We will refer to this opportunity as the Good For You opportunity. How do you know when a client is good for you? Well from the get go you may have the notion that there does not exist a piece of business that you cannot work on or that you cannot have enough business but after a while you begin to see the signs and decipher what works for your law practice. Both from practical defeats and a feel of the land.
1. You first hear the client story and decide using your business judgment on whether you are the firm to do the work. If you botch this up you really have your self to blame and that really is that. As is said, if the foundation be destroyed there will be a lot of renovation down the pike.
2. If you made the wrong choice the business will drain away time and resources specifically meant for other productive business. Now you can manage it all by diverting resources from good to bad BUT this is usually a recipe for disaster. You cannot keep up with this, it will eat into personal time and you will be cranky for no apparent reason.
3. The wrong choice continues to drain and this brings you down where anytime you remember the situation the zest for the business and the spring in your step go away. You know you can't do great work with that kind of drama, talk less of enjoying your labour. Just like having a nagging partner, Samson the great warrior was vexed unto death by Delilah so that he told all that was in his heart. You won't be doing any telling but there will be lots of negative energy around you which will only lead to more negative energy. A negative cycle.
4. The squeaky wheel gets the oil change and you ignore the smoothly running wheel. This is pouring resources down a black hole and soon enough the smooth wheel gets upset and leaves and you have only the squeaky wheel and a car that can't move. The wrong choice compels you to pay less attention to the good business you have so that it becomes squeaky as well.
Now take serious note: a client may not fit your law practice for all sorts of reasons and fit another law firm so there isn't anything inherently wrong with the client. It is just that you both don't get along well enough to make a success of the operation.
Just like two people may date and never marry each other but then go on to other relationships and get married in a heartbeat and stay married for forever.
Also, there are the rationalizations that you use such as ' Building a client base and getting contacts, Not so busy right now might as well get to it, e.t.c.
You can make the choice anyways you want just make sure you do make the choice so you own the situation and adjust it accordingly.
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