Month: April 2011

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Creating a Law Firm Website

I wanted to share with everybody what I have learned about building a website for starting my own law firm.

As I posted previously, I have been doing a lot of searching and reading about law firm website hosting.  There are way too many web hosting options to list here.  Suffice it to say that I can’t recommend one or another.  Everybody wants to host your lawyer website.

So, where to begin?  Do a google search and you will find many choices.   I chose winhost.com.  I’m not making a plug, I am just letting your now what I chose.  I could have made a mistake, who knows.

I chose Winhost for two reasons:  (1) the price and (2) the functionality.  The price I chose was a monthly “Max” plan at $10.00 a month.  They have a cheaper plan, but I wanted a plan with enough functionality for me to expand and add things like more website content and email users.  The functionality compares with, if not better than, many website hosts out there.  The “Max” plan has quite a bit of hosting space and other options that I frankly don’t know how to use.  I will say this, I did quite a bit of research and I didn’t see this much functionality at places like Godaddy.com.  The price is the same, but I don’t think you get as much.  (Caveat, I’m a lawyer, not a web designer, and I really don’t know what I am doing.)

So, onto the lawyer stuff.  I have decided to develop a law firm website right now.  That way, I can build up links and get some traffic to the website before I officially open up my law firm doors in Minneapolis.  Also, since I have more free time on my hands than I am used to, I figure this is the best time to learn this stuff.

Now that I have chosen a host, I have to figure out how to get a website up.  This is where the real fun begins.  I have no website building experience and I just learned how to set up a blog.  I’ve put a lot of time into it, but there is a lot more to learn.  As I am on a budget when starting my law firm, I don’t want to pay for a web designer.  I’m trying to do it on my own.

Here are the tools I have used so far:

(1) Winhost.com (the website hosting service)

(2) Microsoft WebMatrix (a web development tool)

(3) WordPress.org (free blog and CMS website hosting)

(4) Various business and/or law firm templates.

Those are my current tools in more or less the order that I am using them.  Again, not a plug for any of them, but that it what I have found so far.

On Winhost, there is a control panel which allows you to set up a database and it also contains domain information like your server address, url address, etc.  This is all voodoo to me, but it is necessary to connect with the next step, WebMatrix.

Download WebMatrix and then learn to use it.  Did I mention that it is free?   There are plenty of tutorials on the Microsoft site.  It isn’t the most user friendly software, but, then again, it isn’t that difficult.  In WebMatrix you can choose a number of different website building options.  There are templates pre-installed, but I recommend either buying a template or finding a free law firm template and loading it into WebMatrix.  If you choose a pre-built template, you can load it into WebMatrix and then connect WebMatrix to your server (e.g.: WinHost).  This is where the voodoo comes in.  I struggled for hours to get WebMatrix to properly connect to and recognize WinHost.  But, in the end, I got it to work.  Again, instructions are all available via online tutorials and help forums.   Also, you can load WordPress.org through WebMatrix if you want to use a WordPress design for your law firm website.

If you do use WordPress, there are many different free templates that you can use for your law firm website, or you can pay for and install a law firm theme for WordPress.  I haven’t done this yet, but I am planning to go this route.  Wordpress’ functionality and SEO optimization tools are easy, free, and, best of all, they look good.

So, that is my hackneyed explanation on what I am doing to create a law firm website.  I’ll unveil the site on Solo in Minneapolis when it is ready.  Let me know if any of you have questions on this process.  I’d be happy to share what I have learned anybody wanting to build a website when the are starting a law firm.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Website Hosting

The issue of establishing a web presence when starting a law firm has been disussed ad naseum and I may not add much here.  This post is more of a question to solos out there who are reading this blog.  Who do you use as a website and/or blog host and why?

I’ll add that I am in the market for a good host for my yet-to-exist firm website.   I am having some difficulty deciding a number of things, including:

(1) the design of the website,

(2) whether it should incorporate a blog in the actual site or just a reference to an external blog in the firm website itself,

(3) how many websites do I need,

(4) when am I going to start the website, and

(5) how much is this going to cost?

Those are the general catch-all questions going around inside my head.  I have some time to do this, but I want to get on the ball.  My firm will be established in Minneapolis, MN when I pass the Minnesota bar exam.  However, I’m already licensed in Indiana and I have clients.  So, I could feasibly have a website presence now.

And yet, I don’t know when to start.  The debate is whether to start designing a website now or wait until I’m licensed in Minnesota.  If I start now, I can simply incorporate my office address and telephone numbers to be Minnesota-centric when I am licensed there. Also, if I start the website now, I have some time to think about it and start building links to it.   I can also try and optimize it slowly by starting now.

However, back to the question, I need to decide on a web-hosting service with all the functionality I want first.  I need to think more about when is the best time to launch the site and why I am doing it.  I will be blogging on my chosen niche areas, but should that be incorporated into my website or not?  Any help out there for a fledgling solo about to using technology to start and build a a law firm would be most appreciated.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Good Busy v. Bad Busy

As anybody reading this blog may know, I have a lot more time on my hands while I wait to be licensed in Minnesota and the official starting of my law firm.

The extra time has allowed me to do a lot more blogging and research into how to start a law firm.  I think this has been good.  I know I need to do these due diligence kinds of things before I start a law firm in Minneapolis.  I also know that I have come a long way towards learning how to optimize technology to help build my fledgling law firm.  It has been work, but I have enjoyed it for the most part.

Yet, taking all of that into account and not dismissing it out-of-hand, I am starting to wonder whether there is such a thing as good busy versus bad busy?  For example, I have begun to question how important some of this internet marketing and blogging stuff is.  Shouldn’t I be out there hustling, lunching with people, joining trade associations, utilizing person-to-person networking, and generally trying to rake up real, tangible work?  Isn’t that a little more useful than focusing so much on my internet presence?  Maybe, maybe not.  It could be good.  It could be bad.

I call this “bad busy”.  Good busy is serving my clients, doing great work, and getting paid what for your efforts.  Bad busy is focusing too much on things that aren’t important when trying to start a law firm.

As I’ve stated in other posts, what I learned in 3+ years of practice is that you have to get out there and you have to sell yourself and your skills.  You gots to hustle.  I think I am pretty good at that.  However, lately, I have been more focused on internet marketing and blogging because it is easier and fun.  It is also a medium of marketing that I needed to get better at.  Before about two months ago, I would have laughed at you if you told me I would get a Twitter account.  I’ve got one now and I can understand the effectivness of it.  Building that knowledge is good busy.

But, and there is a real fine line here that I sometimes can’t see, I can focus too much on things like Twitter and blogging and social media.  I bet a lot of lawyers and idle procrastinators out there might also have this problem.  It’s not that your lazy or you don’t mean well.  It is just that sometimes we all can be too focused on bad busy when trying to start a law firm.   Bad busy is bad.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Public Defender Contracts and Getting Paid

I am not one for short blog posts, but I want to share some disturbing news I was reading over the Easter weekend related to my fears about starting a law firm.

While visiting family in Iowa, I was reading the Cedar Rapids Gazette’s business section.  There was a disturbing article about lawyers not getting paid for their public defender contract work by the State of Iowa.  Wow.  If you can’t rely on the state to pay your attorney’s fees bill, who can you rely on?

I have a constant fear of not getting paid.  I do a lot of family law work and I have had a lot of clients who do not pay their bills.  As a young attorney worrying about whether I can start and maintain a successful law firm, I worry about how I am going to get paid all the time.  One thought I have had when I consider how to make my new law firm successful is to sign up for the public defenders program in Minneapolis, MN.  But, if a state supported program isn’t going to pay the bill, why would I want to do that?

Another reason for sharing this article is that it discourages me in the respect that I might not be able to make it on my own.   If you read the story, one of the lawyers apparently couldn’t afford to pay her secretary and her home mortgage because of the State of Iowa’s failure to pay her public defender bill.  That should scare anybody who wants to start their own law firm.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Overhead

Starting a law firm is all about keeping costs down and profits up.  Simple statement, right?  Well, it’s easier said than done.

Here are some questions I keep asking myself and which I believe are common questions all solo attorneys have:  Don’t I need an office to be legitimate?  Don’t I need a secretary right away?  Don’t I need a computer, printer, paper, pens, pencils, three-hole-puncher, and so much more?  Don’t I need a fancy suit and lots of expensive business cards to hand out?

When answering questions like those above, ask yourself another question:  How am I going to pay for these things?  I find that once I start with thinking about a budget and how much I can afford, the supercilious things tend to melt away a little bit.  The obvious overhead killers are office space and support staff.  I don’t have the end-all-be-all answer to those questions, but  here are my thoughts.

(1) Office Space

I’ve been practicing out of my own home office now for about three months.  It creates some definate challenges, but my clients don’t seem to care at all.  My lease payment is $0.00 and I use the phone line and internet connections that my wife and I are already paying for.  (As an aside, I do need to worry a bit more about internet security now that I have client files on my home/office computer.  I’ll talk more about that in a different post).  So, my at home office cost is nill and it keeps overhead extremely low. Right now, I pocket most of what my clients pay me which is pretty cool.

There are some drawbacks.  I don’t feel very professional.  I don’t put on a shirt, coat, and tie like I did previously.  I also don’t get mentally prepared to hustle every day like I did when I was at my old law firm.  I find that missing step to mean I’m less motivated to use time in the optimal fashion.  I bill by the hour and every minute that I’m not hustling feels like (and probably is) lost money.  Now, I’ll admit that the stress level has gone down significantly and I no longer have a constant back ache.

Another drawback to the home office is that I get calls on my personal cell phone and I get mail constantly in my home mailbox.  Is this a big deal?  No, but it is annoying.  It cuts off the home/work separation.  I miss going to work, hustling all day, and then coming home to my work-free sanctuary.  I found that an actual office puts my mind in a different place which is directly related to working hard and billing hard.  Both of those things are integral (in my mind) to having a successful law practice.

Those are the main drawbacks of a home office.  In the main, I highly recommend a separate room in your home be dedicated as your office.  Failure to separate the room will result in less work getting done.  Other than that, working from home isn’t so bad.  The getting calls on my personal cell phone is easily solved by getting a new land line or cell phone completely dedicated to the law firm.  The getting work related mail at home problem is easily corrected by getting a P.O. Box.  Once those problems are corrected, the difficulties created by a home law office are lessened a great deal in my opinion.

(2) Staff

I don’t want to sound demeaning or rude in any fashion to administartive or secretarial staff, but I often found that when I was at my old law firm that I could do things more quickly and efficiently when I did them myself.  I also got the results I wanted without having to worry that a mistake had been made which could create major headaches and more work down the road for me.  So, I ended up doing a lot of things myself.  Did it get old?  Yes, but I did it, and I made a lot of money for the firm.

Now, a lot of the staff issues can be resolved by the use of technology.  There are so many things out there that make an attorney’s life easier.  For instance, I just got clued in on Dragon Dictation which is an automatic dictation software which records your voice and the changes your voice to writing.  I haven’t tried this yet, but I am dying to get it.  I did a lot of dictation at my old law firm and this option would be a lifesaver at times.  Furthermore, there are many different tools out there to modifying your firm into a mostly paperless office.  This cuts down the need for secretarial time quite a bit.

Do I alway want to go without staff?  No, no, no.  But, at the beginning of my starting a law firm venture, I know that I need to keep overhead low while I build up a client base.  Failure to keep overhead low can be the death knell to a fledling law practice.  I don’t want the death knell.

One last thing about staff – you will need them eventually.  Answering the phone, typing your own letters and pleadings, and handling mundane details like mailing and copying is both extremely annoying and time-consuming.  Getting back to my earlier comments about time, an attorney has to have good staff to do things quickly and efficiently in order to properly structure his time.  Time is money.  This is never more true than for somebody who makes their money billing by the hour.

In sum, keeping overhead low at the beginning of your law practice is of the utmost importance.  Leverage technology and get efficient with it.  Keep the money you make and don’t spend it on things your new firm can’t afford.  Will you need to put more money into the firm for a while as your are building it?  Sure.  But, you don’t have to go crazy and you can watch your budget.  Now, just keep your financial head on straight and keep on hustling as you start and build a successful law firm.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Getting to Know the Court Staff

One of the cardinal rules of being a lawyer – and I’m talking about every kind of lawyer – is to remember to be polite to a fault to the court staff and clerks.  This takes on even more importance if you are litigator or in court often, and it is of the utmost important when starting a law firm.

I won’t give specific examples, but I will say that the clerks would often call me if a filing mistake had been made or something needed to be corrected.  That kind of courtesy can be a true lifesaver and the court staff does it because they know you and they like you.

During my time in Indiana, I was also able to get court dates scheduled, for the most part, when I wanted them scheduled.  My clients liked that, I liked that, and the court staff was willing to accommodate.   Many times, I was also able to make as many copies of court documents as I pleased without having to worry about paying for paper.  That might not sound like a big deal, but when you are in court every day and going through a lot of paper, it is great.  I even had one of the clerks call me and remind me that I had a minor collection hearing that I had forgotten about.  The clerk didn’t have to call me, but she liked me, so she did.

For the most part, I think the court staff liked me because I made and effort to talk to them about their day and was always ready to help them with their jobs.  One good way to get the court staff to like you is to always file your own court pleadings.  That way, you are able to meet with the court staff face-to-face and talk to them.  They get to know you.   They get to know about your wife, your children, your home, and everything else about you.  You get to learn the same things about them.  I try to treat the court staff with the utmost respect (as I do with my clients).  My attitude is that people are people wherever you go.  If you try to be gregarious and helpful, people are going to like you.

I also don’t see anything wrong with using people skills to help build your law practice.  That is what being a solo attorney is all about – networking with people.  I think that is why many attorneys decide to start a law firm, because they like people.  A lot of solo attorney work is dealing with clients, the court staff, and your own employees on a personal level.   I like that.  That is what I want to continue to do as I go down the path of starting my own law firm.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Billing Your Clients

Starting a law firm is all about generating revenue and cash flow in order to survive.

It is very important to instantly have cash available so that you can do things like pay for your telephone, rent, internet, and all of the other costs associated with starting a new business.  How do you instantly develop cash flow?  You start a firm which caters towards the market.  The most common fields for market driven clients are probably family law and criminal law.  Many attorneys practice in both of these areas – especially when starting their own law firm.

For this post, I will discuss family law as the practice area to choose when specifically focusing on a field that lawyers starting their own firm can use to instantly generate revenue.

Here is an example:  a person calls your number and says he is looking for a divorce attorney.  You talk to them a little bit about their problem and quote them a rate for a retainer.  If they agree to your retainer, you typically will meet with them in your office in a few days.  That is usually when the client will pay you.

When the client comes to your office, you negotiate your billable rate, the scope of representation, and how much it will cost.  Also, you must make sure that you are competent to handle the matter and that you feel that you have something to offer the client.  If you are not able to ethically represent the client or handle the matter competently, you shouldn’t take on the case.  If the client agrees to hire you, you have him or her PAY YOU FROM THE START and you place the retainer money into a trust account.  After that, you should feel free to start working on their case.

For each unit of time that you work, you charge the rate of your agreed billable hour.  So, if the client gives you a $2,000.00 retainer, place it in trust and then bill the client on a monthly basis at your billable hour rate.  If your billable hour rate is $200 an hour, you should likely charge in increments of .2 or something like that.  .2 of an hour is equates to about twelve minutes.  Thus, if you put in twelve minutes of time working on the client’s case, you charge them .2 on their bill.  .2 at $200 an hour is a bill of $40.00.

On the client’s monthly bill, you must be sure to type in what you did to earn that money.  This is important to you, your client, and the ethics committee of your jurisdiction (to determine if the charge was reasonable – and, yes, this can come up.)  Here is an example of a .2 charge for a divorce case:  “Telephone call with Mr. Smith re filing of Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.”  Enter that information into your billing software (you do have billing software don’t you?) and, viola, you’ve just created an acceptable and reasonable bill.  If the client doesn’t pay your bill at the end of the month, you can now transfer the money from the trust account to pay your bill and then refund any remainder to the now fired client.

Again, when starting a law firm you must know how to ethically and reasonably bill your clients in order to generate immediate and business saving cash flow.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Experience

Starting a law firm is not easy and it isn’t for the faint of heart.  My first recommendation to all graduating law students is that starting your own law firm after law school is not your best bet for making it as a solo attorney.

Experience is the key to hanging out your own shingle.  Why?  Because, law schools don’t do a very good job of preparing lawyers for the practice of law.  How do you get experience?  For starters, you need to be licensed in your particular jurisdiction.  After that, in general, most graduating law students do one of two things: (1) they get a job in private practice, or (2) they get a job in the civil or government arena.

Getting a job in private practice. 

Hopefully, you can find a job as an associate in a law firm after graduation.  Your first job will make a big difference on the kind of experience you obtain.

If you start a job with a large firm, you are not likely to have client contact right away and you, therefore, won’t need to worry as much about the procedural minutiae of practicing law.  Conversely, if you get a job with a small law firm, you are more likely to get practical experience quickly.

After you get your first job, my recommendation is to get as much client and courtroom contact as possible. You should also ingratiate yourself with an older attorney.  Establishing a mentor relationship can prove invaluable.  After that, if you work hard, and keep your nose to the grindstone, you may be ready to start a law firm.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | Market Research

I probably haven’t talked enough about market research when starting a law firm.  I did quite a bit of market research when I was first thinking about starting a law firm.

Mirriam Webster defines market research as:

“research into the size, location, and makeup of a product market”.

That does a pretty good job summing up what I am trying to do with my market research.  I know my location.  The town where I hope to open an office is Apple Valley, Minnesota.  As with all big cities, there are many suburbs of the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in the Dakota County area.  Also, I don’t want to limit myself to one specific town or county, but I know from my prior practice in Indiana that it is best to develop a network in a specific county when starting a law firm.  You need to get to know the other attorneys.  You need to know the judges and their staff.  You want your office to be close enough that you are spending too much travel time getting from your office and to the courthouse.  All this involves detailed market research.

The size of my market is larger than I am used to in Indiana.  Obviously, the Twin Cities are much bigger than South Bend, Indiana.  I don’t know what challenges that will bring.  I have been through the Apple Valley courthouse and know it’s general layout.  It isn’t terribly different than all the courthouses I have ever been to.  Also, there is a great law library attached to the courthouse.  This should be very helpful in establishing a form library.  I’ll talk more about the need for a form library in a later post.

I also know the competition in my area.  There is one large law firm with about 30 attorneys.  My guess is that they eat up a lot of larger, business type work.  They are a bit out of my league as for as the clientele I want to attract, but I think I know who the big dog in town is.  Otherwise, there are many solo and small law firms in the area.  It doesn’t seem to be overly saturated with lawyers.  I’m not there yet, but I don’t think it will be terribly difficult to get a foothold.  I do find it interesting that there seem to be a lot of solo practitioners in the family and criminal law area.  I know the legal job market isn’t the best, but I was surprised at the number of solos.  Again, I hope that isn’t a problem for my new law firm.

One good thing about Apple Valley and the Dakota County area is that driving and transportation is very easy.  I am used to an older town with some crazy city plans.  It isn’t a big deal, but I earn my money by the hour and I want to be able get to the courthouse or to wherever my client needs me to be quickly.

Finally, I think I know the marketing and advertising structure of the attorneys in my market.  I am happy to report that I think I see some avenues of getting my name out there quickly that other attorney don’t appear to be taking advantage of.  It is both a blessing and a curse of all attorneys who start a law firm that they inevitably have more time on their hands to market themselves than more established attorneys do.  Would I rather have the problem of having too many clients and too much to do?  Yes.  But, I’ve got more time to make that dream a reality.

As I’ve stated in prior posts, I’ve already begun networking with attorneys in the area to get feel for things.  If my wife and I could just find a home and move there, things would be a little easier in my quest to start a law firm.

Posted on

Starting a Law Firm | More Guest Blogging

It has been blog, blog, blog lately for me in my fledgling quest to start and build a law firm.

I will be guest blogging on several more websites, with the most recent being LegalJob.com.  LegalJob is a website dedicated to helping law students and young lawyers learn about what it takes to be a successful lawyer.  That kind of blog is certainly something that I’m interested in and I hope you are too.  Please follow LegalJob in the near future to look for my posts.  I’m hoping to post during mid-week as I’m already scheduled to blog on Friday’s for another website (not to mention my own blogging duties).

I haven’t started my guest posts for either the Law Street Journal or LegalJob.com, but you should check both websites out soon for my material.  As I’ve written about in prior posts, when trying to start a law firm, it is so very important to network with people in your chosen niche area.  Right now, since I am not licensed yet in Minnesota, my chosen niche area is blogging about how to start a law firm.

I’m getting the word out now to like minded people in my niche area.  That’s how I plan to start and grow my practice.