David Calder, Author at The Cashroom

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Remember the fairy tale of the Emperor’s New Clothes?

A vain emperor is conned into paying a huge sum of money for a suit of new clothes, that don’t actually exist. He parades through the streets in his non-existent clothes, and the sycophantic citizens buy into the myth that he’s wearing a wonderful new set of clothes. They are afraid to call out the truth and are complicit in the lie.

But, so the story goes, a small boy shouts out “but he’s naked”, shattering the “illusion” and the Emperor is ridiculed by the previously complicit citizens.

What’s that got to do with anything?

Well, I’m beginning to think that the COVID lockdown is a bit like the little boy – shouting out to all of us “but he’s naked”. Let me explain…..!

Up until recently many businesses have been toying with remote working, thinking about it, but not really doing much. People were worried that we will miss “something” if we don’t all work from one (expensive, centrally located) office. Along comes the COVID lockdown forcing many of us to work from home, and we suddenly realise that it’s perfectly possible.

The COVID lockdown is the little boy shouting “but everybody working in that office is stupid”.

So what else might the little boy laugh at?

“Wait what … you spend hours traveling to and from work?”

I’m lucky – for the last few years my commute has been about 10mins. But I did spend years traveling in and out of Edinburgh. Nobody enjoys that – and if we no longer need to work from one centrally located office … we can all have a 30sec commute to our “office”.

“But why do you need to work then?”

And if you work remotely, from home – why do we need to work between the hours of 9-5 (or a rough approximation of those hours!)? Are we going to see working hours becoming much more flexible?

“But why does it need to wait until the weekend?”

So if working hours become more flexible, will weekends matter? If you’re working from home, with no commute and no fixed hours … why would you split a week into 5 days on and 2 off (schools I hear you say….but I suspect the little boy will be laughing at them too!)?

“So, why is it we live in this tiny house near all these other people”

Looking further ahead, the only reason cities exist is to bring people to one place allowing them to collaborate and work together. Will the little boy’s ridicule reverse the last 100 years of urbanisation? If I don’t need to work in an office, and have no fixed hours, I can live wherever I have access to a fast broadband connection!

So, you get my (somewhat laboured) point …… the COVID lockdown is forcing us to confront long held assumptions. It’s forcing us to look hard at whether the reason we held them in the first place, remains valid now.

And one last question the little boy might ask (!)

“So, why haven’t you outsourced your cash room yet?

………!

David

Back to the Future – It’s never been easier to start your own law firm!

I think it’s now pretty clear we’re facing a severe recession. No surprise really, given the extraordinary measures taken to stem the spread of COVID 19.

Like all of you, I’m trying to work out what that means for our business.

But, we’ve been here before. My business life includes the dot com bust, and the financial crash in 2008. In fact, the Cashroom was founded in 2008, in the depths of the last recession. So, I’ve been reflecting on what we can learn from the past … can we go “Back to the Future”.

One of the first articles I wrote for the Cashroom’s website was how it had never been easier to start your own law firm. I wrote the article in 2012, as we were beginning to recover from the 2008 recession. It focused on how technology had advanced since I set up my own firm in 2005, 7 years earlier. Things like, being able to “rent” practice management software (don’t think I knew the anacronym SASS then!), rather than buy it, and how cloud computing meant you didn’t need to buy and run a server in your office.

It was one of our most read articles of 2012. I followed it up with a short series on starting a law firm from a blank piece of paper, which were also well read (they’re still there https://www.thecashroom.co.uk/law-firm-you-want-to-own/)

Why?

Well, at the time lots of lawyers were thinking hard about what they wanted to do. Many had been made redundant from large firms, and a few had been treated pretty poorly. They were beginning to wonder whether they wanted to “go out on their own”. At the time the Cashroom won considerable new business from new starts.

Last week I signed 2 new clients. Both of them new starts.

I suspect many lawyers are thinking about their future after the “trauma” of lockdown, and many more will do so during the coming recession. And as I did in 2005, many will decide that if they’re going to go to hell in a hand cart, it might as well be their own hand cart.

And guess what – it really has never been easier to start a new firm, even easier than it was in 2012. The price of technology has dropped even further, the scope and diversity of the legal services you can provide has never been wider, and we all know now that you don’t need an office!

So, if you’re thinking about how you go back to work in your old firm, or maybe even whether you go back, remember …. it’s never been easier to set up your own firm!

And of course, if accounting and compliance are something that’s putting you off, we can help!

David