Recognizing Blind Spots That Can Hinder Your Success
(Especially When You’re Running a Law Firm)
Whether you’ve been running your own firm for years or are just starting to find your rhythm as a solo or small firm lawyer, it’s easy to feel like you have a solid handle on things. You’ve built a business, you’re serving clients, and you’ve weathered challenges that would flatten other professionals.
But here’s the hard truth I had to learn in my own journey: even the smartest, most capable attorneys have blind spots.
And if you don’t recognize them, they can quietly derail your growth, drain your time, and limit the full potential of your practice.
What Are Blind Spots, Really?
Blind spots, obviously, are the things you can’t see, not because you’re not looking, but because you don’t realize there’s something to see in the first place.
Sometimes it’s a process you think is working just fine. Other times, it’s an assumption you’ve been carrying for years that no longer holds up. It could even be a client type you’ve been attracting without realizing they’re a poor fit for your long-term goals.
We all have blind spots; I certainly do. In fact, part of what helped me shift from running a law firm that felt overwhelming to building a business that actually worked for me was learning how to spot the things I didn’t even know I was missing – in other words, how to know what I didn’t know.
Finding the Blind Spots in Your Practice
Recognizing blind spots starts with stepping outside of your daily routine and looking at your firm through a fresh lens.
I recommend building in time, quarterly or even monthly, to audit how your firm is running – not just financially, but operationally and strategically. Ask yourself questions like:
- “What am I assuming is working that I haven’t really tested?”
- “Where am I spending the most time, and is it actually moving the needle?”
- “Are the clients I’m attracting the ones I want to keep attracting?”
Better yet, bring in outside perspectives – team members, trusted peers, or even former clients. They can offer insights you’d never arrive at on your own. Yes, it can feel uncomfortable, but growth often is.
Sometimes just one honest piece of feedback can expose an area you’ve been overlooking for years. I once had a colleague point out that my intake process, which I thought was streamlined, was actually creating friction for high-value prospects. I had no idea until someone outside my bubble mentioned it.
That’s the power of finding the blind spots in your practice. Once you see them, you can do something about them.
How AI Can Help You See What You’re Missing
This is where things get interesting — and a bit more modern.
Today, tools like ChatGPT aren’t just toys or time-savers. When used strategically, they can help you surface patterns, question assumptions, and see your business in new ways.
Here are a few ways to use AI to uncover blind spots:
- Analyze patterns in your data. Feed your business data (case outcomes, client inquiries, feedback forms, etc.) into ChatGPT and ask it to find trends or anomalies. You might find that most of your time-consuming clients come from a single referral source, or that most complaints center around a single communication issue.
- Simulate your client’s experience. Prompt ChatGPT to act as a potential client reviewing your website or calling your office for the first time. Ask: “What might frustrate or confuse a new client about my current intake process?” You’ll be surprised how much you can learn when you step into their shoes.
- Stress-test your assumptions. Have a marketing plan? A pricing model? A growth strategy? Use ChatGPT to ask, “What might I be overlooking in this approach?” It’s like having a devil’s advocate at your fingertips (without the attitude).
AI won’t replace your judgment, but it can sharpen your awareness. It can nudge you toward questions you wouldn’t have thought to ask. Over time, that kind of thinking becomes second nature. For help testing your new ideas, check out this article next.
Growth Begins Where Blindness Ends
The good news is this: recognizing your blind spots isn’t a one-time effort. It’s a habit you can build. A skill you can strengthen.
And once you start finding the blind spots in your practice (those hidden inefficiencies, overlooked opportunities, and outdated assumptions) you unlock the ability to grow faster, serve better clients, and reclaim your time.
Need Help with the AI?
AI can be a very powerful tool to save you time and give you the insights you need to be successful. But the advice and insights it can give you depend largely on how well you use it and the information you supply to it.
If you’re new to AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, or Google Gemini, and think you need help in using it, then I invite you to take my free 30-minute course on how to use generative AI in your law practice. It’s specifically designed for solo and small firm attorneys who want to work smarter—not harder—with today’s AI tools.
👉 Take the 30-minute ChatGPT course here
Because the sooner you start seeing what you’ve been missing, the sooner your practice starts working for you, not the other way around.
Related Topics
If you liked this information and found it useful, then you might like or need these others:
