Month: April 2011

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Starting a Law Firm | Blogging

In my continuing quest to start a law firm, I have been thinking a great deal about blogging and internet marketing.

I have learned a great deal about starting and building a law firm and the real purpose of blogging.  My naive thoughts when I started this blog was that it would be a fun way to share what I am going through with whatever poor sap was interested in reading my posts (my wife, my mom).  Then I started to dig deeper into this vast morass of keywords, SEO, USG, and content-driven-marketing.  (yes, I may have too much time on my hand while I wait to start studying for the bar exam).

After practicing for 3+ years at a general practice firm, I never did this kind of thing.  I wasn’t starting a law firm.  I did network quite a bit and tried my darnedest to get my name out there.  And it worked.  But, I didn’t do blogging.  I didn’t do internet marketing.  And I should have.

Of course, there is the fact that my firm was well established in the community.  Starting a law firm wasn’t an issue then.  The phone would ring there and I would often take a cold call.  I got a lot of work that way.  After a while, I started to think:  “what makes the phone ring?”  Why are people calling this number?  The phone book?  The internet?  Reputation?  Probably all of the above.  But, I never thought about a blog.

When thinking solely about starting a law firm, blogging is a wonderful way to quickly and organically develop a readership.  Those readers know people.  Those readers may need a lawyer.  The readers’ friends may need a lawyer.  Those people may call the telephone number.  Blogging is a sort of instant networking – that is, as long as you write good content and then share it with your friends, family, and colleagues.  How do you share it?  Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, and so many other social media websites.

Now, I will be the first to admit that I was somewhat ambivalent about social media.  I like social contact better.  But, like it or not, social media has a purpose and it (in my humble opinion) is leading the forefront of a new form of marketing.  I’m going to ride the wave and see where it takes me.  I have a feeling that it is only going to help me start and build my law firm.

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Starting a Law Firm | Guest Blogging

I wanted to share some exciting news with readers of how to start and build a law firm.  I will be writing as a guest blogger on The Law Street Journal.

The Law Street Journal (LSJ) is a new website and blog dedicated law students and providing information to them about law school and beyond.  I guess I come in on the “beyond” part related to starting a law firm.  I will be writing a weekly guest column related to taking the bar exam.

As I have stated in a previous post, I am signed up for Bar-Bri (yay!) and will begin studying for the Minnesota bar exam in July.  I plan to post my thoughts and advice throughout the process.  I hope that law students get something out of it.  I know I didn’t have a clue what I was doing when I took and passed the Indiana bar exam in 2007.

I am excited about this opportunity.  Be sure to check my posts on LSJ.  I’ll be sure to link to them here and tie in information on starting a law firm.

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Starting a Law Firm | Raising Your Children & Starting a Firm

I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention at least once in my blog about starting and building a law firm that I have a son.  His name is Benjamin and he is a beautiful three-month-old boy.

I thought of this post last night while laying awake, feeding Ben from a bottle, and thinking about whether I can really start a law firm in Minneapolis, MN and whether it can actually be successful.  For those of you who have kids, you know raising them is hard work.  It is fun work.  It is rewarding.  But, it is work.  My worry has been that I won’t be able to start a successful law firm and raise Ben properly.  I am at home a lot with him right now and I cherish the time I have gotten to spend with my new son.  I worry that if I start my own law firm, that Ben won’t have a parent at home with him.  My mom stayed at home with my brothers and I and I still remember that fondly.

Now, I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that I have a beautiful and talented wife.  She is my partner in this little joint venture and she is always available for Ben when he needs her.  The way our move from Indiana to Minnesota is shaking out, she has also managed find a way to be home a lot with Ben and I.  So, Ben has got it pretty good right now.  But, my wife will be starting a job as a new family medicine doctor in August and I know she is going to be working a lot.  I am taking the bar exam in July so I will  be home but studying before starting a law firm.  Will little Ben be ignored and get the attention he needs?  Will we find a reasonably priced baby-sitter in Minnesota that cares about him?  Should I just stay home and take care of him and forget about starting a law firm?  Tough questions – all.

I should also admit that Ben is really not that much work right now.  He has his basic needs of eat, sleep, go-to-the-bathroom and then repeat the cycle.  He does play a little bit, but he is really a very easy, good boy.  We are lucky.

I think the answer that I have come up with is that each family finds their own way.  I am not going to give up on my dream of starting a successful law firm, but I am also going to be cognizant to my responsibilities to my special little boy – Ben.

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Starting a Law Firm | Marketing Yourself on the Internet

I must admit that I am totally new to this whole internet marketing thing when trying to start and build a law firm.  I mean, the concept seems simple enough, but where to begin?

As I’ve discussed, I am moving to Minnesota and I hope to start a practice there when I become licensed.  I plan to start a law firm and do primarily divorce and family law work while trying to focus on estate planning and probate as time goes on.  As I’ve also discussed, I don’t really want to be focused on family law for the long term.  I would love to be a successful probate and estate planning attorney, but that kind of work isn’t market driven and I haven’t been around enough to expect any kind of real work coming my way for a while.

But, this post isn’t about my chosen practice area.  Instead, I wanted to talk a little bit about my most recent struggles to learn how to internet market when starting a law firm.  As an aside, it has been difficult for me to blog or post articles in support of the family law firm I will be starting.  This is because I am not licensed in Minnesota yet and I can’t talk about Minnesota law until I’m licensed there.

Therefore, my recent struggles have been strictly related to learning how to internet market. This is a completely new and fascinating world to me.  As with so many things, there is a steep learning curve and I am just starting to climb it.  I didn’t market on the internet with my old law firm, and, now that I have some more time on my hands, I am just starting to realize what an amazing marketing world is out there.

Here is what I have found so far:  there are many solo attorneys out there doing internet marketing.  Particular fields that have heavy internet marketing are criminal law, personal injury, and family law.  It isn’t that there are lots of law firm advertisements either.  No, I am talking about user-generated-content (USG).  Oh, you’ve never heard that acronym?  Well, neither had I until yesterday.  Or, maybe I just revealed how behind the curve I am.  USG, in large part, amounts to blogging or other blogging-like activities.  Many attorneys out there are cashing in on USG, internet marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).

Ok, I realize this post hasn’t been terribly helpful on the internet marketing front, but what I wanted to point out is all of the information that you have to learn when starting a law firm. It is an organic sort of marketing that appeals to the entrepreneur in me.  One of the great things about staring your own law firm is the challenge and the new ideas and things you learn in order to plant a seed and make your new law firm grow.

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Starting a Law Firm | Malpractice Insurance

Anybody out there who is going to try to start and build their own law firm is going to need their butt covered by legal malpractice insurance.  Don’t leave home without it.

Apparently, some jurisdictions (Indiana) allow you to practice law without malpractice insurance. Although I can see the argument on why the state bar association or legislature doesn’t want to interfere with how people do business, the fact is that not getting malpractice insurance when starting your law firm is just dumb.

After practicing for a little over three years, I can tell you that I was sure glad I had insurance to cover any mistakes I may have made.  I was never sued, but I dealt with a lot of clients who were often not educated, not very nice, and willing to do what it takes to make a quick buck if they can.  When starting a law firm, we lawyers deal with people.  People have a lot of problems often caused by their own behavior.  Just because you are helping them with a legal problem, that doesn’t mean that they won’t stop liking your help and decide to sue you.  It is just that easy.  You may know you didn’t commit malpractice, but it doesn’t matter.  You just got sued.  How are you going to pay defense costs?  Do you know anything about malpractice defense law.  I don’t.

I am trying to scare you a little bit here.  I am a young attorney and I know the temptation is there to say “I don’t need malpractice insurance for a while.”  It is too expensive and I’m not going to get sued after I start a law firm.  That is the wrong attitude.  I don’t have the cite here, but I have read that every lawyer can plan on being sued for malpractice at least once during their career.

Another thing to consider when thinking about starting your own law firm is that you may be a young attorney.  You may not know too much.  You are going to make mistakes.  When you make those mistakes, you will not have a partner or older associate there to ask for help.  Remember, when starting your own law firm, you are on your own.  But, you should know this – if you have malpractice insurance, the provider often has an attorney or staff of attorneys that you can call for advice.  It comes with paying for the insurance.

So, the next question becomes “how much malpractice insurance do I need to start my own law firm?” Honestly, I don’t know the answer to this question.  I can tell you that I currently have $100,000.00 in single claim coverage and $250,000.00 in aggregate coverage.  My deductible is $1,000.00.  Now, I only have the bare minimum coverage because I only have about ten clients and most them are wrapping up before my move to Minnesota and starting my own firm.  I did the math and figured out that I didn’t have a client who likely could have a compensable claim against me for more than $100,000.00.  I do a lot of divorce work and my clients’ marital estates simply were not worth that much.

$100,000.00 is probably not enough insurance to have a full time law practice.  One source I was reading said that any full-time practicing attorney should have at least one million dollars in single claim coverage.  I only have the bare minimum because I am not practicing full time.  I plan to get more when I am in Minneapolis starting my own law firm.

The next obvious question is “where do I get malpractice insurance?”  The American Bar Association (ABA) has website devoted to this legal malpractice insurance and they break it down by every state. Pretty cool. Here are my choices for Minnesota insurance for when I move from Indiana and (hopefully) become licensed there.

Another important point is that you want to actually research the companies on a list like the ABA’s.  I suspect most of them are just fine, but you don’t want to sign up with a company like AIG who eventually folds and leaves you in the dark after your start a law firm.  I don’t know if this happens, but as a risk adverse attorney, I am going to put some due diligence into my search for a malpractice carrier.  Furthermore, I want to have a relationship with them because you never know where referrals are going to come from.

In sum, I didn’t get my current malpractice insurance from any of the companies listed in the ABA’s list. I got it the way I want to get clients.  I got it from a business colleague and friend of mine in Indiana.  He sells insurance.  He hooked me up with a good deal.  I gave him some business and he has in turn given me some business and referrals over time.   This kind of relationship is how I want to ultimately use to start and build my law practice.

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Starting a Law Firm | Informing Clients of Your Move

As I have posted previously, I am still a licensed attorney in Indiana and I have several client matters that I am taking care of before I start studying for the Bar Exam and (hopefully) starting a law firm in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Trying to handle old client matters, like divorce work, can be difficult when you have a firm deadline for moving and starting a law firm. In my case, my wife ends her job as a medical resident in June.  I need to start studying for the bar exam in May.  We sold our house, so we have to move to a temporary housing location in June.  After that, we need to find a new place to live in Minnesota.  There is a lot to do before I can start a law practice

In the meantime, I have about six open files right now that are mainly family law work.  Several of them should be finished by the end of this month (April).  However, I cannot set any matters for trial beyond the middle of May and there is no guarantee that these cases are going to settle.  I think they will, but I just don’t know.

So, I have a duty to inform my clients of my situation and that they may want to seek new counsel before I start a law firm.  I was on top of things, and I have sent out a letter to all of my clients essentially outlining my situation.  This is an important step if you are leaving a firm, starting a law practice, or transferring jurisdictions.  We attorneys have an ongoing ethical obligation to our clients – no matter what our situation is.

Before you start and build your law firm, some important things to remember in the letter are:

(1)   Tell the client about your impending move
(2)   Tell the client they are entitled to new counsel
(3)   Recommend to the client that they obtain new counsel if they don’t want to stick with you.
(4)   Tell the client they are entitled to their case file with you or your office
(5)   Tell the client about important dates and deadlines
(6)   Tell the client that they may receive back any retainer funds currently held with you or your office and explain to the client that they are still responsible for any outstanding bills.
(7)   Tell the client about how the withdrawing your attorney appearance process works with the court and when you expect the judge to withdraw your appearance upon the filing of your motion.

That pretty much covers it.  You can add any other information, but those are the basics.  Of course you need to do all of this in writing.

After you have informed your clients of your move, you can then proceed towards moving and hopefully passing the bar exam (or waiving into your jurisdiction) and starting and building your own law firm.

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Starting a Law Firm | Naming Law Firm Part II

There are many many choices to make when trying to start a new law firm. Sometimes it seems overwhelming.  Where should I start?  Making a list and outlines always helps me, but you still need a header.  (As an aside, because I am so into reading all forms of knowledge I can get, here is a cool link to a book by Atul Gawande called “The Checklist Manifesto” that I am planning to read.)

So my header to day is Naming Your Law Firm.  A tried and true choice is using some form of your own name.  After all, aren’t you going to be the one to represent the clients?  Aren’t they going to come to your office with your name on it to hire you to help them with their divorce or other family law problem?

I have strongly considered using some form of my own initials.  It sounds a little more professional and grown up to me.  It also creates more of an impression of strength and stability to me and it is different from all the other “John Doe Law Firm, P.C.” names out there.  You need to be careful though, there is plenty of information out there on misleading potential clients with your law firm name.  It can be unethical to try and mislead potential clients about the size of your law office and the number of attorneys working there.  However, I think using your initials is reasonable and not misleading – after all, the “Law Tigers” moniker seems to be ok for some reason.  All things to consider when starting your own law firm.

Your professional affiliation or “business association” is also important.  As lawyers, we know that we need to use business associations like Corporations, LLC’s, Professional Corporations, Partnerships, Limited Partnerships, and S Corporations in order to protect our businesses from liability and to deal with taxation issues.

Which leads me to think that my initials and some for of business association behind it might look good.  Here goes:  “JMF Law Firm, LLC”.  Not bad.  Not too bad at all.  I haven’t made a final decision yet, but I am leaning towards the initials direction.  I should also note that there are other firms out their with that designation.  They aren’t in Minneapolis or Apple Valley, Minnesota, but when thinking about search engine optimization (SEO), I do want to keep in mind some originality in my new firm name.

One thought I have been turning over in my brain when thinking about the best way to market for starting a family law firm is to ask for outside opinions.  I’ll be honest, my wife is my biggest sounding board.   She is very astute and gives me an honest opinion which I really value.  But, she doesn’t know much about the law or marketing.  She thinks I should use my last name in some fashion.  I’m not sure my last name is all that catchy. I’m not sure it will sell.  I’m not sure she’s wrong.

I am not sure about a lot of things about starting my own law firm, but I am sure I am excited and happy about the decision to start a firm.

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Starting a Law Firm | Moving to Minnesota

I sold my home in Indiana today.  Actually, my wife an I received an offer with a small amount of earnest money from the buyer.  Given that we put a lot into the house and looked after it in a kindly fashion, I doubt there will be much trouble with inspections and I fully expect us to be moving out by June 7, 2010.

I’m glad we sold the house and that we can now move on, but I am nervous about my quest to start and build my own law firm.  The more we do here in Indiana to move, the more nervous I get about all of the things I need to accomplish before I can open up a family law firm.

I need to take and pass the Minnesota bar exam.  I need to set up a website.  I need to worry about office space.  I need business cards.  Malpractice insurance.   A forms library.  I need telephone, fax, email.  I need paper.  I need pens.  I need to worry about a lot of things.

I have been running my own firm in Indiana now for about three months.  So, I have gone through the early motions of starting a law firm and I know a fair amount about what it will take.  I was at a general practice firm here in Indiana for about three years.  I took a few clients with me when I knew I was moving and I knew I could finish them up in 3 or 4 months.  So, I know a fair amount about what it takes to start and run a family law firm in Indiana.  But, obviously, Minnesota is a little different.

Actually, running my own practice hasn’t been that hard so far and I have made pretty good money.  The biggest problem has been how to invoice and keep track of billing without proper billing software.  I have been doing it with various programs that have all been bad.  Actually, I keep wondering if one client still owes me $150 and whether I sent the invoice.  I know, pretty silly.

I’ll post more when I figure out more about financial record-keeping software.  That wasn’t really the point of this post.  I suppose the point was to let everybody know I sold my home in Indiana and I am getting  that much closer to making the move to Apple Valley, Minnesota and starting a law firm more real.  Oh, and we sold the home in a week after putting it on the market.  We sold it to a family medicine resident and her husband.  My wife is a family medicine doctor, so I think we had a good in.  Anyway, I’m happy we sold it.  One less thing I need to worry about.

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Starting a Law Firm | Getting Informed

In my continuing quest to learn how to start a law firm in Minneapolis, MN, I thought I would talk a little bit about how to gather the information necessary to try and start and build a practice.

I love information.  I love books.  I love the ability to go to a book store, library, or other source to get knowledge.  I was just reading a really interesting article in the New Yorker about the Vatican Library in Rome and all of the neat things they are doing.  But, this post isn’t about libraries.

What this post is about is the information that I am trying to compile to teach myself how to start a family law firm in Apple Valley, MN.  The first thing I did several years ago was start looking for some simple information which was written by an attorney.  An old book that a lot of attorneys who want to start their own practices have mentioned is Jay Foonberg’s How To Start and Build a Law Practice.  This guy appears to be the original man on the subject.  If you are thinking about starting a law practice of your very own, there is no better place to start than here.

So I read it.  And it’s good.  But, there are other sources of information that I have located.  Of course, blogs are good – especially this one.  However, the version of Foonberg’s book that I was using was a little dated and lacked a lot of modern day marketing/networking information.  The best sources I have found so far are Solo By Choice, by Carolyn Elefant and the starting a law firm blog.  Both of these sources are excellent and very appropriate for me – a guy in his early 30s with about 3 years of practice under his belt and who is very adept at technology and social media.

I hope anybody reading this post tries out just one of these sources of information.  Isn’t knowledge great?

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Starting a Law Firm | Computers, Software, Etc.

In an effort to get my computer systems ready for starting an Minneapolis, MN law firm, I just spend the entire day (and I am not kidding) trying to create a network between my old desktop computer and my new laptop computer.  It didn’t work.

I get so frustrated by Microsoft.  They are great at a great many things, but they keep rolling out product that is incompatible with their old products.  Why?  My theory is that they are too busy paying their R&D and software development people to create new products and new maintenance for that product, that they forget to support their old systems.

I run Windows XP Professional on my old Dell desktop.  It’s basically a dinosaur, but it works.  The new laptop came with the Windows 7 operating system.  I have to tell you, I really like Windows 7.  It is so much smoother and user friendly.  However, it doesn’t like to connect with Windows XP via a network connection.  This really shouldn’t be so hard.  Especially, when I have other things to concentrate on when starting my new firm.

If I am going to run a law practice, I am going to need a network so that I can share different computers on the same business network.  I am going to use multiple computers and I hope to have staff one day who can be on the network.  Is that to much to ask?  It shouldn’t be, but Windows 7 isn’t really compatible with other operating systems.  I did manage to create a remote desktop connection, but I don’t like it as much.  It is too clunky.

The remote desktop is great (but not as great as a network connection) because it enables me to share all of my office information with another computer.  I also have printer, fax, and scanner access through the remote desktop.  I am also protected by a user name and password, so I don’t need to worry about law firm client files being hacked into.  Finally, with a network or a remote desktop, I can work from anywhere I want and bill my firm’s clients.  Great!

The point of this post is that there is so much more to running a law practice than practicing law.  It is tough to realize how many little things I will have to do, and how much will go wrong.  But, all that being said, I am still very excited about starting my own Minneapolis, MN family law firm.