What If Growth Isn’t the Goal?
A few weeks ago, I grabbed coffee with a fellow attorney. He owns a multi-state firm with his wife. They have around 50 employees and generate an annual revenue in the multi-millions. By most outward metrics, he’s doing incredibly well — scaling fast, expanding into new markets, building a business with real weight behind it.
We got to talking because he’d seen some of my LinkedIn posts about flat fees and unbundled services — topics that aren't exactly headliners at most bar association events — and they piqued his curiosity. He’s thinking about launching a new practice, more modern, nimble, in another state. Something different.
As we talked, two things struck me.
First, the timeline: we both started our businesses in 2015. Ten years. A full decade.
And in that moment — hearing the size of his team, the reach of his firm, the revenue — I had this flash of comparison. I thought, look how much further he is.
I’m still solo. I don’t have staff. I work from home. I’ve intentionally kept things lean, virtual, simple. And that works for me. My practice is profitable, sustainable, and aligned with the life I want. But still…the math on paper made me flinch for a second.
That little voice whispered: Is this all you’ve built in ten years?
I had to catch it. Because that voice? It’s not truth. It’s a reflex — shaped by decades of conditioning from a culture that says success looks like scale, size, office space, and headcount. It’s a voice that doesn’t pause to ask what kind of life do you actually want?
The second thing that stood out was his reaction to me. He asked — more than once — “So, you don’t want to grow?”
Not judgmental, but surprised. Maybe even confused.
You don’t want to hire staff?
You don’t want to expand?
You don’t want to bring on an associate?
Nope. I don’t.
I love the agility of being solo. I like that my business serves my life, not the other way around. I like that I’m not constantly stressed about payroll or office politics or managing a team. And I like that my definition of “enough” includes more space and peace than dollars and titles.
He admitted that his setup brings plenty of stress — especially around staff. He’s constantly trying to layer in managers or systems to absorb it, but it still trickles back to him. It always does.
And I wondered. Were we maybe looking at each other with the same curiosity?
Him thinking, Wait… you’re telling me you can have a successful firm without scaling it into the stratosphere?
Me thinking, Should I have gone bigger? Am I doing this wrong?
But here’s the thing I keep coming back to:
We chose different definitions of success.
Neither is wrong. But they are different — and they’re not interchangeable.
If you’ve ever felt that familiar twinge — that quiet voice that wonders if you’re behind because your business is smaller, or quieter, or simpler — ask yourself a few questions:
What am I actually optimizing for in my practice?
What does success look like to me — not in a pitch deck but in my actual daily life?
If no one could see my business from the outside, what would I build?
The truth is, growth isn’t the only direction.
Freedom is growth.
Simplicity is success.
Sustainability is strategy.
And sometimes, solo is the whole point.