Bob Tharp runs Meriwether in Atlanta:
✅ 32 attorneys.
✅ Divorce only.
✅ $10+ million in revenue.
I recently talked with Bob about how he built his firm. He spent 10 years doing multiple practice areas before making a painful pivot that cut 40% of their revenue overnight.
Within two years, they were doubling and tripling their previous numbers.
Here are the specific lessons that matter for your firm.
1. Focus Is Non-Negotiable for Scale
You can’t build systems across multiple practice areas when you’re starting from scratch. Even two practice areas is too many.
Bob and his partner spent a decade trying to make business litigation and family law work under one roof. They couldn’t train attorneys consistently or build repeatable processes. Every day, they were recreating the wheel.
When they went all in on family law, everything changed. They built templates for every complaint, every answer, and every major situation. Training became possible, and systems became repeatable. Focusing your family law practice is the foundation for everything else.
The opportunity cost of taking every case that walks through the door is that you never build leverage for future growth.
2. Plan the Transition Over Years
Bob gave two years’ notice to attorneys who practiced in areas they were eliminating. He helped them find new positions and made introductions to other firms. One attorney stayed until she found something else.
They needed time to wrap up existing cases anyway. The runway made a difficult transition manageable instead of catastrophic.
Year one was rough as they just tried to break even. Year two is when massive growth kicked in because the foundation from year one made it possible.
3. Let Go of Casework to Lead
Bob really enjoyed practicing law. He also recognized he couldn’t train more attorneys to his quality standard while doing cases himself.
The decision came down to impact. Training a group of attorneys to handle cases in a certain way helps more people than doing excellent work on individual cases.
Moving from working in to on the law firm is tougher than the initial focus decision for most attorneys. You’re letting go of what you trained for and what you’re good at.
Today Bob runs the business and oversees department heads. He very rarely touches day-to-day casework.
4. Match Attorneys to Billing Models They Thrive In
Meriwether runs three separate systems with dedicated attorneys grouped into brackets:
- Fixed fees
- Monthly subscriptions
- Traditional billable hours
Some attorneys want to bill hours and focus on clear KPIs. Others want to deliver great customer service without worrying about every billable hour.
Bob looks back at attorneys who didn’t make it years ago and realizes they would have been successful under the current system. They were good attorneys in the wrong bracket.
This approach made recruiting easier, too. They stopped saying no to talented people who didn’t fit one specific model.
5. Dedicated Sales Attorneys Beat Distracted Ones
Bob still uses attorneys for sales instead of non-attorney salespeople. The key difference is that these attorneys do consultations exclusively without handling cases.
They handpicked naturally good salespeople from their attorney pool, then put them through formal sales training with outside organizations.
Close rates stay strong because the attorneys aren’t distracted by caseload.
When an attorney has trials coming up or a full caseload, consultation quality drops because consultations feel optional compared to actual case work.
6. Remote Capability Opens Expansion Opportunities
Post-COVID changed the location strategy completely. Most people in metro Atlanta want remote consultations and remote representation. They never come to the office, yet they still want an office close to them.
That insight created an opportunity for statewide expansion. Bob’s firm covers most of Georgia now with offices throughout the state. A five-hour drive from Atlanta to some locations would have been impossible with in-person requirements.
Remote capability made geographic growth feasible without proportional overhead increases.
7. Build Systems Before Scaling
Bob’s biggest mistake was trying to grow without systems in place. For 10 years, they struggled because they were running two different businesses.
Once they focused on family law only, they spent one to two years building the foundation through templates, training programs, and repeatable processes. That groundwork made the next phase of growth possible.
You can’t scale what you can’t systematize. You can’t systematize what you’re constantly recreating from scratch.
Building systems and scaling your firm requires singular focus first. The firms trying to do everything end up doing nothing particularly well.
What This Means for Your Firm
If you’re doing multiple practice areas and wondering why growth feels impossible, the answer is probably staring at you.
Bob spent 10 years trying to make diversification work before admitting it couldn’t. Don’t spend 10 years learning the same lesson. Make the call now and deal with two years of discomfort rather than a decade of mediocrity.
The difficult conversations with attorneys who don’t fit the new focus are hard. Letting go of revenue in areas you’re eliminating is scary. Watching competitors take cases you’re turning away feels wrong.
The alternative is worse. Staying stuck at your current size because you can’t build systems across multiple practice areas means never developing the leverage that makes real growth possible.
Focus isn’t sexy. It requires saying no to money sitting in front of you and admitting you can’t be everything to everyone.
It’s also the only way to build something that scales beyond your personal capacity to work cases.
Bob proved that over 27 years. You can learn it faster.
