My apologies for the title of this article if you or anyone you know has ever been held hostage. The similarities first occurred to me though, when I was visiting the office of a solo practitioner in Central Florida. I was invited-in to help her earn more money and have more fun at the practice of law. But after doing a few exercises and learning that “Maria’s” staff knew a lot more about how her office really functioned, than she did I realized I was dealing with a hostage situation...

In August, 1973, two ex-convicts held three women and a man hostage during a robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. The robbers kept the hostages for six days. What is remarkable about the situation is that despite the robbers’ threats to kill the hostages, the hostages defended the robbers behavior, even days after they were rescued by the police. Indeed, two of the hostages became engaged to their captors! Journalists and doctors who studied this incident dubbed it "the Stockholm Effect" and noted it was common throughout history: slaves defended their masters, prisoners of war felt sympathy for their jailors, prostitutes defended their pimps, incest and other abuse victims excuse the actions of their dominators.

Are You Suffering From "Stockholm" Symptoms?

The symptoms of the Stockholm Effect are well documented and can be easily adapted to the solo practitioner’s experience:

The hostage experiences a perceived threat to survival and believes that the terrorist captors are willing to act on that threat, i.e. to kill or severely injure him or a loved one in some way.

Okay, so you don’t actually believe your staff is going to physically injure you. But we’ve all had that sense of dread “What if my secretary, who is the only one that knows how to do “X” decides to quit!?!” If you don’t think that would injure you and your family financially, you’ve got another thing coming...

The hostage perceives what s/he misidentifies as small kindnesses from the terrorist captors despite the ongoing terror.

Rationally, we all know it’s our support staff’s job to, well, support us! But haven’t we all felt those feelings of relief when we’ve returned from vacation and find everyone still there & apparently doing their jobs?

The hostage is deliberately isolated from perspectives, viewpoints and realities except for those dictated and "allowed" by the terrorist captor.

It may not be deliberate, but there’s no denying that as perhaps the only lawyer in the office, our perspectives are markedly different than those of our staff, paraprofessionals and clients on several important issues.

The hostage experiences a perceived inability to escape from his terrorist captors.

Does this one really require an explanation?

The Great Escape

Just like in the movies whenever there’s a jail-break, you’ll need to do a lot of planning. Think about all the different things that must get done in your office on a daily, weekly and monthly basis in order for it to function.

Go around and interview your staff to find out all the things they do for your firm. A great exercise we’ve used with much success is to simply ask each person to rank the top ten most important things they do for the law firm, and then have them write out instructions for you to follow, just in case anything were to ever happen to them, like getting hit by the proverbial bus (which really did happen to a lawyer I know!)

A full explanation of exactly what to do & how is beyond the scope of this brief article, which I am trying to keep short because I know you are busy. To register for an upcoming teleseminar about how to document your office procedures visit www.HowToMakeItRain.com

WEEKLY CALL TO ACTION

Interview your staff to find out all the things they do for your firm.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”
- Chinese Proverb

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RJon Robins - acclaimed author, lawyer and law practice management consultant - has a challenge for you:

If your law office looks like a GHOST TOWN, and if you're absolutely going insane trying to figure out how to bill enough hours to stay above water, then go to HowToMakeItRain.com right now to discover a whole new world of doing business as a solo lawyer.

It's time to start working smarter - not harder. It's time to make it rain. Make this year your year...

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