Here’s the harsh truth: If you’re still in the early or middle stages of building your law firm, stop looking for work-life balance on the menu.
When you’re growing something from the ground up — building systems, hiring the right team, establishing your reputation, and chasing revenue — balance isn’t just elusive. It’s impossible.
If a leader has already put in 30 years and built a solid leadership team, a strong brand, reliable revenue, and key metrics tracking every move but still seems to be struggling with balance, that’s a different conversation.
But if you don’t have those things in place yet and you’re wondering why you can’t clock out at 5 PM and go home, you’re asking the wrong questions.
When you’re just starting out, balance isn’t the goal. Building is.
I believe there is a simple formula to this. If you’re the owner, you can decide your hours, clients, budget, and so on. You can choose to work 20 hours a week or 50. But you can’t (and this is where everyone makes a mistake) have it all at the same time.
You can’t work 20 hours a week but keep scaling and expanding your firm. That’s not business. That’s fantasy.
Inversely, you can’t work 60-hour weeks prioritizing your law firm’s growth and wonder why your life seems heavily disbalanced in favor of work.
I believe early stage imbalance is non-negotiable.
If someone online is promising you a five-step revolutionary approach to building a business and keeping your work-life balance at the same time, they’re scamming you. There is no way around tireless work in the early stages of company-building.
If you want balance, then owning a business isn’t for you, and you should go work at someone else’s law firm instead.
If this message triggers you, it may be further proof that you’re not cut out for entrepreneurship.
Be very honest with yourself. Is your law firm in a startup grind or a mature operation stage of its development? If the former, then you can’t expect to grow without accepting that lack of balance right now will just be a part of paying your dues. Eliminate time waste, build systems, hire basic support teams, and establish a sustainable brand.
If you’re in a growth phase, the question isn’t, “How do I have balance?”
It’s, “Am I okay with imbalance right now to get to freedom later?”
If you’re still building, stop expecting balance. Imbalance isn’t a problem to be solved at that phase. It’s a reality to be accepted.
Balance is a luxury you earn by putting in the work, not a right you’re entitled to just because you want it.
It’s all a part of the agreement when you decide to bet on yourself. You want growth? You want to matter? You want to run your own show? Then pay the price for it by prioritizing it over everything else.
Balance isn’t the starting line. It’s the end goal, and the only way to it is to put in the work.
