When I asked Rebecca what her role was in her business, she said, I'm the owner. But when I looked at how she spent her time, she was functioning as the senior associate, the marketing coordinator, the office manager, and the quality control department all rolled into one. Rebecca had what I call lawyer brain. And if you're listening to this, you probably know exactly what I mean.
Davina:Lawyer brain tells us, If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. You can't trust anyone else to handle important client matters. Your personal attention to every detail is what clients are paying for. Taking time away from billable work to focus on business development results in lost revenue. Investing in helper systems is an unnecessary expense when you can just work harder.
Davina:Here's the problem lawyer brain is actually designed to keep you small. It's the mindset of a highly skilled professional, but it's not the mindset of a CEO. And I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with being a highly skilled professional. However, if your goal is to scale your law firm to 7 figures and beyond, if you want to create a business that operates with without you being the bottleneck, and if you want to build wealth and freedom, then you need to make the mental shift from lawyer to CEO. The difference is this.
Davina:A lawyer thinks about how to serve one client at a time perfectly. A CEO thinks about how to effectively serve hundreds or thousands of clients through more efficient systems, teams, and processes. So what does it actually mean to think like a CEO? Let me break this down for you. First, CEOs think in terms of leverage, not just effort.
Davina:When a lawyer sees a problem, they think, How can I solve this? When a CEO sees a problem, they think, How can I create a system so this problem gets solved without my direct involvement every time? And, Who can help me solve this problem? Let me give you a concrete example. A lawyer thinks, I need to review every contract personally to make sure it's perfect.
Davina:A CEO thinks, How can I create templates, checklists, and training so my team can handle 80% of contract reviews to my standards, freeing me to focus on the most complex matters and business growth? Second, CEOs invest in their business growth, not just their legal skills. This is a big one. Most lawyers are comfortable investing thousands in CLE credits, bar memberships, and legal research tools, but suggest investing that same amount in marketing systems, business coaching, or team development, and suddenly it feels too expensive. A CEO understands that every dollar invested in growing the business has the potential to yield multiple returns.
Davina:Third, CEOs focus on leading people, not just doing work. This might be the biggest shift of all. As lawyers, we are trained to be individual contributors. We are rewarded for our personal expertise and output. However, as CEOs, our job is to amplify our impact through others.
Davina:This means instead of asking, How can I get better at this task? You start asking, How can I help my team get better at this task? Instead of, How can I work more efficiently? You ask, How can I create systems that allow my business to operate more efficiently? Fourth, CEOs make decisions based on data and strategy, not just intuition.
Davina:Now don't get me wrong, intuition matters. However, CEO level decision making involves examining metrics such as client acquisition cost, lifetime value, profit margins by practice area, and conversion rates throughout your sales process. A lawyer might think, I'm too busy. I need to hire someone. A CEO thinks, My billable utilization is at 85%.
Davina:My profit per hour is $300 and I can hire someone at a cost that will increase my overall profitability by 40%. This isn't an expense. It's an investment with a clear ROI. Finally, CEOs think in terms of building assets, not just generating income. This is crucial.
Davina:When you're thinking like a lawyer, you're focused on how much you can earn this month or this year through your personal efforts. When you think like a CEO, you're building systems, processes, teams, and a brand that creates value beyond your personal efforts. Now knowing what CEO thinking looks like is one thing. Actually making the shift, that's where most smart, successful attorneys get stuck. Let me walk you through the most common mental blocks I see because I guarantee you're dealing with at least one of these.
Davina:Mental block number one, the control trap. This is the big one. As lawyers, we're trained to be responsible for everything. We're taught that our personal attention to detail is what prevents disasters. The idea of delegating important work can feel terrifying.
Davina:I had a client who told me, Devina, I know I need to delegate, but what if they make a mistake? What if the client isn't happy? My reputation is on the line. Here's what I told her, and I want you to really hear this: Your reputation is actually more at risk if you stay the bottleneck. Because when you're doing everything, you're doing nothing excellently.
Davina:You're stretched too thin to deliver your best work. You're too busy to focus on your highest value clients, and you're too exhausted to think strategically about growing your business. Mental block number two, the scarcity mindset. This shows up as I can't afford to invest in help right now or I need to see more revenue before I can hire anyone. But here's the truth, you can't grow to the next level with your current capacity.
Davina:Investment comes before income, not after. I remember working with an attorney who said, I'll hire a marketing person when I'm making $800,000 a year. I said, What if hiring a marketing person is what gets you to $800,000 a year? That shifted everything for her. Mental block number three, the perfectionism paralysis.
Davina:This is when you think that anything less than your personal involvement means lower quality. But perfection is the enemy of excellence. And excellence is all your clients actually need 90% of the time. The question isn't, can someone else do this as well as I can? The question is, can someone else do this well enough so I can focus on the things that only I can do?
Davina:Mental block number four, the impostor syndrome. This one's sneaky. It sounds like, Who am I to charge premium prices? Who am I to lead a team? Who am I to call myself a CEO?
Davina:Here's the reality check you need. You're an attorney. You've already overcome incredible challenges to get where you are. You've served clients, solved complex problems, and built a business. You're not an impostor.
Davina:You're just operating below your potential. Mental block five, the time confusion. This is when you think you don't have time to work on your business because you're too busy working in your business. But working on your business, the strategic thinking, the system building, the team development, that's not separate from your business. That is your business as a CEO.
Davina:Every hour you spend creating systems saves you ten hours of manual work. Every hour you spend training your team multiplies your capacity. Every hour you spend on strategy prevents weeks of reactive firefighting. So how do you actually make this shift? How do you go from lawyer brain to CEO brain?
Davina:Let me give you a road map. Step one, audit your current time. For one week, track how you spend every hour, I mean everything, client work, admin tasks, business development, putting out fires, you can't change what you don't measure. Then categorize everything into three buckets: things only you can do things you should delegate but haven't yet things you're doing that you shouldn't be doing at all data entry, scheduling, filing. This exercise alone will shock you.
Davina:Most attorneys discover they're spending 60% to 70% of their time on things that aren't the highest and best use of their skills. Step two: Start thinking in systems. Every time you find yourself doing a repetitive task, ask, How could I create a system so this happens automatically or someone else can handle it? Start small. Create a template for client intake.
Davina:Develop a checklist for case setup. Record a training video for a task you do regularly. Each system you create is like making a deposit in your Freedom account. Step three: Invest in your CEO education. You wouldn't practice law without staying current on legal developments.
Davina:The same principle applies to running a business. You need to invest in learning about marketing, finance, operations, and leadership. This might mean hiring a coach, joining a mastermind, attending business conferences, or even taking courses on business strategy. This isn't an expense it's professional development for your role as CEO. Step four, start making CEO level decisions.
Davina:Begin looking at your business through the lens of return on investment. Before you make any significant decision, ask yourself, what's the potential return on this investment? What's the cost of not making this investment? How does this move me closer to my 7 figure goal? Step five, build your CEO identity.
Davina:This might sound soft, but it's actually crucial. Start calling yourself a CEO. When people ask what you do, don't just say, I'm a lawyer. Say, I'm the CEO of a law firm that focuses on X. Change your LinkedIn headline.
Davina:Update your bio. More importantly, start seeing yourself as someone who builds businesses, not just someone who practices law. Let me share a couple of quick transformation stories so you can see what this looks like in practice. Remember Rebecca, the employment attorney I mentioned earlier? She was stuck at $400,000 working sixty hour weeks.
Davina:After working together to shift her mindset from lawyer to CEO, here's what happened. First, she identified her highest value activities, complex employment, litigation, and business development with mid sized companies. Everything else became a candidate for delegation or systemization. She hired a paralegal and spent two weeks creating detailed processes for routine employment matters. She hired a part time marketing coordinator and created templates for her content marketing.
Davina:She even hired a virtual assistant to handle scheduling and client communication. The result? Within eighteen months, Sarah's firm grew to $850,000 in revenue, and she was working forty five hours a week instead of sixty. More importantly, she was spending 70% of her time on high value activities rather than getting lost in the administrative weeds. Or take Maria, a family law attorney who had built her practice to about $300,000 but felt completely overwhelmed.
Davina:The mental shift for her was realizing that her personal involvement in every case wasn't what clients valued most. It was the outcome and the experience. She created standardized processes for different types of cases, hired an associate attorney, and focused her time on the most complex matters and on building referral relationships. Her revenue doubled to $600,000 in the first year, and she's on track to hit 7 figures within the next eighteen months. The key insight from both of these stories, the transformation didn't happen because they worked harder.
Davina:It happened because they started thinking and operating like CEOs instead of like lawyers. As we wrap up today's episode, I want you to understand something crucial. The mental shift from lawyer to CEO isn't a nice to have. If you want to scale to seven figures, it's absolutely essential. You can have the best marketing in the world.
Davina:But if you're still thinking like a lawyer instead of a CEO, you'll hit a ceiling. You can implement every system and process, but if you don't make the mental shift, you'll find ways to sabotage your own growth. The good news? This shift is completely learnable. It's not about changing who you are.
Davina:It's about expanding how you think about your role and your business. Here's what I want you to do right now. I want you to pick one thing, just one, that you're currently doing that someone else could handle. Maybe it's initial client consultations. Maybe it's document review for routine matters.
Davina:Maybe it's your social media posting. Whatever it is, I want you to spend this week documenting exactly how you do that task. Create a step by step process because that documentation is the first step toward delegation, and delegation is the first step toward thinking like a CEO. Now, if you're listening to this and thinking, Devina, this all makes sense, but I don't know how to make this shift on my own. I need help identifying my specific mental blocks and creating a plan them, then I want to invite you to schedule a conversation with me.
Davina:I work privately with ambitious women law firm owners who are ready to make the mental shift from lawyer to CEO. Together, we identify the specific mental blocks that are holding you back from your loftiest growth goals, and we create a customized plan to overcome them. This isn't about generic business advice. This is about the specific mindset work that will unlock your potential to scale to seven figures and beyond while creating the freedom and impact you truly desire. If you're ready to stop being the bottleneck in your own business and start operating like the CEO you're meant to be, go to www.wealthywomanlawyer.com and schedule your consultation.
Davina:We'll spend time together identifying exactly what's holding you back and whether private coaching is the right fit to help you break through to your next level. Remember, the lawyers who scale to seven figures aren't necessarily smarter than you or more talented than you. They've just made the mental shift from thinking like lawyers to thinking like CEOs. And that shift, it changes everything. Until next time, this is Devina Frederick reminding you that you have everything it takes to build the law firm of your dreams.
Davina:You just need to start thinking like the CEO who could make it happen.
Intro:If you're ready to create more of what you truly desire in your business and your life, then you'll want to visit us at wealthywomanlawyer.com to learn more about how we help our create wealth generating law firms with ease.
