Can I help you grow your practice?

That’s a bold question: Can I help you grow your practice? It’s bold, because some attorneys assume the opposite, that I will somehow reduce their revenue or income.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Of course you want to grow your practice. Let me explain to you all the ways that I can help.

The bandwidth/expertise/liability dilemma

Let’s say you get a call from a client—a divorcing woman—and she needs tax or financial advice. At that very instant, you’re stuck in an unenviable situation:

You don’t want to even field the call. You can’t bill for this stuff.
But you still need to field the call, even if it’s to say, “Talk to your financial advisor or CPA about this.”
If you do field the call—or, more likely, the issue arises within the context of a different discussion—you’re venturing into dangerous territory. Not only can you not bill for tax and financial advice, but this isn’t your area of expertise. If you dispense anything that can be construed as tax or financial advice, you’re exposing yourself to potential liability.

What a mess.

Now imagine the flip-side of this scenario—in which you’ve got someone like me on your, and your client’s, team:

You don’t even have to tell the woman to “call her CPA or financial advisor.” Because she will already have called me, since I’m already on the team. And I’m both a CPA and financial advisor. In other words, your phone never even rang with that distracting call that would’ve cost you time and bandwidth.
When that client needs advice on financial topics such as settlements and spousal-maintenance and child-support amounts, you’ll know that 1) she’s getting advice that she can literally take to the bank, and 2) you’re automatically absolved of any potential liability.

As the late Ron Popeil would say, “But wait—there’s more.”

Power in your court

When you have a financial advisor like me on your side for tricky challenges such as separate property calculations, you’ll be armed with better data. Face it: You love to negotiate from a position of power. And I’ll give you that power. Who doesn’t like winning?

So you negotiate better. You get better results for your clients. They’re happier and see you as a hero—which is quite a feat, given the bitterness common in divorce. When they’re happy, they refer. When they refer, your practice grows.

There’s more to it than that. I’ve worked hard to achieve the trifecta of professional certifications: I’m a CPA. I’m a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional. And I’m a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst professional. Try and find anyone else in Arizona with that combination. It’s rare. (Plus I’m divorced, so I have the “Empathy” certification, too.)

So not only can you be proud to have a CPA on your team. But know that I love what I do. I’m a numbers nerd. You’re not. True fact: Whenever I see an attorney look at a tax return, their eyes (before glazing over) automatically move to the left side of the form, where the words are. As a CPA, my eyes automatically go to the right. To the numbers.

Which gets to an important point. Just as you hate (yes, hate) working with numbers, I know that you love doing law. The stuff you’re good at. So let me help you do more of what you like, and less of what you don’t.

A symbiotic proposition

Last but not least: I believe in building relationships with the attorneys I work with. I want to get to know you, your practice, and your sweet-spot clientele.

This is because, from time to time, I’ll get approached by a new client whose, say, “amical” divorce is about to proceed without an attorney.

I do not let this simply skate past. Just as you’re not an expert on finance, I’m not an expert on the law. But I do know that that woman will need someone in her camp who can help her from the legal side. There are always overlooked issues, whether there are tax carryovers, issues about who claims the dependents, un-included assets, and so on. So I’m happy to refer my clients to the best-fit attorneys on my roster.

And if that’s not helping you grow your practice, I don’t know what is.