September 2011 - Page 2 of 3 - Solo in Minneapolis

September 16, 2011

Jump-Starting a Solo Law Practice

Carolyn Elfefant over at MyShingle.com has a post this morning titled “Crowdsourcing Advice for a Struggling Solo.” She has included a letter asking for advice from a struggling solo lawyer in an east coast city. The letter brings up issues that all solo attorneys struggle with.

Ms. Elefant asked readers to try and answer the attorney’s question, so I’m doing so here. To that end, here is the sanitized version of the struggling-solo-attorney’s letter as posted on MyShingle:

I am a solo with a practice in a large East Coast city. I handle real estate transactions, bankruptcy, divorce and general litigation. I started my solo practice three years ago, following several years of employment at a smaller firm. Initially, I was able to sustain a practice through referrals – although even then it was a struggle. But lately, I find that people don’t want to pay for legal services. I do an initial consult, but then the potential client will haggle over the price. In addition, the referrals come in spurts and I would like to find a way to produce a steady revenue stream.

I am updating the firm resume, adding a Facebook page, joining Linked In and I have started sending email updates to colleagues. But I would like ideas to jump start my practice – to start bringing in work right away while developing a reliable stream of revenue for the future.

To try and answer the questions, I’m going to strip the letter down to its most basic level:

Good things for a Solo Attorney:

The attorney indicates that he/she has been a solo for three years;
The person has some kind of referral base, although dwindling;
This person apparently has office space and necessaries like a receptionist, billing software, etc.

Bad things for a Solo Attorney:

Dwindling referral base;
Lack of steady revenue stream;
Potential clients haggling over price.

As Ms. Elefant states, there isn’t a lot to go on in the attorney’s letter, but the things I listed above are something all solo attorneys struggle with. I know I have.

So, to try and help: the attorney does have some things going for his/her law practice. The attorney has the ability to be successful with the institutional tools he/she has set up. These are all good things.

The rest of the issues seem to be related to marketing and client interviews strategies. Let’s start with the client interview. The attorney is concerned about clients coming in for a consult and haggling about price. This happens to me all the time. That is what walk-in clients do.

If the attorney wants to continue to have a general practice dealing with every-day people, my suggestion to solve this problem is work on your selling skills. I don’t mean sugar-coating the law or telling the potential client that they have a case when they don’t. However, being overly nice to the client and making them understand how valuable your services will be to them is rule-number-one. I don’t have a lot of problems closing and I think it is because I am overly nice, I explain the law in an easy to understand way, and I make the client knows that they and their legal problems are really important to me.

After that, I have found that having a credit card system usually helps ease the burden of a large retainer. We aren’t told if this attorney utilizes credit card payments. To me, credit cards are a must for a general practice attorney who is seeing people walking in the door.

Another client interview retention technique I use is the call back. It works in one of two ways: (1) I tell them to think about what they want to do with their loved one and I’ll wait or (2) I tell them that somebody from my office (usually me) will follow up with them in a couple days to see if they are still interested. I don’t change my price, but I do explain the credit-card-system and I do take this additional opportunity to explain to them why I can be of service to them. Basically, the client really wants to know that they are going to get something of value from us over-priced lawyers.

The second issue I see is the steady-revenue-stream conundrum. Ah, the gold mine of solo attorneys.

My big suggestion for this is to find a practice area that caters towards steady-revenue. Once you choose one, you market towards it. One idea is collection work. Collection work allows you to be in court often and meeting with debtors on a constant basis. It’s nickel-and-dime stuff, but it is work. Also, if you have a large collection practice, you will begin to get good referrals from banks, businesses and other entities that are in need of fee collection – or, perhaps, better legal work. Once this practice gets off the ground, you have instant steady revenue. I’m not saying it is easy, but it is an option.

Another steady revenue option is getting on a public defender, indigent-person, court-appointed-appeals contract. These are all steady revenue sources and they are usually available to struggling solos. I try to get in good with my local judges, do a good job, and then let them know I am looking for work. They usually want to help and they steer me business because I do a good job (I think) and they like me (I know).

Another idea is getting on a pre-paid legal referral network. These networks can be dicey and you should check with your bar-association to see if they are legal, but they do work. The pre-paid legal referral sources will always call you if you do a good job. Try to get friendly with the support staff and they will really like you – thus referring steady business to you.

Finally, work your butt off networking at corporate/business functions and get yourself a great manufacturing type client. These businesses always have need for a labor law lawyer. The employees constantly have problems and/or the business always needs contract related advice. This one is tough, but it can be a gold-mine, steady-revenue source.

I am not trying to say these options are easy. They are not. I have struggled with doing every one of them. To me, law firm marketing means hustle. However, what has helped me with the hustle is: focus, being a nice guy, working really hard, and having a plan.

That is my two-cents. I hope it is helpful to the struggling attorney. If anybody wants to post here on their ideas on how to start a law firm and maintain it, please feel free to comment.

September 14, 2011

Starting a Law Firm | How Not to Be Like Big Law

There was an interesting piece in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today about mega-law-firm Dorsey Whitney being fired by the State of Minnesota as the state’s bond attorneys.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t anything about bond law so I am not going to start pointing fingers for sloppy work or anything like that. From all accounts (in the newspaper piece) it sounds like Dorsey Whitney did a good job on Minnesota’s bond law issues. The firm had apparently represented the state for decades with minimal interruption.

Start-up law firms likely don’t have these kinds of problems. You know, the problem of losing a million-dollars-a-year-cash-cow-client. What I will say is that some heads are probably rolling at the Dorsey Whitney.

Losing clients is a part of life. I’ve lost a few. However, most of them were clients I was happy to see go. Like many solo attorneys, my practice is much more nickel-and-dime. I don’t have to worry too much about large clients with large demands.

However, I will say this: I ALWAYS want to have the state as a client. They may not always pay in a timely fashion due to beuracracy and red tape to go through, but they always pay. Did I say always? Minnesota even went through a state shutdown recently and probably didn’t pay a lot of legal bills. But, guess what, the state was only shut down for a month or so. My clients tend to shutdown for anywhere from one month late to one year late on their legal bill.

So, losing the State of Minnesota as a client is a huge deal for any law firm – big law or solo. I wrote a piece about public defender contracts a while back. I know that I poo-pooed the State of Iowa’s ability to pay their public defender contracts, but hey, those lawyers at least had a client who owed them a payment.

I often did work for the State of Indiana on adoptions that were sponsored by the state. The legal bill was always smaller, but I brought in a nice $1,500.00 check from the state for every state-sponsored adoption I did. I loved having the state as a client because I knew I was going to get paid. It sometimes took a while, but the check always came in.

In conclusion, I hope we can learn a lesson in what not to do from Dorsey Whitney and their loss of the bond law work for the State of Minnesota.

September 13, 2011

Can Starting a Law Firm Ruin Your Retirement?

As you will notice by the title of this post, I am always a little paranoid about my retirement plan. Then, this morning, I read this SmartMoney article about whether starting a business can ruin your retirement plan and I got a little more nervous. Thus, the post here for all you paranoid start-up lawyers.

Ok, if you go to the article you will notice that it discusses baby-boomers who are risking their retirement plans to invest in their own new businesses. I’m not a baby-boomer. I’m young and if I liquidate my retirement account I might get be able to buy a 6-pack and a burrito.

All kidding aside, I do have a small retirement plan. My prior law firm did not have health insurance but it did have a nice little SEP IRA program where the firm would match 10% of whatever I earned and put it into a non-taxable retirement account. It was pretty sweet.

I’ve been meaning to do an post about simplified-employee-pension-plans (SEP) IRA’s and solo attorney retirement planning. I’m not sure this is that post, but go check out the IRS website article on SEP IRA’s for further information. Here is the basic gist of the IRS Article:

What is a SEP?

A SEP is a simplified employee pension plan. A SEP plan provides employers with a simplified method to make contributions toward their employees’ retirement and, if self-employed, their own retirement. Contributions are made directly to an Individual Retirement Account or Annuity (IRA) set up for each employee (a SEP-IRA). See Publication 560 for detailed SEP information for employers and employees.

How is a SEP established?

A SEP is established by adopting a SEP agreement and having eligible employees establish SEP-IRAs. There are three basic steps in setting up a SEP, all of which must be satisfied.

A formal written agreement must be executed. This written agreement may be satisfied by adopting an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) model SEP using Form 5305-SEP, Simplified Employee Pension – Individual Retirement Accounts Contribution Agreement. A prototype SEP that was approved by the IRS may also be used. Approved prototype SEPs are offered by banks, insurance companies, and other qualified financial institutions. Finally, an individually designed SEP may be adopted.

Each eligible employee must be given certain information about the SEP. If the SEP was established using the Form 5305-SEP, the information must include a copy of the Form 5305-SEP, its instructions, and the other information listed in the Form 5305-SEP instructions. If a prototype SEP or individually designed SEP was used, similar information must be provided.

A SEP-IRA must be set up for each eligible employee. SEP-IRAs can be set up with banks, insurance companies, or other qualified financial institutions. The SEP-IRA is owned and controlled by the employee and the employer sends the SEP contributions to the financial institution where the SEP-IRA is maintained.

Despite knowing about SEP’s, guess what – when I stared my law firm, out went the retirement plan. I’ve saved nothing specifically towards retirement in the last year. I hate that.

I don’t have a lot more to say about this other than go read the SmartMoney article and then figure out how to get a SEP IRA going for your law firm. I know that is what I will be doing in the next few weeks. Cheers!

September 12, 2011May 30, 2012

Starting a Law Firm | Interview with Solo Attorney, Carl Taylor III

When I posted recently about start-up law firm press releases and Somerville, New Jersey Divorce Attorney, Carl Taylor III, I didn’t expect Mr. Taylor to actually notice and respond to the post. I probably should have.

After some friendly back-and-forth exchange, we determined that an interview was the best way to go.

I haven’t done an interview on this blog before so this is somewhat of an experiment. If anybody out there would like to do an interview at Solo in Minneapolis, I operate on a first-come first-served basis.

One of the discussion points was that we are both passionate about starting a law firm. I have talked a lot on here about networking and getting your law firm name out there in whatever way you can. Having an online discussion with a peer is one way to do this. It may not bring work in right away, but networking gets your name out there, it allows you to create a dialogue, and it gives you an online friend who may be able to lend a helping hand in the future – all good for starting a law firm.

Without further adieu, I hope you enjoy my first interview with Mr. Taylor:

(1) What Got You Interested in Being a Lawyer?

In a way I always wanted to be a lawyer. I was simply drawn to the profession, even as a child. My best friend growing up jokes that when we were 10 he would say he wanted to be a professional baseball player when he grew up, but I said I wanted to be a lawyer. But the goal of being a lawyer really became solidified when I was a little bit older. My background is very “blue collar”, and my parents always worked so hard. They had an unfortunate situation arise during that period in time, and they weren’t legally savvy enough to have it properly taken care off. I always felt like they were taken advantage of by their attorney and the system in general. So for me, it also became a goal of being an honest attorney, who would try and level the playing field for people in difficult situations. And to a large extent that is what I’ve done as an attorney.

(2) What’s Your Favorite Part of the Job?

As not only an attorney, but a business owner, I like that every part of my day I am building something all my own. I also like when I help someone in need, or help a client obtain their desired goals. I pride myself on only taking cases where I feel secure that I will be able to effectively work towards the clients goals.

(3) What Advice Would You Give to Solo Family Law Attorneys?

I’m a solo Somerville NJ family law attorney. As I have just started my solo practice, some of my advice would be as follows:

Expect the costs and expenses to start and run a firm to be higher than expected.

Have sufficient money set aside for the first few months/years when times are tight.

Take action, sitting around is not going to attract clients to your new firm.

For family law attorneys in particular, I would recommend trying to stay as level-headed as possible. Few areas of law are more emotional than family law. That’s why it’s best to try and be level-headed, to keep the case progressing toward an amicable resolution in the best interests of your client and any children from the relationship. This is not always easy to do, but really important.

September 8, 2011

Starting a Law Firm | Law Firm Blogging Platforms: Blogger or WordPress?

As many solo lawyers know: starting a law firm in this day-in-age means blogging. Solo attorneys are especially cognizant of the need to market themselves and garner search engine attention quickly and efficiently. Doing so means blogging for business.

Law Firm Blogging Options

There isn’t a lot of information on the web comparing the main blogging options. Those that I know of include:

There are other platforms, but I believe these 5 to be among the most used. All of them would work as a blogging option for your law firm. However, from what I have seen, Blogger.com and WordPress.com are the top blogging platform choices for solo attorneys.

Which Blogging Platform is the Best for Starting a Law Firm?

The answer to this question is open to some debate. For the sake of brevity, I’m going to posit that WordPress and Blogger are the two most user-friendly platforms. Both are free (if you want to stick with the basic blogging option) and both offer a great deal of user flexibility in the design and formatting options.

Blogger.com

Blogger is owned and maintained by Google. Being Google, Blogger has excellent support and tutorials. From my experience, it is easy to find answers to questions and concerns.

Google appears to be putting a lot of effort into making Blogger a good, user-friendly platform. The controls and layout choices are clearly explained and logical. When you initially log on the layout of Blogger is obvious and they point you where you need to go. If you have questions, Blogger makes you keenly aware of their ample help tutorials.

The design layout is also well-labeled and easy to understand. Blogger also ties in seamlessly with popular Google tools such as Google Analytics, Webmaster, and Adwords. This is where Blogger really has a leg-up on WordPress. I have found installing all of these desirable Google products difficult for my WordPress blogs. It can be done, but it takes some learning and tinkering. With Blogger, setting up these Google accounts is as easy as a simple click of a button.

Perhaps that is the key feature of Blogger: the ease of use by simple button pushing. You can create a decent-looking blog on Blogger within minutes by follow simple instructions and pushing a few well-placed buttons. For a technophobe, Blogger may be the way to go.

Signing up for Blogger means you need a Google account and I believe there is some tie-in to get you a Gmail account. Once you get signed up, creating a Blogger blog is easy and quick. However, for my money, this is where the superiority of Blogger ends.

The Blogger design layout is minimal. There just aren’t a lot of options to choose from and the options Blogger has look much more like children’s books than professional websites. There are some more professional looking options that are designed by outside vendors, but I haven’t found those options to be nearly as attractive and user-friendly as WordPress.

My end review of Blogger is that it is user-friendly and easy, but it looks unprofessional and lacks the content and layout options of WordPress.

WordPress

I use both Blogger and WordPress platforms, but my main focus has been on WordPress. I actually started with Blogger because it was easy and I found WordPress initial interface to be cumbersome. To be sure, there is a learning curve with WordPress, but it is worth it.

For starters, WordPress’s layout and design options are much more professional looking than Blogger and WordPress. The layout and design options are called “themes” and WordPress has many free themes to choose from. If you don’t like the free themes, you can upgrade to a WordPress created “premium” theme for various costs from $35.00 to $165.00. Or, you can choose from a myriad of professional theme designs.

As I discussed in my prior post on creating a law firm website, there are many law firm website and/or WordPress blog theme options to choose from. Wordpress theme options that I have found and like include:

The cost for StudioPress themes is a one-time fee of $24.95 for one theme or $79.95 for a developers license. The cost for the DIY Themes, Thesis theme is $87.00 for a single use or a one-time fee of $164.00 for a developers license. Finally the cost for a Elegant Theme license is $39.00 a year.

Take my advice, you always want to go with the developers license. If you like the theme you are going to want to use it again and you are going to want to have support for it.

Also, I am not making a plug, necessarily, for any of these themes, this is just what I have used. I have also heard good things about the Thesis theme from DIY Themes from Lawyerist and other lawyer blogs.

Sadly, I have gone through several options and I am still constructing my own website: flanderslawfirm.com. I am currently running a StudioPress theme on my website. I still haven’t come up with my optimal website and I continue to tinker. But, the point is that I can tinker because WordPress and the theme developers I have named allow me to do that.

Domain Names Choices

WordPress and Blogger both allow the user to create a blog domain name for free as long as the moniker “wordpress” or “blogspot” is utilized after the chosen domain name.

For example, I could choose “jlawyerblog” as my chosen domain name. If I use the free WordPress option, my domain name would look like this: “jlawyerblog.wordpress.com”. If I use the free Blogger option, my domain name would look like this: “jlawyerblog.blogspot.com”.

If you don’t like the added tag of “blogspot” or “wordpress” you can upgrade to your own domain name for both Blogger and WordPress as long as you pay for it. Therefore, if I wanted to create my own custom domain name (assuming it was available) I would create the domain name “jlawyerblog.com.” The cost for Blogger for a custom domain name is $10.00 a year. The cost for WordPress is $12.00 a year. Obviously, both are inexpensive. The expense of blogging, which truly is minimal, is if you decide to upgrade to a professional theme design.

Conclusion

For all of the reasons discussed above, I have chosen WordPress as my main blogging option for starting a law firm. The functionality and options are far superior to other Blogging platforms. The WordPress themes are also far superior in layout and design to Blogger. Wordpress and Blogger both have great support, but WordPress’s functionality, options, and professional-look make WordPress my choice for law firm blogging.

September 7, 2011

Starting a Law Firm | Online Guide to Starting a Law Practice

I’ve said this in the past and I will say it again, MyShingle.com and Carolyn Elefant are the original purveyors of this starting a law firm blogging show. I’m just an apprentice really.

What is more, MyShingle has revamped and has unveiled the more user friendly Online Guide to Starting a Law Practice. You should check it out. Seriously. Now, I hope you come here for every day law practice start-up advice; however, Ms. Elefant’s effort is superb and must be mentioned on my blog. Enjoy!

September 7, 2011

Starting a Law Firm | Law School Start-Up Incubators

Law schools around the country have apparently woken up to the fact that many young attorneys are going out on there own and starting a law firm. Perhaps its the economy. Perhaps the schools are listening and finally offering practice advice instead of dogmatic case law training. What ever the reason, I say it’s a good thing.

Karen Sloan at the National Law Journal reported law schools across the country are now starting law firm start-up incubators. In the article, Sloan discusses how a young attorney, Yogi Patel, has joined the City University of New York’s (CUNY) program that encourages providing low-cost legal service to the underserved communities. CUNY offers lawyers a support staff, low rent office space for up to two years, and a network of solo practitioner mentors while lawyers start their own law firms.

According to Sloan, CUNY is not alone in having a law firm start-up incubator. There are many other schools across the country who have or are starting these programs. Although, interestingly, it appears the larger, more prestigious schools like Harvard are not interested in spending money on these types of programs. For smaller schools, the impetus behind the move appears to be the economy. The National Law Journal Article has this interesting quote from Dana Morris, assistant dean for career development at Maryland Law:

“Looking down the line at the economy, we knew we would have more students looking at going solo, and we were looking for ways to creatively meet that need . . . We absolutely did this in response to the economy.”

It is no secret that the economy is forcing a lot of lawyers to look toward starting their own law practice. From my view, there has been a veritable explosion of law firm start-up related blogs and websites in the last three years (yes, I’m one of them). This is probably much different from what Carolyn Elefant at MyShingle.com experienced when she started her much-read blog. In the article, Ms. Elefant has some interesting perspective on the issue. I, for one, am glad that law schools are finally taking notice and it is great that law schools may be changing their ways.

I do, however, wonder about the “serving underprivileged communities” aspect of the law school programs. Does this mean that the students are operating as quasi-legal-aid-providers? If so, these programs are not doing a whole lot that is new or different. Most law schools have a clinic program where second and third year law students learn how to practice law while a faculty member (mentor) oversees their efforts. To my knowledge, the law school clinics often serve those who could not otherwise afford an attorney.

Law school clinics and serving those that cannot afford legal services is great. Society needs it. I wonder, though, if these students are really getting a good idea of what law practice is like. Working as an associate attorney at a busy, general practice law firm is much different than working for a legal aid clinic. Dealing with clients who can afford your services is much different than working for those who cannot. The issues that lawyers at private law firms work on are often very different from legal aid clinic services. I have done work for both the borderline poverty level client and for the very rich client. I can tell you, the issues are very different.

Ms. Sloan’s article didn’t discuss whether these students are eventually allowed to broaden their practice scope. I imagine that there is some kind of contractual tie-in, where the lawyers agree to serve the low-income community for a number of years. I have no problem with that. However, I fear that these lawyers may get stuck in practice areas and serving only a segment of society. If that is what they want to do, great, more power to them.

There are many ways to start a law firm. If you can get your current or former law school to sponsor you and pay for stuff, you should jump on that deal right now.

September 6, 2011

Starting a Law Firm | Online PR and News Releases

I’ve been noticing a lot lately that attorneys are announcing the opening of their law practice on online public relations web sites. It appears that the purpose of the public relations web sites is to distribute it to other online sources and feeds. The idea is very similar to the Associated Press (AP) news releases.

For instance, I subscribe to a Google newsfeed on starting a law firm. I get updates daily on what is going on around the web related to opening a law practice. Most of the articles are boilerplate, but I occasionally get something pretty useful.

When I get something useful, I try to share it with my blog readers. Today there was a announcement by 28-year-old, Carl A. Taylor, III, that he was leaving his law firm job to start a law firm. I was impressed for several reasons: (1) he is young (28), like me (31), and (2) that he had his own press release. I want a press release. Not only that, but the article is well-written. It is very much akin to an AP news release.

However, digging a little deeper, I noticed that the press release was distributed by PR Web – an online public relations and news release service. PR Web is set up solely for the distribution of organic press releases. It appears that you can write and distribute your own articles. Pretty useful, I should think.

Maybe I am just behind the times, but I hadn’t thought of this yet. Most law firm start-up advice sources recommend making some kind of a press release, but I wasn’t sure how. When practicing law in Indiana, I received several such annoucements from local attorneys who had just started their own firms. However, those announcements were on letterhead and were sent to me in the mail. The online press releases are different – they reach a much larger audience.

From my review of the PR Web website, it looks legitimate and well done. There is a catch, it costs money. There appear to be four different plans to choose from: Basic, Standard, Advanced, and Premium. Th Basic being one, simple press release. It costs $80.00. Is it worth it? I don’t know, I haven’t done it. I will say, however, that Carl Taylor III’s press release got to me. Did I mention that he is in New Jersey and I am in Minnesota? Seems to be pretty good distribution to me.

A more pertinent question may be: is it necessary to issue a press release when you start a law firm? It seems a little over-zealous to me. But, my general opinion is that all news is good news. In other words, it can’t hurt to get your name out there as much as possible. Getting your name from New Jersey to Minnesota for $80.00 seems like a good deal to me.

What I am wondering now is how many press release websites are out there and what is the general pricing? Are there any free sites? Are there different options? These are all question I don’t have answers to, but it appears clear that public relations and news releases on the web are an avenue I need to explore.

September 4, 2011

Starting a Law Firm | Law Firm Search Engine Optimization: Bing or Google?

As a follow up to my previous post about search engine optimization about starting a law firm, I wanted to share some interesting news. Apparently Microsoft’s Bing has teemed up with China’s major search engine, Baidu.

The search engine prognosticators appear to feel that this is a major step for Microsoft to compete with Google. As I posted, Google still has a large market share in the search engine department, but Bing has been making in-roads.

It may just be me, but I don’t tend to focus on Bing much for law firm search engine optimization purposes for my website, flanderslawfirm.com. Maybe I should?