In this blog, we feature insights from  Mike Morse, founder of Michigan’s largest personal injury firm, Mike Morse Law Firm as he underscores the five key principles for law firm success. Mike Morse is the best-selling author of the book Fireproof.

As a successful entrepreneur and law firm owner, Mike Morse has built his firm to 200 employees, serving 40,000 clients, and attaining settlements of more than $1.5 billion in pursuit of justice for his clients.

Critical to Mike’s success is the foundation he created based on five key principles.

Five Key Principles for Law Firm Success

1. Know thyself
2. Know how to hire, fire, reward, recognize and pay staff
3. Know all things data, tracking your metrics on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis
4. Run your business like your biggest case — put in the same amount of time and effort as you would your biggest case
5. Cherry Garcia beats vanilla — find a way to stand out from the crowd

Know Thyself: Are You a Visionary or an Integrator

In expanding on his first key principle of “Know Thyself”, Mike emphasizes that every law firm owner needs to understand whether they are a visionary or an integrator.

According to Mike, every business owner falls into one of these two categories. Visionaries are the idea generators — they come up with new ideas constantly, are never fully satisfied, and have brains that are always going a million miles a minute. Entrepreneurs tend to be the visionary types. Integrators, on the other hand, are the executors. They love management, numbers, holding people accountable, have very long attention spans, and very precise memory for details.

Rather than viewing one as superior to the other, Mike stresses that visionaries and integrators are equally important and complementary partners. A visionary without an integrator will struggle to execute on their ideas. An integrator without a visionary will lack the creative spark to drive the business forward.

Lessons Learned and Applied

Mike learned this lesson personally when he was trying to be both the visionary and integrator in his own law firm. He eventually realized he needed to find his “number two” — an integrator partner who could take the reins on execution while he focused on generating the vision.

He cautions that many entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to do both roles themselves rather than bringing in an integrator partner. “I was doing both,” Mike noted. “You need to eventually say, okay, enough is enough, and you find that number two.”

His advice is to be brutally honest with yourself about whether you are the visionary or integrator type. If you are the visionary, it is critical to find and empower an integrator to help translate your vision into reality through strong execution.

Identifying and Adopting Core Values

With a vision-integration partnership in place, the next step is to get ruthlessly focused by clearly defining the firm’s core values. The core values Mike created for his firm in 2007 still drive every business decision at his firm today. While taking the time to codify core values may seem grueling, Mike believes it’s a process that opens the door for exponential success.

The core idea is that knowing yourself as a visionary or integrator and being able to articulate a clear set of core values, provides the critical foundation for scaling a successful law firm. With that base in place, the other key principles around hiring, tracking metrics, running the business professionally, and differentiation can be built upon it. But self-knowledge and clear core values must come first.

Special Offer – Complimentary Copy of Fireproof

Get a complimentary copy of Mike Morse’s best-selling book Fireproof. Simply click on the link below and then complete the form to request your copy of Fireproof.

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Mike is the founder of Mike Morse Law Firm, the largest personal injury firm in Michigan. He lectures across the nation on best practices for running and building a successful law firm. Recently, he was named a #1 Amazon best-selling author for his book Fireproof.

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* The information provided on (or accessed through) this blog is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as, and should not be relied on for, law firm operations, tax, legal or accounting advice. Some of the information may not be applicable or appropriate for all law firms. Please consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors as appropriate. Results may vary by law firm.