Author: JMF

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Starting a Law Firm Update, Various Odds & Ends

I apologize for not posting for a while.  Still here, just a little busy.  Blogging for legal business can be a real task master.  Think twice before getting into this whole blogging game.  You had better like to write.

So, my wife and I took an overdue trip to Paris and Luxembourg a couple weeks ago.  We skipped a real honeymoon because I didn’t want to make the partners at my old law firm upset that I was taking vacation during my first year as an associate.  Now that I’m no longer at the firm, I guess I can take vacation.  I’ll say this:  I’ve gained a little perspective about what I want out of life since my first year of marriage and my first year as an associate attorney.  Marriage is much more important.  Is it any wonder that I am starting a law firm?

Anyway, I’m back and still trying to blog.  As I’ve posted, I’m still working on getting licensed in Minnesota.  This obviously creates a dilemma as far as writing many practice-related blog posts.  To be honest, I feel a little out of the game.  I am not hustling like I used to and I miss it.  But, there are many, many things to get done before officially hanging out my own shingle.  I’ll talk about that stuff instead.

In the main, I am concerned with two main things:  (1) office space and (2) my website.  Both of these things relate to my effort to focus a bit more and get my law firm start-up business plan in better shape.   I am going through my old business plan and re-thinking things now that I have relocated to Minneapolis from Indiana.  I have had an opportunity to scope out the market and competition a little better.  Naturally, that changes the plan a little.

I’ll post more on this stuff tomorrow, but I wanted to get a post out to say sorry and I’ll try and to better.   In the meantime, I’d appreciate any comments on my new website:  flanderslawfirm.com.

I’m still working on the website and I know that the picture of me is terrible.  I’ll get one up just as soon as somebody takes a professional looking picture of me that I like.  Also, if anybody goes to my website, would you mind leaving a comment here on exactly how long it took you to get there?  As in:  how long did it take to load?

Thanks.

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Admission In Absentia

In my seemingly never-ending-quest to become licensed in the state I actually want to practice and start a law firm in, I moved one step closer today.  I appeared before Judge Mark of the Goodhue County District Court, State of Minnesota and swore my oath and pledge for admittance before the North Dakota Bar.  Doing this means I am one step closer to being licensed in Minnesota.  Thank God.

The irony of the whole thing is that I just appeared before a Minnesota judge so he could swear me into the North Dakota Bar when I would prefer to be admitted to the Minnesota Bar but must wait to be admitted by motion, instead.  I know, it is way too complicated and basically makes my life more difficult.

As any of the readers of this blog may know, I am licensed in Indiana and have just obtained licensure in North Dakota.  My ultimate goal is licensure in Minnesota and to do so, I have to request to be admitted by motion.  It’s a lot of work.

But enough about me.  I realize that people want to read blogs for at least some semblance of substance besides a personal diary.  To that end, I am going to include – right now – a breakdown of the necessities to be admitted “in absentia”.  Doing a quick Google search, I was only able to find this explanation for admission in absentia before the Supreme Court of Georgia.

The basic gist for admission in absentia appears to be this:

  1. You must either pass the bar exam or be admitted by motion;
  2. An oath or pledge must be administered to you by a Judge or judicial officer of a court of record in any state;
  3. You must sign the affirmation and the Judge must sign some form of attestation;
  4. The forms must be returned to the jurisdiction where you want to be licensed.

There is often a fee and possibly some other paperwork, but that mostly sums it up.  I talked with several attorneys in Minnesota who told me that they have gone through this process before.  When I began searching for Minnesota judges to admit me “in absentia” to the North Dakota Bar, I received a fair number of response which can fairly summarized as “no, we don’t do that”. Many of the judges or their staffs had questions about whether they had jurisdiction to even administer the oath.  Naturally, this was very frustrating.  I hope you have better luck than I.  However, I called around to quite a few different judges and found a couple who were willing to take time out of their busy schedules to administer the oath.  I made an appointment with their law clerk, and the rest is now history.

If you are trying to be admitted to a different jurisdiction in absentia, I hope this post helps you.  Basically, I suggest contacting the Supreme Court of the bar to which you want to be admitted.  Ask them what their admission in absentia policy is.  Then, you hopefully know a local judge who will be nice enough to help you.  I did and now I only have one step left to conquer:  admission by motion before the Minnesota Bar.

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John Maynard Keynes and Spending to Start a Law Firm

Author John Cassidy, in the October 10, 2011 issue of the New Yorker magazine (which happens to be the annual “money” issue), wrote a though-provoking article on John Maynard Keynes and his economic philosophy as it relates to the current world-wide financial recession.  Much of the article, titled “The Demand Doctor“, posits (as far as I can tell) that Keynes was right in his argument that government spending creates demand and thereby boosts the economy out of recession.

As I’ve posted, I’m worried about how to start a law firm in this economy and the uncertain risks of being an entrepreneur.  I remember learning about Mr. Keynes as an undergraduate, but my level of knowledge is foggy at best.  I have noticed, however, that his name and ideas show up in my intellectual reading pursuits in an eerily frequent fashion.

This makes me wonder:  Is Keynes simply a easy target for writers and economic neophytes?  Or, is he truly a revolutionary though-leader whose theories should be continuously revisited?  These are question I do have easy answers to. Perhaps more important is what can Mr. Keynes and his economic philosophy can teach me about being an astute capitalist who aims to start a law firm in an economy that is at a historic low.

Keynes argues that the government must spend and possibly cut taxes so that people like you and me will, in turn, spend.  The spending then boosts the economy, creates jobs, encourages lending, etc, etc.  Mr. Cassidy, quoting author Sylvia Nasar, summarizes the Keynsian position well:

What made the General Theory so radical was Keynes’s proof that it was possible for a free market economy to settle into states in which workers and machines remained idle for prolonged periods of time . . .  The only way to revive business confidence and get the private sector spending again was by cutting taxes and letting business and individuals keep more of their income so they could spend it.  Or, better yet, having the government spend more money directly , since that would guarantee that 100 percent of it would be spent rather than saved.  If the private sector couldn’t or wouldn’t spend, the government would have to do it.  For Keynes, the government had to be prepared to act as the spender of last resort, just as the central bank acted as the lender of last resort.

Keynes argued that (at a basic level) a large entity (the government) needs to spend in order to help the national economy grow – or at least not stagnate.  I find this basic premise interesting because my first instinct is to cut my spending and save, save, save when things start getting rough financially.  Apparently, as the author writes, former President Harry Truman had a similar reaction to Keynes’s ideas, stating that:

“Nobody can ever convince me that Government can spend a dollar that it’s not got,” he told Leon Keyserling, a Keynsian economist who chaired his Council of Economic Advisers.  “I’m just a country boy.”

In many ways, I echo President Truman’s sentiment.  I’m also somewhat of a country boy.  How can I justify spending more of my family’s hard earned money on investing in an entrepreneurial venture like starting a law firm?  Would it not be wiser to simply look for and obtain a job doing some form of legal work and thereby garner a steady salary?  Clearly, if the only goal is to make money and provide for my family, then starting a law firm is not a wise decision in the short-term.

The New Yorker piece also discusses the myriad of objections that Mr. Keynes’s ideas have received since he first published his seminal work “The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” in 1936.  Many of the objection boil down to a fundamental disagreement that government cannot spend dollars when the government does not have dollars to spend.

With this understanding firmly in my mind about Keynes’s thought on stimulating a national economy, I believe that I can make a connection with starting and building a law firm.  In my mind, this sort of thought process is a akin to return-on-investment (ROI).  I have noticed that many law firm guru’s and other lawyers marketing blogs have discussed the importance of ROI.  I am not going to try to discuss the minutia of ROI as it relates to specific instances of law firm marketing.  My point here is only to share the excellent article by Mr. Cassidy in the New Yorker and to posit that starting a law firm (or any business for that matter) is akin to using Keynsian economic philosophy to stimulate the economy.

I also realize that starting a law firm is more individualistic  – it benefits me and my family but not the national or world as a whole.  Perhaps my leanings should be more socialist and less capitalist.  I don’t think so.  In addition to his academic career, he was also a privileged capitalist.  Mr. Cassidy quotes Keynes:

If I am going to pursue sectional interest at all, I shall pursue my own . . . [t]he Class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.

I identify with Keynes’s sentiment.  Starting a law firm and being  capitalist in a down economy is not necessarily a bad idea or a strictly individualistic endevour.  The world needs spending and it needs entrepreneurs right now.  Whether or not you agree with Keynses’s economic philosophy, it is hard to argue with that fact.

I don’t mean to say that the journey will be easy or frought with risk.  It is and it will be.  Failure is also a reality.  But, I also believe in the maxim that nothing ventured is nothing gained.  As Mr. Cassidy concludes in his article:

It calls not merely for the management of risk but for something politically and intellectually far more demanding:  the acknowledgement of uncertainty.

 

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Law School Applications Way Down

Whether you are thinking about starting a law practice or just hoping to get a legal job, you might want to reconsider whether the law is even a good field for you.  According to the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, law school applications are at a 10-year low.  Additionally, the article states that LSAT applications are at a 24-year low.  Recession anyone?

If you weren’t aware, the lawyer job market is not so good at the moment.  Heck, the job market as a whole is not so good right now.  For many newly minted attorneys, the loans and the lack of jobs has become unbearable.  For instance, it appears that one attorney was denied admittance to the Ohio bar – despite passing the bar exam – because he wasn’t repaying his large law school loans.  Ouch.

I don’t know if it is a good or a bad thing that law applications are down across the country. On the good side: the article does a nice job pointing out that now, perhaps many people are not going to law school as a “backup plan” or because they don’t know what else to do with their lives.  Both are not good reasons to go to law school.

Many lawyers may think this is good news.  In fact, many attorneys I know have made a comment that often goes something like this: “great, that’s what the world needs, another lawyer.”  I wrote a post a couple months ago about how I counted over 30 attorneys in the little town of Northfield, MN which has a population of a little over 17,000 people.  Seems like a lot of lawyers.

I do find it disconcerting that nobody talked about the bad job market that was coming at me when I started law school in 2004.  In 2004, the economy was doing quite well. The housing bubble had not yet burst.  In fact, some of my friends from college were doing quite well as a result of the inflated real estate market.  Did I join in on those shenanigans?  No, I went to law school.

I realize this blog is ostensibly about starting and building a law firm.  Therefore, it is a self-made job market.  But, when the economy stinks it is going to have an effect on any law practice.  I worry about that.  A lot.

I am hoping to be admitted by motion into the Minnesota state bar and move on with my life.  I don’t regret becoming a lawyer, but I do regret not knowing how bad the job market would be when I got out of law school.  I regret not being more informed.  So, if anybody gets to this post and reads it, I hope you think twice about whether law school is right for you.

At the very least, I know I made an effort to inform somebody about the job prospects and large loan obligations related to choosing law school.  If you read this, you can’t say somebody didn’t tell you so.

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“Above The Law” Seeks Solo Attorney Input

I wanted to let my readers out there know that one of the major blogs, Above The Law, is soliciting solo lawyers for worthy topics to be posted on its “Small Law Firms” section.

I don’t read their coverage of small firm matters often – mainly because their primary focus is on big law as far as I can tell.  However, I get some good chuckles from them now and again.  Also, providing worthy info on small firm practice or on starting a law firm to a major blog will do nothing but help publicize your blog or law firm website.

If you are so inclined, you probably couldn’t go wrong by providing something.

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Finding Your Writing Voice: Legal Blogging v. Legal Writing

Legal blogging has opened up new doors for me.  I just hope those doors don’t shut as soon as somebody starts reading this.  I’ll say this:  blogging has been one of the best things to happen to me as I set out on my own and try to start a law firm.

As an undergraduate English major at the University of Iowa, I would read and write often. Maybe not well, but often.  After college, I decided to go to law school for a variety of reasons; several of them being that I expected law school to be intellectually challenging and allow me to write on a consistent basis.   It was and it has.

Law school also opened new writing doors for me.  Learning to focus my writing so that it appeals to a judge or benefits a client has been a great source of personal satisfaction.  Writing well, as legal-writing guru Bryan Garner has stated, is a thing to be studied over a lifetime.

Being a lawyer has taught me how to write in a strict, formalized manner – otherwise known by the oft-maligned acronyms:  IRAC, CRUPAC, or (my favorite) CRAC. Some have even wondered if IRAC is good or evil.  I won’t speculate on that now – such weighty issues are the purpose of another post.

However, after writing some odd-hundred ideas, rants, thoughts, and opinions on this blog, I have begun to realize that this blog is extremely valuable to me to grow as a writer – legal or not.  I’ll also let you in on a little secret: it doesn’t always go so well.  Go read some of my old posts, they’re not so good.  I have thought hard about going back and making prior posts better.  However, I know that my later posts – like this one – are probably not going to look very good a few months down the road.  Why would that be?  Because, I am growing (ever so slowly) as a legal blogger.

Legal blogging is different animal than legal writing.  One can write about case law on a blog in a law-school-trained manner.  However, I would bet that many lawyers find that kind of writing a little tedious.  Lawyers are forced to write like lawyers every day, all day.  Why not let your freak-flag fly a bit?

In my humble opinion, legal blogs are not great vehicles for Issue, Fact, Application, Conclusion.  Isn’t it a bit tiring to read blogs that cite case law and then commence discussing the facts and issues before reaching an inevitable, preordained conclusion?  If I wanted to know about the facts, I would go read the case myself.

I am not, however, condoning sloppy writing.  I am discouraging boring writing.  In an effort not to sound overly hypocritical, I’ll admit that I’m guilty of boring and bad writing at times.  I may be writing poorly right now.   Beauty is, after all, in the eye of the beholder.

However, I know that trying to write on a consistent basis, keeping the topics timely and (I hope) relevant, has made me a better writer.  That is something that will only benefit my abilities as a lawyer in the future.  Furthermore, I believe that legal blogging allows lawyers to have a more of a personal, perhaps informal voice.   As I have discussed, I think I am having a sea change.  I have always been interested in blogging because it allows my inner English major to come out and play.  I know this:  I may not be playing the game well, but at least I am playing it.

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Bar Exam Results Being Released . . . . sloooowly

As Above the Law reports, not every state has released results; however, it would appear that if they haven’t done so already, most states will be reporting the results of their individual bar exams in the near future.  Thank you National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) for slowly releasing the July of 2011 bar exam results to anxious future lawyers, experienced lawyers becoming licensed in a new jurisdiction, and law firm start-ups everywhere.

For me, the post-bar exam wait is over.  I just received my results for North Dakota and . . . . . . I passed!  Not to rub it in for those who might not have been so fortunate, but I also scored high enough to (hopefully) be admitted by motion into Minnesota.  Minnesota is one of several jurisdictions that allow attorneys who have taken the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE) to apply for admission by motion with a scaled score of 145.  I achieved that result – barely.  I scored 145.8 according to a phone conversation I had with the North Dakota Board of Law Examiners.   That is .8 good enough for me!

For those of you who may not read this blog, I am already licensed in Indiana and have been practicing there for nearly four years.  Now, pending satisfactory results on my character and fitness review, I will be licensed in three jurisdictions in the near future:  Indiana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. I haven’t decided on whether I will keep my license active in Indiana, but it would be nice to list licensure in three different states on my letterhead and business cards for flanderslawfirm.com.

In any case, I am very pleased with the results and glad that I can move on with my life.  I hope my readers experience the same relief.

Admission By Motion Rules

Every state has admission by Motion rules.  Here is a list of links compiled by the American Bar Association (thank you ABA!) for every state’s admission by motion rules.  (Is it me or is finding out information on admissions on each states rules on admission to practice terribly difficult?  Somebody (maybe the ABA) should make an effort to standardize many of the different rules and requirements for admission in each state.  Taking the bar exam, applying to several states’ bars, and navigating the myriad of timing, deadlines and other requirements for multi-jurisdiction practice is just way too difficult.)

From my review, states that allow admission by motion require either:

  1. practicing law in another jurisdiction continuously for a specified number of years (anywhere from 3-5), or
  2. applying for admission by motion due to a high enough MBE score (anywhere from 135-160).

I did not meet the first option for admittance into Minnesota by motion because I have only been practicing nearly four years in Indiana and Minnesota has a five year requirement for admission on motion based on years of practice.  Ironically, Wisconsin – twenty miles from my home – allows admission by motion based on three years in practice. Such is life.

Here are Minnesota’s rules on admission by motion as listed on the Minnesota State Board of Law Examiners webpage:

ADMISSION ON MOTION

Lawyers may be admitted to the practice of law in Minnesota without examination:

  • By years of practice–five of the seven years immediately preceding the application; or for house counsel, three of the past five years.
  • By scaled MBE score of 145 or higher.  The application must be submitted within 24 months of the date of the qualifying exam being used as the basis for admission.

I managed to achieve the second requirement.  What a relief.  As I posted before, taking the bar exam a second time is not any more fun than the first.  Now, I hope to be admitted by motion and I am awaiting the results of a character and fitness investigation.  I do not have any prior disciplinary actions against me in any jurisdiction. Still, having an investigation into your character is a little unnerving.  However, I understand the process and I think there is a good reason why character and fitness investigations are required.

In any case, I did it.  I’ll be applying for admission by motion to Minnesota and I hope to be licensed in the relatively near future there. Once I’ve done that I can move on with my life, my law practice, and this blog.  I hope to provide much more pertinent (and non-personal) information in the future on this blog about how to start a law practice; but, for now, I’ve met the initial hurdle that makes all that possible.  I hope you did too.

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Can Bad SEO Advice Support a Negligence Lawsuit?

Check out this post by Eric Goldman on his Technology & Marketing Law Blog about how bad SEO advice could support a negligence claim as seen in D’Agostino v. Appliances Buy Phone, Inc..  (As an aside, I found this article at Associates Mind – another blog that appears to be way better than this one and which makes me jealous).

According to the complaint, a small home appliances business and Google were sued by the business’s web developer.  As Mr. Goldman points out, the more interesting aspect of the complaint is the counter claim.  In the counter claim, the small business seeks damages for the web developer building a second business website that appears to have had duplicate content with the original website.  If you didn’t know, Google doesn’t like duplicate content.

Mr. Goldman does a great job explaining the nature of the counter claim:

On the negligence claim, Sigman argued that D’Agostino claimed to be an SEO expert but negligently triggered a duplicate content penalty. Finally, Sigman claimed that D’Agostino breached their contract by “jeopardizing defendant’s website, violating Google policies, and causing the interruption of defendant’s enterprise.”

I’ve been putting a lot of time and effort into my law firm website and to blogging.  There is a lot of information out there about “white hat” versues “black hat” search-engine-optimization.  As I concluded in a prior post, SEO is mostly bull shit in the respect that you don’t need a guru.  What you should do is focus on a niche and write authoritatively with good content.  Simple.

Anyway, as Mr. Goldman points out, there may actually be negative ramifications for asserting that you are some sort of SEO guru and trying to sell your wares to the next gullible buyer.  I can’t tell you how many SEO gurus have either tried to comment on this blog or sent me random, un-asked-for emails:  trying to sell me their SEO secrets to big, big money.

As I posted earlier, there is no trick to garnering tons of hits on a blog and free money.  It takes work, good writing, interesting topics, and time.  Furthermore, it would help to be like Lawyerist, Above the Law, or many other legal related blogs out there that have what appears to be an army of writers.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing – a lot of good content gets posted that way.  However, it is certainly hard for a small-fish like me to make headway when they are writing so much and so well.

In any case, this case shows why SEO gurus should be denied access to your wallet as you try to get your law firm marketing together and think about how to start a law firm.  There is simply no substitute for good work and good content.

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Advice From My Dad (tangentially related to lawyering)

I’d like to make this a regular post here on Solo In Minneapolis:  “Advice From My Dad”.  As this is the first one, we will just have to wait and see.

I’ve talked to my dad quite a bit about starting a law firm.  He is interested, but I can tell he is worried about me making it.  He started his own consulting business when I was younger (I’m thinking this was like twenty years ago).  It didn’t last.  He said he made good money for a couple of years, but he ran out of clients.  So, I worry about getting and keeping clients too.

He also told me that he may have made it but that he had more important things on his mind:  his kids.  Now, I should say that my dad and mom were divorced and, at the time, my dad was raising my two brothers and I.  The point is that my dad started a business and it didn’t work out for him for many reasons – a big one being that he had three little boys to raise.  As I just posted, I’m worrying about starting a law firm and  raising a little boy.

So, there is one lesson from dad.  Here is a second lesson:  my dad and I had a long talk a couple months ago about life.  Ok, it wasn’t a long talk, it was mostly fishing and baseball with some fatherly advice sprinkled in.  Is it me, or is that how everybody talks to their dad about important things?

Anyway, during this conversation he said to me that when he was younger he used to think he had to have “all his ducks in a row” – or something like that.  He also said that, now, he doesn’t care as much about the little things – life is too short.  I am paraphrasing but you get the idea.

What he was trying to say to me is that I worry too much about everything and that I try to hard to make things perfect.  Things aren’t going to be perfect – that is life.  I think about that a lot when I think about starting a law firm and practicing law full time.  I’m not going to be able to make everything perfect.  I might even fail.

But, that kind of advice from my dad keeps things in perspective for me.  It has given me a peace of mind.  I can’t do everything and I can’t make everything perfect.  I know it is cliche, but, hey, it’s from my dad.  When I think about starting a law firm, being a good lawyer, being a good dad, and all the other things I need to do, I try to remember that advice.

That is the whole deal there:  “you never have all your ducks in a row.”  Thanks dad.

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Of Babies and Lawyering

I posted a while back that I have a little son, Ben.  He’s eight-months old and he is beautiful.  This is my first time being a daddy and I must say that it is much more wonderful than I expected it to be.

I tend to be a bit pessimistic and over-analytical.  I keep blaming it on my law training but maybe it is just me?  However, when I look at this little bundle of joy (he’s crawling around my feet as I write this) I can’t help but think that the world is a good place.

I’ve also tried not to talk about him too much on this blog because he isn’t very relevant to lawyering or starting a law practice.  But, as I stated in my last post, I’m going to write about what I want to write about from now on and not worry about marketing my law firm through search-engine-optimization (SEO).  Ben is, however, relevant for talking about trying to have a career as a lawyer when you have little ones running about (he just climbed up the bannister by the stairs and is making happy noises at me).

So, here are the issues I am tackling right now with having Ben at home:  (1) he needs a babysitter and somebody to take him there if I am going to be able to work on anything, (2) my wife is a physician at a local hospital and she is busy (3) I’m waiting on Minnesota bar exam results so practicing law is moot at this point, (4) doing legal contract work doesn’t work with a baby in the house.

Only four issues?  Well, yes, but I’m not working full time right now.  Of course, the over-riding issue is that having children does put a damper on the old legal career.  It is tough to think straight when a little cherub is tugging your leg and wants to climb into your lap.

It is also difficult for me to say to myself that I even want to continue practicing in an adversarial field when all I want to do is keep my baby safe and away from harm.  Being with Ben has the effect of taking down the every day lawyer guard (you know, the straight-faced-sober, nothing-phases-me, death-stare).

I have also talked to a number of people who know I am a lawyer starting a law firm and they will often say things like:  “why don’t you just stay home and take care of Ben?”.  The answer: because I can’t.  I didn’t go to law school and practice for almost four years to stay at home.  I know my wife didn’t go to medical school to stay at home.

So, it is going to be a learning curve.  It is going to take some juggling – it already has.  But, so far, it has been worth it because Ben is one of the few things I’ve done in my life that I am unequivocally proud of.  I’ve made too many mistakes to count, but he is not one of them.

Now, I just have to figure out how to practice law full-time without missing him too much. I worry about that a lot.  I was just talking with his baby-sitter yesterday as I dropped him off in the morning, and she made a comment that having children “is such a short time in your life.”  That puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?

I know that I tend to work overtime and forget what time of day it is when I am really busy.  But, now, in the back of my mind all the time is Ben.  Will I miss something if I’m at the office?  Will I remember to say no to that petition I need to get out?  Will I go home to Ben, or will my clients be served a little better because I stayed later?  All difficult questions.

But, I will tell you one thing, I am going to enjoy the journey of being a lawyer-dad (or is it dad-lawyer?).  Ben certainly grounds me in a way that is elemental:  he is the top priority no matter what (he just got back to me and is pulling on my ear).

If anybody has any thoughts about what they did to raise children while practicing law full-time, I would love to hear them.