Across professions, there is a process to mastery. Hard work and perseverance don’t guarantee success, but it’s almost impossible to achieve success without them. This is particularly true in the legal profession, which is as competitive as it gets. There are no overnight success stories, just stories of dogged persistence over time. The big lesson from all of this: What you practice is what you perfect.

Today Attorney at Work readers get the first look at Bob Denney’s annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession.” For the past three decades, Denney & Associates has been taking the temperature of the profession and reporting on trends in the business of practicing law. Which practice areas are heating up or cooling off? Take a look at the 29th annual What's Hot report.

Some lawyers choose to limit overhead by working from home. They may arrange for supplemental virtual services and conference room access. While not every practice area may lend itself to working from home, technology has made this a more common choice, especially among lawyers just starting out. Besides the obvious office rent savings, working from home confers significant tax benefits.

In the competitive world of law, it is not uncommon to feel (consciously or unconsciously) that failure is not an option. However, the quest for perfection is a double-edged sword. While striving toward it can motivate us to improve, perfection is never the goal. For perfection to serve a useful purpose, it must be a direction, not a destination. Having a direction helps us to continually move, grow, learn and improve.

Law firms are under constant pressure to adopt new, improved technology so they can increase productivity and provide better client service. Yet budgets rarely increase with the speed of technology changes. With so many technology needs out there, how do you know which investments will garner the fastest return?

With LawPay, you get the tools you need to manage earnings and cash flow, and track key financial metrics. LawPay’s new reporting dashboard lets you see where your firm’s payments stand at a glance. Quickly and easily see where revenue is coming from, and view key stats that help you assess cash flow.

Because of this widespread use by lawyers and businesspeople, LinkedIn’s potential to create and nurture relationships between lawyers and clients is significant. You need to be there, and you need to focus on creating a profile and presence that accurately represents who you are, and that reinforces your credibility and focuses on how you can help others. There are many ways to do this, but one I am often asked about is what LinkedIn calls the “Skills & Endorsements” section.

You know what feels good? Firing a client. My firm was hired to help a client with multiple applications for registering their intellectual property. We tell every client there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to get them everything they want. This client got upset about the status of one of the applications, and then refused to pay the balance on a project. I explained that their feelings didn’t negate their obligations, and if they didn’t pay, we’d be constrained to withdraw as counsel from all their pending applications. They refused, so I withdrew as the attorney of record and the firm disengaged from all their projects.

Think back 10 or 11 months … remember your New Year’s financial resolutions? Save more, spend less, be smarter with taxes, and construct a succession plan for your practice — we all made them. Then, client demands, partner requests, deal closings, hearings and even the occasional trial helped make 2017 fly by. You'll have to focus, but it’s not too late to make the most of the year financially.

It really doesn't matter how much money and time go into your law practice’s website. You'll likely always be left wondering if it is actually doing the job you need it to do — and if not, what the heck is wrong with it. Like some, you may have overblown expectations for the work a mere website can do. Like others, you may be unwilling to fully invest what it takes to maximize a site's impact. Let’s look at the bare bones of the problem and identify the critical pieces of your firm’s website marketing effort.