Category: Practicing Law

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Starting a Law Firm | Online fax resources for lawyers

While doing the due diligence and trying to set up faxing services for my law firm, I law firm fax number - Solo in Minneapolisdiscovered a nifty little comparison website for online faxing for lawyers.  Great!

I wanted to share my find with readers of this legal blog.

The fax comparison website is aptly titled www.faxcompare.com.  Cool!

The comparison site does a really nice job summarizing different pricing options for online or “e-fax” services.  I had heard of E-Fax and they do a really nice job advertising themselves.  The E-Fax service also looks great.  The problem?  It’s more expensive than its competitors.  It pays to do a little research.

I ended up choosing Extreme Fax – mainly because it appears to offer the most and it is cheap.  I don’t send a lot of faxes, but I have found that many attorneys either (a) do or (b) expect you to have a fax number.

I have also noticed that many online directories and websites that I have been signing up for have requested fax numbers for my new firm.  I was getting tired of saying “I don’t have one.”  It was kind of embarrassing.

Anyway, go check out the online fax comparison site.  I locked in a year’s worth of faxing for about $50.00.  If I use the service all the time there is likely going to be a cost; however, I don’t anticipate using it all that much.  Scanning and emailing is so much more efficient.  Yet, some curmudgeonly attorneys want to fax stuff to me.  Now they can.

Happy faxing!

 

 

-This post was written by Joseph M. Flanders, a Apple Valley MN lawyer who practices in the areas of family law and estate planning.

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How Much Internet Marketing is Too Much Internet Marketing?

I’m feeling a little down about all of my social media/blogging/website-optimization efforts to market and start a law firm.  I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on legal internet marketing for near four months now and it has become all consuming.  To be honest, it is exhausting.  I have begun to ask myself:  to what end?

The easy answer to that question is that I am doing this to have a career, feed my family, and feel good about myself because I have marketed my law firm which has enabled the right people to hear me and, of course, hire me.

But, then there is another question: does all of this internet legal marking work?  Well, yes – depending on what you mean by the term “work”.

I have gotten a lot of hits on this blog.  I have gotten more traffic to my website than I otherwise would have without my marketing efforts.  However, a lot of this feels empty. I’m doing my best to give solid advice on here but one begins to wonder what solid advice is.

I think my point is that I worry that young attorneys will take me too seriously and fail to do a good job as lawyers.  I’m afraid somebody will think legal marketing is more important than being a good lawyer.  Believe me, if you have practiced law for any time at all, you know it’s a jungle out there.  You know that being a lawyer is difficult for many reasons. I hope you know that practicing law takes hard work, long hours, and plenty of difficulties and possible malpractice lawsuits.

Additionally, I hope you know that getting clients is not terribly difficult.  However, being a good attorney is.  If you don’t know what you are doing, don’t start a law firm.

There, I said it.  Don’t start a law firm unless you have some legal experience and can represent your clients with a high standard of excellence and zeal.  If you came here for advice and read this silly little piece of internet cheapery, I hope that message hits home.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I wish all of you the best of luck.

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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.

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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.

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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.

 

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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.

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Starting a Law Firm | Slow Times

I’ve been away from this starting a law firm blog for a while.  Two reasons:  (1) my summer fishing vacation and (2) I’m waiting to get licensed in Minnesota so this blog becomes al little superfluous.  Regardless, my situation reminds me of the slow times involved with starting a law practice.

Summer is about fun for most ordinary people.  Lawyers (although some beg to differ) are ordinary people.  Lawyers like breaks too and the summer can provide them – in ways both good and bad.

Summer also means that other ordinary people don’t want to work.  They want to go on vacation.  If your law practice is at all consumer driven (family law, criminal law, debtor representation) you have probably noticed that the summer can often mean slow times for your practice.  It has for mine.

As I stated, I like to fly fish and the summer is a great time for this.  But, I always feel irritated when the practice of law slows down along with my monthly income.  My theory is that, in the summer, people either don’t want to think about lawyers and/or they are too busy doing fun stuff to worry about what they really need to get done.

In terms of my family law practice, on the opposite end of this spectrum is tax season.  My practice always picks up during tax season because people get their tax returns and can now afford to pay my retainer fee for a divorce, adoption, guardianship, child support modification, etc.  That is a good time for my law practice and I often feel overwhelmed with the amount of work I need to get done.

However, during the summer my practice slows down considerably.  While working as an associate out my ten-attorney law firm, summer also brought on slow times for our corporate clients.  Guess what that means?  The corporate client work slows down as well. During nearly four years in practice, I now know that June through August has always been some of my slowest months in terms of work done and money earned.

Which leads me to ponder:  maybe we lawyers should take a cue from our lack of clients, worry less about the billable hour and more about our mental and physical well-being during the slow summer months?  I’ll be the first to admit that I am not good at slowing down.  But, what choice is there if there isn’t much billable work to do anyway?

I’m making an assumption here that those of you reading this have already started a law firm and built a succesful law practice.  If you are just getting going and notice that the summer months are slow – be patient, refocus, and maybe have some fun?

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Starting a Law Firm | Being Patient

Starting a law firm takes a lot of patience and an involves an acceptance of a certain amount of controlled risk.  In other words, in the beginning, you need to be willing to work very hard to receive very little.

I will admit that I get a little melodramatic every time I drive by a restaurant that is no longer open or a store front showing an empty space where once there was a small business.  This got me to thinking about patience and the willingness (stuborness?, stupidity?) to get through the tough times with irregular pay when starting a law firm.

I recently spoke with another solo attorney the other day at a collection hearing.    I was trying to collect a judgment against his client.   We both understood that we were adveraries in terms of representing our respective clients, but there was also a certain amount of comraderie.  This is one of the things I really love about my job – actual professional comraderie in the face of strife.  This attorney also appears to be doing well and appears happy.   Anyway, we got to talking about starting a law firm and the things we didn’t like about large law firm life.  He also mentioned that he is very happy he left his old law firm where he was a partner and that he still very happy being on his own.  The discussion was pretty obvious, but he made some good points about starting and building a law practice.  The main one being the general advice that “it takes a couple of years.”

I have been doing decently at my own solo law practice while I wrap up client cases from clients that came with me from my old firm.  I have had work to do when I want it, but I have realized that networking and marketing needs to be a full-time, ever present job.  It takes time.  It takes a couple of years.  I think I am ok with that.  Luckily, I have always made marketing a big part of my practice – perhaps because I actually enjoy it.  As I’ve already posted, having a law firm marketing plan has helped my firm in a big way. Developing a niche practice has also been a good idea.  But, I have also fazed out my Indiana practice and will be doing this all over again in Minnesota.

In sum, I hope to be more like the attorney who kept at it and is still practicing as a solo attorney.  I also hope that I’m not easily satisfied and that I continue to stick with my desire and goal to build a thriving law practice.  I hope anybody reading this post feels the same way.

It takes time and effort and sometimes it is a difficult mental struggle.  Starting a law firm, is about patience, mental fortitude, and commitment.  In short, it takes a couple of years.

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Starting a Law Firm | Drafting the Legal Services Agreement

As I discussed in my previous post about withdrawing your attorney appearance, starting a law firm means that you are going to need to find paying clients and, after you find those clients, you are going to need them to sign a Legal Services Agreement.

When I began practicing, I didn’t have a good understanding of the necessity of a well drafted Legal Services Agreement.  It can save your butt.  It is very necessary and should be a part of your law firm’s forms files.  You do have a legal forms file don’t you? (I will talk more about form files in another post.)

The main purpose of the Legal Services Agreement is to outline the rights and responsibilities of you and your clients. Furthermore, your law firm needs to have a Legal Services Agreement for purposes of legal malpractice protection.  Your malpractice carrier will be good about reminding you of this.

There are also different kinds of agreements and you need to be familiar with all of them.  I have used several different kinds of agreements.  First is the hourly legal services agreement.  Obviously, this one outlines an hourly fee arrangement.  I used this agreement the majority of the time.  Second, ethical rules also call for a mandatory contingency fee agreement in certain situations.  I won’t discuss all of the situations in which a contingency fee agreement may be necessary.  Read your jurisdiction’s ethical rules on when these are required.  (As an aside, I recommend developing a legal niche practice so that you aren’t doing personal injury work and family law work interchangeably.  There are different agreement for each arrangement and you should try and be very familiar with an agreement in the area of your practice).

The actual content of the document can vary, but, at the least, the Agreement should clearly define:

(1) who the client is and who you are.  (this is important because you want to know who you are representing and the client needs to know that you are his/her lawyer)

(2) the scope of the legal representation (are you handling a divorce or are you handling a will contest?)

(3) the means of payment (includes your hourly rate and the general charging arrangement)

(4) the term (length) of the agreement (is it indefinite?  does it end after trial or on appeal?)

(5) the means for withdrawal by the attorney if client is not complying OR if a conflict arises

(6) the client’s duties to the lawyer and law firm

(7) the lawyers duties to the client

(8) a non-guarantee of outcome provision (I like this one because it lets the client know that I am doing my best, but that I don’t guarantee any particular outcome)

(9) applicable law provisions

(10)  any applicable jurisdiction specific protections (e.g.:  can you assert an attorney’s lien for non-payment, etc.)

Those are the basics.  Starting from the basics, you can (and should) then break down other necessaries depending on your law practice.  Different language or clauses should be predicated on your particular practice areas.

Here is an example of my generic hourly fee agreement:  AGREEMENT FOR LEGAL SERVICES

Starting a law firm means that you have to be careful of what clients you take.  When you do take a client, be careful that you and your client understand the scope of the legal representation.  Develop your own Legal Services Agreement that fulfills your law firm’s needs and change it depending on the scope of representation and the client you are taking on.

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Starting a Law Firm | Bring it Strong or Don’t Bring it at All

When I first started practicing law, a great piece of advice I received early on was that, when filing pleadings and making arguments, you better be darn sure you are right and you better have the guts to follow through on your court filing.  In other words, you have to bring it strong or don’t bring it at all.  Or, as Shaq once said: “Don’t fake the funk on a nasty dunk.”

Filing weak pleadings results in weak cases.  Lawyers have to know the law and have the confidence to enforce it in favor of their clients.  Like it or not, it’s an adversarial system and you are your clients’ advocate.  You better believe that the other side is going to bring it (or, at least you should expect them to.)

I suspect the adversarial nature of the legal system is why a lot of lawyers either leave the practice and/or suffer extreme stress and job fatigue.  Starting a law firm and practicing law every day is not easy.  It can be incredibly rewarding and often very fun, but it is not easy.

In my practice, I try to take good solid advice where I can find it.  My example of this concept is the game of baseball.  The baseball season is a long, drawn-out, competitive affair.  There are many ups and downs.  I find this to be a lot like a lawsuit – a long, sometimes painful struggle to win.  So, a lot of managers and players in baseball talk about the mental makeup it takes to be an every-day ball player.  You have to keep an even temper and always remember to be positive and keep your goals in mind.  There are so many highs and lows that controlling your emotions is very important.  If you get too high after a win you tend to miss the big picture.  The same goes for a loss.

I try to be like a veteran baseball player – take the highs and lows as they come and keep a steady keel.  Does it always work?  No.  Sometimes I want to tear my hair out.  Sometimes I gloat over a nasty dunk.  But, trust me, you will be a much happier person and a lawyer if you remember to keep a steady focus on the task at hand.

But, back to filing strong pleadings.  To me, there is nothing worse than having to look back on a case where I failed to bring it.  I have had several of them.  I knew I needed to come strong, but for whatever reason, I didn’t.  Afterward, I felt like I didn’t give it my best shot for the client.  Maybe I was tired that day.  Maybe I didn’t feel like I had the time.  Those excuses stink and I can tell you that you will feel worse later if you realize you didn’t give your full effort.  Your clients will also realize that you weren’t fighting for them like you should have.  This results in dissatisfied clients and loss of income to your law firm.  Both are bad things – especially when trying to build a law practice.