Lawyers are conformists. I’m not sure why, but it’s clear that we copy one another. As a profession, we’re like a freaking Xerox machine. One copy, another, another, another…

The problem is that we sometimes copy the wrong lawyers. We pick bad models, and we spew out a whole bunch of clones all doing the wrong things.

For instance, we copy law firms that have lots of lawyers. We do it without thinking about the real economic model of the firm we’re copying. If we took a minute and figured out that the firm we’re copying only has lots of lawyers because it’s a big, money losing, space sharing, eat-what-you-kill operation, we might choose not to copy it. Sometimes the firm is big but not especially profitable or well run.

Another example—we copy the lawyer living in the big house with the big car without thinking about the debt that lawyer is carrying and the near impossibility of the debt ever being paid off. A big house must equal a successful practice, right?

How about another one?

We copy lawyers who seem busy even though we have no idea what their P&Ls or balance sheets show. We have no idea how long it took them to get where they are or how they got there, and we copy what they’re doing now, not what they were doing then.

My personal favorite is hiring associates because someone down the block has an associate. Digging around in the numbers sometimes reveals that the employee is making more money than the employer. But hey, if guy down the street did it, it must be a good idea, right?

The list of examples is endless. We copy without discrimination and without much rational thought.

I’ve been copied, and I’ve repeatedly watched people copy things I’ve done that I know didn’t or don’t work for me. Some lawyers have assumed that because I was trying a marketing approach that it must work or I wouldn’t be doing it. The glitch is that I was experimenting. It didn’t work, but I didn’t know that when I tried doing it. It was only after I did it for a while and accepted failure that I stopped. Unfortunately, some lawyers kept copying and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working for them.

I’m not opposed to copying. I love copying things, and I do it all the time. I’ve stolen most of my best ideas from someone doing very well. The key is that before I steal someone’s idea, I do everything in my power to make sure it’s working.

That’s what you should do too.

How do you find out whether it’s working?

First, try asking the person. I have repeatedly found that successful people are more than willing to share the ideas behind their success. I’m amazed at the generosity of others time and time again.

Second, see how long the person has been doing whatever you’re about to copy. Go back and search for when it started. If the person is still doing it years later, then it’s probably working.

Third, test the idea for yourself. Even good ideas don’t always transfer well to others. Do some small-scale experiments and measure your results before you commit to a broad rollout of the project.

Copying can work for you and your practice: just be sure you’re copying the good stuff.