Designing a Practice Area Around Your Passion with Patrice Perkins [GWL 11]

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Patrice is an attorney practicing in Chicago and the founder of and principal attorney at Creative Genius Law, a law firm working exclusively with creative entrepreneurs + innovative brands doing major impact work, helping them develop successful legal strategies. Patrice was also named one of the ABA’s 2014 Legal Rebels.

Quote: “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee

Show Notes

Why she decided to go to law school:

She fought against going to law school because she wanted to be different than her family. Her dad went to law school but didn’t practice. So Patrice initially wanted to pursue architecture in undergrad but didn’t want to be covered in wood shavings. She switched to Economics and then decided to pursue law after all.

How she landed her first job:

In undergrad, during the summer, she worked with an attorney who became her mentor. She gained a lot of hands on experience in undergrad so she was ahead of the game.

During law school, she worked full time while she attended school as an evening student. She started as a pro bono coordinator at a non-profit org. She got to network with attorneys and gain great insight/exposure to the legal industry

When she left that job, she landed a position as an assistant with a Judge in an office that was appointed by Federal court as a result of a 40-year civil right suit. It oversees illegal patronage hiring within Cook County government in Illinois.

How did Creative Genius Law come about?

She spoke with a lot of attorneys who weren’t happy with what they were doing so when she was designing how she wanted her life to be like, she wanted to love what she did each and every day.

The people she serves in her business are the people she loves in her life.

She noticed that none of these creative types of people had lawyers because they didn’t feel like lawyers “got them.” So she wanted to fill that void and provide those legal services that creative brains needed.

Typical day: she’s up until 3 or 4am working. She spends the first few hours of her day on business building work like refining a sales process, strengthening her brand, guest blogging. Then from 4pm-8pm is client work. Then after 10pm, she works on creative work.

Hal Elrod – The Miracle Morning

As individuals, we can’t tend to and serve others until we take care of ourselves. Same with our businesses. We can’t serve others until we tend to our business needs.

Worst part: there is no worst part of her job because she designed it that way. She’s selective about the clients she takes so she doesn’t have problem clients.

Best part of the job: working with her clients. Every time she opens a file for a client she’s bringing them one step closer to fulfilling their vision. She loves talking to her clients about how they’re going to change the world and use big ideas and make impact.

Michael Port – Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling (affiliate link*)

Michael discusses the “velvet rope policy”. Just like how clients choose us as attorneys and interview us to see if they like us, it should be the same way the other way around. Lawyers need to apply this policy when it comes to selecting clients.

Why is blogging/writing so important to her?

Writing is her passion and she has been writing since a very young age. When she graduated from law school, she dropped the writing because she thought she had to focus only on legal work. But she quickly learned that she didn’t feel fulfilled. Writing was a part of her that she needed so she picked it back up.

At first, she blogged about business lifestyle and overworked entrepreneurs. Then she thought about switching to legal writing but she was afraid it would be boring and would require a lot of outside research.

Young attorneys should blog if it’s a passion, don’t force it. It allows for people to get to know you beyond the four corners of the paper. It makes you human.

Street Food Artistry:

Ross Reznik owns Roaming Hunger in LA. It’s a website that tracks food truck locations. Patrice noticed that the website didn’t have Chicago listed so she reached out to Ross. They decided to team up and bring more exposure to the food truck scene in Chicago. She wanted to plan an event like a food truck fest to showcase food trucks in Chicago. She wanted to work with these small businesses and micro-businesses. Then the food truck fest developed into a full non-profit org that provides economic, business, and legal support to creative food truck entrepreneurs –> aka Street food Artistry

Recommended Reading:

Jeff Goins – The In-Between: Embracing the Tension Between Now and the Next Big Thing (affiliate link*)

Action Item:

Take the Fascination Advantage Assessment – a personality test that focuses on how you show up in the world.

Contact Info:

www.creativegeniuslaw.com

www.creativegeniussociety.com

Facebook: Genius Approved

Twitter: @geniusapproved

IG: @Creative_esq

Thanks for Checking Out the Show Notes and for Listening!

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*Disclosure:  Please note that the link above is an affiliate link, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to purchase this book for your reading pleasure.