I have a confession to make. I’m afraid of delegating. And, in particular, I’m afraid of delegating when my reputation is on the line. What I mean is, I don’t care about getting someone else to take out the trash. If it doesn’t get done, it will get done eventually. What I do care about is having someone put their trust in me to do something and it not get handled. I run into this situation every day – I’m a Houston criminal attorney who owns a thriving law firm, and I was able to get over it by following a few simple steps.

1. Understand You Aren’t the Only One Who Can do It

It took a long time for me to realize that there are other people out there that know how to handle a criminal defense case. And there are people out there that are probably even better than me at it. Getting over this hump was probably the biggest step in my delegation transformation – it’s hard to acknowledge that there are other out there that can do what you do and do it well.

2. Set Up a System to Keep You in the Loop

One of my biggest fears with regard to delegating some of my criminal cases to other criminal attorneys was falling out of the loop and getting a phone call somewhere down the line from a disgruntled client who is furious that their attorney did a terrible job. I found this fear was easy to overcome by putting a system in place to keep a finger on the pulse of the cases delegated. Simple case management software and weekly or bi-weekly meetings did the trick.

3. Find Someone that is Willing to Buy in

If you hang around Houston criminal attorneys long enough, you’ll soon start to realize something – we are a very independent bunch. We don’t really like being told what to do – we like to fight authority (hence the criminal lawyer career path) and sometimes we’ll fight just for the sake of fighting. Well, if you want your firm to be successful, you’ve got to find someone that is willing to buy into what you are doing and commit to doing things in that way.

Follow these three simple steps, and you’ll have less on your plate, be more efficient, and your clients will love you even more than they do now. You already probably know you can’t do everything. When you actually start practicing it, you’ll find more enjoyment than you ever imagined.