Solo Practice

Should I Turn Down A $50k Bonus Clerkship Bonus To Start My Own Practice?

Posted on May 26, 2008
Here's a question from a reader of this site and Solo by Choice: I spent two years at a large law firm and now clerk for a federal district court judge.  I want to start my own practice after my clerkship concludes, but if I do, I'll be turning down the $50k starting bonuses that firms routinely offer to law clerks...

Real Life Marketing Lesson: Are You Charging Clients Like American Airlines?

Posted on May 21, 2008
Not surprisingly, many American Airlines customers expressed significant outrage over the airline's recently announced plans to charge passengers additional fees for checking bags and for certain services related to reservations. Indeed, the news may have irked you as well...

Why You Can Succeed In Starting A Firm Even If You Floundered At Your Job or In Law School

Posted on May 20, 2008
Some lawyers want to start law firms, but fear that they'll fail either because they floundered at their previous place of employment or performed poorly in law school. If that's where you find yourself, worry no more. According to new research, a lack of control in a job situation has a fundamental effect on one's mental abilities...

Announcing the Winners of the Book Contest

Posted on May 18, 2008
Well, I'm a couple of days late in getting around to announcing the winners of this& contest. My delay is attributable to a massive struggle with my video camera, the microphone (the first version really didn't work) and the iMovie editor (which is not nearly as intuitive as I'd thought)...

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If You Just Started a Law Firm, Hire A Summer Associate

Posted on May 15, 2008
OK, so I realize that my headline sounds crazy.   After all, you just started a law firm four or six or eight months ago.  You're barely covering your expenses, you still have no idea what you're doing, you've chosen - by design or necessity - to work from home so you don't have an office and you're constantly scrambling to networking events or lunchtime meetings to market your practice...

Still Time to Win A Copy of Solo by Choice

Posted on May 10, 2008
There's still time to download a copy of an e-book and win a copy of Solo by Choice.  The contest closes May 15, 2008 (you have until midnight) and I'll be drawing two winners on May 16, 2008.  I may (or may not) do a public drawing online, but I won't announce the winners pubicly for reasons of confidentiality...

What the Paul Hastings Associate's Performance Review Shows About Law Practice

Posted on May 10, 2008
Not to draw further attention to the Paul Hastings associate, Shiyung Oh's termination, but I'm fascinated by the new information about life at large firms that's emerging as a result of the story.  For example,  the Wall Street Journal obtained a copy of Oh's review, which showed that Oh excelled at her work, but which also contains some interesting tidbits about law firm life...

Burning Bridges, Finding New Ones

Posted on May 10, 2008
In this earlier post, I criticized a Paul Hastings associates for outing the her firm for the circumstances surrounding her firing.  I agreed that the firm acted boorishly, but I didn't believe that was anything new - and felt that the associate may have burned bridges and harmed her chances for future opportunities...

Sign Up for My Upcoming Webinar, From Biglaw to Yourlaw

Posted on May 06, 2008
On June 3, 2008, I'll be giving a webinar for JD Bliss entitled From Biglaw to Yourlaw: the Secrets of Starting and Growing A Successful Solo Law Practice.  Like my book, the webinar contains plenty of general advice that's useful to lawyers starting a practice at any stage of their career...

How One Paul Hastings Associate Burned 1200 Bridges With One Email

Posted on May 06, 2008
Make no mistake, mega-law firm Paul Hastings acted insensitively, boorishly - and possibly even unlawfully - in terminating this associate six days after she suffered a miscarriage and then pretending that the firing was merit based.   But by publicly venting about about her termination at the heavily trafficked Above the Law website, the associate made her own situation far worse than the firm that let her go...

Saying Nay to the Biggest Naysayer of All: You

Posted on May 05, 2008
I've written previously about the importance of  saying nay to the naysayers - you know, those folks, some jealous, some just well-intentioned - who tell you that you won't succeed in starting a law firm.  Pesky as these external naysayers may be, the truth is, they're only part of what's holding you back...

If It Sounds Suspicious, It Is Probably Unethical

Posted on May 03, 2008
Imagine having your bar licenses suspended for two years over a measly $175.  Sadly, that's what happened to this unfortunate Ohio attorney (Respondent) who accepted referrals from United Financial Systems Corporation (UFS), a national wealth management company...

A Gift for Law Grads...and Other Lawyers: Free Ebook and Chance to Win Solo by Choice!

Posted on April 29, 2008
Recently, I realized that after five and a half years, I've been blogging longer than many people have been reading blogs.  And while I've collected quite an archive, who has the time to sit down and read hundreds of old posts.  So rather than let them fade into oblivion, I've repackaged a few in an e-book format...

Do They Always Dance With the One Who Brought Them?

Posted on April 29, 2008
Many small firms wonder whether they should offer free or low cost legal services to start-up companies or small businesses in the hopes that those companies will generate more lucrative business as they grow.  Sounds great in theory, in many cases, once those baby start-ups mature, they may dump you for a more established law firm, irrespective of the quality of the work that you performed or the value that you created...

Shingular Sensation Warren Caswell Has Mandatory Life Sentence Declared Unconstitutional and Reverses Conviction Based Solely on Hearsay

Posted on April 25, 2008
Back in January, I created the Shingular Sensations series, intended to spotlight a significant victory or accomplishment by a solo.  Shingular Sensation posts are not vanity pieces, but rather, interviews that I carefully design to glean lessons to help other lawyers...

Who Owns the Revolution?

Posted on April 23, 2008
Chuck Newton has a thought provoking Guest Post  over at Grant Griffiths' Home Office Warrior that discusses the propriety of a blogger taking credit as one of the originators of  the so-called "work at home" revolution.  As Newton points out, the work-at-home revolution dates back to Revolutionary Times themselves, when esteemed folks like Thomas Jefferson worked out of the mansion...

Solo by Choice is FINALLY Back in Stock on Amazon

Posted on April 22, 2008
For those who have been patiently waiting, Solo by Choice is finally back in stock here on Amazon.  Whether you're on the fence about solo practice or looking to incorporate 21st century trends like technology, outsourcing and alternative billing into your practice or trying to select a practice area, you'll find a wealth of information that you can reference over and over again...

Required Mentoring for New Lawyers- What Do You Think?

Posted on April 22, 2008
According to this article, the Florida Supreme Court's Commission on Professionalism recently adopted a recommendation that would require every lawyer admitted to the Florida Bar - 2000 of them annually - to obtain a mentor during the first year of practice...

The Perils of the Volume Practice - and Ways to Avoid Them

Posted on April 20, 2008
Scott Greenfield's post at Simple Justice about solo immigration lawyer, Frank Liu's disciplinary problems highlights the perils of the volume practice.  Referencing this New York Times article, Greenfield describes how Liu's carelessly written form briefs (where he sometimes neglected to change the sections describing the facts) ultimately landed him in hot water with the Second Circuit, which referred him to the court's disciplinary committee for his "seriously deficient work...

A New Kind of Powerpoint

Posted on April 19, 2008
After a few recent presentations that were so dull that I nearly snoozed through them myself, I picked up a copy of Cliff Atkinson's Beyond Bullet Points for some new inspiration. Atkinson's main point: treat a presentation like a Hollywood production...

Starting Non-Conventional Solo Practices and a Free Marketing Call

Posted on April 15, 2008
Some lawyers start their own practice, but rather than specialize in traditional legal work, opt for or incorporate alternatives like contract lawyering, mediation or lobbying.  If you're interested in how to build a practice in those areas, consider these resources: Lisa Solomon, a nationally recognized contract attorney who practices as  Question of Law offers some quick tips on running a contract law business in the March 2008 issue of GP Solo Magazine...

Contests as a Way to Attract New Clients

Posted on April 13, 2008
I came across this Press Release about a Clean Tech competition that's awarding $600,000 in prizes to early stage clean energy innovators.  And guess what?  The awards include not just cash but also in-kind services offered by accounting, public relations and law firms - in this case, tech counsel to the "stars," Wilson Sonsini...

How to Get Transactional Training

Posted on April 13, 2008
Much of the advice on learning new practice skills relates primarily to litigation oriented practices.  As I've discussed in Solo by Choice, a new solo or lawyer interested in trial work can spend a few days court-watching, accompany a more experienced lawyer to depositions or pick up a pro bono case which might entail representing a client a public benefits hearing or a collection action in court...

An Off Hours Law Practice Is An On Point Idea

Posted on April 08, 2008
One of the five "high impact" marketing practices that I discuss in Solo by Choice is non-traditional consultations, such as house calls or an after hours practice.  Not only are are non-traditional consults a way to stand out and accomodate your clients, but they're also compatible with many solos' business models...

Making Sense of Online Marketing Options...With A Circle

Posted on April 05, 2008
Consistent with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the entropy (or in lay terms, randomness) of the array of online marketing options is ever-increasing.  But thanks to this diagram (and post) by Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends, there's hope of imposing some order on all of the chaos...

Eric Turkewitz's April Fools Joke Shows the Importance of Ledership in Blogs

Posted on April 05, 2008
If you're scanning this in your news aggregator, I'll bet my headline, with its apparent misspelling probably jumped right out at you.  In fact, I meant to spell "ledership" just as I did.  A lede is the introductory section of a story, and New York Personal Injury Law blogger Eric Turkewitz's  recent masterful April Fools' Day Spoof shows just why a lede matters so much...

Ed Poll's New Book: Law Firm Fees and Compensation

Posted on April 05, 2008
We hear plenty of talk about the demise of the billable hour, but little substantive discussion about what method ought to replace it.  Sure, there's mention of alternatives like flat fee billing, hybrids and "value billing," you don't always find much "there there...

New Ideas for Business Cards

Posted on April 03, 2008
Over at my roost at Legal Blogwatch, I posted about ways that lawyers -- including solo and blogger, Ernie the Attorney are rethinking the concept of business cards.   As Ernie points out, these days, it's not hard (or at least it shouldn't be hard) to find a lawyer's website by running a Google name search on the Internet...

Do My Readers Want Form[s] Over Substance?

Posted on March 29, 2008
In reviewing my blog's stats since I've moved to a Lexblog platform, I've noticed that Soloformania is consistently, one of my site's top traffic draws.  Most visitors come to the Soloformania page through  Internet searches for terms like "sample client engagement letters" or "free client interview checklists...

Thank You to the MANY Voices of Solo Practice Who Serve Clients and Improve Our Profession

Posted on March 29, 2008
I'm still blushing after all of the compliments and good wishes from my fellow bloggers who linked to this article about my practice and my book, Solo by Choice and I won't deny that I enjoyed the publicity (as well as the resulting book sales).  But I need to clarify;  I don't want to be the voice of solo practice because there's no such thing as a single voice of solo practice...

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