Starting a Law Firm | Learning From Failure

The fear involved with starting a law firm can be palpable.  There are so many questions that go through your head as you begin the journey.  Those thoughts can be both positive and negative.  But, I would guess that a lot of the anxiety results from the fear of failure.

I’ll admit to the fear of failure in starting my own law firm.  I will also admit to a generally pesimistic attitude at times.  I may be wrong, but I would guess that many lawyers have an unhealthy amount of pessimism about some things – including starting a law firm.  But, luckily, I was listening to a particular interesting edition of Morning Edition on NPR lately, and there is hope for those who fail.

NPR interviewed Tim Harford, a financial columnist for the The Financial Times, to talk about his book Adapt.  The program and interview was extremely enlightening – enough for me to want to share it on my law firm start-up blog.  The subtitle of the book is “Why Success Always Starts With Failure”.  According to Mr. Harford, failure is inevitable – in life, in business, in everything.  What a relief!  Somebody said it.

I write this somewhat tongue-and-cheek.  It is an obvious premise, but I think it is a perspective that is not focused on enough.  Failing and adapting is a hallmark of many successful entrepreneurs.

One example from the interview that I found particularly interesting was an anecdote told by Mr. Harford about professional gamblers.  I am paraphrasing from the NPR interview, but the general extant of the story was something like this:  professional gamblers know that they are most vulnerable after they have lost a bet.  This is because it is the natural tendency of all people to want to play recklessly after they have lost and try to get all of their money back quickly.  It is a mental block that must be fought.  The good professional gambler knows that if he fails and adapts, his chances of winning are greatly increased.  As noted on the NPR article:

“If the whole process of learning from failure means discarding stuff that’s not working, but in fact, our natural reaction is to keep going, to throw more money behind it, to throw more emotional energy behind it … that’s a real problem,” he says.

I know this feeling.  I know the desire to try and achieve too much too quickly after I fail.  I’ve done it and, it would appear, I may have failed to adapt from that experience.   I hope I don’t do it again.  But, at the very least, I know that failure is ok as long as I use it as a positive and learn from my mistakes.  I am ok with this, just as long as starting a law firm doesn’t mean I end up like Johannes Gutenberg and invent the printing press but go broke doing it.