This is an inescapable, inevitable question that lawyers are confronted with. For many of us, including me, this getting work thing is a deep, impenetrable mystery. And yet, it is also familiar because most lawyers running his or her own firm wonder about it. But answering the question once, or even many times, doesn’t necessarily mean we have the answer, assuming there is an answer.

Naturally, some have escaped the daily grind of this question. There are Edenic garden law firms, where work cascades onto the firm like water falling from a powerful, pretty waterfall, where cases hang like low, ripe and plentiful fruit on a low lying bough, where rain makers turn fair clouds dark and make them weep. I know nothing about how to set up such a firm despite working in one for a while.

The Edenic garden lawyer answer, however, is not for everyone. And not everyone can answer it the same way, or want to.

The unsteady supply inherent to legal work provokes the question. Legal work is inherently unsteady because most work is piecemeal. It will end. For litigation, it ends once judgment is rendered. For corporate clients, when the agreements are signed. For sale and purchase agreements, when the house is handed over. Once the case is closed, the contract signed and the house delivered and our fees paid (in theory, anyway) there is no more money to had from it.

But the running of the firm continues. All the staff, lawyers and relationships built to handle the work remain. Rentals, wages, utilities, statutory contributions, etc., continue to be incurred. All this has to be paid whether we get work or not. It must be paid to anticipate and be ready to do the work when it comes.

This makes the continuous search for work, or a steady flow of it necessary and urgent. A steady flow of work, managed well, means a healthy cash flow, which is vital for a firm’s continuous existence. A healthy cash flow is when we earn enough to comfortably meet the regular expenses of the firm. An unhealthy cash flow is when we don’t have enough to meet those expenses and means trouble.

Legal practice is the converging point of the piecemeal nature of legal work and the continuity of a legal firm to do such work. This is what makes getting legal work so challenging: There are too many variables that go into whether we get work. Not all of them known. We are not sure how many important variables in any given situation. Too little work brings cash-flow issues. Too much work creates quality issues. We need a steady and sufficient amount of work – enough – but that, too, is ambiguous. What is enough? From what perspective, psychiatrically, emotionally, financially? Is enough this month enough next month? But this is far less of a mystery compared to how to get work.

I attempted to answer the question previously in How do you get work? There, I confessed I didn’t know how I got work except to demand, do and deliver good work, and steadily build a reputation for competency, credibility and courage. Put out good vibes. My theory is that I am sought because the person read, saw, or heard something good, positive, or assuring about me or my work from somewhere. Either that, or chance.

Having re-read and reflected on my previous essay, I feel it is unsatisfactory because it is incomplete. I discussed only the extrinsic aspect of how to get work. I omitted a small but vital element to that discussion: the intrinsic element. I did not mention it because it is easy to overlook. Also, partially out of fear. I was worried about coming off a bit mad, naive, and mystical. But when I reminded myself that that’s probably how I am seen already, there’s no need to be coy about it.

What is this vital intrinsic element?

Trust the Universe.

The longer version is: Trust the Universe. Keep Our Intentions Pure. Be Patient. Oh, And Stay Calm Even When It Looks Bleak. Plenty Calm.

The first phrase is key though. By that I mean, trust the universe to provide. By trust I mean to accept the idea that the universe will work it out for us. It will not favour us only. Not that it would suspend the laws of physical sciences to manifest our desired outcome. No. But the universe will somehow conspire to create conditions for our thriving along with others.

The rest of it in the longer version are reminders about how to maintain that trust. Keeping our intentions pure means an absence of narcissim. When our actions and thoughts are for others instead of only ourselves, it harnesses a power about them. Patience and staying calm are vital in getting through those bleak times. We must not flinch. Just because the universe provides doesn’t mean it does so at our choosing. It has its own rhythm. We have to wait and be ready for it.

In the first few years of my firm, I lost count of how many times I anxiously wondered how I would pay the firm’s running costs in the next two months, only for the work to swoop in out of nowhere and save the day. It kept happening time and again that I had to accept this phenomena even as I could not explain it or did not understand it.

The universe will provide if we let it. It will provide, if we listen, feel and groove to its rhythm. It will provide if we don’t impose our narrow, short-sighted desire upon it. It will not bless us with a surfeit of wealth, but it can keep us going and keep us content.

I accept this mystical view may result from confirmation bias, hindsight bias, apophenia, fundamental attribution error, selective perception distortion, magical thinking and other systemic human biases. But then what view of ours isn’t? We all operate according to unconscious biases. In any event, it’s far more pleasant to feel as if the universe is with us than against us.

So, that’s how I really go about getting work. Consistently do good work, put out good vibes, work for the greater good. Trust the universe. It sounds a bit mad. There’s no marketing, no touts, no advertising, no pushing name cards into hands, no hard sell or prizes. There’s no hey-I’m-the-best, we-are-blue-chip-clients-only, etc. Just plain old fashioned hard work, doing good work and a genuine desire to help.

Other lawyers have reported similar experiences to mine which has emboldened me to write about it. I don’t understand it. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s superstition. I don’t know. All I know is it works. Since I opened my firm in 2016, it has worked. And continues to do so.

When people ask me these days, how do I get work? I tell them, Trust the Universe. And mean it.