Well, readers, here's what I did today to fill my stomach: spent a great fall day at a farm with my girls. 
And since I'm posting pictures, I couldn't resist including the second photo of my other girl, our deaf and shorn 
Old English Sheepdog puppy Francesca aka Frisky.
We always read those scary stories about lawyers getting suspended or disbarred. Did you ever wonder what happens to them? This article, Lawyer Fights Back from Disbarment, NYT (10/30/2005) reports on former solo David Dean who 15 years ago was earning seven figure income as a successful plaintiffs' attorney. But when Dean got tied up in a protracted case, he started borrowing money from client escrow funds to make ends meet (of course, his drinking problem didn't help his judgment either) which lead to his disbarment. During the years that he lost his license, Dean relied on his acting skills to make a living and in 1997, he regained his license and resumed his winning ways.
So the next time your practice gets you down - either a bad month financially or a pain in the neck client who won't pay his bill - think of what Dean went through. If he could make it, so can you.
This month's issue of GP Solo has a great article, If Esq. Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy by Robin Page West (who I wrote about in The Accidental Practice). The article makes the point that our clients need us lawyers as much for emotional support as for legal expertise - and if that unless we tend to our own well being, to make sure that our stomachs are full, we can't be there for our clients:
Each day I try to be mindful of how much more effective I can be when my stomach is full. Not just at reconciling, but at doing almost everything, including running my law practice, interacting with clients, and raising children (which is why I'm always on the lookout for new recipes) [...] When I neglect to feed my whole self, it's so much harder to be an effective advocate. Feeding my whole self does not mean attending CLE, trying cases, participating in bar activities, and reading cases and treatises. It means doing whatever I need to do in order to be happy and satisfied--including banishing feelings of scarcity, or at least keeping them safely at bay.
Macolm Gladwell's tipping point phenomenon is probably way over-referenced, and yet I can't help but wonder whether the idea of solo practice is reaching a tipping point in the legal profession. Indicators abound everywhere. Consider:
The rise of biglaw mergers hasn't quelled the growing interest in solo practice; if anything, it's heightened it. And that's because even as firms grow and grow and salaries grow along with them, even young lawyers are relegated to less inspiring work, the yearning for self-determination and autonomy can't be extinguished. You don't see many biglaw bloggers dispensing advice on how associates can succeed at big firm practice, partly because biglaw attorneys may not be so benevolent, but partly because frankly, there's no audience for that topic: no one is particularly interested in learning how to speak partner-ese. By contrast, look at how many independent solos are dishing out advice on starting a firm, not because it will help us gain clients or referrals in our "real" jobs but in the hopes of helping others discover what what will soon no longer be the legal profession's best kept career secret. And it looks as if we are succeeding.
Both David Giacalone and Greatest American Lawyer offers some suggestions here and here for minimizing the technology distractions that impede our productivity, which I posted on earlier here. GAL suggests techniques like blocking off time for working on briefs, taking a break from the computer screen and customizing cell phone messages so that we don't feel compelled to always interrupt ourselves with returning phone calls. David meanwhile emphasizes that we may need to apply some good old fashioned discipline to deal with information overload so that it doesn't get the best of us.
Even before reading the Life Hackers article, I had already taken measures to eliminate one time sink from my day: blogging. Used to be that I would start a post during downtime, only to find that my post was leaking over into time that I should have been working. Now, I limit my blogging and my feed reading (which is also addictive) to evenings, weekends and that sort of in between time when my daughters are home from school, where I don't have enough non interrupted time to work, but where blogging fits in nicely.
In honor of Matt Homann's and Dennis Kennedy's upcoming Blawg Think, I'm reposting a link to the What Blogs Can Do For Solos and Small Firms that I designed and presented along with Jerry Lawson at the Maryland State Bar Association Solo Day Conference back in November 2003. Though the presentation is coming up on two years, which is at least two generations in Internet-time, much of it is still fairly timely. I've written a couple of other pieces on blogging for solos, It's A Blog World After All (law.com, October 2003) and Get Your Blog Rolling (GP Solo June 2005), but the online presentation is one of my favorites. And I've never seen anything quite like it anywhere else.
To navigate the presentation, use the numbered menu items that appear above each post. (Don't use the sidebar which isn't properly ordered).
Have you ever left the office feeling exhausted after a hectic day where it seemed as if all you did was talk on the phone and respond to emails? Whenever that happens to me, I'm inclined to blame myself for lacking the focus or discipline to stick to task. But truth is, apparently, the difficulty with staying on task in this sound-bite, fast moving, multi-tasking age isn't a personal deficiency. Rather, it's a logical outgrowth of technology that enables us to do so much that it constantly sends us into overdrive. That's part of the message of this NYT Magazine piece by Clive Thomas, Meet the Life Hackers (thanks to GAL for the tip and his post on the piece).
Continue Reading...You can work round the clock, but it's not going to help you advance unless your colleagues know what you do. That's the message of this article, Bragging is the Key to Getting Ahead (10/2005). The same is true for law practice. If you tell prospective referrals what you can do and what you've done in the past, they'll be more likely to send cases your way.
This article, Virtual Law Inc. reports on Hawaii shingler Greg Kim, a former biglaw partner who's now practicing law with his way while still earing the same salary. So how does Kim's practice differ from the traditional law firm? Here's how:
Instead of ranks of associates to do his bidding -- and to rack up billable hours for his firm -- Kim has no associates at all. His name appears nowhere in the name of the firm, which is called Vantage Counsel. And instead of billing clients by the hour, Vantage usually bills by the job. In fact, some of Vantage's clients are young start-up companies that lack the money to pay much in legal fees at all. Finally, instead of a corner office, Kim now has no office to call his own; instead, he shares communal space with his firm's four other lawyers -- who often work from home or from free WiFi hotspots at Kahala Mall or the Plaza Club downtown.
The article also describes that Kim has become one of the go-to people in Hawaii for advising technology start ups. And here, Kim has an edge over large firms because of what he shares with start-ups: his firm is one as well.
In this article, Clearing the Cobwebs, (Meg Tebo, ABA Journal, October 2005), solos share some ideas on what they do to get unstuck. Solutions include working the New York Times crossword puzzle, surfing the web, seeing a matinee and restarting the day by eating breakfast. The last one sound odd, but Barbara Kessler, who recommends it, swears it works.
As for me, I'd add blogging to the list!
From Jim Calloway comes this post, Office on the Go, which describes how lawyers can make their office transportable (no comment on whether this is always a good idea). Jim recommends that if you can only have one machine, it should be a laptop. And these days, laptops are inexpensive enough to justify.
David Giacalone of f/k/a has this post about a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling reversing a gag rule on those who file ethics complaints against lawyers. (more details from this Star Ledger article (10/20/05) here.) Under the old rule, clients who filed grievances couldn't discuss them publicly but now they can even though many of those grievances will not ripen into a formal complaint against the attorney.
Personally, I have no problem with opening up the grievance process, provided that the openess cuts both ways. If clients want to make public that they've filed a grievance against their attorney, then that grievance, along with the lawyer's response should be made public as well. So, for example, the public would have access to a client complaint that a lawyer failed to return phone calls - as well as the lawyer's response, explaining that the client called three times a day and was delinquent in paying the bill besides.
Continue Reading...The new Practice blog has some good tips on purchasing malpractice insurance, with the best for lawyers who practice in California. Apparently, there's a malpractice insurance prgoram that starts at $500 a year. That's the cheapest quote I've every heard - and it's great news for those just starting out.
Quick tip from the Legal Marketing Blog: even in a high tech, remote access world, face time with clients still matters.
Here's an interesting post from Lawyer Advertising Blog entitled Yellow Page Advertising for Lawyers: Where Have All the Calls Gone? According to the post, lawyers are reporting decreased calls from Yellow Pages advertising but are afraid to cut their losses and lose their ad. Other professionals have reported similar results. The post identifies the reasons for this trend:
Continue Reading...This blog, Duct Tape Marketing looks like a great addition for your daily feeds. I especially like Jill Konrath's channel, Selling to Big Companies. Why? Well, most resources for solos tell us ways to pick up individual clients or small businesses. Nothing wrong with that, of course; I'm proud that we solo and small firm lawyers are really the only resource in town serving the little guy. But at the same time, we solos ought to think big. If we have a specialty that would benefit a large corporation, then why not compete with our large firm counterparts?
So, who's been a solo long enough to remember when Jay Foonberg's How to Start and Build a Law Practice was the only game in town? These days, not only do the bar associations offer plentiful resources (many of which are listed here at our OnLine Guide), but weblogs like Greatest American Lawyer, Home Office Lawyer, Non Billable Hour and of course MyShingle are brimming with tips on starting and running a law practice (and very likely, this new blog, The Practice by three of my fellow sezzers will be once it's fully up and running). But even beyond the blog, there's now a podcast by California solo Jonathan Stein on Opening A Law Practice that's posted on Micromash. Jon's podcast covers the basic considerations that go into starting a firm and also explores the various corporate structures, e.g., sole proprietorship, partnership, etc...that one might consider when opening a firm.
And to respond to my own opening question (which wasn't rhetorical - feel free to send in your responses as comments), I've been solo almost a dozen years, long enough to remember when Foonberg was the only game in town. And despite the competition that my blog faces from so many other excellent resources that cover this solo/small firm beat, there's no way I'd ever want to turn back the clock.
My readers have probably realized that for the past couple of months I've been posting in spurts and clumps at a rate of two to three days a week. I've been too busy to post every day and after much effort, am too disciplined to allow myself to spend any daylight hours getting carried away with blog updates. However, the conventions of blogging suggest that I post date my posts and set them up so that they're more evenly distributed throughout the week. Yet while that makes sense rationally, it fails to take into account my tendencies to continuously edit until a brief's out the door or a post is online.
Does anyone have any preferences on the frequency of posts?
Via this post at Greatest American Lawyer, I learned about the recent Delaware Supreme Court ruling that an elected official who's been criticized by an anonymous blogger cannot use a defamation suit to compel disclosure of the blogger's identity wihtou substantial evidence to prove the claim. (See New York Times story). But what really excited me was learning that David Finger, a Delaware solo whom I met years ago at a Solosez lunch was responsible for the anonymous blogger's victory. It's further reinforcement that the work that we solo and small firm lawyers do, representing individuals and small companies and generally, ordinary people, carries with it the enormous potential to change and define the law for all of us.
As Patrick Lamb points out in this blog post (also referencing this post from The Wired GC), general counsels at large companies are getting tired of the fixation on the billable hour. As Wired GC explains, billable hour not only increases the cost of legal services, but it's making mid level associates miserable - and they're the ones who usually service corporate accounts. Because sending work to firms based on quality of life surveys isn't really feasible, Patrick suggests that GCs consider migrating work to good firms with lower billable requirements or that are willing to experiment with alternatives to the billable hour.
That's what corporate clients want - and that's exactly what we solo and small firm lawyers can deliver.
Larry Bodine's recently launched Associate Marketing Blog offers this year-by-year Associate Marketing Checklist to help large firm associates identify and attain business development goals. Anyone at a large firm who aspires to hang their own shingle or eventually work part time and raise a family, ought to be following - and in fact, even accelerating implementation - of these tips. Because when you develop your own expertise and client base, you can write your own ticket no matter where you want to travel. And besides, why not build up some business when you're getting paid to do it?
This article, Curb Your Editorial Urges When Describing a Court's Actions, Kenneth Oettle (NJLJ) (10/5/050) finally clarified for me the subtle differences in verbs like recognized, observed, ruled, held and others that describe how a court acted. As a general rule of thumb, here's how the author feels about some of these verbs:
Affirmed -- double meaning
* Asserted -- too forceful; Court has no need to assert
* Averred -- word is rarely used
* Declared -- grandiose
* Explained -- didn't, really
* Opined -- true, but probably too formal
* Remarked -- too casual
So, just another thing to obsess over in writing a brief.
It's been ten months since we first posted this story about Hawaii attorney Richard Lee who thought he'd discovered a way to avoid client complaints (sadly, it wasn't this far more legitimate approach either). Lee figured that if he included a clause in his retainer agreements forcing clients to pay him $2000 if the disciplinary committee became involved in a fee dispute that he'd deter them from filing complaints to begin with. Sadly, Lee still doesn't understand what was wrong with his approach.
And speaking of conferences, Ernie the Attorney links to this upcoming seminar on disaster recovery for lawyers. I'm sure that no one wants to have to attend a seminar like this one, but it's nice that it's available when it's needed. And, you even get CLE credit for it.
Oklahoma LPM "czar" Jim Calloway has some great words on the dynamism of solo and small firm conferences and fellow leader, Reid Trautz offers his thoughts as well. From Jim's post:
But what these [solo and small firm] conferences share is extremely important. They always have energy and excitement. There are always groups of lawyers excitedly chatting in the halls. There are always vendors with an opportunity to visit with more lawyers from more different communities than they could in months on the road. There is always a pair of lawyers who haven't seen each other in a long time catching up. There's always great CLE programming targeted to the needs of solo and small firm lawyers. There's usually a lot of loud conversation, along with laughter. There are always lawyers getting questions answered that have puzzled them for a long time.
I concur with Jim and Reid of course. But what I appreciate most about solo and small firm conferences is that they're so cheap! Take a look at some of these prices - the Indiana Solo and Small Firm Conference cost $250 for walk ins, while the Maryland State Bar Association's upcoming solo conference comes in at $160 which is the highest priced option (2 days, non-MSBA member). Contrast that with the ABA's annual conferences, which cost $570 for members, and $775 for non members. So, ABA, if you still really want us solos to consider joining, why not take a lesson in price structure from your solo and small firm sibling organizations?
This past post on comments by a solo deconstructing biglaw salaries (basically saying that the hourly rate is more along the lines of $30/hour if an associate works 90 hours a week) has generated many comments which I thought I'd address in an additional post. First, thanks to readers who have pointed out that a 90 hour work week at biglaw is an exaggeration and that hours are are much actually far less. Yale Law School's Truth About the Billable Hour shows that on average, an associate will work 50 hours a week to bill 37.5 hour. Thus, to bill 1800 hours over a 47 week year, an associate must work around 2350 hours (the study, I think adds commute time but I've not done that here) which comes to around $58/hr based on a $135,000 salary. My commentors said that actual time at work is less, with some calculating an hourly payment of as much as $71/hr for a sixth or seventh year associate making at least $185,000. And they also point out that law firm associates receive benefits, including health care (a biggie), malpractice coverage, office space and CLE, all of which comes out of a solo's paycheck.
Continue Reading...Funny contrast in this week's news. This article, How Women Can Develop Business, National Law Journal (9/29/05) bemoans that women at large firms have it tough when it comes to business development, citing obstacles like lack of effective mentoring and difficulty of striking a manageable work-life balance. (The article does offer many useful suggestions for women to build a portfolio of business)
Yet that same week, I came across this article, Building a Better Law Firm, Smart Money (9/29/05) about the fabulous success of former biglaw attorney and mom of two girls, Joanne Sternlieb. After a decade at a prominent New York firm and a part time position as an estate planner at a large trust company, Sternleib started her own firm that handles wills, trusts and other estate planning matters. What's more, Sternleib has four former biglaw associates working for her firm part time as independent contractors as well as two legal assistants and a law clerk. Right now, she's making half of what she did as a firm, but it sounds like she's working half the time - and running her own ship.
Which route sounds better to you?
Most of us have read about folks from other professions, ranging from school teacher to police officer to doctor, who've gone to law school and started practicing law. But this article, Bridging the Legal gap for Nurses (10/2/05) got me to thinking about whether this path can work in reverse, i.e., would it make sense for a lawyer to get a degree in nursing or accounting or computer science to help build an existing practice?
The article just mentioned discusses a profession called "certified legal nurse consultant." According to the article, a certified legal nurse consultant is a nurse who uses existing expertise as a health care professional plus specialized training to consult on medical cases. I'm wondering whether an attorney who obtains a nursing degree might be an equally effective or desireable nurse consultant as a nurse who obtains some legal training.
Continue Reading...There's two new blogs I've come across recently that might interest readers. The first is Innovative Legal Solutions, who's transitioning to his own practice where he hopes to provide innovative legal solutions and live a full life. The other is Biglaw Associate, an anonymous disgruntled associate who's thinking about starting a firm.
We've got two, cool marketing freebies for those of you interested in starting a firm. first up is LexisNexis' Small Firm Marketing Tool Kit, first announced in this Press Release. I took a quick look at the materials and they're serviceable enough. I'm often asked by solos about good marketing plans online and the LexisNexis one looks quite useful (just don't get scared off by the detail required; tailor it to your needs)
The second tip comes a from a reader regarding the resources available from an organization called SCORE. Among other things, SCORE offers free advice from business counselors on plans for small business including law firms, as well as plenty or resources at its website. Our reader had used one of SCORE's business advisors and was extremely happy with the results. Do any other readers have any experience with SCORE?
This article, Long Law Firm Names Grow Short and Snappy (Sascha Pfeiffer, Boston Globe), 9/28/05 reports on an issue that doesn't affect us solos at all: how to reduce the number of names in a firm's moniker. According to the article, some firms are reducing multiple names to a mere letter - like Orrick, which for whatever reason, wants to refer to itself as O (as an aside, the Big O logo at Orrick's website resembles a zero. Whose idea was that anyway?).
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